O my God! a ray of the same light fell on us both at that moment; but for her it was the pure, calm [pg 467] light of the dawn; for me it was like a flash of lightning which gives one glimpse of the shore, but does not diminish the darkness of the coming night or the danger of the threatening storm.
To Be Continued.
Anglican Orders.[100] I.
Canon Estcourt's book is, in all respects, a most remarkable one, and can hardly fail to make an era in the controversy. It is a monument, not merely of successful research, but of that intimate acquaintance with a very complicated and difficult subject which nothing but the assiduous labor of years can give. It is perfectly calm and judicial both in its tone and in its conclusions; for learning, like charity, is long-suffering. It does not contain, we believe all parties will admit, a single instance of overstrained or ad captandum argument, whilst moving with measured pace to its unassailable conclusions. So studiously gentle has Canon Estcourt been throughout in his language, and so scrupulous in his choice of weapons, that we can hardly wonder if some of his Catholic readers are startled as though the trumpet had given an uncertain sound, and if Anglicans, like the executioner's victim in the story, hardly know at first that the fatal blow has been struck.
The scope which Canon Estcourt proposes to himself (p. 3) is to ascertain the value of Anglican pretensions to orders as judged by the standard of Catholic theology. Anglicans have professed themselves anxious that the Holy See should reconsider their case. They insist that the practice of ordaining converts from the Anglican ministry who aspire to the priesthood is, upon Catholic principles, inconsistent with any real knowledge of the history of Anglican ordinations.
Few things, we suppose, would surprise a Catholic more than to find that the authorities of the church had been pursuing a course in regard to Anglican orders which, though morally justified by a host of suspicious circumstances, yet was not in accordance with the real facts of the case. Still, such a misfortune, however improbable, is not inconceivable. There is nothing incompatible with the principles of the Catholic faith in the supposition that the Holy See may have been practically misled in a matter of historical evidence, where such misleading could involve no misrepresentation of truth and no fatal mischief. It would have been otherwise had a formal decision been given upon any point of doctrine, as, for instance, the validity of this or that form; or, again, if the decision, though merely practical in its form, yet, like the admission of Greek orders at Florence, had held an integral portion of church life dependent upon its correctness.
We think Canon Estcourt has proved that Anglican orders, regarded in the light of the latest research into their documentary history, are thoroughly untrustworthy; and that any reconsideration of their case by the authorities of the church could only result in a confirmation of the ancient practice. He shows, 1st, that the consecration, under any form, of Parker's consecrator, Barlow, is doubtful, and that it is exceedingly doubtful if the assistance of Bishop Hodgkin at Parker's consecration would make up for the inefficiency of the consecrator. 2d. That, although certain deficiencies in the Anglican form for the priesthood, upon which various Catholic controversialists have laid stress, are not in se invalidating, yet that, regard being had to the genesis and context of the form, and to the theology of those who framed and first used it, it cannot be regarded as an implicit signification of the Catholic doctrines of the priesthood and the sacrifice—such as a form consisting of the same words might be, amongst Greeks or Abyssinians—but as an implicit denial of the same. Thus the Anglican form is substantially different from any form which the church has accounted as even probable, and is quite inappropriate for conferring the “potentiam ordinis.”
Before proceeding to examine Canon Estcourt's treatment of the two main points of the question, the status of Parker's consecrator, and the value of the Edwardine form, it will be well to consider an objection that may be brought against him from the Catholic side. It may be urged that, in his anxiety to do justice to his opponents, he has allowed them to assume a better position than they have any right to occupy. Anglicans owe the assumed assistance of a duly consecrated bishop at Parker's consecration, and the assumed use of a form as Catholic as the Edwardine, to the assumed correctness of the Lambeth Register. This document records that on the 17th of December, 1559, Parker was consecrated at Lambeth, according to the rite of Edward VI., by Barlow, Coverdale, Scory, and Hodgkin. Of these, Coverdale and Scory had been consecrated by undoubted bishops, using the Edwardine rite; Hodgkin by an undoubted bishop, using the Catholic rite. This Register was first produced by Francis Mason in 1616; and even Canon Estcourt, whilst granting the truth of its main statements, denies that it can be accepted as “an authentic and contemporaneous account of the facts as they occurred.” On the other hand, there is a time-honored account which has long passed current amongst Catholics, and which still finds able and zealous defenders amongst their number.[101] According to this account, at a meeting held at the Nag's Head inn in Chepeside, Scory alone performed the ceremony upon Parker and sundry other ordinandi, by laying the Bible upon their head or shoulders, and saying, “Take thou authority to preach the word of God.” Here, whatever may be said of the consecrator, the form is confessedly insufficient.
Canon Estcourt, following Lingard and Tiernay, simply rejects the Nag's Head account as controversially worthless, and accepts that given by the Lambeth Register as substantially correct. We think that he is amply justified in so doing. Of course, however, each account must stand upon its own basis, and the rejection of the one does not involve the admission of the other.