THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ary. Only a few metropolitansdhave suffragans. Another point of contrast with the Roman system is that the diaconate is not treated as a mere stepping-stone to the priesthood. Many deacons remain such all their lives and serve as curates in the parishes.
IV. Consistorial Type (Lutheran): While
divine right is claimed both in Roman Catholic and
in Orthodox Eastern theory for prominent features
of the hierarchical system, Luther re-
i. Luther's pudiated the notion of the jus divinum
Doctrine in the domain of church polity. He of the was disposed to regard polity as resting
Church, upon human election, and having its sanction in practical demands. It was contrary to his emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers to exalt the pastor over the congregation as either a necessary medium of grace or embodiment of sovereignty. Aptness to teach he rated as the great pastoral credential, and the ministration of Word and sacrament as the great pastoral function. Ordination meant for him simply a solemn public recognition of ministerial standing. On these points — the optional character of church polity and the non-sacerdotal standing of the Christian minister — Luther supplied a permanent standard to his followers (see Church, The Christian, IV., § 2; Luther, Martin, §§ 6, 14). With his stress upon the primacy of the Evangelical message in the Church Luther could easily have reconciled himself to any form of external arrangements compatible with normal opportunity for that message. He had no objection to episcopacy as such. Had a larger proportion of the bishops been friendly to the Evangelical movement, episcopacy might have had a fair chance to survive in the Lutheran domain. As it was, it maintained only a transient existence in any part of Germany. The Scandinavian countries took an exceptional course in uniting Lutheranism with the episcopal form of administration.
It was not long before Luther's somewhat idealized conception of the Church as essentially a teaching institute, governing and molding men by the power of the Word, submitted to prac-
2. The tical modification under the pressure
Prince and of circumstances. The disturbances
the Con- wrought by the Peasants' War, the
sistory. ignorance and wildness of the people, and the readiness of the nobles to make spoil of church property emphasized the need of a directing and disciplining power. The one power available for the exigency seemed to be the Evangelical prince, the secular ruler who had espoused the Reformation. So he stepped into the position of control, and theory was speedily accommodated to his actual standing by his being rated as heir, within his own territory, to the old episcopal authority. The resulting type of polity was distinctly Erastian. The government of the Church became very largely a matter of territorial sovereignty. The prince was not indeed expected to assume the spiritual office of administering the Word and the sacraments, but in the general ecclesiastical management he was accorded a preeminent function. The foremost organ of administration,
under the temporal ruler, came at an early stage to be the consistory. Composed of theologians and jurists appointed by the State this body served as a constant tribunal to pass on disputed points of administration, to supervise property and educational interests, and to render judgment in the major cases of discipline. ' In the next grade of official importance came the superintendents, who were usually pastors, selected by the secular government to exercise a species of oversight over neighboring pastors. In the settlement of the pastors the deciding voice belonged to the State and to the local patron. The prerogative of the congregation was usually limited to the right of objecting to a presented candidate. The development, on the whole, may be described as being toward an emphatic preponderance of State authority, it being understood that the consistory was very largely the instrument of the State. Such germs of presbyterial or synodal organization as were witnessed by the first generations of Lutherans were in no wise fostered and brought to maturity.
A serious and partially effective attempt to modify this consistorial polity was first made in the latter part of the nineteenth century. An incentive in this direction was derived from the wide-spread movement toward the principle of constitutional rule which was started in 1848. Enlarged prerogative on the part of the general body of citizens naturally suggested enlarged privilege on the part of the membership in the government of the Church. I The result was an extension of the rights of the local ( congregation in the management of its own affairs, ' and the granting of more or less important functions to representative bodies or synods meeting \at stated intervals. \JV. Episcopal Type (Church of England, Protestant Episcopal Church) : Among the communions which emerged from the Reformation movement the Established Church of England was specially distinguished by the extent to which it conserved the medieval polity. It retained the hierarchical constitution, only cutting off the papacy at one end of the official line and the orders below the diaconate at the other end. Also in the scheme for the parishes, the cathedral chapters, and such aids to diocesan administration as archdeacons and rural deans much of the old system was retained. It is noticeable, however, that English Churchmen did not in the earlier period claim divine right, or exclusive validity, for their polity as against that of other Protestant communions. The statements of such eminent representatives as Jewel, Hooker, and Whitgift amount to a disclaiming of that right. The wide currency which is now accorded to the theory of a necessary episcopal organization and apostolical succession is attributable in large part to Laud and other Carolinian divines, to the Nonjurors (q.v.), and to the Tractarians (see Tractarianism). The royal " supremacy " over the Church of England as originally asserted in the reign of Henry VIII. included a full complement of substantial prerogatives. In the succeeding period also, so long as the Court of High Commission subsisted, the sovereign was capable of interposing very efficiently in the management of the Church. For