Reprinted from THE A VE MARIA, for

August and September, 1898.

K& pSTM? c2-

A CITY OF CONFUSION

THE CASE OF DR. BRIGGS

BY

THE REV. HENRY G. GANSS

AUTHOR OF " MARIOLATRY: NEW PHASES

OF AN OLD FALLACY."

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA:

THE AVE MARIA.





A CITY OF CONFUSION.

THE CASE OF DR. BRIGGS.

HEN John Ruskin, in one
j£ / of his oracular moods, declares

that "the English liturgy was

evidently drawn up with the

amiable intention of making religion as

pleasant as possible to a people desirous

of saving their souls with no great de-

gree of personal inconvenience," * we are

momentarily at a loss to know whether

he is speaking apodictically or lapsing

into a bit of satirical pleasantry. All the

same, he gives expression to an epigram

that almost possesses the force of a

truism with ecclesiastical students. The

compliant flexibility of the Protestant

Episcopal Church, to use its official desig-

nation, has not only become the boast of

its leading adherents, but, by a common

consensus, the distinctive mark of its

existence. Its reluctance to yield to the

unbending logic of history in its true

attitude to the so-called Reformation; its

dexterity in minimizing and explaining

* "Letters to the Clergy."

rjs Special

Mscti



2 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

its confessions of faith, "trying to clothe

them in an orthodox dress, and to smoothe

down whatever bears the look of nov-

elty "; its vagueness and indefmiteness

in enunciating its doctrinal formularies

—

"stammering lips of ambiguous formula-

ries,"—have made it not only a source
of amazement and no little suspicion to

Protestant investigators, of perplexity not

unmixed with mild diversion to Catholic

students, but keen anxiety, if not profound

sorrow, to sincere Anglicans.

Doctrinal mobility necessarily destroys

the foundation of doctrinal certainty ; and

where doctrinal certainty is imperilled,

Christian unity can not exist. "There

is one God and one Christ," says St.

Cyprian; "and His Church is one and the

faith one and the people one, joined in

the solid unity of one body by the cement

of concord."
*

Macaulay may have been guilty of

one of those glittering generalizations in

which the judiciousness of the reviewer

is lost in the brilliancy of the rhetorician,

when he claims that it is hard "to endure

with patience the spectacle of a hundred

sects battling within one church." All

the same, he stands on unassailable ground

when he premises the assertion that

* De Unitate Kccles., tin. 6-23.



A city ov confusion. 3

"unity" the Episcopal Church "most

certainly has not and never had." Nor

is his logic less irrefragable when he

continues "that it is mere mockery to

attach so much importance to unity in

form and name where there is so little

in substance."*

When illustrious teachers in this

Church with imperturbable gravity main-

tain "that the Church of England had

always within herself persons of extreme

divergence of faith," and, to give this

anomalous condition at least a shadow of

plausibility, explain that this "divergence

is a thing as inevitable as having dif-

ferent countenances on different men,"f

by a natural mode of inferential reason-

ing we must conclude that St. Paul's

inflexible and impassioned advocacy of

unity of faith was more in the nature

of a mental hallucination than in the

range of a realizable achievement. Or

when another brilliant light of the

hierarchy, with some display of petulance,

argues that "in all times since the Refor-

mation the people had been allowed to

hold extreme doctrines on one side or

the other," J evidently no pretence is

made that

—

* Macaulay's Essays, vol. ii, pp. 288-291.

f Bishop Wilberforce, in The Times. I/mdon,
Oct. 10, 1867.

J Ibid.



4 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

One vast community

Known by its unity

Truly divine

was to be an infallible badge of Christ's

Church. Or when one of its apologists

sees the hand of Providence in this

Church, "which never promulgated a

doctrine or condemned a heresy," and

complaisantly philosophizes, " May we

not, then, discover traces of the all-wise

Hand in the principles of liberality which

are planted in the very bosom of our

Establishment, by this adoption of articles

that are deemed by different men to

countenance their several opinions?"*

it would be a blind fatuity not to own

that unity of faith is a kind of religious

curiosity long since relegated to the top

shelf of theological museums. Or when

one of its most recent advocates, with

unaffected zeal and critical nicety, divides

the various shades of belief in his church

into divisions and subdivisions, with all

the elaborate minuteness with which an

entomologist would classify his metabola

and hemimetabola^ one is almost tempted

* Alex. Knox, "Remains," vol, iii, p. 130.

f The Churchman, April 9, 1898, p. 529. The

High Church is divided into : "1. The Romanizing

section (very small
) ;

2. The Ritualists ( large and

active
) ; 3. The Moderate High ( the largest )

;

4. The High Broad ( small, but influential through

personal charm)." (Sic/) The High Church, which



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 5

to admit that our Blessed Lord's universal

prayer for unity has been nullified; that

the zeal, labors, and trials of the Fathers

in defence of it are a chimera; and that

we must enter an emphatic denial that

"unity is the law of Truth, ... that evil

dissociates and separates, and holiness

unites because it draws to God ; . . . that

unity becomes the evidence of the presence

of God, disunion a witness to the presence

of evil."*

"The failure of Christianity to realize

the ideal of our Saviour," says Dr. Briggs,

"can not be any other than sinful. The

organization and perpetuation of divisive

measures in the Church are sins which

should not be condoned,"f

But may it not be urged that this

"divergence of doctrine," these "extreme

views," these "principles of liberality,"

do not affect the integrity of the Church,

influence its credenda, or concern its

formularies or doctrinal pronouncements?

If Bishop Colenso in confessing that he

"could believe and receive the miracles

of Scripture heartily, if only they were

* Grant, " Bampton Lectures," p. 65.

f Reformed Quart. Rev., 1896, p. 306.

the writer contends "holds the field," is classified

in a more generic way by the Church Herald ( Nov.

13, 1869), as a party "mainly in the hands of advent-

urers or directed by brainless "sentimentalists."



6 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

authenticated by a veracious history,"

and a shining light of the bishop's

church makes the admission that "it is

probably true that ninety per cent of our

bishops to-day believe and teach the

views for which Bishop Colenso was

deposed " ; * if Matthew Arnold is singled

out as a champion to whom "churchmen

above all should not be willing to ignore

their debt of gratitude . .
.

, who gave so

long and so unselfishly to the defence of

the Establishment the noblest resources

of his mind and heart," f and yet the

most frenetic infidel never uttered more

blistering blasphemies
; J if the Rev. G. C.

Gorham in denying baptismal regenera-

tion, and the highest ecclesiastical tribunal

of the church sustaining him ; if Frederic

Denison Maurice in accepting a public

expression of thanks "for questioning and

denying eternal punishment"; if Arch-

* Dr. S. D. McConnell in The Churchman, Feb.

5, 1898.

t Ibid., March 5, 1898.

% Here is his description of the Three Persons

of the Blessed Trinity: The Father, "a sort of

infinitely magnified and improved Lord Shaftesbury,

with a race of vile offenders to deal with, whom

his natural goodness would incline him to let off,

only his sense of justice will not allow it ; then a

younger Lord Shaftesbury, on the scale of his

father, and very dear to him, who might live in

grandeur and splendor if he liked, but who prefers

to leave his home to go and live among the race



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 7

bishop Hampden in being publicly

branded by his church organ as being
u
as well known a heretic as Arms" ; if

Dr. Littledale in calling the Reformers

"utterly unredeemed villains" ; if Charles

Kingsley in extolling them as providen-

tial factors and divinely potential figures

in the church ; if L,ord Halifax, in search

of corporate reunion with Rome, insists

upon the utter exclusion of all Protestant

bodies; if Archbishop Tait, endeavoring

to effect a Christian alliance between the

Anglican Church and Spurgeon's taber-

nacle, dismisses the pretensions of Rome

and Moscow; if the Church, in setting

the seal of public condemnation on the

writers of Essays and Reviews, as being

saturated with deadly heresy, afterward

honored its leading contributor as Primate

of England ; if Queen Victoria, Supreme

of offenders, and to be put to an ignominious

death, on condition that his merits shall be

counted against their demerits ; and that his father's

goodness shall be restrained no longer from taking

effect, but any offender shall be admitted to the

benefit of it on simply pleading the satisfaction

made by the son ; and then, finally, a third Lord

Shaftesbury, still on the same high scale, who keeps

very much in the background, and works in a

very occult manner, but very efficaciously never-

theless, and who is busy in applying everywhere the

benefits of the son's satisfaction and the father's

goodness."— " Literature and Dogma," p. 306.
I/ondon edition.



8 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

head of the Church, during her visits

to Scotland, with unfailing courtesy,

religiously attends the Kirk, and receives

the Lord's Supper from the hands of a

dissenting minister; or, to come nearer

home, if the Rev. R. Heber Newton, at

All Souls' Church, New York, assails the

authenticity and inspiration of Holy

Scripture ("Holy Scripture containeth all

things necessary to salvation," Art. vi); if

the Rev. Arthur Ritchie, at St. Ignatius',

in inculcating devotion to the Mother

of God ("The invocation of saints is a

fond thing vainly invented and grounded

upon no warranty of Scripture, . . . repug-

nant to the word of God."— Art. xxii);
if the Rev. T. McK. Brown, at St. Mary

the Virgin's, teaches seven sacraments and

the Real Presence ("There are but two

sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord

in the Gospel," etc.—Art. xxv. "Christ is
figuratively in the bread and wine, and

spiritually in them that worthily eat the

bread and drink the wine ; but our Blessed

Lord is really, carnally and corporally, in

heaven alone, from whence He shall come

to judge the quick and the dead" ; * if the

Rev. A. G. Mortimer, at St. Mark's, Phila-

delphia, as a sacrificing priest offers up mass

and prays for the dead ("Wherefore the

* Cranmer, quoted in Hardwick's "History of

the Reformation," p. 209.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 9

sacrifice of the masses,* in which it was

commonly said that the priest did offer

Christ for the quick and the dead to have

remission of pain and guilt, were blas-

phemous fables and dangerous deceits."

—

Art. xxxi. "The Romish doctrine con-

cerning Purgatory ... is a fond thing

vainly invented," etc.—Art. xxii) ; if after
allowing Bishop Sessums, of Louisiana, to

teach such rampant heresy, " that eighteen

Presbyterian, seventeen Methodist, twelve

Lutheran and three Baptist ministers "f

were compelled to vindicate the common

cause of Christianity, irrespective of de-

nominational lines, in a public protest ; if

Dr. Ewer execrating his ecclesiastical pro-

genitors, the Reformers, for having "slain

the Holy Ghost, destroyed the Son,"

and calling the glorious Reformation u a

ghastly work, . . . the mother of uncome-

liness, . . . essential adultery "; if Bishop A.

Cleveland Coxe with passionate warmth

championing apostolic succession against

all assailants; if Phillips Brooks curtly

dismissing the same, for the reason "that

there is not a line in our Prayer -Book,

* The quibbling over the word ' ' masses ' ' is very

weak. The Coronation Oath administered to the

sovereign, and until recently to every bishop enter-

ing Parliament, reads : "I do believe that . . . the

sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the

Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous."

t N. Y. Sun, May 7, 1897.



IO A CITY OF CONFUSION.

there is not a word in our formularies,

which declares any such thing,"— if all
these mutually destructive, hopelessly

irreconcilable, eternally incompatible opin-

ions and teachings are mere emotional

vagaries, sentimental differences, " diver-

gencies of doctrine and extreme views,"

in which fundamental truths are not

sacrificed, and identity of principles still

preserved, then we are confronted by one

of the most stupendous and inscrutable

enigmas that ever baffled human reason,

enough to make the head reel, the mind

grow dizzy, the heart faint.

Or must we dismiss what Principal

Tulloch eulogistically styles "the com-

prehensiveness and genial width" of the

formularies, with Calvin's caustic estimate

that at best they are but "tolerable fool-

eries"

—

tolerabiles ineptiasf* Or chuckle

at the cynicism of one of the most popular

of contemporary writers when he claims

that the " Church of England drives with

an exceedingly loose rein: you can do

anything you like in it, provided you go

about it decorously"?! Or must we in

sheer exasperation abandon the study

altogether because, in the unfilial lan-

guage of one of its most illustrious sons,

the Established Church is "the most

* Epp., p. 28, torn, ix, ed. 1617.

t Harold Frederic, Cosmopolitan, May, 1898, p. 37.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. II

absurd and indefensible of all institutions

now existing in the world"?*

Who would not look upon it as the

height of temerity or a weakness of the

human intellect to attempt an irenic

fusion of the creed of Dr. Pusey and

Mr. Jowett, Archdeacon Denison and Dr.

McNeile, Dean Stanley and Baring-Gould,

Canon Farrar and Canon L,iddon, Dr.

Lee and Canon Gore; Father Ignatius,

of Uanthony Abbey, England, and Dr.

Rainsford, of St. George's Church, New

York? Easier to amalgamate the doc-

trines of John Calvin with those of

Gautama Buddha. u And the whole city

was filled with confusion."! "For He is

not the God of dissension, but of peace." J

Strange as it may seem, we have the

spectacle of one of the most revered men

in the Establishment— a man who left
a mark on its collegiate and university

life, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby—actually pro-
posing "that all sects should be united

by act of Parliament with the Church of

England, on the principle of retaining all

their distinctive errors and absurdities";

§

a scheme that no doubt Charles Kingsley,

Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, and Dean

* Macaulay, quoted in North Am. Rev., Jan.,
1858.

f Acts, xix, 29. % I. Cor., xiv, 33.

§ Ividdon's " Life of Pusey," vol. i, p. 265.



12 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

Blliot would have sanctioned and cham-

pioned. Did not this church, to use the

words of Dr. SchafT, " nurse at her

breasts Calvinistic Puritans, Armenian

Methodists, liberal Latitudinarians, and

Romanizing Tractarians ? " * Why hesitate

in having a reunion? But would this be

the Church of the Fathers, the Church

of the Apostles, the Church of Christ

—

the one, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church?

These reflections become more than

ordinarily suggestive— in fact, strut into
obtrusive prominence—in the face of an
event that has created considerable stir in

ecclesiastical circles within the last few

months. The reception into the Protestant

Episcopal Church of a man whose expul-

sion from the Presbyterian Church for

heresy, and the probable admission of

this man as a minister of the Episcopal

Church while professedly adhering with

unfaltering loyalty to the Westminster

Confession and Higher Criticism methods,

is an ecclesiastical incident, the progress

of which is watched with anxious interest,

and the denouement of which may be

attended with some unexpected surprises.

The Rev. Charles Augustus Briggs,

D. D., the hero of this episode, was

appointed to fill the newly endowed

"Creeds of Christendom," vol. i, p. 598.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 1

3

Edward Robinson chair of Biblical Theol-

ogy at Union Theological Seminary, New

York, November 11,1890. Dr. Briggs at

the time was one of the most respected,

conspicuous and commanding figures of

American Presbyterianism. He was also

one of the most profoundly learned and

daringly original advocates of the Higher

Criticism. To sound scholarship and a

veritable storehouse of solid erudition he

unites a trenchant literary style, dauntless

courage, and indefatigable industry. In his

biblical studies, following rather in the

path broken by Delitzch, Driver, David-

son, and Cheyne, than in that pursued by

Hengstenberg, Kuenen, and Wellhausen,

he finally outstripped them all, not only

in the novel and startling nature of his

conclusions, but in the combative aggres-

siveness and temerarious boldness with

which he championed them. His learning

is generally conceded, his piety remains

unassailed; his motives have not been

questioned nor his sincerity impugned.

His treatment of the Catholic Church

is characterized by manly fairness, at

times reverential sympathy, always devoid

of sectarian animus. In fact, his attitude

to the mother Church was so uniformly

fair and equitable, the trend of his

writings— abstracting, of course, from his
Higher Criticism postulates— so provok-



14 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

in*ly "Romish" as to call down upon

him no little measure of reproach from

the Protestant press ; the prediction being

pretty universally indulged that, like

Newman, Manning, Brownson, etc., his

spiritual problems would find their logical

and ultimate solution in Catholicity.

The inaugural address,* which brought

matters to a crisis, and brought Dr. Briggs

before the Presbytery of New York as an

attainted heretic, was delivered January

20, 1 89 1. It is not in the scope of this

article, nor, for that matter, has it any

relevancy to the subject, to analyze these

imputed heresies or follow the protracted

and bitterly contested trial through all

the stages of ecclesiastical procedure.

Suffice it that the action of the General

Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of

the United States of America, in session at

Washington, D. C, June 1, 1893, reversed

the judgment of the Presbytery of New

York. It finds that "the said Charles A.

Briggs has uttered, taught, and propagated

views, doctrines, and teachings contrary

to the essential doctrines of Scripture...

in violation of the ordination vow"; that

"the said erroneous teachings, views, and

does hereby suspend Charles A. Briggs . .

.

* "The Authority of Holy Scripture," Scribner,

i893.



i A CITT OF CONFUSION. 1

5

from the office of a minister of the Pres-

byterian Church."*

doctrines strike at the very vitals of relig-

ion ; . . . wherefore this general assembly . .

.

The charges on which Dr. Briggs was

suspended cover a wide ground— from
maintaining that "the Reason and the

Church are great fountains of authority,"

to denying the inerrancy and authen-

ticity of Holy Scripture, the authorship

of Isaias, and teaching a thinly - veiled

doctrine of Purgatory—progressive sancti-
flcation after death.

With the brand of a heretic (justly or

unjustly affixed concerns us not) fresh

upon his brow ; with the widespread

notoriety of his expulsion from the

Presbyterian Church still the subject of

public discussion ; with his relations as

professor in a Presbyterian theological

seminary remaining intact ; with his

biblical doctrines and opinions unmodified

and unrecalled ; with the avowal that he

still clings to the Westminster Confession

of Faith in its unimpaired integrity,—he
knocks at the portals of the Protestant

Episcopal Church, and without further

ceremony gains admission and member-

ship. Not only this, but at this moment

is preparing for priestly orders.

* "The Defence of Professor Briggs," part iii,

Scribner, 1893.



1

6

A CITY OF CONFUSION.

No wonder the religious world is in a

state of feverish expectancy, awaiting the

curtain to be raised on the next scene of

this strange and bewildering drama. No

wonder one of the most conservative and

authoritative secular papers * propounds

the question, Are Presbyterianism and

Bpiscopalianism interchangeable creeds?

This query of a secular paper inspired

the present attempt to prove that Presby-

terianism and Bpiscopalianism were really

interchangeable at the birth of the Eng-

lish Reformation
;

that Protestantism and

Bpiscopalianism were not only convert-

ible terms, but that the ordination to

which Dr. Briggs will submit was seldom

exacted ; that Anglican orders, as now

understood, were nothing more than a

repristination of pre -Reformation doc-

trine
;
and that if ancient Episcopalian

precedent were followed, Dr. Briggs would

be admitted to exercise the functions of

the ministry with as much alacrity as

he was to share the privileges of Episco-

palian membership.

What makes the status of Dr. Briggs

different from that of Saravia, Travers,

Calendrin, Allix, Du Moulin, De Laune,

De Beauvais, Primrose, the De 1'Angle

brothers, the younger Du Moulin, and

* The New York Sun.



A CITY OP CONFUSION. 1

7

many other Reformed ministers, all of

whom were admitted to benefices, treated

as "priests,'' and universally recognized

by the primates, bishops, theologians, and

universities of the Church of England

at its very establishment?

The subject as here treated may form

a supplementary chapter to a controversy

that has for years aroused much discus-

sion—we mean Anglican orders. But,
strange to say, the phase here treated, and

which Dr. Briggs' case will revive, was

almost totally ignored.

The questions which the following

anthology proposes to answer from a

purely historical point of view, availing

itself of exclusively Protestant testimony,

are: Was the Anglican Church Catholic

or Protestant in its origin? Was the

absolute, indispensable necessity of epis-

copacy, or episcopal ordination to the

ministry or priesthood, enjoined by canon,

observed by precedent, or uniformly

acknowledged in practice?

The evidence adduced represents the

verdict of Protestant historians, the consen-

tient opinion of the Anglican hierarchy,

and its authoritative exponents contem-

poraneous and immediately subsequent to

the so-called Reformation. The citations

are given without note or comment.



1

8

A CITY OF CONFUSION.

Macauxay.

"The English reformers were eager to

go as far as their brethren on the Conti-

nent. They unanimously condemned as

anti - Christian numerous dogmas and

practices to which Henry [VIII.] had

stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth

reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a strong

repugnance even to things indifferent

which had formed part of the polity and

ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus

Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at

Gloucester for his religion, long refused

to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop

Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown,

pulled down the ancient altars of his

diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be

administered in the middle of churches,

at tables which Papists irreverently

termed oyster-beds. Bishop Jewell pro-

nounced the clerical garb to be a stage

dress, a fooPs coat, a relic of the Amorites,

and promised that he would spare no

labor to extirpate such degrading absurd-

ities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated

about accepting a mitre, for dislike of

what he regarded as the mummery of

consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered

a fervent prayer that the Church of

England would propose to herself the

Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern

of a Christian community. Bishop Boner



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 1

9

was of the opinion that the word bishop

should be abandoned to the Papists, and

that the chief officers of the purified

church should be called superintendents." *

"The Church of Rome held that

episcopacy was of divine institution, and

that certain graces of a high order had

been transmitted by the imposition of

hands through fifty generations, from the

eleven who received their commission on

the Galilean mount to the bishops who

met at Trent A large body of Protestants,
on the other hand, regarded prelacy as

positively unlawful, and persuaded them-

selves that they found a very different

form of ecclesiastical government pre-

scribed in Scripture. The founders of the

Anglican Church took a middle course.

They retained episcopacy, but they did

not declare it to be an institution essential

to the welfare of a Christian society or to

the efficacy of the Sacraments. Cranmer,

indeed, plainly avowed his conviction

that in primitive times there was no

distinction between bishops and priests,

and that the laying on of hands was

altogether unnecessary." f
uThe King—such was the opinion of

* "History of England," vol. i, p. 39. Lippincott,

1878.

f Ibid., p. 41.



20 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

Cranmer, given in the plainest words

—

might, in virtue of authority derived from

God, make a priest ; and a priest so made

needed no ordination whatever. * ... In the

reign of Elizabeth, Jewell, Cooper, Whit-

gift, and other eminent doctors, defended

prelacy as innocent, as useful, as what the

state might lawfully establish; as what,

when established by the state, was entitled

to the respect of every citizen ; . . . they

regarded the Protestants of the Continent

as of the same household of faith with

themselves. . . . An English churchman

—

nay, even an English prelate—if he went
to Holland, conformed without scruple to

the established religion of Holland It

was even held that Presbyterian minis-

ters were entitled to place and voice in

oecumenical councils Nay, many Eng-

lish benefices were held by divines who

had been admitted to the ministry in the

Calvinistic form used on the Continent;

nor was reordination by a bishop in such

cases thought necessary or even lawful." f

Green. J

"England became the common refuge

of the panic-stricken Protestants. Bucer

* Ibid., p. 43.

t Ibid., p. 59.

% John Richard Green was himself an Anglican

clergyman, and for a time vicar of an East London
parish.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 21

and Fagius were sent to lecture at Cam-

bridge. Peter Martyr advocated the

anti-sacramentarian views at Oxford.*

Even the episcopal mode of government

which still connected the English Church

with the old Catholic communion was

reduced to a form ; in Cranmer's mind

the spiritual powers of the bishops were

drawn simply from the King's commis-

sion, as the temporal jurisdiction was

exercised in the King's name. They were

reduced, therefore, to the position of royal

officers, and called to hold their offices

simply as royal favors." f

"Hooper, who had been named Bishop

of Gloucester, refused to wear episcopal

habits, and denounced them as the livery

of the 'harlot of Babylon'—a name for
the Papacy, which was supposed to have

been discovered in the Apocalypse. Eccle-

siastical orders almost came to an end.

Priests flung aside their surplices as

superstitious. Patrons of livings presented

their huntsmen and gamekeepers to the

benefices in their gift and kept the

stipend." %
u The government, however,

was far from quailing before this division

of the episcopate [rejection of the new

* "History of the English People," vol. i,

p. 158.

t Ibid., p. 162. t Ibid., p. 163.



22 \ CITY OF CONFUSION.

liturgy]. Dowdall was driven from the

country; and the vacant sees were filled

with Protestants like Bale, of the most

advanced type."*

Froudb.

"The position of bishops in the Church

of England has been from the first

anomalous. . . . The method of episcopal

appointments instituted by Henry VIII.

as a temporary expedient, and abolished

under Edward VI. as an unreality, was

re-established by Elizabeth,— not cer-
tainly because she believed that the

invocation of the Holy Ghost was required

for the completeness of an election which

her own choice had already determined,

not because the bishops obtained any

gifts of grace in their consecration which

she herself respected, but because the

shadowy form of an election with a relig-

ious ceremony following it gave them

the semblance of spiritual independence

—

the semblance without the substance,

—

which qualified them to be instruments

of the system which she desired to

enforce. They were tempted to presume

on their phantom dignity, till the sword

of Cromwell taught them the true value

of apostolic descent ; and we have a right

to regret that the original theory of

* Ibid., p. 164.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 23

Cranmer was departed from; that, being

officers of the Crown, as much appointed

by the sovereign as the Lord Chancellor,

the bishops should not have worn openly

their real character, and received their

appointments by letter patent without

further ceremony.

" The Presbyterians did not resent

authority as such, but authority which

assumed a divine origin, when resting on

nothing but a congk cTelire. . . . No national

object was secured by the transparent

fiction of the election and consecration.

The invocation of the Holy Spirit either

meant nothing and was a taking of sacred

names in vain, or it implied that the Third

Person of the Trinity was, as a matter

of course, to register the already declared

decision of the English sovereign. . .

The wisest and best of its bishops have

found their influence impaired, their posi-

tion made equivocal, by the element of

unreality that adheres to them. A feeling
approaching to contempt has blended

with the reverence attaching to their

position, and has prevented them from

carrying the weight in the councils of

the nation which has been commanded

by men of no greater intrinsic eminence

in other professions. Pretensions which

many of them would have gladly aban-

doned have connected their office with a



24 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

smile. . . . The latest and most singular

theory about them is that of the modern

English neo-Catholic who disregards his

bishop's advice and despises his censures

;

but looks on him, nevertheless, as some

high-bred, worn-out animal ; useless in

himself, but infinitely valuable for some

mysterious purpose of breeding." *

Hau,am.

"It is evident, by some passages in

Strype attentively considered, that natives

regularly ordained abroad in the Presby-

terian churches were admitted to hold

preferment in England; the first bishop

who objected to them was Aylmer.

Instances, however, of foreigners holding

preferment without any ordination may be

found down to the civil wars." f " Cranmer

and some of the original founders of the

Anglican Church, far from maintaining

the divine and indispensable right of

episcopal government, held that bishops

and priests were of the same order." J

Child.

"It can be proved beyond reasonable

doubt that Episcopal orders were not

insisted upon in practice in the Church

* "History of England," vol. xii, pp. 557, 558.

f "Constitutional History of England," vol. i,

ch. vii, p. 386.

t Ibid., 388.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 25

of England as an indispensable condition

to the ministry down to the Rebellion,

or in one or two instances after it. . . . We
may trace a perfect tradition in the

English Church to the effect that the

validity of non-Episcopal orders to a whole

line of bishops, from Jewell, in the com-

mencement of Elizabeth's reign, through

Whitgift, Bancroft, Andrews, Overall,

Mirton, and Cousin."*

Fisher.

"There is no trace of such a doctrine

[apostolic succession] in 'The Apology

for the Church of England,' and in 'The

Defence of the Apology,' by Jewell, which

has been regarded by Anglicans with

just pride as a masterly refutation of

Roman Catholic accusations against their

system." f

" Near the end of Elizabeth's reign,

Hooker, in his celebrated work in defence

of the Church of England [Ecclesias-

tical Polity], fully concedes the validity

of the Presbyterian ordination Even

as late as 1618, in the reign of James I.,

an English bishop J and several Anglican

* Child (Gilbert W.), Exeter College "Church

and State under the Tudors," p. 293, et seq.

f "History of the Reformation," p. 334.

X Bishop Hall :
'

' My unworthiness was named
for one of the assistants of that honorable, grave

and reverend body."



26 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

clergymen sat in the synod of Dort,

with a presbyter for its moderator The

episcopal constitution of the English

Church for a long period put no barrier

in the way of the most free and fraternal

relations between that body and the

Protestant churches on the Continent. . .

.

Ministers who had received Presbyterian

ordination were admitted to take charge

of English parishes without a question

as to the validity of their orders."
*

Brewer.

"A bishop may make a priest by

the Scripture, and so may princes and

governors also, and that by the authority

of God committed to them. In common

with other reformers, Cranmer looked

upon all spiritual functions as absolutely

dependent on the will of the King, as

temporal commissions, like those of any

other magistrate." f

Miller.

"The theological professors at Oxford

and Cambridge were Calvinistic for

fifteen years from Elizabeth's accession.

Bucer and Peter Martyr were called

by Cranmer to the chair of divinity in

Oxford and Cambridge during the reign

of Edward. Cranmer, too, in 1552, invited

* Ibid., pp. 333-335.

f "English Studies," p 333.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 27

Calvin, Bullinger, and Melanchthon to

England to aid in drawing up a con-

fession of faith for Protestant churches."
*

Gaiixard.

" The Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers,

Hoopers, Jewells, and Hookers, of the

days of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth,

though persuaded in favor of episcopacy

and zealously attached to it, cordially

embraced Lutheran churches as sisterly

communions." f

Neale.

"And here [the ordination of bishops,

priests and deacons] it is observable that

the form of ordaining a priest and a

bishop is the same we [Presbyterians]

use, there being no express mention in

the words of ordination whether it be for

the one or the other office. J This has

been altered of late years, since a distinc-

tion of the two orders has been so

generally admitted ; but that was not the

received doctrine of these times. The

committee struck out most of the modern

rites of the Church of Rome, and con-

tented themselves, says Bishop Burnet,

with those mentioned in Scripture—viz.,
the imposition of hands and prayer."

||

* Dr. Miller, "The Conflict of Centuries," p. 93.

f "History of the Reformation," p. 552.

J Burnet, Hist, of the Ref., vol. ii, p. 144;

Collier's Eccles. Hist., vol. ii, p. 290.

||
"History of the Puritans," vol. i, p. 50.



28 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

Summing up the reign of Edward VL,

Neale continues:

"Thirdly, that they [the Reformers]

believed in but two orders of churchmen

in Holy Scripture : bishops and deacons
;

and consequently that bishops and priests

were but two different ranks or degrees of

the same order. Fourthly, that they gave

the right-hand of fellowship to foreign

churches and ministers that had not been

ordained by bishops, there being no

dispute about re-ordination in order to

any church preferment, till the latter end

of Queen Elizabeth's reign." *

"After these, Mr. Robert Blair came

from Scotland to Bangor [1623], Mr.

Hamilton to Bellywater, and Livingston

to Kilinshy, in the county of Down, with

Mr. Welsh, Dunbar, and others. Mr. Blair

was a zealous Presbyterian and scrupled

episcopal ordination; but the bishop of

the diocese compromised the difference by

agreeing that the other Scots presbyters

of Mr. Blair's persuasion should join with

him ; and that such passages in the

established form of ordination as Mr. Blair

and his brethren disliked should be

omitted, or exchanged for others of their

own approbation. Thus was Mr. Blair

ordained publicly in the church of Ban-

* Ibid., p. 57.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 29

gor; the Bishop of Raphoe did the same

for Mr. Livingston ; and all the Scots

who were ordained in Ireland from this

time to the year 1642 were ordained in

the same manner; all of them enjoyed

the churches and tithes, though they

remained Presbyterian and used not the

liturgy ; nay, the bishops consulted them

about affairs of common concernment to

the church, and some of them were

members of the convocation of 1634." *

Blakeney.

"No one of the Church of England

in those days thought of calling into

question the validity of the orders and

sacraments of the Reformed churches." f

Prynne.

"In July, 1604, hee [Laud] proceeded

batchelour of divinitie. His supposition

when he answered in divinitie schooles

for his degree, concerning the efficacie of

baptisme, was taken verbatim out of

Bellarmine ; and hee maintained there

could be no true church without diocesan

bishops, for which Dr. Holland [then

Doctor in the chaire] openly reprehended

him in the schooles for a seditious person

who would unchurch the Reformed

churches beyond the seas, and sow a

* Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 89, 90.

f Dr. Blakeney, Book of Common Prayer, in its
Hist, and Interpret., p. 630.



30 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

division between us and them who were

brethren, by this novel popish doctrine." *

Strype.

"Cranmer 'sent letters to Bullinger,

Calvin, Melanchthon, disclosing to them

his pious design to draw up a book

of articles, and requesting their counsel

and furtherance... that Calvin' could do

nothing more profitable to the church

than to write often to the King."f

"When Archbishop Sandys endeavored

to deprive Whittingham of the deanery

of Durham because he received only

Presbyterian orders, ' it fell to the ground

;

the lord president observing with some

warmth, before the Archbishop and the

other members of the commission, that

he could not in conscience agree to

deprive him for that; for it would be ill

taken of all the godly and learned at

home and abroad that we should allow

of the popish massing priests in our

ministry, and disallow of ministers made

in a Reformed church. '"J

Spottswood.

"A question in the meantime was

moved by Doctor Andrews, Bishop of

Ely, touching the consecration of the

* Breviate of his Life, p. 2.

f Life of Cranmer, pp. 407-413.

t Strype's "Annals," vol. ii, p. 523.



A CITv OF CONFUSION. 3

1

Scottish bishops, who, as he said, must

first be ordained presbyters, as having

received no ordination from a bishop.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor

Bancroft, who was by, maintained ' that

thereof there was no necessity; seeing,

where bishops could not be had, the

ordination given by presbyters must be

esteemed lawful; otherwise it might be

doubted if there were any lawful vocation

in most of the Reformed churches.' This

applauded by the other bishops, Ely

acquiesced ; and at the day and in the

place appointed the three Scottish bishops

were consecrated."
*

Mackay.

"For a century and a half after the

Reformation nearly all the most eminent

sons of the church, including the High

Churchmen, recognized Presbyterian and

other orders as valid, though irregular.

For one hundred and ten years after the

Ordinal was drawn up and the Articles

signed, men who had received no episcopal

ordination were admitted without further

ceremony in the English Church; and

this was done by High Churchmen like

Bancroft, Cosin, and Bramhall."t

* "History of the Church of Scotland," p. 514

(ed. 1610).

f Angus Mackay, Westminster Review, Oct., 1896.



32 a city of confusion.

Keblk.

" Nearly up to the time when he

[Hooker] wrote, numbers had been ad-

mitted to the ministry of the Church of

England with no better than Presbyterian

ordination; and it appears by Travers'

supplication to the council that such was

the construction not uncommonly put

upon the statute of the 13th of Elizabeth,

permitting those who had received orders

in any other form than that of the English

Service Book, on giving certain securities,

to exercise their calling in England. If it

were really the intention of that act to

authorize other than episcopal ordination,

it is but one proof more of the low accom-

modating notions concerning the church

which then prevailed."*

Griffis.

"Indeed for a hundred years after the

publication of the first English Book of

Common Prayer, and for eleven decades

after the Reformation, there was no denial

in the Anglican Church of the validity

of non-episcopal ordination. The highest

preferments in that church were open to

men on whom no chrism ... or bishop's

hands had been laid. Not only were the

Reformers from the Continent welcomed,

* Keble, "Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity," vol.
i,

p. lxxv.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 33

both as equals and teachers, and invited

to assist in making the Church of Eng-

land a true Reformed church, but large

portions, probably two-thirds in all, of the

form and language of the Book of Com-

mon Prayer are borrowed directly from

the creeds and confessions of both Cal-

vinistic and Lutheran churches, in which

episcopal ordination was unknown and

looked upon as an unreformed relic of

popery. . .

.

"Indeed those who have studied the

influence of Luther and Calvin in making

the English standards, formularies, and

prayer-books, would wonder how there

could be any objection to the continental

types of Christianity or to their exemplars

in the ministry. Cranmer and Coverdale,

and the men who compiled the Book

of Common Prayer, who translated or

adapted page after page and sentence

after sentence from Luther's catechism

and sermons, and from Melanchthon's

writings; from Brandenburg-Nuremberg

Kinderpredigten, from Osiander; from

the books of Calvin, Bucer, Alasco, and

from the Strasburg liturgy,—would have
smiled at the idea of excluding from the

Church of England those to whom they

were so much obligated. It would be like

the debtor assailing the character of the

creditor, or denying the quality of gold he



34 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

borrowed. Hooker, the champion of the

Anglican Church, practically surrendered

the question, and joined with Cranmer,

Calvin, Bucer, Alasco, and the common

opinion of Reformed Christendom, when

he said: 'There may sometimes be very

just and sufficient reason to allow ordina-

tion made without a bishop. ..J

"It was the boast of the Church of

England that she was a true Reformed

church. Her ambition was to be equal

in scriptural character to the Reformed

churches on the Continent, whose scholars

and scholarship, learning and writings,

she so freely borrowed that, in the Book

of Common Prayer, probably two-thirds

of what is not of Catholic origin or from

the Bible is Lutheran or Calvinistic." *

Pocock.

u Of the clergy who had been impris-

oned or banished during the reign of her

sister Mary, there were two classes who

may be roughly designated as Zwinglians

and Calvinists. Those who had been

imprisoned had such violent altercations

that one party refused to communicate

with the others, whom they designated

as free-willers because they would not

commit themselves to all the horrors of

* Dr. Griffis, ' ' Bibliotheca Sacra," Oct., 1893,

p. 89, et seq.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 35

an unmitigated Calvinism. They were

also at issue about certain minor matters,

such as the lawfulness of playing at

bowls. Quarrels of a similar kind had

originated amongst the exiles, who had

been refused admission to all places where

IvUtheranism prevailed, being designated

by the Lutherans as the devil's martyrs

because of their supposed adoption of the

tenets of Zwingli and Calvin. They had

settled in various towns of Switzerland,

and in considerable numbers at Frankfort.

Here altercations arose, the moderate

party being content to abide by the

Zwinglian form of doctrine, which, as they

thought, pervaded the Second Prayer-

Book of the reign of Edward VI. ; whilst

the more fanatical considered the book

as too papistical, and were for a further

reformation of it, such as had been con-

templated at the time of the premature

death of the King. These latter retired in

a body to Geneva and Basle. Speaking

generally, these were Calvinists and the

others Zwinglians.

"The two systems may be sufficiently,

though perhaps roughly, described as the

one consisting mainly in the disparage-

ment or denial of sacramental grace, the

sacraments being regarded as symbols

and not instruments of grace ; the other

pronouncing the sacraments as in some



36 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

way efficacious, but only to the elect, by

increasing the grace they previously

possessed, and from which it was impos-

sible for them entirely and finally to fall

away. . . . Such were the parties from which

bishops had to be chosen; and for the

most part the preference was given to the

Frankfort and Zurich exiles, who adopted

the more moderate position, and were

likely to give less trouble to the civil

power.

" ... As to a belief in an apostolical

succession in the episcopate, it is not to

be found in any of the writings of the

Elizabethan bishops. Unmistakable evi-

dence of this as regards Bishop Jewell,

of Salisbury, exists in his correspondence

with Archbishop Parker with regard to

the interference of Lancaster, Archbishop-

elect of Armagh, in ordaining priests in

his diocese. It seems that Lancaster had

taken upon himself to admit diverse per-

sons into holy orders, and amongst them

one whom Jewell had for eight years, for

what appeared to himself good reasons,

refused to ordain. He makes no com-

plaint of the illegality, much less of the

invalidity, of the act, but only of the

indiscretion of the Archbishop-elect. Now,

this letter is dated April 26, 1568; and

June 13 in the same year Lancaster was

consecrated by the Archbishop of Dublin



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 37

and the Bishops of Meath and Kildare.

If he is the same person who held the see

of Kildare 1550-54, he must have either

acted as bishop without being conse-

crated or else he underwent a second

consecration in 1568. There is nothing

more wonderful in the whole history of

the Church of England at a time when

probably not a single bishop was to be

found who believed in his own divine

commission or in the efficacy of the sac-

raments ; when, almost without exception,

they were indifferent to any other con-

sideration than that of promotion and the

providing for their own families.

"... Calvinism, which subsequently

overran the whole church, was the domi-

nant creed even at the very beginning of

the reign of Elizabeth. For though Eliza-

beth first appointed bishops who were of

the Zwinglian rather than the Calvinistic

school, the laity, as well as the majority

of the clergy who had fallen in with

the new learning, were for the most part

Calvinists, the tenets of the French

Reformer having already been extensively

adopted, though their great development

in the country belongs to a later date.

"...At Oxford in 1559 a statute was

passed— 'The younger members of the
University should be instructed either in

Calvin's or in the Heidelberg Catechism

;



38 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

and they should afterward read the works

of the Swiss divine Bullinger, who had

succeeded Zwingli as a teacher at Zurich

and the Institutes of Calvin."*

Short.

u The Church of England first ceased

to be a member of the Church of Rome

during the reign of Henry VIII.,... but

it could hardly be called Protestant till

that of Edward VI During the short

reign of Edward VI. it became entirely

Protestant, and in point of doctrine

assumed its present form."f

"British Critic." J

"The immediate successors of the

Reformers, as often happens in such

cases, went further than their predecessors

did, and were more deeply imbued with

the feelings of the day. The episcopate in

the first part of Queen Elizabeth's reign

were successors of Hooper and Coverdale

almost more than they were of Cranmer

* PocockN. (editor of Burnet's Hist, of the Ref.)

in Guardian, Nov. 9, 23, 30, 1892.

t
" History of the Church of England," p. 593.

—

In our times Archbishop Campbell [Canterbury]

substantially maintains the same: "Everyone

knows that we of the Church of England, in the

early times of our history after the Reformation,

were much more connected with the non-episcopal

than with the episcopal communions. " ( " Present

Position of the Church of England," p. 90.

)

% October, 1842, pp. 330, 331.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 39

and Ridley ; indeed it was only her

strong Tudor arm that kept them within

decent bounds. The greater part of them

positively objected to the surplice—
including Sandys, Grindal, Pilkington,

Jewell, Home, Parkhurst, Bentham, and

all the leading men who were for simpli-

fying our church ceremonial in that and

other respects, according to the Genevan

[that is Presbyterian] model."

It is to be feared that this taking of

testimony will wear upon the patience

of readers who are not controversially

minded. But it is necessary to know

the position of " the early fathers " of

the Episcopal Church on the subject of

Orders. Hence we continue the citation

of the witnesses.

Cranmer.*

When in 1540 "The Resolutions of

several Bishops and Divines" was sub-

mitted to the bishops by Henry VIII.,

Archbishop Cranmer gave the following

replies: (10th question.) "The bishops and

priests at one time were not two things,

but both one office in the beginning

of Christ's religion." (12th question.) "In

the New Testament, he that is appointed

to be a bishop or priest needeth no con-

secration by Scripture; for election or

* Archbishop of Canterbury (1489-1556).



4-0 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

appointment thereto is sufficient."* (14th

question.) It is not forbidden by God's

law "if all the bishops and priests in a

region were dead, that the king of that

region should make bishops and priests

to supply the same."

u The ministry of God's word under his

Majesty be bishops, parsons, and such

other priests as be appointed by his

Highness to that ministration— as, for
example, the bishop of Canterbury, the

bishop of Durham, the parson of Winwick,

etc ; all the said offices be appointed,

assigned, and elected in every place by

the laws and orders of kings and princes.

In the admission of many of these offices

be divers comely ceremonies and solem-

nities ; and which be not of necessity, but

only for a good order and seemly fashion.

For if such offices and ministrations were

committed without such solemnities, they

were, nevertheless, duly committed ; and

there is no more promise of God that

grace is given in the committing of the

ecclesiastical office than in the committing

of the civil office." f

"Cranmer and Barlow affirm that the

consecration [of a bishop] is unnecessary,

and that the designation [or appointing

* Collier's Ecclesias. History, vol. ii, app., p. 15;

Burnet's Hist, of the Reform. (Records xxi).

| Burnet's Hist, of the Reform., vol. i, p. 2or.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 4

1

to office] is sufficient." * Cranmer wrote

"to Bullinger, Calvin and Melanchthon,

disclosing to them his pious design to

draw up a book of articles, and requesting

their counsel and furtherance." He also

appointed John Knox and Grindal to

examine it before its adoption; he sub-

mitted the prayer-book to Calvin, and

wrote him that "he [Calvin] could do

nothing more profitable to the church

than to write often to the king."f (March

20, 1552.)

"For you, my Bucer, our kingdom will

be by far the safest port, in which, by the

kindness of God, the seeds of true doctrine

are happily sown. Come therefore to us,

and give yourself to us as a laborer in

the harvest of the Lord." J

IvATIMKR.
||

" Minister is a more fit name than

priest ; for the name of priest importeth

sacrifice." §

Grindal.
If

He applied to the council for a con-

tribution to Geneva "for the relief of

* Courayer "On English Ordinations," p. 147.
(Ed. 1725.)

f Strype's Life of Cranmer, pp. 407-413.

t Cranmer to Bucer, Oct. 2, 1548.

||
Bishop of Worcester (1490-1555).

I "Disputations at Oxford," p. 264.

If
Archbishop of Canterbury (1519-1583).



42 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

that poor town, which had served for a

nursery unto God's church, as well as for

the maintenance and conservation of true

religion;* he sustained the orders of

Morrison, a Scotsman 'according to the

laudable form and rite of the Reformed

[Presbyterian] Church of Scotland.'"

f

Whitgift. %

"If it had pleased her Majesty with the

wisdom of the realm to use no bishops

at all, we could not have complained

justly of any defect in our church."
||

" Whitgift sanctioned a Calvinist formu-

lary of faith—the Lambeth Articles." §
"The essential notes of the churche

be these only: the true preaching of the

worde of God and the right administra-

tion of the sacramentes; ior, as Master

Calvine sayth in his book against the

Anabaptistes, this honour is meete to be

given to the worde of God and to His

* Edward VI. in 1551 contributed to the 400,000

dollars raised to defray the expenses for continuing

the war in Germany "for the preservation of the

Protestant religion.
'

' He would s ' most willingly

joyn in alliance with them that were of the same

religion with himself." (Burnet's Hist, of the

Reform., vol. ii, p. 187.)

f Strype, Life of Grindal, p. 271.

J Archbishop of Canterbury (1530-1604).

||
Quoted by Child, "Church and State under

the Tudors," p. 293.

\ Child, "Illustrated Notes of English Church

History," vol. i, p. 98.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 43

sacramentes, that wheresoever we see the

worde of God truely preached, and God

accordyng to the same truely worshipped,

and the sacramentes without all supersti-

tion administered, there we may without

all controversie conclude the church of

God to be. The same is the opinion of

other godly and learned writers, and the

judgement of the Reformed churches, as

appeareth by their confessions. So that,

notwithstanding government, or some

kynde of government, may be a parte of

the church, touching the outward forme

and perfection of it, yet it is not such

a part of the essence and being but that

it may be the church of Christ without

this or that kynde of government; and

therefore the kynde of government is

not necessarie unto salvation."

JEWEL.
*

Calls vestments "theatrical vestments

—

ridiculous trifles, relics of the Amorites";

satirizes their wearers as "men without

mind, sound doctrine or morals, by which

to secure the approbation of the people;

and who therefore wished to gain their

plaudits by wearing a comical stage

dress." f

"Therefore we neither have bishops

* Bishop of Salisbury (1522-1571).

f Quoted by Brown, " Puseyite Episcopacy,"

p. 38. I^e Bas, "I4fe of Jewel," p. 74.



44 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

without church nor church without

bishops. Neither doth the Church of

England this day depend on them whom

you often call apostates, as if our church

were no church without them. Notwith-

standing, if there were not one of them

[the clergy who had received their orders

from diocesan bishops] nor of us [bishops]

left alive, yet will not therefore the whole

Church of England flee to Louvain [for

orders] .... Pious laymen might renew

the succession."*

The "Defence" was a reply to Father

Harding. It "was composed," says Strype,

"and written by the reverend Father as

his public confession of the Catholic and

Christian faith of all Englishmen, wherein

is taught our consent with the German,

Helvetian, French, Scotch, Genevan, and

other Reformed churches." f

"But what means Mr. Harding here

to come in with the difference between

priests and bishops? Thinketh he that

priests and bishops hold only by tradi-

tion? Or is it so horrible a heresy

as he maketh it to say that by the

Scriptures of God a bishop and a priest

are all one?... As for matters of devo-

tion, we have pared away everything

* "Defence of the Apology," pp. 129, 130 (ed

1609).

t Strype's
" Annals," vol. i, p. 251.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 45

to the quick, and do not differ from your

doctrine by a nail's breadth." *

In a letter to Bullinger (April 10,

1559), "he laments the want of zeal and

industry in promoting the Reformation;

and that things were being managed in

so slow and cautious a manner as if the

word of God was not to be received on

His own authority."!

Barlow. {

" If the King's Grace, being supreme head

of the Church of England, did choose,

denominate, and elect any layman being

learned to be a bishop, that he so chosen

should be as good a bishop as he is, or

the best in England."

Parkhurst. §

"Oh, would to God, would to God, that

now at last the people of England would

in good earnest propound to themselves

to follow the Church of Zurich as the

most perfect pattern! "If

* Letter to Peter Martyr, ap. Matthews, "Con-

tinuity Reconsidered," p. 26.

f Neale, Hist, of Puritanism, vol. i, p. 72.

X Bishop of St. Asaph (—1568).
||

Collier, Hist, of the Reform., vol. iv, p. 388.

\ Bishop of Norwich (1564— ).
\ Letter to Gualter, Strype's " Annals," vol. ii,

pp. 2S6-342.



46 a city of confusion.

Laud. *

"In Sweden they retain both the thing

and the name ; and the governors of their

churches are, and are called, bishops ; and

among the Lutherans the thing is retained,

though not the name. For instead of

bishops they are called superintendents;

and instead of archbishop, general super-

intendents; and yet even here, too, these

names differ more in sound than in

sense." f

Cosin. %

"If we renounce all the ministers of

Germany, what will become of the Prot-

estant party? If the church and kingdom

of England acknowledged them, as they

did, why should we, private persons,

utterly disclaim their communion?"
||

"I conceive that the power of ordi-

nation was restrained to bishops rather

by apostolical practice and the perpetual

custom and canons of the church than by

an absolute precept that either Christ or

His Apostles gave about Therefore, if

any minister so ordained [Presbyterian

form] in these French churches came to

incorporate himself in ours, and to receive

a public charge or cure of souls among

* Archbishop of Canterbury (1573-1644).

f History of his Troubles, p. 141.

t Bishop of Durham (1594— ).
I

Letter to Cordel, Feb. 7, 1650.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 47

us in the Church of England (as I have

known some of them to have done of late,

and can instance in many others before

my time), our bishops did not reordain

him before they admitted him to his

charge; as they would have done if his

former ordination in France had been

void. Nor did our laws require more of

him than to declare his public consent to

the religion received amongst us, and to

subscribe the articles established. And I

love not to be more wise and harder

than our own church is ; which, because

it hath never publicly condemned and

pronounced the ordinations of the other

reformed churches to be void, I dare not

take upon me to condemn. . . . Thirdly, if

we renounce the French, we must, for

the very same reason, renounce all the

ministers of Germany ; and then, we

may ask, what will become of the Prot-

estant party?"*

"I would that all the world should

know it, I never refused to join with the

Protestants. . . . Many of their people have

frequented the public prayers with great

reverence, and I have delivered the holy

communion to them. Besides, I have been

to pray and sing psalms with them, and

* Letter to Cordel, ap. Powel's "Apostolic Suc-

cession," p. 154.



48 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

to hear both the weekly and the Sunday

sermons. ... By the blessing of Almighty

God, I have reduced some and preserved

many others from communicating with

the papists, defending the truth of our

own religion."*

Andrews, t

"He is blind who does not see churches

existing without it [Episcopalian church

government]
;
and he must have a heart

as hard as iron who can deny them sal-

vation." %

USHER.
||

"I asked him [Archbishop Usher] also

his judgment about the validity of pres-

byter's ordination, which he asserted, and

told me that the King [Charles I.] asked

him at the Isle of Wight wherever he

found in antiquity that presbyters alone

ordained any; and that he answered: 'I

can show your Majesty more, even where

presbyters alone successively ordained

bishops.'" §

Davenant. If

"We account of them [the Scottish,

Irish, and all other forraigne churches of

the Reformation] as our brethren in

* Ap. Bradley, "Ritualism," p. 145.

f Bishop of Winchester (1555-1626).

X Respons. ad Secund. Epist. Molinaei, app., p. 35.

I

Archbishop of Armagh (1580-1656).

$ Sylvester, Life of Baxter, book i, $. 63, p. 206.

T[
Bishop of Salisbury (1576-1641.)



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 49

Christ, and doe solemnly protest that we

entertain a holy and brotherly communion

with them."*

Morton, f

"The Archbishop of Spoleto, whilst

living in England, asked Morton, bishop

of Durham, to do some one who had been

ordained in the churches beyond the seas

the favor of reordaining him presbyter,

in order that he might have freer access

to ecclesiastical benefices. Morton wrote

back to say that such a thing could not

be done without very great offence to the

reformed churches, a scandal of which he

did not choose to be the originator." J

There are other witnesses whose testi-

mony is no less clear and striking than

what we have already quoted. L,et us

hear:

—

Haix.1

"It is notorious that the English

Reformation uniformly treated the non-

Episcopal foreign churches (Xutheran

and reformed] as true churches and

ministers."
||

"Blessed be God, there is no difference

in any essential point between the Church

* Drury's " Fides Catholica," p. 41.

f Bishop of Durham (1669.)

% Hickman, Apologia pro Ministris, etc., p. 18.

||
Bishop of Norwich (1574-1656).

\ Hall's "Puritans and their Principles," p. 279.



50 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

of England and her sister reformed

churches."* "We unite in every article of

Christian doctrine, without the least vari-

ation, as the full and absolute agreement

between their public confessions and ours

testifies. The only difference between us

consists in our mode of constituting the

external ministry ; and even with respect

to this point we are of one mind, because

we all profess to believe that it is not an

essential of the church (though in the

opinion of many it is a matter of impor-

tance to her well-being) ; and we all retain

a respectful and friendly opinion of one

another, not seeing any reason why so

small a disagreement should produce any

alienation of affection." f

"But for those ordinary callings of

pastors and doctors (intended to perpe-

tuitie), with what forehead can he deny

them to be in our church? How many

have we that conscionably teach and feed,

or rather feed by teaching? Call them

what you please, superintendents [that is]

bishops, prelates, priests, lecturers, parsons,

vicars, etc. If they preach Christ truly,

* Bishop Heber : " Were I to return to Germany,

I would again, as before, humbly and thankfully

avail myself of the preaching and sacramental

ordinances of the Lutheran Evangelical Church."

("Indian Journal Correspondence," vol. ii, p. 249.)

f
" Peacemaker," Hall's Works, vol. iii, p. 560.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 5

1

upon true inward abilities, upon a suffi-

cient, if not perfect, outward vocation,

such a one (all histories witness) for the

substance as hath been ever in the Church

since the Apostles' times, they are pastors

and doctors allowed by Christ. We stand
not upon circumstances and appendances

of the fashion of ordination, manner of

choice, attire, titles, maintenances ; but if

for substance these be not true pastors

and doctors, Christ had never any in

His Church since the Apostles left the

earth."
*

" Why, like a true make-bate, do you not

say that our churches have so renounced

their government? These sisters [the

Church of England and the reformed

churches] have learned to differ, and yet

to love and reverence each other ; and in

these cases to enjoy their own forms with-

out prescription of necessity or censure." t

Stiujngfleet. X

"Thus we see by the testimony chiefly

of him who was instrumental in our

Reformation [Cranmer] that he owned

no Episcopacy as a distinct order from

Presbytery of divine right, but only

as a prudent constitution of the civil

* Hall's " Apology against Brownists," sec. 27.

f Ibid., sec. 31.

X Bishop of Worcester (1 635-1 699).



52 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

magistrate for the better governing of the

church." *

"Then let succession know its place, and

learn to vaile bonnet to the Scriptures.

The succession so much pleaded by the

writers of the primitive church was not a

succession of persons in apostolic power,

but a succession in apostolical doctrine." f

"The election of pastors by the people

is the true and only ordination which

God approves of, unless the people do

extend their power above the civil magis-

trate; that notwithstanding, this election

can not be made without their consent." %

Burnet.

"Not only those who penned the

Thirty -Nine Articles, but the body of

the church for about half an age after...

did acknowledge foreign churches to be

true churches as to all the essentials of

a church." § " Neither our reformers nor

their successors for near eighty years

after those Articles were published, did

ever question the constitution of such

churches."! "Those coming to England

* Stillingfleet's "Irenicum," pt. ii, ch. viii.

f "Irenicum," pp. 297, 303, 322 (ed. 1662).

t Dr. Lewis du Moulin 's "Short and True

Account," p. 52.

||
Bishop of Salisbury (1643-1715).

£ "Exposition of the Thirty -Nine Articles,'*

Article xxiii. II Ibid.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 53

from foreign churches had not been

required to be reordained among us."*

"No bishop in Scotland, during his stay

in that kingdom, ever did so much as

desire any of the presbyters [Presbyterian

ministers] to be reordained." f

Fleetwood. %

"We had many ministers from Scot-

land, France, and the L,ow Countries

who were ordained by presbyters only

and not bishops, and they were instituted

into benefices with awe, . . . and yet were

never reordained, but only subscribed the

Articles."
||

Abbot. §

"There lived in the Church of England

many reverend and worthy men which

did not reject the Presbytery." If

Downam.**

"The Popish is farre different from

that which I hold; for they hold the

order and superiority of bishops to be

jure divino, implying thereby a perpetual

necessitie thereof. Insomuch that where

* "History of His 0\wi Times," voL i, p. 183.

t Bishop of Sarum's Vindication, pp. 84, 85.

% Bishop of Ely (1655-17 23).

||
"Judgment of the Church of England in Case

of Lay Baptism." ( Fleetwood's Works, p. 552.)

I Bishop of Salisbury (1560-1618).

\ " Eleutheria, ' p. 90.

** Bishop of Chester ( i66r— ).



54 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

bishops are not to ordaine they thinke

there can be no ministers or priests, and

consequently no church. I hold otherwise.

Wherefore my opinion being so different

from the Popish conceit, who seeth not

that the judgment of our divines which

is opposed to the doctrines of the Papists

is not opposed to mine." *

TOMLINE.f

"In like manner we often speak of the

Church of England, of Holland, of Geneva,

and of the Lutheran church ; and all these

different churches are parts of the visible

Catholic Church. It is well known that

the Church of Rome considers itself as

the only Christian church; but, on the

other hand, we extend the name to any

congregation of faithful men in which

the pure word of God is preached" and the

sacraments duly ministered according to

Christ's ordinance, in all those things that

of necessity are requisite to the same. The

adherence, therefore, to the fundamental

principles of the Gospel is sufficient to

constitute a visible church. . . . Upon the

same principle we forbear to inquire what

precise additions or defects in the admin-

* Ap. Brown's " Puseyite Episcopacy," p. 42.

t Bishop of Winchester (1750-1827).



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 55

istration of the sacraments ordained by

Christ annul their efficacy." *

White, t

"The true visible church is named

apostolical, not because of local or personal

succession of bishops (only or principally),

but because it retained the faith and

doctrine of the Apostles. Personal or local

succession only and in itself maketh not

the church apostolical, because hirelings

and wolves may lineally succeed lawful

and orthodox pastors."!

The Teaching of the Anglican Fathers

of the Church,

Remember them that had the rule over you,

which spake unto you the word of God : and,

considering the issue of their life, imitate their

faith.

—

Heb., xiii, 7; New Rev. Ed.

Hooker.

"For my part, I dare not deny the

salvation of the Lutheran churches, which

have been the chiefest instruments of

ours."
||
"Where the church must needs

have some ordained, and neither hath nor

can have possibly a bishop to ordain, in

case of such necessity the ordinary insti-

* Tomline's "Elements of Theology," vol. ii

PP- 325, 3
26.

t Bishop of Ely.

% Bishop White's Works, p. 64 (fol. ed.

)

||
Serm. on Habak. I. 4, app. to "Ecclesiastical

Polity" (Complete Works, vol. ii, p. 3C7).



56 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

tution of God hath given oftentimes and

may give place. Some do infer that no

ordination can stand but only such as

is made by bishops which had their

ordination likewise from other bishops

till we come to the Apostles of Christ

themselves. ... To this we answer that

there may be sometimes very just and

sufficient reason to allow ordination made

without a bishop." * " Touching the

ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

the whole body of the church being

divided into laity and clergy, the clergy

either presbyters or deacons." f "Seeing

that sacrifice is now no part of the church

ministry, how should the name of priest-

hood be thereunto rightly applied? Surely

even as St. Paul applieth the name of flesh

unto that very substance of fishes which

hath a proportionable correspondence to

flesh, although it be in nature another

thing?"!

Whittakkr, Dr.
II

"I confess that there was originally

no difference between a presbyter and a

bishop. IyUther and the other heroes of

the Reformation were presbyters, even

* Eccles. Pol., bk. vii, xiv ; sec. ii.

t Ibid., bk. v, sec. 78.

X Ibid., v, ch. lxxviii (vol. ii, p., 471, Keble's ed.)

jj
Head of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1595.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 57
*

according to the ordination of the Romish

Church ; and therefore they were jure

divino bishops. Consequently, whatever

belongs to bishops belongs also jure

divino to themselves. As for a bishop

being afterward placed over presbyters,

that was a human arrangement (ordo

humanusfidi) for the removal of schisms,

as the history of the times testifies."*

" Providing their election be lawful, we

do not concern ourselves about the ordi-

nation of our bishops. Where ordination

can not be had, the same persons that

have authority to name bishops have also

authority to ordain them. Therefore,

since all the bishops of those times refused

to ordain them [ Parker et aL ] , they

were forced to seek ordination by some

other means." f

WiiXET.

" Here is the difference between our

adversaries the Papists and us. They say

it is of necessitie to be subject to the

Pope, and to the bishops and archbishops

under him, as necessarily prescribed in

the word; but so doe not our bishops

and archbishops, which is a notable

difference between the bishops of the

Popish Church and of the reformed

* Whittakeri Opp., vol. i, pp. 509, 510 (Geneva,

1610).

t Ap. Bradley, "A Gentle Remonstrance," p. 141.



58 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

churches. Let every church use that

forme which best fitteth its state; in

external matters every church is free, not

bound one to the prescription of another,

so they measure themselves by the rule

of the world."

Bacon.

"I, for my part, do confess that, in

revolving the Scriptures, I could never

find but that God had left the like liberty

to the church government as He had

done to the civil government, to be varied

according to time and place and accidents.

The substance of doctrine is immutable,

and so are the general rules of govern-

ment; but for rites and ceremonies, and

for the particular hierarchies, policies,

and disciplines of churches,—they be left
at large."*

" Yea, and some indiscreet persons

have been told in open preaching to use

dishonorable and derogatory speech and

censure of the churches abroad, and that

so far as some of our men (as I have

heard) ordained in foreign parts have

been pronounced to be no lawful min-

isters. Thus we see the beginnings were

modest but the extremes are violent, so

as there is almost as great a distance now

* "Considerations Touching the Pacification of

the Church," etc. Bacon's Works, vol. iii, p. 150.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 59

of either side from itself as was at the

first of one from the other."*

Bridges.

" The difference of these things [orders,

offices, ceremonies] concerning ecclesias-

tical government is not directlye materiall

to salvation; neither ought to break the

bond of Christian concord." f

Fulke, Dr. t

"You are highly deceived," says he,

addressing Catholics, "if [you think] we

esteem your offices of bishops, priests,

and deacons better than laymen. ,.. With

all our hearts we abhor, detest and spit

on your stinking, greasy, anti-Christian

orders."
||

Summary and Conclusion.

From the foregoing we gather

—

I. That "the evidence is simply over-

whelming which shows that during the

whole period, from 1552 onward, the

English Church was considered, by friends

and foes alike, to be for all intents and

purposes one with the Swiss churches of

* "Advertisement Touching the Controversies,"

etc. Bacon's Works, vol. iv, p. 426.

t Bridges'
'

' Defence of the Government of the

Church of England," p. 87.

% Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1589.

I

Ap. Bradley, "A Gentle Remonstrance," p. 141.



60 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

Zurich and Geneva";* that "almost all

the prominent Elizabethan bishops and

divines were in doctrine Zwinglian or

Calvinistic; and were at much pains to

declare themselves at one with the Swiss

reformers, especially with Bullinger and

Peter Martyr"
; f that

a
the whole of the

lives and writings of the Elizabethan

divines, with the single and perhaps

doubtful exception of Bishop Cheney of

Gloucester, agreed in doctrine with the

churches of Zurich and Geneva." J

II. That "the popular movement which

inspired the enthusiasm of preachers

and constancy of martyrs had always

been eagerly Protestant, demanding doc-

trinal as well as disciplinary reform;

adopting in early days the Lutheran,

afterward the Calvinistic type of belief,

and not sparing of dislike and contempt

of Catholic usage and worship" ;|| that,

"in spite of its episcopal consecrations

and its pretended priesthood, it was a

Protestant institution, and not a Catholic

one. The body and appearance might be

Catholic: the voice when it opened its

lips to teach must be Protestant." §

* Child, "Church and State under the Tudors,"

p. 274. f Ibid., p. 278.

t Ibid., 222.

||
Beard, "Hibbert Lectures," 1883, p. 327.

§ Froude, "Short Studies of Great Subjects."
Third Series, p. 21.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 6

1

III. That even if we do not concur with

Dr. Arnold that " our church has ever

borne the marks of her birth, the child of

regal and aristocratical selfishness and of

tyranny,"* we can not deny that "the

clergy of the Church of England are but

ministers and stewards, not lords and

masters, in a church which, so far as it is

the English Church, because established

by the English nation, is created by the

law, upheld by the law, paid by the law,

and may be changed by the law just as

any other institution of the land";f that

so absolutely is the Anglican episcopate

the child and servant of the State that, in

the withering reproach of one of its

own apologists, an Anglican bishop, " blas-

phemously boasting of a power expressly

given him by the Saviour of the world,

found himself precisely in the position of

a lunatic who may fancy that he is the

monarch of the universe, but who can

not pluck a flower or fill a glass of water

without the permission of his keeper.

The spiritual authority they boast of is

no better than a child's toy or a fool's

rattle, until it is charged by the ruling

* "Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold,"

vol. ii, p. 386.

f Dr. Elliot, Dean of Bristol, "Sermons on Some

of the Subjects of the Day," p. 11.



62 A CITY OF CONFUSION.

force of society and armed with the

sanction of civil penalties."*

IV. That when Gladstone, more in a

tone of elegiac regret than of reproach,

confesses that "nothing can be further

from the ideal than the English Church

has been in its practical development," t

he must have had in mind such confes-

sions as that of the Master Rugby, that

"churches should make their bond to con-

sist in a common object and a common

practice rather than in a common belief;

in other words, that the end should be

Good rather than Truth "
; J or that of the

historian of American Episcopalianism

when he declares that "after two hundred

and eighty years the assembled bishops of

the whole Pan-Anglican Communion have

recorded their judgment that uniformity

in discipline and worship [faith?] is not

to be compelled nor expected."
||

V. That as for apostolic succession

and episcopal ordination, the Church of

England "clearly repudiates it as a fiction

altogether, that God has prescribed some

action through which orders must be

conveyed ; or that He has annexed

* Edinb. Rev., July, 1868, p. 135.

f Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1888, p. 784.

% Introductory I^ect. on Mod. Hist., p. 50.

||
McConnell, " History of the American Episcopal

Church," p. 12.



A CITY OF CONFUSION. 63

peculiar grace and authority to imposition

of hands successively for the Apostles or

to any other arbitrary form of ordination

whatever."
*

VI. Finally, in the words of an eniment

American theologian, whose name is even

more authoritative in the theological

lecture halls of Europe than in those of

his own country [we mean Dr. Nevin] , we

must come to the sad but logical conclu-

sion that the Church of England "since

the Reformation has been what Cyprian

graphically pictures as a 'sunbeam cut off

from the sun, a bough torn from the tree,

a stream sundered from the fountain.' "f

Et impleta est civitas confusione!—
"And the whole city was filled with con-

fusion." % Non enim est dissensionis Deus,

sect pads : sicut et in omnibtis Ecclesiis

sanctorum doceo,—"For God is not the
God of dissension, but of peace : as also I

teach in all the churches of the saints." §

* Dr. Elliot, Ut supra, p. 105.

f Reformed Quart. Rev., 1874, p. 29.

t Acts, xix, 29. I I. Cor., xiv, 33.





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