A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

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, unless 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, containeth 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 necessary 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 assert that his consecration was irregular, both as to the place where it was performed, which they say was at the Nag’s Head Tavern, Cheapside, 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,” &c. 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 issued forth her warrant, directed to the bishop of Llandaff; to Dr. Scory, elect of Hereford; Dr. Barlow, elect of Chichester; Dr. Coverdale, 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 dissuaded by Bonner to assist 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,” &c., 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,” &c. And this was done in the presence of several other clergy. See Archbishop Bramhall’s “Consecration and Succession of Protestant Bishops Justified,” with the additions in vol. iii. of his works, Oxford, 1844.

CONSECRATION OF CHURCHES. The law recognises no place as a church until it has been consecrated by the bishop.

In the Church of England the bishop is left to his own discretion as to the form he will use in the consecration of a church; but in the 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, which limits the number of chaplains that each person may have, one reason assigned why a bishop may retain six chaplains is because he must occupy that number in the consecration of churches.

The custom of solemnly setting apart, from ordinary and secular use, whatever is appropriated to the service of Almighty God, has the highest possible sanction; for many are the instances of it recorded in the Holy Scriptures. True it is that there is no record of any such ceremonial having been used among Christians in reference to churches, before the fourth century, though some ritualists are of opinion that a form of dedication was common much earlier. No sooner, however, was the sword of persecution sheathed, and God permitted his Church to serve him in all godly quietness, than such solemnities became general. Then, as Eusebius tells us, “there was an incessant joy, and there sprung up for all a certain celestial gladness, seeing every place, which but a short time before had been desolated by the impieties of the tyrants, reviving again, and recovering from a long and deadly distemper; temples again rising from the soil to a lofty height, and receiving a splendour far exceeding those which had been formerly destroyed.” And again: “after this the sight was afforded us, so eagerly desired and prayed for by all,—the festivals of dedications, and consecrations of the newly-erected houses of prayer throughout the cities. After this, the convention of bishops, the concourse of foreigners from abroad, the benevolence of people to people, the unity of the members of Christ concurring in one harmonious body. Then was it according to the prophetic declaration, mystically indicating what would take place, ‘bone was brought to bone, and joint to joint,’ and whatsoever other matters the Divine word faithfully intimated before. There was, also, one energy of the Divine Spirit pervading all the members, and one soul among all, one and the same ardour of faith, one song of praise to the Deity; yea now, indeed, complete and perfect solemnities of the prelates and heads of the Church, sacred performances of sacred rites, and solemn rituals of the Church. Here you might hear the singing of psalms; there, the performance of divine and sacred mysteries. The mystic symbols of our Saviour’s passion were celebrated; and, at the same time, each sex of every age, male and female, with the power of the mind, and with a mind and whole heart rejoicing in prayer and thanksgiving, gave glory to God, the author of all good. Every one of the prelates present also delivered panegyrical discourses, desirous of adding lustre to the assembly, according to the ability of each.” One such discourse, pronounced by Eusebius himself, still remains.

In his Life of Constantine, Eusebius gives an instance of the ceremonial thus described in the consecration, amid a full synod of bishops of the church of Jerusalem, which Constantine had built over our Saviour’s sepulchre, A. D. 335. Socrates records a similar consecration of the famous church of Antioch, called Dominicum Aureum, which was begun by Constantine and finished by Constantius, A. D. 341. Testimony to the prevalency of this custom is also borne by St. Athanasius, who defends himself in his apology to Constantius, (c. 14–18,) when charged with having used a building for public worship, before it was dedicated by the emperor, and consecrated by himself, on the ground of necessity; for since during Lent the congregations in the ordinary churches had been so crowded as to prove injurious to the persons present, and anticipating still more crowded assemblies at Easter, he thought himself justified, under such circumstances, to use an edifice which was unconsecrated. St. Gregory Nazianzen likewise speaks of this ceremonial as an ancient custom παλαιὸς νόμος.