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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE CHTTKCH:
HER AUTHORITY DERIVED PROM THE PAST;
HER PRESENT ADVANTAGES;
HER FUTURE PROSPECTS.

REASONS

BEING A CHURCHMAN.

Addressed to English Speaking Christians
of Every Name.

BY
THE EEY. AKTHTJR WILDE LITTLE, M. A.,
Kectob of Saint Paul's Church,
Portland, Maine.

EIGHTH THOUSAND.

milwaukee, wis.:
The Young Churchman Company.

COPYRIGHTED, 1885,
By ARTHUR WILDE LITTLE.

LIU

printed et
King, Fowle & Katz,
milwaukee.

TO
THE COMMUNICANTS OF THE CHURCH
IN
Saint Paul's Parish, Portland, Maine,
THIS YOLUME
IS
Affectionately Dedicated
BY THEIR
Pastor and Friend, The Author.

PREFACE

THESE Reasons for being a Churchman are addressed to
English - speaking Christians, because the Anglican
Church 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 difficulties, 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 : —
First, to strengthen those who are already in actual con
formity with the Anglo-Catholic Church. It was a profound
observation of our great Archbishop, St. Anselm :
" Neglegentia mihi mdetur si, postquam conflrmati sumus in
Fide, non studemus Quod credimus intelligere."^
This "negligence" among Churchmen is lamentable and
appalling — a chief cause of indiff erentism and apostacy. The
Primate of All England recently declared : " There is perhaps
not even now one Churchman in ten who is as well instructed
1. It seems to me the part of negligence if, after we have been confirmed in
the Faith, we do not try to understand what we believe.

AUTHORS 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 be 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. 2 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 God and the upbuilding of His Kingdom of Grace.
A. W. L.
Portland, Maine, St. Matthew's Day, 18S5.
2 " The Living Church," Dec. 13th, 1884, to Aug. 22d, 1885.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE.
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 raison 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 Fodnd a Catholic Church which Still
Exists ?
Christianity not an " Idea," but an Organism — ¦ Christ's Parables —
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 by the Apostles — The Descent of
the Holy Ghost — Picture of the Apostolic Church — No Rom
anism — No Protestantism — Both Inconceivable in the Early
Church, 22-^1

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.
Marks of the Holy Catholic Church.
Baptism — The Doctrine of the Apostles — The Fellowship of the
Apostles — The Breaking of the Bread — The Prayers,

CHAPTER VI.
The Anglican Church and Holy Baptism.
Continuity of the Anglican Church — 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, 30-44

CHAPTER VTI.
The Anglican Church 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 — Nicssa 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 Apostles in the N. T. — Tim
othy Bp. of Ephesus — Titus Bp. of Crete — Eighteen others, 58-6S

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.
PAGE.
Primitive Episcopacy and its Official Titles.
Three Orders — Apparent Confusion of Names — No Confusion of
Orders — Priests sometimes called "BishopB" in the sense of
Pastors or Overseers — Apostoli sunt Episcopi — Evidence that
the Apostles who Succeeded the Twelve gradually Appropriated
the title of Bishop — The title of Apostle lingered in some
places — The Didache, 67-7!
CHAPTER X.
Primitive Episcopacy and the Testimony of the
Apostolic Fathers.
Episcopacy not defended in 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 ^ eces-
sarily Diocesan — Earliest Witnesses — St. Clement— St. Poly-
carp — St. Ignatius — His Epistles to the Ephesians, Magnesians,
Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Sniyrnseans, and to Poly-
carp, - - 72-84
CHAPTER XI.
The Witness of the Fathers — Continued.
Admissions of Gibbon, Guizot, Grotius — Strength of our Position —
Churchmen "No Fools" — Unanswered Challenge of Hooker —
41 Epistle to Diognetus" — Testimony of Dionysius; of St. Ire
naeus; of Polycrates; of St. Clement, of Alex.; of Tertullian;
of Origen; of St. Cyprian, etc.— " Study the Fathers," 85-9"
CHAPTER XII.
If the Primitive Catholic Church was not Epis
copal. What was It ?
Experiment of » 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", - ... 98-104

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII.
PAGE.
Desperate Expedients to get Bid op the Bishops
of the Early Church.
The assumption that a Bishop was only a Pa6tor of one Congregation
— How about Titus ? — One hundred Cities in his Parish — St.
James, the over-worked Pastor I — "Tens of thousands " of parish-
oners, at least fifty Churches — Ignatius. in Antioch, 200,000 in
habitants, calls himself the Bishop of Syria — Onesemus • 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-
tunatas — From Pagan Writers — From Would-be-bishops, Col-
luthus, Aerius, his "dogma furiomm et stolidum-' — The Six
General Councils — A rchbp. Potter and Lord Macaulay on the
Fact of Apos. Success, 109-116

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, Fortunatus the Poet; Theodoret, St. Jerome,
Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, St. Clement —
Churchat Glastonbury — St. Alban, our Proto-martyr — Constan
tine— British Bishops at Councils of Aries, Nicsea, Sardica,
Rimine — The Anglo-Saxon Conquest, 117-124

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

CHAPTER XV.
Anglo-Catholicism ; or, the Making and Estab
lishing of the Present National Church
of England.

The Celtic Churches, Catholic, independent — Queen Bertha and
Bishop Luidhard — 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, . 125-131
CHAPTER XVI.
The English Church never the Roman Church.
The Ecclesia Anglicana — 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 — Offa — 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-Roman legislation — 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" — tl Reforming
Councils " — Greek Churchmen — Henry VIII. — The " Gordian
Knot " — The Bishop of Rome no more than any other " foreign
Bishop" — Queen Mary and the second subjugation of our
Church — Accession of Elizabeth, 132-144
CHAPTER XVII.
Anglican Orders.
True Catholics — Elizabeth and the Papal usurpation — Vacant
Bishoprics — Election, confirmation, and consecration of Arch
bishop Parker — Overwhelming evidence of the fact — The
14 Nag's Head Fable " — Marc Antonio de Dominis — Irish suc
cession — R. C. admissions — American and Colonial succession, 145-159
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVII.
Pius IV. and, the English Reformation.
Hore — Jennings — Cutts — Blunt —Van Antwerp — Butler, 160-163

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Anglican Jurisdiction and Catholicity.
Declaration of Lambeth Council — Novelty of the Ultramontane
Theory of Jurisdiction — Inherent Jurisdiction of Provincial
and Autocephalous Churches — Early English Church Complete
in Itself — Our Reformers did not Commit the Sin of Schism —
English Romanists 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," 104-176
CHAPTER XIX.
The Attitude op Dissent Towards Episcopacy.
Difference Between the Catholic Reformation in England and the
Protectant Revolutions 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.— (2) They Blindly and Ignorantly 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.— An 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 op 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 — Transubstantiation denies the real
presence of the Bread and Wine — Zioinglianism denies the real
presence of Christ's Body and Blocd — 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 heresy 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 Prayers."
Liturgical Worship a Mark of the Church— Jewish Worship: Tern
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 Each — Worship of the
Early Church — Pliny, Justin Martyr — Specimen of the Oldest
Extant Liturgy — Remarkable Agreement of Our Liturgy, 20S-220

CHAPTER 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, 221-229

CHAPTER 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 Sacred 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, • 230-240

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXV.
PAGE.
The Argument from Expediency.
Authority ought to be sufficient — "Prcescriptio in limine'1'' —
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 advantageous
— 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 — Protestantism about to
Pass through a Fearful Ordeal — Protestant Paralogism — The
Churchman has Nothing to Fear.
(II.) The Anglican Church Sv/resb to Keep the Faith— 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 Offers the Best Basis for the Reunion of Christ
endom?— Not the Roman, 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, 252-266
bishop jeremy taylor's
Prayer for the Whole Catholic Church.

CHAPTER I.
THE QUESTION 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 identity,
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,1 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 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
at the instigation of the Bishop of Rome, 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 ;2 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 civil 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 there was no Recusant
known in England ; but even they who were most addicted to Roman opinions,
yet frequented our Churches and public assemblies, and did join with us in the
nse of the same prayers and divine offices, without any scruple, till they were
prohibited by a papal bull for the interest of the Roman Court."— Archbishop
Bkajihall. I. 248.

AUTHORITY.

but not many of the clergy, of the venerable Church of
St. Patrick's planting.3
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
real 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 country), only too, Walsh, Bishop of Meath, and Leverous, Bishop of
Kildare, refused to accept the Reformation, 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.

4 REASONS FOR BEING 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.4 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 from 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's Taming Points in Eng. Ch. Hist.," p. 317.

AUTHORITY. 5
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 for
all, with 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.5
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 Romanising movement on the one side and of popular Protestantism on the
other, rests upon perversions of history."— (English) Ch. Times.

6 REASONS FOR BEING 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 her future prospects.

CHAPTER II.
DID GOD FOUND A CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS?
[ "Ab oriQinc mundi incipient."]
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, must 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 Church
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." 1
After the fall of man God continued that Church, but
1. Dr. C. C. Adams in Am. Ch. Rev., Oct., 1884.

8 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
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."2 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 form, 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
2. Rev., siii., 8.

AUTHORITY.

continued in the family of Abraham, whose descendants
in the line of his 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
born, 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 Grace 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. From 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 the 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." 3 God, moreover, gave explicit directions as to the
pohty and worship of the Jewish Church. " See thou
make all things according to the pattern showed thee in
the mount."4 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. Heb., viii., 5.

10 REASONS FOR BEING, A CHURCHMAN.
He showed that He meant it to be sacred and exclusive
by making a fearful example of those who presumed to
usurp its functions. Witness Korah, Dathan, and Abiram5 ;
or Saul 6 , Uzzah 7 , and Uzziah 8 ; 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 Triumphant Church.
Bodily reverence accompanied the devotion of the heart.
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 Ark 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., 9-15. 7. II. Samuel, vi., 6-7. 8. II.
Chronicles, xxvi., 10-21. 9. I. Kings, xiii., 34.

AUTHORITY. 11

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.10
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." n 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." 12 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." 13 The root of
the olive was there, but new branches were to be grafted
into it.14 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 Christ, Chap. xiii. 11. Hebrews, xi., 13. 12. Hebrews
xi., 40. 13. Galatians, iii, 24. 14. Romans, xi., 17-24.

12 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
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 open the treasury of divine prophecy. The
prophecies of the Catholic . Church in the Old Testament
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." 15 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," 17 and again : "All kings shall fall.
down before Him ; all nations shall do Him service," 18 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." 19 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. 20 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." 21 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, aad 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., lxxii; Read the whole Psalm. 19. Is., Ix. 20.
Dan., ii., 34-5. 21. Dan., ii., 44. 22. Dan., vii., 13-14.

14 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
sation clung to their Church, looking for the " Consolation
of Israel " and the ingathering of the Gentiles.
Eighteen hundred and eighty -six years ago Christ was
born — the Word was made flesh 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 His
ministry, St. John the Baptist, the Morning Star of Christ
ianity, preached, saying, " The Kingdom of Godis 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, preached 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.
OID CHRIST FOUND A CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH STILL EXISTS?
On this Rock I will bnild My Church, and the gates of hell 6hall 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 all1 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 BEING 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."2
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 Empire
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 call " 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,3 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, 4 — " which tells us
how the Church, having swept through the 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, 5 shows the Catholic or universal extent of the

2. St. Luke, xi., 20. 3. St. Mat., xiii., 25. 4. St. Mat., xiii., 47. 5. St. Mat.,
xiii., 31.

AUTHORITY. 17

Church. That of the Vine and its Branches, 6 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."7 He says of the sheep that
hear His voice, " There shall be one fold and one Shep
herd."8 He admits that " the wolf" may catch the sheep,
or scatter the sheep ;9 but not that the wolf or any one
else may construct a new fold, much less three or four
hundred 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 fishes10
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., 0.

IS. REASONS FOR BEING 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 it."11 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."13
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."13
He called them Apostles, and sent them forth to preach —
what? " Tlie Kingdom of God."u 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."15 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 American Church Review, October, 1884.
12. St. Matthew, xviii., 17. 13. St. Luke, viii., 10. 14. St. Luke, viii., 1, and
ix., 2.
15. St. Luke, xxii., 29. Christ appointed also 70 men called "Elders," and
sent them to preach the " Kingdom " (St. Luke, x., 1 and 9). Itisanopen 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 equal 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.16 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
final ' appearing and kingdom ' of Jesus Christ."
After 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,"17 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 retain, they are re
tained."18 At the same time He issued that far-reaching
and tremendous command : " Go ye into all the world,
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved."19 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 Christians') 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 of the world.
AMEN."20 The phrases, " All the world," " Every creature," " All
16. St. Matthew, xxiii., 9. 17. St. Matthew, xxviii., 18. 18. St. John, xx.,
21-23. 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 incontrovertibly that the Apostolic Ministry is to be
perpetuated in the Church, for the individuals 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 — how long? Till 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."21 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 matters 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
21. 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." — Lyra Apostolica, p. 175.
"Quis nobis dabit videre Ecclesiam sicut erat in diebus antiquisV— St.
Beksard. 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 Cathohc 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 that
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 ")1 under divine
guidance chose Matthias to "take part of this ministry
and Apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell,"2
thus fulfilling the prophesy of David; "His Bishopric
let another take."3
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 shall
come again. Thus the dead organism of the Church was
1. Acts, i., 15. 2. id., 25. 3. id., 20.

24 REASONS FOR BEING 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
faith, 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
spiritual 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 that Church
there was no Romanism, and consequently no Protestant
ism. All was truth and oneness, peace and beauty and
joy — in a word, Catholicity. And who, 0 ! 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, will 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
Belvidere 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 r1 " 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 Father
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 : I am
the Infallible Head of the Church ! 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 pretended 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. 23.

AUTHORITY. 27

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 all. 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;" 2 he has repeated
the words of the Lord, not only " Take, Eat, this is My
Body ; " but, " Drink all ye of this, for this is My Blood ; "
he remembers the words of Christ at Capernaum :3 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. l.Cor., x., 16. 3. St. John, 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).4 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 ! " Still
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 all hold in common, and
make a special " church " to emphasize that one point at
the expense of other truths equally vital.
i. Heb., vi., 1 2.

AUTHORITY. 29

Again, others assail the rule of Faith, the " Form of
Sound Words"5 which the Apostles together inculcate,
the heirloom of the Church, the Apostohc 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 6 which they that are
unlearned and unstable will wrest to their own destruction,
by their ' private interpretations.' 7 Sixty 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 all things whatsoever He has com-
5. II. Tim., i., 13. 6. H. St. Peter, iii., 16. 7. II. St. Peter, i., 20. 8. St. Mat
thew, xxviii., 20.

30 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
manded us. He spent forty days with us after His Resur
rection, teaching us the things pertaining to His Church. 9
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* Testament.
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
perfectly 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 still 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 hving,
believing, worshipping, governing and working Church.
Officers of this Church, it is true, were inspired by the

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." 10
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.11 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, Uncatholic novelties
which are the foundation of Protestant Dissent are incom
patible with — nay, inconceivable in — the One Holy Cath
ohc 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. n. Tim., iii., 16.
11. "Without the Creeds, the Holy Scriptures are as a treasure-house of
which we have lost tha key."

CHAPTER V.
MARES of the holy catholic church.
"I obey,
Following where'er the Church hath marked the ancient way."
—Lyra Apostolica, p. 132.
WE read that the three thousand converts who were bap
tized on the day of Pentecost, "continued steadfastly"
in four things: 1 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 Church and loyal to the
Apostolic Episcopate. This fellowship or communion is
broken to-day by those who say:2 "I am of Cephas"
[Peter]. They assert (though mistakenly) that St. Petei
was an Apostle of Apostles, the Head of the Church, hav
ing sole jurisdiction over the whole world ; that he was
1. Acts, ii., 42. 2. 1 Cor., i., 12, and iii., 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
non-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 four out of the five 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 3 Churches, like the Churches
of Great Britain and Cyprus, and set up altar against altar>
notably within the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church
since 1570.
This Fellowship 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 provinces, with au Archbishop
over each. The provinces are grouped, except those in the far West of Europe,
England among them, and except a few in the East, which are still left auto
cephalous, into Patriarchates with a Patriarch over each," viz., Rome, Constanti
nople (which Canon HI. of the Second General Council declares to have " equal
privileges" with Rome), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
"The exclusive theory of Rome 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 Rome and all his adherents.
Thus four out of the five great Patriarchates of the world cut off the one Western
or Roman Patriarchate. The Roman 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 Roman part of the Church cut itself off first from the whole Eastern part of
the Church, and then from the Anglican." — Catholicity in its Relationship Jg..
Protestantism and Romanism. By Dr. Ewer, pp. 236 and 155. _,r-:^- " .

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 from the two remaining marks of
the Church, which must now be considered.
(c) The early Church continued steadfastly in the 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); 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 (i. 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. * 35

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 lawful 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 crazto-e-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 CHURCH AND HOLY BAPTISM.
"All in the unregenerate child
Is void and formless, dark and wild,
Till the life-giving holy Dove
Upon the waters gently move,
And power impart, soft brooding there,
Celestial fruit to bear." — Keble, Lyra Innocentium, II.
IT has been shown that the Apostolic ministry 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 Anghcan Church
that she has retained them all.
The Church was early planted in the British Isles, possi
bly 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 over 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 Rome, 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 Communion 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 BEING 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 its inward
spiritual grace. St. Paul couples the two ideas together
when he says we are saved " by the Washing of Regenera
tion," 1 or as it might be rendered, the Baptism of the New
Birth. Regeneration then is that death unto sin and new
birth unto righteousness which 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 born 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. " 3 Regen
eration is that Christening grace for which we pray, when
1. Titus, iii., 5. 2. Ch. Catechism. St. John, iii., 5; Acts, iii., 38. 3. Collect
for 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." 4 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
Dissenters 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 regard1
it a ' saving ordinance.' " It is well to remind such that
they differ from the Catholic Church which St. Peter 5
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." 1 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, and gave Himself for her that He might
4. Baptismal Offices. 5. I Pet., iii., 21.

40 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
sanctify and cleanse her by the Washing of Water." 6 A
faithful disciple sent by God, says to the penitent and
believing Saul of Tarsus, "Arise, be baptized and wash away
thy sins." 7 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." 8 When
Christ commissioned the Apostles to baptize all nations,
He adds, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be
saved." 9 And He said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be
born 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 Irenaeus and Tertullian but a little later ;
from the great and goodly 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 uninterrupted theory and practice of that part of
the Cathohc Church to which it is our privilege to belong.
6. Eph.. v., 25-6. 7. Acts, xxii . 16, 8 Acts, ii., 38 9. St.Mark, xvi., 16.

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
household were baptized. 10 As the Church grew, and chil
dren were born to Christian parents, those parents always
brought their little ones to the Church that they might be
born into the family of God, believing, as St. Cyprian says
that " one cannot have God for his Father, unless he have
the Church for his mother." So often were parents or spon
sors seen wending their way to church with babes in their
arms, that the Pagans started the dreadful slander that
Christians met together to slay little children and drink
their blood !
There was a controversy in the early Church of North
Africa about infant Baptism, but the question was not
whether infants should be christened, but whether they
should be christened before they were eight days old. And
the great Bishop of Carthage, above mentioned, with fifty
Bishops in council assembled, ruled that no infant was too
young for Baptism. The eighth day used to be a favorite
time for christening, after the analogy of Jewish Circum
cision, that type of Baptism, by which a child of a week
was admitted to all the privileges and grace of God's ancient
Covenant. Justin Martyr, who was almost contemporan
eous with St. John, speaks of many aged people who had
10. Acts, xvi., 15 and 33, and 1 Cor., i., 16.

42 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
been made disciples of Christ from infancy. St. Irenaeus
speaks of " infants and little children, and boys and young
men " all being alike born anew to God by Holy Baptism.
St. Augustine speaks of "infants baptized in Christ," and
says: " In infants born and baptized, and thus born again,
let Christ be acknowledged." When the Good Shepherd
builded the " one fold," He meant it for the lambs as well
as for the sheep. We may rest assured that the Cathohc
Church, after baptizing infants for nearly 1900 years, knows
what she is about. That heartless heresy which denies the
mercies of the Covenant to the little children whom Jesus
blessed, n which shuts out of the Kingdom of God those
very ones concerning whom the Saviour said, " Of such is
the Kingdom of God," 12 was born of ignorance, nourished
on prejudice, and has been propagated by a mistaken zeal
worthy a better cause. It has also brought it to pass that,
even under the shadow of the old English Church, multi
tudes grow up unregenerate — oftentimes subjectively believ
ers, but objectively heathen. From the conversion of Eng
land to the Church until the seventeen years when Puri
tanism drove the " Elect Lady " into the wilderness (1645-
1662) such a thing as an unbaptized Englishman was
practically unknown. And it was only after the restora
tion of the Church that it became necessary to insert in
the Prayer Book an Office for "the Baptism of Adults," to
make up for the neglect of Regeneration during that period
of sacrilege and self-will.
To sum up, then, as one has said, "All testimony of
writers down to the twelfth century approves its use [infant

11. St. JIark, x., 16. 12. St. Mark, x., 14.

AUTHORITY. 43

Baptism], and there is not one saying, quotation, or exam
ple, that makes against it."
Consequently the Anglican Church is right in declaring
that the " Baptism of young children is in any wise to be
retained in the Church, as most agreeable to the institution
of Christ ; " 13 and in instructing the people " that they
defer not the Baptism of their children longer than the
first or second Sunday next after their birth, * * *
unless upon great and reasonable cause." 14
It is worthy of note that it is only such sects as have lost,
not only the Apostohc Ministry, but the whole " Church
Idea," that distort, underrate, or abolish Holy Baptism, or
stumble at the doctrine of Regeneration which the Bible
and the Church inculcate. The fact is, if one have a low
or vague opinion of the Church, he will have a low or vague
opinion of that Sacrament which makes us members of the
Church. If the Church is anything less than she, on the
authority of the Holy Ghost, claims to be, then Baptism is
only an empty ordinance, an indifferent rite, a strange cere
mony, a meaningless symbol, a powerless instrument. But
what is the Church ? — that " Church which God purchased
with His own Blood," 15 giving Himself for her " that He
might sanctify and cleanse her by the Washing of Water ? "
What is the Church into which we are baptized ? St. Paul
says: " The Church is His Body, the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all." 16 And the baptized — what of them ?
They have "all by one Spirit been baptized into One
Body."11 They are "in Christ." "As many of you as
have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." 18
13. Art.XXVH. 14. Private Baptism of Children, P. B. 15. Acts, xx., 28. 16.
Ephesians, i., 23. 17. 1 Cor., xii., 12. 18. Gal., iii., 26.

44 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
They are the " Body of Christ and members in particular."
Their very " bodies " are " members of Christ," 19 and
they are " partakers of the Divine Nature." w The Church,
then, is the Mystical Body of Incarnate God. A meta
phor ? Perhaps so — but God's figures of speech stand
ever for realities, for realities heavenly and eternal. As
a late writer has said : " The Incarnation is a perpetual
fact. What is the supernatural law, then, under which
Christ's own personal Body continues to expand ? It is
this : human beings are baptized into Christ, according as it
is written, ' We are members of His Body, of His Flesh
and of His Bones.' 21 Human beings, sprouting like so
many separate branches from the poisoned roots of Adam,
are plucked thence by the Holy Ghost, and, in Baptism,
grafted into the new tree, Christ; our bodies into His; our
souls into His; our hopes, our imaginations, our passions,
our reason into His ; and so the Tree enlarges ; so His Body
Visible expands ; so the Stone [cut out without hands] grows
and becomes a Great Mountain, and fills the whole earth;
according as it is written: ' We are the Body of Christ.' "
The act, then, which unites human beings to Incarnate
God, through His Body, the Church, is beauteous in its
simplicity, intelligible in its meaning, transcendently im
portant in its sublime and far-reaching effects. And
this, the Foundation Sacrament of Christ's Religion, the
Anglican Church, in common with all parts of Catholic
Christendom, not only holds to-day, but has always re
tained, used, and prized ; otherwise she could lay no just
claim to that true Catholicity which is based on the his
toric continuity of Apostolic truth. ,
19. 1 Cor., vi., 15. 20. 2d Peter, i., 4. 21. Eph., v., 30.

CHAPTER VII.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND " THE APOSTLES' DOCTRINE."

#

"It is of the essence of the Church that it teach the Catholic Faith."— Bishop
Forbes. "Mark how each Creed stands in that test revealed,
Romish, and Swiss, and Lutheran novelties."
—Lyra Apottolica, p. 130.
ZEAL for the vindication of Episcopacy, which is of course
one of the essentials of the Christian Church, has led
many defenders of the Church to make it the chief argument
why we should be Churchmen rather than Dissenters. The
possession of a valid Episcopal Succession makes us " Epis
copalians," but does not necessarily prove us to be Ortho
dox Catholic Churchmen, free from " false doctrine, heresy,
and schism." The Arians were Episcopalians, but here
tics ; the Novatians and Donastists were Episcopalians, but
schismatics. The historic continuity of the Anglo-Catho-
lic Church depends not alone on the Apostolic Succession,
but on the uninterrupted possession of all the marks of
primitive Catholicity. Had our Church abolished the Sac
rament of Baptism, Episcopacy would not Bave her ; had
she lost the " Doctrine of the Apostles," " the Breaking of
the Bread," or "the Prayers," the mere fact of having
" Fellowship with the Apostles " through a Succession of

46 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Bishops, would not make her a true or complete Church,
nor afford satisfactory reasons why we should be Church
men, unless and until, in the Providence of God, the golden
crown of Apostolic Order should draw back the lost jewels
of Apostolic Faith, Eucharist and Worship. These, how
ever, the English Church never lost. I therefore depre
cate the phrase, " the restored Catholicity " of the English
Church. She was never without it. In theory the Angli
can Church was never Roman, and never Protestant, though
at times like a storm-tossed bark she has felt the whirl
pool of Charybdis, and seen the broken crags of Scylla.
If we leave out of account certain practical departures from
that theory, which were forced upon her by the brute might
of the Papacy 1 or the grim and selfish tyranny of Kings, 2
we shall find that the general faith, order and worship of
the English Church have always been substantially the
same. That this is so in the case of Baptism has been
shown. If it is so also in the case of the four marks of
Catholicity — Apostolic Faith, and Fellowship, the Euchar
ist, and the Prayers — then the Anglican Church may, more
1. e. g. The evils, which accompanied the mediaeval intrusion of Monastic
orders from Italy, which claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the English
Bishops, which, by the way, was a direct violation of Canon IV., of the General
Council of Chalcedon, which says : " No monk shall live anywhere, nor estab
lish a monastery or an oratory contrary to the will of th» bishop of the city ; and
that the monks in every city and district shall be subject to the bishop." In
Canon VHI. of the same council we read : "Let the clergy of the . . . mon
asteries . . . in every city remain under the authority of the biskops, accord
ing to the tradition of the holy fathers ; and let no one arrogantly cast off the rule
of his own bishop ; and if any shall contravene this canon in any way whatever,
and will not be subject to their own bishop, if they be clergy, let them be sub
jected to canonical penalties, and if tiiey be monks or laymen, let them be excom
municated." 2. e. g. The tyranny of Henry VIH., and William of Orange, or the silenc
ing of Convocation, and the usurpations of Parliament and the Privy Council
under the Hanoverian Sovereigns.

AUTHORITY. 47

justly than any other Branch of the Church or than any
sect, claim the allegiance of all English-speaking Christians.
Taking these things in their order then, what was the
" Faith once delivered to the Saints," the Faith of the
Early Church which the Anglican Church has kept ? It
was a behef in God, the Father ; in Jesus Christ, His
only Son, Who became Incarnate of a Virgin, in His life
and death, His Resurrection, His Ascension into Heaven,
and His coming again as Judge ; in the Holy Ghost ; the
Holy Catholic Church, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrec
tion of the Body, and Everlasting Life.
The 'narrative portions of the New Testament show that
this, in brief, was the Faith of the Early Church ; the
dogmatic portions authoritatively assert these truths with
their necessary implications. This Summary of revealed
truth, grand in its simplicity, vast in its comprehensive
ness, was taught orally by the Apostles, as " the Form of
Sound Words," and was early used, throughout all parts
of the Church, as a Profession of Faith for Candidates for
Holy Baptism. 3 Christ had commanded all nations to be

3. A very ancient form of the Creed, adapted to a baptismal profession, in
size and expression midway between the longer, or Eastern form of the Apos
tolic Creed, which was adopted at Nicsea, and the shorter or Western form, com
monly called the "Apostle's Creed," is preserved in the earliest fragment extant
pf the Baptismal Offices, in Book VH., Chapter XLI. of the "Apostolic Consti
tution," a work compiled by an unknown writer, probably between 250 and 300
A. D-, but the materials of which were much more ancient. The person to be
baptized says: "I renounce Satan and his works, and his pomps and his wor
ship," etc. * * "And after this renunciation, let him, in his dedication say:
' I associate myself with Christ, and— I Believe in (and am baptized into) one
Unbegotten Being, the only true God Almighty, the Father of Christ, the
Creator and Maker of all things, from Whom are all things ;— and into the Lord
Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, the Firstborn of the whole creation, Who,
before the ages was by the good pleasure of the Father, begotten, not created ;
through Whom all things were made, both those in Heaven and those on Earth,

48 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
baptized, " in the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost." Accordingly the Apostles, having
stated this Doctrine of the Trinity, with a few of the pre
cious results of the Incarnation in the only natural and
logical order, 4 required this belief of those who were
admitted to the Church. The tradition that the Creed
was composed by the Apostles has been general in the
Church for some 1600 years. The Creed, in substantially
its present form, is given by St. Irenseus, less than a cen
tury after the death of St. John, as something well known
in his day. Traces of it are found in Justin Martyr (who
died about 150 a. d.), St. Polycarp for more than fifty
years the Bishop of Smyrna ("for twenty years the disciple
of St John," probably the one addressed as the "Angel of
the Church in Smyrna," Rev. ii., 8), St. Clement the third
Bishop of Rome (the "fellow laborer" of St. Paul, "whose
name is in the Book of Life," Phil, iv., 3), and in St. Igna
tius (for thirty years Bishop of Antioch, and a contempo
rary of all the Apostles). As Dr. Blunt observes, " There
is more reason for believing that the Creed was composed

visible and invisible; Who in the last days descended from Heaven, and took
flesh, ana was born of the Holy Virgin Mary, and lived a holy life according to
the laws of His God and Father, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died
for us; and rose again from the dead, after His Passion, the third day, and
ascended into the Heavens, and sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father. And
again is to come at the end of the world, with glory, to judge the quick and the
dead ; of Whose Kingdom there shall be no end. I am baptized also into the Holt
Ghost, that is, the Comforter, Who wrought in all the Saints from the beginning
of the world, but was afterwards sent to the Apostles by the Father according to
the promise of our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ, and after the Apostles, to all
who believe in the Holy Catholic Church ; into the Resurrection of the Flesh, and
into the Remission of Sins, and into the Kingdom of Heaven, and into the life of
the world to come."
4. For a clear exposition of the unity and logical order of the articles of the
Creed, see Ewer's " Catholicity in its Relation," etc., p. 53.

AUTHORITY. 49

by the Apostles, under Inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
than for believing the contrary." Be that as it may, the
"Apostles' Creed " is at least the form into which Apostolic
teaching crystallized in the West, as the equivalent Symbol
which was witnessed to, ratified, and made universal at
Nicaea and Constantinople, is the bright -gem cut and
bequeathed by Apostolic hands in the East. Properly
speaking the "Apostles' Creed " and the Nicene Creed are
equally the Apostles' Creed, the only difference being that
the form in which it was handed down in the West was a
little more condensed than the other. But there was no
difference in its meaning, for any ambiguity of statement
was made up for by the authoritative interpretation, or
traditional commentary, which may be called by that
much abused phrase, the "sense of the Church." The
Nicene Creed, it should be remembered, was not first drawn
up at the Council of Nicaea in 325. All the dioceses of
Christendom had inherited the Creed in substantially the
same shape, and with absolutely the same import. The 318
Bishops from all parts of the Church, who met at Nicaea
to bear witness against Arius' denial of the Divinity of
Christ, merely agreed upon an ancient form of the primi
tive Creed, hallowed by devout and immemorial usage in
the Diocese of Caesarea, which Eusebius, the Bishop of
Caesarea, who presented it to the Council, avowed he had
received from his predecessors in the Episcopate, and into
which, indeed, he himself had been baptized. So much
of the universally inherited apostolical credendum, as bore
upon the Person of our blessed Lord, which was the truth
then assailed, was so fortified in expression, but not altered
in meaning, as absolutely and forever to exclude all forms

50 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
of Unitarian infidelity, and received the Imprimatur of the
first Ecumenical Council. The remainder (following the
words " I believe in the Holy Ghost,") was witnessed to and
promulgated at the Second General Council (Constantinople,
381). It was not then drawn up, for the entire Creed, as
then authorized, had been in general use for an indefinite
period antecedent. 5 The Creed thus ecumenically ap
proved, a part at Nicaea, the whole at Constantinople, has
ever since been received by the entire Catholic Church, as
the articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesise, and has never been
altered. 6 The Creed is, then, an unfailing witness to the
inspired teaching of the Apostles, given by the whole
Church in an age when such testimony was possible
(which has long since gone by) and received by the whole
Church; and hence, it is an independent authority, conso
nant of course, with Holy Scripture, and provable there
from. The "Athanasian Creed," or Hymn, composed about A.
D. 430, stands on a different basis, but is at least venerable
compared with all Protestant Confessions. It has never
received conciliar ratification nor formal reception by the
whole Church — albeit no Diocese in Christendom repu
diates it or denies its definitions. Even Richard Baxter 7
could say of it: "I unfeignedly account Athanasius' Creed
the best explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity that I
ever read." It is simply an admirable expansion of the

5. See Epiphanius' "Anchorite," near the end.
6. The "filioque " is no proper part of the Creed. It asserts a Theological
truth (see Dr. Richey's admirable monograph on the subject) in harmony with
the Creed, but has never been sanctioned by any General Council, having been
introduced by a local Synod in the West, with results greatly to be deplored.
7. Reasons of the Chris. Rei., Chap. IX., p. 313.

AUTHORITY. 51

truths of the primitive Creed. And the closer we are to
the heart of our Divine Human Master, the more faithfully
we confess the eternal Trinity and worship the Divine
Unity, the more will we understand and love that grand
statement of the Orthodox Faith. The " damnatory " or
Enacting Clauses, are hardly more a part of the Creed than
the Anathemas originally affixed to the Nicene Symbol.
At all events they are precisely what our Saviour Himself
has taught. 8 This Creed is a part of the doctrine of the
English Church, and it is a matter of regret to many that
the Church in the United States decided not to insert it in
her Liturgy and Articles. But so far from repudiating it,
she is as much bound by its doctrine as if she had
retained it, since every clause is contained explicitly or by
necessary implication in Holy Scripture and in the Apos
tles' and Nicene Creeds. Moreover, as the Bishop of Con
necticut has pointed out, " That our Church accepts the
Athanasian definitions is placed beyond doubt by the
declaration in the Preface to the Prayer Book that we do
not intend to depart from the Church of England in any
essential point of doctrine ; by the retention of the Pref
ace of Trinity Sunday in the office for Holy Communion ;
and by the adoption of the first five Articles [which see]." 9
A single word as to the Thirty-nine Articles. They are
not a Creed, but a compendium of Anti-Romish and Anti-
Calvinistic theology, designed for the Clergy, not for the
laity. They contain a few ambiguous passages, but are hap
pily susceptible of a strictly Orthodox and Catholic inter
pretation. 8. See St. Mark xvi., 16 ; St. John iii., 16, and viii. 24.
9. Note on Ath. Cr. Am. Ed. Brown on Art. See also Rev. F. W. Taylor's
excellent monograph on the "Athanasian Creed."

52 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
It must now be shown fhat the Apostolic Faith is and
has always been the belief of the Anglican Church.
That the Anglican Church has always held the Creed, in
the same sense as she holds it to-day, is a simple matter of
history. Dr. Blunt says: " The Apostles' Creed has been
used in the daily Offices of the English Church as far back'
as they can be traced." British Bishops, beyond reasona
ble doubt, were present at the Council of Nicaea. At all
events, the British Church not only accepted the Nicene
Faith, but stands almost alone in Christendom, as a great
national Church which passed through the Arian epidemic
with scarce a taint of the impious plague. Withdrawn
from the turmoil and strife of the rest of Christendom,
the Bishops of our Mother Church clung to the primitive
Faith, while the dreadful heresy which would dethrone the
Son of God was making havoc of the Church in the East
and even as far West as Italy and Spain. " In every city
of the East and of Africa, the Arian party filled the sees,
held the churches, and formed the most numerous party.
The Catholics were a despised and persecuted minority." 10
Heretical Bishops, at various times, ruled the Church in
Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Constantinople
and Rome. u
In .spite of the Modern Roman dogma that the Bishops of
Rome are all infallible, Liberius, Bishop of Rome (who died

10. Cutt's Turning Points of Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 165.
11. This, I take it, is the meaning of Article XIX., which declares that as "the
Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church
of Rome hath erred." This Article does not say that these Churches are now in
error (which would be, as the late Patriarch of Constantinople said, an "accusa
tion of our neighbor, out of place in a distinguished confession "), but merely that
they have erred in times past.

AUTHORITY. 53

A. D. 366), became an Arian, but still governed the Church
in the Imperial City. Virgilius was an heretic, and was
excommunicated by the Fifth General Council (a. d. 553).
Honorius embraced the Monothelite heresy, and was
anathematized by the Sixth General Council (a. d. 680).
The list of English Archbishops shows no such apostates
as these ! Various other heresies have been held by the
Bishops of Rome, 12 and what one "Infallible Pontiff" has
declared to be heresy, his equally infallible successors have
promulgated as part of the Faith, and necessary to salva
tion I [See note at the end of the Chapter.]
At the Council of Sardica (a. d. 347) British Bishops
were present and sided with the Orthodox party. St.
Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (a. d. 358), congratulates the
" Bishops of the British Provinces " that they " have con
tinued undefiled and unharmed by any taint of the detes
table heresy." St. Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexan
dria, the great champion of the Faith, in his letter to the
Emperor Jovian (a. d. 363), places the British Church
among the Churches loyal to the Catholic Faith. St. Chry
sostom, St. Jerome and other Fathers of the fourth century,
bear glowing testimony to the orthodoxy of our old Brit
ish Mother. It is true that in the fifth century a Briton
named Pelagius, while on a visit to Rome, learned a heresy
which he brought back to his mother country ; but the
British Bishops, with the kindly assistance of two learned
Bishops from Gaul, easily vanquished Pelagianism.
Indeed, no heresy touching the fundamentals of the
Faith, has ever been accepted, even temporarily, by the Church
of the British and Anglo-American race.
12. Cf. thecasesof Coelestius, Zosimus, Hormisdas and others.— Botsuetc. 30.

54 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

Our venerable sister, the Church of Rome, calls us heret
ical — not on the ground that we do not hold and profess
the same old Creeds which both of us, in common with
the Holy Eastern Church, have alike inherited, but because,
forsooth, we do not accept certain additions to the Apostolic
Faith, made on her sole authority, but not sanctioned by
any General Council, not taught by the Fathers, and never
accepted by the Greek Church ! It matters not whether
these additions be true or false; it is enough that they are
novelties, absolutely and forever ruled out in advance by a
decree of the Fourth General Council, 13 and therefore of
no possible obligation upon Catholic Christians. How
much more is this so, if some of these additions be found
to be in themselves, contradictory ; in their effects perni
cious ; historically untrue ; and false to the witness of the
Holy Ghost in the Undivided Church and in Holy Writ !
Any loyal member of the early Church would be admit
ted to-day to full membership in the Anglican Church,
which, in matters of faith, requires of her children only
what the early Church required, viz: the Creed. To be a
Roman Catholic one must believe precisely the same, and
if that were all that Rome requires we should be at one.
As to the Faith of the Universal Church, the Anglican
Church at the Reformation, made no change. Even in
minor points of doctrine there was then no wide breach
13. The 630 Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon voted as follows with refer
ence to the Nicene Creed: " The Holy and Ecumenical Synod decrees that it is
not lawful for any man to propose, or compile, or compose, or hold, or teach to
others, any different Faith. But those who presume to compose a different Faith,
or to propagate, or teach, or deliver a different Formula to persons desirous of
turning to the knowledge of the truth, from heathenism, or Judaism, or any
heresy whatsoever, if they be bishops or clergymen, shall be deposed, * * *
if they be monks or laymen, they shall be anathematised."

AUTHORITY. 55

between the Enghsh and the Latin Churches, for most of
the points in dispute were not, at that time, accounted
essential even at Rome. Pius IV., the Bishop of Rome, in
the year 1559 wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth, in which
he acknowledged the Enghsh Bible and Book of Common
Prayer " to be authentic and not repugnant to truth : and
that he would allow it to the English Church without chang
ing any part of it, if only her majesty would acknowledge
to receive it from him and by his allowance." If we Angli
cans were not heretics then, we certainly are not now, for
we have neither added to, nor detracted from, the Faith we
then held.
But since then the Roman Church has added to the
iFaith a number of doctrines which the Undivided Church
has always either disallowed or else regarded as indifferent;
viz., the Creed of Pius IV. which carries with it the decrees
of Trent, some five hundred in all ; the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin,14 which was
never believed by the early Church, or the Churches of
England and the East, which St. Augustine, in the fourth
century, St. Bernard in the twelfth century, and St. Thomas
Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, emphatically denied ,
and last of all in the year of our Lord 1870, the doctrine
of the Personal InfaUibility of the Bishops of Rome, — a
doctrine never allowed in the early Church, the Greek
Church, or the English Church, and admittedly an open
question among the strictest papists until fifteen years ago ! !
If it be heresy to refuse assent to these novelties, then
Anglican and Greek Churchmen are heretics, and so were
14. Promulgated in 1854.

56 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
the Apostles and Saints of old. If this be heresy, make
the most of it ! We are at least in good company. Oh 1
if Rome would confine her dogmas to the primitive Faith,
that Creed of the Universal Church, which we both hold
and have held, and which is still a bond of union despite
our unhappy estrangement ; or if she would at least leave
these new beliefs optional, then, so far as the Faith is con
cerned, the three Branches of the Catholic Church, Greek
and Latin and English, would be One.
A single word as to the relation of Dissenters to the Apos
tolic Faith. Of the hundreds of Protestant sects, very few
formally accept even the Apostles' Creed, and none, so far as
I am aware, require a belief in the Nicene Creed, even on
the part of their " ordained " preachers. 15 I lay it down
as a thesis, which I am prepared to maintain, that no body
of Dissenters really believes the Creed. They all, from the
Presbyterians to the Socinians, accept the first part of the
first article, viz., "I believe in God," but some do not
believe in His Fatherhood. Some do not believe " in Jesus
Christ, His only Son, our Lord," in His miraculous Con
ception and Birth, His Atoning Death, His Descent into
Hades, His Resurrection and Ascension, and in His Com
ing again for judgment. Some sects do not believe in the
Holy Ghost ; none of them beheve in the Holy Catholic
Church, in the sense in which the Church has used these
words from the beginning. , Few, if any, believe the
Church's doctrine of the " Communion of Saints," or the
" forgiveness of sins " (especially in the Nicene sense of
15. I refer only to the English-speaking Protestants. It is true the Irvingites
retain the three Creeds, in words, though they do not in sense, for their interpre
tation of the article, "I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church," is
strange and unique indeed.

AUTHORITY. 57

"One Baptism for the Remission of Sins"), or the "Resur
rection of the Flesh "; and one whole sect is founded on a
protest against the word " everlasting," as applied to the
conditions of the future life ! !
Eliminate every article of the Creed which is rejected by
one or more of the Denominations, and what remains ? A
belief in God. Yes, thank the Lord, no dissenting church
has dogmatically denied that, however much they have
denied of what God has revealed concerning Himself and
His Kingdom of Grace.
No wonder that many thoughtful Dissenters, weary of a
religion of negations, " the strife of tongues," are looking
towards that ancient Church which still " continues stead
fastly in the Apostles' Doctrine," and "with one mouth pro
fesses the Faith once delivered to the Saints."

Note.— In addition to the "Infallible" Heretics, mentioned on p. 53, five
Bishops of Rome (John XII., Benedict IX., Gregory VI., Gregory XII., and John
XXIII.) were deposed by Western Councils, for such freaks of Infallibility as
heresy, schism, sorcery and crime. See also Littledale's " Plain Reasons against
Joining the Church of Rome," p. 160, etseq.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE APOSTLES' FELLOWSHIP : WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTURE?,
" Episcopacy is the only form of Church order contained in the Scriptures
and manifest from ancient authors : and consequently, whether a Chnrch should
be now Episcopal or not, is a question to be settled upon considerations, not of
mere expediency, but of deference to the model of the primitive Church, as it
was constituted by the Apostles under the guidance of inspiration; so that no
one ought to be accounted a. ^lawful minister in this Church,- or suffered to
execute any functions of the ministry, unless he hath had Episcopal Ordina
tion.1 "—Bishop Mcllvaine.
"The history of Christianity is the history of Episcopacy. They are found
united from the very first. Nor is there less evidence for the prevalence of this
form of government in the primitive Church than there is of the reception of the
Scriptures, or the use of the Sacraments in those times." — Palmek.
DE QUINCEY has said : " What a Church teaches is
true or not true, without reference to her individual
right of teaching." We have seen that the Anglican
Church teaches the Orthodox Faith. We must now
inquire whether she has a right to teach it, a right born of
Apostolic Fellowship, the authority which comes of valid
Orders and lawful Jurisdiction. By valid Orders is meant
the actual possession of the Ministry created by Christ and
perpetuated by the Apostles and their successors. By Ju
risdiction is meant the right to exercise that ministry, with
all spiritual and governing powers of the Church, within
definite territorial limits.
Is Episcopacy or a line of Bishops, who, by regular

AUTHORITY. ' 59

Ordination, succeed to the office and commission which
Christ gave the Apostles, necessary to the unity, the con
tinuity, and the authority of the Church ?
Viewed a priori, the question resolves itself into this :
Did Christ mean the Apostolic Office to be temporary or
permanent? Permanent, beyond all shadow of doubt.
Why, He promised to be with the Apostles not merely for
their natural lives, but " always, even unto the end of the
world." Moreover, He gave them the whole earth as
their field of Jurisdiction, and bade them do what the
Apostolate will not have accomplished for many years
yet, viz.: Go into all the world, preach the Gospel to
every creature, and baptize all nations. And how did
they act ? They ordained certain men, called Deacons, to
relieve them of some of their minor duties.1 Then they
ordained Priests in every place where they had gathered a
congregation.2 But did they stop with that ? Did they
1. Acts, vi.
2. Acts, xiv., 23, et passim. It should be remembered that Priest is but a
shortened form of Presbyter. The two words are used interchangeably. The
office of the Christian Minister (above the rank of Deacon) is distinctively sacer
dotal — sacerdotal in a higher and more spiritual sense than even the Aaronic
Priesthood, because of the Holy Eucharist or " Sacrifice of the New Covenant,"
as St. Irenaeus calls it (Ir., iv., 17., 5). St. Paul speaks of himself as "Priesting
the Gospel of God" [the word is hierourgounta, Rom., xv., 16], and he calls
himself a Leitourgos. The very earliest Fathers call Presbyters Priests,
"Sacerdotes," and it is only a narrow and superstitious prejudice which, because
priestly powers have sometimes been abused, affects to deny the title of Priest
to the Ambassadors of God and Stewards of the Mysteries of His Grace. The
Anglican Church, of course, has always preserved the identity of the Christian
Priesthood (as well as the identity of the Episcopate) as seen in the character of
the ordination, the phraseology employed, the official titles, the functions pre
scribed, and the symbols of office, especially the vestments— ol which Bp. Forbes
says: "We see in the maintainance of the habits [vestments] the assertion of
the sacerdotal continuity of the Church before and after the Reformation, and
the denial of its identity with the purely Protestant bodies." (Int. to the XXXIX.
Arts., p. XXI.) Moreover, the Latin form of the thirty-nine articles, which is of

60 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
allow their perpetual commission to lapse with themselves ?
Did they intend to leave the Church, that Aionian King*
dom, which the Son of God had given to them, with only
the sterile Orders of Presbyter and Deacon? By no
means. As the Jewish Church had its High Priest, its
Priests and its Levites, so the Catholic Church was to have
its three Orders — Apostles, Presbyters and Deacons. But
if so, we must expect to find the Apostles ordaining also
an Order of Ministers who rank above the lowly Deacons
and Presbyters. In other words, if the Apostolic Office
was to be perpetuated, we ought to find evidence in the
New Testament and in the writings of the Fathers, that
there were Apostles, or, as we now call them, Bishops, in
addition to the original Twelve, but who shared their
office, received the power to ordain, and inherited all the
permanent grace and authority of the Apostolate.
The perennial ivy grows from the cathedral's foundation
to the cross-topped spire, an unbroken vine ; but all the
way it keeps sending forth roots and rootlets, which cling
to the hallowed stones and feed the growing stem, yet them
selves move not on. So the Catholic Episcopate, spring
ing from the " Root of Jesse," climbs the centuries of the
Church's life, ever setting the Priests and Deacons in their
hallowed place, and drawing from them the material, but
not the life, of its own supernal and ever-lengthening Suc
cession. We have seen already that Matthias was chosen to suc
ceed to the " Bishoprick " of Judas, to " take part of this
equal authority with the English form, leaves no room for ambiguity, for it uses
the word Sacerdos for Priest; and the American Prayer Book speaks of the
"sacerdotal functions," etc., of our Priests.

AUTHORITY. 61

Ministry and Apostleship."3 This shows that the "Apos
tleship" was to continue. The charmed circle of the
Twelve enlarges ; St. Matthias is the " Thirteenth Apostle."
Soon after another is chosen, James, a near relative (or
" brother," as he was called in Hebrew and Greek) of the
Lord. He had not at first believed in Christ ;4 but the
Lord, after His Resurrection, appeared to James.3 At all
events James believed ; and became an Apostle and the
first Bishop of Jerusalem, the Head of that long line of
Prelates which still rules the Mother of all Churches. St.
Clement, a Priest of Alexandria, in the age next to that of
the Apostles,6 when abundant evidence was at hand, says :
" Peter, James and John did not contend for the honor of
presiding over the Church of Jerusalem ; but with the
rest of the Apostles chose James the Just to be Bishop of
that Church." St. Jerome, the greatest scholar of the
fourth century, who spent thirty years in the Holy Land,
says, in speaking of St. James, in order to show that
" others besides the Twelve were called Apostles : " " By
degrees, in process of time, others also were ordained Apos
tles by those whom the Lord had chosen." And in his
3. Acts, i., 25.
4. The theory that James the Lord's brother, the Bishop of Jerusalem, was
one of the Twelve, seems to be fairly excluded by the assertion that "Neither
-did his brethren believe on Him" (St. John, vii., 5). Moreover, this James is
specially mentioned along with Simon and Joses, in a way which precludes his
being one of the Twelve (St. Matth., xiii., 55-6). Bishop Lightfoot says: "James,
though not one of the Twelve, appears, from the very first, to have held the posi
tion of ' a bishop in the later and more special sense of the word.' " — " On Philip-
pians " (6th ed.), p. 197. Either way, however, the Episcopacy of St. James is a
strong point in favor of Catholic order, for if he was one of the Twelve, we have
an instance of one of the original Apostles settling down to the work not merely
of a Bishop (which they all did), but of a Diocesan Bishop.
5. "After that he was seen of James." I Cor., xv., 7.
6. A. D. 180.

62 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
biographical sketch of St. James he says : "After the
passion of the Lord he (James) was forthwith ordained by
the Apostles as Bishop of Jerusalem,"7 and that he ruled
(rexif) the Church of Jerusalem for thirty-one years. How
exactly all this agrees with the Scripture narrative, which
imphes throughout that James governed the Diocese of
Jerusalem. He presided at the First Council of "Apostles, Elders
and brethren," held in Jerusalem, a. d. 50 ; he summed
up the argument and pronounced the decision : " Where
fore my sentence is," etc.8
St. Paul speaks of the messengers who carried the
decrees of the Council to Antioch, as coming " from
James."9 Indeed, when St. Paul went up to Jerusalem
to attend the Council, he speaks of " James, Cephas, and
John, who seemed to be pillars,"10 giving James prece
dence over Peter and John in the Holy City. Fourteen
years before, when St. Paul first went up to Jerusalem
after his conversion, and spent a fortnight with St. Peter,
he says : " Other of the Apostles saw I none save James, the
Lord's brother," n who appears always to have resided in
his diocese, while the rest of the Apostles were Missionary
Bishops, Apostles at large. Twenty years later, when St.
Luke and others accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem, they
had an interview with the Bishop, which St. Luke de
scribes in these words : " The day following, Paul went in
with us unto James, and all the Presbyters were pres
ent."12 When St. Peter was released from prison, he
7. "Post passionem Domini, statim ab Apostolis Hierosalymorum Episco-
pus ordinatus."
6. Acts, xv., 13. 9. Gal., ii., 12. 10. Id., 9. 11. Gal., 1., 18-19. 12. Acts,
xxi., 18.

AUTHORITY. 63

ordered that news of his escape should be carried to
James. "Go show these things to James." 1Z Indeed, as
Dr. Mines (to whom the writer acknowledges much in
debtedness) puts it : " All antiquity agrees that James
was Bishop of the Church at Jerusalem." Here, then, we
have the fourteenth Apostle.
That St. Paul, though not one of the Twelve, was an
Apostle, no one can doubt. Again and again he calls him
self an Apostle. He stood on precisely the same ground
as the original Twelve, for he was appointed and commis
sioned by Christ Himself. , He styles himself "An Apostle
not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ."14
Twice he tells us that he was " not a whit behind the
chiefest of the Apostles." 15 "Am I not an Apostle?" says
he to the Corinthians ; and to Titus, he writes : " I am
ordained a preacher and an Apostle."
Not to prolong this part of the subject, I give a hst of
those who are expressly called "Apostles " in the Greek of
the New Testament, in addition to the Twelve : Matthias,
James, Paul, Barnabas, Andronicus, Junias, Epaphrodi-
tus, Timothy, Titus, Silas, and Luke. The very name
Apostle is applied to these eleven men, by God the Holy
Ghost. Moreover, they are seen doing the same work as
the Twelve, and are constantly mentioned by the Fathers
and early historians as Apostles or Bishops ordained by
the Apostles.
For example, history and tradition bear witness to the
fact that the Apostle Timothy was the first Bishop of
Ephesus, and the Apostle Titus the first Bishop of Crete,
13. Acts, xii., 17. 14. Gal., i., 1. 15. II Cor., xi., 5, and xii., 11.

64 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
being ordained and appointed thereto by the Apostle
Paul. The epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus not
only accord with this statement, but are irreconcilably
absurd on any other supposition, for they show that these
men were left by St. Paul not only with power to do such
things as all Presbyters could do, but also to superintend
the whole work of the Church in their respective jurisdic
tions — to give order concerning the doctrine which the
Presbyters were to preach ; to rectify all deficiencies ; to
ordain Presbyters in all the cities ; to examine into the
qualifications of candidates for the Priesthood and the
Diaconate, being careful to "lay hands suddenly on no
man ; " to have charge of promoting faithful Priests and
Deacons ; to settle the liturgical and sacramental systems
on a complete and uniform basis, prescribing " supplica
tions, prayers, intercessions and Eucharists,"16 for all men,
for kings, etc. ; to discipline the laity ; to enforce obedience
to the moral law; to regulate marriage ; to have a special
care over the setting apart of widows and virgins as Sis
ters or Deaconesses ; to enforce the Creed or '' form of
sound words," and after one or two warnings, to excom
municate " a man that is an heretic." And whence came
all this authority and power ? St. Paul tells us, for he
says to his " son Timothy : " " Stir up the gift of God
which is in thee by the putting on of my hands." 17
16. See the Greek.
17. II. Timothy, i., 6. The assertion here made that Timothy received the
gift "By (dia) the putting on" of St. Paul's hands, is not weakened (as some
have claimed) by the expression, in I. Tim., iv., 14: "The gift that is in thee,
which was given thee by prophecy, with (meta) the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery." The assumption that this implies the right of Priests (Presbyters)
to ordain, is wholly unwarranted. For it is clear that in the ordination of St-
Timothy, mentioned in II. Tim., i., 6., St. Paul himself was the comecrator

AUTHORITY. 65

I leave it to any candid reader to say whether the work
of Timothy and Titus was not clearly and incontroverti-
bly the work of a Bishop in the Church of God ?
Besides the original Twelve and the eleven who are
called Apostles in the New Testament, twenty-three in all,
there are many more who are called " companions, fellow-
laborers," etc., who seem to have done the same work, and
who, though not expressly called Apostles in the Bible,

[" By the putting on of my hands"]. If the reference, in I. Tim., iv., 14, be to
the same ordination, then the expression, "With the laying on of the hands of
the Presbytery," merely implies that certain men were associated with St. Paul
in the actof ordination which he performed. Now, who were these men f "The-
' Presbytery,'" says Dr. Blunt, "has been understood by St. Chrysostom, Theo-
doret, Oecumenius, Theophyloct, Suicer, and all the best commentators, ancient
and modern, to designate the College of Bishops" — i. e., the Apostles who assisted
St. Paul in the consecration of Timothy to the Apostolic Episcopate, according
to the rule which afterward universally prevailed, that at least three Bishops
should take part in the ordination of .every Bishop. The Apostles, it should be
remembered, often called themselves Presbyters, for the greater includes the
less. As late as A. D. 107, St. Ignatius speaks of the " Apostles " as " the Pres
bytery of the Church."
Ii, on the other hand, we take the view that, while the act mentioned in II.
Tim., i., 6, was the ordination of Timothy to the Episcopate, the act mentioned in
I. Tim., iv., 14, was his previous ordination to the Priesthood, what then? Why,
we may hold that the ordination which was undoubtedly performed by St. Paul as
Bishop, was accompanied by the laying on of the hands of some Priests, as a
token of their assent to the act — as has been customary in Western Christendom
since the fifth century— though it would be an isolated instance, so far as we
know, in the Eastern and Early Church. It must be remembered also that St.
Ambrose, St. Hilary, and St. Jerome among ancient, and Calvin and many others,
among modern interpreters, make the phrase, "of the Presbytery," refer to the
Office to which Timothy was ordained:— "Neglect not the gift of the Peiest-
hood (Presbyteriou) that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the
laying on of the hands." Here is what Calvin says of it:
"Paul speaks of himself as having laid hands upon Timothy without any
mention of any others having united with him. ' I put thee in remembrance that
thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.'
His expression, in the other epistle, of ' the laying on of the hands of the Presby
tery,' I apprehend not to signify a company of Elders, but to denote the ordina
tion itself; as if he had said, Take care that the grace which thou receivedst by
the laying on of hands, when I ordained thee a Presbyter, be not in vain."— Cal
vin's "Institutes," Book IV., end of Chap. iii.

66 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
are so called by the early Christian writers. For exam
ple : Dionysius, Gaius, Aristarchus, Archippus, Antipas
(the " faithful martyr "), Crescens, Euodias, Linus, Clement,
Mark, Judas, and the " Angels " of the Seven Churches in
Proconsular Asia. These eighteen (to mention no others)
should, therefore, be added to the twenty-three given
above, as clergymen of the Early Church who ranked
above the Presbyters and Deacons, who were associated
with the Apostles, called Apostles by the Fathers, and
rated in history and tradition as Apostolic Bisnops. Nor
is there in the New Testament a single word which im
plies the " parity of the ministry," or makes against a
genuine and permanent Apostolic Episcopacy.

CHAPTER IX.
PRIMITIVE EPISCOPACY AND ITS OFFICIAL TITLES.
" Christ and His princely race."
—Lyra Apostolica, p. 67.
BEFORE presenting the evidence for Episcopacy in the
writings of the Fathers, it is necessary to make a
remark touching the use of the words Apostle, Bishop,
Presbyter, and Deacon, in the New Testament.
It has been shown that the Apostolic Church had a
threefold Ministry: (a) The supreme and permanent order
of Apostles, including both the original Twelve and those
others who, as St. Jerome says, " were by degrees in pro
cess of time,1 ordained Apostles by those whom the Lord
had chosen." (b) The order of Presbyters who were or
dained in "every city." (c) The order of Deacons, an
1. Some disingenuous controversialists have claimed this passage, as going
to prove that Episcopacy was not primitive, because, forsooth, does not St. Jer
ome say that it arose "by degrees" and "in the process of time ?" They take
care, however, not to put the whole passage before their readers, for that shows
that the phrase, "by degrees and in the process of time," means as occasion
demanded during the lifetime of the Apostles, for it is distinctly affirmed that
those others who were ordained Apostles, were ordained by those whom the Lord
had chosen, i. e., the Twelve ; and if by them, certainly during their lifetime.
St. Jerome's words are : " Paulatim vero, tempore procedente, et alii ab his quos
Dominus elegerat, ordinati Apostoli." If successors of the Apostles were
ordained by the Apostles, and during the lifetime of the Apostles, then it is by
Apostolic Authority that the Church has always been Episcopal.

68 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
account of which is given in Acts vi. That these three
distinct orders by whatever names called, existed in the
Apostolic Church, and have existed ever since, is as cer
tain as that the Church has existed at all.
Some people, however, have stumbled at the apparent
confusion of names by which these orders were called.
But in the first place it should be borne in mind that a
higher order always includes the lower,2 so that an Apos>
tie could call himself a "Presbyter,"3 or even a"Deacon." 4
Indeed, Christ Himself, the great Head of the Church, is
called an Apostle, a Bishop, a Priest, and a Deacon.5 But
on the other hand, a lower order could not appropriate a
title which belonged to an higher order. Now it is not
denied that the term Deacon is the distinctive appellation
of the lowest order, Apostle of the highest order, and Pres
byter of the intermediate order. But the term Bishop
(which means "Overseer") was not at first exclusively
appropriated to one order ; but was used in its literal
rather than its technical sense. Accordingly the Presby
ters are often called Bishops, as being Overseers or Pastors
of a congregation, although their Order was always clearly
distinguished from the order of the Apostles, to whom
gradually the title of Bishop became limited. How this
came about would be easy to surmise even if we had no
positive evidence. The word Apostle means one who is
sent; and as, one by one, those who had received their
2. As St. Hilary expresses it, "In the Bishop are contained all other orders."
"Nam in Episcopo omnes ordines sunt, quia Primus Sacerdos, hoc est Princeps,
est Sacerdotum." 3. I. S. Pet., v., 1; H. St. John, i., 1; IH. St. John, i., 1 (Greek).
4. Acts, i., 17, 25; xx., 24; I. Cor., iii., 5; II. Cor., iii., 6, and vi., 4 (Greek).
5. Heb., iii., 1; I. Pet., ii., 25; Heb., v., 6; Rom., xv„ 8 (Greek).

AUTHORITY. 69

commission directly from Christ ("As My Father hath sent
Me, even so send I you,"6)— those "adamantine Martyrs
and Athletes " of the Early Church, went up to God in
chariots of fire ; their humble successors felt naturally
enough, that there was a certain propriety in limiting to
them the name of Apostle, and contented themselves with
ithe title of Bishop 7 by which the Apostles, the commis-
|sioned chief pastors of the Church, have ever since been
known. As an holy Father has said : "Apostoli sunt Epis-
copi" — the Apostles are the Bishops. All this, I say,
might be readily surmised, to account for the change of
name ; and the writer begs to say that he conceived this
explanation long before he stumbled upon those Patristic
authorities which positively assert the same. Theod oret,
a Syrian Bishop, a disciple of the great St. Chrysostom,
writing about the year 440, says : " The same persons
were in ancient times called indifferently, Presbyters or
Bishops, at which time those who are now called Bishops, were
called Apostles." In his commentary on First Timothy,
iii., 1, after making the same statement, he adds : " In
process of time, the name of Apostle was left to those who
were in the strict sense Apostles [_i. e.,sent directly by Christ
Himself], and the name of Bishop was confined to those
who were anciently caUed Apostles." The same thing is
said by St. Jerome, St. Hilary, St. Chrysostom, and St.

6. St. John, xx., 21.
7. " The name Bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians, with whom it
signifieth one which hath principal charge to guide and oversee others. The
same word in ecclesiastical writings being applied unto Church governors, at the
first unto all, and not unto the chiefest only, grew in short time peculiar and
proper to signify such episcopal authority alone as the chiefest governors exer
cise over the rest."— Hooker.

70 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Clement, who was a Priest and teacher in Alexandria in
the year 189.8
It must be remembered that this gradual change of name
involved no change in the character of the office.9 If we in
the American Church should gradually introduce the cus
tom of calling our Bishops, Presidents or Superintendents,
it would not alter their office nor affect their Apostolic
functions. We have already, whether wisely or not,
changed several of the titles used in our Mother Church of
England, without affecting the position or work of those
to whom the title belongs. We call our Primate "the
Presiding Bishop," but his office is none the less that of
Primate. We call our Episcopal Coadjutors by the syn
onymous term, " Assistant Bishops," and our Ecclesiastical
Synods by the less technical and less correct designation of
"Convention." I have dwelt thus at length upon what is a very simple
matter, the change of a name (a matter of philology rather
than of Ecclesiastical order), because controversial oppo
nents of the divine institution of Episcopacy have a
8. Bingham, in his "Orig. Ecc, II., 2, 1," quotes also an ancient but un
known writer who called himself Ambrose, who speaking of those who were or
dained to succeed the Apostles, says . "They thought it not becoming to assume
to themselves the name of Apostles, but dividing the names they left to Presby
ters the name of Presbytery, and they themselves were called Bishops."
9. I cannot forbear to quote here a striking passage from "Mine's Pres.
Clerg. Looking for the Church, page 413." Speaking of St. Timothy's ordination
as Bishop of Ephesus, he says : " We care not by what name you call him—
Priest, Presbyter, Bishop, Suffragan, Superintendent, Ruler, Governor, Evange
list, Missionary, Moderator, Primus-Presbyter, Apostle, Assistant of the Apostle,
Messenger, Prelate, Angel, Antistes, Princeps, Prseses, Praepositus, Archon,
Proestus, or Prefect (as Calvin styles James in the Church at Jerusalem) — call
h'mby what name you please; write it in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew; read it for
ward; read it backward; it comes to the same thing; Timothy succeeds to the
powers and prerogatives of Paul."

AUTHORITY. 71

bland way of saying " Episcopacy is an innovation. All
learned and pious Episcopalians have now been forced to
admit that in the early Church there was no difference
between Bishop and Presbyter!" Who ever denied it?
Theodoret, Chrysostom, Hilary, Jerome, and Clement
were " Episcopalians," and they pointed it out a thousand
years before the first non-episcopal church was founded !
But just as long as the Presbyters were called Bishops,
just so long were the Bishops called Apostles. The Orders
were distinct, and remained unchanged.
In some localities the name Apostle lingered as the
official title of a Bishop, a good many years after the
death of St. John, as is apparent in the " Didache," or
"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," and in occasional
passages in the early Fathers.10 The two names, Apostle
and Bishop, shade off into each other. While Eusebius
says : " It is recorded in history that Timothy was the
first Bishop of Ephesus, and Theodoret and others call him
" the Apostle of the Asiatics ;" the eloquent and scholarly
Chrysostom blends the titles and unifies the truth when
he calls him " The Apostle and Bishop of Ephesus."
10. The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, recently discovered
by Bryennios, the Metropolitan of Nicomedia, was probably written early in the
second century. It still calls the Pastors "bishops," i. e. overseers, bnt it speaks
also of an order of Apostles (called also "Prophets" and "High Priests"), who
appear to be sort of Missionary Bishops, whose duty it was to make brief visita
tions of the various parishes. I quote from Chapter XI: "And with regard to
Apostles and Prophets, do with them according to the ordinance of the Gospel.
Let every Apostle who cometh to you be received as the Lord." Says the editor
of the "Church Times:" "As the Teaching disposes of the Baptistic heresy
with one barrel, so it brings down Independency with the other ; for while it as
sumes that Bishops (i. e., Presbyters) and Deacons constituted the ordinary
stated ministry, it speaks of Apostles and Prophets visiting the local churches
from time to time, and it directs them to be l received as the Lord.' It also de
clares that they are * High Pkiests ;' it demonstrates that there was an order of
Apostles and prophets other than the Twelve."

CHAPTER X.
PRIMITIVE EPISCOPACY AND THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOS
TOLIC FATHERS.
" If I know anything of Church History, it is that Episcopacy is a divine in
stitution."— Bishop Wordsworth.
" All over the earth, from India to Spain, the Episcopate was a definite or
ganization. It is impossible to account for this hierarchical uniformity without
pre-supposing an original Divine institution. If we consider the difficulty of the
transmission of intelligence, the rarity of the occasions of communication, the
deep-rooted ethnical peculiarities of the varying tribes which were converted to
Christianity, we can in no way account for it save on the supposition of the
threefold ministry being a part of the original constitution of the Christian
Church."— Bp. Forbes.
AMONG all the early Christian writings, including those
which the Church has selected from the rest and de
clared to belong to the Canon of Holy Scripture, we will look
in vain for anything like an argument in defense of Episco
pacy. I fancy I hear some reader exclaim : " Well ! well !
how did that happen ?" Why, simply because Episcopacy
was not an open question. No one thought of sitting down
to write a treatise to prove that the Bishops were the suc
cessors of their predecessors (the Apostles), and that the
polity of the Church was Episcopal, any more than of
laboring to prove that the Roman Empire was governed
by the Emperor, or that a human being has a head on his
shoulders ! It was precisely the same as in the case of
Infant Baptism : no Council ever legislated the Episco
pate into being or decreed that infants should be christ-

AUTHORITY. 73

ened. Nobody was wild and presumptuous enough to
challenge these primitive and God-given institutions.
But Councils — Ecumenical and Provincial — canons, ser
mons, treatises, commentaries and epistles by the score,
allude to Episcopacy as primitive and universal, always
assuming it as a matter of course — a much stronger proof,
by the way, than volumes of defense, which would imply
that it was at least questioned in some quarters.
The Church, wherever it spread, from India to Britain,
from Thrace to Ethiopia, from Babylon to Spain, was
always and everywhere Episcopal. To argue that it was
anything else — e. g., Papal or Congregational — is just as
absurd as if the American Congress, in the face of the
Constitution and the laws, and in defiance of history,
should argue that " these United States " were not designed
to be a Republic, but an Absolute Monarchy, or, on the
other hand, an Anarchy, having no government at all.
And yet nothing is more common than to hear well-mean
ing people say (as was remarked recently by a Doctor of
Divinity in the Presbytery of Philadelphia1) that the
Church of the New Testament was Presbyterial in its order
and polity. Presbyterial ! So it was, if you ignore the
Apostles who had the oversight of the Presbyters. So,
too, is the Anglican Church Presbyterial — if you leave

1. See " The Independent," February 12, 1885, p. 4. Dr. Bacon, a Congrega
tional minister, addressing the Presbytery, said: " The nearest reproduction, in
modern times, of the Church polity of the New Testament, seems to me to have
been in the original type of the Presbyterian Church, as instituted by John
Calvin, of Geneva." Calvin himself, however, was not so sure of it, otherwise
he would never have used the strong language he did in favor of Episcopacy (see
his commentary on Titus, Ch. I, v. 5, and Instit. lib. 4, Ch. 4 and 12). Nor would
he have tried so hard to get Apostolic Orders from the English Church (see Strype's
Life of Archb. Parker, pp. 140 and 141;

74 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
out the House of Bishops ! England would be a Republic,
were it not for the Crown ; and Russia, an Anarchy, but
for the fact that it happens to be governed by the Czar.
The early Christians were Quakers forsooth, but with the
somewhat important difference that they had the Ministry,
the Sacraments, and the Divine Liturgy. The early
Church was Diaconal, but for those venerable Presbyters
who out-ranked the Deacons. In like manner the early
Church was Presbyterial, but for the stubborn fact that
over the Presbyters was an order of Chief Pastors, divinely com
missioned unto the end of the world. Now in aU candor, I ask,
is it reasonable in judging the polity of a Church, to leave
out of consideration the most notable, primitive, perman
ent, and authoritative part of its system ? Nevertheless
this amazing process — be it sophistry or paralogism — is
gone through with by everyone who can see Presbyterian-
ism or Congregationalism in the Church of the New Tes
tament.8 Moreover, as the original Twelve did not die
until they had ordained scores of Apostolic Bishops to
succeed them, this rational (!) process must be followed
up by the logical legerdemain of those who (as one has
said with a pardonable pun), "can translate Jerome,
Chrysostom, Augustine, and even Clemens and Ignatius,
by the hair of the head, over to the side of Presbyterian-
ism ! " ft
We must not expect to find a settled Diocesan Episcopacy
all at once — with mitres and crosiers, Archdeacons, Ex
amining Chaplains, and Standing Committees, which are
but the insignia and impedimenta of the office. The
2. You might as well say that a three-story house is only two stories high,
because you are not willing to look high enough to see the upper story.

AUTHORITY. 75

Apostles held what may be called a roving commission, as
Bishops at large. The world was the joint Province of
their Jurisdiction. It was only gradually that it was par
celled out among them and their fellow-laborers. Of the
thirty men who are actually called Apostles 3 in the New
Testament, at least fifteen appear to have settled down to
a sort of local jurisdiction, as Diocesan Bishops, viz :
St. James, in Jerusalem4; Titus, in Crete5 ; Epaphroditus,
in Philippi6 ; Timothy in Ephesus7 ; succeeded by Onesi-

3. I include here the seven who are called "Angels" of the Seven Churches,
Angel being a poetic synonym of Apostle, in exact keeping with St. John's liter
ary and mystical style. Angel in Greek means messenger, one who is sent; and
Apostle means precisely the same, and is sometimes translated messenger, as in
Phil., ii., 25. In the Angels of the Seven Churches no candid scholar can fail (as
Archbishop Trench says) " to recognize the Bishops of the several Churches. So
many difficulties, embarrassments, improbabilities, attend every other solution,
which all disappear with the adoption of this, while no others rise in their room,
that were not other interests, often, no doubt, unconsciously, at work, it would
oe very hard to understand how any could ever have arrived at a different conclu
sion." Thiersch, one of the greatest of German scholars, says: "What are the
Angels of the Seven Churches but Superior Pastors, each at the head of a congre
gation, and at least similar to the later Bishops. The ancients looked, on them
as Bishops. Of all the Church Fathers who touch upon the matter, not one
thinks of any other interpretation."— Quoted in Timlow's "Plain Footprints,"
Chap, ix., which see.
4. " [Jacobus] ab Apostolis, Hierosalymorum Episcopus ordinatus," St. Jer
ome, Scr. Eccl., c. 2. See also Euseb., ii., 23.
5. See Titus, i., 1, et passim; Euseb., iii., 4; St. Chrys. on Tit., i., 4 and 5;
Theod. on I. Tim., iii., 1 ; St. Jerome, Catai, 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 'Apostle1 of the Philippians, 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
Ephesiorum Episcopus ordinatus," "Timothy was ordained Bishop of the
Ephesians by Paul." See the authorities cited above concerning Titus. The
Acts of the Gen. Conn, of Chalcedon are referred to by Bishop Wordsworth, as
the crowning evidence. ^ ¦

76 REASONS FOR BEING 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, but certainly returning to Ephe
sus after his banishment to Patmos, and laboring as a sort
of Archbishop ; for Clement of Alexandria9 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,10 or possibly bis
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.11

8. Onesimus was at least Bishop of Ephesus, ten or twelve years later, for
he is lovingly mentioned as such by Ignatius, in his letter to the Ephesians,
chap, vi., written before 107 A. D.
9. See Quis 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). Irenaeus, who had often conversed with him, says the same.
See also Euseb., iv., 14, Jerome, and others.
11. The Roman Catholic theory that St. Peter went to Rome, A. D. 40, and
was Bishop of Rome for 25 years, is demonstrably absurd. His residence at
Antioch must have beer much later, for at that time the Church there was under
the leadership of its founders, the Apostles Paul 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 Jerusalem (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., ix., 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
sometimes 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 officers in the
Roman army. "All," says he, "are not generals, nor
commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of

he wrote his last Epistles, A. D. 66 and .67. If he was ever at Rome at all, which
we hold to be almost certain, from the unanimity of the tradition, it could only
have been very briefly before his 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. 254), who says that he arrived there at the close
of his life ; and of the Praedictio Pet/ri, 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 Christianity, i., 117.) See also the " The Pet-
rine Claims at the Bar of History."— Church Quarterly Beview, April, 1879.

78 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
fifty."18 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 Levite; while the layman is bound by the laws
which pertain to laymen."13 He also says : "The Apostles
knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions
would arise about the office 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 office and ministry."14
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. Irenaeus, 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 Epist. ad Ev.), "What
Aaron and his sons and the Levites \three orders] were in the Temple, that let
the Bishops, and Presbyters, and Deacons, claim to be in the Church."
14. Chap. 44.

AUTHORITY. 79

tion of their words, and of whatever he had heard from
them respecting the Lord."*5
Again Irenasus 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 down, and which alone are true."16
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-
byterorum." " 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
us, 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 offaith and patience, and
all 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.17 He succeeded St.

15. From the De Ogdoade of Irenajus. 16. Adv. Her., iii., 3, 4. 17. St.
Matt, xviii., 3.

80 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Peter as Bishop of Antioch,18 the capital of Syria, and so
he alludes to himself not only as the Bishop of Antioch,
but 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 all 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 Tralles,
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 Smyrnaeans, 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-
Eeus, and Origen (who styles him "Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, com
ing after Peter ") ; by Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Gelasius, etc.

AUTHORITY. 81

written to leading Churches in the east and as far west as
Rome, unless Episcopacy had been the universal polity of
the Church, and beheved 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."19 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].20 He lays great stress upon the universality of the
Episcopate : " For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable Life,
is the manifest Will of the Father ; as also Bishops, to the
uttermost bounds of the earth, are so by the will of Jesus
Christ."31 " 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.'m What a diocese that
must have been ! " Let us, then," he continued, " be
careful not to set ourselves in opposition to the Bishop."23
" 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;24 and
19. Chap. 1. 20. Chap. 2. 21. Chap. 3. 22. Chap. 4. 23. Chap. 5.
24. Cf . our Lord's words to the Apostles : " He that receiveth you receiveth
Mb," St. Matt., x., 40, and St. John, xiii., 20.

82 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
indeed Onesimus himself greatly commends your good
order in God, and that ye all live according to the truth,
and that no sect has any dwelling place among you."25
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 Apollonius, 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." 26 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 all reverence, having respect to the
Power of God the Father, as I have known even holy Presbyters
do, not judging rashly from the youthful appearance of
their Bishop."27 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 while our Saviour was still 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."28 " Neither do
anything without the Bishop and Presbyters."29 "Your
25. Chap. 6. 26. Chap. 2. 27. Chap. 3. Cf. 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."30 [Various persons] 'salute you, along with Poly
carp, the Bishop of the Smyrnaeans."31
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." 32 " 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. Apart from these there is no Church."33 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 that 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.34
" Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which
no w has God for its Shepherd instead of me. Jesus Christ alone
will oversee it."35 Strange words for Ignatius to have used
if he were only one among the many equal (!) 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.36
In his letter to the Philadelphians he speaks of them as
30. Chap. 13. 31. Chap. 15. 32. Chap. 1. 33. Chap. 3. 34. Chap. 2. 35. Chap. 9.
36. If any one doubts this, let him see how Dr. Miller, the champion of
Presbyterianism, undertook to find Presbyterianism in St. Ignatius (1 ). In all
the world of controversy, religions, political, philosophical, scientific, literary,
Dr. Miller's exploit with Ignatius is unparalleled for sophistry, audacity, and
unconscious suicide. I advise every reader to get a copy of Mine's " Presbyterian
Clergyman Looking for the Church" (Dutton, N. Y.), and read chapter xxiii.,

84 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
" in unity with the Bishop, the Presbyters and the Deacons,
who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus
Christ."37 " If any man follows him that makes a schism
in the Church, he shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." 38
Ih his Epistle to the Smyrnseans 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." 39 " It is
well 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 SmyrnEeans,"
he bids his Episcopal brother: " Let nothing be done with
out thy consent."41 "My soul be for theirs who are sub
missive to the Bishop, to the Presbyters and to the Deacons;
and may my portion be along with them in God."-42
So much, then, for the testimony of the Apostohc 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'B extracts from Ignatius, something
odd." That chapter alone is worth ten times the price of the book. See also Dr.
Bowdeu'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 71.
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 Apostolica, p. 154.
" If I might leave one request to the 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
close of the first century ; " that its " advantages " were " obvi
ous and important ; " that it " had acquired at a very early
period the sanction of antiquity;" that "Bishops, under
the name of Angels, were already [i. <?., 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 fact as well as a maxim, since
the time of Tertullian and Irenaeus." Gibbon moreover

REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

declares that "after we have passed the difficulties of the
first century,1 we find the Episcopal form of government univer
sally established, until it was interrupted by the republican
genius of the Swiss and German reformers."2
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 fact."
The " Learned Grotius,"3 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, without exception,
testify to this. The testimony of Jeromei alone is sufficient.
The catalogues of the Bishops, in Irenaeus, Socrates, Theo-
1. I. e., before the death of St. John. And what after all are these "diffi
culties of the first century" ? Why, as I have shown, the gradual transition
from the general Missionary Episcopate of the Apostles to the local jurisdiction
of their successors, together with the gradual change of name, which I trust was
made clear in Chapter IX. But call these natural processes " the difficulties of
the first 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 ! 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 ? 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
so 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." 5
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
Btaying 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, Apostohc Succession is a
stumbhng-block to many. And yet Apostolic Succession
rests on a stronger historical basis than the Canon of Holy

5. For Grotius' testimony in full, see his Annotations on the Consultations
of Cassander, his comments on Acts, xiv., and Testimonies concerning him
appended to his De Veritate Beligionis Christianas.

88 REASONS FOR BEING 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 while 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 you
to find out but one Church upon the face of ihe whole earth, that
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."5
6. Pref. to Eccl. Pal., § 4. Cf. also the challenge of Bishop Jewell, first
made at St. Paul's Cross, Nov. 26, 1559 ; repeated March 31, 1560. " If any learned
men of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring
any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or out of
any old General Council, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any example
of the Primitive Church, whereby it may be clearly and plainly proved; * * *
that the Bishop of Borne was then called an Universal Bishop, or Head of the
Universal Church; * * * 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 £
chain of Bishops from [to-day] 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 Episcopalians ask Presbyterians to pro
duce, not a succession of Churches reaching beyond Luther and Calvin and a

AUTHORITY. 89

I shall now give a few extracts from the early Fathers,
which will corroborate what we have already learned from
the Bible, and from SS. Clement, Polycarp 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,"7 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 — Vicinus Apostolorum temporum, as St.
Jerome calls him8 — 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,9 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
Bishopric."
gulf 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
century, was bona fide Presbyterian ; they return the writ with non est inventus •
it cannot be found." [The futile attempts to find it among the Chuldees are well
known.] 7. Chap. 10.
8. De Scrip., c. 22, "Near the time of the Apostles."
9. Euseb. Eel. Hist., IV., 22, as quoted by Bowden, Letter VH.

90 REASONS 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 Eusebius10 — 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 j11 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 course.12 All 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. Irenaeus (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
cessor13 of Pothinus in the See of Lyons was one of the
10. Id.
11. This Quadratus, the second or third Bp. of Athens, A. D. 120, "was,"
says Dr. Mahan (Ch. Hist., p. 114), "a disciple of the Apostles, many of whose
miracles he had seen with his own eyes. * * * Becoming Bishop of Athens,
he labored with great success in re-establishing the Church 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 133.
12. See again Bowden's seventh letter.
13. Viz : Etherius, thirty-first Bishop of Lyons, who, with Virgilius, Bishop
of Aries, ordained Augustine.

AUTHORITY. 91

consecrators 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.14 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, by the Apostles, ordained Bishops
in the Churches, and the Succession of those men to our own time.
If the Apostles had known hidden mysteries, they would
have delivered them, especially to those to whom they
were also committing the Churches 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 own place of gov
ernment (magisterii) to these men."15
He speaks also of " those to whom the Apostles did
commit the Churches ; "1G and again : " The Bishops to
whom the Apostles did commit the Churches."17 In one
place he calls Bishops " Presbyters," but he distinguishes
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
14. Eus., v. 23. 15. Adv. Haeres, iii., chap. 3, § 1. 16. iii., chap. 4, § 1.
17. v, chap. 20, § 1.

92 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
shown, possess the Succession from the Apostles, those
who, together with the Succession 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 Succession
and assemble themselves together in any place whatso
ever, either as heretics of perverse minds or as schis
matics."18 Our next witness is Polycrates, whose testimony is thus
summed up by Dr. Cutts : 19 " 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 Abihu (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). Irenaeus also gives what he calls the
" Successions of the Bishops" in the Church at Rome, 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 [II. Tim., iv., 21] ; to him succeeded Anacle-
tus ; and after him in the third place from the Apostles [observe the plural.
Irenaeus 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 ?— sit verbum sat sapienti.) " To this Clement succeeded Evaristus," and
bo he gives the names down to Eleutherius, 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. 93

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 Martyr ; 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.20 He
alludes to St. John's ordaining Bishops in various cities
of Asia;21 and he calls Bishop Clement of Rome "an
Apostle." Tertullian, 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."22 Speaking of the
Churches in the regions where St. John labored, he says :
" The Order of the Bishops, when traced up to its original,
will be found to have John for its author."28 The heretics
of his day he boldly challenges in these words : " Let them
20. Pedagogue, Chap. xii.
21. Quis Div. Salv., Chap. 42.
22. Quoted by Bowden, Let. vi.
23. " Ordo tamen Episcoporum ad originem recensus, in Johanem stabit
auctorem," Adv. Mar., IV., 5.

94 REASONS FOR BEING 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 Apostolic men, who did likewise
persevere with the Apostles, for his Ordainer and Prede
cessor I For thus the Apostolical Churches hand down their
records ; as the Church of Smyrna from Polycarp, whom
John the Apostle placed there ; the Church of Rome from
Clement, who was in like manner2* ordained by Peter; and
so the other Churches can produce those constituted in the
Bishoprics by the Aposdes, and so regarded as transmitters of the
Apostolic seed."25 He also calls a Bishop's seat " the Apos
tolic Chair."
The profound and versatile Origen, in the beginning of
the third century,26 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?"27
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. Tertullian, by the way, like all the Early Fathers, knew nothing of the
Bishop of Borne being appointed to any higher or diflerent office than the rest of
the BiBhops.
25. De Praescrip. Haeret., c. 32. 27. Quoted in Bowden's 5th Letter.
26. He was born A. D. 186. 28. Quoted by Cutts, p. 122.

AUTHORITY. 95

Time would fail me were I to attempt to set before you
the testimony of Firmilian, the Bishop of Caesarea, 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
philosophy of the Episcopate, as the unifying principle of the
Church, and as being itself an Unity 29m which all Bishops
throughout the world do equally participate ; ^ and of St.
Ambrose, St. Jerome,31 and St. Augustine, and especially
29. "Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."— De
Unit, Eccl:
30. St. Cyprian, writing to Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome, says : " This is
and ought to be our chief care and study, that we maintain the unity which was
delivered by onr 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
Evagrins. Yet after reading it with care, I can find nothing in it which can be
used 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 oue Presbyter above another was a
"remedy against schism," but he tellB us elsewhere that it was done by the
authority of the Apostles, and as early as A. D. 57. He does not say, 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
different 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 Roman Cath
olics can endure: it is the exact theory of the Greek and Anglo-Catholics:
"What doth aBishop do, which a Presbyter may not do, Ordination excepted f"
Then he proceeds: "Wherever there is a Bishop, whether at Borne or at
Eugubium [which was a very insignificant diocese], whether at Constantinople
or Rheginm, 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 ail Succes
sors op the Apostles. * * * That which Aaron and his sons, and the Le
vites were, in the Temple, that let the Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons
claim to be in the Church." Surely if our PreBbyterian brethren can find any
"crumbs of comfort" in the Epistle of St. Jerome to Evagrius, they are most
welcome to them. Such as they be, they are the largest crumbs of the sart that
fall from the Patristic board.

4)6 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
the testimony of Eusebius,32 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 first 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 Christian Church, though at the start she contained
" not many wise men after the flesh," m though she was
" unto the Greeks foolishness," M 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.
32. "Eusebius, the historian bf the early Church, 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.— Cutis.
33. I. Cor., i., 26. 34. I. Cor., i., 23.

AUTHORITY. 97

Then shone forth the Churchly piety of an Ignatius ; the
Scriptural and Theological devotion of an Irenaeus ; the
chaste, philosophical acumen of a Justin Martyr ; the
cogent and fervid logic of a Tertullian ; 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
Cathohc Scholars runs side by side with that other and
diviner succession — to which they have ever paid the
homage of consentient and supporting testimony — the
" Apostohc Succession " of Bishops in the Church of God.

CHAPTEE XII.
IF THE PRIMITIVE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS NOT EPISCOPAL,
WHAT WAS IT ?
" Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo."
"It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and Ancient
Authors, 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 beat 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 saihng." 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
crook1 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 beheved 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 !
he must in the first place set aside the Saviour's promise
to be with His Apostles until the end of the world. Then
he must prove that the Apostolate was confined to the
original Twelve,2 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 Judas ( 1 ), and that there could, 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 miricles, and no one can be an Apostle unless he can

100 REASONS FOR BEING 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 Apostleship." But if that argument proves anything,
it proves too much ; for the early Presbyters 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. The
miraculous 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 Apostleship 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 believe ; In my name shall they
cast out devils, * * * and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt
them," 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 unanimously,
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
mously that not a single Priest or layman lifted his voice
against the usurpation of those who made themselves
Bishops ; so universally 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, unanimously and universally
changed to Episcopacy, 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 :
Credat, Judseus, Apella,
Non ego!

102 REASONS FOR BEING 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 yeare, 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 ; arid 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 1 " 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 some 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 BEING 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 every
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.3 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.4
3. We might say four, including the "Old Catholics," and also charge it
with being the real cause of the nearly 400 Protestant sects.
4. "There is no doctrine or tenet of the Christian religion in which all
Christians in general have, for the space of fifteen hundred years, so unani
mously agreed, as in this of Episcopacy. In all ages and times down from the
Apostles, and in all places, through Europe, Asia, and Africa, wheresoever there
were Christians, there were also Bishops. Even where Christians differed in
other points of doctrine or custom, and made schisms and divisions in the
Church, yet did they all remain unanimous in this, in retaining their Bishops."
— Jablohskt, quoted by Rev. Wm. A. Rich, in "The Examination Examined."

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII.
DESPERATE EXPEDIENTS TO GET RID OF THE BISHOPS OF
THE EARLY CHURCH.
ONE desperate expedient was to assume that each early
Bishop was only a Pastor over the one " Presbyterian
Congregation" in the city, as James in Jerusalem, Ignatius in
Antioch, Onesimus in Ephesus, Dionysius in Alexandria,
Cyprian in Carthage, Cornelius in Rome, etc. They take
care not to mention Titus in Crete ; for there were one hun
dred cities in Crete, and Titus was commanded to " ordain
Priests in every city" — queer work for a Priest who was
simply Pastor of one parish ! But how is it with the
others ? Poor St. James ! What an " overworked Pastor "
he must have been I And what a monstrous " meeting
house " he must have had to preach in I When he was
" installed " over his pastoral charge, there were more
than 3,000 members of his congregation; a few days later
(see Acts, iv.) 5,000 more were added in a day ; and we
read : " The Lord added to the Church daily," " Believers
were more added," "multitudes — both of men and
women," " the number of the disciples multiplied in Jeru
salem greatly, and a great company of the Priests were
obedient to the faith." About twenty yearsdater, St. James
and all the Presbyters of Jerusalem [the " Ruling Elders,"

106 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
who composed the " Session," forsooth], said to St. Paul :
"Thou seest, brother, how many thousands" — literally,
how many tens of thousands — " myriads " — " of Jews there
are which beheve " (Acts xxi., 20). Why, some Presby
terian scholars have admitted that there must have been,
at that time, 50,000 Christians in Jerusalem. And consid
ering that their Churches or places of worship were small
(mostly in private houses), with daily services, weekly
Eucharists, and thorough pastoral care, there must have
been at least fifty congregations, and fifty to one hundred
clergy- under St. James. Jerusalem was a great city; the
Jews had more than 325 Synagogues in it. These facts
speak for themselves.
And so with Ignatius in Antioch, a city of over 200,000
inhabitants. He had many ministering Priests and Dea
cons under him, and his jurisdiction extended so far out
side the city, that he calls himself " the Bishop of Syria."
As to Onesimus, the Bishop of Ephesus, he succeeded to
St. Timothy, who was certainly not a mere Pastor, but an
Apostolic Overseer. And the idea of only one parish in
Ephesus, which fifty years before had a goodly number of
Presbyters— -'not "Ruling Elders," but such as had the
duty and power to 'ifeed the Church of God," i. e., Priests
and Preachers — is simply absurd.
As to Alexandria, why, there were several parishes or
Churches there while St. Mark was still alive (see Euseb.
IL, c. 17), and the Nicene Council alludes to it as an "An
cient custom " that the " Bishop of Alexandria " should
have metropolitan jurisdiction " over all Egypt, Lybia,
and Pentapolis." And St. Jerome says: "At Alexandria,
from Mark the Evangelist down to the times of the Bish-

AUTHORITY. 107

ops Heraclas and Dionysius, the Presbyters always nomi
nated as Bishop one chosen out of their own body and
placed in a higher grade." — Jerome, Ad Evag.
The same is true as to St. Cyprian in Carthage, where
were many thousands of Christians, and where Geisericus
found " the Bishop and a very great multitude of clergy "
(maximam turbam clericorum), and these, not "Ruling
Elders," for their Bishop, Cyprian, calls them " Glorious
Priests " — gloriosis sacerdotibus. A few years later we have
the names of the Cathedral and ten of the Churches of
Carthage. While Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome, had
under him, at that time, forty-six Presbyters and seven
Deacons, besides sub-deacons, lay -readers, etc. (See Eu
seb., VI., c. 43.)
" The earliest Bishops of Rome, we have no hesitation
in affirming, were diocesan Bishops. We learn from Tac
itus that in Rome, in the persecution under Nero, ' a vast
multitude ' were apprehended, and convicted of the crime
of being Christians. Had that vast multitude, in that
vast city, but a solitary Presbyter, a simple parish Bishop,
to minister to them and to watch over their souls ? And
if there were many — how did it come to pass that twelve
of them in succession, from Linus in the time of the
Apostles, to Eleutherius in the time of Irenaeus, attained so
marked a pre-eminence that the names of those twelve
alone were thought worth recording ? " — (From p. 70 of
an excellent little pamphlet on Episcopacy, entitled " The
Examination Examined," by Rev. Wm. A. Rich, Priest
in the Diocese of Albany.)
Many Presbyterian scholars, seeing the absurdity of
this notion, have advanced the theory that the Bishops of

108 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
the early Church were merely the "Moderators of the
Presbyteries " [sic]. I think it would be a surprise to
those venerable Apostles now in Paradise, if they could
hear of it. WeU, call them " Moderators," if you will ;
but Moderators who held a life position, as those early
" Moderators " did, who, like Timothy and Titus, ordained
alone (which no Presbyterian Moderator ever thought of
doing) ; who tried and deposed Priests and Deacons ;
whose office (to which, by the way, they were always get
apart by a new Ordination) exalted them, even though
young men, like Timothy or Damas, over the heads of the
holy seniors; who were the unifying and governing power,
each in a given district, including some central city and
the adjacent country ; who claimed to be " Successors of
the Apostles ; " who called themselves " Bishops " ; who
did everything which a Bishop does to-day, and which a
Moderator does not do — such a "Moderator," I say, by
whatever name you call him, is a Bishop and an Apostle.
" That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet."

CHAPTEE XIII.
A FEW FRAGMENTS THAT REMAIN TOUCHING APOSTOLIC
SUCCESSION.
"It is as impossible for an impartial man to doubt whether there was a suc
cession of Bishops from the Apostles, as it would be to call in question the suc
cession of the Roman Emperors from Julius Caasar, or the succession of Kings in
any other country."— Archbishop Potter, of Canterbury.
"The doctrine of Apostolical Succession is indeed established by the plain
sense of Holy Scripture; but the presumption also in its favor derived from its
history is singular and overwhelming. Other doctrines develop slowly; this
starts forth at once. Other doctrines find their first formal statement in Fathers
removed by a century or even more from apostolic times ; this is enunciated and
enforced in the most emphatic words by those who had been taught by the
Apostles themselves. Other doctrines have been disputed from time to time,
and have worked their way to acceptance by the gradually elaborated balance and
combination of opposite truths ; this one held undisputed and absolute posses
sion of men's beliefs throughout the Church for fifteen hundred years." — Had-
dan on Apostolical Succession.
THERE are stiU several fines of argument in defense of
primitive Episcopacy, which I have not even hinted
at, but which are incontrovertible and all point the same
way. Such are the Canons enacted by the Early Church, not
to create or introduce Episcopacy, but to guard it as an
Apostolic trust, and hand it down to the ages to come,
particularly the "Apostolic Canon " requiring three Bish
ops to take part in the ordination of every Bishop. This

110 REASONS FOR BEIN& A CHURCHMAN.
ancient custom, which was made binding on the whole
Church by the Council of Nicasa, both shows how impor
tant was the preservation of the Episcopal Succession in
the estimation of the Fathers, and is also a guarantee that
the Succession has not been lost through the ages. Apos
tolic Succession Ib not a chain consisting of a single row of
links — although that would be strong enough — but rather
an intricate network such as no spider ever wove, and no
one strand of which is essential to the continuity of the
whole. To prove it, take a net of wire rings and strands,
each ring representing a Bishop, and the interlacing strands
his sacramental connection with those who ordained him,
and with those whom he, in conjunction with others,
ordained ; extend it so as to represent one century or
eighteen centuries of the Church's life ; then apply a gal
vanic current at one end of the net ; of course it will be
felt at the other. Take out a ring here and there ; nay,
cut and slash the wire strands, and break the rings by the
score, the circuit will still be unbroken. So it is with the
Catholic Episcopate. Invalidate it here and there, if you
can ; the error will be rectified in a few years. " If you
can," I say, but can you ? Try it and see. Put your fin
ger on one single Bishop of the Catholic Church — Ancient
or Modern, Greek, Latin, or Anglican — and prove that his
oonsecrators were not Bishops, that his orders are nil;
prove it, I say, or even throw a fair degree of suspicion on
it, if you can, and then — what ? Why, console yourself
with the thought that you have done no harm ; and even
could you have demolished an hundred Episcopal links,
instead of [not even] one, the Apostolic Succession would
still be intact ; just as surgeons sometimes apply a liga-

AUTHORITY. Ill

ture to the femoral artery, and then find that the almost
unnoticed collateral circulation proves sufficient to nourish
the limb in every part. In our Mother Church of Eng
land the Archbishops pf Canterbury have been the chief
Consecrators of Bishops for 1300 years. And yet (to make
the wildest concession imaginable), suppose that every
one of them — from St. Augustine to Dr. Benson — was an
impostor, a mitred layman, the Anglican Succession would
still be unimpaired, and Anglican orders as valid as be
fore. As a recent writer has said : " The first Canon of
the most ancient body of Canons in the Christian Church
— called the Apostolic Canons1 — requires that a Bishop
shall be consecrated by two or three Bishops, thus recog
nizing the collective idea from the start, and the larger of
these numbers, three, has been the express requirement of
all subsequent canonical legislation on the subject.
It has always been maintained in the Anglican Church,
and in every branch of it to this day, though not so strictly
in the Roman branch, nor has any Anglican consecration
ever taken place with less than three Bishops uniting in the
act. This gives a threefold guarantee of validity to every
Bishop consecrated. It is an open and public guarantee.
As each of the three consecrators must himself have been
consecrated by three others, the second step has a ninefold
guarantee, and so on by geometrical progression. This is
1. Another of these Apostolical Canons says : " Neither do we permit the
laity to perform any of the offices belonging to the Priesthood ; as, for instance,
neither the sacrifice, nor baptism, nor the laying on of hands, nor the blessing,
whether the smaller or the greater, for 'no one taketh this honor to himself, but
he that is called of God.' For such sacred offices are conferred by the laying on
of the hands of the Bishop. But a person to whom such an ofiice is not commit
ted, but he seizes upon it for himself, he shall undergo the punishment of
Uzziah."

112 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
•somewhat reduced by the same Bishop acting in two or
more consecrations. It is, on the other hand, increased by
the fact that very often four or more Bishops join in a
consecration, thus greatly multiplying the threads of con
nection with the past. Take, for instance, the case of the
present Bishop of Albany. He was consecrated by five
Bishops, and, tracing up the lines of their consecrators, it
will be found that every Priest ordained by Bishop Doane
combines in himself the transmission of the spiritual gift
through no less than sixty-nine Bishops of the American
Episcopate, including the whole of the four (one Scottish
and three English) consecrations with which our American
succession begins ; and besides these includes four Bishops
of the English and Colonial Churches — Spencer, Medley,
Fulford, and Staley — besides the three Scottish and six
English with whom our succession began, or eighty-two
Bishops in all. And this is in less than one century.
The same rule, having prevailed in every part of the Cath
olic Church from the beginning, must everywhere have
produced the same result. It is as sure and as simple as
the multiphcation table. It leaves no room for doubt.
Take our American Church, for instance. Is it con
ceivable that a man should be received by all the clergy
and laity of a diocese as a Bishop who had never been con
secrated ? And that, too, when the sole ground on which he
could be received was that he had been consecrated ! Is it
conceivable that a man would be received into the House
ol Bishops, and sit and vote there unquestioned, while as
yet he had never been consecrated ? And that, too, when the
sole right to a seat rested on the fact that he had been
consecrated, and those among' whom he sat must have cer-

AUTHORITY. 113

tainly known whether they had consecrated him or not !
And as these consecrations are things of public local noto
riety, the stealing in of any unconsecrated man, and his
universal recognition, both by the clergy and laity of
a diocese, as well aB by the House of Bishops, is a moral
impossibility. The same is true of every Province and
Provincial Synod in Christendom.
The fact of consecration, therefore, is as certain as any
human event can be. And in every such consecration
there is the personal contact of the consecrators and the conse
crated, and each consecrator imparts to the consecrated
that which he himself already possesses — a part in that One
Episcopate of the Catholic Church, of which each validly
consecrated Bishop has an undivided share. No one can
say of such an act that the consecrators undertook to give
what they had not got themselves. And the requirement of
three or more consecrators in each consecration produces,
not a single chain composed of single links, the failure of
any one of which would break the line ; but it gives a
multitudinous web of validity, so widespreading and com
prehensive that the loss of one thread here and there —
even if it could be proved (as it can not) — would have no
effect at all on the general result." 2
The Apostolic Succession is thus vastly more certain
than that of the Jewish High Priests, nor can any King
in all the world be half so sure that he is the heir of his
ancestors, as can the Bishops of the Church that they are
the lawful inheritors of the office and commission of the
Blessed Apostles. " The official lives of two Bishops of
our own Church, Bishops White and Smith, extending
2. Rev. J. H. Hopkins, D. D., in Am. Ch. Rev., Jan., 1885.

114 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
over nearly a century, suggests that the chain of Episcopal
Succession has not so many links as is often imagined,
and (from such imagination) argued that it is quite in
credible that there should be no missing link in that chain.
Thirty-six of such lives carry us back to the Apostolic
age ; and when it is furthermore considered that the rule
has always prevailed of requiring at least three Bishops to
unite in the consecration of another, it will readily be
seen that so far from there being a high degree of proba
bility against the continuance of a lineal succession in the
Episcopate, there is scarcely the least ground for the
opinion that it could have failed even if we had not ample
documentary evidence to the contrary." 3
Another argument is to be found in the homage which
all early schismatics paid to Episcopacy ; for they re
sorted to desperate expedients in order to get the Apos
tolic Succession. For example, when the Roman Presby
ter, Novatianus, started his schism, about a. d. 250, he is
said to have invited three country Bishops to his house,
where he dined them, and wined them, and made them
drunk, and then forced them to go through the sacriligious
form of ordaining him a Bishop. And yet, hke all schis
matics, his ostensible aim was to purify the Church ! In
like manner, Fortunatus, who headed a schism in Carth
age, during the Episcopate of good St. Cyprian, got
himself ordained by Privatus, an excommunicated Bishop,
assisted by several of his kind, whom St. Cyprian calls
"false bishops." A few early sects who were unable to
get even the shadow of a succession, set up a man-made
3. The Rt. Rev. H. A. Neely, D. D., Bishop of Maine, Convention Address,
1884.

AUTHORITY. 115

ministry with imitation bishops, like the " Tulcan bishops,"
who for a while drew the Episcopal revenues of Scotland,
or like the so-called " bishops " of the Danish Lutherans,
and the Methodist Episcopalians.
Another argument might be found in the occasional
allusions to the polity of the Church, which are made by
pagan writers, and by the early opponents of Christianity.
Fas est ab hoste doceri.
Or, take the two or three instances where a disappointed
priest undertook to play the bishop. Early in the fourth
century, Colluthus, a Presbyter at Alexandria, separated
from his Bishop and undertook to ordain certain men to
the priesthood. Whereupon a council of all the Bishops
in Egypt was held in Alexandria, a. d. 324, by which the
ordinations above mentioned were declared null and void,
on the ground that Colluthus not being a Bishop, but only
a Priest, had no power of ordaining. Those whom he had
laid his hands on, pretending to make them Priests, were
declared to be simply laymen, and, having been reconciled
to the Church, lived thereafter in lay-communion.4
In the same century, Aerius, a Presbyter who was dis
appointed at not being made a Bishop, apostatized from
the Faith, denied the Divinity of Christ, and, as St. Jer
ome says, " is reported to have added also some dogmas of
his own [sic], saying that there ought to be no difference
between a Presbyter and a Bishop." 5 He was well
answered by Epiphanius, who called his novel theory " an
outrageous and senseless doctrine " — dogma furiosum et
4. See Athanasius' Works, Vol. I., pp. 134 and 193.
5. ''Propria quoque addisse dogmata nonnulla, dicens Presbyterum ab
Episcopo nulla differentia debere discerni."

116 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
stolidum. The Churchmen of his day regarded him as a
" mad man."
Finally, take the history of the Ancient Councils, espe
cially the Six General Councils, which brought together in
all 1,630 Bishops from all parts of the Universal Church ;
study them with care. It is all one way: There is no
popery and no parity in any of them.
Such is a part of the evidence of antiquity as to the
divine order and polity of the Catholic Church. Well
does Archbishop Potter say : " There is such a multitude
of unexceptionable witnesses for this fact, as can scarce be
produced for any other matter of fact, except the rise and
progress of Christianity ; so that whoever shall deny this
may with better reason reject all histories whatever."
Apostolical Succession is a historical fact. And Macaulay,
who is often quoted against the doctrine, said : " What
ever may be the doctrine, there can be no question of the
historical truth." And here I close the testimony of an
tiquity, lest it be said of me, as of another : Utetur in re
non dubia arguments non necessariis.6

6. "In an affair which admits of no doubt, he uses superfluous arguments.'

CHAPTER XIV.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE "FELLOWSHIP OF THE
APOSTLES."
" O, mother of our sinful land,
By kings and saints of yore
Called to Brittania's savage strand
From Syria's distant shore." —Lyra Apostolica, p. 173.
IN assigning reasons why we Anglo-Saxons should be
Anglo- Catholics instead of" either ifomcwi-Catholics or
oriii-Catholics, I have shown that the primitive Church
had certain definite marks which must be retained in
essential continuity by any Church which would justly
claim the allegiance of thoughtful and pious men. These
marks, as laid down in the Bible and as apparent in the
early Church, are Baptism, the Doctrine of the Apostles,
the Fellowship of the Apostles, the Breaking of the Bread,
and the Prayers — in other words, the New Birth, the
Orthodox Faith, the Apostolic Ministry, the Eucharist,
and the " Divine Liturgy " (as Early Christians used often
to call the Church's most solemn prayers).
Now, if the Anglican Church be a true and pure branch
of the Cathohc Church, it must be found to possess all
these things, and if any of them have ever, even for a

118 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
¦short time, been lost or impaired, they must have been
lawfully restored. I cannot see that any one of these
things was ever lacking in the Christianity of England,
though at times some of them have been somewhat clogged
in their use and operation. But I dwell at length on the
Apostolic Fellowship, which inheres in the Catholic Epis
copate, because it, and it alone, has the power to remedy
all defects ; or, as St. Paul said to the first Bishop of
Crete, to "set in order the things which are wanting."1
No reader is asked to take for granted the conclusions
to which this course of argument may ultimately lead ;
but only to follow candidly and without prejudice the
process of interrogating the Bible and history to find the
essentials of Catholicity, and then to see whether the An-
1. In tMs connection the eloquent words of the late Bishop of Ohio are cer
tainly apropos: "Deprive the Church of her ministry, and all her other agencies
of good, except under a special Providence, must wither away; then zeal for the
truth languishes and dies, because the constituted channel of its nourishment ia
cut off; agents and efforts of religious usefulness cease, because the voice of
those whom God has ordained to summon and animate them to duty is not
heard; * * * the Bible is not sought for, because the commissioned expoun
ders and enforcers of its truths are not; Christianity, with all her lovely retinue
of virtues and benefits, withdraws from the abodes of men, because her cause is
not pleaded; her solemn feasts are not celebrated : her altars are not honored;
he'r law is not published; her blessings are not proclaimed. Thus the day is
turned into night, and the garden of the Lord into a wilderness and solitary
place. Nothing, in such a condition, could bring back the sun and the rain and
the dew— nothing restore Christianity, with * * * the Bible, the Sanctuary,
the daily oblation, and all that is precious in heavenly grace, but the reinstate
ment of that ministry of reconciliation, by which, in the beginning of the Gospel,
the world was so rapidly and wonderfully planted with its blessings.
"If any ask, why such connection ; it is enough at present to answer— 'So is
the will of God.'' It might have been otherwise. But He who ordained that the
earth should have no day hut by the shining of the sun, hath alike ordained that
the world shall have no spiritual light but by reflection from His Church, and His
Church no power of reflection but by the agency of her ministry, to which is com
mitted the word of reconciliation, and which, like the mystic lamps of the Taber
nacle, He hath set up in the midst of the sanctuary."— The Rt. Eev. Dr. Mcll-
vaine, The Christian Ministry, p. 15.

AUTHORITY. 119

glican Church has retained them. If we find that she
has not, and that some other religious body has — be it the
Tridentine Church or the Salvation Army — then let us
yield gracefully, and say with the converted Epicurean .
" Nuno retrorsum
Vela dare atque iterare cursus,
Cogor relictos."
Thus far we have seen that the Anglican Church has
always continued steadfastly in the primitive theory and
practice of Holy Baptism, and in the Orthodox Catholic
Faith. Has she also kept fellowship with the Apostles
through the Apostolic ministry which Christ ordained?
I answer : Our Mother Church, from her infancy among
the Britons to this day, has never for one hour known
what it is to be without her Catholic Episcopate.
The actual date of the introduction of Christianity into
Britain has no bearing on the authority of our Church.
The oldest Church is that of Jerusalem, followed by the
various dioceses and provinces of the East. The Church
in Rome was for a long time only an Oriental mission,
working among the Greeks and Jews of the Metropolis.
It was in Greek that St. Paul wrote his letter to the Ro
man Christians, and Greek was for two centuries the
official and liturgical language of the Church in Rome.
No one dreamed of such a thing as that the struggling
community of Christians in Rome was in any sense the
Mother and Mistress of all Christendom. There is, more
over, strong ground for believing that Christianity was
introduced into Britain as early, if not earlier than into
Rome. Indeed, there is some evidence that the Church
got a foothold in Britain five years before it was planted

120 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
in Rome ; so that Rome, instead of being our Mother,
would really be only a younger sister, and — more's the
pity ! — not a very loving one at that. As Hore says (in
his "Eighteen Centuries of the Church in England," p.
191) : " It has been asserted that the foundation of the
British Church was prior in date to that of the Roman :
Cf. Crackenthorp, Def. Eccl. Angl., p. 23. ' De Brittannica
Ecclesia nostra liquidum est fuisse illam aliquot ante Romanam
annis fundatam. * * * Disce Romanam ecclesiam, Brit-
cmnicx nostras non matrem sed sororem, atque sororem integro
QUINQUENNIO MINOEEM.' " 2
Linus, whom St. Paul ordained as the first Bishop of
Rome, was a Briton, and is with good reason believed to
have been converted to Christianity in Britain before ever
he came to Rome. His father, Caractacus, a petty British
king, and his grandfather, Bran, a Druid, were carried to
Rome, together with his sister, Claudia,3 and lived in the
imperial palace. St. Paul says (Phil., iv., 22): "All the
saints salute you, chiefly those that are of Csesar's house
hold;" and again (II. Tim., iv., 21): "Eubulus greeteth
thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia." For the
whole story about these royal British Christians and their
relation to St. Paul, see Hore's Eighteen Centuries, and
Jenning's Ecclesia Anglkana.
The evidence that St. Paul, after his journey into Spain
(See Rom., xv., 24 and 28), made a brief visit to Britain,
3. As to our British Church, it is clear that it was founded some years be
fore the Roman. * * * Learn, then, that the Roman Church is not the Mother
of our British Church, but the sister, and that, too, a sister fully five years
younger. 3. Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, speaks of "most holy Linus, the
brother of Claudia."

AUTHORITY. 121

although not regarded conclusive by most scholars, is
pretty strong, and at least proves the great antiquity of
the British Church and its Apostolic foundation.
Gildas, the first Briton whose writings are extant (sixth
century) says that Christianity dawned on Britain as early
as a. r>. 61.
Fortunatus, a poet of the sixth century, says St. Paul
" passed over the ocean to Britain." Theodoret (b. 386,
Bishop of Cyprus 410) says that " St. Paul, at the time of
his journey into Spain, brought salvation to the islands
lying in the ocean ; " that he went to Spain, and thence
carried the Gospel to other nations ; and he expressly
states that some of the Apostles preached to the Britons.
He says : " Our fishermen and publicans, and he who was
a tent-maker, carried the evangelical precepts to all nations ;
not only to those who lived under the Roman jurisdiction,
but also to the Scythians and the Huns ; besides to the
Indians, Britons, and Germans."
St. Jerome (b. about 340) says that St. Paul went from
one ocean to another, that he preached the Gospel in the
western parts, as far as the earth itself. Britain was regarded
as the extremity of the western world.
Eusebius (b. about 290) says that some of the Apostles
crossed the ocean to those islands which are called British.
Origen, who flourished a. d. 197, says : " The power of
the Saviour reached as far as Britain."
Tertullian (b. about 135) says : " There are places in
Britain inaccessible to Roman arms, which are subdued to
Christ." Justin Martyr (b. about 100) says that Christianity
existed in every country known to the Romans.

122 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
And St. Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, the " fellow-
laborer " of St. Paul, says that St. Paul preached the Gos
pel to " the utmost bounds of the west."
"There can be," says Hore, "no reasonable ground for
doubting that the British Church was not only of very
ancient, but also of Apostolic foundation. A Roman
Catholic writer, not generally very favorable to the Angli
can Church, whose testimony on that account is the more
valuable, readily admits this : ' It is probable,' he says,
' that Christianity was disseminated over parts of England
during the Apostolic age. This was universally believed by
our ancestors. * * * The documents on which the his
tory of the first conversion of England depends, approach
much nearer than those of the ancient Romans to historical
certitude.'' "'4
The old legends about St. James and Joseph of Arima-
thea going to Glastonbury, cannot be looked upon as his
torical, but are valuable as showing the general behef that
Christianity was on British soil in the first century ; and
there is good reason to believe that the church in Glaston
bury was the first building ever erected for Christian wor
ship. While much obscurity hangs over the early history of
our Church in Britain, there can be no doubt that it was
very ancient, that it was independent ot foreign control, that
it received help from Gaul in the second century; and as
Gaul received its Cb istianity from Ephesus and not from
Italy, the British Church was very Oriental in its ways,
and on that account had, and has to this day, several
4. Butler's Book of the Church, quoted in Hore's Eighteen Centuries,
pp. 8-0.

AUTHORITY. 123

points of difference from the Western Churches which
were more intimately associated with Italy.
If, as we are whirled across the countiy, we look out of
the car window every few minutes, and each time see the
landscape covered thick with snow, we feel sure that the
snow has fallen all along the line. So, from the few
glimpses that we get of the early British Church, we see
that it was Episcopal, and are sure that in the brief inter
vals between these glimpses, the Apostolic Ministry ever
spread the white vestments of its divine and gracious
office over the rugged surface of that ancient Church.
After the Diocletian persecution, a. d. 303, in which our
Proto-martyr, St. Alban, suffered for the truth, many
Roman soldiers stationed in Britain, became interested
in Christianity, and at least learned to respect it — among
whom was the Military Governor, Constantius, the father
of the Emperor Constantine. Constantine, thanks to his
residence in Britain, was favorable to the religion of
Christ, and became the first Christian Emperor. In the
year 314 he summoned a Council of Bishops at Aries, and
among those who were present and signed the decrees of
the Council, were three Bishops from our own Church,
accompanied by a Priest and a Deacon. They were Res-
titutus, Bishop of London, Eborius, Bishop of York, and Adel-
phius, who was Bishop probably oi.Caerleon on Usk (the
modern St. Davids, of which, at this writing, the Right
Rev. Dr. Jones is Bishop).
It is uncertain, but, on the whole, highly probable that
British Bishops were present at the General Council of
Nicaea, a. d. 325. At all events, they were invited, and
they accepted the doctrinal decrees of the Council. Bish-

124 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
•
op Restitutus and probably some other Bishops attended
the Council of Sardica, a. d. 347. And at the unfortunate
Council of Rimine, a number of British Bishops were
present, and so independent were they that, as is recorded
by Sulpicius Severus, they thought it unbecoming that
Britons should accept the generous offer of the Emperor to
defray their expenses from the public treasury, with the
exception of three who were in straitened circumstances.
"Britannis indecens visum est; repudiatis fiscalibus, propriis
sumptibus vivere voluerunt."5
Thus our Mother Church, with the Sacrament of Holy
Baptism, with the Orthodox Faith, with the Apostolic
Ministry of Bishops,6 Priests, and Deacons — and of course
also with the Holy Eucharist and a truly Catholic Liturgy
— flourished until, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the
Pagan Saxons invaded the Island and drove the native
Christians from the Eastern parts to the hill country of
the West, chiefly Wales and Cornwall. Theon, the Bishop
of London, and Thadioc, the Bishop of York, held their
Sees manfully till a. d. 587; and then, when their flocks
were scattered and a host of heathen wolves were in the
fold, " when London sacrificed to Diana, and Westminster
to Apollo," they also fled and followed their brethren to
Wales, where their Church still lives.

5. "To Britons it seemed unbecoming [to have their expenses paid], so,
declining the public bounty, they preferred to live at their own expense."
6. See Haddan and Stubb's "Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents" (Vol.
I., pp. 3-21).

CHAPTER XV.
ANGLO-CATHOLICISM ; OR, THE MAKING AND .ESTABLISHING
OF THE PRESENT NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
"It is of paramount importance to remember the organic identity of the
Church of England before and after the Reformation."— Bishop Forbes.
FROM the year 587, when the Archbishops of London
and York fled to Wales, to the year 597, when Augus
tine, the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, first set foot in Can
terbury, Christianity was almost totally extinct in England
proper. In Wales, Cumberland, and Cornwall, however,
our dear old Church was still strong, and numbered more
bishSps and clergy than she does to-day in those same
parts. Moreover, her daughter,1 the Church of Ireland,
and her grand-daughter,2 the Church of Scotland, were in
1. Ireland was converted mainly by St. Patrick, a native of North Britain,
the son of a clergyman, ordained by French Bishops, A. D. 441. He fixed his See
at Armagh, which is to this day the Primal See of the Irish Church. He also
ordained the first Bishop of the Isle of Man. He was on intimate terms with the
Bishop of Rome ; but was as free from all Romish error as his successor, the
present Archbishop of Armagh. The Bishop of Rome found it harder to usurp
dominion over the Irish Church than any other in Western Europe, and was not
even allowed to confer the "pall" on any Irish Archbishop till A. D. 1151.
2. Scotland was mainly converted by au Irish missionary, St. Columba, in A.
D. 565, though British missionaries had preached the Gospel in the South of Scot
land more than a century before, especially St. Ninian, who also aided in evan
gelizing Ireland. "The first legate (from Rome) that ever appeared in Scotland
was John of Crema, in the year 1125, before which time there is no trace to be
met with of any Papal authority in this country."— C. I. Lyon, quoted in Coit's
" Early Hist. Christianity in Eng.," p. 157.

126 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
full and loving communion with their British Mother.
These three Churches of the Celtic race, Catholic, inde
pendent,3 full of missionary spirit, knew nothing even of
that mild form of Latin tyranny and Roman centralization
which were then to be found in Western Europe. As the
learned jurist, Blackstone, puts it : " The British Church,
by whomsoever planted, was a stranger to the Bishop of
Rome, and all his pretended authority." (Com. iv., 8.)
Ethelbert, King of Kent, the foremost of the Saxon
Kings, had married a Christian princess, Bertha, a daughter
of the King of Paris. She brought with her a Gallic bishop
(Luidhard, the Bishop of Senlis) and staff of clergy who
maintained Christian worship in an old British church for
some twenty-five years before the arrival of Augustine.
She was thus the first missionary to the Saxons, and but
for her, Augustine's mission would have been of very
doubtful success. Gregory himself, the Bishop of Rome,
who sent Augustine to England, said that " next to God,
England was indebted to her for its conversion." The Ven
erable Bede declares that the Saxon King had heard of
Christianity from his wife before the coming of Augus
tine ; and William of Malmsbury testifies that the exem
plary life of Bishop Luidhard, the Queen's chaplain, had
silently allured the King's heart to the knowledge of
Christ. I have no wish to disparage the good work done by
Augustine or any other Italian missionaries in converting
the Anglo-Saxons to the religion of Christ. But observe :
In the first place, had they done all the work, it would
3. Dr. Lingard (Romanist) says of the Britons: "The independence of
their Church was the chief object of their solicitude."

AUTHORITY. 127

not have made the English Church a part of the Italian
Church, much less have committed it in advance to doc
trines and practices which were then undreamed of even
in Rome itself. The distinctive Romish errors were then
unknown. Mariolatry was not yet in its infancy ; no one
believed in the "Immaculate Conception" or had ever
heard of it ; the Sacrament of the Altar was administered
in both kinds ; Transubstantiation was not taught ; and
although political considerations made the Bishop of Rome
very powerful and much respected, yet so far from his hav
ing any supremacy, there was at that time far more danger
that a sort of " papacy " or universal supremacy would be
attached to the Bishops of Constantinople, one of whom,
the Patriarch John, had just then assumed the title of
Universal Bishop, which is still retained by his successors.
Gregory, however, the Bishop of Rome, begged the other
Patriarchs (viz., the Bishops of Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem) not to allow such a title to the Patriarch of
Constantinople ; nor would he allow himself to be called
by such a " proud, superstitious, profane and blasphemous
name "" contrary to the Gospel and the Canons." "Who
ever," says he, " calls himself a Universal priest, or desires
to be so called is the forerunner of Anti-Christ." The Patri
arch of Alexandria replied that he had given up calling
John by that title, "as you have commanded me" {sicut
yussistis), and in his letter he addressed Gregory himself as
" Universal Pope ; " whereupon, with true Catholic humil
ity, Gregory wrote again : " I beg that you will not speak
of my commanding, since I know who I am and who you
are. In dignity you are my brother, in character my father.
* * * I pray your most sweet holiness to address me

128 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
no more with the proud appellation of ' Universal Pope,'
since that which is given to another beyond what reason
requires, is subtracted from yourself. If you style me
Universal Pope, you deny that you are at all that which
you own me to be universally.4 Away with words which
puff up vanity and wound charity." In his letter to John
he declares Christ to be the " Head of the Universal
Church." How absurd, therefore, is the idea that Gregory and
Augustine sought to commit the Saxons to anything re
sembling Modern Romanism. When Augustine tried to
bring the British Bishops — seven of whom he met under
the " Oak " of Herefordshire — to acknowledge the Bishop
of Rome, it was not as being " the Pope " in the modern
sense of that perverted title (which was common to all
Bishops for 850 years),5 but as having a certain primacy
of honor, or at the most only a metropolitical jurisdiction
which Augustine wished to extend as far as possible. In
deed, as late as 1100, Pascal II. claimed to be Head of the
Church only within the bounds of Europe.
Gregory, however, was a strange compound ; as one has
said, " He was the last of Rome's good Bishops, and the
first of its bad ones." While he disclaimed any right to
supremacy, he nevertheless did much to build up the
Roman power in Spain and Gaul ; and also, in direct vio
lation of the Canons of the General Councils which he had
4. The Bishop of Alexandria was then and is to this day officially styled,
"The Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria," etc. Pope (Latin
Papa) means only Father, and corresponds exactly to our Episcopal title,
"Father in God."
5. Indeed, it was as late as A. D. 1070, that Hildebrand, the Bishop of Rome,
decreed that he alone should be called Pope, See Coit's Earl. Hist. Christianity
in Eng., p. 170, note.

AUTHORITY. 129

sworn to maintain, he presumed to give Augustine author
ity over the British Bishops. They, of course, repelled
his interference with courteous dignity and catholic au
thority. Augustine was ordained Bishop by Aetherius, the Bish
op of Lyons (who derived his orders through Pothinus
from St. John) and by Virgilius, the Bishop of Aries
(who derived his through Trophinus from St. Paul), and
was constituted Archbishop of Canterbury. Gregory con
ferred on him the pall, a white woolen scarf with purple
crosses, which was at that time only a mark oi favor, con
ferred with the consent of the Emperor, and not, as it
afterwards became, a badge of submission to Rome.
But whatever were the claims, admissible and inadmis
sible, which Gregory might have made to a primacy over
the Christianity of the British Isles, provided he had been
the author of it, we must remember that only a small part
of the work of planting Christianity there was done by
the Italian Church. Wales, Cornwall, and Cumberland,
with many Bishops and thousands of clergymen, were not
indebted to Rome ; Ireland and Scotland were converted
by Celtic missionaries, and so was the larger part of England
proper; I mean the Anglo-Saxons. All that Augustine
and other Italian missionaries did was to sow the seed in
Kent, which was already prepared for it by Queen Bertha
and Bishop Luidhard (and even in this a large share of
the work was done by the Gallic missionaries who accom
panied Augustine as interpreters'), and in Wessex, and indi
rectly also in East Anglia. All the rest of England was
converted by Celtic missionaries, indirectly from Wales,
and directly from Ireland and Scotland, with a little help
from France.

130 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

One gift, however, the Roman missionaries gave to Eng
land, and that was the genius of thorough organization,
centering in the See of Canterbury. Augustine was con
secrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 597. After him
came five Archbishops who ruled only a part of the Saxon
Christians, as the larger portion of them were of the Celtic
obedience. Meantime, the two schools of Christians in the Hep
tarchy were being drawn nearer together, and at length
agreed to unite under one Archbishop. Accordingly they
received Theodore, a Greek, born in the city of Tarsus, the
birthplace of St. Paul. Under him the English Church
was welded into one compact organism, long before Eng
land was a nation, or had any central government.
Theodore, as being a member of the Greek Church, was
acceptable to the British party, who prided themselves on
their Oriental Origin ; and as having been ordained by
the Bishop of Rome, was acceptable to the Italian party.
The magnitude and beneficence of his work cannot be too
highly appreciated. He held the first general Synod of
the Saxon6 Church at Hertford, a. d. 673 ; he subdivided
dioceses ; he was instrumental in introducing the Greek
parochial system with resident clergy in each parish ; he
introduced ten very important canons of Ancient Coun
cils, which he had brought with him from the East ; he
arranged to a large extent the financial system of the Eng
hsh Church ; in fact, he established a united Church in
England, pure, Catholic, independent — the same which
God has preserved through all the vicissitudes of the ages
6. Before the Saxon invasion there had been at least twelve such Synods,
under the British Archbishops of London, of whom there were fifteen.

AUTHORITY. 131

to this day ; a Church which was never established by the
State, or by any act of Parliament, for it antedates the State
itself by a hundred and fifty years ; 7 and can more properly
be said to have established the State, than to have been estab
lished by the State. Archdeacon Churton has said of Theo
dore : " He found the Church divided, and left it united ;
he found it a missionary Church scarcely .fixed in more
than two principal provinces ; he left it what it will ever
be, while the country remains in happiness and freedom,
the Estabhshed Church of England."
In 874, the Welsh Church acknowledged the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and by the year 1200 had become fully
united with the English Church, bringing in the line of
Apostohc Succession of the old British Bishops, and those
of Gaul, and of Jerusalem, the See of St. James, which
the second General Council called "The Mother of All
Churches."

7. "The unity of the Church in England was the pattern of the unity of the
state ; the cohesion of the Church Was for ages the substitute for the cohesion
which the divided nation was otherwise unable to realize. * * * It was to an
extraordinary degree a national Church ; national in its comprehensiveness as
well as in its exclusiveness. Englishmen were in their lay aspects Mercians or
West Saxons ; only in their ecclesiastical relations could they feel themselves
fellow-countrymen and fellow-subjects." — Stubb's Constitutional History, Vol.
I., Chap, viii., "The Anglo-Saxon Church."

CHAPTER XVI.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH NEVER THE ROMAN CHURCH.
"The only logical basis of Anglicanism is the maintenance of the Identity,"
—Bishop Forbes.
IT is a great mistake to suppose that, before the Refor
mation, the Church in England was the Roman Church,
and after the Reformation the English Church. It was
always the same English Church from the time England
received Christianity, and long before the English were a
nation. Its legal name was the English Church — Ecclesia
Anglicana — and neither its name nor its organization, nor
the essentials of its faith and worship, have ever been
changed. In the reign of King Alfred, the Church of Eng
land leased a piece of property to the Crown for 999 years.
A few years ago the term of the lease expired, and the
property reverted to the present Church of England as
being the identical corporation which leased the land a
millennium before.
But all this is not to deny that during the Middle Ages,
the English Church became corrupt in many ways ; and
by a series of successful encroachments on the part of
the Bishop of Rome, backed by the " Forged Decretals,"
by the superstition of the times, and by the vices of some

AUTHORITY. 133

of the kings, was gradually brought, to a considerable 1:
extent, under the yoke of Italy. Thus a reformation be
came necessary in order to free and purify the Enghsh
Church. Let me illustrate :
Napoleon the Great extended his imperial usurpation
over the kingdom of Prussia ; but Prussia was still Prus
sia, and retained her own government and royal succes
sion. By and by Prussia freed herself from Napoleon's
tyranny. Did that make her a new nation? Was she
not the same old kingdom that she was before ? Or, to
bring the matter nearer home, here in North America are
two sister Churches, the Church in the United States, and
1.- Says the Rev. Wm. A. Rich, in "The Examination Examined:" "In
England, * f rom before King John' — say, from the Norman Conquest—' to the
Reformation,' papal encroachments by degrees reached the point where they be
came intolerable. But never at any time did the papal sway in Britain attain
such proportions that we can rightly speak of it as absolute.
Plainly it was not absolute when the Norman William laid down the law that
no papal legate should set foot on English soil without the royal permission.!
Nor when his son William Rufus (as the ancient chronicler, Matthew Paris,
relates) declared that no Bishop or Archbishop of the English Church was sub
ject to the Pope.§
Nor when the statute De AsportatU B&ligiosorum (35 Edw. I,) was enacted,
forbidding that the revenues of monasteries and other religious houses, held by
papal ecclesiastics, should be carried out of the kingdom. D
Nor when by the statutes of Provisors (25 and 38 Edw. IH., 13 Kich. II., and
2 Henry TV.) it was ordered that any English ecclesiastic obtaining from the
Pope a nomination to any benefice, abbey, or priory in the realm of England,
shall be outlawed. 'And any man may do with him as with an enemy of our
Sovereign Lord the King and his realm. '^
Nor when the celebrated statutes of Praemunire were enacted (27 Edw. in.,
and 16 Rich. IL), restraining all British subjects from appealing to the Papal
authority or attempting to act under it.**
Nor when the Parliament of 1399 declared that " in all time past the crown
and realm of England had been so free that neither Pope nor any other outside
the realm had a right to meddle therewith. "tt
1 Stubbs' Constitutional History, I., p. 310.
§ Quoted in Wordsworth's "Theoph. Aug.," p. 162.
1 Gibson's Codex, p. 1222. f Gibson's Codex, pp. 74, 81, 83 and 87.
** Gibson's Codex, pp. 80, 86. tt Stubbs, iii., 293.

134 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
the Church in Canada. Suppose our " Presiding Bishop "
should, by a system of shrewd and unscrupulous aggres
sion — such as bribing the Governors of Canada, and circu
lating skillfully forged documents which deceived many
of the Canadians into believing that our Presiding Bishop
really had an ancient and divine right to the obedience of
all Canadians — usurp dominion over the Canadian Church.
Suppose the Canadian Church was thus forced, against
her own interests and honor, to submit to this foreign
interference, but all the while kept up a protest, maintained
her old name, and her own prayer book, and her own succes
sion of bishops, and her own diocesan and Provincial
Synods, would she really cease to be the same old Church
of Canada ? And if after a time she should find out that
she had been originally independent, and so should simply
decide that the great American Bishop had no just au
thority over her, and should find herself strong enough to
resist his interference, would that make her a new or dif
ferent Church ? Would it sever her historic continuity ?
Would it break her fellowship with the Apostles ? Not
at all. Now, this was precisely the case of our own
Church, as she was gradually brought under the dominion
of the Bishop of Rome — struggling manfully the while
against his usurpation, and at last throwing it off. Surely
there was no making of a new Church. If a man is en
slaved and escapes from bondage, he is the same man ; if
he is taken sick and recovers, he is the same person ; if a
chariot gets covered with mud, and is washed, it is the
same chariot.
In the Arabian tale, " Sinbad the Sailor," after his fifth
voyage, was living on an island, when a monster, called

AUTHORITY. 135

the " Old Man of the Sea," dropped down upon his
shoulders, and rode poor Sinbad almost to death. By
and by Sinbad made the Old Man drunk with wine, and,
throwing him off, was free again. Sinbad the Sailor was
Sinbad the Sailor before the Old Man of the Sea mounted
him ; he was Sinbad the Sailor while the Old Man of the
Sea was on his back ; and he was the same Sinbad the
Sailor after he had cast him off. Our Church, in like man
ner, was on an Island. The Old Man of the Papal See [for
give the paronomasia'] jumped upon our Church and rode
it like a beast of burden. Like Sinbad, we threw him off ;
we bathed and refreshed ourselves ; but (thank God) we
remained the same old Catholic and Apostolic Church,
without losing our Orthodox Faith, our Apostolic Succes
sion and Fellowship, our historic continuity, our lawful
Sacraments and Worship, or our divine jurisdiction and
authority. Until the Norman Conquest (a. d. 1066), the Bishop of
Rome had very little authority over the English Church.
In the seventh century, Wilfrid, the Archbishop of York,
was the first English Churchman to appeal to Rome. The
Roman Bishop sustained him, and pronounced eternal
anathemas on all who should refuse to abide by his decis
ion. But he was dealing with Englishmen, not with the
effeminate races of Southern Europe. The King of Wes-
sex convened a synod which ruled that Wilfrid's appeal to
Rome was a public offense, and cast him into prison. At
the same time, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to
notice a summons from the Bishop of Rome to attend a
council. After Wilfrid had been set at liberty, and allowed to

136 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
return to his diocese, through the kindly mediation of the
Bishop of London, he again appealed to Rome on the same
question — the division of his diocese. For this second
offense against the authority of the English Church he
was deposed and excommunicated, and the sentence of
the Bishop of Rome was set at naught.
When Cuthbert was Archbishop of Canterbury, his
friend Winfrid ("St. Boniface "), an Englishman who had
converted a large part of Germany, advised him to bring
the English Church under the authority of Rome, as he
claimed he had done with the Church in Germany.
In the first place, this proves that the Church was not
already in submission to Rome ; and, in the second place,
when Cuthbert — pleased with the idea — called a coun
cil of the English Church, at Clovesho, a. d. 747, and pro
posed, as an entering wedge, that difficult cases in the
English ecclesiastical courts should be referred to Rome,
" the Council refused to compromise the dignity of the
Church, and the Archbishop was declared the Supreme
head." Roman canon-law was never of force in our Church.
In the eighth century, when the great controversy about
'* image worship " was agitating the whole Church, the
Bishop of Rome declared in favor of the semi-idolatry ; but
the Enghsh, so far from owning his supremacy, stood out
boldly against his decree, and, in company with the Galli-
can Church, sided with the Greeks.
The Bishop of Rome, of course, as being the foremost
Prelate and the only Patriarch in the West, was justly re
spected for his office, and accorded a primacy of honor.
But Roman ambition was leading to the gradual submis
sion and subjugation of the leading provinces and dioceses

AUTHORITY. 137

of Europe ; and during the unhappy reign of Offa — the
most powerful of the Saxon Kings — the Bishop of Rome,
Hke the camel in the fable, got his front feet within the
door of the Enghsh Church. Offa was a very cruel and
licentious king, and being at variance with the Arch
bishop, he determined to elevate the diocese of Lichfield
into an archbishopric in his own kingdom. Accordingly,
by offering the Bishop of Rome a vast bribe, which he was
base enough to accept, he succeeded in getting the " pall "
for the Bishop of Lichfield (which, however, remained an
archdiocese for only fifteen years). In bestowing the pall,
the Bishop of Rome made the first notable aggression on
the liberties of the English Church,viz: He insisted that
Offa should receive two Roman legates, and allow them, in
spite of the protest of the Primate, to hold a council in
England. It was a small thing in itself, but a bad prece
dent. Still, our Church always kept its own canon-law.
The second aggression was brought about in this way :
Offa, toward the end of his life, to atone, forsooth, for his
grievous crimes, established a tax of one penny a year on
every family In his kingdom, to be sent to Rome. This
was the beginning of " Peter's Pence " (a. d. 855).
The part played by that wicked King Henry VIII. in
freeing the Church of England from Roman tyranny, is
thus well offset by the fact that an equally wicked king
was the means of opening the way for that tyranny seven
hundred years before.
Meantime, the "False Decretals," which were forged
about a. d. 836, claiming that Christ had constituted
Rome the Head of the Church, etc., were doing their pes
tilent work throughout Europe, and opening the way for

138 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
further encroachments on the divine liberties of the
Anglo-Catholic Church.
All scholars, Roman and Protestant, now admit that
these decretals were only a " clumsy forgery." Doctor
Fulton, in a thoughtful and suggestive note, says of them :
" They might well be called the most prodigious disgrace
of Christian literature, of which a history, and a complete
translation, would be the most crushing reply to the mod
ern Papal pretensions."2
Just before the Norman Conquest, two men, Robert and
Stigand, claimed the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Rob
ert, like Wilfrid four hundred years before, appealed to
Rome, being the second English Bishop to do so. The
Bishop of Rome sustained him, but the English Church
scorned the foreign prelate's interference, and Stigand re
mained Archbishop.
It is not strange that the Bishop of Rome favored Wil
liam of Normandy in his conquest of England, for it
seemed sure to bring the English Church under Roman
dominion. Stigand and many of the Saxon bishops were
removed by William and Normans put in* their places.
Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canterbury ; and was,
by the way, the first English bishop to teach the doctrine
of Transubstantiation. Both William and Lanfranc, how
ever, resisted Rome in many ways. William was the
only king in Europe who dared stand out against Gregory
VII., the most powerful of all Roman bishops. He re
fused to do fealty for his kingdom ; and he allowed the
payment of " Peter's Pence " only as a voluntary alms, not
2. Am. Ch. Review, Jan., 1885, p. 293.

AUTHORITY. 139

as a right. When Gregory summoned all the English
bishops to a Council, and threatened William with the
"Wrath of St. Peter" unless they came, not a single
bishop obeyed the summons. When he declared all the
married clergy of the Enghsh Church excommunicated,
unless they put away their wives, the English Church
held a Council, a. d. 1076, and refused to allow the new
regulation except in the case of the cathedral and collegi
ate clergy, who were required to put away their wives.3
When the Bishop of Rome summoned Archbishop Lan
franc to Italy, on the penalty of deposition and " severance
from the grace of St. Peter," if he did not arrive within
four months, Lanfranc took no notice of the threat, and
nothing was done. Rome's power, though still increasing,
was far from complete. Urban IL, the Bishop of Rome,
a. d. 1100, declared that the Archbishop of Canterbury
ought to be treated as an equal, and called him " the Pope
and Patriarch of another world."
The Council of Clarendon, a. d. 1164, forbade all appeals
to Rome without the King's consent. Surely every one is
familiar with the bold anti-Roman stand taken by Rich,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1234 ; by Gro6tete, the
Bishop of Lincoln, 1235 ; and by Sewell, the Archbishop
of York, 1265, against whom Rome fulminated a vain and
unheeded excommunication.
Italian aggression reached its climax in the reign of
King John (1199-1216), when John placed the whole
3. English clergy (except the monastic orders) were generally married up
to A. D. 1102. After that, though prohibited by law, it was still common, pro
vided they paid a special tax to the king. They were never required to take a
vow ot celibacy. See Hore's Eighteen Centuries, p. 136; and Jenning's Eccl.
Ang., pp. 76-7. The civil law forbidding the marriage of the clergy was not re
pealed tin long after the Reformation, in the reign of James I.

140 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
realm at the feet of the Bishop of Rome, which, of course,.
he had no right to do. The whole country rose against
him, clergy, barons, people, calling themselves " The Army
of God and the Church." "It was," says Hore, "the
army not only of the barons against the King, but of the
Church against the Pope." On that memorable 15th of
June, 1215, they forced the King to sign Magna Charta,
which was the work of Stephen Langdon, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and the first article of which declares:
" The Church of England shall be free, and have her
rights entire and her liberties uninjured."4 The Bishop
of Rome was, of course, in a fury. He swore : "By St.
Peter, this outrage shall not go unpunished;" declared
the charter null and void ; and commanded the Arch
bishop to excommunicate the barons — which, however,
the patriotic Churchman refused to do. The Roman
usurper had stretched his power too far ; it snapped ; the
charter remained ; the Archbishop required the new King,
Henry III., to sign it; it has since been ratified thirty-
two times, and, despite its Roman nullification, has ever
since been a part of the fundamental law of England.
Two reforms were now necessary:
(a) To free the English State from the Roman claim of
sovereignty; and
(6) To free the English Church from the Roman claim
of supremacy.
The freeing of the State was accomplished in 1365, when
the king, clergy, lords, and commons declared that John
had no right to make England a fief of Rome, and forbade
the payment of Peter's pence.

4. "Inprimis * » * quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit, et habeat jura
sua integra, et libertates suas illsesas."

AUTHORITY. 141

The freeing of the English Church was a long and hard
process. Various laws had from time to time been enacted
against the Roman usurpation; and in 1351, the "Statute
of Provisors " (followed by the statutes of " Praemunire,"
in 1353, 1365, and 1393), left scarce a vestige of the Roman
Bishop's power in our Church. The legal freeing of our
Church by these famous statutes of the fourteenth century
is not sufficiently appreciated. By them the Bishop of
Rome was forbidden to appoint to any bishopric or other
Church dignity in England. If he did so, the benefice
was declared vacant, and the right of nomination lapsed
to the king. These statutes also prohibited carrying any
suits to the Roman court ; and forbade, under penalty of
confiscation of property and perpetual imprisonment, any
one to procure from Rome, or elsewhere outside of Eng
land, any appointments, bulls, excommunications, or the
Hke. Thus, in theory, the Roman yoke was cast off, but practi
cally two things were needed in order to carry out the
theory: First, the removal of the popular superstition that,
after all, the Bishop of Rome had a sort of divine right
over all churches ; and, secondly, a king bold enough and
strong enough to break with the Triple Tyrant, and say:
"That no Italian priest shall tithe or toll in our dominions."
As to the first, the illusion was dispelled, the prestige of
Rome broken, by the vices and quarrels of the Bishops of
Rome ; by the removal of the Roman Court to Avignon,
where for seventy years the Bishops of Rome were mere
puppets of the French kings ; and by the fifty years of
"rival popes," cursing and excommunicating each other.
The Council of Pisa (1409) deposed and excommunicated

142 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
both of them, and elected a third bishop of Rome. The
Council of Constance (1415) deposed the wicked John
XXIII, and the Council of Basle (1431) deposed Eugenius
IV. These "Reforming Councils," as they are called,
asserted the superiority of a Council to the Bishop of
Rome. For a while it looked as if the whole Western
Church might be reformed on Anglican principles. All
Europe clamored for a reformation. Over 250 books were
written by Western Ecclesiastics pleading for the correction
of Roman abuses.
The fall of Constantinople (1453) sent a host of learned
Greek Churchmen to the West, and opened the eyes of
English Churchmen to the fact that the Greek Church got
on well enough, as it had from the beginning, without sub
mitting to the Roman Pontiff ; while the revival of Greek
learning opened patristic treasures long forgotten, and the
increased study of Holy Scripture was bearing fruit in a
widespread longing for light and liberty.
It was only needed that a bold king should take the first
step.5 In the providence of God Who maketh even the
wrath of man to praise Him, Henry VIII. was the man
for the hour.
As to Henry's character, we need not trouble ourselves.
It was about as bad as it could be, while his confiscations
of our Church property make him the greatest Church-
5. "If any man will look down along the line of early English history, he
will see a standing contest between the rulers of this land and the Bishops of
Rome. The Crown and Church of England, with a steady opposition, re
sisted the entrance and encroachment of the secularized ecclesiastical power
of the Pope in England. The last rejection of it was no more than a successful
. effort after many a failure in struggles of the like kind." — Manning " On the
Unity of the Church."

AUTHORITY. 143
rubber that ever lived. God, however, used him like Cyrus
of old.
After the King's quarrel with the Bishop of Rome, Parlia
ment and Convocation passed stringent laws against Roman
interference. The experimentum crucis was made, the " Gor
dian Knot " was cut in June, 1534, when the following res
olution was submitted to the bishops of both provinces in
Convocation assembled : "Resolved that the Bishop of Rome
has no greater jurisdiction conferred on him by God, in this king
dom, than any other foreign bishop." 6
All the bishops, with the single exception of Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester, assented to the proposition ; the
clergy and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge
agreed with the bishops, and the King and Parliament
gave the governmental sanction. Thus oui Mother Church
reasserted her ancient Catholic independence. The Eng
lish bishops in taking their oath of office were no longer
allowed to speak of the Bishop of Rome as " the Pope,"
but simply as " the Bishop of Rome," and " fellow brother,"
— " as the old manner of the most ancient bishops hath
been."7 Most that was done in the way of reform, however, under
Henry VIII., and his son Edward VI., was undone under
Queen Mary, 1553 to 1558. Mary was a sincere and big
oted Romanist, and succeeded in bringing Parliament and
Convocation to rescind the recent acts against the supre
macy of the Bishop of Rome, to restore the Latin lan
guage, etc.
6. ' Quod Romanus Episcopus non habet majorem jurisdictionem sibi a
Deo collatam in hoc regno quam aliusquivis externus Episcopus." — Journal of
aonvocation. 7. Heart'sEccl. Recs. quoted in Coits "Early Hist.," p. 171.

144 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
This second subjugation of the English Church to Rome,
achieved in a few months and lasting less than four years,
was a sort of miniature reproduction of the previous
usurpation which extended over several centuries. It was
equally unjust, and was as justly abolished.8
Mary illegally removed and put to death a number of
the bishops, and in fact burned to the stake some 280 per
sons for their religious opinions. Still nothing was done
to break the continuity of the English Church. Pole, a
cousin of the Queen, was elected Archbishop of Canter
bury, but would not be consecrated while his predecessor
in office, the reforming Archbishop, was alive. The day
after Cranmer's execution, Pole was consecrated by several
English bishops.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, she as a good Catho
lic, used all her influence to save the English Church, on
the one hand, from being permanently enslaved to Rome,
and on the other, from losing any of the essentials of true
Catholicity. We have already seen that our Church at the
Reformation invented no new doctrines, but merely re
tained the three Creeds, the Bible and the general beliefs
of the Early Church. Did she also at this crisis in her his
tory, keep the Apostolic Succession, and her lawful jurisdic
tion? In other words : Is the An glo-Catholic Church to
day (a) a Protestant Sect? (having neither ministry nor
jurisdiction), or (b) a Schismatic Church? (having the min
istry, but no jurisdiction), or (c) a Catholic Church —
having not only the Faith, Sacraments, and worship, but
also that Apostolic Fellowship which comes of valid orders
and lawful jurisdiction ?
8. See Appendix, IVotel.

CHAPTER XVII.

ANGLICAN ORDERS.

"As the Reformation did not find the English bigoted Papists, so neither
was it conducted in such a manner as to make them zealous Protestants."—
Macaulay's Essays, "Burleigh and His Times."
IN this sentence Macaulay, despite his inability to under
stand theology or appreciate ecclesiastical movements,
stumbles on an important truth, viz. : that between Papist
and Protestant stands the true Catholic ; and to make Eng
lish Christians true Catholics as distinguished from both Pap
ists and Protestants, was the object of the English Refor
mation. Queen Elizabeth struck the key-note of Anglo-
Catholie independence when she replied to those English
bishops who requested her to continue the arrangements
which Queen Mary had made with Rome : " Our records
show that the papal jurisdiction over this realm was usurpation.
To no power whatever is my crown subject save to that of
Christ the King of Kings. I shall, therefore, regard as
enemies, both to God and myself, all such of my subjects
as shall henceforth own any foreign or usurped authority
within my realm."
All the bishops, except Bonner of London, attended the
Coronation of Elizabeth, January 13, 1559. The Arch
bishop of Canterbury had breathed his last within a few

146 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
hours of Queen Mary's death. Nine other bishops had
died. Indeed, out of the twenty-seven dioceses of our
Church, thirteen were undeniably vacant,1 fourteen were
practically filled. Of the fourteen bishops, nine were de
prived of their sees for refusing to take the oath to the
new Queen ; five were favorable to reform, together with
several suffragan Bishops ; moreover, there were the Irish
bishops, who, almost to a man, accepted the Reformation.
Of course, ordination by one bishop, though irregular,
would have been valid, 2 but no such desperate expedient
was necessary.
The first thing to be done was to elect, confirm and con
secrate a new Archbishop of Canterbury. The Dean and
Cathedral Chapter petitioned the Queen to allow them to
elect an Archbishop in the room of Archbishop Pole, lately
deceased. To their request the Queen granted the usual
Conge dy elire, as follows :
" The Queen, to her beloved in Christ, the Dean and
Chapter of the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury, greet
ing :—
"On your part, a humble supplication has been made
to us, that, whereas the aforesaid Church, by the natural
death of the Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ,
the Lord Reginald Pole, Cardinal, the last Archbishop
1. Turberville of Exeter, Morgan of St. David's, Bourne of Bath and Wells,
Heath of York, and probably also Scott of Chester were intruders thrust into the
6ees uncanonically by Queen Mary, while the lawful occupants of the sees were
still living. I do not take them into account. See Appendix, Note II.
2. The first Roman Catholic bishop in the V. S. A., Dr. Carroll, had but one
consecrator, the titular Bishop of Ragal, Dr. Walmsley, who appears to have had
only the same uncanonical consecration himself. See Hook's Preface to Life of
Bp. Hobart, p.25. The Swedish and the " Old Catholic " Episcopates also come
through a single bishop

AUTHORITY. 147

thereof, is now vacant and destitute of the solace of a pas
tor, we would be graciously pleased to grant to you our
fundatorial License to elect another Archbishop and Pas
tor. We, favourably inclined to your prayers in this
matter, have thought fit to grant you this License. Re
quiring that you may elect such a person Archbishop and
Pastor, who may be devoted to God, and useful and faith
ful to us and our kingdom.
" In testimony of which thing, etc., witness the Queen at
Westminster, the 18th day of July, 1559. "3
The Dean and Chapter then, " according to the ancient
manner and laudable custom of the aforesaid Church,
anciently used and inviolably observed," chose the devout
and scholarly Matthew Parker, Priest and Doctor of Divin
ity, August 1st, 1559. Parker had been ordained to the
Priesthood according to the Latin Pontifical. On the 6th
day of the following December, the Queen issued letters
patent to six bishops, as follows :
"Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, France,
and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, etc., to the
Reverend Fathers in Christ, Anthony, Bishop of Llandaff ;
William Barlow, sometime Bishop of Bath, now elect of
Chichester ; John Scory, sometime Bishop of Chichester,
now elect of Hereford ; Miles Coverdale, sometime Bishop
of Exeter ; John, Suffragan, of Bedford ; John, Suffragan,
of Thetford ; John Bale, Bishop of Ossary, greeting : —
" Whereas, the Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury being
lately vacant by the natural death of the Lord Reginald
3. BoWs Patents, 1 Eliz., p. 6, and Bymer, vol. 15, p. 536, quoted in Bailey's
"Defence of Holy Orders in the Church of England."

148 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Pole, Cardinal, last and immediate Archbishop and Pastor
of the same, upon humble petition of the Dean and Chap
ter of our Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Christ, at
Canterbury, we, by our letters patent, have granted to the
same, license to elect for themselves another Archbishop
and Pastor of the See aforesaid ; and the said Dean and
Chapter, by virtue of our aforesaid license obtained, have
elected for themselves and the Church aforesaid, our be
loved in Christ, Matthew Parker, D. D., as Archbishop
and Pastor. We, accepting that election, have granted to
the said election our royal assent and also favor, and this
by the tenor of these presents we signify to you: Requir
ing and strictly commanding you by the faith and affec
tion in which you are held by us, that you, or at least
four 4 of you, would effectually confirm * * * the
aforesaid election, and consecrate the said Matthew Parker,
Archbishop and Pastor of the Church aforesaid, and per
form and execute all and singular other things which
belong in this matter to your pastoral office, according to
the form of the statutes set forth and provided. * * *
' " In witness whereof, we have caused these our letters to
be made patent.
"Witness ourselves at Westminster, the sixth day of
December, the second year of our reign."5
Every precaution was now taken that the new Arch
bishop-elect — the successor of Archbishop Pole, the sixty-
eighth Archbishop in unbroken line from Augustine —
4. It is a civil law in England that an Episcopal Ordination must be per
formed by an Archbishop and at least two bishops, but if no Archbishop takes
part, then by at least four bishops, as was the case in Parker's Consecration.
6. Parker's Begister, vol. I., p. 3 ; and Boll's Chapel, quoted by Bailey, p. 7.

AUTHORITY. 149

might be validly and lawfully ordained. On the 9th day of
the same month, in the church of " St. Mary-le-Bow," Dr.
Parker's election was regularly confirmed, open challenge
being made for any one to show reason why the elect
should not be consecrated. No objection was made. Ac
cordingly, on Sunday, the 17th of December, 1559, in the
chapel of the Archiepiscopal Palace at Lambeth, the sol
emn and sacramental ceremony of Consecration was per
formed in the presence of bishops, bishops-elect, priests,
royal commissioners, noblemen, and commoners.
0 what a scene was that ! And how memorable the act
which saved to England's venerable Church that ministry
of grace and power, which Christ had ordained !
The chancel of the chapel was beautifully adorned. At
the east end stood the altar, at the north side of which was
placed the Bishop's throne. At six o'clock in the morn
ing the procession entered the west door of the chapel —
the Archbishop-elect, vested in scarlet cassock and hood,
with four wax torches borne before him, and accompanied
by the four bishops, who were to unite in the laying on of
hands, viz. : William Barlow, Bishop of Bath and Wells ;
John Scory, Bishop of Chichester ; Miles Coverdale, Bishop
of Exeter, and John Hodgkins, Bishop Suffragan of Bed
ford. Of these four bishops, two had been consecrated
according to the Latin form of the old English Ordinal in
the days of Henry VIII., and two according to the Eng
lish form of the Ordinal during the reign of Edward VI.
Weighing my words with care, I affirm there can be no
more doubt that these four prelates were lawful Catholic
bishops, than that Anselm or Augustine, Ignatius or St.
John were partakers of the Apostolic ministry.

150 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Morning Prayer is now said by Andrew Peerson, chap
lain of the Archbishop-elect. The Bishop of Chichester
ascends the pulpit, and taking as his text : " The elders
who are among you I exhort who am also an elder," he
preaches (as the old Lambeth register has it) " not inele
gantly." Now the Bishops withdraw to vest for the Holy
Communion, and return, the Archbishop-elect in the sur
plice of a priest, Bishop Barlow, the Celebrant, with the
archdeacons of Canterbury and Lincoln, who serve at the
altar as deacon and sub-deacon, in gorgeous copes of silk.
After the Gospel the candidate is presented ; the Queen's
mandate for the Consecration is read ; the oath of office is
administered ; 6 the people are bidden to pray for the can-
6. In the oath, after declaring that the Queen is the only " Supreme Gov
ernor of Thys Realme, as well in spiritnall or ecclesiastical things or causes, as
temporal," come the words: '• And that no foreign prince, person, prelate, State
or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superioritie, pre
eminence, or authoritie ecclesiasticall or spiritnall within this realme." It
should be remembered that Elizabeth never took the title of "Head of the
Church." Henry VIII. took it, but convocation allowed it only with this quali
fication: As far as the law of Christ aUoweth. It was abolished in 1553 and
never revived.
The oath of supremacy has long been abolished. The present oath of allegi
ance runs thus : "I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her
Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law."
Even Henry VIII. distinctly repudiated any claim to spiritual authority, such
as pertains to Episcopal and Sacerdotal functions. All that Elizabeth claimed
was the ancient privileges of the Christian Kings of England. The title of the
law of I. Eliz. shows this: "An act to restore to the Crown the ancient jurisdic
tion over the estate, ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers
repugnant to the same." And Elizabeth distinctly declared : "The Crown chal
lenged no superiority to define, decide, or determine any article or point of the
Christian faith or religion ; or to change any right or ceremony before received
and observed in the Catholic Church." Says Bp. Forbes : " The Crown is no
more the head of the Church in England than of the [Presbyterian] kirk in Scot
land." Article XXXVII. says : "We give not to our Princes the ministering either of
God's word, or of the Sacraments; * * * but that only prerogative which we
see to have been given always to all godly Princes, in Holy Scripture, by God
Himself," etc.

AUTHORITY. 151

didate ; Bishop Barlow sings the Litany, the choir respond
ing. After the usual questions and answers, and special
prayers, the four bishops lay their apostolic hands on the
head of the kneeling priest, each one of them saying in Eng
hsh the ancient words of Consecration ; and Dr. Parker
rises a bishop in the Church of God, and is vested in the
episcopal robes. No part of this important transaction
was done in a corner. After the service the Archbishop
gave a reception in his palace ; and that night he made the
following entry in his private diary, which is still preserved
in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge :
" Seventeenth December, in the year 1559, 1 was conse
crated Archbishop of Canterbury. Alass ! Alass ! 0 Lord,
to what times hast thou preserved me ? Lo, I am come
into deep waters, and the storm hath overwhelmed me. O
Lord I am oppressed, undertake for me, and with thy
mighty spirit strengthen me. For I am a man, both of a
short time and weak," etc.
On the first of January, the new Archbishop was en
throned in the cathedral, after which he was placed in pos
session of the temporalities of his see, and summoned to
his seat in the House of Lords.
I know of no event in Anglo-Catholic history better cer
tified than the Consecration of Parker. I give here a list
of the chief documents which prove the fact of his Conse
cration :
" a. The register of the act in the archives of Lambeth,
written in the same hand as the registers of Cranmer and
Pole, and attested by the same notaries public as Pole's
own record.

152 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

b. A contemporary copy of part of this register in the
State Paper Office.
c. Another contemporary copy of the register in the
library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
d. Parker's autograph note-book, in the same library,
mentioning his Consecration on December 17, 1559.
e. The casual mention of the fact, as an item of news,
in the contemporary MS. diary of Henry Machyn, pre
served in the British Museum.
/. The contemporary MS. " Zurich Letters," testifying
to the same fact, and but lately discovered.
g. The conduct of Bishop Bonner, in his suit against
Home, Bishop of Winchester, in which the fact of Parker's
Consecration itself was allowed by Bonner.
h. The precise dove-tailing of the event into the long
and intricate series of civil (not ecclesiastical) documents
required by the State in evidence of Parker's right to his
barony, revenues, seat in the House of Lords, and coer
cive jurisdiction in his province.
i. The manner in which contemporary writers, such as
Camden, Holinshed, etc., take the matter as notorious and
undisputed." Against all this overwhelming evidence one, and only
one, attack has been made, that known as the "Nag's
Head Fable," which must be briefly and candidly no
ticed. In the year 1604, forty-five years after Parker's Conse
cration in Lambeth Chapel, a wily Jesuit, named Holy-
wood, published a pamphlet in which he claimed to have
been told by one Thomas Neal (then fourteen years dead)
that he, peeping through a key -hole in the " Nag's Head "

AUTHORITY. 153

tavern, in Cheapside, saw Scory lay his hands on Parker,
and some others, who in turn laid their hands on him ^
and thus all made each other bishops ! I
The story is absurd on the face of it ; but, like the Jew
ish fable that the disciples stole the body of Jesus while
the watch slept, it is the best that ingenious malice has
been able to devise against the fact of Parker's Consecra
tion. The Earl of Nottingham, and others, however, who
had attended the Consecration at Lambeth, were still liv
ing to bear witness against this " tale of foolery."
I cannot forbear to transcribe here, from Bailey's " De
fence of Holy Orders " (p. 30), the quaint and graphic
record of the effect of the fable on King James I. as given
by William Hampton, in 1721 :
" In the beginning of King James his reigne, there came
out a book under the name of Sanders with the story of
the Nag's Head Ordination. This book made a great
noyse, and was wonderfully cried up by the Roman Cath
olics as sapping the whole Reformation at once by de
stroying the Episcopacy. This book was shewed to King
James, and upon his reading of it, it stratled [sic] him.
Upon this he called his Privy Council and showed it to
them, and withal told 'em that he was a stranger among
'em, and knew nothing of the matter, and directing him
self to the Archbishop who was present, My Lord (says
he), I hope you can prove and make good your ordina-
7. Here is one manifest absurdity, for Scory himself had been consecrated,
Aug. 30, 1551, by Archbishop Cranmer and two other bishops.
Romanists, of all others, are debarred from questioning Bishop Scory's
orders, for he is one of the reforming Bishops, who was "reconciled" during
the Roman usurpation under Queen Mary; and, at the time of the Queen's death,
was actually serving as a Suffragan or Co-adjutor Bishop under Bonner, the Ro
manizing Bishop of London. The fact is attested by Bonner in his own register.

154 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
tion, for by my sol, man (says he), if this story be true we
are no Church. The Archbishop replied, he had never
heard the story before, but did not question but he could
detect the forgery of it, and by examining the Lambeth
register could prove Archbishop Parker's ordination. At
another Privy Council upon the same account, the old
Earle of Nottingham was present, and when it was debated
the old Earle stood up and told the King and Council, he
could give them full satisfaction as to that matter upon
his own personal knowledge, for (says he) Archbishop
Parker's ordination made a great noyse about towne that
he was to be ordained such a day in Lambeth Chappel,
which drew a great deale of company thither, and out of
curiosity I went thither myself, and was present at his
ordination, and he was ordained by the form in King Ed
ward's Common Prayer Book. I myself (said he) had the
book in my hand all the time, and went along with the
ordination, and when it was over I dined with 'em, and
there was an instrument drawn up of the form and order
of it, which instrument I saw and read over Some time
after (I being acquainted with the Archbishop and being
at Lambeth with him) he told me he had sent that instru
ment to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to be laid
up in their Library in perpetuam rei memoriam, and sayes
the old Earle, I believe it may be in the Library still if
your Majesty please to have it searched for.
" By my sol, man (says ye King), thou speakest to the
purpose, we must see this instrument, and this puts the
thing out of dispute. Upon this a messenger was sent,
the instrument found and brought to ye king, he shewed
it and had it read in Council, and desired the old Earle

AUTHORITY. 155

of Nottingham to look upon it, and see if he could remem
ber whether it was the original instrument which was
drawn up at the ordination. The Earl perusing of it de
clared it was ye original he saw and read when Arch
bishop Parker was ordained. The King upon this
addressing himself to several Popish Lords who were then
present in Council, my Lords, sayes he, what do you now
think of ye matter ? They all declared their abhorrence of
the forgery of ye Nag's Head ordination, and several of
'em upon it left the Popish Communion, and came over
to ye Church of England, declaring that Church was not
fitt to be trusted with their souls who would invent and
abett such a notorious falsity. For truth of this I witness
my hand."
" Wm. Hampton, rector of Worth, 1721."
I would add that, while unscrupulous controversialists
still make use of this fable, all candid Roman Cathohc
scholars long since abandoned it, Lingard,8 Charles Butler,
Canon Tierney, etc. Indeed we are indebted to Roman
8. Lingard's repudiation of the fiction is as follows:
"To this testimony of the register [of Abp. Parker'B consecration] what
could the champions of the Nag's Head story oppose ? They had but one re
source, to deny its authenticity ; to pronounce it a forgery. But there was noth
ing to countenance such a supposition. The most experienced eye could not
discover in the entry itself, or the form of the characters, or the color of the ink,
the slightest vestige of imposture. * * * If external confirmation were want
ing, there was the archbishop's diary, or journal, a parchment roll in which he
had been accustomed to enter the principal events of his life, and in which,
under the date of the 17th of December, 1559, is found:
" ' Consecratus sum in archiepiscopuni Cantuariens. Hen 1 hen 1 Domine
Dens, in quse tempora servasti me ! '
"Another confirmation to which no objection can be reasonably opposed
occurs in the Zurich letters, in which we find Sampson informing Peter Martyr,
on the 6th of January, 1560, that Dr. Parker had been consecrated Archbishop of
Canterbury during the preceding month." — Lingard's "History of England,"
vol. vii., note G.

156 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
Catholic writers for some of the ablest defences of Angli
can Orders ever written — e. g. Courayer, Colbert, Bossuet,
Affre (Archbishop of Paris) and Cardinal de la Luzerne.9
It should also be remembered that the Bishop of Rome,
Julius III., ordered Archbishop Pole to absolve and recon
cile bishops and priests ordained in Edward VI.'s time,
but not to re-ordain them. Pius IV. also agreed to recog
nize all the reforms under Elizabeth, if only she would
recognize his supremacy. After she dechned to do so, he
requested the Council of Trent to declare English Orders
invalid, which the council expressly refused to do- Horly,
Archbishop of Paris, and Innocent XII., Bishop of Rome,
advised James II. to have the non-juring English bishops
keep up the Apostohc succession in England, which they
certainly would not have done, had they not believed in
Anglican Orders. Richard Selden, a Roman priest, wrote
as follows.
" I myself lately for my own satisfaction, searched the
registers, and I found clearly, that Archbishop Parker was
sufficiently, truly, and canonically ordained and conse
crated." 10
Archbishop Parker, of course, ordained many bishops,
but as he was always assisted by two or more bishops, even
had he never been ordained himself (and there is no ordi
nation in history more certain than his), our Orders would
still be valid.
For the benefit of any who may still choose to be skep-
9. Du Pin, De Girardin, and Beauvoir, in their correspondence with Arch
bishop Wake (1718), fully acknowledged Anglican Orders. See Dr. Pusey's Ireni-
con, pp. 215-16.
10. Selden's "De Spiritibus Pontificii," quoted in Bailees Df. of Holy
Ord., p. 9.

AUTHORITY. 157

tical on this subject, and especially any Roman Catholic
brother who may chance to read this sketch, I would call
attention to one important fact in the post-reformation his
tory of the Anglo-Catholic Church. Early in the seven
teenth century a Roman Catholic Bishop, Marc Antonio
de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, conformed to the Eng
lish Church, and was appointed Dean of Windsor. He
took part in ordaining two English bishops, George Mon-
teigne, of London, and Nicolas Felton, of Ely, from both
of whom the eight bishops derived their Orders, who sur
vived the seventeen years of persecution under the com
monwealth, and handed down the succession from 1660 to
the present time. Observe also that every one of these
eight bishops inherited the Irish succession as well, from
George, the Bishop of Derry, Hampton, the Archbishop
of Armagh, and Murray, the Bishop of Kilfenora. No loss
of continuity has ever been alleged against either the Irish
or the Italian Succession, so that, even if we waive the old
English Succession, there is no possibility of invalidating
the present Anglo-Catholic Episcopate.11
11. The following extract from that admirable tract on "Anglican Orders
and Jurisdiction " (Church League Press, 18 Liberty St., New York), will explain
this more fully:
" At the restoration of Charles XL., in 1660, after Episcopal government had
been suspended for seventeen years under the Commonwealth, there were eight
prelates of the Anglican Church still surviving. From these the existing line is
derived, and it is convenient, therefore, to narrow the inquiry to the validity of
their succession. They were Juxon of London (at once translated to Canter
bury), Frewen of York, Duppa of Winchester, Wren of Ely, King of Chichester
Skinner of Oxford, Warner of Rochester, and Roberts of Bangor.
"All of these, except King and Frewen, were consecrated by Archbishop Laud
with sometimes four, and sometimes five, co-consecrators. The two others
raised to the mitre while Laud was in prison, were severally consecrated by
Juxon with three other Bishops, and by Williams, Archbishop of York, with
four others, including Duppa.
"Laud and Williams were consecrated within a week of each other, one by six

158 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
The American Episcopate comes through four bishops
ordained, one by three Scottish bishops, and three by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, with the canonical number of
assisting bishops.
In the case of the English Colonial Bishops the same
care has been taken. The Anghcan Church, therefore, has
"continued steadfastly in the Apostles' Fellowship." Her
two hundred and twenty-five bishops to-day, bearing the
Saviour's commission to the uttermost parts of the earth,
and inheriting his promise, " Lo, I am with you always
even unto the end of the world," are, with the twelve
apostles and all their successors in the Catholic Episco
pate, a perpetual " witness of His Resurrection," fulfilling
the Saviour's prophesy : " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me
* * * unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts, i., 8.)
Behold the " Father of Waters " as he pours his flood
into the southern gulf. In that mighty current are blended
the rain-drops that fell on the plateaux of the north, upon
the Alleghany Hills, and among the mountain ranges that
he towards the setting sun. So the Anglo-Catholic Epis
copate draws its potent and beneficent authority from St.

bishops, the other by five of those six. Among them were George Monteigne of
Loudon, and Nicolas Felton of Ely, who had been consecrated in 1617 by Msrc
Antonio de Domonis, Archbishop of Spalato, assisting Abbot of Canterbury, and
four others. Another of their consecrators was Field of LlandafE, >ene of whose
consecrators was George, Bishop of Derry ; and a fourth was Howson of Oxford,
who derived, through Morton of Durham, from Hampton, Archbishop of Armagh.
Morton and Bancroft of Oxford (who had been consecrated by William Murray of
Kilfenora) were amongst Duppa' s consecrators.
"Thus in the present line of Anglican prelates, three successions meet, the
Italian, the Irish, and the English. No allegation of loss of continuity is urged
against the two former, and thus, even if the third be imperfect, the cord is un
broken. " That the English strand is as perfect as the two others is easy of proof."

AUTHORITY. 159

James in Jerusalem,12 from St. John in Ephesus, from SS.
Paul and Peter in the west. And as the rain which feeds
the river is from above," so the grace of Holy Orders
flows down to us by way of the Orient and Italy, by way
of Gaul and Britain of old — Hebrew and Greek, Roman,
Celtic, and Saxon, it comes from above, and swells that
" River, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of
God."

I would add, just here, that some Romanists have advanced a disingenuous
objection to Parker's Consecration, on the ground that the words used by
Parker's Consecrators, at the actual imposition of hands, did not clearly specify
whether it was to the Episcopate or to the Priesthood that Parker was being
ordained. I call it a disingenuous objection, because the office of Bishop was
distinctly declared all through the service — in the presentation, the oath, and the
prayers ; because it could not possibly have been the Priesthood, for Parker was
already a Priest, and because the same objection would apply to all the Conse
crations ever known to have been performed in the Church of England before
the Reformation, and to all Consecrations in the Roman Church even to this day.
Any Roman Catholic, therefore, who alleges the above argument (?) against
Anglo-Catholic orders, is either ignorant or dishonest. (See Perceval on Apos.
Success. Appendix, A, B, C and D.) The editor of the Church Times well says :
" The cavils against the Ordinal are frivolous, as you may Bee by reading it,
and, in fact, the only Ordinal in the world which meets the requirements for
validity made by Roman controversialists is a heretical Nestorian one. The
Roman rite itself does not. No such words occur in the Roman office, which
has only 'Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,' and not another syllable, at the moment of
laying-on hands. If the Romans could make a really strong case out against the
Church of England, they would find truth a sufiicient instrument, hut they never
are contented therewith." See Appendix, Note 111.
12. St,David, Archbishop of Wales in the sixth century, was consecrated
by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Note — For a brief, accurate and impartial monograph on the English Refor
mation, the reader is referred to " The English Reformation," by A. Theodore
Wirgman, M. A.,D. C. L. [Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Co., 1887.]

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVII.
PIUS LV. AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.
IT is asserted in almost every history of the Anghcan
Church that Pius IV. agreed to recognize the English
reformation, provided that his own supremacy should be
acknowledged. This concession on his part is valuable as
showing that our Church had lost nothing which even in
the estimation of Rome, is essential to a true Church.
Hore, in his " Eighteen Centuries of the Church in Eng
land" (p. 348), says: "Pope Paul IV. having died on
August 18, 1559, was succeeded by Pius IV. The new
Pope sent his nuncio with a letter to the Queen, announc
ing his approval and willingness to accept the new Prayer
Book, as well as the Communion in both kinds, if only the
Queen would acknowledge his supremacy."
Jennings, in his excellent " Ecclesia Anglicana " (p. 319),
says : " Convinced that nothing was to be gained in Eng
land by hostility to the throne, Pius made friendly over
tures to Elizabeth. We have it on good authority that he
offered to sanction the Prayer Book of 1559, provided the
English Church recognized the supremacy of Rome."
Cutts, in his " Turning Points of English Church His
tory " (p. 237), says : "A new Pope, Pius IV., in 1560

AUTHORITY. m.

addressed to her (Elizabeth) a letter of very different tenor,
making overtures for a reconciliation. He offered that, on
condition of her adhesion to the see of Rome, the Pope
would approve of the Book of Common Prayer, including
the Liturgy or Communion Service and the Ordinal. Al
though his Holiness complained that many things were
omitted from the Prayer Book which ought to be there, he
admitted that the book nevertheless contained nothing
contrary to truth, while it certainly comprehended all that
is necessary for salvation. He was therefore prepared to
authorize the book if the Queen would receive it from him
and on his authority."
Blunt, in his historical introduction to the Prayer Book
(p. xxxv.), says : "It is worth notice, however, that the
Book of Common Prayer as thus revised in 1559 was
quietly accepted by the great body of Romanist laity;
and also that the Pope himself saw so little to object to in
it that he offered to give the book his full sanction if his
authority were recognized by the Queen and the kingdom."
And he quotes Sir Edward Coke as saying that the Pope,
Pius IV., " before the time of his excommunication against
Queen Elizabeth denounced, sent his letter unto her
Majesty, in which he did allow the Bible and Book of
Divine Service, as it is now used among us, to be authentic
and not repugnant to truth. But that therein was con
tained enough necessary to salvation, though there was
not in it so much as might conveniently be, and that he
would also allow it unto us without changing any part, so as
her Majesty would acknowledge to receive it from the Pope,
and by his allowance, which her Majesty denying to do, she
was then presently by the same Pope excommunicated.

162 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
And this is the truth concerning Pope Pius Quartus, as I
have faith to God and men. I have oftentimes heard
avowed by the late Queen her own words, and' I have con
ferred with some Lords that were of greatest reckoning in
the State, who had seen and read the Letter, which the
Pope sent to that effect, as have been by me specified.
And this upon my credit, as I am an honest man, is most
true." Blunt moreover gives a list of authorities, viz.:
"The Lord Coke, his speech and charge, London, 1607-
See also Camden, Ann, Eliz., p. 59, ed. 1615. Twysden's
Historical Vindication of the Church of England, p. 175.
Validity of the Orders of the Church of England, by Hum
phrey Prideaux, D. D., 1688. Bramhall's Works, ii., 85,
ed. 1845. Bishop Babington's Notes on the Pentateuch ;
on Numbers, vii. Courayer's Defence of the Dissertation
on the Validity of English Ordinations, ii., 360, 378. Har
rington's Pius IV. and the Book of Common Prayer, 1856."
Our own Van Antwerp, in his very readable and com
prehensive "Church History" (vol. iii., p. 144-5), gives
the same story.
The following extract from Butler's " Historical Memoirs
of the Catholics " (Lond., ed. 1822, vol. i., ch. 22, § 9, p.
280), is especially valuable, as coming from a learned
Roman Catholic :
"In May, 1560, he (Pius the fourth), sent Vincentio
Parpalia * * * to the Queen with a letter, most ear
nestly but respectfully entreating her to return to the
bosom of the Church. On this occasion, Parpalia, if we
are to credit Camden, was instructed by the Pope to offer
to the Queen, that the Pope would annul the sentence of
Clement, his predecessor, against her mother's marriage,

AUTHORITY. 163

settle the liturgy by his authority, and grant to the English
the use of the sacrament under both kinds.
" Parpalia reached Bruxelles ; from that place he ac
quainted the English ministry with the object of his mis
sion, and proceeded to Calais. The propriety of admit
ting him was debated in the royal council and determined
in the negative
"The conciliating Pope was not disheartened ; at a sub
sequent time he deputed the Abbe Martenengo to the
Queen, to notify to her the sitting of the Council of Trent>
and tp 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 pontiff, 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 ; * * *
she 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 rehable works. I have
never seen the story controverted or even questioned.

CHAPTER XVIII.
ANGLICAN JURISDICTION AND CATHOLICITY.
" Men cannot set up a new Church, so we think, and we blesB God that we
have the old Church cleansed and purified."— Bishop Lee, tlie Presiding Bishop
of the Church in the U. S. (Second Letter to the Assistant 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 1887, 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 GScumenical 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 tempera inauditum.

AUTHORITY. 165
Our Church in the British period owed nothing to the
Bishop of Rome. According to the ancient canons of the
universal Church, every provincial Church possessed in
herent jurisdiction,1 and notably the auiocephalous 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,2 as the "Papa alterius orbis."3 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,4 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 the "Jurisdiction and
Mission of the Ang. Epis.," Sec. IV.
S. Id., p. 44. Cf. also note, p. 96, of "The Eng. Ref.," by the Rt. Rev. J.
Williams, D. D., LL.D., Bp. of Conn. " The Roman Patriarchate," says he, " in
cluded the ten provinces placed under the Vicarius urbis, namely : Italy, south
of the Italic Diocese, and the three adjacent islands." The editor of the "Church
Times" says : " We know from Ruffinus (and the matter has been thoroughly
worked out by the great French Catholic scholar, Dupin, in his treatise De Anti-
qua Disciplina) that the Roman Patriarchate extended over no more than the ten
"suburbicarian" provinces of Italy— those under the civil jurisdiction of the
Roman praetor — 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. Coit's Early Hist., etc., note, p. 140. "Pope of another world."
4. The Christian Kings of England always had a share in appointing bishops.
See [e. g.] 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 tlie 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 itself.
And as to its Archbishops, the learned canonist, Thomassi-
nus, says : " The confirmation of the Roman 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 Enghsh 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."5
" The only difference in the ' English Cathohc 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
5. Haddan Apost. Succ. in the Ch. of England, p. 282. It should be remem
bered that the Bishop of Rome 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. 167
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." — (" Delolme on the
English Constitution," quoted in Greave's " Vindication
of the Right of the Anglican Chs.," etc., p. 152.)
The Anghcan 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
accomphshed — 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 all along asserted and acted
on." 6 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. Ref., pp. 122-3.

168 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
reform during his brief pontificate, (but as Bishop Wil
liams naively remarks, " 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-called "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 different 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.7 Indeed,
one Bishop — Kitchen of Llandaff— held his sacred office
under Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, never for a
moment imagining that he had been a bishop in more
than 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
off 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 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
her independence of Rome,8 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 1570,
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
1570,9 the Bishop of Rome, Pius V., issued his famous
bull, entitled, " The Damnation and Excommunication of
8. It must be remembered, too, that for some 200 years previous it had been
unlawfnl for any English Churchman to receive any appointment from Rome, or
make any appeal to Rome.
9. "On April 27, 1570, 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 Belation
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 canonically filled, can trace any descent from the
bishops of the ancient churches in these kingdoms ; the now bishops of the
Church of England being the only representatives by episcopal succession 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"10 — 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."11
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 until 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 existence ever recognized."— "Delolme on the English Constitution."
" 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 Church of England, and no foreign bishop has any lawful authority in its
borders."— Beu. J. A. Greaves.
10. See Coit's Early History, etc., Note, p. 70.
11. De Unit. Eccl., p. 256.

172 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
councils provincial and general.12 Pius IX., moreover, in
making Westminster, instead of Canterbury, the Metropoli
tan See of his 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.13
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 officially wrote the word. As the fogs of
the eighteenth century clear away, as people become
more famihar with the history of the Church 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 dull
12. Bailey's Juris, and Miss, of the Aug. Epis., p. 68.
13. Id., p. 47, quoted from William of Malmsbury.

AUTHORITY. 173

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 whicli the word Pro
testant as apphed to the English Church was omitted." 14
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. Hore's Eighteen Centuries, p. 448. It is worthy of note, just here, that
the official title of the Romish Communion is not the "Catholic Church," but
"The Holy Roman Church," or "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Boman Church."
(See Creed of PiuB TV.) 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. Eel., Apr., 1885, p. 68.

174 REASONS 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 lawful juris
diction in the United States, and we authoritatively pray
that we may die "in the communion of the Catholic
Church."15 15. Trie greatest mistake the Church in trie 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
Chinese) " The Contradictory 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 protest 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
cease 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 superior authority, which,
in spite of abuses, is nevertheless alawful authority. We do not (Btrictly 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 ns; consequently we do not protest. We merely fall back on our ancient,
inherent, co-ordinate Catholic 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 every other organization which in any
way differs from it — the same sense in which we (and all Christians) are protest
ant against Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Unitarianism ; the same sense in
which the Church of Rome is protectant against us and against the Orthodox
Catholics of the Orient; the same sense in 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? — a title at best, meaningless ;
at ivorst, foully misleading; a title which our Mother Church in England refused
to countenance ; which even the Church of Ireland (the least Catholic of all the
branches of the Catholic Church) repudiates with scorn and indignation; which
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. Fulton, when he says: "I should be glad if the name 'Protestant'
could be dropped from the titlepage of our Bookof Common Prayer" I (Am. Ch.
Rev., Jan., 1885, p. 315.)
As to the other adjective, Episcopal, while it is true, it is simple tautology.
" Episcopal I " Why, the word Catholic— 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 Court of 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 Presbyterial 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 widely from all protestant bodies as the fact of our having Bishops,
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] ?
What printer, what private member of a committee, what unauthorized person ?
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."— (."Failure of Protes
tantism," pp. 25 and 27.) 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 forced upon us by
external pressure of circumstances." And the Bishop of Chicago says, in his
Convention address, 1884 (See Ch. Eel., Aug., 1884, p. 429), that this title " was at
no time deliberately selected and applied to herself by the Church in this
country." Finally, the name P. E. is never used by intelligent Churchmen except in

176 REASONS 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 Cathohc 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
beheved 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 Church" is the usus loquendi; The Catholic
Church in the United States or 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 suspicious of a Church " which owns so bad a name."
We might call ourselves The Prayer-Bookers, or The Anti-Atheistic Ecclesias
tical Church Militant here upon Earth, as a civil designation. It would, of
course, be disrespectful to our Holy Mother ; but we would norre the 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 1883, from considerations of exped
iency, failed to adopt our rightful name. But as the Rev. J. A. Greaves, of Vir
ginia, says (see his " Vindication of the Right of the Anglican Churches to the
Use of the Name Catholic," p. 54) : " 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 Right 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 guerre will give
place as "Snowdown's Knight" to "Scotland's King," or as Tl Bondocane to
"Haroun Alraschid;" and "P. E." will in the future be looked upon merely as
the alias of our youthful dairyings, the nomen fictum of our protestant escapades.
Our rightful name will then bear fruit to the glory of God.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE ATTITUDE OP DISSENT TOWARDS EPISCOPACY.
"A self-formed Priesthood, and the Church cast forth
To the chill mountain air." —Lyra Apostolica, 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 Priesthood, but he whom
Christ, as Head of the Church, hath chosen and ordained to that office."— Bishop
McBvaine. VERY different from the authoritative and Cathohc
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
already 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,

178 REASONS 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 Apostolic Succession, sought earnestly to
recover it. It is well known how Luther and Melancthon
believed in Episcopacy. Their confession of faith,1 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., 5), 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 tam
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.2
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 revolution could have taken place
within fifty years of St. John's death.3
2. See Kip's 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 Tightness 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 ymght upon its own merits."— "Haddan ore
Apostolical Succession, pp. 131, 136, quoted by Rev. Wm. A. Rich.

180 REASONS FOR BEING 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-Episcopal ministry, seemed bound to
give it a sort of ex post 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 translating 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, Irenaeus, Tertullian, 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 four (!) centuries that the Christian Church con
sidered diocesan Episcopacy the Apostolic and primitive
form. * * * It is not true that any one of the fathers
within the first four centuries, does assert the Apostohc
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 all 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: isi

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. Schaff, a scholarly Presbyterian divine, and a pro
found student of Church History, in 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
Irenseus (his own disciple, himself a bishop), of Tertullian,
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 ; * * * and we assuredly have much in

182 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
favor of the hypothesis, 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 s
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 generaUy introduced 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."4
Again Dr. Schaff says : " It is a matter of fact that the
Episcopal form of government was universally established
in the Eastern and Western Churches as early as the mid
dle of the second century."
4. Schaff's Apostolic Church, pp. 539-541, quoted in that new and most con
vincing little book, "Plain Footprints, or Divers Orders Traced in the Scrip
tures," by Rev. H. R. 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.

CHAPTEE XX.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND CONFIRMATION.
" Veni Creator Spiritus,
Mentes tuorumvisita,
Implesuperna gratia
Quae Tu creasti pectora."
— Whitsun Hymn, by Gregory the Great.
" Sapientia, inteUectus, consilium-, fortitudo, scientia, pietas, timor 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 Cyclopsedia 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 Apostohc 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 Christian life. It is the completion of Holy Baptism,

AUTHORITY. 185

a sort of lay-ordination to that " royal priesthood ,n 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.2 It was implied in the
words of St. Peter : " Be baptized every one of you,
* * * and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." 3
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]."4 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. I. St. Pet., ii., 9. 2. St. Matth., iii., 16. 3. Acts, ii., 38. 4. I. Cor., vi., 11.

186 REASONS FOR BEING 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 ;
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."5 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.6
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, viii., 14-18. 6. Acts, xix., 5-6.

AUTHORITY. 187

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."7 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-of-hands, they may obtain the Holy Ghost,
and be consummated with the Seal of the Lord."8 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-
1. Tert. De Bap., vii., and viii. 8. Cyp. Epist., Ixxiii., 8.

188 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
itly : " This is the usage of our Churches. The bishop
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
to 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, while 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," 9 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 ha3 " continued steadfastly
in the Fellowship of the Apostles."
The venerable Bede tells us how St. Cuthbert, the
good bishop of Lindisfarne, in the seventh 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 Apostohc times. It was used in Eng
land as far back as we have records of the services ; it was
9. See a capital sermon with this title by the Rev. 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 used to great advantage in
parish work.

190 REASONS 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
earlier ; 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 generally
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, 0 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." 10
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 suggest to those who are interested in P.
B. revision, whether the meaning of Confirmation would not be more clearly
expressed if the first word, "Defend," were changed to confirm — Confirm, O
Lord, this Thy child, etc. The meaning would really be the same for the defense
alluded to comes only through being " strengthened [confirmed] with might by
His Spirit in the inner man." Eph., iii., 16.

AUTHORITY. 191

immediately after Baptism (as is the usual custom in the
Greek Church), the whole Western Church — both Angli
can n and Roman 12 — 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 sufficiently 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 confirmed. 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 Catechism in P. B.. closing exhortation in Baptis
mal Office, and preface to Confirmation Office ; also Canon 61 of the Eng. Ch.
12. For R. C. usage, see Catechism of the Council of Trent, III., 1. " 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.
ought 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
insufficiency 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 Apostohc 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 officially declared their belief in
it.13 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 rehgious 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 will :
You beheve in prayer ; you beheve that God in answer
to prayer gives special grace through His appointed ordi-
13. See Randall on Confirmation.

AUTHORITY. 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 reahzed that you
were in the presence of one whom your Divine Master had
commissioned as an Apostohc 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 will 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 CHURCH AND THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD.
" And then— as when the doors were shut,
With Jesus left alone —
The faithful Bup with Christ, and He
In breaking bread is known."
—Bishop Coxe, Christian Ballads.
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 dispensations 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 offering
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 from 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."1
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."2 And so from St. Paul3 and St. Ignatius,4 nay,
even from our Lord Himself,5 to the American Prayer
Book,6 the Table of the Lord has been authoritatively (as
it is almost always popularly) called the altar, 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 Nicaea, in
which he says that Christ " sent forth the Apostles, fur
nishing a Table, that is, the Holy Altar, and on it
heavenly and immortal Bread."
1. Eis ten emen anamnesin. St. Luke, xxii., 19. 2. I. Cor., xi., 26.
3. We have an altar, etc. Heb., xiii., 10; cf. also I. Cor., x, 18, 19,20, 21.
4 " St. Ignatius, who lived in the Apostolic age itself, calls the Lord's Table
the "Altar." See Epist. to the Philadelphians, Chap. iv. Other early fathers
frequently allude to the Christian altar." Blunt, An. P. B., p. 158.
5. St. Matth., v., 23 and 24. See Sadler's commentary on this passage: "If
the Sermon on the Mount is to he 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 Eng
lish Coronation Service and the English Canons. "The use of the term Altar
is recognized and made lawful by Canon VII, of lti04. ' The Holy Table is and
may be called an Altar by us in that sense in which the Primitive Church called
it an Altar.' The same Canon also enjoins that ' reverence and observance be
done towards it ;' also, in the Coronation Service : 'All oblations are to be rever
ently laid upon the Altar by the Archbishop.' It is also recognized elsewhere.
The term Communion Table does not occur in the English Prayer Book ; it is the
Lord's Table, not the communicant's."

196 REASONS FOR BEING 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
fice.7 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'j
shah present the " Pure Offering " upon the Holy Table,
consecrate 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 xxxii)
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 ub the highest of all
7. See Bp. Andrewes', vol. v., p. 66, on "Altar, Priest," etc.

AUTHORITY. 197

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."8 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 will 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, dwelleth in Me, and I in Him. He
that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."
8. I. Cor., x, 16 and 17.

198 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

These words were so strange, 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." 10 His sin consists in " not discern
ing the Lord's Body."
St. Ignatius speaks of certain heretics, who " confess not
the Eucharist to be the Flesh of our Saviour Christ."11
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."12 Similar testimony might
9. St. Matthew, xxvi., 26-28. 10. I. Cor., xi., 27. 11. Ad. Smyr., Ch. vii.
12. 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, our 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 still 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." 13 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." 14 And again "As often as ye
do eat this bread;" and " Whosoever shall eat this bread ; "
and " So let him eat of this bread." 15 The Fathers also
assert the same. Says St. Irenaeus : " 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."16 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." 17 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." 18 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., 25. 14. I. Cor., a., 17. 15. I. Cor., xi., 26-23. 16. Adv.
Hser., IV., 18, 5. 17. Epis. ad Caes., Opp. T., HI., p. 744, Ed. Ben. 18. T., IV.,
«5, Ed. Sch.

200 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
takers of the Divine nature ; and yet the substance and
nature of bread and wine ceaseth not to be." 19
Now, if we care anything for the teaching of Christ and
of St. Paul, and anything for the behef 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 Blood of Christ; and secondly, that they are still
bread and wine.
It is altogether unnecessary to assume that there is any
contradiction or inconsistency in this twofold truth. From
Augustine, and even Irenaeus, 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 Anghcan Church to-day. " What,"
says the Enghsh 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 Christ — both
19. De duab. Christi naturis. The passage is quoted in Sadler's Ch. Doct.
and Bib. Truth (p. 137), a book which every intelligent layman ought to read
and study.

AUTHORITY. 201

of which are equally opposed to the Church's Scriptural
and Cathohc 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 after
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 resembling 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," w 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. XIII., Ch. 4. See also Catechism of Co. of
Trent Pt. II., C. IV., q. XXXI., which teaches in addition that in this Sacrament
are contained " whatever appertains to the true nature of a body, such as bones
and nerves." Canon IH. 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.
, and II.

202 REASONS FOR BEING 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 two parts 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 all 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 chalice to be excommunicated.21 As late as
1095 the Council of Clermont, under the presidency of
Urban IL, 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."22 The mutilation of the Sacrament
began about the twelfth century,23 though in the thir
teenth, St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the primitive prac
tice (Communion in both kinds) as lingering in some
Churches.24 It did not become general in our own Church
till after the Council of Constance (1415), which decreed it ;
it was never willingly acquiesced in by our laity, and
sometimes the clergy used to administer a chalice of un-
consecrated wine (/) for the sake of appearances and to
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 Romanist 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. XLL, and Gelasius ap. Gratian de consecrat, quoted in
Littledale's Plain Reasons, xxxiii., p. 83. Also "England versus Rome," by H.
B. Swete, M. A., p. 160.
22. See Brown on the Articles, p. 733.
23. Cardinal Bona admits this. See Bingham IL, 808.
24. In S. Joann., VI. and VII. The Greek Church, of course, has never
Tefnsed to the laity the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ.

204 REASONS FOR BEING 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 declaration, " 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
Body," receiving that "spiritual food and sustenance to-

AUTHORITY. 205

our great 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 be ;
Enough, I 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 ;
Far less, with those, (26) deny that aught divine
And of immortal seed is hidden there.
Hence, disputants 1 The din, which ye admire,
Keeps but ill measure with the Church's choir."

25. Romanists. 26. Zwinglians.

CHAPTER XXII.
"THE PRAYERS."
"They continued steadfastly in the prayers." (Amarkof the Early Church.)
—Acts, ii., 42.
"Take with you words and turn to the Lord."— Hosea, xiv., 2.
"If all the liturgies of all ancient Churches throughout the world be com
pared amongst themselves, it may be easily perceived that they had all one
original mould."— The Judicious Hooker. i
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 (6) to reahze that
our own Church, the Catholic Church of the English
speaking race, 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 God 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."1 In Deuteronomy are
given the liturgical forms to be used by the people in
making the offering of first fruits,2 and of the tithes of the
1. Our Church retains this ancient blessing in the Visitation Office
2. Deut., xxvi., 5-11, and 12-15.

20S REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
third year, and the form used by the elders of a city in
which murder had been committed.3 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."4
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 norm 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 Moming or Evening Prayer was that of

3. Id., xxi., 7. 4. II. Chron., xxix., 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,
especiaUy the eighteen5 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 ; 6
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 every
5. A 19th collect was added early in the Christian era, praying against
Christians. 6. St. Luke, xi., 1.

210 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
petition in this prayer is to be found in the Jewish ser
vices. 7 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 litur
gical service. In Acts iv., we have a picture of the
Christian 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 " 8
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.9 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 Lightfoot on St. Matt., vi., 9-18, and Home's Incrod. to Scrip., V. iii.,
p. 296. 8. Col., iii., 16. 9. See I. Cor., xiv., especially vs. 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 outline 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 (c?) the Liturgy of St. Mark,
used at Alexandria.10
10. These four Liturgies are the basis of all modern 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 Gallican and
Mozarabic ; that of St. Peter, of the modern Roman use ; that of St. Mark, of the
Coptic rite.

212 REASONS 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,"11 and who may all justly claim a common
origin from Noah, by whose sons " was the whole earth
overspread." 12 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.
XI. The Communion.
XII. Thanksgiving.
This is the order of parts according to the Liturgy of St.
James.13 11. Acts, xvii., 26. 12. Gen., ix., 19.
13. For the arrangement of the other Liturgies, see Blunt's Annot. P. B., p.
148; Cutt's Turning Points in Gen. Ch. Hist., p. 142, and Kip's Double Witness,
p. 105. See also, for some specimens, Sadler's Ch. 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 EssayB 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.14
The worship of the early Church was liturgical, musical,
reverent, symbolic, and, as soon as circumstances allowed,
ornate. When th,e 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 Christo'] 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, pub. by James McCauley, 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
all 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."15 He also speaks of the Christians offering up "sol
emn rites and hymns." 16
The prayer of consecration or "Canon of the Mass," is
of course the vital and essential part pf the Liturg]^. It
is impossible here to reproduce any ancient Liturgy in full;
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.17 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 earher date. The four
great Liturgies may be 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.18 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 fresh 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 first 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.19) 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, than 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 Roman 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 REASONS FOR BEING 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,20 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,21 standing by
the altar, and having made with his hand the sign of the
Cross upon his forehead, let him say :
" The grace of the Almighty God, etc., be with you all."
[And let all with one voice say :] "And with thy Spirit."
\_The High Priest.] " Lift up your mind."
[All] "We have unto the Lord."
[The High Priest] " Let us give thanks unto the Lord."
[All] "It is meet and right."
[And let the High Priest say :]
[The Preface.] "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 the Celebrant is supposed to be a Bishop : It is
directed to be used by a Bishop at his first Eucharist after his Consecration,
21. The clergy of the early Church, like the Jewish ministry, wore proper
vestments as soon as it was practicable to do so.

AUTHORITY. 217

Seraphic 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
his deeds, we offer to Thee, King and God, according to

218 REASONS FOR BEING 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 needest 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 filled
with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of Thy Christ,
may obtain eternal life, since Thou art reconciled to them,
0 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. 219

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,
0 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 Excelsis, though in a shorter and more ancient

220 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
form than that of other Liturgies, including our own. The
Communion 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 Cathohc 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 CHURCH AND "THE PRAYERS."
" In beauty built and might
For Apostolic service
And high liturgic rite."
—Bishop Coxe, Christian Ballads.
" Here rises with the rising morn
Their incense unto Thee,
Their bold confession Catholic
And high Doxology.
Soul-melting Litany is here,
And here, each holy feast,
* Up to the Altar duly spread
ABcends 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," 1 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 EpheBus, 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 REASONS 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 Gallican 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, rehgious and correct ; and

AUTHORITY. 223

when you have made these up into one body, instil this
into the minds of the Enghsh for their use."2
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 used 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.3 Moreover,
many corrupt additions had crept into our formularies of
worship, such as prayers, hymns and litanies which paid
2. Greg, opera, H., 1151, Ben. Ed. and Bede's Eccl. Hist., I., 2. 7.
3. Latin was a sort of universal language in the West, for devotional pur
poses far superior to the vernacular 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 REASONS FOR BEING 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
httle time or inclination for daily prayers in the parish
churches that a reform in our devotional system was as
clearly called 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 English clergy are obliged to say Matins and Evensong every day, if
no congregation be present, the service may be said in Latin. Had the govern
ment allowed the Irish Church to retain Latin after the Reformation, instead of
forcing English upon it, the probability is that a large majority of the native
Irish would have remained in the Old Church, instead of being driven into the
Roman schism. The Irish were used to Latin, but hated English.

AUTHORITY. 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.4
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 offices 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." 5
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
Common 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 this book, with a preface by Dr. Dix, may be had of
the " Ch. Kalender Press," New York.
5. Bp. Jeremy Taylor's Works, vii., 292.

226 REASONS FOR 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 Anghcan Church,6 it be
comes a matter of wonderment that any body of Enghsh
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,7 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 distinguished Methodist, said: "The liturgy is
almost 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 be remem
bered that he was such only indirectly 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."8 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 Irenaeus,
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." 9
8. Mrs. H. B. Stowe's " Oldtown Folks," p. 326.
9. Mines' Pres. Clerg., p. 140.

228 REASONS FOR BEING 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,10 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 worship, 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., extemporaneous services) were contrived by popish emis
saries disguised in the garb of Protestantism, and pretending the utmost abhor
rence of what they stigmatized as the corruptions 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 Roman pontiff. For this purpose, among other
things, they were loud in their invectives against the liturgy," etc. — Sermons on
the Church, by the Rev. G. T. Chapman, D. D., p. 188. Percival says (see his

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 liturgical 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.11 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 well thank
God for the Book of Common Prayer, rejoicing that our
beloved Church has " continued steadfastly in the Pray
ers."

Apos. Sucess, p. 40) : " In the 16th century, one Cummin, a friar, contrived to be
taken into the Puritans' pulpits, where, as he stated at the councils, ' I preached
against set forms of prayer, and I called English prayers English mass, and have
pursuaded several to pray spiritually and extempore. * * * And this will be
a stumbling block to that Church as long as it is a Church. For this the Pope
commended him, and gave him a reward of 2,000 ducats for his good service."
11. See a notable article by Dr. Shields in the Century (Nov., 1885). Speak-
in" of the liturgical movements among the sects, the learned Presbyterian
declares : "It must have its logical conclusion in the English Prayer Book as
the only CtirMian Liturgy 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 XX1T.
THE CLOSE OF THE ARGUMENT FOR THE CHURCH'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 blend,
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 bodily 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 difference does it make whether the
angle of articulation between the femur and the tibia 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 difference ; 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 irreverent. 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 BEING 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,1 and
his servant Eliezer, when by the well of the city of Nahor,
"he bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord."2
Witness Moses and Aaron on their faces before the Ark of
God,3 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." 4 Call to mind that memorable occa
sion when "Jehosaphat bowed his head with his face to
the ground, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before
the Lord, worshipping the Lord."5 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., 2. 2. Gen., xxiv., 48. 3. Num., xx., 6; xvi., 22, etc. 4. I.
Kings, viii., 54. 5. II. Chron., xx., 18.

AUTHORITY. 233

thanks before his God."6 Behold our Divine Master — in
His agony in the garden He " fell on his face and prayed." 7
See the Martyr Stephen,8 and St. Peter,9 and St. Paul,10 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
God."11 The same principle of reverence was carried into
the early Church. St. Paul says : " I bow my knees unto
the Father," ia and " at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow," 13 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 differences 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
hfting the hat is to us. Races differ 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, vii., 60. 9. Acts, ix., 40.
10. Acts, xx., 36, and xxi., 5. 11. Rev., iv., 10, and vii., 11. 12. Eph., 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
sits down 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 Excelsis.
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 First-begotten
into the world, He saith, 'and let all the angels of God
worship Him.' "14 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 Rev., 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 Lord and My God ! " 15 It is true that most
of us bow only in the Creed and the Gloria in Excelsis,bvLt 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 canon
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." 16
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 still
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
individuahsm, these same people are always wont to kneel
15. St. John, xx., 28.
16. See a learned layman's treatment of this subject, "By What Laws the
Am. Ch. is Governed," by S. Corning Judd, Am. Ch. Rev., Jan., 1882, pp. 214-216.
Also speech of Sir Edw. Dering, in House of Commons, quoted in Mine's Presb.
Clerg., pp. 236-237.

236 REASONS 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." 17
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
zeal 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
could 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, 0 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. 237

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 : 18
" 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.
[Irenaeus 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 [lvii.] ; 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 FOR 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.19
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;20 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 none of them are contrary to the Word of God.
19. See Polycrates, ap. Euseb., iii., 31, for St. John. Epiphanius asserts the
same, and appeals to St. Clement as authority for the statement, Haer, xxix., 4.
Hegesippus affirms it of St. James, ap. Euseb., ii., 23.
20. See Van Antwerp's Ch. Hist., vol. 1, p. 64.

AUTHORITY. 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 all 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 wholly 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 21 and in the autocephalous Churches ; has
21. It is the charge made by the whole Eastern Church that the Pope of
Rome, as but one of five Patriarchs, has schismatically broken away from the
other four. '

240 REASONS FOR BEING 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 Apostohc Church. In a word, we may say to her :
"Aniiquom obtines,""
" How well in thee appears,
The constant custom of the antique world." 23
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." 24
22. Ter. Andria, Act IV., Sc. iv., 817. 23. "As You 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 round thee 1
From East 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,
so far as English-speaking Christians are concerned, may
logically be met with Tertvlliaxi's praescriptio 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 REASONS FOR BEING 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:1 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.3 But the Church is at once stable and
elastic, conservative and progressive.
All the 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 and farsighted Dissenters to adopt, as a
matter of expediency in order to keep their children from
flocking to the Church, many customs of the Church
1. See the Syllabus of Pius IX. 2. See II. Tim., iv., 3.

PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 243
which they once condemned. The reading of the Bible
in public worship, religious services at weddings and
funerals,3 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 rehgion — the use of the Holy Cross — which
used, with shocking profanity, to be called the "mark of the
beast,"agrowing 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),4 and even of liturgies, minis
terial vestments, banners, processions, lights, ecclesiastical
colors, and ritual in general, albeit sometimes strangely
symbohc; more frequent Celebrations, and notably less
3. See "Puritanism; or a Churchman's Defence against its Aspersions,"
by the late Dr. Thomas W. Coit, 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 so 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 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
disagreeable mannerisms,6 unreasonable asceticism, and
pseudo- Judaic Sabbatarianism; and, above all, more sweet
ness and beauty, and joy in the Christian hfe, 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 fact of its Apostohc authority
is incontrovertible. But perhaps the argument which
weighs most with outsiders who have not heard, or do not
5. In the reasonable, cultivated, urbane, and to all outward appearances
Churchly 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 Macanlay's vivid description of them: ' The ostentatious
simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture,
their long graces, their Hebrew namee, the Scriptural phrases which they Intro
duced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, tneii detestation of
polite amusements, etc." Essay on Milton.

PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES. 245
grasp, the argument from authority, hes in the usefulness
and beauty of our dear old Book of Common Prayer.
Said a Congregafionalist 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
way 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 jpoken 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 find company for your soul, and fitting words for your
lips among the treasures of this Book of Common Prayer.
" In all time of our tribulation ; in all time of our prosperity ;
in the hour of death and in the day of Judgment ; Good Lord
deliver its.
"As a consequence of the Prayer Book and its use, I
note :
"The Episcopal Church preserves a very high grade of
dignity, decency, propriety and permanence in all her
public offices.
" 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 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
or bored, by public devotional performances. 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."6
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 pubhc 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 Rev. Thomas K. Beecher.

248 REASONS FOR BEING 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 unity and moral
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 hfe 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 continuity
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 fidehtv 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 ADVANTAGES. 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
Church 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 her. A
true Churchman's love for the Church is an enthusiasm, a

250 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.

celestial passion, such as no one has ever felt or can feel
for a human organization. "I love the 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." 7
Protestants often feel the spell which sometimes takes
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 Hills, 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."8 Roman
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 Cliurch
alone, that is " beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem." 9
But on the fair and heavenly graces of our Mother, who
of us is worthy to speak ? As Macaulay 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." 10
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 ADVANTAGES. 251
When one has grasped the Catholic idea, when one re
alizes for the first time that he is in that same old Church
which God loved and purchased with His own Blood, the
Church in which the blessed Apostles lived and died and
are living still, the Church of the Fathers, the Saints, the
Martyrs of yore, the Church clad in the white robes of
early tribulation, and crowned with the garlands of Nicaea
and Constantinople, the Church that lifted Britain from
barbarism and made the Anglo-Saxon race "a chosen peo
ple," the leaders of the world — when, I say, the truth
dawns upon one that he is in the Church of the Living
God, and in that part of it which has continued most
steadfastly in the Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship, Sac
raments and Prayers, there is given him an uplift of soul,
a divine enthusiasm undreamed of before and not elsewhere
to be obtained ; doubt seems impossible, 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 unto Mount Sion, and unto the City of
the Living God, the Heavenly 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

6. neb. xii., 22, 23, 24.

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE ARGUMENT FROM FUTURITY.
"Wanderers! 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 beign as in her youth ! "
—Lyra Apostolica, p. 137.
TO complete the reasons 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 rehgious 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 Anghcan 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 REASONS FOR BEING 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
— will 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 France 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,1 which has, in the long
run, no right to expect the blessing of God, the outlook of
the schism amongst us 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 one-sixth 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
ever dominate the English race, while the Cathohc Church
of England stands, is simple 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 Rome, and the Roman Church
since a. d., 1570, has occupied in England the position of a permanently schis-
matical body."— The Rev. Wm. A. Rich.

256 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
000. It is, moreover, out of harmony with the spirit and
genius of American institutions and popular liberty; and
can only bring itself into harmony therewith by an act of
felo 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 ;
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 Avill come back to the
Church, while those who refuse to conform will be left
Scriptureless as well as Churchless.
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 ").2 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 Ecclesia
Docens, conciliar authority, patristic testimony, and Cath
olic tradition, when private judgment wants such things ;
there is no Ecclesia Docens, no conciliar authority, no pat
ristic testimony, no Catholic tradition, when private j udg
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. Rom., xi., 25.

258 REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN.
the Bible is, and the same authorities which tell him of
the Bible, tell him also of the Church. What will 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 chrystallized 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 ? " 3 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 infallibility 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., S.

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 ! ! (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 infallibility 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., the ubiquity of St. Joseph, the apotheosis of St. Mary, the
real presence of the lac Virginale in the Eucharist (for Roman
theologians already teach that St. Mary is present in the
Eucharist, and especially that the lac Virginale 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 REASONS FOR BEING 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.4 The conservative spirit of Anglicanism,
fortified by the Creeds, the liturgy, and the Church Year, 5
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 will 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 Church 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 daily 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, 6
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 Religion of Protest
ants," p. 7, and Alloc, of Greg. XVI., Nov. 16, 1839.

262 REASONS 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 Gallican School, have often ac
knowledged that, if the union of Christendom ever comes,
it must be through the medium of the Anglican Church. 7
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 link, 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 Pussey's Irenicon, p. 197, et passim. Even Ultramontane De Maistre
could say : "If ever Christians reunite, as all things make it their interest to do, it
would seem that the movement must take rise in the Church of England. . . .
Roman Catholics are thrust too far away by the foUowers of Calvin, and there is
no medium by which they may comprehend us; but the Anglican Church, which
touches us with one hand, touches with the other a class we cannot reach.
" She is most precious, and may be regarded as one of those chemical inter-
medes which are capable of producing a union between elements in themselves
dissociable." (Cons, sur la France, c. ii.)

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 off, 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
Cathohc Christendom (viz. : The Anghcan, 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 BEING A CHURCHMAN.
ning. They beheve that to give up their Apostolic 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 ^vays. The Ro
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
olic 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 all 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 all 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 affirm 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€or 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. If 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
surest 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 BEING 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.
" 0 Holy Jesu, King of the Saints and Prince of the Catholic
Church, preserve Thy spouse, whom Thou hast purchased with
Thy right hand, and redeemed and cleansed; the whole Catholic
Church from one end of the earth to the other; she is founded
upon a rock, but planted in the sea, 0 preserve her safe from
schism, heresy, and sacrilege. Unite all her members with the
bands offaith, hope, and charity, and an external communion,
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
its members, grace and blessing, pardon and salvation. Amen."

FINIS.

APPENDIX.

Note 1.— MARY AND ELIZABETH.
Were the religious acts of Mary's reign canonically donef And were they
canonically undone in the reign of Elizabeth ? Mary began in a purely Erastian
style, taking the title of " Supreme Head of the Church," and inhibiting all
preachers not licensed by her authority. Then, without canonical process, but
by civil power, she forcibly deprived thirteen Bishops, including the two Arch
bishops, and intruded Romanizing Bishops into the Sees. This invalidated all
the Acts of Convocation, a majority of the Bishops being intruders. The Lower
House was likewise " purged," packed and coerced. Moreover the writ for sum
moning Convocation was not legally issued. Hence all the ecclesiastical acts of
Mary's reign, done under duress and in Synods unlawfully convened and con
stituted, were null and void, and did not need to be repealed by subsequent Con
vocations. The Pa/rliamentary acts (such as I. Mary, Session 2, Chap. 2, which
abolished the English liturgy and restored the Latin,) were duly repealed by
Elizabeth's Parliament, which restored things to the legal status of Edward's
reign, but with some decided advantages to Catholic faith and order.
Elizabeth, like Mary, was guilty of some uncanonical acts, and intruded a
few Bishops. But the last intrusion was healed in 1584. Thus the entire English
Episcopate was in true canonical as well as civil possession, and Convocation
lawfully constituted when the Canons of 1604 were enacted under James I.
In short, the Anglo-Catholic reformation was a, gradual process, extending
(with varied fortunes, but with no break of the Church's continuity,) from 1350,
when the " Statute of Provisors " was passed, until the final settlement in 1662—
a period of three centuries.

Note IL— THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE IN 1559
In strict canon law all the consecrations in Mary's reign, while sacramentally
valid, were unlawful. Hence the only Bishops who at the date of Parker's con
secration (17th Dec , 1559,) were in canonical possession of their Sees, and capable
of conferring not only Orders, but regular mission and jurisdiction, were those
consecrated In the days of Henry and Edward, viz. (in the order of their couse-

268 APPENDIX.

cration): Salisbury, Barlow, Hodgkins, Bonner, Thirlby, Kitchen, Coverdale,
Scory and Stanley.
Of these, all but Bonner and Thirlby accepted the Reformation. Thus there
were only two Bishops in a canonical position to offer even a minority protest
against Parker's consecration. And they made no protest. As to the de facto
Marian Bishops, who had been deprived of the Sees to which they had been un-
canonically appointed, even they made no protest. Three of them abandoned
the English Church, quietly withdrew to the Continent, and never returned.
All were treated with unexampled charity and courtesy, residing for the most
part in the palaces of the new Bishops, on terms of friendship and mutual
respect. " Tonstal and Thirlby," says Bishop Burnet, " lived in Lambeth with
Parker, with great freedom and ease." Heath lived in his own house near
Windsor and was often visited by the Queen.
By making no protest (as Dr. Littledale says, Plain Beasons, p. 212), "they
allowed the case to go by default, and no claim of local jurisdiction for the
Roman Titular Bishops who have ministered to their co-religionists here from
James I. to Victoria was set up until 1850, nearly 300 years too late."

Note III.— ROMAN CAVILS AS TO PARKER'S CONSECRATION.
(a.) Such frivolous objections as that some of Parker's consecrators were
married Bishops (like St. Peter) may be passed over with a smile.
(b.) Not much more reasonable is the charge that Barlow, one of the con
secrators, was not consecrated himself. What if he were not ? Three others,
whose Orders are incontrovertible and have never been questioned, united with
him in the laying on of hands, each saying the words of consecration. But there
is not a shadow of doubt that Barlow was consecrated. He was nominated
Bi6hop of St. David's by Henry VIII., elected by the Cathedral Chapter, April
10, 1536; his election confirmed April 21st, and he himself enthroned in his Cath
edral Boon after, all of which is recorded. By the negligence of a notary the
record of his consecration was omitted in Cranmer's carelessly kept register— as
were the records of Fox, Latimer, Sampson, Rugg, Skip, Bell and Day, of whose
consecration there has never been any doubt. Barlow's own register as Bishop
of St. David's was probably destroyed by his successor, Bishop Farrar, who
burned all the old books of the Cathedral. Henry never considered his own
mandate as the equivalent of consecration, but merely as a sufficient warrant for
the Archbishop to see that the consecration was duly performed. He was very
punctilious about the Sacrament of Orders. So was Cranmer, who would have
incurred the penalties of a praemunire had he omitted to consecrate Barlow.
Barlow served as Bishop of St. David's for thirteen years, was translated to
Bath and Wells in 1549, and to Chichester in 1559. He had his seat in the House of
Lords (which depended on his consecration, and required that he be introduced to
the House by two Bishops as witnesses of his consecration) and in the Upper House
of Convocation. He performed every Episcopal function, even taking part in two
consecrations. During the thirty years of his Episcopate no one ever doubted his
Orders. Had there been a shadow of doubt, his enemies would have made the

APPENDIX. 269

most of it. It was only after he had been dead fifty years that some wily Papist,
happening to discover that the record of his consecration was missing, started the
lie that he was not ordained. Candid Romanists repudiate such base folly. (See
Dr. Lingard in the " Catholic Magazine," 1834.)
(c.) Another Roman cavil is that the Anglican Church has lost the Priest
hood This would not destroy the Apostolic succession, for a layman may
receive Episcopal Orders, per saltum. But the charge is absurd. Our Church
was as careful to preserve the Priesthood and even the Diaconate as the Episco
pate. The Anglican form for the Ordination of Priests i3 as perfect as any ever
used in Rome, Antioch, or Jerusalem. Our Church had no thought of altering
the ancient sacerdotal character of the Catholic Presbyterate. Whenever (as
happens frequently) a priest of the Roman obedience conforms to the Anglican
Church he is received ad eundem gradum among our own clergy. When a
Protestant minister conforms he is received simply as a layman. The words
used in the Ordering of Priests certainly include every "sacerdotal function" :
" Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of
God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou
dost forgive, they are forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are
retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy
Sacraments. In the Name," etc.
Moreover, the Preface of the Ordinal declares that " from the Apostoles'
times there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church— Bishops,
Priests and Deacons," and that "to the intent that these Orders may be
continued," etc., etc. Notice the intent is that these same old Orders may be
continued, not that the Divine Hierarchy may be altered or abrogated by man.