there are but two Forms of Imperative words in the Roman Ordinal before this Receive Power to offer Sacrifice c. and both spoken by the Bishop at the Vesting of the person to be Ordained with the Priestly Vestments For in the putting on the first sort of those Vestments he says Receive thou the yoke of the Lord for his yoke is sweet and his burden light and then immediately after at the putting on of another sort of Vestment he says Receive thou the Priestly Garment by which Charity is understood for God is able to encrease unto thee Charity and every perfect Work But by neither of these any thing of Priestly Power is given or do any of that Communion ever say so and therefore according to your own concession it must follow and it is that which the Learnedest of the Roman Communion say that the last imperative words in the Roman Ordinal which are spoken at the last imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferred in that Church and this Form we had in our first Ordinal as well as they in theirs and much more fully because therein are also subjoyned these words And be thou a faithful dispencer of the Word of God and of his Sacraments in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which are wanting in the Roman Ordinal which are not any such notorious and idle Tautologies as you are pleased to call them For although they express nothing more then what is comprehended in the foregoing words Whose sins thou dost forgive c. yet they are explanator of them and do more explicitly tell us what is contained in them For a Priest doth no otherwise remit our sins in the Church of Christ then as he administers to us the means in order thereto in the Word and Sacraments and the concomitant Offices belonging thereto Fourthly I further observe in your Paper that you quote Mr. Fox to prove that those who were ordained by King Edwards Ordinal were ordained again in Queen Maries Reign I must confess Mr. Foxes Book is too large for any one so throughly to know every particular of it as positively to deny what you say to be contained in it But when you convince me of this and show me in Mr. Fox where any such thing is said then will I believe that Dr. Burnet hath dealt falsly with us by telling us the contrary in his History of the Reformation Part II. Page 289. But be it so or be it not so the cause doth not at all depend hereupon Fifthly You infer the nullity of our Orders because in the conferring of them no power is given to Consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that the words of our Ordinal giving power to Administer the Sacraments give power also to Consecrate the Elements in the Holy Eucharist and in all such Forms the more general the words are it is always the better provided they are such as include all the particulars as it is certain the words of our Form in the Ordination of a Priest include all the particulars that belong to that Office. But if you urge that it is not only necessary to express the power of Administring the Sacraments in general but that it must also be done in particular I must then ask the question why the Sacrament of Baptism ought not also in particular to be mentioned in the Form as well as the Sacrament of the Eucharist and why may we not from the omission of this in the Roman Ordinal infer the nullity of their Orders as well as they the nullity of ours from the omission of the other and that especially since the Sacrament of Baptism may be justly esteemed the nobler of the two as being that which first gives us Life in Christ whereas the other only adds Strength and Nourishment thereto But here you will object to what I have said that our Ordinal gives power only to dispence the Sacraments and not to consecrate the Eucharist To this I answer that by the word dispence the Church means the whole of what belongs both to the Consecration and Administration of that Sacred Rite and words are alwaies to be understood according to the meaning and receiv'd interpretation of them that use them and not as they shall be limited or forced by the impertinent cavils of every contentious Adversary and you may always take this for a certain Rule that when in the management of Controversie men come to cavil about words it is an evident sign that they are run on ground as to all things else· But to this point you further say that those that have Authority only thus to dispence the Elements have not power to make present the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist without which you hold this Sacrament cannot be administred To this I answer that if by making present the Body and Blood of Christ you mean a Corporeal presence by the transmutation of the Elements as the Church of Rome holds it is a monstrous opinion which we can never receive and I hope you are not gone so far as to swallow with them so absurd an opinion Sixthly You say Christ made his Apostles Priests when he said unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that you take this clearly to be the sense of the Church If you mean by the Church the Church of Rome I acknowledge what you say to be true they having so defined it in the Council of Trent but that the Church of England ever held this I utterly deny for it is a Doctrine peculiar to the Church of Rome and but of late date among them being first invented by some of the Schoolmen to serve a turn For about Six Hundred Years since and not sooner the Church of Rome taking up that most Sacrilegious practice of denying the Cup to the Laiety and being afterwards pressed with the institution of our Saviour who commanded the Administration to be in both Kinds to evade this they framed this subtle invention of saying that Christ in the institution of this Holy Sacrament made his Apostles Priests by saying unto them Do this in remembrance of me and that therefore the Commandement given them of Communicating in both Kinds belongs to them only as Priests and that the Laiety from this Commandment can claim no right thereto But this is a fetch which some of the wisest and ablest Men among them are ashamed of and it is particularly disowned by Estius Suarez and Christophorus a Castro as being neither agreeable to the Antients nor of any solidity in it self Seventhly You allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination to be sufficiently perfect which if granted will infer the Ordination of Arch-Bishop Parker and all the other Bishops in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign to be good and
Church as null and void I have only this further Request to make unto you that before you absolutely renounce our Communion on this account to go over to the Church of Rome you would be pleased well to consider these three particulars First Whether on your going over to the Church of Rome you can be sure to find valid Orders there Secondly Whether on supposition that you can you will any way better your self by them And Thirdly That supposing you do yet whether on other accounts it may not still be best for you to remain where you are And First Before you go over from us to the Church of Rome because you think our Orders not valid I desire you would consider whether you can be sure to find valid Orders there For if you do not you will lose the whole reason of your Change and be at the same loss among them that you at present pretend to be at among us But how you who are so scrupulous at our Orders can ever be satisfied with theirs if you act with any Sincerity in this Matter I cannot see possible For there are none of those Objections which they raise against our Orders for the nulling of them but may I assure you be urged with much more strength and reason against theirs If they urge against us the want of due Succession the many Schismes Disturbances and undue Elections of Popes which they have had afford us many instances to make it out against them with much more reason than they can object it unto us If they urge the defect of the Forms I have already shown you how all this Objection retorts upon themselves If they urge the Breach of Ecclesiastical Canons about Elections and Ordinations none have more broken them than themselves of which I have given you some few Instances and abundance of others might be added unto them If they urge the want of the Popes Confirmation at the Consecrating of our Bishops how many ages of the Church were there in which their own Bishops excepting only those of the Popes own Metropolitical Jurisdiction were always Consecrated without it If they urge Heresie or Schisme have not some of their own Popes as they themselves acknowledge been guilty hereof And if Simony be Heresie as is generaâ—ly held in that Church how few of them can be said to be free from it since most of them ascend the Papal Throne by buying the Votes of their Electors and to make themselves amends sell all the Ecclesiastical Benefices they dispose of afterwards as is too notoriously known to be denyed But waving these particulars that I may not be too long I shall insist only on one thing they hold which doth not only make it uncertain unto all men whether Orders are validly conferr'd on any that are Ordain'd in that Church but even morally impossible that there should be now any at all among them that is their Doctrin of the Intention which is that none of their Sacraments can be validly administred to any when there doth not concur with the Act of administration the intention of him that administers them of doeing thereby what the Church doth And this Doctrin whenever you go over to the Church of Rome you must receive as an infallible truth and if it be so then must necessarily follow what I say First that it must be alwayes uncertain in that Church whether Orders which they hold a Sacrament are validly conferr'd on any that are there Ordained or no because how validly soever they may be administered as to matter and form and all other things requir'd which the Spectators may be certain witnesses of yet the intention of the ordainer being that of which no man can be certain it is impossible the wisest and most diligent inquirer can ever be certain whether any Priest under whose conduct he shall put himself be validly Ordain'd a Priest or no. And therefore when you go over to the Church of Rome for the sake of more valid Orders then you think we have after your best inquiry it may be your lot to light always on such Priests from whose hands to receive the benefits of the Priestly Ministration as for want of the intention of the Ordainer were never truely Ordain'd Priests at all and consequently be at no better pass among them then now you think you are among us But this is not the worst of that which follows from hence For Secondly If the intention of him that administers the Sacraments be alwayes necessary to make the administration good and valid and consequently that orders which they hold a Sacrament cannot be validly conferr'd on any without the intention of the Ordainer concurring at the act of Ordination this will make it not only uncertain who are true Priests among them and who not but also morally speaking render it utterly impossible that they should at present have any at all among them validly ordained to that Office. For the case is plainly thus They all hold Baptisme to be absolutely necessary to the Priesthood and the Priesthood to be absolutely necessary to the Order of Episcopacy so that a man cannot be validly Ordain'd a Priest unless he be first validly Baptised or validly Ordain'd a Bishop unless he be first validly made a Priest and that neither of these can validly be done unâ—ess there be in him that performes that administration a right intention of doing thereby what the Church doth So then to make a man a true Priest among them there must be First the right intention of him that Baptised him to make him capable of the Priesthood and Secondly the right intention of the Bishop that Ordain'd him validly to conferre the Office upon him And then to impower the Bishop validly to Ordain he must be Baptised with right intention Ordained Priest with a right intention and lastly be Ordain'd Bishop with a right intention and then again he that Ordained him Priest must be Baptised with a right intention Ordain'd Priest with a right intention and Ordain'd Bishop with a right intention and the same must be sayd of him that Ordain'd him Bishop and so up through all the descents that have hapned in the transmission of the Priestly power from the time of our Saviour down to us which through so long a succession of near 1700 years must make all the Acts of right intentions in the administering of Baptisme and in the administering of Orders which according to the Roman Doctrin are necessary to make their Orders at present good and valid to amount to the number of many hundred thousands and if of all these any one hath fail'd from the beginning that one alone breaks the whole chain of succession asunder and all that comes after is made null and voyd thereby And that in so vast a number there should not be such a failure yea and many of them too is that which morally speaking I say is utterly impossible For how many have been made Priests and
Bishops among them who in the administering of the Sacraments have never intended at all to do thereby what the Church doth but at the same time they have performed the outward Acts have inwardly in their hearts out of malice wickedness or infidelity totally disregarded and contemn'd all that is meant or intended by them For have not many of them according to their own writers been Atheists many of them sorcerers and Magicians and many of such profligate lives and conversations as can never be supposed to have intended any thing at all of Religion in any of the Acts of their function which they have performed but being either by the road of their education or the desire of inriching themselves by Church preferments got into those holy Offices have gone on in the common tract to do as others did for the sake of the gain while at the same time in their minds they scoffed at and derided the whole Ministration And how many even of their Popes according to their own Historians have been such whom they make the fountains from which under Christ all Preistly and Ecclesiastical power is derived and if any impartial man will read their Lives I doubt not to say he will certainly conclude the better half of them to be of this sort And to add one consideration more how many since the Rigor of the Inquisition hath been set up in Portugal Spain and Italy that have been Jews in reality have for fear of the barbarous Tyranny of that Tribunal so far dissembled their Religion as the better to cloke it from discovery have taken upon them not only the outward profession of Christianity but the Orders of the Church also and have become Priests and Bishops therein as it is well known there have been several Instances of it in those Countries And can you think that any of them could either in the giving of Orders or Administring of Baptisme ever have any intention of doing thereby what the Church doth No they ever are the greatest Enemies of our Religion and all the Institutions of it and always Curse and abhor them whenever under this Mask they Minister in any of them And on all these accounts it cannot be possible but that through so long a time as near 1700 years there must be in every chain of Succcession whereby the Orders of that Church are said to be derived down to the present times many failures of this kind whereby totally to cut them off from all that follow after And therefore if this Doctrine of the intention of him that Ministers the Sacraments among them be true as it is held in that Church infallibly to be and to which as an infallible Truth you must give up your Faith whenever you list your self among them it must from hence follow that it cannot be possible that they can at this time have any Orders at all among them But Secondly Supposing their Orders be good yet before you go over to them on this Account I desire you in the next place to consider whether you can at all better your self by so doing For what benefit of their Ministry is it I beseech you that you would go over to them for Is it first for the sake of their Preaching of the Word But do not they in that Church lock this up in a Language which you cannot understand forbid Laymen to look into it that they may the better impose on them their Erroneous Doctrines and lead them whether they please And do they not instead thereof from their Pulpits mostly teach the Traditions of men as their Doctrines of Purgatory Pilgrimages Worshipping of Crosses and the Images and Relicts of Saints Masses for the Dead overplus of Saints Merit Pardons Indulgences and such like and filling their Sermons mostly with these and old Wives Tales which they relate concerning their Saints and the Miracles they Fabulously ascribe unto them to make room for these Fopperies wave the Divine Truths of the Gospel and turn Christ and his Apostles quite out of doors Or is it secondly for the sake of their prayers and publick Worship But how can those prayers do you any good with which you cannot joyn they being all in that Church in Latin a Language which you do not understand Or how can that Worship render you acceptable unto God which by reason of the many Superstitions and erroneous practices with which it is performed must it self be totally unacceptable unto him Or else is it thirdly for the sake of the Sacraments But 1. As to the Sacrament of Baptism the Church of Rome allowing it to be validly administred by Laymen you cannot want that in our Church and whenever you go over to them they will allow you your Baptism which you receiv'd among us to be good and valid without Baptizing you again And 2. As to the Sacrament of the Eucharist allowing their Priests to have full power to Consecrate it yet you can never be sure in that Church that they do As to the intention of doing what the Church doth there required you must ever be at a loss and you can be no better assur'd of the outward Act because the words of Consecration are always whisper'd in secret and I have read of one that was burnt among them for Consecrating the Eucharist in the Name of the Devil and as long as they do it in secret an opportunity so proper for the deeds of Darkness you can never be sure but that this or some other thing like it may be done again whenever you come to receive from them But waving these particulars and supposing the Consecration to be in all things aright performed as you would have it yet since they of late have so miserably defaced this Sacrament as to deny the Cup one of the Essentials of it to the Laity I cannot see how in that Church you that are a Lay-man can ever have the holy Eucharist at all administred to you For in all things the withdrawing of an Essential must necessarily cause a destruction of the whole and therefore since our Saviours institution makes both Elements Equally necessary and Essential to this Sacrament the withdrawing the Cup from the Laity makes it no Sacrament at all to them and consequently none that go over unto them on this account because they think our Priests have not sufficient Authority to Consecrate the Eucharist which is your grand Objection will at all better themselves thereby but from a doubt of an invalidity with us fall into a certain nullity with them and be totally depriv'd of the whole benefit of this Sacrament as long as they continue among them For I make no difficulty at all to assert but do here declare it unto you as my Opinion and let him disprove me that can that since the Church of Rome hath Sacrilegiously taken away the Cup from the Laity they have never Administred to them the Sacrament of the Eucharist at all but the want of this
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
to the Pope which no Bishop took at his Ordination after the Supremacy of the Church was vested in the Crown And therefore Ridley and Farrer being made Bishops before that Act must necessarily be ordained by no other but the Roman Ordinal And therefore although in the beginning of King Edward's Reign before the Liturgy was establish'd some zealous Protestants taking encouragement from the favour they receiv'd from the Government might of their own heads in those Churches as were in their power make such alterations in the publick Worship and the Administration of the two Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper and other holy Rites as you call new ways of their own Invention yet as to your Question Why might they not also as well Consecrate and Ordain according to their own Inventions I hope what I have said is a full answer that there could be no such thing At best you propose it only as a Conjecture which you inferr'd without any Reason or Argument in the least to enforce it And what I have said I hope may be sufficient to assure you that there can be none for it As to Mr. Acton's Paper to which you refer me I know nothing of it having never seen it or any thing else which came from him to the Gentleman you mention and therefore can give you no answer thereto In the last place you seem so taken with those Conceptions of yours which you have vented in the paper you sent me that you would perswade me not to attempt any further Answer but that tamely yielding this Question I should proceed to another which you propose concerning the consistency of the validity of our Orders with the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice But I must beg your pardon for not observing the first part of your Command in tamely yielding the Cause to those weak suggestions which you sent me I hope whatsoever your opinion might be of them before I have by this time shown you that there is nothing unanswerable in them and if I have transgressed in doing so I will endeavour to make amends for it in giving you full satisfaction to what is the second part of your Command in reference to the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice The Question which you propose concerning it is this Whether any Bishop or Arch-bishop can validly be made such without the Consent of his Superior or by faculty from him for his Consecration In order to the giving you full satisfaction as to this I will first set down the words of the Canon it self and then endeavour to Answer your Question concerning it And First The words of the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice are as followeth Let ancient Customs still take place those that are in Egypt Libya and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria have power over all these because such also is the Custom of the Bishop of Rome And accordingly in Antioch and other Provinces let the Priviledges be preserved to the Churches This also is altogether evident that if any man be made a Bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan this great Synod Decrees such an one to be no Bishop And if two or three out of a contentious humour shall oppose the Common Election duely and regularly made according to the Canon of the Church let the Majority of voices in this Case prevail Thus far the words of the Canon and the Argument which you deduce from hence is I suppose because Archbishop Parker was consecrated without the Popes Bulls therefore his Consecration must be void and null and he being for this reason no Bishop consequently could make none else so And therefore all the Bishops that have been since in the English Church deriving their Orders from him are in truth and reality no Bishops or invested with any power to ordain others and consequently that all Ordinations administred since in the Church of England being through this defect null and void we have no such thing as true Orders among us And thus far having urged your Argument for you with all the strength that the thing can bear in Answer thereto I shall lay down these following particulars 1. That you could not have lighted on any Canon of the Church more unluckily for the Cause of Rome which you are so zealous for than this you have mention'd it being that which directly overthrows the Supremacy of the Pope and puts him upon the level with all other Metropolitans of the Christian Church 2. That allowing this Canon to have all the force you will give it yet if Orders be an Institution of Jesus Christ they cannot be annull'd by any breach thereof for Ecclesiastical Canons are only the Ordinances of Men and therefore cannot annul or invalidate that which hath a Divine appointment for the original of its Institution and therefore in this case the saying of Becanus the Jesuit falls in very pat to answer your Objection Prohibitio Ecclesiae solum facit ut Ordinatio sit illicita non autem ut sit irrita The prohibition of the Church only makes that an Ordination may be illegal not that it can be null For the power which is given by God cannot be taken away by the prohibition of the Church But since a Bishop hath received power to ordain others according to Divine Institution although he lye under all the Canonical Impediments that possibly he can be liable unto to hinder him from the Execution of his Office yet if he will notwithstanding proceed therein to the conferring of Orders the Character is as fully given by him as he himself received it And in this case the old Rule I have afore mention'd must again take place quod fieri non debet factum valet although the thing ought not to be done yet is valid when done And therefore allowing what you say to be true that the Bishops who ordained Arch-bishop Parker without the Popes Bull as well as he himself that was thus ordained by them were guilty of the breach of this Canon yet at the most it can only be an uncanonical not an invalid Ordination 3. Therefore as to the words of the Canon this great Synod decrees such an one to be no Bishop can respect only his Benefice not his Office and Character that is that such an one as should be thus Ordained a Bishop of any place without the Consent of his Metropolitan should not be allowed to be Bishop of that place so as there to execute the Office or any where enjoy the Honour and Priviledges belonging thereto not that his Ordination should be looked on as invalid as to the Character and Office of a Bishop conferred on him thereby Because if that be given according to Christs Institution it cannot be taken away again by any Institutions of men whatever but according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Character being indelebly imprinted on him it is no more in the power of the Church to deprive him
this outward Rite or Sign of Imposition of Hands and this Form of words annex'd thereto was the whole manner appointed by our first Reformers for the conferring of the Office of Priesthood on those that were Ordained to it and so it continued till in the first Convocation after the late King's Restauration Anno 1662. after Receive the Holy Ghost these additional words for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by the Imposition of our Hands were for the reasons which I have aforementioned unto you also inserted in that Form. 4. Therefore you are to understand that the second Matter and Form of our Ordinal abovementioned were not at all intended to conferr the Order or any part thereof but only to assign the place for the execution of the Office already received For by the first Matter and Form Imposition of Hands and the Form of words annexed the person Ordained thereby is fully and wholly made a Priest or Presbyter of the Church of Christ and all that is done by the second Matter and Form is to admit him thus Ordain'd to be a Priest or Presbyter of that Congregation that is of that Diocess the whole Diocess being as one Congregation or Parish in respect of the Bishop Ordaining to execute the Duties of his Office express'd by Preaching of the Word and Administering the Holy Sacraments in the place where he shall be appointed thereto and this was so order'd conform to the Ancient Canons of the Church which very severely forbid all absolute Ordinations that is all such Ordinations whereby Orders are given at large without intitling the Person Ordained to any particular Church for the executing the Duties of the Office received For it was the Ancient Custom that every Bishop should Ordain his own Presbyters and none other and that when he Ordained them he should admit them to be Presbyters of his Church either to officiate in the Mother Church it self where the Bishop had his Chair or else in some of the other inferiour Churches of the Diocess which all belonged thereto and whether they did the one or the other they were all reckoned as Presbyters of that one Church the Diocess anciently being looked on as one Parish and all the Christians of it as one Congregation united together under their Bishop and conformable hereto is it that the Bishop saith in the Ordinal above-mention'd Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in the Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed i.e. Take thou Authority to execute the Office of a Priest in this Diocess in that particular Church or Parish thereof where thou shalt be appointed so to do But since the Ancient Canons which forbad Presbyters ever to forsake that Church or Diocess whereof they were first admitted Presbyters to go into another Diocess is now through the whole Christian World grown quite obsolete and would be of much more prejudice than benefit now to be observ'd At the aforesaid review of our Ordinal in the Year 1662. this Form also hath received an Alteration and what was afore in this Congregation where thou shalt be so appointed is now in the Congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereto and thereby that Faculty or License to Preach the Word and Administer the Sacraments which was afore given as to the Diocess only where the Person was Ordained is now made General as to the whole National Church in any part thereof whereof the Person thus Ordain'd to the Priesthood shall be lawfully called to execute the Duties thereof And having premised these things unto you concerning the Matters and Forms made use of in the Ordinals of both Churches for your clearer understanding of what is on either side intended by them I now come to your Objection which according to the best advantage that it can be stated I apprehend to be thus You looking on a Form of Words fully expressing the whole Priestly power to be indispensably necessary and absolutely essential to all Ordinations of Priests think our Orders of Priesthood invalidly administred as failing in an essential because we have no such Form expressing the whole Priestly power at our Ordinations of Priests For the Form which we use you say is not such as by no means expressing the whole Priestly power because it makes no mention of Consecrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist and making present the Body and Blood of our Saviour as you term it which you look on as the chiefest and main power of the Priestly Office but only impowers to forgive Sins And although you allow our Form at present since the insertion of those words for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God to be sufficiently perfect because in the word Priest you think may be included all that belongs to him yet still judge our Orders to be invalid by reason of the former defect because say you if the Presbyters of the Church of England were not validly Ordain'd by the first Form till the addition above-mentioned was inserted in the Year 1662 then through this defect those who were chosen out of them to be Bishops could not validly be ordained such because they were not afore Presbyters or Priests none being capable in your opinion to be Bishops who have not been first made Priests and consequently could not have Authority to Ordain others by any Form of Words how perfect soever afterwards devised And this being your Objection urged in its utmost strength for the Cause you argue for I am now to tell you in Answer thereto that the whole of it goes upon three very great Mistakes The First is That any such a Form of Words is Essential to Orders Secondly That the Order of Priesthood is absolutely necessary to qualify a man for the Order of Episcopacy And Thirdly That our Form of Priestly Ordination doth not include the whole Priestly power As to the First Although we allow such Formes very useful to make a more clear declaration of the intent and meaning of that act whereby the Office is conferr'd and therefore do our selves retain them in our Church yet that any such should be essential to the Administration so as to null and make void the Orders that are conferr'd without them is that which wants all manner of Evidence either from Scripture Ancient Practice the nature of the thing it self or any other reason whatever which I have already made sufficiently clear unto you And therefore without repeating what I have before said I shall pass on to the other two particulars in which you are equally mistaken For Secondly That the Order of Priesthood is absolutely necessary to quallify a man for the Order of Episcopacy so that none can be made a Bishop unless he were first a Priest is that you can have no ground for The Holy Scriptures from whence alone the essential requisites of Christ's Institutions are
to be sought for say no such thing but for any thing which appeares there to the contrary Titus and Timothy were at their first Ordination made Bishops without ever being admitted into the Inferiour Orders at all but receiv'd all the power of them included in that of Episcopacy And in all probability many such Ordinations were at first made For in the Beginning things could not be so settled in the Church that the Regular method of calling men always from the inferiour Offices to the higher should then be observ'd but without all doubt in that state of the first planting of the Gospel either as the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost then given to some men recommended them or the necessities of the Church required there were frequent reasons of conferring the Episcopal Office at first where no other had been received in order thereto And if you will have any regard to the opinion of Petavius one of the Learnedest Men which the Society of the Jesuites ever had he tells us that in the first times of the Church there were none or very few simple Presbyters at all but that all or the most part of those that then Officiated in Churches were Ordained Bishops His words are Primis illis Ecclesia temporibus existimo Presbyteros vel omnes vel eorum plerosque sic ordinatos esse ut Episcopi pariter ac Presbyteri gradum obtinerent i. e. In those first times of the Church I am of opinion that Presbyters either all or the most part of them were so Ordain'd that they obtain'd both the degree of a Bishop and Presbyter together But whatsoever was done at first afterward I allow when Churches increased and in each of them there was the subordination of many Presbyters and Deacons assisting under the Bishop for the performance of the Divine Offices and the Discipline and outward Policy of the Church was brought to a settled order Then that which is the usual practice of most other bodies became also to be the Rule of Christians in constituting the Ministers and Officers of the Church that is to advance them by degrees from one Order to another and not to place men in the highest Order till they had approv'd themselves worthy by the well discharge of their Duty in those inferiour thereto and accordingly thenceforth on Vacancies Bishops were made out of the Presbyters and the Presbyters out of the Deacons and although this method might be introduced even in the times of the Apostles themselves yet it was not by any Divine Institution so as to make it absolutely necessary a man be a Deacon before he can be a Presbyter or a Presbyter before he can be a Bishop but only by Ecclesiastical appointment for the well regulating the Order of the Church and the better providing for the benefit of it those in all reason being presumed to be the most fitting for the Superiour Orders that had been prepared for them by long exercising themselves in and faithfully discharging the duties of the Inferiour But however this Rule was not always observed but often when the benefit of the Church required and the extraordinary qualifications of men recommended them Bishops were made not only out of Deacons but also out of Lay-men too and that by one Ordination the giving of the Superiour Order being alwayes then understood to include therein all the power of the inferiour Thus several of the first Ages of the Church were made Bishops from Laymen and those Histories which tell us of it acquaint us but with one Ordination whereby they were advanced thereto And Pontius the Writer of the Life of St. Cyprian tells us of him that he was made a Presbyter without ever being a Deacon and so was also Paulinus of Nola as he himself tells us in his Epistles And from Optatus it is manifest that Caecilianus Bishop of Carthage was made so from a Deacon without ever being Ordain'd a Presbyter in order thereto For there arising a disturbance in the Church of Carthage about Caecilianus's being made Bishop there and the main objection lying against his Ordination because Ordain'd Bishop by Faelix Bishop of Aptungitum whom they looked on as a Traditor and one that had deserted the Faith in time of Persecution Optatus tells us Iterum à Caeciliano mandatum est ut si Faelix in se sicut illi arbitrabantur nihil contulisset ipsi tanquam adhuc Diaconum ordinarent Caecilianum i. e. Caecilianus again commanded that if Faelix conferr'd nothing on him as they imagin'd then let them speaking to the Bishops of the adverse party then met together again ordain Caecilanus as if he were as yet only a Deacon Which plainly inferrs that before Faelix ordain'd him Bishop he was no more than a Deacon And Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople in his Epistle to Pope Nicolas acknowledgeth that even in his time some Ordained Bishops from Deacons without ever making them Presbyters and that with several it was then looked on as the same thing to make a Bishop from a Deacon as from a Presbyter without at all admitting to the intermediate Order And a while after the same thing is also objected to the Latines by the Greeks and although their heats then ran very high about the aforesaid Photius yet on both sides this is only mention'd as a breach of the Ecclesiastical Canons and that those were to be condemn'd that did the thing not that the Ordination was void which was thus administred Regularly I do acknowledge it ought to be otherwise and that none be made Presbyters before they have been Deacons or Bishops before they have been Presbyters and that it is always best for the Church to observe this Order And so also must it be acknowledged that in all formed bodies of men regularly none ought to be advanc'd to the highest Office but those that have first gone through the inferiour as is manifest in all Corporations and that it is ever best for the publick good of those Societies and the well governing of them that this Order should be alwayes observ'd But however if at first dash one should be plac'd in the highest Office without going through the inferiour this doth not vacate his Commission receiv'd from a lawful Authority but he is to all intents and purposes as fully invested with the whole Power and Authority of that Office as if he had regularly ascended thereto by the usual degrees through all the subordinate Offices and in the power of this one Office only hath the powers of all the others conferr'd on him because it eminently includes them all And the same is to be said as to those that are Ordained Bishops without going through the inferiour Orders Although this be done contrary to the Rule of the Church yet this doth not vacate their Commission which they have receiv'd by a lawful Authority at their Ordinations but by vertue thereof they are made true Bishops of
they have to boast of Dispensers of the Mysteries of God and Dispensers of the Gospel or Word of God and the Sacraments were the Ministers of God or the Vicar of God that is such as in his stead did Administer to his People his Word and Sacraments which are Titles that never used to be given to any under the Degree of a Priest And if you will go unto the School-men and other Writers of the Church of Rome nothing is more common among them than by Dispensers of the Sacraments to mean the Priests of the Church of Christ and by the Act of Dispensing of them the peculiar Duty in which they Officiate And if there were any need of it Thousands of Instances may be given hereof IV. But after all their Cavils against our Form of Priestly Ordination as if it were not sufficient to confer the whole Priestly power they must themselves in their Ordinations of Priests confer this power by the same Form which we also use their second Form above mention'd or not confer it at all according to their own Doctrines in this particular For first they allow no Form to do any thing of this but what is an essential Form but from some of their own positions it must necessarily follow that the first Form cannot be an essential Form and therefore it must follow that the last Form only can be such in their Ordinations of Priests and consequently that by that only as the alone Essential Form the whole Priestly power must be given in their Ordinations of Priests or else it must not be given at all they having no other Form besides these two which they ever say to be essential to that Sacrament as they call it Now that the first Form cannot be an essential Form according to their own positions I prove by these following Arguments 1. That cannot be an Essential Form which is joyned with a Matter which is not Essential but the Matter with which the first Form is joyned the delivery of the Chalice and Patten to the Person Ordained cannot be an Essential matter and therefore the Form of words joyned therewith cannot be an Essential Form. The first proposition is that which none of the Gentlemen you converse so much with will deny because they well know that the Matter as well as the Form both concurring to the making up of the Essence of things the Form cannot be Essential to the Constituting of any thing where the Matter is not Essential also And therefore all I suppose will be requir'd of me to make this Argument out will be to prove the second Proposition that the delivery of the Chalice and Patten in their Ordination of Priests cannot be an Essential Matter and this I say must necessarily follow from their own positions And that first because abundance of the most Learned of them as Morinus Habertus Hallier and several others do plainly grant that this Rite was never used in the Church for near a thousand years after Christ and therefore it is impossible that it can be essential to Priestly Ordination unless you will allow that the Order of Priesthood could for so many years together be conferr'd without that which is essential thereto or else that all the Ordinations of Priests for all that time were null and void for want of it neither of which I suppose any of our Adversaries will ever say 2. I also say that this must necessarily follow from their own positions because they allow the Priestly Ordinations of the Greek Church to be good and valid which are administred without it For they Ordain by Imposition of hands only without ever using the other Rite of delivering the Chalice and Patten at all in their Ordinations and yet the Church of Rome is so far from disallowing their Orders so conferr'd that they do not only allow them to be good and valid but also permit those Greek Bishops which have come over to their Communion and have Churches maintain'd for them in Rome it self and by the Pope's own Charge still to Ordain after the same manner and by Imposition of hands only and Cardinal Lugo tells us that he himself saw Ordinations thus performed at Rome by Greek Bishops And therefore if this Ordination be thus allowed by them as compleat in its whole Essence which is thus administred without the delivery of the Chalice and Patten it must necessarily follow that according to this Concession this Rite which is the first Matter in the Roman Ordinations of Priests cannot be Essential to that Administration Which two Arguments are so prevalent with the Learnedest and best of that Communion that abundance of them in direct Terms assert Imposition of Hands to be the only Essential Matter whereby the Order of Priesthood is conferr'd Morinus directly says it in opposition to the other Matter the delivery of the Chalice and Patten which he excludes from being an Essential Matter for the same two Reasons I have laid down which he says are plain Demonstrations against it Bonaventure Petrus Sotus and Becanus the Jesuit who also deny this Matter to be Essential I have already made mention of Hallier the Learned Sorbonist I have afore cited is very large to prove that Imposition of Hands could only be the Essential Matter of Priestly Ordination for the first 800 years after Christ and at length concludes his Discourse concerning it with these words Diuturno tempore tam in Orientali quam in Occidentali Ecclesia retentum ut Hierarchici Ordines Episcoporum scilicet Presbyterorum Diaconorum sola manuum impositione conferrentur i. e. It was a long while retained both in the Eastern and Western Church that the Hierarchical Orders that is the Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons should be conferr'd by Imposition of Hands only And as low down as the year 1536. a Council then held at Cologne speaks of Imposition of Hands as the only Rite whereby Orders are administred the words of the Council are Impositionem manuum esse ostium per quod intrant qui Ecclesiarum gubernaculis admoventur i. e. That Imposition of Hands is the door whereby those enter that are appointed to have the Government of Churches and if it be the door whereby men enter into the Orders of the Church it is plain enough it must be the only Rite whereby they are admitted into them for by the door only is it that men are admitted into the house And thirteen years after another Council held at Mentz says as fully to the same purpose Collationem ordinum cum Impositione manuum velut visibili signo tradi i. e. That the Collation of Orders is delivered by Imposition of Hands as the visible sign By which words saith Vasquez seems to be denoted that the visible sign in which this Sacrament doth consist and by vertue of which the Power and the Grace is conferr'd is in Imposition of Hands But Arcudius is most express in this matter
THE VALIDITY OF THE ORDERS OF THE Church of England Made out against the Objections of the Papists in several Letters to a Gentleman of Norwich that desired Satisfaction therein By Humphrey Prideaux D. D. Prebendary of Norwich LONDON Printed by John Richardson for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons in Cornhil over-against the Royal Exchange 1688. Imprimatur Hic Liber cui Titulis Certain Papers c. June 8. 1688. Jo. Battely TO THE READER THese Letters when first Written were never designed for the Publick but only to endeavour the satisfaction of one particular Person who applyed to me for it one Mr. Anthony Norris late a Justice of Peace for the County of Norfolk The Occasion hereof was the Conference an Account of which as given me by the Person chiefly concern'd begins this Book at which Mr. Norris being present and pretending not to be satisfied with what was then said in the behalf of our Orders writes to me the second Paper hereafter Published concerning it and that produced all the Letters that after follow The last I confess was never sent unto him for on my finishing of it being assured by such accounts as I had received that he was already gone over and firmly fix'd on the other side as afterwards appeared to be true at his Death which happened about the beginning of April following I thought it too late to make any further Application to him and therefore threw my Papers by in my Study as now totally useless for the end designed But after his Death great offence being taken against me on several Occasions by our Adversaries instead of other things to object I was challenged for not answering a Letter wrote by Mr. Acton a Jesuite of this Place which I supposing could be none other but the last I received from Mr. Norris I again gathered my Papers together to let them see that called upon me for an Answer that I was ready to give it And although it was afterwards denied that this Letter was at all intended thereby but one sent to another Person which I never knew any thing of yet having on this occasion put my Papers together and looked them over I was perswaded by those to whom I communicated them that it might be of great use here to have them publish'd For the Romish Emissaries that haunt this place seeming to have studied no other part of the Controversie but that of our Orders in their rounds where they go to and fro among us seeking whom they may delude inculcate all the Arguments they can against the Validity of them and making this the constant subject of what they have to say against us to such of our people as they would Seduce tell them that we have no Ministry and consequently no Church no Sacraments and that therefore they must come over to them without examining any further into the Controversie between us By which silly Snare having catched some few stumbled others and filled the place in a manner with this Controversie I think an Antidote may be very proper where the Poison is so much spread and therefore most what they have to say being put into the Letters sent me by this Gentleman I hope my Answers to them may very well serve for this purpose That which perswades me they may is especially the plainness with which they are wrote for the Gentleman to whom they are directed having never had the advantage of any Scholastick Education I endeavoured to lay all things as plain and easie before him as I could whereby what I say in them being adapted to the meanest Capacity I hope none that reads them but may go along with them and receive satisfaction thereby as to the whole which our Adversaries in the points discussed object against us And that they may thus far be serviceable in our present Case to undeceive such as are deluded among us and prevent others from being so is the sole end and design of my publishing of them Although the Conference which occasioned those Letters was that I was no way concern'd in or knew any thing of it till I had received Mr. Norris's Paper yet since his account is drawn so much to the disadvantage of the Gentlemen concerned on our side to publish that account alone would be to send abroad a Libel against them And therefore that I might not be injurious to them in this particular was the reason that I desired of them their Account also to publish therewith and that is it which here next immediately follows H. Prideaux THE ORDERS OF THE Church of England DEFENDED The True Account of a Conference between Mr. Earbury and Mr. Acton a Jesuit concerning the Validity of the Ordination of the Church of England THE Company being set Mr. Earbury began to speak concerning the occasion of their being met there Viz. That Mr. Thompson had departed from our Church and had been at a Popish Meeting and that being demanded his Reason he had given this viz. That he thought that the Ministers of the Church of England were not in Orders and that he had Friends who would prove it to our faces and that therefore we were now come to Answer all Objections Mr. Acton here Replyed That it was our duty to prove our selves in Orders and cited a part of Mr. Earbury's Letter for it though any one may see that that Paragraph was not designed for that purpose The words of the Letter are these I shall most gladly meet you there not out of a principle of ostentation or discontent but meerly out of a sense of that duty that I owe that Church of which I am a member and as I hope to prove my self a Lawful Pastor in it Mr. Earbury told him that he did not think himself obliged to it but yet he would begin with the proving part and proceeded thus There are four things which your own Authors do think necessary to a due conveyance of Orders First Authority of the person Consecrating Secondly The Form. Thirdly That which they call the Matter Fourthly Quality of the persons receiving Ordination Mr. Acton excepted against the Form of Ordination made in Edward the Sixth's Time and bid Mr. Earbury prove Syllogistically that that was sufficient to convey the character of a Priest which Mr. Earbury immediately did by this Argument If our Saviours Form of Ordination was compleat viz. Receive the Holy Ghost then the Form used in Edward the Sixth's time being the very same must be compleat also but our Saviours was compleat therefore ours was To this Mr. Acton answered That our Saviour had a supream Authority and might use what Form he pleased though never defective but we had no Authority to use a defective Form. Mr. Earbury told him that though we had not the same Authority to impose a Form yet we had liberty to use that Form which our Saviour used especially when the Form was expressive of the power given and so offered to prove that the Form
the power of consecrating the Eucharist But c. This Mr. Earbury said was as plain as that all the parts were contained in the whole and he further quoted Father Paul who in his History of the Council of Trent does report it to be the opinion of some of their own most eminent Divines That if their Church had not appointed another Form these words be thou a Priest had been sufficient to convey the Character Here Mr. Acton said Aye but I deny you to be Priests Mr. Earbury asked him why he said because it was not expressed in our Form of Ordination Mr. Earbury told him that now he was gone back to his first Argument which had been confuted before that he disputed in a circle and that at this rate it was impossible ever to come to an end Here Mr. Acton again asked Mr. Earbury whether a Sacrament could confer a power that was not expressed Mr. Earbury wrote down this answer and read it to the Company viz. I do say that the words of Ordination may confer a power that is not particularly expressed so it be included in a more general term Mr. Earbury does not remember that Mr. Acton made any reply to this but that he repeated the question without taking notice of it and to the best of Mr. Earbury's remembrance Here Mr. Thompson declared that he was as little satisfied as ever for he expected to hear the Naggs-head Story and concerning Matthew Parker's consecration and of the Act of Parliament in the 8th of Elizabeth for confirming our Ordination but as for Matter and Form of a Sacrament he understood not two words of it Mr. Earbury then rose from the Table and spoke to this effect viz. Sir I have long suffered you to use me rather like a School boy than a disputant or a man you have taken the liberty to ask questions and give no answer but now you shall give a resolution to one Argument I shall propound nor shall you find an evasion from it viz. If persons Ordained by this new Form were permitted to officiate without Re-Ordination in Queen Mary's Reign and if Cardinal Pool did actually dispence with them then we have the judgments of Papists themselves that the Form made in Edward the Sixth's time was not deficient in essentials But Cardinal Pool did dispence with all persons Ordained by this Form and returning to the Unity of the Church Ergo c. Here Mr. Earbury does affirm that Mr. Acton was very loth to give any answer alledging sometimes that Queen Mary was but a Woman and sometimes that Mr. Earbury had now passed to another medium Mr. Earbury replyed that such excuses should not serve his turn that he had not passed to another medium whilst Mr. Acton could say any thing material to his last and that he expected a direct answer or a candid confession Mr. Acton after long tergiversation pulled out a little Book out of his Pocket which he said was written by a Protestant Authour though the falsity of that is so apparent that none would assert it but those that are deficient either in sincerity or in judgment The Pamphlet bears the name of Erastus Junior and out of that he read the Story of Latimer and Ridley the latter of which was not degraded from Episcopal Orders at his death because as they pretend Ordained by the new Form. Mr. Earbury acknowledged that Bishops Ordained by the new Form were not degraded at their Martyrdom But what then if they fixed all notes of disgrace to increase the punishment of men put to death as obstinate Hereticks and yet received others in their Orders that returned to the pretended Unity of the Church the Argument did still hold good Mr. Acton replyed That if Queen Mary allowed some to be in true Orders that received them by the new Ordinal and not others then she was a Knave and a Fool. Mr. Earbury answered that that was no fault or concern of his that he would prove the matter of Fact by sufficient authorities and that then the Controversie must needs be at an end Here Mr. Shaw told Mr. Acton That he had not dealt fairly and that if he pleased he would maintain Mr. Earbury's Argument against him Mr. Acton refused saying he had no reason to change his Man. Here there began to be many speakers and some of the Romanists talked of Parliamentary Orders and the Nags-head Story but Mr. Earbury does not remember that Mr. Acton ingaged in it SIR HAving perused your account of your Conference with Mr. Acton it appears to me to be very faithfully delivered to be impartially and candidly related for to the best of my memory there is nothing that was material omitted nor any thing added that might tend to the prejudice of your Adversary this is the real sense of him that is yours John Shaw Presbyter Angl. SIR I Have perused the account of your discourse with Mr. Acton and do find it to the best of my remembrance to be a faithful and impartial relation of the whole Conference And whereas the pretended account of A. N. has insinuated a notorious falshood much reflecting upon both of us viz. That you should assert that the intention alone was sufficient and that I should deny it I think my self obliged to undeceive the Reader for thus it was when Mr. Acton asked you whether the intention was sufficient you answered that the intention as expressed in the Ordinal was sufficient or to that effect and when again he asked whether the intention alone was sufficient I replyed no meaning intention barely considered without Matter and Form to which you did assent And this is the plain Truth witness my hand Richard Kipping SIR I Have read this account of the Conference between you and Mr. A. which as well as I can pretend to remember a discourse so long ago I take impartially to contain the most material things that passed between you but if you have offended on any side 't is in being too candid to your Antagonist for I very well remember that you frequently urg'd Mr. A. to write down his Answers as you did yours which he always declined by saying it would be night before you should bring any thing to a Conclusion and would always cry you lost time when you writ any thing this I doubt not you will easily call to mind I do likewise very well remember Mr. S's words to Mr. A. and Mr. E. that they had not answered your first Syllogism and that he would defend it against either of them which they declin'd according as you relate it Richard Tisdale A. B. Novemb. 10. 1687. One of the Vergers of our Church brought me this following in a Letter from Mr. Anthony Norris of Norwich but without any name thereto A Summary of the Conference between Mr. Earbury and Mr. Kipping of the one part and Mr. Acton and Mr. Brown on the other Impartially set down to the best of his memory by one that
to the utmost concerning the point you proposed to me think my self obliged to add this further paper to that I have already sent you to undeceive you as to what was objected concerning Bishop Ridley's not being allowed to be a Bishop at his Martyrdom The Argument as I take it from the paper you sent me runs thus Mr. E. urged that our Orders were allowed as to their essentials to be good in Queen Mary's dayes and only culpable as to Canonical defects And this he proved because such as had received Orders by our Ordinal in King Edward's days on their coming in again into the Communion of the Church of Rome in Queen Mary's Reign vvere not Ordained again but vvere received to officiate in their functions by a dispensation only But a dispensation cannot salve an essential but only a Canonical defect it not being in the power of any authority on Earth to dispense vvith an essential of Christs institution To this Mr. A. answered by denying the matter of fact that they that were thus Ordained were not so received to administer in their functions by virtue of a dispensation only as Mr. Earbury alledged but that their Orders in Queen Mary's days were reckoned totally null and void and for proof hereof urged Bishop Ridley's being degraded from his Priestly office at his Martyrdom but not from his Episcopal For he being ordained Priest by the Popish Ordinal they allowed him these Orders to be good but having been made Bishop by King Edward's Ordinal for that reason they would not allow him to be a Bishop whereas Arch-Bishop Cranmer who had received both Orders by the Romish Ordinal was degraded from both as being allowed for that reason to be legally made both Priest and Bishop And this I suppose is the utmost that Argument can be made of by whomsoever urged and so I find it laid down by Mr. Walker in his Relation of the English Reformation But the whole goes upon a very gross mistake For Bishop Ridley was made Bishop of Rochester in the first year of King Edward the sixth's Reign having been designed for that See by King Henry the 8th his Father and consecrated not by the new Ordinal which they find so much fault with but by the old Popish one on the 5th of September Anno Domini 1547. For the Act of Parliament which appointed the making of the new Ordinal was not enacted till the first of February in the 4th year of King Edward's Reign Anno Domini 1549. and it was the March after in the beginning of the year 1550. before it was fully compleated so that Ridley was two years and a half Bishop before the new Ordinal had any being and therefore could not be ordained by it or his Episcopal orders invalidated for any defect therein However I acknowledge the matter of fact to be so as urged and that Bishop Ridley was treated at his Martyrdom just as they relate being degraded by them from his Priestly orders but not from his Episcopal because they would not allovv him ever to have received any such But if you ask me the reason then of this their proceeding vvith him I can give you no other then vvhat I have told you before in my last paper I sent you i. e. The blind rage and impetuous malice of those that persecuted this Learned and Holy Bishop which hurryed them on to such things in their proceedings against him as were neither agreeable to reason or their own established doctrine as to this particular For first they cannot say he was no legal Bishop although ordained by their own Ordinal because this was done in time of Schism after King Henry the 8th had separated from the Church of Rome For if this be granted it will then follow by the same reason that neither Heath Thurlby nor Bonner himself who were the chief supporters of the Papal cause in Queen Mary's dayes were true Bishops as being consecrated in the same manner as Ridley was after this separation Neither Secondly Can it be said that his Orders were null for the pretended crime of Heresie For this contradicts the whole current of their own Divines who all hold that orders imprint an indelible character in the person ordained which neither Schism Heresie or any thing else can ever blot out but that whosoever is to be ordained a Bishop although he be an Heretick doth not only receive this character but also can beget the same character in any other that shall be ordained by him And therefore according to this Doctrine although Bishop Ridley had been an Heretick and all his Ordainers Hereticks also as they would have them to be yet would his Ordination be good and as true a character of the Episcopal office be Imprinted on him as on any other And this they are necessitated to grant from the practice of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church who ever received Hereticks on their Repentance into the same orders which they had afore received from those Heretical Bishops to whose doctrine they had adher'd without any new Ordination For although it be acknowledged a great sin either to give or receive Holy orders to propagate false and Heretical Doctrines yet it hath ever been allowed that they are good and valid whenever thus conferred and that the true characters of a Bishop and a Priest may be found among the worst of Hereticks as well as the best of Christians because the abuse of the office doth not annull the Commission But that being written in indelible characters in the soul of him that is ordained they tell us it shall there for ever remain not only in this Life but also in that which is to come and then not only in Heaven but also in Hell it self and that to all Eternity as may be shown out of several of their best reputed Authors And thus far therefore it is plain that it was not any defect in the ordinal by which Bishop Ridley was ordained or the pretended crime of Heresie or Schism either in him or in them that ordained him Bishop that could null and make void his Episcopal Orders according to the Doctrine of the Romanists themselves that were so forward to pass this sentence upon him and there being no other reason which they can alledge for it to justifie these their proceedings with him it doth necessarily follow that their denying him to be a Bishop can be resolved into nothing else but that same rage and malice against him which made them take away his Life And proceedings of this nature are no strange things in the Church of Rome nothing having been more common among them than in the height of their animosities to void and annul the orders of those they had a quarrel with and instances enough of this may be given especially among the Successions of Pope Formosus every new Pope almost for several Successors after him annulling all the Acts of his Predecessor and some of them the orders also
was done from a Law of the State Civil and not from the Church so I suppose you do beleive with me that Religion forceth no mans will and Nature and that there may be as great villains imbrace a true Religion as there be that do a false so that nothing can be concluded from thence If I have said in my Compendium sent you that Mr. Acton asserted our Saviours way in making Priests was defective I did then much bely him for he said no such thing and I am confident Sir you are much mistaken that any such thing should be in that Paper I shall be always ready to hear whatever reasons you shall be pleased to offer and do think none can do more than your self for which I shall also think my self much obliged that ever shall be SIR Your most Humble Servant A. N. Nov. 28. 1687. Both which Letters came to me in the time of our Audit when I was totally engaged in a work of another nature in passing my accounts as Treasurer and Receiver of our Church for the foregoing year however notwithstanding the hurry this put me in all day that one that still owned himself to be of our Communion might not want that satisfaction which he pretended to desire I made a shift to steal so much time from my sleep at night as to write him this following answer SIR LAST Fryday having sent you my second Paper in order to your further satisfaction about the point proposed I did at the same time receive another from you containing your Animadversions upon my first wherein I find the main objection that sticks with you is that in our old Ordinal The Form used in Priestly ordination is so defective as not to be sufficient to conferre the office so that through this defect all that have been Ordained by that Ordinal and all such as have since derived their orders from them so ordained are in reality and truth no Priests and all this only for want of the word Priest in the Form of Ordination Which objection I thought I had sufficiently prevented by telling you in my first Paper that though the word Priest vvas vvanting in the Form yet the vvhole of his office vvas expressed therein and that must be allovved to be sufficient even by the Papists themselves since in their Ordinal it is never as much as once mentioned in all those many Forms vvhich the Bishop speaks over the Person ordained vvhen he confers the office upon him And therefore if it be sufficient in their Ordinal to express the summ of the Priestly office vvithout naming the vvord by which it is called I know not why it may not also be allowed to be sufficient in ours But it seems you are not satisfied that the summ of the Priestly office is expressed in the Form of our Ordinal whereby a Priest is ordained and you bring several reasons to the contrary The business which I told you in my last I am now engaged in will not permit me at present to give you a full Answer to all you object but I having an obligation upon me from another occasion to examine this to the bottom do now only desire your patience awhile and all that I have to say on this point shall be communicated unto you In the interim I have these following particulars to observe upon the Paper you sent me First You much mistake what I mention in reference to the Presbyterians if you please to consult my Paper again you will find nothing concerning their being in Commission with our Church at the Review of our Liturgy For the thing is by no means true the Liturgy having been reviewed in Convocation where the Presbyterians had nothing to do There was indeed a meeting at the Savoy in order to bring things to a composure but nothing that I said in my Paper was intended by me to have the least reference thereto and I wonder how my words could be wrested to it All that I meant by what I said in reference to them and this I thought I had expressed plainly enough to be understood was that in their Cavils and Objections in the late times against Episcopacy and the superiority of the Episcopal office above the Priestly they drew one Argument against us from our own Ordinal such as they call Argumentum ad Homines and from the very Form whereby our Bishops are ordained endeavour to prove upon us that they have nothing in their office which is not also contained in the office of a Priest The Form of their Ordination expressing nothing as they urg'd which doth not belong to a Priest as well as a Bishop even according to our own definition of the Priestly office And to take away the foundation of his Argument as I have been told those words were put into the Forms as might express a more explicit and clear distinction between the two Functions And although I do not much insist hereon the thing not being at all material to the controversie in hand yet I have reasons that perswade me I have not been mis-informed For the Papist at that time was an adversary not at all thought on The Church had then just recovered it self from that many years oppression which it had suffered from the Presbyterians and therefore had their thoughts at that time totally set how to fence themselves against the enemy that last hurt them without having any such reguard to the other Adversary at that time low enough and not at all formidable But whether this were so or no sure I am the two Pamphlets you mention Erastus Senior and Erastus Junior could have no influence in that matter For Erastus Senior and which of the two I suppose by the Title was first Printed makes mention Page the last of this alteration in our Ordinal then already made and although he says it was done after the Printing of that Book yet certainly it must be before the Publishing of it otherwise how could mention hereof be made therein But whensoever they were Printed or Published they were so far from being in the least likely to influence so grave and learned an Assembly as that of the Church of England Assembled in Convocation by any thing written in them that they were considerable for nothing as much as the contempt which they met with from all sorts of people as scandalous and idle pamphlets and so they were Reputed among some of the soberest of the Papists themselves as having no grounds for what they went upon but unreasonable calumnies false suggestions and deceitful argumentations which so far moved the indignation of a learned Priest of that Religion that he thought himself concerned to disown the whole that was contained in those Pamphlets by Writing a Book against them Secondly Whereas you lay much stress upon the imperative words used by the Bishop at the imposition of hands and will have them to be of the essentials of Ordination and challenge me to show when
was not used in their Ordinals yet he doth not say it did not expresly give all Priestly power in other words or by equivalency by giving full power to perform all the Offices of it which Sir I told you ours did not and that it did not give power to Consecrate and make present the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament not by way of Transubstantiation I meant but only in the sence and words of our own Church that is verily and indeed which is more than to be present only by a meer Figure or to be only Commemorative And although he further tell us that the whole Rite was performed by Prayers and imposition of hands This doth no way exclude the other which I said before for when St. Paul minded Timothy to stir up the gift given him by imposition of hands he named nothing else but imposition of hands yet can any think there was not also Prayers and a form of words used at the laying of hands upon him And whereas Sir you say the Council of Carthage which is the Antientest hath directed concerning this matter prescribes herein nothing but imposition of hands and prayers only You should Sir have given me the very words of that Councel whereby I might have seen whether any such thing could have been inferred from them and since you were not pleased to recite them I will take upon me to do them for you which words are these When a Priest is Ordained the Bishop blessing him and laying his hands upon his head all the Priests that are present shall likewise lay their hands upon his head about the Bishops hand Doth this Canon prove any thing more than that it is a command only for the Priests then present to lay their hands also upon the head of the person Ordained about the Bishops hand at the same time he bless him and lay his hand upon him This doth no way shew us what the Ordinal of the Church was in those dayes This Canon had been proper to have been offered in case any had denyed imposition of hands which being required doth it therefore follow nothing else was essential because the rest of the Priests present were required also to do it with the Bishop If a learned Papist should have offered me such an Argument or Authority as this I might then have concluded Sir with your self that I thought him about to impose upon me I will also tell you the words of Dionisius whom you quote but not recite That the Priest who was to be Ordained kneeled before the Bishop who laid his hand on his head and did Consecrate him with an Holy Prayer and then marked him with the sign of the Cross and the Bishop and the rest of the Clergy then present gave him the Kiss of Peace Although he mentions all these yet where doth he say that these were the only things as you were pleased to say he said they were Can any one rationally conclude from this that there was no form of words used when the Bishop laid his hand upon the Ordained or that he should then say nothing it must be thought at the least that at that very time he used such a Prayer in which might be contained the very essential Form for any thing that Dionisius hath to the contrary And now Sir give me leave to mind you of this distinction for the better understanding my meaning in what I have formerly said and shall have occasion hereafter to mention That where the essential Form or any part of it be contained in the Prayers Prayers and Imposition of hands is all that is necessary but the Prayers of the Roman Ordinal have the essential Form contained in them which in ours is not therefore with us Prayers and Imposition of hands are not sufficient though they may be with them And this is my Answer to what else you quote from Morinus de Ordinationibus and also to that of the seven Deacons and Disciples which you say were made such only by imposition of hands upon them which you tell me there was nothing said or any words used which if there were not but only hands imposed you must give me leave to tell you that it look'd then but like a dumb sign and do not see how it could be more operative than if the same person had stroaked a good Boy on the head and said nothing but if there were words used at the imposition of hands then was it not done by imposition of hands only as you affirm and if words were used as it is not to be doubted then must they certainly be such as be pertinent unto that Ceremony which must express the power thereby given Sir you tell me that I have conquered the Objection and brought the Controversie to an end by granting That the offering Sacrifice to God and celebrating Mass for the Living and Dead was a novel thing and therefore not essential to Orders But I deny that I ever granted any such thing although I did that for the celebrating Mass for the Living and Dead to be within these Five Hundred Years expressed in the Roman Ordinal but not for offering Sacrifice unto God which I said no such thing but am assured that it was ever in their Ordinal and also their celebrating Mass for the Living and Dead was all along before the practice of that Church and therefore the Objection remains still in as much force as ever and the Controversie as far distant from an end as ever it was before Might I take leave to add to a Proposition and make it run contrary to the true intent and meaning it were an easie matter soon to salve any Questions but that way would never give the Proposer any satisfaction at all You also tell me That whereas I say all Priestly power is given in the Roman Ordinal in the words before speaking this Receive power to offer Sacrifice will appear by examining the Ordinal it self to be altogether a mistake because if it be good it must be in the prayers of the office or in the imperative words spoken by the Bishop to the Ordained in the prayers you will not say for then the prayers of our Ordinal might be allowed to be as valid for this purpose in which the Priestly Office is fully expressed both by Name and Description as in theirs To which I Answer That in examining the Roman Ordinal I say it will not appear to be a mistake which lay on your part to prove that it is in their prayers This I deny for I say that it is and that therefore the prayers of our Ordinal must be as valid this also I deny because they do not give such power and also that the Priestly Office is as fully expressed both in name and description to as good purposes as in theirs for our prayers before doth only give God thanks for calling them to the Office and Ministry appointed for the Salvation of Mankind it doth
or Elder in the Synagogue of the Jews excepting only the administring of the Sacrament of the Eucharist which answered not to any thing of the Synagogue but to the Paschal Feast which was a Service totally appropriated to the Temple and the City of Jerusalem in which it stood And what other end is designed by imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Christian Presbyter but the giving of the Holy Ghost the same which I have told you was also imported by the same Ceremony in the Ordination of a Presbyter for the Synagogue only it was given in the Christian Church in a larger degree then in the Jewish and also for a more excellent ministration the one being derived only from Moses for the teaching of the Law and the other from Christ our Lord for the preaching of his Gospel and the administring of all the benefits thereof unto Everlasting Life And thus far I hope I have made it clear how this Ceremony of imposition of hands made use of in our Ordinations came into the Church of Christ that is not by any Divine Law or Precept from our Saviour but only by imitation from what was afore practiced in the Synagogue of the Jews But however since we find it introduced by the Apostles themselves and in all Ordinations practiced by them from the beginning who were in so extraordinary a manner guided by the Holy Spirit of God in all that they did of this nature this is sufficient to infer a Divine Approbation of the use thereof although not a Divine Institution perpetually obligatory thereto and therefore we cannot without being guilty of the greatest rashness vary from it to any invention of our own for which we can have no such assurance and this with the apt significancy which the Ceremony it self hath of the thing intended no doubt hath been the reason that it hath ever since been continued in the Church of Christ down to this time there being no Church or Sect of Christians that I know of which think any Ordination at all necessary that do not make use of this Ceremony therein Now the manner how Orders were first administred hereby we gather from Scripture to be thus when any persons were made choice of to officiate in any of the Holy Offices of the Church whether of Bishop Priest or Deacon First God Almighty was sought to in their behalf by a solemn Fast to which the Ember weeks do now answer and then the Congregation being met the Ordainer whether one of the Apostles themselves or of the Bishops that succeeded them having by a Prayer particular for that purpose recommended the person to be Ordained to the mercy and favour of God that he would be pleased to accept of him to that Holy Function to which he was set apart and impart unto him such a measure of his Gifts and Graces as might fully enable him to all the Duties thereof then as the proper Minister of God by his Divine appointment for this purpose laid his hands upon him for his receiving all that which had in his behalf been thus prayed for it being by this Ministerial act as it were by the hand of God himself reached out unto him and this was always looked upon as the very act whereby the Office was given and the full completion of that administration whereby any were admitted thereto and for several Ages after we find no other Ceremony used therein But Imposition of hands alone was all along looked on as the sole Ceremonial act whereby the Office was conferred whether it were of Bishop Priest or Deacon it being thereto as the Seal to the Patent by which they acted in their Ministry and the application thereof that which impowered them to all the duties of it And for this reason among the Greeks Ordination and Imposition of hands are signified by the same word and also in the Writings of the Apostles themselves we have instances hereof Acts 14. v. 23. and 2 Cor. 8. v. 19. in both these places the word which by the Romanists themselves is Translated to Ordain is in the Original Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies to lay on hands which sufficiently imports that in that Ceremony the whole act of Ordination was understood to consist without any of those imperative Forms which you seem to lay so much stress upon we having no Authority in the least to make it out unto us that any such were at all in use for near a thousand years after Christ as I have already shown Neither is there any such necessity for them as you urge to declare the intent of the Ceremony or which of the different Orders of the Church it is which is conferred thereby in Ordination seeing this may be as well manifested by a publick declaration to the people in the beginning of the administration and also in the subsequent prayers which were offered up unto God in behalf of the person to be Ordained for his accepting of him to the Office and his imparting to him his Divine Gifts to enable him to the Duties of it as it is evident that it was done by both these ways in the Primitive Church without any such Forms as you think so necessary thereto for to express the thing the more plainly to you when a Fast had been appointed in order to the Ordination of a Presbyter when the Congregation being met the end of that meeting was declared for the Ordaining of such an one there present to be a Presbyter and when by particular Prayers he had been recommended to God for his imparting to him his Gifts and Graces for that Office as was the ancient manner of Ordination after all this had been done when the hands of the Bishop and the Presbytery were laid on him for the conferring of the Office certainly there needed no new declaration to express the end for which it was done And that this was anciently the practice of the Church of Rome it self thus to Ordain by Imposition of hands without any such Forms annexed we have a most evident proof from their own Ordinal it being still thus retained therein For in the Roman Ordinal Imposition of hands in the Ordination of a Priest is twice administred the last time indeed it hath a Form annexed the same almost which we use Receive the Holy Ghost c. But of the first the Rubrick of the Ordinal says Pontifex stans ante faldistorium suum cum Mitrâ nulla oratione nullove cantu praemissis imponit simul utramque manum super caput cujuslibet Ordinandi successivè nihil dicens idemque faciunt post eum omnes Sacerdotes qui adsunt i. e. The Bishop standing before his Faldstool with his Mitre on his head without any Prayer or Hymn premised puts both his hands successively on the head of every one to be Ordained without speaking any thing at all and after him all the Priests that are present do the same thing Now
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
First That this being designed to Answer what I before said in reference to the Form Receive power to offer Sacrifice to God and celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead I suppose no one that should read your Paper but would understand your abovementioned words therein to be a concession of the whole of it to be a novel additional in the Roman Ordinal and if it be not so your Answer will by no means seem pertinent to the thing objected Secondly Whereas you limit your concession to the later part of the abovementioned Form only and say you did only grant for the Celebrating of Mass for the Living and the Dead that it was within these five hundred years first expressed in the Roman Ordinal but not for offering Sacrifice to God your own words above recited show this to be most false for there you say Although they had added that to theirs of offering Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead c. which plainly expresseth the novel addition to be of offering Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead and not of Celebrating Mass only And this I think is sufficient not only to clear my self from being guilty of that misreciting which you charge me with but also to retort it upon your self who it is plain to fix this charge upon me have falsified and basely prevaricated about your own words And whereas you say you are assured that the offering of Sacrifice to God was ever expressed in the Roman Ordinal and that the Celebrating Mass for the Living and the Dead was all along before the practice of the Church I Answer First That if by Sacrifice you mean a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice as the Church of Rome now holds whoever it was that hath assured you that the Ordinals of the first Ages of Christianity ever gave a Priest power of offering any such hath abused you with a most gross falsity and basely slandered the Primitive Church in charging such an impiety upon them And Secondly As to Celebrating Mass for the Living and the Dead it is a cheat which the innocent and pure times of Christianity could never be guilty of for it is an imposture of their own invention cunningly devised by them to get Money and of no earlier date then their new found Regions of Purgatory on which it depends the one being a Brat of the other and both without any the least right or title to give them a Legitimation among the true and genuine Doctrines of Jesus Christ But thoroughly to handle these particulars would be to desert the subject in hand to run into other Questions and therefore I shall say no more of them at present but that I shall be ready to make them out unto you whensoever you shall desire And whereas you put me upon the proof of what I said that the Learnedest of the Roman Communion hold that the last imperative words spoken at the last Imposition of hands Receive the Holy Ghost c. are the alone essential Form whereby the Orders of Priesthood are conferred and express your self in a manner concerning it implying as if I had told you more than I can make out it lies upon me to do my self right as well as to give you satisfaction in making good what I have said in this particular and I assure you I want not Authorities enough in order hereunto For Bonaventure in his 4th Book on the Sentences plainly saith it And so doth also Petrus Sotus in his Book de Institutione Sacerdotum both of them making Imposition of Hands with these words Receive the Holy Ghost c. the only essential Matter and Form of Priestly Ordination And Vasquez thus understands them as excluding all other Matter and Form to be essential thereto And most express to this purpose are the words of Becanus an eminent Jesuit and one that particularly bent his Fury against the Church of England For speaking of the twofold Ceremony made use of in Priestly Ordination the Delivery of the Sacred Vessels with this form of words Receive power to offer Sacrifice c. and Imposition of Hands with this form Receive the Holy Ghost c. he concludes that the later only is essential to the Sacrament as he calls it and that the former is no more than an accidental Rite belonging thereto And that this must necessarily follow from such other Doctrines as they hold I shall hereafter have a more particular occasion to make out unto you when I come to treat of that which I have in my former papers promised you and which you so much call upon me to give you satisfaction in that is the sufficiency of our Forms to confer all Priestly Power on the Persons ordained by them And to this also I shall refer the consideration of what you say in the two next Paragraphs as being the place most proper for it What you tell me in the next place after concerning Episcopal Ordination is all prevarication In my first paper to you I proved the validity of our Form for Episcopal Ordination by the same reason by which Vasquez proves it for the Church of Rome and in your answer you plainly allow it to be good and fully grant that this Form Take the Holy Ghost c. made use of in our old Ordinal for Episcopal Ordination may be sufficient alone for that purpose and assign this reason for it because a Bishop in his Ordination doth not receive any new Character but hath only that power and character further extended which was afore virtually in him from his Priesthood But then you tell me This is nothing to the Point between us that being not of the Episcopal Office but of the Priesthood only which you think our Forms not sufficient to confer But now in your answer to what I replyed thereto you deny all this which you have said For you tell me First That you did not allow our Form of Episcopal Ordination to be sufficiently perfect And Secondly That you did not say that a Bishop did not receive a new character but only in the person of Vasquez and that this is not your opinion but how much you falsify and prevaricate in saying this your own words to which I refer you are an undeniable evidence against you be who will judge between us in this matter But be it so as you will have it this will not however serve your turn For though you will not allow the Form of our Episcopal Ordination to be good yet there is no Roman Catholick but must and what you pretend to say in the person of Vasquez is not Vasquez's opinion but plain the contrary And First I say All Roman Catholicks must allow the form of our Episcopal Ordination to be good because it contains therein the whole of theirs and therefore if theirs be good ours must be so also For the Form of Episcopal Ordination in the Roman Ordinal is Accipe Spiritum Sanctum i.
Case of our first Reformers it would become absolutely necessary to Ordain without it But Sixthly Allowing the Nicene Canon you insist on still to retain the utmost force you can give it yet there is nothing in it which requires what you would have in reference to us For all that is there said is that in all Provinces the Bishops should be Ordained by the consent of the Metropolitan which was very well provided for the preservance of peace and good Order in the Church But the Bishop of Rome is not our Metropolitan and in truth in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign the time to which your Objection refers we had no Metropolitan at all in this Province Cardinal Pool the last Metropolitan being then newly dead and the Metropolitical see of Canterbury vacant thereby and into his place it was that Archbishop Parker was Ordained But here you will say that as the provincial Bishops were to be Ordained by the Metropolitan so the Metropolitans were to be Ordained by the Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome being our Patriarch for this Reason Arch-bishop Parker ought not to have been Ordain'd without his Consent and that his Ordination was illegal for want thereof But to this I say 1. That this is not at all said in the Canon you insist on that extending no farther than to Metropolitans in respect of their Com-provincials as it is also plainly expressed in the Fourth Canon of that Council For in truth Patriarchs were not then in being neither could be that Division of the Empire into Diocesses consisting each of many Provinces which gave occasion for the first constituting of Patriarchs being but just then made and therefore it must be some time after before there could be any Birth given to that Institution and in the Council of Chalcedon which was held 126 years after that of Nice is the first time we find any mention of it no ancient Records of the Church before that time in the least giving us any account thereof 2. Supposing Patriarchs should have been then meant yet Brittain was never of the Patriarchate of the Bishop of Rome which is sufficiently made out not only by our Learned Dean of Pauls in his Origines Brittanicae cap. 3. but also by several of the Roman Communion also and especially by Father Barns a Benedictine Monk who wrote a Book particularly to that purpose 3. I deny that it was the ancient practice of the Church for Metropolitans to be Ordained by the approbation of the Patriarch or that his consent was at all thought requisite hereto For the Custom was when a new Metropolitan was chosen that he should be Ordained by his own Comprovincials And so was Arch-bishop Parker he having been Consecrated by four Bishops of his own Province and that this was a practice not only introduced by ancient usage but also establish'd by many Decrees and Canons of the Church not only Petrus de Marca Arch-bishop of Paris but also Hallier another eminent Doctor of the French Church do give us a large Account And it is but of late date that the Bishops of Rome interposed herein as is told you in a Pamphlet just now come from France concerning the proceedings of the Parliament of Paris upon the Popes Bull for therein the Kings Advocate tells that Parliament that for the four first Ages of that Monarchy there was no such thing as suing to Rome for Benefices And Petrus de Marca tells you the same thing And having said thus much I know not any thing which can be further urged for the support of your last Objection requiring the Popes consent to our Ordinations unless you fly to that Paramount Supremacy challenged to him by so many which makes him the only Supream Pastor of the Church under Christ and all other Bishops as his Delegates which act only by his Auâ—hority and have no other but what is derived from him And if you say this all the Answer I shall give you thereto is that this is a pretension so extravagant and so totally void of all manner of ground for its support that not only the Protestants but also the better part of his own Communion utterly deny it unto him And now having gone through your Paper all that remains for me further to do in order to your full satisfaction is that I perform my promise in making good unto you that supposing an Imperative Form of words in Ordination to be so essentially necessary as you would have it yet the Forms made use of in our Ordinal for the Ordination of a Priest were before the additions made to them by the Convocation in the year 1662 altogether sufficient in order thereto For as there is Matter and Form as they call them in all Ordinations administred by the Church of Rome so also is there in ours that is an outward visible sign at the performance of the administration and a Form of words expressing the thing intended thereby the former of which they call the Matter and the latter the Form of Ordination And as there is a double Matter and Form in their Ordinal for the Ordaining of a Priest so is there also in ours and that all things may appear the more clearly to you what I have hereafter to say concerning them in order to the satisfying you in the point proposed First I shall lay them down both together that is the Matters and Forms of their Ordinal as well as the Matters and Forms of our Ordinal as they were before the additions made to the Forms that are afore-mentioned that having that in your view which is the subject of the whole Dispute you may the better understand what shall be urg'd concerning it Secondly I shall from both of them observe some few particulars unto 〈…〉 leading to the same end And then Thirdly Having stated your Objection as fairly and to the best advantage of your Cause that I can I shall in the last place proceed to Answer it with such Arguments as I hope will give you full satisfaction First As to the Matter and Forms for the Ordination of a Priest both of the Romish Ordinal as well as those of ours as they were before the additions made to the Forms in the year 1662. They are as followeth In the Romish Ordinal In the Ordinal of the Church of England The first Matter is the delivery of the Chalice with Wine and Water in it and the Paten on the top of it with the Host thereon To the person to be Ordained to the Priesthood The first Matter is the Imposition of the Hands of the Bishop and Presbytery assisting with him at the Ordination on the Head of the Person Ordained The first Form is these words spoken by the Bishop at the delivery of the said Chalice and Paten Receive Power to offer Sacrifice unto God and to Celebrate Masses both for the Living and the Dead in the name of the Lord. Amen The first Form is these
the Church of Christ and have receiv'd full power to all the Duties incumbent on them as such not only that which is peculiar to the Order of a Bishop but also the powers of all other inferiour Offices included therein For the Orders of the Church do so include one the other that the same Act of Ordination which gives the power of the higher Order doth therein also give the powers of all other Orders inferiour thereto as for Example when a man is made a Presbyter or Priest though he had never been a Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of a Deacon as being included in his Priesthood and so when a man is made a Bishop though he had never been either Priest or Deacon yet he hath full power to all the Acts and Duties of both these Offices as being included in that of his Episcopacy And this is no more than may be made good by Instances from all the subordinations of power in the World in which this is alwayes most certain that the higher degree of power ever includes all the other Degrees inferiour thereto and that Act which gives that one superiour degree gives all the others therewith as included in it And all the Argument which the Romanists bring against this to prove it must be otherwise as to those several degrees of power in the Church which make the Offices of Bishop Priest and Deacon therein is drawn from a similitude they make between them and the three sorts of Souls which distinguish between the three several sorts of living Creatures in this World that is the Vegetative Soul the Sensitive and the Rational For as the Vegetative is necessarily presuppos'd to the Sensitive and the Sensitive to the Rational in such manner as nothing can be a Rational Creature which is not a Sensitive or a Sensitive which is not a Vegetative so say they the order of a Deacon is necessarily presuppos'd to the order of Priesthood and the order of Priesthood to that of Episcopacy and no one can be a Bishop which is not first a Presbyter or a Presbyter which is not first a Deacon But this Argument if it makes any thing to the purpose must infer a very ridiculous thing that is that God cannot make a Man unless by giving him first the Vegetative Soul he makes him a Tree or a plant and then secondly by giving him the Sensitive Soul he makes him a Brute and then thirdly and lastly by giving him the Rational Soul he makes him a Man whereas nothing is more certain than that by that one Act whereby he gives the Rational Soul he gives all the powers of the other two included therein And therefore if this similitude were to decide the Controversie between us instead of making out any thing for them it will most manifestly give the whole on my side it being one of the fullest and clearest that can be thought on most plainly to illustrate unto you the whole state of what I have said in this particular For although the Vegetative Soul as in Vegetables is distinct from the Sensitive and the Sensitive as in Brutes is distinct from the Rational yet the Sensitive doth so include the Vegetative and the Rational the Sensitive that the very same act which gives the Sensitive Soul gives also the Vegetative and the very same act which gives the Rational gives both Sensitive and Vegetative also included therein And just so is it of the three Orders of Deacon Priest and Bishop in the Church of Christ For although the Order of a Deacon in a simple Deacon is distinct from the Order of Priesthood and the Priesthood as in a simple Priest distinct from the Order of Episcopacy yet the Order of Priesthood doth so include the Order of a Deacon and the Order of Episcopacy both that of Priest and Deacon that the very same act of Ordination which gives a man the Order of Priesthood gives him also that of a Deacon and that very same act which gives him the Order of Episcopacy gives him also both that of Deacon and Priest included in it and consequently that it is no more necessary a man should be a Deacon before he can be a Priest or a Priest before he can be a Bishop than that he must be made a Vegetable before he can be an Animal and an Animal before he can be a Rational Creature than which nothing is more absurd And thus far having shown you that the inferiour Orders of the Church are not so essentially necessary to qualifie for the superiour as you imagine but that a man may validly be ordain'd a Bishop though he was afore neither Priest nor Deacon it will infer that although that should be true which you object against us that our first form of Ordination of Priests till the Addition inserted in the year 1662. was defective and that by reason of this defect all the Priestly Ordinations conferr'd by it were null and void yet our Episcopal Ordination may be still good as being administred by no such defective Form but by one which includes all that and in the very same words which the Romanists themselves say is the alone essential Form of their Episcopal Ordination as is afore taken notice of and therefore though we had no true Priests all the while this defective Form was used yet we still had true Bishops fully invested with the power of Ordaining others and consequently now at least since the Form whereby they Ordain is mended according to your mind we must have true Priests also and therefore whatsoever defect according to your opinion might be formerly in our Priestly Ordination by reason of our Forms yet now this defect is fully mended and supplied you have no reason on this account to forsake our Communion But Thirdly That there was never any such defect in our Forms the main mistake which you go upon is that which in the last place I am to convince you of For although before the addition inserted in the Form of our Priestly Ordination it might not be so well fenced against all the unreasonable Cavils of Adversaries as now it is yet it was altogether as full in the expression of what was done and totally sufficient for the end design'd which I doubt not I shall fully and evidently make appear unto you by these following Reasons I. Because these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained are as full and comprehensive an expression of the whole Priestly power as possibly can be devised For what are Priests but the Ministers of Jesus Christ to lead men to that Reconciliation with God and that Forgiveness of Transgression from him which he hath purchased for us And what are the appointed means whereby they do this but the Administring the Sacraments the preaching of the Word the declaring Gods Promises and Threats the exhorting to Repentance
admitting them to Fellowship granting them Peace and such like Neither do we find that they did ever use any formal Absolution as this I Absolve thee but their reconciling them to the Church and receiving them again to Communion who had been excluded from it was the only way of Absolving then in practice among them which was so far from that extravagant power of absolving now challenged by the Romish Priests that it was looked on as no more than what a Deacon could do and accordingly in the absence of the Priest was it Customary to be performed by them in the Western Churches and that not only in the days of St. Cyprian but also down as far as the time of Alcuinus who lived eight hundred years after Christ And afterwards when Priests began to appropriate this power solely to themselves and Forms of Absolution came into the Church in the latter Ages they were at first always by way of Prayer and Intercession to God for the persons absolv'd and it was not till Thomas Aquinas's time about 400 years since that this Authoritative Form I Absolve thee was ever made use of and that came not in without great opposition from many Learned Men of that time as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Gulielmus Parisiensis Hugo Cardinalis and several others who were then so far from allowing any such power in Priests as now challenged that they plainly declare that to remit Sins and the Eternal punishments due unto them was so properly the work of God alone that the Absolution of the Priest can operate nothing at all that way but must always presuppose the Absolution of God going before it as being no more than the restoring of those to the peace of the Church which had been afore by their true Repentance restor'd to peace with God. The words of Hugo Cardinalis are The Priest cannot bind or loose with or from the Bond of the fault and the punishment due thereunto but only declare him to be bound or loos'd as the Levitical Priest did not make or cleanse the Leper but only declare him to be infected or clean And to the same purpose speaks also Peter Lumbard the Master of the Sentences and much more fully in these words God alone doth forgive and retain Sins and yet he hath given power of binding and loosing unto the Church but he bindeth and looseth one way the Church another For he only by himself forgiveth sin who both cleanseth the Soul from the inward blot and looseth it from the debt of Everlasting Death But this hath he not granted unto Priests to whom notwithstanding he hath given the power of binding and loosing that is to say of declaring men to be bound or loosed Whereupon the Lord did first by himself restore Health to the Leper and then sent him to the Priests by whose Judgment he might be declared to be cleansed so also he offer'd Lazarus to his Disciples to be loosed having first quickned him And again a little after In remitting or retaining Sins the Priests of the Gospel have that Right and Office which the Legal Priests had of old under the Law in curing of the Lepers These therefore forgive sins or retain them whilst they shew and declare that they are forgiven or retained by God. Which sayings do plainly inferre that to pardon the Crime and remit the punishment is the proper work of God only and that the Absolution of the Priests hath no real operation at all that way but must presuppose the party to be first absolv'd and justify'd by God their absolution being only declarative of what God hath afore done in applying the promises of God for the Remission of Sins to all such as have truly repented for their Consolation and Comfort rather than that the least stain of their Guilt is removed thereby To the outward peace of the Church indeed such absolutions can restore men but not to peace with God unless a true and hearty Repentance hath done it before and if after this on the evident manifestation of the Repentance the Absolution of the Priest comes it is only to declare what God hath done before not to add or in the least to conduce any thing thereto so as any pardon or forgiveness should follow his Sentence which was not granted or given before by God himself who is he alone that can do it And not only those two whose words I have laid down do say this but also several others who are now reckon'd amongst the eminentest Doctors and chiefest Fathers of the Romish Church that lived in their times as Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Alexander Halensis Bonaventura Occham Gabriel Biel and others And to say otherwise would be to run Counter to the whole Tenor of the Gospel of Jesus Christ For therein Faith and newness of Life are laid down as the stated terms on which alone men shall become capable of that pardon from God which Christ hath purchased for us and if men arrive to that measure thereof which God requires they will be most certainly pardon'd whether the Priest will or no and if not all the Absolutions in the World shall do them no good And therefore for to say as the Romanists do that without their Absolution the most penitent cannot be reconciled to God and that with it even the wicked can such as are only attrite as they call them is a Doctrine I confess well devis'd for their own Interest Grandeur and Empire over men but so far from having any foundation in the Gospel that nothing can be more contrary thereto For it overthrows the main design of it in making men rely upon their false pretended power of Absolution for the gaining Reconciliation with God instead of addicting themselves to that Holiness and Righteousness of Life in order thereto which it is the main aim of the Gospel to lead us into And herein it is in the highest degree injurious both to God and Men. To God it is injurious because it robs him of his power of forgiving Sins to give it unto men absolutely excluding him from it without their forgiving them first at their Absolutions And it is injurious unto men because it cheats them of their Souls in making them rely upon false hopes for the Salvation of them whereby Thousands and Ten Thousands have been undone for ever For thereby they are taught that though they be attrite only that is have only that Carnal Sorrow for Sin which ariseth from fear of the punishments due thereto without any of that true saying Repentance which is founded on the Love of God yet this so imperfect a tendency to Repentance shall by Confession and the Absolution of a Priest applied thereon be made so perfect as to be fully sufficient to blot out the guilt and render the man clean and pure from all his Transgression whereby it comes to pass that Carnal men who are easily perswaded to approve of that Doctrine which shall make the
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