He refused to admit Dr. Humphreys to a living, when he had made himself conspicuous by his fanatical contentiousness, and it is to his liberality and discrimination that the Church owes the work and the fame of Richard Hooker. Had all the bishops of that day been of the temper of Bishop Jewel, the primate would have found the work to which he was now constrained to apply himself, of enforcing discipline in the Church, a far easier and more successful labour. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE NAG'S HEAD FABLE. The story invented by the Romanists to disparage the consecration and apostolical succession of the bishops of the Church of England, appears to have been first set out by one Christopher Holywood, in the year 1603. It was repeated by Dr. Kellison, 1608; by Dr. Champney, 1616; and by many subsequent Romanist writers. Champney gives the story as follows:-" At the Nag's Head, in Cheapside, met all those who were nominated to bishoprics (1), vacant either by death, as was that of Canterbury only (2), or by unjust deposition, as were all the rest. Thither came also the old Bishop of Landaff to make them bishops; which thing being known to Doctor Bonner, Bishop of London, then prisoner, he sent unto the Bishop of Landaff, forbidding him, under pain of excommunication, to exercise any such power within his diocese as to order these men; wherewith the old bishop, being terrified and otherwise moved in his conscience (3), refused to proceed in that action. . . . Being thus deceived of their expectation, and having no other mean to come to their desire, they resolved to use Mr. Scory's help, who, having borne the name of bishop in King Edward's time, was thought to have sufficient power to perform that office. He having cast off, together with his religious habit (for he had been a religious man), all scruple of conscience, willingly went out about the matter, which he performed in this sort: Having the Bible in his hand, and they all kneeling before him, he laid it upon every one of their heads or shoulders, saying, 'Take thou authority to preach the Word of God sincerely."" The writer professes to have heard this narration from one Bluet, a priest, who had heard it from Neal, Bishop Bonner's chaplain, who had been sent with Bonner's message to Kitchen, Bishop of Landaff, and was present at the ceremony (4).-Appendix to Dodd's Ch. Hist., vol. ii. No. xlii. This narrative happily bears its own refutation on the face of it. A more clumsy falsehood was scarce ever contrived; for (1) All those nominated to bishoprics were notoriously not consecrated at the same time, but at considerable intervals. (2) It is so far from being true that Canterbury was the only see vacant by death, that no less than eight other sees-viz. Chichester, Hereford, Bangor, Salisbury, Rochester, Norwich, Gloucester, and Bristol-were vacant by death. About this at least there could be no mistake. (3) Kitchen, Bishop of Llandaff, is represented as being in subjection to Bonner, and disobeying the government. But this man had quite broken with the Romanists, complied in all things, and died a member of the Reformed Church. (4) Bonner's messenger Neal is represented to have been present at the ceremony! Not a very probable witness to have been selected. It is unnecessary in the case of so transparent a falsehood, which supposes all the documentary proofs of the regular consecration mentioned in the text to be forgeries, to enter into a more detailed refutation. This has been abundantly done by Mason, Browne, Bramhall, and Father Courayer, a French priest. The story was absolutely unknown to all the earlier Romish controversialists, as Harpsfield, Hawkins, Saunders, Harding, Bristowe, Allen, Stapleton, Rainolds, and to Bonner himself!! who, in his controversy with Dr. Horne, never suggested that he had not been consecrated with the English Ordinal. It may be added that all fair-minded modern Romanist writers also reject it, as Dr. Lingard and Mr. Tierney (Notes to Dodd). Every particle of evidence bearing upon the subject seems to have been accumulated by the industry of Mr. Haddan, in his edition of Bramhall. (C) BERNARD GILPIN. BERNARD GILPIN was born of a good family in Westmoreland, became a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in the early days of its foundation, and made himself conspicuous in the University by his able and eager defence of the old religion. Put forward in the next reign to dispute against Peter Martyr, his calm and candid examination of the controversy led him to doubt the truth of the doctrines for which he was combating. He was further influenced by the decree just then passed by the Council of Trent, that the traditions of the Church are to be held of equal authority with Scripture, and he formed the resolution of separating from the Roman Church. But as he was not a man to take any step hastily, he reached the reign of Queen Mary without having openly declared himself on the Protestant side. Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, his uncle, offered him preferment, but Gilpin preferred to travel and study abroad, and would not take a living the duties of which he could not perform. He returned into England in the midst of the persecution, and being presented to the living of Essingdon, bis preaching was so vigorous and so full of gospel truth that he was quickly denounced to Bishop Tonstal as a heretic. But the good bishop, who hated persecution, would not molest him, but, instead of doing so, conferred on him the large and important living of Houghton. Here he became a very apostle to a poor, neglected, and ignorant district, gaining the love of the people by his good deeds, and instructing them by his ministry. After the accession of Elizabeth he founded and endowed a school, which in due time produced a good crop of welltaught youths. His reputation was now so high that the queen nominated him to the Bishopric of Carlisle; and Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, his cousin, wrote, earnestly pressing him to accept the post. and promising in the queen's name that no manors should be filched from the see. But Gilpin was resolutely bent to keep to a humbler station. difficulties in administering a bishopric, which he had now gained, he was doing whereas, with the immense influence the work of a bishop without the cares and restraints. His house was a vast establishment for the entertainment of scholars and distinguished men. poor were unceasing, his labours to instruct them infinite. "He was esteemed a very prophet," says his biographer, "and little less than adored by that half barbarous and rustic people."1 In these admirable labours he lived and died. He foresaw many His alms to the Carleton's Life of Gilpin; Wordsworth's E. B. iii. 598. CHAPTER XVII. THE ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. § 1. The Queen averse to doctrinal statements. § 2. Disordered state of the clergy. § 3. Bishops commanded to amend this. § 4. Disorderly clergy summoned to Lambeth. § 5. The Primate endeavours to get disciplinary articles published by royal authority, but the Queen refuses. § 6. He publishes the Advertisements by authority of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. § 7. Chief point in Advertisements prescribing a dress for the minister-the dress used in the time of Elizabeth. § 8. Parker prepares to enforce the Advertisements. § 9. London ministers again summoned to Lambeth. § 10. They publish pamphlets in defence. § 11. The press restrained. § 12. Puritanism at Cambridge. § 13. Difficulty in supplying the vacant churches. § 14. Parker desires the help of the Council. § 15. Some of the Puritanical ministers decide not to separate. § 16. Others separate from the Church. § 17. Foreign divines do not encourage separation. § 18. Attempts to enforce subscription by statute; the Queen angry with the Bishops. § 19. Some of the sectaries seized and imprisoned. § 20. The Bishops slandered to the foreign divines. § 21. The Council writes sharply to the Bishops. § 22. Puritanism in the Parliament of 1571. § 23. Passing of the Act for subscription to the articles. § 24. Convocation subscribes anew the Thirty-nine Articles. § 25. The Queen will not accept the Convocation Canons. § 26. Final attempt to establish the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. § 27. Queen stops religious legislation in Parliament. § 28. Puritans publish the Admonitions to Parliament. § 29. Queen appoints a Commission of Oyer and Terminer to suppress Nonconformity. § 30. The Bishops not well pleased. § 31. The manner of enforcing subscription. § 32. Death and character of Archbishop Parker. § 1. THE queen was not over-well pleased with the work of the bishops and clergy in their Convocation in setting out the Thirtynine Articles and the Second Book of Homilies. Statements of doctrine were distasteful to her, even if she were disposed heartily to accept the doctrinal teaching of the Reformers. There is reason, however, to believe that this was not the case. Thus she would only ratify the articles after making two important alterations in them, and the Book of Homilies she kept for a year under consideration before she would give it her approval. The archbishop was vexed by this hesitation. "I would gladly," he writes when about to commence his visitation in 1563, "the queen's majesty would resolve herself on our books of homilies, which I might deliver to the parishes as I go." That to which the queen really desired the bishops to apply themselves was the strict enforcement of coercive discipline, and from this many of them shrank. They were generally in favour of a lenient policy, hoping that the opponents would grow wiser and relax their stubbornness. But that a policy of decision and vigour on the part of the Church rulers was much needed seems to be shown by the general disorganisation and disorder which prevailed among the clergy. § 2. This is forcibly set before us in a paper drawn up by Cecil as a summary of returns received from the various dioceses in the year 1564. "Some say the service and prayers in the chancel, others in the body of the church; some say the same in a seat made in the church, some in the pulpit with their faces to the people; some keep precisely the order of the book, others intermeddle Psalms in metre ; some say in a surplice, others without a surplice; the table standeth in the body of the church in some places, in others it standeth in the chancel; in some places the table standeth altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in some others in the middle of the chancel, north and south; in some places the table is joined, in others it standeth upon tressels; in some places the table hath a carpet, in others it hath not; administration of the Communion is done by some with surplice and cap, some with surplice alone, others with none; some with chalice, others with a communion cup, others with a common cup; some with unleavened bread, some with leavened; some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting; some baptize in a font, some in a basin; some sign with the sign of the cross, others sign not. Apparel-some with a square cap, some with a round cap, some with a button cap, some with a hat." 2 § 3. Such disorder as this angered the queen, whose love of order and ceremonial was her strongest religious sentiment. By her command Cecil addressed a letter to the bishops through the Primate. In this she complains that by neglect of the bishops "there is crept into the Church an open and manifest disorder and offence, specially in the external, and decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in the Church." She had hoped that the bishops would have checked this, but on the contrary she observes it rather to increase than diminish. Wherefore she gives the bishops to understand " that she means not to endure and suffer these evils thus to proceed, spread, and increase in her realm, but has certainly determined to have them reformed, and repressed, and the ceremonies of the Church brought to one manner of uniformity throughout the realm, that the slanders spread abroad 1 Parker Correspondence, p. 177. Strype's Parker, i. 19 (folio ed.) |