have been pleased to call at my Study and the Books should there have been laid before you Your Paper cites the words of the third Canon of the Council of Carthage but all the four first Canons belong to this matter for in them that Council prescribing the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons makes mention only of imposition of hands with the Blessing given by the Ordainer but nothing at all of any of those imperative Forms in which the Church of Rome now a days placeth the essence of Orders And as to the words of the Book of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite I find none such in that Author as are contained in your Paper and therefore I suppose you transcribed them not from the Book it self but only wrote after some person that had given you the summe of them and if I mistake not you have made use of Dr. Burnet in this particular for the passage which I refer to in Dionysius contains several pages in Folio for he having first described the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons afterwards goeth over every single Rite in a very particular and exact manner and according to his way of Writing finds a Mystery in every one of them but amongst all those particulars which he so exactly recites there is none of the least mention made of any imperative Forms spoken at the imposition of hands or at the performance of any other Rite belonging to that matter and this silence of them where there is so particular a mention of every thing else is an undeniable presumption that there was then no such thing in use But to all that I have said in denying the antient use of those Forms you have this Answer that it seems irrational that there should be no words spoken by the Bishop at the laying on of his hand upon the Ordained and that at this rate the laying on of hands would seem only a dumb and insignificant sign and would in your opinion be nothing at all operative to the conferring of the Office on the person Ordained To which I reply First That how insignificant soever you may esteem the outward Ceremony without those words which you call the essential Form in the Consecration of a Christian Priest yet if you please to read the 8th Chapter of Leviticus you will there find that Aaron and his Sons were Consecrated to the Levitical Priesthood by the outward Ceremony only without as much as any one word spoken by Moses the Consecrator signifying the Holy Office to which they were set apart And Maimonides the most Authentick Writer among the Rabbies gives us an account that in after times the Consecration of the High Priest among the Jews was performed only by the Anointing with the Holy Oyl and Vesting with the High Priests Vestments and after the destruction of the first Temple in which the Holy Oyl was lost by Vesting him only For outward signs can by general institution be made as expressive of any thing of this nature as a form of words for words are only sounds appointed by the common consent of those that use them to be the signs of things and when outward actions are appointed to signifie the same things they are altogether as expressive and the King of France by delivering the Sword to the Constable and a Staff to a Marshal of France doth as effectually create those Officers by that outward Ceremony only as if he had done it by a Form of words the most expressive of the Authority and Power given that could be devised because the Laws of the Kingdom and the long received Customs of it have made these Ceremonies alone the well known manner of Constituting those Officers And had the Laws of the Christian Church or the long received usages of it made any outward Ceremony whatever in like manner the well known Rite of Ordaining a Priest it would be altogether as valid for this purpose without any Form of words whatever For Ordination being only a Ministerial act of delegating that Office to another which was received from Christ any thing that is sufficient to express this delegation whether words or signs doth sufficiently do the thing For if Forms be so necessary to Ordination what is it that makes them so It must be either the institution of Christ or the nature of the thing it self any other Reason for it I know not If it be from the institution of Christ let us be but convinced of that and we have done For in this case either to omit the Form or alter in the least from its first institution would make the whole performance culpable But if there be no institution of Christ for any such Form as I have already abundantly demonstrated that there is not all the necessity of such a Form must be from the nature of the thing it self Now if the nature of Ordination doth not necessarily require any such Form but that any of the Offices of the Church may be as well conferred by an outward Ceremony only by publick institution made significant and expressive of the thing done there appears no necessity for the use of any such Forms at all so as to invalidate those Orders that are conferred without them That which makes the Church of Rome so much insist upon the Matter and Form of Ordination is that they have made it a Sacrament and they observing the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the Sacrament of Baptism which are really Sacraments of Christs own institution to consist each of them as prescribed in Scripture of an outward sign and a form of words annext the former of which they call the matter and the latter the form of the Sacrament from hence they do infer that they are both essentially necessary to all those other Rites which they will have to be Sacraments also and because they find none such instituted in Scripture for them as they themselves acknowledge that they may not be without them introduce Matters and Forms as they call them of their own making And hence it is that they talk so much of the Matter and Form of Orders and will have both so essentially necessary to the conferring of them whereas would they argue aright in this point they ought not so much to have inferred the necessity of what they call Matter and Form for Ordination from that it is a Sacrament as that for this very reason it can be no Sacrament because it hath neither the one nor the other by Divine institution belonging thereto For the nature of a Sacrament according to their own definitions consists in this that it is an outward Ceremony consisting of things and words instituted and enjoyned by Christ himself with a promise of saving Grace annexed to the performance of it And since nothing of this can be made out to us from Scripture it doth from hence follow that although Orders be enrold among the number of the
to be sought for say no such thing but for any thing which appeares there to the contrary Titus and Timothy were at their first Ordination made Bishops without ever being admitted into the Inferiour Orders at all but receiv'd all the power of them included in that of Episcopacy And in all probability many such Ordinations were at first made For in the Beginning things could not be so settled in the Church that the Regular method of calling men always from the inferiour Offices to the higher should then be observ'd but without all doubt in that state of the first planting of the Gospel either as the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost then given to some men recommended them or the necessities of the Church required there were frequent reasons of conferring the Episcopal Office at first where no other had been received in order thereto And if you will have any regard to the opinion of Petavius one of the Learnedest Men which the Society of the Jesuites ever had he tells us that in the first times of the Church there were none or very few simple Presbyters at all but that all or the most part of those that then Officiated in Churches were Ordained Bishops His words are Primis illis Ecclesia temporibus existimo Presbyteros vel omnes vel eorum plerosque sic ordinatos esse ut Episcopi pariter ac Presbyteri gradum obtinerent i. e. In those first times of the Church I am of opinion that Presbyters either all or the most part of them were so Ordain'd that they obtain'd both the degree of a Bishop and Presbyter together But whatsoever was done at first afterward I allow when Churches increased and in each of them there was the subordination of many Presbyters and Deacons assisting under the Bishop for the performance of the Divine Offices and the Discipline and outward Policy of the Church was brought to a settled order Then that which is the usual practice of most other bodies became also to be the Rule of Christians in constituting the Ministers and Officers of the Church that is to advance them by degrees from one Order to another and not to place men in the highest Order till they had approv'd themselves worthy by the well discharge of their Duty in those inferiour thereto and accordingly thenceforth on Vacancies Bishops were made out of the Presbyters and the Presbyters out of the Deacons and although this method might be introduced even in the times of the Apostles themselves yet it was not by any Divine Institution so as to make it absolutely necessary a man be a Deacon before he can be a Presbyter or a Presbyter before he can be a Bishop but only by Ecclesiastical appointment for the well regulating the Order of the Church and the better providing for the benefit of it those in all reason being presumed to be the most fitting for the Superiour Orders that had been prepared for them by long exercising themselves in and faithfully discharging the duties of the Inferiour But however this Rule was not always observed but often when the benefit of the Church required and the extraordinary qualifications of men recommended them Bishops were made not only out of Deacons but also out of Lay-men too and that by one Ordination the giving of the Superiour Order being alwayes then understood to include therein all the power of the inferiour Thus several of the first Ages of the Church were made Bishops from Laymen and those Histories which tell us of it acquaint us but with one Ordination whereby they were advanced thereto And Pontius the Writer of the Life of St. Cyprian tells us of him that he was made a Presbyter without ever being a Deacon and so was also Paulinus of Nola as he himself tells us in his Epistles And from Optatus it is manifest that Caecilianus Bishop of Carthage was made so from a Deacon without ever being Ordain'd a Presbyter in order thereto For there arising a disturbance in the Church of Carthage about Caecilianus's being made Bishop there and the main objection lying against his Ordination because Ordain'd Bishop by Faelix Bishop of Aptungitum whom they looked on as a Traditor and one that had deserted the Faith in time of Persecution Optatus tells us Iterum à Caeciliano mandatum est ut si Faelix in se sicut illi arbitrabantur nihil contulisset ipsi tanquam adhuc Diaconum ordinarent Caecilianum i. e. Caecilianus again commanded that if Faelix conferr'd nothing on him as they imagin'd then let them speaking to the Bishops of the adverse party then met together again ordain Caecilanus as if he were as yet only a Deacon Which plainly inferrs that before Faelix ordain'd him Bishop he was no more than a Deacon And Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople in his Epistle to Pope Nicolas acknowledgeth that even in his time some Ordained Bishops from Deacons without ever making them Presbyters and that with several it was then looked on as the same thing to make a Bishop from a Deacon as from a Presbyter without at all admitting to the intermediate Order And a while after the same thing is also objected to the Latines by the Greeks and although their heats then ran very high about the aforesaid Photius yet on both sides this is only mention'd as a breach of the Ecclesiastical Canons and that those were to be condemn'd that did the thing not that the Ordination was void which was thus administred Regularly I do acknowledge it ought to be otherwise and that none be made Presbyters before they have been Deacons or Bishops before they have been Presbyters and that it is always best for the Church to observe this Order And so also must it be acknowledged that in all formed bodies of men regularly none ought to be advanc'd to the highest Office but those that have first gone through the inferiour as is manifest in all Corporations and that it is ever best for the publick good of those Societies and the well governing of them that this Order should be alwayes observ'd But however if at first dash one should be plac'd in the highest Office without going through the inferiour this doth not vacate his Commission receiv'd from a lawful Authority but he is to all intents and purposes as fully invested with the whole Power and Authority of that Office as if he had regularly ascended thereto by the usual degrees through all the subordinate Offices and in the power of this one Office only hath the powers of all the others conferr'd on him because it eminently includes them all And the same is to be said as to those that are Ordained Bishops without going through the inferiour Orders Although this be done contrary to the Rule of the Church yet this doth not vacate their Commission which they have receiv'd by a lawful Authority at their Ordinations but by vertue thereof they are made true Bishops of
which the person Elected is Ordained For they after this manner laying on their hands all together by those words do denote that they do receive him into their fellowship and to this end do give the Holy Ghost and therefore do place him in the same Episcopal Order with themselves whereas the imposition of hands made use of by one Bishop only and the same words Receive the Holy Ghost with a few others added to them spoken by the same Bishop in the Ordination of a Deacon do not either as considered in themselves or as spoken by the Bishop and applyed to this matter denote the peculiar office or degree of a Deacon neither can they as spoken by one Bishop with such a matter denote the Ordained to be admitted into fellowship with the Bishop rather in this Order than in another seeing one Bishop is as well the Minister of conferring the Orders of Priesthood and of the Sub-Deacon as of the Deacon But on the contrary three Bishops are only the Ministers of conferring Episcopal Ordination And I do therefore think it to be the Will of Christ that his Church should in this Ordination use such words as considered in themselves are only general that it might denote thereby that abundance of Grace of the Holy Ghost which is conferred on Bishops in their Ordination For it seems to be much more that the Holy Ghost be given absolutely than that it be given for this or that peculiar effect Thus far the Learned Jesuit and if this may be allowed to be a sufficient solution of the objection against the Ordinal of the Church of Rome it must also be a sufficient solution of the same objection against our Ordinal For with us as well as in the Church of Rome there are always three Bishops present at the Ordination of a Bishop which altogether lay on their hands on the Bishop Elect when Ordained and not only this Circumstance but many others in the Administration of this Office according to our Ordinal do as fully show what Order the Person on whom they thus lay on their hands and pronounce the above-mentioned Form of Consecration over is to be admitted to The complex of the whole office shows it For the person to be Ordained or consecrated is presented to the Metropolitan as one to be made a Bishop he takes the Oath of Canonical obedience to the Metropolitan as one to be made a Bishop is prayed for as one to be made a Bishop is examined or interrogated as one to be made a Bishop is vested in the Episcopal Robes and is Ordained by a Form never used but in the Ordination of a Bishop and all these together with many other like circumstances in that office too long all to be put down are certainly sufficient to determine the words of the Form to the Episcopal office only were there nothing in the words themselves to do it as it is certain there is not in the Form used by the Church of Rome to this purpose As to what was said in reference to Bishop Ridley's degradation only from his Priestly office before his Martyrdom to prove his Episcopal office not then allowed to be valid I observe these following particulars First That in these times of bitter persecution against us our adversaries as is usual in such cases proceeded rather according to their Rage and Fury than the just rules either of Truth or Reason or what they themselves were used to practice at other times Secondly That the voiding of Leases made by Protestant Bishops in King Edward's time depending upon the voiding of their Orders This was so earnestly endeavoured by those Popish Bishops that came in their places in Queen Mary's time for secular interest Thirdly That notwithstanding those were thus dealt with that would not come in to the Church of Rome at its restauration in Queen Mary's days yet those that did although Ordained by King Edward's Ordinal kept both their Livings and their Orders too and those not a few without any new Ordination all being salved by a dispensation which could not have been done had their Orders by that Ordinal been conferred contrary to Christs institution against which there can be no dispensation by any power on Earth whatsoever Fourthly All that B. Bonner pretended to who was the fiercest for the invalidity of all our Orders and reaped most benefit thereby in the voiding of Bishop Ridleys Leases was to supply the defects of them not totally to annul what was done before as appears by the injunctions which he procured from the Queen to carry with him in the first visitation of his Diocess after his res toration And what these defects were as to the Priestly office he himself tells us in a Book which he wrot against our Orders For all there which he assigns and which is in Truth the whole which the Gentlemen of Rome insist upon when they come close to the point is that in our Ordinal of Ordaining Priests this form was wanting Receive thou power to offer Sacrifices to God and to celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead and if this be a defect in our Ordinal and on this account an Essential part is wanting in our Orders as they contend it hath also been a defect in the Church of Rome it self which for near a thousand years together never used any such form in their Ordination and it is not now used to this day either in the Greek Church or the Churches of the Maronites upon Mount Libanus although the Church of Rome allows the Orders of the former to be good and the latter are members of their own Communion Nay it is further to be observed that those Greeks which live in Rome not only under the Popes Jurisdiction to which they have submitted but also under his very nose and have Churches there maintained for them at his cost and charges are still allowed to be Ordained by their own Ordinal in which this Form is wanting as the above-mentioned Morinus a Learned Priest of the Romish Communion and one that lived sometime at Rome doth attest and therefore if for this defect as they call it our Orders be null and invalid as now they would have why do they allow them to be good and valid in others which have received them with the same defect also or rather how can they be good and valid in themselves who have received them from such as for near a thousand years as I have afore observed never used this Form. H. Prideaux Nov. 11 th 1687. But sometime after hearing that what was urged concerning Bishop Ridly's not being degraded from his Episcopal Orders at his Martyrdom to be much talked of amongst Mr. Actons Friends as if it were an argument which did invincibly overthrow what Mr. Earbury asserted concerning our Orders having been admitted to be good in Queen Mary's time I sent Mr. Norris this further paper concerning that matter SIR I Being desirous to give you satisfaction
from the antient practice of the Church by introducing a new matter of their own invention the delivery of the Sacred Vessels to the person Ordained a thing never practiced in any Church till brought into use by them about seven hundred years since yet this they are so zealous for in preference to the other that or imposition of hands that they do not only by the general received Doctrine of their Church give it the preheminence as the prime and principal matter essential to the Sacrament as they call it but abundance of them make that to be the only external sign that is so and reject the other although most undeniably of Apostolical usage into the number only of those accidental Rites which belong to that administration And this I mention only to let you see that although those men are so clamorous against us for altering the Ordinal at the Reformation they only are guilty of that alteration herein which is really culpable in that to introduce a new Rite or Matter as they term it of their own invention they give little or no regard to that which is truly Apostolical for so imposition of hands must undeniably be allowed to be But I intend not to make any dispute as to this particular having before said that Orders may be validly conferred without it by any other manner sufficiently expressive of the thing intended But here I desire to be understood that I hold it not justifiable for any Bishop so to do unless in some particular case where there may be an extraordinary reason to warrant the alteration Because when a Rite hath been so generally received in the Church and hath so venerable a stamp upon it as that of Apostolick usage the Example is so enforcing as even to reach almost the very nature of a Precept to oblige us to do the same thing But because we find no Precept or Institution in Scripture concerning this Rite as the Romanists themselves acknowledge that there is not we put it not into the essentials of Ordination so as to judge null and void such Orders as shall be conferred without it but in this case admit the old and well known Rule quod fieri non debet factum valet that which ought not to be done is valid when done For the Rite of imposition of hands being of so antient and venerable use in the Church as I have aforesaid I think it cannot be omitted unless in some extraordinary case as I have mentioned without a great fault both in him that shall give and him that shall receive Orders without it But however the Orders must be allowed to be good notwithstanding that omission because our Saviour who commands the chief Pastors of his Church to send others after them to administer in holy things even as they were sent enjoyned herein only the mission it self without prescribing any thing to them about the manner of it neither were his Holy Apostles after him directed by his Holy Spirit to leave any Rule or Precept to us as to this particular But it was left to the Governours of the Church to do herein according as they should see most fitting And for many Ages after Christ there was no such thing as a Uniform Ordinal in any Church but the thing was left to discretion as the manner of Consecrating Churches with us and every Bishop used his own method herein only imposition of hands was always retained but with such different and various Forms of Prayers Benedictions and other Rites as the Bishop Ordaining thought most fitting to make use of and from hence no doubt came all that variety of Ordinals which is to be found among those Morinus hath published for Uniformity either of Liturgies or Ordinals is of very late date even in the Church of Rome it self In England down to the very time of the Reformation there were five different Liturgies according to the different uses of the Churches of Sarum Hereford York Bangor and Lincoln and in Morinus there is an Ordinal for the use of England much differing from the rest and therefore it is no new thing for us to vary from the Church of Rome in this particular even while we own'd its Usurpations over us how much soever we are now quarrelled at on this account since we have been separated from them The sum of all is that there was nothing of constant use in Ordination but Imposition of hands the Benedictions Prayers and other Rites that accompanied being for the most part differing according to the different Churches in which they were used and therefore if the Ordainer were a person fully authorized and the person Ordained fully qualified for the Sacred Office to which he was admitted we never meet with any that disputed the manner of the Ordination Neither do we find that ever a Controversie was made in this matter to null and void the Orders of any Church from any defect in their Ordinal till the Church of Rome raised the present Cavil against us For although different Churches in former times did much differ as to this yet we find none so fond of their own Methods and Forms as to condemn others that varied from them but it was ever looked on as the right of every particular Church in this to follow their own establishmenâ—s And although the Romanists have in this the Greek Church as much differing from them as the Church of England yet we find them not making any quarrel with them upon this account but on the contrary allowing them to make use of their own Ordinals even after received into Communion with them and that even in those Churches which they have in Rome it self and were it not that the violence of their passion against us for our differing from them in other things made them overlook their Reason in this the same thing must have been allowed us also But it hath happened to them in this as is usual with such as contend in a bad cause that is wanting all true Reasons of opposition against us were forced to lay hold of any thing that might seem to bear an appearance of it without considering the inconsistencies which the charge bears even with their own Principles but they having begun are bound in Honour to proceed and I know no other reason they have of continuing this unreasonable Cavil against us about the validity of our Orders abundance of their own Divines being really ashamed of it as you may see from the Testimonies I have already produced to you from some of them concerning this matter who positively declare their Opinion to the contrary herein And no doubt were they to begin the Controversie anew with us amongst several other Articles of Opposition they have too rashly taken up against us this concerning the validity of our Orders would in the first place be totally superseded betwixt us But because in answering what you objected concerning the Forms of Ordination I have been led
or Elder in the Synagogue of the Jews excepting only the administring of the Sacrament of the Eucharist which answered not to any thing of the Synagogue but to the Paschal Feast which was a Service totally appropriated to the Temple and the City of Jerusalem in which it stood And what other end is designed by imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Christian Presbyter but the giving of the Holy Ghost the same which I have told you was also imported by the same Ceremony in the Ordination of a Presbyter for the Synagogue only it was given in the Christian Church in a larger degree then in the Jewish and also for a more excellent ministration the one being derived only from Moses for the teaching of the Law and the other from Christ our Lord for the preaching of his Gospel and the administring of all the benefits thereof unto Everlasting Life And thus far I hope I have made it clear how this Ceremony of imposition of hands made use of in our Ordinations came into the Church of Christ that is not by any Divine Law or Precept from our Saviour but only by imitation from what was afore practiced in the Synagogue of the Jews But however since we find it introduced by the Apostles themselves and in all Ordinations practiced by them from the beginning who were in so extraordinary a manner guided by the Holy Spirit of God in all that they did of this nature this is sufficient to infer a Divine Approbation of the use thereof although not a Divine Institution perpetually obligatory thereto and therefore we cannot without being guilty of the greatest rashness vary from it to any invention of our own for which we can have no such assurance and this with the apt significancy which the Ceremony it self hath of the thing intended no doubt hath been the reason that it hath ever since been continued in the Church of Christ down to this time there being no Church or Sect of Christians that I know of which think any Ordination at all necessary that do not make use of this Ceremony therein Now the manner how Orders were first administred hereby we gather from Scripture to be thus when any persons were made choice of to officiate in any of the Holy Offices of the Church whether of Bishop Priest or Deacon First God Almighty was sought to in their behalf by a solemn Fast to which the Ember weeks do now answer and then the Congregation being met the Ordainer whether one of the Apostles themselves or of the Bishops that succeeded them having by a Prayer particular for that purpose recommended the person to be Ordained to the mercy and favour of God that he would be pleased to accept of him to that Holy Function to which he was set apart and impart unto him such a measure of his Gifts and Graces as might fully enable him to all the Duties thereof then as the proper Minister of God by his Divine appointment for this purpose laid his hands upon him for his receiving all that which had in his behalf been thus prayed for it being by this Ministerial act as it were by the hand of God himself reached out unto him and this was always looked upon as the very act whereby the Office was given and the full completion of that administration whereby any were admitted thereto and for several Ages after we find no other Ceremony used therein But Imposition of hands alone was all along looked on as the sole Ceremonial act whereby the Office was conferred whether it were of Bishop Priest or Deacon it being thereto as the Seal to the Patent by which they acted in their Ministry and the application thereof that which impowered them to all the duties of it And for this reason among the Greeks Ordination and Imposition of hands are signified by the same word and also in the Writings of the Apostles themselves we have instances hereof Acts 14. v. 23. and 2 Cor. 8. v. 19. in both these places the word which by the Romanists themselves is Translated to Ordain is in the Original Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies to lay on hands which sufficiently imports that in that Ceremony the whole act of Ordination was understood to consist without any of those imperative Forms which you seem to lay so much stress upon we having no Authority in the least to make it out unto us that any such were at all in use for near a thousand years after Christ as I have already shown Neither is there any such necessity for them as you urge to declare the intent of the Ceremony or which of the different Orders of the Church it is which is conferred thereby in Ordination seeing this may be as well manifested by a publick declaration to the people in the beginning of the administration and also in the subsequent prayers which were offered up unto God in behalf of the person to be Ordained for his accepting of him to the Office and his imparting to him his Divine Gifts to enable him to the Duties of it as it is evident that it was done by both these ways in the Primitive Church without any such Forms as you think so necessary thereto for to express the thing the more plainly to you when a Fast had been appointed in order to the Ordination of a Presbyter when the Congregation being met the end of that meeting was declared for the Ordaining of such an one there present to be a Presbyter and when by particular Prayers he had been recommended to God for his imparting to him his Gifts and Graces for that Office as was the ancient manner of Ordination after all this had been done when the hands of the Bishop and the Presbytery were laid on him for the conferring of the Office certainly there needed no new declaration to express the end for which it was done And that this was anciently the practice of the Church of Rome it self thus to Ordain by Imposition of hands without any such Forms annexed we have a most evident proof from their own Ordinal it being still thus retained therein For in the Roman Ordinal Imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Priest is twice administred the last time indeed it hath a Form annexed the same almost which we use Receive the Holy Ghost c. But of the first the Rubrick of the Ordinal says Pontifex stans ante faldistorium suum cum Mitrâ nulla oratione nullove cantu praemissis imponit simul utramque manum super caput cujuslibet Ordinandi successivè nihil dicens idemque faciunt post eum omnes Sacerdotes qui adsunt i. e. The Bishop standing before his Faldstool with his Mitre on his head without any Prayer or Hymn premised puts both his hands successively on the head of every one to be Ordained without speaking any thing at all and after him all the Priests that are present do the same thing Now
to the Pope which no Bishop took at his Ordination after the Supremacy of the Church was vested in the Crown And therefore Ridley and Farrer being made Bishops before that Act must necessarily be ordained by no other but the Roman Ordinal And therefore although in the beginning of King Edward's Reign before the Liturgy was establish'd some zealous Protestants taking encouragement from the favour they receiv'd from the Government might of their own heads in those Churches as were in their power make such alterations in the publick Worship and the Administration of the two Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper and other holy Rites as you call new ways of their own Invention yet as to your Question Why might they not also as well Consecrate and Ordain according to their own Inventions I hope what I have said is a full answer that there could be no such thing At best you propose it only as a Conjecture which you inferr'd without any Reason or Argument in the least to enforce it And what I have said I hope may be sufficient to assure you that there can be none for it As to Mr. Acton's Paper to which you refer me I know nothing of it having never seen it or any thing else which came from him to the Gentleman you mention and therefore can give you no answer thereto In the last place you seem so taken with those Conceptions of yours which you have vented in the paper you sent me that you would perswade me not to attempt any further Answer but that tamely yielding this Question I should proceed to another which you propose concerning the consistency of the validity of our Orders with the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice But I must beg your pardon for not observing the first part of your Command in tamely yielding the Cause to those weak suggestions which you sent me I hope whatsoever your opinion might be of them before I have by this time shown you that there is nothing unanswerable in them and if I have transgressed in doing so I will endeavour to make amends for it in giving you full satisfaction to what is the second part of your Command in reference to the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Question which you propose concerning it is this Whether any Bishop or Arch-bishop can validly be made such without the Consent of his Superior or by faculty from him for his Consecration In order to the giving you full satisfaction as to this I will first set down the words of the Canon it self and then endeavour to Answer your Question concerning it And First The words of the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice are as followeth Let ancient Customs still take place those that are in Egypt Libya and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria have power over all these because such also is the Custom of the Bishop of Rome And accordingly in Antioch and other Provinces let the Priviledges be preserved to the Churches This also is altogether evident that if any man be made a Bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan this great Synod Decrees such an one to be no Bishop And if two or three out of a contentious humour shall oppose the Common Election duely and regularly made according to the Canon of the Church let the Majority of voices in this Case prevail Thus far the words of the Canon and the Argument which you deduce from hence is I suppose because Archbishop Parker was consecrated without the Popes Bulls therefore his Consecration must be void and null and he being for this reason no Bishop consequently could make none else so And therefore all the Bishops that have been since in the English Church deriving their Orders from him are in truth and reality no Bishops or invested with any power to ordain others and consequently that all Ordinations administred since in the Church of England being through this defect null and void we have no such thing as true Orders among us And thus far having urged your Argument for you with all the strength that the thing can bear in Answer thereto I shall lay down these following particulars 1. That you could not have lighted on any Canon of the Church more unluckily for the Cause of Rome which you are so zealous for than this you have mention'd it being that which directly overthrows the Supremacy of the Pope and puts him upon the level with all other Metropolitans of the Christian Church 2. That allowing this Canon to have all the force you will give it yet if Orders be an Institution of Jesus Christ they cannot be annull'd by any breach thereof for Ecclesiastical Canons are only the Ordinances of Men and therefore cannot annul or invalidate that which hath a Divine appointment for the original of its Institution and therefore in this case the saying of Becanus the Jesuit falls in very pat to answer your Objection Prohibitio Ecclesiae solum facit ut Ordinatio sit illicita non autem ut sit irrita The prohibition of the Church only makes that an Ordination may be illegal not that it can be null For the power which is given by God cannot be taken away by the prohibition of the Church But since a Bishop hath received power to ordain others according to Divine Institution although he lye under all the Canonical Impediments that possibly he can be liable unto to hinder him from the Execution of his Office yet if he will notwithstanding proceed therein to the conferring of Orders the Character is as fully given by him as he himself received it And in this case the old Rule I have afore mention'd must again take place quod fieri non debet factum valet although the thing ought not to be done yet is valid when done And therefore allowing what you say to be true that the Bishops who ordained Arch-bishop Parker without the Popes Bull as well as he himself that was thus ordained by them were guilty of the breach of this Canon yet at the most it can only be an uncanonical not an invalid Ordination 3. Therefore as to the words of the Canon this great Synod decrees such an one to be no Bishop can respect only his Benefice not his Office and Character that is that such an one as should be thus Ordained a Bishop of any place without the Consent of his Metropolitan should not be allowed to be Bishop of that place so as there to execute the Office or any where enjoy the Honour and Priviledges belonging thereto not that his Ordination should be looked on as invalid as to the Character and Office of a Bishop conferred on him thereby Because if that be given according to Christs Institution it cannot be taken away again by any Institutions of men whatever but according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Character being indelebly imprinted on him it is no more in the power of the Church to deprive him
this outward Rite or Sign of Imposition of Hands and this Form of words annex'd thereto was the whole manner appointed by our first Reformers for the conferring of the Office of Priesthood on those that were Ordained to it and so it continued till in the first Convocation after the late King's Restauration Anno 1662. after Receive the Holy Ghost these additional words for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by the Imposition of our Hands were for the reasons which I have aforementioned unto you also inserted in that Form. 4. Therefore you are to understand that the second Matter and Form of our Ordinal abovementioned were not at all intended to conferr the Order or any part thereof but only to assign the place for the execution of the Office already received For by the first Matter and Form Imposition of Hands and the Form of words annexed the person Ordained thereby is fully and wholly made a Priest or Presbyter of the Church of Christ and all that is done by the second Matter and Form is to admit him thus Ordain'd to be a Priest or Presbyter of that Congregation that is of that Diocess the whole Diocess being as one Congregation or Parish in respect of the Bishop Ordaining to execute the Duties of his Office express'd by Preaching of the Word and Administering the Holy Sacraments in the place where he shall be appointed thereto and this was so order'd conform to the Ancient Canons of the Church which very severely forbid all absolute Ordinations that is all such Ordinations whereby Orders are given at large without intitling the Person Ordained to any particular Church for the executing the Duties of the Office received For it was the Ancient Custom that every Bishop should Ordain his own Presbyters and none other and that when he Ordained them he should admit them to be Presbyters of his Church either to officiate in the Mother Church it self where the Bishop had his Chair or else in some of the other inferiour Churches of the Diocess which all belonged thereto and whether they did the one or the other they were all reckoned as Presbyters of that one Church the Diocess anciently being looked on as one Parish and all the Christians of it as one Congregation united together under their Bishop and conformable hereto is it that the Bishop saith in the Ordinal above-mention'd Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in the Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed i.e. Take thou Authority to execute the Office of a Priest in this Diocess in that particular Church or Parish thereof where thou shalt be appointed so to do But since the Ancient Canons which forbad Presbyters ever to forsake that Church or Diocess whereof they were first admitted Presbyters to go into another Diocess is now through the whole Christian World grown quite obsolete and would be of much more prejudice than benefit now to be observ'd At the aforesaid review of our Ordinal in the Year 1662. this Form also hath received an Alteration and what was afore in this Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed is now in the Congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereto and thereby that Faculty or License to Preach the Word and Administer the Sacraments which was afore given as to the Diocess only where the Person was Ordained is now made General as to the whole National Church in any part thereof whereof the Person thus Ordain'd to the Priesthood shall be lawfully called to execute the Duties thereof And having premised these things unto you concerning the Matters and Forms made use of in the Ordinals of both Churches for your clearer understanding of what is on either side intended by them I now come to your Objection which according to the best advantage that it can be stated I apprehend to be thus You looking on a Form of Words fully expressing the whole Priestly power to be indispensably necessary and absolutely essential to all Ordinations of Priests think our Orders of Priesthood invalidly administred as failing in an essential because we have no such Form expressing the whole Priestly power at our Ordinations of Priests For the Form which we use you say is not such as by no means expressing the whole Priestly power because it makes no mention of Consecrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist and making present the Body and Blood of our Saviour as you term it which you look on as the chiefest and main power of the Priestly Office but only impowers to forgive Sins And although you allow our Form at present since the insertion of those words for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God to be sufficiently perfect because in the word Priest you think may be included all that belongs to him yet still judge our Orders to be invalid by reason of the former defect because say you if the Presbyters of the Church of England were not validly Ordain'd by the first Form till the addition above-mentioned was inserted in the Year 1662 then through this defect those who were chosen out of them to be Bishops could not validly be ordained such because they were not afore Presbyters or Priests none being capable in your opinion to be Bishops who have not been first made Priests and consequently could not have Authority to Ordain others by any Form of Words how perfect soever afterwards devised And this being your Objection urged in its utmost strength for the Cause you argue for I am now to tell you in Answer thereto that the whole of it goes upon three very great Mistakes The First is That any such a Form of Words is Essential to Orders Secondly That the Order of Priesthood is absolutely necessary to qualify a man for the Order of Episcopacy And Thirdly That our Form of Priestly Ordination doth not include the whole Priestly power As to the First Although we allow such Formes very useful to make a more clear declaration of the intent and meaning of that act whereby the Office is conferr'd and therefore do our selves retain them in our Church yet that any such should be essential to the Administration so as to null and make void the Orders that are conferr'd without them is that which wants all manner of Evidence either from Scripture Ancient Practice the nature of the thing it self or any other reason whatever which I have already made sufficiently clear unto you And therefore without repeating what I have before said I shall pass on to the other two particulars in which you are equally mistaken For Secondly That the Order of Priesthood is absolutely necessary to quallify a man for the Order of Episcopacy so that none can be made a Bishop unless he were first a Priest is that you can have no ground for The Holy Scriptures from whence alone the essential requisites of Christ's Institutions are
the Church of Christ and have receiv'd full power to all the Duties incumbent on them as such not only that which is peculiar to the Order of a Bishop but also the powers of all other inferiour Offices included therein For the Orders of the Church do so include one the other that the same Act of Ordination which gives the power of the higher Order doth therein also give the powers of all other Orders inferiour thereto as for Example when a man is made a Presbyter or Priest though he had never been a Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of a Deacon as being included in his Priesthood and so when a man is made a Bishop though he had never been either Priest or Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of both these Offices as being included in that of his Episcopacy And this is no more than may be made good by Instances from all the subordinations of power in the World in which this is alwayes most certain that the higher degree of power ever includes all the other Degrees inferiour thereto and that Act which gives that one superiour degree gives all the others therewith as included in it And all the Argument which the Romanists bring against this to prove it must be otherwise as to those several degrees of power in the Church which make the Offices of Bishop Priest and Deacon therein is drawn from a similitude they make between them and the three sorts of Souls which distinguish between the three several sorts of living Creatures in this World that is the Vegetative Soul the Sensitive and the Rational For as the Vegetative is necessarily presuppos'd to the Sensitive and the Sensitive to the Rational in such manner as nothing can be a Rational Creature which is not a Sensitive or a Sensitive which is not a Vegetative so say they the order of a Deacon is necessarily presuppos'd to the order of Priesthood and the order of Priesthood to that of Episcopacy and no one can be a Bishop which is not first a Presbyter or a Presbyter which is not first a Deacon But this Argument if it makes any thing to the purpose must infer a very ridiculous thing that is that God cannot make a Man unless by giving him first the Vegetative Soul he makes him a Tree or a plant and then secondly by giving him the Sensitive Soul he makes him a Brute and then thirdly and lastly by giving him the Rational Soul he makes him a Man whereas nothing is more certain than that by that one Act whereby he gives the Rational Soul he gives all the powers of the other two included therein And therefore if this similitude were to decide the Controversie between us instead of making out any thing for them it will most manifestly give the whole on my side it being one of the fullest and clearest that can be thought on most plainly to illustrate unto you the whole state of what I have said in this particular For although the Vegetative Soul as in Vegetables is distinct from the Sensitive and the Sensitive as in Brutes is distinct from the Rational yet the Sensitive doth so include the Vegetative and the Rational the Sensitive that the very same act which gives the Sensitive Soul gives also the Vegetative and the very same act which gives the Rational gives both Sensitive and Vegetative also included therein And just so is it of the three Orders of Deacon Priest and Bishop in the Church of Christ For although the Order of a Deacon in a simple Deacon is distinct from the Order of Priesthood and the Priesthood as in a simple Priest distinct from the Order of Episcopacy yet the Order of Priesthood doth so include the Order of a Deacon and the Order of Episcopacy both that of Priest and Deacon that the very same act of Ordination which gives a man the Order of Priesthood gives him also that of a Deacon and that very same act which gives him the Order of Episcopacy gives him also both that of Deacon and Priest included in it and consequently that it is no more necessary a man should be a Deacon before he can be a Priest or a Priest before he can be a Bishop than that he must be made a Vegetable before he can be an Animal and an Animal before he can be a Rational Creature than which nothing is more absurd And thus far having shown you that the inferiour Orders of the Church are not so essentially necessary to qualifie for the superiour as you imagine but that a man may validly be ordain'd a Bishop though he was afore neither Priest nor Deacon it will infer that although that should be true which you object against us that our first form of Ordination of Priests till the Addition inserted in the year 1662. was defective and that by reason of this defect all the Priestly Ordinations conferr'd by it were null and void yet our Episcopal Ordination may be still good as being administred by no such defective Form but by one which includes all that and in the very same words which the Romanists themselves say is the alone essential Form of their Episcopal Ordination as is afore taken notice of and therefore though we had no true Priests all the while this defective Form was used yet we still had true Bishops fully invested with the power of Ordaining others and consequently now at least since the Form whereby they Ordain is mended according to your mind we must have true Priests also and therefore whatsoever defect according to your opinion might be formerly in our Priestly Ordination by reason of our Forms yet now this defect is fully mended and supplied you have no reason on this account to forsake our Communion But Thirdly That there was never any such defect in our Forms the main mistake which you go upon is that which in the last place I am to convince you of For although before the addition inserted in the Form of our Priestly Ordination it might not be so well fenced against all the unreasonable Cavils of Adversaries as now it is yet it was altogether as full in the expression of what was done and totally sufficient for the end design'd which I doubt not I shall fully and evidently make appear unto you by these following Reasons I. Because these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are as full and comprehensive an expression of the whole Priestly power as possibly can be devised For what are Priests but the Ministers of Jesus Christ to lead men to that Reconciliation with God and that Forgiveness of Transgression from him which he hath purchased for us And what are the appointed means whereby they do this but the Administring the Sacraments the preaching of the Word the declaring Gods Promises and Threats the exhorting to Repentance
his Holy Apostles for the Ministry to which he had chosen them And therefore those words that follow Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained must be they whereby the whole power and Authority of that their Ministry was given unto them and not a part of it only as the Romanists say and consequently these words must be the perfectest and most authentic form whereby to Ordain others also to the same Ministry III. But our Church in the first establishing of this Form for Preistly Ordination did not only appoint these words of our Saviour whereby he Ordained his Apostles but also out of their abundant caution as if they foresaw the Cavils our Adversaries now make by way of Explication subjoyned these other words also And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his Sacraments by them explicitly expressing all the Priestly power in particular which we understand in general to be implicitly contain'd in the other that go before as I have already made out unto you that they are And although this should not be the true Explication of them as our Adversaries contend yet since the words are part of the Form they must give all that they express and therefore since they express the whole Priestly power though the other should not they must give it also to all those that are Ordain'd thereby and consequently the Form must be fully sufficient even in all that which you your self require to make it so But to this you object that those later words give power only to Dispense the Sacraments and not to Consecrate and therefore cannot give power to Consecrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist and make present the Body and Blood of our Saviour as you term it which you look on as the main of the Priestly power but only to Dispense it that is to distribute the Elements when Consecrated which a Deacon only can do To this I Answer 1. That the word Dispense is here made use of as a general Term which reacheth both Word and Sacraments and therefore cannot be limited to that particular sense of distributing the Elements only in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as you will have it but must comprehend whatsoever the Ministers of Christ who as his Stewards are intrusted with his Word and Sacraments are commanded by him to do in order to the giving out and dispensing of both for the Salvation of those to whom they are sent 2. The whole Objection being concerning the signification of the word Dispense you must not go for that to the Cavils of Adversaries but to the intent and meaning of our Church in the use of it For words have no otherwise their signification than according to the appointment and acceptation of those that use them and must always express that sense which by common consent and usage is intended by them And therefore since you plainly acknowledge as doth also your Erastus Senior whom you follow herein that the Church of England means and intends Consecration as well as Distribution by the word Dispense it necessarily follows that that must be the signification of it in this Form. For certainly a whole National Church intending such a sense by such a word for an hundred and fifty years together it is enough to make it signifie so though that were never the sense of it before because words not being necessary but only Arbitrary signs of things must always so signifie as is intended by the common consent of them that use them But 3. To come to the main solution of the matter the case is plainly thus Our Reformers making Scripture the Principal Rule of all their Establishments did in the appointing of this Form take the very words of it from thence as near as they could and therefore as they had the former part thereof out of the 20th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John Verse 22 23. so had they the latter from the 4th Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Verse the first only with this difference that whereas the former are the very words of Scripture the latter instead of the very words Dispensers of the Mysteries of God to make the thing more plain and clear is express'd by other words equivalent thereto Dispensers of the Word of God and of his Holy Sacraments the Word of God and his holy Sacraments being on all hands acknowledged to be the whole of what is there intended by the Mysteries of God. And although the Original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is better rendred Stewards as in our Translation than Dispensers yet the Gentlemen of Rome can have no reason to find fault with us in this particular since herein we follow their own Bible the vulgar Latin which their Council of Trent hath decreed to be the only Authentic Scripture For at the first Reformation of our Church the Original Languages of the Holy Scriptures being but little known the Vulgar Latin Version was that which was then generally used among us and therefore the expression is put in our Form according as it was found in that Version for there it is Dispensatores Mysteriorum Dei and accordingly the Rhemists translate it The Dispensers of the Misteries of God and therefore the whole Controversie between us must be brought to this point only whether Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place doth signifie Priests or no and if it doth it must necessarily follow that it signifies the same also in our Form of Ordination where it is used And I doubt not if you will be pleased to look upon that Text of Scripture even as translated by our Adversaries themselves it will not be possible for you to perswade your self that when the Holy Apostle St. Paul there says of himself and the other Apostles So let a man esteem us as the Ministers of Christ and the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God he means it only as Deacons No certainly both those phrases Ministers of Christ and Dispensers of the Mysteries of God are equivalent Expressions denoting them as invested with the whole Ministry of the Gospel committed to them And if you will commit the decision of this Cause to Estius an Eminent and Learned Doctor of the Church of Rome he will plainly tell you so for on that Text of Scripture he so explains those phrases And on the 7th verse of the first of Titus he interprets Dispensatorem Dei i. e. the Dispenser of God to be Dei Vicarium ac Ministrum in Dispensatione Evangelii Sacramentorum i. e. Gods Vicar and Minister in the Dispensing of his Gospel and Sacraments and then immediately after he repeats the forementioned Text 1 Cor. 4.1 denoting Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place and Dispenser of God here to be both understood in the same sense And therefore according to him who was as Eminent a Doctor of their Church as any
they have to boast of Dispensers of the Mysteries of God and Dispensers of the Gospel or Word of God and the Sacraments were the Ministers of God or the Vicar of God that is such as in his stead did Administer to his People his Word and Sacraments which are Titles that never used to be given to any under the Degree of a Priest And if you will go unto the School-men and other Writers of the Church of Rome nothing is more common among them than by Dispensers of the Sacraments to mean the Priests of the Church of Christ and by the Act of Dispensing of them the peculiar Duty in which they Officiate And if there were any need of it Thousands of Instances may be given hereof IV. But after all their Cavils against our Form of Priestly Ordination as if it were not sufficient to confer the whole Priestly power they must themselves in their Ordinations of Priests confer this power by the same Form which we also use their second Form above mention'd or not confer it at all according to their own Doctrines in this particular For first they allow no Form to do any thing of this but what is an essential Form but from some of their own positions it must necessarily follow that the first Form cannot be an essential Form and therefore it must follow that the last Form only can be such in their Ordinations of Priests and consequently that by that only as the alone Essential Form the whole Priestly power must be given in their Ordinations of Priests or else it must not be given at all they having no other Form besides these two which they ever say to be essential to that Sacrament as they call it Now that the first Form cannot be an essential Form according to their own positions I prove by these following Arguments 1. That cannot be an Essential Form which is joyned with a Matter which is not Essential but the Matter with which the first Form is joyned the delivery of the Chalice and Patten to the Person Ordained cannot be an Essential matter and therefore the Form of words joyned therewith cannot be an Essential Form. The first proposition is that which none of the Gentlemen you converse so much with will deny because they well know that the Matter as well as the Form both concurring to the making up of the Essence of things the Form cannot be Essential to the Constituting of any thing where the Matter is not Essential also And therefore all I suppose will be requir'd of me to make this Argument out will be to prove the second Proposition that the delivery of the Chalice and Patten in their Ordination of Priests cannot be an Essential Matter and this I say must necessarily follow from their own positions And that first because abundance of the most Learned of them as Morinus Habertus Hallier and several others do plainly grant that this Rite was never used in the Church for near a thousand years after Christ and therefore it is impossible that it can be essential to Priestly Ordination unless you will allow that the Order of Priesthood could for so many years together be conferr'd without that which is essential thereto or else that all the Ordinations of Priests for all that time were null and void for want of it neither of which I suppose any of our Adversaries will ever say 2. I also say that this must necessarily follow from their own positions because they allow the Priestly Ordinations of the Greek Church to be good and valid which are administred without it For they Ordain by Imposition of hands only without ever using the other Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten at all in their Ordinations and yet the Church of Rome is so far from disallowing their Orders so conferr'd that they do not only allow them to be good and valid but also permit those Greek Bishops which have come over to their Communion and have Churches maintain'd for them in Rome it self and by the Pope's own Charge still to Ordain after the same manner and by Imposition of hands only and Cardinal Lugo tells us that he himself saw Ordinations thus performed at Rome by Greek Bishops And therefore if this Ordination be thus allowed by them as compleat in its whole Essence which is thus administred without the delivery of the Chalice and Patten it must necessarily follow that according to this Concession this Rite which is the first Matter in the Roman Ordinations of Priests cannot be Essential to that Administration Which two Arguments are so prevalent with the Learnedest and best of that Communion that abundance of them in direct Terms assert Imposition of Hands to be the only Essential Matter whereby the Order of Priesthood is conferr'd Morinus directly says it in opposition to the other Matter the delivery of the Chalice and Patten which he excludes from being an Essential Matter for the same two Reasons I have laid down which he says are plain Demonstrations against it Bonaventure Petrus Sotus and Becanus the Jesuit who also deny this Matter to be Essential I have already made mention of Hallier the Learned Sorbonist I have afore cited is very large to prove that Imposition of Hands could only be the Essential Matter of Priestly Ordination for the first 800 years after Christ and at length concludes his Discourse concerning it with these words Diuturno tempore tam in Orientali quam in Occidentali Ecclesia retentum ut Hierarchici Ordines Episcoporum scilicet Presbyterorum Diaconorum sola manuum impositione conferrentur i. e. It was a long while retained both in the Eastern and Western Church that the Hierarchical Orders that is the Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons should be conferr'd by Imposition of Hands only And as low down as the year 1536. a Council then held at Cologne speaks of Imposition of Hands as the only Rite whereby Orders are administred the words of the Council are Impositionem manuum esse ostium per quod intrant qui Ecclesiarum gubernaculis admoventur i. e. That Imposition of Hands is the door whereby those enter that are appointed to have the Government of Churches and if it be the door whereby men enter into the Orders of the Church it is plain enough it must be the only Rite whereby they are admitted into them for by the door only is it that men are admitted into the house And thirteen years after another Council held at Mentz says as fully to the same purpose Collationem ordinum cum Impositione manuum velut visibili signo tradi i. e. That the Collation of Orders is delivered by Imposition of Hands as the visible sign By which words saith Vasquez seems to be denoted that the visible sign in which this Sacrament doth consist and by vertue of which the Power and the Grace is conferr'd is in Imposition of Hands But Arcudius is most express in this matter
THE VALIDITY OF THE ORDERS OF THE Church of England Made out against the Objections of the Papists in several Letters to a Gentleman of Norwich that desired Satisfaction therein By Humphrey Prideaux D. D. Prebendary of Norwich LONDON Printed by John Richardson for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons in Cornhil over-against the Royal Exchange 1688. Imprimatur Hic Liber cui Titulis Certain Papers c. June 8. 1688. Jo. Battely TO THE READER THese Letters when first Written were never designed for the Publick but only to endeavour the satisfaction of one particular Person who applyed to me for it one Mr. Anthony Norris late a Justice of Peace for the County of Norfolk The Occasion hereof was the Conference an Account of which as given me by the Person chiefly concern'd begins this Book at which Mr. Norris being present and pretending not to be satisfied with what was then said in the behalf of our Orders writes to me the second Paper hereafter Published concerning it and that produced all the Letters that after follow The last I confess was never sent unto him for on my finishing of it being assured by such accounts as I had received that he was already gone over and firmly fix'd on the other side as afterwards appeared to be true at his Death which happened about the beginning of April following I thought it too late to make any further Application to him and therefore threw my Papers by in my Study as now totally useless for the end designed But after his Death great offence being taken against me on several Occasions by our Adversaries instead of other things to object I was challenged for not answering a Letter wrote by Mr. Acton a Jesuite of this Place which I supposing could be none other but the last I received from Mr. Norris I again gathered my Papers together to let them see that called upon me for an Answer that I was ready to give it And although it was afterwards denied that this Letter was at all intended thereby but one sent to another Person which I never knew any thing of yet having on this occasion put my Papers together and looked them over I was perswaded by those to whom I communicated them that it might be of great use here to have them publish'd For the Romish Emissaries that haunt this place seeming to have studied no other part of the Controversie but that of our Orders in their rounds where they go to and fro among us seeking whom they may delude inculcate all the Arguments they can against the Validity of them and making this the constant subject of what they have to say against us to such of our people as they would Seduce tell them that we have no Ministry and consequently no Church no Sacraments and that therefore they must come over to them without examining any further into the Controversie between us By which silly Snare having catched some few stumbled others and filled the place in a manner with this Controversie I think an Antidote may be very proper where the Poison is so much spread and therefore most what they have to say being put into the Letters sent me by this Gentleman I hope my Answers to them may very well serve for this purpose That which perswades me they may is especially the plainness with which they are wrote for the Gentleman to whom they are directed having never had the advantage of any Scholastick Education I endeavoured to lay all things as plain and easie before him as I could whereby what I say in them being adapted to the meanest Capacity I hope none that reads them but may go along with them and receive satisfaction thereby as to the whole which our Adversaries in the points discussed object against us And that they may thus far be serviceable in our present Case to undeceive such as are deluded among us and prevent others from being so is the sole end and design of my publishing of them Although the Conference which occasioned those Letters was that I was no way concern'd in or knew any thing of it till I had received Mr. Norris's Paper yet since his account is drawn so much to the disadvantage of the Gentlemen concerned on our side to publish that account alone would be to send abroad a Libel against them And therefore that I might not be injurious to them in this particular was the reason that I desired of them their Account also to publish therewith and that is it which here next immediately follows H. Prideaux THE ORDERS OF THE Church of England DEFENDED The True Account of a Conference between Mr. Earbury and Mr. Acton a Jesuit concerning the Validity of the Ordination of the Church of England THE Company being set Mr. Earbury began to speak concerning the occasion of their being met there Viz. That Mr. Thompson had departed from our Church and had been at a Popish Meeting and that being demanded his Reason he had given this viz. That he thought that the Ministers of the Church of England were not in Orders and that he had Friends who would prove it to our faces and that therefore we were now come to Answer all Objections Mr. Acton here Replyed That it was our duty to prove our selves in Orders and cited a part of Mr. Earbury's Letter for it though any one may see that that Paragraph was not designed for that purpose The words of the Letter are these I shall most gladly meet you there not out of a principle of ostentation or discontent but meerly out of a sense of that duty that I owe that Church of which I am a member and as I hope to prove my self a Lawful Pastor in it Mr. Earbury told him that he did not think himself obliged to it but yet he would begin with the proving part and proceeded thus There are four things which your own Authors do think necessary to a due conveyance of Orders First Authority of the person Consecrating Secondly The Form. Thirdly That which they call the Matter Fourthly Quality of the persons receiving Ordination Mr. Acton excepted against the Form of Ordination made in Edward the Sixth's Time and bid Mr. Earbury prove Syllogistically that that was sufficient to convey the character of a Priest which Mr. Earbury immediately did by this Argument If our Saviours Form of Ordination was compleat viz. Receive the Holy Ghost then the Form used in Edward the Sixth's time being the very same must be compleat also but our Saviours was compleat therefore ours was To this Mr. Acton answered That our Saviour had a supream Authority and might use what Form he pleased though never defective but we had no Authority to use a defective Form. Mr. Earbury told him that though we had not the same Authority to impose a Form yet we had liberty to use that Form which our Saviour used especially when the Form was expressive of the power given and so offered to prove that the Form
the power of consecrating the Eucharist But c. This Mr. Earbury said was as plain as that all the parts were contained in the whole and he further quoted Father Paul who in his History of the Council of Trent does report it to be the opinion of some of their own most eminent Divines That if their Church had not appointed another Form these words be thou a Priest had been sufficient to convey the Character Here Mr. Acton said Aye but I deny you to be Priests Mr. Earbury asked him why he said because it was not expressed in our Form of Ordination Mr. Earbury told him that now he was gone back to his first Argument which had been confuted before that he disputed in a circle and that at this rate it was impossible ever to come to an end Here Mr. Acton again asked Mr. Earbury whether a Sacrament could confer a power that was not expressed Mr. Earbury wrote down this answer and read it to the Company viz. I do say that the words of Ordination may confer a power that is not particularly expressed so it be included in a more general term Mr. Earbury does not remember that Mr. Acton made any reply to this but that he repeated the question without taking notice of it and to the best of Mr. Earbury's remembrance Here Mr. Thompson declared that he was as little satisfied as ever for he expected to hear the Naggs-head Story and concerning Matthew Parker's consecration and of the Act of Parliament in the 8th of Elizabeth for confirming our Ordination but as for Matter and Form of a Sacrament he understood not two words of it Mr. Earbury then rose from the Table and spoke to this effect viz. Sir I have long suffered you to use me rather like a School boy than a disputant or a man you have taken the liberty to ask questions and give no answer but now you shall give a resolution to one Argument I shall propound nor shall you find an evasion from it viz. If persons Ordained by this new Form were permitted to officiate without Re-Ordination in Queen Mary's Reign and if Cardinal Pool did actually dispence with them then we have the judgments of Papists themselves that the Form made in Edward the Sixth's time was not deficient in essentials But Cardinal Pool did dispence with all persons Ordained by this Form and returning to the Unity of the Church Ergo c. Here Mr. Earbury does affirm that Mr. Acton was very loth to give any answer alledging sometimes that Queen Mary was but a Woman and sometimes that Mr. Earbury had now passed to another medium Mr. Earbury replyed that such excuses should not serve his turn that he had not passed to another medium whilst Mr. Acton could say any thing material to his last and that he expected a direct answer or a candid confession Mr. Acton after long tergiversation pulled out a little Book out of his Pocket which he said was written by a Protestant Authour though the falsity of that is so apparent that none would assert it but those that are deficient either in sincerity or in judgment The Pamphlet bears the name of Erastus Junior and out of that he read the Story of Latimer and Ridley the latter of which was not degraded from Episcopal Orders at his death because as they pretend Ordained by the new Form. Mr. Earbury acknowledged that Bishops Ordained by the new Form were not degraded at their Martyrdom But what then if they fixed all notes of disgrace to increase the punishment of men put to death as obstinate Hereticks and yet received others in their Orders that returned to the pretended Unity of the Church the Argument did still hold good Mr. Acton replyed That if Queen Mary allowed some to be in true Orders that received them by the new Ordinal and not others then she was a Knave and a Fool. Mr. Earbury answered that that was no fault or concern of his that he would prove the matter of Fact by sufficient authorities and that then the Controversie must needs be at an end Here Mr. Shaw told Mr. Acton That he had not dealt fairly and that if he pleased he would maintain Mr. Earbury's Argument against him Mr. Acton refused saying he had no reason to change his Man. Here there began to be many speakers and some of the Romanists talked of Parliamentary Orders and the Nags-head Story but Mr. Earbury does not remember that Mr. Acton ingaged in it SIR HAving perused your account of your Conference with Mr. Acton it appears to me to be very faithfully delivered to be impartially and candidly related for to the best of my memory there is nothing that was material omitted nor any thing added that might tend to the prejudice of your Adversary this is the real sense of him that is yours John Shaw Presbyter Angl. SIR I Have perused the account of your discourse with Mr. Acton and do find it to the best of my remembrance to be a faithful and impartial relation of the whole Conference And whereas the pretended account of A. N. has insinuated a notorious falshood much reflecting upon both of us viz. That you should assert that the intention alone was sufficient and that I should deny it I think my self obliged to undeceive the Reader for thus it was when Mr. Acton asked you whether the intention was sufficient you answered that the intention as expressed in the Ordinal was sufficient or to that effect and when again he asked whether the intention alone was sufficient I replyed no meaning intention barely considered without Matter and Form to which you did assent And this is the plain Truth witness my hand Richard Kipping SIR I Have read this account of the Conference between you and Mr. A. which as well as I can pretend to remember a discourse so long ago I take impartially to contain the most material things that passed between you but if you have offended on any side 't is in being too candid to your Antagonist for I very well remember that you frequently urg'd Mr. A. to write down his Answers as you did yours which he always declined by saying it would be night before you should bring any thing to a Conclusion and would always cry you lost time when you writ any thing this I doubt not you will easily call to mind I do likewise very well remember Mr. S's words to Mr. A. and Mr. E. that they had not answered your first Syllogism and that he would defend it against either of them which they declin'd according as you relate it Richard Tisdale A. B. Novemb. 10. 1687. One of the Vergers of our Church brought me this following in a Letter from Mr. Anthony Norris of Norwich but without any name thereto A Summary of the Conference between Mr. Earbury and Mr. Kipping of the one part and Mr. Acton and Mr. Brown on the other Impartially set down to the best of his memory by one that
is of the Church of England and was an Auditor at the said Conference but neither side advised with in the drawing up this Account The Question was About the validity of the Church of Englands Orders THe two former Gentlemen took upon them to prove them to be good and laid down this Rule That for making of Orders valid there were necessarily required these four things Authority Form Matter and Capacity The other Gentlemen did agree all of them to be necessary but because they would shorten the dispute would except against only that of our Form for that it was altered from the ancient and although they confessed their own had been altered yet never was in the essentials Then Mr. Earbury laid down this Proposition or Argument that if our Saviours Form were good by which he made Priests then was ours good but our Saviours was good therefore ours was Mr. Acton distinguisht upon his Major and said that though with us nothing could be a true Form that did not express the power given yet with our Saviour it was sufficient though it did not who being God could do that which none other could and therefore with him any thing which he should please to make use of that did not express the power given was a good and sufficient Form though the same would not be so with us The distinction was allowed and so Mr. Earbury proceeded to prove that our Form did express the power and accordingly produced his Common-Prayer-Book to show how it was therein expressed in the Form. Mr. Acton did allow it so to be in that Book but alledged that in all our Prayer-Books from Edward the 6th until 1662. the word Priest was not expressed in the Form of those This Mr. Earbury granted and said that though it did not yet it was sufficient because it was intended and then used several other Arguments to prove that it was intended Mr. Acton then would know of him whether he would maintain that the intention was sufficient who did assert it was but Mr. Kipping would not agree to it Then upon Mr. Actons asking Mr. Earbury that though it were expressed in the Prayers and not in the Form if all were cut off but the Form and Matter whether that were sufficient to make a good Priest upon which Mr. Earbury would not then abide by his assertion that the intention is sufficient The two former Gentlemen proceeded then to another Argument to prove our Orders good because they were allowed to be good by the Romish Church by Cardinal Pool who allowed of the Orders given in Edward the 6th days in the time of Queen Mary Mr. Acton replyed that now they come to offer another medium which was not to be allowed of unless they would agree first that they had no more to say as to the Form or were content to give that over But they said it was nothing but what was still depending upon the former Mr. Acton said That though it was against the Rules of the Schools yet he should go on and proceed to give his answer unto their new medium and so denyed that they were ever owned to be good by Cardinal Pool upon which the other Gentlemen told him they had not the Books present to prove it but should do it in writing to him the next day with citations of the Authors that they would send to his Lodgings Mr. Acton said he was sure they never could do it and though it belonged not to him to prove the contrary yet he produced to them a Protestant Book setting forth the manner of the burning of Bishop Ridley I think it was that Bishop who being made Priest by the Popish Form they first degraded him of his Priesthood but not of his Episcopal Orders telling him they would not degrade him of these for that they never lookt upon him for a Bishop who was such by the Form of Edward the 6th which did clearly prove they never allowed of the Orders to be good in Edward the 6th days The two former Gentlemen said they could stay no longer and so took their leaves If any other can say more then hath been in defence of our Orders the Author hereof will be very thankful to receive it from them in Writing which may come to him by the same hand by which he sends this and desires this may be sent him back again The Messenger that brought me the letter telling me that he had it from Mr. Anthony Norris though his name was not to it I supposed it to be his and therefore sending to Mr Earbury concerning it he brought me that account of the Conference which begins this Book and that with this follovving ansvver from my self vvas sent him the next day after LAst Night a nameless Paper vvas brought me containing a relation of a certain discourse that hapned betvveen one Mr. Acton a Gentleman of the Romish Communion and tvvo Divines of our Church concerning the validity of our Orders and as far as I find by that paper the grand objection brought against them was from the alteration made in our Ordinal Anno 1662. as if that were a tacit consent on our side that before this alteration was made our Ordinal was not sufficient and therefore no Orders could be conferred thereby and consequently that neither they which were ordained by it or we that have derived our Orders from them have received any legal and sufficient Ordination thereby To which I answer 1. That the putting in of Explanatory words to make things clearer and render them more free from cavil and objection cannot be well termed an alteration 2. That supposing really there had been any such alteration made as to the whole substance of the Form yet this is no more then what the Church of Rome hath often done there being scarce an age in which she hath not considerably varyed from her self herein as may be seen by comparing those many different Forms of Ordination used in the Church of Rome which are collected together by Morinus a Learned Priest of that Church in his book de Ordinationibus 3. The alterations or rather explanatory Additions made in our Ordinal in the Year 1662. were not inserted out of any respect to the controversie we have with the Church of Rome but only to silence a cavil of the Presbyterians who from the old Ordinal drew an Argument to prove that there was no difference between a Bishop and a Priest because as they say their Offices were not at all distinguished in the words whereby they were conferred on them when ordained or any new power given a Bishop which he had not afore as a Priest For the words of Ordination in King Edward's Ordinal are for a Priest as followeth Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained and be thou a faithful dispencer of the Word of God and of his Sacraments in the Name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And for a Bishop Take the Holy Ghost and remember that thou stir up the Grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands For God hath not given thee the Spirit of Fear but of Power and Love and Soberness And they so continued till the review of our Liturgy Anno 1662. and then to obviate the above-mentioned cavil of the Presbyterians those explanatory words were inserted whereby the distinction between a Bishop and a Priest is more clearly and unexceptionably expressed So that now the words of Ordination for a Priest are Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by imposition of our hands Whose sins thou dost forgive c. And for a Bishop Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and remember that thou c. But 4. Having thus stated the Case and laid before you the differences between the new Ordinal and the Old Now to come to the main of the objection I assert that had the old Ordinal been continued without any such Addition although it might not so clearly have obviated the cavils of Adversaries yet the Orders conferred by it would have been altogether as valid And as to the Objection made by the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome that the words of our old Ordinal do not sufficiently express the Office conferred thereby this must be understood either in reference to the Priestly Ordination or the Episcopal or both And 1. As to the Priestly Ordination there seems not to be the least ground for it because the Form in the old Ordinal doth as fully expresse the Office Power and Authority of a Priest as need be required in these words Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of his Sacraments Wherein the whole of the Priestly Office is expressed But 2. As to the Episcopal Ordination the whole pinch of the Argument seems to lye there because in the old Form of the words spoken at the imposition of hands the Office and Authority of a Bishop they say is not so particularly specifyed To this I answer first That I think this sufficiently done in the words of the Form Remember that thou stir up the Grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands for God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and Love and Soberness For they are the very words of St. Paul to Timothy Bishop of Ephesus Epist 2. c. 1. ver 6 7. Whereby he exhorts and stirs him up to the Execution of his Episcopal office and they have alvvays been understood to refer thereto and therefore I think they may be also allovved sufficient to express the same Episcopal office when spoken to any other and fully determine to what Office the Holy Ghost is given by imposition of hands in the Form mentioned and properer for this purpose than any other because of the greater Authority which they must have in that they are taken out of the Holy Scripture But if men vvill cavil on and still object that the Name of Bishop is not expressed in the Form or the duties and povver of that Office vvith sufficient clearness specified in the vvords mentioned the objection lies much more against the Roman Ordinal than ours as being much more defective herein For the vvhole Form used therein at the Consecration of a Bishop is no more than this Receive the Holy Ghost that being all that is said at the imposition of hands and asserted by them to be the vvhole Form of Episcopal Ordination And therefore Vasques a Learned Jesuit and most Eminent School-man makes the same objection against the Roman Ordinal that the Romanists do against ours For in Tertiam Thomae Disp 240. c. 5. N. 57. His words are Illa verba accipe Spiritum Sanctum quae a tribus Episcopis simul cum impositione manuum dicuntur super Ordinandum usque adeo generalia videntur ut proprium munus aut gradum Episcopi non exprimant quod tamen necessarium videbatur pro formâ i. e. These words Receive the Holy Ghost which are spoken by three Bishops together with imposition of hands over the person to be Ordained seem to be so general that they do not express the proper office and degree of a Bishop which yet did seem necessary for the Form of his Ordination But to this he himself gives a solution N. 60. of the same chapter in these following words Neque obstat id quod supra dicebamus verba illa accipe Spiritum Sanctum admodum generalia esse nam quamvis in illis secundum se consideratis non denotetur munus aut gradus peculiaris Episcopi pro quocunque alio ordine dici possent tamen prout proferuntur adhibitâ a tribus Episcopis in unum Congregatis manuum impositione pro materia recte quidem denotant gradum Episcopi ad quem electus ordinatur Sic enim simul imponentes per verba illa denotant se eum in suum consortium admittere ad hoc Spiritum sanctum tribuere ac proinde in eodem ordine Episcopali secum ipsum constituere Cum tamen manuum impositio ab uno tantum Episcopo adhibita eadem verba accipe Spiritum Sanctum paucis aliis additis ab eodem in ordinatione Diaconi prolata neque secundum se neque prout ab ipso Episcopo dicta huic materiae applicata peculiare munus aut gradum Diaconi denotent neque enim prout dicta a uno Episcopo cum tali materia denotare possunt ordinatum admitti ad consortium Episcopi in hoc potius ordine quam in alio cum unus Episcopus tam sit minister ordinis Sacerdotii Subdiaconatus quam Diaconatus e contrario vero tres Episcopi solius ordinis Episcopalis ministri sint ideo autem existimo Christum voluisse ut Ecclesia illius tantum verbis quae secundum se Generalia sunt in hac ordinatione uteretur ut denotaret abundantiam gratiae Spiritus Sancti quae Episcopis in Ordinatione confertur Plus enim videtur esse dari Spiritum Sanctum absolutè quam dari ad hunc vel illum effectum peculiarem i. e. Neither doth that hinder which I have said before that these words Receive the Holy Ghost were too general For although by these words considered in themselves the Office or peculiar degree of a Bishop cannot be denoted and they may be also said for any other Order but as they are pronounced the imposition of hands of three Bishops joyned together being also had therewith for the matter of Ordination they do truly denote the degree of a Bishop to
to the utmost concerning the point you proposed to me think my self obliged to add this further paper to that I have already sent you to undeceive you as to what was objected concerning Bishop Ridley's not being allowed to be a Bishop at his Martyrdom The Argument as I take it from the paper you sent me runs thus Mr. E. urged that our Orders were allowed as to their essentials to be good in Queen Mary's dayes and only culpable as to Canonical defects And this he proved because such as had received Orders by our Ordinal in King Edward's days on their coming in again into the Communion of the Church of Rome in Queen Mary's Reign vvere not Ordained again but vvere received to officiate in their functions by a dispensation only But a dispensation cannot salve an essential but only a Canonical defect it not being in the power of any authority on Earth to dispense vvith an essential of Christs institution To this Mr. A. answered by denying the matter of fact that they that were thus Ordained were not so received to administer in their functions by virtue of a dispensation only as Mr. Earbury alledged but that their Orders in Queen Mary's days were reckoned totally null and void and for proof hereof urged Bishop Ridley's being degraded from his Priestly office at his Martyrdom but not from his Episcopal For he being ordained Priest by the Popish Ordinal they allowed him these Orders to be good but having been made Bishop by King Edward's Ordinal for that reason they would not allow him to be a Bishop whereas Arch-Bishop Cranmer who had received both Orders by the Romish Ordinal was degraded from both as being allowed for that reason to be legally made both Priest and Bishop And this I suppose is the utmost that Argument can be made of by whomsoever urged and so I find it laid down by Mr. Walker in his Relation of the English Reformation But the whole goes upon a very gross mistake For Bishop Ridley was made Bishop of Rochester in the first year of King Edward the sixth's Reign having been designed for that See by King Henry the 8th his Father and consecrated not by the new Ordinal which they find so much fault with but by the old Popish one on the 5th of September Anno Domini 1547. For the Act of Parliament which appointed the making of the new Ordinal was not enacted till the first of February in the 4th year of King Edward's Reign Anno Domini 1549. and it was the March after in the beginning of the year 1550. before it was fully compleated so that Ridley was two years and a half Bishop before the new Ordinal had any being and therefore could not be ordained by it or his Episcopal orders invalidated for any defect therein However I acknowledge the matter of fact to be so as urged and that Bishop Ridley was treated at his Martyrdom just as they relate being degraded by them from his Priestly orders but not from his Episcopal because they would not allovv him ever to have received any such But if you ask me the reason then of this their proceeding vvith him I can give you no other then vvhat I have told you before in my last paper I sent you i. e. The blind rage and impetuous malice of those that persecuted this Learned and Holy Bishop which hurryed them on to such things in their proceedings against him as were neither agreeable to reason or their own established doctrine as to this particular For first they cannot say he was no legal Bishop although ordained by their own Ordinal because this was done in time of Schism after King Henry the 8th had separated from the Church of Rome For if this be granted it will then follow by the same reason that neither Heath Thurlby nor Bonner himself who were the chief supporters of the Papal cause in Queen Mary's dayes were true Bishops as being consecrated in the same manner as Ridley was after this separation Neither Secondly Can it be said that his Orders were null for the pretended crime of Heresie For this contradicts the whole current of their own Divines who all hold that orders imprint an indelible character in the person ordained which neither Schism Heresie or any thing else can ever blot out but that whosoever is to be ordained a Bishop although he be an Heretick doth not only receive this character but also can beget the same character in any other that shall be ordained by him And therefore according to this Doctrine although Bishop Ridley had been an Heretick and all his Ordainers Hereticks also as they would have them to be yet would his Ordination be good and as true a character of the Episcopal office be Imprinted on him as on any other And this they are necessitated to grant from the practice of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church who ever received Hereticks on their Repentance into the same orders which they had afore received from those Heretical Bishops to whose doctrine they had adher'd without any new Ordination For although it be acknowledged a great sin either to give or receive Holy orders to propagate false and Heretical Doctrines yet it hath ever been allowed that they are good and valid whenever thus conferred and that the true characters of a Bishop and a Priest may be found among the worst of Hereticks as well as the best of Christians because the abuse of the office doth not annull the Commission But that being written in indelible characters in the soul of him that is ordained they tell us it shall there for ever remain not only in this Life but also in that which is to come and then not only in Heaven but also in Hell it self and that to all Eternity as may be shown out of several of their best reputed Authors And thus far therefore it is plain that it was not any defect in the ordinal by which Bishop Ridley was ordained or the pretended crime of Heresie or Schism either in him or in them that ordained him Bishop that could null and make void his Episcopal Orders according to the Doctrine of the Romanists themselves that were so forward to pass this sentence upon him and there being no other reason which they can alledge for it to justifie these their proceedings with him it doth necessarily follow that their denying him to be a Bishop can be resolved into nothing else but that same rage and malice against him which made them take away his Life And proceedings of this nature are no strange things in the Church of Rome nothing having been more common among them than in the height of their animosities to void and annul the orders of those they had a quarrel with and instances enough of this may be given especially among the Successions of Pope Formosus every new Pope almost for several Successors after him annulling all the Acts of his Predecessor and some of them the orders also
to perform all the offices of it without expresly giving the Title But our Ordinal did not express the whole power given either by name or equivalency For it did not give power to Consecrate the Eucharist though it did to be dispencers and faithful Ministers of it which amounts to no more than distributers which every Deacon is as capable of as a Priest And if dispensing should import to be Stewards of the Mysterys of God that also imports no more then to be Conservators or Trustees of what should be committed to them not that they are thereby the makers of it That because I am intrusted or made Steward it should therefore necessarily follow that I have power to make that with which I am intrusted I hope our case depends not upon such a forced and unnatural a consequence If it should be objected that our Saviour did not then give the power to Consecrate the Eucharist when he said to his Apostles Do this in remembrance of me but was only a command to continue the Rite and Custom of it in the Church and therefore were compleat Priests from those words only by which he gave them power to remit sins To this I answer That if our Church had thought any sufficiently impowred to Consecrate the Eucharist by virtue only of those words to remit sins we then must make her highly guilty of notorious idle Tautology in her Form of Ordination when after she hath given power to remit sins should also at the same time distinctly give power to dispence the Sacraments But by her giving such distinct power to dispence the Sacraments after she had given power to remit sins she could not think that to be the sense of our Saviours words but the other that by bidding them do this in Remembrance of him that he did then give them power to Consecrate the Eucharist which I take clearly to be the sense of the Church whose Authority I shall preferre before any single persons whatsoever Besides that our Saviour should then command them to do that which they had power for to do is more like to a cruel Tyrant than a most Merciful and Compassionate Master To your Third and last I say That the Romanists making alteration in their Ordinals signifie nothing unless you can shew me where they have done it in such an essential part of it as we have Although they have added that to theirs of offering sacrifice for the living and the dead yet in regard they do before in their Ordinal expresly give all Priestly power which we did not the other is but an instruction to let them know what power they had received and for what they were to make use of it by virtue of that all Priestly power expresly given them before as appears by the words in their Ordinal which in ours was neither given in general nor in particular to Consecrate or make present Christs body and blood in the Holy Eucharist as was observed before If we had then as now but said be thou a Priest I grant it had been sufficient for all the offices of it although none of them had been particularly expressed in our Ordinal As to what Morinus hath said about the Greek and Roman Ordinals not giving distinct power expresly to Consecrate makes nothing at all so long as they gave them all Priestly power Unless you can prove any of their Ordinals do not expresly give them Priesthood the exceptions out of him of not giving power to Consecrate is nothing at all to the true state of the Question between us Sir As to what you say from Vasquez relates only to a Bishop who doth not thereby receive any new character then what he had afore as a Priest and is only the same power and character further extended which was before virtually in him from his Priesthood and therefore those words Receive the Holy Ghost and stir up the grace c. may be sufficient alone for that though not for a Priest who doth receive a new power and character Besides the same Author in the same Tome which you quote doth expresly say that by the words Receive the Holy Ghost and whose sins you remit c. doth not alone make an intire Priest and that he hath not power to Consecrate by virtue of them and you know Sir the point between us now is only that of Priesthood As to that Sir vvhich you say That they vvould not degrade Bishop Ridley of his Episcopal office vvas not upon account that they thought him no Bishop but for the benefit of the Leases to his Successor Bonner But why then did they at the same time degrade Latimer of his Episcopal office who was made such by the Roman Ordinal which Ridley was not by which Sir you may plainly see what the true reason was of both which I take not at all to be what Sir you were pleased for to surmise Finally whereas you were pleased to say our Priests were owned for good by the Romanists themselves when you shall be pleased Sir to make proof thereof I shall think it then time and not before to take it into my consideration in the mean time Sir if you please to look into Mr. Fox and do believe what he says you shall find what complaints he makes of the Roman Clergy against the Protestant Clergy in Queen Mary days what havock they made with the latter in that they would force them all to be Re-Ordained again Sir I am still in the same Communion which if I should ever change it can be imputed to nothing more then from some of our own Clergy-men of whom I do expresly exempt your self SIR I am your most humble Servant A. N. Three days after I had also this following paper sent me by the same Gentleman in answer to the last I sent him SIR I Could not conveniently before yesterday read over your second Paper supplemental to your first As to Bishop Ridley you may find by Mr. Mason's Vindication of him by the reasons he urg'd that he did account him to be Consecrated not by the Old but by the New Ordinal and the Popes Commissioners refusing to degrade him as to that Office and yet did Bishop Latimer in both is a clear Testimony that they would not do it to the one because they thought him consecrated by the New Ordinal Besides Dr. Burnet hath expresly declared that Ridley was made Bishop by the New Ordinal in King Edward's time Besides other Bishops they did not degrade As to their coming to our Churches until the 10th of Queen Elizabeth so to my knowledge did most of the Prebendarys of your Cathedral with the rest of the Episcopal party constantly frequent the Presbyterian Churches all along in the late times and yet they did not think those mens Orders to be good who officiated that took them not from the Bishop As to the Persecutions and Cruelties of our Adversaries they were much to blame for them but as it
the Church of Rome ever made any such alterations in them as we have done in answer hereto I lay down these following particulars 1. That those words are no more essential to Ordination then any other part of the Ordinal Had those words indeed been injoyned by Christ and commanded by him to be always used in Ordination then I must confess the altering of them would have been a very criminal deviation from our Saviours institution and might inferre a nullity in the whole Administration But the Church of Rome doth not pretend to any such divine Authority for any of their Forms but it is at present their most generally received Doctrine that the very Form of Ordination as well as the preliminary and concomitant prayers which you allow alterable are in the power of the Church to alter add and new word them as they shall judge most convenient and if the Church of Rome hath this liberty I know not why the Church of England may not be allowed to have it also 2. Those imperative words in which you place the essence of Ordination are so far from being thus essential thereto that for above a thousand years the Church of Rome it self never had any such in any of their Ordinals as may appear from the Collection Morinus hath made of them in his Book de Ordinationibus But the whole Rite of Ordination for all that time was performed by imposition of hands and prayer only without any such imperative words at all spoken by the Ordainer to the person Ordained to denote his receiving the office conferred on him as is now made use of both in ours as well as in the Roman Ordinal And the Council of Carthage which is the ancientest we find to have directed concerning this matter prescribes nothing herein but imposition of hands and prayer only And in the Book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite and believed by many of the Romish Communion to be genuine and by all to be very ancient mention is made of imposition of hands and prayer as the only things made use of in Ordination And if you will go to the Scriptures you will find the Holy Apostles made use of nothing else in the Ordination of the seven Deacons and when Paul and Barnabas were set a part by the Commandment of the Holy Ghost to go preach the Gospel to the Gentiles we find mention of nothing else done in their designation to that Ministry And therefore Morinus a Priest of the Church of Rome lays down this Doctrine that nothing is absolutely necessary to Ordination but imposition of hands with a convenient prayer for this only he saith the Scripture hath delivered and the universal practice of the Church hath confirm'd But I having promised you a fuller Examination of this point shall at present no longer detain you only thus much I could not but observe unto you at present to let you see how miserably you are imposed on by such as would make those things essential to Ordination which if granted will inferre a nullity not only in our Orders but also in all the Orders of all that have been Ordained in the Church of Christ for above a thousand years after his first establishing of it here on Earth and consequently also make their own Orders null and void which have been derived from them Thirdly You grant that these words in the Roman Ordinal Receive power to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead are a novel addition and by no means essential to Orders but only words of instruction to let them know that are Ordained what power they had received by that Priestly office which afore they were in express words invested with and for what purpose they were to make use of it In Answer to which I shall lay down these following particulars 1. That in granting this you grant the whole point in controversie between us and the Church of Rome concerning this matter For whatsoever they may tell you about altering the Form in our Ordinal all this is impertinent cavil made use of only to deceive the less wary and insnare the ignorant The only point which they will insist upon when they come to dispute this matter in earnest is that by our Ordinal we do not give our Priests the povver of offering up the sacrifice of the Mass For they say that in the office of a Priest are contained tvvo povvers the povver of Sacrificing and the povver of Absolving from Sin and that this tvvofold povver is conferred by a tvvofold Matter and Form in Ordination That in conferring the first povver the delivering of the Sacred Vessels is the matter and these vvords Receive power to offer Sacrifice to God c. are the Form and in conferring the second povver imposition of hands is the matter and these vvords Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive c. the Form. And therefore judging both these povvers essentially and indivisibly contained in the office of a Priest and that both these Rites the first by the Authority of the Council of Florence and the second by the Authority of the Council of Trent are essentially necessary to the conferring these Powers do for this reason deny the validity of our Orders because in our Ordinations we only make use of the latter matter and form and totally omit the former and therefore say they we have not the whole power of Priesthood conferred on us but only that of remitting sins as your Paper mentions and on this account the other part of offering Sacrifice which is the main essential as they say being wanting all becomes null and void for lack thereof And this is the plain state of the Controversie between us and therefore if you are convinced by what I wrote you in my first Paper that those words Receive power to offer Sacrifice to God and to Celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead are not necessary in Ordination because in so many Ages never used in the Church as can be undeniably prov'd they were not you have conquer'd the whole Objection that is in earnest made against our Orders and the Controversie is at an end between us For Secondly That which you say that all Priestly power and consequently this power of Sacrificing is given in the Roman Ordinal in other words before the speaking of these Receive thou power to offer Sacrifice c will appear by examining the Ordinal it self to be altogether a mistake For if this be given it must be done either in the Prayers of the Office or in the Imperative words spoken by the Bishop to the person Ordained In the Prayers you will not say for then the Prayers in our Ordinal must be allowed to be as valid for this purpose also in which the Priestly Office is as fully expressed both by Name and Description as in theirs And in the Imperative words you cannot say it For
not actually confer that Authority upon them and the prayer after is only for a Blessing upon the Ordained which also doth neither confer any Authority upon them But those of the Roman doth actually confer all Priestly power And whereas Sir you say that the Learnedest of the Romanists say that the last imperative words in their Ordinal which are spoken at the last imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost c. are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferr'd when I find this can be proved I may further let you know what I can say to it it may be sufficient for some part of the Priesthood but not for all the Offices of it To that which you say that the words of our Ordinal giving power to Administer the Sacraments give power also to Consecrate the Elements This I denyed and gave you my Reasons against it before to which again I refer you I urged no such thing as you would have me of a general and particular and therefore your Answer to those distinctions is besides the business Indeed I Objected as you say that our Ordinal gave power only to dispence the Sacraments and not to Consecrate to which you Answer that by the word dispence the Church meant the whole that belongs both to the Consecration and Administration of them that use them There is no Papist I believe but will grant that the Church meant and intended it but the intention of the Church can never vest any thing with Priestly Authority without it be actually and expresly conferred upon them by Her. For if a Kings intentions be never so great to make a Justice of Peace yet he is not thereby at all invested with that Authority You deny that the Church of England thought any part of Priesthood conferred upon any by vertue of these words Do this in remembrance of me then I say if no Power or Authority was thereby given by vertue of these words how can She give any by bidding them dispence the Sacraments for to Consecrate them And why then so many Arguments used about the extension and limitation of those words of our Church And then as I told you before how shall our Church be acquitted from idle Tautologies which I did not charge Her with as you were pleased to tell me I did but under such suppositions and circumstances which I take that She doth disown You further tell me that I allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination sufficiently perfect but you must give me leave to tell you that I do not whereby all your train of consequences from thence come to nothing What I said of a Bishop having no new Character I said it only in the person of Vasquez to Answer the Objection which you made out of him for the same Vasquez as I told you did say that by the alone words Receive the Holy Ghost c. were not sufficient to make an intire Priest although they were for a Bishop from whence I inferred that in Vasquez's judgment a Bishop received no new Character but my self was ever of opinion that they did As to Bishop Ridley I am fully satisfied that they refused to degrade him as not being made Bishop by the Roman Ordinal and you may find by the Statutes in the First Year of King Edward that then they took upon them to Administer Sacraments in new ways of their own invention for which an Act that year was made prohibiting of them and why might they not also as well Consecrate and Ordain according to their own inventions But of this I shall say no more but refer you to Mr. Actons last Letter sent to Mr. Earbury which though I did before yet never see it since I received your last Paper Sir I suppose you cannot offer any thing now material unto this point than already you have which I believe none could have said more that if you please we will supersede this Question and proceed to another which is of as great disatisfaction to me as any and that is Whether any Bishop or Arch-Bishop can validly be made such against the sixth Canon of the Councel of Nice which says That no Bishop shall be made without the consent of his Superiour or by faculty from him for his Consecration A. N. SIR YOU must pardon me that other business hath hindered that I have not been able to look on your Paper till several days after it came to my hands And although thereby I sufficiently perceive you are resolved against receiving any satisfaction in the point you applyed to me for it yet I will endeavour it this one time more be the effect of it what it will. And first as to your complaint against me for not complying with your proposal as to Mr. Acton I thought in my last I had so far convinced you of the absurdity of it that I should have heard no more of that If you would have him Answer my Papers your intimacy with him of which you so often acquaint me I should think might be sufficient to engage him to it without that challenge from me which you are so importunate for I am sure this gives you a better title to make this proposal to him then to require the other so absurd and unreasonable a thing from me with whom you never exchanged a word in your life unless by these Letters What I wrote you was for your satisfaction and I told you if you had any thing further to Object I was ready to hear it and give you a further Answer and you might take whom you pleased into your Consult as to this matter But for me to challenge Mr. Acton as you proposed would be an act of folly which I desire to be excused from For that possession of right which we are in as to the point controverted between us doth by no means make it proper for me to take this part upon me Besides he is a person I never had any thing to do with or ever received the least provocation from him and for me in this case to challenge him as you would have me is in the whole nature of the thing altogether unreasonable and in respect of that Protection from His Majesty by which he is here may be also dangerous unto me and I must tell you truly I durst not so far confide in you as not to mistrust there may be a snare laid for me hereby As to your huff about the Cautions which you tell me I gave you against being imposed on and the imputation of being ignorant and unwary which from some words in the Paper which you Answer you will needs take home to your self To the first I Answer that since you seem to acknowledge you do not understand Latin by telling me you are no Schollar nor Linguist and yet quote Fathers Councils and Schoolmen I think it possible notwithstanding your grand conceit of your abilities to manage Controversie that you may be very well imposed
essentials of Ordination required in Scripture and as to our Form of Ordination he plainly says that if the difference of the words herein from their Form do annul our Ordinations it must annul those of the Greek Church too for the Form of the Greek Church altogether differs as much from the Form of the Roman as doth that of the English And Cudsemius one that writes violently enough against us speaks also to the same purpose which he would never have done but that the manifest certainty of the thing extorted this concession from him For he coming into England in the year 1608. to observe the state of our Church and the Order of our Universities was so far convinced of the validity of our Orders by his inquiry into this particular that in a Book Printed two years after on his return home he hath these words Concerning the state of the Calvinian Sect in England it so standeth that either it may endure long or be changed suddenly or in a trice in regard of the Catholick Order there in a perpetual Line of their Bishops and the Lawful Succession of Pastors received from the Church for the honour whereof we use to call the English Calvinists by a milder term not Hereticks but Schismaticks And in the late times when one Goffe went over unto the Church of Rome a Question arising about the validity of our Orders on his taking upon him at Paris to say Mass by vertue of his Orders received in our Church it was referred to the Sorbon to examine the matter where it being fully discussed they gave in their opinion that our Orders were good and this I have by the Testimony of one now an eminent Papist who some years since told me the whole Story from his own knowledge he being then in Paris when the whole matter was there transacted and although afterwards as he told me the Pope determined otherwise of this matter and ordered the Arch-Bishop of Paris to reordain him yet the Sorbonists still stuck to their opinion that he was a good Priest by his first Ordination And if you will know whence this difference in the determination arose it was that the one proceeded according to the merits of the cause and the other as would best sute with his own interest and the interest of the party he was to support The next thing which you require of me is to give you proof that it is now the received Doctrine of the Romanists that the essential Form of Ordination is in the power of the Church to alter To which I Answer That by the essential Form for the word essential is of your own interposing I suppose you mean that Form of words in the Roman Ordinal which joyned with the matter according to them imprints the Character and makes up the whole essence of Orders and understanding you thus I freely grant that the whole cry of the Romish Schools runs against this assertion their Doctrine being that both the Matter and Form of Orders as well as of their other Sacraments were instituted by Christ himself and that neither of them are in the power of any to alter but that they have been the same from the beginning as we now find them in their Ordinal and therefore cannot admit of any variation without annulling the whole Sacrament as they call it And that they have been thus preserved down unto us by constant Tradition from our Saviours time For they freely grant that they have no proof for them that they were thus instituted by Christ either from Scripture or from any of the Writings of the Antients And to this purpose the words of Estius 〈…〉 are as followeth And here you must know that we have the matter and form of every Sacrament not as much from Scripture as by a continued Tradition received down from the Apostles For the Scripture expresly delivers to us only the matter and form of Baptism and the Eucharist and of extream Vnction the matter only The others are left us only by unwritten Tradition thereby as from hand to hand to be received down unto us And in another place particularly as to the Matter and Form of Orders he tells us That the Antient Fathers of the Church spoke sparingly of them in their Writings And so others of them to the same purpose And for this they gave a Reason forsooth least those things being consigned to Writing might come to be known to unbelievers and so exposed to be scoffed at and ridicul'd by them for it seems they cannot but acknowledge that many of those Rites which they make use of as well in Ordination as in their other Sacraments of their own making are indeed ridiculous But here I must tell you that this is only the Doctrine of the Schoolmen and those which wrote after them But Morinus the Learned Oratorian I have often mentioned unto you taxeth them of great ignorance herein in that being totally unacquainted with the Antient Rituals and the practice of other Churches framed all their Doctrines according to the present Ordinal of their Church But since that Learned person hath Published so large a Collection of Antient Ordinals many of which have none at all of those Forms now in the Roman Ordinal and the practice also of the Greek Church which useth none of them is become better known this Doctrine of the Divine Institution of those Forms and that they cannot be altered or varied from becomes generally exploded and concerning this because you desire me to prove it unto you I will first give you the words of Habertus in his Observations on the Greek Pontifical in whom you have also the sence of the whole Sorbon who Licensed and Authorized his Book For he raising an Objection how it could be possible that the Orders conferred by the Greek Church as well as the Latin could be both right since Administred by different Forms gives this Answer thereto In the Sacraments of whose matter and form there is no express mention in Scripture it is to be supposed that Christ instituted both only in general to His Apostles leaving to the Church a power to design constitute and determine them several ways as it shall seem best unto them so that the chief substance intention and scope of the institution were still retained with some general fitness and analogy for signifying the effect grace and character of the Sacrament which analogy is alike and intire in both Rites as well the Greek as the Roman And the words of Hallier another Sorbonist and whose Book is in the same manner Licensed by that Learned Society of Divines speak the same thing for he laying down this as an evident conclusion from what he had afore said that many things had been added and changed about the Matter and Form of Orders and that through the whole Church as it is diffused over the whole World the same Rite of Ordination and the same Matter and the
same Form is not used that the Eastern Churches perform Ordinations by one Rite and the Western by another without disallowing the Orders of each other he solves the matter by telling us that Christ instituted only in general that there should be Matter and Form in Ordination but left it to the Church to determine the particular that is what particular Matter and what particular Form should be made use of in this Administration And Morinus also speaks to the same purpose for in his third Book de Ordinationibus Exercit. 7. cap. 6. n. 2. he saith That Christ determined no particular Matter and Form in Orders and in another place cap. 3. n. 6. he tells us That it strikes him with astonishment that there should be such an alteration both as to Matter and Form in that Sacrament as by examining the Antient Liturgies he finds there hath been And Cardinal Lugo's words are altogether as express in this matter who in his Book de Sacramentis Disput 2. Sect. 3. plainly saith That Christ left the Church at Liberty both as to the Matter and Form of Orders And so also saith Arcudius a Learned Greek that was designed to have been a Cardinal in his Book de Sacramentis lib. 6. cap. 4. where he lays it down as that which the most Learned hold That the Sacrament of Orders as he calls it is so instituted by Christ that the Ordaining of Ministers should be performed by some words and external signs by which the Ministry to which they were Ordained might be sufficiently signified but that any particular external signs should be made use of rather than others was totally left by him to the arbitriment of the Church And he quotes for proof hereof the third Chapter of the 23th Session of the Council of Trent where it is said only That Ordination is to be performed with words and external signs without assigning what words or what signs these ought to be from whence he infers they may be any And to the same purpose also speaks Tapperus of the Forms of the Sacraments in general and of the Sacrament of Orders in particular whom Vasquez as to both those takes great pains to confute And there is another of the same opinion whose Authority must be certainly infallible with those of that Communion that is Pope Innocent the 4th who saith It is found to be a Rite used by the Apostles that they laid hands on persons to be Ordained and poured out prayers over them but we find not any other observed by them from whence we believe that unless there had been Forms afterwards invented it would have been sufficient for the Ordainer to have said be thou a Priest or any other words of the same importance but in after times the Church Ordained those Forms which are now observed And Father Davenport alias Sancta Clara hath those words Many Doctors do not without probability think that Christ appointed neither the Matter nor Form of Orders but left both to be assigned by the Church And thus far having produced the authorities and proofs which you required I hope I have given you satisfaction herein and that the opinion of the Schoolmen in asserting that the essential Form of Orders as you call it is immutable and not in the power of any Church to alter is altogether wrong And that it is so those that assert the Doctrine which I have laid down in opposition to them have this unanswerable Argument for it that those very essential Forms as they call them of Priestly Ordination which they would have to be instituted by Christ himself and always from the beginning to have continued in the Church immutably the same are both of so late date that the one of them was never used till within these four hundred years and the other not till within these seven hundred years at the farthest as by comparing the Antient Ordinals of the Romish Church doth manifestly appear In the next place you tell me that although Morinus should have observed that for a thousand years the imperative Form be thou a Priest was not used in the Roman Ordinals yet he doth not say they did not expresly give all Priestly power in other words or by equivalency by giving full power to perform all the Offices of it which you deny our Old Ordinal did To this I Answer That I know of no Ordinal that ever had this Form in it be thou a Priest or of any that was ever Ordained by it to the Priestly Office neither do I refer you to Morinus for any thing concerning it In your Papers I observed you were much stumbled at the additional alterations we made in the Forms of our Ordinations as if these additions being in an essential part as you suppose must necessarily infer an essential defect to have been in our Ordinals before and consequently make null and void all the Orders of our Church conferred by them or if otherwise that we could not justifie the alterations we have made To alter the introductory and concomitant prayers you seem willing to allow us a power but not to make any change in so essential a part as the Form it self and challenge me to show you when ever the Church of Rome did so In Answer whereto I told you that those Forms which you think so essential to Orders are so far from being so that the Church of Rome it self for near a thousand years after Christ never used any such Forms at all that is any imperative words at all denoting the conferring of the Office by the person Ordaining but the whole Rite was performed by prayer and imposition of hands only without any imperative words at all spoken to the person Ordained denoting his taking Authority to execute either the whole or any part of the Office conferred on him and for the making out of this I referred you to Morinus his Collection of Antient Ordinals wherein he having published sixteen of the most antient Rituals of Priestly Ordination of the Latin Church that could be found in the ten first of them no such Form doth at all appear to be used but in all of them the whole Rite of Ordination is performed by imposition of hands and prayer only and the eleventh Ordinal in his Collection composed as he judgeth in the tenth Century is the first that used this Form Receive thou power to offer Sacrifice unto God and to celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead and the other Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven unto them and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained is not found till in the last of them composed about four hundred years since And this I think to be a plain demonstration of the novel introduction of those Forms into the Roman Ordinals And that they were totally unknown to the Antients I endeavoured further to make appear unto you by showing you that in none of their
Writings there is any mention made of them no not in those places where they professedly treat of Orders and all the Rites belonging thereto as in the Canons of the Council of Carthage which prescribes the whole manner of Ordination and in the Book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite which is also very particular in describing all the Rites belonging thereto and in neither of these is the least mention made of any such imperative Forms or any thing like thereto and I added also those places of Scripture which give us an account of the Ordination of the seven Deacons and of Paul and Barnabas to be the Apostles of the Gentiles in which there is nothing from whence we can infer the use of any such imperative Forms but that prayers and imposition of hands was all that was then done in those Ordinations And from all this I did I think with sufficient reason infer that those Forms in which the Church of Rome placeth the essence of their Orders are so far from being thus essential to them that for many Ages they never used any such at all in any of their Ordinations And I might also for the inferring of the same Conclusion have made use of many other such like Authorities as of the Apostolical Constitutions published under the name of St. Clement Bishop of Rome which makes mention of the Bishops laying on his hands on the Presbyter to be Ordaining and saying a prayer over him but nothing of any imperative Form bidding him to take Authority to do either the whole or any part of his Office then conferred on him And the Authority of St. Hierom a Cardinal of the Church of Rome is most express in this matter that the whole Rite of Ordination was compleated impositione manus imprecatione vocis i. e. by the imposition of the hand the prayer of the voice But you except against all those Arguments and deny them to be conclusive because there being in none of those Authorities I have mentioned any words excluding the use of those Forms the not mentioning of them in the places I have quoted you think is by no means an Argument that there were none such and you tell me that should any Learned Papist have offered you such an Argument as this you should conclude then that he went about to impose upon you And yet Sir I can tell you of several Learned Papists which use these very same Arguments to prove the same thing Habertus doth it as to one of them and makes use not only of some of those Authorities I have mentioned but also of several others as of St. Gregory Isodore and Amalarius as may be seen page the 124th of his Observations on the Greek Pontifical And Morinus doth it as to all of them and so doth Pope Innocent the 4th in the words I have afore cited out of him for in them he tells you that it is found to be a Rite used by the Apostles to lay hands on the persons to be Ordained and pray over them but that he finds not any other Rite observed by them and from hence concludes that the Forms now used in the Church of Rome were invented afterwards And I could name several others that argue in this very thing after the same manner but instead of enlarging any further upon that head I will take leave to show you how much you are mistaken in thinking this no good way of arguing from the very nature of the thing it self For the thing which I take to prove is that those Forms now used in the Church of Rome are not Antient and the only way I have to prove this is to search Antiquity for it and if I can find no footsteps in any Antient Ritual of any such Forms used in Ordination or any mention made of them in those Antient Writers of the Church which treat of Ordination all that understand affairs of this nature must allow it a good Argument to conclude from hence that they were not at all antiently in use and in things of this nature there is no other way of Arguing and it is that which all Learned Men that write of Church Antiquities and the usages of the Antients constantly use and ten thousand instances may be given hereof for to deny those Authorities which I have insisted on to be good against the antient use of those Forms because there are no words in them expresly excluding them is that which when you consider again you must acknowledge to be a very unreasonable thing for how can you expect that the negation of the use of a thing should be expressed in any Writer before the thing it self was ever invented or came in practice Those imperative Forms now in use in the Church of Rome were not then as much as thought of and how then could the Writers of those passages I have quoted express any thing either negatively or affirmatively concerning them And that which you require to make the Argument strong on my side would really make it conclude the contrary way for whereas those passages have only a silence as to those Forms should they have also words denâ—ing the use of them they would rather prove the Antiquity of their use then make against it because the mention of them in any manner whatever would necessarily prove them to have been in use before mentioned otherwise how could any mention be made of them at all But since in all the Writing of the Antients they are never as much as once mentioned no not in those places where they treating of Orders and the manner of Ordination could not possibly pass them over in silence were there any such things then in use nor any of the antient Rituals of Ordination for near a thousand years having the least footsteps of them nor the Greek Church having any thing like them it is as strong an Argument as possibly the nature of the thing can bear that antiently there were no such things at all as those Forms which the Church of Rome will now have to be the grand essentials of all their Ordinations and there is no rational man but must be convinced hereby For were they antiently known and looked on as things so essential to Ordination as the Church of Rome would have it is utterly impossible there could be such a total silence of them for so many Ages after Christ as I have mentioned in all that have wrote of this matter As to my not giving you the very words of the Council of Carthage and of the Book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy which I quoted I am not to be blamed in this matter because those passages which I referred to taking up several Pages would be too long to transcribe especially I being then involv'd in other business which would not allow me time for so tedious and needless a task If you doubted of my fidelity as to the quoting of those passages you might
Sacraments in the Church of Rome it was never so in the Church of Christ For where have we in Scripture any external sign where any Form of words commanded to be made use of in the Administration of Orders Or where any promise of saving Grace annexed thereto All that we find instituted in Scripture concerning this matter is that as Christ sent the Apostles so they should send others and that none should Preach except they were sent but as to the manner of this mission or sending nothing is at all instituted or prescribed unto us in Holy Writ but the whole of this is left to the Church and those chief Pastors of it which have the Authority of giving those Missions committed to them so to order and appoint it according to the various circumstances of times places and things as they shall judge will be most fitting provided it be agreeable in all things to the Word of God and suffiâ—iently declarative of the thing intended And this the abovementioned Arcudius an Eminent Doctor of the Church of Rome plainly acknowledgeth For in his Book de Sacramentis lib. 6. cap. 4. he tells us that Orders may be conferred by any manner of Rite so it express a will of delivering that Spiritual Power to the person Ordained Some Examples indeed we have of Ordinations in Scripture as when Christ Ordained his Apostles and after when the Apostles Ordained the seven Deacons and the Church of Antioch Paul and Barnabas to be the Apostles of the Gentiles and the manner of these Ordinations is also described unto us but no Precept is at all given us of this matter or any thing in the least commanded or enjoyned concerning it much less any promise of saving Grace annexed thereto The Popish Translation of the New Testament indeed tells us of Grace given by the imposition of hands 1 Tim. 4. v. 14. and 2 Tim. 1. v. 6. but in those places the word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Gift as our Translation hath it not the gracious working of the Holy Ghost in us in order to Sanctification and Holiness of Life but only a gift freely given to qualifie and enable in order to the performance of the Office conferred and what those gifts are you have described in the 12th Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians where you find them either to be ordinary or extraordinary The extraordinary gifts were such as accompanied the Ministry of the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel as being necessary to create belief in a World then totally infidel as to those things they taught and these were the gift of working Miracles the gift of divers Tongues the gift of healing all manner of Diseases the gift of Prophecying and such like The ordinary gifts are such as have ever since been continued down in the Church to those that are Legally called to the Administration of Divine things as the Power of Teaching the Word of Administring the Sacraments of Blessing the People in the Name of God of offering up acceptable Sacrifices of Praise and Prayer unto him for them and such like and these are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gifts of the Holy Ghost which were given by imposition of hands in Ordination and in order to these only is it that the Bishop says therein Receive the Holy Ghost which Gifts do only impower and assist in order to the performance of the Office confer'd not unto Holiness and Righteousness of Life wherein consists that saving Grace whereby we are sanctified unto Everlasting Life and are so far of themselves alone from conducing any thing thereto in the persons endowed with them that we often find them consisting with the greatest iniquities for Judas had them to the working of Miracles casting out of Devils and healing all manner of Diseases that was the worst of Traytors and Caiaphas the High Priest of the Jews although one of the wickedest of men had also like gifts of the Holy Ghost given him with his Office and by vertue thereof we find him making a most clear Prophesie of our Saviour and the Redemption to be wrought by him for Mankind in dying for us at the same time when he was acting the highest piece of Treason against him for the Scripture tells us that being High Priest that year he Prophesied And from all this which I have said it manifestly appearing that Orders is no Sacrament there can lye no necessity from hence for any of those Matters and Forms as they call them which the Church of Rome requires in order thereto so as that the Administration should be necessarily annexed to them as that Church asserts but that all the Holy Offices or Orders of the Church of Christ whether of Bishops Priests or Deacons may be conferred by the one of them alone without the other as well as by both together when made sufficiently declarative of the thing designed or by any other like significant Rite which shall be appointed in order thereunto For taking the administration of Holy Orders thus in the true nature and notion of the thing without reckoning it a Sacrament it will appear to be no other then the delegating or transmitting from one Succession to another those Offices which have by Divine Authority been instituted in the Church of Christ for the ministring of the Holy things of God therein and therefore there can remain nothing in them which may necessarily require any thing more to be done to carry them down from one to another in a due and Legal Succession then what is practiced in all other Offices wherein one man succeeds another but that they may in the same manner by a person fully Authorized thereto be validly and fully conferred by any Rite and Manner whatever sufficiently declarative of the thing intended and whether it be done by an outward Ceremony alone or a Form of words alone or both together either may be sufficient when either by common use or publick institution they have a significancy given them to denote the thing designed And thus far having treated of the Forms of Ordination used in the Church of Rome I hope I have fully satisfied you that they are no such essential immutable things as you seem to be of opinion that they are But if those Writers of that Church which are so earnest for this had asserted it of the matter of Order Imposition of hands they would have had a much better plea on their side because it must undeniably be granted not only from the Writings of the Antients but also from Scripture it self that imposition of hands from the very beginning of Christianity hath been always a Rite most constantly made use of in the conferring of Holy Orders But as to this the Church of Rome hath nothing to cavil with us it being as constantly used in all Protestant Churches as in theirs And besides herein they themselves have most shamefully deviated
also to speak of the Matter Imposition of hands that I may leave nothing that I have said liable to Objection I think it requisite a little further to explain my self concerning this particular Although there be some Doctors of the Church of Rome that hold Imposition of hands only to be an accidental Rite and the delivery of the Sacred Vessels the sole essential Matter of Orders yet the most General receiv'd Opinion among them is that they are both essential matters but make the delivery of the Sacred Vessels the most principal matter as being that whereby they say is conferr'd the power of Order enabling to consecrate the Eucharist and offer the Sacrifice of the Mass whereas by the other imposition of hands is only conferred the power of Jurisdiction which they make to be by much the inferior and less noble part of the Sacerdotal Function and in this Doctrine of theirs I think them guilty of a double Error For 1. Since Imposition of Hands hath been of such constant use in the Church of Christ from the beginning in all Ordinations and hath been Consecrated thereto by the practice of the Apostles themselves as from Scripture is most evident they detract from the Veneration which is due to so ancient a Rite and to the Example of the holy Apostles who used it alone without any other by putting it in the second place after a Rite of their own invention and making it thus inferior thereto I mean the delivery of the Sacred Vessels which doth not appear from any of their Ordinals or any other ancient Record of the Church to have been in use among them above seven hundred years as Morinus a Priest of their own makes it out unto us But 2. I think them as much in a mistake on the other hand by making this or any other Rite essential to this Administration since there is no Divine Institution establishing any thing at all concerning it That the Scriptures tell us not of any such the Romanists themselves freely grant but what they cannot make out from hence they would prove unto us by the Tradition of their Church for by that they tell us it hath been delivered down from one Age to another that both these Rites which they hold to be the essential matters of Priestly Ordination were instituted and commanded by Christ himself and they pretend also to give us a Reason as I have afore noted why this Institution should be rather thus preserved down to subsequent Ages by an unwritten Tradition than by the written Word but this Tradition being most apparently false as to one of them the delivery of the Sacred Vessels which it's plain for a Thousand years was never heard of in the Church as I have shown is by no means a sufficient Testimony to be relied on for the other That the Apostles ordained by imposition of hands and that all Churches herein followed their Example is most certain But that it is to be received as an essential to the administration in which it is used upon the account of a Divine Institution we have no Authority for it but from the later Writers of the Church of Rome which is by no means sufficient to make us subscribe thereto And if the Apostolical practice be urged on their side the answer is most certain that all things are not to be held to be of Divine Institution which the Apostles did or do they for this reason lay a necessary obligation upon the Church as such because we have their Example for the practice of them For their Example is not sufficient to inferre a Divine Institution for those things which they did where we have that alone without any precept unto us for the doing of them also as from abundance of Instances in Scripture of things practiced by them and now totally abolished may most apparently be made out unto you And this way of arguing would inferre such difficulties upon the Romanists themselves as they will never be able to answer For waving other instances to come to the particular now in hand if imposition of Hands in Ordination were on this account to be held for a Divine Institution what shall become of the so Generally receiv'd Axiom of the Church of Rome Summus Pontifex solo verbo potest facere Sacerdotem Episcopum That the Pope without imposition of Hands or any other Rite whatever can make both a Priest and a Bishop by speaking the word only so that if he say unto any one be thou a Priest or be thou a Bishop his saying so only without any further Ceremony shall be sufficient fully and validly to confer either of the said Offices For the Pope is no more excused from any thing that is of Divine Institution than any other of his Communion and I suppose none of their Doctors will say that he is But that although in a High degree he Lords it over all yet he is equally with all subject to the Laws of him whose Vicar he pretends to be But if it be asked then that if there be no command of Christ for this Rite nor any obligation from a Divine prescript for the use of it how came it from the beginning of Christianity to be the practice of all the Apostles and what other reason can be given for so early and general observance of it To this I answer That it was a Rite which was received in conformity to the ancient use of it in the Jewish Church to the same purpose And that I may give you satisfaction herein I shall trace the thing to its first Original and give you a thorough account of it and in so doing I hope I shall not only answer the present objection but also clear the way for the removing of all those other difficulties which you have raised to your self about this particular The Publick Service of God among the Jews was twofold First That of the Temple and Secondly That of the Synagogue That of the Temple consisting only of Sacrifices Oblations and the Ceremonies belonging thereto which were all Typical Representations of the Grand Sacrifice of Christ our Saviour once to be offered for all When he had offered this Sacrifice by dying on the Cross for us they all receiv'd their Completion and thenceforth became totally Abolished But the Service of the Synagogue not consisting of Ceremonial Observances but of the Moral Duties of Prayer Praise Thanksgiving and in Exhortations and Instructions to the obeying of Gods Holy Will and Commandments to which there is a natural and perpetual obligation was still from the Jewish Oeconomy which ceased continued on to the Christian that followed after it in its stead and that as far as the nature of things would bear according to the same Rules of Discipline Order and Practice also as formerly that there being as little variation as possible as to the observance of those Duties in the new Oeconomy from the former practice of them under the
old the Jews who were beyond all other people of the Earth most tenacious of the Traditions and Practices of their Forefathers might be the easier induced to joyn themselves to the Christian Worship and with less difficulty be Converted to the Truth thereof For the Holy Apostles being primarily sent to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel did as wise Master-builders of the Church of Christ well consider this and therefore in forming of the outward order of its worship and the Manner and Discipline of its Government conform'd themselves to the pattern of the Synagogue to which it succeeded as far as the Law of the Gospel and the nature of that Oeconomy they were then establishing would admit and hence among many other things came the name of Elders or Presbyters for the later is the same in Greek what the former is in English and the manner of Ordaining them by Imposition of Hands to be introduced into the Church of Christ Not that there was any Divine precept concerning either the one or the other but that both were continued in imitation of what was afore practiced in the Church of the Jews For therein those that had the Government of Ecclesiastical Affairs were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zekenim Presbyters or Elders Of their first appointment to this Office we read Num. 11. where Moses complaining that the charge of the whole Congregation was too heavy for him Seventy of the Wisest and Gravest of the People were appointed to be his Assistants herein and to bear part of the Duty with him in Instructing and Governing the people according to the Law which God had given unto them and in order hereto the Spirit of Wisdom and Prophesie rested on them and these constituted the grand Ecclesiastical Council of that Nation called the Sanedrim which determined all Controversies concerning the Law of God and directed to all other Establishments for the promoting of his Honour and Worship among them But besides these there were other Elders also in every particular City which had there the same charge upon them for that district which the others had for the whole Nation and were those which constituted the Presbytery of that place to take care of the Service of God in the Synagogues to minister in all the Duties of Holy Worship therein to instruct the people in the Law of God to exhort to the observance of it to give judgement according thereto in all Controversies and to exercise the power of binding and loosing in declaring what was Lawful and what was Unlawful to be done when any doubt or difficulty required their determination herein to correct such as transgressed the Law to Excommunicate the Incorrigible and also to receive them again by Absolution when penitent and to admit Proselytes into the Church by Baptism And in order to qualifie them for these Duties there were Schools or Universities in which they were bred up as Paul at the feet of Gamaliel the then President of the Sanedrim and chief Professor of Divinity in the University of Jerusalem to understand the Law of God and all other parts of Scripture and to know the determinations of the Learned which had been afore given concerning all points of doubt or difficulty occurring in any part thereof and when they had gone thorough such a Course of Study and Proficiency as rendred them sufficiently versed herein they were then ordained Elders or Presbyters by imposition of Hands and thereby authorized to all those Duties which I have afore mention'd to belong to that Office and this imposition of hands was then understood in the same manner as now with us to give the Assistance of Gods Holy Spirit for the performance of them And thus the Hebrew Doctors tell us that the Seventy Elders were Ordained by Moses and that at the performance of this Rite it was that the Spirit of Prophecy rested on them of which is mention Numb 11. v. 25. But in the Ordination of Joshua to be the Chief of them after the decease of Moses the Scriptures themselves expresly tell us that it was done by Imposition of Hands and that thereon the Spirit of God rested on him Num. 27. v. 18. and Deut. 34. v. 9. The Hebrew Doctors are very large and express concerning all these particulars and frequent mention is made of them in their Writings The words of Maimonides the most eminent of them are as followeth Whether the Elders or Presbyters were Members of the great Sanhedrim or whether they were Members of the lesser Councils or Presbyteries which were constituted in every City or whether they were of the Triumvirate only appointed to judge of Causes between man and man it was necessary that every one of them should be ordained by Imposition of Hands by others which had been so ordained before him And Moses our Master so ordained Joshua by the Imposition of his Hands for it is written Numb 27. v. 23. And he laid his hand upon him and gave him a charge And so also Moses ordained the Seventy Elders and the Holy Spirit rested on them and those Elders created others and they again others and so it hath been found that one hath been Ordained by another through all Ages up to the time of the Sanhedrim of Joshua and the Sanhedrim of Moses And this being the state of the Elders or Presbyters of the Jewish Church and the manner of their admission to that Office as I have described it doth answer in so many particulars what was after established in the Church of Christ as makes it most clear what I have afore said that the one was a pattern to the other herein and that all things of this nature which were introduced into the latter were by imitation translated from the former and this is the sense of abundance of Learned Men that treat of this matter as well Romanists as Protestants they all holding that the Holy Apostles to make the change the more easie from the old Oeconomy to the new in forming the outward Order and Discipline of the Church did not make all things new therein but borrowed from the Synagogue of the Jews as many of its usages as could be accommodated thereto And of all those things of which this may be said it is of none more manifest than of the name of Presbyters and the manner of Ordaining them by imposition of hands that they both came this way into the Church of Christ And an easie entrance was made them thereto by the similitude of the things themselves the Christian Presbyter being the same in the Church of Christ that the Jewish was in the Synagogue the duties in which they officiated very little differing and the end for which imposition of hands was made use of in their Ordination thereto totally the same as from what hath been afore said may sufficiently appear For what hath the office of a Christian Presbyter more than what I have afore described to belong to a Presbyter
that this Imposition of hands which is thus administred in the Ordination of a Presbyter with silence and without any Form of words at all spoken at the doing of it is the true and antient Imposition of hands which they have received down by Tradition from the former Ages of the Church and by which alone the Order is conferred and not the other Imposition of hands after administred I have these Arguments to make it most manifest unto you First Because this later Imposition of hands with the Form of words with which it is administred are both of them but lately introduced into their Church they being to be found in none of their Ordinals till about four hundred years since or do any of their Ritualists which are of ancienter date make the least mention of them whereas the other Imposition of hands is that which all of them make very particular expression of Secondly The true and ancient Imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Presbyter was always administred by the Bishop with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery also joyned therewith and this not only the Decrees of Councils but the Practice and Examples of the Holy Apostles themselves do direct to But the Presbytery in the Roman Ordinal do no where lay on their hands with the Bishop on the person to be Ordained to the Priestly Function but in this first Imposition of hands only which is administred without any Form at all in perfect silence and therefore this alone must be that Imposition of hands which confers the Order and this even the Council of Trent it self doth plainly enough say For in the 14th Session and 3d Chapter of Extream Unction treating of the proper Ministers of that Rite or Sacrament as they call it do there declare that they must be Aut Episcopi aut Sacerdotes ab ipsis rite Ordinati per Impositionem manuum Presbyterii i. e. Either Bishops or Priests regularly Ordained by them with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery From whence it follows that if those only are regularly made Priests who are so Ordained by the Bishop with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery as is here asserted that Imposition of hands alone in the Roman Ordinal must be the Rite which confers the Order where the Presbyters as well as the Bishop bear their part in the administration by laying on their hands also which is no where done in all that Office but in that first Imposition of hands only which is administred in perfect silence And for those reasons Morinus and Habertus both Priests of the Roman Church and Eminently Learned above most other of that Communion in the points we now treat of do plainly assert that this Imposition of hands is the essential matter of Orders and Merbesius a later Writer and several others also of that Church do assent with them herein And I hope Arguments and Authorities of this nature may be sufficient to convince you that there is no such necessity for those Forms in Ordination which you so much contend for or that Imposition of hands is altogether a dumb and insignificant sign when administred without them as your Paper asserts since by what hath been said it plainly appears that even in the Church of Rome it self for which you so earnestly argue in this particular the Imposition of hands which confers the Order of Priesthood is even that which is thus administred in perfect silence without any Form of words at all joyned therewith But because you lay so much stress upon the Matter and Form of Orders as if without being exact in these no Ordination can be fully and validly administred I think it proper also to acquaint you that all that Divinity concerning the Matter and Form of Orders which the Schoolmen make so much pudder about and is at present from them made so much use of in this Controversie by our Adversaries against us is totally of late invention there being nothing at all of it either in Scripture or any of the Writings of the Ancients for above twelve hundred years after Christ the very names of Matter and Form of Orders being till then totally unknown But about the year 1250. the Philosophy of Aristotle which makes the substance or essence of all things to consist of Matter and Form being translated out of Arabick into Latin was with great greediness received by the Schoolmen and soon incorporated by them into all their Divinity and thenceforth they taking him for their Text equally with the Scriptures themselves and according to his method in the definition of things ascribing to each its Matter and its Form introduced these terms also into the Doctrine of their Sacraments and observing these to consist of an outward Sign or Ceremony and a form of words spoken at the Administration of it for the sake of the agreement or similitude which is between the word formula a form of words and the word forma which signifieth the Aristotelical form made this form of words to be the essential Form and the outward Ceremony the essential Matter which makes up the whole nature and essence of every Sacrament and from hence it is that the matter and form of Orders which they make to be one of their Sacraments became first talked of among Divines and all that heap of Rubbish which the Schoolmen and those that follow them have built hereupon and no better foundation then this have you for making any form of words spoken in Ordination to be essential thereto Had our Saviour indeed instituted any form of words to be spoken at the Administration of the outward Rite as he did in Baptisme then I confess that Institution would have made it essential thereto and the whole would have been void and null without it However supposing Orders a Sacrament it could not be the essential Form thereof for that only can be the essential Form of a thing which gives it its determinate Essence and actually and ultimately constitutes it to be what it is and therefore nothing else can be the essential form of a Sacrament but that alone which actually gives it the nature and essence of a Sacrament which no form of words can do for if we consider in either of the Sacraments that are truely and undoubtedly such the outward visible sign and the Form of words alone they can make nothing of themselves but a liveless insignificant Ceremony unless something else be taken in to give the essence and nature of a Sacrament thereto In truth therefore as well the Form of words as the outward sign are both of them of the matter of the Sacrament and it is only the relation and conformity which both must have to the Institution of our Saviour with the concurrence of the Divine Grace according to the promise made in the institution which can make any Sacramental Administration to be truly and essentially such For no outward visible sign with any
First That this being designed to Answer what I before said in reference to the Form Receive power to offer Sacrifice to God and celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead I suppose no one that should read your Paper but would understand your abovementioned words therein to be a concession of the whole of it to be a novel additional in the Roman Ordinal and if it be not so your Answer will by no means seem pertinent to the thing objected Secondly Whereas you limit your concession to the later part of the abovementioned Form only and say you did only grant for the Celebrating of Mass for the Living and the Dead that it was within these five hundred years first expressed in the Roman Ordinal but not for offering Sacrifice to God your own words above recited show this to be most false for there you say Although they had added that to theirs of offering Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead c. which plainly expresseth the novel addition to be of offering Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead and not of Celebrating Mass only And this I think is sufficient not only to clear my self from being guilty of that misreciting which you charge me with but also to retort it upon your self who it is plain to fix this charge upon me have falsified and basely prevaricated about your own words And whereas you say you are assured that the offering of Sacrifice to God was ever expressed in the Roman Ordinal and that the Celebrating Mass for the Living and the Dead was all along before the practice of the Church I Answer First That if by Sacrifice you mean a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice as the Church of Rome now holds whoever it was that hath assured you that the Ordinals of the first Ages of Christianity ever gave a Priest power of offering any such hath abused you with a most gross falsity and basely slandered the Primitive Church in charging such an impiety upon them And Secondly As to Celebrating Mass for the Living and the Dead it is a cheat which the innocent and pure times of Christianity could never be guilty of for it is an imposture of their own invention cunningly devised by them to get Money and of no earlier date then their new found Regions of Purgatory on which it depends the one being a Brat of the other and both without any the least right or title to give them a Legitimation among the true and genuine Doctrines of Jesus Christ But thoroughly to handle these particulars would be to desert the subject in hand to run into other Questions and therefore I shall say no more of them at present but that I shall be ready to make them out unto you whensoever you shall desire And whereas you put me upon the proof of what I said that the Learnedest of the Roman Communion hold that the last imperative words spoken at the last Imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost c. are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferred and express your self in a manner concerning it implying as if I had told you more than I can make out it lies upon me to do my self right as well as to give you satisfaction in making good what I have said in this particular and I assure you I want not Authorities enough in order hereunto For Bonaventure in his 4th Book on the Sentences plainly saith it And so doth also Petrus Sotus in his Book de Institutione Sacerdotum both of them making Imposition of Hands with these words Receive the Holy Ghost c. the only essential Matter and Form of Priestly Ordination And Vasquez thus understands them as excluding all other Matter and Form to be essential thereto And most express to this purpose are the words of Becanus an eminent Jesuit and one that particularly bent his Fury against the Church of England For speaking of the twofold Ceremony made use of in Priestly Ordination the Delivery of the Sacred Vessels with this form of words Receive power to offer Sacrifice c. and Imposition of Hands with this form Receive the Holy Ghost c. he concludes that the later only is essential to the Sacrament as he calls it and that the former is no more than an accidental Rite belonging thereto And that this must necessarily follow from such other Doctrines as they hold I shall hereafter have a more particular occasion to make out unto you when I come to treat of that which I have in my former papers promised you and which you so much call upon me to give you satisfaction in that is the sufficiency of our Forms to confer all Priestly Power on the Persons ordained by them And to this also I shall refer the consideration of what you say in the two next Paragraphs as being the place most proper for it What you tell me in the next place after concerning Episcopal Ordination is all prevarication In my first paper to you I proved the validity of our Form for Episcopal Ordination by the same reason by which Vasquez proves it for the Church of Rome and in your answer you plainly allow it to be good and fully grant that this Form Take the Holy Ghost c. made use of in our old Ordinal for Episcopal Ordination may be sufficient alone for that purpose and assign this reason for it because a Bishop in his Ordination doth not receive any new Character but hath only that power and character further extended which was afore virtually in him from his Priesthood But then you tell me This is nothing to the Point between us that being not of the Episcopal Office but of the Priesthood only which you think our Forms not sufficient to confer But now in your answer to what I replyed thereto you deny all this which you have said For you tell me First That you did not allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination to be sufficiently perfect And Secondly That you did not say that a Bishop did not receive a new character but only in the person of Vasquez and that this is not your opinion but how much you falsify and prevaricate in saying this your own words to which I refer you are an undeniable evidence against you be who will judge between us in this matter But be it so as you will have it this will not however serve your turn For though you will not allow the Form of our Episcopal Ordination to be good yet there is no Roman Catholick but must and what you pretend to say in the person of Vasquez is not Vasquez's opinion but plain the contrary And First I say All Roman Catholicks must allow the form of our Episcopal Ordination to be good because it contains therein the whole of theirs and therefore if theirs be good ours must be so also For the Form of Episcopal Ordination in the Roman Ordinal is Accipe Spiritum Sanctum i.
e. Take the Holy Ghost which very words are also in ours and although there are other words added after yet these cannot be said to detract from the perfection of the Form but abundantly to add thereto as expressing an Exhortation to the duties of the office for which the ordained receives the Holy Ghost in the very words of the Holy Apostle St. Paul to Timothy whom he had afore by like giving of the Holy Ghost ordained a Bishop Hallier I confess makes mention also of the delivery of the Book of the Gospels in Episcopal Ordination to be an essential Matter and these words spoken at the doing of it Receive the Gospel and go preach to the people committed to thy Charge for God is able to encrease unto thee his Grace who liveth and reigneth to all Eternity to be an essential Form that is a partial essential Form which with the other as a partial essential Form also makes up the whole essence of that Ordination but he proposeth this only as an opinion which may seem probable without citing any Authority to make it out or naming any other Writer on his side to back him herein and in truth I know not of any that do there being none that I have met with who assign the Matter and Form of this Administration but agree with Armilla Major and Vasquez herein who say That Imposition of Hands is the alone Matter of Episcopal Ordination and these words Receive the Holy Ghost the alone Form and that in the applying this Matter and this Form together the Sacrament doth consist But allow it to be as Hallier proposeth that the delivery of the Book of the Gospels is a partial essential Matter and the words spoken at the doing of it in the Roman Ordinal a partial essential Form and that this Rite as well as the other must concur to make up the true essence and perfection of Episcopal Ordination yet even as to this our Ordinal will be as perfect as theirs for with us also not only the Book of the Gospels but the whole Bible is delivered by the Ordainers to the Bishop Ordained And although our form spoken at the doing of it be not exactly the same with that in the Roman Ordinal yet it includes the whole sum and substance of it in other words which is all that they themselves require to make a form sufficient and not only this but also in a much more perfect and fuller manner expresseth the whole intent of that Ceremony than the other doth And therefore after all that can be said in this matter whatsoever cavil an Adversary may make against the form of our Priestly Ordination there is none the least pretence or colour in our Episcopal Ordination on this account as much as to suggest an exception And Secondly As to the opinion of Vasquez in whose person you pretend it was that you said that a Bishop in his Ordination doth not receive any new Character but hath only that Power and Character further extended which was afore virtually in him as a Priest it is plain he says no such thing but asserts quite the contrary For his words are in Tertiam Thomae Disput 240. c. 5. N. 54. that in the Ordination of a Bishop there is no such thing as the extension of the Priestly Power and Character but that a new power is conferr'd And although he says this is done the Sacerdotal character still remaining yet since he allows Episcopal Ordination to be a Sacrament he must allow it also to imprint a new character as well as give a new power or else contradict the general Doctrine of his Church which universally holds that the Sacrament of Orders always imprints a Character and besides to say that Episcopal Ordination gives a new power and not a new Character is a thing inconceivable the new Character being nothing else according to their own definitions but a new power but however it sufficiently obviates all that you say that he plainly declares his opinion to be that there is no such thing as the extension of the former Character and Power in Episcopal Ordination but that a new power is conferr'd thereby and therefore it is most evident that you say not this in the person of Vasquez but as a Doctrine which you have picked up from our Adversaries among whom it is generally asserted that the Episcopal Office doth not constitute a new order or confer a new power different from the Sacerdotal but is only the Sacerdotal farther extended as you express it but this is a Doctrine which I could easily show you involves so many absurdities as to be no better than down-right nonsense as Bellarmine himself in a manner confesseth it to be but since you say this is not your opinion there is no occasion for it As to Bishop Ridleys not being consecrated by the Roman ordinal although you have run into so many demonstrable mistakes about it already and have been so often told that this is a thing on which the cause doth not at all depend yet I perceive you will not forget it but tell me that you are fully satisfied that it was so as you say but if what you mention in your paper is all you have to urge for it I perceive you are one that can very easily be satisfied in any thing which you think may make for the Cause of Rome against us For to deal plainly with you there is neither Truth Sense nor Reason in that which you write on this particular You say that you find in the Statutes of the first of King Edward the 6th that they meaning I suppose the Protestants took upon them to Administer Sacraments in new ways after their own inventions and that for this reason an Act was made that year prohibiting of them and from hence you infer that new ways were also made use of in ordination and consequently that Bishop Ridley was ordained by some such new way and not by the Roman ordinal and this seems to be the last refuge you have to make out what you would have allowed you in this point But in truth you having been mir'd amongst abundance of Absurdities concerning it already the more you strive to get out the deeper you get in For 1. Granting what you say to be true that there was such a Statute in the first year of King Edward prohibiting the Administration of Sacraments and among them that of orders according to new ways yet certainly after this Statute was made and those new ways prohibited as you say none durst ordain but by the old way of the Roman ordinal till the other which was afterwards used was Established by Law in the fourth year of that Kings Reign and therefore if not Ridley who was consecrated in the first year of King Edward before any Parliament sate yet certainly Farrer who was made Bishop in the second year of his Reign after the time when you will have this prohibiting
only Presbyters but also Bishops and Cardinals not only before Thirty but also before they have been of an age capable of any of those Qualifications which Examination is appointed to enquire about For Ferdinando de Medices was made Cardinal by Sextus quintus before he was thirteen years old and John de Medices before him who was afterwards Pope by the name of Leo the 10th was made Bishop at the 8th and Cardinal at the 13th year of his age and Cosmus Bishop of Fano who died by an act of Sodomy committed upon him by one of the Bastards of Paul the third the Pope who call'd the Council of Trent was not then above eighteen years old and Odell Chatillion and Alphonso of Portugal were both Bishops and Cardinals the former at the 11th and the later at the 7th year of his age And Glaber Rodolphus tells us also that Benedict the 9th was but twelve years old when he was created Pope and he could not be well mistaken herein since he lived in his time Thirdly You may ask them further That whereas the 18th Canon of the Council of Nice doth Ordain that no Deacon shall sit among the Presbyters but that a Presbyter shall be always above a Deacon and a Bishop above a Presbyters how comes it now to be lawful for Deacons when made Cardinals to take place not only of Presbyters but also of Bishops Archbishops and Patriarchs too whereas they being no more than the Pope's Deacons can according to the ancient Orders of the Church claim no higher place thereby than the Deacons of any other Bishop And Fourthly I desire it may be also asked them that since the 6th Canon of the Council of Calcedon so severely prohibits all absolute Ordinations that is such as are made without a Title as utterly to exclude all from the Office to which they are so Ordain'd How comes it to pass that it is so Common a practice of the Church of Rome to ordain Bishops without Bishopricks such as the Bishop of Calcedon the Bishop of Adramytium and the Bishop of Amasia and abundance of those nulla tenentes men And if the Titles they bear be urged to excuse them from the breach of this Canon it is a mockage which will not serve their turn For the Title is only an empty name which they assume without any intent of ever being in reality Bishops of those places from whence they take them or of at all executing any pastoral charge in them And if it were otherwise without this mockage in the thing yet since this very 6th Canon of the Council of Nice which you insist on saith that all Bishops are to be ordained by their own Metropolitan what hath the Pope to do to Ordain Bishops for those places where he hath no Jurisdiction at all either as Metropolitan or Patriarch as it is certain he hath not in any of those Bishopricks from whence those Titles are usually assum'd For they take them almost always from the Bishopricks of the Eastern Empire which never acknowledged the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome but had always Patriarchs of their own at Constantinople Antioch and Alexandria whose Jurisdiction continues even to this day And under them those very Bishopricks being always provided of Bishops of their own Legally Ordained and Legally Invested with them I ask further how comes it to pass that contrary to the 8th Canon of the Council of Nice the Pope makes Bishops of those places where there are Bishops already And therefore if the Breach of ancient Canons must void Ordinations certainly these can be no Bishops To go over all the rest of the Ancient Canons of the Church and shew how in the most wholsom things they ordained the Church of Rome hath now totally deviated from them would be too long a Task what I have already said is sufficient to let you see that they have no regard to them themselves and therefore nothing can be more unreasonable then to exact the observance of them from others especially in such things as the alteration of Circumstances and the necessity of the times have made unpracticable as it is plain what you require from us in the point of Ordaining at our Reformation then totally was For Fifthly To have the Popes consent to the Ordination of those Bishops that were made at the Reformation was a thing impossible to be had and in that case all Laws as well Ecclesiasticall as civil necessarily lose their force For the Lawes of the Land had made it Treason to ask it of him and if they had not to be sure the Pope would never grant it to those who would not conform with him to all the Erroneous Doctrins and corrupt practices of his Church Must we therefore have no Bishops and no Ministers because he would not give his consent we should or must we still have retained all those corruptions and errours which he would impose upon us to obtain it If the latter be said and I suppose this is what our adversary would have it would put a necessity upon us to receive even the Alcoran or the Talmud with all the impieties and absurdities of them for necessary Doctrines of Faith and manners whensoever the Pope should please and we durst not trust his Infallibility to secure us from this since we know the time when a Pope of Rome was in Conspiracy with the Mendicant Fryers to have imposed a new Gospel on the World in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ which if received would have made us worse than Turks or Jews Now put the case the plot had taken and this Gospel by his Authority had been received in the same manner as Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass half Communion Purgatory praying to Saints Image Worship and other like Impostures of that Church now are by the same Authority only for Infallible Truth must we have received it too to gain his consent to our Ordinations or else must we have had no Orders at all because he would not give it unto us unless we renounce our Christianity to obtain it from him I thank God our Condition is not such for the Laws of Christ give every Bishop equal Authority to Ordain and although some restrictions and limitations as to the Exercise of this power may have been put by the Laws of the Church for the better Order and more regular Government of it yet all those Laws according to the Doctrine of the Romanists themselves must alwayes give place whenever the necessity of times or things require it And therefore though the Consent of the Pope to our Ordinations had been required by the firmest Laws which the whole Universal Church could have established yet when such a necessity is put upon us as that we cannot have his Consent without submitting to those Errors and Corruptions as would make all our Orders an abomination in the presence of him for whose Service they were Ordained as was the
Case of our first Reformers it would become absolutely necessary to Ordain without it But Sixthly Allowing the Nicene Canon you insist on still to retain the utmost force you can give it yet there is nothing in it which requires what you would have in reference to us For all that is there said is that in all Provinces the Bishops should be Ordained by the consent of the Metropolitan which was very well provided for the preservance of peace and good Order in the Church But the Bishop of Rome is not our Metropolitan and in truth in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign the time to which your Objection refers we had no Metropolitan at all in this Province Cardinal Pool the last Metropolitan being then newly dead and the Metropolitical see of Canterbury vacant thereby and into his place it was that Archbishop Parker was Ordained But here you will say that as the provincial Bishops were to be Ordained by the Metropolitan so the Metropolitans were to be Ordained by the Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome being our Patriarch for this Reason Arch-bishop Parker ought not to have been Ordain'd without his Consent and that his Ordination was illegal for want thereof But to this I say 1. That this is not at all said in the Canon you insist on that extending no farther than to Metropolitans in respect of their Com-provincials as it is also plainly expressed in the Fourth Canon of that Council For in truth Patriarchs were not then in being neither could be that Division of the Empire into Diocesses consisting each of many Provinces which gave occasion for the first constituting of Patriarchs being but just then made and therefore it must be some time after before there could be any Birth given to that Institution and in the Council of Chalcedon which was held 126 years after that of Nice is the first time we find any mention of it no ancient Records of the Church before that time in the least giving us any account thereof 2. Supposing Patriarchs should have been then meant yet Brittain was never of the Patriarchate of the Bishop of Rome which is sufficiently made out not only by our Learned Dean of Pauls in his Origines Brittanicae cap. 3. but also by several of the Roman Communion also and especially by Father Barns a Benedictine Monk who wrote a Book particularly to that purpose 3. I deny that it was the ancient practice of the Church for Metropolitans to be Ordained by the approbation of the Patriarch or that his consent was at all thought requisite hereto For the Custom was when a new Metropolitan was chosen that he should be Ordained by his own Comprovincials And so was Arch-bishop Parker he having been Consecrated by four Bishops of his own Province and that this was a practice not only introduced by ancient usage but also establish'd by many Decrees and Canons of the Church not only Petrus de Marca Arch-bishop of Paris but also Hallier another eminent Doctor of the French Church do give us a large Account And it is but of late date that the Bishops of Rome interposed herein as is told you in a Pamphlet just now come from France concerning the proceedings of the Parliament of Paris upon the Popes Bull for therein the Kings Advocate tells that Parliament that for the four first Ages of that Monarchy there was no such thing as suing to Rome for Benefices And Petrus de Marca tells you the same thing And having said thus much I know not any thing which can be further urged for the support of your last Objection requiring the Popes consent to our Ordinations unless you fly to that Paramount Supremacy challenged to him by so many which makes him the only Supream Pastor of the Church under Christ and all other Bishops as his Delegates which act only by his Auâ—hority and have no other but what is derived from him And if you say this all the Answer I shall give you thereto is that this is a pretension so extravagant and so totally void of all manner of ground for its support that not only the Protestants but also the better part of his own Communion utterly deny it unto him And now having gone through your Paper all that remains for me further to do in order to your full satisfaction is that I perform my promise in making good unto you that supposing an Imperative Form of words in Ordination to be so essentially necessary as you would have it yet the Forms made use of in our Ordinal for the Ordination of a Priest were before the additions made to them by the Convocation in the year 1662 altogether sufficient in order thereto For as there is Matter and Form as they call them in all Ordinations administred by the Church of Rome so also is there in ours that is an outward visible sign at the performance of the administration and a Form of words expressing the thing intended thereby the former of which they call the Matter and the latter the Form of Ordination And as there is a double Matter and Form in their Ordinal for the Ordaining of a Priest so is there also in ours and that all things may appear the more clearly to you what I have hereafter to say concerning them in order to the satisfying you in the point proposed First I shall lay them down both together that is the Matters and Forms of their Ordinal as well as the Matters and Forms of our Ordinal as they were before the additions made to the Forms that are afore-mentioned that having that in your view which is the subject of the whole Dispute you may the better understand what shall be urg'd concerning it Secondly I shall from both of them observe some few particulars unto 〈…〉 leading to the same end And then Thirdly Having stated your Objection as fairly and to the best advantage of your Cause that I can I shall in the last place proceed to Answer it with such Arguments as I hope will give you full satisfaction First As to the Matter and Forms for the Ordination of a Priest both of the Romish Ordinal as well as those of ours as they were before the additions made to the Forms in the year 1662. They are as followeth In the Romish Ordinal In the Ordinal of the Church of England The first Matter is the delivery of the Chalice with Wine and Water in it and the Paten on the top of it with the Host thereon To the person to be Ordained to the Priesthood The first Matter is the Imposition of the Hands of the Bishop and Presbytery assisting with him at the Ordination on the Head of the Person Ordained The first Form is these words spoken by the Bishop at the delivery of the said Chalice and Paten Receive Power to offer Sacrifice unto God and to Celebrate Masses both for the Living and the Dead in the name of the Lord. Amen The first Form is these
For saith he Si nolumus negare Sacramentum Ordinis in Ecclesiâ Latinâ necesse est pro materiâ hujus Sacramenti solam impositionem manuum assignare hanc enim solam Apostoli Concilia Antiqui Patres commemorant i. e. If we will not deny the Sacrament of Orders in the Latin Church it is necessary that we assign only Imposition of Hands for the matter of this Sacrament for that only the Apostles and Councils and ancient Fathers make mention of And therefore he saith in another place that not only the power of Jurisdiction but also the power of Order is conferr'd by Imposition of Hands that is not only the power of Absolving Penitents but also the power of Consecrating and Administring the Eucharist and he saith that the Councils and Fathers whensoever they speak of the Order of Priesthood to be given by Imposition of Hands mean all this power to be conferr'd thereby and for proof hereof he quotes a certain Comment that goes under the name of St. Ambrose which on the 4th Chapter of the first Epistle to Timothy hath these words Manuum Impositionis verba sunt Mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus Electus accipiens autoritatem teste Conscientiâ ut audeat vice Domini Sacrificia Deo offerre i.e. The words of Imposition of Hands are Mystical by which the Elected is confirmed to the work of the Ministry receiving Authority his Conscience bearing him witness that he may make bold in the stead of our Lord to offer Sacrifice unto God. And from thence he remarkes quod manuum Impositio inserviat potestati accipiendae in verum corpus Christi i. e. That Imposition of Hands doth serve to the receiving of power over the true Body of Christ that is to Consecrate and administer the Eucharist where they will have the true body of Christ to be present And therefore if the Authority of this Doctor of the Romish Church signifies any thing with you who was a person of that eminent note among them for his learning that he was designed to have been a Cardinal by Gregory the 15th Had that Pope lived to have made another promotion this last matter of Imposition of hands with the form of words annex'd must give not only the power to absolve penitents but also the power of consecrating the Eucharist and if they give this to them since they are both still retain'd in our Ordinal they must give it us also and consequently your whole Objection against our Orders as if this power were not conferr'd on us at our Ordinations be totally remov'd But here then you will perchance ask the Question if the later Matter and Form in the Roman Ordinal give the whole Priestly power to what end then serves the former Matter and Form which they make use of To this I Answer to the same purpose that some other Matters and Forms do in their Ordinal which they allow only to be accidental that is for the more solemnity of the Administration and not at all to confer the Sacerdotal power and as such no doubt at this time their first Matter and Form which they call essential would only have been reputed by all learned men among them but that it had unwarily been declared otherwise in the Council of Florence and therefore they being obliged to abide by that determination have been forced to frame the Scheme of their Divinity so in this particular as the practice of their own Church for near a thousand years together the practice of all other Churches in the World down to this time the Writings of the Ancients many of their own Doctrines and all Reason too which some of them cannot conceal do manifestly contradict 2. The first Form cannot be an essential Form according to their own positions because according to them that only can be an Essential Form of any of their Sacraments which conduceth to conferre the Sacramental grace But the Sacramental grace of the Sacrament of Orders as they call it cannot be confer'd by the first form and therefore that can by no meanes according to their own positions be an Essential Form. For the Sacramental grace even according to their own Divinity can only be annexed to such Sacramental signs as Christ himself the author and institutor of all Sacraments hath appointed now if it can no way be made out that Christ ever appointed the Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten to be a Sacramental sign in the Ordination of the Ministers of his Church then certainly no grace can ever be annex'd thereto or the Form of words the first form above mention'd made use of at the administring this Rite in Ordinations ever conferre any The Consequence I suppose no one will ever deny because no signe with any Form of words whatever can in the least conduce to the conferring of Grace but what the Institution of our Saviour hath made Sacramentall And therefore the whole stress of the Argument lyes upon this only that our Saviour never instituted this signe or Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten in Ordinations or ever commanded his Holy Apostles either by himself while here on Earth or by the Dictates of his Holy Spirit afterwards to make use thereof And there are but two ways possible whereby our Adversaryes can ever pretend to make it out that he did The First is by Scripture and the other by Tradition For they will have the Institutions of our Saviour to be transmitted down unto us not only by the written word the Holy Scriptures but also by the unwritten as they call it the Traditions of the Church both which they will have of equal Authority for the making out of what they will have to be of divine Institution But neither of these will serve their turn in this particular Not Tradition First because no other Church bears record with them herein and Secondly because it appears by undeniable authority and by the concession of abundance of their own Doctors as I have above mention'd that for near a thousand years together after Christ there was not even in their own Church any Tradition at all of this matter or the thing ever heard of among them till instituted by themselves about 700 years since And as to the Scripture they themselves there give up the Cause plainly acknowledging that no proof at all of this matter can be had from thence And therefore Bellarmine and Hallier and several others of them say that if Imposition of Hands be not the Essential Matter of Orders they can have no Argument at all out of Scripture to prove against the Hereticks as they call us of the Protestant Religion that it is a Sacrament And the words of Habertus are Scripturae Ordinatio aut nihil est aut manuum Impositio i. e. The Ordination of Scripture is either nothing or imposition of Hands Becanus the Jesuit goes further and say's Nec in Scripturis nec in antiquis
Ordination therein superadded no new Authority to that which was afore given him by the Priestly and therefore that both Offices were the same according to our own Ordinal Thirdly That if this Argument implies any defect in our Old Ordinal it placeth it only in the Form of Episcopal Ordination and not in the Priestly and concerning this only you have several times told me your whole doubt is Fourthly The Presbyterians urging this is by no means an Argument that there is any such defect in the Form of Episcopal Ordination in our Old Ordinal for God forbid all should be true which Adversaries use to urge against each other in their disputes about Religion Fifthly That if this be a defect in our Old Ordinal the Papists have no reason to urge it their 's being much more defective as I have already told you for in the Consecration of a Bishop at the imposition of hands they use no other Form then these words only Receive the Holy Ghost As to what you tell me that the Papists are more formidable to the Church of England then all the Sects together in point of weight if you speak this in reference to their Doctrines or any thing that they can say to defend them I am so far from being of your opinion that of all the Sects that have infested the Church of Christ which have been able to make any plausible show of Argument for themselves I think theirs bating the Patronage of Princes to which it chiefly owes its support to be the most defenceless which may sufficiently appear by the present management of the Controversie between us in which their cause hath been so miserably baffled that they are in a manner plainly put to silence Few now of those many Tracts which are written against them being at all Answered by them And when sometimes with a great deal of noise they send forth a Pamphlet against us their performance is always so lame and what they have to say for themselves so far short of giving any satisfaction in the Points controverted between us that it is sufficiently evidenced hereby that their cause is such as will not bear a defence The next thing you tell me is that you have received your Erastus Senior and your Erastus Junior and can find no mention made in any part of them of the alteration of our Ordinal it seems then you have them both to serve the cause you would maintain although you denyed you had either when I would have borrowed one of them of you in order to the better giving you the satisfaction which you desired But because you say you cannot find the passage I refer to I will give you the words as I find them in the last page of the Erastus Senior which I have they are as followeth Since the Printing of this they have acknowledged the justness of our exception to their Forms by amending them in their new Book Authorized by the late Act for Vniformity c. which words being put after the conclusion of the Book do sufficiently enough themselves express that they were put there between the time of finishing and publishing of it that it was after the finishing of it is said in them and that it was before the publishing of it is demonstrable from their being there and consequently the publication of this Book must be after the publication of the Liturgy Now the Liturgy not being published after its review and amendment till the latter end of August 1662. its evident from thence that it must be after that time that this Erastus Senior first came forth and therefore it could not any way influence the alteration made in our Ordinal published with that Liturgy as you would have it the whole being perfected the January before for the Parliament began to fit January the 7th and the third Act which was passed we find to be the Act of Vniformity wherein this Liturgy with the Ordinal were confirmed and consequently it must in the very beginning of the Sessions have been made ready by the Convocation for them And whereas you require of me to tell you who those sober Papists were that exploded those Books at their coming out I name unto you Father Peter Walsh for one who was the person I mentioned to have wrote a Book against them which he presented to the late Bishop of Winchester and is now in several hands in Manuscript and Dr. Burnet tells you he had the perusal of it But you demand of me to let you see this in Print and then you say you may be of my mind to which I Answer that I gladly accept of the condition and if you will perform your promise hereon we shall have no occasion to dispute any further about this matter For although Father Walsh hath not yet Printed the Book I mention yet he hath the substance of it in the Preface to his History of the Irish Remonstrance where you may find it but because perchance this Book is not to be had in this place I will refer you to another of his where you will find him saying the same thing that is in his Preface to his four Letters lately published and common enough to be had in every Booksellers shop For there making an Apology to those of his Religion for calling the Bishop of Lincoln most Illustrious and most Reverend in the Letter to him which he wrote in defence of the Church of Rome as to the deposing Doctrine against a Book which his Lordship had published on that Argument he gives his Reasons for it in these following words I had about twelve years since in the Preface to my History of the Irish Remonstrance publickly in Print acknowledged my opinion to be that the Ordination of the Protestant Church of England is valid meaning it undoubtedly to be so according both to the publick Doctrine of the Roman Catholick Schools themselves and the ancient Rituals of all Catholick Churches Latin and Greek nay and to those Rituals of all the Oriental Heterodox Churches too as Morinus a Learned Oratorian hath recorded them Thus far Father Walsh and what can be a more express acknowledgment in a Papist of the thing which you require and this being in Print and to be seen by you when you please to consult the Book to which I direct you I hope you will remember your promise of being of my mind hereon and acquiesce in this Authority But he is not the only man of that Religion that allows our Orders to be good and valid abundance more are of his mind herein and several have taken the same freedom of expressing it although to the disadvantage of their own cause Father Davenport alias Sancta Clare another Priest of the Romish Church is altogether as express in this matter as Father Walsh for in his Exposition on the 36th Article of our Church he proves from Vasquez Conink Arcudius and Innocent the 4th that our Church hath all the