HOOKER, PRESBYTER AND DOCTOR.-Ecclesiastical Polity, In that they are CHRIST's ambassadors and His labourers, who should give them their commission, but He whose most inward affairs they manage? Is not GoD alone the FATHER of spirits? Are not souls the purchase of JESUS CHRIST? What angel in heaven could have said to man, as our Lord did unto Peter, "Feed my sheep,—preach-baptize—do this in remembrance of Me. Whose sins ye retain, they are retained; and their offences in heaven pardoned, whose faults you shall on earth forgive?" What think we? Are these terrestrial sounds, or else are they voices uttered out of the clouds above? The power of the ministry of God, translateth out of darkness into glory; it raiseth man from the earth, and bringeth God Himself from heaven; by blessing visible elements it maketh them invisible graces; it giveth daily the HOLY GHOST; it hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the world, and that blood which was poured out to redeem souls; when it poureth malediction upon the heads of the wicked, they perish; when it revoketh the same, they revive. O wretched blindness, if we admire not so great power; more wretched if we consider it aright, and, notwithstanding, imagine that any but God can bestow it! To whom CHRIST hath imparted power, both over that mystical body which is the society of souls, and over that natural which is Himself, for the knitting of both in one, (a work which antiquity doth call the making of CHRIST's body,) the same power is in such not amiss both termed a kind of mark or character, and acknowledged to be indelible. . . . . "Receive the HOLY GHOST; whose sins soever ye remit, they are remitted; whose sins ye retain, they are retained." Whereas, therefore, the other Evangelists had set down, that CHRIST did before His suffering promise to give His Apostles the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and being risen from the dead, promised moreover at that time a miraculous power of the HOLY GHOST, St. John addeth, that He also invested them even then with the power of the HOLY GHOST for castigation and relaxation of sin, wherein was fully accomplished that which the promise of the keys did import. Seeing therefore, that the same power is now given, why should the same form of words expressing it be thought foolish? Ibid. § 68. Now the privilege of the visible Church of GOD (for of that we speak) is to be herein like the ark of Noah, that, for any thing we know to the contrary, all without it are lost sheep; yet in this was the ark of Noah privileged above the Church, that whereas none of them which were in the one could perish, numbers in the other are cast away, because to eternal life our profession is not enough. BANCROFT, ARCHBISHOP.-Sermon preached at Paul's Cross. This hath ever been reckoned a most certain ground and principle in religion, that that Church, which maintaineth without error the faith of CHRIST, which holdeth the true doctrine of the Gospel in matters necessary to salvation, and preacheth the same, which retaineth the lawful use of those Sacraments only which CHRIST hath appointed, and which appointeth vice to be punished, and virtue to be maintained, notwithstanding in some other respects, and in some points, it have many blemishes, imperfections, nay divers and sundry errors, is yet to be acknowledged for the Mother of the faithful, the House of GOD, the Ark of Noah, the pillar of Truth, and the spouse of CHRIST. From which Church whosoever doth separate himself, he is to be reckoned a schismatic or an heretic. . . . There are many causes set down by the said ancient Fathers, why so many false prophets do go out into the world; but I will only touch four; whereof I find the contempt of Bishops especially to be one; for unto them, as St. Jerome saith, ever since St. Mark's time, the care of Church Government hath been committed; they had authority over the rest of the ministry. . . . "that the seed of schism might be taken away, &c." Read the Scriptures, but with sobriety; if any man presuming upon his knowledge, seek further than is meet for him, besides that he knoweth nothing as he ought to know, he shall cast himself into a labyrinth, and never find that he seeketh for. God hath bound Himself by His promise unto His Church of purpose, that men by her good direction might in this point be relieved; to whose godly determination in matters of question, her dutiful children ought to submit themselves without any curious or wilful contradiction. I could bring many authorities to this effect. ANDREWS, BISHOP AND DOCTOR.-Sermons on Whitsunday, No. 9. (Works, p. 695.) The HOLY GHOST may be received more ways than one. He hath many spiramina; ToλUTрóws, "in many manners" He comes; and multiformis gratia He comes with. He and they carry the name of their cause; and to receive them is to receive the SPIRIT. There is a gratum faciens, the saving grace of the SPIRIT, for one to save himself by, received by each, without respect to others; and there is a gratis data (whatever become of us) serving to save others by, without respect to ourselves. And there is xápis diakovias, the grace of a holy calling, for it is a grace, to be a conduit of grace any way. All these; and all from one and the same SPIRIT. That was here conferred, (in John xx. 22.) was not the saving grace of inward sanctimony; they were not "breathed on" to that end. The Church to this day gives this still in her ordinations, but the saving grace the Church cannot give; none but GOD can give that. Nor the gratis data it is not. That came by the tongues, both the gift of speaking divine languages, and the gift of ȧrоpléуyεσ0αt, speaking wisely, and to the purpose: and (we know) none is either the holier or the learneder by his ordination. Yet a grace it is. For the very office itself is a grace; mihi data est hæc gratia, saith the Apostle, in more places than one; and speaks of his office and nothing else. The Apostleship was a grace, yet no saving grace. Else, should Judas have been saved. Clearly then, it is the grace of their calling (this) whereby they were sacred and made persons public, and their acts authentical, and they enabled to do somewhat about the remission of sins, that is not (of like avail) done by others, though perhaps, more learned and virtuous than they, in that they have not the like mitto vos, nor the same accipite that these have. Ibid.-Sermon on Absolution. (Appendix, p. 90.) The power of remitting sin is originally in GoD, and in GoD alone. And CHRIST Our SAVIOUR, by means of the union of the Godhead and manhood into one person, by virtue whereof "The Son of man hath power to forgive sins upon earth." This power being thus solely vested in GoD, He might, without wrong to any, have retained and kept to Himself, and without means of word or sacrament, and without ministers, either apostles or others, have exercised immediately by Himself from Heaven. But we should then have said of the remission of sins, saith St. Paul, "Who shall go up to heaven for it, and fetch it thence? for which cause," saith he, "the righteousness of faith speaketh thus, Say not so, &c." Partly this, but there should be no such difficulty to shake our faith, as once to imagine to fetch CHRIST from heaven for the remission of our sins; and partly also, because CHRIST, to whom alone this commission was originally granted, having ordained Himself a body, would work by bodily things, and having taken the nature of a man upon Him, would honour the nature He had so taken, for these causes; that which was His, and His alone, He vouchsafed to impart, and out of His commission to grant a commission, and thereby to associate them to Himself, (it is His own word by the prophet) and to make them ovvépyovs, that is cooperatores, workers together with Him (as the Apostle speaketh) to the work of salvation, both of themselves and of others. GOD then it is derived; from GoD and to men. From Now if we ask, to what men? the text is plain. They to whom CHRIST said this Remiseritis, were the Apostles. In the Apostles, (that we may come nearer yet) we find three capacities as we may term them, 1. As Christians in general. 2. As preachers, priests, or ministers, more special. 3. As those twelve persons, whom in strict propriety of speech, we term the Apostles. Some things that CHRIST spake to them, He spake to them as representing the whole company of Christians; as His Vigilate. Some things to them, not as Christians, but as preachers or priests; as His Ite prædicate Evangelium and his Hoc facite; which no man thinketh all Christians may do. : And some things to themselves personally as that He had appointed them witnesses of His miracles and resurrection, which cannot be applied but to them and them in person. It remaineth we inquire, in which of these three capacities CHRIST imparted to them this commission. Not to the Apostles properly; that is, this was no personal privilege to be in them, and to die with them, that they should only execute it for a time, and none ever after them. GOD forbid we should so think it. For, this power being more than needful for the world, (as in the beginning it was said,) it was not to be either personal, or for a time; then those persons dying, and those times determining, them in the ages following (as we now in this) that should light into this prison or captivity of sin, how could they or we receive any benefit by it? Of nature, it is said by the heathen philosopher, that it does neither abundare in superfluis, nor deficere in necessariis. God forbid, but we should ascribe as much to God at the least, that neither He would ordain power superfluous or more than needed, or else, it being needful, would appropriate it unto one age, and leave all other destitute of it; and not rather, as all writers both new and old take it, continue it successively to the world's end. And as not proper to the Apostles' persons, so neither common to all Christians in general, nor in the persons of all Christians conveyed to them. Which thing the very circumstances of the text do evict. For He sent them first, and after inspired them; and after both these, gave them this commission. Now all Christians are not so sent, nor all Christians inspired with the grace or gift of the SPIRIT, that they were here. Consequently, it was not intended to the whole society of Christians. Yea, I add, that forasmuch as these two, both these two, must go before it, Missio |