374

ON THE CONSECRATION OF PARker.

Parker was consecrated by four persons, who had been duly and canonically appointed to the episcopal office. Queen Elizabeth had issued a mandate to these four persons, Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgskins, to lay their hands on Parker. They did so. If they were Bishops, therefore, Parker was rightly and duly made by them the continuator of the apostolical succession. Bonner, therefore, must have intended to insinuate or affirm, that they were not Bishops—that is, that they were deprived in the reign of Mary, and had not been restored again to their Sees. They, consequently, possessed no jurisdiction, and, therefore, no authority. I shall only observe, in reply, that the four Bishops were restored, if they, indeed, had ever lost it, to their power to consecrate ; by the same authority, which had dispossessed and deprived them. If Mary had power to depose them from all or from any part of their office, Elizabeth had power to restore them; and Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgskins, were more certainly justified in continuing the Apostolical Succession, when they were commanded by the authority of their Prince to do so, after their unjust deposition from episcopal jurisdiction; than either the nonjuring Bishops who continued the succession for nearly a century after their deprivation; or than the Bishops of the Church of Rome,-Baines, Wiseman, and others-to exercise episcopal jurisdiction in the Dioceses where our own Bishops are appointed, both by the Canons of the Catholic Church,

NAG'S HEAD FABLE NOT YET INVENTED.

375

and by the laws of the realm. I am sorry to find, that Bonner objected, on this ground, to the validity of Horne's consecration. His silence, however, on the story of the Nag's Head consecration, which he is said to have originated, proves to us that this fable had not at this time been invented.

Bonner's second objection to the validity of Horne's consecration was taken from the laws and statutes of the realm.

This objection seems to have given much trouble to the Judges, who met and deliberated in the chamber of Chief Justice Catiline. It was, that Horne had been consecrated according to the form of ordination in the second Service-book of King Edward, which had been repealed by Mary; but which had not been restored, with the rest of the book, by the act of Elizabeth. That act spoke in general terms of the Prayer-book of Edward; but did not mention the order of consecrating Bishops, which was a separate Service-book. The question, therefore, was, whether the form of consecrating Bishops was, or was not, part and parcel of the Prayer-book, or a distinct and separate service; and whether, therefore, Horne ought not to have been consecrated according to the 25th of Henry VIII., c. 20, and not according to the consecration Service-book of Edward. The Queen's mandate for the consecration of Parker, had commanded that he be consecrated according to the form of the

376 ALL DIFFICULTIES REMOVED BY A NEW LAW.

statutes in that case made and provided; but if there should, by chance, be any deficiency in the form or mode of his appointment, it was to be considered as done away by the royal mandate, which ordered his consecration. The same authority might be considered as extending to any informality in the consecration of Horne, provided that the laws of the Church (Catholic) were observed. This, however, was not pleaded; neither was it insisted upon, that the ordination services formed a part of the Book of Prayer. The indictment, therefore, was kept open till an Act of Parliament was passed, to "take away all ques"tions and ambiguities that might be objected to the "lawful confirmations, investing, and consecrations "of Bishops." In this act it was asserted that in all the consecrations, those words only had been used, which had been accustomed to be used, by Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth; and also, that other general words and sentences had been inserted in her letters patent, to dispense with all the doubts and cases that could in anywise be objected against the same. The discussion was thus terminated by the

* Supplentes nihilominus, supremâ auctoritate nostrâ Regiâ -si quid, aut in quæ juxta Mandatum nostrum predictum, per vos fient aut in vobis, aut vestrum aliquo Conditione, statu, facultate vestris ad Præmissa perficienda, desit, aut deerit eorum, quæ per statuta hujus regni, aut per leges ecclesiasticas in hac parte, requiruntur, aut necessaria sunt, Temporis ratione et rerum necessitate id postulante.-Rymer, Foed. T. xv., p. 550; edit. 1713.

The 8th of Elizabeth.

ANECDOTES OF BONNER.

377

law. The language of the statute left the question undecided, and professed only to solve a doubt. The indictment against Bonner fell to the ground: but the oath of supremacy was not again tendered to him, either by his Diocesan, or by any other Magistrate.

This act passed in the year 1565. Nothing more is recorded of Bonner from this time. He continued to be a prisoner in the Marshalsea; retaining the same cheerfulness which had characterized him both in his pious zeal when he burnt the heretical UltraProtestants, or when he was insulted and threatened by their surviving friends and kindred. Very singular are the anecdotes which illustrate his self-possession, when he was taken from the Marshalsea to the tribunal of the Bishop of Winchester. "The Lord confound thee, or turn thy heart," said one. "The Lord," he answered, "send thee to keep thy breath to cool thy porridge": an expression not perfectly. episcopal. The divisions among the people, however, were displayed at the very time when some were most severe in their expressions of indignation. A woman came and knelt before him-"The Lord save thy life, Bishop!" she said, "I trust to see thee Bishop of London again." "God a mercy, good wife," was Bonner's answer. Another met him, an Ultra-Protestant, who urged submitting to the regal supremacy. are well learned," said the Bishop.

upon

him the duty of "By God, you

"Where learn

ed you to swear, Master Bonner?" was the answer.

I

am, I must say, grieved to add, that Bonner's re

378

DEATH OF BONNER.

ply was such as the best friends of Bishops must condemn. "Did not Christ swear," he replied. "Verily, verily, I say unto you": and the answer of the Ultra-Protestant to the Anti-Protestant was no less indecorous-"It is well," said he, "that thou hast some Scripture for blasphemy, for thou hast none for Popery.' How miserable, how sad, are the results of the controversies among Christians. When shall authority and liberty be so united with peace and truth, that these detestable hatreds shall be ended; and the words Heretic and Papist, as the laws and proclamations of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth were in vain issued to decree, be no more used to exasperate and divide us. Oh! that the Providence of God would grant some uniter of hearts and reconciler of truths, to the universal Church; that love may succeed to hatred, and the admiration of the Infidel, instead of his contempt and scorn of Christians, be once more excited, as in the earlier days of the Church. Then the Heathen looked upon the believers in Christianity, and said, not—" see how these "Christians hate"-but "see how these Christians "love one another."

And now the time arrived which must come to all, when his body was to be given to the earth, and his spirit must return to the God who gave it. What shall the moment be, when the consciousness of existence on earth shall cease, and the consciousness of

*See these conversations in Strype, Annals, (Elizabeth) chap. 34.