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A30479 A vindication of the ordinations of the Church of England in which it is demonstrated that all the essentials of ordination, according to the practice of the primitive and Greek churches, are still retained in our Church : in answer to a paper written by one of the Church of Rome to prove the nullity of our orders and given to a Person of Quality / by Gilbert Burnet. Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1677 (1677) Wing B5939; ESTC R21679 101,756 245

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800 years before this was used And to this day in the Greek Church there is no power given by the Consecration to offer propitiatory Sacrifices for though in the second Prayer said in Ordinations in which God's Holy Spirit is prayed for upon the Priest That he may be worthy to stand before the Altar of God without blame and may preach the Gospel of his Kingdom and holily administer the Word of his Truth It is added And may offer to thee Gifts and Spiritual Sacrifices but there is no reason to gather from these words that they give power for offering Propitiatory Sacrifices We acknowledg that we offer Gifts and Sacrifices in the Holy Eucharist but we reject Propitiatory ones and these words do not at all import them And the truth of it is when the Writers of the Roman Church are pressed with the Arguments before mentioned that the Eucharist can be no Propitiatory Sacrifice Since 1. there no Blood shed in it 2. No Destruction is made of the Sacrifice for it is only the Accidents and not the Blessed Body of Christ that the Priest consumes 3. That Christ's Cross is called one Sacrifice once offered 4. That his being now exalted at the Father's right hand shews his Body can no more be subject to be Sacrificed or mangled When these with many Authorities from the Father's are brought they are forced to fly to some Distinctions by which their Doctrine comes to differ little from ours but still those high and indecent Expressions remain in their Rituals and Missals which they are forced to mollifie as they do those Prayers in which the same things and in the same manner and words are asked of the Blessed Virgin and the other Saints which we ask of God And though they would stretch them to a bare Intercession which the genuine sense of the words will not bear yet they will never change them for it is the standing Maxim of that Church never to confess an error nor make any change to the better The third Reason against our Orders of Priesthood is a Repetition of the first and is already answered The fourth Argument is That none can Institute the Form of a Sacrament to give Grace and make present Christ's Body and Blood but the Authors of Grace and those that had power over his Body and Blood but they that Instituted this Form had only their Authority from the Parliament as appears by the Act it self by which some Prelates and other Learned men being impowered did Invent the Form before mentioned never before heard of either in Scripture or the Church of God To this I Answer First It is certain the Writer of this Paper did never think it would have been seen by any body that could examine it but intended only to impose on some Illiterate persons otherwise he would never have said that a Form which Christ himself used when he ordained his Apostles and which is used in their own Church as the proper Form of Ordination was never before heard of in the Scripture or the Church of God Secondly Those who compiled the Liturgy and Ordinal had no other Authority from the Parliament than Holy and Christian Princes did before give in the like cases It is a common place and has been handled by many Writers How far the Civil Magistrate may make Laws and give Commands about Sacred things 'T is known what Orders David and Solomon Iehosaphat Hezekiah and Iosiah gave in such cases They divided the Priests into several Courses gav●… Rules for their attendance turned out ●… High Priest and put another in his stead sent the Priests over the Cities to teach the People gathered the Priests and commanded them to Sanctifie themselves and the house of the Lord and offer Sacrifices o●… the Altar And gave orders about the Forms of their Worship that they should praise God in the words of David and Asaph and gave orders about the time 〈◊〉 observing the Passover that in a case o●… Necessity it might be observed on the second Month though by their Law it w●… to be kept the first Month. And for the Christian Emperors let the Code or the Novels or the Capitulars of Charles the Great be read and in them many Law●… will be found about the Qualification●… Elections and Consecrations of Church-men made by the best of all the Roman Emperors such as Constantine Theod●… sius c. They called Councils to jud●… of the greatest points of Faith which met and sate on their Writ whose determinations they confirmed and added the Civil Sanction to them And even Pope Leo though a higher spirite●… Pope than any of his Predecessors were did intreat the Emperor Martian to annul the second Council of Ephesus an●… to give order that the Ancient Decrees of the Council of Nice should remain in Force Now it were a great Scandal on those Councils to say that they had no Authority for what they did but what they derived from the Civil Powers So it is no less unjust to say because the Parliament Impowered some Persons to draw Forms for the more pure Administration of the Sacraments and Enacted that these only should be lawfully exercised in this Realm which is the Civil Sanction that therefore these persons had no other Authority for what they did Let those men declare upon their Consciences if there be any thing they desire more earnestly than such an Act for Authorizing their own Forms and would they make any Scruple to accept of it if they might have it Was it ever heard of that the Civil Sanction which only makes any constitution to have the force of a Law gives it another Authority than a Civil one and such Authority the Church of Rome thinks fit to accept of in all States and Kingdoms of that Religion Thirdly The Prelates and other Divines that compiled our Forms of Ordination did it by vertue of the authority they had from Christ as Pastors of his Church which did empower them to teach the people the pure Word of God and to administer the Sacraments and perform all other holy Functions according to the Scripture the practice of the Primitive Church and the rules of Expediency and Reason and this they ought to have done though the Civil Powers had opposed it in which case their duty had been to have submitted to whatever severities or persecutions they might have been put to for the Name of Christ and the Truth of his Gospel But on the other hand when it pleased God to turn the hearts of those that had the chief Power to set forward this good Work then they did as they ought with all Thankfulness acknowledg so great a Blessing and accept and improve the Authority of the Civil Powers for adding the Sanction of a Law to the Reformation in all the parts and branches of it So by the authority they derived from Christ and the Warrant they had from Scripture and the Primitive Church these Prelates and