power of confirmation to bishops is not done by the Spirit of God, and then let the sense of the words be what they will, they can do no hurt to the cause; and as easily may we escape from those words of his, to Rusticus, bishop of Narbona: "Sed quia scriptum est, presbyteri duplici honore honorentur; prædicare eos decet, utile est benedicere, congruum confirmare," &c. It is quoted by Gratian, dist. 95. can. 'Ecce Ego.' But the gloss upon the place expounds him thus, i. e. in fide,' the presbyters may preach, they may confirm their auditors, not by consignation of chrism, but by confirmation of faith;' and for this quotes a parallel place for the use of the word 'confirmare,' by authority of St. Gregory, who sent Zachary, his legate, into Germany, from the see of Rome, "Ut orthodoxos episcopos, presbyteros, vel quoscunque reperire potuisset in verbo exhortationis perfectos, ampliùs confirmaret." Certainly St. Gregory did not intend that his legate, Zachary, should confirm bishops and priests in any other sense but this of St. Jerome in the present, to wit, in faith and doctrine, not in rite and mystery; and neither could St. Jerome himself intend, that presbyters should do it at all but in this sense of St. Gregory; for else he becomes an antistrephon, and his own opposite.

Yea, but there is a worse matter than this. St. Ambrose tells of the Egyptian priests, that they, in the absence of the bishop, do confirm.' Denique apud Ægyptum presbyteri consignant, si præsens non sit episcopus t." But,

1. The passage is suspicious, for it interrupts a discourse of St. Ambrose concerning the primitive order of election to the bishoprick, and is no way pertinent to the discourse, but is encircled with a story of a far different consequence, which is not easily thought to have been done by any considering and intelligent author.

2. But suppose the clause be not surreptitious, but natural to the discourse, and born with it, yet it is matter of fact, not of right; for St. Ambrose neither approves nor disproves it, and so it must go for a singular act against the catholic. practice and laws of Christendom.

3. If the whole clause be not surreptitious, yet the word 'consignant' is; for St. Austin, who hath the same * In Ephes. iv.

Caus. 11. q. 3. can. Quod Prædecessor.

discourse of the same thing, viz. of the dignity of presbyters, tells this story of the act and honour of presbyters in Alexandria and all Egypt, almost in the other words of his master, St. Ambrose; but he tells it thus: "Nam et in Alexandriâ et per totam Ægyptum si desit episcopus, consecrat presbyter "." So that it should not be consignat,' but consecrat;' for no story tells of any confirmations done in Egypt by presbyters, but of consecrating the eucharist in cases of episcopal absence or commission. I shall give account, in the question of jurisdiction, that that was indeed permitted in Egypt, and some other places, but confirmation never, that we can find elsewhere; and this is too improbable to bear weight against evidence and practice apostolical, and four councils, and sixteen ancient catholic fathers, testifying that it was a practice and a law of Christendom, that bishops only should confirm, and not priests; so that if there be no other scruple, this question is quickly at an end.

But St. Gregory is also pretended in objection; for he gave dispensation to the priests of Sardinia, "ut baptizatos unguant," "to aneal baptized people." Now anointing the forehead of the baptized person was one of the solemnities of confirmation, so that this indulgence does arise to a power of confirming; for unctio' and chrismatio,' in the first Arausican council, and since that time sacramentum chrismatis,' hath been the usual word for confirmation. But this

will not much trouble the business.

Because it is evident that he means it not of confirmation, but of the chrism in those times, by the rites of the church used in baptism. For, in his ninth epistle, he forbids priests to anoint baptized people; now here is precept against precept; therefore, it must be understood of several anointings, and so St. Gregory expounds himself in this ninth epistle: "Presbyteri baptizatos infantes signare bis in fronte chrismate non præsumant:" "Presbyters may not anoint baptized people twice," once they might; now that this permission of anointing was that which was a ceremony of baptism, not an act of confirmation,-we shall see by comparing it with other canons. In the collection of the Oriental canons, by Martinus Bracarensis, it is decreed thus:

* Quæst. 101. Vet. et N. Testam. Basileæ. * Lib. iii. Epist. 26.

"

Presbyter, præsente episcopo, non signet infantes, nisi forte ab episcopo fuerit illi præceptum":" "A priest must not sign infants without leave of the bishop, if he be present."'Must not sign them;' that is, with chrism in their foreheads, and that in baptism; for the circumstant canons do expressly explicate and determine it; for they are concerning the rites of baptism, and this in the midst of them. And by the way, this may answer St. Ambrose's' presbyteri consignant, absente episcopo,' in case it be so to be read; for here we see a consignation permitted to the presbyters in the Eastern churches to be used in baptism, in the absence of the bishop, and this an act of indulgence and favour, and, therefore, extraordinary, and of use to St. Ambrose's purpose of advancing the presbyters, but yet of no objection in case of confirmation. And indeed consignari' is used in antiquity for any signing with the cross, and anealing. Thus it is used in the first Arausican council for extreme unction", which is there, in case of extreme necessity, permitted to presbyters: "Hæreticos in mortis discrimine positos, si catholici esse desiderent, si desit episcopus, à presbyteris cum chrismate et benedictione consignari placet." Consigned' is the word, and it was clearly in extreme unction; for that rite was not then ceased, and it was in anealing a dying body, and a part of reconciliation, and so limited by the sequent canon, and not to be fancied of any other consignation.-But I return. The first council of Toledo prohibits any from making chrism but bishops only 2, and takes order, "ut de singulis ecclesiis ad episcopum, ante diem paschæ, diaconi destinentur, ut confectum chrisma ab episcopo destinatum ad diem paschæ possit occurrere:" "that the chrism be fetched by the deacons from the bishop, to be used in all churches." But for what use? Why, it was ' destinatum ad diem paschæ,' says the canon, against the holy time of easter;' and then, at easter, was the solemnity of public baptisms, so that it was to be used in baptism. And this sense being premised, the canon permits to presbyters to sign with chrism, the same thing that St. Gregory did to the priests of Sardinia. "Statutum verò est, diaconum non chrismare, sed presby

y Can. 52.

6

terum, absente episcopo; præsente verò, si ab ipso fuerit præceptum." Now although this be evident enough, yet it is something clearer in the first Arausican council : " Nullus ministrorum, qui baptizandi recipit officium, sine chrismate usquam debet progredi, quia inter nos placuit semel in baptismate chrismari." The case is evident, that chrismation or consigning with ointment was used in baptism; and it is as evident that this chrismation was it which St. Gregory permitted to the presbyters; not the other, for he expressly forbade the other; and the exigence of the canons, and practice of the church, expound it so; and it is the same which St. Innocent the First decreed in more express and distinctive terms: "Presbyteris chrismate baptizatos ungere licet, sed quod ab episcopo fuerit consecratum;" there is a clear permission of consigning with chrism in baptism; but he subjoins a prohibition to priests, for doing it in confirmation: "Non tamen frontem eodem oleo signare, quod solis debetur episcopis, cùm tradunt Spiritum Sanctum Paracletum."

By the way; some, that they might the more clearly determine St. Gregory's dispensation to be only in baptismal chrism, read it, Ut baptizandos ungant,' not ' baptizatos;' so Gratian, so St. Thomas; but it is needless to be troubled with that; for Innocentius, in the decretal now quoted, useth the word baptizatos,' and yet clearly distinguishes this power from the giving the chrism in confirmation.

I know no other objection, and these, we see, hinder not, but that having such evidence of fact in Scripture, of confirmations done only by apostles, and this evidence urged by the fathers for the practice of the church, and the power of confirmation, by many councils and fathers, appropriated to bishops, and denied to presbyters, and in this they are not only doctors, teaching their own opinion, but witnesses of a catholic practice, and do actually attest it as done by a catholic consent; and no one example, in all antiquity, ever produced of any priest, that did, no law that a priest might, impose hands for confirmation;-we may conclude it to be a power apostolical in the original, episcopal in the succession,

b Can. 1.

* Epist. 1. ad Decent. c 3.

and that, in this power, the order of a bishop is higher than that of a presbyter, and so declared by this instance of catholic practice.

SECTION XXXIV.

And Jurisdiction. Which they expressed in Attributes of Authority and great Power.

THUS far I hope we are right. But I call to mind, that in the nosotrophium of the old philosopher, that undertook to cure all calentures by bathing his patients in water; some were up to the chin, some to the middle, some to the knees; so it is amongst the enemies of the sacred order of episcopacy; some endure not the name, and they, indeed, deserve to be over head and ears; some will have them all one in office with presbyters, as at first they were in name; and they had need bathe up to the chin; but some stand shallower, and grant a little distinction, a precedency perhaps for order's sake, but no pre-eminence in reglement, no superiority of jurisdiction: others by all means would be thought to be quite through in behalf of bishops' order and power, such as it is, but call for a reduction to the primitive state, and would have all bishops like the primitive; but because by this means they think to impair their power, they may well endure to be up to the ancles; their error indeed is less, and their pretence fairer, but the use they make of it, of very ill consequence. But curing the mistake will quickly cure this distemper. That then shall be the present issue, that in the primitive church bishops had more power, and greater exercise of absolute jurisdiction, than now men will endure to be granted, or than themselves are very forward to challenge.

1. Then the primitive church expressing the calling and offices of a bishop, did it in terms of presidency and authority. Episcopus typum Dei Patris omnium gerit," saith St. Ignatius: "the bishop carries the representment of God the Father," that is, in power and authority to be sure, (for

a Epist. ad Trall.