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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	bishop_n	ordain_v	ordination_n	5,404	5	10.8138	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76163	A sermon preached at Bridgwater at an ordination of ministers, August 2. 1698. By J.B. Published at the request of some of the hearers.	J. B.	1699 (1699)	Wing B123A; ESTC R172637	21,060	32

unprovided of a Form of Prayer if a Form had been necessary This Argument which some have well improv'd carries that weight with it that they that are for the imposing of Forms do yet acknowledge that such Forms of Prayer from which it was not lawfull for the Minister to vary were not imposed for the first three Centuries and consequently that they came not into the Christian Church till about four or five hundred years after Christ Now to take off this prejudice they tell us that then there was no need of them Ministers were supplied with extraordinary Gifts Gifts of Tongues Gifts of Miracles Gifts of Prophesie I confess 't is very evident that such extraordinary Gifts were then bestowed but that every one that was ordain'd to the Ministry had thereupon a constant extraordinary Gift either for Prayer or Preaching is sooner said than prov'd Nay rather the contrary to this is evident that tho' the first general Preachers of the Gospel that were not limited to this or that Church but were to spread the Gospel in all Places and Nations tho' I say these no doubt had such an extraordinay Gift it doth not appear that all others had it The directions that St. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus about the Qualifications of Ministers do plainly intimate the contrary So that stinted Forms of Prayer coming into the Church not till four or five hundred years after Christ whether the imposing of Forms of Prayer be to be justified from hence because about 500 years after Christ they were impos'd I say whether this be a good argument must be determined from the state of the Church at that time As to this all that I shall say is to repeat the words of one that hath ransacked all the Corners penetrated the inwards and dived to the bottom of Antiquity viz. Mr. Clerkson p. 181. speaking of the Introduction of Liturgies They were not entertained till nothing was admitted into the Church de novo but corruptions or the Issues of them no change made in the ancient Usages but for the worse no Notions from its Primitive State but downwards into degeneracy till such orders took place as respected not what was most agreeable to the rule and primitive Usage or what was best to uphold the life and power of Religion in its solemn Exercises or what might secure it from that dead Heartlesness and Formality into which Christianity was sinking In a word not till the Church was rather to be pitied than imitated Thus far Mr. Clerkson I confess however 't is a cunning Device for by this means viz. the casting out of all Prayer but what is read out of a Book there will be no discernable difference of Ministers Gifts but they will hardly be able to prevent the people from saying this way of Pryer is no more than we our selves can do why should we maintain and honour men for doing no more than a Boy of ten or twelve years old can do nay there will be a greater inconvenience than this Let Ministers be provided for with Forms of Prayer made to their hands without putting forth themselves to exercise the Gift of Prayer and in time they will be unable to pray otherwise Secondly A Minister should be able to speak from God to the people to declare the whole Will and Counsel of God to them The Work and Design of the Ministry is to better Mankind to turn men from their evil ways and from the evil of their doings surely such a work doth require Gifts of Knowledge and Utterance Conversion doth restore man to the image of God which consists in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness and the means must be fitted to the end Ministers should be able not only to make Sermons set studied Discourses but upon all occasions to speak a word in season I am sure this is that which Ministers promise to do viz. to use both publick and private Monitions and Exhortations as well to the sick as to the whole Spons 3. Office of Ordination Thirdly Together with these there ought to be the approbation of those to whom it belongs to judge of the Qualifications of those that would devote themselves and their Labours to God in the Service of the Ministry when these have approv'd them as persons duly qualified and commended them to God and have by Prayer and Imposition of hands invested them in the Ministry these are to be owned by the people as Ministers sent of God I know that some engross this power of making Ministers to such as are now called Diocesan Bishops whom they make so necessary to Ordination of Ministers that whoever is ordain'd without them by Ministers of particular Congregations some of our Brethren are pleas'd to say these Ordinations having not the concurrence of a Diocesan Bishop are a mere nullity And the Parliament that made the Law that required Reordination of all such as had been thus ordain'd were no doubt of this opinion Some indeed have said their Ordination was required to the exercise of their Ministry and not the Office A License would have done that without Ordination Moreover there was no difference made betwixt those that had been ordain'd before and those that pretended not to it which proves that our Law-makers of whom the Bishops were a part look'd upon all those Ordinations as a Nullity for no less was required of us that had been ordain'd than of those that had not been ordain'd And yet they would not declare that all our Ministration were a nullity So inconsistent are all they with themselves that design the interest of a Party more than of the truth This puts me in mind of what a reverend Minister then told one of the Bishops viz. I am afraid said he there is that Severity shewn in the Act of Conformity that 't is to be feared very many Ministers will not conform To whom the Bishop replied I am afraid there will be too many Surely to speak modestly that Prelate was not of the opinion of the Apostle Paul who rejoyced that Christ was preached tho' some that preached him were no great friends to the Apostle But in confirmation of what I have to say I would not make Reflections upon what is past any further than our own Vindication will make it necessary First Therefore to prove this let it be supposed that a Minister of a particular Congregation whom for distinction-sake we call a Presbyter be of an inferior order to a Bishop It is upon this pretence that the power of Ordination is denied to them Now if these Ministers Presbyters being but the Ministers of particular Congregations may make a Bishop they may certainly make and ordain Ministers for if they can do the greater they may do the less This was the answer of Archbishop Usher to King Charles the First who told that King that in the Church of Alexandria the Presbyters always made their own Bishop And the thing is so necessary that Episcopacy can't

well be preserv'd except the inferiour Clergy have a power to make their own Bishops Suppose as sometimes it hath fallen out here in this Kingdom that there were not Bishops enough to consecrate Bishops who can make them but the inferiour Clergy It fell out so in England at the coming of Queen Elizabeth to the Crown Cardinal Poole then Archbishop of Canterbury died within four and twenty hours of Queen Mary and upon his death the See of Canterbury being void Dr. Parker was preferr'd to it there were not as Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Salisbury observes Bishops enough of the Protestant Religion to ordain him and the Popish Bishops would not so he was made Bishop by Barlow Story Coverdale and Hodgkins three of these were only Titular and had no Sees and the other a Suffragan So that the first Bishop that was made here upon the coming of Queen Elizabeth to the Crown was made by Presbyters and not by Diocesan Bishops This put Mr. Mason upon the writing of his Book in Vindication of the English Ministry against the Papists who triumph'd much upon this occasion Surely therefore if Ministers may make Bishops who pretend to be a superiour order to them what should hinder that they should not have a power to ordain Ministers Just such another absurdity the Papists run themselves into for they also appropriate the power of Ordination to Diocesan Bishops and yet according to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation every Priest by a few words speaking can make a God and turn the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body of our Saviour but they must not presume to make Ministers Secondly The nature of Ordination proves our Ministry to be no Nullity Ordination is but a determining of the persons to be ordained as persons duly qualified for the Office whereupon they are by Prayer and Imposition of hands invested in the Ministry Now what is there in this that Ministers may not do without a Diocesan We do not give them their power and ministerial Authority that is from God and what that power is that God gives them 't is not we but the word of God that must determine The power and authority Eccesiastical or Ministerial is from God as the civil power Now 't is not usual for Kings to be invested by Kings 't is always done by their Subjects True it is in the Office of Ordination as appointed in the Church of England the Bishop is directed to say Take thou Authority to preach the word of God and to minister the holy Sacraments But 't is not the Bishop that is the Donor of that Authority and that 't is not so will appear to him that doth but consider this one thing they that ordain men to the Office don't make the Office He only gives the power that made the Office to which the power belongs As the King that can make Corporations and Mayors doth give them what power they have Our Brethren that would nullifie our Ministry are pleas'd to tell us that Bishops in ordaining Ministers do give them what power they have and that Ministers can have no more power than the Bishops intended to give them in Ordination and that therefore Presbyters can have no power to ordain because the Bishops in ordaining them intended it not to them True it is that about two hundred years ago all our Ordinations came from those that were of the Episcopal Perswasion and Communion and who can pretend that they that then ordain'd did intend to give this power The argument were of weight if the Bishops had made the Office but it being not so it matters not what their intentions were that then ordain'd Ministers Were it not so what I pray would become of the Reformation Had our Reformers no more power than the Pope and his Bishops intended to give them Surely they never intended them a power to reform Ordination therefore being but a determining of the Persons and an investing men in the Ministry what power thereupon Ministers have is from God as when one of your Neighbours is made Mayor of your Town he doth not receive his power from them that chose him nor from him that swears him but from the King that gave the Charter Thirdly I would argue from the necessary consequence of that opinion that would engross the power of Ordination to a Diocesan and make all other Ordinations a meer Nullity It followeth and they own it that their Ministry is no Ministry their Sacraments no Sacraments their Churches no Churches and 't is well if they allow them to be in a state of Salvation and yet these very men acknowledge that they are true Ministers and Churches that have Roman Ordination proclaiming hereby an utter Renunciation of the reformed Churches which have no such Ordinations and yet a Coalition with the Roman Church and Clergy whom they will allow if any of them will come over to us the exercise of their Ministry without Ordination but not the Protestant Ministers that were driven out of France That I do not wrong them see Mr. Dodwell's Preface to the Unity of the Priesthood p. 11. where he saith That we are guilty of abetting a divine Authority in men to whom God hath given no such Authority that we are guilty of forging Covenants in God's name and counterfeiting the great Seals of Heaven in Ratification of them And what can be more treasonable by all the principles of Government what is more provoking and more difficultly pardonable These are his words and they are indeed severe and frightfull but as one saith the Devil hurts those most he least affrighteth Our Comfort is that the old Church of England owned the foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors It is but a few I hope of the Innovators that call themselves the Church of England that say they have no true Ministers that have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesan Ordination from the Apostles It was these men or men of these Principles that made the severe Acts that required Re-ordination and have been the great Agents of all the dividing persecuting silencing Laws to which God Almighty by bringing in of our Protestant King hath put a stop I shall mention one consequence more that they must necessarily own that go this way if our Ministry without the concurrence of a Bishop in our Ordination be a Nullity our Ministrations also in the giving the Sacraments must be a Nullity a counterfeiting of the broad Seals of Heaven to speak in the words of the before-mention'd Author those that we baptiz'd are not indeed baptiz'd It follows hence that our Sovereign Lord the King had need to address himself to them for Baptism for I am perswaded he that gave his Majesty Christian Baptism was not Episcopally ordain'd And surely that Prince that would be supreme head of the Church had need to be initiated by Baptism More might be said in confirmation of this but I shall