Protestant Episcopal doctrine and church unity

Front matter

BY THE REV. C. M. BUTLER, D. D.

IJntestftiit (Spt0C*p*l JDtrtrine

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Contents

I. The Church Catholic and the Protestant

Episcopal Church 13

II. Episcopacy of Apostolic Appointment 49

I. The Church Catholic

AND THE

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

Reasons for the discussion. — Meaning of the XlXth Article. — The visible Church Catholic of Christ not an organized and recognizable body, invested with authority to decree articles of faith. — The preface to the Ordinal considered. — It asserts the past continued existence of the Episcopal or three-fold form of the Christian ministry. — The claims that Bishops succeed the Apostles in their office considered. —The consequences of this doctrine described.— Conclusion.

Chapter I

It may be remarked that most of the errors, as I deem them, on the subject of the Church and ministry are errors because they go beyond and add to, and thus, in their ultimate development, logically destroy the doctrines which are maintained in our standards. Some of them indeed appear to be in direct opposition to those standards. But they were at first only additions. They came and took their place by the side of the definitions of the Church, as subordinate and allied, but effective forces ; but soon, yielding to their repellant and hostile instincts, they drew oft' and assumed a position of antagonism to those doctrines which they came professedly to serve.

Cardinal Newman's definition of corruption of doctrine is, that " it is the destruction of the norm or type." " It is the abandonment of a line of thought." " It is that which reverses the course of development. " " It is that state of an idea which undoes its previous advances." But, says Dr. Mozely in his Theory of Development

(pp. 34, 35), " this definition simply omits the whole notion of corruption by excess. Corruption being defined the loss of type, that exaggeration which is not this, is not corruption. It is open to any one to deny the correctness and completeness of Mr. Newman's definition, and to assert that there is a kind of corruption which is not a whole departure from the original type, but which carries out that type excessively and extravagantly ; that such a kind is seen in life and morals ; and that it may take place in religious systems too."

I shall pursue, therefore, a natural course, if I first state the doctrine of our Church standards, and then indicate the additions to, and departures from, them.

The first point to which I call attention is the doctrine of the Church on the constitution of the Church and ministry.

I will first examine what are the views which our Church entertains bf the visible Church Catholic of Christ. Her sentiments upon the subject may be found in our Book of Common Prayer. The XlXth Article contains a general description of the visible Church of Christ. In giving such a description, it of course limits its definition to those comprehensive features under which all branches of the visible Church Catholic of Christ

AND CHUECH UNITY.

may be included. Its language is as follows : — " The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. 5 ' This article brings out the following positions : — (1.) The visible Church is a congregation or aggregate of faithful or believing men. (2.) In this congregation the pure word of God is preached. (3.) The Sacraments are administered in conformity to Christ's ordinance — at least in such a degree of conformity as to retain those things which are essential to the being of the Sacrament.* Here the visible Church is made to depend on the pure preaching of the "Word, and the right administration of the Sacraments ; while no definition is given of what is to be considered the preaching which is sufficiently pure, and the administration which is sufficiently in conformity to Christ's institution, to constitute so called churches true portions of the Church Catholic of Christ. The sentiment of the Church on this latter subject is

* Additions to the Sacraments do not annul them, though they corrupt them with that adulterate mixture. But if any part of the institution is cut off, then we do not own the Sacrament to be true. — Buknet on the Articles, page 222.

18 PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL DOCTEIKE either stated elsewhere, or is to be inferred from other sources, or it has not been expressed. My own conviction is that it has not been expressed. She did not feel called upon to state what was the extent, and what were the boundaries of the visible Church of Christ. She has not anywhere expressed her ability to do so. She has contented herself with stating what is the general rule, without pretending that it was in her own power accurately and dogmatically to apply it. Then, in her ordination service, she states what she has adopted for herself. The case is parallel to that of an individual. We may say that the reception of God's truth is necessary to the possession of Christian character and hope. We may state what, in our belief, is the pure Word of God — what are the great saving doctrines of the Bible. The reception of these, we say, in general terms, is necessary to the reality of Christian character. We feel them to be necessary for ourselves. But having made the statement, there we rest. We dare not say of an individual professor or believer, who receives a part and rejects a part of truth, that he cannot be a Christian — that his hope is baseless and his woe inevitable. So our Church states that God's pure Word and Christ's true Sacraments are necessary to the being of the Church.

AND CHURCH UNITY.

But she refrains from so defining what shall be considered, for the entire Church, the pure word and the true Sacraments, as that she shall, by a dogmatic definition, cut off any bodies which have borne the Christian name, from being constituent portions of the Church Catholic of Christ.*

This we think is evident from the conclusion of the XlXth Article. Notwithstanding she has designated the pure preaching of the "Word as a mark of the visible Church of Christ, she goes on to add that " as the Church at Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred ; so also the Church at Eome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." Here she gives the title of Churches to those bodies which have erred in matters of faith ; notwithstanding she had declared the pure preaching of the Word to be a mark of the visible Church of the Redeemer. In doing this, she seems to me evidently to use language equivalent to this : " We gather from

* The defining of fundamental articles seem on the one hand to deny salvation to such as do not receive them all, which men are not willing to do.

And on the other hand, it may seem a leaving men at liberty, as to all other particulars that are not reckoned up among the fundamentals. — Burnet on the Articles,page 222.

the word of God that the possession of certain truths and institutions is necessary to the being of the Church. Yet we refrain from defining precisely what is necessary to constitute these truths and institutions ; or whether various bodies have held enough of truth, and of the essentials of these institutions, along with their errors and corruptions, to enable them still to be constituent portions of the Church Catholic of Christ.' , Such we take to be the tenor of the Article. We can make nothing of it, if this be not its meaning.

Now if these statements be well founded, several important inferences follow.

1. Our Church has nowhere furnished infallible tests by which we can go through existing Christendom or through history, and set apart, on the right hand and on the left, true and false churches ; even as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats.

2. In the definition which she has given of the marks of the visible Church, she has not specified succession — which is an external and visible fact — but purity of preaching, and truth of Sacraments, which are points of more difficult and doubtful ascertainment.

3. In stating [that the pure preaching and right administration of the Sacraments are the

AND CHURCH UNITY.

marks of the visible Church. Catholic of Christ, and at the same time abstaining from defining what constitutes the one and the other, she has declined to express an opinion as to what degree of error destroys the being of a Church, and as to what degree of conformity to the institutions of Scripture must be retained to enable a professedly Christian society to be a portion of the Church Catholic of Christ.

4. By stating that the pure preaching of the Word and the due administration of Sacraments are necessary to constitute Christian Churches, and by defining for herself what shall be considered such, she has indicated the direction in which we should search for those communities which are best entitled to be regarded as true portions of the Church Catholic of Christ. Those communions which are most like ourselves in those two particulars, of pure preaching and right administration of Sacraments, we may, by an irresistible inference, conclude to be, in her judgment, best entitled to that distinction.

5. Such is the testimony of Bishop Harold Brown, in his Exposition of the XXXIX Articles. u The formularies of our Church have expressed no judgment, as to how far the very being of a Church may be imperilled by a defect

22 PROTESTAKT EPISCOPAL DOCTRINE in this particular note of the Church [The power of the keys] or by mutilation of the Sacraments, imperfect ordination, or defective exercise of the power of the Keys. The English Church has been content to give her decision as to the right mode of ordaining, ministering sacraments and exercising discipline, without expressing an opinion on the degree of defectiveness in such matters, which would cause other communions to cease from being Churches of Christ." * (P. 467.)

* The XlXth Article is by many persons considered to refer to any one visible Church, whether national or diocesan. So considered, it is no less available for our argument. In that case, the same marks are considered necessary to constitute any professed Churches real portions of the Church Catholic of Christ.

Those who regard Episcopacy as essential to the existence of a Church, fasten upon the expression, "the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all things that of necessity are requisite to the same." They contend that they cannot be thus administered unless by ministers regularly commissioned by the successors of the Apostles. But it would be easy to show that this was not the sentiment of the framers of the Service. It is a fact beyond all question that Cranmer, and Ridley, and Jewel, used just this language, and that they make it evident by their language and their conduct, that an Episcopally ordained ministry was never regarded by them as necessary to the due administration of the Sacraments, in those things that of necessity were requisite to the same.

AND CHURCH UNITY.

This wise moderation has not always been adhered to by some of the members of our communion. Much has been added to this definition.

1. Not content with expressing, with our Creed, a belief that there is one holy Catholic Church, which is the object of our faith and not of our sight — as are all the other particulars in which we express belief in the creed — the attempt has been made to show where it is, by what boundaries it has been defined, and what bodies of professed Christians are without it, and what within.

2. Nor only so. It is not with the marks stated by our Church that the attempt has been made to designate the true and false Churches, which are to be included in, or excluded from, the visible Church Catholic of Christ. Those marks are the pure Word preached and the Sacraments duly administered. Another mark, not only over and above, but apparently to the exclusion of those mentioned, has by some been introduced. This is succession. Those Churches are said to be true, which have retained the apostolic succession, however corrupt they may

The author hopes to prove this point abundantly in a larger work on this subject, which he is laboring, among many other cares and toils, to prepare for the press.

be in doctrine ; and those false, or rather unreal, which have lost the succession, however pure they may be in doctrine.*

3. And from these additions to the moderate statements of our Church, others have naturally arisen. As a consequence of the position last stated, it has been assumed that the Church Catholic does not only retain the truth and institutions whose possession makes it to be the universal visible Church ; but that it is a recognizable body, which retains all catholic truth,

* The whole controversy with Rome was never more ably conducted than by the divines of the Church of England during the reign of the popish King James II. They never took the ground indicated above. Though they lived long after the days of Laud, and had heard the doctrines of exclnsiveness often from the writers of Laud's day, they never adopt it in their controversy with Rome. In Gibsou's Preservative — that vast repository of arms against Rome — there will be found the fuM and repeated admission, that — not succession, but — a profession of true Christian faith and a reception of Sacraments was enough to constitute individuals and Churches constituent portions of the Catholic Church. The following is a specimen of their language on this subject ; —

" The whole number of Christians in all ages and places ; every individual person that hath given up his name to Christ, and makes profession of his religion, is a member of this Church, and all of them together make up the Catholic Church, or the mystical body of Christ." — Gibson's Preservative, Title III. page 4.

AND CHURCH UNITY.

and has authority to determine what is such ; and that failure to receive her teachings is treason against the established institutions of Christ and his Apostles. There is no proof that our Church holds to such a doctrine. Nor can it be proved by any line of argument to be in itself plausible or true. (L) The necessity for such a teaching, visible Church, must be assumed, and cannot be proved. (2.) No word or institution of Christ, no testimony of the Apostles, can be adduced in proof that it was contemplated by them. (3.) The impossibility of proving or disproving the fact of apostolic succession, on which the existence of churches is made mainly to depend, confutes the assumption, because it makes it evident that we cannot learn with certainty what are the true limits of the Church. (4.) The consent of these churches, the topics on which they have unanimously agreed, cannot be ascertained. So that, in the first place, it cannot be ascertained what body of Churches constitute the Church which is to teach ; and, in the next place, it cannot be ascertained what their teaching is. When we cannot find what the lesson is, nor a teacher to tell us, we may safely conclude that there is no teaching. There is a Holy Catholic Church whose existence is recognized in the Creed. But I deny

26 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL DOCTKIKE that it is a defined, organized, ascertainable body ; and that it subserves any such purpose.*

So much for the views of our Church, and the additions to them, on the subject of the visible Church Catholic of Christ.

We have seen that our standards decline to pronounce what is the purity of doctrine, and what the degree of conformity to the institutions of Christ, which are necessary to constitute Christian communities portions of the universal Church. For herself, however, she declares what doctrines she and her ministers maintain. She

* This idea of a catholic consent, of the authoritative voice of the Church, of the teachings of the Catholic Church, is altogether Romish, and unknown to our best apologists and defenders of the Church of an earlier day. In Gibson's Preservative, this is the language used on that subject : —

" No organized Church can be the Catholic Church/' "The Catholic Church being no organized body, has no authority, and can have no tribunal."

" It has no authority. For the whole company of the faithful, which is the true notion of the Catholic Church, are the mystical body of Christ, and in subjection to him as a wife is in subjection to her husband. Now if the Catholic Church be only a company of private and particular Christians united immediately to Christ, and made one body in him, the Catholic Church has no more authority than particular Christians have, which is none at all." The True Notion of the Catholic Church Explained and Stated, page 39.

AND CHUKCH UNITY.

avows her sentiments as to the constitution of the Christian ministry, and the nature of the Sacraments ; and declares conformity to them to be necessary by her own ministers and members.

On the subject of the constitution of the ministry, her language, in the preface to the ordination services, is as follows : — " It is evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scriptures and ancient authors, that from the Apostles 5 time, there have been these three orders of ministers in Christ s Church — Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, which officers were evermore held in such reverend estimation that no man might presume to execute any of them except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same ; and also by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful authority. And therefore, to the intent that these orders may be continued and reverently used and esteemed in this Church, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal consecration or ordination."

This is the entire and authoritative statement of the Church upon the subject — a statement in no respect modified or enlarged by other portions of our standard of faith or offices of devotion. What does it announce ?

1. It announces the fact that from the Apostles' time there have been these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church — Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

2. It announces that these offices were always held in such reverend estimation that no man might presume to execute any of them except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite to the same ; and also by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and admitted thereto, by lawful authority. This is a declaration that no persons were admitted to these offices except upon examination, approval, and the laying on of hands, by the constituted authority of the Church.

3. It announces that no person shall betaken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, in this Church, — in this Church of England, as the preface to the English service originally ran — or suffered to execute any of their functions unless he shall have had Episcopal ordination.

This is all that our Church has announced

AND CHURCH UNITY.

on the subject of the three orders of the ministry.

The additions to these moderate statements have been numerous and important.

1. It is, for instance, a usual statement of the doctrine of our Church that Christ Himself established the three orders of the ministry. From many of the popular treatises on Episcopacy it would be inferred that Christ, during his life on earth, established these orders ; and that the Church was then completely organized before His Ascension. It would be inferred from these treatises that such was the doctrine of our Church. But our standards say not so. They state that from the Apostles' time there have been these three orders in the Church. If from the Apostles' time, then surely not before their time. The language of the preface plainly implies that this arrangement of the ministry took place under the Apostles, acting with the commission, and by the inspiration, of the ascended Saviour.

Note. — This addition was insisted on by Archbishop Laud. At his request, Bishop Hall published his " Episcopacy by divine right asserted/' in which one of his propositions implied that the Presbyterian form of polity might be useful where the Episcopate could not be had. The Primate took exception to this statement, as " an unnecessary and dangerous concession." As originally expressed, his first

30 PBOTESTANT EPISCOPAL DOCTEIKE postulate stood thus : " That government which was of Apostolic institution cannot be denied to stand upon divine right." To this the Archbishop objects that though it is true it is too narrowly expressed ; " for Episcopacy is not to be so confined to Apostolical institution, as to bar it from a further ascent and from deriving it originally from our Saviour himself ; though perhaps the Apostles might superstruct something with respect to form and circumstance." — McElhinney's Doctrine of the Church, p. 274. Bishop Hall did not adopt the Archbishop's view.

2. Another doctrine added to tlie statement of our Ordinal is that which is technically called the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. It consists of two main positions, and it draws after it many consequences. We will first consider these two positions in this chapter, and afterward state some of the most prominent of those consequences in another chapter.

1. The first main position of which the doctrine of Apostolic succession consists is, that it is a fact that there has been an unbroken succession of officers who succeeded the Apostles in their office ; that the Apostles laid their hands on presbyters to make them Bishops or Apostles, and these Bishops laid their hands on other presbyters, who thus became Bishops or Apostles ; so that there has been an unbroken, tactual, physical succession of Apostles. This

AND CHUECH UNITY.

is what may be called the fact of the Apostolic succession.

2. But this fact is considered to be important because it is also a doctrine that there must be such a succession for the preservation of the ministry. The ground is taken that, if this succession should be broken, Christ would have no ministry on earth. In such case, there would be no one authorized to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. Those who take this ground assume that there must have' been an unbroken tactual succession of Apostles or Bishops; because we have the promise that the gates of hell never shall prevail against the Church. An attempt has also been made, from history, to make out tables of unbroken succession, in different national Churches.

"With these remarks upon what our Church has declared ; and of the additions which have been made to her definitions ; I proceed to show, very briefly, that she is well sustained in what she has announced ; and wise in omitting what some of her injudicious advocates have added to her statements. Again I must beg that it will be remembered that I have engaged to make a statement of the case rather than argue it in detail.

We contend, then, that our Church is sustained in her declaration that from the Apostles' times there have been three orders of ministers in Christ's Church, and the grounds on which it can be sustained are the following:—

1. First, it can be shown that the Saviour commissioned His Apostles to establish the Church and ministry; to set on foot His kingdom. He declared to them, "As the Father hath sent me, even so I send you." During the forty days which intervened between His Eesurrection and Ascension, " He gave commandment to the Apostles, whom He had chosen," and " spake to them of the things that pertained to the king* dom of God." From these and other passages, we learn that Christ commissioned His Apostles to establish His kingdom.

2. It can be shown, in the second place, that in the execution of this commission, the Apostles distributed ministerial power to the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. The principal proofs of this fact are to be found in the history of Timothy and Titus ; and in the case of the seven Churches of Asia Minor. That argument has been often and ably handled by Episcopal writers ; and in our honest conviction never overthrown.

3. Then it can be shown that the Episcopacy

AND CHURCH UNITY.

established in the Apostles' time has continued in the Church of Christ from that time. The testimony of the primitive fathers to this subject has been the subject of voluminous discussion. The testimony of the learned Isaac Taylor is the more valuable on this point, because, while he does not grant that episcopacy was established by the Apostles as a permanent arrangement, he admits that, as a matter of history, there can be no doubt that it was well-nigh universally established. He tells us that the " orthodoxy of the great mass of Christians in those ages, in the first, second, and third centuries, and their episcopacy, are two prominent facts that meet us directly on almost every page of the extant remains of these times."

By these lines of proof, it can be shown that our Church speaks advisedly, when she declares that from the Apostles 5 times there have been these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church.

The other two assertions of the preface to the Ordinal, that no man should be admitted to the ministry but by imposition of hands and prayer ; and that none should be held to be a lawful minister in the Church of England and our own, without Episcopal ordination, need no vindication. If Episcopacy be held by the Church to have been established by the Apostles, and to 3 have been conferred by the laying on of hands ; of course it became her to admit none to her ministry but those who are thus ordained. But observe that the preface declares that no one who is not thus ordained shall be held to be a lawful minister in this Church. It does not say that none is a lawful minister in Christ's Church unless he receive Episcopal ordination ; but only that he is not a lawful minister in this Church. As the Article on the universal Church has not stated that succession, or the three orders, are necessary to the various Churches of the world to constitute them portions of the Church Catholic, it cannot be truly said that onr Church has determined that there can be no ministry or Church unless it be Episcopally constituted. If any one among us, therefore, chooses to say, " This body of professed Christians is not a part of Christ's Church, because it has not true doctrine ; " and if another chooses to say, " This body of professed Christians is not a part of the Church of Christ, because it has not Bishops and the Apostolic succession," he must give it as his private opinion. He has no right to say that it is the doctrine of the Church. The Church has not said it. In no authorized or authoritative document of the Church, can there be found

AKD CHURCH UOTTY.

such a decision with regard to Christian communities calling themselves Churches.

And now, having indicated the grounds on which we think our Church is sustained in what she has advanced, let us show why we believe her to have omitted certain other doctrines, and why we believe her to be wise in such omission.

1. We find no assertion in our standards to the effect that Christ himself, during His life and ministry, either before or after His ascension, established the three permanent orders of the ministry ; and that the Apostles were succeeded in their office by the Bishops. There is no such declaration. " From the Apostles' times," — not " during, or from Christ's time," — is the language of our Ordinal. And to this all the services of the Church agree. Read the services for the consecration of Bishops, and the ordination of Priests and Deacons ; read the Apology of Bishop Jewel, which is an authorized book in the English Church; read the Homilies, and I venture to say that you will find no such proposition.

2. Again, the fact of an unbroken succession of Bishops is nowhere asserted in our standards. "From the Apostles' times," it is declared there have been three orders in the Church, but it is not declared that, in succession, without any break in the chain, from the Apostles' time, Bishop has transmitted to Bishop the office which he in turn has transmitted through another, down to the present time. This is neither asserted nor denied. I do not assert or deny it. I do not believe that it is capable of proof or disproof. As an historical question, it is too obscure to be definitely and satisfactorily settled.