PART fashion of them, whether they should be long or short, &c. ; in so much as two Popes successively could not determine it. [Of ceremonies; when use ful, when superfluous.] [Of our assurance of our holy orders.] If Mr. Mason did commend the wisdom of the English Church for paring away superfluous ceremonies in ordination, he did well. Ceremonies are advancements of order, decency, modesty, and gravity in the service of God, expressions of those heavenly desires and dispositions, which we ought to bring along with us to God's house, adjuments of attention and devotion, furtherances of edification, visible instructors, helps of memory, exercises of faith, the shell that preserves the kernel of religion from contempt, the leaves that defend the blossoms and the fruit; but if they grow over thick and rank, they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity, and then the gardener plucks them off. There is great difference between the hearty expressions of a faithful friend, and the mimical gestures of a fawning flatterer; between the unaffected comeliness of a grave matron, and the fantastical paintings, and patchings, and powderings, of a garish courtesan. When ceremonies become burdensome by excessive superfluity, or unlawful ceremonies are obtruded, or the substance of Divine worship is placed in circumstances, or the service of God is more respected for human ornaments than for the Divine ordinance; it is high time to pare away excesses, and reduce things to the ancient mean. These Fathers are quite out, where they make it lawful at some times to add, but never to pare away: yet we have pared away nothing, which is either prescribed or practised by the true Catholic Church. If our ancestors have pared away any such things out of any mistake (which we do not believe), let it be made appear evidently to us, and we are more ready to welcome it again at the fore-door, than our ancestors were to cast it out at the back-door. "Errare possumus, hæretici esse nolumus." To conclude. As an impetuous wind doth not blow down those trees which are well radicated, but causeth them to spread their roots more firmly in the earth, so these concussions of our adversaries do confirm us in the undoubted assurance of the truth, and validity, and legality, of our holy orders. We have no more reason to doubt of the b [Bk. ii. c. 16. § 3.] 489 V. truth of our orders, because of the different judgment of DISCOURSE a handful of our partial countrymen, and some few foreign doctors misinformed by them, than they themselves have to doubt of the truth of their orders who were ordained by Formosus, because two Popes, Stephen and Sergius, one after another, out of passion and prejudice, declared them to be void and invalid. But supposing that which we can never grant without betraying both ourselves and the truth, that there were some remote probabilities, that might occasion suspicion in some persons prepossessed with prejudice, of the legality of our orders; yet, for any man, upon such pretended uncertainties, to leave the communion of that Church wherein he was baptized, which gave him his Christian being, and to apostate to them, where he shall meet with much greater grounds of fear, both of schism and idolatry, were to plunge himself in a certain crime for fear of an uncertain danger. Here the Fathers make a brief repetition of whatsoever they have said before in this discourse (either out of distrust of the reader's memory, or confidence of their own achievements),―of the Nag's Head, and Mr. Neale, and the Protestant writers, and Bishop Bancroft, and Bishop Morton, and the other Bishops that sat with him the last Parliament (which being the only thing alleged by them in the author's lifetime, and proved so undeniably to be false, is enough to condemn all the rest of their hearsay reports for groundless fables), of our registers, of King Edward's Bishops, of Bishop Barlow, and of the form of our ordination;directing him who will clear all those doubts, what he hath to do, as if we were their journeymen. Let them not trouble themselves about that; they are cleared to the least grain. But if they will receive advice for advice, and pursue a prudential course, which they prescribe to others; if they regard the present face of the sky, and look well to their own interest, and the present conjuncture of their affairs; they have more need, and are more engaged in reputation, to defend themselves, than to oppugn others. So they conclude their discourse with this short corollary; [Of King Charles I.] -"How unfortunately was Charles the First, late king of 172 CONSECRATION OF PROTESTANT BISHOPS VINDICATED. I. PART England, misinformed in matter of his Bishops and clergy! what scruple could he have had, if he had known the truth, to give way to the Parliament, to pull down Parliament Bishops, who were so far from being de jure Divino, that they were not so much as de jure ecclesiastico ?” We thank you, gentlemen, for your good will. The orthodox clergy of England are your fear; and you know what commonly followeth after fear, hate: "oderunt quos metuunt." What pity it is that you were not of King Charles his council, to have advised him better? Yet we observe few princes thrive worse, than where you pretend to be great ministers. If you had counselled him upon this subject, perhaps you might have found him too hard for you; as another did, whose heart he burst with down-right reason". If ever that innocent king had a finger in the blood of any of that party, that was it ;-to choak a man with reason. But certainly that wise prince would not have much regarded your positive conclusions upon hearsay premisses. We hold our benefices by human right, our offices of Priests and Bishops both by Divine right and human right. But put the case we did hold our Bishoprics only by human right; is it one of your cases of conscience, that a sovereign prince may justly take away from his subjects any thing which they hold by human right? If one man take from another that which he holds justly by the law of man, he is a thief and a robber by the law of God. Let us alter the case a little, from our Bishoprics to their colleges or their treasures:-if any man should attempt to take them from them, upon this ground because they held them but by human right, they would quickly cry out with Ploiden, the case is altered.' Be our right Divine, or human, or both, if we be not able to defend it against any thing the Fathers can bring against it, we deserve to lose it. [Viz.,Alexander Henderson; whose disputation with King Charles I. upon the subject of Episcopacy may be found in the works of the latter, and who is said to have died of vexation at being worsted in the controversy (Clarend., Hist. of Rebell., bk. x. vol. iii. Pt. i. pp. 54, 55).] 1022 APPENDIX. THERE being several printed pamphlets extant, in which some such adversaries as had the conscience at first to frame, have now hardened themselves to defend, that impudent fable of the Nag's Head Consecration, and to deny that there were any records of those times, reporting any other consecration of Archbishop Parker than that infamous pretended one; and the most Reverend Author of the former Discourses frequently mentioning and referring himself to the registers of those days; it was thought fit here, for satisfaction of the world, and stopping the mouth of calumny, to publish the copy of the record; the original of which any may see, who please to search the registry of the see of Canterbury; as also another old manuscript memoir, out of Corpus Christi College Library in Cambridge: -which are as following. I. [Record of Archbishop Parker's Confirmation and Consecration, from the Lambeth Register.] REGISTRUM REUERENDISSIMI IN CHRISTO PATRIS ET D'NI, D'NI MATTHEI PARKER, IN ARCHIE PUM CANTUARIEN. PER DECANU. ET [The record here printed occupies from the 2nd to the 11th leaf (inclus.) of vol. i. of Abp. Parker's Register, the 1st leaf being emblazoned with his arms and motto, and the 2nd containing the title of the entire volume (the first paragraph above printed) engrossed in large capitals. The remainder of the volume consists of, 1. succeeding Confirmations and Consecrations up to those of Edm. Freake to the see of Rochester (March 3 and 9, 1571-2) inclus., fol. 12. a-145. b (the concluding portion of Freake's record being entered, for want of room, in a later page, fol. 213. b -214. b), 2. Inductions &c. by the Abp. in different sees of his province during their Vacancies, within a similar period, fol. 146. a-213. b, 3. Commissions during a similar period, including accounts of Ordinations, first, up to May 28, 1560, while Anthony Huse was primary Registrar, fol. 217. a-221. a, next, from June 2, 1560, while John Incent held the same office, fol. 221. a-299. b, 4. Visitations, fol. 301. b-339. b, 5. Inductions &c. within the Abp.'s own diocese during a similar period, fol. 340. a-411. a, being the end of the volume. A second volume continues all five classes of entries to the close of Parker's Primacy, including also the register of the see between Parker's death and Whitgift's appointment. Both are entire volumes, and not (as is Cranmer's) collections of loose leaves bound together at the Archbishop's death; which is proved of vol. i. by the record of Freake's consecration above mentioned. That the record here printed is an original portion of the volume to which it belongs, is proved,-1. by the reference to it for details of arrangement and form of consecration employed, in the records of twelve succeeding consecrations, the last in fol. 80. a,—2. by its agreement with the entries under the several "Vacancies" above mentioned, the earliest acts of jurisdiction by Parker (among some hundreds) bearing date Dec. 11 and 12, 1559 (viz. PART 1. APPENDIX. CAP'T'LM. ECCL'IE CATH. ET METROPOLITICE XPI. CANTUARIEN. P'DICT. The Probate of Will in Lincoln dioc., fol. 150. a, and Institut. of John Oxenbridge to Church of Llanynis, Bangor dioc., fol. 148. a), i. e. two and three days after the date assigned to Parker's confirmation, -3. by its agreement with the Commissions entered under the 3rd head above mentioned, of which the earliest is dated Dec. 20, 1559,-4. by the handwriting, which is the same with that of the immediately subsequent entries (the marginal headings above given being an addition in another hand, and eight or ten corrections, for the most part of no importance,—all marked in the present reprint, and the paragraphs at the foot of fol. 2. b, 3. b,-below pp. 175, 179, in italics,-being added in a third hand), and 5. by the paging. genuineness of the entire volume is proved (to say nothing of the absurdity of supposing a folio volume of 411 leaves, filled with matter so multifarious and circumstantial, to be a forgery) by the non-existence of any other register of Parker's Archiepiscopal acts, by the agreement of this in handwriting and appearance with what it professes to be, by the minute consistency of its several parts with one another (e. g. the dates under the "Vacancies" of the several sees exactly tallying with the dates assigned to the several consecrations which filled up each vacancy,-see the separate notes to the 1st Table added below at the end of these Records), by its exact correspondence in the order of consecrations recorded with the order of precedence among the several Bishops concerned, in Convocation and in Parliament (see at the end of the same Table), by its equally exact correspondence in a multiplicity of names and dates with the Registers of the Chapters of the several sees of the province and with the Rolls (see the same Table for a specimen), by the detailed references to it in the Life of Parker in the De Antiq. Brit. Eccl. (1572), and from thence in Holinshead in 1586, and by its agree ment with all that is known from other sources of the several Bishops and other persons mentioned (see e. g. the separate notes to the same Table). That the last three arguments apply also directly to the particular record of Parker's confirmation &c. here printed, see the notes to Parker's name in the same Table, and below pp. 178. note n, 179. p, 192-193. z-1, 198. s, 199200. v―d, 205. p, 206. w, which will supply some further details pointing the same way. The objections to the genuineness of that record rest either upon misprints in the folio edition of Bramhall's works (e. g. note b below), or upon the mistake in the Rolls noticed below p. 178. note n, or upon the additional sentences, printed here in italics, in pp. 175, 179, or upon the assertion, that the Register was not produced, although called for, until the time of Mason, when the witnesses were all dead, the truth being that it was quoted, although not called for, in 1572 and 1586, and referred to in 1565, although undoubtedly not printed at length so as to publish the witnesses' names until 1676, or lastly upon the misquotations of Butler, Sutcliffe, and the (confessedly inaccurate) first edition of Godwin (see above p. 131, notes f, h, i). It is reprinted here from the original Register, the contractions, stops, and orthography, being retained with as much exactness as in so long a record and with ordinary types is attainable. The record of the consecration of Parker, headed Rituum et Ceremoniarum Ordo, &c. (below pp. 203205), has been printed also by Percival (appendix A.); and the whole record was printed (for the first time) at the end of the folio edition of Bramhall's works in 1676, 7; and collated for Courayer in 1725. See below p. 210.] b [Misprinted Licestren. in the folio edition of Bramhall's Works.] |