Seven new prelates together were consecrated at Westminster on Sunday, the 2nd of December:—Cosin, the patristic scholar, who had been chaplain in the household of Queen Henrietta,—as Bishop of Durham; and Walton, the editor of the Polyglott,—as Bishop of Chester. Gauden also was one of the number. Though he had remained in Cromwell's Broad Church, it is said that upon all occasions he had taken worthy pains in the pulpit and by the press to rescue His Majesty and the Church of England, from all mistaken and heterodox opinions of several and different factions, as well as from the sacrilegious hands of false brethren whose scandalous conversation was consummate, in devouring Churchlands, and in impudently making sacrilege lawful.
1660.
He received for these services the Bishopric of Exeter;[170] and at the same time there was consecrated with him—as Bishop of Carlisle—Richard Sterne, who had suffered much from the Presbyterians, and had attended on the scaffold his friend, Archbishop Laud. Laney designated to Peterborough, Lloyd to Llandaff, and Lucy to St. David's, complete the seven.
Sancroft, then domestic chaplain to Bishop Cosin, preached the sermon, in which he defended diocesan Episcopacy from the words of St. Paul to Titus: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee." He who appointed him, said the preacher, was "not a suffragan of St. Peter," "not a disciple of Gamaliel," "not a delegate of the civil magistrate," but "an apostle of Jesus Christ." And he who was appointed was "a single person; not a consistory of Presbyters, or a bench of elders," and his office was to supply defects—to correct what might be amiss—and to exercise the power of ordination; "our most reverend Titus" being "a genuine son and successor of the apostles." The theological reader will infer at once what were the arguments under each head, and he may judge of the style and spirit of the discourse from the following passage—"And blessed be this day (let God regard it from above, and a more than common light shine upon it!) in which we see the Phœnix arising from her funeral pile, and taking wing again; our Holy Mother, the Church, standing up from the dust and ruins in which she sate so long, taking beauty again for ashes, and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness, remounting the Episcopal throne, bearing the keys of the kingdom of heaven with her, and armed (we hope) with the rod of discipline; her hands spread abroad, to bless and to ordain, to confirm the weak, and to reconcile the penitent; her breasts flowing with the sincere milk of the word, and girt with a golden girdle under the paps, tying up all by a meet limitation and restriction to primitive patterns, and prescripts apostolical. A sight so venerable and august, that methinks, it should at once strike love and fear into every beholder, and an awful veneration. I may confidently say it. It was never well with us, since we strayed from the due reverence we owed to Heaven and her; and it is strange we should no sooner observe it, but run a maddening after other lovers that ruined us, till God hedged in our way with thorns, that we could no longer find them, and then we said, I will go and return to my former husband, for then was it better with me than now."[171]
NEW BISHOPS.
Eight Bishops of the Irish Church were still living. Bramhall was translated to the primacy as Archbishop of Armagh. Nominations to vacant Sees followed; including that of Jeremy Taylor to the diocese of Down and Conner, upon Henry Lesley being translated to Meath; but his consecration was delayed until the 27th of January, 1661, when ten new Bishops, and two old ones promoted to the Archiepiscopate, were solemnly set apart in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The consecration of so many at one time has been pronounced, "an event probably without a parallel in the Church."[172]
1660.
We have crossed, almost unconsciously, from England to Ireland. Between lies the Isle of Man; and this reminds us of what was going on there, a short time before the remarkable consecration at Dublin. In the autumn of 1660, Commissioners were engaged in reducing to order ecclesiastical affairs. They summoned the clergy before them to exhibit their letters of orders and of presentation; they enforced the use of the Prayer Book, and of catechizing, the keeping also of feasts and fast days, including the 30th of January, the day of King Charles' martyrdom, and the 15th of October, the day of Earl James' martyrdom. The observance of Lent was afterwards enjoined, with the customary penalties and with provision for dispensations. Parish discipline was established according to canon law; and, without any ejectment or any opposition, the portion of the Church existing in that island submitted at once to Episcopalian rule.[173]
PERSECUTION.
Returning to England, we remark that since certain old laws were deemed by Churchmen as still in force, notwithstanding the legislature of the last twenty years, they constituted an arsenal of weapons, with which magistrates and others could, if they were disposed, grievously disturb their Puritan neighbours. The Canon law prohibited dissent from the Church under pain of excommunication. The same penalty was threatened against all who affirmed that ministers not subscribing to the form of worship in the Communion Book, might "truly take unto them the name of another Church not established by law," or that religious assemblies other than such as by the law of the land were allowed, might rightly challenge the name of true Churches, or that it was lawful for any sort of ministers or lay persons, to join together to make ecclesiastical rules or constitutions without the King's authority. No minister, without license of the Bishop, could presume to hold meetings for sermons. As all conventicles were hurtful to the state of the Church, no ministers or other persons were to assemble in any private house or elsewhere for ecclesiastical purposes, under pain of excommunication.[174] As to Statute law, the 1 Eliz. c. 2, required all persons to resort to Church every Sunday and every day ordained a holiday. The penalty of disobedience was a shilling fine, with Church censure for every offence. The 23 Eliz. c. 1, made the fine twenty pounds a month, and the offender who persevered for twelve months had to be bound to good behaviour with two sureties in two hundred pounds, until he conformed. To keep a schoolmaster who did not attend Church, incurred a monthly fine of ten pounds. The 29 Eliz. c. 6, empowered the Queen, by process out of the Exchequer, to seize the goods and two parts of the real property of offenders, upon default of paying their fines. The 35 Eliz. c. 1, made the frequenting of conventicles punishable by imprisonment. Those who after conviction would not submit were to abjure the realm. Refusal to abjure was felony, without benefit of clergy.[175]