to N. N's after-instance of Illustration if the word King be used at his Election this sufficiently expresseth all Kingly Power and Authority SECT II. N. N. farther adds THE Form or words whereby men are made Priests must express Authority and Power to Consecrate or make present the Body and Blood of Christ but their Form containeth not one word expressing this Power see the Ritual Lond. 1607. Deacons did minister and dispense the Body of Christ in Ancient times but were never thought to have Power of Consecrating and making present Christ's Body and Blood SECT II. J. S. THat which N. N. designs by this is that that Form Receive ye the Holy Ghost is defective as to Priestly Ordination which must be supplied by their new one viz. Take thou power to offer Sacrifice to God and to Celebrate Mass both for the quick and the dead This he knows Protestants do reject because lately invented and foisted into the Romish Ritual to foster their gross Figments of Purgatory Transubstantiation and their Antichristian Sacrifice of the Mass and because some Romanists as St. Clara thinks it unnecessary and Bell. saith it is Sacrilegious for this he positively delivers It is Sacriledg to change the Form because determinate Bell. de Sacr. in gen l. 1. c. 21. Sect. apud haeret c. secunda prop. For Sacraments are instituted by God therefore the chief part thereof the Form and to add to or alter the words of the Scripture is not lawful therefore not the words of the Sacraments Id. ib. in Fin. yet this great Champion never did prove their new Form to be found in or founded on Scripture much less instituted by Christ 2. If that Form comprehends not all the Essentials of Priestly Ordination then the Apostles were not empowered to Consecrate for our Saviour used that and no other to enable them for the execution of the Priestly Office wherefore Scotus l. 4. dist 24. hath resolved verba illa c. those words Whosoever sins ye remit c. are declarative of the Power formerly given in these Receive ye the Holy Ghost by which Power is passed over all the Sacraments and therefore that of Sacrificing Biel l. 4. dist 19. quaest un concurs with him cul datur c. to whom the Principal is given to him also the accessory is given but by these words Receive ye c. Christ gave the power of the keys therefore by them he conveyed the power of Consecration which is a branch of the power of the Keys 3. What is added concerned Deacons is a pure piece of impertinency no way advantagious to him nor prejudicial to Protestants if he vvere put to it he vvould find it a difficult task to prove Deacons were Dispencers of the Mysteries vvho vvere only Assistants to the Dispensation SECT III. N. N. IN all Forms of Ordaining Priests that ever were used in the Eastern and Western Churches there is expresly set down the word Priest or some other word importing the particular and proper Function and Authority of Priesthood If any State or Country should choose a Person to be King in the word King is sufficiently expressed all Regal Power and Authority Therefore the Greeks using the word Bishop and Priest in their Form sufficiently express the respective Power of every Order SECT III. J. S. EAch Clause of this Section hath been sufficiently confuted SECT IV. N. N. BUT the reason why the English Form of making Bishops and Priests is so notoriously defective and invalid is because in Edward the sixth's time when Zwinglianism and Puritanism did so prevail in the Church the Real Presence was not believed by them of the Clergy who bore the sway therefore they did not put in the Form of Priesthood any word expressing Power and Authority to make Christ's Body present They held Episcopacy and Priesthood to be one and the same thing wherefore in the Form for making of Bishops they put not one word expressing the Episcopal Function only some general words which might seem sufficient to give them Authority to enjoy the Temporalities and Bishopricks This is also the true reason why Parker and his Collegues were content with the Nags-head Ordination and why others returned to extraordinary Vocation in Queen Elizabeth's time SECT IV. J. S. THis also is another vain Repetition Three who bore the sway in King Edward's Reign held the Real Presence but not in the Popish manner of determination Those in Queen Elizabeth's time had and did stand for ordinary and orderly Vocation The Church of England alwrys asserted the Divine Right of Episcopacy and her orderly Orderly Orthodox Sons have constantly maintained it If some have distinguished Priesthood into the degrees the higher and the lower as the Romanists generally do yet they still conclude the said different degrees of the Acts and Uses which could not be exercised in a due subordination of the lower to the higher for a distinct respective Consecration thereto and did hold those of them who should presume to exercise the Higher Power not being regularly Consecrated thereto were Schismatical Transgressors of the Apostolical Order and Catholick Practice and that every Act of that usurped Power when no real necessity to abate or excuse it to be null and void It is the Pope and his Collegues who are the (f) For it is not resolved in the Congregation of the Cardinals that the Pope's Legats should not suffer the determination of the Article of the Institution of Bishops by Divine Right to pass Hist Counc of Trent fol. 603. And it being perceived that Laynez his Speech was displeasing and opposed by the Spanish Bishops this distasted the Legats ib. fol. 615. therefore Canons came from Rome which the Pope moved to have proposed p. 657. which displeased the Fathers c. after much contention because the opinion of Divine Right was as displeasing to the Pope ib. fol. 737. it was waved leading Puritans It was the Pope who said the Absolute Divine Right of Bishops was a false and erronious Opinion it was the Pope who slighted and scorned those Bishops in the Trent-Assembly who affirmed (g) Ib. fol. 825. the Institution of Bishops by Divine Right It was the Pope who first devested them of their Jurisdiction and Power by his Commissions and Delegations (h) Caran p. 869. to inferior Priests SECT V. N. N. TO conclude the Matter I say with St. Hierome Ecclesia non est quae non habet Sacerdotem How can the Protestant Church be the true Church which hath not one Bishop or Priest Though it were not evident it hath no Valid Ordination yet so many doubts and uncertainties as they must acknowledg concerning their Ordinations do demonstrate the Nullity of their Church for if there remain one solid and prudent doubt of the validity of Ordination in any Church it is impossible it should be the true Catholick and Apostolick Church because a doubtful Clergy makes a doubtful Church and a doubtful Church is
others not till afterwards and upon several days 5. But N. N. is wronged is being reproved for falshood and misadventures he good man will say nothing but that for which he hath good authorities and good proofs which whether they be regular and valid is next to be examined SECT II. N. N. THis Narration of the Consecration at the Nags-head I have taken out of Hollywood Constable and Dr. Champney's Works They heard it from many of the ancient Clergy who were Prisoners in Wisbitch-Castle as Mr. Bluel Dr. Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others these had it from Mr. Neal and other Catholicks who were present at Mr. Parker's Consecration at the Nags-head as Mr. Constable affirms The story was divulged yet being so evident a truth none durst contradict it notwithstanding both the Nullity and Illegality was objected against them in Print not long after by the Famous Dr. Stapleton's Counterblast fol. 301. SECT II. J. S. ALL this here presented amounts to thus much 1. Mr. Neal and Mr. Constable reported the story therefore it is true Neal was an eye-witness and Constable took it upon trust and all the rest hear-say men So that the whole depends upon their credit and honesty who have crack'd their credit by their holy Fraud and lying Legends and practising the black Art of Equivocation and their honesty is justly suspected who care not what they say so they say something for the advantage of the good old Cause as will hereafter be declared 2. Dr. Bishop a fast Friend to the Cause in his Repr of Dr. Abbot's Defence p. 120 confutes this way of Argumentation saying Any man not past all care of his Reputation would be ashamed to cite such late partial Writers it is either where their testimony is not contradicted by their Adversaries when they set themselves industriously to detect falsifications in their Allegations or else those Protestants do annex the Authorities and Reasons on which their testimonies are grounded Testimonies of private men or hear-say men when crossed by Authentick Records are always slighted and contemned If the Homagers of a Manor swear to a custom which is more than speaking to it yet if there be any Court-Roll extant and produced which declares the contrary to their Depositions their testimony is thereby utterly invalidated Baronius in the point of Maxentius his Birth presumed to correct all former Historians by the discovery of an ancient Coin certainly an ancient Record is better than an ancient Coin can be for standing Records have always by all Nations and the consent of Mankind been esteemed the strongest human testimonies and the best assurances of Faith which ought not to be disbelieved or disputed upon the reports of particular men because they have been purposely devised and preserved for the discovery of Truth and the decision of Controversies which might arise in after-Ages and the rectifying of particular mens several apprehensions Such as these we produce in this case which have convinced and fully satisfied more ingenuous Adversaries than N. N. or his Narrators seem to be When Dr. Reynolds shewed these Records to Mr. Hart he confessed they were undeniable The Bishop of Chalcedon acknowledged that Father Oldcorn alias Hall took the leisure and pains to search the Records who thereupon concluded them authentick Arch-Bishop Whitgift with four other Bishops prevailed with four Popish Priests to view these Records which when they had done they declared to them freely that they were not to be doubted of 3. It hath been the common practice of such as these Narrators were as shall after more fully appear to divulge stories by an holy fraud either to stagger weak minds or to settle the over-credulous Bigots of their party in a detestation of Arch-Bishop Whitgifts life whom the Romanists may believe if they please if they will not take his word let them choose and shew the contrary hath given us a pregnant testimony hereof for he informs us that that Arch-Bishop going to Dover at his entrance into the Town an Intelligencer from Rome landed who wondred to see an Arch-Bishop in England and so honourably attended but seeing him the Sunday following waited on with a nobler Train and hearing the solemn Service of the Church he was overtaken with admiration and told an English Gentleman Sir Edw. Hobby who accompanied him that they were led in great blindness at Rome by our own Nation who made the people there believe that there was not in England either Arch-Bishop or Bishop or Cathedral Church or any Church-Government but c. 4. These his Narrators could never agree in the most material circumstances of the story they cannot speak either to the number of the Consecrators or Consecrated nor to the determinate place and time 5. The Story was contradicted assoon as it was divulged as hereafter will be more fully declared 6. Dr. Stapleton's Objection did not run on the Nag's-Head Score he never so much as mentioned it and therefore may reasonably be presumed either not to have heard any thing of it or not to believe it the former is more probable for it was not divulged in his time 7. If the matter had been performed clandestinely or intended so to have been Mr. Neal and the other Catholicks could not have been admitted neither should its clandestine performance have rendered the Act invalid When John the twelfth ordained a Deacon in a Stable I demand whether in N. N's private judgement the Ordination were invalid SECT III N.N. THey being not able to make good the Ordination against Catholicks were forced to beg an Act of Parliament whereby they might enjoy their Temporalities notwithstanding the defect of their Ordination against the Canons of the Church and Law of the Land For albeit King Edwards Rite of Ordination was established by Act of Parliament 1 Eliz. yet it was notorious that the Ordination of the Nags-Head was very different from it and framed ex tempore by Scories Puritanical Spirit The Words of the Act are Such from and order for Consecrating Archbishops Bishops c. as was set forth in Edward the sixth's time shall stand and be in full force and effect and all Acts or Things heretofore done or made by any person or persons elected to the Office and Dignity of Archbishop c. by virtue of the Queens Letters Patents or by Commission sithence the beginning of her Reign be and shall be by Authority of this Parliament declared and judged good and perfect in all respects and purposes c. See Poulton in his Kalendar p. 141. n. 5. by which Act it appears that not only King Edwards Rite but any other used since the first of the Queens Reign upon her Commission was enacted good and so consequently the Nags-Head might pass Hence it was they were called Parliament Bishops SECT III. J. S. THE chief Argument which N.N. framed in this Section runs thus 1. Their Ordinations were defective as not ordered according to the Canons of the Church and Laws of
nothing less than Spite in your Popes to thunder out their Interdicts and publish their seditious and malicious Bulls against this Church and State It might be error or mistake in your Grave Learned Divines to pronounce Protestants Hereticks and Schismaticks but it was the extremity of Spight to condemn them to Fire and Faggot without benefit of the Clergy and doom them to Eternal Flames without the priviledg of Purgatory Indeed the main spight of the whole Sect is against the Church of England down with it cry they and the Puritan-rabble will soon be crushed and quelled and the little undersets which spring from them either dwindle away into nothing or drop into their hands 5. He assures us upon his word which is not worth a rush they hold themselves obliged to hold to their known Tenents and Practices this is tattle and empty talk According to their Tenent the Character is indelible yet Pope Stephen nulled the Orders of Formosus and caused all those Ordained by him to be Re-ordained He tells us it is their Tenent and Practice to Ordain Lapsed Ministers in absolute terms as Lay-men are upon the sole account of the invalidity of their former Ordinations but Pope Paul and Cardinal Pool either thought or practised otherwise when they confirmed and settled the Ordinations made in Edward the sixth's time He saith 't is their Tenent to allow those to officiate who have not valid Orders is to commit damnable Sacriledg but the Pope and the Cardinal did allow those who were Ordained as they speak qui ampullas jactant in the time of Schism to officiate and therefore either did think their Orders valid or committed damnable Sacriledg N. N. dare not affirm the latter if he take to the former then all his confused heap of Possibles Probables and Credibles are at once blown up with a Puff of the Popes breath and are driven away like Down It hath been the Practice of their Grave and Learned Divines when any Protestants revolted to exercise them as if they had been possessed for thus was the Form The Revolter was brought to a Bishop and falling down on his Knees before him the Bishop said I adjure thee thou unclean Spirit by the name of God to depart out of the Man If thus they practised now they would mar their market and a half-gained Proselite before he was thus charmed would either start aside or wheel about Whatsoever their Tenents or Practices be or have been which yet are not heeded by Protestants there is an old Sitter at Rome who can change them at his pleasure which when he is disposed to do all that N. N. or his Fellovvs dare do is to Bless themselves holding up their hands and some crying Benedicite others after the old Mumpsimus mode bennistee or vvhich is all one make use of a grave Nod or discontented Shrug and so sit dovvn in silence This is no more than for the Pope to give out Orders to the contrary or impose Silence by a Decree of Taciturnity then let the Tenent and Practice be vvhat it vvill all is quashed they are the Popes Vassals and must most tamely obey his Orders CHAP. IV. SECT I. N. N. goes on BUT suppose their first Bishops were ordained by Catholicks another Nullity is found in the Form of the Consecration To wave the Matter of Ordination let us examine the Form prescribed in the Protestants Ritual It is a known Principle common both to Protestants and Catholicks that in the Form of Ordination there must be some words expressing the Authority and Power given to the Ordained The intention of the Ordainer expressed by general words indifferent and applicable to all or divers degrees of Holy Orders is not sufficient to make one a Priest or a Bishop As for example Receive ye the Holy Ghost These words being indifferent to Priesthood and Episcopacy and used in both Ordinations are not sufficiently expressive of either in particular unless Protestants will now at length profess themselves Presbyterians making no distinction betwixt Priests and Bishops but they are as far from that as we Catholicks In the Form whereby Protestants Ordain there is not one word expressing Episcopal Power and Authority The Form is Take the Holy Ghost c. Let Protestants search all the Catholick Rituals not only of the West but of the East they will not find any Form of Consecrating Bishops that hath not the word Bishop in it or some other expressing the particular Power and Authority of a Bishop distinct from all other Degrees of Holy Orders See Joh. Morin de Sacr. Ord. Par. 1655. SECT I. J. S. 1. IT seems N. N's former tedious Harangue at length comes to this Arch-Bishop Parker c. were not Ordained by his Catholicks which is one Nullity But this is contrary to the Tenents of his Church witness Bellarmine who Lib. 1. de Sacr. in Gen. c. 21. determines that Sacraments administred by Hereticks are valid and to its Practice allowing the Ordinations of the Arrians and Bonasiosi and these of Acacius see in Morin de Sacr. Ord. and of the Greeks witness N. N. ut supra 2. The other Nullity lies in the Form he being contented to wave the Matter but why so this hath alwayes been accounted an essential part of Ordination Bellarm. lib. 1. de Sacr. Ord. c. 9. Sect. ex his truly relateth Concilium c. The Council of Carthage makes mention only of Imposition of hands His quarrel then being with the Form it is to be considered after some use made of his Concession in this Paragraph which will by good consequence destroy his whole former discourse for he confesseth 1. That Protestants have a Form or Ritual then undoubtedly they would use it and not Bishop Scories extempore Spirit 2. They are as far from being Presbyterians as his Catholicks then they were not Puritans unless his Catholicks be so too then they rejected not Consecration as a Rag of Rome nor were they contented with Extraordinary Calling then they are as much for Bishops and regularly Consecrated Bishops as his Catholicks 3. This Form is prescribed and thereby they Ordained therefore they did Ordain by their Prescript Form and not as N. N. surmiseth and suggesteth 4. The Form hath these words Receive ye the Holy Ghost therefore N. N's feigned Form was not used at Arch-Bishop Parker's Consecration 5. The Form requires the Consecration of a Bishop to be publick in the Church therefore his suggestion of a Clandestine Consecration is a Calumny 6. The Form hath the word Bishop in it therefore it hath sufficient to express the particular Power and Authority of a Bishop 7. The Form requires three Bishops to the Consecration of a Bishop therefore they did not think the help of one was sufficient yet this is the Form N. N. is pleased to quarrel with For 3. He pretends there is a known Principle common c. But this he misrepresents this Form must be used and no other Bell. inclines