"On December 20th, 1912, the Bishop of Madras delivered an informal speech to the members of the National Conference of Missionaries, at Calcutta. This created in India and elsewhere a considerable amount of sensation. As in that speech he referred to something which the present writer had written and to an article in the Church Quarterly Review by Dr. Frere,[#] and as his speech has been very widely misunderstood, I think I may be allowed to refer briefly to the points he raised. The views which he propounded were those which I had put forward in the 'Prayer Book Dictionary,' and I should like to be allowed to quote them again:
[#] "The Reorganisation of Worship," by W. H. Frere, D.D., Superior of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield (Church Quarterly Review, October, 1912).
"If we combine the Patristic theory of Orders with the rule of ordination, we shall be able to put the idea of Apostolic Succession into its right place. It is really a deduction from the right theory of Orders, and the mistake has been to make Orders depend upon Apostolic Succession and transmission.
"The authority to consecrate and ordain, or to perform all spiritual offices, resides in and comes from the Church to which God gives His Holy Spirit. From the beginning this work of the Church has been exercised by those who have received a commission for it, and the rule of the Church has been that that commission should always be given by those who have received authority from others with a similar commission. The historical fact, therefore, of Apostolic Succession has resulted from the rule of the Church being always regularly carried out. If this be correct, the following further deductions may be made:
"1. The idea of 'transmission' is an additional and late conception which, instead of expressing the idea of Succession, has, by its exaggeration of it led to a rigid and mechanical theory of the Ministry.
"2. As the grace of Orders depends upon the authority of the Church and not upon mechanical transmission, all objections from supposed irregularities of ordination are beside the point, and the opinions of churchmen and others who have maintained that in certain circumstances a presbyter may ordain are explained. Ordination depends upon the authority of the Church, and not the Church upon ordination.
"3. The idea of Succession, which results from the Church's rule of ordination, is an historical fact, and not a doctrine. It represents an external connection with the first beginnings of Christianity of infinite value for the Church; and nothing should be done to break such a connection, as it acts like a link for binding together the Churches as parts of a living whole.
"4. One part of the work of Christian reunion should be to restore and secure the links of Succession throughout the whole Christian world; but no rigidity or mechanical theory of Orders need compel us to deny divine grace to those separated from us.[#]
[#] The Prayer Book Dictionary (Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1912), p. 42.
"The particular point that I wish to emphasise is that there are two things to be separated—the one the rule of the Church, the other the theory of that rule. I do not believe that it would be possible on any Catholic principle to depart from the rule of the Church with regard to Orders; I should go further and say that I believe that no real reunion would ultimately be possible except on the basis of that rule. At the present time, however, continuous emphasis is laid on the theory of Orders, and that theory is often put as an extreme form of a mechanical conception of the Apostolic Succession. Now it is quite true that from the beginning Bishops have been looked upon as 'the successors' of the Apostles, but I can find no authoritative interpretation of that phrase other than that they perform at the present day those functions of the Apostles which were not miraculous or extraordinary.[#] Neither the formularies of the Church of England nor, so far as I am aware, those of any other Church, lay down any theory of ministry, and to impose, therefore, any such theory on the Church is to depart from Catholic tradition.