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4iS VIIL THE MODERN PERIOD (A.D. 18121910).
formularies are against it. For although the ministry, as
defined by the Augsburg Confession, is
"
the ministry of
the Word and Sacraments," that must be taken to be a
generic rather than a specific description. And just as
this description does not exclude the episcopate as a prac
tical institution for the well-being of the Church, and
particularly for the oversight of this ministry (as all
Swedish Churchmen consider it), so it does not exclude the
diaconate as a sphere of training for this ministry, and an
opportunity for exercising subordinate functions in connec
tion with it. That this was Melanchthon s opinion is, I
think, evident from the seventh article of the Apologia
Confessionis, in which he writes as follows. He is deal
ing, of course, primarily with the episcopate, but his words
cover the whole subject :
"
We have often asserted that we are exceedingly
desirous to preserve the ecclesiastical polity, and the
degrees (gradus) in the Church, even these created by
human authority. For we know that it was with good and
useful intention that ecclesiastical discipline was con
stituted by our fathers in the way which the ancient canons
describe."
This is surely one of the instances in which parts of the
Book of Concord are valuable as explanations of the
Augsburg Confession.
I am, of course, aware of the partial substitutes for the
diaconate that exist in Sweden ; yet I cannot but hope that
the sense of the practical value of the old institution, of
which we have a long and convincing experience in the
Anglican Church, may lead to a revival of what Lenreus
and Rudbeckius found useful in the seventeenth century.
The archbishop s words to Whitelocke were:
"
When one
is presented for that calling (of minister), if he is found in
learning and abilities fit for it, the bishop doth first ordain
him to be a deacon, and in that office he makes trial of his
gifts for preaching, and so continues until he be admitted
to a benefice, and upon such admission he is made a
priest" (Swedish Ambassy, Vol. i., p. 415, ed. 1772).
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