THE question, whether the Church of England recognizes the validity of the orders of non-episcopal Churches, is one which concerns it much more than it does them. They are not the worse for non-recognition. They are not thereby curtailed of any spiritual power or advantage. They enter no claim to be regarded by Romanists or Anglicans, as constituent portions of the Church visible and catholic. They can as well afford to have their Church standing denied, as the United States could bear to have their national existence called in question.
The case is far different with the Church of England itself. To refuse to recognize those as Christians who are Christians; to refuse communion with those in whom Christ dwells by his Spirit; to unchurch the living members of Christ’s body; to withhold sympathy, fellowship, and co-operation from those in whom Christ delights, and who are devoted to his service; to take sides in the great conflict, between true and false religion, between the gospel and ritualism, against the truth and against God’s people, is a very great sin. It is the sin of schism which all Churchmen profess to regard with special abhorrence. It supposes wrong views of the nature of the Church, of the plan of salvation, and of the nature of religion. We do not wonder, therefore, that the evangelical spiritual members of that Church are anxious not only to free themselves from the imputation of this sin and heresy, but to prove that the Church to which they belong is not justly chargeable with either.
This, to say the least, is not a work of supererogation. There is much to render plausible the charge in question. Not only is the schismatical principle of making episcopal ordination essential to the ministry, and a valid ministry essential to the being of the Church, to the efficacy of the sacraments, and to union with Christ, the avowed doctrine of a large and controlling portion of the Anglican Church in England and in this country, but that Church, as a Church, stands isolated in the Christian world. It is excommunicated by Rome, and it in its turn refuses official recognition of other Protestants. An Episcopal minister communing in a Presbyterian Church, would, in our days, be almost as rare a sight as a Romish priest communing with the Church of England. The difference between the relation of the Episcopal clergy to those of other Protestant Churches, and of the clergy of those Churches to each other, is palpable. Mutual recognition, in the latter case, is open, cordial, and undoubted; in the other, it is always dubious and hesitating, and often explicitly denied. That Church, therefore, as a Church, stands aloof. It has no practical communion with other Churches. It rebaptizes, in many cases, Presbyterian children, and reordains Presbyterian clergymen. It sends no corresponding members from its Conventions, either state or general, to the Synods or Assemblies of any other Church. It does not invite the ministers of other denominations to minister in its pulpits, or to take part in its religious services. It draws a distinct and broad line of demarcation between itself and all other Protestant bodies. We are speaking of the acknowledged and unquestioned animus and status of the Church as a body. We know there are hundreds of her ministers, and thousands of her people, who have none of this spirit, and to whom the exclusiveness of their ecclesiastical canons is a burden and an offence. We know that many cases have occurred in which this exclusiveness has been triumphed over, and Episcopal churches lent to Presbyterian ministers. We know, too, that this isolation of the Church of England is inconsistent with the avowed principles of her own standards, and contrary to the spirit and practice of her Reformers and immediate successors for a hundred years. Nevertheless it is a fact. There must therefore be something in her constitution which tends to exclusiveness, and which leads her thus to stand aloof from the great body of Evangelical Christians. This can hardly be merely Episcopacy; because the Moravians, and some Lutheran Churches, are episcopal, and yet are completely identified with other Protestant communions. Neither can it be either the use of a Liturgy, or its peculiar character; because other Protestant Churches have liturgies, and some of them less evangelical than that of the Church of England. The isolation of that Church is no doubt to be referred, in a measure, to the outward course of her history; to her having been framed and fashioned by the king and parliament, established by the law of the land, and made the exclusive recipient of the wealth and honours of the State. But besides these outward circumstances, there must be something in the system itself, some element essentially anti-Protestant and exclusive, to which the effect in question is principally to be referred. This, we doubt not, is in general, the subordination of truth to form; the making what is outward more important than what is inward. The question how a company of Christians is organized; what is their form of government; what their mode of worship; what their ecclesiastical descent, is of far more consequence in determining the question whether they are to be recognized as a Church, and to be communed with, and regarded as Christian brethren, members of the body of Christ, than either their faith or practice. If a body of professing Christians is organized in a certain way, it is a Church, no matter whether it is as heretical and idolatrous as Rome, or as ignorant and superstitious as the Greeks or Abyssinians. If organized in a different way, it is no Church, it has no ministry, no sacraments, and no part in the covenant of mercy. This is the legitimate consequence of the idea of the Church on which the whole Anglican system is founded. The Church is regarded as an external society, with a definite organization, perpetuated by a regular succession of ordinations. Of course, in searching for the Church, the search is not for truth and holiness, but for organization and succession. Hence, Rome is a Church, because she has prelates and succession; the Free Church of Scotland is no Church, because it has no bishops. The one is indeed heretical, schismatical, and idolatrous, the mystical Babylon; the other, one of the most orthodox, exemplary, and devoted body of Christians in the world. Still, the former is our Latin sister, whose orders and sacraments are valid and efficacious; the other is an apostate communion, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and from the covenant of promise, forming no part of the Church catholic and apostolical. There is not only more of outward recognition, but of inward cordial sympathy and fellowship with prelatical Churches, no matter how corrupt, than with non-episcopal Churches, no matter how pure. The form is made of more importance than the substance. Such is the necessary consequence of making the Church an external society, and prelatical ordination essential to the ministry. This is the element which has been infused into the Episcopal Church of England and America, and which has produced its legitimate fruit in the isolation of that body from other Protestant communions. Though not original in its constitution, it is so congenial with it, that it has ever been adopted by a large portion of its members, and its influence can hardly be resisted even by those who see its unscriptural character, and are shocked by its legitimate effects.