PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Shelf 
 
 Forrester, Henry. 
 
 '-S ^^na the 
 ^-Lc episcopate 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY 
 
 Historic Episcopate 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY FORRESTER, 
 
 A PRESBYTER OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH, 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3 Bible House. 
 
 1889. 
 
Copyright, 1889, 
 BY HENRY FORRESTER. 
 
TO ALL WHO LOVE 
 
 fffie aortt JcBus ffiftrist anlr "mis ffifjurcf), 
 
 AND ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WHO 
 
 ARE SEEKING THE UNION, 
 
 IN HIS VISIBLE BODY, 
 
 OF ALL WHO BELIEVE IN HIM, 
 
 Sfjis asoofe is Affection atels Belricateit. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TT IS with great diffidence, yet with much confidence, that 
 -^ the following pages are offered to the consideration of the 
 American Church, and the Christian public generally — diffidence, 
 on account of their divergence from the prevailing views; confi- 
 dence, because of the seemingly strong foundation upon which 
 that divergence is based. If the prevailing theories are correct, 
 this discussion of them will only fix them more firmly in the 
 mind of the Church. If these theories are erroneous, it is time 
 they should be replaced by something better. In any case, 
 therefore, this essay may be of service to the cause of truth, and 
 the heartiest desire of the writer will then have been accom- 
 plished. 
 
 In the preparation of this work, the author has endeavoured 
 to keep in mind the unlearned as well as the learned; hence 
 some things which to the latter may seem superfluous. It is 
 hoped that Christian people who are not familiar with ecclesias- 
 tical terms or the history of the Church and her Councils, will 
 find no difficulty in understanding any part of what is herein 
 written. The effort has been conscientiously made to present a 
 clear, straightforward statement of the subject. 
 
 The scholar will at once see under what disadvantages this 
 work has been done. He will miss the names of authors to 
 whose works he would expect reference to be made, and will 
 observe that the writer has had access to but few books. In 
 fact, dependence has been placed, principally, upon Bingham, 
 Hefele, Fulton, and the American edition of the Ante-Nicene 
 Christian Library. There is some compensation in this, how- 
 ever, as these are works easily accessible, and they are really 
 
sufficient for the purpose in view. In some crucial points it may 
 be necessary to consult works in their original languages, but, 
 ordinarily, good translations are preferable. It is seldom that 
 the average scholar can venture to differ with the men by whom 
 such translations are made. 
 
 Finally, let it be said that the author of this little book is 
 not wedded to any theories propounded in it. He has endeav- 
 oured to find some relief for himself and to help others to the 
 same, in view of the serious aspect of the times, and the promis- 
 ing movement toward Christian unity. If any one will offer 
 some better thing than is suggested here, the author will be 
 among the first to accept it. If this is the best that can be 
 offered, may others recognise the fact and receive it heartily. 
 Whatever may be the case, the author humbly offers this work 
 to the All-gracious Father, praying that it may be blessed to 
 His glory in the good of men. 
 
 July 17, 1889. 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 
 
 I. 
 THE DRIFT TOWARD UNITY. 
 
 THAT there has been for a number of years past a 
 notable drift toward Christian unity is evidenced 
 by the Evangelical Alliance, the Lambeth and Bonn 
 Conferences, the Pan-Presbyterian and other similar 
 gatherings, and numerous individual utterances and acts 
 of intercommunion. It is doubtless true that this has 
 been, in some quarters, a blind groping after something 
 which was felt to be desirable but the true character of 
 which was not understood; nevertheless, the motion was 
 distinctly toward unity, however imperfectly the true idea 
 was realised. That the impulse, everywhere, has been 
 and is a good one, and GoD-directed, who can doubt? 
 
 The day is rapidly passing away, if not already past, 
 when men of intelligence can afford to defend or apolo- 
 gise for division. The evils of it are too apparent. When 
 we see three or four ministers, of as many different de- 
 nominations, in a village barely capable of supporting 
 one; when it is evident that these ministers are compet- 
 itors for the patronage of the public — this is really the 
 way to put it — and are often driven by the necessities of 
 their position to the use of expedients that are discred- 
 itable to the religion they profess; when their time is 
 largely taken up in combating each other's errors or 
 supposed errors, or, worse still, in getting up " union 
 
10 
 
 meetings" and then quarrelling over or descending to all 
 sorts of tricks and stratagems for securing the converts; 
 when the world, perplexed in view of the claims of numer- 
 ous sects and disgusted with the contentions between 
 them, makes these things an excuse for unbelief and 
 wickedness; when thousands upon thousands of families 
 in rural regions are permitted to go without any religious 
 ministrations, to which, under a proper system, the super- 
 fluous village ministers might go; when, even in our 
 centres of population, many thousands of people are as 
 much deprived of the Gospel, practically, as the tribes 
 in the heart of Africa; when all these, with the fearful 
 waste of po\ver and means, and the many other evils of 
 the present state of things are considered, one cannot 
 fail to feel that these divisions among professed Chris- 
 tians are not only disastrous, but wicked. That men have 
 felt it accounts for the drift toward unity, characteristic 
 of the time. 
 
 It was naturally to be expected that the ^rs,t practical 
 step toward the securing of unity would be taken by a 
 historic Church, itself possessed of all things essential to 
 visible continuity from the Church of the Councils and 
 the Fathers. It was also natural that such a body should 
 be ready to yield all non-essentials, and that it should 
 act in the broadest possible spirit of Christian love in 
 inviting others to seek for the restoration of that primi- 
 tive unity which its own position enabled it so fully to ap- 
 preciate. The historical fact is in accordance with these 
 things. 
 
 THE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP 
 
 in this direction, in this country, was taken by the Bishops 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church. During the session 
 of the General Convention of 1886, memorials on this 
 
11 
 
 subject were received from the dioceses of Louisiana and 
 Kentucky, and from bishops, clergy, and laity throughout 
 the country. These memorials were referred to a com- 
 mittee of the House of Bishops, and the report of this 
 committee was adopted by the Bishops in Council. It 
 reads as follows : 
 
 The Committee to whom were referred sundry memorials 
 addressed to the Bishops in Council and to the House of Bishops, 
 praying- that some plan may be devised which, in a practical 
 way, will promote the restoration of Christian unity, all which 
 memorials emanated from certain of the clergy and of the laity 
 of the Church, the former numbering about one thousand and 
 the latter nearly two thousand, beg to report that they have 
 given to the same the full and earnest consideration which the 
 gravity of the subject and the fervent prayer of the petitioners 
 demanded. 
 
 The conclusions of your Committee are set forth in the follow- 
 ing preamble and declarations: 
 
 Whereas, In the year 1853, in response to a Memorial 
 signed by many Presbyters of this Church, praying that steps 
 might be taken to heal the unhappy divisions of Christendom, 
 and to more fully develop the Catholic idea of the Church of 
 Christ, the Bishops of this Church in Council assembled did 
 appoint a Commission of Bishops empowered to confer with the 
 several Christian Bodies in our land who were desirous of pro- 
 moting godly union and concord among all who loved the Lord 
 Jesus in sincerity and truth; 
 
 And whereas, This Commission, in conformity with the terms 
 of its appointment, did formally set forth and advocate sundry 
 suggestions and recommendations intended to accomplish the 
 great end in view; 
 
 And whereas, In the year 1880, the Bishops of the American 
 Church, assembled in Council, moved by the appeals from Chris- 
 tians in foreign countries who were struggling to free themselves 
 from the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, set forth a declara- 
 tion to the effect that, in virtue of the solidarity of the Catholic 
 
12 
 
 Episcopate, in which we have part, it was the right and duty of 
 the Episcopates of all national Churches holding to the primi- 
 tive Faith and Order, and of the several Bishops of the same, to 
 protect in the holding of that Faith, and the recovering of that 
 Order, those who have been wrongfully deprived of both; and 
 this without demanding a rigid uniformity, or the sacrifice of the 
 national traditions of worship and discipline, or of their rightful 
 autonomy; 
 
 And whereas, Many of the faithful in Christ Jesus among us 
 are praying with renewed and increasing earnestness that some 
 measures may be adopted at this time for the reunion of the 
 sundered parts of Christendom: Now, therefore, in pursuance of 
 the action taken in 1853 for the healing of the divisions among 
 Christians in our own land, and in 1880 for the protection and 
 encouragement of those who had withdrawn from the Roman 
 Obedience, we, Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
 the United States of America, in council assembled as Bishops 
 in the Church of God, do hereby solemnly declare to all whom 
 it may concern, and specially to our fellow-Christians of the 
 different Communions in this land, who, in their several spheres, 
 have contended for the religion of Christ: 
 
 1. Our earnest desire that the Saviour's prayer, "That we 
 may all be one," may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily 
 fulfilled; 
 
 2. That we believe that all who have been duly baptized with 
 water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, are members of the Holy Catholic Church; 
 
 3. That in all things of human ordering or human choice, 
 relating to the modes of worship and discipUne, or to traditional 
 customs, this Church is ready in the spirit of love and humility 
 to forego all preferences of her own; 
 
 4. That this Church does not seek to absorb other Com- 
 munions, but rather, co-operating with them on the basis of a 
 common Faith and Order, to discountenance schism, to heal the 
 wounds of the Body of Christ, and to promote the charity which 
 is the chief of Christian graces and the visible manifestation of 
 Christ to the world; 
 
 But furthermore, we do hereby afifirm that the Christian 
 
13 
 
 unity now so earnestly desired by the memorialists, can be 
 restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the 
 principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church 
 during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe 
 to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order 
 committed by Christ and His Apostles to the Church unto the 
 end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or 
 surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards 
 and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men. 
 
 As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as 
 essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches 
 of Christendom, we account the following, to wit: 
 
 1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the 
 revealed Word of God. 
 
 2. The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Chris- 
 tian Faith. 
 
 3. The two Sacraments, — Baptism and the Supper of the 
 Lord, — ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of insti- 
 tution and of the elements ordained by Him. 
 
 4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods 
 of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and 
 peoples called of God into the unity of His Church. 
 
 Furthermore, Deeply grieved by the sad divisions which 
 affect the Christian Church in our own land, we hereby declare 
 our desire and readiness, so soon as there shall be any author- 
 ized response to this Declaration, to enter into brotherly con- 
 ference with all or any Christian Bodies seeking the restoration 
 of the organic unity of the Church, with a view to the earnest 
 study of the conditions under which so priceless a blessing might 
 happily be brought to pass. 
 
 A. N. LiTTLEJOHN, 
 
 G. T. Bedell, 
 M. A. De Wolfe Howe, 
 Samuel S. Harris, 
 J. N. Galleher. 
 On motion, the foregoing report was adopted, and ordered to 
 be printed, and communicated to the House of Deputies. [Jour- 
 nal of House of Bishops, 1888, p. 79.] 
 
14 
 
 Independent action was also taken in the House of 
 Clerical and Lay Deputies, proposing that a committee 
 of five bishops, five presbyters, and five laymen should be 
 appointed to enter into communication with any other 
 Christian bodies seeking the restoration of unity. Such 
 a committee was appointed, and through it this declara- 
 tion of the Bishops was, presumably, made known to the 
 Christian bodies of the country. Its report to the next 
 General Convention will be looked for with interest. 
 
 This advance on the part of the Bishops was met in a 
 most courteous and respectful spirit by the governing 
 bodies of most of the Protestant Churches, though in 
 some quarters and especially in certain Christian periodi- 
 cals, suspicion, scorn, and a most uncharitable question- 
 ing of sincerity and honesty were conspicuous. On the 
 whole, however, the Bishops have good reason to be 
 pleased with the result of their action. Of course, as 
 nothing was to be expected from the authorities of the 
 Roman mission, no disappointment could result from 
 their failure to make official response. The question of 
 unity with Rome and those who recognise authority in 
 the Papacy must wait upon the withdrawal of the Creed 
 of Pius IV, and later additions, as terms of communion. 
 
 THE SCOPE OF THE DECLARATION. 
 
 The Bishops undoubtedly had in view, primarily, in 
 making this declaration, the Protestant bodies in this 
 country. A good deal of fault has been found with them 
 for this, some urging that it is of supreme importance not 
 to take any steps that might seem to endanger future 
 intercommunion with the Eastern Churches, and others 
 objecting to anything that might further separate us from 
 the Churches in communion with Rome. While it is cer- 
 
15 
 
 tainly well to guard these points as much as possible, it 
 would seem that the preeminent need and the end to be 
 first striven for by us is unity among American Chris- 
 tians, It is very certain that the great problem before 
 the Church in this country is the preservation of this na- 
 tion in the Christian faith. This is her GoD-given mis- 
 sion. If, as is held by many, the Anglo-Saxon is now 
 and is more and more to become the dominant race of 
 the world, and if this country is to be the principal home 
 of this race, from which it will some day go out to stamp 
 its impress on all the other races of the world, then it is 
 more important to make this nation a unit for Christ than 
 it is to convert to Him all the world besides; indeed, to 
 do the former will be the readiest way to accomplish our 
 share of the latter. But, whether this be so or not, there 
 can be no question but that the unification of all the non- 
 Roman Christians of this country would be the most im- 
 portant possible work that could now be done for the 
 nation ; as it would also be the most effective means of 
 counteracting Romish influences, and perhaps of detach- 
 ing from their foreign allegiance those of our citizens 
 now under papal domination, and attaching them to the 
 national Church. Whatever obstacles there may be, 
 therefore, to the securing of unity among non-Roman 
 Christians in this country, should be studied with a view 
 to their removal; for in this unity lies the hope of the 
 future. 
 
 THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE. 
 
 It may be noted that the Lambeth Conference of 
 1888, at which there were present one hundred and forty- 
 five Bishops, some from every province of the Anglican 
 Communion, including twenty-nine of the American Bish- 
 ops, adopted, with some modifications, the four essential 
 
16 
 
 terms of communion set forth by the American Bishops, 
 as appHcable to the question of Home Re-union in the 
 British Isles. The Encyclical letter deals with the 
 question in the following language: 
 
 Home Re-union. — After anxious discussion we have resolved 
 to content ourselves with laying down certain articles as a basis 
 on which approach may be, by God's blessing, made towards 
 Home Re-union. These articles, four in number, will be found 
 in the appended Resolutions. 
 
 The attitude of the Anglican Communion towards the relig- 
 ious bodies now separated from it by unhappy divisions would 
 appear to be this : — 
 
 We hold ourselves in readiness to enter into brotherly con- 
 ference with any of those who may desire intercommunion with 
 us in a more or less perfect form. We lay down conditions on 
 which such intercommunion is, in our opinion, and according to 
 our conviction, possible. For however we may long to embrace 
 those now alienated from us, so that the ideal of the one flock 
 under the one Shepherd may be realized, we must not be un- 
 faithful stewards of the great deposit entrusted to us. We can- 
 not desert our position either as to faith or discipline. That 
 concord would, in our judgment, be neither true nor desirable 
 which should be produced by such surrender. But we gladly 
 and thankfully recognize the real religious work which is carried 
 on by Christian bodies not of our Communion. We cannot close 
 our eyes to the visible blessing which has been vouchsafed to 
 their labors for Christ's sake. Let us not be misunderstood on 
 this point. We are not insensible to the strong ties, the rooted 
 convictions, which attach them to their present position. These 
 we respect, as we wish that on our side our own principles and 
 feelings may be respected. Competent observers, indeed, assert 
 that not in England only, but in all parts of the Christian world, 
 there is a real yearning for unity — that men's hearts are moved 
 more than heretofore towards Christian fellowship. The Confer- 
 ence has shown in its discussions as well as its resolutions that 
 it is deeply penetrated with this feeling. May the Spirit of Love 
 
17 
 
 move on the troubled waters of religious differences. [Lambeth 
 Conferences, p. 272.] 
 
 The appended resolutions referred to here read thus: 
 
 11. That, in the opinion of this Conference, the following Ar- 
 ticles supply a basis on which approach may be, by God's bless- 
 ing, made towards Home Reunion : — 
 
 {A) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 
 as " containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being 
 the rule and ultimate standard of faith. 
 
 {B) The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol, and the 
 Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. 
 
 {€) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself— Bap- 
 tism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use 
 of Christ's words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by 
 Him. 
 
 {D) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods 
 of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and 
 peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church. 
 
 The follovi^ing paragraph is also of interest in this 
 connection : 
 
 12. That this Conference earnestly requests the constituted 
 authorities of the various branches of our Communion, acting, so 
 far as may be, in concert with ^one another, to make it known 
 that they hold themselves in readiness to enter into brotherly 
 conference (such as that which has already been proposed by the 
 Church in the United States of America) with the representa- 
 tives of other Christian Communions in the English-speaking 
 races, in order to consider what steps can be taken either to. 
 wards corporate Reunion or towards such relations as may pre- 
 pare the way for fuller organic unity hereafter. [Ibid, p. 280.] 
 
 It is earnestly to be hoped that this action v^ill lead 
 to union among Christians in all the British Possessions, 
 but in any case the American Church has her own work 
 to do, and must give herself to it, whatever may be done 
 
18 
 
 or left undone in foreign lands. In doing her own pecu- 
 liar work she has no need to be regardful of foreign 
 Churches beyond what is required by Catholic principles 
 and a fraternal affection for brethren in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 independence of national churches. 
 
 Nothing is clearer in the history of the early Churches 
 than that, while they were careful to maintain unity in 
 essentials, they were tenacious of their rights as autono- 
 mous bodies, and exercised their own judgment and gov- 
 erned themselves in all non-essentials. I'he differences 
 in the mode of the reception of heretics and schismatics 
 into communion are an illustration of this. True, as the 
 organisation of the Church was conformed more and 
 more to that of the empire, this liberty was encroached 
 upon until little by little it almost passed away, and then 
 was finally lost in the West, under the papacy; but it is 
 our privilege to re-assert it and to claim and exercise our 
 rights as an autonomous and autocephalous Churchy 
 leading the way, if need be, in the regaining of this lib- 
 erty, even at some expense of temporary discord. It is 
 scarcely to be doubted, however, that what is seen to be 
 true, wise, and expedient by the American Church would 
 be accepted as such by the Anglican Communion gener- 
 ally; though, should it be otherwise, we are not and can- 
 not be bound by any action of foreign Churches in matters 
 pertaining to our own discipline ; but must manfully exer- 
 cise our lawful liberty, working wisely in the performance 
 of our own work in our own special field, maintaining our 
 own rights and conceding to others theirs. 
 
 Unity among the Churches which go to make up 
 what we call the Anglican Communion is an important 
 and valuable possession, and we should do nothing lightly 
 
19 
 
 to disturb it ; but the self governing power of national 
 Churches is also a priceless treasure, which must not be 
 ■sacrificed for a temporary good, but must be preserved at 
 any cost. 
 
 The one evil to be feared in our close connection 
 with the English Church is that, from a sentimental re. 
 g3.rd to the brilliant and majestic mother Church, we shall 
 *be led to yield more of our rightful liberty than we ought. 
 When a daughter marries, her first duty becomes loving 
 loyalty to her spouse ; with which mothers-in-law are sup- 
 posed sometimes to interfere. The American Church 
 must be careful not to let her love for her mother seduce 
 her from unswerving loyalty to her Divine spouse, whose 
 commands are her supreme law, and whose gifts are her 
 most precious treasures. Among these gifts what is more 
 precious than that liberty wherewith He has made us 
 'free ? 
 
 THE CHIEF OBSTACLE TO UNITY. 
 
 It is evident from the responses made to and the com- 
 ments on the declaration of the Bishops that the fourth 
 term of communion set forth by them — the historic epis- 
 copate — is considered by many as the one great obstacle 
 to unity. And if it is to be understood as involving the 
 reordination of all ministers not having what we call 
 episcopal orders, it must be admitted that this is certainly 
 one of the chief obstacles in the way. 
 
 Many Protestant ministers who have come to see the 
 value of the episcopal form of Church government are not 
 prepared to admit that their present orders are invalid, 
 and to submit to a new ordination at the hands of our 
 bishops. And in this they have the sympathy of a con- 
 siderable proportion of the members and a not insignifi- 
 cant number of the Clergy of the Episcopal Church. 
 
20 
 
 This is a most important fact; for if the Church does not 
 require her members or even her clergy to subscribe to 
 any particular theory of Orders, there is no good reason 
 why she should impose any theory upon ministers of 
 other religious bodies who desire to enter into commu- 
 nion with her. If, therefore, good and fit men now min- 
 istering in non-episcopal bodies are disposed to accept 
 the historic episcopate as a valuable if not an essential 
 factor in the work of preserving and propagating the 
 Christian faith, but are repelled by the requirement of 
 reordination, we ought to be very sure that such reordi- 
 nation is essential before we insist upon it ; and we 
 ought to seek diligently and earnestly for the removal of 
 this obstacle to unity, provided it can be removed with- 
 out the sacrifice of any essential principle. 
 
 The question certainly deserves a most serious, im- 
 partial, and thorough consideration, for whatever other 
 obstacles to unity there may be — and there are other not 
 unimportant ones — this lies at the very threshold of the 
 subject, and must be determined by itself. 
 
 THE LESSON FROM HISTORY. 
 
 This is not by any means the first time in the history 
 of the Catholic Church that a situation similar to that in 
 which we find ourselves has confronted her. There 
 must be something, therefore, in her action in the past, to 
 indicate to us the principles upon which we should deal 
 with the great problem demanding solution at our hands. 
 The work before us, then, is to examine into the history 
 of past action for the healing of divisions, and see whether 
 we can find any definite principles which we can apply to 
 our own circumstances, so as to facilitate the unification 
 of American Christians. 
 
21 
 
 EVILS OF FALSE THEORIES. 
 
 Before we enter upon this historical examination, 
 however, it is necessary to clear the ground by the re- 
 moval of certain difficulties in the way of a proper esti- 
 mate of the result of this examination — difficulties arising 
 from the prevalence of false theories and false assump- 
 tions, which would tend to prevent our arriving at true 
 conclusions, however plainly the historical facts might be 
 set before us. 
 
 Probably the greatest evils existing in the theological 
 world to-day are of this character. We are too much 
 given to traditionalism — to accepting and holding certain 
 vi^ws because they have been and are sanctioned by great 
 names, and failing to go to the bottom of things and see 
 for ourselves what are the ultimate facts. 
 
 " SECOND-HANDNESS." 
 
 Canon Farrar, in describing the Rabbis and their 
 teaching \Life of Christ, Vol. I., p. 266, n.], coins a word 
 which admirably describes this habit. He calls it " sec- 
 ond-handness." Notwithstanding the character of our 
 age and the facilities existing for independent investiga- 
 tion, there is entirely too much of this habit among us. 
 In fact, while the age has put into our hands unrivalled 
 facilities for such investigation, it has also abundantly 
 offered to our indolence temptations to escape the labour 
 involved in it. Dictionaries, cyclopedias, compends, and 
 text-books, while very convenient things for the real stu- 
 dent, are wofully misleading to others, and are doubtless 
 largely responsible for the superficiality and the erroneous 
 notions so widely prevailing. 
 
 The study of the great divines of the reformed 
 Church of England and the great theologians of the 
 
middle ages is a very good thing, provided one has time 
 to give to them as well as to the earlier sources from 
 which they derived their learning ; but to study them and 
 not verify their references and test their interpretations 
 is to give one's self up to be led astray. Certainly there 
 is no excuse for the student who pursues this course now- 
 adays ; for, however he may be obliged to rely on these 
 middlemen for assistance, in many respects, he need not 
 be at their mercy ; but having access to the Scriptures, 
 the early Fathers, and the acts of the Councils, he is able 
 to get at the original facts and to form his own conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 As an illustration of this second-handness, perhaps 
 nothing better can be found than the remark made by 
 one not long since, as follows : 
 
 When a man knows his Summa, his theology will be im- 
 pregnable. 
 
 Now, Thomas Aquinas was doubtless a great scholar, and 
 his work is very valuable, but, considering the time in 
 which he lived and the circumstances which surrounded 
 him, he certainly cannot be esteemed a safe guide for us. 
 Why should we be content with a writer of the thirteenth 
 century as our ultimate guide and instructor in theology, 
 when we can have all the writers of the Ante-Nicene 
 period to show us what was taught and practised in the 
 earliest ages of Christianity? It is from such second- 
 handness that we derive our false assumptions and erro- 
 neous theories. 
 
 LAWRENCE AND BINGHAM. 
 
 How these things vitiate our reasonings and destroy 
 the force of our conclusions may be seen from the famous 
 controversy between Lawrence and Bingham, on lay 
 
23 
 
 baptism, so-called. The former, assuming the correctness 
 of a certain theory of the indelibility of Orders, argued 
 that because the Nicene Council, as he interpreted its 
 action, received the Novatian clerics without reordaining 
 them, therefore it recognised their orders as valid, and 
 for this reason did not require them to be rebaptised. 
 Bingham, on the other hand, denied this conclusion, 
 contending, rightly, that the Novatians had no orders; 
 but he assumed that they were therefore laymen and their 
 baptism lay baptism, and argued that in receiving them 
 without rebaptism the Council recognised the validity of 
 lay baptism! Both these assumptions were false, and the 
 conclusions based on them were therefore worthless. 
 
 A SOPHISTICAL DISTINCTION. 
 
 Lawrence's theory of the indelibility of orders prevails 
 largely among us to-day, and closely connected with it is 
 the distinction made between invalid acts and acts un- 
 canonical and irregular but valid ; which gave rise to the 
 sophistical application, in theology, of the legal maxim : 
 Fieri non debet, sed factum valet. ^ That this maxim has 
 a proper sphere is true, but it is not that in which theolo- 
 gians principally use it. In this it is simply assuming 
 the point in dispute. 
 
 The genius of Augustine, the renowned bishop of 
 Hippo, has exercised a most powerful influence on the 
 Western Church, and to him we are indebted for these 
 and some other things for which we do not need to be 
 thankful. The Ante-Nicene Church knew nothing of 
 them, as we shall see. 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 Stripping ourselves, then, as far as possible, of all 
 
 *It ought not to have been done, but being done it is valid. 
 
24 
 
 prejudices and prepossessions, let us go back to the first 
 ages ; for, as Cyprian, the noble bishop of Carthage, has 
 well said: 
 
 There is a brief way for religious and simple minds, both to 
 put away error, and to find and elicit truth. For if we return to 
 the head and source of divine tradition, human error ceases. 
 \Epistle LXXIIL, lo.]* 
 
 Before Cyprian, Irenseus and Tertullian had enun- 
 ciated the same principle, and it is without question the 
 only safe one to follow in all that relates to our holy 
 religion — its faith, its order, and its practise. 
 
 * Quotations from the Ante-Nicene writers are taken from the American edition 
 of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, unless otherwise noted. 
 
II. 
 
 THE INDELIBILITY OF ORDERS. 
 
 THE theories referred to have greatly obscured the true 
 view of holy orders, and it is our task now, there- 
 fore, to show that they had no place in the mind of the 
 Primitive Church, but were the product of later times ; 
 originating in the exigencies of argument, and being 
 developed by degrees, as earlier principles became over- 
 laid and finally lost out of sight. 
 
 THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY. 
 
 This is a good place, however, at which to call atten- 
 tion to the manner in which the appeal to antiquity is 
 often made, and made most unjustly. One illustration 
 must suffice, and it shall be taken from no less a scholar 
 than the usually most judicious Dr. Waterland. Speaking 
 of the position taken by Bingham on the question of the 
 indelibility of orders, he says : 
 
 I cannot but wonder at Mr. Bingham's strange attempt* 
 strange in a man of his learning and sagacity, to overthrow this 
 so well-grounded notion of the indelible character of orders, by 
 which, whatever he pretends, he runs cross to all antiquity 
 (except the African Church in the time of St. Cyprian and a few 
 years before and after), etc. [Second Letter to Kelsall, Works, 
 Vol. VI., p. 174.] 
 
 After such a sweeping appeal to " all antiquity," with 
 so limited an exception, one is entitled to expect the 
 writer to go back to the earliest times ; yet Dr. Water- 
 land's earliest witness is Augustine- * 
 
 * Augustine was bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395-430. 
 
 25 
 
26 
 
 THE ROMAN THEORY. 
 
 As a matter of fact Augustine is the first who formu- 
 lates what may not improperly be termed the Roman 
 theory of the indelibility of Orders, which Waterland 
 held. It seems to have been foreshadowed, however, by 
 an utterance of Callistus, a heretical bishop of Rome, 
 A.D. 217, who is reported by Hippolytus as saying: 
 
 If a bishop was guilty of any sin, if even a sin unto death, he 
 ought not to be deposed. {Refutation of all Heresies^ IX., 7. 
 See also Gore, Christian Ministry, p. 188.] 
 
 FORMULATED BY AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Augustine, in his controversy with the Donatists, 
 driven by the exigencies of his position, expanded this 
 idea and gave it form. First, speaking of baptism being 
 given outside the Church, and also being taken out from 
 her by those who fall into schism, he says: 
 
 The sacrament of baptism is what the person possesses who 
 is baptized; and the sacrament of conferring baptism is what he 
 possesses who is ordained. And as the baptized person, if he 
 depart from the unity of the Church, does not thereby lose the 
 sacrament of baptism, so also he who is ordained, if he depart 
 from the unity of the Church, does not lose the sacrament of 
 conferring baptism. \0n Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book 
 I., Chap. I., Clark's edition, Ante-Nicene Christian Library.'] 
 
 In another place, applying his principle to ordination, 
 and arguing that as those who have been baptised among 
 heretics are validly baptised, so those who have been 
 ordained among them are validly ordained, he says: 
 
 For each is a sacrament, and each is given a man by a kind 
 of consecration, the one when he is baptized, the other when he 
 is ordained ; and hence it is not lawful in the Catholic Church to 
 repeat either. For whensoever, for the good of peace, even the 
 
27 
 
 leaders, coming- from the schismatic party itself, the error of 
 their schism having been corrected, have been received, and it 
 has been deemed expedient that they should bear the same 
 offices which they bore before, they have not been ordained 
 again; but as their baptism so their ordination remained entire 
 in them; because the fault, which was corrected by the peace of 
 unity was in the separation, not in the sacraments, which 
 wheresoever they are, retain their nature. [A^avist Pannenian, 
 Book II., Chap. 13, quoted by Courayer, Validity of Anglican 
 Ordinations, Chap. XIV.] 
 
 Much more to the same effect is to be found in the 
 writings of Augustine, and under their influence the 
 theory gradually made its way to acceptance in the Wes- 
 tern Church. It is set forth as the Catholic doctrine by 
 Thomas Aquinas [Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, Vol. 
 II., p. 119], and also by Bellarmine in his work De Sac- 
 ramento Ordinis [Bingham, Scholastical History of Lay 
 Baptism, Part II., Chap. VI., Section 5]. 
 
 THE CONSEQUENCE. 
 
 According to this theory a man having once been 
 ordained, even in schism and heresy, has power to val- 
 idly perform all the functions of his office, and can never 
 be deprived of it, even if he be deposed and excommuni- 
 cated and cast out of the Church ; so that his ministra- 
 tions are always valid and effectual to the person receiv- 
 ing them, though uncanonical, forbidden, and sinful as 
 regards the minister. 
 
 THIS THEORY NOT CATHOLIC. 
 
 That this theory was unknown to the Church previ- 
 ous to Augustine's time, and was only gradually received 
 after it, the following pages will show. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be sufficient to give such canons of 
 
28 
 
 the General Councils and of those Councils approved at 
 Chalcedon, and such of the Apostolic Canons as bear on 
 the subject. 
 
 THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 These are the earliest laws of the Church we have, 
 none of them being later than the fourth century, and a 
 number of them dating back, at least in substance, to 
 Apostolic times. Many of them deal with the discipline 
 of the Clergy, and the penalties prescribed for various 
 offences include suspension, deposition, excommunica- 
 tion, and casting out of the Church. Certain of them 
 declare, directly or implicitly, that ordinations performed 
 under certain conditions are null and void. 
 
 Canons 17, 18, 19 and 76 refer to orders in the 
 Church. They read as follows : * 
 
 17. He who after Baptism has been twice married, or has 
 had a concubine, cannot be a Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon, nor 
 be on the sacerdotal list at all. 
 
 18. He who has married a widow, or a divorced woman, or a 
 harlot, or a slave, or an actress, cannot be a Bishop, Presbyter, 
 or Deacon, nor be on the sacerdotal list at all. 
 
 19. He who has married two sisters or a niece cannot be a 
 clergyman. 
 
 76. It is unlawful for a Bishop desiring to gratify a brother, or 
 a son, or some other relative, to ordain whom he will to the dig- 
 nity of the Episcopate. For it is not just to make heirs of his 
 episcopal office, and through natural affection to give away 
 the things which are God's. It is not lawful to bequeath the 
 Church of GOD to heirs; and if any one shall do this let the ordi- 
 nation be void, and let himself be punished with suspension. 
 
 The first three of these canons implicitly make void 
 
 * As translated in Dr. Fulton's Index Canonum. The translations of the Canons 
 throughout this book are taken from the above work or Hefele's History of the Coun- 
 cils, indifferently, except where otherwise noted. 
 
any ordination of such persons as are specified, or at 
 least make them liable to deposition, while the last is 
 direct and positive in its declaration of the nullity of 
 such an ordination as is mentioned. 
 
 Others of these canons are positive in their declara- 
 tion of the nullity of heretical ordinations, and it must 
 be remembered that this term applies to the ordinations 
 of all separated bodies, though they might be only schis- 
 matical, in the later sense. 
 
 46. We ordain that any Bishop or Presbyter who shall admit 
 the baptism or the sacrifice of heretics shall be deposed; for what 
 communion hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath the 
 faithful man with an unbeliever ? 
 
 47. If a Bishop or Presbyter shall rebaptize one who has 
 true baptism, or will not baptize one who has been polluted by 
 the impious, let him be deposed, as one who mocks the cross 
 and death of Christ, and who makes no distinction between true 
 priests and false. 
 
 68, If any Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon shall receive from 
 any one a second ordination, let both him and his ordainer be 
 deposed, unless it should be proved that he had his ordination 
 from heretics; for it is not possible that they who are baptized or 
 ordained by such can be either of the faithful or the clergy. 
 
 If we compare these with Ganon 6 of the second 
 General Council we shall see how sweeping they are. 
 This canon deals with the bringing of accusations against 
 Catholic bishops and prohibits their reception from her- 
 etics. It then defines heretics as follows : 
 
 By heretics we mean both those who were aforetime cast out 
 and those whom we ourselves have since anathematized, and 
 also those professing to hold the true faith who have separated 
 from our canonical bishops, and set up conventicles in opposi- 
 tion [to them]. 
 
 So heretical orders were counted as absolutely void 
 
30 
 
 by the framers of these canons, and by heretical orders 
 we are to understand all orders proceeding from those 
 who were separated from the Catholic Church, whether 
 they were heretical in doctrine or not. 
 
 THE NICENE CANONS. 
 
 The following canons of the Nicene Council make 
 certain ordinations void : 
 
 9. If any Presbyters have been advanced without examina- 
 tion, or if upon examination they have made confession of 
 crime, and men acting in violation of the Canon have laid hands 
 upon them, notwithstanding their confession, these men the 
 Canon does not admit, for the Catholic Church justifies that 
 [only] which is blameless. 
 
 15. On account of the great disturbance and discords that 
 occur it is decreed that the custom prevailing in certain places, 
 contrary to the [Apostolical] Canon, must by all means be done 
 away, so that neither Bishop, Presbyter, nor Deacon shall pass 
 from city to city. And if any one, after this decree of the Holy 
 and Great Synod, shall attempt any such thing or continue in 
 any such course, his proceedings shall be utterly void, and he 
 shall be restored to the Church in which he was ordained Bishop 
 or Presbyter. 
 
 16. Neither Presbyters nor Deacons nor any others enrolled 
 among the Clergy, who, not having the fear of GOD before their 
 eyes, nor regarding the Canon of the Church, shall recklessly 
 remove from their own Church, ought by any means to be re- 
 ceived by another Church; but every constraint should be 
 applied to restore them to their own Parishes; and, if they will 
 not go, they must be suspended from their ministry. And if 
 any [Bishop] shall dare surreptitiously to take and in his own 
 Church ordain a man belonging to another, without the consent 
 of his own proper Bishop, from whom he has seceded, let the 
 ordination be void. 
 
 The Fathers of the first General Council evidently 
 
31 
 
 thought they had power to make certain ordinations 
 void, and the second of these canons seems to include 
 baptisms also, as it refers to the acts of Presbyters and 
 Deacons as well as Bishops. 
 
 THE CANONS OF ANTIOCH. 
 
 The following canons of the Council of Antioch, A.D. 
 341, declare certain ordinations to be null and void. 
 
 13. No Bishop shall presume to pass from one Province to 
 another and ordain persons to the dignity of the ministry in the 
 Church, not even should he have others with him, unless he 
 should go at the written invitation of the Metropolitan and 
 Bishops in whose country he goes. But if he should without 
 invitation proceed irregularly to the ordination of any, or to the 
 regulation of ecclesiastical affairs which do not concern him, the 
 things done by him shall be disallowed, and he himself shall 
 suffer the due punishment of his irregularity and his unreason- 
 able undertaking by being forthwith deposed by the Holy 
 Synod. 
 
 19. A Bishop shall not be ordained without a Synod and the 
 presence of the Metropolitan of the Province. And when he is pres- 
 ent it is by all means better that all his brethren in the ministry 
 of the Province should assemble together with him, and these the 
 Metropolitan ought to invite by letter. And it were better 
 that all should meet; but if this be difficult it is by all means 
 necessary that a majority be present, or take part by letter, in 
 the election, and that thus the appointment should be made in 
 the presence or with the consent of the majority; but if it should 
 be done contrary to these decrees, the ordination shall be of no 
 force. And if the appointment should be made according to the 
 prescribed Canon, and any should object through natural love of 
 contradiction, the decision of the majority shall prevail. 
 
 22. A Bishop may not enter a city [which belongs] to an- 
 other and is not subject to himself, nor may he enter into a 
 district which does not belong to him, either to ordain any one, 
 or to appoint Presbyters and Deacons to places within the juris- 
 
32 
 
 diction of another Bishop, unless with the consent of the proper 
 Bishop of the place. And if any one shall presume to do any 
 such thing, the ordination shall be void, and he himself shall be 
 punished by the Synod. 
 
 There certainly can be no question as to the belief of 
 the members of this Council in their power to annul 
 ordinations and make them void beforehand. And it is 
 to be remembered that these canons were all ratified by 
 the fourth General Council, A.D. 451. 
 
 THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 The fourth canon of this, the second General Council, 
 A.D. 381, is as follows: 
 
 With regard to the Cynic Maximus, and the disorder occa- 
 sioned by him in Constantinople, (it is declared) that Maximus 
 never became a bishop, and is not one now; neither are any of 
 those ordained by him to any grade whatsoever of the clerical 
 office really ordained, as everything performed about him (viz. 
 his consecration) and by him is pronounced invalid. 
 
 There can be no dispute as to the meaning of this 
 canon. Its language is absolute and unequivocal, and 
 impossible to be explained away. The Fathers of this 
 Council must have been fully convinced that such an 
 ordination as that of Maximus was null and void from the 
 beginning ; for they do not depose him from the episco- 
 pate, but assert positively that he had not been admitted 
 to it. The nullity of the ordination was not dependent 
 on their declaration ; but was recognised and declared by 
 them to be null from the beginning. Doubtless, the 
 ground upon which they based their declaration was the 
 existing law of the Church. 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 
 
 The fourth General Council, held at Chalcedon, 
 
33 
 
 A.D. 451, re-affirmed, in its first Canon, the canons of all 
 preceding General Councils, as also those of several local 
 Councils, and probably the Apostolical Canons. A body 
 of Canon law had now been formed from these sources, 
 which the Council had before it. The Council also 
 enacted canons of its own, of which the following declare, 
 directly or implicitly, certain ordinations to be void. 
 
 2. If a bishop confers ordination for money, and turns the 
 grace which cannot be bought into merchandise, and consecrates 
 a bishop, or chorepiscopus, or priest, or deacon, or any other 
 cleric, or appoints for money an ceconomus, or advocate, or 
 prosmonarios, or any other servant of the Church, for the sake 
 of base gain, upon conviction he shall endanger his own office, 
 and he who is ordained shall have no advantage from his ordina- 
 tion or office obtained by purchase, but shall lose the dignity or 
 post which he has received for money. But if any one has acted 
 as a mediator in these shameful and unlawful transactions, then, 
 if he is a cleric he shall lose his own post, but if he is a layman 
 or a monk, he shall be anathematized. 
 
 5. In regard to bishops and clerics who go from one city to 
 another, the canons set forth by the holy fathers respecting 
 them shall have validity. 
 
 6. No one shall be absolutely ordained either priest or 
 deacon, or to any other clerical order, unless he is appointed 
 specially to the Church of the city or of the village, or to a mar- 
 tyr's chapel or monastery. In regard to those, however, who 
 have been absolutely ordained, the [holy] Synod decrees that 
 such ordination shall be without effect, and that they shall 
 nowhere be allowed to officiate, to the shame of him who or- 
 dained. 
 
 Besides the general ratification, in canon i, of the 
 body of Canon law now recognised as in force, this Coun- 
 cil, in canon 5, gives special recognition to the Nicene 
 and Antiochean canons on intrusion, and in canons 2 and 
 
34 
 
 6 provides for certain cases not sufficiently provided for 
 before. 
 
 It may be well to note, here, the distinctions between 
 the different canons declaring ordinations to be void. 
 We have (i) certain canons decreeing that if ordinations 
 are given under certain prohibited conditions they shall 
 be void; (2) certain canons recognising the force of these 
 decrees and declaring that certain ordinations are void ; 
 and (3) certain canons declaring that ordinations which 
 have been given under specified improper conditions are 
 not to be recognised for the future and that the persons 
 so ordained in the past are not to be permitted to officiate. 
 The reason for this last is plain enough. Such ordina- 
 tions not having been previously forbidden and declared 
 null beforehand were valid, and therefore could not be 
 treated like that of Maximus, which had been so for- 
 bidden and nullified. 
 
 THE LAW OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 Here, then, we have a number of canons, dating from 
 the earliest times to the middle of the fifth century, and 
 the earlier ones re-affirmed at this later date by a General 
 Council, declaring that certain ordinations are void, null, 
 of no effect. Manifestly this is entirely inconsistent with 
 the Roman theory of the indelibility of Orders. 
 
 To complete our investigation, however, we must now 
 consider certain other canons, concerning deposition from 
 the Ministry. 
 
 CANONS ON DEPOSITION. 
 
 Various of these are important in connection with our 
 subject because they speak of deposition in such terms 
 as to show that any ministerial functions performed by 
 deposed ministers were considered as invalid and of no 
 
 I 
 
35 
 
 effect. Some of the canons already quoted and many 
 others of the earlier times bear upon this subject, but it 
 will be necessary to transcribe here only a few of the 
 strongest. 
 
 ANTIOCH AND CHALCEDON.* 
 
 The following canons of the Council of Antioch, 
 which was referred to as having its canons confirmed at 
 Chalcedon, with the Encyclical Letter of the third Gen- 
 eral Council, will be sufficient for our purpose. 
 
 I. Whosoever shall presume to set aside the decree of the 
 holy and great Synod which was assembled at Nicaea in the 
 presence of the pious and most religious Sovereign Constantine, 
 concerning the holy and salutary feast of Easter, if they shall 
 obstinately persist in opposing what was [then] rightly ordained, 
 let them be excommunicated and cast out; and let this be said 
 concerning the laity. But if any of those who preside in the 
 Church, whether he be Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon, shall pre- 
 sume, after this decree, to exercise his own private judgment, to 
 the subversion of the people and the disturbance of the Churches, 
 by observing Easter [at the same time] with the Jews, the holy 
 Synod decrees that he shall be an alien from the Church as one 
 who not only heaps sins upon himself, but who is also the cause 
 of destruction and subversion to many; and it deposes not only 
 such persons themselves from their ministry, but those also who 
 after their deposition shall presume to communicate with them. 
 And the deposed shall be deprived even of that external honour 
 of which the holy Canon [i. e., the Sacerdotal List] and God'S 
 priesthood partake. 
 
 3. If any Presbyter or Deacon or any one whatever belonging 
 to the Priesthood shall forsake his own Parish and shall depart, 
 and having wholly changed his residence shall set himself to 
 remain for a long time in another Parish, let him no longer 
 officiate; especially if his own Bishop shall summon and urge 
 him to return to his own Parish, and Jie shall disobey. And if 
 he persist in his disorder, let him be wholly deposed from his 
 
36 
 
 ministry, so that no further room be left for his restoration. And 
 if another Bishop shall receive a man deposed for this cause, let 
 him be punished by the Common Synod, as one who nullifies the 
 laws of the Church. 
 
 4. If any Bishop who has been deposed by a Synod, or any 
 Presbyter or Deacon who has been deposed by his Bishop, shall 
 presume to execute any part of the ministry, whether it be a 
 Bishop according to his former custom, or a Presbyter, or a 
 Deacon, it shall no longer be lawful to him to have a pros- 
 pect of restoration, nor an opportunity of making his defence in 
 another Synod; but they who communicate with him shall all be 
 cast out of the Church, and particularly if they have presumed 
 to communicate with the persons before mentioned, knowing 
 the sentence pronounced against them. 
 
 5. If any Presbyter or Deacon, despising his own Bishop, 
 has separated himself from his Church, and gathered a private 
 assembly, and raised an altar, and if, when summoned by his 
 Bishop, he shall refuse to be persuaded and will not obey, even 
 though [his Bishop] summon him a first and a second time, let 
 such a one be wholly deposed and have no further remedy, neither 
 be capable of regaining his rank. And if he persist in troubling 
 and disturbing the Church, let him be corrected as a seditious 
 person by the Civil power. 
 
 12. If any Presbyter or Deacon deposed by his own Bishop, or 
 any Bishop deposed by a Synod, shall dare to trouble the ears 
 of the Emperor when it is his duty to submit his cause to a 
 greater Synod of Bishops, and to refer to more Bishops the 
 things which he thinks right, and to abide by the examination 
 and decision made by them; if, despising these, he shall trouble 
 the Emperor, he shall be entitled to no pardon, neither shall he 
 have an opportunity of defence nor any hope of future restora- 
 tion. 
 
 The men who enacted these canons seem to have had 
 no doubt of their power to deprive ministers, of any 
 rank, of their right, authority, and power to perform the 
 functions of their ministry, either temporarily or perma- 
 
37 
 
 nently. In these canons they go to the extremest point 
 possible, even cutting off all hope of restoration under 
 any circumstances. But the Fathers of the Council at 
 Ephesus, A,D. 431, are, if possible, still more strenuous 
 in their assertion of this power. 
 
 THE THIRD GENERAL COUNCIL. 
 
 In their Encyclical Letter, referring to those bishops 
 who had refused to meet with them, and who had held a 
 conciliabulum apart, they use this strong language. 
 
 These men, having no privilege of ecclesiastical communion 
 on the ground of a priestly authority, by which they could injure 
 or benefit any persons; since some of them had already been 
 deposed; and since, from their refusing to join in our decree 
 against Nestorius, it was manifestly evident to all men that they 
 were all promoting the opinions of Nestorius and Celestius; the 
 Holy Synod, by one common decree, deposed them all from 
 ecclesiastical communion, and deprived them of all their priestly 
 power by which they might injure or profit any persons. 
 
 This goes to the root of the matter. The bishops 
 sitting in this Council certainly knew nothing of the 
 theory of later times. They evidently regard deposition 
 as effectually depriving the deposed of power as well as 
 authority to minister in sacred things ; and their words 
 may properly be taken as interpretative of the meaning 
 of deposition everywhere. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 
 
 The citations which have been made from the canons 
 of the first four centuries of the Church's life prove, 
 conclusively, that in these ages she knew nothing of the 
 indelibility of orders in the Augustinian or later Roman 
 sense — nothing of the distinction afterwards made be- 
 tween invalid acts and acts uncanonical but valid. 
 
38 
 
 The latter point is frankly admitted by Hefele. In 
 his comment on the case of Maximus the Cynic, under 
 canon 4 of the second General Council, he says : 
 
 Maximus has been already repeatedly spoken of, and the 
 manner of his consecration as bishop explained, according to 
 which the Synod was perfectly right in pronouncing his deposi- 
 tion. The distinction between invalid {invalida, axvpoi) and 
 irregular {illicitd) ordination or consecration had not then been 
 established. What was canonically invalid and practically un- 
 recognised was simply designated o^>ti'po?=invalid, while the 
 later canon law distinguished accurately sacramental and canon- 
 ical invalidity. [History of the Councils^ Oxenham's translation, 
 T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.] 
 
 The only remarks to be made on this are (i) that the 
 Council did not " pronounce his deposition," as we have 
 seen, and (2) that the whole citation is exquisitely 
 Roman — such a beautiful specimen of development ! 
 
 Mr. Gore \Christian Ministry, Chap. III., Sect. III.], 
 also shows that the early Church knew nothing of this 
 distinction between what Hefele calls " sacramental and 
 canonical validity." To whom shall we go — the Primi- 
 tive Church or " the later canon law "? 
 
 Bingham's as yet unsurpassed work on The An- 
 tiquities of the Christian Church, Book XVII., Chap. II., 
 his Scholastical History of Lay Baptism, and his Disser- 
 tation on the Eighth Nicene Canon, may be consulted 
 with profit on the whole subject of the indelibility of 
 orders, though it is necessary to make allowance for a 
 certain false assumption heretofore mentioned. His 
 statement of the question is certainly correct, Lawrence, 
 and Waterland, and many others to the contrary, not- 
 withstanding. The only indelibility of orders the Primi- 
 tive Church recognised was this: that a man having once 
 
39 
 
 been rightly ordained would never need to be ordained 
 again, to the same office, any more than he would need 
 to be again baptised. If he should be deposed he lost 
 the power bestowed upon him at his ordination, and if 
 he were restored he would receive it again, without a new 
 ordination. 
 
 The sum of the whole matter is that the Roman 
 theory of the indelibility of orders, though formulated by 
 Augustine early in the fifth century, was unknown to the 
 Church at large till after the Council of Chalcedon. Its 
 wide acceptance in later times was due to the powerful 
 influence exercised in the West by the writings of the 
 great bishop of Hippo. 
 
III. 
 
 TREATMENT OF SEPARATISTS BY THE 
 EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COMING now to the examination of the question as to 
 how the early Church healed divisions, we will take 
 up first, for convenience' sake, the action of the first Gen- 
 eral Council, A.D. 325, concerning the Novatians, the 
 Meletians, and the Paulianists or Samosatenians. 
 
 THE NOVATIANS. 
 
 This sect originated with Novatian, a presbyter of 
 the Church at Rome, A.D. 249. He desired to suc- 
 ceed Fabianus as bishop, but Cornelius was elected and 
 duly consecrated to the vacant see, and then Novatian 
 raised a party of his own, and by the aid of Maximus, a 
 fellow-presbyter, and others, secured three bishops from a 
 distance and induced them to give him consecration sur- 
 reptitiously. This ordination was null and void, and was 
 so declared by Cornelius and a local council which he sum- 
 moned to deal with the matter. Eusebius [^Eccles, Hist., 
 Book VI., Chap. 43, Oxford translation] gives an account 
 of it, and also quotes letters from Cornelius to Fabius, 
 Bishop of Antioch, on the subject. The decree of the 
 Council he gives as follows : 
 
 That Novatus, indeed, and those who so arrogantly united 
 with him, and those that had adopted his uncharitable and most 
 inhuman opinion, these they considered among those who were 
 alienated from the Church ; but that those who had incurred 
 any calamity should be treated and healed with the remedies of 
 repentance. 
 
 It seems that Novatian used as a pretext for his 
 schism the claim that Cornelius had communicated with 
 
 40 
 
41 
 
 some who had sacrificed during a persecution, which was 
 denounced as wrong, such persons not being capable of 
 restoration but deprived of all hope of forgiveness in this 
 life. The characteristic difference between the Novatians 
 and the Catholic Church became this : that whereas the 
 Church received the lapsed again to communion, after 
 proof of repentance, the Novatians excluded them for- 
 ever. This sect, like the Donatists at a later period, 
 rebaptised Catholics who went to it ; but it is a signifi- 
 cant fact that little or nothing is said about it. [See 
 Note A.] 
 
 In one of the quotations by Eusebius from Cornelius, 
 he speaks of the ordination of Novatian as being "a 
 kind of shadowy and empty imposition of hands." He 
 also states that the bishops who performed the act were 
 deposed and successors appointed to them. 
 
 Cyprian speaks of Novatian as no bishop. He says : 
 
 Cornelius was made bishop by the judgment of God and of 
 His Church, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the 
 suffrage of the people who were then present, and by the assem- 
 bly of ancient priests and good men, when no one had been 
 made so before him, when the place of Fabian, that is, the place 
 of Peter and the degree of the sacerdotal throne was vacant; 
 which being occupied by the will of God, and established by the 
 consent of all of us, whosoever now wishes to become a bishop 
 must needs be made from without ; and he cannot have the 
 ordination of the Church who does not hold the unity of the 
 Church. Whoever he may be, although greatly boasting about 
 himself and claiming very much for himself, he is profane, he is 
 an alien, he is without. And as after the first there cannot be a 
 second, whosoever is made after one who ought to be alone is 
 not second to him, but is in fact none at all. \Epistles LI., 8.]* 
 
 * In another place Cyprian speaks of another deposed bishop as follows : 
 " Evaristus from being a bishop has now not remained even a layman; but ban- 
 ished from the see and from the people, and an exile from the Church of Christ, he 
 
42 
 
 All this is in strict accord with the canons we have on 
 the subject, and expresses most accurately the mind of 
 the Church in this early age. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, Novatian secured a consid- 
 able following, and left behind him an important sect, 
 which was still strong at the time of the Nicene Council. 
 Of course, the episcopal ordination of Novatian having 
 been void, ipso facto, and he and all who followed him 
 having been deposed, there were no ministers of any 
 grade, in the sect, with valid orders. The Council was 
 well aware of this, and must have had it in mind when 
 action was taken concerning the reconciliation. Yet the 
 question is never raised, at all, any more than that con- 
 cerning the Novatian practise of rebaptism. In view of 
 later events in the history of the Church, this is a signifi- 
 cant fact. 
 
 THE MELETIANS. 
 
 Shortly before this Council, Meletius, bishop of Ly- 
 copolis, took advantage of the absence of his Metropoli- 
 tan, the bishop of Alexandria, and of several bishops 
 who were in prison for the faith, to intrude into their 
 jurisdiction and ordain bishops. These ordinations were 
 canonically void, and Meletius and his adherents were 
 deposed by a Council at Alexandria on account of them. 
 Meletius was still living at the time of the Nicene Coun- 
 cil, which attempted to heal the schism. In this sect, as 
 in that of the Novatians, there were, so far as appears, 
 
 roves about far and wide ihrough other provinces, and, himself having made shipwreck 
 of truth and faith, is preparing for some who are like him as fearful shipwrecks." 
 [Epistles XLVIII., i.] 
 
 He also speaks in Epistle LIV. of false, pretended, pseudo-bishops, referring to 
 Fortunatus, Felix, .•\nd others schismatically ordained. And it is to be observed that 
 Cornelius and others to whom Cyprian writes do not find fault with him for this 
 language, but sustain him. 
 
43 
 
 no ministers with valid orders, except Meletius himself, 
 and he had been deposed. [Hefele, History of Councils, 
 in loc] If any others had ever received valid orders 
 they were in a similar position to Meletius. 
 
 THE PAULIANISTS. 
 
 Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, was the founder 
 of this sect, which was in heresy as well as schism. Paul 
 was deposed by a Council in his own city, A.D. 269. 
 {IbidP^ The sect survived him, but was not strong at 
 the time of the Nicene Council. So far as orders were 
 concerned the Paulianists, or Samosatenians, were in the 
 same condition as the other two sects mentioned. 
 
 ALL THREE EQUALLY WITHOUT ORDERS. 
 
 These three sects, then, differing as widely as they 
 did in other particulars, were all alike in this — that none 
 among them had any authority or power to minister in 
 holy things, any who had ever received valid orders hav- 
 ing been deposed from their ministry, and the rest never 
 having had any. 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE COUNCIL. 
 
 As to the action of the Council in regard to the No- 
 vatians and Meletians scholars differ. Some hold that 
 the ministers of both, except Meletius himself, were ad- 
 mitted to the ministry of the Church by a reconciliatory 
 imposition of hands ; others contend that this imposition 
 of hands was a new ordination ; still others think there 
 was a difference made between them, the Meletians being 
 ordained but the Novatians not. Certainly the language 
 of the Council seems to indicate a difference in the re- 
 quirements made of these two sects, as we shall now see. 
 
 The Canon concerning the Novatians reads thus : 
 
44 
 
 Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come 
 over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Great and Holy- 
 Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as 
 they are in the Clergy. But it is before all things necessary 
 that they should profess in writing that they will observe and 
 follow the decrees of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in par- 
 ticular that they will communicate with persons who have been 
 twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution 
 have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time of 
 restoration [fixed] ; and in general that they will follow the de- 
 crees of the Catholic Church. Wheresoever, then, whether in 
 villages or in cities, all of the ordained are found to be of these 
 only, let them remain in the clergy, and in the same rank in 
 which they are found. But if they come over where there is a 
 Presbyter or Bishop of the Catholic Church, it is manifest that 
 the Bishop of the Church must have the Bishop's dignity ; and 
 he who is named Bishop by those who are called Cathari shall 
 have the rank of Presbyter, unless it shall seem fit to the Bishop 
 to admit him to partake in the honour of the episcopal name. 
 Or, if this should not be satisfactory, then shall the Bishop pro- 
 vide for him a place as chor-episcopus, or Presbyter, in order 
 that he may evidently be seen to be one of the clergy, and that 
 there may not be two Bishops in one city. [Canon VIII.] 
 
 The action in relation to the Meletians we learn from 
 the Synodical Letter of the Council, which relates it as 
 follows : 
 
 The Holy Synod, then, being disposed to deal gently with 
 Meletius (for in strict justice he deserves no leniency), decreed 
 that he should remain in his own city, but have no authority 
 either to make appointments, or to administer affairs, or to 
 ordain; and that he should not appear in any other city, or 
 district for this purpose, but should enjoy the bare title of his 
 rank; but that those who have been placed by him, after they 
 have been confirmed by a more sacred appointment, shall on 
 these conditions be admitted to communion : that they shall 
 both have their rank and the right to oflficiate, but that they 
 
45 
 
 shall be altogether the inferiors of all those who are enrolled in 
 any Church or Parish, and have been appointed by our most 
 honourable colleague, Alexander. 
 
 There are some further directions in the matter, but 
 the foregoing is all that is needed for our purpose. 
 
 Comparing the language in these two extracts, one 
 cannot but note a difference in tone, which seems to 
 indicate a like difference in requirement, not to speak of 
 the language itself. When we put them beside the canon 
 dealing with the Paulianists, we find a seeming gradation 
 which adds to the force of this indication. This canon 
 reads as follows : 
 
 Concerning the Paulianists who have returned to the Catholic 
 Church, it has been decreed that they must by all means be 
 rebaptized; and if any of them who in past time have been num- 
 bered among their Clergy should be found blameless and without 
 reproach, let them be rebaptized and ordained by the Bishop of 
 the Catholic Church; but if the examination should discover 
 them to be unfit, they ought to be deposed. [Canon XIX.] 
 
 The rest of the canon treats of the inferior clergy, as 
 those below the rank of deacon were called. 
 
 Hefele's translator, in accordance with the view taken 
 by his author, translates the early part of the canon rela- 
 ting to the Novatians, or Cathari, thus : 
 
 They must submit to imposition of hands, and they may then 
 remain among the Clergy. 
 
 The other translation, which is according to the inter- 
 pretation of Beveridge and Van Espen, following Rufinus, 
 Zonaras, and Balsamon, seems to accord best with the 
 general tone of the canon, and to be preferable. To 
 this may be added the interpretation of the Synod of 
 Riez, which accords with this view, as we shall see when 
 we come to it. [See page 52.] 
 
46 
 
 THE ALTERNATIVES. 
 
 If the clergy of all these sects were required to be 
 reordained, it proves only that the Council rigidly applied 
 the existing Canon law, sustaining the action previously 
 taken in the respective cases. 
 
 If the ministers of either were not so required, it 
 follows that the Council decreed the admission of j these 
 men to the ministry of the Church without the usual 
 ordination. That they were not admitted on the plea of 
 a former valid ordination is evident from what we have 
 heretofore seen, and that their having what we now term 
 "episcopal ordination" had no influence, we shall see 
 farther on. 
 
 It is not necessary to attempt to settle here a ques- 
 tion upon which there is so much difference of opinion, 
 as, whatever may have been the fact in this case, we shall 
 find action in later cases about which there can be no 
 dispute. It is sufficient to have brought out the result of 
 the action of the Nicene Council on both hypotheses, and 
 this should be borne in mind. [See Note B.] j 
 
 MAXIMUS THE CYNIC. 
 
 At Constantinople, A.D. 380, a case occurred pre- 
 cisely analogous to that of Novatian. The see was 
 occupied by Gregory of Nazianzen at this time, but 
 Maximus the Cynic procured himself to be ordained to 
 the episcopate, in a clandestine manner, hoping to sup- 
 plant Gregory The following year the second General 
 Council met here, and with regard to Maximus it was 
 declared, as we have seen from the fourth canon, quoted 
 above (page 32), that he never was a bishop, and that all 
 his ordinations were void. As nothing is said concerning 
 what should be done about admitting to the ministry of 
 
47 
 
 the Church the men whom he had ordained, it is to be 
 presumed that they were left to the operation of the law 
 ordinarily applied to such cases, viz., that, unless excom- 
 municated, they communed as laymen and were incapable 
 of orders. In the case of Maximus an " episcopal ordina- 
 tion " is expressly repudiated. 
 
 THE DONATISTS. 
 
 In the year 312 a schism occurredatCarthage; Cecilian 
 being ordained to this see upon the death of Mensurius, 
 and Majorinus being ordained after, for the same see, by 
 the Numidian bishops, who pretended that because they 
 had not been consulted, and for other reasons, Cecilian 
 had no right to the episcopate. This schism involved 
 the whole of Africa, so that in every town of importance 
 there were soon two bishops, one of each party. 
 
 The case came before a Council at Rome, the follow- 
 ing year, and before the Council of Aries in 314, and in 
 both Cecilian was sustained and the opposite party con- 
 demned. According to Hefele, the former synod, after 
 condemning Donatus, the successor of Majorinus, ordered 
 that if the other bishops of the sect would return to the 
 unity of the Church, they might retain their thrones, and 
 that in every place where there was a bishop of both 
 parties the one who had been longest ordained should 
 remain at the head of the Church, and the other should 
 be set over another diocese. \Hist, of the Councils, 
 in loc] The same authority tells us that while the com- 
 plete acts of the Council of Aries have not come down 
 to us, it is evident from what we have of them that 
 Cecilian was acquitted and the Donatists condemned; 
 and that from a letter written by the African bishops a 
 century later, it seems that this Council consented that 
 
48 
 
 Every Donatist Bishop who should become reconciled to 
 the Church should alternately exercise the episcopal jurisdiction 
 with the Catholic bishop; that if either of the two died the sur- 
 vivor should be his successor; but in the case in which a Church 
 did not wish to have two bishops, both were to resign and a new 
 one was to be elected. [Idid.\ 
 
 This schism continued a very long time, notwithstand- 
 ing this effort to put a stop to it by such unprecedented 
 concessions, and we get glimpses of it, and the trouble it 
 occasioned, from time to time through the fourth century. 
 Its claim was that it was the Catholic Church, all the rest 
 having forfeited and lost their character through ordina- 
 tion by traditors, i. e., those who had given up the sacred 
 books in time of persecution. The Donatists rebaptised 
 all Catholics who went to them, as the Novatians 
 also did, and it was this practise which was the main 
 subject of Augustine's contention with them. 
 
 That some severer measures than those of the Coun- 
 cils above mentioned were taken with the Donatists is 
 evident from a canon of the Council of Hippo, A.D. 
 393, which reads as follows : 
 
 The old rule of the Councils, that no Donatist ecclesiastic 
 shall be received into the Church otherwise than among the 
 laity, remains in force, except as regards those who have never 
 rebaptized, or those who desire to join the Church with their 
 congregations (that is, such shall retain their clerical office). 
 But the transmarine Church shall be consulted on this point, as 
 also whether the children of Donatists, who have received 
 Donatist baptism, not of their own free will but at the desire of 
 their parents, are to be excluded from being accepted for service 
 at the altar, on account of the error of their parents. \Ibid; 
 in loc] 
 
 The old rule here referred to is certainly not that of 
 the earliest Councils on the Donatist schism, which, as 
 
49 
 
 we have seen, dealt very mildly with these schismatics. 
 It was probably established afterwards, by Councils of 
 which we have no record ; unless we are to understand 
 the reference to be to the general rule for the reception 
 of schismatics. 
 
 From the acts of the fifth Carthaginian Council, A.D. 
 401, we learn that the province of Africa was then suffer- 
 ing for want of clergy, caused probably by the Donatist 
 schism ; and canon i orders that 
 
 Children of Donatists may, as has been already declared, be 
 ordained after joining the Church. 
 
 Another Synod held at the same place about three 
 months later, orders, in its first canon, that the Donatists 
 should be dealt with gently. Canon 2 of this Synod is 
 given by Hefele as follows : 
 
 Donatist clergy shall, if necessary for the restoration of peace 
 in the Church, retain their position, although a Council of the 
 Transmarine Bishops has given a stricter decision. 
 
 The eighth Carthaginian Synod, A.D. 403, took order 
 for the holding of communication with the Donatists, 
 with a view to the settlement of differences, but a Synod 
 held at the same place the next year testifies that the 
 Donatists had declined to enter into communication. 
 
 The Emperor had in the meantime issued an imperial 
 decree calling on the Donatists to return to the unity of 
 the Church. 
 
 The eleventh of this series of Synods, held A.D. 407, 
 decreed, in its fifth canon : 
 
 Communities which on their return from the sect of the 
 Donatists had bishops of their own, may keep them without 
 further permission; but after the death of their former bishop 
 they may give up forming a diocese of their own, and may join 
 
50 
 
 another diocese. Those bishops who before the publication of 
 the imperial edict of union, have brought back Donatist com- 
 munities to the Church may henceforth keep them; but after the 
 publication of this law all communities, whether converted or 
 unconverted, shall be claimed by the bishops of the place to 
 which they formerly, while still heretics (de jure), belonged. 
 
 Another Synod of Carthage, A.D. 418, enacted canons 
 on the same subject. ("he ninth recites the latter part 
 of the canon just above quoted, and modifies it some- 
 what. Following canons read thus : 
 
 10. If the Donatist bishop has himself become Catholic, the 
 two bishops (he and the Catholic one) shall divide equally be- 
 tween them the two communities now united, so that one portion 
 of the towns shall belong to one, and the other to the other 
 bishop, etc. 
 
 11. If, after the publication of this edict, a bishop has brought 
 back a place to Catholic unity, and has held undisputed jurisdic- 
 tion over it for three years, it may not be taken away from him. 
 But if a Donatist bishop is converted, no disadvantage shall 
 accrue to him from this arrangement, but for three years after his 
 conversion he has the right of demanding back those places 
 which belonged to his See. 
 
 We are indebted to Hefele for all these canons, in his 
 treatment of the several Synods in the work before 
 referred to. 
 
 Now the Donatists were in very much the same posi- 
 tion, originally, as were the Novatiansand the Meletians. 
 Their bishops were ordained to sees already canonically 
 filled, and the ordinations were in violation of the canons 
 and in opposition to the authority of the Church. It 
 would have been perfectly right for the Church to have 
 enforced the law against them to the uttermost, or to 
 have required their clergy to be reordained by the Catho- 
 
51 
 
 lie bishops. Instead of this, however, we find her 
 dealing with them much more leniently. She tried some 
 severity, at one period, as we learn from the canon of 
 Hippo, but at other times she was exceedingly gentle 
 with them, and at last seems to have offered them advan- 
 tages over her own faithful ones. This doubtless seemed 
 necessary to " the restoration of peace in the Church," 
 as the sixth Synod phrases it, and therefore it was done. 
 Augustine was a very prominent figure in the later 
 controversy with this sect, and replying to a taunt of 
 theirs concerning this easy reception of their clergy, they 
 being from the Catholic point of view so wicked, he tells 
 them: 
 
 This would not be the case, as, indeed, in simple truth, we 
 must confess it should not be the case, were it not that the evil 
 is cured by the compensating power of peace itself. [Correction 
 of the Donatists, Chap. X., Clark's edition Ante-Nicene Christian 
 Library !\ 
 
 In the case of the Donatists, then, it is evident that 
 when their clergy were admitted at all to the ministry of 
 the Catholic Church, it was without her usual form of 
 ordination, and without any laying on of hands in token 
 of reconciliation. So far as we are informed no ceremony 
 at all was prescribed for their reception, and it seems 
 that no more was required of them than a simple notice 
 of their desire and intention to conform to the Church. 
 There is no reference, in all these proceedings, to their 
 having had " episcopal ordination." 
 
 THE MASSALIANS. 
 
 At a Synod at Sida, in Pamphylia, A.D. 389 or 390, 
 a sect called Massalians or Euchites was excommunicated, 
 and their heresy condemned. The condemnation was 
 
52 
 
 repeated in a Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 426. The 
 third General Council, five years later, decreed that 
 Massalian clerics who would anathematise their heresy 
 might remain among the clergy, and laymen so doing 
 migrht be admitted to communion. As in the case of the 
 Donatists, nothing seems to have been required in the 
 way of imposition of hands. [Hefele, Hist, of Cou7icilSy 
 in loc] 
 
 THE SYNOD OF RIEZ. 
 
 In the year 439, Armentarius was uncanonically or- 
 dained to the see of Embrun, by two bishops, and without 
 the consent of Hilary of Aries, the Metropolitan. A 
 Synod was held at Riez, under the presidency of Hilary, 
 with reference to this affair, and it passed canons as 
 follows: 
 
 2. The ordination of Armentarius is void {irrita) and a fresh 
 appointment is to be made to the See of Embrun. 
 
 3. In reference to the fact that the Nicene Council (canon 8) 
 treats schismatics much more gently than heretics, it is allowed 
 that a bishop who is so inclined may grant to Armentarius a 
 church in his diocese (but outside the ^^xow\\\zQ. Alpina Maritwid) 
 in which he may be chor-episcopus. But he must never offer the 
 sacrifice in towns or in the absence of the bishop, or ordain any 
 cleric, or, generally, discharge any episcopal function in the 
 Church which is granted to him, only in his own church he may 
 confirm the newly baptized. 
 
 4. Of those whom he has ordained to be clerics, such as have 
 been already excommunicated shall be deposed; but those who 
 are of good reputation may either be retained by the future 
 bishop of Embrun or transferred to Armentarius. \Ibid^ 
 
 Here again we find men admitted, without ordination, 
 to the ministry of the Church, they having no orders at 
 all; for it is manifest that if the ordination of Armen- 
 
 I 
 
53 
 
 tarius was void, he could not give orders. Language is 
 used here, as we have seen elsewhere, very loosely, de- 
 position being spoken of in cases where there was really 
 nothing to depose from. 
 
 ARIANS AND MACEDONIANS. 
 
 That many Arian clerics, when they were received 
 into the Church, were admitted to the ministry without 
 reordination, the history of the Arian period proves be- 
 yond question ; though in many cases the canons were 
 strictly applied, and these clerics were received only to 
 lay communion or were reordained. 
 
 That the Macedonian Clergy were received into the 
 communion of the Church by Liberius, of Rome, without 
 reordination, is evident from his letter to them, given by 
 Socrates \Eccles. Hist., Book VI., Chap. XII., Oxford 
 translation], and from the statements of the historian 
 in connection therewith. The chapter referred to termi- 
 nates as follows : 
 
 That the Macedonians by sending legates to Liberius were 
 admitted to communion by him, and professed the Nicene Creed, 
 is attested by Sabinus himself, in his Collection of Synodic Trans- 
 actions. 
 
 Finally, it is stated by Bingham in his Antiquities of 
 the Christian Church, Book IV., Chap. VII., Sect. 8, that 
 
 Anisius, bishop of Thessalonica, with a Council of his provin- 
 cial bishops, agreed to receive those whom Bonosus, an heretical 
 bishop of Macedonia, had ordained, that they might not continue 
 to strengthen his party, and thereby bring no small damage on 
 the Church. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 Whatever may have been the action of the Nicene 
 Council in relation to the Novatians and Meletians, 
 
54 
 
 therefore, we have in these later cases indisputable evi- 
 dence that the Church received into her ministry, without 
 reordination, bishops and clergy of sects in which, accord- 
 ing to her own laws and declarations, there were no 
 valid orders ; and that no account, whatever, is made, in 
 any case, of "episcopal ordination," the term never being 
 used nor the fact referred to. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE UNDERLYING THE 
 
 ACTION OF THE COUNCILS. 
 
 THE question now is: Upon what principle are we to 
 account for the action of the Councils in these 
 matters ? 
 
 THE PREVAILING THEORY. 
 
 This is, that these sects having originated with bish- 
 ops, and therefore having " episcopal ordination," the 
 Church recognised the validity of their orders, and when 
 she received their clerics into her ministry, without reor- 
 dination, she condoned the irregularity of their ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 We have seen that the facts do not sustain this 
 theory. The very first step in its application to the 
 cases we have considered, demonstrates its insufficiency. 
 
 EPISCOPAL ORDINATIONS INVALID. 
 
 Novatian and Maximus the Cynic were each ordained 
 to their supposed episcopates by bishops — the former by 
 three, and the latter by seven, — yet the ordinations were 
 declared to be absolutely void; that of Maximus being 
 so declared by a General Council, which asserted most 
 positively that he was not made a bishop by that ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 Again Majorinus, the first bishop of the Donatists, 
 was ordained to the episcopate by bishops, and not fewer 
 than the canonical number, yet his ordination was void, 
 under the law of the Church, and was so declared by the 
 Councils at Rome and Aries. Neither he or any others 
 of his sect had valid orders, therefore, and when Donatist 
 clerics were received into the Church, without reordina- 
 
 55 
 
56 
 
 tion, it was not on the ground that they had " episcopal 
 ordination " — though Augustine might consistently have 
 advanced this plea — , but it was for the sake of peace, and 
 because this seemed the readiest and most promising 
 way for the healing of the schism. 
 
 Those ordained by Paul of Samosata' had " episcopal 
 ordination"; yet the first General Council ignored it and 
 required them to be ordained anew. Had the prevailing 
 theory of to-day been recognised as the true one, the 
 reordination of these clerics would not have been thought 
 of, for, according to the views then as now held, such a 
 proceeding would have been deemed sacrilege. 
 
 Whatever principle, then, governed the Churches in 
 the reception, without reordination, of schismatical and 
 heretical clergy, it certainly is not to be found in this 
 theory. Yet, notwithstanding the clearness of this fact, 
 mediaeval and modern theologians almost universally 
 assume this to be the true theory. It is this assumption 
 that leads Morinus to say: 
 
 What is it to track the controversy [on the validity of hereti- 
 cal or schismatical or simoniacal ordinations] but to exhibit 
 bishops against bishops, councils against councils, pontiffs against 
 pontiffs, waging a Cadmeian war ? [Gore, CJiristian Mmisiry, 
 p. 195.] 
 
 An edifying spectacle truly ! One cannot but think 
 of our Lord's words: 
 
 If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot 
 stand. [St. Mark III., 24.] 
 
 When we consider what the Church is, we cannot for 
 a moment admit that she speaks with so uncertain a 
 voice upon a subject of such great moment. The Church 
 is Christ [I. Corinthians XII., 12], and He it is who acts 
 
57 
 
 through His body, and preserves it from destruction by 
 the human element inseparable from it. We may be 
 sure, therefore, that there is some deeper principle than 
 that of the false theory above referred to, upon which 
 the Church's action in this most important matter may 
 be accounted for, and which will remove the difficulty 
 which led Morinus to give utterance to such language as 
 that above quoted from him. 
 
 THIS THEORY ONLY PARTIALLY ACCEPTED. 
 
 If it be claimed that the whole Church has accepted 
 and acted upon this theory, it must be replied that this 
 is not true. Mr. Gore testifies to this fact. He says : 
 
 The Eastern Church has, in fact, never got beyond the posi- 
 tion that the Church has power to ratify in any particular case, 
 or set of cases, ordinations which in the West would be called 
 per se vdilid but uncanonical. {Christian Ministry, p. 195. See 
 note from Morinus.] 
 
 We shall see farther on that this notion attributed to 
 the Eastern Church is untenable, and embodies no prin- 
 ciple sufficient to account for the facts of history. 
 
 THIS THEORY IN THE WESTERN CHURCHES. 
 
 But even if it were true that this theory had appar- 
 ently been accepted and acted on by the whole Church, 
 this would not prove it to be true. There are several 
 things which seem to have been held by the whole 
 Church, for a time, which are not so accepted to-day. 
 The appeal to antiquity is always legitimate, and the 
 verdict of antiquity is always authoritative and final as 
 to what is Catholic. The verdict in this case is adverse, 
 as we have seen ; and even in the Western Churches this 
 theory has prevailed only for six hundred years, as Grue- 
 ber \Holy Order, p. 141] shows from Morinus. 
 
58 
 
 FALSE THEORIES AND RIGHT ACTS. 
 
 Further, it may be said that the doing of a right 
 thing upon a wrong theory affects neither the propriety 
 of the act nor the character of the theory. The act is 
 rightly done, but the theory is as false as ever. Illustra- 
 tions of this are not far to seek. 
 
 The reception of a Donatist bishop, by Augustine, on 
 his theory of the indelibility of orders, for instance, would 
 have been a right act, and perfectly valid and effectual, 
 notwithstanding the falsity of Augustine's theory ; which 
 would still be false all the same. 
 
 But we may find an illustration nearer home. The 
 reception of a Roman cleric into our ministry, without re- 
 ordination, on the theory that because he had what we call 
 " episcopal ordination," therefore his orders are valid, is 
 a right reception, and is valid and effectual to the accom- 
 plishment of the end in view ; though the theory, as we 
 have seen, is false, and Romish orders in this country, as 
 we shall see farther on, are null and void. 
 
 RETROSPECTIVE VALIDITY. 
 
 Another theory, held by some, is that the Church's 
 reception of orders previously invalid, or only qtiasi- 
 valid gives them a retrospective validity. This is the 
 theory with which Mr. Gore credits the Eastern Church. 
 A little reflection ought to be sufficient to convince one 
 that this is untenable. When the ordination took place 
 it was either valid or invalid ; it could not have been 
 partially one and partially the other. Now, even the 
 Church cannot change the past. Her action in receiving 
 into her ministry men having previously received an in- 
 valid ordination, could not possibly have any ex post facto 
 operation. The character of the original ordination 
 
59 
 
 could not possibly be changed by this reception, but 
 must, in the very nature of things, remain always the 
 same. The utmost the Church could do in such a case, 
 would be to act for the present and the future. 
 
 "FIERI NGN DEBET, SED FACTUM VALET." 
 
 The use of this legal maxim, in this connection, is 
 simply assuming the very point in dispute. The question 
 is not whether a man received imposition of hands from 
 three or more bishops who intended to make him a bishop 
 in the Catholic Church — to take the strongest case — , 
 but whether such an imposition of hands, performed in 
 disobedience to the Church's law and in opposition to 
 her authority, did make the man a bishop. It is freely 
 granted that the act was done, but the question is as to 
 the EFFECT of the act. That the early Church regarded 
 such an act, so performed, as of no effect, so far as con- 
 ferring the episcopate was concerned, has been sufficiently 
 proved. 
 
 It may be well, however, to illustrate this point still 
 further. The legal application of the maxim above cited 
 is only a fictitious one after all. For instance, a man has 
 an agent who is empowered to sell a piece of property. 
 He sells it, and whether his principal be satisfied or not, 
 the act is his act and he is powerless to change it, under 
 ordinary circumstances. But suppose some other man, 
 who is not authorised to sell this property, sells it, what 
 is the transaction worth ? Nothing. If the owner, 
 learning of this unauthorised sale, should consider it to 
 his advantage to sell on the terms that were made, and 
 should go and agree to the sale, and authorise this before 
 unauthorised man to complete it, does this change the 
 character of the original act ? Manifestly not. This act 
 
60 
 
 cannot strictly be said to be validated by the subsequent 
 act of the owner, though it might be said so by way of a 
 legal fiction. The truth is that the owner does, himself, 
 really make the whole transaction, when he agrees to do 
 the same thing which had been proposed by the pretended 
 agent ; and the act of this man remains absolutely the 
 same in character and force — unauthorised and invalid. 
 
 So, if the Church receives into her ministry, without 
 reordination, men who have been pretendedly ordained 
 in disobedience to her laws and in opposition to her 
 authority, by persons whom she has not authorised for 
 such action, her reception of them does not change the 
 original character of that pretended ordination, or give 
 any validity to it. It remains always the same, unauthor- 
 ised and invalid ; and the truth is that by her reception 
 of these men to her ministry, by whatever method or 
 with no method, the Church bestows upon them the gifts 
 usually bestowed in ordination through the laying on 
 of the bishop's hands, and such bestowal is the one valid 
 and effectual authorisation for the functions of their 
 ministry. 
 
 AN ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM. 
 
 Should it be said by any who hold the prevailing 
 theories on this subject that the Church cannot give 
 ministerial authority except through the usual form of 
 ordination, it may be sufficient to point to the historical 
 facts which have been here brought forward, and to say : 
 Fieri non debet, sed Jactum valet. If this maxim be 
 applied to the unauthorised act of an individual, its 
 application can scarcely be denied to an act of the 
 Church, which has authority. 
 
 In the theories we have examined there is evidently 
 
61 
 
 no sufficient principle to account for the historical facts. 
 The principle we are seeking lies deeper, for it must 
 meet a// the requirements of the situation, which these 
 theories do not. 
 
 THE TRUE PRINCIPLE, 
 
 What, then, is the true principle ? 
 
 Is it not that which appears on the very surface of 
 the Church's history ? Have we not seen that each case, 
 as it came up, was treated according to its own peculiar 
 circumstances ; the Churches and Councils doing what 
 they deemed most expedient in the premises ? Did they 
 not receive the clerics of heretical or schismatical bodies 
 either to lay communion, or to the Catholic ministry, 
 with or without reordination, or cut them off by excom- 
 munication, according as seemed wise and good ? 
 
 Is not the one great all-sufficient principle underlying, 
 accounting for, and justifying all this action that of the 
 
 PLENARY AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE ChURCH ? 
 
 If it be not, where shall we seek for anything that 
 will better harmonise all the facts and satisfy all the de- 
 mands of the problem ? Certainly no narrower principle 
 will answer the purpose, and where are we to seek a 
 broader one ? 
 
 THE AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Church's authority and power to do just what 
 seems to her best for the furtherance of her mission in 
 the world is full and absolute. What she does is rightly, 
 validly, and effectually done ; the one essential thing 
 being the exercise of her authority — the method of such 
 exercise being indifferent. What she does, Christ does, 
 by His Spirit dwelling in and animating her. 
 
62 
 
 This is said of the Church as a whole ; but it may 
 also be said of any and every autonomous division of the 
 Church, with the proviso that the act be not contrary to 
 the faith, nor in opposition to the law of the whole body. 
 The Church as a whole cannot go astray, formally, but 
 any particular part of it may do so ; hence the necessity 
 that the part should conform to the whole in all matters 
 which have been pronounced upon by it for all time. In 
 those things upon which she has not so pronounced, the 
 national or provincial Church governs itself. 
 
 It follows that if the Church as a whole, in a General 
 Council, or any autonomous branch of the Church in its 
 local Council, has received into the Catholic ministry, 
 without the usual form of ordination, men who had no 
 valid orders previously, such reception gave to them all 
 that would have been given had the usual form been fol- 
 lowed, and that their ministrations were thenceforth done 
 by the Church's authority, and were therefore valid and 
 effectual. [See Note C] 
 
 PARTICULAR FORMS NOT ESSENTIAL. 
 
 That the usual form is not absolutely essential should 
 not surprise us, nor would it were we not so much under 
 the influence of Roman Canonists. Bingham relates how 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus was made a bishop without the 
 laying on of hands ; and Cave's conjecture, to which 
 Bingham refers, is of no force whatever [Antiquiiies, Bk. 
 IV., Chap. VI., Sect 1 1]. That among those who have 
 assumed that some ceremony is essential to ordination, it 
 was long in dispute what that ceremony was, is well 
 known [Gore, Christian Ministry, p. 68 n]. Morinus, 
 having investigated the matter historically, finding that 
 the imposition of hands was universally the ordinary 
 
63 
 
 usage, and, because of his theory of the indelibility of 
 orders, missing the significance of the facts emphasised 
 in this essay, concluded that this form was the essential 
 ceremony in ordination. Treating orders as a sacrament, 
 and assuming that sacraments have essential forms, he 
 naturally fell into this error. It may be said, in this con- 
 nection, that even the two sacraments instituted by our 
 Lord, have no such essential forms as to preclude the 
 reception of the spiritual reality without the outward 
 and visible sign. Otherwise the English and American 
 Churches are wrong in the third rubric at the end of the 
 office for The Commumon of the Sick.^ So also were 
 the Fathers at fault in counting baptism in the blood of 
 martyrdom equivalent to that in the usual form. 
 
 PRINCIPLES NOT BOUND TO FORMS. 
 
 This suggests the general question as to how far 
 principles are bound to and dependent upon prescribed 
 or accustomed forms. The prevailing idea among us 
 seems to incline to consider them as inseparable, though 
 probably every one would admit that there are excep- 
 tions. It may be profitable to briefly consider the ques- 
 tion, here, in connection with a subject upon which it has 
 an obvious bearing. 
 
 It may be said, then, that the simple fact that a given 
 principle is customarily manifested through an appropri- 
 
 * But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, or for want of warning 
 in due time to the Minister, or for lack of company to receive with him, or by any 
 other just impediment, do not receive the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood, the 
 Minister shall instruct him, that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly 
 believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him, and shed His 
 blood for his redemption, earnestly rememljenng the benefits he hath thereby, and 
 giving Him hearty thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our 
 Saviour Christ profitably to his Soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacra- 
 ment with his mouth. 
 
64 
 
 ate form, is no proof that this form is essential to the 
 manifestation or application of the principle. 
 
 For instance, the gift of the Holy Ghost may be 
 termed the principle manifested and applied in the Or- 
 dinance of Confirmation. There is no question but that 
 every recorded occasion of the bestowal of this gift by 
 the Apostles was through the laying on of their hands. 
 Yet, if we examine the history of their Acts, closely, we 
 find instances in which this gift was certainly bestowed, 
 in which the laying on of hands seems impossible — e. g., 
 the three thousand converts at Pentecost. It will be 
 readily admitted that all the testimony of the first two 
 centuries indicates that it was through the imposition of 
 the hands of the bishops that this gift was bestowed. 
 Yet the Eastern Churches, for centuries past, have not 
 used this form for this purpose, nor, according to com- 
 mon report, do all the bishops of the Roman Communion 
 use it, now. Have they therefore no Confirmation among 
 them ? Have they ceased to bestow the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost upon their people ? Who will be bold enough to 
 assert this ? 
 
 So it may be said that the principle manifested and 
 applied through the usual form of ordination is the gift 
 of the Holy Ghost to enable the ordained to validly 
 and effectually perform certain ministerial functions — 
 the gift of authority and power. Is the gift bound to 
 and inseparable from this ordinary ceremony ? It is as- 
 sumed by many that this is the case. The assumption is 
 not by any means a necessary one, however, nor is there 
 any such prescription of the use of the form as to justify 
 such an assumption. The original Apostles were not thus 
 set apart to their ministry ; neither were Matthias and 
 Saul of Tarsus, who were made apostles later. And we 
 
65 
 
 have seen that men have been many times admitted to 
 the Church's ministry without her accustomed form. 
 
 If it be argued that because these last had received the 
 forTU of ordination before, in heresy or schism, therefore 
 they were received in this manner, what will be said con- 
 cerning the Paulianist clergy, and others, who, although 
 they had received the form, even from bishops, were re- 
 quired to be ordained ? If their heresy be supposed to 
 be the cause for this, then what will be said of other 
 heretics who were not reordained — e.g., Arians and Mace- 
 donians — , or of Ischyras, who received the form from 
 the presbyter CoUuthus [Hefele, History of Councils, 
 Synod of Tyre, A.D. 335], and whose orders were not 
 therefore recognised because of the accustomed form 
 having been used. Many cases of the reordination of 
 those who had previously received the usual form prove 
 the unsoundness of this theory ; and those who would 
 be most likely to make this objection would be the first 
 to repudiate and deny the efficacy of the form in non- 
 episcopal bodies. 
 
 INCONSISTENCIES. 
 
 A great weakness in some notable authors is found 
 in the inconsistency of their remarks concerning the 
 sacraments in general with those made on the sacrament 
 of baptism in particular. Speaking of the former, they 
 use the language of common sense, and insist upon 
 authority in the administrator, as well as the usual form 
 and matter ; but when they come to baptism they ignore 
 their own reasonings, and incontinently give up the 
 authority as unnecessary, making the form sufficient. 
 Then they go on again to deny t\i2X form is of any value 
 in the case of orders, and insist that it must be reiterated 
 
66 
 
 whenever men with non-episcopal orders come to the 
 Church. If the form be of such potency in the one 
 case, why is it of no value in the other ? 
 
 The answer to this question would probably be that 
 the bishop is essential to the completeness of the form 
 in ordination, but the ordained minister is not so essen- 
 tial in baptism. 
 
 There is a fallacy here. The bishop is essential to 
 ordination ; and so he is to baptism, if Ignatius and all 
 the early writers previous to Tertullian are to be trusted 
 — and even he may be interpreted in the same sense. 
 But we have seen that the early Churches did not con- 
 sider the manual act oi the bishop essential to ordination, 
 though the authority of the bishop was recognised and 
 respected. To say that the bishop is necessary is only 
 another way of saying that the authority of the Church 
 is necessary. He is necessary because he is the govern- 
 ing member of the body — the member through which the 
 Spirit who animates the body, speaks. That Spirit is 
 necessary to any and all action, to baptism as well as to 
 ordination. Even the most radical advocates of the 
 validity of lay baptism, so-called, have based their 
 advocacy on the ground that the sacrament always, 
 everywhere, and by whomsoever administered is the 
 Church s sacrament, not the sacrament of heretics. Why 
 not be entirely consistent and say the same of ordi- 
 nation ? 
 
 THE ONLY SATISFACTORY CONCLUSION. 
 
 The fact is that no rest is to be had for the mind in 
 any principle short of the broad one, above suggested as 
 the true one. This relieves us of all difficulties, and 
 gives us firm standing ground. We turn to it therefore, 
 and settle down upon it, and rest from the strife of 
 tongues. 
 
THE PRESENT APPLICATION OF THE 
 PRINCIPLE. 
 
 IF we have found the principle for which we were seek- 
 ing, the question immediately arises : Why cannot 
 the American Church apply this principle to the solution 
 of the problem confronting her in this nation ? If she 
 has hitherto acted on a narrower one, which is inadequate 
 to the needs of the time, and has been demonstrated to 
 be unhistorical, why can she not now abandon it for the 
 broad, and true, and all-sufificient one ? If she believes 
 Christian Unity to be so valuable and desirable a thing, 
 why can she not now interpret the fourth term in the 
 declaration of her bishops so as to receive ministers of 
 the various Protestant bodies — they proving themselves 
 to be good and fit men, and accepting her system of doc- 
 trine, discipline, and worship — without reordination ? 
 
 ROMAN ORDERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 She does accept Roman clerics in this way, though, 
 judged, from her point of view, by the canon law which 
 Rome itself accepts, their orders are null and void. It 
 needs but a slight examination of the canonical status of 
 the Roman mission in this country to verify this state- 
 ment, startling as it may appear to be. We have seen 
 that the plea upon which these clerics are so received by 
 us — that they have had " episcopal ordination " — has no 
 precedent in the Church of the General Councils. The 
 early Church attached no importance whatever to this 
 plea in the cases considered in this essay ; in fact no such 
 plea was made or even mentioned in these cases. The 
 
 67 
 
68 
 
 plea is canonically insufficient, and the sooner it is 
 abandoned the better. In actual fact, these orders are 
 no more episcopal orders than were those of the Nova- 
 tians, the Donatists, or the followers of Maximus the 
 Cynic. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF ROMAN ORDERS IN THIS COUNTRY. 
 
 The Roman hierarchy in this country originated with 
 a bishop who had but one consecrator, and he an intruder 
 into the jurisdiction of the English Church. An account 
 of the pretended consecration of this man was reprinted, 
 by photo-lithographic process, from a contemporaneous 
 Romish pamphlet, by the Historical Club, of New York 
 city, in 1876. This pamphlet contains, among other 
 things, A Short Account of the Establishment of the New 
 See of Baltimore, in which, after a statement leading up 
 to the appointment, by the Bishop of Rome, of the Rev. 
 Dr. John Carroll, as bishop, we are told of the consecra- 
 tion as follows : 
 
 Upon the receipt of his Bulls from Rome, he immediately 
 repaired to England, where his person and merit were well 
 known, and presented himself to the Right Rev. Dr. Charles 
 Walmesly, Bishop of Rama, Senior Vicar Apostolic of the 
 catholic religion in this Kingdom. By invitation of Thomas 
 Weld, Esq., the consecration of the new Bishop was performed 
 during a solemn high Mass in the elegant chapel of Lullworth 
 Castle, on Sunday, the 15th day of August, 1790, being the feast 
 of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the munifi- 
 cence of that gentleman omitted no circumstances which could 
 possibly add dignity to so venerable a ceremony. The two 
 Prelates were attended by their respective assistant priests, etc. 
 [An Acco7mt of the Consecration, by one Bishop, a Bishop " in 
 Partibus,'' of the First Romish Bishop in the United States, p. 3.] 
 
 It is plain enough from this statement of the Roman- 
 ists themselves that this consecration was performed by 
 
69 
 
 only one bishop, and in the jurisdiction of the English 
 Metropolitan and bishops. That it was done without 
 their consent needs no proof. 
 
 THIS ORDINATION VOID. 
 
 This ordination or consecration was null and void, 
 according to the Canon law. 
 
 It was so, first, because it was done by only one 
 bishop, without any sufficient necessity for such a de- 
 parture from the canonical requirement. [Apostolical 
 Canon I., Nicsea IV. See Note D.] 
 
 It was so, secondly, because it was done by an in- 
 truder into the jurisdiction of another. [Apostolical 
 Canon XXXV., Antioch XIII., XXII., Constantinople 
 II., Ephesus VIII.*] 
 
 * As the Ephesine canon has not been heretofore transcribed, it is here given. 
 The other canons referred to will be found on page &^ 3 ) 
 
 Our brother, Bishop Rheginus, the beloved of God, and the beloved of God the 
 Bishops with him, Zeno and Evagrius, of the Province of Cyprus, have reported to us 
 an innovation which has been introduced contrary to the constitutions of the Church 
 and the Canons of the Holy Apostles, and which touches the liberties of all. Where- 
 fore, since injuries affecting all require the more attention, as they cause the greater 
 damage, and particularly when Ihcy are transgressions of an ancient custom ; and 
 since those excellent men, who have petitioned the Synod, have told us in writing 
 and by word of mouth that the Bishop of Antioch has in this way held ordinations in 
 Cyprus ; therefore [we declare that] the Rulers of the Church in Cyprus shall enjoy 
 without dispute or injury, according to ancient custom and the Canons of the blessed 
 Fathers, the right of performing for themselves the ordination of their excellent 
 Bishops. The same rule shall be observed in the other Dioceses and Provinces 
 everywhere, so that none of the most religious Bishops sliall assume control of any 
 Province which has not heretofore, from the very beginning, been under his own 
 hand or that of his predecessors. But if any one has violently taken and subjected 
 [a Province], he shall give it up ; so that the Canons of the Fathers may not be 
 transgressed ; nor the vanities of worldly honour be brought in under pretext of Sacred 
 Office ; nor we lose, little by little, and at length forget, the liberty which our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, the Deliverer of all men, hath given us by His own Blood. Wherefore, 
 this Holy and CEcumenical Synod has decreed that in every Province the rights 
 which heretofore, from the beginning, have belonged to it, shall be preserved to it, 
 according to the old prevailing custom, unchanged and uninjured : every Metropoli- 
 tan having permission to take, for his own security, a copy of these acts. And if any 
 one shall bring forward a rule contrary to what is here determined, this Holy and 
 CEcumenical Synod unanimously decrees that it shall be of no effect. 
 
70 
 
 It was so, thirdly, because it was done without the 
 consent of the English Metropolitan and his co-bishops. 
 [Nic^ea IV., VI., Antioch XIII., XIX., XXII.] 
 
 It is to be noted that all these canons were re-affirmed 
 at Chalcedon, by the fourth General Council, and that 
 the re-affirming canon is now to be found in the Canon 
 law — the Cor pits juris canonici — in c. 14, C. xxv., q. i ; 
 and the special re-enactment, in Canon 5, concerning in- 
 trusion is found as c. 26, C. xii., q. i [Hefele, History of 
 Councils, Chalcedon, Canons i and 5]. 
 
 THE CONSEQUENCE IN THIS COUNTRY. 
 
 Every act of the one so ordained was null and void, 
 because of these facts ; and would have been so, under 
 the same canons, even had his ordination been performed 
 canonically, because of his intrusion into the jurisdiction 
 of the American bishops, and the want of their consent. 
 
 And for the same reasons every official act of every 
 Roman cleric in these United States, from that day to 
 this, has been equally null and void, if the Canons of the 
 Church Catholic have not lost their force. 
 
 CARDINAL Wiseman's testimony. 
 
 So unexceptionable an authority, on the Roman side, 
 as Cardinal Wiseman, testifies to the correctness of this 
 position. Bailey {Jtirisdiction and Mission of the A71- 
 glican Episcopate, p. 67] quotes the Cardinal as follows : 
 
 What will vitiate the episcopacy of a See, a province or King- 
 dom, so as to cut it off from all participation in the rights of 
 apostolical succession and jurisdiction ? We have seen the case 
 of the Novatians, treated in Canon VIII. of Nicaea, and the de- 
 cree regarding- them is extremely valuable, as embodying prin- 
 ciples acted upon most rigidly in the ancient Church. From it 
 we are necessarily led to the conclusion, that any appointment 
 
71 
 
 made to a bishopric, even by valid consecration, which is at 
 variance with the Canons actually in force in the Church, is 
 unlawful, and leaves the Bishop so appointed void of all jurisdic- 
 tion and power ; so that he is a usurper if he take possession of 
 a See. 
 
 In these and other instances, as Bolegni remarks, there is no 
 question of removing or deposing ; but such Bishops were not 
 supposed to have ever possessed any jurisdiction from the begin- 
 ning * * * that such nullity of episcopal nomination was 
 the necessary consequence of the violation of the canons in force. 
 
 The Cardinal is here arguing against the position of 
 the English bishops, on the assumption that as they had 
 not received jurisdiction from the bishop of Rome, they 
 had none. He is also assuming the soundness of the 
 theory refuted in this essay — on the indelibility of Orders 
 — , and making the defect to consist in want of jurisdic- 
 tion. Putting aside these assumptions as entirely un- 
 warranted and false, his argument returns with crushing 
 force upon his own head, and may properly be used 
 against Roman orders both in England and in this coun- 
 try. It fits the case in hand, admirably, and shows that 
 under the Canons, Roman clerics in these United States 
 have no orders at all.* 
 
 ROMAN CONVERTS TO THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 What then is to be said of the orders and the acts of 
 such of our clergy as have been received from the Roman 
 Mission, without reordination ? 
 
 Simply this : Their reception by the American 
 Church has availed just as the reception of the Nova- 
 
 * An equitable plea might perhaps be made in abatement of this strict construc- 
 tion of the canon law, but here this strict construction must be emphasised. Roman 
 clerics in this country who have received their orders canonically, in all respects, in 
 other countries, from Bishops who were not intruders, have valid orders, of course, so 
 far as the present argument is concerned; but their acts in this country, being intru- 
 sive, are void. 
 
T2 
 
 tians, Donatists, and others availed ; and has given them 
 authority and power for the valid performance of the 
 functions of their new ministry, just as the customary 
 form of ordination would have done. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND PROTESTANT MINISTERS. 
 
 A similar reception of ministers not having what our 
 local canons recognise as " episcopal ordination,'' would do 
 as much for them. 
 
 It is alleged that the English and Scotch Churches 
 have admitted to their ministry, without reordination, 
 men not having previously had episcopal ordination. 
 The allegation, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts 
 made to discredit it, seems to have a solid foundation of 
 fact ; its apparent refutation having derived its strength 
 from the incautious application of the statement to cases 
 in which it was not applicable. The statement being 
 true, these Churches did no more than was done by other 
 Churches in ages past ; for invalid ordination, even by a 
 real bishop, cannot be properly called "episcopal ordi- 
 nation." 
 
 The question is not, let it be remembered, one of 
 distinction between episcopal and non-episcopal ordina- 
 tion, for under the canon law of the early Church, which 
 is of force to-day, the former is as invalid and void as the 
 latter, when given in disobedience to this law and in 
 opposition to the rightful authority of the Church. 
 
 There need, therefore, be no dispute or disturbance 
 about the action of these Churches in this connection. 
 As autocephalous and autonomous Churches they had 
 the right to exercise their discretion in the matter, and 
 what they did was well and validly done. Should they, 
 to-day, receive into their ministry, without reordination, 
 
73 
 
 all the Presbyterian ministers in their respective juris- 
 dictions, there would be no canonical or proper ground of 
 complaint against them, nor would there be any reason 
 to doubt the validity of the orders or the consequent acts 
 of the men so received. 
 
 PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 
 
 So, should any entire body of Protestants desire to 
 accept, en masse, the terms of the American Bishops, the 
 same principle might properly be applied, and the historic 
 episcopate be given to them, without immediate organic 
 unity, under such conditions as would promise security 
 for the future. What those conditions should be must 
 necessarily be a matter for most serious consideration. 
 There are some very important questions upon which a 
 preliminary understanding and agreement should be made. 
 The other terms in the declaration of the Bishops would 
 need to be explained, and understood in some definite 
 sense not open to misconstruction and dispute. 
 
 ORGANIC UNITY THE GOAL. 
 
 The mere fact of the same field being occupied by 
 a plurality of bishops, and by different organisations, 
 under separate governments, is sufficiently startling. It 
 would be an anomalous condition of things, unprece- 
 dented, except upon a small scale, in the history of Chris- 
 tendom, and should be regarded as only a temporary 
 arrangement, to endure no longer than might be neces- 
 sary to bring about perfect organic unity. A rigid 
 uniformity is neither desired nor desirable, but there 
 should be, at least in matter of doctrine, no greater 
 diversity than already exists in our own Church. 
 
 If all the orthodox religious bodies in the land should 
 receive the historic episcopate and then continue, indefi- 
 
74 
 
 nitely, to act independently, as they are now doing, what 
 would be the probable result ? The idea that we can 
 afford to give the episcopate on any such conditions or 
 with any such prospect seems wildly Utopian — though it 
 would be anything but a Utopia that would result from 
 such a course. We should soon have Churches against 
 Churches, Councils against Councils, bishops against 
 bishops, and anathemas against anathemas, as plentifully 
 as in the Arian period ; for the coming closer together 
 only in the matter of episcopacy would inevitably tend to 
 drive us farther apart in other things. Family quarrels 
 are proverbially the most bitter of all quarrels, and there 
 would not be wanting narrow, bigoted, bitter men, of a 
 spirit alien to that of the Church, who would stir up strife 
 all the more successfully, because of the new vantage 
 ground obtained through the possession of episcopal 
 orders. Such a unity would be disastrous rather than 
 beneficial, and would make things worse rather than 
 better. 
 
 It would be necessary, therefore, to provide to the 
 utmost possible limit against such contingencies, before 
 the episcopate should be given. The best plan would 
 probably be to first remove the obstacles in the way of 
 giving the episcopate when the proper time should ar- 
 rive ; and then to take up, one by one, such other 
 obstacles to a real and hearty unity as might be seen to 
 exist, until the way should seem clear to an ultimate and 
 not very far distant arrival at the organic union of the 
 various bodies into one great national Church. 
 
 ROME AND GENEVA ON THE SAME FOOTING. 
 
 In the meantime, for the benefit of individual min- 
 isters who should desire to connect themselves with us, 
 
75 
 
 steps should be taken to provide for their reception on 
 the same or similar terms as those upon which Roman 
 Clerics are now received, the bishops being allowed large 
 discretion as to time and other minor requirements. 
 
 AN UNNECESSARY QUESTION. 
 
 Finally, it may be said that there is no need whatever 
 that the Church should, now more than of old, raise the 
 question of the validity of the orders of those whom 
 she should receive or bestow the historic episcopate upon. 
 It is well known that this is a question upon which there 
 are different opinions, even among ourselves, and that 
 the language of the Church is variously interpreted. 
 
 Leaving then, this question, as of no importance in 
 this connection, and each holding his own opinion as 
 seems to him good, we can go on to apply the principle 
 which has been affirmed in these pages, and so facilitate 
 and forward the great work of Christian unity, which, in 
 the magnitude of its importance dwarfs every other 
 question not pertaining to the essentials of the faith 
 itself. 
 
 AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 The historic Church in and of this nation has author- 
 ity and power herein. All that is necessary is that she 
 should use it wisely, to the most effective furtherance of 
 her GoD-given mission. Under ordinary conditions, 
 ordinary methods are sufficient ; but in emergencies it is 
 proper and sometimes necessary to depart from the 
 accustomed ways, only so it be done by competent 
 authority. We have seen the Churches of the early ages 
 doing this, and so dealing with abnormal conditions in 
 ways seeming best calculated to remove those conditions. 
 
T6 
 
 The American Church is privileged, if not in duty bound, 
 to follow their example. An emergency certainly and 
 confessedly exists, now and here. We are confronted 
 with conditions more deplorable, and on some accounts 
 more critical, than any that have heretofore occurred in 
 the Church's history. In view of these conditions it is 
 more than ever necessary that everything possible should 
 be done to heal divisions among believers in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and to bring them into that unity for 
 which He so earnestly prayed. If we cannot now find 
 ground of hope for the bringing of Romanists into this 
 unity, at least we may strive to bring all others, and this 
 may lead to the final reconciliation of even the most 
 hopeless. It is needful that bickerings and quarrelings 
 should cease ; that the tremendous waste of power and 
 means, incident to our divisions, should be stopped ; that 
 we should distribute our forces more evenly over the 
 field committed to us ; that our Missions in foreign lands 
 as well as our work in the home field should witness for 
 unity, not, as now, for division ; that, in short, all, who 
 possibly can, should stand together for the faith of the 
 Gospel and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 THE RESrONSIBILITY OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 Authority and power beget responsibility ; therefore 
 the historic Church of the nation is responsible for doing 
 her uttermost to secure this much to be desired end. 
 Hers it is to witness for unity, to invite to it, to make all 
 possible sacrifices for it, to yield all except fundamental 
 principles to secure it. She has made a good beginning 
 in the declaration of her Bishops. Will she rise to the 
 full level of her opportunity, and boldly meet the de- 
 mands of the time and the occasion ? 
 
VI. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 fT may be well, in conclusion, to state, concisely, the 
 principal results at which we have arrived ; so that 
 we may have them all before us. 
 We have seen : 
 
 I. That the prevailing theory of the indelibility of 
 Orders is not primitive, not Catholic, but Augustinian 
 and Roman ; that it is not accepted by the Eastern 
 Church, and has prevailed even in the Western Churches 
 but six hundred years. 
 
 II. That the distinction now made between invalid 
 acts and acts uiicaiionical but valid, was unknown to the 
 early Church ; which understood a deposed bishop to be 
 deprived of power as well as authority to perform the 
 functions of his former ministry, and an act done in 
 violation of the law of the Church and in opposition to 
 her authority, to be null and void. 
 
 III. That the maxim: Fieri non debet, sed factum valet, 
 has no proper application in connection with the func- 
 tions of the Christian ministry, but is simply a begging 
 of the question and an assumption of the very thing to 
 be proved. 
 
 IV. That there is no such thing possible as the valid- 
 ation of an originally invalid function, or the bestowal 
 on it of a retrospective validity. 
 
 V. That the mere fact of orders being derived from 
 bishops was not recognised as giving such orders validity, 
 and that therefore the theory upon which we receive into 
 our ministry, without reordination, men having what we 
 
 77 
 
78 
 
 term " episcopal ordination," is inconsistent with the 
 practise of the early Church. 
 
 VI. That the Councils did not raise the question of 
 the validity of the orders of separatists whom they were 
 seeking to bring back to the Church, but exercised 
 their own discretion as to the terms and the mode of the 
 reception of such men. 
 
 VII. That men having, under the Church's law, no 
 orders at all, were, for the sake of peace and unity, re- 
 ceived into the Catholic ministry without the usual form 
 of ordination, and, indeed, without any form at all. 
 
 VIII. That the prevailing theories are utterly inca- 
 pable of accounting for all the facts in the history of the 
 Church's treatment of separatists, and that the only prin- 
 ciple broad enough to do this is to be found in the fact 
 of the Church's plenary authority and power to do 
 whatever seems to her wise and expedient, in all such 
 matters. 
 
 IX. That this authority and power are possessed by 
 every autonomous Church, and therefore by the American 
 Church. 
 
 X. That it is certainly the privilege, and apparently 
 the duty of the American Church, to apply this principle 
 to the bringing about of unity among American Chris- 
 tians ; and that she may as well receive Protestant as 
 Roman ministers, without reordination, for the facilita- 
 tion of this end. 
 
79 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 {See page 41.) 
 
 The Novatians and the Donatists equally rebaptised their 
 converts from the Catholic Church. We learn this of the for- 
 mer, quite incidentally", through the controversy of the third 
 century on heretical baptism. Nothing is said about it in the 
 Nicene Council, nor does anything seem to have been made of 
 it. Indeed, such rebaptisation was the natural outcome of the 
 Novatian position. 
 
 But the Donatist position was essentially the same, and their 
 rebaptisation was equally natural. Yet, this, which was ignored 
 in the case of the Novatians, is made by Augustine the burden 
 of his complaint against the Donatists. Why this difference } 
 The practise could have been no worse in the one case than in 
 the other, and why Augustine should have chosen this ground 
 of attack we cannot tell. He did choose it, however, and in the 
 exigencies of controversy he excogitated his peculiar theory of 
 the indelibility of Orders, with which to justify his views of the 
 validity of heretical baptism. 
 
80 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 {See page 46.) 
 
 It may be advisable to bring out still more forcibly these 
 alternatives, and some of their results. 
 
 Rome and Carthage agree in repudiating the ordination of 
 Novatian, and declare it to be null and void. [Cyprian, Epistles 
 XLV., 1, LI., 8, 24 ; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. VII., 43.] 
 
 I. 
 
 If the Nicene Council required the Novatian clerics to be re- 
 ordained, it simply sustained the decisions of Rome and Car- 
 thage, and strictly enforced the Canons. In which case the or- 
 dination was recognised by all as null and void. 
 
 II. 
 
 If the Nicene Council did not require the Novatian clerics to 
 be reordained, it was not because it recognised the validity of 
 Novatian's ordination, contravening the decisions of Rome and 
 Carthage and the canon law, as has been assumed ; for the or- 
 dination of Maximus the Cynic was precisely parallel to that of 
 Novatian, and the second General Council distinctly declared 
 that Maximus was not made a bishop by that ordination, but 
 that all that had been done about him was void. 
 
 Therefore — unless we are prepared to admit that these two 
 General Councils acted on flatly contradictory principles — the 
 Nicene Council admitted to the Catholic ministry, without or- 
 dination, men who had no orders at all, previously. 
 
 In neither case was there any recognition of Novatian orders; 
 which effectually disposes of the claim that such an ordination 
 as that of Novatian was simply irregular but valid, as well as of 
 the sophism : Fieri non debet, sed factum valet. 
 
81 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 {See page 62.) 
 
 It is obvious that the principle here applied to Orders is 
 equally applicable to baptism. In fact, it was by studying the 
 question of what is popularly but most inaccurately termed lay 
 baptism, that the writer was led to the application of this prin- 
 ciple to Orders. 
 
 Persons received the form of baptism from those not author- 
 ised by the Church to administer it ; sometimes within and 
 oftener without the Church. What was to be done about it ? 
 Some said one thing, some another. Some admitted such per- 
 sons to the eucharist by the imposition of hands. Others bap- 
 tised them just as though they had never received the form, 
 counting it as an absolute nullity. In either case, these persons, 
 when received, by whatever mode, became partakers of all the 
 privileges belonging to the unity and communion of the Church. 
 True, Stephen of Rome, and some of his adherents,* claimed 
 that the spiritual benefits accompanied and followed the admin- 
 istration everywhere and by whomsoever administered; but this 
 was repugnant to the common sense of the Church, and did not 
 prevail to any extent. 
 
 Now, the form, so administered, was either valid — that is, of 
 force, as baptism — or not. If it was, then, by parity of reason- 
 ing, any and every other rite of the Church, administered under 
 similar circumstances, should be recognised as equally valid. 
 This was not admitted, and some took the ground that none of 
 the other rites are so necessary to salvation but that a man 
 might be saved without them, whilst without baptism no one 
 could be saved — martyrdom being, however, admitted to be a 
 substitute for the ordinary sacrament — , therefore the difference. 
 Another ground taken was that the ministry is only a matter of 
 
 * Among whom must be counted the great majority of the advocates of the valid- 
 ity of lay baptism, so-called, in modern times. Very few of the^e recognise any such 
 distinction as is emphasised by Augustine, between the validity of the form as form, 
 and the spiritual effect of the form. 
 
82 
 
 order, and that in the absence of the clergy every layman, being 
 a priest in a certain sense, was competent to administer baptism 
 and the eucharist. Still another view was that one having once 
 received the power to administer the sacraments could nev^er 
 lose it, and that therefore heretics could give them. 
 
 Of these three theories it may be said that the first was based 
 on a misconception which no one now holds ; the second is 
 manifestly as good for orders as for other functions, and flatly 
 contradicts all the testimony of the first two centuries ; while 
 the third was that of Augustine, which it is hoped has been suf- 
 ficiently refuted in the foregoing pages. 
 
 We are driven back, therefore, to the conclusion that one 
 function administered without authority is just as good and no 
 better than any other function administered under similar cir- 
 cumstances. How a different conclusion could ever have been 
 so largely accepted can be accounted for only by the persistent 
 tendency, in the West, to follow the bishop of Rome, constantly 
 fostered and taken advantage of, as it has been, by the lying 
 spirit which, for so many centuries, has seemed to be embodied 
 in the papacy. 
 
 If the form was not valid, then, when men were received 
 without baptism, either they were not truly received at all, or 
 they obtained at their reception the benefits usually bestowed 
 through baptism. The former hypothesis did not seem to be 
 tenable, for such persons were visibly in the enjoyment of all 
 the outward privileges of membership in the Church. It re- 
 mained, therefore, only to assume the truth of the latter hypoth- 
 esis, and then to seek the principle which would satisfactorily 
 account for this seeming anomaly. The only one possible of 
 acceptance seemed to be that of the Church's plenary authority 
 and power to do, validly and effectually, whatever she deemed 
 wise and good. 
 
 For a full discussion of the question of baptism, the reader is 
 referred to a series of Articles now in course of publication in 
 Tlie Church Review. 
 
NOTE D. 
 
 {See page 69.) 
 
 Reference should perhaps be made, in this connection, to the 
 Apostolic Constitutions, which, in the main, date back to the 
 fourth century, at the latest, and which may be relied on, when 
 according with the other documents of that and earlier times, as 
 giving the sense of the Church. 
 
 Concerning the ordination of a bishop. Sect. XX., Book III., is 
 similar to Apostolical Canon i. It reads as follows : 
 
 That a bishop ought to be ordained by three or two bish- 
 ops, BUT NOT BY ONE; FOR THAT WOULD BE INVALID. 
 
 XX. We command that a bishop be ordained by three bishops, or 
 at least by two; but it is not lawful that he be set over you by 
 one; for the testimony of two or three witnesses is more firm and 
 secure. * * * 
 
 Again in Book VIII., Sect. III., xxvii., we find further and 
 fuller directions on the same subject. 
 
 Simon the Canaanite concerning the number necessary 
 
 FOR the ordination OF A BISHOP. 
 
 XXVII. And I Simon the Canaanite make a constitution to deter- 
 mine by how many a bishop ought to be elected. Let a bishop be or- 
 dained by three or two bishops; but if any one be ordained by one 
 bishop, let him be deprived, both himself and he that ordained him. 
 But if there be a necessity that he have only one to ordain him, be- 
 cause more bishops cannot come together, as in time of persecution, or 
 for such like causes, let him bring the suffrage or permission of more 
 bishops. 
 
 The likeness of this to Canon IV. of Nicaea is marked, and the 
 fact that the latter requires at least three bishops to be present, 
 seems to indicate that the Constitution is of older date. 
 
APPENDIX TO CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE 
 HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 
 
 By an oversight of the author, the following Canons, 
 referred to on pages 69 and 70, were not quoted at the 
 proper place, 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 I. Let a Bishop be ordained by two or three Bishops. 
 
 35. Let no Bishop presume to hold ordinations beyond his 
 own boundaries in Cities or districts not within his jurisdiction ; 
 and if he should be convicted of having done this without the 
 consent of the Bishop having jurisdiction in such Cities or dis- 
 tricts, both he and those whom he has ordained shall be deposed. 
 
 NICENE CANONS. 
 
 4. It is by all means proper that a Bishop should be ap- 
 pointed by all the Bishops in the Province ; but should this be 
 difficult, either on account of urgent necessity or because of 
 distance, three at least should meet together, and the suffrages 
 being taken, those of the absent [Bishops] also being communi- 
 cated in writing, then the ordination should be made. But in 
 every Province the ratification of what is done should be left to 
 the Metropolitan. 
 
 6. Let the ancient customs prevail in Egypt, Lybia and 
 Pentapolis ; so that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction 
 in all these Provinces, since the like is customary for the Bishop 
 of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other Provinces, let 
 the Churches retain their privileges. And this is to be univer- 
 sally understood, that, if any one be made Bishop without the 
 consent of the Metropolitan, the great Synod has declared that 
 such a man ought not to be a Bishop. If, however, two or three 
 Bishops shall from natural love of contradiction, oppose the 
 common suffrage of the rest, it being favorable, and according 
 
to the Canon of the Church, then let the choice of the majority 
 prevail. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CANON. 
 
 2. The Bishops of a Diocese are not to invade Churches 
 lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the 
 Churches ; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the 
 Canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the Bishops 
 of the East manage the East only, saving the privileges of the 
 Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the Canons of 
 Nicaea ; and let the Bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the 
 Asian affairs only ; and the Pontic Bishops only Pontic matters ; 
 and the Thracian Bishops only Thracian affairs. And let not 
 Bishops go beyond their Diocese for ordination or any other ec- 
 clesiastical administration, unless they be invited. And the 
 aforesaid Canon concerning Dioceses being observed, it is evident 
 that the Synod of every Province will administer the affairs of 
 that particular Province, as was decreed at Nicaea. But the 
 Churches of God in heathen nations must be governed according 
 to the custom which has prevailed among their forefathers. 
 
 This oversight also makes it necessary that the sec- 
 ond line of the note of page 69 should read as follows: 
 The Antiochene Canons will be found on page 31. 
 
 It may be noted here that in the reference to Euse- 
 bius on page 80, VII. should be VI.