But it must be acknowledged to be a high pitch of boldness and injustice to charge us, as if we did not ascribe all due honour to holy Orders and the Succession of Pastors.
So says Gilbert Burnet in his 1677 A Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England. It would be very difficult indeed to regard this Latitudinarian statement of the ministry of priesthood and of eucharistic sacrifice as differing in any meaningful way from High Church teaching, throughout the 'long 18th century'.First, When we are ordained to be Priests, there is given us all that which our Church declares, inseparable to the Priesthood; and such is the Consecrating the Eucharist: Therefore it being declared and acknowledged on all sides; what Functions are proper to the Priesthood if we be ordained Priests, though there were no further Declaration made in the form of Ordination, yet the other concomitant actions and offices, shewing that we are made Priests, all that belongs to that function is therein given tous; this made Pope Innocent define that, Be thou a Priest, was a sufficient Form in it self.
Secondly, The great end of all the Priestly Functions, being to make reconciliation between God and Man; for which cause Saint Paul calls it the Ministry of Reconciliation; whatever gives the power for that, must needs give also the means necessary for it; therefore the Sacrament being a Mean instituted by our Saviour for the Remission of Sins, which he intimated in these words. This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood for the Remission of Sins; and the death of Christ being also the great Mean in order to that end the power of forgiving sins Ministerially, must carry with it the power of doing all that is instituted for attaining that end.
Thirdly, The power of consecrating the Sacraments, is very fully and formally given in our Ordination, in these words. Be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of his Holy Sacraments; where they bewray great inconsideration, that think Dispensing is barely the distributing the Sacrament, which a Deacon may do; the word is taken from the Latin, and is the same by which they render those words of Saint Paul, Stewards of the Mysteries of God; or according to the Style of the Church of Rome, which translates Mystery Sacrament; Dispensers of the Sacraments of God; Therefore this being a phrase wherein St. Paul expressed the Apostolical Function, one might think it could serve to express the office of a Priest well enough, so that Dispensing is more than Distributing; and is such a power as a Steward hath, who knows and considers every ones condition, and prepares what is fit and proper for them; therefore the blessing of the Sacraments being a necessary part of the Dispensing of them, they being Blessed for that end and the Dispensing them, including the whole Office in which the Church appoints the Sacraments to be dispensed, of which Consecration is a main part; these words do clearly give and manifestly import the power of consecrating the Sacraments.
And on the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist:
Though we deny all propitiatory Sacrifices, but that which our Blessed Saviour offered for us once on the Cross; yet we acknowledge that we have Sacrifices in the true strict and Scriptural notion of that word; for propitiatory ones are but one sort of Sacrifice, which in its general notion stands for any Holy Oblations made to God; and in this sense, Thank-Offerings, Peace-Offerings, and Free-will Offerings, were Sacrifices under the Law; so were also their Commemorative Sacrifices of the Paschal Lamb, which were all Sacrifices, though not Propitiatory. And in this sense our prayers and praises; a broken heart, and the dedicating our lives to the service of God, are Sacrifices, and are so called in Scripture; so also is the giving of Alms. And in this sense we deny not but the Holy Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving; and it is so called in one of the Collects. It is also a Commemoration of that one Sacrifice which it represents, and by which the worthy receivers have the virtue of that applied to them. The Oblation of the Elements of Bread and Wine to be Sanctified, is also a kind of Sacrifice; and in all these Senses we acknowledge the Sacrament to be a true Sacrifice, as the Primitive Church did.
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