Part 69

The ministerial commission is contained in, and conveyed by, the law of Christ, which is the charter of the church, and every true bishop or pastor hath his power from Christ, and not at all from the efficient conveyance of any mortal man: even as kings have their power not from man, but from God himself; but with this difference, that in the church Christ hath immediately determined of the species of church offices, but in the civil government, only of the genus (absolutely and immediately).[108] You cannot have a plainer illustration, than by considering how mayors, and bailiffs, and constables are annually made in corporations: the king by his charter saith, that every year at a certain time the free-men or burgesses shall meet, and choose one to be their mayor, and the steward or town-clerk shall give him his oath, and thus or thus he shall be invested in his place, and this shall be his power and work, and no other. So the king by his law appointeth that constables and churchwardens shall be chosen in every parish. Now let our two questions be here decided: 1. Who is it that giveth these officers their power? 2. Whether an uninterrupted succession of such officers through all generations since the enacting of that law, be necessary to the validity of the present officer's authority? To the first, It is certain that it is the king by his law or charter that giveth the officers their power; and that the corporations and parishes do not give it them by electing or investing them; yea, though the king hath made such election and investiture to be in a sort his instrument in the conveying it, it is but as the opening of the door to let them in, _sine quo non_; but it doth not make the instruments to be at all the givers of the power, nor were they the receiving or containing mediate causes of it. The king never gave them the power which the officers receive, either to use, or to give; but only makes the electors his instruments to determine of the person that shall receive the power immediately from the law or charter; and the investers he maketh his instruments of solemnizing the tradition and admission: which if the law or charter make absolutely necessary _ad esse officii_, it will be so; but if it make it necessary only _ad melius esse_, or but for order and regular admittance when no necessity hindereth it, the necessity will be no more. And to the second question, It is plain that the law, which is the _fundamentum juris_, remaining still the same, if a parish omit for divers years to choose any constable or churchwarden, yet the next time they do choose one according to law, the law doth authorize him, nevertheless, though there was an interruption or vacancy so long; and so in corporations (unless the law or charter say the contrary): so is it in the present case. 1. It is the established law of Christ, which describeth the office, determineth of the degree and kind of power, and granteth or conveyeth it, when the person is determined of by the electors and ordainers, though by ordination the delivery and admission is regularly to be solemnized; which actions are of just so much necessity as that law hath made them, and no more. 2. And if there were never so long an interruption or vacancy, he that afterward entereth lawfully, so as to want nothing which the law of Christ hath made necessary to the being of the office, doth receive his power nevertheless immediately from the law of Christ. And Bellarmine himself saith, that it is not necessary to the people, and to the validity of sacraments and offices to them, to know that their pastors be truly called or ordained: and if it be not necessary to the validity of sacraments, it is not necessary to the validity of ordination. And W. Johnson[109] confesseth to me that consecration is not absolutely necessary _ad esse officii_ to the pope himself: no, nor any one sort of electors in his election, p. 133. And in his Repl. Term. Expl. p. 45, he saith, Neither papal nor episcopal jurisdiction (as all the learned know) depends of episcopal or papal ordination: nor was there ever interruptions of successions in episcopal jurisdiction in any see, for want of that alone, that is necessary for consecrating others validly, and not for jurisdiction over them. You see then how little sincerity is in these men's disputations, when they would persuade you to reject your lawful pastors as no true ministers of Christ, for want of their ordination or succession.