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, declaring 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 ordinations 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 a.” 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. b 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 dadexa v." Philip, baptizing the men of Samaria, gave not δώδεκα 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.” Οθεν 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 • Apud Sev. Binium, in 1 tom. Concil. d Homil 18. in Act. Eusebius, Tertullian &, St. Innocentius the First h, Damasus', 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 matters of fact and acts episcopal, of confirmation, are 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 h Epist. 1. c. 3. Ad Decent. Lib. iii, Hist, c. 17, 1 Epist. 4. m Lib. iii. Ep. 9. 8 De Baptism. Apud Gratian. de Consecrat. dist. 5. can. ut Jejuni. Ibid. can. ut Episcopi.. P Concil. Hespal, can. 7. 4 Vide Anast. 1. Biblioth. Præfat. in can. 8. Synodi. * Vide Optatum, lib. ii. S. Bernard. in Vita S. Malachiæ. Surium. tom.i. in Febr. Dial, adv. Lucifer, a command." It was fortunate that St. Jerome hath expressed himself so confidently in this affair, for by this we are armed against an objection from his own words; for in the same dialogue, speaking of some acts of episcopal privilege and peculiar ministration, particularly of confirmation, he says, it was " ad honorem potius sacerdotii quàm ad legis necessitatem :" "for the honour of the priesthood, rather than for the necessity of a law." To this the answer is evident from his own words: 'That bishops should give the Holy Ghost in confirmation, is written in the Acts of the Apostles;' and now that this is reserved, rather for the honour of episcopacy, than a simple necessity in the nature of the thing,' makes no matter. For the question here, that is only of concernment, is not to what end this power is reserved to the bishop, but by whom it was reserved? Now St. Jerome says it was done ' apud acta,' 'in the Scripture;' therefore, by God's Holy Spirit ; and the end he also specifies, viz. 'for the honour of that sacred order,' "non propter legis necessitatem," "not that there is any necessity of law," that confirmation should be administered by the bishop. Not that a priest may do it, but that, as St. Jerome himself there argues, the Holy Ghost being already given in baptism, if it happens that bishops may not be had, (for he puts the case concerning persons in bondage, and places remote and destitute of bishops,) then, in that case, there is not the absolute necessity of a law, that confirmation should be had at all: a man does not perish if he have it not; for that this thing was reserved to a bishop's peculiar ministration, was indeed an honour to the function, but it was not for the necessity of a law tying people, in all cases, actually to acquire it. So that this non necessarium' is not to be referred to the bishop's ministration, as if it were not necessary for him to do it when it is to be done, nor that a priest may do it if a bishop may not be had; but this nonnecessity is to be referred to confirmation itself; so that if a bishop cannot be had, confirmation, though with much loss, yet with no danger, may be omitted. This is the sum of St. Jerome's discourse, this reconciles him to himself, this makes him speak conformably to his first assertions, and, consequently, to his arguments; and to be sure, no exposition can make these words to intend, that this reservation of the |