A STUDY By ALLEN MACY DULLES, D. D. PREFACE THIS book is but an argument. It makes no pretense to furnish information concerning The Church, which may be found in such admirable works as those of Hatch and Hort and T. M. Lindsay, representing the evangelic notion of The Church; or the more recent works of Darwell Stone and Durell, representing the Anglo-Catholic opinion. The substance of the book was given as lectures to the students of the Auburn Theological Seminary and it is published to meet in some measure the need of any who may wish to see some of the facts concerning The Church arranged so as to be better able to answer sophistical questions such as, "who has authority to give sacred bread" (A. J. Mason); and the constantly reiterated statement that in order to have authority" from above" a minister must be in supposed apostolic succession. It is a criticism of the catholic position of which Gore and Moberly have been such ardent defenders, that The Church has been from the beginning a society with a divinely appointed succession of those who are in "holy orders." The author feels that the churches are in danger today of returning to an ecclesiasticism which has, in the past, limited Christian liberty and corrupted Christian service. |