'A true apostolick Church, deriving its authority from that founded by the apostles': William White's 'Commentaries to Suited to Occasions of Ordination'

Do you think that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the canons of this Church, to the ministry of the same?

In reflecting upon the second question in the Ordering of Deacons, William White's Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination (1833) addresses the apostolic nature of the Church from which the candidate receives holy orders:

To justify the candidate in believing that he is called according to the will of Christ, he should be convinced, after due inquiry, that the Church to which he looks for ordination, is a true apostolick Church, deriving its authority from that founded by the apostles. For since they did confessedly found a communion, and since it did confessedly transmit its ministries, there seems no possible right to the name of a Christian Church at present, but in succession from the originally established body. What then is the result, but that an opinion, formed under due care, is a prerequisite of admission to the ministry?

What immediately comes to mind is that White's declaration of the essential apostolic nature of the Church - in this case, PECUSA and, therefore, the Church of England from which it derived episcopal succession - is as explicit and definitive as in another document published in 1833, the first of the Tract for the Times. This Tract insisted "I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built, OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT". By contrast, as laudable Practice has sought to demonstrate on a number of occasions, the pre-1833 declaration of the apostolic nature and descent of the ministry of the Church of England was a common, recurring theme in pre-1833 Anglicanism (see, for example, the views of Samuel Horsley, John Lonsdale, John Hume Spry, Christopher Bethell, Thomas Le Mesurier): the apostolic nature and descent of the Church of England's ministry was not in any meaningful way 'rediscovered' by the Tractarians because it had been robustly maintained by most Church of England divines pre-1833.

White's words in this extract are further evidence of this (and we should note that this work was first published as a series in 1813). White, with the vast majority of those serving in Anglican orders in 1833, would have responded to Tract No. 1's provocative insistence "Choose your side" - apostolical or not? - with the confident declaration they were and always had been "a true apostolick Church, deriving its authority from that founded by the apostles". White's affirmation is all the significant when we consider that he certainly did not identify as ' high church'.

In addition to this, White goes on to explain that the apostolic nature of a Church, in this case PECUSA, requires from the candidate for orders a recognition of ecclesiastical authority - while fallible and limited by duty not to require that which is "absolutely sinful" - as "delegated by heaven":

It is of importance to every candidate, and much more so to the Church, that he should have his principles settled on the present point; since otherwise he will be in continual danger of setting up his own opinion in contrariety to what the Church has decided or ordained. Why not, he will be apt to say, in matters resting on the will of man? Even in this he reasons wrong, since individual right may be limited by compact. But if human will be exercised under an authority delegated by heaven; and if it require nothing absolutely sinful, (for in the latter case the reasoning does not apply,) it is surely a heavy aggravation of individual caprice, that it is the resistance of an authority so high; an authority which the exigencies of the Church make necessary; which must be exercised by fallible men; but which had best not be exercised at all, if every man carries in his own breast the measure of the submission which should be paid to it.

Obedience to "what the Church has decided or ordained" is, White declares, fundamental to the receiving and exercise of holy orders. The private judgement of an ordained minister is not to be set up over and against an "authority so high". The "measure of the submission" is determined not by the ordained minister but - as stated in this question in the Ordering of Deacons - by "the canons of this Church"; that is, by that Church's lawfully exercised authority, including the rights of the episcopal office. (The same question in BCP 1662 refers to "the due order of this Realm", while the post-disestablishment Irish Ordinal has "the due order of this Church": the point is the same in each.) 

All of this is made doubly significant by the fact that White made no claim to 'high church': indeed, he rejected and critiqued the term. This, however, did not prevent him robustly setting forth the apostolic nature - "in succession" - of the ordained ministry and the ecclesiastical authority - "delegated by heaven" - which bound ordained ministers. Contrary to the impression quite deliberately created by Tract No.1, this was the understanding of pre-1833 Anglicanism: "a true apostolick Church, deriving its authority from that founded by the apostles".