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
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
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And for a Bishop Take the Holy Ghost and remember that thou stir up the Grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands For God hath not given thee the Spirit of Fear but of Power and Love and Soberness And they so continued till the review of our Liturgy Anno 1662. and then to obviate the above-mentioned cavil of the Presbyterians those explanatory words were inserted whereby the distinction between a Bishop and a Priest is more clearly and unexceptionably expressed So that now the words of Ordination for a Priest are Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by imposition of our hands Whose sins thou dost forgive c. And for a Bishop Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and remember that thou c. But 4. Having thus stated the Case and laid before you the differences between the new Ordinal and the Old Now to come to the main of the objection I assert that had the old Ordinal been continued without any such Addition although it might not so clearly have obviated the cavils of Adversaries yet the Orders conferred by it would have been altogether as valid And as to the Objection made by the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome that the words of our old Ordinal do not sufficiently express the Office conferred thereby this must be understood either in reference to the Priestly Ordination or the Episcopal or both And 1. As to the Priestly Ordination there seems not to be the least ground for it because the Form in the old Ordinal doth as fully expresse the Office Power and Authority of a Priest as need be required in these words 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 Sacraments Wherein the whole of the Priestly Office is expressed But 2. As to the Episcopal Ordination the whole pinch of the Argument seems to lye there because in the old Form of the words spoken at the imposition of hands the Office and Authority of a Bishop they say is not so particularly specifyed To this I answer first That I think this sufficiently done in the words of the Form Remember that thou stir up the Grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands for God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and Love and Soberness For they are the very words of St. Paul to Timothy Bishop of Ephesus Epist 2. c. 1. ver 6 7. Whereby he exhorts and stirs him up to the Execution of his Episcopal office and they have alvvays been understood to refer thereto and therefore I think they may be also allovved sufficient to express the same Episcopal office when spoken to any other and fully determine to what Office the Holy Ghost is given by imposition of hands in the Form mentioned and properer for this purpose than any other because of the greater Authority which they must have in that they are taken out of the Holy Scripture But if men vvill cavil on and still object that the Name of Bishop is not expressed in the Form or the duties and povver of that Office vvith sufficient clearness specified in the vvords mentioned the objection lies much more against the Roman Ordinal than ours as being much more defective herein For the vvhole Form used therein at the Consecration of a Bishop is no more than this Receive the Holy Ghost that being all that is said at the imposition of hands and asserted by them to be the vvhole Form of Episcopal Ordination And therefore Vasques a Learned Jesuit and most Eminent School-man makes the same objection against the Roman Ordinal that the Romanists do against ours For in Tertiam Thomae Disp 240. c. 5. N. 57. His words are Illa verba accipe Spiritum Sanctum quae a tribus Episcopis simul cum impositione manuum dicuntur super Ordinandum usque adeo generalia videntur ut proprium munus aut gradum Episcopi non exprimant quod tamen necessarium videbatur pro formâ i. e. These words Receive the Holy Ghost which are spoken by three Bishops together with imposition of hands over the person to be Ordained seem to be so general that they do not express the proper office and degree of a Bishop which yet did seem necessary for the Form of his Ordination But to this he himself gives a solution N. 60. of the same chapter in these following words Neque obstat id quod supra dicebamus verba illa accipe Spiritum Sanctum admodum generalia esse nam quamvis in illis secundum se consideratis non denotetur munus aut gradus peculiaris Episcopi pro quocunque alio ordine dici possent tamen prout proferuntur adhibitâ a tribus Episcopis in unum Congregatis manuum impositione pro materia recte quidem denotant gradum Episcopi ad quem electus ordinatur Sic enim simul imponentes per verba illa denotant se eum in suum consortium admittere ad hoc Spiritum sanctum tribuere ac proinde in eodem ordine Episcopali secum ipsum constituere Cum tamen manuum impositio ab uno tantum Episcopo adhibita eadem verba accipe Spiritum Sanctum paucis aliis additis ab eodem in ordinatione Diaconi prolata neque secundum se neque prout ab ipso Episcopo dicta huic materiae applicata peculiare munus aut gradum Diaconi denotent neque enim prout dicta a uno Episcopo cum tali materia denotare possunt ordinatum admitti ad consortium Episcopi in hoc potius ordine quam in alio cum unus Episcopus tam sit minister ordinis Sacerdotii Subdiaconatus quam Diaconatus e contrario vero tres Episcopi solius ordinis Episcopalis ministri sint ideo autem existimo Christum voluisse ut Ecclesia illius tantum verbis quae secundum se Generalia sunt in hac ordinatione uteretur ut denotaret abundantiam gratiae Spiritus Sancti quae Episcopis in Ordinatione confertur Plus enim videtur esse dari Spiritum Sanctum absolutè quam dari ad hunc vel illum effectum peculiarem i. e. Neither doth that hinder which I have said before that these words Receive the Holy Ghost were too general For although by these words considered in themselves the Office or peculiar degree of a Bishop cannot be denoted and they may be also said for any other Order but as they are pronounced the imposition of hands of three Bishops joyned together being also had therewith for the matter of Ordination they do truly denote the degree of a Bishop to
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