turbulent; and he answered that he would conform himself as the other bishops did'. It will be remembered that the conduct here attributed to the civil power was actually realized afterwards in the Roman church by the emperor Joseph II., who issued a decree "which compelled all the bishops of his hereditary states to promise obedience to all the orders which had already emanated from the emperor, or which he might publish hereafter "." XVII. It is alleged, that in the time of Edward VI. all the most important changes in the form of ordinations, the public service, the body of the canons, &c. were regulated by the king or parliament to the annihilation of the church's power. This is far from the truth. The parliament only added the force of the temporal law to the determinations of convocations or bishops, or at least its regulations were confirmed by ecclesiastical authority. Thus, in 1547, an act passed for communion in both kinds, and against private masses, on the ground of Scripture and primitive practice, but the convocation also agreed to it. In 1548 an act legalized the marriage of priests, but the clergy had decided this point of discipline in their convocation the preceding year, and they now confirmed it again". In 1549 the Ritual having been prepared by bishops and theologians at Windsor, was authorized by act of parliament, but it was also approved by convocation in November, 1548". When a new office for ordinations was provided for by parliament, it was to be left to the composition of six ▾ Burnet, ii. 103. w Mémoires sur Pie VI. et son Pontif. t. i. p. 236. * Bossuet, Var. 1. vii. n. 76. of Cranmer, i. 291. z Ibid. and p. 172. a Ibid. ii. 87. 113. Le Bas' Cranmer, i. 315, 316. bishops, and six theologians". The alterations in the Ritual confirmed by parliament, A. D. 1552, had been made by bishops in the preceding year. Thus there was always a respect paid to the priesthood; and if in any point the temporal government neglected some of the usual forms, the church always retained the power of rejecting any regulation inconsistent with the catholic faith or discipline. XVIII. It only remains to notice the deprivations of bishops by the civil power, and it may be at once conceded that the principle of such deprivations cannot be approved of; but irregularities of this kind have been often practised in the church. Justinian and many others of the Eastern emperors expelled bishops from their sees, and in more modern times this conduct has been imitated in churches of the Roman obedience. Cardinal de Chatillon was expelled from his see by the civil power in France, and the emperors Joseph II. and Napoleon suppressed sees in their respective dominions. The church is sometimes obliged to submit to such irregularities in order to avoid greater evils, and even to ordain bishops in the place of those who have been deprived"; and thus whatever may have been the justice of the deprivations of two alien bishops, or of two others accused of crimes against the state, the church of England was the proper judge whether these b Ibid. p. 262. Wheatley on the Common Prayer. d Bramhall, Works, p. 89. De Marca, Concord. Sacer. et Imperii, lib. iv. c. 18. See also the treatise of Nicephorus, edited by Dr. Hody, at Oxford, 1691, and of Methodius, published by cardinal Maio, in the third volume of the Ancient Remains, p. 247, &c. • Of Beauvais. Christiana, tom. ix. See Gallia Mémoires Eccl. xviii. siècle, tom. ii. p. 22; iii. 504. See Hody, Case of sees vacant by an unjust or uncanonical deprivation. deprivations were tolerable, and she had the power of sanctioning them. In the reign of Edward VI. several deprivations of bishops took place, by means of royal commissions, sometimes consisting of bishops, sometimes of laymen, which were apparently unjust as well as irregular. Boner bishop of London, Gardiner of Winchester, Heath of Worcester, Day of Chichester, and Tunstall of Durham, were expelled successively from their sees between 1549 and 1553. These irregularities I do not pretend to justify. h Burnet, ii. 234. 280.305. 375, 398. Le Bas' Cranmer, i. 329. CHAPTER IV. ON THE PROCEEDINGS IN THE REIGN OF MARY. THE deprivations of bishops alluded to above, were acts deserving of censure; and we therefore cannot view as an irregularity or an injustice the restoration of bishops Boner, Gardiner, Heath, Day, and Tunstall to their sees by the royal commissions of queen Mary, though the result was the expulsion of bishops Ridley, Poynet, and Scory, who had occupied those sees with at least the tacit sanction of the church. But other proceedings followed, which were too obviously dictated by a spirit of vengeance and hatred. The removal of bishop Hooper by the queen, from his see of Gloucester, which he held by regular and canonical institution', was altogether unjustifiable. Voysey was irregularly restored to the see of Exeter by an order under the great seal, expelling without any trial or formality whatever, bishop Coverdale, who had succeeded on his voluntary resignation. Pates, who had been nominated to the see of Worcester many years before by the pope, contrary to the ecclesiastical and civil regulations made in the reign of Henry VIII., was intruded into that see by royal i Burnet, ii. 443. j Ib. ii. 282. k Ib. 306. authority'. But in March, 1554, an unprecedented violation of justice and of ecclesiastical liberties took place. Royal commissions were appointed for the deprivation of no less than seven archbishops and bishops at once, some for the fact of marriage which the church of England had sanctioned, and others on a vague charge of offences, and the clause in their patents given by Edward VI. (which was a mere nullity)" quamdiu se bene gesserint "." Thus nine bishops were almost at once driven from their sees by the royal power. The bishop of Bath was compelled to resign by threats and intimidation". This is exclusive of Ridley, Poynet, and Scory, who were at once harshly expelled, and of archbishop Cranmer, afterwards degraded by two papal delegates, who besides being incompetent to judge according to the canons, acted by a power which was irregular and null, the papal jurisdiction having been suppressed in England, and never regularly revived again. It is in vain that Bossuet would cloke the scandal of such proceedings by pretending that "until the ecclesiastical order was re-established they acted against the Protestants on their own maxims "." If these maxims were wrong in themselves, it could not be justifiable to act on them. They could only have afforded a sufficient reason for proceeding in a lawful manner against any who could have been proved to hold them. But there is no evidence that any maxims were received either |