Publisher's Synopsis
This is in two volumes. The main text is in volume 1. The appendices and index is in volume 2 of this edition. A VINDICATION of Anglican Orders appears to be called for at certain intervals, not because there is any doubt of their validity on the part of those who hold them, but because the adversaries of the Church of England, in order to defend their own position, constantly renew the attack. Year by year the anomaly of the Italian Mission in England grows greater. It is seen more and more clearly at Rome that AngUcan Orders must be discredited at all costs, else the Bishops and Priests sent to England by. The Bishop of Rome stand self-confessed as intruders, and fomenters of schism. If Anglican Orders are valid, then not only are the Papal party incurring the guilt of raising Altar against Altar, but the fundamental law of the Supreme Sovereignty of the Bishop of Rome is set at nought by a Church having lawful jurisdiction. The question of the validity of Anglican Orders is a vital one for Rome. When the Bishop of Rome, therefore, takes upon himself to sit in judgment upon his brethren, and to pass sentence on the validity of their Orders, it becomes the duty of every Priest whose Orders are impugned, and who aspires to be a teacher of his people, to give the matter serious consideration. This duty is of the greater importance, because a very large number of Christian people look upon the decisions of the Bishops of Rome as having a binding authority upon their consciences. From this point of view alone, apart from the wider issues involved, it is necessary, out of Christian charity, that such utterances should be carefully and intelligently considered and tested by all Christian people and their teachers. The Church of God is one, if it is, as the Apostle. to tbe Gentiles declared, the "Body of Christ." .. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." If the Anglican Communion had invalid Orders, then assuredly, all members of the Church Universal, and not her own members only, would be sufferers. It is a duty which we owe to Christendom to meet all attacks made upon our Orders, no matter from what quarter they may come. Our position as a. living branch of the Church Catholic depends upon our possession of valid Orders, since without duly ordained Bishops and Priests the sacramental life of the Church cannot be maintained. No one Bishop can by his ipse dixit validate or invalidate our Orders, but if a declaration of one who even wrongly claims such an authority may cause fellow Christians to fall into error and sin, then it behooves us as members of the one body to do our utmost to save them from such grievous injury. Fearing lest the late pronouncement of Leo XIII. Should cause many Christians to fall into the dangerous error of denying the validity of our Orders. and the efficacy of our Sacraments, I address myself to the consideration of the Bull entitled Apostolicae Curae. The contents of the Appendix are in part the various ordinals used by the Anglicans and that used in the Catholic Church before Vatican II.
