Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Introductory Essay.
xli
Orders on grounds upon which neither the
Eastern nor Western Church would deny
them ;* ignorant, all the while, that he is so far
honouring those who unblameably served It." Dr. Overbeck
speaks of this as "a gratifying contrast with the tame
style and subdued voice of the Eoman Church in the
Council of Trent, which seems to be made for entrapping
converts, prescribing the minimum and hiding the maxi
"
mum. To me it seems that while the Eoman Church has
wisely laid down the minimum of what she holds as defide,
without enjoining any practice whatever, "it is good and
useful to invoke the saints." The Confessio Orthodoxa
stops short even of this. It states the practice, but con
"
demns only contempt of their mediation," i. ., their in
tercession with ALMIGHTY GOD for us, which no one who
"
"
believes in The Communion of the Saints can doubt
that they, who when on earth ever prayed for their fellow
travellers toward heaven, continue for us, when they are
themselves in safety in heaven.
" * Had Parker been consecrated conformably to the present
form the case would lie quite differently. But as Parker s
consecration was invalid, the Apostolic line was broken off,
irremediably broken off. The Anglican difficulty lies, if
not solely, at least chiefly in the deficient form of Episcopal
consecration." Overbeck, p. 69. And this deficiency he
places therein, that in Parker s consecration the words
"
used were Take the Hollie Gost, &c.," without those
"
other words since added, for the office and work of a
Bishop in the Church of God." But the words "
Accipe
Spiritum sanctum," are not only held by Eoman authorities
to be adequate, provided the office to which any one be
ordained or consecrated be expressed in prayer, in some
for
other part of the "
office, but the addition of the words
the office, &c.," is held to add nothing whatever to the
validity of the consecration. In Parker s consecration, all
four Bishops placed their hands on his head, and all said
the words (See Lambeth Eecord in Bramhall s works iii.
205, and contemporary Cambridge transcript, ib. p. 212,
"
where the words are in Latin Accipe spiritum sanctum,")
as prescribed in the Eoman and Exeter pontificals. See
Maskell Mon. Eit. Eccl. Angl. iii. 258.
"
Dr. Overbeck states further : The fact of re-ordi
nation is the final and conclusive verdict on the Invalidity
d