Section 8

We follow you into the execution of our Episcopal Office, wherein you will show ours, and the Apostles to be two; so clearly, that he who will not willfully shut his eyes, may see a latitude of differences, and that in three points: The first, in sole jurisdiction, which you say, was a stranger, indeed a monster to former times, and will make it good by the power of (that, which in all wise writers was accustomed to be contra-distinguished) Ordination.

For this main point, let my Answerers know, that the Ordination is the Bishop's, but the sole (in their sense) is their own: neither did our Bishops ever challenge it, as theirs alone, without the Presbyters, but as principally theirs, with them: so, as if the power be in the Bishop, the assistance is from them, the practice in both: so is it in the Bishops, that ordinarily and regularly it may not be done without them, and yet ordinately, it may not be done without them by the Bishop: which has been so constantly, and carefully ever observed, that I challenge them to show any one instance in the Church of England to the contrary. Say brethren, I beseech you, after all this noise, what Bishop ever took upon him to ordain a Presbyter alone, or without the concurrent imposition of many hands? They, no less than Cyprian, can say, Ego & collegae; Although I must tell you this was in the case of Aurelius, made a Lector; And in that other testimony, which you cite out of his Epistle 58. he speaks only of the fraternity's consent, and approbation, not of their concurrence in their act; this is small game with you.

Neither is it less the order of the Church of England than of the Council of Carthage, Cum ordinatur Presbyter, &c. When a Presbyter is ordained, the Bishop blessing him, and holding his hand upon his head, all the Presbyters that are present, shall likewise lay their hands upon his head, with the hands of the Bishop: With what conscience can you allege this, as to choke us in our contrary practice; when you know this is perpetually, and unfailingly done by us? But now, that the Readers may see how you shuffle, show us but one instance of a Presbyter's regular and practiced ordaining without a Bishop, and carry the cause; else you do but abuse the Reader with an ostentation of proving what was never denied.

But here, by the way, brethren, you must give me leave to pull you by the sleeve, and to tell you of two or three foul escapes, which will try whether you can blush. First, that you abuse Firmilianus in casting upon him an opinion of Presbyters ordaining, which he never held; He, in his Epistle to Stephen Bishop of Rome, speaking of the true Church in opposition to heresies, describes it thus, (Vbi praesident majores natu, qui & baptizandi, & manum imponendi, et ordinandi possident potestatem: under this name expressing those Bishops; who presiding in the Church, possess the power of Baptizing, Confirming, Ordaining; you injuriously wire-draw him to Presbyters, and foist in [Seniores et Praepositos] which are far from the clause and matter. Be convinced with the more clear words of the same Epistle, Apostolis, et Episcopis, qui illis vicariâ Ordinatione successerunt.

Secondly, that you reveal gross ignorance in translating Ambrose's [Presbyteri consignant] by Presbyters ordaining; Who, that ever knew what belonged to antiquity, would have been guilty of such a solecism: when every novice knows, that, consigning, signifies confirmation, and not ordaining?

Thirdly, you discover not too much skill in not distinguishing of the Chorepiscopi: some of whom had both the nature and power of Episcopacy to all purposes, and therefore might well by the Bishop's license in his own charge impose hands, others not; And less fidelity, in citing the Council of Antioch, can. 10. and the 13. of the Council of Ancyra, if it were not out of our way, to fetch them into trial.

Lastly, I cannot but tell you that you have merely cast away all this labor, and fought with your own shadow; for, however it were not hard to prove, that in the first times of the Church it was appropriated to the Bishop, to Ordain, (which you cannot but confess out of Jerome, and Chrysostom) yet, since we speaking of our own time and Church, do both profess and practice an association of Presbyters with us, in the act of Ordination, whom have you all this while opposed? It is enough that you have seemed to say something, and have shown some little reading, to no purpose.