determine what Intention was necessary because they could not agree about the efficacy of the Sacraments it being impossible there should be the same Intention of two who differ in their judgments concerning it The common Salvo was that the Intention to do as the Church doth was sufficient but this satisfied not the scruple because men â—â—ffered in opinion what the Church is and their opinions herein being different their Intentions in administring the Sacraments would also prove different To evade this it was pretended all the Priests had the same design but as it is impossible for any to know the things that is the purposes of Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him 1 Cor. 2.11 so it is unconceivable how they should have the same end and aim who have different Judgments Humours Passions and Interests At last they were driven to this shift perhaps there may be some such wretched Priest yet this case is rare To this the Bishop of Minori replied would God said he that the case was rare and that in this corrupt age we had not cause to doubt there were many but suppose there are but a few or one only let a Knave Priest Baptize who hath not an Intention to administer the true Baptism to a Child who being after a grown Man is created a Bishop of a great City so that he hath Ordained a great part of the Priests in his Diocess it must be said that he being not Baptized is not Ordained nor they Ordained who are promoted by him Behold Millions of Nullities of Sacraments by the malice of one (z) Histor Council of Trent fol. 241. Priest in one Act only 4. To give full measures of Doubts and uncertainties in the most mysterious act of their Religion Dr. Holden (a) Apendix of Schism p. 445. Refert Dr. Ham. dispatcher Preface p. 14. averreth All Roman Catholicks do believe and reverence the Sacrifice of the Mass as the most substantial Act of their Religion but if it be demanded wherein the substance of this Sacrifice doth consist no substantial Resolution can be expected from them their Doubts and uncertainties about the Nature and Essence thereof are so cross and various There are divers opinions concerning it saith (b) Azor. l. 10. c. 9. or part 2. l. 2. c. 14. Azor. There are six Acts of which it is doubted in which one or more of them the Essence of the Sacrifice consisteth saith (c) Tom. 3. dist 75. art 1 2. Suarez Some place it in the one Act of Consecration but the doubters dispute against it for say they Consecration belongeth rather to the nature of a Sacrament than a Sacrifice and every external Sacrifice such as the Mass is must be sensible but the Conversion made by the words of Consecration is not sensible for the real change is not and again if the Act of Consecration then the outward Elements only are the Hoast and matter offered but we may not say the Species are the Hoast others set it in the Oblation but the dissenting Brethren oppose this because Christ used no Sacrificial Act at his Last Supper and if Christ did not the Priest ought not though some of them grant it belongs to the intergrity of the Sacrifice But how the Trent-Divines were divided in their judgment herein may be read Hist Counc of Trent fol. 544 c. Some of them again conceive Consecration Consumption or Sumption to be the Essence this others contradict because then say they the Body and Blood of Christ must be destroyed for that which is Offered in Sacrifice is to be destroyed but Sumption can be no part thereof because the Act of Receiving is not for although Christ be not received after the Consecration yet is he truly said to be Sacrificed and Doctors doubt whether Christ did receive in his last Supper and the Priest receiving doth nothing in Christs person but his own others stood for Fraction but this the doubters easily disprove for it is say they an Act purely Sacramental not at all Sacrificial and Fraction being before Consecration the Substance of the Bread and Wine remaineth When N. N. hath solved all these Doubts and satisfied all these Doubters he may be more confident of the demonstrative Power of Doubts and uncertainties in the mean time he may apply them to his own Church in his own words Mutatis mutandis Therefore the Romanists before they can prudently believe themselves to have true Faith or be the Catholick Church must clear all Doubts and uncertainties not objected by Protestants but started and pursued by their own Divines concerning their Church their Head of the Church their Ordinations and the most Substantial Act of their Religion the Mass for though any Person should not c. 7. N. N. goes one step forward the step to Christian and Catholick belief is c. This hath nothing of usefulness to his Conclusion unless he prove that a Clergy not regularly ordained cannot believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith c. that the Protestant Church hath a doubtful Clergy in which his attempts have hitherto been unsuccessful and unlucky to him and his Church If his meaning be the well-grounded Credibility of his Church is the foundation of Christian belief this is to beg the Question and is false for Christian Faith is not an assent and adherence to the Objects thereof upon the bare Testimony of the Church but on that of God neither is its warranty derived from the Church's Proposition but Divine Revelation True Faith is founded on the writings of Moses and the Prophets of Christ and his Apostles Eph. 2.20 which moved Durand thus to define it It is an habit whereby we assent to the Doctrines of the Scripture for the Authority of God revealing them But if he intend only that the Church's Proposition is to her members the first motive and preparative of Faith it will not be gainsaid but then he must remember that a prudent Christian will not take the Church for well-groundedly credible till he find by the Rule of Faith She deserves to be so esteemed for it is impossible the Church can appear so to him till he know the Faith it proposeth which he cannot do but by applying it to the Rule for every intellectual and moral habit must be sufficiently known before the Acts resulting from them can be predicated of any subject capable to exercise them As I must know what Prudence is before I can truly affirm of any man that he is Prudent 8. That which N. N. mainly drives at is to seduce the members of the Church of England from her Communion and solicite them to Apostate to Rome To effect this he took as he conceived a seasonable opportunity to perplex the minds of men with his Doubts and uncertainties by reason of our late sad divisions Then the Romanists bent all their forces to perswade easy seduceable tempers This Church was either a dead or (d) Bishop
of Constance as a lawful General-Council and to its Decree concerning the Superiority of a Council above the Pope and as many do to this day which also necessarily destroyeth the supposition of the Popes Infallibility because no inferiour Authority can be Infallible for that it can be controuled and corrected by a superiour over-ruling Power and that which is Infallible cannot neither ought to be controuled or corrected If any Romanists conceive and some there be who would be esteemed and pass for such with otherwise discerning men to be the more moderate sort that this is no direct consequence it were well done of them to reconcile the different pretensions and contradictory perswasions of the Pope and a Council and clearly declare whether the two contesting parties can be both Infallible for an Infallibility they will have and if there be such a thing it must be seated in the one or the other for there are no other pretenders to it and if we must have two Infallibles then which of them for the time being is the most Infallible to end the Controversy for till this be decided there can be no end of Controversies because this Controversy will be still agitated and few or none besides shall be satisfactorily determined because all others do mostly depend on this or whether it were not more prudent by way of Accommodation to compound the difference betwixt themselves that by consent the Contestants should take the Infallibility by turns the Pope have his vicissitude and the Council theirs or that it pass as a long time it hath done by a standing Rule of Catch that Catch can provided it can be so ordered that it be done without hot bickerings and canvassings But the through-paced Papists stand close to their tacklings for where they fix the Supremacy there also very consonantly to their supposition they lodg the Infallibility for thus they argue in the ease of the Pope His Authority (p) Bell. l. 4. de Pont. c. 24. Sect. 2. c. l. 2. de Conc. c. 13. And this is saith he the judgment of the best writers quos recenset ib. Sect. ult and therefore his judgment is the last and highest id l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 1. Sect. Sed nec Sect. denique and because it is the last and highest therefore it is Infallible ib. l. 3. Sect. contra l. 2. de Conc. c. 9. Sect. accedat c. c. 11. Sect de 2. Sect. de 3. is Supreme therefore his judgment in causes of Faith is the last and the highest and because it is the last and the highest therefore it is Infallible But upon the whole matter it is evident from what hath before been avouched that the Holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul were not the Founders of the present Romish Church as it is now constituted and managed but Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth by their new settlement and so their pretence of possession which at the best was tortious is quite out of doors and at last N. N's Original of Protestancy falls out to be indeed the just date and commencement of Popery Wherefore as the Papists frequently but foolishly propose to us Where was your Church before Luther So we upon the foregoing grounds may more reasonably demand of them where was your Popish Church before Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth which Question they will never satisfy till they renounce their new Faith and new Foundation of Faith upon which their new Church is superstructed 3. Supposing this acknowledgment then an 1516. and there in our parts of the World this is far from rendring it Catholick because far removed from that Golden Rule of Catholicism delivered by Vin. Lyr. and approved by all good Catholicks quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus c. For if before that year and age and in other parts of the World that which Protestants now call Popery was not acknowledged Catholick Doctrine it must not now be acknowledged Catholick neither ought it then and in our parts of the World to have been acknowledged Catholick the ancient Primitive is to be more respected and reverenced than the Church of the last Century and other parts of the Christian World have been and are as truly and univocally parts of the one Holy Catholick Church as ours can be and the true Faith is one and the same in all ages and places But will or can N. N. answer to Bell. who l. de notis Eccl. c. 7. positively declares that if only one Province should retain the Catholick Faith yet it should be truly and properly called the Catholick Church as long as it might be shewed as Protestants have it was the same which it was at other times in other plaees of the World Driedo dogmat Eccles lib. 4. part 2. seems to be of his mind And what will he say to Dr. Bristow who motive the 45. confesseth some there have been in many ages in some poinis of the Protestants opinion insomuch that there is scarce one piece or Article of our whole Faith but by one or other first or last it hath been called in Question and that with such liking for the time that they all have in a manner drawn after them great herds of followers these some and all were long before this Origenists Aera 1516. and what if these some of Bristow prove to be very many as the Cardinal of Praeneste reckoned them Vicards poor people of Lions Speronists Arnoldists and Waldenses who as Reinerus reports were far spread and of long standing in the Church For thus he relates the matter refort Illyric Catal. test devit tom 2. p. 543 but in an old Edition p. 32. lit D. they continued so long as no Sect hath some say it hath been since Sylvester some since the Apostles there is universality of time and there is almost no countrey wherein it spreadeth not there is universality of place and persons they have great shew of Piety living uprightly before men and believing all things aright concerning God and all the Articles of the Creed and abating his great shew they were good Catholicks because holy believers and livers but that he added a subsequent cause only they hate and blaspheme the Church of Rome and that marred all otherwise they had passed muster and St. Bernard is much to the same purpose Serm. 65. sup Cant. Edit Venet. an 1575. Tom. 1. p. 328. tit H. Si fidem interroges c. If you require an account of their Faith nothing is more Christian if of their Conversation nothing more commendable they frequent the Church honour the Priests offer their Gifts make Confession and communicate in the Sacraments these were no Schismaticks they hurt none circumvent none contemn none are true and just in all their dealings performing what they promised these were not unjust wicked men yet he had a pique at them they did not observe the Monkish Vow of Continence which he conceived
Antichristian c. therefore he full well knew the Story to be true and the English Ordinations naught whereas their words were direct proper Answers to the Romish Objections against them viz. They were not Ordained by Romish Bishops after the Romish Rite and import no more but this Bishops and Priests are lawfully Ordained who were not Ordained after the Roman Rite and by Romish Bishops which is an undeniable truth assented to by the Romanists themselves 3 To confirm this N. N. is admonished to hear this Judgment concerning Episcopacy and Ordination Bellarmine Objects against Protestants that they had taken away Bishops Dr. Whitaker Contr. 2 de Eccles q. 5. c. 3. makes so bold with Bellarmine as to give him the Lye saying We do not condemn the Order of Bishops as he falfely slanders us but only those false Bishops of the Church of Rome near the same place condemning the antient Constitution that three Bishops be present at the Ordination of a Bishop for a Godly Sanction Dr. Fulk in Tit. 1. fol. 781. speaks as fully Among the Clergy for Order and seemly Government there was always one Principal to whom the name of Bishop was c. which in his defence against Gregor Martin c. 6. Sect. 20. p. 182. he thus expresseth That the Title of the Bishop was a very old time used to signify a degree Ecclesiastical higher than Presbyter or Priest or Elder we did never deny we know it right well and then will any man of an indifferent judgment ever believe N. N. to be a lover or reporter of Truth when he hath broached so prodigious a Lye that most of the Clergy of England in those times were Puritans these two Prime Protestants were not who thus apologized for themselves and their Brethren the Clergy But because N. N. will have them Puritans let him know that English Protestants are as far from being Puritans as he himself aterwards confesseth as his Catholicks are and the rather because they beg their Principles of Rebellion and Sedition against the King and their Schism against Bishops from the rest of the Papists the Jesuites and whatsoever else they hold contrary to sound Doctrine either from Regulars of another Order or from some of their Schoolmen But because perhaps he will except against these two Prime Protestants for his further satisfaction let him 4. Hear the judgment of the two Prime Pontificians Cudsenius (w) De desperata Calvini causa c. 11. the Jesuite ingeniously confesseth The English Nation are not Hereticks because they remain in a perpetual succession of Bishops which Confession totally destroys all N. N's Fabrick Monsieur (x) To the King of Great Britain p. 6. Charles the second Militiere is not much short of him saying The English Nation retaining the antient Order of Episcopacy which is utterly inconsistent with the contempt and rejection of Consecration as a Rag of Rome and there being contented with the extraordinary Calling of God and the Spirit as instituted by Divine Authority have thereby preserved the Face and Image of the Church Catholick SECT XIII N. N. AS to the Opinion of forgeing so many Records in several Courts it is easily answered that is no more than that the Consecrators and others concerned should have conspired to have given in a false Certificate that the Consecration was performed with due Ceremonies and Rites and thereby deceive the Courts or make them dissemble and this is a thing more possible and probable Protestants being so dexterous in falsifying of Scriptures as appears by Gregory Martin's Discovery of Corruptions than that all the Protestant Clergy should have conspired not to produce the Registers when they were so hardly pressed by their Adversaries or that so many Catholicks should be so foolish to invent and maintain the Story when if it had been false they might have been convinced by Thousands of Witnesses or that so many grave and learned Divines who for Conscience sake lost all should without fear of Damnation engage themselves and Posterities in damnable Sacriledg by occasioning so many sacrilegious Ordinations upon their charging Protestants with no Ordination No moderate or prudent man can suspect such Persons should damn their Souls out of meer spight to the Church of England If we Catholicks should reordain Protestant Ministers which after their Conversion have been made Priests upon the title of Heresy and not of their known Invalidity we should also reordain the Grecian Priests which is against our known Practice and Tenents insomuch as we hold our selves obliged to examine with all diligence whether there be any probability of the Persons receiving valid Orders and finding but my probable appearance thereof the Practice is and hath been for divers Ages to give Orders not absolutely but conditionally whereas it is notorious that all such Ministers receive their Orders in absolute terms without any condition adjoyned in the same manner we use in the Ordination of Lay-men SECT XIII J. S. part 1. THis is N. N's last and worst Medium for his Fable such as if it held would destroy all human Faith and the best assurance that can be had for the confirmation of the Truth in matters of Fact But 1. This hath been an Old desperate shift of disingenuous Papists who have forfeited all Christian Meekness and Modesty when they are hardly pressed by their Adversaries with a pinching Authority to cry Forgery Protestants assert Pope Honorius the first was an Heretick because they find him condemned of Heresy by the sixth General Council under the Emperour Constantius Pogonatus to which Authority many learned Romanists have given credit But the more rigid sort have taken N. N's easy Answer for a subterfuge Forgery was used for this Condemnation was maliciously inserted into the Acts of the Council by the order of the Emperour who having the Original in his hand by a Conspiracy with the Actuaries consented to their satisfaction Pighius is (y) Hier. l. 4. c. 8. Sed quoniam resolute it must be so for the Pope in despight of all evidences to the contrary must be Infallible for he would have it so A certain learned man wished (z) Pighius diatrib in Epist ad lectorem Pighius to recant and draw in his easy Answer but he falls (a) Id. ib. de act sextae Synodi a-fresh on the matter and scorning to retract what he formerly had said still puts in the same easy Answer whereupon (b) Bannes 22. qu. 1. art 10. Dub. 2. Bannes being troubled at the obstinacy of the man jeers him for his ready Invention that after Nine hundred years Pighius being but a man of yesterday could find all those Witnesses which were produced against him to have been Conspirators in a Forgery and (c) Loc. l. 6. c. 8. ad 11. Canus puts this Question to him How can Pighius clear him whom Usellus Epiphanius and Pope Adrian c. affirm to have been an Heretick At this Baronius (d)
to the Affirmative Lib. 1. de Sacr. in gen c. 1. Sect. 2. 20. even the words are determinated saith he by God yet withal he tells us if they be corrupted as suppose the Priest after the old Mumpsimus rate should say In nomino Patria Filia Spirito Sanctu or interrupted as if the Priest at the Consecration of the Eucharist should first numble hoc est Cor and after a little pause cough out pus meum the Form would be good but Alex. Hales p. 4. q. 5. mem 2. art 1. states it otherwise The Forms saith he of Rome Sacraments are determinate the Forms of other Sacraments are not The Forms of Baptism and the Eucharist being appointed by Christ are kept inviolably without all change but touching the words of Form to be used in any other of the supposed Sacraments there is no certainty but they are diversly and doubtfully declared the reason whereof is because they were of human devising It is declared otherwise by Pope Innocent the Father of the Canonists saying The words of Form were instituted by the Church Hist Counc Trent fol. 594. But Protestants stand not upon words using only the Form which Christ instituted and is retained in (a) Both in Episcopal and Priestly Ordination Filicius tract 9. c. 2. ex Pontifical Rom. and in the Roman Catechism de Sacr. Ord. Bell. de Sacr. in gen c. 21. l. 1. de Sacr. Ordin c. 9. the Western Church in terms and in the Eastern to the sense For the Grace or Gift of God creating and promoting which is the Eastern Form is the same in substance with receiving the Holy Ghost for the Gift and Grace of God Eph. 3.2 8. 1 Cor. 15.9 10. 1 Tim. 4. Heb. 12. Tim. 1.6 is exactly the same with power from on high assured Lu. 24.49 and the promise of the Father c. Act. 1.4 5. which is the receiving this power and v. 8. These Protestants use and trouble not themselves with nice Disquisitions and Disputes 4. He affirms the intention of the Ordainer c. But it is very reasonable to presume the General words are sufficient upon N. N's grounds because they are used and applicable to all degrees of Holy Orders For if Episcopacy and Priesthood be only divers degrees of the same Order as he intimates and is declared in the Roman (b) Ib. n. 24. p. 266. Bell. de Sacr. Ord. c. 5. Sec. sequitur secunda only by the extension of the Character id ib. Sect. tertia Sect. seq with this only difference that the same efficacy is required to the extension of the character as to the first impression id ib. Sect. respond Catechism then the same Form will serve for both those disparate degrees of the same Order and the rather because in their opinion the higher Power compared to Bishops is only by extension of the Character and Protestants stick to this because it was only used in the Ancient Roman Church as it was only prescribed in the Old Pontifical and as the Church then answered the Sophisters of these times when this very Objection was writ against the Pontifical so do Protestants now the present Roman Cavillers who have taken it from them for thus the Church of Rome defends her self 1. The design was fully notified by words in the Pontificial to which of the respective Orders the Person presented was to be admitted 2. The manner of Imposition of hands did sufficiently discover the intention of the Ordainer and diversity the Act for in the Consecration of a Bishop divers Bishops impose hands but in the Ordination of a Priest one only Bishop with some assisting Priests This is the Judgment of both the Ancient Western and Eastern Church that that Form Receive ye the Holy Ghost which is the Form prescribed both for Priesthood and Episcopacy in the Protestant Ordinal is sufficient to confer Power and Authority to both Orders so that it being duly applied he that is presented to the Capacity of a Bishop is thereby enabled to do the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God and he who is presented for Priesthood is thereby warranted and empowred for the Office and work of a Priest 5. He surmiseth these words Receive ye the Holy Ghost are not c. this is to oppose Christ's Institution and in effect to make his Form of Commissionating his Apostles defective and insufficient For if that Form was sufficiently expressive of Apostolical Power and Authority then is it of Episcopal and it is most properly applied to them because if not only yet principally they are the Apostle's Successors even in the Judgment of many Learned Romanists and therefore this Form sealed by imposition of hands Constitutes a Person presented to Episcopacy a full Bishop by the Law of Christ without the supplement of any other auxiliary Form Father Davenport (c) Expos Paraphr artic confess Angl. p. 322. ad 325. alias St. Clara. hath evidenced from great Authority their new Additionals to be unnecessary Expos Paraphr Art Confess Angl. p. 322. Alii putant c. Others think saith he Imposition of hands as the Matter and those words Receive ye the Holy Ghost as the Form is as much as is required by Divine Law to the Essence of Episcopal Ordination and this they think from the Authority of the Scriptures which often and only makes mention of these two as (d) Bell. l. 1. de Sacr. Ord. c. 9. saith we cannot convince Hereticks that Order is a Sacrament because we cannot prove the external Symbol thereof from Scripture which is not possible for him to do of their new additional either Matter or Form Arrudius largely proveth 6. He assumes In the Form whereby Protestants Ordain c. But this his Assumption is 1. Frivolous It is absurd to object that against Protestants which if it were granted would render all the Ordinations in the Romish Church for 800 years meer Nullities 2. Fallacious he equivocates in the word Form which is either taken largely for the whole Office of Administration exemplified in the Ordinal or strictly for an Essential part of his Discourse and in the Conclusion he useth the word Form in the most comprehensive sense for the whole Rite of the Ministery which hath in it for the more Solemnity Prayers Exhortations Interrogatories c. but in the Assumption and middle-part he taketh it in the restrained sense for the Essential words which are the Constitutive Form as Imposition of hands is concluded to be the Matter this is their own distinction 3. False for in the Form that is the Protestants Ritual there are and always were express words for the Authority given in the respective Functions of Bishops and Priests for whose Ordinations there are distinct Forms and distinct Words The word Bishop oftner than three times used in the Office appointed for his Consecration and the word Priest sometimes in that prescribed for his Ordination Just according