ORDINATION, the ceremony by which holy orders are conferred, or by which a person is initiated into the ministry of religion, or set apart for preaching, administering the sacraments, and discharging other ecclesiastical rites and duties, public or private. In the Church of England, a candidate must be twenty-three years of age before he can be ordained deacon, and twenty-four before he can be ordained priest; must have an appointment to some cure, except he be a fellow of a college; bring letters testimonial of his life and doctrine, for three years, from three beneficed clergymen ; nndergo an examination in Latin, Greek, and theological learning; subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy ; and, as bishops now almost invariably re quire, have graduated at one of the English universities, at Trinity College, Dublin, or at some other recognised school. No person can hold any vicarage, rectory, or benefice whatever, except he be in full orders.
A form of some kind has always been observed in conferring the priesthood. This was the case under the Old Testament dispensation ; in which the family, age, and qualifications of the individual appointed, are particularly described. In the New Testament, our Lord called the twelve apostles, and sent them out—ordained them to perform the offices of religion. So likewise the apostles ordained others ; and the form they adopted for setting them apart was prayer and the imposition of hands. In this manner bishops, priests, and deacons were appointed ; and, for at least ten centuries, no other ceremony was used or added thereto. When the church became corrupt, this, like almost every other ordinance, shared the general perversion. It lost its primitive simplicity, and was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament. The plan was adopted of delivering to a person ordained priest the sacred vessels, that is, the plate and the cup ; employing with the action certain words by which he was anthorised to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate mass. To constitute a sacrament, three things are required, matter, form, and institution. Ordination was evidently instituted by Jesus Christ and his apostles ; but in their institution of it, it clearly wants the main essentials of a sacrament. The church of the 11th cen tury, in converting it into a sacrament, considered the ressela as the matter, and the form was the delivering them with the words :—" Take thou authority to offer up sacrifices to God, and to celebrate masses, both for the living and the dead; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Protestant churches have returned to the
original method of conferring orders, and use only prayer and the imposition of hands ; some sects dispense with the latter, as the Wes leyan Methodists.
The great controversy between Episcopalians and Presbyterians is, the authority by which holy orders are conferred. Tho former hold that bishops alone are vested with this authority ; and those especially who entertain the notion of Apostolic succession, that is, assert the fact of an unbroken episcopal series from the days of the Apostles to the present time, to which the power of ordaining ministers is confined and through which it descends, deny the validity of orders and even the existence of a church, where there is no bishop. The Presby terians, on the contrary, contend that the presbytery, or a body of priests, have authority for this purpose ; and that bishops and presby ters are in Scripture the same, and not distinct orders or officers. They urge that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; and 'that Paul and Barnabas were ordained by certain teachers and prophets in the church of Antioch, and not by any bishop presiding in that city. It is certain however that bishops have existed as a distinct order from the very earliest times ; and though we cannot assert that they are absolutely essential, yet they evidently contribute to complete the idea of a church, and tend to its orderly and effectual operation.
Many at the Reformation held the call of the people the only thing essential to the validity of the ministry, and taught that ordination is only a ceremony which renders the call more solemn and authentic. Accordingly the Protestant churches of Scotland, France, Holland, Switzerland, &c., and the dissenting churches of England, have no episcopal ordination. For Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Melancthon, and all the fir:t reformers and founders of these churches, who ordained ministers among them, were themselves presbyters and no other. There are some remarks on this subject, at once liberal and judicious, in Burnett's Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles.'