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1283 Anthony Beak..... Wickwane, archbp. of York,

(whom see)..

1311 Richard Kellow.... Greenfield, archbp. of York, (whom see)

1318 Lewis Beaumont... Rome.. 1345 Thomas Hatfield... Rome.

909 Frithstan

1070 Walkelin

BISHOPS OF WINCHESTER.

Plegmund, abp. of Can

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terbury, (whom see).. 23

Pope's legate

Richard, abp. of Canter-
bury, (whom see).... 15

1174 Richard Toclivius ..

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27

213

216

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Winchester and Durham are taken as specimens out of the provincial sees: it is needless to go further. Proof abundant is here given that the episcopal ordinations in the Church of England flowed steadily through all the filth of Popery.

We have shown the sin of simony in the popedom in the last section. The old adage is, "The receiver is as bad as the thief." The English bishops regularly traded with ROME in simoniacal traffic; evidence enough of this is found in Bishop Godwin's Lives of the English Prelates. The court of Rome sold every thing. "Sometimes," says Godwin, "those who had purchased, were, by a fraudulent clause in a subsequent bull, thrown out of their purchase." It was then sold to a second huckster, and the pope received double. P. 106. John of Oxford, bishop of Winchester, paid six thousand marks to the pope for his consecration, and the same sum to Jordan, the pope's chancellor. P. 222. Greenfield, archbishop of York, was two years before he could obtain his confirmation and consecration from the pope, and then he paid nine thousand five hundred marks for the favour. P. 685. When Moreton became archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Godwin says, "he spunged from the bishops of the provinces a large

amount of money, compelling them, by the authority of the pope, to bear the cost of his translation to that see-to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds. P. 131.

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These, and other enormities, viz., all manner of avarice, usury, simony, and rapine; all kinds of luxury, libidinousness, gluttony, and pride, reign in the court of Rome,

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Ejus avaritiæ totus non sufficit orbis

Ejus luxuria meretrix non sufficit omnis."*

The incapacity of these lord bishops was often ludicrous. When Beaumont was made bishop of Durham, Godwin says, "he was lame of both feet, and so illiterate that he could not read the documents of his consecration. The word metropolitice occurring, he hesitated, and being unable to pronounce it, he exclaimed, 'Let us skip it and go on."" So also when he came to the term enigmate, "sticking in the mud again," says Godwin, "he burst out into these words, By Saint Lewis! he was very uncourteous who wrote that word there." His next successor but one in the same see was Thomas Hatfield. When the pope was reasoned with, that Hatfield was a young, trifling fellow, without either knowledge, gravity, or sincerity, he answered," If the king of England [who had requested the pope to consecrate this Hatfield] had asked me now to make an Ass a bishop, I would not have refused him." P. 750.

That all bishops were pledged to Popery before the Reformation will be evident from the account of the pall, and the bishop's OATH of fidelity to the pope. Fox, the venerable martyrologist, shall state this matter: "This pope, [Alexander III.,] among many other his acts, had certain councils, some in France, some at Rome in Lateran, by whom it was decreed, that no archbishop should receive the pall, unless he should first SWEAR. Concerning the solemnity of which pall, for the order and manner of giving and taking the same, with obedience to the pope, as it is contained in their own words, I thought it good to set forth unto thee, that thou mayest well consider and understand their doings.

"The form and manner, how and by what words the

* Archdeacon Mason's Vindic. Eccles. Anglican., p. 522.

pope is wont to give the pall unto the archbishop, in English:

"To the honour of Almighty God, and of blessed Mary, the virgin, and of blessed Peter and Paul, and of our LORD POPE N. and of the holy Church of Rome, and also of the church N., committed to your charge, we give to you the pall, taken from the body of St. Peter, as a fulness of the office pontifical, which you may wear within your own church upon certain days, which be expressed in the privileges of the said church, granted by the see apostolic.

"In like manner proceedeth the oath of every bishop, swearing obedience to the pope, in like words as followeth, in English:

"I, N., bishop of N., from this hour henceforth, will be faithful and obedient to blessed St. Peter, and to the holy apostolic Church of Rome, and to my lord N. the pope. I shall be in no council, nor help either with my consent or deed, whereby either of them, or any member of them may be impaired, or whereby they may be taken with any evil taking. The council which they shall commit to me either by themselves, or by messengers, or by their letters, wittingly or willingly, I shall utter to none to their hindrance. To the retaining and maintaining the Papacy of Rome, and the regalities of St. Peter, I shall be aider (so mine order be saved) against all persons, &c. So God help me and these holy gospels of God."

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The learned Mr. Johnson, who was proctor for the clergy of the diocess of Canterbury, says, that "both the archbishop of Canterbury, and he of York, from the time of Austin and Paulinus, down to the reign of Henry VIII., (saving that eight of this province [York] had it not, viz., those between Paulinus and Egbert,) received a pall from Rome, for which they paid an unreasonable sum. This pall was a supernumeral robe of lambs' wool, curiously adorned, and worn by the archbishop when he celebrated; it is still the arms or device of the archbishopric of Canterbury. It was pretended to be an ensign of archiepiscopal authority, but was in reality a badge of slavery to the see of Rome." And will the metropolitan of all England con

* Fox's Acts and Monuments, vol. i, p. 259, fol. edition. Lon., 1684, † Johnson's Clergyman's Vade Mecum, vol. i, p. 41, fourth edition, 1715.

tinue to bear, in the most distinguished place and manner,"in REALITY A BADGE of SLAVERY to the SEE of ROME?" Let the Church of England put such things away. They are discreditable and injurious to the cause of Protestantism in geneal.

Here, then, is sufficient evidence of the point that the episcopal ordinations in the Church of England, before the Reformation, came through the "series of monsters,”—the popes of Rome. Evidence also has been given that the bishops, generally, were as corrupt as the popes. "All ecclesiastical degrees, even from the pope to the doorkeepers, were oppressed with damnable simony." St. Bernard says that ambitious, covetous, sacrilegious, simoniacal, incestuous persons, fornicators, and such like monsters of mankind, flowed from all parts of the world to Rome, that by the apostolical authority they either might obtain or keep ecclesiastical honours." Such were the ordainers and the ordained! Blessed channels! through whom alone the power and authority to preach a holy gospel is to be communicated for the salvation of the world!

NULLITY OF POPISH

SECTION XIII.

ORDINATIONS OF ENGLISH BISHOPS
CONCLUDED.

HAVING in the preceding sections exhibited a brief view of the ordainers of the English bishops before the Reformation, and of the persons who were ordained by them, our way is now clear for the more immediate discussion of these Popish ordinations. Three questions require our consideration here: first, what is ordination? secondly, what are the Scriptural regulations on the subject, as to the ordainers and the persons to be ordained? and thirdly what, according to these rules, is the validity of these Popish ordinations?

First, what is ordination? Ordination is that act of the church by which persons are solemnly set apart to the ministry of the gospel. It is usually performed by laying on the hands of the ministers already existing in that church..

Apostolical usage countenances this form; but no particular form was ever made necessary. The priests under the law had no imposition of hands in their ordination: the apostles had no imposition of hands in their ordination: it is never commanded. It is decent and proper, but not essential; not necessary to ordination. Some persons will assert the contrary, and maintain that imposition of hands is essential to ordination. The reader, who will receive assertions for proof, will believe them: sufficient Scriptural proofs they have not; and human authority can enjoin nothing as essential in divine matters, such as the ministry of the gospel. To make this more clear, we may remark, that all the great writers on the subject generally grant that there is no command in the word of God enjoining either any particular matter or form of ordination: that is, in plainer language, no particular action, sign, or form of words, is enjoined as necessary to ordination: imposition of hands, consequently, is not enjoined, and therefore is not necessary. If we come to custom, it may be observed, that the Jewish sanhedrim, from which it is supposed that the Christian church took many of its ordination ceremonies, that this sanhedrim admitted, for a long period, ordinations to be performed without imposition of hands. It was frequently done by a written document, to absent persons, simply declaring them ordained; in the same manner as one of the ministers of the sovereign would appoint a lieutenant to a county.* As to the opinions of Christian writers on the subject, they did not, for above a thousand years after the apostles' time, define what they considered necessary to ordination. When they began to attempt this, some fixed upon one thing, and some upon another, in endless confusion. Those who at last came to place imposition of hands among the essentials, did it upon no other ground than this, that the church had willed it to be so by its usage. They grant that the church might have used it or not used it, without violating any divine authority. The argument, then, is based on false premises, as it assumes that the church can add to the essentials of religion. The conclusion, of course, falls to the ground. And the position remains immovable, that, as there is no command in the word of God enjoining any particular action, sign, or

* See Seldon, de Syn., b. ii, c. 7, sec. 1.

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