A41335:95
Weighty questions discussed I. Whether imposition of hands in separating a person to the…
Weighty questions discussed I. Whether imposition of hands in separating a person to the work of the ministry be necessary?, II. Whether it be essential to the right constitution of a particular church, that the teaching elders and the members meet always in one place? : whereunto is added a prediction of Mr. Daniel Rogers, minister in Essex, long before the beheading King Charles I and Arch-Bishop Laud, foretelling that they should not dye a natural death / by Giles Firmin ...Weighty questions discussed I. Whether imposition of hands in separating a person to the work of the ministry be necessry?, II. Whether it be essential to the right constitution of a particular church, that the teaching elders and the members meet alwayes in one place? : whereunto is added a prediction of Mr. Daniel Rogers, minister in Essex, long before the beheading King Charles I and Arch-Bishop Laud, foretelling that they should not dye a natural death / by Giles Firmin ...
London : Printed for the author, 1692
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
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