ORDINATION
417
ORDINATION
and is the fountain-head of some of its worst corrup- tions. Once grant that ordination in direct line and by direct sanction from the pope of Korae is the one essen- tial channel for the descent of God's grace to man, and there is conceded a power as far-reacliing and dangerous as it is far removed from scriptural truth. That the Roman see made this claim without disguise, and en- forced it during successive centuries by the most un- scrupulous measures, is proved by multitudinous facts of historj'. As a specimen, take the following statement concerning pope Boniface IX :
"At first Boniface did not publicly take money for the higher promotions ; he toolc it only iu secret, and through trustworthy agents. At length, after ten years, at once to indulge, palliate, and to establish this simony, he sub- stituted as a permanent tax the Annates (q. v.), or first- fruits of every bishopric and rich abbey, calculated on a new scale, triple that iu which they stood before iu the papal books. This was to be paid in advance by the can- didates for promotion, some of whom uever got possession of the benefice. That was matter of supreme indifleience to Boniface, as he could sell it again. But as these candi- dates rarely came to the court with money equal to the demand, usurers, with whom the pope was in unholy league, advanced the sum ou exorbitant interest. The debt was sometimes sued for in the pope's court. The smaller benefices were sold from the day of his appoiiit- meut wilh shameless and scandalous notoriety. Men wandered about Lombardy and other parts of Italy searching out the ages of hoary incumbents, and watching their diseases and iuflrmities. For this service they were well paid by the greedy aspiiants at Rome. Ou their re- port ihe tariff rose or fell. Benefices were sold over and over again. Graces were granted to the last purchaser, with the magic word 'Preference,' which cost twenty- five florins. That was superseded by a more authoritative phrase (at fifty florins), a prerogative of precedence. Pe- titions already granted were sometimes cancelled in favor of a higher bidder ; the pope treated the lower offer as an attempt to defraud him. In the same year the secretary, Theodoric a Niem, had known the same beneflce sold iu the course of one week to several successive claimants. The benefices were so openly sold that, if money was not at hand, the pope would receive the price in kind— in wine, sheep, oxen, horses, or grain. The officers were as skil- ful in these arts as himself His auditors would hold twenty expectatives, and receive the first-fruits. The argus-eyed pope, however, watched the death-bed of all his ofticers. Their books, robes, furniture, money, es- cheated to the pope. No grace of any kind, even to the poorest, was signed without its florin fee. Tlie pope, even during mass, was seen to be consulting with his secreta- ries on these worldly aflairs. The accumulation of plu- ralities on unworthy men was scandalous even in those times" (Milman's Latin Christianiti/, vol. vii, bk. xiii, eh. iii).
It is obvious that such a shameless traffic in clerical or- dinations and appointments could only have been main- tained in a Church in which and in an age when the people had been taught to believe that their salvation depended on the absolution of priests fitted for their task by the indelible mark of papal ordination irrespec- tive of moral character. The same idea made the the- ories of purgatory and indulgence sources of illimitable pecuniary exactions, while it also made the power of the popes terrible in their long struggle with emperors in reference to the right of investiture (q. v.) and tem- poral sovereignty. In those struggles monarchs and nations were reduced to submission by the fulmination of bulls, bans, and interdicts, which, aside from the fun- damental idea of divine grace flowing solely through the channel of papal ordination and authority, would have been as powerless as they are now seen to be ab- surd.
V. Protestant lieaciion.— The above-stated theory of ordination, attended by corresponding practice, may be said to have had universal and unquestioned prevalence throughout the Christian world from the 6th to the 16th century. Irrespective of its gradual and insidious be- ginnings, it was fully developed in the ritual of Gregory the Great (A.D. 595-606), and it reached its present form of administration in the Pontificale Romanum (q. V.) of pope Clement VIII, iu 1596. A prominent feature of the great Reformation was a violent and gen- eral reaction against the dogmas and abuses of the Ro- man system of ordinations. Without exception, Prot- estants rejected the five fiictitious sacraments of the Ro- VII.— D D
man Church, including orders. The Reformed churches not only rejected the doctrines but the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church in reference to ordination, falling back on scriptural precedents as their sole guide in reference to the modes of appointing and ordaining their clergy. A partial exception has to be stated in reference to the Church of England, which retained a portion of the Roman ritual of ordination. In reference to this as well as many other subjects, different inter- pretations of Scripture prevailed, and consequently dif- ferent customs of ordination were established. Most of the Reformed churches, doubtless owing to the great abuses so long associated with the name and character of bishop, rejected the episcopal office entirely, although the Lutheran Church retained it under the name of su- perintendent. There was great unanimity in accepting the ordination by elders as appropriate and valid, but in some of the churches two classes of elders were recog- nised—teaching (clerical) and ruling (lay) elders. In some, as in the Church of Scotland, the clerical presby- ters only join in the imposition of hands. Among the Independents and Baptists the power of ordination is considered to inhere in any given congregation of be- lievers. The qualifications of a candidate are first as- certained and approved by a Church, which, having called him to its ministry, and he accepting, proceeds to confer ordination upon him bj' prayer and the imposition of hands.