the perplexities of the Tridentine Divines on this subject, CHAP. stated by Sarpi, Lib. ii. VIII. CASAUBON, Ibid. p. 494, col. 2. Et vetus quidem Ecclesia, ut refractarios Donatistas ad suam communionem revocaret, etiam commodis temporalibus Episcoporum resipiscentium, et aliorum quoque, admirabili charitate prospicere solita. Romana verò Ecclesia, ut gratiam cum Anglicanâ redintegraret, fulmina primò bullarum, deinde vim, modò apertam, modò occultam adhibuit; proditores nefarios suscepti hic parricidii manifestos gremio suo excepit, et nunc cùm maximè fovet; sententiam ex eâdem causâ passos martyribus adscribit, et eorum innocentiam contra divina omnia humanaque jura quotidie propugnat. Ipse CARDINALIS BELLARMINUS nuper, ut REGEM serenissimum alliceret, istud miræ efficaciæ ad persuadendum argumentum adhibuit, Angliæ regnum ad Papam pertinere; et Regem Angliæ Romani Pontificis etiam in temporalibus esse subditum, atque feudatarium." Omitto alias et Regis et Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, qua veteres, qua novas querelas, minimè hoc loco commemorandas. See above, pt. ii. ch. ii. ans. 5, note. For a further parallel between Romanism and Donatism, see BRAMHALL, ii. 106. 66 6 FIRMILIAN, in S. Cyprian, Ep. p. 228. Bishop of Casarea in Cappadocia, to Pope Stephanus, when he had excommunicated the Asiatic and African Churches. Lites quantas parasti per Ecclesias mundi! Peccatum quàm magnum tibi exaggerâsti quando te a tot gregibus scidisti! Excidisti enim te ipsum. Noli te fallere. Siquidem ille est verè schismaticus, qui se à communione Ecclesiastica unitatis Apostatam fecerit. Q. 2. But can it be said that the Church of England communicat cum omnibus gentibus, which was the sign and test of a true Church, cited from St. Augustine? A. As was before stated, the Church of England communicates in faith and prayers with the whole world. If she does not perform all those practical offices of communion with other Churches, which one Church was enabled to discharge to another in the time of St. Augustine, we must bear in mind that the difficulties of actual communion are now much greater than at that period, when almost all Christendom was under the same civil II. PART government, and the members of European, Asiatic, and African Churches, were fellow-citizens as well as fellow-Christians, speaking one or two languages only, whereas, now there are thirty different kingdoms and states in Europe alone, with nearly as many languages as countries.1 Further, we must remember, that the most Catholic of all things is TRUTH; (whence the word Catholic is opposed by St. Augustine and the other fathers of the Church to what is false and 1 Tim. iii. 15. heretical;) and that, therefore, if the Church of England holds fast the Truth, she is united to the 1 John i. 7. Catholic Church. "If we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another." We must also bear in mind that true Catholic communion is communion with the past as well as with the present; and the Church of England communicates in doctrine, discipline, and sacraments, with the Catholic Church from the beginning; and thus she communicates with the primitive and apostolic Church of Rome; whereas the present Romish Church, by her corrupt and new doctrines, has, as far as they go, put herself out of communion with the Truth, with the present Catholic Church, and also with her former Catholic self. 1 CASAUBON, Epist. p. 492, 3. col. 1. Distractionem Imperii distractio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ est secuta; et illa omnia paullatim cessarunt, quæ modò dicebamus conservandæ unioni, et communioni exteriori corporis Catholici apprime serviisse. See also CASAUBON, Exc. Bar. xvi. 637. 2 S. AUG. Quæst. in S. Math. xi. Boni Catholici sunt qui et fidem integram servant et bonos mores. 3 Sir R. TWISDEN, p. 196. Upon the whole, it is so absolutely false, that the Church of England made a departure from the Church, which is the "Pillar and Ground of the TRUTH," that I am persuaded it is impossible to prove that she did make the separation from the Roman itself; but that, having declared in a lawful Synod certain opinions held by some in her communion to be no articles of faith; and having, according to the precedent of former times, and the VIII. power which God had placed in her, redressed particular CHAP. abuses crept into her, the Pope and his adherents_would needs interpret this a departing from the Faith. But as St. Augustine said in a dispute with a Donatist, (c. lit. Petl. ii. 85,) utrum schismatici nos simus, an vos, non ego, nec tu, sed CHRISTUS interrogetur. See also BRAMHALL, i. 237. ii. 61-63, 143. [CHAPTER VIII. Bis.] [A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER ON ORDERS, MISSION, AND JURISDICTION.] [BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.] Q. i. WHAT are the qualifications for the lawful and orderly administration of the Word and Sacraments? A. There are two qualifications requisite, orders and mission, which is sometimes improperly called jurisdiction.1 And 1 XXXIX ARTICLES, Article xxiii. It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers into the Lord's vineyard. Q. ii. What do you understand by orders? A. I mean an indelible character, received by every minister at his ordination,1 by means of which, he has the power of administering the Word and Sacraments, and the rites and ceremonies of the Church so far as such a right properly belongs to that order of ministry to which he has been ordained. PART HOOKER, Ecc. Pol. V. lxxvii. 1. The ministry of things Divine is a function which as God did himself institute, so neither may men undertake the same but by authority and power given them in lawful manner. That God which is in no way deficient or wanting unto man in necessaries, and hath, therefore, given us the light of his heavenly truth, because without that inestimable benefit we must needs have wandered in darkness to our endless perdition and woe, hath in the like abundance of mercies ordained certain to attend upon the due execution of requisite parts and offices therein prescribed for the good of the whole world, which men thereunto assigned do hold their authority from him, whether they be such as himself immediately or as the Church in his name investeth, it being neither possible for all nor for every man without distinction convenient, to take upon him a charge of so great importance. They are, therefore, ministers of God, not only by way of subordination, as princes and civil magistrates, whose execution of judgment and justice the supreme hand of Divine Providence doth uphold, but ministers of God as from whom their authority is derived, and not from men. 2 IBID. VII. xiv. 10. It is not any particular multitude that can give power, the force whereof may reach far and wide indefinitely, as the power of order doth, which whoso hath once received, there is no action which belongeth thereunto but he may exercise effectually the same in any part of the world without iterated ordination. Q. iii. How do you know that the character, conferred at ordination is indelible? A. Because in no age of the Church, when a degraded minister was to be restored to the exercise of his functions, was he reordained; but his sentence of degradation having been relaxed or reversed, he was authorized to return to his functions.1 1 HOOKER, Ecc. Pol. V. lxxvii. 3. They which had once received this power may not think to put it off and on like a cloak, as the weather serveth, to take it, reject and resume it as oft as themselves list, of which profane and impious contempt these latter times have yielded, as of all other kinds of iniquity and apostacy strange examples; but let them know which put their hands unto this plough, that once consecrated unto God they are made his peculiar inheritance for ever. Suspensions may stop, and degradations utterly cut off the use or exercise of power before given; CHAP. but voluntarily it is not in the power of man to separate VIII. and pull asunder what God by his authority coupleth. So that although there may be through mis-desert degradation as there may be cause of just separation after matrimony, yet if (as sometimes it doth) restitution to former dignity or reconciliation after breach doth happen, neither doth the one nor the other ever iterate the first knot. Q. iv. Can then a degraded minister exercise the functions of his office? A. He can exercise them efficaciously, that is, so that they shall produce the effect of such functions. Thus, a clergyman ordained by a deposed bishop ought not to be reordained, or a child baptized by a deposed minister to be rebaptized, or the elements of the Holy Eucharist consecrated by a deposed priest, to be re-consecrated; because the ordination, baptism, and consecration, in those cases are valid.1 But then it is not lawful for him, to perform those sacred offices; because as he is prohibited from so doing by the Church, such acts are unlawful in him, and in those who knowingly participate in them with him. In him, because they are acts of disobedience to lawful authority; in them, because by countenancing him in disobedience, they become partakers of other men's sins. 'MASON. Vindiciæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, Lib. IV. Cap. i. Aliud est ipsa jurisdictionis potestas, aliud ejusdem potestatis usus legitimus. Episcopus censuris illaqueatus, ipsam jurisdictionis internam potestatem non amittit, sed potestatis duntaxat usum et exercitium; idque non simpliciter, sed quousque Ecclesia visum erit. Nam ut ex Francisco Varga (quem vestri laudant ut insigniter eruditum) et aliis docuimus, censura non tollit ipsam jurisdictionem in consecratione acceptam, sed ejusdem duntaxat substrahit materiam, in quam ageret, substracta autem materiâ; cessat executio, seu exercitium. Edit. 1625, page 436. IBID. Hæretici non sunt ipso facto excommunicati; sed semel atque iterum admonendi, ut docet Paulus. Secundo, |