On the apostolical succession / Parochial lectures, second series

by William J. Irons

Now we do not in the least question that all this, taken in connexion with the Internal excellence of The Volume, is very good evidence for the generality to rely on. It is just as good as, or perhaps better than, they can get for any fact of history, or common knowledge, or daily life. It is not demonstration—but it is sufficient, probable evidence—such as men take and act upon in every other matter, without thinking it a hardship, or unsafe. And we affirm that this is just the kind and amount of evidence which any man in this country may have either for the Apostolic Sacraments, or the Apostolic Ministry of the Church. He knows that his Church is the Church of his forefathers; and that they were baptized in it by her Ministers, before meeting-houses were thought of; that the learned and the good have abounded in it, as all allow; and that even those who depart from it, generally retain some similar outward forms both of Sacraments and Ministry, though (consciously and candidly) they own them to be then without any necessary grace in them. So that he regards his Church as a FACT borne witness to on all hands; a sure and stable REALITY. Over and above all which, there is an Internal evidence also of Catholic Truth, which the humble and obedient surely possess at length. (John vii. 17.) For the Catholic Church teaches that the Baptismal grace of Regeneration, if watered by prayer and holy teaching, will at length expand into a certainty of persuasion of Her sacred institutes, (Prov. iv. 18; 2 Tim. i. 12.) which heresy will labour vainly to destroy. A blessed feeling, akin to the indestructible reverence of a child for its Mother, from whose lips the first words of prayer were learned, and the first peaceful hopes of heaven.

But, going beyond this case, take that of a man who can enter with sufficient care into the literary evidences of the truth of the Bible. If skilled in its languages, he will go at once to the printed editions of the originals. Then he must inquire, from what manuscripts the received text was printed? And he will find it stated, that that of the New Testament, for instance, is one of about the year eleven or twelve hundred. And for that fact he has to rely on the critical skill of certain scholars and editors, some of whom saw the manuscript, and thought it to be of that age. But next comes the question: where are the ORIGINAL manuscripts? And it then appears that they are lost. Then where are the copies first taken? or even soon taken, from the manuscripts? and it seems that these are lost too. How then is he to prove that the manuscript from which our New Testament is translated is a faithful copy of what was written nearly eighteen hundred years before, and so unfortunately lost? He has thereupon a laborious task before him. He must trace, for instance, the various quotations in the writings of the Fathers of the Church; and then compare them with some early translations. In connexion with which, he might observe the reverence with which Holy Scripture is always treated in the primitive writings; and that the exact names of all the Sacred Treatises are preserved alike, in various places. And by pursuing these and kindred methods, he will at length arrive at a strong probable conclusion as to the genuineness and authenticity of the Holy Volume: a conclusion continually accumulating in power and becoming at last morally irresistible, and practically equivalent to a demonstration. He sees, in fact, that there are certain phenomena which can be explained by one hypothesis, and one only, and that therefore that one must be admitted. The actual state of Christian literature can only be explained on the supposition of the existence of some such Divine treatises as our New Testament at the close of the first century.

Now all this examination of evidence, satisfactory as it is in the result, is very far from being that easy and off-hand way of “proving the truth of the Scriptures” which untaught people vaguely imagine to be possible and even necessary. A similar series of remarks might be made on the verification of the Sacraments of the Church, as being the same as those originally instituted by our Lord, and ever practised by His people. But, passing now to our immediate subject, it will not be difficult to see that the Apostolicity of the Ministry, if fairly examined with equal patience, admits of the SAME kind of proof, as either the Sacraments or the Scriptures of the Church. Indeed there scarcely seems a possibility of any traditive truth being supported by stronger evidence than we have for the fact of the Succession; so that if this be not true, it appears impossible to say what proof we could ever have to substantiate any such fact.

So far back indeed as any genuine general records of past events exist, we may boast that our Apostolical records exist. So that during these latter, which may be called the literary ages of the world, we may trace the existing record of the Succession in our principal dioceses for many centuries. But this is not the kind of evidence which we could speak of, as so abundantly satisfactory; nor could we esteem it so, even if it reached to the Apostles’ days, and were cleared of all those doubts of its genuineness, which we before alluded to. (page [47].) It would not be satisfactory, for this simple, though little thought of reason, namely, That a Succession of Bishops in one See, is not and cannot ordinarily be, a succession of one and the same Apostolical line. So that if, for example, we should produce a list of every Archbishop of Canterbury to the very first, who was consecrated by a French Bishop, and should then add the name of every one that had preceded that French Bishop in his see, up to the Apostles’ days, still we should not have proved the existence of any One line of Apostolical descent. No single line of Succession confined to a single Church is possible. Every newly ordained Bishop in every See comes of a new line; and that a threefold line, as we shall presently notice. In addition to which, it should be borne in mind, that the Succession was transmitted in many lines, even from the beginning. Endeavour to examine these points more in detail.

We learn from Eusebius, that the Apostles selected various parts of the world as the separate fields of their labour. And wherever there was an Apostle, there was one who had the power (which he did not neglect to use) of transmitting the grace of the Ministry of Christ; consequently there must have been several lines of Ministerial Succession from the first. Probably every Apostle ordained some, as “overseers,” “presidents,” of Churches; and so became an originator, not of one, but of several, lines of Apostolical grace. If each of the Twelve had ordained but one, there would still have been twelve such lines Apostolical: but since the indefatigable Apostles doubtless did much more than this, there must have been many Ministerial lines, from the very first. We are putting ourselves therefore in a very false position when, in arguing with Romanists, we allow them tacitly to assume, as they seem to do, that there was but one line of Apostolic Ministration transmitted from the beginning. But this error will be more apparent by examining farther.

Let us endeavour to look at the case both historically and practically, that so we may see not only its past, but also its present bearings. In so doing we may be led to understand its principle more clearly. When, at any time, a Bishopric might become vacant in the Church, and a new Bishop was to be consecrated thereto by the “laying on of hands,” by whom was this solemn rite to be performed? Take, for example, a Bishop of Antioch. He dies, and a new one is to be consecrated.—Who is to do it?—Several, probably, unite in “laying hands on him” with prayer and fasting. (Acts xiii. 3.) Suppose one of them to be the Bishop of Alexandria; then the next question must be—Who consecrated him? and those who were his coadjutors at Antioch? And it might take us to as many different Churches to decide this point, as there were Bishops at that consecration. By the laws and practice of the Church, [58] it is necessary for three Bishops, if possible, to be present and unite in the Consecration of every new Bishop. Now suppose another of the three, in the case just given, to have been a Bishop of Rome; then to trace the Apostolical Succession we must proceed to ask, who consecrated that Bishop of Rome?—Not the previous Bishop of Rome; for he, probably and almost invariably, would be dead before his Successor was appointed. Then, of course it must needs be some foreign Bishop, assisted by two others from different parts of Christendom. And then the question would widen still farther, as each of their ordinations would have to be examined. And so the inquiry would have to proceed, widening from Bishop to Bishop, and from Church to Church, till we might arrive, if possible, at the first Apostolic consecration of at least one of the long line, through which the manifold grace had flowed. Except in the case of the translation of a Bishop from one See to another (a practice unsanctioned by primitive antiquity) it would never happen that the same line of Succession would be at all continued in any one Church, even during two succeeding Episcopates. And, even in that case, it would be mingled with the Succession of the two other Bishops, who had joined in the new consecration. Hence a Succession of Bishops in any one Church is not a Succession of the same spiritual line of descent. Nay, if we had no more to allege than the line of the Bishops of a particular Church, even though we could enumerate them quite up to the Apostles, we should not have proved a valid Succession. But rather the reverse; because it must have been very possible that some one, or more, of the line might have died suddenly, before the ordaining of the Successor; in which case the Succession would be lost, unless some other Church were applied to. It is plain that no particular Church, whether in Constantinople, Canterbury, or Rome, can pretend to possess an exclusive line of Apostolic grace. It is plain that no Church can be strictly said to “derive its orders” from another. And it only evinces a want of thinking, for any man to say, for example, “that such and such a Church derives its orders from the Church of Rome.” Every one must have observed the false position in which English Churchmen have allowed themselves to be put, by overlooking this simple point. They have thus admitted, practically, that the Church of Rome had a private line of Apostolical Succession, of which she could impart to others!—forgetting that the Bishop of Rome himself is necessarily indebted to the Bishops of three other Churches for his own consecration. [60] The Succession is and must be Catholic, coming through all the Bishops of the Holy Church throughout all the world. And in this lies our security. Just as our persuasion of the genuineness of the Scriptures arose, not from our seeing the originals, or the earliest copies, but from the united testimony and criticism of Christian men; so our conviction of the validity and necessity of the Succeeding Ministry results from a like Catholicity of testimony. Here too, as with the Scriptures, we have unquestioned phenomena, (the whole history of the Catholic world,) which can only be explained by admitting the fact. The Church of Rome has no more preserved our Orders, than she has our Bibles. And in this fact lies our chief security, that no particular Church, in Rome or elsewhere, has the Succession in its keeping, so as to be able either to keep it, or fatally corrupt it; for it is Catholic.

And further: That very intricacy of the interwoven Catholic line, which renders it so impracticable a thing to trace the individual private Succession of any Bishop upwards to the Apostles, gives it an amassed mightiness, and hitherto uncalculated strength, when tracked downwards from the beginning. The twelve Apostles began it, by ordaining the first Bishops; and when in the very next generation the practice became established, of three Bishops assisting at every fresh consecration, it was at once morally impossible to pervert, or intercept the grace Apostolical. In the very next generation any three Bishops who came to a fresh Ordination, would each bring a three-fold Succession, so as to convey the Grace which had flowed through nine different Churches. The difficulty of failure would thence be still further augmented in the next generation, and the next. And what would be even at so early a stage, a moral impossibility, would needs go on accumulating from age to age. So that if at any time by any possibility, the Church’s vigilance was defeated, and one of the ordaining Bishops was of doubtful Apostolicity, there were two more united with him, and so preserving the grace of the institute. [62a] This was in accordance with the very first of the extant Apostolical Canons, [62b] which enacts, “Let a Bishop be ordained by two or by three Bishops” (and the larger number was almost invariably required). The strictness with which this was kept up, is borne witness to alike by Fathers, [63a] and Councils, and Historians, from the very beginning. And if this were not unequivocally and universally the case, (as it certainly is, so as to make quotation and reference seem like affectation,) it would be easy to bring abundant and overbearing evidence of another kind. For the watchful care and pains of all the Churches in the matter of Ordinations is just as notorious, as that Christianity existed and prevailed in the world. The very faults of the early Christians, no less than their virtues, contributed to secure the Succession. Far indeed from lethargy were those times. Abounding heresies, mutual jealousy, and religious zeal, all combined to augment the Church’s watchfulness. And, above all, the vigilantly sustained Discipline, by which the whole community was so interwoven, that the greatest and smallest affairs of Christian concern were alike communicated to the whole body. Not only would any new ordination be known in each of the three Churches from which the ordaining Bishops came; but it was very presently notified also to the Metropolitans [63b] by Episcopal letters. And beyond this, the election of a Bishop was a matter well known, and publicly canvassed. It was not a thing which (like the Canon of Scripture) might have been for a time kept to themselves, by the learned. No, the common people knew perfectly of the transaction. An infraction of an Apostolic rule, even in a minor point, was clamorously echoed from Church to Church, so that it was rarely ventured on; much less would it be suffered in any important thing. Even evil men in their day were obliged to conform to the outward rules of the faithful; or they found an universal outcry against them. The State had then nothing to do with the matter; and the people (such was their temper and disposition) would have thought of owning a heathen for a Bishop, as soon as a man not duly ordained. Nay, there was even a holy emulation among the Churches; in consideration of which we might in a qualified sense, admit an additional kind of sacredness and certainty, so to speak, in the Succession of those Episcopates, which were noted for peculiar carefulness; as in the Ante-Nicene times that of Alexandria appears to have been.

So was it from the first.—And in every subsequent generation of Christians, as we thus see, the intricacy of the Succession, and consequently the difficulty of breaking it, would be more and more intensely augmented; as if indeed utterly defying the unfaithfulness or fraud of man to set it aside. Whatever else has at any time been charged against the Catholic Church, it has never been said, that she failed in duly Ordaining her Bishops; and even if this could be shown, still a failure in one part would not touch the rest. [65a] To break up the Succession of the Apostolic Ministry nothing less, indeed, seems to be required than a self-destroying conspiracy of the Church Universal.

We possess then all the Evidences of this illustrious fact, which human testimony can furnish, or human industry bring together. Universal witnesses to support it; and not one against it.—Scriptures,—Canons,—Councils,—Fathers,—and Churches,—the learned and the common people—all evidencing one thing; and even heretics and infidels not denying it as fact;—a fact too, which they are forced to see has gathered and still shall gather fresh mightiness, as centuries roll on! [65b] For on the heads of the present Bishops of the Church Universal, there rests the concentrated grace of all the Apostles. And this One Institute—the Ministry of Christ now stands, [66] as at first Divinely set up, an abiding monument of the truth, that He who determined by the “weakness” and “foolishness” of preaching to save them that believe, has manifested that the “foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men.”—The things which man in all his wisdom contrived, eighteen hundred years ago, are departed like shadows. What God ordained remains, and shall “till the consummation of the world.”

Would that the thought of this stupendous grace might ever dwell with each Bishop of the Church Universal, that those words of promise which are the charter of the perpetuity, and the power which Christ hath given might accompany them, as if ever and anon spoken by a heavenly voice,—to elevate, console, and awe their inmost spirit,—“Lo, I AM WITH YOU!”—Nay, what thoughts of glory and majesty may well possess us all! when, putting aside the thankless debates, and presumptuous questionings of men, there rises before our mind’s eye the august vision of the “whole family in heaven and earth;” existing as for ever One to The Omniscient Eye, yet mysteriously passing through the long and varying successions of time, age after age; ministered unto throughout, by One succeeding Priesthood, [67] ever subsisting “after the power of an endless life,” and so holding together all the members of the eternal family, the living and the dead, in mystic fellowship and communion, even reaching to a “fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ!” Seems it not too great a thought for mind of man to take in, in all its sublime fulness?—And has it not some holy influence, forcing from us the exclamation of felt unworthiness—‘Alas! for what we are,—and what we should be?’—It is as if (with earth’s pollutions yet unwashed from our spirits) we were borne upwards in vision even “to heaven-gate,” and bidden by the Angel of an Apocalypse to look in, and see, though from far, the eternal wonders, behold the forms of distant glory, and feel, though but for a moment, the thrilling air of heaven’s own Holiness.