Episcopalians and Their Neighbors

I

ON November 16, 1930, thirteen ministers of the Protestant Episcopal Church, eleven of whom were rectors of parishes in New York City, issued and distributed among their congregations a statement that read in part as follows:

We, whose names are signed below, deeply desirous of safeguarding the fellowship between our church and all vital elements of American Christianity, and conscious of our ordination promise to ‘maintain and set forward quietness, peace, and love among all Christian people,’are moved to express a conviction which we fear might otherwise stand obscured.

We share the reverence which is rightly held in our communion for our unquestionable Catholic heritage, and this we interpret as an unbroken fellowship in history and spirit with all the age-long faith and worship of the church since its beginning. But at the same time we so highly honor the connection of this church both in history and in fundamental sympathy with that spiritual rebirth which is known as Protestantism that we are not willing to see this church separated in word or work from its Protestant affiliations. We believe it is now, as it has always been, the glory of this communion to call itself not ‘Catholic,’as distinguished from ‘Protestant,’ but ‘both Catholic and Protestant.'

The reference of the thirteen presbyters to their ordination vows came as a surprise, for it is commonly supposed that in Episcopal churches the guardianship of doctrine is the prerogative of the highest order of the ministry and belongs to bishops exclusively. This, however, is not the case. At the time of the Reformation the Church of England showed its ‘fundamental sympathy with that spiritual rebirth which is known as Protestantism’ by entrusting to the priest or presbyter (the terms are used interchangeably) the same guardianship of doctrine as had hitherto devolved upon the bishop, requiring from him at his ordination the same identical vow. ‘Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word?' This vow is retained in the ordering of priests in the Protestant Episcopal Church and in every other branch of the Anglican communion. It does not appear in the forms for the ordination of priests in the Orthodox Eastern churches, nor in the Roman Pontifical. The only promise that is required of the priests according to the formularies of the Roman Church is that of obedience to the bishops; an absolute and summary right is vested in the bishop to ‘restrain and censure them’ at his discretion.

In The Continuity of Christian Thought, Dr. A. G. V. Allen observed that by this simple change the clergy of the Anglican communion ceased to be mere creatures of the bishop in their respective parishes, as had been, and still is, their position in the Latin Church; they became the spiritual representatives of the congregation, charged with the responsibility of inquiring for themselves into the nature of the Christian revelation, and of presenting to the people that only which they believed had sure warrant of Holy Scripture, ‘Thus the Church of England had secured, without discarding the episcopate, that which the reformed churches of the continent had only been able to secure by the abolition of the ancient order.’

From this brief historical survey it appears that the thirteen presbyters were not acting ultra vires in issuing their statement. Far from being ‘rebels’ against lawful authority, they were Christian ministers, conscious of the dignity and responsibility of their office, exercising a latent right, and by the very exercise of this latent right vindicating their assertion that the church of which they are ministers is Protestant as well as Catholic. Such a right is characteristic of Protestantism and rests ultimately upon the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, of which universal priesthood the Christian ministry is representative. This doctrine is implicit not only in its ordination services but also in the constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In this church the powers of bishops are strictly limited and defined by a written constitution. Neither a single bishop nor the House of Bishops, nor, for that matter, the entire episcopate of the Anglican communion, has the power to legislate apart from the other orders of the Clergy and the Laity in Convention assembled, or to change by one syllable the Book of Common Prayer, or to use as criteria of doctrine that which cannot be proved by the Bible — another instance of the Protestantism of the church. ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith,’ Article VI of the Articles of Religion.

As to the reason for issuing the statement in question, this is sufficiently indicated in the statement itself. The signers were ‘unwilling to see this church separated in word or work from its Protestant affiliations.’

How was this church in danger of being so separated? By the promulgation in the name of their church, and as though it were its official teaching, of a theory of the ministry which, although held as a private opinion by many members of the Anglican communion, is no part of its official teaching. This theory is that, mediately or immediately, Jesus himself instituted the episcopal form of church government; that it exists by divine authority because of his appointment; that the bishops are the successors of his Apostles, and that only such ministers as have been ordained by bishops can exercise a ministerial priesthood—that is to say, a ministry not only of the Word but also of the sacraments of Christ.

Exaltation of the episcopal office is, no doubt, very ancient. It has behind it an age-long and tremendous weight of tradition, and for centuries it dominated the thought of Western Christendom. Support for it can be found in the writings of Church Fathers as early as the second century, in the epistles of Ignatius, in the writings of Irenseus, in Tertullian’s Prescription of Heretics. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage in the third century, taught it with so much emphasis that it may be called the Cyprianic conception of the Christian ministry. His treatise entitled The Unity of the Church has been described as the charter of the institution which was to be known in history as the Latin or Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church has, however, modified the doctrine by progressive centralization so that now not the bishops as bishops but the Pope as supreme pontiff is regarded as the centre of Catholic unity, and as such claims to rule the world by right divine. That this claim extends to far frontiers appears in the famous Bull, Unam Sanctam, where Boniface VIII in 1302 declared, ‘Subesse Romano pontifici omni humanae creaturae declaramus, dicimus, definimus, et promintiamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis’ (We declare, assert, find, and pronounce that it is entirely necessary for salvation for every human being to be in subjection to the Roman Pontiff).

Dean Inge points out that, on the eve of the Reformation, Alexander VI made over the New World to Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon by the Bull, Inter Cetercis, in terms which are amusing to Americans. ‘Acting on our own initiative, from pure generosity and certain knowledge, and with the plenitude of our apostolic power, we make over all the islands and continental lands which have been discovered or may hereafter be discovered, towards the West and South, by drawing a line from the North Pole to the South Pole . . . this line to be drawn a hundred leagues west and south of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands ... by the authority of Almighty God, granted to us in the person of St. Peter, and as vicar of Jesus Christ, which authority we exercise on earth, to be held by you, your heirs and successors forever.’ Once grant the doctrine of Cyprian, De Unitate CaihoUcae Ecdesiae, and it will be difficult to find a permanent resting place this side of Boniface VIII and Alexander VI, where our late unpleasantness with Spain appears as a war of rebellion against our lawful king.

II

But Cyprian has not had the final word in this controversy, whereof the world-encircling Anglican communion is witness. A doctrine older than that of Cyprian, more primitive, more venerable, more scriptural, and far more Christian, is to be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, great doctor of the universal church and one of the noblest intelligences by which it has been illumined. According to Clement, the unity of the church depends upon fellowship with the living Christ; he does not mention unity with the bishop. ‘The church has organic life; it is a community of men who are led by the divine Logos, an invincible city upon earth which no force can subdue. The church is like a human being, consisting of many members; it is refreshed and grows; it is welded and compacted together; it is fed and sustained by a supernatural life, and becomes in its turn, in the hands of the divine Instructor, a means of leading humanity into life. The bond of the church’s unity, the secret of the church’s life and growth, is the living, personal Christ, whose immanence in humanity is the only force adequate to its deliverance from sin, and its final perfecting according to the original purpose of its creation.’

With this doctrine of Clement of Alexandria, which is also the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, the official teaching of the Anglican communion and its official definitions of the Catholic Church are entirely in accord. The word Catholic is used in many senses; in its primary sense it means universal, and in this sense, and this sense only, is applied with propriety to the entire Christian fellowship regarded as one in Christ. An exclusive use of it by a particular denomination to unchurch fellow Christians is not only a contradiction in terms but is of the essence of sectarianism, the part calling itself the whole. This is recognized in the Anglican Bidding Prayer, which begins, ‘Let us pray for Christ’s Holy Catholick Church; that is, for the whole congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the world.’ It is recognized in Article XIX of the Articles of Religion, where the visible Church of Christ is defined as ‘a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.’ It was recognized by the episcopate of the Anglican communion in the Lambeth Conference of 1920, where ‘all those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity,’ were acknowledged ‘as sharing with us membership in the universal Church of Christ which is His Body.’ It is recognized in the Communion Office in the identification of the church with ‘the blessed company of all faithful people.’

How uncatholic, in contrast with such definitions as these, appears any attempt to disown fellow Christians and unchurch them because they do not adhere to a particular form of ecclesiastical organization! Dean Swift’s biting words are applicable to all such offenders against charity: —

The satire was directed against Calvinists, but it applies with equal force to all who oppose the tide flowing toward Christian unity, whether the offender is a Roman pontiff sending forth an ungracious encyclical, or a boisterous Senator stirring up religious prejudices, or a strident Klaxon of the Ku Klux Klan. Catholicism is positive and inclusive, not negative and exclusive. It is the recognition of the rights of the community. It possesses the authority of collective experience. It is what all Christians everywhere and at all times have believed concerning Jesus and the Father who sent Him. Even in a narrower use, with reference to the past, it is still a generous and inclusive term, indicating ‘an unbroken fellowship in history and spirit with all the age-long faith and worship of the church since its beginning.’

On the other hand, Protestantism, generously defined, is also positive and inclusive. Protestantism, for want of a better word, may be regarded as indicating the rights of the individual, the authority of conscience, t he priesthood of all believers, the right and the corresponding duty of private judgment, and the immediacy of the Christian’s relationship to God. The nations which accepted ‘that spiritual rebirth which is Protestantism’ moved forward to higher levels of Christian civilization than had been reached in the past, and began to realize as not before their heritage of freedom.

It appears to the writer of this article that all hope of the ultimate union of Christians in one body rests upon an equipoise of these two equally definite, equally fundamental, and always complementary elements, Freiheit und Treue, the freedom associated with Protestantism, and the loyalty characteristic of Catholicism. What. God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. The tide is flowing toward Christian unity; no outworn theory can impede it more than momentarily; no Canute in Rome or elsewhere can stay it by dogmatic declaration. But only those who perceive and value the unity in diversity existing among Christians of different denominations, and who regard their divisions as schisms within the one body rather than as separations from it, can move with the flowing tide toward the goal of unity, set far beyond our sight, but not beyond our hope.

III

Let it be said once more, then, and with all emphasis: the Latin or Cyprianic doctrine that only such ministers as have been ordained by bishops can exercise a valid ministry of the Word and sacraments, and that the Catholic or universal church is limited to those ancient communions which have retained the episcopate, is not the official teaching of the Anglican communion, any more than is fundamentalism, or belief in the verbal inerrancy of the Bible. Both beliefs (or either), while tolerated as private opinions (Anglicanism is tolerant of wide diversity in private opinions), are and will remain private and unofficial opinions and no part of the teaching of the church. The Anglican communion does indeed adhere steadfastly to the ‘ Historic Episcopate’ as a fact, but it does not couple with this factual adherence any theory of the origin of the episcopate. It accepts the Bible as the inspired Word of God, but it does not define the nature of its inspiration. This liberty of opinion has left Anglican scholars free to make tranquil and untrammeled research, and they have played a part second only to the indefatigable Germans in applying the methods of Higher Criticism to the study of the Bible, and second not even to Germans in studying the origins of the Christian ministry.

More than a generation ago, Bishop Lightfoot’s famous Dissertation on the Christian Ministry struck a vital blow at the Cyprianic theory in its exclusive form. What the Bishop has to say about priesthood in the New Testament is strikingly in accord with Protestant opinion: “The Kingdom of Christ has no sacerdotal system. It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and man forgiven. Each individual member holds personal communion with the Divine Head. To Him immediately he is responsible, and from Him directly he obtains pardon and draws strength.’

More recently the Bishop of Gloucester and Canon Streeter have administered the coup de grâce. I n the words of the latter, ‘In the Primitive Church there was no single system of church order laid down by the Apostles. During the first hundred years of Christianity the church was an organism alive and growing — changing its organization to meet changing needs.’ Scholarly research has made it evident that at the end of the first century a.d. there existed, in different provinces of the Roman Empire, different systems of church government. ‘Among these the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Independent, can each discover the prototype of the system to which he himself adheres.’ Canon Streeter adds that, if his hypothesis is corrcci, then, in the classic words of Alice in Wonderland, ‘Everyone has won, and all shall have prizes.’

Henry Drummond used to say that religious people are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. The fundamentalist is right in maintaining the Bible to bo the inspired Word of God, and wrong in denying the findings of science which oblige him to recast his definition of the nature of its inspiration. So, too, with the supporter of the doctrine of apostolic succession. To hold strongly to the positive values of the doctrine, to recognize the place of the episcopate in Christian history as a means not only of administrative efficiency and pastoral care but also of maintaining the unity of the church and the continuity of the Christian tradition, is clearly his right and his duty, and persuasive and powerful appeal can be made for the episcopate, as at Lambeth in 1920, along these defensible and reasonable lines. But to go beyond this and deny the validity of non-episcopal ministries of the Word and sacraments of Christ leads to conclusions the absurdity of which should exhibit the falsity of the premises to any logical mind.

‘By their fruits ye shall know them,’ said Jesus. Is Christianity less fruitful, lass zealous, less full of missionary ardor, less productive of saintly lives in Presbyterian Scotland than in Episcopal England? Would one willingly exchange the overwhelmingly Protestant civilization of North America for the overwhelmingly Catholic civilization of Latin America or for the episcopacy of the troubled Balkans? And who can question or deny the truth of what is said in the Scottish Presbyterian Service of ordination: ‘In this act of ordination the Church of Scotland as part of the Holy Catholic or universal church — worshiping one God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — affirms anew its belief in the gospel of the sovereign grace and love of God.’

Furthermore, wrong theories are conducive to wrong practices. Belief in the exclusive validity of a single form of church polity has made bad neighbors and led to lack of sympathy between fellow Christians. This was notably the case in New England two hundred years ago when some missionaries of the Church of England wrote proudly home from America that during the year covered in their report they had been ‘consistently offensive toward them that are without.’

John Checkley of Boston was preeminent in this respect. He set forth the historical argument for episcopacy, not in the mild and benevolent terms of Richard Hooker, but in terms which infuriated New England Congregationalists — quite naturally, in view of the fact that Congregationalism was essentially a state church, established by law, and that Episcopalians were tolerated as ‘sober dissenters.’ Checkley declared that ‘ordinations in opposition to Episcopacy are not only invalid, but sacrilege and rebellion against Christ,’ and threatened non-Episcopalians with the fate of Korah, who ‘died without mercy for despising Moses" law.’

This in a community where Congregationalism was established, and its ministers reverenced as perhaps nowhere else in Christendom!

It was scarcely to be borne, but the temptation to tar and feather the offender was resisted; resort was had to the courts, and the attorney-general, with the help of Robert Auchmuty, a distinguished lawyer, drew up an indictment against Checkley’s book. The order of council adopted March 19, 1723, gave among other reasons for the indictment that it had observed in said volume ‘many vile and scandalous passages reflecting on the ministers of the Gospel established in this Province, and denying their sacred Function and the holy Ordinances of Religion as administered by them.’ Checkley had Cyprian behind him, but Boston had the same opinion of them both.

Other times, other manners. The hapless Checkley has few followers to-day; and Episcopalians are no longer deliberately ‘offensive toward them that are without.’ If any are unconsciously so, let them be forgiven, and let the ‘Appeal to All Christian People’ from the Lambeth Conference of 1920 stand instead as the present claim of Episcopalians on behalf of the episcopate: —

We believe that the visible unity of the Church will be found to involve the wholehearted acceptance of —

The Holy Scriptures, as the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith; and the Creed commonly called the Nicene, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith, and either it or the Apostles’ Creed as the Baptismal confession of belief:

The divinely instituted sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Communion, as expressing for all the corporate life of the whole fellowship in and with Christ:

A ministry acknowledged by every part of the Church as possessing not only the inward call of the Spirit, but also the commission of Christ and the authority of the whole body.

May we not reasonably claim that the Episcopate is the one means of providing such a ministry? It is not that we call in question for a moment the spiritual reality of those Communions which do not possess the Episcopate. On the contrary we thankfully acknowledge that these ministries have been manifestly blessed and owned by the Holy Spirit as effective means of grace. [The italics are the writer’s.] But we submit that considerations alike of history and of present experience justify the claim which we make on behalf of the Episcopate. Moreover, we would urge that it is now and will prove to be in the future the best instrument for maintaining the unity and continuity of the Church.

IV

The foregoing statement, from the Lambeth Conference may be regarded as indicating the present attitude of Episcopalians toward their neighbors. The Protestant Episcopal Church is the daughter of the Church of England, and, while ecclesiastically independent, is ‘far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship’ (Preface to the Book of Common Prayer). It is in closest sympathy and fellowship with its sister churches of the Anglican communion throughout the world: the Churches of England, Ireland, and Wales; the Episcopal Church in Scotland; the Church of England in Australia, Canada, India, Tasmania, the West Indies; the Church of the Province of South Africa; Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui in China, and Nippon Sei Kokwai in Japan. In consequence of these relationships, whenever an essential point involving doctrine, discipline, or worship is at stake, the Protestant Episcopal Church, even where legally free to act independently, feels itself under a moral obligation to act with due consideration for the mind and purpose of its sister churches of the Anglican communion.

Furthermore, the Protestant Episcopal Church has inherited from the Church of England the comprehensiveness indicated in the claim that it is ‘both Catholic and Protestant.’ During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the church was reorganized on this basis of comprehensiveness, to include as many as possible of the people of England; at the time this meant as many Roman Catholics as could be persuaded to remain in the reformed church, and as many ardent Protestants as could reconcile its retention of ancient faith and order with their consciences and the teachings of the Continental reformers. Some of the Thirty-nine Articles were deliberately made ambiguous for this purpose, though there is nothing ambiguous about the first five Articles which define the Catholic faith, or Article VI, which expresses the Protestant doctrine of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for salvation. But beyond these fundamental requirements no uniformity of doctrine exists within the Anglican communion any more than existed in the Apostolic age, and the rigidities of Rome and of Geneva are avoided. What is found instead is unity in diversity: as a spectrum, Anglicanism breaks up ihe white light of religion into a band of colors. Or, to vary the metaphor, the tension between the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ and the ‘Evangelical ’ is like the tension which exists in marriage, and which, according to Count Keyserling, is the glory and the dignity of ideal marriage, since only through some such tension can personality fully develop, free spirits exercising personal freedom to find a higher synthesis in love.

It is the existence of this natural tension which makes life within the Anglican communion interesting and colorful, and which imparts to it the character of a family, united by human relationships even when engaged in controversy, rather than of a club, where people begin by taking satisfaction in their unanimity and end by being bored to tears. In spite of occasional squabbles about ritual and other nonessentials, in spite even of more serious and radical disagreements, such as this between the followers of Cyprian and the followers of Clement, AngloCatholics and Evangelicals for the most part really do love one another within the fellowship which constitutes the Anglican communion, ‘the roomiest church in Christendom,’to quote its prophet, Phillips Brooks.

Both parties are occasionally unruly. The Anglo-Catholic, who finds the centre of his devotional life in the Eucharist, is not always satisfied with the service in the Book of Common Prayer, and sometimes attempts to enrich it with quite unauthorized interpolations borrowed from Rome, the great treasure house of sacramental devotions. The Evangelical, who regards preaching as the sacrament of the Word, seeks edification by inviting ministers of non-Episcopal churches to occupy his pulpit, generally with the cordial permission of his bishop, but sometimes without tarrying for that necessary formality. Then whether there is to be peace or strife in the church will depend chiefly upon the character and personality of the bishop. If he is a just man, a true Father in God to his varied and sometimes turbulent family, endowed by Heaven with the saving grace of humor, he will rule with impartiality, either permitting freedom in both directions, as was the custom of the late Bishop Henry Codman Potter of New York, or enforcing the rules of the church strictly upon both, as did the late equally beloved Bishop Arthur C. A. Hall of Vermont. But if he shows partiality, enforcing rules against those with whom he differs in churchmanship and allowing laxity to those with whom he is in sympathy, then there is likelihood of a row. But the church can survive such rows, because, while one can indignantly resign from a club, one cannot resign from one’s family, and does not wish to.

The following entry appears in the Journal of the Reverend Ammi Ruhamah Robbins, written as a chaplain in the American Army in the Northern Campaign in 1776: ‘Slept well and feel greatly strengthened; was applied to, to baptize a child, whose father is of the Church of England, but a very kind, catholic man.’

May all members of the Anglican communion show themselves as kind as they are catholic, and as catholic as they are kind!