NOTE, p. 225.

BUT over this particular phrase (as has been truly pointed out to me) there hangs an ambiguity historically. In the codex Rotomagensis (Morinus, pt. ii. p. 230) it is the presbyter who is 'transformed' into love. The words run 'per obsequium plebis tuae corpore et sanguine filii tui immaculata benedictione transformetur ad inviolabilem caritatem et in virum perfectum,' &c. In another text 'ex manuscripto codice bibliothecae S. Germani in suburbio Parisiensi' (Morinus, pt. ii. p. 243) they are 'per obsequium plebis tuae vel corpus corpore et sanguine filii tui immaculata benedictione transformentur et inviolabilem caritatem, et in virum perfectum,' &c. This last is unconstruable as it stands; but its mixed condition is suggestive of a gradual transformation of a sentiment like that of Rotom. into one like that of the Missale Francorum. No doubt the Missale Francorum is itself the most ancient of the three. It looks rather as though the later documents had in this case preserved traces of an earlier version of the words, a version which (it can hardly be denied) gives in the immediate context a much smoother and more natural continuity of meaning. But whatever the original text may be thought to have been, there is no supposition so improbable as that the present text of the Missale Francorum could have been afterwards corrupted into that of the other documents referred to.

NOTE, p. 228.

In the exhortation to candidates for priesthood in the Roman Pontifical (referred to in note I to p. 223) there are one or two phrases of a more pastoral character; 'Agnoscite quod agitis, Imitamini quod tractatis; quatenus mortis Dominicae mysterium celebrantes, mortificare membra vestra a vitiis et concupiscentiis omnibus procuretis. Sit doctrina vestra spiritualis medicina populo Dei. Sit odor vitae vestrae delectamentum Ecclesiae Christi; ut praedicatione atque exemplo aedificetis domum, id est, familiam Dei'... But these are not part of what is before the Reformers; nor indeed do they go very far.

APPENDIX

UPON THE RECENT ROMAN CONTROVERSY AS TO THE VALIDITY OF ANGLICAN ORDERS

It will have been observed that the discussion just concluded has not been a discussion as to what does, or what does not, constitute a valid transmission of Holy Orders. The fact is that the discussion has been directed to a deeper issue than that of validity. Those who discuss the validity of what purports to confer 'priesthood,' must assume, as the basis of their discussion, an understanding of what priesthood in itself means. Confusion about this will make a necessary confusion in the discussion of validity. But, fundamental as it is to the discussion of validity, a real inquiry into the nature and true scope of priesthood is itself of deeper and more significant interest than any question of validity only.

It is, however, perfectly true that for certain purposes it is necessary to take the outward apart from its inwardness, the mere shell apart from all that gives it meaning. If the question is whether this man is, or is not, viceroy; we do not for the purpose begin to ask what viceroyalty means; we ask rather whether the instruments of his appointment are in order. If the question

is whether this 'bishop' is capable of ordaining, or that 'priest' of celebrating; it is not immediately to the point to say whether the one has any rationally Christian conception of what his episcopate, or the other of what his priesthood, means. The one may be materialistic, to the point of paganism; the other may be rationalistic, to the point of atheism. Neither may realize, even remotely, the true nature of his office; neither may be able, in the least degree, to exemplify its mystery or its dignity to others. And neither it is possible -- may be recognized, in the day

of the revelation of Christ, as Christian minister or as Christian believer, at all. And yet for the technical purposes of external order, the sole question will be, 'were they duly ordained?' Though the pagan bishop or the atheistic priest is an outrage to the idea of priesthood or bishopric; though it is worse than useless to look to them in order to see what priesthood or bishopric means; yet in the merely outward order of things it has certainly to be admitted that, if untried and undeposed, they are 'bishop' and 'priest.' This is part of the essentially imperfect identity, in human things, between the outward and the inward -between discernible expression and the meaning which it only exists to express. It belongs to the failure of the ordinance, not to what it means. It does not touch us in the least, so long as we are trying to interpret the true meaning of priesthood. We dare not frame our exposition of priesthood with a view to including those whose priesthood is the denial of what priesthood means. If, as mere symbols and channels, we cannot deny that they have been accredited, and can be made use of; yet, so far from expressing or interpreting, they only belie, and are themselves belied by, all that their own office signifies.

On the other hand, if the ordained priest may be a priest without exemplifying any one of the graces or meanings of priesthood, it is no less true that even the most splendid exemplification, in mind and life, of the things which priesthood ought to mean, would not of itself confer on any man the right to stand before the congregation to Godward in the ministry of priesthood.

There is then an outward, unhappily distinguishable, as mere outward, from all the inner realities which it ought to symbolize. Perhaps it may serve to clear the position taken in these pages, to formulate at once the requirements which seem, in the outward and technical sphere, to be necessary for a valid ordination.

They may be stated as four. First, the ordination must be conferred by those who themselves have received authority to confer it. This, as a principle continuous from the beginning, is what is called Apostolical succession. There seems to be absolutely no warrant whatever, in the New Testament or in the history of the Church, for supposing that Christian ministers can either commission themselves, or be commissioned by any who have not

themselves been commissioned to commission. That a layman or a gathering of laymen could consecrate a bishop, is an idea which would find no warrant whatever in the theology or history of the Church. Now those who are commissioned to commission are what we call bishops. It may be admitted that this is a point which it would have been difficult to lay down with confidence from the very earliest evidence of all. That succession from Apostles was a cardinal principle is quite clear from the epistle of Clement of Rome. It may not be quite clear at first through whom the succession was transmitted. But even from Apostolic and subapostolic times there are data enough to make it exceedingly improbable that the transmission would have been by presbyters only, apart from the apostolic or episcopal background. And when such data are interpreted in the light of the universal assumption of every subsequent century, we may lay it down, quite as a certain principle of the historical Church, that a valid ordination must be performed by those who as 'bishops'—or, if any one prefers it, as 'episcopal presbyters'—have received a commission, from those duly commissioned before them, which includes the apostolic faculty of commissioning ministers.

Secondly, the ordaining bishop must have the intention to ordain. He may be a bad theologian-full of misconceptions about the doctrines of the Church and the ministry; but at least he must be dealing dutifully according to his conceptions (or misconceptions), that is, he must have the purpose of exercising a power committed to him of constituting men as ministers (bishops, priests, or deacons) in the Church of Christ. In the absence of unmistakable evidence to the contrary, the fact that he acts in the matter just as others, with serious intention, would and do act, is sufficient presumption that he means as they mean. This, as a general principle, is intelligible enough. Cases can probably be imagined, in which there might be a reasonable ambiguity on this head. But such cases have probably rarely, if ever, occurred.

Thirdly, we may ask to be assured that the bishop has signified his purpose by solemnly laying his hands on the head of the ordinand. There is no controversy about the laying on of hands; and I do not desire to suggest one. Whether, however, it is as literally indispensable as e. g. the divinely commanded elements of

water in Baptism, or bread and wine in Holy Communion, is a point about which we may hesitate to speak with confidence. Laying on of hands has been practically the universal method in the Church of Christ; and no one who affects to ordain is likely to dispense with it. But it hardly seems necessary for the present purpose so dogmatically to assert its indispensableness (if all that it expresses were in other ways made unmistakably manifest) as to decide, quite absolutely, that a bishop consecrated according to the description of the eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions (supposing the words to be taken ad pedem literae) could not possibly be held to be consecrated at all.

And fourthly, this manual blessing must be an act of prayer. This means, I presume, that the ordaining bishop, if on the one hand he makes use of a ceremonial action, must obviously, upon the other, refer his ceremonial action to God. It is this Godward appeal which gives the significance to what would otherwise be a mere outward act. Whatever mode or utterance of prayerfulness has the effect of thus interpreting his act, may be said to meet the literal requirement. Of course the prayer must not be wholly irrelevant to the act; nor out of all discoverable relation with the act. But whatever it be, so that it has the intelligible character of interpreting before God and man the meaning of the act, and thereby uplifting it as an aspiration to God, it is such prayer as can make the otherwise merely physical act of laying a hand upon a head into the symbolical act of blessing for ministry. Where these four things are, there is the technical, outward, verifiable requirement. Where any of these four things can be shown to be absent, there the material outward, which men who fear God dare not dispense with, is lacking.

A discussion which turns upon the evidence, in particular cases, as to things so far material and external as these, can hardly be a very elevating discussion. Those who have to conduct it need to be always on their guard against confounding the real meaning of 'priesthood'-which has a material aspect and is (in a sense) materially conveyed-with the things which thus represent it on the material side.

Still there are times when these are the things which have to be discussed. And there are occasions, no doubt, in which there is a perfectly genuine ambiguity about one or more of them. In