Business authorising a new revision; but while majority, perhaps, of Churchmen would warmly welcome an appendix, sanctioning additional forms to meet the needs of modern developments, comparatively few would care to see an actual revision of the present Book. It has served for many years as a broad basis on which all schools of thought in the English Church have found common ground; and the testimonies quoted at the head of this chapter from the great Evangelical leader, the great Tractarian, and the great Liberal Churchman, should give pause to those who expect anything but disaster from a far-reaching revision at the present time. CHAPTER VIII EPISCOPATE "They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."-ISAIAH lviii. 12. It is now necessary to retrace our steps and to consider Cosin's movements, not as a learned prelate of the Church, but as the zealous bishop of a diocese. To this office he had been consecrated, with six others, in Westminster Abbey, on Advent Sunday, December 2nd, 1660, when the sermon had been preached, at Cosin's request, by William Sancroft, the man who had helped him to ward off starvation in his exile and whom he was now resolved to help up the ladder of preferment. This sermon,' which Cosin insisted on being " printed on a fair paper with a good large letter," including the Bidding Prayer at full length," was on St. Paul's words in the Epistle to St. Titus, i. 5, "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee." 66 As with Cosin, thirty-four years before, at the consecration of Francis White,' it was a great opportunity for Sancroft to prove his 1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft (London, 1821), ii. 305 ff. eloquence and learning. His sermon was quite as controversial, as against both Rome and Geneva, as that of Cosin in 1626; it was quite as humorous, too, with a more subtle if less telling humour; and it was even more pedantic, with many Greek quotations and references to classical mythology; but it was marked, perhaps, by greater dignity and unction. The Bidding Prayer is certainly striking, and expands very skilfully the form provided as an outline in the Canons: thus, the special petition for the Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland is, "that the God of peace, Who maketh men to be of one mind in a house, would make us all of one soul and of one spirit, that again we may meet together, and praise Him with one heart and mouth, and worship Him with one accord in the beauty of holiness"; whilst that for "the whole Commons of this realm " is, "that remembering from whence they are fallen, they may repent and do the first works." As published, the Dedication is also most striking; and it is so whole-hearted a tribute to Cosin that it must be printed at length in the original, which will not admit satisfactory translation into English. Some allowance must always be made for the rhetorical exaggeration expected at that time in a Dedication; but Sancroft was not the man to indulge in servile flattery, and it is much to Cosin's credit that such a man should publish his sermon as a token and memorial of unalterable regard," and should speak so unreservedly of his constancy and dauntless courage, his unswerving loyalty 66 to truth, and his lofty indifference to cajolery or defamation. REVERENDO IN CHRISTO PATRI, AC DOMINO, DOMINO JOHANNI, EPISCOPO DUNELMENSI, EOQUE NOMINE JURA HABENTI COMITIS PALATINI, SACRÆ THEOLOGIÆ PROFESSORI, VETERIS SCRIPTURARUM CANONIS ADSERTORI ET VINDICI, ECCLESIÆ PETROBURGENSIS EX-DECANO, DUNELMENSIS DECANO DESIGNATO, DIU CANONICO, JAM ETIAM Κανόνι, ANGLICANÆ ET FILIO ET PATRI OPTIMO, ROMANÆ HODIERNÆ, ET NUPRÆ, OPPUGNATORI STRENUO QUI, IN UTRIUSQUE FORTUNÆ SEU DURIS, SEU LUBRICIS, NONDUM PAR ANIMO PERICULUM INVENIT : (UTPOTE NEC HUJUS CONVITIIS TERRITO, NEC ILLIUS ILLECEBRIS DELINITO ;) UBIQUE SUI SIMILI, UNDIQUE Terpayŵry, NON VICTA SOLUM, SED ET TRIUMPHATA, EJUS JUSSU CONCEPTAM, NATAM AUSPICIIS, HORTATU, ET MANDATO IN LUCEM EDITAM,* PERPETUÆ OBSERVANTIÆ PIGNUS, et Mμóovvov, L. MQ. D.D. CQ. GUILHELMUS SANCROFT, PRESBYTER INDIGNUS, PATERNITATI EJUS A SACRIS. • Ne iis quidem omissis, quæ, præ fuga temporis, viva vox exequi non potuit. Another sermon, preached later that same day in the Abbey by Dr. Hardy, Dean of Rochester, a Puritan who was yet a courageous loyalist and Episcopalian, was also published, under the title, "The Hierarchy Exalted and its Enemies Humbled"; and in the Preface the reader is told that "it was designed for no other end but to be a congratulatory Appendix to the solemn consecration of those seven bishops: and as it was preached upon short warning, so it had never been exposed to public view; but that it was required by them, and particularly by my Lord Bishop of Durham, whose judgment I had great reason to prefer before my own; nor can I but account it a high honour to be in any kind owned by him, who hath so resolutely owned this Church of England, both at home and abroad, asserting her Doctrine against the Papists, and Discipline against the Schismatics." Although much strenuous work awaited him. in his diocese, Cosin could not be immediately spared from the capital, where, as recounted in the two previous chapters, matters of ecclesiastical polity affecting the whole Church and realm needed his ripe scholarship and shrewd knowledge of affairs. It was not until August, after the conclusion of the Savoy Conference, that he was allowed to make his way northward, and then only for a brief visit of three months' duration. His State Entrance into the diocese may be 1 London, 1661, 4°. For Hardy's loyalty and courage, see Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, il. 465. |