Essential hath certainly as to them made a Nullity in the whole Administration and totally deprived them of all the benefits of it And here I cannot but admire the Confidence or rather Impudence of those men who are so forward to deny us our Orders because at the first Reformation of the Ordinal we altered the Forms of Ordination which from the beginning were but of Humane Institution and of very late date too introduced among them as I have shown and yet make no scruple at all themselves to alter from the Institution of Christ himself in this Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and with a Non obstante to his Divine Law cut off one half of that which he hath appointed and by that appointment made as much Essential to the Sacrament as the other half they have retain'd Had the Forms of Ordination been instituted and Commanded by Christ himself as the Administring of the Cup in this Holy Sacrament was then I confess to alter them or omit any part of them might infer a Nullity in the whole performance and the Arguments which our Adversaries bring from hence would be unanswerable against us in this particular But it being manifest that there is no such Institution for them all what they urge from our altering of them for the Nulling of our Orders becomes totally insignificant But how they will be able to Answer the same Arguments when turn'd against themselves to prove a Nullity in their Administration of the Eucharist without the Cup which Christ certainly instituted and commanded as a part thereof I cannot see possible But Thirdly Supposing you might certainly receive from them all the benefits of their Ministry which you propose yet since there are in that Church so many dangerous Errors both in Faith and Practice all which you must necessarily joyn with them in whenever you go over to them whether on this account it be not still best for you to remain as you are is that which in the last place I desire you to consider For can you believe that they can turn a Wafer into God and eat him too with his Divinity when they have done Can you believe that they can every day and in an hundred thousand places at once offer up Christ contrary to the express words of Scripture to be as proper true and real a Sacrifice in their Masses as when he died upon the Cross for us And that they can make Expiation thereby both for the Living and the Dead Can you believe that Saints are made Fellow-Mediators with Christ and that by the overplus of their Merit Satisfaction can be made for sin as well as by the blood of our Redeemer And can you believe that the Pope hath a Treasure hereof to dispose of by pardons and Indulgences Or that Heaven can be bought with the money with which these are sold Can you believe that Church Infallible which evidently err's in a multitude of things every day That its Traditions are as true as Scripture Or that a Priest can forgive Sins Or that the decisions of a Pope are as Infallible as the Oracles of God himself Can you Worship a piece of Bread for your God And adore Relicks Images and Crosses contrary to the express prohibitions of the Word of God Can you pray unto men departed of whom you can have no certainty whether in Heaven or in Hell Can you Worship the Virgin Mary as the Heathens did their Goddesses and fall down to every Stock or Stone that represents her For all those things and many more like them must you believe and do whenever you go over unto them Now the Question is whether you are convinced these things are to be believed and done or no if you are this conviction makes you totally theirs whither our Orders be good or no and the dispute which you stick at concerning them is totally needless But if you are not convinced concerning these points as I beleive you cannot then the whole question comes to this whether in case they have Orders and we none we are for the sake of them only bound to go over to that Church and joyn with them in all those Errors of faith and practice which they there hold And if this be a thing which you stick at for the solution of it I will only lay before you a plain parallel case under the Jewish Law By that you know the Sons of Aaron were the only true Priests and none other were to serve at the Altar of the Lord but they only Now put the Case that when the Ten Tribes revolted with Jeroboam to the worship of the Calves in Dan and Bethel all the whole house of Aaron had revolted with them must the rest of the people for the sake of their Priesthood have gone over to them also and forsaken the true worship of their God for ever No certainly you will say but that they must either have constituted other Priests presuming on the divine approbation in this case of necessity or else if that were not to be don rather remain without Priest or Altar then commit so great an abomination for the sake thereof And this is plainly the case before us For Supposing all the whole Christian Priesthood had so joyned themselves to the Corruptions of the Romish Sect that we who retain the true purity of our Religion had neither Bishops Priests nor Deacons among us as you would have must we for the sake of their Priesthood also go over to them and pollute ourselves with them in all those Errors Superstitions and Idolatrys which they give themselves up unto No certainly if this were our case as I thank God it is not we must either separate others to the Ministry of our own appointment presuming on the divine approbation in this case of necessity or else if this be not to be done since duties enjoyned by positive institution as these of the Ministry are may in many cases be dispensed with but that which is Sinful is in no case to be done rather then do so Sinful and wicked a thing in the presence of God as to joyne our selves to that corrupted Church and all the abominations of it it is much better for us to remain without Priest Sacrament or publick Worship and serve God with our private Devotions only which hath been the Case of many a good Christian who since our Trafick into the East-Indies hath begun have on many occasions been detained in Countries totally Heathen without Sacrament or publick Worship for many years together And you cannot but say that it would be a very bad Argument in this case to perswade those Christians to put themselves under the Conduct of the Bramins and Talapoins the Idolatrous Priests of those Countries because they can there have no Priests of their own and I assure you that which is now urg'd upon you to draw you over to the Church of Rome because they say they have Priests and we none is very
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
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
have been pleased to call at my Study and the Books should there have been laid before you Your Paper cites the words of the third Canon of the Council of Carthage but all the four first Canons belong to this matter for in them that Council prescribing the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons makes mention only of imposition of hands with the Blessing given by the Ordainer but nothing at all of any of those imperative Forms in which the Church of Rome now a days placeth the essence of Orders And as to the words of the Book of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite I find none such in that Author as are contained in your Paper and therefore I suppose you transcribed them not from the Book it self but only wrote after some person that had given you the summe of them and if I mistake not you have made use of Dr. Burnet in this particular for the passage which I refer to in Dionysius contains several pages in Folio for he having first described the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons afterwards goeth over every single Rite in a very particular and exact manner and according to his way of Writing finds a Mystery in every one of them but amongst all those particulars which he so exactly recites there is none of the least mention made of any imperative Forms spoken at the imposition of hands or at the performance of any other Rite belonging to that matter and this silence of them where there is so particular a mention of every thing else is an undeniable presumption that there was then no such thing in use But to all that I have said in denying the antient use of those Forms you have this Answer that it seems irrational that there should be no words spoken by the Bishop at the laying on of his hand upon the Ordained and that at this rate the laying on of hands would seem only a dumb and insignificant sign and would in your opinion be nothing at all operative to the conferring of the Office on the person Ordained To which I reply First That how insignificant soever you may esteem the outward Ceremony without those words which you call the essential Form in the Consecration of a Christian Priest yet if you please to read the 8th Chapter of Leviticus you will there find that Aaron and his Sons were Consecrated to the Levitical Priesthood by the outward Ceremony only without as much as any one word spoken by Moses the Consecrator signifying the Holy Office to which they were set apart And Maimonides the most Authentick Writer among the Rabbies gives us an account that in after times the Consecration of the High Priest among the Jews was performed only by the Anointing with the Holy Oyl and Vesting with the High Priests Vestments and after the destruction of the first Temple in which the Holy Oyl was lost by Vesting him only For outward signs can by general institution be made as expressive of any thing of this nature as a form of words for words are only sounds appointed by the common consent of those that use them to be the signs of things and when outward actions are appointed to signifie the same things they are altogether as expressive and the King of France by delivering the Sword to the Constable and a Staff to a Marshal of France doth as effectually create those Officers by that outward Ceremony only as if he had done it by a Form of words the most expressive of the Authority and Power given that could be devised because the Laws of the Kingdom and the long received Customs of it have made these Ceremonies alone the well known manner of Constituting those Officers And had the Laws of the Christian Church or the long received usages of it made any outward Ceremony whatever in like manner the well known Rite of Ordaining a Priest it would be altogether as valid for this purpose without any Form of words whatever For Ordination being only a Ministerial act of delegating that Office to another which was received from Christ any thing that is sufficient to express this delegation whether words or signs doth sufficiently do the thing For if Forms be so necessary to Ordination what is it that makes them so It must be either the institution of Christ or the nature of the thing it self any other Reason for it I know not If it be from the institution of Christ let us be but convinced of that and we have done For in this case either to omit the Form or alter in the least from its first institution would make the whole performance culpable But if there be no institution of Christ for any such Form as I have already abundantly demonstrated that there is not all the necessity of such a Form must be from the nature of the thing it self Now if the nature of Ordination doth not necessarily require any such Form but that any of the Offices of the Church may be as well conferred by an outward Ceremony only by publick institution made significant and expressive of the thing done there appears no necessity for the use of any such Forms at all so as to invalidate those Orders that are conferred without them That which makes the Church of Rome so much insist upon the Matter and Form of Ordination is that they have made it a Sacrament and they observing the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the Sacrament of Baptism which are really Sacraments of Christs own institution to consist each of them as prescribed in Scripture of an outward sign and a form of words annext the former of which they call the matter and the latter the form of the Sacrament from hence they do infer that they are both essentially necessary to all those other Rites which they will have to be Sacraments also and because they find none such instituted in Scripture for them as they themselves acknowledge that they may not be without them introduce Matters and Forms as they call them of their own making And hence it is that they talk so much of the Matter and Form of Orders and will have both so essentially necessary to the conferring of them whereas would they argue aright in this point they ought not so much to have inferred the necessity of what they call Matter and Form for Ordination from that it is a Sacrament as that for this very reason it can be no Sacrament because it hath neither the one nor the other by Divine institution belonging thereto For the nature of a Sacrament according to their own definitions consists in this that it is an outward Ceremony consisting of things and words instituted and enjoyned by Christ himself with a promise of saving Grace annexed to the performance of it And since nothing of this can be made out to us from Scripture it doth from hence follow that although Orders be enrold among the number of the
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
from the antient practice of the Church by introducing a new matter of their own invention the delivery of the Sacred Vessels to the person Ordained a thing never practiced in any Church till brought into use by them about seven hundred years since yet this they are so zealous for in preference to the other that or imposition of hands that they do not only by the general received Doctrine of their Church give it the preheminence as the prime and principal matter essential to the Sacrament as they call it but abundance of them make that to be the only external sign that is so and reject the other although most undeniably of Apostolical usage into the number only of those accidental Rites which belong to that administration And this I mention only to let you see that although those men are so clamorous against us for altering the Ordinal at the Reformation they only are guilty of that alteration herein which is really culpable in that to introduce a new Rite or Matter as they term it of their own invention they give little or no regard to that which is truly Apostolical for so imposition of hands must undeniably be allowed to be But I intend not to make any dispute as to this particular having before said that Orders may be validly conferred without it by any other manner sufficiently expressive of the thing intended But here I desire to be understood that I hold it not justifiable for any Bishop so to do unless in some particular case where there may be an extraordinary reason to warrant the alteration Because when a Rite hath been so generally received in the Church and hath so venerable a stamp upon it as that of Apostolick usage the Example is so enforcing as even to reach almost the very nature of a Precept to oblige us to do the same thing But because we find no Precept or Institution in Scripture concerning this Rite as the Romanists themselves acknowledge that there is not we put it not into the essentials of Ordination so as to judge null and void such Orders as shall be conferred without it but in this case admit the old and well known Rule quod fieri non debet factum valet that which ought not to be done is valid when done For the Rite of imposition of hands being of so antient and venerable use in the Church as I have aforesaid I think it cannot be omitted unless in some extraordinary case as I have mentioned without a great fault both in him that shall give and him that shall receive Orders without it But however the Orders must be allowed to be good notwithstanding that omission because our Saviour who commands the chief Pastors of his Church to send others after them to administer in holy things even as they were sent enjoyned herein only the mission it self without prescribing any thing to them about the manner of it neither were his Holy Apostles after him directed by his Holy Spirit to leave any Rule or Precept to us as to this particular But it was left to the Governours of the Church to do herein according as they should see most fitting And for many Ages after Christ there was no such thing as a Uniform Ordinal in any Church but the thing was left to discretion as the manner of Consecrating Churches with us and every Bishop used his own method herein only imposition of hands was always retained but with such different and various Forms of Prayers Benedictions and other Rites as the Bishop Ordaining thought most fitting to make use of and from hence no doubt came all that variety of Ordinals which is to be found among those Morinus hath published for Uniformity either of Liturgies or Ordinals is of very late date even in the Church of Rome it self In England down to the very time of the Reformation there were five different Liturgies according to the different uses of the Churches of Sarum Hereford York Bangor and Lincoln and in Morinus there is an Ordinal for the use of England much differing from the rest and therefore it is no new thing for us to vary from the Church of Rome in this particular even while we own'd its Usurpations over us how much soever we are now quarrelled at on this account since we have been separated from them The sum of all is that there was nothing of constant use in Ordination but Imposition of hands the Benedictions Prayers and other Rites that accompanied being for the most part differing according to the different Churches in which they were used and therefore if the Ordainer were a person fully authorized and the person Ordained fully qualified for the Sacred Office to which he was admitted we never meet with any that disputed the manner of the Ordination Neither do we find that ever a Controversie was made in this matter to null and void the Orders of any Church from any defect in their Ordinal till the Church of Rome raised the present Cavil against us For although different Churches in former times did much differ as to this yet we find none so fond of their own Methods and Forms as to condemn others that varied from them but it was ever looked on as the right of every particular Church in this to follow their own establishmenâ—s And although the Romanists have in this the Greek Church as much differing from them as the Church of England yet we find them not making any quarrel with them upon this account but on the contrary allowing them to make use of their own Ordinals even after received into Communion with them and that even in those Churches which they have in Rome it self and were it not that the violence of their passion against us for our differing from them in other things made them overlook their Reason in this the same thing must have been allowed us also But it hath happened to them in this as is usual with such as contend in a bad cause that is wanting all true Reasons of opposition against us were forced to lay hold of any thing that might seem to bear an appearance of it without considering the inconsistencies which the charge bears even with their own Principles but they having begun are bound in Honour to proceed and I know no other reason they have of continuing this unreasonable Cavil against us about the validity of our Orders abundance of their own Divines being really ashamed of it as you may see from the Testimonies I have already produced to you from some of them concerning this matter who positively declare their Opinion to the contrary herein And no doubt were they to begin the Controversie anew with us amongst several other Articles of Opposition they have too rashly taken up against us this concerning the validity of our Orders would in the first place be totally superseded betwixt us But because in answering what you objected concerning the Forms of Ordination I have been led
also to speak of the Matter Imposition of hands that I may leave nothing that I have said liable to Objection I think it requisite a little further to explain my self concerning this particular Although there be some Doctors of the Church of Rome that hold Imposition of hands only to be an accidental Rite and the delivery of the Sacred Vessels the sole essential Matter of Orders yet the most General receiv'd Opinion among them is that they are both essential matters but make the delivery of the Sacred Vessels the most principal matter as being that whereby they say is conferr'd the power of Order enabling to consecrate the Eucharist and offer the Sacrifice of the Mass whereas by the other imposition of hands is only conferred the power of Jurisdiction which they make to be by much the inferior and less noble part of the Sacerdotal Function and in this Doctrine of theirs I think them guilty of a double Error For 1. Since Imposition of Hands hath been of such constant use in the Church of Christ from the beginning in all Ordinations and hath been Consecrated thereto by the practice of the Apostles themselves as from Scripture is most evident they detract from the Veneration which is due to so ancient a Rite and to the Example of the holy Apostles who used it alone without any other by putting it in the second place after a Rite of their own invention and making it thus inferior thereto I mean the delivery of the Sacred Vessels which doth not appear from any of their Ordinals or any other ancient Record of the Church to have been in use among them above seven hundred years as Morinus a Priest of their own makes it out unto us But 2. I think them as much in a mistake on the other hand by making this or any other Rite essential to this Administration since there is no Divine Institution establishing any thing at all concerning it That the Scriptures tell us not of any such the Romanists themselves freely grant but what they cannot make out from hence they would prove unto us by the Tradition of their Church for by that they tell us it hath been delivered down from one Age to another that both these Rites which they hold to be the essential matters of Priestly Ordination were instituted and commanded by Christ himself and they pretend also to give us a Reason as I have afore noted why this Institution should be rather thus preserved down to subsequent Ages by an unwritten Tradition than by the written Word but this Tradition being most apparently false as to one of them the delivery of the Sacred Vessels which it's plain for a Thousand years was never heard of in the Church as I have shown is by no means a sufficient Testimony to be relied on for the other That the Apostles ordained by imposition of hands and that all Churches herein followed their Example is most certain But that it is to be received as an essential to the administration in which it is used upon the account of a Divine Institution we have no Authority for it but from the later Writers of the Church of Rome which is by no means sufficient to make us subscribe thereto And if the Apostolical practice be urged on their side the answer is most certain that all things are not to be held to be of Divine Institution which the Apostles did or do they for this reason lay a necessary obligation upon the Church as such because we have their Example for the practice of them For their Example is not sufficient to inferre a Divine Institution for those things which they did where we have that alone without any precept unto us for the doing of them also as from abundance of Instances in Scripture of things practiced by them and now totally abolished may most apparently be made out unto you And this way of arguing would inferre such difficulties upon the Romanists themselves as they will never be able to answer For waving other instances to come to the particular now in hand if imposition of Hands in Ordination were on this account to be held for a Divine Institution what shall become of the so Generally receiv'd Axiom of the Church of Rome Summus Pontifex solo verbo potest facere Sacerdotem Episcopum That the Pope without imposition of Hands or any other Rite whatever can make both a Priest and a Bishop by speaking the word only so that if he say unto any one be thou a Priest or be thou a Bishop his saying so only without any further Ceremony shall be sufficient fully and validly to confer either of the said Offices For the Pope is no more excused from any thing that is of Divine Institution than any other of his Communion and I suppose none of their Doctors will say that he is But that although in a High degree he Lords it over all yet he is equally with all subject to the Laws of him whose Vicar he pretends to be But if it be asked then that if there be no command of Christ for this Rite nor any obligation from a Divine prescript for the use of it how came it from the beginning of Christianity to be the practice of all the Apostles and what other reason can be given for so early and general observance of it To this I answer That it was a Rite which was received in conformity to the ancient use of it in the Jewish Church to the same purpose And that I may give you satisfaction herein I shall trace the thing to its first Original and give you a thorough account of it and in so doing I hope I shall not only answer the present objection but also clear the way for the removing of all those other difficulties which you have raised to your self about this particular The Publick Service of God among the Jews was twofold First That of the Temple and Secondly That of the Synagogue That of the Temple consisting only of Sacrifices Oblations and the Ceremonies belonging thereto which were all Typical Representations of the Grand Sacrifice of Christ our Saviour once to be offered for all When he had offered this Sacrifice by dying on the Cross for us they all receiv'd their Completion and thenceforth became totally Abolished But the Service of the Synagogue not consisting of Ceremonial Observances but of the Moral Duties of Prayer Praise Thanksgiving and in Exhortations and Instructions to the obeying of Gods Holy Will and Commandments to which there is a natural and perpetual obligation was still from the Jewish Oeconomy which ceased continued on to the Christian that followed after it in its stead and that as far as the nature of things would bear according to the same Rules of Discipline Order and Practice also as formerly that there being as little variation as possible as to the observance of those Duties in the new Oeconomy from the former practice of them under the
or Elder in the Synagogue of the Jews excepting only the administring of the Sacrament of the Eucharist which answered not to any thing of the Synagogue but to the Paschal Feast which was a Service totally appropriated to the Temple and the City of Jerusalem in which it stood And what other end is designed by imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Christian Presbyter but the giving of the Holy Ghost the same which I have told you was also imported by the same Ceremony in the Ordination of a Presbyter for the Synagogue only it was given in the Christian Church in a larger degree then in the Jewish and also for a more excellent ministration the one being derived only from Moses for the teaching of the Law and the other from Christ our Lord for the preaching of his Gospel and the administring of all the benefits thereof unto Everlasting Life And thus far I hope I have made it clear how this Ceremony of imposition of hands made use of in our Ordinations came into the Church of Christ that is not by any Divine Law or Precept from our Saviour but only by imitation from what was afore practiced in the Synagogue of the Jews But however since we find it introduced by the Apostles themselves and in all Ordinations practiced by them from the beginning who were in so extraordinary a manner guided by the Holy Spirit of God in all that they did of this nature this is sufficient to infer a Divine Approbation of the use thereof although not a Divine Institution perpetually obligatory thereto and therefore we cannot without being guilty of the greatest rashness vary from it to any invention of our own for which we can have no such assurance and this with the apt significancy which the Ceremony it self hath of the thing intended no doubt hath been the reason that it hath ever since been continued in the Church of Christ down to this time there being no Church or Sect of Christians that I know of which think any Ordination at all necessary that do not make use of this Ceremony therein Now the manner how Orders were first administred hereby we gather from Scripture to be thus when any persons were made choice of to officiate in any of the Holy Offices of the Church whether of Bishop Priest or Deacon First God Almighty was sought to in their behalf by a solemn Fast to which the Ember weeks do now answer and then the Congregation being met the Ordainer whether one of the Apostles themselves or of the Bishops that succeeded them having by a Prayer particular for that purpose recommended the person to be Ordained to the mercy and favour of God that he would be pleased to accept of him to that Holy Function to which he was set apart and impart unto him such a measure of his Gifts and Graces as might fully enable him to all the Duties thereof then as the proper Minister of God by his Divine appointment for this purpose laid his hands upon him for his receiving all that which had in his behalf been thus prayed for it being by this Ministerial act as it were by the hand of God himself reached out unto him and this was always looked upon as the very act whereby the Office was given and the full completion of that administration whereby any were admitted thereto and for several Ages after we find no other Ceremony used therein But Imposition of hands alone was all along looked on as the sole Ceremonial act whereby the Office was conferred whether it were of Bishop Priest or Deacon it being thereto as the Seal to the Patent by which they acted in their Ministry and the application thereof that which impowered them to all the duties of it And for this reason among the Greeks Ordination and Imposition of hands are signified by the same word and also in the Writings of the Apostles themselves we have instances hereof Acts 14. v. 23. and 2 Cor. 8. v. 19. in both these places the word which by the Romanists themselves is Translated to Ordain is in the Original Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies to lay on hands which sufficiently imports that in that Ceremony the whole act of Ordination was understood to consist without any of those imperative Forms which you seem to lay so much stress upon we having no Authority in the least to make it out unto us that any such were at all in use for near a thousand years after Christ as I have already shown Neither is there any such necessity for them as you urge to declare the intent of the Ceremony or which of the different Orders of the Church it is which is conferred thereby in Ordination seeing this may be as well manifested by a publick declaration to the people in the beginning of the administration and also in the subsequent prayers which were offered up unto God in behalf of the person to be Ordained for his accepting of him to the Office and his imparting to him his Divine Gifts to enable him to the Duties of it as it is evident that it was done by both these ways in the Primitive Church without any such Forms as you think so necessary thereto for to express the thing the more plainly to you when a Fast had been appointed in order to the Ordination of a Presbyter when the Congregation being met the end of that meeting was declared for the Ordaining of such an one there present to be a Presbyter and when by particular Prayers he had been recommended to God for his imparting to him his Gifts and Graces for that Office as was the ancient manner of Ordination after all this had been done when the hands of the Bishop and the Presbytery were laid on him for the conferring of the Office certainly there needed no new declaration to express the end for which it was done And that this was anciently the practice of the Church of Rome it self thus to Ordain by Imposition of hands without any such Forms annexed we have a most evident proof from their own Ordinal it being still thus retained therein For in the Roman Ordinal Imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Priest is twice administred the last time indeed it hath a Form annexed the same almost which we use Receive the Holy Ghost c. But of the first the Rubrick of the Ordinal says Pontifex stans ante faldistorium suum cum Mitrâ nulla oratione nullove cantu praemissis imponit simul utramque manum super caput cujuslibet Ordinandi successivè nihil dicens idemque faciunt post eum omnes Sacerdotes qui adsunt i. e. The Bishop standing before his Faldstool with his Mitre on his head without any Prayer or Hymn premised puts both his hands successively on the head of every one to be Ordained without speaking any thing at all and after him all the Priests that are present do the same thing Now
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
his Holy Apostles for the Ministry to which he had chosen them And therefore those words that follow Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained must be they whereby the whole power and Authority of that their Ministry was given unto them and not a part of it only as the Romanists say and consequently these words must be the perfectest and most authentic form whereby to Ordain others also to the same Ministry III. But our Church in the first establishing of this Form for Preistly Ordination did not only appoint these words of our Saviour whereby he Ordained his Apostles but also out of their abundant caution as if they foresaw the Cavils our Adversaries now make by way of Explication subjoyned these other words also And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his Sacraments by them explicitly expressing all the Priestly power in particular which we understand in general to be implicitly contain'd in the other that go before as I have already made out unto you that they are And although this should not be the true Explication of them as our Adversaries contend yet since the words are part of the Form they must give all that they express and therefore since they express the whole Priestly power though the other should not they must give it also to all those that are Ordain'd thereby and consequently the Form must be fully sufficient even in all that which you your self require to make it so But to this you object that those later words give power only to Dispense the Sacraments and not to Consecrate and therefore cannot give power to Consecrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist and make present the Body and Blood of our Saviour as you term it which you look on as the main of the Priestly power but only to Dispense it that is to distribute the Elements when Consecrated which a Deacon only can do To this I Answer 1. That the word Dispense is here made use of as a general Term which reacheth both Word and Sacraments and therefore cannot be limited to that particular sense of distributing the Elements only in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as you will have it but must comprehend whatsoever the Ministers of Christ who as his Stewards are intrusted with his Word and Sacraments are commanded by him to do in order to the giving out and dispensing of both for the Salvation of those to whom they are sent 2. The whole Objection being concerning the signification of the word Dispense you must not go for that to the Cavils of Adversaries but to the intent and meaning of our Church in the use of it For words have no otherwise their signification than according to the appointment and acceptation of those that use them and must always express that sense which by common consent and usage is intended by them And therefore since you plainly acknowledge as doth also your Erastus Senior whom you follow herein that the Church of England means and intends Consecration as well as Distribution by the word Dispense it necessarily follows that that must be the signification of it in this Form. For certainly a whole National Church intending such a sense by such a word for an hundred and fifty years together it is enough to make it signifie so though that were never the sense of it before because words not being necessary but only Arbitrary signs of things must always so signifie as is intended by the common consent of them that use them But 3. To come to the main solution of the matter the case is plainly thus Our Reformers making Scripture the Principal Rule of all their Establishments did in the appointing of this Form take the very words of it from thence as near as they could and therefore as they had the former part thereof out of the 20th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John Verse 22 23. so had they the latter from the 4th Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Verse the first only with this difference that whereas the former are the very words of Scripture the latter instead of the very words Dispensers of the Mysteries of God to make the thing more plain and clear is express'd by other words equivalent thereto Dispensers of the Word of God and of his Holy Sacraments the Word of God and his holy Sacraments being on all hands acknowledged to be the whole of what is there intended by the Mysteries of God. And although the Original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is better rendred Stewards as in our Translation than Dispensers yet the Gentlemen of Rome can have no reason to find fault with us in this particular since herein we follow their own Bible the vulgar Latin which their Council of Trent hath decreed to be the only Authentic Scripture For at the first Reformation of our Church the Original Languages of the Holy Scriptures being but little known the Vulgar Latin Version was that which was then generally used among us and therefore the expression is put in our Form according as it was found in that Version for there it is Dispensatores Mysteriorum Dei and accordingly the Rhemists translate it The Dispensers of the Misteries of God and therefore the whole Controversie between us must be brought to this point only whether Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place doth signifie Priests or no and if it doth it must necessarily follow that it signifies the same also in our Form of Ordination where it is used And I doubt not if you will be pleased to look upon that Text of Scripture even as translated by our Adversaries themselves it will not be possible for you to perswade your self that when the Holy Apostle St. Paul there says of himself and the other Apostles So let a man esteem us as the Ministers of Christ and the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God he means it only as Deacons No certainly both those phrases Ministers of Christ and Dispensers of the Mysteries of God are equivalent Expressions denoting them as invested with the whole Ministry of the Gospel committed to them And if you will commit the decision of this Cause to Estius an Eminent and Learned Doctor of the Church of Rome he will plainly tell you so for on that Text of Scripture he so explains those phrases And on the 7th verse of the first of Titus he interprets Dispensatorem Dei i. e. the Dispenser of God to be Dei Vicarium ac Ministrum in Dispensatione Evangelii Sacramentorum i. e. Gods Vicar and Minister in the Dispensing of his Gospel and Sacraments and then immediately after he repeats the forementioned Text 1 Cor. 4.1 denoting Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place and Dispenser of God here to be both understood in the same sense And therefore according to him who was as Eminent a Doctor of their Church as any
For saith he Si nolumus negare Sacramentum Ordinis in Ecclesiâ Latinâ necesse est pro materiâ hujus Sacramenti solam impositionem manuum assignare hanc enim solam Apostoli Concilia Antiqui Patres commemorant i. e. If we will not deny the Sacrament of Orders in the Latin Church it is necessary that we assign only Imposition of Hands for the matter of this Sacrament for that only the Apostles and Councils and ancient Fathers make mention of And therefore he saith in another place that not only the power of Jurisdiction but also the power of Order is conferr'd by Imposition of Hands that is not only the power of Absolving Penitents but also the power of Consecrating and Administring the Eucharist and he saith that the Councils and Fathers whensoever they speak of the Order of Priesthood to be given by Imposition of Hands mean all this power to be conferr'd thereby and for proof hereof he quotes a certain Comment that goes under the name of St. Ambrose which on the 4th Chapter of the first Epistle to Timothy hath these words Manuum Impositionis verba sunt Mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus Electus accipiens autoritatem teste Conscientiâ ut audeat vice Domini Sacrificia Deo offerre i.e. The words of Imposition of Hands are Mystical by which the Elected is confirmed to the work of the Ministry receiving Authority his Conscience bearing him witness that he may make bold in the stead of our Lord to offer Sacrifice unto God. And from thence he remarkes quod manuum Impositio inserviat potestati accipiendae in verum corpus Christi i. e. That Imposition of Hands doth serve to the receiving of power over the true Body of Christ that is to Consecrate and administer the Eucharist where they will have the true body of Christ to be present And therefore if the Authority of this Doctor of the Romish Church signifies any thing with you who was a person of that eminent note among them for his learning that he was designed to have been a Cardinal by Gregory the 15th Had that Pope lived to have made another promotion this last matter of Imposition of hands with the form of words annex'd must give not only the power to absolve penitents but also the power of consecrating the Eucharist and if they give this to them since they are both still retain'd in our Ordinal they must give it us also and consequently your whole Objection against our Orders as if this power were not conferr'd on us at our Ordinations be totally remov'd But here then you will perchance ask the Question if the later Matter and Form in the Roman Ordinal give the whole Priestly power to what end then serves the former Matter and Form which they make use of To this I Answer to the same purpose that some other Matters and Forms do in their Ordinal which they allow only to be accidental that is for the more solemnity of the Administration and not at all to confer the Sacerdotal power and as such no doubt at this time their first Matter and Form which they call essential would only have been reputed by all learned men among them but that it had unwarily been declared otherwise in the Council of Florence and therefore they being obliged to abide by that determination have been forced to frame the Scheme of their Divinity so in this particular as the practice of their own Church for near a thousand years together the practice of all other Churches in the World down to this time the Writings of the Ancients many of their own Doctrines and all Reason too which some of them cannot conceal do manifestly contradict 2. The first Form cannot be an essential Form according to their own positions because according to them that only can be an Essential Form of any of their Sacraments which conduceth to conferre the Sacramental grace But the Sacramental grace of the Sacrament of Orders as they call it cannot be confer'd by the first form and therefore that can by no meanes according to their own positions be an Essential Form. For the Sacramental grace even according to their own Divinity can only be annexed to such Sacramental signs as Christ himself the author and institutor of all Sacraments hath appointed now if it can no way be made out that Christ ever appointed the Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten to be a Sacramental sign in the Ordination of the Ministers of his Church then certainly no grace can ever be annex'd thereto or the Form of words the first form above mention'd made use of at the administring this Rite in Ordinations ever conferre any The Consequence I suppose no one will ever deny because no signe with any Form of words whatever can in the least conduce to the conferring of Grace but what the Institution of our Saviour hath made Sacramentall And therefore the whole stress of the Argument lyes upon this only that our Saviour never instituted this signe or Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten in Ordinations or ever commanded his Holy Apostles either by himself while here on Earth or by the Dictates of his Holy Spirit afterwards to make use thereof And there are but two ways possible whereby our Adversaryes can ever pretend to make it out that he did The First is by Scripture and the other by Tradition For they will have the Institutions of our Saviour to be transmitted down unto us not only by the written word the Holy Scriptures but also by the unwritten as they call it the Traditions of the Church both which they will have of equal Authority for the making out of what they will have to be of divine Institution But neither of these will serve their turn in this particular Not Tradition First because no other Church bears record with them herein and Secondly because it appears by undeniable authority and by the concession of abundance of their own Doctors as I have above mention'd that for near a thousand years together after Christ there was not even in their own Church any Tradition at all of this matter or the thing ever heard of among them till instituted by themselves about 700 years since And as to the Scripture they themselves there give up the Cause plainly acknowledging that no proof at all of this matter can be had from thence And therefore Bellarmine and Hallier and several others of them say that if Imposition of Hands be not the Essential Matter of Orders they can have no Argument at all out of Scripture to prove against the Hereticks as they call us of the Protestant Religion that it is a Sacrament And the words of Habertus are Scripturae Ordinatio aut nihil est aut manuum Impositio i. e. The Ordination of Scripture is either nothing or imposition of Hands Becanus the Jesuit goes further and say's Nec in Scripturis nec in antiquis
Ordination therein superadded no new Authority to that which was afore given him by the Priestly and therefore that both Offices were the same according to our own Ordinal Thirdly That if this Argument implies any defect in our Old Ordinal it placeth it only in the Form of Episcopal Ordination and not in the Priestly and concerning this only you have several times told me your whole doubt is Fourthly The Presbyterians urging this is by no means an Argument that there is any such defect in the Form of Episcopal Ordination in our Old Ordinal for God forbid all should be true which Adversaries use to urge against each other in their disputes about Religion Fifthly That if this be a defect in our Old Ordinal the Papists have no reason to urge it their 's being much more defective as I have already told you for in the Consecration of a Bishop at the imposition of hands they use no other Form then these words only Receive the Holy Ghost As to what you tell me that the Papists are more formidable to the Church of England then all the Sects together in point of weight if you speak this in reference to their Doctrines or any thing that they can say to defend them I am so far from being of your opinion that of all the Sects that have infested the Church of Christ which have been able to make any plausible show of Argument for themselves I think theirs bating the Patronage of Princes to which it chiefly owes its support to be the most defenceless which may sufficiently appear by the present management of the Controversie between us in which their cause hath been so miserably baffled that they are in a manner plainly put to silence Few now of those many Tracts which are written against them being at all Answered by them And when sometimes with a great deal of noise they send forth a Pamphlet against us their performance is always so lame and what they have to say for themselves so far short of giving any satisfaction in the Points controverted between us that it is sufficiently evidenced hereby that their cause is such as will not bear a defence The next thing you tell me is that you have received your Erastus Senior and your Erastus Junior and can find no mention made in any part of them of the alteration of our Ordinal it seems then you have them both to serve the cause you would maintain although you denyed you had either when I would have borrowed one of them of you in order to the better giving you the satisfaction which you desired But because you say you cannot find the passage I refer to I will give you the words as I find them in the last page of the Erastus Senior which I have they are as followeth Since the Printing of this they have acknowledged the justness of our exception to their Forms by amending them in their new Book Authorized by the late Act for Vniformity c. which words being put after the conclusion of the Book do sufficiently enough themselves express that they were put there between the time of finishing and publishing of it that it was after the finishing of it is said in them and that it was before the publishing of it is demonstrable from their being there and consequently the publication of this Book must be after the publication of the Liturgy Now the Liturgy not being published after its review and amendment till the latter end of August 1662. its evident from thence that it must be after that time that this Erastus Senior first came forth and therefore it could not any way influence the alteration made in our Ordinal published with that Liturgy as you would have it the whole being perfected the January before for the Parliament began to fit January the 7th and the third Act which was passed we find to be the Act of Vniformity wherein this Liturgy with the Ordinal were confirmed and consequently it must in the very beginning of the Sessions have been made ready by the Convocation for them And whereas you require of me to tell you who those sober Papists were that exploded those Books at their coming out I name unto you Father Peter Walsh for one who was the person I mentioned to have wrote a Book against them which he presented to the late Bishop of Winchester and is now in several hands in Manuscript and Dr. Burnet tells you he had the perusal of it But you demand of me to let you see this in Print and then you say you may be of my mind to which I Answer that I gladly accept of the condition and if you will perform your promise hereon we shall have no occasion to dispute any further about this matter For although Father Walsh hath not yet Printed the Book I mention yet he hath the substance of it in the Preface to his History of the Irish Remonstrance where you may find it but because perchance this Book is not to be had in this place I will refer you to another of his where you will find him saying the same thing that is in his Preface to his four Letters lately published and common enough to be had in every Booksellers shop For there making an Apology to those of his Religion for calling the Bishop of Lincoln most Illustrious and most Reverend in the Letter to him which he wrote in defence of the Church of Rome as to the deposing Doctrine against a Book which his Lordship had published on that Argument he gives his Reasons for it in these following words I had about twelve years since in the Preface to my History of the Irish Remonstrance publickly in Print acknowledged my opinion to be that the Ordination of the Protestant Church of England is valid meaning it undoubtedly to be so according both to the publick Doctrine of the Roman Catholick Schools themselves and the ancient Rituals of all Catholick Churches Latin and Greek nay and to those Rituals of all the Oriental Heterodox Churches too as Morinus a Learned Oratorian hath recorded them Thus far Father Walsh and what can be a more express acknowledgment in a Papist of the thing which you require and this being in Print and to be seen by you when you please to consult the Book to which I direct you I hope you will remember your promise of being of my mind hereon and acquiesce in this Authority But he is not the only man of that Religion that allows our Orders to be good and valid abundance more are of his mind herein and several have taken the same freedom of expressing it although to the disadvantage of their own cause Father Davenport alias Sancta Clare another Priest of the Romish Church is altogether as express in this matter as Father Walsh for in his Exposition on the 36th Article of our Church he proves from Vasquez Conink Arcudius and Innocent the 4th that our Church hath all the