XVI.

ARCHBISHOP PARKER.

Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. By Walter Farquhar Hook, D.D., F.R S. Volume IX.-Reformation Period. London: Bentley and Son.

1872.

THE volume which Dean Hook now gives us contains, like the one which went before it, a single Life, but a Life of great moment in the series which he has undertaken. The last volume contained the Life of Reginald Pole; the present contains the Life of Matthew Parker. Parker, as Dr. Hook several times tells us, was not a great man; but he held a great position in a most important time, and his personal character was certainly not without influence on the course of events. It was in his time, and in a large degree by his means, that the Church of England finally put on its present shape. He and the mistress whom he served embody, more than any other persons, the position which that Church finally took up at the end of a period of endless shiftings to and fro. If the Reformation happened at any particular time, it certainly was under the reign of Elizabeth and under the primacy of Parker that it did happen. The first Primate of All England appointed after the final throwing off the authority of the see of Rome, the first who was consecrated according to a reformed ritual in the English tongue, Parker eminently represents the new state of things which was then finally established. But he no less eminently represents the continuity of that new state of things with the old. The congé d'élire under which Parker was elected Archbishop is a very speaking document. It does not contain a word to imply that any great revolution was going on, least of all

XVI.]

PARKER'S ELECTION.

305

that any old Church was being pulled down or any new Church set up. Everything bears the stamp of antiquity. The Queen issues the document by virtue of her 'fundatorial' powers, powers which we may conceive at pleasure as being derived from Æthelberht or from her own father, but which at all events were possessed, and exercised by Mary in the case of Pole, just as much as by Elizabeth in the case of Parker. It sets forth that the metropolitan church of Canterbury, by the natural death of the most reverend father and lord in Christ, the Lord Reginald Pole, Cardinal, the last Archbishop thereof, is now vacant and destitute of the solace of a pastor,' and the Dean and Chapter are required to 'elect such a person Archbishop and pastor who may be devoted to God and useful and faithful to us and our kingdom.' Of course it is easy to say that all this is mere legal formality, in no way representing the real state of the case. The congé d'élire does not bring out the fact that there was anything unusual about the circumstances of Parker's election, though they undoubtedly were very unusual. But the point is that, though the circumstances were unusual, they still were not such as involved any change in the usual form of such a document. And this was in itself something. The fact that Parker was not, in the eyes of any one concerned, appointed to any new office in any new Church, but was simply chosen in regular order to fill a vacant office in the existing Church-that Pole was still, after the breach with Rome, described as the most reverend father and lord, the Lord Reginald Pole, Cardinal,' and that the church of Canterbury was said to be by his natural death 'vacant and destitute of the solace of a pastor'—is the legal expression of the legal and historical continuity of the new state of things with the old. We may even conceive that the document was studiously so drawn up that it might in the clearest way express that continuity.

Now all this belongs strictly to the domain of history and law, and does not trench at all on the domain of theology

proper. The purely theological question is, Did the consecration of Parker or of any other bishop endow him with real spiritual powers which, without such consecration, he could not have possessed? Was it of any real importance to men's souls that an order of men so consecrated should

be kept up? With questions like these history proper does not meddle at all. It does not even search very minutely into the personal belief of Archbishop Parker, or of Queen Elizabeth, on such points. But history is concerned with the facts that, whatever were their exact views as to the nature of the episcopal succession, whether they did or did not think it necessary for the existence of a Church, they at least thought it desirable for the good order of a Church, and that they acted in such a way as to make, not the greatest but the least, breach possible between the new state of things and the old. We may be pretty sure that, whatever the Queen thought in her own mind, her prelates and statesmen did not look on what divines call the 'Apostolical Succession' as something absolutely essential to the being of a Christian community. The position which they took with regard to the Reformed Churches on the Continent, the occasional admission of men who had had only Presbyterian ordination to offices in the English Church, makes this pretty plain. At the same time, men who insist on this point sometimes forget that it is possible to hold as high a view as any one likes of the Christian ministry, and yet to hold that the office may be conferred by presbyters as well as by bishops. Exalted views about the priesthood and a belief in the sole ordaining power of bishops do commonly go together, but they are in no way logically tied together. But what really concerns us in the matter is that those who ordered things in Elizabeth's reign at least did not look on the rites of consecration and ordination as superstitious and ungodly, and that they thought it worth taking a good deal of pains to preserve, in fact and in form, the unbroken succession between the new state of the Church and the old.

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THEOLOGY AND HISTORY.

307

All these are simple facts; the question whether Elizabeth or Parker or any else did rightly or wisely in doing what they did is quite another matter, and a matter which we gladly leave to theologians. The question of the spiritual succession is for them; it is the outward succession, the outward continuity between the Church before Parker and the Church after him, which is a matter of law and history, and with which alone we have to deal. It is not always easy to steer clear of theological quicksands on one side or the other. The strictly impartial historian, who simply sticks to the historical facts, is liable to be assaulted on both sides. In acknowledging the historical fact he may possibly offend those who attach spiritual importance to it, because, while going so far along with them, he declines to go further. On the other hand, it is equally likely that he may offend those who are so fiercely set against the theological doctrine that they will hardly endure the historical fact, and are stirred up to wrath at its statement, as if it involved the theological position which they dislike.

We say all this, because of the exact degree to which, in considering the present volume and the time with which it deals, we can keep company with Dr. Hook. Our facts and his are pretty much the same; but we look at them from a point of view somewhat different from his. What to him is of importance theologically is to us of importance historically. It is of great importance to Dr. Hook to show that the consecration of Matthew Parker was a good and valid consecration. The fact one way or the other does in his view make a real difference in the theological position of the English Church. The old dispute about Parker's consecration really involves three questions. First, Was there any formal ceremony of consecration at all, in opposition to the Nag's Head story? This is purely a question of fact. Secondly, Was the ceremony which actually took place such as to be a valid consecration of a bishop? This is a question of canon law. With both these the historian is concerned; with the former in a greater, with the latter

in a lesser, degree. But beyond both lies the further question whether it really mattered to Parker or anybody else whether he was validly consecrated or not. This is a question of pure theology with which the historian does not meddle. History can look quite calmly on those who hold that, however regular the consecration may otherwise have been, yet, as being done without reference to the centre of unity at Rome, it must have been of no spiritual validity. It can look equally calmly on those who are so indignant at the notion of any spiritual validity at all as hardly to put up with the facts which may be construed as implying a regard for it. And it can look as calmly on those who believe that the spiritual position of the English Church, or of any of its members, does depend in some way on the fact or on the canonical validity of the consecration of Parker. Yet of the three classes it has in the present matter the greatest degree of sympathy with the third, simply because they are the class which has least interest in perverting the facts of history. Dr. Hook in the present volume repeatedly tells us that the object of Elizabeth and Parker was, not to establish a Protestant sect, but to reform the old Catholic Church of England. To Dr. Hook this position is of strictly theological importance. From our point of view we pass over the strictly theological bearing of the position as not coming within our range. But the historical facts implied in the position we fully accept. Nothing can be plainer than that it was the object of Elizabeth and Parker to preserve a legal and corporate continuity between the unreformed and the reformed Church of England. And we hold that Dr. Hook does a real service, not only to his own school of theology, but to the actual facts of history, by bringing this truth prominently forward.

It is much the same again with regard to another point, closely connected or rather in truth identical with this one. We hold that Dr. Hook does good service by pointing out, though perhaps he stops to point it out a little too often, that England was not, during the period which we call the