William J. Irons

“ The bare denial of an Apostolically descended Ministry is, frequently, all that can be obtained from our opponents. And where we are not presented with this sort of vacuity of belief, we still meet with nothing more than some thin theory of a possible ministration, whereby a straining ingenuity attempts to harmonize its own opinions with the facts and statements of Scripture; as if we were set to inquire—what may be, or might be a system of religious teaching? ”

“ And let the consciousness of our sinful neglect stir us up to pray for the fuller restoration of the Church’s grace to us Her degenerate children. It is of little value to believe in a Priesthood, without we use it. May God forgive His Priests and people for their joint forgetfulness of their many unearthly privileges!—the very belief whereof seemed a short time since almost dying away from very disuse! Of a truth, we of the English Church are blessed beyond others, would we but apprehend our privileges! ”

“ The argument which we would, again and again urge, is, Whether the notion of the State commissioning the religious instructor is in harmony with the language of the New Testament? Does not the Christian mind at once revolt from the thought, That a ruler of this world can commission any as embassadors of the world’s Saviour? ”

“ Granting him the fullest “freedom,” may he not yet miss his way?—Whoever will take the pains to think of it, will see that this Apostolical doctrine of the Succession, is no other kind of restraint upon liberty of conscience, than any other Apostolical doctrine. It may certainly be said that if a man be not blessed with the blessings of the Church Apostolical, he is in a perilous condition; but it is difficult to see how this affects liberty of conscience, any more than the assertion, “He that believeth not shall be condemned.” ”

“ We look with reverence therefore on the powers of the Church, in her Ministers. We dare not hastily pronounce any thing to be “a mere matter of discipline” or “only a form,” because we feel that we are ignorant of the mysterious ways of God: and none can determine the limit which separates Divine Doctrine and Discipline. In fine, we look upon the Church herself as One Eternal Sacrament: the One great outward and visible Institute, set up by Christ, conveying to its members His invisible grace, through many consecrated channels. ”

“ This is the Catholic faith. We trust in God—we rely on His word, and His appointments; as being anxious to recognise His presence among us, as really and truly as the Holy Apostles did, when their Lord stood visibly before them and said, “Lo! I AM WITH YOU always!” And it may safely be left to any man to judge, how far these thoughts and feelings are in harmony with the literal word of God. Every one may see that we have nothing there to explain away—nothing to “account for.” ”

“ But yet this rather anomalous circumstance, that men who are generally supposed to be somewhat lax, at least, respecting the subject of an authoritative ministry, should also be often thought to give undue prominence to “the Sermon” of a minister, even beyond other means of grace; this, I say, only renders it the more important that we should understand clearly what men mean by a “ministry” in the Church,—what they consider its real powers and chief functions,—and what its special grace and blessing? ”

“ Let any one examine it for himself. Any man, who will deal fairly with facts, will be obliged to own that there have been greater confusions and Schisms [82b] in the see of Rome itself, than in the see of Canterbury.—But they who go the length of affirming a cessation of Apostolic grace in any particular Church or branch of a Church on the ground of total Schism, from the whole body of Christ, must excuse us if we ask them for proof of their assertion; and tell them, that until it is proved, we must treat it as a pure (though a very convenient) assumption. ”

“ So long as one theory is exclusively and implicitly relied on, the arguments which are built on another, essentially distinct, may be looked at as difficult, and perhaps unanswerable; still they will not shake the previous faith of the listener. The arguer is moving, so to speak, in a parallel, or even a diverging line, in which his hearer sees, perhaps, no exact flaw, but he is sensible that it touches him not. Thus many will attend to a train of reasoning, see that it establishes its conclusions inevitably, and yet not be morally affected by it—not convinced, not really touched. ”

“ And as the heathenish conformities and superstitions of Romanists are condemned by St. Paul, when he forbids Christians even to “eat of things offered to idols;” so the infidel coldness and individual selfishness of many Protestants are equally condemned, when we are bidden to flee from covetousness, “which is idolatry.” Whether, with some, we make idols of a particular Church and the Saints,—or with others, make idols of Private Judgment and Mammon, we are alike guilty. Let there be no rude, impatient haste in judging of any Christians. ”

“ Whatever is put forth as Truth, is necessarily exclusive. And is the Catholic doctrine more chargeable with “exclusiveness,” on this ground, than the doctrine of any party, or even individual?—When any man says that he thinks himself right in any matter, he virtually says that those who differ from him are wrong. ”

“ It is strange that any man can speak so thoughtlessly, who has had the advantage of reading even an English Testament. Not only is the principle of the necessity of a proper Ministry assumed throughout the Christian Scriptures, but the very analogy which is now denied between the Christian and the Jewish ministries is throughout assumed, and sometimes expressly insisted on, and drawn out. ”

“ And even supposing that this were proved, then there would be one thing more to be shown, namely, that the amount of corruption in the Church had really, in point of fact, reached that height, which would overwhelm the grace of Her instituted Ministry. And how this could be certainly proved, even if true, it seems hard to say. In the nature of things, it would ever remain a point uncertain to man, and known to God alone. Our objectors, therefore, must assume this point too. And without, perhaps, being much justified in their assumption by the facts of history. ”

“ Is it not both possible, and probable, that in some places, for example, a powerful man might have usurped authority in a Church, and made himself a Bishop?—Or a learned man, in ‘dark times,’ have imposed on the ignorant? ”

“ The lower classes of the community also, bear unequivocal testimony to the same truth—the suitability of the living Priesthood as the effective means of influencing human nature. Even among those classes of our own people, who affect to make light of the authority of the Ministry, it is remarkable how much that authority is felt after all; and how much even the systematic rejecters of the established Priesthood, are accustomed to impute high power and efficacy to the ministrations, and often to the very persons, of their own self-sent ministers. ”

“ But every one must surely perceive the difference of our position from that of our Reformers. We assert precisely the same principles, and in their own language. But we have to act towards men who on principle reject the Succession; who are not for certain possessed of any Catholically Ordained Teachers, or so surely Baptized people: and who are perpetuating this awfully doubtful and Schismatical state of things. ”

“ All men can pray for blessing, but some can “bless.” So, every man can read “the Absolution,” but “God hath given POWER and commandment to His MINISTERS, to declare and PRONOUNCE it.” (So St. James says, “If any man (not, if any poor man, only, as some seem to take it) be sick, let him call for the Priests of the Church.”) —And this depends not on the goodness of the MAN. A Judas was an Apostle.
Let any one follow out in his own mind these hints; and he will see nothing either unphilosophical or unscriptural in expecting in these days also the blessings of an instituted Priesthood. ”

“ If it be a fact capable of proof, and which was believed by all Christians for 1500 years, That there was a true Succession of Ministers from the Apostles—are we not taking the very surest ground against Romanists, when we show, that we possess just such a descended p. 85Ministry, in no degree dependent on communion with their Church, or any other single Church? If we could not show such a Ministry, then the man, who from examination found out the truth of the necessity of an Apostolic Church, might be obliged indeed to resort to the communion of Rome. ”

“ And yet, notwithstanding this feeling planted in our very nature, that a spiritual ministry must have a spiritual origin, it is astonishing to see the facility with which almost any professed teacher is received. Just as mere ignorance inclines the most illiterate, so the better classes are induced, by indolence or habit, to receive almost any man as a religious instructor. ”

“ An erring Christian man may by observing this be more likely to suspect, at least, the soundness of the opposite conception. There is a power in truth; and it is often as useful to state it clearly as to argue for it. Many men do not see even the apparent ground on which Church principles rest—they do not enter into our theory, so as to understand what they themselves dissent from. And on the other hand, many right-minded believers, from want of sufficient clearness of views, adopt a mode of defence which sanctions, or implies, Sectarian principle. ”

“ How far the grace of the Apostolate is ordinarily now allied even to the very act of “laying on of hands,” it may be impossible to say; still it is important in many respects to observe, that the Laying on of hands is not so strictly of the nature of a proper sacrament, as that the divine grace is always necessarily allied to that form of ordination exclusively. There is advantage in considering that in theory it may not be so, though there could be no safety or certainty in deliberately acting on such a doubtfully understood theory. ”

“ The general impression wrought on the mind by the Gospel narrative of Christ and His followers, is that of an isolated company of men, having little in common with those by whom they were surrounded, and among whom they moved, as bent on some unearthly enterprise. And in like manner, the impression left by the perusal of an Apostolic Epistle is, of a separated band, a “peculiar people,” in the midst of a world “lying in wickedness.”—Looking a little closer, we soon recognize a Purity of principle and a Divine mystery alike unsearchable. ”

“ Of course it is not right in any man to suspend his belief of a proved truth, simply because it seems to be attended by some difficulties; still we must deal with human nature as we find it; and the majority do not appear to have that bold and honest mind which will maintain right principles in defiance of all obstacles. ”

“ If they be honestly looked at, the Catholic principles have in them far more of real charity than any others. There is a large sense, in which every Baptized man is included in the Catholic Church, and may be, according to his measure, partaker of Her privileges; though he may not trace the grace to its true source, but may mistake the hand that blesses him. [102a] And the wideness of the Catholic principle, as to the bestowal of Baptismal grace, ought not to be lost sight of here. In the Church there seems to have been recognized a sort of threefold validity of Baptism. ”

“ To the Church we know the New Testament was addressed: and by the Church (with all other means of grace) it was preserved. By the Church’s instrumentality we, individually, are brought to that Font where the “stewards of God’s mysteries” received us to the mystic body of the faithful. By the Church we really are taught in the truth; for notwithstanding every boast of independent thinking, the Church is practically to us, what it was to the first Christians, “the pillar and ground of truth.” (1 Tim. iii. 15.) From the Church’s voice we learn even the lessons of Holy Scripture. ”

“ Neither have they that lofty faith in God which will trust Him in the face of seeming improbabilities. Therefore, surely, it is a Christian thing to endeavour, now as far as we are able, to remove such difficulties as obstruct the faith of some, concerning the Ministry of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: only premising that our object here is not to prove the truth, but to facilitate its reception. The truth of the Apostolical Succession, being confirmed by foregone proof, cannot, however, be affected by the measure of our success in clearing up difficulties. ”

“ So indefatigable were the Apostles in carrying out the arrangements of their spiritual kingdom, and so prominent a part of their teaching was this notion of spiritual sovereignty and power, that even their enemies were struck by it, and charged them with setting up another “king, one Jesus” (a charge which would never be brought by unbelievers against the mere teachers of new principles [121] ) . They taught everywhere, that a membership of their spiritual “kingdom” was necessary to all who would enjoy its peculiar privileges. ”

“ Wherefore, good children, you shall give due reverence and honour to the Ministers of the Church, and shall not meanly or lightly esteem them in the execution of their office, but you shall take them for God’s Ministers, and the Messengers of our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ Himself saith in the Gospel, “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me.” Wherefore, good children, you shall steadfastly believe all those things, which such Ministers shall speak unto you from the mouth and by the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ If it were so dangerous and Anti-christian an error to pretend to a Priesthood in the Church, at all resembling that of the Temple, surely the Apostles would have been especially anxious to avoid using any expressions which should seem to imply any such thing. ”