Weighty questions discussed I. Whether imposition of hands in separating a person to the…

Let the Scriptures, in the Languages, that the Spirit of God inspired his Pen-men to write them, be sent to a People who never saw them, nor heard of them. Let this People understand them, believe them, embrace them, give themselves up to them without any Ministry, to translate, to interpret, and to help them to understand and believe; I will allow this People to be the Subjectum Primum, Secundum, Tertium, of all the Power of the Keys, but rot else.

Secondly, There are others who lay claim to this, and impropriate it to themselves, as belonging to them only, i. e. Bishops, as being of a Superior Order above Teaching Elders: Thus Bishop Gawden told me, it was out of Courtesy, that the Bishop admitted Presbyters to impose Hands with them in Ordination. Thanks to this Courteous Bishop. I thought they had followed the fourth Council of Carthage: But if Presbyters do impose Hands with the Bishop, then the Superiority of the Bishop above the Presbyter, in Ordination, is gone: For Imposition of Hands is the Principal thing in Ordination, as I will prove anon, because one prays at the Imposition; that argues no Superiority of Power in him.

Secondly, There are others who lay claim to this, and impropriate it to themselves, as belonging to them only, i. e. Bishops, as being of a Superior Order above Teaching Elders: Thus Bishop Gawden told me, it was out of Courtesie, that the Bishop admitted Presbyters to impose Hands with them in Ordination. Thanks to this Courteous Bishop. I thought they had followed the fourth Council of Cartbage: But if Presbyters do impose Hands with the Bishop, then the Superiority of the Bishop above the Presbyter, in Ordination, is gone: For Imposition of Hands is the Principal thing in Ordination, as I will prove anon, because one prays at the Imposition; that argues no Superiority of Power in him.

All Bishops were not of this Bishop Gawden's mind; not that Bishop of Peterborough, who when he ordained many at one time, but then take notice, That he did ordain them as Presbyter. He spoke not without Reason; for no Ministerial Acts in the Church are valid, but such Acts as are performed by Ministers of Christ's, Institution. They who are Officers in the Church by Civil or Ecclesiastical Constitution, all their Acts as such, signify nothing. But his being a Bishop, and so superior to a Presbyter, was by no Institution of Christ, had only jus Humanum to Warrant his Authority, and therefore he did not ordain as such a Bishop, but as Presbyter. Two I know, Mr. Statham, (as I heard) and Mr. Samuel Smith, who were then Ordained: Mr. Smith spake of it often, what the Bishop said to them, and d them take notice of it: Had Mr. Smith lived till now, he had