[Footnote A: This article was offered to the press of Cincinnati, Ohio, soon after Leo XIII promulgated his decision on the subject of Anglican orders, when the discussion of the subject was at its height, and declined by them, for reasons obvious to the Latter-day Saints. It subsequently appeared in the Deseret News of November 7th, 1896.]

A Consideration of the Question of Divine Authority.

Preliminary Statement.

In the month of June, 1896, something of a sensation was created in England in respect of an expressed desire for a closer union between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. The desire was voiced in the form of a statement by Mr. William Ewart Gladstone, communicated through the Archbishop of York. The question of unity among the Christian churches had been agitated in several quarters in that year, and the Pope had addressed a letter to the English people in fact appealing to them to return to the Church of Rome, and it is said a movement "having for its purpose the same general result, had been going on for some time among clergymen and laymen who belonged to one section of the Anglican church." Lord Halifax, who was the chairman of a great Anglican organization, under the title of the English Church Union, had been prominent in this movement, and had several interviews with the Pope and his counselors, seeking "to ascertain how far Rome on the one hand and the English church on the other were willing to advance toward a basis of union. One of the questions which came up for discussion was that of the validity of Anglican orders; that is, whether Rome would or could recognize the right of an Anglican clergyman to seek, as such, admission to the clerical order in the Roman church, if any change of opinion should lead him that way." And thus the question of the validity of Anglican orders became a subject of formal investigation by the authorities at the Vatican.

Mr. Gladstone's position upon the subject is best stated by himself:

"The one controversy which, according to my deep conviction, overshadows and, in the last resort, absorbs all others, is the controversy between Faith and Unbelief. . . . . . This historical transmission of the truth by a visible church with an ordained constitution is a matter of profound importance, according to the belief and practice of fully three-fourths of Christendom. In these three-fourths I include the Anglican churches, which are probably required in order to make them up. It is surely better for the Roman and also the Oriental [Greek] church to find the churches of the Anglican succession standing side by side with them in the assertion of what they deem an important Christian principle than to be obliged to regard them as mere pretenders in this belief and pro tanto reduce the cloud of witnesses willing and desirous to testify on behalf of the principle. . . . I may add that my political life has brought me much into contact with those independent religious communities which supply an important religious factor in the religious life of Great Britain, and which, speaking generally, while they decline to own the authority, either of the Roman or the National Church, yet still allow to what they know as the established religion no inconsiderable hold upon their sympathies. In conclusion, it is not for me to say what will be the upshot of the proceedings now in progress at Rome. But be their issue what it may, there is, in my view, no room for doubt as to the attitude which has been taken by the actual head of the Roman Catholic church in regard to them. It seems to me an attitude in the largest sense paternal, and while it will probably stand among the latest recollections of my lifetime, it will ever be cherished with cordial sentiments of reverence, of gratitude, and of high appreciation." (Story of Gladstone's Life, (McCarthy) pp. 414-416.)

This attitude of the great English Statesman brought upon his head a storm of indignation, not to say anathema from nonconforming churches, and in reply to one of those ministers, he said:

"The Church of Rome recognizes as valid (when regularly performed) baptism conferred in your communion and ours. By this acknowledgment I think that Christianity is strengthened in face of non-Christians. For baptism read orders (for the purpose of the argument), and the same proposition applies, though unhappily in this case only to us, not to you. No harm that I can see is done to any one else. The settlement of this matter is a thing of the likelihood of which I cannot even form an opinion. But I honor the Pope in the matter, as it is my duty to honor every man who acts as best he can with the spirit of courage, truth and love." (The Life of Gladstone, page 419).

The first response from Rome to Mr. Gladstone's letter contained nothing decisive and final upon the subject of the Anglican orders, though his holiness made it clear that on the part of Rome there could be no compromise of religion or principles, and later in the year he issued the decision which is the subject of the following paper, in which his holiness held that Anglican orders were "absolutely invalid." The consequences of which decision are discussed in the paper following.

Pope Leo's Decision on Anglican Orders.

The decision of Pope Leo XIII in respect to the invalidity of Anglican Orders, appears to be creating not only a very great amount of discussion through the columns of the religious press but also considerable ill-feeling. The "Religious Telescope" for example, published at Dayton, Ohio, in its issue of the 14th of October, 1896, under the caption "Absolutely Invalid," says:

"This is the decision of Pope Leo XIII respecting all ordinations under the Anglican rule. After a long study of the subject he has confirmed the decision of his predecessors in regard to this matter. His decision sets aside all ordinations outside of the Roman Catholic Church as absolutely invalid.

"So there we have it: all ministers of the Lutheran, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, in short, all Protestant churches—are posing under false ordination vows! So his holiness declares! And is he not infallible? Is it not impossible for him to make a mistake? Is he not the successor of St. Peter—Christ's vicegerent on earth? Does he not hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Does not that aged, decrepit old man, Leo XIII, now in his dotage, have the power to bind and to loose—to admit into or shut out from heaven whomsoever he will? Does any Protestant minister or layman doubt this? Perish the thought! How will this august decision handed down from the Vatican affect the ministry of the Protestant churches? In our judgment only about as sensibly as a puff of the Pope's breath would have affected the St. Louis cyclone when in the height of its fury.

"They will go right on preaching the unsearchable riches of the gospel of Christ in demonstration of the spirit and power of the Lord Jesus, as heretofore, leaving the pope and his liberty-destroying church polity and superstitions to work out their own destruction by demonstrating their disastrous effects on human progress as they have done and are still doing in Mexico, Spain, Central and South America, and in every Roman Catholic dominated country in the world."

This is scarcely the spirit in which one would expect to see a subject of so grave importance treated. Sarcasm and ridicule doubtless have their place even in polemics, but it is only as they may be incidentally used that they can be of force. One could no more think of succeeding in an argument on a serious question by using them exclusively, than he would think of making a hearty meal on condiments alone.

That the subject of the Apostolic letter of Leo XIII is a serious one, no one will deny. That it calls for earnest thought and not sarcasm and ridicule, admits of no doubt. It involves the question of divine authority in the Protestant ministry and churches; and, for that matter, the divine authority of the church of Rome itself. For, if the alleged successor of St. Peter, by a method of reasoning satisfactory to himself and his council, arrives at what the Protestants of this generation will regard as a startling conclusion, viz., that their ministry and churches are without divine authority, the Protestants will reply in kind. They will revive the charges brought against the church of Rome during the revolt from the pope's authority in that wonderful sixteenth century revolution miscalled the "Reformation." They will proclaim him the Anti-Christ of New Testament scripture; charge upon the church of Rome complete apostasy from primitive Christianity; and accuse all those continuing in communion with her as being idolaters and pagans. Such a rejoinder on the part of the Protestants is inevitable, since it is only on the ground that the church of Rome was become a corrupt church, in complete apostasy and dispossessed of divine authority, that the so-called "Reformation" of the sixteenth century, or the existence of Protestant churches today can be justified.

Why is the unity of the Christian churches broken? Why does there exist a Roman Catholic church and numerous Protestant churches? Because the Protestants of the sixteenth century believed that the church of Rome was in a state of apostasy from true Christianity, and hence they came out from her dominion; revolted against and rejected her authority, while the church of Rome, on her part, regarded the Protestants of the same century as heretics, as renegade children, apostates. That there has been no change in the attitude of the respective parties to this great controversy since one first denounced the other as "an heretic," and the other replied with the charge of "anti-Christ," is emphasized by this latest utterance of the bishop of Rome, in which he declares that "ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been and are absolutely null and utterly void."

This question of possessing divine authority goes right down to the foundations of Christianity. No one will attempt to say that a man has a right to act in the name of Jesus Christ without authority from him to do so. If it required direct authority from God to handle the sacred utensils of God's sanctuary in the wilderness, and to care for the Ark of the Covenant, and for touching these things without authority, one was smitten with death (see Numbers chapter iv, and Samuel vi: 3); if it required divine authority to burn incense before the altar in the temple of God at Jerusalem, and for usurping the priest's office and attempting without divine authority to burn incense one was cursed of God with leprosy, even though a king (II Chronicles xxvi); if it required divine authority to cast out devils, and certain ones in attempting to cast them out without having authority to so command them, were leaped upon by the evil spirits and prevailed against (Acts xix); if, I say, it required divine authority to do these several things, how reasonable it is to conclude that it will more abundantly require divine appointment, or delegated power from God to make proclamation of the gospel and administer its ordinances. As the sacraments of the Christian religion are of infinitely more importance than the handling of sacred utensils, touching the Ark of the Covenant, burning incense or casting out devils, so, too, it is to be expected that God will be all the more careful to entrust their administration only to those having a divine commission.

To say, as the bishop of Rome does say, that the "ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been and are absolutely null and utterly void," is, of course, to deny to the English clergy divine authority. To deny them divine authority by saying that their orders are and have been null and void, is to say that their administration of the Christian sacraments through all the years that have elapsed since the church in England revolted against the authority of the pope, have been useless. And if Rome denies the validity of the church of England orders, it may be taken for granted that she will deny the validity of the orders of all other churches separated from her; for of all the churches separated from the Roman See the church of England has most nearly conformed to, or what would be more accurate to say, departed the least from the ritual of the old church. In plain terms the church of Rome holds all churches that have separated from her, and all churches that have sprung into existence from the churches so separated, as being without authority from God, and regards their ministry as a disorderly crowd.

I know there are a class of Protestant churchmen, who seek to satisfy themselves on this question of divine authority by claiming that it has come down to them on lines independent of the church of Rome. But, unfortunately for this contention the church of England herself and the other Protestants cut off not only the source of divine authority that might be claimed as coming from the church of Rome, but also every other source from which that authority could spring. In her great homily on the "Perils of Idolatry" the church of England says: "Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages and sects and degrees have been drowned in abominable idolatry most detested by God and damnable to man, for eight hundred years and more" (Perils of Idolatry, page 3). By making this charge against all Christendom one is unable to see how the Church of England can make any claim whatsoever of divine authority; for, if all Christendom was plunged into this awful abyss of apostasy for eight hundred years and more, no divine authority survived that period.

Nor is the Church of England the only Protestant authority which makes this charge of universal apostasy from primitive Christianity. John Wesley, in making an explanation of the cessation of scriptural gifts among Christians, says:

"It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit [speaking of I Corinthians xii] were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian; and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they (the spiritual gifts) almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not (as has been supposed) because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake, not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christians. The real cause of it was that the love of many, almost all, Christians so-called was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of man when he came to examine his church, could hardly find faith upon earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian church—because the Christians were turned heathens again and only had a dead form left" (Wesley's Works, Vol. vii, sermon 89, pp. 26, 27).

If the Christians were turned heathen again, and only had a dead, form of religion left, like the other heathens, it will be extremely difficult for the followers of Mr. Wesley, and those who have received whatsoever of authority they possess from him, to point out just where their divine authority came from since their great leader proclaims this entire corruption of the Christian church. If on the one hand the Catholic church denies to Protestant Christendom the possession of divine authority, and if, on the other hand, Protestants declare the universal corruption and apostasy of mediaeval Christianity in order to justify the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, and their own existence as so-called reformed churches, then there is no possible channel through which they can claim that divine authority to administer the ordinances of the gospel has come down to them; unless they shall claim that the heavens have again been opened and a new dispensation of the gospel, including as it would, divine authority, has been committed to them. Not one of all the Protestant sects claims that such a new revelation has been given, and as every other source from which divine authority could come is cut off by them, there is left but one conclusion to come to and that is that they are without divine authority, and hence their administrations of the Christian sacraments are vain.

The position of the Catholic church is more logically consistent than that of Protestants; for she insists that there has been an unbroken line of authority and divine mission through the succession of her bishops, and more especially through the succession of the bishops of Rome from St. Peter to Leo XIII. But the church of Rome is asking us to believe too much when she demands that we shall believe that God's authority has come down to modern times through the corrupted line of the Catholic priesthood. One has only to become acquainted with the melancholy history of the Roman popes to be convinced of the impossibility of God acknowledging them as the line down which he has transmitted the power to speak and act in his name. One need only contrast the spirit of humility which characterized the Apostles and Elders of the Church of Christ with the worldly pride, ambition and wickedness of the popes of Rome, to see how far the latter have departed from the standard of character established by the lives of the former, and one need only contrast the beautiful simplicity of the principles and ordinances of the early Christian church, as described in the New Testament, with the canon-law and the elaborate ceremonial of the Catholic church to see how wide a departure has been made from the religion given to the world by the great peasant teacher of Judea.

The fact is, this controversy precipitated on the religious world by the decision of Pope Leo XIII, in respect to Anglican Orders, brings us face to face with the great truth prophesied of in holy scripture, to-wit: The universal apostasy from the Christian religion. Men have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances and broken the covenant of the gospel of Christ (Isaiah xiv: 4-6). Of themselves men have arisen speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them (Acts xx: 28-30). The time came when men would no longer endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts heaped teachers to themselves having itching ears, and those teachers have turned their ears away from the truth unto fables (II Timothy iv). False teachers arose among the people who privily brought in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and many have followed their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth has been evil spoken of (II Peter ii). The great falling away predicted by the Apostle of the Gentiles which was to precede the glorious coming of the Son of God in the clouds of heaven with power and glory, has come to pass. That man of sin, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God, (II Thess. ii) has had and is having his rule and reign in the earth, and men have been made to bow down to him and may continue to be compelled to bow down to him until, as predicted in holy writ, the Lord shall destroy him with the brightness of his coming. The New Testament scriptures are replete with predictions of this great apostasy from the Christian religion, and one may see in the facts of ecclesiastical history, that the whole Christian world, "laity and clergy," to use again the language of the Church of England, "learned and unlearned, all ages and sects and degrees have been drowned in abominable idolatry, most detested by God and damnable to man." The actual changes, also, wrought in the Christian religion by the additions to and corruption of its ordinances make it clear that men have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances and broken the everlasting covenant of the religion of Jesus Christ.

Under these circumstances the only way that divine authority can be restored to the earth is by God re-opening the heavens and giving a new dispensation of the gospel to the children of men, including as it would divine authority to preach its doctrines and administer its ordinances. Great and urgent as the necessity for such a new dispensation of the gospel is, men need not look to either the Catholic church or the Protestant sects for such a proclamation. The former, in addition to claiming that there has been an unbroken line of divine authority through its priesthood, rejects the idea of revelation subsequent to the alleged closing of the New Testament canon of scripture. The latter, though declaring the apostate condition of mediaeval Christendom, not only make no claim that the gospel of Jesus Christ, including divine authority, was restored by revelation to the leaders of the sixteenth century "Reformation," but also spurn the idea that there has been or can be any revelation subsequent to what they term the closing of the New Testament canon of scripture.

Out of all the religious teachers of modern times there is but one who has had the boldness to claim the restoration of divine authority and a dispensation of the gospel by means of a new revelation from God; and that is the first Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith. He claimed to have received revelation from God; the visitation of angels, who conferred upon him a holy Priesthood, a divine commission, by virtue of which he was appointed to preach the Gospel and re-establish the Church of Jesus Christ on earth. If this man's pretensions to such divine appointment are scoffed at, it is no more than was accorded the pretensions of Apostles and Prophets of God in former dispensations. If he is derided for his humble origin, and the lowly station from which he was called to the work of God, so, too, were the ancient Apostles and Prophets, and even the Son of God himself. If this message has been very generally rejected and he himself was despised of men, persecuted, hated, and at last slain for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, what is all this but the same treatment that has been accorded to the accredited servants of God in nearly all ages of the world? If his followers have suffered ridicule, oppression and persecution, what is this but the same fate that has overtaken the Saints of God in nearly all ages of the world? All this will not affect the truth or untruth of his statements any more than like treatment affected the truth or untruth of the claims of other inspired servants of God. The truth is that the claims of Joseph Smith, in view of the great Christian controversy that has been going on for centuries, and just now emphasized by the recent decision of Pope Leo XIII, respecting Anglican Orders, and the discussion it has provoked, are more consistent than the claims of any of the Protestant reformers. For the great apostate condition of Christendom in mediaeval times being a reality, the only way there could be a restoration of that which was lost by that apostasy would be by a new dispensation of the gospel being committed to men by means of a new revelation; and herein is the strength of the position of Joseph Smith, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which, under God's direction he organized.