tainly an effential Omiffion, for Impofition of Hands and Prayer were and may be used on other Occafions befides Ordination, as for Confirmation and Penance, and therefore if they are not diftinguished by the Words used on thofe feveral Occafions, we cannot know for which of thefe Purpofes Hands were impofed. There being then fuch an effential Omiffion in the firft Ordinal of our Church, tho' it be now rectified, yet we can have no truė Succeffion of Bishops and Priests, because we derive our prefent Ordinations from those who were ordained by the former Ordinal. To this we answer, that tho' the Words Bishop and Prieft were not used in that Ordinal at the very time Hands were impofed, yet they were used in the Prayer I have cited, which was the fame then as now. Which alone would have been a fufficient Declaration of the End or Purpose for which Hands were then impofed. Befides, then, as, well as now, when Priefts were to be ordained, the Archdeacon prefented them with thefe Words, Reverend Father in God, I prefent unto you thefe Perfons prefent, to be admitted to the Order of PRIESTHOOD. And when a Bishop was to be confecrated, Two Bijhops prefented him to the Archbishop, faying, Moft Reverend Father in God, we prefent unto you this godly and well learned Man to be confecrated BISHOP. Then the Bishop alfo, in his Exhortation to thofe that were to be ordained Priefts, faid to them, We exhort you in the Name of our Lord Jefus Chrift to have in remembrance unto how high a Dignity, and to how chargeable an Office ye be called, that is to fay, THE MESSENGERS, THE WATCH MEN, THE PASTORS, AND THE STEWARDS of the Lord, &c. Then he asked them, Do you think in your Heart that you be truly called, according to the Will of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and the Order of this Church of England, to the Miniftry

of

160

The DIVINE RIGHT

of the PRIESTHOOD? So in the Confecration of a Bishop, the Perfon to be ordained having been exprefly prefented to be confecrated a Bihop, the Archbishop asked him, faying, Are you perfuaded that you be truly called to THIS MINISTRATION, according to the Will of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and the Order of this Realm? So that whatever Words were used when Hands were impofed upon them, here is a fufficient Declaration and Testimony of the End and Design for which they were imposed: That it was to ordain them Priests or Bishops, according to the Presentation, Prayer, and Examination then used. But after all, the Words then ufed whilft Hands were laid on,tho' not fo exprefs and full as they are now, were fufficient to declare the End and Purpose for which Hands were then impofed. For in the Ordination of Priests it was then faid, Receive the Holy Ghost whofe Sins thou doft forgive, they are forgiven: And whofe Sins thou doft retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful Difpenfer of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments: In the Name of the Father, &c. Now what is a Chriftian Prieft, but one who has received Authority to forgive Sins by the Miniftry of the Word and Sacraments? He therefore who has this Authority committed to him, is a proper Chriftian Prieft, and this Authority was committed to every Priest of the Church of England who was ordained according to our first Ordinal. So alfo when Hands were then imposed upon a Man to confecrate him a Bishop, the Words used on that Occafion, and at the very Time that he had all the prefent Bishops Hands upon his Head, were, Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou ftir up the Grace of God which is in thee by Impofition of Hands: For God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear, but of Power, and Love, and Soberness. Now thefe being the Words fpo

ken

ken by St. Paul to (n) Timothy, plainly denoted the Person on whom Hands were then impofed, to be ordained to the Grace and Office to which Timothy was ordained by St. Paul, that is, the Office of a Bifhop. So that altho' the exprefs Terms Priest and Bishop were not used in the Ordinal of this Church before the Reftoration of King Charles II. at the fame Inftant of Time that Hands were impofed, as they are at this time; yet in the Presentation, Prayers, and Exhortation or Examination, they are exprefly declared to be called to those Offices, and whilft Hands are laid upon them, fuch Words were fpoken as evidently declared the Nature of the Office to which he was then ordained. So that unless the Romanists could prove that the particular Words ufed in their Ordinal are essential to a true valid Ordination, which I am confident they will never be able to do, fuch Perfons as have been ordained either according to our former or prefent Ordinal, must be allowed to have been truly and validly ordained. For they have all been ordained by Prayer and Impofition of Hands, and in fuch a Form of Words as plainly denoted the Office unto which they were called, and by Bishops also, which is all that can be proved by Scripture, or the Practice of the Primitive Church, to be effential to Ordination. And therefore tho' we were Hereticks or Schifmaticks (as they fay we are) yet I do not fee that the Romanifts ought to reject our Ordinations, having been thus regularly continued amongst us in all effential Points, fince they allow, as well as we, that Orders no less than Baptifm given in Herefy or Schifm, are not to be repeated, but to be efteemed as true and valid. I fhall therefore

(n) 2 Tim. i. 6, 7.

M

now

now proceed to their other Objection, which is this.

§ LVI. They tell us, that admitting our Ordinal for good, yet they cannot admit our Orders, because that Matthew Parker, the fift Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth, from whom our Orders have been ever fince derived, was not ordained by Bishops. (0) For they fay, that all the Bishops in England being then ejected, except Anthony Kitchin Bishop of Landaff, he, thro' Bonner's Threatning, would not be prevailed with to confecrate the Proteftant Divines. Having therefore no other Means to compass their Defires, they refolved to use Mr. Scory's Help, an Apoftate Religions Prieft: who having born the Name of Bishop in King Edward VIth's Time, was thought to have fufficient Power to perform that Office, especially in Juch a ftrait Neceffity as they pretended, which he performed in this fort. Having the Bible in his Hand, and they all kneeling before him, he laid it upon every one of their Heads or Shoulders, faying, Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God fincerely. And fo they rofe up Bishops of the new Church of England. Thus Champney's, and others of that fort. Neither was this done in any Church, Chapel, or Oratory (as they that invented the Story tell us) but at the Nags-Head Tavern in Cheapfide. (p) But this Tale came fo late into the World, that Sanders, and all the other Writers of the Romish Communion in Queen Elizabeth's Time never heard of it: for it is certain that if they had they would not have concealed it. It is faid to have come from one Neal, who was

(0) Strype's Life of A. B. Parker, P 59.

(p) Burner's Hift. Reform. Vol. 2. p. 374. Edit. 4.

Bonner's

Bonner's Chaplain, who peeped thro' the Keyhole and faw it. But it was not difcovered to the World till long after Neal's Death. So that there is not so much as his Teftimony for it. The only Ground upon which this fenflefs Story feems to be founded, I mean as to their pitching upon the Nags-Head Tavern in Cheapfide for the Scene of this pretended Mock Confecration, is, that (g) when the Ceremony of Confirmation, which was made in Bow-Church, was over, the Vicar General, the Dean of the Arches, and the other Officers of that Court, were entertained at that Tavern. But, as Bishop Burnet obferves, there was not a Word faid of this Matter by the Romanifts till above Forty Years after: But when it might be prefumed that all thofe were dead that had been prefent at Parker's Confecration, then was the time to invent fuch a Story: For then it might be hoped that none could contradict it. And who could tell but that fome who had seen Bishops go from Bow-Church to Dine at that Tavern, as fome have done after their Confirmation, might imagine that then was the time of their Nags-Head Confecration? But as it pleafed God, there was one then living that remem→ bred the contrary. The Old Earl of Nottingham, who had been at the Confecration, declared it was at Lambeth, and defcribed all the Circumftances of it, and satisfied all reasonable Men that it was according to the Form of the Church of England. The Regifters both of the See of Canterbury and of the Records of the Crown do both fully agree with this Relation. For as Parker's Conge d'Elire, with the Queen's Affent to his Ele&tion, and the Warrant for his Confecration,

(4) Collier's Ecclef. Hift. Vol. 2. p. 460, 461. M 2

wherein