and 'loosing,' the misuse of which under the Old Covenant He had continually under His eye; and He most solemnly attached a supernatural sanction to the powers of 'binding' and 'loosing,' and of remitting and retaining sins, by which His new society was to exercise, through its officers, a divine authority over its members. The point is that the Christ both recognised the dangers of ecclesiastical authority as none other has recognised them, and at the same time solemnly re-inaugurated it. I do not see how this is disputable. None the less one-sided tendencies have constantly prevailed in Christendom. They prevail still. They lie deep in human nature. It is very easy to be simply sacerdotalist, without any due regard to the perils of the principle, or simply protestant against sacerdotalism because of the obvious misuses of ecclesiastical power; but neither attitude is our Lord's. And to discard the principle of ecclesiastical authority because the holders of it at a particular time have seemed to neglect their duty or abuse their power, is in fact to refuse to follow His leading. This book claims to be an 'apology' for what is in fact the formal or official attitude of the Church of England towards non-episcopal bodies. She does not condemn them, but she refuses to acknowledge their ministry. That is to say, she ordains de novo any minister not episcopally ordained who joins her communion (unless he have formerly been made priest by episcopal ordination '1), but does not do so with any who have received an episcopal ordination which she recognises as valid. This is not to judge other men. It is neither to anticipate the divine judgment on their position nor to minimize 'Act of Uniformity of 1662, the evidences of divine blessing which are found again and again to rest upon their work. It is simply to say that their organization has, as far as we can judge, been built up in neglect of a law of the Church with which we have no kind of right to dispense, and which, whatever else we may penitently or joyfully surrender, must be retained as the basis of any future reconciliation. WESTMINSTER Abbey, All Saints' Day, 1899. C. G. ERRATA Page 161, line 4, for moveover read moreover. b CONTENTS (1) The genuineness of New Testament documents (2) The truth of the Incarnation . Preliminary inquiry: Did Christ found a visible Church? The reasonableness of the idea in itself (1) Witness of the early Christian belief in a visible Church (unanimous in spite of differences in point of view) in the West-Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus (holding 'nulla salus extra ecclesiam' together with belief in God's wider dealings), the Roman Church in the East-Ignatius, Alexandrian writers. (a) Christian writers show no trace of such influence but agreeable to the principle of all human society Two misconceptions as to the origin of the visible Church- 33333 PAGE The principle of Apostolic Succession expounded It corresponds to the Incarnation, Sacraments, etc. (a) a bond of union for a universal spiritual society (6) emphasizing men's dependence on God's gifts (1) It is sacerdotal': true and false sacerdotalism (3) 'It is opposed to liberty': but liberty is opposed to absolutism, not to authority; the Church not at first or necessarily an imperialist institution CH. III. THE WITNESS OF CHURCH HISTORY Church history bears witness to certain fixed principles- I., II. The principle of apostolic succession through the |