A Plain Answer TO A Popish Priest Questioning the ORDERS OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND.  
Drawn up for the satisfaction of his Parishioners, by a Minister of That Church.  
IMPRIMATUR, Libellus cui Titulus [A Plain Answer to a Popish Priest questioning the Orders of the Church of England, etc.]  
April 16. 1688. H. MAURICE, Rmo in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiepis. Cant. a Sacris Domest.  
LONDON: Printed for John Howell, Bookseller in Oxford. 1688.   

A Plain Answer TO A POPISH PRIEST, etc.  
I Know nothing that useth to be objected against our Orders, but that either, 

1. We have not a true Succession of Bishops. Or  
2. No true form of Orders. Or  
3. That our Ordainers are Schismatics, or Heretics, and so cannot ordain:   for as for that ridiculous silly exploded Story of the Nagshead Ordination, it requires a very hard Forehead at this time of day to own it, when We have so often proved from Authentic Records, that Archbishop Parker was ordained in the Chapel at Lambeth by more than three Bishops, and all his Brethren accordingly, agreeable to the Canons of the Ancient Church: and if this be denied, I will be at any time responsible for an Authentic Copy of those Records.  
Now to the first Objection, That we have no true Succession; I answer, 
 1. That there is a double Succession, of Doctrine, and of Persons; as to the Succession of Doctrine, We have better proofs than They; We believing all that hath been believed by the Catholic Church of Christ as necessary to Salvation, while the Romanists have introduced too many both Doctrines and Practices unknown to Antiquity.  
2. That as to the Succession of Persons, 

1. That proves Nothing without Succession of Doctrines; for many of the Heretical Churches, as the Romanists account them, of the East, can show as good a Succession as they can at Rome.  
2. We have had such a Succession from the very foundation of our Church; and if it be objected, that We cannot show a complete Catalogue of the Names of our Bishops: 

1. We say it is not necessary; For must there have been no Burgesses sent from any Towns in England to Parliament, because, as I suppose, no Man can show a List of the Names of all the several Persons that served there for every Town since the first Institution? And were there no Kings in many parts of the World, because we cannot give an account who was the first, and the second, etc.  
2. Some of the Churches, to whom the Romanists allow a Succession, cannot show complete Catalogues, as the Churches of Thessalonica, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Smyrna, etc. and yet no man denies that they have Episcopal Succession amongst them.  
3. Nor is the Succession of the Roman Church so undoubted as They would make it; for it is questionable whether St. Peter were ever Bishop of Rome (in the true Ecclesiastical sense of the Word) nor can Their best Authors to this day tell us who were his immediate Successors; and among them, how many of their Chronologists have made two Men, and two Popes of One? (for Cletus and Anacletus were undoubtedly the same Person) and if we consider how many Antipopes there were in the times of the great Schisms under which that Church laboured, and that there are many differences between the French and Italian Writers about the number of their Popes, and who were the true Successors of St. Peter; (The Princes of each Country, during those Schisms, embracing the Interests of that Pope who was of greatest use and advantage to them) we have no great reason to depend so much on their Succession. And whereas  
4. The Fathers, to prove Heretics to be men but of yesterday, and to have no true Succession from the Apostles (as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Austin, Optatus, etc.) instance in the Succession of the Church of Rome, we are to remember that They were Western Fathers, and so thought fit, as it was most proper, to instance in the Succession of the Western Patriarch; not but that other Churches could plead the same Succession, but that this Patriarchal See was the nearest at hand: and They withal declare, that They could with the same Reason instance in the Succession of other Patriarches, whose Seats Tertullian calls Mother-Churches, as well as Rome.      
The second Objection is, That we have no true form of Orders; and that none can confer that Power on Another, which He hath not himself. To which I answer in general, That if that Aphorism be true, than an Infidel, that baptizeth in case of Necessity, cannot give Baptism, because He himself is not baptised; and yet the Roman Church allows such Baptism to be valid in case of Necessity.  
But in particular we say, 

1. That neither Christ nor his Apostles instituted any form of Words; and if Christ did not institute any form of Words, than Orders are not a Sacrament from their own Principles; for to every Sacrament is required, as they say, an outward Sign, and an inward Grace, and a form of Words to convey that Grace: for I should be glad to meet that Man who would show me, that any one else but Christ can institute a Sacrament, or that our Saviour delivered the holy Vessels, (the Paten and Chalice) to the Apostles, and gave them power to offer Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead.  
2. We keep that Form which the Apostolical Church used in giving Orders, viz. Imposition of Hands, 1 Tim. 4.14. 2 Tim. 1.6.  
3. Many of the Romish Church allow this to be a sufficient Form. 

1. In the Case of the Greek Church, whose Orders They allow to be valid, though They use not the Roman Form. And  
2. For this Reason F. Walsh, S. Clare, and some others of the Roman Church allow our Orders to be good.    
4. We are sure that our Form is not only agreeable to the Apostolical Writings, but to the Practice of the Ancient Church. St. Chrysostom, Hom. 14. in Act. says, This is Ordination, The hand of Man is imposed, but God worketh All, and it is his Hand that toucheth the Head of Him that is Ordained. Nor can the Romanists themselves show us any such Form as Theirs is, of touching the Vessels deputed to the use of the Blessed Eucharist, till above 800 years after our Saviour's time.    
The third Objection is, Your Church is Schismatical and Heretical, and so cannot confer Orders.  
To which we answer, That the Charge is unjust, and that in truth the Heresy and Schism lies at the door of the Church of Rome; and if their Argument be good, let them consider how They will be able to vindicate themselves. But take the Charge for granted: 

1. The Ordination of Heretics was looked upon to be valid in the Primitive Church.  
2. The Greeks are accounted by the Romanists not only Schismatics, but Heretics, as well as We, and yet their Priests are not re-ordained; nay, many Greeks are sent from the Seminary at Rome to be ordained by those Schismatical and Heretical Bishops in the East.  
3. If no Orders given by a Heretic be valid, what becomes of their own, among whom so many Popes were Heretical, Liberius an Arrian, Honorius a Monothelite, John the 22d in some Points a Sadduce, & c?  
4. If Orders be, as They reckon, a Sacrament, and the Sacraments give an indelible Character, where is that indelible Character, if He who was once duly ordered a Bishop, when He turns, as They call it, Heretic, cannot give Orders?  
5. Many of their Authors do say, That bore laying on of Hands, without using any Words at all, is giving of Orders; and some, That the Pope's saying, Be Thou a Priest, is sufficient: as if a Man should say, that sprinkling a Child were baptising it, when the Minister said never a Word; Or that saying, Be Thou a Christian, were sufficient to make it such, without sprinkling the Child, or dipping it in Water. And  
6. At last, to make the most of it, and to take it for granted that our Bishops were Schismatics and Heretics, what is said of Laymens' Baptism, and such like Cases, will be pleaded for this, What ought not to be done, is valid when it is done, i. e. it ought not to be reiterated.    
And when They Object that We had our Orders from them, and yet have left them, it is easily answered, 

1. That We had our Orders From them, as They from the Apostes; and We have separated no farther from Them, than They from the Apostles.  
2. That this doth not make us any more beholding to Them for handing down our Orders to Us, than They are to the Jews, for handing down the Scriptures of the Old Testament to Them; All being owing, not to the Charity of the Men, but to the Wise Providence and Goodness of God, who hath so taken care of his Church.    
To all which I subjoin, That We have a greater assurance of the validity of our Orders, than They can have of Theirs. 

1. Because They make the Intention of the Priest necessary to every Sacrament, and amongst the Sacraments They reckon Orders; (Council of Trent, Sess. 7. Can. 11.) and We know, that no Man can be sure of another Man's Intentions; and have been told, that some of their Bishops have confessed, That whenever they gave Orders, they never intended to make a Priest.  
2. Because, if the Person Ordained, or Ordaining, be Simoniacal; if the Pope, who made the Bishop, be so, or there were no just Intention when either of them were baptised, and so upward to the first Priest or Bishop who gave Baptism or Orders, than all that is done by such Men is by their own Doctrine invalid.     
FINIS.