NEW DIGITAL BOOKS ADDED TO OUR LIBRARY

The following are Digital Books newly added to our library.

WILLIAM GEORGE WARD AND THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL BY WILFRED WARD 1893

CATHEDRAL BASIC READER II By John A, O'Brien 1931 240pp (For children)

AMERICAN HEALTH SERIES, THE 1943 By California State Series 232pp (For children)

THE UNIVERSAL BIBLE DICTIONARY PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF KOREA UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF THE REV. W. D/ REYNOLDS 1936 950pp [3216] (Korean language)

TEACHING OF THE CHURCH FATHERS 1966 Edited by John R. Willis 538pp

BASIC WRITINGS OF SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS 2 VOL. By Anton C. Pegis 1945 2344pp

We now have added 171 books in the Digital Book Library. Our target is 400 God willing. A list of all books available by e-mail. or s/ Francis

Apostolic Succession

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION (Anglican)

1. Definition.
"The doctrine of Apostolical Succession means that according to the institution of the institution of Christ, a ministry ordained in due form by (Episcopal) succession from the Apostles and so from our Lord Himself is an integral part of that visible Church of Christ upon earth to which Christian men are to be joined. It implies. further that the ministry so ordained is not a merely external office of convenience and of outward government, but involves also the transmission of special gifts of grace, in order to the carrying on in the Chhurch of the supernatural work of Christ by His Spirit" (Haddan. AS. in the Ch. of Eng., p. 1). The above represents the older Tractarian view; a more modern statement is found in Gore, The Ministry of the Christian Church, p. 70: "It was thus intended that there should be in every Church in each generation an authoritative stewardship of the grace and truth which came by JESUS CHRIST, and a recognised power to transmit it, derived from above by apostolic descent. The men who from time to time were to hold the various offices included in the Ministry and the transmitting power necessary for its continuance might, indeed, fitly be elected by them to whom they were to minister. In this way the Ministry would express the representative principle. But their authority to minister in whatever capacity, their qualifying consecration. was to come from above in such sense that no ministerial act could be regarded as valid—that is, as having the security of the divine warrant about it—unless it was performed under the shelter of a commission, received by the transmission of the original pastoral authority which had been delegated by Christ Himself to His Apostles." And he goes on further to define his meaning (p. 72): "It is a matter of very great importance . . . to exalt the principle of the Apostolic Succession above the question of the exact form of the ministry. . . " And again (p. 73): No one of whatever part of the Church, can maintain that the existence of what may be called, for lack of a distinctive term, monepiscopacy is essential to the continuity [38b] of the Church." It will thus be seen that the later statement lays stress on the idea of succession only, the older statement emphasises also the form of the ministry. The doctrine as thus stated implies certain historical facts and a dogmatic position based upon these facts. It will be convenient therefore to treat it under two headings: (1) the historical basis of AS., (2) the doctrinal significance.

1. THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.

2. The Rule of Episcopal Consecrations
By the 4th canon of Nicaea it is laid down that no fewer than three Bishops shall take part in the consecration of a Bishop, and since then this has been the rule of the Church.

So pelliccia, Eccles. Polity I. ii. 9:3 (Eng. Trans., 1883, p. 80): According to the statutes of ancient Councils, the consecration of a Bishop ought to be conducted by the Metropolitan, or, if he is unable to take the service himself, he must issue his mandate of consecration to all the Bishops of the Province; of these (all if possible, but if not) three at least must be present at the consecrations, according to the most ancient rule of Church discipline; and it was also the rule in some places to summon the Bishops of the neighbouring Province. The reason of this was, that, if there were not so many as three Bishops belonging to the same Province, three of the neighbouring Province were to be called in to consecrate," (See also Corpus Juris Cammici, Decret. 1 65.)

The original intention of this rule was probably to secure the presence of adequate witnesses representing the whole Church, but its effect has been to give almost complete security to the fact of succession. It has been the generally received opinion (although some scholastic divines and controversialists have doubted it) that each of the Bishops joining in the service is a consecrator, and therefore joins in giving the succession; the result is that the preservation of the succession is guarded with almost mathematical precision. There is a well-known attack on the doctrine of AS. by Macaulay in his Essay on Gladstone on Ch. and State (extending, apparently, an argument of Chillingworth's) in which he maintains that the chances against the succession having been maintained are overwhelming. He points out the danger of some consecrating bishop having received no valid baptism, and therefore no Orders or the possibility of the chain being broken by the presence of an impostor. Considering the carelessness with which Sacraments have been administered in many periods of Church History, such a contingency is not improbable. But that would not affect the continuity of succession, for the chances against any improperly consecrated bishop being associated with two others would be very remote, and the chances against the bishop thus consecrated who would have no valid orders being associated with two others without valid Orders would be so great as to be almost inconceivable. (See Gore, op. cit., pp. 107-9; Gladstone, Ch. Principles, pp. 235, 236: and a paper by Father Puller, SSJE, in The English Ch. Review I 11.) The criticism [39a] implies a purely mechanical view of succession which is probably seldom held but even on that basis it is quite valueless. It may be safely said that there is no reasonable doubt as to the historical character of the succession from the 4th cent. onwards.
[The next posting will be The Ante-Nicene Period.] [The SOURCE of the above is from The Prayer Book Dictionary. ]

Heresy, Heretics

For my Sunday Starbucks friends who were debating, who in the church (or outside the church) were ‘heretics'. The source here is a quote from my Anglican Prayer Book Dictionary.

HERESY, HERETIC.
These words are not of common occurrence in the Prayer Book, but their use may be illustrated from the suffrage in the Litany which asks for deliverance "from all false doctrine, heresy; and schism," and from the 3rd Collect for Good Friday, which prays for mercy on "all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics." In other passages there is a reference to the subject without any use of the word itself, e.g., in the question put to bishops and priests as to their readiness "to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word."

["Heresy, in law, is only that which has, before 1559, been adjudged so to be by the authority of the canonical scriptures, or by any of the first four General Councils, or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared" heresy by the express words of the canonical scriptures, or which, since 1559. may have been, or may be, determined to be heresy by Parliament with the assent of the clergy in Conv." Halsbury's Laws of Eng., 1910, 11 653, thus summarises the still valid definition in I Eliz. c. I. s. 20, and adds in n., "where a clerk is accused of heresy, the arts. of charge must distinctly state the obnoxious opinions and the exact terms in which he has uttered or published them."—G. H.]

The words "heresy" and "heretic" came into the English language from the Latin haeresis, haereticus. The former word denotes (1) choice, selection, (2) the tenets of a school or sect, or the sect itself; hence it was applied to the self-willed adoption by individual Christians of doctrines or principles divergent from those of the Church: the "heretic" is the man who adopts such opinions. Both words are found, the latter only once, in the NT (I Cor. 11:19, Gal. 5:20; Titus 3:10), but in the NT the meaning is rather factiousness than doctrinal error.

Yet the dangers to which the Church was to be exposed from Heretic Were already felt in the Apostolic age and are clearly pointed out in some of the later books of the NT. e.g., Col., Pastoral epistles, the epistles of Saint John, 2, Peter, Jude, and Rev. (see esp. Col 2:8; I Tim. 4: 1-8, 6:3, 20; 2 Tim. 2:17; I John 2:22; 2 John, v.7; Rev. 2:6, 14). Some of these Heresy were with regard to the Incarnation, amounting to a denial that JESUS CHRIST had come in the flesh (2 John, v.7); others involved a denial of future Resurrection (2 Tim. 2:18), or were connected with a perverted asceticism (1 Tim. 4:1-5). Against these and similar errors the Apostolic writings contain frequent and emphatic warnings, and in one passage (Titus 3:10) Saint Paul enjoins absolute avoidance of the "heretic" who remains deaf to expostulation.

The NT, therefore, contains plain traces of the first beginnings of the heresies—derived from various sources, such as Judaism, Oriental religions, Greek philosophy—which vexed the Church (esp. in the East) in the first centuries of her life in such forms as Docetism, Gnosticism and Manicheism. It is outside the limits of this article to describe the growth of these heresies, or of the later heresies of the 4th and 5th cents. with regard to the Person of Christ or the God-head of the Holy Spirit.

The Church was, from the first, alive to the danger, and a long succession of writers (such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Epiphanius and Augustine) devoted themselves to controverting heresy. When Provincial or General Councils became possible, conciliar action was resorted to, as in the notable instance of Arianism. The recognition of Christianity by the State soon led to the adoption of coercive methods of dealing with heretics and schismatics, and Saint Augustine in his later writings justified and advocated this course, which was, unhappily, adopted by the Church, and carried into effect for many centuries. (See also CHURCH, SCHISM. For full accounts of earlier heresies, see arts. in DCB (Biography); and for heresies in all periods. J. H. Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, Heresies. etc., 1874.) -K2
WALTER HOBHOUSE.

[NOTE:] Another subject they requested was on marriage. I'm sure they wont be pleased to see what the Church has to say on this subject. /Francis

A Sermon by Bishop Paul Lee

Sermon given at the Consecration of the Reverend Paul Keun Sang Kim as the Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Seoul, Anglican Church of Korea on 22 May 2998 at SS. Mary and Nicholas Cathedral.

By The Rt. Rev. Lee, Chun Hwan
The 1st Bishop of The Seoul Diocese

Be faithful unto death (Revelations 2:8-11)

I would like to thank the congregation for their goodwill and the Rev'd Kim Geun-sang, our bishop elect, for inviting me to preach here at the fifth consecration of a Korean bishop for Seoul Diocese in the history of the Anglican Church of Korea.

The leading player in this holy ceremony today is the Rev'd Kim Geun-sang, a third generation Korean Anglican priest who has followed his father and grandfather in their great ministries and who has been bestowed with the grace and blessings to become the fifth Korean bishop in this diocese. I give thanks to God and congratulate the Rev'd Paul Geun-sang Kim on his ordination to the episcopate.

In the short time available to us today I would like to address you on the basis of the passage I have chosen from the 2nd Chapter of the Revelations of Saint John verses 8 to 11 under the title 'Be faithful unto death.' This section of the Book of Revelations is one of the messages to the seven churches revealed to John who was on the island of Patmos during at time of great oppression exerted by the Roman Empire. This letter is directed at the church in Smyrna which at the time was being tested by all sorts of pressures and yet did not submit and kept the faith and because of this the church receives praise from the Lord. One of the most notable names among the Bishops martyred in the early church is Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. It is to this church that the Lord says: 'Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.'

The sole object of our faithfulness is Jesus Christ. The only one to whom we should offer our fidelity is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who offered up his life' on the cross for to save us from our sins. But what has been the situation within our own Anglican Church of Korea over the last number of years? Swept up by erroneous ideologies the image of our church has been sorely damaged. We have to seriously bring ourselves to our senses so that we do not have to bear the shame of being described again by ignorant and worldly people as a training academy for officers of the left wing.

Bishops have a responsibility to look after the church and to order the growth of the church. In the early church Polycarp of Smyrna was noted as one who fought against the Gnostic heresy that was being spread at that time and he was known as a martyr bishop who defended the church.

I pray that Bishop Paul Kim will guard the church against getting bound up again with wrongful political concepts and ideologies and that he will put right the image of our distressed church.

Secondly, faithfulness has to be both devoted and positive. The first thing is to know and directly turn towards the object of one's fidelity then we have to press forward towards our objective even going through fire and water. We must propel ourselves forward. This is the Word of the Lord. You must use all your heart and mind and efforts .... that is the way we love God. However we have not put this saying into practice and at times we have seen situations where we have stopped in the middle of the road and took a lackadaisical attitude to our tasks just filling out our terms of office. If we do not start a work without a clear decision and real planning then when we face obstacles we can let go of our original intentions and simply choose to get by carelessly. The Lord has given each one of us a mission which is required to be fulfilled. But if we give up, equivocate or respond negatively to the precious charge that has been entrusted to us, then we will hear the reproach of the Lord 'you lazy and evil servants' directed towards us.

I believe that Bishop Paul Kim who is to be consecrated bishop here today will positively accomplish the vocation to which he has been called. He must be faithful to his original intention. He must rein in that which has gone wrong. In its present circumstances now more than ever the Korean Anglican Church needs the power of courageous and wise leadership. On one hand the members of the Church have to positively support the right leadership of the Bishop. The faithful must help the bishop when he has to use great strength and effort to protect the Lord's Church when it has gone on to a wrong road. The Lord requires that the bishop and all the members of the Church put their faith into practice in a devoted and positive manner. Like the Lord who goes ahead of us and leads us, the bishop should go ahead and lead the Church. If this does not happen the faithful will be lost. The bishop has to be first in carrying the cross of suffering. This is precisely the faithfulness that the Lord wants.

Finally, I want to talk about the crown of life. We are able to make a comparison between the crown of life which the world promises and the crowns which the people of the world bestow on each other. While we may be happy and proud of any prize certificates or plaques we receive in this world this is incomparable with the everlasting blessings and JOY which are bestowed with the happiness and amazement of receiving the crown of life. The prize certificates, laurels and crowns we receive in this world all cease to be effective the day we depart this earth. These are not everlasting things. However even in the church there are people who consider it to be a matter of success to attain high office and to wear the colors of a bishops robes. It is wrong to loose sight of the duties of being a leader in the church while putting on purple clothes and enjoying the advantage of being praised by the people of this world. Whatever about having visibility in the church and one's name being known for a fleeting time in this world it is certain that one can loose one's soul and the crown of life. This is not only true for bishops. For priests and laity alike our objective is to enter the kingdom of heaven and receive the crown of life, that is the blessing we can receive. Lift your eyes to heaven, consider the road to eternity. Do not become a foolish person who gets wrongfully bound up with the things of this world and loose the keys to heaven.

The Lord has told us that he wants to give the crown of life to his disciples and faithful servants. A bishop has to become a guiding light in all different areas. The bishop should be an model of one who has received the blessing of life from the Lord and who can guide others on the road to the crown of life. While we cannot see God with our naked eyes, God is able at this time to look into the hearts and intentions of each and everyone of us.

The Lord is gazing upon us and is discerning who truly faithful unto death and is due to receive the crown of life. Listen to his words: 'Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.'

I pray that this message will be a blessing to all who come here today to attend the consecration of Bishop Paul Guen-sang Kim as the fifth Korean bishop to be Bishop of Seoul in the Anglican Church of Korea.

[Please note: A MP-3 audio CD or a two Video DVD's will be available in Korean language from the Defender's library. Francis at doffrancis@gmail.com.]

New Digital Book added to the library

This week we have added "Men and Movements in the Primitive Church." Studies in Early Non-Pauline Christianity. By F. F. Bruce to the Defender's Digital Library. The Contents are in four parts: (1) Peter and the Eleven (2) Stephen and Other Hellenists (3) James and the Church of Jerusalem (4) John and his Circle.

We are presently working on "The Universal Bible Dictionary" Translated into Korean by the Faculty of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Korea under the General Editorship of the Rev. W. D. Reynolds, D.D., LL.D. and published by the Christian Literature Society of Korea, Seoul 1936.

Two other books on our Digital Book schedule are: "English Church Life" 1914 by J. Wickham Legg. A study of the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement. And "Four Mitres" Reminiscences of an irrepressible Bishop Part III Ghana to Korea. by Bishop John Daly.

A Master Index of Digital Books in the library will be available for Traditional clergy and our private Traditional Anglican study group members. For a list, please contact Francis at dof4u@icqmail.com or doffrancis@gmail.com.

The Christian's State of Life

I. RELIGION AND COMMON LIFE
Job 31; Ps.15; Mt.5:48; Rom.12; 1Cor.13.

The Christian lives in two spheres--the earthly and the heavenly; that which is natural (in the true, good sense) and that which is spiritual. Human generation produces the former life, divine regeneration the letter.

Both are highly privileged states and carry great responsibilities. An ever-present danger in human life is that of 'compartmentalism,' i.e. that a man's religion should have no necessary connection with his other activities. We must insist that a man cannot be a 'good Churchman' and a bad employer, a good father and a bad workman. These are incompatibilities and foster unreality or insincerity. It will be remembered that the hypocrite first deceives himself; self-deception is terribly easy and very prevalent.

The daily events of life are the foundation of morality and character. The Christian life is all of a piece; there is no place for competing loyalties. Its wholeness is admirably set forth in the hymn:

God be in my head,
And in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes,
And in my looking
God be in my mouth,
And in my speaking;
God be in my heart,
And in my thinking;
God be at my end,
And at my departing.
(Anon.XVI Cent.)

1. Religion and Life

The Christian should learn the difficult lesson of using daily life--its occupations and pleasures--to help his religion. At the same time his religion should permeate, inspire, and direct his every action. At the Savoy Conference (1661) the Puritans endeavoured to induce the bishops to add to the Catechism paraphrase of the Fourth Commandment the words 'particularly on the Lord's day.' The Bishops resisted the suggestion: all days are for God, 'my duty is to serve him all the days of my life.'

'Many make and use their religion but as an outer garment, made in fashion; to put-on abroad, put-off at home.' The primary duty of the Christian man is to see clearly the obligations of his own 'state of life' and fulfil them. This may not pay the highest dividends, but honesty is better than any policy. 'A Christian does pretty much what other people do, but with an entirely different motive' (C.Patmore).

2. Charity--the Keyword

In all spheres of life, in all relationships, charity or love should inspire, interpenetrate, and bind together. This virtue is 'that something without which anything that we do or suffer, becomes nothing.'

A good Christian loves his family ('charity begins at home'); loves his country, not blindly but intelligently, and, if need be, self-sacrificingly; and, finally, he loves the Church, the mother of whom he was born to God, and his brethren in the Church.

'So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith' (Gal.6:10).

'Strength is entrusted to the strong that they may serve the weak. Riches are entrusted to the rich that they may serve the poor. Intelligence is entrusted to the intelligent that they may serve the simple.' (Fr. V. McNabb, Thoughts Twice-Dyed,p.21.)
[SOURCE: The Christian's State of Life By G.H. Midgley]

THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD - Christmas Day

CHRISTMAS DAY 2007

WHAT OF OUR THOUGHTS —

Man is essentially a thinking being. Our mind is always acting, and we are always thinking of something. But often we take no account of our thoughts : they are not actually good or bad, but vague. Let us try to prevent this today, and fix them on the great event whose joyous anniversary we are about to keep. May we all have a HOLY CHRISTMAS. /Francis in Korea.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS from Seoul,Korea

NEW ADDITIONS TO OUR AUDIO-VISUAL DVD LIBRARY.

(1.) 8mm_1. Consecration of Bishop Simon S. Kim and Enthornment the second bishop of Seoul. 31 May 1984

(2.) 8mm_2. Twenty Days in June. (Part 1,2).

(3.) 8mm_3. Twenty Days in June. (Part 3,4).

(4.) 8mm_4. Anglican Archbishop Runcie in Korea.

(5.) 8mm_6. Ordinations at Saint Thomas Aquinas SSPX Seminary 1996. (Part 1)

(6.) 8mm_7. Ordinations at Saint Thomas Aquinas SSPX Seminary 1996. (Part 2).

(7.) 8mm_21. Episcopal Synod in U.S.A. on 1,2,3 June 1989 at Ft. Worth, Texas.

(8.) 8mm_24. Ordination of three deacons and three priests and Mass at Saint Francis Church (lepers village) and blessing the new pipe organ at SS. Mary and Nicholas Anglican Cathedral, Seoul, Korea.

(9.) 8mm_25. 100th Anniversary of the first Korean Bishop of Seoul, Korea. 30 September 1990. (Part 1).

(10.) 8mm_26. 100th Anniversary of the first Korean Bishop of Seoul, Korea. (Part 2).

(11.) 8mm_34. The Consecration of Bishop Hamlett of the Anglican Catholic Church for the bishop in the U.K.