444
ANGLICAN
reduced to two classes: (i.) historical objections, and (ii.) ecclesiastical objections. (i.) The difficulty began with the repudiation of papal supremacy by Henry VIII., when, according to Roman theory, the English Church became schismatical and its orders marred by the taint of schism. A further alienation took place when the Edwardine . English ordinal of 1550 and 1552 superseded the old Latin pontifical, and orders were thereupon conferred by a newlyreformed rite. At Mary’s accession the pontifical was restored, and eventually Cardinal Pole reconciled the English Church with the Holy See. The exact effect of his action is a matter of controversy. There is no question that he reconciled the schism to the Pope’s satisfaction, and therefore that objection to the Henrician and Edwardine orders came to an end j but it is a disputed question both how he was authorized by his papal faculties to deal with the orders conferred by the Prayer Book rite and, also, how in fact he did deal with them. Historical inquiry shows that for a short period before Pole’s advent a small number of reordinations took place, but subsequently they almost entirely ceased; and it is contended that in other cases the orders were tacitly allowed, possibly after some slight supplemental ceremony, and that Pole’s instructions were designedly vague. The contention is supported by the fact that, while a vast number of parochial clergy were deprived in 1553-54, no case is known of a deprivation on the ground of Edwardine orders. In answer to this Anglican contention an attempt is made to extract from Pole’s instructions a definite condemnation of the Edwardine orders, and to maintain that all such clergy as were allowed to minister in Mary’s reign must have been reordained. When the Prayer Book was restored under Elizabeth the question returned again, and there is no doubt that since the latter half of the 16th century the Roman Catholics have continually treated Anglican orders as null and void. Still there was no adverse decision. The orders were vaguely attacked, and after 1570 reordinations took place abroad, and in 1608 at Rome; but there was little definite justification offered for this till the Nag’s Head fable was invented in 1604, and it was seriously maintained that Archbishop Parker— the main channel of Elizabethan orders — had had no better consecration than a mock ceremony in a tavern. This fable has had great influence on the controversy. In 1616 doubts were cast on the consecration of Barlow, Parker’s chief consecrator. There was more justification for this, but both these historical objections have broken down. They -were not, as it now appears, seriously entertained at the first official inquiries into the question at Rome in 1685 and 1704; and though they survived until recently as large factors in popular controversy, they bid fair now to disappear, and the battle is shifted to other ground. (ii.) The theological or ecclesiastical objections fail into three classes. First and earliest came the objection to the orders on the ground of the repudiation by the English Church of the theory of papal supremacy. This has figured largely in the earlier and the less scientific phases of the controversy; but, accurately speaking, it is no objection to the validity but only to the regularity of the orders, and it merely forms part of the general subject of the relation of the English Church to the Papacy, and affects Anglican orders on the same ground as the orders of the Orthodox Church. The other two points touch the question of the ordinal in English, which in 1550 took the place of the old English pontificals in Latin, and with • slight modifications remains the ordinal of the Anglican communion today. Objection is raised to this on the ground : (a) that it is, in “ form,” deficient in the essentials
ORDERS
required for a valid ordination; and (/3) that the “ intention,” which lies behind it, and with which the Church uses it, is also deficient, (a) The criticism of the “ form ” of the ordinal has taken many shapes, and several charges have been made, only to be withdrawn as inadmissible. It has been maintained that the mere giving up of the Latin pontifical was in itself a final departure from the “ form of the Church ” : but the Church Catholic has no one single form for holy order; it has used, and still uses, many forms. The absence of any “ porrection of instruments” after 1552 has been made a grave objection, because Eugenius IV. defined this (1439) to be the essential matter of ordination. But his definition was never universally accepted, and since the work of Pere Morin (1686) has been recognized to be erroneous. Other and more subtle objections to the Anglican form have been raised ever since the question was first officially examined at Rome in 1685, and again for the Gordon Case in 1704. The documents of these two inquiries have been only recently and incompletely published, and the precise nature of the objections raised is not clear. But they were probably the. same as those raised in the bull Apostolicce Curas, in 1896, viz., that the words accompanying the imposition of hands are an insufficient form to define the action which is going on. Attention is called to the fact that the words were made more explicit (both for priests and bishops) at the revision of the Prayer Book in 1661. To this it is replied: that the alteration was made to refute a Presbyterian construction of the forms; that the defining is at least as clear as in the Roman rite, where no words at all necessarily accompany the imposition of hands; that the whole service defines beyond any doubt what the action is, and what the order is that is being conferred; and that the mere imperative formula of 1550 do in fact define the order in Biblical terms, and are more explicit than some of the early ordination prayers, which do not define at all. All these objections as to “form” are comparatively modern, for the English ordinal was used in Edward’s time by some of the Marian bishops; and even according to the most modern papal interpretation of Pole’s instructions it would seem that orders conferred by them using this form were to be held valid, i.e., the form was in itself not insufficient. The Roman attack is thus inconsistent with itself, as well as with the Roman rite and the history of Roman ordinations. (/3) The question of intention is raised partly as a general objection, and partly with reference to the actual ordinal and the Anglican doctrine of orders. To the general objection that unsoundness of views invalidates the ordinations, it is replied—first, that this is not true of individual views, but that the intention to be taken into account is the intention of the Church ; and, secondly, that the general intention of the English Church with regard to orders is expressed in the preface to the ordinal as an intention to continue in valid sequence the orders that have been in the Church since apostolic times, and is therefore unexceptionable. Further, the special objection is raised that the English Church fails to express the intention in the case of the priesthood, because it makes no special mention at the ordination of the power of offering sacrifice. To this it is replied that—first, such mention is only a mediaeval addition to the Latin pontifical, and therefore is unessential ; and, secondly, the ordinal mentions the whole work of the priesthood, and not only one side of it, and thus expresses a more comprehensive and fuller intention than the Latin pontifical. The controversy is thus still undecided. The Roman decision has not met with full approval from learned men in that communion, and has been repudiated not only by Anglican but by Orthodox writers.
