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We proceed from the Church to the sacraments. But since the sacraments are means of grace, we must first inquire what grace is.
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It is in vain to give teaching about the sacraments to those who do not feel their need of grace. For this reason much teaching about the sacraments is wasted.
In the New Testament grace (PVD4H) is the favor which God shows to man. Thus St. Paul writes, "By grace ye are saved" (Eph. 2:8) that is, by God,s favor or kindness.
Later theologians have often thought of grace as a kind of substance and have argued about different kinds of grace as a substance. But it is not a substance, and we ought not to think or speak of it as one. Grace is the touch of the Holy Ghost, His power working in us. We cannot distinguish between the Holy Ghost and His gift of grace. When Newman calls "God,s presence and His very self... a higher gift than grace",1 he is making a distinction to which the New Testament use of the word does not allow us to assent.
We need grace for every thought and word and deed. We can do nothing good without it. Our will must cooperate with God,s grace, but the cooperation of our will is itself brought about by grace. Actual grace is distinguished from habitual grace. They are not different kinds of grace but different ways of receiving it.
Actual grace is the power given for a special crisis or moment.
Habitual grace is the power received by us unconsciously and continuously in consequence of our baptism, confirmation, and other sacraments. Both are given to us in answer to prayer.
The medieval divines known as the Schoolmen distinguished Prevenient, Concomitant, and Subsequent Grace. They are not different kinds of grace but different times when it is received. Prevenient grace enables us to will to do something. Concomitant grace enables us to do it. Subsequent grace is the result of our doing it.
Grace is not irresistible as the Calvinists held. We are free to cooperate with it or to reject it.
Habitual grace has for its purpose the sanctification (making holy) of the soul. After the act of justification, or reconciliation with God,
1
"Dream of Gerontius". English Hymnal, 471; Hymns A. And M., 172.
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the process of sanctification is required. (This is ignored by those who believe in "sudden conversion". Even in real cases of sudden conversion such as those of St. Paul and St. Augustine, sanctification is needed. The complete conversion in a moment of Saul Kane, in Mr. Masefield,s Everlasting Mercy, is not in accordance with God,s ordinary way of dealing with men.)
Sanctification is only possible by means of habitual grace. The converted man must acquire the use of the sacramental life. Otherwise his conversion will probably be a failure. For the method of habitual grace is ordinarily the use of the sacraments which God has given us for that purpose.
Teaching about grace must come before teaching about the sacraments. When those who receive the sacraments do not recognize their own need of God,s grace, the sacraments mean to them no more than magical ceremonies. For instance, many parents bring their children to be baptized because it is a custom which they think it would be "unlucky" to omit, and not because they understand what baptism is or recognize that to have their children baptized lays upon themselves the responsibility for bringing them up as members of Christ,s Church.
Popular religion in England is largely Pelagian, and Pelagians do not believe in the need for grace. The sense of sin was never strong among the English, and has been very much weakened by various modern influences. Many people in our parishes, even among regular churchgoers, have little or no sense of sin. This is why the practice of self-examination and confession is so important. One of the causes of our national Pelagianism is our intense individualism. The ideal of relying entirely on oneself is widely held, as is shown by the popularity of Kipling,s If. The Christian ideal, on the contrary, is expressed in the words of St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).
Among religious people we sometimes find the idea, once very popular, that the man who is converted is perfect and therefore needs no further grace. Those who have felt a revolutionary change in their lives through conversion are specially prone to this temptation. There is a story that a man whom Father Stanton had converted from drunkenness became so conceited that Father Stanton, after startling him with the order "Go and get drunk!", had to tell him that pride was a worse sin than drunkenness and that conversion
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from drunkenness was in vain if it led him to trust in himself and not in God.
Grace then is absolutely necessary to the spiritual life. It is dispensed through the Church which is the steward of God for this purpose (I Cor. 4:1). God the Holy Ghost "sanctifies the elect people of God"1 that is, the baptized members of the Church. This is one reason why membership in the Church is necessary to a normal Christian life. The Holy Ghost works by means of the sacraments which are only found within the Church and can be given only to members of the Church. No one who has not been baptized can receive any other sacrament. The sacraments are not the only means of grace, but they are necessary.
Non-sacramental grace is given to those who are separated from the Church as well as to her faithful members. God is not bound by His sacraments but bestows His favor upon all. This does not excuse anyone from the duty of receiving the sacraments if it is possible for him to do so. The Israelites lived on manna in the wilderness; but when they reached cultivated land, they were expected to live by tilling it (Joshua 5:12).
The sacraments are necessary because they are God,s appointed means of grace. He can give us His grace without them, but He will not if we refuse to use them. "By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8).
But it is very commonly held that the religious man is the man who does something, that he is saved not only by God,s gift of grace but by his own works.
It is true that faith must produce good works. Otherwise it is not real faith. As St. James tells us, faith without works is dead (2:25). But it is not the works that save us but the grace which alone enables us to do them, the grace which we owe to our Lord,s death and resurrection. Good works can only be the result of a living faith due to God,s favor or grace. The Thirteenth Article declares that "works done before justification" (for instance, a gift to a hospital by a non-Christian) "have the nature of sin". The clergy are not committed to every particular statement in the Articles. But we must insist that no one, baptized or unbaptized, can do anything good without Divine grace whether he is conscious of it or not.
Therefore no good works can "merit" anything. We cannot establish a claim on God. "When you have done all, say, we are unprofitable servants" (St. Luke 17:10).
The Romanist doctrine of "works of supererogation", the theory
1
Church Catechism.
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that sins have to be balanced against merits, which runs through popular Romanism everywhere and is deeply rooted in the financial interests of the Roman Communion, has already been discussed (see p. 200, 439). But the popular modern notion that a "good-living man" deserves Heaven is more dangerous still. Nobody can deserve Heaven or any reward from God. Whatever rewards God gives us come from His free grace.
As we have seen (p. 2), we live in two worlds, the spiritual world and the material world, closely connected with each other and influencing each other at every point. Both are in themselves good because they were created by God, but the spiritual world possesses a higher kind of goodness than the material world. Just because it possesses a higher kind of goodness, it can be more deeply perverted by being used to hinder God,s purpose. A man and a lump of iron can be used for evil as well as for good, but the perversion of the man is the perversion of an immortal spirit made in the likeness of God. The perversion of the iron, which cannot take place except by means of some perverted will, does not affect its nature but merely uses it for an evil purpose.
The material world is not illusion as some mystics and idealist philosophers say, nor is it evil as the Gnostics and Manicheans held.
Since material things are created by God, they ought to be used for His glory. And since man is partly material, he must approach God by material means. His worship cannot be purely spiritual. He must worship with the body as well as with the spirit.
The simplest way in which man approaches God is by prayer in which body, soul, and spirit are brought into contact with the Divine will. Christian prayer must always be "through Jesus Christ" unless directly addressed to Him. The discussion of prayer belongs to Ascetic rather than to Dogmatic Theology.
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The use of material things for the worship of God, such as stone and glass, fire and incense, bread and wine, water and oil, is supported both by revelation and by reason. The Puritans who held that worship must be as bare and plain as possible were unconsciously tending towards the idea that all that was material was evil. Some inconsistently use music but reject the use of lights and incense as if the ears were more spiritual than the eyes and the nose! It agrees with the nature of man that God should approach us by means of sacraments by water, bread, wine, and the laying on of hands, and that we should approach Him with every kind of material beauty both visible and audible with lights, incense, vestments, and music.
But this kind of worship has its dangers. What is best is always liable to greater dangers than what is not so good. The more beautiful and more elaborate our worship becomes, the greater is the danger of formalism. No worship indeed is free from this danger. The Puritan may be as superstitious in his use of the Bible as any ceremonialist in his use of ornaments; but if our worship is elaborate and requires a great deal of time and attention to be given to its performance, the spirit, without which all ceremonies are useless, may be neglected. Therefore there must be in all Christian worship an element of puritanism. The true puritan does not despise or reject the use of material beauty in worship, but he uses it with restraint. The Cistercians were the great puritans in the medieval Church.1
The supreme sacrament, the supreme way in which God has approached man by means of matter, is the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is both God and man as we are both spiritual and material. The Athanasian Creed says, "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ". All sacraments are like the Incarnation in this: the outward sign conceals and yet reveals the inward grace, as our Lord,s Manhood, when He was on earth, both concealed and revealed His Godhead.
1
There is for some people a psychological connection between elaborate religious ceremonial and sensual passion against which the ceremonialist must be on his guard.
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There is in nature a foreshadowing of the sacramental system of the Church. Nature is in a sense sacramental, and the invisible spiritual world is concealed and revealed in the visible material world to those who are able to see it (Rom. 1:20).1
There is a kind of sacramentalism in human association. The shaking of hands, the kiss, the common meal are symbols of friendship and of love, and also promote them. They are outward visible signs of an inward spiritual grace.
But there are also sacraments which belong to Divine revelation, outward signs by means of which God has promised that He will bestow His favor and His power. Their basis is the promise of God. For this reason they differ from sacraments whose basis is only human experience such as the shaking of hands.
God,s promise is revealed. For every sacrament we must have evidence from Holy Scripture.
The sacraments are sometimes confused with magical rites, but there are two fundamental differences.
The effect of the sacraments is due entirely to the gift of God. But those who believe in magic believe that it is independent of the Divine will. Some even think that by using certain formulas and certain ceremonies they can make the gods obey them.
The effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral condition of those who receive them. Without repentance and faith they effect no inward change. But magical rites are believed to act like laws of nature. A man who falls into the fire will burn whether he is good or bad, so it is believed that to stick pins into a wax image of a person will cause him pain whether he deserves it or not. But to receive a sacrament has no effect upon the soul (though it may have an effect on the outward status of the person) unless he is made fit to receive it by repentance and faith.
It is possible to treat the sacraments as if they were magical, and this danger is always present. But if they are properly understood, they are entirely different in their nature from magical rites.
1
See Keble,s poem for Septuagesima in The Christian Year: "There is a book, who runs may read". (Hymns A. and M., 168; English Hymnal, 497.)
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A sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us" (Church Catechism). The two greater sacraments were "ordained by Christ Himself". The others, though they have not any visible sign which we can be sure was appointed by Christ, are guaranteed by the teaching and practice of the Apostles.
Sacraments have four purposes. The first is to be "badges or tokens of Christian men,s profession" (Article 25) as was taught even by Zwingli who rejected the other purposes of the sacraments. A man declares publicly that he intends to follow Christ when he receives Baptism, Confirmation, or Communion.
But this, though often of great importance, is the least of the reasons for which sacraments were instituted. There are also proofs to us that God intends to bestow His grace of favor upon us. This appears to have been the value of the sacraments in the eyes of Calvin; and so far as it goes, it is true.
But they are much more than this. They are means by which the power of God is conveyed to us, effectual signs of grace (efficacia signa gratiae), as Articles 25 calls them, without which signs grace would not be conveyed unless by some special Divine intervention. We cannot, for instance, obtain the benefits of baptism without baptism, where baptism is within our reach; though where it is not within our reach, it is probable that God gives what is needed in some other way.
Last, the sacraments are pledges to us that we receive the grace of God. They free us from the peril of the doctrine of assurance, from relying on our own feelings. A man may feel no special change after his Communion, but he knows that he has received the Body and Blood of Christ. He relies not on his own feelings but on the promise of God.
The Church Catechism refers to the last two purposes when it says that a sacrament is a means whereby we receive the inward spiritual grace and a pledge to assure us thereof.
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The sacraments are functions of the Church. They are bestowed only within the Church on members of the Church. Outside the Church in the widest sense of the word, there are no sacraments (that is, no sacraments of this kind, for as we have seen, there are natural sacraments which are to be distinguished from the revealed sacraments).
Down to the third century the principle that no sacraments outside the Church were recognized was observed strictly. Those who had been baptized by heretics were always baptized again on submitting to the Church. Most heretics were then persons who denied the most fundamental Christian doctrines, such as Gnostics and Docetists who denied the Incarnation.
The Eastern churches still formally regard heretical baptism and other sacraments as null and void. This rigidity is modified by the practice of "economy" which will be discussed later (p. 337).
In the West St. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, about 250 admitted heretics into the Church without another baptism. St. Cyprian of Carthage vigorously opposed this practice. But the Roman practice was sanctioned by the Council of Arles, 314, after which it became universally accepted in the West (except by the Donatist schismatics). A century later St. Augustine of Hippo, in order to bring the Donatists back to the Church, conceded to them that their clergy should be accepted without a fresh ordination (the Donatists were orthodox in doctrine and differed from the Church only on points of discipline). From that time it has been the general practice in Western Christendom to recognize ordination as well as baptism given outside the Church if given according to the rules of the Church. It is not the baptized or ordained status of those who remain outside the Church that is recognized; but when they become reconciled with the Church, they need not be baptized or ordained. From this it is a short step to say that even while they remain outside the communion of the Church, they are in a sense members of the Church, baptized or ordained. But it is a step, and the two positions must not be confused.
A sacrament has two distinct kinds of effect: the internal effect, and the external effect.
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The internal effect is spiritual and therefore invisible. "The wind blithe where it Lisbeth and thou headrest the sound thereof but canned not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (St. John 3:8).
The external effect changes the recipient,s status in the Church. It is visible and even legal.
This distinction is often ignored, but it is very important. For instance, confirmation may produce a great internal effect or none at all. It may change the whole life, or it may appear to have made no change whatever. But the confirmed person, whatever the inward effect may have been, has the right of full membership, the right to receive Holy Communion, which he had not before he was confirmed, and which he could not otherwise have obtained. The case is even more clear with ordination. The man who is ordained priest in bad faith is none the less a priest. "The unworthiness of the ministers hinders not the effect of the sacrament" (Article 26).
Members of the Church who believe that she is a visible society lay emphasis on the external effect of sacraments. No one is a member at all unless he has been baptized. No one is a full member unless he has been confirmed and is a regular communicant. No one can be recognized as a bishop, priest, or deacon who has not been ordained by a bishop.
But those who do not believe that the Church is a visible society do not lay so much emphasis on the external effect of sacraments. They think that the Church is made up of those who have been converted, not of those who have been baptized and confirmed (J. H. Shakespeare,1 The Churches at the Cross-Roads, p. 55), and that baptism is useless if it does not lead to visible conversion, and unnecessary if that effect can be produced (as it can) without baptism. Hence arise endless misunderstandings.2
The word "valid" is a legal word, and in its proper sense means "recognized by the community". We say that a will or a check is valid if it is drawn in accordance with the law that is, the expressed will of the community. If it is not drawn so, it is invalid and therefore null and void. It must be written again.
1
This writer uses "regenerated" to mean "converted". See p. 343.2
The opinion that baptism, confirmation, and ordination, which cannot be repeated, convey "indelible character" was made a dogma by Trent. It goes back to St. Augustine but is not accepted by the Orthodox churches.[Page 334]
Sacraments are "valid" when they are recognized by the Church as performed in accordance with her law. A sacrament must be valid if it is to have the proper external effect. Validity is not directly concerned with the internal effect. If the Christian religion were concerned only with individuals, "validity of sacraments" would have no meaning. But the conception of validity is necessary to every society and therefore to the Church. Every society must be able to distinguish its members from non-members. It must therefore have a rule as to what constitutes "valid" membership. The method of admission must be strictly laid down. The rules which must be kept, if the privileges of membership are to be retained, must be defined. There must be no possibility of doubt about who is a member.
The Church likewise must have her rules about what makes baptism or any other sacrament valid. If someone claims to be a member whose baptism is not such as the Church can recognize ("invalid") or even doubtful, he must be baptized afresh in order that there may be no doubt about his membership in his mind or anyone else,s. It is the same with confirmation, and ordination, and marriage. If there is any doubt, the rite must be gone through again. The Holy Communion does not confer status in the same way as the sacraments just mentioned, but no one would be likely to benefit by his communion if he were beset by doubts whether it was valid.
A sacrament is "invalid" when the Church does not recognize it because something which the Church requires is lacking. An invalid sacrament is not necessarily ineffective. A Jacobite chief dying on the battlefield at Culloden was given communion by his chaplain who, in the absence of bread and wine, used oatcake and whisky. This sacrament was invalid since the Church requires bread and wine according to our Lord,s institution. But we need not doubt that it was effective. Nevertheless if anyone used oatcake and whisky or anything else when bread and wine could be obtained or when there was no urgent necessity for the sacrament, the invalid character of the sacrament would probably make it ineffective also; for it would show either gross disobedience or gross ignorance. The Church is the steward of the mysteries of God. She has been given authority to make rules and enforce them. Her members are bound to obey those rules; and if they deliberately break them, they have no right to expect that God will give them His grace. Therefore we cannot be sure that an invalid sacrament will have any spiritual effect unless those who administer it and receive it are alike ignorant that it is invalid; in which case, no doubt, God
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will not allow their ignorance to deprive them of His grace unless their ignorance was their own fault.1
The Church requires five conditions for a valid sacrament: the subject, matter, form, minister, and intention must be right.
The subject is the person who receives the sacrament. He must be capable of receiving it. For instance, he cannot receive valid baptism if he has been baptized before, and he cannot receive any other sacrament if he has not been baptized before.
The matter is the material thing used, as water, bread and wine, laying on of hands, etc.
The form is the words said which define the purpose with which the matter is used. Confirmation and ordination are both given by laying on of hands, but they are distinguished by their "form" which also distinguishes between the making of a deacon, the ordination of a priest, and the consecration of a bishop.
The minister must be someone who is authorized by the Church or who at least is recognized as capable of acting in her name. For instance, baptism administered by a layman, or even by a heretic, is recognized, but only a bishop or priest can celebrate the Eucharist.
The intention of the minister must be to do what the Church does as far as can be shown by his outward words and deeds. A mock sacrament (such as a stage marriage) is no sacrament.2 It is the external, not the internal, intention of the minister which must be right. If the absence of internal intention could make a sacrament invalid, we could not be certain of the validity of any sacrament; for no one can be certain that any minister is not a secret unbeliever. If the minister performs the sacrament as the Church requires, without any denial of his intention to do what the Church intends, that is sufficient evidence of his right intention.
These conditions necessary to validity have their counterparts in secular life. For instance, a check which is to be recognized by the bank (that is, valid) must be signed by the right person (right minister) on one of the bank,s checks (right subject, the check of another bank will not do) with ink (right matter).
1
In cases of extreme urgency like the one mentioned above, an invalid sacrament may be better than none at all; but even so, the Church cannot recognize it.2
The early Church did not accept this. There is a story of a mock baptism which led to its recipient,s conversion and martyrdom.
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If anyone thinks that legal requirements should have no place in religion, let him remember that the Christian religion is embodied in a society. If it were not, it would not need conditions of validity; but a society cannot exist without them, and the Christian Church is a society.
A sacrament received in bad faith that is, without the necessary moral conditions conveys, as far as we know, no benefit even though valid. On the contrary, a sacrament received without repentance and faith conveys harm, not good.1 The conditions of validity are necessary to remove doubt in the recipient,s mind and to secure the Church against false claimants to her privileges, but moral conditions are even more necessary. A bad priest may administer valid sacraments, and his wickedness does not necessarily hinder their effect for good; but his own soul only receives injury when he ministers in a state of unrepented sin.
The unworthiness of the ministers does not make the sacraments invalid. This was denied by Wycliffe, but its denial would make any corporate society impossible. Wycliffe was a theorist who had no opportunity of working out his ideas. Article 26 lays down that the effect of the sacraments depends on the promise of Christ and not on the worthiness of the minister; and it is supported by the practice of the Church everywhere.
A sacrament is said to be "valid but irregular" when it has been performed wrongly (that is, in a way which the Church forbids), but when the defect is not so grave as to make the Church refuse to recognize the sacrament. For instance, baptism by a layman is irregular but valid. It is irregular to celebrate the Eucharist with vessels not made of the precious metals. It is irregular to ordain a man under twenty-three without a dispensation. In cases of necessity, irregularity may be justified. But to give or receive a sacrament irregularly without necessity is a sin. (There are many degrees of irregularity, some very slight.)
Throughout the discussion of validity and regularity "the Church" has been referred to as if she were united. But though the whole Church is agreed in accepting the principle of validity
1
For the case of infant baptism see pp. 3413.
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(which no society can do without), there is no general agreement about the conditions which make some of the sacraments valid (though except in the case of ordination the differences are not great). We must therefore use the words "valid" and "invalid" with reference to a particular communion. There is no such thing as absolute validity, for "validity" means recognition by a particular society. For this purpose each communion must be regarded as a separate society. The question of validity between communions arises only when someone wishes to leave one communion for another, or two communions are trying to unite. Every society has the right to decide what status in other societies it will recognize as equivalent to its own (as when the University of Oxford recognized the degrees given by Cambridge and Dublin), and its decision is final for its members. We are members of the Anglican communion, and its decision is final for us. Even if as an individual I were to think the Anglican Communion mistaken, as an Anglican priest I should be bound to accept its decision in practice. This does not mean that the Anglican Communion could alter the conditions of validity which are universally accepted. It could not, for instance, accept as valid an ordination the minister of which was not a bishop; but it must decide (since there is no higher authority) whether ordination by a particular bishop conforms to the prescribed conditions.
The Eastern churches, both Orthodox and Separated, have never distinguished clearly between validity and regularity. Strictly speaking they recognize no sacraments as valid which are not administered by themselves. But the Orthodox Communion modifies this strictness by the principle of "economy". The Church, according to this principle, is the steward (@Æ6@<`:@H) of the mysteries of God and can make that valid which is in itself invalid if necessary for the salvation of souls. But this principle is severely limited. It can only be applied to persons who are without doubt orthodox in faith, and to communions which are orthodox on the sacrament in question. It could not be applied, for instance, to the baptism of a person belonging to a sect which rejected baptismal regeneration, or to the ordinations of a body which did not believe in priesthood; still less to persons who were themselves unorthodox on those points. Orthodox theologians differ widely about the limits
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of "economy", and Orthodox churches apply the principle in different ways. A man may be accepted as a priest in one whom another would require to be ordained. In any case the principle of "economy" is a purely Eastern one. It has no place in the Anglican system. Dispensation is in some cases a substitute for it. But in the Anglican system dispensation can only remove irregularity. It cannot make an invalid sacrament valid.
The number of the sacraments has been reckoned differently at different periods. It is universally agreed that Baptism and the Eucharist stand in a class by themselves. They are distinguished by two marks: an outward and visible sign ordained by Christ Himself, and their necessity to salvation for all men. ("Generally" necessary to salvation means not "usually" but "in all cases".)
There are other rites of the Church mentioned in the New Testament which are commonly called sacraments. Peter Lombard (about 1150) was the first to define the number of sacraments as seven: Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Ordination, Marriage, Penance, and Unction of the Sick. This number is accepted by both the Orthodox and the Roman Communions. The Council of Trent laid down that there are seven sacraments, neither more nor less, all ordained by Christ Himself; but it distinguished the two greater sacraments from the five lesser (see p. 470).
The Church of England in Article 25 says that the five "commonly called sacraments" have not like nature of sacraments with Baptism and the Lord,s Supper. It does not say that they are not sacraments.1 As far as the article goes, it agrees with the Council of Trent.
That there are seven sacraments is not a dogma except in the Roman Communion. But it is convenient to speak of seven sacraments. We need not hesitate to do so. It is certain that Confirmation and Ordination are outward visible signs conveying grace; though we have no proof that they were commanded by our Lord Himself, they rest on the authority of the Apostles directed by the Holy Ghost (Acts 8:17; II Tim. 1:6). Marriage is called a sacrament because St. Paul calls it "a great mystery", :LFJZD4@< (mysterion) being the Greek word for sacrament. Some have denied that
1
"Commonly called" cannot mean "commonly but wrongly called"; compare "The Nativity of Christ, commonly called Christmas Day"!
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Penance is a sacrament because it has no outward sign; others, that Unction is a sacrament because it is for the healing of the body. (I am inclined to think with some medieval writers that the Anointing of a King (I Kings 1:39; etc.) is a true sacrament conveying grace.)
But though there are differences about the precise number of the sacraments, it is necessary to hold that Confirmation, Ordination, Marriage, Penance or Absolution, and Unction are means by which God,s grace is bestowed upon us, ex opere operato; that is, that the reception of Divine grace is guaranteed in these cases by a Divine promise.
Luther taught that there were only three sacraments, the same three which, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, are necessary to salvation: Baptism, the Eucharist, and Penance. The Lutheran denial that Confirmation and Ordination are sacraments is a great obstacle to reunion.
Baptism was commanded by our Lord (St. Matt. 28:16, supported by the appendix to St. Mark, 16:16). Many scholars refuse to believe that the form "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" can be so early, but they rely chiefly on the argument from silence which is notoriously unsafe.1 Though incidents only found in the First Gospel have not very good historical authority, it is hard to believe that in a matter so important as this the tradition can be mistaken. Even if the threefold formula is not certainly His, the command to baptize must be His. There is no doubt that Baptism was the method of admission to the Church from the very beginning (see Acts 2:38, 41; I Cor. 1:13). In the New Testament admission to the Church is always by baptism. This is assumed in Acts 10:47, 19:3; Rom. 6:3.
St. Paul tells us that baptism is the means of union with the death
1
G. H. Marsh, Origin and Significance of New Testament Baptism (1941), gives their reasons.
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of Christ (Rom. 6:3-11; Col. 2:12) and assumes that the Roman Christians who had not been converted by himself had been taught this. In Eph. 5:26 baptism is the means by which the Church is cleansed. Titus 3:5 mentions "the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost"; and according to I St. Peter 3:21 baptism saves us. But the principal source for the meaning of baptism is St. John 3:5 where our Lord tells Nicodemus that no one can enter into the kingdom of God unless he has been born of water and of the Spirit. The Church has always held that this passage refers to baptism.1 It is incredible that the interview between our Lord and Nicodemus was invented by the Evangelist, and it is by itself enough to show that baptism was commanded by our Lord Himself.2
Circumcision was the method of admission to the Church of the Old Covenant. Proselytes were baptized as well as circumcised. The Christian Church gave up circumcision when she ceased to be a Jewish sect (Gal. 5:2; Acts 15:28). Baptism had been the necessary method of admission to the Church even in the Jewish period.
The "subject" of baptism is any person who has not been baptized before. Baptism confers a position of which the recipient can never be deprived. No one who has been baptized can ever become as if he were unbaptized, even by the "greater excommunication", the heaviest punishment which the Church can inflict. Therefore nobody can be baptized a second time. But if there is any doubt whether a baptism took place or whether it was valid, the person must be baptized conditionally.
The "matter" of baptism is water. (The sign of the cross is a mere symbol and is not necessary to the baptism.) No liquid except water may be used. The person may be dipped in the water as in
1
"No passage from any Father can be adduced which gives any other explanation. Next there is the large body of Fathers of every Church who do interpret the text as a matter of course of baptism. Third, all the liturgies, in all the ways in which it is possible to, apply it": E. B. Pusey, Tracts for the Times, No. 67, p. 57.2
Our Lord was no doubt referring to the future; that is why Nicodemus did not understand Him.
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all the Eastern churches, or the water may be poured on his head (affusion) which was the Western practice from the earliest times. In either case it should be done three times, though this is not essential. The water should be poured, not "sprinkled".
The "form" of baptism is: "I baptize thee" (in the Eastern churches, "The servant of God is baptized") "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost". The Church has not for many centuries recognized as valid any other form than this.1 There is no actual evidence for the theory that baptism was originally "in the name of Jesus Christ" alone.
The minister of baptism is a priest, or a deacon in the absence of a priest. A deacon may not baptize when a priest is present. In case of necessity that is, when the candidate is in danger of death anyone may baptize. St. Thomas Aquinas held that baptism administered even by a non-Christian was valid.2 A woman ought not to baptize if a man is present.3
The effect of baptism is of two kinds, internal and external.
The internal effect is the New Birth or regeneration, the beginning of life in grace (St. John 3:5). Every person who is baptized receives the new birth, but the new birth does not always develop into spiritual life. Baptism also conveys the forgiveness of sins. It removes the guilt but not the power of sin committed before baptism and provides the recipient with a remedy against the tendency to sin ("original sin") with which all human beings are born. Acknowledgment of "one baptism for the remission of sins" is a dogma of the faith. But if anyone is baptized without repentance, his sins will not be forgiven; if without faith the new birth will profit him nothing. Infants not old enough to have repentance or faith are baptized none the less. It is not the absence of repentance and faith but deliberate rejection of them that hinders the effect of the baptism. God,s gift does not depend on our capacity.
1
Pope Nicholas I appears to have recognized baptism "in the name of Jesus Christ" as valid, but his opinion is not accepted by any part of the Church.2
Summa Theologica, iii. 67, 5. The Orthodox churches deny this.3
St. Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., iii. 67, 4.
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The external effect of baptism is admission into the Church as "a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven";1 inheritor not as one who will possess it one day but as one who possesses it now. Since only members of the Church can receive the sacraments, no unbaptized person is capable of receiving any other sacrament. The confirmation, ordination, or communion of an unbaptized person is invalid.
The baptism of infants has been the practice of the Church from very early times. There is no certain evidence for it in the New Testament, but it is proved from Scripture by the combination of St. Mark 10:14 with St. John 3:5, for if children are to be brought to the Savior, "for of such is the kingdom of God", and no one can enter the kingdom of God but by baptism, it must by our duty to baptize children. These two passages are the liturgical Gospels used at the baptism of infants and adults respectively which shows that the English Church sanctions this interpretation. Eph. 6:1 and Col. 3:20 show that there were children in the Christian community.
The rubric to the baptismal service declares that infants dying after baptism before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved. This is the universal teaching of the Church.
We can say nothing of the fate of children who die unbaptized. The current teaching of the Roman Communion, based on St. Thomas Aquinas,2 is that children who die unbaptized before they have committed actual sin attain to the greatest possible natural happiness but not the supernatural happiness of the Beatific Vision. All we can say is that no pains should be spared to prevent any child of Christian parents from dying unbaptized.
But the practice of infant baptism was not intended for the children of parents who had no intention of bringing them up as Christians. The godparents were provided to see that the parents did their duty. But it is not right to allow children to be bound by promises which they have no reasonable chance of fulfilling or to admit to the Church large numbers of merely nominal members. This deplorably
1
Church Catechism.2
Summa Theologica, Suppl. 69, 6; unbaptized infants are said to be excluded from heaven because of "original guilt".
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common practice has done more than anything else to weaken the sense of Church membership. But any unbaptized child may be baptized if in danger of death.
Private or clinical baptism is only allowed in the Church of England in cases of sickness. All such baptisms should be at once registered; and if the candidate recovers, he must be presented in church.
Adult candidates for baptism must be carefully prepared and instructed as for confirmation. They should be advised but cannot be compelled to confess their sins to the priest. They must not be baptized unless the priest is as certain as possible of their repentance and faith. But they are not to be absolved. Their forgiveness is conveyed by baptism. The bishop must be given at least a week,s notice of an adult baptism as the Prayer Book directs, and the baptism should be followed as soon as possible by confirmation. Anyone who is old enough to be confirmed is old enough to be baptized as an adult.
Regeneration conveyed by baptism must be distinguished from conversion. The two are often confused. Conversion is the conscious turning of the soul to God. It may come before baptism as in the case of St. Paul, but it very often comes later. It may be sudden, but more often it is gradual. Regeneration, on the other hand, is usually subconscious. It is the first beginning of the life in grace and is given even to infants. Modern psychologists have shown the immense importance of the subconscious. They were anticipated by the Church which relies on the Holy Ghost to sanctify the whole man, subconscious as well as conscious. Those who look for the beginning of the life in grace at the age when the boy or girl is ready consciously to accept Christ as Savior ignore this psychological fact.
There is no difference on the doctrine of baptism between the Catholic communions, and the Lutherans are orthodox on this point. But the Presbyterians, though infant baptism is their practice, do not apparently believe that it conveys regeneration or that it is necessary to membership of the Church in all cases. The
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Presbyterian doctrine of baptism appears to be that it is the sealing or public recognition of grace and election already given, which is consistent with the Presbyterian doctrine of ordination. Baptism administered by Presbyterians is accepted as valid by the Church if the matter and form have been used (Presbyterian ministers are not always careful about this), but the Presbyterian doctrine of baptism is a deeper cause of separation from the Church than Presbyterian ministry or church government. At the Edinburgh Conference on Faith and Order in 1937 the Presbyterian Church of Scotland invited all members of the conference, baptized or not, to a general communion service. Similar Anglican invitations have always been limited to the baptized.
The Church regards all baptized children as her members. The Congregationalists and other bodies do not regard them as members till they are able as adolescents to "receive the right hand of fellowship".1 From this theological difference comes the profound difference between the Church (Anglican or Roman) and other Christians about religious education. The Church demands Church teaching for children as members of the Church which is intended to lead up to confirmation and first communion. The other religious bodies hold that children must choose for themselves when old enough, and they are therefore satisfied with undenominational teaching. It is one of the gravest practical differences within Christendom; and since it arises from fundamental divergence of principle, the religious teaching of Church children and children belonging to bodies which are unorthodox about baptism ought to be kept entirely separate.
Baptism carries with it very grave responsibility. Sin after baptism is much more serious than sin before baptism (Heb. 10:26). It is therefore important that everything possible should be done to make baptism a solemn reality. The present lax administration of baptism is a survival from the ages when the whole population could be regarded as Christian, and it is not easy to see the remedy for it. But there is no more urgent problem before the Church.
The remedy for grave sin after baptism is the sacrament of absolution (see pp. 393, 42831).
1
Many Congregationalists deny that baptism is of any importance. Even their ministers are often unbaptized. Some Baptists give communion to unbaptized persons.
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Confirmation is the gift of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. The chief Scriptural authority for it is found in Acts 8:17, 19:2, and Heb. 6:2. These passages with others show that Confirmation was necessary to membership of the Church, that it was a fundamental principle of the doctrine of Christ, and that it was administered by apostles only (for Philip the deacon had no power to administer it). It was in early times, as in all the Eastern churches to the present day, combined with baptism and administered at the same time.
The subject of confirmation is a baptized person who has not been already confirmed. An unbaptized person cannot be confirmed. If any one has by error been confirmed without having been baptized, he must be baptized and then receive confirmation, for his former confirmation is invalid. No one can receive valid confirmation more than once. Ordination includes confirmation. A candidate for ordination ought first to have been confirmed; but if he has been ordained without being confirmed, he need not be confirmed (see p. 388).
The matter of confirmation is the laying on of hands; but as this is not of Divine command, the Church has the power to change it. The Orthodox and other Eastern Communions, and the Roman Communion,1 have made anointing with chrism the matter of confirmation. (Chrism is an ointment made from oil and balsam, not to be confused with the oil used in unction of the sick.) The Anglican communion has returned to the New Testament practice of confirmation by laying on of hands which is also used by some Lutherans.
The form of confirmation is a prayer for the gifts of the Spirit (Acts 8:15).
1
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, iii. 72, 2. But some regard the outstretched hands of the bishop or the (comparatively modern) slap on the cheek as equivalent to the Laying on of Hands.
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The minister of confirmation is a bishop, directly or indirectly. In the Anglican communion the bishop alone may give confirmation. In the Eastern Communions ordinarily, and in the Roman Communion by dispensation, a priest may confirm with chrism blessed by the bishop. (In the Orthodox Communion the blessing of chrism is the privilege of a patriarch, and the right to bless the chrism is the sign that a church has become completely self-governing.)
The internal effect of confirmation is the seven-fold gift of the Holy Ghost. The seven gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, spiritual strength, true godliness, and holy fear (Isa. 11:2, in the ancient Greek translation; in our Bible, translated from the original Hebrew text, there are only six gifts). By the right use of these gifts the Christian is enabled to prepare himself to receive the communion and also to meet the dangers of adolescent and adult life.
The external effect of confirmation is admission into the full membership of the Church, and ordination to the priesthood of the laity. Baptism is not complete without it. It is only the confirmed who are ordinarily admitted to communion (though those who are ready and willing to be confirmed may be admitted for urgent reasons); for it is by communicating that we join most fully in offering the sacrifice of Christ which we are not entitled to do till we have been ordained to the lay priesthood. But all baptized persons have a right to be present at the offering of the Eucharist. According to A. J. Mason and F. W. Puller, the Holy Ghost is given in confirmation and not in baptism; but the usual view is that the Holy Ghost is given both in baptism and in confirmation, but for different purposes. Evidence from the early church is not easy to obtain because baptism and confirmation formed a single service.
It is a universal rule of the Church that no one may ordinarily be admitted to communion who has not been confirmed. It was universal in ancient times. In the Middle Ages confirmation was much neglected because the dioceses were so large and the bishops so busy with secular offices, but the rule remained in force. The Church of England allows an unconfirmed person to receive
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communion only if "ready and desirous to be confirmed", which merely continues the pre-Reformation rule. It is of the utmost importance that this rule should be rigidly observed because the baptism of infants is often so indiscriminately administered that we cannot treat it as always conferring real membership. The rule that only the confirmed are admitted to communion is almost the only rule of discipline in the English Church which is generally observed.
It is also the only means of excluding persons who are not in communion with the Church. Strictly speaking such persons are not to be admitted to communion even if they have been confirmed; but this is difficult to enforce because it is not explicitly laid down in the Anglican formularies. Those who have been brought up in the Calvinist belief that the Church is invisible cannot see why they should not be admitted to communion anywhere. It is useless to point out to them that those who wish for the privileges of a society must submit to its rules, because they have never been taught that the Church is a society, or that communion is the privilege of members of the visible Church, not of Christians as individuals. The written formularies of the English Church were drawn up in an age when everyone was a member of the Church, and therefore do not forbid the communion of non-members (though the canons of 1604 declare those who separate from the Church to be excommunicated). But they do forbid the communion of those who are neither confirmed nor willing to be confirmed.
In the Roman Communion where these difficulties do not arise, first communion is often given before confirmation, but it is a modern abuse and was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1897, approving of a decision of the Diocesan Synod of Marseilles (A. C. Hall, Confirmation, p. 94).
The age at which confirmation is given has differed widely in different ages and countries. The ancient custom still continued in the Eastern churches was to administer it to infants. In the West it became usual in the Middle Ages to postpone it to the age or reason that is, seven years old. The English Prayer Book requires all children to have learned the Catechism before confirmation which is to be given when the child reaches years of discretion that is, when he is able to distinguish right from wrong.1
1 Not when he becomes "discreet"; in that case many would never be confirmed!
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Queen Elizabeth I was confirmed by Archbishop Cranmer when she was a week old. This was probably deliberate archaism. John Wesley was confirmed at eight (1711). This was usual at that time. The modern custom of postponing confirmation till the sixteenth year is due to Lutheran influence.
In practice no rigid rule can be laid down because the development and the circumstances of different children differ so much. It is now generally agreed by those who know what confirmation is and have studied the psychology of children that when the home is thoroughly Christian, confirmation should be given before adolescence begins that is, not later than the thirteenth year provided that it is followed up with careful instruction for some years. In some cases it may be given at eight or nine. But where the atmosphere of the home is not sympathetic, it may be better to postpone confirmation to about eighteen when the boy or girl is old enough to stand up against the indifference or opposition of his or her parents.
The renewal of the baptismal vows which is part of the Anglican confirmation service is in no way necessary to confirmation and can be done more than once. The unfortunate phrase "ratify and confirm" applied to the vows since 1552 (but altered in the 1928 revision to "ratify and confess") has led to the common error that confirmation is merely the renewal of baptismal vows. (If it were, there would be no need for the presence of a bishop.) When confirmation is given early, candidates may be asked to make a fresh renewal of vows when they approach adult life at about eighteen.
The rite called confirmation by the Lutherans is a different thing from the Catholic sacrament. In German they are expressed by two different words.1 Luther held that the laying on of hands by the apostles conferred miraculous gifts only and ceased with the Apostolic Age. This opinion is contrary to the teaching of the Church in all ages as well as to the New Testament evidence. Lutheran confirmation is a public profession of faith prepared for
1
Catholic Confirmation is Firmung; Evangelical Confirmation is Konfirmation.
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by long and careful instruction. This profession of faith is made to the parish priest or pastor in the presence of all the candidate,s friends and neighbors in the church, and is accompanied by prayer for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. After it the candidate is admitted to his first communion.
Laying on of hands is, however, practiced in some Lutheran countries. In Sweden and Finland where it is not officially authorized, it is spreading rapidly. There is a historical case of a Swedish bishop who, at the request of Bishop Blomfield of London and with the consent of the King of Sweden and the Swedish Synod, confirmed some Anglican candidates living in Sweden in the Anglican manner.
The Continental Reformed Churches have a rite of confirmation similar to that of the Lutherans, and so have the Presbyterians (according to the Book of Common Order, published by the authority of the Scottish General Assembly). It is definitely not sacramental.
The Holy Eucharist, Holy Communion, Lord,s Supper, or Mass is the central act of Christian worship, as the Incarnation which it commemorates and to which it corresponds is the central Christian belief.
The Holy Eucharist was instituted by our Lord. The Church Catechism speaks of two sacraments "ordained by Christ Himself". We are bound to believe that He instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, and we need not hesitate to do so for it is historically certain.
We have three independent accounts of this event: St. Paul,s (I Cor. 11:23), St. Mark,s (14:22), and St. Luke,s (22:17-20). St. Matthew,s account (26:26-29) is probably based on St. Mark,s. Besides these we have the discourse on the Living Bread in St. John 6.
St. Paul is our only certain written authority for our Lord,s command "Do this". It does not occur in St. Mark or St. Matthew,
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and in St. Luke it only occurs in a doubtful reading. But the evidence of St. Paul is quite enough, especially as he declares that it was part of what he had "received of the Lord" and as it is supported by the universal practice of the Church. His account is probably earlier than any of the Gospels.
The discourse in St. John 6 is a companion piece to the discourse on Baptism in St. John 3. It must refer directly to the Eucharist which was, by the time that this Gospel was written, a long-established Christian practice.
When our Lord said, "I am the Door", "I am the true Vine", He was speaking metaphorically, but not when He said, "I am the Living Bread". The institution of the Eucharist and the practice of the Church show that when He spoke of the Living Bread, He was referring to the sacrament which He was going to institute; and the departure of many of His disciples shows that they knew He had said something very important which none the less they could not accept.
The practice of the Apostolic Church is shown by Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7,11; I Cor. 11:23 ff. The "breaking of bread" was one of the distinctive marks of the Christian community. (St. Luke 24:30 is probably not an instance, and Acts 27:30 is certainly not one.)
In spite of this evidence and in spite of the unique character of the Christian Eucharist, attempts have been made to show that it was brought in from the Mystery Religions and was not part of the original Christian tradition. These attempts are now discredited, but they still have their effect on those who have not understood the weight of the evidence against them.
When it was discovered that in many early religions, and particularly in the "mystery religions" of the Roman Empire which contained some very primitive features, there were ceremonies superficially resembling the Christian Eucharist, many people assumed that the Christian Eucharist was derived from the mystery religions. St. Paul sometimes used words which were employed in a technical sense by the adherents of these cults, and it was suggested that as St. Paul gives us the earliest account of the Eucharist, it was he who adapted a practice of the mystery religions to Christian use. It was a theory especially attractive to "Liberal" theologians, to whom the sacramental, like the miraculous, element in Christianity was incredible and required to be explained away because it was a
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hindrance to their theory that Catholicism is a perversion of the original simple non-miraculous Christianity. It was also supported by the adherents of the equally one-sided and misleading theory of the "apocalyptic Christ".
But what evidence we have for the sacramental practices of the mystery religions is all later than the New Testament. Closer examination of them shows that their differences from the Christian Eucharist are greater than their resemblances to it. St. Paul, though he used technical words to illustrate his meaning, tells us that he received his teaching about the Eucharist from the Lord. If he knew anything about the banquets of the mystery religions, it can only have been vaguely (as most educated men today know something about Freemasonry). There can be no doubt that those banquets were to him "the table of devils" which he contrasted with "the table of the Lord" (I Cor. 10:21).
The Holy Eucharist differs from the other sacraments in having not two parts but three. The Church Catechism recognizes this when it asks two questions about Baptism, "What is the outward sign?", and "What are the benefits which we receive thereby?" In Baptism as in other sacraments the thing signified is the same as the benefits, but not in the Eucharist.
The outward sign (signum) in the Eucharist is bread and wine.
The thing signified (res) is the Body and Blood of Christ.
The benefits (gratia) are the strengthening and refreshing of our souls.
We take first the outward sign; the subject, matter, form, and minister.
The subject of the Eucharist that is, the person capable of receiving it is any one who has been baptized. The communion of the unbaptized is invalid. In no conditions whatever may a person who is known to be unbaptized be admitted to communion. Even if he is dying, he must be baptized first.
A person who is baptized but not confirmed may be admitted to communion for urgent reasons (such as illness or danger of death) if he is ready and willing to be confirmed. Otherwise his communion is irregular but valid.
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To admit to communion a person who is not in full communion with the Church is gravely irregular. Even if he has been confirmed, he ought not to be admitted to communion while he belongs to any sect which is not in communion with the Church. But in some circumstances his admission may be allowed; for instance, if he is dying or in danger of death and earnestly desires it (provided that he has been baptized). Sometimes the Church allows members of separated communions this privilege when they have no access to their own clergy, but this permission should be given with great caution and only to members of communions whose doctrine of the sacraments is orthodox.1
The "matter" of the Eucharist is "bread and wine which the Lord hath commanded to be received". The bread must be wheaten bread and may be leavened or unleavened. Wafer bread specially made is to be preferred to common bread since in common bread the flour is nowadays always mixed with other substances. The Eastern churches, except the Armenian, use leavened bread specially prepared, which seems to have been the practice of the early Church to avoid the unleavened bread used by the Jews. But unleavened bread has been used in the West for at least a thousand years.
(The Assyrian Church has a custom peculiar to itself. The priest bakes the bread himself before each liturgy, adding to it a small portion reserved from the last liturgy. This is called the Succession of the Leaven, and the Assyrians believe that it goes back to the Last Supper.)
The wine must be the juice of grapes in which fermentation has not been artificially stopped. Fresh grape juice is allowed and is sometimes used in grape-growing countries. The so-called "non-alcoholic wine" in which fermentation has been stopped artificially is not allowed, and the use if it makes the sacrament invalid. It has been sufficiently proved that in the Bible the word "wine" means fermented grape juice.
The "form" of the Eucharist is a prayer in which the account of the institution is recited. In all ancient liturgies the central feature is a prayer to the Father thanking Him for all the acts of
1
The Orthodox churches have sometimes permitted members of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Anglican Communions, when far from their own churches, to receive communion by "economy", as a special privilege.
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redemption, and including (except in the Liturgy of Mar Adai used in the Assyrian Church where its presence is uncertain) the recital of the story of the institution of the Eucharist as our authority for continuing to do what our Lord did. This central prayer is called the Anaphora, or Canon of the Mass.
In all the Eastern liturgies, the Gallican liturgies,1 and the modern Anglican liturgies except the liturgy of the English Church, this prayer leads up to the "Epiclesis" or prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost, which is usually considered to go back to Hippolytus of Rome in the third century (some scholars think that the Epiclesis in Hippolytus is a later interpolation). In the Roman Liturgy, the early history of which is obscure and disputed, there is no Epiclesis, though some scholars hold that there once was one. Nor is there one in the present English rite which in its chief features dates from 1552. No other liturgy, ancient or modern, lacks an Epiclesis.2
The medieval Schoolmen taught that the consecration in the Eucharist was effected by the recital of the words "This is My Body; this is My Blood". These words were therefore surrounded from the thirteenth century with special ceremonies of which the elevation of the elements is the most important. But this theory is not consistent with the text of the Roman Liturgy in which the elements are called "this holy Bread of eternal life and this cup of everlasting salvation", after the words have been said by which (according to the theory of Transubstantiation) the bread has ceased to be really bread. Still less is it consistent with other ancient liturgies, although it is enforced upon the Uniat Eastern churches subject to Rome which use those liturgies.
The theory is founded upon the teaching of St. Ambrose, though it is not certain that St. Ambrose really taught it. If he did, he may have been influenced by the pagan religion of Rome which was a religion of formulae. (St. Ambrose was not a trained theologian but a civil servant who was not baptized till after his election to the bishopric of Milan in 374.)
The Elevation and the ceremonies which accompanied it were disused in England after the Reformation,3 and the removal of the Epiclesis from the English rite in 1552 is due to the influence of
1
The group of Western, Latin, but not Roman, liturgies used in France, Spain, and the Keltic countries before 800, and surviving only in the Mozarabic Liturgy of Toledo.2
Except the Lutheran liturgies.3
The Elevation was forbidden by the rubric in the First Prayer Book; and Queen Elizabeth I, who resisted the Calvinist attack on ceremonies, would not allow the Elevation.
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Bucer and other foreign reformers who regarded the Eucharist as only a commemoration of Christ,s death, and did not connect it, as the ancient liturgies did, with the whole work of redemption including the coming of the Holy Ghost.
The theory of the Schoolmen, though prevalent in Latin Christendom since the thirteenth century, has never been known in the East where the older belief that the consecration is effected by the whole prayer, not by one phrase in it, is still held. From the seventeenth century the ancient and Eastern view has been held by the best Anglican divines, and all the revisions of the English rite since 1764 have contained an Epiclesis after the words of institution.
The ancient doctrine makes the consecration the direct work of God in answer to the prayer of the Church; whereas the theory of the Schoolmen, according to which the priest is said to "make the Body of Christ", emphasizes the work of man. The undue emphasis given to the priest as the man empowered to "make the Body of Christ" has led by reaction to the denial of the change in the elements and of the doctrine of the priesthood.
The recital of the words of institution by themselves, as in the Lutheran liturgies and as ordered by the Anglican rubric providing for a fresh consecration (altered in all modern Anglican rites), is at least gravely irregular, for in all other liturgies the words of institution occur in a prayer, never by themselves.
The minister of the Eucharist is a bishop or priest. In early times the bishop was the normal celebrant, the priests present joining in celebrating with him. (There was in the third century a short-lived custom that confessors that is, men who had suffered for the faith were ranked as priests without ordination, but there is no evidence that they ever celebrated the Eucharist or had any privilege other than sitting with the priests in church. According to the ancient document known as the Didachè (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), "prophets" were sometimes invited to preside at the Eucharist; but its date and source are unknown, and there is no other instance of such a practice.)
The minister of the Eucharist must receive Communion himself. Even if he celebrates more than once a day (which he should not
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do without necessity), he must communicate himself each time. If he does not, that Eucharist is invalid. This has been the rule of the whole Church in all ages except the Churches of Sweden and Finland since 1602. (For the reason, see p. 370).
The reception of "both kinds", the bread and the wine, was expressly commanded by our Lord, who said, "Drink of it, all of you" (B\,J, > "ÛJ@Ø BV<J,H: St. Matt. 26:27). The practice of communicating in one kind only was forbidden by three Popes, Gelasius, St. Leo , and Urban II, all of whom condemned those who refused to receive from the cup. Young children and sick persons who could not receive solid food were allowed to receive from the cup only; and there is evidence that the bread was reserved alone, but how common this was is disputed. About the thirteenth century the custom of refusing the cup to the laity sprang up through mistaken reverence in spite of papal prohibitions. This took place about the same time as the definition of Transubstantiation, the emphasis on the Elevation of the Host, and its extra-liturgical use as in processions. All these novelties marked a profound change in the popular attitude towards the Eucharist. The restoration to the laity of the right to the cup was one of the chief demands of John Huss and his Czech followers, and the Council of Constance (1415) which burned Huss gave the first formal sanction to communion in one kind only, which was afterwards repeated by the Council of Trent. The Utraquists, or moderate Hussites, were allowed communion in both kinds by the Council of Basle, but this was never sanctioned by the Pope. However, communion in both kinds was allowed in Germany for about ten years when the Reformation was at its height; but when the Counter-Reformation removed the danger of the loss of all Germany to Rome, the permission was canceled.
The Anglican churches strictly forbid communion in one kind only as contrary to the Lord,s command. "Both parts of the Lord,s Sacrament, by Christ,s ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christian men alike" (Article 30). "Then shall the Minister receive the Communion in both kinds himself, and then proceed to deliver the same to the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in like manner, if any be present, and after that to the people also in order" (Rubric in the Liturgy). The church may not "ordain anything contrary to God,s word written", from which it follows
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that the Church has no right to permit communion in one kind only except in case of absolute necessity. This by itself would fully justify the Anglican rejection of the jurisdiction of Rome.
All the Eastern churches administer communion in both kinds. Since some time in the Middle Ages the laity (but not the clergy) receive both kinds together. Even the reserved sacrament is always administered in both kinds. (Two Greek priests whom I met in Jerusalem, discussing the Roman claims, said to me, "The Pope can have all the honor, but he has no right to forbid us to obey our Lord,s command".)
Concomitance, which is sometimes put forward as the basis of communion in one kind only, is the doctrine that the whole Christ is given and received under either kind alone. We do not deny this doctrine, though it would not be easy to prove it from Scripture; and therefore we do not insist that communion in one kind only (though our old divines called it the "half communion") is invalid. But the theory of Concomitance must not be given as a reason for disobeying the command of our Lord. This would be "to make the word of God of none effect by our tradition" for which the Pharisees were condemned (St. Mark 7:13).
Some have objected to drinking from a common cup for fear of infection. (For this reason many Presbyterian and Congregationalist congregations use "individual cups", but the Church does not allow it.) All reasonable precautions should be taken, but there is no serious danger if they are taken. The clergy run more risk than anyone, and statistics show that the clergy is the most long-lived class in the country. Persons suffering from infectious diseases may be communicated in both kinds by "intinction" (dipping the bread in the wine and touching with it each "host"1 that is to be received).
But intinction, though the usual method of communicating the laity in the East, should only be used by Anglican priests for special reasons such as communion with the reserved sacrament (when necessary), and communion of infectious persons or those suffering from alcoholic disease.
Reservation in one kind only is not permissible in the Anglican Communion. It was allowed in the early Church, but so were many other practices connected with the reserved sacrament which no one would now defend.
Communion in both kinds is a Divine command which the Church
1
For the meaning of this word see p. 360.
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has no right to disobey except where communion in one kind only is the sole alternative to no communion at all. Any Anglican priest who refuses the cup to the laity, and any lay person who refuses to receive it (except for the most necessary reasons, and then only with the bishop,s permission) is committing a grave sin and rendering himself liable to the severest ecclesiastical penalties.
The thing signified (res sacramenti), the spiritual reality of which the bread and wine are the outward signs in the Holy Eucharist, is the Body and Blood of Christ who has said, "This is My Body: this is My Blood".
The Church Catechism teaches that the thing signified is "the Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord,s Supper."
Article 28 says: "The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner: and the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith." The author of this article, Bishop Guest, has left it on record that he inserted the word "given" in order to assert that the bread and wine become by consecration the Body and Blood of Christ. The rubric, dating from 1662, which distinguishes between the consecrated bread and wine which are to be consumed in the church, and the unconsecrated bread and wine which "the Curate is to have to his own use", shows that the English Church teaches that the bread and wine are changed by the consecration.1
The words "Body" and "Blood" do not mean the material body and blood of our Lord. To think that they do is to fall into the error
1
In 1574 a priest who, when the consecrated wine failed, went on with wine which had not been consecrated, was condemned by the court and imprisoned for a year. (W. H. Frere, Some Principles of Religious Ceremonial, p. 178.)
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of "Capharnaism" so called from the Jews of Capernaum who asked, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"
The body is the means by which the spirit expresses itself. Though it has been widely held that our Lord has only one Body, it seems that He has at least two. The Church is His Body, but not that Body which was crucified and is now exalted to the throne of God. The bread in the Eucharist becomes the Body of Christ; not His material Body nor His mystical Body (the Church), but His sacramental Body, the means by which He carries out His purpose of feeding us spiritually with His own life.
We avoid many difficulties if we say that He has more than one Body, more than one means of expression. This material Body was one means of expression. The bread at the Last Supper was another. It has always been difficult to explain how the bread at the Last Supper could be our Lord,s Body if He had only one Body; but if He has more than one Body, the bread can be held to be His Body in a different sense.1
Though it has been widely held that the Body of which we partake is the same Body as that which was born of the Blessed Virgin and hung on the Cross, there appears to be nothing in Holy Scripture or in any definition of the universal Church to prevent us from distinguishing them from one another.
In any case, the sacramental Body of Christ is not His dead Body, as was held by some of the Anglican divines of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for He "was dead and is alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:18).
The blood is in Hebrew thought the life, especially when released in sacrifice in order to be offered to God. The Israelites were forbidden to drink the blood which belonged to God. The Eucharist was instituted for men who were accustomed to this idea. To "drink the blood" is to share the life. As members of Christ we are permitted to share the life of our Savior because it was given for us, and we do this when we receive the bread and the wine in the Holy Eucharist, for they have become the Body and Blood of Christ. "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life."
1
I owe this opinion to Canon H. L. Pass, sometime Principal of Chichester Theological College, and it certainly seems to solve more difficulties than it raises.
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Except some of the extreme Reformers who held that the Eucharist was only "a sign of Christian men,s profession", and those who held that we do not receive the Body and Blood of Christ but that the effect on us, or virtue of the sacrament, is the same as if we did, all Christians believe that in the Holy Communion we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The controversies have all been about the manner of the gift, not the gift itself, and about the way in which we ought to use it.
The following lines are attributed to Queen Elizabeth I:
"Christ was the Word that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it:
And what His word doth make it,
That I believe and take it."
Here the consecration is attributed to the word of Christ, "This is my Body". (This is the medieval doctrine from which even the Reformers could not altogether escape. It was not until the next century that the study of the Fathers led to the rediscovery of the older doctrine of the consecration.)
The result of the change effected by the consecration of the bread and wine is commonly called the Real Presence, though these words are not found in Scripture, in any dogma defined by the Ecumenical Councils, or in any official formula of the Anglican Communion.
That the bread and the wine become the Body and Blood of Christ is implied by Scripture and was explicitly taught by the Fathers. If we believe this, as we can hardly fail to do if we accept the universal agreement of the ancient Church as determining the meaning of the New Testament in matters of doctrine, we must hold that the living Christ is personally present and that we receive Him when we receive the consecrated bread and wine. It seems better to say "The Bread becomes the Body of Christ" than to say "The Body of Christ is present", because the word "present" must be used not in the ordinary sense but in a mysterious sense, undefined because heavenly.
It is easier to say what this "presence" is not, than what it is. It is not natural, or physical, or local. The Body of Christ does not
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move through space. Even Cardinal Newman wrote, "When the Host is carried in procession, the Body of Christ does not move". The Body and Blood of Christ do not possess the properties of bread and wine.
The word sacrament is applied to the Eucharist in different senses. It may mean the outward visible sign as when Article 29, quoting St. Augustine, calls the bread and wine "the sign or sacrament of so great a thing". It may mean the thing signified, the Body and Blood of Christ. Or it may mean both together as when the Lord,s Supper is defined in the Church Catechism as having two parts. (In fact, it has three, as we have seen.) It is important that the sense in which the word is being used should always be explained. The consecrated bread, the outward sign of the Eucharist, is often called the "Host" (hostia is the Latin for "victim").
The Anglican churches reject the theory of Transubstantiation (in what sense, we shall see in the next chapter), and the theory that the Eucharist is only a sign of Christian men,s profession (Article 28). Otherwise the doctrine of the Eucharist is not defined. In this respect the Anglican churches agree with the ancient Church and with the Eastern churches, neither of which has defined any doctrine of the Eucharist as necessary to salvation. For the Eucharist is a mystery which cannot be fully understood, and all attempts to define it have ended by emphasizing one aspect of it above another.
The following are different aspects of the Holy Eucharist:
1. Thanksgiving, from which it is called Eucharist.
2. Commemoration of our Redemption; so it is called the Lord,s Supper.
3. Offering of the one perfect Sacrifice, from which aspect we call it the Liturgy or the Mass.
4. Communion with our Lord and with each other.
5. Mystery, in which all the others are united: :LFJZD4@< is the Greek word corresponding to Sacrament.
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This rubric first appeared in the Prayer Book of 1552 which was never properly authorized. It was removed in 1559 and replaced in a modified form (corporal being substituted for "real and essential") in 1662. It is called "black" because it was printed in black letters, though all the other rubrics were printed in red letters. It makes two statements which are hardly tenable by any modern intelligent person, for it says that Christ,s Body is "natural", whereas it is, since the Resurrection, not natural but spiritual (I Cor. 15:44); and it says that Heaven is a place, and that Christ,s Body cannot be in more places than one, which is an intolerably materialist conception of Heaven. Fortunately we are not bound by the teaching of this rubric. It is an interesting fact that in 1718 this rubric was the only part of the Anglican formularies about the Eucharist which Cardinal de Noailles and his French divines could not accept.
The Anglican Communion is not committed to any particular doctrine of the Eucharist beyond what was said in the last chapter. No such doctrine can be proved from Scripture. No such doctrine has been defined by the Universal Church. The outward visible signs, the bread and wine, are really bread and wine. The Body and Blood of Christ are really the Body and Blood of Christ. To deny either truth is "to overthrow the nature of a sacrament". That is rejected by the Anglican Communion, and that alone.
Many theories of the manner in which the sacramental gift is bestowed have been put forward. We must know the chief ones if we are to understand the history of the Church, but none of them is entirely satisfactory. Readers who are not interested in these theories had better pass on the next chapter.
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First there are the theories which agree with the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence. The most famous of these is Transubstantiation.
Latin Christians in the Dark Ages who could not understand philosophical distinctions took our Lord,s words quite literally. They held that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist was His material Body miraculously concealed from our senses in order that we might not be shocked by seeing that we were eating human flesh. This is called Capharnaism.
Hence arose the legends of bleeding Hosts, Hosts which turned into a Child in the priest,s hand, etc. Berengarius was compelled in 1059 to sign a recantation declaring that the Body of Christ was ground by the teeth of the faithful.
Medieval thinkers, in order to get rid of this materialist doctrine without rejecting the traditional belief of the Church, devised the theory of Transubstantiation. According to the philosophy then generally accepted, which was based on Aristotle, everything that exists is composed of "substance" and "accidents". The accidents are the qualities or attributes. The accidents of wine are that it is red, sweet, liquid, alcoholic, etc. The substance is that which makes it to be what it is, and nothing more can be said about the substance. No one can see or touch the substance of wine, for visibility and tangibility (the power to be seen and touched) are among its accidents. The theory was that at the consecration the "accidents" of bread and wine are not changed, but the "substance" is converted into the "substance" of the Body and Blood of Christ. It was a very brilliant theory which soon came to be generally accepted and was defined as a dogma by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), though it seems that the Council did not discuss it or even pass it but simply accepted it from Pope Innocent III. The words were: Jesus Christ, whose Body and Blood are in the sacrament of the altar truly contained under the appearances of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into His Body, and the wine into His Blood.
It was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent. The definition is as follows: "The body and blood together with the soul and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ are truly, really, and substantially in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and the conversion of the whole substance of bread into the body, and of the whole substance of wine into the blood, takes place, which conversion the
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Catholic Church calls transubstantiation" (Creed of Pope Pius IV).
The Greek term corresponding to transubstantiation is metousiosis which, however, is not bound up with the scholastic theory of substance and accidents. It was accepted by the Synod of Bethlehem, 1672, during the reaction against the Calvinizing movement of the Patriarch Cyril Lucaris, but it was never accepted formally by the Russian Church and is not a dogma of the Orthodox Communion.
Transubstantiation is rejected by the Anglican Communion on the ground that "it cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions" (Article 28). The last three criticisms apply rather to the popular teaching of Transubstantiation than to its official definition, and many Anglican theologians have admitted that Transubstantiation properly understood is a tenable opinion, even in the Church of England, but not a dogma. Certainly this Article does not deny that the consecration effects a change in the elements (which, as we have seen, is the teaching both of the Prayer Book and the Articles), but only that the change is such as to overthrow the nature of a sacrament.
The objections to the theory of Transubstantiation are these:
It cannot be proved by Scripture and therefore cannot be accepted as a dogma, whatever may be its value as an opinion. There have always been those who have accepted all that Scripture teaches without accepting Transubstantiation. It is not, therefore, a necessary inference from Scripture like the Homo-ousion and the Theotókos.
Transubstantiation requires us to accept the medieval theory of "substance" and "accidents". This is a possible theory, but it is not part of the Christian faith; and most modern philosophers will have nothing to do with it, but maintain that there is no such thing as "substance" in this sense. However, some theologians say that those who believe in Transubstantiation are not committed thereby to the medieval philosophy. This may be true, but the Roman Communion requires the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas to be
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taught in all its colleges and disapproves of any other, from which it seems that those who accept Transubstantiation can hardly avoid the medieval philosophy.
John Wycliffe criticized Transubstantiation on the ground that on this theory the accidents of bread and wine have no substance in which to inhere, for the substance of the bread and wine has been annihilated. There is no other case of this, and therefore it must be regarded as miraculous. While we ought to be willing to believe miracles for which there is sufficient evidence, there is no evidence in Scripture or anywhere else that there is any miracle in the Eucharist. Transubstantiation requires a miracle, or rather a series of miracles, for not only must the "substance" be annihilated, but it must be restored afterwards, neither of which processes could take place without a miracle. Therefore Transubstantiation is not a satisfactory theory.
Bishop Gore1 pointed out that even according to the strict interpretation of Transubstantiation, the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine properly speaking since only the accidents of bread and wine remain; and that this theory corresponds to the Christological theory of the Monophysites, that our Lord,s human nature was not really human when united to His Godhead but only apparently so. The Fathers compared the two parts of the Eucharist to the Godhead and Manhood of our Lord. If this be true, Transubstantiation is a form of the heresy of Eutyches who taught that the Manhood of our Lord was absorbed by His Godhead.
The opinion held in some quarters that the Church of England could promote the reunion of Christendom by accepting Transubstantiation is a mistake. We cannot promote reunion by asserting what we do not believe to be true, and the great majority of members of the English Church do not believe that Transubstantiation is true. But even if we were all agreed that Transubstantiation was not only tenable but true, the Church of England could only accept it as an opinion; for to accept it as a dogma would infringe the fundamental principle, to which every Anglican priest pledges
1
Dissertations, pp. 229-289.
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himself at his ordination, that nothing may be taught as a dogma which cannot be proved from Scripture. We must maintain our freedom to deny whatever is not part of God,s revelation. In any case even the acceptance of Transubstantiation as a dogma would not bring about reunion with Rome from which we are divided by more fundamental differences, as we have seen (Chapter 50), and would hinder reunion in other directions.
Transubstantiation was intended to get rid of Capharnaism, but it has not been successful in doing so. The recantation required of Sir John Cheke, under Queen Mary I, was as material and carnal in its doctrine as that which was required of Berengarius nearly 500 years earlier. That this danger has not ceased even now is shown by the following incident. Some years ago in Ireland I met a priest of the Roman Communion who began to argue with me about the Holy Eucharist. I read him the Prayer of Humble Access to show him that we believed in the Real Presence. He said, "But you believe that it is a spiritual presence, don,t you?" I answered, "Surely you don,t believe that the Host is the flesh of Christ in the same sense as my hand is my flesh?" "Yes, I do," he said; and I replied, "I am sure St. Thomas Aquinas did not"; upon which he changed the conversation!
It seems impossible to prevent people from taking "substance" in its popular rather than in its philosophical sense. For this reason Transubstantiation has brought disunion rather than agreement. It is a bugbear to many people who do not know what the word means; and since it is objectionable both to the learned and the unlearned, we shall do well to avoid it.
Consubstantiation is the theory of Luther that the substance of bread and wine is partly changed and partly remains the same. It cannot be proved by Scripture, and it depends upon the medieval theory of "substance" and accidents". The Lutherans do not regard it as a dogma, but they would not unite with any communion whose doctrine of the Eucharist did not satisfy them. It is for this reason that the Swedish Mission in South India would not join the scheme of union proposed by the Anglican dioceses, the South Indian United Church, and the Methodists.
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Ubiquitarianism the theory that our Lord,s Manhood is omnipresent and therefore in the sacrament was held by some Lutherans but is contrary to the doctrine that our Lord,s Manhood is real manhood and therefore cannot be omnipresent.
We now turn to the theories of those who reject the doctrine of the Real Presence that is, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ.
Virtualism, the theory held by Cranmer and Waterland, is the theory that what we receive is not the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ but its virtue or power. We receive the outward sign and the effect but not the Body and Blood themselves. This theory has been held by many in the Anglican Communion but does not seem to be consistent with the teaching of the Church Catechism that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord,s Supper, still less with the word "given" in Article 28.
Receptionism is the theory that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ when we receive the bread and wine, but that they are not identified with the bread and wine which are not changed. The climax of the service is therefore not the consecration but the communion of the people. This was the teaching of Calvin.
The consecration is unimportant. It is of minor importance who the minister is, and Calvinists allow a layman to provide at their communion services in exceptional cases. The Calvinist liturgical forms have for the most part been very poor (see Y. Brilioth, Bishop of Växjö, Eucharistic Faith and Practice, pp. 171-198). The consecrated elements are not specially sacred any more than the water in baptism, and no provision is made for their consumption. Some passages from the Fathers are quoted in defense of this theory, but other passages from the same Fathers exclude it. The general teaching of the early Church gives no support to Receptionism, nor is it known in the Roman or Eastern communions. But it has been widely held in the Anglican Communion since the Reformation, and at some periods it has been completely dominant. As we have seen, it is not consistent with the word "given" in Article 28 or with the rubric directing the consumption of the consecrated elements. But
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it has always been regarded since the Reformation as a tenable opinion in the Anglican Communion.
The theory that the Lord,s Supper is no more than a bare commemoration of the death of Christ and a method of bearing witness publicly to the Christian Faith is commonly attributed to Ulrich Zwingli, but more properly to Socinus.
This theory is explicitly condemned by Article 28 and is contrary to the passages from the Prayer Book quoted above, though it was held by Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester (1676-1761).
However, it is the theory held by many "Evangelical" sects whose communion service is not a Eucharist and appears to resemble rather the "Agapè" or love feast which followed the Eucharist in the early Church. (The Agapè survives in the "pain béni" or "antidoron" distributed after the Eucharist in the Eastern and some Latin churches.)
For this reason some denominations will admit to communion any one who claims to be a Christian.1 It is a sign of love and does not imply orthodox faith.
But in every part of the Catholic Church to receive the Holy Communion is to be accepted as a full member, which implies the observance of all that the Church requires of her members. For instance, no one may communicate in the Roman Communion who does not believe all the Roman doctrines, and rightly so. He who communicates at a Roman altar declares by doing so that he accepts the papal claims and the decrees of Trent and the Vatican. He who communicates at an Orthodox altar declares by doing so that he accepts the decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and all the teaching of the Orthodox Communion. He who communicates at an Anglican altar similarly declares by doing so that he accepts the teaching and the authority of the Anglican churches.
The refusal of the Church to admit to communion those who do not accept the Catholic Faith as taught by her is not due to want of
1
The Orthodox Eastern churches allow any Christian to receive the antidoron even though he could not be allowed to receive Communion. We have here, perhaps, a possible solution of the question of intercommunion. The Anglican churches might revive the custom of "pain béni" or antidoron in which Christians not in communion with the Church might be allowed to share.
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charity but to an intense sense of the importance of right belief and of church membership. Any one in the world may communicate at the altars of the Church if he will fulfill the conditions required. Those who will not accept the conditions cannot reasonably expect to be admitted to the privilege.
The Holy Eucharist is a sacrifice as well as a sacrament. Our Lord,s words "This is My blood of the covenant" (St. Mark 14:24) cannot be understood except in the light of the Hebrew sacrificial system. He said that it was "poured out" that is, at the foot of the altar alluding to a sacrificial ceremony. But it is not a sacrifice in the same sense as the sacrifices of the Old Testament, nor is it a sacrifice different from or supplementary to the one sacrifice offered once for all by our Lord Jesus Christ to His Father.
A sacrifice is an offering to God. The word is used in various derived senses, but this is its proper meaning. A sacrifice does not necessarily include the destruction or "immolation" of anything.
Sacrifice is an important element in all early religions and indeed in the very nature of religion. The only great religion in which there is, officially, no sacrifice is Islam.
The sacrificial system of the Old Testament is extremely complicated. It need not be described in detail here. The sacrifices followed a regular order, three stages in which concern us. A complete sacrifice of an animal (for some sacrifices were vegetable) included the slaying of the victim by the owner, the offering of the blood by the priest, and, in the case of the peace offering, the feast on the flesh of the victim by the owner and his friends.
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices. They were types and foreshadowings of the only sacrifice which could really bring about the removal of sin. We have seen in the chapters on the Atonement how this was done. [See Chapters 28-30.]
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There were three stages in the sacrifice or self-offering of our Lord, corresponding to three stages in the Old Testament sacrifices. The first was His death on the Cross, corresponding to the slaying of the victim. The second is His perpetual self-offering in Heaven which began with His Ascension and corresponds to the entry of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies carrying the blood of the sin offering on the Day of Atonement. The third is the Holy Eucharist, corresponding to the feast upon the sacrifice which belonged to the peace offering.
The sacrifice of Christ is one and cannot be repeated. There is no sacrifice in the Christian religion other than the sacrifice of Christ. The Holy Eucharist is not in any sense whatever a repetition of Christ,s death on the Cross or of His offering of Himself in Heaven.
It is not called a sacrifice in the New Testament, not are the Christian ministers called priests (Ê,D,ÃH). The reason is clear. Jewish priests and heathen priests were well known to the first readers of the New Testament. If the Christian BD,F$bJ,D@4 (elders) had been called priests, it would have been supposed that animal sacrifice was part of their duty. But animal sacrifice had been abolished.
Nevertheless, sacrificial language was used of the Eucharist, as we have seen, by our Lord Himself, who said, "This is My blood of the covenant", when He instituted the Eucharist. St. Paul called himself 8,4J@LD(`H, a sacrificial word (Rom. 15:16) doing priestly work (Ê,D@LD(@Ø<J"), that the offering (BD@FN@DV) of the Gentiles might be made acceptable. He contrasted the "table of the Lord" with "the table of devils", the heathen sacrifices (I Cor. 10:21) showing that he regarded the Christian Eucharist as sacrificial. The sacrifice of Christ was the Christian Passover; "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast" (I Cor. 5:7). Compare also I Cor. 10:18: the Jews who "eat the sacrifices" and "have communion with the altar" are compared to the Christian at the Eucharist.
All the Fathers beginning with St. Clement of Rome called the Eucharist a sacrifice. So do all the ancient liturgies. But whereas the New Testament appears to regard the Eucharist as corresponding
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to the feast which was the last stage of the sacrifice, the Fathers taught that it was also the representation of earth of what is continually going on in Heaven.
As the Epistle to the Hebrews constantly asserts, our Lord is the true High Priest, "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (Heb. 6:20) who passed into the heavens at the Ascension bearing His own blood (like the High Priest into the Holy of Holies), and who perpetually presents to the Father His own life, for His priesthood is unchangeable (7:24). The Christian Church of which He is the Head is "a royal priesthood" (I Peter 2:9) sharing the priesthood of its Head and His heavenly work of offering. This the Church does by the whole of her life which is, ideally, one long self-offering united with the self-offering of our Lord in Heaven. But she shares in His self-offering especially at the Eucharist in which the congregation is united with Jesus Christ in Heaven, first by offering His Body and Blood (with which all their other offerings, their alms, the bread and wine, their own lives, are united), and then by receiving it in communion.
The earthly priest is the necessary organ of the Church for this purpose, as the eye is the necessary organ of sight. There can be no offering without him, but the offering is the people,s, not his alone. Thus the Roman Liturgy directs the priest to say, "Brethren, pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable".
Therefore the priest may not celebrate the Eucharist by himself. There must always be a congregation even if it is reduced to one person. In no part of the Church is a priest allowed to celebrate the Eucharist in solitude.1 Because the sacrifice is not complete without communion, the priest must communicate whenever he celebrates. If he does not, the Mass is invalid. The English rubric requires that there must be always some to communicate with him (three in 1662, "a convenient number" in 1928). Even the Council of Trent recommended that some should communicate at every Mass. It seems certain that no Anglican priest has the right to forbid the communion of the people at any particular Eucharist.
At the same time, the priest when celebrating is never really alone, for he is sharing in the communion of all the faithful throughout the world.
1
The Roman Communion allows it in very exceptional cases by papal dispensation.
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The Anglican priest, then, is bound by three rules in this matter:
1. He must not celebrate if no one else is present.
2. Whenever he celebrates, he must communicate himself.
3. He ought not to celebrate when he knows there will be no communicants (except for some very urgent reason), not to prohibit communion of the people at any service.
The first two rules are universal. The third is Anglican.
That which is offered at the Eucharist is, first, the alms; second, the prayers; third, the bread and wine; fourth, "ourselves, our souls and bodies". But none of these is free from the sin of those who offer them. The only spotless offering which we can make is the offering of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father which He offers continually and which we are allowed to join with Him in offering.
All worship and all offering in the Liturgy is offered through Christ to the Father. We worship the Son and the Holy Ghost at other times. But in the Eucharist all worship is directed to the Father. Intercession, or prayer for others, is offered to the Father through the Son. All Christian prayer is offered in union with our Lord,s offering of Himself, but the Eucharist is the best time for prayer.
But what about the condemnation of "the sacrifices of Masses" in Article 31?
The Eucharistic sacrifice was completely misunderstood in the Middle Ages and during the Reformation. Sacrifice was identified with death, and the slaying of the victim was confused with the offering of the blood. Hence we find such expressions as "the altar of the Cross".1 The Cross is not an altar. The slaying of the victim was not done at an altar. The Christian altar is in Heaven. It is not the Cross.
It was commonly taught in the period just before the Reformation that the chief work of the clergy was to offer the sacrifice of the Mass which was regarded as something distinct from the one sacrifice of Christ. Sacrifice was believed to be "immolation", and every Eucharist or Mass a kind of repetition of Christ,s death, which death saved us, indeed, from original sin (in St. Augustine,s sense, a taint which made us from birth hateful to God), but the sacrifices of
1
English Hymnal, 125; Hymns A. and M., 128.
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Masses were required to save us from actual sin. Thus arose the "chantry system". Wealthy persons left money to build a chantry chapel and endow a priest to say Mass in it perpetually for their souls. Many of these chantry chapels are still to be seen in our cathedrals and larger churches. By this means they hoped to be freed from Purgatory. Every Mass was believed to have additional value in bringing this about. Moreover, priests were partly paid by the Masses they said (as they still are in the Roman Communion). A priest was paid so much for each Mass by the person for whose benefit he offered it. He was not allowed to say more than one a day (except on Christmas Day and on other days by dispensation). Since the sacrifice of the Mass saved us from sin (by persuading God to forgive us), the more Masses were said, the more sins they saved us from.
The Reformers protested unceasingly against this system, for which reason Article 2 insists that our Lord was a sacrifice "not only for original guilt" (here we observe the influence of St. Augustine), "but also for all actual sins of men"; and Article 31 that "the Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone". The Prayer of Consecration in our Liturgy says that our Lord made on the Cross, 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 emphasis was right. There was nothing in the teaching of the New Testament, or of the Fathers, or of the Eastern churches to justify the chantry system.
Now the condemnation of "the sacrifices of Masses" is connected with the above quotation from Article 31 with "wherefore". It is because "there is none other satisfaction of sins but that alone" that the "sacrifices of Masses", "to have remission of pain or guilt" that is, to induce God to release men from Purgatory were "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits". They were blasphemous because they misrepresented God,s love; fables, because they had no warrant in Scripture; dangerous, because they encouraged men to trust in the Masses they could pay for; deceits, because they induced men to pay money to no purpose.
But the Article does not condemn the use of the name "Mass" for the Eucharist which is used in the 1549 Prayer Book,1 nor the
1
Declared even in 1552, when Calvinistic influence was greatest, to contain nothing superstitious or ungodly.
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belief that the Eucharist is an offering or sacrifice, nor the doctrine that in the Eucharist we are united in our Lord,s perpetual offering of His one sacrifice to the Father; for all these are supported by the witness of the early Church to which the Anglican Communion appeals as the interpreter of Scripture, and by a long series of Anglican divines.
Since the word "sacrifice" was not understood in the period of the Reformation, both those who used it and those who rejected it were wrong. The Eucharist is a sacrifice, but it is not an immolation; and it is unfortunate that the Council of Trent, by defining that it is an immolation, committed the Roman Communion to a theory of the Eucharistic sacrifice which is no longer tenable, and which the best Romanist divines have long been trying to explain away.
The Council of Trent also laid down that the Eucharist is "a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice". If propitiation meant an attempt to turn God,s wrath away by making an offering to Him, there would be no propitiation either in the death of our Lord or in the Eucharist. The misunderstanding is caused by the unfortunate translation of Ê8"F:`H (I St. John 2:2, 4:10) by the Latin "propitiatio". The Eucharist is the last stage of our Lord,s redeeming work and is propitiatory only in the sense in which our Lord,s death is propitiatory. (See pp. 1868.)
The following names are given to the Holy Eucharist:
1. The Breaking of Bread (Acts 20:11; etc.)
2. The Lord,s Supper (I Cor. 11:21), the name used in the Prayer Book.
3. The Holy Communion (also used in the Prayer Book), which emphasizes the aspect of fellowship.
4. The Holy Eucharist, which emphasizes thanksgiving.
5. The Liturgy, the usual term in the Orthodox Communion, which emphasizes worship.
6. The Holy Sacrifice; compare the Syriac word Qurbana, Gift.
7. The Mass, from "Ite, missa est", the last words in the Roman Liturgy first found in St. Ambrose, and from the seventh century the commonest name in Latin Christendom. It is found in the 1549 Prayer Book and in the Augsburg Confession. It is used by the Church of Sweden (though not
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always in its usual sense), and during the last hundred years it has become commonly applied to the Anglican rite. (In earlier times its use in England was almost confined to the Latin rite.)
[8. The Holy Mysteries. Wp Ed.]
Every member of the Church has the duty and privilege of joining in the offering of the Holy Eucharist on all Sundays and chief Holy Days when possible. From the earliest days the "breaking of bread" was the weekly gathering of the Christians which the Epistle to the Hebrews bade them not forsake (Heb. 10:25). It was for this purpose that the Lord,s Day, the weekly anniversary of the Resurrection, was set apart (it has no connection with the Jewish Sabbath). Later it became a public holiday that Christians might fulfill their duty of taking part in the Eucharist. This is still the rule throughout Catholic Christendom.
The Church of England has never departed from the custom of the rest of the Church. The communion service in the Prayer Book is clearly intended to be the chief service of the day, for it is the only one at which sermons are to be preached, banns read, and notices given out. Children who were to be "caused to hear sermons"1 were expected to be present at it. But the intention of the Church is obscured by the rule laid down by the Reformers, out of a laudable desire to introduce frequent communion, that the liturgy should never be celebrated unless there were some to communicate with the priest. When there were not, the service was to end after the Prayer for the Church Militant. The result of this was that the Liturgy came to be celebrated very seldom; and when it was celebrated, a custom grew up (for which there is no authority in the Prayer Book) that those who were not themselves about to receive communion should leave the church. The consequence is that the great majority of the Anglican laity have come to regard Morning or Evening Prayer, and not the Eucharist, as the chief service of the Church. Even the "Ante-Communion Service" which always followed Morning Prayer till about two generations ago has now fallen into disuse. This is perhaps the most serious departure in the Anglican Communion from the practice of the ancient Church to which it appeals. But the Prayer Book gives no support to it. The communion service is the service at which the Prayer Book expects the largest congregation, and there is no suggestion that those who do not wish to communicate should depart, which is indeed forbidden by Canon
1
Address to the godparents, Public Baptism of Infants.
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18. ("None, either man, woman, or child ... shall depart out of the church during the time of service or sermon, without some urgent or reasonable cause.") Non-communicants are there to worship and to pray.
The notion that none but those who are going to communicate should be present at the Eucharist is unknown in any other part of Christendom. I have more than once been present at a Lutheran Eucharist at which only about half the congregation communicated, and I believe that non-communicants are allowed to be present even at the communion service of the Presbyterians.1
In the ancient Church no unbaptized person was ever allowed to be present at the Eucharist. They were dismissed after the Gospel had been read. This rule, though still observed in the mission field, has fallen into disuse in Europe. It is said that the conversion of Russia to the Orthodox faith was due to the deep impression made on the heathen ambassadors of Prince Vladimir by the Liturgy in the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom at Constantinople. But those who are not faithful Christians should not be encouraged to be present at the Eucharist. The Mysteries are for the faithful (including of course baptized children), not for those who have not been taught or who do not believe.
As we have seen, the Holy Eucharist, besides the outward sign and the thing signified, contains a third part, the benefit conveyed to us which is described by the Church Catechism as "the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ." This benefit requires repentance, faith, and charity in those who receive it, and the extent of the benefit that they receive depends upon the depth of their repentance, the reality of their faith, and the vigor of their charity, all of which are wholly due to the gracious gift of God.
The chief benefits conveyed by the Holy Eucharist are four. The first is the benefit of sharing in our Lord,s offering to the Father,
1
Some of the Fathers condemned non-communicating attendance. They did not bid the people go away, but communicate. The conditions were different from ours.
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which we can only do to the fullest extent when we are partakers of His Body and Blood. The second is the Divine life which is thereby imparted to us and by which our spirits are nourished as our bodies are nourished by ordinary food. The third is the benefit of being made like God through the cleansing of our lives: "our bodies are made clean by His Body, and our souls washed by His most precious Blood".1 The fourth is the experience of union with God to the greatest extent which is possible in this world.
To these may be added the benefit of spiritual communion with our fellow Christians; not only those visible in the church, but the whole body of Catholic Christians throughout the world; not only those still alive, but also those who have departed this life.
"And with them every spirit blest,
From realms of triumph or of rest,
From him who saw creation,s morn,
Of all the angels eldest-born,
To the poor babe who died today,
Takes part in our thanksgiving lay."
John Keble: Christian Year, "Holy Communion".
It is at the altar that we are united with the blessed angels and saints and with our own departed friends.
Now if all these benefits are necessary to our spiritual life when we are well, they are certainly not less so when we are sick; most of all when we are near to death and need strength, cleansing, and fellowship to make us ready for that tremendous change.
The almost universal custom of the Church has been to enable the sick and those who, through no fault of their own, cannot be present at the Eucharist to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, by reserving a portion of the consecrated elements and carrying it to them or administering it to them in the church at another hour.
The first reference to this custom is in St. Justin Martyr about 140. It was practiced in every part of the ancient Church and is practiced today throughout both Eastern and Latin Christendom. Formerly the laity were allowed to carry the sacrament away and communicate themselves. This is no longer allowed anywhere, and there were other abuses connected with the reserved sacrament in early times which have long since disappeared.
1
Prayer of Humble Access, in the Liturgy.
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Reservation appears to imply that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ and remain so permanently. Those who deny this frequently oppose reservation. There is now no reservation among the Lutherans, though it does not appear to be necessarily inconsistent with Lutheran doctrine. But there is some evidence for reservation by the Lutherans in the first century after the Reformation. It was sanctioned under restrictions by Luther himself.1
In the Anglican Communion reservation was provided for in the 1549 Prayer Book and in the Latin Prayer Book of 1560, but not in any later English Prayer Book till 1928, though Archbishop Parker allowed it. The practice of holding a private celebration of Holy Communion in the sick person,s room took its place.
But reservation was defended by many divines in the seventeenth century both in England and Scotland including some of those who revised the Prayer Book in 1662. It became customary in the persecuted Scottish Episcopal Church in the eighteenth century and is traditional there. It has also been formally sanctioned in the South African and other Anglican provinces. In England it was permitted with restrictions by the 1928 revision of the Prayer Book.
Reservation has never been forbidden in the English Church (except by decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council whose authority we cannot recognize, and which in this case based its judgment on an interpretation of Article 28 which the words will not bear; for what the Article says is not that certain practices are forbidden, but that they are not by Christ,s ordinance). The rubric forbidding the consecrated elements to be carried out of the church (1662), though it appears to forbid reservation, was intended for an entirely different purpose; and there is evidence that it was not regarded as referring to reservation.
On the other hand, the question whether the medieval canon law requiring reservation in every parish church, or the common law of the Church on which it was based, is still binding in the Church of England, is too intricate to be discussed here.
1
C. Harris, in Liturgy and Worship, p. 580. He says that it is still practiced by the Scottish Presbyterians. According to the latest edition of the Book of Common Order the consecrated elements are in some parishes reserved for the "Second Table" which is on the same day as the service at which they were consecrated.
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It is certain that in modern conditions reservation is necessary for reasons which did not exist in the seventeenth century, unless large numbers of people are to be deprived of the Bread of Life.
Frequent communion was unusual in the seventeenth century. Now it is very common. The Industrial Revolution has made life much more complicated, and there are very many who are hindered by their work from being present at the Eucharist frequently or even at all. Private Eucharists (which were strongly discouraged in earlier ages) have probably never been satisfactory except in the houses of the well-to-do. Those of us who have had to celebrate the Eucharist in a tenement bedroom know how difficult reverence is in such conditions. The proportion of priests to the population is much smaller than it used to be, and the calls on their time much greater. No priest ought to have to celebrate the Eucharist separately for each invalid in a large parish, to say nothing of the needs of hospitals, etc.
The sacrament must therefore be reserved wherever it is needed. The proper place for it to be reserved is the parish church or cathedral. The bishop of the diocese has the right to regulate the manner of reservation, subject to any directions that may have been given by the provincial synod. It is his duty to see that the reserved sacrament is kept securely and treated reverently. No perpetual reservation should be allowed anywhere but in a cathedral or parish church without the bishop,s explicit consent, and it is for him to decide where and how it is to be reserved.
Reservation in one kind only was apparently usual in the age of persecution. After the fourth century it was commonly in both kinds as it still is in the Eastern churches. Since the Anglican churches forbid communion in one kind only, the sacrament should always be reserved in both kinds, by intinction (see p. 356) when necessary (as for perpetual reservation it must be). It is cruel to deprive the helpless sick of the privilege of receiving the cup which is held by some theologians (even in the Roman Communion) to convey a special gift.
At the same time the custom of private Eucharists should be retained. Many chronic invalids, not dangerously ill but bedridden, who can never come to church are very much helped and comforted by a private Eucharist, and they should always be given it when the priest has time and the house is suitable.
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The practice of reservation is universal, harmless, and necessary, and would probably never have aroused controversy if it had not been complicated by the practice of using the reserved sacrament as a center of worship.
This practice was entirely unknown until about the eleventh century and is still unknown in the Eastern churches. It has never been formally allowed by the English Church since the Reformation. Archbishop Parker expressly permitted reservation so long as it was not accompanied by the medieval acts of worship such as carrying the Host in procession. The modern forms of this cult, Adoration, Benediction, and Exposition, were unknown in England before the Reformation, and were not practiced even by the English Romanists until the nineteenth century.
Therefore it is in a completely different position from reservation simply for communion which is ancient and universal. The use of the reserved sacrament as a center of worship is medieval and modern, and is a purely Latin development. It is not part of the Catholic tradition. Some of the best Anglican theologians have strongly opposed it, including Pusey, Gore, and Scott Holland. The English provincial synods have forbidden it. Till this century hardly any Anglican theologian could be found to defend it. On the other hand, it is now established in some American dioceses and in some parts of the mission field.
The arguments for and against it appeal very differently to different minds. Those who defend it do so chiefly on the ground that it has had the practical effect of increasing devotion. But it is not certain that it has always had this effect when introduced into the Church of England, or that the devotion which it is supposed to have increased is always reasonable, healthy, or loyal. This defense might be applied to many undesirable practices including some which are condemned in the Old Testament.
The chief grounds on which it is opposed are:
1. that it implies belief in a local presence of Christ in the reserved sacrament;
2. that Divine worship given to a visible object, latria given to an eidolon, is constantly forbidden in Scripture (I Cor. 10:14; etc.);1
3. that the cult of the reserved sacrament leads to the neglect of the Holy Spirit (which is notorious in the Roman Communion, as has been
1
The Host is "exposed" on a high place for the people to worship it. It is carried in procession under a canopy. This is exactly how pagans treat their idols.
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shown), and of the mystical presence of Christ in the Church (this was the objection of Richard Meus Benson, the founder of the "Cowley Fathers");
4. that it arose historically out of the medieval change of emphasis at the Eucharist from the corporate offering and means of fellowship to the miraculous change in the elements and individual adoration;
5. and that it lacks the ethical element which is strongly marked in the Liturgy.1
This cult is subject to peculiar dangers in the Anglican Communion which do not exist in the Roman Communion. The Romanist who attends "Benediction" has been at Mass already, but in the Anglican Communion with its laxer discipline this cannot be guaranteed. Adoration or Benediction might easily take the place of the Eucharist among people whose favorite hour of worship is the evening. Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that some of the supporters of this cult are deliberately promoting the imitation of Latin piety with the object of making surrender to the Papacy easier; and that in the presence of Romanizing propaganda from within as well as from without the Anglican Communion it is extremely unwise to accustom our people to Romanist services which, when they go to another place, they may only be able to find in the Romanist chapel.
It appears to me that while a theological defense of this cult is possible, it is only possible if the cult itself is made almost meaningless. If the cult of the reserved sacrament implies that Christ is locally present in the tabernacle, it implies what is not true for, as we have seen, His sacramental presence is not local. But if it does not imply this, it is of little use. No one would prefer to pray before the tabernacle if he did not believe that he was nearer to our Lord by doing so. Again, there is no reason for believing that benediction with the Host is different from any other blessing; but if it does not differ from any other blessing, it is meaningless and certainly not worth fighting for.
It may be held that the value of this cult is purely subjective; that people are helped and comforted by it, not because they are actually nearer to our Lord when they are near the reserved sacrament, but because it is associated with their communion as it is easier to pray in a church or before a crucifix than elsewhere. But it is doubtful whether this can be maintained in popular teaching. Many people who are accustomed to the cult hardly regard a
1
The Liturgy includes and requires confession of sin. The services of "Adoration", "Benediction", and "Exposition" do not.
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church where the sacrament is not reserved as a consecrated building. They will even say, "Our Lord is not there", as if He were not everywhere. Like other Latin devotions this cult can only be defended if we ignore the way in which it is used by the untheological.
If we are to have a visible object to help us to pray, a crucifix or a picture is preferable to the Host because the appeal is more direct, the practice is more ancient and more universal, and the danger of misuse is less.
The question is made much more difficult because it arouses the emotions of many people who cannot understand the theological objections, and because the danger is not so much false doctrine as one-sided emphasis on true doctrine. Pious but unlearned people naturally think that whatever stirs their religious feelings ought to be encouraged, and that if a doctrine is true, it cannot be emphasized too strongly. But most superstitions began as unregulated popular devotions, and over-emphasis of one truth leads to the neglect of other truths and, by reaction, to refusal to accept the truth which is over-emphasized, as the medieval over-emphasis of the Real Presence led the Reformers to deny it.
The English Church is probably wise to forbid this cult; and as long as she does so, no English priest has any right to introduce it.1
Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist are needed by all Christians. Ordination and Marriage are not needed by all Christians but are bestowed on those who are called to certain states of life. Ordination, like Baptism and Confirmation, cannot be repeated. No one can cease to be an ordained man or be ordained twice to the same order.
1
I cannot myself distinguish between various forms of the cult. The arguments against Exposition, or Processions of the Host, seem to me to tell against "Devotions" also, but in a lesser degree. I am not prepared to say that this cult is necessarily to be blamed where it receives the full consent of the local church and is free from suspicion of Romanizing in doctrine or policy, as among the Old Catholics and perhaps in some Anglican missionary dioceses. But I doubt whether these conditions exist in England or in any English-speaking country.
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Ordination is the admission to the official ministry of the visible Church. There can be no ordination outside or apart from the Church.
If the Church had no ministry, she would not be a society but a mob. Since the Church is universal, she requires a ministry which is universally recognized. An army in which the officers of some regiments were not recognized as officers by the other regiments could not work as a single force. Our Lord knew this, and He appointed the Twelve Apostles as ministers and officers of His Church. In the Christian Church the officer must be a minister or servant.
The functions of the Apostles were of two kinds, one temporary, the other permanent. They were the witnesses of the Resurrection (Acts 1:22, 4:33), and the founders of the organization of the Church. In this sense they could have no successors; and if we regard St. Peter as the rock on which the Church was built (St. Matt. 16:18), he could not in this capacity have any successors.
But the Apostles also had the permanent function of pastors, stewards, and rulers of the Church (St. Matt. 19:28; St. Luke 22:30; Acts 5:13, 6:2; etc.). St. Clement of Rome, writing before the end of the first century, tells us that the Apostles "knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the title of bishop. For this cause, therefore, since they had received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have been already mentioned and afterwards added the codicil, (some read permanence,) that if they should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministry," (Clem. Rom. 44: Dr. Kirsopp Lake,s translation). They were left to provide for the future administration of the Church under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. The earliest stages of development are obscure, but it is certain that the powers of the Apostles passed ultimately to three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons with the consent of the whole Church.
Our Lord selected the Twelve Apostles from among His disciples and devoted a large part of His very limited time to training them (St. Mark 3:14; St. Luke 6:12-13; St. Matt. 19:28; St. John 15:16, 20:22). The last of these passages probably describes their ordination. After the Ascension, the Apostles held a distinct and generally recognized leadership. No one ventured to intrude into it, except Simon Magus who tried to buy the apostolic powers with money (Acts 8:19). But they did not act in important matters without the consent of the elders (Acts 1:26, 5:13, 6:2, 8:15,
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15:2, 26; cf Rev. 21:14). They soon found it necessary to appoint others to assist them. The "elders" (BD,F$bJ,D@4) and the deacons (*4V6@<@4) perform some, but not all, of the apostolic functions. St. Paul was associated with the Twelve by a special revelation (Gal. 1:1, 17, 2:9; I Cor. 4:9; II Cor. 11:5, 12:11). (The laying of hands on St. Paul and St. Barnabas, mentioned in Acts 13:3, was not their ordination but the commission as missionaries.)
St. Paul,s practice was to appoint "elders" in every city (Acts 14:23, 20:28). Upon these he laid his hands (II Tim 1:6), and the elders were joined with him (I Tim. 4:14) (even if the Pastoral Epistles are not by St. Paul, they bear witness to the practice of the first century). In Acts 21:18, Phil. 1:1, XB\F6@B@4 (overseers, later bishops) are probably but not certainly the same people who are elsewhere called "elders". The elders and deacons are everywhere the local ministry subject to the Apostles who travel from city to city.
In the New Testament all ministers are appointed from above. The Apostles are the highest order, and we find the beginning of the later orders of priests and deacons. Appointment, whenever it is mentioned, is by laying on of hands. The word for "appoint" (P,4D@J@<,Ã<) means "lay on hands" (Acts 6:6, 14:23). This practice was derived from the Jews; for the Jewish rabbis were appointed by laying on of hands, and their succession was believed to go back to Moses. It belongs, therefore, to the earliest period of the Church while Christianity was still Hebrew.
Less than sixty years later we find the three orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, fully developed in the letters of St. Ignatius. We have hardly any knowledge of the intervening period except the passage in St. Clement quoted above.
There were also prophets and other forms of ministry, but there is no evidence that they ever performed the functions of the regular ministry except the evidence of the Didachè, the date and source of which are unknown. If the prophets as prophets were ever allowed to preside at the Eucharist (for which the Didachè is the only evidence), if there was ever a "congregational" system of government in any part of the Church (for which no evidence seems to be forthcoming), these practices were found so unsatisfactory that by the middle of the second century they had completely died out.
Apostolic Succession is to be distinguished from episcopal succession and also from episcopal government or monepiscopacy. It is held by some that the Apostles appointed, not single bishops, but
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groups of bishops in each city, and that the power of each group came to be everywhere concentrated in one man. The story told by some late writers, that at Alexandria the priests not only elected but consecrated their bishop, may if true (which is very doubtful) be a unique survival of the earliest stage of the episcopate. If this was what happened, the principle of apostolic succession remains uninjured. All that is required is that all members of the regular ministry should derive their power ultimately from the Apostles, and that no one should be allowed to hold office who is not appointed in this way.
There may also be episcopal government without apostolic succession, as among some Lutherans and Methodists today. It is apostolic succession, not episcopal government, which is a fundamental principle of the Church because no ministry which is not based upon apostolic succession has any chance of being universally recognized.
St. Ignatius, writing before 117, though he does not mention succession, lays great emphasis on the bishop,s office. "Do nothing without the bishop and the priests (BD,F$bJ,D@4)" (Magn. 7, Trall. 3). "Let that be accounted a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints... It is not lawful either to baptize or to hold an agapè, apart from the bishop" (Smyrn. 8). "He who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop is serving the devil" (Smyrn. 9). "As many as belong to God and Jesus Christ, these are with the bishop" (Philad. 3).
The controversy with the Gnostics made the succession in particular bishoprics important. The Gnostics claimed a secret transmission of their strange doctrines from the Apostles. In answer to this, St. Irenaeus pointed to the public succession from the Apostles of the bishops in the principal sees. But while the succession of bishops in a see was important, there is no evidence that bishops were ever appointed in any other way than by the laying on of the hands of other bishops.
The grace of ordination is given by the Holy Ghost to each man who is ordained. What is transmitted by succession from the Apostles is not grace but authority, the right to ordain (in the case of bishops) and to perform the other functions of the ministry in the Church.
The only possible exceptions to the universal rule that only those may celebrate the Eucharist who have been ordained by a bishop,1
1 There is one case of an English abbot who was given by Pope Boniface VIII the right to ordain priests though he was not a bishop (1303). It is uncertain whether he used the right, but it is certain that the Pope had no power to give it to him.
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and that every bishop must have been consecrated by other bishops, are the prophets in the Didachè, already referred to, and the confessors in the time of St. Cyprian.
We do not know the date of the Didachè or where it came from. The prophets to whom it refers may have been ordained, or it may represent the peculiar practice of some out of the way church. In any case the practice to which it refers was never universally recognized.
St. Cyprian (d. 258) tells us that in his time confessors who had suffered for the faith were ranked among the priests, but there is no evidence that they ever performed the functions of priests. They had to be consecrated if they were to become bishops. They were, however, so troublesome that the privilege was soon taken from them.
Even if these irregularities had been much greater than they were, even if Dr. Streeter had been right when he maintained on quite insufficient evidence that Presbyterianism and Congregationalism existed at one time in parts of the Church,1 the principle of Apostolic Succession would not be affected. The British monarchy is hereditary, and our kings are descended from Alfred. Though Canute and his sons did not belong to the English royal family, and though Harold II was not royal at all, that does not mean that any man not of royal birth could now succeed to the throne, still less that one part of the Empire could change the law of succession without the consent of the rest. The Anglican Communion cannot receive into its official ministry men who have not been ordained by a bishop because it is only part of the Church and cannot alter a universal rule, and because to do so would throw the gravest doubts on its doctrine about the sacrament of ordination and the priestly or sacerdotal functions of the ministry.
The official ministry, the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons has continued from the earliest years of the second century to the present day. With the doubtful exceptions mentioned above, it has always been recognized by all parts of the Church as the only permanent and official ministry. Those who reject it, reject also the visible Church from which it is inseparable and the Eucharistic sacrifice to offer which is its chief function. The universal Church must have a universally recognized ministry. No other ministry could conceivably be universally recognized.
1
B. H. Streeter, The Primitive Church; a work remarkable rather for imagination than judgment.
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Ordination is not merely appointment to an office. It is the bestowal of a Divine gift by an outward sign, the laying on of hands. Our Lord said, "Receive the Holy Ghost" (St. John 20:22), and His words are still used at ordinations, though they are not necessary to ordination as they are not found in the older ordination rites.
Bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained (or consecrated) to an order and remain members of that order till death. A rector, an archdeacon, or a dean may resign his office; but a bishop or priest, when he resigns, does not cease to be a bishop or priest. He resigns his office but not his order. The law of England now allows a cleric to renounce the civil privileges and disabilities of the clergy; but as Parliament did not bestow the "character" of ordination, it cannot take it away; and a bishop, priest, or deacon who takes advantage of the Clerical Disabilities Relief Act is still a bishop, priest, or deacon though he has no longer the right to act as one.
The gift of the powers of the ministry and of grace to exercise them rightly comes from God and is conveyed by the laying on of hands, which is not the mere ratification by the Church of the inward call of God but is the means, and the only means, by which the Divine gift is bestowed. Therefore ordination is rightly called a sacrament. Though it has not the same nature as Baptism and the Eucharist (Article 25) since it has not an outward sign ordained by God (so far as we know), and since it is not necessary for all men like Baptism and the Eucharist.
The outward sign the laying on of the hands of the bishop is what assures both those who receive the gift and those to whom they minister that they are sent with Divine authority. They do not depend on their own sense of vocation nor on the assent of the people, though both are required. They depend on the gift of God and the recognition of the whole Church represented by the bishop.
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This ought to protect them from pride and conceit. Whatever they are, they are by God,s gift. Their representative functions are more important than their personal functions. A man is likely to be less tempted to be conceited about his preaching if his preaching is subordinate to his ministry at the altar in which he is exactly the same as every other priest, and if even at the altar he is not so much God,s representative to his people as their representative before God.
The "subject" of ordination is a male baptized person. In the Anglican Communion no one can be made a deacon who is under twenty-three, or ordained a priest when under twenty-four, or consecrated bishop when under thirty, without a dispensation from the Archbishop. These ages are different in other parts of the Church.
Women cannot be admitted to Holy Orders. No part of the Church in any age has ever opened Holy Orders to women. Our Lord appointed only men to be apostles, though there were then in the world many queens (Acts 8:27, priestesses, and prophetesses (Acts 21:9; Rev. 2:20). It is certain that any church or group of churches which should claim to admit women to Holy Orders would fail to get them recognized by the rest of the Church, and might even cause other churches to doubt the validity of its ordination of men. Whether it is within the power of the universal Church to agree to the ordination of women is an academic question of no practical importance, for the assent of the Eastern and Roman Communions to any such proposal is so improbable as to be not worth discussing.
The usual arguments put forward for the ordination of women are that women are equal with men and that they have special capacity for certain forms of pastoral work usually done by priests. These premises are true, but it does not follow that women should be ordained. Men and women are equal but different. It may be that priesthood belongs exclusively to the male sex as motherhood belongs exclusively to the female sex. The Blessed Virgin is universally accepted as the greatest of all saints, but she was not an apostle nor did she share in any of the work of the apostles. Women are not hindered from doing any work for which they are specially suitable. What they may not do is represent the Church. A woman may (and sometimes does) hear confessions and give counsel to the penitent, but she cannot absolve. Nobody can have special aptitude for performing certain rites and ceremonies, but it is from
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these alone, not from the exercise of any personal gifts, that women are excluded by not being ordained.
The enormous practical objections to the admission of women to Holy Orders are obvious.
Deaconesses are not in Holy Orders but in minor orders. Anglican pronouncements have sometimes treated the order of deaconesses as a fourth holy order, but the Anglican Communion by itself has no power to create such an order. It is contrary to the whole tradition of the Church for any woman to do what is confined to those in Holy Orders or to perform any liturgical function: to baptize in public, to serve at the altar, or to administer the chalice. The purpose of the ancient order of deaconesses was to minister to women in conditions such as we now find in India. It disappeared in Eastern Christendom about 1200 and in Western Christendom a century or two earlier. Modern deaconesses first began in Lutheran Germany as trained parish workers and spread throughout the Lutheran Communion. Deaconesses as an order of the ministry are confined to the Anglican churches. There are many deaconesses in the Churches of Sweden and Finland, but they do not perform any duties in church, and they are not ordained.
The ordination of an unbaptized man would be invalid.
A man ought to be confirmed before he is ordained. The ordination of an unconfirmed man would be a grave irregularity, but it would be valid. In such a case confirmation is included in ordination, and a man who has been ordained but never confirmed does not require confirmation.1
The "matter" of ordination is the laying on of hands. The anointing with oil, practiced both in Eastern and Latin Christendom, is merely an additional ceremony. The "delivery of the instruments" (for instance, of the paten with bread and chalice with wine to the priest) was held to be the "matter" of the sacrament in the later Middle Ages; but as it was unknown in early times, this belief is now universally recognized to have been a mistake. In the Anglican Communion the New Testament is delivered to the deacon, and the Bible to the priest and to the bishop.
1
F. J. Hall, Dogmatic Theology, v.8, p.338. On the other hand, the Nonjuring bishop Robert Gordon had himself privately confirmed by the Bishop of Ross and Caithness (1769). This was probably through ignorance.
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The "form" of ordination, by which ordination is distinguished from confirmation, is a prayer for the gifts appropriate to the order which is being conveyed.
The minister of ordination is a bishop. Three bishops at least are required to consecrate a bishop because it is the whole Church, not an individual, that consecrates; but consecration by a single bishop is valid though irregular. There has never been an Anglican consecration by fewer than three bishops since the Reformation, but there have been many instances in the Roman and Old Catholic communions even in modern times.1 The priests who are present join with the bishop in laying hands on the head of a priest (I Tim. 4:14), but not on the head of a deacon. Ordination by priests alone without a bishop would be invalid.
A layman may be consecrated or ordained per saltum (by a leap) to be a bishop or priest, or a deacon may be consecrated per saltum to be a bishop. The latter process was at one time usual at Rome and other places. But there have been no consecrations or ordinations per saltum for centuries. The consecration of the Scottish bishops in 1610 was a consecration per saltum. They had been Presbyterian ministers and titular bishops. When the bishops from whom the present Scottish bishops derive their succession were consecrated in 1661, they were made deacons and ordained priests first.
Each order includes those below it. Every priest is a deacon. Every bishop is both a priest and a deacon.
All the bishops who take part in the consecration of a bishop are ministers of the sacrament. If one of them had by mischance not been properly consecrated, the succession would be secured by the others. This theory is not universally accepted in the Roman Communion,2 but it is the ancient theory and has always been held
1
Consecration by one bishop is not allowed in the Eastern churches, and some of them hold it to be invalid.2
Since the thirteenth century some Romanist theologians and canonists have held that the only minister of ordination is the principal consecrator. This theory was unknown in earlier times, as it still is in the East, and its acceptance would make all ordinations very insecure. See F. W. Puller, Orders and Jurisdiction, pp. 85-105.
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in the Anglican Communion. If the succession were conveyed only through the chief consecrator, it would be very insecure; and Macaulay,s criticism of the historical certainty of succession would be justified. The accidental invalidity of the orders of a consecrator (if, for instance, he had never been baptized) might have far-reaching results. But the chance that all three (or more) consecrators might have had invalid orders is so small as to be negligible.1
A candidate for ordination is asked whether he is convinced that he is called by God, and the congregation is asked to assent to his ordination. However, it is not these which constitute ordination but the laying on of hands. Nevertheless, ordination without the consent of the laity is irregular; and for this reason ordinations and consecrations in private are highly irregular, though if properly performed they cannot be repeated.
The intention of ordination is that the bishop ordaining or consecrating intends to admit the candidate to one of the three Holy Orders of the Catholic Church. It is not necessary that his personal belief about the functions of those who are ordained should be orthodox; nor is the internal intention necessary, for if it were, we could never be certain that anyone was rightly ordained.2 (In Spain in the fifteenth century there were many bishops who were secretly Jews;3 the notorious Bishop Talleyrand, afterwards Napoleon,s minister, was an open unbeliever, but those whom such men ordained were held to be validly ordained.)
The inward grace of ordination is the power required for ministering in one of the three orders with the appropriate virtues. The authority of the Church to perform the functions of the ministry is also conveyed. This authority is called "mission" and is ulti-
1
W. E. Gladstone claimed that it was one in 8000 (Church Principles, p. 235), and that the chance that three consecrating bishops should all have had three invalid consecrators was one in 512 thousand million!2
"The Church does not judge about the mind or intention so far as it is something by its nature internal; but so far as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it": Pope Leo XIII, Bull Apostolicae Curae.3
F. W. Puller, loc. cit.
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mately derived from our Lord through the succession of the bishops. It can be exercised in any part of the Church with which the possessor of it is in communion, but its lawful exercise or jurisdiction is confined by the rules of the Church to a particular sphere. A bishop may not act as a bishop outside his own diocese, or a metropolitan outside his own province, without permission. A priest may not act outside his own parish or the district to which he is licensed without permission. But in case of necessity for instance when someone is in danger of death or in time of war or persecution all these rules may be ignored.
We find the three orders already fully developed in the letters of St. Ignatius (before 117). All the Fathers, all the Eastern churches, as well as the Anglican Communion, have always recognized three Holy Orders those of bishop, priest, and deacon.
But the Schoolmen about the thirteenth century introduced a new arrangement. They regarded the priesthood as the highest order and the episcopate as merely a superior form of it. The cause of this change was partly exaggerated emphasis on the sacrificial function of the priest, and partly the tendency to weaken the episcopate in the interests of the papacy. In earlier times the bishop had been regarded as normally the minister of the Eucharist. In some places1 the bishop had been commonly chosen from among the deacons who thus became in practice more influential than the priests. But in the Middle Ages the diaconate in Latin Christendom sank to being a mere survival, while in northern countries bishops were few and largely occupied with secular duties. Thus the priesthood became the only order with which the laity was ordinarily in contact.
When the priesthood came to be regarded as the highest order, the sub-diaconate, which had before been a minor order, was raised to a major order. Thus the major orders in the Roman Communion, and that only, are those of priest, deacon, and sub-deacon. This reckoning was sanctioned by the Council of Trent. The sub-deacon in the Roman Communion is bound by the rule of celibacy and must say the Divine office (the Breviary). But relics of the older rule survive. Ordination to the sub-diaconate is not regarded as a sacrament or as conveying an indelible character.
We must, however, reject this medieval reckoning and maintain the ancient rule that the three Holy or Major Orders are those of bishop, priest, and deacon.
1
Especially Rome.
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The essential function1 of the bishop is to ordain and consecrate. The bishop alone can ordain a priest or deacon or take part in the consecration of another bishop. In the Anglican Communion and normally in the Roman Communion no one except a bishop may give confirmation. In the Eastern communions and occasionally in the Roman Communion, a priest may give confirmation, but he must use chrism blessed by a bishop.
Besides the functions which only a bishop can perform, the bishop has many other duties which he can in case of necessity delegate to others. He is normally the chief pastor and ruler of the local church, but he ought to consult his synod (that is, the assembly of all his clergy) before taking any important action. He is the representative of the universal Church in his diocese, the link between his own flock and the rest of the Church. It is his duty to administer the laws of the Church and to judge anyone who breaks them. In England this latter function is now delegated to a lawyer, the "Official Principal" of Chancellor of the diocese (not to be confused with the Chancellor of the cathedral who is a priest and a member of the cathedral chapter or governing body). The bishop is responsible for the care of all souls within his jurisdiction. He delegates a portion of this responsibility to every priest whom he institutes to the "cure of souls" with the words "Receive thy cure, my care".
The bishop is also the representative of his diocese in the provincial synod and in larger assemblies such as Lambeth Conferences and General Councils. He is there to bear witness to the faith of his diocese, not necessarily to express his personal opinions. For this reason the diocese ought to have an effective voice in his appointment. In theory the English bishops are elected by the cathedral chapter, but since the reign of Henry VIII the chapters have been compelled by law to elect the nominee of the Crown (that is, in modern times, of the Prime Minister). In most other Anglican dioceses they are elected by the clergy and lay representatives of the diocese.
A bishop is normally in charge of a district called a diocese. But there are also "coadjutor", "suffragan", and "assistant"
1
That is, the function by possessing which the bishop is a bishop and which therefore no one but a bishop can perform (for any one who could would be a bishop).
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bishops who help the diocesan bishop in his work. Coadjutor bishops usually have the right of succeeding to the diocese. There are none in England, but there are in other Anglican churches. The word "suffragan" is properly applied to a diocesan bishop in his relation to his archbishop. The Bishop of London is a suffragan of Canterbury. But it is also used in England in a special sense to mean a bishop consecrated to help a diocesan bishop. In this sense the Bishop of Stepney is a suffragan of London. A suffragan bishopric is a permanent office for which a man may be consecrated specially. The assistant bishop has only made a private arrangement with a diocesan bishop after he has retired from some diocese or suffragan See, and it ceases at the death or resignation of the diocesan.
The word "priest" represents both BD,F$bJ,D@H, presbyter, and Ê,D,bH, sacerdos. The latter title was given to bishops from the third century onwards and later to priests as well. It describes them as "offering sacrifice". The Christian priest is not a priest in the same sense as the Hebrew priests under the Old Covenant. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Priest in the proper sense under the New Covenant. In what sense the Christian "presbyter" is also "sacerdos", sacrificing priest, has already been explained (pp. 36971). The use of the word "presbyter" in the Catholic Church to mean a member of the second order of the Apostolic ministry is not to be confused with its use by the "Reformed churches". The Calvinist "presbyter" is not a priest but a preacher, as we shall see (pp. 4049).
The essential duties of the priest which cannot be performed by anyone but a priest (all bishops being also priests) are to consecrate the Eucharist, to give absolution to sinners, to anoint the sick, and to bless in the name of the Church. (Anyone may bless as a father blesses his children, but the blessing of the Church is given only by the bishop, or in his absence by the priest.)
All these duties of the priest belong properly to the bishop and are performed by the priest as the representative of some bishop (or person with the jurisdiction of a bishop). In early times the bishop, when present, was always the celebrant of the Eucharist. The absolution and the blessing in the Eucharist are still given by the bishop of the diocese (or the suffragan or assistant bishop who represents him), even though he is not the celebrant.
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The priest is also ordinarily a pastor, teacher, and evangelist. He is the normal minister of baptism. These duties can also be performed by others; but they form the largest part of the priest,s work, and his training is chiefly directed to prepare him for carrying them out. Experience has shown that though the functions which are confined to the priest are limited and can easily be learned, priests who should do nothing but perform those functions would be of little use. The priest,s highest duty is to consecrate the Eucharist, and the next to give absolution. But the Eucharist must be accompanied by preaching and teaching, and the absolution must usually be accompanied by counsel. Therefore the priest must be a man of holiness, of learning, and of knowledge of human nature. He must know his Bible and be trained in dogmatic, moral, and ascetic theology, and in the art of teaching.
The deacon in the early Church was entrusted with finance and with the relief of the poor. The business of the diocese was carried on by a staff of deacons attached to the bishop and led by the archdeacon or chief deacon (the word is now used in a different sense). The deacons were also given the duty of administering the chalice to the congregation, carrying the reserved sacrament to the sick, reading the Gospel, baptizing in the priest,s absence, and performing other liturgical functions. In the ancient liturgies the deacon had his own part as well as the priest, and the Eucharist could not be celebrated properly unless a deacon were present. This continues in the Eastern churches. In the Latin churches the diaconate has become a mere survival. In the Anglican Communion the deacon is regarded as one who is being trained for the priesthood, and the diaconate usually lasts a year. Attempts to revive the permanent diaconate have not been successful, and there are several strong practical reasons against it.1
It must be emphasized that the deacon is in Holy Orders and that a man cannot cease to be a deacon any more than he can cease to be a priest. The Anglican deacon is bound, like the priest and the bishop, to say his daily office (Matins and Evensong in the Prayer Book). The common notion that a man is not in "full orders" till he is ordained priest is a mistake. It is his ordination to the diaconate that separates the cleric from the layman. Strictly
1
One is that it cannot be prevented from becoming a back door to the priesthood.
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speaking only the bishop is in "full orders". He has the fullness of apostolic authority, portions of which he entrusts to the priest and to the deacon.
Besides the three Holy Orders, there are also minor orders. They scarcely survive in the Anglican Communion, though the sub-diaconate has been revived in some missionary dioceses. The parish clerk an official once common but now rare is in minor orders and has the right to read the liturgical epistle. Deaconesses are in minor orders but should have no liturgical functions. Lay readers are not in minor orders, nor are members of religious communities who, if not ordained, belong to the laity.
The meaning of the word "validity" has been explained (pp. 3338). But as the "validity of orders" is a highly controversial subject it must be said again that "valid" means "recognized by the community", in this case the Church, in whatever sense we use the word Church; and that "orders" means the three orders of the apostolic ministry with all their functions.
Every society must have some standard to which it requires its officers to conform in order to be recognized. The conception of validity is one which no organized society can do without. Each society must be the judge of what it requires for the recognition of its own officers. If the Church were united, she would have only one standard of validity. As she is divided, there are different rules in different communions, and each separate communion has to be treated as a separate society for this purpose. The ministry of any communion is valid within that communion. Since validity means recognition by a society, there is no such thing as absolute validity apart from any society.
One of the most obvious differences between Christian communions is that the ministry of one is not always recognized by another. The real reason for this is difference in doctrine, especially the doctrine of the ministry. No communion has any right to say to another
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communion, "Your ministers are not valid ministers for you." The question of validity arises only when a minister of one communion wants to join another, or when two communions wish to unite. Then each communion must decide whether it can recognize the ministry of the other as equivalent to its own. If they do not agree in their doctrine of the ministry, either of them may have to say to the other, "Your ministers have not the qualifications which we require for ours, and therefore we cannot accept them without ordination."
The mutual recognition of ministries has received much more attention in discussions about union than it deserves for two reasons. English-speaking people are more interested in organization than in doctrine, in practice than in theory. They often think it more important that two communions should recognize one another,s ministries than that they should agree in doctrine. They do not always understand that agreement in doctrine is necessary for mutual recognition. Moreover, the Anglican clergy is not agreed about the nature of the ministry, but it is agreed about government by bishops. Therefore Anglican proposals for union emphasize the acceptance of government by bishops without requiring agreement as to the nature of the ministry. But this is to put the cart before the horse.
There are other kinds of Christian ministry besides the apostolic ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons. The essential duty of the Calvinist or "Reformed" ministry is not to offer the Eucharist but to preach. For this reason it does not require or claim any succession from the apostles (see pp. 4047). When we speak of orders, we mean the ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons as defined in the last chapter. Other kinds of ministry have their value, but they are not "orders".
If we are inquiring whether a particular communion is orthodox, one question we must ask is whether it has valid orders; that is, whether its ministry is such that the Church, and in particular the communion to which we belong, can recognize it as the apostolic ministry. This question is partly doctrinal and partly historical. No part of the Church can recognize as equivalent to its own ministry the ministry of a denomination whose doctrine of ordination is not that of the Church. A communion whose ministry is to be recognized must hold what the undivided Church held about the functions of
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bishops, priests, and deacons, and it must be able to show that its ministry is derived from the ministry of the undivided Church without any break in the succession. For the universal Church before she was divided required these two conditions; and each communion into which she has been divided, and which claims a share in her inheritance, requires them still.
The Anglican Communion has always claimed that its doctrine is that of the undivided Church, and that its ministry is derived from the undivided Church. The defense of these claims is part of the defense of the Anglican Communion.
There is no doubt that before the Reformation the ordinations of the English and Irish churches were the same as those of the rest of the Catholic Church. During the Reformation the succession of bishops was carefully preserved. The preface to the ordination services which dates from the first English Prayer Book of 1549 (it has been slightly altered since then but not in any essential respect) declares that from the apostles, time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ,s Church, bishops, priests, and deacons, and that to the intent they may be continued in the Church of England, no man shall be accounted a lawful bishop, priest, or deacon or suffered to execute any of their functions without being ordained in the prescribed manner, unless he has already been ordained or consecrated by a bishop. Accordingly it has always been the rule of the Anglican Communion that clerics of the Roman Communion and other communions possessing the ancient ministry are received without ordination, but ministers of the various reformed communions who have not been ordained by a bishop must be ordained if they are to serve in the Anglican ministry.
The Anglican ministry is derived from the ministry before the Reformation by three lines of succession. The first is the English succession through Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was consecrated on December 17, 1559, in Lambeth Palace Chapel by William Barlow, formerly Bishop of Bath and Wells, John Scory, formerly Bishop of Chichester, Miles Coverdale, formerly Bishop of Exeter, and John Hodgkins, Bishop of Bedford. The second is the Irish line of succession through Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin 1555-1567. The third is the line through Marcantonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato (now Split) in
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Dalmatia, who joined the Church of England in 1616, became Dean of Windsor, and took part in the consecration of English bishops. These three lines met in William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury 1633-45, through whom all the present Anglican bishops derive their succession. Some bishops also possess a line of succession through the Dutch Old Catholic bishops, Mgr. Henry van Vlijmen, Bishop of Haarlem, and Mgr. John Berends, Bishop of Deventer, who took part in the consecration of Anglican bishops in St. Paul,s Cathedral,1 in 1931 and 1932. The present Bishops of Guildford and Tinnevelly have also a line of succession through the Church of Sweden.
At the consecration of Archbishop Parker, and also at the consecrations in which the Old Catholic bishops took part, care was taken that each bishop consecrating should say the words "Receive the Holy Ghost", etc., as well as imposing his hands, but this is not necessary. In earlier rites the hands of the bishops were imposed in silence.
What has just been said assumes that all the bishops, and not the presiding bishop only, are the ministers of the sacrament. The theory held by some Roman theologians and canonists that only the presiding bishop is the minister of the sacrament, or at least that if the presiding bishop had not himself been properly consecrated, the assistance of the other bishops would not make the consecration a valid one, would endanger the succession of every church in Christendom. On this theory the succession of the English bishops (though not of the Irish) would depend on the validity of the consecration of Barlow, the principal consecrator of Parker, upon which doubt, though not reasonable doubt, has been thrown. But the succession in the Roman Communion would not be certain either. No one can guarantee that every bishop who has ever presided at a consecration has been properly baptized and properly consecrated; but the chance that all three (or more) bishops at a consecration had invalid orders is so small as to make the risk negligible.2
Anglican ordinations have been formally accepted as valid after careful and prolonged inquiry by the Old Catholic churches. Five of the Orthodox churches (all that have examined the question) have
1
The bishops in whose consecration they took part were the late Dr. Graham-Brown, Bishop in Jerusalem, Dr. B. F. Simpson, Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Buxton, Bishop of Gibraltar, and Dr. Gelsthorpe, Assistant Bishop in Egypt.2
See p. 390.
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pronounced them to be of equal value with those of the Roman and Armenian communions. They have never been rejected except by the Roman Communion. But even within the Roman Communion some theologians have held them to be valid; for instance, Sancta Clara, Du Pin, and Le Courayer.
The Roman rejection of the validity of Anglican ordinations must be looked at from the Roman standpoint in order to estimate its real value. Rome does not look upon members of the Anglican Communion as people who would be Catholics if there were not an unhappy flaw in their succession, but as people who are in any case heretics and schismatics and whose position, if they had valid orders, might be worse than they are now because they would be giving and receiving schismatic sacraments, and because that very fact would keep them back from submitting to the "only true Church".
Therefore the Papacy, rightly from its own point of view, regards the validity of Anglican ordinations as a question to be decided, at any rate in part, by its probable results. Believing that "it is necessary to the salvation of every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff", and that more people would submit to Rome if Anglican ordinations were rejected than if they were accepted (whether this belief was true is by no means certain), the Pope naturally took the course that, as he was advised, would lead to the submission of the greater number. Also, if Rome had acknowledged Anglican ordinations, Romanists would in some ways have had a weaker position in controversy. Therefore they did not want to recognize Anglican ordinations if they could help it.
The first reason given for the rejection of Anglican ordinations was the Nag,s Head Fable, a ridiculous legend that Parker was consecrated in a tavern called the Nag,s Head, by having a Bible placed on his head. This story is now discredited, for we have a full description by an eyewitness of the consecration of Parker in Lambeth Palace Chapel; but it is still used by unscrupulous controversialists in such countries as Ceylon.1
The second reason given was that Barlow was never consecrated, which is worthless unless the theory is held that there is only one
1
If it were true, it would not affect the two other lines of succession, which is also true of the denial that Barlow was consecrated.
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consecrator; in which case, as we have seen, no consecrations of bishops anywhere are secure. But though the record of the consecration of Barlow is lost like the record of many other bishops at that period, it is certain that he was consecrated, for he was always recognized as a bishop by those who had no sympathy with doctrinal change, such as Stephen Gardiner, and he performed the functions of a bishop for many years before any doctrinal or liturgical changes had been introduced.
These two reasons for denying the validity of Anglican ordinations having failed, Rome now confines itself officially to the two reasons given by Leo XIII in the Bull Apostolicae Curae (1895). These are that the Anglican churches did not intend that their ordinations and consecrations should convey the power of offering sacrifice, and therefore omitted from their rites all reference to it; and that the words "for the office and work of a bishop" and "for the office and work of a priest" did not follow "Receive the Holy Ghost" in the Anglican rite between 1549 and 1662; so that during that century the rite was invalid, and though these words were put back in 1662, it was then too late.
A complete answer to the Bull Apostolicae Curae was given in the Letter to all Christian People signed by Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Maclagan, Archbishop of York, on March 29, 1897, but drawn up by John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, one of the most learned theologians of his age.
The Anglican churches expressly declared that they intended to continue the existing orders which included all that our Lord commanded and all that the Apostles and their successors have intended ever since. The references to offering sacrifice, which were late introductions into the rite, were omitted because the Anglican churches were convinced that the sacrificial side of the priestly office had been over-emphasized and wrongly interpreted. There is hardly any reference to "offering sacrifice" in St. Gregory,s well known work On the Pastoral Care, or in the "Longer Catechism" of the Russian Church. The English Church emphasizes in her ordinal precisely those elements in the work of the clergy which are emphasized in the New Testament, and intends her consecrations and ordinations to bestow all the powers of a bishop and a priest, including the power to offer sacrifice in its true sense.
To the accusation that the Anglican rite was for a century defective, it is replied that the words omitted do not occur in any of the older rites of ordination, either Greek or Latin, including the earliest rite
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of the Roman Church itself, nor is there in these rites any reference to the power of offering sacrifice. The name of the order ("bishop", "priest"), though not mentioned in the formula of ordination or consecration from 1549 to 1662, was frequently mentioned in the rest of the rite, so that there is no doubt about what was intended. Also the formula itself quotes Scripture on the functions of a bishop (II Tim. 1:6) and of a priest (St. John 20:23).
The real difference between us is a doctrinal difference. Rome does not deny the historical succession of the Anglican bishops but asserts that the English and Irish Churches intended to introduce a new kind of ministry different from the old one and assumes that whatever was decreed by the Council of Trent was also the doctrine of the Church from the beginning, so that those who reject the decrees of Trent reject the teaching of the Church in earlier times.
We cannot accept this assumption. We claim that our intention and our rite agree with the intention and the rites of the ancient Church, which are not necessarily to be interpreted in accordance with the decrees of Trent.
We do not question the right of the Roman Communion, as of every other communion, to decide the conditions on which it will admit men into its ministry; but we claim that the grounds on which it refuses to recognize Anglican ordinations are false, and we deny that its judgment has any authority for those who are outside its jurisdiction. (It is perhaps worth observing that if the Anglican claims were false or if the Anglican communion did not exist at all, the case against Romanism stated above (pp. 30717) would be just as strong as it is now.)
The Roman denial of the validity of Anglican ordinations has no practical importance. It makes it rather more difficult for Anglican clerics to leave their own communion for the Roman communion, but it is not a real obstacle to Christian unity for, as has been shown, the doctrinal differences between the two communions would make reunion impossible in any case. Rome recognizes the ordinations
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of the Eastern and Old Catholic Communions, but they are no nearer reunion with Rome than the Anglican Communion is. No other church has been persuaded by the arguments of the Bull Apostolicae Curae to reject the validity of Anglican ordinations. The Roman Communion is wrong about so many other things that we are not surprised to find that it is wrong about Anglican ordinations.
Our conscience is quite clear. In 1920 the Lambeth Conference offered to accept "a form of commission or recognition" from other churches if it would bring about reunion. This appears, in the case of Rome, to be an offer to accept conditional ordination or consecration from Romanist bishops. It had no result because the Roman Communion could not reply to such an offer unless the Anglican bishops accepted the Roman dogmas, which of course they could not do. It is not the alleged invalidity of its ordinations which separates the Anglican Communion from Rome, but the false dogmas on which Rome insists as a necessary condition of reunion.
It may be objected that since "valid" means "recognized by the Church", the refusal of recognition of our ordinations by so large a part of the Church destroys their validity. Perhaps it would if the Roman Communion could be regarded as orthodox. But in that case the difficulty could easily be removed. If the refusal to recognize our ordinations were the only obstacle to reunion, it would be our duty to ask for conditional ordination. But it is by no means the only obstacle to reunion. The Papal claims and the numerous dogmas resting entirely on their authority are so grave a departure from orthodoxy that they deprive the Roman refusal to recognize Anglican ordinations of whatever authority it might otherwise have had.
A note must be added here about the rule of clerical celibacy. A celibate is a person who is under obligation not to marry, whether that obligation is a vow as in the case of monks and nuns, or a rule of the Church as in the case of Romanist secular priests (that is, priests who are not members of religious orders or "congregations").
In the early Church married men were ordained; but marriage after ordination was forbidden, and no one might be ordained who had been married twice.
The Latin churches from the fourth century gradually came to refuse to ordain married men. The rule was strictly enforced by
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Pope Gregory VII. But it was always difficult to enforce it in northern countries. In medieval Iceland it was entirely ignored, and in other countries it was frequently broken. The moral consequences were so disastrous in the sixteenth century that the French and German bishops at Trent proposed that the clergy should be allowed to marry; but they were outvoted by the Italian and Spanish majority.
The Orthodox Eastern Communion at the Council in Trullo (Quinisext Council) (691),1 decided that bishops must be celibate, and priests and deacons, if they were not monks, must be married before ordination and must not marry a second time (before or after ordination).
The Anglican Communion has given its clergy of all ranks freedom to marry at their discretion (Article 32) on the Anglican principle that national churches may make their own rules in things not commanded by God (Article 34). This principle is necessary to the Anglican position, and those who assert that Anglican clerics are bound by the obligation of celibacy assert what is inconsistent with membership of the Anglican Communion and what is in fact untrue.
Anglican freedom has been abundantly justified by history. Many of our most effective and most saintly priests, such as George Herbert, John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey, and John Mason Neale, have been married men. The enormous part played by the children of the clergy both in Church and State is written large in English history. There is no reason why the same man should not have a vocation both to marriage and to ordination; but the priest must bear in mind that he is allowed to marry on condition that his marriage will be a help and not a hindrance to his work as a priest.
There will always be room for unmarried priests who remain unmarried for the sake of their work. Celibacy is honorable if it is a form of self-sacrifice, but not if it is a means of self-indulgence.
Vows of celibacy should only be taken by members of an order in combination with vows of poverty and obedience, without which celibacy does not appear to have any special value.
Note on "Wandering Bishops" There is a considerable number of persons who claim to be bishops who have derived their consecration from some irregular source, or to have been ordained by such bishops, and who are not in communion with any well known see.
1
The disciplinary rules of this Council are held by Orthodox canonists to have ecumenical authority.
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It is sometimes hard to find out whether these claims are true. But whether they are true or not, all such ordinations are irregular and schismatic. No member of the Church can recognize the claims of such persons or receive sacraments administered by them without grave sin. They are only too often mentally or morally unbalanced.
The Continental Reformers were confronted with a clergy, universally admitted to be corrupt, which had for centuries dominated the laity by means of a doctrine of sacrifice which the Reformers believed to be blasphemous.
The Lutherans accepted the existing Church organization where they could. Where it was impossible, a temporary organization was set up; and since they never won a complete victory, what was intended to be temporary became permanent. But the followers of Zwingli and Calvin rejected the existing Church and her ministry. In the new organizations, which they set up wherever they could in place of the ancient Church, there was a new kind of ministers. They were not priests but preachers. They did not represent the people of God at the altar, but God to the people in the pulpit.
Calvin established at Geneva a ministry which was an imitation of what he believed the ministry in the apostolic age to have been. There were no apostles in it. Calvin held that the apostolic office had ceased when the apostles died, and that they had left no successors. There were ministers, elders, and deacons: the ministers to preach, the elders to rule with the ministers, the deacons to serve. They did not receive their authority from the former clergy. Calvin had been a subdeacon before the Reformation, but
1
It is never easy to describe fairly a religious system to which one does not belong. Presbyterianism is, in my opinion, more difficult to understand than any other kind of Christianity, and I am not alone in my opinion. This chapter is an attempt to state the conclusions which I have reached after reading many Presbyterian books and after discussion with Presbyterian friends. If I still fail to understand, I can only plead that it is not because I have not tried.
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he never received any other ordination, nor did his successor, Beza. John Knox had been a priest (though it seems to be unknown when, where, or by whom he had been ordained), but his habitual language about the pre-Reformation clergy shows that he did not claim his authority as a Reformed preacher from his episcopal ordination, but from the call that was given him by the congregation when he began his career as a Reformed preacher. Two features of the practice of the first generation of the Reformed Church show clearly that the ministry did not pretend to derive its authority from the old priesthood. Both in Scotland and other countries the laying on of hands at ordination was temporarily abolished. It was only a generation later, when there was no longer any fear that it would be connected with the "unreformed" rite, that laying on of hands was restored because it was Scriptural. And bishops and priests of the old Church who joined the Reformed Church, as many did both in France and Scotland, were not accepted as ministers. After a period of testing they were given a fresh ordination.1 To have been a "mass priest" did not qualify a man for the Reformed ministry. On the contrary. But the Calvinists did not believe that their ministry was completely new. It had existed, they said, ever since the apostolic age and would continue till the end of the world. No doubt it was held to include such men as St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, John Huss, Savonarola. But it was believed to be a ministry of preachers, not of priests, with a succession which did not include the transmission of authority.
Ordination to this ministry is admission to an office, not to an order, and is in no sense a sacrament. The essence of the ordination is the Divine call internally to the candidate himself and externally through some congregation (that is why Presbyterians were so much opposed to private patronage). The laying on of hands is the recognition by the ministers of the call which the people have given. It does not bestow ordination but seals what has already been bestowed. As we have seen, it is not absolutely necessary, for Calvin himself was never ordained. It is a matter of order, not of
1
The English Puritans complained bitterly that "mass priests" were accepted by the English church without ordination. See also p. 276, note.
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faith. The administration of the sacraments, Baptism and the Lord,s Supper (Calvinists recognize no other sacraments), is one of the functions of the minister; but it was also regarded as a form of preaching and had to be accompanied by a sermon. For this reason private baptism and private communion were entirely forbidden by the Reformers, even for the sick, and were only restored in Scotland with difficulty by the Assembly of Perth in 1618. In exceptional cases a licensed probationer, not yet ordained, may perform all the functions of a minister including the administration of the sacraments.1
Calvin did not object to episcopal government which is found in the Reformed Church of Hungary. What he objected to was priesthood, the true meaning of which he misunderstood.
The Reformed Churches have their own rules for admission to the ministry, but those rules are local, not universal. Since the essential function of the ministry is preaching, it needs no succession; and the word "valid" is not properly applied to it. A sacrament which is invalid and is known to be invalid is of no use at all, for it is the recognition of the Church which assures us that we really receive sacramental grace. But a sermon cannot be invalid. At most the preacher may lack the authority of the Church to preach, but the sermon may be none the worse for that. Apostolic Succession is necessary for the validity of the Eucharist and, therefore, for its effectiveness, for a sacrament known to be invalid cannot be effective. But Apostolic Succession cannot make a bad preacher into a good one.
A preaching ministry which requires no succession fits in with the general scheme of "Reformed" Christianity. The universal Church, as we have seen, is believed to be invisible. Therefore it does not require a universal ministry. Each visible society of Christians is to make its own rules for its own ministry. It is regarded as an impertinence for one society to reject the ministry of another. Moreover, history is of secondary importance for this kind of Christianity. What happened between the apostolic age and the Reformation matters little. The Reformers who were held to have restored the true Gospel to the world neither had nor needed any
1
This was apparently the position of Reuben Butler, in Scott,s Heart of Midlothian, who was none the less called a "clergyman" and treated as one.
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succession derived from their predecessors. The Calvinist has his Bible, and he has his trained minister to explain it to him. He is a member of the invisible Church, the company of the elect. He thinks that since he has direct access to Christ and to His Gospel, he needs no priest.
The ministry established by Calvin is the ministry of the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, and the Baptists. They differ widely from one another in order, but they recognize one another. Ministers and lay people pass from one to another without difficulty or blame. Their whole outlook is so different from that of the ancient Church that it is extremely difficult for one side to understand the other.
Some Presbyterians claim a "presbyteral succession". This claim cannot be traced farther back than about 1650 and seems to be due to controversy with the Church of England. They assert that bishops and "presbyters" were originally one order, that bishops gradually acquired the exclusive right to ordain, and that at the Reformation the presbyters reasserted their original right, and that the present ministers derive their authority from the medieval priesthood by transmission through the Reformers.
The belief that bishops and presbyters were originally one order has some historical support, though in the fourth century Aerius, who held it, was condemned as a heretic. But the Presbyterian claim ignores the difference between a presbyter in the Catholic and in the Calvinist sense. The Catholic presbyter is a priest. His essential duties are to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice, or "say Mass", and to give absolution. The Calvinist presbyter is not a priest and neither performs any such duties nor claims to do so. It cannot be shown that the first Reformers claimed any kind of transmission of authority, that the Reformed Churches on the Continent make any such claim now, or even that the British Presbyterians make it officially. Certainly the Methodists, the Congregationalists, and the Baptists make no such claim; but the Presbyterians do not regard their rejection of succession as any hindrance to the most complete mutual recognition, or even, as in Canada and South India, to amalgamation.
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There is a superficial resemblance between the Roman attitude towards the Anglican ministry and the Anglican (and Roman) attitude towards the Calvinist ministry. But there is a fundamental difference.
The Anglican Communion claims that its bishops, priests, and deacons are bishops, priests, and deacons in the sense in which those words were used by the ancient Church and by the Roman Communion today. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a bishop in the same sense as the Pope. Every Anglican priest is as much a priest as any Romanist priest. It is his duty and his privilege to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice, to give absolution, and to bless in the name of the Church; and this claim is supported by the Prayer Book. Presbyterian and Congregationalist ministers make no such claim. They are not and do not claim to be priests. Most of them reject the very idea of apostolic succession. The word "valid" has little or no meaning for them. They are pastors, preachers, perhaps prophets, not priests.
The point may be illustrated from secular history. The Jacobites held that William III was not really a king (as the Roman Communion holds that Anglican priests are not really priests). But the supporters of William III held that he was as truly a king as any of his predecessors. George Washington did not claim to be a king any more than Presbyterians claim that their ministers are priests. He did not believe in kingship.
The kingship of William III was invalid from the Jacobite standpoint. But Washington had not an invalid kingship. He was not a king but a president. The duties of a king and of a president overlap in some respects, but a king is not the same as a president. It might even be possible to devise a constitution which possessed both.
Similarly the apostolic ministry commonly known as "Holy Orders" and conveyed by a sacrament is one thing. The preaching ministry of the Calvinists is another. The word "presbyter" is sometimes applied to both, but they are not identical any more than a captain in the army is the same thing as a captain in the navy or is necessarily competent to command a ship.
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The preaching ministry of the Calvinists is not invalid or defective. It is from the Catholic standpoint irregular because it is not under episcopal authority. St. Ignatius would not allow so much as a love feast to be held apart from the bishop (Smyrn. 8). But it is in many cases a true prophetic and pastoral ministry.
It is not "Holy Orders". It does not convey the power to offer the Eucharist and to forgive sins, which can only be conveyed by the sacrament of ordination; and the necessary minister of that sacrament is a bishop.
The difference between us is not concerned with episcopal government which is of the bene esse but not necessarily of the esse1 of the Church. We could with some adjustment recognize the Presbyterian system of government just as it is. It would not suit us, but it has served the Presbyterians well. The real obstacle to unity is that the Presbyterians and the other bodies with this type of ministry do not believe in priesthood which we, with the ancient Church and the whole of Catholic Christendom, believe to be necessary. Behind this difference lies the more fundamental difference about the nature of the Universal Church and the necessity of baptism in all cases.
The reason for the confusion is that there is in the Anglican Communion a considerable body of people whose doctrine of the ministry is Calvinist rather than Catholic; and the Presbyterians and others have been led to believe that the teaching of this section is the real teaching of the Anglican Communion, though it is contrary to the Prayer Book, to our law and practice, and to our official policy.2 It would be unreasonable to insist on episcopal ordination, and dishonest to tell other Catholic churches that our bishops, priests, and deacons are the same as theirs, which we have been doing for centuries, unless we believed that our ministry was a priesthood (sacerdotium) as theirs is.
1
That is, it is desirable but not essential.2
The theory that ministers not ordained by a bishop were officially accepted by the English Church between the Reformation and the Restoration is refuted by A. J. Mason, The Church of England and Episcopacy.
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It is only where the real teaching of the Anglican Communion is neglected that schemes for union inconsistent with it are found. There is quite as much need for Christian unity in Nyasaland, Madagascar, and Corea as there is in South India or in Persia; but the South Indian solution is not proposed in these countries because both the Anglican and the Presbyterian missions know what the difference between them is, and therefore Presbyterians are not asked to accept episcopal ordination without accepting the doctrine of priesthood which it implies.
The difference between the Anglican Communion and the "Reformed Churches" is not about government but about doctrine. This becomes quite clear when we think not of the Anglican Communion but of other Catholic Communions. Presbyterians and Congregationalists are not offended because the Eastern and the Roman Communions refuse to recognize their ministers as priests, but they are offended when the Anglican Communion does the same. The confusion and the offense can only be removed by clear and definite teaching in the Anglican Communion.
But the "Reformed Churches", powerful as they are in English-speaking countries, are only a minority in Christendom. By far the larger and more ancient part of Christendom believes that the Christian religion must be embodied in the universal visible Church with its threefold ministry, and must find its highest act of worship in the offering of the Eucharist at an altar by a priest ordained by a bishop. No bishop, no priest; no priest, no Eucharist; no Eucharist, no Catholic Christianity. We undervalue neither the ministry of the word nor the services rendered by the "Reformed Churches" when we say that a united Christendom without priest, altar, and Mass is inconceivable, and that there can be no official ministry recognized by all Christendom but that which derives its authority from the apostolic succession. It is useless to press the "Reformed Churches" to accept episcopal ordination until they feel the need for the Eucharistic worship which cannot exist without it. The Reformed ministry is a true ministry which has abundantly shown that it is blessed by the Holy Spirit; but it cannot be identified with the priesthood, and some way must be found by which they may exist side by side, as the priests and the prophets did under the Old Covenant. Hitherto all schemes of union have failed because their
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authors have assumed that the fundamental difference to be overcome is a difference about government. Those who wish to succeed in the work of reconciliation must recognize that the difference is doctrinal and must learn that it is not the Anglican Communion alone but the whole Catholic Church with which reconciliation must be made, and that no general scheme for Christian Unity is possible in which belief in the full sacramental system, and in the Universal Visible Church which alone has authority to administer it, is not accepted by all parties.