IV

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED

W

men.

E come now to consider certain objections which we know will be urged against the foregoing argument.

Objection (1)

I

In answer to a little work which the present writer published some years ago on this subject, the following criticism was made by several prominent clergyWe will admit, said they, that the Church of England has never formally pronounced non-episcopal ordination invalid; but we will not admit that she has ever formally pronounced it valid. She has simply refused to pass judgment upon the matter one way or another. Our answer to this is brief.

First-The assumption that she has refused to pass judgment one way or another is clearly at variance with historic fact; and

Second-If it were true, it would be disastrous for the "Catholic" party to make such an admission.

Proof

First Proposition. That this is manifestly untrue

1 Apostolic Succession and the Problem of Unity, University Press, Sewanee, Tenn.

will be evident from the following official acts already cited:

(a) Archbishop Grindal's official license to John Morrison, April 6, 1582-"approving and ratifying the form of his (your) Ordination . . . according to the laudable form and rite of the Reformed Church of Scotland," which Church was Presbyterian.

(b) Formal recognition of the validity of the Presbyterian ordination of Scottish candidates for Episcopal Consecration given by Archbishop Bancroft when acting for, and in the name of, the Church of England, and the subsequent ratification of his act by the actual Consecration administered by the Church of England on these terms.

(c) Official acknowledgment of the inherent power of the Presbyterate to ordain formally made by the Church of England when subscribing to the 2d Resolution of the Assembly, by which the churches of England and Scotland were united.

Other official acts already referred to (some of which will doubtless occur to our readers) might be cited, but these are sufficient to prove the falsity of the above assumption.

Second Proposition. That it would be disastrous for the "Catholic" party to admit this, if it were true, is again easily established, since to say that the Church has never formally pronounced non-episcopal ordination to be invalid is synonymous with admitting that she has never pronounced Episcopal ordination as alone or exclusively valid-ergo, it is to say that she has never asserted that Episcopal ordination is

necessary or essential to the being of the Church, which is the whole point of their argument. It will not do to assert, therefore, that the Church has simply assumed this negative position, for that is, in itself, a fatal admission. There are some propositions towards which a negative attitude is simply impossible, where silence itself signifies a positive attitude. It will be easily seen, therefore, that such an objection, even if it were true, is of absolutely no value whatever to our opponents, but is, on the contrary, a most complete, though unintentional, admission of the truth of our whole argument.

Objection (2)

Perhaps there is no greater commentary upon the logic employed by many of the writers of our ordinary Church Manuals in defending their view of the necessity of the Episcopate than the glib way in which they point to many passages in the writings of the Reformers, or in certain official utterances of the Church herself, which uphold the Divine Right of Episcopal Government, or the fact of an Historic Succession from the days of the Apostles. Yet who can be so blind as not to see that the mere right of the Church to perpetuate the Episcopate on the ground that it possesses Divine Authority and has come down to us from the days of the Apostles, is a proposition altogether distinct from the claim that it is the exclusive channel of such Divine Authority, and that no other form of Government can possess

such authority. Yet whenever any one attacks the theory that the Church of England has ever claimed that the Episcopate is absolutely essential to the validity of the Sacraments, and the being of the Church, he is immediately met with the triumphant retort that the Preface to the Ordinal plainly asserts the authority of the Episcopate, and its historic continuity from the days of the Apostles; that Cranmer's Sermon on the Keys contains a like defense of this most ancient and Catholic Institution; and that numberless passages can be adduced from the writings of the Reformers to the same effect. Why, what bearing have any of these facts upon the point at issue? Is it possible that our critics cannot see any distinction between the claim that Episcopal Government is legitimate, and the further claim that it is the one and only form of government that is legitimate; or can honestly claim to refute our contention that the Church of England nowhere asserts the necessity of the Episcopate to the very being of the Church by merely pointing out the truism that she has unquestionably defended the Episcopate as a legitimate institution-existing by Divine Right? Yet this is precisely the kind of logic with which our popular apologists vanquish the objections here urged. When we assert that the Church nowhere declares that the Episcopate is the exclusive channel through which the Divine Authority is transmitted, we are solemnly informed that the Ordinal itself explicitly asserts the Divine Authority of the Episcopate, the Reformers repeatedly maintain it as a fact, whence,