CHAPTER XIII.

THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND CON

STITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

IT has been asserted of late that the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession first came into existence with the Tractarian writers. But to show how widespread this teaching was in the Church of England early in the eighteenth century it may be well to point out the letter which the Prussian Minister in London wrote to the King of Prussia in 1711, when the project of an alliance between the Anglicans and the Lutherans had been raised by his Master. The King was then warned of the ill-success that would in all likelihood attend the scheme, mainly because the greater part of the English Clergy held the doctrine of an uninterrupted succession from the days of the Apostles down to their own times, and they believed that there could be no good Church government without bishops, and that there could be no real Ministers of the Gospel who had not been ordained by bishops.1

The statement of the Prussian Minister is confirmed by many contemporary writers. First of all there is the high authority of Pearson, whose treatise on the Creed has been the accepted handbook of the Church of England for more than two hundred years. In 1668, his advice was asked by a person of quality how to conduct himself, if a man with presbyterian or congregational ordination were forced upon him where he lived. Pearson's advice is noteworthy. It was not to accept his ministrations. In case of necessity the baptism administered by such a minister might be valid; but his correspondent is advised not to receive Communion at his hands, because the supposed pastor "is not a priest or presbyter, and consequently hath no power to consecrate the elements". Further, absolution given by him in the hour of death is not efficacious.

1 See the letter below in ch. xiv. p. 404.

Pearson introduces his letter with these remarks on the necessity of lawful orders:

That the order of the ministry is necessary to the continuation of the gospel according to the promises of Christ, as it was to the first plantation of it according to his institution, is a doctrine indubitable. That this ministry is derived by a succession and constant propagation, and that the unity and peace of the church are to be conserved by a due and legitimate ordination, no man who considereth the practice of the apostles and ecclesiastical history, can ever doubt.

But if we once admit a diversity in our ordinations, we have lost the honour of succession, we have cast away our weapons of defence; we have betrayed our own cause, and laid ourselves open to the common enemy of all protestants, and we shall at last inevitably fall into the Socinian doctrine, to deny all necessity or use of any mission or ordination.1

Dr. Stillingfleet, when Bishop of Worcester, in a charge to his clergy, speaking of St. Jerome and the disorders which he saw followed the government of Presbyters, spoke as follows:

But beyond this, in several places, he [St. Jerome] makes the Bishops to be Successors of the Apostles, as well as the rest of the most Eminent Fathers of the Church have done. If the Apostolical Office, as far as it concerns the Care and Government of Churches, were not to continue after their Decease, how came the best, the most learned, the nearest to the Apostolical Times, to be so wonderfully deceiv'd? For if the Bishops did not succeed by the Apostles own Appointment, they must be Intruders and Usurpers of the Apostolical Function; and can we imagine the Church of God would have so universally consented to it? Besides, the Apostles did not die all at once; but there were Successors in several of the Apostolical Churches, while some of the Apostles were living: Can we again imagine, those would not have vindicated the Right of their own Order, and declared to the Church, that this Office was peculiar to themselves? The Change of the Name from Apostles to Bishops would not have been sufficient Excuse for them; for the Presumption had been as great in the Exercise of the Power without the Name.2

To quote Bishop Beveridge who died in 1708:

Thus therefore it is, that the apostolical office hath been handed down from one to another ever since the apostles days to our time, and so will be to the end of the world, Christ himself being continually present at such imposition of hands; thereby transferring the same Spirit, which he had first breathed into his apostles, upon others successively after them, as really as

1 John Pearson, Promiscuous Ordinations are destructive to the honour and safety of the Church of England, if they should be allowed in it. (Minor Theological Works, ed. Edw. Churton, Oxford, 1844, vol. ii. p. 231.)

'Edward Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Cases, London, Mortlock, 1698, p. 7.

he was present with the apostles themselves, when he first breathed it into them.1

A sermon, noteworthy from the approval which it received from the Bishop, from its popularity, and its clear statements, opens thus in the second head:

II. Who may be truly said to have this Divine Commission: And here I shall not doubt to affirm, that None, but those who are Ordain'd by such, as we now commonly call Bishops, can have any Authority to minister in the Christian Church. For that the Power of Ordination is solely lodg'd in that Order, I shall prove from the Institution of our Saviour, and the constant Practice of the Apostles. That the Power of Ordination, lodg'd in the Apostles, was of Divine Institution, I suppose, no one will question, who reads these Words of our Saviour to them, after his Resurrection; As my Father sent me, so send I you. And, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the World. From hence it is evident, First, That it was by a Divine Commission, that our Saviour ordain'd, or sent his Apostles. Secondly, That by Vertue of the same Commission, the Apostles were at that time impower'd to ordain, or send others. And, Thirdly, That this Commission to ordain, was alway to continue in the Christian Church, and to remain in such Hands as the Apostles should convey it to: All this, I say, is evident, from these Words of our Saviour, when duly consider'd and compar'd. And hence this Proposition naturally follows; Whoever has a Power to ordain, must derive it from the commission, which our Saviour receiv'd from God, and gave to his Apostles, and was by them convey'd to their Successors.2

The fourth head begins with another explicit statement:

Fourthly, From what has been said it is natural to infer, that the Maintaining the Divine Right of Episcopacy is a Point of the greatest Consequence, not only to the Well-being but even Being of the Christian Church. Since without it all valid Ordination ceases.3

And the powers of the Hierarchy are spiritual :

the Sacerdotal is not included in the Regal Office, nor derived from thence; but is of a distinct Nature and Institution.1

This sermon was printed, as the title-page sets out, by Episcopal command; and shortly after its publication the Bishop gave the preacher a fresh sign of his approval by appointing him to a pre

1 William Beveridge, Sermon I. Christ's Presence with his ministers, in Works, sec. ed. London, Bettesworth, 1729, vol. i. p. 6.

"William Roberts, The Divine Institution of the Gospel Ministry, and the Necessity of Episcopal Ordination, Asserted, in a sermon preach'd at Visitation of Ofspring [Blackall] Lord Bishop of Exon. . . . Publish'd by his Lordship's Command, Exon: Farley and Bishop, 1709, p. 8.

...

3 ibid. p. 28.

* ibid. p. 6.

bend in the cathedral church of Exeter. The sermon also went through four editions. The second appeared in 1710, the third in 1712, and the fourth later, most likely after the author's death in 1741, the catalogue in the Bodleian Library dating the fourth, with a note of interrogation, as 1752.

The following extracts also represent the teaching of the day.

To make an Ordination good and valid, 'tis necessary, that the Ordainer, or Ordainers have a Power to ordain, transmitted to him or them, by a continued Succession from Jesus Christ, the Founder and Legislator of this Society, or Religion. . .

To bring the Argument a little nearer home, I plainly affirm that Bishops have this Power: And that none is a lawful Minister, who is not Episcopally ordain'd: For the Proof whereof, let's remember what has just been said upon the Necessity of a continued Succession; and since Bishops alone have this continued Succession, it evidently follows, that they alone have this Power to ordain.2

Samuel Hill, Archdeacon of Wells, speaks thus in 1713:

As the Religious Conscience of Priestly Duty obliges us to our pious utmost, to recover Dissenters to our Holy and Catholick Communion, so the first step hereunto is to rouse them out of their confident Security in their state of separation. Nor can this be done, but by clearly laying before them, not only the SPIRITUAL Invalidity, but the Abominable and Sacrilegious Impiety of all their pretended Ministrations of the Word, Sacraments, Discipline, Ordinations, Prayers, &c.3

Then we next have Dr. Bisse.

We have seen also the transcendency of our Order, from the dignity and perpetuity of its institution. That as we are taken from among men, so cannot we be taken away by men: seeing we are made Priests not by the power of an human ordination, nor in this sense after the law of a Carnal commandment; but by virtue of the commission of Christ, sealed to those whom the Holy Ghost shall in every age call to the Ministry.*

Passing on farther into the century, we find a clergyman lately come from New York quoting apparently with approval the Eastern teaching on Orders:

The Priesthood, as it is a Mystery [i.e. a Sacrament or Sacred Order] was commanded the Apostles by Christ himself. And so from the Laying 1 See the note in p. v. of the fourth edition of this sermon.

Matthias Symson, The Necessity of a Lawful Ministry, a sermon preached ... at the Visitation of . . . the Archdeacon of Lincoln, London, Strahan, 1708, P. 9.

3 Samuel Hill, Compendious Speculations upon valid and invalid Baptism, London, 1713, Preface.

Thomas Bisse, A Sermon preach'd before the Sons of the Clergy, at ... St. Paul, London, Wilkin, 1716, p. 30.

on of their Hands, is an Imposition of the Hand in Ordination performed, down to this very Day.1

Dr. Nathaniel Marshall, a considerable authority in our period on the penitential discipline of the Church, teaches thus:

The Faith of History will be grievously shocked, and, with it, the main external Evidence for the Scriptures themselves must be a mighty Sufferer, if we do not acquiesce in such a clear and concurrent Account of these successive Ordinations [just given above] from the age of the Apostles downwards, till all agree the Usage to have been unquestionable. None, I am sure, who are acquainted with the Practice of the Church in her earliest and purest Centuries, can imagine that any should then depart from it, without awakening the Vigilance of the Neighbouring Pastors to retrieve and regulate such a startling Novelty.2

Towards the end of his life Addison wrote a defence of the Christian Religion, of which Macaulay speaks slightingly. The reason may be that Addison speaks of the apostolical succession.

Upon the death of any of those substitutes to the Apostles and Disciples of Christ, his place was filled up with some other person of eminence for his piety and learning, and generally a member of the same Church, who after his decease was followed by another in the same manner, by which means the succession was continued in an uninterrupted line.3

In controversy with a Protestant Dissenter, a writer little known in the present day writes:

The Truth of this I prove thus; Episcopacy is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias; Our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ . . . did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and empower his H. Apostles . . . to execute the same Apostolical, Episcopal, and Pastoral Office, for the ordering and governing of his Church until his coming again: And so the same Office to continue in Them, and their Successors unto the End of the World..

The Apostles having thus receiv'd Episcopal Power from Christ Himself ordain'd the seven Deacons.4

To the same purpose we read in a vindication of Episcopacy:

1 John Sharp, The Charter of the Kingdom of Christ. . . and a preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Bishop of Bangor and his disciples, London, Morphew, 1717, p. 58. He had been a chaplain to the Queen's forces in the Province of New York. There is a letter from him to Dr. Swift. (Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xvi. p. 71.)

2 Nath. Marshall, A regular succession of the Christian Ministry asserted, in a sermon preach'd at the Visitation of the . . . Bishop of London, Published by Order of his Lordship, London, Taylor, 1719, p. 18.

3 Joseph Addison, Of the Christian Religion, § V. c. vi. Miscellaneous Works, ed. Tickell, London, Tonson, 1766, vol. iii. p. 301.

+T. Ainsworth, The Validity of Episcopal Ordination and Invalidity of any other, Oxford, 1719, Letter II. p. 17. Imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor.