A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

SUBINTRODUCTÆ. (See Agapetæ.)

SUBLAPSARIANS. Those who hold that God permitted the first man to fall into transgression without absolutely predetermining his fall; or that the decree of predestination regards man as fallen, by an abuse of that freedom which Adam had, into a state in which all were to be left to necessary and unavoidable ruin, who were not exempted from it by predestination. (See Supralapsarians.)

SUBSTANCE. In relation to the Godhead, that which forms the Divine essence or being—that in which the Divine attributes inhere. In the language of the Church, and agreeably with holy writ, Christ is said to be of the same substance with the Father, being begotten, and therefore partaking of the Divine essence; not made, as was the opinion of some of the early heretics. (See Homoousion, Person, and Trinity.)

SUCCENTOR. The precentor’s deputy in cathedral churches. Sometimes this officer was a dignitary, as at York still and formerly at Glasgow, Aberdeen, Paris, &c.; and at York he is called Succentor Canonicorum, to distinguish him from the other subchanter, who is a vicar choral. In most churches however the subchanter is a vicar or minor canon, as at St. Paul’s, Hereford, Lichfield, St. Patrick’s, &c.

SUCCESSION, APOSTOLICAL, or UNINTERRUPTED. (See Apostolical Succession.) The doctrine of a regular and continued transmission of ministerial authority, in the succession of bishops, from the apostles to any subsequent period. To understand this, it is necessary to premise, that the powers of the ministry can only come from one source—the great Head of the Church. By his immediate act the apostles or first bishops were constituted, and they were empowered to send others, as he had sent them. Here then was created the first link of a chain which was destined to reach from Christ’s ascension to his second coming to judge the world. And as the ordaining power was confined exclusively to the apostles, (see Episcopacy,) no other men or ministers could possibly exercise it: from them alone was to be obtained the authority to feed and govern the Church of all future ages. By the labours of the apostles, the Church rapidly spread through the then known world, and with this there grew up a demand for an increase of pastors. Accordingly, the apostles ordained elders or presbyters in all churches; but the powers given to these terminated in themselves; they could not communicate them to others. A few therefore were consecrated to the same rank held by the apostles themselves, and to these the full authority of the Christian ministry was committed, qualifying them to ordain deacons and presbyters, and, when necessary, to impart their full commission to others. Here was the second link of the chain. For example: Paul and the other apostolic bishops were the first. Timothy, Titus, and others, who succeeded to the same ministerial powers, formed the second. A third series of bishops were in like manner ordained by the second, as time advanced, and a fourth series by the third. And here the reader will perceive what is meant by uninterrupted succession, viz. a perfect and unbroken transmission of the original ministerial commission from the apostles to their successors, by the progressive and perpetual conveyance of their powers from one race of bishops to another. The process thus established was faithfully carried on in every branch of the universal Church. And as the validity of the ministry depended altogether on the legitimacy of its derivation from the apostles, infinite care was taken in the consecration of bishops, to see that the ecclesiastical pedigree of their consecrators was regular and indisputable. In case that any man broke in upon the apostolical succession, by “climbing up some other way,” he was instantly deposed. A great part of the ancient canons were made for regulating ordinations, especially those of bishops, by providing that none should be ordained, except in extraordinary cases, by less than three bishops of the same province; that strange bishops should not be admitted to join with those of the province on such occasions, but those only who were neighbours and well known, and the validity of whose orders was not disputed. The care thus taken in the early ages to preserve inviolate the succession from the apostles, has been maintained in all Churches down to the present day. There are in existence, catalogues of bishops from our own time back to the day of Pentecost. These catalogues are proofs of the importance always attached by the Church to a regular genealogy in her bishops. And they, as well as the living bishops themselves, are proofs of the reality of an apostolical succession. It has been well remarked, that Christ Jesus has taken more abundant care to ascertain the succession of pastors in his Church, than ever was taken in relation to the Aaronical priesthood. For, in this case, the succession is transmitted from seniors to juniors, by the most public and solemn action, or rather series of actions, that is ever performed in a Christian Church; an action done in the face of the sun, and attested by great numbers of the most authentic witnesses, as consecrations always were. And we presume it cannot bear any dispute, but that it is now more easily to be proved that the archbishop of Canterbury was canonically ordained, than that any person now living is the son of him who is called his father; and that the same might have been said of any archbishop or bishop that ever sat in that or any other episcopal see, during the time of his being bishop.

Such then is uninterrupted succession; a fact to which every bishop, priest, and deacon, in the wide world, looks as the ground of validity in his orders. Without this, all distinction between a clergyman and a layman is utterly vain, for no security exists that heaven will ratify the acts of an illegally constituted minister on earth. Without it, ordination confers none but humanly derived powers.

The following acute observation occurs in Morgan’s “Verities:”

The succession of Canterbury from Augustine, A. D. 597, to Tillotson, 1691, includes seventy-nine archbishops, giving each an average reign of less than fourteen years. The view in which some persons, opposed to the indispensability of the apostolic succession, try to place it—as a single chain of single links, from some one single apostle, of which one link, wanting or broken, breaks the succession—if very contrary to the facts to be illustrated, is yet very original. Grant each apostle to have founded twenty churches, here are at least, ab origine, two hundred and forty successions apostolically commenced. Considering how these have reproduced themselves a thousand-fold, and that each episcopal link succeeded the last as publicly as kings their predecessors, the “one chain” is not a very fortunate comparison.

SUFFRAGANS. The word properly signifies all the provincial bishops who are under a metropolitan, and they are called his suffragans, because he has power to call them to his provincial synods to give their suffrages there.

The name is also used to denote a class resembling the chorepiscopi, or country bishops, of the ancient Church. (See Chorepiscopus.)