Grace, by definition, is a gift of God to do that which man would be unable to do of his own volition, correct? We have Christ breathing this grace on the Apostles and the Holy Spirit coming down as tongues of fire on Pentecost in the bible, in essence consecrating them as bishops, and giving them this grace and authority, which they then pass down to others. Though having a priesthood that is neither the episcopate or the deaconate, but a third ministry that is the boundary between the two, may or may not have been around from exactly 33AD (Some would say it developed a little later when areas became two big for a bishop to personally celebration the Eucharist for every member of his flock each Sunday), the priesthood has never the less been traditionally thought of as a status that people are ordained to that creates an ontological change in them that is not solely dependent on the authority of the bishop. And I think we can back that up by looking at *practice* as well as theory.
Let's say John Smith is ordained a deacon and then a priest by Bishop Jack Doe of the fictional Roman Catholic diocese of Atlantis. If John were to later become an Episcopalian priest, the fictional Episcopal Bishop of Atlantis, Jane Smith, would not re-ordain John, which she would have to do if the priesthood was solely a derivative from the authority of the bishop. She would receive him. If he later became an Eastern Orthodox priest, they would re-vest him, but probably not re-ordain him there. There is implicitly the idea that is explicit in the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Latin-Rite mass, and I would imagine is likely there in the Sarum Rite that was native to England and from which the Anglican orders descend, that a priest is ordained as a priest forever. You can tell a priest he is not to identify himself as a priest and does not have permission to consecrate the Eucharist, but he could still do it- ontologically, he is still a priest. This is also, by the way, why the Church of England can be said to have preserved holy orders after their split with Rome, and why Anglican groups that have split with the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion can be said to also still be in Apostolic Succession.
What we are talking about gets into the core of sacramental theology. Though Anglicanism sometimes divides baptism and communion from the other five sacraments, as greater and lesser sacraments, nevertheless Anglicanism recognizes seven sacraments, as the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox do. One of those sacraments is holy orders. And all sacraments are means of grace.
I don't necessarily disagree with the words of the post I am responding to, I just felt like it on it's own was an incomplete picture. Actually, that Anglicans explicitly recognize holy orders as a sacrament and thus a means of grace may be a differentiation between Anglicans and most other Protestants, even the relatively Catholic and high-church Protestants like some Lutheran groups that may recognize only two sacraments and have not always preserved Apostolic Succession.
