Pastors For the foreign Churches they are able to speak for themselves nor is it needful for me here to shew what grounds there are for our Churches holding Communion with them But it must be acknowledged to be a high pitch of boldness and injustice to charge us as if we did not ascribe all due honour to holy Orders and the Succession of Pastors We know and assert That no man can take this honor of Priesthood to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee We reject the extravagant and bold pretences of hot-headed or factious Enthusiasts and have learned out of the Gospel that a publick calling was necessary even to those who had the most extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost Our Savionr sent his Disciples as his Father had sent Him and laid his hands on them and gave them the Power of binding and loosing And tho God had by his Spirit called Saul and Barnabas to the Apostleship of the Gentiles yet they did not enter upon the discharge of that Function till by the direction of the Holy Ghost whether by a voice formed in the Air or by a secret Inspiration it matters not they were separated for the work of the Ministry by Prayer and Imposition of hands And tho Timothy was by some Prophesies marked out as a Sacred Person yet he was received into that Function by the Imposition of S. Pauls hands From these sacred Authorities backed with the constant Doctrine and practice of the Churches of God in all Ages we do hold a visible Vocation and Ordination of Pastors necessary in the Church But whether the Roman Pontifical or our Ordinal comes nearer the Rules and Instances in Scripture and the forms of the Primitive times for at least Eight hundred years any that will compare them will easily discern and it is the chief subject of the following Work fully to evince the advantage of our forms beyond theirs It is true we do not extol the Office of Priesthood to that height as to say the Priest can by a few words work the greatest miracle that ever was and can make God present as they love to Phrase it this we think is the honouring the Creature more than the Creator Nor do we exalt the Priest above Gods Vicegerent on Earth our Lawful Soveraign whom according to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church even when Persecuted by their Emperours we honour as next to God and one who is inferiour to God only And therefore we reject the Seditious comparing of the Dignity of the Priestly Office with the Kingly which has not satisfied the Ambition of the Romish Clergy since Hildebrands days but the one must be preferred to the other Nor do we pretend that our Character gives us an Immunity to commit Crimes and an Exemption from the Civil Courts when they are Committed This were to make the Altar a Sanctuary for the most Criminal and the house of Prayer a Den of Thieves and Robbers It is true Christian Princes granted these Immunities at first that Church-men might not be disturbed in their Callings nor vexed with troublesome suteâ—… But afterwards that would not suffice but the Doctrine of Ecclestastical Iurisdiction and Immunity was set up as a thing most sacred and no wonder was it that men durst not presume to lay hands on him who could bring down not only Legions of Angels but God himself with a word And in the beginning of this Century Italy had almost been imbroiled in a War of the Popes making for which he pretended this for one cause that the State of Venice had apprehended two notoriously lâ—…ud and flagitious Priests and were proceeding against them according to Law But he saw other Princes were not very ready to second him and yet he did not lay down the quarrel till the Frocess of the Priests was discharged and they were set at liberty Such Exemptions are very profitable for a corrupt Clergy but if any such be among us we claim no such Protection being willing to leave them to the Law We know as little ground for thinking the Priest by his saying Mass can bring Souls out of Purgatory the Scriptures have made no discoveries either of Purgatory or the ways to escape from it or get out of it The Primitive Church continued still as Ignorant as the Holy Pen-men had been but in the darkest Ages the night being a fit time for Dreams this other world was discovered which has brought greater returns of Power and Riches to that Prince under whose Protection the discovery was made than the world Columbus discovered has sent to the Crown of Castile And tho the trade is not of that advantage that it was yet in gratitude for past services it must never be neglected or as when the vein of a Mine fails they dig on through the hardest Rocks till they find it again for the works must still go on But we poor souls have nothing to do with that gainful Traffick and therefore the Glory of the discovery and the Monapoly of the Trade we freely resign up to them and acknowledg the profits of new Inventions by the Rules of all Government are only due to the Inventors so that they have no reason to quarrel with us for leaving this entirely to them For the power of binding and loosing we do assert that as our Saviour vested his Disciples with it so it is still in the Church but if the vigor and exercise of it be much weakened we have none to blame for it but the Church of Rome who have now in a course of many ages laid down all open and publick penance So that the world being once delivered from that which to licentious men seemed a heavy Bondage it is not to be wondred at if the Primitive strictness could not be easily retrieved 'T is true this is a defect in our Church it is confessed by her in the Office of Commination and she wishes it may be restored but the decay and disuse of it begun in the Church of Rome and every body knows that what is severe and uneasy to Flesh and Blood is not soon submitted to when the practice of it is for any considerable time intermitted But the Clergy of that Communion thought they had made a good bargain when the necessity of Auricular Confessors and private Absolution was received to which the Laity did more easily submit that they might be freed from the shame of open penance and they knew how to deal with their Priests when the penance was secret none knew either the heinousness of their sins or the nature of the penance so it was more safe for the Priest to enjoyn what he listed and give Absolution on what terms he pleased And then because it was painful to have the Absolution delayed till the penance was
sake of a place but places for the sake of good things therefore choose from all Churches the things that are Pious Religious and Right and gather all these in one bundle and leave them with the English that they may become familiar to them It will be hard for the Agents of that Church to find out a Reason why Austin Bishop of Canterbury might make such changes in the Liturgies by gathering out of the several Rituals that were then in the World what he thouhgt fit and yet to deny the same power to Arch-Bishop Cranmer and the Bishops in King Edward's days why might not they as well as Austin the Monk compare the Rituals of the Church of Rome with other more ancient Forms and gather together what they found most Pious Religious and Right not loving things for the sake of a place whether Rome or Sarum but loving places rather for the sake of good things So that in this we have on our side the decision of a Pope who was both more learned and more pious than any of all his Successors but this is not the only particular in which they will decline to be tryed by his Iudgment And in the changes that were made iâ—… is very clear that our Reformers did noâ—… design to throw out every thing that was in the Roman Rituals right or wrong but made all the good use that was possible oâ—… the Forms that were then received in thâ—… Western Church and in this our Church followed our Saviours method who thougâ—… he had the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him and was to Antiquate the Jewisâ—… Religion and to substitute his more Divine Precepts to those of Moses Yet he did accommodate his Institutions as near aâ—… could be to the Customs of the Jews not only in lesser matters but even in those two great Sacraments by which his Church is knit together as hath been fully made out by many learned Writers If then the customs of a Religion that was ready to perish were made use of and by new and more sacred Benedictions were consecrated to higher ends Our Church shewed her Prudence and Moderation in not destroying Root and Branch but reserving such things as were good and by being cleansed from some Excrescencies might prove still of excellent use This though it has given some colour to many peevish complaints yet is that in which we have cause still to glory This care and caution does eminently appear in our Ordinal the Ceremonies which were invented by the latter Ages we laid aside the more Ancient and Apostolical are retained And for the formal words used in the Imposition of Hands though the saying Receive the Holy Ghost was a latter addition without any Ancient Authority yet because this comes nearer the practice of our Saviour it was retained as the form of giving Orders For since it is consest on all hands that the Form of Orders is in the power of the Church we had good reason to prefer that which our Blessed Saviour made use of to any other and it had been a sullen and childish peevishness to have changed this because it was used in the Church of Rome So that I cannot imagine what should move them to shew so much dislike to our Forms except it be the old Quarrel of hating them because they are better and their own are worse and so because their deeds are evil they envy and revile us In this whole matter we are willing to be tryed both by the Scriptures and the first eight Ages even of the Roman Church by the Greek Church to this day and by the Doctrine that is most commonly received even in their own Church There is but one Objection that may seem to have any force in it which can be made from the practices of the Primitive Church against the Ordinations in this Church which is that we have not the inferior degrees of Subdeacons Acolyths Exorcists Readers and Porters in our Church and indeed if the Popes Infallibility be well proved this will be of force sufficient to invalidate our Orders The case of Photius Patriarch of Contantinople is well known whom Pope Nicolaus denyed to be lawfully Ordained because he was suddenly raised up from being a Layman to be made a Patriarch and though he passed through the Ecclesiastical Degrees yet that was not thought sufficient by that Pope who certainly would have been more severe to us who have none of these Degrees among us But these Orders cannot be looked on as either of Divine or Apostolical Institution the Scripture mentions them not St. Clemens St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp say nothing of them Justin Martyr and Irenaeus are as silent about them so that till the third Century we find no footsteps of them the first mention that is made of them is in the Canons and Constitutions called Apostolical of whose Antiquity I shall now say nothing In the Canons mention is oft made of the rest of the Clergy as distinct from Bishops Priests and Deacons and particularly they mention Readers Subdeacons and Singers In the Constitutions there are Rules given about thâ—… Ordination of Subdeacons and Readers And though there is mention made of Exorcists yet it is plainly said there that they were not Ordained but were believed to have that power over Spirits by a free gift of God and that they were then Ordained when they were made Bishops and Priests Firmilian who lived in the midst of the third Century speaks of Exorcists but it does not appear from his words if they were a distinct or an inferior Order of Church-men and they may be well enough understood of such as had an extraordinary power over Spirits Yet in the beginning of the fourth Century we find in the Greek Church more inferior Orders for the Council of Laodicea reckons up Servants who it is like were Acolyths Readers Singers Exorcists Porters and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who were it seems Monks or some persons that were imployed in servile works such as the diggers of Craves And by the Council of Antioch the Chorepiscopi might Ordain Subdeacons Readers and Exorcists And if the Epistle to the Church of Antioch said to be writen by Ignatius was forged in the same Century by it it appears that there were then in the Greek Church Subdeacons Readers Singers Porters and Exorcists for all these are saluted in that Epistle from which it appears that all these Orders were then in the Church of Antioch But there is no small difficulty about these Orders in the Greek Churches for in all their Rituals we find no inferior Orders but Subdeacons and Readers to whom in some Churches they have added Singers upon which it is that Morinus confidently pronounces there were never any other inferior Orders in the Greek Church but these two but it does not appear that he had considered well those Canons of Laodicea and Antioch which mention other Orders Abraham Ecchellensis
of God's Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie But that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should Rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers So that there is nothing of the Spiritual much less of the Papal and Tyrannical Power given to the King by the Law Fourthly From the power given to the Queen to Authorize such persons as she shall think fit to exercise that Jurisdiction he infers they may be either Clergymen Lawyers Merchants or Coblers since the Statute requires no more but that they be born Subjects of the Realm But this is as well grounded as all the rest for though that Statute does not name the qualification of the persons yet the other Statutes that Enacted the Book of Common-Prayer and the Ordinal do fully specifie what sort of persons these must be and it is not necessary that all things be in every Statute Fifthly He in the end of this Paper pretends that the reason why this present Parliament altered the Ancient Forms was because they were null and invalid The weakness and injustice of which was before shewed so that nothing needs to be repeated And in fine it has been also proved that as both the Greek and Latin Churches have made many alterations in their Rituals so the Church of England which made these Alterations had as good an Authority to do it by as they had To which I shall only add the words of the Council of Trent concerning the power of the Church for making such Changes when they give the reason for taking away the Chalice The Church has power in the Sacraments retaining the substance of them to change or appoint such things which she shall judg more expedient both for the profit of the Receivers and for the Reverence due to the Sacraments according to the variety of things times and places Where by their own confession it is acknowledged the Church may make alterations in the Sacraments So that it is a strange confidence in them to charge on us an annulling of former Orders because of a small addition of a few explanatory words And so much for his Paper Now having sufficiently answered every thing in it I hope I may be allowed to draw a few conclusions in opposition to his And First We having true Priests and true Bishops are a true Church since we believe all that Christ and his Apostles delivered to the World Secondly We being thus a part of the Catholick Church every one that lives according to the Doctrine professed a mong us mayand shall be saved Thirdly We do truly eat the Flesh of Christ and drink his Blood having the Blessed Sacrament administred among us according to our Saviour's Institution Fourthly We have as much power to Consecrate the Holy Sacrament as any that were Ordained in the Church for near a thousand years together Fifthly We have the Ministerial power of giving Absolution and the Ministry of Reconciliation and of forgiving Sins given us by our Orders Sixthly All men may and ought to joyn with us in the profession of the Faith we believe and in the use of the Sacraments we administer which are still preserved among us according to Christ's Institution and that whosoever repents and believes the Gospel shall be Saved Seventhly All and every of the Arguments he has used are found to be weak and frivolous and to have no force in them And thus far I have complied with your desires of answering the Paper you sent me in as short and clear terms as I could But I must add that this ransacking of Records about a succession of Orders though it adds much to the lustre and beauty of the Church yet is not a thing incumbent on every body to look much into nor indeed possible for any to be satisfied about for a great many Ages all those Instruments are lost So that how Ordinations were made in the Primitive Church we cannot certainly know it is a piece of History and very hard to be perfectly known Therefore it cannot be a fit Study for any much less for one that has not much leisure The condition of Christians were very hard if private persons must certainly know how all Ministers have been Ordained since the Apostles days for if we will raise scruples in this matter it is impossible to satisfie them unless the Authentick Registers of all the ages of the Church could be shewed which is impossible for tho we were satisfied that all the Priests of this Age were duly Ordained yet if we be not as sure that all who Ordained them had Orders rightly given them and so upward till the days of the Apostles the doubt will still remain Therefore it is an unjust and unreasonable thing to raise difficulties in this matter And indeed if we go to such nice scruples with it there is one thing in the Church of Rome that gives a much juster ground these than any thing that can be pretended in ours does which is the Doctrine of the Intention of the Minister being necessary to make a Sacrament Secret Intentions are only known to God and not possible to be known by any man Therefore since they make Orders a Sacrament there remains still ground to entertain a scruple whether Orders be truly given And this cannever becleared since none can know other mens thought or intentions Therefore the pursuing nice scruples about this cannot be a thing indispensably necessary otherwise all people must be per plext with endless disquiet and doubtings But the true touchstone of a Church must be the Purity of her Doctrine and the Conformity of her Faith with that which Christ and his Apostles taught In this the Scriptures are clear and plain to every one that will read and consider them sincerely and without prejudice which that you may do and by these may be led and guided into all Truth shall be my constant prayer to God for you AN APPENDIX About the forms of Ordaining Priests and Bishops in the Latin Church BEcause the decision of all the questions that can be made by those of the Church of Rome about the validity of our Orders must be taken from the Ancient Forms of Ordination as hath been fully made out in the foregoing Papers therefore I hope it will not be unpleasant to the Reader to see what the Forms of Ordinations were in the Latin Church for many Ages which he will more clearly understand when he sees them at their full Length then he can do by any Quotations out of them Morinus has published sixteen of the most Ancient Latin Rituals he could find composed from the end of the Fifth Century at which time he judges the most
fulfilled which was the rule of the Primitive Church Absolution was granted immediatly upon Conâ—…ession without more ado as Arnaud has fully discovered to the world Certainly every body that considers these things must discern what merchandise the Roman Clergy have made of the power of the Keys to make themselves Masters of all mens secrets and of their Consciences then was the necessity of secret Confession set up tho there be nothing in Scripture that favours it any places that look that way being only meant of Confessing our Faults to those against whom they are Committed or of a publick Confession in the Cases of publick Offences Nor can it be pretended with any Colour of truth or reason that the Primitive Church did set up or Authorise Confession in any other way than as our Church does recommending it only as an excellent mean towards the quieting the Conscience and the avoiding of all Scruple and Doubtfulness Penitence is also a mean for humbling the sinner more for possessing him with deeper apprehensions of the guilt and evil of sin and of the Iustice of God and for ingaging him to more diligence and watchfulness for the future and by these Rules all the Primitive Discipline was contrived and managed that it might be a wholsome Medicine for the reforming the World and every honest Priest ought to consider these as the end he must drive at in all his dealings with Penitents and for this end the Absolution is to be withheld till it appears that the person is truely penitent and that both for the Priests sake that he may not give the Comforts of the Gospel nor make use of his Ministerial power of loosing sins without good grounds and also for the sinners sake that he may be kept under the fear of the wrath of God and be excluded from the comfortable Priviledges of the Christian Church till he had given some convincing proofs that he is a penitent indeed For if he be freed from these fears by a hasty absolution it is very like he will be slight in his Repentance There must be also some proportion between the penance and the sin committed such as fasting for sins of Intemperance bodily severities for Inordinate pleasures Alms-giving for sins of Covetousness great and frequent Devotions for sins of Omission that so the penance may prove Medicinal indeed for purging out the ill humours and recovering the sinner and to make the sin more Odious to him Therefore such slight penances as saying the Penitential Psalms and abstaining from some meats with other trifling things of that Nature are a betraying the power of the Keys which was given for Edification and not for Destruction and tend to an exposing of Religion and the Priestly Function to Contempt These practices are common and avowed in that Church and by these and such like have the Iesuites got all the world to make their Confessions to them of which such discoveries have been made by the Writers of the Port-Royal that we need say nothing but only look on with Astonishment and see the Impudent partiality of the Court of Rome and how obstinately they are resolved to reform nothing For tho the practice of the whole Church in all the Councils that were held for many ages be clearly of the side of the Iansenists yet they must be condemned their Books censured and the practices of the Iesuites encouraged and supported After all this of what Undanted Consciences must they be who charge our Church as opening a Sanctuary for Vice and Impurity because we retain not the necessity of secret Confession and Absolution Which whatever they may prove if well managed are according the practices of that Church and the Casuistical Divinity that is in greatest Credit there and by which their Priests are directed Engines for beating down all Religion and common Honesty But our Church owns still the power of the Keys which is not only Doctrinal when the Mercies of God are declared or his Iudgments denounced but is also Authoritative and Ministerial by which all Christians are either admitted to or rejected from the Priviledges of Church-Communion and their sins are bound or loosed With this we assert the Pastors of the Church are Vested For the Rites of our Ordinations we still retain those which are mentioned in the Scriptures which are Imposition of Hands and Prayer As for the forms of Prayer the Catholick Church never agreed on any nor decreed what were to be used Every Church had their own forms And though the Church of Rome did unmercifully enough impose divers things on the Greek Churches and because they would not yield to her Tyranny she left them to be a Prey to the Turk and did not interpose her Authority with the Princes of the West over whom she was then Absolute to arm them for the assistance and defence of the Greeks yet amidst all this desire of Rule they were never so unreasonable as to impose their Liturgies Rituals or Missals on them but in these they left them to their own Forms and so continue to do to this day Anciently they had no more Iurisdiction over the British Churches than over the Greek Churches So that by the division of Provinces confirmed by General Councils and by a particular decree of the Council of Ephesus no new Authority over any other Churches was to be assumed by any See but all were to be determined by the former practices and customs of the Church It is certain that before that time the Bishops of Rome had no Patriarchal Iurisdiction in Britain so that if the Decrees of General Councils will bind them they ought not to claim any Authority over us But if the Popes build new Pretentions on Austin the Monk's being sent hither by Pope Gregory the Great We are ready to refer this matter to his decision and will stand to his award for he being consulted by Austin about some particulars one of these was Since there is one Faith how comes it that the Customs of the Churches are so different and that one form of Missals is in the Roman Church and another is in the Churches of the Gaules or of France From this Question it appears that even France which was undoubtedly within the Patriarchat of Rome had Forms different from those used in Rome But let us now hear what Answer is given by Pope Gregory which may be reasonably believed ex Cathedra and so of great Authority with all who acknowledg the Infallibility of that See You know the custom of the Church of Rome in which you were educated but my opinion is that whatever you find either in the Holy Roman the Gallican or any other Church that may be more pleasing to Almighty God you shall diligently choose out that and infuse in the English Church which is yet but young in the Faith by careful Instruction what you can gather from many Churches for we ought not to love things for the
his Party yet he did overthrow all those Arguments against it that are brought in this Paper and shew'd they were of no force This Writing of his has not been yet Printed but I have perused it in the Manuscript Yet that this may not seem to be a declining of the task you have invited me to and because the Books I have mentioned are not perhaps in your hands I shall say as much in answer to it as I hope may fully satisfy you or any impartial Reader The Substance of the first argument to prove that our Ministers are not Priests is That by the form of our Ordination the Power of Consecrating the Sacrament of Christs most holy body and blood is not given the words only importing a Power to dispense the Sacraments which any Deacon may do Therefore the power of consecrating or making Christ's Body and Blood present being essential to the Priesthood and our form not expressing it and by consequence not giving it it wants one essential requisite to the Priesthood and therefore those that are ordained by it are not true Priests To which I answer 1. If our Form be the same in which Christ ordained his Apostles we may be very well satisfied that it is good and sufficient Now when our Saviour Ordained them S. Iohn tells us that he said Receive the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted to them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained this being that Mission which he gave them as the preceding words do clearly import As the Father hath sent me so send I you we can think no Form so good and so full as that he made use of It is true we do not judg any Form so essential as to annul all Ordinations that have been made by any other for then we should condemn both the Ordinations of the Primitive Churches and of the Eastern Churches at this day And this is the reason why even according to the ancient and most generally received Maxims of the Schools Orders can be no Sacrament tho in the general sense of the word Sacrament it being no term used in Scripture but brought into the Church we shall not much dispute against its being called so for by their Doctrin both Matter and Form of the Sacrament must be instituted by Christ and are not in the power of the Church Now they cannot but acknowledg that the Form of giving Orders in their Church was not instituted by Christ nor received in the Church for divers Ages which made Pope Innocent say that the Forms of Ordination were ordered and invented by the Church and were therefore to be observed otherwise it was sufficient in giving Orders to say Be thou a Bishop or be thou a Priest therefore though we do not annul Orders given by any other Form yet we have all reason to conclude that used by our Saviour to be not only sufficient but absolutely the best and fittest It is without all colour of reason that the writers of that Church will have the words our Saviour pronounced after he had instituted the Eucharist This do in remembrance of me to be the form by which he ordained them Priests for This do must relate to the whole action of the Sacrament the Receiving and Eating as well as the Blessing and Consecrating therefore these words are only a Command to the Church to continue the use of the Holy Sacrament in Remembrance of Christ. Nor do those of the Church of Rome think these were the words by which Christ ordained them Priests otherwise they would use them and think them sufficient but they use them not but instead of them say Receive thou Power to offer Sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass both for the Living and the Dead 2. If this be ane essential defect in our Ordination then there were no true Priests in the Primitive Church for divers Ages and there are no true Priests at this day in the Greek Church and yet neither of these can be acknowledged by the Church of Rome for if they annul the Ordinations of the Primitive Church they likewise annul their own which are derived from them They do also own the Orders of the Greek Church to be valid as appears by their receiving them into their Communion at the Council of Florence and by their practice ever since which Morinus hath in the first part of his Work so fully proved from the decrees of Popes and Councils that the thing can no more be doubted and at this day there are Greek Churches at Rome maintain'd at the Popes charge in which Orders are given according to the Greek Pontificals as he informs us That in the Primitive Forms there were no express words of giving power to consecrate the Sacrament I appeal to the Collection of the most Antient Forms of Ordination that Morinus a Priest of that Church and a Penitentiary in great esteem at Rome has made where it will be found that for many Ages this power was not given expresly or in so many words The most ancient Rubrick about this is in the 4th Council of Carthage if those Canons be genuine When a Priest is ordained the Bishop blessing him and laying his hand on his head all the Priests that are present shall likewise lay their hands on his head about the Bishops hand Where we see that the Imposition of hands and the Bishop's blessing was all the matter and form of these Orders Denis called the Areopagite tells us that the Priest that was to be Ordained kneeled before the Bishop who laid his hand on his head and did Consecrate him with a holy Prayer and then marked him with the sign of the Cross and the Bishop and the rest of the Clergy that were present gave him the Kiss of Peace Here we find nothing but imposition of Hands and Prayer Now there being no general Liturgies nor Ordinals then in the World but every Countrey or perhaps every Diocess having their own Forms it was never defined in what form of words this Prayer and Benediction should be used but was left indifferent so the substance of the Blessing were preserved It is true the Author of those Constitutions that are ascribed to the Apostles sets down the Prayer of Ordination for which he vouches Saint Iohn Author which is That the Priest might be filled with the spirit of Grace and Wisdom to help and govern the Flocks with a pure heart that he might meekly teach the people being full of healing Operations and instructive Discourses and might serve God sincerely with a pure mind and willing soul and might through Christ perfect the sacred Services for the people in which there is nothing that gives in express words the power of Consecration In the most ancient Ritual that Morinus could find which belonged to the Church of Poictiers and has been composed about the middle of the 6th Century there is no mention in the
according to his usual way of flattering the Court of Rome in all his Writings is not a little puzzelled with this he confesses that in the Greek Church they have no other inferior Orders but Subdeacons and Readers but says some thought those other lower degrees were included in the Order of Readers but he thinks they were included in the Subdeacons Orders and strains all the wit he had to give some colours for this conceit of his In summ it is clear Exorcists were an inferior Office in the Greek Church once and afterwards it was laid aside It were an impertinent digression here to give an account of their Office but in a word they were Catechists who prepared the Catechumens for Baptism and by the Catechisms in the Church all that came from Heathenism to be Christians were often adjured to renounce the Devil and all Heathenish Idolatry Which Adjurations were call'd Exorcisms and from these the Catechists were called Exorcists of which he that desires further satisfaction may be directed to it by what he will find in the Margin But when or upon what occasion this Office fell in disuse in the Greek Church does not appear I shall only suggest that it is reasonable to conclude that upon the general suppression of Heathenism in the Greek Empire when there were no more Catechumens there being no further use of Exorcists the Function was no longer continued It appears likewise from the Name Acolyth that it was begun in the Greek Church from whence it is probable the Latin Church had that Order In the Latin Church St. Cyprian is the first that speaks of these Inferior Orders and we find them frequently mentioned in his Epistles he speaks of Subdeacons Acolyths Readers and Exorcists and contemporary with him was Cornelius who giving an account of the Clergy of Rome says there were forty six Priests seven Deacons forty two Acolyths fifty Exorcists Readers and Porters So it seems there were no Subdeacons then in Rome nor does St. Cyprian mention the Porters So that in that Century all these these Orders were not looked on as necessary in the Western Church much less was there a certain number of years determined for every one of them as was afterwards done by the Popes who appointed that before any might be made a Priest he should be five years a Reader and Exorcist and fourteen years an Acolyth and Subdeacon In the fourth Council of Carthage we have the full Catalogue of the sacred Functions as they are called in the Apostolical Canons with the rules and forms of Ordaining them and there Subdeacons Acolyths Exorcists Readers Porters and Singers are set down But besides these we find another Order of Fossarii or the diggers of Graves mentioned by St. Jerome who calls them the first Order of the Clergy they are also mentioned in that supposititious Letter of St. Ignatius to the Church of Antioch and are spoken of by Epiphamus by which it appears they were reckoned among the Clergy both in the Greek and Latin Churches But there is no mention of them in any latter Writers We find mention of another office in an Author to whom indeed little credit is due who are called the Keepers of the Martyrs who had the keeping of the Vault or Burying-place where the Martyrs bodies were laid up in those Churches that were built to their honor but we meet with these no where else And though the Order of Singers continued for several Ages in the Western Church and is mentioned by most of the Writers on the Roman Rituals in Hittorpius his Collection and also in the Ordo Romanus yet is now left out in the Roman Pontifical From all which it appears that there was no settled Order agreed on or received in the Catholick Church about these Inferior Degrees some of them that were received in some Churches were not in other Churches and what was generally received in one Age was laid aside in another and therefore there is no Obligation lying on us to continue those still But as the number of these Orders was different so the ways of Ordaining were not the same In the Eastern Church they were and are to this day conferred by Imposition of Hands which was perhaps taken from the custome of the Jews among whom all Offices were given with that Rite But in the Western Church they were conferred by the delivery of a Book Vessel or Instrument that related to their Function which perhaps was taken from the Roman custom of granting Offices by the Tradition of somewhat that belonged to it as Trajan made the Prefects by giving them a Sword The occasion of setting up all these Inferior Offices was certainly very just and good that there might be taken in them a long and full probation of all such as were to be admitted to the Offices that were of Divine Institution and so none might be admitted to any of them before there had been a full tryal and discovery made of their merit and good behaviour and were indeed like degrees in Universities But after that Constantine granted such Immunities and Exemptions to Churchmen then it is probable that many who desired to share in these and yet had no mind to be Initiated in the Offices of Divine Appointment came and entered in these lower degrees to regulate which Justinian made a Law that none who had been Souldiers or had any Offices about their Courts Curiales and obstricti curiae might be Ordained till they had got their Dimission and had been fifteen years in a Monastery and perhaps some of these offices were laid aside because of the complaints the Prefects made of the Interruption of Iustice by the great numbers of the Clergy who pleaded the Exemptions that were granted to them Upon the whole matter it is clear that all these Orders were only of Ecclesiastical Institution So that the want of them cannot be charged on our Church as an essential defect and our Church had as good Authority to lay all these aside as other Churches had to lay down sometimes one sometimes more of them And in the Church of Rome though these are still kept up yet all except the Subdeacons are meerly for Forms-sake for Acolyths Exorcists Readers or Porters never discharge any part of the Service that belongs to their Office and the Exorcisms are quite taken out of the hands of the Exorcists and are made only by Priests So that this whole Objection comes to nothing But we have much more material Objections against the Church of Rome upon this head For whereas by Divine Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church all Bishops were equal both in Order and Iurisdiction They have robbed the Bishops of the greatest part of their Iurisdiction of which I shall give some Instances Monks by their Original were Laymen and were under the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of the Diocess this at first
their Princes till they forced them afterwards to seek to them for shelter from the severity of their Princes and then the Tables were turned All this was not a little set forward by the credit which the begging Friers got every where in the 13th Century for the Monks were then become as scandalous as the Secular Clergy had ever been and were generally very ignorant so that they could not serve the ends of the Papacy any more but the austere lives of the Franciscans their poverty and coarse Garments girt about with Ropes their bare Legs and seeming Humility gained them great esteem and the Zealous Dominicans whose course of life was not so severe yet were as poor and Preached much and Aquinas Scotus and Bonaventure brought in among the Friers the learning of the Schoolâ—… which was then in great esteem in the World all which concurred to dispose the People to receive them with great Veneration These were also imployed by the Popes every where and were also exempted from Episcopal Visitation and had Priviledges to build Churches and Seminaries to Preach hear Confessions and Administer the Sacraments every where and by these means the Episcopal Iurisdiction was quite overthrown and the Papacy became absolute and those Orders of Mendicant Friers were clearly a Presbytery they being a company of Priests that acknowledged no Episcopal Iurisdiction over them and their Great Chapter was their General Assembly and their Annual or Triennial Generals and Provincials who are chosen by them were like the elected Moderators of Provincial and National Assemblies In this only did that Presbytery differ from the Geneva Form that it was subject only to Christ's pretended Vicar the other claims to be only subordinate to Christ himself but both did equally rebel against their Bishops Yet the Schism of the Papacy had almost overturned all for the Bishops met in a General Council at Constance I call all those Councils General according to the style of the Church of Rome for I know there was not a Conncil truly General among them all and there they thought to retrieve their Authority and to be quit with the Popes for bringing in Abbots and other inferior Prelates they brought in Deputies from Universities to sit and judg with them and they thought they had made sure work of all by their Acts that regulated the Popes Election restrained his power subjected him to the judgment of a General Council and above all by their Act for a Decennial General Council with such provisions in it that one would think the Act for Triennial Parliaments was copyed from that Original But alas all this proved to no purpose for as Aeneas Sylvius wisely said that since all Preferments were given by the Pope and none by the Council he must certainly have the better of it at long run which as it made himself turn about so it brought off many more and at length the Pope became Master of All and at the Council of Florence the Generals of Orders were brought in to have Votes there There was another great Engine also made use of by which all the rules of the Primitive Church was overturned which was the Popes assuming a power to hear and judg all causes originally All that the Popes pretended to for many Ages was to be the highest Tribunal to which the last Appeal did lie And this was not only never yielded to by the Eastern Churches but even the African Churches though a part of the Latin Church would never submit to it and yet the receiving an Appeal had a very favourable plea that a person who had been oppressed by a faction perhaps in his own Countrey might find relief and protection elsewhere But after the 8th Century and that the forged and now universally acknowledged spurious Decretals were received they set up a new pretension of Iudging Causes Originally taking matters out of the hands of the Iudg Ordinary and bringing the Cognizance of them to Rome and setting up many reserved Cases which could only be judged by the Pope and the Canonists that were a servile sort of people who wrote chiefly for Preferment did upon all occasions find new Distinctions for enlarging the Popes power But because it was intolerable tedious and expensive to carry all such matters to Rome therefore that it might not be too heavy a burden to the World Legantine Courts were every where set up where all those Tryals were made By all these ways were the Primitive Rules broken and such a confusion was brought in upon all Ecclesiastical Offices that no Ancient Landmark or Boundary was thought so sacred that they did not either leap over or change it I will not enlarge further on this Subject and having already transgressed the bounds of a Preface I will not lay open the other Violations of the Sacred Offices at the full length but as the value of every thing is no less prejudiced by exalting it too high than by depressing it too much for a string over bended must crack So the Popes did as much wrong these Functions by exalting them out of measure as they had done by encroaching so far upon them And this was done by the Croissades Indulgences Privileged Places Iubilees and Redemptions from Purgatory with other things of that nature which the Monks and Friers did every where preach and proclaim these things did savour of Interest so palpably that it was no wonder if most people were so alienated from them that the first Reformers found all persons disposed to forsake the Communion of a Church that had so long deceived them by such gross Impostures Many had groaned long under all these Corruptions and of such the greater part received the Reformation others hoping to have got things brought about to a better pass continued still in that Communion but how little either Erasmus 〈◊〉 Câ—…ssander or many more such could prevail the event shewed for in the Council of Trent which was not obtained but after many years sute frequent Addresses not without threatnings at length extorting it how little could be carried appears even from Cardinal Pallavicini's own History two grand points upon which the Bishops that had honest designs intended to raise the Reformation of Discipline and Manners were the declaring the Episcopal Iurisdiction to be of Divine Right and that the Residence of all Ecclesiastical Incumbents was also of Divine Right but these could not be carried Lainez the General of the Jesuits and the whole Court Party appearing with great Vehemence against the first of these asserting that all Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction was wholly and only in the Pope And from this one thing it may appear how little Iustice or Fair-dealing was to be expected from that Council towards those whom they called Hereticks when the Bishops themselves being Iudges in a thing in which they were also parties I mean about the Divine Right of their own Iurisdiction they could not carry it for it was never heard of before that
as they could but when the Court oâ—… Rome gets their Conquering King on their side so that they can withstand no longer unless they will suffer for their Conscience then they subscribe as formally and fully as others do And this Compliance is to be looked for from all the men of those Principles if they do not prefer their Conscience to their Interest and God knows there be many such for either they must comply though against their Conscience or retire themselves from that Communion and if they do this last then all that they accuse us for and all those common Topicks with which they ply the Vulgar against separating from the Catholick Church the setting up of private Iudgments against publick the multiplying new Errors by appealing to Scriptures or other Books which is the way of all Hereticks These I say with many more of the like nature will all fall as heavily upon themselves Nor is there any reason to think they will throw off the Pope as was done under King Henry the 8th for though a great and high spirited King was able to bring that about yet is it possible that a few Priests though they had the honesty and boldness to design such a thing could ever compass it Their followers would look upon them if they should but set about it as Hereticks and hate them no less if not more than they do us So that it seems a weak and too sanguine an Imagination to think such a design can ever come to any thing Therefore these persons must either turn over quite to the Intrigues of the Court oâ—… Rome with what Conscience let them seâ—… to it or joyn themselves to us And of this last there is no great cause to have any hope since we see none write more bitterly against us than they do as if they would thereby redeem their credit either with the Court of Rome or with their party here who being possest withsome suspitions of them they to clear these use the common shift of railing foully 〈◊〉 those with whom it is insinuated they have some correspondence This style Mr. Arnaud has thought fit to write in more than any body which was the more unseemly in him considering both his Noble Education and his other excellent and gentile Qualities and indeed I am heartily glad to find the grows ashamed and out of love with that way of writing in which none has more grosly exceeded all the bounds of Moderation than he has done They having declared themselves so fully and formally concerning the Reformation there is no reason to expect they should ever joyn with us and they are neither so numerous nor so considerable as to be able â—…o form themselves into a Society distinct from Rome Therefore what is it oâ—… be looked for from them but that for the most part shall herd in with the rest and comply even against their Consciences with all the corruptions of the Papacy And as a Noble and Ingenious person said the long Whip of Rome must bring in all these Straglers and if two or three will stand out and lie under their Censures they shall have little credit and small interest with their own party So that there is nothing to be expected from any thing they can do or signifie And therefore all the noise some make of the difference between the Court and Church of Rome is only a pretty Notion by which such as are speculative and consider not the World may be taken a little but when they examine it further they must see that it will be nothing in practice The Interest Favour and Preferments lie wholly the other way and the greatest part is led by these and such honest men as despise these are either thought Fools or Knaves some further design being suspected as the reason of why they pursue not present Advantages But Preferments being bountifully given by the Court of Rome to their creatures others who are loaded with their Censures can never be imagined so considerable as either to have great Interest at home with their party which being generally made up of Ignorance and Zeal hates those moderate men aâ—… Tamperers and love none so much as the thorough-paced Papist much less can they ever have any power in the Seminaries and Nurseries beyond Sea So that all that come over in the Mission shall be well leavened before they come among us with the high Principles of the Court of Rome Therefore I cannot apprehend any Advantage that can be reasonably looked fâ—…r from the cherishing the men of those Principles though I am very well satisfied some of them are honest men but as they be very few who will openly own and stick to them so I doubt not but if the owning these Maxims turned to a matter of Advantage and ease abundance that are not honest would pretend to be of the same perswasion We see that generally a few Instâ—…nces only excepted they joyn together in the same Intrigues and Designs and why we should think it possible to draw off any considerable party from the rest I see no reason for as it were undoubtedly both wise and good to cherish any motions that might disjoynt them one from another so a few individual Persons how deserving soever they may be cannot be of that Importance that for their sakes a Settlement should be altered and colour given for a great many to deceive and abuse us And I freely acknowledg that the plain dealing Papists who owns the Popes Infallibility and absolute Authority as he speaks and acts most sutably to the other Principles of their Church so is less to be suspected and feared since he goes roundly to work than others who speak more softly and yet are in the same designs and so may more safely and cunningly catch unwary persons who either are not much on their guard or are not well acquainted with their Artisices but the other are more open and less dangerous It is now high time for me to quit this Digression and to wind up a Preface that is already too long I shall only before I make an end lay before the Reader a few of the Arts of the Missionaries among us in the dispersing their Papers and Books They write them with great confidence and swell up the Arguments they offer with the biggest words and severest expressions that are possible which works mightily upon the Gentle Reader for tho modesty in Writing has great art in it to work upon an ingenuous mind yet that to the weak and credulous is a feeble and dispirited thing and they are never so apt to believe any thing as when it is confidently averred with great Pomp and much Vehemence If their Books be well written they want not Printing Presses neither beyond Sea nor in England and we shall soon hear of them if they find themselves so baffled as they have been of late by some great Writers in this Church that they cannot answer with any
not given and therefore that the Bishop says in vain Receive the H. Ghost or by it a Character is not impressed Let him be an Anathema It is true their Doctors to reconcile the disagreement of those two Councils have devised the distinction of the power of Sacrificing and of the power of Jurisdiction in a Priest The last they confess is given by the Imposition of hands the former they say is given by the delivering of the Sacred Vessels And indeed as Morinus doth often observe the School-men being very ignorant both of the more Ancient Rites of the Church and of the practice of the Eastern Churches and looking only on the Rituals then received in the Latin Church have made strange work about the matter and form of Ordination but now that they begin to see a little further than they did then they are of a far different opinion so Vasques whom the School-men of this Age look on aâ—… an Oracle treating of Episcopal Orders says in express words That the Imposition of hands is the Matter and the words uttered with it are the Form of Orders and that the Sacramental Grace is conferred in and by the application of the Matter and Form It is true He joyns in with the commonly received Doctrine of the Schools about the two powers given to Priests by a double matter and form yet he cites Bonaventure and Petrus Sotus for this opinion that the Imposition of hands and the words joyned with it were the matter and form of Priestly Orders and though Vasques himself undertakes to prove the other Opinion as that which agrees best with the principles of their Church yet it is visible he thought the other Opinion truer for when he proves Orders to be a Sacrament he lays down for a Maxim that the outward Rite and Ceremony the promise of Grace and the command for the continuance must be all found in Scripture before any thing is to be acknowledged a Sacrament and when pursuant to this he proves that the Rite of Orders is in Scripture he assigns no other but the Imposition of hands so that according to his own Doctrine that is the only Sacramental Rite or the matter Orders And Cardinal de Lugo says The giving the Bread and the Wine we know is not determinately required by any divine Institution since the Greeks are ordained without it therefore it is to be confessed that Christ only intended there should be some proportioned Sign for the matter of Orders either this or that And it is now the most commonly received Oponion even amongst the School-men that Christ neither determined the Matter nor the Form of Orders but left both to the Church And Habert proves that the Greek form of Ordination is sufficient to express the grace of God then prayed for which is the chief thing in Ordination and though the Greek Fathers do not mention these words that are now used as the Form in their days yet he cites many places out of their writings by which they seem to allude to those words though the custom then received of speaking mystically and darkly of all the Rites of the Church made that they did not deliver themselves more plainly about it but he concludes his second Observation in these words In those Sacraments where the Matter and Form are not expressed in Scripture it must be supposed that Christ did only in general institute both to his Apostles leaving a power with the Church to design constitute and determine these in several ways so that the chief Substance Intention and Scope of the Institution were retained with some general fitness and analogy for signifying the effect of this Sacrament And if both the Eastern and Western Churches have made Rituals which though they differ one from another yet are good and valid it seems very unreasonable to deny the Church of England which is as free and independent a Church as any of them the same right for it is to be observed that the Catholick Church did never agree on one Uniform Ritual or Book of Ordination but that was still left to the freedom of particular Churches and so this Church has as much power to make or alter Rituals as any other has Therefore the substantials of Ordination being still retained which are Imposition of hands with fit Prayers and Blessings It is most unreasonable to except against our Forms of Ordination Let it be also considered that it is indeed true that the last Imposition of hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost appointed in the Pontifical is not above 400 years old nor can any Ancienter MSS be shewed in which it is found yet that is now most commonly received in the Church of Rome to be the matter and form of Ordination for all their Doctors hold that either the delivering the Vessels and saying Receive Power to offer Sacrifice c. or the Imposition of hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. is the Matter and Form of Orders Againsâ—… the former Morinus has said so much that I need add nothing for by unanswerable Arguments he proves that iâ—… not essential to Orders since neither thâ—… Primitive Church the Eastern Churcheâ—… nor the Roman Rituals or the Writers oâ—… the Roman Offices ever mention it tiâ—… within these 700 years and at first iâ—… was only done in the Consecration oâ—… Bishops and afterwards by custom noâ—… decree of Council or Pope being to bâ—… found about it it was used in the Ordination of Priests The same Author doth also study to prove that the Imposition of the Bishopâ—… hands with the words Receive the Holy Ghost is not essential to Ordination buâ—… is only a Benediction superadded to it and shews that it was not used in the Primitive Church nor mentioned by any ancient Writer and therefore he is oâ—… opinion that the first Imposition of hands gives the Orders in which both Bishopâ—… and Priests lay on their hands and pray that God would multiply his Gifts oâ—… those whom he had chosen to the sunction oâ—… a Priest that what they received by hiâ—… savour they might attain by his help through Christ our Lord. If this bâ—… true then two things are to be well observed First That the Prayer which according to his opinion is the Prayer of Consecration was not esteemed so by the Ancient Rituals in which it is only called a Prayer for the Priests that were to be Ordained after which the Prayer of Consecration followed from which it appears that there was no constant rule in giving Orders and that what the Church once held to be but a preparatory Prayer was afterwards made the Prayer of Consecration and that which they esteemed the Prayer of Consecration was afterwards held but a Prayer of Benediction Secondly That in the formal words of Consecration if his Opinion be true there is no power given of consecrating the Sacraments But Morinus is alone in this
800 years before this was used And to this day in the Greek Church there is no power given by the Consecration to offer propitiatory Sacrifices for though in the second Prayer said in Ordinations in which God's Holy Spirit is prayed for upon the Priest That he may be worthy to stand before the Altar of God without blame and may preach the Gospel of his Kingdom and holily administer the Word of his Truth It is added And may offer to thee Gifts and Spiritual Sacrifices but there is no reason to gather from these words that they give power for offering Propitiatory Sacrifices We acknowledg that we offer Gifts and Sacrifices in the Holy Eucharist but we reject Propitiatory ones and these words do not at all import them And the truth of it is when the Writers of the Roman Church are pressed with the Arguments before mentioned that the Eucharist can be no Propitiatory Sacrifice Since 1. there no Blood shed in it 2. No Destruction is made of the Sacrifice for it is only the Accidents and not the Blessed Body of Christ that the Priest consumes 3. That Christ's Cross is called one Sacrifice once offered 4. That his being now exalted at the Father's right hand shews his Body can no more be subject to be Sacrificed or mangled When these with many Authorities from the Father's are brought they are forced to fly to some Distinctions by which their Doctrine comes to differ little from ours but still those high and indecent Expressions remain in their Rituals and Missals which they are forced to mollifie as they do those Prayers in which the same things and in the same manner and words are asked of the Blessed Virgin and the other Saints which we ask of God And though they would stretch them to a bare Intercession which the genuine sense of the words will not bear yet they will never change them for it is the standing Maxim of that Church never to confess an error nor make any change to the better The third Reason against our Orders of Priesthood is a Repetition of the first and is already answered The fourth Argument is That none can Institute the Form of a Sacrament to give Grace and make present Christ's Body and Blood but the Authors of Grace and those that had power over his Body and Blood but they that Instituted this Form had only their Authority from the Parliament as appears by the Act it self by which some Prelates and other Learned men being impowered did Invent the Form before mentioned never before heard of either in Scripture or the Church of God To this I Answer First It is certain the Writer of this Paper did never think it would have been seen by any body that could examine it but intended only to impose on some Illiterate persons otherwise he would never have said that a Form which Christ himself used when he ordained his Apostles and which is used in their own Church as the proper Form of Ordination was never before heard of in the Scripture or the Church of God Secondly Those who compiled the Liturgy and Ordinal had no other Authority from the Parliament than Holy and Christian Princes did before give in the like cases It is a common place and has been handled by many Writers How far the Civil Magistrate may make Laws and give Commands about Sacred things 'T is known what Orders David and Solomon Iehosaphat Hezekiah and Iosiah gave in such cases They divided the Priests into several Courses gavâ—… Rules for their attendance turned out â—… High Priest and put another in his stead sent the Priests over the Cities to teach the People gathered the Priests and commanded them to Sanctifie themselves and the house of the Lord and offer Sacrifices oâ—… the Altar And gave orders about the Forms of their Worship that they should praise God in the words of David and Asaph and gave orders about the time 〈◊〉 observing the Passover that in a case oâ—… Necessity it might be observed on the second Month though by their Law it wâ—… to be kept the first Month. And for the Christian Emperors let the Code or the Novels or the Capitulars of Charles the Great be read and in them many Lawâ—… will be found about the Qualificationâ—… Elections and Consecrations of Church-men made by the best of all the Roman Emperors such as Constantine Theodâ—… sius c. They called Councils to judâ—… of the greatest points of Faith which met and sate on their Writ whose determinations they confirmed and added the Civil Sanction to them And even Pope Leo though a higher spiriteâ—… Pope than any of his Predecessors were did intreat the Emperor Martian to annul the second Council of Ephesus anâ—… to give order that the Ancient Decrees of the Council of Nice should remain in Force Now it were a great Scandal on those Councils to say that they had no Authority for what they did but what they derived from the Civil Powers So it is no less unjust to say because the Parliament Impowered some Persons to draw Forms for the more pure Administration of the Sacraments and Enacted that these only should be lawfully exercised in this Realm which is the Civil Sanction that therefore these persons had no other Authority for what they did Let those men declare upon their Consciences if there be any thing they desire more earnestly than such an Act for Authorizing their own Forms and would they make any Scruple to accept of it if they might have it Was it ever heard of that the Civil Sanction which only makes any constitution to have the force of a Law gives it another Authority than a Civil one and such Authority the Church of Rome thinks fit to accept of in all States and Kingdoms of that Religion Thirdly The Prelates and other Divines that compiled our Forms of Ordination did it by vertue of the authority they had from Christ as Pastors of his Church which did empower them to teach the people the pure Word of God and to administer the Sacraments and perform all other holy Functions according to the Scripture the practice of the Primitive Church and the rules of Expediency and Reason and this they ought to have done though the Civil Powers had opposed it in which case their duty had been to have submitted to whatever severities or persecutions they might have been put to for the Name of Christ and the Truth of his Gospel But on the other hand when it pleased God to turn the hearts of those that had the chief Power to set forward this good Work then they did as they ought with all Thankfulness acknowledg so great a Blessing and accept and improve the Authority of the Civil Powers for adding the Sanction of a Law to the Reformation in all the parts and branches of it So by the authority they derived from Christ and the Warrant they had from Scripture and the Primitive Church these Prelates and
Divines made those Alterations and Changes in the Ordinal and the King and the Parliament who are vested with the Supream Legislative Power added their Authority to them to make them Obligatory on the Subjects Which is all that is imported by the word Lawful in the Act of Parliament the ordinary use whereof among Lawyers is A thing according to Law The â—…th Argument against the Validity of our Priestly Orders is That we have them from those that are not Bishops which carries him to the next Conclusion that our Bishops are not Bishops But before I follow him to that I must desire you would consider with how much disingenuity this Paper is framed that would impose on the easy Reader the belief of our first Reformers not being true Bishops when the Writer cannot but know that Arch Bishop Cranmer was a Bishop as truly Consecrated and Invested as any of the Roman Church were and was confirmed by the Pope who sent him the Pall and to satisfy you that they knew him to be such they degraded him with the usuall Ceremonies before his Martyrdom So that he being the Fountain of our Clergy that succeeded him and being truly Consecrated himself all those he Ordained are by the doctrine of the Church of Rome Bishops or Priests since Orders according to their Doctrine leave an Indelible Character which can never be taken away So that by their Principles no following sentence could deprive him of the power of Ordaining It is true there were many disorderly practices of some Popes in the latter Ages in annulling Orders and re-ordaining those ordained by others for Pope Urban the second appointed those who were ordained Simoniacally to be re-ordained And Stephen the 4th in a Synod Decreed that all the Ordinations his predecessor Pope Constantine had made were null and void because he from a Layman was chosen a Pope and though he passed through the Intermedial degrees of Priest and Deacon yet he stopt not so long in them as was appointy by the Canons and upon the same account it was also judged that Photius the Learned Patriarch of Constantinople who in six days went through all the Ecclesiastical Decrees from a Layman to a Patriarch had no power of Ordaining lawfully and all the Orders he gave were annulled by Pope Nicolaus And to mention no more the Orders given by Pope Formosus were annulled by his Successor Pope Stephen the 6th upon the pretence of some Crimes and Irregularities with which he was charged these practices as they gave great Scandal so they gave occasion to much disputing about the Legality and Canonicalness of these proceedings for the Canonists and Schoolmen being generally very ignorant and prepossessed with an opinion of the Popes Infallibility studied to flatter the Court of Rome all that was possible Yet on the other hand there was so much to be said against these proceedings that as appears by Petrus Damiani Auxilius and other Writers of that time there was great perplexity and many different Opinions about them But the ignorance and passion of those Ages appears evidently in this particular for there is nothing more manifest than that the Ancient Church was of another opinion and as in the debate between Pope Stephen and Saint Cyprian about the re-baptizing of Heretiques the constant opinion and practice of the following Ages was against re-baptizing such as were baptized by those Heretiques who retained the essentials of Baptism So by the same parity of reason and upon the same Arguments they held the Ordinations of Heretiques valid that retained the essentials of Ordination In the case of Heretiques we have these Instances Faelix was consecrated Bishop of Rome by the Arians in the room of Liberius whose banishment they had procured and yet he was acknowledged a righteous Pope and his Ordinations were accounted valid In the General Council of Ephesus the Priests of the Messalian Heresie were appointed to be received into the Church and continue Priests upon renouncing their Heresie The same was also granted to Nestorians Pelagians Eutychians Monothelites and divers other Heretiques as Morinus proves at length And at this day though the Greek Church is condemned by the Roman as Heretical in the point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost yet they are received according to their Orders into their Communion when they renounce their Heresie And their great Vasques says that all the Schoolmen and Summists agree that an heretical Excommunicate or suspended Bishop has still the power of giving Orders for which he cites many Schoolmen and he likewise proves that a Bishop after degradation retains the same power And the case of Schismaticks is no less clear for to wave the Decision of the Council of Nice which seems somewhat dubious in the case of the Novatian Ordinations we find frequently in St. Austins Treatises and Conferences with the Donatists that they offered to them if they would return to the Unity of the Church to receive them according to their Orders So that they did not think Schism did take away the power of giving Orders And in the case of that long and scandalous Schism of the Papacy for fifty years together when the one sat at Rome and the other at Avignon though beside their Schism Depositions Excommunications and Censures of all sorts passed on both sides by each of those Popes against the other and it must be confessed that one of them was the Schismatick and by consequence the Censures fell justly on him Yet both their Ordinations were held valid and when the matter was setled at the Council of Constance the Ordinations on no side were annulled or renewed And though Petrus de Lunay who was called Benedict the 13th refused to submit to them and lay down his pretensions as the others did yet when they gave sentence against him there is not a word in it of annulling Orders given by him From all which it follows that neither the pretence of Heresie Schism nor Censures will according to the practice either of the Primitive Church or of the Church of Rome even in these latter Ages be of any force to invalidate our Orders Which was well seen by Morinus and though he does not write upon this head with so much ingenuity as he does on other points yet he lays this down as a Maxim That all the Ordinations of a Heretiques and Schismatiques made according the forms of the Church and where the Heretiques that gave them were also rightly Ordained according to the forms of the Church are valid as to their Substance and are not to be repeated though they be unlawful and both he that gave and he that received them sinned grievously nor is it in any case lawful for a Catholick to receive Orders from Heretiques or Schismatiques Therefore in those Ordinations if all other things be done according to the form of the Church and only the Crime of Heresie be charged on the Orders given the substance of
the occasions of Cavilling is neither a change nor an annulling our former Orders Secondly The change of the Form of Consecration does not infer an annulling of Orders given another way for then all the Ordinations used in the Primitive Church are annulled by the Roman Church at this day since the forms of Ordination used by them now were not used in the former Ages and the Forms used in the former ages are not looked on by them now to be the Forms of Consecration but are only made parts of the Office and used as Collects or Anthems and yet here is a real change which by their own Principles cannot infer a nullity of Orders given before the Change made Thirdly If the addition of a few explanatory words invalidates former Orders then the adding many new Rites which were neither used by Christ nor his Apostles nor the Primitive nor Eastern Churches will much more invalidate former Orders especially when these are believed to be so essential as that they confer the power of consecrating Christ's Body and Blood and of offering Sacrifices and were for divers Ages universally looked on in that Church to be the Matter and Form of Orders as was already observed of the Rite of giving the Sacred Vessels with the words joyned to it which Pope Eugenius in express words calls the matter of Priestly Orders and the words joyned to them the Form in his Decree for the Armenians in the Council of Florence and even the Form he mentions is also altered now for the celebrating Masses are not in the Form he mentions but are now added to that part of the Office in the Roman Church Let the Pontifical be considered in the Ordination of Priests we find the Priestly Vestiments given both the Stole and the Casula then their hands are anointed then the Vessels of the Sacrament are delivered to them with words pronounced in every of those Rites besides many other lesser Rites that are in the Rubrick In the Consecration of a Bishop his head is Anointed then his hands then his Pastoral Staff is blessed and put in his hands next the Ring is blessed and put on his singer then the Gospels are put in his hands then the Mitre is blessed and put on his head next the Gloves are blessed and put on his hands and then they seâ—… him on his Throne Besides many lesser Rites to be seen in the Rubrick Now with what face can they pretend that our adding a few explanatory words can infer the annulling all Orders given before that addition when they have added so many material Ceremonies in which they place great significancy and vertue Is not this to swallow a Camel and to strain at a Gnat and to object to us a Mote in our eye when there is a Beam in their own eye Fourthly This Addition was indeed confirmed by the authority of Parliament and there was good reason to desire that to give it the force of a Law but the authority of these changes is wholly to be derived from the Convocation who only consulted about them and made them and the Parliament did take that care in the Enacting them that might shew they did only add the force of a Law to them for in passing them it was Ordered that the Book of Common-Prayer and Ordination should only be read over and even that was carried upon some debate for many as I have been told moved that the Book should be added to the Act as it was sent to the Parliament from the Convocation without ever reading it but that seemed indecent and too implicite to others and there was no change made in a Tittle by the Parliament So that they only Enacted by a Law what the Convocation had done As for what he adds that the Book of Ordination is not to found in every Edition of the Common-Prayer-Book with his gloss upon it that most think the Bishops for shame suppress it Really the Writer of this Paper must pardon me to say it seems he has no shame that can set down in writing such a disingenious Allegation Pray who are these most that think so Most in our Language stands for the greater part now how many can he find that agree with him in this Gloss I doubt very few for I am sure not all his own Party and not one of ours So that upon a Calculation those Most think will be found to be no more but himself and a very few ignorant persons on whom he has imposed this conceit Every body knows that when a Book is once printed by publick Authority and universally sold in the Shops those in Authority cannot out of shame study to suppress it But the use of the Book of Ordination not being so universal as are the other Offices of the Church the Stationers and Printers who do chiefly consider their Interest in the ready sale and vent of Books do not print so many of them as of the other there being at least 500 that use the Common-Prayer for one that needs the other and a Common-Prayer-Book without it will sell cheaper than with it therefore a great many Copies have it not This is not as Most think but as every body knows the true reason why in many Copies of the Common-Prayer-Book the Ordinal is wanting Let him name one Bishop that would not permit it to be dispersed abroad or let him be looked on as a bold and impudent Slanderer Thus far I have followed this Paper in the two first Conclusions and now I come to the Third which is That Protestant Ministers and Bishops have no power to Preach c. from Christ but only from the Parliament And this he proves because they have no more power than the first Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker had from whom all Jurisdiction was derived to the rest Now he had no power from Christ for first They that Consecrated him had no such Jurisdiction being no actual Bishops two of them were only Elect and not actual Bishops and a third only a quondam Bishop but had no actual Jurisdiction and a fourth was a Suffragan Bishop to Canterbury who had no Jurisdiction but what he had from the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury much less Authority to give him Jurisdiction over himself and all the other Bishops of the Land because none can give what he has not This I must confess is such a piece that no man can read it but he must conclude the Writer of it has no sort of Ecclesiastical Learning or else has very little Moral honesty I need not tell him that Matthew Parker was not the first Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury he knows Arch-Bishop Cranmer was both a Protestant and Arch-Bishop of Canterbury but this may be easily passed over there being more material Errors in this period And First Does he believe himself when he says that none can instal a Bishop in a Jurisdiction above himself Pray then who invests the Popes with their Jurisdiction Do not
had from Christ in such or such instances which command was just and good if the persons to be Ordained were so qualified as they ought to have been according to the Scriptures Sixthly Though the Command were unjust yet that cannot be imagined a sufficient ground to annul the Ordination for otherwise all the Ordinations appointed by the Anti-Popes of Avignon were null since done upon Mandates from a false Pope who had not power which will annul all the Ordinations of the Gallicane Church which did submit to these Popes And yet this cannot be admitted by the Church of Rome unless they also annul all the Eastern Bishops for the Patriarch of Constantinople is made by order from the Grand Signior and is upon that installed If this therefore invalidates our Ordinations it will do theirs much more except they will allow a greater power to the Turk than to the King So that this at most might prove the Church to be under an unjust violence but cannot infer an invalidating of Acts so done therefore if Matthew Parker was duely consecrated though it was done upon the Queens Mandate he was a true and lawful Bishop For let me suppose another case parallel to this if the Clergy should resolve they will no more administer the Sacraments upon the pretence perhaps of Interdicts Censures or some such thing And the Prince or State commands them to administer the Sacraments as was done by the Venetians in the time of the Interdict and by many Kings in the like cases can it be pretended that the Sacraments they administer upon such Commands are not the Sacraments of Christ but only of the King So in like manner Orders given upon the Kings Mandate by persons empowered to it by Christ and the Church are true Orders even though the Mandate for them were unjust tyrannical and illegal Seventhly Besides all that has been said it is to be considered that the power of choosing Bishops was in all Ages thought at most a mixed thing in which Laymen as well as Church-men had a share It is well enough known that for the first three Centuries the Elections were made by the people and the Bishops that came to assist in those Elections did confirm their Choice and Consecrate the person by them Elected Now whatever is a Right of the people they can by Law transfer it on another So in our case the people of this Realm having in Parliament annexed the power of choosing Bishops to the Crown by which their Right is now in the King's person Consecrations upon his Nomination must either be good and valid or all the Consecrations of the first ages of the Church shall likewise be annulled since he has now as good a Right to name the persons that are to be Consecrated as the people then had It is true the Tumults and other disscandal orders in those Elections brought great scandal on the Church and so they were taken away and Synodical Elections were set up but as the former Ordinations were good before these were set up so it cannot be said that these are indispensibly necessary otherwise there are no good Ordinations at at this day in the Church of Rome these being all now put down the Pope having among his other Usurpations taken that into his own hands Eighthly It is also known how much Christian Princes Emperors and Kings in all ages and places have medled in the Election of Bishops I need not tell how a Synod desired Valentinian to choose a Bishop at Millan when Saint Ambrose was chosen nor how Theodosius chose Nectarius to be Patriarch of Constantinople even when the second General Council was sitting Nor need I tell the Law Iustinian made that there should be Three presented to the Emperor in the Elections of the Patriarch and he should choose one of them These things are generally known and I need not insist on them It is true as there followed great confusions in the Greek Empire till it was quite over-run and destroyed so there was scarce any one thing in which there was more doing and undoing than in the Election of the Patriarchs the Emperors often did it by their own Authority Synodal Elections were also often set up at length the Emperors brought it to that that they delivered the Pastoral Staff to the Bishop by which he was invested in his Patriarchat but it was never pretended neither by the Latin Church nor by the contrary Factions in the Greek Church that Orders so given were Null And yet the Emperors giving the Investiture with his own hand is a far greater thing than our King 's granting a Mandate for Consecrating and investing them For proof of this about the Greek Church I refer it to Habert who has given a full Deduction of the Elections in that Church from the days of the Apostles to the last Age. For the Latin Church the Matter has been so oft examined that it is to no purpose to spend much time about it It is known and confessed by Platina that the Emperors Authority interveened when the Popes were created And Onuphrius tells that by a Decree of Vigilius the Custom had got in that the Elected Pope should not be Consecrated till the Emperor had confirmed it and had by his Letters Patents given the Elect Pope leave to be Ordained and that Licence was either granted by the Emperors themselves or by their Lieutenants or Exarchs at Ravenna And One and twenty Popes were thus Consecrated Pelagius the second only excepted who being chosen during the Siege of Rome did not stay for it but he sent Gregory afterwards Pope to excuse it to the Emperor who was offended with it it continued thus till the days of Constantine called Pogonatus who first remitted it to Benedict the second and the truth of it was the power of the Greek Emperors was then fallen so low in Italy that no wonder he parted with it But so soon as the Empire was again set up in the West by Charles the Great Pope Adrian with a Synod gave him the power of creating the Pope as is set down in the very Canon Law it self and of investing all other Arch-Bishops and Bishops and an Anathema was pronounced against any that should Consecrate a Bishop that was not named and invested by him This is likewise told by Platina out of Anastasius It is true though some Popes were thus chosen yet the weakness of Charles the Great 's Son and the divisions of his Children with the degeneracy of that whole Race served the ends of the growing power of the Papacy Yet Lewis laid it down not as an Usurpation but as a Right of which he devested himself but his Son Lothaire re-assumed it and did confirm divers Popes and Anastasius tells that they durst not Consecrate the Pope without the Imperial Authority and the thing was still kept up at least in a shadow till Hadrian the Third who appointed that the Emperors
Ancient of them was written till within those last Four hundred years so that he gives us a clear view of the Ordinations of seven succeeding Ages of the Western Church His Book is scarce to be had and therefore I shall draw out of it what relates to the Ordination of Priests and Bishops Only as he has Printed these Forms Strictly as the Manuscripts were written without altering some things that are manifestly the Faults of the Transcribers so I shall set them down exactly as He has published them with the Emendations on the Margin from other Manuscripts and adde a Translation of them in English But I shall begin with the three first Canons of the Fourth Council of Carthage in which we have the fullest and earliest Account of the Ordidinations of Bishops and Priests in the Latin Church and from the Simplicity of these and the many pompous Rites that are added in the latter Rituals the Reader will both perceive how the Spirit of Superstition grew from Age to Age and will be able to judge whether the Church of England or the Church of Rome comes nearest the most Primitive Forms These I set down according to the MSS. published by Morinus and Collationed on the Margin with a MSS. belonging to the Church of Salisbury that is judged to be six hundred year old and also with that Published by Labbée in the Tomes of the Councils Sacrarum Ordinationum Ritus Ex Concilio Carthaginensi quarto depromptus CANON I. QUI Episcopus Ordinandus est antea examinetur si natura sit prudens si docibilis si moribus temperatus si vita castâ—…s si sobrius si semper suis negotiis cavens si humilis si affabilis si misericors si literatus si in lege domini instructus si in scripturam sensibus caâ—…tus si in dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis exercitatus ante omnia si fidei documenta verbis simplicibus asserat id est Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum unum Deum esse confirmans totamque Trinitatis Deitatem coessentialem consubstantialem coaeternalem coomnipotentem praedicans si singularem quamque in Trinitate personam plenum deum totas tres personas Unum deum Si incarnationem divinam non in Patre neque in Spiritu Sancto factam sed in Filio tantum credat ut qui erat in Divinitate Dei Patris ipse fieret in homine hominis Matris filius Deus verus ex Patre homo verus ex Matre carnem ex matris visceribus habens animam humanam rationalem simâ—…l in eo ambae naturae id est Deus Homo una persona unus filius unus Christus unus Dominus Creator omnium quae sunt autor Dominus Rector cum Patre Spiritu Sancto omnium creaturaram Qui passus sit vera carnis Passione mortuus vera corporis sui morte resurrexit vera carnis suae resurrectinoe vera animae resumptione in qua veniet judicarâ—… vivos mortuos Quaerendum etiam ab eo si Novi Veteris Testamenti id est leges Prophetarum Apostolorum unum eundemque credat autorem evâ—…m Si Diabolus non per conditionem sed per Arbitrium sit malus Quaerendum etiam ab eo si credat hujus quam gestamus non alterius carnis resurrectionem Si credat judicium futurum recepturoâ—… singulos pro his quae in carne gesserunt vel poenas vel gloriam Si nuptias non improbat si secunda Matrimonia non damnet si carnium perâ—…eptionem non culpet si poenitentibus reconciliatis communicet si in Baptismo omnia peccata id est tam illud originale contractum quam illa quae voluntate admissa sunt dimittantur si extra Ecclesiam Catholicam nullus salvetur Cum in his omnibus examinatus inventus fuerit plene instructus tunc cum consensu Clericorum Laicorum conventu totius provinciae Episcoporum maximéque Metropolitani vel Authoritate vel praesentia ordinetur Episcopus Suscepto in Nomini Christi Episcopatu non suae delectationi nec suis motibus sed his Patrum definitionibus acquiescat In cujus Ordinatione etiam aetas requiritur quam Sancti Patres in praeeligendis Episcopis constituerunt Dehinc disponitur qualiter Ecclesiastica Officia Ordinantur CAN. II. EPiscopus cum Ordinatur duo Episcopi ponant teneant Evangeliorum Codicem supra Caput cervicem ejus uno super eum sundente benedictionem reliqui omnes Episcopi qui adsunt manibus suis caput ejus tangant CAN. III. PResbyter cum Ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenente etiam omnes Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius teneat In English thus CAN. I. LET Him that is to be Ordained a Bishop be first Examined if he be naturally prudent and teachable if in his Manners he be temperate if chast in his life if sober if he looks to his own Affairs be humble affable merciful and learned if he be instructed in the Law of the Lord and skilful in the sense of the Scriptures and acquainted with Ecclesiastical Doctrines and above all things if he assert the Articles of Faith in simple Words that is to say affirms that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God and teaches that the whole Deity of the Trinity is Coessential Consubstantial Coaeternal and Coomnipotent and that every Person of the Trinity is fully God and all the Three Persons are one God If He believes that the Holy Incarnation was neither of the Father nor the Holy Ghost but of the Son only that He who was the Son of God the Father by the Godhead becoming a Man was the Son of his Mother very God of His Father and very Man of His Mother who had Flesh of the Bowels of His Mother and a human reasonable Soul And both Natures God and Man were in Him one Person one Son one Christ one Lord the Creator of all things that are and the Author Lord and Governour of all Creatures with the Father and the Holy Ghost Who suffered a true Passion in His Flesh and was dead by a true death of His Body and rose again with a true Resurrection of His Flesh and a true Re-assumption of His Soul in which He shall come to judge the quick and the dead It must likewise be asked if He believes that one and the same God was the Author of the Old and New Testament of the Books of the Law the Prophets and the Apostles If the Devil be not wicked by his will and not by his Nature And if he believes the Resurrection of this Flesh which we now carry and not of any other and the Judgment to come and that every one shall receive either punishment
them thy Blessing and grace that being fitted by thy gift always to implore thy mercy they may be devout by thy Grace Through our Lord Iesus Christ. There follow some Collects that are called in the Rubrick Super Oblata which belong to the Office of the Communion and are Prayers for the Bishop and this is all in that Ritual that relates to the Ordination of a Bishop The Second Ritual in all things agrees with the former The Third Ritual begins that Office with the second Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage about the Consecration of Bishops then follow the Collects Oremus Adesto and Propitiare as in the first then the Prayer of Consecration Deus Honorum omnium And at the word Comple the Bishop takes the Chrism and at the words Hoc Domine he pours it on the head of the person to be Consecrated but all from Sinceritas Pacis to Tribuas ei Domine is left out then follow the Collects Super oblata there is no more in that Ritual For the Annointing of Bishops tho it was neither used in the Eastern nor African Churches yet both Pope Leo and Gregory the Great mention it as a Rite then received in the Roman Church Amalarius gives an accout of it but cites no ancienter Author for it than Beda for some other Authorities that are brought to prove the greater Antiquity of this Rite are either Allegorical or relate to the Chrism with which all were annointed at their Confirmation The Fourth Ritual has first the Questions that are put to the Bishop that is to be Ordained which has begun it seems from the time of the fourth Council of Carthage where by the first Canon the Bishop was to be examined both about his Faith and Manners I shall only set down two of these the one is Vis ea quae ex Divinis scripturis intelligis plebem cui Ordinandus es verbis docere exemplis Wilt thou both by the words and example instruct the people for whom thou art to be Ordained in those things which thou dost understand out of the Holy Scriptures To which he answers I will And this alone were there no more may serve to justify those Bishops who got Orders in the Church of Rome and afterwards received the Reformation since by the very Sponsions given in their Ordination they had engaged themselves to instruct their Flocks according to the Scriptures Another Question is Vis esse subditus huic nostrae Sedi atque Obediens Wilt thou be subject and obedient to this our See Which was no other than what every Metropolitan demanded of all the Bishops under him and yet this is all the obedience then promised to the Pope far different from the Oaths which were afterwards exacted But I go on to give an account of the rest of the Office according to this Ritual in the Rubrick the Second Canon of the fourth Council of Carthage is set down to which is added Hoc facto accipiat patinam cum Oblatis Calicem cum vino det ei dicens Accipe Potestatem offerre Sacrificium c. Which being done he shall take the Paten with the Hosties and the Chalice with the Wine and shall give him saying Receive Power to offer Sacrifice c. So that this was used in the Consecration of Bishops long before it was in the making of Priests then follow Oremus Adesto and Propitiare as they are before set down then two new Rites are set down the Rubrick is Ad Annulum dandum MEmor sponsionis desponsationis Ecclesiasticae Dilectionis domini Dei tui in die qua assecutus es hunc honorem cave ne obliviscaris illius Accipe ergo annulum discretionis honoris fidei signum ut quae signâ—…nda sunt signes Et quae aperienda sunt prodas Quae liganda sunt liges quae solvenda sunt solvas utque credentibus per fidem baptismatis lapsis autem sed poenitentibus per mysterium reconciliationis januas regni coelestis aperias Cunctis verò de thesauro dominico nova vetera proferas ut ad aeternam salutem omnibus consulas gratia Domini nostri Iesu Christi cui cum Patre Spiritu Sancto est honor gloria in saecula saeculorum Amen For giving the Ring BEing mindful of the sponsion and Ecclesiastical wedding and of the Love of the Lord God in the day in which thou hast attained this honour beware least thou forget it Receive therefore the Ring the Seal of discretion and of the honour of Faith that thon maist seal the things that are to be sealed and maist open the things that are to be opened and maist bind the things that are to be bound and maist loose the things that are to be loosed and maist open the Gates of the heavenly Kingdom to the believers by the Faith of Baptism and to those that have fallen but are Penitent by the mysterie of Reconciliation and that thou maist bring forth to all Men out of the treasure of the Lord things new and old and that thou maist take care of all their Eternal Salvation Through the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ to whom c. Ad Baculum dandum ACcipe Baculum sacri Regiminis signum ut imbecilles consolides titubantes confirmes praves corrigas in viam salutis aeternae habeasque potestatem aâ—…trahendi dignos corrigendi indignos cooperante Domino nostro Iesu Christo cui cum patre in unitate Spiritus Sancti est virtus imperium per omnia saecula saeculorum Amen For giving the Staff REceive the Staff the sign of the sacred Government that thou maist strengthen the weak confirme them that stagger correct the wicked in the way of Eternal salvation and may have power to attract the worthy and correct the unworthy through the assistance of our Lord Iesus Christ to whom c. Then follows the Prayer of Consecration and at the words Hoc Domine the Rubrick appoints the Chrism to be put on his head and what is left out in the former Ritual is also left out in this after that Prayer follows the Collect Super Oblata and there is no more in that Ritual For these rites of the Ring and Staff the first I find that mentions them is â—…dore who both speaks of them and 〈◊〉 sets down some of the words used in the former Ritual Yet Alcuinus speaks not a word of it tho he entitles his Chapâ—…er The manner in which a Bishop is Ordained in the Roman Church But iâ—… seems he has only lookt on some more Antient Rituals in which there was no such Rite for it is most certain that it was used in his time Amalarius tho he does at a great length insist on the annointing of the Bishop yet speaks not a word of the Staff or Ring But Rabanus Maurus who lived in that time does mention it or rather sets down Isidores words without citing
Collects Adesto and Propitiare and the prayer of Consecration with the Collects Super Oblata And on the Margin the giving of the Ring and Staff is set down but with a very different and much later hand The Eleventh Ritual begins with some rites that are not in the Roman Pontifical tho by it all is to be done in the Popes name by a Bishop Commissioned by him called Dominus Apostolicus or perhaps the Pope himself that being the common way of designing the Pope in those Ages the Dean or Arch-presbyter and the Clergy of the See ask the Pope or his Delegate their Blessing three times then they are asked some questions about the Elect Bishop among which those are considerable It is asked if he be of that Church to which it is answered Yes Then what Function he is of Answ. Of the Priestly Quest. How many years has he been a Priest Ans. Ten. Quest. Was he ever Married Answer Not. After these Questions are put then the Decree of Electing him which is addressed to the Pope is read by which they desire he may be Ordained their Bishop This must be signed by them all Then it is asked if any Simoniacal promises be made they answer No. Then the Bishop Elect is brought to the Popes Delegate who first puts the same Questions to him that were before put to the Dean and he answers them in the same manner Then the Introitus is sung after which follows the Collect Adesto then the Questions that are in the Pontifical are put to him and whereas in the former Rituals there was only a general promise of Obedience to the Metropolitan put to the Elect Bishop instead of that the two following Questions are put to him Wilt thou reverently Receive Teach and Keep the Traditions of the Orthodox Fathers and the Decretal Constitutions of the Holy and Apostolick See Answer I will Wilt thou bear Faith and Subjection to St. Peter to whom the Lord gave the Power of binding and loosing and to his Vicars and Successors Answer I will But these words not being thought full enough they have since added to Faith and Subjection and Obedience in all things according to the Authority of the Canons then the Elect Bishop is examined about his Faith the Questions being taken out of the three Creeds After which he is blessed and cloathed with the Episcopal Vestments and the Epistle is read 1 Tim. 3. Cap. Then his Sandals and Gloves are put on with Prayers at each of these Rites then the Bishops laying the Gospels on his head and shoulders and their hands on his head the Ordainer says the Collects Adesto Oremus and Propitiare then follows the Prayer that in former Rituals is called the Consecration but has no such Rubrick here it has all that is in the first Ritual only after the words Coelestis Unguenti Flore Sanctifica the Rite of Annointing the head with the words joyned to it in the Sixth Ritual is inserted after which follows the rest of that Prayer Next the hands are annointed and words somewhat different from those in the Sixth Ritual are pronounced Then follows a new Rite of putting the Chrism on his Thumb with a Blessing joyned to it then the Ring is blessed and given and so is also the Staff then the Kiss of Peace is given and he is set down among the Bishops and the Ordainer sits down and washes his hands and puts Incense in the Censer and gives the Blessing then follows the Service of the Communion To this Ritual Morinus had added an ancient piece of a Ritual which he found in a MSS. at Tholose about the Election Examination and Ordination of Bishops in the Roman Church which in all things agrees with the former except in an Addition which is also mentioned by Alcuinus I shall set it down in Latin without a Translation which in modesty I ought not to give By it the Reader will see what the Roman Church gained by pressing the Celibate of the Clergy so much since they were suspected of such horrid Crimes and were to be tryed about them The words are Inquirat illum de quatuor Capitulis secundum Canones id est de Arsenoquita quod est Coitus cum Masculo pro Ancilla Deo sacrata quae à Francis Nonna dicitur pro quadrupedibus muliere alio viro conjuncta aut si conjugem habuit ex alio viro quae à Graecis dicitur Deuterogamia dum nihil eorum ipse vir conscius suerit Evangeliis ad medium deductis jurat ipse Electus Archidiacono posthaec traditur Subdiacono pergit cum praesato Electo ad Aulam Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae ibique supra ejus sacratissimum Corpus confirmet quod non cognovisset superius nominata capitula And thus if they were free of these Crimes which are not to be named no other act of uncleanness was to be inquired after or stood upon only the Pharisaical Spirit of that Age is to be observed in that they reckon a Church-mans having been married to another mans wife which is forbidden by no Law of God or Nature in the same Predicament with those Abominations which God punished with Fire and Brimstone from Heaven The Twelfth and Thirteenth Rituals have not the office of Consecrating Bishops in them The Fourteenth Ritual begins with the Decree of Election directed to the Metropolitan without that previous examination that is in the Eleventh then follows the examination of the Faith and manners of the Bishop Elect then the people pray he may be Ordained after which two Bishops begin the Litany this is in no ancienter Ritual then the Hymn Veni Creator is begun which is also new being in no other Ritual after which they lay the Gospels on his head and lay on their hands and the Metropolitan says the Collect Oremus then follows the Propitiare which is called the Benediction then follows the Prayer Deus honorum after which there is another long Prayer that is in no other Ritual for a blessing in the Function to which he is Ordained then follows the blessing of the Sevenfold Grace then the Consecration of the Bishops hands with the Oyl and the Chrism then the Chrism is put on his head as the Oyl was by other Rituals put on his head in the midst of the Prayer Deus honorum omnium then follows a new Rite of putting the Miter on his head but no words are pronounced with it then the Ring is blessed and given so also is the Staff blessed and given then there is a Prayer about the putting him in his Chair after which he is put in his Chair and a new Prayer is used and all ends with the Blessing that is at the end of the Sixth Ritual The Fifteenth Ritual has no considerable variation from the former only in the beginning the Bishop that presents the Bishop Elect says Reverende Pater postulat sancta Mater Ecclesia ut hunc praesentem