PART Churches were very imperfect, and without any

III.

organization.

Q. xix. What do you mean by a national Church?

A. I mean that portion of the visible Church of Christ, which is to be found within any particular nation; and which, like the Catholic Church, of which it is a part, "is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same."

Q. xx. How were the American Churches national?

A. Because before the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States, each of the States was, in reality, a little independent nation.

Q. xxi. How were these Churches imperfect? A. Because they had within themselves no Episcopate.

Q. xxii. Is the Episcopate necessary to the perfection of a Church?

A. In one sense the Episcopate is necessary to the perfection, and in another to the very being of a Church?

Q. xxiii. How is it necessary to the being of a Church?

A. Because the Sacraments cannot be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, nor, in fact, the pure Word of God preached, without a ministry deriving its authority from our Blessed Lord. Rom. x. 15. "How," asks the Apostle, "shall they preach except they be sent." The Episcopate is the channel through which alone such a ministry can be derived and continued.

Q. xxiv. How then can a Church exist even in an imperfect state without an Episcopate?

A. A Church may have within it, regularly

I.

ordained ministers of the Word and Sacraments, CHAP. who may be able to perform the functions of their office. So long as this continues, it may be a Church. Such is the case of every diocese during every vacancy of its bishopric. But such a Church is imperfect; because it has not within itself the power of continuing itself, but on the death, or departure of all its existing ministers must become extinct, as a Church, unless other ministers should come into it from some other Church.

Q. xxv. Cannot a Church consist of laymen only?

A. No; because the Gospel cannot be preached by them; for, although a layman might address to his brethren a discourse upon religious subjects, and they might derive instruction from such address, it would not be preaching; for the layman 2 Cor. v. 26. would not be an ambassador from Christ acting by Rom. x. 15. his authority, and cannot preach because he has not been sent. Nor can the Sacraments in such a body "be duly ministered according to Christ's Art. xix. ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same;" for by the uniform doctrine of the Universal Church, at least one of the Sacraments cannot be administered without a priest.

Q. xxvi. But does not Tertullian say that whenever there are three Christians and they of the laity, there is a Church?

20.

A. Undoubtedly wherever two or three Christians, although of the laity, are gathered together, there is a Church, in that sense of the word in which it means a Christian assembly; which is entitled to "the benefit of the promise that where two or three Matt. xviii. are gathered together in the name of our Blessed Lord, there is He in the midst of them, so that their prayers have a special promise of being heard. But such a meeting is only an assembly,' which is dissolved when its members separate, not a perma

PART
III.

nent, continuous Church. Moreover, it is not a Church, in the sense in which we are using that word; because it does not contain within itself the power of preaching or of administering the Sacraments according to Christ's ordinance.

1 HOOKER. Ecc. Pol. III. i. 14. For preservation of Christianity there is not any thing more needful, than that such as are of the visible Church, have mutual fellowship, and society, one with another. In which consideration, as the main body of the sea being one, yet within divers precincts hath names; so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct societies, every of which is termed a Church within itself. In this sense the Church is always a visible society of men; not an assembly, but a society. For although the name of the Church be given unto Christian assemblies, although any multitude of Christian men congregated, may be termed by the name of a Church, yet assemblies properly, are rather things that belong to a Church. Men are assembled for performance of public actions; which actions being ended, the assembly dissolveth itself and is no longer in being; whereas, the Church which was assembled doth no less continue afterwards than before. "Where but three are, and they of the laity also, (saith Tertullian,) yet there is a Church;" that is to say, a Christian assembly. But a Church, as now we are to understand it, is a Society; that is, a number of men belonging unto some Christian fellowship, the place and limits whereof are certain.

Q. xxvii. What do you mean by saying that these national Churches were without any organization?

A. They had no public officers whose authority extended beyond a single congregation, and no external bond of union extending throughout all. the congregations within the bounds of each Church.

Q. xxviii. Were they also without Ecclesiastical law?

A. No. It is not easy to understand that a merely political revolution could have changed the

I.

Ecclesiastical law. So far as the supposed Ecclesi- CHAP. astical law was connected with the relations of the Church to the British Crown, or State, it was of course abrogated by the American Revolution. But there is no reason why the ordinary ecclesiastical laws should have been changed by a political revolution, more than the laws which regulate civil rights or civil contracts. A Revolution which puts an end to one government, and substitutes another, dissolves all political laws, and may dissolve all politico-ecclesiastical laws; but it leaves untouched the ordinary laws of civil society. This is more especially clear, when, as in the case before us, the new civil government refuses all connexion with ecclesiastical affairs. Neither could the mere dissolution, by mutual consent, of the relations between. the Bishop of London and the American Churchmen, change the law under which the latter lived. They must then have remained under the authority of the purely ecclesiastical laws of the Church of England, of which they had been part, until they were changed by competent authority. But although they had laws, they were without any efficient means of enforcing them.

HOUSE OF BISHOPS. Journal 1808, May 21. The House of Bishops having taken into consideration_the_Message sent to them by the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, relative to the subject of marriage, as connected with the table of degrees, within which, according to the Canons of the Church of England, marriage cannot be celebrated, observe as follows:

Agreeably to the sentiment entertained by them, in relation to the whole ecclesiastical system, they consider that table as now obligatory on this Church, and as what will remain so, unless there should hereafter appear cause to alter it, without departing from the Word of God, or endangering the peace and good order of this Church.

2 GENERAL CONVENTION, MDCCCXIV. Journal House of Bishops, May 20. The following declaration was proposed and agreed to:

PART It having been credibly stated to the House of Bishops, III. that on questions in reference to property devised before the Revolution, to congregations belonging to the Church of England, and to uses connected with that name, some doubts have been entertained in regard to the identity of the body to which the two names have been applied, the House think it expedient to make the declaration, and to request the concurrence of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies therein—that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the same body heretofore known in these States by the name of the "Church of England;" the change of name, although not of religious principle, in doctrine, or in worship, or in discipline, being induced by a characteristic of the Church of England, supposing the independence of Christian Churches, under the different sovereignties to which, respectively, their allegiance in civil concerns belongs. But that when the severance alluded to took place, and ever since, this Church conceives of herself as professing and acting on the principles of the Church of England, is evident from the organization of our Convention, and from their subsequent proceedings, as recorded on the Journals: to which, accordingly, this Convention refer for satisfaction in the premises. But it would be contrary to fact, were any one to infer that the discipline exercised in this Church, or that any proceedings there, are at all dependent on the will of the civil or of the ecclesiastical authority of any foreign country.

The above declaration having been communicated to the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, they returned for answer, that they concurred therein.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE
AMERICAN CRURCH.

Q. i. WHAT was requisite to give to these little national Churches, the benefit of organized government?

A. It was requisite that there should be made, an organic law distributing the powers of govern