direction.  Jesus Christ committed His message, not to writing, but to a ‘little flock’ of devoted adherents.  He instituted the two great sacraments (Bishop Gore will admit no uncertainty on this point) to be a token of membership and a bond of brotherhood.  He instituted a civitas Dei which was to be wide enough to embrace all, but which makes for itself an exclusive claim.  The ‘heaven’ of the first century was a city, a new Jerusalem; Christians are spoken of by St. Paul as citizens of a heavenly commonwealth.  The distinction between the universal invisible Church and particular visible Churches is ‘utterly unscriptural,’ and was overthrown long ago by William Law in his controversy with Hoadly.

As for the ‘Apostolical Succession,’ Dr. Gore thinks that its principle is more important than the form in which it is embodied.  The succession would not be broken if all the presbyters in the Church governed as a college of bishops; and if something of this kind actually happened for a time in the early Church no argument against the Apostolical Succession can be based thereon.[28] The principle is that no ministry is valid which is assumed, which a man takes upon himself, or which is delegated to him from below.  That this theory is Sacerdotalism in a sense may be admitted.  But it does not imply a vicarious priesthood, only a representative one.  It does not deny the priesthood which belongs to the Church as a whole.  The true sacerdotalism means that Christianity is the life of an organised society, in which a graduated body of ordained ministers is made the instrument of unity.  It is no doubt true that in such a Church unspiritual men are made to mediate spiritual gifts, but happily we may distinguish character and office.  Nor must we be deterred from asserting our convictions by the indignant protests which we are sure to hear, that we are ‘unchurching’ the non-episcopal bodies,[29] We do not assert that God is tied to His covenant, but only that we are so.

Dr. Gore has no difficulty in proving that the sacerdotal theory of the Christian ministry took shape at an early date, and has been consistently maintained in the Catholic Church from ancient times to our own day.  It is much more difficult to trace it back to the Apostolic age, even if, with Dr. Gore, we accept as certain the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, which is still sub judice.  The ‘Didache’ is a stumbling-block to those who wish to find Catholic practice in the century after our Lord’s death; but that document is dismissed as composed by a Jewish Christian for a Jewish Christian community.  After the second century, the apologists for the priesthood are in smooth waters.