essentials of Ordination required in Scripture and as to our Form of Ordination he plainly says that if the difference of the words herein from their Form do annul our Ordinations it must annul those of the Greek Church too for the Form of the Greek Church altogether differs as much from the Form of the Roman as doth that of the English And Cudsemius one that writes violently enough against us speaks also to the same purpose which he would never have done but that the manifest certainty of the thing extorted this concession from him For he coming into England in the year 1608. to observe the state of our Church and the Order of our Universities was so far convinced of the validity of our Orders by his inquiry into this particular that in a Book Printed two years after on his return home he hath these words Concerning the state of the Calvinian Sect in England it so standeth that either it may endure long or be changed suddenly or in a trice in regard of the Catholick Order there in a perpetual Line of their Bishops and the Lawful Succession of Pastors received from the Church for the honour whereof we use to call the English Calvinists by a milder term not Hereticks but Schismaticks And in the late times when one Goffe went over unto the Church of Rome a Question arising about the validity of our Orders on his taking upon him at Paris to say Mass by vertue of his Orders received in our Church it was referred to the Sorbon to examine the matter where it being fully discussed they gave in their opinion that our Orders were good and this I have by the Testimony of one now an eminent Papist who some years since told me the whole Story from his own knowledge he being then in Paris when the whole matter was there transacted and although afterwards as he told me the Pope determined otherwise of this matter and ordered the Arch-Bishop of Paris to reordain him yet the Sorbonists still stuck to their opinion that he was a good Priest by his first Ordination And if you will know whence this difference in the determination arose it was that the one proceeded according to the merits of the cause and the other as would best sute with his own interest and the interest of the party he was to support The next thing which you require of me is to give you proof that it is now the received Doctrine of the Romanists that the essential Form of Ordination is in the power of the Church to alter To which I Answer That by the essential Form for the word essential is of your own interposing I suppose you mean that Form of words in the Roman Ordinal which joyned with the matter according to them imprints the Character and makes up the whole essence of Orders and understanding you thus I freely grant that the whole cry of the Romish Schools runs against this assertion their Doctrine being that both the Matter and Form of Orders as well as of their other Sacraments were instituted by Christ himself and that neither of them are in the power of any to alter but that they have been the same from the beginning as we now find them in their Ordinal and therefore cannot admit of any variation without annulling the whole Sacrament as they call it And that they have been thus preserved down unto us by constant Tradition from our Saviours time For they freely grant that they have no proof for them that they were thus instituted by Christ either from Scripture or from any of the Writings of the Antients And to this purpose the words of Estius 〈…〉 are as followeth And here you must know that we have the matter and form of every Sacrament not as much from Scripture as by a continued Tradition received down from the Apostles For the Scripture expresly delivers to us only the matter and form of Baptism and the Eucharist and of extream Vnction the matter only The others are left us only by unwritten Tradition thereby as from hand to hand to be received down unto us And in another place particularly as to the Matter and Form of Orders he tells us That the Antient Fathers of the Church spoke sparingly of them in their Writings And so others of them to the same purpose And for this they gave a Reason forsooth least those things being consigned to Writing might come to be known to unbelievers and so exposed to be scoffed at and ridicul'd by them for it seems they cannot but acknowledge that many of those Rites which they make use of as well in Ordination as in their other Sacraments of their own making are indeed ridiculous But here I must tell you that this is only the Doctrine of the Schoolmen and those which wrote after them But Morinus the Learned Oratorian I have often mentioned unto you taxeth them of great ignorance herein in that being totally unacquainted with the Antient Rituals and the practice of other Churches framed all their Doctrines according to the present Ordinal of their Church But since that Learned person hath Published so large a Collection of Antient Ordinals many of which have none at all of those Forms now in the Roman Ordinal and the practice also of the Greek Church which useth none of them is become better known this Doctrine of the Divine Institution of those Forms and that they cannot be altered or varied from becomes generally exploded and concerning this because you desire me to prove it unto you I will first give you the words of Habertus in his Observations on the Greek Pontifical in whom you have also the sence of the whole Sorbon who Licensed and Authorized his Book For he raising an Objection how it could be possible that the Orders conferred by the Greek Church as well as the Latin could be both right since Administred by different Forms gives this Answer thereto In the Sacraments of whose matter and form there is no express mention in Scripture it is to be supposed that Christ instituted both only in general to His Apostles leaving to the Church a power to design constitute and determine them several ways as it shall seem best unto them so that the chief substance intention and scope of the institution were still retained with some general fitness and analogy for signifying the effect grace and character of the Sacrament which analogy is alike and intire in both Rites as well the Greek as the Roman And the words of Hallier another Sorbonist and whose Book is in the same manner Licensed by that Learned Society of Divines speak the same thing for he laying down this as an evident conclusion from what he had afore said that many things had been added and changed about the Matter and Form of Orders and that through the whole Church as it is diffused over the whole World the same Rite of Ordination and the same Matter and the
For saith he Si nolumus negare Sacramentum Ordinis in Ecclesiâ Latinâ necesse est pro materiâ hujus Sacramenti solam impositionem manuum assignare hanc enim solam Apostoli Concilia Antiqui Patres commemorant i. e. If we will not deny the Sacrament of Orders in the Latin Church it is necessary that we assign only Imposition of Hands for the matter of this Sacrament for that only the Apostles and Councils and ancient Fathers make mention of And therefore he saith in another place that not only the power of Jurisdiction but also the power of Order is conferr'd by Imposition of Hands that is not only the power of Absolving Penitents but also the power of Consecrating and Administring the Eucharist and he saith that the Councils and Fathers whensoever they speak of the Order of Priesthood to be given by Imposition of Hands mean all this power to be conferr'd thereby and for proof hereof he quotes a certain Comment that goes under the name of St. Ambrose which on the 4th Chapter of the first Epistle to Timothy hath these words Manuum Impositionis verba sunt Mystica quibus confirmatur ad opus Electus accipiens autoritatem teste Conscientiâ ut audeat vice Domini Sacrificia Deo offerre i.e. The words of Imposition of Hands are Mystical by which the Elected is confirmed to the work of the Ministry receiving Authority his Conscience bearing him witness that he may make bold in the stead of our Lord to offer Sacrifice unto God. And from thence he remarkes quod manuum Impositio inserviat potestati accipiendae in verum corpus Christi i. e. That Imposition of Hands doth serve to the receiving of power over the true Body of Christ that is to Consecrate and administer the Eucharist where they will have the true body of Christ to be present And therefore if the Authority of this Doctor of the Romish Church signifies any thing with you who was a person of that eminent note among them for his learning that he was designed to have been a Cardinal by Gregory the 15th Had that Pope lived to have made another promotion this last matter of Imposition of hands with the form of words annex'd must give not only the power to absolve penitents but also the power of consecrating the Eucharist and if they give this to them since they are both still retain'd in our Ordinal they must give it us also and consequently your whole Objection against our Orders as if this power were not conferr'd on us at our Ordinations be totally remov'd But here then you will perchance ask the Question if the later Matter and Form in the Roman Ordinal give the whole Priestly power to what end then serves the former Matter and Form which they make use of To this I Answer to the same purpose that some other Matters and Forms do in their Ordinal which they allow only to be accidental that is for the more solemnity of the Administration and not at all to confer the Sacerdotal power and as such no doubt at this time their first Matter and Form which they call essential would only have been reputed by all learned men among them but that it had unwarily been declared otherwise in the Council of Florence and therefore they being obliged to abide by that determination have been forced to frame the Scheme of their Divinity so in this particular as the practice of their own Church for near a thousand years together the practice of all other Churches in the World down to this time the Writings of the Ancients many of their own Doctrines and all Reason too which some of them cannot conceal do manifestly contradict 2. The first Form cannot be an essential Form according to their own positions because according to them that only can be an Essential Form of any of their Sacraments which conduceth to conferre the Sacramental grace But the Sacramental grace of the Sacrament of Orders as they call it cannot be confer'd by the first form and therefore that can by no meanes according to their own positions be an Essential Form. For the Sacramental grace even according to their own Divinity can only be annexed to such Sacramental signs as Christ himself the author and institutor of all Sacraments hath appointed now if it can no way be made out that Christ ever appointed the Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten to be a Sacramental sign in the Ordination of the Ministers of his Church then certainly no grace can ever be annex'd thereto or the Form of words the first form above mention'd made use of at the administring this Rite in Ordinations ever conferre any The Consequence I suppose no one will ever deny because no signe with any Form of words whatever can in the least conduce to the conferring of Grace but what the Institution of our Saviour hath made Sacramentall And therefore the whole stress of the Argument lyes upon this only that our Saviour never instituted this signe or Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten in Ordinations or ever commanded his Holy Apostles either by himself while here on Earth or by the Dictates of his Holy Spirit afterwards to make use thereof And there are but two ways possible whereby our Adversaryes can ever pretend to make it out that he did The First is by Scripture and the other by Tradition For they will have the Institutions of our Saviour to be transmitted down unto us not only by the written word the Holy Scriptures but also by the unwritten as they call it the Traditions of the Church both which they will have of equal Authority for the making out of what they will have to be of divine Institution But neither of these will serve their turn in this particular Not Tradition First because no other Church bears record with them herein and Secondly because it appears by undeniable authority and by the concession of abundance of their own Doctors as I have above mention'd that for near a thousand years together after Christ there was not even in their own Church any Tradition at all of this matter or the thing ever heard of among them till instituted by themselves about 700 years since And as to the Scripture they themselves there give up the Cause plainly acknowledging that no proof at all of this matter can be had from thence And therefore Bellarmine and Hallier and several others of them say that if Imposition of Hands be not the Essential Matter of Orders they can have no Argument at all out of Scripture to prove against the Hereticks as they call us of the Protestant Religion that it is a Sacrament And the words of Habertus are Scripturae Ordinatio aut nihil est aut manuum Impositio i. e. The Ordination of Scripture is either nothing or imposition of Hands Becanus the Jesuit goes further and say's Nec in Scripturis nec in antiquis
Essential hath certainly as to them made a Nullity in the whole Administration and totally deprived them of all the benefits of it And here I cannot but admire the Confidence or rather Impudence of those men who are so forward to deny us our Orders because at the first Reformation of the Ordinal we altered the Forms of Ordination which from the beginning were but of Humane Institution and of very late date too introduced among them as I have shown and yet make no scruple at all themselves to alter from the Institution of Christ himself in this Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and with a Non obstante to his Divine Law cut off one half of that which he hath appointed and by that appointment made as much Essential to the Sacrament as the other half they have retain'd Had the Forms of Ordination been instituted and Commanded by Christ himself as the Administring of the Cup in this Holy Sacrament was then I confess to alter them or omit any part of them might infer a Nullity in the whole performance and the Arguments which our Adversaries bring from hence would be unanswerable against us in this particular But it being manifest that there is no such Institution for them all what they urge from our altering of them for the Nulling of our Orders becomes totally insignificant But how they will be able to Answer the same Arguments when turn'd against themselves to prove a Nullity in their Administration of the Eucharist without the Cup which Christ certainly instituted and commanded as a part thereof I cannot see possible But Thirdly Supposing you might certainly receive from them all the benefits of their Ministry which you propose yet since there are in that Church so many dangerous Errors both in Faith and Practice all which you must necessarily joyn with them in whenever you go over to them whether on this account it be not still best for you to remain as you are is that which in the last place I desire you to consider For can you believe that they can turn a Wafer into God and eat him too with his Divinity when they have done Can you believe that they can every day and in an hundred thousand places at once offer up Christ contrary to the express words of Scripture to be as proper true and real a Sacrifice in their Masses as when he died upon the Cross for us And that they can make Expiation thereby both for the Living and the Dead Can you believe that Saints are made Fellow-Mediators with Christ and that by the overplus of their Merit Satisfaction can be made for sin as well as by the blood of our Redeemer And can you believe that the Pope hath a Treasure hereof to dispose of by pardons and Indulgences Or that Heaven can be bought with the money with which these are sold Can you believe that Church Infallible which evidently err's in a multitude of things every day That its Traditions are as true as Scripture Or that a Priest can forgive Sins Or that the decisions of a Pope are as Infallible as the Oracles of God himself Can you Worship a piece of Bread for your God And adore Relicks Images and Crosses contrary to the express prohibitions of the Word of God Can you pray unto men departed of whom you can have no certainty whether in Heaven or in Hell Can you Worship the Virgin Mary as the Heathens did their Goddesses and fall down to every Stock or Stone that represents her For all those things and many more like them must you believe and do whenever you go over unto them Now the Question is whether you are convinced these things are to be believed and done or no if you are this conviction makes you totally theirs whither our Orders be good or no and the dispute which you stick at concerning them is totally needless But if you are not convinced concerning these points as I beleive you cannot then the whole question comes to this whether in case they have Orders and we none we are for the sake of them only bound to go over to that Church and joyn with them in all those Errors of faith and practice which they there hold And if this be a thing which you stick at for the solution of it I will only lay before you a plain parallel case under the Jewish Law By that you know the Sons of Aaron were the only true Priests and none other were to serve at the Altar of the Lord but they only Now put the Case that when the Ten Tribes revolted with Jeroboam to the worship of the Calves in Dan and Bethel all the whole house of Aaron had revolted with them must the rest of the people for the sake of their Priesthood have gone over to them also and forsaken the true worship of their God for ever No certainly you will say but that they must either have constituted other Priests presuming on the divine approbation in this case of necessity or else if that were not to be don rather remain without Priest or Altar then commit so great an abomination for the sake thereof And this is plainly the case before us For Supposing all the whole Christian Priesthood had so joyned themselves to the Corruptions of the Romish Sect that we who retain the true purity of our Religion had neither Bishops Priests nor Deacons among us as you would have must we for the sake of their Priesthood also go over to them and pollute ourselves with them in all those Errors Superstitions and Idolatrys which they give themselves up unto No certainly if this were our case as I thank God it is not we must either separate others to the Ministry of our own appointment presuming on the divine approbation in this case of necessity or else if this be not to be done since duties enjoyned by positive institution as these of the Ministry are may in many cases be dispensed with but that which is Sinful is in no case to be done rather then do so Sinful and wicked a thing in the presence of God as to joyne our selves to that corrupted Church and all the abominations of it it is much better for us to remain without Priest Sacrament or publick Worship and serve God with our private Devotions only which hath been the Case of many a good Christian who since our Trafick into the East-Indies hath begun have on many occasions been detained in Countries totally Heathen without Sacrament or publick Worship for many years together And you cannot but say that it would be a very bad Argument in this case to perswade those Christians to put themselves under the Conduct of the Bramins and Talapoins the Idolatrous Priests of those Countries because they can there have no Priests of their own and I assure you that which is now urg'd upon you to draw you over to the Church of Rome because they say they have Priests and we none is very
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
have been pleased to call at my Study and the Books should there have been laid before you Your Paper cites the words of the third Canon of the Council of Carthage but all the four first Canons belong to this matter for in them that Council prescribing the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons makes mention only of imposition of hands with the Blessing given by the Ordainer but nothing at all of any of those imperative Forms in which the Church of Rome now a days placeth the essence of Orders And as to the words of the Book of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite I find none such in that Author as are contained in your Paper and therefore I suppose you transcribed them not from the Book it self but only wrote after some person that had given you the summe of them and if I mistake not you have made use of Dr. Burnet in this particular for the passage which I refer to in Dionysius contains several pages in Folio for he having first described the manner of Ordaining Bishops Priests and Deacons afterwards goeth over every single Rite in a very particular and exact manner and according to his way of Writing finds a Mystery in every one of them but amongst all those particulars which he so exactly recites there is none of the least mention made of any imperative Forms spoken at the imposition of hands or at the performance of any other Rite belonging to that matter and this silence of them where there is so particular a mention of every thing else is an undeniable presumption that there was then no such thing in use But to all that I have said in denying the antient use of those Forms you have this Answer that it seems irrational that there should be no words spoken by the Bishop at the laying on of his hand upon the Ordained and that at this rate the laying on of hands would seem only a dumb and insignificant sign and would in your opinion be nothing at all operative to the conferring of the Office on the person Ordained To which I reply First That how insignificant soever you may esteem the outward Ceremony without those words which you call the essential Form in the Consecration of a Christian Priest yet if you please to read the 8th Chapter of Leviticus you will there find that Aaron and his Sons were Consecrated to the Levitical Priesthood by the outward Ceremony only without as much as any one word spoken by Moses the Consecrator signifying the Holy Office to which they were set apart And Maimonides the most Authentick Writer among the Rabbies gives us an account that in after times the Consecration of the High Priest among the Jews was performed only by the Anointing with the Holy Oyl and Vesting with the High Priests Vestments and after the destruction of the first Temple in which the Holy Oyl was lost by Vesting him only For outward signs can by general institution be made as expressive of any thing of this nature as a form of words for words are only sounds appointed by the common consent of those that use them to be the signs of things and when outward actions are appointed to signifie the same things they are altogether as expressive and the King of France by delivering the Sword to the Constable and a Staff to a Marshal of France doth as effectually create those Officers by that outward Ceremony only as if he had done it by a Form of words the most expressive of the Authority and Power given that could be devised because the Laws of the Kingdom and the long received Customs of it have made these Ceremonies alone the well known manner of Constituting those Officers And had the Laws of the Christian Church or the long received usages of it made any outward Ceremony whatever in like manner the well known Rite of Ordaining a Priest it would be altogether as valid for this purpose without any Form of words whatever For Ordination being only a Ministerial act of delegating that Office to another which was received from Christ any thing that is sufficient to express this delegation whether words or signs doth sufficiently do the thing For if Forms be so necessary to Ordination what is it that makes them so It must be either the institution of Christ or the nature of the thing it self any other Reason for it I know not If it be from the institution of Christ let us be but convinced of that and we have done For in this case either to omit the Form or alter in the least from its first institution would make the whole performance culpable But if there be no institution of Christ for any such Form as I have already abundantly demonstrated that there is not all the necessity of such a Form must be from the nature of the thing it self Now if the nature of Ordination doth not necessarily require any such Form but that any of the Offices of the Church may be as well conferred by an outward Ceremony only by publick institution made significant and expressive of the thing done there appears no necessity for the use of any such Forms at all so as to invalidate those Orders that are conferred without them That which makes the Church of Rome so much insist upon the Matter and Form of Ordination is that they have made it a Sacrament and they observing the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and the Sacrament of Baptism which are really Sacraments of Christs own institution to consist each of them as prescribed in Scripture of an outward sign and a form of words annext the former of which they call the matter and the latter the form of the Sacrament from hence they do infer that they are both essentially necessary to all those other Rites which they will have to be Sacraments also and because they find none such instituted in Scripture for them as they themselves acknowledge that they may not be without them introduce Matters and Forms as they call them of their own making And hence it is that they talk so much of the Matter and Form of Orders and will have both so essentially necessary to the conferring of them whereas would they argue aright in this point they ought not so much to have inferred the necessity of what they call Matter and Form for Ordination from that it is a Sacrament as that for this very reason it can be no Sacrament because it hath neither the one nor the other by Divine institution belonging thereto For the nature of a Sacrament according to their own definitions consists in this that it is an outward Ceremony consisting of things and words instituted and enjoyned by Christ himself with a promise of saving Grace annexed to the performance of it And since nothing of this can be made out to us from Scripture it doth from hence follow that although Orders be enrold among the number of the
Sacraments in the Church of Rome it was never so in the Church of Christ For where have we in Scripture any external sign where any Form of words commanded to be made use of in the Administration of Orders Or where any promise of saving Grace annexed thereto All that we find instituted in Scripture concerning this matter is that as Christ sent the Apostles so they should send others and that none should Preach except they were sent but as to the manner of this mission or sending nothing is at all instituted or prescribed unto us in Holy Writ but the whole of this is left to the Church and those chief Pastors of it which have the Authority of giving those Missions committed to them so to order and appoint it according to the various circumstances of times places and things as they shall judge will be most fitting provided it be agreeable in all things to the Word of God and suffiâ—iently declarative of the thing intended And this the abovementioned Arcudius an Eminent Doctor of the Church of Rome plainly acknowledgeth For in his Book de Sacramentis lib. 6. cap. 4. he tells us that Orders may be conferred by any manner of Rite so it express a will of delivering that Spiritual Power to the person Ordained Some Examples indeed we have of Ordinations in Scripture as when Christ Ordained his Apostles and after when the Apostles Ordained the seven Deacons and the Church of Antioch Paul and Barnabas to be the Apostles of the Gentiles and the manner of these Ordinations is also described unto us but no Precept is at all given us of this matter or any thing in the least commanded or enjoyned concerning it much less any promise of saving Grace annexed thereto The Popish Translation of the New Testament indeed tells us of Grace given by the imposition of hands 1 Tim. 4. v. 14. and 2 Tim. 1. v. 6. but in those places the word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Gift as our Translation hath it not the gracious working of the Holy Ghost in us in order to Sanctification and Holiness of Life but only a gift freely given to qualifie and enable in order to the performance of the Office conferred and what those gifts are you have described in the 12th Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians where you find them either to be ordinary or extraordinary The extraordinary gifts were such as accompanied the Ministry of the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel as being necessary to create belief in a World then totally infidel as to those things they taught and these were the gift of working Miracles the gift of divers Tongues the gift of healing all manner of Diseases the gift of Prophecying and such like The ordinary gifts are such as have ever since been continued down in the Church to those that are Legally called to the Administration of Divine things as the Power of Teaching the Word of Administring the Sacraments of Blessing the People in the Name of God of offering up acceptable Sacrifices of Praise and Prayer unto him for them and such like and these are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gifts of the Holy Ghost which were given by imposition of hands in Ordination and in order to these only is it that the Bishop says therein Receive the Holy Ghost which Gifts do only impower and assist in order to the performance of the Office confer'd not unto Holiness and Righteousness of Life wherein consists that saving Grace whereby we are sanctified unto Everlasting Life and are so far of themselves alone from conducing any thing thereto in the persons endowed with them that we often find them consisting with the greatest iniquities for Judas had them to the working of Miracles casting out of Devils and healing all manner of Diseases that was the worst of Traytors and Caiaphas the High Priest of the Jews although one of the wickedest of men had also like gifts of the Holy Ghost given him with his Office and by vertue thereof we find him making a most clear Prophesie of our Saviour and the Redemption to be wrought by him for Mankind in dying for us at the same time when he was acting the highest piece of Treason against him for the Scripture tells us that being High Priest that year he Prophesied And from all this which I have said it manifestly appearing that Orders is no Sacrament there can lye no necessity from hence for any of those Matters and Forms as they call them which the Church of Rome requires in order thereto so as that the Administration should be necessarily annexed to them as that Church asserts but that all the Holy Offices or Orders of the Church of Christ whether of Bishops Priests or Deacons may be conferred by the one of them alone without the other as well as by both together when made sufficiently declarative of the thing designed or by any other like significant Rite which shall be appointed in order thereunto For taking the administration of Holy Orders thus in the true nature and notion of the thing without reckoning it a Sacrament it will appear to be no other then the delegating or transmitting from one Succession to another those Offices which have by Divine Authority been instituted in the Church of Christ for the ministring of the Holy things of God therein and therefore there can remain nothing in them which may necessarily require any thing more to be done to carry them down from one to another in a due and Legal Succession then what is practiced in all other Offices wherein one man succeeds another but that they may in the same manner by a person fully Authorized thereto be validly and fully conferred by any Rite and Manner whatever sufficiently declarative of the thing intended and whether it be done by an outward Ceremony alone or a Form of words alone or both together either may be sufficient when either by common use or publick institution they have a significancy given them to denote the thing designed And thus far having treated of the Forms of Ordination used in the Church of Rome I hope I have fully satisfied you that they are no such essential immutable things as you seem to be of opinion that they are But if those Writers of that Church which are so earnest for this had asserted it of the matter of Order Imposition of hands they would have had a much better plea on their side because it must undeniably be granted not only from the Writings of the Antients but also from Scripture it self that imposition of hands from the very beginning of Christianity hath been always a Rite most constantly made use of in the conferring of Holy Orders But as to this the Church of Rome hath nothing to cavil with us it being as constantly used in all Protestant Churches as in theirs And besides herein they themselves have most shamefully deviated
that this Imposition of hands which is thus administred in the Ordination of a Presbyter with silence and without any Form of words at all spoken at the doing of it is the true and antient Imposition of hands which they have received down by Tradition from the former Ages of the Church and by which alone the Order is conferred and not the other Imposition of hands after administred I have these Arguments to make it most manifest unto you First Because this later Imposition of hands with the Form of words with which it is administred are both of them but lately introduced into their Church they being to be found in none of their Ordinals till about four hundred years since or do any of their Ritualists which are of ancienter date make the least mention of them whereas the other Imposition of hands is that which all of them make very particular expression of Secondly The true and ancient Imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Presbyter was always administred by the Bishop with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery also joyned therewith and this not only the Decrees of Councils but the Practice and Examples of the Holy Apostles themselves do direct to But the Presbytery in the Roman Ordinal do no where lay on their hands with the Bishop on the person to be Ordained to the Priestly Function but in this first Imposition of hands only which is administred without any Form at all in perfect silence and therefore this alone must be that Imposition of hands which confers the Order and this even the Council of Trent it self doth plainly enough say For in the 14th Session and 3d Chapter of Extream Unction treating of the proper Ministers of that Rite or Sacrament as they call it do there declare that they must be Aut Episcopi aut Sacerdotes ab ipsis rite Ordinati per Impositionem manuum Presbyterii i. e. Either Bishops or Priests regularly Ordained by them with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery From whence it follows that if those only are regularly made Priests who are so Ordained by the Bishop with the Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery as is here asserted that Imposition of hands alone in the Roman Ordinal must be the Rite which confers the Order where the Presbyters as well as the Bishop bear their part in the administration by laying on their hands also which is no where done in all that Office but in that first Imposition of hands only which is administred in perfect silence And for those reasons Morinus and Habertus both Priests of the Roman Church and Eminently Learned above most other of that Communion in the points we now treat of do plainly assert that this Imposition of hands is the essential matter of Orders and Merbesius a later Writer and several others also of that Church do assent with them herein And I hope Arguments and Authorities of this nature may be sufficient to convince you that there is no such necessity for those Forms in Ordination which you so much contend for or that Imposition of hands is altogether a dumb and insignificant sign when administred without them as your Paper asserts since by what hath been said it plainly appears that even in the Church of Rome it self for which you so earnestly argue in this particular the Imposition of hands which confers the Order of Priesthood is even that which is thus administred in perfect silence without any Form of words at all joyned therewith But because you lay so much stress upon the Matter and Form of Orders as if without being exact in these no Ordination can be fully and validly administred I think it proper also to acquaint you that all that Divinity concerning the Matter and Form of Orders which the Schoolmen make so much pudder about and is at present from them made so much use of in this Controversie by our Adversaries against us is totally of late invention there being nothing at all of it either in Scripture or any of the Writings of the Ancients for above twelve hundred years after Christ the very names of Matter and Form of Orders being till then totally unknown But about the year 1250. the Philosophy of Aristotle which makes the substance or essence of all things to consist of Matter and Form being translated out of Arabick into Latin was with great greediness received by the Schoolmen and soon incorporated by them into all their Divinity and thenceforth they taking him for their Text equally with the Scriptures themselves and according to his method in the definition of things ascribing to each its Matter and its Form introduced these terms also into the Doctrine of their Sacraments and observing these to consist of an outward Sign or Ceremony and a form of words spoken at the Administration of it for the sake of the agreement or similitude which is between the word formula a form of words and the word forma which signifieth the Aristotelical form made this form of words to be the essential Form and the outward Ceremony the essential Matter which makes up the whole nature and essence of every Sacrament and from hence it is that the matter and form of Orders which they make to be one of their Sacraments became first talked of among Divines and all that heap of Rubbish which the Schoolmen and those that follow them have built hereupon and no better foundation then this have you for making any form of words spoken in Ordination to be essential thereto Had our Saviour indeed instituted any form of words to be spoken at the Administration of the outward Rite as he did in Baptisme then I confess that Institution would have made it essential thereto and the whole would have been void and null without it However supposing Orders a Sacrament it could not be the essential Form thereof for that only can be the essential Form of a thing which gives it its determinate Essence and actually and ultimately constitutes it to be what it is and therefore nothing else can be the essential form of a Sacrament but that alone which actually gives it the nature and essence of a Sacrament which no form of words can do for if we consider in either of the Sacraments that are truely and undoubtedly such the outward visible sign and the Form of words alone they can make nothing of themselves but a liveless insignificant Ceremony unless something else be taken in to give the essence and nature of a Sacrament thereto In truth therefore as well the Form of words as the outward sign are both of them of the matter of the Sacrament and it is only the relation and conformity which both must have to the Institution of our Saviour with the concurrence of the Divine Grace according to the promise made in the institution which can make any Sacramental Administration to be truly and essentially such For no outward visible sign with any
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
his Holy Apostles for the Ministry to which he had chosen them And therefore those words that follow Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained must be they whereby the whole power and Authority of that their Ministry was given unto them and not a part of it only as the Romanists say and consequently these words must be the perfectest and most authentic form whereby to Ordain others also to the same Ministry III. But our Church in the first establishing of this Form for Preistly Ordination did not only appoint these words of our Saviour whereby he Ordained his Apostles but also out of their abundant caution as if they foresaw the Cavils our Adversaries now make by way of Explication subjoyned these other words also And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his Sacraments by them explicitly expressing all the Priestly power in particular which we understand in general to be implicitly contain'd in the other that go before as I have already made out unto you that they are And although this should not be the true Explication of them as our Adversaries contend yet since the words are part of the Form they must give all that they express and therefore since they express the whole Priestly power though the other should not they must give it also to all those that are Ordain'd thereby and consequently the Form must be fully sufficient even in all that which you your self require to make it so But to this you object that those later words give power only to Dispense the Sacraments and not to Consecrate and therefore cannot give power to Consecrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist and make present the Body and Blood of our Saviour as you term it which you look on as the main of the Priestly power but only to Dispense it that is to distribute the Elements when Consecrated which a Deacon only can do To this I Answer 1. That the word Dispense is here made use of as a general Term which reacheth both Word and Sacraments and therefore cannot be limited to that particular sense of distributing the Elements only in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as you will have it but must comprehend whatsoever the Ministers of Christ who as his Stewards are intrusted with his Word and Sacraments are commanded by him to do in order to the giving out and dispensing of both for the Salvation of those to whom they are sent 2. The whole Objection being concerning the signification of the word Dispense you must not go for that to the Cavils of Adversaries but to the intent and meaning of our Church in the use of it For words have no otherwise their signification than according to the appointment and acceptation of those that use them and must always express that sense which by common consent and usage is intended by them And therefore since you plainly acknowledge as doth also your Erastus Senior whom you follow herein that the Church of England means and intends Consecration as well as Distribution by the word Dispense it necessarily follows that that must be the signification of it in this Form. For certainly a whole National Church intending such a sense by such a word for an hundred and fifty years together it is enough to make it signifie so though that were never the sense of it before because words not being necessary but only Arbitrary signs of things must always so signifie as is intended by the common consent of them that use them But 3. To come to the main solution of the matter the case is plainly thus Our Reformers making Scripture the Principal Rule of all their Establishments did in the appointing of this Form take the very words of it from thence as near as they could and therefore as they had the former part thereof out of the 20th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John Verse 22 23. so had they the latter from the 4th Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Verse the first only with this difference that whereas the former are the very words of Scripture the latter instead of the very words Dispensers of the Mysteries of God to make the thing more plain and clear is express'd by other words equivalent thereto Dispensers of the Word of God and of his Holy Sacraments the Word of God and his holy Sacraments being on all hands acknowledged to be the whole of what is there intended by the Mysteries of God. And although the Original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is better rendred Stewards as in our Translation than Dispensers yet the Gentlemen of Rome can have no reason to find fault with us in this particular since herein we follow their own Bible the vulgar Latin which their Council of Trent hath decreed to be the only Authentic Scripture For at the first Reformation of our Church the Original Languages of the Holy Scriptures being but little known the Vulgar Latin Version was that which was then generally used among us and therefore the expression is put in our Form according as it was found in that Version for there it is Dispensatores Mysteriorum Dei and accordingly the Rhemists translate it The Dispensers of the Misteries of God and therefore the whole Controversie between us must be brought to this point only whether Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place doth signifie Priests or no and if it doth it must necessarily follow that it signifies the same also in our Form of Ordination where it is used And I doubt not if you will be pleased to look upon that Text of Scripture even as translated by our Adversaries themselves it will not be possible for you to perswade your self that when the Holy Apostle St. Paul there says of himself and the other Apostles So let a man esteem us as the Ministers of Christ and the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God he means it only as Deacons No certainly both those phrases Ministers of Christ and Dispensers of the Mysteries of God are equivalent Expressions denoting them as invested with the whole Ministry of the Gospel committed to them And if you will commit the decision of this Cause to Estius an Eminent and Learned Doctor of the Church of Rome he will plainly tell you so for on that Text of Scripture he so explains those phrases And on the 7th verse of the first of Titus he interprets Dispensatorem Dei i. e. the Dispenser of God to be Dei Vicarium ac Ministrum in Dispensatione Evangelii Sacramentorum i. e. Gods Vicar and Minister in the Dispensing of his Gospel and Sacraments and then immediately after he repeats the forementioned Text 1 Cor. 4.1 denoting Dispensers of the Mysteries of God in that place and Dispenser of God here to be both understood in the same sense And therefore according to him who was as Eminent a Doctor of their Church as any