Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

The Exigency of Truth. 11
those secondary and derivative ones of which
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I have spoken. We express our belief in
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
And when we come to examine into the nature
of that Church, we find within it three orders
of ministers holding a Divine commission.
From one of those changes which time brings
with it, the Diaconate has ceased to be a reality
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in the West; and I can well imagine anv Eastern
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branch of the Church requiring that the
Diaconate should be allowed to be a reality
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with them, as the condition on which they were
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willing
West.
to come into Communion with the
But supposing the enquirer to be no longer,
an Eastern branch of the Church but a Western
Protestant. He finds our LORD instituting a
ministry, and before the end of the New Tes-
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tament he sees this ministry comprising three
Orders Apostles, Elders,
ters. For the significance
Deacons or Minis
of these titles
he has recourse to Ecclesiastical History.
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He finds these orders everywhere throughout
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the Catholic Church from that time to this ;
sometimes with different names, but always
and these three bearing the same relation
three ;
to each other as at the first. The conclusion
is inevitable, no Body calling itself a Church
and defective in this particular can be part of
that body which is One, Catholic, Apostolic and