Parker, though he had sat in several sees, had not himself been consecrated for any of them. (1)

These, however, are not the only exceptions, which Catholic Divines have taken to the Ministerial Orders of the Church of England. They have argued, in particular, against the form of them, as Theologians term it. In fact, according to the Ordinal of Edward VI, restored by Elizabeth, Priests were ordained by the Power of forgiving sins, (2) without any power of offering up Sacrifice, in which the essence of the Sacerdotium or Priesthood consists; and, according to the same Ordinal, Bishops were consecrated without the communication of any fresh power whatsoever, or even the mention of Episcopacy, by a form which might be used to a child, when confirmed or baptized. (3) This was agreeable to the maxims of the principal author of that Ordinal, Cranmer, who solemnly decided that Bishops and Priests were no two things, but one and the same office.' (4) On this subject our controvertists urge, not only the authority of all the Latin and Greek Ordinals, but also the confession of

(1) Richardson in his notes on Goodwin's Commentary is forced to confess as follows: Dies consecrationis ejus (Barlow) nondum apparet.' P. 642.

(2) Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained: and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his Holy Sacraments.'-Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p. 158.

(3) Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of hands.'-Ibid. p. 164.

(4) Burnett's Hist. of Reform, vol. i. Record, B. iii. n. 21, quest. 10.

the above-mentioned Protestant Divine, Mason, who says, with evident truth, Not every form of words will serve for this institution, (conveying Orders,) but such as are significant of the power conveyed by the Order.' (1) In short, these objections were so powerfully urged by our divines, Dr. Champney, J. Lewgar, S. T. B. (2) and others, that almost immediately after the last-named had published his work, called Erastus Senior, in 1662, containing them, the Convocation, being assembled, altered the form of ordaining Priests and consecrating Bishops, in order to obviate these objections. (3) But, admitting that these alterations are sufficient to obviate all the objections of our Divines to the Ordinal, which they are not, they came above a hundred years too late for their intended purpose; so that if the Priests and Bishops of Edward's and Elizabeth's reigns were invalidly ordained and consecrated, so must those of Charles the Second's reign, and their suc cessors, have been also.

16.

(1) Burnett's Hist. of Reform. vol. i. Record, B. ii. c.

(2) Lewgar was the friend of Chillingworth, and by him converted to the Catholic faith, which, however, he refused to abandon, when the latter relapsed into Latitudinarianism. (3) The form of ordaining a priest was thus altered: Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to thee by the impo sition of our hands: Whose sins thou shalt forgive, they are forgiven,' &c.—The form of consecrating a Bishop was thus enlarged: Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and remember, that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee.'

However long I have dwelt on this subject, it is not yet exhausted. The case is, there is the same necessity of an Apostolical succession of mission, or authority to execute the functions of Holy Orders, as of the Holy Orders themselves. This mission, or authority, was imparted by Christ to his Apostles, when he said to them: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you, Matt. xx. 21; and of this St. Paul also speaks, where he says of the Apostles: How can they preach, unless they are sent? Rom. x. 15. I believe, Sir, that no regular Protestant Church, or Society, admits its ministers to have, by their ordination or appointment, unlimited authority in every place and congregation. Certain it is, from the Ordinal and Articles of the Established Church, that she confines the jurisdiction of her ministers to 'the Congregation to which they shall be appointed.' (1) Conformably to this, Dr. Berkley teaches, that a defect in the Mission of the ministry, invalidates the Sacraments, affects the purity of public worship, and therefore deserves to be investigated by every sincere Christian.' (2) To this Archdeacon Daubeny adds, that Regular Mission only subsists in the Churches which have preserved Apostolical succession.'-I moreover believe, that in all Protestant Societies the Ministers are persuaded, that the authority by which they preach and perform their functions is, in some manner or other, Divine. But, on this head, I must observe to you, dear Sir, and your Society, that there are only two ways, by which Divine Mission or authority can be communicated;

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(1) Article 25. Form of ordaining Priests and Deacon (2) Serm. at Consecr, of Bishop Horne.

divine Mission and jurisdiction all this time, and all this time employ them, in commissioning her clergy to preach up this 'abominable idolatry?' Again, was it possible for the Catholic Church to give jurisdiction and authority, to Archbishop Parker, for example, and the Bishops Jewel and Horne, to preach against herself? Did ever any insurgents against an established government, except the Regicides in the Grand Rebellion, claim authority from that very government to fight against it, and destroy it? In a word, we perfectly well know, from history, that the first English Protestants did not profess, any more than foreign Protestants, to derive any Mission or authority whatsoever from the Apostles, through the existing Catholic Church. Those of Henry's reign preached and ministered in defiance of all authority, ecclesiastical and civil. (1) Their successors in the reign of Edward and Elizabeth claimed their whole right and mission to preach and to minister, from the Civil Power only. (2) This latter point is demonstratively evident from the Act and the Oath of Supremacy, and from the homage of the Archbishops and Bishops to the said Elizabeth; in which the Prelate elect acknowledges and confesses, that he holds his Bishopric, as well in spirituals as in temporals, from her alone and

(1) Collier's Hist. vol. ii. p. 81.

(2) In the reign of James I., Archbishop Abbot having incurred suspension by the canon law, for accidentally shoot. ing a man, a Royal commission was issued to restore him. On another occasion, he was suspended by the King himself, for refusing to license a book. In Elizabeth's reign the Bishops approved of prophesying, as it was called; the Queen disapproved of it, and she obliged them to condemn it,

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the Crown Royal.' The same thing is clear from a series of Royal Ordinances respecting the Clergy, in matters purely spiritual, such as the pronouncing on doctrine, the prohibition of prophesying, the inhibition of all preaching, the giving and spending of spiritual faculties, &c. Now, though I sincerely and cheerfully ascribe to my Sovereign all the Temporal and Civil power, jurisdiction, rights, and authority, which the constitution and laws ascribe to him, I cannot believe that Christ appointed any temporal prince to feed his mystical flock, or any part of it, or to exercise the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven at the discretion of such prince. It was foretold by Bishop Fisher in Parliament, that the Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy, if once acknowledged, might pass to a child or a woman, (1) as, in fact, it soon did to each of them. It was afterwards transferred, with the crown itself, to a foreign Calvinist, and might have been settled, by a lay assembly, on a Mahometan. All, however, that is necessary for me here to remark is, that the acknowledgment of a Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes,' (2) (as when the question is, who shall preach, baptize, &c. and who shall not; what is sound doctrine, and what is not,) is decidedly a renunciation of Christ's commission given to his Apostles, and preserved by their successors in the Catholic Apostolic Church.-Hence it clearly appears that there is, and can be, no Apostolical succession of Ministry in the Estab

(1) See his Life by Dr. Bailey; also Dodd's Eccles. Hist. vol. i.

(2) Oath of Supremacy, Homage of Bishops, &c.