our endeavours of acquiring one; and where God means to found a church, there he will supply them with those means and ministries, which himself hath made of ordinary and absolute necessity. And, therefore, if it happens that those bishops, which are of ordinary ministration amongst us, prove heretical, still God's church is catholic; and though with trouble, yet orthodox bishops may be acquired. For just so it happened when Mauvia, queen of the Saracens, was so earnest to have Moses, the hermit, made the bishop of her nation, and offered peace to the catholics upon that condition; Lucius, an Arian, troubled the affair by his interposing and offering to ordain Moses: the hermit discovered his vileness," et ita majore decore deformatus, compulsus est acquiesceref." Moses refused to be ordained by him that was an Arian. So did the reformed churches refuse ordinations by the bishops of the Roman communion. But what then might they have done? Even the same that Moses did in that necessity: "Compulsus est ab episcopis, quos in exilium truserat (Lucius), sacerdotium sumere." Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England, or the Lutheran churches, if, at least, they thought our churches catholic and Christian. If an ordinary necessity will not excuse this, will not an extraordinary calling justify it? yea, most certainly, could we but see an ordinary proof for an extraordinary calling, viz. an evident prophecy, demonstration of miracles, certainty of reason, clarity of sense, or any thing that might make faith of an extraordinary mission. But shall we then condemn those few of the reformed churches, whose ordinations always have been without bishops? No indeed: that must not be: they stand or fall to their own master. And though I cannot justify their ordinations, yet what degree their necessity is of, what their desire of episcopal ordinations may do for their personal excuse, and how far a good life and a catholic belief may lead a man in the way to heaven, although the forms of external communion be not observed, I cannot determine. For aught I know, their condition is the same with that of the church of Pergamus: "I know thy works, and where VOL. VII. f Eccles. Hist. lib. xi. c. 6. per Ruffinum. M thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is; and thou heldest fast my faith, and hast not denied my name:" "Nihilominus habeo adversus te pauca ;"" some few things I have against thee;" and yet of them, the want of canonical ordinations is a defect, which, I trust, themselves desire to be remedied; but if it cannot be done, their sin indeed is the less, but their misery the greater. I am sure I have said sooth, but whether or no it will be thought so, I cannot tell; and yet why it may not, I cannot guess, unless they only be impeccable; which, I suppose, will not so easily be thought of them, who themselves think, that all the church possibly may fail. But this I would not have declared so freely, had not the necessity of our own churches required it, and the first pretence of the legality and validity of their ordinations been buoyed up to the height of an absolute necessity; for else why shall it be called tyranny in us, to call on them to conform to us, and to the practice of the catholic church, and yet in them be called a good and a holy zeal to exact our conformity to them; but I hope it will so happen to us, that it will be verified here, what was once said of the catholics, under the fury of Justina: "Sed tanta fuit perseverantia fidelium populorum, ut animas prius amittere, quàm episcopum mallent;" if it were put to our choice, rather to die, (to wit, the death of martyrs, not rebels,) than lose the sacred order and offices of episcopacy, without which no priest, no ordination, no consecration of the sacrament, no absolution, no rite, or sacrament, legitimately can be performed, in order to eternity. The sum is this. If the canons and sanctions apostolical; if the decrees of eight famous councils in Christendom, of Ancyra, of Antioch, of Sardis, of Alexandria, two of Constantinople, the Arausican council, and that of Hispalis; if the constant successive acts of the famous martyr-bishops of Rome making ordinations; if the testimony of the whole pontifical book; if the dogmatical resolution of so many fathers, St. Denis, St. Cornelius, St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, St. Epiphanius, St. Austin, and divers others, all appropriating ordinations to the bishop's hand; if the constant voice of Christendom, declar ng ordination made by presbyters to be null and void in the nature of the thing; and never any act of ordination by a non-bishop approved by any council, decretal, or single suffrage of any famous man in Christendom; if that ordination of bishops were always made, and they ever done by bishops, and no pretence of priests joining with them in their consecrations, and after all this it was declared heresy to communicate the power of giving orders to presbyters, either alone or in conjunction with bishops, as it was in the case of Aerius; if all this, that is, if whatsoever can be imagined, be sufficient to make faith in this particular, then it is evident that the power and order of bishops is greater than the power and order of presbyters, to wit, in this great particular of ordination, and that by this loud voice and united vote of Christendom. SECTION XXXIII. And Confirmation. BUT this was but the first part of the power, which catholic antiquity affixed to the order of episcopacy. The next is of confirmation of baptized people. And here the rule was this, which was thus expressed by Damascen: "Apostolorum et successorum eorum est, per manûs impositionem donum Spiritûs Sancti tradere:" "It belongs to the apostles and their successors, to give the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands"." But see this in particular instance. The council of Eliberis, giving permission to faithful people of the laity to baptize catechumens in the cases of necessity, and exigence of journey: "Ita tamen ut si supervixerit baptizatus, ad episcopum eum perducat, ut per manûs impositionem proficere possit:" "Let him be carried to the bishop, to be improved by imposition of the bishop's hands.” This was law. It was also a custom, saith St. Cyprian, "Quod nunc quoque apud nos geritur, ut qui in ecclesiâ baptizantur, per præpositos ecclesiæ offerantur, et per nostram orationem, et manûs impositionem, Spiritum Sanctum consequantur, et signaculo Dominico consummentur ;" and this custom was catholic too, and the law was of universal concernment. Epist. de Chorepisc. Epist. ad Jubaian. "Omnes fideles, per manuum impositionem episcoporum, Spiritum Sanctum post baptismum accipere debent, ut pleni Christiani accipere debent." So St. Urban, in his decretal epistle; and, "Omnibus festinandum est sine morâ renasci, et demùm consignari ab episcopo, et septiformem Spiritûs Sancti gratiam recipere;" so saith the old author of the fourth epistle under the name of St. Clement: "All faithful baptized people must go to the bishop to be consigned, and so, by imposition of the bishop's hands, to obtain the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost." Meltiades, in his epistle to the bishops of Spain, affirms confirmation in this to have a special excellency besides baptism: "Quòd solùm à summis sacerdotibus confertur;" "because bishops only can give confirmation;" and the same is said and proved by St. Eusebius, in his third epistle, enjoining great veneration to this holy mystery: “Quòd ab aliis perfici non potest nisi à summis sacerdotibus:" "It cannot, it may not, be performed by any but by the bishops." Thus St. Chrysostom, speaking of St. Philip converting the Samaritans 4; διὸ καὶ βαπτίζων, Πνεῦμα τοῖς βαπτιζομένοις οὐκ ἐδίδου. Οὐδὲ γὰρ εἶχεν ἐξουσίαν. Τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ δῶρον μόνων τῶν δώδεκα ἦν. 66 Philip, baptizing the men of Samaria, gave not the Holy Ghost to them whom he had baptized. For he had not power. For this gift was only of the twelve apostles." And a little after, τοῦτο ἦν τῶν ἀποστόλων ἐξαίρετον. “This was peculiar to the apostles.” Ὅθεν καὶ τοὺς κορυφαίους, οὐκ ἄλλους τινάς ἐστιν ἰδεῖν τοῦτο ποιοῦντας· “ whence it comes to pass, that the principal and chief of the church do it, and none else." And George Pachymeres, the paraphrast of St. Dionysius, Χρεία τοῦ ἀρχιερέως ἔσται εἰς τὸ χρῖσαι τῷ μύρῳ τὸν βαπτισθέντα αὕτη γὰρ ἦν ἡ ἀρχαῖα συνήθεια "It is required that a bishop should consign faithful people baptized: for this was the ancient practice." I shall not need to instance in too many particulars; for that the ministry of confirmation was, by catholic custom, appropriate to bishops in all ages of the primitive church, is to be seen by the concurrent testimony of councils and fathers, particularly of St. Clemens Alexandrinus, in c Apud Sev. Binium, in 1 tom. Concil. • In c. 5. de Eccles. Hierarch. a Homil, 18. in Act. Eusebius, Tertullians, St. Innocentius the First", Damasusi, St. Leo, in John the Third', in St. Gregory", Amphilochius, in the life of St. Basil, telling the story of bishop Maximinus confirming Basilius and Eubulus, the council of Orleans", and of Melda, and, lastly, of Sevill, which affirms, "Non licere presbyteris, per impositionem manûs fidelibus baptizandis Paracletum Spiritum tradere:" "It is not lawful for presbyters to give confirmation, for it is properly an act of episcopal power:"-" Chrismate Spiritus Sanctus super infunditur. Utraque verò ista manu et ore antistitis impetramus." These are enough for authority and dogmatical resolution, from antiquity. For truth is, the first that ever did communicate the power of confirming to presbyters, was Photius, the first author of that unhappy and long-lasting schism between the Latin and Greek churches, and it was upon this occasion too. For when the Bulgarians were first converted, the Greeks sent presbyters to baptize and to confirm them. But the Latins sent again to have them reconfirmed; both because (as they pretended) the Greeks had no jurisdiction in Bulgaria, nor the presbyters a capacity of order to give confirmation". The matter of fact and acts episcopal, of confirmation, were innumerable; but most famous are those confirmations made by St. Rembert, bishop of Brema, and of St. Malchus, attested by St. Bernard, because they were ratified by miracle, saith the ancient story'. I end this with the saying of St. Jerome: "Exigis ubi scriptum sit? In Actibus Apostolorum. Sed etiamsi Scripturæ auctoritas non subesset, totius orbis in hanc partem consensus instar præcepti obtineret:" "If you ask where it is written," (viz. that bishops alone should confirm,) "it is written in the Acts of the Apostles," (meaning, by precedent, though not express precept); "but if there were no authority of Scripture for it, yet the consent of all the world upon this particular is instead of f Lib. iii. Hist. c. 17. i Epist. 4. m Lib. iii. Ep. 9. * De Baptism. * Epist. 83. Epist. 1. c. 3. Ad Decent. Apud Gratian. de Consecrat. dist. 5. can. ut Jejuni. • Ibid. can. ut Episcopi. P Concil. Hespal. can. 7. Vide Anast. 1. Biblioth. Præfat. in can. 8. Synodi. r Vide Optatum, lib. ii. S. Bernard. in Vita S. Malachiæ. Surium, tom. i. in Febr. Dial. adv. Lucifer. |