I'.H.'i

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
AND EPISCOPACY

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
AND EPISCOPACY

BY

A. J. MASON, D.D.
Honorary Fellow of Pembroke and Jesus Colleges, and formerly
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Canon of Canterbury

Cambridge :
at the University Press
1914

CamtriUge :
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD
RANDALL
CALLED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE TO BE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND
PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND
AT A TIME WHICH PECULIARLY NEEDS
THOSE GIFTS OF COURAGE AND CAUTION,
OF LARGENESS OF MIND AND FIRMNESS OF PRINCIPLE,
WITH WHICH IT HAS PLEASED GOD TO ENDOW HIM.

PREFACE
WHEN tidings reached England of the now
famous conference of last year at Kikuyu,
and of the offence taken at it by the Bishop of
Zanzibar, it became my duty to investigate certain
points in the controversy on behalf of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, whose chaplain I have the honour to
be. Encouraged by some kind words that fell from his
Grace in that connexion, I was drawn on into putting
together a kind of catena of passages from Anglican
writers, from the Reformation to the Catholic Revival
of the nineteenth century, for the purpose of showing
their views on the origin, the sanction, and the
obligation of episcopacy, and on the position which
we ought to hold in relation to non-episcopal com
munities both abroad and at home. That was the
origin of this book. I need not say that his Grace
is not committed to a single expression in it except
those taken from formularies to which the whole
church of England is pledged. It is, .however,

viii Preface
humbly offered as a contribution towards the solu
tion of questions which the Kikuyu Conference has
raised, and to which an authoritative answer has
been promised.
It is by no means the first time that a collection
of this kind has been attempted. Some writers have
endeavoured to prove that Anglicans have always
treated episcopacy as of the esse of the church. Others
have endeavoured to prove that Anglicans have
always fraternized with protestants, episcopal or not.
It has been my endeavour to show both sides of the
question. I do not profess to be impartial. I am
convinced that to tamper with episcopacy would be
to throw away all that is most distinctive in the
character and prospects of the church of England.
But I have desired to show fairly how matters have
stood, and to bring out not only the earnestness with
which our writers have contended for the apostolic and
divine institution of episcopacy, but also their wish
to make out the best possible case for those who
had a different polity, while aiming in the main at
pronioting a scriptural and spiritual Christianity.
I have not tried to make my catena complete
or exhaustive. I might have quoted from other
divines besides those here mentioned — especially
seventeenth century divines. But to have gone
to more recondite sources, to have ransacked the

Preface ix
pamphlet literature of a couple of hundred years, to
have given every passage bearing upon the subject,
would have swollen a book already perhaps too
long without enhancing its value. I beheve that
the passages here given represent accurately and
with sufficient fulness the mind of the English church
from age to age, as seen both in its great scholars,
its philosophical divines, its statesmen, and also in
specimens of its average pastors, preachers, and
teachers. The impression left is complex ; but I
think that no one who follows the evidence can doubt
that the church of England stands for episcopacy
with a resolution peculiarly its own.

A. J. M.

Canterbury,
St Peter's Bay, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAP I.

The Appeal to Antiquity

page

II.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans .

23

III.

Under James I and Charles I

65

IV.

The Restor.\tion Period

167

V.

The Revolution and Since

277

VI.

Modern Anglican Criticism .

449

Appendix A. Has the Reformed Church of England
EVER Admitted into her Ministry Men
not Episcopally Ordained ? .
B. The Foreign Reformed Churches and the
Plea of Necessity 
C. Ordination among the Nonconformists
OF England ......
D. Schism and Communion ....

489512 528
534

Index

555

CHAPTER I
THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY
Before a complete answer can be given to the
question how the reformed church of England re
gards episcopacy, it is necessary to remember that
the reformed church of England has always refused
to be considered as an offspring of the age of the
Reformation. It does not start with a constitution
drawn up for the first time in the sixteenth or seven
teenth century. It claims continuity with the church
of apostolic times. It inherits the vast store of
earlier traditions, except where it has expressly or
tacitly repudiated any part of the store. Whatever
can be shown to be the teaching of scripture and of
the unanimous voice of the early church is for that
very reason the teaching of the church of England,
even if it has not been explicitly accepted and pro
fessed. If in any point her formularies themselves
should be found to contradict what is shown by a
sounder exegesis to be the meaning of scripture, —
if a more thorough knowledge of history should
prove that her divines misunderstood the practice or
doctrine of the fathers, — the representatives of the

2 The Appeal to Antiquity
church of England today would not stand committed
to the mistake. The appeal to antiquity has already
been provided for them in advance. The wise and
learned men who shaped the system under which we
live, consistently maintained that they were devising
nothing new, but returning to the old, — and to the
old, not as contained only in the New Testament,
but as exhibited in the early undivided church. They
did not treat the New Testament, as some of the
continental reformers and of their scholars in this
island treated it, or as many critics of the present
day treat it, as if it had come into their hands from
an unknown world, to be deciphered for the first
time, regardless of the church life out of which it
sprang. Their one desire was to be faithful to the
scripture ; but for that very reason they used for
its interpretation, though not without criticism, the
commentary supplied by the fathers, and by the
histories and by the enactments of primitive Christi
anity. This is the meaning of that magnificent appeal
which Cranmer made at the time of his degradation,
on behalf of others as well as for himself.
First, my plain protestation made, that I intend to speak
nothing against one holy catholic and apostolical church,
or the authority thereof, (the which authority I have in
great reverence, and to whom my mind is in all things to
obey) ... I do challenge and appeal from the pope ... as well
for myself as for all and every one that cleaveth to me or
will hereafter be on my side, unto a free general council 
And touching my doctrine of the sacrament, and other my
doctrine, of what kind soever it be, I protest that it was

The Appeal to Antiquity 3
never my mind to write, speak, or understand anything
contrary to the most holy word of God, or else against the
holy catholic church of Christ ; but purelj' and simply to
imitate and teach those things only, which I had leamed of
the sacred scripture, and of the holy catholic church of
Christ from the beginning, and also according to the expo
sition of the most holy and learned fathers and martyrs of
the church. And if anything hath peradventure chanced
otherwise than I thought, I may err, but heretic I cannot
be, forasmuch as I am ready to follow the judgment of the
most sacred word of God and of the holy catholic church,
desiring none other thing than meekly and gently to be
taught, if anywhere (which God forbid) I have swerved
from the truth^.
Beneath the broad aegis which Cranmer threw
over us who in subsequent ages have been on his
side, the church of England has developed freely,
making always the same appeal to the unalterable
testimony of antiquity. It may seem strange, per
haps, that Cranmer himself, and that some of his
followers, whose doctrine on many points has a
revolutionary appearance, could make this appeal.
Yet it was sincerely made and meant ^ Those who
represent the main stream of Anglican tradition,
however protestant their language may at times
have been, have believed that they were acting and
teaching in the spirit, not only of the apostles, but
also of the fathers, and carrying on unchanged the
life of the church of the first six centuries.
Jewel's famous challenge, in 1559, sounded the
same note which Cranmer had uttered,
1 The Remains of T, Cranmer (ed. Jenkins), vol. iv. pp. 121, 126.
I — 2

4 The Appeal to Antiquity
The words that I then spake, as near as I can call them
to mind, were these : If any learned man of all our adver
saries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to
bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old catholic
doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out
of the holy scriptures of God, or any one example of the
primitive church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly
proved that there was any private mass in the whole world
at that time, for the space of six hundred years after Christ ;
or [various other things] ; I promised then that I would
give over and subscribe unto him^.
What Jewel in his sermons threw into the form
of a challenge, he repeated deliberately, again and
again, in his Apologia Ecclesiae AngUcanae, which
was translated into English by Bacon's mother and
the translation published in 1564, with a letter of
commendation from Archbishop Parker, and became
at once the standard exposition of the teaching of
the English church.
They cry out upon us at this present ever5rwhere. Jewel
says in the Apology, that we are all heretics, and have for
saken the faith, and have with new persuasions and wicked
leaming utterly dissolved the concord of the church ; . . . that
we have seditiously fallen from the catholic church, and by
a wicked schism and division have shaken the whole world,
and troubled the corrunon peace and universal quiet of the
church ;.. .that we set nought by the authority of the
ancient fathers and councils of old time ; that we have
rashly and presumptuously disannulled the old ceremonies,
' Works (Parker Society), part I, p. 20. The sermon from which
these words are taken wa.s preached at Paul's Cross in Lent, 1559
(1560), when Jewel had been consecrated bishop. The earlier
challenge, to which he refers, had been delivered on Nov. 26 of the
previous year, before his consecration.

The Appeal to Antiquity 5
which have been well allowed by our fathers and forefathers
many hundred year past both by good customs and also
in ages of more purity ; and that we have by our own pri
vate head, without the authority of any sacred and general
council, brought new traditions into the church, and have
done all these things not for religion's sake, but only upon
a desire of contention and strife : but that they for their
part have changed no manner of thing, but have held and
kept still such a number of years to this very day all things
as they were delivered from the apostles and well approved
by the most ancient fathers^.
In the Defence of the Apology (1567), Jewel
describes the relation of the church of England to
its own past and to the Roman communion of his
own time :
This one thing are they never able truly to say, that we
have swerved either from the word of God, or from the
apostles of Christ, or from the primitive church. Surely
we have ever judged the primitive church of Christ's time,
of the apostles, and of the holy fathers, to be the catholic
church ; neither make we doubt to name it Noe's ark,
Christ's spouse, the piUar and upholder of all truth, nor
yet to fix therein the whole mean of our salvation. It is
doubtless an odious matter for one to leave the fellowship
whereunto he hath been accustomed, and specially of those
men who, though they be not, yet at least seem and be called
Christians. And to say truly, we do not despise the church
of these men (however it be ordered by them now-a-days)
partly for the name sake itself, and partly for that the gospel
of Jesu Christ Rath once been therein truly and purely set
forth, neither had we departed therefrom but of very neces
sity and much against our wills  As touching that we
have now done, to depart from that church, whose errors
were proved and made manifest to the world, . . . and yet
' Works, part III, pp. 53 foU.

6 The Appeal to Antiquity
not to depart so much from itself as from the errors thereof,
... we have done nothing herein against the doctrine either
of Christ or of his apostles i.
To conclude, we have forsaken the church as it is now,
not as it was in old time ; . . . and to say tmth, we have been
cast out by these men (being cursed of them, as they use
to say, with book, bell, and candle), rather than have gone
away from them of ourselves^.
Though we have departed from that church, which these
men call catholic,. . .yet is this enough for us,... that we
have gone from that church which had the power to err ;
which Christ, who cannot err, told so long before it should
err; and which we ourselves did evidently see with our
eyes to have gone both from the holy fathers, and from
the apostles, and from Christ his own self, and from
the primitive and catholic church ; and we are come, as
near as we possibly could, to the church of the apostles
and of the old catholic bishops and fathers, which church
we know hath hithemnto been sound and perfect, and, as
Tertullian termeth it, a pure virgin, spotted as yet with no
idolatry, nor with any foul or shameful fault*.
When asked what he thought of his own . pre
decessors in the see of Salisbury, Jewel's reply was :
For the rest of the bishops [of Salisbury] that were
before them \i,e. before Shaxton and Capon], what faith
they held, and what they either liked or misliked, by their
writings or sermons it doth not greatly appear. I trust
they held the foundation, and lived and died in the faith of
Christ. If they had lived in these days, and seen that you
see, they would not have been partakers of your wilful
ness  To be short, we succeed the bishops that have been
before our days. We axe elected, consecrate, confirmed,
^ Works, part III, pp. 77, 79.
* Ihid, p. 92.
* Ihid, p. 100.

The Appeal to Antiquity 7
and admitted, as they were. If they were deceived in any
thing, we succeed them in place, but not in error. They were
our predecessors, but not the rulers and standards of our
faith 1.
The books of Homilies, to which reference is made
in the Thirty-nine Articles have a look of uncom
promising protestantism. They are controversial in
their general tone, and somewhat repellent in their
form of argument. Nevertheless, their intention and
for the most part their method is the same as
Jewel's :
They are above all valuable on account of the principle
which underlies all their teaching. This principle is the appeal
to holy scripture as the criterion of the faith, the appeal to
the early fathers, to the mind of the " ancient and primitive
church," not in any puritan sense, as binding the outward
action of the Christian society in details, but as the safeguard
of all true progress and development. This standard. . .
is constantly present to the authors of the Homilies 
If... we desire to know what the church should believe,
teach, or do in any controverted matter of doctrine or prac
tice, it is the " good fathers in the primitive church," or the
" ancient catholic fathers," to whom we are sent by the
writers of the Homilies. And in describing the church and
its three notes and marks we are told that this descrip
tion " is agreeable to the scriptures of God and also to the
doctrine of the ancient fathers, so that none may justly
find fault therewith.". . .Primarily, the writers go to "the
manifest doctrine of the scriptures " ; secondarily, to " the
usage of the primitive church, which was most pure and un-
corrupt " ; and then to " the sentences and judgments of the
most ancient, learned, and godly doctors of the church " ;
or, as it is said afterwards, to " the testimonies of the holy
1 Works, part III, p. 339.

8 The Appeal to Antiquity
and ancient leamed fathers and doctors, out of their own
works, and ancient histories ecclesiastical^."
In the same month that Jewel repeated his
challenge at Paul's Cross, the same ground was
taken by another representative churchman. Home,
who was appointed to open the Westminster con
ference of March 1559 (1560) between the Marian
divines and their rivals, prefaced his discourse with
these memorable words, among others :
Forasmuch as we have for our mother the true and
catholic church of Christ, which is grounded upon the doctrine
of the apostles and prophets, and is of Christ the head in all
things governed ; we do reverence her judgment ; we obey
her authority as becometh children ; and we do devoutly
profess, and in all points follow, the faith which is con
tained in the three creeds, that is to say, of the apostles,
of the council of Nice, and of Athanasius. . . .
As for the judgment of the whole controversy, we refer
unto the most holy scriptures, and the catholic church of
Christ, whose judgment unto us ought to be most sacred.
Notwithstanding, by the catholic church we understand
not the Romish church, whereunto our adversaries attribute
such reverence; but that which St Augustine and other
fathers affirm ought to be sought in the holy scriptures,
and which is governed and led by the Spirit of Christ^.
It was at the same time that Archbishop Parker,
with other bishops, put forth a " declaration " which
the parochial clergy were to make before their people.
In it, they stated that they beUeved " whatsoever is
1 The Witness of the Homilies (Church Historical Society pub
lications. No. LXii. 1900), pp. 20, 25, where the references to the
particular passages are given. Cf. Remains of Alexander Knox,
vol. III. p. 44.
2 Cardwell Conferences, p. 55.

The Appeal to Antiquity g
contained in the holy canonical scriptures," and " all
the articles contained in the three creeds"; that
they acknowledged " that church to be the spouse of
Christ, wherein the word of God is truly taught, the
sacraments orderly ministered according to Christ's
institution, and the authority of the keys duly used " ;
that they confessed " that it is not lawful for any man
to take upon him any office or ministry but such
only as are lawfully thereunto called by their high
authorities, according to the ordinances of this
realm " ; that they acknowledged and confessed that
the power challenged by the bishop of Rome "is an
usurped power, contrary to the scriptures and word
of God, and contrary to the example of the primitive
church " ; and that they granted and confessed that
the book of common prayer "is agreeable to the
scriptures, and that it is catholic, apostolic, and most
for the advancing of God's glory ^."
The Canons of 1571, though subscribed by the
bishops of both provinces, were never ratified by
royal authority, and therefore never took legal effect.
Nevertheless they indicate plainly the views of the
church of England at the time, and have therefore
a historical value quite independent of canonical
validity. The canon relating to Concionatores says :
Inprimis vero videbunt, ne quid unquam doceant pro
concione, quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint,
nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinae veteris aut novi testa-
menti, quodque ex iUa ipsa doctrina catholic! patre.s et
veteres episcopi coUegerint^
1 Cardwell Conferences, pp. 263 foil.
2 Cardwell Synodalia, vol. I. p. 126.

IO The Appeal to Antiquity
Unquestionably the main object of this canon
was to keep out what it calls " aniles opiniones et
haereses, et errores pontificios," though incidentally
it glances also at the vice of " novitatis studium."
It is the spirit of Jewel which still breathes in it,
and the same spirit breathed in the rules laid down
by the Privy Council in 1582 for the guidance of the
bishops :
If the papists shall show any ground of scripture, and
wrest it to their sense, let it be showed by the interpretation
of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I. But if
they can show no doctor that agreed with them in their said
opinion before that time, then to conclude that they have no
succession in that doctrine from the time of the apostles and
above four hundred years after (when doctrine and religion
were most pure), for that they can show no predecessor whom
they might succeed in the same.
But obviously the mind which condemned Rome
for innovations upon primitive Catholicism was likely
to condemn innovations in other quarters for the
same reason. A mightier than Jewel showed that
Jewel's sword had two edges. Hooker, whose early
career had been fostered by Jewel, grew up with a
greater attachment to the Anglican principle than
Jewel had ever had. He saw the principle assailed
not only by Rome, but still more formidably, for
the moment, from the opposite quarter. Puritanism
demanded a clean sweep of everything that bore a
resemblance to the practice and worship of the
church in the days before the reformation, and
insisted that nothing should be permitted which had

The Appeal to Antiquity 1 1
not the express sanction of scripture. In the depart
ment of ecclesiastical polity it erected a system which
professed to be wholly derived from scripture, but
was in fact based upon an imaginary exegesis, con
trolled by no historical considerations. Its career,
in the reign of Ehzabeth, was so triumphant that
Hooker felt it not improbable that the state of things
which Cranmer and Parker had established might
"pass away as in a dream i."
Against this system Hooker's whole work is
directed. Only a few sample passages need be
quoted here.
Whereas St Augustine affirmeth that those things which
the whole church of Christ doth hold may well be thought
to be apostolical, although they be not found written ; this
his judgment they utterly condemn. I will not here stand
in defence of St Augustine's opinion,. . .but. . .they who
condemn him herein must needs confess it a very uncertain
thing what the orders of the church were in the apostles'
time, seeing the scriptures do not mention them all, and
other records thereof besides they utterly reject^.
Let the church of Rome be what it will, let them that
axe of it be the people of God and our fathers in the
Christian faith, or let them be otherwise ; hold them for
catholics or hold them for heretics ; it is not a thing either
one way or other in this present question greatly material.
Our conformity with them in such things as have been
proposed is not proved as yet unlawful by all this.
St Augustine hath said, yea and we have allowed his saying,
" that the custom of the people of God and the decrees of
our forefathers are to be kept, touching those things whereof
the scripture hath neither one way nor other given us any
charge*."
1 Eccl. Pol, Preface, i. i. " Book IV. ii. 2. » Book IV. v. 1.

12 The Appeal to Antiquity
We. . .are now, they say,. . .more bound to differ from
them [the church of Rome] in ceremonies than from Turks.
A strange kind of speech unto Christian ears, and such as I
hope they themselves do acknowledge unadvisedly uttered 
Even a very part of them we were. And when God did by
his good Spirit put it into our hearts, first to reform ourselves
(whence grew our separation), and then by all good means
to seek also their reformation ; had we not only cut off
their corruptions, but also estranged ourselves from them
in things indifferent, who seeth not how greatly prejudicial
this might have been to so good a cause, and what occasion
it had given them to think (to their greater obduration in
evil) that through a forward or wanton desire of innovation
we did unconstrainedly those things for which conscience
was pretended '^ ?
The ceremonies which we have taken from such as were
before us are not things that belong to this or that sect,
but they are the ancient rites and customs of the church of
Christ, whereof ourselves being a part, we have the selfsame
interest in them which our fathers before us had, from whom
the same descended unto us^
Was it amiss that [our reformers] . . . went not on till
they had plucked up . . . those things which to abrogate,
without constraint of manifest harm thereby arising, had
been to alter unnecessarily (in their judgment) the ancient
received custom of the whole church, the universal practice
of the people of God, and those very decrees of our fathers
which were not only set down by agreement of general
councils, but had accordingly been put in use and so con
tinued in use till that very time present ? . . .What exception
can there be taken against the judgment of St Augustine,
who saith, " That of things harmless, whatsoever there is
which the whole church doth observe throughout the world,
to argue for any man's immunity from observing the same,
1 Book IV. vn. 6.
"^ Book IV. IX. I. Compare the noble passage in the following
section.

The Appeal to Antiquity 13
it were a point of most insolent madness ? " And surely
odious it must needs have been for one Christian church to
abolish that which all had received and held for the space
of many ages^.
One more quotation from Hooker must be given.
It is probably the best-known of all ; it reveals at
once his sense of close community with other re
formed churches, and the independence conferred
by a historic connexion with the past.
To say that in nothing they may be followed which are
of the church of Rome were violent and extreme. Some
things they do in that they are men, in that they are wise
men and Christian men some things, some things in that
they are men misled and blinded with error. As far as they
follow reason and truth, we fear not to tread the selfsame
steps wherein they have gone, and to be their followers.
Where Rome keepeth that which is ancienter and better,
others whom we much ijiore affect leaving it for newer
and changing it for worse, we had rather follow the perfec
tions of them whom we like not, than in defects resemble
them whom we love^.
The contemporary and friend of Hooker, Richard
Field, in his great book Of the Church, shows every
where the same opinion. Thus for example he
speaks of
those different degrees of obedience, which we must yield
to them that command and teach us in the church of God,
excellently described and set down by Waldensis*. " We
must," saith he, " reverence and respect the authority of
all catholic doctors whose doctrine and writings the church
alloweth : we must more regard the authority of catholic
• Book IV. XIV. 4, 6. " Book V. xxviii. i .
» Thomas Netter of Walden, the great opponent of the Wiclif&tes.

14 The Appeal to Antiquity
bishops : more than these, the authority of the Apostolic
Churches ; amongst them, more specially the church of
Rome : of a general council, more than all these : yet we
must not listen so to the determinations of these, nor so
certainly assent unto them, as to the things contained in
the scripture, or believed by the whole universal church
that hath been ever since the apostles' time, but as to the
instructions of our elders, and fatherly admonitions. We
must," saith he, " obey. . .unless they teach us anything
which the authority of the higher and superior controlleth :
yet so, as then, the humble and obedient children of the
church must not insolently insult upon them from whom
they are forced to dissent, but must dissent with a reverent,
childlike, and respectful shamef acedness ^."
Of the authority of scripture, which he maintains
as supreme. Field yet writes :
The apostles v(T:ote to them that they had formerly
taught more at large; neither can the scriptures be understood
now, but only by such as will be taught by the successors
of the apostles and guides of the church, though, being so
taught, they may assuredly find by the scriptures themselves
that they do understand them aright*.
To the Romanist who made use of Field's assertion
that the supreme authority of interpretation hes in
a general council of Christendom, to show from it
that such a general council was impossible except
for the Roman church. Field replies, with a recog
nition of the Eastern churches which was not un
common among the Elizabethan divines :
The greatest parts of the Christian world have remained
divided from the Roman church for the space of six or
seven hundred years. If the author of these proofs shall
1 Vol. II. p. 404 (E.H.S. ed.). 2 Vol. iv. p. 444, n. i.

The Appeal to Antiquity 15
say, they have all been heretics and schismatics, and that
they have lived and died in state of damnation that have
lived and died in those churches ever since their separa
tion, and that therefore a general council of the Christians
of the West adhering to the pope is absolutely general and
oecumenical, representing the whole universal church, we
detest so unchristian and deviUsh a censure : and therefore
we wiUingly confess that the protestants, being but a part
of the Christian church, cannot have any council absolutely
general, but in a sort only in respect of those of their own
profession. Such a general council of protestants to settle
and compare their differences [a protestant author] wisheth
for, neither doth he ever deny the possibility thereof, . . . but
saith only that, as things now stand, there being no better
correspondence among Christian princes, nor greater desire
of making up the breaches of the Christian church, there
is httle hope of any such general meeting of those of the
reformed religion^.
Field denies that the Roman church of his time
was the same as the Roman church before Luther's
time : The errors that we condemn were taught in the Roman
church that was when Luther began, but they were not the
doctrines of that church ; but these errors are of the doctrines
of the present Roman church. . . . We must observe that the
doctrines in that [ancient Roman] church were of three sorts.
The first, such as were delivered with so full consent of all
that Uved in the same, that whosoever offered to teach
otherwise was rejected as a damnable heretic ; such was the
doctrine of the Trinity  The second, such errors as were
taught by many in the midst of the same church, as
that the pope cannot err, and the like. The third, such
contrary true assertions as were by others opposed against
' Vol. IV. p. 519.

1 6 The Appeal to Antiquity
those errors. The first were absolutely the doctrines of
that church. The third may be said to have been the
doctrines of the church, though all received them not 
The second kind of doctrines were not at aU the doctrines
of the church, because they neither were taught vdth full
consent of all that lived in it, nor by them that were so in
the church and house of God that they were the church
and house of God^, but by such as... were but a faction
in it. Hence it foUoweth. . .that howsoever we have forsaken
the communion of the Roman diocese, yet we have not
departed from the Roman church in the later sense before
expressed, wherein our fathers lived and died, but only
from the faction that was in it. First, because we have
brought in no doctrine then generally and constantly con
demned, nor rejected anything then generally and constantly
consented on. Secondly, because we have done nothing
. . . but removed abuses then disUked, and shaken off the
yoke of tyranny which that church in her best parts did
ever desire to be freed from  Thus then (I hope) it doth
appear that, howsoever I confess that the Latin or West
churches, oppressed with Romish t3rranny, continued the
true churches of God, held a saving profession of heavenly
tmth, turned many to God, and had many saints that died
in their communion, even till the time that Luther began ;
yet I neither dissent from Luther, Calvin, Beza, or any
other protestant of judgment, nor any way acknowledge
the present Romish church to be that tme church of God
whose communion we must embrace, whose directions we
must follow, and in whose judgment we must rest*.
It is perhaps unnecessary to labour the point any
further. The Canons of 1603, citing the Apology of
Jewel, set a kind of seal to this view, when they
say: • Augustine de Bapt. vii. 51. » Vol. iv. pp. 525 foil.

The Appeal to Antiquity 17
The abuse of a thing doth not take away the lawful use
of it. Nay, so far was it from the purpose of the church of
England to forsake and reject the churches of Italy, France,
Spain, Germany, or any such like churches, in aU things which
they held and practised, that, as the Apology of the church
of England confesseth, it doth with reverence retain those
ceremonies which do neither endanger the church of God,
nor offend the minds of sober men, and only departed from
them in those particular points wherein they were fallen
from themselves in their ancient integrity, and from the
apostolical churches which were their first founders^.
It will not be disputed that the church of England
ecame increasingly conscious, from the time of
looker and Field onwards, of holding a position of
:s own, not identical with that of any other church
1 Christendom. The peculiarity consisted first and
jremost in the intention to be governed by catholic
rinciples, of which loyalty to scripture is the first,
nd deference to the practice of the church of the
lathers is the second, while the God-given faculties
of leasonand criticism are freely brought to bear
upon them both. There have been many good men
in the church of England whose place in it might
be called accidental. Their sympathies have been
rather with other systems than with hers, though
they have been content for various reasons to abide
in her communion. It would have been a grievous
loss to her if they had without necessity been con
strained to abandon her. But the distinguishing
character of the church of England has not been in
their contribution to her fulness. It has lain in the
' Canon 30.
M. 2

1 8 The Appeal to Antiquity
confident sense of historical identity with the church of
the early centuries, and not of historical identity only,
but also of religious continuity and oneness of witness.
The attacks of Romanists on the one side and
of Puritans on the other developed the sense of being
entrusted with this special message to the world.
The persecutions of Mary's reign followed by those
of the Commonwealth period were permitted by the
providence of God to have the effect of marking the
church of England out as a thing different from
Rome, in being reformed, and different from Presby
terlanism or the Independents, in being catholic. Yet
no persecutions could extinguish in her the feeling
of kinship with both sides. Holding this central
position, she has been able to provide a home for
men of very varpng convictions, who have felt that
she possessed the secret of liberty, of progressiveness,
of comprehension, along with order, authority, reve
rence, mystery. It was this which drew to her men
like Saravia, Grotius, Casaubon, Vossius and Grabe
from abroad, who found in her communion a peace
which the churches of their native countries could not
offer. It was this which attracted Comenius to
stretch across Germany, Holland, Switzerland and
France, to commit his Unitas Fratrum to the good
offices of the church of England.
Two extracts, and only two out of many, are
here added as examples of the way in which the
great Anglicans of the seventeenth century under
stood the principle laid down by their predecessors
in the sixteenth.

The Appeal to Antiquity 19
The first is the famous preface to Bramhall's
Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon :
No man can justly blame me for honouring my spiritual
mother, the church of England, in whose womb I was con
ceived, at whose breasts I was nourished, and in whose
bosom I hope to die. Bees by the instinct of nature do love
their hives and birds their nests. But God is my witness . . .
my desire hath been to have tmth for my chiefest friend,
and no enemy but error. If I have had any bias, it hath
been desire for peace, which our common Saviour left as
a legacy to his church ; that I might live to see the reunion
of Christendom, for which I shaU always bow the " knees
of my heart " to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is
not impossible but that this desire of unity may have pro
duced some unwilling error of love, but certainly I am
most free from the wilful love of error. In questions of
an inferior nature Christ regards a charitable intention
much more than a right opinion.
Howsoever it be, I submit myself and my poor endea
vours, first, to the judgment of the catholic ecumenical
essential church ; which if some of late days have endea
voured to hiss out of the schools as a fancy, I can not help
it. From the beginning it was not so. And if I should
mistake the right catholic church out of human frailty or
ignorance (which for my part I have no reason in the world
to suspect...), I do implicitly and in the preparation of
my mind submit myself to the tme catholic church, the
spouse of Christ, the mother of the saints, the piUar of tmth.
And seeing my adherence is firmer to the infallible rule of
faith, that is the holy scriptures interpreted by the catholic
church, than to mine own private judgment or opinions ;
although I should unwittingly fall into an error, yet this
cordial submission is an implicit retractation thereof, and I
am confident will be so accepted by the Father of mercies,
both from me and all others who seriously and sincerely
do seek after peace and tmth.

20 The Appeal to Antiquity
Likewise I submit myself to the representative church,
that is, a free general council, or so general as can be pro
cured ; and untU then, to the church of England, wherein
I was baptized, or to a national English synod ; to the
determination of aU which, and each of them respectively,
according to the distinct degrees of their authority, I yield
a conformity and compliance, or at the least, and to the
lowest of them, an acquiescence^.
The second is from Bull's Apology for his Rar-
monia Apostolica. A certain Dr TuUy had attacked
that book for teaching " innovations " upon the
doctrine — the Calvinistic doctrine — which he ima
gined the English church to have received and
approved. In the midst of a noble passage, in
which he vindicates the freedom of^ the English
church from the decisions of the synod of Dort and
other modern dogmas, Bull says :
Every one who is not a mere novice in the history of
our church must know that our reformation was in aU
respects conformed to the example of the ancient church
catholic, that is, so far as it was possible, and the age would
EiUow. Hence the order of bishops was retained in England,
that new form of ecclesiastical government being rejected
which by the advice of Calvin had been established in
neighbouring churches. Hence forms of pubUc prayer,
rites, and ceremonies, all of them most ancient, have been
religiously observed amongst us. Hence certain ancient
doctrines, although greatly at variance with Calvin's tenets
. . . have been fixed and established amongst us : so that
even from the original constitution of our reformed church
her sons may leam how much deference they ought to pay
to the judgment of the ancient catholic church. Hence
too that canon concerning preachers. . .almost in the earliest
^ Works, vol. II. p. 21.

The Appeal to Antiquity 21
times of our reformation, namely in the year 1571, was
sanctioned by the consent of a fuU provincial s5mod, . . .
" And above all, they shaU take care that they preach nothing
. . . except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old
and New Testament and which the catholic fathers and
ancient bishops have collected from that very doctrine."
Hence amongst the rules and directions which, by the
advice of the bishops, the wise King James. . .recommended
to . . . the university of Oxford, . . . the following direction
was inscribed : it is the seventh in order ; " that young
students in divinity be directed to study such books as be
most agreeable in doctrine and discipline to the church of
England, and excited to bestow their times in the fathers,
councils, schoolmen, histories, and controversies and not
to insist too long upon compendiums and abbreviatures,
making them the grounds of their study in divinity...."
Hence the most eminent theologians of our church have
constantly and openly declared that they entirely embraced
the consent of the ancient fathers, and that they would
never admit anything, either in doctrine or ecclesiastical
government, which was contrary to it.
After quoting as examples " the learned Saravia,"
" the great Jewel," " the learned Bilson," " the great
Casaubon," " the learned Montague," " his most
reverend successor in the see of Norwich, Joseph
Hall," " our great Hammond," Bull concludes :
Here then I take my stand... God knows the secrets
of my heart. I am so averse to any itching desire for
innovation in theological doctrines. . .that whatever has been
approved of by the consent of catholic fathers and ancient
bishops, even though my poor inteUect cannot see it, yet
I embrace with all reverence. In tmth, when as a young
man I was writing the Harmony, I learned from no small
experience, which now in more matured age I am most per
suaded of, that no one can oppose catholic consent without

22 The Appeal to Antiquity
his being in the end found to have opposed both the divine
oracles and sound reason, however much some passages in
holy writ, imperfectly understood, may seem for a time
to favour his cause ^.
^ Bull on Justification (1843), part III, pp. 231-235. An interest
ing catena of passages from Anglican writers to the same effect is
given in the Tracts for the Times, No. lxxviii., which is reprinted
at the end of Keble's sermon on Primitive Tradition. The catena
has been criticised by W. Goode in his Divine Rule of Faith and
Practice. Goode's criticisms would be valid against any who used
these authorities as if they favoured the view that tradition is a
coordinate source of Christian doctrine ; but the passages quoted
exempUfy the true ^6oj of Anglican theology from Jewel to Van
Mildert.

CHAPTER II
EPISCOPACY AND THE ELIZABETHANS
Among the catholic principles which have been
dear to the church of England, none has been dearer
to her than the principle of episcopacy. However
charitably her divines have felt and spoken of those
who had no episcopate, it would be absurd to main
tain that she has looked upon the question of ecclesi
astical polity as one of indifference, or even of minor
importance. No other church in Christendom has
devoted so much thought and learning to the subject,
or vindicated so successfully the apostolic origin and
sanctions of the episcopate. The great representative
Anglican divines have felt that her claim to catholicity
was inseparably bound up with the rightful succession
of her bishops.
Perhaps one reason, conscious or unconscious, for
the special veneration in which that order has been
held in the reformed church of England was that so
many men belonging to the order gave life and every
thing else for the cause of the reformation. No
fewer than five English bishops were burned alive
under Mary, — " a glorious crown of bishops," says the
historian Dixon, " the like of which is set upon the

24 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
brow of no other church in Christendom^." Spain
had one confessor-archbishop in the same period,
the Rhine-land had another, but the bishops in
other countries for the most part took a widely
different line.
It will hardly be disputed that it was the hand
of Cranmer which drew up the Preface to the Ordinal
of 1552, which with but slight modification has re
mained a law to the church of England ever since :
It is evident unto all men, diligently reading holy scripture,
and ancient authors, that from the apostles' time there hath
been these orders of Ministers in Christ's church; Bishops,
Priests, and Deacons : which offices were evermore had in such
reverent estimation, that no man, by his own private authority,
might presume to execute any of them, except he were first
called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities
as were requisite for the same ; and also, by public prayer,
with imposition of hands, approved and admitted thereunto.
And thereto, to the intent these orders should be continued,
and reverently used and esteemed in this church of England,
it is requisite that no man (not being at this present Bishop,
Priest, nor Deacon) shaU execute any of them, except he
be called, tried, examined, and admitted according to the
form hereafter following*.
> History of the Church of England, vol. iv. p. 552.
' Cardwell The two Books of Common Prayer, p. 398. Cranmer's
views were set forth in his translation of the catechism of Justus
Jonas in 1548 : " The apostles laid their hands upon [others] and
gave them the Holy Ghost, as they themselves received of Christ
the same Holy Ghost to execute this of&ce. . . And so the ministration
of God's word (which our Lord Jesus Christ himself did first institute)
was derived from the apostles unto others after them by imposition
of hands and giving the Holy Ghost from the apostles' time to our
days. And this shall continue in the church even to the world's

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 25
How seriously the principle here laid down was
taken is shown by the consecration of Archbishop
Parker after the accession of Elizabeth. There is no
need to repeat here the story of that much discussed
event, but the particularity with which the arch
bishop himself records every detail of it testifies to
the solemn importance which it had for him.
The Apology of the Church of England lays it down,
among the truths professed by us, which show that
we have not departed from the ancient faith, that
We beUeve that there is one church of God, and that the
same is not shut up (as in times past among the Jews) into
some one comer or kingdom, but that it is catholic and
universal and dispersed throughout the whole world ; . . . and
that this church is the kingdom, the body, and the spouse
of Christ ; and that Christ alone is the prince of this kingdom ;
that Christ alone is the head of this body ; and that Christ
alone is the bridegroom of this spouse. Furthermore that
there be divers degrees of ministers in the church ; whereof
some be deacons, some priests, some bishops ; to whom is
committed the office to instruct the people, and the whole
charge and setting forth of reUgion  Further, we say that
the minister ought lawfully, duly, and orderly to be preferred
to that office of the church of God, and that no man hath
power to wrest himself into the holy ministry at his own
pleasure and list. Wherefore these persons do us the greater
wrong, which have nothing so common in their mouth, as
that we do nothing orderly and comely, . . . and that we allow
every man to be a priest, to be a teacher, and to be an inter
preter of the scriptures^.
end" (p. 196; ed. Oxford, 1829). On Cranmer's earlier utterance
on the subject see E. C. Harington The Reformers of the Anglican
Church and Mr Macaulay's History of England, ed. 2, 1850.
1 Jewel Works (Parker Society), part III, pp. 59, 60.

26 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
This, to Jewel, is an integral part of the faith ;
and he, like Parker, is jealous for the canonical
regularity with which our bishops are appointed.
He asserts in the Defence of the Apology :
We deny not the consecration of three bishops. We
deny not the confirmation of the metropolitan. We ourselves
are so consecrated, and so confirmed. . . . Our bishops are made
in form and order, as they have been ever, by free election
of the chapter, by consecration of the archbishop and other
three bishops, and by the admission of the prince^.
It fell to John Whitgift to be the first author
to maintain against the rising party of the presby-
terians the assertion of the preface to our ordinal.
This he did in his Answere to the Admonition to
'Parliament (1572), and in his Defense of the Answere
(1574)- It is the general consent of aU the leamed fathers, that
it pertaineth to the office of a bishop to order and elect
ministers of the word. In this, saith Hierome in Epist.
ad Evagrium, " a bishop doth excel all other ministers, in
that the ordering and appointing of ministers doth properly
pertain unto him." And yet these men say " that the right
of ordering ministers doth at no hand appertain to a bishop."
But for the order and manner of making ministers, peruse
the book made for that purpose ; and as I said before so
I say again, if thou hast any judgment, thou canst not but
like it and allow of it^-
Cartwright taunted him with trying to show off
his patristic learning. He retorts :
Show me one father that denieth that which I here affirm :
' Works (Parker Society), III, pp. 330, 334.
2 Ibid. I, p. 437.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 27
if you neither do, nor can, then may my " skill in the fathers
and reading " also be as much (for any thing here to the
contrary) as you think I would have it seem to be^-
The authority of foreign divines was nothing to
Whitgift in comparison with the plain teaching of
the bible :
I know M. Calvin's interpretation upon that place 2, and
likewise what Musculus saith of the same. . . ; but the words
of the text be plain '.
I reverence M. Calvin as a singular man, and worthy
instrument in Christ's church ; but I am not so wholly
addicted unto him, that I will contemn other men's judg
ments that in divers points agree not fully with him, . . . when
as, in my opinion, they come nearer to the tme meaning
and sense. . .than he doth*.
The judgment of antiquity is of paramount value
in his eyes :
There is no man of learning and modesty, which wiU
without manifest proof condemn any order, especially touch
ing the government of the church, that was used and allowed
during the time of the primitive church, which was the next
five hundred years after Christ ; within the which time most
of my authorities are contained. Neither was there any
function or office brought into the church during all that time,
allowed by any general council or credible writer, which was
not most meet for that time, and allowable by the word of
Gods.
Whitgift does not hesitate to imply that it was
a heretical thing to maintain that presbyters might
ordain :
1 Works (Parker Society), I, p. 439. * Tit. i. 5.
' Works (Parker Society), I, p. 435. * Ibid. p. 436.
' Ibid. II, p. 182

28 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
And, because aU men may understand what Epiphanius'
words and reasons be (which indeed pinch you very near,
for he calleth you heretics), I will declare them as I have
there found them. First he setteth down the heresy of
Aerius in these words : " His talk was more outrageous
than becomed a man ; and he said, ' What is a bishop to
a priest ? he nothing differeth from him ; for there is but one
order, and the same honour and dignity. The bishop layeth
on his hands ; and so doth the priest : the bishop ministereth
baptism ; and so doth the priest : the bishop saith divine
service ; and so doth the priest : the bishop sitteth in his
throne; and so doth the priest.' In this he hath deceived
many ; and they use him for their captain." Then doth he
a little after confute this heresy with Aerius' reasons on this
sort : "To say that a bishop and a priest is equal, how can
it be possible ? for the order of bishops is the begetter of
fathers, for it ingendereth fathers to the church : the order
of priests, not being able to beget fathers, doth beget sons
to the church, by the sacrament of baptism, but not fathers
or teachers ; and how is it possible for him to ordain a priest,
not having imposition of hands to elect, or to say that he is
equal with a bishop ? " . . .Thus mayest thou see, good reader,
that it is not for nought that T. C. so storms against Epi
phanius, and unreverently useth him. But I wUl give him
as much cause to deal in like manner with Augustine, who
. . .attributeth this also as heresy to the said Aerius i.
He is conscious that in this matter of the authority
of bishops he is more catholic than Rome is :
This authority, which the bishops and archbishops now
exercise, came first from the apostolical church, then from the
example of the primitive church for the space of five hundred
years after the apostles' time ; thirdly from the councils of
Nice, Antioch, Constantinople, and aU the best and purest
councils that ever were ; and last of aU from the authority
* Works, II, pp. 290 foil.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 29
of the prince, and by tlie consent of this whole church and
realm of England, and therefore not from the pope, who hath
rather diminished it (by taking all to himself) than in any
respect increased it^
These views Whitgift consistently maintained.
When Beza published a somewhat tart reply to the
works of Saravia and Sutcliffe soon to be mentioned,
Whitgift, by that time archbishop, wrote him a letter
of remonstrance, in which, after pointing out the
friendliness with which the reformed church of
England had always regarded the foreign protestants,
he expressed himself thus :
We make no doubt but that the episcopal degree which
we bear is an institution apostolical and divine, and so always
haith been held by a continued course of times from the
apostles to this very age of ours  You may remember,
leamed Sir, the beginnings of that episcopacy, which you
make to be only of human institution, is referred by the
fathers with one mouth to the apostles as the authors thereof,
and that the bishops were appointed as successors to the
apostles, especially in certain points of their functions ;
and what Aaron was to his sons and to the Levites, this
the bishops were to the priests and deacons, and so esteemed
of the fathers to be by divine institutions-
It has been asserted by Macaulay, and too often
repeated after him, even by weU informed writers,
that the Elizabethan divines, at any rate the earlier
ones, " defended episcopacy as innocent, as useful,
as what the state might lawfully establish, as what,
when established by the state, was entitled to the
1 Works, II, p. 407.
2 Strype's Whitgift, vol. ii. p. 170 (Oxford, 1822).

30 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
respect of every citizen," but on no higher ground^,
Whitgift's language already quoted, not to say
Jewel's, is 'sufficient disproof of this assertion ; but
it may be supplemented by that of Matthew Hutton,
who, being then Bishop of Durham, sent to Whitgift
in 1589 an account of a private lecture which he
gave to Burghley and Walsingham on the authority
of bishops among other things. He says that he
took Titus i. 5 for his text :
And albeit that it cannot be denied but that these
names episcopus and presbyter in the New Testament are
often used for one thing . . .yet it is certain that there was
an office in the apostles' time, which Titus and Timothy
did exercise, which was distinct from the office of them
who had only authority to preach and minister the sacra
ments, but not to appoint priests and censure offenders. ..
I alleged last of all that Epiphanius, writing against Aerius,
concludeth it for a heresy to say Idem est episcopus et
presbyter ^.
When he was Archbishop of York, in 1603,
Hutton again sent his opinion to Whitgift in view
of the approaching conference at Hampton Court :
Bishops have their authority not by any custom or
decree of man, but from the apostles themselves, as Epi
phanius proveth plainly against Aerius the heretic. ..And
so it hath continued in the church ever since.
He argues the advantages of episcopacy as
against " presbytery " from a political point of view,
alleging the Aristotehan classification of good and
^ History of England, ch. i.
" Strype's Whitgift, Book iii, Appendix, No. xliv.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 31
evil states ; but there is no doubt that he relied
chiefly upon the scriptural and patristic grounds
for his belief!.
In 1580, William Fulke, who succeeded (with
one between) both Hutton and Whitgift in the
mastership of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge, pub
lished a book against certain Romanist assailants.
Fulke was a very decided protestant ; but his
protestantism did not teach him to adopt the views
of episcopacy which Macaulay and his followers
attribute to the early Elizabethans. He writes :
If the apostleship had ceased before bishops had been
ordained, bishoplike power would have ceased with it ;
but seeing the apostles ordained bishops and elders in every
congregation to continue to the world's end, the bishop's
office hath not ceased, though the office of the apostles
is expired S-
And again :
We doubt not, therefore, but determine with Augustine
. . .to rest in the bosom of that church, which from the
seat of the apostles by consent of mankind hath continued
by succession of bishops and hath obtained the height of
authority, all heretics barking at it*.
The first formal treatise on the orders of the
ministry published in England in Elizabeth's reign
was composed by a foreigner. Hadrian Saravia, a
Dutchman of Spanish extraction, who had settled
1 Strype, ut supra. Book iv, Appendix, No. xliv. For the
opinion of a still earlier reformer, Gilpin, the apostle of the North,
see below, p. io6.
2 Answers (Parker Society), p. 310.
» Ibid. p. 67.

32 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
in the Channel Islands about the year 1560, but
retumed to his native country in 1582 to be a
Divinity Professor at Leyden, attached himself per
manently to the English church in 1587, and was
appointed to an English benefice. In the year 1590
he published his book De Diversis Gradihus Minis
trorum Evangelii, of which an English translation
appeared in 1592. Saravia had become acquainted
with many leading ecclesiastics in England, and
states in the dedicatory letter prefixed to his collected
Tractatus in 1610 that he was impelled to write on
the subject by two deceased Archbishops of Canter
bury, presumably Whitgift and Bancroft. The direct
object of the work, however, was not so much to
combat the English presbyterians, as to persuade his
compatriots in the Low Countries to restore episco
pacy there. An epistle addressed to the brethren
whom he had left, but for whom he still entertained
a warm affection, serves as an introduction to the
book. The Elizabethan translator, after the manner
of his kind, has succeeded in imparting to the work
a raciness which is not always so apparent in the
original. Saravia apologises in his " Epistle Dedicatory "
to Whitgift, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Lord
Burghley, for touching at all upon English affairs :
I could not weU prosecute [my argument] without some
particular mention of the church of England. In the which,
seeing I have now my part and portion of a pastoral province
(and praised be the Lord, my lot is fallen unto me in a fair
ground) , might I not seem unmindful of my good and neglecting

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 33
my duty, if when I undertake the cause of those churches
which are alien and outlandish, I should overslip the state
of mine own church now gremial to me and mere English ?
But when mine heart's desire and prayer to God is that I may
some ways benefit my countrymen, [what] if I forget thee,
0 Jerusalem ? . . . But because I am but new made, of Flemish,
sterling — that is, of outlandish, English, it may be haply
that they which are home-bred will think I deal not well
with them . . . and that I meddle too far, when I come so near.
He wishes that his Dutch brethren could share
his lot, though they had failed him in the struggle
which led to his emigration :
Neither is it enough for me that I am here well provided
for myself ; I wish the Uke unto my brethren. And although
I may justly complain myself to be injuriously forsaken of
you, whom I ought to have found the chief patrons of mine
innocency, yet, notwithstanding, my love and my zeal both
towards the church and also unto youwards is not therefore
either altered or alienated. And how then should I be less
careful for yours and your churches' good than when myself
was in the same ship with you'^ ?
He fears that they will not like his doctrine :
But it is to be feared, lest some wiU be scarcely well
pleased (especiaUy such as be ignorant of the ancient church
government) with this my treatise of the divers degrees of
the ministers of the gospel, and the rather for that I have
noted in their new-come reformation two things not to be
liked of : namely, that the authentic order of bishops is
abrogated, and a novel kind of presbyters intruded s.
He shows that the foreign congregations in
England were used as an argument against the
English church which protected them :
* Epistle to the Ministers of the Low Countrie.s. ^ /j,j(f_
M. 3

34 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
There are here in England a certain number of wicked
men (and I am very sorry for them), who are so far out
of order with that order [of bishops], as if no ecclesiastical
discipline were to be had under them. Amongst whom the
quarrel is grown so far, that now they divorce themselves
from the communion of the English church as papistical and
antichristian, and so betake themselves to their private and
not permitted conventicles. Whom I could do no less than
lightly note in this place, because they seem to patronage
their odious schism and mutinous hugger-mugger by the
precedent presidents of our foreign churches. O God, thou
knowest, and themselves cannot be ignorant, that the first
peregrine churches which were here in England had their
Lord Bishop, Alasco, and these which at this day are under
the protection of the most gracious Elizabeth do acknow
ledge the bishops of those dioceses in the which they are,
and to them they supply. But thanks be unto God, there
are others, who, being somewhat more mild and moderate
in their proceedings, do not altogether estrange themselves
from the assemblies of their churches ; but yet they have
the bishops in emulation also^,
Saravia avows at the outset his conclusion of the
necessity of bishops where they can be had :
For my part (and the best wiU take my part) I hold that
the state of bishops is necessary in the church, and that
[that] discipline is best, and from above, in the which godly
bishops with the not nick-named elders do sit at the helm.
And yet, when I consider with myself the badness of these
times, and the bad condition of some places, in the which it
hath pleased God by the hands of learned and reUgious men
to gather together his dispersed flock out of the captivity
of Babylon, I do not see indeed how the true bishops could
have been restored  But shaU that which was done extra
ordinarily, and partly of necessity, and that but in a certain
1 Epistle to the Ministers of the Low Countries.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 35
few places, and that but in our age only, prescribe a law to
the world besides^ ?
Against the constant and consonant conclusions of the
ancient church we ought not to attempt or admit any
innovation without a plain commission from God's holy
writ : and this also I dare boldly say, that whosoever taketh
away all authority from the fathers, he leaveth none for
himself. Indeed it must be confessed that the fathers were
men, and that they had their vwinkles : yet can it not be
denied that to have our fathers to be our patrons in the
principal points of faith and extern policy of our church
(things controverted between the popelings and us) is a
matter of no smaU moment and of special account. And
albeit the uniform consent of God's children from the apostles'
times unto this day may not be compared with the eternal
word of God, notwithstanding, of right it may come in, and
stand for the second place. The custom of God's people,
received of aU churches throughout the whole world, is in
manner of a law, sacred and inviolable, neither is there any
Ukelihood that there could ever have been an universal
consort of aU churches and ages without either the authority
of God's word or the tradition of the apostles^.
The time hath been when no good men disallowed of
bishops and archbishops ; but now., .it is come to this pass,
that their very names are caUed into question, and that of
diverse men, for diverse causes. Some, because they are
(as they suppose) the devices of antichrist or his forerunners,
think them unworthy the church, and worthy to be cast
overboard. Others, yet more modest, in some reverence
of antiquity, think they may be borne withal for a time
(although in the meantime they allow not of them), until such
time as commodiously the names may be antiquated with the
things themselves. In the meanwhile, for that they know. . .
to what singular effect the church of God hath been governed
by grave and godly bishops, they have not the face to
condemn them openly : yet because they see certain reformed
1 To the Reader, ^ Ihid.
3—2

36 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
churches of this age to be governed without bishops, it is
enough — they have not the power any longer to tolerate the
more ancient governments-
Are you so far in love with your Ufeless Pygmalion, the
work of your own hands ? I know who is not ; and he hath
reason for his why not. For neither is your new draught
of strange government sufficiently proved by the word of
God, neither is it yet, or can at any time, be confirmed by the
example of our elders. And how should it, . . . seeing it was
partly unknown unto them, and partly condemned of them
as a thing heretical and not approved of ? Wherefore, to
speak the plain truth without flattery or partiality, I think
of this new form of church government as some think
of our bishop's regiment, namely, that it is but a device of
man's conceit, and [only] there to be tolerated where a better
cannot be obtained S-
In the body of the treatise, Saravia sets himself
against the view that extraordinary measures were
everywhere necessary for the reformation of the
church :
As for the calling of those whom it hath pleased God to
raise up for the reformation of his church, there be many
which move many questions, and make more to do than they
need : out of the which when they can no ways wind them
selves, at all adventure they cast anchor in this unknown
coast of extraordinary calUng. But unless I be wondrously
deceived, they do but ride in a shallow, and they need not 
How few, I pray you, have they been, whose caUing was
extraordinary. . . ? And what then can the adversary
object in this case against the church of England ? or wherein
can it justly be chaUenged ? May it not defend her calling
ordinary, as may also many other churches in Germany ? . . .
The church may be extraordinarily reformed (if so it be
required) by them which have ordinary authority to reform
' To the Reader. 2 /j,j^

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 37
it  At this day, if the bishops of the French churches would
redeem themselves from the pope's tyranny, and sweep
their churches clean of all error and idolatry, what need should
they have of any other calling than that which they have^ ?
Accounting for the gradual rise of the episcopate,
Saravia points out that some churches were complete
at the apostles' death, others incomplete :
But whatsoever, or of what manner soever they were, they
were all dependent upon the apostles' govemment : when
if no man did succeed with, like authority, it must needs be
that they were all left as widow churches and orphans ;
which is an absurd thing to say. But if we shall say that they
changed that manner of government with the which they were
acquainted under the apostles, how could that possibly be
permitted without the great mischief and misery of all those
churches ? Of these things therefore I infer that there was
left of the apostles authority apostolic to their successors,
whom they had disposed over many churches. . . . And those
parts of apostolic govemment, as they were given of old to
certain singular bishops, so are they to be given at this day
where they are not given, and so are they to remain where
they are given. If any man desire some reformation to be
had in that kind, for my part I am not against it^.
Universality is to Saravia a proof of rightfulness :
That which we read to be done of all churches from the
apostles' times, and of the fathers throughout the compass
of the whole earth, and the same continued even unto these
our days, I do always hold as a sacred canon of the apostles,
not to be repealed. Neither is it a small presumption to
abrogate that which hath been received with so great and
universal consent ; besides that it is in itself an uncouth
declination of a conceit giddy and headstrong, it will also
bring with it a greater mischief and misery to the church, than
many at the first will conceive, or any in the end can relieve '-
» p. 9- ' PP' 54 foil. » p. 55.

38 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
AU the fathers which succeeded the apostles were not of
opinion that the form of govemment they had received of
the apostles should ever have been altered \i.e. was ever
altered].. . .Were it not a point of frontless and ungracious
insolency to deny that our fathers had their bishops and
prelates, even from the apostles' times, and a part of needless
and superfluous diligence to prove a thing so manifest, I
might easily, and would wdlUngly stay upon the citing and
summoning of many more fathers, until we were fully
compassed with a cloud of witnesses. But this is not the
question : but rather it is now doubted whether the ordinance
of bishops be of God or of men, as an order that slipped into
the church, rather of human custom than divine constitution s.
There is nothing more certain than this, that the apostles
ordained nothing in the church, which they received not of
the Lord. But they created bishops (as Titus and Timothy),
wheresoever need was in the church. And indeed had not
the apostles created bishops, as they dispersed themselves
throughout the whole world, how could ever the calUng of
bishops have been so universally approved by so general
an assent of all cities ? But when as many churches were
infinitely distant from others, is it not strange that not any
one church retained that divine kind of government (as it
is thought) which is adored at this day in some reformed
churches ? Doubtless churches so diverse and distant could
not but greatly differ in things indifferent, where there was
no certainty set down by the apostles 2.
This is without question and beyond all exception, that
all the ancient authentic fathers, so many as held the right
faith, were of this belief, that in this only plot they did foUow
the apostolic tradition and divine institutions-
Had not the orthodoctic fathers believed that the order of
bishops was grounded upon the word of God, they would
never have recounted the opinion of Aerius among other
heresies*. ^ pp- 59, 60. 2 p. 60.
' p. 61. *¦ p. 62.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 39
Saravia will not at all yield to the opinion of
St Jerome, on which the new reformers relied so
much : I answer, that it was the private opinion of Jerome,
consenting with Aerius, dissenting from the word of God 
That Jerome saith, how that bishops became greater than
elders of custom rather than of any divine institution, it hath
no semblance of tmth  I say therefore that in the original
of the church there was a time when they had nor elders nor
bishops besides the apostles themselves, the evangelists and
their fellow labourers (as in Crete, for the beginnings of all
were alike). Shall we therefore say that those elders were
set over the church of custom, not of any divine constitution,
because the churches at the first, under the apostles, governed
themselves without elders ? — or that, after they had abused
that their popular kind of governance, that thereupon the
government was committed to the council of elders of
cusiorn^l Albeit I should confess that the first occasion of creating
one bishop over and above the rest of the elders was by
reason of schism, notwithstanding it therefore foUoweth not
that it was done for that cause only, or that it was not done
of any divine institution. But the occasion of creation of
bishops aUeged by Jerome is a conjecture but too uncertain,
and grounded upon no likelihood of reason ; that for the
offence of one church the apostles (contrary to the Lord's
institution) should place one bishop over all the churches
which had not offended, and that throughout the whole
world, this were very hard  Without doubt, methinks,
this was a vain motion, and an idle conceit of Jerome^.
Nothing could be more clearly pronounced than
Saravia's conviction that episcopacy was of divine
origin, and the fact that he dedicates his Defensio
^ pp. 64-63 (paging wrong). '^ Ibid. p. 64.

40 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
Tractationis to men like Bishop Aylmer, Bishop
Cooper, and Bishop Fletcher, along with Archbishop
Whitgift, indicates that he supposed his views to be
in accordance with those of the church of England in
general, not of an extreme party within it.
In the same year as the English translation of
Saravia appeared (1592), Matthew Sutcliffe published
his Treatise of Ecclesiastical Discipline.
The apostles, so long as they lived, ruled the church of
God : they had the same committed to them by the head
shepherd, Christ Jesus. When they were removed, who
succeeded them in the government ? whether the apostles'
successors, or some others come we know not from whence ?
Sure, seeing bishops and ministers that led the church
succeeded the apostles in their charge, as Cyprian and all
antiquity acknowledgeth, it is absurd to attribute the
authority and preeminence to others, that have neither
right of succession nor other just claim of the place 1.
Sutcliffe's was not a great book, and it was much
more occupied with destructive criticism of the
Genevan position than with the elucidation of catho
lic principles. Nevertheless it shows plainly enough
that the ordinary English churchman of the time was
not afraid to maintain the same position as Saravia,
— the divine credentials of episcopacy. He asks what
right these new presbyters have to take up the
authority of the apostles. All antiquity is on the
side of the bishops :
Pastors or ministers of the word and sacraments all the
ancient fathers have divided into bishops, and priests or
elders. Whether bishops and elders be equal by the word
^ Treatise of Eccl. Disc. p. 11.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 41
of God or not, we shaU dispute hereafter. Sufficeth here
that all antiquity hath distinguished bishops from priests.
There can be no instance brought contrary, and therefore
I need not here to prove it^.
Sutcliffe sums up his argument thus :
These conclusions may be inferred :
I. Seeing the fathers with one consent throughout the
world received the constitution of bishops, that it came from
the Spirit of God by the ministry of the apostles : for it is
not the power of man that on a sudden can move men's hearts
generaUy to receive one order established, but the effectual
work of God's Spirit.. . .2. Seeing the holy fathers say it is
a divine institution, the babble of contentious fellows against
such authority weigheth not so much as a pepper grain
against a woolsack. If they were not very venturous, they
would not hazard the reputation of their discipline against
all antiquity. 3. That which ancient general councils,
which this realm do approve, do decree, that it is not by every
light fellow to be reproved ; and rather doth he deserve
stripes than words, that will disallow that which all general
councils have allowed, not being contrariant to the word
of God, which of those councils cannot be presumed.
4. Lastly, in taking upon them the patronage of Aerius
and his opinions, condemned by the holy fathers for heresies,
they discredit their discipline much, in acknowledging that
it is condemned for heresy, and themselves for heretics^.
The publication of these two books drew forth,
as has been already mentioned, a somewhat over
bearing reply from Beza. To him, in 1594, Saravia
answered in the ponderous fashion of the time, para
graph by paragraph, defending Sutcliffe as well as
himself. The Defensio, which is very lengthy, con
tains nothing fresh on the main topic, but it shows
1 p. 27. ^ pp. 49 f-

42 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
Saravia's wide outlook upon the church politics of
the period. He feels, for example, that a willingness
to throw episcopacy over would destroy all hopes of
promoting a catholic reformation abroad. He says
in his prefatory letter to the English bishops :
In meo tractatu . . . quicquid homines cogitent, non tantum
vestras dignitates defendere in animo habebam, sed omnium
ecclesiamm Christi, tam Galliae quam Germaniae episcopis,
et aliis viris doctis et priscae ecclesiae gubernationis non
ignaris, datas offensiones a nostris hominibus pluribus in
locis, si non toUere, saltem minuere, et vulnus (quod nun-
quam sanabunt qui inflixerunt) lenire, et, quantum liceret,
remoras propagationis doctrinae evangelicae amoliri conatus
sum.
In his address to the Reader, he throws an
interesting light upon the relations between the
English church and the protestant churches on the
continent. He says that he accepted office in the
English church for the express purpose of showing
the unity of those churches, which was endangered
by the way in which the foreign protestants abetted
the efforts of the innovators in England. While he
was still in Holland, he says, he took every opportu
nity of requiting the generosity with which the
foreign congregations in England were treated :
Quum igitur viderem optimos quosque non abhorrere
a communione nostramm ecclesiamm, similiter colendam
mihi communionem cum ecclesiis Anglicanis in omnibus locis
ubi vixi semper existimavi : et quandocumque me contigit
in eorum adesse ecclesiis, quando coena Domini celebrabatur,
sacra symbola pacis et unitatis Christianorum una cum eis
percepi. Ita mihi iudicavi esse faciendum : quod turn ipsa

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 43
fides communis, tum quod omnes orthodoxi scriptores, tam
veteres quam recentiores, id doceant, et semper docuerunt.
A communione illius abhorrere ecclesiae, in qua Christus et per
Christum nobis pacta gratia pure docetur, propter diversos
extemos ritus, magnae imbecillitatis iudicii, aut certe fastus
et supercilii Pharisaici certum signum. Sed quod scripto et
exemplo hie in Anglicana ecclesia aedificare volui, D. Beza
responsione sua ad meum tractatum subruit et totum evertit.
Then, after showing the piecemeal fashion in
which the reformation was effected in various
countries, without consultation between the leaders,
Saravia expresses his wish to see a kind of general
council of the reformed churches, in which matters
of this kind might be discussed. The wisdom of the
English reformation would become apparent.
Re hinc inde disputata, quemadmodum in deliberationi-
bus solet accidere, nemo a vicinis dedignetur, quod melius
est et sibi deesse videt, accipere, aut resumere quod mutavit
temere. Non enim credendum est primes plerosque authores
reformationum ecclesiamm potuisse videre omnia, prae-
sertim qui pauci fuere, et in magna rerum perturbatione
et temporum id sunt aggressi. Quapropter ubi aliquid
deesse videmus quod olim fuit in veris Christi ecclesiis,
ferendum potius est quam maledictis insectandum. Quod
me attinet, ego cum omnibus Christi ecclesiis. . .pacem et
communionem retinere cupio. Nee enim propter externos
ritus indifferentes et gubernationis ecclesiasticae diversam
formam, quam forte non tam elegit libera voluntas quam
introduxit temporum dura necessitas, ab ecclesia in qua nulla
docetur impietas . . . secessio est f acienda. Quod si morosuli
quidam aliud sentiunt, fruantur per me proprii sensus
deUciis : molestus eis non ero. Una me consolatur res,
quod nullius novi dogmatis sum author : Vetera, prisca, et
antiqua defendo, observata ab lis quorum nomina nemo
bonus non veneratur et colit. Inter ceteros qui reformarunt

44 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
ecclesias, saepe miratus sum sapientiam eorum, qui AngU
canae ecclesiae restituerunt verum Dei cultum, et ita se at-
temperarunt, ut nusquam decessisse ab antiqua et prisca
ecclesiae consuetudine reprehendi possint ; ea moderatione
usi sint, ut vicinos a reformatione non deterruerint, sed
magis suo exemplo invitaverint : quam si alii fuissent secuti,
minus bellomm civilium haberemus. . . . Sic enim secum recte
cogitabant, se non esse primes Christianos  Et profecto ita
faciendum est omnibus, qui suam innocentiam Deo testatam
et hominibus esse cupiunt.
It is a somewhat curious point that Saravia does
not definitely discuss the question whether the power
of ordination is confined to bishops. He everywhere
assumes that it is so : for example.
Ad episcopos manuum impositionem restringi ab Epi-
phanio factum putat [Beza] ambitione episcoporum, quae
tunc invaluerat contra Dei verbum, cum tamen nullum Dei
verbum citet, et constet ex verbis Pauli ad Timotheum, quem
praemonet ne cui cito manus imponeret, ... id peculiare fuisse
ordinanti ministrum ecclesiae ^-
Ordinatio autem presbyterorum (quam mandatam fuisse
Tito et Timotheo constat) episcopo ita propria semper ubique
fuit, ut illas partes mandasse presbytero, qui episcopus non
esset, nusquam legatur ; et idcirco non tantum a Hieronymo
sed ab omnibus veteribus theologis tanquam episcopi
proprium notatur^.
The year 1593 saw the publication of two im
portant works against the puritan, — that is, the
presbyterian,— propaganda. One was Bancroft's
Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline ; the other
was Bilson's Perpetual Government of Christ's Church.
1 Defensio, p. 212 (ed. 1611). 2 Ibid, p. 224.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 45
Bancroft had maintained the divine institution of
episcopacy, against the asserted divine institution
of presbyterlanism, in a sermon preached in 1589,
though he maintained it in very moderate language.
He is said to have been the first to maintain that
position ; but it is not easy to define the difference
between the view which he expressed in the sermon
and that put forward by Jewel and Whitgift, or that
of the ordinal itself. It is not to be supposed that
the Survey was a withdrawal from the doctrine of
the sermon, but the Survey does not claim a direct
divine sanction for episcopacy. Bancroft was satis
fied with showing that the episcopate was apostolic
in its origin : apostohc to him was the same thing
as divine. As against " parity " indeed, which was
one of the main contentions of presbyterlanism,
Bancroft insisted that the principles of the Old Testa
ment were against it, as well as those of the New.
Even as though they should have cast down their gauntlets
and proclaimed an utter defiance to all the churches that ever
were established in the world for much above three thousand
years : the churches whilst the Law continued ; the churches
in Christ's time ; the churches in his apostles' times ; the
churches throughout aU Christendom for a thousand and five
hundred years : against all the general councils : all the
ancient fathers : and all ecclesiastical histories : against
all the chief reformers of religion in this latter age : against
aU the learned men's judgments before mentioned, and against
• all the reformed churches wheresoever in Christendom that
either have bishops or superintendents. God forgive them
this great sin of pride and presumption^.
* Survey, p. 124.

46 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
Bancroft was thankful to note that Beza had
modified his unfavourable opinion of episcopacy :
But howsoever this course against bishops hath been
carried on hitherto amongst them, God be thanked for some
amendment  And then to end this chapter : — Forasmuch
as God himself appointed an inequality amongst the priests
in the Old Testament . . . forasmuch as by Christ's institution
and in his own time the apostles were superior unto the
seventy disciples : forasmuch as the apostles, when the gospel
began to spread itself, appointed sundry Timothies and Titus
to govern the churches in divers countries and territories :
forasmuch as aU the ecclesiastical histories do record the
superiority of bishops, and do set down the catalogues of many
of them, and which of the apostles and apostolical bishops
and in what cities and countries they succeeded : forasmuch
as all the ancient general councils, and aU the ancient and
godly learned fathers, have aUowed of bishops and of their
superiority over the rest of the clergy : forasmuch as bishops
have been accounted generally throughout the world to be
the apostles' successors, and have continued in the church
ever since the apostles' tunes : forasmuch as there was never
any one of the ancient fathers, nor any learned man for
1500 years but Aerius the heretic, that ever held that there
ought to be no difference betwixt a bishop and a priest
(I mean an ordinary minister of the word) : and that his
opinion was imputed unto him 1200 years since by Epiphanius
and St Augustine for an heresy: forasmuch as all the chief of
the learned men that were the principal instruments under
God in this latter age for the restitution of the gospel aUowed
fully of bishops and of their authority, and would most
wiUingly have submitted themselves to their obedience, if they
might have been received vrith any tolerable conditions . . .
I see no reason why this anabaptistical dream of equality
among pastors should not be sent back to the place from
whence it issued^- 1 Survey, pp. 141 foil.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 47
Bilson's book, though controversial, was a more
serious investigation of the questions at issue than
Bancroft's. Like his, it traced the divine principle
of a hierarchy back into the Old Testament. Like
his, it was contented to show that episcopacy was
apostolic in origin and catholic in history.
But were the word of God in this point indifferent, which
for aught I yet see is very resolute against them, the general
consent of all antiquity. . .is to me a strong rampire against
all these new devices. I like not to raise up that discipline
from the dead^, which hath lien so long buried in silence,
which no father ever witnessed, no councU ever favoured,
no church ever foUowed since the apostles' time till this our
age. I can be forward in things that be good, but not so
foolish as to think the church of Christ never knew what
belonged to the government of herself till now of late, and
that the Son of God hath been spoiled of half his kingdom
by his own servants and citizens for these 1500 years without
remorse or remembrance of any man that so great wrong
was offered him. I can yield to much for quietness sake ;
to this I cannot yield ^.
The other four points of the apostolic delegation, which
must have their permanence and perpetuity in the church
of Christ, are the dispensing the word, administering the
sacraments, imposing of hands, and guiding the keys to shut
or open the kingdom of heaven. The first two, by reason
they be the ordinary means and instruments by which the
Spirit of God worketh each man's salvation, must be general
to all pastors and presbyters of Christ's church : the other
two, by which men are called to the ministry of the word,
and obstinate persons. . . repelled from the society of saints. . .
respect rather the cleansing and governing of Christ's church,
and therefore no cause they should be committed to the
power of every presbyter*.
1 Bilson is allowing for the sake of argument that it once existed ,
2 Perpetual Government, p. 10 (ed. 1842). ^ Ihid, p. 12.

48 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
What more pregnant probation can be required, than
that the same power and precepts which Paul gave to
Timothy, when he had the charge of Ephesus, remained in
all the churches throughout the world, to certain special
and tried persons authorised by the apostles themselves,
and from them derived to their after-comers by a general
and perpetual succession in every church and city, without
conference to enlarge it, or councU to decree it ; the con
tinuing whereof for three descents the apostles saw with their
eyes, confirmed with their hands, and Saint John, amongst
others, witnessed with his pen, as an order of ruling the
church approved by the express voice of the Son of God^?
When the original proceeded from the apostles' mouth, and
was observed in all the famous places and churches of
Christendom, where the apostles taught, and whiles they Uved,
can any man doubt whether that course of governing the
church were apostolic ? For my part, I confess, I am
neither so wise as to over-reach it with policy, nor so wayward
as to withstand it with obstinacy^.
Bilson speaks very clearly of grace accompanying
the act of ordination (he is arguing against the lay-
elders of Calvin's system : the argument might prove
less efficacious against ordination by the other sort
of elders) :
To create ministers by imposing hands is to give them,
not only power and leave to preach the word and dispense
the sacraments, but also the grace of the Holy Ghost to make
them able to execute both parts of their function. This can
none give but they that first received the same. They must
have this power and grace themselves, that will bestow it
on others. Laymen, which have it not, can by no means
give it, and consequently not impose hands, which is the
* This argument rests upon the identification of the " angels " of
the seven churcheis of Asia with their bishops.
2 Perpetual Government, p. 14.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 49
sign and seal of both. Yea, what if to give power to preach
and baptize be more than to preach and baptize ? even as
lawfully to authorize another to do anything is more than
to do it ourselves  They can have no part of the apostolic
commission, that have no show of apostolic succession^.
The apostles both in teaching and governing the churches,
when they were present, had helpers ; when they were absent,
had substitutes ; after their final departures or deaths, left
successors  Whiles they remained in or near the places
where they planted churches, there was no such need of
bishops, the apostles always supplying the wants of those
churches with their presence, letters, or messengers, as the
cause required. But when they were finally to forgo those
parts, then began they to provide for the necessity and secu
rity of the churches, and left such fit men as they had, with
episcopal power, to guide the churches which they had
founded.. . .The best stories \i,e, histories] and writers of the
primitive church do make them bishops, and Ukewise Paul's
precepts to them the very patterns of episcopal charge and
duty. Timothy, saith Eusebius, is by the stories reported _
to be the first that took the bishopric of Ephesus, as Tite
also did of the churches in Crete^.
The things proper to bishops, which might not be common
to presbyters, were singularity in succeeding, and superiority
in ordaining. These two the scriptures and fathers reserve
only to bishops : they never communicate them unto
presbyters. In every church and city there might be many
presbyters, there could be but one chief to govern the rest :
the presbyters for need might impose hands on penitents
and infants, but by no means might they ordain bishops or
ministers of the word and sacraments. Neither are these
trifling differences, as devised by me. The external unity
and perpetuity of the church depend wholly on these. As
to avoid schisms bishops were first appointed, so to maintain
the churches in unity, the singularity of one pastor over each
1 Perpetual Government, pp. i6o, 162.
2 Ihid. pp. 277, 296, 302.
M. 4

50 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
flock is commended in the scriptures. And as bishops
preserve the unity of each church, in that there may be but
one in a place, so they continue the same unto perennity, by
ordaining such as shall both help them living, and succeed
them dying ^.
With regard to the divine authority of the episco
pate, Bilson represents his opponents as urging thus :
If we should grant you that a difference was observed
in the primitive church betwixt the presbyters and bishops,
as well for ordination as succession, yet that difference grew
only by the custom and use of the church, and not by any
divine precept or ordinance. And so much is affirmed both
by St Austin and St Jerome in those very places which you
allege : for the church, as they say, and not Christ or his
apostles, placed bishops in the seats and rooms of the
apostles *-
His answer is :
When St Austin and St Jerome do say that the church
createth and placeth bishops in the apostles' seats, they do
not mean, as you misconstrue their words, that the church
both altered the form of the apostolic government which
she received, and of herself devised another kind of regiment
by bishops ; that were to charge the church of Christ vrith a
voluntary defection from the apostles' discipline, and an
arrogant preferring of her own invention before God's
ordinance. With which though some in our times can be
content to challenge the whole church of Christ, and even the
apostles' coadjutors and scholars, yet Augustine and Jerome
were far from that humour. Their meaning is that albeit
the apostles be departed this life, who were worthUy accounted
fathers, because they were called immediately by Christ himself
to convert and congregate his church, yet the church is not
destitute, for so much as she hath power from God to create
* Perpetual Government, p. 316. ^ Ibid. p. 356.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 51
and appoint other of her chUdren in their places, which are
bishops. " Think not thyself forsaken," saith Austin to the
church, " because thou seest not Peter and Paul, by whom
thou wast begotten : of thine own offspring a fatherhood
is grown unto thee. Instead of the fathers, children are born
unto thee ; thou shalt make them rulers over the whole
earth ^." He saith not the bishops are strangers or intruders
on the apostles' possession ; but, they are lawful children
and rightly placed in their fathers' rooms, whose heirs and
successors they are, though their vocation be not immediate
from God, as the apostles' was^.
He discusses the teaching of Aerius, and says that
St Austin concurred in judgment vrith Epiphanius and Philastrius,
and repeUed that assertion of Aerius as repugnant to the
doctrine and use of the whole church. And that confirmeth
Epiphanius' opinion touching Aerius' positions, which were
not Christian and catholic, as some men in our days begin
to maintain, but rather arrogant and erroneous '-
Pressed by the catholic argument, the opponents
admitted that by divine law there must be one chief
pastor in each church. Bilson urges them accord
ingly : Tell me now, I pray you, what difference betvrixt chief
pastors established in every city by God's law, as you are
forced to grant, and bishops succeeding the apostles in their
churches and chairs, as the fathers affirm. If you mislike
the word "bishop," it is catholic and apostolic; if you mislike
the office, it is God's ordinance by your own assertion  You
frame churches to your fancies, and then you straightway
think the scriptures do answer your devices. If we give
bishops anything which the ancient and catholic church of
' Enarr, in Ps. xliv.
2 Perpetual Government, p. 356. ' Ibid. p. 359.
4—2

52 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
Christ did not first give them, in God's name spare us not ;
let the world know it. But if we prefer the universal judg
ment of the primitive church in expounding the scriptures
touching the power and function of bishops before your
particular and late dreams, you must not blame us. They
were nearer the apostles' times and likelier to understand the
apostles' meanings than you, that come after fifteen hundred
years vrith a new plot of church government never heard
of before. All the churches of Christ throughout the world
could not at one time join in one and the self same kind of
government, had it not been delivered and settled by the
apostles and their scholars that converted the world. So
many thousand martyrs and saints that lived with the
apostles would never consent to alter the apostles' discipUne,
which was once received in the church, without the apostles'
warrant. Wherefore we construe the apostles' writings by
their doings ; you measure the scriptures after your own
heresies. Whether of us twain is most likely to hit the truth * ?
It seems worth while to dwell at some length
upon the testimony of this remarkable book — remark
able for its confident and uncompromising assertion
of catholic principle in days so little favourable to
the assertion, — even if it were only to serve as a
contrast to the very cautious language of Bilson's
contemporary. Hooker. The first four books of the
Ecclesiastical Polity were published in 1594, the year
after Bilson's and Bancroft's books above mentioned.
They do not contain any full discussion of episcopacy :
chat was reserved for a later part of the work ; but
the subject is touched incidentally. Of the presby
terian system — at least of its claim to be scriptural —
Hooker thought as poorly as Bilson or Bancroft.
* Perpetual Government, pp. 367, 368.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 53
Our persuasion is that no age ever had knowledge of it
but only ours ; that they which defend it devised it ; that
neither Christ nor his apostles at any time taught it, but the
contrary. If therefore we did seek to maintain that which
most advantageth our ovwi cause, the very best way for us,
and the strongest against them, were to hold, even as they
do, that in scripture there must needs be found some par
ticular form of church polity which God hath instituted,
and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches,
to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect
ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the
truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing
which we neither like nor mean to foUow^.
He had no hesitation in thinking that episcopacy
was in the closest accordance with scripture, but
was only sorry for those who are without it :
For mine own part, although I see that certain reformed
churches, the Scottish especiaUy and the French, have not
that which best agreeth \vith the sacred scripture, I mean
the government that is by bishops, inasmuch as both those
churches are fallen under a different kind of regiment ;
which to remedy it is for the one altogether too late, and too
soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble :
this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in
such case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes
vrithout any fault of their own may be driven to want
\i,e. to lack] that kind of polity or regiment which is best,
and to content themselves with that which either the irre
mediable error of former times or the necessity of the present
hath cast upon them*-
The parity upon which his opponents laid such
stress seemed to him absurd :
1 Book III. X. 8. " Book III. xi. i6.

54 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
The first thing in polity required is a difference of persons,
without which those functions [the public religious duties
of the church] cannot in orderly sort be executed. Hereupon
we hold that God's clergy are a state which hath been and
vriU be, as long as there is a church upon earth, necessary
by the plain word of God himself ; a state whereunto the
rest of God's people must be subject as touching things that
appertain to their soul's health. . . Again, forasmuch as where
the clergy are any great multitude, order doth necessarily
require that by degrees they be distinguished, we hold there
have ever been and ever ought to be in such case at leastwise
two sorts of ecclesiastical persons, the one subordinate unto
the other ; as to the apostles in the beginning, and to the
bishops always since, we find plainly, both in scripture and
in all ecclesiastical records, other ministers of the word and
sacraments have been. Moreover, it cannot enter into any
man's conceit to think it lawful that every man which listeth
should take upon him charge in the church : and therefore
a solemn admittance is of such necessity, that without it
there can be no church polity^.
In this large way Hooker lays out the ground for
his exposition of the system of the church. It is a
calamity that we are no longer sure how he ex
pounded it in detail. Only with reserve can the
seventh book be quoted as an expression of the views
of Hooker 2.
The uncertainty is all the more tantalizing because
in this book Hooker — if the words are really his —
discloses more of the process by which his mind had
been formed than is usual with him. All doubt of
the divine origin of episcopacy is over :
1 Book III. XI. 20.
^ See Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. ; or Paget's Intro
duction to the Fifth Book, p. 262.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 55
A thousand five hundred years and upward the -church
of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of
bishops. Neither, for so long, hath Christianity been ever
planted in any kingdom throughout the world but with this
kind of government alone : which to have been ordained of
God, I am for my own part even as resolutely persuaded,
as that any other kind of government in the world whatso
ever is of God^.
How the institution arose is a question which
Hooker at one time would have answered otherwise
than as he does now :
Now although \i.e. even if] we should leave the general
received persuasion held from the first beginning, that the
apostles themselves left bishops invested with power above
other pastors : — although, I say, we should give over this
opinion, and embrace that other conjecture, which so many
have thought good to foUow, and which myself did sometime
judge a great deal more probable than now I do — merely
[? namely] that after the apostles were deceased, churches
did agree amongst themselves, for preservation of peace and
order, to make one presbyter in each city chief over the rest ;
. . this order, taken by the church itself (for so let us suppose
that the apostles did neither by word nor deed appoint it)
were notvrithstanding more warrantable than that it should
give place and be abrogated because the ministry of the gospel
and the functions thereof ought to be from heaven^.
Hooker will not admit that there is any difference
between the bishops of ancient days and ours : "to
be a bishop is now the selfsame thing which it hath
been " ; " those things whereby they essentially differ
from other pastors " are as " appliable " to them now
as they ever were^. He shrewdly observes that the
1 Book VII. I. 4. '^ Book VII. xi. 8. « Book VII. ii. i.

56 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
ofiice was probably in existence for some time before
it was called by its present title ; " generally things
are ancienter than the names whereby they are
calledi." A bishop is a minister of God, unto whom with permanent
continuance there is given, not only power of administering
the word and sacraments, which power other presbyters have,
but also a further power to ordain ecclesiastical persons, and
a power of chiefty in government over presbyters as weU as
laymen — a power to be by way of jurisdiction a pastor even
to pastors themselves. So that... those things incident to
his office, which do properly make him a bishop, cannot
be common unto him with other pastors^.
The first bishops. Hooker affirms, were the
apostles. Some of them even settled down to local
supervision, like John in Asia, James at Jerusalem.
" In process of time the apostles gave episcopal
authority, and that to continue always with them
which had it." Linus at Rome, Polycarp at Smyrna,
Evodius at Antioch, were " their lawful successors,"
and so " all others who have it after them in orderly
sort^." " Nor was this order peculiar unto some few
churches, but the whole world universally became
subject thereunto : insomuch as they did not account
it to be a church which was not subject unto a
bishop'*." The apostles, in beginning this order, were
assuredly moved by the " divine instigation and
direction of the Holy Ghost," as St Paul was when
he employed Timothy in episcopal affairs.

1 Book VII. II. 2. » Book VII. ii. 3.
3 Book VII. IV. * Book VII. v. 2

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 57
Wherefore let us not fear to be herein bold and peremp
tory, that, if anything in the church's government, surely
the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even
of God ; the Holy Ghost was the author of it^.
When it comes to defining the peculiar powers
of a bishop. Hooker will not admit that confirmation
is peculiar to the bishop ; but ordination is :
The power of ordaining both deacons and presbyters, —
the power to give the power of order unto others, — this . . .
hath been always peculiar unto bishops. It hath not been
heard of that inferior presbyters were ever authorized to
ordain  There are which hold that between a bishop and
a presbyter, touching power of order, there is no difference.
The reason of which conceit is, for that they see presbyters no
less than bishops authorized to offer up the prayers of the
church, to preach the gospel, to baptize, to administer the
holy eucharist ; but they considered not withal, as they
should, that the presbyter's authority to do these things is
derived from the bishop which doth ordain him thereunto,
so that even in those things which are common unto both,
yet the power of the one is, as it were, a certain light borrowed
from the other's lamp^.
It is objected that presbyters are directed by a
council of Carthage to join in the imposition of
hands :
With us even at this day. Hooker answers, presbyters
are licensed to do as much as that council speaketh of, if
any be present. Yet vrill not any man thereby conclude
that in this church others than bishops are allowed to ordain.
The association of presbyters is no sufficient proof that the
power of ordination is in them ; but rather, that it never was
in them we may hereby understand, for that no man is able
1 Book VII. V. 10. 2 Book VII. vi. 3.

58 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
to show either deacon or presbyter ordained by presbyters
only, and his ordination accounted lawful in any ancient
part of the church : everywhere examples being found both
of deacons and of presbyters ordained by bishops alone
oftentimes, neither ever in that respect thought insufficient ^
Like others before him. Hooker is obliged to
consider the position of Aerius. He does not acquit
him of heresy :
Are we to think Aerius had wrong in being judged an
heretic for holding this opinion ? Surely if heresy be an
error falsely fathered upon scriptures, but indeed repugnant
to the truth of the word of God, and by the consent of the
universal church, in the councils or in her contrary uniform
practice throughout the whole world, declared to be such ;
and the opinion of Aerius in this point be a plain error of that
nature ; there is no remedy but Aerius, so schismatically and
stiffly maintaining it, must even stand where Epiphanius and
Augustine have placed him  His fault in condemning the
order of the church, his not submitting himself unto that
order, the schism which he caused in the church about it,
who can excuse ^ ?
And yet it is to be observed that, in spite of the
institution of episcopacy being apostolic and " by
divine instinct," Hooker thought, as an abstract
thesis, that it was not beyond the power of the
catholic church to change it :
The whole body of the church hath power to alter, with
general consent and upon necessary occasions, even the posi
tive laws of the apostles, if there be no command to the con
trary and it manifestly appears to her that change of times
have clearly taken away the very reasons of God's first insti
tution  Bishops, albeit they may avouch vrith conformity
1 Book VII. VI. 5. 2 Book VII. ix. 2, 4.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 59
of truth that their authority hath thus descended even
from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and ever
lasting continuance of it they cannot say that any command
ment of the Lord doth enjoin, and therefore must acknow
ledge that the church hath power by universal consent
upon urgent cause to take it away, if thereunto she be con
strained through the proud, t5rrannical, and unreformable
dealings of her bishops, whose regiment she hath thus long
deUghted in^-
Hooker went farther than this. He was prepared
to admit that there were circumstances which justi
fied, or compelled, even local churches to act without
bishops. Whereas hereupon some do infer that no ordination can
stand but only such as is made by bishops which have had
their ordination likevrise by other bishops before them, till we
come to the very apostles of Christ themselves, ... to this
we answer that there may be sometimes very just and suffi
cient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop.
The whole church visible being the true original subject of
aU power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than
bishops alone to ordain : howbeit as the ordinary course
is ordinarily in all things to be observed, so it may be in
some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary
ways^.
He holds that there are two ways in which men
may be "extraordinarily, yet allowably" admitted to
spiritual functions in the church. The first is where
God, independently of the church, calls an agent
whom he needs for his work, but ratifies the calling
"by manifest signs and tokens himself from heaven."
He gives no example of this class.
1 Book VII. v. 8. 2 Book VII. xiv. ii.

6o Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
Another extraordinary kind of vocation is when the
exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual ways
of the church, which otherwise we would vrillingty keep :
where the church must needs have some ordained, and neither
hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain ; in case of
such necessity the ordinary institution of God hath given
oftentimes, and may give, place. And therefore we are not
simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power
from the apostles by continued succession of bishops in every
effectual ordination. These cases of inevitable necessity
excepted, none may ordain but only bishops : by the imposi
tion of their hands it is that the church giveth power of order,
both unto presbyters and deacons^.
It is very noticeable that Hooker carefully avoids
saying that in such extraordinary cases presbyters
have a right to ordain. Doubtless if it had been
necessary to answer the question he would have said
that, failing bishops, they were the obvious persons
to do it. But he prefers to give no rule for extra
ordinary cases : necessity, in his view, has no laws.
He does not hold with the theory that presbyters are
of one and the same order as bishops. Rightly or
wrongly, he gives a different interpretation of the
text of Jerome upon which that theory is founded.
That nothing but ecclesiastical custom hinders pres
byters from ordaining is a thesis to which Hooker
gives no countenance.
In this. Hooker differs widely from Field. Field
was, indeed, no latitudinarian. No man could ex
press more forcibly the necessity of a lawfully
appointed ministry in the cathohc church :
' Book VII. xiv. II.

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 6i
The notes... that are inseparable, perpetual, and abso
lutely proper and pecuUar, which perpetually distinguish
the true catholic church from all other societies of men and
professions of religions in the world, are three : — first, the
entire profession of those supernatural verities which God
hath revealed in Christ his Son ; secondly, the use of such
hoty ceremonies and sacraments as he hath instituted and
appointed. . .to separate his own from strangers; thirdly,
an union or connexion of men in this profession and use
of these sacraments, under lawfiU pastors and guides, ap
pointed, authorized, and sanctified, to direct and lead them in
the happy ways of eternal salvation. . . . They are inseparable,
they are proper, and they are essential, and such things as
give being to the church ^-
But Field made himself the spokesman of the
Hieron5miian theory of episcopacy. No first-rate
English church divine has so thoroughly identified
himself with the opinion that the orders are not two,
but one. He returns to the subject again and again.
Quotations from so diffuse an author require prun
ing ; but nothing essential to Field's line of argument
is omitted in the sentences that follow.
But [the Romanists] wUl say, whatsoever may be thought
of these places wherein bishops did ordain, yet in many others
none but presbyters did impose hands ; all which ordinations
are clearly void : and so, by consequent, many of the pretended
reformed churches, as namely those of France and others, have
no ministry at all. The next thing therefore to be exam
ined is, whether the power of ordination be so essentiaUy
annexed to the order of bishops that none but bishops may
in any case ordain. .. .The power of holy or ecclesiastical
order is nothing else but that power which is speciaUy given
to men sanctified and set apart from others to perform certain
1 Of the Church, vol. i. p. 63 (E.H.S. ed.).

62 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
sacred supernatural and eminent actions, which others of
another rank may not at all, or not ordinarUy, meddle with :
as, to preach the word, administer the sacraments, and the
like... Now because the unity and peace of each particular
church of God. . .dependeth on the unity of the pastor,. . .
therefore, though they be many presbyters, . . . yet there is
one amongst the rest, that is speciaUy pastor of the place,
who for distinction sake is named a bishop; to whom an
eminent and peerless power is given, . . . and the rest are but
assistants and coadjutors, and named by the general name of
presbyters. So that . . . when he is present and vriU do [the
acts of ecclesiastical ministr}'] himself, they must give place ;
and in his absence . . . they may do nothing without his consent
and Uking. Yea, so far for order sake is he preferred before
the rest, that some things are specially reserved to him only,
as the ordaining of such as should assist him in the work of
his ministry, . . . and such like.
Thus It wiU easily appear. . .that the power of ecclesiastical
or sacred order. . .is equal and the same in aU those whom
we call presbyters, . . . and that only for order sake and the
preservation of peace there is a limitation of the use and
exercise of the same. Hereunto agree all the best learned
amongst the Romanists themselves, freely confessing that that
wherein a bishop excelleth a presbyter is not a distinct and
higher order, or power of order, but a kind of dignity and office
or employment only  Hence it foUoweth that many things
which in some cases presbyters may lawfully do are peculiarly
reserved unto bishops  Presbyters in some places and at
some times did impose hands and confirm such as were
baptized  And who knoweth not that aU presbyters in cases
of necessity may absolve and reconcile penitents? . . .And why
not, by the same reason, ordain presbyters and deacons in
cases of like necessity ? ... To bishops ordinaiUy the care of
all churches is committed, and to them, in aU reason, the

Episcopacy and the Elizabethans 63
ordination of such as must serve in the church pertaineth, . . .
as long as they retain their standing. ... If they become
enemies to God and tme reUgion, in case of such necessity,
as the care and government of the church is devolved to the
presbyters remaining catholic and being of a better spirit,
so the duty of ordaining such as are to assist or succeed them
in the work of the ministry pertains to them likevrise. . . . Who
then dare condemn all those worthy ministers of God that
were ordained by presbyters in sundry churches of the world,
at such times as bishops in those parts where they lived
opposed themselves against the tmth of God and persecuted
such as professed it ^ ?
Again, towards the close of the book, Field repeats
his contention :
Ordination is the setting of men apart to the work of the
ministry, the commending of them with fasting and prayer
to the grace of God, and the authorizing of them to perform
things pertaining to God, which others without such sanctifi-
cation neither may nor can do  The councU of Carthage
provideth that in the ordination of a presbyter, the bishop
holding his hand on his head and blessing him, all the
presbyters that are present shall hold their hands by the
hands of the bishop.. . .So that other ministers are to concur
in the ordination ... as well as the bishop, being equal to him
in the power of order and ministry and his assistants in the
work of it ; yet hath the bishop a great preeminence above
them in the imposition of hands ; for regularly no number
of presbyters imposing hands can make a minister without
the bishop. The reason whereof is. . .not because the power
of order which is given in ordination is less in them than in
bishops. So that bishops alone have the power of ordination,
and no man may regularly do it without them. Whereupon
ordinarily, and according to the strictness of the old canons,
all ordinations made otherwise are pronounced void : as we
^ Vol. I. pp. 318-323. The same arguments are repeated in
vol. III. pp. 215 foil.

64 Episcopacy and the Elizabethans
read of one CoUuthus, whose ordinations were therefore
voided, because he took on him to ordain, being no bishop,
but a presbyter only^. But seeing bishops and presbyters
Y- are in the power of order the same ; cis when the bishops
of a whole church or country fall from the faith, or consent
to them that do so, the care of the church is devolved
to the presbyters remaining catholic ; and as in the case of
necessity they may do all other things regularly reserved to
bishops only ; ... so in case of general defect of the bishops
of a whole country refusing to ordain any but such as shaU
consent to their heresies, when there appeareth no hope of
V remedy from other parts of the church, the presbyters may
choose out one among themselves to be chief, and so add
other to their numbers by the imposition of his and their
hands 2.
There is truth and justice in Field's argument
that in the ancient church the distinction between
validity and canonicity was not fully established,
and that many things were then treated as null and
void which would now be considered valid though
irregular. All that may be alleged out of the fathers for proof of the
contrary may be reduced to two heads. For first, whereas
they make all such ordinations void as are made by pres
byters, it is to be understood according to the strictness of
the canons in use in their time, and not absolutely in the
nature of the thing ; which appears in that they Ukewise
make all ordinations sine titulo void ; all ordinations of
bishops ordained by fewer than three bishops with the metro
politan ; aU ordinations of presbyters by bishops out of their
own churches without special leave  Secondly, their sayings
are to be understood regularly ; not without exception of
some special cases that may fall out^.
1 In Athanasius' Apology. 2 Vol. iv. pp. 148-151.
' Vol. I. p. 324. Cp. vol. III. p. 218.

CHAPTER III
UNDER JAMES I AND CHARLES I
In the year 1608 George Downham, afterwards
Bishop of Derry, preached a sermon on episcopacy
which led to further study of the subject. A Defence
of the sermon appeared in 161 1 ; and both sermon
and Defence are referred to with great respect by
all subsequent writers of that and the following age.
The result is thus stated in the Defence :
Though in respect of the first institution there is small
difference between an apostolical and divine ordinance,
because what was ordained by the apostles proceeded from
God (in which sense and no other I do hold the episcopal
function to be a divine ordinance, — I mean in respect of the
first institution), yet, in respect of perpetuity, difference by
some is made between those things which be divini and those
which be apostolici juris ; the former, in their understanding,
being perpetually, generaUy, and immutably necessary ; the
latter not so. So that the meaning of my defence plainly
is that the episcopal government hath this commendation
above other forms of ecclesiastical govemment, that in
respect of the first institution it is a divine ordinance ; but
that it should be such a divine ordinance as should be gene
rally, perpetuaUy, immutably, necessarily observed, so as no
other form of government may in no case be admitted, I
did not take upon me to maintain^.
' Defence of Sermon, 1. 4, cap. 6, p. 139 (quoted by Stillingfleet
Irenicum, p. 415).
M. 5

66 Under James I and Charles I
Two great names in English theology connect the
Elizabethan days with those of Charles I ; they are
the names of Andrewes and Overall.
Andrewes, by five years the elder of the two, had
preached the Convocation sermon in 1593, the year
in which Bilson's Perpetual Government was published.
He was then a chaplain of Whitgift's. Andrewes is
quite clear that a belief in the divine sanctions of
episcopacy was not the private opinion of a few
Anglicans, but the doctrine of the church itself. He
tells the Romanist :
Our church doth hold, there is a distinction between
bishop and priest, and that de jure divind^.
He bears the same testimony in his correspondence
with Pierre Du Moulin, the French protestant divine.
Du Moulin complained that King James had objected
to three assertions in his Vocation des Pasteurs,
{a) that the name of bishop and presbyter are used
in the New Testament indiscriminately, (&) that
presbyters and bishops are one order, (c) that the
preeminence of the bishop is not of divine right. He
felt it all the harder that he should have been cen
sured, because he had given offence to his brethren
at home by maintaining that the institution of
bishops over the presbyters had begun immediately
after the apostles' time, and was a good thing in itself.
Andrewes replies, perhaps rather severely, that
all English churchmen agreed with the king :
Regis hie animus, animus itidem (ut par est) noster est
omnium.
1 Answer to Perron {Minor Works, p. 29, Anglo-Cath. Libr.).

Under James I and Charles f 67
The first of Du Moulin's assertions Andrewes
allows. Of the second he says :
Proximum est de Ordine. Ubi vide, quaeso, an idem
ordo dicendus sit, cujus eadem non sint munia. Non esse
autem eadem munia, vel qui minus aequi hie sunt fatentur,
dum ordinationem semper excipiunt. Dein an unus idem-
que dicendus sit, ubi non sit una eademque sed nova et
diversa manuum impositio : manus enim episcopis impositas
in omni antiquitate nemo, opinor, inficias iverit.
It was argued by some that the use of the word
" consecration " in making bishops, instead of " ordi
nation," showed that a separate order is not con
templated. Andrewes has no difficulty in proving
that the word " ordain " is frequently used by the
fathers in speaking of the making of bishops. Then
he proceeds :
Atqui nos apostolomm et Ixxii discipulomm scimus duos
ordines fuisse eosque distinctos. Et id quoque scimus,
passim apud patres haberi ad eorum exemplum episcopos
et presbyteros. Apostolis successisse episcopos, septua-
ginta duobus presbyteros. Duos hos ordines in duobus
iUis a Domino constitutes 
Hinc aditus nobis patefit ad ultimum, an hie ordo de
jure divino. Laetus autem lubens legi magnam apud te
semper fore antiquitatis auctoritatem. Amo te de verbo
hoc. Nee erit in minimis laudum tuarum, si dictis facta
responderint. Ego quidem sic sensi, sic semper affectus
fui.
He then pours out a heap of historical proofs that
the apostles appointed the first bishops in their life
time, and adds :
Spero, quod apostoli fecerunt, divino jure fecisse ; neque
negari posse eorum facta (de quibus quidem constat), non
5—2

68 Under James I and Charles I
dicta solum vel scripta, divini juris fuisse. Nee quae
scripsit [Paulus] ad Corinthios modo, sed et cetera iUa quae
Corinthum veniens disposuit (si de iis nobis Uqueret) pari
jure fuisse, divino scilicet et haec et ilia, a Spiritu Divino
utraque.
But Andrewes carefully adds the caution, that
episcopacy, after all, is not an article of faith, but of
order : Nee tamen, quia divini juris sunt, ideo fidei capita di-
cenda sunt. Ad agenda ecclesiae spectant haec ; ad cre-
denda autem aut capita fidei non nisi improprie revocantur^.
In A summary view of ihe Government both of the
Old and New Testament whereby the Episcopal Govern
ment of Christ's Church is vindicated, Andrewes put
together, and tabulated, after his manner, a number
of facts which led up to this conclusion :
Last of all, that the churches thus planted and watered
might so continue, the apostles ordained overseers to have
a general care over the churches instead of themselves who
first had the same.. . .Upon these was transferred the chief
part of the apostolic function, the oversight of the church ;
and power of commanding, correcting, and ordaining.
The occasion which caused the apostles to appoint
bishops [besides the pattern in the time of the Law] seemeth
to have been schisms, ... for which St Cj^rian, St Jerome,
and all the fathers take the respect to one governor to be
an especial remedy*.
He adds :
The very same power this day remaineth in the church,
and shall to the world's end.
^ Opuscula, pp. 178 foil.
* Minor Works (ed. 1846), p. 355.

Under James I and Charles I 69
After speaking of the helpers of the apostles, who
journeyed with them, " and supplied their absence in
divers churches when they themselves were occasioned
to depart," Andrewes observes :
To two of these, Timothy and Titus, the one at Ephesus,
the other at Crete, the apostles imparted their own com
mission while they yet lived, even the chief authority they
had: to appoint priests
to ordain them by imposition of hands. . .
And these after the apostles deceased succeeded them
in their charge of govemment which was ordinary, succes
sive, and perpetual (their extraordinary gifts of miracles
and tongues ceasing with them) . . .
These were they whom posterity caUed bishops : but
in the beginning regard was not had to distinction of names ;
the authority and power was ever distinct, the nsime not
restrained, either in this or other.
At the end of the notes, Andrewes says of the
bishop :
Upon him lieth
to take care of the churches under him . . .
To him was committed
Authority of ordaining. . .and so begetting fathers. . .
for though St Paul should mention a company with him
at the ordaining of Timothy, yet it foUoweth not but that
he only was the ordainer ; no more than that Christ is
the only judge, although the twelve shaU sit vrith him on
thrones^-
Yet, with all his insistence upon the divine right
of bishops, Andrewes was not prepared to make
episcopacy absolutely indispensable. To Du Moulin
he writes : 1 Minor Works (ed. 1846), p. 361.

70 Under James I and Charles I
Quaeris tum peccentne in jus divinum ecclesiae vestrae.
Non dixi. Id tantum dixi, abesse ab ecclesiis vestris aliquid
quod de jure divino sit ; culpa autem vestra non abesse,
sed injuria temporum. Non enim tam propitios habuisse
reges Galliam vestram, in ecclesia reformanda, quam habuit
Britannia nostra ; interim, ubi dabit meliora Deus, et hoc
quoque quod jam abest per Dei gratiam suppletum iri. At
interea episcopi nomen, quod tam saepe in sacris est, abo-
lendum non fuisse. Quanquam quid attinet abolere nomen,
retinere rem ? Nam et vos rem retinetis sine titulo ; et
iUorum uterque quos nominabas^, dum vixemnt, quid erant
nisi abolito nomine re ipsa episcopi*?
The evidence of facts was too strong the other
way :
Nee tamen si nostra [forma] divini juris sit, inde sequitur
vel quod sine ea salus non sit, vel quod stare non possit
ecclesia. Caecus sit qui non videat stantes sine ea ecclesias.
Ferreus sit qui salutem eis neget. Nos non sumus iUi ferrei ;
latum inter ista discrimen ponimus. Potest abesse aliquid
quod divini juris sit (in exteriore quidem regimine) ut tamen
substet salus. . . . Non est hoc damnare rem, melius iUi
aliquid anteponere. Non est hoc damnare vestram eccle-
siam, ad formam aliam, quae toti antiquitati magis placuit,
i.e. ad nostram revocare^.
Upon the question of communion with such
defective churches Andrewes does not enter.
A very important action in which Andrewes took
part leaves us somewhat uncertain as to his own
explanation of it. This was the consecration of the
Scottish bishops in 1610. One of them, Spotswood
or Spottiswood, who had then long borne the title of
Archbishop of Glasgow, has left his own brief but
' Calvin and Beza. ^ Opuscula, p. 211. » Ihid. p. 191.

Under James I and Charles I y\
clear account of what took place. King James sum
moned him and two other titular bishops to London,
and informed them that he had with great difficulty
recovered the bishoprics with their status and endow
ments, but since he could not make them bishops, nor could
they assume that honour to themselves, and that in Scotland
there was not a sufficient number to enter charge by consecra
tion^, he had called them to England, that being consecrated
themselves they might give ordination to those at home, and
so the adversaries' mouths might be stopped, who said that he
did take upon him to create bishops and bestow spiritual
offices, which he never did nor would he presume to do,
acknowledging that authority to belong to Christ alone and
those he [Christ] had authorised with his power.
Spotswood professed his willingness to comply,
and that of his brethren, but said that in Scotland
it might be interpreted as a sort of subjection to the
church of England. James answered that he had
provided against that by keeping the English arch
bishops out of the business, and appointing only the
Bishops 'of London (Abbot), Ely (Andrewes), and
Bath (Montague), to consecrate them^.
The narrative continues :
A question in the meantime was moved by Dr Andrewes,
Bishop of Ely, touching the consecration of the Scottish
bishops, who, as he said, " must first be ordained presbyters,
1 This seems to imply that there were still one or two bishops,
but not the canonical number. So far as 1 know there were none.
" As a matter of fact the consecrators were Abbot, Andrewes,
Neile of Rochester, and Parry of Worcester. They acted under
licence from Archbishop Bancroft.

72 Under James I and Charles I
as having received no ordination from a bishop." The
Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Bancroft, who was by, main
tained, " that thereof there was no necessity, seeing where
bishops could not be had, the ordination given by the
presbyters must be esteemed lawful ; otherwise that it might
be doubted if there were any lawful vocation in most of the
reformed churches." This applauded to by the other bishops,
Ely acquiesced, and at the day and in the place appointed
the three Scottish bishops were consecrated^.
This seems a simple and straightforward account ;
and there is nothing in it which does violence to what
we know of the opinions of Bancroft or of Andrewes.
Heylin, however, in his Aerius Redivivus, gives a
different version of what Bancroft said. He says
that the archbishop argued
that there was no such necessity of receiving the order
of priesthood, but that episcopal consecration might be given
without it*.
Heylin's connexion with Laud, and Laud's with
Andrewes, give some value to his testimony. There
is no reason why the same man should not have
used both arguments ascribed to Bancroft,* or why
Andrewes should have been compelled to choose
between them. It has been asserted that Andrewes
did not hold with consecrations per saltum, and must
therefore have assented to the validity of the presby
terian orders. It would be interesting to learn where
Andrewes' opinion on consecrations per saltum is to be
found. We know that he did not reject presbyterian
1 Spotswood's History of the Church of Scotland, book vii. (p. 514,
ed. 1668)." Aerius Redivivus, p. 387.

Under James I and Charles I 73
orders as wholly invalid where others were not to be
had. He may well have felt that consecration to
the episcopate might cover any deficiency in them.
The one thing certain in the matter is that he would
have preferred to ordain Spotswood and his com
panions priests before consecrating them, and that
he would not have considered such a proceeding to
be a sacrilegious reordination. Doubtless the know
ledge that this was his view had influence when next
the question came up for consideration, and in the
Scottish consecrations of 1661 the precedent of 1610
was set aside and the two candidates who had received
only presbyterian orders were ordained priests before
being made bishops.
Overall's Convocation' Booh is assigned by Cosin
to the year 1606, when the author was Prolocutor of
the lower house of the Canterbury Convocation. It
possesses no authority, but some part of it, at any
rate, was accepted by the Convocations of both
provinces as expressing the mind of the English
church. Overall goes beyond Andrewes, indeed per
haps beyond any other theologian, in implying that
not only the three orders are to be traced to divine
inspiration, but the whole hierarchy. His great
thesis is that the government of " God's catholic
church " and that of " the kingdoms of the whole
world " are parallel to each other, under one Head,
namely Christ.
In respect of Christ our Redeemer, aU that believe in his
name, wheresoever they are dispersed, are but one catholic
church. . . . Our Saviour Christ having made the external

74 Under James I and Charles I
government of his cathoUc church suitable to the govern
ment of his universal monarchy over aU the world, hath
by the institution of the Holy Ghost ordered to be placed
in every kingdom . . . archbishops, bishops, and inferior
ministers, to govern the particular churches therein planted ;
priests or ministers in every particular parish, and over
them bishops vrithin their several dioceses, as likewise arch
bishops to have the inspection and charge over aU the rest,
according to the platform ordained in substance by him
self in the Old Testament^.
Others before Overall had maintained that the
hierarchical principle established under the Levitical
law was continued under the New Covenant, but none
perhaps had pressed it so far.
We do verily think that if our Saviour Christ or his
apostles had meant to have erected in the churches amongst
the GentUes any other form of ecclesiastical government than
God himself had set up amongst the Jews, they would have
done it assuredly in very solemn manner, that aU the world
might have taken public notice of it  But in that they
weU knew how the form of the old ecclesiastical government
in substance was stiU to continue. . .amongst Christians, as
soon as they should become for number sufficient bodies
and ample churches to receive the same ; . . . they did in the
meanwhile, and as the time did serve them, attempt the
erecting of it in such sort and by such fit and convenient
degrees as by direction of the Holy Ghost they held it most
expedient, . . . tiU such time as the work was in effect accom
plished*.
Overall traverses the usual ground in describing
how the apostles were drawn
to provide for a succession in their ministry, of fit persons
sufficiently authorized by them to undertake that charge,
1 Convocation Book, p. 205 (Oxford, 1844). 1 Ihid. p. 132.

Under James I and Charles I 75
and as weU to yield some further assistance unto them
whUst they themselves lived, as afterwards ; also, both
to continue the same in their own persons unto their lives'
end ; and in like manner to ordain by the authority of the
apostles given unto them other ministers to succeed them
selves ; that so the said apostolical authority, being derived
in that sort from one to another, there might never be any
want of pastors and teachers. . .unto the end of the world^.
If the apostles did not communicate to others
the " three essential parts " of the ministry, viz.
power to preach, to administer the sacraments, and
authority of government (wherein must be degrees,
some to direct, and some to be directed), then these
essential parts
died aU with them, which were a very vricked and idle
conceit, the apostles having power to communicate them
all alike, as by their proceedings will appear*.
The apostles used special legates, like Timothy
and Titus :
and these were the persons who were afterwards, when they
were tied to the oversight of divers particular churches or
congregations, termed bishops^-
" A second degree of ministers " were ordained
for local work ;
only they wanted power and authority of ordination to
make ministers, and of the apostolical keys to excommuni-
cate*-
These two prerogatives the apostles kept in their
own hands. They were near enough to the various
churches to administer them in person or through
1 Convocation Book, p. 133. ^ Ibid. p. 134.
' Ibid. p. 135. * Ibid. p. 136.

76 Under James I and Charles I .
their legates. In those days there was no need of
any other bishops besides the apostles ; but in pro
cess of time
they did commit their said two prerogatives, containing
in them all episcopal power and authority, unto such of
their said coadjutors as upon sufficient trial of their abUities
and diUgence they knew to be meet men  Of this
authority of ordination and government given to bishops
by the holy apostle St Paul, he himself hath left to all
posterity most clear and evident testimonies, where writing
to two of his said bishops, Timothy and Titus, he describeth
very particularly the essential parts of their duties and
episcopal office^.
Nor was this only a temporary arrangement :
It is most apparent by the testimonies of all antiquity,
fathers, and ecclesiastical histories, that all the churches in
Christendom that were planted by the apostles and by such
their coadjutors. . .did think. . .that the same order and form
of ecclesiastical govemment should continue in the church
for ever. And therefore upon the death of any of them,
either apostles or bishops, they, the said churches, did
always supply their places vrith others the most worthy
and eminent persons amongst them ; who, with the Uke
power and authority that their predecessors had, did ever
succeed them  It savoureth assuredty, we know not of
what faction, indiscretion, or affection, for any man either
to think that form of government to be unfit for our times
that was held neceissary for the apostles' times, or that
order. . .should be necessary to build the church, but unfit
to preserve it  For aught we can find, there can no one
nation or country be named since the apostles' days, neither
in times of persecution nor since, but, when it first received
the faith of Christ, it had thereupon both bishops and arch-
1 Convocation Book, pp. 138 foil. (Oxford, 1844).

Under James I and Charles I 77
bishops placed in it for the government of the churches that
were there planted^.
Coming to the subject of ordination. Overall says :
The primitive churches presently after the apostles'
times, finding in the New Testament no one person to have
been ordained a priest or minister of the gospel, mediately
by men, but either by imposition of the apostles' hands,
or of their hands to whom they gave authority on that behalf,
. . . and knovring that the church of Christ should never be left
destitute of priests and bishops for the work of the ministry ;
they durst not presume upon their own heads to devise a
new form of making ministers, nor to commit that authority
unto any other, after their own fancies, but held it their
bounden duty to leave the same where they found it, viz.
in the hands of Timothy and Titus, and consequently of
other bishops their successors  None of the primitive
churches or ancient fathers did ever so much as once dream
that the authority given. . .to. . .bishops, as weU for the
ordering of priests as for the further order and government
of the church, did determine by the death of the apostles; . . .
and ever since, till very lately, it was held by them altogether
unlawful for any to ordain a priest or minister of the word,
except he were himself a bishop ; and no one approved
example for the space of above fifteen hundred years
can be observed, for aught we find, to the contrary. It is
tme that one CoUuthus, being himself but a priest, would
needs take upon him to make priests ; . . . and that the like
was attempted by one Maximus, supposing himself to have
been a bishop, where he was indeed but a priest  Howbeit
such their ordinations were accounted void and utterly con
demned as unlawful ; they themselves not escaping such
just reproof as so great a novelty and presumption did
deserve. We acknowledge that for the great dignity of the
action of ordination it was decreed. . .that priests should
1 Convocation Book, pp. 147 foil.

78 Under James I and Charles I
lay their hands, with the bishop, upon him that was to be
made priest ; but they had not thereby any power of ordina
tion, but only did it to testify their consent thereunto, and
Ukewise to concur in the blessing of him ; neither might
they ever in that sort impose their hands upon any without
their bishops ^-
To this rule Overall apparently knows no excep
tion. He does not indeed discuss in this work the
validity of foreign protestant orders, but the animus
seems unfavourable to them. His " canon " is as
sweeping in this as in other things :
If any man shall affirm. . .that when the ancient fathers
did collect out of the scriptures and practice of the apostles
the continuance for ever of that form of church-government
which was then in use, they were not so thoroughly Ulumi-
nated with the Holy Ghost as divers men of late have been ;
... or that any since the apostles' times, till of late daj's,
was ever held to be a lawful minister of the word and sacra
ments, who was not ordained priest or minister by the
imposition of the hands of some bishop ; or that it is with
any probability to be imagined that all the churches of
Christ and ancient fathers from the beginning would ever have
held it for an apostolical rule that none but bishops had any
authority to make priests, had they not thought and judged
that the same authority had been derived unto them, the
said bishops, from the same apostolical ordination that it
was committed unto Timothy and Titus, their predecessors ;
... he doth greatly err *.
Yet there is evidence to show that this was not
Overall's real opinion, when it came to practical
pohtics. Birch, in his Life of Tillotson, gives this
interesting information :
^ Convocation Book, p. 150.
" Ibid. pp. 155 foil.

Under James I and Charles I 79
I have now before me a long letter of [Bishop Overall's]
secretary Mr John Cosin, afterwards Bishop of Durham,
containing many curious particulars relating both to Antonio
de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, and Bishop Overall ;
of whom I shall mention one fact... of which Mr Cosin
himself was witness. Dr De Laune, who translated the
English liturgy into French, being collated to a living and
coming to the bishop, then at Norwich, with his presenta
tion, his lordship asked him where he had his orders. He
answered that he was ordained by the presbytery at Leyden.
The bishop upon this advised him to take the opinion of
counsel, whether by the laws of England he was capable
of a benefice without being ordained by a bishop. The
doctor replied that he thought his lordship would be un
wiUing to reordain him, if his counsel should say that he was
not otherwise capable of the living by law. The bishop
rejoined, " Reordination we must not admit, no more than re-
baptization : but in case you find it doubtful, whether you
be a priest capable to receive a benefice among us or no,
I wiU do the same office for you, if you desire it, that I should
do for one who doubts of his baptism, when all things belong
ing essentially unto it have not been duly observed in the
administration of it, according to the rule in the book of
Common Prayer, // thou beest pot already etc. Yet for
mine own part, if you vrill adventure the orders that you have,
I will admit your presentation, and give you institution
unto the living howsoever."
But the title which this presentation had from the patron
proving not good, there were no farther proceedings in it ;
yet afterwards Dr De Laune was admitted into another
benefice without any new ordination^.
1 Birch Life of Tillotson, pp. 170 foil. Birch (or Cosin) does not
say whether the other benefice was also in Overall's diocese. I have
been unable to discover anything more about De Laune. He was,
no doubt, related to William De Laune, physician and divine, who
died in 1610 (see Diet, of Nat, Biogr,), Cosin would not be inclined

8o Under James I and Charles I
Overall seems to have felt that others might take
a more strict view of these matters than he did. He
wrote to Grotius in 1617 :
I believe there are few things in your book which will
not be approved of by the Bishop of Ely [Andrewes] and the
rest of our more learned divines : unless, perhaps, they may
hesitate respecting those passages which seem to give to lay
powers a definitive judgment in matters of faith, to deny the
true power and jurisdiction of pastors of the church, and to
rank episcopacy among unnecessary things. For our divines
hold that right of definitive judgment in matters of faith is
to be given to synods of bishops and other learned ministers
of the church, chosen and convened for this purpose, accord
ing to the usage of the ancient church, who shall determine
from the holy scriptures, explained by the consent of the
ancient church, not by the private spirit of neoterics*.
Curiously bound up with Overall in this matter
was a distinguished scholar who began his career
under the patronage of Archbishop Abbot — a man
generally considered to belong to a very different
school from that of Overall.
Mason was the first of the line of writers who
have made the validity of Anglican orders a subject
of scientific study. The first edition of his book
Of the Consecration of the Bishops in the Church of
England was printed in 1613, with a dedication to
Archbishop Abbot, who had encouraged him in the
undertaking. In the course of this dedication,
to minimise the compliance shown by Overall. The inaccuracy of
his statement about Whittingham in the same context is shown by
Birch from Burnet on p. 172.
^ Epistolae praestantium- et erudilorum Virorum, p. 486. The
translation is that of Bishop Jebb (Sermons, p, 396).

Under James I and Charles I 8i
Mason, after speaking of the holy ministry of the
word and sacraments as being like the rivers of
Paradise, " which holy function, flowing from Christ,
as from the fountain, to his blessed apostles, was by
them derived to posterity," goes on to say that it
was by the special providence of God that this
iliinistry was preserved amidst the darkness of popery,
" including a ghostly ministerial power to forgive
sins " by means of the word and the sacraments.
Then Mason points to the great difference between
the course of the reformation abroad and its course
here : For whereas in other countries the bishops, which should
be stars and angels of the church, did resist the reformation
and persecuted such as sought it, it pleased God that in
England, among other bishops. Archbishop Cranmer, the
chiefest prelate of the kingdom, was God's chiefest instru
ment to restore the gospel, which afterwards he sealed with
his blood. The event whereof was that, whereas other
reformed churches were constrained by necessity to admit
extraordinary fathers, that is, to receive ordination from
presbyters, which are but inferior ministers, rather than to
suffer the fabric of the Lord Jesus to be dissolved, the church
of England had always bishops to confer sacred orders,
according to the ordinary and most warrantable custom of
the church of Christ. And although in Queen Mary's time
five blessed bishops were burned to ashes, yet God reserved
to himself a number, which ... in the happy reign of Queen
Elizabeth returned again . . . and with holy imposition of
hands ordained bishops, presbyters, and deacons in the
church of England^.
' Mason's Vindication of the Church of England (ed. 1728),
pp. xlvii foil.
M. 6

82 Under Jaines I and Charles I
These ordinations had been slandered by " re
proachful papists," who said that our ministers are
merely laymen ; and
some popish recusants have been so confident that they
have professed that, if we could justify our calling, they
would come to our churches, and be of our religion. The
consideration whereof (Most Reverend Father) gave me
occasion to wade into this controversy, being desirous, next
the assurance of my own salvation as I am a Christian, to be
fuUy and clearly assured of my calling as I am a minister 
It is verily to be hoped that all such [as made scruple to
enter our orders, because of the Roman calumnies against
them] shaU receive singiUar comfort, when they see our
calling justified, not only in itself as the tme ministry of
the gospel, but also in regard of the derivation to us by
such bishops and in such manner as is most correspondent
to the sacred scripture and the practice of primitive antiquity^-
The book takes the form of a dialogue between
Orthodox, an Anglican priest, and Philodox, a Roman.
The definition of a bishop as given by Orthodox is
this: A bishop in the ecclesiastical sense hath three properties.
For first, he receiveth his episcopal power by imposition of
the hands of bishops. Secondly, for the execution thereof
he is confined to a certain place. And thirdly that, having
a singular and supereminent authority over the other minis
ters of the church, he should govem his church, by ordaining
ministers, and exercising the censures of binding and loos
ing*.
Orthodox makes no difficulty of caUing ordination
a sacrament :
^ Vindication of the Church of England, p. xlviii.
2 Ibid, p. 28.

Under James I and Charles I 83
If the word sacrament be extended to every external
sign instituted of God, whereto is annexed a promise of grace,
then we wiU grant vrith St Augustine and others that holy
orders may be called a sacrament ; but if it be taken
strictly for. . .a sign of justifying grace annexed to the pro
mise of forgiveness of sins, in this sense there are but two
sacraments of the New Testament  The grace given in
ordination is of another nature, respecting not so much the
good of the receiver, as that of the flock for whose sake he
receiveth it. For the ministers of the Gospel are the salt
of the Lord to season others, candles to shine unto others,
and the pipes and conduits to convey unto others the wells
of water springing up into everlasting life^.
The gifts of priesthood come by succession :
The priesthood which the apostles conferred was only
a spiritual power to minister the word and sacraments, which
being conveyed to posterity successively by ordination is
indeed found at this day in some sort in the church of Rome,
... in regard whereof you may be said to succeed the apostles,
and Cranmer you, and we Cranmer ; and consequently we
also in this succeed the apostles as well as you*.
The character conferred by ordination is in
delible :
If by an indelible character be meant only an ever
lasting gi^ of God, or a certain spiritual power never to be
reiterated, then we may safely confess that in baptism and
holy orders there is imprinted an indelible character 
If a priest lawfully ordained should become a schismatic
or heretic, . . . and afterwards be reclaimed, he is not to be
re-ordained ; but if the church shaU need his labours, and
hold it convenient that he execute the ministerial function,
she may allow him to perform it by virtue of his orders
formerly received, which still remain entire and indelible.
1 Vindication of the Church of England, p. 38 ; cp. p. 169.
2 Ibid, p. 46.

84 Under Janies I and Charles I
So much for a priest. Now to transfer our speech from a
priest to a bishop ; shaU his iniquity hinder him from giving
tme orders ? No, verily ; for there is the same reason of
both. There is so ; for as Christ our Lord is the chief
baptizer, so he is also the chief ordainer, for it is he that
giveth pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the church^.
Mason has an instructive passage about the
episcopal succession in England before the reforma
tion : Phil. Was not Cranmer the father and progenitor of
your church and reUgion, from whom all your ordinations
are derived ?
Orth, Of our religion ? No, Philodox, by no means,
nor any other but God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
For Christ himself is the author of our orders, from whom the
power of ordaining others, flovring as from a pure fountain
first to the apostles, next, from the apostles, ran down to
the bishops as its conduit-pipes ; who at first being golden,
and afterwards silver, at length, as the metal was debased
and corrupted, became in some measure leaden. The
orders therefore, which at first were clear as crystal, . , .
became thick and muddy, and so came down to Cranmer 
But under Edward VI the form of ordination was purged
and strained off from the dregs of popery which it had con
tracted : . . . whence it happily came to pass that Cranmer
afterwards conferred more pure orders, and Jef t the ordinal
so reformed to his successors. Wherefore, if we speak with
respect either to the successions of the ordainers or the more
pure form of ordination, I own we derive our ordinations
from Cranmer. . . .
Phil. Now advance to the second step, and answer me,
whether those who ordained Cranmer were not bishops of
the Roman church ?
Orth. Of the Roman ? No, but of the English church*.
^ Vindication of the Church of England, p. 153.
* Ibid. pp. 165 foil. ; cp. pp. 168, 173, 344, 565.

Under James I and Charles I 85
Mason is quite clear that only bishops are em
powered to ordain :
'Tis plain from the scriptures that there ought to be
ministers in the church, even till the perfecting of the saints.
Secondly, those sacred writings do clearly point out to
us three degrees of ministers, to vrit, deacons, priests, and
bishops. Thirdly, the functions and offices of all these are
distinctly and clearly enough explained in the scripture.
Fourthly, St Paul teaches us that these ministers are not to
be ordained by any or every body, but only by the Tituses
or Timothies, that is to say, by bishops ; for though there
were many priests both in the church of Crete and Ephesus,
yet he did not allow them the power of ordaining, but sent
Titus to Crete and Timothy to Ephesus for this very cause.
Fifthly, 'tis most certain that these orders are conferred by
the la}dng on of hands^.
No one could rate more highly the bishop's
spiritual jurisdiction. " The immediate fountain
thereof," Mason says, " is God himself." Philodox
asks when and how, if that be so, it is derived from
Christ to our bishops. Orthodox replies :
As they are made bishops, so have they their jurisdic
tion. And they are made bishops by consecration. There
fore when they are consecrated, they receive their jurisdiction.
For the party to be consecrated is presented to the archbishop
by two bishops in these words : " Most reverend father in
God, we present unto you this godly and well leamed man
to be ordained and consecrated bishop." In which form
the word bishop is taken in the usual ecclesiastical sense,
to signify a Timothy or a Titus, a star or an angel of the
church. And soon after, the archbishop with the other
bishops present layeth on hands, sajdng, " Receive the Holy
Ghost," that is, such ghostly and spiritual power or grace of
^ Vindication of the Church of England, p. 192.

86 Under James I and Charles T
the Holy Spirit as is requisite to this end, to advance a
presbyter to the office of a bishop. So that in these words
here is given to the new bishop whatsoe^^er belongeth to the
episcopal office, as the prayers going before this laying on of
hands ... do manifestly declare. Wherein we make humble
petition to almighty God for his blessing and grace, that he
may duly execute the office of a bishop, faithfully serve
therein, and minister episcopal discipline. You see here,
the church of England confers not only the ministerial func
tion in general, but in particular the ministration of discipline
also, that is to say, the power of jurisdiction, by the means
of consecration^-
With regard to the ordination of priests Mason
teaches that the empowering to remit sins contains
everything :
The third point which you require me to prove (to wit,
that these words, " Receive the Holy Ghost ; whose sins
thou dost forgive, they are forgiven," etc., do make a com
plete ordination of a priest) is thus made out. First, it is
agreed that these words do confer a ministerial power of
forgiving sins. But this power makes a complete ordination
of a priest. For that is said to be a complete ordination
of a priest, which comprehends the whole function of a
priest. .. .What other functions can there be peculiar to
a priest besides the preaching of the word and the due ad
ministration of the sacraments ? And both these are
included in this ministerial power of forgiving sins. . . .
Whomsoever therefore Christ hath entmsted with the power
of forgiving sins, the same hath he honoured and vested
vrith the authority to minister the word and sacraments.
Whence it appears that those words do comprehend the
whole and complete ordination of a priest, though implicitly
and covertly*. 1 Vindication of the Church of England, p. 368.
• Ibid. p. 570.

Under James I and Charles I 87
He argues forcibly that the articles sent by Queen
Mary to Bonner show that in her days ordination
according to the Edwardian ordinal was not treated
as wholly null :
Here you see Queen Mary's bishops did not ordain our
ministers anew, but only supplied what they thought wanting
in them  This construction which I put upon that
article is fair and friendly, as it reconciles the papists in
Queen Mary's time vrith BeUarmine, and at the same time
acquits them of the foul charge of reordination^.
All this is mixed with a good deal that must have
puzzled the Bishop of Paris, to whom Mason dedi
cated the Latin edition of his book ; but it is enough
to show that Archbishop Abbot, Mason's patron, was
able to bear with fairly strong doctrine on the
apostolical succession.
Several years before his Vindication against the
papists was printed, Mason had vindicated, though
more briefly, the Anglican system against the puri
tans. In a sermon preached in 1605 he said :
Our opposites do glance at us as though the orders and
ceremonies of our church were not apostolic. To which
I answer that those apostolic times we honour and reverence,
not only for doctrine, which then did run most clear, as
being nearest to the crystaUine fountain, but also for disci
pline, so far as the state of those days could possibly suffer.
But though the doctrine of the apostles be fuUy set down
in the apostles' writings, yet the discipline is not so. The
reason whereof is because the doctrine is one and the
same, eternal and unchangeable, and therefore it is called
an everlasting gospel : but the discipline, especiaUy the
1 Vindication of the Church of England, pp. 574 foil.

88 Under James I and Charles I
ceremonies, is for the most part variable, according to circum
stance of time and place. Therefore the whole doctrine is
purposely and plentifuUy, the discipUne only in part, by
occasion, and sparingly, delivered in holy scripture ; and
consequently what the orders apostolic were cannot be fully
known by the apostolic writings. And yet of those which are
known the grand and main points are observed in the
church of England ; as namely, among other, the govem
ment by bishops, and the ceremony of laying on of hands
in making of ministers^.
The foreign reformers were no compulsory model
for England :
They propose us the pattern of reformed churches which
have rejected these ceremonies, as though it were our duty
therein to follow them  Concerning the reformed churches,
I beseech God to pour his blessings and Spirit upon them and
make them like the thousands of Manasses and the ten
thousands of Ephraim. It is true they have rejected some
ceremonies which we retain : the things were indifferent,
and they have used their Christian liberty in refusing them,
and we the like liberty in using them. But why should
we be bound to their example ? . . . Diversity of rites in
divers churches independent doth no harm where there is
an unity of faith : it only shows that the King's daughter,
so that she be glorious within, may be clothed vrith gar
ments of changeable colours. Yet we cannot but marvel
that men wUl urge us to conformity vrith foreign churches,
to which we owe no subjection, and will not conform them
selves to their own mother, the church of England*.
Considerable uncertainty attaches to the author
ship of a little pamphlet, published in 1641 under
Mason's name by John Dury in the same collection
'^ Appended to the Vindication (ed. 1728), p. 602.
2 Ibid. p. 615.

Under James I and Charles I 89
that contained Usher's Original of Bishops. It bears
on the title-page the title The Validity of the Ordina
tion of the Minis[t]ers of the Reformed Churches beyond
the seas, maintained against the Romanists, by Francis
Mason. Mason had died twenty years before, and
Dury gives no indication of the way in which he came
by the little work. Lindsay, the translator and editor
of Mason's Vindication, indignantly repudiates the
attribution of the pamphlet to Mason, which he thinks
to be wholly out of keeping with Mason's doctrine.
But Lindsay was unaware that others had ascribed
the Validity of the Ordination beyond the Seas to an
even greater authority than Mason's. George Daven
port, writing to Sancroft in 1655 and the year foUow
ing, ascribed it on Cosin's authority to Overall, and
said that OveraU had had a hand also in the com
position of Mason's greater book. Mason was a
dignitary of OveraU's diocese of Norwich, and the
two men were likely to work together in such
matters^.

^ The letters are in the Bodleian, MS. Tanner 52, f. 103 and f. 152.
The first is as foUows : Paris, Jan. 26, 1655.
Sir, Our last letters, I hope, are safely come to your hands, and
yours, I hope, wiU be in ours before this cometh to you  Y'= Dean
[of Peterborough, John Cosin] is well, but I cannot trouble him at
present so much as I would, because of his course of preaching.
I learnt of him y^ other day y' y' book wherin y" ordination of y"
French church is vindicated, was made by Bishop Overall (with
whom y" Dean y" lived) and not by Mr Mason. Mr Mason indeed
added something to it, with y= approbation of y" Bishop, and printed

90 Under Janies T and Charles I
The pamphlet is called, at the heading of it, " the
addition of Francis Mason unto " his former work.
It is in fact a continuation of the dialogue between
the papist and the Anghcan, and has just the same
bright style. Philodox admits that there is some
what to be said for " the ministers of England," but
chaUenges his friend to defend Luther, Calvin and
their disciples. Orthodox would rather refer this
it in his own name at y' desire of y° Bishop whose Chaplain (I think)
he was. Y" Dean, I think is of y' same mind \i.e. about the French
orders]. Thus wishing you all happiaess, I take my leave till this
day sennight] and rest Your assured lov. Fr. and servant,
G. D.
If it is true that Mason himself printed the addition, the first
edition has perished. Dury's edition is the earliest in existence.
Davenport corrects and supplements the information above given
in a second letter.
Sir, Yours of July i6th, I received about a week since : and deferred
to trouble you with another till this time, because of Mr Beaumonts
absence. I heard of Mr R. G. weUfare at Paris in a lettre from
D. C. \i.e. Dr Cosin] he is gone from thence with Sir Ed. Mansell
towards Lion: and God go with him. I have received 2 lettres from
y' Doctor not much in them to be communicated : but I must
undeceive you about y"" additionalls to Mr Mason : for, he saith,
he said, y' y'= Bishop was y" chiefe composer of y" i'" draught of y°
book (de minist. Anglic.) in English, which was printed at London
by Bill y^ Kings printer. He is very angry at Mr Fuller, and will
let him know how much he is injured by him : for he purposeth to
print his answer to y" articles against him in y'= L''^ house. My
brother came not hither as I expected 
Your affectionate Friend and Servant,
D. G. (Geo. Davenport*)
Aug. 6. 1656.
{lindorsed^ For Mr Sandcroft.
[* In Sancroft' s handwriting. 1

Under James I and Charles I 91
point to the learned men living in the foreign churches
themselves, who are better acquainted with the
particulars of their own estate ; nevertheless, lest
Philodox should " insult and triumph over our
brethren," he has no objection " to skirmish a httle "
with him.
After showing that the early foreign reformers
were no Aerians, by the respect with which they
wrote of bishops, Orthodox plunges boldly into the
question whether the episcopal order is an order at
all. The argument is an argumentum ad hominem,
and Orthodox conducts it wholly by reference to
schoolmen and later divines of the Roman church.
Philodox avers that the bishop's intrinsecal power
to ordain rests, not upon his jurisdiction, but upon
his actual order.
If it can be proved, is the answer, out of your own
writers, that every presbyter hath as much as a bishop of
the sacrament and character of order, you must confess
that every presbyter hath intrinsecal power to give orders ^.
It is certainly a great muster of names and quota
tions which answer to the summons of Orthodox.
The Master of the Sentences acknowledges only two
" sacred orders," deaconship and priesthood. Bona-
venture says that the episcopal consecration im
presses no character. Aquinas denies that " the
bishop's function " constitutes an order. Durandus,
Soto, Richard, Aureolus, say in effect the same.
Navarrus says that there are only seven orders,
1 Validity, etc., p. 142.

92 Under James I and Charles I
not nine, according to the ordinary calculation ;
because the first tonsure is not an order, nor is " the
bishoply function," but only an office. Then follow
a whole " cloud of witnesses," ending with the cate
chism of the council of Trent, which, like Navarrus,'
says that there are seven orders of ministers in the
catholic church, beginning with the ostiarius and rising
to sacerdos, but making no mention of a bishop.
Finally Bellarmine's variations of opinion on the
subject are traced, and he is shown to have returned
in the latter part of his life to the conviction of his
earlier days, that presbyters and bishops are one
order, though of divers degrees^.
It comes to this, that according to the teaching
of Antonius de Rosellis, consecration to the episcopal
ofiice is not the conferring of new powers upon the
man who is consecrated, but the liberation of powers
which he had before, which had been hitherto re
strained, " as the faculty of the fijdng of a bird when
his wings are tied." But, Philodox argues, at least
the restraint was jure divino. Orthodox answers :
First, if you mean by jure divino that which is according
to the scripture, then the preeminence of bishops is jure
divino ; for it hath been already proved to be according to
the scripture. Secondly, if by jure divino you mean the
ordinance of God, in this sense also it may be said to be
jure divino, for it is an ordinance of the apostles, where
unto they were directed by God's Spirit, even by the Spirit
of Prophecy, and consequently the ordinance of God.
But if by jure divino you understand a law and command
ment of God, binding all Christians universally, perpetually,
1 Validity, etc., p. 157.

Under James I and Charles I 93
unchangeably, and vrith such absolute necessity, that no
other form of regiment may in any case be admitted, in
this sense neither may we grant it, nor yet can you prove
it, to be jure divino ^-
Philodox then asks pertinently what authority
Luther had to untie the wings of the presbyters.
Orthodox answers that it was not voluntary in him,
but a case of necessity, and proceeds again to argue
from Roman divines on what can be done in case
of necessity, — Rosellus again closing the list, who
says, " I hold that the pope may give commission
to presbyters to confer all sacred orders, and in this
I stand with the opinion of the canonists." Orthodox
shows the impossibility of obtaining episcopal ordina
tion at the outset of the foreign reformation, and
justifies the more recent procedure on the ground
that these churches have estabhshed for themselves
bishops, or officers who for this purpose are equi
valent to bishops, by whom their ordinations are
performed. Wherefore seeing a bishop and a presbyter do not differ
in order, but only in preeminence and jurisdiction, as your
selves acknowledge ; and seeing Calvin and Beza had the
order of priesthood, which is the highest order in the church
of God ; and were lawfuUy chosen, the one after the
other, to a place of eminency and endued with jurisdiction
derived unto them from the whole church wherein they
lived ; you cannot with reason deny them the substance of
the episcopal office. And whereinsoever their discipline is
defective, we vrish them even in the bowels of Christ Jesus by
all possible means to redress and reform it, and to conform
themselves to the ancient custom of the church of Christ,
1 Validity, etc., p. 163.

94 Under James I and Charles I
which hath continued from the apostles' time, that so they
may remove all opinion of singularity and stop the mouth
of malice itself^.
Another writer of the period who defended the
church of England against the Romanists was Crakan-
thorp. Crakanthorp's Defensio Ecclesiae AngUcanae,
perhaps somewhat oddly selected for reprinting in
the Anglo-Catholic Library, is a more markedly
protestant book than Mason's. First published in
1625, after the author's death, it was called forth by
the onslaught of the adventurer, Mark Antony de
Dominis, after his return to the Roman communion.
Crakanthorp repudiates the names of Calvinist,
Lutheran, and Puritan, which De Dominis bestows
on the adherents of the English church. We are
catholics, — catholics and nothing else : the church
to which De Dominis belonged is at best " Romano-
catholic," and is in fact heretical.
Sed est et aliud quod a te verbo hie monendum censeo.
Frequens tibi in ore est, sed a daemone injecta, et maligni-
tate summa a vobis ejecta calumnia, quod per opprobrium
nos Calvinianos, Lutheranos, et Puritanos vocitetis. Non
est hoc novum ; fecerunt hoc idem haeretici maj ores vestri :
passi sunt et olim similem nobiscum calumniam orthodoxi.
Sanctissimi iUius Ephesini concUii patres orthodoxi ad unum
omnes et cathoUci : a Nestorianis tamen et ipsorum tum
Ephesi coUecto conciliabulo . . . CyrUliani, ut nos a vobis
Calviniani, dicti sunt ....
i Validity, etc., p. 175. It is to be observed that Mason goes
expressly on the ground that Calvin and Beza had the order of
priesthood. It seems certain that neither of them was ever ordained
priest.

Under James I and Charles I 95
Luthemm nos et Calvinum, ut conservos nostros, doc
trina, pietate, et constantia insignes honoramus. Beata
«rit apud pios bonosque omnes eorum memoria, et ut un-
guentum odoratum diffundentur per ecclesiam Dei ipsorum
et nomina et encomia  Sed nos eos honoramus ut
servos Dei, non ut fidei dominos  Calvini scripta et
Lutheri sic recipimus, quomodo olim Cypriani literas Augus-
tinus : " Quod in eis divinamm scripturaram authoritati
congruit, cum laude ejus accipio ; quod autem non congmit,
cum pace ejus respuo.". . .Nos quia non sic Luthero aut
Calvino [ut vos Papae] addicti, Lutherani aut Calvinistae
nee sumus nee nisi per calumniam vocamur. . . . Nos sim-
pliciter et sine additione cathoUci^.
De Dominis affirmed that the" church of England
could not but be heretical, because it freely admitted
to communion anabaptists and puritans. Crakan
thorp entirely denies the first charge, and only admits
the second with a qualification :
Ais nos " ab haeresi tam Puritanorum quam Anabaptis-
tarum immunes esse non posse, quia cum illis plene etiam
et perpetuo communicamus : non damnamus eos, non
vitamus, non excludimus a sacris nostris conventibus, sed
in divinis nobiscum communicare permittimus." Primum
hoc est, quo ecclesiam Anglicanam haereticam esse probes,
argumentum. Credo equidem te ex eis quae ante audisti,
quam in hac calumnia et mendacio effrons sis et invere-
cundus, satis intelligere. Ain' ecclesiam banc sacrosanctam
plene cum Anabaptistis et perpetuo communicare ? eos non
damnare, non excludere ? sed ad sacra nostra et conventus
sacros admittere ? O hominem ex mendaciis et calumniis
totum conflatum ! . . .
At saltem Puritanos non damnamus : cum iis plene et
perpetuo communicamus. Imo non plene, non perpetuo :
sed et eos, quoties de delicto cujusvis constat, a communione
1 Defensio, pp. i88 foil. (ed. 1847).

96 Under James I and Charles I
nostra excludimus, nee vel uno verbo, ut ante docui, laedi
ab ipsis ecclesiae nostrae authoritatem vel dignitatem im-
pune sinimus. Si vel in ritus solum nostros et disciplinam
contumacius se efferant, castigamus eos severe, et pro meritis
suis ac deUcti ratione virgam sentiunt et supplicium. Quod
si ultra progrediantur et haeresin insuper aut fovere aut
disseminare incipiant, et haeresin eoram damnamus et ipsos.
Nam quod tu, opinor, plane ignoras, est haeresis quaedam
Puritanorum, nee in ritus solum peccant, ut tu opinaris, sed
non nunquam etiam in fidem ipsam et dogmata. Certe
enim proprie eorum haeresis eadem ex parte est, quae fuit
Aerii^.
He next shows what, in his opinion, the heresy
of Aerius consisted in, and how the English church
will not allow of it :
IUius haeresin indicat Augustinus : " Dicebat pres-
byterum ab episcopo nulla differentia debere discemi." . . .
Paritatem verbo divino institutam, praeceptam, et manda
tam dixit ; imparitatem verbo divino damnatam dixit.
Ideoque non praxin modo sed et judicium universalis eccle
siae, in qua saeculis omnibus, in ecclesiis item omnibus,
imparitas ilia admissa erat, damnavit ; etiam ut verbo Dei
repugnans damnavit. Nos contra imparitatem episcopi et
presbyteri non damnari in verbo Dei, sed permitti, imo
approbari dicimus ; etiam ab apostolis ipsis et institutam
fuisse et approbatam dicimus et constanter docemus 
Qui in haeresi Puritanorum, iUi vere in hoc Aeriani ideoque
vere haeretici sunt. Eos ecclesia Anglicana et scriptis,
eisque doctissimis, refutat, et si quando ex his ulU in ea
inveniantur, dignis eos ac justis suppUcUs coercet. Tu
tamen fronte adamantina non erubuisti asserere ecclesiam
Anglicanam cum Puritanis et Puritanorum haeresi plene
communicare *. ' Defensio, pp. 225 foU.
" Ibid, pp. 226 foU.

Under James I and Charles I 97
But Crakanthorp denies that either the English
puritans or the foreign reformers were Aerians in the
heretical sense :
Nee ecclesia solum Anglicana, sed nee illi, si qui forte
in Anglia Puritani, licet ab ecclesia nostra in hoc dissentiant,
Aeriani quidem sunt ; ne iUi, inquam, hierarchiam nostram
ut repugnans sacris Uteris condemnant. . . .Sed et ab hac
Aerii et Puritanorum haeresi illi ipsi immunes, qui tibi
maxime omnium Puritani habentur. Luthemm dico, Cal
vinum, Bezam, et reformatas omnes ecclesias. Non habent
Uli, scio, distinctos a presbyteris eisque in ordinandi et excom-
municandi potestate superiores episcopos. At imparitatem
tamen istam, quod fecit Aerius, non verbo Dei repugnare
docent, non damnant eam vel in nostra vel in universali
per annos supra mUle quingentos ecclesia. Per verbum Dei
et jus divinum liberum et licitum utmmvis censent, utrum
paritatem ordinum admittant an imparitatem. Rectene hie
an secus sentiant, non est in animo hie disserere. Nihil
hoc ad Aerium aut Aerii, de qua nunc ago, haeresin. Ab
iUa haeresi quantum absint, ex ipsorum scriptis tu nunc
judical.
The foreign reformers had no choice in the matter :
Vides nunc luce clarius, quam longe absint ecclesiae
omnes reformatae, omnesque in Us docti ac prudentes viri,
ab iUa Aerii, quam toties nobis exprobratis, haeresi. lUe
inaequalitatem inter episcopum et presbytemm damnabat ;
hi probant. lUe episcopalem authoritatem penitus extin-
guere ; hi, quantum in eis erat, eandem conservare desidera-
bant. lUe universalis ecclesiae judicium et praxin in hoc
repudiavit, et ut verbo Dei repugnans damnavit ; hi univer
salis ecclesiae et judicium et praxin putant quidem esse
praeter sed non contra verbum Dei, nee ab eo dissonum,
ideoque et laudant et magnopere probant, Et quod te
1 Defensio, pp. 227, 228.

98 Under James I and Charles I
praecipue observare velim, iUe fastu ac ambitione inflatus
paritatem istam in totam ecclesiam introducere cupiebat;
hi necessitate compulsi paritatem in suis solum ecclesUs
admittere vestra perversitate coacti sunt. Unum hoc et
durum necessitatis quo tum premebantur telum multa quae
post consequuta sunt fecit legitima, quae remota necessitate
fuissent culpanda. . . . Claves suas apostoli episcopis com-
mendarunt, nee ab aliis quam episcopis legitime unquam
antea usurpatae. Aerarium Christi aperire noluerunt quae-
stores Romani : " nuUos ad pascendi munus admittere
volebant, nisi jurent se puram evangelii doctrinam noUe
docere." Aut violandmn tum erat aeternum illud Christi
mandatum, " Praedicate evangelium," et " Pasce oves
meas," aut claves a privatis, Scipionis exemplo, arripiendae
erant. . . . Optamus quidem ex animo, ut cum lex ilia neces
sitatis jam ablata sit, velint et omnes ecclesiae ad priscum
et ab universali ecclesia constantissime observatum ordinem
et ordinandi modum redire clavesque suas episcopis resti-
tuant : sed optamus, non cogimus. Jus et imperium in
eorum ecclesias nee habemus nos nee desideramus. Sic
vero Uli istam calumniandi ansam vobis praeriperent, quam
per admirabilem suam et providentiam et bonitatem in
ecclesia Anglicana Deus praevertit^.
Not all communion with heretics involves a church
in complicity with their heresy :
Communicare cum haeretico, quando se haereticum esse
prodit, haereticum est, teque, si ei communices, haereticum
demonstrat. Communicare cum lupo ovis peUe induto, cum
haeretico catholicam fidem licet ficte profitenti, non excusa-
bUe solum est, sed et laudabUe, teque si ei, dum talem se
gerit, communices, cathoUcum demonstrat.
Si Anabaptista quis, si vel Papista, sacris nostris se
ingerat, quia is suo hoc facto se nostmm esse, se cathoUcum
esse profitetur, nos eundem ut nostrum, ut cathoUcum reci-
'^ Defensio, pp. 230 foil.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 99
pimus. Quam primum ilie latens in visceribus ipsius virus
ac venenum evomere incipit, in judicia pertrahimus, et
sceleris convictum damnamus, rejicimus, anathematizamus^.
That the English church is in communion with
the foreign reformed churches Crakanthorp does not
for a moment deny : he glories in her hospitality
to refugees from abroad :
Ecclesia, inquis, Anglicana communionem publice et
aperte profitetur cum Genevensi aliisque ultramarinis
ecclesiis. . . . Quare cum Anglicana cum his haereticis ec
clesiis communionem teneat, erit et ipsa quoque haeretica.
Imo nee Anglicana est, nee illae haereticae  Inter multa
et illustria beneficia, quibus pro infinita sua bonitate Angli
canam ecclesiam beavit Deus, hoc non in postremis ducimus,
quod nobis illius servos, fratres et conservos nostros, sub
Antichristi jugo olim gementes, per saevitiam nunc et
tyrannidem vestram pulsos patria et natali solo, bonis ac
fortunis exutos, omnibus exhaustos jam casibus, omnium
egenos, urbe, domo sociare dedit. Fuisse scimus, et gratis-
simis animis saepissime recolimus, cum Marianis illis tem-
poribus eadem haec humanitatis simul ac pietatis officia
a Gallis, a Belgis et Germanis, cumulate benignoque animo
in se praestita sensit nostra Anglia. Ingemiscimus quidem
nunc eorum casibus ; quia tamen per vos et tyrannidem
vestram profugi iUi nunc sunt, laetamur ex animo, quod
Anglia nostra portus ipsis ac perfugium esse queat. Et si
centesimo cum foenore ipsorum in nos benignitatem ac bene
ficia rependere possimus, hoc magis honori nobis ducimus,
etiam et beneficio*.
It is a blessed work to endeavour to draw the
reformed, yet catholic, churches into union with each
other and with the Anglican church :
1 Defensio, p. 234. " Ibid, p. 237. 7—2

lOO Under Jaines I and Charles I
Lutherani, inquis, plurimamm haeresium sorde poUuti
sunt : cum Lutheranis vero communicare Anglicana syna-
goga paratissima est, et plurimum conatur, ut monstra haec
in unum cum ipsa coalescant, unioque fiat omnium eccle
siamm reformatarum. Certe quidem conatur hoc ecclesia
Anglicana. Unionem omnium et optat et efficere laborat.
Nee poteras tu aut quivis illustrius ullum aut dignius AngU
canae ecclesiae encomium excogitare. Quis unquam plus
aut prudens non omnium ecclesiamm ca'tholicarum unionem
optet ? Et si uspiam dissidium contingat, quis bonus non
pro virili Ulud extinguat ? Beatos esse pacificos pro-
nunciavit Christus. Beata ecclesia Anglicana, quae vel
hoste judice pacifica^.
The church of Scotland has had several leamed
and peacemaking divines of the name of Forbes.
Of these, John Forbes of Corse, professor of divinity
at Aberdeen, was one of the holiest and wisest. His
Irenicum was published in 1629. The part of it
which deals with the question of church government
begins with the divine right of episcopacy :
Disputant quidam fratres, sitne praesidentia et regimen
episcopale juris divini an humani sive ecclesiastici. Et quia
praecipui hujus disceptationis inculcatores hunc sibi habent
propositum finem, ut praesidentiam et regimen episcopale
contemnant et ex ecclesia eliminent, primo loco quaerendum
ab eis, num omnis humana constitutio sit abominanda et
contemni sine culpa possit aut debeat. Hoc si asserant, con-
vincuntur manifesti erroris ; sin autem ingenue f ateantur. . .
quid, obsecro, obtinebunt pro fine illo suo assequendo,
etiamsi largiremur praesidentiam et gubemationem episco
palem jure ecclesiasrico esse introductam, cum Ileitis
ecclesiae consti tutionibus obedientiam de jure divino debe-
amus*.
' Defensio, p. 239.
"^ J. Forbesii Opera Omnia (Amsterdam, 1703), vol. i. p. 409 (6Js).

Under James I and Charles I loi
On the question of history Forbes had no doubt :
Episcopos jure divino presbyteris praeesse nemo primis
ecclesiae Christianae et quidem multis seculis dubitasse aut
de ea re disceptasse legitur praeter Aerium et Hieronymum
presbyteros ; quorum alter, nempe Aerius, est propter suam
opinionem haereticus judicatus.. .alter vero, nempe Hiero-
nymus, nunquam propterea est haereseos insimulatus.
Itaque discrimen aliquod fuisse oportet inter opinionem
Aerii haereticam et opinionem Hieronymi.
The difference was, he says, that Jerome, on the
one hand, reverently submitted to the law of the
church, and approved of it, — sometimes even main
taining that the bishop's prerogative was divine ;
but Aerius said that it was wrong for such prerogative
to exist. The presbyterians therefore were mistaken
in claiming Jerome as on their side, while endeavour
ing to get rid of episcopacy out of the church.
Forbes' next step is to quote reforming authorities
who contended, like Jerome, that the episcopate is
a merely ecclesiastical institution, yet found no fault
with it. Calvin, Zanchius, Rivet, are among the
number. Clearly, he says, it at least comes under
the general law of Christ, that if any one refuses
to hear the church, he puts himself in the position of
the heathen^.
A whole series of propositions on the subject
follows next.
I. Ea est ministerii evangelici ratio de jure divino, ut
ei non repugnet ministrorum disparitas, sed possit ei con-
gruenter convenire. 1 Opera Omnia, p. 412,

102 Under James I and Charles I
II. De jure divino est, ut sit socide ministerium, hoc
est, ut unusquisque pastor societatem aliquam pastorum
agnoscat, cui subjectionem et obedientiam debeat.
III. Juris divini est, ut singulae societates, sive coUegia
pastorum, suas certas habeant regiones et limites, jam post
apostolos. IV. De jure divino necessarius est societati sive coUegio
pastorum praeses aliquis et moderator, qui authoritate
publica instructus reliquos convocet, et cum iis judicia
exerceat ecclesiastica, clericos ordinet. . . cui reliqui subjici
in Domino et obedire tenentur, se legitime gerenti in sua
Trpoo-Tocrta.
In enforcing this fourth proposition Forbes en
larges somewhat. He says :
Semper in ecclesia, jam inde a primis initiis, fuit aliqua
auctoritas personalis (quam episcopalem vocamus), potes-
tatem habens praesidendi coetui simplicium presbyterorum.
Christus praeerat apostolis, non solum dominica potestate qua
servis, et magisteriali qua discipuUs, sed etiam episcopali
qua presbyteris seu verbi administris. . . . Deinde post Domini
ascensionem apostoli superiores erant reliquis verbi ministris.
Et multiplicatis coetibus constituerunt apostoli ecclesiis
proprios episcopos, cum ipsi omnibus adesse aut subvenire non
possent. Neque uUo unquam tempore simplices presbyteri
fuerunt supremi in ecclesia rectores (nisi forte alicubi, post
tempora apostolica, per defectum oeconomicum particulari
interdum ecclesiae contingentem) . Aliter enim ecclesiae suae
regimen Dominus instituit.
The series goes on :
V. Juri divino congruit, post apostolos omnium socie-
tatum communes moderatores, ut unicuique dioecesano
pastorum coUegio unus praesit moderator, potius quam plures.
VI. Juri divino consentaneum est, ut moderator sive
praeses fratrum ordinarius non nisi propter ciUpam aut
infirmitatem se abdicet officio illo, vel ab eo amoveatur.

Under James I and Charles I 1 03
Then come some " reducing " propositions :
VII. Moderator fratrum debet ipse etiam censurae esse
subjectus. VIII. Debet praeesse cum mansuetudine, absque tyran-
nico fastu et dominatione.
IX. Juris divini est, ut moderator nihil ponderosum
gerat absque consensu compresbyterorum.
X. Qui compresbyteris praeponitur, is manet adhuc de
jure divino presbyter, et ad presbyteralis officii executionem
tenetur.
The duties referred to are of course those of
preaching the gospel and shepherding the flock.
XI. Quod presbyter compresbyterorum praeses et
moderator ordinarius appellatus sit peculiariter episcopus,
caeteris presbyterorum vocabulo contentis, id non est
contra legem divinam factum, sed congruenter legi divinae
introductum est, jure ecclesiastico, oecumenico, et apostolico,
et perpetuo seculorum omnium usu irreprehensibiliter serva-
tum. Idcirco, cum de re constet, turbas jam de hac nomen-
clatura ciere et tumultuari insolentissimae insaniae est.
XII. In Christum peccat, quicunque sive laicus sive
clericus episcopi sui authoritatem contemnit, ejusque justis
mandatis, in eis quae potestati episcopali subsunt, obedi
entiam obstinate denegat.
It is under this twelfth heading, oddly enough,
that Forbes discusses the question whether the
episcopate and presbyterate are two orders or one.
He quotes first the language of the Areopagite, which
makes them distinct, and then a number of school
men on the opposite side, and sums up thus :
Haec propterea commemoranda duxi, ut manifeste
ostenderem nihil esse in tota hac controversia, quod adverse-
tur propositionibus nostris de jure divino officii et dignitatis

104 Under James I and Charles I
episcopalis supra simplices presbyteros. Nam de hoc non est
inter eos dissensio ; sed unanimi consensu omnes, non solum
canonistae, sed etiam theologi, cum Magistro [Peter Lombard]
et cum Dionysio agnoscunt episcopatum esse ordinem
distinctum a presbyteratu, accipiendo ordinem pro officio in
ecclesia divinitus instituto ; et in primitiva ecclesia apos
tolos, jussu Christi, constituisse episcopos, et presbyteros,
et diaconos, et esse hos tres distinctos ordines. . . . Neque nos
aliud demonstratum ivimus.
The next proposition deals with the situation
which confronted the writer in Scotland :
XIII. Ecclesia orthodoxam tenens fidem, si careat
episcopo, sive presbyterorum ordinario praefecto dioecesano,
laborat quidem defectu quodam oeconomico ; at non
propterea desinit esse vera ecclesia, neque excidit potestate
ilia ecclesiastica, quam habent aliae ecclesiae ab episcopis
gubernatae. Quamvis optandum et annitendum, ut habeat
episcopum.
This thesis is supported by a variety of considera
tions. The churches of Asia Minor, for instance,
were churches without bishops, when St Paul and
St Barnabas ordained them elders. This was before
bishops began to exist. Joannes Major tells how
Scotland itself had no bishops when it first became
Christian^. The church of Rome did not cease to
be a church when for nearly a year it was governed
by presbyters, sede vacante, after the martyrdom of
Xystus II. Then follows the statement :
1 This fiction, which long did duty for the presbyterian cause,
was demohshed by the learned treatise of Wilham Lloyd, Bishop of
St Asaph and finally of Worcester, An Historical Account of Church
Government as it was in Great Britain and Ireland when they first
received the Christian Religion, 1684.

Under James I and Charles I 105
Valida est ordinatio qui peragitur per presbyteros in eis
ecclesiis in quibus non est episcopus, aut ubi non est ortho-
doxus, sed notorius haereticus et lupus : quamvis decentius
fieret, si possibile, per orthodoxum episcopum et presbyteros :
aut etiam per .solos presbyteros, consentiente et concedente
episcopo. Nam episcopo proprium de jure divino est
solum regimen, superinspectio, et Trpoo-rao-ta gubematrix sive
episcopalis, quam jurisdictionem vocant : reliquae autem
omnes pastoralis officii partes omnibus pastoribus, tum
episcopis tum presbyteris, de jure divino communes sunt :
quamvis non nisi decenter et ordine exercendae, adeoque non
sine episcopo aut episcopi sedtem consensu, in eis locis ubi
ecclesiam regit episcopus.
This statement is succeeded by several quasi-
historical statements which Forbes could not have
used if he had written at a later date, when they had
been more sifted. It is not easy to see how he recon
cUed them with the belief that there was any divine
right in episcopacy.
It will be convenient to pass from these authors
to the group of divines who were sent by James I to
take part in the synod of Dort in 1618, — that synod
which contributed to detach De Dominis from
Anglicanism, and which Crakanthorp defends as
being, " in the present state of the church," a holy
and lawful " national " synod, which decreed only
the ancient, orthodox, scriptural faith^.
The leader of the group was George Carleton,
Bishop of Chichester. Carleton was brought up in
the traditions of Bemard Gilpin, whose life he wrote.
He records, with evident satisfaction, how Gilpin, in
' Defensio, p. 576.

io6 Under Janies I and Charles I
spite of all his zeal as a reformer, shocked the self-
confident partisan who endeavoured to draw him
over to the presbyterian side and the system favoured
by Calvin and himself.
Mr Gilpin told him that he could not allow that an human
invention should take place in the church instead of a divine
institution. " And how do you think," saith the man,
" that this form of discipline is an human invention ? "
" I am," saith Mr Gilpin, " altogether of that mind. And
as many as shall dUigently have turned over the writings
of the ancient fathers vriU be of mine opinion. I suspect
that form of discipline which appeareth not to have been
received in any ancient church." " But yet," saith the man,
" latter men do see many things which those ancient fathers
saw not ; and the present church seemeth better provided
of many ingenious and industrious men." Mr Gilpin seemed
somewhat moved at that word, and replied, "I for my
part do not hold the virtues of the latter men worthy to
be compared to the infirmities of the fathers^."
The main object of the synod of Dort was to
compose the differences between various Calvinistic
nuances and to form a solid front against the rising
school of the Arminians. It was a work into which
the Englishmen could throw themselves heartily,
while exercising an influence that told in favour of
breadth and moderation. They were completely at
home among the protestant Dutchmen. But great
was their indignation when they found the synod
departing from its proper business to pronounce in
favour of the Calvinistic parity of ministers. Bishop
Carleton warmly protested, and put his protest on
record :
1 Wordsworth Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iii. p. 411.

Under James I and Charles I 107
Touching the point of their discipline in the Low
Countries, I can witness that they are weary of it, and
would gladly be freed if they could. When we were to
yield our consent to the Belgic Confession at Dort, I made
open protestation in the synod, that whereas in the Con
fession there was inserted a strange conceit of the parity
of ministers, to be instituted by Christ, I declared our dissent
utterly in that point. I showed that by Christ a parity was
never instituted in the church ; that he ordained twelve
apostles and also seventy disciples ; that the authority of
the twelve was above the other ; that the church preserved
this order left by our Saviour ; and therefore when the
extraordinary authority of the apostles ceased, yet their
ordinary authority continued in bishops who succeeded
them, who were by the apostles themselves left in the govern
ment of the church, to ordain ministers, and to see that they
who were so ordained should preach no other doctrine ; that
in an inferior degree the ministers that were governed by
bishops succeeded the seventy disciples ; that this order
hath been maintained in the church from the time of the
apostles ; and herein I appealed to the judgment of antiquity,
and to the judgment of any learned man now living, and
craved herein to be satisfied, if any man of learning could
speak to the contrary. My Lord of Salisbury is my vrit-
ness, and so are all the rest of our company, who spake also
in the cause. To this there was no answer made by any ;
whereupon we conceived that they yielded to the truth of
the protestation. And somewhat I can say of mine own
knowledge, for I had conference with divers of the best
leamed in that synod. I told them that the cause of all
their troubles was this, that they had no bishops amongst
them, who by their authority might repress turbulent spirits
that broached novelties. Every man had liberty to speak
or write what he list, and as long as there were no ecclesias
tical men in authority to repress and censure such contentious
spirits, their church could never be without trouble. Their
answer was, that they did much honour and reverence the

-io8 Under Janies I and Charles I
good order and discipline of the church of England, and
with all their hearts would be glad to have it established
amongst them ; but that could not be hoped for in their
state. Their hope was, that seeing they could not do what
they desired, God would be merciful to them if they did
what they could. This was their answer, which I think is
¦enough to excuse them, that they do not openly aim at an
anarchy and popular confusion. The truth is, they groan
under that burden, and would be eased if they could. This
is well known to the rest of my associates there^.
" My Lord of Salisbury " in this protestation was
John Davenant. He was not yet bishop at the time
of the synod ; he was the Lady Margaret's Professor
of Divinity at Cambridge. In one of his professorial
lectures there he dealt with the difference between
bishops and priests. The question whether they
formed a single order he dismissed as a quibble :
De episcopatu et presbyteratu solummodo dispu-
tandum est. Neque hie opus erit subtUiter disquirere utrum
episcopatus sit diversus ordo a presbyteratu, an alius et
altior gradus in eodem ordine  Nobis sufficit (hac ver-
borum velitatione seposita) si ostendamus eos qui appro
priate vocantur episcopi habere dignitatem altiorem, potes-
tatem majorem, et eminentiora officia sibi annexa quam
habent alU presbyteri, idque verbo Dei minime repugnante.
Sed pamm est quod dicimus non repugnante : nam in verbo
divino adumbratam, delineatam, et ab ipsis apostolis con-
stabUitam fuisse banc episcoporum supra presbyteros emi-
nentiam facUe est demonstrare.
After showing in the usual way that episcopacy is
apostolic in origin, Davenant goes on :
1 Bishop Carleton's testimony concerning the presbyterian discipline
in the Low Countries, and. episcopal government here in England, pub
lished as a tract in 1642.

Under James I and Charles I 109
Hisce episcopis apostolomm autoritate sic stabilitis con
stat perpetua serie successores fuisse subrogatos in iisdem
civitatibus  Id jam ultimo in loco dispiciendum est,
quibus in rebus sita fuerit praecellens haec dignitas et
potestas episcoporum, qua distinguantur ab aliis pres
byteris inferioribus, idque non sua praesumptione sed
ordinatione apostolica.
The distinguishing notes are three. The first is-
the bishop's unique authority ; the third is his juris
diction over clergy and laity ; the second is
Jus et potestas ordinandi, quae ab ipsis apostolis ad
episcopos transmissa, presbyteris autem denegata est.
This is shown by the charge to Timothy and
Titus : Cur ante appulsum Timothei non potuerunt presbyteri.
Ephesini alios ordinare ? cur ante adventum Titi non licuit.
Cretensibus ministris idem facere ? NuUa ratio hujus rei
assignari potest satis idonea, nisi quod ordinandi potestas in
iUis soils residet, qui episcopali munere funguntur. Hierony-
mus (qui videtur nonnullis cum Aerio sensisse) fatetur
tamen ordinationem ita propriam esse episcoporum, ut fas
non sit presbyteris eam sibi usurpare. . . . Huic instituto
apostolico semper acquievit ecclesia catholica, nee aliam
ordinationem legitimam agnovit quam quae ab episcopo
legitime celebratur.
Then Davenant comes to the exception :
Sed hie obiter dubium explicemus quod ab ipsis schola-
sticis non est praetermissum. Quaerere enim solent, an
praeter episcopum, qui ex officio ordines sacros dispensat,
possit inferior episcopo eosdem dispensare in casu neces
sitatis. Ad quod respondemus, cum ordines sacros conferre
ex institutione apostolica sit actus officii episcopalis, si
presbyteri in ecclesia bene instituta id facerent, actum hunc
illorum non modo Ulicitum esse, sed irritum et inanem..

no Under James I and Charles I
Hie enim valebit iUud Hugonis, Quod contra institutionem
celebratur, irritum reputatur. Sed in ecclesia turbata, ubi
episcopi omnes in haeresin aut idololatriam inciderunt, ubi
ministros orthodoxos ordinare recusarunt, ubi solos factionis
et erroris sui participes sacris ordinibus dignos reputamnt,
si orthodoxi presbyteri (ne pereat ecclesia) alios presbyteros
cogantur ordinare, ego non ausim hujusmodi ordinationes
pronuntiare irritas et inanes  Necessitas non inscite
lex temporis appeUatur ; et in tali casu defendit id ad quod
coegit. . . . Hac freti necessitate, si ecclesiae quaedam pro-
testantium, quae ordinationes ab episcopis papistis expectare
non poterant, consensu presbyterorum suorum presbyteros
ordinarunt, non inde dignitati episcopali praejudicasse sed
necessitati ecclesiae obtemperasse judicandi sunt^.
In his Exhortation to Brotherly Communion, Dave
nant does not even allude to differences of polity
among the hindrances to communion. He assumes
that communion exists between the church of England
and both of the contending parties, Calvinistic and
Lutheran :
I doubt not at all, but that the Saxon and Helvetian
churches, and others which either consent vrith these or
those, acknowledge themselves to have, and to desire to
retain, brotherly communion vrith the English, Scottish,
Irish, and other foreign reformed churches. Surely, as
concerning us, although we consent not vrith them in aU
points and titles of controversial divinity, yet we acknow
ledge them brethren in Christ, and protest ourselves to have
a brotherly and holy communion with them. But if they
themselves be like-minded towards us, with what equity
do the German churches amongst themselves deprive each
other of that brotherly communion, which vrith foreign
churches they fear not to retain* ?
^ Determinationes quaestionum quarundam, pp. 187 foil. (1639).
^ Letter to John Dury in Exhortation to Brotherly Communion,
p. 33 (1641).

Under James I and Charles I in
With regard to the varying confessions and
articles of different churches :
It is lawful and useful for every particular church to
exercise that jurisdiction over their own people, which in
no case they ought or can usurp over the subjects of another
church. For if their own oppose the received doctrine of
their church, established by public consent, they may (both
for the errors they scatter, and for the disturbance they
cause in the church) put them aside from the communion
of their church so long tiU they leave off to infect others
and trouble the church with their errors. But as soon as
they repent of their errors, they are to be received again
into the bosom of their mother. Thus may they deal with
their own. But when they are to meddle vrith churches
not at all subordinate unto them, they may hold divine
concord and keep God's peace with those which think and
teach otherwise than themselves, as we may see it in Cyprian^.
The third of the English divines at Dort was a
more eminent man than either Carleton or Davenant.
It was Joseph Hall, then Dean of Worcester. In
1635, as Bishop of Exeter, he sent to King Charles
Certain Irrefragable Propositions worthy of serious
Consideration, which were disseminated as a leaflet.
Two of these propositions were
I. No man living, no history, can show any weU-allowed
and settled national church in the whole Christian world,
that hath been governed otherwise than by bishops, in a
meet and moderate imparity, ever since the times of Christ
and his apostles, until this present age.
2. No man living, no record of history, can show any
lay-presbyter, that ever was in the whole Christian church,
until this present age*.
' Exhortation, p. 42.
2 Works (ed. 1837), vol. x. p. 139.

1 1 2 Under James I and Charles I
Two years later, in 1637, ^^ ^^^ entreaty, as it
seems, of Archbishop Laud, the bishop published his
great contribution to the question in the book called
,Episcopacy by Divine Right. His " expostulatory en
trance into the question " was occasioned by the action
of Graham, Bishop of Orkney, who had renounced
his episcopal function to the Scottish Assembly and
craved pardon for having accepted it^.
Brother that was, the poet-bishop exclaims, whoever you
be, I must have leave awhile to contest seriously with you.
The act was yours ; the concernment, the whole church's.
You could not think so foul a deed could escape unques
tioned. The world never heard of such a penance : you
cannot blame us, if we receive it both with wonder and
expostulation and tell you, it had been much better to have
been unborn, than to live to give so heinous a scandal to
God's church, and so deep a wound to his holy truth and
ordinance. If Tweed, that runs between us, were an ocean,
it could not either drown or wash off our interest or your
offence. However you may be applauded for the time by
some ignorant and partial abettors, wiser posterity shall
blush for you, and censure you too justly for some kind
of apostacy*.
Hall points out the difference between the con
ditions under which the foreign and the Scotch refor
mation began, as regards the bishops, and those under
which the unhappy Graham acted.
Acts done out of any extremity can be no precedents
for voluntary and deliberate resolutions  They were
forced to discard the office, as weU as the men : but yet the
office because of the men ; as popish, not as bishops : and
' See Grub's Eccl, History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 62.
2 Hall's Works, vol. x. p. 145.

Under James I and Charles I 113
to put themselves, for the present, into such a form of
government, at a venture, as under which they might be
sure vrithout violent interraption to sow the seeds of the. . .
Gospel  This was their case ; but what is this to yours ?
Your church was happUy gone out of Babylon. Your and
our . . . sovereign sincerely prof esseth . . . the blessedly-reformed
religion : his bishops preach for it, write for it, and profess
themselves ready, after the example of their predecessors,
to bleed for it. Your and our late learned and pious
sovereign, of blessed memory, with the general votes of a
lawful assembly, reinforced that order of episcopacy, which
had been, as I take it, but about seventeen years discon
tinued^.
The first part of Hall's work consists in laying
out the postulata or grounds which he is prepared
to maintain. They are as follows :
I. That government whose foundation is laid bj' Christ,
and whose fabric is raised by the apostles, is of divine insti
tution. 2. The practice and recommendation of the apostles is
sufficient warrant for an apostolical institution.
3. The forms ordained for the church's administration
by the apostles were for universal and perpetual use.
4. The universal practice of the church immediately
succeeding the apostolic times is a sure commentary upon
the practice of the apostles, and our best direction.
5. The primitive saints and fathers neither would nor
durst set up another form of govemment, different from that
they received of the apostles.
6. If the next successors would have innovated the
form of government, yet they could not in so short a space
have diffused it through the whole Christian world.
7. The ancientest histories of the church and writings,
of the first fathers are rather to be believed in the report
of the primitive state of the church than the latest authors.
' Works, vol. x. pp. 152 foil.
M. . 8

114 Under James I and Charles I
8. Those whom the ancient thurch of God and aU the
holy fathers of the church since have condemned for heretics
are no fit guides for us to follow in that their judgment of
the government, for which they were so condemned.
The next six postulata are destructive of the new
platform : it is only necessary here to mention
15. To depart from the judgment and practice of the
universal church of Christ ever since the apostles' times, and
to betake ourselves to a new invention, cannot but be,
besides the danger, vehemently scandalous.
The second part of the book is occupied in the
proofs of these postulata. At the outset. Hall gives
a definition of the episcopacy which he intends to
prove. Episcopacy is no other than a holy order of church-
governors, appointed for the administration of the church,
or more fully thus : Episcopacy is an eminent order of
sacred function, appointed by the Holy Ghost in the evan
gelical church for the governing and overseeing thereof ;
and for that purpose, besides the administration of the word
and sacraments, endued vrith power of imposition of hands
and perpetuity of jurisdiction^.
Give me, he says, such a pastor as shall be ordained
a Perpetual Moderator in church affairs, in a fixed imparity,
exercising spiritual jurisdiction out of his own peculiarly
demandated authority : this is the bishop whom we contend
for, and whom they oppose  The only thing that dis-
pleaseth in episcopacy is their majority above presbyters,
which it is pretended should be only a priority in order,
not a superiority of degree, and their power of jurisdiction
over presbyters. For yield these by a due ordination to a
prime pastor for a constant continuance, you make him a
iDishop ; deny these to a bishopi, you make him no other than
a plain presbyter*.
1 Works, vol. x. p. 183. 2 Ibid. pp. 185 foU.

Under James I and Charles I 115
On the question whether the episcopate is a
separate order or a degree within the order, Bishop
Hall is content to follow Andrewes :
For ourselves, taking order in that sense in which our
oracle of leaming. Bishop Andrewes, cites it out of the School,
qua potestas est ad actum specialem, there can be no reason to
deny episcopacy to be a distinct order, since the greatest
detractors froin it have granted the power of ordination of
priests and deacons, and of imposition of hands for con
firmation, to bishops only. They are Chamier's own words, . . .
" I cannot deny that a bishop," as such, " receiveth a new
power and jurisdiction." Moreover, in the church of England,
every bishop receives a new ordination, by way of eminence
commonly caUed his consecration, which cannot be a void
act, I trow, and must needs give more than a degree. And why
should that great and sacred councU [of Chalcedon] define
it to be no less than sacrilege to put down a bishop into the
place of a presbyter, if it were only an abatement of a degree ?
... I demand, what is it that is stood upon, but these two par
ticulars, the especial power of ordination, and power of the
ruling and censuring of presbyters ? and if these two be not
clear in the charge of the apostle to those two bishops
[Timothy and Titus], one of Crete, the other of Ephesus,
I shall yield the cause, and confess to want my senses^.
Hall passes from scripture to history :
Did not the holy scriptures yield unto us these firm
grounds, whereon to build our episcopacy, in vain should
we plead the tradition and practice of the church ever since,
forasmuch as we have to deal vrith those who are equaUy
disaffected to the name of a bishop and to tradition, and are
so forestaUed vrith their own prejudice that they are carried,
where scripture is sUent, to an unjust jealousy against the
universal practice of the whole church of God upon earth.
1 Works, vol. X. pp. 192 foil.
8—2

II 6 Under James I and Charles I
But now, when Christ and his apostles give us the text, weU
may the apostolical and universal church give us the com
mentary. And that, let me boldly say, is so clear 'for us,
that if our opposites dare stand to this trial, the day is ours^.
It was Hall's good fortune to be the first to use for
this purpose " that noble and holy epistle" of Clement
which had lately become known by Cyril Lucar's gift
to King Charles of the Alexandrine manuscript con
taining it. He was able also to use the epistles of
Ignatius, though as yet they were only published in
an incomplete and ill-assured form. He used both
with great effect.
For me, let my soul go with his [Ignatius's] : let his faith
be mine : and let me rather trust one Ignatius, than ten
thousand Cartwrights, Parkers, Ameses, or any other their
ignorant and malcontented foUowers*.
Coming to the " power of ordination only in
bishops," Hall says :
Even those testimonies which are wont to be aUeged
against us, do directly plead for us. Jerome himself can say,
excepta ordinatione ; and Chrysostom, who is cited for
ov TToXii TO fiea-ov, can yet add t^i^ yap xeipf'Toi'iai/ fj.6vriv, "only
in laying on of hands bishops go beyond them." Neither
is this any slight difference, or despicable privilege, but such
as implies a manifest superiority  That presbyter had been
a monster among Christians, that would have dared to usurp
[the privilege of laying on of hands] ; and the church of those
first ages observed it so curiously, that besides those strict
laws which they made for the prevention of any such inso
lence, . : . they have left unto us memorable records of their
severe proceedings against such presumptions 3.
1 Works, vol. X. p, 203. 2 Ibid. p. 219. » Ibid. p. 225.

Under James I and Charles I 117
If either the apostles then, or the bishops since, have had
other hands laid upon the ordained together with theirs,
as the mle and practice of the church of England is, yet
fain would I see where ever it can be read that presbyters,
without a bishop, in a regular course imposed hands for
ordination^.
Hall concludes this constructive section of his
work with the assertion that " the government by
bishops " is " both universal and unalterable."
Yield it to be so ancient as the apostles themselves ; yet
if it be arbitrary [i.e. alterable at wiU), whether for time or
place, what have we gained ? Surely, as God is but one,
and ever himself, so would he have his church. . . . Plainly
though there may be varieties of circumstantial fashions in
particular churches, yet the substance of the government is
and must be ever the same  The Holy Ghost led them unto
it ; and therefore we, unless we vrill oppose the ordinance
of the Holy Ghost, must not detrect to continue it 
For the main substance, it is now utterly indispensable,
and must so continue to the world's end. Indispensable
by any voluntary act : what inevitable necessity may do
in such a case, we now dispute not : necessity hath dispensed
vrith some immediately divine laws. Where then that may
be justly pleaded, we shall not be wanting, both in our
pity and in our prayers*.
It is known that Hall's work was pointed here
and there before publication by the hands of Laud
and his immediate circle. There is, however, no
reason to doubt that Hall accepted the suggestions
ex animo, and that the book as it now stands repre
sents the convictions of its celebrated author. It
was far the best book on the subject that had yet
> Works, vol. X. p. 227. 2 Ihid. pp. 242, 245.

1 1 8 Under James I and Charles I
appeared. Lucid and well-arranged, learned without
being pedantic, pungent and yet kindly and charit
able, it is the work of a deeply thoughtful Christian,
a peacemaker, a poet, and a scholar^.
Three other books must be considered as forming
a constellation with Hall's. Of these three the first
was Usher's.
The great name of Archbishop Usher is enough
to give importance to any tract which bears it, how
ever inconsiderable its bulk may be. In the year
1 641 Usher wrote a paper on the Original of Bishops
and Metropolitans briefly laid down. He did so at
the request of Bishop Hall, who said in a letter to
him : I must crave leave ... to importune that your Grace would
be pleased to bestow one sheet of paper upon these distracted
times, in the subject of episcopacy, showing the apostolical
original of it, and the grounds of it from scripture, and the
immediately succeeding antiquity. Every line of it coming
from your Grace's hand would be super rotas suas  Think
that I stand before you like the man of Macedon, and that
you hear me say. Come and help us*-
In this tract Usher adopts the opinion that the
ground of episcopacy is derived partly from the
pattern prescribed by God in the Old Testament,
* It is interesting to observe that the other Anglican representa
tive at Dort, Samuel Ward, who was not a writer, was evidently of
the same way of thinking. Bramhall records that, when he was a
young student in theology. Ward declared to him " that it was im
possible that the present controversies of the church should be
rightly determined or reconciled without a deep insight into the
doctrine of the primitive fathers, and a competent skill in school
theology" (Bramhall's Works, 1844, vol. iii. p. 568).
» Elrington's Life of Usher (vol. i. of Works, 1847, p. 225).

Under James I and Charles I 119
partly from the imitation of it brought in by the
apostles, and confirmed by Christ himself in the time
of the New. It was the fulfilment of the prophecy
that God would take of the Gentiles " for priests,
and for levites," where differences of order are implied.
The approval of Christ is shown by his messages to
the angels of the churches of Asia.
That there was then a standing president over the rest
of the pastors of Ephesus, and he the very same. . .with him
whom afterward the fathers called bishop, may further be
made manifest, not only by the succession of the first bishops
of that church, but also by the clear testimony of Ignatius ;
who within no greater compass of time than twelve years
afterwards distinguisheth the singular and constant president
thereof from the rest of the number of the presbyters, by
appropriating the name of bishop unto him^.
Briefly, but forcibly. Usher draws out the testi
mony of the Apostolic Fathers, and shows the value
attached by the earliest catholic writers to the
successions of bishops, bringing out particularly the
activity of St John in establishing episcopacy. Then
the great scholar goes on to discuss the seven churches,
and to indicate that each of them was in fact a
metropolitan see, and so, somewhat like Overall,
traces the beginnings of provincial jurisdictions back
to the earliest days of the church.
A second tract from Usher's pen, published in
the same year, reinforced " the judgment of Dr
Rainoldes touching the Original of Ejiscopacy." It
went, though more slightly, over the same ground,
and ended with the words
1 Works, vol. VII. p. 47.

1 20 Under James I and Charles I
And thus much may suffice for the deduction of episco
pacy from the apostolical times.
Into the further questions, which were occupjdng
other divines, concerning the specific functions of a
bishop compared with those of a presbyter. Usher
did not think it necessary in these papers to enter.
But the judgment of Usher was not concealed.
Bemard, his first biographer, says that Usher, while
inclining to the Hieronymian theory of two degrees
within a single order, thought nevertheless
that the degree which the bishop hath above a presbyter
is not to be understood as an arbitrary matter at the pleasure
of men, but that he held it to be of apostolical institution,
and that the gradus was derived from the. Old and
New Testament pattern above mentioned.
A far more famous paper came from the hand
of the archbishop, though it was not published with
his authority, in the same year. It was his Reduc
tion of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Govern
ment received in the ancient Church^.
How far the form of the Reduction published
by Bernard in 1658 really represented the deliberate
mind of Usher is a matter of controversy. Elrington
says: It would seem that, by taking away from bishops all
power of order and jurisdiction, there was left to them but
the empty title of superintendent or president of the eccle
siastical synod._ If the primate ever did make such a con
cession, it must have arisen from the effect produced upon
his gentle nature by the violent commotions which he
' See Works, vol. xti. p. 527.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 121
witnessed. He must have considered resistance impossible,
and that the preservation of any shadow of our ecclesiastical
constitution was better than the risk of its total destruction
before the reforming rage of the Lower House of Parliament^.
Two things, however, are certain. However
severely the episcopal monarchy was limited in the
Reduction, however little the bishop was allowed
to do without his presbyters and all the tedious
aipparatus of synods, the Reduction contains no
suggestion that the bishop should not be specially
consecrated to his office, and no suggestion that the
presbytery might on occasion ordain without the
bishop. There is no ground for Elrington's state
ment that the Reduction took away from the bishop
all power of order. On these two points it may be
seen that the learned reducer could admit of no
compromise. Elrington appears to be wholly justified in
describing as " incredible " a story related by Baxter,
to the effect that Usher told Baxter that in antiquity
presbyters ordained freely. His views on presby
terian ordination are plainly shown by an unim
peachable witness, who would have been glad to
find the archbishop more sympathetic towards it.
Elrington says :
Dr Bernard states that a report was circulated of the
Primate having given an unfavourable judgment of the
ordination beyond the sea, founded on the following stateraent :
" Mr  asked the Archbishop of Armagh on occasion of
an ordination, what he thought of them that were ordained
by presbyters ; he said he judged their ordination to be nuU
* Life {ut supra), p. 209.

122 Under James I and Charles I
and looked on them as laymen. He asked him what he
conceived of the churches beyond the sea. The bishop
answered he had charitable thoughts of them in France :
but as for Holland he questioned if there was a church
among them or not ; or words to that purpose : this Dr 
confidently reports." The paper containing this statement
was forwarded to the Primate by Dr Bernard, who gives
the foUowing extracts from his Grace's answer : it is un
fortunate and rather extraordinary that he did not give the
whole letter : " Touching Mr  I cannot call to mind
that he ever proposed to me the question in your letter
enclosed, neither do I know the Dr who hath spread the report ;
but for the matter itself, I have ever declared my opinion to
be that Episcopus et Presbyter gradu tantum differunt, non
ordine, and consequently that in places where bishops cannot
be had, the ordination of presbyters standeth valid : yet
on the other side holding as I do, that a bishop hath a
superiority in degree over a presbyter, you may easUy judge
that the ordination made by such presbyters as have severed
themselves from those bishops unto whom they had sworn
canonical obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from
being schismatical : and howsoever I must needs think that
the churches which have no bishops are thereby become very
much defective in their government, and that the churches in
France, who, living under a popish power, cannot do what
they would, are more excusable in this defect than the Low
Countries, that live under a free state, yet for testifying my
communion vrith these churches (which I do love and honour
as tme members of the Church Universal) I do profess that
with Uke affection I should receive the blessed sacrament at
the hands of the Dutch ministers, if I were in HoUand, as
I should do at the hands of the French ministers if I were
in Charenton^."
For this opinion of the gradus tantum, among
1 Elrington's Life of Usher, p. 258. Cp. Elrington's remarks
on p. 256.

Under James I and Charles I 1 23
other points. Usher was assailed by Laud's chaplain
and biographer, Heylin, in a tract called Respondet
Petrus, and defended by his own chaplain and bio
grapher Parr. Parr says that he found almost the
same words written in a private note-book of Usher's
and dated not long before his death, with this clause
added :
For the agreement or disagreement in radical and funda
mental doctrines, not the consonancy or dissonancy in
the particiUar points of ecclesiastical government, is with me,
and I hope with every man that mindeth peace, the rule of
adhering to, or receding from the communion of any church^.
The third star in this constellation is Jeremy
Taylor's Episcopacy Asserted, or, to give it its full
title, Of the sacred order and offices of Episcopacy , by
divine institution, apostolical tradition, and catholic
practice, first published in 1642.
It starts with the assertion :
The catholic practice of Christendom for fifteen hundred
years is so insupportable a prejudice against the enemies of
episcopacy, that they must bring admirable evidence of
scripture, or a clear revelation proved by miracles, or a con
trary undoubted tradition apostolical for themselves, or
else hope for no belief against the prescribed possession of
so many ages*.
Taylor lays it down that Christ instituted a
government in his church, committed to his apostles
with power of transmission to successors :
" Parr's Life of Usher, Appendix, p. 6.
" Works (ed. 1849), vol. v. pp. 15 foil. The word "prescribed"
is, of course, an allusion to TertuUian's famous argument de prae-
scriptione.

1 24 Under James I and Charles I
That Christ did in this place erect a jurisdiction and
establish a government, besides the evidence of fact, is
generally asserted by primitive exposition of the fathers,
affirming that to St Peter the keys were given, that to the
church of all ages a power of binding and loosing might be
communicated  This government was by immediate sub
stitution delegated to the apostles by Christ himself, in
traditione clavium, in spiratione Spiritus, in missione in
Pentecoste  This power so delegated was not to expire with
their persons ; for when the great Shepherd had reduced his
wandering sheep into a fold, he would not leave them vrithout
guides to govern them so long as the wolf might possibly
prey upon them, and that is, till the last separation of the
sheep from the goats  And therefore, that the apostolate
might be perpetual and successive, Christ gave them a power
of ordination, that by imposing hands on others they might
impart that power which they received from Christ  Of
necessity a succession must be constituted in the ordinary
office of apostolate. Now what is this ordinary office ? ... In
clear evidence of sense these offices and powers are preaching,
baptizing, consecrating, ordaining and governing. For these
were necessary for the perpetuating of a church, unless men
could be Christians that were never christened, nourished up
to life vrithout the eucharist, become priests vrithout calUng
of God and ordination, have their sins pardoned without
absolution, be members and parts and sons of a church,
whereof there is no coadunation, no authority, no governor.
These the apostles had without aU question ; and what.soever
they had, they had from Christ, and these were etemally
necessary; these then were the offices of that apostolate
which Christ promised to assist for ever, and this is that
which we now caU the order and office of episcopacy^.
Taylor, like others, argues from the difference
between the twelve and the seventy :
It is clear in scripture that the apostles did some acts
1 Works, vol. V. pp. 17, 19, 20.

Under James I and Charles I 125
of ministry which were done for ever in the church, and there
fore to be committed to their successors, which acts the
seventy disciples or presbyters could not do. . . . The apostles
imposed hands in ordinations, which the seventy-two did
not  Imposition of hands is a duty and office necessary
for the perpetuating of a church, ne gens sit unius aetatis,
" lest it expire in one age." This power of imposition of
hands for ordination was fixed upon the apostles and apos
tolic men, and not communicated to the seventy-two disciples
or presbyters; for the apostles and apostolic men did so
de facto, and were commanded to do so, and the seventy-two
never did so. Therefore this office and ministry of the apos
tolate is distinct and superior to that of presbyters ; and
this distinction must be so continued to aU ages of the church ;
for the thing was not temporary, but productive of issue
and succession, and therefore as perpetual as the clergy, as
the church itself^.
The sum of all is this : that Christ did institute apostles,
and presbyters, or seventy-two disciples. To the apostles
he gave a plenitude of power, for the whole commission was
given to them in as great and comprehensive clauses as were
imaginable ; for by virtue of it they received a power of
giving the Holy Ghost in confirmation, and of giving his
grace in the coUation of holy orders, a power of jurisdiction
and authority to govern the church ; and this power was not
temporary, but successive and perpetual, and was intended
as an ordinary office in the church, so that the successors of
the apostles had the same right and institution that the
apostles themselves had  But to the seventy-two Christ
gave no commission but of preaching, which was a very limited
commission  This I shall afterwards confirm by the practice
of the catholic church, and so vindicate the practices of the
present church from the common prejudices that disturb
us; for by this account episcopacy is not only a divine
institution, but the only order that derives immediately
from Christ*.
^ Works, vol. V. pp. 25, 27. ^ Ibid, p. 38.

1 26 Under James I and Charles I
With sufficient fulness Taylor works out the proof
that in pursuance of the divine institution the
apostles ordained bishops in various churches, and
concludes this part of his argument thus :
The sum is this. Although \i.e. even if] we had not
proved the immediate divine institution of episcopal power
over presbyters and the whole flock, yet episcopacy is not
less than an apostolical ordinance, and delivered to us by the
same authority that the observation of the Lord's day is.
For that in the New Testament we have no precept, and
nothing but the example of the primitive disciples meeting
in their synaxes upon that day ; . . . but yet (however that at
Geneva they were once in meditation to have changed it
into a Thursday meeting, to have shown their Christian
liberty) we should think strangely of those men that called
the Sunday festival less than an apostolical ordinance and
necessary now to be kept holy vrith such observances as the
church hath appointed  Divers others of greater conse
quence, which I dare not specify for fear of being misunder
stood, rely but upon equal faith vrith this of episcopacy
(though I should waive all the arguments for immediate
divine ordinance) ; and therefore it is but reasonable it should
be ranked among the credenda of Christianity, which the
church hath entertained upon the confidence of that which
we call " the faith of a Christian," whose Master is trath
itselfi.
Taylor proves that the episcopate was a distinct
order from the presbyterate by three arguments.
First the presbyterate was a step to it, as the diaconate
was to the presbyterate. Secondly, the promotion
was effected by a new ordination. Thirdly, the
presbyters never joined in laying hands upon those
who were consecrated to this higher office.
1 Works, vol. V. pp. 68, 69.

Under James I and Charles I 127
These premises, he says, do most certainly infer a real
difference between episcopacy and the presb3d:erate ; but
whether or no they infer a difference of order or only of
degree, or whether degree and order be aU one or no, is of
great consideration in the present and in relation to many
other questions^.
He argues therefore that in ancient times ordo
and gradus, and their Greek equivalents, were used
promiscuously. In aU orders, he says, there is the
impress of a distinct character ; that is, the person
is qualified with a new capacity to do certain offices
which before his ordination he had no power to do.
As there is a fresh act of ordination when a presbyter
becomes a bishop, it is clear that a fresh character
is impressed, — that is that the person consecrated
passes into a new order. Taylor rejects and de
molishes the contrary opinion, as "an innovation,
of the production of some in the church of Rome,
without all reason and against all antiquity." Very
briefly, and in this connexion, Taylor argues against
the view that a bishop may be consecrated per
saltum from the laity 2.
To clear the distinction of order, he proceeds, it is
evident in antiquity that bishops had a power of imposing
hands for collating of orders, which presbyters have not^.
In proof of this position he examines the canons
laid down for regulation of chorepiscopi, and various
instances of alleged ordination by presbyters, which
were judged to be null, — and not null in the sense
that they were uncanonical, though possibly valid.
» Works, vol. V. p. 105. 2 Ibid. p. 109. ' Ibid. p. no.

128 Under James I and Charles I
If to this be added that in antiquity it was dogmatically
resolved that by nature and institution of the order of
bishops ordination was appropriate to them, then it vrill
also from hence be evident that the nullity of ordination
without a bishop is not dependent upon positive constitution,
but on the exigence of the institution. Now, that the power of
ordination was only in the bishop, even they who to advance
the presbyters were wilUng enough to speak less for epis
copacy, give testimony, making this the proper distinctive
cognizance of a bishop from a presbyter, that the bishop
hath power of ordination, the presbyter hath not  Ordina
tion is the proper and peculiar function of a bishop, and
therefore not given him by positive constitution of the
canon^.
We come at length to the crucial question of
churches that have no bishops. Taylor's treatment
of it is most suggestive :
But then, are all ordinations invalid which are done by
mere presbyters vrithout a bishop ? What think we of the
reformed churches ?
I. For my part I know not what to think ; the question
hath been so often asked with so much violence and pre
judice, and we are so bound by public interest to approve
all that they do, that we have disabled ourselves to justify
our own. For we were glad at first of abettors against the
errors of the Roman church ; we found these men zealous
in it ; we thanked God for it, as we had cause ; and we were
vriUing to make them recompense by endeavouring to justify
their ordinations, not thinking what would follow upon
ourselves. But now it is come to that issue that our own
episcopacy is thought not necessary, because we did not
condemn the ordinations of their presbytery.
2. Why is not the question rather what we think of
the primitive church than what we think of the reformed
' Works, vol. v. p. 115.

Under James I and Charles I 129
churches ? Did the primitive councils and fathers do weU
in condemning the ordinations made by mere presb5d:ers ?
If they did well, what was a virtue in them is no sin in us ;
if they did iU, from what principle shall we judge of the right
of ordinations ? Since there is no example in scripture of
any ordination made but by apostles and bishops  So that
whence vrill men take their estimate for the rites of ordina
tions ? From scripture ? That gives it always to apostles
and bishops, as I have proved ; and that a priest did ever
impose hands for ordination can never be shown from thence.
From whence then ? From antiquity ? That was so far
from licensing ordinations made by presbyters alone, that
presbyters in the primitive church did never join with
bishops in collating holy orders of presbyter and deacon
till the fourth council of Carthage, — much less do it alone,
rightly and with effect. So that as in scripture there is
nothing for presbyters ordaining, so in antiquity there is
much against it ; and either in this particular we must have
strange thoughts of scripture and antiquity, or not so fair
interpretation of the ordinations of reformed presbyteries.
But for my part I had rather speak a truth in sincerity, than
err vrith a glorious correspondence \i.e, with an ostentatious
agreement].
Taylor examines the argument from necessity :
But wiU not necessity excuse them who could not have
orders from orthodox bishops ? Shall we either sin against
our consciences by subscribing to heretical and false reso
lutions in materia fidei, or else lose the being of a church
for want of episcopal ordinations ? Indeed if the case were
just this, it was very hard with good people of the trans
marine churches ; but I have here two things to consider.
First, I am very wUling to beUeve that they would not
have done anything either of error or suspicion but in cases
of necessity. But then I consider that M. Du Plessis, a
man of honour and great learning, does attest that at the
first reformation there were many archbishops and cardinals,
M. 9

130 Under James I and Charles I
in Germany, England, France, and Italy, that joined in the
reformation, whom they might, but did not, employ in
their ordinations ; and what necessity then can be pre
tended in this case I would fain learn, that I might make their
defence. But, which is of more and deeper consideration. . .
it is their constant and resolved practice, at least in France,
that if any returns to them, they wiU reordain him by their
presbyters, though he had before episcopal ordination, as
both their friends and their enemies bear vritness.
Secondly I consider that necessity may excuse a personal
delinquency, but I never heard that necessity did build a
church. Indeed, no man is forced for his own particular
to commit a sin, for if it be absolutely a case of necessity,
the action ceaseth to be a sin. But indeed if God means to
build a church in any place, he wiU do it by means pro
portionable to that end ; that is, by putting them into a
possibility of doing and acquiring those things which himself
hath required of necessity to the constitution of a church.
So that supposing that ordination by a bishop is necessary
for the vocation of priests and deacons (as I have proved
it is), and therefore for the founding and perpetuating of
a church, either God hath given to all churches opportunity
and possibUity of such ordinations, and then necessity of
the contrary is but pretence and mockery, or if he hath not
given such possibiUty, then there is no church there to be
either built or continued, but the candlestick is presently
removed.
Taylor gives some historical illustrations, and
continues :
Thus the case is evident, that the want of a bishop vriU
not excuse us from our endeavours of acquiring one  And
therefore if it happens that those bishops which are of ordi
nary ministration amongst us prove heretical, stiU God's
church is cathoUc, and though with trouble, yet orthodox
bishops might be acquired  [A certain] Moses refused to
be ordained by him that was an Arian. So did the reformed

Under James I and Charles I 131
churches refuse ordinations by the bishops of the Roman
communion. But what then might they have done ? . . .
Those good people might have had order from the bishops
of England, or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought
our churches catholic and Christian.
Then Taylor says in a more yielding strain :
But shaU we then condemn those few of the reformed
churches whose ordinations always have been without
bishops ? No indeed, that must not be ; they stand or fall
to their own master. And though I cannot justify their
ordinations, yet what degree their necessity is of, what
their desire of episcopal ordinations may do for their personal
excuse, and how far a good life and a catholic belief may lead
a man in the way to heaven, although the forms of external
communion be not observed, I cannot determine. For
aught I know, their condition is the same vrith that of the
church of Pergamus, " I know thy works, and where thou
dweUest, even where Satan's seat is ; and thou boldest fast
my faith, and hast not denied my name." Nihilo minus
habeo adversus te pauca, some few things I have against thee ;
and yet, of them, the want of canonical ordinations is a
defect which I tmst themselves desire to be remedied ; but
if it cannot be done, their sin is indeed the less, but their
misery the greater 
But this I would not have declared so freely, had not the
necessity of our own churches required it, and that the first
pretence of the legality and vaUdity of their ordinations [had]
been buoyed up to the height of an absolute necessity^;
for else why shaU it be called tyranny in us to caU on them
to conform to us and to the practice of the catholic church,
and yet in them be caUed a good and a holy zeal to exact
our conformity to them ? But I hope it vrill so happen to
us that it vrill be verified here what was once said of the
1 That is, the first claim, that their orders were valid, had been
exchanged for the assertion that the presbyterian form was every
where necessary.
9—2

132 Under James I and Charles I
catholics under the fury of Justina, sed tantafuit perseverantia
fidelium populorum ut animas prius amittere quam episcopum
mallent; — if it were put to our choice, rather to die...
than lose the sacred order and offices of episcopacy, without
which no priest, no ordination, no consecration of the
sacrament, no absolution, no rite or sacrament, legitimately
can be performed in order to eternity^.
From this guarded concession Taylor recurs to his
main thesis, derived from patristic history :
The sum is this. If the canons and sanctions apostolical ;
if the decrees of eight famous councils in Christendom, of
Ancyra, of Antioch, of Sardis, of Alexandria, two of Con
stantinople, the Arausican Council, and that of Hispalis ;
if the constant successive acts of the famous martyr-bishops
of Rome making ordinations [i,e. regulations] ; if the
testimony of the whole pontifical book ; if the dogmatical
resolution of so many fathers, St Denys, St Cornelius,
St Athanasius, St Jerome, St Chrysostom, St Epiphanius,
St Austin, and divers others, all appropriating ordinations
to the bishop's hand ; if the constant voice of Christendom
declaring ordinations made by presbyters to be null and void
in the nature of the thing ; and never any act of ordination
by a non-bishop approved by any council, decretal, or single
suffrage of any famous man in Christendom ; if that ordina
tions of bishops were always made, and they ever done by
bishops ; and no pretence of priests joining with them in
their consecrations ; and after all this it was declared
heresy to communicate the power of giving orders to pres
byters, either alone or in conjunction with bishops, as it
was in the case of Aerius ; if all this — ^that is, if whatsoever
can be imagined, be sufficient to make faith in this particular ;
then it is evident that the power and order of bishops is
greater than the power and order of presbyters, to wit, in
this great particular of ordination, and that by this loud
voice and united vote of Christendom*-
'^ Works, vol. v. pp. 118-122. 2 Ibid, p. 122.

Under James I and Charles T 133
In his Episcopacy Asserted Taylor did not directly
discuss the question of inter-communion with the
foreign churches which were in his eyes so gravely
defective. A few years later, in 1647, he touches
upon it at the end of his great Liberty of Prophesying.
There he distinguishes between the duty of particular
churches and the duty of individual Christians in
this matter :
As for particular churches, they are bound to allow
communion to all those that profess the same faith upon
which the apostles did give communion  To make the way
to heaven straiter than God made it, or to deny to com
municate vrith those with whom God wiU vouchsafe to be
united, and to refuse our charity to those who have the same
faith, because they have not all our opinions, and believe
not everything necessary which we over-value, is impious
and schismatical ; it infers tyranny on one part, and persuades
and tempts to uncharitableness and animosities on both.
This is his view of the duty of church to church :
his view of the duty of the individual believer is as
follows :
As for the duty of particular men in the question of
communicating with churches of different persuasions [he
means, e,g, Calvinists, Lutherans, Greek Orthodox], it is to be
regulated according to the laws of those churches. For if
they require no impiety or anything unlawful as the condition
of their communion, then they communicate with them as
they are servants of Christ, as disciples of his doctrine and
subjects to his laws, and the particular distinguishing doctrine
of their sect [the word does not mean to Taylor what it
means to us] hath no influence or communication vrith him
who from another sect is vrilUng to communicate with all the
servants of their common Lord  But this thing wUl scarce
be reduced to practice ; for few churches that have framed

134 Under James I and Charles I
bodies of confession and articles wiU endure any person that
is not of the same confession ; which is a plain demonstration
that such bodies of confession and articles do much hurt,
by becoming instruments of separating and dividing com
munions, and making unnecessary or uncertain propositions
a certain means of schism and disunion^
These are far-reaching statements, and might lead
to consequences which perhaps Taylor himself did not
altogether intend ; but their first aim and object was,
in accordance with the circumstances in which they
were written, to remove the narrow spirit, against
which John Dury was labouring at the time, which
made the Calvinistic churches refuse communion to
the Lutherans, or which here in England made the
Independents refuse communion to the Presbyterians.
The fourth and last of this important group of
essays on episcopacy was Hammond's Dissertationes
quatuor. The book was published in 165 1, when
episcopacy appeared to be almost extinct in England.
Its object was to confute the attacks recently made
upon the unpopular system by Saumaise and Blondel
in France, which were assumed on the continent to
have put the matter beyond the reach of further
dispute. In 1654 ^ Vindication, in English, followed,
to meet the criticisms of " the London ministers."
Not without reason Sage, in the vindication of his
own Principles of the Cyprianic Age, describes Ham
mond as " a very great man, an antiquary very
accurate (much more accurate than Dr Taylor), an
advocate for prelacy beyond the ordinary size, both
' Works, vol. V. pp. 601 foil.

Under James I and Charles I 135
for industry and comprehension, and one whose
writings on this controversy have made him very
famous^." The Dissertationes, it must be confessed,
are very tedious reading, especially when compared
with the charms of Jeremy Taylor and Joseph HaU.
The Latin is ungraceful, and Greek words are inserted
into it with irritating frequency. Nevertheless the
book was the most solid contribution to the early
history of the subject which had yet appeared.
The prefatory dissertation (for there are in fact
five) is on Antichrist. It seems to be beginning
rather far off, but the presbyterian party held that
the obnoxious institution was due to that " mystery
of iniquity " which St Paul discerned as already at
work when he wrote to the Thessalonians. Anti
christ was to them much what " Hellenism " is to
many a modern German Forscher, Hammond's con
tention is that the Antichrist was the Gnostic move
ment ; but he closes with his antagonists on the
dilemma, — which is independent of his particular
contention :
Si episcopalis dignitatis semina apostolomm aetate in
ecclesia sata reperiantur, tunc aut ab apostolis rejiciebantur,
aut non. Si rejiciebantur, tunc iUud aut scriptis ipsomm,
aut dypa.<l>w^ factum. Si scriptis, monstrentur in epistolis
apostolomm verba aut in actis decreta quibus illud factum
est ; si Aypai^ws rejecta et reprobata ab apostolis fuerint,
. . . indicentur demum capsulae quibus haec. . .damnatae
episcopalis authoritatis vapaSoa-L'; reposita et custodita
incolumis ad nos pervenerit. . . . Sin vero haec tam alto
mane sparsa semina nulla unquam aut scripta aut non
1 Vindication (1701), p. 168.

136 Under James I and Charles I
scripta apostolomm censura feriebantur, quis, quaeso, nos
judices constituit, ut post universalem per tot secula in
ecclesia hujus ordinis receptionem nobis tandem jubentibus
damnetur^?
This argument is followed by another : Walo {i.e.
Saumaise) and Blondel put the rise of episcopacy
about a hundred years after the ascension of Christ :
Si presbyterana lo-ort/uia, seu a Christo seu ab apostolis
in ecclesia stabilita, sic apostolomm aevo per totam ubique
ecclesiam propagata sit ut episcopalis apex toto hoc centum
annorum spatio contra mutire aut hiscere ausus non sit,
tunc certe fieri non potuit, ut . . . ab universa proxime suc-
cedentis saeculi ecclesia in aliam diversam, et plane adversam
seu contrariam, immutaretur, et nulla interea aut synodo
aut concilio aut conventu interveniente (cujus ope tot per
orbem terramm dissitae ecclesiae in idem sacrUegium con-
spirare possent), nuUis epistolis canonicis (quibus consilia
sua sibi invicem communicarent) tantae mutationi obstetri-
cantibus, a Christiana in antichristianam, a genuina in mere-
triciam, a divina demum in diabolicam formam degene-
raret.
What confidence could we have in the faithful
ness of the early church about any matter if it were
so unfaithful in this ?
Unicum addo ; si de universa Christi famiUa, oeconomis
fidelissimis vixdum e f oribus egressis, sic pronuntiandum sit ;
si de utriusque testamenti diro^i/Vai?, a quibus praeter
alias •jrapaSoo-ets sacrum scripturae canonem stabilitum
et conservatum nos accepisse agnoscimus, haec et talia
censenda sunt ; habebunt adversarii nostri unde de hie-
rarchicis simul et Christianis triumphare possint, unde de
disciplina fideque Integra, una mensurandis strage, eodem
busto componendis, sibi affatim gratulentur. Quid enim
de scripturamm canone inter protestantes ipsosque qui se
1 Hammond's Works (ed. 1684), vol. iv. p. 741.

Under James I and Charies I 137
evangeUcos nuncupant recepto, de diei Dominicae obser-
vatione, aut e scriptura aut ex universo antiquitatis penu
adversus avTt\eyoi/Tas dici potest, quod non multo auctius
et cumulatius pro episcopali dignitate contra paritatis presby-
teranae assertores dici poterit?
Then in a pathetic passage this faithful son of
the afflicted church of England defines the position
of that church upon this question :
Certe ab hoc novatorum scopulo sibi diligenter cautum
esse voluit Dilectissima Mater nostra (afflicta, sed ovk
aTTcXirt^ovo-a), ecclesia Anglicana, hoc se universo Christia
norum orbi charactere dignoscendam, hoc aequae posteri-
tati aestimandam proponens, quod in controversiis fidei
aut T-pd^em decernendis illud firmum ratumque semper
habuerit (et huic basi reformationem Britannicam niti
voluerit), ut scripturis primae, dein primorum saeculorum
episcopis, martyribus, scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, secundae
deferrentur ; ideoque quicquid a scripturis affirmatum in
fide, quicquid de regimine ecclesiastico ab universa post
apostolos ubique disseminata ecclesia constitutum dignoverit,
illud pro fixo et stabilito inter articulos religionis ponendum
curavit, nemini filiorum suorum quod sic positum fuerit
novandum aut movendum permissura^.
Hammond's second Dissertation is a scholarly
defence of the Ignatian epistles against the prejudiced
scepticism of the foreign presbyterians. Hammond
had now the edition of Voss (1646) to help him, and
the great Dissertation (1644) and Praefatio (1647) of
Usher. A request of Usher's had induced Hammond
to undertake the task of answering Blondel^. The
task was perhaps not difficult ; the coal, as Bishop
Hall expressed it, was too hot for the adversary's
' Works, vol. IV. p. 742.
2 Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iv. p. 351.

138 Under James I and Charles I
hands to hold ; but Hammond did it weU, and added
to his discussion an examination of the views of
Jerome on episcopacy '^.
The third and fourth Dissertations deal with the
evidence of the Gospels and of the rest of the New
Testament. The ground by this time was well
trodden, but Hammond found a good deal that was
new to say, and said freshly what had been said
before. His conclusion is the usual one :
Ex istis sic positis illud statim certissimum et lucidissi-
mum exurgit, his duodecim in terris Christi vicariis, ejus
mandato aut diplomate munitis, eademque ratione a Christo
missis qua ilie a Patre mittebatur, adeo omnem in ecclesia
authoritatem in solidum et in integrum commiss^m esse,
ut non ea cuivis mortalium . . . recte tribui possit, nisi quem
apostolomm aliquis in profectionibus aut provinciis ipsorum
aut immediate aut mediate in potestatis et authoritatis
suae participationem aut successionem admiserit. Hos vero
sic admissos, sic ipsis succedentes, episcopos aut singulares
ecclesiamm praefectos fuisse antiquissimi ecclesiae scriptores
a nobis producti satis liberaliter testati sunt*.
The fifth Dissertation is on the testimony of
clement, Hermas, and other sub-apostolic writers.
The conclusion of the whole work forms a passage
very like one which has already been quoted from
Jeremy Taylor :
Haec... si cui nondum persuaserint ; si post mysterii
avo/Ai'as et antichristi. . .procul ab episcopis nostris de-
pulsam invidiam ; si post Ignatio primaevo martyri et
liierarchiae nostrae fidissimo v-n-epaa-vtrrTr] abstersam labem
omnem, authoritatemque ejus firmissimis demum columnis
1 Cp. Lightfoot Ignatius, vol. i. p. 318.
' Works, vol. IV. p. 782.

Under James T and Charles I 139
stabilitam, et testimonia tam frequentia et manifesta ex
eo pro episcopis prolata, ut nihU contra apertissimam
lucem adhuc vel fingi potuerit, nisi ut Ignatius epis-
tolas nunquam scripsisse credatur ; si post ipsius Hieronymi
liquidissimas confessiones sic ut causae nostrae satis prolixe
suffragari, refragari neutiquam existimandus sit ; si post
singula hac in re s. scripturamm loca aequa lance perpensa. . .
si post regimen ecclesiae Christianae adeo graphice in iis
delineatum, ut a Christo magno animamm pastore et episcopo
ad singulares apostolos eosdemque episcopos, ab apostolis
dein ad singulares in quolibet coetu e| proprie dictos episcopos
(ipso Christo instituente officium Spirituque sancto personas
designante) continua successione derivatum, ad universae
tandem per quindecim saecula ecclesiae episcopos (solo per
tot saeculorum decursum Aerio contra hiscente) descendisse
appareat ; si post dementis Romani (Petri primum diaconi,
dein in cathedra ei succedentis episcopi) de episcopis et
diaconis ab apostolis ubique constitutis apertissima producta
testimonia ; si post aliorum omnium, quos a presbyteranorum
pEirtibus stetisse D. BlondeUi interest, a strophis et technis
ejus vindicatas sententias ; . . . denique si post tot ab omni
aevo producta decreta, quibus in universum presbyteris
sine episcopo quidvis faciendi potestas abjudicatur, omnisque
in ecclesia Christi potestas singularibus episcopis aposto
lomm successoribus concredita affirmatur, adhuc cuivis
dubitandum videatur, annon omnis administrandae ecclesiae
(episcopis postmodum natis) presbyterorum consessibus a
Christo et apostolis [potestas] tradita fuerit ; si post tantam,
inquam, undique circumfusam claritatem adhuc caecutire
quisquam aut oculos obfirmare decreverit; unicum certe
superest. . .nempe ut paritatis aut laoTipla.^ presbyteranae
origines aut natales juxta positi coram acquis judicibus
trutinentur, ut integrae rei gestae annales. . .dilucide et ex
ipsis seu ¦)(<npvaTbiv seu avTOTrrmv archivis aut commentariis
desumpti et a primo parente, dicam ? an creatore ? Johanne
Calvino ad ultimum D. BlondeUum deducti conscribantur^.
1 Works, vol. IV. p. 840.

140 Under Jatnes I and Charles I
In an earlier work on the Power of the Keys (1647)
Hammond had already stated his belief that the
bishops are the successors of the apostles :
The only difficulty remaining in the point wiU be. Who are"
the apostles' successors in that power ? and when the
question is asked of that power, I must be understood of the
power of governing the church peculiarly (of which the power
of the keys was and is a principal branch) ; for it must again
be remembered that the apostles are to be considered under
a double notion, as planters, then as governors, of the church.
... I answer that it, being a matter of fact or story later than
that the scriptures can universaUy reach to it, cannot be fully
satisfied or answered from thence, any further than the
persons of Timothy or Titus etc., and the several angels of
the churches in the Apocalypse (who are acknowledged by
aU the ancients to be single persons that had power over all
others in those churches), but vriU in the full latitude through
the universal church in those times be made clear from the
next evidences that we have, viz. from the consent of the
Greek and Latin fathers, who generaUy resolve that bishops
are those successors. This I shaU not be so unreasonable
as to attempt to prove at large through the writings of those
fathers, but content myself with one or two of the first of
them^.
He gives the evidence of Clement of Rome,
Ignatius, and Cyprian, and then proceeds to state
the bearing of the evidence upon the question of
presbyterian orders :
And if it be demanded here. What it is which in our
church is given to presbyters in their ordination as the full
importance of the form then used. Receive the Holy Ghost,
I answer. Not aU that is at any time*contained under that
phrase, when it is used in the consecration [of bishops], but
1 Works, vol. I. 412. Cp. the treatise " On Imposition of Hands
for Ordination," ihid, p. 637.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 141
only the particulars which are after mentioned ; and so
distinctly not the power of ordaining, which is not mentioned,
and which is a particular that never was regular for any
presbyter in the ancient church to assume to himself, or to
any number of that order without a bishop over them ; . . .
and if the practice of some few protestant churches in this
last century be opposed against it, then first, I shall conceive
those very unfit to be confronted against the universal for
1500 years ; and therefore, secondly, I shall not doubt to
affirm, that want is not only a defect but a corruption among
them. Thirdly, it wUl be observable that even those that
want it among them have formerly thought fit to excuse it
by the case of necessity, and to acknowledge it their infelicity
but not their fault (their superiors in the state not permitting
them to have bishops to ordain them), and to give their judg
ments freely, that where episcopacy is, it is to be preserved,
and where it is not, it is to be wished for ; which is a sufficient
expression of their sense of it  And then fourthly, that this
cannot be applicable by way of excuse to those who desire
to cast out bishops where they are, on purpose that presbyters
may usurp the power which belongs to them^.
In the Considerations concerning the Change of
Church-Government, published in 1644, Hammond
wrote that it was a sin against religion to substitute
presbytery for episcopacy :
because this govemment by bishops superior to presbyters
is of apostolical institution. But this being an affirmation
as demonstrable by ecclesiastical records as any thing can
be, or as the canon of scripture which we receive is demon
strated to be the canon of scripture, and in regard it hath by
others been sufficiently proved, I shall therefore wholly
spare the repeating of that trouble, and add unto it, that it
hath the example, though not the direct precept, of Christ,
who with his twelve apostles and the many other disciples,
1 Works, vol. I. p. 419.

142 Under James I and Charles I
in time of his residence upon earth, superior one to the other,
are the copy, of which the bishops, presbyters, and deacons
in the foUovring age were a transcript. . . . Supposing it to be
in this manner apostolical, there is little colour of reason to
doubt but that the preserving of it is of as great moment as
many doctrines of Christianity, not only because many
doctrines were not so explicitly delivered by Christ but that
they needed farther explicating by the apostles. . .but also
because it was in God's providence thought fit that govem
ment should be settled, not by Christ personally, but by the
apostles — that is, mediately by Christ, as doctrine was by
Christ immediately  That they may not err in that work,
the Holy Ghost is promised to descend upon them, and Christ
by that power of his to be vrith them in eminent manner to
the end of the world  And having gone thus far, I cannot
but. . . appeal to any sober conscience, whether it be not some
irreligion thus to displace or remove that which the apostles
(to whom only by Christ it was entrusted) according to Christ's
own sampler and scripture-grounds thought fit to settle in
the church, supposing it to be a matter of religion which is
spoken of, as before we proved ; nay, whether if an angel
from heaven were to be anathematized for teaching any other
doctrine than what an apostle had taught, it would not
be a matter of just terror to any that should have any part
in the guilt of instituting any other govemment than that
which the apostles had instituted^.
The next name to be considered after Ham
mond's is that of Robert Sanderson.
Sanderson, at the request of Charles I, wrote in
1647, and pubhshed after the restoration, his treatise
on Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power. In it
he drew, after the manner of Francis Mason, a
distinction between the ways in which a thing can
be said to claim the jus divinum. Sometimes it
' Works, vol. I. pp. 398 foil.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 143
imports a positive divine precept : sometimes it is
used of things which are of apostolical institution or
practice. Under which of these descriptions does
episcopacy come ?
Now that the govemment of the churches of Christ by
bishops is of Divine right in that first and stricter sense is an
opinion at least of great probability, and such as may more
easily and upon better grounds be defended than confuted :
especiaUy if in expounding those texts that are aUeged for it,
we give such deference to the authority of the ancient fathers
and their expositions thereof, as vrise and sober men have
always thought it fit we should do. Yet because it is...
needless to contend for more, where less wiU serve the turn,
I find that our divines that have travailed most in this
argument ... do rather choose to stand to the tenure of
episcopacy ex apostolica designatione than to hold a contest
upon the title oijus divinum, no necessity requiring the same
to be done. ... Sufficient it is for the justification of the
church of England in the constitution and govemment
thereof that it is, as certainly it is, of divine right in the latter
and larger signification, that is to say of apostolical institu
tion and approbation^
This is, he says, " a part of the established
doctrine of the church of England," as proved both
by the ordinal, and by the 36th of the 39 Articles,
and has been constantly and uniformly maintained
by our best writers, and by all the sober, orderly,
and orthodox sons of the church.
In a postscript to his work, the conscientious
Sanderson says that whereas in the work itself he
has not made his own judgment clear upon the point,
and for want of so doing may perhaps be censured by
some to have walked but haltingly, or at leastwise with more
1 Works (ed. Jacobson), vol. v. p. 152.

144 Under Jatnes I ana Charles I
caution and mincing than became me to do in a business of
that nature, I do hereby declare . . . that . . . leaving other men
to the liberty of their own judgments, my opinion is that
episcopal government is not to be derived merely from apo
stolical practice or institution, but that it is originaUy founded
in the person and office of the Messias, our blessed Lord
Jesus Christ: who. . .did. . .send and empower his holy
apostles, giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father
had given him, in like manner as his Father had before
sent him, to execute the same apostolical, episcopal, and
pastoral office for the ordering and governing of his church
until his coming again ; and so the same office to continue
in them and their successors unto the end of the world.
This I take to be so clear from [certain] texts of scripture,
that if they shall be dUigently compared together, both
between themselves and vrith the foUovring practices of all the
churches of Christ, as well in the apostles' times as in the
purest and primitive times nearest thereunto, there vrill be
left little cause why any man should doubt thereof i-
It was Sanderson who in 1647 led the University
of Oxford in their spirited yet temperate refusal to
take the Solemn League and Covenant, and drew up
the reasons for refusing. Among other reasons, the
Oxford men affirm
We are not satisfied how we can with a good conscience
swear to endeavour the extirpation [of episcopacy].. . .
We think we have reason to believe that it is, if not jure
divino in the strictest sense, that is to say, expressly com
manded by God in his word, yet of apostolical institution :
that is to say, was established in the churches by the apostles
according to the mind and after the example of their Master,
Jesus Christ, and that by virtue of their ordinary power and
authority derived from him, as deputed by him governors
of his church*-
1 Works, vol. v. p. 191. 2 Ibid, vol. iv. p. 392.

Under James I atid Charles I 145
They proceed to enlarge upon the universality of
the institution, and urge (as Saravia did before, and
Pearson at a later time) that the abolition of it
would give such advantage to the papists, who usually
object against us and our religion the contempt of antiquity
and the love of novelty, that we should not be able to wipe
off the aspersion.
It would also
so diminish the just authority due to the consentient
judgment and practice of the universal church, the best
interpreter of scripture in things not clearly expressed, that
without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of
faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely
practised by us^.
The celebrated and much-abused archbishop
around whom these men, from Hall onwards, were
moving had no occasion to write any treatise on the
subject of episcopacy. His main controversy lay
in another direction. But Laud's views on the point
are not left to conjecture. His delightfully brotherly
letters to Bishop Hall about his book are a sufficient
testimony :
You say in the first head, that episcopacy is an ancient,
holy, and divine institution. It must needs be ancient and
holy, if divine. Would it not be more full, went it thus,
" so ancient as that it is of divine institution ? ".. .Again,
you say in that first point, that where episcopacy hath ob
tained, it cannot be abdicated without violation of God's
ordinance. This proposition I conceive is inter minus
habentes, for never was there any church yet where it hath not
obtained ; the Christian faith was never yet planted anywhere:
' Works, vol. IV. p. 394.
M IQ

146 Under James I attd Charles I
but the very first feature of the body of a church was by or
vrith episcopacy ; and wheresoever now episcopacy is not
suffered \i,e, by the professing church itself] to be, it is by
such an abdication ; for certainly there it was a principio.
In your second head, you grant that the presbyterian
government may be of use, where episcopacy may not be
had. First I pray you consider whether this concession be
not needless here, and in itself of a dangerous consequence.
Next I conceive there is no place where episcopacy may not
be had, if there be a church more than in title only. Thirdly
since they challenge their presbyterian fiction to be Christ's
kingdom and ordinance (as yourself expresseth), and cast
out episcopacy as opposite to it, we must not use any
mincing terms, but unmask them plainly ; nor shall I ever
give way to hamper ourselves for fear of speaking plain tmth,
though it be against Amsterdam or Geneva ; and this
must be sadly \i,e, seriously] thought on.
Concerning your Postulata I shaU pray you to aUow me
the like freedom  Episcopacy is not so to be asserted to
apostolical institution as to bar it from looking higher, and
from fetching it materially and originally, in the ground and
intention of it, from Christ himself, though perhaps the
apostles formalised it"-.
Upon this point the archbishop proceeds to en
large, not only as against " the furious Aerian heretics
(out of which are now raised . . . our Scottish masters) ,"
but also some " of a milder and subtiler alloy, both
in the Genevan and the Roman faction."
In a second letter Laud has one or two interest
ing observations to make :
First, you do extremely weU to distinguish the Scottish
business from the state of the foreign churches ; but yet to
those churches and their authors you are a Uttle more favour
able than our case wUl now bear. . .
1 Works (ed. 1857), vol. vi. pp. 573 foil.

Under James I and Charles I 147
The third [particular], which you seem to pass by as not
much material in the question, is in our judgment here the
very main of the cause ; and it is, whether episcopacy be
an order or degree. An order certainly, if it be of divine
and apostolical institution  And why does the church of
England ordain or consecrate every one that is made a bishop,
if it be but a degree of the same order ? For when a bishop
is translated, or made an archbishop, there's then no conse
cration, because they are... only degrees^.
That the episcopate is jure divino had formed the
subject of Laud's tenet for the degree of Doctor of
Divinity 2. His Diary shows the state of his opinion
many years before the writing of HaU's book. Under
the date Jan. 17, 1626, occurs the memorandum :
Wednesday, I show my reasons to the King, why the
papers of the late Bishop of Winchester concerning bishops,
that they are jure divino, should be printed [they were
Andrewes' letters to Du Moulin] ; contrary to what the
Bishop of Lincoln [Williams] had pitifully and to the great
detriment of the church of England signified*
The editors of Laud's works quote Bishop Hacket's
comment upon this passage, which is interesting as
giving Hacket's if not Williams's conception of the
bishop's office :
A great mistake, for Lincoln ever defended the divine
right of his order, that it was necessary in a church rightly
constituted, that it was a main defect in them that had not
that presidency among them ; but the less if they did desire
it and could not enjoy it*.
^ Works, vol. VI. p. 577. The dates of the two letters are Nov. ir,
1639, and the following Jan. 14.
^ Ibid. vol. III. p. 262.
' Ibid, p. 199.
* Scrinia Reserata, par. 11. p. 87.

148 Under James I and Charles I
Naturally his belief in the apostolical succession
was brought up against Laud at his trial :
The next charge was out of Dr Pocklinton's Altare
Christianum, pp. 49, 50, where he speaks (they say, for I
now have not his book) of a happiness that the bishops of
England can derive their succession from St Peter ; which
in great scorn Mr Nicolas called the " archbishop's pedi
gree. "...He may scorn what he vrill; but wise men know
it is a great honour to the church of England, and a great
stopple in the mouths of the Romanists, that her bishops
can derive their calUng successively from St Peter ; especially
considering how much they stand upon personal succession.
[And] Dr Pocklinton in this says no more for me and the
bishops than St Augustine urged for himself and his brethren
against the Donatists in the same words  But it seems an
upstart clergy without a calling vrill serve Mr Nicolas well
enough ^.
The day before this charge was preferred, Laud's
hostility to the foreign churches had been alleged
before the court :
This day they charged upon me the twelfth Original
Article, which follows in these words :
He hath traitorously endeavoured to cause division and
discord between the church of England and other reformed
churches ; and to that end hath suppressed and abrogated
the privUeges and immunities which have been by his
Majesty and his royal ancestors granted to the French and
Dutch churches in this kingdom ; and divers other ways
hath expressed his malice and disaffection to those churches ;
that so, by such disunion, the papists might have more
advantage for the overthi-ow and extirpation of both.
The first charge is, " that I deny them to be a church " :
for they say, " that I say plainly in my book against Fisher,
' Troubles and Trial, day 19 [Works, ed. 1854, vol. iv. p. 339).

Under James I and Charles I 149
that No Bishop, no Church. Now it is weU known that they
have no bishops, and therefore no church." The passage in
my book is an inference of St Jerome's opinion, no declaration
of my own. And if they or any other be aggrieved at
St Jerome for writing so, they may answer him. Mr Nicolas
added, " that this was seconded by Bp Mountague's book,
which Mr Pryn " (carefully) " vritnessed was found in my
study, and licensed by Dr Braye"...I cannot make them
any fuUer answer without viewing the place, than themselves
help me to by their own confession. Which is, that he adds
this exception, that none but a bishop can ordain, but
in casu necessitatis, which is the opinion of many learned and
moderate divines. " Yet this is very considerable in the
business, whether an inevitable necessity be cast upon them,
or they pluck a kind of necessity upon themselves^."
That he had laboured to bring England back to the
communion of Rome was, of course, the great charge
laid against Laud. He had said, so it was affirmed,
that the Roman church and the English were of one
religion, and that the English church and the foreign
protestants were of different religions. In the re
capitulation of his trial he touches upon both points.
His enemies sought to convict him of treason :
By a passage in my book, where I say, " the religion of
the papists and ours is one " : but that's expressed at large,
only because both are Christianity ; and no man, I hope,
wiU deny that papists are Christians. As for their notorious
faUings in Christianity, I have in the same book said enough
of them . . .
By my making the Dutch churches to be of another
religion. But this is mistaken (as my answer wiU show the
reader). And if they do not make themselves of another
religion, I shaU never endeavour to make them*.
' Works, vol. IV. p. 307.
2 Ibid. pp. 377, 378.

150 Under Jatnes I and Charles I
To the special and particular charge of unkind
treatment of the foreign congregations in England
Laud had his reply to make. These congregations
had adopted a schismatic attitude towards the church
of England. This I found, that they did not use their privUeges vrith
that gratitude and fairness to his Majesty, the state and
church of England, as they ought to have done . . .
I. That they living as they did and standing so strictly
to their own discipline wrought upon the party in England
which were addicted to them, and made them more averse
than otherwise they would have been to the present govern
ment of the church of England.
2. That by this means they lived in England as if they
were a kind of God's Israel in Egypt, to the great dishonour
of the church of England, to which at first they fled for shelter
against persecution  It grew up and encroached upon us,
till it became a church within a church, and a kind of state
within a state. And this I ever held dangerous, how small
beginning soever it had. . .
The third objection was a purely secular one :
the foreigners would not learn English, nor teach
Englishmen their trades.
4. That for religion, after so many descents of their
chUdren born in the land, and so native subjects, these
chUdren of theirs should refuse to pray and communicate
with the church of England, into whose bosom their parents
fled at first for succour, I thought then, and do stiU, that
no state could vrith safety or would in vrisdom endure it.
And this concerning their chUdren was all that was desired
by me^.
Laud has been made to bear much obloquy for
thi3 behaviour, even in our own times ; but his
1 Works, vol. III. pp. 422 foil.

Under James T and Charles I 151
pohcy cannot be called unreasonable in view of the
circumstances of the time. It was certainly never
intended that the Walloons should continue to be a
sect apart for ever, when they had become natural
ised subjects of the crown i-
For matters of a more general kind, Laud in
terested himself in Dury's work of reconcUiation,
and contributed to the expenses of it. He wrote to
him in 1634 •
Ego certe quam primum spem de pace reformatarum
ecclesiamm conceptam audivi, perfusus sum gaudio, nee
desunt preces meae quotidianae obsidentes Deum pacis,
ut spem qualem-qualem messis tam gloriosae, tam frugiferae,
ad maturitatem perduceret. Quodque in me erit, dum
fata sinunt, omni labore contendam, ne operi Christiano
nomine tam digno deesse videar. Quin et probe scio ec
clesiae AngUcanae opus hoc gratissimum fore*-
It would not be right to pass over with only an
allusion the remarkable man whose works it was a
sin in the eyes of the puritans to possess, — Richard
Mountague, who made it his aim " to stand in the
gap against puritanism and popery, the Scylla and
Charybdis of ancient piety 3." The damning passage
was a vigorous statement of what Mountague took to
be the doctrine of the church of England on the
subject of the church and the ministry, as against
both the Scylla and the Charybdis aforesaid :
1 See Heylin Cyprianus Anglicus, pp. 276 foil.
^ Works, vol. VII. p. 112. There are several other letters of his
about Dury's work.
3 See his letter in Cosin's Correspondence (Surtees Library),
vol. I. p. 21.

1 52 Under Jatnes I and Charles I
Iniquius hie agunt cum ecclesia Anglicana, qui tenere
et tueri Ulam mentiuntur, non esse de necessitate vocationem
et missionem pastorum, ministrorum, vel sacerdotum ordi-
nariamper manuura impositionem. Sancte credimus, accurate
tuemur, et defendimus, extitisse, extare, extituram semper
contra omnes inferni et daemonum machinationes ecclesiam
et o-vvayoj-y^v hominum in Christum credentium, evoca-
torum : caeterum, nuUis interceptam intercisam inter-
capedinibus, perpetuo extantem alicubi, visibilem, oculis
usurpandam in eum finem et eo modo, ut intelligere possint
quibus curae illud est, apud quos habeatur verbum vitae,
sacramenta salutaria administrentur, sacerdotium rite dele-
getur : esse, fuisse, futurum esse ordinem ilium ecclesiasticum
sacerdotalem, in ecclesia visibili constitutum, agnitum,
agnoscendumve. . .hoc ipsum officium et munus in ecclesia
sive apostolicum sive sacerdotale adeo esse de necessitate
salutis ordinaria, ut sine altero alterum esse nequeat.
Non est sacerdotium nisi in ecclesia, non est ecclesia sine
sacerdotio. Illud autem intelligo per x^'P°^^'^'"'' episco
palem ordinariam. Neque enim admittenda[m] censemus
extraordinariam aliquam seu vocationem seu XeiTovpylav,
nisi miraculosam. Oportet omnino miraculis agant et suam
confirment functionem signo aliquo, qui non ab episcopis,
derivata ab apostolis per successionem institutione, in
ecclesiam inducuntur. Nam quod praetendunt, ordinariam
vocationem retinendam, adhibendam, eique adhaerescendum,
nisi in casu necessitatis, absurdum est, et suppositione innititur
impossibihtatis ; neque enim talis casus aut extitit aUquando
aut contingere potest, nisi fallat nos Dorainus qui promisit,
Portae inferorum non praevalebunf^.
The author of the Gag for an old Goose had much
more to say on behalf of bishops, in forms grave and
gay- One, other author may be mentioned here.
Heylin's chief activities as a writer belong to a
1 Origines Ecclesiasticae, 11. p. 463.

Under Jatnes I atid Charles I 153
somewhat later period, but his connexion with
Archbishop Laud is so close that his opinion ought
to be recorded near that of his English Cyprian.
There is no great originality, however, in his treatment
of the earliest period of the history of episcopacy.
He affirms that
There are two things to be declared and made evident ;
first, that the power of ordination was so inherent in the
person of a bishop, that he alone both might and did some
times ordain vrithout help of presbyters ; and secondly, that
the presbyters might not do the same without the bishop^.
He comes to foreign presbyterlanism. His atti
tude is marked by greater reserve than might have
been expected. Against all this I meet with no objection in antiquity 
This present age doth yield one, and a great one too, which is
the case of the reformed churches beyond the seas ; who,
finding an averseness of the bishops at the first to give them
orders, unless they would desert the work of reformation
which they had in hand, were fain to have recourse to
presbjrters for their ordinations ; in which estate they still
continue  The bishops thus refusing to admit them into holy
orders, which was the public ordinary door of entrance into
the ministry of the church, necessity compeUed them at the
last to enter in by private ways and impose hands on one
another.
Heylin illustrates their position by the story of
Scipio, who took the keys from the legally minded
quaestor and opened the aerarium himself for the
good of the state. The illustration had been used
before by Crakanthorp.
1 History of Episcopacy, in K«/i^Xta 'EkkX. (ed. 1681), p. 226.

1 54 Under James I and Charles I
This I conceive to be the case at the first beginning.
But whether with the change of their condition the case be
altered, or whether they continue in the state they were,
I am not able to say anything. It is a good old saying, and
to that I keep me, ^evos u>v airpdyixiav la-Oi, that where I am a
stranger, I must be no meddler ^.
It would be unfair to judge Archbishop Laud
entirely by his association with men of the stamp of
Heylin, as if there were no other side to his mind
and character. He was the patron of many liberal-
minded men, — among them, of Chillingworth. Chil-
lingworth left a brief memorandum of his opinion on
episcopacy, apparently written about 1642, the year
before his death. The memorandum was intended
to assuage the rising indignation against bishops.
The subject is stated at the outset with an ironical
moderation which was calculated to disarm opposi
tion. If we abstract from episcopal government all accidentals,
and consider only what is essential and necessary to it, we
shall find in it no more but this ; an appointment of one
man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of
all the churches within a certain precinct or diocese, and
furnishing him with authority (not absolute or arbitrary,
but regulated and bounded by laws, and moderated by
joining to him a convenient number of assistants), to the
intent that all the churches under him may be provided of
good and able pastors, and that both of pastors and people
conformity to laws and performance of their duties may be
required, under penalties not left to discretion, but by law
appointed*. 1 History of Episcopacy, pp. 228 foil.
2 Works (ed. 1838), vol. 11. p. 485.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 155
Chillingworth speaks of the system with a seeming
personal detachment :
To this kind of government I am not by any particular
\i.,e, private] interest so devoted as to think it ought to be
maintained either in opposition to apostolic institution, or
to the much desired reformation of men's lives and restora
tion of primitive discipline, or to any law or precept of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; for that were to maintain
a means contrary to the end ; for obedience to our Saviour
is the end for which church government is appointed. But
if it may be demonstrated (or made much more probable than
the contrary), as I verily think it may, I. That it is not
repugnant to the government settled in and for the church
by the apostles ; II. That it is as compilable with the
reformation of any evil which we desire to reform either in
church or state, or the introduction of any good which we
desire to introduce, as any kind of government ; and III. That
there is no law, no record of our Saviour against it : then
I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable motion, if we
humbly desire those that are in authority, especiaUy the
high court of parliament, that it may not be sacrificed to
clamour or overborne by violence ; and though (which God
forbid) the greater part of the multitude should cry, " Crucify,
Crucify," yet our governors would be so fuU of justice and
courage as not to give it up, until they perfectly understand
conceming episcopacy itself, quid mali fecit ?
Chillingworth argues briefly but forcibly from the
admission of men like Du Moulin and Beza, who
acknowledged that episcopacy was universal very
shortly after the apostles' time, that it must be
carried back to the apostles themselves.
When I shaU see therefore, he concludes, aU the fables
in the Metamorphosis [of Ovid] acted and prove tme
stories ; when I shall see all the democracies and aristocracies

156 Under James I and Charles I
in the world lie down and sleep and awake into monarchies ;
then vriU I begin to believe that presbyterial government,
having continued in the church during the apostles' times,
should presently after (against the apostles' doctrine and the
will of Christ) be whirled about like a scene in a masque and
transformed into episcopacy. In the meantime, while these
things remain thus incredible, and, in human reason, im
possible, I hope I sUall have leave to conclude thus :
Episcopal government is acknowledged to have been
universaUy received in the church presently after the apostles'
times. Between the apostles' times and this " presently
after " there was not time enough for, nor possibUity of, so
great an alteration. And therefore there was no such
alteration as is pretended. And therefore episcopacy, being
confessed to be so ancient and catholic, must be granted also
to be apostolic : quod erat demonstrandum ^.
It may be worth while to refer here to the opinion
of the learned Joseph Mead, or Mede, — an inde
pendent, if somewhat eccentric, scholar.
In one of his sermons he clearly adopts the two-
order theory of the ministry, but as clearly traces
the division in the superior order to divine institution :
There are properly but two orders ecclesiastical,
presbyteri and diaconi ; the one the masters, priests ; the
other the ministers, deacons. The rest are but divers degrees
of these two. As bishops are a degree of presbyters of divine
ordinance, to be as heads, chiefs, and presidents of their
brethren, so subdeacons, lectors, and indeed anj' other kind
of ecclesiastical ministers . . . are all a kind of deacons, being
to the presbyters, either single or episcopal, as the levites
were to the sacerdotes in the Old Testament, namely to
minister unto or for them. Thus when we say, bishops,
presbyters, and deacons, we name but two orders, yet three
degrees. ^ Works, vol. II. p. 490.

Under James f attd Charles I 157
Mead takes offence at any minister being described
as a minister of the church, or of this or that church :
they are the ministers of God.
It is an enormous conceit that some maintain that the
power of sacred order and of the keys is given by God
immediately to the body of the congregation, and that they
depute him who is their minister to execute the power which
is originally in them. That power is conferred by God
immediately to those who are bishops and pastors, and by
and through them belongs to the whole body and no other
wise. Sed tantum potuit incommodi sermonis usus ^-
No one in England was more friendly to the work
of Dury among the foreign protestants than Mead
was. At the outset, however, he was somewhat loth
to declare his views, because, he says, writing in 1637,
it had come about
ut quo quis in exteras ecclesias proniorem se ostendat, eo
statim a nostra habeatur alienior *
Writing to Hartlib on the subject he says :
Our church, you know, goes upon differing principles
from the rest of the reformed, and so steers her course by
another rule than they do. We look after the form, rites,
and discipline of antiquity, and endeavour to bring our own
as near as we can to that pattern. We suppose the reformed
churches have departed farther therefrom than needed, and
so we are not very solicitous to comply with them ; yea, we
are jealous of such of our own as we see over-zealously
addicted to them, lest it be a sign they prefer them before
their mother. This I suppose you have observed, and that
this disposition in our church is of late very much increased.
Well then, if this union sought after be like to further and
1 Works (ed. 1664), pp. 34, 35.
2 Ibid, p. 986.

1 58 Under Jatnes I attd Charles I
advantage us in the way we affect, we shaU listen to it. If it
be like to be prejudicial, as namely to give strength and
authority to those amongst us who are enamoured vrith the
foreign platform, or bring a yoke upon our own by limiting
and making us obnoxious, we'U stand aloof and not meddle
with it, lest we infringe our liberty. . .
For myself, I am so far inclinable to peace that I can
yield to a Christian communion at as great a distance of
opinions as any protestant whatever. For I hold com
munion is not to be broken but for fundamentals ; of which
kind I take none of the differences between the Calvinists
and Lutherans to be. Yet am I not so weU versed in the
subtUties of these controversies as I think fit to adventure
my judgment to the pubUc view, . . . Nor do I think this union,
which every tme Christian ought so much to desire, vrill
ever be brought to pass by a fuU decision of the controversies,
but only by abating of that vast distance which contention
hath made, and approaching the differences so near as
either party may be induced to tolerate the other, and
acknowledge them for brethren and members of the same
bodyi.
The growing alienation from the foreign reformed
churches, which Mead noticed and deplored, was
largely due, in his opinion, to the intemperate zeal
with which some nominal churchmen at home held
them up to admiration, to the disparagement of their
own church.
Like Davenant, Mead does not mention episco
pacy as one of the things that enter into the
question of communion between the churches ; but
he is not speaking of communion between the church
of England and the foreign ones ; he is speaking of
communion between the foreign churches among
* Works, pp. 1 061, 1062.

Under Jatties I and Charles I 159
themselves. Dury himself perhaps alluded to it,
where he said in a letter to Mead that the schisms of
reformed Christendom arose " partim ex amissa pris-
tinae disciphnae regula." Perhaps Mead intended
to allude to it when in his reply, addressed to Hartlib,
he wrote as follows :
What if . . .we should. . .make two sorts of fundamental
articles, — fundamentals of salvation, and fundamentals of
ecclesiastical communion ? . . .Concerning the second sort, . . .
it is not fit that the church should admit any to her com
munion which shall professedly deny or refuse their assent
to such catholic truths as she hath anciently declared by
universal authority for the symbol and badge of such as
should have communion vrith her. And this sort of articles
without doubt fetches a greater compass and comprehends
more than the other, as being ordinate and measured by
another end, to wit, of discipline, and so contains not only
such truths, the knowledge whereof and assent whereto is
necessary unto the being of Christian Ufe, but also to the weU-
being thereof^.
The gentle Henry Feme, afterwards Bishop of
Chester, published in 1647 a httle pamphlet caUed
Episcopacy and Presbytery considered. It was not
intended for the learned theologian; it aimed at
showing which was the more serviceable. But the
ancient sanction of episcopacy was not to be neglected
in drawing up the accounts.
He that with a discerning eye (as wise men should)
looks upon a bishop, may in that person and his government
easily see what is original and apostolic, what brought in
after. ..and can sever what is accidental from what is
essential. 1 Works, p. 1066.

i6o Uttder Jatnes T and Charles I
The essential is, of course, the government by
one, however restricted by rules, with " authority
for ordination and jurisdiction."
That there is such a power of ordination and jurisdic
tion left in the church by our Saviour Christ, and to continue
in it, for the ordaining and sending forth ministers of the
gospel . . .is a truth confessed on aU sides. That the ministra
tion ot this power was not left indifferent to all presbyters
or ministers of the gospel, but restrained to certain choice
men ... for the more orderly government of the church is a
tmth also, current for 1500 years in the catholic church,
however in this last age opposed with all violence by presby
terians^.
The usual scripture evidences are briefly given,
but Feme rightly observes :
It could not be expected that the episcopal power
should show itself in any persons distinct from the apostles
tiU the churches planted abroad were so enlarged by the
access of new converts that there was need of many presbyters
to minister in them, and so of a bishop as chief pastor to take
care of the whole, and still to send out new labourers as the
harvest increased. For though the churches abroad at their
first planting were not without order, such as they were
capable of, being visited by the apostles or their fellow
labourers., .yet had they not at first such an order by
bishops and presbyters settled among them, as they had
when it seemed good to the apostles so to provide for them*.
Then came the Timothies and others.
In 1653 the same author wrote a more serious,
but brief, work in defence of Anglican orders against
opponents on the other side, — Certain Considerations
^ Episcopacy and Presbytery considered, p. 3.
^ Ihid. p. 4.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I i6i
of present Concernment touching this Reformed Church
of England, against the Jesuit Champny. One of
Champny' s arguments was derived from the relations
between the church of England and the foreign
reformed churches.
He urges that they renounce our plea of having ordina
tion by bishops, . . . esteeming them antichristian, and pleading
extraordinary vocation ; from whence he concludes against
them that they have no lawful pastors, therefore no church :
and consequently against us, that we are bound by our plea
of ordination by bishops. . .to renounce the fellowship of those
churches, which hitherto we accounted of as sisters, and to
stand alone, divided from all other churches, as we are from
the Roman, and to hold the church of England the only true
church, thereby confining the catholic church within the
bounds of that kingdom, which. . .will be too too narrow^.
Feme replies that we are not immediately con
cerned with the condition of the foreign reformed
churches ; but he wholly denies the last part of the
objection. " We do not exclude the Roman church "
itself " out of the bounds of the cathohc church."
" Much less do we exclude the Greek and Eastern
churches, who have their ordination and succession
of pastors from the apostles, as well as the Romish
church." Yea, and we may add here, we cannot exclude those
reformed, which want the regular way of ordination, from
belonging to the cathoUc church*.
He observes, however, that not all the reformed
churches abroad are without bishops.
1 Certain Considerations, etc., p. 93- ^ ^^^^- P- 94-

M.

II

1 62 Under Jatnes I and Charles I
Those churches which are the remains of the ancient
reformed Bohemians, and are now in and about Poland or
those parts, do stiU retain bishops  Neither are Denmark
and Sweden without their bishops ; and therefore Champny's
other inference, that in this plea of ordination by bishops
. . .we of England stand alone, is also false^.
Turning to the consideration of the other churches.
Feme says that their judgment has often been ex
pressed in our favour :
Now for their practice, not conformable to that judg
ment, as we cannot approve of it, so are we ready to excuse
their failing, so far as the necessity they plead vriU bear,
leaving it to the Romanists desperately to cut off nations
and people from the church for failings and wants in such
things as do not touch the very life and being of a church or
of the members of it*.
Ferne does not make light of the importance of
a duly accredited ministry :
Wilful omission or rejection of it is not only a great sin
and sacrilege committed against the commandment and
appointment of Christ and his apostles, but also such a breach
of charity in them who are guilty of it that it renders them
schismatical, and so far disjoined from the body of Christ,
which is his church, as they stand guUty of it*.
Nevertheless, the faith is of more importance than
the polity, and, where the faith is maintained, and
the due order wanting on account of uncontrollable
circumstances, we must look at those who are in such a condition,
without pastors regularly ordained, as at churches defective
and not completely framed, but in a capacity or expectation
1 Certain Considerations, etc., p. 94. * Ibid. p. 99.
3 Ibid. p. 104.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 163
of receiving their completion, when that necessity which
enforces the defect is removed, and so continuing as weU as
they may, rather than to give up that tmth and purity of
Christian doctrine they have attained to ^.
Such pastors as they have are
pastors by a moral designation to the office, rather than
any real or due consecration, which only is in those hands
that have received the power of sending or ordaining pastors
from the apostles*.
Feme discusses the question whether bishops are
a separate order. Evidently his own feeling is that
they are ; but he leaves the matter open. There is
something to be said for either view :
Of the two forementioned ways of conceiving the
ordaining power to be estated by the apostles. . .upon. . .
bishops. . .1 suppose the first way, which conceives it super
added as a distinct power to their priestly function, to be
the clearer for securing the episcopal function and distinguish-
ng it from the other ; but the second way, which conceives
that power radicaUy diffused and communicated in the very
order of the priestly function, and restrained to such select
persons in the exercise of it, the faculty or immediate power
whereof they received by consecration, I suppose to be more
easy and expedient for a peaceable accord of the difference
in hand, and yet safe enough for episcopal ordination*.
This section of the present survey may weU end
with the words of a venerable man who had been
the friend of Andrewes and Overall, and who died
at the age of ninety-five in the year before the restora
tion of Charles II. Thomas Morton, Bishop of
1 Certain Considerations, etc., p. 105. ^ Ibid. p. no.
3 lUd. p. 118. II — 2

164 Uttder Jatnes I and Charles I
Durham, whose chaplain Feme had been, wrote —
though the little book was x)nly pubhshed in 1670,
after his death, with an interesting preface by Sir
Henry Yelverton — a short treatise called 'ETriV/foTro?
airoo-ToXiKo's, or the Episcopacy of the Church of England
justified to be Apostolical. The method is somewhat
unusual. It starts with the "pole-star" of the
church of Geneva, Calvin, "peremptorily asserting
the right of episcopal government in what church
soever, that professeth the truth of doctrine and
denieth dependence on the Roman Antichrist." It
then ascends to the patristic evidence, and then to
the scriptural. Antiquity, Morton says, speaketh unto us both by its
profession and practice ; sometimes professing it to bfe so far
according to the word of God as it is apostolical, sometimes
in an higher tone and accent to attribute unto it a divine
right 1.
After discussing some patristic testimonies, Morton
says : These ecclesiastical testimonies being so manifold, so
pertinent, so perspicuous, and so freely confessed, we doubt
not but that ingenuous readers will prefer antiquity before
novelty, universality before paucity, solemnity of profession
before obscurity, and this fully testified apostolical practical
succession before the refractoriness of any whomsoever *-
When he comes to the New Testament, Morton
begins by showing how imperious St Paul was in the
use of his authority over the churches. The same
authority was transmitted to the apostolical disciples,
* 'En-io-Koiror djr., p. 25. 2 Jbid. p. 54.

Under Jatnes I and Charles I 165
like Timothy. The right of episcopacy to be con
sidered apostolic being thus proved, Morton ends by
showing that it is divine ; — the supreme proof of
which is, to him as to others, the approval of the
" angels " of the Apocalypse by the heavenly Christ 1.
Morton in his last will gives an account of his faith,
because, as he says, he felt it necessary " in this last
and worst age of the church for all bishops to leave
some testimony of their faith to the world . . .that so
neither their names may be traduced after their
death, nor any weak brother misled by fathering any
false opinions upon them." In the course of this
touching profession the bishop writes :
Concerning which order [of bishops] I profess to believe
that it was instituted by the apostles, who were infallibly
inspired by the Holy Ghost, and approved by Christ in the
Revelation of St John, and consequently to be of divine
institution . . . and I had never sustained the burthen of that
office above forty years in the church, if this had not been
always my judgment concerning bishops. I pray God
restore them again to those poor afflicted parts of his church
where either the office or the exercise of it is wanting  If I
had not believed upon sufficient evidence that the succession
of bishops in the church of England had been legally derived
from the apostles, I had never entered into that high calling,
much less continued in it thus long. . .
As for our brethren the protestants of foreign reformed
churches, the most learned and judicious of themselves have
bewaUed their misery for want of bishops. And therefore
God forbid I should be so uncharitable as to censure
theip for no-churches, for that which is their infelicity, not
their fault. But as for our perverse protestants at home, I
cannot say the same of them, seeing they impiously reject
' 'ETTi'o-KOjror aTT., pp. 146, 160.

1 66 Under James I and Charles I
that which the other piously desire. And therefore I cannot
flatter those in this church who have received their ordina
tion only from mere presbyters so far as to think them law
fully ordained. St Jerome himself reserved to the bishop
the power of ordination. Seeing therefore I have been, as
I hear, so far misunderstood by some among us as to be
thought to approve of their ordination by mere presbyters,
because I once said it might be vaUd in case of necessity,
I do here profess my meaning to be, that I never thought
there was any such necessity in the church of England to
warrant it, where (blessed be God for it) there be so many
bishops still surviving ; and therefore I desire them not to
mistake my meaning in that saying. . .
Having thus far prevented the uncharitableness of others
against myself, I do here from my heart profess my unfeigned
charity to all the world ; and more particularly both towards
those papists and perverse protestants whom I have so much
endeavoured to undeceive  It was only their errors whereat
I was offended : I have always loved and pitied their persons,
and prayed and laboured for the right informing of their
minds and the eternal salvation of their souls. But yet my
common charity to them must not supersede my more
particular love and obligation which I have to those truly
humble and meek souls in the church of England (and more
especiaUy in my own diocese of Durham) who still stand
firm upon the foundation of a sound faith, and continue
obedient to the doctrine of God's word and discipline of
his church, vrithout wavering either to the right hand or
to the left. And my eamest exhortation to them is, that they
would still continue their former affections (notwithstanding
all temptations to the contrary) both to the doctrine,
discipUne, govemment, and form of worship of this poor
afflicted church : which if I did not believe to be the securest
way for the salvation of their souls, I had not ventured my
own upon the same bottom^-
* Recited in John Barwick's 'lepovUris, — a funeral sermon on
the Bishop, printed 1660.

CHAPTER IV
THE RESTORATION PERIOD
There can be no doubt that the attitude of the
church of England in the matter of episcopacy
stiffened at the Restoration in 1660. It was shown
even in the alterations made in the preface to the
ordinal, though the alterations were only supposed
to make clearer the meaning of what was there
before^. The reasons are not far to seek. The
personal sufferings of the episcopalian clergy at the
hands of presbyterians and independents were
enough to account for it ; and the sufferings of the
clergy had been shared by the faithful laity. And
the cause had been sanctified by at least one great
death. The execution of Archbishop Laud would
have sufficed to create a reaction in favour of the
principles for which he stood ; but the martyrdom
(for so it was usually reckoned) of Archbishop Laud
was thrown into the shade by the martyrdom of King
Charles himself. Whatever views may be taken of
the character of the king, or of the nature of his
policy, it cannot be denied that Charles's death was
^ See W. K. Firminger The Alterations in the Ordinal of 1662,
Church Historical Society papers. No. xxxi.

1 68 The Restoration Period
due to his loyalty to the church of Hooker and
Andrewes, whose works, with Laud's and Hammond's,
he commended to his children at his parting inter
view with them, and above all to his maintenance of
the divine institution of episcopacy.
In 1646, after seeking the advice of Juxon, Duppa,
and Sheldon, Charles offered to consent to the estab
lishment of presbyterlanism for five years, on the
understanding that at the end of that period a
" regulated " episcopacy should be instituted, — that
is an episcopacy limited by a constitution such as
Usher had devised. When Henrietta Maria, from
France, urged him to save his throne by surrendering
episcopacy altogether, he answered her :
I assure you that the change [to presbyterianism] would be
no less, and worse, than if popery were brought in ; for we
should have neither lawful priests, nor sacraments duly
administered, nor God publicly served but according to the
foolish fancy of every idle person ; but we should have the
doctrine against kings fiercelier set up than amongst the
Jesuits 1.
In the confused state of things which followed,
the church of England leamed more clearly than ever
before the line of demarcation that separated it from
the protestant sects which had usurped its place. No
doubt a certain number of Anglican priests at home
conformed to the system which was forced upon
them, and by various artifices succeeded in maintain
ing something like their former religious methods^.
'^ See Gardiner's Great Civil War (ed. 1893), vol. iii. p. 135.
2 See Perry History of the Church of England (1862), vol. 11.
p. 222.

The Restoration Period 169
How far such priests were committed to communion
with the dominant parties is by no means clear.
Probably there were but few occasions when they
were called upon to receive the sacrament at the
hands of others than themselves ; and clearly in
their own parochial ministrations they were safe from
ecclesiastical irregularity, though they were hampered
in the use of the ecclesiastical forms. Men like
Thorndike disapproved of the compliances of men
like Sanderson, and positively condemned communion
with the presbyterians and others^. Men less doc
trinaire, like Bramhall, made excuses for them^.
They never felt, as the presbyterians wished them to
do, that it was the church of England itself that had
undergone a fresh reformation, or that they owed
any spiritual allegiance to the new order of things.
The religion now set up was not theirs. When they
were taunted with the disappearance of their church
from off the face of the earth, they felt the sting,
though they were not perturbed to find an answer.
You say, writes Bramhall to a Roman Catholic
disputant, [that our church] hath no more any sub
sistence in the world, nor pretence to the privUege of a church.
. . .Wheresoever there is a lawful English pastor, and an
English flock, and a subordination of this flock to that pastor*,
there is a branch of the tme English protestant church.
Do you make no difference between a church persecuted and
a church extinguished ? Have patience, and expect the
catastrophe. It may be, all this while the Carpenter's Son
1 See below, p. 189, and compare Stoughton Religion in England,
vol. II. p. 31S.
2 See below, p. 211.
^ The phrase comes from Cyprian.

170 The Restoration Period
is making a coffin for JuUan. If it please God, we may yet
see the church of England, which is now frying in the fire,
come out like gold out of the furnace, more pure, and more
fuU of lustre. If not, his wiU be done. " Just art thou, 0
Lord, and righteous are all thy judgments 1."
Many, both of the clergy and of the laity, went
abroad, like the writer just quoted^. In some places,
as at Paris, they had facilities for using their own
services in an embassy chapel or elsewhere ; but in
others the question whether it was lawful and right
to communicate with the native protestants (to com
municate with the Roman Catholics without going
over to them was impossible) became acute. It was
not a question that had been positively and authorita
tively decided. English church writers had generally
assumed that there was intercommunion between
their church and the foreigners, but no formal acts had
established it. Perhaps no such act was necessary,
unless it could be shown that communion had at
some time been formally broken off. But it was by
no means certain whether the foreign protestant
churches, which were not all in communion with each
other, were all ready to admit English churchmen to
communion. From the way in which Cosin, for
instance, and Jeremy Taylor discuss the matter, it
is plain that the individual churchman was left free
to decide for himself. Some decided one way, some
the other. Cosin communicated ; so did his son-in-
law, GranvUle. Basire, Brevint, Durel, and others,
1 Bramhall's Works (ed. 1842), vol. i. pp. 63 foU.
^ See Perry, ut supra, p. 224.

The Restoration Period 171
whose native language was French, ministered in the
French protestant church. Others abstained. There
is no sign that BramhaU communicated with the
French. Morley certainly did not. Hyde, afterwards
Clarendon, refused^, though he had his reasons for
wishing good relations to be maintained with them.
If it had been clear beforehand that the churches
were in communion, the refusal would have been
inconceivable. A community of interest was un
doubted, but there was no public union of the
churches. And it was perhaps not so easy for English church
men now to communicate with the foreign churches
as at an earlier time. They knew more about them
than before, — at least about the French, Dutch, and
Swiss churches ; for Englishmen in general were
strangely ignorant of the state of the Lutheran
churches. They began to be aware that it was not
altogether the misfortune of these churches that they
were without bishops. Charitably it had been sup
posed that they could not help themselves ; but it
gradually became too plain that some of them, at
any rate, were willingly and impenitently presby
terian. They had had reforming bishops among
them, or bishops friendly to reform, and had made
no use of them. The pretence of necessity was stUl
sometimes resorted to, but not so often or so con
fidently. There was too close a likeness between the
Calvinistic churches of the continent and the mis
chievous presbyterians at home. A certain aloofness
1 See Hickes's Works, vol. i. pp. 283 foil. (ed. 1847).

172 The Restoration Period
with regard to them seemed not unsuitable for English
catholics^. How matters appeared to the English layman and
man of affairs is well seen by Clarendon's action in
urging Charles II not to go to the French protestant
services. The passage in his History is very instruc
tive : The Lord Jermyn, who in his own judgment was very
indifferent in all matters relating to religion, was always of
some faction that regarded it. He had been much addicted
to the presbyterians from the time that there had been any
treaties vrith the Scots, in which he had too much privity.
And now, upon the King's return into France, he had a great
design to persuade his Majesty to go to the congregation at
Charenton, to the end that he might keep up his interest in
the presbyterian party  The Queen [Mother] did not in the
least oppose this, but rather seemed to countenance it, as
the best expedient that might incline him by degrees to
prefer the religion of the church of Rome  She well knew . . .
[it] would be a little discountenance to the church in which
he had been bred ; and from which as soon as he could be
persuaded in any degree to swerve, he would be more exposed
to any temptation. The King had not positively refused to
gratify the minister of that congregation ; who with great
professions of duty had besought him to do them that
honour. . .
The Lord Jermyn. . . wondered, he said, why it should
be opposed by any man ; since he did not vrish that his
Majesty would discontinue his own devotions, according to
the course he had always observed, nor propose that he
should often repair thither, but only sometimes, at least
1 Durel, in 1662, published an interesting View of the Government
and Public Worship of God in the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas,
to show that they did not disapprove of episcopacy or the prayer-
book.

The Restoration Period 173
once, to show that he did look upon them as of the same
religion with him ; which the church of England had always
acknowledged ; and that it had been an instmction to the
English ambassadors that they should keep a good corre
spondence with those of the reUgion and frequently resort
to divine service at Charenton, where they had always a
pew kept for them.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer [Hyde himself] dis
suaded his Majesty from going thither, with equal earnestness ;
told him that whatever countenance or favour the crown
or church of England had heretofore shewn to those con
gregations, it was in a time when they carried themselves
with modesty and duty towards both, and when they pro
fessed great duty to the King, and much reverence to that
church, lamenting themselves that it was not in their power,
by the opposition of the state, to make their reformation so
perfect as it was in England : and by this kind of behaviour
they had indeed received the protection and countenance
from England, as if they were of the same religion. . , .
Whatever it was, that people now had undeserved it from
the King ; for as soon as the troubles begun, the Hugonots
of France. ..had publicly and industriously justified the
rebellion, and prayed for the good success of it ; and their
synod itself had in such a manner inveighed against the
church of England, that they, upon the matter, professed
themselves to be of another religion and inveighed against
episcopacy, as if it were inconsistent with the protestant
religion  [He] told the King " that ... his going to Charenton
could not be vrithoUt this effect, that it would be concluded
everywhere that his Majesty thought the one or the other
profession to be indifferent ; which would be one of the most
deadly wounds to the church of England that it had yet
suffered*."
This language is not very easy to reconcile with
the views expressed in an earlier part of the History,
1 History of the Rebellion (ed. 1704), vol. iii. pp. 344 foil.

174 The Restoration Period
where Clarendon describes the growing alienation
between the English church and the foreign pro
testants. He dweUs on the dishke which was felt
by the authorities towards the foreign congregations
in England :
Some few years before these troubles, when the power
of the churchmen grew more transcendent,. . .the bishops
grew jealous that the countenancing another discipline of
the church here by order of the state (for those foreign
congregations were governed by a presbytery according to
the custom and constitution of those parts of which they
had been natives : the French, Dutch, and WaUoons had the
free use of several churches according to their own discipline)
would at least diminish the reputation and dignity of the
episcopal govemment, and give some countenance to the
factious and schismatical party in England to hope for such
a toleration*.
Their treatment of the congregations was of
course known abroad, and produced resentment.
But the home government and its ecclesiastical
advisers went further :
And that this might be sure to look like more than
what was necessary to the civU policy of the kingdom,
whereas in all former times the ambassadors and all foreign
ministers of state, employed from England into any parts
where the reformed religion was exercised, frequented their
churches, gave aU possible countenance to their profession,
and held correspondence with the most active and powerful
persons of that relation, and particularly the Ambassador
Leiger at Paris had diligentlj' and constantly frequented the
church at Charenton, and held a fair intercourse vrith those
of that religion throughout the kingdom [for the sake of
^ History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 73.

The Restoration Period 175
political advantages], the contrary to this was now with great
industry practised, and some advertisements, if not instruc
tions, given to the ambassadors there, " to forbear any
extraordinary commerce with the men of that profession."
And the Lord Scudamore, who was the last ordinary ambas
sador there before the beginning of this parliament, whether
by the inclination of his own nature, or by advice from others,
not only decUned going to Charenton, but furnished his own
chapel in his house vrith such ornaments (as candles upon
the communion table and the like) as gave great offence and
umbrage to those of the reformation there, who had not seen
the like ; besides that he was careful to publish upon all
occasions by himself and those who had the nearest relation
to him, " that the church of England looked not on the
Hugonots as a part of their communion " ; which was
Ukewise too much and too industriously discoursed at home*.
Clarendon does not admit that there was any
" Romeward drift " (as it has been called) in the
men who took this line ; but for purely political
reasons he deplores it.
They of the church of England who committed the
greatest errors this way had undoubtedly not the least
thoughts of making alterations in it towards the counten
ancing of popery, as hath been uncharitably conceived : but
(having too just cause given them to dislike the passion and
Ucence that was taken by some persons in the reformed
churches under the notion of conscience and religion to the
disturbance of the peace of kingdoms) unskUfuUy beUeved
that the total decUning the interest of that party, where it
exceeded the necessary bounds of reformation, would make
this church of England looked upon vrith more reverence. . . .
[None of them discerned] the tme and substantial grounds
of that poUcy upon which that good correspondence had
been founded which they were now about to change : and
'^ History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 74.

176 The Restoration Period
so the church of England, not giving the same countenance
to those of the religion in foreign parts, which it had formerh'-
done, no sooner was discerned to be under a cloud at home,
but those of the religion abroad were glad of the occasion
to publish their malice against her, and to enter into the
same conspiracy against the crown, without which they
could have done little to hurt the church*.
The man whom Clarendon selected to send over
to England in 1660, to negotiate with the presbyterian
party in view of the King's return, was George
Morley, soon to be Bishop of Worcester, and after
wards of Winchester. Morley, at an earlier time the
friend of Falkland, and later of Izaak Walton, had re
fused to worship with the French protestants, — ^partly
because of their attitude towards English politics.
He had the reputation of being no extremist. He
was ready to advocate a kind of "reduced " episcopacy
if he could get nothing better, and most anxious
to prevent the other clergy from using indiscreet
language^- I foresee, he wrote to Clarendon on May 4, 1660, the
main difficulty wUl be touching their ordinations by pres
byters vrithout bishops, which we cannot acknowledge to
be lawful, nor will they, I am afraid, be brought to acknow
ledge to be unlawful, and much less to be mere nuUities.
In this case I have thought of two expedients ; the one that
no notice be taken whether there have been any such ordina
tions or no ; the other, that there may be an hypothetical
reordination, by bishops, of such as were so ordained, which
reordination, as it vriU be a provision against the nullity of
such ordinations, so it vrill not conclude them to be nullities,
* History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 74 foil.
^ Clarendon State Papers, vol. in. p. 727.

The Restoration Period 177
but only irregular and uncertain. And this is much the better
salvo of the two, if they can be brought to it*.
What Morley means by his first " expedient " is
plain. It was to accept the men just as they were
without asking any questions. If right provisions
were made for all future ordinations, it was possible
to argue that this generation of irregularly ordained
ministers might be allowed gradually to die out,
without being ousted from their benefices. But this
" expedient " was rejected by the English laity who
framed and passed the Act of Uniformity.
The passage in Clarendon's Life has been often
quoted, in which he describes the result which was
finally reached, and the new departure which, in his
opinion, it created.
The Act of Uniformity depended long, and took up
much debate in both houses. In the house of peers, where
the act first began, there were many things inserted which
had not been contained in the former act of uniformity, and
so seemed to carry somewhat of novelty in them. It admitted
"*no person to have any cure of souls, or any ecclesiastical
dignity, in the church of England, but such who had been
or shoiUd be ordained priest or deacon by some bishop, that
is, who had not episcopal ordination ; excepting only the
ministers or pastors of the French and Dutch churches in
London and other places allowed by the King, who should
enjoy the privUeges they had."
This was new ; for there had been many, and at present
there were some, who possessed benefices with cure of souls,
and other ecclesiastical promotions, who had never received
orders but in France or in HoUand ; and these men must
now receive new ordination, which had been always held,
unlawful in the church, or by this act of parliament must.
' Clarendon State Papers, vol. m. p. 738.
M. 12

178 The Restoration Period
be deprived of their livelihood, wliich they enjoyed in the
most flourishing and peaceable time of the church. And
therefore it was said [Clarendon does not say by whom] that
this had not been the opinion of the church of England, and
that it would lay a great reproach upon all other protestant
> churches who had no bishops, as if they had no ministers,
' and consequently were no churches ; for that it was well
known the church of England did not allow reordination, as
the ancient church never admitted it, insomuch as if any priest
of the church of Rome renounces the communion thereof, his
ordination is not questioned, but he is as capable of any
preferment in this church as if he had been ordained in it.
And therefore the not admitting the ministers of other pro
testants to have the same privUege can proceed from no other
ground than that they looked not upon them as ministers,
having no ordination ; which is a judgment the church of
England had not ever owned, and that it would be very
imprudent to do it now.
The issue could hardly be stated more clearly ;
nor is the reply ambiguous.
To this it was answered, that the church of England
judged none but her own children, nor did determine that
other protestant churches were without ordination, ft is a
thing vrithout her cognisance ; and most of the learned men
of those churches had made necessity the chief piUar to
support that ordination of theirs. That necessity cannot be
pleaded here, where ordination is given according to the
unquestionable practice of the church of Christ. If they
who pretend \i.e. aUege] foreign ordination are his Majesty's
subjects, they have no excuse of necessity, for they might
in aU times have received episcopal ordination, and so they
did upon the matter renounce their own church. If they are
strangers, and pretend to \i.e. are candidates for] preferment
in this church, they ought to conform and to be subject
to the laws of the kingdom, which concem only those
who desire to live under the protection thereof. For the

The Restoration Period 179
argument of reordination, there is no such thing required.
Rebaptization is not allowed in or by any church ; yet in
all churches, where it is doubted as it may be often vrith
very good reason, whether the person hath been baptized or
no, or if it hath been baptized by a midwife or lay person,
vrithout determining the validity or invalidity of such
baptism there is an hypothetical form, // thou hast not been
already baptized, I do baptize, etc. So in this case of ordina
tion, the form may be the same. If thou hast not been already
ordained, then I do ordain etc. If his former ordination
were good, this is void ; if the other was invalid or defective,
he hath reason to be glad that it be thus supplied.
The historian concludes :
After much debate, that clause remained still in the
act ; and very many who had received presbyterian orders
in the late times came very wUlingly to be ordained in the
manner aforesaid by a bishop, and very few chose to quit
or lose a parsonage or vicarage of any value upon that
scruple*.
When we turn from the men of action to the
theologians of the restoration, it will be not unnatural
to begin with Thorndike, one of the most remarkable
writers whom the church of England has produced.
Obscure and unpleasant as his style is, he conducts
his investigations in a quite original way, and arrives
sometimes at results which would not be expected
from a writer so severely catholic in his principles.
Usher himself, or Baxter either, is not more decided
in his views on the primitive " moderation " of
episcopacy. The primitive bishops were " heads
of presbyteries^." The government of the churches
1 Continuation of the Life (ed. 1759), pp. 152 foil.
^ Primitive Government of Churches in Works (ed. 1844), vol. i.
p. 30. The book was published in 1641.

i8o The Restoration Period
passed from the apostles to the bishop and his
presbytery in common. The Ephesian elders, whom
St Paul addressed at Miletus, were not by Timothy's
arrival to be their bishop discharged from the super
vision of the flock entrusted to them before. The
instructions given in the Pastoral Epistles were not
for Timothy alone, but for his presbytery with him.
If the bible does not say much on this point, it must
be remembered, Thorndike says, that for the most
part the New Testament writings are earlier than the
appointment of bishops, and date from the time when
the apostles themselves were executing the episcopal
office. From this it follows, in Thorndike's opinion, that
the power of ordination rested originally in the same
hands as the general government of the churches ;
that is, in the apostle and the presbytery before there
were bishops, — in the bishop and the presbytery
in common afterwards. This soon came to be
altered :
Now of all parts of the office common to bishop and
presbyters, this of ordination is that which the bishop first
began to exercise alone ; so that with St Chrysostom and
St Jerome it is taken in a manner for granted that it was to
be done by him alone  In which, nevertheless ... if we take
not our marks amiss, we shall find argument enough, at
least at the beginning, for the concurrence of presbyters vrith
him in making of presbyters and other inferior orders. In the
first place, those general passages of the fathers wherein is
vritnessed that the presbytery was a bench assistant to the
bishop, without advice whereof nothing of moment was done,
must needs be drawn into consequence to argue that it had
effect in a particular of this weight. Then the ordination of

The Restoration Period i8i
Timothy by imposition of hands of the presbytery* wiU prove
no less within compass of the scripture  Neither are the
arguments of this interest quite worn out of the practice of the
church, either in the point of nominating the persons or that
of imposing hands  This [imposition of hands] is, and was,
and ought to be, in sign of their consent to what is done*.
The argument might seem to be in favour of
presbyterianism, but that was not at all Thorndike's
meaning. If bishops were not to act without their
presbyters, still less did he think that presbyters
could act, or had ever rightly acted, without their
bishops :
He that aimeth at the primitive form, and that which
cometh nearest the institution of our Lord and his apostles,
must not think of destroying bishops, but of restoring their
presbyteries. Were it but a human ordinance of yesterday,
. . .let me be bold to say that if Aerius withdraw his sub
mission to it, he must come vrithin Epiphanius' list of heretics.
... Of this crime my earnest desire is that those which have
separated themselves from this church of England upon this
quarrel of government by bishops. . .may stand acquitted;
though how they will acquit themselves of it, I cannot yet
perceive  Be it pardonable for our neighbours and brethren
of the reformed churches abroad to have overseen the
succession of the apostles, because they could not discern it
as they found it blended with such abundance of accessories,
especially in the persons of men that hated to be reformed ;
but among us there hath been time to plead the right to the
quick ; and. . .we have heard Uttle or nothing as yet of new
reasons to queU the cause with  The honour and esteem,
which the leamed of the reformed churches abroad have
professed of the state of our [British] churches, and our
charity in excusing the necessities of theirs and acknowledging
1 Thqmdike forgets that the words are not 8m but p.(Ta iindia-eias.
2 Works (ed. 1844), vol. i. pp. 74-77-

1 82 The Restoration Period
the efficacy of the ministry which they use, vriU be suffi
cient through God's goodness to actuate the correspon
dence we desire to preserve vrith them, vrithout those
innovations which were never required at our hands to such
purpose*.
Thorndike ends this book with an earnest plea for
the restoration of presbyteries to act with the bishops.
In a later work, on the Right of the Church in a
Christian State (1649), Thorndike propounds the view
that in some cases at least the consent of the church —
that is, of the single or diocesan church— might make
a priest without ordination. The argument is this :
I suppose no man vrill deny that all ordinations in
schism are mere nullities, though made by persons rightly
ordained, because against the unity of the church [a some
what startling assertion of Cyprianic principles]. And yet
we find such ordinations made valid by the mere decree of
the church, without ordaining anew. [Instances are men
tioned.] . . . For the only reason why some things, though they
be Ul done, yet are to stand good, is because the power that
doth them extendeth to them, but is ill used. [This is not
the case, he says, in schism : the power is not there.] So
when the power is usurped, as in all schism, or when that
is done which the law makes void, it can be to no effect.
Therefore when the act of schism \i.e. the act of ordination
done by those in schism] is made valid, it is manifest that
the order of bishop and presbyter is conferred in point of
right by the mere consent of the church, which by the
precedent ordination was conferred only in point of fact,
being a mere nulUty in point of right*.
To the objection that there is no precept in the
scripture that all churches should be governed by
' Works, vol. I. pp. 90-94.
'^ Works, vol. I. (part 11.) p. 501.

The Restoration Period 183
bishops, and that many things ordained by the
apostles have ceased to be binding on the church,
Thorndike answers that
we must confess that as there are precepts in the
scripture that oblige not, so there are many things, not set
down in the scripture in the form of precepts, that oblige.
[Examples are given.] What means is there then to end
everlasting difficulties ? Surely the same that there is to
understand all positive laws that ever were. For if the
ancient interruption of the practice of any law secure the
church \i,e, demonstrate clearly to it] that it was not given
to aU times and places, sure that which is not mentioned as
a precept, and yet has been always in practice vrithout
interruption, as it was in force afore it was mentioned, so
was intended to oblige not by the mention, but by the act
that first established it, evidenced by practice. Which if
it be so, then is there no power on earth to abolish the order
of bishops, having been in force in all churches ever since the
apostles *.
A cry that is frequently raised in our time was
not unheard in Thorndike's, that the greatest obstacle
to the reunion of reformed Christianity is the episco
pate. Thorndike admits that in spite of its ancient
sanctions there are other things to be considered
besides the preservation of episcopacy, but will not
admit that this is any reason for its abolition :
Seeing then that it is agreed upon by all that profess
the reformation, that many and divers things ordained by
our Lord and his apostles, whether to be believed or to be
practised in the church, were so abolished by injury of time
that it was requisite they should be restored, though against
the wUl of those that bore that power which the apostles
1 Works vol. I. (part ii.) pp. 505-507.

184 The Restoration Period
appointed necessary to conclude the church \i,e. to keep it
together] ; it foUoweth that the necessity of reformation
inferreth — not the abolishing of the succession of the apostles,
but — that more laws of our Lord and his apostles, and of
more moment, were preferred before it where it could not
regularly be preserved ; which, when it may be preserved,
is to be so far preserved before all designs which may
seem to human judgment expedient to the advancement of
Christianity, that whosoever shall endeavour without such
cause to destroy the power derived from the apostles by
conferring it upon those that succeed them not in it — and
much more whosoever shall do it to introduce laws contrary
to the ordinance of the apostles — shaU be thereby guilty of
the horrible crime of schism *.
Thorndike applies what he has said to the con
tinental reformation :
I will not leave this point without saying something of
their case that have reformed the church without authority
of bishops ; that have abolished the order and vested their
power. . .upon presbyteries or whatsoever besides ; which to
decline here might make men conceive that I have a better
or worse opinion of them than indeed I have*.
He supposes the case of a Christian people desti
tute of bishops. They are, he thinks, bound in the
first place " to receive pastors from them that are
able to found and erect churches, and to unite them
to the communion of the whole church," which is
what the episcopate does. But supposing this to be
impossible ?
Seeing then [that] edification is the end for which the
society of the church subsisteth, and all pastors and officers
ordained as a means to procure it, as it is sacrilege to seek
the end without the means when both are possible, so I
'^ Works, vol. I. pp. 591 foil. 2 Ibid. p. 603.

The Restoration Period 185
conceive it would be sacrilege not to seek the end vrithout
the means when both are not. Now it is manifestly possible
that the edification of the church may be procured effectually
by those that receive not their power or their office from
persons endowed with it themselves afore. . . .The consequence
of' all this is plain enough. The resolution of Gulielmus
Antissiodorensis among the school doctors is well known and
approved ; — that the order of bishops, in case of necessity,
may be propagated by presbyters, [even] supposing that
they neiver received power to do such an act from them that
had it. This reason makes us bold to resolve further, that,
in the case which is put. Christian people may appoint
[to] themselves bishops, presbyters, and deacons, . . . and that
upon these terms they ought to be acknowledged by the rest
of the church, whensoever there is opportunity of communi
cating with the same, provided that they. . . submit to such
laws. . .as the rest of the church hath provided. . .according
as the part is to submit to the determination of the whole :
and that this acknowledgment of them would be effectual
instead of solemn ordination by imposition of hands of
persons endowed with that power which is intended to be
conveyed by the same. Whereby I make not personal
succession to be no precept of God — which if it were not,
then no schism were necessarily a sin, and aU that can be
said of the society of the church would be a fable — but
commanded in order to another [precept], of living in the
society of a church, and therefore not binding when both are
not possible but the chief is*.
Thorndike's view, therefore, of the foreign re
formers is that they had some degree of justification
for what they did. " It seems " that they could not
get properly consecrated bishops without abandoning
principles stiU more important. " It seems " that
their leaders, though not bishops, were yet " of some
1 Works, vol. 1. pp. 604 foil.

1 86 The Restoration Period
order in the church." But they ought, he thinks, to
have created bishops of their own ; instead of which
they persuaded themselves that the office itself was
a corruption :
Which notvrithstanding, seeing they profess all that is
necessary to the salvation of all Christians, either in point
of faith or manners ; seeing, as to the public order of the
church, they intended and desired and sought to restore
that which to their best understanding came from the
institution of our Lord and his apostles ; they cannot easily
be condemned to have forfeited the being of a church, out
of which there is no salvation, by this or other mistakes of
like consequence, of them that consider the abuses from
whence they departed . . . . As there is no society of men, wherein
a particular member can prevail to settle such laws and such
order as are properest to the end of it, so must he live and die
out of communion with the church, that stays tiU he find a
church that maintains all that was instituted by our Lord
and his apostles. Wherefore though that which they have
done contrary to the apostles' order cannot be justified, yet
there is a reasonable presumption that God excuses it, being
no part of that which he hath commanded all to believe to
salvation, or which he hath commanded particular men to do*.
But Thorndike's readiness to recognise the foreign
reformed churches makes only the more striking his
condemnation of the two great sects which at the
time of his writing had captured England by the
sword. Of the presbyterians, after reckoning up the
points of their error, he says :
• Works, vol. I. p. 607. Cp. p. 619, where Thorndike will not
"balk the fruit of the divine right of bishops," which is a thing
"which no man may lawfully destroy, though not [one] which,
being destroyed, voideth the being of a church, if it can be done
without schism."

The Restoration Period 187
The endeavouring to estabUsh these presbyteries is an
act of schism, which particular Christians, though they never
by any express act of their own tied themselves to be subject
to bishops, are nevertheless bound not to communicate in,
because they are bound upon their salvation to maintain the
unity of the church, and the. unity of the church established
upon those laws whereof the succession of bishops is one *.
The method of the independents was, in Thorn
dike's eyes, " more suitable to Christianity " than
that of the presbyterians : it relied less upon state
aid, and had a worthier conception of the freedom
and spirituality of the churches. But he adds :
I intend not hereby to grant that it is a rightful title
upon which those of the congregations \i,.e. the independents]
separate from the church of England. For as men cannot
make themselves Christians, but the doing of it must pre
suppose a church . . . — because our Lord hath required of
those that vrill be saved, not only to believe his gospel, but
also to profess Christianity, and this profession to be con
signed in the hands of those whom he trusteth with the
conduct of his church... — so the continuance in the com
munion of the church, presupposing an acknowledgment of
the Christianity professed therein to contain nothing destruc
tive to salvation, professeth an obligation of acknowledging
the governors thereof *-
This obligation would only be avoidable if these
governors appear to " defeat " Christian people
of the benefit of such laws, given the church by our
Lord and his apostles, as appear to be of greater consequence
to the service of God, for which the society of the church
subsists, thaii the personal succession of governors, and the
unity of the church ^.
* Works, vol. I. p. 621.
" Ihid. p. 623. 3 Ihid.

1 88 The Restoration Period
Finally this powerful, if somewhat unpractical,
thinker suggests, as the only means that he can
think of for restoring unity in England, the holding
of a great conference, in which it might
be discerned how far the church of England may abate
of the right, which is denied only by force, for so good a
purpose as to reconcile unto it those who may othervrise fall
into churches in name, but schisms indeed*.
As the issue of such a conference
it vrill be lawful for those in whom rests the succession
of the apostles, and all claiming under them, to consent to
estate the ecclesiastical power and the ministry of eccle
siastical offices upon persons to be agreed upon according to
terms agreed : and this consent as effectual to reunite the
church, as ever anciently schisms were lawfully restored to
the church, by admitting bishops, presbyters, deacons, and
people, to communicate in their own ranks, and making
good all acts done in separation, by subsequent consent, not
as to God, but as to the church*-
In the meantime, until such public reconciliation
takes place, Thorndike has no doubt about the duty
of the members of the suffering church.
Let me admonish those infinite numbers of Christian
souls that sigh and groan after the unity of the church, what
means God shows them to discharge the conscience of good
Christians to him.
The temporal laws of the state have suspended
the office " of those in whom the succession of the
apostles is vested, and the clergy claiming under
them." But the men still exist, and " that general
law of Christianity " remains,
^ Works, vol. I. p. 631. * Ibid. p. 633.

The Restoration Period 189
of sticking to all that the church originally, always,
every where, hath professed and used. From them [the
bishops and episcopal clergy] let them seek the communion
of the church  Neither let them ever think themselves
necessitated to communicate vrith schism, while the law
which is the source of all laws, and the persons which are
the seed of all public persons of the church, continue *.
In 1659, just when churchmen in general were
beginning to see daylight, the great solitary student
published his immense Epilogue to the Tragedy of the
Church of England, in which he felt himself at liberty
to criticize in some respects the position which that
church had taken up. He was no more drawn to
Romanism than before, but Thorndike was a catholic
first, and an Anglican afterwards ; but yet a catholic
because an Anglican.
I from my nonage, he says in the " Preface to all
Christian Readers," had embraced the church of England,
and attained the order of priesthood in it, upon the sup
position that it was a true church and salvation to be had
in it and by it ; owning nevertheless — as the church of
England did own — the church of Rome for a church, in
which salvation, though more difficult, yet might be had
and obtained. That there is no such thing as a church by
God's law, in the nature of a body, — which this state of
religion \i.e. the mixture of presbyterianism and independency
then established] requireth — is opposite to an article of my
creed, who always thought myself a member of such a body
by being of the church of England*.
The one advantage which Thorndike saw in the
divisions of Christendom was that they cast the
1 Works, vol. I. pp. 633 foil.
" Ibid. vol. II. p. 4.

190 The Restoration Period
Christian back upon first principles, and set him free
to state those principles in a way which he would
have scrupled to use in happier times, for fear of
disturbing the peace.
For unity in the church is of so great advantage to the
service of God., .that it ought to overshadow and cover very
great imperfections in the laws of the church, all laws being
subject to [imperfections] ; especially, seeing I maintain
that the church by divine institution is in point of right one
visible body, consisting in the communion of all Christians
in the offices of God's service, and ought by human adminis
tration in point of fact to be the same. For the unity of so
great a body vrill not aUow that the terms should be strict
or nice upon which the communion thereof standeth, but
obligeth all that love the general good of it to pass by even
those imperfections in the laws of it which are visible, if
\i.e, so long as] they are not pernicious. But where this
unity is once broken in pieces and destroyed, and palliating
cures are out of date, the offence which is taken at shovring
the true cure is imputable to them that cause the fraction,
not to him that would see it restored. For what disease
was ever cured vrithout offending the body that had it ?
The cause of episcopacy and of the service * is the cause of
the whole church, and the maintenance thereof inferreth
\i.e. involves] the maintenance of whatsoever is catholic *.
He proceeds to the application :
Owning therefore my obligation to the whole church, —
notvrithstanding my obligation to the church of England, —
I have prescribed the consent thereof \i,.e, of the whole
church] for a boundary to all interpretation of scripture,
all reformation in the church, referring my opinion, in point
of fact, what is catholic, to them who by their title are bound
'^ Thorndike has said above that episcopacy and the Prayer-Book
were the whole cause of the rising against the church.
^ Works, vol. II. p. 6.

The Restoratiott Period 191
to acknowledge that whatsoever is catholic ought to take
place [i,e, tp the common consent of aU who claim to be
CathoUcs]. WhUe aU English people by the laws of the
church of England had sufficient., .means of salvation
ministered to them, it had been a fault to acknowledge a
fault which it was more mischief to mend than to bear
with. But when the unity that is lost may as weU be ob
tained by the primitive truth and order of the catholic
church as by that which served the tum in the church of
England. . . I should offend good Christians to think they vrill
stand offended at it*.
Thus, not without a touch of humour, Thorndike
asserts a right of revision for the Anglican, in the
light of a better understood Catholicism. It would
take us too far from our immediate purpose, to follow
him in his interesting discussion of the relations
between the particular church and the universal, and
between both and the individual Christian — the
Christian who is not at liberty to form churches at
pleasure, on arbitrary grounds, but is bound to main
tain unity with the fellow Christians among whom
God has placed him, and yet retains his interior
freedom with regard to the rules with which he con
forms, and the duty of professing what he believes to
be true 2-
When the restoration came about, Thorndike en
deavoured to summarize the doctrine of the Epilogue
in his Due Way of Composing Differences (1660) . He
reiterates as the ground of all else the article of " one
catholic church."
1 Works, vol. II. p. 7.
2 Ibid, pp. 395 foil., 378 foil., 474 foil. There is a vigorous
exposition of the constitution of the church in vol. iv. pp. 363-370.

192 The Restoration Period
For either it signifies nothing, or it signifies that God
hath founded one visible church ; that is, that he hath
obliged all churches (and all Christians, of whom all churches
consist) to hold visible communion with the whole church
in the visible offices of God's public service. And therefore
I am satisfied that the differences upon which we are divided
cannot be justly settled upon any terms which any part of
the whole church shall have just cause to refuse as incon
sistent with the unity of the whole church. For in that
case we must needs become schismatics, by settling ourselves
upon such laws, under which any church may refuse to
communicate with us, because it is bound to communicate
with the whole church *.
No power of the church can make anything " a
part of the common Christianity " which was not so
from the beginning ; but, on the other hand,
we shall justly be chargeable with the crime of heresy,
if we admit them to our communion who openly disclaim
the faith of the whole church, or any part of [that faith].
For those are justly counted heretics. . .that communicate
with those who profess heresy, though no heretics cis to God,
not believing it \i,e, if they do not believe it] themselves.
But the unity of all parts being subordinate. . .to the unity
of the whole, we shall justly be chargeable with the crime
of schism, if we seek unity vrithin ourselves by abrogating
the laws of the whole, as [if we were] not obliged to hold
communion with it*.
Thorndike sorrowfully admits that we cannot at
present " expect any reason from the church of
Rome," to help in restoring the unity of the church
on righteous terms ; yet he will not agree to " that
madness which hath had a hand in all our miseries,"
' Works, vol. V. p. 27. 2 Ibid. p. 28,

The Restoration Period 193
of thinking that reformation consists in going as far
as possible from Rome.
The unity of the church is of such consequence to the
salvation of all Christians, that no excess on one side can
cause the other to increase the distance, but they shall be
\i.e. vrithout being] answerable for the souls that perish by
the means of it*.
Thorndike sternly demands that people retuming
into the church from various forms of error should
make an acknowledgement of the error. If they will
not do this, he thinks it justifiable that the secular
power should " grant them the exercise of their
religion, in private places of their own providing " ;
only the same toleration should be given to papists
as to others. Even presbyterians are not to be
exempted from the necessity of renouncing presby
terianism, though Thorndike leaves it to his superiors
to determine what form should be observed in
receiving into the ministry of the church the presby
terian ministers, whose ordinations are " mere nullities
in themselves^." The argument of the presbyterian party was that
the abolition of episcopacy would assimilate the
church of England to the other reformed churches.
In an interesting passage Thorndike contests this
view. There are, he says, " four forms of reformation
extant." One is according to Luther, a second
according to Calvin, the third is that of the church of
England ; the fourth, with which Thorndike was deeply
occupied at the moment, was '.' first in time," but
* Works, vol. v. p. 30. ^ Ibid. pp. 42 foil.
M. 13

194 The Restoration Period
" least known and protected by no sovereign." It
was the reformation " of the Union in Bohemia."
When the presbyterian party asked for reform, they
meant reform of the Calvinist type : Thorndike asks
" why we are to leave Luther for Calvin ? " He
finds Melanchthon " the better learned and the more
Christian spirit."
But the church of England, which in divers points
differeth from both, — why should it be thought to foUow
either for any reason but as either agrees vrith the catholic
church ? And for that reason I prefer the Unity of Bohemia
before both*.
Thorndike is not prepared to approve of every
thing that he had read about the Unity : in particular
he thought that they had been unnecessarily cen
sorious towards the Greek church. Nevertheless,
they had had an eye to the Vincentian canon of
catholicity, and
sent aU over the world to inform themselves of a visible
succession of bishops, whose profession was such that they
might derive the ordination of bishops for their churches
from their hands  Hearing that the Waldenses lived in
Austria under bishops deriving their succession from the
time of Constantine, and therefore from the apostles, they
sent them thither to be ordained  Now I take not upon me
to maintain the tmth of that information conceming the
succession of these bishops, whereupon they proceeded. But
they being reasonably persuaded of it, and not knovring how
to proceed otherwise, through a mistake or an exigent, which
they could not overcome, and settUng themselves upon an in
nocent presumption, why should the effect of these ordinations
' Works, vol. v. p. 68.

The Restoration Period 195
seem questionable ? For under these bishops they have
subsisted from that day to this* 
There was a good expedient in the ancient church, to
refer things to God, which could not be decided vrithout a
breach in the church  Let the difficulty of procuring
ordinations and having bishops render them [the foreign
non-episcopal churches] excusable to God. [But] those that
are ordained by presbyters against bishops, on purpose to
set up altar against altar, how can we count them ordained,
refusing the concurrence of the church to their ordinations ?
They that would tie us to comply vrith this reformation are
first to show us that the Unity of Bohemia is no part of it,
and that their reformation is not to be preferred either before
that of Luther or that of Calvin. For can we acknowledge
the ordinations of presbyters against their bishops, and not
condemn them that sought all over the world for bishops to
ordain them bishops, that the bishops so ordained might
ordain them presbyters* ?
Thorndike went further than others in the denial
of all validity to the ordinations and the eucharists
of schismatics, and used language about them derived
from Cyprian in his severest mood, but from his
lonely tower he had a wide outlook upon the state of
Christendom. Another renowned churchman, John Gauden,
still calling himself Dean of Booking, put forth his
views on the situation in 1659, the year of Thorndike's
Epilogue. His book was the lepo, AaKpva, The
Tears, Sighs, Complaints and Prayers of the Church
of England. The preface is an address " to my
' Works, vol. V. p. 62. It is curious that Thorndike, like others
of his time, was unaware how matters stood in the church of Sweden.
Laud knew ; but few besides.
2 Ibid. p. 63. 13 — 2

196 The Restoration Period
honoured and beloved countrymen, persons of true
honour, piety, and prudence." To them he says
that he would keep silence in the evU time,
if I had not many and great stimulations. . .to give
what further constant and comely proofs I may to this and
after ages of my zeal for God, of my love to my Saviour, of
my communion with his catholic church, of my particular
respect to this noble part of it, the church of England ; and
in this, of my due observance to my reverend fathers and
beloved brethren, the godly bishops and orderly presbyters
of this church ; yet lastly of my charitable ambition to heap
coals of fire (not scorching and consuming, but melting and
refining) even upon the heads of those who still profess to be
remorseless enemies to my caUing and to the whole church
of England : who seem to me as if they sought totaUy to
debase the clergy of England, yea utterly to destroy the
ancient catholic order and govemment, succession and
authority, of the evangelical ministry in this reformed
church ; while they endeavour to remove able, ordained,
and authoritative teachers into corners, and to obtrude I
know not what voluntiers, new and exotic intruders into that
holy function*.
Gauden's book opens with an emblem. It is a
tree, whose branches are the different churches pro
ceeding from Christ, the root and stem. He explains
the emblem. First, most people, learned and unlearned, were here
tofore possessed with the catholic use and approbation of
episcopacy as ubique, semper, et ab omnibus, ever and only
used in this and all other churches, from the first planting
of Christianity. After this, many weaker Christians came
to be dispossessed of their former persuasions by the violent
obtmsions of such a presbytery as challengeth church-
1 Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 15.

The Restoration Period 197
government, not in common with bishops, but wholly vrith
out them. This foreign plant, not taking any deep root
in this EngUsh soil, was soon starved, and much supplanted
by the insinuations of a newer way called Independency.
At last many heretofore weU-meaning Christians, finding
such great authorities, even from Christ, pretended on aU
sides for these diversities. . .have by long, perplexed, and
sharp disputes been brought to such doubtings as have
betrayed them to strange indifferencies as to all ecclesiastical
society and order, which is the very band of Christian
religion*.
Gauden defines what he means by the church
of England, " according to the good old style," em
ployed e.g. by Jewel, — a name " more ancient, more
honourable, and every way as proper, as the new
style and title of the commonwealth of England."
By the name of the church of England it is not imputed
or implied that we judge every particular person in this
nation to be inwardly a good Christian or a tme Israelite,
that is, really sanctified or spiritually a member of Christ
and his mystical body, the church catholic, invisible. No,
we are not so rude understanders or uncritical speakers.
But we plainly and charitably mean that part of mankind
in this polity or nation, which having been caUed, baptized,
and instructed by lawful ministers in the mysteries and
duties of the gospel maketh a joint and public profession
of the Christian faith and reformed religion in the name, and
as the sense, of the whole nation ; as it is grounded upon
the holy scriptures, guided also and administered by that
uniform order, one authority, and holy ministry, for worship
and government, which according to the mind of Christ,
the pattern of the apostles, and the practice of all primitive
churches, hath been lawfuUy established by the wisdom and
consent of all estates in this nation*.
' Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 23. ^ Ibid, p. 24.

198 The Restoration Period
Although the name of a church may be given to
local congregations, it may also be applied to larger
combinations :
It is most evident, by scripture dialect, by the vrisdom
of Christ's Spirit, by the apostolic prudence, and the sub
sequent practices of all famous churches . . . that the complete
ness and perfection of church polity. . .was never thought to
be seated or circumscribed in every particular congregation
of Christians. . .but it was placed in those great branches. . .
which had in them the united power or authority, not only
of many Christians, but of many congregations, in which
were many godly people, many grave deacons, many vener
able presbyters, and one eminent bishop or father, who
continued in that presidential authority, to water, propagate,
increase, preserve, and govern, in order, peace, and unity,
those churches which the apostles had so planted. ... In which,
the. . .bishop so presided in the place, power, and spirit of
the apostle (yea and of Jesus Christ) that no private Christian,
no deacon, no presbyter, yea no particular congregation,
might, as Ignatius and other ancients teU us, regiUarly do
anything. . .vrithout his respective authority, consent, and
allowance. Yea all good Christians did ever make great
conscience of dividing from the principal succession, seat,
and pastor, who was the centre and conservator of that
church union and government which was first settled by the
apostles in primitive churches, and imitated by aU others
which grew up after them*.
Lamenting the loss — which had not then been
made good — of Hooker's defence of episcopacy,
Gauden says that the innovators
are likely to differ among themselves even tiU doomsday,
unless they return, under some new name and disguised
notion of moderators and superintendents, to what they
1 Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 28.

The Restoration Period 199
have rashly deserted, the trae pattern in the mount, that
patemal, primitive, and catholic episcopacy, which was the
centre and crown of the church's unity. . .which imports no
more. . .than one grave and worthy presbyter duly chosen in
the several dioceses and limits to be the chief ecclesiastic
overseer and governour, succeeding in the managing of that
ecclesiastical power and authority which. . .presbyters alone
in parity or equality never did enjoy, and so never ought to
exercise in the churches of Christ as to ordination and
jurisdiction, no more than bishops regularly may without the
counsel and assistance of presbyters. Which ancient order
and eminent authority of primitive episcopacy, if neither
right reason, nor the word of God, either in the Old or New
Testament, did clearly set forth to us as best ; if neither
apostles at first, nor the primitive fathers after them ; if
neither church history, nor catholic custom, nor primitive
antiquity, nor the approbation of the best reformed churches
and divines ; if all these did not commend it, as they
evidently do . . . yet the late mad and sad extravagancies in
religion do highly recommend it ; yea the great want of it
in England shows the great use, necessity, and excellency of
it ... I may add the votes of all sober and impartial Christians
even now in England, who are grown so wise by their woes,
as generaUy to wish for such episcopacy, whose restitution
would be more welcome to the vriser and better sort of
Christians in this nation than ever the removal of it was, or
the medlies of presbytery and independency is like to be*.
Gauden complains that the innovators have
adventured to divide and destroy the office, honour, authority, the
succession and derivation, yea the source and original of
that sacred priesthood or evangelical ministry and mission,
which was ever so highly esteemed. . .among all true Chris
tians, as well knovring that its rise and institution was divine,
from our Lord Jesus Christ, as sent of God his Father, who
' Tears, Sighs, etc., pp. 84 foil.

200 The Restoration Period
alone had authority to give the Word and Spirit, the mission
and commission, the gifts and powers that are properly
ministerial. Which as the blessed apostles first received
immediately from Christ, so they duly and carefully derived
them to their successors after such a method and manner
as the primitive and cathoUc churches in all places and ages
both perfectly knew and without question exactly foUowed,
in their consecrating of bishops and ordaining of presb5d:ers,
with deacons, as the only ordinary ministers of Christ's
church*.
In the fourth book of his treatise, Gauden weighs
the good and the evil to be founded in the three
competing religious systems, and naturally thinks
that a constitutional episcopacy is the form which
will divide men least :
Restore to people their liberty in some such way of
choosing or at least approving their ministers and assenting
to church censures, as may become them in reason and
conscience. Restore to presbyters their privileges in such
public counsel and concurrence with their bishops, as may
become them. Lastly, restore to bishops that primitive
precedency and catholic presidency, which they ever had
among and above presbyters, both for that chief authority. . .
which they ever had in ordaining of presbyters and deacons,
also in exercising such ecclesiastical discipline and censures
that nothing be done without them : I see no cause why
any sober ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied, nor
why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances,
as if the liberties of Christian people, the privUeges of
Christian presbyters, and the dignity of Christian bishops
were wholly inconsistent, whereas they are easily reconciled,
and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twined
together that none should have cause to complain or be
jealous*. 1 Tears, Sighs, etc., p, i6o. " Ibid, p. 453.

The Restoration Period 201
Gauden will not take up the position of an
extremist. He endeavours to put " true episcopacy "
before its antagonists in a pleasing light :
I mean that primitive order and paternal residency
[? presidency] which was universally acknowledged to be emi
nently in one president, as bishop or chief pastor over many
presbyters in his diocese, after the pattern of the twelve
apostles, who were by Christ's appointment above the
seventy, and so their declared successors, as Timothy, Titus,
Archippus, and those others who are called the angels of the
seven Asian churches. . .for the settling. . .of church order. . .
in such a way as clearly gives ... to one man a paramount
authority, as bishop or superior, both in ordination and
jurisdiction*.
He appeals to their good sense :
Do they in earnest think that no scripture, no word of
God, old or new, no precepts and patterns of the apostles,
no primitive practice, no true testimonies of fathers, councils,
and credible historians do any way favour a right episco
pacy...? 'Tis strange all should conspire thus to eject
Christ from his kingdom and government, or to abuse the
whole Christian world, from holy Polycarp, Polycrates, and
Ignatius's days — all primitive bishops— yea from St John's
days, and yet none detect or decry the fraud, none persevere
in the first way, if it were, as is now pretended, independent
or presbyterian*.
He is shocked at the way in which every petty
presbytery now " spawns " ministers :
That these heteroclite or equivocal ordinations have
of late been acted in England with much self-applause and
popular parade by mere presbyters, I weU understand ; but
quo jure, by what right from God or man ... I cQuld never
1 Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 459. ^ Ihid, p. 462.

202 The Restoration Period
yet see. Yea, I am sure no law of God or man heretofore was
thought to give any such power to mere presbyters without,
yea against, their lawful bishops : insomuch that many
leamed and sober men have much blamed. . .these presby
terian transactions for schismatical presumptions, these
ordinations for disorderly usurpations, at least in such a
church as England was, where there were, and stiU are,
venerable bishops of the orthodox faith, reformed profession,
and ancient constitution, willing and able to do their duty
in the point of ordination.
Which in all ordinary cases appears to have been ever
their peculiar right, specially derived to them as bishops from
the apostles, through all successions of times and churches,
without any interruption, except when some factious and
insolent presbyters ventured to be extravagant and usurpant,
whom all the learned fathers, venerable councils, and good
Christians in the church everywhere condemned as most
injurious, because usurping that authority which no apostle,
no council, no bishop ever gave to any that were mere
presbyters in their ordination and commission. . . . Nor is there,
as far as I can perceive, any one place in scripture that by
any precept or example invests either one or more simple
presbyters with the power. . .of giving holy orders.. .. All
which were given to Timothy and Titus as chief bishops*.
Gauden is aware that popes are thought to have
it in their power to authorise a presbyter to ordain ;
"but in earnest," he says, " it is hard to judge whether
popes or presbyters be most enemies to catholic
bishops." Possibly extraordinary cases may in time be their own
excuses in such churches where bishops mav be aU dead or
banished; or where such as are orthodox cannot be had;. . .
but nothing can be pleaded that I yet see, no nor doth the
candour and charity of Bishop Usher know how to excuse
1 Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 473.

The Restoration Period 203
such presbyters from being schismatic and factious. . .who
first cast off and forsake such bishops as are of the same faith
and reformed profession, worthy and vriUing, able and ready,
every way authorised by church and state to do their duty*.
The book is wordy and full of repetitions, but it
is a devout and pathetic statement of the church's
wrongs, and a very moderate claim to have her
considered in the readjustments which could not long
be delayed. The next theologian to be considered is Bramhall.
No man ever breathed more calmly the atmosphere
of an assured Catholicism than Bramhall. Writing
at Paris in poverty and exile in 1654, he says what
makes a catholic :
To sum up aU that hath been said ; whosoever doth
preserve his obedience entire to the universal church, and its
representative a general council, and to all his superiors in
their due order, so far as by law he is obliged ; who holds an
intemal communion vrith all Christians, and an external com
munion so far as he can vrith a good conscience ; who approves
no reformation but that which is made by lawful authority,
upon sufficient grounds, with due moderation ; who derives
his Christianity by the uninterrupted line of apostolical
succession ; who contents himself vrith his proper place in
the ecclesiastical body ; who disbelieves nothing contained
in holy scripture, and, if he holds any errors unvrittingly
and unvriUingly, doth implicitly renounce them by his fuller
and more firm adherence to that infallible mle ; who believeth
and practiseth all those credenda and agenda, which the
universal church spread over the face of the earth doth
unanimously believe and practise as necessary to salvation,
without condemning or censuring others of different judg
ment from himself in inferior questions, vrithout obtruding
' Tears, Sighs, etc., p. 474.

204 The Restoration Period
his own opinions upon others as articles of faith; who is
implicitly prepared to believe and do aU other speculative and
practical truths when they shall be revealed to him ; and
in sum qui sententiam diversae opinionis vinculo non praeponit
unitatis. . .he may securely say, " My name is Christian, my
surname is Catholic*."
Bramhall does not waste many words in proving
to his Romanist opponent that episcopacy is no mere
accident of Anglicanism, though he is careful not to
overstate the Anglican consensus on the subject :
As for our parts, we believe episcopacy to be at least
an apostolical institution, approved by Christ himself in the
Revelation, ordained in the infancy of Christianity as a
remedy against schism ; and we bless God that we have a
clear succession of it*.
To the English or Scotch patrons of the Genevan
discipline Bramhall wrote more fully at an earlier
period, in 1643. Sometimes he argues from the con
nexion between the episcopate and all English
history :
That which the Observer [his opponent] saith of
monarchy, that "our laws are locked and cabinetted in it in
such manner that the wounding of the one is the bleeding of
the other ". . .is likewise tme of episcopacy, that it is woven
and riveted into the body of our law. Hear a witness beyond
exception ; "for the government of bishops, I for my part,
not prejudging the precedents of other reformed churches,
do hold it warranted by the word of God and by the practice
of the ancient church in the better times, and much more
convenient for kingdoms than parity of ministers or govern
ment by synods^."
^ A Just Vindication in Works, ed. 1842, vol. i. p. iii.
^ Ibid, p. 271.
2 Works, vol. III. p. 468. The quotation is from Bacon.

The Restoration Period 205
Sometimes he argues from the antiquity and
universality of the system :
Episcopacy. . .was universally received, vrithout any
opposition or so much as a question, throughout the whole
Christian world, among all sorts of Christians, of what
communion or profession soever they were, Grecian, Latin,
Russian, Armenian, Abyssene, etc  And the Observer is
challenged to name but one church, or so much as one poor
viUage, throughout the whole world, from the days of the
apostles tUl the year of Christ 1500, that ever was governed
without a bishop *.
Sometimes he takes the lowlier line, of greater
security :
In a difference of ways, every pious and peaceable
Christian, out of his discretion and care of his own salvation,
will enquire which is the via tutissima, the safest way. Now
the separatists themselves ... do acknowledge that holy orders
are truly, that is, validly, given by the ordination used in
our church (I mean not such as either hold no outward
caUing to be needful, as the Anabaptists, or make the church
a mere democracy, as the Independents) ; but on the other
side a very great part of the Christian world, and among
them many protestants, do aUow no ordination to be right
but from bishops. . . . And seeing there is required to the
essence of a church, first, a pastor, secondly, a flock, thirdly,
a subordination of this ilock to this pastor ; where we are
not sure that there is right ordination, what assurance have
we that there is a church* ?
Bramhall charitably guards his utterance :
I write not this to prejudge our neighbour churches.
I dare not limit the extraordinary operation of God's Spirit,
where ordinary means are wanting, without the default of
the persons. He gave his people manna for food whilst they
1 Works, vol. in. p. 469. ^ Ihid, p. 475.

2o6 The Restoration Period
were in the wilderness. Necessity is a strong plea. Many
protestant churches lived under kings and bishops of another
communion ; others had particular reasons why they could
not continue or introduce bishops. But it is not so with us.
It was as wisely as charitably said of St Cyprian, " If any of
my predecessors through ignorance or simplicity have not
holden that which our Lord hath taught, the mercy of the
Lord might pardon them." So, if any churches, through
necessity, or ignorance, or newfangledness, or covetousness,
or practice of some persons, have swerved from the apostolical
nUe or primitive institution, the Lord may pardon them,
or supply the defect of man ; but we must not therefore
presume. It is charity to think well of our neighbours, and
good divinity to look weU to ourselves  I do not make this
way to be simply necessary, but only show what is safest,
where so many Christians are of another mind. I know
that there is great difference between a valid and a regular
ordination, and what some choice divines do write of case
of necessity ; and for my part am apt to believe that God
looks upon his people in mercy, vrith aU their prejudices,
and that there is a great latitude left to particular churches
in the constitution of their ecclesiastical regiment, according
to the exigence of time and place and persons, so as order and
his own institution be observed *.
But Bramhall reminds his reader that we know
by experience what bishops have done for us, and
reminds him also — though this experience in his day
was as yet but brief — that we have some reason to
surmise what Christianity without bishops may come
to: If bishops had not been, God knows what churches,
what religion, what sacraments, what Christ, we should have
had at this day ; and we may easily conjecture by that
inundation of sects, which hath almost quite overwhelmed
"¦ Works, vol. III. pp. 475 foil.

The Restoration Period 207
our poor church on a sudden, since the authority of bishops
was suspended. The present condition of England doth
plead more powerfully for bishops than aU that have writ
for episcopacy since the reformation of our church *-
The charitable tone in which Bramhall spoke to
the anti-episcopalians in 1643 sounds as clearly in
his argument with the Romanists in 1654. He dwells
with pleasure on the moderation of the English
reformers :
They did not — we do not — deny the being of any
church whatsoever, Roman or other, nor possibility of
salvation in them, especially such as hold firmly the apostles'
creed and the faith of the four first general councils ; though
their salvation be rendered much more difficult by human
inventions and obstructions  We do indeed require sub
scription to our articles, but it is only from them who are
our own, not from strangers ; nor yet of aU our own, but
only of those who seek to be initiated into holy orders and
are to be admitted to some ecclesiastical preferment. . . .
Neither are our articles penned vrith anathemas or curses
against all those, even of our own, who do not receive them,
but used only as a help or nUe of unity among ourselves 
We presume not to censure others to be out of the pale of
the church, but leave them to stand or faU to their own
Master. We damn none for dissenting from us ; we do not
separate ourselves from other churches (unless they chase
us away with their censures), but only from their errors.
He quotes the famous Canon 30 of 1603, and adds :
So moderate are we towards all Christians, whether
foreigners or domestics, whether whole churches or single

persons*.

1 Works, vol. III. pp. 492 foil.
2 Ibid, vol. I. pp. 197 foil.

2o8 The Restoration Period
Then Bramhall proceeds :
Secondly, as our separation is from their errors, not
from their churches, so we do it with as much inward charity
and moderation of our affections \i,e, control of our feeUngs],
as we can possibly ; willingly indeed in respect of their
errors, and especially their tyrannical exactions and usurpa
tions, but unvriUingly and vrith reluctation in respect of their
persons, and much more in respect of our common Saviour ;
as if we were to depart from our father's or our brother's
house, or rather from some contagious sickness wherevrith
it was infected : not forgetting to pray God daily to restore
them to their former purity, that they and we may once
again enjoy the comfort and contentment of one another's
Christian society. . . .
Thirdly, we do not arrogate to ourselves either a new
church, or a new religion, or new holy orders ; for then we
must produce new miracles, new revelations, and new cloven
tongues, for our justification. Our religion is the same it was,
our church the same it was, our holy orders the same they
were, in substance, differing only from what they were
formerly, as a garden weeded from a garden unweeded, or
a body purged from itself before it was purged. And there
fore, as we presume not to make new articles of faith, much
less to obtrude such innovations upon others, so we are not
vriUing to receive them from others, or to mingle scholastical
opinions with fundamental truths. . . .
Lastly, we are ready in the preparation of our minds to
believe and practise whatsoever the catholic church (even
of this present age) doth universally and unanimously
believe and practise. Quod apud multos unum invenitur, non
est erratum, sed traditum^. And though it be neither lawful
nor possible for us to hold actual communion with aU sorts
of Christians in all things wherein they vary both from the
tmth and one from another, yet even in those things we hold
1 Tertullian de Praescr, Haer, 28.

The Restoration Period 209
a communion vrith them " in our desires," longing for their
conversion and reunion with us in truth*.
With regard to the protestant churches in general,
the church of England, in Bramhall's view, stands in
some ways serenely apart :
[The Bishop of Chalcedon] changeth the subject of the
question. My proposition was, that the church of England
is free from schism. He ever and anon enlargeth it to all
protestant churches ; and what or how many churches he
intendeth under that name and notion, I know not. Not
that I censure any foreign churches, vrith whose laws and
liberties I am not so weU acquainted as vrith our owti ; but
because I conceive the case of the church of England to be as
clear as the sun at noonday, and am not vriUing for the present
to have it perplexed with heterogeneous disputes. So often
as he stumbleth upon this mistake, I must make bold to tell
him, that he concludes not the contradictory*.
Like Crakanthorp, however, Bramhall was con
fronted with the accusation that the English church
" joins in communion of sacraments and public
prayers with schismatics, namely puritans and inde
pendents," and was therefore itself schismatic. It
was a belated accusation, to say the least of it, in
1654 ; but Bramhall patiently examines it, and his
words are impassioned and weighty :
First, I deny his proposition. To communicate with
heretics or schismatics in the same public assemblies, and to
be present with them at the same divine offices, is not always
heresy or schism, unless one communicate vrith them in their
heretical or schismatical errors  Have the English protestants,
1 Works, vol. I. pp. 199 foil. With regard to communion with:
the Eastern churches, see vol. ii. p. 6i.
'^ Ibid, vol. II. p. 43.
M. 14

2IO The Restoration Period
\i,e, English churchmen] matriciUated themselves into their
congregational assemblies \i,e, those of the separatists] ?
Have they justified the unwarrantable intrusion of themselves
into sacred functions, without a lawful calling from Christ
or his church ? or their dispensing the greatest mysteries
of religion with unwashen or, it may be, vrith bloody hands ?
As for communicating vrith them in a schismatical liturgy, it
is impossible ; they have no liturgy at all, but account it a
stinting of the Spirit. And for the sacrament of the blessed
body and blood of Christ, it is hard to say whether the use
of it among them be rarer in most places, or the congrega
tions thinner. But where the ministers are unqualified, or
the form of administration is enormous in essentials, or sinful
duties are obtruded as necessary parts of God's service, the
English protestants know how to abstain from their com
munion. . .
Secondly, I deny his assumption, — that the church of
England doth join in communion of sacraments and public
prayers with any schismatics. What my thoughts are of
those whom he turns [? terms] "puritans and independents,"
they will not much regard ; nor doth it concern the cause in
question. Many mushroom sects may be sprung up lately
in the world, which I know not, and posterity will know
them much less. ... I pass by them to that which is more
material. If the church of England have j oined in sacraments
and public prayers with schismatics, let him show it out
of her liturgy, or out of her articles, or out of her canons
and constitutions, for by these she speaks unto us ; or let
him show that anj'' genuine son of hers by her injunction,
or direction, or approbation, did ever communicate with
schismatics ; or that her principles are such as do justify
or warrant schism or lead men into a communion \rith
schismatics ; othervrise than thus a national church cannot
communicate with schismatics. If to make canons and
constitutions against schismatics be to cherish them ; if to
punish their conventicles and clandestine meetings be to
frequent them ; if to oblige all her sons who enter into holy

The Restoration Period 211
orders, or are admitted to care of souls, to have no com
munion with them be to communicate with them ; then the
church of England is guUty of communicating with schis
matics, or othervrise not*-
Bramhall does not deny that individual church
men may have acted in the manner alleged. He does
not conceal his opinion of them :
But I conceive that by the English church he intends par
ticular persons of our communion. If so, then, by his favour,
he deserts the cause, and alters the state of the question 
But who are these English protestants that communicate
so freely with schismatics ? Nay, he names none. We
must take it upon his word. Are they peradventure the
greater and the sounder part of the English church ? Neither
the one nor the other. Let him look into our church and
see how many of our principad divines have lost their
dignities and benefices, only because they would not take a
schismatical covenant. . . . Let him take a view of our uni
versities and see how few of our old professors, or rectors
and fellows of coUeges, he finds left therein  And if that
hard weapon, necessity, have enforced any — perhaps with
an intention to do good or prevent evil — to comply further
than was meet, I do not doubt but they pray with Naaman,
" The Lord be merciful to me in this thing." Suppose that
some persons of the English communion do go sometimes
to their meetings ; it may be out of conscience, to hear a
sermon ; it may be out of curiosity, as men go to see May-
games, or monsters at fairs; it may be, that the}' may
be the better able to confute them, as St Paul went
into their heathenish temples at Athens and viewed their
altars and read their inscriptions, yet without any approval
of their idolatrous devotions ; is this to communicate with
schismatics ? or what doth this concem the church of
England* ?
1 Works, vol. II. pp. 46-48. '^ Ibid. pp. 48 foil.
14—2

212 The Restoration Period
The one ecclesiastical system, outside of England,
for which Bramhall has no good word, is the religion
set up in Scotland :
Let him not tell us, he says in 1656, of the Scots'
reformation, who have no better an opinion of it than it
deserves*.
His Fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish
Discipline was published at the Hague in 1649 ; and
when the date is taken into account, it is not to be
much wondered at that Bramhall should speak with
severe condemnation of the body which had brought
England low and led to the killing of the king. He
seems unable to bring himself to call it the church of
Scotland ; it is to him a kind of faction which for the
time has mastered alike the churches of Scotland and
of England. If the Disciplinarians in Scotland, he breaks out,
could rest contented to dote upon their own inventions,
and magnify at home that Diana which themselves have
canonized, I should leave them to the best schoolmistress,
that is, experience, to feel where their shoe wrings them,
and to purchase repentance. What have I to do vrith the
regulation of foreign churches, to burn mine own fingers
vrith snuffing other men's candles ? Let them stand or fall
to their own Master. . . . But to see those very men, who plead
so vehemently against all kinds of tyranny, attempt to
obtrude their own dreams not only upon their fellow subjects,
but upon their sovereign himself. . . yea, to compel foreign
churches to dance after their pipe, to worship that counterfeit
image which they feign to have fallen down from Jupiter, and
by force of arms to turn their neighbours out of a possession of
^ Works, vol. II. p. 313.

The Restoration Period 213
above fourteen hundred years, to make room for their Trojan
horse of ecclesiastical discipline (a practice never justified in
the world but either by the Turk or by the pope) ; this puts
us upon the defensive part*-
He will not allow that they stand on the same
footing as the foreign protestants :
I foresee that they vriU suggest that through their sides
I seek to wound foreign churches. No : there is nothing
which I shall convict them of here but I hope wiU be dis
avowed, though not by aU protestant authors, yet by all
the protestant churches in the world. ... If it were not for
this disciplinarian humour, which wUl admit no latitude in
religion, but makes each nicety a fundamental and every
private opinion an article of faith, which prefers particular
errors before general truths, I doubt not but all reformed
churches might easily be reconcUed. Before these unhappy
troubles in England, aU protestants, both Lutherans and
Calvinists, did give unto the English church the right hand
of feUowship. The disciplinarians themselves, though they
preferred their own church as more pure (else they were
hard-hearted), yet they did not, they durst not, condemn
the church of England, either as defective in any necessary
point of Christian piety, or redundant in anything that might
virtually or by consequence overthrow the foundation. . . .
They themselves were then far from a party, or from making
the calling of bishops to be antichristian *.
Bramhall's latest views upon the order which he
adorned are contained in his Vindication of Grotius
and the Episcopalians, composed in 1659, against
Baxter's insinuation that the great jurist had con
spired with the bishops to lead the church back to
communion with Rome. Baxter complained of the
^ Works, vol. III. p. 241. " Ibid. pp. 242, 243.

214 The Restoration Period
change which had come over the divines of the church
of England, and mentioned Bramhall as the signal
example of the change. Bramhall will not hear of
such a thing.
He would persuade us that there are two sorts of
" episcopal divines " in England, the " old " and the " new,"
apd that " there is much more difference between the old and
the new than between " the old " and the presbyterians."
O confidence, whither vrilt thou ! what is the power of
prejudice and pride! . . .We are old episcopal divines, one and
aU. . . . If they be " old episcopal divines," who maintain " the
doctrine of the thirty nine articles and homilies " [as Baxter
affirmed], then we are all " old episcopal divines*."
The new divines were charged with a more un
friendly attitude towards protestant churches than
their predecessors had shown :
He showeth us the occasion ; — " these that unchurch
either all or most of the protestant churches, and maintain
the Roman church and not theirs to be true, do call us to a
moderate jealousy of them.". . .1 wish he would. ..set down
both his propositions expressly. His assumption is wanting,
which should be this ; — " But a considerable party of
episcopal divines in England do unchurch aU or most of the
protestant churches, and maintain the Roman church to be
a true church, and them to be no tme churches."
Bramhall can assent to neither proposition :
First, I cannot assent to his major proposition, — that
aU those who make an ordinary \i.e. orderly] personal
uninterrupted succession of pastors to be of the integrity
of a tme church (which is the ground of his exception),
have therefore an intention, or can be justly suspected
thereupon to have any intention, to introduce the pope.
The eastern, southern, and northern churches are all of them
* Works, vol. III. p. 523.

The Restoration Period 215
for such a personal succession, and yet all of them utter
enemies to the pope. Secondly, I cannot assent to his minor
proposition, that either all or any considerable part of the
episcopal divines in England do unchurch either all or the
most part of the protestant churches. No man is hurt but
by himself. They unchurch none at all, but leave them to
stand or fall to their own Master. They do not unchurch
the Swedish, Danish, Bohemian churches, and many other
churches in Polonia, Hungaria, and those parts of the world,
which have an ordinary uninterrupted succession of pastors,
some by the names of bishops, others under the name of
seniors unto this day (I meddle not with the Socinians).
They unchurch not the Lutheran churches in Germany,
who both assert episcopacy in their confessions, and have
actual superintendents in their practice, and would have
bishops, name and thing, if it were in their power. Let
him not mistake himself ; those churches which he is so
tender of, though they be better known to us by reason of
their vicinity, are so far from being " all or the most part of
the protestant churches," that being all put together they
amount not to so great a proportion as the Britannic churches
alone. And if one secluded out of them all those who want
H.e. lack] an ordinary succession vrithout their own faults,
out of invincible ignorance, or necessity, and all those who
desire to have an ordinary succession either explicitly or
implicitly, they will be reduced to a little flock indeed *-
Bramhall advises Baxter and his friends not to
make it harder to give an affirmative answer to the
question whether the orders of this latter class of
churches are valid :
But let him set his heart at rest ; I wUl remove this
scruple out of his mind, that he may sleep securely upon
both ears. Episcopal divines do not deny those churches
to be tme churches wherein salvation may be had. We
^ Works, vol. III. pp. 516 foil.

2i6 The Restoration Period
advise them, as it is our duty, to be more circumspect for
themselves, and not to put it to more question whether they
have ordination or not, or desert the general practice of the
universal church for nothing, when they may clear it if they
please. Their case is not the same vrith those who labour
under invincible necessity. What mine own sense is of it,
I have declared many years since to the world in print 
Episcopal divines vriU readily subscribe to the determination
of the learned Bishop [Andrewes] of Winchester [to Du
Moulin]*.. . .This mistake proceedeth from not distinguishing
between the true nature and essence of a church, which we
do readUy grant them, and the integrity or perfection of a
church, which we cannot grant them vrithout swerving from
the judgment of the catholic church *.
All along, Bramhall has been using the phrase
" episcopal divines " with evident dislike. After a
while, he says why :
In styling them " episcopal divines " he doth tacitly
accuse himself to be an anti-episcopal or at least no episcopal
divine. What odious consequences flow from thence, and
how contrary it is to the title of " cathoUc," which he gives
himself in the frontispiece of this treatise, I had much rather
he should observe for himself, than I coUect. Catholic and
anti-episcopal are contradictory terms. From Christ's time
tiU this day there was never any one " catholic " in the
eastern, southern, or northern churches who professed him
self to be anti-episcopal, but only such as were cast out for
heretics or schismatics. The same I say of the western
church for the first fifteen hundred years. Let him show
me but one formed church without a bishop, or the name of
one lay-presbyter in all that time. . .before Calvin's return
to Geneva in the year 1538, after he had subscribed the
Augustan confession and apology for bishops, and I wiU give
him leave to be as anti-episcopal as he vrill*.
1 See above, p. 70. a Works, vol. iii. p. 518.
' Ibid, p. 531.

The Restoration Period 217
He recounts the early reformers who approved of
bishops, heading the list with the Bohemian Brethren,
and then says :
I conclude that all divines throughout the Christian
world, who maintain a necessity of orders, ever were and
stUl are episcopal divines, except some weaker and vrilful
brethren, who for their antiquity are but of yesterday, and
for their universality come much short of the very Donatists
in Africa, condemned by all moderate and rational persons
of their own communion. And therefore Mr Baxter might
have done better to have given his pretended designers a
lower and more distinctive name than that of " episcopal
divines*."
Yet, with all his anti-presbyterian conviction.
Archbishop Bramhall was willing to go as far as
he could to conciliate the feelings of men who had
been employed under the presbyterian regime. At
(presumably) his first visitation after the Restoration,
he called for the letters of orders of his clergy.
Some, we are told, had no other but their certificates
of ordination by some presbyterian classes, which, he told
them, did not qualify them for any preferment in the church.
Upon this the question arose, " Are we not ministers of the
gospel ? " To which his Grace answered, " That was not
the question " ; at least he desired for peace sake, that might
not be the question for this time. " I dispute not," said he,
" the value of your ordination, nor those acts you have
exercised by virtue of it ; what you are, or might be, here
when there was no law, or in other churches abroad. But
we are now to consider ourselves as a national church
limited by law, which among other things takes chief care
to prescribe about ordination ; and I do not know how you
could recover the means of the church, if any should refuse
1 Works, vol. lii. p. 536.

2i8 The Restoration Period
to pay you your tithes, if you are not ordained as the law of
this church requireth ; and I am desirous that she may have
your labours, and you such portions of your revenue as shall
be allotted you, in a legal and assured way." By this means
he gained such as were learned and sober*.
The men were, of course, reordained, if that is the
right word ; but in the letters of orders, at any rate
in one case, Bramhall inserted the clause :
Non annihilantes priores ordines (si quos habuit) nee
invaliditatem eorum determinantes, multo minus omnes
ordines sacros ecclesiamm forinsecarum condemnantes, quos
proprio Judici relinquimus, sed solummodo supplentes quic
quid prius defuit per canones ecclesiae AngUcanae requisitum,
et providentes paci ecclesiae, ut schismatis toUatur occasio,
et conscientiis fidelium satisfiat, nee ulli dubitent de ejus
ordinatione, aut actus suos presbyteriales tanquam invalidos
aversentur*.
Beside the great name of Bramhall must be set
that of Cosin. Taught in the service of Overall,
Cosin knew both the ancient glory of the episcopate
and the limits within which the episcopate could be
said to be necessary. At the age of 32, he preached
at an episcopal consecration ; the sermon followed
closely the lines familiar to Anglican divinity. The
work in hand was a continuation of that breathing of
Christ upon the disciples which
is the solemn deriving of a sacred and ghostly power upon
the persons of the holy apostles for the use and benefit of
Christ's church ever after. We caU it the power of the keys,
and those keys which, over and besides them that are com
mitted to the custody of a priest in his ordination to bind
1 Works, vol. I. p. xxiv. a Ibid, p. xxxvii.

The Restoration Period 219
a sinful and to loose a penitent soul, are here given, once for
all, into the hands of bishops ; the key of order to send
as Christ sent, and the key of jurisdiction to govern as he
governed*
Whatever fables " the too-credulous papists "
might believe about the consecrations at the be
ginning of the late queen's reign, the church of
England ever held firm (and we are able to make it good) in
a continued line of succession from former known bishops,
and so from this very mission of the apostles *.
Cosin had no doubt of the grace conveyed, or of
its source :
The bishop imposes hands, but God gives the grace,
saith St Ambrose, — of whom we depend immediately for
the power of our orders, and are subordinate to no power
besides. I speak not of the execution, which I know bishops
can suspend, but of the power of order itself, which none
can take away when it is once given*.
He draws out the dignities of the various orders :
In priests this, to consecrate the sacrament and to
meddle with the keys ; but I meddle not vrith them, as
being not proper for the day. In bishops (opus diei), to
send, ordain, and govem others, as [Christ] sent and governed
them. For it was the high priest of old, and not the presbyter,
it is the bishop now, and not the vestry-man, nor the priest
neither, — that hath authority to put into the priesthood,
or to give any orders at all. It is the full consent of reverend
antiquity to distinguish the ministers of the gospel into
three degrees, answerable to the triple order under the law,
as servants to the same Trinity, the God both of law and
' Cosin's Works (ed. 1843), vol. i. p. 87.
" Ibid, p. 93. ^ Ibid,

220 The Restoration Period
gospel. There are bishops, successors to the apostles,
answerable to the high priest ; presbyters, succeeding the
seventy disciples, answerable to the priests ; and deacons,
instituted by the apostles, answerable to the levites. I
gather, then, that as the putting into the priest's office was
penes pontificem, in the high priest's power alone*, so the
consecration of bishops, the ordination of priests and
deacons, and the putting of them into office or place vrithin
the church, was, and is, in the authority and jurisdiction of
bishops only, who are the height and the princes of the clergy,
as Optatus said, and said it from Ignatius, the oldest father
that is*.
The preacher went on to speak rather haughtily
of the instances to the contrary :
Neither is there any one example to be found in all
the stories of the church of any holy orders that were ever
given but by a bishop. I wUl show you all that may be
found. There was an old Arian heretic — they caUed him
Ischyras — a fellow suborned by a faction to accuse Atha
nasius in the great councU of Nice, and he was ordained a
priest indeed by Coluthus an imaginary bishop ; but
because it was afterwards proved that the one was no bishop,
the council concluded that the other was no priest, and so
put them both off vrith contempt and scorn *-
Aerius and the rest are dismissed in like fashion ;
but Cosin's sermon ends on a solemn and religious
note, which must have been deeply affecting to the
hearers. From the general theory set forth in this sermon
Cosin never varied. When, about the year 1652, he
wrote at the request of Clarendon (then Sir Edward
Hyde) his Regni Angliae Religio Catholica, he said :
1 I Samuel ii. 36. " Works, vol. i. p. 99.
' Ibid, p. 100.

The Restoration Period 221
Quos omnis agnovit et venerata est antiquitas, rite
ordinatos de clero habemus diaconos, presbyteros, et supra
utrumque ordinem episcopos  Non novimus. . .mutilum
episcopis clerum ; quorum series nuUo unquam tempore apud
nos interrupta est, nee in eis consecrandis canon antiquus
apostolicus aut Nicaenus violatus. Ordinem enim amplec-
timur tuemurque vere ecclesiasticum et ab apostolorum
temporibus per totum Christianum orbem receptum, quo
nihil equidem, cum s. scripturae regulis et exemplis, tum
ecclesiae et reipublicae statui magis consentaneum. Conse-
cratio episcoporum ... a tribus ad minimum episcopis ordine
prius episcopali constitutis per invocationem Spiritus Sancti
et impositionem manuum . . . peragitur. . . . Porro episcoporum
sive pastorum munus apud nos non nudum tantum nomen,
sed res est ; presbyteros et diaconos ordinare, curatos
ecclesiamm instituere [etc.].. . .Presbyteri alls potestatis in
ecclesia propagandae minister inde ab apostolorum tem
poribus semper fuit episcopus. Apud nos igitur, sacram
antiquitatem quantum possumus per omnia sequentes,
presbyteri . . . ab uno episcopo per invocationem Spiritus
Sancti, impositionem manuum, sacri codicis traditionem . . .
solenni more ordinantur, assistentibus eidem episcopo in
impositione manuum presbyteris tum praesentibus*-
But Cosin afterwards came to state the theory
with a very large reserve. His experience as an exile
on the continent had the effect of diminishing such
sympathy for the Roman church as he may ever have
had, and of giving him a new feeling for the French
Huguenots, though he never ceased to be conscious
of their shortcomings. A little paper of his was
preserved in which he tabulated the treatment which
the Anglican refugees received at the hands of the
Roman Catholics and of the reformed churches
^ Works, vol. IV. pp. 351 foil.

222 The Restoration Period
respectively. Among other points, while the Roman
Catholics " excommunicate us, and abhor to join
with us in any sacred action either of prayer or
sacraments," the reformed
do most vrilUngly receive us into their churches, and
frequently repair to ours, joining vrith us both in prayers and
sacraments.
Accordingly Cosin concludes that
we ought no less to acknowledge them, and to make no
schism between our churches and theirs, however we approve
not some defects that may be seen among them*.
Fuller, the historian, while censuring Cosin for
alleged innovations at Durham, when he was a canon
there, praised him for his loyalty to the English
church during his exile, saying that " he neither
joined the church of French protestants at Charen-
town nigh Paris, nor kept any communion with the
papists therein." This drew forth the wrath of
Cosin. He wrote to Heylin in 1658 :
But — I would that he and all the world should know
it — I never refused to join with the protestants, either here
or anywhere else, in all things wherein they join with the
church of England. Many of them have been here at our
church, and we have been at theirs. . . I have baptized many
of their children at the request of their own ministers. . . .
Many of their people (and of the best sort and quality
among them) have frequented our pubhc prayers vrith great
reverence, and I have delivered the holy communion to
them according to our own order, which they observed
religiously ... I have presented some of their scholars to be
ordained deacons and priests here by our own bishops. . .
'^ Works, vol. IV. pp. 337 foil.

The Restoration Period 223
and the church at Charenton approved of it, and I preached
here publicly at their ordination*.
Cosin's letter (Feb. 7, 1650) to " Mr Cordel at
Blois " has often been quoted :
I like your moderation well, in giving so fair and calm
an answer to Monsieur Testard's motion for communicating
in their church : which truly (to speak my mind freely to
you) I would not wish any of ours absolutely to refuse or
determine to be unlawful, for fear of a greater scandal that
may thereupon arise than we can teU how to answer or
excuse : especiaUy if any of us should renounce it upon
these two grounds which you allege for them, (i) that they
have no priests, (2) that they have no consecration of the
elements. For, as to the first, though we may safely say, and
maintain it, that their ministers are not so duly and rightly
ordained as they should be, by those prelates and bishops
of the church, who since the apostles' time, have only \i,e,
alone] had the ordinary power and authority to make and
constitute a priest, yet that by reason of this defect there
is a total nullity in their ordination, or that they be therefore
no priests or ministers of the church at all, because they are
ordained by those only who are no more but priests or
ministers among them, for my part I would be loath to
affirm and determine against them. And these are my
reasons :
First, I conceive that the power of ordination was
restrained to bishops rather by apostolical practice and the
perpetual custom and canons of the church than by any
absolute precept that either Christ or his apostles gave
about it. Nor can I yet meet with any convincing argument
to set it upon a more high and divine institution. From
¦^ Works, vol. IV. pp. 397 foil. The two " scholars " were Brevint
and Durel, both Channel Islanders, and AngUcans, though at the
moment attached to the Huguenots.

224 The Restoration Period
which customs and laws of the universal church, therein
following the example of the apostles, though I reckon it to
be a great presumption and fault for any particular church
to recede, and may truly say that fieri non oportuit, when
the college of mere presbyters shall ordain and make a
priest, yet I cannot so peremptorily say that factum non
valet and pronounce the ordination to be utterly void.
Cosin compares baptism by a layman, which is
not iterated :
So may it well be in the case of ordination and the
ministers of the reformed congregations in France, who are
liable to give an account both to God and his church in
general for taking upon them to exercise that power, which
by the perpetual practice and laws of his church they were
never permitted to exercise. . . . And yet, aU this whUe, the
act which they do, though it be disorderly done, and the
ordinations which they make, though they make them
unlawfully, shall not be altogether null and invalid.
He then makes an important historical statement
which has been much disputed :
Therefore if at any time a minister so ordained in
these French churches came to incorporate himself in ours,
and to receive a public charge or cure of souls among us in
the church of England (eis I have known some of them to
have so done of late, and can instance in many other before
my time), our bishops did not reordain him before they
admitted him to his charge, as they would have done if his
former ordination here in France had been void. Nor did
our laws require more of him than to declare his public
consent to the reUgion received amongst us and to subscribe
the articles established. And I love not to be herein more
vrise, or harder, than our own church is ; which because it
hath never pubUcly condemned and pronounced the ordina
tions of the other reformed churches to be void, as it doth not
those of the unreformed churches neither. . .(though I hear

The Restoration Period 225
that the ministers here in France and Geneva. . .vriU not
admit a papist priest himself to exercise the office of a
minister among them tiU they have reordained him), for
my part, as to that particular, I dare not take upon me to
condemn or determine a nullity of their own ordinations
against them : though in the interim I take it to be utterly
a fault among them, and a great presumption, deserving
a great censure to be inflicted on them by such a power
of the church as may by the grace of God be at any time
duly gathered together hereafter against them, as weU for the
amendment of many other disorders and defects in their
church, as for this particular inorderly ordination and defect
of episcopacy amongst them.
Cosin next brings up the Hieronymian theory of
the episcopate, though he will not commit himself to
it: Secondly, besides that [i,e, if we set aside the fact that]
this their boldness, presumption, and novelty in setting up
themselves, vrithout any invincible necessity that they had
so to do, against the apostoliccd practice and perpetual order
of God's church till their days, was always faulted. . .there
have been both leamed and eminent men, as well in former
ages as in this, and even among the Roman Catholics as
weU as protestants, who have held and maintained it for
good and passable divinity that presbyters have the intrin-
sical power of ordination in actu primo, though for the
avoiding of schism (as St Jerome speaks) and preserving
order and discipline in the church, they have been restrained
ever since the first times, and stiU are, . . . from exercising
their power in actu secundo ; and therefore that, however
their act of ordaining other presbyters shall be void accord
ing to the strictness of the canon,. . .yet that the same act
shall not be simply void in the nature of the thing, in regard
that the intrinsical power remained, when the exercise of
it was suspended and taken from them.
M. 15

226 The Restoration Period
He gives a copious list of authorities who have
adopted that view, including among them, without
sufficient grounds, the name of Hooker ; but he adds
cautiously :
AU which authors are of so great credit vrith you and
me, that though we are not altogether of their mind, yet we
would be loath to let the world see that we contradict them
all and condemn their judgment openly ; as needs we must,
df we h<dd the contrary, and say that the ministers of the
reformed French churches, for want of episcopal ordination,
have no order at aU.
Thirdly, the question is not one which concerns
the Calvinist churches alone :
If upon this ground we renounce the French, we must
for the very same reason renounce all the ministers of
Germany besides ; for the superintendents that make and
ordain ministers there have no new ordination beyond their
own presbytery \i.e. presbytership] at all ; and then what
vriU become of the protestant party ?
Probably by " the protestant party " Cosin means
strictly the Lutherans ^ ; but he goes on :
Fourthly, if the church and kingdom of England have
acknowledged them, as they did in admitting of them, when
they fled thither for refuge, and placing them by pubUc
authOTity in divers of the most eminent cities among us,
without prohibiting to any of our people to go and com
municate with them, — w^hy should we that are but private
persons utterly disclaim their communion in their own
country ?
His fifth argument was drawn from the way
in which St Cyprian was allowed to remain in
^ Compare the way in which he uses the expression " his ovm
party " later on in the letter, p. 408.

The Restoration Period 227
communion by " other churches abroad," although
his " error in rebaptizing heretics was as scandalous "
to them " as the French is in their ordaining of
ministers." The sixth is this, which appears for the
first time :
Somewhat it is, that they do not absolutely disclaim
episcopacy, nor ever did, but say and hold that their pres
byters are bishops, especially the chief presbyters that
preside at their ordinations and their courts of jurisdiction.
So that the true question between us and ,th^n is, not so
much whethra" there ought to be bishops in the church or no,
as whether their presbyters be tme bishops : wherein I
think they will have more to do to defend themselves for
want of subordination than of ordination itself.
On these grounds Cosin encourages his corre
spondent to receive the commimion from the
French ministers, after availing himself of their
offer to accept his "protestation" beforehand, to
this effect :
Not to recede in any vrise from the doctrine and
discipline of the church of England ; nor thereby to approve
this discipline of the French churches for a rule to others ;
or to join with them that renounce episcopacy and condemn
the proceedings of our own church or the laws of our own
kingdom.
Cosin, however, begs Mr Cordel to obtain from
Monsieur Testard definite and formal answers to
these two questions, viz.
I. Whether the French churches here reformed hold
and urge such an absolute necessity of presbytery, as that
aU other churches are bound to receive and estabUsh it
among them ? 15—2

228 The Restoration Period
2. Whether episcopacy, or the government of churches
by bishops (especiaUy being assisted by presbyters, as ours
are by their deans and chapters), be not a lavi^ful order and
government in God's church* ?
Cosin had not heard the last of this letter when
the receipt of it was acknowledged. Writing to
Peter Gunning on another subject in 1657 (March 21),
he says :
What paper that is, which is read and talked of among
you as mine concerning the French ordinations, I know not :
but some discourse I made upon that subject, and their
church and sacraments here, about seven years since, which
then gave abundant satisfaction to somebody, who now
seems not altogether so weU to like it, I cannot tell upon,,
what score. If a perfect copy of my writing (wEiclTis-loH^
be among you, I fear not the censure of any moderate and
learned man whatsoever ; and if the presbyterians think
to get any advantage by it, they will much deceive themselves.
It was written against the rash assertion of some forward
persons here that said absolutely, there was neither any
minister, nor any sacrament, nor any church, in France,
amongst the French reformed ; of which mind neither my
self nor any other honest man must ever be *.
Gunning's reply is lost, but he was evidently
not quite satisfied. Cosin wrote to him again on
May 26 :
I am very loath that there should be the least difference
of judgment in that matter between us. Nor by the words
that you express of it do I perceive that you dissent from
me at all. For you shall not find . . . that I ever said presbyters
had any power of rightful ordination in the judgment of
^ The letter is in Cosin's Works, vol. iv. pp. 401 foil.
" Ibid. p. 420. Who the " somebody " was can only be con
jectured. It might be Clarendon.

The Restoration Period 229
antiquity. Nay, you shall find the contrary, and that I
greatly blame them, saying, they will never be able to answer
it for presuming to take a power upon them which was
never given or committed to them, and that nothing but a
case of necessity (reserving their wonted desire of bishops,
where they are by no means to be had or permitted) can
excuse them. I know it is the interest of the pope and the
Jesuits, vrith other of the like faction, to cry down the jus
divinum of episcopacy ; and, as I never was, so by the grace
of God I shaU never be, of that faction. But the question
only is, whether there be such an absolute necessity and
precept in that jus divinum in all places and at all times,
as, where it cannot be put in practice, there. . .the ordination
of a presbyter by a coUege of presbyters. . .shall be utterly
void and invalid to aU effects whatsoever ; . . . whether in
such a case, if you were a bishop, you would ordain the
presbyter again or no ; which was never yet done in the
church of England but in Mr Dury's case alone, and that
upon his own earnest desire and pretence of conscience,
though all the world saw he looked another way*: — whether
the church of England hath ever determined the French
and German ordinations by presbyters or superintendents to
be nuU and vain, and hath not rather admitted them at
several times in public administrations of the sacraments
and other divine offices among us ; yea, whether there'was
not a law made (13 Eliz.) to aUow such an ordination, then
questioned by some persons, whereof I could tell you a long
story out of our records in the church of Durham, which
I have heretofore diligently perused*.
Cosin's memory played him false. To say the
least of it, he had not made the plea of necessity
'^ Cosin's grievance against Dury probably arose from Dury's
readiness to join vrith the established sects in England during the
commonwealth times.
^ This doubtless refers to the case of Whittingham ; see below,
pp. 493 foU.

230 The Restoration Period
prominent in his letter to Cordel, as earlier divines
did, but rested his defence of French orders on other
grounds. No doubt, however, he had had it in mind
as a condition. Devoted as always to the memory
of Overall, he refers to his opinion :
I could teU you another [story] of Bishop OveraU's
judgment herein, who was as great a patron of antiquity
and the church of England as any bishop or priest that
ever lived in it, and was wont to say, " Though we are not
to lessen the^MS divinum of episcopacy, where it is established
and may be had, yet we must take heed that we do not, for
want of episcopacy where it cannot be had, cry down and
destroy all the reformed churches abroad... and say they
have neither ministers nor sacraments, but all is void and
null that they do."
He concludes :
This is all the letter drives at, and at nothing else :
which truly I cannot apprehend how it either hurts the
jus divinum of episcopacy, or excuseth their voluntary and
transcendent impiety that have endeavoured to destroy it
in the church of England, contrary to the laws of God and
his universal church, the mother of us all*.
In this mind Bishop Cosin continued to the end of
his life. In the notes of his argument about divorce
(1669 or 1670), in opposition to the majority of the
bishops, who were influenced, as he thought, by the
decisions of the church of Rome, he says
I know not why they should be caUed the church of
England that join with the councU of Trent, and plead so
much to uphold it, rather than others that join vrith all
the reformed churches, and plead against that canon of the
church of Rome, which hath laid an anathema upon us if we
do not agree vrith them*.
1 Works, vol. IV. p. 448. ' Ibid. p. 501.

The Restoration Period 231
His last wiU sets forth his faith, his loyalty to the
English church, his rejection of all heresies and
schisms, among whom he ranks " not only the
separatists, the anabaptists and their followers, —
alas, too too many, — but also the new independents
and presbyterians of our country."
Moreover I do profess with holy asseveration and from
my very heart that I am now, and have ever been from my
youth, altogether free and averse from the corruptions and
impertinent new-fangled or papistical (so commonly called)
superstitions and doctrines, and new superadditions to the
ancient and primitive religion and faith of the . . . catholic
church. . .contrary to the holy scripture and the rules and
customs of the ancient fathers. But in what part of the
world soever any churches are extant, bearing the name of
Christ, and professing the true cathoUc faith and religion, . . .
if anywhere I be now hindered actually to be joined vrith
them either by distance of countries or variance amongst
men or by any other let whatsoever, yet always in my mind
and affection I join and unite with them. Which I desire
to be chiefly understood of protestants and the best reformed
churches ; for where the foundations are safe, we may aUow
and. . .peaceably suffer, in those churches where we have not
authority, a diversity, as of opinion so of ceremonies, about
things which do but adhere to the foundations and are
neither necessary or repugnant to the practice of the uni
versal church*.
Cosin's judgment has not the dispassionate so
briety of Bramhall's. His " very good friend "
Clarendon felt that he was needlessly vehement in
his repudiation of Fuller's misplaced encomium^.
His letter to Cordel gives too much the impression of
1 Works, vol. IV. p. 527.
^ See his letter in Cosin's Works, vol. iv. p. 398, note n.

232 The Restoration Period
the special pleader. Gunning and others might well
feel anxious, as they evidently did, at the thought
that the presbyterians in England would make capital
out of it. Cosin was far from intending to aid their
cause, but \fvs, factum valet could justly be quoted on
their behalf. An ordination by presbyters, on Cosin's
principles, is more wrong, a great deal, in a country
like England, where there are evangelical bishops,
than in a country like France ; but if it is valid in the
one, it can hardly be declared invalid in the other.
There can be little doubt that Cosin allowed himself
to become prejudiced by the unfriendliness of the
French Roman Catholics, from whom he had some
how expected better things. The perversion of his
only son to Romanism was a blow which he never
forgave. He became the partisan of " the French
reformed^." Cosin's own action as a bishop was in conformity
with the views which he had imbibed from Overall.
He could not indeed allow the sufficiency of presby
terian orders : the law was against it, even if he had
wished otherwise. But he was ready to meet a good
presbyterian halfway, as Bramhall did. Calamy
relates a conference which Cosin held with a man
named Frankland, whom he earnestly desired to gain
for the church :
Bishop Cosin solicited him to conform, promising him
not only his living, but greater preferment upon his com
pliance. Mr Frankland told him that his unwUlingness to
¦^ Besides the letters quoted in the text, see the letter in Works,
vol. IV. p. 385.

The Restoration Period 233
renounce his ordination by presbyters made him incapable
of enjoying the benefit of his favour. This engaged him in
a debate with the bishop, that was managed with great
calmness, and this was the result of it. His lordship conde
scended to ask whether he would be content to receive a
new ordination so privately that the people might not know
of it, and have it conditionally, with such words as these,
" If thou hast not been ordained, I ordain thee " etc. He
thanked him, but told him he durst not yield to the proposal,
at the same time assuring his lordship, that it was not
obstinacy, but conscience, which hindered his compliance*.
Gunning, to whom some of the letters of Cosin
above quoted are addressed, wrote little ; but he had
an extraordinary reputation for learning and for
wisdom. He was one of the most powerful forces in
the restoration settlement, and for that reason was
singled out as a chief object of Baxter's dislike. In
1682, his chaplain, Saywell, Master of Jesus College,
Cambridge, published in his Evangelical and Catholic
Unity a rather curious " Vindication of the Right
Reverend Father in God, Peter, Lord Bishop of Ely,
extorted by the numberless provocations and reflec
tions of Mr Baxter upon his Lordship." Baxter had
offered to Gunning and to the world his True and only
way to Concord. Saywell's comment is :
Let us then consider the Bishop of Ely's way of concord,
which is, by uniting in that ancient catholic and apostolic
faith, doctrine, government, administration of sacraments,
and order of worship, which was instituted by Christ and
his apostles, confirmed by the general councils, received
down by the known custom and practice of the churches
* Calamy's Abridgement, vol. ii. p. 286 (quoted in Cosin's Corre
spondence, Surtees Society, vol. 11. p. xliv).

234 The Restoration Period
of God throughout aU ages, and approved by the primitive
fathers and martyrs, and established in this nation, for
substance, ever since Christianity was first planted. . . .
Now there is not one settled church, established by
public authority, that he is not at concord withal, and holds
Christian communion, and would actuaUy embrace and
receive to his prayers and sacraments, and count as members
of the same mystical body, whereof Christ is the head,
though he does not agree with them in their errors and
singularities, and only differs from them where they depart
from the scripture and the catholic church*.
He proceeds to enumerate those churches " which
do approve of our communion, and are upon occasion
admitted to it " :
First, does not his Highness the Prince of Orange and
his noble and honourable retinue join in communion with
us, as often as they have occasion to come over hither ; and
are not any of the ministers and others of the Dutch churches
publicly permitted to come to our communion ? And do
we not thereby own thejn for Christians and feUow members
of the same catholic church ? And do they not thereby
own us for the like ? If at any time any of the French
protestants come over to our country, do we not likewise
admit them to our public prayers and sacraments, and so
profess our concord with them in the substantial principles
of the Christian religion ? Come we likewise to consider the
remains of the ancient Bohemians, do we not hold all
friendly communion with them ? Nay, the Bishop of Ely
does subscribe yearly to the maintenance of scholars in the
universities to be sent over to be ministers amongst them ;
and when their bishop [Hartmann] was lately here to solicit
our church's charity towards their relief, none was more
forward than his lordship, as that reverend and learned
bishop and his brother did with ample thanks and hearty
^ Saywell's Evangelical and Catholic Unity, pp, 299 foil.

The Restoration Period 235
prayers to God for his lordship acknowledge to me.. . .The
same charity and concord is always shown to the Lutheran
churches, some of whom have often communicated with the
Lord Bishop of Ely. . . .The like concord I can show with the
Helvetian, Hungarian, and Transilvanian churches, and all
that profess the catholic faith*.
After speaking of Gunning's relation to the eastern
churches and to Rome, his chaplain says who they
are that he will not communicate withal :
His love of tmth and zeal for catholic unity does teach
him not to communicate vrith them that deny the catholic
faith Or break catholic unity. Such are infidels, heretics,
schismatics, and openly wicked livers... .These the church
of England, and the Bishop of Ely taught by her, do mani
festly reject from their communion. And whereas this is
made a large pretence by many, to reject whom they please
from their communion, . . . the church of England, and the
Lord Bishop of Ely, do not hereupon take an occasion to
vent their passion against anybody and presently brand
them vrith the name of heretic and schismatic etc., but. . .
embrace all those that profess the common received faith and
order of the catholic church  According to this mle, not
only Socinians are to be shut out from aU Christian com
munion by the church of England and the Lord Bishop of
Ely, but even obstinate anabaptists and quakers, as holding
manifest and gross heresies  And by the same mle all those
that set up altar against altar, and hold separate congrega
tions, contrary to the law of this church, are to be held as
schismatics, and were condemned for such by the ancient
general and particular councUs and all the catholic fathers
and martyrs, and thought not fit to be received into Christian
communion or accounted lively members of the catholic
church. Such therefore the church of England and the
Lord Bishop of Ely reject from their communion*.
1 Evangelical and Catholic Unity, pp. 302 foU.
2 Ibid. pp. 317 foil.

236 The Restoration Period
Baxter's party and the bishop's were alike in
maintaining that there ought to be but one church,
that is, that one side or the other ought to give in ;
and Saywell states not unfairly how the matter lay :
It wUl not be amiss to enquire which party ought to
yield to the other for order and peace sake. . . .There is no
doubt made by persons that understand what they say,
that bishops have fulness of aU ecclesiastical power and
order, and that their ordinations and sacraments regularly
made and administered are lawful and valid ; and this none
of the furious contenders for presbytery can deny. But
then they also maintain that every presbyter is as to order
and office equal to a bishop, and has the same fulness of
power and autliority originally in himself, though as to the
exercise of it, for order sake and by consent, he may be
bound up and restrained. . . . On the other side, it has been
the tradition and doctrine of the Christian church in all
ages. . .that no ordinations are valid, or ought to be made,
but by bishops . . . where with moral diligence such 9rdinations
may be had. . . . Presbyters, where there are or can be no
bishops, may, during that necessity, design persons that are
best fitted and qualified to supply the place of ministers ;
but stiU they ought to acknowledge they are in an imperfect
state, and be ready to receive a regular ordination, and
submit to lawful ministers as soon as they can be had. So
that they do not hereby unchurch any foreign churches that
cannot have bishops, or shut them out from the number of
Christ's disciples and a possibility of salvation, but deplore
their unhappiness, and counsel them, as soon as they can,
to make up this defect and to retum to the ancient catholic
order of the primitive and most other churches at this day.
The matter being thus stated on both sides, 'tis easy
for any peaceable and rational man to determine which
party ought to yield to the other ; for there is no reason
that the ancient apostolical order should give place to the

The Restoration Period 237
modem ; that [that] which people entered upon only in
case of necessity should be preferred before that which was
chosen freely and when the church was in none of those
straits ; that [that] which is undoubtedly good and valid
in the confession of all parties should be set aside by that
which the church of God never yet did nor the greatest part
of Christians never will approve of *-
Such were the ideas that prevailed in the circle of
Bishop Gunning.
Almost a twin name with Gunning's is that of the
illustrious Pearson, who succeeded him in 1661 in the
Lady Margaret's Professorship at Cambridge. In
that capacity Pearson delivered the Determinationes
Theologicae, of which the first three bear the following
titles : I. Ordo episcopalis est apostolicus. II. Ordi
nandi potestas solis competit episcopis. III. Ordinatio
Anglicana complet totam essentiam externae vocationis
ad ministerium. The method of the Determinationes is, of course,
scholastic, and Pearson, in the first of them, goes
patiently through his proof that there is such a thing
as holy order, and then that there is more than one
holy order, before coming to the assertion that the
episcopal order is distinct from the others. He does
it in this manner :
Certe si ordo sit nihil aliud, uti diximus, quam spiritualis
potestas tradita ordinate, tum distincta potestas est diversus
ordo : sed spiritualis potestas tradita episcopo distincta est
a potestate concessa presbytero. NuUi unquam presbytero,
qua presbytero, concessa est potestas ordinandi diaconum
aut presbytemm aut episcopum. NuUi unquam presbytero,
qua tali, concessa est potestas regendi presbyteros, aut per
^ Evangelical and Catholic Unity, pp. 322 foil.

238 The Restoration Period
se excommunicandi Christianos. Sed episcopis, quatenus
episcopi sunt ordinati, haec potestas omnino est concessa.
He then comes, as he says, to the " throat " of
the matter. From two quarters, the papal and the
presbyterian, the truth is authoritatively denied.
The modern papist contention he traces to Soto,
well known in connexion with Cranmer's last days.
Of the presbyterian contention he writes, taking up
a point made by Andrewes :
IUi, qui aut ex necessitate aut ex ambitione auctoritatem
episcopalem presbyteratui attribuunt, volunt presbyt^os
episcopis, hoc est filios patribus, priores esse, nihUque aliud
episcopos esse quam presbyteros a .presb3d;eris promotos,
atque ideo, cum fiunt episcopi, non ordinatos sed consecratos
dici. Habemus quidem in ecclesia nostra formulam conse-
crationis episcoporum, habemus et aliam ordinationis presby
terorum ; non tamen inde concludi potest «piscopatujn non
esse ordinem, magis quam ex eodem concludatur presby-
teratum non esse ordinem sacrum. Ordinatio episcoporum
dicitur consecratio, non ad negationem, sed ad distinctionem
et praelationem ordinis.
He concludes accordingly :
Est itaque episcopatus a presbyteratu distinctus ; et
distinctio nunquam non observanda, quam tradidit Optatus,
"Cert a membra habet ecclesia, episcopos, presbyteros, dia
conos, et turbam fidelium*."
He proceeds to prove, as against Saumaise and
Blondel, that this order is apostolic, and apostolic in
all the three ways in which a thing can be said still to
be apostolic, viz. " quod fuit sub apostolis, ab apos
tolis, in apostolis." Under the second of these beads
he affirms :
•^ Minor Works (ed. Churton), vol. i. pp. 274-278.

The Restoration Period 239
Non tantum viventibus videntibusque apostolis facti
sunt episcopi, sed ipsis etiam nominantibus, ordinantibus,
manuumque impositione consecrantibus, adeoque episco
palem ordinem conferentibus : hoc est, apostoli solenniter
dedemnt quibusdam hominibus [Timotheo, Tito], separatim
et singulariter sumptis, potestatem ad conferendos ordines,
ad regendos presbyteros, ad excommunicandos impios,
ad confirmandos neophytos, ad faciendum quicquid presbyter,
qua talis, facere legitime non potest*.
Under the third head he draws the usual distinc
tion between what was unique and temporary in the
endowment of the apostles, and what was for all
time, to be transmitted to the bishops.
Est itaque apostolus episcopus extraordinarius ; est
episcopus apostolus ordinarius ; atque ita episcopatus fuit
in apostolis a Christo institutus, in successoribus apostolorum
ab apostolis derivatus*.
The second Determinatio discusses the three
propositions of the opponents, that the power of
ordaining is innate in presbyters, that after the
apostles' time the church restricted it to bishops, and
that bishops and presbyters still confer orders to
gether by equality of right. The first proposition
has no scriptural warrant, but depends for its force
upon the second ; the second has no historical
evidence to show, but depends upon the third. So
Pearson demonstrates that the imposition of the
hands of the presbyters along with those of the bishop
was unknown in the west till the Carthaginian council
at the end of the fourth century, and has never been
known in the east, and that the interpretation put
upon it by the westem councils which prescribed
' Minor Works, vol. i. p. 282. * Ibid. p. 284.

240 The Restoration Period
it was quite contrary to that put upon it by the
presbyterians^. In a Latin sermon to the clergy, on Aaron's rod,
preached whUe he was Master of Trinity, Pearson
puts forward the doctrine of the apostolical succession
clearly and briefly :
Sicut misit Pater Christum, ita Christus apostolos, apostoli
successores. Imposuit manus Timotheo Paulus, atque sic
factus est ab apostolo episcopus. Imposuit manus iterum
Timotheus, et factus est ab episcopo aut presbyter aut
episcopus. Quodcunque factum, nunquam misit nisi qui
missus est, nunquam ordinavit nisi qui ordinatus est, nun
quam dedit nisi qui acceperat  Non a popiUo neque per
populum, sed a Deo per S. Paulum Titus episcopus.. . .Per
banc traditionem apostolicam tota ordinandi potestas in
episcopis resedit ; nulla alii cuiquam in Novo Testamento
indulta est, nuUi in veteri ecclesia permissa. Quicquid
unquam ad honorem presbyteratus dictum, semper ei
ordinatio negata est ; ut filios crearet, permissum, non ut
patres  Sane qui ordinandi potestatem presbyteratui origi-
naliter tribuunt, non possunt non in Aerii haeresin delabi*.
These, however, are somewhat arid orthodoxies,
and scarcely seem to touch life. But a letter of
Pearson's, written in 1668, brings out the religious
value which Pearson felt to inhere in the practice of
ordination in the church. " A person of quality "
wrote to ask him, as one who had the reputation
of being " a moderate divine," whether he could
approve of the appointment of a pastor in the parish
where his correspondent lived, " who is not a pastor
canonically ordained, but hath received something
* Minor Works, vol. i. pp. 287 foil.
" Ibid. vol. 11. pp. 73 foil.

The Restoration Period 241
which he calls ordination, either after a classical or
congregational way," that is either a presbyterian
or an independent ordination. Pearson replied in
his letter on " Promiscuous Ordinations," which
ought to be widely known.
" Sir," he wrote :
I cannot take any delight as to the differences in
matters of religion, but in the composure of them only :
and if I understand myself, nothing can ever alter that
temper by which I have been so long inclined to a due
enlargement and indulgence for such as are ready to afford
a rational compliance. But I hope that no such facUity of
nature or opinion shall ever rediice me to that weakness, as
to betray the great and everlasting concerns of the church,
or to give over the indispensable duty of endeavouring that
unity which is necessary to its conservation.
That the order of the ministry is necessary to the
continuation of the gospel according to the promises of
Christ, as it was to the first plantation of it according to his
institution, is a doctrine indubitable. That this ministry is
derived by a succession and constant propagation, and that
the unity and peace of the church of Christ are to be con
served by a due and legitimate ordination, no man who
considereth the practice of the apostles and ecclesiastical
history can ever doubt. This way of ordination, having
continued so many ages one and the same, could never be
considerably altered without some great commotions and
dissensions in the church, and the manifest breach of union
and communion in that body : whomsoever we judge guilty
of the breach of that union, which is not necessary now to
dispute. And as the first introduction of different ordinations
caused a standing and settled opposition, precluding aU
ways of reconcUiation*, so they cannot be brought into any
'^ Pearson here refers to the action of the continental reformers
and its effect upon the church at large.
M. 16

242 The Restoration Period
one church, but they must make such a division and dis
parity in the administrations, as wiU amount to no less than
a schism. However \i.e. at any rate], in the peculiar and happy
condition of our church, these promiscuous ordinations, if
at aU aUowed by it, are most destructive to that which is
the safety and honour of it. We have the greatest felicity
which could happen to a reformation, as being regular and
authoritative, that we have so taken away the many mis
takes and errors which had been introduced by a long
ignorance and usurpation, as to retain a perfect compliance
vrith the ancient church : and therefore we can boldly and
tmly affirm, we are the same with the primitive Christians,
even those of Rome : and while we hold and maintain our
ordinations legitimate, we speak the same language vrith
the most glorious fathers, martyrs, and saints of those
happy and pious times. But if we once admit a diversity
in our ordinations, we have lost the honour of succession,
we have cast away our weapons of defence ; we have
betrayed our own cause, and laid ourselves open to the
common enemy of all protestants, and we shall at last
inevitably fall into the Socinian doctrine, to deny all necessity
or use of any mission or ordination.
Pearson then shows how impossible it would be
to maintain the discipline of the church, if invalid
ordinations were condoned :
If all sorts of ordination be any way established by
sufficient authority, if what is so earnestly desired be indulged,
" that a man once ordained any way be still held and retained
for a labourer in the harvest," the most legitimate process in
ecclesiastical affairs vriU become ineffectual and irrational 
What an uncomfortable and discouraging confusion is this,
whereby presentments shaU be made of those persons who
are conscientiously conformable to the doctrine and orders
of the church, for actions or omissions proceeding solely out
of that conscience and conformity ; and they who f actiously

The Restoration Period 243
or erroneously dissent from that doctrine and order shaU
avoid their own [presentment] and promote the presentment
of others, and in this error or faction shall be protected and
encouraged by a superinduced authority 1 Thus by pro
miscuous ordinations the doctrine of the church wUl be
rendered indefensible and the discipline unpracticable.
Then Pearson brings it home to the enquirer what
perplexity would be in store for himself, his family,
and his neighbours, if his parish minister was without
due orders :
If a person only qualified by a congregational mission
should be set over you authoritatively as your lawful pastor,
to whose ministerial acts it is expected you should apply
yourself in all public matters of religion ; you being of a
constant persuasion that the validity of such acts hath a
necessary relation to the legitimacy of ministry, and of as
certain an opinion that such a mission cannot amount to a
legitimate ordination ; I cannot see what comfort you can
take in any compliance with such administrations. Nay,
further, if a person be said to have obtained orders after the
pre,sbyterian way in the late times, when he might have
received them from a bishop, and, since the happy restitution
of public order in the church, when many of his brethren have
submitted, still obstinately refuses to receive ordination after
the established way of the church of England ; in this case,
if you doubt whether his ordination be valid or conclude it
null, I confess I know no argument to convince you or to
incline you to another persuasion.
He describes the uncomfortable feeling with which
his correspondent would attend the church prayers,
with such a person taking the priest's part ; the
irregularity of his baptisms, though they would not
be invalid. 1 6  2

244 The Restoration Period
As to the other sacrament, the supper of the Lord,
your case is far worse  If you be resolved that your pastor
established is not a priest or presbyter, and consequently
hath no power to consecrate the elements, or render them
sacramental, I cannot see how you can follow him to the
holy table, or with what comfort or conscience you can
bring your family, or concur with your neighbours, to receive
the elements from his hands.
When death approaches, and confession and abso
lution may be desirable,
you wiU never acquiesce in the absolution, where you
acknowledge no commission, nor can you expect any efficacy,
which dependeth upon the authority.
The impressive letter ends as follows :
These and the like I look upon not as formal objections or
cavils, but as real and severe complaints, raised upon sober
and religious grounds, — matter for Christian zeal rather
than moderation. And therefore I cannot persuade myself
that any person endued with any kindness or care of the
religion settled in this nation can ever contrive or assent
unto so great a discouragement to the conscientious pro
fessors of it, and confusion in the management and adminis
tration*.
Pearson's successor in the Mastership of Trinity,
Isaac Barrow, composed a short Discourse concerning
the Unity of the Church. In the course of it he says :
.Ml Christian churches are one by a specifical unity of
discipline, resembling one another in ecclesiastical adminis
trations, which are regulated by the indispensible sanctions
and institutions of their Sovereign. They are all bound to
use the same sacraments, according to the forms appointed
by our Lord, not admitting any substantial alteration. They
^ Minor Works, vol. ii. p. 231.

The Restoration Period 245
must uphold that sort of order, government, and ministry
in all its substantial parts, which God did appoint in the
church, or give thereto, as St Paul expresseth it ; it being a
temerarious and dangerous thing to innovate in those matters
which our Lord had a special care to order and settle  In
lesser matters of ceremony or discipline, instituted hy human
prudence, churches may differ, and it is expedient they should
do so, . . . but no power ought to abrogate, destroy, or infringe
or violate the main form of discipline, constituted by divine
appointment. . . . Hence was Aerius accounted a heretic, for
meaning to innovate in so grand a point of discipline as the
subordination of bishops and priests*.
In the latter part of the Discourse, where Barrow
is combating some of Thorndike's positions, he meets
the objection that what he has said may seem to
" favour the conceits of the independents."
I answer. No ; for. . . we do assert that every church is
bound to observe the institutions of Christ and that sort of
govemment which the apostles did ordain, consisting of
bishops, priests, and people.
The other reasons need not delay us here.
In the first of four sermons on Obedience to our
Spiritual Guides and Governors, Barrow sets forth the
doctrine of the church, as he understood it, without
the constraint which is apparent in the more
scholastic treatise.
The church is acies ordinata, a weU marshalled army,
wherein under the Captain General of our faith and salva
tion. . .there are divers captains serving in fit degrees of
subordination ; bishops commanding larger regiments, pres
byters ordering less numerous companies ; . . . all bishops and
priests being guided by synods established, or congregated
1 Section vn.

246 The Restoration Period
upon emergent occasion ; many of them ordinarily by those
principal bishops who are regularly settled in a presidency
over them ; according to the distinctions constituted by God
and his apostles, or introduced by human prudence. . .
Of this distinction there was never in ancient times
made any question, nor did it seem disputable in the church,
except to one malcontent, Aerius ; who did indeed get a
name in story, but never made much noise or obtained any
vogue in the world. Very few foUowers he found in his
heterodoxy. No great body even of heretics could find
cause to dissent from the church in this point ; . . . and no
wonder, seeing it standeth upon so very firm and clear
grounds ; upon the reason of the case, upon the testimony
of holy scripture, upon general tradition and unquestionable
monuments of antiquity, upon the common judgment and
practice of the greatest saints, persons most renowned for
wisdom and piety in the church.
Barrow developes these various grounds. His
statement of the consent of antiquity is well put by
the great mathematician :
The primitive general use of Christians most effectuaUy
doth back the scripture, and interpret it in favour of this
distinction, scarce less than demonstrating it constituted by
the apostles ; . . . for how could it vrithout apparent \i,e, evident]
confederacy be formed, how could it creep in vrithout notable
clatter, how could it be admitted vrithout considerable
opposition, if it were not in the foundation of those churches
laid by the apostles ? How is it likely that, in those times of
grievous persecution f alUng chiefly upon the bishops, ... an
ambition of irregularly advancing themselves above their
brethren should so generally prevaU among the ablest and
best Christians ? ... In fine, how can we conceive that all the
best monuments of antiquity down from the beginning (the
Acts, the Epistles, the histories, the commentaries, the
vmtings of all sorts coming from the blessed martyrs and

The Restoration Period 247
most holy confessors of our faith) should conspire to abuse
us ; the which do speak nothing but bishops ; long catalogues
and rows of bishops succeeding in this and that city ; bishops
contesting for the faith against pagan idolaters and heretical
cormpters of Christian doctrine ; bishops, here teaching and
planting our religion by their labours, there suffering and
watering it with their blood ?
The preacher cannot enlarge on this point :
I shall only further add that if any man be so dully or
so affectedly ignorant as not to see the reason of the case,
and the dangerous consequences of rejecting this ancient
form of discipline ; if any be so overweeningly presumptuous
as to question the faith of all history, or to disavow
those monuments and that tradition upon the testimony
whereof even the tmth and certainty of our religion and aU
its sacred oracles do rely ; if any be so perversely contentious
as to oppose the custom and current practice of the churches
through all ages down to the last age ; so self-conceitedly
arrogant as to condemn or slight the judgment and practice
of all the fathers (together also with the opinion of the later
most grave divines, who have judged episcopal presidency
needful, or expedient where practicable) ; so peevishly
refractory as to thwart the settled order of that church in
which he was baptized, together with the law of the country
in which he was born ; upon such a person we may look as
one utterly invincible and intractable : so weak a judgment
and so strong a vriU who can hope by reason to convert ?
I shall say no more to that point.
He concludes this part of the sermon thus :
The ¦qyovp.f.voi then (the guides and govemours) in our
text are primarily the bishops. . .then secondarily the
presbyters in their station ... together with the deacons as
their assistants. Such the church always hath had, and such
by God's blessing our church now hath, toward whom the
duty of obedience is to be performed.

248 The Restoration Period
Barrow then shows how the true guides may be
known from " bold pretenders, who are not indeed
guides but seducers, not governours but usurpers and
sacrilegious invaders of this holy office." The true
guides are
Those... who constantly do profess and teach that
sound and wholesome doctrine which was delivered by our
Lord and his apostles ... those who celebrate the true
worship of God, and administer the holy mysteries of our
reUgion in a serious, grave, decent manner . . . those who
derive their authority by a continued succession from the
apostles ; who are called unto and constituted in their office
in a regular and peaceable way, agreeable to the institution
of God and the constant practice of his church, according to
rules approved in the best and purest ages. . . who also in a
pious, grave, solemn manner, with invocation of God's
blessing, by laying on the hands of the presbytery are admitted
thereunto.
The false guides, of course, are the opposite.
These vrithout any apparent commission from God, or allow
able call from men, or extraordinary necessity of the case,
in no legal or regular way, according to no custom received
in God's church, do intrude themselves into the office, or
are only assured thereto by ignorant, unstable, giddy, factious
people. . .for no just cause, and upon any slender pretence,
withdraw themselves and seduce others from the church. . .
deserting its communion, impugning its laws, defaming its
governours, endeavouring to subvert its establishment. . .
in their doctrine or practice deflect from the great beaten
roads of holy scripture, primitive tradition, and catholic
practice*.
* Barrow's Works, vol. iii. p. 278 (edited by Tillotson, 1686).

The Restoration Period 2.dif)
Simon Patrick was not a man of commanding
genius, but he may be taken as a good sample of the
well-read, well-meaning bishop of the latter half of
the seventeenth century. His Friendly Debate be
tween a conformist and a nonconformist was not
concerned with ordination questions ; but one of the
replies which it drew forth plunged into those
questions, and averred that the church of England
itself permitted presbyterian ordination. It aUeged
the well known puritan Gataker as an example.
He had been ordained by a suffragan bishop, which
the author of this reply, with ignorant erudition,
took to be the same thing as a chorepiscopus and
much the same thing as a rural dean. In an
appendix to the Friendly Debate Patrick demolished
the mistake :
Nor did our church, he says, ever acknowledge such power
residing in. . .any mere presbyters. . .to ordain priests*.
He discussed one or two supposed exceptions.
Saravia, in his letter to the ministers in Guernsey,
spoke of men there being ordained " by their bishop
or his demissories " ; Patrick thinks that the curious
word means the suffragans of Winchester. He denies
that the Scottish consecration of 1610 was a case in
point: and Scotland was not England^. The reply had
spoken of " hectors for conformity, who judge Aerius
a greater heretic than Arius, who have more charity
for those that deny the deity of our Saviour than for
those that scruple the strict jus divinum of episco
pacy." Patrick's rejoinder is not uninstructive :
' Works (ed. 1858), vol. vi. p. 287. ^ jbid, p. 288.

250 The Restoration Period
Let me teU you in the first place that it is no hectorism
to assert the divine right of episcopacy in the strictest sense.
This is no upstart opinion, broached by some swaggering
hotbrained men, who love to rant and vapour beyond other
folk,. . .but hath been anciently believed in this church from
the very beginning of the reformation, and maintained by
the soberest men in it. I know they would have you to
think otherwise, and have endeavoured to persuade the
world that it is a novel doctrine advanced of later times by
some proud and haughty divines. Mr Robert Baily made
bold to say that before Bishop Bancroft's time the bishops
did unanimously deny episcopacy to be of divine right*.
And the letter to Dr Samuel Turner, printed 1647, wiU not
allow it to be so ancient, but affirms that " it is an opinion
but lately countenanced in England, and that by some of
the more lordly clergy." He means, I think. Archbishop
Laud, as some since have explained it. But both the one
and the other of these talked at random out of their own
imaginations, not from historical observation*.
Patrick's own historical observation leads him to
cite Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson as earlier
examples, and " old Bernard Gilpin " before either.
But there is an authority ancienter than all these, viz.
" the form and order of making and consecrating bishops,"
etc., confirmed by act of parliament. In which three things
are considerable. The very first words of the preface are
that " it is evident to all men reading the holy scriptures
and ancient authors that from the apostles' time there have
been these orders in Christ's church, bishops, priests, and
deacons." Then, secondly, the prayer after the litany at
the consecration of a bishop begins in this manner, " Almighty
God, giver of all good things, which by thy Holy Spirit hast
' In a reply to Bramhall's Fair Warning against the Scots
Discipline. •
^ Works, vol. VI. p. 306.

The Restoration Period 251
appointed divers orders of ministers in thy church," etc. ;
which must needs be understood of those before named. And
lastly, the first question to the person to be consecrated is,
" Are you persuaded that you be called to this ministration
according to the vriU of our Lord Jesus Christ?" to which
the answer is, " I am so persuaded." Put now all these
together, and you vriU not be able to conceive  how these
words should f aU from any men not possessed vrith this tenet,
that episcopacy is of divine right.. . .And all this hath not
been said only of late, nor countenanced only by some few,
and those of the more lordly clergy*.
One of the less pleasing characters in English
church history during the same half of the seven
teenth century was Samuel Parker, who rose to be
Bishop of Oxford under James II. Perhaps one of
the best things that can be said about him is that he
was a friend of Patrick's. But he was a man of a
very different temper. His chief work, published in
1670, ventured to assume the already illustrious title
of Ecclesiastical Polity. But its aim and method was
not that of Hooker. It was a frank assertion of
Erastianism in excelsis. Its full title is A discourse of
Ecclesiastical Polity ; wherein the Authority of the Civil
Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in matters
of External Religion is asserted ; the Mischiefs and
Inconveniences of Toleration are represented, and all
Pretences pleaded in behalf of Liberty of Conscience are
fully answered. This clever book does not so much as
touch upon the subject which its short title seems
to offer. But eleven years later Parker published a
book of a more positive nature. It was called The
* Works, vol. VI. p. 307. ' Cf. Discourse about Tradition, ibid, p. 488.

252 The Restoration Period
Case of the Church of England briefly and truly stated,
in the three first and fundamental Principles of a
Christian Church. These are (i) the obligation of
Christianity by divine right, (2) the jurisdiction of
the church by divine right, (3) the institution of
episcopal superiority by divine right. The first of
these principles is asserted as against Hobbes and
his followers, the "second against Selden, the third
against the opinion of some learned and moderate divines both
at home and abroad, that grant indeed the necessity of some
kind of government in the church, but deny it to have been
settled and fixed by our Saviour in any one form or upon
any certain order of men, and leave it wholly at somebody's
disposal (though who that somebody is they have not as yet
clearly determined) to appoint officers and governors as shaU
be thought most prudent and suitable to the present circum
stances of things*.
Of these three opinions
the first supposes a church without religion ; the
second a society without government ; the third a govern
ment vrithout governors. And what can be more absurd
and inconsistent ?. . .Though these opinions are not equaUy
vricked in themselves, the first being open and avowed
atheism, yet are they equally destructive to the fundamental
constitution of the Christian church, as it is a society founded
not by any human authority but divine right*.
The first two are to be dealt with rather sum
marily, but with the third sort I intend to treat more largely,
because that is the church at this present in fashion, and is
become popular and plausible by the authority of some
' The Case of the Church, etc., p. 4. " Ibid, p. 5.

The Restoration Period 253
learned men that have owned and asserted it. And there
fore I shall carefully demonstrate its vanity and falsehood,
from our Saviour's express institution ; from the certain
practice of the apostles ; from all the most undoubted
records of the church ; and lastly from the great incon
veniences that would unavoidably follow upon it. And
when we have gained these three fundamental points, we
may then and not till then proceed to farther proposals for
the tme settlement of the church of England ; for vrithout
them, whatever men may talk of it, all their discourse of a
church is no more than a notion and a phantasm, a Platonic
commonwealth, and a world in the moon*.
When he comes to the third branch of his subject,
Parker speaks, like others, of the twelve and the
seventy, and adds
I will freely grant that our Saviour's design in lifetime
seems to have been not so much to found churches himself,
as to have prepared and instructed his disciples how to do it
after his departure. So that he rather made a specimen of
the constitution of his church than erected any standing
fabric of it*.
For the apostolic times, Parker " cannot but
admire " to see men like Saumaise and Blondel
persisting to argue " from the equivalency of the
words bishop and presbyter,"
notwithstanding it is so evident and granted by them
selves that the apostles enjoyed a superiority of power over
the other pastors of the church  For if it be proved, and
themselves cannot deny it, that there was an inequality of
offices, from the superiority of the apostles, it is a very
chUdish attempt to go about to prove that there was not,
because there were two synonymous terms whereby to
express the whole order of the clergy^
1 The Case of the Church, etc., p. 6. ^ Ihid, p. 133.
' Ibid. p. 137.

254 The Restoration Period
To the argument that apostolical practice was not
always binding upon after ages, he replies :
It is enough in this case, that what the apostles did
was in pursuance of our Saviour's institution, and that in
a matter of perpetual concernment to the church ; and they
who require to the obligation of such an apostolical practice
an express law to declare their intention that it should bind
for ever are guilty of the same fantastic niceness as they that
require the same for the perpetuity of every divine law 
And for that reason I shall add nothing more to what I have
already said as to this particular, than to grant that whatever
the apostles either commanded or practised upon some
particular temporary and occasional cases was not sufficient
to found any universal and unchangeable obligation, because
the reason of the precept was apparently transient and the
goodness of the action casual. But [it is] otherwise if there
were any precept or practice of theirs (though it were not
founded upon any divine institution) that did not relate to
pecuUar occasions and circumstances, but are or may be
of equcd usefulness to all places, times, and persons *.
Parker treats with skiU and learning the testi
monies of the fathers, reserving to the last the much
quoted language of Jerome.
Before I come to answer the whole argument, I cannot
but observe what disingenuous advantage these men make
of the hasty expressions of that good father. Let him in
the heat and eagerness of dispute but drop an inconsiderate
word,— it immediately serves to justify all their innova
tions  Is it not very strange that two or three hasty passages
of this single father, not only against the concurrent testimony
of all the ancient church, but against his own express opinion,
should be seized upon with so much zeal and greediness to
give defiance to all the practice of antiquity*?
1 The Case of the Church, etc., pp. 141 foU. 2 Ibid. p. 218.

The Restoration Period 255
He concludes his well-reasoned investigation with
the words :
I cannot see how the divine and apostolical right of
episcopacy, if the providence of God had designed to make
it unquestionable, could have been made more evident,
either from common reason or catholic tradition*.
In a postscript Parker says that the really impor
tant thing is to declare what we contend for :
For as for the general term of protestancy, it is an
indefinite thing ; so that if all the men in Englalnd that are
enemies or no friends to the pope of Rome may be listed
under that name, we have some protestants that believe
there is a God, and some that believe there is none ; some
that believe they have a Saviour, and a soul to save, and
some that laugh at both ; there are Hobbian protestants,
Muggletonian protestants, Socinian protestants, quaker protes
tants, rebel protestants, protestants of 41, and protestants
of 48. All or most of which are as different as popery itself
from the true protestancy of the church of England  Unless
we derive the authority of that religion that is by law
established from the antecedent law of Christ, we may
quickly be (as we are in a fair way to be) a reformed church
of protestant atheists, that is, a church without a religion *-
His last paragraphs are an apology for the foreign
reformed churches :
God forbid we should be so uncharitable as to go about
to unchurch them, or renounce brotherly communion with
them, or to think that our blessed Saviour should withdraw
the promise of his grace and protection from them. . . .Neither
beside this does it appear that they in the least refuse
communion vrith the episcopal church, which is the main
charge against our separatists ^-
^ The Case of the Church, etc., p. 252. ^ Ihid, p. 263.
3 Ihid. pp. 268 foU.

256 The Restoration Period
It is only prejudice, or want of opportunity, or want
of information, that makes them to have no bishops.
In another book, printed in 1683, Parker gave
an Account of the Government of the Christian Church
for the first six hundred years, going more fully into
the history and development of the hierarchy.
One of the most successful religious books of the
restoration period was John Scott's Christian Life
from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory. It
was first published in 1681, but passed rapidly
through a great number of editions. In the second
part of this work Scott treats of the nature and con
stitution of Christ's kingdom, which he confesses
to extend a great deal farther than the church ; yet
" the church is more peculiarly his kingdom, as con
sisting of that part of the world which owns and
acknowledges his authority, makes a visible profession
of fealty to him, and submission to his laws and
regulations." Scott gives this definition of the church :
It is the one universal society of all Christian people,
incorporated by the new covenant in baptism, under Jesus
Christ its supreme Head, and distributed under lawful
governors and pastors into particular churches, holding
communion with each other in all the essentials of Christian
faith, and worship, and discipline*.
The different parts of this definition are carefully
and lucidly worked out, one after another. Scott's
description of what is meant by holding communion
with each other is well worth reading :
* Christian Life from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory,
9th ed. 1729, p. 431.

The Restorq.tion Period 257
I mean, owning each other as parts of the same body, and
admitting each others' members, as occasion serves, into actual
communion with them in all their religious offices  All the
communion which they are obliged to, as they are similar parts
and distributions of the catholic church, is that they should
not divide into separate churches, so as to exclude each
others' members from communicating in each others' worship,
whenever they have occasion to travel from one church to
another. For so long as there is no rupture between distant
churches, no declared disowning of each other, no express
refusal of any act of communion to each others' members,
they may be truly said to maintain all necessary communion
vrith each other.
That communion is necessary, Scott shows by
four considerations :
First, that b}' baptism, as was showed before, all Christian
people are made members of the catholic church, and by
being made members of it they are all obliged to communicate
with it ; for how can they act as parts of the whole, that hold
no communication with the whole ? They who are members
of any society have not only right to communicate in all
the common benefits of it, but also an obligation to communi
cate in all common offices of it.. . .And then secondly, it is
farther to be considered that, the catholic church being all
distributed into particular churches, we can no otherwise
communicate with it than by communicating with some
particular church ; for how can we communicate with the
whole, that is all distributed into parts, vrithout communica
ting with some part of the whole ? . . . For how can we be in
communion with the whole body, when we are out of com
munion with all the parts, unless we can find... some
universal church without all particular churches ? But then
thirdly, ... as we cannot communicate with the universal
church vrithout communicating vrith some particular one.
so neither do we communicate with the universal church by
communicating with any particular one, unless that particular
M. 17

258 The Restoration Period
one be in communion with the church universal  It is as
possible for a finger to communicate with a body by being
joined to an arm that is separated from the body, as it is for
a Christian to communicate with the church catholic by being
joined to a church that is separate from the church catholic.
But then fourthly and lastly, there is no particular church
can be in communion with the catholic, that separates itself
from the communion of any particular church that is in
communion vrith the catholic. For they who separate from
any part of any whole, must necessarily separate from the
whole, because the whole is nothing but all the parts to
gether.. . .When two churches separate from one another, it
must be either because the one requires such terms of
communion as are not catholic, or because the other refuses
such terms as are*.
When he comes to the communion in discipline,
with which his definition ends, Scott says plainly :
Though the particular modes and circumstances of
Christian government and discipline are not determined by
divine institution, but left for the most part free to the
prudent ordering and disposal of the governours of particular
churches ; yet there is a standing form of govemment and
discipline in the church, instituted by our Saviour himself,
which, as I shall show hereafter, is this, that there should be
an episcopacy, or order of men, authorised in a continued
succession from the apostles (who were authorized by himself)
to oversee and govern all those particular churches into which
the church catholic should be hereafter distributed; to
ordain inferior ministers to teach, [etc.] . . . and having or
dained them, to guide and direct them in the discharge of
their functions  These things therefore being all of divine
institution are the essentials of Christian govemment and
discipline, in which all Christian churches are obUged to com
municate with each other. And this being the standing
1 Christian Life from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory,
pp. 439 foil.

The Restoration Period 259
government and discipline of the catholic church, no par
ticular church or community of Christians can refuse to
communicate in it, without dividing itself from the com
munion of the church catholic *.
This seems to cut off all non-episcopalians ; but
Scott draws distinctions :
I say " refuse to communicate in it," because it is possible
for a church to be without this government and discipline,
which yet doth neither refuse it, nor the communion of any
other church for the sake of it. A church may be debarred
of it by unavoidable necessities in despite of its power and
against its consent ; and under this circumstance I can by
no means think such a church to be separated from the
church catholic. It is indeed an imperfect and defective
part of the catholic church ; and if this defect of it be any
way ovring to its own negligence, it is a very great fault in
it, as well as an unhappiness. But though this instituted
government is necessary to the perfection of a church, yet it
doth not therefore foUow that it is necessary to the being of
it  Whenever the divine providence doth by unavoidable
necessity deprive any church of its episcopacy, it thereby,
for the present at least, and whilst the necessity continues,
releases it from the obligation of the institution of episcopacy,
and allows it to administer its government and discipline by
a parity of presbyters. And therefore so long as it doth not
renounce the episcopacy, but stiU continues in community
vrith other churches that enjoy it, it ought to be looked upon
and communicated vrith as a tme member, though a maimed
one, of the church catholic *.
Yet, Scott adds, "it is a plain case that if it
rejects the episcopacy, and separates from the com
munion of it, it thereby wholly divides itself from
the communion of the catholic church."
1 Christian Life from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory,
p. 443. " Ibid. pp. 443 foil.

26o The Restoration Period
In a subsequent section of the book Scott en
deavours to prove that the episcopal government is
the true form of government instituted by our
Saviour, both from his own action, and from the
practice of the apostles, and the punctual conformity
of the primitive church to both. There is nothing
very remarkable in his treatment of this thesis, unless
it be for his full and vigorous criticism of Jerome's
theory of the episcopate :
This therefore being removed, which is the main, and
indeed the only considerable, objection against the universal
conformity of the primitive church to the episcopal govern
ment, it remains that if any credit may be given either to
those writers that lived in the apostolic age, or to those who
immediately succeeded them, it is evident from their unani
mous testimonies that the episcopacy is nothing else but only
the apostolical superiority derived from the hands of the
apostles in a continued succession from one generation to
another*.
Naturally, the ordination of others is a principal
part of this exalted ministry :
This commission therefore of sending others being
originally transferred by our Saviour upon the apostoUc
order, no others could have right to transfer it to others,
but only such as were admitted of that order ; none could
give it to others, but only those to whom Christ gave it ;
and therefore, since Christ gave it to none but apostles, none
but apostles could derive it ; and accordingly we find in
scripture that aU ecclesiastic commissions were either given
by the hands of some of those first apostles who received
their commission immediately from our Saviour, or else by
some of those secondary apostles that were admitted into
1 Christian Life from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory,
pp. 484 foU.

The Restoration Period 261
apostolic orders by them ; which secondary apostles, as was
shown before, were the same vrith those whom we now call
bishops *-
Thomas Pierce, Dean of Salisbury, in his Pacifica-
torium Orthodoxae Theologiae Corpusculum (1683),
sums up one section of the chapter de Ministris
Ecclesiasticis in the words :
Tres sunt duntaxat jure divino et apostolico [ordines],
in aeternum duraturi *.
Explaining the language of Article xxiii about
those who have the right to send ministers into the
Lord's vineyard, after dismissing such opinions as
that it belongs to the civil power, or to the people,
to the pope, or to the bishops as his commissioners,
Pierce says :
Ecclesia vero Anglicana episcopis omnibus ex aequo, sub
pontifice maximo Jesu Christo, . . . banc delegatam potestatem
de jure tribuit.
But he adds :
Ita tcimen et eatenus ut sine presbyteris assistentibus
sacros ordines non conferant, manus nemini imponant.
Episcopos et presbyteros simul esse adhibendos in legitima
ordinatione (si fieri queat) probant scripturae, confirmat
ratio^.
He pays elaborate compliments to the foreign
protestant ministers, who have the inward vocation,
and the outward also :
1 Christian Life from its Beginning to its Consummation in Glory,
p. 491- 2 Pacificatorium Orthodoxae Theologiae Corpusculum (ed. 2),
p. 258. ' Ihid. pp. 269 foil.

262 The Restoration Period
Qualem et clems et magistratus et populus conjunctim
conferre possunt, sed non omnino nisi ex voto quam vulgo
vocamus episcopalem, quali gaudemus nosmetipsi, fratres-
que nostros extraneos gaudere posse exoptamus. Ad illos,
inquam, quod attinet, distinguunt viri longe doctissimi inter
liberam et depressam ecclesiam Dei. Itemque censent
distinguendum inter vocationem ab omni parte legitimam,
et ex aliqua parte mutilam, sed non absolute vitiatam, aut
prorsus nuUam. In ecclesia plene libera, qualis est noster
Anglicana, et extra casum necessitatis, nullum habet locum
vocatio mutila neque materiam apologiae ; quae in ecclesia
subjugata et plane depressa nee nulla est nee drnTroXoyi^Tos,
sed duris quibusdam variisque necessitatibus circumsepta
et circumstantiis, et accepta est Deo, et piis hominibus
suspicienda.
He felt however that warnings were needed :
Cavendum est igitur vigilantissime in ecclesiis exoticis,
sed maximam partem reformatis, ne sincerae religionis exer-
citio propter defectum episcopatus omnibus numeris absoluti
fraudetur populus omnino, quos Christus suo sanguine
sibimetipsi acquisivit. Sed satius ducant e contra, pastores
quos habent qualescunque, recta docentes auscultare, et
sacramenta ab eis petere, eosque honore semper prosequi,
qUam aut ansam praebere aliquam, aut uUo pacto in causa
esse, ut Christi religio aboleatur. Non tantummodo non
negant, sed animitus contendunt, qui ecclesiis quos vocant
veriverbio evangelicis praeficiuntur, ritum ordinationis
nequaquam esse omittendum, sed extra casum neces
sitatis semper adhibendum esse in ministris ecclesiae
constituendis*.
Unfortunately the writer was hardly the person
to make peace between contending parties. The
peacemaker was better seen in a man like Timothy
1 Pacificatorium Orthodoxae Theologiae Corpusculum, p. 274.

The Restoration Period 263
Puller, who in 1679 published his Moderation of the
Church of England'^.
Our church maintains and preserves those orders of
ministers in the church, bishops, priests and deacons, which
are tmly primitive ; vrithout the additional train which the
church of Rome makes necessary, even seven kinds of orders
suitable to their number of sacraments, and vrith much the
like necessity that the followers of the Geneva-government
appoint their lay-elders. The power of orders consisteth
partly in preaching the word and other offices of public
worship, common to bishops with other ministers ; partly
in ordaining priests and deacons, admitting them to particular
cures, and other things of that nature, proper to them
[bishops] alone. The government of the church according
to these orders . . . hath an excellent temper between an
ecclesiastical monarchy, which the church of Rome asserts,
. . . and between such democracy and populacy as is held in
the independent and presbyterian party *.
[Our church] imitates the moderation of the whole
catholic church in being against the rebaptizing of any who
have had the essentials of baptism, and also against the
reordination of those who keep the essentials of ordination ;
and of such churches where bishops cannot be had we use
all moderation of judgment. Yet where our constitution
requires ordination by bishops, it is at liberty not to make
use of their ministry who peremptorily refuse the ordination
of our bishops, or who would in a settled church and kingdom
set up a church government in opposition to the bishops who
ordained them before^.
Puller says that :
The excellent temper of our church is abundantly justified
in that universal concord and friendship it desires to maintain
1 Reprinted in 1843 by R. Eden, afterwards Bishop of Moray
and Ross.
2 Moderation of the Church of England (ed. 1843), p. 193.
3 Ibid, p. 195.

264 The Restoratiott Period
with all, so far as may be done lawfuUy  With the whole
church throughout the world, and every part thereof to whom
her communion is not displeasing, our church in desire and-
endeavour doth maintain all inward and outward agreement
she can ; in affections and behaviour also so approving
herself that it is manifest she unwiUingly differs from any,
and no more than needs must*.
He quotes in proof of this the famous thirtieth
canon. Neither did our church of England ever yet oppose itself
to any lawful ecclesiastical authority ; which yet is in
separably of the essence of schism ; but on the contrary,
according to a singular moderation and charity, it doth open
its bosom to every genuine son of the true catholic church, of
what denomination soever.
When it has refused to communicate with
others in some particular unwarrantable usages,
this was
under express protestation ; from whence was occasioned
the moderate and innocent title of Protestants, for protesting
against the edict at Worms, which was for restoring aU
things as they were without reformation. By which protesta
tion all scandal of schism is taken away, and desire of recon
ciUation is publicly testified, not as of absolute necessity, but
for the sake of cathoUc unity ; by which protestation a right
is vindicated from the usurpation of the church of Rome *.
She recognises the freedom of other churches :
M. Amyrald well observes the friendly moderation of the
English and French protestants ; when they are in each
other's countries, they readily join themselves with the com
munion of the churches they are in *.
^ Moderation of the Church of England, p. 256.
* Ibid, p. 257. ' Ibid. p. 259.

The Restoration Period 265
She has a special solicitude for " the afflicted
Greek church, to whom as she hath opportunity, she
hath testified a great commiseration, a most pious
affection, and a great esteem."
Some of the Greek bishops and priests are aUowed among
us the celebrating holy mysteries according to their own rites*.
It is the same with the reformed churches. She
seeks no dominion over them :
Other churches have not been by the church of England
despised, if in sundry instances they have not arrived unto her
perfection in purity of doctrine and order of discipline 
Although our church of England hath had the peculiar happi
ness of a monarchical reformation and retains the blessing
of episcopal government, yet such is the moderation of our
church, she imputes the want of the same in other reformed
churches, not so much to any fault of those churches them
selves, but rather attributes it to the injury of the times*.
The " lenity and benignity " of our church is no
less shown towards " our domestic dissenters."
In confuting opinions our church always spares the
persons, how severe so ever she is upon the error ; because
in the divisions of hearts that are in the world, it is certain
some good may dissent. So moderate also and just is our
church, she is far from deterring others from her communion
by branding any with the note of heresy, unless upon just
reason and cause, distinguishing also between a heretic and
those who are by heretics seduced^
In these ways she is qualified
to be the best and most proper for arbitrating and
reconciling the present differences of Christendom ; . . . neither
will any, I hope, have the worse opinion of our church,
* Moderation of the Church of England, p. 260.
^ Ibid. p. 261. ' Ibid, p. 246.

266 The Restoratiott Period
because Grotius thought the church of England " a right
medium of reconciliation," whose " pacificatory design "
Mr Baxter took to be " one of the most blessed noble works
that any man can be employed in*."
And whereas they commonly say that the church of
England, and the chief of her communion, are unwiUing to
allow any pacification with, or concessions to, protestant
dissenters, as may be reasonable for public concord, we
answer, they are utterly mistaken in saying so, for beside
that the conditions of communion with our church are very
equal and just, we may presume to saj' also. . .there is no
doubt but our church would gladly, in such things as she
might, remit of what she judgeth otherwise expedient, for
the ends of peace and universal concord, if she could be assured
any reasonable concessions should have that effect, as might
suit with the tme honour of God and the real good of the
church*.
It is not, of course, asserted that the view of
episcopacy held by Patrick and the others mentioned
in this chapter were universally held. They were
not held, for example, by Herbert Croft, Bishop of
Hereford. But Croft was something of a freak. At
the age of 13 he joined the Roman communion, but
was soon brought back again. He had not been
known as an author, but in 1675, when he was 72
years old, he made his debut in an anonymous tract,
called The Naked Truth, by " an humble moderator."
It professed to be the work of what would now be
called the man in the street, or the average man.
With clever irony it suggested solvents to break up
the pretensions of the accepted theology. It advo
cated the surrender of all the contested rites and
1 Moderation of the Church of England, p. 248.
2 Ihid, pp. 254 foil.

The Restoration Period 267
ceremonies ; and above all, while maintaining epis
copacy, it decried and derided the claims that were
made for the system.
The moderator opens with an address to parlia
ment on the failure of their well-intended legislation :
My lords and noble gentlemen, you have fuUy expressed
your zeal to God and his church in making laws for unity in
faith and uniformitj' in discipline ; for as our Saviour said,
" A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand," so the same
may certainly be said of a church, the reason being the same
for both. And I call the searcher of aU hearts, the God of
life and death, to vritness that I would most readily, yea
most joyfully, sacrifice all I have in this world, my life and
all, that all nonconformists were reduced to our church.
But it falls out most sadly that your laws have not the
desired effect. Our church is more and more divided.
He professes the utmost loyalty to the episcopal
regime :
Whoever unbiassed reads the scripture, thence proceeds
to the first Christian writers, and so goes on from age to age,
can't doubt but that the church was always governed by
bishops, that is, by one elder, or presbj'ter, or president, or
whatever else you please to call him, set over the rest of the
clergy with authority to ordain, to exhort, to rebuke, to
judge and censure, as he found cause. No other form of
government is mentioned by any authority for fifteen
hundred years from the apostles downwards  And there
fore nothing but necessity, if that, can excuse those who
first set up another form of government. To their own
Master let them stand or fall ; I wiU not presume to censure
them. I vrill only say, that from the beginning it was not
so ; and I thank God 'tis not so vrith us, but as it was in the
beginning, so it is now vrith us, and ever shaU be, I tmst in
God. Amen* 1 Naked Truth, pp. 33 foil.

268 The Restoration Period
Then comes the sceptical demurrer :
But notvrithstanding all this, yet 'tis very much to be
doubted whether they were of any distinct superior order
from and above the presbyters, or one of the same order set
over the rest*.
The moderator requires much to convince him :
I shall always most readUy submit to the interpreta
tion of the primitive and universal church. I require both
primitive and universal ; for I showed before that in matters
of faith there were some errors very primitive, yet not
continued by the universal church, but rejected in succeeding
ages*.
He insists upon the practical importance of the
question :
This is not a matter of any indifferency, but of vast
and dangerous consequence  If bishops be of such a
superior and distinct order as you pretend \i,e. assert], if the
power of ordination be inherent in them only, then, where
no bishop, no tme priests ordained ; where no priests, no
sacraments ; where no sacraments, no church. Wherefore
I humbly beseech you, be not too positive in this point, lest
thereby you do not only condemn aU the reformed churches,
but the scripture and St Paul also*.
As he advances, the moderator becomes more
positive himself :
Yet I cannot by any means consent to them who would
have episcopacy to be a distinct order, . . . nor can I think the
ordination of a priest made by priests invalid ; for though
it ought not to be done, but only of necessity, yet being
done 'tis valid, and certainly may, vrithout any crime, by any
priest by shipwreck or any such chance cast into a country
1 Naked Truth, pp. 33 foU. ^ /jj^ p ^2. » Ibid, p. 45.

The Restoration Period 269
where there were none commissionated to ordain  Doubtless
to ordain out of order is better than no ordination  Yet
where order can possibly be observed, it ought to be ; for
God is the God of order*.
Cosin's factum valet has come home to England^.
The venerable man who vacated the see of Canter
bury in 1688, rather than break the oath which he
had taken to James II, belonged by birth and fashion
of mind to an earlier generation. Sancroft was
Cosin's chaplain, and on the great occasion in 1660
when Cosin, with no fewer than six others, was con
secrated bishop, Sancroft preached the sermon.
Although disfigured by the style which Andrewes had
made fashionable, but which few besides Andrewes
could make agreeable, the sermon was not unworthy
of the day. It was on Titus i. 5, " For this cause
left I thee in Crete," etc. In this verse
the man not blind with ignorance, nor bleared with
passion, may see distinctly the face of the primitive church,
in that golden age of the apostles ; the .platform of her
govemment ; the beautiful order of her hierarchy ; the
original and derivation of her chief officers, and their sub
ordination both to one another and to Christ, the great
bishop of our souls, in the last resort ; together vrith the
manage and direction of the most important acts of the
government, both in point of ordination and jurisdiction too.
For here we have . . . elders, that is, bishops (as shall be showed
in due time) disposed of city by city, in every city one ;
these bishops both ordained and ordered, constituted and
1 Naked Truth, p. 48.
* Croft is the first English writer, .so far as I am aware, to
mention the Jesuit Petavius and his theory of presbyters ordained
vrith special super-presbyteral powers.

270 The Restoration Period
corrected, created and governed by Titus alone ; and so he,
in right of the premises, no other than metropohtan or arch
bishop there.
The preacher apostrophizes the men " who not
long since pretended to reform us according to the
best examples," and says :
If really you be in quest of the best examples of model
ling a church, you may certainly find here as fair and as
pure ideas, and as weU worth your imitation, as the more
modern platform can afford you, — which I have reason to
believe the famous author of it [Calvin] intended not at
first a pattern to other churches, but an expedient to serve
the present exigency of his own in a juncture scarce capable
of anything better, and which, I am persuaded, the leamedest
and vrisest and most pious of his followers would gladly
relinquish for something more perfect and primitive, would
the necessities of their present condition (which have no
law, but much of excuse for those that really lie under them)
permit them the happiness of so blessed an exchange, which
God in mercy send them*.
Letters of. Sancroft's at a later time testify to his
interest in the foreign churches, and at the same time
to his unwillingness to lend himself to anything like
intrigues among them. To Covel, the learned chap
lain at the Hague, he wrote in 1684, declining to join
without clearer information in promoting a league
for the defence of the protestant cause, but saying :
There are not, it may be, many persons who have a
deeper or more tender resentment \i,e, sense] than I have of
the sad and deplorable state of the reformed churches in
some parts of the continent of Europe ; and I should count
* D'Oyley's Life of Sancroft (ed. 2), pp. 339, 359.

The Restoration Period i'ii
it my joy and the crown of my rejoicing, if I could contribute
anything, besides my daily prayers ut videat Deus et requirat,
towards restoring and advancing them to a yet better con
dition*
He interested himself in well-disposed foreign
protestants who came to England :
There is a stranger who has been some time among us,
he writes to the Bishop of St Asaph, John Sesbaldus
Fabricius, a man of very good learning, humble, and modest,
one that loves our church well, and hath written in defence
of it, and thereby created himself enemies both among our
dissenters here and his own countrymen, who have there
upon divested him of the livelihood he had there before, so
that I have now reason to fear he is in want *.
He begs the bishop to bestow upon him " one of
the many sinecures " within his patronage.
Towards the protestant dissenters at home San
croft always expressed himself charitably ; and when
the great occasion of his life came, and he and the
other six bishops were acquitted, he took occasion to
speak of them in the admonition which he issued to
the clergy :
That they also walk in vrisdom towards those that are
not of our communion ; and if there be in their parishes any
such, that they neglect not frequently to confer with them
in the spirit of meekness, seeking by aU good ways and means
to gain and vrin them over to our communion : more
especially, that they have a very tender regard to our brethren
the protestant dissenters ; that upon occasion offered they
visit them at their houses, and receive them kindly at their
own, and treat them fairly wherever they meet them,
discoursing calmly and civUly with them;, persuading them
(if it may be) to a full compliance with our church, or at
1 Life of Sancroft, p. ii8. = Ihid. p. io8.

272 The Restoration Period
least that " whereto we have already attained, we may all
walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing." And in
order hereunto that they take all opportunities of assuring
and convincing them that the bishops of this church are
reaUy and sincerely irreconcileable enemies to the errors. . .
of the church of Rome, and that the very unkind jealousies
which some have had of us to the contrary were altogether
groundless. And in the last place, that they wamaly and
most affectionately exhort them to join with us in daily
fervent prayer to the God of peace for the universal blessed
union of all reformed churches both at home and abroad
against our common enemies, that all they who do confess
the holy name of our dear Lord, and do agree in the tmth
of his holy word, may also meet in one holy communion,
and Uve in perfect unity and godly love*.
Two points may be observed in this admonition.
It is clear that Sancroft did not consider that the
church of England was as yet in union or communion
with the various bodies in question : that was stiU
an object to be prayed for. On the other hand, if
his language is to be pressed, he is perhaps the first
Anglican divine to confer upon the protestant bodies
in England the title of " reformed churches " : but
possibly he did not intend so much by his expression
" the union of all reformed churches at home and
abroad." It is well known that Sancroft followed up this
admonition by setting on foot one of those schemes
of comprehension of which we shall have to make
mention again. At the time of Sacheverell's trial.
Wake, then soon to succeed to Sancroft's throne,
gave an account of this measure.
^ Life of Sancroft, p. 196.

The Re'storatioti Period 273
The time was towards the end of the late unhappy
reign, when we were in the height of our labours in defending
the church of England against the assaults of popery, and
thought of nothing else. At this time, that wise prelate
[Sancroft], foreseeing a revolution such as that which soon
aiter occurred, began to consider how utterly unprepared
they had been at the restoration of King Charles II to settle
many things to the advantage of the church, and what a
happy opportunity had been lost, for want of such previous
care, for its more perfect establishment. It was visible to all
the nation that the more moderate dissenters were generally
so well satisfied with that stand which our divines had made
against popery ... as to express an unusual readiness to come
within the pale of the church. And it was therefore thought
worth while. . .to consider. . .what might be done to gain the
more moderate dissenters without doing any prejudice to
ourselves. The scheme was laid out, and the several parts
of it were committed, not only vrith the approbation but
by the direction of that great prelate, to such of our divines
as were thought most worthy to be entrusted with it. His
Grace took one part himself. . . . The design was in short this :
to improve and if possible amend our discipline ; to review
and enlarge our liturgy, by correcting some things, by adding
others, and ... by omitting some few ceremonies ... so as not
to make them of necessity binding on those who had
conscientious scruples respecting them. . . . And if things alter
able be altered upon the grounds of prudence and charity,
. . . whilst the doctrine, government, and worship of the church
remain entire in all the substantial parts of them, we have all
reason to believe that this vrill be so far from injuring the
church, that on the contrary it wiU receive a great benefit
from it*.
The account of episcopacy in England at lhe
restoration would be sadly incomplete if no reference
were made to the reintroduction of it (for the second
^ Quoted by D'Oyley, ut supra, pp. 197 foil.
M. 18

274 The Restoration Period
time) into Scotland, and especially to the views and
action of Archbishop Leighton. On such a man it is
a temptation to dwell too long. " Bred up," as
Burnet says, " with the greatest aversion imaginable
to the whole frame of the church of England," he
received presbyterian ordination, but " he soon came
to see into the follies of the presbyterians." By and
by "he entered into a great correspondence with
many of the episcopal party, and did wholly separate
himself from the presbyterians^."
When the time fixed for the consecration of the bishops
of Scotland. came on, the English bishops, finding that Sharp
and Leighton had not episcopal ordination as priests and
deacons,. . .they stood upon it that they must be ordained,
first deacons, and then priests. Sharp was very uneasy at
this, and remembered them of what had happened when
King James had set up episcopacy *  But the late war, and
the disputes during that time, had raised these controversies
higher, and brought men to stricter notions, and to maintain
them vrith more fierceness — The English bishops did also
say that by the late act of uniformity that matter was more
positively settled than it had been before, so that they could
not legaUy consecrate any but those who were. . .made first
priests and deacons. They also made this difference between
the present time and King James's : for then the Scots were
only in an imperfect state, having never had bishops among
them since the reformation ; so in such a state of things,
in which they had been under a real necessity, it was reason
able to allow of their orders, how defective soever : but that
of late they had been in a state of schism, had revolted from
their bishops, and had thrown off that order ; so that orders
given in such a wilful opposition to the whole constitution
1 Burnet's Own Time (ed. 1724), vol. i. pp. 135 foU.
* See above, p. 70 foil.

The Restoration Period 275
of the primitive church was a thing of another nature. They
weie positive in the point, and would not dispense with it.
Sharp stuck more at it than could have been expected from
a man that had swallowed down greater matters. Leighton
did not stand much upon it. He did not think orders given
without bishops were null and void. He thought the forms
of government were not settled by such positive laws as
were unalterable, but only by apostolical practices, which,
as he thought, authorised episcopacy as the best form. Yet
he did not think it necessary to the being of a church. But
he thought that every church might make such rules of
ordination as they pleased, and that they might reordain all
that came to them from any other church, and that the
reordaining a priest ordained in another church imported
no more but that they received him into orders according
to their rules, and did not infer {i.e. involve] the annulling
the orders he had formerly received. These two were upon
this privately ordained deacons and priests. And then all
the four were consecrated publicly in the abbey of West
minster*.
Of the tragical chapter of history thus commenced
it is unnecessary to write. No attempt was made
in Scotland to impose the condition of episcopal
ordination upon the existing clergy in general.
Leighton sought to commend episcopacy in a form
modelled upon Usher's " reduction," such as Baxter
and the English presbyterians professed a willingness
to receive. The question between us, he wrote, is not concerning
bishops governing absolutely by themselves and their
delegates, but concerning bishops governing in conjunction
with presbyters in presbyteries and synods: of which we
affirm that it is neither contrary to the scriptures nor the
' Burnet's Own Time, vol. I. pp. 139 foU, 18—2

276 The Restoration Period
example of the primitive church, but most agreeable to both.
II any think othervrise, let them produce their evidences of
scripture and antiquity... .If they shaU say they are not
against a fixed president or bishop, or call him what you
vrill, . . . but that the question is about their power, then we beg
that it may be so. . . . We tmst we shall be found not at all
desirous to usurp or effect any undue power, but rather to
abate of that power which is reasonable and conform even
to primitive episcopacy than that a schism should continue
in this church upon this score *.
It was in vain. The presbyterians " hated him
most of all his fraternity, in respect he drew many
into a kindness for episcopacy by his exemplary life,
rather than debates^." In 1674 he finally withdrew
from the struggle, and in retirement in Sussex
awaited those " shadows of the evening " for which
he longed, when there would be rest " from all these
poor childish trifling contests^."
1 Leighton's Whole Works (ed. Pearson, 1825), vol. i. pp. clxxxix
foU. ^ Mackenzie's History of Scotland, p. 161.
' Whole Works, vol. i. p. clxxxvii.

CHAPTER V
THE REVOLUTION AND SINCE
With the ejection of the nonjurors, and Tillotson's
accession to the throne of Canterbury, the church of
England began to pass into a new phase of thought
and feeling. Its characteristic was the desire for
comprehension on the one hand, and toleration on
the other. Each of the two words requires some
explanation. Toleration meant the abandonment of a lofty but
impossible ideal. The ideal was the union of all
members of the civil commonwealth in a single
religious organization. This had been the aim, and
to a certain extent the achievement, of the early and
mediaeval Catholicism. There was always the stand
ing exception of the Jews ; but they were not looked
upon as actual citizens, and their position was always
precarious. There were Lollards and the like ; but
their existence was never tolerated. The reformation
made no difference in this respect. It was expected
and demanded that all citizens should adhere to the
reformed church as they had done, or were supposed
to do, to the unreformed. They were not to hold
aloof under pretext of loyalty to Rome ; they were

278 The Revolution attd Since
not to form new and detached communities on
" evangelical " principles. All were to be one. The
ideal was still unchanged when episcopacy and the
prayer-book were swept away. The presbyterian
party were at least as earnest in the maintenance of
it as their predecessors had been, though the inde
pendent or congregational principle allowed in theory
of somewhat more latitude. The restoration with its
act of uniformity prescribed, not for a majority of the
nation, who belonged by conviction to the church of
England, but for England without exception. Every
Englishman was reckoned to belong to the church,
and was required to comply with its rules. Church
and state alike took this view.
But the attempt was a failure. Not all English
Christians would conform to the ways of the recog
nized church. The Romanists would not. Many
protestants would not. The protestants who would
not, were sharply divided into two classes. They
were the nonconformists on one side, and the
separatists on the other.
The nonconformists were strictly, as they des
cribed themselves, nonconforming members of the
church of England. These men were for the most
part presbyterian by preference, but by no means
all. They objected so strongly to certain parts of
church worship and practice that they could not join
in them, but they abhorred the thought of cutting
themselves off from the church of the majority. Many
of them would occasionally go to church, and even
communicate. At the outset they formed no rival

y

The Revolution and Since 279
organization. They ordained no ministers. Though
they held separate meetings for prayer and preach
ing, they refused to set up a schismatic communion.
Baxter says that some nonconformists — evidently
meaning himself — had gone for 18 years without
administering the sacrament 1. At first they would
not hold their meetings at the same time as the
church service, though gradually they broke away
from this rule^. Their hope was that ultimately
things would change, and their views be accepted
by the church at large, and that then they would
resume their place openly in the communion of the
church. For the time being, they were ready to
suffer many privations rather than create a schism,
which they considered to be a crirae and a sin.
The separatists denied that they were in a state
of schism, but they did so on other grounds. Their
contention was that what we call the church of
England had ceased to be a Christian church alto
gether. It was anti-Christian, like Rome. They
denounced the attitude of the nonconformists almost
more vehemently than that of the conforming church
man. They assailed Baxter more fiercely than they
assailed the prelates. The baptists pronounced a
definite excommunication upon any one who attended
church, whatever the pretext might be. These men
' Baxter's Plea for Peace, p. 243, quoted by Stillingfleet in
Works, vol. II. p. 599 (second series of pages).
^ Patrick's Friendly Debate, p. 271 {Works, vol. v.). The metho-
dists, even in the conference of 1795 which definitely separated
them from the church, passed a rule not to administer the sacra
ment on days when it was administered in the parish church.

28o The Revolution and Since
claimed that there was no other church in England
but their churches, and therefore there was no
schism in the erection of their new system.
Weary of endeavouring to coerce into union men
who refused to be united, authorities in church and
state came gradually to accept the notion of tolera
tion, — that is, of putting up with the existence of
other religious communities besides the church. In
1689 the legislature passed the act which is commonly
called the Toleration Act, but which describes itself
as " an act for exempting their Majesties' protestant
subjects dissenting from the church of England from
the penalties of certain laws." It did not apply to
Romanists. It did not apply to those who denied
the doctrine of the Trinity. The rest could obtain
the benefit of the act on registering themselves and
their places of worship. This was the best, the only
thing, to be done under the circumstances ; but it
was the relinquishment of a long cherished design.
A dissenting historian says truly that " from the
moment that William gave his assent to the act [the
church of England] ceased to be national in the sense
in which it had been so before. It could no longer
claim all Englishmen as, by sovereign right, wor
shippers within its pale ; it gave legalized scope for
differences of religious action^." And, the historian
might have added, it thereby obtained a greater
measure of freedom for itself : it was no longer
obliged to study so much the feelings and opinions of
men who had ceased even nominally to belong to it.
^ Stoughton Religion in England, vol. v. p. 98.

The Revolution and Since 281
But it was impossible, of course, for the church
to acquiesce in the loss of a great number of baptized
and eamest English Christians ; and the natural
accompaniment of toleration for those who altogether
refused to have any connexion with the church was
an effort after comprehension, that is, to make such
relaxations of the church's rules as would enable men
of less hostile sentiments to enter the church again.
A whole series of schemes of comprehension arose,
one after another. Sometimes practices which gave
offence were to be abandoned. Sometimes they were
to be made optional. The terms on which ministers
might be received were to be made elastic. But
there are one or two points to be observed about all
the schemes of comprehension that were ever put
forward. One is that the comprehension was for
individuals, not for communities. There was never
any proposal to include within the church any organi
zation which would continue after inclusion to have
an organization of its own^. The persons compre
hended were to become in every way churchmen, and
churchmen only, though churchmen indulged in
various details and usages. Another point is that
however easy it was made for existing ministers,
insufficiently ordained (from the church point of
view), to be received into the ministry, no scheme
of comprehension ever proposed that for the future
there should be any method of ordination except the
1 The proposed arrangement with the Moravians was a partial
exception to this rule, but it formed no part of a general scheme
of comprehension.

282 The Revolution and Since
method prescribed in the prayer-book. No one ever
suggested that presbyterian ordination should be put
side by side with episcopal ordination. Comprehen
sion was absorption.
Tillotson was naturally disposed to compromise.
Tillotson commenced his career under puritan in
fluences, but soon passed into the society of the
Cambridge Platonists, who enlarged his conceptions,
though he was never one of them. Presumably he
received some kind of uncanonical ordination in the
commonwealth period, for he performed the office of
chaplain to an eminent officer of the commonwealth^.
But when the restoration was imminent, Tillotson
was among the multitude of ministers who thronged
to be ordained by old Bishop Sydserf of GaUoway.
He attended the Savoy Conference, however, as a
silent adherent of the puritan commissioners, sub
mitting directly afterwards to the act of uniformity.
There can be no doubt that his attachment to the
church was sincere, but " his tender method of
treating with dissenters," Birch says, " and his
endeavours to unite all protestants amongst them
selves, were represented as a want of zeal in the
cause of the church, and an inclination towards those
who departed from it 2."
He took a prominent part in the various compre
hension schemes of the period.
The Dean's concern* for the essence of pure and uncor-
rupted Christianity was attended vrith a proportionable
* Birch's Life of Tillotson (2nd ed.), p. 17. ^ Ibid, p. 33.
' He only became Dean of Canterbury in 1672.

The Revohition and Since 283
moderation of temper and principles with respect to the
lesser differences amongst protestants, and especiaUy those
of our own country. Hence followed a constant desire in
him of a more entire union of them, not only on account
of the general advantage of it, but likevrise of the particular
one of forming a stronger barrier against the perpetual
encroachments of the see of Rome. He joined therefore. . .
in the treaty proposed by Sir Orlando Bridgman . . . about
January i66|, and countenanced by the Lord Chief Baron
Hale, for a comprehension of such of the dissenters as could
be brought into the communion of the church, and for a
toleration of the rest.. . .A project was prepared, consisting
chiefly of those things which the King had promised by his
declaration from Breda in the year 1660. Only in the point
of reordination this temper \i,e. compromise] was proposed,
that those who had presbyterian ordination should be
received to serve in the church by an imposition of hands
of the bishop, with this or the like form of words. Take
thou authority to preach the word of God, and to minister the
sacraments in any congregation of the church of England
where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto ; an expedient
rauch of that nature having been practised and aUowed of
in the case of the Catharists and Meletians, as appears from
the eighth canon of the Nicene council *-
The scheme proved abortive. The House of
Commons would not hear of it. But Tillotson clung
to his project. He is not known to have had a share
in the scheme set on foot by Archbishop Sancroft,
though he was certainly consulted by the archbishop
1 Life of Tillotson, p. 42. Baxter wished the words to run,
" Take thou legal authority," etc., and this was inserted in the bill.
He also proposed that all such ministers should have leave to
" give in their profession that they renounce not their ordination,
nor take it for a nullity, and that they take this as the magistrate's
Ucense and confirmation." See Stoughton Religion in England,
vol. III. pp. 374 foU.

284 The Revolution and Since
in the proceedings which led up to it. As soon as
William and Mary came to the throne, he threw
himself heartily into a new and more celebrated
scheme of comprehension. His biographer prints a
paper of " concessions which wUl probably be made
by the church of England for the union of protestants,
which I " — the paper is in Tillotson's hand — " sent
to the Earl of Portland by Dr StiUingfleet, Sept. 13,
1689." Among these concessions, the fifth is :
That for the future those who have been ordained in any
of the foreign reformed churches be not required to be re
ordained here to render them capable of preferment in this
church.
The sixth is :
That for the future none be capable of any ecclesiastical
benefice or preferment in the church of England that shaU
be ordained in England othervrise than by bishops. And
that those who have been ordained only by presbyters shaU
not be compeUed to renounce their former ordination. But
because many have [doubted], and do stiU doubt, of the
validity of such ordination where episcopal ordination may
be had and is by law required, it shaU be sufficient for such
persons to receive ordination from a bishop in this or the
like form : If thou art not already ordained, I ordain thee, etc.,
as, in case a doubt be made of any one's baptism, it is ap
pointed by the liturgy that he be baptized in this form,
// thou art not baptized, I baptize thee, etc.*
This proposal was no doubt based upon the
precedent set by Bishop Overall, as related above.
White Kennett favours the belief that TiUotson
was the author of A Letter to a Friend relating to the
^ Life of Tillotson, p. 169.

The Revolution and Since 285
present Convocation at Westminster, dated Nov. 27,
1689, in which the writer, who professes to be a
dissenter, says
This much I shall venture to say, that such amendments
as these were, with such an allowance in the point of orders
for ordination by presbyters as is made 13 Eliz. cap. 12,
would in all probability have brought in two-thirds of the
dissenters in England ; which being done, and at the same
time a liberty continued to such as could not be compre
hended, would have been greater service than can easily be
imagined*.
But the lower house of the Canterbury Convoca
tion was by no means disposed, as a body, to adopt
such measures. It seemed to derogate from the dignity of the church of
England to make any step towards the altering of her
constitution till it did appear that the dissenters themselves
did desire a reconcilement, and were ready to offer some
proposals, or to accept of others *-
They refused to agree to an address which the
upper house, then sadly depleted, had prepared,
because it thanked the king for his zeal " for the
protestant religion in general and the church of
England in particular." They thought, Burnet says,
" that this imported their owning some common
union with the foreign protestants ^" ; but they at
last accepted a form of words which bears witness to
the embarrassment under which it was composed,
acknowledging the King's pious zeal and care
^ Complete History (ed. 1719), vol. iii. p. 591. With regard to
the act of Elizabeth, see Appendix A below.
'- Ibid. pp. 591, 592.
' Own Time, vol. 11. p. 33.

286 The Revohition and Since
for the honour, peace, advantage, and establishment of
the church of England ; whereby we doubt not the interest
of the protestant religion in aU other protestant churches,
which is dear to us, vrill be the better secured*.
That TiUotson was interested in the foreign
churches is evident, though he was not much brought
into contact with them. Limborch dedicated to
him, in 1692, his Historia Inquisitionis, with an
epistle which recognized the position of the church of
England as " inter reformatas longe eminentissimae,"
and described the archbishop as in virtue of his office
in it " ecclesiamm reformatarum defensorem." He
was to be the leader, the spiritual father of them ;
under whose patronage all schisms and hatreds were
to disappear. A famous anecdote connects the name
of Tillotson with the French Huguenots. Charles II
issued a brief for collections on behalf of the
refugees who had suffered by the revocation of
the edict of Nantes. Tillotson was then Dean of
Canterbury :
^ Kennett, ut sup. p. 594. The account given in the Acts and
Adjournments of the Convocation is as follows :
" The conference was managed chiefly between the Bishop of
Salisbury [Burnet] and the Prolocutor [Jane]. The bishop urged
that the church of England was not distinguished from other pro
testant churches but by its hierarchy and revenues, and that it
\i.e. the term ' chuich of England '] was an equivocal expression, for
if popery should prevail, it would be called the church of England
stiU. To which the prolocutor answered that the church of England
was distinguished by its doctrine, as it stands in the articles, liturgy,
and homilies, as well as by its hierarchy, and that the term of protes
tant churches was much more equivocal, because Socinians, anabap
tists, and quakers assumed that title. After this we heard no more
reply " (Cardwell Conferences, p. 445).

The Revolutioti atid Since 287
and the warmth of his zeal upon this occasion is evident
from an answer which he returned to Dr Beveridge, one of
the prebendaries of his cathedral, who from a coolness
towards foreign protestants, or an unnecessary scruple vrith
respect to forms even in affairs of weight and substance,
had objected to the reading of one of these briefs there, as
contrary to the rubric. The dean's reply was short and
significant, " Doctor, Doctor, charity is above rubrics*."
It must be said to Tillotson's honour that his
charity extended even to episcopalians in affliction,
and that he made some efforts to render more
tolerable the conditions under which they existed in
Scotland^- He was certainly urged to do so. A letter signed
" V. M." was addressed to him in 1689 by one who
was in favour of large alterations in the prayer-book
and in the customs of the church. It asked, "whether
some expedients are not to be found out further to
restore the credit of episcopacy among the vulgar,
and redeem the reverence due to that (as I am
persuaded) divine institution." Samples of such ex
pedients are suggested, and finally the writer asks
Whether it would not be an act of charity in those
reverend persons who meet by virtue of the present com
mission to make the distressed condition of a neighbour
church \i.e, in Scotland] matter of their humble petition to
those who are able to relieve her ? Though sorae particiUar
men have been guilty of imprudence and errors, that there
fore a sacred order and a national church should be offered
up as a sacrifice seems not very reasonable *-
1 Birch's Life, p. 122. There was, of course, nothing remarkable
in Tillotson's exerting himself in the cause. Gunning, Ken, Hickes
did so too.
2 Ihid. p. 281. ^ Cardwell Conferences pp. 454 foil.

288 The Revolutioti and Since
The commissioners sat. They discussed many
things, — among them foreign reformed orders :
As for the ordination of foreign churches, it was urged by
the Bishop of Salisbury [Burnet] that the church of England
had aUowed it, as in Du Moulin, Prebendary of Canterbury.
Dr Beveridge replied that might be, for that it was not
necessary where there was no cure of souls.
The Dean of Canterbury, Sharp, said " that he
had heard laymen had been prebendaries, many."
But the bishop laid before them (i) the case of the Scotch
bishops, who were consecrated bishops without being
ordained priests. (2) It was said it was never made necessary
till 1661. (3) That it was aUowed in a case of necessity by
those that were most violent, and that in positive institutions
necessity ruled.
At last it was proposed to draw up a rubric to
signify that the ordination in foreign churches was
sufficient though imperfect ordination, and that those
so ordained should be received by the imposition of
the hands of the bishop only to officiate in the church
of England. As for dissenters the Bishop of Salisbury said
" that it was a kind of necessity in our present cir
cumstances," and that " in the ancient church, not
withstanding the canons, the Donatist bishops were
admitted to be bishops in the same city with catholic
bishops till vacancy, when the survivor should be
bishop." It was finally determined (Drs Beveridge
and Scott dissenting) to be hypothetically expressed^.
^ nth Session of the Royal Commissioners for the Revision of
the Liturgy in 1689 (p. 102) ; quoted by Bp Phillpotts Correspon
dence between the Bishop of Exeter and Right Hon, T, B, Macaulay
in January 1849 (published in i860), p. 57.

The Revolution and Siitce 289
In the copy of alterations prepared by the com
missioners, p. 85, in The Form and Manner of Ordering
of Priests, i.e. Presbyters, against the general rubric,
the following notes and additions are written on the
interleaves, but without any mark to show where it
was proposed to insert them.
Seeing the reformed churches abroad are in that
imperfect state that they cannot receive ordination from
bishops, it is humbly proposed, whether they may not
be received by an imposition of a bishop's hands in these or
such like words :
Take thou authority to preach the word of God and to
minister the holy sacraments in this church as (q. where)
thou shalt be lawfuUy appointed thereunto.
Whereas it has been the constant practice of the ancient
church to cdlow of no ordinations of priests, i.e. presbyters,
or deacons vrithout a bishop, and that it has been likewise
the constant practice of this church ever since the reformation
to allow none that were not ordained by bishops where they
could be had, yet in regard that several in this kingdom have
of late years been ordained only by presbyters, the church,
being desirous to do all that can be done for peace, and in
order to healing of our dissensions, has thought fit to receive
such as have been ordained by presbyters only to be ordained
according to this office with the addition of these words in
these following places.
Reverend Father etc. . . . order of priesthood, if they shall
not [have] been already ordained.
Bishop. Good people. . .priesthood, if they have not been
already ordained.
Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest
in the church of God. . .hands, if thou hast not been already
ordained. By which as she retains her opinion and practice which
make a bishop necessary to the giving of orders, where he
M. 19

290 The Revolution and Since
can be had, so she does likevrise leave all such persons, as
have been ordained by presbyters only, the freedom of their
own thoughts concerning their former ordinations. It
being withal expressly provided that this shaU never be a
precedent for the time to come, and that it shall only be
granted to such as have been ordained before the
day of
It is then ordered that the letters of orders in such
cases should follow the form used by Archbishop
Bramhall^. This kind of action, however, was very distasteful
to the majority of churchmen. Sir John Reresby
records a remark of Halifax to the effect " that the
churchpeople hated the Dutch, and had rather tum
papists than receive the presbyterians among them^."
The proposals of the commission were never even
brought before convocation. They were allowed to
lie undisturbed in the cupboard of Dr Tenison, after
wards Archbishop of Canterbury. A letter of Dean
Comber to Bishop Patrick well expresses the general
feeling of churchmen at the time. He expresses his
pleasure that a man of Patrick's principles was on the
commission.
'Tis true, he says, there are some few moderate presby
terians [about York], who always communicated vrith us
on occasion, and the alterations they desire are not many nor
dangerous to our constitution. They vriU submit to a con
ditional reordination  But the greater part of dissenters
here are independents, who seem incapable of any thing but
toleration, and cannot be taken in but by such concessions
as wiU shake the foundations of our church ; and possibly
'^ Phillpotts, ut sup. p. 59.
^ Memoirs (ed. 1734), p. 343.

The Revolution and Since 291
by attempting to gain such as after all will be false friends
we may drive out many tme ones, both of the considerable
clergy and laity also. I perceive the late success of that
party in Scotland against episcopacy, and the opinion of
their numbers and interest here, hath [given them] hopes
of legal establishment and dominion over all others.
A public presbyterian ordination had recently
taken place in Yorkshire. This was a new thing,
and amounted to a declaration of war against the
church. Comber says :
These things at this time of day, together with their
giving presbyterian orders openly to many, vrith design to
perpetuate the schism, may justly make us stand our ground
tiU they who have neither gospel nor antiquity, neither law
nor reason, of their side come some more paces toward us*.
Since Comber has been mentioned, this may be
an appropriate place to speak of his Companion to the
Temple, first published in 1672. The portion of this
work consisting of A Discourse upon the Form
and Manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons according to the order of
the Church of England is really a separate treatise.
It was published in 1697 with a dedication to Arch
bishop Tenison, which assumes his concurrence in the
views expressed. Your Grace hath a right to these papers, because you
are the chief governor in ordinations, under whose hands
most of the Right Reverend the Bishops receive their cha
racter, vrith power to admit others to the inferior orders. . . .
Our adversaries on both hands seem now to despair of their
^ Printed in Cardwell Conferences, p. 414. Cf. Stoughton
Religion in England, vol. v. p. 284. 19 — 2

292 The Revolution attd Since
baffled objections against our forms, but fail not to enlarge
upon the popular theme of personal reflexions upon some
defaulters  If both clergy and people could be brought up
to an adequate conformity to our incomparable rules, it
would immediately be apparent. . .that there is nothing
material to be reformed in our constitution*.
Comber's notes upon the preface to the ordinal
begin by affirming that " we studiously avoid the
odious charge of innovation, and therefore appeal to
scripture and antiquity as our evidence that these
tiiree orders have been in the church from the
apostles' time." This, he says, is a " modest "
assertion, because the principle came from the Old
Testament dispensation, and was adapted by our
Saviour in the New. He concludes his short history
of the orders with the words :
However persecution and dire necessity may perhaps
excuse some late churches for being forced to mix the two
first orders and to have only priests and deacons, yet we,
who have a prescription of above 1600 years for us, even
from the apostles' time, have the right of our side and must
never depart therefrom*.
Commenting upon the words of the preface which
say that men were admitted to their office by lawful
authority. Comber dwells upon the nature of this
authority :
which we affirm to be only bishops ; and here I shaU
not content myself to prove this by the statute law of this
land, " that no man can be a lawful priest or deacon, unless
he be ordained by a bishop s," but further show this law is
* Companion to the Temple (ed, 1702), vol. 11. p. 176.
2 Ihid. p. 178.
' For this, Comber refers to 13 Ehz. cap. 12, § i, as well as to the
Act of Uniformity, 14 Car. II.

The Revolutioti and Since 293
grounded upon holy scripture, and the canons and practice
of the universal church*.
This he proceeds to do. His argument obliges
him to consider the reformed churches :
But some object. This wUl deprive divers foreign churches
(where they have no bishops) of a lavriul ministry, because
their ministers have no ordination except by presbyters.
To which I shaU only say, that the first presbyter who pre
sumed to ordain had no such power given him, and so could
not rightly convey that which he never received. There is
no precedent in scripture of mere presbyters ordaining alone,
and such ordinations would have been declared null in the
primitive ages ; yea, for 1500 years together no such were
aUowed. But the fairest plea is that some of these churches
were forced by dire necessity to this irregularity  To which
I reply, that where this necessity was real, and while it was
so (as perhaps it might be in some places at first) , it will go far
to excuse them. But Du Plessis saith they in France might
have had the assistance of sorae bishops who favoured the
reforraation, and they would not, and some of them grew so
enamoured of their new way as to reordain those who were
episcopaUy ordained ; which shows it was choice in some,
so that this plea cannot be urged by them. And why might
not they have got some bishops privately ordained by the
English or Lutherans, to keep up a legal ministry ? ... So
that the necessity was not unavoidable. Wherefore if any
of them despise episcopal ordination, or eject them who are
so ordained; as is done in Scotland, they have no excuse,
and I judge their orders to be null and void. . . .We are thank
ful to that providence which allows us to keep up the primi
tive orders in a due subordination, and to have a right and
tmly canonical ministry in this well-constituted church, the
exact transcript of the primitive, and the glory of the whole
reformation*. 1 Companion to the Temple, vol. 11. p. 189.
2 Ihid. p. 190.

294 The 'Revolution and Since
Beveridge, who in Birch's anecdote by implication
put rubrics before charity, was a man who held to
the behef s and ideals of the age that was departing.
Along with Horneck, he was the recognized leader in
the revival of practical piety, especially in London.
In a series of twelve sermons he set forth the
nature of the church and of its ministry. In the
first of these he showed how Christ could be with his
apostles to the end of the world, because the apostles
continue in their successors :
The apostolical office hath been handed down from one
to another ever since the apostles' days to our time, and so
wUl be to the end of the world, Christ himself being continuaUy
present at such imposition of hands, thereby transferring the
same spirit, which he had first breathed into his apostles,
upon others successively after thera, as really as he was
present vrith the apostles themselves when he first breathed
it into them. Insomuch that they who are thus ordained
are said to be made bishops by the Holy Ghost himself, as
weU as the apostles were. By which means the holy catholic
church always hath been, and still is, truly apostolical, as
it is called in the Nicene creed. And the several parts of
the apostolical office are now as effectually performed by
their successors, and others ordained under them, as they
were while the apostles themselves lived*.
Beveridge has already spoken earlier in the sermon
of " the first and principal part of this office " as being
" the ordaining others into it, and giving them power
to ordain others, and so successively to the end of the
world." He now calls upon his hearers
to pfaise, magnify, and adore the name of the most high
God, in that we were born and bred, and still live, in a church
' Works (Anglo-Cath. Library), vol. I. p. ii.

The Revolution and Since 295
wherein the apostolical line hath through all ages been
preserved entire, there having been a constant succession
of such bishops in it, as were tmly and properly successors
to the apostles, by virtue of that apostolical imposition of
hands ; which being begun by the apostles hath been con
tinued from one to another ever since their time down to
ours. By which means the same spirit which was breathed
by our Lord into his apostles is, together with their office,
transmitted to their lawful successors, the pastors and
governors of our church at this time, and acts, moves, and
assists at the adrainistration of the several parts of the
apostolical office in our days as much as ever. From whence
it follows that the means of grace which we now enjoy are
in themselves as powerful and effectual as they were in the
apostles' days. And if they prove not always so success
ful now as they were then, that cannot be imputed to any
want of efficacy in them, but to some defect or other in those
who use them*-
Again and again, in language as pious as it is
lucid, Beveridge repeats this teaching of the spiritual
value of the apostolic succession. He urges the duty
of his hearers
to continue steadfast in the coraraunion of our church. . .
and not to deviate from her either into popery on the one
hand or schism on the other hand.
Although the apostolical succession has been con
tinued in the church of Rome, it has been egregiously
abused, and clogged with superstitious ceremonies
which quench the Spirit.
And as for schism, they certainly hazard their salvation
at a strange rate who separate themselves from such a church
as ours is, wherein the apostolical succession, the root of all
Christian communion, hath been so entirely preserved, and
* Works, vol. I. p. 17.

296 The Revolutioti and Sitice
the word and sacraments are so effectuaUy administered ;
and all to go into such assemblies and meetings as can have
no pretence to the great promise in my text. For it is
manifest that this proraise was made only to the apostles
and their successors to the end of the world. Whereas in
the private meetings, where their teachers have no apostolical
or episcopal imposition of hands, they have no ground to
pretend to succeed the apostles, nor by consequence any
right to the Spirit which our Lord here proraiseth*.
Not that Beveridge wished to encourage a haughty
attitude towards the dissenters :
But when I speak of your continuing firm and faithful to
our church, I do not mean that you should only talk high
for her, inuch less inveigh against her adversaries, or damn
all those who are not of her communion ; for this is contrary
to the divine and apostolical spirit that is in her, which is a
spirit of meekness, and soberness, and charity. But my
meaning is that you firmly believe whatsoever she, from the
word of God, propounds as an article of faith, and faithfuUy
perform whatsoever she, from the same word, requires as
a necessary duty to God or raan*.
In the second sermon Beveridge shows by an
accurate exegesis that in the New Testament the
power of ordination belongs only to the highest order
in the church. After expounding 2 Tim. i. 6, he goes
on to say :
Elsewhere the same apostle teUs Timothy that this gift
was given him by prophecy, " vrith the laying on of the hands
of the presbytery." From whence it may seem that some
of the elders of the church joined with St Paul in laying
their hands upon him : and yet St Paul ascribes it wholly
to the laying on of his hands, and saith the gift was given
him by that, and only with the other, because he being the
' Works, vol. I. p. 23. 2 Ibid. p. 24.

The Revolutioti and Since 297
only apostle that laid on his hands, and so the only person
that had power by that means to confer the Holy Spirit,
although it was given to him together with the laying on of
the others' hands upon hira, yet it was not given by that,
but hy the laying on of St Paul's hands. . . . How raany priests
soever lay their hands upon another's head, they can never
raake hira a real priest, unless there be a bishop vrith thera ;
but a bishop by the imposition of his hands can make a priest,
although there be never another priest with hira*.
Beveridge interprets the twenty-third article in
his simple straightforward way :
In this article. . .we have it deterrained who are those
who are to preach the word and administer the sacraments
in the church ; not every one that hath a mind to it, not
every one that fancies himself fit for it : no, only such as are
lawfuUy called thereunto ... Christ called the apostles; the
apostles by the appointment of the same Christ called others
to succeed them, they again others ; and so hath there been a
succession of lawful rainisters ever since, which though they
were not aU caUed immediately by Christ, yet they were all
called by him ; yea and all others are their successors who
had this immediate call from him. So that none are now
lawful ministers but such as are thus called by hira, and all
that are thus caUed by him are lawfiU rainisters ; I raean all
such as are called by such as succeed them in the ministry
who were called imraediately frora Christ himself ; for these
are they which certainly we are to understand by those
mentioned in this article, who have public authority given
unto them in the congregation or church to call and send
rainisters into the Lord's vineyard 2.
To this topic he returns under the thirty-sixth
article :
For the proof of this I shaU refer myself wholly to the
judgment of the primitive church ; who, having the happiness
1 Works, vol. I. p. 39. " Ibid. vol. vn. pp. 424 foil.

298 The Revolution attd Since
to live nearer the apostles' times than we do, were better
acquainted vrith the apostles' practice in these things than
we. And for my own part I dare not but look upon the
practice of the primitive church in this case to be lawful in
itself and binding unto others. For if we once suppose that
the primitive church generally erred in their ordination of
ministers, then we must grant also that there hath never
been a lawful ministry since, the lawfulness of their ministry
depending principally, yea only, upon the lawfulness of their
ordination ; and if there were no lawful ministers to ordain
them, they who were ordained could not be lawful ministers ;
and if there be no lawful rainistry, there cannot be any tme
church, because the word is not lawfully preached nor the
sacraraents lawfully ministered in it*.
He sees no exception to the rule of episcopal
ordination :
So strict was the priraitive church in having priests
ordained by bishops only, that in the tirae of ordination,
though the bishop was present and did sorae things, yet unless
he did aU he ought to do, the person was not looked upon as
ordained. ... If any one was convinced not to have been
ordained by a bishop, he was looked upon as a layman 
It was bishops only that ordained priests, and they were no
priests who were not ordained by bishops*.
There is a forcible Latin sermon of Beveridge's on
I Cor. xi. 16, in which he teaches that no church can
reject rites which are universal in Christendom with
out being guUty of schism. He turns the text against
both the " pontificians " and the " sectarians " —
against the latter in connexion with episcopacy
amongst other things :
Dicite enim, fratres dUectissirai, quo terramm loco
ecclesia unquam sine episcopo presbyteris praesidente ante
* Works, vol. IH. p. 548. a Ibid. pp. 552-554.

The Revolution and Since 299
praesens hoc nostrum proximumque seculum constituta est ?
ubi gentium ordinatio aliaque suraraa ecclesiae negotia a
presbyterorum classe tractata sunt ? quaenam est iUa
ecclesia ? . . . Cum inter omnes . . . constet nos nee solos nee
primos esse Christianos, sed perquam pluriraos omnibus
retro seculis per eam quam nos profitemur religionem
eandem quam nos expetimus felicitatem adeptos fuisse,
quicquid hodie in religione Christiana novum est, eo nomine
vel f alsura vel vanura saltem et superfluum sit necesse est *.
William Cave, whose history is curiously linked
with that of Beveridge, bears the testimony which
was to be expected from so learned a patristic scholar.
In his Primitive Christianity he feels himself absolved
from discussing the question " whether episcopacy as
a superior order to presbytery was of divine institu
tion." It was enough for his immediate purpose
that even Blondel and Saumaise confessed " that
bishops were distinct from, and superior to, presbyters
in the second century, or the next age to the apostles^. "
In A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholic
Church maintained in the Church of England, after
affirming that " no church hath professed and
evidenced a more awful and tender regard to an
tiquity next to the express word of God in the
department of doctrine," he asserts, as against the
Romanist, her freedom from innovation in the matter
of orders :
As clear and unexceptionable hath been her proceeding
in church government, preserving that form, which from aU
testimonies of antiquity hath continued in the church from
1 Works, vol. X. pp. 485, 488.
' Primitive Christianity, Part I, ch. 8.

300 The Revolution and Since
the very apostles, under the conduct and happy influence
of which Christianity hath been propagated and continued
throughout the world, whatever different measures some
other reformed churches have taken, whether forced by
necessity, or swayed by particular inclination or prejudice.
The church of England kept up the universaUy received
distinct prime orders of bishops, priests, and deacons ; not
desiring to censure others, who can best answer for themselves,
but endeavouring to confine herself to what was most
canonical and regular, and to show how little affected she
was to alteration frora any establishment, except in notorious
corruptions and abuses ; and how necessary she thought
due order and subordination in the church to prevent schisms
and heresies ; and to give the greater authority and advantage
to her ministrations ; and finally to free herself from all
suspicion of all irregularity in her succession derived down
from Christ and his apostles, which she as much as any
church in the world may pretend unto*.
In the same year (1659) in which Thorndike
published his desponding Epilogue, and Gauden his
pathetic Tears and Sighs, the young StiUingfleet, in
a very different spirit, published his Irenicum. Its
object was to show that no form of church govern
ment is appointed by divine right in a strict sense,
and that the different systems ought to accommodate
themselves to each other on the principle of give and
take. There is a sense in which any form may claim
the jus divinum :
Those things may be said to be jure divino which are not
determined one way or another by any positive law of God,
but are left whoUy as things lawful, to the pmdence of men
to determine them in a way agreeable to natural light and
the general mles of the word of God. In which sense I assert
' In Gibson's Preservative against Popery (ed. 1738), vol. i. p. 140.

The Revolution atid Since 301
any particular form of govemment agreed on by the gover
nours of the church, consonant to the general mles of scripture,
to be by divine right : i.e. God by his own laws hath given
men a power and liberty to determine the particular form
of church government among them*.
StiUingfleet demands that nothing be imposed as
necessary, in restraint of Christian liberty, but what
is clearly revealed in the word of God ; and that
nothing be required or determined "but what is
sufficiently known to be indifferent in its own nature."
Though obedience to indifferent things be necessary
when the things are commanded, yet there must be
no obligation laid on consciences to consider them as
necessary. When it comes to the point of deter
mining what things are " indifferent,"
the most equal way... is to raake choice of such judges
as are not interested in the quarrel ; and these are the sense
of the primitive church in the first four centuries, who were
best able to judge whether they looked upon themselves as
bound by any command of scripture or no ; and withal, the
judgment of the reformed churches ; so that what shaU be
made appear to be left indifferent by both the sense of
the priraitive church and the churches of the reforraation
may be a matter determinable by law, and which all may be
required to conform in obedience to *.
Only, whatever is determined in this way, must
be "in order to a due performance of what is in
general required in the word of God, and not to be
looked on as any part of divine worship or service "
in such a sense as that the worship without it is
deemed imperfect ; and whatever sanctions are made,
1 Works (ed. 1710), vol. 11. (second part), p. 161.
^ Ihid. p. 194.

302 The Revolution and Since
no mulcts or penalties are to be laid on those who
dissent, until they have had time to consider, and
even then, and even if their dissent is evidently seen
to be " out of contempt," the penalties must be such
as answer to the nature of the offence. StiUingfleet
is sure that it is contrary to the primitive moderation
to "deprive men of their ministerial function for not
conforming in habits, gestures or the like." He does
not at this point speak of orders^.
The law of nature dictates that there must be a
way to determine all controversies which threaten to
break up the unity of a society. These controversies
are either matter of different practice, or matter of
different opinion. The former, if it comes from no just and
necessary cause, and ends in a total separation from that
society the person guUty of it was joined with, is justly caUed
schism ; which, as one defines it, is an ecclesiastical sedition,
as sedition is a lay schism ; both being directly contrary to
that communion and friendliness which should be preserved
in all societies. The latter, if impugning somewhat funda
mental. . .or. . . if wUfuUy taken up and obstinately maintained,
is called heresy  But in order to the making clear what the
church's power is in reference to these, we are to take notice
. . . that the church hath no direct immediate power over
men's opinions  So long as diversity of opinion tends not
to the breaking the quiet and tranquUlity of the church of
God, a man raay safely enjoy his own private apprehensions.
... It is not the difference of opinion . . . that is punishable, but
the tendency to schism which lies in the divulging of it, and
drawing away from the received tmths  The unity required
in the church is not an unity of judgment and apprehension
araong the members of it ; which though it be their duty
to endeavour after, yet it is no farther attainable by man's
* Works, vol. II. pp. 194 foil.

The Revolution and Since 303
endeavours than perfection is, and unio Christianorum in
this sense is one of the jewels belonging to the crown of
heaven*.
StiUingfleet lays down the principles that " every
Christian is under an obligation to join in church
society with others " ; that " every Christian actually
joined in church society with others is so long bound
to maintain society with them till his communion
with them becomes sin " ; that " where any church
is guilty of corruptions both in doctrine and practice,
which it avoweth and professeth, and requireth the
owning them as necessary conditions of communion
with her, there a non-communion with that church
is necessary, and a total and positive separation is
lawful and convenient " ; but that " where a church
retains the purity of doctrine in its public profession,
but hath a mixture of some corruptions as to practice,
which are only tolerated and not imposed, it is not
lawful to withdraw communion from such a church,
much less to run into total separation from it." He
adds a final proposition, which he knows to be more
disputable, that " where any church, retaining purity
of doctrine, doth require the owning of and conform
ing to any unlawful or suspected practice, men may
lawfully deny conformity to and communion with
that church in such things, without incurring the
guilt of schism."
I say not : men may proceed to positive schism, as it is
called ; that is, erecting of new churches, which from Cyprian
is called erigere altare contra altare ; but only that vrith-
1 Works, vol. II. pp. 220, 221.

304 The Revolution and Since
dravring communion frora a church in unlawful or suspected
things doth not lay raen under the guilt of schism*.
Having disposed of the law of nature, Stilling
fleet next enquires whether any form of government
is definitely prescribed in scripture.
Matters of fact, and mere apostolical practice, may, I
freely grant, receive much light from the records of succeeding
ages ; but they can never give a man's understanding
sufficient ground to infer any divine law, arising from those
facts attested to. . . . Supposing that apostolical practice be
sufficiently attested by the foUowing ages, yet unless it be
cleared from scripture that it was God's intention that the
apostles' actions should continuaUy bind the church, there
can be nothing inferred that doth concem us' in point of
conscience*.
He approaches the question by dismissing the
independent tenet that the particular congregation is
the first and only thing to be considered. Far from
it: There are other churches besides particular congrega
tions : I mean, not only the catholic visible church, which
is the first not only in order of consideration, but nature too,
as a totum integrate before the similar parts of it ; but in
respect of all other accidental modifications of churches,
from the several ways of their corabination together \e.g.
provincial or national churches].. . .It is our necessity and
conveniency which raakes several congregations of the
catholic visible church, and not God's primary intention. . .
that it should be understood of particular congregations 
It evidently follows that the primary notion of a church
doth not belong to these, nor that these are the first subject
of governraent, which belongs to a church as such, and not
as crumbled into particular congregations*.
' Works, vol. II. p. 228. 2 Ibid. p. 250. ^ /j,j^ p 252.

The Revolution and Since 305
Stillingfleet then argues that there must be a
standing perpetual ministry in the church of God ;
and this, he says, is of divine and perpetual right,
and proves it. This, then, brings him " to the main
subject of the present controversy " — viz. presby
terianism versus episcopacy.
The question now is not which of these two doth corae
the nearest to apostolical practice and the first institution,
which hath hitherto been the controversy so hotly debated
among us ; but whether either of these two forras be so
settled by a jus divinum . . . that aU the churches of Christ are
bound to observe that one form so determined, without
variation from it.
The " most probable way " to determine is, he
says, to go through " all the ways whereon men do
fix an unalterable divine law " :
Either some former law standing in force under the gospel,
or some plain institution of a new law by Christ in forming
his church, or the obligatory nature of apostolical practice,
or the general sense of the primitive church ; to which we
shall add, by way of appendix, the judgment of the chief
divines since the reformation ; if we go happily through
these, we may content ourselves with [having obtained the
thing we aim at*.
With great skill and clearness Stillingfleet executes
this plan. The first " way " is soon disposed of.
He has little difficulty in showing that the general
language of the apostles would be suitable on either
supposition. When it comes to the fathers, he foUows
Mason in the main. He lays great stress on the well-
known statement of St Jerome about the presbyters
^ Works, vol. II. pt ii. p. 262.
M. 20

3o6 The Revolution and Since
of Alexandria^, and the other, to the effect that
presbyters were restrained from ordaining, for fear
of creating schisms 2. He rather hastily assumes that
these views are universally accepted.
The raain controversy is, when this restraint began, and
by whose act  But in order to our peace, I see no such
necessity of deciding it, both parties granting that in the
church such a restraint was laid upon the liberty of ordaining
presbyters : and the exercise of that power may be restrained
stiU, granting it to be radically and intrinsecaUy in them.
So that this controversy is not such as should divide the
church. For those that are for ordinations only by a
superior order in the church, acknowledging a radical power
for ordination in presbyters, which may be exercised in
case of necessity, do thereby make it evident that none, who
grant that, do think that any positive law of God hath
forbidden presbyters the power of ordination. For then it
must be wholly unlawful, and so in case of necessity it
cannot be valid. Which doctrine I dare vrith some confi
dence to assert to be a stranger to our church of England 
On the other side, those who hold ordinations by presbyters
lawful do not therefore hold thera necessary ; but it being
a matter of liberty, not of necessity (Christ having nowhere
said that none but presbyters shall ordain), this power then
may be restrained by those who have the care of the church's
peace, and matters of liberty being restrained ought to be
submitted to, in order to the church's peaces-
It must be borne in mind that Stillingfieet is not
arguing as to what the practice of the first ages was,
but as to whether there is any evidence to estabhsh
a divine law. It is, however, somewhat of a tour de
force when he endeavours to prove " the uncertainty
1 Ep. Lxxxv. ad Evagrium. 2 Adv. Lucif.
' Works, vol. II. pt ii. p. 328.

The Revolution and Since ¦^P']
of the primitive form of government " from " the
defectiveness, ambiguity, partiality, and repugnancy,"
i.e. inconsistency, " of the records of the succeeding
ages which should inform us what apostolical practice
was," and makes fun of Eusebius's lists of bishops,
" and the large diagrams made of the apostolical
churches, with everyone's name set down in his order,
as if the writer had been Clarencieux to the apostles
themselves^." There is more ground for his conten
tion that the apostolical succession so much pleaded
by the writers of the primitive church was a succession
in apostolical doctrine, rather than a succession in
apostolical power 2. There is still more ground for his
contention that the fathers were " partial " witnesses,
because they judged of the practice of the primitive
church by the customs of their own^.
Stillingfleet's chapter on the views of the reformed
churches and their principal divines is full of interest
and research : he is the first, for instance, to print
the well-known series of questions, and Cranmer's
answers to them, which have since played an impor
tant part in the controversy with Rome on Anglican
orders, as throwing light on the " intention " of the
archbishop and his coadjutors. He groups his au
thorities under three heads ; first, those who make
the form of church government mutable, according
to the wisdom and judgment of the civil power — -this
is the largest class ; second, those who look upon
" equality " as the primitive form, yet judge episco
pacy lawful ; third, those who judge episcopacy to
* Works, vol. II. pt ii. p. 341. " Ibid. p. 345. ' Ibid. p. 353.

3o8 The Revolution and Sitice
be the primitive form, yet do not look upon it as
necessary. As against the post-reformation dog
matists on both sides, Stillingfleet calls for robust
independence. If men would but once think their understandings at
age to judge for themselves, and not make them live under
a continual pupillage, and but take the pains to travel over
the several churches of the reformation, they would find
themselves freed of many strange misprisions they were
possessed vrith before, and understand far better the ground
and reason of their pitching upon their several forms, than
they seem to do who found all things upon a divine right*.
The whole book was an astonishing performance
for a man of four and twenty ; and it led up with
great dexterity to the point which, no doubt, the
author intended all along — to ensure the acceptance
of episcopacy by the very moderation with which it
was demanded. Certain general principles were laid
down for the approaching settlement. First, pru
dence must be called in. Secondly
That form of government is the best according to prin
ciples of Christian pmdence, which comes the nearest to
apostolical practice, and tends raost to the advancing the
peace and unity of the church of God. What that form is,
I presume not to define and determine, but leave it to be
gathered from the evidence of scripture and antiquity, as
to the primitive practice, and from the nature, state, and
condition of that church wherein it is to be settled, as to
its tendency to the advancement of peace and unity in it.
StiUingfleet then commends the proposal of King
Charles I at Newport, to " reduce episcopacy and
presbytery into " a " weU-proportioned form of
* Works, vol. II. pt ii. p. 396.

The Revolution and Since 309
superiority and subordination," — assumes that it will
be done, i.e. that episcopacy will be restored, and adds
that all such things must be retrieved which were unquestion
ably of the primitive practice, but have been grown out of
use through the length and corruption of times.
The restoring of presbyteries to act with the
bishop, the contracting of dioceses and placing of
bishops in all great towns, with other items of Usher's
reduction, are among the things to be retrieved ; and
the arrangement so made must be submitted to^.
By the time (1681) when he composed his treatise
on the Unreasonableness of Separation, Stillingfleet
had come to use the more ordinary language and
arguments of the older generation. He makes an
interesting observation on the statement in the pre
face to the ordinal that the three orders have existed
from the apostles' time.
What is the reason that they express it thus, "from the
apostles' time," rather than in the apostles' times, but that
they believed, while the apostles lived, they raanaged the
affairs of governraent theraselves ; but as they vrithdrew,
they did, in some churches sooner and in some later, as their
own countenance, the condition of the churches, and the
qualification of persons were, commit the care and govern
ment of churches to such persons whom they appointed
thereto ? Of which we have an uncontrollable evidence in
the instances of Timothy and Titus  While the apostles
lived, it is probable there were no fixed bishops, or but few.
But as they went off, so they came to be settled in their
several churches. And as this is most agreeable to the sense
of our church, so it is the fairest hypothesis for reconciling
1 Works, vol. II. pt ii. p. 418.

3IO The Revolution and Since
the different testimonies of antiquity. For hereby the
succession of bishops is secured frora the apostles' times, for
which the testimonies of Irenaeus, Tertullian, St Cyprian,
and others, are so plain ; hereby room is left to make good
all that St Jerome hath said ; and what Epiphanius delivers
concerning the different settlements of churches at first.
So that we raay aUow for the coraraunity of names between
bishop and presbyter for a while in the church, i,e, while the
apostles governed the churches themselves ; but afterwards
that which was then part of the apostoUcal office became
the episcopal, which hath continued from that tirae to this
by a constant succession in the church *-
In 1684 Stillingfleet had concluded that
there is as great reason to believe the apostolical succes
sion to be of divine institution, as the canon of scripture, or
the observation of the Lord's Day*-
These words occur in a sermon preached at an
ordination ; and in the Epistle Dedicatory to Bishop
Compton prefixed to it, the preacher apologizes for
his earlier utterances :
It happened, ray lord, that in ray younger days, about
twenty-five years since, I thought it necessary to inform
myself, as weU as I could, in the state of the controversy
about church government which had been managed with so
much heat among us and was then like to be revived. And
to that end I applied myself to the reading and considering
the authors of greatest esteem on both sides, and by diligent
perusing of them I thought them more happy in overthrow
ing each others' hypothesis than in setting up their own.
And supposing no better reasons could be produced than I
found in them, I from thence concluded that the form of
church govemment was left at liberty by any law of Christ,
and was therefore to be determined cis served best to the
* Works, vol. II. pt n. p. 591. 2 Ibid, vol. i. p. 374.

The Revolutiott and Since 311
great ends of peace and order, which were the plain and
standing laws of the Christian church  All which, being
put together, I did adventure to publish at that tirae, hoping
by that raeans to bring over those to a compliance with the
church of England, then Uke to be re-established, who stood
off upon the supposition that Christ had appointed a presby
terian government to be always continued in his church. . . I
dare challenge any man to produce one passage in the whole
book that tended to encourage faction or schism or opposition
to the church of England, but on the contrary I endeavoured
to recommend the episcopal government as having the
advantage of aU others and coming nearest to apostolical
practice. . .
I do not deny, ray lord, that I do now think much more
is to be said for the apostolical institution of episcopacy
than I at that tirae apprehended. But I confess, I yet see
no cause for such clamours against the book, as though
nothing could satisfy but a recantation of it " as public as
the error, scandal, and offence given by it." . . . [My superiors
in the church] were so vrise, to consider the time when it
was written. . .and vrith what design it was written, viz. to
gain upon the dissenters from our church. And it did not
want success that way, both here and in a neighbour kingdom.
But suppose there were errors and raistakes in it (as no
doubt there were), they were so vrise to raake allowance for
the scepticalness and injudiciousness of youth, and for the
prejudices of education. All men are not so happy to be
born or bred in settled times., .but suppose a man brought
up when all things are in confusion, and every one at liberty
to choose his own way. Was it not a fair step towards
the church of England even then to receive episcopal orders,
and to follow the directions of an excellent bishop of this
church ? Which things I can truly affirm of myself at that
time*.
* Works, vol. 1. pp. 357-359. Stillingfleet was ordained by Bishop
Brownrigg, who did so much to maintain the supply of clergy during
the troubles.

312 The Revolution and Since
The celebrated Gilbert Burnet is so commonly
thought of as a latitudinarian (as in fact he was) that
it is a little strange to contemplate him as a defender
of the catholic episcopate in the Anglican church.
He says himself :
It may seem too great a presumption in one that is a
stranger in this church to engage in a question that so much
concerns it. But though I had not my orders in this church,
yet I derive them from it, being ordained by a bishop that
had his ordination in this church* ; so that I am equally
concemed in the issue of the question, and I am confident
nobody shall have cause to imagine that I engage in it with
design to betray or give it up.
Among the many unjust and spiteful calumnies vrith
which the clergy of the Roman communion study to asperse
and disgrace the reformation, there are none more frequently
made use of than these ; that there are no pastors lav<dully
caUed or ordained among us ; that we have not the power of
making God present on our altars, as they have ; nor the
power of absolving from sins, much less of redeeming souls
from the miseries they are under in another state. They
teU their credulous followers that we were at first no better
than a company of tub-preachers, and that all the disorders
we saw of that sort during the late wars were as justifiable
as the first beginnings of the reformation. And though the
ridiculous fable of the Nag's Head be so manifest a forgery. . .
that one might reasonably expect that all sober or discreet
persons should be ashamed of so foul an imposture, yet it
serves them still for many a good turn, and so they wUl
never lay it down : though I dare boldly say, there is no
matter of fact, of which there are no surviving witnesses,
that can be demonstrated with clearer evidences than the
regularity and canonicalness of the ordination of Archbishop
Parker. Others, that are not so lost in impudence, yet say
that, though we have a shadow of a succession among us,
* He was ordained in Scotland.

The Revolution and Since 313
yet we show how little regard we have to orders, when we
acknowledge the protestant churches beyond the seas to be
tme churches, though many of them do not so rauch as
pretend to a continued succession of pastors.
For the foreign churches, they are able to speak for
themselves ; nor is it needful for me here to show what
grounds there are for our churches holding communion vrith
them. But it must be acknowledged to be a high pitch of
boldness and injustice to charge us, as if we did not ascribe
all due honour to holy orders and the succession of pastors.
We know and assert that no raan can take this honour of
priesthood to himself, but he that is called of God, as was
Aaron  We reject the extravagant and bold pretences of
hotheaded or factious enthusiasts, and have learned out of the
gospel that a public calling was necessary, even to those who
had the most extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost. Our
Saviour sent his disciples as his Father had sent him, and
gave thera the power of binding and loosing. And though
God had by His spirit called Saul and Barnabas to the
apostleship of the Gentiles, yet they did not enter upon the
discharge of that function, tUl by the direction of the Holy
Ghost . . . they were separated for the work of the ministry
by prayer and imposition of hands. And though Timothy
was by some prophecies marked out as a sacred person, yet
he was received into that function by the imposition of
St Paul's hands. Frora these sacred authorities, backed
with the constant doctrine and practice of the churches of
God in all ages, we do hold a visible vocation and ordination
of pastors necessary in the church*
These words form part of the preface to a learned
and luminous work on the validity of Anglican orders,
in which Burnet, making judicious use of Morinus,
establishes the sufficiency of our forms, and the due
authority of the persons.
* Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England, printed
in Gibson's Preservative against Popery, vol. i. p. 228.

314 The Revolution and Since
Though we have separated from many errors and corrup
tions of the church of Rorae, and in particular have thrown
out raany superstitious rites out of the forras of ordination,
that we might reduce these to a primitive sirapUcity, yet,
as we acknowledge the church of Rorae holds still the
fundamentals of the Christian religion, so we confess she
retains the essentials of ordination, which are, the separating
of persons for sacred employments, and the authorising
them with an imposition of hands and a prayer for the
effusion of the Holy Ghost. Therefore we do not annul
their orders, but receive such as corae from that church, and
look on them as true priests by the ordination they got
among them ; and such were our first reformers, from whom
we have derived our ordination*
At the close of a good and honest piece of investi
gation, Burnet concludes that
First, we having true priests and tme bishops are a trae
church, since we believe all that Christ and his apostles
delivered to the world.
Secondly, we being thus a part of the catholic church,
every one that lives according to the doctrine professed by
us may and shall be saved.
Thirdly, we do tmly eat the flesh of Christ and drink his
blood, having the blessed sacrament administered among us
according to our Saviour's institution.
Fourthly, we have as rauch power to consecrate the holy
sacraraent as any that were ordained in the church for near
a thousand years together.
Fifthly, we have the ministerial power of giving absolu
tion and the ministry of reconciliation and of forgiving sins
given us by our orders.
But, he says,
I must add that this ransacking of records about a suc
cession of orders, though it adds much to the lustre and beauty
^ Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England, p. 252.

The Revolution and Since 315
of the church, yet it is not a thing incumbent on every body
to look much into, nor indeed possible for any to be satisfied
about*.
Burnet did not always, however, deal with these
questions in a manner so acceptable to the church
which he thus defended. His Exposition of the
Thirty-nine Articles incurred the censure of the lower
house of the Convocation of Canterbury ; and though
the particulars with which fault was found were never
disclosed, because the upper house refused to receive
the paper containing them, it can hardly be doubted
that some things in the exposition of Article xxiii
gave offence to many.
Burnet remarks justly enough upon the latter part
of the article, that it is put in very general words,
" far," he says, "from that magisterial stiffness in
which some have taken upon them to dictate in this
matter." They who drew it had the state of the several churches
before their eyes, that had been differently reformed ; and
although their own had been less forced to go out of the
beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things
among themselves had not gone according to those rules that
ought to be sacred in regular tiraes. Necessity has no law,
and is a law to itself.
After laying it down that " lawful authority " is
that rule " which the body of the pastors, or bishops
and clergy of a church, shaU settle, being met in a
body under the due respect to the powers that God
shaU set over them," and that, when a church is under
persecution at the hands of the civU authority, the
• Vindicatio'A of the Ordinations of the Church of England, p. 260.

3i6 The Revolution and Since
faithful people have a deciding voice, and in any case
ought to be greatly considered, Burnet goes on :
Finally, if a company of Christians find the public
worship where they live to be so defiled that they cannot
vrith a good conscience join in it., .if, I say, such a body,
finding some that have been ordained, though to the lower
functions*, should submit itself entirely to their conduct,
or finding none of those should by a common consent desire
some of their own number to minister to them in holy things,
and should upon that beginning grow up to a regulated
constitution, though we are very sure that this is quite out
of all rule, and could not be done without a very great sin,
unless the necessity were great and apparent ; yet if the
necessity is real and not feigned, this is not condemned or
annulled by the article.. . .Whatever some hotter spirits
have thought of this since that time, yet we are very sure that
not only those who penned the articles, but the body of this
church for above half an age after, did notwithstanding those
irregularities acknowledge the foreign churches so constituted
to be tme churches as to all the essentials of a church.
It is curious that Burnet should have considered
that those who penned the article had only in view
the reformed churches, when he was so well aware
that ministers in Roman orders were specially con
templated in all the regulations for these matters.
He refers to two instances in which the work of lay
evangelists in the early church led to the sending to
a foreign country for duly ordained men :
These, he says, were regular practices ; but if it should
happen that princes or states should. . .apprehend that the
suffering of their subjects to go elsewhere for regular ordina
tions might bring them under some dependence on those
that had ordained them. . . neither our reformers nor their
* He probably aUudes to Calvin.

The Revolution and Since 317
successors for near eighty years after those articles were
published did ever question the constitution of such churches.
In his comments upon Article xix Burnet had
already laid it down, that if any society retains the
fundamentals of Christianity, it is to be considered
to be a true church, but that " we are not upon that
bound to associate ourselves to their communion " :
Thus a plain difference is made between our owning that
a church may retain the fundamentals of Christianity, a
true baptism, and true orders, which are a consequent upon
the former, and our joining vrith that church in such acts as
we think are so far vitiated that they become unlawful to us
to do them.
In saying this, he has an eye to the church of
Rome ; but it is obvious that the principle might
apply in other directions also.
At the very same time that Burnet wrote his
vindication of the validity of Anglican orders, another
author did the same in a work of extraordinary
brilliancy. This was Humphrey Prideaux ; and it
is a wonderful testimony to the breadth of leaming
to be found at that period among the English clergy,
that a man whose special department of study lay in
so different a quarter should be able at short notice
to produce a treatise requiring the historic research
and deep thought which his book displays.
His opponent argued from the insertion of certain
words in the ordinal in 1662 that the church of
England was conscious of something defective in her
ordinations down to that date, but that it was then
too late to repair the defect. Prideaux shows with

3i8 The Revolution and Since
absolutely convincing force that the alterations were
made for an entirely different purpose. They were
made to meet a presbyterian, not a Roman Catholic,
pretension :
In their cavils and objections in the late times against
episcopacy and the superiority of the episcopal office above
the priestly, they drew one arguraent against us from our
own ordinal, such as they call argumentum ad homines, and
frora the very form whereby our bishops are ordained
endeavoured to prove upon us that they have nothing in their
office which is not also contained in the office of a priest ;
the form of their ordination expressing nothing (as they
urged) which doth not belong to a priest as well as a bishop
even according to our own definition of the priestly office.
And to take away the foundation of this argument (as I have
been told) those words were put into the forms as might
express a raore explicit and clear distinction between the
two functions. And although I do not much insist hereon
(the thing not being at all material to the controversy in
hand), yet I have reasons that persuade me I have not been
misinformed*. For the papist at that time was an adversary
not at all thought on. The church had then just recovered
itself from that many years' oppression which it had suffered
frora the presbyterians, and therefore had their thoughts at
that time totaUy set how to fence themselves against the
eneray that last hurt them, vrithout having any such regard to
the other adversary, at that time low enough and not at aU
formidable*.
In another place he says :
Do you think I ara ignorant that it is the fundamental
doctrine of the presbyterian sect that there is no difference
at all between a bishop and a presbyter or priest ? or that
1 Prideaux's letter to Wharton, asking him to find out whether
Archbishop Sancroft's recollections bore out this view, wiU be found
in CardweU Conferences, p. 388.
^ Ecclesiastical Tracts, by H. Prideaux (2nd ed.), p. 37.

The Revolution attd Since 319
I could possibly say that they should urge it for a defect in
our ordinal that those offices are not sufficiently distinguished
therein, when it is their main principle that there is no
distinction at all between thera, but that they are only two
names signifying the same functions ?. . .To raake a more clear
distinction between the two functions, and take away all
occasions for their urging of this against us for the future in
the defence of that error, the explanatory words were
inserted, and on no other account. When I wrote you my
former paper, I confess I quoted no other authority for this
but that I had been told so ; but since, looking into Dr
Burnet's History of the Reformation, I there find him saying
the same thing in these words. . ." Having been since made
use of to prove both functions the same, it was of late years
altered as it is now ; nor were these words being the same
in giving both orders any ground to infer that the church
esteeraed thera one order, the rest of the office showing the
contrary very plainly.'' Thus far Dr Burnet ; and he having
pubUshed it within twenty years after the thing was done,
when so many were alive that were raembers of convocation
when the alteration was made, and especicJly Dr Gunning
and Dr Pearson, who I understand were the prime advisers
of it, it is impossible he could want true information in this
particular*.
Prideaux rejects — rejects in the name of the
church of England — the scholastical theory that
consecration to the episcopate only " extends the
character and power " already residing in the priest :
Here I must beg leave to tell you that our church holds
a bishop to be as much essentially distinct from a priest as
a priest is frora a deacon. For that which raakes the
distinction of orders is the distinct powers which belong
unto thera. For as a priest hath a distinct power from a
deacon which makes his office to be essentially distinct from
1 Ecclesiastical Tracts, p. 72.

320 The Revolution and Since
the office of the other, so hath a bishop also a distinct power
from a priest which makes his office essentially distinct from
the office of priesthood, that is, the power of ordaining, which
a priest hath not ; and this you must allow, or else fall in
vrith the opinion of the presbyterians, and grant that a
priest hath as much power to ordain as a bishop*.
Prideaux asserts that holy orders are not a sacra
ment, in the sense that there is a divinely appointed
" matter " or action, which cannot be varied.
Taking the administration of holy orders thus in the trae
nature and notion of the thing without reckoning it a
sacrament, it will appear to be no other than the delegating
or transraitting from one succession to another those offices
which have by divine authority been instituted in the church
of Christ for the ministering of the holy things of God therein;
and therefore there can remain nothing in them which may
necessarily require any thing more to be done, to carry them
down frora one to another in a due and legal succession,
than what is practised in aU other offices wherein one man
succeeds another ; but that they may in the same manner,
by a person fully authorized thereto, be validly and fully
conferred by any rite and manner whatever, sufficiently
declarative of the thing intended. . .when either by common
use or public institution they have a significancy given them
to denote the thing designed *-
* Ecclesiastical Tracts, p. 46.
^ Ihid. p. 96. Prideaux does not in any way deny the spiritual
gift accompanying the rite ; he has just been defining the ^ap"^/*"
as " a gift freely given to qualify and enable, in order to the perform
ance of the office conferred." Nor does he make light of the sign
of imposition of hands. " When a rite hath been so generally
received in the church," he says, " and hath so venerable a stamp
upon it as that of apostolic usage, the example is so enforcing as even
to reach almost the very nature of a precept and oblige us to do the
same thing." His argument is only directed against the Roman
assertion that the tradition of the instruments is the indispensable
" matter " of holy orders. Cp. p. 148.

The Revolutiott and Since s^i
We may group together an important set of
writers, now to come under review, as nonjurors.
The first of this set was one of the most erudite men
in that age of erudition. It was George Hickes, who
was ejected from the deanery of Worcester because
he could not take the oath to William and Mary.
Bishop Trimnel of Norwich, in a charge to his
clergy, had expressed surprise that the presbyters of
a reformed church should lay claim to " offer a proper
sacrifice in the eucharist." The principle which
Hickes asserts in reply is a just one, whether his
application of it be accepted or not.
Surely they have a right to claim that which the prelates
of the whole catholic church claimed, and to which bishops
themselves were expressly ordained. ... The bishop objects
to little purpose that this doctrine. . .hath been revived of
late for advancing the honour of the clergy ; but it is not any
raatter how lately it hath been revived, or by whora, or for
what end, so it be tme and catholic  Indeed it is no argu
raent at all. . .were it tme that Mede and Heylin were the
first publishers of it in our church, unless ray lord wUl
acknowledge it to be an argument against his own order that
of all the reforraed churches the church of England was the
first and almost the only one which hath retained episcopacy
and taught that it was to be continued in the church. How
therefore, how can it be an argument against an old catholic
doctrine and practice that it is at any time revived and
published - where it happens to be forgot, neglected, or
disused*?
There had been a time when Hickes was himself
inclined to embrace less strict conceptions of church
order than he came to hold.
1 Treatises (ed. 1847}, vol. i. pp. 4, 6.
M. 21

322 The Revolution and Since
I wUl farther confess to you and all the world, he writes
to the author of the Rights of the Christian Church asserted,
that my first notions, for want of knowing better, had too
much of latitude in them, and that, since I espoused the
principles I now defend, the " law in my members," as the
apostle calls the inclinations of flesh and blood, would have
me throw them off ; but the " law of my mind," which I
take to be superior, will not let me do it, but commands me
to go through the strait gate, and walk in the narrow way to
heaven*.
It is not always pleasant to take a strict line, and
to incur from the world the reproach of narrowness
and bigotry. The editor of Hickes's works, in a
note on this passage, gives an extract from a letter
of Hickes, which shows something of what Hickes
meant. The letter was written in 1707 :
I freely own that when I was in France thirty-four years
ago, I went to Charenton, and once there received the sacra
ment, and afterwards at Blois. But when I came to Mont-
peUier, I declined the sacrament, having, by reading and
conferring about the mission of the French protestant
ministers, altered my opinion — I should have said my
Irenicum opinion [the word is used in reference to StUUng-
fleet's early book], for I had no other than Irenicum principles
when I went into France, having not read so much as
St Ignatius' epistles, or any other father.
Perhaps no Anghcan divine of that period has
gone more fully into the question of communion with
the reformed churches than Hickes.
The next argument he [Tindal] brings against this
episcopal form of government hath been brought and
answered many times. It consists in nothing but spiteful
and invidious clamour against the divine right of episcopacy
^ Treatises, vol. i. p. 57.

The Revolution and Since 323
for " weakening the protestant cause," " for unchurching
the reforraed churches in other countries, particularly that
in Scotland." To which I answer first that no strict doc
trines are to be rejected for the severity of their consequences
upon men who wiU not believe thera, or, if they believe them,
wUl not practise them.. . .Whatever hard or ugly names our
men of large souls may give strict doctrines and principles,
they are nevertheless tme*.
In the second place ... it is not the doctrine of the divine
right of episcopal polity and government, or those who preach
it and adhere to it as necessary by divine institution, that
" weakens the protestant cause," or, as others love to speak,
" widens the distance among protestants," and " unchurches
the presbyterian " and other churches that are not so much
as presbyterian ; but as our author truly speaks, it is they
themselves who " unchurch themselves " as a society by
throwing off a government, and, let me add, by wilfully
throwing off a government, which was instituted by God for
the perpetual unalterable polity of the church. They are
the raen who truly weaken the protestant cause in continu
ing a church polity contrary to that which Christ and the
apostles erected for the church in all places and ages ; who
take upon thera the priesthood by a new uncatholic mission
of their own creating ; and they tmly and properly vriden
the distance araong protestants, who reject the ancient
apostolical mission as needless or unlawful, and . . . vrill not
move one step towards us, but expect that we should go to
them and quit the ground upon which we so safely stand*.
In a long passage of great earnestness Hickes
pleads with the continental protestants to restore the
lost order :
I speak this with reluctance, though vrith freedom and
plainness, I caU God to witness, not to reproach the protes
tants of other churches who have abdicated episcopacy, buf
1 Treatises, vol. i. p. 270. ^ Ihid, pp. 270 foil. 21 — 2

324 The Revolution and Since
in great charity and pity to them, beseeching them to con
sider if indeed they can justify themselves to Christ and the
Christian world for abdicating of it and departing from the
constitution and mission of the catholic church. They all,
except in one place*, plead necessity for departing from it ;
and I would to God their plea were good. But the neces
sities they plead are necessities of their own making and
continuing ; chosen and wilful necessities ; and I am forced
to say by consequence, unjustifiable necessities ; necessities
out of which they raay, and I think therefore ought to,
extricate and deliver themselves as soon as they can. . . . Let
it no longer be said of them that as they would not have
bishops when they might, so now they vrill not have them
when they may  Let thera not longer continue to give so
just an offence to those who upon catholic principles and
practice strictly adhere to the episcopal coraraunion ; let
thera not put a longer stop to the reformation by refusing
to embrace the divine ordinance*.
To Hickes this is no matter of compromise :
Principles, believe me, sirs, are principles ; they may
easily be broken, but cannot be bent ... I would have
addressed myself to you vrith more latitude and compliance,
could I have done it with a good conscience. I might
indeed have told you that " the succession of the ministry is
of less consideration than the succession of the faith and
subordinate to it, as the raeans to the end." But if this
may serve as sorae plea for those who, reaUy using aU en
deavours, yet could not have episcopal raission and priest
hood, yet it could ser^^e them no longer than they were in
that supposed state of . . . necessity, which never was nor now
is your case. I might also have told you, " it was reasonable
to presume that God of his infinite goodness may supply the
want of his own ordinance among you." But this I could
' He means Scotland ; but there were other countries of which
the same might be said.
' Treatises, vol. i. pp. 271 foil.

The Revolution and Since 325
not do for some reasons.. . .The cases wherein men presume,
or rather hope, that God... will make such supplies and
allowances are cases of invincible ignorance or invincible
necessity. . . neither of which, I ara called to say it again, either
is or ever was your case  It is not therefore reasonable,
as I conceive, to presume that God, though infinitely mercifiU
and good, will supply unto us the want of such things which
we may supply ourselves vrith, but wUl not. . . I would for
God's sake beseech you to consider how far the present
constitution of your churches agrees or disagrees with your,
and our, belief of the holy catholic church, or the one catholic
and apostolic church, which is the corporation of all true
Christians and of all tme churches, founded into one com
munion by one priesthood, as well as upon one confession of
faith*.
Hickes is deeply grieved that Tindal has con
strained him to speak thus :
He would render us odious unto you for maintaining the
principle upon which we have reformed, and which I think
it is not in the power of man to change  But as strict and
inviolable a principle as I take it to be, yet I protest in the
presence of God, so far am I frora having any ill vrill to you,
who I think live in the violation of it. . . that I could wish for
your sakes it were not a principle ; but what God hath made
so for all times and places cannot be unmade *
There is one quarter, however, to which Hickes
feels none of the passionate tenderness which breathes
through so many pages of appeal :
There is another protestant church which pleads not
necessity to excuse their abdication of episcopacy, but
declares it was their duty to cast it off as an unlawful anti
christian constitution, contrary to the word of God ; and
pursuant thereunto have more than once deposed their own
1 Treatises, vol. i. pp. 275 foil. ^ Ibid, p. 277.

326 The Revolution and Since
bishops, forced some of them by persecution to renounce
their episcopal function, and entered into a solemn league
and covenant, which they .still think obliging, to endeavour
the destruction of it. If the ancient fathers who were
saints and martyrs were now living to see such a strange
church, how Eistonished would they stand at the sight of it,
and with what holy indignation would they thunder against
the iniquity of it, and charge the people to separate themselves
from the ministry of it, as from Corah and his corapany,
lest they perished with them in their sin. . . . Notwithstanding,
I tmst that God, who can make dispensations and allowances
for the greatest ignorances, mistakes, and prejudices of his
frail creatures, which raen cannot make, will show mercy in
the great day, according to the prayer of our Lord upon the
cross, " Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do*."
At this point ]H[ickes turns aside from pursuing
Tindal to engage Burnet and his Thirty-nine Articles.
He asks pertinently whether the preface to the
ordinal, the canons of 1603, and the act of uniformity,
have not given a truer key to the meaning of " lawful
authority " to ordain than " his lordship's latitude-
exposition^." As pertinently he asks — though he
does not admit that the ministries of the foreign
protestants were really owned and approved by the
church of England—
if the authority of the clergy, who have questioned the
lawfulness of their ordinations and missions, and utterly
excluded them from ministering in our church, since the
term of those eighty years mentioned by his lordship, be
not as good an argument against their ministry, as the not
questioning of it before that tirae was for it^.
It is pleasant to find him end by quoting a more
catholic passage from Burnet's own works :
1 Treatises, vol. i. p. 278. 2 Ibid, p. 287. » Ibid. p. 288.

The Revolution and Since 327
I will conclude, raost humbly beseeching him to consider
whether, instead of writing up the other protestant churches to
the church of England, as one would think a bishop should do,
he hath not written her down to them  He hath observed
of [episcopacy]* that the world received the Christian religion
with it ; that all the corners of the Christian church, and aU
the parts of it, the sound as weU as the unsound, that is, the
orthodox as well as the heretics and schismatics, agreed in
it. . . . " And can it be imagined," saith he, " that in aU that
glorious cloud of witnesses to the tmth of the Christian
religion . . . there should not be one single person found, on
whom either a love to truth or envy at the advancement of
others prevailed so far, as to declare against such an early and
universal corruption, if it is to be esteeraed one. When aU
this is complicated together, it is really of so great authority,
that I love not to give the proper name to that temper that
can vrithstand so plain a demonstration." This is his lord
ship's character of episcopacy ; and I cannot but think that
a governraent so set up, and so universally received. . .
deserves to be thought, not only not crirainal, but necessary,
as a divine institution not alterable by the wiU of men*.
" That detestable book," the Rights of the Christian
Church, which drew forth Hickes' strictures, drew
forth also from another scholar, Thomas Brett, his
Account of Church Government and Governours, in 1707.
He thanks God in the preface to the second edition
that he has lived to see " some excellent books written
in vindication of our present form of church govern
ment, and the divine institution of episcopacy in
particular." Among them he names, besides Hickes'
treatises, Bingham's Antiquities, and Potter's Dis
course, of which last he says that to his knowledge
1 In the preface to the Life of Bp Bedel.
' Treatises, vol. i. pp. 291 foU.

328 The Revolution and Since
it has given good satisfaction to some persons, who
looked upon episcopacy before as only a prudential
institution, and has convinced them of its higher
origin. Brett acknowledges that bishop and presbyter are
synonyms in the New Testament ; but, he says,
it is not the name, but the thing itself, which we contend
for. And that which we affirm is that the scripture in
several places plainly speaks of some persons appointed by
the apostles to govern the flock of Christ . . . whom they
called presbyters or elders, and sometimes bishops, and that
others were appointed to rule, govern, and superintend those
elders*.
There is nothing in Brett's development of his
theme which need detain us. His account of the rise
of the episcopate follows the familiar lines. Perhaps
the most interesting part of it is the use that he makes
of some English writers who are not divines ex professo
— like Bacon, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir Edward Dering
— and of Cranmer's Catechism and other writings ;
of which he says :
I have been the more particular in this matter, that I
might convince my reader that our present divines of the
church of England do not at all deviate from the avowed
principles of our first reformers in strenuously defending
the divine unalterable rights of episcopacy, this having been
the positive declared opinion of that great man and glorious
martyr who was the first and chief instrument in our happy
reformation*.
When he comes to the practical politics, Brett's
ideas are very decided.
' Account of Church Government (ed. 1710), p. 51.
' Ibid, p. 104.

The Revolution and Since 329
The great and most popular argument against the divine
right of episcopacy is that by maintaining this doctrine we
un-church aU the reformed churches abroad, as well as the
Scotch kyrk in the north parts of this realm, and all our own
dissenters at home ; and that this is one of the highest
degrees of uncharitableness*.
He answers that it is the duty of every honest
clergyman to preach the truth received from Christ,
" whomsoever the consequences may refiect upon."
I can never think it charity to soothe men in their
mistakes, and give them cause to think I believe them in the
right when I know them to be in error. I ara willing to
believe as well of the protestants abroad and our dissenters
at home as any man ; neither will I condemn thera . . . but as
I think thera to be in a dangerous error, I think it ray duty
to let thera know it. . . . And I have reason to believe that if
episcopacy had been settled in other reforraed churches as
it is in ours, the reformation had raade a much larger progress
than now it has done. For M. Rogne, the French ambas
sador, said at the tirae of the conference at Harapton Court,
that if the other reforraed churches had kept the sarae order
amongst thera that we have, he was assured there would
have been raany thousands of protestants more than now
there are*.
For my own part I am inclined to think that there are
some tmths which are always seasonable : I mean such
tmths as are always of consequence to preserve the honour
and welfare of the church of Christ. Of which nature I
conceive are these foUowing, viz., that episcopacy is of divine
right ; that the college of presbyters are the bishop's council ;
that to separate from our orthodox bishop is schismatical ;
that schism is a damnable sin ; that if occasional conformity
be lawful, constant conformity is a duty ; that the church
^ Account of Church Government, p. 114.
^ Ibid, p. 115.

330 The Revolution and Since
has a divine right to its synods or councils ; that laymen
ought to have no right in mere spiritual judicature, or to
exercise pure ecclesiastical censures ; and such like*-
Unhappily Brett, like Dodwell and some others
of his time, proceeded to deny the validity of baptism
when conferred by laymen, including dissenting
ministers. He published two sermons (1712), with
prefaces addressed to the dissenters, on the Honour
of the Christian Priesthood, and Shewing . . .the utter
Incapacity of our Dissenting Teachers to administer
Christian Baptism. In the latter of these he says :
In the church of England therefore, the only church in
this realra, which has preserved the apostolical succession of
bishops, you may find persons duly authorized or com
missioned to baptize. . . . But this succession and this
commission is not to be found amongst any sect of
dissenters whatsoever  If they say they were ordained
by such as had no authority to give them orders, it is the
same as if they were not ordained at all. . . . It is evident that
such as are ordained by presbyters (or by those that pretend
to be so) have no orders or comraission at all, and all their
rainisterial acts are invalid. They are usurpers of the sacred
office ; their washing, though they call it baptisra, is no
baptism ; their preaching is of no authority ; and their
pretending to administer the Lord's supper is a most
abominable affront to that sacred ordinance*.
Such exaggeration, of course, tended only to dis
credit the truth with which it was mixed. On the
accession of George I, Brett resigned his preferment,
and joined the remnant of the nonjurors.
' Account of Church Government, p. 451. The laymen here
objected to are the diocesan chancellors and other officials.
^ The Extent of Christ's Commission to baptise, pp. 22-24.

The Revolution and Since 331
It was in 1679 that Henry Dodwell published his
book bearing the title. Separation of Churches from
Episcopal Government as practised by the present Non-
Conformists proved Schismatical. The title-page goes
on to say that the book explains the Sinfulness and
Mischief of Schism. It was originally composed as
a defence of a sermon of John Sharp, afterwards
Archbishop of York, and after consultation with him.
In an interesting preface Dodwell defines the
portion of the subject with which he intends to deal :
I must therefore warn ray reader. ..that when he finds
the title proraise hira a discourse concerning schisra, he do
not understand it in the sarae sense as it has been considered
in so many modem discourses upon that subject between us
and the RomanLsts. I do not here consider the question of
schism between churches, but between subjects separating
from particular churches and the churches frora which they
separate. This is aU for which my present design does
concern me, and if my reasons prove that subjects separating
from their own particular churches for unsinful impositions
are schismatics, I shall perform what I intended. But the
same reasons vriU not prove a church schismatical for refusing
impositions, though unsinful, frora another church.
Dodwell's reason for this last statement is that all
churches — he does not define what he means in the
context by a church — are originally equal, and have
an inalienable right to judge of conditions imposed
upon them from outside.
The argument of the treatise is very elaborately
built up. It starts from the need of an assured
salvation. Salvation is only to be reckoned upon by
using the ordinary means. The ordinary means are

332 The Revolutiott and Since
only to be had in the external communion of the
visible church. They consist in the sacraments ;
and the validity of the sacraments depends on the
authority of the persons by whom they are adminis
tered. No other ministers have the authority of
administering the sacraments, but only they who
receive their orders in the episcopal communion.
All ordinations, he affirras, and aU administrations of
the sacraments, derived frora any multitudes or persons on
account of their general right of governing themselves,
vrithout an express donation frora God, are not only irregular
but invalid, and such as can neither in conscience oblige
any subjects to subrait to thera, nor encourage any who are
othervrise wiUing to submit to expect any benefit from them*-
The opponents whom Dodwell had chiefly in view
were the independents, who regarded their ministers
as the persons deputed for the purpose by the general
body of the congregation, — the " multitude." Dod
well asks, when such an authority was bestowed upon
the multitude. So far were the apostles from giving away that power to
the multitude, which they had never received from them, as
that we find generally [the word " generally " at that tune
did not imply exceptions] the ordinations mentioned in the
scriptures perforraed either by theraselves, or by persons
authorized as theraselves were either by God himself or
by them, not by the people *-
The apostles, not the people, took care of settling a mle
for preserving succession,— a sign that the apostles never
gave the power out of their hands, at least not so far as to
deprive themselves of it*.
* Separation of Churches from Episcopal Government, etc., p. 425
(ed. 1679).
' Ihid, p. 436. » Ibid. p. 447.

The Revolution and Since 333
Dodwell's twenty-first chapter is occupied with
the thesis that
This ecclesiastical authority cannot be derived in this
age we live in from those men to whom it was at first com
mitted, that is, frora the apostles, vrithout a continued
succession of persons orderly receiving authority from those
who had authority to give it them, from those first times of
the apostles to ours at present*.
It contains several interesting observations. The
presbyterian party contented themselves with en
deavouring to prove that presbyters had the power
of ordination in the earliest Christian times. Dodwell
asks whether they have been careful to maintain the
succession in later times.
Though our adversaries' hypothesis had been tme, that
single presbyters had the power of ordaining others given
them when they were made presbyters, and therefore that
the persons ordained by them then had been validly ordained ;
yet it is very possible that their succession raight fail after
wards, and that later presbyters might never have that
power given thera, which if they have not, that is alone
sufficient to disannul their present ordinations *.
He is quite prepared to believe that in some times
and places presbyters were more than presbyters :
What if the apostles had left the form of government
different in several places, in some episcopal, in some presby
terian, as a very learned person* does conjecture? And
what if the presbyteries of those times had indeed the power
of ordination, and intended to give that power to all the
particular presbyters that were ordained by them then?
It does not therefore foUow that the present ordinations by
simple presbyters is valid also*.
• Separation of Churches, etc., p. 477. ^ Ibid, p. 480.
^ Stillingfleet in his Irenicum, * Dodwell, ut .^up, p. 482.

334 The Revolution and Since
In the twenty-second chapter, Dodwell argues
that the authority of administering the sacraments
is not now to be expected anywhere but in the
episcopal communion. This, he says, is but a plain
coroUary from all that has gone before.
That this succession has been continued to our days in
no other but the episcopal communion I conceive to be a
thing so notorious as that I think our adversaries themselves
vrill not deny it. They do not, that I know of, pretend the
like uninterrupted succession in any other form of govern
ment*.. .
I think our adversaries theraselves, as many of them as
pretend to a regular ordination or a valid succession, wiU
not deny but that what orders were received by them were
actually received by their forefathers in the episcopal com
munion, and by episcopal authority *-
He shows that certainly that authority never
intended to confer upon them the power of ordaining
others. Dodwell steps aside for a few pages to consider
" the opinion of the modern schools " with regard to
the identity of order between bishop and priest. He
rightly traces it to the overmastering pressure of the
conceptions then current of the eucharist and of the
power of consecrating it. He rightly shows that,
whatever they might say, the assertors of this theory
restricted the power of ordination to bishops. That
being so :
If our adversaries say that the allowance of this power
only to bishops will make them a distinct order, then they
must confess that the authors we are speaking of were of
^ Dodwell, ut sup, p. 484. " Ibid,

The Revolution and Since 335
our raind in the thing, and of theirs only in the use of the
words, which they wiU find vrill then stand thera in no stead
for the present design of proving their succession. They
must then say that these authors make episcopacy really a
distinct order vrith us, though they were pleased to call it
only a distinct degree vrith them*.
The upshot of it all is that the ordinations of the
nonconformists are not only uncanonical or irregular,
but actually null and void, and the nonconformist
separation is in the strict sense schism, — schism both
from the particular church of this country, and from
the catholic church as a whole.
Charles Leslie, like Hickes and Dodwell, was a non
juror, and a nonjuror of the highest type. But his
teaching about episcopacy was that of a sober
Anglican theologian of the school of Pearson, on
whose judgment he mainly relies. It was in 1698
that he printed his Discourse shewing who they are that
are now qualified to administer Baptism and the Lord's
Supper, wherein the cause of Episcopacy is briefly
treated. It is professedly addressed to Quakers, who
are supposed to have been convinced by Leslie's
former arguments that they ought to receive the
sacraments, but are uncertain to what quarter they
ought to turn for them.
Leslie first shows that there can be no qualification
but that of apostolical succession. On this principle
the presbyterians and the church were at one, though
they differed as to the order through which the
succession was to be maintained. The presbyterians
alone, " of all our dissenters, have any pretence to
1 Dodwell, ut sup, p. 502.

336 The Revolutioti and Since
succession " : the later independents, baptists, and
others, " have not the face to pretend to " it. Leslie
affirms that the succession " is preserved and derived
only in the bishops." He challenges the presby
terians " to show any one disparity between their
case and that of Korah, who was a priest of the second
order, that is, a presbyter, and withdrew his obedience
from the high priest, with other mutinous levites."
Having shown the antiquity of the episcopate,
Leslie proceeds to its universality :
The whole Christian world, as it always has been, so at
this present, is episcopal, except a few dissenters, who in
less than two hundred years last past have arisen like a wart
upon the face of the western church, — for littie more propor
tion do our dissenters here, the Hugonots in France, the
presbyterians in HoUand, Geneva, and thereabouts bear to
the whole body of the Latin church, which is all episcopal 
Nay more, if we should give them all those churches which
own the supremacy of Rome. . .against those we produce the
vast empire of Russia (which is greater in extent than all
these popish countries before named), England, Scotland*,
Denmark, Sweden, and aU the Lutheran churches in Germany.
. . .Then we have all the rest of the Christian world whoUy
on the episcopal side, against both the supremacy of Rome
and parity of the presbyterians ; the whole Greek church,
the Armenians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Jacobites, the
Christians of St Thoraas and St John in the east Indies,
and other oriental churches; then in Africa, the Cophties
in Egypt, and great empire of the Abyssins in Ethiopia.
These all are episcopal *-
Leslie does not speak harshly of the foreign pro
testants : ,^ Leslie still reckons it episcopal.
2 Discourse, etc. Section iv.

The Revolution and Since 337
What allowances God will make to those who think their
ordination to be good enough, and that they are tme ministers
of the gospel, and as such do receive the sacraments from
them, I vriU not determine. But they have no reason to
expect the like allowances who are warned of it beforehand,
and vriU notwithstanding venture upon it, before these
dissenters* have fully and clearly acquitted themselves of so
great and universal a charge laid against them *
Nor does Leslie pretend that everything in the
English church is ideal ; but he calls for reasonable
consideration :
Consider the grievous sin of schism and division. It is
no less than the rending of Christ's body ; and therefore
great things ought to be borne rather than run into it, — even
all things, except only that which is apparently \i,e, evidently]
sinful  And though there are some imperfections in our re
formation as to discipline, and all the high places are not yet
taken away (the Lord of his mercy quickly reraove them),
yet I vrill be bold to say that in our doctrine, worship, and
hierarchy, nothing can be objected that is contrary to the
rule of holy scripture, or anything enjoined which is there
forbid to be done. And nothing less can warrant any
schism against our church*.
In his Case of the Regale Leslie considers " what
was the proper office of the priesthood, and for what
it was ordained," with a view to knowing " how far-
it was to be dispensed with, and when encroachments
were made upon it*." Rather scornfully he speaks of
what had taken place in England in the common
wealth times :
^ Namely the foreign presbyterians.
^ Discourse, etc. Section iv.
' Ibid, Section v, § ii.
* Works, vol. I. p. 658.

338 The Revolution and Since
Here it was discoursed, how the notion of priesthood has
been dvrindled, and indeed quite taken away, in our late
times of schism and rebeUion, to make way for those who had
no commission to show for their usurping that sacred office.
Therefore they reduced it aU to preaching, and loved the
name of preachers better than that of priests, which they
would have rejected under the gospel dispensation ; and
then whoever thought himself a gifted man, that is, able to
speak vrith assurance, applied himself to the good liking of
the people, and if he got a caU from them, they thought this
sufficient to qualify him for their teacher ; and the poor
people were very fond of having this authority put into their
hands ; as if they could choose comraissioners to sign and
seal the covenants of the gospel to them on the part of
Christ, and oblige him, by virtue of his promise to the apostles
and their successors, to ratify and confirm in heaven what
ever had been transacted with them in his narae by whom
soever they pleased to choose into that office, vrithout
deriving any succession from the apostles, or thinking that
there was any need of it *.
The priesthood of Christ was of a prior and superior
order to that of Levi, namely that of Melchisedec :
And the same he deduced to his apostles and their
successors to the end of the world ; the same comraission,
the same glory, which his Father gave unto him. Which is
now so far forgot, that men, women, and children do press
into the evangelical priesthood (far superior to that of Levi)
vrithout any ordination or pretence of succession from the
apostles *.
In a vivid and instructive passage Leslie proceeds
to show that the whole schism of the seventeenth
century was directed, not against ceremonies and
vestures, but against episcopacy. Episcopacy was
* Works, vol. I. p. 660. 2 Ibid. p. 666.

The Revolution and Since 339
" the heir " ; of which they said, " Come, let us kill
him, that the inheritance may be ours^."
John Lindsay, " a priest of the church of Eng
land," who translated Mason's Vindication, was a
nonjuror likewise. To his translation is prefixed an
orthodox treatise on the subject of episcopal orders.
It contains not only careful lists of the English bishops
from the reign of Henry VIII onwards, with the dates
of their consecrations and the names of their conse
crators, but a great deal of interesting and valuable
history besides, especially an excellent account of the
various works occasioned by the controversy.
As has been mentioned above, Lindsay vehe
mently rejects the assertion that Mason was the
author of the Defence of the Ordinations beyond the
Seas. He quotes from a learned pamphlet on the
Independent power of the Church not Romish (1716) to
prove from Thuanus that the French protestants
might have had bishops for the asking, and draws the
inference that it would be absurd and inconsistent in our author.
Mason, or any other orthodox divine, who asserts the divine
right of episcopacy as he does, to undertake a professed
vindication of the validity of their ordinations vrithout
bishops ; at least since their want of them proceeds not from
necessity, but from a fixed opposition to that sacred order,
and an utter aversion to aU who hold it to be of divine
institution*.
He quotes from the Life of Dean Barwick to show
how in the days of the " detestable usurpation," when
'¦ Works, vol. I. p. 683.
" Lindsay's Mason's Vindication, p. lix.

340 The Revolution and Since
the church of England was " reduced again to the
primitive upper rooms,"
it was judged an affair of the utmost importance "not
only to the security, but possibly to the very being of the
church " to provide for a succession of bishops by consecrat
ing others into that sacred order, as had been duly taken care
of by the royal martyr, notwithstanding all his own sufferings*.
A pamphlet was published in 1688 by a papist,
called An Agreement between the Church of England
and the Church of Rome, the object of which was to
make the dissenters more bitter against the church
of England. The writer singled out William Sherlock,
then Master of the Temple, as the dreadful example
of such agreement. This caUed Sherlock up. He
wrote A Vindication of some Protestant Principles of
Church Unity and Catholic Communion. Among the
points which he was charged with having taught in
common with Rome was this :
that what is further necessary to catholic communion is a
catholic government, namely the episcopal.
Sherlock answers :
Now all these words I have used upon one occasion or
other ; but there is no such proposition as this in all my book.
I do allow episcopacy to be an apostolical institution, and
the truly ancient and catholic govemraent of the church. . .
but yet in this very book I prove industriously and at large
that in case of necessity, when bishops cannot \>& had, a
church raay be a truly catholic church, and such as we may
and ought to communicate vrith, vrithout bishops, in vindica
tion of some foreign reformed churches who have none ;
^/ and therefore I do not make episcopacy so absolutely
1 Lindsay's Mason's Vindication, p. Ixxi.

The Revolution and Since 341
necessary to catholic coraraunion as to unchurch all churches
which have it not*.
He returns to the subject in a special answer at
the end of the tract.
The first agreement is about " the ministry, unto which
aU are required to subrait, which is the same vrith that of
Roman Catholics, and maintained by the same arguments " ;
that is, concerning the divine institution of bishops and
subject presbyters. Now this charge we own, that we
acknowledge the divine right of episcopacy, and that pres
byters by the institution of their office are subject to bishops ;
and if the Roman Catholics own this, we agree vrith them in
it, and so we vriU in anything else that is true, and think it
no injury to our cause  And yet the mischief is that in
despite of his title and design he will not suffer us to agree
with them here, but endeavours to prove that we do not
argue with them.
Thus he teUs us :
" Touching the difference there is between a bishop and a
presbyter, as amongst the papists some hold that they were
of the same order, differing only in degree, and others that
they were of distinct orders ; so among our clergy there
were some who, in King James I's days, asserted that bishops
and presbyters were of the same order, but now it is carried
for their being of two distinct orders." But what is this to
the agreeraent of the two churches, that there are divines in
each church which differ about this point ? If neither church
have determined it, then they agree only in not determining
it ; but if it were the current doctrine in the council of Basil
that bishops and priests are of the same order, and it be the
avowed doctrine of the church of England that bishops are a
distinct and superior order, then I think the two churches
do not agree about this point*.
1 In Gibson's Preservative, vol. in. title ix. p. 410.
2 Ibid, p. 432.

342 The Revolution and Since
Sherlock's adversary accentuated this disagree
ment. He showed that the Roman doctrine is that
it is not impossible for a presbyter to be entrusted
with power to ordain, but that
it is the avowed doctrine of the church of England that
the giving of the power of conferring orders to a presbyter
is so contrary to the divine law, that it is ipso facto null and
void ; and in pursuance of this doctrine, she reordains all
those who have had only a presbyter's ordination, even
whilst she is against a reordination.
Sherlock ridicules the argument, but his observa
tion on the last part of it is serious :
And yet the church of England does not deny that in
case of necessity the ordination of presbyters may be valid,
and upon this principle justifies the presbyterian orders of
foreign churches whUe such unavoidable necessity lasts, as
I have also done in the Vindication, to which this author so
often refers. But the case of schism is a different thing, and
I believe our author himself, though he grants a power to
the pope to entrust presbyters vrith the power of conferring
orders, wUl not say that schismatical presbyters may take
this power, or that their ordinations are valid, if they do.
And this is the case between us and our dissenters. They
ordain in a schism ; and though necessity may make an
irregular act valid, yet schism vrill not. And I would desire
to know what reason it is for which they null the protestant
reformed ministry ; which, he says, is so much less severe
than the, principles of the church of England. The artifice
of aU this is visible enough, to heighten and inflame the
difference at this time between the church of England and
dissenters ; but in vain is the snare laid in the sight of any
bird*. '^ In Gibson's Preservative, vol. iii. title ix. p. 432.

The Revolution and Since 343
He then connects the two-order theory with the
doctrine of the eucharist and the enhancing of papal
authority, and says once more, with regard to the
" immediate divine right " of difference between the
orders :
This indeed we do constantly affirm, that the institution
of episcopacy is by immediate divine right ; but is this
the current doctrine in the church of Rome ? That he knew
was false  We wish with all our hearts, the church of Rorae
did agree vrith us in the divine institution of episcopacy,
which was the sense of the primitive church ; but unless
all parties in the council of Trent were very much mistaken,
the supremacy of the pope, as it is taught by that councU,
does utterly overthrow the divine institution of bishops, and
makes them only the pope's creatures and dependents *.
Sherlock is included in the lists of the nonjurors,
but can hardly be called a nonjuror ; and from him
we may turn back to men who were not troubled
by scruples about the oaths.
A short tract on the Succession of Bishops, by
Dr Thorp, canon of Canterbury, is incorporated in
Bishop Gibson's Preservative against Popery. It
deals with Bellarmine's fifth note of the church,
which consists in such a succession " in Romana
ecclesia ab apostolis deducta usque ad nos." Thorp
enquires how far this note may be necessary to any
church. He concludes :
I. That to the complete cojistitution of the church it
vriU be always needful that there be in it true and lawful
pastors. . .
1 fn Gibson's Preservative, vol. in. title ix. pp. 433 foil.

344 The Revolution and Since
2. We yield this pastoral power originally to be from
Christ, the Head of his church, the chief Bishop and Pastor
of his flock, and by hira iraraediately conveyed to the apostles,
and frora them derived by imposition of hands, or ordination,
to their successors in the several churches which they planted,
and so to be continued by a regular succession to the end of
the world. . .
3. We grant further that according to the best evidence
of scripture mle or example, and the constant practice of
Christ's church, the power of ordination is intrusted with
the bishops, the chief governors thereof, and ordinary
successors of the apostles unto the end of the world. . .
AU most agreeable to the doctrine and practice of the
church of England. Such is our government and succession,
not at all interrupted in the reformation, whatever difficulties
it struggled with elsewhere. A signal happiness, for which
we have reason ever to bless God, and not peevishly to
endeavour by vrilful and schismatical separations to deprive
ourselves of that privilege, which raay be the chief eyesore
to our adversaries, and thereby to furnish them with new
and better arguments than ever yet they found against us.
If their succession be good, so is ours (for sure it is not tied to
one place) ; whether we derive it through them by Augustine
the monk, though ordained in France, or from or by the
British bishops who had been here several ages before his
coraing, and by as regular a succession from apostolical times,
without any dependence, as they profess, or as far as we can
find, on the see or bishop of Rome.
But Thorp will not allow that this note is every
where indispensable.
However, it may be noted, that though this succession
of bishops be necessary to the coraplete constitution of the
church, yet it may weU be doubted whether it is indispensable
to the very being of it, so as to unchurch every place that wants
these  Although this obliges all Christians to endeavour
to provide themselves with lawful pastors for their constant

The Revolution and Since 345
supply in all the means of grace, and so to seek them abroad,
as far as they can, where they have them not at home ; yet,
in a supposed case, where these may not be had . . . they who
suppose baptism to be valid, though in case of necessity
administered by any Christian. . . . must not presently un
church any place or exclude all persons that want this fuU
provision of all needful helps and advantages, though some
of most iraraediate divine institution. .. .What allowances
God raay make for great necessities, or almost invincible
difficulties and prejudices, where raen are not wilfuUy and
obstinately wanting to themselves, we cannot or must not
determine*.
From the canon of Canterbury let us pass to his
diocesan, — one of the greatest prelates who have
occupied the throne of St Augustine and of Cranmer.
In his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of
England (1686) in reply to Bossuet, Wake makes this
brief comment upon Bossuet 's sixteenth article, con
ceming the sacrament of holy orders :
The imposition of hands in holy orders, being accompanied
vrith a blessing of the Holy Spirit, may perhaps upon that
account be called a kind of particular sacrament \i,e, as
distinct from a general sacrament]. Yet since that grace
which is thereby conferred, whatever it be, is not common to
all Christians, nor by consequence any part of that federal'
blessing which our blessed Saviour has purchased for us,
but only a separation of him who receives it to a special
employ, we think it ought not to be esteemed a comraon
sacrament of the whole church, as baptism and the Lord's
supper are.
The outward sign of it we confess to have been usually
imposition of hands, and as such we ourselves observe it ;
yet, as we do not read that Christ himself instituted that
sign, much less tied the promise of any certain grace to it,
1 Gibson's Preservative, vol. i. title ii. pp. 97 foil.

346 The Revolution and Since
so M. de Meaux may please to consider that there are many
of his own communion that do not think it to be essential
to holy orders, nor by consequence the outward sign of a
sacrament in them.
We confess that no man ought to exercise the ministerial
office, tUl he be first consecrated to it. We beUeve that it
is the bishop's part only to ordain. We maintain the distinc
tion of the several orders in the church ; and though we
have none of these below a deacon, because we do not read
that the apostles had any, yet we acknowledge the rest to
have been anciently received in the church, and shaU not
therefore raise any controversy about them*.
Wake's friendly correspondence with the Galilean
divines is well known : perhaps less attention has
been paid to the correspondence which he held with
the foreign protestants. Firm as his own learned
Catholicism was, his heart yearned towards a greater
union with the reformed churches. He was conscious
that they would not like to hear of his negotiations
with the Sorbonne doctors, " because indeed the
Galilean church will never unite with any church that
has not an orderly episcopacy in it 2." Yet he did
not despair, and endeavoured to keep in with both
parties. He writes to Le Clerc in April 1719, to thank
him for his New Testament, of which he did not
altogether approve. Yet, he says :
De rebus adiaphoris cum nemine contendendum puto.
Ecclesias reformatas, etsi in aliquibus a nostra Anglicana
dissentientes, libenter amplector. Optarem equidem regimen
episcopale bene temperatum, et ab omni injusta dominatione
sejunctum, quale apud nos obtinet, et, siquid ego in his rebus
sapiam, ab ipso apostolomm aevo in ecclesia receptum fuerit
1 In Gibson's Preservative against Popery, vol. in. title ix. p. 32.
' Maclaine's Mosheim (ed. 1826), vol. vi. p. 179.

The Revolution and Since 347
[? fuit], et ab Us omnibus fuisset retentum : nee despero
quin aliquando restitutum si non ipse videam, at posteri
videbunt. Interim absit ut ego tcim ferrei pectoris sira, ut
ob ejusmodi defectum (sic mihi absque omni invidia appellare
liceat) aliquas earum a communione nostra abscindendas
credam ; aut cum quibusdam furiosis inter nos scriptoribus
eas nulla vera ac valida sacramenta habere, adeoque vix
Christianos esse pronuntiem. Unionera arctiorem inter
omnes reformatos procurare quovis pretio veUera. Haec si
in regimine ecclesiastico ac publicis ecclesiamm officiis
obtineri potuit, aut ego plurimum faUor, aut id solum brevi
conduceret ad aniraorura inter eos unionera conciliandara,
et viam stern eret ad plenam in oranibus raajoris raoraenti
dogrnatibus concordiam stabiliendam. Quantum hoc ad
religionis nostrae securitatem conduceret, quantum etiam
ad pseudocatholicomm Romanensium conversionera, caecus
sit qui non videat*.
That in the meanwhile there were limits to the
intercommunion between the English church and
these others is shown by an interesting letter to Arch
bishop Wake from his intermediary at Paris, Beauvoir,
written a month later than Wake's letter to Le Clerc.
The Dutch chaplain, though he hath been assured of the
contrary, persists to affirra that no reformed foreign rainistry
is adraitted to receive ordination in the church of England,
unless he own his former ordination mill. This notion hath
given great offence, and raade a vast raany of these people
doubt whether we are of the same religion. And what
confirms them in their opinion is that I do not allow their
rainisters, that preach in my Lord Stair's chapel, to make
use of our Uturgy, or to help me at the coraraunion, but only
to say the Lord's prayer before sermon ; and that after their
sermon I conclude and give the blessing.
' Maclaine's Mosheim, vol. vi. p. 184. The ferreum pectus is a
tacit reference to Bishop Andrewes ; see p. 70.

348 The Revolution and Since
If I am in the wrong, I beg pardon and farther instmc-
tions from your Grace. It would very much reconcile the
minds of the protestants here to the church of England, if
foreign ministers were aUowed to officiate among us, and I
to officiate among them. This would remove an unhappy
stumbling-block, which is industriously put in our way.
I can by no means believe I have authority to remove it,
and therefore I earnestly entreat your Grace's commands in
this particular, that I may govern myself accordingly*.
There is no sign that his Grace removed the
stumbling-block .
The interest felt by Wake in the cause of reunion
was equally felt by his brother archbishop in the
northern province. John Sharp, the spiritual adviser
of Queen Anne, was a churchman belonging more
strictly to the restoration type than Wake. But he
was a warm friend of Tillotson's, and not illiberal in
his sentiments. Like Wake, he was in favour of
the Occasional Conformity bill, which aimed at pre
venting an unholy evasion of the Tests Act. In the
debates on that occasion he is reported to have said
that if he were abroad, he would vrillingly communicate
vrith the protestant churches where he should happen to be.
A French minister wished to print his words in a
collection of similar utterances,
in order to show what a fraternal tenderness was. . .
expressed. . . and by that raeans to lessen the prejudice which
foreign churches raay be under in relation to our opinion
of them and concern for them.
Sharp refused leave. His son and biographer
remarks :
* Lupton Archbishop Wake and the Project of Union, p. 97.

The Revolution and Since 349
No doubt can be made but his reason for this was the ill
use that would have been made of such a concession by our
dissenters at home ; and perhaps by some others too, who,
not considering the difference there is between the case of
the protestant churches abroad and our dissenting congrega
tions here in England, might argue loosely from it that he
could, in point of conscience, occasionally conform to the
presbyterian way of worship in our meeting-houses ^
But Sharp was allowed to attempt something
more than an act of personal communion with the
foreign churches. At the beginning of the i8th
century Frederick, King of Prussia, conceived a
desire to unite in one communion the Lutheran
communities of his kingdom and the Reformed, or
Calvinists, and at the same time to introduce a settled
liturgy, based on the English prayer-book. The chief
agent in the cause was Jablonski (often, but wrongly,
written Jablouski), the " first chaplain " of the king.
Jablonski was himself a bishop, — at that moment the
sole surviving bishop, — of the Unitas Fratrum, or
" Bohemian Brethren," now known as the Moravians.
He had been brought up to regard the English church
with horror, as a popish establishment ; but on
coming to England, and making acquaintance with
Sancroft, Compton, and Fell, entirely changed his
opinion. Jablonski entered into communications
with Archbishop Sharp : Tenison, who was then (in
171 1) Archbishop of Canterbury, was indisposed to
take active steps in the matter. The great hope was
to re-introduce a true episcopate into Germany. An
extremely interesting letter from Bonnet, the Prussian
* Life of Archbishop Sharp (ed. 1825), vol. i. pp. 377, 379.

350 The Revolution and Since
minister at the English court, to his sovereign, gives
his impressions of the way in which this rapproche
ment was regarded :
La premiere [consideration est], qu'on verrait id avec
plaisir une conf ormite des eglises prussiennes . . . avec ceUe
[he is speaking of liturgical matters] de I'eglise angUcane.
La seconde, que la conformite qu'on pent souhaiter par de^a
regardera moins un changement dans la liturgie et dans le
rituel, que dans le gouvemement eccl6siastique ; on est ici
pour I'episcopal, qu'on regarde du moins corame d'institution
apostolique. La plupart du clerge est ici dans la prevention
qu'il y a une succession non interrompue depuis les ap6tres
jusques k present ; et suivant cette supposition Us pretendent
qu'U n'y a point de bon gouvemement ecclesiastique que
celui ou il se rencontre des 6v^ques de cet ordre, ni de veritables
ministres de I'evangile que ceux qui ont ete ordines par des
evSques. Et si d'autres ne vont pas si loin iis font toujours
une grande difference entre les ministres qui ont regu
I'imposition des mains d'un evique ou d'un synode compose
des ministres ordinaires. Une troisieme consideration, c'est
qu'une conforraite de cette nature serait un triomphe pour
I'eglise angUcane dont elie tiendrait conte ; et que le clerge
uni avec la cour et les Touries font un corps puissant et
considerable. D'autre part les Whigs, les presbiteriens.. .
et d'autres nonconformistes ne se feliciteraient pas de cette
conformite, qui les desarme, qui donne prise centre eux, qui
affaiblirait leur parti. lis la regarderaient avec chagrin, et
la maison electorale de Bmnsvricft, qui conte bien plus sur
ces derniers que sur les premiers, craindrait que cette con
formite n'eut d'autres consequences *.
Unfortunately, Frederick, and Anne, and Sharp,
all died within a short time of the writing of Bonnet's
1 Life of Archbishop Sharp, vol. ii. pp. 175 foU. See Jablonski's
ovm exceUent comments on this letter on pp. 183 foU.

The Revolutioti and Since 351
letter. Frederick's successor had no S5anpathy with
the project : " if he valued anything, it was an
English loan, not an English liturgy^." Nothing
further came of the movement, unless in some
measure it influenced Bunsen a century later in
forming his scheme for the Jerusalem bishopric.
In the year 1707, the large-minded and scholarly
John Potter, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,
published his Discourse of Church Government, as a
contribution, so he says in the preface, " towards the
putting a stop to those Erastian and other licentious
principles, which are too rife, and have been too much
countenanced by some among us."
Potter shows that the church is a society, and not
" a mere voluntary society," which a believer may join
or not as he thinks best, but " a society of God's
appointment." Into it a man must seek admission
by baptism. To say that a man may repent of his
sins and keep God's commandments without being
thus admitted implies a manifest contradiction, this
being one of the chief commandments of God, that
all men be so admitted.
Neither is it less necessary to continue in the Christian
church, than it was to be first admitted into it. In mere
voluntary societies men are permitted to come in and to go
out again when they please. But here the coramand of God
for our continuance in the church is as full and express as for
our admission into it. The word of God must be heard, the
public worship frequented, the holy sacraraent of the Lord's
supper received ; and the Christian people are expressly
commanded to obey them who have the rule over them,
* Life of Archbishop Sharp, vol. ii. p. 237.

352 The Revolution and Since
and to submit themselves, and not to forsake the assembling
of theraselves together'-
This society is also an outward and visible society :
Public rulers were appointed to govern it, the faith was
to be publicly confessed, the public worship of God to be
frequented, and visible sacraments to be received by all the
merabers of it *.
The public rulers here referred to were the apostles.
Potter points out in an interesting way how they were
gradually advanced by three stages to the plenitude
of apostolic power. At their first appointment tasks
were assigned to them which are now assigned to
deacons. After this
they received authority to eomraemorate our Lord's sacrifice
on the cross, when he commanded them at his last
supper to do as he had done, that is, to bless the eleraents of
bread and wine in reraerabrance of him : which office has
constantly been performed in all ages of the church by the
presbyters^.
Then, when our Lord was going to leave the
world, he again enlarged their powers. He admitted
them to their office in the same manner as he was
admitted to his, by the unction of the Holy Spirit.
Their government was of the same nature as his.
" Some have been apt to describe them rather as kings
and princes of the Christian church than the ministers
of Christ." In a frank and modest manner Potter discusses
the state of the ministry under the government of the
apostles. His conclusion is
1 Potter's Theological Works (ed. 1753), vol. 11. p. 16.
2 Ihid. p. 25. 3 7jj-^_ p_ 25.

The Revolution atid Since 353
that in this age there were three distinct orders of min
isters in the church, namely, that of deacons, another of
presbyters, and over thera a superior order, in which were
not only the apostles, but also Timothy and Titus, who
governed the churches in which they resided*.
This organization was intended to continue :
It appears both from the original state of the church, and
frora its nature as a society, frora the divine institution of
church officers, frora the nature and design of their several
functions, from the sense and practice of the apostles and
first Christians, and lastly, from the express declaration and
promise of our Lord hiraself, that there is to be a constant
succession of officers in the church tUl the end of
the world*.
So Potter sums up the arguments of the preceding
pages, and then proceeds to show the " succession of
officers of the apostolical or supreme order, from the
time of the apostles down to Constantine." It would
be, he says, as impossible for an impartial man to
doubt this succession, as to doubt the succession of
Roman emperors from Julius Caesar^-
To confirra what has been said, let us enquire whether
in the age of Constantine or those next after him the govern
ment of the church by bishops was reckoned a late and human
institution, or of divine appointment, and derived from the
apostles. To begin with Athanasius, he teUs Dracontius,
who declined a bishopric to which he was elected, that,
" since the government of the church by bishops was
instituted by the apostles according to Christ's direction, by
refusing to be a bishop in that exigence of affairs he would
despise our Saviour, who ordained the episcopal office."
And he adds, " that if all others before him had been of his
¦ Potter's Theological Works, vol. n. p. no.
" Ihid. p. 127. ^ Ibid. p. 170.
M. 23

354 The Revolution and Since
mind, he could not have been made a Christian, and if
others after him should take up the same resolution, the
churches could not subsist." Where he manifestly declares,
that bishops were of our Lord's appointment, and essential
to the constitution of the church *-
Potter goes on to show that these views were
universally held among the fathers. Later in the
book he comes to the question of ordination :
Another power which belongs to the church is that of
ordaining rainisters. It has already been shown that there
raust always be rainisters of different orders in the church,
and that no raan can ordinarily exercise any ecclesiastical
office or function who is not lawfully caUed to it. It now
remains to be enquired, frora whora this call or coraraission
must be expected *-
In true theological fashion. Potter goes back for
" the original of this commission " to God the Father,
and his mission of our Lord into the world to mediate
between God and man. But this power is im
mediately conferred by the Holy Spirit. All ecclesi
astical authority, and the graces whereby men are
enabled to exercise this authority to the benefit of the
church, are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
But then it remains to be enquired, by whose ministry
the Spirit is conferred for this end, or in other terms, what
persons God has entmsted vrith authority to ordain rainisters
in the church. And if we may be allowed to reason from
the constitution and universal practice of civU societies, we
must conclude that the power of ordaining ministers belongs
to the bishops, who are the chief governors of the church 
And it is against reason that they who exercise any authority,
1 Potter's Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 170.
^ Ibid. p. 257.

The Revolutioti and Sitice 355
whether in the church or in the state, should derive their
authority from any but those in whom the supreme authority
is lodged *-
While he was on earth, our Lord reserved to
himself the power of ordaining ministers. After
wards the apostles did so.
In the same age this authority was exercised by others
whom the apostles had ordained to be chief governors of
churches. ... In the next ages ordinations were constantly
made by bishops. . . . Even among heretics, the power
of ordination was reserved to the bishops. In the next age
the sarae practice was constantly believed to have been
derived from the apostles. It was shown in the last chapter
frora a passage of St Chrysostom that he believed the first
bishops to have been ordained bj' the apostles . . . and that the
characteristical mark whereby their order is distinguished
from that of presbyters is the power of ordination : conse
quently this prerogative was reserved to them by those
persons who introduced the distinction of the two orders of
bishops and presbyters into the church, that is, by our Lord
and his apostles. For since the distinction of bishops and
presbyters has been proved to have been of divine appoint
ment, it necessarily follows that the power of ordination,
which is the chief mark of this distinction, was reserved to
the bishops by the same appointraent*.
After discussing Aerius and other phenomena of
the kind in early history, he sums up :
Thus it appears from the scriptures, the nature of the
episcopal office, and the sense and practice of the primitive
church that none but bishops have authority to ordain
ministers in the church*.
^ Potter's Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 259.
" Ibid. pp. 261-263. ' Ibid. p. 266. 23—2

356 The Revolution attd Since
Potter then discusses the scriptural passages
which presbyterians claimed for their side, especially
the famous i Tim. iv. 14 :
But it must be remembered, he says, that the gift which
is here affirraed to have been conferred on Tiraothy by the
hands of the presbytery, in another place is said to have been
given hira by the putting on of St Paul's hands : so that the
utmost which can be inferred from this passage is that
presbyters sometimes imposed their hands together with an
apostle or bishop ; but there is not the least colour to conclude
they always did so, or that ever they did it without a bishop*.
The last part of his treatment of ordination
questions is on the point
whether the character of holy orders be perpetual and
indelible, or only temporary, and like that of any civil office,
which may be conferred one day and taken away the next :
which is necessary to be resolved in this place, because we
cannot always be certain what persons have authority to
ordain, without knovring whether the episcopal character be
indelible or not *-
His handling of the question is grave and firm.
Though we had no particular direction frora scripture nor
the practice of the priraitive church, this question might
easily be resolved by considering the nature of holy orders,
in the susception of which two things are done. First, the
persons ordained are solemnly dedicated to the service of
God and his church. Consequently they cannot renounce
their order without sacrilege, which has always been reckoned
one of the blackest crimes  Secondly, they who are ordained
receive authority from God, in whose name the bishop puts
his hands upon them ; and authority conferred by God can
1 Potter's Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 270.
^ Ibid. p. 273.

The Revolution and Since 2>S7
be destroyed or resumed by none but God or one commis
sioned by him for that purpose. Consequently ... we might
safely conclude ... that [the character which he confers on
persons admitted into orders] is perpetual, such as cannot
be forfeited by any misbehaviour, nor taken away by any
authority but that which gave it*-
This Potter illustrates from the analogy of bap
tism. But, he pursues :
Another proof that the character of orders is perpetual
is that it extends over all the world. Whoever is a bishop,
presbyter, or deacon, in any one church, retains the same
character in aU other churches, as will hereafter be proved.
Now there is scarce any argument for limiting the character
of order to a particular time, which does not equally hold for
confining it to a certain place. For instance if the character
of a bishop depended on the wiU of ciny number of people
consenting to live under his ministry, as some have affirmed,
then it must expire when these people are pleased to with
draw their consent, which is the foundation of this character ;
and it can extend no farther than to the place where the
people thus consenting inhabit. Consequently, since every
bishop's character extends beyond his own diocese, in places
where no number of people have consented to own him for
their bishop, it is manifest that it does not depend on any
such consent, and therefore will remain though the people
who have once consented to own him for their bishop should
afterwards change their minds *-
Potter is obliged to consider the case of bishops
and others who were deposed, or went into schism.
He observes that Cyprian and the Donatists re-
baptized and reordained those who were baptized or
ordained in schismatical assemblies ; the Luciferians,
though they did not re-baptize, re-ordained.
^ Potter's Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 274. * Ibid. p. 275.

358 The Revolution and Since
But this opinion and practice was not grounded upon
this, that they thought priests lost their " character " when
they left the church ; but that they looked on all acts done
in a state of schism to be null and invalid, because not done
vrithin the church. And therefore, though they rebaptized
and reordained those who had received baptism and orders
in a state of schism, yet they never rebaptized or reordained
those who, having been baptized or ordained in the church,
turned schismatics and afterwards returned to the church.
Which is a manifest proof that even these men thought the
characters of baptism and orders to be indelible. However,
their rebaptization and reordination of schismatics were
universally condemned by the church *.
The year which gave birth to Potter's Discourse
(1707), saw also the appearance of the Defensio
Ecclesiae AngUcanae of William Nichols. The object
of it was the same as that of Cosin's Regni Angliae
Religio Catholica, to commend the Anglican position
to the continental churches. In a rather high-flown
dedication, Nichols addresses Queen Anne thus :
Age, prineeps optima, sapientiam Ulam tuam, qua in
rebus difficillimis raaxime poUes, iterum consule. Tu
rationera aliquam excogita, qua in ecclesiae gremium
reducantur omnes aberrantes ejus filii, quaque odia iUa,
quibus in nos mutuo tamdiu exacerbati fuiraus, tandem ita
penitus extinguantur, ut cum pontificiorum, communis nostri
hostis, vim ac astutiam in fovendis nostris dissidiis eludamus,
tum consentientis judicii mutuaeque benevolentiae vinculo
conjuncti omnes studio aemulo id unum agaraus, ut puriorem
nostram fidem virtutibus Christianis quam maxime exorne-
raus. Si hoc, prineeps gloriosissima, ea qua caeteras omnes
res maximasfaeUcitate perfeceris, tu tantum decus et honorem
ecclesiae nostrae conciliabis, ut tura bene sperari potuerit,
etiara exteras ecclesias reformatas non solum doctrinam (quod
' Potter's Theological Works, vol. 11. p. 281.

The Revolution and Since 359
nunc fere faciunt) sed disciplinam ejus et cultum amplexuras
esse, aut saltem (quod earum non paucae facere inceperunt)
ad ejus formam et imaginem se expressius composituras.
The thought was one which had great attractions
for the churchmen of the time, and under Wake and
Sharp, as we have seen, had some prospect of being
realized. The most interesting and valuable part of Nichols's
book is the Apparatus prefixed to it. This is a
brief but very able history of the church of England
from the reformation to the writer's own time. It
leads up to a project for home re-union. Repressions,
comprehensions, tolerations, having failed, Nichols
appeals to the foreign churches to judge between the
church and the dissenters. In order that they may
be enabled to do this, he sets before them in the body
of the book an account of the doctrine and system of
the English church. In the first part of it, he shows
that the English church is free from the errors of
those who were called the Remonstrants, — among
which errors he reckons that of considering ordina
tion unnecessary, and making the call of the congrega
tion the essential part of the Christian ministry.
This, he says, "nos penitus damnamus, ut scelestum
quoddam in ecclesia latrocinium, et exitiabilem
animarum pestem^."
The second part begins de Episcoporum Regimine.
He describes the invectives of the presbyterian party
against the sacred order of bishops, and makes
his short profession of the Anglican view :
1 Defensio Ecclesiae AngUcanae, p. 197.

360 The Revolution and Since
Sed sciant obtrectatores isti eum, quem ita improbant,
ordinem a Servatore ipso institutum fuisse ; ac cum apostolos
Christus ante ascensionem suam Spiritu Sancto afflaverit et
potestate ligandi et solvendi donaverit, tum primum episco
palem dignitatem illuxisse : apostolos ipsos in primariis
civitatibus a se conversis suas cathedras tenuisse ; alios
deinde in apostolicum aut, quod tunc idem erat, episcopale
coUegiuin alios cooptasse : nimirum cum latins diffunderetur
evangelium quam ut e cura paucorum prospiceretur. Haec
partim e sacra scriptura, partim ex antiquorum patrum
monimentis, tam certissirae constare contendimus, ut vix
ab aliquo citra modestiae dispendium possint pernegari*.
On the subject of orders, and who is to confer
them, Nichols does not enlarge. He only mentions
it incidentally, in the historical Apparatus. Perhaps
he felt it too delicate for his immediate purpose. But
in defending our cathedral establishments he says what
excellent accommodation they afforded for foreign
divines :
Nisi cathedralia haec suppeterent sacerdotia, non
haberemus apud nos quo doctos exteros beneficio aliquo
ecclesiastico augeremus. Isti enim in lingua nostra eloquenda
vix unquam tam faciles sunt et expediti ut iis parochiarum
cura et concionatorium munus peiTnittenda sint. Sed ad
has proraoti honeste vixemnt advenae plurimi, qui vel
nostrae ecclesiae amore vel sui regis saevitia ad banc insulam
appulerant. His dignitatibus insigniti apud nos rem-
publicam literariam ornarunt Saraviae, Casauboni, Molinaei,
et qui instar omniura est, cum suae tura nostrae gentis decus,
Petrus Alixius*.
In 1710, a young fellow of Jesus College, Cam
bridge, John Hughes, pubhshed an edition of the de
Sacerdotio of St Chrysostom. It contained several
* Defensio Ecclesiae AngUcanae, p. 220. " Ibid, p. 238.

The Revolutioti and Since 361
valuable dissertations, amongst which is one on the
subject of holy orders. The author died very soon
after the publication ; and Hickes, who deeply de
plored his loss, incorporated his dissertations in his
own works. They will be found in vol. iii. of Hickes's
Treatises in the Anglo-Catholic Library.
With regard to the absence of direct scriptural
proof for the institution of episcopacy Hughes re
marks :
There is a very great difference to be raade between a
church to be founded, and a church which is already regularly
founded and perfect in all its parts. It is foolish and absurd
to expect that the scriptures should particulSirly enuraerate
all the offices in the church, when the Christian church was
not yet come to full maturity. And for that reason the
testimonies of the second century, when the church was
now perfect and consummate, will be the safest judges in
this controversy. From all this we ipa}? gather that our
schismatics are guilty of the most senseless trifling, as often
as they importunately deraand that we should prove our
three orders (viz. of bishops, priests, and deacons) frora clear
and express words of holy scripture. It seems abundantly
sufficient for us and our cause, if we can prove (which we can
very easily) that the apostles comraitted the care and govern
ment of cities converted to the Christian faith to single
persons with a peculiar power of ordination, which could not
be adrainistered by those of the inferior orders. I assert
therefore against all innovators whatsoever, that the holy
scripture of the New Testaraent . . . does raost clearly and
fuUy prove that the apostles constituted bishops for the
perpetual governraent of the catholic church, with a peculiar
power of ordination.
Hughes shows in a very cogent manner that there
was nothing abnormal or " extraordinary " about the

362 The Revolution and Since
work assigned to Timothy and Titus, but that it was
just such as might be expected to continue for ever
in the church. To the interesting suggestion that
their appointment was a peculiarly Pauline arrange
ment he responds by showing how episcopacy is
traced to other apostles also, especially to St John.
It is objected that episcopacy, though " safe and
convenient enough, and not unacceptable to God,"
is not thereby proved to be of perpetual obligation.
To this objection, which is plausible indeed, as well as
coraraon, I answer :
First, granting that the episcopal forra of govemment
was founded by the apostles theraselves, and has been con
firmed by the whole catholic church by a continual succession
down to this very time, it seems frora hence to be very credible
that it was the intention of the apostles that this form of
government should remain for ever. That the episcopal
form is safe our- adversaries freely own, but no man living
vrill ever be able to prove that it is safe to alter this form.
In a matter of so great importance wise raen will always
follow that which is certain and has been confirmed by
primitive antiquity, and will most carefully avoid that
which is uncertain and inconsiderate, and which may possibly
prove to be against the intent of the apostolic institutions.
Secondly, the very same unquestionable evidences that
prove episcopacy to have been constituted by the apostles
do also prove that it was constituted vrith an intention of
obliging perpetually. That, if I am not mistaken, is abun
dantly manifest from St Ignatius, St Cyprian, and the rest
of the fathers, who often inculcate the necessity of episcopacy.
It will be sufficient to observe that the very definition of
the church given by the priraitive fathers did always compre
hend this form of government. St Ignatius says, " Without
these " (he speaks of bishops, priests, and deacons) " it is
not called a church." And St Cyprian, " They are the

The Revolution atid Since 363
church," says he, "the people united to the bishop, and the
flock adhering to its shepherd " ; and again, " That is no
church which has not bishops.". . .1 conclude therefore that
the apostles founded episcopacy with an intention that it
should oblige perpetually.
Hughes passes on to show that ordination belongs
only to bishops. He does not deny that presbyters
sometimes took part in the act :
I only mean that ordinations cannot be raade without a
bishop, and that aU ordinations by presbyters, and rauch
more by laics, are invalid and nuU . . .
We cannot allow the ordinations of presbyters ; we
cannot but reject them as rash, vain, and null  We are
forbid to deal more mildly in a matter of so much iraportance
by the sacred oracles, which seera to have coraraitted this
power of ordination only to the apostles and their successors.
We are forbid this by the constant opinion of the catholic
church, whose authority, next to that of the holy scriptures,
ever has been and ever must be regarded by us as of very
great weight.
All the erudition of former scholars was massed
together in Joseph Bingham. His Antiquities of the
Christian Church began to appear in 1708. The
greater part of the first volume of the edition of 1843
is occupied with questions relating to bishops. The
account of the several orders of the clergy in the
primitive church begins with the statement that there
were three orders and no more.
Here then it remains that our inquiry be made only into
the distinction betwixt the orders of bishop and presbyters.
And this, so far as concerns matter of fact and the practice
of the church. . . vrill be most fairly and fuUy resolved by
considering only these three things, i. That the ancient

364 The Revolution and Since
writers of the church always speak of these as distinct orders.
2. That they derive the original of bishops from divine
authority and apostolical constitution. 3. That they give
us particular accounts and catalogues of such bishops as
were first settled and consecrated in the new-founded
churches by the hands of the apostles*.
Bingham explains how he uses the word " order" :
I must premise one particular, to avoid aU ambiguity ;
that I take the word " order " in that sense as the ancients
use it, and not as many of the schoolmen do, who
for reasons of their own distinguish between order and
jurisdiction and make bishops and presbyters to be one and
the sarae order, only differing in power and jurisdiction.
This distinction was unknown to the ancients ; among
whom the words order, degree, office, power, and jurisdiction,
when they speak of the superiority of bishops above pres
byters, mean but one and the sarae thing, viz. the power
of the suprerae governors of the church, conferred upon
thera in their ordination, over presbyters, who are to do
nothing but in subordination to thera*.
He shows that bishops were always owned to be
superior to presbyters, and pursues :
If we proceed a little further into this inquiry, and examine
frora what original this appointraent came, whether from
ecclesiastical or apostolical institution, which is another
question concerning matter of fact that will in sorae measure
determine the right also, the same authors, vrith the unani
mous consent of all others, declare that it was no human
invention, but an original settleraent of the apostles them
selves, which they made by divine appointment. "The
order of bishops," says Tertullian, " when it is traced up to its
original, wiU be found to have St John for one of its authors*."
1 Antiquities (ed. 1843), vol. i. p. 51.
2 Ibid. p. 52. He gives many examples from St Jerome.
' Ibid. p. 56.

The Revolution and Sitice 365
An exact and authentic catalogue of these first
foundations, Bingham says, " would be a very useful
and entertaining thing " ; but it cannot now be
offered to the curiosity of the world. Yet he manages
to make out a good number ; which he finishes with
what Theodoret says of Epaphroditus, that as Timothy and
Titus were bishops of Ephesus and Crete under the name
of apostles, so Epaphroditus was bishop of Philippi under
the same title, which was then the common name of all that
were properly bishops*.
This somewhat dubious thesis Bingham proceeds
to develope on patristic authority, though he says
that " afterward bishops thought it honour enough
for them to be styled the apostles' successors."
I come now to consider the episcopal office and function
itself : where, to do justice to antiquity, it is necessary to
observe a threefold distinction between bishops and presbyters
in the discharge of ecclesiastical offices. For, ist, in the
coraraon offices, — such as preaching, baptizing, adrainister
ing the eucharist, etc., there was this obvious difference.. .
that the one acted by an absolute and independent power,
the other in dependence upon and subordination to his
bishop. . . .This is an observation not commonly made ; but
it is of very great use, both for establishing the just bounds
of episcopal and presbyterial power, and clearing the practice
of the primitive church. 2ndly, some offices were never
entrusted in the hands of presbyters ; nor aUowed, if per
forraed by them ; such as the ordination of bishops, pres
byters, etc. 3rdly, bishops always retained the power
of calling their presbyters to account*.
These points are taken up in order. Upon the
second, Bingham remarks that there were some
offices which properly belonged to bishops, but
1 Antiquities, vol. i. p. 65. * Ibid, p. 80.

366 The Revolution and Since
which presbyters were occasionally, in cases of great
necessity, commissioned to perform. He instances
the reconciling of penitents, consecration of churches,
even confirmation. But there was one office, which they never entmsted in
the hands of presbyters, nor ever gave them any commission
to perform, which was the office of ordaining the superior
clergy, bishops, presbyters, and deacons. The utmost that
presbyters coiUd pretend to in this matter wcis to lay on their
hands together with the bishop in the ordination of a pres
byter, whilst the bishop by his prayer performed the office
of consecration  St Jerome's testimony is irrefragable
evidence in this case ; for in the same place where he sets
off the office of presbyters to the best advantage, he stiU
excepts the power of ordination  St Chrysostom speaks
much after the same raanner, where he advances the power
of presbyters to the highest. ... I know some urge the authority
of St Jerome to prove that the presbyters of Alexandria
ordained their own bishop from the days of St Mark to the
time of Heraclas and Dionysius ; and others think the same
words prove that he had no new ordination at all. But
they both mistake St Jerome's meaning, who speaks not of
the ordination of the bishop, but of his election, who was
chosen by the presbyters out of their own body, and by them
placed upon the bishop's throne ; which in those days was
no raore than a token of his election, and was sometimes
done by the people ; but the ordination came after that,
and was always reserved for the provincial bishops to
perform *.
Bmgham was drawn, like Durel in the century
before him, to argue against the Enghsh nonconform
ists and separatists from the customs or admissions
of " the French church." 'ies, vol. I. pp. 85-87.

The Revolution and Since 367
The principal thing in which the church of France seems
to differ frora the church of England is in the point of church
governraent. They allow no pastor to have any priraacy or
superiority over another, but . . . declare them aU to be of
equal authority and power. But then they do not condemn
other churches which have this inequality araong their
ministers, nor do they refuse to coraraunicate with them,
nor to submit to episcopal government in those churches
where it is legally established*.
He quotes Peter du Moulin the elder to this
effect : I know that under pretence that the church of England
hath another forra of discipline than ours is, our adversaries
(the papists) charge us that our religion is divers. But
experience confuteth this accusation, for we assemble with
the Englishmen in their churches, we participate together
in the holy supper of our Lord ; the doctrine of their con
fession is wholly agreeable unto ours *.
Baxter, at any rate at this point, is the chief
object of Bingham's polemic :
He says, we determine that bishops, priests, and deacons
are three distinct orders, which yet is an undetermined
controversy among even the most learned papists. And
what foUows hence ? Why, that we daran and cut off men
for that which the very papists leave at liberty. I must here
take leave to say again that Mr Baxter was out in his argu
mentation. For our church does not damn or cut off all
that think that bishops, priests, and deacons are not three
distinct orders in the sense in which the papists take order
as distinct from jurisdiction : nor do all that deny them to
be three distinct orders in that sense call in question the
lawfulness of our bishops, priests, or deacons, or nullify our
^ The French Church's Apology for the Church of England, in
Works, vol. IX. p. 216.
^ Ihid, p. 217.

368 The Revolution and Since
forms of ordination. Many French writers think bishops
and priests to be the same order ; and yet they do not say
that our forras of ordination are repugnant to the word of
God or that those are no tme bishops or priests that are made
by them ; nor on the other hand does the church of England
damn or cut them off from her communion because they
believe bishops and presbyters to be the same order. Some
of our best episcopal divines and trae sons of the church of
England have said the sarae, distinguishing betwixt order and
jurisdiction, and made use of this doctrine to justify the
ordinations of the reformed churches against the Romanists.
So Mr Mason, Dr Forbes, Bishop Usher, and others, who yet
defend episcopal superiority and jurisdiction as of divine
appointment, at the sarae tirae that they say bishops and
presbyters are but one order*.
In his closing address to dissenters Bingham says :
Nor do I see what can be urged further in this case,
unless it be the business of re-ordination, which some reckon
so great a charge against the act of uniformity. . . . But what
harm there is in this, I confess I never yet could see, and
I ara sure there is nothing in it contrary to the principles
or practice of Geneva, nor perhaps of the whole French
church. For i. at Geneva it is their coramon practice,
whenever they remove a minister from one church to another,
to give hira a new and soleran ordination by imposition of
hands and prayer. This we learn from an epistle of the
pastors of Geneva to those of Beirne, which is araong Calvin's
epistles. . .where, speaking of one Caraperel, a minister of
Geneva, who was translated to a country parish, they say,
" He suffered himself to be ordained there by our brother
Calvin, etc. And we do not think that to be a chUdish
pageantry, when a minister is assigned to any church by a
soleran rite with public invocation of the narae of God."
Now if it be lawful by the mles of the church of Geneva for
a minister to receive a new solemn ordination, when he is
' Works, vol. IX. p. 232.

The Revolution and Since 369
translated from one church to another, why cannot men in
England consent to receive a new ordination, when the law
requires it, in order to settle themselves regularly in any
church ? especially when it is for the sake of peace and union,
and to take off all manner of doubtfulness and scruple from
the people. I dispute not now whether their former ordina
tions were valid : it is certain they are not more valid than
those of Geneva ; nor can they theraselves think thera more
vaUd than the ministers of Geneva think theirs. . . . Even
supposing their forraer ordination to be valid, I show they
may subrait to a new ordination without sin : and if they
will be peaceable, they ought to do it, after the example of
Geneva, rather than set up separate meetings, and preach
against the wiU of their superiors, to the disturbance of the
peace of the church*.
This was lowish ground to take ; but Bingham
ends with an interesting appeal to the French refugees
in England not to ally themselves with the dissenters,
but with the English church, whose constitution and
doctrine their own churches have approved :
And then, if ever it shall please God to restore them to
their ancient rights and privileges, they may retum trium
phant without blemish or reproach, having neither denied
their faith, nor deserted their principles, nor cancelled their
discipline, nor opened a way by bad exaraple for others in
like raanner to break in upon their establishraent and destroy
the union of their churches, which it has been the wisdom
1 Works, vol. IX. p. 297. In support of the Genevan custom here
mentioned, it inight be alleged that in the Greek church various
officers are appointed by imposition of hands and the same form
of words which is pronounced at the ordination of the priesthood.
Covel, Account of the present Greeh Church (ed. 1722), p. 201,
mentions "many of the patriarch's chief oflicers,'' "the proto
presbyter, the archdeacon, the abbot or prior of a monastery,
a deaconess," as aU appointed this way. Probably Calvin would
not have valued the support of this precedent very high.
M. 24

370 The Revolution and Since
of national synods vrith so great care to maintain and pre
serve. They raight then also return with episcopal dignity,
if they pleased, raore strictly united to us ; and that perhaps
might make way for a more general union of all Christians *-
A writer of a very different type was Fleetwood,
Bishop of St Asaph, and then of Ely. The opinion
which Bingham combated, but some of the chief non
jurors championed, that lay baptism is invalid, was
what drew Fleetwood to appear in print. He did so
in 1712, but he did so anonymously.
Although the church should not count the dissenting
ministers to be duly authorized and lawful ministers, yet
she need not of consequence look upon baptism administered
by them as nuU and void frora the beginning. This is
begging the thing in question, and not proving it. The
church may (though I do not take upon me to say she does,
but supposing she may) count all the other parts of the
ministration that are performed by dissenting ministers to
be null and void ; yet it would not necessarily follow that
she should therefore count their baptisms to be null and void.
. . . This was held to be no consequence by the ancient church
of Christ ; nor is it a consequence held by the church of
England*.
From 1603 to 1662, though without ecclesiastical
authority, the rubric in the prayer-book for private
baptism required that the act should be performed
by " the lawful minister."
Not one of them \i.e. the bishops whom King James I
consulted] could think a lawful minister was intended to
exclude all others frora being lawful ministers but such as
were episcopaUy ordained (that was not the doctrine of those
days), nor did one of them believe that baptism conferred
* Works, vol. IX. pp. 301 foU.
« Works (ed. 1737), p. 531.

The Revolution and Since 371
by an unepiscopal hand was nuU, invalid, and of no effect.
These doctrines were reserved for the days we live in, when
the divine right of episcopacy is carried to the highest pitch
that words can raise it, but the bishops themselves so used
as never bishops were since the days of the apostles. . . . For
this I also offer the foUovring article to be considered.
If the church of England by inserting the words " lawful
minister " meant thereby only one episcopally ordained,
then she raust contradict her own orders, and overthrow
her own doctrine and design, by adraitting and instituting
and inducting into parishes such persons as had not been
episcopaUy ordained. But this was certainly her practice
during the reigns of King James and King Charles I, and to
the year 1661. We had many ministers from Scotland,
from France, and the Low Countries, who were ordained
by presbyters only, and not bishops, and they were instituted
into benefices vrith cure, and accordingly baptized the
chUdren of their several parishes, and did aU other offices
of the ministry, and yet were never reordained, but only
subscribed the articles  How will the church of England
answer this ? I know not how she will answer this to these
new guides, and those who blindly follow them. But I
believe aU serious thinking people will imagine that the
church of England did not by lawful ministers intend only
such as were episcopaUy ordained, though principaUy such,
no doubt of it. She knew and acknowledged such as were
episcopally ordained to be lawful ministers in the best sense
and in all the senses those words can bear, and would most
heartily rejoice and give God thanks that there were no
other, and would do everything fit and proper for her to do
to bring that blessed work to pass. But by her practice,
by her allowance, and by her institutions to parish cures
of such as had not been episcopaUy ordained, it appears that
she did not exclude them from being lawful rainisters, nor
consequently disannul and raake void the baptisras they had
conferred ; which is the thing I ara contending for*.
1 Works, p. 552. See below. Appendix A. 24 — 2

372 The Revolution and Since
Fleetwood treats the dissenters separately :
For the dissenters, she never thought in the least of
making thera Christians, but of inviting them into union
and communion with the church. She exhorted and en
treated them to leave the separation ; and such as did so
she received into her arms with gentleness and love ; she
received them vrithout any renuntiation of their schism, or
formal detestation of their error or offence in leaving her ;
she trusted their sincerity of heart, and put them to no
confusion of face. She received their children to confirma
tion vrithout exception or distinction, just as she did the
children of such as had been baptized in her bosom and
never strayed from it. This was the temper of the bishops
then [in 1661] ... I for my own part have so good an opinion
of the learning, virtue, and religion of that set of bishops,
that I think they must and would have declared against
the validity of these antiepiscopal, unauthorised baptisms,
had they believed thera to be indeed null and invalid*.
He fully accepts what he considers to be the
new rule :
She calls no other [baptisra] lawful but that [conferred
by a duly ordained rainister] ; . . . but she does not therefore
account aU other baptism to be invalid, null, and of no
effect. She takes what care she can of her own children,
and would by all means keep thera in the ways of regularity
and order, but she does not thereby condemn all others that
walk not by her rules. She wiU have no raan accounted a
priest or deacon but who is or has been ordained by bishops ;
but this is in the church of England. They shall not exercise
the functions of either priest or deacon ; but this is in the
church of England. This excludes the presbyters of France,
Gerraany, Scotland, Holland, and of all other protestant
countries, from holding any benefices, dignities, or promo
tions, and from exercising the functions of presbyters, in
1 Works, p. 553.

The Revolution and Since 373
the church of England, unless they be or have been ordained
by bishops of the Latin or Greek or of our own church.
She would heretofore \i.e. even before 1661], in voto, in desire,
have had no other pastors and curates but such as were
episcopaUy ordained. She was in the right of it. That
was according to the ancient rule and practice. But she
did not condemn all others not so ordained, nor exclude
them frora exercising the functions of presbyters, even in
the church of England. The case is now somewhat altered.
She now excludes them all ; but she does not thereby
condemn them. She vrill have none of them baptize in
England ; but does she thereby disannul. . .the baptisms of
all those countries. , . ? If [a presbyter from thence] desire
to be a clergyman, and hold a benefice, or obtain a dignity,
in the church of England, he must indeed be ordained accord
ing to the English form, or by some episcopal hand elsewhere,
for that has been the law ever since 1661, and no one since
that tirae can be accounted a lawful rainister but such a
one.. . . [The church of England] raay raake what laws and
mles she thinks fit for those of her own communion . . . but
she cannot pretend to invalidate the orders and the ministra
tions of other people, with whora she has nothing to do.
Nor did she ever pretend to null any of their baptisms, which
is the thing I am solely concerned about. Has not my
lord of London, have not several other bishops, both here
tofore and lately, ordained several protestants from abroad,
and several of our own dissenting ministers at home ; have
they not, I say, ordained these people, without baptizing
them anew ? . . . I have heard of people's being baptized in
their blood. . . but I have never heard that the rites of
ordination did ever confer the sacrament of baptism*.
The controversy about lay-baptism involved no
less a theologian than Waterland. Cautious and
moderate-minded as he was, Waterland espoused the
view, opposed to that of Fleetwood, that lay-baptism
» Works, p. 555.

374 The Revolution and Since
was nuU and void. At one time he had thought
otherwise, but candidly and regretfully confesses
his change of opinion ; second thoughts, he says,
robbed him of a pleasing error. His opponent, Mr
Kelsall, urged that the ancient church accepted the
validity of heretical or schismatical baptisms. Water-
land's reply — he wrote in 1713 — is that
this proves nothing for lay baptism. Those heretical
and schismatical baptisms were not lay baptisms ; or if
they were, those very churches that aUowed them to be
valid would have annulled them. They were administered
by men of a sacerdotal character, and on that account were
reputed valid. It was thought that neither schism nor
heresy, nor any censures of the church, could deprive them
of the indelible character ; so that at any time, if they
retumed into the church, they were received in vrithout
being reordained. .. .The question in those times was not
whether lay baptisras were null, both sides supposing that
as an undoubted principle ; but whether heresy and schism
nulled orders and reduced heretical priests to mere la5anen*.
The objection was raised that this doctrine would
" unchurch the reformed churches abroad." Water-
land refuses to be terrified by consequences, but
answers :
This principle of the invalidity of lay baptism, which
several of them hold as well as we, does not unchurch them,
if their want of episcopal ordination doth not, which is a
distinct question. If their orders are good, their baptisms
are so too. If you deny them that, they will not thank you
for the other*.
In further defence of this position Waterland puts
forth the more dubious contention
* Works (ed. 1828), vol. x. p. 7. 2 Ibid. p. 8.

The Revolution and Since 375
that a man's want of valid baptism, if he is episcopally
ordained, does not void his ministerial performances. A
man may have orders and authority to make others what he
is not himself*.
His antagonist was an able and learned man, and
he had the better cause to defend. He will not let
Waterland off the consequences which he wished to
avoid. Lay-baptism had been allowed in the middle
ages, among the people from whom our own orders
and sacraments were inherited. Kelsall refuses to
admit the priesthood of the unbaptized priest.
Now to suppose such baptisms are altogether nuU and
void must needs have a ten-ible influence upon the state,
not only of the church of England, but of all the churches
of Europe. For if the baptism of such clerg5mien [as had been
baptized by unauthorized hands] was invaUd, so was their
ordination  Such men, acting as priests, could not baptize;
acting as bishops, could not ordain  The effect whereof
must needs be an endless propagation of nullities in respect
both of baptism and ordination. So that here is a dreadful
blow given to the episcopal succession through the whole
westem church*.
KelsaU could have understood this doctrine " from
a Cartwright, from an enemy of our church " ; but
he is corresponding with " true and zealous lovers of
the church of England particularly, as well as of the
catholic church in general."
If it be tme, he says, (what I think we are all agreed
upon) that the indefectibility of the church, promised by
her Lord and Spouse, cannot othei-wise subsist than with
the joint subsistence of the episcopal succession, then. . .they
who content themselves with this answer, give up. . .the very
being of the church of England, and of the catholic church too *.
1 Works, vol. X. p. 8. " Ihid. p. 14. ' Ihid. p. 15.

376 The Revolution and Since
He considers what Waterland had said about the
reformed churches :
What they will thank us for granting, I matter not, nor
does it concern the question. The church of England seems
to have determined their case, allovring their baptism to
be valid, their orders not. For she receives thera to lay
communion vrithout rebaptization, but not into her priest
hood without reordination. All my request concerning them
is that (after her example), seeing by comraand from our
ecclesiastical superiors we have often prayed for them [in
the bidding prayer] by the title of the reforraed churches,
we would aUow them as good a right to that appellation as
(in the defect of other administrations) a valid Christian
baptisra can confer upon thera. Which, though administered
by lay hands, Mr L[awrence] himself seems now and then
to admit in cases of extreme necessity, when not done in
defiance of the episcopal divine authority*.
At the end of his long letter, Kelsall sums it up
in a series of the principles on which he has gone.
I am firraly persuaded
I. That the Christian priesthood is only episcopal.
2. That it is of divine establishraent.
3. Consequently unalterable by any power upon
earth.
4. And shall continue to the end of the world.
5. That whosoever among us shall act as a priest,
who is not consecrated by episcopal hands to
that office is. . . a mere laic.
The rest of the principles do not concern our
particular purpose.
Waterland's second letter, in reply to this, en
deavours to clear the question :
^ Works, vol. X. p. 26.

The Revolutioti and Sitice 377
I never knew any controversy more entangled and con
fused than this has been by wandering from the merits of
the cause, and taking in raany things which belong not to it.
The question is.
Whether those that come to us from our dissenters,
having been pretendedly \i.e. professedlj^] baptized by raen
that never had episcopal orders, ought to be baptized by us
or no*.
Soon after, in classifying different forms of un
authorized baptisms, he gives as one such
When administered by a person not in coraraunion, nor
in case of necessity, but in conterapt of authority and in
schism ; being not only non-episcopal, but anti-episcopal, as
in the case of pretended baptisms by our lay-dissenters,
about which we are now disputing*.
By the term " our laj^-dissenters " Waterland, of
course, accepts the fifth principle laid down by
Kelsall : he does not mean to draw a distinction
between one dissenter and another^.
After examining the testimony of various fathers,
Waterland, in his turn, lays down certain principles,
by which the ancient church was governed. This is
the fourth :
Another general principle of the ancients was that lay
ordination was null and void. This need not be proved
directly. It is very certain that no pretended ordination
less than episcopal was ever admitted valid in the Christian
church ; and therefore certainly there could be no such
thing as lay ordination. And does not this principle equally
affect lay baptisra ? Why cannot laics ordain, but because
they have no commission or authority to do so*?
'^ Works, vol. X. p. 80. 2 Ibid. p. 8i.
' On p. 191 he expressly says that Mr Kelsall's first five principles
" are very good." * Works, vol. x. p. 159.

378 The Revolution and Since
For anj' corapany of laics to pretend to be a church, or
to act independently upon their bishops, would have been
thought as absurd and strange among the ancients, as if so
many women only had pretended to be successors to the
apostles, and to ordain, baptize, and teach, etc. Pretty
remarkable are the words of St Jerome . . . Ecclesia autem non
est, quae non habet sacerdotes *.
As for the foreign churches
allovring their baptisms and disaUovring their orders seems
only to be playing fast and loose, and giving in one hand to
take away vrith the other. The church of England, [KelsaU]
says, does so : if she does, I am sorry for it, and wish either
to see practice changed or defended. I am sorry that what
was condemned as an inconsistency in the Luciferians of old
should be thought the current doctrine of our church now.
As to rejecting the pretended ordinations of mere presbyters,
the practice is consistent with the doctrine of our church,
and conforraable to our twentj^-third canon *-
It is clear which way out of the " inconsistency "
Waterland would have taken, whatever the conse
quences might be.
Among the sermons of George Smalridge, pub
lished after his death, is one Of Obedience to our
Spiritual Guides and Governours. Smalridge, the
friend of Atterbury, became Bishop of Bristol in
1714. The sermon was probably preached some
years earlier. Smalridge maintains that the attacks
made upon episcopacy are really made in the interest
of the papists :
It hath been their endeavour to depress the just rights
of episcopacy, in order to advance the unjust pretences of
1 Works, vol. X. p. 160. 2 75j^ p_ jg^

The Revolution and Since 379
papacy. All other bishops have by thera been with great
industry degraded, that the one bishop of Rorae raight be
the higher extolled. When therefore we plead the cause
of episcopacy against fanaticisra, we do virtually plead the
cause of the reformation against popery*.
Smalridge does not stand alone in this assertion,
whether justified or not. His text is Heb. xiii. 17,
and he says :
That we maj^ according to the precept here given us,
pay all obedience and submission to those who have the mle
over us . . . that we may know who those are, who according to
the doctrine and institution of the apostles have the rule
over us ; that we may be convinced that this power of ruling
doth not belong to all pastors of the church in common, but
that some have, and ought to have, a superiority over the
rest, I shall beg leave to trace this authority frora Christ
and his apostles*.
This he then does.
No one can question, but when the apostles had with
God's assistance converted any nuraber of raen in any place
to the Christian faith, they did there found a church ; and
before they finally left it, they did furnish it with all that
power which they had themselves received of Christ in order
to convey it to others ; and consequently did empower some
persons or other to ordain successors in the ministry of the
church, with whom Christ, according to his promise, might
be present to the end of the world. The only question is,
whether the apostles. . .did corarait this power of governing
the church and of ordaining others to one certain person in
every church, or to several jointly, to vrit, according to the
modem way of speaking, whether to a bishop, or to a classis
of presbyters*. 1 Sixty Sermons (ed. 2), p. 103.
" Ihid. p. 104. ' Ibid. p. 105.

380 The Revolution and Since
It is unnecessary to follow Smalridge's argument,
sensible and ingenious as it is, in favour of the former
solution. That before the middle of the second century, to wit,
within forty years after the last of the apostles, single persons
did everywhere preside over other presbyters, which single
persons had the title and office of bishops . . . that their
powers were as great as those which we claim to belong to
our bishops now, is so irrefragably proved from the best and
raost ancient monuments of the church, that the most violent
opposers of episcopal authority have been forced to confess
it. And if we had no other arguments to prove the apostolical
institution of episcopacy, yet to aU unprejudiced persons
this one concession of its adversaries is a sufficient proof of
such an institution*.
The argument is admirably sustained, and leads
up to the conclusion :
We are throughly persuaded, that as in the Jewish
church the high priest was above the priests and levites;
as in the infancy of the Christian church Christ was above the
apostles and the seventy disciples ; as whilst the apostles
lived, they were above the other ecclesiastical officers ; so,
ever after their death, bishops by divine right have, and to
the end of the world ought to have, authority over priests
and deacons. For since the apostles in propagating and
establishing the church were divinely inspired ; since they
did nothing but what they were taught to do by Christ;
since Christ did nothing but what he was taught by the
Father ; since he himself was God, and what was done by
his, was done by divine authority ; it comes to the same
thing, whether we assert episcopacy to be of divine right or
apostolical institution *-
^ Sixty Sermons, p. 108. = Iind. p. 109.

The Revolution atid Since 381
The preacher meets certain objections, and ends
with an apology :
I am afraid that what has been said upon this subject
raay by sorae be thought too controversial, and of no great
use to the direction of our practice. For several are apt to
think that it is of no great moraent by whora the church of
Christ is governed  But when the government of our church
is by the adversaries of it accused to be disagreeable tothe
word of God, when such disagreement is urged as a reason
against communicating with us, it is very proper for us,
who think withdrawing from our coraraunion without just
cause a great sin, to show that the government of our church
is so far from being a good reason to divide from it, that on
the other side the want of such a government would be an
objection against us which we could not well know how to
answer. That there is no salvation out of an episcopal com
munion ; that those who causelessly separate theraselves
frora their bishops do at the same time separate themselves
from Christ ; that the prayers which they make, or the
prayers which are made for them, whilst they are in such a
state of separation, are vain and ineffectual ; that the word
which they hear, and the sacraments which they receive,
from persons unauthorized to preach the word and administer
the sacraments, convey no benefit to them, however other
wise well disposed ; are severe opinions, which, though
maintained by very learned and pious men, we should out
of mere pity be somewhat unvriUing to make our own. For
though perhaps one should not be able easily to confute
them, yet such are the harsh consequences of thera that I
should not care to embrace them. Sufficient it is for us that
in the communion of our church we are safe, whether sacra
ments administered by persons uncomraissioned are valid,
or not*-
The apostolic Bishop of Sodor and Man, Thomas
1 Sixty Sermons, p. 112.

382 The Revolutioti and Since
Wilson, who was consecrated in 1697, in his Sacra
Privata, gives the following
Marks of a tme pastor. — i. A lawful entrance, upon
raotives which aim at the glory of God and the good of souls.
— 2. An external call from the apostolical authority of
bishops *-
Of bishops he gives the following account :
A bishop is a pastor set over other pastors. They were to
ordain elders. They might receive an accusation against
an elder. . . . This was the form of church government in aU
ages. So that to reject this is to reject an ordinance of God*.
His life contains the account of an accusation
against two elders of his diocese, through whom, no
doubt, the bishop himself was attacked. Mr Ross,
one of the two, was delated to him in 1718 by the
govemor, the bishop's bitter enemy, as advancing
opinions savouring of popery. It came to this — " in
answer to a question, I called the baptism of a popish
priest valid, and that of a presbyterian minister
invalid." In the written statement which he put in,
Ross defended himself with vigour :
First, that the church of England allows the orders of the
church of Rome to be valid, and looks upon the presbyterian
ordinations invalid, and their teachers to be mere laymen.
Secondly, that she utterly denies the validity of baptism by
lay hands, and that the church of Rome allows and approves it.
He apologizes for going into the matter at length :
Were I only to give your lordship satisfaction, the naming
these things were a sufficient vindication. It would be also
needless to bring arguments to prove these particulars to
satisfy you, my brethren of the clergy, who are so weU
' Works (i860), vol. v. p. 59. " Ibid. p. 6i.

The Revolution and Since 383
acquainted with the doctrine of the church, and not strangers
to the controversies that are betvrixt her and those that
separate from her, especiaUy papists and presbyterians, the
two grand enemies of our constitution.
For the sake of others, he explains the case :
If the ordinations of the church of Rome are not vaUd,
the church of England has no orders ; we pretend to no other
but what we received frora them, and therefore when any of
the Romish clergy corae over to our church, they are
obliged publicly to renounce their errors, but they receive no
new orders. On the other hand, when a presbyterian or
any other dissenting teacher relinquishes his schisra and
comes over to the church, he is never adraitted to perform
any ministerial act until he is ordained : — which is not to
qualify him or put him in a capacity to receive a benefice,
and publicly to exercise his ministry by the laws of the land,
as the presbyterian teachers would have their foUowers
believe (in this sense it would be reordination, to which the
church is a stranger) . No ; it is because there is no ordina
tion but what is episcopal ; for it were criminal and sinful
in a bishop to confer orders upon one, if he thought he already
had power and commission from Christ to perform aU these
rainisterial acts, which he in Christ's name authorizes him
to perform by his imposition of hands. This were a jesting
with, nay, profaning the most sacred things.
The writer was not unaware that his views were
not universally held in the church of England :
And whatever the presbyterians may aUege for the
validity of their orders from the testiraony of particular
divines of our church, however high their station is in the
church, it amounts to no more but a private opinion. It is
not the opinion of the church of England ; for she plainly
tells us in one of her laws (to vrit, the preface to her book
of ordination) that none shall be suffered to execute any of
the functions . . . except he hath had formerly episcopal

384 The Revolution and Since
consecration or ordination ; and by her appealing, in this
preface, to the holy scriptures and antiquity, she shows us
that it is her true sense that none can execute any of the
functions of the ministry but such as are episcopally
ordained : so that she looks upon the dissenting teachers to
be mere laymen, because they want episcopal ordination*.
Ross was acquitted. His acquittal, as Keble
says, does not commit Wilson and his court to aU
Ross's pleadings. But Wilson at any rate thought
the teaching not disloyal to the English church. Any
other decision would have ejected a Waterland.
We come now to what would be a classic piece of
literature, even if it were not a great religious monu
ment, namely William Law's Three Letters to the
Bishop of Bangor. It was in 1716, the year after his
consecration, that Hoadly published his Preservative
against the Principles and Practices of the Nonjurors.
The great leading idea of it is that sincerity is the
only thing that matters. Positive institutions of
religion, definite forms of doctrine, are of little or no
value. Law's first and second letters came out in
1717, the third two years later.
The next thing that according to your lordship " we
ought not to be concerned at, is vain words of regular and
uninterrupted successions, as niceties, trifles, and dreams."
Thus much surely is implied in these words, that no kind
of ordination or mission of the clergy is of any consequence
or raoment to us. For if the ordination need not be regular,
or derived from those who had authority frora Christ to
ordain, it is plain that no particular kind of ordination can
be of any more value than another. For no ordination
whatever can have any worse defects than as being irregular,
' Life (by Keble) prefixed to Works, pp. 379 foil.

The Revolution attd Since 385
and not derived by a succession from Christ. So that if
these circumstances are to be looked on as trifles and dreams,
all the difference that can be supposed betwixt any ordinations
comes under the same notion of trifles and dreams, and
consequently are either good alike or trifling alike. So that
Quakers, Independents, Presbyterians, according to your
lordship, have as much reason to think their teachers as useful
to them and as true ministers of Christ, as those of the
episcopal communion have to think their teachers*.
To say this is to desert the church of England :
If episcopal ordination, derived from Christ, has been
contended for by the church of England, your lordship has
in this point deserted her : and you not only give up episcopal
ordination by ridiculing a succession, but likewise by the
same argument exclude any ministers on earth frora having
Christ's authority. For if there be not a succession of
persons authorized frora Christ to send others to act in his
name, then both episcopal and presbyterian teachers are
equally usurpers, and as mere layraen as any at all. For
there cannot be any other difference between the clergy and
laity but as the one has authority derived frora Christ to
perforra offices, which the other has not. But this authority
cannot be otherwise had than by an uninterrupted succession
of raen frora Christ, empowered to qualify others. For if
the succession be once broken, people must either go into
the ministry of their own accord, or be sent by such as have
no more power to send others than to go themselves*.
It is impossible for unauthorized persons to make
a priest :
My lord, it is a plain and obvious truth, that no man or
number of raen, considered as such, can any raore raake a
priest, or coramission a person to officiate in Christ's name
as such, than he can enlarge the means of grace, or add a
new sacrament for the conveyance of spiritual advantages.
The ministers of Christ are as much positive ordinances as
1 Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 55 foil. " Ibid. p. 56.
M. 25

386 The Revolution and Since
the sacraments ; and we might as well think that sacraments
not instituted by him might be means of grace, as those pass
for his ministers who have no authority from him. ... To make
a jest therefore of the uninterrupted succession is to make a
jest of ordination, to destroy the sacred character, and make
aU pretenders to it as good as those that are sent by Christ *.
This is a strange way to promote unity among
believers :
The next thing we are not to be afraid of are " the vain
words of nuUity and validity of God's ordinances," — i.e.
whether they are administered by a clergyman or a layman 
Your lordship tells Dr Snape that you " know no confusion
. . . that you have endeavoured to introduce " into the church.
My lord, if I raay presume to repeat your own words, lay
your hand on your heart and ask yourself whether the
encouraging all raanner of divisions be not endeavouring to
introduce confusion. If there were in England five thousand
different sects, has not your lordship persuaded them to be
content with themselves, not to value what they are told by
other coraraunions ; that if they are but sincere, they need
not have regard to anything else ? Is not this to introduce
confusion ? What is confusion, but difference and division ?
And does not your lordship plainly declare to the world
that there is no need of uniting : that there is no particular
way or method that can recoramend us more to the favour
of God than another ? Has your lordship so much as given
the least hint that it is better to be in the communion of the
church of England than not ? Have you not exposed her
sacraments and clergy, and, as much as lay in you, broke
down everything in her that distinguishes her from fanatical
conventicles ? What is there in her as a church that you have
left untouched ? What have you left in her that can any way
invite others into her communion ? Are her clergy authorized
more than others ? For fear that should be thought, you make
a regular succession from Christ a trifle. Are her sacraments
^ Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 57 foil.

The Revolution and Since 387
more regularly administered ? Lest that should recommend
her, you slight the ntUlity or validity of God's ordinances.
Is there any authority in her laws which enjoin communion
vrith her ? Lest this should be believed, you tell us that
our being or continuing in any particular method or par
ticular communion cannot recommend us more to the favour
of God than another*.
The bishop had spoken of " the trifies and niceties
of authoritative benedictions " and the like, and said
that " to expect the grace of God from any hands
but his own is to affront him." If he did not feel the
sharpness of Law's reply, he was insensible indeed.
Law speaks to him first, in the second letter, about
the confirmations which it was his duty to administer.
Then he goes on :
I come now, ray lord, to another sacred and divine
institution of Christ's church, which stands exposed and
conderaned by your lordship's doctrine ; and that is the
ordination of the Christian clergy ; where by means of a
huraan benediction and the iraposition of the bishop's hands
the Holy Ghost is supposed to be conferred on persons
towards consecrating thera for the work of the rainistry*.
Law shows this to be the teaching of scripture,
and proceeds :
And now, my lord, if human benedictions be such idle
dreams and trifles ; if it be affronting to God to expect his
grace from them or through human hands, do we not plainly
want new scriptures ? Must we not give up the apostles as
furious high-church prelates, who aspired to presumptuous
clairas, and talked of conferring the graces of God by their
own hands ? Was not this doctrine as strange and unac
countable then as at present ? Was it not as inconsistent
with the attributes and sovereignty of God at that time, to
1 Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 59 foU. ^ Ihid, p. 85.
25—2

388 The Revolution and Since
have his graces pass through other hands than his own,
as in any succeeding age ? Nay, my lord, where shall we
find any fathers or councils in the primitive church, but
who owned and asserted these powers ? They that were
so ready to part with their lives rather than do the least
dishonour to God or the Christian name yet were all guilty
of this horrid blasphemy in imagining that they were to bless
in God's name, and that by the benediction and lajring on of
the bishop's hands the graces of the Holy Ghost could be
conferred on any persons *-
Law recites the Anglican form of ordaining priests:
From this form, he says, it is plain, firstly, that our church
holds that the reception of the Holy Ghost is necessary to
constitute a person a Christian priest : secondlj^ that the
Holy Ghost is conferred through human hands : thirdly that
it is by the hands of a bishop that the Holy Ghost is conferred.
If therefore your lordship is right in your doctrine, the
church of England is evidently most corrupt. For if it be
dishonourable and affronting to God to expect his grace from
any human hands, it must of necessity be dishonourable and
affronting to him for a bishop to pretend to confer it by his
hands. And can that church be any ways defended that
has established such an iniquity by law, and made the form
of it so necessary ? How can your lordship answer it to
your laity, for taking the character or power of a bishop
from such a form of words ? You tell them, it is affronting
to God to expect his grace from human hands ; yet to qualify
yourself for a bishopric you let huraan hands be laid on you
after a raanner which directly supposes you thereby receive
the Holy Ghost. Is it wicked in thera to expect it from
human hands, and is it less so in your lordship to pretend to
receive it frora huraan hands ? . . . Certainly, he cannot be said
to be very jealous of the honour of God, who vrill submit
himself to be made a bishop by a form of words derogatory,
upon his own principles, to God's honour . . .
1 Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 85 foil.

The Revolution and Since 389
It may also well be wondered, how your lordship can ac
cept of a character which is or ought to be chiefly distinguished
by the exercise of that power whicii you disclaim, as in the
offices of confirraation and ordination. For, ray lord, where
can be the sincerity of saying, " Receive the Holy Ghost by
the imposition of our hands," when you declare it affronting
to God to expect it from any hands but his own ?. . . I think it is
undeniably plain that you have at once, my lord, by these
doctrines condemned the scriptures, the apostles, their
martyred successors, the church of England, and your own
conduct, and have hereby given us sorae reason (though I
wish there were no occasion to mention it) to suspect whether
you, who allow of no other church but what is founded in
sincerity, are yourself really a member of any church*.
AU sacerdotal power. Law affirms, is derived from
the Holy Ghost. Our Saviour himself received con
secration frbm him before beginning his ministry.
He conferred the Holy Ghost upon his apostles for
theirs. From this it is also manifest that the priesthood is a
grace of the Holy Ghost ; that it is not a function founded
in the natural or civil rights of mankind, but is derived from
the special authority of the Holy Ghost, and is as truly a
positive institution as the sacraraents. So that they who
have no authority to alter the old sacraments and substitute
new ones, have no power to alter the old order of the clergy,
or introduce any other order of them. . .
From this it likewise appears that there is an absolute
necessity of a strict succession of authorized ordainers from
the apostolical times in order to constitute a Christian priest.
For since a comraission from the Holy Ghost is necessary for
the exercise of this office, no one can now receive it but from
those who have derived their authority in a tme succession
frora the apostles. We could not, my lord, call our present
1 Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 86-88.

390 The Revolution and Since
bibles the word of God, unless we knew the copies from which
they are taken were taken from other true ones, tiU we come
to the originals themselves. No more could we call any trae
ministers, or authorized by the Holy Ghost, who have not
received their coramission by an uninterrupted succession of
lawdul ordainers*.
This comparison is then further elaborated, and
we read :
The clergy have their comraission from the Holy Ghost ;
the power of conferring this commission of the Holy Ghost
was left with the apostles : therefore the present clergy
cannot have the same commission or call, but frora an order
of men who have successively conveyed this power from the
apostles to the present time. So that, my lord, I shaU beg
leave to lay it down as a plain, undeniable. Christian trath,
that the order of the clergy is an order of as necessary
obligation as the sacraments, and as unalterable as the holy
scriptures ; the same Holy Ghost being as truly the author
and founder of the priesthood as the institutor of the sacra
raents or the inspirer of those divine oracles. And when
your lordship shall offer any fresh arguraents to prove that
no particular sort of clergy is necessciry ; that the benedic
tions and adrainistrations of the present clergy of our most
exceUent church are trifling niceties ; if I cannot show that
the same arguraents will conclude against the authority of
the sacraraents and the scriptures, I faithfully promise your
lordship to become a convert to your doctrine.
What your lordship charges upon your adversaries as an
absurd doctrine, in pretending the necessity of one regular,
successive, and particular order of the clergy, is a tme Chris
tian doctrine, and as certain from scripture as that we are to
keep to the institution of particular sacraments, or not to
alter those particular scriptures which now compose the
canon of the Old and New Testament*.
1 Westminster Library Reprint, p. 102.
^ Ibid. pp. 104 foil.

The Revolution and Since 391
In a scathing passage Law disposes of Hoadly's
position as a champion of the layman :
Your lordship sets up in this controversy for an advocate
for the laity against the arrogant pretences and false claims
of the clergy. My lord, we are no more contending for our
selves in this doctrine than when we insist upon any article
in the creed. Neither is it any raore our particular cause
when we assert our raission, than when, we assert the necessity
of the sacraments. Who is to receive the benefit of that
commission which we assert, but they ? Who is to suffer
if we pretend a false one, but ourselves ? Sad injury indeed
offered to the laity I That we should affect to be thought
ministers of God for their sakes ! If we really are so, they
are to receive the benefit ; if not, we are to bear the punish
ment. But your lordship comes too late in this glorious under
taking, to receive the reputation of it ; the work has been
already, in the opinion of most people, better done to your
lordship's hands. The famous author of the Rights of the
Christian Church'^ has carried this Christian liberty to as
great heights as your lordship. And though you have not
one notion I can recollect, that has given offence to the world,
but what seems taken from that pernicious book, yet your
lordship is not so just as ever once to cite or mention the
author ; who, if your lordship's doctrine be tme, deserves
to have a statue erected to his honour, and receive every
mark of esteem which is due to the greatest reformer of
religion * . ...
Suppose, my lord, some laymen upon a pretence of your
lordship's absence or any other* should go into the diocese
of Bangor, and there pretend to ordain clergyraen, could your
lordship quote one text of scripture against hira ? Could
you allege any law of Christ or his apostles that he had
broken ? Could you prove him guilty of any sin ? No,
1 Tindal. ^ Westminster Library Reprint, p. 107.
' Hoadly scarcely set foot in the diocese of Bangor.

392 The Revolution and Since
my lord, you would not do that, because this would be ac
knowledging such a thing as a sinful ordination ; and if there
be sinful ordinations, then there must be some law concerning
ordinations ; for sin is the transgression of the law ; and
if there be a law concerning ordinations, then we inust keep
to the clergy lawfully ordained, and must confess, after all
your lordship has said, or can say, that still some communions
are safer than others *-
In a postscript to this letter Law goes further
into the doctrine of the uninterrupted succession
of the clergy.
I have, as I think, proved that there is a divine commis
sion required to qualify anyone to exercise the priestly
office, and that seeing this divine commission can only be
had from such particular persons as God has appointed to
give it, therefore it is necessary that there should be a con
tinual succession of such persons, in order to keep up a
commissioned order of the clergy. For if the comraission
itself be to descend through ages, and distinguish the clergy
from the laity, it is certain the persons who alone can give
this comraission raust descend through the same ages ; and
consequently an uninterrupted succession is as necessary as
that the clergy have a divine coramission. Take away this
siiccession, and the clergy may as well be ordained by one
person as another ; a number of woraen raay as weU give
them a divine commission as a congregation of any men.
They may indeed appoint persons to officiate in holy orders
for the sake of decency and order, but then there is no more
in it than an external decency and order ; they ate no more
the priests of God than those that pretended to make them
so*
Hoadly said that there was no mention in scripture
of an uninterrupted succession of clergy as having
any relation to the being of a church. Law replies
' Westminster Library Reprint, p. no. * Ibid. p. 149.

The Revolution and Since 393
that there are other true things which are not
expressly mentioned in scripture- — for instance that
the sacraments were to be used for all time :
If it be a good argument against the necessity of episcopal
ordainers that it is never said in scripture that there shall
always be such ordainers, it is certainly as conclusive against
the use of the sacraments in every age, that it is nowhere
said in scripture they shall be used in all ages. If no govern
ment or order of the clergy be to be held as necessary,
because no such necessity is asserted in scripture, it is
certain this concludes as strongly against government and
the order itself, as against any particular order. For it is no
more said in scripture that there shall be an order of clergy
than that there shall be any pa,rticular order. . . . Should there
fore any of your lordship's friends have so much church zeal
as to contend for the necessity of some order, though of no
particfilar order, he raust fall under your lordship's displeasure,
and be proved as raere a dreamer and trifler as those who
assert the necessity of episcopal ordination*. . .
For, my lord, though it be not expressly said that there
shall always be a succession of episcopal clergy, yet it is a
tmth founded in scripture itself, and asserted by the uni
versal voice of tradition in the first and succeeding ages of
the church. . . . Thus Tiraothy was sent to ordain elders,
because none below his order, who was a bishop, could
perforra that office. . . . And do not the same scriptures raake
it as necessary that Timothy's successor be the only ordainer,
as well as he was in his tirae ? Will not priests in the next
age be as destitute of the power of ordaining as when Tiraothy
was alive ? So that since the scriptures teach that Timothy,
or persons of his order, could alone ordain in that age, they
as plainly teach that the successors of that order can alone
ordain in any age, and consequently the scriptures plainly
teach a necessity of an episcopal succession*.
^ Westminster Library Reprint, p. 152.
2 Ibid. pp. 153-155-

394 The Revolution and Since
The great objection. Law says, is " that this
episcopal order of the clergy is only an apostohcal
practice," and that apostolical practice is not always
binding. He replies :
It is not tme that the divine unalterable right of episco
pacy is founded merely upon apostolical practice. We do
not say that episcopacy cannot be changed merely because
we have apostolical practice for it, but because such is the
nature of the Christian priesthood that it can only be con
tinued in that method which God has appointed for its
continuance. . . . The apostolical practice indeed shows that
episcopacy is the order that is appointed, but it is the nature
of the priesthood that assures us that it is the unalterable 
The argument proceeds thus : The Christian priesthood is a
divine positive institution, which as it could only begin by
the divine appointment, so it can only descend to after ages
in such a method as God has been pleased to appoint. The
apostles . . . instituted episcopacy alone ; therefore this method
of episcopacy is unalterable, not because an apostolical
practice cannot be laid aside, but because the priesthood can
only descend to after ages in such a method as is of divine
appointment *.
Hoadly poured scorn upon the doctrine, because
there was so much uncertainty about the mainten
ance of the succession that " we can never say that
we are in the church." Law answers that there is
sufficient historical evidence to satisfy us :
And though your lordship has told the world so much
of the improbability, nonsense, and absurdity of this succes
sion, yet I promise your lordship an answer, whenever you
shall think fit to show when, or how, or where this succession
broke, or seemed to break, or was likely to break *.
1 Westminster Library Reprint, pp. 159 foil.
* Ihid. p. 162.

The Revolution and Since 395
The doctrine itself is sufficient guarantee for the
fact : I shall content myself with offering this reason to your
lordship, why it is morally impossible it ever should have
broken in all that term of years from the apostles to the
present times. The reason is this : it has been a received
doctrine in every age of the church, that no ordination was
valid but that of bishops. This doctrine, my lord, has been
a constant guard upon the episcopal succession ; for seeing
it was universally believed that bishops alone could ordain,
it was morally impossible that any persons could be received
as bishops, who had not been so ordained.
Now is it not morally impossible that in our church any
one should be made a bishop without episcopal ordina
tion ? Is there any possibility of forging [episcopal] orders,
or stealing a bishopric by any other stratagem ? No, it is
morally impossible, because it is an acknowledged doctrine
amongst us that a bishop can only be ordained by bishops.
Now as this doctrine raust necessarily prevent any one being
a bishop without episcopal ordination in our age, so it raust
have the same effect in every other age as well as ours ; and
consequently it is as reasonable to believe that the succession
of bishops was not broken in any age since the apostles, as
that it was not broken in our own kingdom within these forty
years*.
Opinions may differ with regard to the force of
some of Law's arguments ; but there can be no
question that the belief which he sought to uphold
by them was the belief of the church of England, and
that he, not Hoadly, was the true representative of
Anglican conviction.
Two general treatises on Christian divinity pub
lished about the same time may be mentioned here.
1 Westminster Library Reprint, p. 162.

396 The Revolution and Since
Though of no very great value in themselves, they
represent fairly the orthodox opinion of the period.
The earlier of the two is the Theologia Speculativa
of Richard Fiddes, the biographer of Wolsey. It
was published in 1718. In treating of the article of
the holy catholic church, Fiddes, who acknowledges
his obligation to his very good and ingenious friend,
Mr Law, observes :
That the church is a distinct society, not only exclusive
of unbelievers, but of certain persons professing Christianity,
is evident from the sacraraent pre-required to their admission
into it*
This society is a regular society, in which different
functions are assigned to different officers :
The great question is, whether that order of persons,
who are now called bishops, be such as supposes they have
the supreme power of jurisdiction in the church, and particu
larly the power of ordaining the clergy, from the apostles 
Nothing is more certain from scripture than that some
particular persons only could ordain. This vrill no more
admit of dispute, than whether Timothy was sent to Ephesus,
or what was the reason of his going thither ; which was,
to ordain elders. . . . [Thus] it is plain. . . that none can ordain
but such as succeed Timothy, or some of his order, in the
same comraission*.
The presbyterians, theoretically, maintain the
same doctrine, though they differ from Anglicans as
to the meaning of the episcopate.
If they know anything of their own principles, [they] are
under an equal obligation with us in general to assert the
divine right of the episcopate, in what hands soever it be
lodged. The satisfactory way ... is to enquire what historical
1 Fiddes, vol. i. p. 567. * Ibid. p. 573.

The Revolution and Since 397
authentic evidence we have concerning the distinction of
the episcopal order, as we assert it, in opposition to that of
presbyters, as asserted by those dissenters, who have been
formerly (upon whatever views they are now silent in the
controversy) some of the raost strenuous asserters of a divine
right of succession in the clergy, and of the powers peculiar
to them*.
From the evidence of Irenaeus, especially, Fiddes
concludes :
that . . . there were particular bishops, so far superior to
the order of presbyters in the church, that they alone were
reputed the successors of the apostles, and were invested
in certain respects with the same ecclesiastical powers in
their age that the apostles theraselves were originally in
vested with. So that if ordinations to the sacred office
had been unlawful or invalid, either without the authority
of the apostles or in opposition to it, they raust be equally
unlawful or invalid when they, are perforraed either without
or against the authority of their successors. . . . For nothing
can properly be meant by a successor of the apostles, but
one who succeeds them in certain apostolical powers. . . . [The
ancient writers] all unaniraously agree in this conclusion,
that bishops are an order superior to presbyters, to whora
the supreme power of jurisdiction belonged, and who had
the sole power of ordaining others, and that they did accord
ingly in fact succeed in the episcopate, and alone exercise that
power*.
Fiddes asserts the unbroken succession in our
own church :
As to those who do not derive their ordinations in the
same authentic manner, they are here out of the question,
and when they are called upon to give an account, by what
authority they exercise the sacerdotal powers, or who gave
them that authority, must be left to answer for themselves
1 Fiddes, vol. i. p. 574. =" Ibid. pp. 575 foU.

398 The Revolution and Since
as weU as they can. We only contend for the necessity
of a successive imposition of episcopal hands, wherever the
sacerdotal office can be either validly or regularly exercised.
It is sufficient to our vindication, that it is so transmitted
and exercised in the established church of this kingdom, and
that we have good grounds to believe, from the very reason
upon which the episcopate was originally instituted, that
Christ would continue a succession of it to the end of the
world uninterrupted*.
In the sequel to this work, which is called Theo
logia Practica, Fiddes returns to the subject " of the
proper officers in the church of Christ." He says :
If we consult the sacred records we shall not find an
instance, where any person was invested with this peculiar
character, but by the apostles or persons commissioned by
thera. There are no footsteps of the people's ordaining to
the work of the ministry, or of their claiming any such power.
. . .The succession in each of the three orders was always
derived from episcopal hands ; and as bishops only had a
power to ordain, no ordination by other hands could be, or
ever was, admitted as having any force or validity*.
Fiddes again touches on the non-episcopal
churches :
Whether the necessity pleaded for at the reformation
for abolishing the episcopal order was real or only pretended,
or however God in cases of necessity may excuse honest
and well-meaning persons in the breach of his own con
stitutions, yet neither in the reason of the thing, nor from
any facts recorded in the holy scriptures, can it be proved that
facts done by a raere human or other incompetent authority
towards conveying any divine powers can be in theraselves
of the least force or validity. . . . No such plea [at any
rate] can be adraitted, or any such favourable allowances
1 Fiddes, vol. i. p. 577. = Vol. 11. p. 212.

The Revolution and Since 399
made, to unauthorized ordinations where such necessity is
not so much as pretended*.
The other Body of Divinity referred to was that
of Thomas Stackhouse, first printed in 1729, and
several times reprinted. Stackhouse has a chapter
on Christ's commission to his apostles
which deserves a particiUar consideration, because on it
depends all that power and authority. . .which the apostles
themselves, and after them their successors, claimed and
executed in the Christian church*.
One of the senses to which the commission may
very properly be extended is
As my Father sent me to appoint you my successors, to
carry on the work of the gospel when I am gone ; so I send
you to ordain your successors, that there may not be wanting
fit and proper ministers in the church upon your demise*-
Stackhouse, a much clearer writer than Fiddes,
shows from the apostles' practice and precepts that
ministers were always a distinct body of men, and that
there were from the first three orders of them. He
relies here largely upon the guidance of Comber and
of Potter, and upon the argumentative part of
Smalridge's sermon above-mentioned.
The farther we go, he says, the clearer the evidence both
of the succession and preeminence of bishops appears*.
The result is that after the apostles' death
Bishops have by divine appointment, not [by] any
voluntary dedition, and to the end of the world ought to
have, a power and authority over priests and deacons^.
1 Fiddes, vol. ii. p. 213.
^ Stackhouse's Body of Divinity, p. 718 (ed. 2).
» Ihid, * Ibid, p. 728. ^ Ihid, p. 732.

400 The Revolution and Since
After describing various duties of the ministry
Stackhouse says :
There are two ecclesiastical offices more ; the ordina
tion of such as are appointed to serve in the church ; and
the confirmation of such as have been baptized and in
structed in the Christian faith, both done by the imposition
of hands, and both productive to the gifts and graces of
the Holy Ghost ; which are not, as other ministerial acts,
to be performed in coramon, but are peculiarly the work of
the bishops and governors of the church*.
After the demise of the apostles
ordination continued where they had left it, in episcopal
hands, nor do we find any instance either in scripture or
antiquity of inferior orders pretending to that prerogative*-
There were not wanting defenders of such con
victions even in the highest official ranks of the church
of the 1 8th century. Among these defenders was
Isaac Maddox, Bishop of Worcester, who published
in 1733 his Vindication of the Government, Doctrine,
and Worship of the Church of England established in
the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Neal, in his History of the Puritans, objected to
the form of ecclesiastical government which was
estabhshed under Elizabeth. Maddox defends her
choice :
And yet here again the good queen wisety chose not
only the most Christian, but the most moderate and cathoUc
scheme of church governraent. The holy scriptures, and
the unquestionable usage of the priraitive church, were
abundantly sufficient to recoramend the appointment of
bishops. But as this episcopal form of governing the church
' Stackhouse's Body of Divinity, p. 739. ^ Ibid,

The Revolution and Since 401
was better suited to the form of the civil government in
England (however a different raanner might suit the little
republic of Geneva) ; as most of the reformed churches in
Germany had the same form in effect, changing only the
old Greek names (as Zanchius reporteth) of archbishops and
bishops into new and worse Latin names of superintendents
and general superintendents ; as the more moderate
Calvinists, and their great leader Calvin hiraself, allowed of
this superiority of bishops, and thought it very useful. . . *.
The thread of Maddox's sentence is broken off,
but he returns to say that Neal accused Elizabeth
and her advisers of departing from the Edwardian
divines, who did not receive the doctrine of a dif
ference of order between bishops and priests.
By this account 'tis plain Mr N. would have it believed
that bishop and priest were in the opinion of the first
reformers synonymous terms, signifying not only the same
order, but the same office too ; being, as he says, but two
names of the sarae office. His raaterial proof is the public
ordinal ; and to be sure, if anywhere, the reforraers speak
distinctly, when they are designedly treating upon this
subject, and appointing the very forms of ordination and
consecration. Here then we join issue, and both appeal to
the same ordinal, as a decisive proof*
Maddox puts Neal's words side by side with the
opening sentence of the preface, and says
Without stopping for one reflection, let us go on to his
next assertion, which runs thus: "The form of ordaining
a priest and a bishop is the same."
He exposes this absurdity, and goes on :
Nothing, sure, but the irapossibility of supporting his
scheme, and proving the parity of presbyters and bishops
any other way, could have put Mr N. upon this method of
1 Maddox's Vindication, pp. 53 foil. ^ pbid, p. 59.
M. 26

402 The Revolution and Since
attempting it. He had indeed undertaken a difficult task,
and must therefore have great allowances in the execution
of it. The sense and practice of the whole Christian church
for fifteen hundred years in a forra of church government
so early, so universally, so constantly received, were great
obstacles. No instances of presbyters executing the dis
tinguishing offices of a bishop, no example of any man's being
a bishop one day and reduced to a mere presbyter the next,
as must have been the case, had a bishop, as is sometimes
aUeged, been no more than a chairman, a moderator, or
teraporary president of a presbytery. No instances of many
bishops in places where there were many priests ; on the
contrary, we always find one particular person mentioned
as the bishop, and sole bishop, of one particular city, even
where there were many presbyters. This being the case,
and the promiscuous use of names not sufficient to overcome
sb many arguments, or show the identity of order and office
between a bishop and priest, any more than an apostle's
calling himself a deacon vrill prove the apostolate and
deaconship to be one order ; other methods were to be
tried, and the very form of consecrating a bishop, who had
before been ordained a priest, be employed to prove there
was, in the opinion of the compilers of that form, no such
order as bishops in the church, all mere presbyters and
nothing more ; not only the sarae order, but the very office
the sarae*.
Then Maddox quotes from Burnet's History of the
Reformation a useful passage, exposing the error of
those who used the two-order theory as an engine of
attack upon the church of England. The passage is
this : In the ancient church they knew none of those subtilties
which were found out in the latter ages. It was then
thought enough that a bishop was to be dedicated to his
function by a new iraposition of hands, and that several
* Maddox's Vindication, pp, 63 foU.

The Revolution and Since 403
offices could not be performed without bishops, such as
ordination, confirraation, etc., but they did not refine in
these raatters so rauch as to enquire whether bishops and
priests differed in order and office, or only in degree 
The schoolmen. . .raised [the priest's] order or office so
high, as to make it equal vrith the order of a bishop ; but
as they [the schoolmen] designed to extol the order of
priesthood, so the canonists had as great a mind to depress
the episcopal order. . . .
On this I have insisted the more [Maddox is stUl quoting
from Burnet], that it may appear how little they have
considered things, who are so far carried with their zeal
against the established government of this church, as to
make much use of some passages of the schoolmen and
canonists, that deny them to be distinct offices. For these
are the very dregs of popery*.
Perhaps Archbishop Seeker is not one of those to
whom we should naturally turn for illustration to the
subject of which we are treating. Yet Seeker, like
his friends Butler and Benson, was a convert to the
church, and knew, like them, what the church meant.
In 1764 he printed a defence of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel against an American
dissenter, who objected to the sending of bishops, or
of episcopal clergy, into some of the American colonies,
as contrary to what we now call the comity of missions.
Dr Mayhew's book is written, partly against the church
of England in general ; partly against the conduct of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in settling mini
sters of that church in the Massachusetts and Connecticut ;
partly against appointing bishops to reside in his Majesty's
Araerican colonies. . .*.
1 Burnet History of the Reformation, (ed. Pocock), vol. i. pp. 396 foil.
' Seeker's Nine Sermons (3rd ed.), p. 239. 26 — 2

404 The Revolutioti atid Since
His charge on the Society is that they have maintained
episcopal churches where other protestant churches were
before settled and the administration of God's word and
ordinances provided for, with a formal design, which they.
have long had, to root out presbyterianism etc. in the
colonies. Now this design, in pursuance of which, he saith,
they have in a great measure neglected the ends of their
institution, is falsely ascribed to them. . . . Undoubtedly they
would be very glad if all the inhabitants were of the com
munion of the church of England ; as undoubtedly the
doctor would if they were all of his communion. But they
have sent no persons to effect this. He attempts to prove
the contrary from the following instmction given by them
to their missionaries ; " That they frequently visit their
respective parishioners ; those of our own communion, to
keep them steady in the profession and practice of religion
as taught in the church of England ; those that oppose us
or dissent from us, to convince and reclaim thera vrith a
spirit of meekness and gentleness  " The instmction plainly
relates, not to missionaries settled in presbyterian or con
gregational parishes, for there were none so settled when it
was drawn up, but for incumbents of episcopal parishes,
though with a mixture of dissenters . . . *.
The real conduct of the Society, with respect to provinces
and parishes not episcopal, hath been to contribute towards
supporting public worship and instruction amongst such
merabers of the church of England as cannot in conscience
coraply with the worship and instruction of the other con
gregations in the neighbourhood, and yet cannot whoUy
maintain ministers for themselves. .. .And were it but
known, as it seems to be in some measure to the dissenters
themselves, how continual and importunate the caUs and
expostulations of such persons are, the impartial would
wonder how the Society coiUd vrithstand so raany of them
as it hath done*. 1 Seeker's Nine Sermons, p. 250.
^ Ihid, p. 254.

The Revolutiott and Since 405
But the doctor apprehends that . . . conscience is seldom
their motive, and therefore they should not be encouraged.
Indeed he scarcely seems to conceive how it can be their
motive, and wants to be told " what there is that should
give offence to good protestants " in the presbyterian or
congregational churches. ... He recollects that he hath
heard some episcopalians say, that they should much prefer
the coraraunion of the church of Rorae to that of the dis
senters. And indeed none are so likely as he, and such as
he, to provoke those into saying it, who would think very
differently in their cooler hours. But supposing this to be
their settled judgraent, would he have them left to turn
papists, if they will, because they are not so good protestants
as they should be* ? . . .
He admits that some of [the episcopalians] may possibly,
without going these lengths, have conscientious scruples
about the means of religion in his communion. But he
puts the word "possibly" in italics; which intimates that
he thinks it barely possible. . . .We hold it to be probable,
we hold it to be evident, that many dissenters, who are far
frora thinking us worse than papists, yet cannot in con
science use the means of religion in our communion ; and
surely we are entitled to as favourable an opinion frora them.
Without maintaining that they have no gospel ministers,
or sacraments, or ordinances, or churches, we may appre
hend, — whether rightly or wrongly is not to be disputed
now, but sincerely, however — that episcopacy is of apos
tolical institution, and that scripture affords as good proof
of this as of the appointment of infant baptism and the
Lord's day. We may apprehend that after the ceasing of
extraordinary spiritual gifts forms of prayer were always
used, more or less, throughout the church of Christ and are
needful for the observance of the scripture rule. Let all
things be done decently and in order. Without judging
those who reject both these (for to their own Master they
stand or fall) we raay judge it unlawful for us to join in the
1 Seeker's Nine Sermons, pp. 259 foil.

4o6 The Revolution and Since
rejection of either. Nay, were we only to think their
rainistry, compared vrith that of our church, to be un-
edif jring, and make that our plea for preserving a separation
from them, we should but follow the pattern which many of
the English dissenters have set*-
The age of Law and Wilson, Seeker and Maddox,
was also the age of Wesley. It was one of the
extraordinary features in the character of that great
man, that he was able to persuade himself that he
was a loyal and consistent churchman throughout
his long life. It is at any rate certain that his
opinions on the subject of ordination underwent a
change. In the year 1745 he wrote a letter to his
brother-in-law. Hall, expressing as clearly as possible
the doctrine which he' might have learned from Law :
We beUeve it would not be right for us to administer
either baptism or the Lord's Supper, unless we had a
commission so to do from those bishops whom we appre
hend to be in a succession frora the apostles.
We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian
church, whether dependent on the Bishop of Rorae or not,
an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an
outward sacrifice offered therein, by men authorized to act
as ambassadors of Christ and stewards of the mysteries
of God. We believe that the threefold order of ministers is not
only authorized by its apostolical institution, but also by
the written word*.
When he penned these sentences, he was on the
eve of change. About 50 years before, a youth of
22, named Peter King, who afterwards rose to be
1 Seeker's Nine Sermons, pp. 261 foil.
^ Tyerman's Life and Times of John Wesley, vol. i. p. 496.

The Revolution and Since 407
Lord High Chancellor, wrote a book on the Primitive
Church, in which with juvenile self-confidence he
demolished the order of bishops — a feat which in
later life he repented of. This book Wesley read on
the way to Bristol in January 1746. After reading
it, he wrote in his journal :
In spite of the vehement prejudice of my education, I
was ready to believe that this was a fair and impartial
draft ; but if so, it would fo^ow that bishops and presbyters
are essentially of one order, and that originally every
Christian congregation was a church independent of all
others*.
The minutes of the Methodist conference of the
ensuing year (1747) betray the change of mind.
Q. Are the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons,
plainly described in the New Testament ?
A, We think they are, and believe they generally
obtained in the churches of the apostolic age.
Q, But are you assured that God designed the same
plan should obtain in all churches, throughout aU ages ?
A , We are not assured of this, because we do not know
that it is asserted in holy writ.
Q. If this plan were essential to a Christian church,
what must becorae of all the foreign reformed churches ?
A , It would follow that they are no parts of the church
of Christ, — a consequence full of shocking absurdity.
Q, In what age was the divine right of episcopacy first
asserted in England ?
A. About the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign. TUl
then, all the bishops and clergy in England continuaUy
aUowed and joined in the ministrations of those who were
not episcopally ordained*.
1 Tyerman's Life and Times of John Wesley, vol. i. p. 508.
2 Ibid. p. 509.

4o8 The Revolution attd Since
By the year 1756, Wesley's reading had been
enlarged by another youthful book, also subse
quently censured by its author :
I still believe the episcopal form of church government
to be scriptural and apostolical ; — I raean, weU agreeing
vrith the practice and writings of the apostles. But that
it is prescribed in scripture I do not believe. This opinion,
which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily
ashamed of ever since I read Bishop StiUingfleet's Irenicon.
I think he has unanswerably proved that neither Christ nor
his apostles prescribe any particular form of church govern
ment, and that the plea of divine right for diocesan episco
pacy was never heard of in the primitive church.
As to . . . schisra, I cannot find one text in the bible,
where . . . schism signifies a separation from the church, whether
with cause or without*.
It was long before Wesley made up his mind to
act upon this conviction, but the conviction grew.
In 1780 he wrote to his brother :
Read Bishop Stillingfleet's Irenicon, or any impartial
history of the ancient church, and I believe you wiU think
as I do. I verily believe I have as good a right to ordain,
as to administer the Lord's Supper. But I see abundance
of reasons why I should not use that right, unless I was
turned out of the church. At present we are just in our
places *
Four years later, by the imposition of his hands,
he set apart Dr Coke, who was a priest like himself,
" as a superintendent," with a view to his ordaining
methodists in America.
^ Tyerman's Life and Times of John Wesley, vol. ii. p. 244.
^ Ibid. vol. III. p. 332.

The Revolution and Since 409
If anyone is pleased to call this separating from the
church (he wrote), he may. But the law of England does
not call it so ; nor can anyone properly be said so to do,
unless out of conscience he refuses to join in the [church]
service and partake of the sacraments adrainistered therein*-
This act was quickly followed by ordaining
methodists for work in England, but John Wesley
would not realise that the action was schismatical.
His biographer, who rejects the church theory of
ordination, describes the position very fairly :
The right or wrong of ordaining is left to others to
discuss. There can be no doubt that as a rainister of Christ
Wesley had as much right to ordain as any bishop, priest,
or presbytery in existence ; but he had no right to this as
a clergyraan of the church of England, and by acting as he
did he became, what he was unwilling to acknowledge, a
dissenter, a separatist from that church. Such was the
opinion of Lord Mansfield ; and such was the argument of
Wesley's brother. Wesley refused to acknowledge this ; but
feeling the impossibility of the thing, he declined to attempt
refuting it. With great inconsistency, he stUl persisted in
calling himself a meraber of the church of England, and. . .
to the day of his death told the raethodists that if they left
the church, they would leave hira. All things considered,
this was not surprising ; but it was absurd*.
It may be added that it was not because Wesley
was only a presbyter, that his ordinations meant
separation. If he had been in the fuUest ecclesiastical
sense a bishop, his ordinations would have been no
less schismatic, though they would have had a greater
claim to be considered valid.
1 Tyerman's Life and Times of John Wesley, vol. iii. p. 436.
^ Ihid. p. 448.

4IO The Revolution and Since
In his well-known sermon on the Ministerial
Office, preached in 1789, which is still part of the
legal formularies of methodism, Wesley declaims
against the methodist preachers who " like Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, seek the priesthood also^."
When Wesley's action became known, it naturaUy
gave deep offence to churchmen, even among those
who were more or less favourably disposed towards
him. George Home, Bishop of Norwich, spoke of it
in his Charge to the clergy of the diocese in 1791. He
lays down the principle that
[The gospel ordinances] can no man rainister to effect
but by God's own appointment : at first by his iraraediate
appointment, and afterwards by succession and derivation
from thence to the end of the world. Without this rale
we are open to imposture, and can be sure of nothing ;
we cannot be sure that our rainistry is effective, or that
our sacraraents are realities. We are very sensible that the
spirit of division vrill never adrait this doctrine, yet the
spirit of charity must never part vrith it. Writers and
teachers who make it a point to give no offence treat these
things very tenderly ; but he who in certain cases wiU give
no offence to men, will for that reason give them no in
struction.
He proceeds to consider Wesley's action :
We are informed that the liberties taken of late years
against the ministry of the church have terminated in an
attempt to begin a spurious episcopacy in America 
Mr Wesley, when questioned about this fact in his Ufetime,
did not deny it, but pleaded necessity to justify the measure.
... A fatal precedent, if it should be followed. For if a
presbyter cJin consecrate a bishop, we admit that a man may
* Sermon cxv.

The Revolution and Since 4 1 1
confer a power of which he is not himself possessed : instead
of the less being blessed by the greater, the greater is blessed
by the less, and the order of all things is inverted*.
Home was probably unaware of Wesley's ordina
tion of presbyters for work in England, or he would
have spoken with equal plainness of it. William
Jones, of Nayland, records the occasion when Mr
Wesley " was questioned " about the American com
mission, and adds the following comment :
There are but two possible ways of putting men truly
into the ministry : the one is by succession ; the other by
immediate revelation or appointment frora God hiraself.
Paul received his commission to preach, not of raan nor by
man, but of God, who put him into the ministry. Other
ministers of the Gospel receive their commission by imposi
tion of hands from those who had received it before. In
this latter way of succession no raan can possibly give that
which he hath not received. . . . And as this could not be
done by Mr Wesley in virtue of what he was, it must have
been done in virtue of what he thought himself to be ; a
vicar-general of heaven, who was above all human rules,
and could give a coramission by a superior right vested in
his own person. If he acted of himself, as John Wesley,
a presbyter of the church of England, he acted against all
sense and order ; and by taking upon hiraself what no raan
can take, he would introduce in the issue raore confusion
than he would prevent*.
In the same year (1791) that Home was charging the
clergy of Norwich about methodism, Samuel Horsley
was doing the same to the clergy of St David's. He
thought that more teaching should be given on the
subject of church authority.
1 Home's Works, vol. ii. p. 570.
'^ Life of Dr Home, p. 158.

412 The Revolution and Since
Upon these topics the clergy of late years have been
raore sUent than is perfectly consistent with their
duty ; from a fear, as I conceive, of acquiring the name
and reputation of high-churchmen .... To be a high-church
man, in the only sense which the word can be aUowed to
bear as applicable to any in the present day, — God forbid
that this should ever cease to be my pubUc pretension,
my pride, my glory!... In the language of our modern
sectaries, everyone is a high-churchman who is not un
wiUing to recognise so much as the spiritual authority of
the priesthood, — everyone who, denying what we ourselves
disclaim, anything of a divine right to temporalities, ac
knowledges however in the sacred character somewhat more
divine than may belong to the mere hired servants of the
state or of the laity, and regards the service which we are
thought to perform for our pay as something more than
a part to be gravely played in the drama of human poUtics.
My reverend brethren, we raust be content to be high-
churchmen according to this usage of the word, or we cannot
be churchmen at all ; for he who thinks of God's ministers
as the mere servants of the state, is out of the church-
severed from it by a kind of self -excommunication  For
those who have been nurtured in the bosom of the church,
and have gained admission to the rainistry, if, frora a mean
compliance with the humour of the age, or ambitious ol
the fame of liberality of sentiment, ... they affect to join
in the disavowal of the authority which, they share, or are
silent when the validity of their divine coramission is called
in question, — for an}' (I hope they are few) who hide this
weakness of faith, this poverty of religious principle, under
the attire of a gown and cassock, they are in my estimation
little better than infidels in masquerade*.
To fortify his clergy on the subject of the deference
due from the private Christian to the authority of the
church, and to a ministry of divine institution,
* Charges of Samuel Horsley (1830), pp. 28 foil.

The Revolution and Since 413
Horsley recommends them to make the Apostolical
Fathers, especially St Clement and St Ignatius, their
constant study ; and, with these, the writings of
Hooker, Charles Leslie, and Jones of Nayland.
The book of Jones to which Horsley refers in
particular is his Essay on the Church, Jones was
moved to write it by his experience in catechizing the
children of his parish, and feeling himself somewhat
at a loss because the catechism contains no instruction
on the church. The church must, he says, in its
nature be a society manifest to all men. As a society,
it is not the work of man : it is the church of the
living God and acts by his authority and appoint
ment. The church raust have orders in it for the work of the
ministry ; but no man can ordain hiraself, neither can he,
of himself, ordain another, because no man can give what
he hath not  No arabassador ever sent hiraself, or took
upon him to sign or seal treaties and covenants (such as
the sacraments of the church are) without being sent ; that
is without receiving authority so to do frora an higher
power. The act would be so far frora beneficial, that it
would be treasonable*.
Quoting Law's second letter to the Bishop of
Bangor, Jones gives an account of the institution of
the ministry which begins thus :
Jesus Christ was sent frora heaven by the Father, and
invested with the glor}' of the priesthood by an actual
consecration, when the Spirit descended upon him. As the
Father hath sent him, so did he send his disciples, and gave
theitn authority to send others ; so that the church which
followed derived its authority from the church which Christ
1 Works, vol. IV. p. 418.

414 The Revolution atid Since
first planted in the world ; and the church at this day
must derive its authority after the same manner, by suc
cession from the church which went before ; the line
extending from Christ himself to the end of the world. Lo,
said he, I am with you always, unto the end of the world ; —
certainly not vrith these very persons, who all soon died,
but with those who should succeed, and be accounted for
the sarae ; for a body corporate never dies, till its succession
is extinct *. . . .
That the apostles appointed others to succeed to their
own order is evident frora the case of Timothy ; who in
the ancient superscription at the end of the second epistle
is said to have been ordained the first bishop of the church
of the Ephesians. He is admonished to lay hands suddenly
on no man; and... not to receive an accusation against
an elder but before two or three vritnesses : therefore he
had a judicial authority over that order. Directions are
given with respect to the deacons of the same church.
Therefore in the first church of the Ephesians there was
a bishop, with elders and deacons under him  In the
Christian church throughout the world we find these three
orders of ministers for fifteen hundred years, without inter-
mption. The fact therefore is undeniable, that the church
has been governed by bishops, priests, and deacons from the
apostles downwards ; and where we find these orders of
ministers duly appointed, the word preached, and the
sacraments adrainistered, there we find the church of
Christ, with its forra, and its authority*.
One of the most popular religious books of the
close of the i8th century was Charles Daubeny's
Guide to the Church (1798). It is, as its name implies,
a series of instmctions intended to lead dissenters to
the church. In a prefatory address to WiUiam
Wilberforce, whose views did not altogether commend
1 Works, vol. iv. p. 422. 2 Ibid, p. 424.

The Revolution and Since 415
themselves to Daubeny, the author laments the
prevailing ignorance on the subject among the laity :
The forraing of a correct notion of the church, as a
spiritual society under the regular establishment of its
divine Founder, I consider to be a part of that knowledge
which every raeraber of it ought to possess. At the same
time I cannot help regarding it as a circumstance most to
be lamented, that in consequence of the prevailing ignorance
upon this subject the clergy of the present day should be
called upon to examine foundations, which by vrise master-
builders have so long since been firmly laid.
Daubeny agrees that the gospels do not prescribe
the constitution of this society, but it is none the less
divine :
What forra of govemment the apostles agreed to establish
in the church, if not expressly communicated to them by
Christ in person, must be considered established under the
direction of the Holy Spirit  What that form of govem
raent was, we shaU be at no loss to determine, if we are
disposed to enquire fairly into the subject*.
If scripture did not make it plain, the practice of
the primitive church would do so ; for
it is a known axiom that every law is best explained by
the subsequent practice. Let this maxim be applied in
the present case*.
He quotes the " bold and peremptory" language
of Hooker 3, and says :
If we say then that in every church that was planted,
the offices of bishop, priest, and deacon, answering to those
of high priest, priest, and levite under the law, were to be
found, we shall say no more than the history of the primitive
church vrill warrant*.
1 Guide to the Church, p. 27. ^ Ibid, p. 28.
' See above, p. 57. * Guide to the Church, p. 31.

4i6 The Revolution and Since
This constitution is to last till the end :
The church is not merely a number of people, agreeing
in the same articles of faith, or in the same acts of religious
worship ; but it is moreover a society, holding one visible
coraraunion under the sarae divinely instituted government :
a society not of man's, but of Christ's forraing ; a society
or spiritual incorporation of which he is the Head, and all
individual Christians, who have been regularly admitted
into it, the members. For the church is not a creature
of the fancy, deriving an imaginary existence from the whim
and caprice of raan, but a settled and permanent estab
lishment, the work of divine wisdom. It is moreover not
hid in a corner, that men need be at a loss to find it ; but
a visible society, possessed of those characteristic marks,
by which it may at all tiraes be known*.
Daubeny expounds the metaphors under which
it is described in scripture, and goes on :
Such then is the nature and constitution of the church,
as it was originaUy established by its suprerae Head, from
whence the apostles, and their successors the bishops, have
derived their commission ; a branch of that commission
which Jesus Christ received from his Father ; by virtue of
which they challenge obedience from every raember of the
Christian church, as to the stewards or chief officers in that
spiritual society, over which they are authorized to preside*.
The term " schism," Daubeny says,
denotes a division among the merabers of which that body
is composed ; occasioned by a want of obedience to the
government which Christ by his apostles settled in the
church ; and a consequent separation from its communion,
in contradiction to the divine plan of its estabUshment ;
the design of which was that all Christians should be joined
together in the same mind and in the sarae worship, con
tinuing, according to the primitive pattern, in the apostles*
1 Guide to the Church, p. 35. 2 Ibid, p. 37.

The Revolution and Since 417
doctrine and feUowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers*.
Thus schism is " a species of rebellion " against
the divine founder of the church c
Custom has indeed so far reconciled us to the divisions
that have taken place among Christians, that they are no
longer seen in the light in which they were seen in the
primitive days of the church ; whilst charity, forbidding
us to speak harshly of the spiritual condition of our brethren,
has in a manner tended to efface the sin of schism from our
minds. But, though we presume to judge no raan... yet
must it not frora hence be concluded that it is a matter
of indifference, whether Christians communicate with the
church or not ; or that there is a doubt upon the subject
of schism, whether it be a sin or not*.
The dissenter argues that in separating from the
church of England he only does what the church of
England itself has done with regard to Rome. Here
is the answer :
Ever since the era of the reformation, the church of
England has been considered to be the firmest bulwark of
protestantism. So far as the dissenter agrees with her in
protesting against the errors of the Romish church, so far
he raay be said to be at unity with her. But when that
right, which justifies the dissenter in coramon with the
church of England in separating from a corrupt branch of
the Christian church, is extended to justify his separation
from a branch of the church confessedly not in the same
state of corruption, and of whose merabers no unlawful
terms of communion are required, and to authorise his
setting up a church of his own, independent of episcopal
govemment, the dissenter quits the original ground of
protestantism, and places himself upon that of schism ;
* Guide to the Church, p. 42. ^ Ibid. p. 44.
M. 27

4i8 The Revolution and Since
and in such case he becomes a schismatic grafted upon
a protestant*.
Daubeny describes the " disadvantages " of sepa
ration in the language of Law :
When you leave the church then, it should be remem
bered, you leave the ministers and sacraments of Christ
behind you. You may indeed appoint other ministers, and
institute other sacraments ; but let it be observed, these
rainisters are not the ambassadors of Christ, nor are the
sacraments which they administer the sacraments of Christ ;
for the essence of an ambassador's office is that he should
be commissioned by the party whom he represents, and
the essence of a covenant, of which the sacraraents are
seals, is that it should be binding upon the party in whose
narae it is made. But ministers of the separation are not
ambassadors of Christ, because they have never been sent
by him ; and vrith respect to the benefit to be derived
from the sacraments adrainistered by them, their disciples
must not look to God, for this obvious reason, because
God is not bound but by covenants of his own raaking*.
Daubeny writes a " postscript " to " occasional
separatists." Occasional separation frora the church stands in point
of argument on the same ground with occasional con
formity to it. If conformity to the church be a sin against
the conscience of the party, which was the plea originaUy
set up by those who separated frora it in this country,
every act of occasional conformity, being a commission of
that sin, must be subject to condemnation. [SimUarly] if
schism, or a wUful separation frora the church be in itself
a sin, as from the authority of scripture and the primitive
writers of the church it is adjudged to be, every occasional
separation from it must be seen in a similar point of view.
It is a commission of an acknowledged sin ; and the only
1 Guide to the Church, p. 152. * Ibid. p. 179.

The Revolution ana Since 419
difference between the constant separatist and the occa
sional one appears to be that the one continues in the
habitual practice of that sin, which the other occasionally
commits*.
Wilberforce in his Practical View had urged upon
true Christians to cultivate " a catholic spirit of
amicable fellowship " towards all, of whatever sect
or denomination, " who, differing from them in non
essentials," agree " in the grand fundamentals of
religion." Daubeny, of course, applauds the senti
ment, but asks pertinently enough what " the grand
fundamentals " are.
Is everything relating to the church of Christ to be
deemed non-essential, save what respects the profession of
its peculiar doctrines?. . .Upon this supposition. . .the con
clusion which. . .readers will draw... vrill be this; that
provided they believe what as Christians they must be
lieve, it is a matter of no consequence what form of
religious worship they adopt ; whether they hold cora
raunion with the church or the meeting house ; in other
words, whether they asserable as raerabers of the church
of Christ, or as members of a schismatic congregation. The
admission of this idea cuts up by the roots the unity of the
Christian church, and makes what the apostles and first
Christians wrote upon this subject something worse than
nonsense ; for in this case they imposed on their feUow
Christians, by raaking matters in themselves indifferent
subjects of very important consideration. In short, this
intercommunion (if we may so say) between the church
and the conventicle, so utterly inconsistent vrith the
regular economy of divine grace, can never lead to good 
Upon what ground... are we to conclude that conformity
to the established government of the church, which in the
primitive days constituted a subject of the first magnitude,
1 Guide to the Church, p. 273. 27 — 2

420 The Revolution and Since
is now dwindled down into an unimportant consideration ?
Can anything which has received the sanction of a divine
institution in religion be deemed a non-essential*?
Daubeny followed up his Guide by an Appendix,
in two volumes (1799), consisting of letters to Sir
Richard Hill in detailed defence of the position taken
up in the Guide. The second letter is mainly
occupied with a statement of the early history of
episcopacy, — acute and well-informed, but not re
quiring our special attention, unless it be for a remark
like the following, which shows what may be caUed
the historic imagination :
From the preraises . . . we are justified in concluding
that all those singular ecclesiastical governors, who received
a commission simUar to that received by Tiraothy and
Titus, had sundry parts of the apostolic sovereign power con
ferred upon thera, which had never been imparted to
presbyters in common. On taking possession of the
churches thus coraraitted to their charge, they raust find
presbyters, ministering in that capacity, in which they had
been accustomed to minister under the apostoUc supremacy.
On the reception of these new commissioned governors
amongst them, the presbyters must have been convinced
by those reserved apostoUc powers of ruUng, ordination,
and censure, . . . that they were authorized to succeed in
the ordinary jurisdiction and prerogatives of their de
parting apostle *-
Daubeny made no doubt that his doctrine was
the old doctrine of the church, and nothing novel :
This cathoUc doctrine. Sir, respecting the divine original
of the episcopal office and the spiritual government in the
kingdom of Christ, though liable to abuse (and what doctrine
* Guide to the Church, pp. 346-349.
'^ Appendix, vol. i. p. 77.

The Revolution and Since \ii
is not ?) was acknowledged without scruple by Christians
of all ranks, as well after as before the empire turned
Christian ; when emperors, not less than their subjects,
submitted themselves to their bishops, as to their spiritual
superiors*.
He was as exclusive as any later divine in his
employment of the word " a church " :
Every Christian society, possessing the characteristic
marks of the church of Christ, I consider to be a separate
branch of the catholic or universal visible church upon
earth. The church of England, the church of Ireland, and
the episcopal church of Scotland and America, possess
these marks. In the same light the churches of Denmark,
Sweden, and Rorae are to be considered* ; not to mention
the great remains of the once famous Greek church, now
to be found in the empire of Russia and in the east.
All these churches constitute so raany branches of the same
catholic church of Christ ; independent of each other, so
far as relates to the direction and appointment of indifferent
things, as rites and ceremonies ; but connected together as
one body, by the profession of the same fundamental
articles of faith and the same divinely instituted form of
governraent*.
In a later letter Daubeny returns to the subject
of the apostolical succession :
One of the -principal considerations necessary to be
impressed upon the mind of the reader upon this occasion
was the commission, frora which the act of the minister
of the church derived its validity, for the benefit of the
parties concerned in it. The commission to administer the
sacraments of the church was originally delivered by our
1 Appendix, vol. i. p. 84.
2 Daubeny was probably unaware of the facts with regard to
the Danish episcopate.
' Appendix, vol. i. p. 130.

422 The Revolution and Since
Saviour to his apostles, accompanied with a power to invest
others vrith the same important office. From this divine
fountain all authority in this case must be derived 
A regular reception of the divine commission, through the
channel appointed to convey it, has been a circumstance
which in every age of the church, from the times of the
apostles down to the present day, has been considered
essential to the validity of the ministerial office ....
If then a commission was granted to particular persons
for an especial purpose, and a blessing promised to the
actual discharge of it, that blessing must be understood
to be co-extensive only with the due discharge of the
commission for which it was granted, unless it can be
proved that in consequence of sorae new revelation from
heaven the nature of that coramission has been changed 
But the visible church of Christ, which has continued under
the same episcopal form of government from the beginning,
knows that there has been no new revelation and that no
circumstances have taken place to justify any alteration
in this case  Upon these grounds, therefore, it is con
cluded that the blessing originally promised to the regular
discharge of the evangelic ministry is confined to that
discharge of it... and it is in conformity with this idea,
which has prevailed in the church from the days of the
apostles down to the present times ; namely, that it is the
coraraission which secures the divine confirmation of the
ministerial act, that the sacraments administered in the
church have been considered as the only valid sacraments*.
That Daubeny's teaching was not foreign to the
general beliefs of contemporary churchmen may be
gathered from the fact that the University of Oxford
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity,
in recognition of his services to the church 2.
^ Appendix, vol. i. pp. 352-358.
2 See the article on him in Diet, of Nat, Biography ,

The Revolution and Since 423
A work of similar character to Daubeny's was
Thomas Sikes's Discourse on Parochial Communion,
published in 1812. Sikes was himself a man of light
and leading, and his connexion with the well-known
Joshua Watson, who married his daughter, conveyed
his influence to a large circle of churchmen. His
book is a plain straightforward treatise on episcopacy
and unity, viewed in reference to the parochial
system. If the sacred character and divine authority of the
Christian priesthood were correctly understood, it begins,
it would greatly conduce to the prevention of those many
divisions which at present distract the church of Christ.
There are no other raeans of accoraplishing this end, but
those of frequent instruction on the subject, and of
plainly enforcing the duty of submission to the episcopal
authority.
The main doctrine of the book is thus summed up :
Every bishop receives his commission and, with it, his
spiritual authority immediately from those bishops who
consecrated him, as they derived their powers and privUeges
from their predecessors, in a direct line from the apostles
and our Lord. Our Lord bequeathed his authority to his
apostles and their successors to the end of the world. ... .
That is, he left with them his commission and his Spirit
for their natural life, entailing them upon that succession
of men, upon whom they should lay their hands according
to his direction*.
Sikes starts with the affirmation that a belief in
the holy catholic church is part of the universal creed
of Christendom. 1 Discourse on Parochial Communion, p. 5.

424 The Revolution and Since
But it is further necessary that we believe this article,
not in some loose and general acceptation, but in that
alone which was intended by the Founder  We do not
leave it to the Socinian to believe in a Redeemer in the
sense which pleases hini : we do not admit the Quaker's'
notions of the Holy Spirit ; nor wUl every acceptation of
this article be sufficient to constitute it a tme Christian
faith. It must be received in its one proper sense, which
must be sought by a careful study, first of the sacred
scriptures, and afterwards. . .of the writings of those holy
Christians, who living nearest to the days of our blessed
Lord and his apostles are the best interpreters of their
designs and intentions *.
He quotes with relish the saying of Pearson
That church alone, which first began at Jerusalem on
earth, vrill bring us to the Jerusalem in heaven  What
soever church pretendeth to a new beginning, pretendeth
at the same time to a new churchdom, and whatsoever is
so new, is none*
Sikes sketches the history of the ministry in the
New Testament, and goes on :
From the apostles, then, descending to their successors,
some of whom conversed vrith them and were their disciples,
we find that the succession of bishops, and the government
of the church by them, stiU prevailed wherever the gospel
was planted*.
After giving patristic evidence down to the time
of St Austin, he says :
It would be tedious and unnecessary to bring the
episcopal succession further downwards. From this time
" in toto orbe decretum est," says Jerome ; episcopacy
* Discourse on Parochial Communion, p. 13.
2 Ihid. p. 18. 3 Ibid. p. 43.

The Revolution and Since 425
became the universal mode of Christianity  He who
would look for Christianity vrithout bishops may as well
look for it vrithout sacraments*.
Sikes enquires into the nature of " the pastor's
right to minister to the people," and draws very
clearly the distinction between order and mission.
With evident reference to the famous interview
between Wesley and Bishop Butler, he speaks severely
of the " saucy itinerant " who takes the whole world
for his parish on the ground that he was made a priest
of the universal church 2.
No clergyman, he says, has the liberty of officiating
where he pleases, and to whom he pleases ; he cannot do
it in this kingdom without intrusion upon the cure of other
rainisters ; for all Christians vrithin the pale of our English
church are dispersed into different congregations, and have
been regularly coraraitted, by the authority which bishops
derive frora the divine Head of the church, to the charge
of their several ministers  The self willed man, who dis
regards the prescribed order of the church, and pretends
to officiate to persons not committed to his charge, is guilty
of intrusion, as well as he who ministers in places to which
he has not been regularly deputed*.
It is a " wild and factious spirit " which animates
every such intruder,
whether he be found in the ranks of the established church,
or in those of the separatists ; whether he practise the
more generous manner of openly dissenting from the
church, or the insidious raode of assuraing the form of a
" true churchman " ; whether he go abroad to gather
congregations, or remain at home, calling them into his
own church. . .*-
^ Discourse on Parochial Communiem, p. 54.
' Ihid. p. 258. ' Ibid. pp. 238 foil. * Ibid. p. 290.

426 The Revolution and Since
He who despises this power of mission, which bishops
always possessed, despises episcopacy ; and if he despise the
episcopal authority, he despises him from whom it is
derived *-
Sikes, like Daubeny, has a word for the " occa
sional communicant " in dissenting congregations :
The occasional communicant at the meeting house is
necessarily only an occasional comraunicant at the church.
Coraraunion is a habit ; and that which breaks the habit,
breaks coraraunion. Whatever is only occasional is not
communion, and whatever is communion is not occasional.
We should think it rather strange in a raan professing his
regard for humility or for chastity to talk of occasional
pride, or occasional whoredom ; for these virtues are habits,
and whatever destroys the habit . . . destroys the virtue.
Occasional pride destroys humility ; occasional whoredom
destroys chastity ; occasional schisn;i destroys communion.
The occasional comraunicant is such an amphibious re
ligionist as cannot, by the principles of church communion,
be considered as a churchman. . . .Occasional coraraunion. . .
has been. . .peculiar to our separatists; a practice always
rauch opposed' by the churchmen, and considered by them
as disgraceful and indefensible*.
The downright Catholicism of Daubeny and SUces
was not so uncommon in the English church of their
time as is often thought. A man like Shute Barring
ton, for instance. Bishop of Durham, could speak of
reunion between Rome and " the catholics of the
church of England " as the greatest blessing that
could befall Christendom, — though he did not mini
mize the gravity of Roman errors. His successor,
Van Mildert, again and again preaches the via media
1 Discourse on Parochial Communion, p. 350.
''¦ Ihid. p. 379.

The Revolution and Since 427
of Anglicanism in the same way as the Caroline
divines did. Our liturgy, he says, " preserves the
most happy medium " between extremes. " We
trace in it nothing of the hostility of sectarian
prejudice ; nothing of rash and crude innovation."
Our reformers purified the older service books, but
"by no means abandoning the whole, as if nothing
that the church of Rome had approved might be
tolerated by a protestant community." The preface
to the prayer-book, as Van Mildert points out, lays
claim to this virtue.
The spirit which animated some other of the reforraed
churches was not altogether of so unexceptionable a char
acter. . . .The primitive ordinances, and even the primitive
faith, of the purest ages of Christianity were in several
instances rudely shaken, or inconsiderately abandoned. In
some episcopacy was abolished, and vrith it many essential
qualifications of the priesthood  Almost all, in some
particulars, relinquished usages sanctioned by primitive,
nay, even apostolical practice. Nor can we observe without
regret, that the greater part of those heresies and schisms,
which gave the enemies of the reformation so great occasion
to bring it into discredit, were the offspring of those churches,
who by carrying the supposed work of reformation too far . . .
loosened the very principles on which it ought to have
rested *-
In another sermon he says :
It is a cold and cheerless kind of phUosophy. . .that
affects to undervalue the outward forras and raodes and
decencies of religious worship  Nor is it much less
erroneous to regard as a matter of indifference, where, and
by whom, the public ministrations of religion shall be
performed ; whether under the sanction and direction of
^ Theological Works (ed. 1838), vol. i. p. 171.

428 The Revolution and Since
long established usage, derived from scripture and from
the primitive practice of the apostles and their successors,
or with no other security than the variable opinions of
self-appointed teachers, or the continual fluctuations of
mere human judgment. I mean nothing invidious towards
those who differ from us in their views of this subject,
when I earnestly entreat you, my brethren, as professed
members of our church, duly to appreciate the advantages
you enjoy,. ..with the scriptures continually read to you,
with a duly ordained and competently learned ministry to
preach and expound them, with a liturgy truly scriptural,
. . . having also the sacraments . . . rightly and diUy adminis
tered for your comfort and support  While therefore we
charitably leave to others full liberty of conscience to
worship God according to their own sincere persuasions,
however different from our own, be it our concern to show
both our sincerity and our thankfulness ... by a steadfast
adherence to the communion in which we have been brought
up and nurtured*-
In his eighth Boyle Lecture, Van Mildert defends
the Albigenses and Waldenses. They were not
merely "bodies of individuals separating from the
Romish church because they could not conscientiously
comply with its terms of communion."
They are to be vindicated, not only upon the general
duty of separation from a church which imposes sinful
terms of communion (much less upon the loose principles
of modern schismatics, who hold every private congrega
tion of Christians to be a church in itself), but upon the
solid grounds of church authority, by which every national
or provincial church, duly governed by bishops of aposto
lical origin, hath a right (taking the holy scriptures for its
guide) to frame its own articles and its own ritual, inde
pendently of other churches*.
• Theological Works, vol. i. pp. 290 foil., 298.
' Ibid, vol. II. p. 238.

The Revolution and Since 429
The English reformers in particular
acted not against any lawful authority, but in coraplete
subordination to it ; the reformation in this country being
carried on under the direction of the spiritual governors of
the church, who were bishops as truly and apostolicaUy
constituted as any bishops upon earth*.
The leaders of the protestant reformation " did
not intend anything subversive of the primitive
constitution of the church." Generally speaking,
they resisted the pope, "not in his episcopal character
as Bishop of Rome, nor as metropolitan or patriarch
in the province over which he might have lawfully
presided," but as an usurper of spiritual and temporal
authority to which he had no just claim.
Thus far we see nothing which can fairly be construed
into an attempt to overthrow the Christian church, no
infringement of its legitimate authority, no inclination to
set aside the apostolical succession of its rainisters, or to
slight any one article of the tme catholic faith. On the
contrary, many of the warmest advocates for the reforma
tion are well known to have manifested an unshaken
attachment to episcopacy, as of divine ordinance, and
jealously to have adhered to all the great fundamental
doctrines of salvation. If these principles had been
universaUy acted upon, vain indeed would have been the
efforts of its bitterest enemies to fix a stain upon the
reformation*.
• Theological Works, vol. ii. p. 242.
== Ihid, p. 256. It is interesting to see in the Appendix at the end
of the volume, what writers Van Mildert chiefly appeals to in
support of the statements and opinions above quoted. Laud,
Leslie, Hickes, Overall, Hall, Morton, Waterland, these are among
them, but LesUe and Hickes are the most frequently cited.

430 The Revolutiott and Since
The last of Van Mildert's Bampton Lectures is on
the church and its discharge of the trust committed
to it as the preserver of scripture truth. Van
Mildert discusses the interpretation of the text about
the " pUlar and ground of the truth." He under
stands the church there to be " the church cathohc,
the visible church here on earth." But he comes stiU
nearer :
Here however it is to be observed that in describing
the church as so eminently instrumental to the preservation
of scripture tmth, and even of Christianity itself, it is
spoken of as existing under that apostolical form of govern
ment which frora the date of its first institution it has
invariably exhibited in the far greater part of the Christian
world. It is the church episcopally constituted*, which
forras our present subject of investigation ; not any of
those various modes of professing Christianity which may
be found in communions of other kinds. For without
entering into controversy with those who deny the divine
origin of episcopacy, it can hardly be disputed that this
form of ecclesiastical polity has so generaUy prevaUed, that
in every age from the tirae of the apostles until the separa
tions which in sorae instances unhappily took place at the
period of the protestant reformation, the cathoUc or
universal church, properly so-caUed, comprising many
particular or national churches, was known and distinguished
by its episcopal constitution. Speaking therefore histori
cally only, . . .we are warranted in thus defining the church ;
and the question now before us is, how far the church, thus
defined, has hitherto proved itself to be the piUar and
ground of the truth *.
1 The itaUcs are Van Mildert's.
" Theological Works, vol. iv. p. 223.

The Revolution and Since 431
He enumerates the essential doctrines of Christian
ity, and asks :
At what period of the church have these doctrines, or
either \i,e, any] of them, been by any public act disowned
or called in question ? We are speaking now, it will be
recollected, of what in the language of ecclesiastical history
is emphatically called the Church ; that which has from
age to age borne rule, upon the ground of its pretensions
to apostolical succession. And to this our enquiry is
necessarily restricted *.
Van Mildert passes on to the church of England.
Her " moderation," in Timothy Puller's sense of the
word^, appeals strongly to him. Faithful to the
paramount authority of scripture, but insisting on
" the necessity of resorting to the aids of human
learning in fixing its interpretation," she testifies
her deference to the judgment of the church catholic,
when it can be duly obtained.
But notwithstanding this care to avoid error on her
own part, and to discountenance it in others, no uncharitable
invectives, no bitter anathemas, are fulminated against
those who separate from her communion : nor is any
unwiUingness manifested to give the right hand of fellowship
to any other churches vrith whom it is possible to hold
lawful communion. .. .Great, too, have been her con
cessions towards those who have stirred up dissensions
araong her members : concessions not made for the sake
of popularity, or to enlarge her pale for the admission of
them who are unsound in the faith, but that separatists
raight hereby be rendered more vriUing to listen to her
instructions upon essential points, and to examine vrith
candour the lesser matters on which such differences
1 Theological Works, vol. iv. p. 225.
" Puller is one of his favourite authors.

432 The Revolution and Since
existed  And hence she has been regarded, even by those
not of her own communion, as the fit medium of recon
ciliation between other churches. It is well known, indeed,
that some of her most distinguished members have expressly
aimed at forming, upon the model of her constitution, some
plan of union, which, vrithout a sacrifice of fundamental
principles, might unite foreign churches with our own, and
bring contending parties to something like mutual agree
ment.
He sadly adds :
But the failure, hitherto, of every such attempt only
serves to show the impracticability of the thing, and may
teach us to be so rauch the less sanguine in our expectations
that the purpose will ever be accomplished*.
Another of his sermons, on Christian unity, con
tains a grave warning against the fictitious union, at
which "some novel schemes of latitudinarianism "
seemed to be aiming, which would involve communion
" with such as turn the sacraments into acts of
idolatrous superstition, and with such as acknowledge
neither sacraments nor priesthood."
Though we enlarge our views of Christianity to its
utmost extent, though our charity be as expansive as the
gospel itself, we cannot extend its benefits further than that
sacred charter extends them  We cannot take upon us to
say that he who denies the divinity of the Redeemer, and
he who acknowledges him as his Lord and his God, stand
upon equal ground. We cannot instead of one body, one
spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism,
acknowledge many bodies of diverse kinds, many discordant
spirits, many hopes growing out of dissimilar persuasions,
many different objects of worship, many conflicting articles
of faith, many baptisms or modes of admission into the
1 Theological Works, vol. iv. pp. 238 foil.

The Revolutiott and Since 433
Christian covenant ; for this would be to annul the charter
itself  The peace, indeed, of the whole comraunity, of
those who separate frora the church as well as of those
who adhere to it, mainly depends upon that singleness of
heart, that honest simplicity of character and conduct,
which never can be othervrise than respected, whatever be
the shades of difference which separate parties from each
other. It is not the mere semblance of unity, the attempt
at a spurious coalition of sects or individuals, that can
reasonably be expected to produce this effect. It is the
honest and undisguised maintenance, on each side, of what
each holds to be the tmth, vrith Christian lenity and
forbearance towards what each deems to be error in the
other party, which raust lay the foundation of peace and
goodwill *-
The devout and accomplished Reginald Heber
had no idea of being a bigoted partisan. In one of
his amusing private letters he speaks of " offending
one or both of the two fiercest and foolishest parties
that ever divided a church, — the high churchmen
and the evangelicals^." He represented, or supposed
himself to represent, the great body of English
churchmen. In a paper written in 1812 Heber
contends for the validity of lay-baptism. It contains
some interesting expressions :
I know of no clergjmien, except the Wesleys, who have
refused the eucharist to persons who, having been baptized
in a dissenting coraraunion, have afterwards come over to
the church  The German Lutheran clergy are as absolutely
without episcopal ordination, and therefore in the view of
an episcopal church as merely laymen, as the dissenting
teachers in our own country. Yet who ever maintained
1 Theological Works, vol. vi. pp. 471, 476.
'¦'Life of R, Heber, by his Widow, vol. 11. p. 5.
M. 28

434 The Revolution and Since
that King George I or the successive queens of this country
were not members of the Christian church ? Or who has
blamed the venerable Societies for the Propagation of the
Gospel and Proraotion of Christian Knowledge for recog
nizing, not only the baptism, but the ordination of Lutheran
superintendents and elders, and emplo5ring as missionaries
and as dispensers of the sacrament those who, if your
correspondent were correct, are not entitled to receive the
eucharist themselves*?
Writing to a Roman Catholic in 1814, Heber says :
I also, as well as you, believe in the holy catholic church.
. . . By the catholic church we raean that society of faithful
people all over the world which is called by the name of
Christ and governed, according to the appointment' of the
apostles, by bishops, priests, and deacons*.
A remarkable letter of his is addressed (in 1823)
to a chaplain in India who had refused to allow
Heber's archdeacon to preach in his church. It
reveals a very decided view of what the episcopal
office means :
It is my duty to observe that the power of preaching,
which the bishop hiraself possesses, he has a right to delegate
to any person in holy orders whora he raay think it expedient
to eraploy. It is through hira that in the first instance
the commission is derived to preach at aU, or to exercise any
rainistry in the church whatever. But a fortiori he who
can elevate a layman to the rank of priest can authorize
a priest to preach in any place where he is himself entitled
to do so. . . . There is indeed one instance on record (but it
is an instance which you will hardly accept as favourable
to your cause) in which an Asiatic bishop complains of an
arrogant presbyter who refused to receive into the church
' Life of R, Heber, vol. i. p. 384.
* Ihid, p. 409. •

The Revolution and Since 435
those who went forth to be fellow helpers of the tmth. . . *-
I do not, I cannot, forget the awful distance between his
[Diotrephes'] offence, who resisted an inspired apostle, and
his error who questions the right of a short-sighted and
sinful person, his fellow-transgressor. . . . But though the
worthiness of the person differs, and though the spiritual
gifts have been withdrawn, the commission frora Christ is
stUl, as I apprehend, the same ; and it is the official capacity
of a bishop which . . . entitles his regulations to the respect
and obedience of his clergy.
The chaplain had apparently objected that a
bishop in India had not the same rights and powers
as a bishop in England. Heber replies :
A bishop, as such, is not the creature of the civil
magistrate. His authority existed before the civil power
had recognised him  And whether it is found in a state
of depression and discountenance, as in the episcopal church
of Scotland, or in a state of persecution, as in the episcopal
church of Greece, or altogether unconnected with the civil in
stitutions of the land, as in the episcopal churches of North
America and Malayalim, it adraits no other, and it can
seek no nobler, source of authority than that of " As my
Father hath sent me, so send I you.'' ... I am very far indeed
from judging those who, from conscientious error, reject
the forra of episcopal government. To one [? our] comraon
Master they must stand or fall ; and my best desire and
ray daUy prayer to God is that they as weU as we raay
be found standing on the same divine book before him.
But I am addressing the avowed member of an episcopal
church, who has received his coraraission to preach frora
episcopal hands, and whose very continuance in the cora
raunion and service of that church is a tacit engageraent
to submit to episcopal authority*
1 III John 8 foU.
" Life of R, Heber, vol. ii. pp. 160-163. 28 — 2

436 The Revolution and Since
Much has been made of the fact that the EngUsh
missionary societies employed at that time mission
aries who, in the language of Heber before he went
to India, were " mere laymen." A letter of his in
1825 to the S.P.C.K. shows — what perhaps has not
been sufficiently observed — that this employment
was not unrestricted, and that the anomaly was felt :
I trust I am not illiberal in expressing a hope that the
society will supply us with episcopally ordained clergymen.
Englishmen by nation, as well as in church discipline, are
on many weighty accounts to be preferred. But if these
are not forthcoming, I would earnestly recoraraend a
recourse to the ancient and apostolic churches of Denmark
and Sweden, from whose universities . . .there would be no
difficulty in obtaining learned and raeritorious candidates 
With the individual raissionaries of the Lutheran church
now in the eraploy of the society I am far, very far indeed,
frora having any reason to be dissatisfied.. . .StiU, there is
a difference between thera and us in matters of discipline
and external forms, which often meets the eye of the natives,
and produces an unfavourable effect upon thera. They are
perplexed what character to assign to rainisters of the
gospel, whom we support and send forth to thera, while
we do not admit them into our own churches. And so
much of the influence and authority which the church of
England is gradually acquiring with the Christians of
different oriental stocks (the Greeks, Armenians, and
Syrians) arises from our recognition of, and adherence to,
the apostolic institution of episcopacy, that it is greatly to
be desired that all who are brought forward under our
auspices in these countries should in this respect agree
with us.
A strong perception of these inconveniences has induced
three of the Lutheran missionaries employed in Bengal by
the Church Missionary Society, with the approbation of

The Revolution and Since 437
that body, and in a considerable degree influenced by my
opinion, to apply to me for re-ordination according to the
rites of the church of England ; and I had much satis
faction in admitting thera to deacon's orders on the last
St Andrew's day ; and though I ara far from urging any
of those already engaged with us to contract . . . this closer
union, and though I trust I shall not be suspected of showing
any unkindness or distance towards those who are content
with the species of comraission which they have already
received, I hope that in their choice of future labourers the
Society wUl not disregard the suggestion which I have
ventured to offer*.
The firmness of Bishop Heber's convictions on
the subject may be seen in the letter which he wrote
to the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society
at Cotta, who had consulted him about the propriety
of their holding conferences with " missionaries of
other religious sects " on topics connected with their
work among the heathen. Heber warmly approved
of the spirit manifested on both sides in this practice,
and encouraged the churchmen to go forward with
it, while mentioning certain cautions to be observed.
The first danger to which these meetings, he said,
were liable,
is the risk of levelling, in the eyes of others, and even in
your own, the peculiar claims to attention on the part of
men, and the peculiar hopes of grace and blessing from the
Most High, which, as we believe, are possessed by the
holders of an apostolic comraission over those whose call
to the ministry is less regular, though their labours are no
less sincere. God forbid, my brethren, that I should teach
you to think on this account highly of yourselves. Far
1 Life of R. Heber, vol. ii. pp. 348 foU. Cf. the account of his
reordination of Abdul Musseeh on p. 363.

438 The Revolution and Since
otherwise. This sense of the advantages which we enjoy
should humble us to the dust, when we bethink us who we
are, and what we ought to be, who have received the Spirit
of God by the dispensation of a long line of saints and
martyrs, . . . and who are by the external dispensation, at
least, of providence the inheritors of that grace which feU on
St Paul. But humbly, yea meanly, as we are bound to think
of ourselves, we must not appear to undervalue our apostoUc
bond of union ; and the more so here in India, inasmuch as
it is the great link which binds us to the ancient Syrian
church [in the midst of which Cotta was placed], and one
principal means whereby we hope, vrith the blessing of our
Master, to effect its gradual reformation*.
From across St George's channel comes a voice in
the latter half of the i8th century which sometimes
reminds us of the days of Bramhall and of Taylor.
It is that of PhUip Skelton. Presumably towards
the close of his life — he died in 1787 — Skelton de
livered a discourse, which he calls " a free and open
expostulation with the dissenters," entitled. The
Church of Christ can have but one mind. In the course
of it he observes
Among all the transactions of the church from the
apostolic age down to this, I know of none managed vrith
more temper, raore tenderness, more regard to scripture or
primitive practice, as delivered to us by written (not pre
tended, oral) tradition, than the reforraation of the church
of England*.
He describes the great features of this work, and
then how it was marred by the puritans.
1 Heber's Indian Journal, vol. ii. p. 155 (ed. 1844).
^ Works (ed. 1824), vol. in. p. 357.

The Revolution and Since 439
The next thing the puritans took offence at was the
hierarchy of the church. They looked on the bishops as
the instruments of papal tyranny and the corrupters of
tme religion. They were therefore of Machiavel's mind,
who said, if that monk (meaning Luther) does not cut the
very core out of this boil, namely episcopacy, it will grow
again, and render vain all he hath done. They, as if taught
by this master, were, it seems, so ignorant as not to know
that the bishops, of all raen, had raost reason to oppose
the usurpation of the bishop of Rome, who had made
himself the only bishop, and reduced all the rest to cyphers.
Nor did they consider whether it was in the power of man
to abolish at his discretion an order of the church, instituted
by God himself, merely because the raen who filled this
order had degenerated, together with all the rest of the
church, into superstition and luxury.
Here again the scheme of our opposers was not to reform,
but to destroy ; and what was equally bold, to begin a new
ministry, with hardly any other mission than such as a
number of men, and sometimes one man only, wholly un
authorized, for aught that others could perceive, should
assume. From men thus sending themselves, or sent by
we know not whora, we are to receive the sacraments.
And what is marveUous beyond all conception, this new
species of ordination, though apparently \i.e. evidently] of
human institution, is now become too sacred to be interrupted,
whUe that which seems at least to be of Christ, is laid aside.
But why, in the name of wonder, raay we not as well
have a new mission every day ? Hath the church, or rather
the multitude, lost its faculty, so prolific two hundred years
ago, in the equivocal generation of missions ? We raust
not forget, however, that these new orders lay claim to
scriptural institution and primitive exaraple. What, all of
them ? And without succession ? Do we hear of any raan
in scripture who ordained hiraself, or who presumed to take
the ministry of God's word and sacraments upon him
vrithout being sent either immediately or successively by

440 The Revolution and Since
Christ ? Or can an instance of this nature be assigned
during the first fourteen centuries of the church ? Or will
even those protestants, who adopted a new mission at the
reformation, now suffer anyone to administer the sacra
ments among them without ordination, obtained in succes
sion from that adoption ? Do they not by this strictness
practically confess at least the expediency of such a
succession ? But if a succession of this nature may be
warrantably founded on their invention, whj' not on
Christ's institution*.
Skelton turns to the plea of an extraordinary
mission :
Perhaps however they who gave rise to a new current
of ordination were immediately authorized so to do by
divine inspiration. This, I believe, will hardly be now
insisted on. But if it is, and supernatural inspiration
proved, even that will not serve this tum. So sacred a
thing is the succession of ordination, that the Holy Ghost,
who had already enabled Barnabas and Saul to preach the
word, ordered them to be separated for the work whereunto
he had called them, by fasting, prayer, and iraposition of
hands, that is, to be ordained ; the Spirit of God hereby
plainly showing that he himself would not break the
successive order of mission established in the church.
Without in the least regarding this, or other passages of
scripture, that plainly point out the three orders, the re
forraers I am speaking of, though strenuously insisting on
scripture as the only rule of reformation, threw out the
episcopal order, and began a new method of authorizing
orders, until that time unheard of in the church*.
Skelton ends with an appeal to the dissenters to
consider. . .whether we differ about anything of real
moment (I speak to you only who agree with us in funda
mentals) excepting the single point of church government ;
1 Works, vol. rn. pp. 360 foil. * Ibid. p. 361.

The Revolution and Since 441
whether Christ himself did not govern the church episcopaUy ;
whether he gave us any reason to think he intended this
method of government should be altered on his leaving the
world ; whether he did not rather entail it on the church
by sending his apostles as his Father had sent him ; whether
Timothy and Titus were not constituted real bishops, with
jLuthority over presbyters and deacons, by St Paul . . .
whether what [that holy martyr, St Ignatius] delineates in
this behalf is not evidently traced in the practice of aU
churches down to the reformation ; whether at that period
many reformers. . .did not proceed rather by pique and
prejudice, than by reason or authority, scriptural or tra
ditional, in rejecting the episcopal order. . .whether the
merits, as to this, can ever be decided by our preconceptions
of either side... or in short by any other method than
that of a cool dispassionate appeal to scriptural authority,
explained by the practice of antiquity. After having
maturely weighed these things, we beg of you then seriously
to consider in the last place, whether any set of Christians
can warrantably lay aside the succession of orders, so
plainly founded by Christ himself, and so long religiously
kept up by all his church, and begin a new succession,
without even the colour of necessity*.
It is much to be wished that this powerful appeal
were better known than it is.
For the sole reason that a name so clarum et
venerabile may not be passed over, let a few words
of the great lay theologian of the church of Ireland
be added to those of Skelton. Writing in 1812 " on
the central character of the church of England,"
Alexander Knox says that the liturgy is the golden
chain, or rather " that silver cord (for so Solomon
calls the spinal marrow) which unites us to the great
* Works, vol. III. pp. 373 foil.

442 The Revolution and Since
mystical body." Other things, like the XXXIX
articles, providentially help to equip us in view of
" the conciliatory function to be one day exercised
by us." But our vitality as a church consists in our identity of
organisation and of mental character with the church
catholic : and as our unbroken episcopacy impUes the
first, our liturgy, and that alone (because an actual effiuence
of " the cathoUc religion ") contains the other *-
The old school of Anglicans found one of its
noblest representatives in the early part of the
19th century in the person of the famous Bishop of
Limerick, John Jebb.
An ordination sermon of his, preached in 1810,
sets forth in no uncertain tones, not only the doctrine
of the apostolical succession of the ministry (which
is assumed, rather than asserted), but also the
Catholicism which uses the teaching of the past for
the guidance of the future. It is on the last words
of St Matthew's Gospel.
It was the last act of our Lord's earthly ministry, the
preacher begins, to deliver his instructions, and delegate
his authority, to the holy apostles ; and through the apostles
to their legitimate successors in all ages of the church*.
To " disciple all nations " means
Receive whole communities into the outward, visible
profession of Christianity. Make coUective bodies of
disciples, whom you raay afterwards instruct. Let nations
be united in the common bond of catholicity. And let
thera transmit from generation to generation the means of
religious worship, and the light of religious truth*.
* Remains, vol. in. p. 69.
* Practical Theology, vol. i. p. 117. ' Ibid, p. 121.

The Revolutiott and Since 443
The promise, " Lo, I am with you alway," is
not occasional or teraporary, like that of rairaculous powers,
but conveying an assurance that Christ himself will in spirit
and in power be continually present with his catholic and
apostolic church ; vrith the bishops of that church, who
derive from the apostles by uninterrupted succession ; and
with those inferior, but essential, orders of the church, which
are constituted by the sarae authority, and dedicated to
the sarae service*.
Jebb dwells in an instructive manner on the
passage in the epistle to the Ephesians where St Paul
speaks of superhuman intelligences as learning from
the study of the developing history of the church.
The church, then, be it specially observed, is not a simple
accumulation of individuals ; but it is, what holy scripture
declares it to be, a regulated society, an organized body ;
preserving through successive ages its identity of essence
and unity of spirit ; receiving from time to time a continual
increment of members, and through the instrumentality of
those merabers deriving growth, and strength, and gradual
advancement towards that coraplete raaturity, when it shall
attain unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ*.
Sketching in bold outlines the course of Christian
history, Jebb comes to " the glorious reformation."
Of this reformation, he says, the fairest portion is, by
the blessing of God, our providential birthright. And in
this place, and on this occasion, I cannot forgo the gratifi
cation of paying an humble tribute of duty and affection
to our venerable parent, the church of England. The
pious founders of our national establishment* both deeply
^ Practical Theology, vol. i. p. 122. ^ Ibid. p. 126.
' He does not mean the church of England itself by this expression,
but the system under which it now exists.

444 The Revolution and Since
pondered, and sincerely loved, a principle which in literature,
in politics, in raorals and religion, is far above all price,
and which should be engraven on the hearts and consciences
of all Christian philosophers, statesraen, and divines ; the
principle, namely, that to innovate is not to reform 
Adorers of God's special providence, they could not consign
to oblivion, as superfluous and superannuated, those docu
ments of most reraote antiquity, that " precious life blood
of so raany raaster-spirits," which amidst the resolutions of
ages had been providentially " embalmed and treasured up,
on purpose to a life beyond life*." They felt that as the
universal consent of all men in all ages is allowed to be
the voice of nature, so the unanimous concurrence of
councils, churches, bishops, and fathers, ought to be received
as the voice of the gospel. Therefore, when they came to
reform abuses, they adopted as their motto and their
principle that golden decision of the council of Nice, " Let
ancient usages prevail."
Such was the spirit in which our reformers executed
their holy work ; and we enjoy the fruits of their labours, —
an uninterrupted succession from the apostolic age of
bishops, priests, and deacons, not pensioners on the state,
not dependants on the people... a body of liturgical
services, the collected and concentrated spirit of whatever
was most valuable in aU Christian antiquity ... an ex
position of national faith, which, to be rightly apprehended
and duly appreciated, must be carefully collated vrith
the sacred scriptures, with the general voice of Christian
antiquity, and with the confessions of other reformed
communities. On such a comparison, it may be safely
affirmed. ..that the articles of the church of England are
raore accurate and less rigid, raore liberal and less relaxed,
raore orthodox and less dogmatic, than those of any other
society at present in existence. And the reason is plain :
our reformers were not desirous, either literaUy to coincide
1 A quotation from MUton's Liberty of unlicensed Printing.

The Revolution and Since 445
with, or unlimitedly to dissent from, any particular com
munion, whether that of Geneva, of Augsburg, or of Rome.
For it can be established by a cloud of witnesses that the
sacred scripture was their test, and the harmony of all
churches in all ages their great expositor*.
The week before the battle of Waterloo, Jebb
dedicated to the archbishop of his province a volume
of sermons containing an appendix " relating to the
character of the church of England as distinguished
both from other branches of the reformation and from
the modern church of Rome." He was indebted for
help in composing it to Alexander Knox. It is an
essay which deserves to be better known than it
now is. At the present day, Jebb writes, it is by no means suffi
ciently considered that the church of England occupies a
very peculiar station in the Christian world ; constituting,
as it were, a species in herself.
Her specific temperament, indeed, has during the last
century been most inadequately recognised at horae. But
it has not failed to attract the notice of foreign observers.
The sagacious Mosheira, for example, and he is not singular
in his statement, describes the English church as that
correction of the old religion which separates the Britons,
equally, from the Roman Catholics, and from the other
coraraunities who have renounced the domination of the
pope *.
To illustrate " the difference between the English
church and the great protestant body," and also " the
agreement between the English church and the
1 Practical Theology, vol. i. pp. 135-138.
2 Sermons on Subjects chiefly practical (ed. 1832), p. 365.

446 The Revolution and Since
catholic apostolical church of ancient times," the
bishop quotes " the memorable Protest" of 1529,
from which Protestantism takes its name — in which
protest it is questioned where the true church is to
be found, and maintained th9,t the bible is only to be
interpreted by the bible, without restriction or
qualification. The different course pursued by the English church is
apparent at first view ; and the contrast vriU gain strength
the raore closely it is exarained. The church of England,
for example, does not affect to doubt where the true church
is to be found. Without pronouncing censures on those
instances of ecclesiastical irregularity, which God has seen
good to permit, and which he may therefore be graciously
pleased to excuse, the English church expresses her idea
of that "one body," of which the Christian church regiUarly
consists, by her own uncompromising adherence to deri
vative episcopacy, and by her rejection of all clerical orders
which have not emanated frora that source. Assured,
therefore, of the quarter in which the fulfilment of our
Saviour's proraise, " Lo, I ara with you always "...is to
be looked for, she directs her children, and stiU raore her
ministers, instead of relying on their own interpretation of
the sacred word, to consult the concurrent lights of antiquity.
. . .Thus it is evident that the church, in the strictly
catholic and hierarchical sense of the term, is on the one
side recognised and revered ; while on the other side not
only her guidance is rejected, but her existence is disputed*.
The bishop then quotes the Vincentian rule of
Catholicism, and shows in several ways how much
more closely the English church conforms to it than
the modern Roman church.
* Sermons on Subjects chiefly practical, p. 370.

The Revolution and Since 447
But where at this day are those views retained,
except in the church of England ? The protestant cora
raunions on the continent have not so much as pretended
to revere antiquity .... The church of England alone has
adopted a raiddle course : raoving in the same delightful
path, and treading in the same hallowed footsteps, vrith
Vincentius and the catholic bishops and the ancient fathers ;
proceeding as far as they proceeded, and stopping where
they stopped*.
Jebb examines the language of the collects in
regard to the church :
These and similar expressions, confined as they are,
both in their own original import and by the most authori
tative declarations, to the strictly hierarchical church, as
a visible and incorporated polity, imply by inevitable
consequence that it is the interest, no less than the duty,
of each individual Christian to adhere to the feUowship, to
study the movements, and with aU possible diligence to
trace the very footsteps, of this heaven-directed society,
in order that he may walk in its light, gain instruction from
its movements, and derive animation from its influence *-
He specially singles out the prayer " for all sorts
and conditions of men " for praise :
This noble devotional composition, priraitive in its
spirit, though raodern in its date, implores that " good
estate of the catholic church," in which aU wandering sheep
shaU be brought back to the one fold, and walking in the
way of truth, as partners of the same faith, shall not only
endeavour after, but attain and enjoy, the unity of the
spirit, in the bond of peace. Now, as there is but one way
of tmth, there can be only one unity of spirit ; a blessed
1 Sermons on Subjects chiefly practical, p. 386.
2 Ihid. p. 388.

448 The Revolution and Since
unity of mind and heart with the whole catholic church, —
not merely vrith existing communities of Christians, but
with that countless multitude which has passed on before.
For in truth this retrospective unity vrith the church of
old is the only solid ground for present unity with con
teraporaries, and for prospective unity with the church
progressive upon earth and consummated in heaven. A
clear and definite principle of union is indispensable ; and
such a principle cannot either be discovered or conceived,
except in the " foUowing of those who through faith and
patience have inherited the promises*."
1 Sermons on Subjects chiefly practical, p. 389.

CHAPTER VI
MODERN ANGLICAN CRITICISM
It is unnecessary to trace in detail the history of
Anglican opinion on the historic episcopate beyond
the date which has now been reached. Bishop Jebb
died in the year of Keble's assize sermon, from which
the tractarian revival starts. Enough has been said
to show that a belief in the divine institution of
episcopacy was no invention of the Oxford move
ment, and no mediaeval theory dug up out of a
forgotten past. It was the living tradition of the
English church all through the i8th century and
even in the first quarter of the 19th. The most
powerful defenders of the doctrine after the Oxford
movement had begun were men who had formed their
convictions earlier. Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of
Exeter, was such a man ; and he had many others
with him. There was nothing new in the tractarian
insistence upon the apostolical succession. What
was to a certain extent new was on the one hand the
rigid aloofness with which the tractarians regarded
the foreign churches which were without it, and on
the other hand the passionate scorn with which the
doctrine was repudiated by partisans of the opposing
school. Of these two novelties the second, if the
M. 29

450 Modern Anglican Criticism
expression may be allowed, was the newer. Men
like Bishop Croft had thought that the doctrine was
unduly pressed. Men like Hoadly and the younger
GUbert Burnet could sneer at it, because they sneered
at all that was characteristically Christian ; but they
knew that they were opposing the doctrine of their
church. Men like Warburton, Paley, and Hey, could
write of it with critical detachment. Men outside
the pale or barely within it, like Baxter, might deny
it. But the church of England had seen nothing
from the hands of her own sons like the diatribes of
William Goode and his associates against the re-
assertion of what had been taught by all the great
Anglican divines from Jewel to Jebb.
That there was much that was irritating and one
sided in the writings of some of the tractarians is
true ; but the new attitude which they took up
towards foreign protestantism in general was not al
together unjustified. Earlier English theologians had
almost always based their defence of foreign orders
upon two grounds. One was the ground of necessity ;
they assumed that the foreign reformers could not
help resorting to uncatholic methods of ordaining.
The other was that the foreign reformers stood (with
whatever qualification in particulars) for what was
catholic and primitive, as against the modern cor
ruptions of Rome. Both grounds began to fail under
the defenders' feet. The misgivings of the Laudian
and Restoration writers with regard to the plea of
necessity proved to be only too well founded. History
made it clear that many of the foreign reformers,

Modern Anglican Criticism 451
particularly the Scottish, broke with episcopacy on
purpose. And the process of doctrinal disintegration
had begun to set in. Things had not gone as far in
that direction in 1833 as they have gone in 1914^ ;
but, in spite of Pusey's early defence of German
theology, there was reason for the fears of Hugh
James Rose and others. It could no longer be said
with truth that foreign protestantism represented the
protestantism of a ChiUingworth, still less that of
a Cosin. To a large extent it was already not only
anti-Roman, but anti-Catholic. Their cause was only
in a small measure ours.
Meanwhile, partly under the stimulus of con
tinental research, the origin of Christian institutions
began to be studied by new methods and in a more
disinterested spirit than at an earlier time. Before
Dr Pusey died two works had been produced by
Anglican theologians, one at Oxford and one at
Cambridge, dealing with the subject of episcopacy
from a wholly different standing-point from that of
the Froudes and the Percivals or the Goodes either.
The two works were the Bampton Lectures of Edwin
Hatch in 1880, on the Organization of the Early
Christian Churches, and the dissertation on The
Christian Ministry appended by Joseph Barber
Lightfoot to his edition of the Epistle to the Philip-
pians in 1868.
' Professor Loots has recently said that he does not know a
single learned man in Germany who holds the belief in the person
of our Lord which is defined in the decrees of the four great
ecumenical councils. 29 — 2

452 Modern Anglican Criticism
Some apology is necessary for mentioning the two
works in a single sentence. The reason is that
controversialists have spoken of them together, as
together making it impossible, on critical and his
torical grounds, to maintain the doctrine of the
apostolical succession as it was taught (let us say)
by Pearson, or the fact that episcopacy is of apostohc
and therefore of divine institution. It was pointed
out by the " Principal of a Theological College," in
a series of letters to the Times a few years ago,
in answer to one such controversialist, that it was
impossible to teach the views of Hatch and Lightfoot
to theological students as if they were a single
whole : it was necessary to choose between them.
The caution is not yet superfluous. The two names
still sometimes appear together in the effusions of
men who should know better. It will be no un
fitting conclusion to this enquiry to say a few words
on both the works.
Hatch's Bampton Lectures were not at all written
with a polemical purpose, — at any rate with no
destructive or anti-ecclesiastical intention. They
form a singularly lucid and able attempt to explain
some phenomena of early church history, which had
long been known, by the light of facts accumulated
in other departments of knowledge, especially in the
department of epigraphy. The formation of the
catholic church did not seem to Hatch to be any
less divine and predestined because he thought
that it could be accounted for on purely natural
principles.

Modem Anglican Criticistn 453
If the evidence shows, as I believe it to show, that not
only did the elements of the Christian societies exist, but
that also the forces which welded them together and gave
thera shape are adequately explained by existing forces of
human society, the argument from analogy becomes so
strong that, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary,
it is impossible to resist the inference that in the divine
economy which governs human life, as it governs the courses
of the stars, by the fewest causes and the simplest means,
the Christian societies, and the confederation of those
societies which we commonly speak of in a single phrase
as " the visible church of Christ," were formed vrithout any
special interposition of that mysterious and extraordinary
action of the divine volition, which for want of a better
term we speak of as " supernatural*."
He recalls how according to modern scientific
doctrine man's life was evolved out of lower organic
forms, without being the less divine :
And so it raay be. . .out of antecedent and, if you will,
lower forms, out of existing elements of human institutions,
by the action of existing forces of human society, swayed
as you will by the breathing of the divine breath, controlled
as you will by the providence which holds in its hand the
wayward wills of men, . . . came into being that vridest and
strongest and most enduring of institutions which bears
the sacred name of the Holy Catholic Church. The divinity
which clings to it is the divinity of order*.
There is nothing derogatory to the church in this
teaching. It is compatible with the loftiest concep
tions of the Christian ministry. The question is
whether it is compatible with all the facts of history,
or only with a selection of them.
* Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. i8.
2 Ibid, p. 20.

454 Modern Anglican Criticism
Hatch's theory is this. He takes his start with
the Christians among the Gentiles. He shows how
the principle of association was everywhere at work
at the beginning of the Christian era. The Roman
empire was covered with associations innumerable,
for every imaginable purpose. These associations
almost all contained a religious element.
When the truths of Christianity were first preached,
especiaUy in the larger towns of the Roman empire, the
aggregation of those who accepted those tmths into societies
was thus not an isolated phenomenon *-
Hatch implies that the principle of association
was not an original and inherent and necessary part
of the gospel.
Such an aggregation does not appear to have invariably
followed belief. There were many who stood apart ; and
there were many reasons for their doing so  The union of
believers in associations had to be preached, if not as an
article of the Christian faith, at least as an element of
Christian practice*.
Of exhortations to this effect he quotes several
early examples. After the sub-apostolic age these exhortations cease.
The tendency to association had become a fixed habit.
The Christian coraraunities multiplied, and persecution
forged for them a stronger bond of unity. But to the eye
of the outside observer they were in the same category as
the associations which already existed*.
The prime factor in the Christian associations
was, according to Hatch's theory, an economic one.
* Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. 29.
* Ihid, 3 7jj^, p, 3o_

Modern Anglican Criticism 455
They were in the first instance benefit societies, con
sisting for the most part of very poor people. The
obligation of the weU-to-do to help their needier
brethren was their chief obligation.
It was in this point that the Christian communities
were unlike the other associations which surrounded them.
Other associations were charitable : but whereas in them
charity was an accident, in the Christian associations it
was of the essence. They gave to the religious revival
which alraost always accorapanies a period of social strain
the special direction of philanthropy*.
Now in the contemporary non-Christian associa
tions of Asia Minor and Syria
the officers of administration and finance were chiefly
known by one or other of two names, not far distant from
one another in either form or meaning. The one of these
was iiri/xeXrinji, . . .the Other was the name which became
so strongly impressed on the officers of the Christian
societies as to have held its place until modern tiraes, . . .
the Greek iirio-Koiro^, the English bishop *-
Thus the first " bishops " of the Christian com
munities were the financial administrators, who
received the offerings of the members and distributed
them, after solemnly dedicating them to God and
uttering over them, in the name of the assembly,
words of thanksgiving and benediction.
When the president became a single permanent officer,
he was, as before, the person into whose hands the offerings
were committed and who was primarily responsible for their
distribution. He thus became the centre round whom the
1 Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. 35.
^ Ihid. pp. 36 foil.

456 Modern Anglican Criticism
vast system of Christian charity revolved. His functions
as supreme almoner tended to overshadow his functions as
president of the council. . . .The title which clung to him was
that which was relative to his administration of the funds,
cTTitTKOTros or bishop*.
When he comes to describe the process which
evolved the single " bishop " out of the committee
of " bishops," Hatch affirms that there was an
almost, if not altogether, universal tendency that
way among contemporary organizations, and that
there were various causes specially at work in the
Christian communities which told in the same direc
tion. Among these causes
there were some cases in which an apostle had been
supreme during his lifetime, and in which the tradition of
personal supremacy lingered after his death. There were
others in which the oversight of a community had been
speciaUy entrusted by an apostle to some one officer. There
were others in which special powers or special merits gave
to some one man a predominant influence. Rome, Antioch,
Ephesus, are examples of such cases. It is, indeed, whoUy
uncertain how far they are typical : and there is a proba
bility that, where such supremacy existed, it was personal
rather than officied, inasmuch as those who exercised it
do not appear to have had, as such, any distinguishing
appellation*.
A second cause was that
there is clear proof of the existence of a theory of
the nature of ecclesiastical organization which, from the
fact of its persistent survival after a counter-theory had
taken its place, raay be supposed to have had a strong
^ Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. 41.
2 Ihid. p. 86.

Modern Anglican Criticism 457
hold upon the communities among which it existed. To
the writer of the Ignatian epistles* each organized com
raunity of Christians is a perfect reflex of the whole church
of God  The bishop sat in the Lord's place ; the presbyters
were what the apostles had been : it was for the rest of
the coraraunity to listen and to obey  The theory seems
to go back to the very beginnings of the Christian societies*.
These facts, Hatch thought,
seem adequate to account for the fact that the Christian
communities were borne along with the general drift of
contemporary organizations, and that the council of
presbyters had a permanent president  They are all
compatible with the view that the early bishop stood to
his presbyters in the relation of... the chairman to the
ordinary members of a coraraittee. They do not account
for the fact that the bishops of the third and subsequent
centuries claimed for themselves exceptional powers, and
that the relation of primacy ultimately changed into a
relation of supremacy*.
This development is traced as follows. When
Gnosticism arose, the problem pressed for an answer,
what should be the basis of Christian union. It was
a great crisis.
But great crises give birth to great conceptions. There
is a kind of unconscious logic in the minds of raasses of
men, when great questions are abroad, which some one
thinker throws into form. The form which the " common
sense," so to speak, of Christendom took upon this great
question is one which is so familiar to us that we find it
difficult to go back to a tirae when it was not yet in being.
' Hatch wrote before Lightfoot had proved to demonstration
that the writer of the Ignatian epistles was Ignatius.
^ Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 87 foil.
» Ihid. pp. 89 foil.

458 Modern Anglican Criticism
Its first elaboration and setting forth was due to one man's
genius. With great rhetorical force and dialectical subtlety,
Irenaeus. . .maintained that the standard of Christian
teaching was the teaching of the churches which the apostles
had founded, which teaching he held to be on all essential
points the same. ... To that fides catholica et apostolica aU
individual opinions and interpretations were to be referred*.
In this view. Hatch affirms, which was already
in the air, the Christian world gradually acquiesced.
The Christian communities were saved from disinte
gration. But in the consequent up-building of a
catholic and apostolic church arose the further
question, how the teaching of the churches was to
be known, and who were its conservators. In the
rabbinical schools there was a succession of rabbis
who handed on the sacred deposit of truth :
It might reasonably be supposed that in the Christian
churches there had been a simUar tradition from one
generation of officers to another : that, in other words,
the apostles had definitely taught those whom they had
appointed, or recognized, as officers, and what had been
so taught had been preserved by those who had succeeded
those officers  In the Clementines, for the first time, the
president of the community is regarded in the light of the
custodian of the rule of faith — in express distinction from
the presbyters, who are, entmsted only vrith that which is
relative to their main functions, the teaching of the maxims
of Christian morality. The point was not at once uni
versally conceded ; but in the course of the third century
it seems to have won its way to general recognition. The
supremacy of the bishop and unity of doctrine were con
ceived as going hand in hand : the bishop was conceived
as having what Irenaeus calls the charisma veritatis ; the
* Organization of the Early Christian Churches, p. 93.

Modern Anglican Criticism 459
bishop's seat was conceived as being, what St Augustine
calls it, the cathedra unitatis ; and round the episcopal
office revolved the whole vast system, not only of Christian
administration and Christian organization, but also of
Christian doctrine*.
In this way Hatch thinks
that adequate causes have been found not only for the
existence of a president, but also for his supremacy without
resorting to what is not a known fact, but only a counter-
hypothesis — the hypothesis of a special institution. The
episcopate grew, by the force of circumstances, in the order
of providence, to satisfy a felt need. It is pertinent to add
that this view. . .has not the merit or demerit of novelty. . .
St Jerome . . .maintains that the churches were originally
governed by a plurality of presbyters, but that in course
of time one was elected to preside over the rest, as a remedy
against division*.
Hatch adds that the supremacy of the bishop was
consolidated by the necessity for unity of discipline,
especially in dealing with those who had fallen or
faltered under persecution. The " counter-theory "
above referred to, which Hatch considers to have
superseded the Ignatian, is this. In the Ignatian
conception, the bishop represents the invisible Christ ;
the presbyters represent the apostles. But gradually
it came to be thought that the bishop, not the
presbyters, represented the apostles, and represented
them in the sense of succeeding to their office and
powers. It was a still later development of this view to maintain
that the bishops had also succeeded to the power of the
1 Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 97 foil.
^ Ihid. p. 98.

460 Modern Anglican Criticistn
apostles in the conferring of spiritual gifts, and that through
thera, and through them exclusively, did it please the Holy
Spirit to enter into the souls either of individual Christians
in baptism, or of church officers at ordination. This latest
development. . .passed at length into the ordinals ; and it
still survives*.
It does not seem necessary here to describe at
length Hatch's account of the rise of the presbyterate.
The government of elders among the Jews was weU
established : the system travelled with them wher
ever they went. It was an obvious thing to do,
when elders appeared as officers in Jewish Christian
communities. Hatch is not quite so clear as usual
when he attempts to account for the appearance of
elders in the Gentile churches. But he says that the
system of local government by councils or com
mittees was very widely spread ; and that respect
for seniority was very strong, and that the term
" elders " appears in some instances to have been
applied to the members of local Gentile councils.
In this way he thinks it probable that the presbyterate
in the Gentile churches " had a spontaneous and
independent origin," — ^more probable than " the
direct transference of the Jewish office to the GentUe
communities." This, he thinks, would account for
the fact that the members of the governing council
were known by various names : presumably he
means the name of bishops, as well as that of
presbyters^. ^ Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 106 foil.
" Ihid. p. 65.

Modern Anglican Criticism 461
Hatch's taking book had the singular honour of
securing the approbation of Harnack himself. Har-
nack translated it into German, and published it
with additional notes of his own. But Harnack's
adhesion to the views of Hatch was somewhat
transient. His latest work relating to the subject.
The Constitution and Law of the Church in the first two
Centuries (English translation 1910), contains few
traces of the influence of Hatch. Its main principles
are quite different from those on which Hatch's work
is based. Hatch has found few disciples besides.
Meritorious as his work is in many respects, it cannot
stand as a complete account of the development of
the early church and its officers.
Only a few criticisms upon it can be offered here.
At the very outset. Hatch begins at the wrong end
when he takes the local associations or communities
as his point of departure. All recent investigation
points to the belief that the general community of
Christians throughout the world, is prior to the
formation of local associations. Men did not, as
Hatch assumes, form local churches, and then transfer
the name of church to the aggregate composed of
them : it was precisely the other way. The work
of Rudolf Sohm, in great measure now adopted by
Harnack, shows that the conception of the ecclesia
at large comes first, and that the local organizations
are only so many manifestations or representative
gatherings of the universal ecclesia. Hort's study of
the Christian Ecclesia leads to a similar result. He is
emphatic in asserting that the constituent elements

462 Modern Anglican Criticistn
of the one ecclesia are not the many ecclesiae, but
the souls who are gathered in them. These great
scholars are agreed that the title of the ecclesia implies
no lower claim than that of being the new and true
Israel, the people of God.
This being so, it cannot be considered true that
the joining of believers in " associations " arose from
the imitation of a system of associations already in
existence. The existing associations very naturally
aided the work of forming churches ; but the idea
of the union of believers lay in the preaching of the
gospel itself. It was no spontaneous after-thought.
And Hatch has laid far too great a stress upon the
economic side of the Christian associations. Im
portant as the economic side is, the associations were
based upon something more vitaUy religious. Corpus
sumus de conscientia religionis. Converts were not
baptized into a benefit society, but into the body of
Christ. What they met for was not primarily to pay
in a contribution or receive a dole ; they met to
worship and to receive or impart spiritual edification.
It is a curious and interesting accident that the
officers of certain heathen societies who had charge
of the money box were called k-nia-Kouoi ; but the
word was a very common one.
The bishops (cirt'o-KOTrot) may be derived from the
Septuagint ; they may have been copied from the municipal
administrations ; but they may also — and this is the most
probable view- — have arisen spontaneously. The word
always signifies an overseer, curator, superintendent ; but
as to what the supervision is concerned with, it contains

Modern Anglican Criticism ¦ 463
no indication. It may be souls ; and then the word is
equivalent to pastors ; . . .but it may also be buUdings,
economic affairs, etc. ; or it may be a combination of
the two*.
In order to account for the evolution of the
monarchical " bishop " Hatch is obliged to fall back,
in part at any rate, upon an apostolical practice, and
upon the existence of a theory of ecclesiastical
organization. It will be felt how forced and artificial
is the contrast which he draws between the Ignatian
" theory " of the bishop's office and that of Irenaeus.
If anything, the earlier image is the loftier. It seems
a greater thing to be the representative of the in
visible God than to be the successor of aU the apostles
put together ; — and there is- not the least conflict
between the two conceptions.
Lightfoot's famous dissertation, written twelve
years earlier, proceeds on very different principles.
It is no attempt to extract a theory from new
material, only remotely connected with the Christian
documents. It is a sober, painstaking re-examination
of the documents themselves, conducted in the spirit
of the true historian.
It begins indeed with a doctrinal statement.
The Christian church has no sacerdotal system. But
the statement is followed immediately by a " neces
sary qualification." Lightfoot does not pause to
argue the question whether the church is and always
has been a corporate society : he assumes that it is
so.
'¦ Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, p. 58.

464 Modern Anglican Criticism
It must be evident that no society of men could hold
together without officers, vrithout mles, vrithout institutions
of any kind ; and the church of Christ is not exempt from
this universal law  The church could not fulfil the purposes
for which she exists vrithout rulers and teachers, without
a ministry of reconciliation, in short, without an order of
men who may in sorae sense be designated a priesthood*.
Lightfoot introduces this qualification at the out
set in order to avoid misunderstanding.
It will be time to enquire hereafter in what sense the
Christian ministry may or raay not be called a priesthood.
But in attempting to investigate the historical development
of this divine institution, no better starting-point suggested
itself
than the absence of a distinctive priesthood. The
reader ought to notice carefully that the institu
tion whose development Lightfoot is about to trace
is, as a whole, a " divine institution^."
" Strict loyalty to this conception," however, of
a religion without a priesthood, " was not held incom
patible with practical measures of organization^."
" For communicating instruction and for preserving
piiblic order, for conducting religious worship, and
for dispensing social charities " — so Lightfoot classes,
more wisely than Hatch, the purposes to be kept in
view — "it became necessary to appoint special
officers*." Lightfoot remarks that in the passages
where St Paul speaks of the various offices in the
church of his time, the permanent ministry, though
lightly touched upon, is as spiritual a thing as the
1 Lightfoot, Philippians (ed. 1869), pp. 179 foil.
2 Ibid, p. 180. 8 Ibid, p. 182. « Ibid.

Modern Anglican Criticism 465
temporary ministry. " The faculty of governing not
less than the utterance of prophecy ... is an inspira
tion of the Holy Ghosfi." But there is no specific
priesthood. After this prefatory statement Lightfoot begins
the historical enquiry.
History seems to show decisively that before the raiddle
of the second century each church or organized Christian
coraraunity had its three orders of ministers, its bishop,
its presbyters, and its deacons. On this point there cannot
reasonably be two opinions. But at what time and under
what circumstances this organization was matured, and to
what extent our aUegiance is due to it as an authoritative
ordinance, are more difficult questions. Some have recog
nized in episcopacy an institution of divine origin, absolute
and indispensable ; others have represented it as destitute
of all apostolic sanction and authority. ... In this clamour
of antagonistic opinions history is obviously the sole upright,
impartial referee  The doctrine in this instance at all events
is involved in the history *-
At the beginning of the Acts, the twelve apostles
are " the sole directors and administrators of the
church. For the financial business of the infant
community, not less than for its spiritual guidance,
they alone are responsible." To relieve the pressure
upon them, the diaconate was established. It was
a novel thing, not borrowed from the levitical order,
nor from the synagogue. It spread from Jerusalem
to the Gentile churches. The presbyterate on the
other hand was not new, but was taken over from
the synagogue. Lightfoot connects its institution in
1 Lightfoot Philippians, p. 183. ^ Ihid, p. 184.
M. 30

466 Modern Anglican Criticistn
the Christian church of Jerusalem with the dispersion
of the apostles which followed on the martjnrdom of
St James the son of Zebedee. This office also was
extended to the Gentile churches. Jewish presby
teries already existed in all the principal cities of the
empire. On their very first missionary journey St
Paul and St Barnabas are described as appointing
presbyters in every church. Doubtless the same
thing was done everywhere.
In a note on the first chapter of the epistle^,
Lightfoot had already established the fact that
" bishops " and " presbyters " are synonymous terms.
To be strictly accurate, they are not sjmonyms, but
they describe the same officers from somewhat
different points of view. He observes that the term
" bishops " is applied only to the officers of Gentile
churches. Why, we can only conjecture. Lightfoot
says, with characteristic caution.
If we raay assume that the directors of religious and
social clubs among the heathen were commonly so called,
it would naturally occur, if not to the Gentile Christians
themselves, at all events to their heathen associates, as a
fit designation for the presiding members of the new society *-
But he subjoins in a note that the evidence for
this use of the word is slight, though he observes,
after de Rossi, that the Christian brotherhoods were
first recognized by the Roman government in their
capacity of burial clubs. In this subordinate position
Lightfoot places the fact out of which Hatch's whole
theory was afterwards constructed.
1 Lightfoot Philippians, p. 93. ' Ibid, p. 192.

Modern Attglican Criticism 467
Lightfoot proceeds to the consideration of the
other, more contested office.
It is clear then that at the close of the apostolic age the
two lower orders of the threefold ministry were firmly and
widely established ; but traces of the third and highest
order, the episcopate properly so called, are few and
indistinct*.
He dismisses as " baseless " the opinion taken by
Theodoret from Theodore of Mopsuestia, which
weighed so much with many earlier Anglicans, that
those who were first called apostles were afterwards
called bishops. The substitution of the one name
for the other would be inexplicable. " But in fact
the function of the apostle and the bishop differed
widely." The apostle held no local office.
It is not therefore to the apostle that we must look
for the prototype of the bishop. How far indeed and in
what sense the bishop may be called a successor of the
apostles vrill be a proper subject for consideration : but
the succession at least does not consist in an identity of
office*.
The history of the name itself suggests to Light
foot a different account of the origin of the episcopate :
If bishop was at first used as a synonym for presbyter
and afterwards came to designate the higher officer under
whom the presbyters served, the episcopate properly so
called would seem to have been developed frora the sub
ordinate office. In other words, the episcopate was forraed
not out of the apostolic order by localisation but out of
the presb5d:eral by elevation : and the title, which originally
was coramon to aU, came at length to be appropriated to
the chief araong thera*.
1 Lightfoot Philippians, p. 193.
2 Ibid, p. 194. 3 Ibid, 30—2

468 Modern Anglican Criticism
The diaconate began at Jerusalem ; the presby
terate is first seen at Jerusalem ; and Lightfoot says
that if this surmise derived from the name is true,
we might expect to find the first traces of the de
veloped episcopate at Jerusalem.
Nor is this expectation disappointed. James the Lord's
brother alone, within the period compassed by the apostoUc
writings, can claim to be regarded as a bishop in the later
and more special sense of the term. In the language of
St Paul he takes precedence even of the earUest and greatest
preachers of the Gospel, St Peter and St John*.. . .The place
assigned to him in the spurious Clementines, where he is
represented as supreme arbiter over the church universal
in matters of doctrine, must be treated as a gross exaggera
tion ; . . .but his position, as it appears in St Luke and
St Paul, explains how the exaggeration was possible. And
this position is the more remarkable if, as seems to have
been the case, he was not one of the twelve*.
On the other hand Lightfoot shows that St James
is " not isolated from his presbytery." He acts in
concert with it, as the head of it. Perhaps his
personal qualifications reacted upon his office and
" elevated it to a level which was not definitely
contemplated in its origin."
Turning to the Gentile churches, Lightfoot sees
no " bishops " there in the New Testament period ;
but like the great Anglicans of older days he marks
two stages in the development. First, the apostles
themselves exercise the superintendence of the
1 Gal. u. 9.
2 Lightfoot Philippians, p. 195. Hort Christian Ecclesia, p. 77,
thinks it probable that he was taken into the place among the twelve
left vacant by the death of his namesake. St Paul definitely speaks
of him as an apostle (Gal. i. 19).

Modern Atiglican Criticism 469
churches, sometimes in person and on the spot,
sometimes at a distance by letter or by message.
Then, when the wider spread of the gospel made
such superintendence impossible, they delegated
" some trustworthy disciple who should fix his abode
in a given place for a time and direct the affairs of
the church there." The Pastoral Epistles, which
Lightfoot accepted as St Paul's, present this second
stage. Timothy and Titus are not, as earlier scholars
affirmed, bishops of Ephesus and Crete : their
position in those places is temporary.
But the conception is not altogether vrithout foundation.
With less permanence but perhaps greater authority, the
position occupied by these apostolic delegates nevertheless
fairly represents the functions of the bishop early in the
second century. They were in fact the link between the
apostle whose superintendence was occasional and general
and the bishop who exercised a permanent supervision
over an individual congregation*.
What then happened during the years between
the last New Testament books and the earliest non-
canonical writings ?
As late ... as the year 70 no distinct signs of episcopal
government have hitherto appeared in Gentile Christendom.
Yet . . . early in the second century the episcopal office was
firmly and widely established. Thus during the last three
decades of the first century, and consequently during the
lifetime of the latest surviving apostle, this change must
have been brought about. But the circumstances under
which it was effected are shrouded in darkness*.
* Lightfoot Philippians, p. 197. Lightfoot does not accept the
patristic explanation of the apocalyptic "angels" of the churches
as meaning their bishops.
* Ibid. p. 199.

470 Modern Anglican Criticism
One solution of the problem Lightfoot considers
in detail, but thinks it insecure. It is the solution
offered by Rothe in his Anfange der ChristUchen
Kirche (1837). Rothe surmised that a council of the
apostles who still survived was held after the fall of
Jerusalem, resulting in a new organization of Christen
dom. The main object was to meet the advance of
Gnosticism. Two fragments of early evidence may
be alleged for the surmise. Hegesippus (as quoted
by Eusebius) said that the remaining apostles and
personal disciples of the Lord met after the fall of
Jerusalem, and appointed a successor to the martyred
St James, — but, as Lightfoot points out, he seems not
to have known of any wider action on their part.
Clement speaks of the apostles as having, at some
date subsequent to their first appointment of elders,
added a further regulation providing for a continued
succession ; — but, as Lightfoot again points out,
Clement does not speak of the episcopate as a separate
thing from the presbyterate : the regulation (sup
posing that there was a regulation) concerned the
perpetuity of the office described by the one name or
by the other indifferently^.
Of more importance than his criticism of Rothe's
authorities was Lightfoot's observation upon the
known phenomena. This is indeed the weightiest
part of the dissertation.
* A third piece of evidence on which Rothe reUed was taken
from one of the Pfafiian fragments of Irenaeus. Lightfoot not only
showed its irrelevancy, but questioned its genuineness. It may now
be said to be certain that these fragments are forgeries.

Modern Anglican Criticism 471
Nor again does it appear that the rise of episcopacy
was so sudden and so immediate, that an authoritative
order issuing from an apostolic council alone can explain
the phenomenon. In the mysterious period which com
prises the last thirty years of the first century, and on
which history is almost whoUy silent, episcopacy raust, it
is tme, have been mainly developed. But before this
period its beginnings raay be traced, and after the close
it is not yet fully raatured. It seeras vain to deny with
Rothe that the position of St Jaraes in the mother church
fumished the precedent and the pattern of the later episco
pate. It appears equaUy mistaken to maintain, as this
theory requires, that at the close of the first and the
beginning of the second century the organization of aU
churches alike had arrived at the same stage of develop
ment and exhibited the episcopate in an equaUy perfect
form*.
Certain parts of Rothe's hypothesis, however,
appeared to Lightfoot to be correct. The emergency
which consolidated the episcopal form of government
was probably what Rothe alleged. Jerome's account
of the rise of episcopacy bears this out.
To the dissensions of Jew and Gentile converts, and to
the disputes of Gnostic false teachers, the development of
episcopacy may be mainly ascribed*.
More important still :
Nor again is Rothe probably wrong as to the authority
mainly instrumental in effecting the change. Asia Minor
was the adopted horae of more than one apostle after the
faU of Jerusalem. Asia Minor too was the nurse, if not
the mother, of episcopacy in the Gentile churches. So
important an institution, developed in a Christian com
munity of which St John was the living centre and guide,
1 Lightfoot Philippians, pp. 203 foil. ' Ihid. p. 204.

472 Modern Anglican Criticism
could hardly have grown up without his sanction : and. ..
early tradition very distinctly connects his narae vrith the
appointment of bishops in these parts.
But to the question how this change was brought about,
a soraewhat different answer must be given  There is no
reason. . .for supposing that any direct ordinance was issued
to the churches. The evident utility and even pressing
need of such an office, sanctioned by the most venerated
name in Christendom, would be sufficient to secure its wide
though gradual reception. Such a reception, it is trae,
supposes a substantial harmony and freedom of intercourse
among the churches, which remained undisturbed by the
troubles of the times ; but the sUence of history is not at
aU unfavourable to this supposition. In this way, during
the historical blank which extends over half a century
after the fall of Jerusalem, episcopacy was matured and
the catholic church consolidated *.
Then, in his easy and delightful manner, em
bodying the results of so much research, Lightfoot
takes the records of the various churches one aftet
another. The notices thus collected present a large body of
evidence establishing the fact of the early and extensive
adoption of episcopacy in the Christian church. The
investigation however would not be complete, unless
attention were called to such indirect testimony as is
furnished by the tacit assumptions of writers living towards
and at the close of the second century. Episcopacy is so
inseparably interwoven with all the traditions and beliefs
of men like Irenaeus and Tertullian, that they betray no
knowledge of a tirae when it was not. Even Irenaeus, the
earlier of these, who was certainly born and probably
had grov(rn up before the middle of the century, seems to
be wholly ignorant that the word bishop had passed from
* Lightfoot Philippians, pp. 204 foil.

Modern Anglican Criticism 473
a lower to a higher value since the apostolic times. Nor
is it important only to observe the positive though indirect
testimony which they afford. Their silence suggests a strong
negative presumption, that while every other point of
doctrine or practice was eagerly canvassed, the form of
church government alone scarcely came under discussion* -
Perhaps if Lightfoot's essay had stopped at this
point, no one would ever have questioned his whole
hearted acceptance of the apostolical origin of episco
pacy. But the next two sections contain matter
which seems to throw an uncertainty over his meaning.
The former of the two sections affirms that the
original relation of the two offices, of bishop and
presbyter, was not forgotten when episcopacy was
universally established. The name of presbyter is
still given to bishops by Irenaeus and the Alexandrian
Clement. Ambrosiaster, Jerome, Augustine, still
speak of the difference as one of custom and conven
tion, not as inherent in the structure and conception
of the church :
Nor does it appear, Lightfoot adds, that this view was
ever questioned until the era of the reforraation. In the
western church at all events it carried the sanction of the
highest ecclesiastical authorities and was raaintained even
by popes and councils*.
Still more serious :
Nor was it only in the language of the later church
that the memory of this fact was preserved. Even in her
practice indications might here and there be traced, which
pointed to a time when the bishop was still only the chief
member of the presbytery.
' Lightfoot Philippians, pp. 224 foil.
» Ihid, p. 228.

474 Modern Anglican Criticistn
The practical indications which he mentions are
two. One is the system which is said to have pre
vailed at Alexandria, where Lightfoot believed that
the presbyters not only appointed (as Jerome asserted)
their own bishop, but also consecrated him. The
other was the decree of the council of Ancyra (in 314)
forbidding chorepiscopi and " even city presbyters "
to ordain presbyters and deacons without written
permission from the bishop of the diocese.
Thus whUe restraining the existing license, the framers
of the decree still allow very considerable latitude. And
it is especiaUy important to observe that they lay more
stress on episcopal sanction than on episcopal ordination.
Provided that the former is secured, they are content to
dispense vrith the latter*.
Of course, however, Lightfoot was under no
illusion about the usual practice of the church :
As a general rule, however, even those writers who
maintain a substantial identity in the offices of the bishop
and presbyter reserve the power of ordaining to the former.
This distinction in fact may be regarded as a settled maxim
of church polity in the fourth and later centuries. And
when Aerius maintained the equality of the bishop and
presbyter and denied the necessity of episcopal ordination,
his opinion was condemned as heretical, and is stigmatized
as " frantic " by Epiphanius*.
He goes on to dwell on three great names in the
development of episcopacy. Ignatius makes the
bishop the centre of unity. Irenaeus makes him the
depositary of primitive truth. Cyprian makes him
the vicegerent of Christ. With Cyprian we pass into
the regioii of undisguised sacerdotalism.
1 Lightfoot Philippians, p. 230. ^ Ihid, p. 231.

Modern Anglican Criticism 475
It is not the purpose of the work which we have
in hand to criticize the opinions which we bring
together ; but it is not unreasonable to mention in
passing that the two " practical indications " of a
substantial identity of order between bishops and
presbyters, which Lightfoot's candour felt constrained
to adduce, are not beyond the reach of question.
The text of the canon of Ancyra is not certain : it
is extremely doubtful whether it gave permission to
" city presbyters " to ordain, under whatever re
strictions^. There is no kind of proof, moreover, that
chorepiscopi were mere presbyters, survivals from a
time when functions were not differentiated. With
regard to Alexandria, the statement of Jerome stands
alone and unsupported^. This great and erudite man
is sometimes reckless in his controversial statements ;
and even if the statement here is correct, Jerome
says no word that implies a consecration by the
presbyters of the one whom they have elected for
their head. For all that Jerome tells us, the newly
elected remains what he was before, a presbyter like
the rest, — or the rest are bishops as much as he^.
Thus the only " facts " alleged for non-episcopal
ordinations after episcopacy was once established
crumble to nothing, or next to nothing.
^ See Gore The Church and the Ministry (1889), pp. 370 foil.
^ The reading of the passage of Ambrosiaster quoted in support
may be said to be certainly consignant (i.e, confirm) not consecrant ;
but even if consecrant were right, it would be an anachronism to
identify it without more ado with the " consecrating " of a bishop.
As for the testimony of Eutychius, no one would think of ascribing
any value to it by itself.
3 See Gore ut supra, pp. 137 foil., 357 foil.

476 Modern Atiglican Criticism
To these considerations we may add that since
Lightfoot's dissertation was published, a few new
facts have come to light, which modify in some
measure the situation as known in 1868.
In the first place the Didache, or Doctrine of the
Twelve Apostles (editio prineeps 1883), has been dis
covered. Its evidence is of ambiguous value ; but
from the way in which it speaks of men bearing the
name of apostles as still visiting the churches, it
helps to ease the belief that an order superior to the
" bishops and deacons," whom it also mentions, was
formed from the class called by Lightfoot " apostolic
delegates " — the class represented by Timothy and
Titus, the class which perhaps included " Andronicus
and Junias, of note among the apostles." It at
least prolongs the period in which " bishops and
deacons " were not the highest ministers at work
in Christendom^. Secondly, the discovery by Morin of a very
ancient Latin version of the epistle of Clement ^
makes it practically certain that what Clement
wrote in a certain crucial passage was not what
Lightfoot supposed. Lightfoot's translation of it
runs : And our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ
that there would be strife over the name of the bishop's
office. For this cause therefore, having received complete
1 See the interesting discussion of the "apostles" in T. M.
Lindsay's Church and the Ministry in the early Centuries, pp. 74 foil.
^ /4wec(foteMareisoZaMa,vol.ii.,publishedin 1894, after Lightfoot's
death, which was in 1889.

Modern Anglicati Criticism 477
foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons*, and
afterwards they provided a continuance, that if these
should fall asleep, other approved raen should succeed to
their ministration.
The word which Lightfoot renders ' ' a continuance ' '
is iTTLfjiovTqv. It has no manuscript authority, but
is a conjecture of P. Turner of Oxford, who died in
1651. The Latin version, et post modum legem
dederunt, turns the scale decidedly in favour of
ivLvoixCv {iTTLvo[jLyjv, the reading of the Codex Alex-
andrinus, is probably a mere itacism for the same),
" an additional regulation." Thus, without any
hesitation, the leading member of the Roman church,
writing in 95 or 96, ascribes the rule for succession in
ecclesiastical office to a definite piece of legislation on
the part of the apostles, in accordance with instruc
tions from our Lord himself. Such a testimony
cannot be passed over lightly, and it gives fresh
weight to that theory of Rothe's, which already
seemed to Lightfoot to be very weighty.
These two considerations are supplemented by
the subsequent work of Lightfoot himself in two
quarters. First, when the commentary on Philip
pians was published, the author of much of the Greek
Ignatius was still to Lightfoot " the Ignatian writer,"
"the writer who . . . forges and interpolates the Ignatian
letters." Lightfoot lived to prove, in a way that
can hardly be seriously challenged again, that the
^ The reference is to the earlier passage, " So preaching everywhere
in country and tovm, they appointed their first-fruits, when they had
proved them by the spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that
should believe."

478 Modern Atiglican Criticistn
Ignatian writer was Ignatius himself. The " extra
vagant exaltation of the episcopate " with which
Lightfoot charges him is therefore to be charged to
no one else but the great martyr-prophet of Antioch.
And secondly, Lightfoot's labours upon the early
history of the see of Rome convinced him that
episcopacy there went further back than is sometimes
believed. The epistle of Clement is often taken as
evidence that Clement himself was not a bishop in
our sense of the word. Lightfoot's mature opinion
may be summed up in his own words :
So far as I can see, no adequate reason can be advanced
why Linus and Anencletus [both of whom were before
Clement] should not have been bishops in the later sense,
as single rulers of the church*.
It cannot be thought surprising that many of
those who read Lightfoot's dissertation thought that
it gave away the case for episcopacy as maintained
by Bilson and Usher, by Hammond and Pearson.
But Lightfoot was himself surprised. Friends urged
him to alter the dissertation. He steadily refused.
But in the preface to the sixth edition, published in
1 Clement of Rome, vol. i. p. 68 (ed. 1890). People often infer
from the silence of Ignatius that the church of Rome was still
unprovided vrith a bishop in no or 112. Such people forget that
a difference would naturally be expected between letters to the
churches which Ignatius had already visited and a letter to the
great church towards which he was journeying. And his description
of himself as " the bishop of Syria " shows that he supposed the
Roman church to be at any rate familiar with the conception.
Perhaps we may add that the same description impUes an episcopate
of a very different kind from that of later times, when every httle
city had its bishop.

Modern Anglican Criticism 479
188 1, while affirming that his opinions were un
changed, he said :
But on the other hand, while disclaiming any change
in my opinions, I desire equally to disclaim the representa
tions of those opinions which have been put forward in
some quarters. The object of the essay was an investigation
into the origin of the Christian ministry. The result has
been a confirmation of the statement in the English ordinal,
"It is evident unto all men diligently reading the holy
scripture and ancient authors that from the apostles' time
there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's church,
bishops, priests, and deacons." But I was scrupulously
anxious not to overstate the evidence in any case ; and it
would seera that partial and qualifying statements, prompted
by this anxiety, have assumed undue proportions in the
minds of some readers, who have emphasized thera to the
neglect of the general drift of the essay.
The author of the article on the Bishop in the
Quarterly Review for January 1893, after quoting this
passage, goes on to say :
Even after this statement the misrepresentations con
tinued, and soon after the close of the Lambeth Conference
of 1888*, Bishop Lightfoot felt it to be his duty to collect
and print a series of extracts frora his published writings
bearing on this subject. There is nothing new in thera.
Their value is that they show distinctly what the author's
opinion was and had been throughout ; and that they
were coUected by himself. His tmstees have done good
1 It was this conference which drew up the " Lambeth Quad
rilateral," as it has been called, embodying the conditions on which
the Anglican bishops are prepared to contemplate union vrith other
bodies of Christians. The acceptance of " the historic episcopate "
is one of the four conditions.

480 Modern Anglican Criticistn
service in reprinting them together vrith the essay* and the
following note : — " It is felt by those who have the best
means of knowing that he would hiraself have wished the
collection to stand together simply as his reply to the
constant iraputation to him of opinions for which writers
wished to claim his support without any justification*."
The passages which Lightfoot collected include
several from the dissertation itself, especially those
which connect the establishment of episcopacy with
St John. The last of them is this :
If the preceding investigation be substantially correct,
the threefold ministry can be traced to apostolic direction ;
and short of an express statement we can possess no better
assurance of a divine appointraent or at least a divine
sanction. If the facts do not allow us to unchurch other
Christian coraraunities differently organized, they may at
least justify our jealous adhesion to a poUty derived from
this source*.
To these extracts Lightfoot added one from a
sermon preached at Glasgow in 1882 :
WhUe you seek unity among yourselves, you wiU pray
likewise that unity may be restored to your presbyterian
brothers. Not insensible to the blessings which you your
selves enjoy, clinging tenaciously to the threefold ministry
as the completeness of the apostoUc ordinance and the
historical backbone of the church,. . .you vriU nevertheless
shrink. . .from any raean desire that their divisions may be
perpetuated in the hope of profiting by their troubles.
1 In Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pp. 241-246. They are
also printed at the end of the little volume consisting of this re
printed article from the Quarterly,
" Bishop Lightfoot, reprinted from the Quarterly Review, Mac-
millan and Co., 1894, pp. 32 foil.
' Philippians (ed. 1869), p. 265.

Modern Anglican Criticism 481
" Divide et impera " may be a shrewd worldly motto ; but
..."pacifica et impera" is the true watchword of the
Christian and the churchman.
This is from a " Church Congress " sermon of
1887 : But if this charge fails, what shaU we say of her isola
tion ? Is not this isolation, so far as it is true, much more
her misfortune than her fault ? Is she to be blamed
because she retained a form of church government which
had been handed down in unbroken continuity from the
apostolic tiraes, and thus a line was drawn between her
and the reforraed churches of other countries ? Is it a
reproach to her that she asserted her liberty to cast off the
accretions which had gathered about the apostolic doctrine
and practice through long ages, and for this act was re
pudiated by the Roman church ? But this very position —
call it isolation, if you vrill — which was her reproach in the
past, is her hope for the future. She was isolated because
she could not consort vrith either extreme. She was
isolated because she stood midway between the two. This
central position is her vantage ground, which fits her to
be a mediator, wheresoever an occasion of raediation raay
arise.
This is from his address at the reopening in 1888
of the chapel of Auckland Castle, which he restored,
and where he now lies, at the feet of Cosin who
founded it :
But while we lengthen our cords, we raust strengthen
our stakes likewise. Indeed the strengthening of our stakes
wiU alone enable us to lengthen our cords with safety when
the storms are howling around us. We cannot afford to
sacrifice any portion of the faith once delivered to the
saints ; we cannot surrender for any immediate advantages
the threefold rainistry which we have inherited frora apos
tolic times, and which is the historic backbone of the church.
M." 31

482 Modern Anglicati Criticistn
But neither can we on the other hand return to the fables
of raediaevalism or submit to a yoke which our fathers
found too grievous to be borne, and a yoke now rendered
a hundredfold more oppressive to the mind and conscience,
weighted as it is by recent and unwarranted impositions
of doctrine.
Such is Lightfoot's testimony to the episcopal
order ^.
The object which we have had before us in this
enquiry has not been to ascertain whether the doc
trine of the apostolical succession — succession from
the apostles through an unbroken line of bishops —
is borne out by the facts. Ours has been the humbler
task of determining whether it has been the teaching
of the Anglican church. We have considered to
some extent the formularies in which the collective
mind of the church has been expressed ; we have
considered in greater detail the way in which the
living voice of her divines has made itself heard from
age to age. The general result is fairly clear. The
doctrine which Cranmer and his associates embodied
in their ordinal has been upheld from that day to this
by the great mass of Anglican writers who have
touched upon it at all. Some of the greatest Angh
can theologians have not had occasion to write
about it — for instance, in their respective ages,
William Forbes of Edinburgh, George Bull, Joseph
Butler — ^but no one could doubt that they shared
the belief. Simon Patrick, in his day, was able to
* There is an excellent sketch of the history of the controversy
from Lightfoot onwards in Lindsay Church and the Ministry,
pp. 365 foU.

Modent Anglican Criticistn 483
show convincingly that the men were wrong who
said that the behef was not held in our church after
the reformation until the rise of Laud, or of Ban
croft, or of Saravia. The present study will show
that the belief was not dormant between Simon
Patrick's time and the beginning of the tracta
rian revival. Steadily throughout the whole period
from Cranmer down to Lightfoot it has been the
standard teaching of the English church, though
voices have spoken now and then in criticism of it,
and those who spoke have not been cast out for
what they said. Throughout the whole period the
same authoritative formularies have received the
assent, willing, or perhaps in some cases reluctant,
of all her ministers. The only changes in those
formularies have been such as to make them more
explicit in the assertion. The only changes in the
public law of the church have been made for the
purpose of stopping any evasion of what was all
along the intention of the law.
Towards the foreign non-episcopal churches the
attitude of representative English churchmen has
varied. Cranmer and other churchmen discussed
the Augsburg Confession with German " orators "
who came over to treat of union. Parker wished
Martyr or Calvin to attend the conference at Poissy
in 1 5 61 ; they were as able, he said, to stand in
defence of a truth, assisted by him whose cause it
is, as the Romanist adversaries striving against
God. " If we were all careful," he said, " to help
the re-edifying of so great a church as France is to
31—2

484 Modern Anglicati Criticism
Christ again, it could not but turn to our own quiet
at home, to have more friends in conjunction of
religion." The sending of commissioners to the
synod of Dort was the act of the king, not of the
church ; but no record of protest is known, though
the commissioners maintained an independent atti
tude at the time, and the church of England accepted
no responsibility afterwards for what was done at it.
The encouragement given by high authorities to
the work of John Dury among the foreign pro
testants, the correspondence of Sharp and Wake
with Jablonski and the Prussians, not to mention
more private and personal expressions of goodwUl,
were signs that the church of England, through her
leading men, felt that the cause of the foreign pro
testants was in the main her cause.
So much was this the case that communion was
freely practised on both sides — at least where the
foreign churches permitted it. Saravia, whUe still
in Holland, communicated when he could at the
English service. Wake's correspondence shows what
numbers of French protestants did the same in
Paris. Saywell shows how foreign protestants visit
ing England were admitted to communion here.
In return, Cosin says that English churchmen were
not forbidden to communicate in the congregations
of foreign protestants in England. He himself com
municated with them abroad. But even Usher
expressed hesitation about it. Probably men like
Scudamore and Clarendon, Morley and Hickes, who
definitely refused to do so, were a minority ; but,

Modern Anglican Criticism 485
as we have pointed out, the very fact that Cosin
pleaded so vehemently that it was the right thing to
do, while others declined, is a sufficient indication
that there was no public, official, recognized inter
communion. That there were other reasons for refusing to
communicate with the foreign churches is clear
enough ; but the reason which most concerns us
here is that which was derived from the uncertain
validity of their orders, and consequently of their
sacraments. This was a growing reason. Pro
bably in the early times of the reformation, when
the dust of contest was thick in the air, the question
hardly emerged. Things were assumed to be right.
Archbishop Parker speaks in one place of " Luther,
Calvin, and other orthodox clergymen '^," — and indeed
Calvin was strictly " a clergyman," for he had
received minor orders. Hooker, who was aware
that Beza had none, yet shows that his sympathy was
with Beza rather than with those who challenged
his orders at Poissy^. By and by, a certain number
of English theologians began to express their doubts.
Jeremy Taylor frankly says that he knows not what
to think. Waterland, in lofty scorn of consequences,
sticks to principle and pronounces that their orders
are invalid. To Heber, though there is a tinge of
irony in his language, their ministers, " in the view
of an episcopal church," if not in his own, are mere
laymen. Others defended them, — mostly on the
1 Parker's Correspondence, p. 112.
* Eccl, Pol, bk VII. ch. xiv. § 11.

486 Modent Anglican Criticistti
ground that if their orders were invalid, the churches
were no churches ; and they could not face that
result. A few, like Field and Mason, and Forbes of
Corse, and Wesley afterwards, took the definite line
suggested by Jerome and the mediaevalists, that the
power of ordination is inherent in the presbyter's
office : they did not enquire whether the men who
started the new successions were in all cases pres
byters. They acknowledged that nothing but neces
sity could justify the presbyter in using this power.
They took it for granted that the necessity was
there. Others went on safer ground. Hooker,
Feme and Thorndike recognized no such latent
power in the presbyter as such ; but they recognized
that churches must do the best for themselves
that they can, and were ready, if the necessity was
proved, to receive on a ministerial footing those
whom the hard-pressed churches had made minis
ters, without asking after the status of those who
ordained them. No Anglican theologian of repute
has ever maintained the validity of presbyterian
orders except where no others could be had. Many
of those who admitted their validity on that proviso
persuaded themselves that it was a temporary con
cession, and that before long these defective churches
would recover an episcopate. Naturally, this was
the case with the earlier theologians — a Saravia,
a Hooker — rather than with the later ones, when
presbyterian traditions were more inveterate^.
' These observations hold true of the presbyterian church in
Scotland as much as of any other foreign church.

Modern Anglican Criticism 487
With regard to dissenting ministries in England
there were no two opinions. Those who denied
the validity of presbyterian ordinations abroad
denied their validity a fortiori in England. No plea
of necessity here could for a moment be allowed.
Some of those who most stoutly championed the
validity of those orders beyond the sea, sternly
denied it here. Of these, a few took the Cyprianic
ground that whatever validity there might other
wise have been in such ordinations was nullified
by schism. Others, like Cosin, attempted no logical
defence. Presbyterian orders might be all very well
at Charenton, but they were quite a different thing
near Durham. To most, however, the question was
of little practical importance — at least after 1662.
No man in presbyterian orders could be admitted
into the ministry of the church of England without
a fresh ordination, whether he had received his
former orders abroad or at home. And so long as
he did not seek such admission, his status was only
a matter of academic concem. However valid his
orders might be, there was no idea of intercom
munion with him or the body to which he belonged,
so long as it remained in schism. If Wesley had
succeeded in persuading the wandering Greek bishop
to consecrate him bishop when he ordained his
preacher a priest, it might have made Wesley's sub
sequent ordinations valid, but they would have
remained schismatical.
It was not until Wesley and the subsequent move
ment began to break up the discipline of the church

488 Modern Anglican Criticism
of England that any considerable number of church
men conceived the idea of communion between the
church and the separated bodies, so long as they
remained separate. Separatists had often been invited
and urged to come to church, to come to the com
munion of the church. It was a way of stopping
their separation from becoming final and complete.
As Baxter said, it was " a healing custom." So long
as men could find it consistent with conscience to
make an " occasional " communion with the church,
they were not wholly lost to it. But those who took
this line of encouraging occasional communion had
no idea of recognizing the separatist bodies to which
such communicants were attached. They ignored
them. The thought of going in return to the con
venticle and communicating there was whoUy foreign
to most minds. The one thing which men wished was
to prevent a temporary estrangement from harden
ing into permanent schism. Even the least dogmatic
of divines hoped to bring the malcontents back,
and to gather them round the ancient church and
its accredited ministry. If the methods which they
adopted were not always logical, the purpose was
admirable, and the largeness of spirit very attractive.
A Tenison had no wish to merge the church of
England in a combination of amicable sects, but to
win the sects away from their sectarianism into the
unity of the church.

ADDENDUM
I ought to have mentioned on p. 475 an early testimony to
the exceptional powers ascribed to the Alexandrian presbyters
which seeras to have been unknown to Lightfoot.
" Certain heretics came one day to Poemen, and began
to run down the Archbishop of Alexandria, saying that he
received his ordination from presbyters. The old raan said
nothing, but called his brother and said, ' Set the table,
and make them eat, and send them away with peace.' "
The story is found in a collection of Apophthegms of the
Fathers printed in Migne's Patrologia Graeca lxv. Abbot Butler,
to whose Lausiac History of Palladius (vol. i. p. 213) I owe my
knowledge of the story, thinks that the apophthegm "can
hardly have originated out of Egypt or after the fourth century."
Poemen is generaUy supposed to have died about 460 ; but
as Rufinus visited him , in his monastery about 375 (Butler,
ut supra, p. 223), this date is too late.
A. J. M.

APPENDIX A
HAS THE REFORMED CHURCH OF ENGLAND EVER
ADMITTED INTO HER MINISTRY MEN NOT
EPISCOPALLY ORDAINED ?
It might have been thought that this question
was settled by the Preface to the Ordinal, even in
its earlier form, before the alterations of 1662 and
the Act of Uniformity. But it has been held both
in earlier days and in our own that before the
restoration period it was possible for men to hold
ministerial office in the church of England without
episcopal ordination, and that an Act of Parliament
was expressly framed to admit of it in the case
of foreign orders.
I. The Act 13 Eliz. cap. 12, § i.
This Act provides as follows :
That the churches of the queen's majesty's dominions
may be served vrith pastors of sound religion, be it enacted
. . . that every person under the degree of a bishop which
does or shaU pretend [i.e, claim] to be a priest or minister
of God's holy word and sacraments by reason of any other
form of institution, consecration, or ordering than the form
set forth by parliament, . . . before the feast of the nativity
of Christ next following shall in the presence of the bishop

490 Appendix A
or guardian of the spiritualities of sorae one diocese where
he has or shall have ecclesiastical living declare his assent
and subscribe to all the articles of religion which only
concern the confession of the tme Christian faith and the
doctrine of the sacraments comprised in a book entitled :
Articles, etc.
It is contended that this clause is designed to
permit persons in presbyterian orders to qualify for
ministerial office in England by subscribing to the
articles, without any fresh ordination. The following
facts are against this view.
(i) That this was not the intention of the Act
is certain. Bishop Burnet, who would have enter
tained no objection to such a provision, pointed
out that the object of parliament was quite different.
It was to exclude priests who had received orders
under Mary or Henry VIII (or in foreign countries)
unless they gave proof of a cordial acceptance of
the reformation 1.
(2) The ordinal, with its preface and all, was
still in force as " the form set forth by parliament."
It would be strange, without fuller reference to that
form, to admit in such vague terms persons claiming
to have been made ministers in a manner subversive
of the whole purport of the preface. The language
of the Act of 1571 suits any form of ordination by
bishops, western or eastern : it is incompatible with
a form of ordination by any other kind of agents.
(3) Hardwick^ shows that the Act, so far from
being regarded as a concession by the puritan (i.e.
1 Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 172.
' History of the XXXIX Articles, p. 228 (ed. 1859).

Appendix A 491
presbyterian) party at the time, " encountered the
hostility of the Admonition to Parliament put forth
in the following year."
(4) The Act of 1571 does not appear to have
been appealed to in any of the cases which came
before the law courts, — not even by Travers, who
quotes it as applying only to Roman orders, though
he suggests that it might be treated as offering a
loop-hole for himself.
(5) The attempt was made in the case of a man
named Smith to construe the word " only " in the
Act as restricting subscription to a certan number of
the XXXIX articles. Smith, so far as is known,
was duly ordained ; but if his contention had been
made good, it would have been possible for a man
to pass under the Act who rejected article XXXVI
Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers. This was
overruled by the judges. They ruled that the Act
required subscription to all the articles without
exception. The word " only " applies not to what
follows, but to the word " which," as was frequent
in the language of the period^.
II. Sample cases.
It is well known that from mediaeval times
a distinction in law was drawn between what were
called beneficia simplicia aiid beneficia curata. To
the former, which were " sinecures," laymen were
frequently presented. Deaneries, cathedral canon-
ries, and the like, were held by laymen, under
1 See Colher Eccl. Hist. (ed. 1846), vol. vi. p. 489.

492 Appendix A
dispensations^. Thomas Cromwell, for instance, was
Dean of Wells. Isaac Casaubon, described as mere
laicus, was a canon both of Canterbury and of
Westminster. The thing was an abuse, and English
men complained when so many foreigners, like Peter
du Moulin the elder, were appointed to these posts.
But it has yet to be shown that such foreigners
were admitted to minister the sacraments. Some
of them certainly preached ; but many people,
especially in Elizabeth's reign, were licensed to
preach and read prayers who were expressly for
bidden to perform any function belonging strictly
to the priesthood.
It must also be observed that until quite recent
times men could legally be instituted to benefices,
even with cure of souls, before ordination, though
the benefices were voidable if the incumbents were
not ordained priests within a given period. The
door was thus opened to irregularities ; but whether
such irregularities actually occurred in consequence
seems uncertain. At any rate the custom did not
originate with the reformation, and if insufficiently
ordained men took advantage of it, these were
merely cases of carelessness on the part of individual
officers, not implying the deliberate consent of the
church. Certain cases of doubtful orders have attracted
attention. * Numerous examples are given by E. Denny in his valuable
paper on The English Church and the Ministry of the Reformed Churches
(Church Historical Society pubUcations, No. 57).

Appendix A 493
(i) Perhaps the most celebrated is that of
Whittingham, Dean of Durham. In the eye of the
law he was a layman. In the case of Barrington,
the Chief Justice Hobart ruled that by special
license from the king a dean might be a layman,
" as was the Dean of Durham^." But Whittingham
would not at aU accept that position. He stoutly
asserted the vahdity of his call to the ministry, in
spite of the Enghsh law, and presumed to minister
the sacraments. By way of answer, he confesseth that he is neither
deacon nor minister according to the order and law of this
realm. But that he is a mere layman he denieth. For,
saith he, I was ordered in Queen Mary's time in Geneva,
according to the form there used, which I think to be one in
effect and substance with the forra now used in England,
or allowed of in King Edward's time. Which orders of
mine were as agreeable to the law of this realm as any
other form, until the eighth year of the queen's raajesty's
reign.
It is the Chancellor of the Archbishop of York
who writes this report to the lords of the council.
He rejects with severe condemnation Whittingham's
view of the law :
The latter part of his answer is whoUy untrue. . . .For
in the first year of her raajesty's reign, in the sarae moraent
of time and by the same authority that Queen Mary's
ordering was repealed King Edward's was revived ; and
many learned and godly ministers were made before the
eighth year and since the first of her majesty's reign.
1 Denny, ut supra, p. 60.

494 Appendix A
An attempt was made by one of the lay members
of the commission which investigated the case to
prejudice the judgment.
It could not but be ill taken, he wrote to Burghley,
of aU the godly learned both at home and in aU the reformed
churches abroad, that we should allow of the popish massing
priests in our ministry and disallow of the ministers made in
a reformed church  For himself [the writer] ... he thought
in conscience he might not agree to the sentence of depri
vation for that cause only*.
Archbishop Sandys strongly opposed this pre
sentment of the case. He too wrote to Burghley:
The dean hath gotten mo friends than the matter
deserveth. The discredit of the church of Geneva is hotly
alleged. Verily, my lord, that church is not touched. For
he hath not received his ministry in that church, nor by
any authority or order from that church, so far as yet can
appear^-
The fact was that Whittingham had been or
dained, if it could be called by that name, by some
members of the exiled English congregation. Strype
is perhaps going beyond the evidence when he says
that they were " a few lay persons in a house at
Geneva." Whittingham produced a certificate, wholly
informal in character, dated no earlier than July 8,
1575, to the effect " that it pleased God by lot and
election of the whole Enghsh congregation there
orderly to choose W. W. to the office of preaching
the word and ministering the sacraments." When
1 See the whole account in Strype Annals (ed. 1824), vol. 11.
part II. pp. 168 foil.
* Ibid. p. 620.

Appendix A 495
this certificate was set aside, another was produced
which put " the suffrages " in place of " lot and
election " and added " that he was admitted minister,
and so pubhshed, with such other ceremonies as
there [at Geneva] is used and accustomed^." Among
the persons taking part in the transaction there may
have been some who were in holy orders ; but it
is not certain. Whittingham himself does not seem
to have laid stress upon the point.
Sandys, whose exile had been spent at Strassburg,
told Burghley that such measures had never been
attempted by " any English church in Germany,"
and that it was quite unnecessary at Geneva, as
there were " sufficient ministers " among them to
supply the room 2.
But, he added, if his rainistry without authority of God
or man, — without law, order, or example of any church, —
may be current, take heed to the sequel. Who seeth not
what is intended ? God deliver his church from it. I vrill
never be guilty of it'
Whittingham's case was never finally decided,
because he died within six months of his examination
by the commissioners. But Archbishop Whitgift
was certainly right when he said that "if Mr
Whittingham had lived, he had been deprived,
^ Strype Annals, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 171, 172.
'^ There was even a bishop there for some part of the time —
Coverdale. ^ Ihid. p. 620. Hutton, then Dean of York, afterwards Arch
bishop, appears to have taken Whittingham's part with some
vehemence. In view of his own expressed views of episcopacy
(see above, p. 30) his reasons must have been personal, not theo
logical.

496 Appendix A
without special grace and dispensation i" The queen
had already said in her letter to Archbishop Sandys
that the commission was to " enquire Of his ministry,"
and that if he were not " ordered by some superior
authority, according to the laws and statutes of our
realm," they were to dismiss him^.
(2) The second case which has been alleged is
that of John Morison^.
He had been ordained by the General Synod of
the county of Lothian. During the sequestration
of Archbishop Grindal, Aubrey, his vicar general,
issued a license to Morison to preach and administer
the sacraments throughout the province of Canter
bury. The " consent and express command " of the
archbishop himself are recited in the license. It
has been suggested that one of the still surviving
Scotch bishops may have taken part in Morison's
ordination ; but if that was the reason why Grindal
consented to the license, it is strange that the fact
was not mentioned in the license, where other facts
are spoken of which made the ordination seem
somewhat like a normal one. It is perhaps more
to the point to observe that the hcense contained
two saving clauses, — quantum in nobis est et de jure
possumus, — and quatenus jura regni patiuntur. These
clauses may be taken to imply a consciousness that
Aubrey, and his master, were perhaps acting ultra
vires, and that Morison must take the risk.
1 Strype's Whitgift, vol. in. p. 185.
^ Strype Annals, vol. 11. part 11. p. 171, cf. p. 170.
' The facts are given by Denny, ut supra, pp. 62 foil., from Strype's
Grindal, pp. 402 and 596.

Appendix A 497
On the whole, the case must be considered to
be made out. But the license was not issued by
the church of England, though it was issued by
authority of its highest minister. It was not covered
by the law of the realm, and was in direct contra^
ven tion of the prayer-book of the church.
(3) Per contra we have two cases of men who
were deprived during this period as incapable of the
preferments which they held. Of these the first is
that of Townsend, who had been instituted by his
bishop, Parkhurst of Norwich, but was ejected in
1570 on the ground that he was not properly qualified,
although he is described as clericus. There seems ^
reason to think that he had received prbtestant
orders of some kind.
(4) The other is that of a man named Thwaites,
who was deprived in 1575 or 1576 under the Act
of 1571 because (i) he was not a minister according
to the ordinal prescribed by law, and (2) had not
subscribed to the articles as required by the Act.
It does not appear to be certain what form of
ordination Thwaites had received, whether Marian
or presbyterian : — in either case his refusal to sign
the articles was sufficient to disquahfy him. But
the probability is that his refusal to sign arose from
ultra-protfestant opinions rather than the opposite^.
(5) The evidence in these two cases is incon
clusive, but it is otherwise with the celebrated case
of Walter Travers. Here the facts are undisputed,
' See Denny, ui supra, p. 81.
'^ Denny, p. 48.
M, 32

498 Appendix A
and the bearings of them are plain. Walter Travers,
" disliking the way of ordination by bishops accord
ing to the English book, went over to Antwerp, and
there was made minister by some elders and
ministers, and namely by Villers and Cartwright,
in a private congregation, after the form of Geneva^."
In 1584 Travers applied to be made Master of the
Temple. Archbishop Whitgift objected that he was
" either in no degree of the ministry at all, or else
ordered beyond the seas, not according to the form
in this church of England used^." Travers was told
that he must be duly ordained before his application
could be thought of. His reply was an able one.
He wrote to Burghley :
Whereas I am required to enter into the ministry again,
being once sufficiently called thereunto, according to the
rules of God's most holy word, with prayer and iraposition of
hands, and agreeably to the order of a church of the same
faith and profession vrith this church of England, as may
appear by the testimonial I have thereof, may it please
your good lordship to consider of the reasons foUovring
concerning the matter.
The calling to the ministry is such an action as he that
in a church orthodox, and not heretical or schismatical,
hath once received sufficiently for the substantial points
to be observed in it by the ordinance of God in any part
of the holy catholic church, wheresoever he may after be
required to any place wherein he may exercise that calling,
is not . to be urged to any new imposition of hands and
vocation to the ministry, but is to be acknowledged
sufficiently qualified for any action that a rainister may
perform. ^ Strype's Whitgift, vol. 1. p. 477.
^ Ihid. p. 341.

Appendix A 499
Travers gave good reasons for this assertion, and
then went on :
All the churches professing the gospel receive likewise
to the exercise of the ministry among them all such as
have been called lawfully before in any of the churches
of our confession. And in the church of England not only
the same hath been always observed unto this day, but
also priests ordered according to the raanner of the church
of Rorae, to the 13th year of her majesty's reign, were
suffered to do any work of the ministry and to enjoy the
livings pertaining thereunto without any manner of question
of other calling than the order of priesthood which they
had received. Since that time, it was yet lawful for them
as curates to do any act of rainistry ; only it is provided
by statute that from that time they shall not enjoy the
livings, except they first assigned the articles agreed on in
the convocation house, 1562. So that to this day it is not
required of thera to be called again according to the order
now established, but only that they subscribe according
to the statute.
His language implies that in his opinion the
statute was only intended for priests in Roman
orders. He goes on :
The reason of all which I take to be, beside that the
calling to the rainistry by the ordinance of God ought to
be but once and not repeated, , the great inconvenience
feared of such repetition, as the disunion of the churches,
whose coraraunion is broken by such offence, and the raaking
void of all former acts of ministry done by them  Therefore
to avoid the renting of the churches one from another, and
rebaptization of those who had been baptized before, and
the annulling of marriages solemnized before by others,
with many such like, it hath been always thus practised in
this church, and all other churches of our profession. 32—2

500 Appendix A
He thfen asks whether he might not be aUbwed
to pass under the Act by subscribing :
Whereupon I humbly beseech your good lordship to
consider whether that subscribing to the articles of religion
...(which most vrillingly and with all my heart I assent
unto as agreeable to God's word), such my doing, by virtue
of that statute, do not as fuUy enable me for dealing in the
ministry as if I had been at the first made minister by the
form established in this church*.
In spite of his great infiuence with Burghley,
Travers did hot obtain the coveted ftiastership. He
was, however, lecturer at the Temple, and there
preached in the afternoons in reply to Hooker's " pure
Canterbury " delivered in the mornings. At length,
early in 1586, Whitgift inhibited him. Travers
appealed against this inhibition. He sent in a fresh
paper of reasons why his Antwerp ordination should
be accepted. The paper is preserved, with Whitgift's
animadversions in the margin. Naturally it went
bver the siatne ground as before. To Travers' con
tention that ordinatioti in one country ought to hold
good in another Whitgift assents, but adds
And yet the French [reformed] churches practise other
wise, neither vrill they admit any of our ministers, ordained
according to the laws of this church, to exercise his function
among them vrithout a new kind of caUing according to
their platform.
TraVers writes :
The uhiVetsial and peirpetuial practice of all Christendom,
in all places ahd in all ag'es, proveth the rainistets lawfully
made in any chutch bf SbUnd Jli-ofession in faith ought to
be acknowledged sUch in any other.
* Strype's Whitgift, vol. in. pp. 115 foU.

Appendix A 501
The animadversion is :
Excepting always such churches as allow of presbytery,
and practise it.
Travers quotes the case of St Polycarp, who was
allowed to celebrate the eucharist at Rome. " This
is true," runs the grim comment,
but Mr Travers's case is far differing from it. For Pqly-
carpus went not to Rome tp be made minister, but being
ordained rainister according to the order of the church
wherein he lived was suffered to execute his function at
Rome. But Mr Travers, misliking the order of his country,
ran to be ordered elsewhere by such as had no authority
to- ordain him, to the contempt of the ministry of this
church, and the manifest maintenance of schism. And as
well may Mr Cartwright and his adherents now raake
ministers at Warwick to serve in this, church of England
as he and ViUiers might have done at Antwerp.
Travers affirms that
In this church of England many Scottish men and
other, made ministers abroad, have been so acknowledged,
and executed their ministry accordingly, and yet do still
among us.
The archbishop's note is laconic, but of great
historic interest :
I know none such : and yet their case is far differing
from his.
Travers says that afore Mr Whittingham's case
no objections were raised, and that Whittingham
himself was not ejected. Whitgift observes :
This is untrue. For if Mr Whittingham had lived, he
had been deprived, without special grace and dispensation.
Although his case and Mr Travers are nothing like. For

502 Appendix A
he in time of persecution was ordained minister by those
which had authority in the church persecuted. But
Mr Travers in the time of peace, refusing to be made
minister at home, gaddeth into other countries to be
ordained by such as had no authority, condemning thereby
the kind of ordering ministers at horae.
Travers returns to the Act of 13 Elizabeth and
the terms on which it admitted popish priests to
serve without reordination. Whitgift remarks :
When the like act is raade for his rainistry, then may
he allege it. But the laws of this realm require that such
as are to be aUowed as ministers in this church of England
should be ordered by a bishop, and subscribe to the articles
before him.
Travers cites the language of the XXIIIrd
article as in his favour. Whitgift writes in the
margin This doth not justify his calling.
Lastly Travers avers that the late Archbishop of
Canterbury, Grindal, knew his circumstances and
was content that he " should preach in England."
The Bishop of London, Aylmer, had been contented
that he should preach at the Temple, as he had
now done for six years. Whitgift himself, he said,
had taken no exception. The archbishop notes :
This is to abuse our patience. He never allowed of your
kind of calling ; neither can he allow of it*
(6) . We will next consider the case of the cele
brated Saravia. It might have been supposed
that he was admitted to his canonry at Canterbury
* strype's Whitgift, vol. iii. pp. 182 foil.

Appettdix A 503
on similar terms to those on which Casaubon and
others were admitted. But he could not have been
thus admitted to the parochial cure which he held ;
and it is certain that he did not hold a quasi-laic
position in the church of England. The one fact
about him which every educated Enghsh churchman
knows is that he gave the last sacraments to Hooker.
Was he qualified to do so by any other ordination
than what he had for his ministry in the reformed
church in Holland ?
Bishop John Wordsworth seems to assume that
he had received Roman orders before coming to
England^. This is most unlikely. There was indeed
a succession of bishops in Holland until the death
of Van Stryen in 1594^- But Saravia's father was
a protestant minister before him. How would a
protestant minister's son obtain orders from those
bishops without leaving the community of his
father ?
It is natural to suppose that Saravia was ordained
when he took up his abode permanently in England
in 1587, if indeed it was not done during his earher
sojourn in this kingdom. That no record of his
ordination here is to be found is no proof that he
was not ordained. The more curious fact is that
he makes no allusion to a fresh ordination in his
prefaces, where so many biographical notes are to
be found. Why, when he urges his countrymen to
restore episcopacy in their church, does he not advise
' Ordination Problems, p. 126.
* Neale Jansenist Church of Holland, p. 115.

504 Appendix A
them to do as he had done and obtain the better
ordination of an episcopal church ? Why does he
take what appears to be the opposite line of saying
that there was no difference between the two
churches and that his reason for joining the church
of England was to show it ? If he was, in fact,
episcopally ordained in England, we can only
suppose that his silence on the point was due to
the wish not to frighten his former countrymen
away from a reform in the catholic direction by
seeming to condemn their existing orders as void.
That he did not consider them as wholly void is
plain from his own words, though he infinitely
preferred the catholic way of ordination.
But however his silence on the matter is to be
explained, his language about episcopacy and ordina
tion is such as to make it almost inconceivable that
he should not have taken the opportunity to
regularize his priestly status. And another wiU
besides his own was concerned, and that a very
masterful one. His benefices were under the eye
of Whitgift, and there is reason to think that
Whitgift had a hand in obtaining some of them
for him. Was Whitgift the man to appoint, or to
connive at appointing, a person in presbyterian
orders to English benefices, especially benefices with
cure of souls ? How could he have done so within
a year or two of saying, " I know of none such,"
in the case of Travers ? It is true that Whitgift
drew a distinction between the case of Travers and
that of men born and bred in the defective foreign

Appendix A 505
churches ; but his "I know of none such" shows
how he would have regarded the intrusion of the
foreign presbyter-made presbyter. It may be added
that Bancroft collated Saravia to another parochial
benefice in his own diocese and patronage. Bancroft
was at least as unlikely as Whitgift to advance a
man of defective orders^.
(7) The next case is that of De Laune 2. At
present the closing statement of Birch, or Cosin,
with regard to him, that De Laune was admitted
to a benefice without reordination, stands unverified.
But it may be accepted as true. Bishop Overall —
and probably other bishops of the period — was
wiUing to institute the man at the man's own peril.
If after the time fixed by the law parishioners or
others objected that he was not in priest's orders,
the man would be obliged to defend himself and his
* The Rev. G. F. Hodges has pointed out to me that James Owen,
a presbyterian controversialist of the end of the 17th century, who
inveighs against Saravia along with Laud as having introduced the
belief of the jus divinum into England, gives a list of foreigners
who, he thinks (in most cases wrongly), held English benefices on
the strength of presbyterian orders, but does not include in it the
name of Saravia, though he had mentioned him but a few pages
back. This may possibly indicate that Owen knew that Saravia
had received episcopal orders. It would certainly have enriched
Owen's list if he could have put Saravia in it. On the other hand
he seems to imply in one place that Dury was the first man to be
reordained on joining the church of England — a statement which he
took from Prynne, as perhaps Cosin did also. See his pamphlet
A plea for Scripture Ordination, pp. 66, 117 (published in 1694).
Cp. The Validity of the Dissenting Ministry, or the Ordaining Power
of Presbyters (an abridgement of the former pamphlet, but with
some additions, published in 1716), pp. 62 foil.
^ See above, p. 79.

5o6 Appendix A
orders in the bishop's court, and perhaps lose his
benefice. Overall could not feel sure that De
Laune's orders would prove sufficient in the eye of
the law ; and his uncertainty in the matter is good
evidence that such occurrences were at any rate rare
and the state of the law undetermined. His offer to
institute, however, on these terms shows that Overall
was unwilling to raise any other difficulty besides the
legal one. Apparently he did not feel that the
institution would inflict a wrong upon the parish
ioners, or be a cause of scandal to the church. This
was, of course, only Overall's individual view ; and
even Overall was not infallible. At the same time
it is certain that Overall made a great distinction
between the foreign ordination and ordination by
unauthorized Englishmen.
(8) A few other cases have been at times brought
forward but must now be considered settled against
the presbyterian claim. They may be mentioned
here together. John Veron is proved to have been
duly ordained by Bishop Ridley^. Peter Du Mouhn,
the younger, is expressly recorded to have been
ordained by Bishop Williams 2. Gataker, the well-
known puritan, was ordained by Sterne, Bishop of
Colchester ^-
' Denny, ut supra, p. 58.
' Denny, p. 78, quoting Hacket's Scrinia Reserata,
" Denny, p. 80. Mr Denny in the same note makes a curious slip
concerning the date of Bishop Patrick's ordination by the presbyterian
classis. He was only eight years old in 1634.

Appendix A 507
III. Some general statements.
Writers on behalf of the recognition of presby
terian orders make much use of certain stock quo
tations, in which it is affirmed in general terms
that such orders were at one time recognized. Among
the best known are the following.
(i) Travers' statement given above :
Many Scottish raen and other, raade rainisters abroad,
have been so acknowledged.
Whitgift's comment, " I know none such," is
sufficient.
(2) Bishop HaU's Defence of the Humble Remon
strance, section xiv :
[First] The sticking at the admission of our brethren
returned from reformed churches was not in the case of
ordination but of institution ; they had been [probably
" had " is used in the conditional sense = would have been]
acknowledged ministers of Christ without any other hands
laid upon them ; but according to the laws of our land
they were not, perhaps, capable of institution to a benefice
unless they were so qualified as the statutes of this realra
do require. And secondly I know those, more than one,
that by virtue of that ordination which they have brought
vrith them from other reformed churches have enjoyed
spiritual promotions and livings without any exception
against the lawfulness of their calling.
HaU is speaking of two different classes of men.
The first are Englishmen who have been ordained
abroad, like Whittingham or Travers. The second
are Scotchmen or foreigners. Those of the former
class, he says, could not lawfully be admitted to

5o8 Appendix A
benefices, even though their orders might have been
considered valid. The law of the land was against
it. Bishops might have their own opinions about
the sufficiency of the ordination of these men, but
they could not institute them with any prospect of
security. Of the second class, consisting of such
men as De Laune or Morison, Hall says that he
knew " more than one " who had received prefer
ment. He does not say how it came about that
the law appeared to admit of the institution of this
latter class while precluding that of the former.
The law — 13 Eliz. cap. 12 — dealt with both classes
alike. But the prevailing sentiment of churchmen
made a broad difference between the two classes,
and was ready to make an allowance for the second
which it refused to the first. It is of course possible
that Hall may have been mistaken about the facts,
as he appears to have been mistaken about the
law ; but it is also possible that he was right, and
that a few cases like that of De Laune were to be
found. " More than one " is a cautious phrase.
But, few or many, such cases were contrary both
to the prayer-book and to the statute.
(3) Cosin's language has been quoted on p. 224.
Cp. p. 229.
It is clear that De Laune's case was one of those
to which Cosin alludes. Indeed, considering how
much Cosin takes the line of a special pleader, it
would not be unnatural to suppose that his "some "
is a generalization of De Laune, with perhaps
Whittingham thrown in.

Appendix A 509
(4) Clarendon. See p. 177.
It may be questioned whether Clarendon's sen
tence beginning " This was new " is a statement
of Clarendon himself, or whether it is part of his
report of an argument which he had heard in the
house, like the sentence which follows. In any case
Clarendon is probably not speaking from personal
knowledge. He was most likely acquainted with
HaU's Defence of the Humble Remonstrance. He was
certainly intimate with Cosin and iacquainted with
Cosin's views on this particular question.
(5) Burnet, History of his own Time (ed. 1838),
p. I25, says in reference to the same Act of Parlia
ment of which Clarendon is here speaking :
Another point was fixed by the act of uniformity which
was more at large formerly ; those who came to England from
the foreign chutches had hot beten required to be ordained
among us; but now all that had not episcopal ordination
were made incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice.
Burtiet is probably dependent upon Clarendon.
(6) Fleetwood, whose words Will be seen on
p. 371, is still less of an independent authority.
The system to which he refers, if it eVer existed,
had passed away before he was born, and he only
repeats what he had learned from Cosin, whose
letter to Cordel he prints, and perhaps from Burnet
or from Clarendon.
Putting all these sources together, we shall
probably be right in concluding that there were a
few instances of the admission of men in foreign
presbyterian orders to English cures. But the

510 Appendix A
church of England in its corporate capacity did not
sanction them, nor did the law of the realm. Current
opinion may have favoured them, but they were
none the less a defiance of the established rule.
Two other sets of facts must be briefly mentioned.
I. In the i8th century and the beginning of
the 19th the greater part of the missionary work
of the English church in India was done through
the instrumentality of foreign Lutheran ministers.
Many of these men were not in the first instance
sent out by the English societies, but by the Danish
mission, and were subsidized and employed by the
English. Some of them, like the apostolic Swartz,
having begun in this way were gradually absorbed
into the operations of the English church in India ;
Swartz became to all intents and purposes an
Englishman, even to writing his name in this form.
The anomaly was striking ; but it will be seen
by the expressions of Bishop Heber, quoted on
p. 436, that the orders of the Lutheran missionaries
were by no means recognized by the church of
England and its representatives. To Heber, much
as he admired them, they were laymen. If some
times they read prayers for English congregations
who had no chaplain, and preached to them, it was
not because their priesthood was acknowledged;
some of the missionaries did so when they had
received no ordination at all^. Those whom they
ordained, Heber ordained afresh when he could.
* See the account of the younger Kohlhoff in Pearson's Memoirs
of Swartz, vol. n. p. 126.

Appetidix A 511
II. Perhaps the nearest thing to a recognition
of presbyterian orders in the Anglican communion
is to be found in the history of the church of Scotland.
As has been stated in the text, p. 275, no attempt
was made, either in 1610 or in 1661, at the reintro
duction of episcopacy into that country, to reordain
the mass of the presbyterian clergy, though individual
clergymen who desired it were reordained. Presby
terian and episcopalian ministers worked side by
side in the same church, and no distinction appears
to have been made. This was the " expedient "
which in 1660 commended itself at first for England
also to a mind as zealously catholic as that of
Morley^- It was, however, after all, no recognition
of presbyterian orders ; it was only a patient
method of getting rid of them. They were borne
with for the time being, in order gradually to
eliminate them. There was no scheme for their
continuance in the future. ^ See p. 176.

APPENDIX B
THE FOREIGN REFORMED CHURCHES AND
THE PLEA OF NECESSITY
It may be useful to give a conspectus of the
foreign reformed churches and their respective
ministries, with a view to determining how far
their departure (where they have departed) from the
episcopal principle was justified by the law of
necessity. In this conspectus no notice is taken oh
the One hand of the Old Catholics, who have of
course retained the principle, or on the other of
the various sects, largely of English origin, which
have penetrated Germany and other countries of
the continent.
I. The oldest reformed or protestant body in
Europe are the Waldensians. Their origin is lost
in obscurity, and it would be rash to make positive
statements with regard to the history of their
ministry 1.
* The chief authority on the subject is Karl MuUer's book
Die Waldenser und ihre einzelnen Gruppen bis zum Anfang des
i^ten Jahrhunderts (Gotha, x886). The articles by H. Bohmer in
Hauck-Herzog Realencyklopadie and by F. X. von Funk in Wetzer
and Welte's (Roman Catholic) Kirchenlexicon are excellent. We may
add, for the Italian Waldensians, the works of E. Comba, History of
the Waldensians of Italy, and 7 nostri Protestanti (Firenze, 1895).

Appendix B 513
The French Waldensians, who have given the
name of their 12th century founder to the whole
community, had among them three orders of mini
sters, corresponding to those of the church. But
the French Waldensians are an extinct body, though
no doubt they have left infiuences upon the more
modem protestantism of their country.
Upon their first passing of the Alps, they were
fused with a still older body of men on Italian or
Lombard soil, whose origin cannot be traced. The
existing Waldensian church of Italy is derived from
the fusion of the two. Miiller says that originally
the distinction between the three offices was observed
among them, as among the French Waldensians.
The names of bishops and presbyters — the latter
name generally translated into " seniors " — are still
to be traced among them in the second half of the
15th century^. But the same authority informs us
immediately after that " later the degrees of bishop
and presbyter ran into one, so that no distinction
between them remained, and both degrees were
conferred by a single act of ordination. This con
nexion," Miiller says, " is found in the second half
of the 14th century. When it came about is
uncertain." All kinds of conjectures have been formed with
regard to the first beginnings of this Itahan or
Lombardian society and its ministry. Some have
supposed that they had an episcopal succession
taken over from the catholic church of the country
^ Muller Waldenser, p. 123.
M. ' 33

514 Appendix B
in which they lived, and with which they were on
friendly terms. Some have supposed them to be
descended from the little known sects of the 4th
century, like the Euchites and the Paulicians. They
themselves, in the 15th century, prided themselves
on being of primitive origin, anterior to the corrup
tion which Constantine and his famous donation
poured into the church. It is possible that their
claim was well founded, but it cannot now be
proved. The Waldensians were chiefly known to Enghsh
men of the 17th and i8th centuries through the
persecutions which they underwent. They were, of
course, the " slaughtered saints " of Milton's sonnet.
Books like that of Jean Leger and, still more, of
Peter AUix, who came to this country and was
made a canon of Salisbury, attracted a great deal
of attention. The valleys of Piedmont became to
many Enghsh people a kind of holy ground.
The present Waldensians have no episcopate,
though there is a quasi-diocesan organization among
them ; but a vigorous and progressive section of
them is favourably disposed towards episcopacy and
towards a more catholic Christianity in general.
II. Next in order of seniority are the Unitas
Fratrum or Moravians. Their history, in its early
chapters, is curiously bound up with that of the
Waldensians. Their original home was in Bohemia. The
church of Bohemia in the 15th century stood apart
from the Roman communion over the question of

Appendix B 515
receiving the blessed sacrament in both kinds. The
Unitas were at first a kind of guild within this
separated church ; but they came to have a great
horror of everything Roman, and in 1467 they
determined to seek for themselves a ministry inde
pendent of the Roman succession. After enquiries
in many directions — enquiries which obtained and
deserved the praise of Thorndike^ — they heard of
a Waldensian elder or bishop in Austria, to whom
they applied. From him they received, as they
believed, a legitimate episcopal consecration un
tainted by anything Roman. The orders thus
obtained by the Unitas have been preserved ever
since, though at two periods there has been some
irregularity in the transmission of their episcopate,
which prevents it from being wholly satisfactory
from the point of view of the ecclesiastical his-
torian^. The connexion between the Unitas and the
church of England has been traced by G. A. Wauer,
in a little book translated under the title of The
Beginnings of the Brethren's Church in England
(1901). At the restoration of Charles II, John Amos
Comenius, who had visited England in 1641, made
a moving appeal to the church of England on behalf
of his community, then in deep affliction. Speaking
of himself as " inter ultimos ultimus antistes," he
commended it to us.
1 See p. 194.
* See Report of the Committee appointed by the Archbishop bf
Canterbury to consider the Orders of the Unitas Fratrum or Moravians
(1907). 33—2

5i6 Appendix B
To you. . .we leave and commit, according to the example
of the... divine Master... our dear mother, the church
herself. Whether God wUl deem her worthy to be revived
in her native seats, or let her die there and resuscitate
her elsewhere, in either case do you, in our stead, care
for her. Even in her death, which now seems to be
approaching, you ought to love her, because in her Ufe
she has gone on before you for more than two centuries
vrith examples of faith and patience *.
Comenius could not have foreseen how closely
his community was destined to be associated with
the church to which he commended it. Jablonsky,
Wake's correspondent, was Comenius's grandson.
Collections were made in England, at Wake's
instance, on behalf of " the episcopal reformed
churches, formerly in Bohemia, and now in Great
Poland and Polish Russia." But with Zinzendorf,
who received the episcopate, at one remove, from
Jablonski, began the establishment of a branch of
the Unitas in England. The Unitas had every wish
to act in loyalty to the authorities of the church
in England ; but the i8th century was a time of
great legal restriction in the way of religious develop
ments, and in spite of entire goodwill on both sides,
the Moravians, as they were now caUed, were reduced
to registering themselves as dissenters, in order to
obtain the protection of the law. It was all the
more disappointing inasmuch as both Wake and
Potter had recognized and welcomed them as a true
" protestant episcopal " church. A scheme for joint
consecrations and ordinations had been prepared,
1 De Schweinitz History of the Unitas Fratrum, p. 604,

Appendix B 517
and the apostolic Wilson had undertaken to act
as superintendent or bishop of the community in
this kingdom.
A more hopeful state of things has now arisen.
The Lambeth Conference has revived the scheme
of joint consecrations, and the Unitas has welcomed
the arrangement ; and there is good reason to hope
that this venerable body, so rich in spiritual gifts
and in missionary activity, will before long be in
direct communion with the church of England,
without loss of dignity to either party, and without
any compromise of catholic principle.
III. We turn now to the churches whose
reformation was coeval with our own, and first
to those of the Lutheran confession.
(i) The church of Sweden stands alone among
these churches in having preserved the apostolical
succession^. Exception to Swedish orders might
perhaps be taken on the ground that the church of
Sweden has no "laying on of hands" in completion
of baptism, or that its priests have not previously
served in a diaconate. But that there has been
a personal succession of bishops unbroken from
pre-reformation times to our own will hardly be
questioned again. The last doubts have been re
moved by the researches of Dr Lundstrom, the
present Domprost of Upsala Cathedral and Pro
fessor in the University.
* See A. Nicholson Apostolical Succession in the Church of
Sweden (1880) and Vindiciae Arosienses (1887). See also The Church
of England and the Church of Sweden. Report of the Commission
appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (191 1).

5i8 Appendix B
The church of Sweden had long been a reformed
church before it assumed definitely the Lutheran
position. It was not till 1593 that it adopted the
confession of Augsburg. Under Gustaf Vasa, under
his sons Erik and John, it had maintained its position
as an evangelical and catholic national church,
without tying itself down to any formularies but
its own. But under the peril of the accession of
a Romanist king, Sigismund, it could no longer
stand alone. Its teaching from the beginning of the
reformation had been predominantly that of Luther
and Melanchthon, and it was natural that, when
driven to take a side among the contending parties
of reformed Christendom, it should choose to put
itself definitely with its nearest neighbours of the
reformation and declare itself Lutheran. But it has
always retained a consciousness of being something
more than Lutheran, and loved to claim its con
tinuity with the church of older days.
It is sad that it could not rather have made
common cause with the church of England, from
which in so large a degree it originally received its
Christianity. But there was little mutual inter
course between the countries, and little mutual
acquaintance between the churches. Even the
Thirty Years War did not convey to England in
general the knowledge of what was peculiar in the
status of the church of Sweden. The church of
Sweden, on its side, thought of the church of
England as a Calvinistic body. The Kyrkohistorisk
Arsskrift for 1912 contains an interesting article by

Appendix B 519
Dr Lundstrom which gives an account of an overture
made by representatives of the church of England
to the church of Sweden in 1718. The leader in
the movement was Robinson, Bishop of London,
well known for his share in the treaty of Utrecht,
and as the last ecclesiastic to be employed in the
English diplomatic service. Robinson had been for
a long time the English envoy in Sweden. He and
other English divines expressed to Count Gyllenborg,
the Swedish secretary of state, their concern at the
progress of Romanism, especially among the princely
houses of Europe. They earnestly desired that the
Swedish church, as " a sister church " to their own,
would enter into closer relations with that of
England. They represented that the differences
between the two were unimportant in comparison
with the fact that both were wholly at one on the
fundamental articles of faith. There was some
divergence of opinion on the Lord's Supper, but
they did not think it sufficient to divide the churches.
Finally they had taken Gyllenborg himself to witness
how sincerely they had shown their desire for a fratemal
concord between their church and ours, inasmuch as,
however earnestly they opposed the toleration of the many
sects in Great Britain, they favoured and protected the
evangelical Lutherans in every possible way. They had
further reminded him — the Bishop of London had done so
in particular — of the kindness they had always had for the
maintenance of our Swedish churches in Pennsylvania,
where our priests and those of the English church lived
together in such great and brotherly unity, that they very
often preached in one another's churches, and looked after
one another's congregations when the ordinary clergy were

520 Appendix B
hindered by being away from home. But they complained
on the other hand that their churches among us \i,e. in
Sweden] were looked upon and treated in the sarae way
as those of the papists, the Calvinists, and the other sects
which were as far removed from them as from us. This,
they added, must in the end cause an extremely mischievous
coolness, not to say an open enmity. But in this way the
enemies of us both gained occasion to weaken both churches.
. . .Among these enemies they reckoned not only the papists,
but also the Calvinists, and other sects, which now for
some tirae had been too much encouraged and permitted
by the English government, to the great detriment of the
English church.
Alas, the replies which Gyllenborg received from
the Swedish bishops to the circular letter in which
he gave them this information were far from
encouraging. So far as they have been preserved,
they show that the church of England was looked
upon with suspicion, as a patroness of sectarian
licence and of Calvinistic doctrine. Nothing came
of the proposal.
The proposal is now renewed, with a less polemical
aim, with fuller knowledge on both sides, and with
better hopes of success.
(2) The churches of the other two Scandinavian
kingdoms, Denmark and Norway, were not so
fortunate. If there had been any goodwiU towards
episcopacy, it might have been preserved ; but
there appears to have been none. The bishops were
chiefly looked upon as great lords, not as ministers
of religion. As early as 1526 the Danish bishops
practically broke with the Roman curia over money
questions, and had the support of their country in

Appendix B 521
the matter. In 1533 they sent a distinct ultimatum
to Rome. For the most part they had no strong
objections to rehgious reform. The most respected
of them, Ove BUde, Bishop of Aarhus, conformed
to the new order of things when it was once estab
lished, and lived in lay communion with the reformed
church. Another, Knud Gyldenstjerne, who never
got beyond being a bishop-elect, translated Luther's
catechism into Danish. A slight pressure from the
king or the rigsraad would have induced the Danish
bishops to consecrate Gyldenstjerne and others
without waiting for papal confirmation.
But this was far from being the wish of
Christian III. No sooner had he got the mastery
of his opponents, in 1536, than he threw all the
bishops and bishops-elect into prison, and only
released them on condition of resigning their sees
and the revenues belonging to them, and promising
never again to lay claim to them ; — in the case of
one or two of the younger ones, he added the con
dition that they should marry. Then he applied to
Luther, who despatched Bugenhagen — himself only
in priest's orders — to crown the new king, and to
inaugurate the new ecclesiastical regime by ordaining
or setting apart new superintendents or bishops in
place of those who had been ejected.
From the superintendents thus set apart the
present clergy of Denmark have their succession.
Norway and Iceland are in the same condition. It
is on record that one Icelandic bishop in the 19th
century was desirous that English bishops should

522 Appendix B
be invited to take part in his consecration — doubtless
political sentiment forbade an application to the
Swedes — with a view to repairing the broken suc
cession. Martensen, then primate of the Danish
church, emphatically refused, and in his sermon at
the consecration denounced the idea^-
(3) In Germany, and that part of Germany
which espoused the Lutheran doctrine, there was
much variety of organization to begin with. The
maxim cujus regio, ejus religio, naturally bore effect
in a country so much broken up into small states 2.
The Augsburg Confession concludes with the
words :
Our meaning is not to have rule taken from the bishops ;
but this one thing only is requested at their hands, that
they would suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and that
they would relax a few observances which cannot be held
without sin. But if they will remit none, let them look
how they vrill give account to God for this, that by their
obstinacy they afford cause of division and schism, which
it were yet fit they should aid in avoiding*.
But in spite of this declaration episcopacy, in
the old sense, became extinct in Germany. The
title remained in some places ; in some the episcopal
revenues remained also. There were places where
the " bishopric " was held turn and turn about by
a Roman Catholic and a Lutheran. The see of
* See an article in the Church Quarterly Review for April, 1891,
on the Loss of the Succession in Denmark,
^ A brief account of the organization of Lutheran churches will
be found in T. M. Lindsay's History of the Reformation, vol. i.
pp. 400 foil.
' The translation is taken by Lindsay from Schaff,

Appendix B 523
Osnabriick was held in this manner by more than
one English prince, as a member of the house of
Hanover. Why did not bishoprics remain a religious
reality in the life of Germany ?
It cannot be said that no bishops in Germany
were favourable to reform. There was Hermann of
Koln for an example. What attempt was made to
obtain his help for the perpetuation of the ancient suc
cession ? Bancroft mentions several German bishops
who might have proved useful for the purpose.
One Sydonius, being thrust (as it seemeth) from the
bishopric of Merseburg, as cleaving wholly to popery, was
afterwards, upon his leaving of the pope, and upon promise
made to maintain the reformation of religion made in his
absence, restored to his bishopric. And after him succeeded
(as I take it in that bishopric) George the prince Anhalt, . . .
being chosen thereunto, as he saith himself, universo capituli
consensu, by the consent of the whole chapter*.
Any one glancing down the lists of bishops in
Gams' Series will see again and again, in those parts
of Germany which accepted the reformation, and
in other parts also, the " resignation " of bishops in
the i6th century. What became of them ? What
became of the bishops marked as apostata, hke
Erhard of Quels, Bishop of Pomesania, George of
Polentz, Bishop of Samland, John of Monnich-
hausen. Bishop of Curland ? No doubt the answer
could be found ; but it would probably not favour
the plea of necessity set up for the broken succession
in Lutheran Germany.
* Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline, p. 117. George of
Anhalt was never consecrated ; but why not ?

524 Appendix B
Attempts have been made from time to time
to repair the breach. It is not easy always to see
why they failed. While Northern Germany was
really Lutheran, there was always Lutheran Sweden
to tum to. When Frederic I of Prussia failed to
obtain what he wanted from the church of England,
why did he not ask Jablonsky himself — who had no
misgivings a,bout his Moravian episcopate — to supply
the need ?
The fact is that Luther and his associates, even
Melanchthon, while willing to accept episcopacy
where it came easily to hand, did not think it worth
any effort to secure. They had begun to ordain
without bishops years before the Confession of
Augsburg, and felt no scruple about it.
(4) The plea of necessity cannot be urged with
much more confidence on behalf of the Swiss and
French protestants.
Bingham, in his French Church's Apology for the
Church of England (pp. 218 foil.), has an interesting
passage on the subject. After dweUing at length
upon the well-known history of Antonio Caraccioh,
the Bishop of Troyes, who became a protestant and
endeavoured to retain his see at the same time,
Bingham proceeds with this summary of other
cases : The popish authors themselves teU us, there were about
this time [i.e, 1361] several other bishops in France, who
were well vrishers to the reformation, such as Odet Colinius
[Coligny], Cardinal CastUion, the Admiral [Gaspar de
Cohgny]'s brother* ; Johannes Monluc, Bishop of Valence ;
^ Odet was never consecrated.

Appendix B 525
Sanroraanus, [Arch]bishop of Aix ; Johannes Barban9on,
Bishop of Pamiers ; Johannes de Sangelasio, Bishop of
Utica [Uz6s] ; Francis de NoaUles, Bishop of Aquae Augustae
[Dax] ; Carolus Gillarius, Bishop of Chartres ; together
vrith Lewis d'Albert and Claudius Reginus, two bishops of
the territory of Bern [Beam] under the protestant Queen
of Navarre.
Other instances are given by Peter du Moulin,
in the preface to his translation of his father's
Novelty of Popery, to which Bingham also refers.
An archbishop of Vienne, a bishop of Orleans, a
bishop of Meaux^, were prepared to join the pro
testant party ; " but the great stream of the state
proved too strong for them to swim against 2."
But, again it must be said, the French and Swiss
reformers as a rule, like the German ones, cared
too little for the continuity of the historical orders
to go much out of their way to secure it. They
had at first no quarrel with episcopacy, as such ;
but they were quite contented without it. Indeed
they were contented to be without any orders but
such as they felt to have been conferred upon them
1 On Bri9onnet, Bishop of Meaux, see H. M. Bower The Fourteen
of Meaux, passim, and cp. Lindsay Reformation, vol. ii. p. 141. For
further names of sympathetic bishops see Jervis Church of France,
vol. I. p. 115.
2 The examples which Du Moulin gives in the same preface
of French protestant chaplains in orders received from bishops prove
to be only those of Brevint and Durel ; see above, p. 223. " And
lately," he says, " a learned French divine, before he returned out
of England into his country, was presented by me to the right
reverend and famous Bishop of Lincoln, who conferred the holy
orders upon him." This is no doubt the case of Du Moulin's relative,
Pierre Jurieu. Why did none of these learned foreigners carry back
with them the highest order ?

526 Appendix B
by the direct calling of God. Calvin, as has been
already mentioned, was never ordained by any one,
except, as a boy, to the subdiaconate ; Beza was
never ordained at all. Ordinations conferred by
these men cannot be called presbyterian orders ;
and all the arguments derived by Field or Mason
from the identity of presbyters and bishops fall to
the ground, unless it can be shown that the ordaining
hands were at any rate those of presbyters. This
would be difficult to show in the case of the
Calvinistic churches of France and Switzerland, and
perhaps of Holland also. They may perhaps be
upheld on other grounds, but not on that of an
inherent power of catholic presbyters to ordain^.
(5) In the case of Calvinistic Scotland, the plea
of necessity is, of course, wholly out of place.
Scotland became dogmatically presbyterian. And
here perhaps the argument from the identity of
bishops and presbyters may with more force be
urged. Though it seems uncertain whether John
Knox was ever ordained priest^, and though others
* There were bishops in other parts of Europe who joined the
reformation, like Vergerius. Dixon History of Church of England,
vol. III. p. 235, adopts the belief that John a Lasco was a bishop.
^ The article on him in Did. Nat. Biogr. shows that he received
minor orders, and it quotes a Roman Catholic contemporary as
saying that he " contrived to be made a presbyter " ; but whether
that means such a presbyter as the Roman Catholic writer himself
acknowledged or not is not clear. As he was made a chaplain to
Edward VI, he may perhaps be added to the Ust of those who have
been allowed to minister in the church of England vrithout being
ordained by bishops. Lindsay Reformation, vol. 11. p. 285, says
that he was in priest's orders in 1540. Grub's account seems some
what inconsistent. He says {Eccl. Hist, of Scotland, vol. 11. p. 31)

Appendix B 527
who held office with him in the reformed church
of Scotland were in the same position^, yet it can
hardly be doubted that most of those who founded
the presbyterian system in Scotland were themselves
presbyters, and the succession has, no doubt, been
maintained, and even jealously insisted upon.
that Knox was ordained priest at about the age of 25 ; yet on the
next page complains that at his call to minister to a congregation
he received no imposition of hands.
^ See the editor's note in Keith's History, vol. in. p. 13 (ed. 1850),
and Grub, vol. 11. p. 181.

APPENDIX C
ORDINATION AMONG THE NONCONFORMISTS
OF ENGLAND
It is frequently asserted by controversialists that
logically the ministers of the various Enghsh non
conformist bodies stand on the same footing as the
ministers "beyond the seas," for the validity of whose
orders Enghsh churchmen have sometimes earnestly
contended. Nothing disrespectful to the noncon
formist ministries is meant by what we have to
say in this Appendix ; but for two reasons at least
it is necessary to demur to the view thus expressed.
In the first place the English nonconformist bodies,
however noble in many ways their history is, do
not occupy the same position as the reformed
churches of the continent. Even if it be allowed
that they were justified in separating from the
reformed church of England, they would not them
selves contend, nor would any one of them contend,
that they represent the ancient national Christianity
of England in the same way as the protestant
churches of Denmark or of Switzerland represent
the historic Christianity of their respective countries.
They represent sectional interests at most. And in

Appendix C 529
the second place it is a mistake to class them aU
together for the purpose now in view. Their original
tenets with regard to " ministering in the congre
gation " differ widely from each other, though there
is a tendency to converge ; and the various ministries
themselves have had very dissimilar histories.
The reader would be well advised to study three
articles in the back numbers of the Church Quarterly
Review, which throw the light of true historical
knowledge upon this question. The first is in vol.
XIV. (April, 1882), Not Nonconformists, but Dissenters.
The second is in vol. xix. (October, 1884), Ordination,
Nonconformity, and Separatism. The third is in vol.
xxxi. (January, 1891), The Anglican Ordinal and
N on-episcopal Ordination. Perhaps nowhere within
so brief a compass is it possible to find so much
illumination on the principles concerned.
(i) In theory the presbyterian conception of
orders, imported from Geneva by way of Scotland,
does not differ radically from that which has prevailed
in the universal church. It only differs from it in
respect of the officers empowered to ordain. This is,
of course, a most important difference in practice ;
nevertheless the idea of the ordination in itself is not
necessarily changed by entrusting it to presbyters
instead of bishops. Many presbyterian divines have
enforced the doctrine of the apostolical succession
as urgently as episcopalians. It is understood that
the laying on of the hands of the presbytery represents
a solemn commission from the church universal, in
the name of which the presbytery act. The power
M. 34

530 Appettdix C
which they exercise is not wholly derived by delega
tion from the particular church for whom the minister
to be ordained is intended. It comes from the whole
historic Christianity of all generations. It is con
tinuous with the authoritative ministry of the early
church. Its source is in the commission given by
our Lord to his first disciples and in the first inspira
tion with which he endowed them for their work.
It stands for continuity, for the principle of order,
for unity among the Christian churches.
Most of the first English presbyterians were in
the strict sense " nonconformists," like Baxter. They
had no intention of becoming " separatists," or
founding a church apart from the episcopal church
of England. Even when they began to ordain after
the restoration — the first presbyterian ordination after
that date took place in 1672 — they regarded it only
as a temporary expedient. Baxter, writing in 1679,
said that they did it "pro tempore, until God shall give
them opportunity to serve him in the established
way, it being reformed, and well ordered parish
churches which are most agreeable to their desires^."
Many presbyterian ministers went on ministering
for many years without having received any ordina
tion at all.
But this attitude was not very long continued.
It became clear that presbyteral ordination was not
going to be recognized in the church of England, and
those who clung to it were obliged to choose between
the two alternatives. A large proportion of them
^ The Nonconformists' Plea, p. 246.

Appendix C 531
drifted into the separatist position. They even came
to associate with themselves in the act of ordina
tion the men who had been their most determined
foes, the independents. The difference in principle,
however, between these co-operating parties could
hardly be concealed. Stoughton records an ordina
tion in 1689, which was intended to have been a
joint ordination by presbyterians and independents,
where the conflict became acute'^. The incongruity
was still noticeable even at a later time 2.
(2) The independent, and we may add the bap
tist, conception of ordination was originally as
different from that of the presbyterians as was their
relation to the church of England. " Come out of
her, my people," was the text which expressed their
view of the church ; and they had no feeling for
connexion with past history, and no feeling for
religious authority, to express in their ordinations.
The only authority called into action was the au
thority of the congregation which elected the man to
minister to them. The other ministers, who took
part in the service, assumed no authority, and no
responsibility. " No examination by the ordainers
took place.... The neighbouring ministers merely recog
nize their brother^." If an imposition of hands took
place, which appears to have been not invariably
the case, it was not supposed to convey authority ;
' Religion in England, vol. v. p. 284.
•^ C. Q. R. October, 1884, p. 44.
' T. S. James History of Litigation and Legislation respecting
Presbyterian Chapels, p. 804 ; quoted in C. Q. R. ut supra.
34—2

532 Appendix C
it was not supposed to convey grace. It was only
an outward token of acknowledgement and of good
will. The " Declaration of Faith, Church Order, and
Discipline," under which the congregational churches
are now governed, says that
they believe that church officers, whether bishops or
deacons, should be chosen by the free voice of the church
[i.e. the local church] ; but that their dedication to the
duties of their office should take place with special prayer,
and by solemn designation, to which raost of the churches
add the imposition of hands by those already in office*.
(3) There is no need to speak of the Society of
Friends — one of the most effective agencies for good
that Christendom has ever seen. They have no
ministry, and no ordination. It only remains to
mention the Methodists.
It seems to be carelessly assumed by some people
that the methodist ministry springs from Wesley,
and has therefore at least a presbyteral value. This is
not the case, except with the "episcopal" methodists
of America, who spring from Coke and Asbury,
acting on the commission which John Wesley gave
them to be " superintendents " of the society in the
United States, Although Wesley on several occasions
at the end of his life ordained some of his preachers,
he inaugurated no system of ordination among them.
As is well known, he earnestly wished the society
never to separate from the church, however little
' This last was a concession to presbyterianism. See Stoughton,
vol. V. p. 294.

Appendix C 533
heedful he was of the means to secure that end.
It was not until the presidency of Jabez Bunting in
1836, that the methodists began to ordain. Ever
since 1795, four years after the founder's death, the
preachers had resumed the practice of administering
the sacraments in their chapels, — a practice which
had begun long before, without any authorization,
but had been stopped by the conference of 1755.
But the theory which governed their practice, if
theory there was, amounted to this, that men called
by the providence of God to preach the gospel are
empowered, indeed compelled, to give the sacraments
where they cannot be obtained under proper con
ditions in the church. Thoughts of fuller union,
or reunion, with the church were still in the air.
But that union was not destined to take place then.
Bunting was the man who did away with the half-
and-half position. " He completed the detachment
of methodism from its Anglican base ; he found it a
society and consohdated it into a church^."
Bunting does not seem ever to have received any
kind of ordination, and no succession which originates
with him can claim to have any ecclesiastical value.
Its merits have to be looked for in other directions.
The same observations will apply to the ministries
of the offshoots from Wesleyan methodism.
' Diet, of Nat. Biogr., Bunting, Jabez.

APPENDIX D
SCHISM AND COMMUNION
The church of England has been compelled by
her position to devote a great deal of attention to the
subject of schism, and it would require a large
volume to give an adequate account of the many
treatises which have cleared her from the charge of
schism in relation to Rome, or condemned the
protestant dissenters who have left her. The tone
and temper of these treatises have varied greatly.
John Hales moves in a different world of thought
from Henry Hammond. Sherlock and Stillingfleet
do not contemplate quite the same situation as
Bennett or Daubeny. But all of them have at
bottom the same ideal, of a single organization, in
which all Christians ought to be able to communicate
together, neither giving nor taking offence over
matters which do not immediately involve the
salvation or loss of souls. In loyalty to ancient
catholic principle, they have been unable to acquiesce
in the existence of more than one Christian body in
one locality, except possibly as a temporary arrange
ment, with a view to a more complete union.

Appendix D 535

I. AUTHORITATIVE DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH
The teaching of the church of England as a whole
on this subject has been not obscurely expressed at
more than one period since the work of reformation
began. The constitutions and canons ecclesiastical of
1603 speak thus :
9. Authors of Schisms in the Church of England censured.
Whosoever shall hereafter separate themselves from the
communion of saints, as it is approved by the apostles'
rules, in the church of England, and combine theraselves
together in a new brotherhood, accounting the Christians
who are conforraable to the doctrine, government, rites,
and ceremonies of the church of England to be profane
and unmeet for them to join with in Christian profession,
let them be excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored
but by the archbishop, after their repentance and public
revocation of such their wicked errors.
10. Maintainers of Schismatics in the Church of England
censured.
Whosoever shaU affirm that such ministers as refuse to
subscribe to the form and manner of God's worship in the
church of England, prescribed in the communion book,
and their adherents, raay truly take unto them the name
of another church, not established by law, and dare presume
to publish it, that this their pretended church hath of long
time groaned under the burden of certain grievances imposed
upon it and upon the members thereof before mentioned
by the church of England and the orders and constitutions
therein by law established ; let them be excommunicated,
and not restored until they repent and publicly revoke
such their vricked errors.

536 Appendix D
II. Maintainers of Conventicles censured.
Whosoever shall hereafter aflftrm that there are within
this realm other meetings, assemblies, or congregations of
the king's born subjects than such as by the laws of this
land are held and aUowed, which may rightly chaUenge to
themselves the name of tme and lawful churches ; let him
be excommunicated, and not restored but by the arch
bishop-, after his repentance and public revocation of such
his vricked errors.
It is, of course, to be noted that when these
schisms are spoken of as being " in the church of
England," the reason is that at the time of composi
tion all baptized Enghshmen were considered to be
a single church. A schism from the church is there
fore a schism in it. It may also be observed that
when the laws of this land at last allowed other
meetings to be held than those of the church of
England, such toleration did not remove the ecclesias
tical objection to them, or do away their schismatic
character from a religious point of view.
The twenty-seventh canon is headed
Schismatics not to be admitted to the Communion.
It runs :
No minister, when he celebrateth the coraraunion shaU
willingly adrainister the same to any but to such as kneel,
under pain of suspension, nor under the like pain to any
that refuse to be present at public prayers according to
the orders of the church of England, nor to any that are
common and notorious depravers of the book of common
prayer and administration of the sacraments, . . . except every
such person shall first acknowledge to the minister, before the
churchwardens, his repentance for the same, and promise by
word, if he cannot write, that he will do so no raore ....

Appendix D 537
It must appear strange that any one who could
" deprave " the church of England and its ways
should be thought hkely to present himself for
communion in it. But the reason is obvious. No
one was allowed by law to hold any office in the
kingdom unless he was in communion with the
established church. Horrible, therefore, as the pro
fanation was, candidates for a mayoralty or any
similar position came to the communion to quahfy,
if their consciences were elastic enough to permit
them, although they might denounce the established
church as a synagogue of Satan, and deride her
ceremonies as rags of Rome. The canon of 1603
discloses the mind of the church on this matter.
So far was the church from liking and approving
the system which made such indecencies possible,
that sentence of suspension was passed upon any
minister who should abet them by giving the com
munion to " occasional conformists " of this type.
It was not the church of England which urged
men to come to her altars whether they believed
her doctrine or not.
Practically the last time that the church of
England was allowed by state authorities to speak
with a collective voice, before it was silenced for
150 years, that voice was raised to insist upon the
sinfulness of schism. Bishop Fleetwood said in
1712 that when men returned from schism to the
communion of the Enghsh church, they were not
required to make confession of their errors. He had
probably forgotten the canons of 1603. As a matter

538 Appendix D
of fact they had probably been seldom acted upon.
No form had been provided for carr5dng out the
instructions of the canons. But two years after
Fleetwood wrote those words, the church made good
the omission. Convocation drew up a form for the
reconciliation of penitents returning from Rome or
from " the separation."
It is in many ways a beautiful office. The lesson
is that of the joy of the Shepherd for the recovery of
the lost sheep. " If the penitent comes from the
separation," then the " hymn " to be used is Psalm
cxxii., " I was glad when they said unto me : we will
go into the house of the Lord." The bishop or
priest who admits examines the penitent whether he
accepts the sufficiency of the scriptures and believes
the apostles' creed. On his assent, the bishop or
priest proceeds :
Art thou tmly sorrowful that thou hast not foUowed
the way prescribed in these scriptures for the directing of
the faith and practice of a tme disciple of Christ Jesus ?
Answer, I am heartily sorry, and I hope for mercy
through Jesus Christ.
He asks further :
"Dost thou allow and approve of the orders of bishops,
priests, and deacons " — adding, if tbe penitent has been a
teacher in some separate congregation, " as what have been
in the church of Christ from the time of the apostles—
and wilt thou as much as in thee lieth, promote all due
regard to the same good order and government of the
church of Christ ? "

Appendix D 539
If the penitent be one who has relapsed, he is to
be asked :
Art thou heartily sorry that when thou wast in the
way of tmth, thou didst so Uttle watch over thy own heart,
as to suffer thyself to be led away with the shows of vain
doctrine ? and dost thou steadfastly purpose to be more
careful for the future, and to persevere in that holy pro
fession, which thou hast now made ?
To which a humble and suitable reply is made,
followed by absolution, prayers, and final exhortation^.

II. OPINIONS OF DIVINES
The sin of schism may be approached from various
sides. It may be considered from the ethical point
of view. The sinfulness of it may be held to consist
in the want of charity, breaking up the unity which
heavenly love would form. This was characteristi
cally the line taken by St Augustine and by John
Hales. Or, without excluding the consideration of
charity, its chief sinfulness may be thought to consist
in want of obedience to constituted rule and authority.
This is perhaps the more usual way of regarding it.
It is the way of St Cyprian and of Henry Dodwell.
Or it may be approached in the more matter of
fact way of considering what acts constitute it.
Here it may be chiefly looked at as a negative thing.
Abstinence from church services, the forsaking of
the assembling together, refusal to take part in the
corporate life of the church, may be viewed as
1 See Cardwell Synodalia, vol. ii. pp. 796 foil.

540 Appendix D
schismatic. It has sometimes been asserted that this
negative aspect was the only one which really con
cerned the great divines of the Caroline age : they
only complained that men would not come to the
communion of the church. The assertion will not
bear examination. Schism was, or might advance
into being, a positive thing also. It might and did
express itself in distinct acts, and, naturally, the
more it thus expressed itself, the more flagrant it
was thought.
The acts which constituted schism were such as
these. To gather people together for the purpose of
worshipping apart from the church, for joining in
unauthorized devotions, for receiving instruction and
exhortation from unauthorized teachers, was plainly
schismatic. The Five Mile Act of 1665 and the
Conventicle Act of 1670 were not acts of the church :
their object was political, not religious ; but they
sufficiently illustrate the prevailing views. The Five
Mile Act complains that people " have settled them
selves in divers corporations^ in England, sometimes
three or more of them in a place, thereby taking an
opportunity to distil the poisonous principles of
schism and rebellion." The Conventicle Act makes
it penal for any one over sixteen years of age to be
" present at any assembly, conventicle, or meeting,
under colour or pretence of any exercise of religion
in other manner than according to the liturgy and
practice of the church of England. ' ' Such conventicle
* " Corporations " here mean the corporate boroughs where they
settled, not the schismatic bodies.

Appendix D 541
was defined as an assembly at which " there shall
be five persons or more assembled together, over and
besides those of the same household, if it be in a
house where there is a famUy inhabiting," or, if it
be elsewhere, " then where any five persons or more
are so assembled as aforesaid."
To assemble but once in this fashion was an act
of schism ; to continue to do so was of course to
become habitually schismatic. When the persons so
joining formed themselves into incorporated societies,
when those societies entered into league with similar
societies in other places, when they assumed the
name of churches, local or diffused, the schism was
more pronounced. If they undertook to administer
the sacrament in these assemblies, then, from the
point of view of the church, they came directly under
the Cyprianic condemnation of those who erected
" altar against altar." This was far more heinous
in church eyes than the fortuitous gatherings for
extempore prayers and preaching. And when they
added to this the definite setting apart of ministers
and a line of ministers of their own, the schism was
complete. All remains of union with the church
considered as a visible society were destroyed. There
might perhaps remain inward ties, of common beliefs,
and even of mutual regard ; but the outward bond
was gone. " Ordination is separation," was the un
challenged verdict of Lord Mansfield. It was in
order to avoid any semblance of such separation that
the Moravians on settling in England were anxious
to establish the system of joint ordinations.

542 Appendix D
That schism was sinful was held by all church
men, and by most dissenters. But it was always a
question, on whose shoulders the sin lay. Church
writers readily admitted that there was a state of
schism between the church of England and the church
of Rome, and where there is schism there is sin.
But they maintained that the sin was Rome's. Rome,
as Jewel affirmed, had cast us off, through no fault
of ours. Even if we had renounced Rome, we were
justified in doing so, nay, were compelled to do so ;
because the only terms on which we could retain
communion with Rome were sinful terms. Where
sinful terms of communion are imposed, a Christian,
or a Christian church, is bound to refuse communion,
and the guilt of the consequent schism attaches to
those who insist upon such terms. In the case of
the protestant dissenters the whole argument turned
upon the point whether the terms of communion with
the church of England were or were not sinful.
Church writers were ready to admit that if they were
thought to be sinful, those who thought so were
bound in foro conscientiae to secede ; but if they did
not think so, they were bound by the laws of scrip
tural and primitive Christianity to put preferences
aside and communicate with the church. Otherwise
they were guilty of schism.
At this point comes in the controversy over
" occasional conformity."
The fiercest assailants of occasional conformity
were the dissenters. They objected, not on the
ground that for a dissenter to communicate with the

Appendix D 543
church of England was disloyal to his dissenting
church. If the church of England had been a less
corrupt and degraded church, something might be
said for communicating with it. But so hopelessly
bad and unspiritual was the whole position of the
church of England that to communicate with it was
as bad as communicating with Rome. Defoe, in
1697, put forth his Enquiry into the Occasional Con
formity of Dissenters, in which he described the
practice as halting between God and Baal. He
affirmed that none but Christians of an amphibious
nature could believe one way and worship another.
The churchman and the dissenter, he said, held " two
religions." The persons thus attacked were, of course, chiefly
nonconformists, and not separatists. Howe, whom
Defoe singled out for his attack, replied. He con
tended that if occasional conformity to some other
communion was a fault, it was not a fault that ought
to exclude a person from his own. Baxter called it
" a healing custom." Calamy thought it an indis
pensable duty. Humphrey wrote to a friend
Our moderate nonconformist presbyterians are for their
stated communions with the congregations whereof they
are pastors or members* ; but they will join in their parish
churches for occasional coraraunion, or else they think
themselves to be guilty of schism. Thus Dr Bates does
sometime in the year receive the sacrament in his parish,
and Mr Baxter did often in the parish where I ara. But as
for rayself, I declare ray stated coraraunion to be with the
^ Baxter, however, seems not to have followed this rule ; see
above, p, 279.

544 Appendix D
church,. ..and my occasional communion vrith the non
conformist meetings, where I go sometimes and sometimes
am called to preach. In short, I am a nonconformist
minister, but a conforming parishioner, and I know nobody
...that is offended at it  Ask your minister, when you
were baptized, into what church was it ? whether it was
not into the church universal ? Ask him then, whether that
which gives a man right to be a member of the imiversal
church does not give him right of occasional communion
vrith all tme churches that are but parts of it*.
The spirit revealed in these words, and in the
practice referred to, is an attractive spirit, very
different from the scorn and hatred shown by the
early separatists. There were many churchmen who
warmly welcomed this attitude, though they were
not satisfied with it. It was better that the noncon
formist, or the separatist either, should come some
times to church and to the communion table than
that he should neVer come at all, but should turn
his back on both with abhorrence. If he came once
a year, or once in two years, he could not feel so
bitterly hostile to the church after all. Perhaps
before long he might be induced to come oftener,
to come regularly, to come to church and go nowhere
else. It was a confession that there was nothing
wrong in coming to church. It was a confession that
the church imposed no sinful conditions of communion.
Churchmen seized upon the admission and urged
it vigorously. It must not be supposed that they
condoned the schismatic communions because of the
* Quoted by Abbey and Overton English Church in the Eighteenth
Century, vol. i. p. 427. For many instances to the same effect, see
Williams' Case of Lay Communion in London Cases, p. 65.

Appendix D 545
occasional communion in the church ; still less that
they regarded the dissenting societies in the same
light as Humphrey regarded the church of England,
as " true churches " forming " parts " of the uni
versal church. But they caught at this occasional
conformity as the best t'lat could be had for the
moment, and hoped for what it might lead on to.
This is for the most part the animus of those
tracts which were gathered together and published
in the volume known as the London Cases^. A good
example may be taken from the tract written by
Tenison, then not yet bishop. The style is homely
and good-humoured. Do as much as you can do. Do as rauch as the dis
senters who are most eminent for leaming, piety, preaching,
writing, experience, and fame, sometimes actually do.
They have owned our communion to be lawful. They
have received the coraraunion kneeling. They have bred
up children to the ministry of this church. They have
joined in the liturgy. . . .Do z& the ancient nonconformists
did, who would not separate, though they feared to
subscribe ; who wrote with such zeal against those of the
separation that Mr HUdersham was caUed " the Maul of
the Brownists."
Do more for the peace of God's church than for a vote,
or office, or fear of legal penalty. Corae as Christians to
the sacraraent, and not as politicians. Those who have
done so [and] yet break the unity of the church, are said
to use the arts of Jesuits, and to be vrithout aU excuse,
by a dissenter, who writes with commendable temper 
* A Collection of Cases and other Discourses lately written to recover
Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England, by some Divines
of the City of London. Third edition. 1698.
M. 35

546 Appendix D
For peace sake, let that be more constant, in which
your conscience alloweth occasional exercise. A member
who joins himself to any established church, and also to
any churches which are set up, not as legal supplements of
it but as forts against it, seems to be a kind of wooden leg,
if I may represent so grave a matter by so light a similitude.
He is tied on and taken off at pleasure ; he is not as by
natural ligaments and nerves knit to such ecclesiastical
bodies. If aU would do constantly what they can in
conscience do soraetimes, they would create a better opinion
of themselves . . . and hinder all the destructive breaches
amongst us*-
The learned Cave presses the argument from con
sistency :
We beg that those who by their conformity have declared
that they can close with our communion would stiU continue
in the communion of our church. This is a request so
reasonable, that I hope it cannot fairly be denied. Whatever
dissatisfactions others may aUege to keep them at a distance
from us, these raen can have nothing to pretend, having
actuaUy showed that they can do it. For I am not wHling
to think that herein such men acted against their con
sciences, or did it merely to secure a gainful office or a place
of tmst, or to escape the lash and penalty of the law. These
are ends so very vile and sordid, so horrible a prostitution
of the holy sacrament, the most venerable mystery of our
religion, so deliberate a way of sinning, even in the most
solemn acts of worship, that I can hardly suspect any
should be guilty of it, but men of profligate and atheistical
minds, who have put off all sense of God, and banished
all reverence of religion. I would fain believe that when
any of our brethren receive the sacrament vrith us, they
are fully persuaded of the lawfulness of it, and that the
1 T. Tenison Argument for Union (1683), pp. 41 foil. ; London
Cases, 3rd ed., p. 493.

Appendix D 547
principle that brings them there is the conscience of their
duty. But then I know not how to answer it, why the
same principle that brings them thither at one tirae should
not bring thera also at another, and that we should never
have their company at that soleran and sacred ordinance
but when the fear of some temporal punishraent or the
prospect of some secular advantage prompts thera to it.. . .
I beseech our dissenting or rather inconstant brethren to
reason a little. If our communion be sinful, why did they
enter into it ? If it be lawful, why do they forsake it* ?
Cave clearly regards the act of communion as
" entering " the body communicated with, and as
clearly regards the returning to another body as
" forsaking "it.
Grove, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, speaks
in the same manner. He is encouraged by the
numbers of former dissenters who have lately joined
in the holy communion in London churches.
Those that are already come in will not stand in need
of any further persuasion, but only that they would continue
constant in that communion they have now embraced. For
if they should leave us again, and retum to their separate
assemblies, they would seem by this to condemn them
selves. For if it were lawful for them to communicate
vrith us once, it must be lawful for them to do so stiU ;
and they wiU not refuse to subrait to authority in all things
that may lawfully be done. I cannot therefore see how
they can avoid being self-condemned^ if they should forsake
our coraraunion ; for if they judged it unlawful, they sinned
vrilfuUy when they entered into it ; if they think it lawful,
they would then sin in withdrawing from it^.
1 London Cases, p. 501.
2 London Cases, p. 2. Cp. Sharp's Discourse of Conscience, ibid,
P- 159. 35—2

548 Appendix D
William Sherlock goes beyond Grove or Tenison
in his disapprobation of playing fast and loose with
communion. In his Resolution of some cases of Con
science which respect Church Communion, he sets the
matter forth in a very lucid manner. Defining the
church as " a body or society of men, separated from
the rest of the world, and united to God and to them
selves by a divine covenant," he teaches that church
communion does not consist entirely in personal
and presential communion in religious offices. It is
" something antecedent to all the acts and offices of
communion." Now should any raan who is no raember of the church,
nor owns himself to be so, intrude into the church, and
communicate in all holy offices, this can be no more called
an act of communion than it can be said to raake him a
member of the church of which he is no member, and resolved
not to be. Prayers and receiving the sacraments, etc., are
acts of coraraunion when performed by church raembers
in the communion of the church ; but they are no acts
of coraraunion when perforraed by those who are no church
merabers, though, to serve a turn, they thrust themselves
into the society of the church. As for instance, suppose
a member of a presbyterian or independent conventicle
should, for reasons best known to himself, come to his
parish church. . .and receive the Lord's supper,. . .does this
make this man a meraber of the church of England, vrith
which he never coraraunicated before and, it is likely, vrill
never do again ? If it does not, all this is no act of com
munion, which can be only between the merabers of the
same body.
" Since the decay of church discipline," such

Appendix D 549
things may sometimes be done by those who are not
members ; but this
is such an abuse, as would not have been allowed in the
priraitive church, who denied the communion to schis
matics, as well as to the excoramunicate upon other
accounts*.
Sherlock shows very plainly the impossibility,
on primitive and scripture principles, of two churches
in the same place.
Churches at a distance may be distinct churches, under
their distinct bishops, but yet in the same communion ;
but distinct churches in the same place can never be of
the same communion, for then they woiUd naturaUy unite
and cement into one. There must either be antibishops,
or schismatical presbyters, set up in opposition to their
bishops, under different and opposite rules of worship and
discipline ; which makes them rival and opposite churches,
not members of each other. From hence I think it plainly
appears that all separation from a church wherein we live,
unless there be necessary reasons for it, is schism... .This
has often made me wonder, what those men raean, who
take all occasions to quarrel at our constitution, and assign
a great raany reasons why they cannot coraraunicate with'
us, and yet at the sarae time wUl not own that they have
raade any separation from us. What middle state now
shaU we find for these men, who wUl neither continue in
the church, nor allow themselves to be out of it ? . . .For
two churches to renounce each other's communion, or at
least to withdraw ordinary communion from each other,
from a professed dislike, and yet still to continue in a state
of coraraunion vrith one another, is a downright contra
diction. To be in coraraunion is to be raerabers of the
sarae body and society ; he that can prove and he
* London Cases, p. 21.

550 Appendix D
that can believe two opposite societies, founded upon
contrary principles, and acting by contrary rules, and
pursuing contrary ends, to the ruin and subversion of each
other, to be the same body and the same society, are very
wonderful men to me*.
Sherlock passes on to occasional communion. To
him this is a contradiction in terms :
This [i,e. what is meant by fixed or constant and by
occasional communion] is a question which would grievously
have puzzled St Cyprian and St Austin and other ancient
fathers, who never heard but of one sort of communion.
For indeed there is no place for this distinction . . .according
to the principles of catholic communion. To be in com
munion with the church is to be a raember of the church ;
and I take it for granted that a member signifies a fixed
and constant, not an occasional member, — not a member
which is one day a member, and the next day, upon his
own voluntary choice, is no meraber  It is as plain a con
tradiction to talk of an occasional act of coraraunion, as
of occasional membership^.
We might talk of occasional communion with the
church in a place where we are travelling, and of
constant communion with the church of the place
where we live ; but this is a wholly different thing
from what the dissenter claims to do when he comes
to the church communion.
For in the first case we only communicate with such
churches which are all in communion with each other, and
therefore he who is a raember of one is a raeraber of them
all, and communicates with them wherever he is, as a
member. But he who is a fixed member of a presbyterian
or independent church cannot communicate so much as
* London Cases, p. 25. * Ibid, p. 26.

Appendix D 551
occasionally with the church of England as a member,
because he is a member not only of another particular,
but of a separate church ; and it is impossible for any man
who is one with hiraself to be a raember of two separate
churches ; and whatever acts of worship we join in vrith
other churches, of which we are no members, they are not
properly acts of communion*.
Sherlock is not blind, if he is a little ironical,
towards the good intention of the occasional com
municant. He deals with it in the same way as
Tenison and Grove :
In this divided state of the church there are a great
many among us who think they cannot maintain constant
communion with the church of England, as constant and
fixed raembers, who yet upon sorae occasions think they
raay communicate with us in all parts of our worship,
and actuaUy do so. Now when these men who are fixed
raembers, as they call it, of separate churches, think fit
to communicate in all parts of worship with the church
of England, we charitably suppose that raen who pretend
to so much tenderness of conscience and care of their souls
will do nothing, not so much as once, which they believe
or suspect to be sinful at the time when they do it ; and
therefore we conclude that those who coraraunicate occa
sionally with the church of England do thereby declare
that they believe there is nothing sinful in our coraraunion ;
and we thank thera for this good opinion they express of
our church, and earnestly desire to know how they can
justify their ordinary separation from such a church as
requires no sinful terras of coraraunion. If anything less
than sinful terms of communion can justify a separation,
then there can be no end of separations, and catholic
communion is an impossible and impracticable notion 2.
1 London Cases, p. 28. " Ibid, pp. 32 foU.

552 Appendix D
Finally Sherlock passes on to the question
" whether it be lawful to communicate with two
distinct and separate churches." The number can
hardly have been great, but he shows that there were
already some liberal minded churchmen who thought
it lawful, not only for dissenters to do it, but for
themselves likewise to do it in return.
This is thought of late days not only a very innocent
and lawful thing, but the tme catholic spirit and catholic
coraraunion to communicate with churches of aU com
munions, unless perhaps they may except the papists and
quakers, It is thought a schismatical principle to refuse
to coraraunicate with those churches which withdraw
coraraunion from us. And thus some who communicate
ordinarUy vrith the church of England make no scruple
to communicate in prayers and sacraments with presby
terian and independent churches ; and presbyterians can
communicate with the church of England and vrith inde
pendents, whom formerly they charged vrith downright
schism ; and sorae think it very indifferent whom they
coraraunicate vrith, and therefore take their turns in all.
But this is as contrary to aU the principles of church
coraraunion as anything can possibly be. To be in com
munion vrith the church is to be a member of it ; and to
be a member of two separate and opposite churches is to
be as contrary to ourselves as those separate churches are
to each other. Christ hath but one church and one body,
and therefore where there are two churches divided from
yr each other by separate communions, there is a schism and
rent in the body ; and whoever coraraunicates with both
these churches, on one side or other coraraunicates in
a schisra*. '^ London Cases, p. 35.

Appendix D 553
Sherlock is aware that his argument will only
weigh with those who retain something of the
catholic conception of the church :
Now if schisra be an innocent thing, and the tme catholic
spirit, I have no more to say, but that the whole Christian
church ever since the aposties' times has been in a very
great mistake ; but if schism be a very great sin, and that
which vrill damn us as soon as adultery and murder, then
it must needs be a dangerous thing to communicate with
schismatics. The sum of aU in short is this. Besides
those raen who justify their separation frora the church
of England by charging her vrith requiring sinful terras of
coraraunion (which is the only thing that can justify their
separation, if it could be proved), there are others who
separate lightly and wantonly, for want of a due sense
of the nature of church coraraunion and our obligations
to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
They have no notion at ' all of a church, or no notion of
one church, or know not wherein the unity and coraraunion
of this church consists ; and these men think it is indifferent
whether they communicate with any church at all, or that
they secure themselves from schism by communicating
soraetiraes vrith one church and sometimes with another ;
that they raay choose their church according to their own
fancies, and change again whenever their humour alters. . .
So Sherlock concludes with an earnest appeal to
deal with the question in a less frivolous spirit.
In A Letter to Anonymus, who had criticized his
Church Communion, Sherlock deals with some further
points :
What now is aU this to me ? I don't charge our
dissenters with schism from [i,e. 'because of] the invalidity
of their orders, but for their causeless and sinful separation

554 Appendix D
Let us suppose that they have no need of any orders, or
that such orders as they have are good, or that they had
episcopal orders and were governed by bishops of their own,
as the Donatists were, yet they would be never the less
schismatics for that, while they separate from the church
of England and from each other. If orders be necessary,
and they have no orders, then they are no churches at aU ;
if they have tme orders, and are tme churches, but yet
divide Christian communion by separating from any sound
part of the Christian church, they are schismatics*.
* London Cases, p. 40. For a very direct, if brief, condemnation
of the practice referred to, see the end of Benjamin Calamy's
Considerations about the Case of Scandal, ihid, p. 240 ; " Such a kind
of conformity as some practise, and call ' occasional communion,'
which is coming to church and sacrament to serve a tum, is truly
scandalous to all good men, of what persuasion soever.''

INDEX

Act 13 Elizabeth cap. 12, 80,
229, 285, 489, 508
Act of Uniformity, 177, 278,
368, 509
Aerius, his " heresy " on epis
copacy, 28, 30, 38, 39, 41, 46,
51, 58, 91, 96, 97, ICI, 109,
132, 139, 146, 181, 220, 240,
245, 246, 249, 355
Andrewes, on the jus divinum of
bishops, 66 ; on the foreign
churches, 70 ; at consecration
of Scotch bishops in 1610,
70 foil.; referred to, 80, 115,
147
Anglicanism, its special cha
racteristics, I foil., 17, 168;
(Hooker) 10, (Bramhall) ig,
203, 207 foil., (Bull) 20, (Sara
via) 44, (Andrewes) 70, (Mason)
87 foil., (Crakanthorp) 95,
(Carleton) 107, (Taylor) 128,
131, (Laud) 146 foil., (Mead)
157, (Feme) 161, (Clarendon)
173 foil., (Thorndike) 189 foil.,
(Gauden) 196, (Cosin) 221, 231,
(Parker) 255, (Puller) 263
foil., (Jane) 286, (Comber) 292,
(Beveridge) 296, (Cave) 300,
(Burnet) 314 foil., (Hickes)
321 foil., (Nichols) 358, (Bing
ham) 367, (Maddox) 400,
(Daubeny) 417, (Van Mildert)
427, 431, (Heber) 436 foU.,
(Skelton) 438, (Knox) 441,
(Jebb) 444, 445 foil., (Light
foot) 481
Antiquity, the appeal to, i foil.

Bancroft, on episcopacy, 45 foil. ;
consecrates the Scotch bishops,
72
Barrington, Shute, 426
Barrow, Isaac, 244 foil.
Baxter, 121, 213 foil., 233, 266,
279, 283, 367, 543
Beveridge, anecdote of, 287 ;
on lay prebendaries, 288 ;
against hypothetical reordina-
tions, 288 ; on apostolical suc
cession, 294 foil. ; on dissenting
ministries, 296 ; admits none
but episcopal ordination, 297
Beza, 16, 29, 41, 44, 46, 155,
485. 526
Bilson, 47 foil.
Bingham, his Antiquities, 363
foil. ; his French Church, 366
foil.
Bishops, a distinct order from
presbyters, affirmed by Hut
ton, 30 ; by Sutcliffe, 40 ; by
Hooker, 60 ; by Andrewes, 66,
67 ; by Forbes, 103 ; by
Hall, 115 ; by Taylor, 126 ;
by Laud, 147 ; by Cosin, 219
(but cp. 225) ; by Pearson, 237;
by Prideaux, 319 ; by Dod
well, 334 ; by Sherlock, 341
foil. ; by Bingham, 363 ; by
Burnet, 402 ; by Maddox, 402;
denied by Field, 61 foil. ; by
Mason, 91 foil. ; b^' Usher,
120, 122 ; by Mead, 156 ; by
Wesley, 407 ; the question
dismissed by Davenant, 108 ;
by Feme, 163 ; by Cave, 299

556

Index

Bohemian Brethren, see Unitas
Fratrum
Bramhall, his" Catholicism, 19,
203; influencedby Ward, 118;
large-mindedness, 169, 203,
206 ; on episcopacy, 204 foil. ;
on relation to Rome, 207 ;
dissociates himself from pro
testantism in general, 209
foil. ; on Scotch presbyterian
ism, 212 foil. ; on communion
with foreign protestants, 213 ;
on succession among them,
215 ; reordains presbyterian
ministers, 217 ; his letters of
orders a precedent, 290
Brett, 327 foU.
Bull, his Catholicism, 20
Burnet, on the Act of 13 Eliz.,
80, 490 ; on Leighton, 274 ; on
the comprehension scheme,
285, 286, 288 ; his defence
of Anglican orders, 312 foil. ;
his Articles, 315 foil. ; on
the changes in the ordinal,
319; quoted with approval by
Hickes, 327 ; by Maddox,
402
Canons of 1571, 9
Canons of 1603, 16, 207, 264,
326, 535
Carleton, George, 105 foil.
Cave, 299, 546
Charles I, 142, 167 foil., 308, 340
Chillingworth, 154
Churches, the foreign reformed,
their relations with the church
of England, (Saravia) 33 foil.,
42 ; (Hooker) 53 ; (Andrewes)
70 ; (Bancroft) 72 ; (Overall)
79 ; (Mason) 81, 88, 91 foU. ;
(Crakanthorp) 99 ; (Carleton)
106; (Davenant) no; (Hall)
112 ; (Usher) 121 ; (Taylor)
128, 131, 133 ; (Laud) 146,
148 foU.; (Heylin) 153; (Mead)
157 foil.; (Feme) i6r; (Morton)
165 ; (during the Common
wealth) 170 foil. ; (Clarendon)
172 foil., 177 foil.; (Morley)

176 ; (Thorndike) 184, 193 ;
(Bramhall) 205-209, 213, 215 ;
(Cosin) 221-232 ; (Gunning)
234 ; (Pearson) 241 ; (Parker)
255 ; (Scott) 257 ; (Pierce)
261 ; (Puller) 264 foil. ; (Croft)
268 ; (Sancroft) 270 ; (at the
Revolution) 285, 288 foU. ;
(Tillotson) 286; (Comber) 293;
(Stillingfleet) 307 ; (Burnet)
3*3. 3*6 ; (Hickes) 322-325,
326; (Brett) 329; (Leslie) 337;
(Lindsay) 339; (Sherlock) 340;
(Wake) 346 foU. ; (Sharp) 348
foU.; (Nichols) 358 foU.; (Bmg
ham) 366 foil. ; (Fleetwood)
372 ; (Waterland) 374, 376,
378 ; (Wesley) 407 ; (Van Mil
dert) 427, 431 foil. ; the
ordinations in them, 512 foU.
Clarendon, 171 foil., 220, 231,
509
Comber, 290 foil.
Comenius, 18, 515
Comprehension, 272, 281, 284
Cosin, 79, 89 ; on episcopacy,
218 foil. ; his account of
English Catholicism, 220 ; re
sentment against Roman
Catholics, 221, 232 ; com
munion with French protes
tants, 222 foil. ; considers
presbyterian orders valid, 224
foil. ; thinks that they were
formerly recognized in Eng
land, 224, 229, 508 ; his will,
231 ; his episcopal action,
232 ; his connexion with San
croft, 269 ; his grave, 481
Crakanthorp, 89 foil.
Cranmer, his appeal, 2 ; on the
three orders, 24 ; on apostolic
succession, 24 ; referred to,
307. 328
Croft, his Naked Truth, 266 foil.
Daubeny, Charles, 414 foil.
Davenant, John, 108 foil.
De Laune, 79, 505
Denmark, the church of, 162,
2*5. 336, 421, 436, 520

Index

SSI

Dodwell, 331 foil.
Dort, synod of, 20, 105 foil., 118,
484
Downham, George, 65
¦ Du Moulin, the elder, 66, 69,
155 ; the younger, 506, 525
Durel, 170, 172, 223
Dury, John, 88, no, 134, 151,
157. 159, 484 ; reordained,
229, 505
Episcopacy, bound up with the
catholic tradition, i , 20 ; en
deared to Enghshmen by the
Marian martyrdoms, 23, 81 ;
by those of Laud and Charles I,
167 ; traced to the apostles by
the authoritative formularies
of Anglicanism, 24 ; by Cran
mer, 24 ; by Whitgift, 27 foil.;
by other Elizabethan divines,
30. 3*. 37 foil., 40 ; by Ban
croft, 45 ; by Bilson, 47 ; by
Hooker, 55 foil. ; held to be
necessary to the existence of a
church by Saravia, 34 ; appar
ently by Hall, 117 ; by Taylor,
129 ; by Laud, 146, 148 ; by
Mountague, 152 ; by some at
the Restoration, 178 ; appar
ently by Gauden, 198 ; by
Barrow, 245 ; by Beveridge,
298 ; by Hickes, 323 ; by
Brett, 329 ; by Hughes, 362 ;
by Daubeny, 415, 421 ; by
Van Mildert, 430 ; by Heber,
434 ; the contrary affirmed by
Hooker, 59 ; by Andrewes, 70 ;
by Forbes of Corse, 104 ; by
Usher, 122 ; by Feme, 162 ;
by Morton, 165 ; by Thorn
dike, 184, 186 ; by Bramhall,
206, 215 ; by Cosin, 228 ; by
Saywell, 236 ; by Samuel
Parker, 255 ; by Scott, 259 ;
by Puller, 265 ; by Croft, 268;
by Leighton, 275 ; by Burnet,
313, 316 ; by Sherlock, 340 ;
by Thorp, 344
Feme, 159 foil.

Fiddes, 396 foil.
Field, his Catholicism, 13 ; on
identity of bishops and pres
byters, 61 foil.
Fleetwood, 370 foil., 509, 537
Forbes, John, of Corse, 100 foil.
France, reformed churches in,
524 foil.
Fulke, William, 31
Fuller, misrepresents Cosin, 222
Gauden, 195 foU.
Germany, reformed churches in,
522 foil.
Gilpin, Bernard, 106
Goode, William, 22, 450
Graham, bishop of Orkney, 112
Grotius, 18, 80, 213, 266
Grove, 547
Gunning, correspondence with
Cosin, 228, 232 ; his principles
described by Saywell, 233 foil.;
referred to, 319
Hacket, 147
Hall, Joseph, in foil. ; requests
Usher to write on episcopacy,
118 ; correspondence with
Laud, 145 ; on foreign orders,
507
Hammond, 134 foil.
Harington, 25
Hatch, Edwin, 452 foil.
Heber, 433 foU., 510
Heylin,_ 72 ; assails Usher, 123 ;
on episcopacy, 152 ; Cosin
writes to him, 222
Hickes, his change of views, 322 ;
his appeal to foreign protest
ants, 323 foil. ; on the Scotch
presbyterians, 324, 325 ; on
Burnet's views, 326
Homihes, Books of, their Catho
licism, 7
Hooker, his Catholicism, n ; on
presbyterianism, 53, 54 ; on
the reformed churches, 53 ;
on episcopacy, 55 foil. ; on
extraordinary vocations, 60
Home, George, bishop of Nor
wich, 410

558

Index

Home, Robert, bishop of Win
chester, 8
Horsley, 411 foil.
Hughes, 360 foil.
Hutton, Matthew, 30, 495
Jablonski, 349, 516
Jane, 286
Jebb, John, 442 foil.
Jewel, his challenge, 4 ; on
episcopacy, 25 foil.
Jones, VVilliam, of Nayland, 411,
4*3
Jus divinum, its different senses,
65, 68, 70, 92, 142 foil., 144,
229, 230, 250, 300, 305
King, Peter, 406
Knox, Alexander, 441
Knox, John, 526
Laud, his letters to Hall, 145 ;
" no bishop, no church," 149 ;
the foreign churches, 149 foil. ;
his martyrdom, 167
Law, his Three Letters, 384 foil.
Leighton, 274 foil.
Leslie, 335 foil.
Lightfoot, 463 foil.
Lindsay, 89, 339
Lloyd, William, on the fabled
presbyterianism of Scotland in
early ages, 104
Macaulay, referred to, 25, 29
Maddox, 400 foil.
Martyrs, English bishops, 23, 81
Mason, Francis, 80 loll. ; on
foreign orders, 81, 89 foil.
Mead, Joseph, 156
Moravians, the, see Unitas
Fratrum
Morison, 496
Morley, 171, 176
Morton, 163 foU.
Mountague, 149, 151
Nichols, 358 foU.
Nonconformists, 278, 530 ; ordi
nation amongst them, 528
foil.

" Occasional conformity," 278,
329, 488, 536 foil., 542 foU.
"Occasional separation," '418,
426
Orders, may in some cases be
dispensed with, 182, 185, 188
Ordinations per saltum, 'ji
Overall, Convocation Book, 73 ;
accepts foreign presbyterian
orders, 79, 505 ,x^ share in
Mason's work, 89 ; spnnexion
with Cosin, 89, 218, 230, 232
Parker, archbishop, approves of
Jewel's Apology, 4 ; his Decla
ration, 8 ; his consecration, 25;
on foreign protestants, 483,
485
Parker, Samuel, his Erastianism,
251 ; on the divine right of
episcopacy, 253 ; on protest
antism, 255 ; on the foreign
churches, 255
Patrick, shows that the English
church never recognized pres
byterian orders, 249 foil.; on
separation, 279; Comber's letter
to, 290
Pearson, on episcopacy, 237 foil.;
on apostolical succession, 240 ;
on promiscuous ordinations,
240 foil. ; referred to, 319
Phillpotts, Henry, 288, 449
Pierce, Thomas, 261 foU.
Potter, his Discourse of Church
Government, 351 foU.; befriends
the Moravians, 516
Presbyterian orders held invalid,
109, 121, 128, 141, 166, 168,
176, 193, 201, 243, 249, 284,
293. 296, 326, 330, 333, 350,
355. 363. 370. 376, 377. 378,
382, 383, 393, 397, 398, 433,
487
Prideaux, Humphrey, 317 foil.
Protestantism, a word of doubt
ful meaning, 209, 226, 255,
264, 285 foil., 405, 417, 446
Puller, Timothy, his Moderation
of the Church of England, 263
foU., 431

Index

559

Reordination, conditional or
otherwise, 71, 79, 130, 176,
177 foil., 217, 224, 229, 249,
274, 283, 284, 288, 289, 290,
368, 371 foU., 383, 436
Robinson, John, bishop of Lon
don, 519
Sage, 134
Sancroft, on episcopacy, 269 ;
on foreign churches, 270 ;
attitude to dissenters, 271 foil.;
his comprehension scheme, 272
foU.
Sanderson, 142 foil., 169
Sandys, 494 foil.
Saravia, on episcopacy, 31 foil. ;
his hopes for catholic reforma
tion, 42 ; his view of the re
formed churches, 42 ; his
ordination, 502 foil.
SayweU, on the communion be
tween English and foreign
churches, 234 foil.
Schism, the church of England
on, 534 foil. ; (Jewel) 4 foU. ;
(Saravia) 34 ; (Taylor) 133
foU. ; (Feme) 162 ; (Thorn
dike) 181 foU., 185, 187, 189^
192 ; (Gauden) 198, 202 foil.
(Bramhall) 208 foil. ; (Gun
ning) 235 ; (Scott) 258 foil.
(Puller) 264 foil. ; (Comber) 290
foil. ; (Beveridge) 298 ; (StU-
lingfleet) 302, 303 ; (Burnet)
317; (Hickes) 323; (Brett) 329
foil. ; (Dodwell) 331 ; (Leslie)
337; (Sherlock) 342, 548 foil. ;
(Thorp) 344 ; (Potter) 351,
358; (Fleetwood) 372; (Water-
land) 374 ; (Smalridge) 381 ;
(Wesley) 408 foil.; (Daubeny)
416 foil. ; (Van Mildert) 427
foil., 432
Scotland, the presbyterian church
of. 53. 70, 104, 112, 146,
212, 275, 291, 293, 323,
324, 325, 329, 37*. 372.
526
Scott, John, on the church, 256 ;
on episcopacy, 258 foil. ; on

33*.

05.-

ordination, 260; against hypo
thetical reordination, 288
Scudamore, 175 '
Seeker, 403 foil.
Separatists, 279
Sharp, abp of York, 288,
348 foU.
Sherlock, William, 340 foil.
schism, 548
Sikes, Thomas, 423 foU.
Skelton, PhUip, 438 foU.
Smalridge, 378 foil.
Spotswood (or Spottiswood), 70
foU.
Stackhouse, 399 foil.
Stillingfleet, his Irenicum, 300
foil. ; his recantation, 310 ;
his influence on Hickes, 322 ;
on Wesley, 408 ; his Un
reasonableness of Separation,
309 ; referred to by Dodwell,
333
Succession, the apostolical (Cran
mer) 24 ; (Fulke) 31 ; (Sut
cliffe) 40 ; (Bancroft) 46 ;
(Bilson) 49 foil. ; (Hooker) 56,
60 ; (Andrewes) 68 ; (Overall)
74, 76 ; (Mason) 81, 83, 84 ;
(Carleton) 107 ; (Davenant)
109 ; (Usher) 119 ; (Taylor)
124 ; (Hammond) 138 foil. ;
(Sanderson) 144; (Mountague)
152; (Morton) 164; (Thorn
dike) 184, 187 foil., 194 ;
(Gauden) 199, 202 ; (Bram
hall) 203 foil., 214 ; (Cosin)
218 foil., 223 ; (Pearson) 240,
242 ; (Barrow) 248 ; (Scott)
258, 260 ; (Beveridge) 294
foil.; (Cave) 300'; (StUling-
fleet) 307, 310 ; (Burnet)
313 foil. ; (Prideaux) 320 ;
(Hickes) 324 ; (Brett) 330 ;
(Dodwell) 332 foil. ; (Leslie)
335. 338 ; (Thorp) 344 ; (Bon
net) 350 ; (Potter) 353 ;
(Nichols) 360 ; (Hughes) 362 ;
(Waterland) 376 ; (Smal
ridge) 379 ; (WUson) 382 ;
(Law) 384-395 ; (Fiddes) 397;
(Stackhouse) 399 ; (Wesley)

56o

Index

406 ; (Home) 410 ; (Jones)
411, 413 ; (Daubeny) 416,
420 foU. ; (Sikes) 423 ; (Van
Mildert) 429 ; (Heber) 437 ;
(Skelton) 439 ; (Jebb) 442 ;
(PhUlpotts)449; (Lightfoot) 480
SutcUffe, Matthew, 40
Sweden, the church of, 162, 195,
215. 336. 421, 436, 5*7 foU.
Taylor, Jeremy, 123 ; on the
foreign churches, 128 foil. ; on
communion with them, 133
Tenison, 290, 545
Thorndike, on the primitive
polity, 180 ; excuses foreign
protestants, 181, 184 foil. ;
distinguishes between them,
193 ; admiration for the Bo
hemian Brethren, 194 ; his
views on English dissenters,
187 ; thinks the church has
power to overlook defects of or
dination, 188 ; no communion
to be held with dissenters, 169,
188 foil. ; on cathoUcism and
the EngUsh church, 189 foU. ;
on Romanism, 192 ; requires
repudiation of schism, 193
Thorp, 343 foil.
Thwaites, 497
TiUotson, 282 foil. ; anecdote of,
287
Toleration, 277, 280

Townsend, 497
Travers, 497 foil., 507
Unitas Fratrum (the Bohemian
Brethren, or Moravians), 18,
162, 194, 215, 234, 281, 349,
514 foU., 541
Usher, 118 ; his Reduction, 120 ;
on the foreign churches, 121
foU. ; requests Hammond's
aid, 137
Van Mildert, 427 foil.
Wake, his account of Sancroft's
comprehension scheme, 272 ;
his controversy vrith Bossuet,
345 ; his correspondence with
the Galileans, 346 foil. ; a
patron of the Moravians, 516
Waldensians, the, 194, 428, 512
foU., 515
Ward, Samuel, 118
Waterland, 373 foil.
Wesley, John, 406 foil., 410 foU.,
425, 433
Whitgift, on episcopacy, 26 foil. ;
on WluttiQgham's case, 495 ;
on Travers, 498 foil.
Whittingham, 229, 493
Williams, archbishop, 147
Wilson, Thomas, 381 foU.
Zinzendorf, 516

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