•WILLIAM ASTI) MAEY.

101

There were some persons who went so far as to deny that theParliament was competent to pass a law requiring a Bishop to -swear on pain of deprivation. No earthly power, they said,could break the tie which bound the successor of the apostlesto his diocese. What God had joined no man could sunder.Kings and senates might scrawl words on parchment or impressfigures on wax; but those words and figures could no morechange the course of the spiritual than the course of the physicalworld. As the Author of the universe had appointed a certainorder, according to which it was His pleasure to send winter andsummer, seedtime and harvest, so He had appointed a certainorder, according to which He communicated His grace toHis Catholic Church; and the latter order was, like the former,independent of the powers and principalities of the world.A legislature might alter the names of the months, might callJune December, and December June; but, in spite of thelegislature, the snow would fall when the sun was in Capricorn,and the flowers would bloom when he was in Cancer. And sothe legislature might enact that Ferguson or Muggleton shouldlive in the palace at Lambeth, should sit on the throne ofAugustin, should be called Your Grace, and should walk inprocessions before the Premier Duke; but, in spite of thelegislature, Sancroft would, while Sancroft lived, be the onlytrue Archbishop of Canterbury; and the person who shouldpresume to usurp the archiepiscopal functions would bea schismatic. This doctrine was proved by reasons drawnfrom the budding of Aaron’s rod, and from a certain platewhich Saint James the Less, according to a legend of the fourthcentury, used to wear on his forehead. A Greek manuscript,relating to the deprivation of bishops, was discovered, aboutthis time, in the Bodleian Library, and became the subject ofa furious controversy. One party held that God had wonder-fully brought this precious volume to light, for the guidance

CHAP.

XI.

1G89.