attendance; "The presbyters which are among you h, I who also am a presbyter, exhort,-feed the flock of God which is among you, ἐπισκοποῦντες ἑκουσίως, προθύμως, doing the office of bishops over them, taking supravision or oversight of them willingly and of a ready mind." The presbyters and bishops, they are to feed the flock;' there was Toiuviov, a flock' to be distinguished from the ToμLEVES, the shepherds; ' the 'elders' ¿v vμ and the 'flock among you,' distinguished by a regular office of teaching, and a relation of shepherds and sheep. 16. But this discourse would be unnecessarily long, unless I should omit many arguments, and contract the rest; I only shall desire it be considered, concerning the purpose of that part of Divine Providence, in giving the Christian church commandments concerning provisions to be made for the preachers; "Let the elders that rule well, have a double honour," an elder brother's portion at least, both of honour and maintenance," especially if they labour in the word and doctrine;" and the reason is taken out of Moses's law, but derived from the natural," Bovi trituranti non ligabis os." "For God hath ordained, that those that labour in the gospel, should live of the gospel." This argument will force us to distinguish persons, or else our purses will; and if all will have a right to preach the gospel that think themselves able, then also they have a right to be maintained too. 17. I shall add no more: 1. God hath designed persons to teach the people; 2. charged them with the cure of souls; 3. given them permission to go into all the world;' 4. given them gifts accordingly; 5. charged the people to attend and obey; 6. hath provided them maintenance and support; and, 7. separated them to "reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine," from the affairs of this world, that they may attend to these, by the care of the whole man. If any man, in charity or duty, will do any ghostly offices to his erring or weak brother, he may have a reward of charity for in this sense it is that Tertullian says, that, in remote and barbarous countries, the laity do "sacerdotio aliquatenus fungi." But if he invades the public chair, he may meet with the curse of Korah, "if he intends maliciously:" or if he have fairer, but mistaken purposes, the gentler sentence, passed upon Uzza, may be the worst of his evil portion. SECT. IV. 1. I INSTANCE next in the case of baptism, which indeed hath some difficulty and prejudice passed upon it; and although it be put in the same commission, intrusted to the same persons, be a sacred ministry, a sacrament and a mysterious rite, whose very sacramental and separate nature requires the solemnity of a distinct order of persons for its ministration yet if the laity may be admitted to the dispensation of so sacred and solemn rites, there is nothing in the calling of the clergy, that can distinguish them from the rest of God's people, but they shall be holy enough to dispense holy offices without the charges of paying honour and maintenance to others to do what they can do themselves. 2. In opposition to which, I first consider, that the ordinary minister of baptism is a person consecrated; the apostles and their successors in the office apostolical, and all those that partake of that power; and it needs no other proof, but the plain production of the commission; they who are teachers by ordinary power and authority, they also had command to 'baptize all nations:' and baptism being the solemn rite of initiating disciples, and making the first public profession of the institution, it is, in reason and analogy of the mystery, to be ministered by those who were appointed to collect the church, and make disciples. It is as plain and decretory a commission, as any other mysteriousness of Christianity; and hath been accepted so for ever as the doctrine of Christianity, as may appear in Ignatius k, Tertullian, St. Gelasius m, St. Epiphanius ", and St. Jerome o; who affirm, in variety of senses, that "bishops, priests, and deacons, only are to baptize; some by ordinary right, some by deputation; of which I shall afterward give account; but all the 'jus ordinarium' they intend to fix upon the clergy, according to divine institution and commandment. So that in case Lib. de Bapt. " Hæres. 79. * Epist. ad Hieron. Epist. 1. cap. 9. • Dial. adv. Lucifer. lay-persons might baptize κατά περίστασιν, and δι' ἀνάγκην upon urgent necessity,'-yet this cannot, upon just pretence, invade the ordinary ministry, because God had dispensed the affairs of his church, so that cases of necessity do not often occur to the prejudice and dissolution of public order and ministries; and if permissions, being made to supply necessities, be brought further than the case of exception gives leave, the permission is turned into a crime, and does greater violence to the rule, by how much it was fortified by that very exception, as to other cases not excepted. And although, in case of extreme necessity, every man may preach the gospel, as to dying heathens, or unbelieving persons, yet if they do this without such or the like necessity, what at first was charity, in the other case is schism and pride, the two greatest enemies to charity in the world. 3. But now for the thing itself, whether indeed any case of necessity can transmit to lay-persons a right of baptizing, it must be distinctly considered; some say it does. For Ananias baptized Paul, who yet, as it was said, was not in holy orders; and that the three thousand converts at the first sermon of St. Peter were all baptized by the apostles, is not easily credible, it being too numerous a body for so few persons to baptize; and when Peter had preached to Cornelius. and his family, he caused the brethren, that came along with him, to baptize them: and whether hands had been imposed upon them or no, is not certain. And in pursuance of the instance of Ananias, and the other probabilities, the doctors of the church have declared their opinion Series, "In cases of necessity a lay-person may baptize." So Tertullian P in his book of baptism: "Alioqui et laicis jus est baptizandi: quod enim ex æquo accipitur, ex æquo dari potest." The reason is also urged by St. Jerome to the same purpose; only requiring that the baptizer be a Christian, supposing "whatsoever they have received, they may also give; but because the reason concludes not, because (as themselves believe) a presbyter cannot collate his presbyterate, it must therefore rest only upon their bare authority; if it shall be thought strong enough to bear the weight of the contrary reasons. And the fathers in the council of Eliberis a determined, " peregrè navigantes, aut si ecclesia in proximo non fuerit, posse fidelem, qui lavacrum suum integrum habet, nec sit bigamus, baptizare in necessitate infirmitatis positum catechumenum; ita ut, si supervixerit, ad episcopum eum producat, ut per manus impositionem proficere possit." The synod, held at Alexandria under Alexander their bishop, approved the baptism of the children by Athanasius', being but a boy; and the Nicene fathers ratifying the baptism made by heretics (amongst whom they could not but know in some cases, there was no true priesthood or legitimate ordination), must, by necessary consequence, suppose baptism to be dispensed effectually by lay-persons. And St. Jerome is plain: "Baptizare, si necessitas cogat, scimus etiam licere laicis;" the same almost with the canons of the fourth council of Carthage: "Mulier baptizare non præsumat nisi necessitate cogente:" though, by the way, these words of nisi cogente necessitate' are not in the canon, but thrust in by Gratian and Peter Lombard. And of the same opinion is St. Ambrose, or he who under his name wrote the commentaries upon the fourth chapter to the Ephesians, Peter Gelasius', St. Austin", and Isidore, and generally all the scholars after their master. 4. But against this doctrine were all the African bishops for about one hundred and fifty years; who therefore rebaptized persons returning from heretical conventicles; because those heretical bishops being deposed and reduced into laycommunion, could not therefore collate baptism for their want of holy orders; as appears in St. Basil's canonical epistle to Amphilochius, where he relates their reason, and refutes it not. And however Firmilian and St. Cyprian might be deceived in the thinking heretics quite lost their orders,-yet in this they were untouched, that although their supposition was questionable, yet their superstructure was not meddled with, viz. that if they had been lay-persons, their baptizations were null and invalid. 5. I confess, the opinion hath been very generally taken up in these last ages of the church, and almost with a 'nemine contradicente;' the first ages had more variety of opinion; and I think it may yet be considered anew upon the old stock. For since, absolutely, all the church affixes the Ruffin. lib. 10. cap. 14. * Can. Mulier. de Consec. Dist. lib. 4. sent. dist. 6. * Lib. 2. de Divin. Offic. ordinary ministry of baptism to the clergy; if others do baptize, do they sin, or do they not sin? That it is no sin, is expressly affirmed in the sixteenth canony of Nicephorus of Constantinople: "If the own father baptizes the child, or any other Christian man, it is no sin." St. Austin is almost of another mind; "Et si laicus necessitate compulsus baptismum dederit, nescio an piè quisquam dixerit, Baptismum esse repetendum:' nullâ enim cogente necessitate si fiat, alieni muneris usurpatio est; si autem necessitas urgeat, aut nullum, aut veniale delictum est." And of this mind are all they who by frequent using of that saying have made it almost proverbial, "Factum valet, fieri non debet." If they do not sin, then women and laymen have as much right from Christ to baptize as deacons or presbyters: then they may, upon the same stock and right, do it as deacons do; for if a bishop was present, it was not lawful for deacons, as is expressly affirmed by St. Ignatius in his epistle to Heron the deacon; and St. Epiphaniusa with the same words denies a 'jus baptizandi' to women and to deacons, and both of them affirm it to be proper to bishops. Further yet, Tertullian b and St. Jerome deny a power to presbyters to do it without episcopal dispensation. Now if presbyters and deacons have this power, only by leave and in certain cases,-then it is more than the women have: only that they are fitter persons to be intrusted with the deputation; a less necessity will devolve it upon presbyters than upon deacons, and upon deacons than laymen; and a less yet will cast it upon laymen than women: and this difference is in respect of human order and positive constitution; but in the nature of the thing, according to this doctrine all persons are equally receptive of it: and therefore to baptize is no part of the grace of orders, no fruit of the Holy Ghost, but a work which may be done by all, and at some times must: and if baptism may, then it will be hard to keep all the other rites from the common inroads, and then the whole office will perish. 6. But if lay-persons baptizing, though in case of necessity, 'do sin,' as St. Austin seems to say they do, then it is cer * Χρὴ τὰ ἀβάπτιστα νήπια, ἐὰν εὑρεθῆ τις, εἰς τόπον μὴ ὄντος ἱερέως, βαπτισθῆναι εἰ καὶ βαπτίσει δὲ ὁ ἴδιος πατὴρ ἢ οἷος δήποτε ἄνθρωπος μόνος, εἰ ἔστιν ὁ χριστιανός, οὐκ ἔστιν ἁμαρτία. * Lib. 2. contr. Epist. Parmen. cap. 13. b De Bapt. adv. Lucifer. a Hære. 19. |