'The Church is named apostolical not because of personal succession of bishops': Francis White, Laud, and the historic succession
The trajectory of White post-1623 career in the Church of England - Jacobean and Caroline - is mentioned in order to emphasise that his role in the disputation was clearly highly regarded. It is this which makes his handling of one issue in the debates particularly significant. Regarding the apostolicity of the Church, Fisher had stated:
The Church is Apostolicall, and that apparantly descending from the Apostolicall Sea, by succession of Bishops ...
White's response explicitly denied that historic episcopal succession defined apostolicity:
The true visible Church is named Apostolicall, not because of locall and personall succession of Bishops (onely or principally) but because it retaineth the Faith and Doctrine of the holy Apostles ... Tertullian affirmeth, That Churches which are able to produce none of the Apostles, or other Apostolicall men for their first planters, are notwithstanding Apostolicall, for consent of Faith, and consanguinitie of Doctrine ... But personall or locall succession onely, and in it selfe, maketh not the Church Apostolicall, because hirelings and wolues may lineally succeed lawfull and orthodoxe Pastours.
Thus, without apostolic faith, historic episcopal succession did not function as an "essential mark" of the Church:
If therefore externall succession prooueth not a true Church, except right Faith bee concurring; and if (as Bellarmine teacheth) it rather serueth to prooue there is not the true Church where it wanteth, than to argue a true Church where it is: then the same is not proper and conuertible, and consequently it is no essentiall marke, because to bee proper and conuertible, are of the being of notes, according to the Cardinals owne description.
White goes on to emphasise that this understanding does not detract from the good of historic episcopal succession. Where there is apostolic faith, historic succession can be a corroborating sign of apostolicity. Its absence, however, does not entail the absence of apostolicity:
It is likewise remarkeable, that the ancient Fathers doe not onely or principally vnderstand personall succession, when they mention succession in their writings: because they argue affirmatiuely from succession, and not negatiuely onely. Therefore Romists in this disputation, shall doe well to begin with the questions which concerne Doctrine, and prooue that they haue succession of Doctrine, in all those Articles wherein they oppose other Churches, before they mention locall and personall succession: but the manner of these men is to obserue a contrarie proceeding, and from the latter to conclude the former, which is against good reason, and against the Custome and manner of the ancient Fathers.
Perhaps what is most significant about White's understanding of the historic episcopal succession is how it is reflected elsewhere. Most strikingly, it was also the view of another Church of England divine who participated in the latter part of the disputation with Fisher. The divine in question was none other than William Laud, then Bishop of St Davids:
for Succession in the general I shall say this. 'Tis a great happiness where it may be had Visible and Continued, and a great Conquest over the Mutability of this present world. But I do not finde any one of the Ancient Fathers that makes Local, Personal, Visible, and Continued Succession, a Necessary Signe or Mark of the true Church in any one place. And where Vincentius Lirinensis calls for Antiquity, Universality, and Consent, as great Notes of Truth, he hath not one word of Succession ... And once more, before I leave this Point. Most evident it is, That the Succession which the Fathers meant, is not tyed to Place or Person, but 'tis tyed to the Verity of Doctrine.
Laud, therefore, explicitly repeated White's understanding.
We can also, I think, see it in Cosin's sermon at White's consecration. In the sermon, Cosin refers to the deceit of the Nag's Head Fable:
But there let them stand and devise such mischievous fables of a Church which deserves them not; which ever held firm (and we are able to make it good) in a continued line of succession from former known bishops, and so from this very mission of the Apostles.
This, to use White's words, is to "argue affirmatively from succession". Or, as Laud put it, "Tis a great happiness where it may be had Visible and Continued". In other words, it is fitting to rejoice in the Church of England's historic episcopal succession - but this is not to make negative comment on those Reformed Churches without the historic succession. Cosin, we should note, was consistent on this matter.
Likewise, the same understanding is evident in White's 1636 Treatise of the Sabbath. In the dedication to Laud, he refers to the episcopate as descended from the Apostles:
our answer is, that the holy Apostles themselves ordained Bishops in all eminent Christian Churches, to wit, Timothy at Ephesus: Titus in Creta: Evodius at Antioch: Polycarp at Smyrna ... And that Bishops ordained by the Apostles, were not titular and nominall onely, but such as had power of jurisdiction, and power of ordination, is witnessed by Ignatius, Tertullian, Cyprian, and by the whole Catholike Church.
White was here arguing against those agitating to overthrow episcopacy in the Church of England:
Concerning Bishops, and their authority, these men affirme, that the same is not ordained in the Word, But condemned by Christ.
Again, then, the historic episcopal succession from the Apostles was invoked not against non-episcopal Reformed churches, but to defend the Church of England's order.
I am, of course, refusing - on the basis of my recent tirade against the term - to label this understanding 'Laudian'. What is the case, however, is that White, Cosin, and (of course) Laud were all identified with, defended, and implemented the ecclesiastical policies of the Personal Rule. It is this which makes the view of historic succession taken by White in the Fisher disputation, and then repeated by Laud, significant. I will address in a subsequent post how it reflected broader Episcopalian Conformist - and Hookerian - discourse. In the mean time, it is a reminder to contemporary Anglicans that the historic episcopal succession is indeed a gift in our ecclesiastical polity, but it is not a bat to attack others. It is not, as White put it, an "essential mark" of catholicity and apostolicity.
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