SACERD OTALISM.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I sincerely hope that Canon Trevor will be kind enough to answer the note which you append to his letter in the Spectator of May 12. There are, I believe, thousands of the clergy of the Church of England who, while they repudiate the charges of " priestcraft " and " sacerdotalism" firmly hold what Canon Trevor calls "the ultra-sacerdotal theory," that, to use his own language (which I must beg leave to say, does not appear to me to be very becoming), a bishop, qua bishop, is "charged," not with "episcopacy," but with the special grace of that Holy Order, even as a "Leyden vial with electricity." In other words, they hold the doctrine of a special grace, communicable by a bishop alone, and knowing this to be the Catholic doctrine, cannot understand one who, while he asserts that he believes in the Holy Catholic Church, can think that he does well to ridicule it.—I
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