when we consented to an English Bishop shorn of his place in the House of Peers!

Why, then, this breathless Clergy zeal in a cause where, if the immediate object were gained, it were ill purchased by the concomitant revival of a persecution till now happily gone by? Persecution is an awful weapon for man to wield, at any time; but in the hands of many, whose own present position in the English Church is one of sufferance only, truly startling.

Will these hot-headed gentlemen believe that things might be worse? Will they condescend to learn that, during the last ten years, nothing has fallen from Dr. Hampden*

*

* I verily believe that St. Paul's own writings would not bear the process, which has been applied to Dr. Hampden's. He, poor man, as he sits in his uneasy chair, how often must he wish himself,

"Some village-Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, "The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

And may

on which they can lay their finger? And it not possibly happen that his teaching, as Bishop of Hereford, may be exactly what it has been ever since he became Regius Professor of Divinity? If so, they are raising a great commotion, and making many people very uncomfortable, to very little purpose.

But alas! they are doing more. They are disgusting a reasonable Laity, that neither agrees nor sympathizes with them. They are laying bare all the weak places of a distracted. Church, that pants for healing and for peace. They are forcing a collision between the Crown and her Bishops. And they are lacerating the private feelings, and diminishing the public usefulness of a learned and amiable man. And all this! for an end that they cannot gain, and of which, I hope, they do not themselves see the full sad consequences.

Is this a course suitable in its temper and spirit to the present Advent season? Is it not rather enough to leave us, with hearts failing us for fear?

I trust there are some who may yet pause.

THE END.

NORMAN AND SKEEN, PRINTERS, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN.

THE PRINCIPLES

OF THE

ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

IN

CHURCH AND STATE,

TOUCHING

THE ROYAL SUPREMACY, THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CONVOCATION,

AND THE PREROGATIVE OF THE CROWN

REALLY TO APPOINT TO VACANT BISHOPRICKS, WITH THE AID AND

ADVICE OF THE SPIRITUAL RULERS OF THE CHURCH;

COMPRISED IN THE FORM OF

An Address to the Queen,

WITH

AN APPENDIX OF NOTES AND AUTHORITIES,

IN WHICH IS CONTAINED

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MODE OF APPOINTING BISHOPS BY THE

SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND,

FROM THE EARLIEST TO THE PRESENT TIMES.

BY A

LAY-MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LONDON:

FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.