o collected in the
Jerusalem Chamber, than in the medley throng which huzzaed round
Westminster Hall and behind the wheels of Sacheverell's chariot. The
Lower House of Convocation evidently contained a great many men who had
been returned as proctors for the clergy, not so much for the higher
qualifications of learning, piety, and prudence, as for the active part
they took in Church politics. There were some excellent men in it, and
plenty of a kind of zeal; but the general temper of the House was
prejudiced, intemperate, and inquisitorial. The Whig bishops, on the
other hand, in the Upper House were impatient of opposition, and often
inconsiderate and ungracious to the lower clergy. Such, for example,
were just the conditions which brought out the worse and disguised the
more excellent traits of Burnet's character. It is not much to be
wondered at, that many people who were very well affected to the Church
thought it no great evil, but perhaps rather a good thing, that
Convocation should be permanently suspended. Reason and common sense
demand that a great Church should have some sort of deliberative
assembly. If it were no longer what it ought to be, and the reason for
this were not merely temporary, a remedy should have been found in
reform, not in compelled silence. But even in the midst of the factions
which disturbed its peace and hindered its usefulness, Convocation had
by no means wholly neglected to deliberate on practical matters of
direct religious concern. And unless its condition had been indeed
degenerate, there can be little doubt that it would have materially
assisted to keep up that healthy current of thought which the stagnation
of Church spirit in the Georgian age so sorely needed. The history,
therefore, of Convocation in Queen Anne's reign, turbulent as it was,
had considerable interest of its own. So also the Sacheverell riots (for
they deserve no more honourable name) have much historical value as an
index of feeling. Ignorance and party faction, and a variety of such
other unworthy components, entered largely into them. Yet after every
abatement has been made, they showed a strength of popular attachment to
the Church which is very noteworthy. The undisputed hold it had gained
upon the masses ought to have been a great power for good, and it has
been shown that there was about this time a good deal of genuine
activity stirring in the English Church. Unhappily, those signs of
activity in it decreas