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
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
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.
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
the means whereby they are remitted and without which they are retain'd for ever But yet so that the Ministry is only theirs the Power totally Gods they only do the outward Act God alone gives the Spiritual Effect And this being the sence and meaning of the words they do in as full and comprehensive a manner include the whole Priestly power as possibly could in so few words be devised and consequently must in as full and perfect a manner give it to all that are ordain'd to the Priesthood by them For they appointing us to the End for which we are made Ministers that is to bring men unto God for the pardon of their Sins must necessarily appoint us also to all the means which are ordained in order thereto The preaching the Word the administring the Sacraments the reconciling of Penitents the intercession of Prayer and whatsoever else can be said to be any branch of the Priestly Office and although it must be confess'd that we do not allow the Priestly power to extend so far as our Adversaries of Rome will have it yet this can move no Controversie in this matter because the words being so general as to institute and appoint us to what is on all sides allow'd to be the sole end of our Office that is to be Ministers of Christ for the forgiveness of sins to those to whom we are sent they must necessarily include whatsoever Christ hath ordain'd as a means to be administred by us in order thereto and therefore if Christ hath appointed all those things to be branches of the Priestly power which they assert they must necessarily be all contain'd in these words and the power of administring them also be given to all that are ordain'd to the Priesthood by them and consequently the Form in which they are contain'd is so far from being chargeable with the defect you mention of not expressing the whole Priestly power that how large soever you may think the Priestly power to be it is abundantly sufficient to express it all because in so clearly and perfectly expressing the whole End for which we are made Priests it also necessarily includeth all the means that Christ hath appointed us to administer in order thereto and all the powers which he hath given to qualify us for it how many and how large soever they may be II. To convince you further of the sufficiency of this Form for Priestly Ordination I desire you again to consider what was urged by Mr. Earbury at the Conference you gave me an account of that these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose Sins you c. are the very same wherewith Christ Ordain'd his Apostles and therefore if they be not sufficient to make us Priests they could not be sufficient to make them Priests and consequently through this defect there are no Priests at all in the Church of Christ For if Christ did not sufficiently give the office and power of Priesthood it was not sufficiently receiv'd and consequently there must be no such thing at all among us And therefore those who on this account deny us our Orders while they are so earnest to cast this Reproach upon us do not only strike at us but through our sides do wound even the Holy Apostles also and Christ himself because the same Argument which they urge against us from the insufficiency of the Form to invalidate our Orders invalidates those of the Holy Apostles themselves and blasphemously accuseth Christ our Lord of insufficiently giving them the Mission on which they were sent But you tell me of a Salvo that Mr. Acton hath found for all this by answering That though with us nothing could be a true Form which did not express the Power given yet with our Saviour it was sufficient though it did not who being God could do that which no 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 But this is so strange a piece of Divinity as sufficiently shows that Gentleman was put to a very hard push when he was forced to give this in answer to what was urged against him and truly it is so plainly absurd in it self and impious in its Consequences that I thought not at first that I needed say any thing to make it appear so unto you and therefore took no notice of it in the Answers I sent you to your first Paper but since I find in your Letters after that you are so fond of it as to think it a very good Answer to whatsoever shall be urg'd on this Argument I desire you would consider these following particulars 1. That this Answer plainly alledging the Form whereby Christ Ordained his Apostles Priests to be in it self imperfect and insufficient doth make that Ordination to be defective in that which the Romanists account the prime and main essential of it And to bring in the Divinity of our Saviour as a Salvo doth not at all mend the matter but makes it much worse because it chargeth him even with his Divinity too of doing that which is in it self imperfect and insufficient and of being guilty thereby of a defect in one of the principal Acts whereby he constituted his Church that is in Ordaining those Pastors and Governours over it to whose Care it was to be committed A thing which cannot be said of him that is infinitely perfect in all his doings without the highest Blasphemy against him To say That Christ as God could do what no other could is indeed true as to all acts of his Divine Power and it is in vain for any of us to endeavour to do as he doth in any thing of this nature wherein he is infinitely above our utmost imitation But in things of Moral and Religious practice which we are to do likewise our safest way is always to come as near as we can to what he hath done before us and we are ever best secured from Error or Defect when we do so For in all things of this Nature he is our grand Exemplar whose steps we are to follow and whose Actions we are to Copy after as far as we are able and as long as we do this it is impossible that either defect or flaw can be found in any of our doings For by his Divinity he is infinitely perfect in his Nature and infinitely perfect in all his Doings and no Act of his can ever have the least imperfection or insufficiency therein But when any of his Works are such as we must not pretend to do after him the reason of this always is from that height of Perfection in them which we cannot reach and not from any imperfection which makes them unwarrantable for us to do likewise And therefore to say that our Saviour by vertue of his Divinity could do that which would not be justifiable for us to do after
nothing of the Priestly power can confer nothing of the Priestly power in Ordination but the first Form expresseth nothing of the Priestly power for all that it expresseth is only an imaginary power of their own invention the power of offering their Sacrifice of the Mass and applying the merits of it to the living and the dead a power which Christ never instituted or can be warranted by any ancient practice but is contrary to the whole tenor of the Epistle to the Hebrews and is in as plain Terms as can be expressed by several passages therein directly contradicted But to this perchance you will reply that the first Form doth not only give power to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass but also to Celebrate Mass for the Living and the Dead and that by this last expression is implyed the performance of the whole Office and consequently that the whole power of Consecrating and Administring the Eucharist is included therein But against that there is this Objection these words for the Living and the Dead seem to limit the expression to so much only of the Mass as is Celebrated for the living and the dead that is the applying of the merits of the Sacrifice which they pretend to offer at their Mass to the living and the dead which is a power as totally fictitious as the former And their Council of Florence which declared this Form to be an Essential Form of Priestly Ordination seems plainly to understand it in this sense For it expresseth not the whole Form as it is in the Roman Ordinal but the sum of it in these words Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesiâ pro vivis defunctis i. e. Receive power to offer Sacrifice in the Church for the living and the dead Which plainly interprets the latter Expression in their Ordinal of Celebrating Mass for the Living and the Dead to belong to the former and to extend no farther than the offering their pretended Sacrifice for them which can by no means include the Consecrating of the Eucharist because most of them hold the Act of Consecrating to be different from the Act of Sacrificing and therefore it cannot be included in it for they will have the Act of Consecrating to be precedent to that of Sacrificing because say they the Body and Bloud of Christ cannot be offered up in Sacrifice till by the words of Consecration the Bread and Wine is converted thereinto But notwithstanding if they will needs have the power of Consecrating contained in these words I shall not lay such stress upon this matter as to make any great contest about it Only this which hath already been said may be sufficient to let you see that if the power of Consecrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist cannot be contain'd under the words of our Form which give power to dispense the Sacraments as our Church intends it is much more difficult to reconcile it how this power can be contain'd in those words of their Form whereby they intend to give it their 's being much further from making any express mention of this power of Consecrating the Eucharist than possibly it can be said of ours But be it as to this how you will have it still your Objection remains as strong against their Forms as against ours For say you our Form is not sufficient validly to confer the Order of Priesthood because it doth not expresly give the whole Priestly power But by which of theirs I beseech you is it all expresly given Not by the first Form for therein they pretend not to express any more than the Celebrating the Mass not by the second for in that they violently contend against us nothing else can be expressed but the power of Absolving penitents So then if this be all their Forms express as they themselves acknowledge where do they give the power of Administring the Sacrament of Baptism where the power of Preaching the Word and if Marriage and extream Unction be Sacraments as they will have them to be Administred by the Priest where do they give the power of Administring them no where at all they being neither express'd in particular nor comprehended in general in any of the words of the said Forms And therefore if the not expressing the whole Priestly power in the Forms of Ordination must null and invalidate the Orders conferr'd thereby let any of them answer how their Orders of Priesthood can be good and valid which are Administred by Forms so defective herein How we come off of this Objection I have already shown and hope have sufficiently convinced you that it cannot lye against us but how they can clear themselves of it that make it I can see only two ways possible 1. That they say the whole Priestly power is given by those principal Branches of it express'd in their Forms with which their Priests being in express word Invested at their Ordinations they do therewith receive all the rest as inseparably annex'd thereto by the Institution of our Saviour in the same manner as when in taking Livery of Seisin of an Estate the giving any part thereof invests with the whole Fee. Or else 2. That they come over also to the true Interpretation of the second Form and acknowledge with us that in that alone the whole Priestly power is comprehended in the same manner as I have above explain'd unto you If they say the first this Objection is very impertinently rais'd against us since they cannot but acknowledge some branches of the Priestly power are also express'd in our Form according to their own interpretation of it which may serve for this purpose as well as those express'd in theirs If they say the second then they must give the whole Priestly power by the same Form that we do and therefore whatever is said against our manner of Ordaining Priests from the insufficiency of the Form of that Ordination if it conduceth any thing to the nulling and invalidating of the Orders conferr'd among us it must as much conduce to null and invalidate theirs also And now Sir I hope I have said sufficient to give you full satisfaction that our Form of Priestly Ordination can have no such defect therein as you charge it with or our Orders be liable to the least suspition of nullity on this account I have not spared my pains to make this out as clear to you as I can and all now that I desire of you is impartially to consider what hath been said and where you find reason to hearken to it and if you do so I doubt not you may find sufficient to convince you in these Papers I send you But if you are so obstinately set upon this point that nothing shall have any force with you which is said on this subject as from what I am told of your daily Discourse concerning it I have abundant reason to fear but that right or wrong you are resolved to condemn all the Orders of our
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
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
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
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
him by reason of any imperfection or insufficiency to be found therein as your Answerer plainly doth is no less than the highest Blasphemy against him 2. I desire you to consider that by the same words whereby Christ Ordained his Apostles to be his Ministers in his Church he Ordained also the very Office it self For then he first instituted the Office when he first appointed them to it and therefore those words by which our Saviour first Ordain'd his Apostles for the Office of his Ministry are so far from being defective in the Expression of the Power thereof that it is impossible it can have any power at all but what is expressed by them For they are the Original Charter of its Institution and from whence alone the limits and extent of its Authority are to be known And therefore we may very well judge of the extent of the Office from its Correspondency with the Words but not of the sufficiency of the Words from their Correspondency with what we think the extent of the Office because the Office it self being first instituted by these Words can have nothing in it but what is expressed by them And therefore if it be the same Office of Priesthood we receive at our Ordinations which Christ Ordain'd his Apostles to certainly the same words which he then made use of must always be the perfectest form whereby to make expression thereof Had the Office been afore instituted and afterwards express'd by halfes we could then have recourse to the first institution to make clear eviction hereof and from thence the deficiency would plainly be made out But that the words of its first institution from whence it received its whole being and establishment should be imperfect or deficient is that which cannot be said unless you will accuse the Institutor Christ our Lord of being deficient in the Institution it self and not making and appointing the Office as well and as perfectly as he ought a Consequence which I suppose your Answerer will by no means be willing to own 3. This Answer is not that which the Romanists ever use to give in this Case or will the Gentleman you had it from I suppose abide by it however it came to drop from him For when the perfection of this Form is urged from this that it was the same by which our Saviour ordained his Apostles their usual answer is That there are two powers in the Priestly Office the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction as I have afore explained the former of which they say was given the Apostles by our Saviour before his Crucifiction at his last Supper when he said unto them This do in remembrance of me and that it was the later only which was given after his Resurrection by these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. for the conferring of which they allow this Form to be most full and sufficient and for that purpose use it in their own Ordinal but deny it to comprehend any other branch of the priestly Office or that our Saviour intended to confer any other thereby And this you your self seem well enough to understand you having expressed as much in one of your Letters But this also goes upon two very great mistakes 1. That Christ Ordain'd his Apostles priests of the New Covenant when he said unto them at his last Supper This do in remembrance of me 2. That Christ Ordain'd any at all to be Ministers of his Church before he had actually purchas'd it by the shedding of his bloud And 1. It is a great mistake that our Saviour Ordained his Apostles Priests of the New Covenant by those words at his last Supper This do in remembrance of me For this is not a command particular to them to Consecrate and Administer that Sacrament which Christ then Instituted but to all the Faithful also to be partakers of it which the words plainly infer for what else can the Command This do refer to but to the whole Sacramental Action before mention'd the receiving and eating which belong also to the Laity as well as the Blessing and Consecrating which is the Duty of the Priest only And if the words be not so understood there will be no Command of our Saviour obliging the Laity to be partakers of this Sacrament at all but the Priests may be always left to Consecrate it and eat it themselves as contrary to all primitive practice and many Canons of the Church they now-a-days for the most part do Nay further they will be under no obligation to partake of it but only to Bless and Consecrate it and so if this Interpretation takes place the whole Institution may become frusâ—rate thereby and the Law of our Saviour be absolutely made of none effect for the sake of the Traditions and Inventions of Men. And therefore Estius an eminent Doctor of the Romish Church 〈…〉 plainly acknowledgeth that this Command of our Saviour This do in remembrance of me must extend to all the people His words are Paulus 1 Cor. 11. illud facere etiam ad plebem refert edentem bibentem de hoc Sacramento quando ait hoc facite i.e. Paul in the Eleventh Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians plainly refers that of doing to the People eating and drinking of this Sacrament when he saith in the words of our Saviour ver 25. This do c. And to say otherwise would be to run Counter to all the ancient Doctors of the Church there being none of them for many hundred years after Christ that ever understood those words of our Saviour in that sence which now the Church of Rome will have but always looked on them as a general precept belonging to all Christians of observing that Holy Rite in Remembrance of his Death and Passion in the same manner as was then instituted by him But when the practice of the half Communion became to be generally receiv'd in the Church of Rome then the Schoolmen being put to their shifts to reconcile it with the Institution of our Saviour who himself Celebrated it and also commanded the Celebration of it in both kinds at last lighted on this fetch of making the Apostles Priests by these words of our Saviour This do in remembrance of me spoken by him after his giving them the Bread and therefore say that the Cup which was Administred afterwards was given them only as Priests and that the Laity are not at all to be admitted thereto by vertue of that Command But here it is to be observ'd that our Saviour spake these words This do in remembrance of me twice in that Institution first after the distributing of the Bread and then again after the giving of the Cup And therefore if Christ made them Priests by those words it will follow That either he made them Priests twice a Doctrine which the Church of Rome will by no means allow Orders being a Sacrament as they say never without the guilt
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
of Ordination in Edward the Sixth's time was not deficient in expressing the particular office for which the Holy Ghost was given Here Mr. Earbury's Amanuensis did throw up his Pen and Paper so that Mr. Earbury was forced to write down his Answers to Mr. Acton with his own hand and yet Mr. Acton was pleased to retain his own Amanuensis to observe all advantages But whereas some do say that Mr. Earbury did allow of Mr. Actons answers to his first Argument this is so far from truth that Mr. Earbury for his vindication has sent this following note to Mr. Acton viz. I do affirm that to assert that our Saviour used a form in Ordination that was defective in Essentials is derogatory from his wisdom and little better then blasphemy But to proceed Mr. Earbury pulled out a Common Prayer-book with our Form of Ordination and therein shewed that the designation of the person to the particular office of Priesthood was sufficiently expressed in many places of the Form made in Edward the Sixth's Time. For first The persons were to be presented to the Bishop with these words Reverend Father in God I present unto you these persons present to be admitted to the Order of Priesthood Then the Bishop speaks to the people Good people these be they whom we purpose God willing to receive this day into the Order of Priesthood and the People pray God Mercifully to behold his Servants now called to the Office of Priesthood Not to mention other places in the Ordinal to the same effect which Mr. Earb then for brevity omitted and did argue from thence that since the intention of the Church to ordain the person to the particular office of a Priest was sufficiently expressed in the Ordinal before and after the imposition of hands it was not absolutely necessary that the particular Office of Priesthood should be expressed at the imposition of hands for since the end of speech is only to express the intentions and conceptions of the mind where that is sufficiently made known there is no further need of words Here Mr. Acton asked Mr. Earbury whether the intention alone was sufficient to convey the Character Mr. Earbury answered No and not as some say Ay and that he was contradicted therein by his Brother Kipping which Mr. Earbury does affirm to be utterly false For how could he affirm that the intention alone was sufficient when he was pleading for the validity of King Edward's Form and when he found that they insisted on the the cavil Mr. Earbury gave in this answer in Writing and gave it to them viz. I do assert that it is not absolutely necessary that the particular name of the Office of a Priest should be expressed in the words that immediately are conjoyned with the imposition of hands and for that he gave two Reasons 1. Because there was no positive command for it 2. Because the Nature of the thing did not require it Mr. Acton took no notice of the two Reasons annexed to the answer of Mr. Earbury but proceeded to ask questions to this purpose for Mr. Earbury had no Amanuensis to take his very words viz. Whether a Sacrament could confer a power that was not expressed Mr. Earbury took his pen and wrote down this answer viz. I do answer to this That if the particular Office to which the person is to be ordained be sufficiently understood from the foregoing part of the Ordinal it is not essential to the due conveyance of Orders that the words at the imposition of hands should express the particular office given by that Ordination Here Mr. Acton would needs have Mr. Earbury instead of Office to put in the word Power Mr. Earbury refused and told him that he was not come thither to make him his Dictator at last Mr. Acton urging him he took the Pen and would have altered it as may be seen by the original Paper but Mr. Kipping forbad it and thereupon Mr Acton bid his Amanuensis write down that Mr. Earbury and Mr. Kipping did disagree between themselves Then Mr. Acton did still proceed to ask Mr. Earbury more questions viz. First whether Mr. Earbury beleived that the words of a Sacrament are operative and effective Mr. Earbury answered That he did beleive the words of a Sacrament to be operative and effective by a Divine Concurrence Mr. Acton then demanded whether supposing the Prayers before and after the imposition of hands were left out that then the words of King Edward's Ordinal would confer the Character of a Priest Mr. Earbury acknowledged that being there were different Orders in the Church it would then be expedient that the intention of the Church as to the particular Order should be made known for since the Office of a Bishop as well as of a Priest is conveyed by the same Holy Ghost it is necessary that some part of the Ordinal should express for what end the Holy Ghost is then given But since this is not the case of King Edward's Ordinal where the particular Office is expressed Mr. Earbury asked what was that to the purpose Mr. Acton then asked Mr. Earbury whether the Matter and Form of a Sacrament ought not to be conjoined Whether that Baptism would be good wherein the water was first sprinkled and the Form of words spoken a quarter of an hour after Mr. Earbury told him That he would not determine whether such a Baptism was good or no in case of necessity where there was no wilful neglect of our Saviours institution but only an accidental miscarriage and this Mr. Acton commanded his Amanuensis to put down as a great mark of his victory and again pressed Mr. Earbury with the question whether the Matter and Form ought not to be conjoined Here Mr. Kipping declared his dislike against such unreasonable proceedings as he had often done before and earnestly desired Mr. Earbury not to condescend to answer their questions and upon that Mr. Earbury told Mr. Acton that if he had any Argument to propound he should receive an immediate answer but that he did not think himself obliged to give a positive answer to all the impertinent questions that Mr. Acton would be pleased to put to him since he had said enough before to prove that this was nothing to the purpose Here Mr. Acton made a Rhetorical flourish to the people and bid them take notice that Mr. Earbury refused to answer his questions and Mr. Acton then told Mr. Earbury that he could prove us to have no true Priesthood another way viz. Because our Form of Ordination does not express the power of consecrating the Eucharist and bid Mr. Earbury again prove that we had the power conveyed to us Mr. Earbury undertook that task and immediately wrote down this Argument If by our Form of Ordination the whole power of a Priest be conferred and the power of consecrating the Eucharist does belong to the Priestly Office then by our Ordination we must necessarily receive
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
conferred by him for no other reason but for the hatred which they bore each other according as they were of different parties for or against the proceedings of Formosus that was Pope before them And if the truth be fully examined into no other reason will appear for their like proceedings with us We are not of their party but after having long submitted to their unreasonable usurpations and unwarrantable impositions will now bear them no longer but having cast off this heavy yoke from our necks have thereby cut them short of a great part of their Empire and deprived them of vast incomes which they annually received out of those Kingdoms in larger sums then from any other nation under their bondage and therefore looking on us as the Egyptians did on the Israelites when they withdrew themselves from their bondage although it were to serve the living God pursue after us with the same malice and when out of the bitterness of it they have deprived so many of us of our Lives no wonder they will not allow us our orders But how bad soever either our orders our Liturgy or any other part of the Reformation establisht among us may at present be esteemed yet we have heard of the time when if his Holiness might but have had his Supremacy and his Peter-pence again all might have been allowed to be good and valid Pope Paul the 4th and after him Pope Pius the 4th having several times offered it Queen Elizabeth to confirm all that was done in the Reformation of this Church and allow both our orders and our Liturgy too provided she would again restore them to that Authority and Revenue which their Predecessors formerly had in this Land. And as long as there was any hope for the succeeding of this project Papists were permitted both to frequent our Churches and joyn with us in our Prayers and it was the General practice of that whole party for the first ten years of her Reign so to do But afterwards when the Court of Rome found that the Queen was immoveably fixed against what they proposed and all likelihood taken from them of again recovering their power in this Land by any Concession from her then first began they in the 11th year of her Reign to command their Votaries to make a total separation from us and to proceed in the most rigorous manner possible by Excommunications Sentences of Deposition underhand Treasons and open violences against the Queen and all that adhere to her to condemn our Church of Apostacy from the Faith and to denounce all her establishments which afore of their own accord they had offered to confirm and allow to be Heretical False Diabolical and what other like name they were pleased to affix thereto and all this for no other reason but because we would not again admit them to that Tyrannical supremacy over us which had on so just grounds been cast out of our Land by which it appears that Empire is the only thing in reality which those men look after and all things else are to be allowed or denyed as they may comport therewith I am Sir Your affectionate Friend Humphrey Prideaux The same Messenger that carryed this Paper to Mr. Norris brought from him this following in Answer to the first Paper I sent him it being on Fryday Night November the 25 th SIR THE ensuing are my promised thoughts upon your Paper which neither Mr. Acton nor any of those Gentlemen had the least hand in The exception amongst others which our Adversaries take against our Orders is that in the Ordinal of Edward the Sixth's days the power given by that Form of making Priests did not express for what office which our Church judged so necessary that it should that in the review of it in Charles the Second's Time that defect was supplyed by the addition of the word Priest which the Bishop is now to express in the Form when he lays his hands upon the person to be ordained unto that office In your paper you vindicate the former Ordinal by these several ways First That the addition did not suppose any defect in it before but was put in only to avoid the cavils of the Presbyterians who at that time were assembled by Commission with our Church-men upon review of our Liturgy Secondly For that it was before agreeable to Christs own practice Thirdly To the Practice of the Romish Church who also owned our Priesthood to be good by the Concessions of Cardinal Pool It being nothing but the truth which I look at have therefore fairly and candidly summed up and recited the utmost strength of your Paper To your first I say That for the word Priest and Bishop to be added to the new Form for avoiding all cavils from the Presbyterians who so much hated the name of both I will appeal almost to all the World whether that could be thought to be the true Reason Besides our selves do grant that even to those very men it was thought defective for the very same reason the Romanists did and therefore must necessarily conclude it to be very deficient being so apparent unto them as well as unto the others But the true reason of that addition I take to be from two books which came out not above a year before called Erastus Senior and Erastus Junior which did make appear that the power given at our Ordination of Priests was not expressed in the Form of that office by which they were no more Priests then any Lay-man confirmed by the Bishop If our Church had not thought it essentially necessary to have made that addition she never would so have exposed our Ordinal to the just censures of our adversaries in so high a concern for a meer circumstantial matter which alteration was not in the preliminary part of it or in the prayers before or after but in the very essential part of it and therefore by such an addition she could not but think it very defective before To your second I say That although our Saviour who also was God could conferre the whole office of Priest without any Form expressing the power given or could make any Form sufficient for that end yet doth it not therefore follow that we can do it but in the ordinary way But when our Saviour said Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins you remit c. They were not by those very words alone made compleat and intire Priests they were thereby so far as to remit sins but not to Consecrate or Make present the body and blood of Christ which power he gave them when he instituted the Eucharist and said this do in Remembrance of me Now though the word Priest was not expressed in our Saviours Form yet was it by equivalency by expresly giving them all the power that belonged to that office If our Saviour had only said be thou a Priest it had been as sufficient for all the offices of it as when he expresly gave them power
there are but two Forms of Imperative words in the Roman Ordinal before this Receive Power to offer Sacrifice c. and both spoken by the Bishop at the Vesting of the person to be Ordained with the Priestly Vestments For in the putting on the first sort of those Vestments he says Receive thou the yoke of the Lord for his yoke is sweet and his burden light and then immediately after at the putting on of another sort of Vestment he says Receive thou the Priestly Garment by which Charity is understood for God is able to encrease unto thee Charity and every perfect Work But by neither of these any thing of Priestly Power is given or do any of that Communion ever say so and therefore according to your own concession it must follow and it is that which the Learnedest of the Roman Communion say that the last imperative words in the Roman Ordinal which are spoken at the last imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferred in that Church and this Form we had in our first Ordinal as well as they in theirs and much more fully because therein are also subjoyned these words 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 which are wanting in the Roman Ordinal which are not any such notorious and idle Tautologies as you are pleased to call them For although they express nothing more then what is comprehended in the foregoing words Whose sins thou dost forgive c. yet they are explanator of them and do more explicitly tell us what is contained in them For a Priest doth no otherwise remit our sins in the Church of Christ then as he administers to us the means in order thereto in the Word and Sacraments and the concomitant Offices belonging thereto Fourthly I further observe in your Paper that you quote Mr. Fox to prove that those who were ordained by King Edwards Ordinal were ordained again in Queen Maries Reign I must confess Mr. Foxes Book is too large for any one so throughly to know every particular of it as positively to deny what you say to be contained in it But when you convince me of this and show me in Mr. Fox where any such thing is said then will I believe that Dr. Burnet hath dealt falsly with us by telling us the contrary in his History of the Reformation Part II. Page 289. But be it so or be it not so the cause doth not at all depend hereupon Fifthly You infer the nullity of our Orders because in the conferring of them no power is given to Consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that the words of our Ordinal giving power to Administer the Sacraments give power also to Consecrate the Elements in the Holy Eucharist and in all such Forms the more general the words are it is always the better provided they are such as include all the particulars as it is certain the words of our Form in the Ordination of a Priest include all the particulars that belong to that Office. But if you urge that it is not only necessary to express the power of Administring the Sacraments in general but that it must also be done in particular I must then ask the question why the Sacrament of Baptism ought not also in particular to be mentioned in the Form as well as the Sacrament of the Eucharist and why may we not from the omission of this in the Roman Ordinal infer the nullity of their Orders as well as they the nullity of ours from the omission of the other and that especially since the Sacrament of Baptism may be justly esteemed the nobler of the two as being that which first gives us Life in Christ whereas the other only adds Strength and Nourishment thereto But here you will object to what I have said that our Ordinal gives power only to dispence the Sacraments and not to consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that by the word dispence the Church means the whole of what belongs both to the Consecration and Administration of that Sacred Rite and words are alwaies to be understood according to the meaning and receiv'd interpretation of them that use them and not as they shall be limited or forced by the impertinent cavils of every contentious Adversary and you may always take this for a certain Rule that when in the management of Controversie men come to cavil about words it is an evident sign that they are run on ground as to all things else· But to this point you further say that those that have Authority only thus to dispence the Elements have not power to make present the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist without which you hold this Sacrament cannot be administred To this I answer that if by making present the Body and Blood of Christ you mean a Corporeal presence by the transmutation of the Elements as the Church of Rome holds it is a monstrous opinion which we can never receive and I hope you are not gone so far as to swallow with them so absurd an opinion Sixthly You say Christ made his Apostles Priests when he said unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that you take this clearly to be the sense of the Church If you mean by the Church the Church of Rome I acknowledge what you say to be true they having so defined it in the Council of Trent but that the Church of England ever held this I utterly deny for it is a Doctrine peculiar to the Church of Rome and but of late date among them being first invented by some of the Schoolmen to serve a turn For about Six Hundred Years since and not sooner the Church of Rome taking up that most Sacrilegious practice of denying the Cup to the Laiety and being afterwards pressed with the institution of our Saviour who commanded the Administration to be in both Kinds to evade this they framed this subtle invention of saying that Christ in the institution of this Holy Sacrament made his Apostles Priests by saying unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that therefore the Commandement given them of Communicating in both Kinds belongs to them only as Priests and that the Laiety from this Commandment can claim no right thereto But this is a fetch which some of the wisest and ablest Men among them are ashamed of and it is particularly disowned by Estius Suarez and Christophorus a Castro as being neither agreeable to the Antients nor of any solidity in it self Seventhly You allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination to be sufficiently perfect which if granted will infer the Ordination of Arch-Bishop Parker and all the other Bishops in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign to be good and
valid which is a thing our Adversaries will never yet grant us For you say that a Bishop at his Ordination doth not receive any new Character but hath only the same Power and Character which he had before as a Priest further extended in him and it is well known that Arch-Bishop Parker and most of the others that were made Bishops in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign if not all for I will not be positive in a thing where I am not certain were made Priests by the Roman Ordinal and therefore if the words of our Form be sufficient to extend the Character and Power of a Priest as you phrase it to the Office of Episcopacy those that you will allow to have been before good Priests you must also allow to have been made good Bishops by our Form. But here I must beg leave to tell you that our Church holds a Bishop to be as much essentially distinct from a Priest as a Priest is from a Deacon For that which makes the distinction of Orders is the distinct Powers which belong unto them For as a Priest hath a distinct Power from a Deacon which makes his Office to be essentially distinct from the Office of the other so hath a Bishop also a distinct Power from a Priest which makes his Office essentially distinct from the Office of Priesthood that is the Power of Ordaining which a Priest hath not and this you must allow or else fall in with the opinion of the Presbyterians and grant that a Priest hath as much power to Ordain as a Bishop And this is all which at present I shall think fit to take notice of in your Answer to my first Paper I have now also by me your Answer to my second Paper and must beg your pardon that my Business this Week hath been such at our Audit as you well know that I could not have leasure sooner to send you a Reply For as I take it very kindly of you that you will apply to me concerning any doubt which you may have as to your Religion so shall I think my self obliged to do all that lyes in me for your satisfaction And as to your Answer to my second Paper nothing is more easie than to show you how much you have been imposed on by them which tell you those things you write me therein As to Bishop Ridleys Consecration by the Popish Ordinal I thought I had given you demonstration for that by showing unto you in the last Paper that I sent you that Bishop Ridley was Consecrated as it appears by the Arch-Bishop of Canterburies Register Sept. 5 th Anno Dom. 1547. in the First Year of King Edwards Reign whereas it is evident by the publick Records of the Kingdom that the Act of Parliament which prescribed the making of the New Ordinal was not Enacted till February 1. Anno Dom. 1549. in the Fourth Year of King Edwards Reign and concerning this you may receive satisfaction by consulting Kebles Collection of the Statutes of this Kingdom Pag. 674. at the top of the Page But you urge against this Mr. Masons and Dr. Burnets Authority who you tell me say the contrary But that you may see how much you are abused by those who impose on you such things I will set down in words at length what both these Authors say as to this matter And first Mr. Masons words are Page 209. at the bottom of the page as followeth Primo leges de antiquis Ordinalibus abrogandis de novis stabiliendis latae sunt Annis Edwardi Tertio Quarto ut patet ex Statutis Ridleius autem Primo Edwardi Ferrarus ejusdem Regni anno secundo est sacratus uterque ante veterum Ordinalium abdicationem per consequens uterque secundum vestram Formam i. e. The Statute for abrogating the Old Ordinal and making a New was first Enacted in the Third and Fourth of Edward the Sixth as is apparent from the Statute Book but Ridley was Consecrated the First Year of King Edwards Reign and Ferrar in the Second Year both before the abrogating of the Old Ordinal and by consequence both according to your Form. So far Mr. Mason and as to Dr. Burnet if you please to consult him in his Second Part of his History of the Reformation Page 290. you will there find him saying these words So they did not esteem Hooper and Ridley Bishops and therefore only degraded them from Priesthood though they had been Ordained by their own Forms saving only the Oath to the Pope And this I hope will fully convince you that I have told you nothing but truth in this matter and that you have been most grosly abused by those that have informed you the contrary As to what you say concerning evil mens being of the true Religion you very much mistake my meaning if you think that I did infer in mine the illness of the Popish Religion from the ill actions of those that professed it for to do this would be to argue against all Religion there being abundance of wicked men of all Religions whatever and all Arguments of this nature are very foolish unless the sins and iniquities of such men as we find fault with proceed from the allowed Doctrines of the Church of which they are and on this account I must tell you I think the Romish Church abundantly culpable But this was not at all the thing I referred to in telling you of their Cruelties and Persecutions against us but only to let you know that then they were in such a rage against us that all they did in reference to the disallowing of our Orders may very well be construed rather to proceed from the violence of that alone then any rational judgment which they made of this matter it being a thing very usual between contending parties for men to be carried so high in their animosities as rather to act by their Passions then their Reason in what they do and alledge against each other And this I take to be the case of the Church of Rome in most of its proceedings with us but in none more manifestly then in the denying of the validity of our Orders which even according to their own Doctrines and positions are more defensible then those which even they themselves administer by their own Ordinal As to other things in your two Letters which I have omitted to speak to they are either such as need not answer or else such as I shall more fully examine on the other occasion which I have mentioned and therefore at present have nothing more to add but my most hearty prayers to Almighty God that he would be pleased so to direct and assist you in your inquisitions concerning this matter that after having fully tryed it you may hold fast that which is good I am SIR Your most Affectionate Friend H. Prideaux Thursday Dec. 1. 1687. On my having concluded this Letter to Mr. Norris I received another from him
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
form of words whatever unless it hath a Divine Institution whereto to refer and bears with it an exact conformity thereto can ever arrive to the true nature and essence of a Sacrament and therefore supposing Orders to be a Sacrament of the new Law as our Adversaries would have and that there was a Divine Institution not only for the outward sign but also for the form of words made use of in the conferring of them yet it can never be said that the form of words only without any further respect can give that determinate essence to the Sacrament as actually and ultimately to constitute it to be a Sacrament which is the nature of every essential form to do in respect of the thing to which it belongs and consequently can never be the essential form thereof And from hence you may plainly see that all which our Adversaries say of the essential form of Orders and on which from them you so much insist on hath neither Scripture Antiquity or Reason for its support but is totally grounded on no other foundation then the Philosophy of Aristotle and the mistakes and dotages of the Schoolmen built thereon As to what you say concerning the essential form being contained in the Prayers of the Roman Ordinal and that therefore before the imperative forms were added Imposition of Hands and Prayers were sufficient with them for the conferring of Orders but cannot be with us because in none of the Prayers of our Ordinal this essential Form is contained I Answer If by the essential Form you mean those very same words spoken by the Bishop at the administring of the outward Rite or Matter as they call it which the generality of the Romish Church call the form of Orders I deny that they are contained in any of their Prayers and if you think they are you should have told me in which But Secondly If by the essential Form you mean no more than words in the Prayers signifying the Office conferr'd which I suppose must be all that you mean thereby if you mean any thing that is sense then I answer that the prayers in our Ordinal do as fully contain that which you call the essential Form of Orders as any in the Roman Ordinal can be said to do And although you will not allow this of the Prayer immediately before imposition of hands or of that which follows immediately after in the Ordination of a Priest yet you cannot deny it of the Collect for the occasion where it is most proper to be looked for for that is as followeth Almighty God Giver of all good things who by thy Holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church mercifully behold these thy Servants now called to the Office of Priesthood and replenish them so with the truth of thy Doctrine and adorn them with innocency of Life that both by word and good Example they may faithfully serve thee in this Office to the glory of thy Name and the Edification of thy Church through the merits of Jesus Christ And if you look over all the prayers of the Roman Ordinal I think you cannot find in any of them the Office of a Priest more expresly mention'd than in this And therefore I hold still to my Inference that if the Prayers with imposition of hands may be sufficient for the conferring of the order of Priesthood in the Roman ordinal this must be also sufficient in ours And I cannot possibly see what farther you can object against this unless it be that the Prayer I have mention'd goeth before the Rite of imposition of Hands in our Ordinal whereas you may perchance think that it ought to come after rightly to answer the end for which I urge it But if you please to consider those passages of Scripture which tell us of the manner of ordaining practiced by the Holy Apostles as it is alwayes expressed in them to be done by Prayer and Imposition of hands so also shall you find that Prayer was first and Imposition of hands after So Acts 6. v. 6. in their Ordaining of the seven Deacons it is said that when they had prayed they laid their hands on them and so Acts 13. v. 3 of the Ordination of Paul and Barnabas to be the Apostles of the Gentiles When they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands upon them they sent them away which passages plainly evidence unto us that their method of Ordaining was first by Prayer in the name of the Church to Consecrate the person unto God for the Office to which he was set apart and then as in Gods stead according to the authority they had received from him in order hereunto by Imposition of hands to receive him to this Office and confer the power thereof upon him and that this was the completion of the whole administration made use of in this matter And although Acts 14. v. 23. it is said of Paul and Barnabas when they had Ordained them Elders or Presbyters in every City and had prayed with fasting yet we are to understand what is here last placed to have been first done it being a thing very usual with the Sacred as well as other Writers while they relate matters of fact not always to observe the exact order in which they were done as from many instances in Scripture may be made appear unto you and that this place is so to be understood we have the Rhemists themselves on our side who in their notes on this place plainly tell us that the Fasting and Prayers here mentioned were preparatives to Holy Orders In the next place you quarrel with me for misreciting your words which I confess is a great fault if I am guilty of it and would be contrary to that exact sincerity with which I ever desire to deal with all men especially in matters of Religion But having carefully reviewed both mine own and your Papers I can see no reason for this charge upon me In my Answer to your first Paper I observed that the grand defect which our Adversaries charge our Orders with is for omitting this Form in the Priestly Ordination Receive thou Authority to offer Sacrifice unto God and to Celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead which I told you could not be an essential defect because this Form it self was a novel addition and not used in the Church of Rome it self for near a thousand years after Christ To this you Answer in your second Paper in these words 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 vertue of that all Priestly power expresly given them before From which words in Answer to what you charge me with I have these things to say
of that than to deprive him of his Baptisme 4. You must not look on Ecclesiastical Canons in how solemn a manner soever made to be such Sacred and immutable things as to put a necessary obligation upon the Church indispensably to observe them through all times after For they are no more than other humane Laws made to obviate the present Grievances and regulate the disorders of the Body for which they are made and in the same manner also as the Circumstances of Time Place and Things alter frequently grow into disuse and become obsolete thereby and that this particularly was the case of that Canon of the Council of Nice which you insist on will plainly appear for it was never designed as a Law to reach the whole Church of Christ through all times and places of its Establishment so as for ever to lay an obligation upon all that are Christians to observe it Neither was it ever in the power of any Council to make any such but as most other Canons so especially this was made upon a particular occasion and that occasion was this During the Maximian Persecution there was one Meletias Bishop of Lycopolis in Egypt who in the heat of that Persecution having sacrificed to Idols to save his Life was for this reason by Peter Bishop of Alexandria his Metropolitan in a Synod of the Bishops of the Province deposed from his Bishoprick but he not acquiesceing in this Sentence became the Head of a Sect and in a Schismatical way in opposition to the Metropolitan not only retained his Bishoprick which he was deposed from but also took upon him to act as Metropolitan himself and ordained Bishops throughout all Egypt which by ancient Custom was the Right of the Bishop of Alexandria only in that Province of which Alexander one of the Successors of Peter in the See of Alexandria complaining at the Council of Nice the 4th and 6th Canons of that Council were framed on purpose for the redress hereof and the prevention of all other such like disorders for the future thereby it was decreed that all Bishops for the future should be ordained in the provincial Synods where all the Bishops of the Province mett together but if this could not be so conveniently done it might be performed by any three of them with the Consent of the rest signified by letters and the allowance and confirmation of the Metropolitan but that if any one should be ordained without the Consent of the Metropolitan he should not be allowed to be a Bishop And that as this was practiced in Rome so should it be also in Alexandria Antioch and other Provinces according to the ancient Custom already receiv'd concerning that matter And so the Nicene Fathers themselves give an account thereof in their Synodical Epistle to the Church of Alexandria written concerning it But as this was ordained upon that particular occasion so also was it with respect to the then present state and circumstances of the Church which at that time stood totally independent of it self alone and was altogether govern'd by its own Rules without the interposition of Princes Constantine the first Christian Emperor being but newly Converted to the Faith But afterwards when whole States became Christian and Bishops were made temporal Barons of Kingdoms and had vast Priviledges and Revenues given them by the Secular Power the Elections were for the most part made according to the Commands of the Prince and instead of that Judicial Approbation which is in this Canon given the Metropolitan nothing afterwards was left him but the Vassallage of necessarily obeying the Mandate of the Prince in Consecrating whomsoever he should appoint to the Benefice For when Bishops became thus great in the State as well as in the Church Princes might well think themselves concerned who the persons should be that should be advanced to those Dignities and therefore seldom suffered any to be invested in them but such as they had first approv'd and this they had a great Right to do as being for the most part the Founders and Patrons of the Benefices Although afterwards the Quarrel about investitures between the Western Princes and the Church of Rome made some alterations in this matter yet the Metropolitan was not at all helped thereby as to the right of Confirmation given him by this Canon at Nice but what was taken from Princes was swallowed by the Pope who by this Canon can claim no Right at all to interpose in this matter but is utterly excluded from it except in his own Province only For from thenceforth his Bulls were always thought requisite to all Consecrations and Confirmations of Bishops which put an absolute force upon the Metropolitan or whom else he should command in this matter which cannot be resisted However Princes found another way to salve themselves after those Investitures were wrested from them that is by not allowing any Election to be made without their License and by sending whensoever they thought fit with the License a Mandate to the Electors to chuse the person they nominated which is at present the General practice of all Popish States So that instead of the Election of the people and the Confirmation of the Metropolitan which by the Nicene Canons and ancient practice of the Church were the only ways of making Bishops now Princes have the Elections and the Pope the Confirmations and the Metropolitan is utterly excluded from all that which by virtue of this Canon was his ancient Right herein And having thus laid matters before you I hope Sir by this time you may see how little reason you have to infer any thing against us as to the Legality of our Ordinations from the Canon you have mention'd it being that which hath so long since grown obsolete and totally out of use even amongst Papists themselves And if any of those Gentlemen whom you converse so much with and whose Learning and Merits you so highly applaud shall tell you that it is otherwise and that all those ancient Canons must be still in their primitive force and every thing be called uncanonical and illegal which is not agreeable to them I desire you would ask them these following Questions First That whereas the 4th Canon of the Council of Nice Decrees that there shall be three Bishops at least at the Ordination of a Bishop whence comes it to pass that now a days in the Church of Rome it is allowed as Bellarmine and Binnius confess to be performed by one only Secondly That whereas the 9th Canon of the said Council of Nice Decrees that none shall be made Presbyter without being examin'd and found worthy And the 10th that those that are rashly admitted shall be again degraded And the 11th Canon of the Council of Neo Caesarea which was ancienter than that of Nice that none shall be ordained a Presbyter till the age of Thirty How comes it to pass that so many in the Church of Rome are made not
words spoken by the Bishop at the time of the said Imposition of Hands 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 dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen The second Matter is the Imposition of both the Hands of the Bishop that Ordains on the Head of the person Ordained The second Matter is the delivery of the Bible by the Bishop to the person Ordained The second Form is the words spoken by the Bishop at the time of the said Imposition of his Hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained The second Form is these words spoken by the Bishop at the said delivery of the Bible Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in this Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed And thus having laid before you the Matters and Forms as they call them made use of in both Ordinals Secondly The particulars which I think requisite to observe unto you from both of them in order to the better clearing unto you the point proposed are 1. That as to the Matters and Forms of the Roman Ordinal although the opinions of their Writers and Doctors are very various about them yet that which is now most generally received among them is that both these Matters and Forms are essential to the conferring of the Office and that the first Matter and Form gives Power over the Natural Body of Christ that is to Consecrate the Eucharist wherein they will have Christs Natural Body by vertue of their inconceivable Transubstantiation to be really present and the other Matter and Form give Power over His Mystical Body that is the people of His Church to absolve them from their sins The first they call the Power of Order and the second the Power of Jurisdiction and in these two they say the whole Office and Authority of the Christian Priesthood is conferred 2. That as to these very particular Matters and Forms in their present Ordinal although the Schoolmen were generally for having them of Divine Institution and not to be varied from as is above noted yet the generality of Learned Men among them at present are of another opinion as holding it only of Divine Institution that there should be Matter and Form in general in all Ordinations but what the particular Matter and Form should be was left to the Church to determine and consequently that nothing else is necessary but that the Matters bear with them some fitness to signifie and denote the thing intended and that the Forms be fully expressive of the Power and Office conferred thereby And this as to the Forms seems to be the opinion which you allow For you do not absolutely require that we should use the Roman Forms as if no Orders could be validly conferred without them but only that we should either use them or such as are equivalent with them wherein the whole Priestly Power may be expresly given to the person Ordain'd and your opinion that by ours this is not done seems to be the whole reason of your Objection 3. As to those Signs and Forms of words annexed to them made use of in our Ordinal which in conformity to the Language of the Romanists we also call Matter and Form we do not think either of them so essential to the administration as to null such Orders as may be conferred without them provided it be done some other way sufficiently declarative of the thing intended For we look on nothing to be of Divine Institution in Orders but the Mission it self that is that the Chief Pastors of our Church send others as they are sent and when this is done by a person fully Authorized thereto we look on all to be perform'd in this particular which the Praescripts of our Saviour direct us to As to the manner of the Mission and the method of Ordaining thereto we think this intrusted with them to whom the Authority of granting the Mission is given to order and appoint it as they may think will best express the thing they do However we do by no means approve the receding from the ancient and long received practice of the Church herein but think that those usages which can be traced up to the primitive and purer times of the Church especially if they reach so high as the Apostolical Age when the Holy Spirit of God was given in an extraordinary manner to be a conduct in all things of this nature do from the practice of those Holy and Inspir'd Men which then used them receive such plain evidence of their conformity to the will of God that they cannot unless in some extraordinary case without the greatest rashness be varied from as I have before said And this our first Reformers having a full sense of did not in the compiling of the Ordinal which you find so much fault with indulge their own fancies but as true Reformers laying Scripture and Primitive Practice before them for the Rule of what they did made it their endeavour to reduce all things thereto and therefore finding from Scripture and the practice of the Church from the beginning that Prayers and Imposition of Hands was the ancient manner of Ordaining they carefully retain'd both these in our Ordinal Prayers very fitly composed to recommend the person unto God for the Office to which he is appointed and Imposition of Hands to execute the Authority received from God to confer it on him And although there be no instance of any Imperative Form of words to be at all made use of in any of the ancient Ordinals for near a Thousand Years after Christ as is above noted yet since the later Ages have introduced them and they appear to be of great use the better and more clearly to express and declare the intent and meaning of the outward Rite to which they are annexed we have those also in our Ordinals and in the choice of them making Scripture our Rule we do for the Ordination of a Priest use the very same Form of words which our Saviour himself made use of when He Ordained His Holy Apostles to the same Office Joh. 20.22 23. Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained adding also thereto these words both as explanatory of them and exhortatory to the duties of the Office conferr'd and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his Holy Sacraments and then to express the Authority by which this is done is subjoyned in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen The want of which in the Roman Ordinals is a defect they cannot be excused from And
and newness of Life the correcting by Ecclesiastical Censures such as are notorious Sinners the Absolving them when penitent and the Intercession of Holy Prayer for all This therefore being the end of their Calling and these the Means they are to make use of in order thereunto those words which appoint them unto the End must necessarily appoint them also to all those Means leading thereto For in this Case the Means are always included in the End and whosoever gives a Commission for the accomplishing of any End must necessarily also in that Commission include an Authority to all the Regular Means leading thereto And therefore the End of the Priests Calling being to be the Ministers of Jesus Christ for the Forgiveness of Sins these words in our Ordinal Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained which do most plainly appoint the Persons Ordain'd to this end do necessarily appoint them also to all the means leading thereto the preaching the Word the Consecrating as well as administring the Sacraments and all things else which Christ hath commanded his Ministers to do in order to this End and consequently they do give every branch of the Priestly-power which by the Institutions of our Saviour do belong thereto In answer to this I doubt not those Gentlemen you converse so much with will tell you that those words cannot be so understood as to comprehend all those Ministerial Acts of the Priestly Office. Because in the 20th Chapter of St. John's Gospel from whence we as well as they own to have taken them into our Ordinals and therein to use them in the same sense as there used they have according to them another interpretation not to mean Forgiveness of Sins as by the outward assistance of all the Ministerial Acts of the Priestly Office leading preparing and qualifying men thereto but only as it is given by that one act thereof whereby they take upon them in their Sacrament of Penance as they call it properly directly and absolutely by a judicial Sentence to forgive the sins of those that Confess unto them For such an Authority those Usurpers upon the power of God Almighty claim to themselves and alledging this Text of Scripture as the Charter by which they hold it will not have it to be understood of any thing else and in the Council of Trent thunder out their Anathema against all those that understand it to extend to any other act of the Priestly Office but this only For the words of that Council are Sess 14. Can. 3. If any one shall say that those words of our Saviour Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are not to be understood of the power of remitting and retaining sins in the Sacrament of Pennance as the Catholick Church ever understood from the beginning but wrest them contrary to the Institution of the Sacrament to the Authority of Preaching the Gospel Let him be accursed In Answer to which I will shew you 1. That there is no such power given to the Priest as is claimed by them from those words And 2. That therefore they can be understood in no other sense than that which comprehends the whole Priestly power as I have already explain'd And 1. The power which they claim from these words is to be Judges on Earth in Christ's stead between God and Man and to have full Authority as such to pass sentence upon all that after Baptism shall fall into Transgression either for Life or Death according as they shall judge fitting and therefore call all such to their Tribunal telling them that Christ hath constituted them Judges upon Earth with such a power that without their Sentence of Absolution none that have fallen into sin after Baptism can be again reconciled unto God. And therefore they make their Sentence of Absolution to be that very Act whereby the Sin is forgiven and take from God that Prerogative which he hath reserved to himself alone For it is he only that blotteth out transgressions and none other is a God like him that pardoneth iniquity and therefore was it that the Jews when our Saviour said thy sins are forgiven thee reasoning among themselves asked the Question Who can forgive sins but God alone and this saith Tertullian They deservedly did as not knowing his Divinity For then it was a thing looked on as most certain amongst all the Scribes and Doctors of the Jewish Church that none but God alone could forgive Sin and so was it also by the Ancient Fathers of the Church of Christ And therefore they make this one of their greatest Arguments whereby they prove the Divinity of our Saviour that he did forgive Sins For saith Irenaeus If none can forgive sins but God alone and our Lord did forgive them it is manifest that he was the Word of God made the Son of Man. And the same Argument is also made use of by St. Hilary St. Athanasius St. Cyril St. Anbrose St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome and in the Ages after by Venerable Bede and several others which sufficiently shows that they never understood any such pardoning power as those men now claim ever to be given to man but to be alwayes reserv'd unto God alone That the Pastors of the Church of Christ have Authority to apply the Promises of God to all his People by declaring Absolution from Sin to all that truly Repent and on the other hand to denounce his Punishments against all that continue in iniquity I freely grant and also that they have power for the better Government of the Church by way of Discipline to exclude all such from Communion who are open and notorious Sinners and restore them again when amended by Repentance But as to that power of the Priest now claim'd in the Church of Rome of remitting Sins properly directly and absolutely by a Judicial Sentence and that none can be reconciled to God unless thus absolved by them or at least supplying the defect by an earnest desire of their Absolution when not readily to be had as in perfect Contrition they will allow is what God never gave unto them or the ancient Fathers of the Church ever challenged For the loosing of men by the Judgment of the Priest which the Ancients speak of cannot be understood of any such extravagant power granted unto them but only of that power of Discipline of which I have spoken whereby they restored such to the peace of the Church and admitted them again to Communion who had afore been excluded from it And their Language concerning this matter is generally such as will admit no other Interpretation For they mostly express it by the Terms of bringing them to Communion of reconciling them to the Communion or with the Communion restoring the Communion to them
admitting them to Fellowship granting them Peace and such like Neither do we find that they did ever use any formal Absolution as this I Absolve thee but their reconciling them to the Church and receiving them again to Communion who had been excluded from it was the only way of Absolving then in practice among them which was so far from that extravagant power of absolving now challenged by the Romish Priests that it was looked on as no more than what a Deacon could do and accordingly in the absence of the Priest was it Customary to be performed by them in the Western Churches and that not only in the days of St. Cyprian but also down as far as the time of Alcuinus who lived eight hundred years after Christ And afterwards when Priests began to appropriate this power solely to themselves and Forms of Absolution came into the Church in the latter Ages they were at first always by way of Prayer and Intercession to God for the persons absolv'd and it was not till Thomas Aquinas's time about 400 years since that this Authoritative Form I Absolve thee was ever made use of and that came not in without great opposition from many Learned Men of that time as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Gulielmus Parisiensis Hugo Cardinalis and several others who were then so far from allowing any such power in Priests as now challenged that they plainly declare that to remit Sins and the Eternal punishments due unto them was so properly the work of God alone that the Absolution of the Priest can operate nothing at all that way but must always presuppose the Absolution of God going before it as being no more than the restoring of those to the peace of the Church which had been afore by their true Repentance restor'd to peace with God. The words of Hugo Cardinalis are The Priest cannot bind or loose with or from the Bond of the fault and the punishment due thereunto but only declare him to be bound or loos'd as the Levitical Priest did not make or cleanse the Leper but only declare him to be infected or clean And to the same purpose speaks also Peter Lumbard the Master of the Sentences and much more fully in these words God alone doth forgive and retain Sins and yet he hath given power of binding and loosing unto the Church but he bindeth and looseth one way the Church another For he only by himself forgiveth sin who both cleanseth the Soul from the inward blot and looseth it from the debt of Everlasting Death But this hath he not granted unto Priests to whom notwithstanding he hath given the power of binding and loosing that is to say of declaring men to be bound or loosed Whereupon the Lord did first by himself restore Health to the Leper and then sent him to the Priests by whose Judgment he might be declared to be cleansed so also he offer'd Lazarus to his Disciples to be loosed having first quickned him And again a little after In remitting or retaining Sins the Priests of the Gospel have that Right and Office which the Legal Priests had of old under the Law in curing of the Lepers These therefore forgive sins or retain them whilst they shew and declare that they are forgiven or retained by God. Which sayings do plainly inferre that to pardon the Crime and remit the punishment is the proper work of God only and that the Absolution of the Priests hath no real operation at all that way but must presuppose the party to be first absolv'd and justify'd by God their absolution being only declarative of what God hath afore done in applying the promises of God for the Remission of Sins to all such as have truly repented for their Consolation and Comfort rather than that the least stain of their Guilt is removed thereby To the outward peace of the Church indeed such absolutions can restore men but not to peace with God unless a true and hearty Repentance hath done it before and if after this on the evident manifestation of the Repentance the Absolution of the Priest comes it is only to declare what God hath done before not to add or in the least to conduce any thing thereto so as any pardon or forgiveness should follow his Sentence which was not granted or given before by God himself who is he alone that can do it And not only those two whose words I have laid down do say this but also several others who are now reckon'd amongst the eminentest Doctors and chiefest Fathers of the Romish Church that lived in their times as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Alexander Halensis Bonaventura Occham Gabriel Biel and others And to say otherwise would be to run Counter to the whole Tenor of the Gospel of Jesus Christ For therein Faith and newness of Life are laid down as the stated terms on which alone men shall become capable of that pardon from God which Christ hath purchased for us and if men arrive to that measure thereof which God requires they will be most certainly pardon'd whether the Priest will or no and if not all the Absolutions in the World shall do them no good And therefore for to say as the Romanists do that without their Absolution the most penitent cannot be reconciled to God and that with it even the wicked can such as are only attrite as they call them is a Doctrine I confess well devis'd for their own Interest Grandeur and Empire over men but so far from having any foundation in the Gospel that nothing can be more contrary thereto For it overthrows the main design of it in making men rely upon their false pretended power of Absolution for the gaining Reconciliation with God instead of addicting themselves to that Holiness and Righteousness of Life in order thereto which it is the main aim of the Gospel to lead us into And herein it is in the highest degree injurious both to God and Men. To God it is injurious because it robs him of his power of forgiving Sins to give it unto men absolutely excluding him from it without their forgiving them first at their Absolutions And it is injurious unto men because it cheats them of their Souls in making them rely upon false hopes for the Salvation of them whereby Thousands and Ten Thousands have been undone for ever For thereby they are taught that though they be attrite only that is have only that Carnal Sorrow for Sin which ariseth from fear of the punishments due thereto without any of that true saying Repentance which is founded on the Love of God yet this so imperfect a tendency to Repentance shall by Confession and the Absolution of a Priest applied thereon be made so perfect as to be fully sufficient to blot out the guilt and render the man clean and pure from all his Transgression whereby it comes to pass that Carnal men who are easily perswaded to approve of that Doctrine which shall make the
enjoyment of their Lusts and the Hopes of Salvation consistent together totally acquiesceing herein never think of that true Sorrow which worketh Repentance unto Salvation But after a glut of sinning having frighted themselves by reflecting on the punishments due thereto into a kind of sorrow for it which they call attrition in this case for the remedy of all only apply to the Priest for his Absolution never denied to any so prepared and when they have this looking on all old scores quite wiped off thereby run on anew in the same course of Iniquity till another such fright sends them again for another Absolution and when that is obtain'd then to sinning again as before and so on in the same round from Absolution to Transgression and from Transgression to Absolution without ever thinking of any other way of saving their Souls till at last Death overtakes them in a state of total impenitency and they become utterly lost and undone for ever And it is to be feared that they have in that Church deluded more men into Hell by this one Doctrine only than they have led to Heaven by all the other they have taught And thus far having shown you that there is no such power at all given to Priests as from these words of St. John Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. it will necessarily follow that no other meaning can be affixed unto them than what I have explain'd unto you and therefore they must necessarily include not this pardoning power alone as the Romanists will have there being none such at all given but all the Ministerial Duties of the Priestly Office which Christ hath appointed to bring men unto God and reconcile them unto him and hence is it that the Holy Apostle St. Paul saith that there is given unto us the ministry of reconciliation For our Office doth consist in this that we are appointed the Ministers of Christ to reconcile men unto God. And if any one undertakes the office of reconciling a Rebellious Son unto his Father the way whereby he is to effect this is not by pardoning the Son all the faults he hath committed a power which none can imagine the Father would ever give out of his own hand but by bringing the Son to such Terms of Submission and Amendment as that the Father may think fit himself to pardon him and accept him again to his Favour And this is the Case with us who are made the Ministers of Christ to Reconcile men unto God our Heavenly Father against whom we have all Rebell'd The way whereby we are to accomplish this is not by taking upon us in God's stead to pardon and absolve from Sin all that have offended against him this being a power which God will never give from himself to any but all that we have to do in order to it is to make use of those means which Christ hath appointed to bring men to such terms of Repentance and Newness of life as God may think fit himself to pardon them and receive them to his Mercy And these means are the preaching of the Word the administring of the Sacraments the intercession of Prayer and the publick Discipline of the Church For by preaching the Gospel we make it the word of Reconciliation to all that believe by the Sacrament of Baptism we give the Spirit of Regeneration and admit men into the Covenant of Grace for the remission of sins by the Holy Eucharist we administer to their growth in Grace and reach out unto them the blood of the Covenant shed for many for the remission of sins by our Discipline Offenders are corrected and restored again to the right way from whence they had deviated And by our prayers of Faith God is entreated for his people And these being the only means whereby men can attain to the Mercies of God for the pardon of their Sins we that administer to them these means may be said in some sense also to pardon them not absolutely and directly but in the same manner as a Physitian cures his sick Patient not by giving the Health for this is only Gods work but only by administring the means For it is very frequent to ascribe the effect to those that administer the means to dispose towards it though they have no hand at all in the efficiency it self whereby it is brought to pass and in this sense is it that these words of our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John are to be understood Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained Not that Christ gave unto his Apostles thereby an absolute power to remit sins but that he committed to them the Administration of all those means whereby alone Remission was to be obtain'd So that whosoever would receive from them the benefit of those means should thereby have their sins remitted unto them and whosoever would not should have them retain'd for ever And in this sence is it that John Ferus a Commentator of the Romish Communion who writ about 150 years since understands the words for saith he in the Explication of them Though it be the proper work of God to remit sins yet are the Apostles said to remit them also not simply but because they apply those means whereby God doth remit sins which means are the word of God and his Sacraments For these means of Salvation with the rest I have mention'd are the Keys which Christ hath given to his Ministers whereby the Gates of Heaven are open'd to all such as will receive the Gospel at their hands and become obedient thereto and for ever shut against all that will not For by these only are men let in to Everlasting Life and without these all must be excluded from it for ever there being no other means but these alone establish'd by our Saviour whereby men can be admitted to partake of that Salvation he hath purchased for us or be made capable of that Reconciliation with God requir'd in order thereto And therefore those means being thus necessary to gain us pardon and forgiveness so that by them only it can be obtain'd and without them never granted to any hence is it that our Saviour when he committed to his Apostles the Power and Authority of administring those means he expresseth it in these words Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained implying thereby that he made them the Ministers of reconciling men to God for the Pardon of their Sins and intrusted them with all the means in order thereto so that to whomsoever the benefit of their Ministry in the applying of those means should be extended Pardon and Forgiveness should be administred thereby and to whomsoever it should not it should be denyed for ever And in this sence the Ministers of the Gospel may be said to remit or retain sins because they alone administer
of Sacriledge to be reiterated on any or else that the last saying of those words as well as the first did both equally concur to the conferring of that Office upon them and consequently that they were not made perfect Priests till the Ordination was compleated by the last saying of them after the Cup was Administred which clearly overthrows their whole Hypothesis 2. Our Saviour was so far from making his Apostles Priests of the New Covenant at his last Supper that nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that he should at all Ordain any such before he had actually by his Death and Passion purchased and Establish'd that Church wherein they were to Minister Our Saviour indeed at his first choosing of them to be always with him designed them for this Office and all along the time of his Ministry here on Earth taught them and instructed them in order thereunto And so also an Heir expectant of a Crown may design some of his Followers to be his Officers and Ministers of State in his Kingdom but cannot actually constitute them as such till he himself be actually possest of the Soveraign power to enable him thereto Neither can our Saviour be said actually to have invested his Apostles with the Offices he designed them for till he had actually possest himself of that Kingdom his Church in which they were to Minister before him and thereby receiv'd that power which he was to delegate to them which cannot be said till after his Death and Passion For till then the Christian Church it self could not have any Being that being the act of Redemption whereby our Saviour first purchased it to himself and laid the foundation of its Establishment and all the whole oeconomy thereof bears reference thereto and totally commenceth from it Till then the former oeconomy of the Jewish Church remained in its full force For the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of it in which it did consist being all Types of that great and truly propitiatory Sacrifice of our Saviour whereby the work of our Redemption was wrought and appointed to prefigure and foreshow it till that Sacrifice it self should be actually offer'd once for all Till that was done it was necessarily to continue in its full Obligation to all those Observances And therefore our Saviour himself even to the time of his Death paid full Obedience to them But when that Sacrifice was actually offer'd and our Saviour gave himself up unto death upon the Cross to be a propitiation for us and thereby compleated that great work of our salvation for which he came among us then all the Types ceased at the fulfilling of the thing Typified all those shadows of good things to come totally vanished at the appearance of the things themselves which they foreshowed and the whole Law became fulfilled thereby and all the intents and meanings thereof totally accomplished And therefore by this great work of our Salvation the whole Jewish oeconomy receiving its completion and all the Legal Institutions thereof absolutely ceasing by being fulfill'd Matth. 5. v. 17. thenceforth the Christian succeeded in its stead that Church that Kingdom of our Saviour which by this his bloud-shedding he purchased to himself and therefore from that time being fully invested with the whole Soveraignty over the Church of God he tells his Holy Apostles that All power was given unto him in Heaven and in Earth In the Explication of which words Maldonat the Jesuit tells us Loquitur hic non de qualibet potestate sed de eà quam Apostolis dabat i. e. de potestate Regni sui spiritualis acquirendi colligendique quam ad rem Apostolos mittebat ita loquitur quasi eam potestatem ante resurrectionem non habuerit nam tanquam de re nova dicit data est mihi omnis potestas i. e. He speaketh not of every power but only of that which he gave his Apostles that is the power of acquiring and gathering his spiritual Kingdom for which purpose he sent his Apostles and he speaks so as if he had not that power before his Resurrection for he saith as of a thing newly done all power is given unto me c. and a little after De eâ denique loquitur potestate de quâ apud Johannem dicit Confidite ego vici mundum hanc sibi potestatem per mortem resurrectionem suam datam esse dicit quia eam meruit propter quod inquit exaltavit eum dedit illi nomen quod esset super omne nomen ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur Coelestium Terrestrium infernorum hoc est data est mihi omnis potestas in Caelo in Terrâ quâ potestate ad propagandos Regni sui fines Apostolos mittit ut rectissime mihi videtur Vigilius interpretari i. e. And finally he speaks of that power concerning which he saith in the Gospel of St. John Be of good cheer I have overcome the world this power he saith was given him by his Death and Resurrection because he deserved it Wherefore he saith God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven things on Earth and things under the Earth that is there is given me all power in Heaven and in Earth by which power he sent his Apostles to propagate his Kingdom as Vigilius seems to me most rightly to Interpret So far the Learned Jesuit and if you will acquiesce in his Interpretation it plainly follows from hence that Christ did not receive the power of his spiritual Kingdom till after his Resurrection and that by vertue of that power it was that he sent his Apostles on their Mission as his Ministers to propagate this his Kingdom and therefore that they could not receive this Mission or be Ordain'd thereto till after his Resurrection And if we examine all the Gospels to find by what words of his he gave them this Mission after his Resurrection and invested them with the power and Authority of it it must be acknowledged that they could be none other but those of St. John Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained for every thing else which was then done or said at the speaking of them manifestly infers it Our Saviour first sayes unto them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you which plainly declares his then giving them their Mission after that he breathed on them for his putting of his Spirit upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost that is for the spiritual Office on which they were sent for as to those extraordinary Gifts which so wonderfully enabled them for the Execution of it he was not given till afterwards in the day of Pentecost and what can be more plain and clear than all this is that our Saviour was then giving his Commission to
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
Patribus Conciliis fit ulla mentio porrectionis Instrumentorum sed tantum Impositionis manuum i. e. Neither in the Scriptures nor in the Ancient Fathers and Councils is there made any mention of the reaching out of the Vessels the Chalice and Patten but of Imposition of Hands only And in Truth all what they say either from Scripture Ancient Councils or Fathers for their Sacrament of Orders makes Imposition of Hands the only Sacramental Sign thereof And all the Arguments which they bring from either of them to prove it to be a Sacrament go totally upon this that this Rite of Imposition of Hands made use of in the conferring of the Orders hath Grace annexed thereto and therefore it manifestly appearing that none of those ways which our Adversaries themselves make use of to prove a Divine Institution are able to make it out unto us that the delivery of the Chalice and Patten in Ordination is such the Consequence is plain that that Rite can never be a Sacramental Sign which hath Grace annex'd thereto and consequently the Sacramental Grace which they will have to belong to Orders cannot be given by that Rite with what Form of words soever it be administred but if there be any such thing at all belonging to Orders as that grace which is requisite to make it a Sacrament as our Adversaries say and we deny it must only be annex'd to Imposition of Hands and given by no other words than that Form with which it is joyned Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. and this even their own Council of Trent seems plainly to say for in one of its Canons it Decrees Si quis dixerit per Sacram Ordinationem non dari Spiritum Sanctum ac proinde frustra Episcopos dicere Accipe Spiritum Sanctum anathema sit i. e. If any one shall say that the Holy Ghost is not given by Holy Orders and therefore that the Bishop sayes in vain Receive the Holy Ghost let him be accursed Which words manifestly annex the grace which they will have given by this their Sacrament to the latter Form only And so Bannes an Eminent Writer of their own Church understands them For saith he Ibi Concilium declarat tunc Ordinari Presbyteros tunc dari illis Spiritum Sanctum cum iis dicitur Accipe Spiritum Sanctum c. i. e. The Council there declares that then the Priests are ordain'd and then the Holy Ghost is given unto them when it is said unto them Receive the Holy Ghost 3. The first Form cannot be an Essential Form according to their own Positions because from them it must necessarily follow that that Form can only be Essential by which the Character is given but the Character of Priesthood cannot be given by the first Form. For says Vasquez Gratia collata ex virtute Sacramenti character simul dantur ut omnibus in confesso est i. e. The grace which is conferr'd by vertue of the Sacrament and the Character are given together as is acknowledged by all And therefore if the Sacramental Grace which they will have conferr'd at their Ordinations of Priests cannot according to their own Doctrines be given by the first Form in their Ordinal as I have already made it appear that it cannot neither can the Character of Priesthood be given by it Besides the Character as they define it being a Spiritual Sign imprinted on the Soul and of it self indivisible it cannot be given by halves one part of it by the first Matter and Form and the other part of it by the second Matter and Form but must be imprinted all at once and therefore if they will have two Essential Matters and two Essential Forms joyned to them in the Ordination of Priests they must also allow two characters to be imprinted by them on the persons Ordain'd as Ferdinando De Castro Palao for this reason doth or else if they will allow but one Character only to that Order as is the current Doctrine of their Church they must also allow but one Essential Matter and Form whereby it is to be imprinted And if the Question be of the two Matters which of them must be that whereby this is done whether Imposition of Hands which was first practiced by the Apostles themselves and hath ever since been used in all the Christian Churches in the World through all Ages and in all Places as every one knows or else that other Rite the delivery of the Chalice and Patten which was never heard of in any Church for near a thousand years after Christ and at present is made use of only in the Roman I hope it will be no difficult matter for you to conclude that it can be no other but Imposition of Hands and therefore if that be the only Matter whereby the Character is imprinted certainly that Form of words which is joyned with that Matter Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. must be the only Form which concurs to the giving thereof and therefore according to what they themselves require to make a Form Essential that only can be the Essential Form of Priestly Ordination and the other cannot at all be Essential thereto Thus far therefore having made out that according to what they require to make a Form Essential the first Form in their Ordinal of Priestly Ordination cannot be such and since they allow no other besides this but the second Form to be an Essential Form in that Administration it must necessarily follow that if they will have the Form of their Priestly Ordination to be Essential and that the Priestly power cannot be conferr'd but by an Essential Form this second Form only Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. the same which we use in our Ordinal must only be that Essential Form whereby this is done and therefore notwithstanding all their Cavils against us as if we did not give the whole Priestly power by this Form in our Ordinations they must themselves in their Ordinations give it by the very same Form that we do or else not give it at all and so their Argument retort on themselves and invalidate their own Orders as well as ours But 2dly The same Consequence will also follow though we allow both their Forms to be essential as they will have that is that notwithstanding the first Form as well as the second be allowed according to them to be Essential yet it must be still the second Form the same which we use in our Ordinations that must confer the whole Priestly power in their Ordinations also or else it must not be conferr'd at all For if the first Form in their Ordinal confers nothing of the Priestly power it must be the second alone that confers it or else it must not be conferr'd at all among them Now that the first Form confers nothing of the Priestly power I prove by your own way of arguing against our Form. That Form which expresseth
Bishops among them who in the administering of the Sacraments have never intended at all to do thereby what the Church doth but at the same time they have performed the outward Acts have inwardly in their hearts out of malice wickedness or infidelity totally disregarded and contemn'd all that is meant or intended by them For have not many of them according to their own writers been Atheists many of them sorcerers and Magicians and many of such profligate lives and conversations as can never be supposed to have intended any thing at all of Religion in any of the Acts of their function which they have performed but being either by the road of their education or the desire of inriching themselves by Church preferments got into those holy Offices have gone on in the common tract to do as others did for the sake of the gain while at the same time in their minds they scoffed at and derided the whole Ministration And how many even of their Popes according to their own Historians have been such whom they make the fountains from which under Christ all Preistly and Ecclesiastical power is derived and if any impartial man will read their Lives I doubt not to say he will certainly conclude the better half of them to be of this sort And to add one consideration more how many since the Rigor of the Inquisition hath been set up in Portugal Spain and Italy that have been Jews in reality have for fear of the barbarous Tyranny of that Tribunal so far dissembled their Religion as the better to cloke it from discovery have taken upon them not only the outward profession of Christianity but the Orders of the Church also and have become Priests and Bishops therein as it is well known there have been several Instances of it in those Countries And can you think that any of them could either in the giving of Orders or Administring of Baptisme ever have any intention of doing thereby what the Church doth No they ever are the greatest Enemies of our Religion and all the Institutions of it and always Curse and abhor them whenever under this Mask they Minister in any of them And on all these accounts it cannot be possible but that through so long a time as near 1700 years there must be in every chain of Succcession whereby the Orders of that Church are said to be derived down to the present times many failures of this kind whereby totally to cut them off from all that follow after And therefore if this Doctrine of the intention of him that Ministers the Sacraments among them be true as it is held in that Church infallibly to be and to which as an infallible Truth you must give up your Faith whenever you list your self among them it must from hence follow that it cannot be possible that they can at this time have any Orders at all among them But Secondly Supposing their Orders be good yet before you go over to them on this Account I desire you in the next place to consider whether you can at all better your self by so doing For what benefit of their Ministry is it I beseech you that you would go over to them for Is it first for the sake of their Preaching of the Word But do not they in that Church lock this up in a Language which you cannot understand forbid Laymen to look into it that they may the better impose on them their Erroneous Doctrines and lead them whether they please And do they not instead thereof from their Pulpits mostly teach the Traditions of men as their Doctrines of Purgatory Pilgrimages Worshipping of Crosses and the Images and Relicts of Saints Masses for the Dead overplus of Saints Merit Pardons Indulgences and such like and filling their Sermons mostly with these and old Wives Tales which they relate concerning their Saints and the Miracles they Fabulously ascribe unto them to make room for these Fopperies wave the Divine Truths of the Gospel and turn Christ and his Apostles quite out of doors Or is it secondly for the sake of their prayers and publick Worship But how can those prayers do you any good with which you cannot joyn they being all in that Church in Latin a Language which you do not understand Or how can that Worship render you acceptable unto God which by reason of the many Superstitions and erroneous practices with which it is performed must it self be totally unacceptable unto him Or else is it thirdly for the sake of the Sacraments But 1. As to the Sacrament of Baptism the Church of Rome allowing it to be validly administred by Laymen you cannot want that in our Church and whenever you go over to them they will allow you your Baptism which you receiv'd among us to be good and valid without Baptizing you again And 2. As to the Sacrament of the Eucharist allowing their Priests to have full power to Consecrate it yet you can never be sure in that Church that they do As to the intention of doing what the Church doth there required you must ever be at a loss and you can be no better assur'd of the outward Act because the words of Consecration are always whisper'd in secret and I have read of one that was burnt among them for Consecrating the Eucharist in the Name of the Devil and as long as they do it in secret an opportunity so proper for the deeds of Darkness you can never be sure but that this or some other thing like it may be done again whenever you come to receive from them But waving these particulars and supposing the Consecration to be in all things aright performed as you would have it yet since they of late have so miserably defaced this Sacrament as to deny the Cup one of the Essentials of it to the Laity I cannot see how in that Church you that are a Lay-man can ever have the holy Eucharist at all administred to you For in all things the withdrawing of an Essential must necessarily cause a destruction of the whole and therefore since our Saviours institution makes both Elements Equally necessary and Essential to this Sacrament the withdrawing the Cup from the Laity makes it no Sacrament at all to them and consequently none that go over unto them on this account because they think our Priests have not sufficient Authority to Consecrate the Eucharist which is your grand Objection will at all better themselves thereby but from a doubt of an invalidity with us fall into a certain nullity with them and be totally depriv'd of the whole benefit of this Sacrament as long as they continue among them For I make no difficulty at all to assert but do here declare it unto you as my Opinion and let him disprove me that can that since the Church of Rome hath Sacrilegiously taken away the Cup from the Laity they have never Administred to them the Sacrament of the Eucharist at all but the want of this
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