service for a Social Service meeting or a meeting of the Brotherhood of S. Andrew. But such private acts of devotion as grow out of the fact of the reservation of the Sacrament in such places that the faithful may approach it, in their very nature as acts of private devotion, need no authorization.

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NOTE. Two recent books are to be commended. "The Reserved Sacrament," by Darwell Stone, D.D., is a brief but exceedingly able discussion of the whole case of reservation. "The Sacrament Reserved," by W. H. Freestone, M.A. (Alcuin Club Collections), is a thorough survey of the evidence for reservation during the early and middle ages of the history of the Church. It is indispensable to any study of the subject. Both books bear the American imprint of the Young Churchman Co.

XXIII

ESSENTIALS OF CONTINUITY IN THE

I

MINISTRY

'N this matter of continuity in the Christian

Ministry, as in all other matters relating to the Christian religion, it is well for us to remember that it is not what we think or like that is important, but what are the facts. It is not a question as to what kind of a ministry we would devise if we were founding a church, but what kind of a ministry did Christ institute in the Church that He founded. The story is told of an old man, of liberal theological views, that, after hearing an old-fashioned Presbyterian minister preach on a Hell of literal fire and brimstone, he remonstrated with the preacher on the ground that people would not tolerate such a Hell as that.

The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, but a Kingdom; and in that Kingdom God is both King and Law-maker. We may not like to have it so, but so it is. The question before us then is:

what kind of a ministry has God instituted to carry on the work of His Church on earth?

From the earliest days of the Christian Church, as we learn in the Acts of the Apostles, the followers of Christ endeavored to continue not only in the "Apostles' doctrine," but also in the Apostles' fellowship." In other words they submitted themselves only to ministers who were in succession from the Apostles of Christ. Apostolic succession is a somewhat formidable phrase, but it expresses a very simple idea. As the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ unto the world, so the Son sent forth His Apostles with Divine authority and promised to be with them all the days, even to the end of the world." The powers which they exercised, such as the powers of ordaining to the ministry, consecrating the Eucharist, and absolving from sin,- were bestowed upon them by Christ Himself; and those same powers they conferred upon their successors, the Bishops and the Presbyters or Priests upon whom they laid their hands. No man henceforth might presume to exercise such powers in the Church, unless he were duly ordained by some Bishop in this line of Apostolic Succession.

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Strictly speaking, the Apostolic Succession is not a line but a net. Each Bishop must be con

secrated by at least three other Bishops, just as each loop in a net adjoins several other loops. If the Apostolic succession were simply a line of Bishops, and it could be proven that one Bishop in the line was an impostor and had never really been consecrated, the whole subsequent line would be invalidated. A net however is very different from a line. Just as one imperfect loop cannot destroy the whole net, so one counterfeit Bishop cannot weaken the authority and powers of the whole succession of Bishops throughout the world. It requires very little historical proof to show that the Bishops of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century are in direct, tactual succession from the original Apostles.

The fundamental question at issue to-day between the two great groups of Christians, Catholic and Protestant, is whether the authority of the Christian ministry is from heaven or of men. Catholics hold that the episcopate and the priesthood derive their authority from above. The authority to minister has come down from Christ through His Apostles to the clergy of every age. Protestants hold that their ministers derive their authority to preach and administer the sacraments from the congregation of Christian men. According to the Protestant theory it Iwould not be essential that a man should be or

dained by the laying on of a Bishop's hands. It would be sufficient if he were set apart and commissioned by the congregation.

If we study the early history of the Church as contained in the Acts of the Apostles, we are impressed by the fact that the laying on of the hands of Apostles is always insisted on before any man can be allowed to exercise the ministry.

This Apostolic recognition was regarded as proof that the man had a mission from Christ Himself. The early Christian Fathers, such as S. Clement of Rome, S. Ignatius of Antioch, and S. Irenaeus, bear witness to the continuance of this principle in the age immediately following that of the Apostles. The early heretical sects,— such as the Montanists, the Novationists, the Donatists, and the Arians,- however far they may have departed from the Apostle's doctrine, never permitted any departure from the principle of historic succession from the three-fold Apostolic ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Throughout the early Christian centuries,- in fact down to the age of the Reformation,— we find everywhere prevalent the same idea as to the essentials of continuity in the Christian ministry. The universality of this idea argues some powerful authority behind it; either the express commands of Christ to His Apostles during the great