Brussels, Belgium.
Anglican Orders. II.
The Validity Of The Edwardine Rite.
Before entering upon the theology of the question, we must meet an initial objection of Anglicans to our attempting to criticise the Edwardine rite. They insist that the question has been settled long ago, and in their favor, by no less an authority than the Holy See and its legate, Cardinal Pole. The cardinal, they say, in accordance with instructions from Rome, admitted all the schismatical bishops and clergy, who were not irreconcilables, in the orders they had received in schism, whether according to the Pontifical or according to the Edwardine rite. Great stress has been laid upon this by Anglican controversialists from Bramhall down to Mr. Haddan; and certainly, if it be a true statement of the case, the value of the objection can scarcely be overrated. Its truth must be decided by an appeal to the Papal briefs and to the official acts of the legate.
The bull of March 8, 1553-4, granting full legatine faculties to Pole, authorizes him to deal with two classes of the bishops and clergy—viz., of the clergy, those who have not received orders at all, and those who have received them ill; that is to say, orders null and orders irregular (ordines quos nunquam, aut male susceperunt). The bishops, in like manner, who have received cathedral churches from Henry or Edward are divided into those on whom “the gift of consecration has been heretofore conferred,” and “those on whom it is not yet conferred” (munere consecrationis eis hactenus impenso vel si illud eis nondum impensum exstiterit). The cases in which the ordination or consecration had been validly though irregularly conferred are also described as “received from heretical or schismatical bishops, or in other respects unduly” (quod iis ab episcopis hæreticis et schismaticis aut alias minus rite et non servatâ formâ ecclesiæ consuetâ impensum fuit). By these last words power is given “to consider cases in which the ancient form of the sacrament had not been observed, and, if the form used was sufficient for validity, to admit it as such, and to admit a person ordained in such a manner to exercise the orders so received.”
Canon Estcourt shows that the “minus rite” cannot be intended to designate, as Mr. Haddan and others have maintained, the Edwardine orders. He appeals to the dispensations granted to no less than eight bishops, all ordained according to the Pontifical in Henry VIII.'s time, wherein their orders are referred to as received “ab episcopis hæreticis et schismaticis aut alias minus rite.”
In the faculties granted by Pole to his bishops for the absolution and rehabilitation of priests, he carefully explains their limitation to cases in which “the form and intention of the church have been preserved.” Thus it is clear “that though the cardinal had power to recognize ordinations in which some departure had been made from the accustomed form, yet that, on examination, he found no other form in use which could be admitted by the church as valid.” In the same faculties he permits the ordination, if they are otherwise fit, of [pg 611] those whose orders are “null.” He describes them as persons holding benefices without being ordained.
In 1554, Bonner, Bishop of Bath and Wells, gave a commission to his vicar-general “to deal with married laics who, in pretence and under color of priestly orders, had rashly and unlawfully mingled themselves in ecclesiastical rights, and had obtained de facto parochial churches with cure of souls and ecclesiastical dignities, against the sacred sanctions of the canons and ecclesiastical rights, and to deprive and remove them from the said churches and dignities.” It is impossible to conjecture who else these unordained beneficiaries can be, if they are not the Edwardine clergy.
Anglicans, on the other hand, have made a great deal of a certain testimonial letter granted by Bonner to Scory, which speaks of the latter's sin and repentance, and of his subsequent rehabilitation by Bonner, and restoration to the public exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry within the diocese of London. As Scory is spoken of as “our confrère, lately Bishop of Chichester,” it is urged that the ministry to the exercise of which he was restored must have been that of a bishop. Canon Estcourt, after pointing out certain grounds for suspecting the authenticity of this letter, remarks that Bonner's faculties only extended to the case of priests, “so that Scory must have acknowledged the nullity of his consecration, in order to enable Bonner to deal with him at all”; and, after all, “the letter does no more than enable him to celebrate Mass in churches within the diocese of London”—in fact, to exercise that office, and that office only, which he had received “servatâ formâ et intentione ecclesiæ.” So much for the Holy See's approval of the Edwardine orders.