Two passages in the report of the proceedings are well worthy of attention.
“It was sometimes queried, What good would this do as to the Dissenters? It was answered by Dr. Still:[157] We sat there to make such alterations as were fit, which would be fit to make were there no Dissenters, and which would be for the improvement of the service.”
“It was said, I think by Dr. F., that some of the Nonconformists desired to be heard. It was replied by Dr. Still: That was not to be allowed, because doubtless they had no more to say by word of mouth than they had in their writings; and, that they might do them justice, there were several of their books laid before the Committee, that they might consult if there be occasion.”
1689.
In answer to the suggestion of the old compromise of a hypothetical reference to the invalidity of any former ordination, Beveridge remarked that it looked like equivocation on the part both of ordainer and ordained; the first believing the second not ordained before, contrary to the belief of the second, who did not doubt his former orders. Burnet replied, there could be no ground for this objection, if a statement were annexed to the effect that each reserved his own opinion. Dr. Grove suggested that the former rite might be esteemed, not as wholly invalid, but as merely imperfect, and that the Bishop’s laying on of hands would complete what had been previously commenced. “But to this the Dean of St. Paul’s (Stillingfleet) replied, that in this point we were to respect two things—first, the preservation of the Church’s principle about the necessity of Episcopal ordination, when it might be had; and secondly, the case of the Dissenters,” in reference to whom he relates, or supposes, a most extraordinary and indeed unintelligible story, “that it was much like the marrying of the man, and the woman refusing; but after a term of years she consenting to go on, the woman was then married alone, without beginning again with the man.” What that means I leave the reader to find out. The study of the whole Report is dreary work.
Yet Tillotson, rich in common sense, must have been amused with these debates. He simply asked why might not the Church of England admit other orders, as it had been proposed its own should be admitted by the Church of Rome, when Queen Mary wrote to Gardiner, saying, “Quod illis deerat, supplebit Episcopus.” The Bishop’s supplement was alone sufficient for the potestas sacrificandi, without any invalidation of what had been previously accomplished. At last the Commissioners resolved upon adopting the hypothetical scheme—Beveridge and Scot alone dissenting from that conclusion.
COMPREHENSION.
The subject of exercising care relative to candidates occasioned no controversy; it was proposed that a month before ordination, testimonials should be sent to the Bishop; and that candidates should be tested by being required to compose some short discourse in writing “upon some point or article.” Burnet, not much to the satisfaction of some of his brethren, who eschewed all ecclesiastical precedents taken from the north of the Tweed, reported the Scotch method of requiring the composition of a doctrinal and practical discourse, and the examination of the candidate in the original Scriptures and in sacred chronology.
In the Ordination Service the use of the words “receive the Holy Ghost” gave rise to much discussion, as a command to receive involves the possession on the speaker’s part of a power to bestow; and Burnet contended that such a use could not be traced back above 400 years, it having been introduced in the Middle Ages for the purpose of exalting the priesthood. The form was originally, that of a humble prayer, not of an absolute bestowment. Thus it appeared in the Apostolical Constitutions, in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and in the Canons of the Councils of Carthage—the alteration being the fruit of Hildebrand’s time. The Bishop of St. Asaph and Dr. Scot, however, vindicated the Church of England in her employment of the Saviour’s words, and asserted that if they be not retained, “there is no form of ordination authoritatively,”—a very unfortunate ground of defence, for, as it was justly said, if so, then, the words not being used in the absolute form until within the previous four centuries, no valid ordinations had previously taken place. Tillotson selected a quotation from St. Augustine,[158] proving Christ to be God, because He bestowed the Holy Ghost; thus suggesting the argument that the Church could not authoritatively confer the celestial gift, but only pray that it might be conferred by the Divine Being. The rest of the time was spent in revising the Daily Prayer, the Communion and Confirmation Services, the Catechism, and other formularies, and in preparing new Collects.
1689.