Episcopalian

“ But at last the preamble and resolution were adopted, and we congratulate our Protestant Episcopalian brethren upon that decision. Many of them—clergymen as well as laymen—said they did not know what even the first six œcumenical councils had decided. If they now acquire this knowledge, they will learn enough to convince them that they are living in heresy, and that their first duty is to seek for admission into the church. ”

“ That form of Church polity, in which the ministry is divided into the three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, each having powers and duties, distinct from the others, the Bishops being superior to the Priests and Deacons, and the immediate source of all their authority, is called Episcopacy, and those who adhere to this polity, are called Episcopalians. ”

“ The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them, disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the articles and liturgy. {40} The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the articles which form their real confession of faith should be imposed upon all Episcopalians. ”

“ It is assumed that some are natural-born Episcopalians, with an innate fondness for formal liturgies and ecclesiastical vestments, and that others are so constituted by nature as to require certain other particular forms of worship. ”

“ Whatever opinion may be formed of the wisdom of a policy certain to exasperate deeply so powerful and so revengeful a class as the Congregational elders, there can be no doubt the Episcopalians achieved a measure of success, in the last degree alarming, not only among the laity, but among the clergy themselves. ”

“ He appears to be an honest and earnest-minded man, who took seriously the church pretensions of Episcopalians, treated the Episcopal Church as a real Christian church, in which he might hold, develop, and defend what he regarded as real church principles. ”

“ It is a fact which any one may verify for himself, that representative colored men, professing that in their heart of hearts they are Episcopalians, are actually working in Methodist and Baptist pulpits; while the ranks of the Episcopal clergy are left to be filled largely by men who certainly suggest the propriety of a “perpetual Diaconate” if they cannot be said to have created the necessity for it. ”

“ The Episcopal creed is substantially like the Catholic, containing a few additional absurdities. The Episcopalians teach that it is easier to get forgiveness for sin after you have been baptized. They seem to think that the moment you are baptized you become a member of the firm, and as such are entitled to wickedness at cost. This church is utterly unsuited to a free people. ”

“ Thus Episcopacy, and all other branches, posts or ranks, high or low, commissioned or non-commissioned, of the Church, publicly and systematically profess poverty, abstinence, and an utter indifference to temporal concerns, while their livings are enormous, and themselves overfed. Nay, so cautiously has ecclesiastical law provided for that, even in our liberal establishments, that a Bishop, at his instalment, positively declares, in the face of God, at the holy altar, that he is averse to being a Bishop——nolo Episcopari. ”

“ Take away this, and the office of each bishop is crystallised into a separate mass, having no coherence or impact with its like: bishops so conceived would hold indeed a similar office, but being detached from each other would not hold joint possession of one Episcopate. Separate crystals do not make one body; nor a heap of pebbles a rock. But it was a Rock on which Christ built and builds His Church, that Rock being His own Person, from which He communicated this virtue, wherein the cohesion and impact of the whole Episcopate lies, to the See of him whom He constituted His Vicar. ”

“ Greatly are we indebted to the venerable fathers for their kind and Christian interposition, and we heartily thank God that He did, of His mercy, put it into their hearts to consider and relieve our necessity. Our utmost exertions shall be joined with those of our Bishop to preserve the unity of faith, doctrine, discipline, and uniformity of worship with the Church from which we derived our Episcopacy, and with which it will be our praise and happiness to keep up the most intimate intercourse and communion. ”

“ That in order that the rights and responsibilities of the whole Christian community in the government of the Church may be adequately recognised, the Episcopate should re-assume a constitutional form, both as regards the method of the election of the bishop as by clergy and people, and the method of government after election. It is perhaps necessary that we should call to mind that such was the primitive ideal and practice of Episcopacy and it so remains in many Episcopal communions to-day. ”

“ Episcopacy in the Church of God is of Divine appointment, and should be maintained and respected. Under God, there should be supreme governors in the Church as well as in the state. The state has its monarch, the Church has its bishop; one should govern according to the laws of the land, the other according to the word of God. ”

“ If we take the whole Christian world of to-day, we find that the number of Christians is in round numbers five hundred millions. Of this number only one hundred million are non-Episcopal, so that we may conclude from the universal acceptance of Episcopacy before the Reformation and from the large preponderance of adherents to this form of Church government at this present time,—from these facts we may safely conclude that Episcopacy is in accordance with the mind of the Master. ”

“ As they felt no superstitious attachment to the places in which they assembled, nor imagined that the Episcopal form of ordination gave to the clergyman a degree of sanctity which the Dissenting minister did not possess, they intermingled in each other's society, not to wrangle or contend for superiority, but to cultivate the unity of their faith, and display the excellence of that grace which "teacheth us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." ”

“ When the first great Bishop of New Zealand met his first synod, he uttered these noble words: "I believe the monarchical idea of the Episcopate to be as foreign to the true mind of the Church as it is adverse to the Gospel doctrine of humility. I would rather resign my office than be reduced to act as a single isolated being. ”

“ And speaking of bishops, I venture the interpolation that that office, believed by many to be the softest berth in Zion as it exists in the Episcopal Church, is in fact the most vexatious and thankless to which any man can aspire; nor have I in mind the laborious lives of adventurous spirits like Whipple, Hare, and Rowe, but others who carry the burdens of established dioceses, where the troubles of one minister are multiplied upon the apostolic head by the number of parishes in his jurisdiction. ”

“ A right Episcopacy would at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops, humble presbyters, and sober People; so as Church affaires should be managed neither with tyrannie, paritie nor popularitie; neither Bishops ejected, nor presbyters dispised, nor People oppressed,
And in this integrity both of my Judgement and Conscience, I hope God will preserve me.
For thou, O Lord, knowest my uprightnesse, and tendernesse, as thou hast set me to be a Defender of the Faith, and a Protectour of thy Church, so suffer me not by any violence, to be overborne against my Conscience. ”

“ Now in the first place, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Episcopacy is in fact not at all mentioned in Scripture: even then it would be our duty to receive it. Why? because the first Christians received it. If we wish to get at the truth, no matter how we get at it, if we get at it. If it be a fact, that the earliest Christian communities were universally episcopal, it is a reason for our maintaining Episcopacy; and in proportion to our conviction, is it incumbent on us to maintain it. ”

“ That Episcopacy [584] was received by the whole Church appears from the general councils, which have always had great authority with all devout men; witness the national and provincial councils, where we find certain marks of the Episcopal precedency; witness all the Fathers without exception. Episcopacy began with the Apostles [585] : to be convinced of this we need only have recourse to the catalogues of Bishops in Irenæus, Eusebius, Socrates, Theodoret, and others, who all make them begin with the Apostles. ”

“ And wherever any one of them may be found, whether in village or city, ordained by Catholics, so shall he remain among the clergy, yet every one, in his own order. But, if any of them come to a place where there is a bishop or presbyter, of the Catholic Church, it is evident that the bishop of the Catholic Church shall have his own proper episcopal dignity. ”

“ For I attained all the grades of the clergy as directed in the canons. I was reader ten years, I performed the duties of sub-deacon five years, I have been priest now for twenty years. What more is left for me except to receive the office of bishop which my faithful service deserves. You then return to your cities and busy yourselves with whatever tends to your advantage. For I intend to gain this office in the manner prescribed by the canons. ”

“ To safeguard the Succession, three Bishops, at least, are required for the Consecration of another Bishop, though one would secure a valid Consecration. No Priest can be Consecrated Bishop under the age of thirty. Very carefully does the Church safeguard admission to the Episcopate. ”

“ A Bishop must be at least thirty years of age. Prejudices have prevailed against the Episcopal Church, and probably still exist in the minds of some persons, from an impression, that Episcopacy is not congenial with a republican form of government, and the civil institutions of our Country. ”

“ No minister of any of the denominations, no matter how learned and pious he may be, can {50} serve at her Altars until he has been ordained by a Bishop and is therefore commissioned by that Episcopal or Apostolic authority upon which the Church has always insisted. ”

“ Episcopacy is a witness for Unity.
"He who holds not this unity of the Church, does he think that he holds the faith? When a man struggles against the Church, and resists it, does he suppose that he continues to belong to it? ”

“ An archbishop may call out the bishops, just as a militia colonel may call out the militia.’ ‘A bishop (episcopes) is literally an overseer, instead of which it is notorious that some of them are overlookers of their duties, and blind to the state of their diocese, though they call it their see.’ ‘The duties incumbent on a parson are, first to act as the incumbent, by living in the place where he has his living. ”

“ The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, deriving its Episcopal power in regular succession from the holy Apostles, through the venerable Church of England, has long contemplated, with great spiritual sorrow, the divided and distracted condition of the Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world. ”

“ Bishops, both as fathers of the Church and as holding high places, and living therefore in the presence of the public, cannot, without grave injury not to themselves only, but to the body over which they preside, suffer their names to be in any way mixed up with the cabals of self-interest and faction. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Episcopal bench numbered among its occupants many men, both of High and Low Church views, who were distinctly eminent for piety, activity, and learning. ”

“ The pope still addresses his fellow-bishops as “venerable brothers”; but from the Roman Catholic Church the fraternal union of coequal authorities, which is of the essence of episcopacy, has vanished; and in its place is set the autocracy of one. The modern Roman Catholic Church is episcopal, for it preserves the bishops, whose potestas ordinis not even the pope can exercise until he has been duly consecrated; but the bishops as such are now but subordinate elements in a system for which “Episcopacy” is certainly no longer an appropriate term. ”

“ Forced on their dioceses by the royal Congé d’élire (q.v.) , and enthusiastic apostles of the High Church doctrine of non-resistance, the bishops were looked upon as no more than lieutenants of the crown; [4] and Episcopacy was ultimately resisted by Presbyterians and Independents as an expression and instrument of arbitrary government, “Prelacy” being confounded with “Popery” in a common condemnation. ”

“ If your pretended pastors will speak the language and attribute to themselves the authority of true pastors, let them shew us the original of their ministry and, like St Cyprian and the other orthodox bishops, let them make us see that they are descended from any Apostle. Let them show us the eminent Chair, where all the churches preserve the Unity, where principally shines the concord and succession of Episcopacy. ”

“ They are but, in strictness of language, the first and leading Bishops of our land.
The Priests and Deacons, (whom we usually class together under the common name of Clergymen,) who officiate in the Churches and Chapels of our Establishment, have each received ordination to the discharge of their holy office by the laying on of the hands of a Bishop, assisted, in the case of Priests, by members already admitted into the presbytery or priesthood, as was St. Paul in the ordination of Timothy, (iv. 14.) ”

“ December, 1903.— It was an immense satisfaction to me to learn, on my return to America, that in the matter of the proposed change in the name of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the laity had saved the day and decisively defeated the clerical delegates who represented the pro-Catholic sentiment, and wished to call their denomination the American Catholic Church, and thus make it appear that there was closer sympathy between Episcopacy and Romanism than between Episcopacy and Protestantism. ”