22 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. other ministers, both in prayer and exhortation, make a sort of beautiful harmony, and add solemn weight to this transaction of dedicating a person to God : They are generally better capable of offering up the prayers of the society to God on such an occa- sion: they are best able to give a word of counsel or advice to the new minister and to the people ; which is a ceremony that should usually attend such an investiture into this office ; for every thing is sanctified by the word and prayer; 1 Tim. iv. 5. And this will have a tendency to maintain a happy union and correspondencebetween different assemblies of the same religion, whether the ministers puttheir hands on the head of the new mi- nister or no. 5. This is also certain, that the imposition of hands, or any ordination whatsoever, by bishops, or presbyters; can never be absolutely necessary to make a newpresbyter or bishop ; for the Lord Jesus Christ would never leave the subsistence or propaga- tion of his churches, or the virtue or efficacy of his word and his sacraments, to depend on the uninterrupted succession of any office or officer, bishop or presbyter, to be transmitted from hand tohand, by any necessary forms of ordinatimi, from the apostles' days down to ours ; for then it wouldbe impossible for any church, or even for any particular christian, to know whether ever they have had any authentic minister, whether they have ever received the gospel truly, or partook of any true sacrament, or have any just hope of salvation ; because it is impossible far plain clink,. tians, or even for any ministers in our age, so for from the aims-. tles, to be absolutely assured, that such ordinations have been rightly transmitted through sixteenHundred years, without any one interruption. And I might add, the only evidence and proof that any persons pretend to have of such a succession, is through the papal chair, which is attended with abundant uncertainties and ,!impossibilities; as has been often shewn by protestant writers. There is another reason also why the ordination, or imposi- tion of hands, by either bishops or elders, or any superior cha- racter, cannot be absolutely necessary to make a minister, or ordain a pastor, in a particular church ; and that is, that a whole nation may be corrupted, and every bishop and elder therein may be departed from the faith and practice of the gospel, as itwas- in England in the days of popery : then, if a certain number of goodmen join themselves in a church, or voluntary society, for the sake of reformation, and enjoying pure worship, they can never have a minister settled and ordained among them, while these corrupt clergy around them refuse their assistance, and even forbid and oppose it to their utmost. But our blessed Lord would never leave his people, who desire reformation, under such circumstances of impossibility to be reformed. There must
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