onfer, debate and resolve," said Shower,
"without the king's license, is at common law the undoubted right of
convocation."

Here was a clear challenge which was at once answered, in _The Authority
of Christian Princes_, by William Wake, who was by far the most learned
of the latitudinarian clergy, and the successor of Tenison in the see of
Canterbury. His argument was purely historical. He endeavored to show
that the right to summon ecclesiastical synods was always the
prerogative of the early Christian princes until the aggression of the
popes had won church independence. The Reformation resumed the primitive
practice; and the Act of Submission of 1532 had made it legally
impossible for the clergy to discuss ecclesiastical matters without
royal permission. Historically, the argument of Wake was irrefutable;
but what mostly impressed the Church was the uncompromising Erastianism
of his tone. Princes, he said, "may make what laws or constitutions they
think fit for the Church.... a canon is but as matter prepared for the
royal stamp." In this view, obviously, the Church is more than a
department of the State. But Wake went even farther, "I cannot see why
the Supreme Magistrate," he wrote, "who confessedly has a power to
confirm or reject their (Convocation's) decrees, may not also make such
other use of them as he pleases, and correct, improve, or otherwise
alter their resolutions, according to his own liking, before he gives
his authority to them."

So defined no Church could claim in any true sense the headship of
Christ; for it was clearly left at the mercy of the governmental view of
expedient conduct. Wake's answer aroused a sensation almost as acute as
the original _Letter_ of Shower. But by far the ablest criticism it
provoked was that of Francis Atterbury, then a young student of Christ
Church and on the threshold of his turbulent career. His _Rights, Powers
and Privileges of an English Convocation Stated and Vindicated_ not only
showed a masterly historic sense in its effort to traverse the
unanswerable induction of Wake, but challenged his position more
securely on the ground of right. The historical argument, indeed, was
not a safe position for the Church, and Wake's rejoinder in his _State
of the Church_ (1703) is generally conceded to have proved his point, so
far as the claim of prescription is concerned. But when Atterbury moves
to the deeper problem of what is involved in the nature of a church, he
has