Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/553

Rh ANGLICAN 493 ANQLICAN isolate*! eases, the documentan' evidence for which Is deficient. Moreover, Leo XIII, in his Hull " Apos- toliciB Ciine ", speaks of many such ciuscs as having been formally referred to the Holy See at difTerent times, with the result that the practice of re-ordaining was invariably observed. Two of the.se Ciuses were, in 1684 and 170-1, the second of which attracted a certain amount of attention. It was that of John Clement Gordon, who had received all the .Anglican orders, the episcopate includeil, by the Ktlwanline rite and from the hands of the prelates who derived their orders from the. glican succession. The decision was that, if he would minister as a priest, he must receive the priesthood and all previous orders afresh. ThK lIlSTOKY OF THE CONTROVER.SY. TllOUgh SUch was the practice sanctioned by the Holy See for deal- ing with .Vnglican orders administratively, the Holy See did not, lus it usually does not, publish the mo- tives of its decision. The duty of vindicating its action in regard to the.se orders was thus left to the zeal and intlustry of private theological writers, whose method w:us to inquire into the facts as best they could antl apply to them the same theological tests as the Church authorities were known to recog- nize. In this way there came into existence that series of controversial treatises on either side which covered the whole period from the begiiming of the seventeenth century to the present day. Now that the Holy Sec has given not merely a final decision, but one supporteil by the motives on which it is b:used, these ancient treatises have lost a good deal of their interest. A very brief account of them may therefore sutlice here, but the reader who requires more may be referred to the pages of Canon Estcourt. That the controversy did not begin till early in the reign of James I is, perhaps, explicable on the grountl that the first generation or two of the .Anglican clergy were too Zwinglian or Calvinistic to care about hav- ing .postolical succession. But in 1.58.S-89 Ban- croft, in a celebrated sermon at Paul's Cross, took up the higher ground, which was jiowerfully main- tained a few years after by Bil.son and Hooker, the pioneers of the long Une of Jacobean and Caroline divines. Then the writers on the Catholic side began to controvert this position, but in the first instance not very happily. The circumstances of Parker's consecration haa been shrouded in much secrecy and were imknown to the Catholic party, who ac- conlingly gave credence to a piciuant rumour called "The Nag's Head storj'". This was to the effect that, as no Catholic bishop could be got to conse- crate Parker, he and others, when together at the Nag's Head in Cheapside, knelt ilomi before Scorj-, the deprived Bishop of Chichester, who placed a Bible on the neck of each, saying at the same time, "Receive the power of preaching the Word of Ciod sincerely"; and that this strange ceremony was the fountain-head of the whole. ghcan succession. This story was first published by Kelli.'ion in 1605, in his '■Reply to SutclifTe'', and w.is taken up by some other Catholic writers in the following years. To tho.se .Ma.son in his " Vindicia; Ecclesiie Anglicana;" replied on the. gUcan side, in 161.'S, and was the first to call attention, at all events effectively, to the entry in Parker's " Register " of his consecration on 17 December, 15.59, in the private chapel at Lam- beth. In the following year (1614) Archbishop .Vbbot, to clench this statement of Ma.son's, caused four Catholic priests, nri.soncrs in the Tower, to be taken to L.ambeth an<l there shown the "Register ", on the genuineness of which they were invited to declare. i inspection under such circumstances (for they were all the time under the jealous eyes of seven Protestant bishops) w.os not calculated to convince, and Ch.ampney, who wrote in 1610, sug- gests, what was clearly" the general opinion of the Catholics at the time, that the entry in question wa.s a forgery. On one or two occasions previously it had apparent ly ' been seen by individual Catholics, but it.s existence had not become generally known till .Ma.son's book appeared, and then the fact that an appeal to it should not have been made by the Anglican party till so long aft<."r the reputed date of the occurrence .seemetl to be highly suspicious. Nor will these suspicions appear unnatural to any- one who reflects on the curious reticence shown by the Elizabethan writers when challengeil to say how their Metropolitan was consecrated; such ;ls, for instance, was shown by Jewell in his replies to Hard- ing's direct intjuiries. Probably, however, the real motiva of this reticence was in the reputation of the consecrators to whom Parker was clriven to have recourse; for there can be no question, to us wlio know all the lines of converging evidence that tell in it.s favour, but that his con.secration did take place on the day and in the manner describeil in the ''Register", and that the latter was a contemporary document. On the other hand, the Nag's Head story is too unsupported by solid evidence and too incredible in itself to be accepted as historical — • although to say this is by no means the same as saying that those who brought it forward in the first instance, or maintained it during several generations, were acting dishonestly. It is, however, an error to suppose that the early Catholic controversialists resteil their case against . glican orders exclusively on the spuriousness of the Lambeth "Register " or the truth of the Nag's Head story. On thecontran,-, although they intcnningled some proofs like those mentioned which have had to be abandoned, it is wonderful how sound was the position they took up from the first in their general statement of the argvi- ment. Thus Champney, the first systematic writer on the Catholic side, directs his first anil chief attack against all orders conveyetl by the Edwardine Ordi- nal, whether in the reign of Edward VI or subse- quently, and contests their validity on the ground of the insufficiency of the rite itself. Moreover, though inclining, with most of the theologians of his time, to liokl that other ceremonies besiiles imposi- tion of hands and the words, " Receive the Holy Ghost", were essential to validity, he gives due weight to the contrary opinion of V'asquez, and takes up exactly the same jiosition as was afterwards taken up by Morinus in regard to the jiractical course to be followed. "The detenninate matter", he says, "and form of some sacraments — and, among others, of Holy Orders, . . . are not -so clearly and dis- tinctly declared in the Councils and Fathers, but that various opinions, ba.seil on weighty re;isons and authorities, have been held and defended with good prt)bability of truth . . . (But) the Church does not suffer any harm or loss (from this uncertainty) be- eau.se she knows for certain that she luis (m her rites) the true matter and form which Christ gave to His .postles, although no one can define precisely in what things and words it is contained . . . pro- vided that there is no omission of any part (of the rite) which the Church is wont to use in adminis- tering her sacraments, aiul in which it is universally agreed that the true matter and fonn is contained. But if anyone were obstinately to follow his own opinion, and exclude all other things, actions, and words in administering the said sacraments, save such as he liim.self judges e.s.sential, he wouUl render those sacraments untrustworthy, and would in con- sequence be inflicting on the Cliurch a most .serious harm." It is only when he comes to treat of I'.liza- bethan orders in their relation to .rchbishop Parker that Champney alleges other grounds of invalidity, and he then comprises his entire ca.se against them under the following five heads — (1) the truth of the Nag's Head storj'; (2) the spuriousness of the Lam-