did, and soon received from him his Majesty's most gracious answer to this purpose, that he was well pleased with the design, and would readily concur with it. After the receipt of this letter my Lord Clarendon wrote him a second letter by the direction of the Archbishop and Bishops, in pursuance to the same design, according to the statute aforesaid. But to this no answer was returned for a long time. This gave occasion to suspect that his Majesty had been dissuaded from consenting to the continuation of the succession of our Bishops, by such as desired nothing more than to see it interrupted, which made the good Fathers resolve rather to do their important work without his Majesty's consent than not at all. However they determined to renew their application to the King, but whether before they had sent a third letter or after it, I cannot well remember, they received a letter from my Lord Melfort signifying his Majesty's great desire to have the new consecrations finished, and requiring them in order thereto to send some person over with whom his Majesty might confer about this matter, and to send a list of the deprived clergy by him. The person of whom they made choice (Dr. Hickes) set out from London, May 19th, 1693, and went by the way of Holland; which by reason of many difficulties and disappointments made it six weeks ere he arrived at St. Germains. He came thither at ten at night as his Majesty was concluding his supper, after which he kissed his hand, and having received his Majesty's directions whom only he should see there, he was conducted to a lodging prepared for him. Next night at the same hour he was sent for to the King, who, in the first place, was pleased to make this apology for having so long delayed his answer to my Lord Clarendon's second letter above mentioned, viz., that before he proceeded farther in that matter he thought himself obliged to satisfy his own conscience, as to the lawfulness of his part in it, which, said he, I did, first, by consulting of those I thought the best casuists of the place where I am, viz., the Archbishop of Paris and the Bishop of Meaux, and thereby laying the case before the Pope. The resolution, says he, of the two Bishops I have here, and they both agree in this determination, though consulted separately, that the Church of England, being established by the laws of the kingdom, I am under no obligation of conscience to act against it, but obliged to maintain and defend it so long as those laws are in force. And then his Majesty

put the papers containing the said case, and those Bishops, resolution of it, into the Doctor's hands, desiring him to read them, which he did, and found them as his Majesty had represented. His Majesty said he had not yet received the Pope's answer, but did not doubt he should before the Doctor returned, which accordingly happened; and the Doctor saw it before he departed, and it was to the same effect as that of the two Bishops. The King shewed these their determinations to my Lord Fanshaw about two years after, who went over about some business, and after his return assured the Doctor that he had both seen and read them. After the Doctor had that night read the two said papers, the King proceeded to tell him that his Majesty had on all occasions justified the Church of England since the Revolution, declaring that the true Church of England remained in that part of the clergy and the people which adhered to her doctrines and suffered for them; and that, sir,' said he, is the Church of England which I will maintain and defend, and the succession of whose bishops I desire may be continued, and when it shall please God to restore me or mine we may meet with such a Church of England and such bishops; and I desire for that end that the new consecrations may be made as soon as conveniently they can after your return. At that and other audiences his Majesty expressed his esteem of the deprived bishops and clergy, and of the laity that suffered with them, in the most tender and affectionate manner, even with tears in his eyes; and also declared that he was very sensible that the great part of the complaining clergy still loved him, and had fallen only through infirmity, and very few through disaffection and malice towards him.

"The Doctor had his Congé of his Majesty the latter end of July, and arrived at Rotterdam on the 7th of August, where he waited all that month and the next, to return in a fleet of merchants under the convoy of the same men-of-war that conveyed the yacht in which the Prince of Orange returned; but when he should have gone on board he was seized with an ague and fever, which detained him near four months longer, viz., till January the 24th, on which day he went from Rotterdam; and going on board the packet boat on the 26th, arrived at Harwich on the 29th, where he escaped being examined by one Mackay, a Scotchman, placed there to examine passengers, by sitting next to a foreign minister in the boat which brought the

passengers on shore. After three days' stay at Harwich he came to London on the 4th February, and on the Feast of St. Matthias, the 24th of the said month, the consecrations were solemnly performed according to the rites of the Church of England by Dr. William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich; Dr. Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely; Dr. Thomas Whyte, Bishop of Peterborough, at the Bishop of Peterborough's lodging at the Rev. Mr. William Giffard's house, at Southgate in Middlesex; Dr. Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells, giving his consent. Here it is to be noted that Dr. Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, absolutely refused all correspondence with his brethren, from which he desired to be excused, alleging that he had retired from all business but what related to his own soul in preparing himself for death; and that Dr. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, died while the Doctor lay ill at Rotterdam; but he joined in everything relating thereto while he lived, and particularly recommended to the King one of the two persons to be consecrated, as the Bishop of Norwich did the other. All the time of his Grace's retirement in Suffolk he corresponded with the Bishop of Norwich, notwithstanding that he had given him a deputation in due form, and in the Latin tongue, empowering him to act in all cases relating to Church affairs in his stead, which yet the Bishops seldom made use of without first acquainting him with it, and receiving his Grace's directions thereupon.

"GEORGE HICKES."

XIX.

THE CASE OF BISHOP GORDON, OF GALLOWAY. Comments on the Case of Bishop Gordon. - By REV. T. ELRINGTON, D.D.

"THE first request made by Gordon is, that the Pope should declare hujusmodi ordinationem (that conferred in the Episcopal Church of Scotland), esse illegitimam et nullam. This proves beyond the possibility of doubt that no determination had previously been made upon the question of Re-ordination, and establishes this petition and the investigation which it gave rise to, as the sole ground upon which the resolution, declaring our ordination to be invalid, was made, thus supplying us with the means of judging whether that determination was well or ill founded.

posse.

"The next sentence contains a statement notoriously false, asserting that the greater part of the English Protestants themselves deemed our orders to be invalid. Anglicanorum Heterodoxorum ordinationes arbitrator orator, cum plurimá Catholicorum, imo et heterodoxorum, parte, nullo modo validas dici To say that a large proportion of Protestants deemed our orders invalid, must have had great weight with the Pope, who unquestionably was led to consider that opinion to be a decisive proof that the Nag's Head story was believed among ourselves. There is no man acquainted with the Presbyterian controversy who does not know this assertion to be totally destitute of foundation; who does not know that no Presbyterian writer ever defended the Nag's Head story, or made any objection to our orders except their being too Popish.

"It should not escape observation that this sentence admits the denial of our orders not to have been universal among Roman Catholics; this the words cum plurima catholicorum parte, plainly prove.

* Dr. Elrington was evidently unacquainted with the Case of Dr. Stephen Gough.

"The petition next states that our ordinations must be invalid, unless we have preserved the essential matter, form, and intention. This is perfectly correct; but when Gordon comes to explain what he allows to be the matter used at our consecration, he chooses to forget the Imposition of Hands, the only essential matter of ordination, and asserts that we use no matter except perhaps the delivery of the Bible. Here is a false statement of a fact so important, that if the Pope believed it he could not but have decided against our orders; and it appears by the conclusion of the account given by Le Quien, that he did believe it, and every other fact stated by Gordon, for the decision was made without any other evidence having been gone into, except the mere reading his petition.

"Gordon next asserts that the only form used was, Accipe potestatem prædictandi verbum Dei, et administrandi Sancta ejus Sacramenta, etc. He had omitted to state the Imposition of Hands, and he here omits the words used with that solemn action, which constitute a most important part of the form of ordination.

"His statement as to the form being admitted, the determination of the Pope must have been against our orders; but that statement we know was false, and so did Gordon also know when he made it.

"He then notices the defect of Intention, arising from our denial of the Sacrifice of the Mass; and here indeed his fact is true, but the reasoning from it we have already seen, on the authority of Bellarmine and of the Synod of Evreaux, to be totally erroneous; the intention to ordain to the office for which Christ had ordained, even though unaccompanied with an explicit, nay, an heretical error as to the nature of that office, being sufficient.

"I have followed this subject of the matter, form, and intention, through the whole of the petition, that I might not separate the parts of so important a discussion. I now return to where it was first mentioned, and there I find it noticed that we can have no ordination but what was derived to us through Roman Catholic bishops; but to this truth is subjoined a statement, contrived with such Jesuitical art, that though the assertion taken literally is not false, yet it inevitably excites an idea which is decidedly false. Kitchin, of Llandaff, is named by Gordon, as the only Roman Catholic Bishop who came over