PART [Dr. Whitaker defended.] CHAP. IX. DR. WHITAKER AND DR. FULKE DEFENDED-BISHOP BARLOW'S CONSECRA- HERE the Fathers take upon them the office of judges or censors rather than of advocates." Mr. Mason ought to have answered as Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Fulke" (they were both eminent Doctors in the schools), "who had reason to be better informed of the records than he." How? Nay, nor half so well. They were both contemplative men; cloistered up in St. John's College; better 474 acquainted with polemic writers than with records. They were both ordained deacons and Priests legally, canonically, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England; and were no such ill birds to defile their own nests P. If the records of their ordination will satisfy you that they were no enthusiasts (as you imagine), you may quickly receive satisfaction. But if they had said any thing contrary to our laws and canons, you must not think to wrangle the Church of England out of a good possession by private voluntary speculations. Let us see what these Doctors say, as you allege them, for I have not their books in present. "Mr. Whitaker saith, I would not have you think we make such reckoning of your orders, as to hold our own vocation unlawful without them 9." You see Dr. Whitaker justifieth our ordination in this very place as lawful, and much more plainly elsewhere in his writings;-that "though our Bishops and ministers be not ordained by Papistical Bishops, yet they are orderly and lawfully ordained";" again,-"The Romanists account none lawful pastors, but such as are created V. according to their form or orders." These are your two DISCOURSE main objections against our ordination,-that we are not ordained by Bishops of your communion, [and] that we are not ordained according to the Roman form. In both of these, Dr. Whitaker is wholly for us against you: that which he maketh no reckoning of, is your form of ordination, as it is contradistinct from ours, as it is in many things, especially in your double matter and form in Priestly ordination. You say Mr. Fulke speaks more plainly; let us hear him. [And Dr. Fulke.j "You are highly deceived, if you think we esteem your offices of Bishops, Priests and deacons, better than laymen ; . . . and with all our hearts we defy, abhor, detest, and spit at, your stinking, greasy, Antichristian orders." This is high enough indeed, and might have been expressed in more moderate terms; but it is to be expounded, not of the invalidity of your ordination, as if it wanted any essential, but partly in respect of the not using or abusing these sacred offices, and partly in respect of the laws of England. Excesses may make an ordination unlawful, although they do [Ibid. col. a.-Whitaker in this chapter is disputing Bellarmine's doctrine concerning Succession of Bishops as a note of the Church; and in order to take up a ground which shall at once include foreign Protestants and exclude Romanists, he dwells strongly on doctrinal as distinct from personal succession, rests the claims of ministers on "extraordinary" vocation, and affirms Priestly to be equivalent to Episcopal orders. It is futile to argue from this against the fact of personal succession in the English Church.] [This quotation is made up of two passages from distinct tracts, as marked above; borrowed by Talbot, as they stand in the text, from Champney or Fitzsimon. The first is from Fulke's Aunswere of a True Christian to a Counterfeit Catholike, art. 13. p. 50. Lond. 1577; the second from his Retentive against Bristow's Motives, Motive 21. p. 69, Lond. 1580. It must be added, 1. that the Pref. to the Ordinal, ratified by Convocation in 1562, is a sufficient confutation of any such inference as is sought to be fixed on the above passages; and 2. that they are in themselves by no means a fair specimen of the ground taken by Elizabethan divines, or even by Fulke and Whit aker, in behalf of Anglican orders. See PART not make it invalid. Holy orders are an excellent grace, conferred by God for the conversion of men; but if those who have them, instead of preaching truth, do teach errors to His people, and adulterate the old Christian Faith by addition of new articles, they are no longer true pastors, but wolves, which destroy the flock; and so they are not only no "better," but worse than laymen; "corruptio optimi pessima." In this respect they tell you, that your Priests and Bishops are not true Priests and Bishops; as Marcellus told his soldiers, that they were no true Romans (who were natural Romans), because they wanted the old Roman virtue *. Lastly, you have habitual power to exercise these offices, but you want actual power in England, by reason of the not-application or rather the substraction of the matter by our laws; so you are no legal Bishops or Priests there. This I take to have been the sense of these two doctors. [Bishop Barlow's Now are we come to their grand exception, against Bishop consecra- Barlow, who was one of the consecraters of Archbishop Parker; tion justi- whose consecration is not found in the Archbishop's register, fied.] and therefore they conclude that he was never consecrated. If this objection were true, yet it doth not render Archbishop Parker's consecration either invalid or uncanonical, because there were three other Bishops who joined in that consecration, besides Bishop Barlow, which is the full number required by the canons. But this objection is most false. Bishop Barlow was a consecrated Bishop above twenty years before the consecration of Archbishop Parker. They should have done well to have proposed this doubt in Bishop Bar X [Plutarch, in Vitâ Marcelli, tom. ii. p. 275. ed. Bryant.] [It appears by the Register, that Barlow presided at Parker's consecration; i. e. Parker was presented to him by the other Bishops, and the usual interrogations were addressed to Parker by him, while all the four Bishops together joined in the imposition of hands, in the use of the form of words, and in the delivery of the Bible; i. e. in the consecration itself (see below p. 145). The position occupied by Barlow therefore does not answer to that of "the consecrating Bishop" (as it is termed), who was usually either the metropolitan or one commissioned by him; for the latter (according to the canon of the fourth Council of Carthage, quoted above, p. 126. note o, and according to our own Ordinal, both King Edward's and the present form) pronounces the words of consecration alone, the "assistent" Bishops joining in the imposition of hands (in the words, however, also, according to the Roman Ordinal, although in a lower tone), whereas here, in consecrating the metropolitan himself, all joined throughout, and equally. It follows then, upon every theory, that the absence of Barlow's consecration, if it were so, would not invalidate that of Parker. See Mason, bk. ii. c. 17. § 9. bk. iii. c. 10. § 9; below p. 115. note c; and the record at the end of this Discourse, p. 204. note o.] V. low's lifetime', and then they might have had the testimony DISCOURSE of his consecraters, under an Archiepiscopal or Episcopal seal, for their satisfaction. The testimony of the Archiepiscopal register is a full proof of consecration affirmatively, but it is not a full proof negatively ;—such a Bishop's consecration is not recorded in this register, therefore he was not consecrated.For, first, the negligence of an officer, or some cross accident, might hinder the recording. Secondly, fire, or thieves, or some such casualty, might destroy or purloin the record. Thirdly, though it be not recorded in this register, it may be recorded in another; the Archbishop may, and Archbishop Cranmer usually did, delegate or give commission to three 475 other Bishops for consecration". And though the work be ordinarily performed at Lambeth, because of the place, where they may have three Bishops always present without any further charge, yet they are not obliged by any law to consecrate them there. And if there be a sufficient number of Bishops near the cathedral which is to be filled, or if the person who is to be consecrated do desire it, they may be consecrated either in that, or any of their own churches. The Bishops of the province of York, by reason of the former convenience, are usually consecrated at Lambeth; yet I have known, in my time, Bishop Sinewes of Carlisle consecrated at York upon his own desire, by the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Durham, Chester, and Manb. A man might seek long enough for his consecration in the Archbishop of Canterbury's register, and miss it, but it is to be found in [Barlow died in Aug. 1568. His consecration was first questioned by Champney in 1616. See Wood, Athen. Oxon., and Mason, bk. iii. c. 10. § 7.] a [An examination of Cranmer's Register will shew, 1. that of thirty-six Bishops consecrated during his Primacy, and whose consecrations are recorded, sixteen were consecrated by commission, most of them between 1538 and 1547; 2. that these consecrations took place chiefly at Lambeth and Croydon, but several also in different Churches in London, and a few in other and distant places, e.g. Southampton, Peterborough, Hampton. And two others, Fox (Hereford, 1535) and Hilsey (Rochester, 1535), omitted in Cranmer's Register, are recorded in the diocesan Registers to have taken place at Winchester (see Godw., De Præsul., ed. Richardson).] I. PART the register at York. So the omission of it in that register, though it be no full proof, yet it is a probable proof, that Bishop Barlow was not consecrated there; but it is no proof at all that he was not consecrated elsewhere. And this I take to have been the case both of Bishop Barlow, and Bishop Gardiner and although the effluxion of above a hundred years since hath rendered it more difficult to find where it was done, yet, by the help of those records which are in the Court of Faculties, I should not despair of finding it yet. But there are so many evident proofs that he was consecrated, that no ingenuous person can have the face to deny it. [1. He ac- 1. The first reason is, his actual possession of four Bishoptually possessed four rics one after another, St. Asaph, St. David's, Bath and Bishoprics Wells, and Chichester, in the reigns of three princes". They succes sively.] с [It has been the privilege of the Chapter of Canterbury from the year 1235, that "no Bishop of that province" shall be "consecrated out of Canterbury Cathedral without licence in writing" from them; and a privilege rigidly preserved (accord. to Wharton, notes on Strype's Cranmer, vol. ii. p. 1047. ed. 1812) up to at least 1540. Unfortunately the Register containing such licences from 1531 to 1541 is lost. The Registers of St. Asaph and St. David's, so far as relates to Barlow, are also lost; and Cranmer's is therefore the only Register in which the missing record could appear.] 4 [The indisputable facts relating to Barlow's Bishoprics are as follows; 1. That he was elected, being then Prior of Bisham, to the see of St. Asaph Jan. 16, 1535-6 (Reg. Cranm.), according to a Congé d'Eslire dated Jan. 7, 1535-6 (Rymer, tom. xiv. p. 558), upon the death of Bp. Standyshe; restored to temporalties Feb. 2 (Wood, Athen. Oxon.), and confirmed by proxy Feb. 22 or 23 (the Abp.'s commission to confirm being dated Feb. 22, and his certif. to the king of confirmation Feb. 23, date of confirm. itself omitted--Reg. Cranm.), according to Royal Assent dated Feb. 22 of the same year (Rymer, ibid. p. 559); but there is no record of his consecration. 2. That upon the death of Dr. Rawlins, Bp. of St. David's, Feb. 18, 1535-6 (Certif. super elect. Barlow, ap. Cranm. Reg.), he was (as Episc. Assav." in his own documents, as Episc. Assav. electus" in those for his successor) elected to that see April 10, 1536 (Reg. Cranm.), confirmed in person at Bow Church April 21 (ibid.), according to Royal Assent dated April 20 (ibid.), and had possession of his temporalties April 26 (Writ, ap. Mason, bk. iii. c. 10. §. 4, not printed in Rymer), of the same year; but again there is no record of his consecration. 3. That Feb. 3, 1547-8, he was collated (according to 1 Edw. VI. c. 2) to the see of Bath and Wells (Writ in Rymer, tom. xv. pp. 169, 170), for which he did homage (Mason, bk. iii. c. 10. § 3). 4. That in the beginning of Qu. Mary's reign he resigned his see (probably through fear of deprivation), the spiritualties being seized by the Chapter of Canterbury between Dec. 20, 1553 and March 25, 1553-4 (Reg. Capit. Cant., ap. Wharton, Specimen, p. 135), and the Congé d'Eslire for his successor (Gilb. Bourne) issued March 13 of the same year (Rymer, tom. xv. p. 369,-in both, see vacant "per liberam et spontaneam resignationem ultimi Episcopi," and the former adding Barlow's name at length), the mandate for the consecration of his successor March 28 of the same year (Rymer, ibid. p. 376,-see vacant "per deprivationem et amotionem ultimi Episcopi)," and his writ of restit. of temp. April 20, 1554 (Rymer, ibid. p. 384,-returning to the former expression). 5. That after a confinement in the Tower, and a recantation of his opinions by the republication (in 1553, as "late Bishop of Bathe") of a "Dia |