Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/234

30 thorized by Himself) to oversee and govern all those particular Churches into which the Church Catholic should be hereafter distributed; to ordain, &c., &c. And this being the standing government and discipline of the Catholic Church, no particular Church or community of Christians can refuse to communicate in it, without dividing itself from the communion of the Church Catholic; I say, "refuse to communicate in it," because it is possible for a Church to be without this government and discipline, which yet doth neither refuse it, nor the communion of any other Church for the sake of it. A church may be debarred of it by unavoidable necessities, in despite of its power and against its consent..... Though this instituted government is necessary to the perfection of a church, yet it doth not therefore follow, that it is necessary to the being of it..... But though a community of Christians may be a true part of the Catholic Church, and in communion with it, though it hath no episcopacy; yet it is a plain case, that if it rejects the episcopacy, and separates from the communion of it, it thereby wholly divides itself from the communion of the Catholic Church.

The imposition of hands in Holy orders, being accompanied with a blessing of the Holy Spirit, may, perhaps, upon that account, be called a kind of particular sacrament. Yet since that grace, which is thereby conferred, whatever it be, is not common to all Christians, nor by consequence any part of that federal blessing which our blessed Saviour has purchased for us, but only a separation of him who receives it to a special employ, we think it ought not to be esteemed a common sacrament of the whole Church, as Baptism and the Lord's Supper are..... We confess that no man ought to exercise the ministerial office till he be first consecrated to it. We believe that it is the Bishop's part only to ordain. We maintain the distinction of the several orders in the Church; and though we have none of them below a deacon, because we do not read that the Apostles had any, yet