The English Nonconformity Under King Charles II and James II, Chapter 5
CHAP. V. I. Of Re-Ordination.
L.
YOV have named a great number: But I doubt whether all these are imposed, and in many of them I see no harm.
M.
I told you that if any one of them (imposed) be sinful, Nonconformity is a duty, which all the Ministers in England were bound to.
L.
What sin can you find in Re-Ordination?
M.
I must first state the Controversie before I argue it.
1. The word [Ordination] may signifie either the first Dedication and Ordination to the Ministerial Office as such, by which a man is separated from the Laity to Gods Ministry: Or else, a Mission on some particular Ministerial work, as Paul and Barnabas were sent abroad, Acts 11. Or a Minister may be sent to America, &c. Or else a fixed appointment to some one particular Church or Flock, which is done here by Presentation, Institution and Induction. It is neither of the two last that we speak against. They may be often done: But its only the first.
2. The word [Ordination] may signifie; 1. That Moral action by which a man is made a Minister of Christ, which is, his solemn Contract with Christ, exprest by his Consent, and by the Ordainers investing action: This is it which we mean in the Controversie, which may not be done twice. 2. Or it may signifie the meer words of the Ordainers and Ordained, which make up the said Moral action. We deny not but the same words repeated may make up one Moral Ordination: If the Bishop by tautology repeat them twice or thrice: Or if they should to satisfie men of divers Languages that are present, be first spoken in English, and after in French, or when some that doubted require it, should go over them again; all this is but one Ordination.
L.
How prove you that our Bishops intend any more, when they say, it is only to satisfie the Law, that you may be capable in England.
M.
1. That it is not a meer relation to some particular cure that they mean, is undenyable: 1. Because they call that by the name of Institution and Induction, and not of Ordination. 2. Because they never ordain any over and over upon removals. 3. Because the words of Ordination in the Book tell it us.
2. That they do it not as a Repetition of the same valid Ordination is past doubt. 1. Because the same repeated by the same men will not serve. 2. It is to be done, again ten or twenty years after the first. 3. He is to be fined in an hundred pound that administreth the Sacrament without it. 4. He is taken for no true Minister without it, which cannot be true of a bare repetition of words: No reasonable men would lay so much on that.
3. It is undeniable that they take men for unordained, and no Ministers till they ordain them: 1. Because they all disown reordaining; they know that the Canons called the Apostles, and the whole antient and later Church condemn it as like Anabaptistry; and no one Bishop in England will not renounce it: Therefore its certain that they take the first Ordination for null. 2. And they have so declared their judgment in many words and writings, and in the Act of Uniformity, it is plainly intimated in the penalty.
L.
And what harm is there in being twice Ordained?
M.
1. Ad hominem I need not dispute it? All the Bishops disclaim it as unlawfull, so that we have their confession.
2. It is the same fault as Anabaptistry. If they be blameless why make you such a noise against the Anabaptists. To be twice made a Christian, and twice made a Minister is of the like kind.
3. It is something causelesly to cast our selves under the Censure of all the Church that hath been against it, and to be condemned by them.
4. It is a plain prophanation of God's holy name, and of a great and holy Ordinance, by Lying and taking God…s name in vain. For they are said to be now admitted to the Office, and this day to receive it, and God is told that they are now called to it. And all their Examinations and Answers imply that they were no Ministers before, and the Bishop saith [Receive the Holy Ghost, for the Office and work of a Priest now committed to thee by the Imposition of our hands] which all imply it not done before. And in so sacred a contract with God, to lie to him, and prophanely abuse his name, and the holy Ghosts, and the Duty of Prayer and Praise, is tremendous. Be not deceived God is not mocked.
5. It is a confederacy with Corrupters and Usurpers, that arrogate and appropriate valid Ordination to themselves, and a confirming all their injury to posterity, that all that shall hereafter imitate them may be encouraged, by alledging our Re ordination.
6. It is a hainous injury to all the other Reformed Churches as if we degraded their Ministers and separated from them all as no Churches. For one part of them have no Diocesans, and the rest have Bishops, that at the Reformation were Ordained by Presbyters.
7. It is contrary to one of the Articles of our Religion, 23. These we ought to judge them lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work, by men, who have publick authority given to them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers, &c. But in other Countries, Presbyters have publick authority, given them. And Art. 36. The book of Consecration doth contain all things necessary to such consecration and Ordaining. But it hath nothing for Re-ordaining those before Ordained.
8. It is a plain condemnation of the Church of England, which hath professed Communion with the Reformed abroad, as with true Ministers and Churches of Christ. And we are now told that to communicate with Schismaticks induceth the guilt of Schism.
9. It introduceth Anabaptistry, or utter confusion into the Nation, leaving men in doubt whether for fourteen years the people had any true Baptism (while it's a controversie whether Lay-mens Baptizing be valid, and Mr. Dodwell maketh all men to be out of any Covenant-title to Salvation that have not the Sacraments from a Minister that hath successive Episcopal Ordination) And all Christians must question whether they have not so long here lived out of the Church of Christ, without Ministery and Communion.
Do you think that none of these nine Reasons prove Reordination sinful.
L.
But because the Bishops deny it, let me hear your proof that the former Ordination here by Presbyters is not a nullity.
M.
I. Ad hominem, the Church of England hath, as I said, judged the like valid in the Reformed Churches, by holding Communion with them. I cited a great number of Bishops and Doctors in my Christian Concord.
L.
But they say that necessity differeth their case from ours here; And even Doctour Sherlock tells you that if God make necessity; necessity will make Ministers: But ours Schismatically pull'd down the Bishops and now disown the very Order.
M.
There is a satisfactory concession in these words, but the accusations are made up of falsehood and deceit.
1. Archbishop Vsher and others that thought the Ejectors of Episcopacy were guilty of Schism, yet maintained that their Ordination was valid: He told me how he pleaded it to the King.
2. Do they think that Salmasius, Blundel and all others that have written more against our Prelacy than the English, were deprived of it against their wills by necessity.
3. What necessity can they pretend to the Hollanders, Helvetians, Geneva, Embden, Bremen, the Palatinate, and Scotland heretofore? might they not have had Prelates when they would.
4. Was not the necessity far more notorious to those that I now plead for. They lived in a Land where Episcopacy was cast out, and kept out by a potent Army. I think there were but four or five Bishops alive when it was restored.
5. It is false that they cast out the Bishops. Those Ministers that joyned with the Parliament to cast them out, were Ordained by Bishops, and therefore are none of the men that we are speaking of: These that were Ordained by Presbyters were then young men at School, or in the Universities. And what are other mens actions to them?
L.
But they are of the same mind and party.
M.
Are you a Lawyer, and do you accuse men in the Temple without naming them, and bringing proof of their guilt. Noxa caput sequitur, should all the Clergy be called guilty if Sibthorp, or Manwaring, or Heylin were proved so? what error you accuse them of, prove and punish them for no other.
6. But I prove that the Bishops themselves made other Ordination necessary. Because they would Ordain none without sinful subscriptions and conditions, which must not be yielded to: If you can prove the terms lawful on which they Ordain, I shall trie your skil anon.
II. I farther prove the Ordination in question valid, thus, Where there is a true notification of God's will that this person shall be a Minister of the Gospel, there is no want of validity in his Ordination; But those here ordained by Presbyters might have such a true notification of God's will—Ergo, The major is plain; Because God's will and Man's consent are the fundamentum of the Relation; therefore nothing can be wanting to it's being and validity.
The Minor is proved. Those men that have laudable ability, and willingness, and the consent of a people in true necessity, and the approbation of a National Assembly of Learned Divines (of which many Bishops were called to be members) and the investing Ordination of the gravest Senior Pastors, that were then to be had, had a true notification of God's will that they should be his Ministers. But such were these in question. Ergo.
III. The way of ordination, which was valid in the Primitive Church is now valid.—But such is that in question. Ergo.
As to the Minor; The Ordination of such Pastors as were but the Rectors of single Congregations, was it that was valid in the Primitive Church. But such is that in question.
Doctor Hammond labours to prove that in Scripture time there were no other Bishops or Presbyters but the single Pastors of single Assemblies: Mr. Clerkson hath fully proved, and I more fully in my Treatise of Episcopacy, that for a hundred and fifty years, if not much more, there were no particular Churches bigger than our Parishes. A Bishop then was but the chief Parish, or Congregational Pastor, who guided it with his Assistance. And such are all our Incumbents (especially in great Towns) who have Chapels and Curates and Lecturers to assist them. And Grotius de Imper. sum. Pot. sheweth that really the chief Pastor of a Church is a Bishop, whatever they call him. But I have so largely proved in my Treatise of Episcopacy, pag. 231, 232, &c. that our questioned Ordainers were scripture Bishops, and that those now called Presbyters Ordained long after, that I must not repeat the same things here again.
IV. Those that are in Orders may confer Orders: Ordinis est Ordinare, as Vsher was wont to say; As Physicians make Physicians, and Philosophers make Philosophers, and Gene…ation propagateth the Species: And our Church consenteth to this. 1. In that Presbyters must concur in Ordination by Imposition of hands, which is an act of authority and collation. 2. In that the Convocation hath a greater power, even Canon making; and that Convocation consisteth half and more of Presbyters, and the Canons Excommunicateth all that deny it to be the represensative Church of England.
But Presbyters have the power of Order (as Bishop Carlton de Iurisdict. proveth it commonly acknowledged) equal with Bishops. pag. 7. And the Church of England in King Aelfrik's time (ad Wolf. in Spelman, pag. 576. l. 17.) Affirm that Bishops and Presbyters are but one Order.
V. Those may ordain validly whose Ordination is more warrantable than that of Roman Bishops (for our Bishops own theirs as valid and ordain them not again when they turn Protestants): But the Presbyters that Ordained here fourteen years, did it more warrantably than the Roman Bishops. Ergo,
1. The Papists Ordain men to a false Office; to be Mass-Priests: But the said Pastors ordained none but to the same office that Christ instituted.
2. The Papists have their power of Ordination from the Pope, whose own power and office in Specie is a false Usurpation: But it is not so here, where the ordaining Pastors were lawfully called.
3. Papists Ordination enters them into a false Church in Specie (a pretended catholick Church headed by the Pope); but our Pastors entered them into no Church but Christs.
4. Papists make them take sinful Oaths and Conditions before they Ordain them. But these Pastors (at least that imposed not the Covenant) did not.
If yet any will nullifie the Reformed Churches and Ministry and their Ordination, and not the Papists, we may understand what their Mind and Communion is.
VI. That Ordination is valid which is less culpable, than many Diocesans: But such is that in question. Ergo,
To the proof of the Minor (which only needs proof here).
1. Some Diocesans here have been Papists (as Godfrey Goodman of Gloucester) and divers have pleaded for and owned a Forreign Iurisdiction, which the Oath of Supremacy abjureth.
2. I have fully proved in the said Treatise of Episcopacy that the Office of Pastors of single Churches is more warrantable than our Diocesans who are the sole Bishops of many score or hundred Churches.
3. The said Presbyters (at least who medled not with the Covenant) imposed no unlawful condition on the Ordained, as too many Bishops have done.
4. Many Bishops plead the derivation of their power from Rome: And what theirs is I shewed before.
But because I must not write a Treatise on this one question, you may read it done copiously and unanswerably by Voetius against Comel. Iansenius de desperata Causa Papatus.
Yet I add one difference more. The Ordainers and Ordained in question, had the consent of the Flocks and neighbour Ministers; but the said Bishops come in by the Magistrate without the consent or knowledge of the Flocks, and so do the Ministers usually whom they Ordain. And what the ancient Church thought of this, abundance of Canons shew. I'le now cite but one, Concil. Nic. 2. Can. 3. Omnem Electionem quae fit a Magistratibus, Episcopi Presbyteri vel Diaconi irritam manere ex canone dicente, siquis Episcopus secularibus Magistratibus usus, per eos Ecclesiam obtinuerit, deponatur & segregetur, & omnes qui cum eo Communicant. Oportet enim eum qui est promovendus ad Episcopatum ab Episcopis eligi, quemadmodum a sanctis patribus Nicaenis decretum est in Can. qui dicit [Episcopum oportet maxime quidem ab omnibus qui sunt in provincia constitui. And many Councils nullifie their Episcopacy that come not in by the election or consent of Clergy and People, which ad hominem is somewhat to them that urge such Councils against us.
L.
I confess your reasons seem unanswerable, at least as to the case of necessity, which I am convinced was the case of those that were ordained when there were no Bishops to whom they could have access, or no place in the Ministry without Presbyters Ordination, and who then durst not be twice Ordained: And for Churchmen that must be strictly Religious to suffer on such terms I cannot speak against. But we secular men think these too little things to suffer for.
M.
If your consciences can call such prophanation of Gods Name, such condemnation of Protestant Churches, such strengthening the hands of—a little thing, they shall be no measure for our consciences: For we believe that we must die, and that there is a God and a righteous final Judgment.