as once mention'd Cum in Universâ Ecclesiâ unam Sacramentorum administrandorum rationem essentialem materiam nimirum formam statuere necesse est nec in Graeca illius portione alia quam manus Impositio queat assignari Indubie sequitur in Latinâ eandem quoque essentialem esse reputandam ibid. but Imposition of Hands and his Inference from all is very remarkable and much against the now prevailing Tenet of the Roman Church That since it 's necessary there should be some one Essential Rule or Method of dispensing Holy Orders in the Vniversal Church and that there can be no other Matter of Orders assign'd in the Eastern parts of that Church but only Imposition of Hands it must follow without Dispute that even in the Latine Church the same exclusive of all other Ceremonies is Essential to them And to this Opinion of his methinks that of St. Chrysostome agrees very well who tells us in plain terms This is Ordination The Hand is laid upon the Man but God Operates the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in Act. Ap. Hom 14. and it 's Gods Hand which touches the Head of the Person Ordained if he be Ordained Regularly If then all this be true if we have indeed the concurrence of so large a part of the Catholick Church as the Greek is and that the Form of words us'd by them is no more Demonstrative of the Order to be conferr'd than ours in the Church of England was at the beginning of the Reformation we can be no more deny'd to have a Regular Succession of Church Officers than they And we may suppose such Considerations mov'd St. Clara P. Walsh and others of the Roman Communion to allow our Orders as full and valid to all intents and purposes But that we want a Power to offer other Sacrifices than those of Praise and Thanksgiving is a Want no more intolerable in our Priests or Presbyters than it was in the Apostles themselves And I have not yet heard of any Catholick Tradition that either our Saviour us'd those words Receive thou Power to offer Sacrifices c. to any Apostle or that the Apostles us'd it to any of those whom they afterwards Commission'd to Preach the Gospel 5. Our Orders then being valid as to to their Essentials notwithstanding that great Pretended defect it will follow that all that Charge laid upon our Church of Heresy and Schism can no way render them imperfect or ineffectual And if the Roman Doctrine of the Indelible Character be true those who assert that must for their own sake defend our Church especially since it 's apprehended by some as we observ'd before that a denial of the Indelible Character would irrecoverably ruine the Sacrament And such indeed was the Doctrine of the Ancient Church in which the Hereticks and Schismaticks are with all Severity prohibited to ordain any or to Administer Sacraments yet if they would still without fear of Ecclesiastical Censure presume to do such things their Actions were good and in full force Antiquity so concurring with that Common Law Maxime Quod fieri non debet factum valet That which of it self or so and so circumstatiated ought not to be done yet when it is once done stands good and irreversible I wonder not indeed that Baptism tho given by Hereticks should be approv'd in the Church of Rome since they allow Lay-men Women Persons unbaptiz'd nay Jews or Turks to baptize in cases of necessity But in so doing they seem much to forget a standing Rule of their own That none can give that to another which he never had himself For as I remember they tell us That Baptism is one of those Sacraments which imprint an indelible Character Yet such is the Doctrine of their great Aquinas They deny indeed that any can give Holy Orders except Bishops but He who is once made a Bishop must continue so to his lifes end nor can the Irregularity of his Conversation nor any Schism created by him in the Church nor any Heresy invested or propagated by him take away that Episcopal Power personally invested in him howsoever the Exercise of that Power may be restrain'd by Civil or Ecclesiastical Constitutions and consequently those capable of Orders who are consecrated by such Bishops are really Deacons Priests or Bishops according to the particular Character impress'd on them So we may find Arrian Bishops Ordaining others of equally Heretical Sentiments with themselves which Persons so Ordain'd if at any time they abjur'd their Heretical Pravity were receiv'd into the Orthodox Church and admitted to exercise the same Offices they were formerly assign'd to without Re-ordination To this purpose we read in the Answers to the Orthodox publish'd among the works of Justin Martyr That the Crime of an Heretick returning to the true Faith if it had been only some false Opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Resp ad Orthod 14. was to be rectified by a change of Judgment if it were an Error in Baptism by Confirmation if in Orders by laying on of Hands which laying on of Hands was no Reordination but only a particular Ceremony whereby the laps'd in time of Persecution as well as those who had fallen into Heresie Laymen as well as Clergy Men were readmitted into Catholick Communion So Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius tells us That it was an Ancient Custom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 7. c. 2. that such should be receiv'd into the Church by Prayer with laying on of hands and Aurelius Bishop of Carthage determining concerning the Schismatical Dotanists orders That seeing it was not lawful to iterate that which was to be given but once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. gen T. 2. p. 1083. if they heartily renounced that Error they may be receiv'd into that one Church the Mother of all Christians by laying on of hands And the same care is taken in the Eighth Canon of the first Council of Nice which is plain it self and so interpreted by Balsamon Zonaras and Aristenus and farther illustrated by our Learned Beverege The same is attested on the part of the Latin Church August cont Epist Par. l. 2. c. 13. Anastasii 2. Epistola ad Anast Imp. de Acacio Acacianis Conc. gen T. 4. c. 7. 8. by St. Austin in his answer to the Epistle of Parmenian the Donatist and by Anastasius the Second of that Name Bishop of Rome in an Epistle to Anastasius Emperour of Constantinople The care taken was only this That the persons should be qualified according to the Canons of the Church in that case provided and that the Persons ordaining should be really Bishops which things being secured the Ordain'd upon Readmission to Catholick Communion retain'd their Offices and Powers still To conclude this then If Orders be no Sacrament in a strict sense if the Essence of them consist only in Imposition of the hands of Bishops if the Greek and Antient Latin Church and the most
in particular was ordain'd Vide Registrum Cantuar ad calcem operum Bramhalli Ep. Armach ex Autographo publicatum were these 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 us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and Love and Soberness If now an Imitation of the Apostles be valid nothing can come nearer to what Scripture tell us of them than those words in the Consecration of a Bishop Nor any thing more agreeable to the Pattern of our Lord in the Commission he gave his Disciples than those us'd in the Consecration of a Priest And where so publick an Advertisement is given to the Congregation of what Office those Consecrated are appointed to tho words to the same purpose may be repeated again as in our later Books of Ordination tho they may serve to illustrate the matter in hand more fully yet there can be no such necessity of them as that the want of them should invalidate the whole Ordinance And as we have no Account in Antiquity of any particular form of words appointed by our Saviour for the conferring of Orders so we are assur'd that according to the most Antient Methods and Ordinals of the Church of Rome it self it 's not the Words but the Imposition of hands that 's essential to Ordination Besides If the Church of Rome in the Collation of Orders according to their latest Pontificals do no more than we do it must seem very unreasonable to condemn us as Defective What they do then in the Ordination of Priests which I shall only Instance in at present is this The Arch-deacon presents those to be Ordain'd to the Bishop with these words Most Reverend Father our Holy Mother the Catholick Church requires that You ordain these Deacons here present to the Burthen of Priesthood Archdiaconus praesentat Ordinandos Pontifici dicens Reverendissime Pater postulat sancta mater Ecclesia Catholica ut hos praesentes Diaconos ad onus Presbyterii ordinetis Quorum meritis Archdiacono testimonium exhibento Pontifex annunciat Clero populo dicens Quoniam fratres Charissimi c. postea Horum siquidem Diaconorum in Presbyteros ordinandorum auxiliante Domino c. Post haec surgunt omnes ordinandis coram Pontifice binis binis successive genu flectionibus Pontifex stans ante Faldistorium suum cum Mitra nullâ oratione nulloque cantu premissis imponit simul utramque manum super caput cujuslibet ordinandi successivè nihil dicens idemque faciunt post eum omnes Sacerdotes qui adsunt Quo facto tam Pontifex quà m Sacerdotes tenent manus dexteras extensas super illos Pontifex stans dicit Oremus fratres Charissimi c. postea precatur Exaudi nos quaesumus Domine Deus noster c. Ut super hos famulos suos quos ad Presbyterii manus elegit coelestia dona multiplicet c. Tum Pontifex claudit inungit manus cuilibet successive quas sic consecratas aliquis Ministrorum Pontificis albo panniculo lineo simul viz. dextram super sinistram alligat Omnium manibus unctis consecratis Pontifex tradit cuilibet successive calicem cum vino aquá Patenam superpositam cum Hostiá ipsi illam accipiunt inter indices medios Digitos Cappam Calicis patenam simul tangunt Pontifice singulis dicente Accipe Potestatem c. Quo finito Pontifex cum Mitrâ sedens super Faldistorium ante medium altaris imponit ambas manus super capita singulorum coram eo genu flectentium dicens cuilibet Accipe Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseris peccata remittuntur quorum retinueris retenta sunt Pontif. Rom. in Ordin Presb. after the Arch-deacons attestation to their Merits the Bishop at large declares to the People his design to promote those Deacons so presented to the Office of Priesthood requiring their testimony to their Conversation c. Then having given an Exhortation to the Persons to be Ordain'd when it 's done all stand up and those design'd for Ordination kneel down successively by two and two before the Bishop The Bishop standing before his Faldstool with his Mitre on without any Prayer or Anthem premised puts both his hands successively upon the head of every one not speaking a word After him all the Priests who are present do the same which being done the Bishop and Priests together lay hands on them and the Bishop standing exhorts the people to pray to God to send his manifold gifts upon those whom he has now call'd to the Priestly Office which very expression intimates the Sacerdotal Character already imprinted and the Prayer to that purpose follows After several other Ceremonies and Prayers the Bishop having anointed their hands and one of his Attendants having ty'd them together with a Linnen Fillet he reaches out to them the Chalice with some Wine and Water in it and the Patten with an Hoast upon it which they take between their fore and middle fingers touching the Bolle of the Chalice and Patten at the same time when the Bishop uses those words Receive thou power c. And here Mass being celebrated the Ordain'd Communicate but only in one kind and standing before the Altar make a Confession of their Faith in the words of the Apostles Creed which when they have done the Bishop sitting upon his Faldstool with his Mitre on before the middle of the Altar and they kneeling down before him he puts his hands upon every one of their heads saying to every one distinctly Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. These are the most considerable Circumstances in ordaining a Priest of the Church of Rome in all which if Imposition of Hands only Impress the Sacerdotal Character and the touching of the Vessels be only Novel and Adventitious then it plainly follows That the Bishops of that Church in giving Holy Orders do no more declare what particular Office that Imposition of hands relates to than the Church of England in her eldest Rituals since the Reformation But if we examine things farther we shall find them much more defective for whereas by the Roman Rubrick the Bishop lays hands on the Ordain'd three several times and the first time uses no words at all it 's the conclusion of the formerly-cited Merbesius and he pretends to good company in it that That first Imposition of Hands that 's in silence confers the Priestly Character which he proves by 1 Tim. 4.14 Stir up the Gift which is in thee and which was given thee by Prophesie and by the Laying on of the hands of the Presbytery where the Apostle resolves Orders into that particular Action Then telling us how general his Opinion is he concludes Therefore it 's the first Imposition of Hands by which they are made Priests Ista igitur prima Manuum Impositio ea est per
learned persons of the Latin Communion now agree in that Doctrine if the Church of England in her first reform'd Rituals gave as clear an Assignation to his particular Office to the Person ordain'd as either the Greek or Roman Church do at present and finally if real Heresy or Schism cannot annihilate Episcopal Sacerdotal power The consequence of all must be That our Orders are still good and valid and the Establish'd Church of England so far at least a true and sound Member of the Catholick Church of Christ And now it were no difficult Matter to retort the Objection against our Adversaries and prove the invalidity of their Orders upon the Principles and Practices of their own Church For 1. They tell us That it 's the Intention of the Priest not the Form or Matter of Institution that makes the Sacrament So that tho a Man be ordain'd a Priest or a Bishop with all the Ceremonies of the Pontifical and by a Bishop with those very words now made use of in the Exhibition of the Vessels yet if the Bishop minds not what he 's about or intend not to do what the Church intends the Ordain'd remains still without either Character or Power by which means if one Bishop has but once fail'd in the Collation of Orders they run down for ought they know in infinitum without any due Consecration and since humane Frailties are so many and the Artifices of Hell so incessant and prevailing as we must needs have a great many Doubts naturally grow upon us concerning the Intentions of those whole lives we see Extravagant and Impious so from thence we necessarily deduce an Infinity of Uncertaintys If this Conceipt were only the Caprice of some wild Head it were the less considerable But it 's the determination of their oraculous Council of Trent Si quis dixerit in Ministris dum Sacramenta conficiunt conferunt non requiri intentionem saltem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia Anathema sit Sessio 7. Can. 11. that If any shall say there is not required in Ministers while they Consecrate and dispence the Sacraments an Intention at least of doing what the Church does Let that Person so saying be accurs'd And the Annotators upon the Plantin Edition of that Council refers us to the Decrees of Eugenius the 4th in the Florentine Council where we are taught That the Sacraments are perfected by three things By outward Signs Omnia Sacramenta tribus persiciuntur videlicet Rebus tanquam Materia Verbis tanquam Forma Persona Ministri conferentis Sacramentum cum intentione faciendi quod facit Ecclesia quorum si aliquod desit non perficit Sacramentum Instruct ad Armenos Conc. gen T. 13. p. 535. as the Matter by Words as the Form and by the Person of the Minister dispensing the Sacrament with an intention of doing that which the Church does of which three things if any one be wanting there can be no Sacrament It were an easie work to confute this Opinion as being both Unscriptural and Irrational Sacramenta ministrari possunt à bonis à malis à fidelibus infidelibus infra Ecclesiam extra quia si dispensari possint tantum à bonis nullus esset certus de susceptione Sacramenti cum nullus fit certus de bonitate Ministri sicut nec de propria ita oporteret semper iterari malitia unius praejudicaret alienae saluti Lindwood Constit prov l. 1. tit 7. gl pro quibus citat B. Thom. Edit Oxon. 1679. Intra Catholicam Ecclesiam in Mysterio Corporis Sanguinis Domini nihil à bono majus nihil à malo minus perficitur Sacerdote quia non in merito Consecratis sed in verbo perficitur Creatoris virtute Spiritus Sancti Decreti p. 2. c. 1. Qu. 1. citat ex Augustino contra Epist Parmen l. 2. and how it thwarts the Doctrine of some great Men of your own may be seen by those Passages in the Margin but as they assert it it is Argumentum ad Homines the consequence of which we know well enough the Truth we shall leave them to make good as well as they can But if we look upon Consecration to Church Offices only as an Holy Ordinance but no Sacrament We may then challenge the Church of Rome as introducing a Nullity in their Orders by so notorious a deviation from the Examples of Christ and his Apostles from the Methods of the Ancient Vniversal Church and from their own Authentick Constitutions to prove which Crime of theirs we may recur to those Authorities before insisted on From which we learn That Imposition of Hands was the only Essence of Orders that their modern Ceremonies are meer Innovations and as by them us'd shameful Corruptions of the first Institution For tho' we allow that Power to the Governors of every true Christian Church to add some significant Ceremonies to a Divine Ordinance provided they are neither Indecent Superstitious nor Troublesome and therefore might pass by that addition of touching the Consecrated Vessels among other little Fooleries of that Church Yet since they have fixt the Essence of that Ordinance in that touching of those Vessels and have made Imposition of Hands rather an impertinent Formality than a matter of Necessity as may appear from that of Gregory the Ninth In fragmentis Decretalium we cannot but conclude that they have gone beyond all bounds of Just Ecclesiastical Authority For in that Decree as it 's plain that Imposition of Hands is made a meer non-essential Circumstance so it infers a Power in persons Ordain'd to execute their Functions in all parts Presbyter Diaconus cum ordinantur Manus impositionem tactu corporali â—itu ab Apostolis introducto recipiunt Quod si omissum fuerit non est aliquatenus iterandum sed statuto tempore ad hujusmodi Ordines conferendos cautè supplendum quod per errorem extitit praetermissum Concil general T. 11. p. 384. c. 52. Epist ad Archiepiesc Lond. In margine vero decretalium melius legitur Lugdunensem as occasion requires without it for it lays no prohibition on them and yet orders the supplying of all defects only at Canonical times the Interstices of which are long enough to admit various exertions of Diaconal or Sacerdotal Power Nor does the Gloss upon this part of the Canon Law help the matter at all though it be clog'd with a Superfaetation of Notes For tho' the first be That a Deacon and Presbyter ought to be Ordain'd by Imposition of Hands the second that that manner of Ordination is deduc'd from Apostolical example Nota 1. Quòd Presbyter Diaconus per manus Impositionem debet Ordinari Item Nota. Quòd Ordinatio Sacerdotis Diaconi introducta est exemplo Apostolorum Item nota quòd idem est in parte quod in toto Item Quòd duo imperfecta faciunt unum perfectum Decretal Greg. l. 1. Tit. 16. c. 3. gl p. 282.