On the apostolical succession / Parochial lectures, second series

by William J. Irons

III.
THE OBJECTIONS.

From the Epistle. [69]—“Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one towards another, according to Christ Jesus. That ye may with One mind and One mouth glorify God.”—Rom. xv. 5.

Our object in the present Lecture will, I trust, be the same as that of the Apostle’s prayer in these words . . .

To confirm the truth of a doctrine, it cannot be supposed necessary to answer all objections and difficulties which ingenuity might raise, for in that case, perhaps, no doctrine would ever be established at all. But when any particular truth has been reasonably set forth and defended, it is a kind of farther recommendation of it with the many to show, that it is not in reality surrounded by such serious difficulties as might, at first sight, be supposed. Of course it is not right in any man to suspend his belief of a proved truth, simply because it seems to be attended by some difficulties; still we must deal with human nature as we find it; and the majority do not appear to have that bold and honest mind which will maintain right principles in defiance of all obstacles. Neither have they that lofty faith in God which will trust Him in the face of seeming improbabilities. Therefore, surely, it is a Christian thing to endeavour, now as far as we are able, to remove such difficulties as obstruct the faith of some, concerning the Ministry of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: only premising that our object here is not to prove the truth, but to facilitate its reception. The truth of the Apostolical Succession, being confirmed by foregone proof, cannot, however, be affected by the measure of our success in clearing up difficulties.

It would be a very vain waste of time to attempt to answer many light and frivolous objections; for so far as they are really stumbling blocks to any, they will soon be removed when the doctrine itself is at all understood. Necessarily there will seem to arise from time to time numberless minor points which, however, any man whose judgment is worth convincing would soon be able to explain for himself. In such proportion as a man apprehends the truth, or, if I may so express it, perceives the spirit and scope of the Catholic Religion, he will come to see, at a glance, the answer which, on Catholic principles, would be given to such and such difficulties. This is the Divine reward of an abiding humble faith.

The common and most influential Objections may admit of a two-fold classification; according as they arise from certain supposed difficulties in the Fact, and in its consequences—or in the Doctrine, and its consequences. And we will at once proceed to consider, first, some difficulties thought to be historically and practically connected with the Fact of the Succession, and its consequences.

The Objection which requires, perhaps, the least trouble and information to make, (and from its indistinctness is rather difficult to grapple with,) and which, therefore, is more frequently employed than any other, is founded on a charge of general and fatal Corruption of Christianity in the middle ages. Granting, it is said, the fact, that there was an unbroken Succession of Bishops in the Church Catholic from the beginning, still the gross and palpable corruption which so extensively pervaded the Church for ages, was quite sufficient to rob the Succession of all spiritual value. Now this wide and gratuitous assertion might fairly be met by asking the objector—how he comes to know this?—How he comes to be so sure that personal human corruption would wholly obstruct the super-human grace of a Divine institution? How he arrives at such a certainty that the grace of God is not mightier than the sin of man? How he can be so sure that “where sin abounded,” grace did not “much more abound?” At the best, his objection rests on an unproved assumption in principle—an assumption too, directly at variance with our experience of God’s past dealings with man; as the history of the Jewish people bears witness. It would be difficult, as we remarked in our last Lecture, to find any parallel in the history of the Christian Church to the godless impieties of the Jewish, during four hundred years previous to Christ’s coming, and yet the anointing oil of the Priesthood was not inefficacious, nor even the Prophetical gifts withdrawn, up to the time of the Advent. Even Christ’s persecutor Caiaphas “prophesied, being High Priest that year.” It is, therefore, quite unsatisfactory, at the least, to take for granted in this way, that general Corruption would have totally destroyed the grace of Apostolic Succession. The utmost that can, with any show of fairness, be pretended is, that it might have done so: and even this ought surely to be proved and not barely assumed as it here is. And even supposing that this were proved, then there would be one thing more to be shown, namely, that the amount of corruption in the Church had really, in point of fact, reached that height, which would overwhelm the grace of Her instituted Ministry. And how this could be certainly proved, even if true, it seems hard to say. In the nature of things, it would ever remain a point uncertain to man, and known to God alone. Our objectors, therefore, must assume this point too. And without, perhaps, being much justified in their assumption by the facts of history. For while a lofty moral sense is recognized among men, and so long as humility and self-devotion to God, and disinterested, even though untaught, zeal, are reckoned Christian virtues,—so long, in spite of party misrepresentations, will the great body of our Christian forefathers, lay and clerical, in the middle ages bear honourable comparison with us their overweening children. There is more of the spirit of pride than the spirit of Christ—more of party vanity than of Catholic generosity—more of historical ignorance than of philosophical wisdom, in these self-congratulatory comparisons between our meagre conflicting, though (if you will) enlightened, “systems” of Religion and the One high-minded faith, and chivalrous piety, and unsystematized benevolence of our less instructed ancestors.—At all events, the vague objections drawn from these intangible charges of general corruption, very plainly rest on two unproved assumptions—one of the principle and one of the fact. And this, perhaps, is all that is necessary to be shown. For is not the Succession itself a fact of sufficient magnitude to make us pause before we say, it is WORTH NOTHING? This undeniable fact which we allege; this Succession of Christ’s Apostolic Ministry; this, God’s sustained marvel of eighteen hundred years, is assailed by man’s bare assertion, ‘that it has been SUSTAINED FOR NOTHING.’

But from among these general charges of Corruption, there sometimes is one singled out, as of a magnitude too great to be doubtful, and to the believer in Revelation too malignant to be of questionable effect: the charge, I mean, of Idolatry. If there were nothing else, it is said, to impede the spiritual grace of the Succession, the Idolatry prevalent in the Churches of the Roman Communion would be amply sufficient. And in proof of this, the case of the Jewish Church is confidently quoted, and the fierce denunciations uttered and executed against God’s favoured people for this especial sin, beyond all others. Now here too we seem to have some unproved assumptions; as well as some false reasoning from the analogy of the Jewish people. First of all there is the assumption which we have previously noticed, namely, that there is an amount of personal human sin which fatally cuts off, or obstructs, the instituted channels of Divine grace; which has never yet been proved. Then there is the assumption that idolatry is the specific sin whose guilt would have this effect. And this may possibly be true—when the first assumption is made good—but as yet, this has not been proved. And then there is the third assumption, that the Church in the middle ages was so fully and universally guilty of this sin of idolatry, as to cut off the virtue of the Apostolic Succession for ever. And I need hardly say that this has not been proved, for it must in any case remain a doubtful point—beyond our power to settle for certain. And yet how unheedingly these three assumptions are made use of in the arguments so resolutely and thanklessly urged from the parallel circumstances of the Jews. In the first place it is assumed that the grace of the Jewish institutions was so cut off as to be lost on account of idolatry, in the times before Christ; which cannot be shown. (Rom. xi. 29.) For even if it be shown that that Divine grace was quite suspended during a season of idolatry, it would still be certain, that when the Idolatry was repented of and forsaken, the grace reflowed through the accustomed channels of the Mosaic Institutes. And in spite of all past idolatries, it had not been wholly cut off even at the time of the Coming of Christ. In the next place there is a false assumption concerning the sin of idolatry itself; which seems to have been so severely visited as it was, because it was the specifically forbidden sin, the protesting against which was one great special object of the national existence of the Jews amidst a godless world. It was not, surely, that God abhorred idol worship more than murder, or uncleanness, or injustice; but it was, that “in Judah was God to be known”—the one God—the forgotten God—amidst Gentile polytheism, until the Coming of The Great Mediator. Every Divine interference with that nation seemed to bear this as its reason, “That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”—“The Lord, He is the God! The Lord He is the God!” (Joshua iv. 24; 1 Kings viii. 42, 43; Psalm lx. throughout, &c.) Idolatry in that nation had a heinousness beyond all other sin. And great as the guilt of idolatry must ever be, yet it can hardly be called in the same sense, the specific design of the existence of the Christian Church, to protest against that sin beyond all others. And until this can be made good, the strict parallel cannot be established. In the third place, there is a further assumption of an actual analogy of sinfulness in this particular, between the Jewish and Christian Churches, which is not borne out by facts. Jewish idolatry implied a voluntary and intentional abandonment of the worship of Jehovah. Now this can in no wise be affirmed of the worst idolatry of the Romish Hierarchy. No one will say that the Churches in communion with Rome, ever intended to abandon the worship of God, for the sake of Angels and Saints. It may be safely and truly said, that their reverence paid to images, and their invocations of saints and angels, are of an idolatrous nature, and calculated to lead, and have led, to idolatry in the common people; but it would be unreasonable and untrue to say, that the sin of the Church of Rome in this matter was the same sin as that of the Jews when they deliberately abandoned the worship of God. And, therefore, we cannot argue from the one to the other.

If we thus look into this objection fairly, we must see how very little it amounts to. It depends throughout on unproved assumptions. And so far as we may take the analogy in the case of the Jewish Church, it tells directly against the objection. For there cannot be shown more, at most, than a suspension of the grace of the Mosaic Institutes. And if even Jewish idolatry, when repented of, was no impediment to the reflux of the Divine blessing, so it might be in the Christian Church, even if it could be proved universally guilty of the very sin of the Jews—which it cannot be. In different ages, and at different places, some Churches, in communion with Rome, have paid a highly sinful honour to Saints and their images. The amount of such honour has varied greatly in degree, being more or less sinful, at different times and places; yet at the worst, it was never universal, in any essentially idolatrous degree. And even if it had been, there would only (if the analogy were ever so strictly borne out) be a suspension of still latent Apostolic grace, which any branches of the Church might, on repentance, again enjoy. Far be it from us indeed to palliate the sin, or the danger, of the idolatrous practices of the present Church of Rome, but let a legitimate and not a superficial estimate thereof be made. Instead of being misled by words, let us look to principles. We are bound to protest against all which draws off the heart from the true God and only Saviour Jesus Christ; and therefore against Idolatry in all its forms. The Churches throughout the world, in communion with that of Rome, have conformed to the practices of the ungodly world in one way; but so have we in another. And as the heathenish conformities and superstitions of Romanists are condemned by St. Paul, when he forbids Christians even to “eat of things offered to idols;” so the infidel coldness and individual selfishness of many Protestants are equally condemned, when we are bidden to flee from covetousness, “which is idolatry.” Whether, with some, we make idols of a particular Church and the Saints,—or with others, make idols of Private Judgment and Mammon, we are alike guilty. Let there be no rude, impatient haste in judging of any Christians. So long as God bears with us, we may well bear with one another. Idolatry, worse than the Romish, was sanctioned by some of the Churches of Asia. But still they were addressed as “Churches.” That very sanction of actual heathen idolatry, which the Churches had been warned against, they were guilty of allowing. Of both Pergamos and Thyatira it is said in sharp rebuke, that they permitted some among them “to eat of things offered to idols,” which almost amounted to an admission of those heathen gods. And yet, as Churches still, they are warned to “repent and do the FIRST works,” lest God should be provoked to “remove their candlestick out of his place.” So it was not removed as yet.—While the Church Catholic endures perpetually, God cuts off from time to time its irrecoverably corrupt branches. But it is for God, not us, to do it. And with this, let us dismiss the Objection concerning Idolatry.

One further Objection which we shall notice, as connected with the Fact of the Succession, is that which is urged, though in very different senses, against our own Church in particular, by Romanists on the one hand, and Sectarians on the other; both anxious to deny us the possession of that grace of Apostolical Ministry, which the former desire to monopolize, and the latter to set at nought altogether. ‘If (say they with somewhat of ambiguity of expression) the Succession is in the Church Catholic, they who are in a state of Schism, cannot be considered to possess it.’ Now if we were to admit this position exactly as they state it, they would then have to prove us Schismatics, with respect to the Church Catholic, before they could, on this ground, invalidate our Succession. But, in truth, the objection ought to be a little more carefully looked into. The sin of Schism admits of various degrees. Of course, if it be clearly made out that any part of the Church is (not partly torn only, but) totally severed from the Body Catholic, it follows, that that part has not that Sacramental grace which the Church alone possesses. But it is certain that in its fullest sense, even Romanists, acknowledging, as they do, Lay-baptism, could not thus cut off as totally Schismatic, all who are not of their communion;—all the Churches of the East, and of the farthest West—The American, the Scotch, and our own. And the Sectarians cannot, for very shame, deny us a place in the Universal Church. That very liberality which they need for their own sakes will afford us some shelter too. And as to the special charge of heinous Schism urged against us in the particular matter of our Reformation; if we admit it, as fully, as any party can afford to urge it, it could not go the length of invalidating our Orders Apostolical. The Church Catholic anathematized us not; but only the Bishop of Rome, who had not any right or power so to do, [81a] but was himself Schismatical and Anti-christian in attempting it; as St. Irenæus might have taught him. The Church Catholic we would have been content to be judged by. [81b] We appealed to a General Council, and after wearisome denial and delay, and artifice, they offered us the mockery of Trent. About a hundred and fifty years after our Reformation, we were recognized as a Church by the Greek Church: [82a] though the attempt to unite us with them in one Communion unhappily failed. At the time of our Reformation, notwithstanding much temptation, much carelessness, and much sin, our Apostolical Succession seemed marvellously guarded, as by a heavenly hand. The documents are as plain, the facts as sure, as history, invidiously sifted, can make them; so that the candid Romanist and the learned Jesuit cannot deny them. Let any one examine it for himself. Any man, who will deal fairly with facts, will be obliged to own that there have been greater confusions and Schisms [82b] in the see of Rome itself, than in the see of Canterbury.—But they who go the length of affirming a cessation of Apostolic grace in any particular Church or branch of a Church on the ground of total Schism, from the whole body of Christ, must excuse us if we ask them for proof of their assertion; and tell them, that until it is proved, we must treat it as a pure (though a very convenient) assumption.