a power wholly superadded or as the restraint of a power diffused it is clear that the exercise of that power the performance of Ordination was setled upon certain and speciall persons who were properly Bishops and Chief Pastors by Apostolical appointment and practice Of which there are so clear footsteps in Scripture suchapparent Monuments and Records in Antiquity that it is no less then a wonder any Learned Judicious Man should think it could be otherwise or conceive as the Presbyterians generally that this Order was afterwards set in the Church as an humane though prudent invention to avoid Schism and preserve Unity and not withall conceive it reasonable to think the Apostles did foresee that Reason and provide against it when as we hear Saint Paul complaining of it 1 Cor. 1. and Saint Hierom refers that Order of setting Bishops over Presbyters to that very cause pointing out that very time when some said I am of Paul I of Cephas 22. If therefor Doctor Field when he answered that Ordinations without Bishops were void according to the rigor of the ancient Canons did mean that such Ordinations offended only against Ecclesiastical Constitutions we grant that Champny duly proves it otherwise and do acknowledg them transgressions not only of Ecclesiastical but Apostolical Constitution and Practice but we are not therefore bound to yeild an utter nullity of them in all cases ex naturâ rei as he contends unless he can clearly demonstrat this faculty or office of ordaining to stand in a distinct power wholly superadded and not in the extension of the Priestly Order or limiting of the exercise of that power conceiv'd to be radically diffus'd with it Thus indeed Doctor Field as I said seems to conceive it and thereupon to deny such Ordination to be Null in themselves ex naturâ rei yet withal to hold as may be gathered out of his 5. book cap. 27. that this Order or limiting of the Power in the exercise of it to certain special persons was by Apostolical appointment 23. And no question the antient Church had respect to that Apostolical constitution when she pronounced such Ordinations without Bishops to be void and Null as repugnant to that constitution not defining whether they were void ex naturâ rei but declaring she had good cause to account them void and not to admit any to officiate that did so wilfully transgress against Apostolical order and practice and could have there being Bishops then at hand in every Nation where Christian Faith was professed no pretence of necessity or of loosing the band by which the Apostles had restrained the exercise of that power to certain persons thereunto consecrated And if any Presbyter should have heretofore presumed to ordain within the Church of England their Ordinations had deserved to be accounted of no otherwise then as void And so within every Church completed and regularly formed according to Apostolical Order ought they to be accounted 24. Now that I may draw to a Conclusion and freely speak what I think of the two forementioned wayes of conceiving the Ordaining power to be estated by the Apostles upon special and select men properly called Bishops or chief Pastors I suppose the first way which conceives it superadded as a distinct power to their Priestly function to be the clearer for securing the Episcopal function and distinguishing it from the other but the second way which conceives that power radically diffused and communicated in the very order of the Priestly function and restrained to such select persons in the exercise of it the faculty or immediate power whereof they received by consecration I suppose to be more easie and expedient for a peaceable accord of the difference in hand and yet safe enough for Episcopal Ordination 25. The first way conceives the Apostles who had the whole power given them by Christ both the extraordinary Apostolical power and that which was ordinary and to continue in the Church did communicate this power severally That which belonged to the office of Deacons to persons chosen for that purpose That which belonged to the Ministery of reconciliation to all Pastors or Presbyters So likewise That power of sending and ordaining others to these Offices was communicated entirely unto special persons appointed and consecrated to that work This as I said is more clear in the distinguishing of the several Functions of holy Order But the second way which estates the power or faculty of Ordaining upon special persons by restraining the exercise of it to them seems as above said to be more fair and easie for the making up this business of the Reformed Churches which have Ordination without Bishops and yet to afford safety enough to Episcopal function and Ordination For it first supposes that to be established and secured by Apostolical Order which none can transgress wilfully without Sacrilege and consequently it acknowledges such Ordinations without Bishops to be irregular and deficient in regard of Apostolical order and constitution and that they ought to receive a supply completion and confirmation by the imposing of Bishops hands before the persons so Ordained can be admitted to officiat in a Church completed and regularly formed Lastly by this way whatsoever is spoken by S. Hierom in appearance favourable to the Presbyterian pretence may be cleared and reconciled to Truth and by it may be answered also whatever is brought by Champny or others to prove such Ordinations utterly or ex naturâ rei null and void in all cases 26. I will not trouble the Reader to hear any long Scholastick contest with Champny in the business only I shal shew by one instance how well he hath acquitted himself in the defense of his assertion against the former argument of a Bishop ordained per saltum and therefore not having power to ordain others or consecrate the Sacrament because he wants the Priestly Order That which he replies to it returns more forcibly upon himself A Bishop per saltum cannot ordain and why Sicut ex eo c. Even as saith he because the Priestly function is exercised both about the Mystical body of Christ in absolving and binding and also about the Natural body of Christ in consecrating of it it doth not therefore follow there is a diverse Order but a diverse power of the same Order So the power of Ordaining though it make not a distinct Order from that of the Priestly Function yet is it a distinct power of Order To this purpose he cap. 7. pag. 183 184. But this comes not home to Ordination per saltum where it is supposed that the power of Ordaining is not given at all because the Priestly Order is wanting This also returns more forcibly upon him by applying it thus according to his reasoning Even as the Powers of absolving and consecrating are distinct yet both conteined within one Order of the Priestly function so may the power of Ordaining though distinct from the other be formally and immediately conteined
no Churches or not to belong to the Church of Christ because of that want or defect in the Vocation or Ordination of their Pastors 17. Those companies indeed of Christians who believed in India upon the preaching of Frumentius belonged to the Church of Christ before they received Pastors from the Bishop of Alexandria and that multitude which believed in Samaria upon the preaching of Philip and were baptized by him were indeed of the Church and a Church of Christ though not completed til Peter and John went down with due Autority to set all in order there Accordingly we may account of those Reformed Churches which have not their Pastors sent and ordained as from the beginning as of Congregations not regularly formed as Churches not completed not indeed without Pastors altogether as those of India and Samaria at the first were but having such as they can viz. such as have if we wil speak properly the Vocation on Election of their respective Churches which is one thing in the calling of Pastors but not due Ordination which is the main thing in impowering them to the exercise of the office and so are Pastors by a moral designation to the Office rather then any real or due consecration which only is by those hands that have received the power of sending or Ordaining Pastors from the Apostles 18. It must be granted that the Vocation of such Pastors is deficient and their Ordination irregular and that not only by the Ecclesiastical Canons in that behalf but also by Apostolical Order and practice Yet because they hold the Faith which is the chief point in the constitution of the Church and have not wilfully departed from that Apostolical Order and way of the Church by the breach of Charity in condemning and rejecting it but do approve of it where it may be had we cannot say that irregularity or deficiency infers a plain Nullity in their Pastors and Churches as Champny will have it but stands in a condition of receiving a supply or completion and is in the mean time so far excusable as the want or not having of that Supply is of Necessity and not of Choice 19. But Champny will admit of no excuse either of irregularity confessed in the calling so their Pastors or of Necessity pleaded as the cause enforcing it But proceeds to prove such a nullity in their Ordinations that it concludes them to have no Pastors at all and no Church This argument he pursues chiefly against Doctor Field Distinction of the power of Bishops and Presbyters as to Ordination who in the 3. book of the Church cap. 39. had endeavoured in behalf of the Reformed Churches that have not Bishops to shew that their Ordinations though not regular according to the way of the Church yet were not simply invalid and that by the Doctrine of the best Schoolmen who held the Office of a Bishop to be not a distinct Order or to imprint a distinct Character from that of the Priestly function which also they proved by this instance A Bishop Ordained per saltum i. e. who was not first made Presbyter cannot either consecrate the Sacrament or Ordain others but a Priest or Presbyter ordained per saltum may execute the office of the Deacon by reason that the Superior Order conteins in it self the Inferior whence Doctor Field would have it concluded That Bishop and Presbyter differ not in Order or in the very power of Order but in eminency and dignity of an Office to which Ordination and other performances as Confirmation public absolution c. are reserved also that when the antient Church declared Ordination by Presbyters to be void and null it is to be understood according to the rigour of the Canons not that all such Ordinations were simply null ex naturâ rei and in themselves or not to be born with in any Case 20. See we now what Champny replies to all this and then consider what may be reasonably allowed and said as to this point His answer is to this purpose That those Schoolmen if they hold not Episcopacy to be a distinct Order yet say it is a distinct power if not a different Character yet a new Extension of the former Sacerdotal Character and that the Argument from Ordination per saltum doth not disprove the latter way Lastly that such Presbyterian Ordinations were in the judgment of the Ancient Church Null ex naturâ rei and not by the Ecclesiastical Canons only for that judgment or sentence of the Church was not a Constitutive decree for then the beginning of it would appear in the Canons of the Ancient Councels but only Declarative of what was so in it self from the beginning of the Church This he in his 7. Chap. 21. Here something is doubtful and questionable something clear and apparent That Bishops had a power or faculty to do something which Presbyters could not namely to ordain is clear in Schoolmen and Fathers but whether that power make the Episcopal function a distinct Order from the Priestly or imprint a different sacramental character we leave it to the Schoolmen to dispute Also we grant that Bishops receive and exercise that power as Champny saith truly not by a Moral designation only as Judges and Officers in a State do for the time of their office or as those among the Presbyters seem to do who are assigned to ordain others but by Real consecration or sacred devoting them to that office or work of ordaining and sending others Which consecration though it imprint not a Sacramental Character on the Soul as the Romanists express it yet it gives to the Person so ordained devoted such a faculty or habitude to that action or work as cannot be taken from him the reason of which we shall enquire below where occasion is given to speak more of that which the Romanists call Character indelible in this point of Holy Orders Furthermore whether this office of Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function Two wayes of conceiving the power of Ordination in Bishops Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function which is one way of conceiving it or a faculty of exercising that power supposed to be radicated or founded in the Priestly Order and diffused with it by restraining it to certain persons consecrated for that performance it may be questioned Doctor Field seeme plainly to conceive it this latter way and so do the Schoolmen alleged by him and Champny's expression of their sense by extention of the Sacerdotal Character if it have any sense speaks as much viz. the dilating of that which was before in the Sacerdotal Order radically by extending that Radical power unto a proxima potentia or immediat faculty in certain persons consecrated to the exercise of it and keeping it restrained in all others of that Order who are not so consecrated and devoted to that great work of Ordaining and sending others Lastly whether we conceive of it as
by our Saviour and his Apostles must affirm that going out from the Communion of a Church determined to such a place or succession is not always a going out of the Church for that Church may happily usurp a Jurisdiction and require an unlawful subjection and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and that a Church continuing the same for place and succession may yet go out from it self i. e. from what it was anciently by taking to it self a new unwarrantable power of Jurisdiction and forsaking the Doctrine it anciently professed 12. For a Church to go out of it self and return to it self needs not seem any strange thing or phrase it is what we see in every Penitent Sinner and read of that unthrifty Son S. Luk. 15.17 that he came to himself he was gone out of himself before But to clear it in regard of the Church by instances When the Arrians possessed all the Bishops Sees and ruled the whole Church as to the more Visible state of it the true Catholicks driven into corners and so few or so little seen that the Emperour Constantius thought he had cause to say the whole Christian World was against Athanasius What could be judged of Heresie Schism then according to this Argument without taking in the Doctrine of Faith For first Champny will not say that they which were Baptised in the Communion of the Arrian Church were bound to continue in it nor will he judg them Hereticks or Schismaticks for going out of it If he say they could shew the Arrian Church gone out of a more Antient it is very true but they could not shew this by local succession but by forsaking of antient Doctrine For the same Bishops for the most part which before was Catholic did with their flocks turn Arrian and so the place and persons were the same only the Doctrine or Faith was changed by reason of which they might truly be said to go out of the more Antient Church not by change of place and persons in regard of which the face and visible Communion of the Arrian Churches was stil the same but of Christian Faith and Doctrine It was elegantly said of Nazianzen Orat. 21. in the case of Athanasius that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agreeing both in Seat and Doctrine with the Catholic Bishops that went before him but not so with the Arrian Bishops who though no intruders as those that of Catholicks turn'd Arrian held the same Seats with those that sat before them but not the same Doctrine 13. Of our going out of the Church of Rome This premised it is easie to answer I. That although we received Baptism and Christianity at first from the Church of Rome in the time of Gregory the Great which we thankfully acknowledg yet are we not therefore bound to receive or continue in the accrewing errors of that Church and although Cranmer and those of his time were Baptized in the Communion of that Church yet not bound therefore to continue in it as neither were they whom the Arrians Eutychians or Monothelites converted and Baptized bound to continue in those prevailing Heresies when once brought to a knowledg of them II. That our going out from the Church of Rome was a going out in regard of the Papal Jurisdiction from under a yoke and Tyranny which that Church had usurped over this Nation greater and heavier then any of the former Hereticks laid upon Christian people over whom they prevailed in regard of the Doctrine it was a going out of that Church no otherwise then we went out of our selves i.e. out of our errors in which we were before a going out of that Church so far as it had gone out from it self what antiently it was by Errors and Superstition in the Belief and Worship which it required of all within her Communion 14. And thus Cranmer shewed that the Church of Rome was so gone out when for three dayes together he boldly and learnedly argued before the whole Parliament against the six Articles to the admiration but grief of his Adversaries shewing plainly how the Church of Rome in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Half Communion Priests Marriage Image-Worship was departed or gone out of it self Which also as to the main point of Papal Jurisdiction or Supremacie Gardiner Tunstal Stokesly and the most learned of that party did demonstrate by Scripture Fathers Councels Reasons Here is all the difference that when the Arrian or Eutychian Heresie prevailed it was more clear and notorious because it was a change of Doctrine by one singular Heresie whereas the Romish change of Doctrine was not by one or so immediat to the foundation or at once comming in but by many errors creeping in successively and by degrees also the continuance of the other Heresies in their prevailing condition was not so long but Men could remember it had been otherwise whereas the Errors of the Church of Rome have had the happiness or unluckiness rather in these Western parts to continue longer and to be upheld and propagated with more Policy and force though complained of and professed against more or less in all Ages since they became Notorious But this continuance of Time is only the Pharisees Dictum Antiquis it was said by them of old S. Mat. 25. No prescription against Truth that was before the Error or against our Saviours caution Non sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning 15. He adds a fourth Argument He that joyns himself to that Society which cannot shew it self Christian but by the Tradition and Succession of that Church which he hath forsaken and Opposed is an Heretick But Cranmer joyned himself to that Society or Congregation which cannot shew it self to be Christian but by c. Answer How we may prove our Christianity by the Romish Church how not For a Man or Nation to prove their Christianity by another Church for example the Roman may be taken in several respects either because such a Man or Nation were converted to the Christian faith or received Baptism or Ordination in and by that Church In all these respects we grant the Assumption that Cranmer the first Reformed English could not prove they received the Christian Faith or Baptism or Ordination in any other Church then the Roman but we say the Proposition is false and doth not make them Hereticks in forsaking a Church wherein they have received these or joyning themselves to those that have had them from thence also For instance If of two Gottish Nations which the Arrians by their Bishop Vlfilas and others converted from Heathenisme to Christianity and Baptized them and ordained them Pastors but infected with their Heresie one of them renouncing the Heresie and forsaking the Communion of them that they were made Christians by the other Nation also should see and forsake the Error and joyn with the former were then the Argument good against this latter Nation to prove
though derived to us from the Church of Rome appears sufficiently by Bucer Peter Martyr and other Protestants being here in England and assisting our Bishops in the work of Reformation also by the Letters of the chief and best Learned in those Churches Calvin Zanchy c. to our Bishops and to others concerning them whose Testimonies collected by the Bishop of Durham were published in these Times and opposed to our Covenanters and all other Sectaries that attempted the extirpation of Episcopacy as Antichristian 7. As for the sayings which Champny gives us out of Luther Calvin Mornaeus to whom he adds Fulk and Whitaker rejecting and condemning the Romish Ordinations as Antichristian corrupt and unlawful he might remember that elsewhere he tels us of their pleading by them their alledging that Luther Bucer Oecolampad c. were ordained in the Church of Rome c. 4. and 9. and he could not but know that Fulk and Whitaker allowed of Bishops here and were ordained by them But hence he concludes them all to be taken in a contrary tale and put to a miserable shift For ask them saith he Whence came ye who sent you they will tell us they came from the same stock and originall as the Pastors of the Catholic Roman Church did for their first Doctors Luther Bucer Zuinglius were by them ordained Priests ask them again how can they account that to be a lawfull calling which is derived from the Ministers of Antichrist they will not stick to defy those Orders and Ordinations and presently flie to an extraordinary vocation So he c. 9. p. 323. 324. And yet this seeming contradiction is very reconcilable For when they reject the Ordinations received from Romish Bishops as corrupt and Antichristian they do it not simply as if they were Null or none at all but in regard of the additionall abuses especially that great and sacrilegious depravation of giving such a sacrificing power and placing the Priestly function chiefly in it Therefore so far as the Romish Ordinations pretend to give that power with other superadded abuses they are justly condemned and rejected but in as much as they retain withall the words of the Evangelicall commisson Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c which give the power of the Ministery of reconciliation in the dispensing of the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel they are valid and good and not to be reiterated where they are given 8. By this power of Order received in the Roman Church Luther Zuinglius Oecolamp and others had lawfull calling to preach the Word yea to preach against the very Errors of that Church which considering the condition of that Church and the Errors of it they might do and for any thing I know they did lawfully without transgressing the bounds and limits of submission due to a Church which I endevoured to fix at the beginning of this Treatise 9. Plea of â—extraordinary Vocation Now what is spoken by some of extraordinary Vocation as that implyes a renouncing of Orders received from Rome must not be taken as the generall plea or judgment of those Churches for we heard them pleading Orders received in the Roman Church and Luther wrote very well as Champny cites him chap. 8. against Munster and others that pretended to extraordinary Vocation bidding them prove it by Signs and Miracles Again that extraordinary calling which some in the Reformed Churches have alleged sounds not any new office they pretend to be call'd to but that of Pastors and Teachers and according to the end it was instituted for nor other way of comming to that office but by external vocation from men but it implies some difference from or failing in the ordinary and usual way of ordaining to that office viz. by Bishops for which they plead their case and concernment was extraordinary which rests upon them to demonstrate 10. Hitherto of their judgment in the point from whence we infer that the present Reformed Churches if they follow the judgment of the first Reformers and of the most sober and learned men that have been in them since must allow of our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from the Church of Rome and Champny must acknowledg an agreement so far between us Now for their Practise not conformable to that Judgment as we cannot approve of it so are we ready to excuse their failing so far as the necessity they plead will bear leaving it to the Romanists desperatly to cut off Nations and People from the Church for failings and wants in such things as do not immediatly touch the very life and being of a Church or of the Members of it 11. Two things in the constitution and continuance of the Church To this purpose there are two things considerable in the constitution and continuance of the Church both necessary though not equally 1. The Doctrine of Faith and Life the due profession of which makes a man a Member of the Visible Catholic Church and the true belief and practise of which makes him a lively Member of the true Symbolical Catholic Church that which we believe in the Creed that which is the true mystical body of Christ 2. The order of Ministery and Government in the Church for bringing of Men to that due profession of Doctrine and so on to be true lively Members of the body of Christ and for holding them in the Unity of faith To this end Pastors and Teachers in whom that Ministery and Government rests are given by our Saviour Eph. 4.11 12 13. 12. Concerning these two things are clear First that although Apostles Prophets Evangelists there mentioned and taken in a stricter sense were only then given and for those Times yet Pastors and Teachers were given to continue to the worlds end The purpose for which he gave them expressed Eph. 4.1 doth imply so much and so doth his Commission given to them As my Father sent me so I send you S. Jo. 20. by vertue whereof they were to send others and so doth his promise given them imply as much I am with you to the end of the world S. Math. 28. Secondly That this giving or sending of Pastors was to be continued by such as our Saviour appointed and his Apostles after him I send you saith he and accordingly they committed this power of sending or ordaining Pastors unto the hands of special men such as Timothy Titus Sylvanus Sosthenes Clemens Epaphroditus c. Whom we find either written to by the Apostle or joyned with him in the inscription of his Epistles to the Churches or honourably mentiond for special labour and care in the affairs of the Church whom Antiquity also witnesseth to have been chief Pastors or Bishops in governing the Churches planted by the Apostles Such also and no other could be the Angels of the Asian Churches written to by S. John or by our Saviour rather 12. The concernment and necessity of 〈◊〉 But as it is clear that the having
oper where cap. 1. and 15. he confutes them who conceived by mistake of the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3.15 that those which dyed professed of the Christian saith might be purged from all their evill works by some fire and so come to salvation merito fundamenti by reason of the foundation held also in his Enchirid cap. 109. and in 1. quest ad Dulcitium and in his 20. and 21. books de Civ Dei Now though they differed in their conceits about this fire whether it was immediatly after death or at last day commonly cald Ignis conflagrationis and about the Persons to be purged and helped by it yet all of them seem to conceive it to be a fire of Passage only for souls to go through to their appointed receptacles not a fire of Durance for souls to lie in as in a receptacle till the day of judgment as the Romanists believe it All that Augustine concludes upon it is nothing but uncertainty Tale aliquid some such thing may be after this life and quaeri potest it may be put to the question non est incredibile it is not incredible and forsitan verum est perchance it may be true so he of it in the forementioned places We see by this how from the curiosity of some of the Ancients enquiring after relief and help for those Dead whose state was of more uncertain condition Romish superstition hath taken her rise and how from the private opinions and uncertain conceits of some of the Ancients length of Time and strength of Romish presumption hath framed Articles of Faith this of Purgatory for one in respect to which and relief of the Souls tormented therein their Priests receive power to offer Sacrifice even the body and blood of our Saviour 11. Now to conclude By all that hath been said it appears how groundless unwarrantable and presumptuous this power is which the Romish Priests pretend to and how that power which our Priests or Presbyters receive in ordination and use in celebrating the Eucharist is warranted by the express Word and doth the whole work of the Sacrament sufficiently according to all purposes that our Saviour intended it for when he said do this and according to the true and proper meaning of the Fathers speaking usually of a Sacrifice in it And this is so much more considerable because the Romanists place the highest and chiefest act of Worship Evangelicall in this Sacrifice of the Mass and account the chief power and perfection of Evangelicall Priesthood or ministration totam vel maximam perfectionem sacri Ordinis saith Champny pag. 184. to be in this reall Sacrificing or offering up the body and blood of Christ And therfore it is most strange that in all the Evangelicall Writings there should be no Precept for such a Worship no institution of such a Sacrifice no commission for using such a power and that seeing the Apostle had often just occasion to speak of such a Sacrifice and Priesthood in his Epistle to the Hebrews nay had all the reason that could be to have acquainted them with it had there been any such whereas we shew express commands for that way of Worship we retein which with the Romanists is nothing in comparison of their Mass We shew direct commission for that power we use of Preaching Binding Loosing consecrating and celebrating the Sacraments which they account but dependent and subservient to the power of making the body of Christ and offering it up As for their pretence by our Saviours command Do this we found them thereby engaged to affirm that Christ offered himself up to his Father for the sins of the world in the Sacrament flat contrary to the tenour of the Gospel which yeilds that only to the Cross and expresly contrary to Saint Paul who affirmes he offered himself but once for sin Heb. cap. 7. and cap. 9. see above Num. 3. And when they have perswaded themselves of this untruth that Christ offered himself up in the Eucharist how can they assure themselves that do this warrants them to do all they suppose he did i.e. to offer him up as he did himself It is enough for us men to do this as a Sacramentall action blessing distributing eating drinking and by adding to it in remembrance of me he plainly shews he meant no real Sacrifical action by offering him up again but the Sacramental only by representing and remembring his once offering up himself to death and so the Apostle tells us Do this imports 1 Cor. 11. How great presumption is this for Mortal man to take upon him thus to offer up the Son of God Bell lib. 3. Bellarm. vain exception to excuse the Romish presumption de Pontif. Ro. c 19. writing of Antichrist and answering to this as a piece of Antichristianisme charged upon the Church of Rome dare not simply affirme that the Priest offers up Christ but that Christ offers up himself per manus Sacerdotis by the hands of the Priest Whether Bellarmine mend or marre his business here its hard to say This we know that Christ our High-Priest according to the Apostle Heb. 7.25 and 9.24 is in Heaven at Gods right hand executing his eternal Priesthood by interceding for us and in that representing still what he hath done and suffered for us And we know we have warrant and his appointment to do the like Sacramentally here below i.e. in the celebration of the Eucharist to remember his Death and Passion and to represent his own Oblation upon the Cross and by it to beg and impetrate what we or the Church stand in need of We know also that as He gives His Ministers Commission and Autority to do this so he assists them here below by his power and grace But that Christ should daily here below offer himself up personally for this Bellarmine must affirm in his qualifying of the Romis◠presumption by the hands of the Priest is inconsistent with that once offering of himself on the Cross and with the present performance of his Priesthood in Heaven where he is ever to intercede for us Heb. 7.25 and to appeare in the sight of God for us Heb. 9.24 This also would turn our Saviours command Do this in remembrance of me by which the Romanists pretend to take thus much upon them into a promise I will do this in remembrance of my self by your hands A meaning of our Saviours words which the Apostle knew not whē he told the Corinthians what it was to do this so oft as ye eat and drink this 1 Cor. 11. Yea the Priest saith directly in order of their Mass Suscipe Pater hanc Hostiam quam ego indignus servus tuus offero tibi Receive O Father this Sacrifice which I thine unworthy servant do offer up unto thee They that composed this prayer knew not that Christ as the Cardinal contrives it offered up himself there by the hands of the Priest or rather knew not that Christ was there