CONSECRATION OF A BISHOP

By this we mean the separating of a person for the holy office of a bishop, by imposition of hands and prayer. According to a canon of the first Nicene Council, there must be four, or at least three, bishops present at the consecration of a bishop. The form used in the Church of England may be found in the Book of Common Prayer. And it is stated in the preface thereto, that “no one shall be accounted or taken to be a bishop, or suffered to execute the same function, unle he be called, tried, and admitted thereunto according to that form, or hath had formerly episcopal consecration .” The concluding portion of this sentence recognises the validity of consecrations given in foreign churches by any other form adopted by those Churches. Thus a French, or an Italian, or a Greek bishop, conforming to the rules of the Church of England, requires no fresh consecration, but is at liberty to officiate among us. By the eighth canon, “Whoever shall affirm or teach, that the form and manner of making and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons, contain eth anything in it that is repugnant to the word of God ; or that they who are made bishops, priests, or deacons in that form are not lawfully made, nor ought to be accounted, either by themselves or others, to be truly either bishops, priests, or deacons, until they have some other calling to those Divine offices; let him be excommunicated ipso facto , not to be restored until he repent, and publicly revoke such his wicked errors.” And by the thirty-sixth of the Thirty-nine Articles, “the book of consecration of archbishops and bishops, and ordering of priests and deacons, lately set forth in the time of Edward VI., and confirmed at the same time by authority of parliament, doth contain all things nece ary to such consecrating and ordering; neither hath it anything that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the rites of that book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same rites, we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.” And by the Act of Uniformity in the 13th and 14th Charles II., all subscriptions to be made unto the Thirty-nine Articles shall be construed to extend (touching the said thirty-sixth article) to the book containing the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons, in this said act mentioned, as the same did heretofore extend unto the book set forth in the time of King Edward VI. (13 & 14 Charles II. c. 4, s. 30, 31.) Here we may allude to the Nag’s Head story, one of the most flimsy, as well as wicked, inventions of the Romanists, to invalidate the orders of the Church of England. It refers to the consecration of Archbishop Parker, on which depends the validity of orders in the English Church: for if Archbishop Parker’s consecration was not good, all those who were consecrated by him were not bishops, because he could not confer that character upon others which he had not himself. The Papists a ert that his consecration was irregular, both as to the place where it was performed, which they say was at the Nag’s Head Tavern, Cheap side, and as to the manner of doing it, which they say was by one of the bishops then present, who laid the Bible on Dr. Parker’s head, and then pronounced the words, “Take thou authority,” . It is further objected, that three of the four bishops then present were only bishops elect, and had no sees; and that the other was a suffragan. The story, which has long since been abundantly refuted, and which is now given up by the best authorities among the Romanists, was as follows: The queen i ued forth her warrant, directed to the bishop of Llandaff; to Dr. Scory, elect of Here ford; Dr. Barlow, elect of Chi chester; Dr. Cover dale, elect of Exeter; and Dr. Hodgkins, suffragan of Bedford. All these persons met at the Nag’s Head Tavern, where it had been usual for the dean of the Arches and the civilians to refresh themselves, after any confirmation of a bishop; and there one Neale, who was Bonner’s chaplain, peeped through a hole in the door, and saw all the other bishops very importunate with Llandaff, who had been di uaded by Bonner to a ist in this consecration, which he obstinately refusing, Dr. Scory bid the rest kneel, and he laid the Bible on each of their shoulders or heads and pronounced these words, “Take thou authority,” ., and so they stood up all bishops. This story was certainly invented after the queen’s reign; for if it had been true, it is so remarkable, that some of the writers of that time would undoubtedly have taken notice of it. But Bishop Burnet has discovered the falsity of it, from an original manuscript of the consecration of this very archbishop, which was done in the chapel at Lambeth, on Sunday, the 17th of December, in the first year of the queen’s reign, where Dr. Parker came a little after five in the morning in a scarlet gown and hood, attended by the said four bishops, and lighted by four torches; and there, after prayers, Dr. Scory preached; and then the other bishops presented the archbishop to him, and the mandate for his consecration being read by a doctor of the civil law, and he having taken the oaths of supremacy, and some prayers being said, according to the form of consecration then lately published, all the four bishops laid their hands on the archbishop’s head, and said, “Receive the Holy Ghost ,” . And this was done in the presence of several other clergy. See Archbishop Bramhall’s “Consecration and Succe ion of Protestant Bishops Justified,” with the additions in vol. iii. of his works, Oxford, 1844.