288 THOMAS SECKER [1758-

Secker's attitude to the revival of Convocation is
not easy to define. " I spoke to Lord Hardwicke," he
writes to the Duke of Newcastle on the 19th October
1 76 1, " some time ago about the Convocation, who
agreed perfectly with your Grace in the opinion that I
ought to have some proper notification of His Majesty's
pleasure upon the question of laying Heads of Business
before that assembly."^

But there was a synodical meeting of the clergy at the
beginning of George iii.'s reign, and for it Seeker pre-
pared an oratio synodalis, though he was too ill to
attend the meeting. In this he says that the nature
of the time and the position of affairs are not realised
by those who favour the revival of Convocation. The
Deists, infidels, Romanists, and Dissenters would strive
for confusion : if they did little their inactivity would
be derided, if they did much all men would fear their
restlessness and love of change. Many, and those not
unwise persons, think, and will always think, that had
Convocation met and put forward a judicious utterance
on such points as Conversion or Personal Assurance
many Methodists might have been retained for the
Church : for 1760 first saw Wesley's preachers taking
out licences as Dissenting preachers and to administer
the Sacraments, and Charles wrote to John Wesley:
" We are come to the Rubicon." It was a critical time.
Dis aliter visum.
