Bishop of Lincoln

“ The character of the energetic bishop is given in a few words by the historian Henry of Huntingdon—small in stature, but great of heart, swarthy in colour, but comely in deeds (statura parvus, sed corde magnus, colore fuscus, sed operibus venustus) . His successor was Robert Bloet, Chancellor to William Rufus, but Thomas of York objected to his consecration as bishop of Lincoln. "He might be Bishop of Dorchester, like his predecessors; but Lindesey, part of the spiritual conquest of Paulinus, was of ancient right subject [10] to the metropolitan authority of York. ”

“ Thomas, living, never did; but Hugh had small favour with the king at this time. By these successive battles the Bishop of Lincoln had come to be looked upon as the leader of the Church and the champion of her liberties. To us those “liberties” seem a strange claim, beyond our faith and our ken, too. It seems obvious to us that men, whether clerks or laymen, who eat, drink, wear, build, and possess on the temporal plane, should requite those who safeguard them in these things with tribute, honour, and obedience ”

“ In 1186, much against his will, he was, by the king’s decree, elected Bishop of Lincoln, and took up his residence at Stow, where he at once set to work to master the English tongue. His rule of life was ascetic, and he made a practice of going every year in harvest time to live as a simple monk at Witham. He was a strong man, with high ideals, upright, unselfish and charitable, no believer in the miracles of the day, and so free from prejudice that he always protected the hated Jews, who wept sincere tears at his funeral. ”

“ We feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs of the church, a pious, learned, and laborious man, by the hand of ignorance and presumption, without interposing, not to heal the wound, for no wound has been made, but to chastise the assailant. The Bishop of Lincoln gives up these verses, not carelessly, and unadvisedly, but doubtless because he is persuaded that the cause of true Religion can never be so much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much suspicion ”

“ The three chantries in the Perpendicular style which have been added to the angel choir were constructed at different periods by bishops of the diocese. The earliest of these, the Fleming Chantry, is on the north side. Richard Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College, Oxford, was appointed Bishop of Lincoln in the year 1419, and occupied the see for twelve years. ”

“ Old Abbot Geoffrey died, and at his election the Abbey had been under the See of Lincoln; but since then King Henry had claimed the gift of abbacies, a claim his son was not likely to bate. A suit with the Crown, Hugh’s friends argued, was hopeless or not worth the trouble; but this argument seemed sacrilegious to the intrepid bishop. What? Allow God and the Queen of Heaven to be robbed? Who ever agreed to let Lincoln be so pilled? He is but a useless and craven ruler who does not enlarge instead of lessen the dignities and liberties of the Holy Church. ”

“ Then the bishop of Lincoln sank down, and said to the king, "My lord king! I am dying," and the king alighted from his horse, and took him between his arms, and bade them bear him to his inn, and he soon lay there dead; and they took his body with much pomp to Lincoln, and Robert bishop of Chester, [298] who was called Pecceth, buried him before St. Mary's altar. Soon after this the king sent his writs over all England, and desired his bishops, his abbats, and his thanes, that they should all come to the meeting of his witan at Gloucester, on Candlemas-day, and they obeyed ”

“ The personality of the great bishop comes vividly before us when we read that he also wished his tomb to be placed near the wall, in a convenient place, lest it should be a stumbling-block to those approaching. On the 16th November 1200, Hugh breathed his last, lying, as he had wished, on the bare ground, on a cross of consecrated ashes. "A more self-denying, earnest, energetic, and fearless bishop has seldom, if ever, ruled the diocese of Lincoln, or any other diocese whatever" (Dimock) . ”

“ We received also, by certain faithful Christians and zealous men for the catholic faith, of our diocese, a certain process made and had at another time against the same William, before the reverend father in God and lord, lord John, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, confirmed by the hanging on of the seal of the same reverend father, the lord bishop of Lincoln. ”

“ GROSSETESTE, ROBERT (d. 1253) , bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253, was born probably in 1175 in Suffolk (Trivet, p. 242) . From what Trivet mentions in this place, and the report of his own words given in the Lanercost chronicle (p. 44, 'humili de patre et matre sum natus') , he was of humble origin; indeed he was reproached with this by the canons of Lincoln in the heat of their quarrel with him. ”

“ The northern rebels in the autumn of this year, in their articles addressed to the king, ‘are grieved that there are bishops of the king's late promotion who have subverted the faith of Christ. ... (They) think the beginning of all this trouble was the Bishop of Lincoln’ (ib. xi. 705) . ”

“ The king cast his money into the silver basin and slunk away. John’s insult was all the greater because out of Lincoln none of the bishop’s people was ever allowed to nibble one crumb of the alms. That day the bishop had preached upon the conduct and future prospects of princes. John neither liked the duration nor the direction of the sermon, and sent thrice to the preacher to stop his talk and get on with the Mass so that he might go to his victuals. ”

“ Lincoln, "declined to stand up with me, back to back, to see which was the tallest man, and made a fine speech about this being the time for uniting our fronts against the enemy, and not our backs. But I guess he was afraid to measure, though he is a good piece of a man. I have never had much to do with Bishops where I live, but, do you know, Sumner is my idea of a Bishop."
A good story of President Lincoln and General 337Scott is reported by Major-General Keyes, who at the beginning of the war was on the staff of General Scott, then commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. ”

“ Robert died early, but Roger was made Archdeacon of Leicester, confessor, and at the end executor to the bishop. After gathering captains the next thing was an eight-fold lash for abuses—decrees (1) against bribes; (2) against vicars who would not sing Mass save for extra pay; (3) against swaggering archdeacons who suspended churches, and persons beyond their beat. These gentlemen, in the absence of a bishop, seem to have grown into popes at the least. (4) Mass not to be laid as a penance upon any non-priestly person. ”

“ On his Sunday of duty he was expected to entertain nineteen of the under officers at dinner, and to receive others at different meals during the week. The dean was required about thirty times a year to give an “honorificus pastus” to all the choir and vicars, “to make life and work more pleasant to them.” [380] One fact is enough to show that the prebendaries of Lincoln were a very distinguished body of men:—of the fifty-two stalls, all but one—some of them more than once—has given a bishop to Lincoln, and from among them every English see has been filled, and many of them twice. ”

“ Not till lately has a suffragan bishop in the diocese of Lincoln taken the title of Bishop of Grantham. The dissolution of the chantries put an end to the “College,” and the vicars of the “prebendary church” in post-Reformation times had to be content with very small stipends. Puritanism raised its head in Grantham formidably, as in most parts of Lincolnshire; and the Corporation, though in the main orthodox, had, in 1620, established a weekly lecture in the church on Tuesday, to which they invited the most eloquent clergy of the neighbourhood. ”

“ Without some such help a penniless Carthusian could hardly have climbed up that Lebanon at all, unless by the sore scandal of a suit to the Lincoln Jewry. This handsome present was made at Marlborough. William de Northalle was consecrated Bishop of Worcester on the same day, of whom nothing else transpires than that he died not long after, and is supposed to have been an old and toothless bishop promoted for his ready fees. The place of consecration was Westminster Abbey, in its præ-Edwardian state, and so no longer extant. ”

“ His administration, none the less, did much to preserve peace. He strained every nerve to induce his clergy to accept his ruling on the questions of the reservation of the Sacrament and of the ceremonial use of incense in accordance with the archbishop’s judgment in the Lincoln case; but when, during his last illness, a prosecutor brought proceedings against the clergy of five recalcitrant churches, the bishop, on the advice of his archdeacons, interposed his veto. One other effort on behalf of peace may be mentioned. ”

“ Perhaps—and this is a mere guess—the place where his body lay was injured at the time of the battle and capture of Lincoln two years before; and for better protection the coffin was simply placed unopened in that curious position two-thirds into the wall of the apse foundation, where it was found in our day. In 1220 he was canonized by Pope Honorius III., who was then at Viterbo organising a crusade, after a report vouching for the miracles drawn up by the great Archbishop Stephen Langton and John of Fountains, a just and learned man, afterwards Treasurer of England. ”

“ Senator Voorhees once told me a rather interesting story in connection with President Lincoln. It was the occasion of the dedication of what was known as the Foundery Methodist Church in Washington. Mr. Lincoln was present, Voorhees was there, and Bishop Simpson delivered the dedicatory address. The bishop was an eloquent speaker and his sermon was a characteristic one. The President was seated in an armchair in front of the pulpit, with his back to the minister, and after the sermon was over, an effort was at once made to raise funds to pay the debt of the church. ”

“ Similar letters were written to the counties of Oxford and Berks. Then comes a letter to Lincoln, which was now without a bishop: it commits into the hands of William de Cornhill, archdeacon of Huntingdon, and Gerard de Camville 'all lands and goods of abbots and priors and all religious, and also of all clergy of the Lincoln diocese, who from this time forth shall refuse to perform divine offices'. A like letter follows to Ely ”

“ Nobly sustained, as the Government has been, by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might in the least appear invidious against any. Yet without this, it may fairly be said, that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is by its greatest numbers the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than—any other. ”

“ Men of large calibre have an unusual sagacity in sifting the unessential from the essential as also the false from the true. Lincoln, when replying to the question as to why he did not unite himself with some church organisation, said: "When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification of membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself, that church shall I join with all my heart and soul." ”

“ That the religions of all ages and peoples are only very feeble and imperfect attempts to solve the great problems involved in nature and her laws. Mr. Lincoln heartily disliked the narrow and silly pretensions of the church and priesthood who now falsely claim him, as they do Washington, Franklin and others.
"I knew Mr. Lincoln from the Douglas campaign in Illinois in 1858 until his death, and I never heard him on any occasion use a single pious expression in the sense of the church—not a word that indicated that he believed in the church theology. ”

“ Lincoln replied: "I have never united myself to any church, because I found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long and complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. ”

“ But I must add that the United States Government must not, as by this order, undertake to run the churches. When an individual in a church or out of it becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of themselves. It will not do for the United States to appoint trustees, supervisors, or other agents for the churches. ”

“ Surely the most sceptical must be convinced of the sincerity of Lincoln's religious belief from his words, from his actions, from his principles, from his prayers, from his confessions, in a word, from the rectitude of his life, and admit that he was, not only a fervent believer, but a practical Christian of the best kind, though he knelt at no denominational altar.
Such was our Lincoln. With wonder and admiration we stand in his presence and feel the magnetism that attracts us to the man. His goodness constituted his greatness. ”

“ I know that he at first maintained that Jesus was a bastard, and later that he was the son of Joseph and not of God."
"Lincoln was not a Christian in any sense other than that he lived a good life and was a noble man. If a good life constitutes one a Christian, then Mill and a million other men who repudiated and denied Christianity were Christians, for they lived good and noble lives." ”