"The primitive and apostolical constitution of our Church": the Hookerian moderation of Old High teaching on episcopal succession

In Bethell's 1828 Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Gloucester, there is a strong Hookerian emphasis to its understanding of apostolic and episcopal order.  This is all the more noticeable as the Charge was given in the context of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, amidst High Church fears of 'national apostasy'.  It is also illustrates the source of the pronounced differences between the High Church tradition and the Tractarians during the Jerusalem Bishopric controversy.  As Nockles notes:

In traditional High Church ecclesiology, the abandonment of episcopal government by most of the foreign reformed churches in the sixteenth century was deemed highly regrettable, but unavoidable in the circumstances ... by formulating such an accommodation to their theory, High Churchmen were able to affirm their solidarity with the rest of the Reformation world.

Thus, Nockles continues, "in the best traditions of Laudianism", the High Church tradition supported the Jerusalem Bishopric proposal, while "Tractarian antipathy" was rooted in both a hostility to Protestantism and exalted claims for episcopacy (e.g. "Lutherans were heretical because they lacked bishops") which were quite foreign to the tradition.  In Bethell's Charge, then, we see the moderation and caution of the Old HIgh Church tradition, in particular - as Nockles states - the refusal to tie "the actual derivation of sacramental grace and mystical unity with Christ to the necessity" of episcopal succession.

In thus maintaining, as we are bound to do, the claims of our Established Church within its own limits, we do not assume to ourselves any title to infallibility, nor any right to lord it over the consciences of our brethren. We neither pass sentence upon the discipline and polity of other Churches, [a footnote at this point indicates that this has reference to "Reformed Churches"] nor exclude those who separate themselves from our Communion from the Body of Christ, and the blessings of the Christian Covenant. We neither assert, that the primitive and apostolical Constitution of our Church is as clearly deducible from Scripture as the leading doctrines of the Gospel, or the providence and moral government of God; nor hold that the duty of communion with it stands upon the same footing as the necessity of believing those doctrines, or of obeying the moral law. What we maintain is, that its government accords with the Scriptural views of this subject, as they are elucidated and made out by the best evidence of which the question is capable - evidence of the same kind as that by which we are governed in our most momentous concerns, and as that by which we prove the authenticity of Scripture itself - terminating, not in that kind of assurance which bars all enquiry, and resolves itself directly into the authority of God, but in reasonable conviction and moral certainty.

Whilst, therefore, we are persuaded that our own Church has acted wisely in adhering to a more primitive and perfect system of government, we entertain a high respect for those Reformed Churches which have adopted, for various reasons, other forms of Ecclesiastical Polity.