LXXXVIII. MINISTER DIVINE. 1. THE imposition of hands upon the minister, when all is done, will be nothing but a designation of a person to this or that office or employment in the church. 'Tis a ridiculous phrase that of the canonists, conferre ordines. 'Tis cooptare aliquem in ordinem, to make a man one of us one of our number, one of our order. So Cicero would understand what I said, it being a phrase borrowed from the Latins, and to be understood proportionably to what 10 was amongst them. 2. Those words you now use in making a minister, Receive the Holy Ghost, were used among the Jews in 1. 5. conferre ordines.] This is the phrase used by Aquinas passim. Conf. e. g. Summa Theolog. Supplem. pt. iii. quaest. 34, art. 3. 1. 12. were used among the Jews &c.] This seems to have been somewhat loosely reported. Selden, in his In Eutychii Origines Commentarius, treats at length of the process by which judges, and elders, and chief doctors of the law, were appointed among the Jews. 'Quisquis in potestatem judiciariam seu causarum rite cognoscendarum facultatem evehendus erat, is per manuum impositionem, verbis insuper de creatione conceptis, dignitatem eam regulariter adipiscebatur; adeo ut dein dignus seu idoneus haberetur qui in synedria, sive vigintitriumviralia sive septuagintauniusvirale cooptari legitime posset, ibique judiciis præesse.' Works, vol. ii. p. 436. He does not say that the words 'receive the Holy Ghost' were any part of the ceremony, but only that it was believed that the Holy Spirit rested on those who had been thus duly appointed. 'Internus ordinationis effectus habebatur eis ejusmodi, ut Spiritus Sanctus.... super ordinatos quiesceret. De LXX Senioribus Mosi ejusmodi ordinatione adscitis, et de eis qui seculis sequentibus rite ordinabantur, aiunt Et quievit super eos Majestas divina, quam et Spiritum Sanctum vocitant.' p. 438. Alting, like Selden, traces the custom from very early days, from the appointment by Moses of the seventy elders, and from the appointment of Joshua as Moses' successor. Conf. 'Tertius (ritus) est manûs impositio unde tota promotionis solennitas 1 making of a lawyer; from thence we have them; which is a villainous key to something; as if you would have some other kind of prefecture, than a mayoralty, and yet keep the same ceremony that was used in making the mayor. 3. A priest has no such thing as an indelible character. What difference do you find betwixt him and another man after ordination? Only he is made a priest (as I said) by designation; as a lawyer is called to the bar, then made a xe podería appellari consuevit.' Historia promotionum Academicarum apud Hebraeos (1652), p. 108. In an earlier part of the treatise, speaking of Joshua's appointment per impositionem manûs, he adds 'Atque hic notandum venit Symbolum secundum in Magistrorum promotionibus adhibitum, xeɩpodeσías ritus, a Deo ipso, si non usurpatus in Mosis inauguratione, saltem huic praescriptus.' p. 82. But there is no mention by Alting of the use of the words, 'receive the Holy Ghost,' fully and particularly as he describes every detail of the ceremony in use. Nor do the words in the text, 'in making of a lawyer,' adequately express the rank and authority conferred. That the imposition of hands was copied by the Christians from the old Jewish rite Selden does say, and this is probably what he ought here to have been reported as saying. Works, ii. p. 439. 1.5. an indelible character.] Aquinas insists on the indelible character of orders of all ranks, of the minor not less than of the priestly. Summa Theolog. Supplem. pt. iii. quaest. 35, art. 2. 'If anyone saith that in the three Sacraments, Baptism to wit, Confirmation, and Order, there is not imprinted in the soul a character, that is, a certain spiritual and indelible sign . . . let him be anathema.' Session vii. Of the Sacraments, Canon ix. Canons, &c., of the Council of Trent. 'Forasmuch as in the Sacrament of Order, a character is imprinted which can neither be effaced nor taken away; the holy Synod condemns the opinion of those who assert that those who have once been rightly ordained can again become Laymen.' Session xxiii. ch.4. On the other hand, Bingham, a very safe authority, quotes Calvin as saying that the indelibility of orders 'was a fable, first invented in the schools of the ignorant monks, and that the ancients were altogether strangers to it: and that it had more of the nature of a magical enchantment than of the sound doctrine of the Gospel in it,' &c. Bingham himself concludes against it as a Romish superstition. The whole subject is gone into very fully in Part ii. of his Discussion on lay-baptism. Bingham, Works, vol. ix. p. 150 ff. I serjeant. All men that would get power over others, make themselves as unlike them as they can; upon the same ground the priests made themselves unlike the laity. 4. A minister when he is made, is materia prima, apt for any form the state will put upon him; but of himself he can do nothing. Like a doctor of law in the university; he has a great deal of law in him, but cannot use it till he be made somebody's chancellor or like a physician, before he be received into a house, he can give nobody 10 physic; indeed after the master of the house has given him charge of his servants, then he may. Or like a suffragan, that could do nothing but give orders, and yet he was a bishop1. 5. A minister should preach according to the articles of religion established in the church where he lives. To be a civil lawyer, let a man read Justinian, and the body of law, to conform his brain to that way; but when he comes to practise, he must make use of it so far as it concerns the law received in his own country. To be a physician, let 20 a man read Galen and Hippocrates; but when he practises, he must apply his medicines according to the temper of those men's bodies with whom he lives, and have respect to the heat and cold of the climate; otherwise that which in Pergamus (where Galen lived) was physic, in our cold climate may be poison. So to be a divine, let him read the whole body of divinity, the fathers and the schoolmen; but when he comes to practise, he must use it and apply it according to those grounds and articles of religion that are established in the church, and this with sense. 30 6. There be four things a minister should be at; the con 1 He was a bishop] he was no Bishop, MSS. 1. 12. and yet he was a bishop] The reading in the MSS. and in the early printed editions is 'he was no Bishop.' This spoils the argument and is untrue in fact. See 'Bishops before the Parliament,' sec. I. cionary part, ecclesiastical story, school divinity, and the casuists. (1) In the concionary part, he must read all the chief fathers, both Latin and Greek, wholly; St. Austin, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, both the Gregories, and1 Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Epiphanius, which last have more learning in them than all the rest, and write freely. (2) For ecclesiastical story, let him read Baronius, with the Magdeburgenses, and be his own judge; the one being extremely for the papists, the other extremely for the pro testants. (3) For school divinity, let him get Cavellus's edition of Scotus or Mayro3, where there be quotations that direct you to every schoolman, where such and such questions are handled. Without school divinity, a divine knows nothing logically, nor will be able to satisfy a rational man out of the pulpit. IO (4) The study of the casuists must follow the study of the schoolmen, because the division of their cases is according 20 to their divinity; otherwise he that begins with them will know little, as he that begins with the study of the reports 1 The Gregories and H. 2] the Gregories, &c., H. 2 Cavellus] Javellus, MSS. 3 1. 13. Cavellus-Mayro] The reading of the MSS. and of the early editions is 'Javellus' and 'Mayco,' which (as Mr. Singer has pointed out) must be incorrect. Some of Duns Scotus' writings were edited in 1620 by Hugo Cavellus (i. e. Mac Caghwell) a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh. In 1639 there was a complete edition of Duns Scotus published with variorum notes, in which H. Cavellus is one of several commentators cited. Mayro, or Franciscus de Mayronis, a voluminous ecclesiastical writer, belongs to the first half of the fourteenth century. He was a disciple of Duns Scotus, and was known among the Franciscans as Doctor Illuminatus. A complete list of his writings will be found in Wadding's Scriptores Ordinis Minorum. and cases in the common law, will thereby know little of the law. Casuists may be of admirable use, if discreetly dealt with, though among them you shall have many leaves together very impertinent. A case well decided would stick by a man, they would remember it whether they will or no, whereas a quaint exposition dies in the birth. The main thing is to know where to search; for talk they what they will of vast memories, no man will presume upon his own memory for anything he means to write or speak in 10 public. 7. Go and teach all nations. This was said to all Christians that then were, before the distinction of clergy and laity; there have been since men designed to preach only by the state, as some men are designed to study the law, others to study physic. When the Lord's Supper was instituted, there were none present but the disciples. Shall none then but ministers receive? 8. There is all the reason you should believe your minister, unless you have studied divinity as well as he, 20 or more than he. 9. 'Tis a foolish thing to say, a minister must not meddle with secular matters, because his own profession will take up the whole man. May he not eat, or drink, or walk, or learn to sing? The meaning of that is, he must seriously intend his calling. 10. Ministers with the papists [that is, their priests] have much respect; with the puritans they have much, and that upon the same ground, they pretend to come both of them immediately from Christ; but with the protestants they 30 have very little; the reason whereof is,-in the beginning of the Reformation they were glad to get such to take livings as they could procure by any invitations, things of 1. 25. intend] i. e. give his mind to. 1. 32. things of pitiful condition] Archbishop Parker, in a letter to the Bishop of London, written circa 1560, says that owing to the |