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The American quarterly church review (v. 13)
The American quarterly church review - v. 13 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Art. III.—BISHOP GRISWOLD ON THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE. That Episcopal Ordination is essential to Ministerial Validity, and that this is one of the first princi... more »ples in the New Gospel Dispensation, is the point involved in what we have now to offer. That the doctrine of Episcopal Ordination, and euch Ordination alone, is held and taught as the doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, will not of course be denied. She utters no anathemas against those who claim to be ordained by Presbyters, or by Laymen, or who claim to be Ministers without ordination of any kind. She leaves them to their own masters, and to the great Master Himself. But what she does say, is, thatsAe cannot recognise them as Ministers of Christ. She closes against them her pulpits and her altars. Her Canon I, of 1832, says, "In this Church there shall always be three Orders in the Ministry, viz: Bishops, Priests and Deacons." And her Canon XXXVI, of 1832, says, " No person shall be permitted to officiate in any congregation of this Church, without first producing the evidences of his being a Minister thereof." Even on the lowest ground of expediency, the propriety of such a Canon as the last one cited is obvious ; and yet the Sectarian Ministers, and the Sectarian press of the country, seem to be exceedingly and perhaps increasingly restive at it, and are perpetually striving to get Churchmen in one way or another to recognise the regularity and validity of their own Presbyterian and Congregational and lay Orders. The late Bishop Doane was bitterly assailed for a single act of duty in this respect. In Massachusetts, however, a case has recently come before the public, which again brings up the whole question, and in a form which cannot be evaded. In the village of Wilkinson- ville, Mass., th...« less