heresy to promise to drive them away. cannot do.

But this they

IV. The power of ordination in the church of England is derived not from Christ, but from the king. This is proved in the following manner: Henry VIII. assumed the title, and exercised the prerogative of supreme head of the church of England." The parliament acknowledged it, and gave him power to correct heresies, &c. He gave licenses to bishops to exercise their episcopal functions of ordination, &c. Edward VI. exercised the same power, and caused the forms of ordination to be compiled by his supreme authority in ecclesiastical affairs. The oath of supremacy expressed his royal power of appointing all things concerning faith, discipline, and rites. Permission to preach was granted by royal license, bishops were appointed durante beneplacito: the commission to consecrate them emanated from the crown. Excommunications were made by the same authority. Royal injunctions regulated not only worship, but faith and doctrine; and parliament reserved to itself the right of judging in religious controversy. Queen Elizabeth by the clause supplentes in the commission to Barlow and others, for the consecration of Archbishop Parker, assumed this power ".

Answer. (1.) All these assertions do not in the remotest degree affect the validity of the English ordinations, because, let them imply what they will, they did not affect the validity of the ordinations conferred in the reign of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. according to the former rite. Those ordinations were all valid by the confession of Romanists themselves. Therefore the Tournely, Tract. de Ordin. p. 50-57.

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claims or exercise of the king's supremacy cannot affect the validity of our orders.

(2.) The church of England has never recognized the king as being in any degree the source of purely spiritual power, or of any except what is in its nature temporal". And I have in another place reviewed the facts here misrepresented, and shewn them to be free from just blame, as relates to the church of England °.

These are the chief theological objections which I have observed, to the validity of the English ordinations. Objections in points of form are easily invented, and we need not doubt that further difficulties will be started hereafter. Yet this is a species of argument which may be employed against Romanists as well as against the church of England. It is needless to do more than allude to the serious difficulty, as to the validity of the eucharist in which the sacrament is received in one kind; but it might not be difficult for a Greek or a Monophysite to adduce as strong arguments against the Roman form of ordination, as the Romanists have urged against the English. It may be proved that all the ancient rituals and pontificals, including those of the Greek church, the Maronites, the Nestorians', the Jacobites or Monophysites, the canons of the synod of Carthage (adopted as the rubric of all the ancient Roman and western pontificals ";) that all these rituals, I say, require the imposition of hands to be given by the consecrating bishops while the prayer

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of consecration is repeated; and therefore that the modern Roman ritual, which directs that imposition to take place before the prayer, is null and void. It might be argued that this union of the imposition of hands and form of words is necessary, in order to determine the former to the grace of the episcopal order, &c. It would be easy to make a plausible case out of this, which could only be met by reference to the scripture, where the imposition of hands is indifferently spoken of as preceding and following the prayer. We might also find a strong objection to the validity of confirmation as administered in the Roman church, from the want of a sufficient imposition of hands; in which alone the essence of this sacrament is founded by scripture and the fathers.

CHAPTER XI.

ON ROMISH ORDINATIONS.

THE church of England has, ever since the division in the sixteenth century, not only admitted the validity of the orders administered by bishops of the Roman obedience on the continent; but she has been induced, as an act of special favour, not to reordain those priests who have been schismatically ordained amongst the papists within her own jurisdiction, in order to facilitate their reunion to the true church. This I say was an act of special favour, for the church is not bound to know any thing of ordinations performed in schism or heresy she cannot recognize any real ministry of Jesus Christ, in those who are ordained in enmity to

his church and if she does not always think it necessary to repeat the outward form by which they were constituted, it is not that she supposes any divine commission to have accompanied it originally.

But, in not reordaining popish priests, the church has always acted on the supposition, that the usual forms and rules were observed. Without doubt they were so for a long time: and still continue to be observed in far the greater part of the Roman obedience; but certain circumstances occurred with regard to the ordinations of papists in England and Ireland in the course of the last century, which seem to raise very considerable difficulties as to the validity of their ordinations.

It has been shown above, that there are serious doubts, even amongst the most eminent Roman theologians, whether the ordination of a bishop by one bishop only, is a valid ordination.

Now it is a fact which has hitherto escaped our observation, that during the greater part, if not the whole of last century, popish bishops were consecrated in England and Ireland by one bishop assisted by two priests, instead of bishops, as required by the canons. This fact did not attract attention, in consequence of the little publicity given to their ecclesiastical acts, and the non-existence of any detailed history of their proceedings.

In a book written by Mr. Plowden, an English papist, we find a translation of a bull of Pope Clement XIV. in 1771, nominating William Egan bishop of Sura "in partibus," and coadjutor of Peter Crew, titular of Waterford, with right of succession. This bull was

in Mr. Plowden's possession. The following passage occurs in it: "We, kindly wishing to favour you in everything that can increase your conveniency, by the tenour of these presents, have granted you full and free licence, that you may receive the gift of consecration from whatever catholic prelate, being in the grace and communion of the aforesaid apostolical see, you choose; and he may call in, as his assistants in this, in lieu of bishops, two secular priests, although not invested with any ecclesiastical dignity, or regulars of any order or institute, being in like grace and favour, &c." The same clause, so strangely and rashly setting aside all the canons and the apostolical tradition, appears in other bulls for Irish titular bishops printed by Dr. Burke, who observes, that "a permission of this tenour is conceded generally to the Irish, on account of the difficulty of assembling three bishops. I say generally, because sometimes those who are on their affairs at Rome, omit to supplicate for that clause ;" that is to say, they could easily find three or more bishops at Rome to consecrate them. It seems from this, that the popish bishops in Ireland generally supplicated for this clause, and without doubt they acted on it; indeed Dr. Burke does not attempt to deny that they did so.

This same mode of ordination has also been practised among the English papists. In the reign of James II. Dr. Leyburn was made bishop in partibus at Rome, 1685, and sent into England, where he was the only popish bishop. Soon after, in 1687, Dr. Giffard, chaplain of James II., was consecrated bishop in par

b Plowden's Historical Letter to Dr. Charles O'Conor. Append. p. 122.

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Burke, Hibernia Dominicana, p. 503. 509.

d Ibid. p. 509. 462.