AT the close of the fourth Lecture I have made some observations on the INTENTION of the Church Catholic, as constituting, in a measure, the essence of the validity of certain of Her Ordinances. It will be difficult to clear this statement from the possibility of misrepresentation, and even misapprehension: I would request that what I have said at p. 128, &c. may be re-read and considered. The Doctrine of Laying on of hands is recognized in Scripture; but there is no command of CHRIST concerning this, in the same way that there is a command concerning Baptism and the Eucharist. It seems an institute of the Apostles and the Primitive Church; and may perhaps be looked on as an instance of the early exercise of the Church’s inherent power and grace; for the institute certainly received the sanction of Scripture, before the close of the Sacred Canon. So that it would be impossible to say how dangerous it might not be, to depart from the Church’s Ordinance of Laying on of hands. I trust therefore that none will imagine, that what is here said can fairly be made to sanction the loose notion, that any part of the Church Catholic can now voluntarily originate and ordain a Ministry in a _new_ way; and without imposition of hands. The uncertainty, not to say peril of presumption in any such case, will be quite sufficient to guard against the fatal folly of such a thought. How far the grace of the Apostolate is ordinarily now allied even to the very _act_ of “laying on of hands,” it may be impossible to say; still it is important in many respects to observe, that the Laying on of hands is not so strictly of the nature of a proper sacrament, as that the divine grace is always necessarily allied to that form of ordination exclusively. There is advantage in considering that in _theory_ it may not be so, though there could be no safety or certainty in deliberately _acting_ on such a doubtfully understood theory. Even the Roman Controversialists do not agree that the Laying on of hands is _the_ specifically Sacramental act;—the outward form to which only of necessity the inward grace is allied. Though I cannot help thinking that it would much benefit their argument, if they were agreed on this point. The Doctrine which attributes the essence of Ordination to the uniform Intention of the Church Catholic may be, of course, very easily cavilled at; but still even the Romanist must, to a certain extent, rely on some such Doctrine, and such a Doctrine is that, perhaps, which alone will harmonize the conflicting Roman theories. In its very nature it is a Doctrine which admits not of strict definition. It rises simply out of the truth, that the gifts of CHRIST were to the CHURCH, and not primarily or inherently in individuals, as such.