Ecclesiastical office

“ The episcopate and priesthood were established by Jesus Christ Himself, and are absolutely essential to the very existence of the Church. Religious congregations are of ecclesiastical institution, and are only auxiliary to the pastoral office. The multiplication of churches and of priests engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. ”

“ All property administered under divers titles, by the regular or secular clergy, whether real or personal, whatever its name or object, is henceforth the property of the nation.
Art. 3. There shall be complete independence between affairs of state and such as are purely ecclesiastical. The government will confine itself to protecting the public worship of the Catholic religion the same as any other religion.
Art. 4. The ministers of religion can accept such offerings as may be made on account of the administration of the sacraments and the other duties of their office. ”

“ In the apostolic age a body of elders or bishops and a body of deacons in each church guided its affairs, while the members took an active part in the choice of their officers, and in the general direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. In the second century, when we get a distinct view of the churches after the obscure interval that follows the age of the apostles, we find that over the elders is a bishop, whose office grows in importance as the churches become larger, as the need of more compact organization is felt, and as the clergy become more and more distinct from the laity. ”

“ Self-evidently, Romanists construed this as an a priori endorsement of the Council and its resolutions. In the article "Of Ecclesiastical Ministers" we read: "And that all other ministers should be subject and obedient to the chief bishop [the Pope] and to other bishops who administer their episcopal office according to God's command, using the same for edification and not for destruction; which ministers should be ordained also by such bishops upon presentation by the patrons." This article conceded the primacy of the Pope and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops. ”

“ Some unqualified persons in such meetings assume the ministerial office, the expounding and explanation of the holy Word of God, without being called or appointed thereto by ecclesiastical or civil authority, which is in direct contravention and opposition to the general Civil and Ecclesiastical order of our Fatherland, besides that many dangerous heresies and schisms are to be apprehended. ”

“ But what titles did our Reformers regard as the essential qualification of a Christian minister? Precisely the same as those insisted on by the church of Rome—only they transposed the characters of the two titles. They regarded Christian belief as the divine part, and admission to office as the human part of the ministerial qualification. They held that every Christian man was a churchman, a priest by God's commission; but that a human appointment was necessary to complete his title to the ministry. This was not the ceremony of ordination. ”

“ The first of his ecclesiastical acts was to compel all bishops to exercise their office durante beneplacito (6 Feb. 1546–7) , and their position as mere state officials was emphasised by an act in the following November, ordering that their appointment should be made by letters patent. An ecclesiastical visitation followed for the removal of images, assertion of the royal supremacy, and the enforcement of the use of English in the church services ”

“ After a churchwarden had been chosen or elected, he took the oath of office before the archdeacon. In this he swore to observe the Queen's and the bishop's injunctions, and to cause others to observe them; to present violators of the same to the sworn men (or sidemen) , or to the ordinary's chancellor or official, or to the Queen's high commissioners; finally, he swore to yield up a faithful accounting to the parish of all sums that had passed through his hands during his term of office. ”

“ Every holder is bound, under pain of mortal sin, to recite the Divine Office daily, if the benefice be an ecclesiastical benefice fulfilling the conditions named above. The omission of the recital of the Divine Office by a beneficed person is a grave sin against the virtue of religion and a grave sin against the virtue of justice. For the Church imposes on the beneficiary the duty of the Office recital, on condition that he may not take the fruits of his benefice if he do not recite the Office. ”

“ If we regard the Constitutions as a production of the third century, (containing remnants of earlier compositions,) the work possesses a certain kind of value. It contributes to give us an insight into the state of Christian faith, the condition of the clergy and inferior ecclesiastical officers, the worship and discipline of the Church, and other particulars, at the period to which the composition is referred. The growth of episcopal power and influence, and the derivation of the episcopal authority from the apostles, is here clearly shown. ”

“ It is an office that requires the combination of wisdom and executive ability, a combination the rarest among men. The world has had untold thousands of learned men and orators, and multitudes of men with special great gifts; but it has had comparatively few blessed with that combination of gifts which makes men successful rulers; and yet those qualities which make men rulers are the qualities to be looked for and developed in high priests.
12. Elders.—Elder is the lowest office in the Melchisedek Priesthood. It is an office that is an appendage to the Melchisedek Priesthood. ”

“ The Holy See having supreme jurisdiction over all institutions within the Church, may appoint administrators for any ecclesiastical institution, according to its own judgment, without recourse or appeal against its action. ”

“ The Fathers of that Council had already formally recognised the grand evils of the age, which cried for a remedy, to be the want of sound religious instruction among the people and of theological science among the clergy. And a decree had been passed directing the bishops in each diocese to choose persons capable of preaching and instructing the people who were to be employed in this office; and requiring that certain learned men should be appointed in all churches, whether cathedral or conventual, to assist the bishops in preaching the Word of God and administering the Sacraments. ”

“ To bring back the clergy to that exact uniformity with respect to doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, from which the lenity of his predecessor had suffered them in many instances to recede, appeared to the new -111-
-vol ii-primate the first and most essential duty of his office; and the better to enforce obedience, he eagerly demanded to be armed with that plenitude of power which her majesty as head of the church was authorized to delegate at her pleasure. ”

“ All these officers, bishops as well as deacons, are confined to the local church in their jurisdiction. The charge of a bishop is not a diocese, but a church. The functions are mostly administrative, the teaching office being subordinate, and a distinction is made between teaching elders and others, implying that the teaching function is not common to them all. ”

“ The priests and monks held the pen for the king. Representatives of the clergy sat in the king's councils and acted as his ministers; in fact, the conduct of the government largely devolved upon them. [146]
Offices in the Church open to all classes.
The offices in the Church were open to all ranks of men, and many of the popes themselves sprang from the humblest classes. The Church thus constantly recruited its ranks with fresh blood. No one held an office simply because his father had held it before him, as was the case in the civil government. ”

“ The public prayer of the Church may be looked upon as the public act of the whole body of the Church. Those who by their Rule, approved by the Church, are charged with saying the Office, whether it be the Divine Office or the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, say it as public officers of the Church, who officially stand before the throne of God and make intercession for the whole body of Christ’s Church. When performing this duty, even when alone, they cease to be private individuals ”

“ Every bishop has his consistory court held before his chancellor or commissary, in his cathedral church, or other convenient place of his diocese, for ecclesiastical causes. In the Church of England, before the Norman Conquest, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not separated from the civil ”

“ Also the second part should defend the common people from tyrants, oppressors, and extortioners: and maintain the Clergy, doing truly their office, in preaching, teaching, praying, and freely ministering the Sacraments of Holy Church. And if this Clergy be negligent in doing this office, this second part of the Church ought, by their office that they have taken of GOD, to constrain the Clergy in due wise, to do their office in the form that GOD hath ordained to be done. ”

“ And when the emperor asked him why he alone of all kept silence, Leontius answered thus : "I am astonished that you, who are set over matters of one kind, to administer them, should take in hand the administration of others which are distinct from them : and that when the care of military and civil matters has been intrusted to you, you should dictate to bishops in matters which appertain to the office of a bishop alone." ”

“ But a priest travelling (peregrinus) should recite the office according to the calendar of the church to which he is attached regularly, but the obligation of following the calendar of his home church was not binding by a grave precept. A reply of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (Nov., 1831) arranged (1) that beneficed clergy are always bound to recite the office of their own proper church or diocese; (2) that simple priests may read either the office as arranged for the place they tarry in or travel in, or the office of their own home diocese ”

“ Whatever else it may claim to be, in its relations with the state, the Established Church is a branch of the civil service; and, for those who repudiate the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil servants, as much responsible to the English people for the proper performance of their duties as any others. ”

“ There are two points of view under which ecclesiastical affairs fall to be regarded in the theory of the Reformation—their administration and their legislation. Spiritual administration is the proper and peculiar province of the ministry: and its most important departments are preaching, and the dispensation of the sacraments. There can be no doubt that these, and analogous duties, are the special business of the clerical profession. It is precisely to perform these duties that ministers are appointed to their vocation. ”

“ The various branches or ecclesiastical wards of the Church, where the above plan of managing the temporal affairs of life is carried out, are each to be independent in the management of their respective storehouses, subject of course to the general supervision of the presiding bishop of the Church and of the First Presidency. ”

“ There is another sort of people who hold that where there are no such preaching presbyters, in such case, other persons, sufficiently qualified and approved for their gifts and graces by other ministers, being chosen by the people, and set apart for the ministry, by prayer and fasting in the congregation, may exercise that office, so that some place the power of ordination in simple presbyters, and others in the people. ”

“ Practically the only exception is in the cases of the Holy Office, and of the Consistorial Congregation of which the pope himself is prefect; the acts of the first are signed by the “notary,” and the acts of the second by the assessor.
We may pass over those temporary congregations of cardinals known also as “special,” the authority and existence of which extend only to the consideration of one particular question; and also those which had as their object various aspects of the temporal administration of the papal states, which have ceased to exist since 1870. ”

“ In an œcumenical council, where the universal episcopate is gathered together under the presidency of its head, the successor of Peter, as vicar of Christ, the Catholic Church is organized for deliberation and action in the most perfect way possible. Who compose a council? The bishops of the world, to whom the right of membership belongs by divine law, and other prelates in eminent positions to whom the privilege is conceded by ecclesiastical law. ”

“ Then the community, that generally are unable to judge of the fitness and sufficiency of presbyters for the pastoral office, in point of necessary gifts of learning, &c., shall, without judicious satisfaction herein by previous examination, ordain men notwithstanding to the highest ordinary office in the church. ”

“ The practice, under the Roman empire, of making the areas of ecclesiastical administration very exactly coincide with those of the civil administration, was continued in the organization of the church beyond the borders of the empire, and many dioceses to this day preserve the limits of long vanished political divisions. ”

“ No person, whether lay or cleric, shall have the right to receive and harbor any such deserters. You shall have your altars and churches consecrated, your clergy ordained, and your other ecclesiastical matters attended to by the bishop of the diocese [in which you may happen to be] , provided that he is in the favor and communion of the Roman church, and he shall not wish to charge you anything for these services. Otherwise, you may secure the services of any catholic bishop. When you, who are now the master of the order, die, the brothers shall have the right to elect your successor. ”