TlvTP '& Strata, Neni fiftK' THE GIFT OF Cornell University Library arV15908 Reasons for being a churchman : 3 1924 031 433 158 olin,anx The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031433158 THE OHUEOH: HER AUTHORITY DERIVED FROM THE PAST; HER PRESENT ADVANTAGES; HER FUTURE PROSPECTS. REASONS BEING A CHURCHMAN. Addressed to English Speaking Christians of Euery Name. BT THE EEV- AETHUE WILDE LITTLE, M. A., Eector of Saint Paul's Chukch, Portland, Maine. SEC03STB OTSIO'WS.A.aTl;. MILWAUKEE, WIS.: Thb Young Chubchman Co., Poblishkro. 1886. TO THE COMMTJNICAlirTS OF THE CHURCH Saint Paitl's Parish, Poktland, Maine, THIS VOLUME IB Affectionately Dedicated BT THEHC Pastor and Eeiend, The Author. PEEFACE, THESE Beasons for being a Churchman are addressed to SnglisJi - speaking Christians, because the Anglican Chubch is that part of the Catholic Church which has lawful jurisdiction over that part of the earth which is occu- pied by the English-speaking race. Our Church can lay no just claim to the obedience of Orientals, Italians, Frenchmen, Mex- icans, and the like. They owe allegiance to the Dioceses and Provinces of the Church Catholic in their respective countries. Of their peculiar dlflftculties, of their need of reformation, and of their proper courses of action, it is no part of this book to treat. The object in view is twofold : — Eirst, to strengtTien those who are already in actual con- formity with the Anglo-CathoUc Church. It was a profound observation of our great Archbishop, St. Anselm : " Neglegentia mihi mdetur si, postquam conflrmati sutnus in Fide, non studemus Qiwd oredimus intelligere."'^ This "negligence" among Churchmen is lamentable and appalling — a chief cause of indifferentism and apostaey. The Primate of All England recently declared : " There is perhaps not even now one Churchman in ten who is as weU instructed 1. It seems to me the part of negligence if, after we liave been confirmed in tlie Faith, we do not try to understand what we believe. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. in the reasons why he is a Churchman, as Dissenters or Roman Catholics are instructed in the arguments whereby their posi- tion is defended. This should surely he remedied." If the two million nominal adherents of the Church in the United States did but fairly appreciate the history, the claims, and the bless- ings of American Catholicism, the individual faith and piety and the general influence of our Church, would be increased an hundredfold. The second object in view is to call the attention of our non- conforming brethren — Roman and Protestant alike — to the historic continuity, the divine authority, the lawful jurisdiction, the true Catholicity, and the practical advantages of the vener- able Church of their ancestors and ours, the Mother-Church of the English-speaking race. Those who have of late conformed to the Church (and they are a numerous company) agree in say- ing that the reason they did not " come home " sooner, was because they were ignorant of their " Father's House." Surely the claims of the Reformed Catholic Church of our race — reformed indeed, but Catholic still — are worth considering. The argument is stated frankly and from the Catholic stand- point. It first took shape in a course of Sunday evening lec- tures in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Portland, Maine. It next appeared as a series of thirty-six articles in a leading Church weekly, s It is now, at the request of many readers — Bishops, Priests, and laymen —sent forth in book form, with the prayer that it may contribute something to the glory of Incar- nate Grod and the upbuilding of His Kingdom of Grace. A. W. L. Portland, Maike, St. Matthew's Day, 1885. 3 "The Living Clinrch," Dec. 13th, 1884, to Aug. S2d, 1885 OOE'TEIS'TS. CHAPTER I. P1.SK. The Question Stated. The Three Divisions of English-speaking Christians — Churchmen- Recusants — ( The essence of the Reformation — The Italian Schism in England and Ireland)— Dissenters — (Their origin and position)- Plan of Argument — Authority — Expediency —Fu- ture Prospects, - 1-6 CHAPTER II. Did God Found a Church which Still Exists? The rafeon d'etre of Man-made Churches — Church in Eden — Cov- enant of Redemption — Patriarchal Dispensation — Mosaic — Jewish Church a type and promise of the Catholic Church — "The Kingdom of God" at hand, 7-14 CHAPTER III. Did Christ Found a Catholic Church which Still Exists ? Christianity not an "Idea," hut an Organism — Christ's Parahles — His Promises — He founds His Kingdom on Earth — Appoints a permanent self-perpetuating Ministry — Apostolic Succession in a single clause, - 15-21 CHAPTER IV. The Pentecostal Church. Christ's Commands carried out hy the Apostles — The Descent of the Holy Ghost — Picture of the Apostolic Church — No Rom- anism — No Protestantism — Both Inconceivable in the Early Church, 83-31 CONTENTS. CHAPTER Y. Makes of the Holy Catholic Church. BaptiBm — The Doctrine of the Apostles — The Fellowship of the Apostles — The Breaking of the Bread — The Prayers, CHAPTEB VI. The Anglican Church and Holy Baptism. Continuity of the Anglican Charch — What Is Baptism! — Regener- ation not Conversion — Teaching of the Bible — Of the Fathers — Infant Baptism— Uninterrupted theory and practice of the Anglican Church — Importance of the Sacrament of the New Birth, 36-44 CHAPTER VII. The Anglican Chuech and "The Apostles' Doc- trine." Episcopacy not everything — Anglican Church not Roman, and not Protestant — The Primitive Faith — Holy Scripture — The Apostolic Creed — Eastern form. Western form — Nicsea and Constantinople — The Athanasian Creed — The XXXIX. Articles not a Creed — The Anglican Church always Orthodox — "Infal- lible" Bishops of Rome sometimes heretical — Greek, Anglican, and Roman Churches have the same Creed — Roman Additions — Relation of Dissenters to the Apostolic Faith, 45-57 CHAPTER VIII. The Apostles' Fellowship : What Saith the Scripture ? Apostolic Episcopacy necessary to the unity, continuity and au- thority of the Church — The Apostolic Office permanent — The Three Orders— The Perennial Ivy— St. Matthias the 13th Apos- tle — St. James the 14th — Evidence that He was Bishop of Je- rusalem— Twenty-three Men called Apoffles in the N. T. — Tim- othy Bp. of Ephesns — Titus Bp. of Crete — Eighteen others, 58-6R CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE- Pkimitive Episcopacy and its Official Titles. Three Orders — Apparent Confusion of Names — No Confusion of Orders — Priests sometimes called "Bishops" in the sense of Pastors or Overseers— .4. postoM sunt EpUcopi — Evidence that the Apostles who Succeeded the Twelve gradually Appropriated the title of Bishop — The title of Apostle lingered in some places — The Didache, 67-71 CHAPTER X. Primitive Episcopacy and the Testimony of the Apostolic Fathees. Episcopacy- not defended m the Early Church because not an open question— Apostolic Order Universal — Early Church Presby- terial only, if you leave out the Apostles — Diaconal, if you leave out both Apostles and Presbyters — Episcopacy not Neces- sarily Diocesan — Earliest Witnesses — St. Clement— St. Poly- carp —St. /gnah'iM— His Epistles to the Ephesiana, Magnesians, Trallians, Komans, Philadelphians, Smyrnseans, and to Poly- carp, 72-84 CHAPTER XI. The Witness of the Fathers — Continued. Admissions of Gibbon, Guizot, Qrotius — Strength of onr Position — Churchmen "No Fools" — Unanswered Challenge of Hooker — ** Epistle to Diognetns" — Testimony of Dionysius; of St. Ire- mBUs; of Polycrates ; of St. Clement, of Alex. ; of Tertullian ; of Origen; of St. Cyprian, etc.— " Study the Fathers," 85-9T CHAPTER XII. If the Primitive Catholic Church was not Epis- copal, What was It ? Experiment of a learned Presbyterian Minister — The Historic Church Episcopal because it started so — If not, when and how did it become so ? — No instance of a non-Episcopal Church — A Camel larger than the wooden Horse of Troy — While the Apostles lived the Church undeniably Episcopal — The post- Apostolic Episcopate dove-tailed into the Episcopate of the Apostles — No room for a radical change of polity — Could such a change take place in a Protestant denomination?— A "tempest in *• tea-pot' — How revolutions occur — Rise of the Papacy an example, , . . . - 9a-]04 CONTENTS. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII. PA8K. Desperate Expedients to get Eid op the Bishops OF THE Eaely Church. The assumption that a Bishop was only a Pastor of one Congregation — How about TiTirs ? — One hundred Cities in his Parish — St. Jamks, the over-worked Pastor 1 — " Tens of thousands " of parish- oners, at least fifty Churches -- Ignatius In Antioch, 200,000 in- habitants, calls himself the Bishop of Syria — Okesemus t one Parish in Ephesus simply preposterous — Case of St, Mark in A lexandria — St. Cyprian in Carthage ; great multitude of clergy (not " ruling elders " but "Glorious Priests"); Cathedral and Ten Churches— The " Moderator Hypothesis," 105-108 CHAPTER XIII. A Few Fragments that Remain Touching Apos- tolic Succession. Evidence of Canons— Apostolic Succession not a Chain but a net — Illustrations — Quotations from Dr. Hopkins — From Bishop Neely— Evidence from Early Schismatics, Novatian and For- tnnatas — From Pagan Writers — From Would-be-bishops, Col- luthus, Aerius, his " dogma furlogum el stolidum ' — The Six General Councils — Archbp. Potter and Lord Macaulay on the Fact of Apos. Success, lOft-116 CHAPTER XIV. The Anglican Church and the "Fellowship op THE Apostles." Importance of the Catholic Episcopate — Anglican Church Never Without It— Early Origin of Christianity in Britain— First Bishop of Rome a Britain — Did St. Paul Preach in Britain? — Tes- timony of Gildas, Portnnatns the Poet; Theodoret, St. Jerome, Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, St. Clement — Church at Glastonbury — St. Alban, qur Proto-martyr — Constan- tine— British Bishops at Councils of Aries, Nicsea, Sardloa, Rimine — The Anglo-Saxon Conquest, 117-1SS4 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XY. PAGB. Anglo-Catholicism ; or, the Making and Estab- lishing OF THE Present National Church of England. The Celtic Churches, Catholic, Independent — Queen Bertha and Bishop Lnidhard — The Italian Mission — Romish errors then unknown — Gregory and the title of " Universal Bishop " — Au- gustine ordained in France — Saxons converted mainly by the Celtic Christians — Canterbury — Two schools of thought- Theodore — The unification and establishment of the Anglo- Catholic Church long before the State, 135-131 CHAPTEE XVI. The English Church never the Eoman Church. The Eeclesia Anglieana — Lease of Church property for 999 years — Mediaeval corruptions — Usurpation of the Bishop of Rome, illustrated by Napoleon, Sinbad, etc. — Roman influence slight before the Norman Conquest — Wilfrid — Cuthbert — Image- worship— OfEa— The "Forged Decretals " — Robert and Stigand — William and Lanfranc defy the Bishop of Rome — The Arch- bishop of Canterbury called " *he Pope and Patriarch of another world"— Anti-Romanlegislation— King John — Magna Charta — Two reforms necessary : to free the State ; to free the Church — The legal freeing of the Church in the Fourteenth Century — The prestige of Rome broken — "Rival Popes" — "Reforming Councils " — Greek Churchmen — Henry VIH. — The " Gordian Knot " — The Bishop of Rome no more than any other " foreign Bishop " — Queen Mary and the second subjngation of our Church — Accession of Elizabeth, 133-144 CHAPTEE XVII. Anglican Orders. True Catholics — Elizabeth and the Papal usurpation — Vacant Bishoprics — Election, conHrmation, and consecration of Arch- bishop Parker — Overwhelming evidence of the fact — The "Nag's Head Fable " — Marc Antonio de Dominis — Irish suc- cession— R. C. admissions — American and Colonial succession, 145-159 APPENDIX TO CHAPTEE XVII. PlUS IV. AND THE ENGLISH EeFORMATION. Hore — Jennings — Cutts — Blunt —Van Antwerp — Butler, 160-163 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XVIII. PAOB. Anglican Jurisdiction and Catholicity. Declaration of Lambeth Council — Novelty of the Ultramontane Theory of Jurisdiction — Inherent Jurisdiction of Provincial and Antocephalons Churches — Early English Church Complete in Itself — Our Eef ormers did not Commit the Sin of ScMsm — English Eomanists Schismatic — Pius IX. and Westminster — English Church never claimed to be Anything but Catholic — Quotations from Dr. Coit, and Dr. Seabury — The " Golden Rule of Faith," 164-17S CHAPTER XIX. The Attitude of Dissent Towards Episcopacy. Difference Between the Catholic Reformation in England and the Protentant Be/volutions on the Continent— Changing Attitude of Protestants toward Episcopacy — (1) They Believed in It, and Regretted their Loss of It ; Luther, Melancthon, Beza, Cal- vin, etc.— C2) They Blindly and Iguorantly Assailed It; Drs. Miller and McCloud — (3) Scholarly Protestant Reaction in Fa- vor of It; Drs. Schaff and Fisher; the Concessions of Mosheim, Gieseler, etc.— .4.™ important consideration, 177-183 CHAPTER XX. The Anglican Church and Confirmation. Definition of Confirmation — Practiced by the Apostles — Scriptural evidence — Patristic — Retained in the Greek, Roman, and Ang- lican Churches — Confirmation not "joining the Church"— Protestants feel the need of it, 184-193 CHAPTER XXI. The Anglican Church and " The Breaking of the Bread." One true Sacrifice ; prefigured in the Jewish Church, commemorated in the Christian Church — The Altar — The Eucharist also a Communion — What the N. T says of it — The Fathers — Two parts of the Sacrament — Tranmbstantiation denies the real presence of the Bread and Wine — Zwinglianism denies the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood — Growth of Transubstan- tiation — Forced on the English Church in the thirteenth cen- tury — The Catholic Doctrine restored in the sixteenth century — Rise of "Half Communion "— Declared Iwresu by three Bishops of Rome — Received unwillingly in the English Church in fifteenth century — The Chalice restored in the sixteenth — Growth of the Zwinglian impiety — Never sanctioned in the Anglo-Catholic Church, 194-205 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXII. PAGE. ''The Prayees." Liturgical Worship a Mark of the Church— Jewish Worship: Tem pie, Synagogue — The Apostles Trained to Liturgical Worship — Endorsed by Christ — Glimpses of Liturgical Worship in the N. T.— The Liturgy of the Passover — Oral Liturgy of the Apostles — Four Great Types — Parts Common to Bach — Worship of the Early Church — Pliny, Justin Martyr — Specimen of the Oldest Extant Liturgy— Eemarkable Agreement of Our Liturgy, 306-230 CHAPTEB XXIII. The Anglican Church and "The Prayers." Our Church Inherited Catholic Worship — Liturgy of St. John — British Liturgy — Influence of Augustine — The Roman Brev- iary and Missal never Used in England — Latin Services — Crea- ture-worship — Devotional and Liturgical Reform — The Prayer Book of 1549 — Subsequent Revisions — Anglican P. B. dear to outsiders — Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc.. Believed in Liturgical Worship — Amazing Devotions of English and American Dis- senters— "Sam. Lawson's" Philosophy of Prayer— Dr. Mines — Extemporary Prayer the Work of Jesuits in England— Pro- testant Reaction in Favor of Liturgical Worship— Thank God for the Prayer Book, 2! CHAPTEE XXIV. Close of the Argument for the Church's Author- ity Based on Historic Continuity. Our Church has retained the accessories of Catholic worship — Bodily reverence— Scriptural warrant — Usage of Early Church — Bowing at the Sacbed Name — The Christian Year — Jewish Feasts and Fasts — Origin of the Church's Calendar — Retained in the Anglo-Catholic Church — So with other things : Ordina- tion, Absolution, Church Architecture, Vestments, etc. — Special defense of Vestments — Continuity, the key-note of the Anglo- Catholic position — Summary of the Historic Argument — Charity to non-conformists, ■ 230-340 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. PAGE.. The Argument from Expediency. Authority onght to be sufficient — " PrtBScriptio in limine" — Comparison of the three Systems — The Anglican holds to the Past and adapts itself to the Present — All the Elements of true Catholicity not only authoritative but ■practically advantagecms — Protestant Dissenters adopting the Church's Ways — Two noted Tributes to the Church by disinterested Observers — The Power of the Historic Church to evoke enthusiastic Love — " The Bride of Christ " — The Catholic Idea, 241-251. CHAPTER XXVI. The Argument from Futurity. (I.) Which System has the Brightest Outlook? — Anglican Pros- pects Last Century — Revival of Church-life — The Wesleys, the "Evangelical Movement," the "Oxford" — Church Growth in England and the United States — Prospects of the Anglo-Saxon Race and the English Language— An unfair Comparison— An- glican Prospects Brighter than Roman — Roman Schism losing Ground in England — Dependent on Immigration In the United States — The United States the Paradise of Protestantism — Ele- ments of Disintegration and Decay — Protestantiem about to Pass through a Fearful Ordeal — Protestant Paralogism — The Churchman has Nothing to Pear. (II.) The Anglican Church Surest to Keep the faitft— Roman Ad- ditions to the Faith Driving Men to Infidelity —" Infallibility," What Next? — Protestantism Losing the Faith (Unitarianism)— Lacks the Conservative Orthodoxy of the Church. (III.) Which System OfEers the Best Basis for the Reunion of Christ- endomf— Not the Boman, Unless it Gives Up the Papacy, etc.— The Anglican Church a Medium of Reunion — So Acknowledged by French Roman Catholics — Catholic and Reformed — Let Romanists Lay Aside Novel Additions, and Protestants Restore Omitted Essentials, and they will find themselves Catholics — Nothing Unreasonable Is Asked — Summary and Conclusion, 252-265 bishop jeremy taylor's Pbateb tor the Whole Catholic Church. CHAPTER I. THE QtFESTION STATED. "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you," — 1. St. Peter, iii. 15. ENGLISH speaking Christians are divided into three great classes — Churchmen, Recusants, and Dissenters. These terms have established themselves In literature ; and without implying any opprobrium, stand for important historical facts. Churchmen are those who adhere to that old Catholic and Apostolic Church which, after sundry deformations, and reformations, but without losing its corporate id-entity, its historic continuity, or its divine authority, still main- tains primitive faith, order, and worship, and exercises lawful jurisdiction throughout the British Empire and the American Republic. Churchmen are variously called Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, or Episcopalians. They num- ber about 225 Bishops, 30,000 priests,^ and some 25,000,- 000 adherents. Recusant means Refuser. The term was originally ap- plied to those members of the English Church who, after the Reformation, refused the Church's ministrations ; and, 1. Including a small number of Deacons. 2 IiSA80N'8 FOB BBIN9 A CHURCHMAN. at the instigation of the Bishop of Eome, formed the first English schism. The essence of the Reformation in our Mother Church was the assertion of her ancient independence of the Bishop of Rome, together with the correction of certain abuses. The English Bishops, clergy, and laity, as a body, acquiesced in the change which was a mere episode in the chequered history of Anglo-Catholicism. Out of 9,400 clergy only 189 refused to accept the new order of things. The laity, including those who really believed in the Papacy, were quietly settling down in the freed and purified Church of England f when in the year 1570, the Bishop of Rome, Pius V., lost his temper, and com- manded the "faithful" to withdraw from the English Church. A mere handful obeyed his mandate ; and leav- ing the ancient Catholic Church of their country, formed the Roman Schism or Italian Mission in England. That they were conscientious In so doing we cannot doubt. They have borne up bravely against dvil persecutions, and manifold difficulties ; but have made almost no impression on the nation at large, and are now relatively losing ground. It was only as late as 1850 that they effected a regular organization in England with diocesan Bishops and a full Roman hierarchy. In Ireland, however, owing mainly to political causes, the Italian Mission was more successful and drew away a large majority of the laity, 2. "For diverse years in Queen Elizabeth's reign tliere was no Becnsant Imown in England; tut even they who were most addicted to Koman opinions, yet frequented our Churches and public assemblies, and did join with us In the use of the same prayers and divine offices, without any scruple, till they were prohibited by a papal bull for the Interest of the Boman Court."— Archbishop BF.AJinAi.1.. I. 34S. AUTHORITY. Taut not many of the clergy, of the venerable Church of St. Patrick's planting.^ Such is the position of the Recusants or Refusers of Anglo-Catholic reform. They are variously styled Roman- ists, Roman Catholics or Papists. They have intruded also into the jurisdiction of the American Church, and have many adherents, mainly Irish and Germans. The third division of English-speaking Christians com- prises the Dissenters. As Romanists objected to the Eng- lish Reformation because they thought it had gone too far, so certain others, who had imbibed the novelties of German Protestants and French Calvinists, objected be- cause, forsooth, they fancied it had not been sweeping enough. At first they were few in number, and for the most part remained in communion with the Church — which even to this day shelters in her bosom many whose Teal sympathies lie with those who went out from her. Recusants and Dissenters alike left their Mother Church, but with this distinction: the former in seceding placed themselves under the jurisdiction of a foreign Bishop, the Italian Pontiff ; while the latter broke altogether with the Church of the past, cast aside all ecclesiastical authority, organized themselves into new voluntary societies — not at first calling them churches, though they have since come to do so — and ordained their ministers by the authority of the congregation. The action of the Recusants was schism; that of the Dissenters, sectarianism. 3. Of all the Irish Bishops (and there were a great many of them for the size of the conntry), only two, Walsh, Bishop of Meath, and Leverous, Bishop of Kildare, refused to accept the Eeformation, and left the "Church of Ireland." The rest remained In the old Church, and the Bishops of the-present " Church of Ireland" are their successors. REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. It is not my purpose to describe the different dissenting communions. The principle of sectism once introduced is fruitful of sub-division— like a fresh-water Polypus it multiplies by " fission " in a geometrical ratio. The Pres- byterians left us in 1573. The Brownists or Independents, afterward called Congregationalists, began to secede ten years later. They were followed by the Baptists, the Quakers, the Methodists, etc., etc., for their name is legion. There are now nearly 220 dissenting bodies in England, and while the actual number of Dissenters is diminishing, the number of sects into which they are splitting up is constantly on the increase.* Even the Methodist body which began but a century ago has already broken up into at least 25 distinct denominations. In the United States the fragmentary and disintegrated character of Christianity is simply appalling. All these denominations, of course, differ among them- selves ; but from a Church standpoint they may be classi- fied together as having certain general characteristics, viz: the breaking away fi-om the historic Church, the rejection of the Apostolic Ministry— with a special disbelief both in the Episcopate and the Christian Priesthood — a lower- ing or distortion or even abolition of the Sacraments, a re- jection of Common Prayer and impressive services in place of which are substituted much preaching and the extemporaneous devotions of a leader, the abandonment of the Christian Year which is so precious and profitable to us, and finally a great confusion in doctrine occasioned sometimes by elevating philosophical systems to the place 4. See " Cutt'e Turning Points in Bng. Ob. Hist.," p. 317. AUTHORITY. of dogma, and again, as in the case of the Unitarians, by- actual apostacy from the fundamentals of the Christian religion. The Dissenters are variously styled Nonconformists, Separatists, Sectarians, or, from an Anglo-Catholic stand- point, Protestants, as protesting against the old historic Church. They number about one-fourth of the English, the major part of the Scotch among whom Presbyterian- ism is established by law, a small proportion of the Irish, and a vast majority of American Christians. To one or other of these three great classes of Christians we all belong, many of us perhaps without being able to justify our position or to give a reason for the hope that is in us. It is my purpose to state as simply, clearly, and accurately as I can, the chief reasons for being Church- men instead of being Romanists, or Dissenters — and this I do with the prayer for divine guidance, " with charity far all, vnA malice toward none." The first question is : Did God found an universal Church which claims the allegiance of mankind ? Does that Church anywhere exist in its essential purity, and if so, does the Anglican Church fulfill the requirements? This may be called the argument from authority, and is based on an appeal to history .^ The second consideration is that of present expediency, based on the comparative merits of the three systems so far as their practical methods of worship, teaching and work are concerned. 5. "It may be asserted without fear of contradiction that the whole case of the HomaniBing movement on the one side and of popular Protestantism on the other, rests upon perversions of history." — (English) Ch. Times. 6 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. The third argument, or argument from futurity, will be drawn from a consideration of future prospects. Which system is likeliest to be the basis for restoring the broken unity of Christendom, and likeliest to hold the Faith till the Master comes ? Our theme then is : The Church, her authority derived from the past, her present advantages, and herfviure projects. CHAPTER II. DID GOD FOUND A CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS? [ "AJ} orlgtne mundi incipiena." ] IT ought not to be necessary to ask this question. But it is. The raison d'etre of man-made churches, the only possible justification of dissent,' mu&t logically be the assumption either that God did not found a Church, or else that the Church He founded has perished from the earth. Now, if it can be shown that God did found a Church which still exists, surely no one can fail to see his personal duty with reference to it. Our first parents, even before they fell into sin, were ad- mitted into covenant relation with God, which was the germ of all subsequent ecclesiastical dispensations. " Eden was an enclosure from the outside world, the Chukch where the Son of God personally met man and told him of his duty of faith and obedience, and of the penalty that would follow unbelief and disobedience. That Church was the root of Christianity, and it was designed to pass through several stages of development before it attained its maturity." ^ After the fall of man God continued that Church, but 1. Dr. C. C. Adama In Am. Oh. Rev., Oct., 1884. REASON'S FOR BEING A CEURCSMAN. altered its character to suit the changed relation between Him and His now disobedient children. Sin had destroyed the sweet communion of Eden, and in its place God ap- pointed a Covenant of Redemption, based on the sacrificial death of the promised Seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head, the Lamb of God who, in the knowledge and purpose of the Almighty, was " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." ^ All history, ancient or modern, centres in the Incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God ; and so, from the offering of righteous Abel to the latest Eucharistic Oblation upon the Table of the Lord, Sacrifice has ever been the chief characteristic of God's Church ; while 'even the heathen who left the wor- ship of the true God, never entirely lost the God-given conviction that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Thus the Church of the Patriarchal Dispensation was ushered in, and as we read in Gen. iv., 26, " Then began men to call on the name of the Lord." Before the flood, however, dissent in its worst foim, as utter apostasy, pre- vailed to a greater extent than at any subsequent period. The " Sons of Men " so far outnumbered the " Sons of God," that the Church was narrowed down to one family of but eight souls. After the flood God renewed His Covenant with man in the person of Noah ; and again in the case of Abraham, at which time He appointed an ad- ditional rite for the initiation of infants and of adult con- verts into His Church, viz : Circumcision. At the same time he cut off the apostate races, so that the Church was Eev., xUi., 8. AUTHORITY. 9 continued in the family of Abraham, whose descendants in the line of hie grandson, Jacob, became the " chosen people," whose great work in history was the keeping alive the worship of Jehovah in the midst of an idolatrous world, in order that there might be one orthodox nation of which, according to the flesh, the Son of God should be bom, and which should form the nucleous of anew, higher, world-wide and eternal Dispensation which God was about to introduce. God's revelation of Himself and the building up of His Kingdom of Grase on the earth have been progressive. We have seen something of the Patriarchal Dispensation in which the priesthood was vested in the eldest son. A great step was made in the development of revealed religion, when God through Moses gave Israel the Deca- logue and the Ceremonial Law. Prom that time to the coming of Christ no Christian can deny that there has existed on the earth an organization fully entitled to be called ihe Church of God. As under the previous Dispensa- tion, so here, sacrifices typifying the one great Sacrifice to come, were the most notable feature of the Church. " Gather my saints together unto me," saith the Lord, " those that have made a covenant with me with sacri- fice." ^ God, moreover, gave explicit directions as to the polity and worship of the Jewish Church. "See thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mount." * Instead of the Patriarchal Priesthood there was now established a Ministerial Succession in three orders in the tribe of Levi — the High Priest, the Priests and the Levites. And when once God had ordained this ministry, 3. Ps., 1., 5. 4. Hell., viii., 5. 10 RSASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. He showed that He meant it to be sacred and exclusive by making a fearful example of those who presumed ta usurp its functions. Witness Korah, Dathan, and Abiram^ ; or Saul 6, Uzzah''', and Uzziah^ ; and when, after the secession and schism of the ten Northern tribes, Jeroboam intruded into the Priestly Office men who were not of the house of Aaron, we read, " this became a sin unto the house of Jeroboam, to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth. "9 In the matter of public worship in the Jewish Church, we see clearly that God recognizes — what modern Protes- tants have affected to ignore — the material as well as the spiritual side of human nature ; for He ordained in the Tabernacle and Temple worship, a grand, stately, ornate^ symbolic office of sacrifice and thanksgiving, of prayer and praise — a liturgic service the most ritualistic the world has ever seen, or that in all probability we ever shall see, until with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven we join in the celestial ritual of the Tiiumphant Church. Bodily reverence accompanied the devotion of the heai't. There was the mitred High Priest resplendent in purple and gold ; there were the white-robed Priests and Levites, and the singers with their accompanying instruments ; there were the Holy of Holies, the Ai-k with its overshad- owing Cherubim, the altar of incense, the golden Candle- sticks, the table of Shew-bread, the great Altar of Sacrifice, and, all about, the prostrate multitudes worshipping the God and Father of all. The Jewish Church had also its God-given ecclesiastical 5. Numbers, xvi. 6. I. Samuel, xiii., 0-16. 7. It. Samuel, vi., 6-7. 8. II. Chronicles, ixvi., 16-21. 9. I. Kings, xiii., 34. AUTHORITY. II. year with its round of Holy Days — the three great Festi- vals, the Solemn Fast Day of Atonement, the Minor Feasts, and the fifty-two Sabbaths. Later on, probably in the time of Ezra, there grew up also, under divine approval, if not by direct command, the system of Synagogue worship and instruction, with its eighteen Collects, its versicles and responses, its singing, its reading of Scripture Lessons, and the preaching and expounding of God's word.^" Such was the Jewish Church, with its long line of Prophets, Priests and Kings ; Martyrs and Confessors ; holy men and saintly women ; and the little children who were also admitted into the Covenant, who, like Samuel, were " given unto the Lord." " These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." 11 And yet, as glorious as was that Church, as exalted in point of privilege as were the saints of old, we read that God had " provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." ^^ Yes, this Church was not a final Dispensation. It was a type of an ultimate and glorious one to come. " The Law was our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." i^ The root of the olive was there, but new branches were to be grafted into it.i* The Jewish Church was National. It is true. Gentiles, who abandoned their Paganism, might enter it through the door of circumcision ; yet it was not, as then constituted, adapted for universal dominion. But all the 10. Geikie's Life of Chriet, Chap. xiii. 11. Hebrews, xi., 13. 13. Hebrews xi., 40. 13. Galatians, iii, 24. 14. Bomans, xi., 17-24. 12 REASON'S FOR BEING- A CHURCEMAW. while the Prophets used to sing of a Coming Era, when Zion should lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes. Bear in mind that the point here to be proved is that God founded a Church which still exists. I have shown that God did have a Church in the days of old, the Jewish Church. It is now my purpose to show that Christ did not change the divine plan by abrogating the Church as a visible organism, but that He continued it, only on a higher plane rendered possible by virtue of the Incarnation. The old Dispensation was but the shadow of good things to come. The first step in proving the existence of the Christ- ian Church is a "priori, that is to say, we gather from the types and prophecies of the Jewish Church the presump- tion and promise of the Catholic Church. If God saw that it was best to embody His revelation of old in an organized society with a threefold Priesthood, rites and ceremonies, it is fair to presume that He would continue the Church in the Christian Dispensation on the same general principles This presumption, however, becomes a promise when we op§n the treasury of divine prophecy. The prophecies of the Catholic Church in the Old Testiiment are intimately associated with the predictions of the com- ing Messiah. To give the tenth part of the prophecies which taught that the Jewish Church should widen into an universal Church, would require more space than is at my command. But this was the meaning of God's words when he said to Abraham : " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." ^^ Such, too, was the testi- mony of the dying Patriarch, Jacob, when he said of Christ, "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be," 16 — the 15. Genesis, xxii., 18. 10. Genesis, xlix., 10. AUTHORITY. 13 same truth which the Holy Ghost spake through the Sweet Singer of Israel, "Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession," ^'' and again : "All kings shall fall down before Him ; all nations shall do Him service," ^^ the truth which Isaiah perceived when he cried out : " Lift up thine eyes round about and see ; all they gather them- selves together, they come to Thee. The forces of the Gen- tiles shall be converted unto Thee." ^^ This truth pervades all holy prophecy, but is, perhaps, most clearly set forth in Daniel's vision of the stone cut out without hands, which smote the image and became a mountain, and filled the whole earth. ^ This, Daniel interpreted to mean that in the days of the fourth kingdom (the Roman Empire) " shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." ^^ And again he says he looked, and " Behold one like unto the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven * * • and there was given unto him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo- ple, nations, and languages should serve him," ^^ Yes, from that far off antiquity, as from a lofty mountain top, the holy Prophets, with the eye of Inspiration, saw the nar- row covenant of Judaism widening into the Church Cath- olic throughout the world — saw by faith what we now see with the eye of sense, the universal and everlasting king- dom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Buoyed up by this hope, the Saints of the old Dispen- 17. Psalms, ii., 8. 18. Ps., Ixxil; Bead the whole Fsalm. 19. Is., Ix. 20. Dan., ii., .54-5. 21. Dan., ii., 44. 23. Dan., vii., 13-14. 14 REASOWS FOR BEINff A CHURCHMAN. eation clung to their Charch, looking for the " Consolation of Israel " and the ingathering of the Gentiles. Eighteen hundred and eighty-six years ago Christ was born — the Woed was made fiesh and dwelt among men ; God stooped to earth to redeem, to sanctify and to save mankind. We have seen that God's plan of saving men is not merely as individuals, but in and through an organized society. And so just before our blessed Lord began Hib ministry, St. John the Baptist, the Morning Star of Christ- ianity, preached, saying, " The Kingdom of God is at hand." Notice he did not teach that the Church idea of religion was to be done away so that there should no longer be a visible organization. On the contrary he, the Forerunner of Christ, prepared the hearts of the people to receive the religion of Christ, not as an abstract philosophy, but as a Kingdom — and that word implies more strongly than any other could do, that the Christian Dispensation was to be an organized authoritative body, " a city that is at unity with itself," a state having God-given laws and divinely commissioned officers. In short, the Kingdom of God which St. John Baptist proclaimed to be at hand, can only mean the Catholic Church. This we shall find was the teaching of the great Head of the Church Himself; and the Apostles at His command, prsached Christianity, not as a sentiment, but as a kingdom; not as an abstract faith, but a faith indissolubly blended with an organized and sovereign institution, the church of the living god, THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH. ^ 23. I. Tim., iii., 15. CHAPTER III. r)ID CHRIST FOUND A CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS? On tUs Rock I will build My Chnrch, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.— Words of Christ. GUIZOT has said, " Christianity came into the world as an idea to be developed." Christianity did nothing of the kind. The Christian " idea " of which the learned French- man speaks can only mean the truth which Christ re- vealed, which was definite and complete, the " faith which was once for all ^ delivered to the Saints." And that was given to develop men, not to be developed by men. (It is not our duty to develop the faith, but, by the grace of God, to develop ourselves in the faith.) According to our Lord's teaching that Faith was embodied in a visible organism, which He calls His Church, or His Kingdom. Indeed the Faith is so identified with the Church that Christ calls His Gospel the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Church is an integral part of the Faith, and a belief in the Church is an article of the Apostolic Creed. Observe, then, the teaching of our Divine Master. He began His ministry by authoritatively repeating the words of St. John Baptist. For we read (St. Mark, i: 14), "Jesus 1. St. Jude, i.» 3. See Revised Version. 16 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, ' The time is fulfilled, and the King- dom of Heaven is at hand." ' Later on, after He had ap- pointed the twelve Apostles, He says to the multitude: 'No doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you."* Though our Lord occasionally uses Kingdom to mean Heaven, and perhaps once or twice to mean His spiritual dominion in our hearts, yet more than nine times out of ten it means simply His Church in the world, the Empu-e He was founding on the earth, but not of the earth. Out of His thirty-two recorded parables, nineteen are " parables of the Kingdom." More than half of His discourses were what some people now-a-days would caU " Churchly." But He spake with authority. Notice a few of the won- derful prophetic parables which bring out the visible character of Christ's Church. In one He likens the Church to a field of wheat and tares which grow together until the harvest,* showing that the Church while on earth will contain good and bad, and that it is wrong to make separations in the Church even for so laudable a purpose as to weed out the un- worthy. And this phase of the Church, its unity even at the cost of having some bad men in it, He emphasizes by an additional parable, that of the Net, ^ — " which tells us how the Church, having swept through tte ages from one end of the world to the other, will finally land those whom it has caught on the shore of eternity, and there the separation shall take place." The parable of the Mustard Seed, s shows the Catholic or universal extent of the 2. St. Luke, xi., 20. 3. St. Mat., xlii.,26. 4. St. Mat., xlii., 47. 5. St. Mat. xiii., 31. AUTHORITY. 17 Church. That of the Vine and its Branches, « our Lord's last and crowning parable of His Kingdom, shows that His Church is a visible organism which, like a plant, how- ever complex, has a unity dependent on the branches remaining in physical vital connection with the root. Some of our Lord's parables refer to doctrine, some to morals, some to individual religious experiences ; but I challenge any one to show a parable which teaches that His Church is not one,, visible and Catholic, or which can possibly justify the '' developments " of Romanism or the separations of Protestanism. He prays for the unity of all Christians, "that they may be one."^ He says of the sheep that hear His voice, " There, shall be one fold and one Shep- herd. "^ He admits that " the wolf" may catch the sheep, or scatter the sheep ;' but not that the wolf or any one else may construct a new fold, much less three or four hundi-ed new folds, for the flock of which He Himself is the Good Shepherd, and for which He has already built the "one fold." The first miraculous draught of fishes^" implies that the " Net " may break and some of the fishes slip out through the breach ; but not that the Great Net may be made over into little hand nets, or that the fishes who swim back into the lake are still in the Net, or surrounded, forsooth, by an " invisible net." But in addition to the figurative language in which Christ illustrates the unity, the visibility, and the authority of His Kingdom, He gives what a learned priest 6. St. John, XV., 5. 7. St. John, xvii., 21. 8. St. John, X., 16. The rendering "one flock" instead of one fold, adopted by the Revisers, scarcely alters the metaphor at all, and certainly does not in the slightest degree affect the argument. 9. St. John, X., 12. 10. St. Luke, v., 6. 18 REASONS FOB BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. has well called "a prophecy of the foundation of the Church, of its endless duration, and of the name by which it should be called." When St. Peter confessed the Divinity of Christ, what said the Son of God ? " On this rock I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against i^"^i Again He says as a matter of dis- cipline in the case of an erring brother : " Tell it to the Church, but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican."^*^ A still clearer view of the origin of the Church will be obtained if we notice the steps which Christ took to found and organize it. One of His first acts was to choose, out of the whole body of His Disciples, twelve men to whom He made known the "mysteries of the Kingdom of God."^* He called them Apostles, and sent them forth to preach — what? " The Kingdom of God."^'^ On the night in which He was betrayed, at that most solemn moment, immedi- ately after the institution of the Lord's Supper, He told them plainly of the dignity and authority of the office to which He had elevated them in His Church: "I appoint unto you a Kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me, that ye may eat and drink at My Table in My King- dom, and sit on thrones, judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel."^^ The Twelve thus raised by Christ Himself to 11. St. Matthew, xvi., 18. See the masterly exposition of this passage by Dr. J. H. Hopkins In the AmerUian Church Bev ew, October, 1884. 12. St. Matthew, xviii., 17. IS. St. Lnke, yiii., 10. 14. St. Luke, yiii., 1, and ix., 2. 15. St. Lnke. xxil., 29. Christ appointed also TO men called "Elders," and sent them to preach the "Kingdom" (St. Luke, x., 1 and 9). It is an open ques- tion whether they constituted the nucleus of the Presbyterate to which the Apostles added others by ordination ; or whether theirs was a temporary com- mission. I incline to the former view. AUTHORITY. 19 pre-eminence in the Church were of eguaZ rank and power. To borrow the words of Dr. Mahan : " In their relations to one another, they were ' brothers,' colleagues, peers. They called no man ' father ' on the earth.^^ According to the type of the Old Theocracy, a ' Kingdom ' was given to them, but the Head was to be invisible till the time of the £nal 'appearing and kingdom ' of Jesus Christ." Af^er His resurrection from the dead, when in His Human nature as well as in His Divine, He could say: " All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in Earth, "^''' He said to the Apostles : "As My Father hath sent Me, so send I you." He endued them with a power such as no Priesthood had ever before received, the power of Abso- lution ; for " He breathed on them and said : ' Receive the Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye letain, they are re- tained."i8 At the same time He issued that far-reaching and tremendous command : " Go ye into all the woeld, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, "i^ And lastly, when He was about to re-ascend into Heaven, He gave them their final and perpetual commission : " Go ye therefore and make disciples (i e. make Christioms) of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end op the world. amen."20 The phrases, " All the world," " Every creature," " AU 16. St. Matthew, xxiii., 9. 17. St. Matthew, xxvlii., 18. 18. St. John, xx., ai-83. 19. St. Mark, xvi., 15-16. 20. St. Matthew, xxviii., 19-20. 20 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. nations," show that the Church is Catholic. They prove also inamtrovertibly that the Apostolic Ministry is to be perpetuated in the Church, for the individMols to whom the command was given, could not go personally into all the world. And this fact our Lord enforces by His promise to be with the Apostles — hoio kngf TiU the end of their natural lives ? That would have been ten years in the case of St. James, and sixty years in the case of St. John. No, it was longer than that. Mark His words, for there is no evading them : " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Here, then, we have the whole subject of Apostolic Succession in a single clause. Christ ordains the Apostles, sends them into all the world, and promises to be with them to an age which has not yet come — nay, which still lies beyond the reach of Arch- angels' ken. And what does this prove ? Why, it proves just this : That in ordaining the Apostles He did more than commission twelve men for their natural lives. He created the Apostolic Episcopate, a self-perpetuating Hier- archy, like the tree of creation " yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth. "^^ He knew that His Church would need Overseers through all the ages ; and so He established a Ministerial Succession, instinct with a perennial vitality, not to be impaired by the suicide of Judas, nor diminished when blessed James is slain with the sword. What matteis it though St. Thomas be flayed alive in India, and gentle Andrew crucified in Greece? Though the aged Peter "stretch forth his hands," and the beloved Disciple, last of the twelve, breathe out his pure spirit in the Episcopal SI. Genesis, i., 11. AUTHORITY. 21 Mansion of Ephesus ? It matters not. God had promised to be with His Apostles to the end of the world ; and God has been with them, and is with them still. We shall see how that little company of Apostolic Bishops ordained not only the two lower orders of Priests and Deacons, but imparted by the " laying on of hands," all the permanent grace and authority of their own Office to their successors — who form a line of Princes in the Church of God, com- pared with which the oldest dynasty of Europe is but the child of a day, and which numbers at this hour nearly two thousand Bishops throughout the world. CHAPTER IV. THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH. "Christ's Church was holiest in her youthful days. Ere the world on her smiled." —I/yra Aposlolica, p. 175. "Qais nobis dahii videre Ecde^iam gicut erat in diebiis aiitiguist"— St. Beenard. IN assigning reasons for being a Churchman, the first thing to be proved is that Christ founded a Church which still exists. That He did found a Church with a self-perpetuating ministry, with definite faith, and with sacraments and ordinances, has been shown from His own words and His own acts. The question whether His Church still exists ought to be sufficiently answered for any one who believes in Christ, by His promise that against His Church the gates of hell shall not prevail, and that He will be with the ministry of His Church even unto the end of the world. Nevertheless, to make assur- ance doubly sure, let us look at the Apostolic Church, that we may see in what way the blessed apostles carried out the divine plan, what are the essential marks or character- istics impressed on the Church by Apostolic hands, and whether these essentials have, through all the ages, been preserved in the Catholic Church of the English speaking race. AUTHORITY. 23 Christ Himself left no written word; what He com- manded can be learned only from what the Apostles did. If, at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon had been known to summon twelve generals to headquarters to receive in- structions from him; and forthwith the twelve generals, in all parts of the battlefield, had begun and carried out a definite plan of concerted action, who would doubt that thai was what the great leader had commanded? Behold then, in the concerted action of the Apostles, and in the uniform faith, order and worship of the early Church, the mandates of the Church's Head ! The first recorded act of the Apostles shows as clearly as anything could show it, that the Apostleship of the Church was not to be confined to the original twelve. For the Apostles and 109 brethren who constituted the membership of the Church in Jerusalem ("the number of the names together was about 120 ")i under divine guidance chose Matthias to "take part of this ministry and A-posCLeship from which Judas by transgression fell,"^ thus fulfilling the prophesy of David ; " His Bishopric let another take."^ The Lord had told the Apostles to tarry in Jerusalem until they should be " endued with power from on high." They waited in prayer, which the Church repro- duces each year between Ascension and Whitsun-Day, and then when they were all assembled with one accord in one place, God, the Holy Ghost, came down from heaven to quicken, inspire, guide, teach, and comfort them, and to be the Vice-gerent of Christ on earth, until He shaU come again. Thus the dead organism of the Church was 1. Acts, i., 15. 3. «., 25. 3. id., 30. 24 REASONS FOB BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. quickened into a New-creation, just as into the spiritless body of Adam, God breathed the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Then was preached the first Christian sermon, and 3,000 hearts were smitten, and the cry arose : " What shall we do to be saved ? " Then that staunch Churchman, St. Peter, replied (in words which show that God's plan for bringing men into the Church Triumphant in Heaven, is by membership in His Church Militant upon Earth): "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Repentance from sin, Baptism into the Faith of the Son of God. How exactly this agrees with the recorded teach- ing of Christ, Who not only demanded repentance and feith, but ordained Baptism or the New Birth of Water and the Spirit, as the door of His Church, the means by which all nations were to be made disciples, and without which none should enter into His Kingdom. Then " they that gladly received the word were baptized" to the number of 3,000. Here then we have a picture of the Church — with its twelve Apostolic Bishops and about 3,108 members. They were not a mere voluntary society or debating club, but a divinely organized Church, indwelt by the Spirit of God. Every baptized member had, by virtue of his Bap- tism, been cleansed from all his sins past, endued with grace, and admitted to certain privileges and duties. The twelve Overseers of this Church had received power from Christ Himself to Baptize, to celebrate a Sacrificial Mem- orial of Christ's death (of which more anon), to teach with authority whatsoever He had commanded them, to sit up- AUTHORITY. 25 on thrones judging the tribes of Christ's Church, His spMtual Israel, and to keep alive that Apostolic Ministry- even unto the end of the world. Such was the Catholic Church in Jerusalem, our Holy Mother, on the tenth day after the Ascension of the Lord. I gave at the start a picture of the present aspect of Christianity among the English-speaking race. Wherein does it differ from the picture we have just seen ? The only important difference is just this : In ihnt Church there was no Eomanism, and consequently no Pi'otestant- ism. All was truth and oneness, peace and beauty and joy — in a word, Catholicity. And who, O ! who would wish to mar that fair picture, to shatter that stately image? Who would presume to sew scarlet patches on the vesture of Christ, or worse still — which even the soldiers of Pilate would not do — to rend that seamless robe ? We have, in these days, grown so accustomed, on the one hand, to the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, and the additions which Trent and the Vatican have made to the primitive Faith ; and on the other hand, so accustomed to the lop- ping off of the articles of that Faith, to the manufacture of new churches (of which there are now nearly 400), and the breaking up of Christianity, that we have become hardened to the scene which Christendom presents to-day, and over which the angels weep. Do you want to see these innovations in all their hideousness ? Then, imagine them, if you can, breaking out all at once, like the boils of Egypt or the leprosy of Gehazi on the Pentecostal Church. Nothing, indeed, mil so help one to realize the Catho- licity of the primitive Church, as to try, by a violent effort 26 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. of the imagination, to fit the pseudo-Catholicity of Rome or the anti-Catholicity of Protestant Dissent upon the Apostolic Church. The first is like taking the Apollo BelviJere and decking it out with coat and hat and cane ; the second is like shattering the image and mounting each fragment on a separate pedestal. As to the first, fancy St. Peter, who had just missed be- ing expelled from the ministry, when the Lord said to him -^ " Get thee behind me, Satan ! " who had fallen lower than any of his brethren by his threefold denial of Christ ; who had been restored to an equal footing with the rest by the special grace of Christ, but not without special warnings ; fancy him — with the words of Christ to the whole twelve ringing in his ears ; CaU no man Faiher for ye are brethren, and rebuking them for the slightest rivalry among themselves — fancy him sitting on the Altar Table of that upper room, the infant Cathedral of Jeru- salem, putting a crown upon his head, and saying : T am the Infallible Head of the Church I the vicar of Christ, a Bishop of Bishops ! while John and James, the Elders and the holy brethren rejoice to kiss his foot ! But this is no exaggeration ; it is precisely what one of the successors of the Apostles, the jsretended successor of St. Peter, actually as well as metaphorically demands of his brethren to- day. Nor is this all. Fancy those early Christians, their hearts aflame with the love of God and the worship of Christ, fancy them taking the gentle, lowly Virgin Mother (who depends for her salvation on the merits of Christ as much as any child of Adam), and putting her in her Son's place, 1. St. Matt, xvi. as. AUTHORITY. 2T as an object of worship, as the " Mediatrix " between God and man ! Assuredly, like blessed Paul and Barnabas, when the Priest of Jupiter would do them sacrifice, she would have cried out : " Sirs, why do ye these things ? * * * Turn from these vanities unto the living God." Nor is this aU. Picture to your minds the first Cel- ebration of the Holy Eucharist, when the newly baptized make their first Communion. They kneel about the Holy Table ; perchance St. John, who lay on his Master's bosom, makes the Memorial before God, uttering the awful prayer of Consecration. He breaks the Bread, " the Communion of the Body of Christ,'' and blesses the '"Cup of Bless- ing, the Communion of the Blood of Christ;" * he has repeated the words of the Lord, not only " Take, Eat, this is My Body ; " but, " Drink aU ye of this, for this is My Blood ; " he remembers the words of Christ at Capernaum ■? Except ye drink the Blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you ; he himself receives under both kinds, but to the kneeling Apostles and brethren he gives only the Consecrated Bread, he withholds the Chalice, he mutilates the Blessed Sacrament, he disobeys his God, he robs the sheep ! Who does not turn away from that picture in horror, as a cari- cature of the early Church ? Nevertheless, these three things, the Supremacy and Infallibility of the pretended successor of St. Peter, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the denial of the Cup to all but the ministering Priest, these three things, which are the chief differentia of Romanism, are required to-day by that part of the Catholic Church, which claims to be the only true and Catholic part. 2. 1, Cor., X., 16. 3. St. Jolin, vi., 53. 28 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. Nor will the multi-cloven foot of Protestantism fit the crystal slipper of primitive Catholicity one whit better. Fancy a certain section of the brethren saying : "It is enough to have the Elders over us; down with the order of Apostles ! Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us." And so they leave the Church, and make the Presbyterian fold. Fancy another set saying : " We don't want even Elders who claim any divinely given authority ; ' Ye take too much upon yourselves, ye sons of Levi, seeing all the congregation is holy.' " And so they leave the Church, appoint their ministers by the authority of the congregation, and erect the " Congrega- tional " or " Independent " folds. Others object to the worship and the Sacraments which the Apostles, at Christ's command, have established. One faction abolishes Confirmation or the Laying on of Hands (which the Holy Ghost declares to be a part of the foun- dation of the Gospel of Christ).* Another decides that once a month, once a season, once a year or not at all, is often enough for the Holy Eucharist. Another restricts the Sacrament of Holy Baptism to a small minority of man- kind, and to a singular and arbitrary mode of administra- tion. Another says : "Away with it altogether ! " StiH others say : '' There is no visible Church, or mystical Body of Christ; we can make as good a Church as God Himself." Accordingly small coteries of the brethren take each some one doctrine which aU hold in common, and make a special " church " to emphasize that one point at the expense of other truths equally vital. 4. Heb., vl., 1 2. AUTHORITY. 2» Again, others assail the rule of Faith, the " Form of Sound Words "^ which the Apostles together inculcate, the heirloom of the Church, the Apostolic Creed. And here one phase of Protestantism fits the early Church so badly as to be positively ludicrous. One says : " I don't want a Creed imposed by Apostolic authority. Away with it ! The Bible and the Bible only is my religion. Give me the New Testament." But lo ! St. Matthew rises and says : " My brother, I am the author of the first Gos- pel, but I shall not begin to write it for twenty years yet. In the meantime my word is as good as my pen." And then, methinks, I hear the beloved John exclaim : " I am the author of the fourth Gospel, but all you who hear my voice will have gone to the spirit-world, or ever I write down the first word." Then St. Peter jumps to his feet and says : " Ye fools and blind ! A large part of the New Testament is to be written by one who is now a persecutor and injurious, making havoc of the Church. And even when the Canon of Scripture is closed, it will contain many things hard to be understood « which they that are unlearned and unstable will wrest to their own destruction, by their ' private interpretations.' '' Sady years will elapse before the Bible is finished ; three hundred before The Church decides which of the many religious writings are inspired ; and fourteen or fifteen centuries ere the invent- ive genius of man will make it possible to put the open Bible into the hands of all Christians. Meanwhile what is the Church to do ? Why, the Lord has directed us 8 to teach you to observe ali things whatsoever He has com- 5. II. Tim., 1., 13. 6. II. St. Peter, iii., 16. 7. II. St. Peter, i., 20. 8. St. Mat- thew, xxviii., 30. 30 RSASONS FOB BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. manded us. He spent forty days with us after His Resur- rection, teaching us the things pertaining to His Church. ^ We know what we are about. And if you are willing to accept our writing, will ye not receive our spoken word? " Thus would St. Peter have shown the folly of the Protest- ant novelty that the Church is founded on the New Testameni. The fact is that, as the Jewish Church, which was fully organized under Moses, lived a thousand years before the Old Testament, was completed, so the Catholic Church flourished for two generations, as the perfectly organized and authoritative Kingdom of God, before the New Testament was finished. Late in the fourth century St. Chrysostom mentions the Acts of the Apostles as a book which proba- bly no one in the vast cathedral congregation of Constanti- nople had ever read. Yet all the while the Church was perfecAy organized, and achieved its most glorious triumphs. It had its Rule of Faith, which crystallized into the Creed ; it had its worship (the " Divine Liturgy "), the threefold Ministry, the Sacraments, and the oral Gospel which the Apostles preached many years before it was put on paper, and which the Christians knew and loved whether they could read or not. And the Church would stiU be the Church, even had God chosen to withhold from it the written word ; and would continue to be the " Church of the Living God, the Pillar and ground of the truth," even if (as humanly speaking seemed probable at one time) every copy of the Bible had been destroyed. Christianity is not a ms., but a Kingdom ; not a book, but a living, believing, worshipping, governing and working Church. Officers of this Church, it is true, were inspired by the 9. Acts, i., 3. AUTHORITY. 31 Holy Ghost to write a Book, which is thus a most precious revelation from God, and " profitable for doctrine, for re- proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." i" But it must be remembered the Book was written by Church- men, for the Church already existing, and must be inter- preted according to the Church's Rule of Faith." The Bible divorced from the Church is like a constitution without a nation, a code of laws without a government to give them sanction and authority. Thus the three distinctive features of modern Romanism, and the illogical, unecclesiastical, uncatholio novelties which are the foundation of Protestant Dissent are incom- patible with — ^nay, inconceivable in — the One Holy Cath- olic and Apostolic Church as founded by Incarnate God, and builded by those to whom He gave authority and power until the end of time. 10. II. Tim., iii., 16. 11. "Without tie Creeds, the Holy Scriptures are as a treasure-house of which we have lost the key." CHAPTER V. MAEKS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. "I obey, Following where'er the Olmrcli liath marked the ancient way." —Lyra ApiMolica, p. 133. WE read that the three thousand converts who were bap- tized on the day of Pentecost, "continued steadfastly" in four things: ^ The Doctrine of the Apostles; The Fellowship of the Apostles; The Breaking of the Bread; and The Prayers. Churchmen of old, then, in addition to being baptized, had four marks by which they were known, and all Christians who are Churchmen bear those same marks to-day. (a) They continued steadfastly in the Doctrine of the Apostles, i. e., the Faith ; the othodox Catholic Faith which the Apostles taught the Church ; or, in brief, the Creed. Any departure from this standard, either by false additions or by diminutions, is heresy. (&) They continued steadfastly in the Fellowship of the Apostles — not merely of one of the Apostles — i. e., they remained in communion with the Chm-ch and loyal to the Apostolic Episcopate. This fellowship or communion is broken to-day by those who say:^ "I am of Cephas" [Peter]. They assert (though mistakenly) that St. Petei was an Apostle of Apostles, the Head of the Chui'ch, hav- ing sole jurisdiction over the whole world ; that he was 1. Acta, ii., 42. 2. 1 Cor., i., 12, and iil., 21-22. AUTHORITY. Bishop of Rome (which he was not); and that this [imagi- nary] Authority has come down in unbroken line (though it has not) in the Bishops of Rome. On the strength of a mm^existent authority which St. Peter did not possess, which he did not bequeath to the Bishops of Rome, and which the Bishops of Rome have not kept in unbroken succession, they have broken fellowship with/owr out of the^^we Patri- archs of Catholic Christendom, with their Bishops, clergy and laity who at the time far outnumbered those who adhered to the Patriarch of Rome ; and have broken fellow- ship with the autocephalous ^ Churches, like the Churches of Great Britain and Cyprus, and set up altar against altarj notably within the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church since 1570. This.iPellowship with the Apostles is still more violently broken by all Protestant Dissenters who have rebelled against the Apostolic Episcopate and seceded from the his- toric Church. For individual believers in Christ, who by 3. Note. "The dioceses are grouped into proviiices, with an Archbishop over each. The provinces are grouped, except those in the far West of Europe, Enolam^ among them, and except a few in the East, which are still left auto- cephaloQS, into Patriarchates with a Patriarch over each," viz., Eonae, Constanti- nople (which Canon III. of the Second General Council declares to have " equal privileges" with Eome), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. "The exclusive theory of Eome was resisted from the time It made its first faint appearance in the Catholic Church until to-day. * * * As it grew in strength and insolence during the darkest time of the Middle Ages, the whole Eastern and Greek part of the Catholic Church, at that time by far the largest, most enlightened and numerous part, with the Patriarch of Constantinople at its head, rose and excommunicated the Bishop of Eome and all his adherents. Thus four out of the five great Patriarchates of the world cut ofl the one Western or Eoman Patriarchate. The Eoman theory then, left to itself, easily gained addi- tional strength and self-assertion in the West, until in the sixteenth century the Catholic part of the Church in England could endure it no longer. * * * So the Eoman part of the Church cut itself ofl first from the whole Eastern part of the Church, and then from the Anglican."— CafTwIfctfj/ in its BelatiomMp to ProtestarWlmi and Bomanism. By Dr. Ewer, pp. 336 and 155. 3 34 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. heredity or by erroneous teaching are to-day not in com- munion with the Church, all Churchmen should entertain feelings of sympathy and brotherly love. But with the systems of Dissent and with their founders, those sons of Nebat who make Israel to sin, there can be no compromise. It should be remembered also that in the long run, the breaking of the Fellowship of the Apostles is always accom- panied by more or less of a departure from the Doctrine of the Apostles, as well as fi-om the two remaining marks of the Church, which must now be considered. (c) The early Church continued steadfastly in ilie Break- ing of the Bread, i. e., the Holy Eucharist. Those who do not regularly, lawfully and frequently participate in the Holy Communion, do not continue steadfastly in the Break- ing of the Bread. This sign of true Catholicity is marred or obliterated by those who mutilate the Blessed Sacra- ment (like the modern Romanists) j by those who make superstitious additions to it ; by those who parody it by attempting to consecrate it without the lawful Priesthood, or without the proper matter (^. e., bread and wine), or with- out the proper form (i. e., the essential part of the Divine Liturgy); and, of course, by those who abolish it altogether, like the Quakers. And surely this mark is very much dimmed in those parishes of our own Church where Matins takes the place of Holy Communion forty Sundays out of the year, and where on the First Day of the week we come together not, like the early Christians, " to break Bread," but to hear sermons. (d) They continued steadfastly in the Prayers, not merely in prayer in general, but in the Prayers. The definite article is there in the Greek, and has been restored AUTHORITY. in the Revised Version of the New Testament. What the Prayers means no one need be ignorant. The Church, like the Jewish Synagogue, has always had a form of worship. The Liturgy of the Church, though elastic and flexible> has in it an element invariable and divine, a norm or skel- eton which is demonstrably of Apostolic origin, the com- mon heritage of Catholic Christendom. Of the three divisions of English-speaking Christians (Churchmen, Romanists and Dissenters) which has con- tinued the most steadfastly in these four things ? Which holds the Doctrine of the Apostles without additions and without diminutions ? Which holds the Fellowship of the Apostles and the Communion of Saints ? — the Catholic Epis- copate free from tyrannous usurpation, a reasonable and reformed Priesthood, but without breaking the Apostolic Succession? Which holds the Breaking of the Bread, without mutilating the Sacrament, without superstitious additions, with lawfal priestly ministrations, with proper matter and form ? Which holds the Prayers, the Catholic Liturgy — enriched, it is true, and adapted to present needs — but not overlaid with creafwre- worship, nor dissi- pated into the extemporaneous devotions of an individual man? It remains then to show that the Mother Church of English-speaking Christians to-day, like the Church in the days of the Apostles, having admitted to membership by Holy Baptism, holds its members steadfast in the Faith ; in the Apostolic Ministry (carrying with it Ordination and Confirmation); in the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood ; and in the Prayers, the devotional heritage of the Church. CHAPTER VI. THE ANGLICAN CHUBCH AND HOLY BAPTISM. "All in the nnregenerate child Is void and formleBS, dark and wild, Till the life-giving holy Dove Upon the waters gently move. And power impart, soft brooding there. Celestial frnit to hear." —KebU, Lyra Innocentiwm, II. IT has been ehown that the Apostolic ministiy of the early Church admitted to membership by Baptism; and then that the baptized members of the Church continued steadfastly in four things which may be called the marks of true Catholicity. All Christians have at least some measure of these four things, some element or elements of Catholicity; but it is the glory of the Anglican Church that she has retained them all. The Chui'ch was early planted in the British Isles, prob- ably by St. Paul himself. This Church, during the British ascendency, during the Saxon ascendency, during the Nor- man ascendency, and down to the present day, is the same Church. She has passed through sundry deformations and reformations, has never been absolutely perfect nor radi- cally imperfect; has never been without the Orthodox Faith, the Apostolic Ministry, the Sacraments, the Liturgy, and AUTHORITY. 37 good works. She has at times been tyrannized OA'er by a foreign ecclesiastical power, and again robbed and oppressed by the State, but she has never ceased to be the Church. Her escapade with the Bishop of Eome, especially from about A. D. 1200 to the middle of the sixteenth century, was unfortunate in the extreme, and brought her much trouble, but she never lost her personal identity, nor her lawful jurisdiction; and is to-day the same Church and in the same position that she would be in, had England become totally isolated from all the rest of Christendom, and never so much as heard of the rise of the " Papacy " and the other strange " developments " which have taken place within the Latin Church. A comparison of the principles of the early Church, as seen in the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers, with those of the Anglican Church to-day, will show that the latter has not departed therefrom in any essential point, if indeed in any respect at all farther than local circum- stances and the progress of civilization justly demand. Nor can this be said of any other Chmmunion in Western Christ- endom. As to Holy Baptism, which is the door of entrance from the world into the Church, she holds and has ever held what Christ taught, what the Apostles carried out, and what the Universal Church has practiced always and every- where. There is here no difference between us Churchmen and the rest of Catholic Christendom. It will be well, how- ever, to consider briefly what this Sacrament really means, this New Birth which made the early believers members of Christ, and of which our Church both in theory and practice makes so much account. Baptism and Regenera- 38 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. tion are synonymous terms. They both in Scriptural phraseology and in Church usage, stand for the initial rite of the Christian religion, viz., Christening or the act which makes one a Christian. Almost everything has two or three names, each emphasizing some special character- istic. The Sacrament of the Altar is variously called " the Breaking of the Bread," the Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist, and the Mass. So likewise the first Sacrament of Christianity is called Baptism with reference to its outward visible sign or form, and Regen- eration or the New Birth with reference to ite inward spiritual grace. St. Paul couples the two ideas together when he says we are saved " by the Washing of Regenera- tion," ^ or as it might be rendered, the Baptism of the New Birth. Regeneration then is that death unto sin and new birth unto righteousness wliich constitutes the inward part or grace of the Sacrament. What could be simpler ? We are born or generated into the world by the act of our parents ; we are bom again or re-generated into the Church by " Water and the Spirit," receiving at the same time for- giveness of all past sins, original or actual. * There is a shocking abuse of the word regeneration which has of late become prevalent among people ignorant of language and of Theology. They make it synonomous with conversion (/) It has no more to do with conversion than it has with getting married or being buried. Conver- sion is a change of heart for which we pray, when we say: " Create and make in us new and contrite hearts. " * Regen- eration is that Christening grace for which we pray, when ]. Titns, iil., 5. 2. rii. Catechism. St. John, Hi., 5; Acts, iii., 38. 3. Collect Jot Ash Wed. AUTHORITY. 39 we say: " Give Thy Holy Spirit to this Infant that he may be born again," and when we pray that " these persons com- ing to Thy Holy Baptism may receive remission of their sins by spiritual Regeneration." * Conversion is the act of the prodigal in returning to his Father ; Regeneration is the act of the Father in receiving him and admitting him to His house. To call conversion Regeneration, as most Dissentei-s do, is simply an abuse of language and a con- fusion of ideas. One might just as well call repentance, Confirmation ; or Faith, Ordination ; or a man, an eagle ; or a fish, a bird. We may be converted a hundred times ; we can be baptized, christened, regenerated but once. And so, as soon as the infant is baptized the priest says, " See- ing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regen- erate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks," and then he prays: " We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for Thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into Thy holy Church." It is common in these days to hear some well-meaning Christian say, " 0, I believe in Baptism, but I don't regard it a ' saving ordinance.' " It is well to remind such that they difier from the Catholic Church which St. Peter ^ taught to believe, " Baptism doth also now save us," and to which St. Paul writes, "According to His mercy He saved us by the Washing of Regeneration." ^ In no less than twelve passages of the New Testament do Christ or His Apostles associate Salvation with Baptism, e. g. "Christ loved the Church, aiid gave Himself for her that He might 4. Baptismal Offices. 5. 1 Pet., iii,, 21. 40 REASON'S FOR BEINa A CHURCHMAN. sanctify and cleanse her by the Washing of Water." ^ A faithful disciple sent by God, says to the penitent and believing Saul of Tarsus, "Arise, be baptized and wash away thy sins." ''' St. Peter says in answer to the question, "What shall we do to be saved? " " Repent and be bap- tized every one of you for the remission of sins." ^ When Christ commissioned the Apostles to baptize all nations, He adds, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." ^ And He said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be horn of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- dom of God." There is no such thing as an unchristened Christian ; an unbaptized person is an " alien from the com- monwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenant of promise." By Baptism, then, a person is cleansed from sin, born again, admitted into the Church, made a mem- ber of Christ and inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven, brought into a state of salvation from which, of course, he may fall, if he be unfaithful. Such, in brief, is the Church's doctrine of Holy Baptism, as we gather from the New Testament, and from the writ- ings of the Fathers — from Justin Martyr, writing before 148 A. D.; from Ironseus and Tertullian but a little later ; from the great and godly Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage a. D. 246 ; from St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, a. d. 351, whose admirable lectures on Baptism are still extant ; from the unvarying testimony of hosts of others, as well as from the early Baptismal Offices ; from the constant use of the Catholic Church; and, what is of special interest to us, from the vminterrupted theory and practice of that part of the Catholic Church to which it is our privilege to belong. 6. Bph., T., 25-6. 7. Acts, xxli.. 16, 8. Acts, li., 38 9. St.Mark, xvi., 18. AUTHORITY. 41 These sources of authority also demonstrate beyond all ■cavil or doubt, that (as Dr. Blunt expresses it) "Baptism has been given to infants from the time of its first institu- tion." At the start, of course, there were very few infants to be reached by the Church, but whenever we read in Holy Scripture of the older members of a family being converted, we always read that not only they but the entire Iwusehold were baptized, i" As the Church grew, and chil- s Bishops. Of all the Church Fathers who touch npou the matter, not one thinks of any other iiiterpretotion."— Quoted in Timlow's "Plain Footprints," Chap, ix., which see. i. " [Jacobus] ab Apostolis, Hierosalymorum Bpiscopus ordinatus," St. Jer- ■ome, Scr. Eccl., c. 2. See also Euseb., ii., 23. 5. See Titus, i., 1, et poLsslm; Euseb., iii., 4; St. Chrys. on Tit., i., 4 and 5; Theod. on I. Tim., iii., 1; St. Jerome, Catal, Scr. in Tit. The ancient tradition in Crete is that he lived till the age of 94 in Gortys, his see city. The cathedral -of the island is dedicated to h^m. 6. "Epaphroditus was called the 'Apostle' of the Phillppians, because he was entrusted with the Episcopal government; for those whom we now call Bishops, were more anciently called Apostles." Theod. on Phil., ii., 25 ; and see Theod. and St. Chrys. on Phil., i., 1. Also St. Jerome, who calls him the Apostle ■of the Philippians, and says : " Erat Compar Officii," i. e., with St. Paul. 7. See Epists. to Tim., passim. St. Jerome says: "Timotheus a Paulo Bphefionim Episcopus ordinatus " "Timothy was ordained Bishop of the Ephesians by Paul." See the authorities cited above concerning Titus. The Acts of the Gen. Coun. of Chalcedon are referred to by Bishop Wordsworth, .is the crowning evidence. ta REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. mus8, (the "Angel of the Church in Ephesus ;") St. John (who also himself made his home at Ephesus, perhaps doing the work of a diocesan, between the Episcopates of Timothy and Onesimus, hut certainly returning to Ephe- sus after his banishment to Patmos, and laboring as a sort of Archbishop ; for Clement of Alexandria^ tells us that he " used to make journeys to neighboring Gentile terri- tories, to ordain Bishops in some, and in others to set in order whole Churches ") ; the Angel of the Church in Smyrna who was either St. Polycarp,^" or possibly his predecessor; the Angel of the Church in Pergamos, the suc- cessor of Antipas; Carpus, the Angel of the Church in Thyatira ; and the three who presided over the Churches of Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. St. Peter also re- mained for a long time as Bishop of Antioch. Indeed St. Chrysostom speaks of St. Ignatius as succeeding St. Peter in Antioch. 1^ 8. Oneelmns was at least Bisliop of Bpliesus, ten or twelve years later, for he is lovingly mentioned as sucli by Ignatius, in his letter to the Epheeians^ chap, vi., written before 107 A. D. 9. See Quix Div. Salv., c. 42. 10. See letter of Ignatius to " Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyr- neans." Tertullian says he was consecrated Bishop of Smyrna by St. John (See Praes. Her., 32). Irenaens, who had often conversed with him, says the same. See also Enseb., iv., 14, Jerome, and others. 11. The Soman Catholic theory that St. Peter went to Borne, A. D. 40, and was Bishop of Rome for 25 years, is demonstrably absurd. His residence at Antioch must have beer mach later, for at that time the Church there was under the leadership of its founders, the Apostles Panl and Barnabas. (Acts, xi., 19, et Seq^, Moreover, St. Ignatius, who succeeded him in Antioch, could not have done so In A. D. 40, as he was then but 10 years old. To borrow the words of Canon Farrar: "As late as A.D. 52, St. Peter was at Jerusalem, and took an active part in the Synod of Jernsalem (Acts, xv., 7) ; and he was then laboring mainly among the Jews (Gal., ii., 7, 8, 9). In A. D. 57, he was traveling as a Missionary with his wife (I. Cor., is., 5). He was not at Rome when St. Paul wrote to that Church, In A. D. 58; nor when St. Paul came there as a prisoner in A. D. 61, nor during the years of St. Paul's imprisonment, A. D. 61-63, nor when AUTHORITY. 77 During the latter part of the first century, St. John alone of the original twelve survived, but many other Apostles, Angels, Bishops, or High Priests (as they were sometinaeB called) were still alive, who had been ordained by him or his peers. There was St. Clement, the Bishop of Rome, the " fellow-laborer " of St. Paul, who had been ordained by him or by St. Peter. There was St. Ignatius, that glorious Apostle, who had sat at the feet of the be- loved John, the true successor of St. Peter in Antioch ; while the venerable Polycarp, the friend of St. John, was still ruling his diocese in the spirit of his master, till past the middle of the second century. These are the earliest witnesses to the antiquity and authority of Episcopacy. They bridge over the so-called gap between the Church of the New Testament and the Church of the second century. Let us hear their testimony. St. Clement, the companion of St. Paul, the Bishop of " the Church sojourning at Rome," wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth, not later than A. d. 97. In it he clearly teaches that there are "diverse orders in the Church," which he likens to the ranks of oflScers in the Roman army. "AU," says he, "are not generals, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of he wrote Ms last Epistles, A. D. 66 and 67. If lie was ever at Rome at all, which we hold to be almost certain, from the nnauimity of the tradition, it could only have been very briefly before Us martyrdom. And this is, in fact, the assertion of Lactantius (about A. D. 330), who says that he first came to Rome in Nero's reign ; and of Origen (about A. D. S54), who says that he arrived there at the close of his life ; and of the Praedietio Petri, printed with the works of St. Cyprian. His ' Bishopric ' at Rome probably consisted only in his efforts, about the time of his martyrdom, to strengthen the faith of the Church and especially of the Jew- ish Christians." (Early Days of ChrUtiantty, i., 117.) See also the "The Pet- rine Claims at the Bar of History."— CTiurch Qmurterly BeUew, April, 1879. 78 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. fifty. "^* Speaking of the duties of the clergy and laity, he uses language which shows that the Christian Ministry was threefold : " His own peculiar services are assigned to the High Priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the Priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Lemte; while the layman is bound by the laws whi-ch pertain to laymen. "i* He also says : "The Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions would arise about the ofiQce of the Episcopate ; and for this reason, being endued with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those already mentioned, and handed down a suc- cession, so that when they should depart, other approved men should take their oBBce and ministry.'"* Our next witness is St. Polycarp, that grand old Bishop and Martyr. Born while St. Paul and St. Peter were still alive, he was for more than thirty years contemporary with his master, St. John, and survived him by half a century, having, as he told the Roman Governor, served Christ " eighty and six years." He is portrayed to us by his pupil, St. Irenseus, the Bishop of Lyons, in a passage of charming simplicity but tantalizing brevity : " I could describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught ; his going out and his coming in ; the whole tenor of his life ; his personal appearance ; how he would tell of conversations he had held with John and with others who had seen the Lord ; how he would make men- 12. Chap. 37. 13. Chap. 40. In like manner, says St. Jerome (in his Epixt. ad Ev.), "What Aaron and his sons and the Levltes [three orders'] were In the Temple, that let the Btsluyps, and Presbyters, and Deacons, claim to he in the Chnrch." 14. Chap. 44. AUTHORITY. ^^ tion of their words, and of whatever he had heard from, them respecting the Lord."^^ Again Irenseus says of him : " Polycarp also was not only instructed by the Apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also by Apostles in Asia, or- dained Bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, having always taught the things which he had learned from the Apostles, and which the Church has handed dawn, and which alone are true."^* A single Epistle of St. Polycarp has come down to us of the genuineness of which there can be no doubt. It is written as by a Bishop, surrounded by his '' Corona Pres- byteromm." " Polycarp and the Presbyters with him to the Church of God sojourning at Phillippi." The Epistle is beautiful and breathes the spirit of a St. John. Its chief evidential value, however, as to the Episcopate, is to be found in the fact that this holy and apostolic man sets the seal of approval to the teachings of St. Ignatius, that devout and stalwart Episcopalian, the Bishop of Antioch. " The Epistles of Ignatius," says he, " written by him to lis, and all the rest of his Epistles which we have by us, we have sent to you as you requested. By them ye may be greatly profited ; for they treat of faith and patience, and aU things that tend to edification in the Lord." Let us appeal then to St. Ignatius. He was born about a. d. 30. Tradition has assigned him the honor of being the "little child" whom Jesus placed in the midst of the Apostles.^''' He succeeded St. 15. From the De Ogdoade of Irenseus. 16. Adv. Her., iii., 3, 4. IT. St_ Matt, xviii,, 2. 80 RSASON'iS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. Peter as Bishop of Antioch,!^ the capital of Syria, and so he alludes to himself not only as the Bishop of Antioch, hut as "the Bishop of Syria." A vivid account of his martyrdom (written probably about a. d. 110), says that in the year a. d. 98, " Ignatius, the Disciple of John the Apostle, a man in aU respects of an Apostolic character, governed the Church of the Antiochians," and that he had' done so for many years. The story of his bold confession before the Emperor Trajan, in Antioch, a. d. 107, his arrest, his journey (like St. Paul's) to Rome, and his glorious martyrdom in that city, which is " drunken with blood of martyrs," is familiar to all. On that memorable journey he was permitted to tarry quite a while at Smyrna, of which the venerable Polycarp was the Bishop, and whither the Bishops of Ephesus, Magnesia, and TraUes, accompanied each by several Priests and Deacons, came to comfort him, or rather be comforted by him, and to re- ceive the Martyr's benediction. While in Smyrna he wrote four letters ; to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Traillians, and the Romans. Also at Troas, where he was detained a few days, he wrote three letters ; to the Phila- delphians, to the Smymseans, and to Polycarp, their Bishop. There are eight other letters extant, purporting to have been written by St. Ignatius, but as their authen- ticity is doubtful, I pass them by. But these seven genu- ine letters of the Apostolic Bishop, Saint and Martyr — every one ought to read. And I leave it to any candid reader whether such letters could possibly have been 18. He is quoted from and mentioned with approval by Justin Martyr, Iren- asuB, and Origen (who styles Mm "Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, com- ing after Peter ") ; by Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Oelasins, etc. AUTHORITY. 81 written to leading Churches in the east and as far west as Rome, wdess Episcopacy had been the universal polity of the Church, and believed by such competent witnesses as these personal friends of St. John, to be primitive, God- given and necessary. Notice, then, a number of extracts which I have collected from the short and uncorrupted form of the Epistles, which even the most critical scholars allow to be genuine and authentic. In his Epistle to the Ephesians he speaks of having seen their " Bishop, Onesimus," and blesses God for hav- ing granted them " such an excellent Bishop."^^ He men- tions also one of their Deacons and several Presbyters, and exhorts them, saying : '' Be ye subject to the Bishop and the Presbytery " \i. e., the whole body of the Presby- ters].^ He lays great stress upon the universality of the Episcopate : " For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable Life, is the manifest WUl of the Father ; as also Bishops, to the uttermost hovmds of the earth, are so by the will of Jesus Christ."*^ " Wherefore," he goes on to say, " it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your Bishop, which thing also ye do; for your justly re- nowned Presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the Bishop as are the strings to the harp."^ What a diocese that must have been ! " Let us, then," he continued, " be careful not to set ourselves in opposition to the Bishop."^ " For we ought to receive every one whom the Master of the House sends to be over his Household, as we would receive Him that sent Him. It is clear, therefore, that we should look upon the Bishop, even as the Lord Himself;^ and 19. Chap. 1. 20. Chap. 2. 21. Chap. 3. S!2. Chap. 4. 23. Chap. 5. 24. Of. our Lord's words to the Apostles : "He that receiveth you receiveth Mb," St. Hatt., ^., 40, and St. John, xiii., 20. 82 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. indeed Onesimus himself greatly commends your good order in God, and that ye all live according to the truth, and that no sed has any dwelling place among you."^ In his Epistle to the Magnesians, he says : " I have had the privilege of seeing you through Damas, your most worthy Bishop, and through your worthy Presbyters, Bas- sus and ApoUonius, and through my fellow-servant, the Deacon Sotio, whose friendship may I ever enjoy, inas- much as he is subject to the Bishop as to the grace of God, and to the Presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ." ^ The Bishop of the Magnesians, although a young man, was, by virtue of his Episcopal Office, exalted above all the rest, whether clergy or laity, and just as St. Paul had written to the young Bishop of Ephesus, some fifty years before, " Let no man despise thy youth," so now Ignatius writes to the Christians in Magnesia : " It becomes you also not to treat your Bishop too familiarly on account of his youth, but to yield him aU reverence, having respect to the Pmoer of God the Father, as I have known even holy Presbyters do, not judging rashly from the youthful appearance of THEIR Bishop."^''' A Bishop, then, though a young man, is entitled to the homage of his Presbyters, though " holy " and venerable. And this is the teaching of a saint who was living whUe our Saviour was stiU on earth, the com- panion of St. John, and for more than forty years the Bishop of the city where the disciples were first called Christians. Again he says : " Let nothing exist among you that may divide you ; but be ye united with your Bishop, and them that preside over you."^ " Neither do anything without the Bishop and Presbytera."®^ "Your 25. Chap. 6. S6. Chap. 2. 27. Chap. 3. Of. I. Tim., iv., 12. 28. Chap. 6. 29. Chap. 7. AUTHORITY. 83 most admirable Bishop, the well-compacted spiritual crown of your Presbytery, and the Deacons who are according to God." ^o [Various persons] 'salute you, along with Poly- carp, the Bishop of the Smyrn£eans."^i In his Epistle to the Trallians, whom he says he salutes " in the Apostolic character," he speaks of " Polybius, your Bishop who has come to Smyrna." ^^ " Let all reverence the Deacons as the appointment of Jesus Christ, and the Bishops as Jesus Christ, Who is the Son of the Father, and the Presbyters as the Sanhedrim of God and assembly of the Apostles. Apaet from these there is no Church."^ Nor was there any thing new or startling to those early Chris- tians in this statement, for he immediately adds : "Concern- ing all this, I am persuaded th'at ye are of the same opinion." In his Epistle to the Romans he says : " God has deemed me, the Bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent," etc.** " Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which now has God for its Shepherd instead of me. Jesus Christ alone will oversee it."^ Strange words for Ignatius to have used if he were only one among the many equal (I) Presbyters in the great metropolis of Antioch, with its two hundred thousand inhabitants. The fact is, no one but one who is, at least in theory, an Episcopalian, can read the letters of Ignatius without either becoming a Churchman or else bidding farewell to reason, logic, and common sense.^^ In his letter to the Philadelphians he speaks of them as 30. Chap. 13. 31. Chap. 15. 33. Chap. 1. 33. Chap. 3. 34. Chap. 3. 35. Chap. 9. 36. If any one doubts this, let him see how Dr. MilleT, the champion of Presbyterianiam, nndertools to find Presbyterianism in St. Ignatius (I). In all the world of controversy, religious, political, philosophical, scientific, literary. Dr. Miller's exploit with Ignatius is unparalleled for sophistry, audacity, and unconscions suicide. I advise every reader to get a copy of Mine's "Presbyterian Clergyman Looking for- the Church" (Dutton, N. T.), and read chapter zxiii., 84 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. " ID. unity with the Bishop, the Presbyters and the Deacons, who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ."*''' " If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." ^ In his Epistle to the Smymseans he says : " See that ye follow the Bishop even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the Presbytery as ye would the Apostles, and the Dea- cons as being the institution of God. Let no man do any thing connected with the Church without the Bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is adminis- tered either by the Bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the Bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be ; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the Bishop [i. e., without his authority] either to baptize or to celebrate the Holy Communion * * * so that every thing that is done may be secure and valid." ^' " It is weU to reverence both God and the Bishop." ^ In his Epistle entitled " Ignatius, who is called Theopho- ros, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smymseans," he bids his Episcopal brother: " Let nothing be done with- out thy consent. "*i "My soul be for theirs who are sub- missive to the Bishop, to the Presbyters and to the Deacons j and may my portion be along with them in God."^ So much, then, for the testimony of the Apostoho Bish- op of Antioch, which comes to us ratified and endorsed by the Angel of the Church in Smyrna. especially pp. 454 to 465, on "Dr. Miller's eztractB from Ignatius, Bomething odd." Tliat chapter alone is worth ten times the price of the book. See also Dr. Bowden's patient and exhaustive reply to Dr. Miller : " The Apos. Orig. of Epis." Hall's "Epis. and the Pap. Suprem," and "Kip's Double Witness," pp.70 to 7U 37. In the dedication. 38. Chap. 3. 39. Chap. 8. 40. Chap. 9. 41. Chap. 4. 42. Chap. 6. CHAPTER XI. THE WITNESS OF THE FATHERS — CONTINUED. "And drink the untainted fount of pure antiquity." —Lyra AposUMea, p. 1B4. "If I might leave one request to tlie rising generation of clergy * * * it would be, In addition to the study of Holy Scripture, which they too studied night and day. Study the Fathers."— Dr. Pusey. IT should never be forgotten that Gibbon, the keen skep- tical historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, although he ignores the spiritual authority which the Bishops derived from the Apostles, nevertheless freely admits (for he could not deny it) that " the Episcopal form of government [by which he meant organized Diocesan Episcopacy] appears to have been introduced before the dose of the first century ; " that its " advantages " were " obvi- ous and important ; " that it " had acquired at a very early period the sanction of ardiquity;" that "'Bishops, under the name of Angels, were already \i. e., before the end of the first century] instituted in the seven cities of Asia ; " and that " ^Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo ' — no Church with- out a Bishop — ^has been a fa^ as well as a maxim, since the time of TertuUian and Irenseus." Gibbon moreover 86 REASONS FOR BBING A CHURCHMAN. declares that " after we have passed the difficulties of the fir^ century^ we find ^ Episcopal form of government univer- sally established, until it was interrupted hy the republican genius of the Swiss and German reformers."^ The learned French Protestant, Guizot, says : " The Apostles themselves appointed several Bishops. Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century do not permit us to doubt this fiict." The " Learned Grotius,"^ himself a Presbyterian, through force of circumstances, was candid enough to give up the attempt to invalidate Episcopacy. Like many of the con- tinental reformers, he regretted that the Church of Holland had lost the Apostolic Ministry. He was as familiar with the Fathers as most Protestants are ignorant of them ; and this is what he says of their evidence for Episcopacy : " To reject the supremacy of one pastor above the rest is to condemn the whole ancient Church of folly or even of impiety." " The Episcopacy had its commencement in the times of the Apostles. All the fathers, loithout exertion, testify to this. The testimony of Jerome* alone is sufficient. The catalogues of the Bishops, in Irenaeus, Socrates, Theo- 1. I. 6., before the death of St. John. And what after all are these " diffi- cnlties of the first century" ? Why, as I have shown, the gradual transition from the general Missionary Episcopate of the Apostles to the local jnrisdiction of their saccessors, together with the gradual change of name, which I trust was made clear in Chapter IX. But call these natural processes ** the diMculties of theflrst century," if you please; they are a thousand times less than our Papal and Presbyterial brethren have to encounter, when they try to fit their respective systems on the Early Church. 2. These quotations from Gibbon are all taken from the Dec. and Fall, chap. XV., and from his notes on that chap., 110, 111, 112. 3. A. D. 1583 to 1645. 4. Jerome I And yet he is the one whom Dr. Miller and others, by bold misquotations from his Epistle to Evagrius, would metamorphose into a Presby- terian. Can it be that such have ever read that Epistle 1 We will have a taste of it ere long. AUTHORITY. 87 doret, and others, all of which begin in the Apostolic age, testify to this. To refuse credit in a historical matter, to BO great authorities, and so unanimous among themselves, is not the part of any but an irreverent and stubborn dispo- sition. What the whole Church maintains, and was not instituted by Councils, but was always held, is not with any good reason believed to be handed down by any but Apos- tolic Authority."^ Not one bona fide quotation can be adduced from any Father or Council of the Early Church which makes against Episcopacy. We Churchmen do not begin to realize the strength of our position. Some of us are frightened by the timid and treacherous utterances of our own sick and disloyal comrades ; or are for yielding up the Citadel of God, whose walls can stand the artillery of hell, because, forsooth, the sham batteries of a Dr. Miller, or the spiked guns of some roving Monsignor are directed against us. It does us good, once in a while, to " walk about Zion, and go round about her, and tell the towers thereof, and mark well her bulwarks." We shall at least be able to show our wandering brothers that we have better reasons for staying in the dear old homestead than they ever had for leaving it. There is to-day a widespread feeling among thoughtful Dissenters which is often expressed in some such way as this : " Churchmen, after all, are no fools ! " For some strange reason, Apostolic Succession is a stumbling-block to many. And yet Apostolic Succession rests on a stronger historical basis than the Canon of Holy 5. For Grotiua' teBtimony in fall, see Ms AnnotatioDS on the Consultations of Colander, Ms comments on Acts, xiv., and Testirmmies concerning Jiim appended to Ms De Veritate BeMfltoreis Chri^tiancc. 88 SEA80N8 FOR BEIN9 A CHURCHMAN. Scripture itself. During the first thousand years of the Christian era, there were several instances of Churches which, though they had the Creed, had never seen a com- plete copy of the New Testament ; but all the whUe not one single instance of a Church without Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. If any one doubts this, let him try for him- self to answer this, as yet unanswered, challenge which the " Judicious Hooker " made in the year 1594, to those who had set up a non-Episcopal Ministry : " A very strange thing sure it were, that such a discipline as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and His Apostles in the word of God, and no Church ever have found it out, nor re- ceived it till this present time. * * * We require ym to find out but me Churdi upon the face of the whole earth, ^hoi hath been ordered by your discipline or hath not been ordered by ours, that is to say, by Episcopal regimen, since the time that the blessed Apostles were here conversant."^ 6. Pref. to Eccl. Pal., | 4. Of. also the challenge of Bishop Jewell, first madeatSt. Fanl's Cross, Nov. 26, 1559; repeated March 31, 1560. "If any learned men of all oar adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one snfflcient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or ont of any old General Council, or ont of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any example of the Primitive Church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved; * * * that the Bixhop of Rome was then called an Universal Bishop, or Head of the Universal Ghnrch; » * * I promised then that I would give over and sub- scribe unto him." (Bp. Jewell's Works, I, p. 20, Ed. Parker Soc), quoted in Dr. Huntington's admirable little book, "The Ch. Idea," p. 71. I cannot forbear to quote here the strong language of Mines (Pres. Clerg., p. 341) : "Episcopacy existed wherever the Church existed, and the world has again and again been challenged to produce one single Church in all Europe, Africa, or Asia, which in the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, or the sixth century, was for one moment Presbyterian. When Presbyterians demand of Episcopalians a chain of Bishops from [toKlay] back to the days of the Apostles, Episcopalians produce it— link after link, name after name— back to the hands of St. Thomas in Syria, St. John in Ephesus, St. James in Jerusalem, St. Mark in Alexandria, St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. But when Episcopaliaus ask Presbyterians to pro- duce, not a succession of Churches reaching beyond Lnther and Calvin and a AUTHORITY. 89 I shall now give a few extracts from the early Fathers, which will corroborate what we have akeady learned from the Bible, and from SS. Clement, Poly carp and Ignatius. The unknown author of that beautiful treatise, the " Epistle to Diognetus " (about A. d. 130), who calls him- self a " Disciple of the Apostles,'' says : " The tradition of the Apostles is preserved,"'' which he could not have said, had the then universal Episcopacy of the Church been contrary to their teaching. Hegesippus, who was born about A. D. 100 — Vwinus Apostolorum temporum, as St. Jerome calls him^ — wrote a Church History, which was familiar to Eusebius and St. Jerome, but which has since been lost. He traveled over a large part of the known world for the express purpose of ascertaining the teaching and practice of the Apostles, as retained in the Churches which they founded. Eusebius has preserved a few frag- ments of his writings,^ in which " he declares of himself, that as he had made it his business to visit the Bishops of the Church, so he had found them all unanimous in their doctrines ; and that the same books of the Law, the same Gospel and Faith * * * had been constantly pre- served along with the Succession of the Bishops in all the Churches." Moreover he says : " The first heretic was The- busis, who was disappointed in his expectations of a Sishopric." ^If of a thousand years, but one poor, single, solitary Church, in a world full of Churches, that in the first, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth eentury, was bona fide Preibyterian ; they return the writ with more est inventvi ; it cannot be found." [The futile attempts to find it among the Chuldees are well known.] 1. Chap. 10. 8. De Scrip., c. 22, "Near the time of the Apostles." 9. EnBeb. Bel. Hist., IV., 23, as quoted by Bowdeu, Letter VU. 90 REASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. Dionysius, the wise and holy Bishop of Corinth, who lived to A. D. 176, wrote a number of letters, fragments of which are preserved by Eusebius^" — one to the Athe- nians, in which he speaks of the martyrdom of their Bishop, Publius (early in the century), and mentions his successor, Quadratus j^^ one to the Churches in Crete, in which he praises Philip, their Bishop ; one to the Churches in Pontus, in which he mentions Palma, their Bishop ; one to Pinytus, the Bishop of the Gnosians, in which he urges him not to enforce celibacy upon his clergy, — to which the ascetic Bishop replied, attempting to justify his coui-se.12 AU of which shows, as indeed do all inci- dents and allusions in the literature of the Early Church, that the Episcopal polity prevailed. He also wrote a letter to Soter, the Bishop of the Church in Rome. St. Irenseus (a. d. 120 to 202) had been a disciple of St. Polycarp. Leaving the East he accompanied Pothinus^ a companion and equal of St. Polycarp, on a mission to Gaul, and settled in the city of Lyons. Pothinus was a Bishop, ordained by St. John or by one whom St. John had ordained — which is of interest to us, as it is generally supposed that the old British Church derived its Orders, in part at least, from this source ; and at all events a suc- cessor^^ of Pothinus in the See of Lyons was one of the 10. Id. 11. This QnadratuB, the second or third Bp. of Athens, A. D. 120, "was," says Dr. Mahan (Oh. Hist., p. 114), "a disciple of the Apostles, many of whose miracles he had seen with Ms own eyes. * * * Becoming Bishop of Athens, he labored with great success in re-establishing the Chnrch which in that part of Greece had fallen into decay." He also wrote a calm and able defence of Chris- tianity, which he presented to the Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from A. D. 117 to 138. 12. See again Bowden's seventh letter. 18. Viz : Etherins, thirty-flrst Bishop of Lyons, who, with Virgilius, Bishop of Aries, ordained Augustine. AUTHORITY. 91 consecrate rs of Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canter- bury. After the martyrdom of Pothinus in the dreadful Lyon- nese persecution of a. d. 177, Irenaeus, who was the lead- ing Presbyter of the Gallic Church, was made Bishop of Lyons, and seems to have exercised a sort of Primacy over the Churches of Gaul.^* Himself a Bishop, and the pupil of a Bishop whom St. John had loved and ordained, he was certainly in a position to know the polity of the early Church. Let us hear him He says : " The tradition of the Apostles is manifest throughout the whole world •; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were, hy the Apostles, ordained Bishops in the Churches, and the Succession of those men to our o^mi time. If the Apostles had known hidden mysteries, they would have delivered them, especially to those to whom they were also committing the ChurcheB themselves. For they were desirous that those men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving be- hind as their successors, delivering up their mon plcux of gov- ernment (magisterii) to these men."^^ He speaks also of "those to whom the Apostles did commit the Churches ; "^^ and again : " The Bishops to whom the Apostles did commit the Churches, "i''' In one place he calls Bishops " Presbytera," but he distinguishea them from ordinary Presbyters, just as we would to-day, by describing them as Presbyters who have the Apostolic or Episcopal succession. These are his words : " Obey the Presbyters who are in the Church, those who, as I have U. EuB., T. as. 15. Adv. Haeres, iii., chap. 3, §1. lii. iii., chap. 4, § 1. 17. /, chap. 20, § 1. «2 REASONS FOR BEINQ A CHURCHMAN. shown, possess the Succession from the Apostles, those who, together with the SiMxession of the Episcopate, have re- ceived the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it behooves us] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive Succesdm and assemble themselves together in any place whatso- ■ever, either as heretics of perverse minds or as schis- matics." ^^ Our next witness is Polycrates, whose testimony is thus summed up by Dr. Cutts -^^ " Polycrates, Bishop of Ephe- sus, writing a. d. 196, says that at that time he himself had been sixty-five years a Christian. He was, therefore, born about thirty years after the death of St. John, and 18. iv., 26, § 2. The whole passage is too long to quote, but is valuable as showing the good Bishop^s holy horror of breaking "the Fellowship of the Apostles." After comparing heretics to Nadab and Abihn (Lev., x., 1 and 2), he likens Dissenters or such as '* exhort others against the Church of God," to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (Num., xvi., 1-33) ; while as to schismatics, or ■"those who cleave asunder and separate the unity of the Church," he likens them to Jeroboam (I. Kings, xiv., 10). Irenaens also gives what he calls the " Successions of the Bishops " in the Church at Home, choosing this "very an- cient and universally known Church," because "it would be very tedious in such a volume as this to reckon up the Successions of all the Churches." The list is as follows: "The blessed Apostles [SS. Peter and Paul] committed into the hands of Linus the Office of the Episcopate. Of this Linus, St. Paul makes mention in his Epistles to Timothy [11. Tim., iv., 21] ; to him succeeded Anacle- tas ; and after him in the third place from the Apostlbs [observe the plvrdL IrenEens knew nothing of St. Peter's having any exclusive right in Rome] Cle- ment was allotted the Bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed Apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the Apostles still echoing in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone in this, for there were many still remaining who had received instruc- tions from the Apostles." (And here I must put in a word to thoughtful readers. Is it possible that these early Bishops and others who had been taught by the Apostles would have maintained Episcopacy, unless the Apostles had so taught them f— sit verbum sat sapienti.) " To this Clement succeeded Evaristus," and so he gives the names down to Elentherius, who, says he, " does now in the twelfth place from the Apostles hold the inheritance of the Episcopate." 19. Turning Points in Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 121. AUTHORITY. 9S was contemporary with Simeon of Jerusalem, Ignatius,, Polycarp, and others, disciples of the Apostles. He, writ- ing about the time of keeping Easter, appeals to the tradi- tion of former Bishops and martyrs. * * * Among others, he mentions Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and Martyr ; Thraseas, Bishop of Eumenia and Martyr ; Saga- ris, Bishop of Laodicea and Martj'^r ; seven Bishops of his own kindred, and great multitudes of Bishops who had assembled with him to consult about the Easter ques- tion." Clement of Alexandria, during the Episcopate of Demet- rius (about A. D. 185), likens the Orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon to the ranks of the blessed Angels. He also- says there are many rules, some of which relate to Presby- ters, others to Bishops, and others to Deacons.^ He alludes to St. John's ordaining Bishops in various cities of Asia f^ and he calls Bishop Clement of Rome " an Apostle." TertulUan, a Presbyter of the Church. in Carthage (born A. D. 135, died a. d. 217), uses these words : " The Chief or Highest Priest, who is the Bishop, has the right of giving Baptism, and after him the Presbyters and Deacons, but not without the Bishop's authority." ^^ Speaking of the Churches in the regions where St. John labored, he says : " The Order of the Bishops, when traced up to its originaU will be found to have John for its author." ^ The heretics of his day he boldly challenges in these words : " Let them 20. Pedagogue, Cliap. xii. 21. Qnls Div. Salv., Chap. 48. 22. Quoted by Bowden, Let. vi. 23. "Ordo tamen Episcoporum ad originem recenauBt in Jofianem Btabit auctorem," Adv. Mar., rv., 5. 94 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. produce the original of their Churches, let them show the Order of their Bishops, that by their Succession deduced from, the beginning, we may see whether their first Bishop had any of the Apostles or Apostohc men, who did likewise persevere with the Apostles, for his Ordainer and Prede- cessor ! For thus the Apostolical Churches hand down their records ; as the Church of Smyrna fi-om Polycarp, whom John the Apostle placed there ; the Church of Rome from Clement, who was in like manner^ ordained by Peter; and so the other Churches can produce those constituted in the Sishoprics by the Aposdes, and so regarded as transmitters of the Apostolic seed." ^ He also calls a Bishop's seat " the Apos- tolic Chair." The profound and versatile Origen, in the beginning of the third century,*^ also bears witness to the divine author- ity of Episcopacy. In one of his Lectures he asks : " If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be subject to Joseph and Mary, shall not I be subject to the Bishop who is ordained of God to be my Father ? Shall I not be subject to the Pres- byter who by divine appointment is set over me? "2'' Speaking of the duties common to all people, he adds : " Besides these general debts, there is a debt peculiar to Deacons, another to Presbyters, and another to Bishops, which is the greatest of all, and exacted by the Saviour, of the whole Church, who will severely punish the non-pay- ment of it." 28 24. Terlullian, by the way, like all the Early Fathers, knew nothing of the Biihop of Rome being appointed to any higher or different office than the rest ol the Bishops. 35. De Praescrip. Haeret., c. 32. *7. Quoted in Bowden's 5th Letter. 86. He was bom A. D. 186. 28. Quoted by Cntts, p. 122. AUTHORITY. 95 Time would fail me were I to attempt to set before you the testimony of Firmilian, the Bishop of Csesarea, a. d. 233 ; of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, a. d. 248, that Saint, Scholar, Apostle and Martyr, who, if not the first, was at least the deepest and clearest expounder of the jphUosophy of the Episcoipate, as the unifying principle of the Church, and as being itself an Unity ''^ in which aU Bishops throughout the world do equally participate ;^ and of St. Ambrose, St. Jerome,^^ and St. Augustine, and especiallj' 29. "Episcopatns unus est, cnjas a singalis insolidam para tenetur."— De Droit, Ectil. 30. St. Cyprian, writing to Cornelius, the Bishop of Kome, says : " This is and onght to be our chief care and study, that we maintain the unity which was delivered by our Lord, and His Apostles to us their Successors." 31. Although St. Jerome again and again asserts the universality and Apos- tolical authority of Episcopacy, Presbyterians lay great store by his letter to Evagrius. Yet after reading it with care, I can And nothing in it which can be nsed against Episcopacy. He was writing to rebuke a certain person who under- took to rank a Deacon above a Presbyter. His whole argument amounts merely to this : That in the New Testament (as we have seen) the terms Bishop and Presbyter are used interchangeably, and that the Apostles sometimes call them- selves Presbyters (which of course proves nothing, as they also call themselves Deacons). He asserts that the elevation of one Presbyter above another was a "remedy against schism," but he tells us elsewhere that it was done by the authority of the Apostles, and as early as A. D. 57. He does not eay, as some Presbyterians claim, that in Alexandria the Presbyters ordain one of their num- ber to be their Bishop, but that they only nominate him ("Nominabant")— quite a dlfEerent thing. Finally, it is in this very letter which Presbyterians quote cer- tain passages from, that St. Jerome lays down the real distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter in a way which neither Presbyterians nor Eoman Cath- olics can endnre: It is the ezact theory of the Greek and Anglo-Catholics: "What doth aBishop do, which a Presbyter may not do, Okdlsation excepted?" Then he proceeds: "Wherever there Is a Bishop, whether at Borne or at Ewgiiibium [which was a very insignificant diocese], whether at Constantinople or Ehegium, whether at Alexandria or Tanis, he is of the same validity, and of the same Priesthood. Neither the power of wealth nor the weakness of poverty can make a Bishop more exalted or more depressed; but they are all Succes- SOBS OF THE APOSTLES. * * * That whlch Aaron and his sons, and the Le- vltes were, in the Temple, that let the Bishops and Presbyters and Dea^ions claim to be in the Church." Surely if our Presbyterian brethren can find any "crumbs of comfort" in the Epistle of St. Jerome to Evagrins, they are most welcome to them. Such as they be, they are the largest crumbs of the sort that fall from the Patristic board. 96 REASONS FOR SEIN& A CHURCHMAN. the testimony of Eusebius,^ who, by order of the Emperor, had all the records of the Empire put at his disposal for the great task of writing a history of the firat three cen- turies of the Church. Such, in brief, is the history of the early Patristic evi- dence for the Catholic Episcopate. There is nothing to offset it. It cannot be gainsaid nor denied. I cannot leave this branch of my subject without reiter- ating the maxim quoted above : " Study the Fathers." Study them for the intrinsic value of their writings, and for their unimpeachable witness to the facts of primitive Catholicity. The Chi-istian Church, though at the stai't she contained " not many wise men after the flesh," ^ though she was "unto the Greeks foolishness,"^ nevertheless soon made herself felt in the world, not only as a religious, but as an intellectual power. Then were laid the foundations of the first institutions of Christian education. The Catechetical School of Alexandria — founded by St. Mark and adorned by Athenagorus, Pantaenus, Clement, Origen — the Cathe- dral Schools of Antioch and Edessa, with others, became strong centers of religion and learning, and were the par- ents of the parish and public school, the germ of the Christian college, university, and theological seminary. Then began that long procession of Christian scholars — men of saintly lives, who added to their virtue knowledge. 82. "Ensebiua, the historian of the early Chnrch, who lived in the latter part of the third and early part of the fourth centuries, derives the Bishops of all Churches from the Apostles. He gives exact and authentic catalogues of the Bishops who presided In all the principal cities of the Roman Empire, and from the Apostles down to his own time. — Cwtts. 33. I. Cor., 1., 26. 34. I. Oor., i., 23. AUTHORITY. 07 Then shone forth the Churchly piety of an Ignatius ; the Scriptural and Theological devotion of an Irenseus ; the chaste, philosophical acumen of a Justin Martyr ; the cogent and fervid logic of a TertuUian ; the prodigious and inexhaustible and unparalleled learning of an Origen ; the unconquerable, enthusiastic, triumphant Faith of an Athanasius ; the pious, practical, and beneficent ecclesias- ticism of a Cyprian and an Ambrose ; the stern, towering, indefatigable talent of a Jerome ; the supreme, universal, immortal excellence of an Augustine ; and the hallowed genius and consecrated eloquence of a Chrysostom. And thence onward to our own times, the natural succession of Catholic Scholara runs side by side with that other and diviner succession — to which they have ever paid the homage of consentient and supporting testimony — the " Apostolic Succession " of Bishops in the Church of God. CHAPTER XII. IF THE PBIMITIVE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS NOT EPISCOPAL, WHAT WAS IT ! " Nvlla EccUgia sine Episeopo." '^ It is evident nnto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient Aathors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests and Deacons." — Preface to the OrdinaL " Controversy may heat against these words, like waves against a rock, but it will never move them."— Bp. Chas. Wordsworth's " Outlines of the Christian Ministry," p. 137. A LEARNED priest of the American Church, who was for many years a Presbyterian minister, has often re- marked to the writer : " 0, when I was a Presbyterian, and used to read the Fathers, I had to resort to most ingenious explanations; but as soon as I began to read them from a Church standpoint I found nothing to explain — it was all plain sailing." He reasoned thus with himself: I have always read the Fathers with the assumption that the primitive Church was Presbyterian, and by hook and by crook ^ have managed to explain away the difficulties. But why not make the experiment of reading them from an Episcopalian standpoint ? So, beginning with the New Testament, he read all the ancient Christian writings, and found (as we have seen) that Christ gave a perpetual com- mission to His Apostles, that they ordained not only Deacons and Presbyters, but others who were called Apos- tles ; that Timothy and Titus were appointed to an office 1. See Appendix to this Chapter. AUTHORITY. 99 and work, including the right of ordaining, as clearly Episcopal as the office and work of the Bishop of New York or of Minnesota ; that when St. John wrote to the Seven Churches there was some one at the head of each Church who was responsible for the faith and practice of "that Church and those who were teachers in it ; that the Fathers constantly alluded to the three orders of the min- istry, those in the first order being " Successors of the Apostles," and all equal, whether at Rome or elsewhere ; that those writers who had actually sat at the feet of the "blessed Paul, or Peter, or John, were as stanch Episcopa- lians as those who lived later; that the Church, as it appears on the pages of history, was always Episcopal, and believed itself to have been so by divine ordering ; and that assuming the Catholic Church to have started Presbyterian, it is impossible to assign any date when it became Episcopal, or to account for the fact that no protest was made at a revolution so radical and gigantic. To the Churchman it is all clear enough — the historic Church was Episcopal because it was born so, the Apostles being the Bishops (as the Fathers testify) : there was no break, no imaginary change to account for, nothing to ex- plain away. But with the Presbyterian, how is it? Alas I he must in the first place set aside the Saviour's promise to be with His AposUes until the end of the world. Then he must prove that the Apostolate was confined to the original Twelve,^ Holy Scripture to the contrary notwith- 2. I have heard Dissenters boldly assert that the Eleven did very wrong to choose Matthias, and that God set aside their action by appointing St. Paul to take the place of Jndas ( 1 ), and that there conld, by no possibility, be more than twelve Apostles— although, at the very least, twenty-three (23) are called " Apos- tles " by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. " But," the Presbyterians argue, ■"the Apostles worked mirideSt and no one can be an Apostle unless he can 100 REASOWS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. standing ; that SS. Timothy and Titus and the "Angels " of the Seven Churches were not Bishops ; in short, that the Apostles left no successors, although the Fathers con- stantly assert that they did. And having proved all this, he must needs show how his primitive Presbyterian Church did afterwards become Episcopal, and how it got the firm belief that it had always been so. If Christ had meant His Church to be Presbyterian, St. John would have known it, and so would his friends, the Bishops of Antioch, and Smyrna, and their friend, the Bishop of Lyons, and the rest. Or, to reverse the process, the Church of the third century, which was nothing if not Episcopal, must have known whether the Church of the second century was Episcopal or not ; and the Church of the second century must have known whether the Church of the first century was Episcopal or not ; and the vener- able Bishops and teachers who were associated with St. John in the latter part of the first century must have known whether or not the Church was Episcopal from the start. We have had their testimony. There is no break in the chain. Take the admission of Gibbon and of all candid scholars show the same signs of his ApostlesMp." Bnl if that argument proves anything, it proves too much; for the early Preibyters worked miracles, and the Deacons, too— notably, SS. Stephen and Phillip. Ergo, nobody can be a Presbyter or a Deacon unless he can work miracles ; or even a layman, for that matter. Th& miracnlons powers of the Early Apostles and elders and brethren belonged to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and were not a part of their perma- nent office. A Presbyterian minister once challenged the late Bishop Doane to prove his Apostleshlp by drinking prussic acid I I am not informed whether that venerable Apostle stooped to notice the impious taunt, but certainly he might have replied: I accept the challenge on the condition that you, Mr. Minis- ter, will prove yourself to be even a layman by doing the same thing. For it is written: "These signs shall follow them that bMeve; In my name shall they cast out devils, * * * and if tTiew drink any deadly thing, it shaU not hurt ihem," etc. (St. Mark, xvi., 17 and 18.) AUTHORITY. 101 "that the Church was universally Episcopal at the close of the first century. How shall we account for it ? Well, it either started so, or else if it started Presbyterian, the early Presbyterians abandoned it so soon, so unanimoudy, so universally as to show that Presbyterianism was regarded as a stupendous failure — so soon that the change was made before the Apostles were cold in their graves; so unani- momly that not a single Priest or layman lifted his voice against the usurpation of those who made themselves Bishops ; so imiversally that not a single " Presbytery," nay, not one solitary isolated congregation, in the forests of Britain, in the mines of Spain, in the valleys of Gaul and Italy, on the deserts of Africa, or the fertile banks of the Nile, on the Islands of the Mediterranean, in the cities of Greece, on the sands of Arabia, on the prairies of Baby- lon, in the jungles of India, or on the hallowed hills of Galilee and Judea — not one poor single solitary Presby- terian Congregation survived to witness against Episcopal usurpation and say like Job's messenger : " I, even I only, am escaped alone to tell thee." If you strain out the gnat of primitive Episcopacy, you have got to swallow a camel larger than the wooden horse of Troy, viz., this : The assumed Presbyterianism of the Apos- tolic Church, in one generation, v/nanimmidy and universally changed to E^nscvpacy, an Episcopacy, too, which knew nothing of any change, but always supposed itself to have been primitive and Apostolic ! I can only murmur the trite maxim of Horace : Oredat, Judssus, Apdla, Non ego! 102 RSIASON'8 FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. And yet every Dissenter swallows this " camel," which is a necessary postulate of all non-Episcopal systems. Let there be no dodging of the issue. At an early date the Church was Episcopal. If it was founded so, well and good ; if not, what was it originally, and when and how did it change ? It was not originally Presbyterial, for it is absurd to talk of the " parity of the ministry," when the two lower orders of Priests and Deacons were subject to the oversight of the Apostles. While the Apostles lived, therefore, the Church was undeniably Episcopal. But after their death? Well, as has been shown, there was no break. The post-Apostolic Episcopate is dove- tailed into the Episcopate of the Apostles. But waiving this, and passing over that numerous company of men who were also called Apostles, suppose we grant, for the sake of argument, that after the death of all the original Twelve, about a. d. 100, the whole Church was Presby- terial — say for ten years, or, to be generous to a fault with historic facts, say fifty years — how on earth was the unani- mous and universal change then made to Episcopacy ? It is as if the United States should suddenly become a monar- chy, and yet not one state, not one county, not one town, not one man — be he congressman, soldier, or private citizen — utter a word of protest, and not a single allusion to so revo- lutionary a change be made by any friend or foe, citizen, or foreigner, in contemporary and subsequent history. I ask our Presbyterian friends, using the word to include all Christian bodies which have lost the Apostolic Succes- sion : Would it be possible for one of your presbyters in every synod, presbytery, conference, or association in your denomination, to usurp to himself the office and functions AUTHORITY. 103 of a Bishop, involving the sole right to ordain and con- firm, the care and oversight of all the ministers in his district, etc., and this spontaneously in all parts of your denomination, even in distant countries, without any opportunity for concerted action ; and yet not a solitary voice be raised in protest, and not a single line left to show that such a change had taken place ? You would say : " The idea is preposterous — the bare attempt in one Presbytery would raise a tempest in a tea-pot, and we should never hear the last of it ! " And yet you believe, and would have us believe, that precisely that very thing was done throughout the whole Catholic Church, and that, too, in an age when Apostolic tradition was fresh, univer- sal, and most highly esteemed. Revolutions do not take place in that way. Had the Early Church been Presbyterial (and, by the way, the sorriest compliment one can pay Presbyterianism is to call it the primitive polity, for if so, those early Presby- terians showed no love for it) — had the early Church, I say, been Presbyterial, we should have seen evidence of it in the New Testament, which we do not ; then gradually in same quarters, but not possibly in all quarters, some ambitious presbyters might have attempted to lord it over God's heritage (although ambitious clerics are not the kind that court martyrdom, and the early Bishops were the first and most conspicuous mark for the persecutor), and some at least would have been unsuccessful in their attempted usurpations, as they would be to-day if they tried it in any Presbyterial denomination. Moreover, the thing could not be "done in a corner;" it would have been known ; it would have been commented on ; it 104 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. would have raised a commotion, as all real changes, inno- vations, "developments," even trifling ones, have done ever since. Take, for example, the " Papacy." It was not primitive ; it was opposed in its germination and in eveiy stage of its growth ; and it has never yet been accepted by four out of the five great Patriarchates of the Catholic Church. Observe : A new order is created above the Bishops ; it takes many centuries for it to effect even a partial usurpation ; it makes a tremendous stir ; it splits the Catholic Church into two, and at length into three divisions.^ And yet Presbyterians would have us believe that a far more radical revolution — one which destroyed the " primitive Presbyterian Church," by adding the " new and man-made order of Bishops" — was carried, not in one Patriarchate or portion of the Church, but throughout the whole world, without any stir or opposition, without leaving a document or a tradition of any part of the trans- action, and all within a few years of the death of St. John ! ! Is it reasonable — I submit — ^is it reasonable ? Nay, is it not rather an insult to logic and common sense ? How much wiser, how much easier to accept the simple, natural fact, that the historic Church is Episcopal, because it started so.* 3. We might 8ay/ and to request she would send an ambassador to it, and permit the prelates of England to attend it. Some objected to the Pope, that this was showing too great a condescen- sion towards persons who had formerly separated from the Church. ' Nothing,' said the worthy pontifif, is hu- miliating to gain souls to Christ.' Both the King of Spain and the Duke of Alva seconded * * * the Pope's request, but the Queen was inflexible j * • * Bhe therefore refused to permit the abbe to enter any part of her dominions." The reader will also find it in Bailey's " Jurisdiction and Mission of the Ang. Epis.," p. 65 ; in Hardwicke's " Refor- mation," and in scores of other reliable works. I have never seen the story controverted or even questioned. CHAPTER XVIII. ANGLICAN JUBISDICTION AND CATHOLICITY. ^^ Men cannot set ap a new Chnrch, so we think, and we bless God tliat we have the old Cliarcli cleansed and purified." — Bishop Lee, tfte Presiding BisTwp of the Church in the TJ. S. (Second Letter to the AagiAant Bishop of N. Y.J WHEN the bishops of the whole Anglican communion, English, Irish, Scotch, American, Colonial, and Mis- sionary, from all parts of the world, assembled together at Lambeth, in the year of our Lord 1867, the Synod declared " that there was one true Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; that of this true Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Church of England and the Churches in communion with her are living members ; and that the Church of England earn- estly desires to maintain freely the Catholic faith as set forth by (Ecumenical councils of the Universal Church." A National Church might have valid orders, and yet by heresy or schism have cut itself off from Catholic Chris- tendom and have lost its jurisdiction. If all jurisdiction flows from the Bishop of Rome (which is the modern Ultramontane fiction), then, in casting off his authority, our Church became schismatic. But it is enough to say that this Ultramontane theory is a recent innovation — nuper inventum et ante haec tempora inavditum. AUTHORITY. J65 Oar Church in the British period owed nothing to the Bishop of Rome. According to the ancient canons of the laniversal Church, every provincial Church possessed in- herent jurisdiction,''- and notably the autocephalous Churches, as of Cyprus and Britain. When Augustine received the Archbishopric of Canterbury, it was not as a lieutenant of the Roman Pontiff, but " as an independent bishop of a See in a country which had never been included in the Patri- archate of Rome,^ as the "Papa alterius orbis."^ Gregory, in fact, appointed Augustine to be Archbishop of London (though by the authority of the King of Kent he was actu- ally placed in Canterbury instead of London,* and Augus- tine was consecrated by French bishops ; but Gregory ordered that "for the future the Archbishop should be consecrated by his own synod" (i. e., in England), and that his jurisdiction should extend over the whole island. 1. See Bishop Forbes on Art. XXXVII., and Bailey on tlie "Jurisdiction and Hission of the Ang. Epis.," Sec. IV. 2. Id., p. 44. Cf.also note, p. 96, of "The Eng. Eef.," by the Et. Eev. J. Williams, D. I)., LL.B., Bp. of Conn. " The Eoman Patriarchate," says he, " in- -clnded the ten provinces placed under the Vicarius urbU, namely : Italy, south of the Italic Diocese, and the three adjacent islands." The editor of the "Church Times" says : " We know from Euffinus (and the matter has been thoroughly worked out by the great French Catholic scholar, Dupin, in hia treatise De A.nti- qua Disciplina) that the Eoman Patriarchate extended over no more than the ten "suburbicarian" provinces of Italy — those under the civil jurisdiction of the Eoman prsetor — and the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba. What decides Patriarchal authority is the right of consecrating Metropolitans. And the Popes did not get this power, even in North Italy, till the days of Gregory the Great. All the West, outside the limits named, was and is extra-Patriarchal." 3. Colt's Early Hist., etc., note, p. 140. "Pope of anotJier world."' 4. The Christian Kings of England always had a share in appointing bishops. See [e. fl.] the general synod of the English Ch., A. D. 1073, where it was decreed among other things : " If the Archbishop of York shall die, his successor, accept- ing the gift of the archbishopric from the King, shall come to Canterbury to receive canonical ordination."— Wm. of Malmsbury, Hist, of the King's Book, 3, p. 265. 166 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. The English Church was, therefore, complete in iU And as to its Archbishops, the learned canonist, Thomassi- nus, says : " The confirmation of the fioman See was not to be waited for." The Archbishops both of Canterbury and York were generally appointed by the king, elected by the clergy or Cathedral Chapter, and consecrated in England. Until into the twelfth century only two Archbishops of Canterbury, and none of York, were consecrated by the Bishop of Rome ; nor is there even "any clear instance of the Pope's confirming the election of English Metropol- itans till the time of Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1174." The English Church was never lawfully de- pendent on Rome, or Constantinople, or any other foreign See for her jurisdiction or ecclesiastical right to exercise her Catholic orders and spiritual power within definite territorial limits. " The English clergy derive their juris- diction from their own bishops, and these from their bishops who went before them back to the beginning, as every Christian Church whatever derived theirs, without one thought of the Bishop of Rome, for some 1200 years, and as the whole Eastern Church derives hers until this very day."® " The only difference in the ' English Catholic Church,' as it existed previous to the dynasty of the Tudors, and as it stood at the termination of the reign of William III., was that certain ecclesiastical abuses had arisen, which 6. Eaddan Apost. Succ. In the Gh. of England, p. 282. It stionld be remem- l)ered that the Bishop of Home wished the Council of Trent to declare that all jurisdiction comes from "the chair of St. Peter." This, however, the council expressly refused to do. See Forbes on the Arts, Art. XXXVII., p. 774. AUTHORITY. 107 were corrected by Parliament and the clerical synods in convocation ; but the identity of the ' English Catholic Church' was never destroyed. That sect which is now commonly called ' Roman Catholics,' are nothing but a mere body of dissenters from the 'English Catholic Church,' and have never, constitutionally speaking, been arbitrarily deprived of a vested right." — (" Delolmeon the English Constitution," quoted in Greave's " Vindication of the Right of the Anglican Chr.," etc., p. 152.) The Anglican Reformers certainly had no idea of com- mitting the sin of schism or of making a Protestant church. They simply designed — and in the Providence of God accomplished — the freeing and purifying of so much of the Catholic Church as came under their own jurisdiction. As Bishop Williams remarks : " There is not the smallest thought of separating from the unity of the Catholic Church of Christ, far less of founding a new Church. The law of historic continuity is aU along asserted and acted on." ® The continuous identity of the Anglican Church is distinctly asserted in the Preface to the English Prayer Book, in this passage : " The service in this Church of Eng- land, these many years, hath been read in Latin." It was, therefore, this same Church of England before as well as after the translation of its Prayer Book into a language under- standed of the people. But even had the English Church been guilty of schism (which she was not), it would have been justifiable (if ever a schism could be), for the corruption of Western Christendom had become intolerable. Even the Bishop of Rome himself, Adrian VI., who labored so hard for 6. Eng. Eef., pp. 122-3. 168 REASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. reform during his brief pontificate (but as Bishop Wil- liams naively remaiks, " Reforming popes seem to have had but short reigns "), freely admitted that " many abom- inations had existed for a long time, even in the Holy See. Yea, that all things had been grievously altered and per "-_ verted." Unlike the so-caUed " reformers " on the conti- nent, who broke altogether with the past, and kept neither jurisdiction nor orders, our Church retained both, and indeed used as much care that on her part there should be no schism from the rest of the Catholic Church, as that there should be no loss of the Apostolic Succession or the Orthodox Faith. Canon xxx. of the Anglican code, in allusion to the Reformation, says : " So far was it from the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, Rome, Spain, and Ger- many, or any other such like Churches, that it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies which do neither endan- ger the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men ; and only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen from themselves in their ancient integrity, and from the Apostolic Churches, which were their first founders." At the election and Consecration of Parker, there was no intimation of such a thing as his receiving and holding any difierent office in the Catholic Church from that of the sixty-seven previous occupants of the Throne of St. Augustine. The mandates for his election and Consecra- tion did not say that the Catholic Church being now at an end in England, a Protestant Archbishop would be elected for a Protestant church : but, on the contrary, after allud- ing to the vacancy occasioned by the death of " the Lord AUTHORITY. 169 Reginald Pole, last and immediate Archbishop," they ordered the election, confirmation, and Consecration of his successor in the same office, in the same Church? Indeed, one Bishop — Kitchen of Llandaff — held his sacred office Tinder Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, never for a moment imagining that he had been a bishop in more thaa one Church all the while. Out of 9,400 clergy, only 189, at the most, refused to accept the reforms which, how- ever important, were merely an episode in the continuous life of the Anglo-Catholic Church. Queen Elizabeth always professed herself a Catholic. When Pius IV. invited her to the Council of Trent in the same terms as the Protestant Princes, she returned an indignant remonstrance, saying "that " an invidious distinction is made between me and such other Catholic potentates as have been invited to this Council." She also wrote to the German Emperor and some other Roman Catholic Princes, declaring : " There is no new faith propagated in England ; no religion set up but that which was commanded by our Saviour, preached by the primitive Church, and unanimously approved by the Fathers of the best antiquity." Archbishop Parker, in his last will and testament, declared : " I profess that I do certainly believe and hold whatsoever the Holy Cath- olic Church believeth and receiveth." The mere casting oif of the usurped dominion of a foreign prelate, who had no more right to the obedience of England than the Bishop of Delaware has to the obedience of Canada, did not in the least mar the Catholicity of our Church. During the reigns of Henry and Edward, and to the eleventh year of Elizabeth — 1531 to 1570— the English Church reasserted 7. See Letters Patent in Chapter XVII. 170 RBASOlfS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. her independence of Rome,^ and yet those English Church- men who really believed in the supremacy of the Roman Bishop, none the less worshipped and received the Sacra- ments in the parish churches, just as before. As Lord Chief Justice Coke said, in 1607 : " Generally (of) all the Papists in this kingdom, not any of them did refuse to come to our Church and yield their obedience to the laws established. And they all continued, not any one refus- ing to come to our churches during the first ten years of her Majesty's government." The Queen also asserts the same in a message to the French Government, in 1670, saying : " They did ordinarily resort * * * in all open places, to the churches, and to Divine service in the church, without any contradiction or show of misliking." It was the same also in Ireland. Thus the whole nation was peaceably settling down to the old Church, " Catholic, Reformed, and Free," when, in 1570,^ the Bishop of Rome, Pius V., issued his famous buU, entitled, " The Damnation and Excommunication of 8. It mast be remembered^ too, that for some 200 years previous it had been unlawf nl for any English Churchman to receive any appointment from Home, or make any appeal to Home. 9. "On AjyrU 27, 1670, the shameful mandate went forth, bidding all who would obey Pius V. to break with their own English Church, to secede and form conventicles, to abandon and dethrone their sovereign, and to subject their country, if they could, to a foreign invader."— Curteis' "Dissent in its Relation to the Church of England." "The Church of Rome at the present day cannot be identified with the Church of England previous to the Reformation ; the Roman Catholic bishops in England and Scotland are bishops of foreign sees, and neither they nor those who have been schismatically consecrated for the sees in Ireland, which at the time of the Reformation were canonlcally filled, can trace any descent from the bishops of the ancient churches in these Idngdoms; the now bishops of the Church of England being the only representatives by episcopal snccession of the ancient Celtic and Anglo-Saxon churches ; and the strongest illustration of this position is that the votaries of the Roman Catholic religion are distinguished by AUTHORITY. 171 Elizabeth"!" — deposing the Queen, forsooth, absolving- all her subjects from their oath of allegiance, and com- manding them to withdraw from the Church. A mere handful of Englishmen, in disloyalty to the Catholic Church, and in treason to the Government, seceded and formed the Roman Schism or Italian Mission in England. We never excommunicated them ; we never broke fel- lowship with them ; we have never repelled them from our altars. As St. Cyprian said of the Novatian schis- matics in the third century, "We did not depart from them, but they departed from us.''^^ The petty Schism thus started aimed at nothing less than the complete subjugation of the Catholic Church and the State of England, to a certain bishop residing in Italy. But despite Latin anathemas, Jesuit plots and Spanish Armadas, God saved both His Church and the State. The Roman schism in England has been a failure. It is a mere parasite and exotic having no organic connection with the ancient tree, no lineal descent from the dear old Catholic Church of St. Alban and St. Chad, Augustine,. Theodore and Langton. It was not untU 1850 that the Bishop of Rome presumed to intrude diocesan bishops into English Sees, in direct violation of the thirty-sixth Apos- tolic canon re-enacted in substance again and again by the adoption of a new creed, which the English Catholic Church at no one period of her exiBtence ever recognized."— '-Delolme on the English Cnnatitution." "These are weighty words ; they show that the Church of England reformed itself constitutionally, the bishops and clergy in their convocations, the Parlia- ment and the King representing the laity, assenting alike to the changes. This is the Chnrch of England, and no foreign bishop has any lawful authority in its. borders."— Bel). J. A. Greaves. 10. See Coit's Early History, etc., Note, p. 70. 11. De Unit. Bocl., p. 256. 172 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. •councils provincial and general.^^ Pius IX., moreover, in making Westminster, instead of Canterbury, the Metropoli- ian See of Ms English schism, seemed to forget that his infallible predecessor, Boniface, in the seventh century, de- creed that Canterbury should forever be the Metropolitan See of all Britain, no matter what changes should take place, pronouncing dreadful curses on any one who should presume to alter his decree.^^ I leave it to any candid reader to say which are the schismatics, the Anglo-Catholics, who have remained in the old Church cleared of corruptions but not shorn of any mark of Catholicity, or the few Recusants who at the beck of a foreign prelate left their Mother Church and reared altar against altar ? The English Church never claimed to be Protestant, never once oflBcially wrote the word. As the fogs of the eighteenth century clear away, as people become more familiar with the history of the Cliurch and the principles of the Reformation, it will be looked upon as one of the marvels of history that we Anglicans should ever for one moment have imagined ourselves anything but Catholics; that we should ever, even in careless and casual conversation, have yielded the name, the privilege, and the honor of Catholicity to the Latin intruders, or allowed ourselves to be called by a misnomer borrowed from German sectarians. It is like a wealthy miser who persists in calling himself poor, till he comes to believe that he is a pauper. It should be remembered that William III., " the duU 13. Bailey's Juris, and Miss, of the Ang. Epis., p. 68. 18. Id., p. 47, quoted from William of Malmebury. AUTHORITY. l"?-? usurper of Orange" (as Bishop Coxe calls him), being desirous to identify the Catholic Church of England with Dissenters and continental Protestants, sent a message to convocation in which he speaks of his " interest for the Protestant religion in general, and the Church of England in particular." Even this indirect association of our Catho- lic Church with Protestantism was not allowed to pass Con- vocation, and after a thorough discussion, " an address of thanks was presented to the King in which the word Pro- testant as applied to the English Church was omitted." ** The unchurchly King was angry and mortified, and showed his unrighteous indignation by proroguing Convocation and not allowing it to sit again for ten years. The English Church in her authorized prayers says : " We pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church." [Query: Is this a prayer for Popery?] Again : " That it may please Thee to rule and govern Thy Holy Church Universal." — Sanctam Ecclesiam tuam Catholicam. Thirteen times a year every Englishman is expected to make that grand and stately confession which begins : " Whosoever will be saved it is before all things necessary that he hold the Catholic faith," and which abounds in such expres- sions as " The Catholic Faith is this," and " We are for- bidden by the Catholic religion," and in the Coronation Service the Sovereign is invested with the ring as "the ensign of kingly dignity and of defence of the Catholic Faith." 14. Here's Eighteen Centuries, p. 448. It is worthy of note, just here, that the official title of the Eomish Communion is not the " Catholic Church," but "The Holy Roman Church," or "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church." (See Creed of Pius IV.) Land left by will to the " Catholic Church " in England, has been awarded not to the Roman Schism In England, but to the English Church. (See Oh. Bel., Apr., 1886, p. 68. 174 RBASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. Even we American Churchmen (though we took the -civil title " Protestant Episcopal ") still claim to be and are that part of the Catholic Church which has lawfui juris- diction in the United States, and we authoritatively pray- that we may die "in the communion of the Catholic -Church. "15 15. The greatest mistake tlie Church in the United States ever made was the ■gradual acceptance, as a civil title, of the name "Protestant Episcopal "—which means (according to our missionaries who have labored to translate it into Ohinese) " The lontradictory Bishop's Church I " In the first place our Church is not protestant in the original ecclesiastical sense of the term, which is equivalent to Lutheran, having been conferred on -German separatists on account of their rprot^t against the Diet of Spires. In the second place, our Church is not protestant in the modern popular sense of the term, which means not Catholic. God forbid that we should ever «ease to be Catholics. In the third place, our Church is not protestant in the strict technical sense, -of protesting or remonstrating against the abuses of a sMperior authority, which. In spite of abuses, is nevertheless a lawful authority. We do not (strictly speak- ing) protest against Rome, for such protest would imply that Rome has authority over us, against some exercise of which we protest. But Rome has no authority over us; consequently we do not protest. We merely fall back on our ancient, inherent, co-ordinate CatMlic independence. This was admirably set forth by Dr. Thrall, in the General Convention of 1883. We are protestant only in the general, loose, vague and vapid sense in which every organization is protestant against er,ery other organization which in any way differs from it — the same sense in which we (and all Christians) are proteat- iint against Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Unitarianism ; the same sense in which the Church of Rome is protentant against ns and against the Orthodox Catholics of the Orient; the same sense iu which the word could be applied to any school of medicine or philosophy, any political party, any social club. Now in all seriousness and common sense, is it worth while to qualify the Catholic Church in the United States by such a title as that f — a title at best, meaningless ; at worst, foully misleading; a title which our Mother Church in England refused to countenance ; which even the t hnrch of Ireland (the least Catholic of all the branches of the Catholic Church) repudiates with scorn and indignation ; -B-hich only one or two (and they the most insignificant) of all the legion of protestant sects have incorporated into their legal designation. Who of us does not agree with Dr. PuUon, when he says: "I should be glad if the name 'Protestant' ■could bedroppedfrom the title page of our Book of Common Prayer"! (Am. Ch. Jlev., Jan., 1885, p. 315.) As to the other adjective, Bpiscopal, while It is true, it Is simple tautology. ■"Episcopal!" Why, the word CathoKc— nay, the very word Church connotes and implies all that. One might as well say a vertebrate man, or a stellar star- AUTHORITY. 175 In the words of the late venerable Dr. Thomas W". Coit: "To prejudiced Protestants who ignorantly eschew the word Catholic as dangerous, it may be enough to say, it is ridiculous (not to use a more solemn word — blasphemous) to say in church, in God's presence, ' I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,' and to repudiate or dishonor the word in man^s presence." (Early Hist. Note, p. 6.) "The separation," says Dr. Samuel Seabury (late Pro- fessor in the General Theological Seminary, New York), "was from the Courtof Rome in respect to its claim of juris- diction in England, and not from the Church of Rome in respect to any points of faith or order that had been ruled by the Catholic Church. Leaving the Bishop of Rome to govern the Churches of Rome, and the Churches also of as an " Episcopal Church." Moreover, the Church does not belong to the Bish- ops, but the Bishops to the Church. If we must call our Church "Episcopal" just because it has Bishops, why not call it Prcsbyterial because it has Presby- ters ? Presbyters are just as distinctive a mark of the Catholic Church— of the Catholic Church exclusively— as Bishops are, for no body can have Presbyters without having Bishops to make them. The fact of our having Presbyters differ- entiates us as vridely from all protestant bodies as the fact of our having Bfahops, for a Presbyter is a man ordained to the Christian Priesthood by a Bishop. Then, too, as one has said : " The term ' Protestant Episcopal ' has never been formally adopted as a title for our Church. * * * The title stole in upon us like a thief In the night. * * * Who put it there [on the title-page] 1 What printer, what private member of a committee, what unauthorized person t In vain have I searched the records of those days to find that the Convention ever adopted the title-page to the Prayer Book. * * * It was never formally adopted as such by the Church here in her corporate capacity. The fact is, the question concerning a proper title for the Church never came up. The utmost that can be said is that the title has only had a mere quasi adoption."— (" Faiiure of Protes- tantism," pp. 85 and 37.) The report of the committee of the House of Bishops, at the Gen. Conv. of 1883 (signed by the Bishops of W. N. T., Georgia, and Mich- igan), declares that the "name Protestant Episcopal was fo'ced upon us by external pressure of circumstances." And the Bishop of Chicago says, in his Convention address, 1884 (See Ch. Eel., Aug., 1884, p. 439), that this title " was at no time deliberately selected and applied to herself by the Church in this country." Finally, the name P. B. is nevel: used by intelligent Churchmen except in 176 RSA80NS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. such other countries as deemed it for their benefit to con- tinue subject to his jurisdiction, the Church of England, under the protection of the State, resumed the responsi- bility of governing herself and her members agreeably to the word of God and Catholic tradition. No change was made which offended the consciences of her members. The Church remained Apostolic and Catholic, and gave to her clergy and children this golden Rule of Faith : " Preachers shall, in the first place, be careful never to teach anything from the pulpit, to be religiously held and believed by the people, but what is agreeable to the doc- trine of the Old and New Testament, and collected out of that doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient bishops.' (Decree of Convocation, 1571.) official documents. "American Churcli" is the u$U8 loquendi; The Catholic Chuech in the United Status off America would be more exact. Our present civil title hurts us more than any other legacy of the eighteenth century. The old proverb says: " Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." The poor fellow may be as faithful as "Fido," but his name ruins him. It is true our nickname (P. E.) does not touch the essence of our Catholicity; but it re- quires constant explanation, and it hinders the work of the Church, the educa- tion of our people, and our intercommunion with other parts of the Catholic Church which are justly suspicions of a Church "which owns so bad a name." We might call ourselves The Prayer-Bookers, or The AntirAiheislie EaUesim- tical Church Militant here upon Earth, as a civil designation. It would, of course, be disrespectful to our Holy Mother; but we would noire tbe less continue to be the Catholic Church in the United States of America. Is it not best to call her what she is ? The General Convention of 18S3, from considerations of exped- iency, failed to adopt our rightful name. But as the Eev. J. A. Greaves, of Vir- ginia, says (see his "Vindication of the Bight of the Anglican Churches to the Use of the Name Catholic," p. B4) : " If the question had been as to the right to use the title [Catholic], we may be quite sure that the whole body would have voted for it." Such Eight will not long have to wait on a timid and (after all) mistaken expediency. The day is coming— God hasten it— when our legisla- tors [a majority of the House of Bishops is said to be already in favor of it] will give our Church her rightful name, to which our present nom de uuerre will give place as "Suowdown's Knight" to "Scotland's King," or as Tl Srmdoeane to "Haroun Alraschid;" and "P. E." will in thefnture be looked upon merely as the fi lias of our youthful dallylngs, the nomen fietum of our protestant escapades. Onr rightful name will then bear fruit to the glory of God. CHAPTER XIX. THE ATTITUDE OP DISSENT TOWARDS EPISCOPACY. "A self-formed Prlestliood, and tlie Chnrch caBt forth To the chill monntaln air." —I/yra Avostoliea, p. 143. *'It is required now, just as much as in the days of Christ^s ministry on earth, that no man shall take the honor of the Christian Pridfthood^ but he whom Christ, as Head of the Church, hath chosen and ordained to that office."— BwTiop Mcllvaine. VERY diflferent from the authoritative and Catholic reformation of the English Church were the revolu- tionary Protestant reformations on the Continent, which broke altogether with the past and lost the divinely com- missioned ministry of the Church. Far be it from us, however, to condemn a movement which, though less suc- cessful, was perhaps as earnest and sincere, and, from the greater abuses of Rome on the continent, more imperatively necessary than our own reformation. The candid student of history, however, must admit that for the Lutherans and Calvinists to leave the corrupt and tyrannous papal Churches of Europe was one thing, but that for English Christians to behave in the same manner toward the akeady freed, purified, and comprehensive Catholic Church of England was another and a very different thing. The changing attitude of those who left the Historic Church, toward the Apostolic Ministry is, to say the least, 118 BHASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. remarkable and instructive, (a.) First they revered the Episcopate, longed to retain it, and when they found they had lost the Aposiolic Succession, sought earnestly to recover it. It is well known how Luther and Melancthon believed in Episcopacy. Their confession of faith,^ speak- ing of bishops, says : " The Churches ought necessarily, and jure divino to obey them." Melancthon wrote : " I would to God it lay in me to restore the government of bishops. For I see what manner of Church we shall have, the ecclesiastical polity being dissolved." Beza protested : " If there be any (which you shall hardly persuade me to believe) who reject the whole order of Episcopacy, God forbid that any man of sound mind should assent to the madness of such men." Calvin, in his commentary on Titus (I., 6), admits that there was no such thing as " the parity of the ministry." Again he says : " If the bishops so hold their dignity, that they refuse not to submit to Christ, no anathema is too great for those who do not regard such a hierarchy with reverence and the most implicit obedience." Says Blondel, a learned Presbyte- rian : " By all we have said to assert the rights of Presby- tery, we do not intend to invalidate the ancient and apostolical constitutions of Episcopal pre-eminence, but that wheresoever it has been put down or violated, it ought to be reverently restored." The tremendous testi- mony of Grotius was quoted above in Chapter XI. And there is something touching and pathetic in the reply of Dr. Bogerman, President of the " Synod of Dort," to the English visitors (sent over by King James I.) when they reminded him that the Reformed Christians of Holland 1. Augsburg (part I., Art. 22), AUTHORITY. 179 had not retained the Episcopate. "It is not permitted us," said he, " to be so blessed " — " Nobis non licet esse tarn beatis." It is also well known that Calvin, Bullinger, and other Protestant leaders wrote to King Edward VI., in 1549, with a view to securing the Episcopal succession from England. The letter fell into the hands of some Roman Catholics, who forged a haughty and contemptu- ous reply .^ Such testimony might be multiplied to any extent. Grotius, Blondel, Chamier, Du Moulin, Cassaubon, Beza, Bucer, Le Clerc, Baxter, Doddridge, and many more, yielded to the unanswerable argument for the universality of Episcopacy in the early days, and used to place its origin either with the Apostles, or at least as far back as A. D. 150. And it has been shown that if Episcopacy pre- vailed then it must have prevailed from the beginning, for no such stupendous a revolution could have taken place within fifty years of St. John's death.^ 2. See Klp'e Double Witness, p. 79. 3. This attitude of dissenters toward Episcopacy has been well described by Bowden, Mines, Kip and others in their well known books. "There is yet another historical presumption, exceedingly strong, against those who now slight the apostolic ministry and orders. The unbroken and unquestioning usage of fifteen hundred years is in itself much. For how could It possibly happen, as Hooker well asks, that all that time, if the existing episco- pacy were wrong, no one Church ever discovered the right order, or doubted the rightnesB of the order which did exist ? But the presumption is strengthened still further when it is added that those who now deny episcopacy did not begin by doing so, but were led by circumstances into the want of it, and then gradu- ally, and by a manifest afterthought, came to make a merit of their own defects, and to defend as right what at first they only endured as unavoidable. * * * The controversy about episcopacy, or about orders, was not that which either originated the Reformation, or even occasioned it, or by which men's minds were stirred to urge that Reformation forwards. It was a controversy which grew out of circumstances, and was taken up after a time in order to maintain a position which no reformed community had srtvjght upon tts own merits."~"HaMan on ApostoUeal Succession, pp. 181, 136, quoted by Rev. Wm. A. Rich. 180 REASONS FOB SEIN9 A CHURCHMAN. (b.) Then came a period of blind self- vindication, when the Protestant organizations having (as a temporary ex- pedient) set up a non-E}piscopdl ministry, seemed bound ta give it a sort of ex pott facto justification and validity by boldly asserting that it was, forsooth, the primitive order, and that Episcopacy or prelacy (as they preferred to call it) was a corrupt and tyrannous usurpation. This as- sumption had to be backed by the most arbitrary exegesis of Holy Scripture, and the most amazing handling of the Fathers imaginable — ^it was indeed trandating them "by the hair of the head over to the side of Presbyterianism." This process reached its climax in the early part of this century, when Dr. Miller (for example) blindly and reck- lessly proclaimed that " for the first two hundred years after Christ " Episcopacy was unknown to the Church, but that " toward the close of the third century " — [Hear it, ye that have sat with me at the feet of St. Paul and St. John, Ignatius, Irenseus, TertuUian, Cyprian ! !] — " toward the close of the third century prelacy was gradually and insid- iously introduced." (!) Again he says : " We find no evidence whatever within the first pouE (!) centuries that the Christian Church con- sidered diocesan Episcopacy tlie Apostolic and primitive form. * * * It is not true that any one of the fathers within the first four centuries, does assert the Apostolic institution of prelacy." Dr. McLeod, of New York, even claimed that the sin of Episcopacy was so great that no bishop could be a minister of Christ, and that aU ordina- tions by bishops were null and void. Those were days of ignorant, bitter and unreasoning hostility to the Church, when our foes cried : " Down with AUTHORITY. 181 it, down with it, even to the ground ! " I thank God there is more kindliness and candor, as well as more truth and light, in the ecclesiastical controversies of to-day. (c.) The extreme anti-historical, anti-catholic, anti- scriptural position of Dr. Miller and his school, has now given way to a sounder scholarship among Dissenters, and a better, though not yet perfect, appreciation of the over- whelming evidence on the side of primitive Episcopacy. Dr. Schafif, a scholarly Presbyterian divine, and a pro- found student of Church History, ia speaking of the Angels of the Seven Churches, frankly remarks : " The impartial reader must allow that this phraseology of the Apocalypse already looks towards the idea of Episcopacy in its primitive form ; that is, to a monarchical concentra- tion of governmental power in one person, bearing a patri- archal relation to the congregation, and responsible in an eminent sense for the spiritual condition of the whole. "This view is confirmed by the fact that among the immediate disciples of John, we find at least one — Poly- carp — who, according to the unanimous tradition of Irenaeus (his own disciple, himself a bishop), of TertuUian, Eusebius, and Jerome, was, by Apostolical appointment, actually Bishop of Smyrna, one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse. " Add to this the statement of Clement of Alexandria, that John, after his return from Patmos, appointed bish- ops ; the epistles of Ignatius at the beginning of the second century, which already distinguished the bishop from the presbytery at the head of the congregation, and in which the three orders pyramidically culminated in a regular hierarchy j * * * and we assuredly have much in. 182 REASOJ^S ffOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. favor of the hypotheeis, so ingeniously and learnedly set forth of late by Dr. Rothe, that the germs of Episcopacy are to be found as early as the close of the first century, and particularly in the sphere of the later labors of St. John. * * * In addition to this, however, the Episco- pal system was simultaneously making its way also in other parts of the Church. * * * " If now we consider the fact, that in the second century the Episcopal system existed as an historical fact in the whole Church, East and West, and was unresistingly acknowledged, nay, universally regarded, as at least indi- rectly of divine appointment, we can hardly escape the conclusion that this form of government grew out of the circumstances and wants of the Church at the end of the Apostolic period, and could not have been so quickly and so generally inti'oduced without the sanction, or at least the acquiescence of the surviving Apostles, especially of John who labored on the very threshold of the second century, and left behind him a number of venerable dis- ciples. At all events it needs a strong infusion of skepti- cism, or of traditional prejudice, to enable one in the face of these facts and witnesses to pronounce the Episcopal government of the ancient Church a sheer apostacy from the Apostolic form, and a radical revolution."* Again Dr. Schaflf says : " It is a matter of fact that the Episcopal form of government was universaUy established in the Eastern and Western Churches as early as the mid- dle of the second century." 4. SchafE's Apostolic Church, pp. 63&-541, quoted in that new and most con- vincing little hook, "Plain Footprints, or Divers Orders Traced in the Scrip- tures," by Eev. H, K. Timlow, p. 10. AUTHORITY. 183 Dr. Fisher, of New Haven, also says : "All candid scholars must concede that the Episcopal arrangement in the form described may be traced back to the verge of the Apostolic age, if not beyond." The concessions of Mosheim, Gieseler, Neander, and Hase, are scholarly and candid, and show that any fair view of antiquity compels the admission of the univer- sality of Episcopacy. Their testimony is too long to quote here,5 so I give but a single sentence from Mosheim, and one from Hase. The former says : " The order of bishops could not have originated at a period considerably more recent than that which gave birth to Christianity itself." And Hase says : " The Episcopate was the divinely ap- pointed pillar which sustains the whole ecclesiastical fabric." AN IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION. If Christ appointed any ministry at all for His Church, it must be that ministry which, existing in the Early Church, has perpetuated itself through the ages. The only ministry which, as an historical fact, has so perpetuated itself, is the Episcopal ministry — it, and it alone, has organic connection- with those to whom Christ gave the divine commission. Has that ministry no authority ? Has it no claims upon Christian men ? Let us reflect. 5. See these and many other like witnesses in "Plain Footprints," chap. 1. CHAPTER XX. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND CONFIRMATION. " Veni Creator Sptritua, Mentes tuorum vtsita, Imple swpema gratia Quat Tu creasti peetora.' ' — WMtsnn Hymn, by Gregory the Great. " Sapientia, inteClectus, consilium, fortitudo, scientia, pietas, timer Domini.'' '* Draw, Holy Ghost, Thy sevenfold veil Between us and the fire of youth." —KebWs Christian Tear. IN connection with the primitive order of bishops which the Anglican Church has retained in unbroken suc- cession, comes the consideration of an important and Sacramental rite which it belongs to bishops alone to administer, viz. : Confirmation. Confirmation is defined in the Church Oyclopasdia as " The imposition of the bishop's hands, whereby the gift of the Holy Ghost is given to the person confirmed ; the strengthening of the soul by the grace of the Spirit." It is an Apostolic Blessing given to those who have been baptized, conveying to them grace and spiritual strength from God the Holy Ghost, to fit them for the worthy receiving of the Blessed Sacrament and the daily living of the Chnstian life. It is the completion of Holy Baptism, AUTHORITY. 185 a sort of lay -ordination to that "royal priesthood " ^ which is the privilege of all believers. It was typified by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon our blessed Lord after His Baptism in the River Jordan.* It was implied in the words of St. Peter : " Be baptized every one of you, * * * and ye sbaU. receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." ^ It seems to be alluded to in the beautiful Hebrew parallel- ism of St. Paul : '' But ye are washed [i. e., baptized], but ye are sanctified [i. e., confirmed], but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus [i. e.,in Baptism], and by the Spirit of our God [i. e., in Confirmation]."* The seven- fold gift of the Holy Ghost is " the inward part or thing signified ; " the laying on of Apostolic hands is " the out- ward visible sign or form." It is variously called Con- firmation, or the strengthening, from the idea conveyed in Eph., iii., 16 ; the Seal, from Eph., i., 13, and iv., 30 ; the Chrism, from I. St. John, ii., 27 ; and the Laying-on-of- hands, from Heb., vi., 2, where it is associated with repentance, faith and Baptism, as being one of "the prin- ciples of the doctrine of Christ," the " Foundation " of the Christian life. That it was the custom of the Apostles themselves to confirm is clearly shown in the eighth chapter of the Acts. St. Philip the Deacon went down to Samaria, preached the Gospel, and baptized many converts. As a deacon he could preach and baptize, but could no more confirm than he could ordain. What was to be done? St. Luke tells us : " Now when the Apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they 1. 1. St. Pet., ii., 9. 2. St. Matth., iii., 16. 3. Acts, ii., 88. 4. I. Cor., vi., 11. 186 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. sent unto them Peter and John; who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost ; (for as yet He was fallen upon none of them y only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." * * * « Through the laying on of the Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given. "^ Unless Confirmation had been an important rite, one of "the principles of the doctrine of Christ," the Apostles would hardly have taken the trouble to send two of their most prominent bishops, SS. Peter and John, to administer the rite to the baptized converts of St. Philip. Nearly twenty years after this, St. Paul, passing through Ephesus, found there twelve men who had received the Baptism of St. John the Baptist, which was not Christian Baptism, not the " Washing of Regeneration," not the New Birth " of Water and the Spirit," but merely, as St. Paul showed them, a "Baptism of repentance." Then he preached Christ unto them, and they were Christened or received Christian Baptism. After that St. Paul " laid his hands upon them," and they received the Holy Ghost.* In other words, they were sealed and received the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts (II. Cor., i. 22). These allusions to the Apostolic custom of Confirma- tion in the New Testament, are corroborated by the universal practice of the Church ever after. Baptism was held to be the initiation of a child (or an adult) into the Church ; but Baptism was invariably followed, either at once or after an interval, by the laying on of the bishop's 5. Acts, vili., 14-18. 6. Acts, xix., 5-6. AUTHORITY. 18T hands. In cathedral towns and in small dioceses, where the bishop himself could be present at all Christenings, whether of infants or adults, the Laying-on-of-hands ap- pears to have followed immediately after the Baptism, so that it came to be looked upon as almost a part of it. But where it was impossible for the bishop to be present at the Baptism, the Laying-on-of-hands was deferred until he could be present and perform the act in person " after the example of the Holy Apostles. " Thus rose the system of regular Episcopal visitations in every parish, that all who were admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion might be brought en rapport with the Chief Pastors of the Church, might receive the touch and the benediction of an Apostle. All this may be gathered from a few passages from the Fathers. Tertullian (born a. d. 135), after speaking of Baptism,. says : " Next to this the hand is laid upon us, calling upon and invoking the Holy Ghost through the Bless- ing.'"' St. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage (born about A. D. 200), says : " The custom has also descended to us that those who have been baptized be brought to the bishops of the Church, that by our prayer and by the Laying-on-ot-hands, they may obtain the Holy Ghost, and be consummated with the Seal of the Lord."^ St. Jer- ome (born A. D. 340) says : " It is the custom of our Churches that hands be laid on those who have been bap- tized and the Holy Ghost invoked over them." But lest any one should imagine that this Laying-on-of-hands was administered by the presbyters or deacons, he says explic- 7. Tert. De Bop., vii., and viii. 8. Cyp. Epist., Ixxiii., 8. 188 REASON'S FOB BBING A CHURCHMAN. itly : " This is the usage of our Churches. The hishap goes forth and makes a tour in order to lay his hands and to invoke the Holy Ghost on those in the small towns who have been baptized by our priests and deacons." But why multiply instances? Let it suffice to have seen that St. Paul declares this Laying-on-of-hands to be one of the " principles of the doctrine of Christ," that the allusions in the Acts show that it was the practice of the Apostles to lay their hands on the baptized. In addition io which the testimony above cited — of one who lived on the verge of the Apostolic age, of another in the next cen- tury, and of another in the century following — shows that it was the custom of the Catholic Church that this rite should be administered by the successors of the Apos- tles, with the imposition of hands, and with prayer for the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Confirmation was therefore Apostolic and universal, a note of the Church, a mark of primitive Catholicity. Said a learned Presbyterian divine, whUe working his way back into the historic Church : " I could not find in an- tiquity any beginning to this ' Laying-on-of-hands,' but at the hands of the Apostles. I would trace it beyond the Apostles to the Jewish Synagogue, where I could find it even to this day intervening between Circumcision and the Passover." Considering the primitive character, the Apostolic au- thority, the scriptural evidence, the testimony of the Fathers, and the universal practice of the Church, to say nothing of the intrinsic grace and practical utility of the solemn act which would give to every child of the Church the paternal benediction of an Apostle — which binds the AUTHORITY. 189^ font to the altar — it seems to me that no Church can claim to have continued in the fellowship of the Apostles, or to have retained all the marks of Catholicity, unless it has kept this " Venerable Blessing," ^ this Apostolic rite. The Holy Eastern Church with its eighty-five million members, has done so, albeit with a certain irregularity in the mode and form of administration. The Latin Church has done so, although the essence of the rite is somewhat obscured by various additional ceremonies. How is it with our own Church, the Catholic Church of the English- speaking race ? I answer, on this point as on all the essen- tials of the Catholic religion — " the principles of the doc- trine of Christ " — our Church has " continued steadfastly in the Fellowship of the Apostles." The venerable Bede tells us how St. Cuthbert, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, early in the eighth century, used to go all over his diocese, bountifully distributing counsels of salvation, '' and laying his hands on the baptized that they might receive the grace of the Holy Ghost." There is still extant a beautiful Confirmation office which was used in our Church's grand old diocese of York some twelve hundred years ago. The prayer in our present Confirmation office, begin- ning : "Almighty and everlasting God Who hast vouch- safed to regenerate these Thy servants," has come down to us by the constant use of the Church from remote antiquity, probably from Apostolic times. It was used in Eng- land as far back as we have records of the services ; it was 9. See a capital eermon with this title by the Kev. H. F. Hill, rector of Montpelier, Vt. It, with " Bishop Randall on Confirmation," and especially Bishop Lay's recent monograph on the subject may be nsed to great advantage in parish work. 190 REASOWS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN: used by St. Ambrose in the ancient cathedral of Milan, in the year 375, more than fifteen centuries ago, and still €arlier ; it is found also in the Confirmation offices of the Greek Church. In the Anglican Church since the sixteenth century some of the unnecessary accessories of Confirmation, such as the use of holy oil, the signing of the cross, and the blow on the cheek, which had gradually been added to the simple sacrament of the Laying-on-of-hands, have been geneijilly laid aside, and the rite is administered among us in its most primitive and Catholic form. I know not what words the Apostles used at the precise moment of the imposition of hands ; but they can hardly have used words much more appropriate than the sentence which our own Church puts in the mouth of the confirm- ing bishop : " Defend, Lord, this Thy child with Thy heavenly grace ; that he may continue Thine forever, and daily increase in Thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come unto Thy everlasting kingdom. Amen."!" Indeed the mere witnessing of the sacred joyous service of Confirmation, in which the venerable Father in God, lays his hands on the children of the Church and blesses them in God's name, has been the means of bringing back many a wandering Christian to his own true home While there is nothing in the nature of Confirmation to prevent its being properly administered to a little child, 10. The writer, however, begs to enggest to those who are intei-eBted in P. B. revision, whether the meaning of Conflnnation would not be more clearly expressed if the first word, "Defend," were changed to conf/rm — Confirm, O Lord, this Thy child, etc. The meaning wonld really be the same for the defense jillnded to comes only throngh being " strengthened [confirmed] with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Bph., iii., 16- A UTHORITY. 191 immediately after Baptism, (as is the usual custom in the Oreek Church), the whole Western Church — -both Angli- can 11 and Roman ^^ — has thought good to order that none shall be confirmed but such as understand the rudiments of Christian faith and duty, and are old enough to " renew the solemn promise and vow " that was made at their Baptism. No age is specified, but any ordinary child, properly brought up, ought to be desirous of Confirma- tion, and certainly sufiiciently instructed, when from twelve to fifteen years of age, some much younger, others not so young. It is at least the design of the Church that children, made members thereof in infancy by Holy Baptism, shall be brought up as children, not as strangers ; and that as soon as they are come to years of discretion, they shall " be brought to the bishop to be con- firmed by him," and then be admitted to the Table of the Lord. This is not "joining the Church ; " that was done fully and once for all in Holy Baptism, wherein the person is "regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church." Dissenters, therefore who desire to conform to the Church, ought not to feel aggrieved when they are asked to be conficmed. The ordeal called "joining the church," to which they may have submitted when they became communicants of their respective denominations, is not Confirmation, nor indeed even analogous thereto. So that to thoughtful Christians who have been brought up in non-conformity to the historic Catholic Church, Confirmation, instead of being in any sense an obstacle, 11. See third rubric after C.itecWsm In P. B.. closing exhortation in Baptis- mal Office, and preface to Confirmation Office ; also Canon 61 of the Eng. Ch. 12. For E. 0. usage, Bee Catechism of the Council of Trent, III., 7. "The time there marked out for Confirmation is between seven and twelve years of age." In the Anglican Church the usual age is from twelve to sixteen. 192 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. ougM to be looked upon as one of the chief inducements for returning to the Church, in order to obtain a grace and a blessing to which as baptized Christians they were justly- entitled, but of which they have been deprived by the insuflBciency of the bishopless systems of Protestant dissent. So keenly is " the conscious want of a connecting link between Baptism and Communion" felt by those who have lost the Apostolic rite of Confirmation, that most Continental Protestants (notably the great body of Luther- ans) have retained the outward form of Confirmation even though they have no ministry empowered to bestow it. "I sincerely wish," said Calvin, "that we retained this custom of the Laying-on-of-hands, which was practiced among the ancients." The Presbyterians and the Bap- tists in this country have oflBcially declared their belief in. it.^^ Had Confirmation, even as an empty form and with- out the Apostolic Ministry, been retained among our dissenting brethren, I am very sure that the heresy which denies Baptism to little children would never have made such havoc as it has in the religious life of this age. It is largely for want of Confirmation that Baptism has been transferred, with deplorable results, from infancy to adult age, in order to have some rite or ceremony of prepara- tion for first Communion. To all thoughtful Non-conformists, as well as to Church- men, who have not fully grasped the meaning of Confir- mation, I beg to speak a serious and loving word — call it preaching, if you wiU : You believe in prayer ; you believe that God in answer to prayer gives special grace through His appointed ordi- 13. See Randall on Confirmation. AUTHOBITY. 193 nances. Now go back in thought to the first age of the Church. Suppose you are one of those Samaritans whom St. Philip has converted. You have repented of your sins ; you have professed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; you have been baptized into the Church. But St. Philip tells you that two of the chief pastors of the Church, the Apostles Peter and John, are coming down from Jeru- salem to give you their official benediction, to lay their hands on your head and to invoke the Holy Spirit upon you. With what eagerness would you seize the precious opportunity ! You would hasten to the place appointed; and as soon as you saw the benignant face of St. Peter or heard the loving voice of St. John, and realized that you were in the presence of one whom your Divine Master had commissioned as an Apostolic Bishop or Overseer of His Church, would you not rejoice to have him lay his hands on your head and bless you in God's name ? Well, that is Confirmation. The bishops who visit our parishes every year come with the same office and authority as Peter and John, when they made the first Episcopal visitation of Samaria. If you believe in God ; if you desire grace and help and strength, — come in faith, and as the good bishop after the example of his predecessors, the Holy Apostles, lays his hands on your head and blesses you in God's name, you wiU be blessed indeed. In Confirmation, then, as in the sacrament of Regenera- tion, the Catholic Faith, and Holy Orders, the Anglican Church has continued steadfastly; and it is permitted us to see another golden strand in the cord which binds our Church to the Catholic Church of the Apostles, the Church which Christ founded on the Rock. CHAPTER XXI. THE ANGLICAN CHtJBCH AND THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD. " And then— as wlien the doors were ehat, With JesQB left alone— The faithf al sup with Christ, and He In breaking bread Is known." —Bishop Coxe, ChriMan BMads. IN the history of eternity there has been but one true sacrifice — that of the Son of God Who made " by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." This, the so-called sacrifices of the Patriarchal and Jewish dispraisations foreshadowed ; to it they pointed ; from it they derived whatever of meaning, virtue, grace they possessed. In like manner, our great High Priest, at the ofiering up of Himself, "did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that His precious death and sacrifice." The Eucharist, so far as its sacrificial character is concerned, differs fi'om the sacrifices of the elder dispensation chiefly in point of time. They prefigured ; it commemorates. They were a type ; it is a memorial. They were the shadow on the dial before the hour of noon ; it the shadow on the dial after the sun has past the meridian. AUTHORITY. 195 Christ bade His Church : " Do this for My memorial."' And the Church has done it, not as a renewing of Christ's sacrifice, but as a commemoration of it, a pleading of it before the Father, a " showing of the Lord's death till He come."^ And so from St. Paul^and St. Ignatius,* nay, €Ten fi'om our Lord Himself,^ to the American Prayer Book,^ the Table of the Lord has been authoritatively (as it is almost always popularly) called the altae, because on it is celebrated the sacrificial memorial of the one great Sacrifice. Scholarly readers will recall the eloquent passage in Origen's Second Homily, in which he speaks of seeing "Churches built, and Altars not sprinkled with the blood of flocks, but consecrated by the precious blood of Christ." Also the clear statement of Athanasius, in his Disputation against Arius, in the Council of Nicsea, in which he says that Christ " sent forth the Apostles, fur- nishing a Table, that is, the Holy Altae, and on it heavenly and immortal Bread." 1. Eia ten emen anamnesin. St. Luke, xxii., 19. 3. I. Cor., xl., 86. 3. We have an altar, etc. Heb., xiii., 10; cf. also 1. Cor., x., 18, 19, SO, 31. 4 " St. Ignatms, who lived in the Apostolic age itself, calls the Lord's Table the "Attar." See Epist. to the Philadelphians, Chap. Iv. Other early fathers frequently allude to the Christian altar." Blunt, An. P. B., p. 158. 6. St. Matth., v., 23 and 24. See Sadler's commentary on this passage : "If the Sermon on the Mount is to be for the guidance of the Church in all time, then there must be in God's Church, at all times, something which can properly be called an ' altar,' " etc. 6. See Office of Institution, Am. P. B , 4th rubric, et passim. Also the Bng- lish Coronation Service and the English Canons. It is fair, however, to say that t-he English Coronation Service was never presented to Convocation, and has thus never received the sanction of the Church. It is a purely State service. It Is important to remember this, as (while it uses the word Catholic) it also uses the word Protestant in the King' s oath. William III. introduced the word as a slap on the face of the Church for refusing to sanction it. Of course, it is inter preted to mean simply not Bomish. 196 REASONS FOR BJEIN& A CHURCHMAN. This aspect of the Holy Eucharist has been by some distorted, and by others entirely ignored. Judged by the usage of the early Church, the Romanists have dispropor- tionately exaggerated it, and the Protestant Dissenters have lost sight of it altogether — ^giving not even a minimum of recognition to the divine system of priest, altar, sacri- ficed Between these two extremes, the Anglo-Catholic Church has maintained a safe, primitive, and practical medium. Like the early Church, she gives due recogni- tion to the sacrificial idea by requiring (as she has always done) that no one but a lawfully ordained Priest (sacerdos) shall, present the " Pure Ofiering " upon the Holy Table, coneecrate the Eucharist, and pray the Father to " accept this our Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." The ideal expression of the Anglican view (which, as has been said, is the primitive) is to be found in the Scottish and Amer- ican Liturgies, especially in that meaningful passage: " We, Thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before Thy Divine Majesty, with these Thy holy gifts which we now offer unto Thee, the Memorial Thy Son hath commanded us to make." On the other hand, our Church leaves no room for the undue and disproportionate magnifying of this aspect of the Sacrament of the Altar. (See Article xxxi.) The Eucharist, however, according to the teaching of Christ and St. Paul, and according to the usage of the Early Church, as apparent in the primitive Liturgies and the writings of the Fathers, was not only a memorial of Christ's sacrifice, but also a Holy Communion or sacra- mental means of communicating to us the highest of all 7. See Bp. Andrewes', vol. v., p. 66, on "Altar, Priest," etc. AUTHORITY. 191 God's gifts of grace, uniting us to Him and to one another in the blessed " Communion of Saints." As St. Paul says : " The Cup of Blessing which we bless, is it not the Com- munion of the Blood of Christ? The Bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ ? For we being many are one bread and one body ; for we are all partakers of that one Bread." ^ The gift conveyed is nothing less than the Body and Blood of Incarnate God, "whereby we are made partakers of Him — as St. Peter says, ^' partakers of the divine nature." Look at the Bible-history of the Holy Communion. Our blessed Lord in His memorable discourse at Caper- naum (St. John, vi.), said : " I am the living Bread which came down from heaven ; if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live forever ; and the Bread which I shall give is MY FLESH which I wiU give for the life of the world." No wonder that the Jews strove among themselves, say- ing, " How can this man give us His flesh to eat ? " For a mere man to utter these words, would have been the height of madness, and the Jews would have been right. But it was Incarnate God Who spake ; He meant what He said, and therefore He repeated His assertion only more emphatically: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at ■the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dweUeth in Me, and I in Him. He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." 8. I. Cor, x , 16 and 17. 198 SEASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. These words were so straage, so unlike the words of any one else, that many of our Lord's disciples said: "This is a hard saying, who can hear it? " And many of them from that time went back and walked no more with Him. Nevertheless He would not retract His words, those " words of eternal life." Doubtless the faithful ones who still clung to Him were troubled, and cast in their minds what He might mean ; but they had not long to wait. For on the night on which He was betrayed, "Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said : ' Take, eat ; THIS IS MY BODY.' And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ' Drink ye all of it; for THIS IS MY BLOOD.'" » He said we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood , and then to show us what He meant. He instituted the Holy Communion, saying : " This is My Body," " This is My Blood." St. Paul also teaches that the unworthy receiver of the Bread and Wine, is " guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." i" His sin consists in " not discern- ing the Lord's Body." St. Ignatius speaks of certain heretics, who " confess not the Eucharist to be^;he Flesh of our Saviour Christ."" Justin Martyr, who gives us the first graphic account of the administration of the Holy Eucharist, says : " We do not receive these elements as common bread and com- mon drink, but we have been taught that the food which has been eucharistically blessed is the Flesh and Blood of that same Incarnate Jesus." ^^ Similar testimony might 9. St. Matthew, xxvl., 26-28. 10. I. Cor., xi., 2". 11. Ad. Smjr., Ch. Tii. 13. 1. Apol., LXVI. AUTHORITY. 199 be brought forward to any extent showing that in the Holy Communion the Body and Blood of Christ are (as our arti- cle says) "given, taken, and eaten." On the other hand, oui- blessed Lord and St. Paul taught, and the Early Church believed, that the bread and wine, although after Consecration properly called the Body and Blood of Christ, nevertheless are stiU. bread and wine, hav- ing no change of substance. Christ calls the consecrated wine His Blood, but He also calls it the " fruit of the Vine." *^ St. Paul calls the consecrated bread not only the Body of Christ, but still bread, " for," says he, " we are all partakers of that one bread." ^* And again "As often as ye do eat this bread ;" and " Whosoever shall eat this bread ; " and " So let him eat of this bread." ^^ The Fathers also assert the same. Says St. Irenseus : " The bread from the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things — an earthly, and a heavenly."!^ St. Chrysostom says that the bread " when once Divine Grace has, through the intervention of the priest, sanctified it, is worthy to be called the Lord's Body, although the nature of bread remains." ^'' Theodoret says that Christ " honored the sym- bols which are seen with the title of bread and wine, not changing their nature, but adding grace to the nature.'^ ^^ And Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, a. d. 492, says : " The grace of the Body and Blood of Christ which we receive is a Divine thing, wherefore also we are by the same made par- 13. St. Mark, xiv., 85. 14. I. Cor., i., 17. 15. I. Cor., xl., 26-38. 16. Adv. Hier., IV., 13, 5. 17. Epis. ad Caes., 0pp. T., III., p. 744, Ed. Ben. 18. T., IV., 36, Bd. Sch. 200 REASONS FOB BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. takers of the Divine nature ; and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine ceaseth not to be." ^^ Now, if we care anything for the teaching of Christ and of St. Paul, and anything for the belief of the Catholic Church in its purest days, we must admit two things: First, that the bread and wine are in some true sense the Body and Bhod of Christ; and secondly, that they are stiU bread and wine. It is altogether unnecessary to assume that there is any contradiction or inconsistency in this twofold truth. From Augustine, and even Irenseus, the Church has had a sim- ple and comprehensive doctrine which saves both sides of the truth, viz., that so well expressed in our Catechism, that a Sacrament has two parts, the " outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace." The Bible itself demands this definition. Such was the belief of the early Church ; and our Lit- urgy, Catechism, Articles and Homilies show that such is the doctrine of the Anglican Church to-day. " What," says the English Church Catechism, " is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper ? Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received. What is the in- ward part or thing signified? The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and in deed taken and eaten by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Diverging from this, the Catholic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist are two errors — both of which overthrow the very nature of a Sacrament, viz., (a) The doctrine of the real absence of the Bread and Wine; and (b) The doctrine of the real absence of the Body and Blood of Chiist — both 19. De dttob. Chrixti naturis. The passage is quoted In Sadler's Ch. Doct. and Bib. Truth (p. 137), a book Thich every Intelligent layman ought to read and study. AUTHORITY. 201 of which are equally opposed to the Church's Scriptural and Catholic Doctrine of the Real Presence, the substantial reality, of both parts of the Sacrament. I. The first of these errors is called Transubstantiation It denies the outward visible sign by declaring that aftei ^Consecration there is no bread and no wine at all, but only the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. And yet that Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, thus present, deludes His worshippers by the Protean trick of resmihling a piece of bread and a cup of wine — albeit no bread and wine are there, for the whole substance of the bread and wine has ceased to be, having been converted into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, into " Christ whole and entire," ^ but the " accidents " of the bread and wine, hav- ing supplanted the proper accidents of Christ's human Body remain to mock us. This doctrine of Transubstantiation was foreshadowed by Paschasius Radbertus, in 831, but ably opposed by Ra- banus Maurus and Bertram of Corbie, while in the tenth century the " Paschal Homily " of our own Aelfric, Arch- bishop of York, shows that the error had not then gained a footing in the Church of England. Lanfranc, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, in 1070, was the first to teach Tran- substantiation in our Church ; and in 1215, this rational- istic hypothesis, which " is repugnant to the plain words of the Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, 20. See Council of Trent, Sess. XIU., Cli. 4. See also Catechism of Co. of Trent, Pt. 11., C. IV., q. XXXI., which teaches in addition that in this Sacrament are contained " whatever appertains to the true nature of a body, such aa hones and nerves." Canon HE. of Sess. XIII., also teaches that "the whole Christ is contained under each species." From this premise it was easy to deduce the practical heresy of Communion under one species. See Sess. XXI., Canons I. jind II. 202 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. and hath given occasion to many superstitions," was de- clared an article of the Faith (!) by the Fourth Lateran Council. It must of course be acknowledged that Transubstanti- ation was for several centuries taught by the clergy of our own Church in England, though it is probable that all the while the general average of English Churchmen, guileless of Aristotelian metaphysics and scholastic subtilties, held substantially the same view of the nature of the Blessed Sacrament that they hold to-day. It is needless to say that one important part of the English Reformation was the restoring of the primitive, consistent, scriptural doc- trine of the iwo pai-ts of the Sacrament, and the Real Pres- ence of both. Out of the theory of Transubstantiation there gradually arose in western Christendom a most shocking and impi- ous abuse, the withholding of the chalice from all but the Celebrant himself. This half-Communion or Communion under one kind is nothing less than the robbing of Christ's people of the Blood of Christ, and a sacrilegious mutila- tion of the Blessed Sacrament. Christ had said, " Except ye drink the Blood of the Son of Man ye have no life in you ; " and when He gave the consecrated wine (as if guarding against this very abuse) He said: " Drink oK ye of it." The teaching of St. Paul is equally conclusive: "So let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup." The Catholic Church throughout the world administered under both kinds — the Liturgies and all the Fathers testify to this. Bishops of Rome (and our Roman Catholic brethren would have us believe them all infallible !), notably Leo the Great and Gelasius I., declared AUTHORITY. 203 this half-Communion a heresy, and ordered those who refused the chaHce to be excommunicated.^^ As late as 1095 the Council of Clermont, under the presidency of Urban II., Bishop of Rome, decreed that " no one shall communicate at the altar, without receiving the Body and the Blood separately and alike, unless by urgent necessity and for caution." ^^ The mutilation of the Sacrament began about the twelfth century ,^3 though in the thir- teenth, St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the primitive prac- tice (Communion in both kinds) as lingering in some Churches.^ It did not become general in our own Church till after the Council of Constance (1415), which decreed it y it was never willingly acquiesced in by our laity, and sometimes the clergy used to administer a chalice of wn- consecrated wine (!) for the sake of appearances and ta pacify the people. The sacrilege was of short duration in_ our Church, for the chaHce was unanimously restored by Convocation, December 2, 1547 ; and with the exception of the four years of Eomanist reaction under Queen Mary^ the Sacrament of the Altar has ever since been adminis- tered to our people in its integrity, as Christ appointed. II. The second great error which overthrows the nature of a Sacrament is commonly called Zwinglianism. It is the doctrine of the real absence, not of the bread 21. See Leo Horn. XLI., and Odasius av. Gratian de eonsecrat, quoted in Littledale's Plain Reasons, xxxiii., p. 83. Also "England versus Kome," by H. B. Swete, M. A., p. 160. 32. See Brown on the Articles, p. 733. 23. Cardinal Bona admits this. See Bingham II., 808. 24. In S. Joann., VI. and VII. The Greek Church, of course, has never refused to the laity the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ. ^04 REASON'S FOR BMIN& A CHURCHMAN. and wine, but of the Body and Blood of Christ. It reads a negative into God's most solemn affirmation. It transub- stantiates our Lord's declai'ation, "This IS My Body," into This is NOT My Body. As Transubstantiation ignores the outward visible sign, so Zwinglianism refuses to " dis- cern " the inward part or thing signified, which, St. Paul teaches us, is the essence of the unworthy reception of the Sacrament. The Catholic doctrine accepts both. Just as touching the Incarnation, Unitarians deny that Christ is God, the Docetse deny that He is Man. But He is both, and the Catholic Church adores Him, God and Man, the blessed Theanthropos. According to Zwinglianism, the Holy Communion is a bare, empty sign, and as such may be administered with- out priest, or altar, or divine Liturgy ; and among Ameri- can Dissenters is now, with fanatic presumption, usually administered without wine ; — vapid, outlandish, unauthor- ized compounds being substituted. Zwinglianism has, of course, never received any ecclesi- astical sanction in the Anglo-Catholic Church, either before or since the sixteenth century. Our doctrinal and liturgi- cal standards are as careful, on the one hand, to guard against it, as, on the other hand, to guard against Transub- stantiation; allowing, however, between these two extremes a, large and charitable measure of Christian liberty. Our Church, therefore, continues steadfastly in "The Breaking of the Bread." We Catholics prize and love the outward symbols which remind our dissenting brother of the broken Body and the out-poured Blood ; while, with our Roman brother, we reverence and " discern the Lord's JBody," receiving that "spiritual food and sustenance to AUTHORITY. 205 our gi-eat and endless comfort," holding each side of the truth without disparagement of the other. " Whene'er I seek the Holy Altar's rail, And kneel to take the grace there offered me, It is no time to task my reason frail, To try Christ's words, and search how they may he ; Enough, X eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, More is not told — to ask it is not good. I will not say, with these, (as) that bread and wine Have vanished at the consecration prayer; ¥wr less, with those, (=*) deny that anght divine And of immortal seed is hidden there. Hence, disputants I The din, which ye admire, Keeps but ill measure with the Church's choir." 25. Bomanists. 26. Zwinglians. CHAPTER XXII. "the pbayees." " They continned steadfastly in the prayers." (A mark of the Kariy Church.) — ^Acts, il., 42. ** Take with you words and turn to the Lord." — Hosea, xiv., 2. "If all the liturgies of all ancient Chnrches throughout the world be com- pared amongst themselves, it may he easily perceived that they had all one original mould."— The JvMotous Hooker. TO some it may be a surprise to be told that liturgical worship is a mark of the early Church, and hence a note of Catholicity, but it is assuredly so. I would not say that a body of Christians having the Faith, the Minis- try, and the Sacraments, would be necessarily un-Churched if they were to give up the Liturgy (as for a time the Catholic Church of Scotland did, with results melancholy and disastrous), but such a Church would be incomplete, not fully Catholic, and sure to deteriorate. Indeed, I be- lieve a purely human organization with a Catholic Liturgy (like the Irvingites) is more likely to keep the Faith, than a Church without the Liturgy would be. It behooves us, therefore, (a) to understand and appreciate the fact that the Early Church had its " Divine Liturgy," as well as its Faith, Ministry, and Sacraments ; and (&) to realize that our own Church, the Catholic Church of the English speaking i-ace, has preserved, in its essential integrity, AUTHORITY. 207 Catholic worship, as well as those other marks of the prim- itive Church in which we have already seen her historic continuity. Of all the kinds of authorized public worship, among Jews and among Christians, no such thing was ever known, until recent times, as a non-liturgical service. The usual custom of Anglo-American Dissenters in dele- gating their worship to the extemporaneous devotion of a single leader, would have appeared as absurd to a Jew, or to an ancient Catholic Churchman, as it does to-day to those of us who have learned what "Common Prayer" really is, who have been taught " not to bring unbeaten oil into the Sanctuary." The Tabernacle and Temple service, which was ordained by God, was absolutely liturgical. The worship of the synagogue, if not of Divine ordering through Ezra, had, at least. Divine sanction, and was approved and devoutly participated in by the Son of Grod during His earthly life. It also was absolutely liturgical. Fragments of the Mosaic ritual are given us in the Old Testament, and the whole in the writings of the Rabbis. Thus in Numbers, vi., 24-26, we have the divinely ordered form of priestly Benediction : " In this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel : The Lord bless thee and keep thee ; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace- "^ In Deuteronomy are given the liturgical forms to be used by the people in making the offering of first fruits,* and of the tithes of the 1. Our CliTirch retains this ancient blessing in tlie Visitation Office 2. Deut., xxvi., 5-11, and 12-15. 208 REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. third year, and the form used by the elders of a city in which murder had been committed.^ The Psalms also were nothing less than a divinely inspired book of devo- tions, and were regularly chanted or intoned by the vested priests and white-robed choristers in the temple. When Hezekiah remodeled the Jewish worship, we read that he ''and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer ; and they sang praises with gladness, and bowed their heads and worshipped." * We learn from the Talmud the whole arrangement of the services in connection with the sacrifices, the sabbaths,- and the holy days. Accurate translations may be found in Lightfoot's Temple Service. The Jewish ritual also fur- nished forms for all special occasions — circumcisions, mar- riages, burials and the like. And we have in minute de- tail the forms of worship used at the Passover, used there- fore by our Lord at the " Last Supper," and constituting the norra of the Christian Liturgy or Order for the Admin- istration of the Holy Communion. In opposition to all this, Dissenters often reply : 0, Christian worship is not based on the Temple Service but on that of the synagogue ! — which, they assume, was very much of the nature of an extemporaneous " prayer-meet- ing." Let us see. One has but to enter a synagogue to-day in order to see that the service which the Jews have kept up for more than two thousand years is as distinctively litur- gical as that of any part of the Catholic Church. Indeed a stranger happening into a synagogue might almost think that the service of Morning or Evening Prayer was that of 3. Id., xxi., T. 4. II. Chron., xxlx., 30. AUTHORITY. 209 a somewhat ritualistic congregation of Churchmen. The reading of Scripture lessons according to The Calendar, the chanting of Psalms, the intoning of beautiful prayers, especially the eighteen" collects which Ezra is said to have composed at the time of the return from the captivity, and which were certainly used in the time of Christ, bear as little resemblance to the modern " prayer-meetings," " ex- perience-meetings," " gospel-temperance-meetings,'' et id genus omne, as does the high Celebration at St. Paul's cathe- dral to the " love-feast " of a " camp-meeting." A graphic description of the synagogue services is accessible to all in Geikie's Life of Christ, vol. I., chap, xiii.; in Prideaux' Connection, part I., book vi., p. 375, and in many other works. Does it ever occur to the advocates of bald extempora- neous services how unnatural is the supposition that the Apostles, trained to liturgical worship in every detail of religious service, should have wrought a revolution in the very idea of worship, inconceivable to the oriental mind, and which would have appeared as irreverent and distaste- ful to them, as would the total abolition of the Prayer Book to devout Anglicans to-day ? Our Saviour certainly never uttered one word against the established forms of Jewish worship in which He Himself regularly and devoutly par- ticipated. St. John Baptist taught his disciples to pray ; ^ and Christ gave His Apostles the Lord's Prayer, which the Church has ever since universally employed in public and in private worship. It is worthy of note also that everj^ 5. A 19tli collect was added early in the Christian era, praying against Christians, 6. St. Lnke, xi., 1. 210 REA80N8 FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. petition in this prayer is to be found in the Jewish ser- vices. '' In His agony in the garden, our Saviour used the same words in prayer three times ; and when He, the Son of God, was dying upon the Cross, in His closing words to His Father (as one has said) " He used that golden form of prayer which David as His prototype, composed," " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Ps. xxii.) and, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." (Ps.xxxi: 5). The Church under the guidance of the Apostles soon shaped to itself, by adaptation and by composition, a litui'- gical service. In Acts iv., we have a picture of the Chi'istian assembly in Jerusalem, as " they lifted up their voices to God with one accord," in a beautiful prayer which breathes the spirit of the early Church, a sort of Christian psalm, carefully composed according to the rules of Hebrew Parallelism, and evidently said or sung in con- cert. The Colossians were bidden to teach and admonish one another " in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs " ^ which certainly could not have been extempore. The only early instance of unpremeditated and irregular wor- ship (if worship it may be called,) is the abuse which ex- isted for a time in the troublesome and self-willed congre- gation of Corinth, and to the rectification of which St. Paul so strenuously exerted himself.® His closing injunc- tion in this connection may well be the Church's motto in all ages : " Let all things be done decently and in order." The Liturgy, in the strict sense of the word, means the service used in celebrating the Holy Eucharist. It admits of no doubt that our Saviour, at the Last Supper, followed 7. See LigMfoot on St. Matt., vi., 9-18, and Home's Incjod. to Scrip., V. iii., p. 896. 8. Col., iii., 16. 9. See I. Cor., xiy., especially ya. 26 AUTHORITY. 211 the usual ritual of the Passover, inserting at the most appropriate places the Eucharistic blessing of the bread and wine, and the distribution of the consecrated Ele- ments. It is, moreover, reasonable to suppose that He gave the Apostles directions as to the way in which they were to " do this." Be that as it may, they certainly could never have celebrated that Holy Communion with- out recalling and reproducing the outUne of the Paschal service which the Master had used. His example was command enough, even if He did not explicitly order them to follow it ; and as a matter of fact they did follow it. Wherever they went they carried with them the same outline of the Liturgy, and that, too, based on the Paschal Sacrifice. Although it was not generally (if at all) commit- ted to writing till in the second century, yet it retained all its parts, and had only verbal differences in the most widely severed portions of the Church. In the great centers like Jerusalem, Ephesus, Rome and Alexandria, the Liturgies used bore the impress of Apos- tolic individuality, while still keeping to the general form of Catholic unity. Thus arose four great types of the primitive Liturgy, called, respectively : (a) The Liturgy of St. James, used in Jerusalem (and, in a slightly modified form, in Antioch, known as the Antiochian, Clementine or Apostolic Liturgy); (6) the Liturgy of St. John, used in Ephesus, Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; (c) the Liturgy of St. Peter, used at Rome ; and (d) the Liturgy of St. Mark, used at Alexandria.^" 10. These four Liturgies are the basis of all modem Liturgies. That of St. James is still used in the East, and is the basis of the Grseco-Russian service ; that of St. John is the basis of the Anglican, and also of the old Galilean and Mozarabic ; that of St. Peter, of the modern Boman use ; that of St. Mark, of the Coptic rite. 212 REAS0N8 FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. These all have twelve parts or divisions in common. The order in which these parts occur is not always the same ; the substance of each is the same, and even the verbal expression, though not identical, is so similar as to demonstrate a common origin. They differ less from each other than the four great races of men whom God " hath made of one blood for to dwell on all the face of the earth," ^^ and who may all justly claim a common origin from Noah, by whose sons " was the whole earth overspread." ^^ After Scripture lessons and a sermon with which the service usually began, the twelve parts common to all ancient liturgies are as follows : I. The Kiss of Peace. II. Lift up your hearts. III. The Tersanctus. IV. Commemoration of the Institution. V. The Oblation. VI. The Invocation. (The three last form the Prayer of Consecration, or Canon of the Mass.) VII. Prayer for the living. VIII. Prayer for the faithful departed. IX. The Lord's Prayer. X. Union of the consecrated Elements. XL The Communion. XII. Thanksgiving. This is the order of parts according to the Liturgy of St. James.'^ 11. Acta, xvli., 36. IS. Gen., ix., 19. 13. For tlie arrangement of tlie other Litnrgies, see Blnnt's Annot. P. B., p. 148; Cntt's Turning Points in Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 142, and Kip's Double Witness, p. lOS. See also, for some specimens, Sadler's Cb. Doct. and Bible Truth, p. 204. AUTHORITY. 213 The four varieties of the early Liturgy are at least as much alike as the four Gospels, which have so much in common that we are sure they are each based on the one oral Gospel which the Apostles taught for twenty years before they wrote down the first word. The Apostolic Liturgy is, in its substance, older than the written Gospels and Epistles. St. Paul himself several times quotes from liturgical forms used in the Early Church. This fact is clearly shown in Neale's Essays on Liturgiology (pp. 411-474), is often alluded to- by Cony- beare and Howson, and is admirably set forth by a lay- man of our own Church in a most instructive monograph on the Divine Liturgy.^* The worship of the early Church was liturgical, musical, reverent, symbolic, and, as soon as circumstances allowed, ornate. When the younger Pliny was Governor of Bithynia, A. d. 112, he wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan, in which he gives us our first post-Apostolic glimpse of Christian worship. The Christians, says he, " are accustomed, on a stated day, to meet before daylight, and to say antiphonally a hymn to Christ [^dicere secum invicem carmen Ohri^o] as to God, and to bind themselves by a Sacrament [or oath, Latin Sacramentum] not to com- mit any wickedness." The next description of Christian worship is given by Justin Martyr before a. d. 140 : "Upon the day called Sunday we have an assembly of all who live in the towns or in the country, who meet in 14. I refer, of course, to " The Divine Liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer," by Geo. W. Hunter, pnb. by James McCanley, Philadelphia, 1881. See p. 104; also, for St. Clement's quotations, p. 90. 214 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. an appointed place; and the records of the Apostles, or the writings of the Prophets are read, according as time will permit. When the reader has ended, then the Bishop [or president] admonishes and exhorts us in a discourse that we should imitate such good examples. After that we ail stand up and pray, and as we said before, when that prayer is ended, bread is offered and wine and water. Then the Bishop, also, according to the authority given him, sends up prayers and thanksgivings ; and the people end the prayer with him, saying, Amen. After which dis- tribution is made of the consecrated Elements, which are also sent by the hands of the deacons to those who are ab- sent." ^^ He also speaks of the Christians offering up " sol- emn rites and hymns." ^^ The prayer of consecration or " Canon of the Mass," is of course the vital and essential part of the Liturgy. It is impossible here to reproduce any ancient Liturgy in fullj but while referring the reader to Neale's translations; to Hammond's great work, and the little book of Hunter mentioned above, I will give a brief description of the so- called Clementine Liturgy which agrees with that of St. James, being probably that form of it which was used in Antioch." It is undoubtedly the earliest complete Liturgy which has come down to us, for it is contained in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which though probably not compiled until the third or fourth century, is made up of material of much earlier date. The four great Liturgies maybe traced back in substantial integrity 15. For the whole passage see Justin's Apol. I., Ch. 65-6-7. 16. Apol. I., 13. 17. See Probst, p. 231, quoted by Hunter. AUTHORITY. 215 to the fifth century, St., James' Liturgy to the fourth, and this form which I am about to quote, certainly to the third or earlier.^^ They can also be traced by fragments and actual quotations so far back that there can be no doubt that they were used substantially as we have them in the age next succeeding that of the Apostles, and were based on the oral Liturgy which the blessed Apostles used with the memory of the Last Supper fi-esh in their minds, and which Proclus (Patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century) asserts they agreed upon before they parted for their several fields of work. The fii-st part of the Clementine Liturgy — the part which we call the Ante-Communion or Proanaphora — begins with readings from Holy Scripture (which at an early date, probably by St. Jerome in the fourth century, were ar- ranged into the Gospels and Epistles for the day.^^) Then the Bishop says the lesser Benediction (which St. Paul quotes in II. Cor., xiii., 14), " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all." \_And let all answer'] "And with thy Spirit." Then follows the sermon ; and after that a deacon dis- misses the catechumens, and utters a bidding prayer, which bears a most striking resemblance to the corres- ponding part of the Jewish Paschal Office immediately 18. Hunter says of it; "We have here sacred words used by apostles and martyrs day after day and week after week, older, possibly, tban the Gospel of St. Matthew; older, probably, than the Epistles of St. Paul; older, most of them, certainly than the loveliest and dearest of all writings, the Gospel of St. John." P. 26. 19. The altar readings both of the ancient and modern Anglo-Catholic Church often differ from the modern Koman arrangement, in which case we generally follow the old order of St. Jerome, from which Rome has often departed. See Blunt, Annot, P. B., p. 70. 216 SEASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. after the discourse, bidding the people pray for the Church and the world, for bishops, priests, deacons, etc., for "the babes of the Church " (an incidental proof, by the way, of infant baptism). The bishop,^ who is here called the High Priest, says the prayer corresponding to our prayer for the Church Militant. Then comes the Offertory, when " the deacons bring the gifts to the bishop at the altar," and the wine is poured out. Just here occurs an im- portant rubric : " When the High Priest has prayed by himself with the priests, and has put on his shining garment,^ standing by the altar, and having made with his hand the sign of the Ci-oss upon his forehead, let him say : " The grace of the Almighty God, etc., be with you all." [And let all mth one voice say :'] "And with thy Spirit." IThe High Priest.] " Lift up your mind." IAU.'\ " We have unto the Lord." IThe High Priest.'\ " Let us give thanks unto the Lord." lAll.] " It is meet and right." [^And let the High Priest say ;] [The Peeface.J "It is verily meet and right, before all things, to hymn to Thee, the only true God," etc. Here follows a very long ascription of praise (which we have cut down to the Short Preface and proper Prefaces of our Communion Office) obviously based on the " Hallel " of the Passover ritual. It closes, of course, with the 20. In this copy of Liturgy tlie Celebrant is snpposed to be a Bishop : It is directed to be nsed by a Bishop at his first Enctaarlst after his Consecration. 21. The clergy of the early Chnrch, like the Jewish ministry, wore proper vestments as soon as it was practicable to do so. AUTHORITY. 217 Ceraphic Hymn, though in a somewhat fuller form than our own, "Therefore with angels and archangels," etc., the whole congregation uniting in the " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts," etc. The bishop then says a prayer which embodies a pharaphrase of the Creed, and also cor- responds slightly to our "Prayer of Humble Access," followed by the solemn Canon of the Mass, which I give in full that all may see how remarkably our Prayer of Consecration agrees with it : " Remembering, therefore, what things He endured for ■us, we give Thee thanks, O, God Almighty, not as we ought, but as we are able, and fulfill His command. [The Institution.] For in the night in which He was betrayed He took bread in His holy and spotless hands, and when He had looked up to Thee His God and Father, He brake, and gave to His disciples, saying. This is the mystery of the New Covenant, take of it, eat. This is My body, which is broken for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Likewise, when He had mingled the cup with wine and water, and hallowed it. He gave it to them, saying : Drink ye all of this, for this is My blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remem- brance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show forth My death till I come. [The Oblation.] Remembering, therefore. His passion and death, and resurrection from the dead, and return into the heavens, and His future second appearing, in which He shall come with glory and power to judge the quick and the dead, and to give to each one according to iis deeds, we offer to Thee, King and God, according to 218 REASONS FOR BE IN 9 A CHURCHMAN. His command, this bread and this cup, giving thanks to Thee through Him, in that Thou hast thought us fit to stand before Thee, and to sacrifice to Thee. [The Invocation.] And we beseech Thee that Thou wilt favorably look upon these gifts which now lie before Thee, O Thou God, who need est naught, and be well pleased with them in honor of Thy Christ, and send down upon this Sacrifice Thy Holy Ghost, the Witness of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, that He may make this bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of Thy Christ, that they who partake thereof may be strengthened in piety, may obtain remission of sins, may be delivered from the devil and his deceit, may be fiUed with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of Thy Christ, may obtain eternal life, since Thou art reconciled to them, O Lord Almighty." I give here the corresponding prayer in our Prayer Book to show how primitive our Liturgy is : The Institution. "All glory be to Thee, Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for that Thou, of Thy tender mercy, didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption ; "Who made there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world ; and did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that His precious death and sacrifice, until His coming again : For in the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread ; and when He had given thanks. He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying : Take, AUTHORITY. 21» eat, this is My Body, which is given for you ; do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise, after supper, He took the cup ; and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this ; for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins ; do this, as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of Me. The Oblation. Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of Thy dearly be- loved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, we. Thy humble ser- vants, do celebrate and make here before Thy divine Majesty, with these Thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto Thee, the Memorial Thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance His blessed passion and precious death. His mighty resurrection and glorious as- cension; rendering unto Thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same. The Invocation. And we most humbly beseech Thee,. O most merciful Father, to hear us; and, of Thy Almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with Thy Word and Holy Spirit these Thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine ; that we, receiving them according to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood. " * * * After the prayer of consecration follow some special in- tercessions for the living and for the faithful departed,^ which we have in the concluding part of the Canon and also in the prayer for the Church Militant. Next comes the Gloria in Excdsis, though in a shorter and more ancient 220 REASONIS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN, form than that of other Liturgies, including our own. The Oommunion follows, the bishop, priests and deacons first receiving, and then the people in order, " with reverence and godly fear." " [And let the bishop give the offering, saying ;] The Body of Christ. [And let him that receiveth, say .•] Amen. [And let the deacon take the cup, and giving it, say .■] The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Life. [And let him that drink- eth, say .•] Amen. The 34th Psalm follows, corresponding to our Commun- ion Hymn. And the concluding prayers correspond with our post-Communion prayer. This is a fair specimen of the early Liturgy, tne chief and central service of the primitive Catholic Church. And as we compare our own with it, we may well thank God that our Church has " continued steadfastly in the prayers." CHAPTER XXIII. THE ANGLICAN CHUECH AND " THE PRAYERS." " In beauty built and migbt For Apostolic service And high liturgic rite." —Bishop Coxe, Ch/riaUan Ballacls. "Here rises with the rising morn Their incense unto Thee, Their bold confession Catholic And high Boxology. Soul-melting Litany is here, And here, each holy feast. Up to the Altar duly spread Ascends the stoled Priest." —Same. THE striking resemblances which we have noted be- tween the Liturgy of our Prayer Book and the Litur- gies used in the Early Church are not the result of chance nor of imitation, but of hereditary possession and un- broken usage. Our Church inherited Catholic worship just as she inherited Catholic Faith, Order and Sacra- ' ments. The " Liturgy of St. John," ^ used in Ephesus, until the fourth century, was very early carried to Gaul, Spain and Britain, receiving, of course, certain modifications as the 1. The Liturgy of Bphesns, though commonly called the "Liturgy of St. John," is thought by many to be more properly the Liturgy of St. Paul, as it was really he who organized the Church in Ephesus, and ordained Timothy as the first bishop of that city. -222 REA80N8 FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. needs of the Church required. It was used in Gaul until the time of Charlemagne, who introduced the Roman Use, about A. D. 800 ; and in Spain until the eleventh century, when there also it was superseded by the Roman — although since the sixteenth century it has been, and is still, used in Toledo, in a college and chapel endowed for that purpose by Cardinal Ximenes. The British Church was no more indebted to Rome for her Liturgy than for her other marks of Catholicity. She used a form of the Liturgy of St. John, substantially iden- tical with that used in Gaul. When Augustine found that the British Christians used a somewhat different form of worship from that to which he had been accustomed in Rome, he was very much perplexed, and wrote to Greg- ory, the Roman bishop, to know what to do. Gregory's answer was most wise and charitable ; and to it we are indebted for the preservation of our own beautiful and independent Liturgy, which, based on that of St. John, is still our glory and the precious vehicle of our devotions. Instead of forcing the Roman form on the Anglo-British Church, Gregory wrote to Augustine : " You, my brother, are acquainted with the customs of the Roman Church in which you have been brought up. But, it is my pleasure, that, if you have found anything either in the Roman or the GaUican or any other Church, which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you care- fully make choice of the same ; and sedulously teach the Church of the English, which is at present new in the Faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several Churches. * * * Select, therefore, from each Church those things which are pious, reUgious and correct ; and AUTHORITY. 223 when you have made these up into one body, instil this into the minds of the English for their use."? Augustine, of course, made not a few modifications in the direction of the Roman Use, which was, perhaps, at that time the more elaborate and complete service. But as a great majority of the Saxons were converted by the mis- sions of the old Celtic Church, the English race clung tenaciously to its independent ritual. As a matter of fact the Roman Missal and Breviary were never ysed in Eng- land's Church, except in some of the monasteries. At- tempts to enforce the Roman Use (as at Cloveshoo, a. d. 747), encountered a stern resistance, a resistance in some respects more successful than certain other Italian en- croachments met with. In 1085, St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, revised the offices of the Church, and his re- vision (known as the Sarum Use) became quite general throughout our Church. Certain dioceses, however (as York, Bangor, Hereford, and London till 1414), retained to some extent local Uses, all of which, however, were clearly independent of the Roman Use. Very extensively during the Saxon period, and almost wholly after the Norman Conquest, the offices of our Church were said in Latin for obvious reasons.^ Moreover, many corrupt additions had crept into our formularies of worship, such as prayers, hymns and litanies which paid 8. Greg, opera, n., IIBI, Ben. Bd. and Bede's Bccl. Hist., I., S. 7. 3. Latin was a sort of universal language in the West, for devotional pur- poses far superior to the vemacula/r which was undergoing constant change, es- pecially after the Conquest. Our Church has no objection to the use of Latin where it is understood by the congregation ; accordingly an authorized Latin ver- sion of the P. B. was put forth for use in the universities and classical schools in England, and the opening service and sermon at convocation and at some of the diocesan synods in England, are still in Latin. Even in the parish churches, 224 BMASONS FOR BBIN9 A CHURCHMAN. to saints and angels and especially to the Mother of our Blessed Lord, an almost idolatrous veneration, clearly for- bidden in Holy Scripture and unheard of in the primitive Church. Then, too, the calender was so cumbered up with superfluous Saint's Days, and the services were so com- plicated, and the daily offices in the monasteries left so little time or inclination for daily prayers in the parish churches that a reform in our devotional system was as clearly caUed for as the other reforms, in the sixteenth century, of which we have already treated. And in the Providence of God this, like the others, was effected grad- ually and without any break of continuity. The invention of printing now enabled the Church to put Prayer Books as well as Bibles in the hands of the people, and became a powerful instrument for reform. Something in the way of devotional reform was accom- plished in 1516, probably through the influence of Cardi- nal Wolsey, and more in 1531. The " Prymers " and " The Mirroure of our Ladye " followed, giving in English, the Epistles, Gospels, Litany, and other parts of the services, with explanations. In 1541 the Lessons were ordered to be read in English. Three years later the Litany was ad- mirably revised and authorized to be sung in English. In 1547 Convocation adopted an " Order of the Communion " in English to be appended to the usual Latin Liturgy, and providing for the restoration of the chalice to the laity. where the Englisli clergy are obliged to say Matins and Evensong every day, if no congregation be pregent, the service may he said in Latin. Had the govern- ment allowed the Irish Chnrch to retain Latin after the Beformation, instead of forcing English upon it, the probability is that a large majority of the native Irish would have remained in the Old Chnrch, instead of being driven into the Roman schism. The Irish were used to Latin, but hated English. AUTHOBITY. 225 And finally on Whitsun Day, 1549, the whole service of the Church— viz. : " Matins " and " Evensong," " The Holy Communion commonly called the Mass," and many special offices — was universally adopted in superb idiomatic Eng- lish, by authority of Convocation and Parliament. This great work, commonly called the " First Prayer Book of Edward VI.," is, in the judgment of competent liturgiolo- gists, the most perfect form of Catholic worship ever used in the Church of God.* Although this Prayer Book was in some respects new — the old services being purified and simplified as well as translated, and the " Seven Hours " being condensed into the two ofl&ces of Matins and Evensong — yet it was essen- tially identical with the old, and Archbishop Cranmer offered to prove that " the order of the Church of England, set out by authority of Edward VI., was the same that had been used in the Church for fifteen hundred years." ^ There have been several subsequent revisions of the Prayer Book, but the English, Scottish, Irish,- and Ameri- can Books, to-day, differ but little from the Prayer Book of 1549, the Scottish being the most perfect of the four, and the American next. Still the differences are so slight that the different members of the Anglo-Catholic family are hardly aware of any diversity in their grand, pure, an- cestral system of divine worship — which, as a service of CrnnmiM Prayer is far superior to the Roman system in which participation in the worship is almost exclusively limited to the clergy and the choir, besides being far less 4. A capital reprint of tliia booli, with a preface by Dr. Dix, may be had of the "Ch. Ealender Prens," New York. 5. Bp. Jeremy Taylor's Works, vii., 893. 226 BEASOWS FOE BEING A CHURCHMAN. primitive and pure, and " in a tongue not understanded of the people." As to all kinds of non-liturgical worship, no comparison is possible ; they are not to be mentioned in the same breath. As one looks at the whole question of public worsnip, and remembers how precious the Prayer Book is to many a Christian heart outside the Anglican Church,^ it be- comes a matter of wonderment that any body of English speaking Christians, even after they had cast off their allegiance to the Historic Church, should ever have given up the liturgical worship of the sanctuary. Luther and Calvin, and Knox and Wesley,'^ and almost every leader of secessions from the Church believed in the liturgical system, and put forth elaborate forms of public prayer, which are still largely retained by continental Protestants. But for more than two centuries almost all English and American Dissenters have had the strange notion (not taught by their founders nor dreamed of before in all Jewry and Christendom) that liturgical worship was un- scriptural, insincere, unedifying !— a sentiment character- istically expressed by " Sam Lawson," when he said : " Now readin' prayers out of a book, that ere' don' strike me as just the right kind o' thing. For my part I like 6. Dr. Adam Clarke, a distingnislied Metbodist, said: "The liturgy is almoBt universally esteemed by the devout and pious of every denomination, and, next to the translation of the Scriptures into the English language, is the greatest effort of the Reformation. As a form of devotion it has no equal in any part of the Universal Church of God. Next to the Bible, it is the Book of my understanding and my heart." Similar testimony, especially in this country during the last twenty years, might be multiplied to any extent. 7. In classing Wesley among the leaders of secession, it must he remem- bered that he was such only indirectlj and unintentionally. He lived and died a loyal Catholic priest, and his dying injunctions to his followers were never to leave the Church of England. AUTHORITY. 227 prayers that come right out of the heart." ^ As though, forsooth, a prayer born in the intellectual throes of extem- poraneous utterance on the part of the leader, and followed by the audience on the qui vive of uncertain expectancy and mental adoption, could somehow be more devotional, more directly from the heart, than the chaste, hallowed, fa- miliar devotions of the Prayer Book, when, the mental effort of recollection and invention — the cerebral struggle with syntax and vocabulary — being in abeyance, the whole en- ergy of the soul is centered in the heart, and the heart itself lifted to God in the ecstacy of pure and ennobling worship. This truth, with others, is strongly, but with no real lack of charity, expressed by a leading Presbyterian min- ister on the eve of his return to the Historic Church : " To be losing my time and patience, and to be injuring my devotional taste and temper with the ' gifts ' of the brethren in a stupid prayer-meeting, when I might be wafted toward heaven in the sublime strains of a holy liturgy ; to be frequenting a more public service, where prayer was curtailed, and Holy Scripture almost excluded, and a few short verses of rhyme sung only as an interlude or rest, and all this, done systematically, to make room for a labored sermon," etc., etc., " when by a single step I might enter the larger liberty of a Church which breathes, and believes, and prays, and praises as she did when Irenseus, Ignatius and Polycarp beheld her glory, and the noble army of martyrs died for her as the pure spouse of Christ — all this had now become a burden too great for me to bear."^ 8. Mrs. H. B, Stowe's " Oldtown Polks," p. 386. 9. Mines' Pres. Clerg., p. 140. 228 RBASONS FOB BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. How did such a system of public service ever arise and gain adherents, not to say devotees, among Christian men ? It will be a surprise to many to be told that it was largely the work of Jesuits in England,^" who, in the disguise of zealous Protestants, made some weaker members of the Church and the larger portion of Nonconformists ill affected toward the Church's worship, in order to create divisions, anarchy, and confusion, that on the ruins of England's Faith, they might erect, as on heathen soil, a foreign and corrupt Church. They were successful in ruining the public worship of Dissent, but the Church of England, "the Bulwark of the Reformation," kept the Catholic worehip, which, in turn, has kept her from man- ifold ill. And we may now thank God that English- speaking Christians of every name are more and more coming back to the principles of Prayer Book Worship. The remarkable Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer^ compiled by the devout and scholarly Dr. Shields, of Princeton, the earnest efforts of Drs. Hopkins and Hitch- cock, also among the Presbyterians, and of other like- minded men in different denominations, and the superb liturgy compiled by the little sect of Irvingites, are a few among many indications that the prejudice against litur- gical worship is being done away. There has been, too, a sudden waking up to the fact that hymns, which are for 10. "They (i. e., extemporaneouB services) were contrived by popish emis- saries disgnised in the garb of Protestantism, and pretending the ntmost abhor- rence of V7hat they stigmatized as the corrnptions of popery still existing in the English Church. The object was to produce division and dissension, as the surest mode of bringing the reformed religion into disrepute, and regaining the ascendency once enjoyed by the Boman pontiff. For this purpose, among other things, they were loud in their invectives against the liturgy," eta.— Sermons an, the Church, by the Rev. 6. T. Chapman, D. D., p. 188. AUTHORITY. 229 the most part nothing but rhythmical prayers, are as dis- tinctly liturgical as the Litany or the Psalter ; and if it is right to sing litui'gical prayers in verse, it can hardly be wrong to say or to sing them in prose. It cannot be claimed that our Prayer Book is absolutely perfect, but it is at least marvelously good.'^ Cast in the words of Holy Scripture (for more than nine-tenths of it is taken directly from the Bible), framed on the general plan of primitive Apostolic worship, of which it is the lineal descendant, cleansed from all mediaeval corruptions, expressed in the purest style of the best of modern lan- guages, consecrated by the devout use of generations of saints who now rest in Paradise, and withal adapted to the devotional needs of the rich and of the poor, of the high and of the lowly, in this and every age, we may weU thank God for the Book of Common Prayer, rejoicing that our beloved Church has " continued steadfastly in the Pray- ers." 11. See a notable article by Dr. Shields in the Century (Nov., 1885). Speak- ing of the liturgical movements among the sects, tbe learned Presbyterian declares : ^' It must have its logical conclusion in the English Prayer Book as the only Chrintian IMurgy worthy the name. * * * The English Liturgy, next to the English Bible, is the most wonderful product of the Reformation." He adds, that if the reunion of American Christianity ever comes, "it must come through the spirit of Protestant Catholicism, of which the English Liturgy, properly amended and enriched, would be the best conceivable embodiment." —p. 84. CHAPTER XXIY. THE CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT FOE THE CHUECH'S AUTHOR- ITY BASED ON HISTORIC CONTINUITY. "One only Way to Life; One Faith, delivered once for all; One holy Band, endowed with Heaven's high call; One earnest, endless strife; — This is the Church the Eternal framed of old. "Smooth, open ways, good store; A Creed for every clime and age, By Mammon's touch new moulded o'er and o'er; No cross, no war to wage; — This is the Church our earth-dimmed eyes behold. " But ways must have an end, Creeds undergo the trial flame. Nor with the impure the Saints forever hlend. Heaven's glory with our shame: Think on that hour, and choose 'twixt soft and bold." —Keble on Dissent. IN connection with the prayers in which our Church has continued steadfastly, it is worthy of note that even in the manner and the accessories of public worship, our Church has followed the general course marked out by the primitive Church. Dissenters usually sit down to pray and often to sing praises, and almost all of them, at their Communion ser- vices, receive the elements in the same undevotional pos- ture. It is the custom of Churchmen, enforced by rubic AUTHORITY. 231 and canon law, to make hodUy reverence an accompani- ment, or rather a part, of divine worship, the general prin- ciple being for the congregation to kneel in prayer, to stand in praise, and to remain seated during other parts of the ser- vice, such as the lessons and the sermon. That this change of position is a rest in itself, and relieves the monotony of a long service is a practical argument in its favor ; but the real ground of it is the authority of primitive example and unbroken Church usage, which is after all the natural expression of the devotional instinct. Perhaps some one will say : What has the position of the muscles and bones of my body to do with the prayers of my soul ? What difiference does it make whether the angle of articulation between the femur and the tihia be an angle of 90 or of 180 degrees? — that is to say, whether the knee be bent or no. Well, as a matter of physical anatomy it makes no diflfierence ; as an act of bodily exer- cise it profiteth little. But as a matter of religious ser- vice, of sincere devotion, it marks the difference between the reverent worshipper and the in-everent. What differ- ence does it make whether a man enter a drawing-room with proper decorum, or with hat on and hands in pockets ? Why, just the difference between a gentleman and a clown. We strive to be polite, urbane, considerate of others ; and well we may. Domestic decorum, social civility, and grace of manner, born of the instinctive courtesy which renders honor to whom honor is due, not only prove the kindly heart within, but by a well known law of reciprocal action, minister to and increase the same. He who would be cour- teous must act courteously; and he who would be reverent in heart must be reverent in his outward demeanor. There 232 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. is then such a thing as divine courtesy, the humble, rever- ent, etiquette of God's House, the grand and worshipful decorum of the palace and court of the Great King. What ! shall we be polite to our fellow-men, and rude to our Heavenly Father? Shall we regard even the artificial conventionalisms of society, and forget the ritual of God's Church? Shall we observe the proprieties of the parlor, and not respect the sanctities of Jehovah's temple ? Shall we present a petition to an earthly prince, on bended knee, and (like English courtiers) bow even before the empty throne of majesty; and yet, when we offer our prayers to the King of Kings, shall we sit bolt upright, or stand with- out so much as a feeling of awe before God's Altar Throne ? Surely to ask such questions is to answer them. And as to Scriptural warrant and primitive example, what a cloud of witnesses surrounds us ! See Abraham " bowed toward the ground " in the plains of Mamre,^ and his servant Eliezer, when by the well of the city of Nahor, "he bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord."* Witness Moses and Aaron on their faces before the Ark of God,^ and David throughout his life of prayer. Witness Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, "before the altar of the Lord, kneeling on his knees, with his hands spread up to heaven." * Call to mind that memorable occa- sion when "Jehosaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and aU the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord."^ Witness Daniel when, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, "he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave 1. Gen., xviii., 8. S. Gen., xxiv., 48. 3. Num., xx., 6; xvi., 38, etc. 4. I. Kings, viii., 54. 5. 11. Chron., xx., 18. AUTHORITY. ' 233 thanks before his God."^ Behold our Divine Master — in His agony in the garden He " fell on his face and prayed." '' See the Martyr Stephen,^ and St. Peter,^ and St. Paul,i<' on their knees in prayer. St. John also gives us a glimpse of angelic ritual in heaven. He looks, and lo ! " the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the, throne. * * * And all the angels fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped <3-od."ii The same principle of reverence was carried into the early Church. St. Paul says : " I bow my knees unto the Father," 1^ and "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,"^^ while St. James, the first Bishop of Jeru- salem, used to spend so much of his time in the true atti- tude of devotion, that his knees became like the knees of camels. There are, of course, among the different races of men, certain dififerences in the manner of expressing reverence. Western races uncover the head as an act of reverence ; Orientals remove the shoes, which is as natural to them as lifting the hat is to us. Races dififer also as to their posture in prayer. Some stand, some kneel, some prostrate them- selves. Customs, even among the same people, may differ from age to age. The ritual of the early Church required the congregations to kneel at public prayer on week days, fast days, and even on all Sundays in Lent and Advent ; but on other Sundays, and on all high festivals, the peo- ple stood in prayer, in order to show that the Lord's Day 6. Dan., vi., 10. 7. St. Matt., xxvi., 39. 8. Acts, vil., 60. 9. Acts, Ix., 40. 10. Acts, XX., 36, and xii., 5. 11. Eev., It., 10, and vii., 11. 12. Bph., iii., 14. 13. Phil., ii., 10. 234 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. Was not a penitential day, not the " Sabbath. " (as modern Dissenters call it), but a holy and joyous festival. The distinction, however, did not long remain in the West. The general sense of Christians seemed to be that kneel- ing is the proper attitude for prayer — the chief exception being that the minister, when he performs what our Prayer Book calls a distinctively "sacerdotal function," should stand. The distinction, however, while it lasted, was only between kneeling and standing in prayer. Such a thing as the modern, lazy, don't-care kind of ritualism which site dxnm, to worship, was never dreamed of in the Church, save as being allowable for cripples, invalids, and those who through some unusual illness or fatigue are unable to kneel. There is, moreover, a devout custom which has been universal in the Church for some sixteen centuries, and probably quite general from the beginning, viz., bow- ing at the mention of the sacred name of Jesus, wherever it occurs, but especially in the Creed and Gloria in Excdsis. When American patriots at a political meeting hear the name of Washington, they applaud ; when the followers of Incarnate God, assembled for worship, hear that Holy Name in which He wrought out their redemption, they bow, in grateful, loving, reverent adoration. Angels wor- ship Jesus Christ. The Father Himself has commanded it, for we read : " When He bringeth in the Fii-st-begotten into the world. He saith, 'and let all the angels of God worship Him.' "i* And if angels adore Him, shall not we who are redeemed by Him ? As soon, therefore, as " here- sies of perdition " led men to " deny the Lord who bought them," and to refuse to worship Christ, the very sound of 14. Heb., i., 6. See also Eev., v., 6-14. AUTHORITY. 235 Jesus' Name became to orthodox Christians an invitation^ nay a challenge, to adore Him, to proclaim " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," to feel like Thomas when he cried : " My Loed and My God ! " ^^ It is true that most of us bow only in the Creed and the Gloria in Excelsis, but in theory our Church keeps up the old custom, for she bids her children adore whenever, in Divine service the name of Jesus is heard. See the fifty-second of Queen Eliza- beth's injunctions (a. d. 1559) and the eighteenth canoa of the English Church (passed in 1603, and still in force), which says : "And likewise, when, in time of divine service, the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present, as it hath been accus- tomed." 1^ It is then a part of our continuity in Scriptural and Apostolic worship to ask our clergy and people to be rev- erent in their demeanor, to " glorify God with their bodies and their spirits which are His." Many of our dissenting brethren see the propriety of this ; and in times of special religious fervor Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and stiE more frequently Methodists, kneel in public prayer ; while in private prayer, or about the " family altar " — freed from the unnatural restraints of the " meeting-house " and the pitiable self-consciousness which is born of uncatholic individualism, these same people are always wont to kneel 16. St. John, XX., 88. 16. See a learned layman's treatment of this subject, "By What Laws the Am. Oh. is Governed," by S. Corning Judd, Am. Ch. Eev., Jan., 1888, pp. 214-816. Also speech of Sir Edw. Dering, in House of Commons, quoted In Mine's Presb. Clerg., pp. 836-237. 236 MSASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. in reverent and devout worship, in which I have rejoiced and do rejoice to unite with them. The same principle of Anglo-Catholic continuity applies "to the Church Year. The Bible and all Jewish History set before us the idea of sacred seasons, the round of festi- val and fast. The early Christians largely observed the Mosaic year. St. Paul "hasted to be at Jerusalem the Day of Pentecost."^'' Soon three great Christian Festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun Day, took the place of the three great Jewish Feasts, while Good Friday succeeded to the solemn Day of Atonement, the ante-type to its type. Indeed, from the very day of the Lord's Resurrection, a weekly Easter, the Lord's Day, took the place of the Sabbath. If Americans who lightly esteem the Church's Year — but go wild over the " May Anniversaries " of tract socie- ties, boards of commissioners, and the like, who enter with aeal into Luther and Wiclif celebrations, and keep politi- cal, biographical, scientific, literary and domestic anni- versaries and centennials — would reverently place them- selves back in Apostolic times, they would see that the rise of the Christian Year was authoritative and inevitable. For example, it is inconceivable that the blessed Apostles <;ould ever have found themselves in the Paschal Season without recalling the events of Holy Week. Suppose it is A. D. 53. The Jews are occupied with the Passover. "What memories, O what memories must crowd upon an Apostle's mind ! Twenty years ago to-day they nailed Him to the Cross for our sins. Let us fast and pray. Or: — This is the anniversary of that glorious morn when our 17. Acts, XX., 16. AUTHORITY. Master rose from the dead. Therefore, let us keep the Feast. And so the Christian year began. Taking Easter as a specimen, I quote the words of Dr. Blunt : ^^ " They who went about ' preaching Jesus and the Resur- rection,' and who observed the first day of the week as a continual memorial of that Resurrection, must have re- membered with vivid and joyous devotion the anniversary of their Lord's restoration to them. It was kept as the principal festival of the year, therefore, in the very first age of the Church, and Easter had become long familiar to all parts of the Christian world so early as the days of Polycarp and Anicetus, who had a consultation at Rome in A. D. 158, as to whether it should be observed according to the reckoning of the Jewish or Gentile Christians. [Irenseus in Euseb. v., 24.] Eusebius also records the fact that Melitus, Bishop of Sardis, about the same time, wrote two books on the Paschal Festival [Euseb. iv., 26], and Tertullian speaks of it as annually celebrated, and the most solemn day for Baptism. [De Jejun. 14, De Bapt., 19.] Cyprian, in one of his epistles, mentions the cele- bration of Easter solemnities [Ivii.]; and in writers of later date the festival is constantly referred to as the 'most holy Feast,' ' the great Day ' [Cone, Ancyra, vi.], ' the Feast of Feasts,' 'the Great Lord's Day,' and 'the Queen of Festivals. [Greg., Naz., Orat., in Pasch.]" Our own Church, through all its deformations and reformations, has always had the same Christian Year. No break was made in the sixteenth century, no change save to weed the Calender of some superfluous days of recent origin and questionable propriety. As one has said: 18. Annot. P. B., pp. 103 and 104. 238 REASONS FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. " The Christian Year is a lively and systematic exposition of the Christian Creed." So it is with other points, such as the respective func- tions of bishops, priests and deacons, the form and man- ner of ordaining, the power and use of Absolution, the architecture and arrangement of churches, the vestments of the clergy, etc. A single word as to the last. The Jewish ministry was ceremonially vested by divine command. It is not likely that the Christian ministry would forego a custom so natural, reverent and appropriate. As soon, therefore, as the Church was able to have regular and well-ordered ser- vices, the clergy appear to have worn a distinctive dress in their public ministrations. Many think that the " cloak " which St. Paul " left at Troas," was an Episco- pal vestment. St. James in Jerusalem and St. John in Ephesus used to wear the mitre of the High Priest.^^ During the ages of persecution, when the Church wor- shipped " in dens and caves of the earth," there is no clear evidence that the clergy in general wore vestments, but as soon as it was safe and practicable the custom became universal; 2° and has, of course, been perpetuated in the Anglican Church. For all the distinctive features of our Church we have primitive precedent and historic usage almost absolutely uninterrupted from the beginning ; and for most of them we have Catholic, Apostolic, Scriptural, Divine authority, while nmie of them are contrary to the Word of God. ' 19. See Polycrates, ap. Baeeb., iii,, 31, for St. John, Epiphanius asserts the same, and appeals to St. Clement as authority for the statement, Hacr, xxix., 4. Hegeslppns affirms it of St. James, ap. Buseb., ii., 23. 20. See Van Antwerp's Oh. Hist., vol. 1, p. 64. AUTHORITt. 239 There are a few matters of ceremonial and a few methods of work, certainly harmless and probably useful, for which ancient and quite general authority can be alleged, but which have fallen into disuse among us. Our Church has never condemned them, they can be fully restored at any time, and are decidedly non-essential, anyway. If there be one sign above another of our Church's justification, one key-note of the Anglo-Catholic position, it is the word Continuity, — continuity in aU the essentials of the Catho- lic religion of the kingdom of God. It has now been shown that Christ founded an enduring Universal Church, with a perpetual ministry. The marks of that Church are apparent in Holy Scripture and in ancient history. Of the three great divisions of English-speaking Christians to-day, Anglo-Catholics, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dissenters, to which ought we to belong ? The Dissenters have no historic continuity with the Early Church, and for the most part do not pretend to have ; have lost the Church's ministry, the Christian Year, Common Prayer, and, to an appalling degree, the Faith, the Sacraments, the services, and the usages of Catholic antiquity ; and have whoUy lost the idea of authority and of unity in the kingdom of God. The Roman Church has added to the Faith a few untrue, and many unnecessary dogmas ; has over-ridden the Bible and the General Councils ; has added creature worship to " The Prayers "; has mutilated the Chief Sac- rament ; has committed schism in four out of the five Patriarchates ** and in the autocephalous Churches ; has 21. It is the charge made by the whole Eastern Charch that the Pope of Eome, as hut one of flre Patriarchs, has schismatically broken away from the other four. 240 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. thrust a fallible man into the throne of God on earth and has presumed to elevate a woman (albeit the holiest of the daughters of Eve) to the throne of the Adorable Trinity in Heaven. And whatever may be said for the authority of the Roman Church in Italy, as the national Church thereof, certainly within Anglo-Saxon Christen- dom it is nothing but a foreign, intruding, schismatic Church, having no mission and jurisdiction, and no his- toric continuity, no organic connection with the old Church of England. The Anglo-Catholic Church, on the other hand, has re- tained, in unbroken continuity, all the essential elements of true Catholicity, while free from corrupt and unneces- sary additions. She is Catholic ; she is reformed ; she is Scriptural ; she is authoritative ; she is that part of the kingdom of God which has jurisdiction over the Anglo- American race ; she has continued steadfastly in the Faith, the ministry, the Sacraments, and the worship of the Apostolic Church. In a word, we may say to her : "Amtiguom oStiTies,"^ " How well in thee appears, The constant custom of the antique world." 33 And as to those who have " gone out from us," but who love the Lord Jesus Christ, they are still our brothers, and the Merciful Father is the Judge of all, and will do right. Be ours the prayer of Hezekiah : " The good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary."^ 22. Ter. Andria, Act IV., Sc. iv., 817. 23. "As Ton Like It," n., 3, 56. 24. II. Chron., xxx., 18-19. CHAPTER XXV. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPEDIENCY. " Rise, Sion, rise, and looking forth. Behold thy children ronnd thee I Prom Bast and West, and South and North Thy scattered sons have found thee I And in thy bosom, Christ adore For ever and for evermore." —From the Haute de Klete of St. John Damascene (Neale's "Hymns of the Eastern Church"). THE fact that Christ founded an authoritative kingdom on the earth, of which the Anglican Church is a pure and complete branch, ought to make a Churchman of every English-speaking Christian, irrespective of tastes, personal preferences, and considerations of temporary ex- pediency. The question is not : Which of the three systems (the Anglo-Catholic, the Papal, or the Protestant) do I like best ? but which is right, authoritative, divine ? We have found the Anglican so to be. Any other system, therefore, BO far as English-speaking Christians are concerned, may logically be met with TertuUian's praescripiM in limine (like a case in court which is "quashed " or dismissed without a trial), for "what is new is none." Nevertheless there are some people who care nothing for 242 REASON'S FOB BSINe A CHURCHMAN. authority, but consult only their own preferences. To such while freely admitting the good there is in all systems of Christianity, even the most defective, we need not fear to hold up the superior advantages of the Church in its or- ganization and in its practical methods of worship, teach- ing and work. Of the three systems of Christianity among us, the Anglican is the only one which both holds to the past and adapts itself to the present. The Roman, despite its many innovations, does hold to the past, but it is as far as possible from adapting itself to the present, being totally at variance with the genius — even the better genius — of modern times: ^ while as for Dissent, it breaks wholly with the past and in adapting itself to the present, too often sacrifices essentials of Christian doctrine and devo- tion to the itching ears and the restless, creedless spirit of modern society.^ But the Church is at once stable and elastic, conservative and progressive. Allthe elements of Catholicity are not only of divine au- thority (as we have seen), but are, in the long run, so practi- cally beneficial that they may well challenge the admiration of the mere utilitarian. Indeed the bare imitation of some of them — e. g., the Methodist imitation of the Episcopate, and occasional imitations of Catholic worship and Sacra- ments in various denominations — have been found so ad- vantageous that there is a strong tendency on the part of many practical a;nd farsighted Dissenters to adopt, as a matter of expediency in order to keep their children firom flocking to the Church, many customs of the Church 1. See the Syllabus of Pius IX. 8. See II. Tim., Iv., 3. PRACTICAL ADVAWTAeE8. 243 which they once condemned. The reading of the Bible in public worship, religious services at weddings and funerals,* the use of instrumental music, the singing of hymns and even chants and anthems, a lessening of the grim requirements for "joining the church," a milder and more Churchly treatment of Christ's little ones, a partial escape from the pestilent superstition touching the neces- sity of "instantaneous conversion," — a cruel bug-bear which has frightened many a pure, gentle, sensitive soul away from all religion — the use of the Holy Cross — which used, with shocking profanity, to be called the "mark of the beast,"a growing belief in Paradise or the intermediate state, the imitation of Church architecture, a partial adoption of the Church's year, of the Church's nomenclature, of the Church's idea of worship (as distinguished from mere preaching and exhortation),* and even of liturgies, minis- terial vestments, banners, processions, lights, ecclesiastical colors, and ritual in general, albeit sometimes strangely symbolic; more frequent Celebrations, and notably less 3. See "Puritanism; or a Clmrclimaai's Defence against its Aspersions," by the late Dr. Thomas W. Colt, D.D., of Berkeley. 4. "Of course it would be idle to expect those outside the pale to appreciate our system, because if they did they would be outside no longer. Nevertheless, there are from time to time remarkable and most touching indications of an instinctive yearning after Catholic faith and practice amongst those who as yet know them not. Here is an example : The congregation of Govan, a suburb of Glasgow, recently presented a testimonial to their minister, Dr. John Macleod, who in returning thanks referred to that happy time ' when the Church, i. e., the Presbyterian bodies, would repent of the blunder she had bo long committed in substituting the purely human invention of perpetual preaching and hearing of sermons, for that which undoubtedly was the distinctive ordinance of the weekly worship, the perpetual pleading by the holy priesthood of the power of the sac- rifice for all men before the Throne of the Eternal, and the feeding upon the Heavenly food of the Body and Blood of our Lord.' We can only pray that this good man may soon discover where he may at once obtain what he wants." — Church Times. 244 BSASONS FOR £EIN& A CHURCHMAN. disagreeable mannerisms,^ unreasonable asceticism, and pseudo-Judaic Sabbatarianism; and, above all, more sweet- ness and beauty, and joy in the Christian life, with more charity for the Church, — all these things show a tendency, on the part of those whose ancestors left the Church, to return to the Church's bosom. They are a vindication of the Church's system, showing that its general features are not only harmless, but desirable and good. As Dr. Hop- kins, the Presbyterian champion of liturgical worship, says "the tracks are all one way." The tendency of de- vout and thoughtful Dissenters is unquestionably toward the Church. They wonder now at the fierce passions and petty whims which led their ancestors to break with the Historic Church. It is said that descendants of Luther are to be found in the Roman priesthood, and descendants of Cromwell in the priesthood of the English Church; while descendants of Cotton Mather, and indeed of almost every Puritan prominent in the early history of New Eng- land, are to be found among the clergy or the laity of the American Church. The practical advantages of the Episcopal form of gov- ernment are as obvious as the feet of its Apostolic authority is incontrovertible. But perhaps the argument which weighs most with outsiders who have not heard, or do not 5. In the reasonable, cnltivated, urbane, and to all ontward appearancea Chwrchly Congregationalist one meets In Boston society to-day, it is hard to rec- ognize a descendant of the so-called " Pilgrim Fathers," or the English Puritans of the seventeenth century, whose Idiosyncrasies were a part of their religion. The reader will recall Macanley's vivid description of them! The ostentations simplicity of their dress, their sonr aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew namec, the Scriptural phrases which they Intro- dnced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, tbelr detestation of polite amasementB, etc." Bisay on Milton. PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 246 grasp, the argument from authority, lies in the usefulness and beauty of our dear old Book of Common Prayer. Said a Congregationalist minister who, like many of his brethren, is an appreciative observer of the Church : " The proper name, because truly descriptive, for this Church, would be Church of the Prayer Book. As is the w^ay with all other churches, so here the Church champions and leaders have many wise things to say about the Church and her perogative. But the pious multitude that frequent her courts, are drawn thither mostly by love of the prayers and praises, the litanies and lessons of the Prayer Book. "And, brethren of every name, I certify you that you rarely hear in any church a prayer apoken in English, that is not indebted to the Prayer Book for some of its choicest periods. "And further, I doubt whether life has in store for any ■of you an uplift so high, or downfall so deep, but that you can fend company for your soul, and fitting words for your lips among the treasures of this Book of Common Prayer. "In all time of our tribvlation ; in all time of our prosperity ; in the hour of death and in the day of Judgment ; Good Lord ddiver tis. "Ae a consequence of the Prayer Book and ite use, I note : "The Episcopal Church preserves a very high grade of dignity, decency, propriety and permanence in all her public ofi&ces. " In nearly every newspaper you may read some funny story based upon the ignorance or eccentricity or blasphe- mous familiarity of some extemporizing prayer maker. All of you here present have been at some time shocked 246 BSASONS FOB BEIN9 A CHUBCHMAN. or bored, by public devotional performanceB. Nothing of this sort ever occurs in the Episcopal Church. All things are done and spoken decently and in order. "And so, too, of permanence and its accumulating worth of holy association, no transient observer can adequately value this treasure of a birthright Churchman. "To be using to-day the self-same words that have through the centuries declared the faith or made known the prayer of that mighty multitude who, being now de- livered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity. " To be baptized in early infancy, and never to know a time when we were not recognized and welcomed among the millions who have entered by the same door. " To be confirmed, in due time, in a faith that has sus- tained a noble army of confessors, approving its worth through persecutions and prosperities, a strength to the tried and a chastening to the worldly-minded. "To be married by an authority before which kings and peasants bow alike, asking benediction upon the covenant that, without respect of persons, binds by the same words of duty, the highest and the lowest. " To bring our new-born children, as we were brought, to begin where we began, and to grow up to fill our places. " To die in the faith, and almost hear the gospel words soon to be spoken over one's own grave as over the thou- sand times ten thousand of them who have slept in Jesus. " In short, to be a devout and consistent Churchman, brings a man through aisles fragrant with holy associa- tion, and companied by a long procession of the good, PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 247 chanting as they march a unison of piety and hope, until they come to the holy place where shining saints sing the new song of the redeemed ; and they sing with them."^ In the same strain, Dr. Phelps, of Andover, writes in a memorable epistle : "A friendly study of the Episcopal Church discloses certain dominant ideas, which we who cherish Puritan traditions may with profit add to our stock of wisdom. One of these ideas is that of the dignity of worship. Of Christian worship no other branch of the Church universal has so lofty an idea as the Church of England and its off- shoot in this country. In all the liturgic literature of our language, nothing equals the Anglican Liturgy. Its variety of thought, its spiritual pathos, its choice selection of the most vital themes of public prayer, its reverent importunity, its theological orthodoxy, and its exquisite propriety of style, will commend it to the hearts of devout worshippers of many generations to come, as they have done to generations past. For an equipoise of balanced virtues it is unrivaled. " The liturgic forms of other denominations would be saved from some excrescenses and inanities if the vener- able Book of Common Prayer were more generally revered as a model. * * * " The spirit of worship is deepened by the use of liturgic forms, in which holy men and women of other generations have expressed their faith. The Lord's prayer has been the most potent educator of childhood and youth that the world has ever known." 6. Lecture on the Episcopal Church, by the Bev. Thomas K. Beeoher. 248 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. He also observes : "Another of the ideas dominant in the Church of Eng- land, which we do well to accept in such degree as our puritanic faith will admit, is that of the wniiy and mwal authority of the Church. We have drifted to a perilous extreme in our advocacy of the principles of individuality in religious life. It often degenerates into individualism. " The Church of England does good service for us all in conserving this Churchly idea without crowding it to the tyranny of the Romish hierarchy. Divine life is concen- trated in one true and living Church. That article of the Apostles' Creed, ' I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,' has more than Apostolic authority. It is the Word of God. It represents the power which is to convert this world to Christ: " When this idea of Churchly authority is presented in its biblical simplicity, the common sense of men approves it. Under right conditions the world reveres it." He proceeds : " The Church of England, furthermore, does good ser- vice in the conservation of the idea of the historic continvdty of the Church. * * * "This reverence for historic continuity as a factor in religious culture is found developed in no other Protes- tant sect so profoundly as in the Church of England. By her fidelity to it she does good service to the Church of the future." Or in the words of the lecturer above quoted : " The Episcopal Church furnishes (to all who need such comfort) the assurance of an organic and unbroken unity PRACTICAL ADVANTABES. 249 and succession, from Jesus Christ through the Apostles, by a line of authentic bishops, down to Bishop of this diocese. * * * " Citizens and Christians, all ! — Because this Episcopal Ohurch is a reformed Church and not revolutionary ; be- cause her book of prayer is rich and venerable above all in the English tongue ; because her ritual promotes decency, dignity, prosperity and permanence ; because her historic union through the Apostles with Christ com- forts and satisfies so many souls ; because she adopts her infant children and provides for them education and drill; therefore, from her own psalter let us take the words wherewith to bless her : ' They shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness with- in thy palaces. For thy brethren and companions' sakes I will wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good.' " Similar sentiments are often advanced by devout, un- prejudiced Protestants, who see the beauty of the Church, and love her ; but, having never grasped the Sacramental system, and the idea of the Church's unity and divine authority, are content to admire her from without. To such and to all our non-conforming brethren who study the Church at all, I beg to say a single word : Love the Church for Christ's sake. And if we Church- men, who at best are but unworthy sons of our Holy Mother, sometimes appear to be bigoted or uncharitable when we defend our Mother's honor, remember we do not feel so, and it is not for ourselves that we contend, but for h&r. A true Churchman's love for the Church is an enthusiasm, a 250 RBAS0N8 FOB BEING A CHURCHMAN. celestial passion, such as no one has ever felt or can feel for a hwnrnn organization. "I love tlie Church, the Holy Church, The Saviour's spotless Bride; And Oh, I love her palaces, Through all the land so wide; The cross-topped spire amid the trees. The holy bell of prayer. The music of our Mother's voice. Our Mother's home is here."? Protestants often feel the spell which sometimes take» devout, impressionable, sentimental natures to the Church of Rome, where they become devotees. And it is a glory and a great advantage to any Church to be able to inspire an ardent and enthusiastic love in this cold age. But I affirm there is no charm on the cheek of her that sitteth upon the Seven HiUs, which can for one moment hold com- parison with the holy beauty of the Saviour's Bride, when she " looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners."® Eoman. Catholics belong to the Church, and love the Church, and the Roman Church is, of course, a part of Christ's Catholic Church ; but the Papacy itself is no part of the Church, but a blot upon it. The Papacy is indeed " terrible as an army with banners; " but it is the non-papalized, the Catholic Church alone, that is " beautiful as Tii-zah, comely as Jerusalem." * But on the fair and heavenly graces of our Mother, who of us is worthy to speak ? As Macauley says of Athenian literature, " It is a subject on which I love to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the veneration of a worshipper^ and the gratitude of a child." i" 7. Bishop Coxe, Christian Ballads. 8. Solomon's Song, vi„ 10. 9. id., vi., 4. 10. Conclusion of Essay on Milford's History of Greece. PRACTICAL ABVANTA&ES. 251 Whsn one has grasped the Catholic idea, when one re- alizes i r the first time that he is in that same old Church which G d loved and purcl .ased with His own Blood, the Ch rch in which the blessed Ap jkV es lived and died and are living still, the Church of the Fathers, the Saints, the Mar'iyrs of yore, the Church clad in the white rubes of early tribulation, and crowned with the garlands of Nicsea and Constantinople, the Church that lifted Britain from bar; ^ rism and made the Anglo-Sax n race " a chosen peo- ple," :he leaders of the world — when, I say, the truth dawnri upon one that he is in the Church of the Living God, and in h t part of it which has continued most steadfas ly in the Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship, Sac- raments and Pr.-.y ;rs, there is given him an uplift of soul, a divine enthusiasm undreamed of before and not elsewhere to be obtained; d r.bt seems impossibl:, righteousness grows easier, love becomes immortal, and salvation is made as sure as the possibilities of human nature allow. The Catholic Churchman, and the Catholic Churchman alone, understands this: " Ye are come unt Mount Sion, and unto the City of the Living God, the He venly Jerusalem, and to an innum- erable Company of Angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Cove- nant,, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." And after such a description of the Church as that, well does the Apostle conclude: "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. "^ 6. Heb.xii., 22, 23, 24. CHAPTER XXVI. THE ARGUMENT FROM FUTURITY. " Wanderers I come home I When erring most Christ's Church aye kept the Faith, nor lost One grain of Holy Truth; She ne'er has erred as those ye trust, And now shall lift her from the dust, And BEiQN as in her youth ! " — I/j/ra AvosUMca, p. 137. TO complete the reaBons for being a Churchman accord- ing to the plan proposed, it remains to consider briefly the argument from futurity : Which of the three systems of Christianity in vogue amongst us has the brightest outlook ? is surest to keep the Faith ? offers the best basis for the reunion of Christendom ? I. A century ago the prospects of Anglo-Catholicism were far from encouraging. The Church was bound hand and foot by an Erastian government. Faith and piety, the Church idea and missionary activity were at a low ebb. But things have changed. The revival of Church life — begun in part by the Wesleys, and by the so-called Evangelical movement early this century, and carried out on Catholic lines by the Oxford movement since 1833 — is one of the grandest revivals in the religious history of the world. Since then the growth of the English Church at home FUTURE PROSPECTS. 253 — ^where it still holds three-fourths of the population — among the colonies, and in heathen lands, is, for present character and promise of permanency, such as no other religious body can show. The Church in the United States was almost annihilated by the Revolution ; it took fifty years for it to recover even a foothold in this land. Since then its progress has been very satisfactory, and, on the whole, rather more rapid and substantial than that of any of the denomina- tions. Its position is honorable and unique in the relig- ious life of the Western world. It is looked up to and respected by all classes. Its future is bright, and growing brighter all the while. The Anglo-Saxon race is now the dominant race of man- kind. The English language, the most universal, as it is the most perfect of modern tongues, is now spoken by at least a hundred million people. At the present rate of increase it will not be long before there will be five hun- dred million men speaking the English language and moulded by Anglo-Saxon influences — among which influ- ences the oldest, most characteristic, most permanent, and most potent for good, is the Historic Church, everywhere identified with the English-speaking race. In hundreds of European cities, and in the military and commercial cen- ters of Asia, Africa, South America, and the islands of the sea, wherever a community of Englishmen is to be found, there is almost sure to be an Anglican chapel in the midst of them. Besides which the Book of Common Prayer has been translated into nearly a hundred different languages. Heretofore when comparisons have been made between the English Church and the Roman, there has always been 254 REASON'S FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. an element of numerical unfairness, the English Church being but one national Catholic Church, and the Roman Church being a vast conglomeration of a number of na- tional Catholic Churches, which had lost their ancient independence. The only fair comparison would have been as between the Church of England and some one national Church of about the same size, say the Church of France, or the Church of Spain, or the Church of Italy. But the time is coming when the national Catholic Churches of England, Scotland, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, and other colonies — to say nothing of the " Old Catholics," or reformed part of the his- toric Church in Europe, now in full communion with the Anglo- Catholic, and not to mention the " Orthodox Catho- lic Eastern Church " with its eighty-five million members — wiU surpass the Tridentine Consolidation in numbers, as they do already in social, intellectual, moral, and spirit- ual influence, and that, too, without any tyrannous and un-Catholic centralization. Indeed, so far as the ethnic, political, commercial, linguistic, and ethical prospects of the Anglo-Saxon race are an indication, the outlook of the Anglo-Catholic communion is brighter by far than the out- look of the Roman, whose constituency is almost wholly confined to the less moral, less intelligent, less dominant, less progressive, less rapidly increasing, less promising races of Southern Europe and South America, among whom infidelity (especially in Prance and Italy), is sap- ping the very life of religion, of society, and of the state. Romanism is at its best where it has intruded into the jurisdiction of the Anglo-CathoHc Church. It is, if I may so say, forced to be on its good behavior. But aside from its FUTURE PROSPECTS. 255 being here an unjustifiable schism^ which has, in the long run, no right to expect the blessing of God, the outlook of the schism amongst UB is not good. Despite most strenu- ous efforts put forth in England, and in spite of a large Hibernian immigration, the Anglo-Roman schism has been relatively losing ground, having now barely three and a half per cent, of the population where a few decades ago it had from four to five per cent. And of that small percent- age not mie-dxth are English. As Mr. Gladstone computed in 1878, " probably not less than five-sixths are of Irish birth," and the remaining sixth contains many aliens from the continent. The idea that an Italian schism will €ver dominate the English race, while the CathoUc Church of England stands, is simply frenzy. In America the growth of the Italian mission has been rapid and substantial, not, however, from its inherent fer- tility nor from its earnest and faithful proselytism, but as the result of a most enormous and unprecedented influx of foreign co-religionists from Ireland, Germany, and else- where. The Romano-American papers often proclaim a net increase, say of 100,000 souls, during a given year. It sounds well. But during the same year, more than 100,- 000 Romanists have been added by immigration without which the " net increase " would have been a minus quantity. A candid Roman Catholic prelate recently remarked that if his Church had kept all Roman Catholic immigrants and their children, it would have some 20,000,000 adherents in this country, instead of which it has but little over 6,000,- 1 . " The guilt of schism rests on the Church of Eome, and the Boman Church since a. d., 1570, has occupied in England the position of a permanently Bchis- matical body."— The Bev. Wm. A. Eioh. 256 RBASONS FOB BEING A CHUBOHMAN. 000. It is, moreover, out of harmony with the spirit and genius of American institutions and popular liberty; and can only bring itBelf into harmony therewith by an act of feh de se, the Syllabus of the late " Infallible " Pio Nono^ being witness. The United States is the Paradise of Protestantism. Owing to the character of the early settlers, and the almost total destruction of the English Church during the Revolu- tion, sectarianism here far outnumbers both the Church and the Roman schism. Its prospects are brighter here than anywhere else. Nevertheless, in the j udgment of thoughtful men, both within and without the Church, its total lack of authority, its uncertainty in matters of faith, its conflict- ing, multitudinous divisions and sub-divisions, its tend- ency to further disintegration, and its dependence on " spas- modic religion," are against its permanency and ultimate success as the religion of the English-speaking race. Protestantism is, moreover, about to pass through a fearful ordeal. It has always blindly proclaimed itself The Religion of the Bible: — " The Bible and the Bible only the religion of Protestants." But Protestantism is now beginning to be uncertain whether the Bible is inspired y what constitutes the Bible ; whether there is any Bible at all. Protestantism rejected the Church, and put in its place that Book which is a child of the Church. The New Testament was written by Churchmen, and was not completed till the Church was more than sixty years old. The canon of Scripture rests on the authority of the Church, which is "The Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ." Destroy the Church, and you have logically lost the Bible. Logic is inexorable, and will at last make FUTURE PROSPECTS. 257 itself felt. Protestantism is going to wake up to this fact. Then those who want the Bible will come back to the Church, while those who refuse to conform will be left Scriptureless as well as Ghurchless. There is such a thing as whole communities laboring for generations under a logical delusion (as St. Paul says, " Blindness in part is happened to Israel ")-^ The delu- sion of Dissent — which I venture to call Protestant paralo- gism — is that the testimony of early Fathers and councils must be accepted on the subject of the canon of Holy Scripture, but not on the subject of the Church — its Creed its threefold ministry, its Sacraments, etc. The Presbyte- rian, Doctor Miller, who could appeal to St. Ignatius as authority against Unitarianism, but in the next breath reject him in toto because of his testimony in favor of Episcopacy, is a fair specimen of the demoralized reason- ing faculty of Dissent. There is, forsooth, an Eccleda Docens, conciliar authority, patristic testimony, and Cath- olic tradition, when private judgment wants such things ; there is no Ecdesia Docens, no conciliar authority, no pat- ristic testimony, no Catholic tradition, when private judg- ment wants none. Alpha est and alpha non est have been sleeping together in the brain of Protestantism. By and by the landlord will find that he really cannot accommo- date them both ; that he cannot consistently hold that there is a Church, and that there is no Church. If he decide that there is a Church, then he must conform to it ; if he decide that there is no Church, then he must give up his Bible, for without the Church he cannot know what 2. Eom., xi., 25. 258 REASON'S FOR BSIN& A CHURCHMAN. the Bible is, and the same authorities which tell him of the Bible, tell him also of the Church. What wiU be left of Protestant Dissent when it gets through this ordeal, God only knows. From such an ordeal, however, the Churchman has nothing to fear. Take away his Bible if you can ; he still has the Gospel chrystaUized in the Creed and the Liturgy, in the Sacraments and in Catholic tradi- tion. In a word, he has the Church of the Living God, THE Pillar and Ground of the Truth ; and having the Church, he has all, and can get back his precious Bible, for the Church tells him what it is. II. The Anglican Church offers the strongest guaran- tee for the keeping of the Faith — " When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the Faith on the earth? "^ Were it not for the Anglican and Greek Churches, the answer would be doubtful indeed. In the various Churches which are conglomerated into the " Holy Roman Church," the Catholic Faith is overlaid (not to say smothered) with the creed of Pius IV., a part of which is uncatholic and false, and with the false dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the infeUibility of the Bishop of Rome. The old Faith in which the saints and martyrs were saved is not enough now. A man must also believe unsupported assertions, historical contradic- tions, at least one blasphemous conceit, and a host of adiaphora, or be damned. And one of the saddest specta- cles the sun sees, is the apostacy from all faith which Rome is causing among her children to-day by enforcing falsehoods. Rome, as a Church, still holds the whole Cath- 3. St. Luke, xviii., 8. FUTURE PROSPECTS. 259 olic Faith, but multitudes prefer to risk damnation by believing nothing, rather than to lower themselves to the level of superstition, credulity, and "gullibility" neces- sary to make one believe what nature and common sense, history and the Bible, the undivided Church and God Himself proclaim to be foolish and untrue. I refer, of course, to the impious nonsense of "papal infallibility" and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin — which latter, by the way, is a fine illus- tration of the truth (!) of the former, as fourteen "infalli- ble " pontiffs declared it a heresy, and one " infallible " pontiff (Pius IX., in 1854) declared it a dogma of the Faith and necessary to salvation I ! (See Littledale's " Plain Reasons," p. 167.) It is said that a little girl in a Roman Catholic convent school naively defined faith as, " The gift of God, whereby we believe what we know to be false." It is a kind of faith needed in Rome to-day. And granted a man knows the Roman faith to-day, what will it be to-morrow ? Is infaUihUity the last arti- cle of the Creed ? " Infallibility " may promulgate a new creed to-morrow, in which vagaries as false and absurd as itself may be declared defide and necessary to salvation, e. g.jthe ubiquity of St. Joseph, the apotheosis of St. Mary, the real presence of the lac Vvrginalis in the Eucharist (for Roman theologians already teach that St. Mary is present in the Eucharist, and especially that the lac Vvrginalis is received along with the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ. See Pusey's Irenicon, p. 160, Et Seq. or the sanctity and sal- vation of " Pope Alexander VI." Rome is uncertain in matters of faith. Protestant Dissent comprises so many different faiths 260 REAS0N8 FOR BBIN& A CHURCHMAN. and even different religions, that it is hard, in this connec- tion to speak of it as a whole. But even of the very es- sence of the Faith, the Incarnation of the Eternal Consub- stantial Son of God, Sectarianism has been and is making shipwreck. Almost everyone of the Presbyterian congregations existing in England in the seventeenth cen- tury has long since become Unitarian. The apostacies from Christianity to Socinianism, of the French, Dutch, Swiss, and German Protestants, are simply appalling. In the early part of this century a large proportion of the Trinitarian Congregationalists of New England denied the Lord that bought them. But in Connecticut where the Church was strong, Unitarianism never gained a foot- hold. No parish of the Anglican Church ever went over to Unitarianism.* The conservative spirit of Anglicanism, fortified by the Creeds, the liturgy, and the Church Year, ^ makes it less likely that the Anglican Church will either add to or detract from the Faith than that either Rome or Dissent will do so, or more properly wiU continue to do so. We Anglo-Catholics recognize that "the Faith which was once delivered to the saints," is a final reve- lation. The Creed is settled. Our aim is to hold it. Rome's idea is to develop it ; while the Protestant idea is for each man to pick out his own creed from the Bible, or rather from such parts of it as meet with his approval, and from his own inner consciousness. Given three such systems of keeping the Faith, it 4. King's Chapel, Boston, is no exception, for the Ghnrch had been seized by Congregationalists before the Apostacy occurred. They, and not Churchmen, were responsible. 5. " Our festival year is a bulwark of Orthodoxy as real as our confession of faith."— Archer Butler. FUTURE PROSPECTS. 261 stands to reason that the Anglo-Catholic is surest to suc- ceed. Nevertheless, we must admit that we hold these treasures in earthen vessels; and it behooves us. as the Church directs, three times a week to pray : " From false doctrine, heresy and schism, good Lord deliver us," and from our heart of hearts to offer the petition of Trinity Sunday (which used to be said daUy in our Mother Church) : " We beseech Thee that Thou wouldst keep us steadfast in this Faith." III. Finally, which system offers the best basis for the reunion of Christendom ? That the Papal system which in one year, this century, lost fully 2,000,000 of subjects (including bishops and priests) to the Orthodox Catholic Church of Russia, * which cannot even hold its own in France and Spain and Italy, can ever succeed in bringing the Catholic Churches of the Orientals and Anglo-Saxons, and the four hundred Protestant sects, under the Roman yoke, is manifestly ab- surd. Rome makes no concessions. She has burned the ships behind her. The dogma of Papal Infallibility must be retracted before Catholics or Protestants will be able to have communion with the Latin Church. It is a doctrine so absurd, so blasphemous, so obviously false, that the Papacy itself is cracking under the strain of it. If Rome would bring about the reunion of Christen- dom, let her take away the Papacy and mitigate the doc- trinal and devotional excesses touching the Mother of our Lord. There would remain then but little to hinder a Godly union and concord between the three great 6. See Dr. Neale's "The Bible and the Bible only, the Keligiou of Proteet- ants," p. 7, and Alloc, of Greg. XVI., Nov. 16, 1839. 262 REASON'S FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. branches of the one Catholic Church. But this is simply to return to the fundamental principles of the Anglo- Catholic Church, as the old Catholics on the Continent have been doing ever since the Vatican Council. Thoughtful Roman Catholics of the GaUican School, have often ac- knowledged that, if the union of Christendom ever comes, it must be thi-ough the medium of the Anglican Church. '' No plan for the reunion of Christendom, however, must pass over the four hundred Protestant sects, some of which lack little of Catholicity save the Apostolic Ministry. Between Historic Christendom and Protestant Christen- dom there is just one connecting Unk, and that is the Anglican Church. That she is Catholic we have seen. That she is thoroughly and scripturally reformed, even radical Protestants admit, for they insist on calling her " Protestant," and our Church is allowed on all hands to be the bulwark of the Reformation. No reasonable and devout Dissenter objects to joining in the worship of the Anglican Church, and Anglican religious writings are cur- rent among all Protestants. For orthodox Dissenters to conform to the old Church is no sacrifice of principle. A man, for instance, may not be fully convinced as to Apos- tolic Succession, but that need not hinder his coming into the Church, which demands of her children only the sim- 7. See Pusey's Irenicon, p. 197, et passim. Even Ultramontane De Maistre could say: "Sijamaig les Chretiens se rapprochent, comme tout les y invite, 1 semble que la motion doit partir de V Egllse de V Angleterre." (Considerations Bur la France, c. II., quoted In the Irenicon, p. 246 ) If Christians ever come together again, as they all desire, it is evident that the movement must originate with the English Church. Apropos the same, the celebrated ultramontane, said that the Anglican Church, touching, as she did, upon what was great and noble in Protestantism and upon the fundamental truths of Catholicism, was the chemical solvent to bring about a possible united Christendom. FUTURE PROSPECTS. 263 pie faith of the Apostles, the Creed. Surely he cannot think a clergyman who is episcopally ordained, is any less a priest or minister than one congregationally ordained ; that is, not ordained at all. Nothing in all the world so retards the progress of Chris- tianity as the divisions among Christians. In seeking re-union, therefore, we ought all of us to be willing to give up non-essential innovations and to restore vital or desir- able things which have been dropped. If Rome would leave off insisting on such innovations as the infallibility and supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and the other leading novelties which in the nature of things cannot be essential, the result would be a return to unadulterated Catholicism, to the principles which underlay the ancient Church, and which are to-day the basis of the Holy East- ern, the Anglican, and the Old Catholic Churches. On the other hand, let Protestants simply restore what they have cast oflf, at least the Apostolic ministry which Christ ordained, the primitive universal Creed and Sacra- ments, accepting enough of the Divine Liturgy to insure the regular administration of the latter, and Protestants would find themselves Catholics of the Anglican, Oriental, primitive type. All Protestants combined cannot reasonably expect Catholic Christendom (viz. : The Anglican, the Greek, and the Roman Churches, to say nothing of the old Catholics, Nestorians and Copts) to give up the Nicene Creed and the Apostolic Succession. Almost nine-tenths of Chris- tians are Episcopalians, believing in the Episcopal form of Church order, and in the necessity of Episcopal ordina- tion ; and they have always believed so from the begin- 264 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. niDg. They believe that to give up their ApostoUc Suc- cession would be to un-Church themselves forever. But no Protestant believes that (from his own standpoint) it would unchurch him to have the ministry of his church ordained by a bishop instead of a layman. In short, Christians have erred in two ways. The Eo- manists have added many things. The Protestants have cast off many things. Between these two extremes lies the only ground of union, and that ground happens,, in the providence of God, to be occupied by the Anglo-Cath- oUc Church. She has all the good things which Rome has — the Creeds, the Bible, the Ministry, the Sacraments, the worship and the traditions of the Catholic Church — without the objectionable additions. At the same time she certainly has aU the good things which Protestants have, without their defects. In effecting the re-union of the scattered sheep of Christ, the Anglican plan would not necessitate the submission of aU Christians to the English Church, but merely a return to Catholic Faith, order, Sacraments and worship among us all, so that there might be inter-communion. All the Anglo-Catholic Church would ask for herself, is that she be recognized as the Cathohc Church of so much of the world as fairly comes under her jurisdiction, viz. : the British Empire and the American Republic. The other Churches would only need to return to their ancient integrity, and there would at once be full inter-communion. I do not say that Christendom will ever be united on Anglo-Catholic principles ; but I do afBrm that the only reunion which can take in both extremes must be on the general principles of the reformed Catholic religion, which FUTURE PROSPECTS. 265 are the peculiar heritage of the English-speaking race. ^' Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye in the ways, and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein. "8 To-day Dissenters are looking more and more favorably on the old Mother Church ; and wherever re- form is being attempted in the down-trodden national Churches of the Roman obedience, it is the Anglican Church that is looked to for help and for guidance ; it is the Anglo-Catholic Reformation, rather than the revolu- tions of Luther and Calvin, that is taken for a pattern. Dissenters, Jansenists, old Catholics, Nestorians, Copts, look to us for help and inter-communion. We have par- tial and growing inter-communion with the Greek Church, and have many bonds of sympathy even with our cruel sister, the Church of Rome. L any other part of Christen- dom can offer a better starting-point for re-union, what is it? To sum up, then, because on the whole the Anglo-Cath- ' olic Church has the brightest outlook, as the dominant religion of the dominant race of men: because it is the sm-est to keep the Faith till the Master comes; and be- cause it offers the only possible basis for the re-union of Christendom, there is stronger reason, based on the argument from futurity, for being a Churchman rather than for being a Recusant or a Dissenter. But be the outlook what it may; be the present condition of our Church as gloomy as when there were but seven thousand wor- shippers of God in all Israel, the fact remains that, of the three divisions of English-speaking Christians, the Anglo-Catholic Church is the one which, in accordance 8. Jer., vi., 16. 266 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN. with the Bible and with history, has continued most stead- fastly in all the essentials of Apostolic Faith and Fellow- ship, Sacraments and Worship, and which alone has Di- vine authority and lawful jurisdiction over the children of God in the British Empire and the American Republic. " Holy Jem, King of the Saints and Prince of the Catholia Church, preserve Thy spouse, whom. Thou hast purchased with Thy right hand, and redeemed and deansed; the whole Catholic Church from one end of the earth to the other; she is fovmded upon a rock, but planted in the sea, preserve her safe from schism, heresy, and sacrilege. Unite all her members with the bands of faith, hope, and charity, and an external com/mmmm, when it shall seem good in Thine eyes. Let the daily sacrifice of prayer and sacramental thanksgiving never cease, but be forever presented to Thee, and forever united to the intercession of her dearest Lord, and forever prevail for the obtaining for every of iis mmJbers, grace amd blessing, pardon, cmd salvation. Amen." FIWIS.