THE

CHURCH QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. X. JANUARY 1878.

ART. I.-THE ANGLICAN FORM OF ORDINATION.

1. The Question of Anglican Ordinations Discussed. By E. E. ESTCOURT, M.A., Canon of S. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. (London, 1873.)

2. Anglican Orders. A few Remarks in the form of a Conversation on the recent work by Canon ESTCOURT. (London, 1873.)

3. The Validity of Anglican Orders Examined. By the Very Rev. P. R. KENRICK. (Philadelphia, 1841.)

4. The Ordinal of King Edward VI. By Dom WILFRID RAYNAL, O.S.B. (London, 1871.)

5. Shall we alter the Ordinal? A Paper originally submitted to the Revision Committee of the Church of Ireland. By CHAS. PARSONS REICHEL, D.D., Archdeacon of Meath. (Dublin, 1872.)

6. Quarterly Review, October 1877. Art. 'Ordination and Confession.'

THE works above named come from very different quarters, and agree only in this, that they are attacks upon the Form of Anglican Ordination. The pamphlet of Archdeacon Reichel assails it from the Protestant side. The gist of his argument is this that the sentence which we use for the Ordination of Priests does not appear to have been so applied in the Primitive Church or in any Ordinal up to the twelfth century, and that it was then adopted because of the countenance which the words 'whosesoever sins thou dost remit they are remitted VOL. V.-NO. X.

T

unto them' were calculated to give to the medieval practice of confession. The English divines, who adopted this form for the Ordinal in the reign of Edward VI., did so, he imagines, under an erroneous impression derived from the schoolmen that this use of the words was primitive, and that they were necessary to valid Ordination: if they had possessed the information concerning the ancient Ordinals which the researches of Morinus made known, it may be supposed they would not have made such a selection at all. And should we now alter them we should, according to the Archdeacon, only be doing what the Reformers would have done had they possessed our knowledge. These arguments have been replied to in Ireland, and have there failed in effecting the change at which they aimed. And it would be quite unnecessary for us to refer to them now if it were not that, to our great surprise, they have made their appearance on this side the water exactly in their old form, and evidently also with their old object, of preparing the way for a revision of the Ordinal, although the circumstances of the Church of England do not permit so explicit a statement of that purpose as we find in the Irish pamphlet.

But this supposed Romish origin of our sentence of Ordination by no means conciliates to it the approval of Romish writers. On the contrary, the work of Canon Estcourt is an elaborate indictment of the validity of our form. Some of his co-religionists appear, if we may judge. from the Conversation above named, to be far from easy as to the soundness of his reasoning, and prefer to cling to the old Nag's Head story or to the imagination that Barlow was unconsecrated. But in fact his work shows very plainly that the personal succession of our bishops cannot be impugned save by a captious historical criticism under which the Apostolic succession of any See in Christendom must be declared unproven.1 The only hope which Rome possesses of invalidating our claim to the possession of a true priesthood lies in objections against the form of our Ordinations.

To this question of form then we apply ourselves. He is

1 It is not remarked either by Canon Estcourt or his critic that the Irish succession is not subject even to those poor objections which the Nag's Head story and the cavils regarding Bishop Barlow furnish to the English. Even if all Dr. Brady's arguments were allowed to be well founded, the Irish succession through Archbishop Curwen, consecrated in 1555, is unimpugned. See the Irish Reformation, by W. M. Brady, D.D., 5th ed., p. 187.

widely mistaken who supposes that an inquiry into form in the sense in which we here use the word concerns anything formal, minute, or merely fitted for theologians. The very reverse is the case. All being agreed that laying on of hands is the action necessary in Ordination, reason and common-sense require that the action should be accompanied by some words expressing an intelligent appreciation of its meaning. The Lord has given all His gifts and instructions to reasoning beings and not to machines. And it would be formal and mechanical in the extreme to contend that the mere doing of a certain act made a priest unless some words at the same time expressed a sense of what a priest is, and how he is made, and an intention of using the action with this sense and meaning. This is but the same principle which prevails in arranging all the forms of procedure in State affairs and in the law.

Following out the same line of thought, we are bound to allow that words which constitute a valid form when used in a certain sense may yet be invalid if used in a different sense. If the king were in mere joke to use a word which purported to endow a man with some dignity or office, it would be an extreme of formalism to argue that the office or dignity was thus really conferred. And even if this were allowed in secular affairs, which deal only with the outward life, the same principle could not be extended to a proceeding so essentially spiritual as the making of bishops or priests. At the same time reason demands that where a form is used which is under any circumstances allowed to be valid, a strong presumption should be allowed in its favour, and very weighty arguments demanded of any one who impugns it.

It is of course necessary that we should defend the validity of the form, both in the state in which it was used for a century after 1549 and in its present condition. But let us observe at the outset in what sense we call the Sentences of Ordination the Form at all. We shall see that prayer and the laying on of hands were, according to all ancient precedent, the sole requisites. These sentences, then, not being strictly precatory, cannot, by themselves, be called the forms of Ordination in that sense in which the word is used when it is said that the form together with the matter make the sacrament. But it is highly reasonable to regard these sentences in combination with the prayer which has preceded. There has been prayer in the 'Veni Creator ;' prayer by the consecrating or ordaining bishops for those 'called to the office of priesthood,' or called to the work and ministry of a bishop;' prayer in the

silent supplications asked from all present; and in the collects which immediately precede the laying on of hands; and the sentences conclude the prayers and furnish additional evidence as to what the Church meant in them and with what amount of certainty she looked for an answer. Thus these sentences are a very important part of the form and, had they been different from what they are, would have given a wholly different meaning to the whole transaction.

The author of Holy Orders is God: and the laying on of hands signifies the communication of His Grace for the purpose of conferring them. It is natural, therefore, that prayer acknowledging the Divine source of the grace which is sought, and claiming it, should be, with imposition of hands, the essential requisite for a valid form. And so we find it in every Ordinal and in every historical record of Ordinations through every period of Christian history. Prayer and the laying on of hands are the essentials of the rite. Now, in the most ancient forms which we possess, the prayer accompanies the laying on of hands, and its words have then a double aspect. They are in the first place an address to God demanding of Him the grace, and in the second place they have, as regards the person ordained, a sacramental character, sealing or conveying to him the grace which is sought for, and which it is known God has covenanted to grant. And this is not at all unnatural. It is in fact the form in which every benediction runs. The words, The Lord bless you,' and all the numberless variations in which the same idea is expressed, involve both an address to God in prayer and an address to men in blessing. But though this be quite natural, yet it is plain the character of the transaction would be more clearly brought out by the utterance of a prayer to God in the first place and then the use during the imposition of hands of some words which, directly addressed to the person ordained, should be fitted to make him conscious of the powers and duties which are being imparted to him. Thus our form runs. And in the New Testament (Acts xiii. 3) the prayer seems to have distinctly preceded the laying on of hands; the words by which the imposition was accompanied, if any such they were, have not been preserved to us.

One can see the operation of this obvious way of reasoning, though clumsily applied, in the different parts of the Roman Pontifical. First we have a silent imposition of hands; in continuation of this an extension of hands over the heads of the ordinands, accompanied by a prayer. And this, beyond doubt, is the most ancient part of the office, and by