Jackson on Article XXXVI: Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers

This Article was inserted in 1563 on the restora- tion of the Ordinal of Edward VI.’s reign, which had been first issued in 1550 and revised two years later. Its purpose is to vindicate the Eng- lish Ordinal against the Roman charges of in- sufficiency and the Puritan charges of super- stition. The Roman objections were against the omission of the anointing of the hands, the de- livery of the sacred vessels, and the bestowal of the power to sacrifice. But Scripture only re- quires as the essentials of ordination the laying on of hands with prayer. And there is no record of the use of such forms in the history of the early Church.* The Puritans, on the other hand, ob- jected to the use of the words ‘“‘ Receive the Holy Ghost … . whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain,

they are retained.’’ But the use of the very words of Christ should make it plain that what is claimed in our Ordinal is simply the transmission of the ministerial gift, once for all bestowed upon the Church by the Risen Christ, to individuals chosen by the Church for the perpetuation and extension of the Ministry. There can be no pre- sumption in such an act. It is simply a sacred duty of the Church, necessary to her continued existence and progress. The ministerial function, for which the gift of the Spirit is formally trans- mitted, is only that which Christ assigned to His whole Church when He bestowed the gift. It is idle to speak of it as miraculous and confined to the Apostles.* They too were ‘‘ men of like passions with us.’’ The real explanation is that the Apostles acted as the representatives both of the whole Christian body and of Christ its Head (e.g., 1 Cor. v., 3-5); and in this respect the position of the Christian Ministry to-day is the same as theirs.t The power to remit or retain sins is given to the Church in view of that which is the ‘Church’s great work in the world, viz., ‘the ministry of reconciliation.’? Wherever the Church’s ministers are dealing with the con- sciences of men—in the preaching of the Word, in the ministry of the Sacraments, in excommuni- cating offenders, and in absolving the repentant— they are exercising this power, which is trans- mitted in ordination by those who have them- selves received it and have been specially chosen to commit it to others.

t+ See Prof. Swete ‘‘ The Appearances of our Lord after the Passion,”’ pp. 35-38.

ARTICLE XXXVII. Of THE Crvit MAGISTRATES.

Notes

• See Bishop Browne, p. 781.
• That our Lord’s Commission in John XX., 19-23, applied to the whole Church was admitted at the Fulham Confer- ence, (See Report, p. 109.)