This technical mode of stating the question is, when duly considered, exceedingly plain and simple. It amounts to this-that when a public official stands forth to perform and complete a public ecclesiastical act, it may be reasonably and probably assumed that he intends to do what is apparently being done, and what the Church, of which he is a minister intends him to do. If he does not intend to perform the act, it is obvious that he does not do it, or at all events it is probable that he may leave undone some important detail in the act and, that as consequently the act may not be duly and properly done, it may therefore be invalid. With regard to the intentions of public characters who have been dead and buried for many generations, it must be held in the absence of express evidence to the contrary, that when they were formally commissioned to perform a solemn ecclesiastical act, -that, moreover, when that act was defined in all its expressive details by long usage, venerable laws, and definite ecclesiastical directions, they did perform, and did not intend not to perform it. We may

reasonably and properly assume that they acted in

of the minister is sufficiently express and certain, by virtue of the words he utters in ministering the Sacraments. Vide, also, Alanus, Dissertationes Contra Valdenses, cap. xiii. s. 3-5. S. Bonaventuræ Opera Omnia, lib. ii. cap. vii. s. 8, followed mainly in the Council of Trent. Vide, likewise, Gulielmus Parisiis, De Sacrament. Bapt. cap. ii. (from which treatise our own xxvi. Article on the unworthiness of the minister not hindering the effect of the Sacrament, appears to have been taken.) He also discusses here the question of re-ordination after degradation. Gury, Compendium Theologiæ Moralis, vol. ii. 202-203. Paris, 1861. Ioannes Prideaux, De Disciplina Ecclesiæ, pp. 651-664. Tiguri, 1652. Martini Bonacina sacerdotis oblati, Tractatus de Sacramentis, 4to. Mediolani: 1620, and Petrus Ledesma, De Sacramento Ordinis, cap. iii. sec. 9.

good faith, unless there exist distinct reasons for an opposite conclusion.

Now, in the cases of Barlow and Scory, it has been asserted that, owing to certain loose opinions which were current at the period of Parker's consecration, and which, at one period, Barlow certainly and Scory probably, shared, they could have had no such intention in conferring Holy Orders, as is needful to ensure the validity of the sacramental act.

To this it may be broadly answered, that the unworthiness of the minister hinders not the effect of the sacraments. And this is true, to a great extent, as with morals so with belief. For example, an inadequate belief regarding the efficacy of Holy Baptism on the part of the administrator, would not invalidate the sacrament, if the right form and matter were used, and (what is technically termed) the "virtual intention" had.

So with reference to Confirmation and Orders. An imperfect appreciation either of the graces bestowed through confirmation, of the dignity and office of the Episcopate, or of the true character of the Christian Priesthood, would not invalidate the sacramental act of such a person,-thus imperfectly believing, who might respectively hold a confirmation or bestow Holy Orders. For God bountifully gives to the expectant seeker for grace, and man is but God's instrument. The Church has ever held, therefore, that the unworthiness of the minister could not interpose between the Giver and the gift; nor make foul the current by which flow the graces of the life-giving sacraments. As St. Isidore declares, with regard to the Eucharist, "He who receives is not injured, even if he who

bestows should appear unworthy: nor are the unspotted Mysteries defiled should the Priest exceed all men in sin."* And the same principle defended by S. Augustine,† cannot but hold good with reference to Ordination. The individual, officially working is lost in his office, unless his intention be actively and deliberately bad, which is not easily imagined and cannot be assumed without distinct proof. Moreover, as regards the intention which both the Church Universal and the local Church of England enjoined Barlow and Scory to have, there can be no doubt whatsoever. The doctrine of the Church Universal regarding Holy Orders, has never varied and never can vary, and the doctrine of the Church of England was and is identically the same with that of the Church Universal, as the Preface to our Revised Ordinal so plainly maintains.‡ As is commonly held, however, the minister's intention should be (a) an actual present intention: though (B) a virtual intention will be sufficient; and either of these, with form and matter in substantial harmony with the belief and practice of the Church Universal, will suffice to effect a valid ordination or consecration. §

No one can reasonably deny that these conditions.

† Cont. Lit. Petil. i. 4, n. 5.

* S. Isidore, lib. iii. Ep. cccxl. Vide p. 5 of this treatise. § "Non requiritur mentalis intentio," wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, "sed sufficit expressio intentionis per verba ab Ecclesia instituta; et ideo, si forma servatur, nec aliquid exterius dicitur quod intentionem contrariam exprimat, baptizatus est catechumenus." In IV. Dis. vii. quæs. 1, art. 2. The same reasoning would of course apply to Ordination. Vide, also, Summa, pars iii. quæs. 64, art. 8:—“ Alii melius dicunt, quod minister sacramenti agit in persona totius Ecclesiæ, cujus est minister; in verbis autem quæ profert, exprimitur intentio Ecclesiæ, quæ sufficit ad perfectionem sacramenti, nisi contrarium exterius exprimatur ex parte ministri vel recipientis."

were in all probability complied with both by Barlow and Scory in their public official acts. They may have held-it is not proved that they did hold-erroneous opinions regarding the sacraments in general, and ordination in particular. They may have imperfectly comprehended, or inadequately accepted, the judgment of the teaching Church-but yet may have been far short of having a radically insufficient intention in ministering the holy sacraments. Or even if they had held that at their day, in some portions of the Christian Family, error was largely mingled with truth, or still further, that error predominated; and even if this idea had been applied to the subject of Orders, still no grounds would exist for proving their intention to have been absolutely defective. They, at all events, intended to do what Christ Himself enjoined; and if by imperfect education, or through the peculiar circumstances of the times, or because of deep-rooted prejudice, they conceived that what Christ their Lord and Master had enjoined, was in some particulars not identical with what the Church ordered to be done, the mistake was of course on their part, and could not affect their acts done in the name of the Church: otherwise it would follow, as the Vaudois abroad, and the followers of Wickliffe in England erroneously maintained, that the unworthiness of the minister surely hindered the efficiency of the sacrament.

Thus, then, it is concluded that an inadequate or imperfect belief, on the part of one of God's instruments for ordaining, more especially if that inadequate belief is the result of an intellectual misconception, or other unfortunate defect, does not invalidate the act of ordination which in good faith and with a virtual intention is officially performed.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ROMAN CATHOLIC TESTIMONIES TO THE VALIDITY OF ANGLICAN ORDERS.

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HATEVER may have been the ordinary practice in the Roman Catholic Church, with regard to the re-ordination of converts from the Church of England during the last three centuries, it is clear that no decision on the subject has been arrived at of any great theological importance; because, in the two cases of Dr. Stephen Gough and Bishop John Gordon, considered at Rome, the position and claims of the Church of England were either inadequately set forth, or were not put on record at all. The Petition of Bishop Gordon, which ought to have rested on facts, was based so entirely on a fictionthe reality of the Nag's Head consecration-and that fiction is now so generally allowed to be such, that the decision given, whether considered theologically or morally, is of extremely little value.

There can be no doubt, however, that several converts to Rome have, on their own petition or request, received a second ordination. This was so in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the tradition

*

The cases of Edmund Campion, 1564; Cuthbert Mayne, 1570; William Rainolds, 1575; Richard Sympson, 1577; Everard Hause, 1581; Stephan Rousham, 1582; Richard [qy.?] Bluet, 1583; John Sugar, 1602; Humphrey Leach, 1610; Francis Walsingham, 1611; John Goodman, 1621; Placidus Adland, 1660; and John Massey, 1676; are those of Anglican clergymen, duly ordained, who have been re-ordained, on joining the Roman Church.

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