esteem equally with the rest of those books that we call Apocrypha.

VI.

BISHOPS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT.

1. A BISHOP, as a bishop, had never any ecclesiastical jurisdiction for as soon as he was electus confirmatus, that is, after the three proclamations in Bow-church, he might exercise jurisdiction, before he was consecrated; but till then1 he was no bishop, neither could he give orders. Besides, suffragans were bishops, and they never claimed any jurisdiction.

1 But till then, H. 2, corrected] not till then, H.

and Bel and the Dragon are canonical in the Church of Rome. They are not specially named in the Decree of the Council of Trent, settling the Canon of Scripture, because they are printed in the Vulgate as part of the book of Daniel, and come, therefore, under the general rule that the books named as canonical are to be received entire, with all their parts, as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate. The only books of the Apocrypha not received as canonical are the 3rd and 4th Books of Esdras (printed in the English Apocrypha as Esdras 1 & 2) and the Prayer of Manasseh. See Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session iv.

Accordingly, in the Douay version, the History of Susannah and Bel and the Dragon stand in their appointed place as parts of the canonical book of Daniel.

1. 4. A bishop as a bishop &c.] Selden discusses this very fully in his De Synedriis veterum Ebraeorum, lib. I, ch. 13. vol. i. p. 1066.

1. 6. three proclamations] These were and are part of the ceremony of confirmation. Strype in his life of Archbishop Parker, bk. ii. ch. 1, gives an exact account of the whole process in Parker's case, as it was performed in the church of St. Mary de Arcubus [i. e. Mary le Bow in Cheapside] . . . The consecration-until which he 'was no bishop, neither could he give orders '- came eight days afterwards.

1. 9. suffragans] These are expressly said to have 'no authority or jurisdiction beyond that expressed in their licenses by a bishop or archbishop to whom they are suffragans by commission under seal.' 26 Henry VIII, ch. 14, sec. 6.

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2. Anciently the noblemen lay within the city for safety and security. The bishops' houses were by the water side, because they were held sacred persons, which nobody would hurt.

3. There was some sense for commendams at first; when there was a living void, and never a clerk to serve it, the bishops were to keep it till they found a fit man; but now 'tis a trick for the bishop to keep it to himself.

4. For a bishop to preach 'tis to do other folks' office. 10 As if the steward of the house should execute the porter's or the cook's place; 'tis his business to see that they and all others about the house perform their duties.

5. That which is thought to have done the bishops hurt,

1.5. commendams] It was one of Archbishop Laud's projects 'to annex for ever some settled commendams, and those, if it may be, sine curâ, to all the small bishoprics.' Laud's Works, vol. iii. p. 254.

That he had done this was one of the charges brought against him at his trial. In his history of his trial, he explains and defends his act, but he adds in the course of his remarks about it-'I considered that the commendams taken at large and far distant, caused a great dislike and murmur among many men. That they were in some cases materia odiosa and justly complained of.' Works, vol. iv. p. 177.

For further proof of the abuse of which Selden speaks, see Sir Ralph Verney's Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, p. 14, giving the heads of a remonstrance of some of the clergy, referring inter alia to commendams. The remonstrance says, in Article 16, 'Bishops hold commendams and never come at them. As Mainwaring, Bishop of St. Davids, and the Bishop of Chester hold two of £1100 per annum.'

1. 9. For a bishop to preach &c.] That bishops did not preach is among the charges made against them by Nathaniel Fiennes (Feb. 1640). Nalson, Collections, i. 758.

See, too, Sir Benjamin Rudyard's speech on Sir E. Deering's Bill for the abolishing of bishops, &c. (May, 1641). Some of ours, as soon as they are bishops, adepto fine, cessat motus, they will preach no longer, their office is to govern. But in my opinion they govern worse than they preach, though they preach not at all, for we see to what a pass their government hath brought us. Nalson, Collections, ii. 249. 1. 13. That which is thought &c.] Clarendon, after speaking of the slovenly state into which many churches had fallen during Archbishop Abbot's time, and of the irregular way in which the services had in

is their going about to bring men to a blind obedience, imposing things upon them [though perhaps small and well enough] without preparing them, and insinuating into their reasons and fancies. Every man loves to know his commander. I wear those gloves, but perhaps if an alderman should command me, I should think much to do it. What has he to do with me? Or if he has, peradventure I do not know it. This jumping upon things at first dash will destroy all. To keep up friendship there must be little addresses and applications; whereas bluntness spoils it 10 quickly. To keep up the hierarchy, there must be applications made to men, they must be brought on by little and little; so in the primitive times the power was gained, and so it must be continued. Scaliger said of Erasmus; si minor esse voluerit, major fuisset; so we may say of the bishops, si minores esse voluerint, majores fuissent.

many places been performed, adds 'This profane liberty and uncleanliness the Archbishop [i. e. Laud] resolved to reform with all expedition, requiring the other bishops to concur with him in so pious a work.' He adds, presently, that 'The Archbishop prosecuted this affair more passionately than was fit for the season; and had prejudice against those who, out of fear or foresight, or not understanding the thing, had not the same warmth to promote it. The bishops who had been preferred by his favour, or who hoped to be so, were at least as solicitous to bring it to pass in their respective dioceses; and some of them with more passion and less circumspection than they had his example for, or than he approved; prosecuting those who opposed them very fiercely, and sometimes unwarrantably, which was kept in remembrance.' Clarendon, Hist. vol. i. 148 ff.

1. 9. little applications] i. e. (as explained at length by Bacon in the Adv. of Learning)—'the observing carefully a man's manners and customs, with the intention to understand him sufficiently whereby not to give him offence.' Lord Bacon's Works (Ellis and Spedding), vol. iii. 279.

1. 14. Scaliger said &c.] The nearest I can find to this is a passage in J. J. Scaliger's Table Talk. Erasmus perspicacissimo vir ingenio, se ipso haud dubie futurus major (quod scribit Paulus Jovius) si Latinae linguae conditores imitari, quam petulanti linguae indulgere maluisset. Prima Scaligerana, sub voce Erasmus.

1. 15. voluerit,] voluit MSS. and early printed editions,

}

6. The bishops were too hasty; else with a discreet slowness they might have had what they aimed at. The old story of the fellow that told the gentleman he might get to such a place if he did not ride too fast, would have fitted their turn.

7. For a bishop to cite an old canon to strengthen his new articles, is as if a lawyer should plead an old statute that has been repealed God knows how long.

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VII.

BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT.

I. BISHOPS have the same right to sit in Parliament as the best of earls and barons; that is, those that were made

1. 6. For a bishop to cite &c.] This was done in the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, put out in 1640 by the Synods of the two Provinces. See Canon v. ‘Against Sectaries' and Canon ix on the summary or collection of visitatory articles which the Synod had caused to be made out of the rubric and the canons and warrantable rules of the Church. Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 548 and 550.

1. 10. Bishops have the same right &c.] The various objections, here stated and answered, to the right of bishops to sit in Parliament, to the nature of their seat by office and not by blood, and to the policy of allowing them to meddle with temporal affairs, were raised from time to time in the long series of discussions which led finally to the abolition of their right and then of their office.

See, especially, the reasons offered by the Commons in reply to the reasons offered by the Lords in favour of the bishops, June, 1641. They cover most of the points raised in this chapter of the Table Talk.

The Commons do conceive that bishops ought not to have votes in Parliament. First, because it is a very great hindrance to the exercise of their ministerial function.

(2) Because they do vow and undertake at their ordination, when they enter into Holy Orders, that they will give themselves wholly to that vocation.

(5) Because they are but for their lives, and therefore are not fit to have legislative power over the honours, inheritances, persons, and liberties of others.

(6) Because of bishops' dependency and expectation of translation to places of greater profit. Nalson, Collections, ii. 260.

by writ. If you ask one of them [Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland] why they sit in the house? they can only say, their father sat there before them 1, and their grandfather before him, &c. And so says the bishop: he that was a bishop of this place before me, sat in the house, and he that was a bishop before him, &c. Indeed your later earls and barons have it expressed in their patents, that they shall be called to the parliament.

Objection. But the lords sit there by blood, the bishops

not.

Answer. 'Tis true, they sit not there both the same way, yet that takes not away the bishop's right. If I am a parson of a parish, I have as much right to my glebe and tithes, as you have to your land, that your ancestors have had in that parish 800 years.

2. The bishops were not barons, because they had

1 Before them, H. 2] so originally in H. 'him' is written over 'them.'

1.16. The bishops were not barons &c.] What Selden here denies was among the statements made by Mr. Bagshaw, Reader of the Middle Temple, in his speech in Hall (1639) on the thesis Whether it be a good Act of Parliament that is made without the assent of the Lords Spiritual. He argues that it is good, because inter alia 'they do not sit in Parliament as bishops, but by reason of the baronies annexed to their bishopricks, which was done 5 W. I, and all of them have baronies except the Bishop of Man, and he is not called to Parliament.' Whitelock, Memorials, p. 33.

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Selden explains his point more fully in his Titles of Honour, part ii. ch. 5, vol. iii. pp. 659, 724, 727. He shows that in the Saxon times the lay claim to be included in the Witenagemot was the holding of land of the king in chief by knight's service. Those who so held were, after the Normans, parliamentary barons, and their tainlands only were the parliamentary baronies. But in Saxon times, the bishops did not hold by this tenure, yet they were none the less summoned regularly to the Witenagemot, and had voice and place as bishops. And thus their freedom from that tenure .... continued it seems till the fourth year of King William I, when he made the bishopricks and abbeys subject to knight's service in chief, by creation of new tenures, and so first turned their possessions into baronies, and thereby made them barons of the kingdom by tenure.