VirLTAM AND 3IABY.

149

Editing the Church of England. In truth the Convocation sooften mentioned in our ecclesiastical history is merely the synodof the Province of Canterbury, and never had a right to speakin the name of the whole clerical body. The Province of Yorkhad also its convocation: but, till the eighteenth century wasfar advanced, the Province of York was generally so poor, sorude, and so thinly peopled, that, in political importance, itcould hardly be considered as more than a tenth part of thekingdom. The sense of the Southern clergy was thereforepopularly considered as the sense of the whole profession.When the formal concurrence of the Northern clergy w'as re-quired, it seems to have been given as a matter of course. In-deed the canons passed by the Convocation of Canterbury in1604 were ratified by James the First, and were ordered to bestrictly observed in every part of the kingdom, two years beforethe Convocation of York went through the form of approvingthem. Since these ecclesiastical councils became mere names,a great change has taken place in the relative position of thetwo Archbishoprics. In all the elements of power, the regionbeyond Trent is now at least a third part of England. When inour own time the representative system was adjusted to thealtered state of the country, almost all the small boroughswhich it was necessary to disfranchise were in the south. Twothirds of the new members given to great provincial towns weregiven to the north. If therefore any English government shouldsuffer the Convocations, as now constituted, to meet for thedespatch of business, two independent synods would be legis-lating at the same time for one Church. It is by no means im-possible that one assembly might adopt canons which the othermight reject, that one assembly might condemn as hereticalpropositions which the other might hold to be orthodox.* In

CHAP.

xiv.

1(188.

* In several recent publications tho apprehension that differencesmight arise between tho Convocation of York and tho Convocation of