living, and coming to the bishop then at Norwich with his presentation, his lordship asked him where he had his orders. He answered that he was ordained by the presbytery at Leyden. The bishop, upon this, advised him to take the opinion of council (sic) whether by the laws of England he was capable of a benefice without being ordained by a bishop. The doctor replied that he thought his lordship would be unwilling to re-ordain him if his council should say that he was not otherwise capable of the living by law. The Bishop rejoined: "Re-ordination loe must riot admit, no more than a re-baptisation; but in case you find it doubtful whether you be a priest capable to receive a benefice among us or no, I will do the same office for you, if you desire it, that I should do for one who doubts of his baptism, when all things belonging essentially unto it have not been duly observed in the administration of it, according to the rule in the Book of Common Prayer, 'If thou hast not already,' &c. Yet, for mine own part, if you will adventure the orders that you have, I will admit your presentation, and give yon institition into the living howsoever" But the title which this presentation had from the patron proving not good, there were no further proceedings in it; yet afterwards Dr. de Laune was admitted into another benefice without any new ordination.'
The evidence in regard to Morton comes from two opponents in a controversy—viz., the once celebrated John Durel, author of the 'Sanctæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ vindicia,' and Mr. Hickman, a nonconformist fellow of Magdalen ejected at the Restoration. These both tell pretty much the same story, though the latter adds the fullest particulars. He says that 'the Archbishop of Spalato (Antonio di Dominis), while living in England, asked Morton, Bishop of Durham, to do someone who had been ordained beyond the seas the favour of re-ordaining him presbyter, in order that he might have freer access to ecclesiastical benefices. Morton wrote back to say that such a thing could not be done without very great offence to the Reformed Churches, a scandal of which he did not choose to be the originator. My witness is … Calendrin, pastor of the Anglo-Belgian Church in Essex, who has in his possession the original letter in Morton's own handwriting.' The above quotation I make at second hand from an anonymous pamphlet (by 'Cantab,' a Cambridge man who has joined the Church of Rome) entitled 'Apostolical Succession Not a Doctrine of the Church of England,'[1] p. 65. But I am now able to give the original quotation from Hickman's
- ↑ Longmans, 1870.
