take his stand upon this, as the ultimate basis of all ministry in the Church of Christ, the principle needed a much clearer statement and fuller justification, theological as well as historical, than he has attempted to give. The question whether ministerial status is evolved or devolved only directly suggests itself in Bishop Lightfoot's essay in connexion with the episcopate. Presbyterate and diaconate would have been originally devolved by commission from Apostles as a matter of course. But attention can hardly be drawn too emphatically to what is, on a little consideration, the very obvious fact that, throughout the history of the Christian Church, presbyterate and diaconate have in fact been made wholly to depend upon episcopate. It is episcopate alone which has been understood to have received the power to transmit. It is episcopate alone which has in fact, at any time, conferred either presbyterate or diaconate. Now if the other orders depend upon episcopate, and if episcopate is itself, in its ultimate rationale, 'evolved from below,' then it follows that the basis of all these orders alike is not apostolic devolution or succession, but evolution out of the general spiritual life and consciousness of the Church. Is it not a curious paradox? The Apostles ordained both presbyters and deacons, and provided (as St. Clement says) for their transmission to the after-ages. Devolution by succession, that is to say, was the apostolic principle, carefully prearranged. But the Apostles' principle was frustrated and their prevision and precaution' nullified by the insertion of a new order, itself unauthorized apostolically, as that upon which the two others should depend for their very existence. The only escape from the difficulty is to deny that episcopate has any separate existence at all. There is in fact, on this theory, no room for it. The Church is really presbyterian. Episcopate is either not distinguishable from presbyterate, or it is self-condemned in distinguishing itself. Episcopate may be just tolerated, so long as it is clearly understood that the bishop is not really different, in any essential particular whatever, from what every presbyter is. But the moment it is claimed that episcopate can do anything whatever that presbyterate cannot, episcopate becomes a false usurpation and delusion. In other words, episcopate, in the only sense in which it has ever been received or regarded anywhere, has been, and is, an accretion so deluding that it ought not to be tolerated. Considering how entirely, if episcopacy be retained or believed in as having any reality at all, the rationale of ministerial office rests ultimately upon the decision between the devolution and the evolution of episcopate, it is quite extraordinary how completely the point of the question is ignored by Bishop Lightfoot. It is in this form that the question must be asked and answered. To this, the question whether the episcopal office is identical with the apostolical, or in what respects it differs, is an irrelevant detail. To this, again, all such evidence as goes to show that the episcopal presbyter was in some sense a presbyter still, though he was over the presbyters, is of no real importance whatever. That so much as this was at least in some sense true, even of an apostle and (in many ways) the leader among apostles, is emphasized for us by St. Peter when he claims to write as fellow-presbyter to presbyters1. So far is the theory of the presbytership of the bishop from militating in any way against the most stringent doctrine of apostolic succession, that this very doctrine, that the bishop is presbyter, was before the Reformation for a thousand years throughout the West, and is in the Roman Church to this day so habitually exaggerated, that it has become a settled and formal part of the Roman theological teaching, that there is no distinct 'order' of bishops at all. If the bishop 1 I Pet. v. I; see below, ch. vi. p. 187, note 4. 2 Quamvis unus sit sacerdotii ordo, non tamen unus est sacerdotum gradus' is the heading of qu. xxv. in cap. vii. p. II. of the Tridentine was 'set over' the presbyters, if St. Clement was 'chief' either 'over' or 'of' the presbyters, if St. James was 'singled out from the rest and placed' in a position of superior responsibility, the real question is by whom, and through what method, and under what sanction, were they so 'set' or 'singled' or 'placed'? So long as no one presumes to exercise powers except they be within the four corners of the commission which he has formally received, the principle of apostolic succession is not violated. Thus it has been pointed out by Canon Gore1 that if Apostles or their successors ordained in any place not a single episcopal presbyter, but a whole college of presbyters with episcopal commission and capacity, the principle would remain intact. Such a college of presbyters-in-episcopal-orders (to use modern phraseology) if they confirmed, or ordained, or consecrated diocesan bishops, would not be travelling outside the powers committed to them. It is the claim to originate (as it were) capacities for ministerial function which have not been expressly received, which denies the principle. Could John Wesley ordain? Could the American Church of the last century, without the intervention of bishops, have conferred episcopacy upon itself? Such as these are the questions which directly raise it. It is perfectly compatible with episcopate, which whilst authorized to wield the prerogatives of episcopate, remains also a presbyterate still. It is not compatible with episcopate purporting to be conferred by those who held no commission authorizing them to confer it 2. Catech. ad Paroch. The 'grades' of priesthood enumerated are (1) sacerdotes simpliciter, (2) episcopi or pontifices, (3) archiepiscopi or metropolitani, (4) patriarchae, (5) Romanus pontifex maximus, totius orbis terrarum pater et patriarcha. 1 2 'This is the Church principle: that no ministry is valid which is assumed, which a man takes upon himself, or which is merely delegated to him from below. That ministerial act alone is valid which is covered by a ministerial commission received from above by succession from the Apostles. This is part of the great principle of tradition. . . . What heresy There is another point which it may be worth while to put expressly. The theory of apostolic succession is one against which a prejudice is often raised by the form in which it is stated. Objectors object to it, or those who should be its defenders with a light heart surrender it, as though its chief purpose were to satisfy a certain craving for logical symmetry, or perhaps for the natural pride in an immemorial pedigree, by making dogmatic assertions, in themselves regarded as doubtful, perhaps even as impossible, as to the detail of events of a thousand or of fifteen hundred years ago. How can you tell, it is asked, or what can it matter, whether there was or was not a link missing in the chain, somewhere perhaps in the thirteenth-or in the third-century? Now if any one wishes really to measure what is meant, he should raise the question not in the dim perspective of the past, but in the foreground of the immediate present. It is in respect of its own time that each generation has its practical concern in, and charge of, the principle. Those who speak lightly of what may have happened long ago, are they indifferent to the things which concern themselves? Would they accept as their bishop one who was is in the sphere of truth, a violation of the apostolic succession is in the tradition of the ministry. Here too there is a deposit handed down, an ecclesiastical trust transmitted; and its continuity is violated, whenever a man "takes any honour to himself" and assumes a function not com. mitted to him. Judged in the light of the Church's mind as to the relation of the individual to the whole body, such an act takes a moral discolouring. The individual of course who is guilty of the act may not incur the responsibility in any particular case through the absence of right knowledge, or from other causes which exempt from responsibility in whole or in part; but judged by an objective standard, the act has the moral discolouring of selfassertion. The Church's doctrine of succession is thus of a piece with the whole idea of the Gospel revelation, as being the communication of a divine gift which must be received and cannot be originated,—received, moreover, through the channels of a visible and organic society; and the principle (this is what is here emphasized) lies at the last resort in the idea of succession rather than in the continuous existence of episcopal government-even though it should appear that this too is of apostolic origin, and that the Church, since the Apostles, has never conceived of itself as having any power to originate or interpolate a new office.' Ibid., pp. 74, 75. But see the whole passage, from p. 69 onwards. consecrated to episcopate by laymen? or receive absolution in their hour of anguish, or the eucharistic gifts in their highest worship, from one who had received his ordination at the hands only of the unordained? Belief in apostolic succession really means a belief that this has been a practical question to each generation severally in its turn ; and that each generation severally has cared about, because it has believed in, the dutiful answer to the question. Those who care now that Ordination should be received from those only who have themselves received power to ordain, care really for all that apostolic succession means. Certainly there was no foolish pride in dim remoteness of pedigree (though there was a deep sense of the religious value of authority duly received because lawfully transmitted), nor was there any mere craving for symmetry of logic, on the part of those who, within the first century of the Church, made the solemn remonstrance of the Roman with the Corinthian Christians turn upon the question of apostolic and continuous transmission of ministry. Whether ministry received from Apostles is transmissible only through bishops, or through presbyters also, is no doubt a question of the utmost importance. But the theory of apostolic succession may be, in itself—and is-affirmed on both views alike. The principle, in its abstract form, is quite capable of being detached from any theories about episcopacy. On the other hand, if episcopacy be, in any real sense, accepted, the principle of apostolical succession can no longer be kept in detachment from it. To a presbyterian theory of succession, episcopate (as was suggested above) would become something less tolerable, more positively erroneous, than any mere surplusage. If there are, and rightly are, bishops as the centres of Church government, then the principle of apostolical succession, however in the abstract distinguishable, must become in fact vitally identified with episcopal theory. But for the present I have tried to speak rather of the |