II.
At the close of the fourth Lecture I have made some observations on the Intention of the Church Catholic, as constituting, in a measure, the essence of the validity of certain of Her Ordinances. It will be difficult to clear this statement from the possibility of misrepresentation, and even misapprehension: I would request that what I have said at p. [128], &c. may be re-read and considered. The Doctrine of Laying on of hands is recognized in Scripture; but there is no command of Christ concerning this, in the same way that there is a command concerning Baptism and the Eucharist. It seems an institute of the Apostles and the Primitive Church; and may perhaps be looked on as an instance of the early exercise of the Church’s inherent power and grace; for the institute certainly received the sanction of Scripture, before the close of the Sacred Canon. So that it would be impossible to say how dangerous it might not be, to depart from the Church’s Ordinance of Laying on of hands. I trust therefore that none will imagine, that what is here said can fairly be made to sanction the loose notion, that any part of the Church Catholic can now voluntarily originate and ordain a Ministry in a new way; and without imposition of hands. The uncertainty, not to say peril of presumption in any such case, will be quite sufficient to guard against the fatal folly of such a thought. How far the grace of the Apostolate is ordinarily now allied even to the very act of “laying on of hands,” it may be impossible to say; still it is important in many respects to observe, that the Laying on of hands is not so strictly of the nature of a proper sacrament, as that the divine grace is always necessarily allied to that form of ordination exclusively. There is advantage in considering that in theory it may not be so, though there could be no safety or certainty in deliberately acting on such a doubtfully understood theory.
Even the Roman Controversialists do not agree that the Laying on of hands is the specifically Sacramental act;—the outward form to which only of necessity the inward grace is allied. Though I cannot help thinking that it would much benefit their argument, if they were agreed on this point. The Doctrine which attributes the essence of Ordination to the uniform Intention of the Church Catholic may be, of course, very easily cavilled at; but still even the Romanist must, to a certain extent, rely on some such Doctrine, and such a Doctrine is that, perhaps, which alone will harmonize the conflicting Roman theories. In its very nature it is a Doctrine which admits not of strict definition. It rises simply out of the truth, that the gifts of Christ were to the Church, and not primarily or inherently in individuals, as such.
This theoretical conception of these ordinances will serve greatly to assist us in meeting a theoretical difficulty, not unfrequently brought against the Doctrine of the Succession. It is said: ‘Is it not very conceivable, after all that has been urged, that during the long course of ages, in some countries at least, some one break in the Apostolic chain might have occurred? Is it not a consequence, in that case, that all subsequent Ordinations would be very doubtful?’ To which we reply, ‘Point out the fact.’ We challenge you to find it; a bare supposition can have but little force as an argument. And then, supposing the fact to be discovered, That a certain Bishop had obtained his place in the Church by invalid means—what is the consequence? Could he perpetuate such an invalid Succession? Certainly not; for in Ordaining others, he would be associated with two other Bishops, whose valid grace would confer true Orders, notwithstanding the inefficacy of the third coadjutor in the Ordination. But, putting the case at the very worst, even if such an instance could be found, it would only affect the condition of the single Church over which the nominal Bishop presided; and that only so far as the particular functions of that Bishop were concerned; and it would be corrected at his death. And all this may be urged in reply even by Romanists. But we who deny Holy Orders to be a proper Sacrament of Christ, can add more than this. We suggest, that in the case of a Bishop obtaining his place in the Church by some invalid means, which the Church had mistaken for valid, the Church’s INTENTION might avail sufficiently, for the time being at least, to counteract the effects of man’s sin; and so give value even to the ministrations of the Church which had been so severely visited, as to have such a Bishop set over them. So we meet the theoretical difficulty by a theoretical answer.