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be no sufficient remedy provided, except according unto the order of Jerusalem already begun, some one were endued with episcopal authority over the rest, which one being resident might keep them in order, and have pre-eminence or principality in those things wherein the equality of many agents was the cause of disorder and trouble. This one president or governor amongst the rest had his known authority established a long time before that settled difference of name and title took place, whereby such alone were named bishops. And therefore in the book of St. John's Revelation we find that they are entitled angels.

"Nor was this order peculiar unto some few churches, but the whole world universally became subject thereunto; insomuch as they did not account it to be a church which was not subject unto a bishop. It was the general received persuasion of the ancient Christian world, that Ecclesia est in Episcopo, the outward being of a church consisteth in the having of a bishop.'"-Bk VII. ch. v. § 2.

"And what need we to seek far for proofs that the apostles, who began this order of regiment of bishops, did it not but by divine instinct, when without such direction things

of far less weight and moment they attempted not? Paul and Barnabas did not open their mouths to the Gentiles, till the Spirit had said, 'Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have sent them.' The eunuch by Philip was neither baptized nor instructed before the angel of God was sent to give him notice that so it pleased the Most High. In Asia, Paul and the rest were silent, because the Spirit forbade them to speak. When they intended to have seen Bithynia they stayed their journey, the Spirit not giving them leave to go. Before Timothy was employed in those episcopal affairs of the Church, about which the Apostle St. Paul used him, the Holy Ghost gave special charge for his ordination, and prophetical intelligence more than once, what success the same would have. And shall we think that James was made bishop of Jerusalem, Evodius bishop of the church of Antioch, the Angels in the churches of Asia bishops, that bishops everywhere were appointed to take away factions, contentions, and schisms, without some like divine instigation and direction of the Holy Ghost? Wherefore let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if any thing in the Church's government, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was

even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it.”—Bk. VII. ch. v. § 10.

"The whole Church visible being the true original subject of all power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than bishops alone to ordain howbeit, as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed, so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary ways.

"Men may be extraordinarily, yet allowably, two ways admitted unto spiritual functions in the Church. One is, when God himself doth of himself raise up any, whose labour He useth without requiring that men should authorize them; but then He doth ratify their calling by manifest signs and tokens himself from heaven: and thus even such as believed not our Saviour's teaching, did yet acknowledge him a lawful teacher sent from God: Thou art a teacher sent from God, otherwise none could do those things which thou doest.' Luther did but reasonably therefore, in declaring that the senate of Mulheuse should do well to ask of Muncer, from whence he received power to teach, who it was that had called him; and if his answer were that God had given him his charge, then to require at his hands some evident sign thereof for men's satisfaction because so God is wont, when He

himself is the author of any extraordinary calling.

"Another extraordinary kind of vocation is, when the exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual ways of the Church, which otherwise we would willingly keep: where the Church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain; in case of such necessity, the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, place. And therefore we are not simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination. These cases of inevitable necessity excepted, none may ordain but only bishops: by the imposition of their hands it is, that the Church giveth power of order, both unto presbyters and deacons.”—Bk. VII. ch. xiv. § 11.

Whilst Hooker, in passages quoted above, teaches unhesitatingly that episcopal ordination is of Divine institution, and that, in another passage, "no man's gifts or qualities can make him a minister of holy things, unless ordination do give him power," he nevertheless, in the passage last quoted above, allows exceptions in cases of "inevitable necessity," "where the 1 Bk. V. ch. lxxviii. § 6.

Church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain." He goes on to admit that, in his opinion, there may be valid ordination outside and apart from the Apostolical Succession, should necessity arise.

In the light of the statement of the Ordinal, "No man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal Consecration or Ordination." " 1 Hooker's opinion is extremely unsatisfactory. It may be presumed that he would have justified his teaching on grounds such as these: The truth no doubt is that God is free, and that He does not limit himself by making special covenants, and that He may, when He wills, supersede his ordinary methods of working, by methods extraordinary. The fact that He has promised or covenanted to give in one way, does not necessarily imply that He has no power to give in another, should occasion demand. Whilst conceding this point to Hooker, we 1 The last words, or hath had were inserted in the Preface in 1662. Hooker, however, had before him Articles XXIII. and XXXVI. from which like teaching may be gathered : and he had also the Ordinal itself.

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