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Episcopacy Episoopiue THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
is not the only form of government with Scriptural authority (if, indeed, it or any other be recommended by Scripture); but it is the one best adapted to forward the interests of Christ's kingdom among men. The best Anglican writers on this side agree that the episcopate developed out of the presbyterate, and that there are only two orders of the ministry in the New Testament,-presbyters and deacons. Dr. Lightfoot, bishop of Durham, in his scholarly and exhaustive discussion of the subject (commentary on Philippians, pp. 180-267), says, " It is clear, that, at the close of the Apostolic Age, the two lower orders of the threefold ministry were firmly and widely established; but traces of the episcopate, properly so called, are few and indistinct . . . . The episcopate was formed out of the preabyteral order by elevation; and the title, which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief of them." And again he says, " The episcopate was formed out of the presbytery." After he was made bishop he stated that his views on the episcopate had been misunderstood. Dean Stanley (Chris tian Institutions, p. 210) representing the same view, says, " According to the strict rules of the Church derived from those early times, there are but two orders, presbyters and deacons."
This view, which is also held by such men as Arnold, Afford, Jacob, and Hatch, was the view of the divines of the English Reformation. Cranmer, Jewel, Grindal, and afterward Field (" The apostles left none to succeed them," Of the Church, vol. iv., p. vii.), defended episcopacy as the most ancient and general form of government, but always acknowledged the validity of Presbyterian orders. (Cf. G. P. Fisher, in the New Englander, 1874, pp. 121-172.) Bishop Parkhurst looked upon the Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community; and Bishop Ponet would have abandoned even the term " bishop " to the Catholics, Ecclesiastics held positions in the Church of England who had received only Presbyterian ordination. Such were Whittingham, Dean of Durham, Cartwright, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Travers, provost of Trinity College, Dublin. It is doubtful whether any prelate of the English Church in Elizabeth's reign held the jure divino theory of episcopacy, though Archbishop Bancroft (d. 1605) seems to have been the first Anglican prelate to avow it. Two of the most elaborate defenders of the Low-church view in the seventeenth century were Stillingfleet and Ussher, the latter representing the episcopate as only a presidency of the presbyter over his peers; yet the Episcopal Church reordaina all ministers who have not been episcopally ordained, but accepts priests of the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches without reordination.
The orders of the Anglican Church were declared invalid by Leo XIII. in the bull APoslolicve torte of Sept. 13, 1896 (in Mirbt, Quellen, p. 406), the decision being based on certain defects in the form of ordination. Mr. Gladstone's appeal to the pope to hold the decision in abeyance was not heeded. The archbishops of Canterbury and York united in a reply (1897).
V. The Reformed Episcopal Church holds to an, episcopacy of expediency. " It adheres to episcopacy, not as of divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of church polity " (Declaration of Principles, Due. 1, 1873). Its founder and first bishop was George David Cummins (q.v.), who had been assistant bishop of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky.
VI. The Moravian Church deserves separate and special mention, for three reasons. Its episcopate was active before the Reformation on the Continent and in England began; it is in the apostolic succession; and its bishopric in America antedates those of the Episcopal (1784) and Methodist (1784) denominations by forty years, August Gottlieb Spangenberg (q.v.) having been consecrated in Germany, 1744, and exercised oversight in Pennsylvania from 1745 to 1762. The first bishops consecrated in America were the Moravians, Martin Mack, at Bethlehem, Oct. 18, 1770, and Michael Graff, at Bethlehem, June 6, 1773. The first Moraviau bishop was consecrated at Lhotka in 1467 by the regularly ordained Waldeneian bishop Stephen (cf. E. A. de Schweinitz, The Moravian Episcopate, London, 1877; see BOHEMIAN BRETHREN). The British parliament recognized the var lidity of Moravian ordination in 1749. In 1881, however, Bishop Stevens of Pennsylvania reordained a Moravian presbyter, aiming to give him "a more ample ordination." The Moravians recognize the ordination of other Christian bodies as valid, admitting presbyters at once into their ministry (Law Book of the Church, ix. 63). [The medieval Waldenses had a connexional organization with bishops or general superintendents (majores or majorales), ordained if possible by other majores; in the absence of a major, by presbyters. They claimed apostolic succession for their majores. Their authority in ordaining and in exercising discipline was much greater than that of presbyters (cf. B. Gui, Practica Inquiaitionis hereticee pravitatis, ed. C. Douais, Paris, 1888, pp. 136-137). The Moravian Anabaptists had a similar polity with a single bishop or head of the whole connection.
VII. The Lutheran Churches have for the moat part abandoned episcopacy, and where they retain the name "bishop" the authority of the official is regarded as of human bestowment. The parity of the ministry is a fundamental tenet of Lutherans. With rare exceptions (George of Polentz, bishop of Samland (q.v.), and Echard, bishop of Pomerania) the bishops on the Continent, unlike the bishops in England, held aloof from the Reformation. Luther might have had episcopal ordination for the first Lutheran preachers, but, as he distinctly said, be did not want it. He ordained with his own hands the first minister of the new order, his amanuensis, G. RSrer. He pronounced the ministry a matter of expediency, that things may be done in an orderly and decent manner. An officer with supervisory jurisdiction somewhat similar to that of bishop is called inGermany Superintendent (q.v.). The Lutheran Church in Sweden has bishops; a committee was appointed in 1874, by the convention of the Episcopal Church in the