Note 71 — THE PROLOGUE.

Dr. Robert Barnes preached a Sermon on the 24th of December, 1525, at St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge, from which Sermon certain Articles were drawn out upon which he was soon after called to make answer before the Cardinal. Barnes has left behind him a description of this examination. The sixth of these Articles was as follows. “I wyll never beleeve that one man may be, by the lawe of God, a Byshop of two or three cities, yea of an whole countrey, for it is contrarye to St. Paule, which sayth, I have left thee behynde, to set in every citye a byshop.”

“I was brought afore my Lorde Cardinall into his Galary, (continues Dr. Barnes), and there hee reade all myne articles, tyll hee came to this, and there he stopped, and sayd, that this touched hym, and therefore hee asked me, if I thought it wronge, that one byshop shoulde have so many cityes underneath hym; unto whom I answered, that I could no farther go, than St. Paules texte, whych set in every cytye a byshop. Then asked hee mee, if I thought it now unright (seeing the ordinaunce of the Church) that one byshop should have so many cities. I aunswered that I knew none ordinaunce of the Church, as concerning this thinge, but St. Paules sayinge onelye. Nevertheles I did see a contrarye custom and practise in the world, but I know not the originall thereof. Then sayde hee, that in the Apostles tyme, there were dyvers cities, some seven myle, some six myle long, and over them was there set but one byshop, and of their suburbs also: so likewise now, a byshop hath but one citye to his cathedrall churche, and the country about is as suburbs unto it. Me thought this was farre fetched, but I durst not denye it.” Barnes’s Works, p. 210. A. D. 1573. W.