assist in framing an ecclesiastical government; " that a voluntary meeting of Clergymen deputed by the Churches in the States assembled (p. 50), in New York, October 6th, 1784, who recommended to the States represented, and proposed to those not represented to organize and associate themselves in the States to which they respectively belonged, agreeably to such rules as they shall think proper, and that these "all should unite in a general Ecclesiastical Constitution;" that in 1785, delegates from seven States met in Philadelphia (p. 57), when the draft of an Ecclesiastical Constitution was submitted, read by paragraphs, and ordered to be transcribed; that the second General Convention (p. 58), met in 1786, when the Constitution was taken up and debated, and with alterations unanimously adopted; that this did not become the fundamental law of the whole Church, the eleventh article providing, that "The Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, when ratified by the Church in a majority of the States assembled in General Convention, with sufficient power for the purpose of such ratification shall be unalterable by the Convention of any particular State which hath been represented at the time of such ratification;' that this Convention by resolution recommended, "that the several State Conventions do authorize and empower the deputies to the next General Convention after we shall have obtained a Bishop or Bishops in our Church to confirm or ratify a General Constitution respecting both the doctrine and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church;" that the next General Convention met in July, 1789, (three Bishops having been in the meantime consecrated,) when the Constitution having been referred to a committee of one from each State was adopted, and August 8th was signed by the members of the Convention; that the Convention adjourned (p. 59,) to September 29th, 1789, at which adjourned session, after certain alterations had been made in the Constitution it was signed by Bishop Seabury and the deputies from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, whereupon "the union of the Churches was consummated."

Now this instruction seems to us all good and direct. It leads to one point, that the Church of England in the colonies followed the principle of the English Church, and when, in the course of Divine Providence the colonies became severally independent of

the English Government, the Church in each independent State was, and considered itself independent in point of Ecclesiastical government of the Church in every other State. Being each without a Bishop they sought the Episcopate from the mother Church, some at once and directly, and others slowly and mediately. Three Bishops being once in the country, the churches in the several States concluded the negotiations which had been for some time pending, and acting through their representatives appointed for the purpose, adopted a constitution, which was intended to be the fundamental law of the new government, and which established the General Convention as the supreme legislative body in the Church. Yet, the writer not content with this seems to study to ignore, and make the student ignorant of, the existence of the Dioceses as the powers by whom this general ecclesiastical government was established. His great point, repeated again and again, is, that the constitution was adopted by the convention without recourse to the Dioceses; that Bishop White says that the plan of reference to the Dioceses for approval was found so full of difficulties that from 1786 the plan was abandoned; that the constitution was amended without recourse to the Dioceses. But he himself repeats, also, that the deputies to the convention of 1789 came authorized and prepared according to the recommendation of the Convention of 1786, to ratify a constitution. Who deputed these deputies? Whom did these representatives represent? Whence did they derive their "plenipotentiary powers?" The theory of the Manual seems to be that they represented not severally their constituents the Dioceses, but in a body the congregations, the clergy and laity in the United States, and the writer appears only just to fall short of the point of declaring that they so represented the Episcopal Church, that their acts were binding on all the clergy and laity in the United States, irrespective of diocesan action. The student is taught that in 1789 the constitution was established, ratified, adopted and amended, by the whole Church assembled in general convention, (p. 63); he is not taught what the expression "whole Church" in this place means. rather led to infer that the whole Church means the Church which (p. 43) became independent of the government of the Church of England; had formerly been under the Episcopal direction of the Bishop of London; which after the independence of

He is

States

found itself (p. 44) in a condition of ecclesiastical independence without any episcopal head. But if this inference should be correctly drawn from the Manual, then its teaching (p. 63) is not true. The constitution was neither "established, ratified, adopted," nor "amended by the whole Church assembled in General Convention." It was amended, as the same page shows, without the co-operation of the Eastern churches, which, according to the inference, were a part of the "whole Church," and thus a further inference might be drawn (perhaps the author would like to have it drawn) that the convention which represented the middle and southern Dioceses was the whole Church in council, and had power to give the law to the whole Church in all the Dioceses. "The constitution " (p. 63) "was complete and sovereign on the 8th of August, A. D., 1789." Sovereign over what? Certainly not over the whole Church in the sense in which that term seems to be used, because (p. 59) it was not until Oct. 2, 1789 that the constitution (having been amended as a condition precedent) was signed by Bishop Seabury, and the deputies from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who were certainly part of the whole Church in that sense. And the fact that they declined their assent until a certain amendment was made, shows what their judgment of the sovereignty of this constitution was. The truth is, that the constitution was sovereign, if the writer chooses to use an expression not particularly applicable to a written constitution, just in this sense, that it was binding upon the Dioceses who had sent deputies, by whose acts in adopting a constitution, they had agreed to be bound, and upon no other Dioceses and no other churches in other Dioceses. If the writer wished to establish the fact that the Dioceses so represented were bound by the constitution because they had agreed to be bound by it, and had authorized their deputies to bind them, why not say so? If he wished to call attention to the fact that the Dioceses gave their deputies plenary powers, and did not reserve to themselves the right of a subsequent ratification of that which they had ratified in advance-in other words, that the authority of the Dioceses to form a union by consent was exercised once instead of twice, why not do it? The whole truth might have been stated in two, as well as in a score of pages, and once as well as a dozen times.

It is the continual serving up of this idea in different forms that

has a tendency to confuse, and we think will confuse, the minds of students. If the Dioceses had not empowered their deputies to bind them by the constitution of 1789 probably the writer would not undertake to say that they would have been bound by that constitution without subsequent ratification, any more than by that of 1786 or 1785, which he allows to have been without binding authority. The whole point of the matter, which Bishop White's continually recurring remark proves, is, that the interfering instructions of the different delegates made it so hard a matter to adopt a constitution which satisfied all the Dioceses, that the Dioceses themselves gave up this plan, and sent their delegates in 1789, telling them in effect to make the best constitution they could. The delegates of 1786 recommended the Dioceses to act upon this plan and give up the former plan, and so they did. But here were the diocesan independence, power and consent; nor does it matter a straw except as a fact of history whether they yielded their obedience by consent to a constitution. already made, or to one which was to be made by those whom they appointed for that purpose. And as a matter of history the fact might have been stated, we venture to think, much more simply and much more plainly. The writer evidently had a theory in his mind which he could not bear to allow the facts to crowd out, and so the facts are re-arranged, and re-stated; and apparently, though we do not mean to say intentionally, the student of the Manual is left to gather this theory, though the writer does not venture distinctly to affirm it. He states the point of the matter well, (p. 65).

2. What was the authority of the constitution (as amended in General Convention, October, A. D., 1789), in those States which had not sent deputies, or which had not "empowered" them to "confirm and ratify a general constitution?"

But he does not meet it as he states it. The answer should have been "none at all." Instead of giving that answer, he gives a response one page in length, upon which he next asks, "What further argument may be adduced to prove the supremacy of the General Convention, in respect of amendments to the constitution?" Showing what he was trying to prove, or to let the student believe in the last answer. But what are the facts in that answer? That as the deputies from Connecticut and Massachusetts had not been empowered (p. 66) as the others had, "it was deemed necessary

and proper to refer the constitution of October, A. D., 1789, thus amended, to the Church in Connecticut, for ratification, which was done," 1790-2. That the churches of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, (whose representatives had signed the constitution without full power to bind them) being separately organized, united themselves in a Diocese, or Province with a distinct convention which took a vote upon the adoption of the constitution, and adopted it, and that accordingly the churches of these three States came into the union "in like manner as any other Diocese has subsequently come in, by acceding to the general constitution by a positive act." Now it seems to us that the cause of truth would not have been injured if the student had been taught simply that the constitution making the General Convention the supreme legislative power is in force in those Dioceses which have consented to it, whether, as in fact, they consented to it in advance or subsequently. Then as a matter of history it would have been well to inform the student once, that certain churches did consent in advance, and certain others did consent subsequently.

The theory of the writer comes out in another argument (p. 79) that the supremacy of General Convention is further confirmed by the fact that August 7th, 1789, the General Convention adopted ten canons, which were ordered to be signed before the adoption of the Constitution. But what does that fact show more than the others? Deputies empowered to bind Dioceses by the adoption of a Constitution were certainly empowered to bind them by canons which were a part of the system of united government, and which, whether passed before or after the Constitution, fell into their natural place in the legal system. The Professor would hardly teach that these canons were unconstitutional. In point of fact they derive their authority from the power entrusted by their Dioceses to their deputies and from the subsequent consent of Dioceses to the Constitution, which in principle is the fundamental organic law which canons more definitely apply. In new and trying circumstances some want of system is intelligible and excusable. But the fact that deputies with primary powers to effect a united ecclesiastical government passed canons before they concluded the Constitution does not affect the true legal relation of their acts, neither does it show that the Convention had any powers except those which were conferred upon it by the consent