Here, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies. The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them, disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the articles and liturgy. The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the articles which form their real confession of faith should be imposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a crisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must come a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving the field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is not the first crisis which has occurred in the history of Anglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank cartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found that nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants will retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than ever. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in the direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body will quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church which claims (according to some of its members—the Pan-Anglican Synod, for example) to be a part of the Catholic Church, is not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and one is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful diagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following conclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore, before their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all points of the controversy, while, before the Christian world, their opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The Episcopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever war against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in both liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only reasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that they who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system properly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with it. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial observer.
1. The Episcopalians have a right to reform their services whenever they choose, and are at perfect liberty to agitate the question. By the constitution of their own church, they have the power to alter, change, or modify both their liturgy and their creeds. Did not the Church of England do this on several occasions? Has not the American Episcopal Church done it also? Did she not materially alter the prayer-book, leaving out, for example, both the form of absolution, and also the Athanasian Creed? That which has been done can surely be done again, especially in a body which disclaims infallibility, and is, therefore, sure of nothing, and is ever on all points open to progress. Here it seems to us that the high-churchmen have no ground on which to stand. They cannot assert that anything their church teaches is the voice of God, because she expressly tells them that she has no authority. They cannot hold any reasonable theory of ecclesiastical pretensions, because, by doing so, they would unchurch themselves. A church ought to know its own powers, if it have any. They may have their own opinions, and press them as such; but they have no right to lord it over the consciences of their brethren who disagree with them, as if they (the actual minority) were the church rather than their more numerous opponents. Their fathers whose "godly admonitions" they seek to follow, surely never meant to cast their "incomparable liturgy" in an iron mould. Besides, in sober common sense, all the extravagancies of the low-churchmen are nothing compared to the doings of the extreme ritualists, who have so metamorphosed the service that no uninitiated Episcopalian could ever recognize it. Think of changing every rubric, and engrafting upon the common prayer the actual ceremonies and even the words of the Roman missal. We understand that few of the signers of the union manifesto are opposed to these advances of ritualism, and that many of them are ready to hear confessions or celebrate Mass when a good occasion is offered. With what face, then, can they find fault with their brethren who exercise their liberty in another direction? And inasmuch as there is a manifest inconsistency between various parts of the prayer-book, it would be well for them and for truth to have their code revised, that the world may know precisely what they do mean.
2. On the vexed question of Episcopal ordination, we are convinced that the high-churchmen are wrong, before their own communion and before the world. The reformers under whose inspirations the English Church was formed, never intended to unchurch the religious bodies of the continent with whom they were in sympathy. The words of the ordinal refer only to the rule to be adopted in the Anglican body, and do not decide at all the question of the validity of non-Episcopal orders. The twenty-third of the thirty-nine articles is so expounded by Burnet. He says that by common consent a company of Christians may appoint one of their own members to minister to them in holy things; for we are sure "that not only those who penned the articles, but the body of this church for above half an age after, did, notwithstanding irregularities, acknowledge the foreign churches, so constituted, to be true churches as to all the essentials of a church. The article leaves the matter open for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still happen. Although their own church had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law of itself."
The opinions of Cranmer, and of Barlow, the reported consecrator of Archbishop Parker, were distinctly Erastian. At a conference held at Windsor, 1547, Cranmer answers to the question, "Can a bishop make a priest?" as follows: "A bishop may make a priest, and so may princes and governors also, by the authority of God committed to them." Barlow replies, "Bishops have no authority to make priests without they be authorized by the Christian princes, and that laymen have other whiles made priests."
To the question, "Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration of a bishop or priest, or only appointing to the office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers, "He that is appointed to be a bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scriptures, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." Barlow also expresses the same sentiment. (See Stillingfleet's Irenicum, and Collier, vol. ii. appendix.)
The "judicious" Hooker undoubtedly maintains the true Episcopalian belief, that ordination by bishops is preferable, but not of absolute necessity to a church. A very able article in this Magazine, published September, 1866, (Vol. III. No. 18,) shows the truth of our view. Passages are deduced from a work called Vox Ecclesiae, which contain the high-church position, and admit that in case of necessity (which is left to the individual to determine) "orthodox presbyters may ordain." As Archbishop Parker said, "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation from all laws." The author of this article, to which we beg leave to refer our readers, shows plainly that such a doctrine "overthrows the very idea of apostolical succession, elevates human necessity above divine law, and legitimates every form of error and schism."
Before their own communion, therefore, the low-churchmen have every advantage, as they are consistent with the principles of the Reformation which brought their church into being. When Protestants desert their own platform, on what ground can they logically stand?
Secondly, before the Christian world the high-churchmen occupy a very unfortunate position. They make assertions which unchurch themselves, while they separate from their brethren, and aspire to an ecclesiastical status which they have not, which the whole world denies to them, and which they can never defend. If the apostolical succession is necessary to the existence of a church, then by the verdict of all who hold such a doctrine, they are no church; for with all their pretensions, they have it not. It has been shown over and over again, by arguments incontestable, that the ordination of Archbishop Parker, if indeed it ever took place, was wholly and entirely invalid. There is not satisfactory evidence that any ceremony of consecration was observed; there is no proof whatever that Barlow, the officiating prelate, was ever ordained; and lastly, the form used (according to the theory of the high-churchmen) was utterly inadequate to convey valid orders. What need, then, to argue further with those who will not see? If any Catholic bishop at this day should venture to consecrate with the form which they tell us was used in Parker's case, he would be subject to severe censure, and his act would be considered totally null and valueless. One would naturally suppose that the judgment of the Catholic Church on this question would be held in respect. She has preserved the ancient rite, and holds the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination; and while she considers it a sacrilege to reiterate the sacrament of orders, she reordains, without question and without condition, every English minister who, coming into her fold, aspires to the sacred priesthood. The same course has been adopted by what the Pan-Angelican Synod calls the Eastern Orthodox Church, which no more regards the Episcopalians as a church than she does the Methodists or Presbyterians. Is any more evidence required by any honest mind? If the opinion of the eastern churches is of any weight, it has been more than once given. Dr. J. J. Overbeck, a Russian priest, in a recent work on "Catholic Orthodoxy," treats at some length of the English orders, which he pronounces to be null. These are among his words:
"1. The Anglo-Catholic fathers, on the point of apostolical succession and its needfulness, held latitudinarian views, subversive of the whole fabric of the church.
2. The boasted unity or concord of Anglicans even in essentials is a specious illusion.
3. Anglo-Catholicism is genuine Protestantism decked and disfigured by Catholic spoils."
"As Parker's consecration was invalid, the apostolic line was broken off, irremediably broken off."