refers to Collier (vol. vii. p. 362) as his authority. But Spotswoode's 'History of the Church of Scotland,' vol. iii. p. 29, has the following account: 'A question in the meantime was moved by Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Ely, touching the consecration of the Scottish bishops, who, as he said, must first be ordained presbyters, as having received no ordination from a bishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Bancroft), who was by, maintained "that thereof there was no necessity, seeing where bishops could not be had, the ordination given by presbyters must be esteemed lawful, otherwise that it might be doubted if there were any lawful vocation in most of the Reformed Churches." This, applauded to by the other bishops, Ely acquiesced, and on the day and in the place appointed, the three Scottish bishops we^'e consecrated.' Collier quotes Heylin as his authority for putting the other reasons into Bancroft's mouth. The difference of value of the two authorities appears to be that whereas Spotswoode was one of the Scottish bishops then and there consecrated, Heylin was at the time a boy of ten years old.
Further than this, in carrying on a correspondence with the well-known Peter du Moulin, Andrews says, in comparing the Anglican with the French Huguenot Church: 'Though our government be by Divine right, it follows not that there is no salvation, or that a Church cannot stand, without it. He must needs be stone blind that sees not Churches standing without it. He must needs be made of iron and hard-hearted, that denies them salvation. … Somewhat may be wanting that is of Divine right (at least in external government), and yet salvation may be had.'[1]
In another letter while speaking of Calvin and Beza, he writes: 'To what purpose is it to abolish the name and to retain the thing (for even you retain the thing without the title), as they two, whom you named, while they lived, what were they but bishops in deed, though not in name?'[2] Now it must be observed that Calvin had received no orders in the Catholic Church above those of sub-deacon, and Beza none at all.
With regard to Bishop Overall, we have the authority of Cosin, who was at one time his secretary, in a letter quoted by Birch in his life of Tillotson[3]— and which letter Birch says he had before him when he wrote—which is so circumstantial that the passage is worth quoting in full. He says: 'Dr. de Laune, who translated the English Liturgy into French, being presented to a
- ↑ Letters, ii. p. 24.
- ↑ Ibid. i. p. 16.
- ↑ Birch, Life of Tillotson, prefixed to his works (1820), p, cxxii.
