coadjutors in the propagation of the gospel, form a very strong
argument against the dogma of Apostolical Succession, for which
a party in our church are contending with so much Jesuitical
artifice and overbearing intolerance. Dr. Hook, one of their
leaders, says--and all the clergy of his school subscribe to his
sentiments--'Unless Christ be spiritually present with the ministers
of religion in their services, these services will be in vain.'
I admit this: but then he adds, what I cannot admit, because it
is in palpable opposition to indisputable facts--'But the only
ministrations to which he has _promised_ his presence, are to
those of the bishops who are successors of the first commissioned
apostles, and the other clergy acting under their sanction and by
their authority. I therefore,' he adds, 'at once abandon expediency,
submission to constituted authority, decency, and order, as the
ground of our defence of our clerical commission, and appeal to the
promise given by Jesus Christ to his apostles, and which promise, by
coming down to us as their successors, marks us _exclusively_ for
God's ambassadors.'[32]
[32] See Dr. Hook's Sermons on Church and Establishments.
"If we contrast this vain boasting of the Tractarians with
indisputable facts, how strange does it appear! Here I find from the
life of Williams, that instead of studying at Cambridge or Oxford,
he was serving as an apprentice to an ironmonger, in the City Road,
London; and, if not a positive infidel, he was addicted to habits
of impiety, if not intemperance, spending his Sabbath evenings at
a public tavern. On one occasion, a pious female friend saw him
loitering about in front of the tabernacle in Moorfields, where
he expected to meet the companions of his nightly revels; but to
mortify them because they were not punctual to their engagement, he
yielded to her entreaties to go with her into the tabernacle and
hear the sermon." Then, taking up the _Life of Williams_,[33] which
lay on a side table, he read the following passage:--"Such a state
of mind was anything but favourable to the serious consideration of
sacred subjects; and few ever entered the house of God less prepared
to profit by its services. The Rev. Timothy East, of Birmingham,
occupied the pulpit that evening, January 30, 1814, and preached
from the weighty question, 'For what shall it profit a man, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul?' (Mark viii. 36, 37). The word
came with power, and with demonstration of the Holy Spirit upon the
mind of his youthful auditor." "Now this young man," continued Mr.
Roscoe, "reclaimed from the error of his ways by what Paul calls
the foolishness of preaching, after tarrying at home long enough
to give evidence of the genuineness of his conversion to God, and
receive instruction to fit him for the work to which he had devoted
himself, goes to the South Seas, learns the language of the natives,
and commences the work of evangelizing them; and this book is a
faithful record and report of his extraordinary labours. He received
no episcopal ordination in the regular line of descent; but was
he not God's ambassador of grace and mercy to these once savage
and cannibal islanders? and if so, Dr. Hook asserts what is not
absolutely true, that none are God's ambassadors except the clergy
of the Church of England and Papal priests."
[33] _The Life of the Rev. John Williams._ By the Rev. E. Prout.
Snow, London.
_Mr. Stevens._--"The minister who preached the last anniversary
sermons in my chapel, in behalf of our Sabbath-schools, informed me,
when we were chatting about apostolic succession, that he knew the
ecclesiastic ancestors of Mr. Williams, and gave me his pedigree,
remarking that he was descended from 'a succession of bishops, who
neither had palaces nor seats in the House of Lords.' Mr. Jay,
of Bath, was the instrument employed by the Spirit of God in the
conversion of the Rev. O. A. Jeary, of Rodborough, Gloucestershire,
who was employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of the Rev. T.
East, and he was employed by the same Divine agent in the conversion
of the Rev. J. Williams. We thus see that the moral revolutions and
spiritual transformations which have taken place in the South Sea
Islands are not to be ascribed, in the slightest degree, either
subordinately or instrumentally, to the intervention of Episcopal
power or authority. Not one employed in any department of this
wondrous work, occupied a position in the regular line of descent
from the apostles, nor had any one of them received ordination from
an Episcopal bishop."
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"A Tractarian who admits the truthfulness of Mr.
Williams' report of the success of his own labours, and those of his
coadjutors, would probably look on this as an exceptional case to
the established law of order prevalent in the church, which we all
know requires ordination to precede preaching or the administration
of the sacraments. And I see no very strong objection to this view
of the matter, because we find that, even in apostolic times, the
disciples who were scattered at the persecution of Stephen went to
different places preaching the Word, though they were not ordained
to the work as the apostles were (Acts xi. 19, 20)."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I admit there is some force in the popular
saying--'There is no rule without an exception;' and I admit,
also, that the exception establishes rather than subverts the
rule from which it is a deviation; but then there must be some
proof that it is really an exception. Regarding the case of the
dispersed disciples to which you have referred, I see no evidence
in confirmation of its being a deviation from any fixed rule of
government established within the pale of the church, because I
find other cases reported which bear such a strong analogy to it,
that I am compelled to believe that no absolute and undeviating
regulations on this subject can be found in the New Testament. We
find for example (Acts i. 26), that Matthias was chosen to the
apostleship as the successor of Judas; but it does not appear from
the record of the transaction, that he was ordained to this office
by the other eleven apostles with whom he took rank. Again, the
case of Paul is still more decisive against the Tractarian dogma
that no one can preach or administer the sacraments with efficacy,
unless he derive his official authority and power to do so from the
apostles, or some one to whom they have delegated their authority
and power. He assumed the designation of an apostle, and did the
work of an apostle, some years before he saw any one of the twelve,
acting as independently of them, as they did of him; and when they
met at Jerusalem they did not require him to submit to ordination
administered by them: and, at a subsequent period of his history,
when he was called by the Holy Spirit (Acts xiii. 1-5) to go and
preach the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews in Seleucia
and other places, he[34] was set apart to _this work_, not to _any
office_, by _subordinate members_ of the church at Antioch, termed
prophets and teachers, who, when they had fasted and prayed, and
laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas, sent them away. These things
occurred just when a new system of government was introduced into
the church, that was to be perpetuated through all future ages.
Here, then, we see pious laymen sallying forth and preaching in
different places the Lord Jesus, with such power that many believed
and turned unto him (Acts xi. 19-21); and we see also some holding
the highest office in the Christian church without undergoing the
ceremony of consecration by pre-existing officials, and yet these
facts are recorded in Scripture without any notification that they
are exceptions to fixed and absolute laws. Such a notification would
have proved a decisive evidence in confirmation of such laws had
they been established. We thus see that the plain, indisputable
facts of the New Testament are in direct opposition to the high
church principles of our Tractarians."
[34] If we suppose, with some of the Tractarians, that he was
now ordained to the _apostolic office_, then we have a series of
irregularities: he labours for years before he receives ordination,
and when he does receive it, it is not from the hands of _apostles_,
but some very _inferior officials_ connected with the church at
Antioch.
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I have long maintained that this dogma of
apostolical succession is an ecclesiastical monopoly which has
no sanction from the Word of the Lord, and it is too selfish in
its nature to harmonize with the free and generous spirit of the
Christian dispensation. If it be the will of Jesus Christ, the
supreme Legislator of his church, that no one shall preach the
gospel or administer the sacraments with spiritual efficacy until he
is ordained to the work by an apostle, or some bishop who can trace
his lineal descent from an apostle with absolute certainty, how can
such a restricted law as this be known unless he expressly enacts it
either by an immediate revelation of his will, or through the medium
of the inspired writers? No one pretends that an express revelation
has ever been given in reference to such a restriction, and I have
never been able to find an implied regulation in any chapter or
verse of the New Testament. To say that we, and we exclusively, are
the priests of the Lord, and, if you wish to be saved, you must
intrust your souls to our ghostly power--that we, and we only, have
the keys of the kingdom of heaven--that we open and shut by virtue
of the authority delegated to us by St. Peter and St. Paul--is
nothing less on the part of the Papal and Tractarian clergy than
a monopoly of official authority and power, unsanctioned by the
authority of Jesus Christ, and a subtle manoeuvre to magnify their
own order. That a Papist should believe this, who is trained in the
belief that the laws and regulations of his church are absolute
and unchangeable, is not surprising; but that a Protestant should
believe it, who has free access to his Bible, and been taught to
hold its absolute and exclusive authority on all articles of faith
and practice, is indeed a moral paradox which I cannot explain."
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"Yes, Sir, it is a monopoly which has no sanction
from Jesus Christ, the supreme Legislator in his church, and one
which entails repulsive and fearful consequences. It compels its
advocates to shun all Christian alliance with many of the excellent
of the earth, and drives them into the closest connection with many
who are moral miscreants, men of impurity, sceptics, and scoffers.
Such men as Chalmers and Wardlaw, Robert Hall and William Jay, are
branded as usurpers in the church, with whom it would be a sort of
treason to associate, and whose ministrations must be denounced as
a fatal curse to their deluded adherents, while those clergymen who
have received the so-called apostolical ordination, however immoral
they may be in conduct, or heterodox in teaching, are to be revered
and obeyed as the true and faithful ministers of Jesus Christ. There
is in all this something so repugnant to common-sense and Christian
feeling--so derogatory to personal dignity and pure taste--and so
calculated to excite the contempt of infidels against the whole
clerical order, that I am astonished how any one who cherishes the
slightest degree of reverence for the authority of Jesus Christ, or
who has imbibed a particle of his pure and loving spirit, can submit
to its dominion and governing power, especially when he is told
that, _if he has not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his_."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Your very just and forcible remarks remind me of
a paragraph in the _Edinburgh Review_,[35] which I marked for
reference, and which, by your permission, I will read: it is an
amplification of your remarks on this very objectionable feature
of Tractarianism:--'The strongest and most irrefragable argument
against the principles held by the Tractarians appears to us not
their absurdity, though that is flagrant enough, but their essential
uncharitableness. We stand absolutely confounded at the fatuity
of men, who, with the New Testament in their hands, profess to
be willing to fraternize with Rome, but cannot fraternize with
Lutherans and Presbyterians; who affect to consider the points of
difference between the Church of Spain and the Church of England
less vital than those between the Church of England and that of
Scotland; who, for the sake of such a figment as apostolical
succession and other figments as shadowy, remorselessly exclude a
large portion of the communities of Christendom from the very name,
rights, and privileges of Christian churches; who can imagine the
great doctrines in which both they and their opponents coincide,
and which form the theme and triumph of inspired eloquence, of
less moment than doctrines and rites on which the Scripture is
ominously silent, or which seem to stand in shocking contrast to the
moral grandeur and magnanimous spirit of the Christian institute.
Yet so it is; and we need no other evidence of the degrading and
narrowing effects of such principles than that this most melancholy
result of them should inspire so little sorrow, or rather should
be so frequently proclaimed more in triumph than with regret.
The generality of the Oxford school proclaim the consequences of
their principles not only with an arrogance which ill befits such
equivocal conclusions, but without a particle of sorrow, which, if
true, they would naturally excite in the breast of every benevolent
man.'"
[35] April, 1843.
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"As they are, in common with their Papal
brethren, intolerant on _principle_, and that _principle one_
which, in their opinion, involves the honour of the church, and the
final happiness of the soul of man, they cannot feel any regret,
when adverting to its necessary consequences in its application to
other churches and sects, without being self-convicted of positive
inconsistency; they must adhere to their principle of exclusive
intolerance, in spite of all the odium it may cast on their theory
of belief. And this stern and steady adherence to a principle
which compels them, as by the force of a Divine law, to prefer
fraternizing with the Papacy, with all its arrogant claims, its
assumed prerogatives, and its repugnant ceremonial regulations,
rather than fraternize with their Protestant brethren who contend
earnestly for the pure faith of the New Testament, is to me a
conclusive proof that their theory of belief is anti-Christian in
its character and tendency, as the unerring test may be applied to
_principles_ as well as to _persons_--'_If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his_,' Rom. viii. 9."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"If we are to receive the doctrine of
apostolical succession as correct, we must then admit as a fact
what to every reflecting mind will appear most incongruous and
extraordinary. The theory held by our Tractarian clergy in common
with the Romish Church, is, That each bishop, from the apostolical
times, has received in his consecration a mysterious gift, and also
transmits to every priest in his ordination a mysterious gift,
indicated in the respective offices by the awful words, 'Receive
the Holy Ghost;' that on this the right of priests to assume
their functions, and the preternatural grace of the sacraments
administered by them, depends; that bishops, once consecrated, are
invested with the remarkable property of transmitting the gift
to others; that this has been the case from the primitive age
till now; that this high gift has been incorruptibly transmitted
through the hands of impure, profligate, heretical ecclesiastics,
as ignorant and flagitious as any of their lay contemporaries;
that, in fact, these gifts are perfectly irrespective of the moral
character and qualifications both of bishop and priest; and reside
in equal integrity in a Latimer or a Bonner--a virtuous man or a
profligate--an imbecile or a genius."
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"I believe, Sir," said he, addressing the Rev.
Mr. Roscoe, "you were once a strenuous advocate of this theory
of apostolical succession; will you permit me to ask you a few
questions, which may tend to expose its gross absurdity--its
shameless jugglery to magnify the glory of an ambitious priesthood,
who evince more zeal and devotion in behalf of their own order than
they do for the purity and spiritual triumphs of the Christian
faith?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"Yes, Sir; I confess, with some degree of
shame, that I once entertained the belief that some mysterious gift
was transmitted from the bishop to the priest at the time of his
ordination."
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"Was this gift, in your opinion or belief,
transmitted to the intellect or to the heart, or to both? Or in
other words, did it give additional acuteness to your intellectual
faculty--extend the range of your knowledge of Divine truth, or did
it increase the purity of your soul, and raise your affections to a
higher pitch of devotional feeling?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"To be candid, Sir, I took for granted the truth
of the doctrine as to the mysterious transmission of a mysterious
something; but when I reflected on it, as I sometimes did, even
before I was rescued from the meshes of Tractarian delusions, I
felt as though my mind were revolving in a circle: I could see
nothing; I could feel nothing. I was the same man in knowledge, in
intelligence, in taste, and in devotional feeling, after the solemn
words, _Receive the Holy Ghost_, were uttered, as I was before they
fell from the lips of the bishop."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"It amounts then simply to this, and it is of no use
to attempt to disguise the fact, that what is deemed the _essential
part_ of the ordination service, is either a solemn farce, or it is
a positive reality, and in that case it must be received without a
particle of evidence in its support. The bishop who transmits the
gift is not conscious that he possesses what he pretends to give;
and the person who receives it is not conscious of receiving it at
the time it is imparted: both the giver and receiver are in the
same condition of unconsciousness, during the mysterious process of
giving and receiving the inexplicable and inconceivable something,
on which the authority of the priest to officiate, and the vital
efficacy of all his ministrations, are made dependent. This is
most marvellous! more like an extravagant invention to answer some
special device, than a sober reality of Divine appointment."
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"I have no doubt but a scrupulous and
conscientious clergyman will sometimes feel a painful degree of
perplexity when musing on the very mysterious process of bestowing
and receiving this gift, so essential to the identity of his
priestly character, and the vital efficacy of his official labours;
and should he begin to doubt, as possibly he may, whether the
bishop actually bestowed on him the gift, or whether he actually
received it, his doubts must remain, and will very likely increase
and multiply, because no living oracle, or conclusive evidence, or
logical reasoning can afford him any relief. Though I am not very
fond of introducing caustic irony in the discussion of such a grave
question, yet the following paragraph from the _Review_ already
quoted may not be inappropriate:--
"'We can imagine the perplexity of a presbyter thus cast in doubt
as to whether or not he has ever had the invaluable 'gift' of
apostolical succession conferred upon him. As that 'gift' is
neither tangible nor visible, the subject neither of experience
nor consciousness--as it cannot be known by any 'effects' produced
by it--he may imagine, unhappy man! that he has been regenerating
infants by baptism, when he has been simply sprinkling them with
water. 'What is the matter?' the spectator of his distractions might
ask. 'What have you lost?' 'Lost!' would be the reply; 'I fear I
have lost my apostolical succession; or rather, my misery is, that
I do not know and cannot tell whether I ever had it to lose!' It is
of no avail here to suggest the usual questions--'When did you see
it last?' 'When were you last conscious of possessing it?' What a
peculiar property is that, of which, though so invaluable--nay, on
which the whole efficacy of the Christian ministry depends--a man
has no positive evidence to show whether he ever had it or not!
which, if ever conferred, was conferred without his knowledge; and
which, if it could be taken away, would still leave him ignorant
not only when, where, and how the theft was committed, but whether
it had ever been committed or not! The sympathizing friend might
probably remind him, that as he was not sure he had ever had it, so,
_perhaps_, he still had it without knowing it. '_Perhaps_,' he would
reply, 'but it is certainty I want.' Such a perplexed presbyter, and
doubtless there are many such, is in a regular fix; and there he
must remain, calling on his idols for help, but, like the priests of
Baal, calling in vain, as there is no power in heaven above, or in
the earth beneath, which can rescue a man from the terror of his own
delusions, till the delusions themselves are abandoned as visionary
and absurd.'"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"This question of apostolical succession, when
cleared of its legendary mysticism, and brought within the pale
of sober reality, may be employed as a very cogent argument in
confirmation of the historic truthfulness of the Christian faith
and its institutions, in refutation of some of the objections of
infidelity. 'The existence of such an order of _men as Christian
ministers_, continually from the apostles to this day, is perhaps,'
as Archbishop Whately remarks,[36] 'as complete a moral certainty
as any historical fact can be; because it is plain that if, at the
present day, or a century ago, or ten centuries ago, a number of men
had appeared in the world, professing (as the clergy do now) to hold
a recognized office in a Christian church, to which they had been
regularly appointed as successors to others, whose predecessors, in
like manner, had held the same, and so on, from the times of the
apostles--if, I say, such a pretence had been put forth by a set of
men assuming an office which no one had ever heard of before, it is
plain that they would at once have been refuted and exposed. And as
this will apply equally to each successive generation of Christian
ministers, till we come up to the time when the institution was
confessedly new--that is, to the time when Christian ministers were
appointed by the apostles, who professed themselves eye-witnesses
of the resurrection--we have a standing monument in the Christian
ministry of the fact of that event as having been proclaimed
immediately after the time when it was said to have occurred. This,
therefore, is fairly brought forward as an evidence of its truth.'"
[36] Whately on the _Kingdom of Christ_, p. 180.
_Rev. Mr. Guion._--"Yes, Sir, the unbroken succession of the
ministerial order, from the times of the apostles till now, is,
in my opinion, an irrefutable evidence that Christianity took
its rise at the period of its asserted origin, and that we have
the _essential substance_, at least, of the same faith which the
apostles established in Jerusalem, Ephesus, and other places; and
that this same faith is administered by a distinct order of men,
whose business it is, and ever has been, to propagate it and hand
it down to the next generation succeeding them. As an argument of
confirmation and defence in relation to the historic certainty of
our faith and its institutions, it is of great value and importance;
but, as Whately very justly remarks in his incomparable _Essays_,
Successionists are guilty of a fallacy in the use which they make
of it--'The fallacy consists in confounding together the unbroken
apostolical succession of _a Christian ministry generally_, and the
same succession in an unbroken line of _this_ or _that individual
minister_.' The existence of the order may be traced up to the
times of the apostles; but this supplies no evidence in proof that
each, or any one minister of the order now living is a legitimate
descendant, in the genealogical line, from either of the two
favourite apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul. And hence the argument,
which is a splendid triumph to Christianity, is a dumb oracle to
Tractarianism."