CHAPTER XXVIII.

CONCLUDING REMARKS, AND SUMMARY OF THE AUTHOR'S ARGUMENT.

BEFORE

EFORE a brief summary is made of the chief arguments embodied in this treatise, it is necessary in the first instance to call special attention to the great care and regularity with which every detailed act concerning Ordination has ever been done since the religious changes of the sixteenth century.

1. The laws of the Church, duly legalized by the State, save and except during the period of the Great Rebellion-have been continually and consistently enforced; while an examination of any of the Episcopal Registers will abundantly show that it would be impossible in any portion of the Christian Family to have observed greater order, or to have exercised more care, in duly transmitting the graces of the priesthood and the character of the Episcopate. There is no single case in the consecration of a Bishop, in which the Canon of the First Council of Nicæa, the rule laid down by the Apostolical Constitutions, as well as by the first and second Canons of the Fourth Council of Carthage, have not been most strictly observed. In the great majority of instances at least four Bishops have taken part in the act; sometimes as many as six or seven; and any one who has been present at an English Consecration cannot for a moment doubt that all things are done decently

and in order. At Lambeth Palace, in the chapel of which the great majority of the Episcopal Consecrations during the past three centuries have taken place, the old traditions of the Church are carefully followed. The chapel, though restored before the present ecclesiological revival had obtained an influence, remains substantially what it is recorded to have been in times past.* The order in arranging the service is identical with what it was in Archbishop Parker's day. Precisely the same customs, even as to certain details of entrance and exit, are to the present time duly followed and observed. The traditions of the archiepiscopate of Laud, though rudely broken by the times of civil war and anarchy, were taken up and scrupulously put into practice again under Archbishop Juxon. And so they have remained until now.

With reference, moreover, to the ancient ecclesiastical machinery of the Church of England, it went on without any break or material change. The

* Mr. John Williams, the recent Roman Catholic controversialist evidently unacquainted personally with the nature of such documents, thus comments on certain details in the Register of Parker's Consecration:-"I ask, was there ever such a record of an Episcopal Consecration? Can it be matched, even were you to ransack the Episcopal archives of the whole world? Why, a very large portion is occupied with sheer puerilities! Let us analyse it. Tapestry here, red baize there; a table with a carpet and cushion in one place, a bench with carpet and cushion in another; four chairs in one spot,-one chair, with a bench, carpet, and cushion in another. A retired naval captain must surely have written it, so precise a reference being made to all points of the compass. Tapestry in E.; a table ditto. Four chairs, S. by E.; chair and bench, N.E. Then the Archbishop sails in, with his whole convoy, due W.: he goes out, and then comes in due N. The next time he leaves is by N.E, returning by the same, and at length makes his final exit W., after a rather intricate voyage.”—Letters on Anglican Orders, Second Edition, p. 55. London: 1867.

Y

legal documents of which specimens of various periods are provided in the Appendix,* appear substantially as they did prior to the sixteenth-century changes. The Forms for Deprivation, Degradation, etc., as well as those testifying that certain Orders have been conferred, remain, to all intents and purposes unaltered. These likewise, as may be seen from the foreign examples given in the same portion of this book, are in substantial harmony with the forms of Western Christendom.

If at any period, here and there, during times of trouble and disorder, by the power of Might and not by Right, persons have been temporarily intruded into any ecclesiastical office without legal ordination, the small number of such cases,—and they are very small indeed, even supposing that all those which are commonly assumed to be true, could be clearly proved to have been so-only go to show most conclusively what is the notorious principle, order, and common custom of our National Church. And such exceptional cases could be readily paralleled in the middle ages, as well in other parts of the Church as in England, Ireland, and Scotland, were it necessary to unearth the irregularities and proclaim the defects of our forefathers in the Faith. Such exceptions, wherever they may have occurred, only serve, however, more clearly to prove the rule.

2. The three "Tables of Consecrations" which follow this chapter will no doubt have been referred to during the perusal of previous pages, as they serve to illustrate much of what has been already

* Vide Appendix, No. XXII.

set forth. (a) The First Table shows at a glance, how unquestionably the Apostolical succession was duly transmitted to Archbishop Parker. Even supposing that the names of the three consecrators of Barlow, here given on Mr. Haddan's authority, are inaccurate it is quite certain that Archbishop Cranmer with at least two other Bishops effected his consecration; for none of his contemporaries ever doubted it. (8) The Second Table, which sets forth Archbishop Laud's consecration, about a hundred years after the changes of the sixteenth century, points out with clearness how from Ireland, by the presence of Bishops co-operating at our English consecrations, several new links were added to a chain already strong and secure, joining Archbishop Laud by an unbroken spiritual lineage to the fathers of the old Church of St. Patrick. It also shows that other spiritual links from Italy and Scotland were respectively forged in the year 1617 and 1616, by the co-operation of Archbishop De Dominis in the consecrations of Bishops Montague and Felton on the one hand, and of Alexander, Bishop of Caithness,*

Dr. George Grub of Aberdeen, the able and impartial Scottish Ecclesiastical Historian, in answer to certain inquiries, courteously wrote to the author as follows::

"I am glad to be able to give you the information you request. The Bishop of Caithness who was in England in 1616, was Alexander Forbes. He was consecrated in the Cathedral Church of Brechin by the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, and the Bishops of Brechin and Dunkeld. I cannot ascertain the precise day, but it was between the 15th of March and the 3rd of May, 1611. Bishop Alexander Forbes assisted at the consecration of Bishop Morton at Lambeth, on July the 7th, 1616. In Mr. Stubbs's very valuable Registrum, the Bishop of Caithness, who assisted at the consecration, is called 'John.' Mr. Stubbs was perhaps

misled by Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, from which it would be inferred that on July 7th, 1616, John Abernethy had succeeded Bishop

in the consecration of Bishop Morton, on the other. Hence it has been asserted that even if Archbishop Parker's consecration, as certain opponents affirm, had been altogether null and void, the introduction of so many independent chains of succession at later times would have secured to Archbishop Laud a true and valid consecration. This position is certainly new and remarkable. To assume it, however, would be a perfect work of supererogation. Anyhow, it should be noted, as is pointed out in the Second Table that every Bishop of the Anglican rite traces his spiritual descent through Archbishop R marks on Laud. (7) The Third Table is inserted in Tables of Con- order that a difficulty which was felt in France by Bossuet and others,—a difficulty easily imagined when the leading events of bishop Juxon the Commonwealth period are borne in mind, may be removed. Here, therefore, the connection between the suffering prelates of 1646 and those consecrated after the Restoration, in 1662, is clearly set forth. Other independent links from Ireland, it should be noted, appear in this Table.

appended

secrations of Archbishop Parker, Arch

bishop Land

and Arch

And now to sum up the leading arguments of this treatise. It has been shown that the Revised Ordinal, however much shorn of certain rites and external features of late introduction, contains Form and Matter which, when duly this Treatise. used with a good intention are sufficient for bestowing respectively the character of the episcopate, and the grace of the priesthood. For

Summary of the Author's arguments on

Alexander Forbes on the translation of the letter to Aberdeen. Keith's dates are erroneous by a twelvemonth or thereby."-MS. Letter of George Grub, Esq., LL.D., of Aberdeen, to the Author.