The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

CHAPTER X.

HOLY ORDER.

The Second Sacrament of Perpetuation is Holy Order. As the Sacrament of Marriage perpetuates the human race, so the Sacrament of Order perpetuates the Priesthood. Holy Order, indeed, perpetuates the Sacraments themselves. It is the ordained channel through which the Sacramental life of the Church is continued.

Holy Order, then, was instituted for the perpetuation of those Sacraments which depend upon Apostolic Succession. It makes it possible for the Christian laity to be Confirmed, Communicated, Absolved. Thus, the Christian Ministry is a great deal more than a body of men, chosen as officers might be chosen in the army or navy. It is the Church's media for the administration of the Sacraments of Salvation. To say this does not assert that God cannot, and does not, save and sanctify souls in any other way; but it does assert, as Scripture does, that the Christian Ministry is the authorized and ordained way.

The Threefold Ministry.

In this Ministry, there are three orders, or degrees: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. In the words of the Prayer Book: "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that, from the Apostles' time, there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons".[[1]]

(I) BISHOPS.

Who was the first Bishop? Jesus Christ, "the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls". When, and where, was the first Ordination? In the Upper Chamber, when He, the Universal Bishop, Himself ordained the first Apostles. When was the second Ordination? When these Apostles ordained Matthias to succeed Judas. This was the first link in the chain of Apostolic Succession. What followed? In apostolic days, Timothy was ordained, with episcopal jurisdiction over Ephesus; Titus, over Crete; Polycarp (the friend of St. John), over Smyrna; and then, later on, Linus, over Rome. And so the great College of Bishops expands until, in the second century, we read in a well-known writer, St. Irenaeus: "We can reckon up lists of Bishops ordained in the Churches from the Apostles to our time". Link after link, the chain of succession lengthens "throughout all the world," until it reaches the Early British Church, and then, in 597, the English Church, through the consecration of Augustine,[[2]] first Archbishop of Canterbury, and in 1903 of Randall Davidson his ninety-fourth successor.

And this is the history of every ordination in the Church to-day. "It is through the Apostolic Succession," said the late Bishop Stubbs to his ordination Candidates, "that I am empowered, through the long line of mission and Commission from the Upper Chamber at Jerusalem, to lay my hands upon you and send you."[[3]]

How does a Priest become a Bishop? In the Church of England he goes through four stages:—

(1) He is nominated by the Crown.
(2) He is elected by the Church.
(3) His election is confirmed by the Archbishop.
(4) He is consecrated by the Episcopate.

(1) He is nominated by the Crown. This is in accordance with the immemorial custom of this realm. In these days, the Prime Minister (representing the people) proposes the name of a Priest to the King, who accepts or rejects the recommendation. If he accepts it, the King nominates the selected Priest to the Church for election, and authorizes the issue of legal documents for such election. This is called Congé d'élire, "leave to elect".

(2) He is elected by the Church. The King's nominee now comes before the Dean and Chapter (representing the Church), and the Church either elects or rejects him. It has power to do either. If the nominee is elected, what is called his "Confirmation" follows—that is:—

(3) His election is confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, according to a right reserved to him by Magna Charta. Before confirming the election, the Archbishop, or his representative, sits in public, generally at Bow Church, Cheapside, to hear legal objections from qualified laity against the election. Objections were of late, it will be remembered, made, and overruled, in the cases of Dr. Temple and Dr. Gore. Then, if duly nominated, elected, and confirmed,—

(4) He is consecrated by the Episcopate. To safeguard the Succession, three Bishops, at least, are required for the Consecration of another Bishop, though one would secure a valid Consecration. No Priest can be Consecrated Bishop under the age of thirty. Very carefully does the Church safeguard admission to the Episcopate.

Homage.

After Consecration, the Bishop "does homage,"[[4]] i.e. he says that he, like any other subject (ecclesiastic or layman), is the King's "homo". What does he do homage for? He does homage, not for any spiritual gift, but for "all the possessions, and profette spirituall and temporall belongyng to the said ... Bishopricke".[[5]] The temporal possessions include such things as his house, revenue, etc. But what is meant by doing homage for spiritual possessions? Does not this admit the claim that the King can, as Queen Elizabeth is reported to have said, make or unmake a Bishop? No. Spiritual possessions do not here mean spiritual powers,—powers which can be conferred by the Episcopate alone. The "spiritual possessions" for which a Bishop "does homage" refer to fees connected with spiritual things, such as Episcopal Licences, Institutions to Benefices, Trials in the Ecclesiastical Court, Visitations—fees, by the way, which, with very rare exceptions, do not go into the Bishop's own pocket!

Jurisdiction.

What is meant by Episcopal Jurisdiction? Jurisdiction is of two kinds, Habitual and Actual.

Habitual Jurisdiction is the Jurisdiction given to a Bishop to exercise his office in the Church at large. It is conveyed with Consecration, and is given to the Bishop as a Bishop of the Catholic Church. Thus an Episcopal act, duly performed, would be valid, however irregular, outside the Bishop's own Diocese, and in any part of the Church.

Actual Jurisdiction is this universal Jurisdiction limited to a particular area, called a Diocese. To this area, a Bishop's right to exercise his Habitual Jurisdiction is, for purposes of order and business, confined.

The next order in the Ministry is the Priesthood.

(II) PRIESTS.

No one can read the Prayer-Book Office for the Ordering of Priests without being struck by its contrast to the ordinary conception of Priesthood by the average Englishman. The Bishop's words in the Ordination Service: "Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God," must surely mean more than that a Priest should try to be a good organizer, a good financier, a good preacher, or good at games—though the better he is at all these, the better it may be. But the gift of the Holy Ghost for "the Office and Work of a Priest" must mean more than this.

We may consider it in connexion with four familiar English clerical titles: Priest, Minister, Parson, Clergyman.

Priest.

According to the Prayer Book, a Priest, or Presbyter, is ordained to do three things, which he, and he alone, can do: to Absolve, to Consecrate, to Bless.

He, and he alone, can Absolve. Think! It is the day of his Ordination to the Priesthood. He is saying Matins as a Deacon just before his Ordination, and he is forbidden to pronounce the Absolution: he is saying Evensong just after his Ordination, and he is ordered to pronounce the Absolution.

He, and he alone, can Consecrate. If a Deacon pretends to Consecrate the Elements at the Blessed Sacrament, not only is his act sacrilege and invalid, but even by the law of the land he is liable to a penalty of £100.[[6]]

He, and he alone, can give the Blessing—i.e. the Church's official Blessing. The right of Benediction belongs to him as part of his Ministerial Office. The Blessing pronounced by a Deacon might be the personal blessing of a good and holy man, just as the blessing of a layman—a father blessing his child—might be of value as such. In each case it would be a personal act. But a Priest does not bless in his own name, but in the name of the Whole Church. It is an official, not a personal act: he conveys, not his own, but the Church's blessing to the people.

Hence, the valid Ordination of a Priest is of essential importance to the laity.

But there is another aspect of "the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God". This we see in the word

Minister.

The Priest not only ministers before God on behalf of his people, but he ministers to his people on behalf of God. In this aspect of the Priesthood, he ministers God's gifts to the laity. If, as a Priest, he pleads the One Sacrifice on behalf of the people, as a Minister he feeds the people upon the one Sacrifice. His chief ministerial duty is to minister to the people—to give them Baptism, Absolution, Holy Communion; to minister to all their spiritual needs whenever, and wherever, he is needed.

It is, surely, a sad necessity that this ministerial "office and work" should be so often confused with finance, doles, charities, begging sermons, committees, etc. In all such things he is, indeed, truly serving and ministering; but he is often obliged to place them in the wrong order of importance, and so dim the sight of the laity to his real position, and not infrequently make his spiritual ministrations unacceptable. A well-known and London-wide respected Priest said shortly before he died, that he had almost scattered his congregation by the constant "begging sermons" which he hated, but which necessity made imperative. The laity are claiming (and rightly claiming) the privilege of being Church workers, and are preaching (and rightly preaching) that "the Clergy are not the Church". If only they would practise what they preach, and relieve the Clergy of all Church finance, they need never listen to another "begging sermon" again. So doing, they would rejoice the heart of the Clergy, and fulfil one of their true functions as laity.

The Parson.

This is one of the most beautiful of all the clerical names, only it has become smirched by common use.

The word Parson is derived from Persona, a person. The Parson is the Person—the Person who represents God in the Parish. It is not his own person, or position, that he stands for, but the position and Person of his Master. Like St. Paul, he can say, "I magnify mine office," and probably the best way to magnify his office will be to minimize himself. The outward marks of respect still shown to "the Parson" in some places, are not necessarily shown to the person himself (though often, thank God, they may be), but are meant, however unconsciously, to honour the Person he represents—just as the lifting of the hat to a woman is not, of necessity, a mark of respect to the individual woman, but a tribute to the Womanhood she represents.

The Parson, then, is, or should be, the official person, the standing element in the parish, who reminds men of God.

Clergyman.

The word is derived from the Greek kleros,[[7]] "a lot," and conveys its own meaning. According to some, it takes us back in thought to the first Apostolic Ordination, when "they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias". It reminds us that, as Matthias "was numbered with the eleven," so a "Clergyman" is, at his Ordination, numbered with that long list of "Clergy" who trace their spiritual pedigree to Apostolic days.

Ordination Safeguards.

"Seeing then," run the words of the Ordination Service, "into how high a dignity, and how weighty an Office and Charge" a Priest is called, certain safeguards surround his Ordination, both for his own sake, and for the sake of his people.

Age.

No Deacon can, save under very exceptional circumstances, be ordained Priest before he is 24, and has served at least a year in the Diaconate.

Fitness.

This fitness, as in Confirmation, will be intellectual and moral. His intellectual fitness is tested by the Bishop's Examining Chaplain some time before the Ordination to the Priesthood, and, in doubtful cases, by the Bishop himself.

His moral fitness is tested by the Publication during Service, in the Church where he is Deacon, of his intention to offer himself as a Candidate for the Priesthood. To certify that this has been done, this Publication must be signed by the Churchwarden, representing the laity, and by the Incumbent, representing the Clergy and responsible to the Bishop.

Further safeguard is secured by letters of Testimony from three Beneficed Clergy, who have known the Candidate well either for the past three years, or during the term of his Diaconate.

Finally, at the very last moment, in the Ordination Service itself, the Bishop invites the laity, if they know "any impediment or notable crime" disqualifying the Candidate from being ordained Priest, to "come forth in the Name of God, and show what the crime or impediment is".

Why all these safeguards? For many obvious reasons, but specially for one. Priest's Orders are indelible.

The Indelibility of Orders.

Once a Priest, always a Priest. When once the Bishop has ordained a Deacon to the Priesthood, there is no going back. The law, ecclesiastical or civil, may deprive him of the right to exercise his Office, but no power can deprive him of the Office itself.

For instance, to safeguard the Church, and for the sake of the laity, a Priest may, for various offences, be what is commonly called "unfrocked". He may be degraded, temporarily suspended, or permanently forbidden to officiate in any part of the Church; but he does not cease to be a Priest. Any Priestly act, rightly and duly performed, would be valid, though irregular. It would be for the people's good, though it would be to his own hurt.

Again: by The Clerical Disabilities Act of 1870, a Priest may, by the law of the land, execute a "Deed of Relinquishment," and, as far as the law is concerned, return to lay life. This would enable him legally to undertake lay work which the law forbids to the Clergy.[[8]]

He may, in consequence, regain his legal rights as a layman, and lose his legal rights as a Priest; but he does not cease to be a Priest. The law can only touch his civil status, and cannot touch his priestly "character". That is indelible.

Hence, no securities can be superfluous to safeguard the irrevocable.

Jurisdiction.

As in the case of the Bishops, a Priest's jurisdiction is twofold—habitual and actual. Ordination confers on him habitual jurisdiction, i.e. the power to exercise his office, to Absolve, to Consecrate, to Bless, in the "Holy Church throughout the world". And, as in the case of Bishops, for purposes of ecclesiastical order and discipline, this Habitual Jurisdiction is limited to the sphere in which the Bishop licenses him. "Take thou authority," says the Bishop, "to preach the word of God, and to minister the Sacraments in the congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto." This is called Actual Jurisdiction.

The Essence of the Sacrament.

The absolutely essential part of Ordination is the Laying on of Hands (1 Tim. iv. 14; Acts vi. 6; 2 Tim. i. 6). Various other and beautiful ceremonies have, at different times, and in different places, accompanied the essential Rite. Sometimes, and in some parts of the Church, Unction, or anointing the Candidate with oil, has been used: sometimes Ordination has been accompanied with the delivery of a Ring, the Paten and Chalice, the Bible, or the Gospels, the Pastoral Staff (to a Bishop),—all edifying ceremonies, but not essentials.

(III) DEACONS.

A Deacon is a server. The word comes from the Greek diakonos, a servant, and exactly describes the Office. Originally, a permanent Order in the Church, the Diaconate is now, in the Church of England, generally regarded as a step to the Priesthood. This is a loss. But it is as this step, or preparatory stage, that we have to consider it.

Considering the importance of this first step in the Ministry, both to the man himself, and to the people, it is well that the laity should know what safeguards are taken by the Bishop to secure "fit persons to serve in the sacred ministry of the Church"[[9]]—and should realize their own great responsibility in the matter. First, there is the age.

(1) The Age.

No layman can be made a Deacon under 23.

(2) The Preliminaries.

The chief preliminary is the selection of the Candidate. The burden of selection is shared by the Bishop, Clergy and Laity. The Bishop must, of course, be the final judge of the Candidate's fitness, but the evidence upon which he bases his judgment must very largely be supplied by the Laity.

We pray in the Ember Collect that he "may lay hands suddenly on no man, but make choice of fit persons". It is well that the Laity should remember that they share with the Bishop and Clergy in the responsibility of choice.

For this fitness will, as in the case of the Priest, be moral and intellectual.

It will be moral—and it is here that the responsibility of the laity begins. For, in addition to private inquiries made by the Bishop, the laity are publicly asked, in the church of the parish where the Candidate resides, to bear testimony to the integrity of his character. This publication is called the Si quis, from the Latin of the first two words of publication ("if any..."), and it is repeated by the Bishop in open church in the Ordination Service. The absence of any legal objection by the laity is the testimony of the people to the Candidate's fitness. This throws upon the laity a full share of responsibility in the choice of the Candidate. Their responsibility in giving evidence is only second to that of the Bishop, whose decision rests upon the evidence they give.

Then, there is the testimony of the Clergy. No layman is accepted by the Bishop for Ordination without Letters Testimonial—i.e. the testimony of three beneficed Clergymen, to whom he is well known. These Clergy must certify that "we have had opportunity of observing his conduct, and we do believe him, in our consciences, and as to his moral conduct, a fit person to be admitted to the Sacred Ministry". Each signature must be countersigned by the signatory's own Bishop, who thus guarantees the Clergyman's moral fitness to certify.

Lastly, comes the Bishop himself, who, from first to last, is in close touch with the Candidate, and who almost invariably helps to prepare him personally in his own house during the week before his Ordination.

It will be intellectual. In addition to University testimony, evidence of the Candidate's intellectual fitness is given to the Bishop, as in the case of Priests, by his Examining Chaplains. Some months before the Ordination, the Candidate is examined, and the Examiner's Report sent in to the Bishop. The standard of intellectual fitness has differed at various ages, in different parts of the Church, and no one standard can be laid down. Assuming that the average proportion of people in a parish will be (on a generous calculation) as twelve Jurymen to one Judge, the layman called to the Diaconate should, at least, be equal in intellectual attainment to "the layman" called to the Bar.

It does sometimes happen that evidence is given by Clergy, or laity, which leads the Bishop to reject the Candidate on moral grounds. It does sometimes happen that the Candidate is rejected or postponed on intellectual grounds. It does, it must, sometimes happen that mistakes are made: God alone is infallible. But, if due care is taken, publicly and privately, and if the laity, as well as the Clergy, do their duty, the Bishop's risk of a wrong judgment is reduced to a very small minimum.

A "fit" Clergy is so much the concern of the laity, that they may well be reminded of their parts and duties in the Ordination of a Deacon. For, as Dr. Liddon says, "the strength of the Church does not consist in the number of pages in its 'Clerical Directory,' but in the sum total of the moral and spiritual force which she has at her command".

[[1]] "The Threefold Ministry," writes Bishop Lightfoot, "can be traced to Apostolic direction; and, short of an express statement, we can possess no better assurance of a Divine appointment, or, at least, a Divine Sanction." And he adds, speaking of his hearty desire for union with the Dissenters, "we cannot surrender for any immediate advantages the threefold Ministry which we have inherited from Apostolic times, and which is the historic backbone of the Church" ("Ep. to the Philippians," p. 276, later ed.).

[[2]] The Welsh Bishops did not transmit Episcopacy to us, but rather came into us.

[[3]] In a book called Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, Bishop Stubbs has traced the name, date of Consecration, names of Consecrators, and in most cases place of Consecration, of every Bishop in the Church of England from the Consecration of Augustine.

[[4]] The Bishops are one of the three Estates of the Realm—Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and Commons (not, as is so often said, King, Lords, and Commons). The Archbishop of Canterbury is the first Peer of the Realm, and has precedency immediately after the blood royal. The Archbishop of York has precedency over all Dukes, not being of royal blood, and over all the great officers of State, except the Lord Chancellor. He has the privilege of crowning the Queen Consort.

[[5]] Cf. "Encyclopedia of the Laws of England," vol. 11, p. 156; and 25 Hen. VIII, cap. 2, s. 6.

[[6]] 14 Car. II, c. 4, s. 10. See Phillimore's "Ecclesiastical Law," vol. 1, p. 109.

[[7]] But see Skeat, whose references are to [Greek: klêros], "a lot," in late Greek, and the Clergy whose portion is the Lord (Deut. xviii. 2, 1 Pet. v. 3, cf. Acts i. 17). The [Greek: klêros] is thus the portion rather than the circumstance by which it is obtained, i.e. Acts i. 17 rather than Acts i. 26.

[[8]] For example: farming more than a certain number of acres, or going into Parliament.

[[9]] Ember Collect.