The historic episcopate : a study of Anglican claims and Methodist orders

Front matter

DR. COOKE'S WORKSdoctrine OF THE RESURRECTION.

Historical, Biblical, and Scientific.

REASONS FOR CHURCH CREED.

Preface

AN historical paper by the writer in the Methodist Review resulted, to his surprise, in a request from eminent quarters that in view of the more than academic interest awakened in the doctrine of the historic episcopate a volume might be prepared on that particular branch of the general subject treated of in the article mentioned. The following pages are a response to that desire. The difficulty of writing a book on this important theme in such manner that it shall be acceptable to all classes will be appreciated perhaps by those who are acquainted with the vast extent of ground to be gone over, and the many problems which perplex the candid historian ; and yet we may truly say that no pains have been spared to meet the requirements of the general reader, and, in some degree, the more exacting demands of the critical student.

In that part treating of Methodist orders we have confined ourselves wholly to that phase of the subject on which special emphasis is placed by Anglicans, purposely refraining from extended discussion of some questions regarded as debatable among us, and for the adequate treatment of which the future may grant both facilities and time.

8 PREFACE.

It would have been much easier to have written a larger work. And it would have been an easy matter to have increased the size of the present volume by inserting transcripts of important documents and records relating to events in the Elizabethan period of the Reformation in England referred to in these pages ; but condensation to the utmost limit was required, and the results of prolonged research have sometimes been compressed into a few lines or within the limits of a single page.

The literature on the subject is voluminous, and much assistance is given the student to know the best. Anglican critics no doubt will object to some authorities on whom we rely ; but if at any time we have gone down to Ashdod to sharpen our spears among the Philistines, it is in order that we might the more effectually cope with those who are fighting the battles of the Philistines. There is no reason why we should discard a fact because it is found in Lingard, Raynal, or Estcourt, and not in Burnet, Haddan, Bailey, or Bramhall. What we seek is the truth, and while our critics may doubtless wish that we had limited our researches to a certain class of writers, it has pleased us in our search for the whole truth to follow our own judgment in pursuit of the same. We have not followed any authority blindly, however. Whenever it was possible for us, with the facilities at hand, we have carefully examined im-

PREFACE. 9

portant data and compared various views before reaching a conclusion.

Historic truth is not obtained by a bare recital of isolated facts, however true they may be as actual events. They must be studied in their historic setting, in the atmosphere they have created or in which they are found, and he only who can abandon himself in spirit to the age or to the movements of which he writes, without losing the vantage ground of his own time, can be truly regarded as having apprehended the truth of history. This principle has determined us in our study of the subject before us, and has guided us in the interpretation of the events with which we have had to deal.

The purpose of the volume is not to dim the glory of any Church. Its real object, no matter what its apparent aim may seem to be, is to defend the principles of the Reformation relative to Church government, to lay bare the grounds of Anglican claims to an historic episcopate, to set in clear light once more the validity of Methodist orders, and thus by breaking down some middle walls of partition to contribute something to the tendency toward unity and peace in the Church of Jesus Christ.

That it may accomplish this, its true purpose, is

the earnest prayer of the author.

R.J C.

School of Theology, Chattanooga, April, 1896.

CHAPTER I. General Survey

ISOLATED from the Greek and Latin communions by insurmountable barriers, and maintaining a rigid exclusiveness toward Protestant Churches, the Established Church of England and its offshoot, the Protestant Episcopal Church, hold a position among the Churches of Christendom which is as unique as it is untenable. The Anglican Church, in which term, for convenience, we include the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church, acknowledges the claims of the Roman and Greek Churches to apostolical succession and the validity of the sacerdotal character of their ministry. But neither of these communions, in return, recognizes in any degree Anglican claims to the succession, or regards as valid its ministerial orders. These orders are rejected by those Churches as

spurious, as defective both in matter and in form, 2 and the Church itself as being without mission or jurisdiction.1

The relation which the Greek and the Latin Churches maintain on theological and canonical grounds toward the Anglican communion that Church, singularly enough, now holds toward all the Churches of the Reformation. Protestant Churches generally admit, on evangelical principles, the sacred character of Anglican orders, without assenting, however, to the unhistorical dogma of apostolical succession or to the assumptions to a priestly character of the Anglican ministry. But the Anglican Church rejects the orders of all other Protestant Churches, whether in England, in Holland, in Sweden, in Germany, or in this country, and, forgetting its origin, sets up for itself the exclusive claim, as against them, of being the one true Church of God — as alone possessing a valid ministry, and, therefore, as having the sole divine right to administer the Christian sacraments according to Christ's holy commandment.2

1 This was the decree (April, 1704) of Clement XI in the case of the Anglican Bishop Gordon, who submitted to Rome. Haddan, referring to this instance, says : "Analogous, but in large part not identical, difficulties hinder the recognition of our orders by the Eastern Church." — Apostolic Succession in the Church of England, p. 28.

2 Bishop of Exeter, Second Triennial Charge, 1836, p. 44 ; Bishop Beveridge, Works, vol. ii, 106, 147, 148, 165, 257 ; Saravia, Treatise of the Different Degrees of the Christian Priesthood, Oxford, pp. 20, 21 ; Hows, Vindication of the Protestant Episcopal Church, p. 39 ; Palmer, On the Church,

GENERAL SURVEY I 5

To the student of history it will appear passing strange that any Protestant Church should arrogate to itself such an indefensible distinction. Nevertheless, to the prejudice of other Churches and to the great injury of evangelical truth and Christian charity, this doctrine has recently been reaffirmed with all the solemnity that official sanction could give.

In 1886 the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church laid down four principles as a condition of union with other Protestant Churches. The Lambeth Conference of English bishops adopted, two years later, similar conditions. The fourth principle or condition of union adopted by both houses was the acceptance of the historic episcopate, by which was signified a recognition of the absolute necessity of lawfully derived episcopal ordination to the validity of ministerial functions in the Christian Church. Without this ordination there can be no true ministry, and, by consequence, no true Church ; for where there is no true ministry there are no true sacraments, and a Church without sacraments is no Church. Now, acceptance of this dogma of the historic episcopate, which is but another phrase for apostolical succession, involves belief in many declarations which are both unscriptural and unhistorical :

1. That bishops are by divine right a distinct l6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE.

order in the Christian ministry, higher than presbyters, and possess powers and authority not belonging to presbyters as such.1

2. That bishops are the successors of the apostles, and have as such the sole right to ordain to the Christian ministry.2

3. That no ministry lacking such ordination is valid, and that the ordinances of religion administered by anyone not thus ordained are unavailing as means of divine grace.3

Such are a few of the principles involved in the doctrine of the historic episcopate.

With the dogma of apostolical succession, that is, a personal tactual succession, this treatise is not directly concerned. A chronological, uninterrupted succession in Christendom is no longer worthy of the serious consideration of the historian. While it may be satisfactorily inferred from the New Testament and from early Christian writings that episcopacy, in moderate degree, was the prevailing polity in the apostolic age, that there never was a time when bishops, overseers, or superintendents were not recognized as the chief pastors of the flock of Christ, still, the same Scriptures unmistakably teach that bishops are not successors of the apostles, either in power, in gifts, in grace, or in authority ;

1 Rose, Commission and Consequent Duties of the Clergy, Appendix,

2 Palmer, Treatise on the Church, vol. i, pp. 142, 143.

3 Dean Hook, Church Dictionary, art. "Anglo-Catholic Church."

GENERAL SURVEY I 7

that they are not by divine right a distinct order from presbyters, but that, on the contrary, they are of the same order (Acts xx, 17, 28; Titus i, 7 ; 1 Peter v, 23 ) ; that the qualifications for a bishop are identical with those required for a presbyter (compare 1 Tim. iii, 2-7, and Titus i, 6-10) ; that presbyters have the same power and authority in ordination as bishops ; and, finally, that continuity of apostolic teaching is the only true and apostolic succession.

This was also the belief of the primitive Church. Clement of Rome (A. D. 65) knows nothing of three orders in the ministry. With him, as with the New Testament writers, bishops and presbyters are the same. Writing to the church at Corinth on the occasion of a sedition in that church, he says:

For it would be no small sin in us should we cast off those from their episcopate who holily and without blame fulfill the duties of it. Blessed are those presbyters who, having fin-

ished their course before these times, for they have no fear lest anyone should turn them out of their place.

The Didache, containing a summary of apostolic teaching, and which is among the earliest documents of the Church, like the Epistle of Clement, knows only of two orders — bishops, who, of course, were presbyters, and deacons. Irenaeus (A. D. 167), speaking of heretical ministers elated with pride in having the principal seat, exhorts the faithful to hold allegiance to those who " keep the doctrine of the aposties, and with the order of the presbyters — presbytcrii ordinc — exhibit soundness in word. . The Church cherishes such presbyters, of whom the prophet says, ' And I will give thy governors — dpxovreg — in peace, and thy bishops — tmoKo-rrovq — in righteousness.'"1 Jerome, summing up the conclusions from Scripture and the practice of the apostolic Church, writes:

A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop ; and before dissensions were introduced in religion by the instigation of the devil, and it was among the peoples, " I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas," churches were governed by a common council of presbyters. But because at that time

they called the same persons bishops whom they called presbyters, therefore the apostle speaks of bishops as presbyters indifferently. Should this still seem ambiguous to anyone unless verified by another testimony, in the Acts of the Apostles it is written —

He then cites the various well-known passages, and from Heb. xii, 17; 1 Peter v, i,and then continues:

Therefore, as we have shown, presbyters were the same as bishops ; but by degrees, that the plants of dissension might be rooted up, all responsibility was transferred to one person. Therefore, as the presbyters know that it is by the custom of the Church that they are to be subject to him who is placed over them, so let the bishops know that they are above presbyters rather by custom than by divine appointment.

But, notwithstanding the demonstrable fact that apostolical succession can never be proved either from Scripture or from history,2 we may grant the

- Referring to this want of historic truth, Perceval, Apostolic Sue-

GENERAL SURVEY. 19

supposition of it for the time being in order more clearly to elucidate the truth. Let it be conceded that there has come down from the apostles an unbroken succession of bishops, and that that succession continues and is in force at present. Let it be granted, further, that the Roman and the Greek Churches are in possession, as Anglicans assert, of this succession. The questions before us, then, are, Does the Church of England or the Protestant Episcopal Church possess this same succession ? Have these Churches, tried by the principles they lay down for other Churches, a truly valid ministry ? Now, since the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church, by insisting upon this theory of succession, which by them has been made an article of belief equal to a revealed doctrine, reject the validity of ordination in other Protestant Churches, the right to challenge, on these same Anglican principles, the validity of orders in the Established Church and its American offshoot can neither be questioned nor denied. These Churches possess no character or authority which would entitle them to exemption from trial on their own

cession, p. 17, says: " Tf nothing will satisfy men but actual demonstration I yield at once." Riddle, Christian Antiquities, Preface :

"Whatever may become of apostolic succession as a theory or an institute, it is impossible to prove the fact of such succession." And again in his Pica for Episcopacy : " It is impossible to prove the personal succession of modern bishops, in an unbroken episcopal line, from the apostles or men of the apostolic age." See also Keble on

Tradition, p. 96.

principles. It cannot be quietly assumed that the Church of England is undoubtedly founded on an historic, legitimate episcopate, and that therefore it possesses the right to lay down imperative conditions for other Churches. Before it or the Protestant Episcopal Church can lawfully presume to do this it must produce its own undoubted credentials, and must make good, without any element of incertitude in its evidence, its own high claims to authorized succession.

Upon what, then, does this claim to the historic episcopate in the Church of England rest ? As an historic fact it rests solely on the validity and sacramental character of Matthew Parker's consecration to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. He is the head of the stream. From him the English episcopate is derived. He, and he only, is the foundation of the English hierarchy ; and, unless it can be demonstrated, as it has not been and, as we think, never can be, without any suspicion of doubt that he was truly and canonically ordained, then, on Anglican principles, this historic episcopate in the Church of England is a usurped claim, a pretension engendered of ecclesiastical pride, or an unfortunate alternative, which has proved a girdle of Ate, forced upon that Church by religious and political circumstances ; and the claim of the Church of England is false, however agreeable that claim may be to the dignity and to the illustrious history of that vencr-

GENERAL SURVEY 2 1

able Church. Its orders, on the same principles, like those of other Churches, are null and void. Once the issue is made nothing can be taken for granted. Historic facts alone will suffice. Assumptions of what might have been or what, judging from circumstances, must have been done will be of no avail. The undoubted historic facts alone will be admitted in evidence. In no instance will any degree of rational doubt be allowed, nor should Anglicans who sit in judgment on the orders of other Churches desire it ; for, if in the evidence there is reasonable ground for doubt, then, on the universal legal maxim, "Nemo dat quod non habet" the validity of all subsequent ordinations emanating from that source would also be doubtful. Such uncertainty would be death to the historic episcopate and annihilation to the affirmations and demands of Anglican prelates.

It is our purpose, then, to show : I. That the fact of Matthew Parker's consecration is at least doubtful; 2. That if he was consecrated the consecration, on Anglican principles, was invalid ; 3. That if valid it did not continue the apostolical succession ; 4. That the Church of England, when established by law in the Reformation, utterly rejected the theories and principles now maintained by High Church teachers as the original doctrines of the Church of England.

Chapter II

WHEN the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, ascended the throne of England, in 1558, the Roman Catholic faith was the established religion of the nation. It was a period of convulsion and of change. Whether the Reformation, which had been inaugurated under Henry, continued with varying success under Edward VI, but was suddenly arrested by the hand of Mary, would again revive in the new reign was a State problem, as well as a religious question. Elizabeth, however, was considered as favorable to Reform, and in her the hopes of the Protestants were centered. As Froude points out, three fourths of the people of England, a third of the privy council, and a large majority of the lay peers were opposed to a change of religion ; but the terrible persecutions under Queen Mary, during which Bishops Hooper, Ferrar, Latimer, Ridley, and Archbishop Cranmer were brought to the stake, had produced generally a decided reaction from the popular enthusiasm which had placed Mary on the throne and had thereby restored the Catholic teaching. The influence, also, of a powerful minority at court was on the side of the Reformed doctrines. Such ministers as had preached the pure word of God, had zealously advocated the principles of the Reformation under Edward VI, and had fled the kingdom when Mary became queen, were now returning from Strasburg, Zurich, and Geneva, and were beginning anew without hindrance the work of reform.

But England was still legally Catholic. All laws of the realm which had been enacted in the preceding reign for the protection or enrichment of the Roman Church were still in force. Catholic bishops occupied the sees ; not one Protestant bishop was in possession of a diocese ; Elizabeth was crowned by a Roman bishop; the Roman missal was used in public worship, and in all respects the religious character of the nation appeared unchanged. Elizabeth herself was in reality but little inclined to the doctrines of the Reformation. Possessing an elastic conscience, which enabled her to adjust herself with facility to the varying exigencies of the situation, she had no desire to radically change the religion of her subjects, whatever may have been her purpose to alter the form df it or to employ its power and prestige in behalf of the crown, at home or abroad.1 She believed in the real presence,2 which at that

1 Strype, Annals of the Reforniation, vol. i, part i, 59, 74, 77 ; Burnet, History of the Reformation, i, 585 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical History, vi, 2CO ; Froude, History of England ; Green, Short History of the English People.

2 Strype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 2, 3.

time signified transubstantiation ; retained the crucifix and lighted candles on the altar in the royal chapel ; 1 denounced marriage of the clergy ;2 and threatened to issue injunctions in favor of the Roman Church.3 Before the prayer book which was to take the place of the liturgy in use under Mary was presented to Parliament for adoption, Elizabeth made changes in it which brought it so near to the Roman missal that the pope agreed to ratify its use in England should his supremacy be acknowledged.4 She insisted that ministers officiating at the eucharist should be clothed with vestments worn by Catholic priests in the celebration of the mass, and that the bread used in the sacrament should be in the form of the wafer.6 The queen at the beginning of her reign was evidently desirous, like her father Henry, that with the exception of papal supremacy the old religion, with its magnificent ritual and splendor of ceremony, should remain, as it was, the religion of her kingdom.

The chiefs of the Reformed party, however, were

1 "The queen, still to this year [1565], kept the crucifix in her chapel." — Strype, Annals, vol. i, part ii, 198-200. 2Strype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 118.

3 Strype, Life of Parker, i, 217, 21S. There was some fear that she would abandon Protestantism altogether. See Burnet, Records, 17, in Appendix to Strype's Parker.

4 Strype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 340 ; Burnet, History of the Reformation, ii, 645 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical History, vi, 308, 309.

6 Cardwell, History of Conferences/ Short, History of the Church of England, 537-549 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical I/Ltory, vi, 248, 250.

CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW TARKER. 25

of another mind. They were determined that the Reformation should triumph. The Word of God should be free in England. Evils indeed had followed in the wake of Reform ; nobles had espoused its cause that they might enrich themselves with the spoils of the Church ; the populace, in the first flush of freedom from superstition, had plunged into immoral excesses ; there was a restlessness abroad that endangered the stability of the State ; but these misfortunes, incident to great changes, would be remedied if the authority of the crown should be thrown on the side of pure religion. On the other hand, the Church of Rome was Antichrist, and should receive no support from a Christian State ; the doctrine of the mass was a horrid blasphemy ; the worship of saints, of relics, and the adornment of churches with images and pictures were gross superstition ; all popish rites and ceremonies and use of vestments — " Aaronic ornaments " — all crosses and altars and obeisances, and the employment of dead tongues — mere mumblings of the Amorites — were wholly alien both to the spirit and to the letter of the Gospel. There could come no peace to the nation till idolatry was put out of the land.

Thus the distinction between the Reformed doctrine and the Catholic teaching was, not merely a variation of forms or a question of authority, but a radical difference of religion. The Christianity accepted and revered by the Romanist was altogether another system from that which was apprehended by the Puritan reformer.

Religious questions were national interests, and the antagonism of Rome to the person and policy of the queen made a change in the religious character of the kingdom a political necessity. Parliament assembled ; bills were presented ; and the building of the temple of the Reformers was again resumed. By repealing the ecclesiastical laws which had restored the Catholic faith in the reign of Queen Mary, and by reviving certain acts of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the Reformed doctrine was legally established in the place of the Roman faith as the religion of the nation. Elizabeth was made supreme head of the Church in England. The wording of the Act of Supremacy is of particular importance. Parliament declared :

Such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and preeminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority have heretofore been, or may lawfully be, exercised or used for the visitation of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, order, and correction of the same, and of all manner of errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities, shall forever, by the authority of the present Parliament, be united and annexed to the imperial crown of the realm.

A clause in the same act granted authority to the crown to delegate the powers above mentioned to persons, lay or clerical, who should act as commissioners to order, restrain, or amend anything in the Church " which, by any manner of spiritual

CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 2J

or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended." By this act not only was the entire discipline of the Church placed in the power of the crown, but even laymen, who may or may not be Christians at all, might exercise decisive authority in all ecclesiastical affairs over the ministers of religion. Further, by the Act of Uniformity it was made a statutory law " that the queen's majesty, by the advice of her ecclesiastical commissioners, may ordain and publish such ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advancement of God's glory and the edifying of the Church." Strype * also says that in this first Parliament a bill passed the House of Commons empowering the queen to collate or appoint bishops to vacant bishoprics, without rites or ceremonies. The power to do this, however, was already involved in the Act of Supremacy.

Thus all spiritual jurisdiction, the supreme power of guiding and governing the Church of God, was placed in the hands of Elizabeth. The ministers of religion, even in the exercise of their calling, were mere officials, mere servants of the crown, which could prescribe the forms of prayer, ordain the character of rites and ceremonies, and with a word make or unmake these ministers at will.

1 Annals, p. 67.

The plea made by Haddan and others, that Elizabeth and her Parliament were not sources of authority for the Church, but that they only gave the sanction of civil law to its decrees and ritual regulations, by which plea Anglicans hope to remove certain difficulties from their claim to the historic episcopate, was long ago made by Bishop Burnet in his Vindication of English Ordinations. In that book he cites in justification the interference in Church affairs of the emperors Constantine, Theodosius, and Charles the Great. But he was careful, as recent Anglican writers are also careful, to avoid the rock upon which this plea is wrecked — the fact that neither these emperors, nor any ruler after them, ever arrogated to themselves supremacy in the Church, or exercised any authority in matters of religion or any jurisdiction over bishops or ministers as supreme heads of the Church, such a head as Elizabeth, by enactment of Parliament, was constituted to be, and in which capacity exercised supreme authority over the Church of England.

Elizabeth understood full well the scope and purpose of her authority.1 When the Bishop of Ely (Cox) refused at the command of the queen to alienate certain lands and manors of his see, she wrote : a

1 Cardwell, Documentary Annals, ii, 171 ; Strype, Life of Grindal, 290 ; Lamb, Historical Account of the Thirty-Nine Articles ; Cardwell, History of Conferences, 21, 22, note.

9 Strickland, Queens of England, i, 234.

Proud Prelate : You know what you were before I made you what you are. If you do not immediately comply with my request, by G — d I will unfrock you. Elizabeth.

In her speech to Parliament, 1584, her majesty informed the bishops that if they did not amend their ways she would depose every one of them. " For there seems to have been," says Hallam, " no question in that age but that this might be done by virtue of the crown's supremacy." Prior to this, when the Elizabethan Articles of Religion were sent up for ratification to the House of Lords they were " stayed by commandment from the queen," for the reason that she, and not Parliament, was the head of the Church, and that that method of putting forth the book was an invasion of her prerogative. The primate and bishops petitioned her, says Hardwick, to accelerate the passage of the bill authorizing the publication of the Articles through the House; but their petition was of no avail, " for the queen, immovably resolved to gain what she considered her prerogative, cut short all further ' doings of the Commons ' by dissolving Parliament."

The Act of Supremacy also provided that all persons holding office under the crown, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, should take an oath acknowledging the royal supremacy. By this requirement every bond between the Roman Church and the Reformed Church was broken. The hierarchy, which Anglicans affirm had undoubted succession, was destroyed. In

30 THE HISTORIC EITSCOPATE.

the whole kingdom there were twenty-four episcopal and two archiepiscopal sees. The sees of nine bishops and of one archbishop were vacant. In July, 1559, the remaining bishops and archbishops were summoned by the lords of council and ordered to take the oath; but, with the exception of Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff, they all refused, and by the end of September they were all deprived of their sees by High Court of Commission.1 In this manner the Roman sees were emptied of their bishops — a mode quite as legal as that by which the bishops of Edward VI had been deprived in the preceding reign — and there now remained in all England no bishop, except Kitchin, who might lawfully exercise the ■functions of his office or who could with any assurance transmit the succession.

The archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, the highest in England, being vacant by the death of Cardinal Pole, it was of prime importance that it should be filled as soon as possible by one in harmony with the new order of things in Church and State. For this purpose Queen Elizabeth, according to her royal prerogative, issued a mandate, September 9, 1559, to four of the Roman Catholic bishops, Tonstal of Durham, Bourne of Bath and Wells, Poole of Peterborough, and Kitchin of Llandaff, and to Doctors in Divinity Barlow and