conferred by him for no other reason but for the hatred which they bore each other according as they were of different parties for or against the proceedings of Formosus that was Pope before them And if the truth be fully examined into no other reason will appear for their like proceedings with us We are not of their party but after having long submitted to their unreasonable usurpations and unwarrantable impositions will now bear them no longer but having cast off this heavy yoke from our necks have thereby cut them short of a great part of their Empire and deprived them of vast incomes which they annually received out of those Kingdoms in larger sums then from any other nation under their bondage and therefore looking on us as the Egyptians did on the Israelites when they withdrew themselves from their bondage although it were to serve the living God pursue after us with the same malice and when out of the bitterness of it they have deprived so many of us of our Lives no wonder they will not allow us our orders But how bad soever either our orders our Liturgy or any other part of the Reformation establisht among us may at present be esteemed yet we have heard of the time when if his Holiness might but have had his Supremacy and his Peter-pence again all might have been allowed to be good and valid Pope Paul the 4th and after him Pope Pius the 4th having several times offered it Queen Elizabeth to confirm all that was done in the Reformation of this Church and allow both our orders and our Liturgy too provided she would again restore them to that Authority and Revenue which their Predecessors formerly had in this Land. And as long as there was any hope for the succeeding of this project Papists were permitted both to frequent our Churches and joyn with us in our Prayers and it was the General practice of that whole party for the first ten years of her Reign so to do But afterwards when the Court of Rome found that the Queen was immoveably fixed against what they proposed and all likelihood taken from them of again recovering their power in this Land by any Concession from her then first began they in the 11th year of her Reign to command their Votaries to make a total separation from us and to proceed in the most rigorous manner possible by Excommunications Sentences of Deposition underhand Treasons and open violences against the Queen and all that adhere to her to condemn our Church of Apostacy from the Faith and to denounce all her establishments which afore of their own accord they had offered to confirm and allow to be Heretical False Diabolical and what other like name they were pleased to affix thereto and all this for no other reason but because we would not again admit them to that Tyrannical supremacy over us which had on so just grounds been cast out of our Land by which it appears that Empire is the only thing in reality which those men look after and all things else are to be allowed or denyed as they may comport therewith I am Sir Your affectionate Friend Humphrey Prideaux The same Messenger that carryed this Paper to Mr. Norris brought from him this following in Answer to the first Paper I sent him it being on Fryday Night November the 25 th SIR THE ensuing are my promised thoughts upon your Paper which neither Mr. Acton nor any of those Gentlemen had the least hand in The exception amongst others which our Adversaries take against our Orders is that in the Ordinal of Edward the Sixth's days the power given by that Form of making Priests did not express for what office which our Church judged so necessary that it should that in the review of it in Charles the Second's Time that defect was supplyed by the addition of the word Priest which the Bishop is now to express in the Form when he lays his hands upon the person to be ordained unto that office In your paper you vindicate the former Ordinal by these several ways First That the addition did not suppose any defect in it before but was put in only to avoid the cavils of the Presbyterians who at that time were assembled by Commission with our Church-men upon review of our Liturgy Secondly For that it was before agreeable to Christs own practice Thirdly To the Practice of the Romish Church who also owned our Priesthood to be good by the Concessions of Cardinal Pool It being nothing but the truth which I look at have therefore fairly and candidly summed up and recited the utmost strength of your Paper To your first I say That for the word Priest and Bishop to be added to the new Form for avoiding all cavils from the Presbyterians who so much hated the name of both I will appeal almost to all the World whether that could be thought to be the true Reason Besides our selves do grant that even to those very men it was thought defective for the very same reason the Romanists did and therefore must necessarily conclude it to be very deficient being so apparent unto them as well as unto the others But the true reason of that addition I take to be from two books which came out not above a year before called Erastus Senior and Erastus Junior which did make appear that the power given at our Ordination of Priests was not expressed in the Form of that office by which they were no more Priests then any Lay-man confirmed by the Bishop If our Church had not thought it essentially necessary to have made that addition she never would so have exposed our Ordinal to the just censures of our adversaries in so high a concern for a meer circumstantial matter which alteration was not in the preliminary part of it or in the prayers before or after but in the very essential part of it and therefore by such an addition she could not but think it very defective before To your second I say That although our Saviour who also was God could conferre the whole office of Priest without any Form expressing the power given or could make any Form sufficient for that end yet doth it not therefore follow that we can do it but in the ordinary way But when our Saviour said Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins you remit c. They were not by those very words alone made compleat and intire Priests they were thereby so far as to remit sins but not to Consecrate or Make present the body and blood of Christ which power he gave them when he instituted the Eucharist and said this do in Remembrance of me Now though the word Priest was not expressed in our Saviours Form yet was it by equivalency by expresly giving them all the power that belonged to that office If our Saviour had only said be thou a Priest it had been as sufficient for all the offices of it as when he expresly gave them power
to perform all the offices of it without expresly giving the Title But our Ordinal did not express the whole power given either by name or equivalency For it did not give power to Consecrate the Eucharist though it did to be dispencers and faithful Ministers of it which amounts to no more than distributers which every Deacon is as capable of as a Priest And if dispensing should import to be Stewards of the Mysterys of God that also imports no more then to be Conservators or Trustees of what should be committed to them not that they are thereby the makers of it That because I am intrusted or made Steward it should therefore necessarily follow that I have power to make that with which I am intrusted I hope our case depends not upon such a forced and unnatural a consequence If it should be objected that our Saviour did not then give the power to Consecrate the Eucharist when he said to his Apostles Do this in remembrance of me but was only a command to continue the Rite and Custom of it in the Church and therefore were compleat Priests from those words only by which he gave them power to remit sins To this I answer That if our Church had thought any sufficiently impowred to Consecrate the Eucharist by virtue only of those words to remit sins we then must make her highly guilty of notorious idle Tautology in her Form of Ordination when after she hath given power to remit sins should also at the same time distinctly give power to dispence the Sacraments But by her giving such distinct power to dispence the Sacraments after she had given power to remit sins she could not think that to be the sense of our Saviours words but the other that by bidding them do this in Remembrance of him that he did then give them power to Consecrate the Eucharist which I take clearly to be the sense of the Church whose Authority I shall preferre before any single persons whatsoever Besides that our Saviour should then command them to do that which they had power for to do is more like to a cruel Tyrant than a most Merciful and Compassionate Master To your Third and last I say That the Romanists making alteration in their Ordinals signifie nothing unless you can shew me where they have done it in such an essential part of it as we have Although they have added that to theirs of offering sacrifice for the living and the dead yet in regard they do before in their Ordinal expresly give all Priestly power which we did not the other is but an instruction to let them know what power they had received and for what they were to make use of it by virtue of that all Priestly power expresly given them before as appears by the words in their Ordinal which in ours was neither given in general nor in particular to Consecrate or make present Christs body and blood in the Holy Eucharist as was observed before If we had then as now but said be thou a Priest I grant it had been sufficient for all the offices of it although none of them had been particularly expressed in our Ordinal As to what Morinus hath said about the Greek and Roman Ordinals not giving distinct power expresly to Consecrate makes nothing at all so long as they gave them all Priestly power Unless you can prove any of their Ordinals do not expresly give them Priesthood the exceptions out of him of not giving power to Consecrate is nothing at all to the true state of the Question between us Sir As to what you say from Vasquez relates only to a Bishop who doth not thereby receive any new character then what he had afore as a Priest and is only the same power and character further extended which was before virtually in him from his Priesthood and therefore those words Receive the Holy Ghost and stir up the grace c. may be sufficient alone for that though not for a Priest who doth receive a new power and character Besides the same Author in the same Tome which you quote doth expresly say that by the words Receive the Holy Ghost and whose sins you remit c. doth not alone make an intire Priest and that he hath not power to Consecrate by virtue of them and you know Sir the point between us now is only that of Priesthood As to that Sir vvhich you say That they vvould not degrade Bishop Ridley of his Episcopal office vvas not upon account that they thought him no Bishop but for the benefit of the Leases to his Successor Bonner But why then did they at the same time degrade Latimer of his Episcopal office who was made such by the Roman Ordinal which Ridley was not by which Sir you may plainly see what the true reason was of both which I take not at all to be what Sir you were pleased for to surmise Finally whereas you were pleased to say our Priests were owned for good by the Romanists themselves when you shall be pleased Sir to make proof thereof I shall think it then time and not before to take it into my consideration in the mean time Sir if you please to look into Mr. Fox and do believe what he says you shall find what complaints he makes of the Roman Clergy against the Protestant Clergy in Queen Mary days what havock they made with the latter in that they would force them all to be Re-Ordained again Sir I am still in the same Communion which if I should ever change it can be imputed to nothing more then from some of our own Clergy-men of whom I do expresly exempt your self SIR I am your most humble Servant A. N. Three days after I had also this following paper sent me by the same Gentleman in answer to the last I sent him SIR I Could not conveniently before yesterday read over your second Paper supplemental to your first As to Bishop Ridley you may find by Mr. Mason's Vindication of him by the reasons he urg'd that he did account him to be Consecrated not by the Old but by the New Ordinal and the Popes Commissioners refusing to degrade him as to that Office and yet did Bishop Latimer in both is a clear Testimony that they would not do it to the one because they thought him consecrated by the New Ordinal Besides Dr. Burnet hath expresly declared that Ridley was made Bishop by the New Ordinal in King Edward's time Besides other Bishops they did not degrade As to their coming to our Churches until the 10th of Queen Elizabeth so to my knowledge did most of the Prebendarys of your Cathedral with the rest of the Episcopal party constantly frequent the Presbyterian Churches all along in the late times and yet they did not think those mens Orders to be good who officiated that took them not from the Bishop As to the Persecutions and Cruelties of our Adversaries they were much to blame for them but as it
there are but two Forms of Imperative words in the Roman Ordinal before this Receive Power to offer Sacrifice c. and both spoken by the Bishop at the Vesting of the person to be Ordained with the Priestly Vestments For in the putting on the first sort of those Vestments he says Receive thou the yoke of the Lord for his yoke is sweet and his burden light and then immediately after at the putting on of another sort of Vestment he says Receive thou the Priestly Garment by which Charity is understood for God is able to encrease unto thee Charity and every perfect Work But by neither of these any thing of Priestly Power is given or do any of that Communion ever say so and therefore according to your own concession it must follow and it is that which the Learnedest of the Roman Communion say that the last imperative words in the Roman Ordinal which are spoken at the last imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferred in that Church and this Form we had in our first Ordinal as well as they in theirs and much more fully because therein are also subjoyned these words And be thou a faithful dispencer of the Word of God and of his Sacraments in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which are wanting in the Roman Ordinal which are not any such notorious and idle Tautologies as you are pleased to call them For although they express nothing more then what is comprehended in the foregoing words Whose sins thou dost forgive c. yet they are explanator of them and do more explicitly tell us what is contained in them For a Priest doth no otherwise remit our sins in the Church of Christ then as he administers to us the means in order thereto in the Word and Sacraments and the concomitant Offices belonging thereto Fourthly I further observe in your Paper that you quote Mr. Fox to prove that those who were ordained by King Edwards Ordinal were ordained again in Queen Maries Reign I must confess Mr. Foxes Book is too large for any one so throughly to know every particular of it as positively to deny what you say to be contained in it But when you convince me of this and show me in Mr. Fox where any such thing is said then will I believe that Dr. Burnet hath dealt falsly with us by telling us the contrary in his History of the Reformation Part II. Page 289. But be it so or be it not so the cause doth not at all depend hereupon Fifthly You infer the nullity of our Orders because in the conferring of them no power is given to Consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that the words of our Ordinal giving power to Administer the Sacraments give power also to Consecrate the Elements in the Holy Eucharist and in all such Forms the more general the words are it is always the better provided they are such as include all the particulars as it is certain the words of our Form in the Ordination of a Priest include all the particulars that belong to that Office. But if you urge that it is not only necessary to express the power of Administring the Sacraments in general but that it must also be done in particular I must then ask the question why the Sacrament of Baptism ought not also in particular to be mentioned in the Form as well as the Sacrament of the Eucharist and why may we not from the omission of this in the Roman Ordinal infer the nullity of their Orders as well as they the nullity of ours from the omission of the other and that especially since the Sacrament of Baptism may be justly esteemed the nobler of the two as being that which first gives us Life in Christ whereas the other only adds Strength and Nourishment thereto But here you will object to what I have said that our Ordinal gives power only to dispence the Sacraments and not to consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that by the word dispence the Church means the whole of what belongs both to the Consecration and Administration of that Sacred Rite and words are alwaies to be understood according to the meaning and receiv'd interpretation of them that use them and not as they shall be limited or forced by the impertinent cavils of every contentious Adversary and you may always take this for a certain Rule that when in the management of Controversie men come to cavil about words it is an evident sign that they are run on ground as to all things else· But to this point you further say that those that have Authority only thus to dispence the Elements have not power to make present the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist without which you hold this Sacrament cannot be administred To this I answer that if by making present the Body and Blood of Christ you mean a Corporeal presence by the transmutation of the Elements as the Church of Rome holds it is a monstrous opinion which we can never receive and I hope you are not gone so far as to swallow with them so absurd an opinion Sixthly You say Christ made his Apostles Priests when he said unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that you take this clearly to be the sense of the Church If you mean by the Church the Church of Rome I acknowledge what you say to be true they having so defined it in the Council of Trent but that the Church of England ever held this I utterly deny for it is a Doctrine peculiar to the Church of Rome and but of late date among them being first invented by some of the Schoolmen to serve a turn For about Six Hundred Years since and not sooner the Church of Rome taking up that most Sacrilegious practice of denying the Cup to the Laiety and being afterwards pressed with the institution of our Saviour who commanded the Administration to be in both Kinds to evade this they framed this subtle invention of saying that Christ in the institution of this Holy Sacrament made his Apostles Priests by saying unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that therefore the Commandement given them of Communicating in both Kinds belongs to them only as Priests and that the Laiety from this Commandment can claim no right thereto But this is a fetch which some of the wisest and ablest Men among them are ashamed of and it is particularly disowned by Estius Suarez and Christophorus a Castro as being neither agreeable to the Antients nor of any solidity in it self Seventhly You allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination to be sufficiently perfect which if granted will infer the Ordination of Arch-Bishop Parker and all the other Bishops in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign to be good and
words spoken by the Bishop at the time of the said Imposition of Hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained and be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen The second Matter is the Imposition of both the Hands of the Bishop that Ordains on the Head of the person Ordained The second Matter is the delivery of the Bible by the Bishop to the person Ordained The second Form is the words spoken by the Bishop at the time of the said Imposition of his Hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained The second Form is these words spoken by the Bishop at the said delivery of the Bible Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in this Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed And thus having laid before you the Matters and Forms as they call them made use of in both Ordinals Secondly The particulars which I think requisite to observe unto you from both of them in order to the better clearing unto you the point proposed are 1. That as to the Matters and Forms of the Roman Ordinal although the opinions of their Writers and Doctors are very various about them yet that which is now most generally received among them is that both these Matters and Forms are essential to the conferring of the Office and that the first Matter and Form gives Power over the Natural Body of Christ that is to Consecrate the Eucharist wherein they will have Christs Natural Body by vertue of their inconceivable Transubstantiation to be really present and the other Matter and Form give Power over His Mystical Body that is the people of His Church to absolve them from their sins The first they call the Power of Order and the second the Power of Jurisdiction and in these two they say the whole Office and Authority of the Christian Priesthood is conferred 2. That as to these very particular Matters and Forms in their present Ordinal although the Schoolmen were generally for having them of Divine Institution and not to be varied from as is above noted yet the generality of Learned Men among them at present are of another opinion as holding it only of Divine Institution that there should be Matter and Form in general in all Ordinations but what the particular Matter and Form should be was left to the Church to determine and consequently that nothing else is necessary but that the Matters bear with them some fitness to signifie and denote the thing intended and that the Forms be fully expressive of the Power and Office conferred thereby And this as to the Forms seems to be the opinion which you allow For you do not absolutely require that we should use the Roman Forms as if no Orders could be validly conferred without them but only that we should either use them or such as are equivalent with them wherein the whole Priestly Power may be expresly given to the person Ordain'd and your opinion that by ours this is not done seems to be the whole reason of your Objection 3. As to those Signs and Forms of words annexed to them made use of in our Ordinal which in conformity to the Language of the Romanists we also call Matter and Form we do not think either of them so essential to the administration as to null such Orders as may be conferred without them provided it be done some other way sufficiently declarative of the thing intended For we look on nothing to be of Divine Institution in Orders but the Mission it self that is that the Chief Pastors of our Church send others as they are sent and when this is done by a person fully Authorized thereto we look on all to be perform'd in this particular which the Praescripts of our Saviour direct us to As to the manner of the Mission and the method of Ordaining thereto we think this intrusted with them to whom the Authority of granting the Mission is given to order and appoint it as they may think will best express the thing they do However we do by no means approve the receding from the ancient and long received practice of the Church herein but think that those usages which can be traced up to the primitive and purer times of the Church especially if they reach so high as the Apostolical Age when the Holy Spirit of God was given in an extraordinary manner to be a conduct in all things of this nature do from the practice of those Holy and Inspir'd Men which then used them receive such plain evidence of their conformity to the will of God that they cannot unless in some extraordinary case without the greatest rashness be varied from as I have before said And this our first Reformers having a full sense of did not in the compiling of the Ordinal which you find so much fault with indulge their own fancies but as true Reformers laying Scripture and Primitive Practice before them for the Rule of what they did made it their endeavour to reduce all things thereto and therefore finding from Scripture and the practice of the Church from the beginning that Prayers and Imposition of Hands was the ancient manner of Ordaining they carefully retain'd both these in our Ordinal Prayers very fitly composed to recommend the person unto God for the Office to which he is appointed and Imposition of Hands to execute the Authority received from God to confer it on him And although there be no instance of any Imperative Form of words to be at all made use of in any of the ancient Ordinals for near a Thousand Years after Christ as is above noted yet since the later Ages have introduced them and they appear to be of great use the better and more clearly to express and declare the intent and meaning of the outward Rite to which they are annexed we have those also in our Ordinals and in the choice of them making Scripture our Rule we do for the Ordination of a Priest use the very same Form of words which our Saviour himself made use of when He Ordained His Holy Apostles to the same Office Joh. 20.22 23. Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained adding also thereto these words both as explanatory of them and exhortatory to the duties of the Office conferr'd and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his Holy Sacraments and then to express the Authority by which this is done is subjoyned in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen The want of which in the Roman Ordinals is a defect they cannot be excused from And
and newness of Life the correcting by Ecclesiastical Censures such as are notorious Sinners the Absolving them when penitent and the Intercession of Holy Prayer for all This therefore being the end of their Calling and these the Means they are to make use of in order thereunto those words which appoint them unto the End must necessarily appoint them also to all those Means leading thereto For in this Case the Means are always included in the End and whosoever gives a Commission for the accomplishing of any End must necessarily also in that Commission include an Authority to all the Regular Means leading thereto And therefore the End of the Priests Calling being to be the Ministers of Jesus Christ for the Forgiveness of Sins these words in our Ordinal Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained which do most plainly appoint the Persons Ordain'd to this end do necessarily appoint them also to all the means leading thereto the preaching the Word the Consecrating as well as administring the Sacraments and all things else which Christ hath commanded his Ministers to do in order to this End and consequently they do give every branch of the Priestly-power which by the Institutions of our Saviour do belong thereto In answer to this I doubt not those Gentlemen you converse so much with will tell you that those words cannot be so understood as to comprehend all those Ministerial Acts of the Priestly Office. Because in the 20th Chapter of St. John's Gospel from whence we as well as they own to have taken them into our Ordinals and therein to use them in the same sense as there used they have according to them another interpretation not to mean Forgiveness of Sins as by the outward assistance of all the Ministerial Acts of the Priestly Office leading preparing and qualifying men thereto but only as it is given by that one act thereof whereby they take upon them in their Sacrament of Penance as they call it properly directly and absolutely by a judicial Sentence to forgive the sins of those that Confess unto them For such an Authority those Usurpers upon the power of God Almighty claim to themselves and alledging this Text of Scripture as the Charter by which they hold it will not have it to be understood of any thing else and in the Council of Trent thunder out their Anathema against all those that understand it to extend to any other act of the Priestly Office but this only For the words of that Council are Sess 14. Can. 3. If any one shall say that those words of our Saviour Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are not to be understood of the power of remitting and retaining sins in the Sacrament of Pennance as the Catholick Church ever understood from the beginning but wrest them contrary to the Institution of the Sacrament to the Authority of Preaching the Gospel Let him be accursed In Answer to which I will shew you 1. That there is no such power given to the Priest as is claimed by them from those words And 2. That therefore they can be understood in no other sense than that which comprehends the whole Priestly power as I have already explain'd And 1. The power which they claim from these words is to be Judges on Earth in Christ's stead between God and Man and to have full Authority as such to pass sentence upon all that after Baptism shall fall into Transgression either for Life or Death according as they shall judge fitting and therefore call all such to their Tribunal telling them that Christ hath constituted them Judges upon Earth with such a power that without their Sentence of Absolution none that have fallen into sin after Baptism can be again reconciled unto God. And therefore they make their Sentence of Absolution to be that very Act whereby the Sin is forgiven and take from God that Prerogative which he hath reserved to himself alone For it is he only that blotteth out transgressions and none other is a God like him that pardoneth iniquity and therefore was it that the Jews when our Saviour said thy sins are forgiven thee reasoning among themselves asked the Question Who can forgive sins but God alone and this saith Tertullian They deservedly did as not knowing his Divinity For then it was a thing looked on as most certain amongst all the Scribes and Doctors of the Jewish Church that none but God alone could forgive Sin and so was it also by the Ancient Fathers of the Church of Christ And therefore they make this one of their greatest Arguments whereby they prove the Divinity of our Saviour that he did forgive Sins For saith Irenaeus If none can forgive sins but God alone and our Lord did forgive them it is manifest that he was the Word of God made the Son of Man. And the same Argument is also made use of by St. Hilary St. Athanasius St. Cyril St. Anbrose St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome and in the Ages after by Venerable Bede and several others which sufficiently shows that they never understood any such pardoning power as those men now claim ever to be given to man but to be alwayes reserv'd unto God alone That the Pastors of the Church of Christ have Authority to apply the Promises of God to all his People by declaring Absolution from Sin to all that truly Repent and on the other hand to denounce his Punishments against all that continue in iniquity I freely grant and also that they have power for the better Government of the Church by way of Discipline to exclude all such from Communion who are open and notorious Sinners and restore them again when amended by Repentance But as to that power of the Priest now claim'd in the Church of Rome of remitting Sins properly directly and absolutely by a Judicial Sentence and that none can be reconciled to God unless thus absolved by them or at least supplying the defect by an earnest desire of their Absolution when not readily to be had as in perfect Contrition they will allow is what God never gave unto them or the ancient Fathers of the Church ever challenged For the loosing of men by the Judgment of the Priest which the Ancients speak of cannot be understood of any such extravagant power granted unto them but only of that power of Discipline of which I have spoken whereby they restored such to the peace of the Church and admitted them again to Communion who had afore been excluded from it And their Language concerning this matter is generally such as will admit no other Interpretation For they mostly express it by the Terms of bringing them to Communion of reconciling them to the Communion or with the Communion restoring the Communion to them
enjoyment of their Lusts and the Hopes of Salvation consistent together totally acquiesceing herein never think of that true Sorrow which worketh Repentance unto Salvation But after a glut of sinning having frighted themselves by reflecting on the punishments due thereto into a kind of sorrow for it which they call attrition in this case for the remedy of all only apply to the Priest for his Absolution never denied to any so prepared and when they have this looking on all old scores quite wiped off thereby run on anew in the same course of Iniquity till another such fright sends them again for another Absolution and when that is obtain'd then to sinning again as before and so on in the same round from Absolution to Transgression and from Transgression to Absolution without ever thinking of any other way of saving their Souls till at last Death overtakes them in a state of total impenitency and they become utterly lost and undone for ever And it is to be feared that they have in that Church deluded more men into Hell by this one Doctrine only than they have led to Heaven by all the other they have taught And thus far having shown you that there is no such power at all given to Priests as from these words of St. John Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. it will necessarily follow that no other meaning can be affixed unto them than what I have explain'd unto you and therefore they must necessarily include not this pardoning power alone as the Romanists will have there being none such at all given but all the Ministerial Duties of the Priestly Office which Christ hath appointed to bring men unto God and reconcile them unto him and hence is it that the Holy Apostle St. Paul saith that there is given unto us the ministry of reconciliation For our Office doth consist in this that we are appointed the Ministers of Christ to reconcile men unto God. And if any one undertakes the office of reconciling a Rebellious Son unto his Father the way whereby he is to effect this is not by pardoning the Son all the faults he hath committed a power which none can imagine the Father would ever give out of his own hand but by bringing the Son to such Terms of Submission and Amendment as that the Father may think fit himself to pardon him and accept him again to his Favour And this is the Case with us who are made the Ministers of Christ to Reconcile men unto God our Heavenly Father against whom we have all Rebell'd The way whereby we are to accomplish this is not by taking upon us in God's stead to pardon and absolve from Sin all that have offended against him this being a power which God will never give from himself to any but all that we have to do in order to it is to make use of those means which Christ hath appointed to bring men to such terms of Repentance and Newness of life as God may think fit himself to pardon them and receive them to his Mercy And these means are the preaching of the Word the administring of the Sacraments the intercession of Prayer and the publick Discipline of the Church For by preaching the Gospel we make it the word of Reconciliation to all that believe by the Sacrament of Baptism we give the Spirit of Regeneration and admit men into the Covenant of Grace for the remission of sins by the Holy Eucharist we administer to their growth in Grace and reach out unto them the blood of the Covenant shed for many for the remission of sins by our Discipline Offenders are corrected and restored again to the right way from whence they had deviated And by our prayers of Faith God is entreated for his people And these being the only means whereby men can attain to the Mercies of God for the pardon of their Sins we that administer to them these means may be said in some sense also to pardon them not absolutely and directly but in the same manner as a Physitian cures his sick Patient not by giving the Health for this is only Gods work but only by administring the means For it is very frequent to ascribe the effect to those that administer the means to dispose towards it though they have no hand at all in the efficiency it self whereby it is brought to pass and in this sense is it that these words of our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John are to be understood Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained Not that Christ gave unto his Apostles thereby an absolute power to remit sins but that he committed to them the Administration of all those means whereby alone Remission was to be obtain'd So that whosoever would receive from them the benefit of those means should thereby have their sins remitted unto them and whosoever would not should have them retain'd for ever And in this sence is it that John Ferus a Commentator of the Romish Communion who writ about 150 years since understands the words for saith he in the Explication of them Though it be the proper work of God to remit sins yet are the Apostles said to remit them also not simply but because they apply those means whereby God doth remit sins which means are the word of God and his Sacraments For these means of Salvation with the rest I have mention'd are the Keys which Christ hath given to his Ministers whereby the Gates of Heaven are open'd to all such as will receive the Gospel at their hands and become obedient thereto and for ever shut against all that will not For by these only are men let in to Everlasting Life and without these all must be excluded from it for ever there being no other means but these alone establish'd by our Saviour whereby men can be admitted to partake of that Salvation he hath purchased for us or be made capable of that Reconciliation with God requir'd in order thereto And therefore those means being thus necessary to gain us pardon and forgiveness so that by them only it can be obtain'd and without them never granted to any hence is it that our Saviour when he committed to his Apostles the Power and Authority of administring those means he expresseth it in these words Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained implying thereby that he made them the Ministers of reconciling men to God for the Pardon of their Sins and intrusted them with all the means in order thereto so that to whomsoever the benefit of their Ministry in the applying of those means should be extended Pardon and Forgiveness should be administred thereby and to whomsoever it should not it should be denyed for ever And in this sence the Ministers of the Gospel may be said to remit or retain sins because they alone administer
the means whereby they are remitted and without which they are retain'd for ever But yet so that the Ministry is only theirs the Power totally Gods they only do the outward Act God alone gives the Spiritual Effect And this being the sence and meaning of the words they do in as full and comprehensive a manner include the whole Priestly power as possibly could in so few words be devised and consequently must in as full and perfect a manner give it to all that are ordain'd to the Priesthood by them For they appointing us to the End for which we are made Ministers that is to bring men unto God for the pardon of their Sins must necessarily appoint us also to all the means which are ordained in order thereto The preaching the Word the administring the Sacraments the reconciling of Penitents the intercession of Prayer and whatsoever else can be said to be any branch of the Priestly Office and although it must be confess'd that we do not allow the Priestly power to extend so far as our Adversaries of Rome will have it yet this can move no Controversie in this matter because the words being so general as to institute and appoint us to what is on all sides allow'd to be the sole end of our Office that is to be Ministers of Christ for the forgiveness of sins to those to whom we are sent they must necessarily include whatsoever Christ hath ordain'd as a means to be administred by us in order thereto and therefore if Christ hath appointed all those things to be branches of the Priestly power which they assert they must necessarily be all contain'd in these words and the power of administring them also be given to all that are ordain'd to the Priesthood by them and consequently the Form in which they are contain'd is so far from being chargeable with the defect you mention of not expressing the whole Priestly power that how large soever you may think the Priestly power to be it is abundantly sufficient to express it all because in so clearly and perfectly expressing the whole End for which we are made Priests it also necessarily includeth all the means that Christ hath appointed us to administer in order thereto and all the powers which he hath given to qualify us for it how many and how large soever they may be II. To convince you further of the sufficiency of this Form for Priestly Ordination I desire you again to consider what was urged by Mr. Earbury at the Conference you gave me an account of that these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose Sins you c. are the very same wherewith Christ Ordain'd his Apostles and therefore if they be not sufficient to make us Priests they could not be sufficient to make them Priests and consequently through this defect there are no Priests at all in the Church of Christ For if Christ did not sufficiently give the office and power of Priesthood it was not sufficiently receiv'd and consequently there must be no such thing at all among us And therefore those who on this account deny us our Orders while they are so earnest to cast this Reproach upon us do not only strike at us but through our sides do wound even the Holy Apostles also and Christ himself because the same Argument which they urge against us from the insufficiency of the Form to invalidate our Orders invalidates those of the Holy Apostles themselves and blasphemously accuseth Christ our Lord of insufficiently giving them the Mission on which they were sent But you tell me of a Salvo that Mr. Acton hath found for all this by answering That though with us nothing could be a true Form which did not express the Power given yet with our Saviour it was sufficient though it did not who being God could do that which no other could and therefore with him any thing which he should please to make use of that did not express the power given was a good and sufficient Form though the same would not be so with us But this is so strange a piece of Divinity as sufficiently shows that Gentleman was put to a very hard push when he was forced to give this in answer to what was urged against him and truly it is so plainly absurd in it self and impious in its Consequences that I thought not at first that I needed say any thing to make it appear so unto you and therefore took no notice of it in the Answers I sent you to your first Paper but since I find in your Letters after that you are so fond of it as to think it a very good Answer to whatsoever shall be urg'd on this Argument I desire you would consider these following particulars 1. That this Answer plainly alledging the Form whereby Christ Ordained his Apostles Priests to be in it self imperfect and insufficient doth make that Ordination to be defective in that which the Romanists account the prime and main essential of it And to bring in the Divinity of our Saviour as a Salvo doth not at all mend the matter but makes it much worse because it chargeth him even with his Divinity too of doing that which is in it self imperfect and insufficient and of being guilty thereby of a defect in one of the principal Acts whereby he constituted his Church that is in Ordaining those Pastors and Governours over it to whose Care it was to be committed A thing which cannot be said of him that is infinitely perfect in all his doings without the highest Blasphemy against him To say That Christ as God could do what no other could is indeed true as to all acts of his Divine Power and it is in vain for any of us to endeavour to do as he doth in any thing of this nature wherein he is infinitely above our utmost imitation But in things of Moral and Religious practice which we are to do likewise our safest way is always to come as near as we can to what he hath done before us and we are ever best secured from Error or Defect when we do so For in all things of this Nature he is our grand Exemplar whose steps we are to follow and whose Actions we are to Copy after as far as we are able and as long as we do this it is impossible that either defect or flaw can be found in any of our doings For by his Divinity he is infinitely perfect in his Nature and infinitely perfect in all his Doings and no Act of his can ever have the least imperfection or insufficiency therein But when any of his Works are such as we must not pretend to do after him the reason of this always is from that height of Perfection in them which we cannot reach and not from any imperfection which makes them unwarrantable for us to do likewise And therefore to say that our Saviour by vertue of his Divinity could do that which would not be justifiable for us to do after
of Sacriledge to be reiterated on any or else that the last saying of those words as well as the first did both equally concur to the conferring of that Office upon them and consequently that they were not made perfect Priests till the Ordination was compleated by the last saying of them after the Cup was Administred which clearly overthrows their whole Hypothesis 2. Our Saviour was so far from making his Apostles Priests of the New Covenant at his last Supper that nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that he should at all Ordain any such before he had actually by his Death and Passion purchased and Establish'd that Church wherein they were to Minister Our Saviour indeed at his first choosing of them to be always with him designed them for this Office and all along the time of his Ministry here on Earth taught them and instructed them in order thereunto And so also an Heir expectant of a Crown may design some of his Followers to be his Officers and Ministers of State in his Kingdom but cannot actually constitute them as such till he himself be actually possest of the Soveraign power to enable him thereto Neither can our Saviour be said actually to have invested his Apostles with the Offices he designed them for till he had actually possest himself of that Kingdom his Church in which they were to Minister before him and thereby receiv'd that power which he was to delegate to them which cannot be said till after his Death and Passion For till then the Christian Church it self could not have any Being that being the act of Redemption whereby our Saviour first purchased it to himself and laid the foundation of its Establishment and all the whole oeconomy thereof bears reference thereto and totally commenceth from it Till then the former oeconomy of the Jewish Church remained in its full force For the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of it in which it did consist being all Types of that great and truly propitiatory Sacrifice of our Saviour whereby the work of our Redemption was wrought and appointed to prefigure and foreshow it till that Sacrifice it self should be actually offer'd once for all Till that was done it was necessarily to continue in its full Obligation to all those Observances And therefore our Saviour himself even to the time of his Death paid full Obedience to them But when that Sacrifice was actually offer'd and our Saviour gave himself up unto death upon the Cross to be a propitiation for us and thereby compleated that great work of our salvation for which he came among us then all the Types ceased at the fulfilling of the thing Typified all those shadows of good things to come totally vanished at the appearance of the things themselves which they foreshowed and the whole Law became fulfilled thereby and all the intents and meanings thereof totally accomplished And therefore by this great work of our Salvation the whole Jewish oeconomy receiving its completion and all the Legal Institutions thereof absolutely ceasing by being fulfill'd Matth. 5. v. 17. thenceforth the Christian succeeded in its stead that Church that Kingdom of our Saviour which by this his bloud-shedding he purchased to himself and therefore from that time being fully invested with the whole Soveraignty over the Church of God he tells his Holy Apostles that All power was given unto him in Heaven and in Earth In the Explication of which words Maldonat the Jesuit tells us Loquitur hic non de qualibet potestate sed de eà quam Apostolis dabat i. e. de potestate Regni sui spiritualis acquirendi colligendique quam ad rem Apostolos mittebat ita loquitur quasi eam potestatem ante resurrectionem non habuerit nam tanquam de re nova dicit data est mihi omnis potestas i. e. He speaketh not of every power but only of that which he gave his Apostles that is the power of acquiring and gathering his spiritual Kingdom for which purpose he sent his Apostles and he speaks so as if he had not that power before his Resurrection for he saith as of a thing newly done all power is given unto me c. and a little after De eâ denique loquitur potestate de quâ apud Johannem dicit Confidite ego vici mundum hanc sibi potestatem per mortem resurrectionem suam datam esse dicit quia eam meruit propter quod inquit exaltavit eum dedit illi nomen quod esset super omne nomen ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur Coelestium Terrestrium infernorum hoc est data est mihi omnis potestas in Caelo in Terrâ quâ potestate ad propagandos Regni sui fines Apostolos mittit ut rectissime mihi videtur Vigilius interpretari i. e. And finally he speaks of that power concerning which he saith in the Gospel of St. John Be of good cheer I have overcome the world this power he saith was given him by his Death and Resurrection because he deserved it Wherefore he saith God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven things on Earth and things under the Earth that is there is given me all power in Heaven and in Earth by which power he sent his Apostles to propagate his Kingdom as Vigilius seems to me most rightly to Interpret So far the Learned Jesuit and if you will acquiesce in his Interpretation it plainly follows from hence that Christ did not receive the power of his spiritual Kingdom till after his Resurrection and that by vertue of that power it was that he sent his Apostles on their Mission as his Ministers to propagate this his Kingdom and therefore that they could not receive this Mission or be Ordain'd thereto till after his Resurrection And if we examine all the Gospels to find by what words of his he gave them this Mission after his Resurrection and invested them with the power and Authority of it it must be acknowledged that they could be none other but those of St. John Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained for every thing else which was then done or said at the speaking of them manifestly infers it Our Saviour first sayes unto them As my Father hath sent me even so send I you which plainly declares his then giving them their Mission after that he breathed on them for his putting of his Spirit upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost that is for the spiritual Office on which they were sent for as to those extraordinary Gifts which so wonderfully enabled them for the Execution of it he was not given till afterwards in the day of Pentecost and what can be more plain and clear than all this is that our Saviour was then giving his Commission to his Holy Apostles for the Ministry to which he had chosen them And therefore those words that follow Whose soever sins ye remit they
is of the Church of England and was an Auditor at the said Conference but neither side advised with in the drawing up this Account The Question was About the validity of the Church of Englands Orders THe two former Gentlemen took upon them to prove them to be good and laid down this Rule That for making of Orders valid there were necessarily required these four things Authority Form Matter and Capacity The other Gentlemen did agree all of them to be necessary but because they would shorten the dispute would except against only that of our Form for that it was altered from the ancient and although they confessed their own had been altered yet never was in the essentials Then Mr. Earbury laid down this Proposition or Argument that if our Saviours Form were good by which he made Priests then was ours good but our Saviours was good therefore ours was Mr. Acton distinguisht upon his Major and said that though with us nothing could be a true Form that did not express the power given yet with our Saviour it was sufficient though it did not who being God could do that which none other could and therefore with him any thing which he should please to make use of that did not express the power given was a good and sufficient Form though the same would not be so with us The distinction was allowed and so Mr. Earbury proceeded to prove that our Form did express the power and accordingly produced his Common-Prayer-Book to show how it was therein expressed in the Form. Mr. Acton did allow it so to be in that Book but alledged that in all our Prayer-Books from Edward the 6th until 1662. the word Priest was not expressed in the Form of those This Mr. Earbury granted and said that though it did not yet it was sufficient because it was intended and then used several other Arguments to prove that it was intended Mr. Acton then would know of him whether he would maintain that the intention was sufficient who did assert it was but Mr. Kipping would not agree to it Then upon Mr. Actons asking Mr. Earbury that though it were expressed in the Prayers and not in the Form if all were cut off but the Form and Matter whether that were sufficient to make a good Priest upon which Mr. Earbury would not then abide by his assertion that the intention is sufficient The two former Gentlemen proceeded then to another Argument to prove our Orders good because they were allowed to be good by the Romish Church by Cardinal Pool who allowed of the Orders given in Edward the 6th days in the time of Queen Mary Mr. Acton replyed that now they come to offer another medium which was not to be allowed of unless they would agree first that they had no more to say as to the Form or were content to give that over But they said it was nothing but what was still depending upon the former Mr. Acton said That though it was against the Rules of the Schools yet he should go on and proceed to give his answer unto their new medium and so denyed that they were ever owned to be good by Cardinal Pool upon which the other Gentlemen told him they had not the Books present to prove it but should do it in writing to him the next day with citations of the Authors that they would send to his Lodgings Mr. Acton said he was sure they never could do it and though it belonged not to him to prove the contrary yet he produced to them a Protestant Book setting forth the manner of the burning of Bishop Ridley I think it was that Bishop who being made Priest by the Popish Form they first degraded him of his Priesthood but not of his Episcopal Orders telling him they would not degrade him of these for that they never lookt upon him for a Bishop who was such by the Form of Edward the 6th which did clearly prove they never allowed of the Orders to be good in Edward the 6th days The two former Gentlemen said they could stay no longer and so took their leaves If any other can say more then hath been in defence of our Orders the Author hereof will be very thankful to receive it from them in Writing which may come to him by the same hand by which he sends this and desires this may be sent him back again The Messenger that brought me the letter telling me that he had it from Mr. Anthony Norris though his name was not to it I supposed it to be his and therefore sending to Mr Earbury concerning it he brought me that account of the Conference which begins this Book and that with this follovving ansvver from my self vvas sent him the next day after LAst Night a nameless Paper vvas brought me containing a relation of a certain discourse that hapned betvveen one Mr. Acton a Gentleman of the Romish Communion and tvvo Divines of our Church concerning the validity of our Orders and as far as I find by that paper the grand objection brought against them was from the alteration made in our Ordinal Anno 1662. as if that were a tacit consent on our side that before this alteration was made our Ordinal was not sufficient and therefore no Orders could be conferred thereby and consequently that neither they which were ordained by it or we that have derived our Orders from them have received any legal and sufficient Ordination thereby To which I answer 1. That the putting in of Explanatory words to make things clearer and render them more free from cavil and objection cannot be well termed an alteration 2. That supposing really there had been any such alteration made as to the whole substance of the Form yet this is no more then what the Church of Rome hath often done there being scarce an age in which she hath not considerably varyed from her self herein as may be seen by comparing those many different Forms of Ordination used in the Church of Rome which are collected together by Morinus a Learned Priest of that Church in his book de Ordinationibus 3. The alterations or rather explanatory Additions made in our Ordinal in the Year 1662. were not inserted out of any respect to the controversie we have with the Church of Rome but only to silence a cavil of the Presbyterians who from the old Ordinal drew an Argument to prove that there was no difference between a Bishop and a Priest because as they say their Offices were not at all distinguished in the words whereby they were conferred on them when ordained or any new power given a Bishop which he had not afore as a Priest For the words of Ordination in King Edward's Ordinal are for a Priest as followeth Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained and be thou a faithful dispencer of the Word of God and of his Sacraments in the Name of the Father and
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
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
same Form is not used that the Eastern Churches perform Ordinations by one Rite and the Western by another without disallowing the Orders of each other he solves the matter by telling us that Christ instituted only in general that there should be Matter and Form in Ordination but left it to the Church to determine the particular that is what particular Matter and what particular Form should be made use of in this Administration And Morinus also speaks to the same purpose for in his third Book de Ordinationibus Exercit. 7. cap. 6. n. 2. he saith That Christ determined no particular Matter and Form in Orders and in another place cap. 3. n. 6. he tells us That it strikes him with astonishment that there should be such an alteration both as to Matter and Form in that Sacrament as by examining the Antient Liturgies he finds there hath been And Cardinal Lugo's words are altogether as express in this matter who in his Book de Sacramentis Disput 2. Sect. 3. plainly saith That Christ left the Church at Liberty both as to the Matter and Form of Orders And so also saith Arcudius a Learned Greek that was designed to have been a Cardinal in his Book de Sacramentis lib. 6. cap. 4. where he lays it down as that which the most Learned hold That the Sacrament of Orders as he calls it is so instituted by Christ that the Ordaining of Ministers should be performed by some words and external signs by which the Ministry to which they were Ordained might be sufficiently signified but that any particular external signs should be made use of rather than others was totally left by him to the arbitriment of the Church And he quotes for proof hereof the third Chapter of the 23th Session of the Council of Trent where it is said only That Ordination is to be performed with words and external signs without assigning what words or what signs these ought to be from whence he infers they may be any And to the same purpose also speaks Tapperus of the Forms of the Sacraments in general and of the Sacrament of Orders in particular whom Vasquez as to both those takes great pains to confute And there is another of the same opinion whose Authority must be certainly infallible with those of that Communion that is Pope Innocent the 4th who saith It is found to be a Rite used by the Apostles that they laid hands on persons to be Ordained and poured out prayers over them but we find not any other observed by them from whence we believe that unless there had been Forms afterwards invented it would have been sufficient for the Ordainer to have said be thou a Priest or any other words of the same importance but in after times the Church Ordained those Forms which are now observed And Father Davenport alias Sancta Clara hath those words Many Doctors do not without probability think that Christ appointed neither the Matter nor Form of Orders but left both to be assigned by the Church And thus far having produced the authorities and proofs which you required I hope I have given you satisfaction herein and that the opinion of the Schoolmen in asserting that the essential Form of Orders as you call it is immutable and not in the power of any Church to alter is altogether wrong And that it is so those that assert the Doctrine which I have laid down in opposition to them have this unanswerable Argument for it that those very essential Forms as they call them of Priestly Ordination which they would have to be instituted by Christ himself and always from the beginning to have continued in the Church immutably the same are both of so late date that the one of them was never used till within these four hundred years and the other not till within these seven hundred years at the farthest as by comparing the Antient Ordinals of the Romish Church doth manifestly appear In the next place you tell me that although Morinus should have observed that for a thousand years the imperative Form be thou a Priest was not used in the Roman Ordinals yet he doth not say they did not expresly give all Priestly power in other words or by equivalency by giving full power to perform all the Offices of it which you deny our Old Ordinal did To this I Answer That I know of no Ordinal that ever had this Form in it be thou a Priest or of any that was ever Ordained by it to the Priestly Office neither do I refer you to Morinus for any thing concerning it In your Papers I observed you were much stumbled at the additional alterations we made in the Forms of our Ordinations as if these additions being in an essential part as you suppose must necessarily infer an essential defect to have been in our Ordinals before and consequently make null and void all the Orders of our Church conferred by them or if otherwise that we could not justifie the alterations we have made To alter the introductory and concomitant prayers you seem willing to allow us a power but not to make any change in so essential a part as the Form it self and challenge me to show you when ever the Church of Rome did so In Answer whereto I told you that those Forms which you think so essential to Orders are so far from being so that the Church of Rome it self for near a thousand years after Christ never used any such Forms at all that is any imperative words at all denoting the conferring of the Office by the person Ordaining but the whole Rite was performed by prayer and imposition of hands only without any imperative words at all spoken to the person Ordained denoting his taking Authority to execute either the whole or any part of the Office conferred on him and for the making out of this I referred you to Morinus his Collection of Antient Ordinals wherein he having published sixteen of the most antient Rituals of Priestly Ordination of the Latin Church that could be found in the ten first of them no such Form doth at all appear to be used but in all of them the whole Rite of Ordination is performed by imposition of hands and prayer only and the eleventh Ordinal in his Collection composed as he judgeth in the tenth Century is the first that used this Form Receive thou power to offer Sacrifice unto God and to celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead and the other Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven unto them and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained is not found till in the last of them composed about four hundred years since And this I think to be a plain demonstration of the novel introduction of those Forms into the Roman Ordinals And that they were totally unknown to the Antients I endeavoured further to make appear unto you by showing you that in none of their
the Church of Christ and have receiv'd full power to all the Duties incumbent on them as such not only that which is peculiar to the Order of a Bishop but also the powers of all other inferiour Offices included therein For the Orders of the Church do so include one the other that the same Act of Ordination which gives the power of the higher Order doth therein also give the powers of all other Orders inferiour thereto as for Example when a man is made a Presbyter or Priest though he had never been a Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of a Deacon as being included in his Priesthood and so when a man is made a Bishop though he had never been either Priest or Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of both these Offices as being included in that of his Episcopacy And this is no more than may be made good by Instances from all the subordinations of power in the World in which this is alwayes most certain that the higher degree of power ever includes all the other Degrees inferiour thereto and that Act which gives that one superiour degree gives all the others therewith as included in it And all the Argument which the Romanists bring against this to prove it must be otherwise as to those several degrees of power in the Church which make the Offices of Bishop Priest and Deacon therein is drawn from a similitude they make between them and the three sorts of Souls which distinguish between the three several sorts of living Creatures in this World that is the Vegetative Soul the Sensitive and the Rational For as the Vegetative is necessarily presuppos'd to the Sensitive and the Sensitive to the Rational in such manner as nothing can be a Rational Creature which is not a Sensitive or a Sensitive which is not a Vegetative so say they the order of a Deacon is necessarily presuppos'd to the order of Priesthood and the order of Priesthood to that of Episcopacy and no one can be a Bishop which is not first a Presbyter or a Presbyter which is not first a Deacon But this Argument if it makes any thing to the purpose must infer a very ridiculous thing that is that God cannot make a Man unless by giving him first the Vegetative Soul he makes him a Tree or a plant and then secondly by giving him the Sensitive Soul he makes him a Brute and then thirdly and lastly by giving him the Rational Soul he makes him a Man whereas nothing is more certain than that by that one Act whereby he gives the Rational Soul he gives all the powers of the other two included therein And therefore if this similitude were to decide the Controversie between us instead of making out any thing for them it will most manifestly give the whole on my side it being one of the fullest and clearest that can be thought on most plainly to illustrate unto you the whole state of what I have said in this particular For although the Vegetative Soul as in Vegetables is distinct from the Sensitive and the Sensitive as in Brutes is distinct from the Rational yet the Sensitive doth so include the Vegetative and the Rational the Sensitive that the very same act which gives the Sensitive Soul gives also the Vegetative and the very same act which gives the Rational gives both Sensitive and Vegetative also included therein And just so is it of the three Orders of Deacon Priest and Bishop in the Church of Christ For although the Order of a Deacon in a simple Deacon is distinct from the Order of Priesthood and the Priesthood as in a simple Priest distinct from the Order of Episcopacy yet the Order of Priesthood doth so include the Order of a Deacon and the Order of Episcopacy both that of Priest and Deacon that the very same act of Ordination which gives a man the Order of Priesthood gives him also that of a Deacon and that very same act which gives him the Order of Episcopacy gives him also both that of Deacon and Priest included in it and consequently that it is no more necessary a man should be a Deacon before he can be a Priest or a Priest before he can be a Bishop than that he must be made a Vegetable before he can be an Animal and an Animal before he can be a Rational Creature than which nothing is more absurd And thus far having shown you that the inferiour Orders of the Church are not so essentially necessary to qualifie for the superiour as you imagine but that a man may validly be ordain'd a Bishop though he was afore neither Priest nor Deacon it will infer that although that should be true which you object against us that our first form of Ordination of Priests till the Addition inserted in the year 1662. was defective and that by reason of this defect all the Priestly Ordinations conferr'd by it were null and void yet our Episcopal Ordination may be still good as being administred by no such defective Form but by one which includes all that and in the very same words which the Romanists themselves say is the alone essential Form of their Episcopal Ordination as is afore taken notice of and therefore though we had no true Priests all the while this defective Form was used yet we still had true Bishops fully invested with the power of Ordaining others and consequently now at least since the Form whereby they Ordain is mended according to your mind we must have true Priests also and therefore whatsoever defect according to your opinion might be formerly in our Priestly Ordination by reason of our Forms yet now this defect is fully mended and supplied you have no reason on this account to forsake our Communion But Thirdly That there was never any such defect in our Forms the main mistake which you go upon is that which in the last place I am to convince you of For although before the addition inserted in the Form of our Priestly Ordination it might not be so well fenced against all the unreasonable Cavils of Adversaries as now it is yet it was altogether as full in the expression of what was done and totally sufficient for the end design'd which I doubt not I shall fully and evidently make appear unto you by these following Reasons I. Because these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are as full and comprehensive an expression of the whole Priestly power as possibly can be devised For what are Priests but the Ministers of Jesus Christ to lead men to that Reconciliation with God and that Forgiveness of Transgression from him which he hath purchased for us And what are the appointed means whereby they do this but the Administring the Sacraments the preaching of the Word the declaring Gods Promises and Threats the exhorting to Repentance
him by reason of any imperfection or insufficiency to be found therein as your Answerer plainly doth is no less than the highest Blasphemy against him 2. I desire you to consider that by the same words whereby Christ Ordained his Apostles to be his Ministers in his Church he Ordained also the very Office it self For then he first instituted the Office when he first appointed them to it and therefore those words by which our Saviour first Ordain'd his Apostles for the Office of his Ministry are so far from being defective in the Expression of the Power thereof that it is impossible it can have any power at all but what is expressed by them For they are the Original Charter of its Institution and from whence alone the limits and extent of its Authority are to be known And therefore we may very well judge of the extent of the Office from its Correspondency with the Words but not of the sufficiency of the Words from their Correspondency with what we think the extent of the Office because the Office it self being first instituted by these Words can have nothing in it but what is expressed by them And therefore if it be the same Office of Priesthood we receive at our Ordinations which Christ Ordain'd his Apostles to certainly the same words which he then made use of must always be the perfectest form whereby to make expression thereof Had the Office been afore instituted and afterwards express'd by halfes we could then have recourse to the first institution to make clear eviction hereof and from thence the deficiency would plainly be made out But that the words of its first institution from whence it received its whole being and establishment should be imperfect or deficient is that which cannot be said unless you will accuse the Institutor Christ our Lord of being deficient in the Institution it self and not making and appointing the Office as well and as perfectly as he ought a Consequence which I suppose your Answerer will by no means be willing to own 3. This Answer is not that which the Romanists ever use to give in this Case or will the Gentleman you had it from I suppose abide by it however it came to drop from him For when the perfection of this Form is urged from this that it was the same by which our Saviour ordained his Apostles their usual answer is That there are two powers in the Priestly Office the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction as I have afore explained the former of which they say was given the Apostles by our Saviour before his Crucifiction at his last Supper when he said unto them This do in remembrance of me and that it was the later only which was given after his Resurrection by these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. for the conferring of which they allow this Form to be most full and sufficient and for that purpose use it in their own Ordinal but deny it to comprehend any other branch of the priestly Office or that our Saviour intended to confer any other thereby And this you your self seem well enough to understand you having expressed as much in one of your Letters But this also goes upon two very great mistakes 1. That Christ Ordain'd his Apostles priests of the New Covenant when he said unto them at his last Supper This do in remembrance of me 2. That Christ Ordain'd any at all to be Ministers of his Church before he had actually purchas'd it by the shedding of his bloud And 1. It is a great mistake that our Saviour Ordained his Apostles Priests of the New Covenant by those words at his last Supper This do in remembrance of me For this is not a command particular to them to Consecrate and Administer that Sacrament which Christ then Instituted but to all the Faithful also to be partakers of it which the words plainly infer for what else can the Command This do refer to but to the whole Sacramental Action before mention'd the receiving and eating which belong also to the Laity as well as the Blessing and Consecrating which is the Duty of the Priest only And if the words be not so understood there will be no Command of our Saviour obliging the Laity to be partakers of this Sacrament at all but the Priests may be always left to Consecrate it and eat it themselves as contrary to all primitive practice and many Canons of the Church they now-a-days for the most part do Nay further they will be under no obligation to partake of it but only to Bless and Consecrate it and so if this Interpretation takes place the whole Institution may become frusâ—rate thereby and the Law of our Saviour be absolutely made of none effect for the sake of the Traditions and Inventions of Men. And therefore Estius an eminent Doctor of the Romish Church 〈…〉 plainly acknowledgeth that this Command of our Saviour This do in remembrance of me must extend to all the people His words are Paulus 1 Cor. 11. illud facere etiam ad plebem refert edentem bibentem de hoc Sacramento quando ait hoc facite i.e. Paul in the Eleventh Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians plainly refers that of doing to the People eating and drinking of this Sacrament when he saith in the words of our Saviour ver 25. This do c. And to say otherwise would be to run Counter to all the ancient Doctors of the Church there being none of them for many hundred years after Christ that ever understood those words of our Saviour in that sence which now the Church of Rome will have but always looked on them as a general precept belonging to all Christians of observing that Holy Rite in Remembrance of his Death and Passion in the same manner as was then instituted by him But when the practice of the half Communion became to be generally receiv'd in the Church of Rome then the Schoolmen being put to their shifts to reconcile it with the Institution of our Saviour who himself Celebrated it and also commanded the Celebration of it in both kinds at last lighted on this fetch of making the Apostles Priests by these words of our Saviour This do in remembrance of me spoken by him after his giving them the Bread and therefore say that the Cup which was Administred afterwards was given them only as Priests and that the Laity are not at all to be admitted thereto by vertue of that Command But here it is to be observ'd that our Saviour spake these words This do in remembrance of me twice in that Institution first after the distributing of the Bread and then again after the giving of the Cup And therefore if Christ made them Priests by those words it will follow That either he made them Priests twice a Doctrine which the Church of Rome will by no means allow Orders being a Sacrament as they say never without the guilt
Patribus Conciliis fit ulla mentio porrectionis Instrumentorum sed tantum Impositionis manuum i. e. Neither in the Scriptures nor in the Ancient Fathers and Councils is there made any mention of the reaching out of the Vessels the Chalice and Patten but of Imposition of Hands only And in Truth all what they say either from Scripture Ancient Councils or Fathers for their Sacrament of Orders makes Imposition of Hands the only Sacramental Sign thereof And all the Arguments which they bring from either of them to prove it to be a Sacrament go totally upon this that this Rite of Imposition of Hands made use of in the conferring of the Orders hath Grace annexed thereto and therefore it manifestly appearing that none of those ways which our Adversaries themselves make use of to prove a Divine Institution are able to make it out unto us that the delivery of the Chalice and Patten in Ordination is such the Consequence is plain that that Rite can never be a Sacramental Sign which hath Grace annex'd thereto and consequently the Sacramental Grace which they will have to belong to Orders cannot be given by that Rite with what Form of words soever it be administred but if there be any such thing at all belonging to Orders as that grace which is requisite to make it a Sacrament as our Adversaries say and we deny it must only be annex'd to Imposition of Hands and given by no other words than that Form with which it is joyned Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. and this even their own Council of Trent seems plainly to say for in one of its Canons it Decrees Si quis dixerit per Sacram Ordinationem non dari Spiritum Sanctum ac proinde frustra Episcopos dicere Accipe Spiritum Sanctum anathema sit i. e. If any one shall say that the Holy Ghost is not given by Holy Orders and therefore that the Bishop sayes in vain Receive the Holy Ghost let him be accursed Which words manifestly annex the grace which they will have given by this their Sacrament to the latter Form only And so Bannes an Eminent Writer of their own Church understands them For saith he Ibi Concilium declarat tunc Ordinari Presbyteros tunc dari illis Spiritum Sanctum cum iis dicitur Accipe Spiritum Sanctum c. i. e. The Council there declares that then the Priests are ordain'd and then the Holy Ghost is given unto them when it is said unto them Receive the Holy Ghost 3. The first Form cannot be an Essential Form according to their own Positions because from them it must necessarily follow that that Form can only be Essential by which the Character is given but the Character of Priesthood cannot be given by the first Form. For says Vasquez Gratia collata ex virtute Sacramenti character simul dantur ut omnibus in confesso est i. e. The grace which is conferr'd by vertue of the Sacrament and the Character are given together as is acknowledged by all And therefore if the Sacramental Grace which they will have conferr'd at their Ordinations of Priests cannot according to their own Doctrines be given by the first Form in their Ordinal as I have already made it appear that it cannot neither can the Character of Priesthood be given by it Besides the Character as they define it being a Spiritual Sign imprinted on the Soul and of it self indivisible it cannot be given by halves one part of it by the first Matter and Form and the other part of it by the second Matter and Form but must be imprinted all at once and therefore if they will have two Essential Matters and two Essential Forms joyned to them in the Ordination of Priests they must also allow two characters to be imprinted by them on the persons Ordain'd as Ferdinando De Castro Palao for this reason doth or else if they will allow but one Character only to that Order as is the current Doctrine of their Church they must also allow but one Essential Matter and Form whereby it is to be imprinted And if the Question be of the two Matters which of them must be that whereby this is done whether Imposition of Hands which was first practiced by the Apostles themselves and hath ever since been used in all the Christian Churches in the World through all Ages and in all Places as every one knows or else that other Rite the delivery of the Chalice and Patten which was never heard of in any Church for near a thousand years after Christ and at present is made use of only in the Roman I hope it will be no difficult matter for you to conclude that it can be no other but Imposition of Hands and therefore if that be the only Matter whereby the Character is imprinted certainly that Form of words which is joyned with that Matter Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. must be the only Form which concurs to the giving thereof and therefore according to what they themselves require to make a Form Essential that only can be the Essential Form of Priestly Ordination and the other cannot at all be Essential thereto Thus far therefore having made out that according to what they require to make a Form Essential the first Form in their Ordinal of Priestly Ordination cannot be such and since they allow no other besides this but the second Form to be an Essential Form in that Administration it must necessarily follow that if they will have the Form of their Priestly Ordination to be Essential and that the Priestly power cannot be conferr'd but by an Essential Form this second Form only Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins c. the same which we use in our Ordinal must only be that Essential Form whereby this is done and therefore notwithstanding all their Cavils against us as if we did not give the whole Priestly power by this Form in our Ordinations they must themselves in their Ordinations give it by the very same Form that we do or else not give it at all and so their Argument retort on themselves and invalidate their own Orders as well as ours But 2dly The same Consequence will also follow though we allow both their Forms to be essential as they will have that is that notwithstanding the first Form as well as the second be allowed according to them to be Essential yet it must be still the second Form the same which we use in our Ordinations that must confer the whole Priestly power in their Ordinations also or else it must not be conferr'd at all For if the first Form in their Ordinal confers nothing of the Priestly power it must be the second alone that confers it or else it must not be conferr'd at all among them Now that the first Form confers nothing of the Priestly power I prove by your own way of arguing against our Form. That Form which expresseth
admitting them to Fellowship granting them Peace and such like Neither do we find that they did ever use any formal Absolution as this I Absolve thee but their reconciling them to the Church and receiving them again to Communion who had been excluded from it was the only way of Absolving then in practice among them which was so far from that extravagant power of absolving now challenged by the Romish Priests that it was looked on as no more than what a Deacon could do and accordingly in the absence of the Priest was it Customary to be performed by them in the Western Churches and that not only in the days of St. Cyprian but also down as far as the time of Alcuinus who lived eight hundred years after Christ And afterwards when Priests began to appropriate this power solely to themselves and Forms of Absolution came into the Church in the latter Ages they were at first always by way of Prayer and Intercession to God for the persons absolv'd and it was not till Thomas Aquinas's time about 400 years since that this Authoritative Form I Absolve thee was ever made use of and that came not in without great opposition from many Learned Men of that time as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Gulielmus Parisiensis Hugo Cardinalis and several others who were then so far from allowing any such power in Priests as now challenged that they plainly declare that to remit Sins and the Eternal punishments due unto them was so properly the work of God alone that the Absolution of the Priest can operate nothing at all that way but must always presuppose the Absolution of God going before it as being no more than the restoring of those to the peace of the Church which had been afore by their true Repentance restor'd to peace with God. The words of Hugo Cardinalis are The Priest cannot bind or loose with or from the Bond of the fault and the punishment due thereunto but only declare him to be bound or loos'd as the Levitical Priest did not make or cleanse the Leper but only declare him to be infected or clean And to the same purpose speaks also Peter Lumbard the Master of the Sentences and much more fully in these words God alone doth forgive and retain Sins and yet he hath given power of binding and loosing unto the Church but he bindeth and looseth one way the Church another For he only by himself forgiveth sin who both cleanseth the Soul from the inward blot and looseth it from the debt of Everlasting Death But this hath he not granted unto Priests to whom notwithstanding he hath given the power of binding and loosing that is to say of declaring men to be bound or loosed Whereupon the Lord did first by himself restore Health to the Leper and then sent him to the Priests by whose Judgment he might be declared to be cleansed so also he offer'd Lazarus to his Disciples to be loosed having first quickned him And again a little after In remitting or retaining Sins the Priests of the Gospel have that Right and Office which the Legal Priests had of old under the Law in curing of the Lepers These therefore forgive sins or retain them whilst they shew and declare that they are forgiven or retained by God. Which sayings do plainly inferre that to pardon the Crime and remit the punishment is the proper work of God only and that the Absolution of the Priests hath no real operation at all that way but must presuppose the party to be first absolv'd and justify'd by God their absolution being only declarative of what God hath afore done in applying the promises of God for the Remission of Sins to all such as have truly repented for their Consolation and Comfort rather than that the least stain of their Guilt is removed thereby To the outward peace of the Church indeed such absolutions can restore men but not to peace with God unless a true and hearty Repentance hath done it before and if after this on the evident manifestation of the Repentance the Absolution of the Priest comes it is only to declare what God hath done before not to add or in the least to conduce any thing thereto so as any pardon or forgiveness should follow his Sentence which was not granted or given before by God himself who is he alone that can do it And not only those two whose words I have laid down do say this but also several others who are now reckon'd amongst the eminentest Doctors and chiefest Fathers of the Romish Church that lived in their times as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Alexander Halensis Bonaventura Occham Gabriel Biel and others And to say otherwise would be to run Counter to the whole Tenor of the Gospel of Jesus Christ For therein Faith and newness of Life are laid down as the stated terms on which alone men shall become capable of that pardon from God which Christ hath purchased for us and if men arrive to that measure thereof which God requires they will be most certainly pardon'd whether the Priest will or no and if not all the Absolutions in the World shall do them no good And therefore for to say as the Romanists do that without their Absolution the most penitent cannot be reconciled to God and that with it even the wicked can such as are only attrite as they call them is a Doctrine I confess well devis'd for their own Interest Grandeur and Empire over men but so far from having any foundation in the Gospel that nothing can be more contrary thereto For it overthrows the main design of it in making men rely upon their false pretended power of Absolution for the gaining Reconciliation with God instead of addicting themselves to that Holiness and Righteousness of Life in order thereto which it is the main aim of the Gospel to lead us into And herein it is in the highest degree injurious both to God and Men. To God it is injurious because it robs him of his power of forgiving Sins to give it unto men absolutely excluding him from it without their forgiving them first at their Absolutions And it is injurious unto men because it cheats them of their Souls in making them rely upon false hopes for the Salvation of them whereby Thousands and Ten Thousands have been undone for ever For thereby they are taught that though they be attrite only that is have only that Carnal Sorrow for Sin which ariseth from fear of the punishments due thereto without any of that true saying Repentance which is founded on the Love of God yet this so imperfect a tendency to Repentance shall by Confession and the Absolution of a Priest applied thereon be made so perfect as to be fully sufficient to blot out the guilt and render the man clean and pure from all his Transgression whereby it comes to pass that Carnal men who are easily perswaded to approve of that Doctrine which shall make the