standeth
in the mission to the deputation of a man to an ecclesiastical function,
with power and authority to perform the same; and thus are pastors
ordained when they are sent to a people with power to preach the word,
minister the sacraments, and exercise ecclesiastical discipline among
them. For "How shall they preach except they be sent?" Rom. x. 15. Unto
which mission or ordination neither prayer nor imposition of hands, nor
any other of the church's rites, is essential and necessary, as the
Archbishop of Spalato showeth,(1021) who placeth the essential act of
ordination in _missione potestativa_, or a simple deputation and
application of a minister to his ministerial function with power to
perform it. This may be done, saith he, by word alone, without any other
ceremony, in such sort that the fact should hold, and the ordination thus
given should be valid enough. When a man is elected by the suffrages of
the church, then his ordination is _quasi solennis missio in possessionem
honoris illius, ex decreto_, saith Junius.(1022) Chemnitius noteth,(1023)
that when Christ, after he had chosen his twelve apostles, ordained them
to preach the gospel, to cast out devils, and to heal diseases, we read of
no ceremony used in this ordination, but only that Christ gave them power
to preach, to heal, and to cast out devils, and so sent them away to the
work. And howsoever the church hath for order and decency used some rite
in ordination, yet there is no such rite to be used with opinion of
necessity, or as appointed by Christ or his apostles. When our writers
prove against Papists that order is no sacrament, this is one of their
arguments, that there is no rite instituted in the New Testament to be
used in the giving of orders. Yet because imposition of hands was used in
ordination not only by the apostles, who had power to give extraordinarily
the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but likewise by the presbytery or company of
elders; and Timothy did not only receive the gift that was in him, by the
laying on of Paul's hands. 2 Tim. i. 16, as the mean, but also with the
laying on of the hands of the presbytery, 1 Tim. iv. 14, as the rite and
sign of his ordination; therefore the church, in the after ages, hath
still kept and used the same rite in ordination, which rite shall, with
our leave, be yet retained in the church, providing, 1. It be not used
with opinion of necessity; for that the church hath full liberty either to
use any other