All you need is an endowment for robes and incense. |
Not every Roman Catholic parish is an example of high church worship. |
Amidst all these varying and opposing lists, this contradiction and confusion worse confounded, how utterly baseless must be those pretensions, whether made by the papists of Rome, or the semi-papists of Oxford, which are founded upon a supposed ascertained, and unbroken descent from the apostles?
The arguments to sustain them are lighter than air. Hence we are not surprised to hear that bright luminary of the British establishment, Archbishop Whately, declare his solemn conviction, that “There is not a minister in all Christendom, who is able to trace up, with any approach to certainty, his own spiritual pedigree. The ultimate consequence must be,” remarks the same excellent prelate, “that anyone who sincerely believes that his claim to the benefits of the gospel covenant depends on his own minister’s claim to the supposed sacramental virtue of true ordination, and this again on apostolical succession, must be involved, in proportion as he reads, and inquires, and reflects, and reasons on the subject, in the most distressing doubt and perplexity.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the advocates of this theory studiously disparage reasoning, deprecate all exercise of the mind in reflection, decry appeals to evidence, and lament that even the power of reading should be imparted to the people. It is not without cause that they dread and lament ‘an age of too much light,’ and wish to involve religion in a ‘solemn and awful gloom.’ It is not without cause that, having removed the Christian’s confidence from a rock, to base it on sand, they forbid all prying curiosity to examine their foundation.”
(Whately on the Kingdom of Christ, Essay ii. § 30.)
***
GJ - Lord Jim Heiser does not have the Apostolic Succession. His minions are copies of him, just as he copied Bishop DeJaynes in the office of fakery.
Doubtless it has bothered the faux-bishop Heiser that I was ordained by an Augustana Synod pastor - and later bishop - who was ordained by a Swedish prelate. The Augustana Synod was high church and enjoyed a continuing relationship with the Church of Sweden. Therefore, they are part of the Apostolic Succession.
Members kid me about the prohibitive cost of a fish-hat and the massive price-tags of Almy costumes.
The true apostolic succession rests on faithfulness to the Word of God, which the ELDONUTs continue to reject. They were fanatical in favor of Objective Justification, as Heiser was. Now they accept his imitation of papal infallibility: he is the ultimate authority. False doctrine never improves itself and usually scrapes the bottom of the dogma pile soon enough.