5. The ordainer is certainly a superior to the person that cometh to be ordained while he is a private man; and therefore so far his ordination is (as is said) an act of jurisdiction in the large sense, that is, of government; but whether he be necessarily his superior after he is ordained, hath too long been a controversy. It is certain that the papists confess, that the pope is ordained such by no superior; and it is not necessary that a bishop be ordained by one or more of any superior order (or jurisdiction either). And though the Italian papists hold that a superior papal jurisdiction must needs be the secondary fountain of the ordaining power, though the ordainer himself be but of the same order; yet protestants hold no such thing. And all acknowledge that as imposition of hands on a layman to make him a minister of Christ or an officer, is a kind of official generation,[265] so the ordained as a junior in office, is as it were a son to the ordainer, as the convert is said to be peculiarly to his converter; and that a proportionable honour is still to be given him. But whether he that ordaineth a presbyter, and not he that ordaineth or consecrateth a bishop, must needs be of a superior order or office, is a question which the reader must not expect me here to meddle with. [265] Ejusdem speciei vel inferioris: How then is the pope ordained or made? Quest. XXIII. _What if one bishop ordain a minister, and three, or many, or all the rest protest against it, and declare him no minister, or degrade him; is he to be received as a true minister or not?_ Supposing that the person want no necessary personal qualification for the office, there are two things more in question; 1. His office, whether he be a minister. 2. His regularity, whether he came regularly to it; and also his comparative relation, whether this man or another is to be preferred. I answer therefore, 1. If the person be utterly incapable, the one bishop, or the many whosoever taketh him for incapable, is for the truth sake to be believed and obeyed. 2. If the man be excellently qualified, and his ministry greatly necessary to the church, whoever would deprive the church of him, be it the one or the many, is to be disobeyed, and the ordainers preferred. _Object._ But who shall judge? _Answ._ The _esse_ is before the _scire_; the thing is first true or false before I judge it to be so; and therefore whoever judgeth falsely in a case so notorious and weighty, as that the welfare of the church and souls is (_consideratis considerandis_) injured and hazarded by his error, is not to be believed nor obeyed on pretence of order; because all christians have _judicium discretionis_, a discerning judgment. 3. But if the case be not thus to be determined by the person's notorious qualifications, then either it is, 1. The man ordained. 2. Or the people that the case is debated by, whether they should take him for a minister. 3. Or the neighbour ministers.