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DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY,
AS TO THE VALIDITY
OF THEIR MINISTERIAL ORDERS.

DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY

A8 TO THE
\

VALIDITY OF THEIR MINISTERIAL ORDERS,
SHOWN, ON THEIR OWN PRINCIPLES,

A LETTER TO THE REV. W. GRESLEY,
PREBENDARY OP LICHFIELD,

BY
THE REV. E. B. ELLIOTT. M.A.
INCUMBENT OF ST. MAEK's, BRIGHTON,
PREBENDAHY OF HEYTESDURY,
AKD LATE FELLOW OP TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

LONDON :
SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET
B. SEELEY, HANOVER STREET ; AND
MURRAY, (LATE TOLTHORPE,) BRIGHTON.
MDCCCLVI.

PREFACE.
In the Spring of 1854, as may be remembered, there was a
great deal of agitation in the public mind at Brighton, on the
subject of certain doctrines inculcated, and practices acted out, in
the Church of St. Paul's, West Street ; more especially that of
private confession to the priest, and consequent priestly absolution.
Public meetings were held against it ; and remonstrances sent,
alike from laity and clergy, to the Bishop of Chichester ; who had
himself indeed, previously, exprest in strong terms his disappro
bation of the practice. On the other hand it was protested on
the part of the officials of St. Paul's, both ministers and wardens,
that all was in accordance with the doctrine and spirit of the
Church of England. So, at a public meeting in the Town Hall,
argued the Rev. Messrs. Neale and Perry. And so too, in a printed
Appeal, the Rev. Mr. Gresley, Prebendary of Lichfield ; who,
though not incumbent of St. Paul's, had for some time taken a
very prominent part in its ministrations. A copy of this Appeal was
sent by its Author to each of the resident Clergy in Brighton, as
well as to other persons. It asserted strongly the duty of the
priest, when satisfied of the real penitence of the confessing party,
B

PREFACE.

'* to pronounce the solemn words, I absolve thee from all thy sins,
by virtue of Christ's authority committed unto him ; " spoke of
the priest's absolution as " God's pardon; " l and added how that,
" by means of this confession and absolution, many a deeply bur
dened sinner had been brought to Christ, and assured of pardon
and peace."
In acknowledging the receipt of this Paper, I took the liberty of
stating to Mr. Gresley that, " while persuaded of the benevolence
of his intentions in the matter, it was equally my persuasion that
in assuming to himself, and to the clerical brethren in the Church
of England who generally agreed with him in sentiment, the power
of authoritatively giving absolution to the penitent, he did so
without adequate consideration : that, on their own principles,
the possession of any such authority by them was more than ques
tionable : and that, if so, then the whole system, as inculcated
and carried out at St. Paul's and other such churches, must be of
course a delusion ; delusion on a great scale, and to the injury, in
stead of the saving, of souls." — On Mr. Gresley's calling for
proof of this, the Letter following was at once sketched out : but
its completion and publication deferred, on Mr. G.'s suggesting
that it would be well first to wait for an expected letter on the
subject from the Bishop himself.

1 " And who would not desire it (sc. the priest's absolution) who knew the
deep comforts of God's pardon ?" p. 2.
Mr. G. then thus proceeds. " Some will doubtless say, as the Pharisees did,
' Who can forgive sins but God alone? ' Of course no one can, except God give
him authority to do so in his name. But has God ever given authority to any hu
man being to forgive sins? Yes. In John xx. 21, Jesus said (to the apostles)
6 Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins
ye retain, they are retained.' " — And then he argues from the Bishop's form of
words on ordaining a priest, and from certain words in the service for the visita
tion of the sick, that the Church of England considers the power still to continue
with its ordained ministers.

PREFACE.

Since that time, much above a year has elapsed. And, as the
Bishop's expected letter has not yet appeared, it seems probable
that, on a review of all circumstances of the case, he has judged
it better not to publish any. Hence all reason on this account for
delaying the publication of my reply to Mr. Gresley's question
may be considered to have come to an end. And as the subject
is of great importance, and the view that I take of it one that
unquestionably deals with its very essence, but which has not
hitherto, so far as I am aware, been urged in other publications
that have arisen out of the controversy, I have felt it a duty
without further delay to complete my Letter, and to publish it. —
There will be this advantage in the delay which has occurred, that
the heats of party feeling, which were locally manifested a year
ago, may be supposed in some considerable measure to have now
past away : and consequently that the minds of those to whom,
in the person of Mr. Gresley, this letter is virtually addrest, may
be disposed to consider its argument more dispassionately.

B 2

LETTER TO THE REV. W. GRESLEY.

Brighton, Nov. 1855.
Rev. Sir ;
Reverting to a correspondence that past some time since be
tween us, on the subject of confession and absolution as inculcated
and practised at St. Paul's, I feel it my duty, after above a year's
delay for reasons which you yourself suggested, to defer no longer
the completion and publication of my reply to your printed Cir
cular of appeal on that subject. You may remember that in my
first letter, acknowledging its receipt, I exprest my doubts as to
clergymen of the Church of England having on your own prin
ciples (the principles generally called Tractarian) any power, like
that which you claimed for yourself and your brethren, of au
thoritatively confessing and absolving ; such as to warrant to the
absolved penitent the comfortable assurance which you hold out,
as consequent on it, of God's forgiveness of their sins.1 I say, on
your own principles. For when, in your reply, you overlooked
that important clause in my expression of doubt, and spoke of the
authority attaching to Clergymen on Church of England principles,
as the point in question, I called your attention to it ; and inti
mated that I considered our English Church's view of the grounds
of the ministerial commission and authority to be not only differ-
1 See the Note p. ii. of Preface.

6 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
ent from that of the Tractarian school, but essentially contrary. —
This point I propose in my present Letter first to illustrate ; and
then, secondly, to show on your own principles the more than
questionableness of any such priestly authority really attaching to
yourself, and your clerical brethren of the Tractarian school, as
you claim and exercise ; whether for absolution of the confest
penitent, for the imparting of sacramentarian change,1 and sacra-
mentarian virtue, to the elements of bread and wine by consecra
tion, or for any other such like priestly acts and functions.
I. My first main point is the difference of view as to the
source, and medium of transmission, of the ministerial commission
and authority, as taught by our English Church, and as taught
by the self-styled Anglo-Catholic or Tractarian School.
On this important question the doctrine of the Church of Eng
land is set forth in its 23rd and 36th Articles. While in the latter
of the two affirming, against both Popish and other dissentients,
the propriety and sufficiency of the Anglican rites of ordination
for the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons,3 (which
three orders it truly states in its Preface to the Ordination Ser
vices to have been ever, even from Apostolic times, in the Christian
Church,) in the former it so defines lawfully ordained ministers
in Christ's Church as not to exclude the unepiscopally ordained
ministers of other Protestant reformed Churches : — " Those per
sons we ought to judge lawfully called, and sent, (i. e. " for
public preaching, and ministering the sacraments in the congre
gation,") which be chosen, and called to this work, by men who
have public authority given them in the congregation to call and

1 Tract xc. SI ; "Our 28th Article denies not every kind of cJumge." (!) —
Tr. lxxi. 9, confesses that the difference of the Tractarian doctrine on this point
from that of transubstdniiation is not very distinguishable by common minds.
2 After stating that the Book of the English Church's Ordination Services con
tains all things that are necessary to the consecration of bishops, and ordaining
of priests and deacons, it adds; " And therefore whosoever have been consecrated
or ordered (ordained) according to the rites of that book, since the 2nd year of
King Edward the 6th, ... we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and law
fully consecrated and ordered." How well does this article steer clear of the dif
ficulties of the Tractarian apostolical .succession theory !

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 7
send ministers into the Lord's vineyard." Accordant with which
was the conduct pursued by the Church of England, for some time
after its reformation, towards the reformed Churches on the con
tinent; the friendly and intimate intercourse maintained with them ;
the recognition, even by act of Parliament, of their non-episco-
pally ordained ministers ; x and admission of them sometimes to
preferment in the English Church, or English universities. It
might seem like a memento and reiteration of this, almost in our
own day, when Lutheran missionaries like Schwartz and Kolhoff
were employed in its missions by the Christian Knowledge
Society. How different from this are the views profest by the Tractarian
doctors, you well know. The doctrine of what is called apostolical
succession, strictly construed, lies at the very foundation of the
whole Tractarian theological system. In the Preface to the 1st
Volume of the Oxford Tracts the object of the Tracts was de
clared to be the practical revival of certain church-doctrines, as
applicable to the ministers of the Church of England, of which
apostolical succession was the primary one. " The Lord Jesus gave
his spirit to his Apostles ; they in turn laid their hands on those
who should succeed them ; and they again on others : and so the
sacred gift has been handed down to our present bishops ; who
have appointed us (the Anglican Clergy) as their assistants, and
in some sense representatives." The importance of the preroga-

' " The prelates of Elizabeth's reign, like the earlier reformers, considered
episcopacy, as retained in the English Church, to have been the apostolic prac
tice. They did not however consider any mode of government essential to the
constitution of the Church : and hence the validity of ordination, as exercised in
those reformed Churches where episcopney was not retained, wns admitted. By
an Act passed in tho 13th year of this reign the ordination of foreign reformed
Churches was declared valid ; and their ministers were capable of enjoying pre
ferment, on receiving a license from tho Bishop." It was not till 1K62 that this
rule was altered. Soe Lathbury's English Episcopacy, p. 63. He abstracts on
the subject from Strype's Annals.
Compare Ilnokcr's well-known statement on the subject. "There may be
sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a
bishop. . . . Wo are not simply, and without exception, to ur,'e a lineal descent
of power from the apostles, by continual succession of bishops, in every effectual
ordination."

8 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
tives hence derived to the ministers of the Anglican Church is
perpetually dwelt on in the Tracts ;— the prerogatives of binding
and loosing, (by absolution or otherwise,) of administering the
sacraments, and of preaching : specially that of administering the
sacraments ; " which sacraments, and not preaching, (says the
Tractator,) are the sources of the Divine grace." * — The preroga
tive so imparted is set forth further as exclusively that of the epis-
copally ordained ministers of our Church, in this country. '* None
are really ordained who have not been thus ordained." 2 It
is to those alone " who have received their ministerial commission
from the bishop that the promise belongs that whatever he shall
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. A person not so commis
sioned may use the words of baptism, and sprinkle, or bathe with
the water ; but there is no promise from Christ that he shall admit
souls to the kingdom of heaven. He may break bread, and pour out
wine, and pretend to give the Lord's supper j but there is no war
rant from Christ to lead communicants to suppose that, while he
does so here on earth, they will be partakers in the Saviour's hea
venly body and blood." 3 The ministers of the Anglican Episco
pal Church " alone in this realm have a right to be quite sure they
have the Lord's body to give to his people." 4
In the case of one class of claimants thus -strongly asserting to
itself such high prerogatives, to the absolute exclusion of all others,
(for " presbyterian ministers, in ordaining, assume a power," says
the Tractator,6 " which was never intrusted to them,") and this on
the ground of the apostolical descent distinctively of our ordain
ing bishops, common sense requires that men carefully look into
the title, and see whether it is clear, and to be relied on. Even in
case of conflicting claims to an earthly estate, or to a patent of
nobility, the courts of law feel it their duty strictly to scrutinize
the proffered title. How much more should men do this, when their

1 Preface to Tracts.
2 Tract, No. i. 3. So too Perceval, " Apostolic Succession," pp. 61—63.
a No. xxxv. 3. o No. iv. 5.
6 No. vii. 2. Also No. i. And Perceval p. 64.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 9
very salvation is said to be involved in the issue ? ' — I am of course
aware of the boldness with which clerical writers of the school
you belong to affirm the demonstrability of their title. Says the
Oxford Tractator ; — " As to the fact of the apostolical succession,
i.e. that our present bishops are the heirs and representatives of the
Apostles, by successive transmission of the prerogative of being so,
this is too notorious to require proof. Every link in the chain
is known from St. Peter to our present metropolitan." 2 And so
Dr. Hook,3 and others of the same school. — But why then, Rev.
Sir, do not some of your brethren give us the links of the chain ?
At least, why do they not state from authority the essentials to
the validity of each link ; and discuss, and answer, the difficulties
consequent, in the way of any such apostolical succession theory ?
In point of fact however the question, though not overlooked by
the advocates of the theory, and professedly treated of both in cer
tain of the Oxford Tracts themselves,4 and more at large by Mr.
Perceval, in his direct Treatise on the Apostolical succession,5 has
been by no means, in my opinion, discussed with the requisite care
or accuracy. I purpose myself therefore now to take up the sub
ject. Mr. Perceval, not unfairly perhaps, throws the onus of
proving a flaw in the evidence on objectors.0 1 accept his challenge.
And I think the result will be to show that, on your own principles,
the title to priestly authority, which you and your brethren of the
Tractarian school claim, will be found to break down ; and non
conductors of various kinds to occur in your supposed apostolic
line of descent, such as to stop the transmission of the ethereal
fluid, or at least to destroy all assurance of its safe transmission.
II. My second main head being thus the more than doubt as
1 Oxf. Tr. ii. 3, xi. 3, Sc. ; also Perceval p. 85. s Tr. vii. 2. Also v. 9, xxix. 10.
8 " There is not a bishop, priest, or deacon among us, who cannot, if he please,
trace his own spiritual descent from St. Peter or St. Paul." So Ur. Hook, in
one of his sermons on the Church. * These will be referred to as we proceed.
6 The Book is entitled, " An Apology for the Doctrine of Apostolical Succes
sion." My Edition is the 2nd, 1841.
8 Pp. 79, 80. " If it bea moral impossibility that any man who had not been
duly consecrated could be accounted a bishop of the Church of England at the
present time, then the onus rests upon the objectors to say how that, which is
morally impossible now, could have been morally possible at any other period? "

10 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
to validity attaching, on your own principles, to your ministerial
orders, I proceed to argue this out on but three grounds, though
more might have been added : — the chorepiscopal flaw ; the flaw
from the Romish doctrine of intention ; and the flaw arising out
of the Anglican schism from the Church of Rome.
I. The chorepiscopal flaw.
Introductorily to my argument on this point, let me premise
(it is a premise in which you, Sir, I know, will quite agree with
me) that, as the episcopacy was frbm early times regarded as a
higher and different order of office in the Church from the presby-
terate, more especially from its distinctive power of ordaining,1 a
different rite and form of ordination was accordingly from very
early times appointed ft* the one and for the other.2 Specially,
in order to mark the peculiar solemnity of consecration to the
episcopal office, the participation of at least two or three bish
ops was required in each such consecration ; 8 whereas a single
bishop's act sufficed for the ordaining to the presbyterate. For
the second and third centuries the rule is handed down as thus
exprest in what were called the apostolical canons; "Let a
bishop be ordained by two or three bishops."4 And after the great
Constantinian revolution, a. d. 325, it was more fully exprest in
the words following by the 1st General Council of Christendom,
at Nice ; " It behoves that a bishop be ordained by all the bishops
of the province, if possible : or, if this be difficult, that at least
three bishops come together on the occasion, with letters signify
ing the consent of the rest." 5 Rules these recognized as binding
in the Tracts : 6 and which, as Mr. Perceval observes,7 " were re-
1 ''•Bishops: that is, commissioned ordainers.^ Oxford Tracts, vii. 2.
2 So Perceval, p. 54.
3 Bingham, ii. 11. 8, thus describes the manner and form of ordaininga bishop,
as given in the records of one of the Councils of Carthage. " When a bishop is
ordained, two bishops shall hold the book of the gospels over his head : and, while
one pronounces the blessing, or consecration prayer, all the rest of the bishops
present shall lay their hands upon his head."
4 Given in Harduin's Councils, vol. i. p. 10.
" Episcopum oportet ab omnibus episcopis, si fieri potest, qui sunt in provincia
ejus ordinari. Si vero hoc difficile fuerit, . . . certe tres episcopi debent in unum
esse congregati," &c. « ,. 9; lvii. 5, &c. 7 P. 81.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 11
peated in the provincial regulations of every Church ; the British,
Gallican, Spanish, Roman, Carthaginian, Alexandrian, Antiochian,
and the rest."— With regard to the allowance in the so-called
apostolical canons (just before cited) of episcopal ordinations per
formed by only two bishops, it is stated by Bingham1 that this was
contrary to all the other canons ; the presence and participation of
three (agreeably with the Nicene rule) being required on the occa
sion. And he adds how the Council of Riez deposed Armentarius,
and declared his consecration to the bishoprick to be null and void,
because he had but two bishops to take part in it : 2 and how in ano
ther case the Council of Orange deposed both the ordaining bishops
and the ordained. Mr. P. truly remarks, that " when, by any press
ing necessity, it fell that a bishop was consecrated by less than three
bishops, the discussions to which such an event gave rise sufficiently
show how keenly alive the Church has in all ages been to this
point."3 — As to ordination to the episcopate by one bishop alone,
the only two instances that Bingham seems to have known of are
those of Siderius, consecrated bishop of Palsebisca during the Atha-
nasian troubles, and Evagrius, consecrated by Paulinus singly to
be his successor in the bishoprick of Antioch.4 In the latter case
a schism arose in consequence ; which was only terminated by
Flavian's appointment to the bishoprick, in place of Evagrius :
there being then however, by special act of the Church, and
with a view to the peace of the Antiochian Church, a recognition
of the validity of the ordinations previously made by Evagrius.5
Whence Bingham's conclusion, " that the ordination of a bishop
made by a single bishop was valid, (though contrary to the
canons,) if the Church thought fit to allow it."
In order the more strongly to impress on yourself, and on other
readers of this letter, the all-binding force, on Tractarian princi-
1 ii. 11. 4.
• " Ordinationem, quam canonci in-itam dvfiniunt, nos quoque vacuendam esse
censuimus : in qua, praetermissa trium prascntia, nee expetitis comprovincialiuni
Uteris, metropolitan quoque voluntate neglccta, prorsns nihil quod tpiseofmrn
faced ostensum est." 3 P. 81. * Bingham, ii. 11. 5.
» " Ecclesia Antiochena ita pacem postulavit, et meruit, ut Evagnanos suis or-
dinihus ac locis, intemerataordinatione quam acceperant a memorato, [sc. Evagrio]
susciperct." Innocent. Ep. 14 ad Bouifac.

12 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
pies, of the Nicene rule about episcopal ordinations lately cited, let
me remind you of the view taken by the Oxford Tractators of the
sanctity, and plenary authority, of legitimately convened General
Councils, such as was pre-eminently that at Nice. In Tract 90 a
comment is made on the 2 1st Article of the Church of England,
which speaks of the authority of Church Councils. Says that Ar
ticle ; "When General Councils be gathered together, forasmuch
as they be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with
the Spirit and word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred,
even in things pertaining to God." On the other hand this is the
declaration of the Tractator : — that when General Councils are
gathered together, not only " according to the commandment and
will of princes, but in the name of Christ," our Lord's promise of
his presence applies to them : and that " their deliberations are
overruled from heaven ; their infallibility guaranteed ; their decrees
authoritative." x How else indeed could the visible Church be
Christ's representative on earth ; and his Spirit speak by it ? 2
Bearing this in mind we infer that, on Tractarian principles, it
was even as by the infallible and authoritative voice of Christ
himself that the Council General of Nice required, in order to the
right ordination of a bishop in the Christian Church, (that is of
an official whose distinctive and peculiar power, as compared with
that of other presbyters, was to be that of conferring orders,)3
the presence of at least three bishops of the province, and the
written consent of the rest. Whence the conclusion further, that
whenever this was not the case, it was the mind of Christ that
ordinations to the episcopal office should be considered invalid ;
and consequently all the episcopal acts invalid that might be done
by a pseudo-bishop so ordained. Bingham, we saw, though not
taking this high ground about General Councils, like that of Nice,
yet concludes that, except by a special act of the Church in their
favor, the invalidity of bishops' so elected must be admitted.
Now then apply these considerations to the multitudinous chor
episcopal ordinations, which we know to have intermingled in the
1 xc. 21. " See the citations in the Note ' p. 19. 3 See Note ' p. 10.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 13
stream of ministerial succession with regular episcopal ordinations,
for some six or seven hundred years ; from at least the beginning
of the 4th century to the 10th century, or the 11th.
The chorepiscopus was the title of an official instituted in the
Church, as it extended itself from each central city or town into
the surrounding rural districts, with functions somewhat like those
of our modern archdeacons : his business being to represent, and
so to relieve the city bishop, in those various diocesan offices which
might not seem strictly and essentially episcopal. The earliest
historic notice of these officials occurs, I believe, in the records of
the Councils of Ancyra and Neo-Csesarea, cities of the adjoining
provinces of Galatia and Pontus ; and which were held, shortly
after Constantine's celebrated edict of toleration, in the same year
a. D. 314. Not very long after which we find them again noticed
in the Council of Antioch in Syria, held in the year 341. And
this is what we learn from the notices in these three Councils re
specting them : — that they were ordained to their office by the
laying on of the hands simply and singly of the city bishop ¦} —
that, in respect of dignity of station, they were considered to stand
in the same relationship to bishops as the seventy disciples in
Christ's time to the apostles :2 — that they had power to appoint
of themselves to minor ecclesiastical offices, but not to ordain
presbyters or deacons ; at least not to ordain them Si%a t» tiro--
Kove, without the concurrence of the bishop, exprest in writing.3
1 So the Council of Antioch in its 10th canon ; X"P<=*'<"<°W°'' teyiveo-Bai inro
tov rr)S wo\fws p {moKeirat matconov. A passage thus rendered in the Latin
version of Isidore Mercator ; " Chorepiscopus autem ab episcopo civitatis, vel
loci, cui idem subjacet, ordinandus est." And to the same effect is the version of
Dionysius Exiguus. Harduin, i. 598.
In a preceding clause of the canon, which will be cited presently, the chore-
piscopi are spoken of as ordained by the bishop's laying on of hands.
" So the 14th canon of the Council of Neo-Cresarea, a canon often afterwards
referred to on the chorepiscopal question ; Of St xMPe,r""c0,r<" *'" VfV e,s Tw""/
tuv iptoiiiiKovra. Hard. i. "286.
• The 13th canon .of the Council of Ancyra is thus exprest in the original
Greek: XapeKioKovois Ml «{«'"«• *P*«0*™P»» " «""»"""" x«P<>™„«f-
a\\a mti8« irpnfrnpoa «A«», X»P» ™ ""V"")"0' <""> ™ <™«owov ^™
ypawarvy.w try* (qh. iKa<rrV) irapoiK*. Of which Isidore's Latin version,
supplying what is considered a lacuna in the Greek, is as follows:- Vicarns
episcoporum, quos Graci chorepiscopos vocant, non licere vel presbyteios vel

14 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
To which let me add that in the Arabic canons of the Council of
Nice, (canons not genuine, but which may be considered probably
of the date of the 5th or 6th century, and therefore as expressing
the notions then current,) it is laid down that the archdeacon was
to take precedence of the chorepiscopus ; the place of the former,
in high church ceremonials, being at the right hand of the bishop,
that of the latter at his left.1
Such are the earliest notices of the rank, mode of ordination,
and functions of the chorepiscopus ; and such, agreeably with what
is laid down in those canons, was his inferiority to the bishop ; — the
real bishop, legitimately consecrated, accordantly with the canons
of the great Nicene General Council. And what then the practical
working of this chorepiscopal system ? It may be well to trace this
downwards briefly in Church history, in order the better to judge
of its bearing on the question between us.
First then, in 381, soon after his entering on his episcopate, we
find a letter addrest by the famous Basil of Cajsarea to the many
chorepiscopi of his diocese.2 In this letter he complains that,
whereas in other times the chorepiscopi only ordained presbyters
and deacons after advising with the bishop of the diocese, the habit

diaconos ordinare : sed nee presby teris civitatis, sine episcopi pracepto, amplius
aliquid imperare, vel sine auctoritate literarum ejus in unaquaque parochia illiquid
agere." Hard. i. 276. As stopped in Harduin the canon absolutely forbids, it
will be seen, the ordination of presbyters and deacons by chorepiscopi.
The 10th canon of the Council of Antioch however either enlarges their power,
or gives a larger meaning to the Ancyran canon. Tois Ka\ovfifVoif x<BPCTr"r'(<"r("s>
ci /cat x<EipoQ6aia.v eiev eiriffKoncap ethrjtpoTes, e5o£e tt? o.yia avvoStp eiSepal ra
kavrav fierpa, . . . KaBiurav Se avayvtaaras, Kai fnroSiaicoeovs, teat e|o/>/KffTay, . . .
fit] Se irpetr&vrepov firyre Sianovov x€lP0TQVel1' ToXp.av 5iX« tov ev Tp iro\ei
exurKOTtov. So, with the city bishop's concurrence, such ordination would be
allowable, according to this Council.
1 Canon 57 : " Locus episcopi in oratione sit in Bummo sacelli, intra locum altaris,
ut qui sit pastor et gubernator. Post eum sit archidiaconus ad latus dextrum, ut
qui sit loco ejus, et praesit omnibus quse ad orationem et ecclesiam pertinent :
chorepiscopus autem sit post archidiaconum ad alterum latus, quia ipse etiam est
loco episcopi super villas, &c."
In canon 60, where it is laid down that the candidates for holy orders are to
be examined by the archidiaconus and the chorepiscopus, the former is named
first, as before.
2 According to Nazienzen, says Bingham, ix. 8, there were not less than fifty
chorepiscopi in Basil's or Theodoret's diocese.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 1.)
had subsequently grown up with them of ordaining without even
writing to the bishop ; whence the result of so few of the Cappa-
docian clergy being men fit for their office. With a view to
remedy the evil in a measure he rules that such as were inca
pable should be considered non-ordained, and mere laics : thus,
somewhat arbitrarily, cancelling the ministerial orders of some
chorepiscopally ordained clerics ; but admitting them in the case of
others. And, for the future, he lays it down that the orders of all
persons ordained by chorepiscopi should be considered invalid,
unless ordained with his episcopal sanction ; the persons so or
dained to be counted mere laics as before.1
Pass we now two centuries forward, and from Eastern Chris
tendom to Western, from Asia Minor to Spain. In the 7th canon
of the 2nd Council of Seville, held a. d. 619, we find a rebuke
ministered to the Bishop of Cordova for having often appointed
chorepiscopi, (" who were in fact, according to the canons, nothing
more than presbyters,") as his delegates for erecting altars, and
consecrating chapels. The Council ascribes this to his ignorance
on ecclesiastical matters : and states in its canon how, by the
authority of the old law, or by the rules of the Church, sundry
sacred prerogatives were reserved distinctively and alone to
bishops ; such as the consecration of churches, the ordination of
presbyters and deacons," dc?
The chorepiscopal order however still continued ; and continued
to exercise, in Western Christendom at least, episcopal functions.
Towards the close of the 8th century we find them noticed in the
2nd Council of Nice, (an Eastern Council) as officials still common;

1 Not having a copy of Basil's works to refer to, I take Dupin's report, Tom.
ii. p. 162, (Paris Edition 1693.) I cite two clauses. " II ordonne . . .que Ton
mettra au rang des laiques ceux (des ministrcs) qui se trouveront incapables."
•' Enfin il declare que ceux qui seront mis au ran;? des ministres, sans qu'il les
ait approuves, seront que de simples laiques."
" " Relatum est nobis Agapium, Cordubensis urbis episcopum, frequenter cho-
repiscopos vel presbyteros destinnsse, (qui tanien juxta cnnones unum sunt,) qui,
absento pontifice, altaria erigorent, basilicas consecrarent. . . . Nam quamvis cum
episcopis plurima presbyteris mysteriorum communis sit dispensatio, quxdam ta
nien auctoritate veteris legis, quoedam novellis et ecclesiasticisregulis, sibi prohibits
noverint ; sicut prcsbyterorum ct diaconorun conBecratio," &c. Hard. iii. 560.

16 - DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
but apparently as restricted in respect of ordaining functions in
that part of Christendom, to the ordination of the lower ecclesias
tical orders, such as readers.1 — On the other hand in Western
Christendom the *' chorepiscopal superstition," we read, had about
the same time become so prominent a matter in the minds of men,
that it was judged well by the emperor Charlemagne, conjointly
with the bishops of France, to consult the then reigning Pope,
Leo 3, about it ; and to have his answer inserted in the Capitula
ries of Charlemagne. It had been a subject of discussion, we
there read, among laity as well as clergy : the clergy declaring
that chorepiscopally ordained presbyters were not really ordained ;
the laity that they feared receiving injury, instead of blessing,
when confirmed by men who were merely in pretence ordained
clerics. To which appeal the Papal answering rescript was one
altogether condemnatory of the chorepiscopi. It declared that
they were only presbyters, not bishops, as not having been duly
consecrated by three bishops, nor ordained to any particular epis
copal see ; that the clergy who had been chorepiscopally ordained
were to be considered unordained ; and that henceforth the chor
episcopal order was to cease.2
The decree was however ineffective. In a. d. 829 the 6th
Council of Paris speaks of the abuse as still continued : and how
chorepiscopi illegally pretended to confer the Holy Spirit by im
position of hands : albeit that they were not real bishops, and so
successors of the apostles ; but only, as the Neo-Csesarean Council
1 CiaavTwi Km Kara to apxctov eBos tous xupeiriaKOTrovs, kcjt' envrpairipi tov
eirHtKo-irov, Set irpoxetp'fcaflai avayvuaras' i. e. to appoint them (as the context
shows) by imposition of hands. Hard. iv. 496.
2 Pope Leo's answer thus begins : — " Omnibus sanctse Dei ecclesiee fidelibus
notum esse volumus, quia non parva questio de chorepiscorum superstitione ad nos
non semel, aut bis, aut ter venerit, sed saepissime nostris auribus molestiam in-
tulerit. Ipsa qusestio non solum inter clericos, sed etiam inter laicos ssepissime
ventilabatur. Dicebant presbyteri, diaconi, et subdiaconi, a regularibus episcopis
ordinati, non eos esse presbyteros, vel diaconos, vel subdiaconos, qui a chorepis-
copis videbantur quasi sacrati, &c." The decree lays down that they were not
bishops, " quia nee ad quandam civitatis episcopalem sedem titulati erant, nee
canonice a tribus episcopis ordinati. Ideo de episcopali ministerio nihil agere
potuerunt, &c." And then ; " Ut hi qui h chorepiscopis presbyteri, vel diaconi,
vel subdiaconi sunt ordinati nulla tenus in presbyteratfls, diaconatus, vel subdia-
conatus officio ministrare praesumant." Hard. iv. 948.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 17
had defined them, an order after the fashion of the seventy.1 Nor
was this here and there only, but very generally. We read in
this 9th century of chorepiscopi alike in the dioceses of Lyons,
Langres, Limoges, Tongres, Mayence, &c. ; that is, over both
France and Germany.2 Among the canons of Isaac, Bishop of
Langres about this time, (canons compiled, he tells us, from those
of the highest ecclesiastical authority,) it is declared, conformably
with Pope Leo's decree, that chorepiscopal ordinations of presbyters
or deacons were invalid, chorepiscopi being nothing but presby
ters.3 — On the other hand defenders of the order were not want
ing. The famous Rabanus, Archbishop of Mayence, in a letter to
a chorepiscopus of his diocese, in the same 9th century, declared
them to be really bishops, and that they might rightfully exercise
the episcopal function of ordaining.4 And so too Pope Nicolas,
(Pope from 858 to 867,) when consulted on the subject by the arch
bishop of Bourges.5 But the council of Metz, held in 888, ad
hered to Pope Leo's doctrine ; declaring chorepiscopi to be but
presbyters ; and that every act done by them, which belonged
properly to the office of the summum sacerdotium, or episcopate,
was ipso facto void.6
With this I end my historic notice of the chorepiscopi ; just
adding only that, according to Mabillon, the order continued down
wards even until the 11th century.7
1 27th canon. Hard. iv. 1314. For the Neo-Csesarean canon see Note " p. 13.
2 Ibid, in the signatures to the Councils held severally in those places.
8 " Si quis non ab episcopo, sed a chorepiscopo, qui non est episcopus, sed vica-
rius episcopi, priusquam prohibiti essent, fuerit confirmatus, reiterari aliis bene-
dictionibus debet  Chorepiscopi nee Spiritum Paracletum ullo unquom tem
pore tradero potucrunt, nee modo possunt.— Placuit ut, sicut Leonis P;ipse, et
omnium episcoporum nostrorum, atque reliquorum fidelium generali et synodali
consult!! decrevimus, nullus chorepiscopus per manus impositionem aut sacerdotes
aut Levitas . . . sacrare prsesumat." Hard. \. 449. 4 Hard. v. 1417.
5 Given by Martene De Rit. ii. 12. " A chorepiscopis asseris multas esse in
regionibusvestrisordinationespresbyterorum et diaconorum effectas : quos quidam
episcoporum deponunt, quidam vero denuo consecrant. Nos vero dicimus nee in-
nocentes oportere percelli, nee ullas debere fieri ordinationes vel iteratas consecra-
tiones. Ad formam enim septuaginta chorepiscopi facti sunt ; quos quis dubitet
episcoporum habuisso officia."
« Hard. vi. i. 412.
' Martene ibid. — There occurs a somewhat curious notice of the chorepiscopal
class, or order, as late as the middle of the loth century. In a Romish Synod of
the Diocese of Augsburgh, under Cardinal Otho, iu 1 548, i. e. two j ears after the
C

18 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
And now then, let me ask, what is the inference to be drawn
from this, with regard to the question at issue-between us? Our
inferences must of course vary according as we admit, or reject,
the claims of the chorepiscopi to be really officials vested with
authority in the church to ordain presbyters, and impart to them
those prerogatives of binding and loosing, &c, of which you speak
so much. In each and either case however, if I mistake not, the
result will tell almost equally against the dogmas of Tractarianism.
If your judgment, like that of one early Tractator,1 be that
the chorepiscopus was really and truly made a bishop, (a bishop
in the full sense of the term, and with the bishop's distinctive
prerogative of ordaining ministers) 2 by the consecrating act, sim
ply and singly, of one regular bishop, what comes of the heaven-
inspired infallibility, and absolute authority, that you ascribe to
the rules of a General Council like that of Nice ; seeing that they
required the presence of at least three bishops to make a con
secration to the episcopate valid ? s And what, by consequence,
of your favourite dogma about the visible Church, as that in
which Christ dwells, and through which (as a collective body)

death of Luther, and first assembling of the Council of Trent, I find this in its 7th
statute. " Quos Gneci chorepiscopos, (hoc est certarum regiuncularum in qualibet
diocaesi speculators, ) alii archidiaconos, alii archipresbyteros vocant, in nostra
ecclesia cathedrali, quoad certum districtum mceniis Augustanae civitatis adjacen-
tem archiadiaconi, in reliqua vero diocaesi decanorum ruralium nomine censean-
tur." That is, that they were to be called archdeacons when acting in the immediate
suburbs of Augsburgh ; but elsewhere rural deans. Hard. ix. 2034.
1 Tr. xxxiii. " Finding the burden too heavy for him (as his flock increased) the
bishop would appoint other pastors, to supply his place in this or that part of his
diocese. To theBe he would commit a greater or lesser share of his spiritual power,
as might be necessary. Sometimes he would make them fully his representatives,
or ordain them bishops : at other times he would employ presbyters for his pur
pose. These assistants, or (as they were called) chorepiscopi, would naturally be
confined to their respective districts." The writer then speaks of the chorepis
copi as " suffragan bishops, in the modern sense of the word."
2 See Note ' p. 10.
a See p. 10 supra. — Accordingly in No. lvil of the Tracts, Novatian,
a. d. 252, is said to have lighted on three bishops in Italy, " the requisite number
for consecration."
Such only as heartily hold the doctrines of our Articles 21, 23, about General
Councils, and ministerial ordinations, (on which the Tractarian difference of
opinion has been noted at pp. 7, 12,) can consistently admit this view of
chorepiscopi.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OP THEIR ORDERS. 19
Christ speaks ? ! — On the other hand if a chorepiscopus be voted
by you, in common with so many of the other doctors of the
Church, to be not a real bishop, and yet his ordinations of presby
ters and deacons to be valid, what have you to say against the
validity of ordinations made (we will suppose) by the laying on of
hands of an archdeacon, or rural dean, or simple presbyter ? 2 You
will surely have made a large step, notwithstanding the Tractarian
abhorrence of it,3 towards acknowledging the validity of pres-
byterian ordination. — Once again, if you say that, as the chorepis
copi were not real bishops, so neither was the ordination of pres
byters made by them valid, then think of the thousands and thou
sands of chorepiscopally ordained presbyters in eastern and west
ern Christendom,4 during the six or seven continuous centuries
from 300 to 900 or 1000 A.D., who are thereby affirmed by you
to have been nothing more than laics j aud of the more lhau proba
bility, humanly speaking, of many out of their number having
been at one time or other made bishops ! In which case, foras
much as bishops might not be made directly from laics, or, per
saltum, from any lower ecclesiastical order than presbyters,6 these
1 See Tract No. ii, on " the Catholic Church ; " with the heading text from
Isaiah liv. 17, " No weapon that is formed againBt thee shall prosper." It says
that the only true meaning of that article in the creed, / Mieve in one Catholic
apostolic Church, refers to " the Church visible, with its bishops, priests, and dea
cons : " and that, when Christ ascended, " he did not leave us orphans, but appoint
ed representatives of himself (i. e. in them) to the end of time." Also Tract No
xi. 6 ; " In 1 Cor. xii. we are taught the Spirit's indwelling in the visible Church,
or body : I say not in every member of it, but generally in it," &c.
2 To each of which the chorepiscopi, we have seen, were assimilated by many
learned Church bishops and doctors during the time of their continuance. See pp.
14, 15, 18, supra.
3 " It is from the order of presbyters, on whom was never conferred nt ordina
tion the power to ordain, that the presbyterians of Germany, Denmark, France,
Scotland, England, Ireland, and North America derive their pretended orders."
Perceval, p. 54.
* On the large number of ordaining chorepiscopi see Note "p. 14.
s So, for example the Sardican Council in its 10th Canon in Greek, 13th in
Lntin :'and so the 8th General Council; laying it down, more in detail, (Act. X.
Can. 5.) that a man must hold for a year the office of reader, for two years that of
sub-deacon, for three that of deacon, for four that of presbyter, before being
eligible for the episcopate. Hard. i. 645, v. 901.-In earlier times these intervals
were not attended to. Still even the example of Ambrose shows how it was un
derstood that a bishop could not rightfully he made but from such as had been
presbyters previously : Ambrose having, in the week following his baptism, past
C 2

20 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
must have been mere make-believe bishops, as they were pre
viously mere make-believe presbyters : and so have intervened,
not only personally, but by the invalidity of all subsequent episcopal
consecrations at which their presence made up the three ordaining
bishops, to break the continuity of the line of apostolical succes
sion ; and act like non-conductors, to stop all further transmission
in that particular line of the ethereal fluid.
I observe a curious inconsistency in Mr. Perceval. He has
with commendable diligence both refuted the Romish calumny
that our Archbishop Parker, at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's
. reign, had the validity of his consecration imperilled by the (as
serted) fact of its having been performed by a single bishop.
Moreover, in Tables carefully and elaborately drawn out, he has
traced the pedigree of our subsequent English bishops down to
the present era ; and shown how duly three bishops, at the least,
assisted at each one of the consecrations. But then, strangely
forgetful of the solemn and binding nature of the Apostolic and
Nicene Church canons, he has argued as if the admitted validity
of the pedigree of any one of the three consecrating bishops, in
any particular case, would be sufficient to establish the Validity of
the consecration ; and so to ensure the validity of our own orders,
at the present day. Certainly not so on Tractarian principles. Our
orders hang on the validity of Archbishop Parker's consecration :
Archbishop Parker's on the validity of that of three at least of his
episcopal consecrators. If but one of the three was a mere make-
believe bishop,from any flaw, anywhere, in his episcopal descent,
traced upward through all the continental intermixtures,1 then
ought Tractarians to consider Archbishop Parker's consecration
invalid : and so, still on Tractarian principles, your own orders,
Reverend Sir, to be invalid also.
Nor is this chorepiscopal ground the only ground on which
through all the inferior ecclesiastical orders, and then on the 8th day been consecra
ted bishop. So Paulinus, in his Life of Ambrose : " Baptizatus fertur omnia eccle-
siatica officia implesse ; atque, octava die, episcopus ordinatus est." See on this
Martene De Rit. ii. 8.
1 At p. 239, Mr. P. well notes the continual intermixture of the English epis
copal succession with that of continental Bishops.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 21
suspicion, grave suspicion, attaches to your priestly orders. I pro
ceed to notice,
2ndly, the flaw attaching to them from the Romish doctrine of
intention. Justly, but somewhat curiously, one of the Tractarian leaders,
in a Paper on the Romanistic controversy,1 has adverted to this
doctrine as a ground of uncertainty to the Romanist on the pal
mary point of his Church possessing the apostolic succession ; and
consequently, it is added, as a reason with the Anglo -Catholic for
not joining the Romish Church. "The Church of Rome has de
termined that a sacrament does not confer grace unless the priest
means it to do so ; so that if he is an unbeliever, nay, if from
malice or other cause he withholds his intention, it is not a means
of salvation. Now, considering what the Romanists themselves
will admit, the great practical corruption of the Church at various
times, . . who can answer, on the Church of Rome's own ground,
that there is still preserved to it the Apostolical succession, as con
veyed in its sacrament of orders ? " So argues, and justly argues,
the Oxford Tractator ; strangely unconscious, it would seem,
all the while, that the flaw, while doubtless on Roman Catholic
principles affecting a Roman Catholic's certainty as to the apostolic
succession remaining with his Church, ought also, on Anglo-Ca
tholic or Tractarian principles, similarly to throw doubt on the
fact of the Anglican Church possessing the apostolical succession.
For it is through the Romish Church, in the times prior to the
Reformation, that the Anglo-Catholic Church traces up the line
of its episcopal succession to Apostolic origin. And, if prior
to the Reformation, the Romish Church had thus, and on this
ground, its apostolic succession broken, or at least the gravest
doubt thrown upon its continuance, how can the Anglo-Catholic
maintain with consistency that the succession has certainly come
down to him ?
Let me briefly notice what is to be found of the earlier history
1 No. I. xxi. p. 10.

22 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
of this doctrine. And then, I would hope, the correctness of my
argument on this point will approve itself even to your own mind.
Let it be understood then that it was not at the Council of
Trent, after the Reformation, that this doctrine was for the first
time broached by the Church of Rome. Above a century before,
in the famous General Council of Constance, held 1415 a. d., a
rule was laid down which implies the then admitted reception of
the doctrine. After reference to a certain Wicliffite dogma about
the need of good character in the priest to make the sacraments
effectual, (a dogma condemned by the Council as heretical), it was
ruled that every suspect Wicliffite should thenceforth have the
following, among other testing questions, put to him on his ex
amination : — " Whether he believes that a bad priest, when using
the proper matter, and proper form of words, and having moreover
the intention of doing what the Church does in the sacraments, does,
or does not, truly make the sacrament of the mass, truly absolve,
truly baptize, and truly perform and minister the other sacra
ments."1 Such, and such only, in the Council's mind, (the priest's
inteution being, however, markedly among them,) were requisites
to the real ministration of the sacraments ; that of orders, of course,
inclusive. He who admitted the validity of the rite, whatever the
priest's moral character, provided only that he had the intention
of ministering the sacramental grace, was to be acquitted of the
charge of heresy; not otherwise. — Next we find the subject
mooted in the Council of Florence, held a. d. 1438. This Council
was assembled on occasion of the Greeks and Armenians tempo
rarily uniting with the Romish Church. It seems there had been
some difference between the Greek and Armenian Churches, on
the one hand, and the Church of Rome on the other, with reference
(among other minor points) to the necessary matter of the host
to be consecrated ; whether, or not, it must necessarily be wheaten
bread. And Pope Eugenius went so far, to meet those Eastern
Churches, as to lay down in the Council of Florence that the bread
1 " Utrnm credat quod malus sacerdos cum debita materia, et forma, et cum in-
tentione faciendi quod facit ecclesia, vere connciat, vere absolvat, vere baptizet, et
vere conferet alia sacramenta." Harduin, viii. 915.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 23
need not necessarily be wheaten : adding, however, that there
must be certain other things, to make the sacrament valid ; viz.
the proper form of words in consecration, and moreover the inten
tion of the priest to consecrate and transubstantiate.1
It was after this that the Council of Trent (a. d. 1546), in
its 9th Session, during the first period of its assembling,2 laid
down the law ; " If any person shall say that in ministers when
they make, or when they impart sacraments, there is not re
quired the intention of doing that which the Church does, let
that man be accursed : " 3 a dogma referred to, and repeated,
during the second period of its sittings (a. d. 1552) in its 14th
Session.4 — And it did this, observe, professedly as a rule already
before laid down by the Council of Florence. So Paolo Sarpi
tells us, in his History of the Council of Trent. It seems that
Catharinus, Bishop of Minori, near Naples, made a strong pro
test during the Council's previous discussions, against the enact
ments of the Canon : urging the utter uncertainty that would re
sult from it as to the reception or non-reception of sacramental
grace, on the part of participants in the sacrament. And this not
with reference merely to the sacraments of baptism, of confession
and absolution, and of the mass, but to that too of ministerial
orders. For, said he, supposing the candidate for ordination to
have been baptized by a priest who had not a thought of doing the
thing seriously, and so of imparting the sacramental grace, then
that man will not have been baptized. And, consequently, even
1 " Dummodo enim panis substantia manent nulla tenus dubitandum est quin,
post praefata verba consecrationis corporis, a saeerdote cum intentions conficiendi
prolata, mox in verum Christi corpus transubstantietur." lb. ix. 1028.
In Leo Xth's damnatory bull against Luther in 1520, I may here add, the
same doctrine is exprest ; (see Hard. ix. 1893;) as one fully known and estab
lished at that time in the Church.
* The Council, as is well known, had three several periods of sitting:— the 1st
from Dec. 1545 to Sept. 1547; the 2nd from May 1551 to April 1552; the 3rd
from Jan. 1562 to Dec. 1563.
8 " Si quis dixerit in ministris, dum sacramenta conficiunt et conferunt, non
requiri intentioncm saltern faciendi quod facit ecclesia, anathema sit." Hard. x. 53.
4 " Ad instar actus judicialis sententia (sc. absolvendi) pronuntiatur. Atque
ideo non debet poenitens adeo sibi de sua ipsius fide blandiri, ut, etiamsi . . . . sa-
cerdoti animuB serio agendi et vere absolvendi desit, putet tamen se propter suam
solum fidem vere et coram Deo esse absolutum." Hard. x. 94.

26 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
Sti Paul says, ' There is one body, and one spirit ; one Lord, one
faith, one baptism.' Thus, as far as the Apostle's words go, it is
as false and unchristian (I do not mean in degree of guilt, but in
its intrinsic sinfulness) to make more bodies than one, as to have
many lords, manv Gods." The Tractator' s application is, as might
be expected, to dissenters from the English episcopal Church.
" I wish to know how it is possible for any one to fall into this
sin, if dissenters are clear of it ? What is the sin, if separation
from the existing Church be not it ?" x In Tract xii. 5, it is argued
further, that " in this age of schism," new articles of faith are
needed, " to meet the new heresy which denies the Holy Catholic
Church." And, in another Tract,2 Bishop Wilson's form of ex
communication is approvingly given, as one fitly to be applied, by
those who have the power of binding and loosing, to those who sin
openly and determinately "in creed or in practice:" and conse
quently to all that dissent from the Church : since both their
creed errs on the vital point (as Tractarians regard it) of apostolic
succession and Church authority ; (not to specify other points ;)
and their practice errs correspondingly also. The effect of this
excommunication is stated to be a delivering them over to Satan ;
and exclusion not from one particular section of the Christian
Church, but from " the one holy Apostolic Church : " and so, by
necessary consequence, their loss of whatever authority, or privi-
vilege, they may have enjoyed in it ; 3 that of ministerial orders,
and ministerial prerogatives, (if such they once had) included.
Such is the Tractarian doctrine about the sin of schism : a doc
trine founded itself on Apostolic injunctions in the New Testa
ment : but, on the right application of which, serious differences
must of course arise, according to the different views taken of what
" the one holy Apostolic Church of Christ " really is. Passing
this over however for the present, what I have now more imme
diately to urge on you is the notorious fact that the Roman Catholic
Church charges this very sin of schism against the reformed An
glican Church, its bishops, and its clergy : and has accordingly
launched its severest excommunications against it, and them ; and
1 So too Tr. xxx. 7. 2 Tr. xxxvii.
3 See Tr. xxx. 7 : and Gresley's Churchman p. 50.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 27
declared the Anglican ministerial orders (your own inclusive) to be
by consequence null and void. Here then comes up the grave
question ; How can the Tractarian, on his own principles, fairly
claim exception from these pains and penalties of schism, in his
character of a separatist from the Church of Rome ?
The justificatory plea of the fathers and founders of the Pro
testant reformed Church of England is well known. Not only
did they protest against one and another particular corruption
and error in the Romish Church : but, judging her by the test of
God's written word, (its one test of truth,) declared her to be
the Church of Antichrist, not of Christ ; and consequently that
separation from her was an act of duty imperatively called for by
their very faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. " Come out of her, my
people," said the voice from heaven, " that ye be not partakers
of her plagues." 1 Thus judging, what mattered it to them if Rome
launched her anathemas and excommunicatory bulls against them
as schismatics and heretics ? These were anathemas, they knew,
that heaven would never ratify. As to the ministerial orders of
the English Church, as reformed and re-constituted by them, they
did not rest the validity and apostolicity of those orders on the
asserted fact of the unbroken apostolic succession of the Anglican
bishops, in the Tractarian sense of the phrase. Their Church's
foundation was rested by them on the rock of conformity in its
doctrine, government, and discipline to the written word of God.
That Church they declared to be an integral part of the true
visible catholic Church of Christ (contradistinctively to the
apostate Church of Rome) in which the pure word of God was
1 I have in the Appendix to the 3rd Vol. of my florae Apocalypticae, pp. 547
—557, given extracts from the writings of the reforming fathers of our Church,
illustrative of this: the fathers cited from being Tyndale, Cranuier, Latimer,
Ridley, Hooper, Philpot, Bradford, Jewel, Becon, Sandys, Fulke, Whitgift,
Hooker; and the writers of the Homilies, of the authorized English version of
the Bible, and the Articles of the Irish Church.
" On this principle," writes Bishop Warburton, (viz. that the Man of Sin, or
Antichrist, could be no other than the man that filled the Papal chair) " was
the Reformation begun and carried on : on this the great separation from the
Church of Rome conceived and perfected. For though persecution for opinion
would acquit those of schism, whom the Church of Rome had driven from her
communion, yet on the principle that she is Antichrist's they had not only a right,
but lay under a command, to come out of her." Sermon xxviii. on Antichrist.

28 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
preached, and the sacraments ministered, according to Christ's or
dinance i1 and, as regards the human authorization that was needed
for the rightful exercise of the office of the ministry, that " they
were to be judged lawfully called to it who were chosen and called
to the work by men that have public authority given them in the
congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard."2
Which having been the case with those consecrated and ordained in
the English Church, subsequently to its great schism and separa
tion from the apostate Church of Rome, " we decree all such," it
was said in the 36th Article, " to have been rightly, orderly, and
lawfully consecrated and ordered." — Such, I say, is the doctrine,
and such the justification of their separation from Rome, set forth
by the fathers and founders of the English Protestant reformed
Church. But what was to be the Tractators' plea ? — When the Tractarian
movement began, with all its talk and argument about the apostolic
succession, as a doctrine of essential importance to the Christian
Churchman, it became very soon a matter of obvious necessity
with its leaders to show what was the justificatory plea, on their
principles, against Rome's charge of schism against them : and
what their escape from the pains and penalties consequent on
obstinate schism from the Catholic Church ; the forfeiture of their
ministerial orders, and apostolic succession, inclusive. — And at
first, not having as yet thoroughly apprehended their position,
they adopted that which we saw to have been one grand defensive
argument of our English reforming fathers against the charge ;
viz. that the Pope was Antichrist. But how could they consistently
maintain this, without admitting also the continuous antichris-
tianism, and apostacy for ages, of the visible professing Catholic
Church : (the Anglican branch of it inclusive :) that Church with
which it was affirmed, as one of the essential dogmas of Anglo-
Catholicism, that Christ dwelt by his Spirit, and through which they
derived their orders ? Somewhat feebly it was intimated, as if to
provide against any such application of this their plea against
themselves, that Rome's apostacy began only with the Council of
Art. xix. z Art. xxiii, already before cited.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 29
Trent.1 But (not to speak of the acts of the civil power in the
matter) did the English episcopal convocation, which in 1534 a. d.
renounced the Roman Pope's supremacy, follow after the Council
of Trent ? Was not that Council's first assembling some ten years
later, in 1545 ? This representation of things was soon seen to be
both false and inconsistent. Moreover the sympathy of the Trac.
tarians with much that they saw in both the doctrines and ser
vices of the Romish Church became more and more developed.2
Ere five years had past, our Church's view of the Pope being Anti
christ was professedly and absolutely abandoned by them : and the
common Romish view of Antichrist, as an apostate power yet to
come, substituted for it in four sermons expressly devoted to the
object.3 In which view you, Reverend Sir, have declared your full
concurrence.* But what then (that first plea having been abandoned) was now
the Tractators' justificatory plea against the charge of the sin of
1 So Tr. xv. p. 10. " True, Rome is heretical now : nay, grant that she has
thereby forfeited her orders : yet at least she was not heretical in the primitive
ages. If she has apostatized, it was at the time of the Council of Trent. Then
indeed, it is to be feared, the whole Roman communion bound itself by a perpetual
bond and covenant to the cause of Antichrist."
A note is subjoined from Wordsworth's Life' of Bernard Gilpin. " Mr. Gilpin
would often say that the Churches of the Protestants were not able to give any
firm and solid reason of their separation besides this, to wit, that the Pope is Anti
christ. . . . The Church of Rome kept the rule of faith entire, until that rule was
changed and altered by the Council of Trent. And from that time it seemed to
him a matter of necessity to come out of the Church of Rome; that so that Church
which is true, and called out from thence, might follow the word of God."
Most marvellous is the statement in the Tractator's text, and Mr. Gilpin's
cited remark, about the Council of Trent; alike as regards the time of Rome's
apostacy, and as regards the justification furnished by it to the Reformation.
For 1st the Reformation in England, as well as in Germany, took place notoriously
before the Council of Trent's publication of its decrees ; and yet more before Pope
Pius' Creed, enjoining the profession of them on every Romish priest. 21y, the
doctrine of the Council of Trent was but the doctrine of previous Church Coun
cils, only more carefully worded ; which had been before imperatively enjoined
on priests and people, as the Creed of Western Christendom.
1 We may mark in Tract lxxi a partial defence of some of the Tridentine de
crees ; in Tract lxxv an unfavourable comparison of our Church Liturgy with the
Roman Breviary ; in Tract xlv a representation of the discarding of Church au
thority at the Reformation, and making Scripture the sole ground of faith, as a
thing to be lamented. 8 Tr. lxxxiii. So too Tr. xc. p. 66.
' " That tho Pope is the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, to be revealed in the last
days, I altogether deny." Gresley 's RemousUance, p. 5.

30 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
schism, and its consequent penalties ? They held out, as still re
maining to them, the plea grounded on a decree of the Council
of Ephesus in 431 a.d. : the effect of which, they argued, was to
constitute the Romish Pope a usurper, in the control that he had
through the middle ages exercised over the English Church ; and
so to furnish, accordantly with canon law, a justification of the
English Church's separation from him in the 16th century. — It
seems that, at the beginning of the 5th century, the Patriarch of
Antioch had attempted to bring the Churches in Cyprus under
his dominion ; and, as a sign of his authority, claimed to conse
crate their bishops. On which the Council of Ephesus, having
been appealed to, thus decreed : " Whereas it is against ancient
usage that the Bishop of Antioch should ordain in Cyprus, as has
been proved to us in the Council both in words and writing, we
therefore decree that the prelates of the Cyprian Church shall be
suffered, without let or hindrance, to consecrate bishops by them
selves : moreover that in other dioceses and provinces everywhere
the same rule be observed : so that no bishop shall interfere in
another province which has not from the first been under himself
and his predecessors : and, further, that if any one has so en
croached and tyrannized he must relinquish his claim." Thus,
and by this decree, the Cyprian bishops and churches were made
independent of the Patriarch of Antioch. And so similarly, it
was for a while contended by the Tractators, the English Church
was in the 16th century authorized by the Ephesian Canon to
emancipate itself from the usurped authority of the Church of
Rome.1 Marvellous indeed was this application of the precedent. In
the case of the Cyprian Churches the Patriarch of Antioch had
only just before for the first time claimed, and made attempt, to
interfere in the consecration of the bishops in Cyprus, as if an
island subordinate to his Patriarchate. But the claim was from
the first resisted by those bishops ; who had, in fact, up to that
time been independent of him. And when appeal was made to
the Ephesian Council, the Council did on this ground decide the
1 So Tr. xv. 7. Also Perceval p. 112.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 31
question in their favour. — But was the Anglican Church, which
declared itself independent of Rome in the 16th century, one
which continuously up to that time had preserved its indepen
dence ; and was then for the first time threatened with aggression
by the great Roman Patriarch of the West ? Instead of this, the
Anglican Church had notoriously at this epoch been for above
900 years in subordination to Rome : the Archbishops of Can
terbury, its primates, receiving thence their pallium of consecra
tion continuously from the time of Gregory the 1st, a. d. 600,
with the oath of allegiance to the Pope as the accompaniment to
their consecration ; J while the other bishops of the English
hierarchy derived from the Archbishop of Canterbury as metro
politan, and so ultimately from the Roman Pope. — The Tractators
talked much indeed at first of the independence of Rome main
tained by the old British or Welsh bishops of the 7th and 8th
centuries ; 3 as if it had been from them, and not from Rome, that
the Anglican Church and clergy had derived their orders, until
some short time before the Reformation : a condition this neces
sary to their making out a case for themselves of parallelism with
that of the churches and bishops of Cyprus. But historic fact
was too palpably against such representations to be persisted in.
It was notorious that the British or Welsh bishops had been
confined to Cornwall and Wales, after the Anglo-Saxon conquest
of the island, and when Gregory the 1st sent his missionaries to
the then re-paganized country of Ethelbert's kingdom in South
Eastern England : also that, after a century's resistance, these
1 Let me on this point beg to refer to my Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. iii. pp. 185,
186 : also p. 190, where I have given a copy of a sketch of AuguBtine, first Arch
bishop of Canterbury, with his lambskin pallium received from Pope Gregory,
taken from a missal of the 9th century.
2 So Tr. xv. 6 ; " The Pope had no right to take on him the control of the
Churches in Britain, because we were altogether independent of him: the English
and Irish Churches, though in the West, being exterior to his Patriarchate."
Again, p. 7 : " The British Churches were not included in any Patriarchate."
So also Tr. xxx. 5, 6. The Tractator seems to have forgotten the difference be
tween the remnant of the old British Church, and the Anglican or Anglo-Saxon
Church founded by Pope Gregory I. ; from which, and not from the old British
Church, the English Church, thenceforward established in this island, had its
origin.

32 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
bishops submitted, with all the rest of our island, to the Roman
Pope's spiritual supremacy of Rome.1 Subsequently to which time
the whole English Church continued to maintain the closest union
with Rome, as its daughter and subject, even until the Reforma
tion. The Cyprian case was evidently altogether inapplicable.
Nor indeed, with those ever increasingly favourable feelings
towards Papal Rome, of which I before spoke as characterizing
the progress of the Tractarian movement, was it likely that Rome's
long previous connexion with the English Church would continue
to be held out as an unprincipled usurpation. " Rome is your
mother," wrote Dr. Pusey, " through whom you were born to
Christ." 2 — Again ; " Rome has imperishable claims on our grati
tude ; and, were it so ordered, on our deference." " We trust that
active and visible union with the see of Rome is not the essence of
a Church. At the same time we are deeply conscious that in lack
ing it, far from asserting a right, we forego a great privilege." 3
Moreover, instead of any longer justifying the Reformation, the
language respecting it used by the more eminent of the Tractarian
leaders came at length, as you well know, Rev. Sir, to be that of
dislike, if not reprobation. " Ceeco quodam reformationis (quam,
vacant) cestu in ecclesiS. passim fervente." So wrote Dr, New
man, while still the chief leader of the Tractarians : and Mr.
Froude, more undisguisedly, " I hate the Reformers, and the
Reformation, more and more." 4 All this was nothing less than

1 So Hume, History of England, chap. i. " These controversies (viz. about the
form of the tonsure, and time of keeping Easter) excited such animosity between
the British and Romish priests, that, instead of concurring in their endeavours to
convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all communion together ; and each
regarded his opponent as no better than a Pagan. The dispute lasted more than
a century ;' and was at last finished by the entire prevalence of the RomiBh ritual
over the Scotch and British."
2 Tr. lxxvii, 2nd Ed. —So, more recently, the Christian Remembrancer No.
lxxxii. p. 399 ; a No. on which I shall have to speak more in my next Paper.
" What is the claim of the English Communion, but that she is identical with
that which sate formerly on the seven hills ? Our succession does not come either
from St. Augustin the apostle of England ; or, as some have thought, from British
or Scotch succession. The old episcopate of St. Augustin died out. . . So that our
line centres in Pope Vitalian, from whom Theodore (who then came to England)
deduced his orders ? "
s See more in my H. A. vol. iii. pp. 484—489. * See ibid.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 33
an admission that the separation of the EngUsh Church from
Rome, at the Reformation, was an act of schism both lamentable
and unjustifiable. And at length there was made a direct con
fession of its sinfully schismatic character ; by characterizing it
as " that deplorable schism." 1
In one of the later Oxford Tracts, No. lxxi, drawn up profes
sedly on the defensive against Rome,2 other reasons were rendered,
which in the then advanced state of the movement were indeed
most necessary, why the Tractarian body should not accede to her
invitations, and join the Roman Catholic Church. The argument
from God's written word alone, which had been held forth in our
reformed Church's 20th Article, as the one standard of what was
right, was distinctly disclaimed in this Tract.3 It was admitted
moreover that a strong prima facie case for union with Rome
might be made out ; much that is admirable shown to attach to
the Roman Church, besides the important fact of the Roman
bishop's universal " primacy in honour and authority ;" and great
defects shown to attach to the Anglican Church. Yet Rome's
denial of the cup to the laity, her invocation of saints, not indeed
as explained in the Tridentine decrees, but as practically carried
out, (was this altogether fair as against Rome ? ) her requirement
of the priest's intention to make the sacraments valid,4 her abso
lute injunction of confession once a year,5 and her unwarranted
anathemas, — these constituted, it was argued, objections so grave
to the Church of Rome, as to make it a duty with Anglicans still
to stay where they were, in their English mother Church, unless
she were proved " to be involved in some damnable heresy, or
not to be in possession of the sacraments." But then did the writer
hereupon take up the last question hypothetically so suggested ;
and prove the Anglican Church (against Rome's denial of the
fact, which was candidly stated by the writer) to be really in
possession of the sacraments ; or, in other words, to be in pos-
1 British Critic for July 1841, p. 2. z Originally printed in 1836.
" p. 8. — Compare what was noted at pp. 27, 28 about the Article xix of our
Church. 4 See on this p. 20 supra.
* What will you, Rev. Sir, with all the value you attach to confession to a
prieBt, say to this as a fit ground of separation from Rome ?
D

34 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
session of true ministerial orders ? Strange to say, there is not one
single word of proof or argument by him, in his Church's defence
on this head. Judgment then on the charge mooted must surely
be confest to go by default against him : and the Anglican Church,
as one obstinately schismatic and excommunicated, to have for
feited her orders. A judgment this, the justice of which has been
admitted by all the more eminent clerical members of the Trac
tarian body, Messrs. Newman, Manning, Oakley, &c, who have
seceded to Rome ; and who, after this their secession, have
either submitted to re-ordination in the Roman Church, in order
to a legitimate endowment with priestly orders ; or, in default of
such re-ordination, have confest themselves to be simple laics.

And here, Reverend Sir, I bring my letter to a conclusion. I
think you will not deny that I have fairly taken up Mr. Perceval's
challenge. Instead of the fact being so as the Tractarians have
represented it, that " every bishop, priest, and deacon among us,
can, if he please, trace his own spiritual descent from St. Peter or
St. Paul," I have shown, that, on your own principles, the thing
is an impossibility : nay, and that such flaws attach to your title,
(flaws very various in their character, but all valid on Tractarian
principles, and affecting the title at every different stage of the
supposed succession, alike since the Reformation and before the
Reformation,) that by evidence cumulative the point may be con
sidered proved, that the probability is against your possessing true
ministerial orders at all. No doubt you may fall back upon the
assurances on this head of the clerical brethren of your own par
ticular body, such as Mr. J. M. Neale : who, with somewhat of
naivete, thus maintains the strength of your title against doubts,
denials, and proof against it, urged from whatever quarter : " I
presume, my Reverend brethren, we are each and all of us ab
solutely persuaded that we have the apostolical succession among
us ; that we have the grace of the priesthood, the power of abso-

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 35
lution, the power of consecration." 1 But mere absolute and'un-
supported self-persuasion, like this, is that which the unepiscopally
ordained ministers of the Presbyterian or Baptist Churches may of
course urge, on behalf of the validity of their ministerial orders,
just as well as yourselves.
When I reflect on all this, and consider that the arguments that
have been drawn out by me are for the most part sufficiently ob
vious to any well educated and intelligent enquirer, I must confess
that the course of action ministerially pursued by clergymen of the
Tractarian body intelligent, as well as devoted and benevolent, like
yourself, (I speak not of the many very ignorant and weak-minded
though well-intending clerics of your body,) appears to me not
a little strange. With great earnestness, and I am persuaded
with real kindness of intention, you seek to impress upon the
people's minds your possession of the apostolic succession, and of
the high priestly prerogatives, thereto (you say) belonging. Andi
in virtue of those prerogatives, you charge them solemnly, as they
value their salvation, to seek at your hands, who have the power
of the keys, absolution of sin ; and, from your hands to receive
the consecrated sacramental elements, in order thereby to be made
partakers of the propitiatory sacrifice for sin, offered afresh, it is
said, each time of celebration by the priest.2 Surely then, since
all hangs on your legitimate possession of priestly orders, and
your right possession of them is known to be a fact contested, it
must seem your duty, on the ground of common sense, to probe
the truth of these objections to the bottom ; and, if unable to
sustain your title against them, then, as honest men, candidly and
fully to state the result to your people.
" Christian Brethren," you seem bound to say, "if indeed you
are to be called Christians, in the present uncertainty as to the
1 Lectures on Church Difficulties, p. 47. (Published 1852.)
' See Tr. lxxxl 298 ; also Wilberforce on the Eucharist, pp. 7, 364 ; a book
written by him before his public perversion to Rome, and while one of the chief
Tractarian leaders.—" The holy Eucharist is a true and proper sacrifice for quick
and dead." So Mr. Neale, p. 39. And so, I am assured, the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper is set forth also at St. Paul's, West Street ; the Church of your
own ministrations.
D 2

36 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
reality of our sacraments, we are in a great strait. With zeal and
earnestness, while ministering among you, we have endeavoured
to build you up in the faith of Christ's Holy Cathohc Church ; an
article of the Creed so overlooked, or misapprehended, by many .
setting it forth as that earthly Church visible, under episcopal
rule, throughout the world, which is the body of the ever-pre
sent Divine Incarnate One ; and through which, when duly repre
sented in General Councils, his infallible Spirit speaks among men.
Subordinately to which article of faith, but in strict connection
with it, we have prest upon your minds the awfully sacred power
committed to us, as priests of the Church, by the Bishops who or
dained us ; l themselves the successors of the apostles, and per
sonal representatives of Christ. For this was nothing less, we
taught, than the prerogative of the holding of the keys of the
kingdom of heaven ; whether for admission of candidates, or for
their rejection. — Nor have these our ministrations been without
apparent success. Large have been in many cases our congrega
tions ; and deep the humility and earnestness of mind with which
its members have in great part submitted themselves to our
guidance. No doubt in many cases there may have been a mix
ture of motive in their union with us. The beauties of church
music, or church architecture and decoration, which we study so
much better than others, may have had their charm for some.
And many more (especially of the softer sex) may have felt satis
faction, however wrongly, just like the Israelites of old, in leaning
on a human arm rather than the divine ; and looking to an earthly
priest, rather than directly to the heavenly High Priest, as him to
whom confession of sins might be confided, and from whom abso
lution of sin received. Yet with most of you, it becomes us to
believe, the main motive was anxiety for forgiveness and salvation.
And the earnestness with which we taught our doctrine of apos
tolic succession, and of the priestly power of the keys, was taken
as a sufficient guarantee by you that at our hands, in the confes
sional, and at the sacramental altar, you might rightly look for
the one and for the other. — But herein both we and you have
1 See Tr. xxxv. 3.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 37
been in error, (ourselves far the most,) in not thoroughly sifting
our credentials, to see whether the priestly power that we claimed
belonged really and in truth to us, or not. On a closer and more
rigid scrutiny we have to confess, Brethren, that we cannot make
out our title ; and thus, in fact, that (however unintentionally) we
have been all through deluding ourselves and you. — Most plainly
has the Holy Catholic Church, by the voice of Christ's Spirit in
its General Councils, laid down the law that in order to the right
ordination of a bishop of his Church three bishops at least, each
of them duly consecrated before-hand to the office, must unite in
the act ; moreover, that, in order to his due consecration, each
of these must in time previous have been rightly ordained to the
presbyterate. Yet, in tracing our ministerial title upward, we find
that we have to trace it through such a flood of illegitimate
ordinations to the presbyterate, — ordinations by archdeacons
rather than bishops, which extend in numbers to tens of thou
sands, and in range of time through six centuries, alike in Eastern
Christendom, and yet more in Western, — that we are forced to
a conviction of the high probability that many of the bishops of
those times were illegitimately made bishops ; through whom ne
vertheless the title of the bishops who ordained us has to travel, in
passing to an apostolic source. — Again we have to trace the title of
our ordaining bishops through the Romish Church, for centuries
previous to the so-called Reformation : so that if the succession
in the Romish Church be broken, or questionable, ours must by
necessary consequence be broken, or questionable, also. And, as
regards this point, we have actually ourselves declared, in one of
our Tracts, that Rome can have no assurance of the validity of its
orders, by reason of the uncertainty of the priest's or bishop's
intention in the ministration of the Church's sacraments. Yea,
and not we alone ; but even the Romish Church's own selected
advocate, Cardinal Pallavicino : concluding, as he pretty much
does, in his argument on this point, that we must trust for our
security in the matter to God's uncovenanted mercies. So that,
in truth, the validity of our orders depends on those same un
covenanted mercies of God which we have often pointed out,

38 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
perhaps with somewhat of Pharisaic pride in the contrast, as the
-Miserable refuge of the ministers of Protestant dissenters from that
episcopal Church to which we belong ! — Yet once more, we have
confest to the English Church's being involved in the guilt of
unjustifiable schism, in its separation from Rome at the Reform
ation : and so, according to church law, (though we have tried to
hide this from our own eyes and yours,) we must admit it to lie
under all the pains and penalties of such schism ; exclusion from
the Catholic Church, with its sacraments and its ministerial orders
inclusive. " Such proves to be our real position. Of the possession of true
ministerial orders we find that we can have no assurance whatso
ever. The absolutions we have pronounced have been consequently
worthless ; the sacraments administered by us (even like those of
dissenting ministers spoken of in our Tracts)1 have been invalid ;
and we ourselves involved perhaps in the guilt of Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram, which we have ascribed to them.2 We have been
deluded, and deluding, in our whole ministry. Brethren/we have
to humble ourselves for the past before God and before man.
For the future we have to look with prayer for direction from
above : that we may see what is the fundamental mistake which
has led us to so sad errors ; where lies the hope to man of salva
tion ; and where, and what, is the truth of God."
Earnestly would I hope, as the result of the arguments which
have thus been set before you, that you will reconsider the sub
ject of Tractarianism ; and this as carefully, and with a mind as
unprejudiced, as possible : for surely there must be some funda
mental errors of principle in it, if it lead you to views of the chris
tian system so untenable and indeed absurd. If so, then I think
there are three main points on which you will soon see reason to
change your views ; viz. as regards Christ's Church of the promises,
the rule of faith, and the Christian ministry. — As to the Church,
Christ's prophetic parable of the tares (zizania) and wheat will
come before you in a new and most important point of view.
1 See p. 8 supra. * Tr. xxxv. 3.

AS TO THE VALIDITY OF THEIR ORDERS. 39
For the thought will suggest itself that, while nothing was there
said by Christ implying that the wheat would always exceed
the tares in number, what he said elsewhere of the broadness of
the road of error, and fewness of those that would find the way
of life, and moreover what St. Paul said of a great apostacy that
would arise in the Christian Church, (men from out of the Church's
own body teaching perverse things,) combined to indicate that,
at some era subsequent to the apostolic, tares would be much
more numerous in the professing Christian Church than wheat : in
which case, by necessary consequence, the voice of the corporate
catholic visible Church would be that of error, not of truth ; and
Christ's promise of the gates of hell not prevailing against his
Church prove to belong distinctively to the witnessing Church of
the true-hearted, the Church of the sackcloth-robed witnesses,
exiled it might be by church-rulers, and as it were in the wilder
ness. — Further, as to the rule of faith, alike the danger will
appear, and the error, of making this to be not the written Scrip
tures alone, but Scripture as explained by tradition. For if the
principles of error and apostacy were gradually to increase in the
Christian Church after the time of the apostles, until they rose
into the ascendant, then of course the visible Church's doctrine
and tradition would, after apostolic times, become gradually more
and more corrupt, and contrary to the rule of right and truth. —
Finally, as regards the Christian ministry, its essential difference
in character from the typical priesthood of the old Jewish law will
stand forth in a strength of relief never sufficiently appreciated
before : Jesus Christ being seen to have wholly and absolutely ful
filled the type of Jewish sacrificing priests, when he offered himself
up on Mount Calvary, once for all, a full, perfect, and sufficient
propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world ; and still ever,
and absolutely, fulfilling their type as mediating priests, in his ever
continuing mediatorial and intercessional work, as he pleads his
own atoning sacrifice for each sincere suppliant before the Father
in heaven. There indeed, and not in any earthly Church, is the
Christian antitype to the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple ;
there, and not in any Church confessional, the Christian court of

40 DELUSION OF THE TRACTARIAN CLERGY
judicature. And the whole proper object and glory of the Chris
tian ministry consists in directing thither, and to Him, the eyes of
individual Christians, as the alpha and omega of salvation : thither
and to Him, as the real centre of unity to the constituent members of
his true Church, wherever scattered in its state earthly and mili
tant; as well as to the members of the Church in its state in Para?
dise and triumphant. Now, when this is fully realized, it will be felt
that a religious ministry which inculcates an earthly sacrificing
and mediatorial priesthood, an earthly propitiatory sacrifice in the
sacramental elements, an earthly universal centre of unity, or any
other centre than the invisible centre of Christ himself, — that
ministry is pro tanto an antichristian, not a Christian, ministry.
For it substitutes earthly priests, an earthly church, earthly sacra
ments, in place of Christ himself : and consequently, whatever be
the zeal, laboriousness, or moral excellence, of the teacher, it is a
teaching of error instead of truth ; and must tend to the delusion,
not salvation, of the unwary souls ths.t fully receive the doctrine.
Reverend Sir, I pray you to forgive the freedom with which I
have in this letter addrest you ; and remain,
Your faithful Servant,
E. B. Elliott.

[L. Seeley, Printer.