BONNER REPROVED BY ELIZABETH.

369

to the proofs upon which this Ultra-Protestant assertion rests, and declares that Augustine procured the murder of many Priests in England, who were Martyrs for Christ, because they denied the usurped authority of Rome. "And, whereas," she added, "our "father was withdrawn from the supremacy of Rome by schismatical and heretical advisers—who, we pray you, flattered him and encouraged him in this "conduct more than you, Heth, when you were Bishop of Rochester; or than you, Bonner, when

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you were Archdeacon? Are not you, then, schis"matics and heretics? Suspend, then, your censures. "Was it our sister's conscience, or your advice, "which made her so averse to our father's and bro"ther's actions?" She then briefly replied to the arguments in favor of the Papal supremacy, and concluded, by saying "that if Athanasius withstood "Rome under Liberius, when he became an Arian, "without being guilty of heresy, she also might separate from Rome, without heresy or schism." The last sentence warned them not to provoke her to enforce the penalties enacted for the opponents of her government; and with this she concluded her reply. Many of the Council entreated her to punish Bonner for his insolence, as he had been so zealous, or, as Strype says, so inveterate against the Protestants and Ultra-Protestants in the reign of Mary. She refused to do so-" Let us not follow," she said, "the "example of Mary. Let us rather shew that our re"formation tendeth to peace, and not to cruelty;" and Bonner remained unmolested.

370

FIRMNESS AND CONSISTENCY OF BONNER.

The Convocation of 1562 gave the sanction of the Bishops and Clergy to the faith, discipline, and general government of the Church.

The last circumstance of any interest, related of Bonner, remains to be mentioned, and this imperfect narrative is finished. It is the last proof of his firmness and consistency, and his almost sublime AntiProtestant contempt for the Protestant, Ultra-Protestant, schismatical, and heretical rulers of the Church, who had succeeded to himself and Gardiner.

Power had been given to the newly-consecrated Bishops, by a clause in the act of supremacy, to tender the oath of submission to that supremacy, to the Ecclesiastics under their jurisdiction. Bonner was now in the Marshalsea. That prison was in the Diocese of the Bishop of Winchester. White, the former Bishop, under Mary, had been deprived by Elizabeth. Horne had been consecrated to the Bishopric by Parker, according to the form prescribed by the Ordination-Service, in the second book of Edward the Sixth. Horne needlessly and therefore uselessly, for Bonner was safe in prison, resolved to tender to Bonner the oath of supremacy. Bonner was, accordingly, summoned before the Bishop, or his ecclesiastical officers. Bonner, as I have already shewn, was well versed in the Canon law. He was neither a preacher nor a theologian, and did not profess to be either. When he appeared before the representatives of the Bishop, he urged many reasons for refusing to take the oath. The chief and the only one * Strype, Annals, (Elizabeth) chap. 34.

*

VALUE OF THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.

371

indeed which we may deem it necessary to consider, being this—that Horne was not really and truly the Bishop of Winchester-that the Act of Parliament required that the oath should be tendered by the Diocesan, to those who resided in their Diocesesthat Horne was not his Diocesan, nor any Diocesan -that he was not a Bishop at all, and, therefore, that he had no power and no authority to administer the oath. This objection of Bonner, to the Episcopal jurisdiction of Horne, was at once perceived to be a question of the most vital importance. If the apostolical succession was not continued among us by the consecration of Parker, and the Bishops whom Parker consecrated, then it was, as our brethren of the Church of Rome still assert, and as the Dublin Review has lately asserted*—that the orders of the Church of England are not valid. If the orders of the Church of England are not valid, then it follows that our Bishops have no authority, our Clergy no mission, our commemorations of Christ's death are not sacraments, our sprinkling of water, or our dipping of children at their supposed admission into the Universal Church, are not baptism. Then also it follows that our people are out of the Covenant, their

* See the article in the Dublin Review, on the Apostolical succession in the Church of England, the reply by Palmer, and the rejoinder. These articles are attributed to Bishop Wiseman and Dr. Lingard. The argument of our Romanist brethren is, that those who consecrated Parker had no jurisdiction, and could not, therefore, continue the succession. This seems to have been Bonner's objection.

B b

372 BONNER REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE Horne.

Pastors are out of the Church, the English nation is left to the uncovenanted mercies of God, we are worse than the Pagans, we are not Christians, so much as the French, the Italians, the Portuguese, or the Spaniards. All of these are Christians. The English people have made one great mistake, and God's mercy does not rest upon them, Christ has not died for them, the Bible is useless to them, the means of grace are a mockery. This, all this, and more than this was, and is, implied in the denial of the validity of the orders of the Church of England; for those who are not in the Covenant with God on earth, cannot be included in the Covenant with God hereafter. Those who are not in the Church militant, cannot belong to the Church triumphant. To use the language of the holy Cyprian ;* he cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his Mother. All this was implied in Bonner's objection to the validity of the consecration of the Bishop of Winchester. Upon Bonner's refusal, therefore, to acknowledge Horne to be a Bishop of the Catholic Church, though he had been consecrated by Parker in the form appointed by the Service-book of King Edward; an indictment was laid against him in the Court of Queen's Bench, and Bonner attended with two of the most eminent council of the day, the learned Plowden and Wray, afterwards Chief Justice, to plead to that indictment.

*De Unitate.

OBJECTIONS OF BONNER TO HORNE.

373

I pass by the pleas which were over-ruled by the Judges-that he was indicted as Doctor of Laws, and not as Bishop-that he was accused by the Chancellor, and not by the Bishop-that he was not required to take the oath of supremacy in a public place. The objection to Horne was, that Horne was not a Bishop, for two reasons; first-he was not elected and consecrated according to the laws of the Catholic Church; and, secondly-he was not consecrated according to the statutes and ordinances of the realm.

It is much to be regretted, that none of the authors, who have related this charge of Bonner against Horne, have given us the Bishop's arguments at any length. I can, therefore, but briefly mention Bonner's objections, and the reply to them.

Horne was not a Bishop according to the canons of the Catholic Church.

The answer is, that he was consecrated by Parker and his episcopal coadjutors, according to the first of the Apostolical Canons, the fourth Nicene Canon, and the Canons of Africa and Antioch, as they are given in the antient codes. The objection of Bonner, therefore, must have referred to the validity of the consecration of Parker, who consecrated Horne.

* See Strype's Annals, (Elizabeth) chap. 34.-Dodd's Church History.

Collier, vol. ii., folio edition.

Dyer's Reports, p. 234. Edit. 1672. Folio.

Strype's Parker, book ii., chap. 1., who refers to a MS. in the Cotton Library.-Cleopatra, sec. 4.