Evening star., 1934-10-22
EPISCOPAL FAITH
IS HELD CATHOLIC
Bishop Manning Reaffirms
Belief in Apostolic
Succession.
BY JAMES WALDO FAWCETT,
STAFF Correspondent Of The Star

STAFF Correspondent Of The Star
ATLANTIC CITY, october 22.-
Right Rev. William T. Manning,
Bishop of New York, preaching yes
terday to the Fifty-first Triennial
General Convention of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, definitely declared
against any form Of Christian unity
which does not include the apostolic
succession.
The Episcopal Church." he said,
maintains. and rejoices to maintain,
warm and brotherly relations with the
Protestant churches; she has much,
indeed in common with Evangelical
Professionalism; she gives praise to
God for every evidence of devotion
to Christ, wherever manifested, but
her own faith and order, as judged
by the standards of the early un-
divided church, are fundamentally
and definitely Catholic. Her distinctive
beliefs are those which have been
held and taught by the Catholic
Church throughout the world since
the apostles days and she cannot
compromise this position without dis
loyalty to her principles and disloyalty
to all her past.
"The Episcopal Church does not
hold, as our Protestant brethren do,
that the church came into existence
by the voluntary association of those
who had been saved The Episcopal
Church holds that the church was
founded by our Lord Himself, that it
is integral and vital to His gospel and
is essential to the carrying on of His
work in this world, and we proclaim
this belief every time we say, I be-
lieve one Catholic and Apostolic
Church.
Doctrine of Priesthood.
Explaining his view of the church S
position. the bishop continued The
Episcopal Church holds the Catholil
doctrine of the priesthood. No one
who reads her prayer book and un-
derstands it can be in doubt as to
this. And it is this which constitutes
the difference between the ministry
of the Episcopal Church and that of
the Protestant churches.
We are aware of what modern
scholarship has to say on the subject
and in the full light of this it remains
incontrovertible that the church
which Christ Himself founded and
which His apostles and disciples con-
tinued, brought forth the New Testa-
ment, the creed and the Episcopate
all under the promised guidance of
the Holy Spirit. 1t is, of course, con-
ceivable that the apostolic church
might have developed some other
form of ministry in succession to the
apostolate, but it did not. What his
tory shows is that ministerial au-
thority in the church passed from the
apostles, and possibly also from the
prophets, whose status is uncertain, to
the Episcopate, and the EpiScopate
was developed and established earlier
than either the canon of scripture or
the fully formulated creed, so that
the threefold ministry of bishops
priests and deacons is in fact by sue
cession the only representative Of the
original apostolate."
Anglican Heritage.
Bishop Manning then quoted the
Most Rev. Cosmo Gordon Lang, Arch
bishop of Canterbury, as saying: The
Anglican communion throughout the
world has a distinctive heritage OF
faith and order which it cannot barter
away even for the sake of union, for
it is trust which it is bound to
hold for itself and for the whole body
of Christ" and argued that: In
stipulating that the Episcopate must
be maintained in any united church
of which the Anglican churches can
form a part we are not contendine
for any mere form of government
however venerable but because we
believe the divinely instituted church
and sacraments are from Christ Him
self and that, if we use them Alright
they keep us near to Him.
Nothing is more certain than that
loss of faith in the divinely founded
church and in the divinely appointed
ministry and sacraments tends to-
ward loss of faith in Christ as God
and in His gospel as a divine revela-
tion. You can see this illustrated
in the religious situation all around
us, and within the ranks of our owr
church. ="
The breakdown of Christian faith
and Christian morality, the bishop in.
sisted, lis reaching the point of crisis.
THE campaign of the Goddess" hi
said, "is not confined to Russia
It has gone far in our own land. 80 I