Note 8 — Theodosia Ernest. Volume II.: or, Ten Days’ Travel in Search of the Church. (continued 7)
Reading edition
The following is a part of the act of Parliament referred to, and under authority of which the three American bishops, White, Madison, and Prevoost were permitted to be consecrated. After making it lawful for the English bishops to proceed with the consecration in a certain way, the act goes on to say, that “No person shall be consecrated bishop in the manner herein provided, until the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York, for the time being, shall have first applied for and obtained his majesty’s license, by warrant, under his royal signet and sign- manual, empowering him to proceed to such consecration.
“Provided also, and it is hereby declared, that no person or persons, consecrated to the office of a bishop in the manner aforesaid, nor any person or persons deriving their consecration from or under any bishop so consecrated, nor any person or persons admitted to the order of a deacon or a priest, by any bishop or bishops so consecrated, shall be thereby enabled to exercise his or their respective office within his majesty’s dominions.”—(Statutes of George III)