Reformed Apostolic Succession

Again, Nevin: He insists that the Reformation did not go back and start over at the fourth or fifth century. Rather, the Reformation was the continuation of that true Catholic Christianity that had run all the way up to the Reformation. He says, "If Protestantism be not derived by true and legitimate succession from the Church life of the Middle Ages, it will be found perfectly vain to think of connecting it genealogically with the life of the Church at any earlier point." (The Principle of Protestantism, 23).