the controversies of the day he distinguished between reform and revolution. He had studied the writings of Zwingle, Luther, and Calvin; and knowing their faults, as well as their merits, he had no inclination to follow their lead. He had studied the fathers and the general councils, and knew the deviations of the church of Rome from

primitive truth. He could distinguish between things essential and not essential.

. . Perhaps no one could be found whose principles more nearly accorded with those of Elizabeth." He had been, though He had been, though their senior in age, the intimate friend at Cambridge of Cecil and Bacon, the queen's trusted advisers, who were thus personally acquainted with the inner mind of the man whom they recommended to their royal mistress as the one, among English divines favourably inclined to a conservative" reformation, best fitted and most thoroughly equipped with learning and experience, to carry out her views.

But Parker himself for a considerable time was utterly averse to comply with the earnest desires of the queen and her counsellors. The seven years of enforced retirement from all sources of income had drained his slender private means, and he was very poor when Elizabeth became queen. His health was feeble; his voice, he said, was decayed. Let the queen give him the revenues of some prebend, he would spend the rest of his life in a private state in preaching the gospel in poor and destitute parishes. He was, however, imperatively summoned to the court, and there became at once the leading divine among those consulted in respect to the proposed changes. It was his wish, as it was also the queen's and Cecil's, to make the First

Prayer-book the basis of the liturgical changes; and very reluctantly, when he found how deeply the re-introduction of that conservative compilation would wound and disturb the more advanced reformers without gaining the approval of the Romanists, he advised the queen, as we have seen, to adopt the Second Prayer-book, with certain modifications, as the form of prayer for the English Church. His views were followed, and with the changes we have notified, the Second Book appeared in the Act of Uniformity.

His repugnance, however, to accepting the primacy still continued. He was married, and the queen's aversion to the marriage of the clergy was another reason in his mind for wishing to remain in a private station. So strong were his scruples, that for a moment Elizabeth turned from him, and offered the great post to Dr. Wotton, the dean of Canterbury, an eminent man who had been in the Privy Council, and had been entrusted with important diplomatic posts. But Wotton was not an ambitious man, was conscious of his ignorance on deep theological questions, and at once refused the great office. Again Parker was pressed, and at length consented to accept it. All the various forms were carefully gone through. The congé d'élire to the dean and chapter of Canterbury was issued and complied with; the confirmation in the historic church of St. Mary-le-Bow was carried out; only the consecration remained.

It is the happiness of the Church of England, that in the opinion of Parker and the more earnest and thoughtful of the English reformers who, under queen Eliza

1559.]

beth, conducted the great changes of 1559 in the English Church, "the apostolic succession was of vital importance to the very existence of the church and its various branches. Without the apostolic succession, this continuity of the church, and the organic identity of the present and the past, could not be preserved. The authorities in church and state concurred in their belief that the continuity could not be sustained unless the archiepiscopal throne were occupied by one who could trace his authority to act in things sacred up to Augustine, through Augustine to the apostles, and through them to the divine Head who breathed upon the apostolic college, saying, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' No instance had occurred in the Catholic church until the period of the Reformation, in which ordination had been conferred by any who were not bishops. It is true the Lutheran and Genevan churches had adopted the Presbyterian custom; but they had done it with great reluctance, and as a matter of necessity. They would, indeed, have wished to preserve episcopal government.

There was at first, however, a grave difficulty in England, for the slender handful of Marian bishops who survived, save one, refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity, and were not available. Happily, there were three regularly consecrated bishops, deprived by Mary, still alive; and a regularly consecrated suffragan bishop (of Bedford), who had conformed. Parker made choice of these four, who consented to officiate at his consecration. Much has been written and spoken as to the validity

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of this act. The unbroken continuity of the orders of the Church of England, of course, depends upon it. Baseless and even ridiculous stories have been devised, in the hope of throwing doubt upon it. But great and acknowledged scholars, who have written in late times on the question of the validity of Anglican orders, have for ever established in the minds of serious men (not by any means confined to scholars who belong to the Anglican Church) that in the case of the consecration of archbishop Parker all things were done in perfect harmony with the immemorial usages of the Catholic Church.

The four consecrating bishops (this is the most important point in connection with the solemn rite) had been themselves all regularly and canonically consecrated.* William Barlow, who was selected as the presiding bishop, had long been an eminent personage during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, having been employed, as was then so commonly the case, in important public business, both at home and abroad. He became bishop of St. David's in 1536. His consecrators were archbishop Cranmer and the bishops of Exeter and Bath.† In 1548 Barlow was translated to the see of Bath and Wells. He was reputed as a learned theologian, and had much to do with the composition

of the "Bishop's Book," or the "Institution of a Christian Man," printed in 1537, one of the great manuals of devotion put out under king Henry VIII. At the accession of queen Mary, Barlow, being married, probably to avoid persecution, resigned his see, and during her reign mostly resided in Germany. Under Elizabeth he became bishop of Chichester in 1559, and died ten years later, in December, 1569.

Miles Coverdale, another of Parker's consecrators, we have already spoken of at some length as the friend of Tyndale, and later, in connection with his noble labours in the translation and editing of the English Bible. He became bishop of Exeter in 1551. His consecrators were archbishop Cranmer, Ridley, bishop of London, and Hodgkins, bishop-suffragan of Bedford. His Genevan doctrines prevented his being re-appointed to a see under Elizabeth.

John Scory, the third of the bishops chosen by Parker, originally one of Ridley's chaplains, became bishop of Rochester in 1551, His consecrators were the same as Coverdale's-Cranmer, Ridley, and the suffragan bishop of Bedford. He was in the following year (1552) translated to Chichester, and was extruded from his see by bishop Gardiner's influence, under Mary, in 1554. Among the Marian exiles, he took charge of the English Church at Embden in East Friesland, under the strange title of superintendent. Early in the reign of Elizabeth he was appointed to the see of Hereford.

John Hodgkins, the fourth of the consecrating bishops, had been appointed bishop-suffragan of Bedford as early as the year 1537- Stokesley, bishop of

London, Robert Wharton, bishop of St. Asaph, and John Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, were his consecrators.*

The ceremony of the consecration of Parker took place in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, in the presence of many persons, official and otherwise (amongst others the kinsman of Parker, the earl of Nottingham), at the early hour usual for this rite, between five and six in the morning; the sermon being preached by bishop Scory. All was done in accordance with the second ordinal of Edward VI., which is nearly identical with the present use of the Church of England.

Archbishop Parker was consecrated in December, 1559, bishop Barlow being nominated to the see of Chichester, and bishop Scory to the see of Hereford. Four more eminent reformer theologians inclined to moderate and conservative views, like Parker, were immediately appointed to some of the other vacant dioceses. Edmund Grindal went to London, Richard Cox to Ely, Edwin Sandys to Worcester, and Rowland Merrick to Bangor. A little later, in the course of the following year, Nicholas Bullingham was appointed to Lincoln, John Jewel to Salisbury, Thomas Young to St. David's,

* These apparently dry details have been given in view of the extreme importance of showing the perfect continuity of the Church of England in the matter of apostolical succession. The complete lists of all the English bishops and archbishops, with their consecrators, will be found in Bishop Stubbs's "Episcopal Succession in England," which is the one perfect and thorough work upon the subject. The old and now completely exploded fable of the pretended consecration of the archbishop at the "Nag's Head" Tavern has not been repeated or refuted here, as no serious Romanist writer thinks of quoting it any longer.

THE CONSECRATION OF ARCHBISHOP PARKER.

(By permission from the Autotype published by the Autotype Company, after the drawing by William Dyce, R.A)