THE CONSECRATION AND SUCCESSION, Of Protestant Bishops justified.  
The BISHOP of DURESME vindicated.  
And That infamous Fable of the ordination at the Nagges head clearly confuted.  
By JOHN BRAMHALL, D. D. Bishop of Derry.  
Necesse est ut lancen in libra ponderibus impositis  
Deprimi, sic animum perspicuis cedere.  
GRAVENHAGH, By JOHN RAMZEY, Anno 1658.   

CHAP. I. The occasion of this Treatise.  
THe fairest ears of Corn are soon blasted, so the more conspicuous the Church of England was among the reformed Churches, (as not being framed according to the brainsick dictates of some seditious Orator, or the giddy humours of a tumultuous multitude, but with mature deliberation, and the free consent and concurrence of all the Orders of the Kingdom,) the more it was subjected to the envy and groundless calumnies of our Country men of the Roman Communion. But of all the slanderous aspersions cast upon our Church, that liing fable of the Nagges head Ordination doth bear the bell away. Those monstrous fictions of the Cretian bulls and minotaures, (devised by the Athenians to revenge themselves upon Minos' King of Crete, who had subdued them in a just war, and compelled them to send their sons to him for hostages,) were not more malicious, nor that shamelesslie of Kentish long tails more ridiculous. The first deviser of it doth justly deserve the Character of A man of a brazen forehead and leaden hairy. If the unpartial reader after he have perused this treatise, think I do him wrong. I do willingly submit myself to his censure. This prodigious fable received its death's wound from Mr. Masons pen, and hath remained ever since for the space of thirty years buried in deep oblivion. And those assays which it maketh now to get wing again, by the assistence of two Ignatian Fathers, are but the vain attempts of a dying Cause. Neither would I have troubled the Reader or myself to bring Owls to Athens, or to confute a Cause which hath been so demonstratively confuted to my hand, but for two new additions lately spread abroad. The one by oral tradition which concerneth myself. That Father T. and Father B. had so confuted the Bishop of Derry in the presence of the King, that he said he perceived his Father had made me a Lord, but not a Bishop, And that afterwards, by my power I had procured those two jesuits to be prohibited that presence. So that whereas Father Talbot used to be the Interpreter in the Spanish treaties, now he was not admitted, and Don john would admit no other.  
So the Bishop of Derry is accused not only to have been publicly baffeled, but also to have been a disturber of public affairs. Yet I know nothing of all this, which concerneth myself. I never heard of any such conference, or any such words, I never knew that Father Talbot was designed to that employment. I was never guilty of having any such power, muchless of any endeavour to turn out any man. If the Fathers seemed too pragmatical to those who were entrusted, or to involve the interest of their Religion into Civil treaties, what is that to me? If it were true they may thank themselves. If it were false, they may thank them who did it. Whether true or false I never had an hand, nor so much as a little finger in it.  
All the truth that I know is this. Hearing that these two Fathers, had spoken largely in the Court of the Succession of our English Bishops, but never in my presence, I sought out Father B, and had private conference with him about it in the jesuits College at Bruges, and afterwards some discourse with Father T. and him together in mine own Chamber. Whatsoever they did say, they put into writing to which I returned them an answer, showing not only that there was not, but that it was morally impossible there should be any such Ordination at the nags head. From that day to this I never heard any thing of it, that concerned myself. Now if a man should search for an Author of this fabulous Relation, he shall be sure to have it fathered upon some very credible persons, without names, who had it from john an oaks whilst he was living, and he had it from john a Styles, and he had it from No body, but feigned it himself out of a good intention, according to that case Theology which he had learned of Machiavelli, To advance the credit of Religion by all means possible true or false.  
The other addition concerneth the learned and Reverend Bishop of Duresme one of the ancientest Bishops this day living in the Christian world, being 95 years old at least. That he owned and justified the nags head Ordination in public Parliament, in the house of the Peers: It is very well, we can not desire a better place where to have it spoken, than the house of Parliament. Nor better witnesses then the Lords spiritual and temporal. We have no man of the Episcopal Order, whose memory can reach so near those times, or in whose integrity we do more confide, than the Bishop of Duresme. He might hear many things either from the persons pretended to have been then consecrated, or from the Notaries or witnesses who were then present at that imaginary Consecration. Or at least he might receive the tradition of that age from such as were eiewitnesses of what passed. Let it be put to his Testimony if they think fit, (without doubt he is the same man he was then) or to the Testimony of any other of his age and Reputation, whom they can produce. We refuse no sort of proof but only vain hear say, which as our English proverb saith is commonly, and in this case most undoubtedly a liar. Nay we would not refuse the Testimony of Mr. Neale himself, though a professed enemy, who was the only founder of this silly fable, so he might be examined upon oath, before equal judges, but compel him either to shame the devil, and eat his own words, or to run himself into such palpable absurdities Contradictions and impossibilities, that no man of reason how partial soever, could give any credit to him. My first task shall be, before I meddle with the fable itself to vindicate the Bishop of Duresme, and the truth which is wounded through his sides, with this intimation to the Reader, that if this branch of the Legend be proved apparently to be false, which is pretended to have been publicly acted in a full house of the Peers of the Realm, we can expect no truth from the voluntary report of one single mean malicious enemy, to his own party. And with all a confessed Spy, of what was done at the Nagges head. Break ice in one place, and it will crack in more.   

CHAPT. II. The Vindication of the Bishop of Duresme.  
TO vindicate the Bishop of Duresme, I shall first set down the relation of this passage in the words of the Fathers themselves.  

Treatise of the nature of Catholic faith and haeresy c. 2. p. 9  In the beginning of the late Parliament some Presbiterian Lords presented to the upper house a certain book, proving that the Protestant Bishops had no succession or consecration, and therefore were no Bishops, and by consequence had no right to sit in Parliament. Hereupon Doctor Morton pretended Bishop of Durrham who is yet alive, made a speech against this book in his own and all the Bishop's behalf then present. He endeavoured to prove succession from the last Catholic Bishops, who (said he) by imposition of hands ordained the first Protestant Bishops at the Nagges head in Cheap side, as was Notorious to all the world. Therefore the afore said book ought to be looked upon as a groundless libel. This was told to many by one of the ancientest Peers of England, present in Parliament when Morton made his speech. And thesame he is ready to depose upon his oath. Nay he cannot believe that any will be so impudent as to deny a thing so notorious, whereof there are as many witnesses living, as there are Lords and Bishops that were that day in the upper house of Parliament.  
Here are three passages. One concerning a book presented to the upper house, against the succession of English Bishops, by some presbiterian Lords. The second concerning the pretended refutation of this book by the Bishop of Duresme. The third the proof of both these allegations by the Testimony of an Ancient Peer of England,  
First for the book, It is most true there was a book written about that time by a single Lord against Episcopacy, and dedicated to the members of both houses of Parliament. No wonder. How often have the Parliaments in the reigns of Queen Elisabeth and King james been troubled with such Requests and Representations. It is no strange thing that a weak eye should be offended with the light of the sun. We may justly ascribe the reviving of the Aerian heresy in these later days to the Dispensations of the Court of Rome who licenced ordinary Priests to ordain, and confirm, and do the most essential offices of Bishops So their Schools do teach us, A Priest may be the extraordinary Minister of Priesthood, and inferior orders by the delegation of the Pope. Again The Pope may confer the power of confirmation upon a simple Priest. By such exorbitant practices as these they chalked ou● the way to innovators. And yet they are not able to produce one precedent of such a dispensation throughout the primitive times, A good Christian ought to regard more what the whole Christian world in all ages hath practised, than what a few conceited persons in this last age have fancied. Among all the Eastern Southrens and Northern Christians, who make innumerable multitudes, there neither is nor ever was one form Church that wanted Bishops. Yet these are as far from submitting to the exorbitant power of the Roman Bishop as we. Among all the western Churches and their Colonies, there never was one form Church for 1500. years, that wanted Bishops. If there be any persons so far possessed with prejudice, that they choose rather to follow the private dictates of their own frenzy, than the perpetual and universal practice of the Catholic Church, enter not into their secrets o my soul.  
Thus far we agree, but in all the rest of the circumstances, (though they be not much material) the Fathers do pitifully mistake themselves, and vary much from the Testimony of their witness, and much more from the truth. First the Author of this book was no presbyterian Lord▪ much less a company or cabal of Presbiterian Lords in the plural, but my Lord Brooks, one that had as little favour for Presbytery as for Episcopacy.  
Secondly the book was not presented to the upper house. It might be brought into the house privately, yet not be presented to the house publicly. If it had been publicly presented, the Clerks of the Parliament or some of them must needs have known of it and made an Act of it, but they know no such thing. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal could not all have Forgotten it, but they remember no such thing, as by their respective certificates praesently shall appear.  
Thirdly as the Author is mistaken, and praesentation mistaken. So the subject likewise is mistaken. Sit liber judex, let the book speak for itself▪ Thus an able friend certifieth me. I have got my Lord Brooks book which he wrote against the Bishops with much labour, and perused it with no less Patience. And there is not in it the least shadow of any Argument, that the Bishops ought not to sit in Parliament, because they had no succession or consecration. What did my Lord Brooks regard succession or Consecration or holy orders, who had a Coachman to be his preacher. The less Canonical the ordination had been, the more he would have applauded it. Time and place and form and all were agreeable to that Christian liberty which he dreamt of, it was not want of consecration, but consecration itself which he excepted against, as all men knew who knew him. And in this quarrel he lost his life, after a most remarkable and almost miraculous manner, at the siege of Lichfield Church, upon St. Ceaddas' anniversary day, who was the founder of that Church and Bishop of it.  
I know the Fathers will be troubled much, that this which they have published to the view of the world, concerning the Bishop of Durrham, as a truth so evident which no man can have the impudence to deny, should be denied, yea denied positively and throughout, denied not only by the Bishop of Durrham himself, but by all the Lords spiritual and Temporal that can be met with, Denied by some Lords of their own communion, who understand themselves as well as any among them, though their names are not subscribed, to the certificate, Denied by the Clerks of the Parliament, whose office it is to keep a diary of all the speeches made in the house of the Peers For Proof hereof First I produce the Protestation of the Bishop of Duresme himself, attested by witnesses in the presence of a public Notary. Take it in his own words.  
Whereas I am most injuriously and slanderously traduced, by a nameless Author, calling himself N. N. in a book said to be printed at Roven 1657. entitled [a treatise of the nature of Catholic faith and haeresy], as if upon the praesenting of a certain book to the upper house in the beginning of the late Parliament, proving as he saith the protestant Bishops had no succession nor consecration, and therefore were no Bishops, and by consequence ought not to sit in Parliament, I should make a speech against the said book in my own and all the Bishop's behalves, endeavouring to prove succession from the last Catholic Bishops as he there styles them,) who by imposition of hands ordained the first protestant Bishops, at the nags head in cheapsyde, as was notorious to all the world, etc.  
I do hereby in the presence of Almighty God solemnly protest and declare to all the world, that what this Author there affirms concerning me is a most notorious untruth and a gross slander. For to the best of my knowledge and remembrance, no such book as he there mentions was ever presented to the upper house in that or any other Parliament, that ever I sat in. And if there had, I could never have made such a speech as is there pretended, seeing I have ever spoken according to my thoughts, and always believed that fable of the Nagges head consecration to have proceeded from the father of lies; as the Authentic Records of the Church still extant, which were so faithfully transcribed, and published by Mr. Mason, do evidently testify. And whereas the same impudent Libeler doth moreover say, that what he there affirms was told to many, by one of the ancientest Peers of England, present in Parliament, when I made this pretended speech: and that he is ready to depose the same upon his oath: And that he can not believe any will be so impudent, to deny a thing so notorious, whereof there are as many witnesses living, as there are Lords and Bishops that were that day in the upper house of Parliament etc. I answer, that I am very unwilling to believe any peer of England should have so little sense of his Conscience and honour, as either to swear or so much as affirm such a notorious untruth. And therefore for the justification of myself and Manifestation of the truth in this Particular, I do freely and willingly appeal (as he directs me) to those many honourable persons, the Lord Spiritual and temporal yet alive, who sat in the house of Peers in that Parliament, or to as many of them as this my Protestation shall come to, for a true certificate of what they know or believe Concerning this matter. Humbly desiring them and charging it upon their souls, as they will answer it to god at the day of judgement, that they will be pleased to testify the truth, and nothing but the truth herein, to the best of their knowledge and remembrance, without any favour or affection to me at all. I cannot reasonably be suspected by any indifferent man, of dening any thing that I know or believe to be true, seeing I am so shortly in all probability to render an account to the searcher of hearts of all my words and actions, being now (at the least) upon the ninetyfifth year of my age. And I acknowledge it a great mercy and favour of God, that he hath reserved me thus long, to clear the Church of England and myself of this most notorious Slander, before he takes me to himself. For I can not imagine any reason, why this shameless writer might not have cast the same upon any of my Reverend Brethren as well as me, but only that I being the eldest, it was probable I might be in my grave, before this untruth could be taken notice of in the world. And now I thank god I can cheerfully sing my nunc dimittis, unless it please him to reserve me for the like service hereafter: for I desire not to live any longer upon earth, than he shall be pleased to make me his instrument to defend the truth, and promote his glory. And for the more solemn and full Confirmation of this my free and voluntary protestation and declaration I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this seventeenth day of july. Anno Domini 1658.  
THOMAS DURESME.  
Signed sealed published and declared, in the presence of Tho: Sanders Sen:, Tho: Sanders jun:, john Barwick Clerk, R: Grace, Evan Davies.  
I Tobias Holder public Notary, being requested by the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Lo. Bishop of Duresme, at the house of Thomas Sanders Esquire, in the Parish of Flamstead, in the County of Hartford, in the year of our Lord month and day above specified, was then and there personally present, where and when the said Reverend Bishop did Sign publish and declare this his Protestation and declaration above written, to be his Act and deed, and did cause his Authentic Episcopal Seal, to be there to affixed, in the presence of the witnesses whose names are there to subscribed. And did there and then likewise sign publish and declare as his Act and deed, another of the same Tenor written in paper, which he Signed with his Manual Seal, in the presence of the same witnesses. All this I heard, saw, and therefore know to be done. In Testimony whereof I have subscribed and thereto put my usual and accustomed Notaries Sign.  
TOBIAS HOLDER. Public Notary.  
How doth this so solemn Protestation agree with the former Relation of the Fathers, that the Bishop of Durham affirmed publicly in the upper house that the first Protestant Bishops were Consecrated in the Nagges head, that they were not Consecrated at Lambeth, that this was notorious to all the world, that it is not Credible that any will be so impudent as to deny it, that all the rest of the Bishops approved his assertion by their silence, and were glad to have such a retiring place against the Presbyterians, that none of the Bishops did give credit to Mr. Masons new found Registers? Even as light and Darkness, or truth and falsehood, or two Contradictory Propositions do agree together. This is the first witness whom any of that party hath adventured to cite publicly and directly for that infamous story whilst he was living. And they see the success of it. I hope they will be wiser hereafter, then to cite any more living witnesses.  
But it may be that they who do not stick to suppose that our Arch-Bishops make false certificates, may object this is but the Testimony of the Bishop of Durham in his own cause. Let us see whether the other Bishop's dissent from the Bishop of Duresme. Take the Testimony of them all, who sat in that Parliament, which are now lining except the Bishop of Bangor, whose absence in Wales is the only reason why he is not a subscriber with the rest.  
Whereas we the surviving Bishops of the Church of England, who sat in the Parliament begun at Westminster the third day of November 1640, are required by our Reverend Brother the Lord Bishop of Duresme, to declare and attest the truth, concerning an imputation cast upon him in the Pamphlet of that nameless Author, mentioned in his Protestation and Declaration here prefixed. And whereas we are obliged to perform what he requesteth, both for the justification of the truth, and for the clearing of ourselves of another slanderous aspersion, which the same Author casteth upon us, as if we had heard our said Reverend Brother make such a speech as is there pretended, and by our silence had approved, what that Libeler falsely affirmeth was delivered in it. We do hereby solemnly protest and declare before God and all the world, that we never knew of any such book presented to the house of Peers, as he there pretendeth, nor believe any such was ever presented: And therefore could never hear any such speech made against it, as he mentioneth, by our said Reverend brother or any other, much less approve of it by our silence. And if any such book had been presented, or any such speech had been made, there is none among us so ignorant or negligent of his duty in defending the truth, but would have been both able and ready to have confuted so groundless a fable, as the pretended consecration of Bishops at the Nagges head, out of the Authentic and known registers of the Church still extant, mentioned and faithfully transcribed and published by Mr. Mason so long before. For the confirmation of which truth, and attestation of what our said Reverend Brother hath herewith Protested and declared, we have hereunto set our hands. Dated the 19th. day of july Anno Domini 1658.  
LONDON. M. ELI. BR. SARUM. BATH. & WELLS. JO. ROFFENS. OXFORD.  
If all these proofs seem not satisfactory to the Fathers, they shall have more. Let them take the Testimony of the Principal Peers now living, who sat then in Parliament.  
We of the Lords temporal whose names are here under written, who sat in the Parliament begun at Westminster the third day of November 1640, being desired by the Bishop of Duresme to testify our knowledge concerning an imputation cast upon him, about a speech pretended to be made by him in that Parliament, more particularly mentioned and disavowed in his prefixed Protestation, Do hereby testify and Declare, that to the best of our present knowledge and remembrance, no such book against Bishops as is there mentioned, was presented to the house of Peers in that Parliament. And consequently, that no such speech as is there pretended, was or could be made by him or any other against it. In testimony whereof we have signed this our attestation with our own hands. Dated the nineteenth day of july Anno Domini 1658.  
DORCHESTER. RUTLAND. LINCOLN. CLEVELAND. DOVER. LINDSEY. SOUTHAMTON. DEVONSHIRE. MONMOUTH.  
To this proof nothing remaineth that can be added, but only the testimony of the Clerk of the Parliament, who after a diligent search made in the book of the Lords house, hath with his own hand written this short Certificate, in the margin of one of your books pag. 9 over against your relation, Upon search made in the book of the Lords house, I do not find any such book presented, nor any entry of any such speech made by Bishop Morton.  
HENRY SCOBEL CLERK▪ Of the Parliament▪  
And now methinks I hear the Father's blaming of their own credulity, and rashness, and over much confidence. They had forgotten Epictetus his rule, Remember to distrust. I judge them by myself, Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum pu●o. One circumstance being either latent or mistaken, may change the whole drift and scope of a relation. But though we would be contented to lend a skirt of our coat, to cover the fault of them who calumniate our Church: yet this relation can never be excused in any man from a most grievous mistake, where both the person, and the whole scope of his discourse is altogether mistaken. This is almost as great a mistake as the Nagges head Ordination itself, where a confirmation dinner was mistaken for a solemn consecration. But those who cherish such mistakes for advantage, and deck them up with new matter, and publish them to the world for undoubted truths, can not be excused from formal calumny.  
The last thing to be considered in this first part of this discourse, being the vindication of the Reverend Bishop of Duresme, is concerning the witness, whom as the Fathers do forbear to name, so shall I. Of whom they say four things, ● that he is one of the Ancientest▪ Peers of England, that he was present in Parliament when Morton made this speech, that he will take his Oath of the truth of it, and that he can not believe that any will be so impudent to deny it. We have no dispute concerning the antiquity of Peerage, Let that pass: but I am confident whatsoever his present judgement had been either of the speaker or of the speech, your witness would have abstained from uncivil language, as to style the Reverend Bishop of Duresme a pretended Bishop, and plain Morton, without either welt or guard He would not have forgotten all his degrees both in the Church and in the Schools. He will not charge all them with down right Impudence, who tell him that he was doubly mistaken: Nor call that notorious to all the world, which he himself acknowledgeth that he never heard of before in his life. He is not guilty of those inferences, and eo nominee which you have added. I do not believe that he doth, or ever did know the Bishop of Duresme▪ so well as to swear this is the man: Nor doth take himself to be so exact an Analyser of a discourse, as to be able to take his Oath what was the true scope of it, pro or contra; especially when some thing is started that doth quite divert his attention, as the sound of the market bell did the Philosopher's Auditors.  
This is my Charity. And my ground for it is this. When I had once conference with him about this relation, he told me the name of the Naggeshead did surprise him, and he betook himself to inquire of another what it meant. And when I urged to him, that it was incredible that any Protestant Bishop should make such a speech, unless he used it only by way of Supposition, as argumentum ad hominem, a reason fit for my Lord Brooks, that such a Consecration as that was, agreed well enough with his principles, He told me he knew not that, the Bishop might answer so for himself.  
To conclude, I have heard the Bishop of Lincoln did once mention the Fable of the Nagges head in a speech in Parliament, but with as much Detestation of it, as our Ancestors used to name the Devil. Why might not the mistake both of the person, and of the drift or scope of his speech, be the occasion of this relation? I had rather out of charity run into two such right handed errors, then condemn a Noble Gentleman of whose ingenuity I never had any reason to doubt, of a malicious lie. Take it at the very best, the mistake is great enough, to mistake both the person of the speaker, and the scope of his speech. I hope they will all do that which in Conscience they are obliged to do, that is acquit the Bishop of Duresme, and crave his pardon for their mistake. If they do not, the world will acquit him, and condemn them. But the greatest mistake of all others was, to publish such a notorious untruth to the world, so temerariously without better advice.   

CHAP. III. Three reasons against the Nags head Consecration, 1. from the Contradictions of the Relaters, 2. from the lateness of the Discovery, 3. from the Strictness of our laws.  
NOw having beaten Down the Pillar about their ears, which they had set up to underproppe their Nagges head Ordination, it remaineth next to assault the main fable itself, as it is related by these Fathers. Having told, how the Protestant Doctors who were designed for Bishoprics in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' Reign, had prevailed with Anthony Kitchen Bishop of Landaffe, to give them a meeting at the Nagged head in Cheapesyde, in hope ●he would Ordain them Bishops there. And how the Bishop of Landaffe through Bishop Bonner's threaten refused, (all which shall be examined and laid open to the view of the world in due order, how it is stuffed with untruth and absurdities.) They add, that being thus deceived of their expectation, and having no other means to come to their desires (that is, to obtain consecration), they resolved to use Mr. Scories' help, an Apostate religious Priest, who having borne the name of Bishop in King Edward the sixths' time, was thought to have sufficient power to perform that Office, especially in such a straight necessity as they pretended. He, having cast of together with his Religious habit all scruple of conscience, willingly went about the matter, which he performed in this sort. Having the bible in hand, and they all kneeling before him, he laid it upon every one of their heads or shoulders, saying, take thou Authority to preach the world of God sincerely. And so they rose up Bishops of the new Church of England. This narration of the consecration at the Nagges head (they say) they have taken out of Holywood, Constable, and Dr. Champneys works. They might as well have taken it out of Aesop's fables, and with as much credit or expectation of truth on our parts.  
So the controversy between them and us is this. They say that Arch Bishop Parker and the rest of the Protestant Bihops, in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' reign, or at the least sundry of them were consecrated at the Nagges head in Cheapesyde together, by Bishop Scory alone, or by him and Bishop Barlow jointly, without Sermon, without Sacrament, without any solemnity, in the year 1559. (but they know not what day, nor before what public Notaries,) by a new fantastic form. And all this they say upon the supposed voluntary report of Mr. Neale (a single malicious spy,) in private to his own party, long after the business pretended to be done.  
We say Arch Bishop Parker was consecrated alone, at Lambeth, in the Church, by four Bishops, authorised thereunto by Commission under the great Seal of England, with Sermon, with Sacrament, with all due solemnities, upon the 17 day of December Anno 1559. before four of the most eniment public Notaries in England; and particularly by the same public Notary who was Principal Actuary both at Cardinal Poles Consecration and Arch Bishop Parkers. And that all the rest of the Bishops were▪ Consecrated at other times, some in the same month but not upon the same day, some in the same year but not the same month, and some the year following. And to prove the truth of our relation and falsehood of theirs, we produce the Registet of the See of Canterbury, as authentic as the world hath any, the Registers of the other fourteen Sees then vacant, all as carefully kept by sworn Officers as the Records of the Vatican itself. We produce all the Commissions under the privy seal and great Seal of England: We produce the rolls or Records of the Chancery; And if the Records of the Signet office had not been unfortunately burned in King james his time, it might have been verified by those also: We produce an Act of Parliament express in the point, within seven years after the Consecration: We produce all the controverted Consecrations published to the world in print Anno 1572▪ three years before Arch Bishop Parker's death, whilst all things were fresh in men's memories. These bright beams had been able to dazzle the eyes of Mr. Neale himself, whilst he was living, and have made him recant his lewd lie, or confess himself stark blind.  
The first reason which I bring against this ridiculous fable, 
The first reason.  it taken from the palpable Contradictions, and gross absurdities and defects of those Roman Catholic writers, who have related this silly tale of a tub, and agree in nothing but in their common malice against the Church of England. It is no strange matter for such as write upon hearsay, or rely upon the exact truth of other men's notes or memories, to mistake in some inconsiderable circumstance: as to set down the name of a place amiss, which may be the transcribers fault, or the printers, as well as the Authors: Or to say two Suffragans for one, when there were two named in the Commission, and but one present at the Consecration. Such immaterial differences which are so remote from the heart of the Cause, about indifferent Circumstances, may bring the exactness of the Relation into question, but not the substantial truth of it. Such petty unsignificant variations, do rather prove that the Relations were not made upon compact or confederacy. Especially where there are original Records taken upon the place by sworn Notaries, whose names, and hands, and Acts are as well known to every man versed in the Records of those times, as a man knoweth his own house. To which all Relaters and Relations must submit, and are ready to submit as to an infallible rule.  
But he who should give credit to such a silly senseless fable as this is, which is wholly composed of absurd, improbable, incoherent, inconsistent, contradictory fictions, had need to have a very implicit faith. The greatest show of any accord among them is about the Consecrater, yet even in this they disagree one from another. The common opinion is that Bishop Scory alone did consecrate them. But Mr. Constable one of their principal authors supposeth, that Bishop● Barlow might join with him in the Consecration. And Sanders, whose pen in other cases useth to run over, one who had as much malice as any of them, and had reason to know the passages of those times better than all of them, leaveth it doubtful, when, or where, or by whom they were ordained, quomodocunque facti sunt isti Pseudo-Episcopi; by what means soever they were ordained.  
But they disagree much more among themselves, who they should be that were ordained. First Mr. Waddesworth (whose ingenuity deserveth to be commended) doth not say that any of our Bishops were actually consecrated there, but only that there was an attempt to consecrate the First of them, that was Archbishop Parker. But that which destoyeth the credit of this attempt is this, that it is evident by the Records, that Archbishop Parker was not personally present at his Confirmation in Bowes Church, or at his Confirmation dinner at the Nagges head, which gave the occasion to this merry Legend: but was confirmed by his Proctor Nicholas Bullingham Doctor in the Laws, upon the ninth of December Anno 1559. A man may be confirmed by Proxy, but no man can be ordained by proxy. It is a ruled case in their own law, Non licet Sacramentum aliquod praeter matrimonium absenti administrare. So if there was an attempt to consecrate any man at the Nagges head, it must be Doctor Bullingham, it could not be Arch Bishop Parker.  
Others say there was more than an attempt, that one or more of them were actually ordained there: but they name none. Others name some, but they accord not one with another in naming of them. Some say, jewel, Sands, Horn, Grindall; where was Arch Bishop Parker? Others say, Parker, Grindall, Horn, Sands. Lastly others say, they were all ordained there, who were named to Bishoprics, and number fifteen of them. These fathers speak indefinitely, Parker and his fellows. But they seem to extend this word fellows as far as Doctor Champneys fifteen: for they tell us, that they all kneeled down before him, and he laid the Bible upon every one of their heads or shoulders. Thus these Cadmean brethren, like those false witnesses which testified against Christ, destroy one another with their mutual Contradictions.  
Thirdly, the time is a principal Circumstance in all Consecrations, and is evermore most punctually recorded by the Actuaries, or public Notaries. But in this fabulous Relation the time is concealed. It seemeth the Forger was no good Actuary, and either did not know how material that Circumstance was, or had forgotten it. Only Doctor Champney telleth us, that it was before the ninth of September Anno 1559. But this is not precise enough for an Act: and moreover, it is most apparently false and impossible. For whereas there are two Commissions under the great Seal of England, for the Confirmation and Consecration of Arch Bishop Parker, both recorded in the Rolls; the one which was not executed, dated the said very ninth day of September; and the other which was executed, dated the sixth day of December following: if Doctor Champney said true, Arch Bishop Parker was consecrated before he was confirmed, yea before there was any Commission out, either for his Consecration or Confirmation; which is one of the drowsiest dreams that could drop from an English pen.  
Lastly, every Consecration must be performed before one or more public Notaries. (We shall show them Notaries enough of great eminence, beyond all exception, for Archbishop Parker's true Consecration.) And indeed what could a Consecration avail any man, without a public Notary to Record it, to make an authentic Certificate of it under the seal of the principal Consecrater? Now who recorded the Nags head Consecration? who drew it up into Acts? Who certified it? No body, because the silly forger did not understand what things were requisite to a Consecration. Only as the Athenians sometimes said of Metiochus, Metiochus grinds the corn, Metiochus bakes the bread, Metiochus mends the highways, Metiochus doth all, an evil year to Metiochus: So we may say of Mr. Neale; Mr. Neale was the spy, Mr. Neale was the witness, Mr. Neale was the public Notary, Mr. Neale was the chief Eugenier or forger, Mr. Neale was all, what honours are due to Mr. Neale?  
Qui tot sustinuit, qui tanta negotia solus.  
So they feign a Consecration without a public Notary, or (which is all one) no man ever knew who that public Notary was; At a time impossible, or else no man knoweth at what time; without any certainty who consecrated, whether Scory alone, or Scory and Barlow together, or God knoweth who; and yet with much less certainty who were consecrated, whether none at all, but only an attempt was made, or one, and who that one was; or some indefinitely, without naming who they were, or how many they were; or four expressly, but dissenting one from another who those four were. Here is a story composed altogether of uncerteinties and contradictions, like A man and no man, ●it a bird and no bird, on a tree and no tree, with a stone and no stone. To make this uncerteine, groundless, contradictory rumour, to be the touchstone of truth, and to overbalance all the authentic Records of the Kingdom, in a matter of such public concernment: is just to make the Parish clock go truer than the Sun, because the Clerk who sets it is our Friend.  
My second reason against this senseless fable, 
Seeond reason.  is the late discovery of it to the world, and the long concealing of it in▪ holes and corners before they durst adventure present it to the view of the world, Can any man who is in his right wits be so stupid as to imagine, that the Nagges head Ordination happened in the year 1559, and (if these Fathers say truly) was notoriously known to all the world; and that it should never once Peep into the light for almost a whole age after it was pretended to have been done, that is till after the year sixteen hundred? We use to say a monster is but nine day's wonder: but this ugly monster was not taken notice of in the world until after forty years. The reason is evident; Either it was then but newly hatched, or it had been kept all that time at dry nurse in a closet. If it had been so notorious to all the world from the year 1559 as the father's feign, all the windows in the Nagges head would have been full of it, and the room would have been showed to all their guests, where such a prodigious pageant had been acted.  
I dare appeal to the judgements of these Fathers themselves, whether it be Credible, that this story should be notoriously known to the world in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' reign, and yet neither Stapleton, nor Harding, nor Bristol, nor Alan, nor Reynolds, nor Parsons, nor any one of all their Roman Catholic writers, should so much as mention it for forty years ensuing; especially writing so much as they did upon that very subject, the validity or invalidity of our Ordination. How could their silence have been excused from betraying of their cause, to lose such an egregious advantage? Was it peradventure out of affection to us, to conceal the Defects of the Protestants? No, they had will enough, but they durst not avouch such a Monstrous untruth in earnest, (if ever they did hear of such a vain rumour, which I can not easily believe,) so contrary to the knowledge of that age.  
Especially let them tell me how it cometh to pass, that Nicolas Sanders, who professeth to write the Ecclesiastical history of England, from the one and twentieth year of Henry the eighth, until the Eight and twentieth year of Queen Elisabeth then current, in his three books of the Original and progress of the English Schism, hath not one syllable of the Nagges head Ordination? He was never accused of partiality for the Protestants, (but as malicious against the Protestants as any man could wish): nor of concealing truths to their advantage, but of Devising fables to their prejudice.  
He having related the form of our English Consecrations, partly true and partly false, proceedth to this first Ordination of Protestant Bishops, in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' Reign; alleging that the Catholic Bishops refused to impose hands upon them, 
De Schism. Angl. c. 3. p. 400. Edit Rom.  And that they had not of themselves two or three Bishops, or so much as one Metropolitan. What a shameless untruth is this, that there were not two or three Protestant Bishops, when the Queen's Commission under the great Seal of England, recorded in the Rolls, is directed to seven Protestant Bishops, expressly by their names and titles?  
He addeth, that they were very instant with an Irish Arch Bishop to have presided at their Ordination, but he would not. He mistaketh the matter altogether, They might have had seven Irish Arch Bishops and Bishops if they had needed them; where the proceedings were not so rigorous, where the old Bishops complied and held their places, and joined in such Ecclesiastical Acts, until they had made away to their kindred, all the lands belonging to their Sees. We found one Bishopric reduced to five marks a year by these temporisers, another to forty shillings a year, and all of them to very poor pittances for Prelates. But by this means there wanted no Ordeiners. Never did any man question the Ordination of the first Protestant Bishops in Ireland until this day.  
Then he telleth, how being thus rejected by the Catholic Bishops and the Irish Arch Bishop, they applied themselves to the lay Magistrate in the ensuing Parliament for a confirmation, from whence they were called Parliamentary Bishops. By whom were they called so? By no man but himself and his fellows. How many Ordinations were passed over, one after another, before that Parliament? Was there any thing moved in this Parliament, concerning any the least essential of our Episcopal Ordination? Not at all, but only concerning the repealing and reviving of an English Statute. English Statutes can not change the essentials of Ordination, either to make that Consecration valid which was invalid, or that invalid which was valid. The validity or invalidity of Ordination, dependeth not upon humane law, but upon the institution of Christ. Neither did we ever since that Parliament change one syllable in our form of Ordination. Then what was this Confirmation which he speaks of? It was only a Declaration of the Parliament, that all the Objections which these men made against our Ordinations, were slanders and calumnies: and that all the Bishops which had been ordained in the Queen's time, had been rightly ordained, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England, and the Laws of the Land. These men want no confidence, who are not ashamed to cite this Statute in this case. But we shall meet with this Parliament again.  
In all this impertinent Discourse, where is the fable of the Nagges head Ordination▪ It had been a thousand times more material than all this jargon. And you may be sure it had not been missing, if there had been the least grain of truth in it, or is there had but been any suspicion of it when that was written. It was not then full thirty years after Archbishop Parker's Consecration, and there were store of eye-witnesses living to have hissed such a senseless fable out of the world, And therefore Sanders very prudently for himself, after so many intimations, passeth by their Ordination in a deep silence, which was the only work he took in hand to show. Qualescunque fuerint aut quo modocunque facti sint isti Pseudo-Episcopi etc. What manner of persons soever these False-Bishops were, or after what manner soever they were ordained etc. If Bishop Scory had ordained them all at the Naggeshead, by layng a Bible upon their heads, and this form of words, Take thou Authority to preach the word of god Sincerely, M. Sanders needed not to have left the case so doubtful, how they were ordained. And if there had been the least suspicion of it, he would have blown it abroad upon a silver Trumpet: but God be thanked there was none. The universal silence of all the Romish writers of that age, when the Naggeshead Ordination is pretended to have been done, in a case which concerned them all so nearly, and which was the Chief subject of all their disputes; is a convincing proof to all men who are not altogether possessed with prejudice, that either it was devised long after, or was so lewd a lie, that no man dared to own it, whilst thousands of eyewitnesses of Arch Bishop Parker's true Consecration at Lambeth were living.  

The third Reason.  A third reason, against this ridiculous libel of the Nagges head Consecration, is taken from the strictness of our laws, which allow no man to consecrate or be consecrated but in a sacred place, with due matter and form, and all the Rites and Ceremonies prescribed by the Church of England. No man must be Consecrated by fewer than four Bishops, or three at least, And that after the Election of the Dean and Chapter is duly confirmed, And upon the mandate o● Commission of the King under the great seal of England; under the pain of a Praemunire, that is, the forfeiture of lands, and goods, 
25. H. 8. c. 20.  and livings, and liberty, and protection. They allow not Consecration in a Tavern, without due mat: and form, without the Ceremonies and solemnity prescribed by the Church, without Election, without Confirmation, without letters Patents, by one single Bishop, or two at the most; such as they feign the Nags head Ordination to have been. Who can believe, that two Arch-Bishops and thirteen Bishops, having the reputation of learning and prudence, should wilfully thrust themselves into an apparent Praemunire, to forfeit not only their Arch Bishoprics and Bishoprics, but all their estates and all their hopes, for a fantastic form, and scandalous Consecration: when the Queen and Kingdom were favourable to them, when the form prescribed by the Church did please them well enough, when there were protestant Bishops of their own Communion enough to Consecrate them, when all the Churches in the Kingdom were open to them; unless it had been Midsummer moon in December▪ and they were all stark mad, and then it is no matter where they were consecrated?  
In criminal causes, where things are pretended to be done against penal laws, ●uch as this is, the proofs ought to be clea●er than the noon day light. Here is nothing proved, but one single witness named ●nd he a professed enemy, who never testified it upon Oath, or before a judge, or so much as a public Notary, or to the face of a protestant, but only whispered it in corners (as it is said by Adversaries) among some of his own party. Such a testimony is not worth a deaf nut, in any cause between party and party. If he had been a witness beyond all exception, and had been duly sworn and legally examined▪ yet his testimony in the most favourable cause had been but half 〈◊〉 proof, though an hundred did testify it from his mouth, it is still but 〈◊〉 single testimony: And as it is, it i● plain prittle prattle. and aught to be valued no more than the shadow of an ass▪ To admit such a testimony, or an hundred such testimonies, against the public authentic Records of the Kingdom were to make ourselves guilty of more madness, than they accuse the Bishop's of● If St. Paul forbid Timothy to recei●● an accusation against a single Presbyter under two or three witnesses, he would no● have us to condemn fifteen Bishops of such a penal crime, upon a ridiculous rumour contrary both to the laws and Records of the Kingdom. The severity of ou● laws doth destroy the credit of this fable.   

CHAP. III. The fourth and fifth reasons against this improbable fiction, from the no necessity of it, and the less advantage of it.  
MY fourth plea is, because there was no need to play this counterfeit pageant. We use to say Necessity hath no law. that is, regardeth no law. In time of war the laws are silent, but this was a time of peace. First there could be no necessity why they should have a clandestine Consecration, without a Register or public Notary, when they might have had an Army of public Notaries ready upon their whistle, even under their elbows at Bows Church, out of the Courts of the Arches, and the Audience, and Prerogative. Secondly, there was no necessity why they should anticipate the Queen's Letters patents for their consecration, by whose gracious favour they were elected, and of the accomplishment whereof in due time they could not doubt; unless they would wilfully destroy their own hopes, by such a mad prank as this had been, that is, unless they would themselves hew down the bough where upon they stood. Thirdly, there was no necessity that they should choose a common Tavern for the place of their Consecration, when the Keys of all the Churches in the Kingdom were at their Command, Fourthly, there could be no necessity why they should desert the form of Ordination prescribed by the Law, which was agreeable both to their judgements, and to their desires, and to their duties; and to omit the essentials of Ordination, both matter and form, which they knew well enough, to be consecrated after a new brainsick manner.  
Then all the necessity which can be pretended, is want of a competent number of Ordeiners. Suppose there had been such a necessity to be ordained by two Bishops, or by one Bishop, this very necessity had been a sufficient Dispensation with the rigour of the Canons, and had justified the Act. as St. Gregory pleadeth to Augustine▪ In the English Church wherein there i● no other Bishop but thyself, 
Resp. Int. 8. August.  thou can● not ordain a Bishop otherwise then alone▪ And after this manner, our First English Bishops were ordained. And so might these protestant Bishops have been validely ordained, if they received the essentials of Ordination. But what a remedy is this, because they could not have a competent number of Bishops, according to the canons of the Church, and the laws of England, therefore to reject the essentials of Ordination, for a defect which was not essential, and to cast of obedience to their superiors, both civil and Ecclesiastical? This had been just like little children which because they can not have some toy which they desire, cast away their garments, and whatsoever their Parents had provided for them, Want of three Bishops might in some cases make a consecration illegal or uncanonical, but it could not have rendered it invalide, as this silly pretended Ordination had.  
But now I come up close to the ground work of the fable, 
Rot. 14. Pars 2. Elisab.  and I deny positively that there was any such want of a competent number of Bishops, as they pretend. And for proof hereof, I bring no vain rumours or uncertein conjectures, but the evident and authentic testimony of the great seal of England, affixed to the Queen's Levers Patents, for authorising the Confirmation and Consecration of Archbishop Parker, dated the sixth day of December, Anno 1559. directed to seven protestant Bishops, namely Anthony Bishop of Landaffe, William Barlow sometimes Bishop of Bath and Welles, and then elect Bishop of Chichester, john Scory sometimes Bishop of Chichester, than Elect Bishop of Hereforde, Miles Coverdale sometimes Bishop of Exeter, john Suffragan Bishop of Bedford, john Suffragan Bishop of The●ford, and john Bale Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. Three are a Canonical number, if there were choice of seven, then there was no want of a competent number to ordain canonically. I add, that if it had been needful, they might have had seven more out of Ireland, Arch Bishops and Bishops, for such a work as a consecration. Ireland never wanted store of Ordeiners. Nor ever yet did any man object, want of a Competent number of Consecraters, to an Irish Protestant Bishop. They who concurred freely in the Consecration of Protestant Bishops at home, would not have denied their concurrence in England, if they had been commanded. Which makes me give no credit to that vain report▪ of an Irish Arch Bishop prisoner in the tower, who refused to comply with the desires of the protestant Bishops, for his liberty and a large reward. But the Arch Bishop wanteth a name, and the Fable wanteth a ground; the witnesses and persuaders are all unkowne. And if there had been a grain of truth in this relation; yet in this case one man is no man, one man's refusal signifieth nothing.  
Against the evident truth of this assertion, two things may be opposed out of the relation of these Fathers. The First is particular, concerning the Bishop of Landaffe, that he was no Protestant, but a Roman Catholic until his death. So they say indeed, that he was the only man of all the Catholic Bishops, that took the oath of Supremacy. Observe how prejudice and partiality doth blindfold men of learning and parts; They confess he took the oath of supremacy, and yet esteem him a good Roman Catholic. I see censures go by favour, and one may Steal an horse, better than another look over the hedge. I am well contented, that they reckon him for so good a Catholic.  
They add, that he knew Parker and the rest which were to be ordered Bishops to be heretics, and averse from the Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, which he Constantly adhered unto, (the Supremacy only excepted) during his life. And a little after they tell us, that he desired to be numbered among Catholics. Now what if the Bishop of Landaff after all this should prove to be a protestant? Then all the Father's story is quite spoiled. And so he was. If he knew Parker and the rest, to be heretics, he knew himself to be one of their brother heretics. His daily mass was the English Leiturgy, as well as theirs, He adhered constantly to a Protestant Bishopric during his life, as well as any of them, And if he did not hold it as long as any of them, it was death's fault, and none of his fault.  
They say they prevailed with him to give them a meeting at the Nagges head in Cheapside, where they hoped he would ordain them Bishops, despairing that ever he would do it in a Church, because that would be too great and notorious a scandal for Catholics. They were too modest. They might easily have prevailed with him, or have had him commanded to join in their consecration in a Church, after a legal manner. He who did not stick at renouncing the Pope, and swearing an oath of Supremacy to his Prince, would not have stuck at a legal Ordination, upon the just command of his Prince. But to desire him to do it in a tavern, in a clandestine manner, without the authority of the great seal, before their election was confirmed, was to desire him out of Courtesy to run into a Praemunire, that is to forfeit his Bishopric of Landaffe, his estate, his liberty. Is it become a more notorious scandal to Catholics, to ordain in a Church, then in a tavern, in the judgement of these fathers? There may be scandal taken at the former, but notorious scandal is given by the later.  
Here Bishop Bonner steppeth upon the stage, and had well near prevented the whole pageant, by sending his chaplain to the Bishop of Landaffe, to forbid him under pain of excommunication to exercise any such power of giving Orders in his diocese, where with the old man being terrified, and other wise moved in conscience refused to proceed. Bishop Bonner was always very fierce which way soever he went: If Acworth say true, 
Acworth cont. monar. Saunder. l. 6. p. 195.  he escaped once very narrowly in Rome, either burning or boiling in scalding lead, for being so violent before the Assembly of Cardinals, against the Pope, on the behalf of Henry the eight, if he had not secured himself by flight. Afterwards he made such bonfires of protestants, and rendered himself so odious, that his prison was his only safeguard from being torn in pieces by the People. But that was, dum stetit Iliam & ingens Gloria Teucrorum, whilst he had his Prince to be his second. Now he was deprived, and had no more to do with the Bishopric of London, then with the Bishopric of Constantinople, he had the habitual power of the Keys, but he had no flock to exercise it upon. If he had continued Bishop of London still, what hath the Bishop of London to do with the Bishop of Landaffe? Par in parem non habet potestatem. Thirdly, Bows Church which is near the Naggeshead, wherein the Ecclesiastical part of this story, so far as it hath any truth in it, was really acted, (that is the Confirmation of Arch Bishop Parker's election) though it be in the City of London, as many Churches more, is not in the Diocese of London, but a Peculiar under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  
Lastly, the Fathers say that when Parker and the rest see that he had refused, they reviled the poor old man, call him doting fool, and some of them saying, This old fool thinketh that we can not be Bishops, unless we be greased. The contrary is evident by the Records of the confirmation, that Arch Bishop Parker was not present in person: So this whole narration is composed of untruths, and mistakes, and incongruities, and contradictions. But that which discovereth the falsity of it apparently to all the world is this, that the Bishop of Landaff lived and died a protestant Bishop, in the reign of Queen Elisabeth, as he had been formerly in the reign of King Edward, for proof whereof I produce two of their own Authors. 
Sand. de Schism. l. 2. p. 350  The one is Sanders, But the Bishops, who had been created out of the Church in those most wicked times, who had now repent from their hearts of their Schism, being not contented with this common dispensation and confirmation, did each of them particularly crave pardon of their former grievous fault from the See Apostolic, and Confirmation in their Bishoprics, excepting the Bishop of Landaffe, who omitting it rather out of negligence than malice, did only relapse into Schism in the reign of Queen Elisabeth, as we interpret it by the just judgement of god. 
Confut. Apol. part 6. c. 2.  He acknowledgeth, that he became a Protestant again, that is in their language, relapsed into Schism. The other is cited by Doctor Harding, We had only one fool among us, (we see whose livery the fool was,) who now I know not by what enticements is become yours, being unworthy the name of a Lord and a Bishop, whose learning is very little, and his credit by this action much lost. Thus writeth Doctor Harding of the Bishop of Landaffe, about the fifth year of Queen Elisabeth, at which time he was living, and continued protestant Bishop of Landaff.  
A second objection against the truth of that which hath been said of the competent Number of our Protestant Bishops to make a canonical Ordination, is an exception against all the seven Bishops named in the letters Patents, that they were no true Bishops, because all of them were ordained in a time of Schism, and two of them in King Edward's time, according to a new form of Ordination, and consequently they could not ordain. That Ordination which was instituted by Edward the sixth was judged invalide by the Catholics, 
Brooks Novel, Cafes placit. 493.  and so declared by public judgement in Queen Mary's reign, in so much as leases made by King Edward's Bishops, though confirmed by Deane and Chapter were not esteemed available, because they were not (saith the sentence) consecrated, nor Bishops.  
To the First part of this objection, that our consecraters were ordained themselves by Schismatics or in a time of Schism, I answer three ways. First this argument is a mere begging of the quaestion. The case in brief is this. If those branches of Papal power which we cast out of England by our Laws at the Reformation, were ●laine usurpations, than our Reformation 〈◊〉 but a reinfanchisement of ourselves, and ●he Schism lieth at their door, than they may question the validity of their own Ordination upon this ground, not ours: But we are ready to maintain to all the world ●hat all those branches of Papal power, which we cast out by our laws at the Reformation, were gross usurpations, ●irst introduced into England above ele●en hundred years after Christ. So this ●art of the Objection concerneth them 〈◊〉 us.  
●econdly these Fathers know well enough, ●●d can not but acknowledge, that according to the principles of the Catholic Church and their own practice, the Ordination not only of Schismatics, but o● heretics, if it have no essential defect i●●valide, and the persons so Ordained aught not to be reordeined, but only reconciled▪ Many Orthodox Christians had their holy orders from heretical Arrians. If Cra●mer, and Latimer, and Barlow, and Hodgkins, were no true Bishops, because the● were ordained in a time of Schism then Gardinar, and Bonner, and Tu●●stall, and Thurleby, etc. were no true Bishops, for they were ordained in a tim● of Schism likewise; then Cardinal Pol● and Bishop Watson, and Christopher's▪ and all rest of their Bishops were no tru● Bishops who were ordained by these. 〈◊〉 to put out one of our eyes (like the envio● man in the fable) they would put out 〈◊〉 their own.  
Thirdly I answer, that it was not we 〈◊〉 made a Discrimination between our bishops and their Bishops, as to the poi●● of Ordination, but the Marian Bishop themselves, who made a mutual co●●pact, one and all, that none of them shoul● impose hands upon any new elect● Bishops; thinking vainly, there could other Consecraters have been found out, and that by this means they should both preserve their Bishoprics, and bring the Queen to their bent: but they found themselves miserably deceived. Many Bishops who had been chased out of their Bishoprics in Queen Mary's days, did now return from exile, and supply the place of Consecraters. Then conjurationis eos penituit, The Bishops repent of their Conspiracy. 
Ace worth. cont. Saunder. l. 2. pag. 197.  Multi ad judices recurrunt, etc. many of them ran to the judges, confessed their obstinacy, and desired leave to take the oath of Supremacy. Thus writeth Acworth an Author of good account in▪ those days. If this foolish conspiracy had not been. we had had no Difference about our Consecrations.  
To the second part of this objection, that the form of Ordaining used in King Edward's days, was declared invalide in Queen Mary's Days, I answer, First, that we have no reason to regard the judgement of their judges in Queen Mary's Days, more than they regard the judgement of our judges in Queen Elisabeths' days. They who made no scruple to take away their lives, would make no scruple to take away their holy Orders.  
Secondly I answer that which the Father's call a sentence, was no sentence. The word is Dicitur, it is said or it is reported, not decretum est, it is decreed. Neither were Queen Mary's laws proper rules, nor Queen mary's judges at common law the proper judges, of the validity of an Episcopal consecration, or what are the essentials of ordination, according to the institution of Christ. They have neither rules, no● grounds for this in the common law.  
Thirdly I answer that the question i● Queen Mary's days was not about the validity or invalidity of our Orders, bu● about the legality or illegality of them, not whether they were conformable to the institution of Christ, but whether they were conformable to the Law's o● England.  
The Laws of England can neither make a valide ordination to be invalide▪ nor an invalide ordination to be valide, because they can not change the institution of Christ. In sum King Edward's Bishop● were both validely ordained according to the institution of Christ, and legally ordained according to the laws of England. 〈◊〉 Queen Mary changed the Law, that the form of ordaining which had been allowed in King Edward's days should not be allowed in her days. Notwithstanding Queen Mary's law, they continued still true Bishops, by the institution of Christ, But they were not for that time legal Bishops in the eye of the Law of England, which is the judge's rule. But when Queen Elisabeth restored King Edward's law, than they were not only true valide Bishops, but legal Bishops again.  
That corollary which the fathers add, in so much as leases made by King Edward's Bishops though confirmed by the Dean and Chapter were not esteemed available, because they were not consecrated or Bishops, that is in ●he eye of the English law at that time, signifies nothing at all. Leases concern the benefice of a Bishop, not the Office of a Bishop. A Bishop who is legally ordained, though ●e be invalidely ordained, may make a lease ●hich is good in law. And a Bishop ●hich is validely ordained, if he be illegally ordained, may make a lease which is zoide in law.  
Concerning Bishop Bonner's Conscience, ●hat he lost his Bishopric for his con●ience, and therefore it is not probable that he would make himself guilty of so much sacrilege, as to declare King Edward's form of ordination to be invalide for the profit of new Leases, it belongeth not to me to judge of other men's Consciences. But for Bishop Bonner's Conscience I refer him to the Testimony of one of his Friends, Nicolas Sanders, who speaking of Bishop Gardiner, Bishop Bonner, Bishop Tunstall and the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester, concludeth with these words. T●●mide ergo restiterunt pueri Regis prima●● spirituali, imo simpliciter subscripseru●, & in omnes caeteras innovationes, quae ne● videbantur ipsis continere apertam haer●●sim, ne Episcopatus & honores perderent ● vel ul●ro, vel comra conscientiam coa● consenserunt. Therefore they resisted the sp●●rituall primacy of the King being but a boy fairly, yea they subscribed to it simply, and they consented to all the rest of the innovations, 
De Schismate l. 2. p. 282 Edit. Rom.  whic● did not seem to them to contain manifest heresy either of their own accord, or compelled again Conscience, lest they should lose their Bishoprics and honours. We see they had no grea● reason to brag of Bishop Bonner's Conscience, who sometimes had been a grea● favourite of Cranmer and Crumwell. He g●● his Bishopric by opposing the Pope, a●● lost his Bishopric by opposing his Prince▪ But if reordination be such a sacrilege, many Romanists are guilty of gross sacrilege, who reordeine those Proselytes whom they seduce from us, with the same essentials, matter and form, imposition of hands, and these words Receive the holy Ghost; wherewith they had been formerly ordained by us.  
Lastly I answer, (and this answer alone is sufficient to determine this controversy,) that King Edward's form of ordination was judged valide in Queen Mary's days by all Catholics, and particularly by Cardinal Pole then Apostolical Legate in England, and by the then Pope Paul the fourth, and by all the clergy and Parliament of England. The case was this. In the Act for repealing all statutes made against the see of Rome, in the first and second years of Philip and Mary, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, representing the whole body of the Realm of England, presented their common request to the King and Queen, that they would be a means to the Legate to obtain some settlements by authority of the Pope's Holiness, for peace sake, in some Articles where of this is one. That institutions of Benefices and other Promotions Ecclesiastical, and Dispensations made according to the form of the Act of Parliament might be confirmed. Institutions could not be confirmed, except Ordinations were confirmed. For the greatest part of the English Clergy had received both their benefices and their holy orders, after the casting out of the Pope's usurped authority out of England. And both benefices and holy orders are comprehended under the name of Ecclesiastical Promotions. This will appear much more clearly by the very words of the Cardinal's Dispensation, Ac omnes ecclesiasticas seculares seu quorumvis ordinum regulares personas, quae aliquas impetrationes, dispensationes, concessiones, gratias & indulta, tam ordines quam beneficia Ecclesiastica, seu alias spirituales materias, pretensa authoritate supremitatis Ecclesiae Anglicanae, licet nulliter & de facto obtenuerint, & ad cor reversae Ecclesiae unitati restitutae fuerint, in suis Ordinibus & beneficiis, per nosipsos seu a nobis ad id deputatos misericorditer recipiemus, prout jam multae receptae fuerunt, secumque super his opportune in domino dispensabimus; And we will graciously receive (or entertain) by ourselves or by others deputed by us to that purpose, 
Cardinal Poles Dispensation.  (as many have already been received) in their Orders and in their Benefices, all Ecclesiastical People as well Secularas Regular of whatsoever Orders, which have obtained any suits, dispensations, grants, graces, and indulgences, as well in their Ecclesiastical Orders, as Benefices and other spiritual matters, by the pretended authority of the Supremacy of the Church of England, though ineffectually and only de facto, so they be penitent, and be returned to the unity of the Church. And we will in due season dispense with them in the Lord for these things.  
Here we see evidently, that upon the request of the Lo●ds Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, being the representative body of the Church and Kingdom of England, by the intercession of the King and Queen, the Pope's Legate did receive all persons, which had been Ordained or Beneficed, either in the time of King Henry or King Edward, in their respective Orders and Benefices, which they were actually possessed of, at the time of the making of this dispensation or Confirmation, without any exception or Condition, but only this, that they were returned to the unity of the Catholic Church. Neither was there ever any one of them who were then returned, either deprived of their Benefices, or compelled to be reordeined. From whence I argue thus, Either King Henry the eighths' Bishops and Priests, and likewise the Bishops and Priests Ordained in King Edward the sixths' time, had all the Essentials of Episcopal and Priestly Ordination, which were required by the institution of Christ; and then they ought not to be reordeined, Then (in the judgement of these Fathers themselves) it is grievous sacrilege to reordeine them: Or they wanted some essential of their respective Ordinations, which was required by the institution of Christ; and than it was not in the power of all the Popes and Legates that ever were in the world, to confirm their respective Orders, or dispense with them to execute their functions in the Church. But the Legate did Dispense with them to hold their Orders, and exercise their several functions in the Church, and the Pope did confirm that dispensation. This doth clearly destroy all the pretensions of the Romanists against the validity of our Orders.  
It may perhaps be objected, that the dispensative word is recipiemus, we will receive, not we do receive. I answer, the case is all one; If it were unlawful to receive them in the present, it was as unlawful to receive them in the future. All that was done after, was to take a particular absolution or confirmation from the Pope or his Legate, which many of the Principal Clergy did, but not all; No not all the Bishops, Not the Bishop of Landaff, as Sanders witnesseth, 
De Schism. l. 2. p. 305.  Yet he enjoyed his Bishopric, So did all the rest if the Clergy, who never had any particular confirmation. It is not material at all, whether they were confirmed by a general or by a special dispensation, so they were confirmed or dispensed with at all, to hold all their Benefices, and to exercise their respective Functions in the Church, which no man can deny.  
Secondly it may be objected, that it is said in the Dispensation, licet nulliter & de facto obtenuerint, Although they had obtained their Benefices and Promotions ineffectually and only in fact without right: which doth intimate that their Orders were void and null, before they had obtained this dispensation. I answer, that he styled them void and null, not absolutely but respectively, quoad exercitium, because by the Roman law they might not be lawfully exercised without a Dispensation: but not quoad Characterem, as to the Character. If they had wanted any thing necessary to the imprinting of the Character, or any thing essential by the institution of Christ, the Pope's Dispensation and Confirmation had been but like a seal put to a blank piece of paper. And so the Cardinal's dispensation in general, and particularly for Benefices and Ecclesiastical Promotions, Dispensations, and Graces given by such Order as the laws of the Realm allowed and prescribed, in King Henry's time and King Edward's time, was then and there ratified by act of Parliament.  
Lastly, that this Dispensation was afterwards confirmed by the Pope, I prove by the confession of Sanders himself, though a malicious enemy. He (that is Cardinal Pole, in a public Instrument set forth in the name and by the authority of the Pope) Confirmed all Bishop which had been made in the former Schism, 
De Schism. l. 2. p. 350.  so they were Catholic in their judgement of Religion, and the six new Bishoprics which King Henry had erected in the time of the Schism. And this writing being affixed to the Statute, was published with the rest of the Decrees of that Parliament, and their minds were pacified. All which things were established and confirmed afterwards, by the Letters of Pope Paul the fourth.  
We have seen, that there were a competent number of Protestant Bishops beyond ' Exception to make a Consecration: And so the necessity, which is their only Basis or Foundation of the Nagges head Consecration, being quite taken away, this prodigious fable having nothing else to support the incredibilities and inconsistencies of it, doth melt away of itself like winter ice.  
The fifth reason is drawn from that well known principle in Rhetoric, 
A fifth reason  Cui bono? or what advantage could such a consecration, as the Nagges head Consecration is pretended to have been, bring to the Consecraters or the persons consecrated. God and Nature never made any thing in vain. The hair of the head, the nails upon the finger's ends, do serve both for ornament and muniment. The leaves defend the blossoms, the blossoms produce the fruit, which is Nature's end. In sensitives, the Spider doth not wove her webs, nor the silly Bee make her celles in vain. But especially intellectual creatures have always some end of their Actions. Now consider, what good such a mock Consecration could do the persons so consecrated? Could it help them to the possession of their Bishoprics by the law of England? Nothing less. There is such a concatenation of our English Customs and Records, that the counterfeiting of of any one can do no good, except they could counterfeit them all, which is impossible.  
When any Bishops See becometh void, there issueth a Writ out of the Exchequer to seize the Temporalties into the King's hand, as being the ancient and well known Patron of the English Church; leaving the Spiritualties to the Arch Bishop or to the Dean and Chapter, according to the custom of the place. Next the King granteth his Congee d'Eslire or his Licence to choose a Bishop, to the Dean and Chapter; upon the receit of this Licence, the Dean and Chapter, within a certain number of days, choose a Bishop, and certify their Election to the King, under the common seal of the Chapter.  
Upon the return of this Certificate, the King granteth out a Commission under the great seal of England to the Arch Bishop, or in the vacancy of the Arch Bishopric to so many Bishops, to examine the Election: and if they find it fairly made to confirm it, and after Confirmation to proceed to the Consecration of the person elected, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England. This Commission or Mandate must pass both through the Signet office and Chancery, and be attested by the Clerks of both those offices, and signed by the Lord chancellor and Lord privy seal, and be enrolled. So as it is morally impossible there should be any forgery in it.  
Upon the receit of this Mandate, the Bishops who are authorised by the King, do meet first at Bowes Church in London, where with the assistence of the Chief Ecclesiastical Judges of the Realm, the Dean of the Arches, the judges of the Prerogative and Audience, with their Registers to Actuate what is done, they do solemnly in form of law confirm the election. Which being done, and it being late before it be done, the Commissioners and judges were and are sometimes invited to the Nagges head to a dinner, as being very near Bows Church, and in those days the only place of note, This meeting led Mr. Neale (a man altogether unacquainted with such forms,) into this fool's Paradise; first to suspect, and upon suspicion to conclude, that they were about an Ordination there, and lastly to broach his brainsick conceits in corners; and finding them to be greedily swallowed by such as wished them true, to assert his own drowsy suspicion for a real truth. But the mischief is, that Doctor Parker who was to be consecrated, was not present in person, but by his Proxy.  
After the Confirmation is done, commonly about three or four days, (but as it happened in Arch Bishop Parker's case nine days,) the Commissioners proceed to the Consecration; for the most part out of their respect to the Archbishop in the Chapel at Lambeth, with Sermon, Sacrament, and all solemnity requisite, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England; in the presence of public Notaries or sworn Officers, who reduce every thing that is done with all the circumstances into Acts, and enter them into the Register of the See of Canterbury. Where they are carefully kept by the principal Officer in a public office, as Records, where every one who desireth may view them from time to time, and have a copy of them if he please. And it is to be noted, that at any Consecration, especially of an Archbishop, great numbers of principal Courtiers and citizen's are present: so as it is no more possible to counterfeit such a Consecration, then to walk ●nvisible upon the Exchange at noon day.  
After the Consecration is done, the per●on Consecrated is not presently admitted to his Bishopric, First the Arch Bishop maketh his certificate of the Consecration with all the circumstances of it, under his Arch-Episcopall seal: Thereupon the King taketh the new Bishop's oath of fealty ●nd commands that he be put into the Actual possession of his Bishopric: Then he is ●nthroned, and at his Inthronisation his Ordination is publicly read: Then he injoieth ●is Spiritualties: Then issueth a Writ out ●f the Exchequer to the Sheriff, to restore ●im to the Temporalties of his Bishopric. This custom is so ancient, so certain, so general, that no Englishman can speak● against it.  
Here we see evidently how all things 〈◊〉 pursue one another, and what a necessary and essential connexion there is between them. So as the stealing of an Election or the stealing of a Consecration, can ge● no man a Bishopric, as Mr. Neale dreamt. He that would advantage himself that way, must falsify all the Records both Ecclesiastical and Civil. He mu●● falsify the Records of the Chancery, 〈◊〉 the Signet office, of the Exchequer, 〈◊〉 the Registries, of the Bishop, of the De●●ne and Chapter. He must counterfeit th● hands and seals of the King, of the Arch● Bishop, of the Lord chancellor, the Lo●● Privy seal, of the Clerks and public● Notaries, which is not imaginable. 〈◊〉 Mr. Neale, who first devised this drow● dream (or somebody for him) had 〈◊〉 more experience of our English laws 〈◊〉 Customs, he would have feigned a mo●● probable tale, or have held his peace fo● ever.  
Answer me, They who are calumniate to have had their Consecration at the N●●ges head, did they mean to conceal it 〈◊〉 have it kept secret? Then what good could it do them? De non existentibus & non apparentibus eadem est ratio: If it were concealed, it was all one a● if it had never been. Or did they mean to have it published? Such an Ordination had been so far from helping them to obtain a Bishopric, that it had rendered them uncapable of a Bishopric for ever: And moreover subjected both the Consecraters and the Consecrated to deprivation, and degradation, and a Praemunire or forfeiture of their lands goods and liberties, and all that were present at it to excommunication. Rome is a fit place wherein to publish such Ludibrious fables as this; where they can persuade the people, that the Protestants are stupid creatures, who have lost their Religion, their reason, and scarcely retain their human shapes. It is too bold an attempt, to obtrude such counterfeit ware●●n England.   

CHAP, FOUR The sixth and seventh reasons, that all the Records of England are diametrally opposite to their Relation, and do establith our Relation.  
HItherto we have been taking in the out works: Now I come directly to assault this Castle in the air, That which hath been said already is sufficient to persuade any man, who is not brim full of prejudice and partiality: The other five reasons which follow next, have power to compel all men, and command their assence▪  
My sixth reason is taken from the diametral opposition which is between this fabulous relation of the Nagges head Ordination▪ and all the Records of England, both Ecclesiastical and civil. First for the time. The Romanists say, that this Ordination was before the ninth of September Ann. 2559: 〈◊〉 it is apparent by all the Records of the Chancery, all the distinct Letters Paten●● or Commissions for their Respective Confirmations, and Consecrations, whereupon they were consecrated, did issue out lo●● after; namely, Arch Bishop Parkers Lette●● Patents (which were the first) upon the sixth day of December following. Next th● Commissions for Grindall, Cox and Sands, Then for Bullingham, jewel, and Davis. Then for Bentham and Barkley: and in the year following for Horn, Alley, Scambler, and Pilkinton. He that hath a mind to see the Copies of these Commissions, may find them Recorded Verbatim both in the Rolls of the Arch Bishop's Register, 
Rot● pars 1 4.2. El.  and in the Rolls of the Chancery. To what end were all these Letters Patents, to authorize so many Confirmations and Consecrations, if the Consecrations were done and passed long before? No man's Election can be confirmed in England, but by virtue of the King's Letters Patents. Therefore the Letters Patents must precede the Confirmation and Consecration, not follow after ●t three months, or four months, or six months, and in some of them above a year.  
And as by the Records of the Chancery, ●o their relation is proved to be a notorious fable, by all the Ecclesiastical Records; first of their several and distinct Confirmations, which pursued their Commissions punctually; Then of their several and distinct Consecrations which pursued their Confirmations punctually. He who desireth ●o see these, may find Authentic Records of them all, both Confirmations and Consecrations, in the Register of the Arch Bishop of Canterbury. It is not the forging of one Record that would serve the turn: Either all these Records must be forged, o● the Nags head Ordination is a silly senseless fable.  
Lastly after the Consecration followeth the Instalment or Inthronisation, which is to be found in the Register of the Dea●● and Chapter: And the Restitution of the new Bishop to his Temporalties by virtue of the King's Writ, mentioning the Confirmation and oath of fealty to the King, 〈◊〉 being temporal things. Observe ho● every one of these do pursue another's Arch Bishop Parker's Commission issue● December the sixth, his Confirmation followed December the ninth, his Consecration December the seventeenth, his Inthronisation forthwith, and the Restitution 〈◊〉 his temporalties the first of March ensu●●ing, that is, at the later end of the ver● next term: But by their Relation, th● Consecration was long before the Election was confirmed, which can not be; Th● Letter Patents to licence the Confirmation and Consecration, come out three moneth● after the Consecration was done, which 〈◊〉 incredible. As for the Confirmation, M● Neale who was their contriver, knew not what it was. The instalment followed three months after the Consecration, and the Restitution to the Temporalties six months after; which have no probability.  
Thus for the time, next for the place. Their lying Relation saith, the elected Bishops were consecrated at the Nagges head: All the Ecclesiastical Records say they were consecrated at Lambeth. The King's Commission injoineth a legal Consecration according to the form prescribed by law: Such a legal Consecration ours at Lambeth was; Such a legal Consecration theirs at the Nagges head was not, neither for the place, nor for the rites, nor for the essentials of Consecration. And without good assurance that the Consecration was legal, neither the person consecrated could have been enthroned, nor made his oath of fidelity to the King, nor have been restored to his Temporalties: but he was enthroned, and did his fealty, and was restored to his temporalties, that is as much as to say, that his Consecration was legally performed at Lambeth, not illegally at the Nagges head.  
Thirdly for the Consecrater. That fabulous Relation feigneth that there was but one Consecrater, or at the most two: the authentic Records of the Church of England testify, that there were four Consecraters. The Letters Patents require that there should be four Consecraters, and without an authentic Certificate that there were four Consecraters, the King● Writ for restitution had not issued.  
They feign that they imposed hands mutually, Scory upon them and they upo● Scorie: But the Records witness that Scor●● was solemnly ordained Bishop in King Edward's time, 
Reg. Cran. fol. 334.  the thirteenth day of Augu●● Anno. 1551, by the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London and the Susfragan Bishop of Bedford; and needed no● to be reordeined at the Nagges head.  
Lastly, for the persons consecrated so● of them feign that all the elected Bishops and all of them say that many of them, we●● consecrated together at one time wi●● Arch Bishop Parker: But all the Records both Civil and Ecclesiastical do testifieth contrary, that they had several Commissions, several Confirmations, several Consecrations, upon several days, in severa● months, in several years, several Co●●secraters; as appeareth most evidently 〈◊〉 only by the Authentic Records of the S● of Canterbury, but also by the Records of the Chancery, And particularly by the several Commissions directed expressly to ArchBishop Parker, as a Bishop actually consecrated, for the Consecration of all the rest, the three first of which Commissions or Letters Patents bear date the eighteenth of December An: 1559, that is the very next day after ArchBishop Parker's Consecration; for the Confirmation and Consecration of Grindall, Cox, and Sands, three of those elected Bishops. He that doubteth of the truth of these Letters Patents, may find them recorded verbatim, both in the Arch-Bishops Registry, and in the Rolls. If they were confirmed and consecrated by Archbishop Parker, than they were not consecrated together with Archbishop Parker, as in that ling relation is affirmed. And with this their subsequent Installements and Restitutions do exactly agree. Either all the Records of England must be false, or this silly fable of the Nagges head is a prodigious forgery.  
Thus we have seen how the Records of England, 
The seventh Reason.  civil and Ecclesiastical, do contradict this tale of a tub. My seventh reareason showeth how the same Records do confirm and Establish our relation. We say first (that the See of Canterbury being void by the death of Cardinal Pole, (who died as some say the very same day with Queen Mary, 
The seventh reason.  others say the day following,) the Queen granted her congee d'es●ire to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury to choose an Archbishop. This is clearly proved by the authentic Copy of the cong● d'eslire itself in the Rolls. 
Rot. pa. 6.1. Elis.  Regina dilect● sibi in Christo Decano & Capitulo Ecclesiae M●tropoliticae Cantuariensis saluiem etc.  
Examinatur RICHARD BROUGHTON.  
Secondly we say, that the Dean and chapter having received this licence, did choose Doctor Matthew Parker for their Archbishop. This is apparent by the Queen's Commission for his Confirmation and Restitution, wherein there is this clause And the said Deane and Chapter, by vir●●● of our licence, have chosen our beloved in Christ Matthew Parker Professor of Theology, for Archbishop and Pastor to them and the aforesaid Church, as by their letters. Patents directed to us thereupon it appeareth more fully.  
Thirdly the Queen accepting this Election, was graciously pleased to issue out two Commissions for the legal Confirmation of the said Election, and consecrating of the said Archbishop. The former dated the ninth of September Anno 1559, Directed to six Bishops, Cuthbert Bishop of Durham, Gilbert Bishop of Bath, David Bishop of Peterburough, Anthony Bishop of Landaff, William Barlow Bishop, and john Scory Bishop, in these words.  
Elisabet● dei gratia Angliae etc. Reverendis in Christo Patribus Cuthberto Episcopo Dunelmensi, 
Ro: Pars 2.1. Elis.  Gilberto Bathoniensi Episcopo, Davidi Episcopo Burgi Sancti Petri, Anthonio Landavensi Episcopo. Willelmo Barlo Episcopo, & johanni Scory Episcopo, Salutem. Cum vacant nuper Sede Archiepiscopali Cantuariensi per mortem naturalem Domini Reginaldi Pole Cardinalis, ultimi & immediati Archi-Episcopi & Pastoris ejusdem, ad humilem petitionem Decani & Capituli Ecclesiae nostrae Cathedralis & Metropoliticae Christi Cantuariensis, eisdem per literas nostras patentes licentiam concesserimus alium sibi eligendi in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem Sedis praedictae. Ac iidem Decanus & Capitulum vigore & obtentu licentiae nostrae praedictae, dilectum nobis in Christo Magistrum Matthaeum Parker Sacrae Theologiae Professorem sibi & Ecclesie praedictae elegerint in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem, prout per literas suas patentes Sigillo eorum communi sigillatas, nobis inde directas, plenius liquet & apparet. Nos electionem illam acceptantes, eidem electioni Regium nostrum assensum adhibuimus pariter & favorem, & hoc vobis tenore praesentium significamus. Rogantes, ac in fide & dilectione quibus nobis tenemini firmiter praecipiendo mandantes, quatenus eundē Magistrum Matthaeum Parker in Archepiscopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae Cathedralis & Metropoliticae, Christi Cantuariensis praedictae, sic ut praefertur electum, electionemque praedictam confirmare, & eundem Magistrum Matthaeum in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae praedictae consecrare, caeteraque omnia & singula peragere, quae vestro in hac parte incumbant officio Pastorali, juxta formam Statutorum in ea parte editorum & provisorum, velitis cum effectu. In cujus rei testimonium etc. Teste Regina apud Redgrave, nono die Septembris Anno Regni Elisabethae Angliae etc. primo.  
Per breve de privato Sigillo.  
Examinatur RI: BROUGHTON.  
Now if any man desire a reason why this first Commission was not executed, the best account I can give him is this, That it was directed to six Bishops, without an [aut minus, or at the least four of you]: so as if any one of the six were sick or absent, or refused, the rest could not proceed to Confirm, or Consecrate. And that some of them did refuse, I am very apt to believe, because three of them not long after were deprived. But the Reader may note, First that there were three Protestant Bishops in that First Commission. They who were such punctual observers of the law of England, that they would not proceed to consecrate without a fourth, in the vacancy of both the archiepiscopal Sees, certainly would never give way to a private profane Ordination at the Nagges head, by one single Bishop. And secondly, that for all their pretended intelligence, our English Romish writers are great strangers to the true passages of those times, knowing nothing but what they hear at Rome, or Rheims, or Douai. If it were otherwise we should have heard of this Commission sooner.  
The second Letters Patents which were executed, were dated the sixth of December following, directed to Anthony Bishop of Landaff, William Barlow sometimes Bishop of Bath, now Elect Bishop of Chicester, john Scory sometimes Bishop of Chichester, now Elect Bishop of Hereford, Miles Coverdale sometimes Bishop of Exeter, Richard Suffragan Bishop of Bedford, john Suffragan Bishop of The●ford, and john Bale Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, in these words.  
Regina etc. Reverendis in Christo Patribus Anthonio Landavensi Episcopo, Willelmo Barlow quondam Bathoniensi Episcopo, nunc Cicestrensi Electo, johanni Scory quondam Cicestrensi Episcopo, nunc Electo Herefordiensi, Miloni Coverdale quondam Exoniensi Episcopo, Richardo Bedfordensi, johanni Thedfordensi, Episcopis Suffraganeis, johanni Bale Ossoriensi Episcopo, Salutem. Cum vacant nuper Sede Archiepiscopali Cantuariensi per mortem naturalem Domini Reginaldi Pole Cardinalis, ultimi & immediati Archiepiscopi & Pastoris ejusdem, ad humilem petitionem Decani & Capituli Ecclesiae nostrae Cathedralis & Metropoliticae Christi Cantuariensis, eisdem per Literas nostras. Patentes licentiam concesserimus alium sibi Eligendi in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem Sedis praedictae, Ac iidem Decanus & Capitulum vigore & obtentu Licentiae nostrae praedictae, dilectum nobis in Christo Magistrum Matthaeum Parker Sacrae Theologiae Professorem, sibi & Ecclesiae praedictae Elegerunt in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem, prout per Literas suas patentes nobis inde directas plenius liquet & apparet. Nos electionem illam acceptantes, eidem electioni Regium nostrum assensum adhibuimus pariter & favorem, & hoc vobis tenore praesentium significamus. Rogantes ac in fide & dilectione quibus Nobis tenemini firmiter praecipiendo mandantes, quatenus vos aut minus quatuor vestrum, eundem Matthaeum Parker in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae Cathedralis & Metropoliticae Christi Cantuariensis praedictae sicut praefertur Electum, electionemque praedictam Confirmare, & eundem Magistrum Matthaeum Parker in Archiepiscopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae praedictae consecrare, Caeteraque omnia & singula peragere, quae vestro in hac parte incumbant officio Pastorali, juxta formam statutorum in ea parte editorum & provisorum, velitis cum effectu. Supplentes nihilominus suprema Authoritate nostra Regia, ex mero motu & certa Scientia nostris, si quid aut in his quae juxta mandatum nostrum praedictum per vos fient, aut in vobis, aut vestrum aliquo, conditione, Statu, facultate vestris, ad praemissa perficienda desit aut dèerit eorum, quae per statuta hujus Regni nostri aut per leges Ecclesiasticas in hac parte requiruntur, aut necessaria sunt, temporis ratione & rerum necessitate id postulante. In cujus Rei etc. Teste Regina apud Westmonasterium sexto die Decembris, Anno Regni Reginae Elisabeth Angliae etc. Secundo.  
Examinatur. RI: BROUGHTON.  
Before I proceed further, to prevent cavils, I must acquaint the Reader, that the Suffragan Bishop of Bedford is misnamed Richard in the Rolls; by what mistake or error, after so long time it is folly to inquire. We may Conjecture how it might easily, and most probably did come to pass: but to say positively how it did come to pass, whether it was the error of the transcriber, or the mistake of him who gave the instructions, or it was no fault at all, (he might have two names, as many have had, and many have and own them severally,) is not possible. In the Ecclesiastical Register of the Church, he is always styled by his right name john, throughout all the Acts of the Confirmation and Consecration of Arch Bishop Parker. Once his name had been written Richard, but it was corrected, and my friend assureth me, that it is the only word in that long narration which is expunged or interlined; So exact is that Record. This is certain, his right name was john, as it is in the Register. To this the Records of his own Consecration, and twenty other Records do bear witness.  
But as to the validity of the Act or Ordination, it is not material whether his name were john or Richard, or both, or neither. So he was truly ordained himself, and did truly concur in ordaining, it is no matter how he is Styled in the Commission, or in the Register. Regal Commissions are no essentials of Ordination▪ Notariall Acts are no essentials of Ordination. The misnaming of the Baptise● in a Parish Register doth not make voide the Baptism. When Popes do consecrate themselves, (as they do sometimes), they d● it by the names of Paul, or Alexander o● Vrbanus, or Innocentius: yet these are not the names which were imposed upon them at their Baptisms, or at their Confirmations, but such names as themselves have been pleased to assume. But to come to more serious matter.  
There are two differences between these two Commissions. The first is an [aut minus, Or at the least four of you], which clause is prudently inserted into all Commissions, where many Commissioners are named, lest the sickness, or absence, or neglect of any one or more, might hinder the work. The question is, why they are limited to four, when the Canons of the Catholic Church require but three. The answer is obvious, because the Statutes of England do require four in case one of the Consecraters be not an Arch Bishop, or deputed by one. Three had been enough to make a valide Ordination, yea to make a Canonical Ordination; and the Queen might have dispensed with her own laws: but she would have the Arch Bishop to be ordained both according to the canons of the Catholic Church, and the known ●awes of England.  
The second difference between the two Commissions is this, that there is a Supplen●es in the later Commission, which is not in the former. [Suppling by our Sovereign authority all defects either in the Execution, or in ihe Executers of this Commission, or any of them]. The Court of Rome in such like instruments have ordinarily such dispensative clauses, for more abundant caution, whether there be need of them or not, to relax all sentences censures, and penalties inflicted either by the law or by the judge.  
But still the question is, to what end was this clause inserted? I answer, it is en● enough, if it serve (as the Court of Rome useth it,) for a certain salve to help any latent impediment, though there be none▪ A superfluous clause doth not vitiate 〈◊〉 writing. Some think it might have reference to Bishop Coverdales' side woollo● gown, which he used at the Consecration toga lanea talari utebatur. That was uncanonical indeed, and needed a dispensation fo● him that used it, not for him who was consecrated. But this was so slender a defe●● and so far from the heart or essence o● Ordination; especially where the three other Consecraters, (which is the canonical number) where formally and regularly habited that it was not worth an intimation und●● the great seal of England. This Miles Coverdale had been both validely and legally ordained Bishop, and had as much power to ordain as the Bishop of Rome himself. If he had been Roman Catholic in his judgement, he had been declared by Cardinal Pole as good a Bishop, as either Bon●er, or Thirleby, or any of the rest.  
Others think, this clause might have relation to the present condition of Bishop Barlow and Bishop Scory, who were not yet enthroned into their new Bishoprics. It might be so, but if it was, it was a great mistake in the Lawyers who drew up the Commission. The Office and the Benefice of a Bishop are two distinct things; Ordination is an act of the Key of Order, and a Bishop uninthroned may ordain as well as a Bishop enthroned. The Ordination of Suffragan Bishops, who had no peculiar Bishoprickes, was always admitted and reputed as good in the Catholic Church, (if the Suffragans had Episcopal Ordination,) as the Ordination of the greatest Bishops in the wolrd.  
But since this clause doth extend it self both to the Consecration and the Consecraters, I am confident that the only ground of it was that same exception, o● rather cavil which Bishop Bonner did afterwards make against the legality of Bishop Horn's Consecration; which is all that either Stapleton or any of our Adversaries ha● to pretend against the legality of the Ordination of our first Protestant Bishop's▪ that they were not ordained according to the prescript of our very Statutes.  
I have set down this case formerly in my replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon▪ But to avoid wrangling, I will put i● down in the very words of the Statute▪ King Edward the Sixth in his time by authority of Parliament, caused the book of Common Prayer and Administration of Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of England, 〈◊〉 be made and set forth, not only for or● uniform Order of Service, Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacrament● to be used whithin this Realm, but also did add and put to the said book, a very godly Order manner and form, ho● Arch-Bishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Ministers, should from time to time be consecrated, made, and ordered, within this Realm. Afterwards it followeth, that in the time of Queen Mary, the several Acts and statutes made in the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth years of King Edward, for the authorising and allowing of the said book of Common prayer and other the premises, were repealed. Lastly the Statute addeth, that by an Act made in the first year of Queen Elisabeth, entitled An act for the uniformity of Common prayer and service in the Church, and administration of Sacraments, the said book of Common Prayer and Administration of Sacraments, and other the said Orders Rites and Ceremonies before mentioned, and all things therein contained, is fully established and authorised to be used in all places within the Realm.  
This is the very case related by the Parliament. Now the exception of Bishop Bonner, and Stapleton, and the rest, was this. The book of Ordination was expressly established by name by Edward the Sixth, And that Act was expressly repealed by Queen Mary: But the book of Ordination was not expressly restored by Queen Elisabeth, but only in general terms under the name and notion of the Book of Common Prayers and administration of Sacraments, and other orders rites and Ceremonies. Therefore they who were ordained according to the said form of Ordination in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' time, were not legally ordained. And those Bishops which had been ordained according to that form in King Edward's time, though they were legally ordained then, yet they were not legal Bishops now, because Quee●● Mary's statute was still in force, and was not yet repealed.  
Is this all? Take courage Reader, Here is nothing that toucheth the validity of our Ordination, but only the legality of it▪ which is easily satisfied. First I answer that Queen Maries Statute was repeale● sufficiently, even as to the book of Ordination; as appeareth by the very word of the Statute which repealed it. A● that the said book, with the order of Service 〈◊〉 of the administration of Sacraments rites 〈◊〉 Ceremonies, shall be after the feast of St. 〈◊〉 Baptist next in full force and effect, any thing 〈◊〉 Queen Mary's Statute of repeal to the contrary in any wise not withstanding. That the book of Ordination was a part of this book, and printed in this book in King Edward's days, besides the express testimony of the Statute in the eighth of Queen Elisabeth we have the authority of the Canons of the Church of England, which call it singularly the book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons. 
Can. 36  It is our form of prayer upon that occasion, as much as our form of baptising, or administering the holy Eucharist, or our form of confirming, or marring, or visiting the sick.  
Secondly, it is also a part of our form of Administration of the Sacraments. We deny not Ordination to be a Sacrament, though it be not one of those two Sacraments, which are generally necessary to salvation.  
Thirdly, although it were supposed that Ordination were no Sacrament, nor the book of Ordination a part of the book of Common prayer: yet no man can deny that it is a part of our Ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, and under that notion sufficiently authorised. Lastly, 
Ejus est legem imerpretari cujus est condere.  They who have legislative power to make a law, have legislative power to expound a law. 
8. Elc. cap. 1.  Queen Elisabeth and her Parliament made the law, Queen Elisabeth and her Parliament expounded the law, by the same authority that made it; declaring that under the book of Common Prayer, the form of Ordination was comprehended and ought to be understood. And so ended the grand cavil of Bishop Bonner and Doctor Sapleton and the rest, of the illegality of our Ordination; showing nothing but this, how apt a drowning cause is to catch hold of every reed,  
That the Supplentes or this dispensative clause had Relation to this cavil, (which as it did break out afterwards into an open controversy, so it was then whispered in corners,) is very evident by one clause in the Statute: that for the avoiding of all questions and ambiguities that might he objected against the lawful Confirmations, investing, and Consecrations of any Arch-Bishops, Bishops etc. the Queen in her Letters Patents had not only used such words as had been accustomed to be used by King Henry and King Edward, but also divers other general words, whereby her Highness by her Supreme power and authority, hath dispensed with all causes and doubts of any imperfection or disability that could be objected. The end of this clause and that Statute was the same: And this was the only question or ambiguity which was moved.  
Yet although the case was so evident, and was so judged by the Parliament, that the form of Consecration was comprehended under the name and notion of the book of Common prayer &c: yet in the indictment against Bishop Bonner, I do commend the discretion of our judges, and much more the moderation of the Parliament. Criminal laws should be written with a beam of the sun, without all ambiguity.  
Lastly, before I leave this third consideration, I desire the Reader to observe three things with me. First, that this dispensative neither hath, nor can be construed to have any reference to any Consecration that was already past, or that was acted by Bishop Scory alone; as that silly Consecration at the Nagges head is supposed to have been.  
Secondly, that this dispensative clause doth not extend at all to the institution of Christ, or any essential of Ordination, nor to the Canons of the universal Church: but only to the Statutes and Ecclesiastical laws of England. Si quid desit aut deerit eorum quae per Statuta hujus Regni nostri, aut per leges Ecclesiasticas requiruntur.  
Thirdly, that the Commissioners authorised by these Letters Parents to confirm and consecrate Arch Bishop Parker, did make use of this Supplentes or dispensative power in the Confirmation of the Election, which is a political Act, (as by the words of the Confirmation in the next paragraph shall appear,) but not in the Consecration, which is a purely spiritual act, and belongeth merely to the Key of Order.  
Fourthly we say, that by virtue of these Letters Patents of December the sixth, four of the Commissioners therein named did meet in Bows Church, upon the ninth day of the same month: and then and there with the advice of the chief Ecclesiastical Lawyers of the Kingdom, the Dean of the Arches, the judges of the Prerogative and Audience, did solemnly confirm the election. This is proved by the Record of the Confirmation or definitive sentence itself, in these words.  
In Dei nomine, Amen. Nos Willelmus quondam Bathonienfis & Wellensis Episcopus nunc Cicestrensis Electus, johannes Scory quondam Cicestrensis Episcopus nunc Electus Herefordensis, Milo Coverdale quondam Exoniensis Episcopus, & johannes Bedford Episcopus Suffraganeus, Mediantibus literis Commissionalibus Illustrissimae Reginae fidei Defensatricis etc. Commissionarij, cum hac clausula videlicet [unae cum Iohanne The●fordensi Suffraganeo & johanne Bale Ossoriensi Episcopo], Et etiam cum hac clausula [Quatenus vos aut ad minus quatuor vestrum], Nec non & hac adjectione [Supplentes nihil ominous etc.] specialiter & legitime Deputati, etc. Idcirco nos Commissionarii Regii antedicti, de & cum assensic jurisperitorum cum quibus in hac parte communicavimus, praedictam Electionem Suprema Authoritate dictae Dominae nostrae Reginae nobis in hac parte Commissa Confirmamus▪ Supplentes ex Suprema Authoritate Regia, ex mero principis motu & certa Scientia nobis delegata, quicquid in hac electione fuerit defectum. Tum in his quae juxta mandatum nobis creditum a nobis factum & processum est, aut in nobis aut aliquo nostrum, conditione, Statu, facultate ad haec perficienda deest aut deerit. Tum etiam eorum quae per statuta hujus Regni Angliae, aut per leges Ecelesiasticas in hac parte requisita sunt aut necessaria, prout temporis ratio & rerum praesentium necessitas id postulant, per hanc nostram sententiam definitivam, sive hoc nostrum finale decretum etc.  
I cite this the more largely, that our Adversaries may see what use was made of the dispensation, which they cavil so much against: But in the Consecration which is an act of the Key of order, they made no use at all of it. This is likewise clearly proved by the Queen's mandate for the restitution of Arch Bishop Parker to his Temporalties, wherein there is this clause. [Cui quidem electioni & personae sic Electae Regium assensum nostrum adhibuimus & favorem, 
Rot. pars 14.2. El.  ipsiusque fidelitatem nobis debitam pro dicto Archi-Episcopatu recepimus.]  
Fifthly, we say that eight days after the Confirmation, that is to say the 17. of December Anno 1559, the same Commissioners did proceed to the Consecration of Arch Bishop Parker, in the Archiepiscopall Chapel at Lambeth, according to the form prescribed by the Church of England, with solemn Prayers and Sermon, and the holy Eucharist; at which great numbers of grave persons communicated with him at that time, [frequens gravissimorum hominum caetus.] This is proved evidently by the authentic Records of the Consecration, as they are still and always have been to be seen, in the public Registry of the Archiepiscopall See of Canterbury.  
Registrum Reverendissimi in Christo Pa●ris & Domini, 
Reg. Park. t. 1. f. 2.  Domini Matthaei Parker etc. Principio Sacellum tapetibus ad Orientem adornabatur, solum vero panno rubro insternebatur, etc. And so first setting down both how the Chapel was adorned for the Consecration, and what habit and garments as well the Consecraters as the person who was to be consecrated did wear, both at the Prayers and Sermon, as likewise at the holy Sacrament and Consecration, it proceedeth to the Consecration itself.  
Finito tandem Evangelio, Herefordens●● Electus, Bedfordensis Suffraganeus, & Milo Coverdale. Archiepiscopum coram Cicestrensi Electo apud mensam in Cathedra sedente his verbis adduxerunt, Reverend in Deo Pater hunc virum pium pariter atque doctum tibi offerimus atque praesentamus, ut Archiepiscopus consecretur. Postquam haec dixissent, proferebatur ilico regium Diploma sive Mandatum pro consecratione ArchiEpiscopi, quo per Dominum Doctorem Yale legum Doctorem perlecto, Sacramentum de Regio primatu sive suprema ejus authoritate tuenda, juxta statuta primo anno Regni Serenissimae Reginae nostrae Elizabethae edita & promulgata, ab eodem Archi-Episcopo exigebatur. Quod cum ille solemniter tactis corporaliter sacris Evangeliis, conceptis verbis praestitisset, Cicestrensis Electus populum ad orationem hortatus ad Letanias decantandas Choro respondence se accinxit. Quibus finitis, post questiones aliquot Archi-Episcopo per Cicestrensem Electum propositas, & post orationes & suffragia quaedam juxta formam libri authoritate Parliamenti editi apud deum habita, Cicestrensis, Herefordensis, Suffraganeus Bedfordensis, & Milo Coverdallus, manibus Archi-Episcopo impositis, dixerunt, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, & excitare memineris gratiam Dei quae in te est per manuum impositionem. Dedit enim nobis Deus Spiritum non timoris, sed Potestatis, Charitatis, & Sobrietatis, etc.  
This is so evident that our Adversaries have nothing to say, but to cry the Records are forged. Forgery of Records is a grievous crime, and aught to be manifestly proved, or the accuser to suffer for his Calumny. Let them tell us who forged them, and when and where they were forged. But they know nothing of it. Did any of the succeeding Proto-No●aries complain that they were forged? or so much as an under Clerk of the Office, or any man that had once occasion to view them, and afterwards found some change in them?  
No such thing. Examine all the Officers and Notaries and Clerks living, whether ever they observed any change in them during their remembrance; And they will all answer, No. And so would all their predecessors since Archbishop Parker's time have answered, if they had been put to their Oaths. Who are they then that accuse them of Forgery? They are the Adversaries of the Church of England, who neve● read one word of them, nor know muc● what belongeth to such Records: Bu● they wish if they be not forged, that they were forged. What would you have 〈◊〉 do? If they could answer them otherwise they would; But they can not, and therefore they cry them down as forged.  
It is possible to forge private Acts 〈◊〉 in a corner: But to forge a consecration done publicly at Lambeth, in Queen E●●●sabeths time, And to forge it so early as th●● was published to the world, is incredibl● Surely these Fathers do not know the C●●stomes of the Church, that all things whi●● are done at public Consecrations, are p●●●sently drawn into Acts by principal Nectaries, and kept in public Registries, 〈◊〉 the custody of them committed to swo●● Officers. And this practice was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in England upon this occasion, but ●●th been observed throughout both Provinces for time immemorial. I should not 〈◊〉 one Penfull of ink upon an English ●an, who either doth know or aught to ●●ow what credit the law of England doth 〈◊〉 to these Records: But for the satisfaction of strangers who are misled by 〈◊〉 bold calumnies, I will take leave for 〈◊〉 to prove that, which like the common principles of Arts, aught to be taken for ●●anted, and De quo nefas est dubitare. 〈◊〉 us try whether they can say more for 〈◊〉 Vatican Records, than we can for 〈◊〉.  
For the present, I produce six grounds 〈◊〉 convince all those who gainsay them. 〈◊〉 first is that value and respect which 〈◊〉 Laws of the Kingdom do give them, 〈◊〉 is to allow them to be authentic ●●ofes; Especially in cases of this nature, ●●●cerning Spiritual Acts belonging to 〈◊〉 Key of Order. If a Clerk have lost 〈◊〉 Letters of Orders, a certificate out 〈◊〉 this registry, under the Seal of the ●●ch-Bihop, or the hand of the Protono●●●, is an authentic proof. Shall 〈◊〉 or three Adversaries, who are strangers and know little of our affairs, altogether unacquainted with our Laws and Records, dare without any ground to defa●● that for forged, which the Laws of 〈◊〉 Kingdom do allow for authentic? Either these Records are authentic, or Christendom never had an authentic Ecclesiastical Record. The very Act● of our Synods or Convocations are 〈◊〉 more undoubted, than these are.  
My second proof is taken from 〈◊〉 credit of the Public Notaries, who 〈◊〉 testify this individual Consecration, 〈◊〉 draw it up into Acts. The Testimony 〈◊〉 two public Notaries, for matter of 〈◊〉 maketh full proof over all Europe: but 〈◊〉 at least four Public Notary's we●● present at this Consecration, and testif●●●he truth of these Acts; Whereof two 〈◊〉 them were the Principal Public Notari●● in England, that is, Anthony Huse proto●●●tary of the See of Canterbury, and 〈◊〉 Argall Registerer of the Prerogative 〈◊〉 assisted in actuating this Consecration 〈◊〉 Thomas Willet and john jucent Public Nectaries. Who can make doubt of a m●●●ter of fact so attested?  
But is it further Observable that these four public Notaries were the same who did draw Cardinal Poles Consecration into Acts, and attest them. Either let ●hese Fathers deny that Cardinal Pole was Consecrated, or let them grant that Archbishop Parker was Consecrated, Aut u●ramque negate, aut u●rumque conced●●e. There are the same Proofs for the one and for the other. There needeth no more to be done to satisfy any man that hath eyes in his head, but to compare the one Register with the other,  
We owe a third ground to the Queen's extraordinary care, who was so solicitous lest some Circumstance in the Political part might be defective in some punctilio of law, by reason of the frequent change of the Statutes in the reigns of her Father, Brother, Sister, and Herself, that she caused the Letters Patents to be carefully perused by six of our most eminent Lawyers, who all with one unanimous consent did certify, that the Commission was good in law, and that the Consecraters might proceed legally to Consecration upon it; which Certificate subscribed with their own hands is preserved in the Records. So if these Records be forged not only the Acts of the Principal Notary's of England, but also the hands of the Principal Lawyers of England 〈◊〉 be forged for company, which is incredible.  
The fourth ground is irrefragable, taken from the testimony and authority 〈◊〉 the Parliament of England, in the eight● year of Queen Elisabeth, that was about six years after this Consecration wa● acted; which speaking of the great car● was taken in and about the Elections, Confirmations, and Consecrations of Archbishop Parker, and the rest of those fir●● Bishops in Queen Elisabeths' time, for proof thereof referreth us to these very Records, [As the Records of her Majesties said Fathers and Brother's time, and also her own time, 
8. El. c. 1.  will mo●● plainly testify and declare]. Doth the Parliament refer subjects to Records which are forged? You see the contrary, that it mentioneth them as authentic, undoubted, undeniable proofs of what was really done.  
To this unanswerable reason, these Fathers pretend to give two answers: But they are such as are able to satisfy any man, that no answer is to be expected. The first answer is in their printed book pag. 16, that the word Records is but a general term. As if truth ought not to be regarded in generals; as well as in particulars. Yet the terms which are added to Records, that is, [of her Father's time, her brother's time, and her time], are no general but restraining terms.  
They add, that it is a word of course, which men do rather suppose then examine, when they mention things that have been practised in former times. What latitude these Fathers may allow their Confitents in case Theology for words of Course, I do not now examine; but what have words of Course to do in a printed law? They might as well tell the Parliament in plain terms, that they lied, or that they spoke they knew not or regarded not what: as tell them that their words were but words of course. If these words of course were not true, why did not ●hey confute them then, when all things were fresh in men's memories? No man can believe that they did forbear out of affection to the Parliament, but because they could not then oppose so evident truth.  
Yet they conclude it to be evident, that there were no such Records of Parker's consecration. This is more than words of course, to charge the Parliament directly with an untruth. But how is it evident that there were no such Records? because they were never produced to those Roman Catholic Doctors, who desired to see some evidence of Parker's Consecration. This is wonderful, They were cited in print, they were alleged by the Parliament in the Public Laws of the Kingdom, of which no man can plead ignorance; and yet they tell us they were never produced. But to satisfy their very pretensions. Their exceptions in those days were of another nature, either against our English ordinal, or against the Legality of our Bishops; which later exception hath been answered already, and the former shall be answered i● due place. The reason why Bishop jewel, and Bishop Horn, and others did not ci●● these Records more expressly, was no dread at all least they should be found to be counterfeit, but because they had no need to cite them, to answer any thing that was objected against them. Either the Roman Catholic writers of those days were false to their own interest, to smother a thing which (if it had been true) had been so much to their advantage; which no rational man can imagine: Or the Nags head Ordination was altogether unknown and unheard of in those days; which is most certain.  
But now the Fathers change their note, could they not be forged as well in Queen Elisabeths' time as in King james his reign? This is to blow hot and cold with the same breath. Before they demanded, how it was possible they should be extant then and not produced? Now they tell us, they might be extant then, and yet forged: Nay, such a dexterity they have in turning all which they touch into gold, that they make this very supposition that they were extant then, to be a proof against us that they were forged. Therefore they were not produced, because in Queen Elisabeths' time many were living, who would have proved them to be forged.  
Observe first, what honour and respect our Countrymen do bear to our Princes and Parliaments united. Before they did as good as gave them the lie, And now they make them at the least Accessaries to forgery, so far as to avouch and justify forged Records. Secondly observe, with what confidence and conscience they say that these Records were never produced: And yet confess that they were cited in Print, and alleged in our very Statutes. If Bishop jewel and Bishop Horn had cited them, (as they would have cited them if they had had occasion), they could have done no more than was done. Did any man upon this publication go about to convince them of forgery? No I warrant you, The case was too plain to be convinced. The Parliament, and the book of the lifes of the seventy Arch Bishops of Canterbury printed by john Day Anno 1572. have spoiled the Father's Arguments, [They were not produced, therefore they were forged]▪ and furnished us with a demonstrative proof of the contrary. They were produced and cited in print, and neither convinced, nor so much as accused of forgery; Therefore they were not forged.  
It seemeth this answer did not satisfy the Fathers themselves: and therefore the one of them hath addeth a second answer in the margin, with his pen, in these words; The Act of Parliament relates only to the Records of the Queen's Letters Patents, and not to the Records of the Bishop's Consecration or Ordination. They say that gloss is accursed which corrupteth and Contradicteth the text, as this gloss doth egregiously. The Statute speaketh expressly, of the Records of Elections and Confirmations and Consecrations, which are all of them Ecclesiastical Acts, and none of them Recorded in the Rolls of Chancery, or any other civil Court of Records, but only in the Ecclesiastical Registers of the Arch-Bishops, Deans and Chapiters' respectively. This answer is a groundless evasion.  
My fifth ground to prove that these Records were not forged, is taken from that book of the lifes of the seventy succeeding Arch-Bishops of Canterbury, printed in London in the year 1572; wherein the Author, (that was Arch Bishop Parker himself,) having described the Confirmations and Consecrations of Bishop Grindall, Bishop Sands, Bishop jewel, Bishop Horn, and all the rest of those first Protestant Bishop's, he addeth in the margin, Hae confirmationes & consecrationes in Registris apparent: These confirmations and consecrations de appear in the Registers. Then the Registers were then extant, and not only extant but publicly printed, whilst all things were fresh in men's memories, yet no man did or durst except against the truth of them; So free they were not only from corruption, but from suspicion.  
The sixth and last ground to prove that the Records were not forged, is taken from the agreement and concurrence of our civil Records (which no man ever doubted of) with our Ecclesiastical Registers. We have seen the Queen's Letters Patents, directed to seven other Bishops, for the confirmation and consecration of Archbishop Parker, dated the sixth of December anno 1559; Therefore upon the sixth of December 1559 he was neither Confirmed nor Consecrated. We have seen the Ecclesiastical Records, how by virtue of those very Letters Patents, he was confirmed upon the ninth day, and consecrated upon the seventeenth day of the same Month. We find three other Letters Patents, directed to Archbishop Parker himself as a Consecrated Bishop, for the Confirmation and Consecration of other Bishops; namely Richard Cox, Edmund Grindall, and Edwin Sands, dated the Eighteenth of December, that is the very next day after his consecration: Therefore he was then consecrated. And this agreeth exactly with the Ecclesiastical Register.  
Elisabeth Dei gratia Angliae etc. Reverendissimo in Christo Patri & Domino, Matthaeo Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, totius Angliae Primati & Metropolitano, &c, Salutem. Rogantes, ac in fide & dilectione quibus nobis tenemini firmiter praecipiendo mandantes, quatenus eundem magistrum Edmundum Grindall in Episcopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae Cathedralis Divi Pauli London praedictae sic ut praefertur Electum, Electionemque praedictam Confirmare, & eundem magistrum Edmundum Grindall in Episcopum & Pastorem Ecclesiae praedictae consecrare, ceteraque omnia & singula peragere, quae vestro in hac parte incumbunt Officio pastorali etc. Teste Regina apud west monasterium, decimo Octavo die Decembris, Anno Reginae Elizabeth Angliae etc. secundo.  
Examinatur per RICH: BROUGHTON.  
Consimilia Brevia (Eisdem forma & verbis, mutatis solummodo Mutandis) directa sunt cidem Mattbaeo Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, pro confirmatione Electionis, & consecratione Richardi Cox Sacrae Theologiae Professoris in Episcopum Eliensem, Et Edwini Sands sacra Theologiae Professoris in Episcopum Wigornensem, Omnia sub dato praedicto & in Rotulo supradicto.  
Examinatur per RICHARDUM BROUGHTON,  
There cannot be a clearer proof in the world, to prove that Archbishop Parker was neither confirmed nor Consecrated upon the sixth of December Anno 1559. and that he was both Confirmed and Consecrated, and commanded to Consecrate others, upon the eighteenth of the same month. Neither doth the King, or Church, or Laws of England, take notice of any man as a true Archbishop or Bishop, until hands be imposed upon him, but always with this addition [Elect] as in the book of Ordination, Ego ay N. Ecclesiae atque sedis N. Elecius Episcopus profi●eor▪ And in the litany, Te Rogamus ut huic fratri nostro Electo Episcopo Benedicionem & gratiam ●uam largiri digneris.  
Lastly, by the laws of England, a Bishop can not be admitted to do his homage or swear fealty for his Bishopric, nor be restored to his Temporalties, until he be legally Consecrated: But it is Apparent by the Queen's Letters Patents, dated the one and twentieth day of March following, (that was at the end of Hilary term, as speedily as could be) he had done his homage, and was then restored to his Temporalties. Which proveth clearly, that he was legally Consecrated, that is to say, according to the Register. Such a perpetual agreement there is, between our Ecclesiasticall-Recordes and our Civil Records.   

CHAPT. V. The eighth ninth and tenth reasons against that fabulous relation, from the Authority of our Statute, the book of the lifes of the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury, and all sorts of witnesses.  

The eighth reason.  THe eighth reason to prove the Naggeshead Ordination to be a fable, is taken from the authority of the Statute in the eighth year of Queen Elisabeth, which is thus entitled. An Act declaring the manner of making and Consecrating of the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of this Realm, to be good lawful and perfect. [An Act declaring] not enacting or making; [the manner of making and Consecrating the Arch Bishops and Bishops of this Realm,] that is, those in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' time, as appeareth by the whole body of the Act; [to be good lawful and perfect. The title of the Statute alone is sufficient to confute this fable: But there is much more in the body of the Statute; As where it approveth the making and consecrating of the same Arch Bishops and Bishops to be duly and orderly done, according to the laws of this Realm. If it was done duly and orderly according to the laws of this Realm, than it was not done at the Nagges head, nor after such a silly ridiculous manner, as these Fathers do relate it. That form differeth from our form in all things. In the Consecrater, or Minister of the Consecration: We must have three Bishops at the least, there was but one. In the matter: Our matter is Imposition of hands, their matter was the laying the Bible upon the head or shoulders of the person Consecrated. In the form: Our form is receive the holy Ghost &c, Their form was, Take thou Authority to preach the word of God sincerely.  
The Statute proceedeth, that they were elected made and consecrated Arch Bishops and Bishops, according to such order and form, and with such Ceremonies in and about their Consecrations, as were allowed and set forth by the said Acts Statutes and Orders, annexed to the said book of Common prayer before mentioned. This is plain enough. If the Parliament say truly, than they were Consecrated in a Church, not in a Tavern; not according to the Brainsick whimsies of a self conceited Fool, or rather the ludibrious devise of an Archenemy, but according to the form prescribed by the Church and Kingdom. The Parliament had more reason to know the truth then these Fathers, for there were personally present both the persons who did consecrate, and the persons who were consecrated, and many Lords and Gentlemen who were eye witnesses of the consecration. Choose Reader, whether tho● wilt trust the tale of a single, obscure, malicious spy, tattling in a corner: or the asseveration of the Parliament of England, i● the face of the sun, published to the world in print.  
The Parliament testifieth further, that i● is and may be very evident and apparent that no cause of scruple ambiguity or doubt 〈◊〉 or may justly be objected, against the said Elections Confirmations or Consecrations. Do they think the Parliament would have give● such a testimony for the Nagges head Consecrations. And so they conclude, th● all persons which had been or should be orde●● or consecrated, after the form and order prescribed in the said English ordinal, wer● very deed, and by authority of Parliament were declared and enacted to be rightly Ordered and Consecrated. The scope of the Parliament and of this Act, was to confirm the consecration of Arch Bishop Parker and the rest of the Bishops, and to free them from cavils and objections: But they confirm no Ordination at the Nagges head, neither can their words be extended any way to such a ridiculous Consecration: Therefore the Ordination of Arch Bishop Parker and the rest, was no Nags head Ordination.  
My ninth reason to prove that Naggeshead Relation fabulous and counterfeit, is taken from the Testimony of that book formerly mentioned, of the lifes of the seventy Ar●h Bishops of Canterbury; wherein the Consecrations of Arch Bishop Parker and all the rest are particulary related. That which was published to the world in print, above thirty years before the death of Queen Elisabeth, was not lately forged: But the legal Ordinations of Archbishop Parker and the rest, according to the Register, was published to the world in print, above thirty years before the death of Queen Elisabeth. Again, that which was published to the world in print with the allowance of Arch Bishop Parker, or rather by Arch Bishops Parker himself, was not intended by Arch Bishop Parker to be smothered o● concealed. Men do not use to publish their forgeries in print; especially so soon, and of such public actions, whilst there are so many eye witnesses living. That the Relation was not confuted, That the Author was never called to an account for it, That no man stood up against the Registers, nor on the behalf of the Nagg●●head Ordination in those days, That 〈◊〉 Neale was so tame to endure the lie in prie● and all his party so silent, at that tim● when the truth might so easily have bee● discovered, as if it had been written with ● beam of the sun, (as it was indeed); is 〈◊〉 evident proof that our Relation is undeniable, and the Relation which thei● Fathers make is but a drowsy dream●, which could not endure the light of the sun.  

The tenth reason.  The tenth and last reason to prove on Relation true and theirs fabulous, is taken from all sorts of witnesses, ours and theirs indifferently. Mr Mason reckoned up seven of our writers, who had justified the legality of our Ordinations, and ●ited our Registers as authentic Records, before himself; Bishop jewel, Bishop Hall, Bishop Goodwin, Doctor ●ollings, Mr, Camden, Mr. Shelden, ●nd one who was then living when this question was so hotly debated in King ●unes his time, and had been an eyewitness of Arch Bishop Parker's Consecra●●ons at Lambeth, that was the Earl of ●ottingham. One that was, well stored ●ith our English writers in Queen Elisabeths' time, might add many more: ●ut that can not well be expected from me 〈◊〉 this distance.  
We may produce as many of theirs, ●ho have confessed or been convinced of 〈◊〉 truth of Arch Bishop Parker's Conse●●ation. First Mr. Clerk, whose Father ●as Register to Cardinal Pole in his Le●●ntine Court, and he himself an Actuary under him, when Theophilus Higgins 〈◊〉 out of England to St. Omars, or ●●oway, (I remember not well whether). ●here he met with this Mr. Clerk, ●ho falling into discourse with him ●●ncerning his Reasons why he had forsaken the Church of England, Mr Higgins told him, that one of them 〈◊〉 that saying of St. Hierome, It is no Church which hath no Priests; reflecting upon thi● Nags head Consecration. Mr. Clerk approved well of his Caution, because 〈◊〉 dubiis tutior pars sequenda: but withal 〈◊〉 wished, that what their Authors had written concerning that point, could be ma● good; confessing that he himself was 〈◊〉 England at that time, (The witness do●● not positively remember whether at t●● Consecration or not.) But Mr, Cler●● said that he himself was present when 〈◊〉 Advocate of the Arches, whom the Quee● sent to peruse the Register after the Consecration, and to give her an account whether it was performed Canonically, returns her this answer, that he had peruse the Register, and that no just excepti●● could be made against the Consecration But (he said) something might h●● been better, particularly that Bish●● Coverdale was not in his Rochet, 〈◊〉 he assured her, that could make no ●●●fect in the Consecration. Here 〈◊〉 have, if not an eye witness, yet at least 〈◊〉 ear witness in an undoubted manner, of●● legal Consecration▪ and of the truth of the Register, and of the judgement of the Advocate of the Arches, concerning the Canonicalnesse of the Consecration. Thus much Mr. Higgins was ready to make faith of whilst he was living, and Mr. Barwick a person of very good credit, from him of at this present.  
The second witness is Mr. Higgins himself, who coming afterwards into England had a desire to see the Register, and did see it, and finding those express words in it [Milo vero Coverdallus non nisi togalanea talari ●●ebatur,] and remembering withal what Mr. Clerk had told him, whereas the Canonical garments of the rest of the Bishops are particularly described: he was so fully satisfied of the truth of the Consecration, and lawful succession of our English Bishops, that he said he never made doubt of it afterwards.  
My third witness is Mr. Hart, a stiff Roman Catholic, but a very ingenuous person, who having seen undoubted copies of Doctor Reynolds his Ordination by Bishop Freak, and of Bishop Freaks Consecration by Arch Bishop Parker, and lastly of Arch Bishop Parkers own, Consecration: he was so fully satisfied with it, that he himself did raze out all that part of the conference between him and Doctor Reinoldes.  
My fourth witness is Father Oldcorne the jesuit. This testimony was urged by me in my treatise of Schism in these words. These authentic evidences being upon occasion produced, out of our Ecclesiastical Courts, and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorne the jesuit, he both confessed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted, (that was the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church) and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendom, that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was; blaming us as partly guilty of the gross mistake of many, for not having publicly and timely made known to the world, the notorious falsehood of that empty, but far spread aspersion against our succession. To this the Bishop of Chalcedon, who was better acquainted with the passages of those times in England, than any of those persons whom these Father's stile of undoubted credit, makes this confession. That father Oldcorne being in hold for the powder treason, and judging others by himself, 
Survey c. 9 p. 122.  should say, those Registers to be authentic, is no marvel,  
A fifth witness is Mr. Wadsworth, who in an Epistle to a friend in England doth testify, that before he left England he read the Consecration of Arch Bishop Parker in our Registers. This made him so moderate above his fellows, that whereas some of them tell of five, and the most of them of fifteen, which were consecrated at the Nagges head, 
In Ep. ad ami. n. 5.  he saith only that the consecration of the first Protestant Bishop was attempted there, but not accomplished▪ If it were only attempted not accomplished, than the Nagges head Ordination is a fable. But it falleth out very unfortunately for Mr Wadsworths attempt, that of all those first Protestant Bishop's, whose elections were all confirmed at Bowes Church about that time, (And it might be all of them, it is very probable ●undry of them had a confirmation dinner at the Nagges head) not one was confirmed in person, but all of them by their Proxies: Arch Bishop Parker by Doctor Bullingham, Bishop Barlow and Bishop Scory by Walier jones Bachelor of Law, Bishop Grindall by Thomas Hink Doctor of Law, Bishop Cox by Edward Gascoine, Bishop Sands by Thomas Bentham, &c; as appeareth by the authentic Records of their confirmation. Bishops are ordinarily confirmed by Proxy, but no man was ever consecrated, no man was ever attempted to be consecrated by Proxy.  
The four next witnesses are Mr. Collimo●▪ Mr. Laithwait, Mr. Faircloth, and Mr. Leake, two of them of the same order with these Fathers; to whom the ArchBishop of Canterbury caused these Records to be showed, in the presence of himself, the Bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Bath and Welles, Lincoln, and Rochester. They viewed the Register, they turned it over and over, and perused it as much as they pleased, and in Conclusion gave this sentence of it, that the book was beyond exception. To say, that afterwards they desired to have the Records into prison, to peruse them more fully, is ridiculous. Such Records may not go out of the presence of the Keeper. But these Fathers may see them as much as they list in the Registri●, if they seek for satisfaction, not altercation.  
Lastly Bishop Bonner had a suit with Bishop Horn, and the issue was whether Bishop Horn were legally consecrated Bishop; upon that ●c●uple, or rather cavil, which I have formerly mentioned. If Mr. Neale who they say was Bishop Bonner's chaplain, and ●ent on purpose to spy what the ●ishops did, could have proved the ordination of Bishop Horn at the Nagges head, he might not only have cleared his Master, but have turned Bishop Horn deservedly out of his Bishopric. But he was loath to forfeit his cares, by avouching such a palpaple lie. The Nagges head Ordination was not talked of in those days. How should it, before it was first devised? Mr. Sanders dedicated a book to ArchBishop Parker, which he called the Rock of the Church: If the Nags head Ordination had been a serious truth, how would he have triumphed over the poor Archbishop?  
To conclude, ●f faith ought to be given to concurring Records Ecclesiastical and civil, of the Church and Kingdom of England, If a full Parliament of the whole Kingdom deserve any credit, If the testimony of the most eminent public Notaries in the Kingdom, If witnesses without exception, If the silence, or contradiction, or confession of known Adversaries, be of any force, If the strongest presumtions in 〈◊〉 world may have any place, that men in their right wits will not ruin themselves wilfully▪ without necessity, or hope of advantage, If all these grounds put together do over balance the clandestine Relation of a single malicious Spy, without either oath, or any other obligation: then I hope every one who readeth these grounds will conclude with me, that the Register of the Church of England is beyond all exception, and the malicious Relation of the Nagges head Ordination, a very tale of a tub, and no better; so full of Ridiculous folly in itself, that I wonder how any prudent man can relate it without laughter.  
Who told this to Bluet? Neale. Who told this to Haberley? Neale. Who told it to the rest of the Prisoners at Wisbich? Neale. Only Neale. Who suggested it to Neale? The Father of lies. Neale made the fable, Neale related it in Corners, long after the time it was pretended to be acted. If his Master Bishop Bonner had known any thing of it, we had heard of it long before. That the Archbishop should leave Lambeth to come to London to be consecrated; That he should leave all those Churches in London, which are immediately under his own jurisdiction, to choose a common tavern, as the fittest place for such a work; That Bishop Bonner being deprived of his Bishopric, and a prisoner in London, should send Neale from Oxford, and send a command by him to one over whom he never had any jurisdiction; That the other Bishop being then a Protestant should obey him being a Roman Catholic, when there were so many Churches in the City to perform that work in, where the Bishop of London never pretended any jurisdiction; That these things should be treated, and concluded, and executed all at one meeting; that Bishop Bonner did foresee it would be so, And command his servant to attend there until he see the end of that business. That the Bishops being about such a Clandestine work, should suffer a known enemy to stay all the while in their company, is incredible. If Neale had feigned that he had heard it from one of the Drawer's boys, it had deserved more credit, than this silly, improbable inconsistent Relation; which looketh more like an heap of fictions made by several Authors by starts, than a continued Relation of one man, 
Quicquid ostendas mihi sic incredulus odi.    

CHAPT. VI The Nags' head Ordination is but a late devise. Of the Earl of Nottingham, Bishop Bancroft, Doctor Stapleton▪ the Statute 8. El. 1. And the Queen's dispensation.  
NOw having laid our grounds, in the next place let us see what the Fathers have to say further for themselves. This stor● of the Nagges head was first cno●radicted b● Mason in the year 1613: yet so weakly and family that the attentive Reader may easily perceive he feared to be caught in a lie. First, the Fathers seem to argue after this manner; Many Athenian writers did mention the Cretan Bulls and Minotaurs and Labyrinth, but no Cretan did write against them, therefore those ridiculous Fables were true. Rather, the Cretans laughed at their womanish revenge, to think to repair themselves for a beating, with scolding and lying: such ridiculous Fictions ought to be entertained with scorn and contempt, Spreta exolescunt, si irascaris agnita videmur. Secondly, it might be (for any thing I know to the contrary) Mr. Mason was the first who dissected this lie, and laid the falsity of it open to the world: but he was not the first who avouched and justified the Canonical Consecration, and personal Succession of our Protestant Bishops, which is the same thing in effect; the Bishop of Hereford did it before him, and Doctor Reynolds before the Bishop of Hereford, and he that writ the life of Archbishop Parker before Doctor Reynolds, and the Parliament before him that writ Arch Bishop Parker's life, and the public Registers of the Church before the Parliament.  
Thirdly, they would make us believe that this Fable was ancient, and published to the world from the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' time in print, and unanswered by the Protestants until the 13, of King james: but there is no such thing. For their credit, let them produce one Author that mentioneth it in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths' time, or if they cannot do that, for forty years after, that is, before the year 1600: or otherwise the case is plain that it is an upstart lie, newly coined about the beginning of King james his time; the Fathers would not have us answer it before it was coined, or before it was known to us.  
Where they say that Mr, Mason did handle this Controversy weakly and faintly, they know they do him wrong: He hath so thrashed their Authors, Fusherbert, and Fitz-Simon, and Holywood, and Constable, and Kellison, and Champney, that the cause hath wanted a Champion eversince, until these Fathers took up the Bucklers. But whereas they add, that Mr. Mason was afraid to be convinced by some aged persons that might then be living, and remember what passed in the beginning of Queen E●isabeths reign; is so far from truth, that Mr. Mason nameth a witness beyond all exception, that was invited to Arch Bishop Parker's Consecration at Lambeth, as being his Kinsman, and was present there, The Earl of Notting●am Lord High Admiral of England.  
Why did none of their Authors go to him, or employ some of their Friends to inquire of him? The case is clear, they were more afraid of Conviction, and to be caught in a lie, than Mr. Mason: who laid not the Foundation of his Discourse upon loose prittle-prattle, but upon the Firm Foundation of Original Records.  
They say, in the year 1603, none of the Protestant Clergy durst call it a fable, as some now do. I am the man, I did call it so, I do call it so. Such a blind relation as this is, of a business pretended to be acted in the year 1559, being of such consequence, as whereupon the succession of the Church of England did depend, and never published until after the year 1600, as if the Church of England had neither Friends nor Enemies; deserveth to be styled a Tale of a Tub and no better.  
They add, Bancroft Bishop of London being demanded by Mr. William Alabaster, how Parker and his Colleagues were consecrated Bishops? answered, he hoped that in Case o● necessity a Priest (alluding to Scory, might ordain Bishops. This answer of his was objected in Print by Holywood, against him and all the English Clergy in the year 1603▪ not a word replied, Bancroft himself being then living. And why might not Holywood be misinformed of the Bishop of London, a● well as you yourselves were misinformed of the Bishop of Durham? This is certain he could not allude to Bishop Scory, wh● was consecrated a Bishop in the reign of Edward the sixth, as by the Records of those times appeareth; unless you have a mi●● to accuse all Records of Forgery. If you have any thing to say against Bishop Sc●ryes Consecration, or of any of them who joined in Ordaining Arch Bishop Parker, spare it not, we will not seek help of 〈◊〉 Act of Parliament to make it good.  
In sum, I do not believe a word 〈◊〉 what is said of Bishop Bancroft, sub mod●● it i● here set down, nor that this Accusation did ever come to the knowledge of 〈◊〉 prudent Prelate; if it did, he had great●● matters to trouble his head withal, the● Mr. Holywords babbles: but if ever such a a question was proposed to him, it may be after a clear answer to the matter of Fact he might urge this as argumentum ad hominem; that though both Bishop Scory and Bishop Coverdale had been but simple Priests, (as they were complete Bishops), yet joining with Bishop Barlow and Bishop Hodgskings, two undoubted Bishops (otherwise Gardiner and Bonner and Tunstall and Thurleby and the rest were no Bishops,) the Ordination was as Canonical, as for one Bishop and two Mitred Abbats to consecrate a Bishop (which you allow in case of Necessity), or one Bishop and two simple Presbyters to consecrate a Bishop by Papal Dispensation. So this question will not concern us at all, but them very much, to reconcile themselves to themselves. They teach that the matter and form of Ordination are essentials of Christ's own Institution, They teach that it is grievous Sacrilege to change the matter of this Sacrament, They teach that the matter of Episcopal Ordination is Imposition of hands of three Bishops, upon the person consecrated: and yet with them one Bishop and two Abbats, or one Bishop and two simple Priests extraordinarily by Papal dispensation, may ordain Bishops. The essentials of Sacraments do consist in indivisibili, once Essential always Essential, whether ordinarily, or extraordinarily whether with dispensation or without. So this Question whether a Priest in case of Necessity may ordain Bishops, doth concern them much, but us not at all. But for my part I believe the whole Relation is feigned, for so much as concerneth Bishop Bancroft.  
They add, or the one of them, I have spoken with both Catholics and Protestants, that remember near 80. years, and acknowledge that so long they have heard the Nags head story related as an undoubted truth. Where I wonder? sooner in Rome or Rheims or Douai, then in England, and sooner in a Corner then upon the Exchange. You have heard from good Authors of the Swans singing, and the Pelican's pricking of her Breast with her bill: but you are wiser than to believe such groundless Fictions. I produce you seven of the ancient Bishops of England, some of them near an 100 years old, who do testify that it is a groundless Fable: yet they have more reason to know the right value of our Ecclesiastical Records, and the truth of our affairs, than any whom you convers● withal▪  
The Authors proceed, This Narration of the Consecration at the Nagges head, have I taken out of Holywood, Constable, and Doctor Champnies works. They heard it from many of the ancient Clergy, who were Prisoners for the Catholic Religion in Wysbich Castle, as Mr. Blewet, Doctor Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, and others. These had it from the said Mr. Neale and other Catholics present at Parker's Consecration in the Nagges head, as Mr. Constable affirms Here is nothing but hearsay, upon hearsay, such Evidence would not pass at a trial for a lock of Goat's wool. Holywood and the rest had it from some of the Wisbich Prisoners: and the Wisbich Prisoners heard it from Mr. Neale and others.  
What others? had they no names? did Bishop Bonner send more of his Chapleins then one to be Spectators of the Consecration, and they who were to be consecrated permit them being Adversaries to continue among them, during the Consecration, supposed to be a Clandestine Action. It is not credible, without a Pl●● between Neale and the Host of the Nagges head, to put him and his fellows for that day into Drawers habits, lest the Bishops should discover them. Here, is enough said to disgrace this Narration for ever, that the first Authors that published it to the world, did it after the year 1600; until than it was kept close in Lavender, Bishop Wa●son lived splendidly with the Bishops of Ely and Rochester, at the time of Archbishop Parker's Consecration, and a long time after, before he was removed to Wisbich Castle. If there had been an● such thing really acted, and so notoriously known, as they pretend, Bishop Wa●s●● and the other Prisoners, must needs ha●● known it long before that time, when Mr. Neale is supposed to have brought the● the first news of it. The who●e story's composed of Inconsistences. That which quite spoileth their story, is that Arch Bishop Parker was never present at any 〈◊〉 these Consecrations, otherwise calle● Confirmation Dinners: but it may be 〈◊〉 merry Host showed Mr. Neale Doctor Bullingham for Arch Bishop Parker, and told him what was done in the withdrawing room, which (to gain more credit to his Relation) he feigued that he had seen, out of pure zeal.  
Howsoever, they say the Story was divulged to the great grief of the newly Consecrated, yet being so evident a truth they durst not contradict it. We must suppose that these Fathers have a Privilege to know other mens hearts, but let that p●sse. Let them tell us how it was divulged by word or writing, when and where it was divulged whilst they were newly consecrated, who divulged it and to whom? If they can tell us none of all this, it may pass for a great presumption, but it cannot pass for a proof,  
But they say, that not only the Nullity of the Consecration, but also the illegality of the same was objected in Print against them not long after, by that famous writer Doctor Stapleton and others. We look upon Doctor Stapleton, as one of the most Rational heads that your Church hath had since the separation: but speak to the purpose Fathers, did Doctor Stapleton print one word of the Nagges head Consecration. You may be sure he would not have balked it, if there had been any such thing, but he did balk it because there was no such thing. No, no, Doctr. stapleton's pretended illegality was upon another ground, because he dreamt that King Edward's Statute was repealed by Queen Mary, and not restored by Queen Elisabeth, for which we have an express Act of Parliament against him in the point: and his supposed invalidity was because they were not consecrated ritu Romano. If you think Doctor Stapleton hath said any thing that is material, to prove the invalidity or nullity of our Consecration, take your bows and arrows and shoot over his shafts again, and try if you do not meet with satisfactory answers, both for the Institution of Christ, and the Canons of the Catholic Church, and the Laws of England.  
You say, Parker and the rest of the Protestant Bishops, not being able to answer the Catholic arguments against the invalidity of their Ordination etc. Words are but wind. The Church of England wanted nor Orthodox Sons enough to cope with Stapleton and all the rest of your Emissaries: nor to cry down the illegal and extravagant manner of it at the Nagges head, How should they cry down, that which never had been cried up in those days? We condemn, that form of Ordination which you feign to have been used at the Nagges head, as illegal, and extravagant, and (which weigheth more than both of them) invalid, as much as yourselves.  
They were forced to beg an act of Parliament, whereby they might enjoy the Temporalities, not withstanding the known defects of their Consecration etc. O Ingenuity! whither art thou Fled out of the world? Say, where is this Petition to be found, in the Records of Utopia? Did the Parliament ever make any such establishment of their Temporalties, more than of their Spiritualties? Did the Parliament ever take any notice of any Defects of their Consecration? Nay, did not the Parliament declare their Consecration to have been free from all defects? Nay, doth not the Parliament quite contrary, brand these Reports for slanderous speeches, 
8. Elis. cap. 1.  and justify their Consecrations to have been duly and orderly done, according to the Laws of this Realm: and that it is very evident and apparent, that no cause of scruple ambiguity or doubt, can be justly objected against their Elections Confirmations or Consecrations.  
Yet they give a reason of what they say, for albeit Edward the sixths' rite of Ordination was reestablished by Act of Parliament in the first year of Queen Elisabeth: yet it was notorious that the Ordination at the Nagges head was very different from it, and form extempore by Scoryes Puritanical Spirit etc. I take that which you grant out of Sanders, that King Edward's Form of Ordination, was reestablished by Act of Parliament 1. Elisabethae; wherein you do unwittingly condemn both Bishop Bonners and Stapletons' plea of illegality. The rest which you say is partly true and partly false. It is very true that there is great difference between the English Form of Ordaining, and your Nagges head Ordination, as much as is between the head of a living horse and the sign of the Nagges head, or between that which hath a real entity and an imaginary Chim●ra (Mr. Mason was the Bellerephon that destroyed this monster): But that the Form of the Nagges head Ordination was framed extempore by Scoryes Puritanical Spirit, is most false; That Posthumus brat was the Minerva or Issue of Mr. Neales' brain, or some others who fathered this rapping lie upon him.  
Then they repeat the words of a part of the Statute, and thence conclude, By which Act appears that not only King Edward's rite, but any other used since the beginning of the Queeens' reign, upon her Commission was enacted for good, and consequently that of the Nagges head might pass. Cujus contrarium verum est. The Contrary to what these Fathers infer, doth follow necessarily from these words which the Fathers cite. The words of the Act are these, [By virtue of the Queen's Letters Patents or Commission]: Every one of the Letters Patents is extant in the Rolls, not one of them did ever authorize any form but that which was legally established; that is, the Form of Edward the sixth. First, the Queen's Letters Patents or Commission hath an aut minus in it, or at the least three or four of you: but to justify the Nags head Ordination, the aut minus must be altered to at the least one or two of you. Secondly, the Queen's Letters Patents have always this clause in them: juxta Formam & effectum Statutorum in ea parte editorum & provisorum; According to the form and effect of the Statutes in that case made and provided: but the Statutes allow no less number than four, or at the least three to ordain, At the Nags head (you say there was but one Ordeiner. Our Statutes prescribe Imposition of Hands as the Essential matter of Ordination, and these words, Receive the Holy Ghost as the form of Ordination: but your Nagges head Ordination is a mere Phantasm, without matter or Form; our Statutes allow no such fanatical and Fantastical Forms, as your Form of the Nagges head. And so your Consequence, [Consequently that of the Nagges head might pass], is foundered of all four, and can neither pass nor repass, unless you can raze these words [by virtue of the Queen's Letters Patents] out of the Statute, and insert these [without the Queen's Letters Patents]: and likewise raze these words out of the Commission [according to the Form and effect of the Statutes], and insert these [contrary to the Form and effect of the Statutes]. A single Falsification will do your cause no good. Two poisons may perchance help it at a dead lift.  
It is in vain to tell us, that Mr Mason see this over clear to be denied, who know better that Mr. Mason did not only deny it over and over again, but sqeesed the poor Fable to dirt. I have showed you particularly what was the end of the Queen's Dispensations, the same which is the end of Papal Dispensations, to meet with latent objections or cavils. I have showed you what that Cavil was; which needed no Dispensation in point of Law, but only to stop the mouths of Gainsayers. But where you add, that the Queen's Dispensation was given, not in conditional but in very absolute Terms: You are absolutely mistaken. The Queen's dispensation was both in General Termes, which determine nothing, (not like the Pope's Dispensations, A quibusvis excommunicationis suspensionis & interdicti sententiis): and also in these conditional Terms, si quid etc. desit aut deerit eorum quae per Statuta hujus regni nostri, aut per leges Ecclesiasticas in hac parte requiruntur: If any thing is or shall be wanting, which are required by the Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical of this Kingdom. You see it is conditional and hath reference only to the Laws of England.  
They go on, the truth is, all the world laughed at the Nagges head Consecration, and held it to be invalid, not so much for being performed in a Tavern, as for the new form invented by Scory. If all the world did laugh at it in those days, they laughed in their sleeves, where no body could see them laugh. It had been too much to laugh at a jest before it was made, nay before it was devised. The Reader may well wonder, how all the world came to get notice of it so early as the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and we only in England should hear nothing of it for above 40 years after? but assoon as we did hear of it, we laughed at it as well as they, and held it as invalid as they could do for their hearts; but they laughed at it as Bishop Scoryes Invention, and we laughed at it as theirs.   

CAP. VII. Of Bishop Bonner, the Reordination of our Clergy, the quality of their witnesses, Mr. Fitzherberts' suspicions, the testimony of their Doctors, and the Publishing of our Register before Mr. Mason  
Their next instance is in Bishop Bonner's case, who was indicted by Mr. Horn, one of the First Protestant Bishops consecrated by Mr. Parker, or together with him, for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. The first error might be pardoned, as being only a mistake in a word, to say that Bishop Bonner was indicted by Mr. Horn, where as he was only signified by Bishop Horn: but the second mistake is fatal, that after all this confidence, and this great Notoreity of the Nagges head Ordination to all the world, these Fathers themselves are still uncertain, whether Bishop Horn were consecrated by Archbishop Parker, or at the same time with him; that is as much as to say, they know not certainly what was done at the Nagges head, but they wish that if the Confirmation dinner were not a Consecration, it had been one. It could never end better, for Mr. Neale to feign an Ordination, without an Actuary to record what was done. Bishop Wa●son and Mr. Bluet and the rest were much to blame, that (since he had the fortune to wear Gyges his ring and walk invisible) they did not cause him to play the public Notary himself, and draw that which was done there into Acts; then we might have known as certainly as he could tell us, whether Dr▪ Parker had been consecrated there by his Proctor Dr Bullsngham. It may be, some very credulous Reader, who like the old Lamiaes, could take out his eyes and put them in again when he pleased, would have given more credit to Mr Neales' pleasant Fable, then to the public Rolls and Registers of the Kingdom.  
I have handled Bishop Bonner's case before: and th●se Fathers themselves have unwittingly given sentence in it against him; That King Edward's Form of Ordination, was reestablished by Act of Parliamant in the first year of Queen Elisabeth. But final sentence there was never any given, until the Parliament gave a final sentence in it, That Bishop Horn and all the rest were legal Bishops. To admit a Plea to be tried by a jury, and the veredict of the jury, are two very distinct things.  
They tell us, he was a man specially shot at. Rather he was a man graciously preserved by the Queen's mercy, from the rage of the Common people against him. If they had shot at him, they could have found ways enough to have tendered the Oath of Supremacy to him, without Bishop Horn. I profess I am no great Patron of such Oaths, men have more dominion over their actions then over their judgements: Yet there is less to be said for Bishop Bonner, then for other men. He who had so great a hand in framing the Oath, He who had taken it himself, both in King Henry's time, and King Edward's time, and made so many others to take it, He who had been so great a stickler in Rome for the King's Supremacy, who writ that Preface before Bishop Gardiner's book de vera Obedientia: if he had suffered by the Oath of Supremacy, he had but been scourged with a rod of his own making.  
Their next reason to prove the Nullity of our Holy Orders, is taken from the constant Practice of the Roman Catholics, to Reordein Protestant Ministers, not conditionally but absolutely, which they call an evident Argument of our mere Laity. A doughty Argument indeed, drawn from their own Authority. Can any man doubt, that that they which make no scruple of taking away our lives, will make conscience of taking away our Orders? This is that which we accuse them of, and they do fairly beg the Question. If Reordination be Sacrilege (as they say it is), we are ready to convince them of gross Sacrilege, or iterating all the Essentials of Ordination, the same matter and the same Form that is for Episcopacy, the same Imposition of Hands by three Bishops, and the same words Receive the Holy Ghost etc. Some were of the same mind with these Fathers in Queen Mary's time: but Paul the 4. and Cardinal Poole were wiser, who confirmed all Ordinations in Edward the sixths' time indifferently, so the Persons professed but their Conformity to the Roman Religion. How doth this consist with your pretended Nullity?  
They say, Our Records were produced by Mr▪ Mason in the years 1613, fifty yeared after they ought to have been showed. They forget that they were published in Print in Arch Bishop Parker's life-time, that they were justified by the Parliament 8. Elisabethae, that all of them go hand in hand with our Civil Records,  
He saith, it cannot be testified by any lawful witnesses (produced by us) that they were 〈◊〉 forged. This is their Method, first to accuse us of Forgery, and then to put us to prove a Negative; where learned he this Form of proceeding? By all Laws of God and man the Accuser is to make good his Accusation: yet we have given him witnesses beyond exception. They say, there can not be a more evident mark of Forgery, than the concealment of Registers, if they 〈◊〉 useful and necessary to the persons in whose Custody they are. The proof lieth on the other hand. Tell us how they were concealed, which were published to the world in Print, by a whole Parliament, by private persons, and were evermore left in a Public Office, where all the world might view them from time to time, who had either occasion or desire to do it? That our Adversaries did insult and Triumph over us, is but un empty flourish without truth or reality, as we shall see presently.  
They say, it is not worth refuting which some modern Protestants say, ye have no witnesses of the story of the Nagges head etc. but Roman Catholics, we value not their Testimony, because they are known Adversaries. This answer they term Ridiculous, and parallel it with the answer of an Officer in Ireland. You will not find this answer so ridiculous, upon more serious consideration. Protestants know that some Exceptions in Law, do destroy all Credit, and some other Exceptions do only diminish credit. An Adversaries Testimony may be admitted in some cases, but it is subject to exception and makes no full proof, especially in cases favourable in the Law; as the case of persons spoiled, (which is your Irish case). such witnesses may be admitted, an●e omnia spoliatus restitui debet: but then they ought to make up in number what they want in weight.  
But you mistake wholly, our answer is not, that you produce no witnesses for the story of the Nagges head but Roman Catholick●: Our answer is that you produce no witnesses at all, neither Roman Catholics nor others. For first one witness is no witness in Law, Let him be beyond exception duly sworn and examined, yet his Testimony makes but semiplenam probationem, half a proof; especially in Criminal causes such as this is, it is nothing. 
Deut. 19.15.  One witness shall not rise up against a man for any Iniquity or any sin, At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. Which law is confirmed by our Saviour. 
Mat. 18.16.  They were never yet able to pretend any eye witness by name, but Mr. Neale, or some body that had no name, because he had no being in the nature of things: all the rest had it from Mr. Neales' single Testimony, because they cannot testify what was done, but what Mr. Neale said.  
Secondly, Mr. Neale testifieth nothing, as a single witness ought to testify. He was never sworn to speak the truth, he never testified it before a public Notary, he was never examined before a competent judge, 〈◊〉 was never produced before the face of a Protestant. Is this the manner of the Romans now a days, to condemn whole Churches upon the ver●all Testimony of a single witness, before ●e be brought face to face with those whom ●e accuseth; and such a Testimony which 〈◊〉 clogged with so many improbabilities ●nd incongruities, and incoherences, 〈◊〉 no rational impartial man 〈◊〉 trust one syllable of it? whereas in such a case as this, against the third Estate of the Kingdom, against the Records Civil and Ecclesiastical, against the testimony of a Parliament, an hundred witnesses ought not to be admitted.  
We regard not Mr. Fitzherberts' suspicions at all. What are the suspicions of a private stranger, to the well known credit of a public Register? His suspicions can weigh no more than his reasons, that is just nothing. He saith this exception is no new quarrel, but vehemently urged to the English Clergy in the beginning of the Queen's reign, 〈◊〉 show how and by whom they were made Priests Bishops &c: You have said enough to confute yourselves, but you touch not us. If they had known that they were consecrated at the Nagges head, as well as you would seem to know it, they needed not to urge it so vehemently to show how and by whom they were ordained; they would have done that for them readily enough: unless perhaps you think that they concealed the Nags head Ordination out o● favour to the Protestants. But I see you are mistaken in this as in all other things▪ There was an old objection indeed, that ou● Consecraters were not Roman catholics and that our Consecration was not Ri●● Romano, or that we were not Ordained by Papal Authority: but the Nagges head Ordination is a new question. What might be whispered underhand, in the ears of credulous persons of your own party in Corners, we do not know: but for all your contrary intimations, none of all your Writers did dare to put any such thing in print, for above forty years after Arch Bishop Parker's Consecration. If silent Witnesses in such circumstances prove more than others, as you affirm, than all your writers are our witnesses. But none of all your Doctors did ever urge any such thing, as required that we should cite the Registers in prudence, as by a clear answer to all your Testimonies shall appear. The water did not stop there in those days: yet even in Arch Bishop Parker's life time the Consecration of our Bishops was published to the world in Print; either show us as much for your Nagges head Ordination, or hold your peace for ever. Bishop Andrews the learned Bishop of Winchester's absurdities falsities and lies, are easily talked of, men may talk of black Swans: but he who hath laid your greatest Champions in the dust, requires another manner of Discoverer then Mr. Fitzherbert.  
But these Fathers are resolved to confute themselves, without the help of an Adversary. They tell us, that no mention was ever made of Registers testifying Parker's Consecration at Lambeth, until Mr. Mason printed his book. This is not true, they were mentioned by the Parliament, mentioned in Print, I think before Mr. Mason was born▪ What though Lambeth were not mentioned, if the Legality of his Consecration were mentioned? This is enough to answer your Objection; this is enough to confute your Romance of the Nagges head. Yet thus much you yourselves confess, in the same Paragraph, that in a book printed in the year 1605 (that is eight years before the year 1613, wherein you say that Mr, Mason printed his book) called Antiquitates Britanniae, there is a Register of the Protestant Bishops of England: Then there was a Register of the Consecration of Protestant Bishops extant, before Mr. Mason did write of that subject. You say, that Register doth not mention any certain place or Form of their Consecration. It was not needful; the Law prescribeth the Form, and the place was indifferent, so it were a consecrated place, which the Law doth likewise prescribe. But you tell us further, that thi● Register was forged or foisted in, and that your learned but nameless Friend, see the old Manuscript of that book, wherein there is no mention of any such Register, which you tell us in your Friends words, that all the world may see how this Register was forged. Why are all the world bound to believe your Friend? How should we give credit to a man who tells us three notorious untruths in four lines? First, that it is pretended that Archbishop Parker was made a Bishop by Barlow Scory and three others, by virtue of a Commission from Queen Elisabeth: he was made a Bishop by Barlow Scory and two others. Secondly, that this work was acted on the 17. day of September, An: 1559, which was acted on the 17. Day of December 1559. 
pa. 10.  Thirdly, that we had no form then or Order to do such a business; whereas you yourselves confess, that Edward the sixths' rite of Ordination, was reestablished in the First year of Queen Elisabeth: and Archbishop Parker's Ordination was in the second of Queen Elisabeth. He who stumbles so thick and three fold, may err in his viewing the Manuscript as well as the rest. But to gratify you, suppose it was foisted in, what good will that do you? It must of necessity be foisted in before it was printed, it could not be foisted in after it was printed, And it must be foisted in by a Protestant, for no Roman Catholic would foist it in. So still you see a Register of Protestant Bishops, was published to the world in print, eight years before Mr. Mason published his book.  
Your Friend saith, that this printed Book of Parkers Antiquitates Britanniae, is the first that mentioneth any such pretended Consecration of him and the rest. So it might be well when it was first printed, that was not in the year 1605, but in Archbishop Parker's life time, three years before his death, An. 1570. So much you might have learned from the very Title-page of the Book, printed at Hannow; Historia antehac non nisi semel, nimirum Londini in Aedibus johannis Day anno 1572. excusa: That this History was printed formerly at London in the house of john Day in the year 1572. This doth utterly destroy the Credit of your Friend's Relation, that he had viewed the Manuscript of that Book. There needed no Manuscript, where they had a Printed book for their Copy, (as the Title-page telleth us they had)▪ and that printed above sixty years before your Friend writ, it is probable before his Birth. If there be any thing of foisting in the case, there is rather something foisted out of the former Edition, then foisted in; namely, Archbishop Parker's Life until that time, with the particular Consecrations of our first Bishops, which were in the London Edition, and are omitted in this Edition of Hannow. This is clear enough by the very Title, An History of 70. Archbishops, and there are in this Edition but 69. Archbishops, because the Life of Archbishop Parker is wanting; which nevertheless is promised in the Life of Archbishop Warham pag. 312. [ut in Matthaei Parker Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi vi●a inferius di●emus: As we shall say hereafter in the Life of Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury. You see how infortunate you are in accusing others of Forgery.  
Your Author proceedeth, Any man reading the printed Book, will manifestly see it is a merely foisted and inserted thing, having no connexion correspondence or affinity, either with that which goeth before, or followeth it. Say you so? There was never any thing more fitly inserted. The Author undertaketh to write the Lifes of 70. succeeding Archbishops of Canterbury, from Austin to Matthew Parker, and having premitted some general Observations concerning the Antiquity of Christian Religion in Brittany, with the names of some Arch-Bishops of London, and the Original and Changes of Episcopal Sees in England, and some other Generalities concerning the Privileges of the See of Canterbury, and the Conversion of Kent; Just before he enter upon the Life of St. Austin the first Archbishop, he presenteth the Reader with a summary View of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, at that time when the book was first printed, in the year 1572, with the names of all the Bishops of the Province at that time, their Countries, their Arms, both of their Sees and of their Families, their respective Ages, their Universities, their Degrees in Schools, with the times of their several Consecrations, if they were ordained Bishops, or Confirmations, if they were translated from another See. It is hardly possible for the wit of man to contrive more matter into a lesser Room. Then, he sets down a like Table for the Province of York: and lastly an Alphabetical Catalogue of the Bishops whose Lives were described in this book, and among the rest, Archbishop Parker, whose Life (if you call it foisting) is foisted out of this Hannow Edition. If this hath no connexion or affinity with that which goeth before, and followeth after, I know not what Connexion or Affinity is.  
Your Friends last Exception against the Authority of that book called Antiquitates Britanniae, is, that it containeth more things done after Matthew Parker had written that Book. So you confess that Archbishop Parker himself (about whom all our controversy is,) was the Author of that book; wherein I agree with you. The conclusion of the Preface, and many other reasons invite me to do so. Surely this Author meant that there is something contained in this Register, which is not within the Compass of the following Lives in the Hannow Edition. (that may well be because Matthew Parker's life is foisted out in this Edition:) but there is nothing which was not in the London Edition, much more largely than it is in this Register, especially for the Confirmations and Consecrations of our Protestant Bishops: there is nothing after the time when this Register was made, which is prefixed in the Frontispiece of it in the Hannow Edition, with M P for Matthew Parker. Matthew Parker died May the 27, Anno 1575.: he printed his book at London three years before his death, without the Authors name, in the year 1572. I appeal to the ingenuous Reader, (let him be of what Communion he will, or never so full of prejudice), whether it be credible, that Arch Bishop Parkers own book should be printed in London, by the Queen's Printer, in his life time, and have any thing foisted into it contrary to his sense.  
Here than we have a Register of Protestant Bishops, with their Confirmations and Consecrations, published to the world in Print at London, by Arch Bishop Parker himself, (who was the principal person and most concerned in that Controversy,) as if it should dare all the Adversaries of our Church to except against it, if they could▪ Registers cannot be concealed, being always kept in the most public and conspicuous places of great Cities, whither every one hath access to them who will. They need no printing, but this was printed (a work of supererogation). They who dared not to except against it then, when it was fresh in all men's memories, ought not to be admitted to make conjectural exceptions now.  
Now the Fathers come to show, how their Doctors did object to our Protestant Clergy, the Nullity and Illegality of their Ordination. If their Doctors give a cause or reason of their knowledge, we are bound to answer that: but if they object nothing but their own judgement and authority, we regard it not; their judgement may weigh some thing with them, but nothing at all with us. This is not to make themselves Advocates, but judges over us, which we do not allow. If I should produce the Testimonies of fourscore Protestant Doctors, who affirm that we have a good Succession, or that their Succession is not good, what would they value it?  
The first is Doctor Bristol; Consider what Church that is, whose Ministers are but very Laymen, unsent, uncalled, unconsecrated, holding therefore amongst us when they repent and return, no other place but of Laymen, in no case admitted, no nor looking to Minister in any Office, unless they take Orders which before they had not. Here is Doctor Bristows Determination, but where are his grounds? He bringeth none at all, but the practice of the Roman Church, and that not general. Paul the 4, and Cardinal Poole, and the Court of Rome in those days were of another judgement, and so are many others: and so may they themselves come to be, when they have considered more seriously of the matter, that we have both the same old Essentials. That which excuseth their Reordination from formal Sacrilege (for from material it cannot be excused upon their own grounds,) is this, that they cannot discover the truth of the matter of Fact, for the hideous Fables raised by our Countrymen. But where is the Nagges head Ordination in Dr. Bristol? Then had been the time to have objected it, and printed it, if there had been any reality in it. Either Dr. Bristol had never heard of this Pageant, or he was ashamed of it. Here we meet with Dr. Fulke again, and what they say of him shall be answered in its proper place  
Their next witness is Mr. Reinolds, There is no Herdsman in all Turkey, who doth not undertake the Government of his Herd, upon better reason and greater right Order and authority, than these your magnificent Apostles. etc. And why an Herdsman in Turkey, but only to allude to his Title of Calvino Turcismus? An herdsman in Turkey hath as much right to order his herd, as an herdsman in Christendom; unless perhaps your Dr. did think, that Dominion was founded in Grace, not in nature. This is saying, but we expect proving. It is well known that you pretend more to a magnificent Apostolate, them we. If the authority of the holy Scripture (which knoweth no other Essentials of Ordination; but imposition of hands and these words Receive the Holy Ghost,) if the perpetual practice of the universal church, if the Prescription of the ancient Council of Carthage, and above 200. Orthodox Bishops, with the concurrent approbation of the Primitive Fathers be sufficient grounds, we want not sufficient grounds for the exercise of our Sacred Functions. But on the contrary, there is no Herdsman in Turkey who hath not more sufficient grounds or assurance of the lawfulness of his Office, than you have for the discharge of your Holy Orders, upon your own grounds. The Turkish Herdsman receives his Master's Commands without examining his intention: but according to your grounds, if in ●n hundred successive Ordinations, there were but one Bishop who had an intention not to Ordain, or no intention to ordain, or but one Priest who had an intention notto bap●●ise, or no intention to baptise any of these Bishops, than your whole Succession cometh to nothing. But I must ask still where ●s your Nagges head Ordination in all this? ●r. Reinolds might have made a pleasant Parallel between the Nagges head Ordination ●nd the Ordination of the Turkish Mufti, and wanted not a mind mischievous enough against his Mother the Church of England, if he could have found the least pretext: but there was none. You seek for water out of a Pumice.  
Their third Witness is Dr. Stapleton, in his Counterblast against Bishop Horn. To say truly, you are no Lord Winchester, nor elsewhere, but only Mr Robert Horn. Is 〈◊〉 not notorious that you and your Colleagues were not ordained▪ according to the prescript, I will not say of the Church, but even of the very Statutes? How then can you challenge to yourself the name of the Lord Bishop of Winchester? You are without an● Consecration at all of your Metropolitan, himself pooreman being no Bishop neither. This was a loud blast indeed but if Dr Stapleton could have said any thing of the Nagges head Ordination, he would have given another manner of blast, tha● should have made the whole world Ech● again with the Sound of it. In vain you see● any thing of the Nagges head in your writers, until after the year 1600. For answer Dr. Stapleton raiseth no Objection fro● the Institution of Christ, whereupon an● only whereupon, the Validity or Invalidity of Ordination doth depend: but only from the Laws of England. First for the Canons, we maintain that our Form of Episcopal Ordination hath the same Essentials with the Roman: but in other things of an inferior allay it differeth from it. The Papal Canons were never admitted for binding Laws in England, further than they were received by ourselves, and incorporated into our Laws: but our Ordination is conformable to the Canons of the Catholic Church, which prescribe no new Matter and Form in Priestly Ordination. And for our Statutes, the Parliament hath answered that Objection sufficiently, showing clearly, that the Ordination of our first Protestant Bishops was legal, and for the Validity of it, we crave no man's favour.  
Their last witness is Dr. Harding, who had as good a will (if there had been any reality in it) to have spoken of the Nagges head Ordination as the best, but he speaketh not a Syllable of it more than the rest: and though they keep a great stir with him, he bringeth nothing that is worth the weighing. First he readeth us a profound Lecture, that Sacerdos Signifieth both a Priest and a Bishop. Let it signify so, and in St. Hieroms sense, what will he infer from thence? Next, he asks Bishop jewel of Bishoply and Priestly vocation and sending. What new canting language is this? Could he not as well have made use of the old Ecclesiastical word of Ordination? Thirdly he taxeth the Bishop, that he answereth not by what example hands were laid on him, or who sent him. What doth this concern any question between them and us? Hands were laid on him by the example of Christ, of his Apostles●, of the Primitive and Modern Church: so Christ sent him, the King sent him, the Church sent him, in several respects. He telleth us, that when he had duly considered his Protestant Ordination in King Edward's time, he did not take himself for lawful deacon in all respects. If his Protestant Ordination were a Nullity (as these men say), then he was a lawful Deacon in no respect. Pope Paul the 4. and Cardinal Poole were of another mind. Then follow his two grand excepitons against our Ordination, wherein you shall find nothing of your Nagges head fable The former exception is, that King Edward's Bishops who gave Orders, were out of Orders themselves, The second is, that they ministered not orders according to the Rite and manner of the Catholic Church. For the former exception, I refer him to the Council of Carthage in St. Augustine's time, and for both his excepitons to Cardinal ●oles Confirmation of King Edward's Bishops and Priests, and Paul the 4. Ratification of his Act. If any man have a mind to inquire further into the Validity of our Form of Ordination, let him leave these Fables and take his scope freely.  
To all this they say, that Bishop jewel answers with profound silence, yet they add, only he says without any proof, that their Bishops are made by Form and Order, and by the Consecration of the Arch bishop and other three Bishops, and by admission of the Prince. I expected profound silence, but I find a profound answer; this is the first time I learned how a man can both keep profound silence ●nd answer so pertinently all at once. How doth Dr. Harding go about to take away ●his answer: For Bishop jewel was the defendant, and the burden of the proof did ●ot rest upon him? First I pray you how was ●our Archbishop consecrated? If Dr. Harding did not see his Consecration, he might have ●een it if he would. He asks further, what ●ree Bishops were there in the Realm to lay hands ●pon him? Ask the Queen's Letters patents, ●●d they will show you seven. What a ●●eake Socratical kind of arguing is this, altogether by questions, without any Inference? If Dr. Harding could have said it justly, (and he could have said it if it had been so), he should have confuted him boldly, and told him your Metropolitan was consecrated in the Nagges head, by one single Bishop, in a fanatical and fantastical manner: but he did not, he durst not do it, because he knew it to be otherwise, and it was publicly known to be otherwise. All his exception is against our Form, If you had been Consecrated after the Form and Order which hath ever been used, you might have had Bishops out of France or at home in England. It is the Form established in King Edward's time, and restored in Queen Elisabeths' time which Doctr. Harding impugneth, not tha● ridiculous Form which they Father upon Bishop Scory: and their chief objection against that Form, was that vain Cavil that it was not restored by Act of Parliament, which since hath been answere● abundantly by an Act of Parliament. Here upon he telleth Bishop jewel, that his Metropolitan had no lawful Consecration. Though his Consecration had not been lawful, y●● it might have been valid, but it was bot● legal and valid. This is all that Doctor Harding hath, which a much mean Scholar then that learned Prelate might have adventured upon, without fear of burning his Fingers.  
Their next proof against our Records, is taken from the Contradictions of our Writers, Mr. Masons Registers and Records, disagree with those that Mr. Goodwin used in his Catalogue of Bishops, sometimes in the Day sometimes in the month, sometimes in the year. And again, Mr. Mason Sutcliffe and Mr. Butler, all speaking of Mr. Parker's Consecration, do all differ one from another in naming his Consecraters; Mr. Mason saith it was done by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale▪ and Hodgskins. Mr. Sutcliffe saith, besides the three first there was two Suffragans. M Butler saith, the Suffragan of Dover was one. who is not named in the Commission. So as these men seem to have had three Disagreeing Registers. I answer, first that it is scarcely possible to avoid errors in transcribing and printing of Books, in the Author's absence, especially in names and numbers. To keep a bawling and a stir about these Errata of the pen or of the press, is like the barking of little Curs, which trouble the whole Vicinage about the Mooneshining in the Water. Such were the most of these.  
Secondly supposing that some very few of these were the real mistakes of the Authors, yet innocent mistakes, which have no plot in them or design of Interest or Advantage, which conduce neither pro nor contra to any Controversy that is on Foot, they ought not to be exaggerated or pressed severely; It is the Wisdom of a wise man to pass by an Infirmity. Such are all these petty Differences. Whether Archbishop Parker was consecrated by three City Bishops and two Suffragan, or by three City Bishops and one Suffragan Bishop, and whether this one Suffragan were Suffragan of Bedford or Suffragan of Dover, conduceth nothing to any Controversy which is on Foot in the Church, and signifieth nothing to the Validity or invalidity, legality or illegality, canonicalnesse or uncanonicalnesse of his Ordination. All Memories are not so happy, to remember names and numbers, after a long distance of time, especially if they entered but by the ●are▪ and were not Oculis subjecta fidelibus. I● any man should put me to depose (wanting my notes and memorials,) what Priests did impose hands upon me with Archbishop Mathews at my Priestly Ordination, or what Bishops did join with my Lord Primate of Ireland at my Episcopal Ordination, I could not do it exactly. I know there were more than the Canons do require, at either Ordination; and refer myself to the Register. Whether two Suffragans or one Suffragan, is an easy mistake. when there were two in the Commission, and but one at the Consecration: so is the Suffragan of Dover for the Suffragan of Bedford.  
Thirdly, whether these were the faults of the pen or the press or the Author: yet after retractation it ought not to be objected. It is inhuman to charge any man with that fault, which he himself had corrected and amended. Bishop Goodwin corrected all these errors himself, without any Monitor, and published his Correction of his errors to the world in Print long since, in a new Edition of his book. Likewise Dr. Sutcliffe acknowledged his mistake and gave order to Mr. Mason to publish it to the world, as he did.  
To ground exceptions upon the errors of the press, or the slips of the tongue or pen or of the memory, after they have been publicly amended, is like flies to delight in sores, and neglect the body when it is sound. I have the same error crept into a book of mine, of [five] for [four], how it came I know not, for the book was printed in my absence: but I have corrected it in mine own Copy and in many Copies of my Friends, where I meet with the book.  
Lastly, there is no danger in such petty differences, so long as all parties do submit themselves to the public Registers of the Church, as all these writers do; although is may be some of them were better acquainted with Polemic Writers, then with Registers, or the practical customs of the Church of England. The very Reference or submission of themselves to the Register, is an Implicit retractation of their errors. As in a City the Clocks may differ, and the people's judgements of the time of the day, but both Clocks and Clerks must submit to the Sun dial when the sun shineth out: so all private memorials must be, and are submitted to the public Register of the Church. Where these Father's talk of plurality of Registers, they err because they understand not our Customs. Every Bishop throughout the Kingdom hath one Registry at least, every Dean and Chapter hath a Registry. The ordinations of Priests and Deacons, and the Institution of Clerks to Benefices, are recorded in the Registries of the Respective Bishops, in whose dioceses they are ordained and instituted. The elections of Bishops and Inthronisations and Installations, in the Registry of the respective Deans and Chapiters': and the Confirmations and Consecrations of Bihops, in the Registry of the Archbishop where they are consecrated; except th● Archbishop be pleased to grant a Commission to some other Bishops, to Consecrate the elected and confirmed Bishop in some other place. But the same thing can not be recorded originally but in one Registry.   

CAP. VIII. Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Fulke defended, Bishop Barlowes Consecration justified, of john Stows Testimony, and the Earl of Notinghams' etc.  
HEre the Fathers take upon them the office of judges or Censors rather than of Advocates. Mr. Mason ought to have answered as Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Fulke, (they were both eminent Drs. in the Schools) who had reason to be better informed of the Records than he. How? Nay nor half so well. They were both contemplative men, Cloistered up in St. john's College, better acquainted with Polemic writers, then with Records, They were both ordained Deacons and Priests legally, Canonically, according to the Form prescribed by the Church of England: and were no such ill Birds to defile their own nests. If the Records of their Ordination will satisfy you, that they were no Enthusiasts, (as you imagine,) you may quickly receive satisfaction: But if they had said any thing contrary to our Laws and Canons, you must not think to wrangle the Church of England out of a good possession, by private voluntary speculations. Let us see what these Doctrs say as you allege them, for I have not their books in present. Mr. Whitaker saith, I would not have you think we make such reckoning of your Orders, as to hold our own Vocation unlawful without them. You see Doctor Whitaker justifieth our Ordination in this very place as lawful, and much more plainly elsewhere in his writings. That though our Bishops and Ministers be not Ordained by Papistical Bishops, yet they are orderly and lawfully ordained: Again, The Romanists account none lawful Pastors, but such as are created according to their Form or Order. These are your two main Objections against our Ordination, that we are not ordained by Bishops of your Communion. That we are not ordained according to the Roman Form. In both of these Doctor Whitaker is wholly for us against you, that which he maketh no reckoning of, is your Form of Ordination, as it is contradistinct from ours, as it is in many things, especially in your double matter and Form in Priestly Ordination.  
You say Mr. Fulke speaks more plainly Let us hear him. You are highly deceived if you think we esteem your Offices of Bishop's Priests and Deacons better than Laymen: and with all our heart we defy, abhor, detest, and spit at your stinking, greasy, Antichristian Orders. This is high enough indeed, and might have been expressed in more moderate terms: but it is to be expounded, not of the invalidity of your Ordination, as if it wanted any Essential, but partly in respect of the not using or abusing these sacred Offices, and partly in respect of the Laws of England. Excesses may make an Ordination unlawful, although they do not make it invalid. Holy Orders are an excellent Grace conferred by God for the Conversion of men: but if those who have them, instead of preaching truth do teach errors to his people, and adulterate the old Christian Faith by addition of new Articles, they are no longer true Pastors, but Wolves which destroy the Flock, and so they are not only no better, but worse then Lay men, Corruptio optimi pessima. In this respect they tell you, that your Priests and Bishops are no true Priests and Bishops, as Marcellus told his Soldiers that they were no true Romans (who were natural Romans) because they wanted the old Roman virtue. Lastly you have habitual power to exercise these Offices, but you want actual power in England, by reason of the not application, or rather the substraction of the matter by our Laws: so you are no legal Bishops or Priests there. This I take to have been the sense of these two Doctors.  
Now are we come to their grand exception, against Bishop Barlow, who was one of the Consecraters of Archbishop Parker, whose Consecration is not found in the Archbishop's Register, and there fore they conclude that he was never consecrated. If this objection were true, yet it doth not render Archbishop Parker's Consecration either invalid or uncanonical, because there were three other Bishops who joined in that Consecration besides Bishop Barlow, which is the full number required by the Canons. But this objection is most false. Bishop Barlow was a Consecrated Bishop above 20 years before the Consecration of Archbishop Parker. They should have done well to have proposed this doubt in Bishop Barlows life-time, and then they might have had the Testimony of his Consecraters under an archiepiscopal or Episcopal Seal, for their satisfaction, The Testimony of the Archiepiscopall Register, is a full proof of Consecration affirmatively, but it is not a full proof negatively; such a Bishop's Consecration is not recorded in this Register, therefore he was not Consecrated. For first, the negligence of an Officer or some cross accident might hinder the recording. Secondly Fire or Thiefs or some such Casualty might destroy or purloin the Record. Thirdly though it be not recorded in this Register, it may be recorded in another, the Arch Bishop may, and Arch Bishop Cranmer usually did delegate or give Commission to three other Bishops for Consecration. And though the work be ordinarily performed at Lambeth, because of the place, where they may have three Bishops always present without any further Charge: yet they are not obliged by any Law to Consecrate them there. And if there be a sufficient number of Bishops near the Cathedral which is to be filled, or if the person who is to be Consecrated do desire it, they may be Consecrated either in that, or any of their own Churches. The Bishops of the Province of York, by reason of the former convenience are usually consecrated at Lambeth, yet I have known in my time Bishop Sinews of Carlisle consecrated at York upon his own desire, by the Archbisop of York, and the Bishops of Durham, Chester, and Man A man might seek long enough for his Consecration in the Archbishop of Canterbury's Register and miss it, but it is to be found in the Register at York. So the Omission of it in that Register though it be no full proof, yet it is a probable proof that Bishop Barlow was not Consecrated there, but it is no proof at all that he was not Consecrated elswere.  
And this I take to have been the case both of Bishop Barlow and Bishop Gardiner: and although the effluxion of above an hundred years since, hath rendered it more difficult to find where it was done, yet by the help of those Records which are in the Court of Faculties, I should not despair of finding it yet.  
But there are so many evident proofs that he was Cousecrated, that no ingenuous person can have the Face to deny it. The first reason is, his actual possession of 4. Bishoprics one after another, St. Assaph, St. david's, Bath and Wells and Chichester, in the Reigns of three Princes. They feign some pretences why Archbishop Parker was not consecrated Canonically▪ because there wanted a competent number of Bishops, though it were most false: but what can they feign why Bishop Barlow was not consecrated in Henry the eighths' time? was Henry the eighth a Baby to be jested withal? In Archbishop Parker's case, they suppose all the Bishops to have been stark mad, to cast themselves down headlong from a Precipice, when they had a fair pair of Stairs to descend by: but in Bishop Barlowes case they suppose all the world to have been asleep; except there had been such an Universal sleep it had been impossible for any man in those days to creep into a Bishopric in England without Consecration. To say he is actually possessed of a Bishopric therefore he is Consecrated, is as clear a Demonstration in the English Law, as it is in nature to say the Sun shineth, therefore it is Day.  
But it may be objected, that he held all these Bishoprics as a Commendatory, no● in Title, as an usufructuary not as a true owner. It is impossible, Usufructuaries are not elected and confirmed, but Bishop Barlow was both elected and Confirmed. The Congee d'eslire to the Dean and Chapter, the Letters Patents for his Confirmation, the Commission for the restitution of his Temporalties, do all prove that he was no usufructuary but a right owner, This is a second reason.  
Thirdly, The same Letters Patents that do authorize Bishop Barlowes Confirmation, did likewise Command the Archbishop with the assistence of other Bishops to Consecrate him himself. or to give a Commission to other Bishops to Consecrate him, which if they did not perform within a prescribed time, or perform after another manner then is prescribed by the Law, it was not only a loss of their Bishoprics by the Law of England, but a Praemunire or the loss of all their Estates, their Liberties, and a casting themselves out of the King's Protection 25, Hen: 8. c. 20. No men in their right wits would r●n such a hazard, or rather evidently ruin themselves and all their hopes without any need, without any end in the whole world. Fourthly, by the same Law no man could be acknowledged a Bishop in England, but he who was Consecrated legally, by three Bishops with the consent of the Metropolitan, but Bishop Barlow was acknowledged to be a true Bishop; The King received his Homage for his Bishopric; the King commanded him to be restored to his Temporalties, which is never done until the Consecration be passed. King Henry sent him into Scotland as his Ambassador with the title of Bishop of St. David's; and in his restitution to the Temporalties of that See, the King related that the Arch Bishop had made him Bishop and Pastor of the Church of St. David's. This could not be if he had not been Consecrated.  
Thirdly, he was admitted to sit in Parliament as a Consecrated Bishop: for no man can sit there as a Bishop before he be Consecrated, but it is plain by the Records of the house of the Lords that he did sit in Parliament many times in the 31 of Henry the 8. in his Episcopal habit, as a Consecrated Bishop; and being neither a Bishop of one of the five Principal Sees, nor a Privy Counsellor, he must sit and did sit according to the time of his Consecration, between the Bishops of Chichester and St, Assaph. What a strange boldness, is it to question his Consecration now, whom the whole Parliament, and his Consecraters among the rest, did admit without scruple then as a Consecrated Bishop.  
Sixthly, There is no act more proper or essential to a Bishop then Ordination, What doth a Bishop that a Priest doth not (saith St. Hierom) except Ordination? But it is evident by the Records of his own See, that Bishop Barlow did Ordain Priests and Deacons from time to time, and by the Arch Bishop's Register that he, joined in Episcopal Ordination, and was one of those three Bishops who imposed hands upon Bishop Buckley Feb. 19 1541,  
Seventhly, there is nothing that ●●inth a Bishop's Title to his Church more than ●he Validity and Invalidity of his Leases. If Bishop Barlow had been unconsecrated, all the Leases which he made in the See of St. David's, and Bath and Wells, had been void, and it had been the easiest thing in the whole world for his Successor in those days, to prove whether he was consecrated or not, but they never questioned his Leases; because they could not question his Consecration.  
Lastly, an unconsecrated person hath neither Antecessors nor Successors, he succeedeth no man, no man succeedeth him. If a grant of any hereditaments be made to him and his Successors, it is absolutely voids, not worth a deaf Nut; If he alien any Lands belonging to his See from him and his▪ Successors, it is absolutely void: But Bishop Barlow● received the Priory of Br●cknock from the Crown, to him and his Successors Bishops of St. David's, and in King Edward's reign being Bishop of Bath and Wells, he alienated from him and his Successors to the Crown much Land, and received back again from the Crown to him and his Successors equivalent Lands. If he had been unconsecrated all these Acts had been utterly void. In sum, whosoever dreameth now, that all the world were in a dead sleep then, for twenty years together, whilst all these things were acting, is much more asleep himself.  
To these undeniable proofs I might add as many more out of the Records of the Chancery, if there needed any to prove him a Consecrated Bishop. As.  
A grant to the said William Barlow Bishop of St. David's, to hold in Commendam with the said Bishopric the Rectory of Carewe in the county of Pembroke, Dated Octob. the 29. Anno 38. Hen. 8.  
A commission for Translation of William Barlow Bishop of St. David's to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, Dated. 3. Feb. 2. Edu. 6.  
A Commission for the Consecration of Robert Farrer to be Bishop of St. David's, per translationem Willelmi Barlow etc. Dated 3. jul. Anno 2. Edu. 6.  
A Commission for the Restitution of the Temporalties of the said Bishopric to the said Robert Farrer, as being void per translationem Willelmi Barlow. Dated 1. Augusti Anno 2. Edu. 6. In all which Records and many more he is always named as a true Consecrated Bishop.  
And lastly, in Bishop goodwin's book de Praesulibus Angliae pa. 663. of the Latin Edition printed at London Anno 1616. in his Catalogue of the Bishops of St. Assaph num. 37. he hath these words. Gulielmus Barlow Canonicorum Regularium apud Bisham Prior Consecratus est. Feb. 22. Anno 1535; Aprili deinde sequente Meneviam translatus est. William Barlow Prior of the Canons Regulars at Bisham was consecrated the two and twentieth Day of February, in the year 1535, and in April Following was translated to St. David's. Which confirmeth me in my former conjecture, that he was Consecrated in Wales, which Bishop Goodwin by reason of his Vicinity, had much more reason to know exactly then we have.  
They say Mr. Mason acknowledgeth that Mr Barlow was the man who consecrated Parker, because Hodgskins the Suffragan of Bedford was only an Assistant in that action: and the Assistants in the Protestant Church do not consecrate. By the Father's leave, this is altogether untrue. Neither was Bishop Barlow the only man who Consecrated Archbishop Parker; Neither was Bishop Hodgskins a mere Assistant in that action; Thirdly, who soever do impose hands are joint consecraters, with us as well as them; Lastly, Mr. Mason saith no such thing as they affirm, but directly the Contrary, that all the four Bishops were equally Consecraters, all imposed hands, all joined in the words, and this he proveth out of the Register itself, L. 3. c. 9 n. 8. & l: 3. c. 10. n. 9  
They object He might as well be proved to have been a lawful Husband, because he had a woman▪ and divers Children, as to have been a Consecrated Bishop because he ordained. and Discharged all acts belonging to the Order of a Bishop. What was Bishop Barlowes Woman pertinent to his cause. Are not Governants, and Devotesses, besides ordinary maid-servants, women?  
All which Pastors not only of their own Communion, but of their own Society, are permitted to have in their houses. Let themselves be ●udges whether a Woman a wife, or a Woman a Governant or a Devotesse, be more properly to be ranged under the name or notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such women as were prohibited to Cohabit with Clerks by the Council of Nice. But to leave the Hypothesis and come to the Thesis, as being more pertinent to the present case. If a man have cohabited long with a Woman as man and wife in the General estimation of the world, and begot children upon her, and dies as her husband without any doubt or dispute during his life and long after, though all the Witnesses of their Marriage were dead, and the Register lost, this their Conjugal cohabitation and the common reputation of the world during his Life uncontroverted, is in Law a sufficient proof of the Marriage: but all the world nemine contradicente esteemed Bishop Barlow as the undoubted Bishop and Spouse of his Church.  
They add, Ridley Hooper Farrer were acknowledged and obeyed as Bishops in King Edward's time, yet were judged by both the Spiritual and Temporal Court not to have been consecrated. They mistake, they were not judged not to have been consecrated, (for their Consecrations are upon Record,) but not to have been consecrated ritu Romano, after the Roman Form. And who gave this judgement? Their open enemies, who made no scruple to take away their Lives, whose unjust judgement we do not value a rush: but Paul the 4. and Cardinal Pole; more authentic judges of their own party, gave a later judgement to the Contrary.  
They ask, how it is possible that Barlowes Consecration should not be found recorded (if ever it was), as well as his preferment to the Priory of Bisham, and Election and Confirmation to the Bishopric of St. Assaph. I answer it is very easy to conceive. I have showed him sundry ways how it might be, and one probable way how it was. I desire the Reader to observe the extreme partiality of these Fathers, they make it impossible for the Acts of one Consecration to be lost or stolen, and yet accuse us of forging fifteen Consecrations. It is easier to steal fifteen, then to Forge one Act.  
We have often asked a reason of them, why the Protestants should decline their own Consecrations? They give us one, The truth is, that Barlow as most of the Clergy in England in those times were Puritans, and inclined to Zuinglianisme, therefore they contemned and rejected Consecration as a rag of Rome, and were contented with the extraordinary calling of God and the Spirit, as all other Churches are, who pretend Reformation. It is well they premised the truth is, otherwise there had not been one word of truth in what they say. First how do they know this? It must be either by Relation, but I am confident they can name no author for it: or by Revelation, but that they may not do: or it is (to speak sparingly) their own Imagination. It is a great boldness, to take the liberty to cast aspersions upon the Clergy of a whole Nation. Secondly, how cometh Bishop Barlow, to be taxed of Puritanism? we meet him a Prior and a Bishop, we find him in his Robes, in his Rochet, in his Cope, Officiating, Ordaining, Confirming. He who made no scruple to Ordain and Consecrate others gratis, certainly did not forbear his own Consecration with the apparent hazard of the loss of his Bishopric, out of scruple of Conscience. Thirdly, this aspersion is not well accommodated to the times, For first Zuinglianisme was but short heeled in those Days when Bishop Barlow was Consecrated, who sat in Parliament as a Consecrated Bishop 31. Henr. 8: and the first Sermon that ever Zuinglius Preached as a Probationer, was in Zurick in the year 1510. that was in the 10. or 11. year of Henry the eighth. If there were any one Zuinglian in those days, upon their grounds, it is most likely to have been Bishop Gardiner, for his Consecration doth not appear more than Bishop Barlowes.  
But there is yet a greater mistake in it; it is the Anabaptists who reject Ordination, and content themselves with the extraordinary calling of the Spirit, not the Zwinglians. In the writings of Zuinglius we find a Letter of him and ten other of the principal Helvetian Theologians, to the Bishop of Constance; beseeching him in all humility and observance, to favour and help forward their beginnings, as an excellent work and worthy of a Bishop; They implore his Clemency, Wisdom, learning, that he would be the first fruits of the Germane Bishops; They beseech him by the Common Christ, by that fatherly affection which he owes unto them, to look graciously upon them &c; They court him to show himself a Father, and grant the request of his obedient sons, Zuinglius and the Zwinglians liked Bishops well enough, if he could have had them. But the Bishop of Constance of another Communion was their Bishop.  
Here Meanderlike they make a winding from St. Asaph back again to Cheapside, from Bishop Barlowes Consecration to Archbishop Parkers. They say, that if there had been any other Consecration of Archbishop Parker then that of the Nagges head, john Stow would not conceal it in his Annals; who is so diligent in setting down all that passed in and about London, and professeth personal respect to him, he having related the Consecration of Cardinal Pole with so many particulars. They add out of Dr. Champney, that john Stow acknowledged to many persons that the story of the Nagges head was true. Their store is very low, when they are forced to produce john Stow, who scarce knew what a Consecration was. But what saith he in his Chronicles? Not a word, either of the feigned Consecration at the Nagges head, or of the true Consecration at Lambeth. But he told it to many persons by word of mouth, that the Story of the Nagges head was very true. If he did, he lied notoriously to many persons, but we acquit him of that calumny: let it rest upon them, who think it a meritorious Act, to advance religion by any means true or false, we are too well acquainted with their hearsay reports. They who dare wrest his printed works, ought not to be trusted what he spoke by word of mouth, to some body, whom no body knows. Their Author saith to some persons, they say to many persons, thus this snowball increaseth. john Stowe is now dead, and dead men do not bite: yet let us know to whom he said it? Doctor Champney tells us, they are timorous and would not be named. Good reason, for they have no names: so john Stow is a silent witness, and they are nameless witnesses.  
So much for the man: now for the thing I give three answers; First if john Stow were a lover of the truth, he should rather have set down the Nagges head Ordination (if there was any such thing) than the Lambeth Ordination. Men would suppose the Lambeth Ordination of themselves, where nothing is said to the contrary, it is presumed for the Law: but the Nagges head Consecration, had been such a Consecration, as never was before, never will follow after.  
Secondly, their Authors wrest john Stow abominably. He was no professed writer of Ecclesiastical Annals. It is true he mentioneth the Consecration of Cardinal Pole, whether it was his respect to his Eminence, as being a near Kinsman to the Queen, a Cardinal, the Pope's Legate, and his grand Minister for the reconciliation of England, or because a toy took him in the head: but not with so many particulars as the Father's intimate; all he saith is this, the 21 of March Dr. Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury was burnt at Oxford, the same day Cardinal Pole sang his first Mass at Greenwich in the Friar's Church, on Sunday next he was Consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury (here was speedy work), and the 25 of March received the Pall with the usual Ceremonies at Bows Church in Cheap. Here is another Nagges head meeting; where he was Consecrated, by whom, after what Form, he leaveth the Reader to presume: but of all the other Consecrations performed in Queen Mary's time, this diligent Author mentioneth not so much as one; of all the Consecrations in Queen Elizabeth's time, I think not one; of all the Consecrations in England since the Conquest, not one, or so rarely that they are not to be taken notice of. If the Argument of these Fathers were of any value john Stow mentioneth not his Consecration at Lambeth, therefore he was not Consecrated there, we never had a Consecration in England, since the Conquest, but Cardinal' Poles: for he mentioneth none but that which I remember, I am sure if he mention any it is most rarely. If the Father's argument were good, Archbishop Parker was never elected, nor confirmed, because his Election and Confirmation are not recordsd by john Stow: but all our Records Civil as well as Ecclesiastical do testify the Contrary.  
Lastly, if the Fathers would lay aside their prejudice, there is enough in john Stows Annals, to discover the falsehood of their lying Fable of the Consecration at the Nagges head. By their account the Nags head Consecration was September 7. Anno 1559, but after this in relating the solemn Obsequies kept in St. Paul's Church, for the French King, john Stow calleth him, Dr. Parker Archbishop of Canterbury Elect, therefore the Nags head Consecration is a lying Fable; if he was still Elect, he was not then Consecrated. But afterward speaking of his Death May 17. 1575., which is the next time I find him mentioned, he styleth him the right Reverend Father in God Matthew Parker Dr. of Divinity Archbishop of Canterbury. Here is no more the word Elect, for after Confirmation and Consecration, the word Elect ceaseth, here he is complete Archbishop of Canterbury.  
They say, they who make no Conscience to falsify Scripture will forge Records: And how notoriously the English Clergy have falsified Scripture, is Demonstrated by Gregory Martin. I hope none of us did ever attempt to purge St. Paul's Epistles, because there were in them, Quaedam male sonamia, Somethings that sounded not well, in the point of justification. We desire good words, until they be able to prove their allegation. Rather than be accounted falsifiers of Scripture, we are contented to stand to the vulgar Latin, in any Controversy between them and us. But who is the man doth accuse us of so many Falsifications? One Gregory Martin, one of their fellows, whose censure we do not weigh a button. This is a new inartificial Kind of arguing, from the Authority of their own Writers.  
But they use it much, so it followeth in the next words, it is want of Charity to think that Stapleton, Harding, Bristol and the rest of the English Catholic Doctors, who did forsake all at home for Conscience sake, would publish to the world in print, the Nullity of Parker's Ordination; thereby engaging posterity to commit so many damnable Sacrileges, in reordeining those who had been validly ordained already, without due examination of the matter. This plea is much like that of the old Roman, that his Adversary, did not receive the wound with his whole body, that he might have killed him fairly. They would have us rather put up the loss of our Holy Orders, than the skill of their Doctors should be questioned. If Reordination be damnable Sacrilege, the Authority of your own Doctors may be a fit medium to convince yourselves of Sacrilege, not us of the Invalidity of our Ordination. I hope Stephen the sixth and Sergius the third, two Popes, were other manner of men than your English Doctors, and did both pretend to examine the matter as duly, and to be as a verse from damnable Sacrilege as you, yet they decreed publicly, and most unjustly, (as you yourselves do now confess) that all the holy Orders received from Formosus were void, and compelled all those who had been ordained by him, to be reordeined. Bell. de Rom. Pont. l. 4. cap. 12.  
Mr. Mason cited the Testimony of a witness beyond all exception, Charles Howard Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral of England, who acknowledged Archbishop Parker to be his Kinsman, and that he was an invited Guest at his Consecration at Lambeth. To this the Father's reply, If this were true, it proves only that there was a good Dinner at Lambeth, which might well be to conceal the shameful Consecration at the Nagges head. It proves there was a good Consecration, as well as a good Dinner, the words are to honour his Consecration, and the solemnity thereof with his presence. It had been something uncivil, to encumber the Tavern with a Consecration, and not stay dinner there. The Earl was invited to the Consecration, at Lambeth, therefore it was at Lambeth, The Earl was not at the Nagges head; Mr. Neale himself, who see more than ever was acted, or so much as thought of, did not see that. Is it the Custom when one is invited to a Consecration, to come after it is done to dinner: or to invite a Nobleman to a Consecration in one place, and then be consecrated in another? This had been so far from concealing the shamefulness of such a brainsick Consecration, that it been a ready means to divulge it to all the world.  
They add, Besides we must take the Earls Friends word for the Earl's Testimony, and Mr. Mason's word for his nameless Friend. That is none of Mr. Mason's fault, but Mr. Holywoods, Mr. Constables, Mr. Sacroboscoes, Dr. Champneys, Mr. Fitz herbert's, Mr Fitz-Simons, who first broached this odious Fable. Mr. Mason published this relation to the world in print while the Earl was yet living, on purpose that they might inquire and satisfy themselves; if they did not, they can blame no body but themselves; if they did by themselves or their Friends, (as it is most likely they did) it is evident the answer did not content them, and so we never heard more of them since. It had been the greatest folly in the world to allege the Testimony of such a Noble man in his Life time, contrary to his own knowledge, which might have been disproved from his own Authority, and so have easily laid Mr. Mason flat upon his back. You may remember your own case with the Bishop of Durham. But it was too true to be contradicted then, and too late to be Contradicted now.  
They say, they bring more than one witness of the Nagges head Consecration. Pardon me, You never produced one yet, and which is less than producing, you never so much as named a witness, whilst he himself was living. In or about the year 1603. you first named Mr. Neale and innocent john Stow, when they were both dead; you might as well have named the man in the Moon as john Stow. Only I confess you named the Bishop of Durham in his life time, and you see what is the issue of it: and if you had named the others in their life times, you must have expected a like issue, either the perpetual infamy of your witness, or the utter confusion of your Cause. You speak much of the learning, and virtue, and judgement of your hearsay Witnesses, who knew how to distinguish between an Episcopal Consecration, and a banquet. I hope you do not mean that the Earl of Nottingham did not know, how to distinguish between a banquet and a Consecration, if he did not, the High Admiralship of England was ill committed to him: or that he had not as much regard to his honour and Conscience, as any of your Priests. We meddle not with their Learning and virtue, but we are no more obliged to take their Testimonies upon hearsay, than they would take our Testimonies. They have given an account to God, and know before this time whether they have done well or ill.  
They proceed, The Priests and jesuits, to whom the Records were showed in King james his time, protested against them as forged and improbable, as appeareth by the Testimony of men yet living, whose honesty cannot be called in question. Father Faircloth, one of the imprisoned jesuits, testified so much to many by word of mouth and in writing. Where is the writing? where is the protestation? why are they not produced? Still here are no proofs but upon Hearsay. One eye Witness is worth an hundred such, who can swear to no more but that they heard it, and God knows through how many Hucksters hands. I hope the Bishop of durham's case will make them more wary for the future.  
But they are angry with some Protestants, who endeavour to make this well grounded story a mere Fable, and thereby call many persons of much more learning, virtue, and prudence than themselves Fools or knaves. We are plain Macedonians, who call a Fable a Fable, without either welt or guard: yea, so notorious a Fable, that (but that you tell us the Contrary), we could not believe that any one of you did ever give any credit to it yourselves; any more than the Athenians did believe those monstrous Fables of Bulls and Minotaures, which themselves had raised, because some of their eminent Citizens had devised it or related it: But we call no men Fools or Knaves, That langguage is too unmannerly for civil Writers. What new Topick is this, because we cannot believe a ●mans relation or his judgement, do we straightway call him Fool or Knave? Excuse me, there are credulity, and prejudice, and mistakes, and pious frauds in the world, and none of these will willingly wear the Livery of Knaves or Fools. We are not of the same mind with Pope Stephen and Pope Sergius, for the reordeining of those, who had been ordained by Formosus, yet we do not call them knaves or Fools. We cannot believe what you yourselves have related of my Lord of Durham, yet we are not guilty of such extravagant expressions.   

CAP. IX. The Fathers insist too much upon the Authority of their own party, Why Consecration is not mentioned at Restitution, The exactness of our Records justified.  
IT seemeth to me, that the Fathers insist too much upon the honesty, and virtue, and learning of their own party▪ In dispute with an Adversary, virtue is like fire, which preserveth itself by being covered with ashes: but spread abroad by ostentation, it is quickly extinguished; especially Comparisons are odious, and beget altercation. We say, there is not a Hill so high in Lincolnshire, but there is another within a Mile as high as it: take you the reputation of learning and prudence, so you leave us the better cause; and we shall be able to defend it well enough against you. But the main defect in this part of your discourse is this, the Bishop of Chalced●● confesseth of Mr. Oldcorn, one of your Order, that he acknowledged these Records to be Authentic, and the rest of the imprisoned Priests, who viewed the Records, are charged publicly in print to have done the same, by Bishop Goodwin, by Mr. Mason; every thing ought to be unloosed the same way it is bound. They were all Scholars and could write, if this charge were not true, they ought to have published a Protestation to the world in print to the contrary, whilst their Adversaries were living, whilst the Witnesses were living: but now after they and their Adversaries, and the witnesses are all so long dead, to talk of a verbal protestation to some of their Friends, upon hearsay, signifieth nothing.  
Now we must make another winding, and return to Bishop Barlow: but I hold to the clue, in hope at length to get out of this fictitious Labyrinth. Henry the 8. Letters Patents, whereby Bishop Barlow was installed in (they would say restored to) the Temporalties of his Bishopric, make mention of his acceptation and Confirmation, but none of his Consecration. why should this last be omitted, if he were really consecrated? This objection showeth nothing, but the unskilfulness of the Fathers in our English Customs and Forms. Let them compare all the restitutions of their friends to their Temporalties in England, as Cardinal Poles, Bishop gardiner's and the rest, and they shall find the Form the very same with Bishop Barlowes; I hope they will not conclude thence that none of them were consecrated. The reason of the Form is very prudent, In a Restitution to Temporalties, they take no notice of any Acts that are purely Spiritual, as Consecration is: but only of such Acts as are Temporal, as Acceptation and Confirmation.  
But if he was restored to his Temporalties not being Consecrated, he might also sit in Parliament without Consecration. The Assumption is understood, but Bishop Barlow was restored to his Temporalties without Consecration; which is most false. From the Conversion of the Nation until this Day, they are not able to produce one instance, of one Bishop, who was duly Elected, duly confirmed, and duly restored to his Temporalties by the King's Mandate, without Consecration, or did sit in Parliament without Consecration. He must sit in Parliament in his Episcopal habit, but that cannot be before Consecration. It seemeth they think that Bishops sit in Parliament, as Temporal Barons: but it a great mistake, Bishops sat in the Great Counsels of the Kingdom, before the names of Parliament or Barons were heard of in England.  
They bring an Argument from the exactness of our Records, and that connexion that is between Records of one Court and another. The first thing necessary to obtain a Bishopric in England, is the King's Congee d'eslire; that appears in the Rolls. Next, the actual Election; that appears in the Records of the Dean and Chapter. Thirdly, the King's Acceptation of the Election, and his Commission to the Archbishop, or four Bishops in the Vacancy, to Confirm the Election and Consecrate the person Elected and Confirmed legally; that appears in the Letters Patents enroled. Fourthly, the Confirmation of the Election before the Dean of the Arches, but by the Archbishop's appointment, (this is performed always in Bow Church, except extraordinarily it be performed elsewhere by Commission); this appears in the Records of the Archbishop. Fifthly, the Consecration itself by the Archbishop and other Bishops, or other Bishops without him by virtue of his Commission; this appears in the Records of the Protonothary of the See of Canterbury. Lastly the Restitution of the Temporalties; which appears in the Rolls, and his Enthronisation in the Records of the Dean and Chapter. Every one of these takes another by the hand, and he who will enjoy a Bishopric in England, must have them all. The Chapter cannot elect without the King's Congee d'Eslire. The King never grants his Letters Patents for Confirmation and Consecration, until he have a Certificate of the Dean and Chapiters' Election. The Dean of the Arches never confirms, until he have the King's Commission. The Archbishop never Consecrates until the Election be confirmed. And lastly the King never receiveth Homage for the Bishopric, or giveth the Temporalties, nor the Dean and Chapter Enthrone, until after Consecration. He that hath any one of these acts, must of Necessity have all that go before it in this Method: and he that hath the last, hath them all. But this was more than Mr. Neale, or whosoever was Inventor of that silly Fable, did understand, otherwise he would have framed a more possible relation.  
Hence they argue, The Records being so exact, how is it possible that no Copies of Barlowes Consecration do appear in any Court or Bishopric of England? They mistake the matter wholly, the Consecration ought not to appear in any Court but one, that is that Registry where he was Consecrated, which being not certainly known, at so great a distance of time, is not so easily found, and I believe was neversought for yet further then Lambeth. But all the other Acts do appear in their proper Courts; The King's Licence, the Dean and Chapiters' Election, the King's Letters Patents, the Confirmation of the Dean of the Arches, which all go before Consecration: and his doing Homage, and the Restitution of him to his Temporalties, and his Enthronisation, all which do follow the Consecration, and are infallible proofs in Law of the Consecration: as likewise his sitting in Parliament, his Ordaining of Priests, his Consecrating of Bishops, his letting of Leases, his receiving of Heriditaments to him and his Successors, his exchanging of Lands; all which are as irrefragable proofs of his Consecration, as any man hath to prove that such persons were his Parents, either Father or Mother. And when the right Register is sought, which must be by the help of the Court of Faculties, I doubt not but his Consecration will be found in the proper place, as all the rest are.  
Mr. Mason alleged, that Bishop Gardiner's Consecration was not to be found in the Register of Lambeth, any more than Bishop Barlowes: yet no man doubted of his Ordination. They answer first, that Mr. Mason did not seek so solicitously or diligently for Bishop Gardiner's Consecration, as for Bishop Barlowes. Then why do not they whom it doth concern, cause more diligent search to be made? without finding the Records of Bishop Gardiner's Consecration, they cannot accuse Bishop Barlow of want of Consecration, upon that only reason. Secondly they answer, that if Gardiner's Consecration, were as doubtful as Barlowes and Parkers, they would take the same advise they give us, to repair with speed to some other Church of undoubted Clergy. Yes, where will they find a more undoubted Clergy? They may go further and fare worse. Rome itself hath not more exact Records, nor a more undoubted Succession, than the Church of England. There is no reason in the world to doubt either of Archbishop Parker's Consecration, or Bishop gardiner's, or Bishop Barlowes. Neither doth his Consecration concern us so much, at the Fathers imagine: there were three Consecraters (which is the Canonical number) besides him.  
It is high time for the Fathers to wind up, and draw to a Conclusion of this Argument. That which followeth next is too high and can scarcely be tolerated; to accuse the public Records and Archives of the Kingdom, and to insimulate the Primates and Metropolitans of England of Forgery, upon no ground but their own Imagination. I doubt whether they durst offer it to a widow Woman. As to the impossibility of forging so many Registers, in case there be so many, it is easily answered, that it is no more than that the Consecraters and other persons concerned, should have conspired to give in a false Certificate, that the Consecration was performed with all due Ceremonies and Rites, and thereby deceive the Courts or make them dissemble. Should any man accuse the General of their order, or one of their Provincials, or but the Rector of one of their Colleges, of Forgery and counterfeiting the public Records of the Order; how would they storm, and thunder, and mingle heaven and earth together and cry out. No moderate or prudent persons can suspect that such persons should damn their souls, that so many pious learned Divines should engage themselves and their posterity, in damnable Sacrileges, without fear of damnation. If a man will not believe every ridiculous Fable, which they tell by word of mouth upon hearsay, they call persons of more virtue learning and prudence than themselves, Fools and Knaves: But they may insimulate the principal Fathers of our Church, of certifying most pernicious lies under their hands and seals, not for a piece of bread, which is a poor temptation, but for nothing, that is to make them both Fools and Knaves. Is not this blowing hot and cold with the same breath? or to have the Faith of our Lord jesus Christ with respect of persons? Compare the political principles of the Church of England with your own, and try if you can find any thing so pernicious to mankind and all humane Society, in ours more than in yours. Compare the Case Theology of the Church of England, with your own, and try if you can find any thing so destructive to Morality, to truth, and justice, and Conscience, as might lead us to perpetrate such Crimes more than yourselves. We are not afraid of a Parallel. You profess great endeavours to make Proselytes; we do not condemn Zeal, yet wish you had more light with it: even in prudence, which you yourselves extol, this is not your right Course, to follow those Birds, with noise and clamour, which you desire to catch.  
In sum, your answer or solution is full of ignorant mistakes. It confoundeth Civil Rolls and Ecclesiastical Registers. It supposeth that our Records are but transcriptions, one out of another; whereas every Court recordeth its own Acts, and keeps itself within its own bounds. It taketh notice but of one Consecrater: where as we have always three at the least, many times five or six. It quite forgetteth public Notaries, which must be present at every Consecration with us, to draw up what is done into Acts; with us every one of these Notaries when he is admitted to that charge, doth take a solemn Oath upon his knees to discharge his Office faithfully, that is, not to make false Certificates. Secondly, it is absurd and unseasonable, to inquire how a thing came to pass that never was: you ought First to have proved, that our Records were forged, and then it had been more seasonable to have enquired modestly, how it came to pass. Thirdly, it is incredible, that persons of such prudence and eminence, should make false Certificates under their hands and seals, to the utter ruin of themselves and all that had a hand it, and no advantage to any person breathing. It is incredible that those Records should be counterfeited in a corner, which were avowed publicly for Authentic by the whole Parliament of England in the 8 year of Queen Elisabeth; which were published to the world in print by the person most concerned, as if he dared all the world to except against them: and yet no man offered to except against them then. Fourthly, it is impossible to give in a false Certificate of a Consecration which was never performed in England, (especially at Lambeth) before less than thousands of eye witnesses: and that at Lambeth, in the Face of the Court and Westminster Hall. Surely they think we consecrate in Closets, or holes, or hay mows. They may even as well say that the public Acts of our Parliaments are counterfeited, and the public Acts of our Synods are counterfeited, and all our public monuments counterfeited. It is none of the honestest Pleas, Negare factum, to deny such public Acts as these. Fifthly, this answer is pernicious to mankind, it is destructive to all Societies of men, that Bishops of so great eminence, should conspire with public Notaries, to give in false Certificates, in a matter of such High Consequence as Holy Orders are, without any temptation, without any hope of Advantage to themselves or others. It affordeth a large Seminary for jealousies and suspicions. It exterminateth all credit and confidence out of the world, and instructeth all men to trust nothing, but what they see with their eyes. Lastly, it is contradictory to themselves; They have told us, I know not how often, and tell us again in this Paragraph, That if the Nagges head Consecration had been false, they might have convinced it by a thousand witnesses: Here they make it an easy thing, for the Consecraters and other persons concerned, to conspire together to give in a false Certificate, that the Consecration was performed with all due Ceremonies and Rites, and thereby deceive the Courts or make them dissemble. If the world will be deceived so, it is but right and reason that it be deceived; to be deceived by a false Certificate, that may be convinced by a thousand witnesses, is selfdeceit.  
But they say, this is more possible and more probable, then that all the Clergy should conspire not to produce the same Registers, when they were so hardly pressed by their Adversaries. These are but empty pretences, there was no pressing to produce Registers, nor any thing objected that did deserve the production of a Register. That which was objected against our Orders in those days was about the Form of Ordination published by Edward the sixth, and the Legality of our Ordination in the time of Queen Elisabeth; the Nagges head Consecration was never objected in those days. Besides, Registers are Public enough themselves, and need no production; and yet our Registers were produced, produced by the Parliament 8 Elisab. who cited them as authentic Records, produced and published to the world in Print, that was another production.  
They add, Or that so many Catholics should have been so foolish to invent or maintain the Story of the Nagges head, in such a time when if it had been false, they might have been convinced by a thousand Witnesses. Fear them not, they were wiser than to publish such a notorious Fable in those days; they might perchance whisper it in Corners among themselves, but the boldest of them durst not maintain it, or object it in print, for fear of shame and disgrace. It was folly to give any ear to it, but is was knavery to invent it: and to do it after such a bungling manner, (whosoever was the Inventor) was knavery and Folly complicated together.  
If the Fathers write any more upon this subject, I desire them to bring us no more hearsay testimonies of their own party; whatsoever esteem they may have themselves, of their judgement, and prudence, and impartiality. It is not the manner of Polemic writers to urge the authority of their own Doctors to an Adversary, or allege the modern practice of their present Church. We have our own Church and our own Doctors as well as they. If we would pin our faith to the sleeves of their Writers, and submit to their judgements, and believe all their reports, and let all things be as they would have it, we needed not to have any more controversy with them: but we might well raise a worse controversy in ourselves with our own consciences.   

CHAM XI. Of our forms of Episcopal and priestly ordination, of Zuinglianisme, of Arch Bishop Lawd, of ceremonies. Our assurance of our Orders.  
WE have done with the Nagges head for the present. That which followeth next doth better become Scholars, as having more show of truth and reality in it. They object that in all the Catholic rituals, not only of the west but of the East, there is not one form of consecrating Bishops, that hath not the word Bishops in it, or some other words expressing the particular authority and power of a Bishop distinctly. But in our Consecration, there is not one word to express the difference and power of Episcopacy. For these words [receive the holy Ghost] are indifferent to priesthood and Episcopacy, and used in both Ordinations. I answer, that the form of Episcopal Ordination used at the same time when hands are imposed, is the same both in their form and ours, [Receive the holy Ghost], And if these words be considered singly in a divided sense from the rest of the Office, there is nothing either in our form or theirs which doth distinctly and reciprocally express Episcopal power and Authority. But if these words be considered conjointly in a compounded sense, there is enough to express Episcopal power and authority distinctly, and as much in our form as theirs.  
First two Bishops present the Bishop elect to the Archbishop of the Province, with these words, most Reverend Father in Christ, we present to you this godly and learned man to be Consecrated Bishop. There is one expression.  
Then the Archbishop causeth the King's Letters Patents to be produced and read, which require the Arch Bishop to consecrate him a Bishop. There is a second expression.  
Thirdly the new Bishop takes his oath of canonical obedience. I A B elected Bishop of the Church and See of C. do profess and promise all reverence and due obedience to the Arch Bishop and Metropolitical Church of D. and his Successors. So God help me etc. This is a third Expression.  
Next the Arch Bishop exhorts the whole Assembly▪ to solemn prayer for this person thus elected and presented, before they admit him to that office (that is the Office of a Bishop,) whereunto they hope he is called by the holy Ghost, after the example of Christ before he did choose his Apostles, and the church of Antioch before they laid hands upon Paul and Barnabas. This is a fourth expression.  
Then followeth the Litany, wherein there is this express petition for the person to be ordained Bishop, we beseech thee to give thy blessing and grace to this our brother elected Bishop, that he may discharge that office whereunto he is called diligently to the Edification of thy Church. To which all the congregation answer, Hear us O Lord we beseech thee. Here is a fifth expression.  
Then followeth this prayer wherewith the Litany is concluded. Almighty God, the giver of all good things, which by thy holy Spirit hast constituted divers orders of Ministers in thy Church, vouchsafe we beseech the to look graciously upon this thy servant, now called to the Office of a Bishop. This is a sixth expression.  
Next the Archbishop telleth him he must examine him, before he admit him to that administration whereunto he is called, and maketh a solemn prayer for him, that God who hath constituted some Prophets, some Apostles etc. to the Edification of his Church, would grant to this his servant the grace to use the authority committed to him, to edification not destruction, to distribute food in due season to the family of Christ, as becometh a faithful and prudent Steward. This authority can be no other than Episcopal authority, nor this Stewardship any other thing than Episcopacy. This is a seventh expression.  
Then followeth imposition of hands, by the Archbishop and all the Bishops present, with these words Receive the holy Ghost &c: and lastly the tradition of the Bible into his hands, exhorting him to behave himself towards the flock of Christ, as a Pastor, not devouring but feeding the flock. All this implieth Episcopal authority. They may except against Christ's own form of ordaining his Apostles if they will, and against the form used by their own Church: but if they be sufficient forms, our form is sufficient. This was the same form which was used in Edward the sixths' time, and we have seen how Cardinal Pole and Paul the fourth confirmed all without exception, that were ordained according to this form; so they would reunite themselves to the Roman Catholic Church.  
They bring the very same objection against our Priestly Ordination, The form or words whereby men are made Priests must express authority and power to consecrate, or make present Christ's body and blood, (whether with or without transubstantiation is not the present controversy with Protestants.) Thus far we accord, to the truth of the presence of Christ's body and blood; So they leave us this latitude for the manner of his presence. Abate us Transubstantiation, and those things which are consequents of their determination of the manner of presence, and we have no difference with them in this particular. They who are ordained Priests, aught to have power to consecrate the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, that is, to make them present after such manner as they were present are the first institution; whether it be done by enunciation of the words of Christ, as it is observed in the western Church, or by prayer, as it is practised in the Eastern Church; or whether these two be both the same thing in effect, that is, that the forms of the Sacraments be mystical prayers and implicit invocations. Our Church for more abundant caution useth both forms, as well in the Consecration of the Sacrament, as in the ordination of Priests. In the holy Eucharist, our consecration is a repetition of that which was done by Christ, and now done by him that consecrateth in the person of Christ: otherwise the Priest could not say this is my body. And likewise in Episcopal Consecration, Homo imponit manus, deus largitur gratiam, Sacerdos imponit supplicem dex●eram, Deus benedicit potente dex●era: Man imposeth hands, God conferreth grace, The Bishop imposeth his suppliant right hand, God blesseth with his Almighty right hand. In both consecrations Christ himself is the chief consecrater still, Then if power of consecration be nothing else but power to do that which Christ did, and ordained to be done, our Priests want not power to consecrate. They add, in all forms of Ordaining Priests, that ever were used in the Eastern or Western Church, is expressly set down the word Priest, or some other words expressing the proper function and authority of Priesthood etc. The Grecians using the word Priest or Bishop in their forms, do sufficiently express the respective power of every Order. But our Reformers did not put into the form of ordaining Priests, any words expressing authority to make Christ's body present. I answer, that if by forms of ordaining Priests, they understand that essential form of words, which is used at the same instant of time whilst hands are imposed, I deny that in all forms of Priestly ordination, the word Priest is set down either expressly or aequivalently. It is set down expressly in the Eastern Church, it is not set down expressly in the Western Church. Both the Eastern and Western forms are lawful, but the Western cometh nearer to the institution of Christ.  
But if by forms of Ordaining, they understand Ordinalls or rituals, or the entire form of ordaining: both our Church and their Church have not only equivalent expressions of Priestly power, but even the express word Priest itself, which is sufficient both to direct and to express the intention of the Consecrater. Under that name the Arch Deacon presenteth them, Right Reverend Father in Christ, I present unto you these persons here present, to be admitted to the Order of Priesthood. Under that name the Bishop admitteth them, well beloved brethren, these are they whom we purpose by the grace of God this day to admit [cooptare] into the holy office of Priesthood. Under this name the whole assembly prayeth for them, Almighty God, vouchsafe we beseech thee to look graciously upon these thy servants, which this day are called to the office of Priesthood. It were to be wished, that writers of Controversies would make more use of their own eyes, and trust less other men's citations.  
Secondly I answer, that it is not necessary, that the essential forms of Sacraments should be always so very express and determinate, that the words are not capable of extension to any other matter: if they be as determinate and express, as the example and prescription of Christ, it is sufficient. The form of baptism is, I baptise the in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Not I baptise the to Regeneration, or for Remission of sins. There are many other kinds of baptisms or washings, besides this Sacramental baptism: yet this form is as large as the institution of Christ. And these general words are efficacious both to regeneration and remission of sins, as well as if regeneration and remission of sins had been expressly mentioned. In this form of baptism, there is enough antecedent to direct and regulate both the actions and intentions of the Minister: So there is likewise in our form of Ordination.  
Thirdly I answer, that in our very essential form of Priestly Ordination, Priestly power and authority is sufficiently expressed; we need not seek for a needle in a bottle of hay. The words of our ordinal are clear enough. First Receive the Holy Ghost, (That is the grace of the holy Ghost) to exercise and dicharge the Office of Priesthood, to which thou hast been now presented, to which thou hast been now accepted, and for which we have prayed to God, that in it thou mayest disscharge thy duty faithfully and acceptably.  
Secondly, in these words, whose sins thou dost remit they are remitted, that is not only by Priestly absolution: but by preaching, by baptising, by administering the holy Eucharist, which is a means to apply the alsufficient sacrifice of Christ, for the remission of Sins. He who authoriseth a man to accomplish a work, doth authorize him to use all means which tend to the accomplishment thereof,  
That which is objected, that Laymen have power to remit sins by Baptism, but no power to consecrate, signifieth nothing as to this point. For first their own Doctors do acknowledge, that a Lay man can not baptise solemnly, nor in the presence of a Priest or a Deacon, 
Bell. de Sac. Bapt. l. 1. c. 7.  nor in their absence, except only in case of necessity. Saint Austin gives the reason, because no man may invade another man's office. Lay men may, and are bound to instruct others in case of necessity: yet the office of preaching and instructing others is Conferred by Ordination. The ordinary office of remitting sins, both by baptism and by the holy Eucharist, doth belong to Bishops and under them to Priests.  
Thirdly, this Priestly power to consecrate is contained in these words, Be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and Sacraments. And afterwards, when the Bishop delivers the holy Bible into the hands of those who are ordained Priests, Have thou authority to preach the word of God, and Administer the Sacraments. We do not deny, but Deacons have been admitted to distribute and Minister the Sacraments, by the Command or permission of Priests, or as Subservient unto them: but there is as much difference between a subservient distribution of the Sacrament, and the Dispensing or Administering of it, as there is between the Office of a Porter who distributeth the alms at the gate, and the Office of the Steward who is the proper dispenser of it. Look to it Gentlemen; If your own Ordination be valide, Ours is as valide, and more pure.  
They make the cause of these defects in our form of Ordination, to be, because Zuinglianisme and Puritanisme did prevail in the English Church in those days. They bele●ved not the real presence: therefore they put no word in their form expressing power to consecrate. They held Episcopacy and Priesthood to be one and the same thing: Therefore they put not in one word expressing the Episcopal Function. This is called leaping over the stile before a man comes at it, To devise reasons of that which never was. First prove our defects, if you can: And then find out a● many reasons of them as you list. But to say the truth; the cause and the effect are well coupled together. The cause, that is the Zuinglianisme of our predecessors, never had any real existence in the nature of things, but only in these mens imaginations: So the defects of our Ordinalls are not real but imaginary. Herein the Fathers adventured to far, to tell us that we have nothing in our forms of Ordaining, to express either the Priestly or Episcopal function: when every child that is able to read can tell them, that we have the express words of Bishops and Priests in our Forms, over and over again, And maintain to all the the world that the three Orders, 
In praefa●ione.  of Bishop's Priests and Deacons, have been ever from the beginning in the Church of Christ.  
This they say is the true reason, why Parker and his Colleagues were contented with the Nagges head Consecration, (that is to say, one brainsick whimsy is the reason of another): and why others recurred to extraordinary vocation in Queen Elisabeths' time. Say what others? name one genuine son of the Church of England if you can? Doctor Whitakers, and Doctor Fulke, who are the only two men mentioned by you, are both professedly against you. Doctor Whitakers saith we do not condemn all the Order of Bishops, as he falsely slanders us, 
De Eccles. cont. 2. q. 5 c. 3.  but only the false Bishops of the Church of Rome. And Doctor Fulke, for Order and seemly government among the Clergy, there was always one Principal, to whom the name of Bishop or Superintendent hath been applied, which room Titus exercised in Crete, Timothy in Ephesus, 
In Titum c. 1  others in other Places. Adding, that the Ordination, or Consecration, by imposition of hands, was always principally committed to him.  
The Fathers proceed, If Mr. Lawd had found success in his first attempts, it is very credible, he would in time have reform the Form of the English Ordination. That pious and learned Prelate wanted not other degrees in Church and Schools, which they omit. He was a great lover of peace, but too judicious to dance after their pipe, too much versed in Antiquity to admit their new matter and form, or to attempt to correct the Magnificat for satisfaction of their humours. But whence had they this credible Relation? We are very confident, they have neither Author nor ground for it, but their own imagination. And if it be so, what excuse they have for it in their Case Divinity, they know best: but in ours we could not excuse it from down right calumny.  
They have such an eye at our order and uniformity, that they can not let our long Cloaks and Surplesses alone. We never had any such animosities among us about our Cloaks, as some of their Religious Orders have had about their gowns: both for the colour of them, whether they should be black, or white, or grey, or the natural Colour of the sheep; And for the fashion them, whether they should belong or short &c, in so much as two Popes successively could not determine it.  
If Mr. Mason did commend the wisdom of the English Church, for paring away superfluous Ceremonies in Ordination, he did well. Ceremonies are advancements of Order, decency, modesty, and gravity in the service of God, Expressions of those heavenly desires and dispositions, which we ought to bring along with us to God's house, Adjuments of attention and devotion, Furtherances of Edification, visible instructers, helps of Memory, exercises of faith, the shell that preserves the Kernel of Religion from contempt, the leaves that defend the blossoms and the fruit: but if they grow over thick and rank, they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity, and then the Gardener▪ plucks them of. There is great difference between the hearty expressions of a faithful Friend, and the mimical gestures of a fawning flatterer: between the unaffected comelenesse of a grave Matron, and the fantastical paintings, and patchings, and powder, of a garish Courtesan.  
When Ceremonies become burdensome by excessive superfluity, or unlawful Ceremonies are obtruded, or the Substance of divine worship is placed in Circumstances, or the service of God is more respected for humane ornaments then for the Divine Ordinance; it is high time to pair away excesses, and reduce things to the ancient mean.  
These Fathers are quite out, where they make it lawful at some times to add, but never to pair away: yet we have pared away nothing, which is either prescribed or practised by the true Catholic Church. If our Ancestors have pared away any such things out of any mistake, (which we do not believe,) let it be made appear evidently to us, and we are more ready to welcome it again at the foredoor, than our Ancestors were to cast it out at the backdore. Errare possumus haeretici esse nolumus.  
To conclude, as an impetuous wind doth not blow down those trees which are well radicated, but causeth them to spread their roots more firmly in the earth: so these concussions of our Adversaries, do confirm us in the undoubted assurance of the truth, and validity, and legality of our holy Orders. We have no more reason to doubt of the truth of our Orders, because of the different judgement of an handful of our partial countrymen, and some few foreign Doctors misinformed by them: then they themselves have to doubt of the truth of their Orders who were ordained by Formosus, because two Popes Stephen and Sergius one after another, out of passion and prejudice, declared them to be void and invalide.  
But supposing that which we can never grant, without betraying both our selves and the truth, that there were some remote probabilities, that might occasion suspicion in some persons prepossessed with prejudice, of the legality of our Orders: yet for any man upon such pretended uncerteinties, to leave the communion of that Church wherein he was baptised, which gave him his Christian being, and to Apostate to them, where he shall meet with much greater grounds of fear, both of Schism and Idolatry; were to plunge himself in a certain crime, for fear of an uncertein danger.  
Here the Fathers make a brief repetition of whatsoever they have said before in this discourse, (either out of distrust of the Readers memory, or confidence of their own achievements,) of the Nagges head, and Mr. Neale, and the Protestant writers, and Bishop Bancroft, and Bishop Morton and the other Bishops that sat with him the last Parliament, (which being the only thing alleged by them in the Authors life time, and proved so undeniably to be false, is enough to condemn all the rest of their Hearesay reports, for groundless fables) of our Registers, of King Edward's Bishops, of Bishop Barlow, and of the form of our ordination; Directing him who will clear all those doubts, what he hath to do, as if we were their journymen. Let them not trouble themselves about that, they are cleared to the least grain.  
But if they will receive advise for advise, and pursue a prudential course which they prescribe to others; if they regard the present face of the sky, and look well to their own interest, and the present conjuncture of their affairs: they have more need and are more engaged in reputation to defend themselves, then to oppugn others.  
So they conclude their discourse with this short Corollary, How unfortunately was Charles the first late King of England, misinformed in matter of his Bishops and Clergy? what scruple could he have had, if he had known the truth, to give way to the Parliament, to pull down Parliament Bishops, who were so far from being de jure divino, that they were not so much as de jure Ecclesiastico? We thank you Gentlemen for your good will, The Orthodox Clergy of England are your fear. And you know what commonly followeth after fear, Hate, Oderunt quos metuunt. What pity it is that you were not of King Charles his Council, to have advised him better? yet we observe few Princes thrive worse, than where you pretend to be great ministers. If you had counselled him upon this Subject, perhaps you might have found him too hard for you; as another did whose heart he burst with down right reason. If ever that innocent King had a finger in the blood of any of that party, that was it, to choke a man with reason: but certainly that wise Prince would not have much regarded your positive conclusions, upon hearsay premises.  
We hold our Benefices by human right, our offices of Priests and Bishops both by divine right and humane right. But put the case we did hold our Bishoprics only by humane right, Is it one of your cases of conscience, that a Sovereign Prince may justly take away from his Subjects any thing which they hold by humane right? If one man take from another that which he holds justly by the law of man, he is a thief and a robber by the law of God. Let us alter the case a little, from our Bishoprickes to their Colleges or their treasures: If any man should attempt to take them from them, upon this ground because they held them but by humane right, they would quickly cry out with Ploiden, the case is altered. Be our right divine, or humane, or both, if we be not able to defend it against any thing the Fathers can bring against it, we deserve to lose it.  
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
P. 14. l. 9 r. that the. p. 15. l. 22. r. as to. p. 18. l. 9 and p. 19 l. 10. r. Tob●e, p. 20. l. 20. r. requested. p. 23. l. 2. d. present. p. 30. l. 2 r. Chapel. p. 37. l. 23. r. to present. p. 40. Ma●g▪ lib. 3. p 47. l. 1. r. chap. 4. and in like manner correct the number of the chapter, till chap. ●1. p. 63. l. 21. r. temporal, and commons in p. 76. l. 20. r. 1599 p. 77. l. 8. Rolls r. Acts. p. 82. l. 20. r. Ac i●dem Decanus & Capitulum etc. And p. 86. ad l. 24. Marg. add. Rot. par. 14.2. E●●zab. p. 101 l. 10 r. Commissaru. l. 19 assensu. r. Consilio p. 104. l. ●. Marg. add. Regist. Parker. Tom. 1 sol. 10. l▪ 12. r. per Thomam Yale l. 25. r. se adju●●it. p. 105 l. 7. r. dix erunt Anglico. take etc. as in the Preface, p. 108. l. 25. r. John Incent, p. 117. l. 11. r. Metropolitano salutem, etc. p. 127. l. 7. d. of. p. 154. l. 1. d. that. p. 162. l. 14. r. 1572. p. 168. l. 14 r●. r. merry and for w. r. we. p. 188. l. 7. r. Fif●ly p. 190. l. ult. r. 31. jul. p. 191. l. 12. r. num. 27. p. 200. l. 19 r. September 9 p. 211. l. 10. p. 212. l. 12. and p. 213. l. 10. for Dean of the Arches r. Archbishop or his Commissioner.