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diff --git a/49115-0.txt b/49115-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42673f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/49115-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4129 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Eight Sermons on The Priesthood, Altar, and +Sacrifice, by Mayow Wynell Mayow + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Eight Sermons on The Priesthood, Altar, and Sacrifice + + +Author: Mayow Wynell Mayow + + + +Release Date: June 2, 2015 [eBook #49115] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHT SERMONS ON THE PRIESTHOOD, +ALTAR, AND SACRIFICE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1867 James Parker and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + Eight Sermons + ON + THE PRIESTHOOD, ALTAR, AND + SACRIFICE. + + + * * * * * + + BY + MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW, M.A., + + PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. MARY’S, WEST BROMPTON, AND LATE + STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. + + * * * * * + + “The principles of Christianity are now as freely questioned as the + most doubtful and controverted points; the grounds of faith are as + safely denied as the most unnecessary superstructions; that religion + hath the greatest advantage which appeareth in the newest dress, as + if we looked for another faith to be delivered to the saints: whereas + in Christianity there can be no concerning truth which is not + ancient, and whatsoever is truly new, is certainly false.”—(BP. + PEARSON ON THE CREED: _Epistle Dedicatory_.) + + * * * * * + + Oxford and London: + JAMES PARKER AND CO. + 1867. + + * * * * * + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + TO THE + RIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD, + WALTER KERR, + LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY, + IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF A CONNECTION WITH HIS + DIOCESE FOR NEARLY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, + AS A TOKEN OF REVERENCE FOR HIS OFFICE, AND UNFEIGNED + RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, + AS SOME LITTLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY + KINDNESSES RECEIVED, + AND AS A HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO HIS CONSTANCY + IN DEFENDING THE FAITH IN + THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, + + This Volume + + IS (BY PERMISSION) INSCRIBED, + BY HIS LORDSHIP’S VERY FAITHFUL AND GRATEFUL SERVANT, + + M. W. MAYOW. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT. + + +THE following Sermons were preached at St. Mary’s, West Brompton, in +November and December, 1866. They are now printed as a humble +contribution towards the defence of the Catholic doctrine of the +priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, in days when there seem no +limits to assault upon it, when there prevails every conceivable +confusion between what is Catholic and what is Roman, and when there is +the widest misapprehension of the principles of our Reformation. If this +small volume should contribute in any way to a better understanding of +those principles, and to the vindication of the loyalty to our own Church +of such as, maintaining its Catholic character, desire equally to be +loyal to the Church Universal, (and believe in truth that there is no +antagonism between them,) it will not, I trust, be wholly useless. If, +further, it should lead any, in the spirit of candour and of prayer, to +give more consideration to this doctrine than perhaps hitherto they have +done, and especially to consult larger and more learned works upon the +subject, I shall have great additional reason to be thankful. + +It is, I hope, hardly necessary to add that there is no intention or +desire in anything here said to pass judgment upon individuals, either +within or without our own communion. It will be found stated in the +following discourses how readily we believe that many receive the +benefits of the Christian altar and sacrifice who are yet unconscious of +them; whilst it is also willingly acknowledged, even as regards those who +more directly deny Catholic doctrine, that the present divided state of +Christendom, and the wide differences of teaching within our own +communion, make it a very different thing to be unable to see, (or even +to oppose,) the truth than would be the case if the Church were still +united, as of old, in one harmonious voice and one external communion, or +if there were a perfect unanimity among ourselves. When, alas, even +priests are found to repudiate their priesthood, it must be admitted, +without reserve, that there is too much excuse for the laity being +uncertain and perplexed. Whilst this teaches us to award the largest +measure of charitable construction to those who differ from us, it gives +only the more urgent cause both to state and vindicate the ancient faith, +and to shew that it was in God’s mercy preserved to us at the +Reformation. + +I must not omit to say that I am indebted to Mr. Carter’s excellent +treatise for many facts, suggestions, and illustrations, even beyond +those which the references given explicitly acknowledge. + + M. W. M. + +ST. MARY’S, WEST BROMPTON. + _February_ 7, 1867. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + SERMON I. + + (p. 1.) + + Treasure in Earthen Vessels.—Faith, not Sight, the Recogniser of the + Priesthood. + + “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency + of the power may be of God, and not of us.”—2 _Cor._ iv. 7. + SERMON II. + + (p. 23.) + +The Witness of the World, before Christ, to the Doctrine of Sacrifice. + + “Thus did Job continually.”—_Job_ i. 5. + SERMON III. + + (p. 45.) + + The Witness of the New Testament to the Doctrine of Sacrifice. + + “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the + altar?”—1 _Cor._ x. 18. + SERMON IV. + + (p. 63.) + + The Testimony of the Early Church to the Doctrine of the Priesthood. + + “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for + the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye + shall find rest for your souls.”—_Jer._ vi. 16. + SERMON V. + + (p. 79.) + + The Testimony of our Formularies to the Doctrine of the Priesthood. + + “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto + them Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they + are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are + retained.”—_St. John_ xx. 22, 23. + SERMON VI. + + (p. 97.) + + The Christian Altar. + + “We have an altar.”—_Heb._ xiii. 10. + SERMON VII. + + (p. 113.) + + The Christian Altar. + + “We have an altar.”—_Heb._ xiii. 10. + SERMON VIII. + + (p. 135.) + + God Incarnate our Great High Priest. + +“In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”—_Coloss._ + ii. 3. + + + + + +SERMON I. +Treasure in Earthen Vessels.—Faith, not Sight, the Recogniser of the +Priesthood. + + + 2 CORINTHIANS iv. 7. + “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of + the power may be of God, and not of us.” + +THE words rendered “in earthen vessels,” are easy enough as to their +general sense. _Ἐν ὀστρακίνοις σκεύεσιν_, (the Apostle says,) where +_σκεύος_ may stand for any kind of utensil or household stuff. It is the +word used in St. Matthew, “How can one enter a strong man’s house and +spoil his _goods_;” {1} any of his household stuff or possessions; whilst +_ὀστράκίνοιν_, (the same word which gave its name to the well-known +Grecian _ostracism_, from the mode of voting,) signifying in its first +sense that which is made of shell and therefore brittle, is often used in +a derived sense for anything frail and liable to break, and when broken +not to be re-joined. Therefore, again, it represents anything poor and +mean, as compared with other stronger or more precious material. Thus, +in his second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul uses the very same word to +denote those inferior vessels which are made for less honourable use: +“But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but +also of wood and of earth; _ὀστράκινα_;—and some to honour, and some to +dishonour.” {2a} + +We cannot, then, err as to the general meaning of the text, if we take it +to express the fact that great gifts of God—treasure—may be, and are, +according to His will, and for good and wise reason, lodged in weak and +frail tenements, giving little outward sign of that which is hid within: +great riches enshrined in poor and mean caskets, even as the soul of man +dwells in the earthy tabernacle, (that red earth or clay which gave its +very name to Adam,) when “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the +ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became +a living soul.” {2b} + +But St. Paul’s application of the figure here is somewhat different from +the illustration just used. It is not life, or an immortal soul shrouded +in a mortal body, of which he speaks, but some special gift or gifts of +God for the use of His Church and people, which he declares had been +entrusted to vessels of little “form or comeliness.” And it will be of +much interest and importance both to trace out what this treasure is, and +what are the vessels in which it is placed, as well as to insist upon the +fact that the treasure is not the less, because thus shrouded or +obscured; and that it gives no cause to deny the existence of the +treasure, that those who bear it seem either so like other men as they +do, or so little worthy in themselves of what they bear. + +Now, to see what the treasure is, we need turn back but a little way. In +the preceding chapter, speaking of himself and others charged with the +ministry of the Gospel, the Apostle says, deprecating all high thoughts +in those so honoured: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think +anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath +made us able ministers of the New Testament;” and then, after thus +disclaiming all personal merit or glory, he goes on immediately to +contrast the glory of the Gospel with the glories of the earlier +dispensation. “For if the ministration of death,” he says, “written and +engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not +stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; +which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the +Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be +glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” +{3a} Pursuing this thought a little further, and enlarging upon the +glories of the ministration of the Spirit of the Lord which giveth life, +he comes back; at the opening of the fourth chapter, more closely to the +subject of his ministry, and says: “Therefore, as we have received this +ministry, we faint not;” {3b} and after a word on the effect of the +Gospel which he preached, that it led to the “renouncing the hidden +things of dishonesty;” {4a} and another, as to its being sufficiently +manifested to every willing heart, and so, if hidden, hidden only “to +them that are lost, whom the God of this world hath blinded;” {4b} he +returns once more to what it was which he preached, and declares how this +great treasure,—“the unsearchable riches of Christ,” as he elsewhere +describes it,—was entrusted to poor and weak instruments; “for we +preach,” he says, “not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and +ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the +light to shine out of darkness,” (that is, in the natural world when He +said, “Let there be light:”) “hath shined in our hearts,” (that is, in +the new creation of the spiritual world,) “to give the light of the +knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” {4c} And +then, in the text, he seems to meet an objection, that if his call and +ministry in the Gospel were of so glorious a nature, the instruments +thereof would bear more or higher marks of glory themselves, he adds the +words of our text: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that +the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” {4d} + +And now, brethren, again I ask, what is the treasure, and to whom +committed? Surely the ministry of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, +entrusted to human stewardship! + +And who shall disparage this, or overlook it, or deny the gifts and +treasure of and in those who bear it, though they be but as earthen +vessels; though they look simply like other men; though they are “men of +like passions;” though they have few or no high marks or tokens, to be +discerned by man’s eye, of the greatness of the treasure which +nevertheless they bear? + +This thought, this warning against denying God’s gifts when lodged in +earthen vessels, and so speaking against them as actually to make a new +Gospel totally unlike to that which has been from the beginning, is +especially a danger of our day: a day when men live so much by sight, +and, alas, so little by faith; when restless and free enquiry ranges over +every subject, and men pride themselves upon their refusal to submit to +any authority but their own reason, or their own mere opinion, or to +receive anything beyond that of which they can understand the mode and +assign the use. + +Not, perhaps, the most unfrequent of these attacks of the present time is +directed against almost the very subject of our text: the reality of the +treasure or gifts bestowed upon the ministers and stewards of Christ’s +mysteries, because they are contained in earthen vessels. Whereas St. +Paul fully claims and asserts that there is this treasure, and gives as +the sufficient reason for its being so lowlily enshrined, that thereby it +would be seen indeed that “the excellency of the power is of God, and not +of man;” {6} these objectors deny there can be any such treasure as it is +asserted there is, because it is not to their eye exhibited in or by, +glorious, or sufficiently distinctive, instruments. + +Take a case in illustration, very near indeed to the argument of the +Apostle in this place. If our Christianity in our beloved Church of +England is, and is to be, the Christianity which has been from the +beginning, it cannot be without a priesthood, and an altar, and a +sacrifice. I do not propose at this moment to go into the proofs of +this, but rather to notice an objection which is sometimes triumphantly +put forward, by modern infidelity or ignorance, as fatal to all such +claims. It is said, that if it were so that there is a priesthood, +(which it is intended to deny;—O sad and fearful thought! That any +should be found to deny and refuse the chiefest means of applying to us +the pardon of the Cross): but if it were so, then, it is said this +priesthood must be seen to be such by some peculiar exhibition of its +powers, by some glorious or distinctive appearance in the +treasure-bearing vessels. So it is said, Whatever there may be +elsewhere, the Church of England at least has no priesthood, and no +priests. No! Can any one believe (it is added) that they are priests +who are young men, as others, one day; and are ordained, with so little +outward difference, the next? Can it be that prayers and a laying on of +hands, even by bishops, can effect such a change when all looks so nearly +the same? No, truly! If such there were, if such there be, if we are to +believe in a power given of this kind, if the priest can consecrate, and +offer upon the altar of God, let us see the difference. Let the young, +who are to fill such an office, be educated, not as other young men are, +living with them in social life at our schools and Universities, but as +set apart for this from their earliest days. Let them be known of all as +a separate kind or caste; let them have a distinctive dress; let them +give up social life; let them, above all, renounce the married state, and +give themselves up to pursue their avocation in the single life; and +then, perhaps, we may be more inclined to believe in their sacrificial +function; in their power to officiate sacerdotally at the altar; in the +committal to them of the power of the keys, and all which is included in +the idea of a distinct order and a priestly authority. Now all this, +brethren, is mere man’s wisdom, setting forth, in truth, not what it +really desires to find as the mark of a priesthood, if it might have this +in vessels of gold or silver, but simply, if it may not disparage and +deny a priesthood of Christianity altogether, (which yet it desires to +do), at least delighting to deny it to _us_; to raise a prejudice against +it, and to drive from the Church of England (if it were possible) all +those who cleave to the statements of our formularies as they are, and to +the faith once for all delivered and handed down to us. + +But observe, brethren, what all this really amounts to. I am not saying +whether there should not be (unto the more edification), a more +distinctive theological education for the future priesthood than very +often there is among us. I am not saying whether there might not, with +advantage, be some greater distinction in outward appearance or dress, +than we have among us generally, for those who minister in holy things. +(Let it, however, here be remarked, that the greatest objection and +hindrance as to this proceeds, as we well know, from the clamours of +those who would first deny us all priestly character, and then reproach +any who, claiming it, are anxious to mark it also by some outward +difference.) I am not, however, now dwelling upon these things, nor even +on what are the advantages or disadvantages of a celibate clergy, but I +say that to suppose the presence or absence of these outward signs or +marks should affect the essence of the priesthood, and men being in +reality and truth ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of +God, in the full sense in which these words are understood in all the +primitive writings and liturgies of the Church of Christ, shews, not only +an ignorance of the very first principles of Christian worship, but a +strange overlooking of the truth taught in the text, and confirmed to us +in so many other places of Holy Scripture. If St. Paul confessed that, +even with him, his ministry was confided to an earthen vessel; if there +were no need and no likelihood that any of the primitive stewards of +God’s mysteries should be distinguished as by a star upon their breast, +or any insignia of their rank in the Apostolic band, then it can amount +to nothing as a disproof of the priesthood of the ministry of the Church +of England, that those who serve at her altars have but the outward look +and bearing of other men. + +We may even carry this argument further, if it may be so done with due +reverence and humility. We may take, not merely prophets and Apostles, +but our blessed Lord Himself,—our King as well as our great High +Priest,—and say of Him, that, although of course it is not objectively +true that He had any of His gifts or powers in an earthen vessel, (save +in the sense that He took upon Him man’s nature, and so being of Adam’s +race—yet without sin—had His share of the earth of which Adam was +created); but though, I say, except thus, He held not anything in an +earthen vessel objectively, still, on the other hand, subjectively, to +man’s sight and apprehension, He veiled His Godhead, He emptied Himself +of His glory, He obscured His greatness, so that nearly throughout His +life and ministry He was passed over as a common man, or His claims +denied, and Himself treated as an impostor. In spite of the holiness of +His life, the tenderness of His compassion, the purity of His precepts, +the marvels of His teaching, the abundance and power of His miracles, yet +He was not received or accepted generally as other than a common man. +The Jews were offended at Him. He was to them “a stumbling block,” as He +was to the Greeks “foolishness.” He came in no outward manifestation of +glory; He was not in kings’ courts; He had no armies or numerous +followers; He won no carnal victories; He did nothing “to restore the +kingdom to Israel,” in any sense which the Jewish nation could observe or +recognise; nay, in His very priestly acts, and in that greatest of them +in which He did in truth offer up the great sacrifice of all, He appeared +to man’s eye in no such aspect. Even as a victim, He was only considered +as a malefactor put to death, whilst it may be well doubted whether even +His own Apostles had the least insight at the time into the nature of the +sacrifice He made; and none of them had a single thought or perception of +the priesthood which He exercised. So, indeed, He seemed to have “no +form nor comeliness;” {10a} “His visage was so marred more than any man, +and His form more than the sons of men.” {10b} He seemed to have all He +had in an earthen vessel, undistinguished and undistinguishable by the +vulgar eye from others who were around Him, or who had preceded Him, with +some pretensions to be teachers, or reformers of manners, but who had +disappeared and left no trace behind them. Is it, then, so certain that +those who now “seek after a sign” before they admit any claim to “the +office of a priest in the Church of God,” and who look for various marks +and distinctions in outward show or appearance before they will entertain +the doctrine as belonging to the Church of England; is it, I say, so +certain that they would not have rejected Christ Himself, as not coming +up to their mark and requirement, if they had seen Him in the days of His +ministration upon earth? + +But let us pass on from the priesthood of our Lord and Saviour, and turn +again for a moment to the Apostles and their fellow-labourers. Observe, +I am not engaged in proving now their priestly character, nor the truth +of the sacrifices, or altars of the Christian religion; (we may come to +this another day;) but I am merely meeting the preliminary objection that +there can be no such things, at least, none such in the Church of +England, because our priesthood is not more manifestly set forth in +outward show to the eye of the world, by a more distinctive priestly +education, or a more distinctive priestly dress, or a more distinctive +(as is supposed) priestly life as separated from social life; and this +particularly by the exhibition of an unmarried clergy. As I have before +said, I am not even giving an opinion on the advantages or disadvantages +of some of these things; but I am asking the plain broad question, What +right have we, from Scripture and Scriptural example, to say these +differences are needful to the existence of a priesthood? Be the +priesthood and ministerial powers of St. Peter and St. Paul, and others +their companions, what they may, did they shew them forth as in vessels +of gold and silver, or were they not what we may call obscured, +undistinguished, not (in many particulars at least) dissevered from +social life, but just like other men; in short, with their treasure borne +in earthen vessels, however really great and precious in itself? + +Carry your mind back, brethren, to Simon Peter with Andrew his brother, +to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, fishing on the sea of Galilee. +There is no reason, at I know of, to suppose that they wholly gave up +this their occupation immediately upon their endowments at the day of +Pentecost. They certainly pursued them as long as their Lord was with +them, and after the Crucifixion. Nay, after the Resurrection; after +Jesus had appeared unto the Eleven; after He had “breathed on them and +said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” and conveyed to them, (if any thing +could do so,) the priestly power, saying, “Whose soever sins ye remit, +they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are +retained,” {12} still Simon Peter said to the rest, “I go a fishing; and +they said unto him, We also go with thee.” {13a} Will any one dare to +say, Had they been true priests of God, they must have pursued another +mode of life, and borne the marks of their office more demonstratively +and visibly before the eyes of men? Will any say, We cannot receive it +that the hands, engaged one day in casting a hook into the sea, or +spreading or mending nets, can be those which exercise, the next, (or the +same if so it be,) the Christian ministerial office,—in breaking of +bread, and celebrating the most holy Christian mysteries? Will any say +that the lips which called to their partners for help, or in direction as +to the safety or management of their boats and fishing, must therefore be +incapable of preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel, or of exercising +the commission given them of binding and loosing in the name of Christ? +Or, think of St. Paul, with his fellow-helper and companion in labour, +Aquila, working with their hands at their craft, “for by their occupation +they were tent-makers;” {13b} aye, even “working night and day,” that +they “might not be chargeable” to others: and will any say, Herein they +shewed themselves too like to other men to put forward any pretence or +claim to have or exercise any priestly or sacerdotal function. Will any +again call to mind that St. Peter was certainly a married man; (“Peter’s +wife’s mother,” we read at one time, “was sick of a fever;”) as also +certainly was Aquila the companion in labour of St. Paul, (for he came +“with his wife Priscilla;”) or, once more, St. Paul’s own claim to the +right (though he did not exercise it, but still the right) to marry if he +thought fit; as he says, “Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we +not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other Apostles, and +as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” {14} will any consider so much, +and then say, you must needs have a celibate priesthood, if you are to +have any priesthood at all in the Church of Christ; or, if there be one, +it must be one so separated from all earthly pursuit as to be recognised +at a glance as of a different order? + +Nay, my brethren, such things are surely no arguments of even a feather’s +weight in the mouth of any man against a true priesthood in the Church of +England; and one can hardly see how they can be supposed, by any +sober-minded thinker, to be either contained in, or deduced from, Holy +Scripture. They are, in fact, objections merely playing with the +prejudices of those who have already come to a foregone conclusion, and +intended rather to point an unjust shaft at the Church of England, +through a mock admiration of the Church of Rome, than to advance the +cause of truth. And this with no justice, even towards Rome herself, +either in praise or blame; for Rome herself may have something to say in +defence of her practice as to the distinctions with which she marks her +priesthood, if looked on merely as matters of expediency and not of faith +or doctrine; and at the same time, we certainly have no little reason to +maintain that in many of these things, (and however there may be +incidental disadvantages which we need not deny, on the ground of +expediency also,) yet we come the nearer of the two to the following of +the Apostles, in the not making too broad an outward distinction between +priests and people, and in the not having laid a yoke hard to be borne, +perhaps, as a wide and extended rule, too hard to be borne, upon our +priesthood’s neck; and, in short, that we are at any rate close upon the +very type and pattern which St. Paul mentions in our text, in that we too +have our treasure in earthen vessels, and may, in one sense at least, +rejoice that it is so, inasmuch as thereby it may be seen by all “that +the excellency of the power is of God, and not of us.” + +Further, it needs surely no words to prove that such objections and such +line of argument in denial of our priesthood, can have but one effect, if +they have any, namely, to forward the interests of the Church of Rome. +This, I presume, ought in consistency to be the last wish of those who +use them. But so it is, and in this way. There is no more possibility +of any one, who has the knowledge of what Christianity has been from the +beginning, being moved by such assertions to disbelieve the great +doctrines of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, as belonging, +and necessarily belonging, to the Church Universal, than there is of the +words of the objectors moving mountains or drying up seas. We can no +more unlearn the very first elements of the appointed mode of our +applying to Christ for His intercession on high for us miserable +sinners,—no more believe the Catholic truths which we have drunk in to be +mere human figments and superstitious inventions,—than we could return to +the system of Ptolemy, and believe the earth to be the centre round which +the sun and the stars revolve. Nothing, therefore, can be gained in this +direction by those who propound such views. But if it should be that +any, who know what the Church Universal holds and has ever held on these +points, should, by weakness or inadvertence, be shaken in their belief +that the Church of England maintains these doctrines and preserves this +sacerdotal order,—if any should come to think that perhaps after all she +has not a priesthood, and an altar, and a sacrifice, then such would no +doubt begin to fail in their allegiance to her, and be afraid longer to +trust their souls to her teaching or her keeping. No well-instructed, +patient, humble-minded member of the Church of England can, I think, be +deceived by so sophistical an argument as that which we have been +considering; but, of course, all are not well instructed, nor, perchance, +are all patient or humble minded, and hence it may be, there _is_ a +danger. But if there be this danger, or if any defections should follow +upon such defamation of our Church, those who put forth the libel must +have upon their conscience the weight of having aided the Church of Rome +against their Mother Church of England. + +But to return; take but two brief illustrations further of our subject. +You will remember the contention between St. Paul and St. Barnabas +concerning “Mark, sister’s son to Barnabas,” whom “Paul thought not good +to take with them,” and how it “was so sharp between them that they +parted asunder one from the other.” {17a} Again, you will recollect the +occasion when at Antioch St. Paul (as he says), “withstood” St. Peter “to +the face because he was to be blamed;” saying to him “before them all, If +thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do +the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” +Consider that “the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that +Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation;” and to such a +point did this reach, that St. Paul declares he “saw that they walked not +uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel;” {17b} put all this +together and then say whether, upon the grounds of the objection urged, +any one might not far more plausibly have denied to the Apostles +themselves any just power or fitness to rule or teach authoritatively in +the Church of God, than any man can deny the priesthood of the Church of +England because its power is not more demonstratively shewn among us. + +Or, for a second point, note this:—Does, or did ever, the admission to +the Christian covenant, and the wondrous gift of God, the new birth of +water and of the Spirit, by which, as the Apostle plainly teaches, +Christians are made the temples of the Holy Ghost; does it, or did it +ever, make such outward show of difference as will enable man to decide, +immediately and infallibly, who are Christ’s, and who are forfeiting or +have forfeited the gift bestowed? Then, if there be not this palpable +manifestation as to the Christian life in each, why should there be a +more manifest and outward demonstration of the treasure of the +priesthood? If the grace of Baptism be not thus self-evident, and ever +recognised by sight, why must the grace of Orders be so either? Oh! when +shall we learn to believe instead of to cavil; to use the blessings God +gives us, not to dispute about them; to judge, not according to +appearance, but to judge righteous judgment; to believe there is a +treasure, even the treasure which the Church has ever believed and +declared to be in her ministry and stewardship, though it be contained in +earthen vessels? + +One word more, brethren, of most serious weight and import, as to such +objections and I objectors. Carry your mind back to the time of Christ, +to the labours of Apostles and Evangelists, and the infancy of the +Church, and see of what Spirit they are. I am not speaking, remember, of +all who may, from one cause or other, not be able to receive the doctrine +of the Christian priesthood and altar, and who, we may well hope and +believe, many of them receive the blessing of these gifts of Christ, +though they know it not; but I speak of the particular objection with +which I have all along been dealing,—that there cannot be a Priesthood, +unless marked by striking outward differences visible by all. And I ask, +what would have been the part taken, if the framers of such a test, being +consistent in their objection, had lived in the days of Christ on earth? +Surely we should have heard them saying, aye, in spite of His mighty +works and great High Priesthood, “Is not this the carpenter’s Son? Is +not His mother called Mary, and His brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, +and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?” {19a} What is He +different from another? Or what more likely than that expecting +something different in show and demeanour in the great Apostle of the +Gentiles, they would have joined in the reproach: “His bodily presence is +weak and his speech contemptible!” {19b} and have rejected Him? + +If these things shew us the dangers of such a line of argument, let them +keep us from any word said to countenance or support it. It is a solemn +thought that we cannot, by even the most careless word of levity, express +approval of such assaults upon the ancient faith, or sympathy with those +who make them, without becoming sharers in their responsibility. For it +is thus, by a few words here and a few there, that public opinion is +formed or strengthened; and what can be more awful than to have helped to +form it adversely to the truth of God, and in derogation of that +“ministry of reconciliation,” and those means of grace, which He has +appointed. Surely the sin of such must be, like that of the sons of Eli, +“very great before the Lord,” when a prejudice is raised by which men, if +they do not “abhor,” are at least taught to deny and despise, “the +offering of the Lord.” At the same time, let us pray earnestly for them, +for, we will hope and trust, “they know not what they do.” Let us not +wish that they went out from us, but let us hope and pray that they may +be turned to better things. Let us remember, too, as a ground of +charity, that many fall into error here because too much, for many years, +the teaching of the primitive Church and of Catholic antiquity has been +overlooked as a guide to the due understanding of the Scriptures; and +again, because the face of Christendom, alas, is not now so one and +undivided as to present all truth in due form, and mode, and weight, to +each man’s acceptance. The glory of our Reformation is, indeed, that it +appeals to antiquity, and carries us back to the early Church; but these +later days have too much overlooked this great principle of the +Reformation. So it has happened, that what is, alas, the misfortune and +the reproach of Christendom—I mean its divided state—may be, and we will +hope is, some palliation before God for defect in those who wish to +follow the truth, but are unable at the present moment to see or to +accept it. So let us above all pray to the one great Lord of all, that +in His good time the Church may again be one, not only in its essence, +which it must be, (we believe in but “one holy Catholic and Apostolic +Church,”) but also in its life, and in a re-established communion of the +Saints; that being indeed, if it may be so, once more one, our Lord’s own +prayer for it may be fulfilled, and His promise accomplished, and “the +world believe that God hath sent Him.” {21a} And let us ourselves, +brethren, ever remember that all we have in treasure is indeed in earthen +vessels, and let us for ourselves be content to be reviled and threatened +(yes, as the holy Apostle was, and his Lord and Master before him), for +“the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.” +{21b} Neither, indeed, let us count it a strange thing, “as though some +strange thing happened unto us,” {21c} if we have to “go forth bearing +the reproach of Christ” {22a} and His Apostles; nay, rather, “being +reviled, let us bless; being persecuted” (if so it be), “let us suffer +it; being defamed, let us intreat;” yea, let us be willing to be “made as +the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things,” {22b} so +that we may but do our Master’s work, and preserve His truth in the midst +of a crooked and perverse generation, and win souls to Christ, and, if it +may be so indeed, “finish our course with joy, and the ministry, which we +have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of +God.” {22c} + + + + +SERMON II. +The Witness of the World, before Christ, to the Doctrine of Sacrifice. + + + JOB i. 5. + “Thus did Job continually.” + +THAT which such a man as Job “did continually,” we shall naturally +conclude was well-pleasing in the sight of God. The Almighty’s own +witness to his character is given in His Word addressed to Satan: “Hast +thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, +a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” +{23} And when we couple this with the circumstances to which the text +relates, and the tone of the whole narrative, we shall find, I think, +more than a _prima facie_ probability that the act so mentioned was not +only right in itself, but that it bore a significant import, not merely +to those who lived near Job’s own time or in his own country, but to the +world at large. + +What then is it to which the text alludes? + +Job, we read, was a man of great substance as well as great integrity, +living in a very early time in the land of Uz. Moreover, besides his +great possessions, we are told that he had seven sons and three +daughters. And we find that his sons were used, “to feast in their +houses, every one his day;” and that on these occasions it was their +custom to “send and call for their three sisters to eat and to drink with +them;” a token, (as a well-known commentator has fairly enough +conjectured,) both of their harmonious family affection and of the good +order and conduct which prevailed in their feastings, or so holy a man as +Job would not have permitted his daughters to join in their festivity. +But, nevertheless, we read that Job in his anxious care was mindful to +intercede for them, even in case they might have erred or sinned in the +fulness of their rejoicing, or in the exuberance of their mirth. “And it +was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent +and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered +burnt-offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may +be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did +Job continually.” {24} + +Here, then, we have no doubtful witness, not merely to the usage of +sacrifice, but to its acceptableness also in the sight of God, as a part +of worship and intercession. And this is all the more, not merely +curious, but important, when we reflect upon the very early date almost +universally assigned to the events related in the Book of Job. Whether +the record itself may have been composed at a somewhat later period, as +some have thought, yet all authorities are, I believe, agreed that the +time of Job’s life was contemporaneous with even the earliest part of the +life of Moses, and, therefore, that he did not derive his knowledge of +God from the institutions of the Jews, or live under the Mosaic +dispensation. The consenting witness, both of the Jews themselves and of +the early Christian writers accepting their testimony, is that Job is the +same as Jobab, mentioned in the first book of Chronicles, who is there +named as the third in descent from Esau; so that he, as well as Moses, +was the fifth in descent from Abraham,—the one in the line of Esau, and +the other in the line of Jacob. Moreover, it would appear that this Job +or Jobab was, if not absolutely what may be termed a king, yet a ruler +and a prince in the land called Uz, or Ausitis, a country on the +confines, probably, of Idumæa and Arabia. If this be so, he would seem, +from the summary given in the first book of Chronicles, to have succeeded +Balaam in the sovereignty or chiefdom of that country. “For,” (says that +narrative,) “these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before +any king reigned over the children of Israel; Bela the son of Beor,” +(undoubtedly the same as Balaam); “and the name of his city was Dinhabah. +And when Bela was dead, Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his +stead.” {26a} Now we find in the book of Numbers, that Balaam the son of +Beor was killed in battle, fighting on the side of Midian in the last +year of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, {26b} and supposing +Job’s trial to have taken place (as some ancient writers assert) some few +years after the Exodus, as he lived one hundred and forty years after +those events, he may very well have succeeded to the chief place among +the Idumæan or Uzzite people upon the death of Balaam. The importance of +this to our present purpose lies in the fact, that he is thus a witness +to the antiquity and the use of sacrifice and burnt-offering, quite +independently of the institutions and commands of the Mosaic law. If Job +were of man’s estate, and had sons and daughters of like estate also, (as +the narrative unquestionably implies,) even before his sufferings, he +must have been born not far in time from the birth of Moses, probably +some little while before him; and what he “did continually” in his own +country, and apart from Moses, is a witness to the practice and +acceptableness of sacrifice, anterior to the enactments of the law from +Sinai; and a witness, not merely, let us observe, to the use of +sacrifice, but to sacrifice by burnt-offering, when the victim was killed +and consumed upon the altar of God. + +Now this leads us back to consider what is the probable origin of +sacrifice, and sacrifice of this kind, altogether; for it is thus +evident, that it was adopted into, and not originated by, the peculiar +institutions of the Jewish nation and law. + +Now, of course we see at once where we must turn for the first account of +sacrifice. The primal exercise of this mode of approach to God, is that +recorded in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, which shews at +once the need which the Fall had brought upon man of drawing nigh to God, +not without a propitiation; and at the same time exhibits, in sad +prominence, the first-fruits of that corruption of nature entailed by it, +which provoked the eldest-born of the world, in malignant envy of heart, +to slay his next born brother. + +Let us turn, then, to a brief consideration of those events, as +illustrative of the origin and nature of sacrifice. + +Look first to St. John’s and St. Paul’s account of the cause of Cain’s +quarrel against his brother Abel. “And wherefore slew he him?” (says St. +John), “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” +{27a} And St. Paul tells us wherein Abel’s righteousness and superiority +consisted: “By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than +Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying +of his gifts.” {27b} The narrative in the Book of Genesis tells us the +same thing as to the fact that Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s +accepted; but without the Apostle’s comment we should not have precisely +traced the cause of this rejection and acceptance: but we know now that +it was _faith_ in the one and a _want of faith_ in the other, in which +the distinction lay; and also that somehow this difference was exhibited +in the gifts which they brought: “God” (of Abel) “testifying of his +gifts.” By this, too, St. Paul tells us, “He being dead still speaketh;” +a statement which brings the whole matter home to ourselves. The +narrative then is this: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a +tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain +brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, +he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. +And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and +to his offering He had not respect.” {28} + +This takes us back to the origin of sacrifice; and the first remark which +occurs is, that it would seem highly probable that its institution was a +matter of revelation from God to Adam; for though mere reason and moral +feeling might make the creature see the propriety of offering to the +Creator something of that which His bounty had bestowed, and possibly +might lead to the thought that it should be not mean, but good and +precious, yet there are so many attendant circumstances in the +institution, which it does not appear possible to account for upon the +hypothesis of the mere dictates of reason and feeling, that we can hardly +ascribe the practice to anything short of a communication of the divine +will to man. However, be this as it may, it is plain that both Cain and +Abel were conscious of the duty of offering sacrifice or oblation in some +kind to God. And each brought of that which he had. So far, it might be +thought, Cain was not behind his brother. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, +but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Cain brought of the fruit of the +ground, but Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and (it is +added) “of the fat thereof.” Now it may be we are intended to note a +difference here,—that Abel’s offering, the firstlings and the fat, +denotes the earliest and the best: as if he hastened to acknowledge, in +all thankfulness and humility, that he was not worthy to touch or use +anything he had, until he had sanctified it by first offering of it to +God; and this, the first he had, and the best: whilst the more scanty +narrative as to Cain, that he merely brought of the fruit of the ground, +may mark that he took no heed to bring of the first, nor of the best. He +would offer _something_ as an acknowledgment of God’s power,—perhaps, +too, of His goodness,—but not in that due spirit of unmeasured humility +and thankfulness, which alone was becoming in a son of Adam. But this, +if it were so, does not seem to be all which is implied as to his lack of +faith. To understand wherein this lay, we must remember the promise made +to our first parents after the Fall, of “the seed of the woman” who +should “bruise the serpent’s head.” {30a} Faith in this seed, the hope, +the only hope of the world after Adam’s transgression, seems to be the +thing intended; and if we suppose that God was pleased to reveal to our +first parents some further particulars as to the mode of the atonement to +be made by shedding of blood, by which this hope was to be fulfilled, and +the victory to be obtained, we shall be furnished, not merely with a clue +to the difference in the acceptableness of the offerings of the two, but +also with a key to a large part of the Holy Scriptures, and an +understanding what manner of faith should be in every one of us, as well +as to much that is important as to the history and design of sacrifice. +Let it be granted, then, as highly probable, that to Adam a revelation +was given that in him, as the federal head of mankind, and by his +transgression, as deteriorating the whole race to spring from him, were +all men lost by nature, and further, that “without shedding of blood +should be no remission;” {30b} but that by a worthy sacrifice and +blood-shedding should the promised seed of the woman in due time effect a +reconciliation for them and their descendants, and reverse the evil and +the curse of their transgression. Surely, then, from that time forward, +a faith in the efficacy of a sacrifice by blood would be required, and +would be acceptable to God. Cain, then, would be evidently one who had +not this faith, who denied, and disbelieved, and did not look forward to, +this sacrifice, or cast himself upon this mercy. By bringing of the +fruits of the ground, he may be considered to have made acknowledgment of +the power and goodness of God, in causing the seed to grow and the corn +to ripen; he may have done as much as we do, when we merely confess that +we must look to God for rain, and sunshine, and “fruitful seasons, +filling our hearts with food and gladness;” (therefore, by the way, let +us not think too highly of ourselves if we do confess so much; it is +right, but it is a very small part of religion:) he may have meant to +express thankfulness for blessing, but observe what he did not express. +He made no acknowledgment of sin; he exhibited no sense of unworthiness; +he confessed no shortcomings; he gave no sign of sorrow or repentance; he +asked no mercy; above all, he turned to no one out of himself—no +intercessor, no mediator between his God and him. He shewed no sign of +looking to a Saviour to make atonement, atonement by blood: he looked to +no “Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world” in general, and his +own sins in particular. He ignored, then, the whole promise which was +the sole hope of man. He may have said, “God, I thank Thee,” but he +shewed himself to be wholly without the feeling “God be merciful to me a +sinner.” + +But, on the other hand, Abel brought of the sheep or goats which were of +his flock. He offered up not an unbloody sacrifice. He laid the victim +on the altar, and believing God, as well as feeling his need of a +Saviour, he looked forward with the eye of faith to an expiation greater +than that of kids, or lambs, or bulls, or goats, to take away sin. Nay +more, he shewed his sense of the need of an atonement out of and beyond +himself; for the blood of the victim offered described at once the sense +of his own blood being required as a penalty, if justice only held its +course and no expiatory sacrifice were found, and represented also, in +true type and figure, that better sacrifice, that more precious blood, +which should be shed in the fulness of the time to make such an +expiation, even that of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of +the world.” + +Now I have gone through this history with what I think is its probable +and satisfactory explanation, because not merely does it serve to shew +what the Apostle means when he tells us it was by faith that Abel pleased +God, and that God testified of his gifts, but also because the very same +remarks seem to apply to the whole history and intention of sacrifice, as +either commanded or accepted, or both, by Almighty God from the +beginning. Take such to be the origin of propitiary sacrifice, and I +think nothing can more fully agree with, or illustrate, or be illustrated +by, the further progress both of the fact and doctrine as we find them, +first in the Holy Scripture, and, secondly, in the world at large, even +though by the world’s wickedness so fearfully perverted. In perfect +accordance with such beginning of acceptable sacrifice we have the same +used and practised, and with the like acceptance, by Noah, Abraham, +Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, {33a} and, indeed, by all the patriarchs +until the institution was embodied in the law of Moses. As we know, +also, it was practised by all the heathen nations of antiquity of whom we +have any record, though with them its true meaning and intention were +fearfully lost and perverted. Nor does the difference in the instance of +Abraham on one occasion, as to his being ready to offer a human sacrifice +in the person of his son (which was of course a wholly exceptional case +as regards the sacrifices of those knowing the true God), make any +difference as to the witness of the acceptableness of sacrifice by blood, +or the consuming the victim upon the altar. It has, indeed, been +disputed whether Abraham were not the more easily reconciled to the idea +of sacrificing his son, or even incited to it, by the customary “fierce +ritual” of the Syrians around him; but independently of the utter +contradiction which this view would give to the account in Holy +Scripture, by the attribution of any other motive for Abraham’s conduct +than the command of God, received in all faith, and leading to all +obedience, it may well be doubted whether a perverse misinterpretation of +the sacrifice which Abraham was thus ready to make, and an utter +inattention to the real circumstances of that case, may not have been, +instead of in any way the _consequence_, rather the _cause_ of the +nations around falling into the practice of human sacrifice. But, be +this as it may, we have the plain witness to the usage of sacrifice, and +its efficacy when performed according to the will of God. Also, that it +prefigured the great sacrifice by the blood of a pure victim, as well as +in itself taught the lesson that (as afterwards expressed by the Apostle +to the Hebrews) “without shedding of blood is no remission.” {34} + +And all this we see consolidated and confirmed, as well as more fully +expanded and defined, under the Law. And especially there, a certain new +element in its administration is introduced, in the appointment of a +particular order for the performance of the service. In all the earlier +usage, it would seem that the head of the family or tribe acted as the +ministering priest. And there is no disproof of this, as far as I see, +in the account of even the first sacrifice of all. For there is nothing +in the narrative in the Book of Genesis to shew that Cain and Abel were +themselves the acting priests (if we may so term it) in the sacrifice. +They may each, for aught that appears to the contrary, have brought their +offering to Adam, and it may have been by his hand that the different +oblations were placed before God, and presented or devoted to Him. Such +as the office and privilege of the head or chief, would seem to have been +the recognised right and duty of such persons throughout the patriarchal +age; but as the rule of patriarchs in secular matters merged in that of +kings, as nations grew out of families, so the office of chiefs as +priests, however thus exercised by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, or Job, +seems to have been afterwards restricted to a tribe, or family, or other +persons, set apart for the special service, and denominated priests, +ἱερεῖς, or _sacerdotes_; names implying their dedication to holy things, +and their exclusive rights in many particulars to deal with them. And +this theory of worship, if we may so call it, was not merely reduced to a +system by God’s law among the Jews, but also prevailed universally among +the heathen world from the very earliest times of which any records are +preserved. Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, bear witness to it, and the +universal practice of all nations substantiates it, whether in the +barbarian forms of the ancient Druidical or other worship in the ruder +peoples of the world, or in the more refined practice of Greece and Rome, +or in the grotesque or cruel rites of the eastern countries, or +absolutely barbarian tribes. They all have their altars, their priests, +and their sacrifices, and in most, if not in all, the notion of +propitiation by the blood of the victim has prevailed. + +It need hardly be added that in the provisions of the Mosaic Law all +these principles were embodied, so that, with every safeguard introduced +against the perversions, the sensuality, the materialism, and the +cruelty, which pervaded all forms and systems of idol worship, yet the +true worship of Jehovah, as established by Himself, embraced, and +contained, and stereotyped under the mark of His own approval, nay, of +His absolute command, the same three points, of an altar, a priesthood, +and a sacrifice; yes, a sacrifice in the sense of more than a mere +oblation or offering,—a sacrifice by blood of a victim slain, and +consumed in the very act of the commanded worship. For it ought never to +be forgotten that amid all other offerings that were permitted,—nay, for +certain purposes enjoined, as, for instance, for thank-offerings, or for +mere legal purification,—yet, under the Jewish Law, the particular +sacrifice which was appointed for expiation of any moral offence was the +burnt-offering, where the victim, as I have said, was killed, and +afterwards consumed by fire upon the altar; {36} and this appears to have +no exception, unless it were in the case of the extremely poor, who might +offer the tenth part of an ephah of meal; but even then, I believe, it is +considered that this was placed upon a victim offered by others, or by +the priest, for the sins of the people, and so may be deemed to have made +a part of a sacrifice with blood. So that, in truth, as St. Paul says to +the Hebrews, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and +without shedding of blood is no remission.” + +We might say much on this head, and more particularly upon the +appointment of the Passover, and the light thrown by this institution +upon the typical character of sacrifice generally, and its relation to +the great sacrifice of all,—the Lamb slain, once for all upon the cross, +for the sins of the world; but the outline already given of the doctrine +taught by the sacrifice of Abel will readily suggest a key to the true +intention of the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Jews, and to the manner +in which they (although “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take +away sin,” yet) pointed to, and prepared the way for, our understanding +the nature of the sacrifice of Christ, and, indeed, were the great means +to elicit and foster faith in Him who should come, and to teach all the +world daily and continually to look to Him who alone is its salvation, +without whom, and whose mercy, no flesh should be saved at all. + +We have brought, then, our statement, and I may say our argument, to this +point; first, generally that the whole world, with one consent, bears +witness to the usage of sacrifice. The whole world from Adam to +Christ,—Patriarchal, Jewish, Gentile, Barbarian, Civilized, North, South, +East, and West, together (for the new world when discovered was found +herein not to be divergent from the old),—testifies, I say, with one mind +and one mouth, as to the Being of a God, so likewise to this usage of +sacrifice. And again, secondly, and more particularly, the witness +agrees, that the sacrifice is made, (to speak generally,) not without +blood, and made for the purpose of reconciliation, after sin committed, +with the supernatural being or beings invoked, or for propitiation and +intercession in cases of favour sought. Even, still further is there +accordant and consenting witness; that there will be, as necessary +accompaniments to the sacrifice, an altar on which it is to be made, and +a specially set apart order of men: priests (ίερεῖς, _sacerdotes_, or +however particularly designated), by whom these sacrifices should be +offered up, and intercessions made on behalf of the people. So much the +whole world testifies generally, in spite of certain differences of +usage, and the fearful abominations which prevailed amongst those who did +not retain the true God in their knowledge:—the cruelty, licentiousness, +and abhorrent vice into which this worship, when it degenerated into idol +worship, everywhere sunk; which, however, it is plain, is no more an +argument against sacrifice, holily and obediently offered in accordance +with God’s appointment, than the superstitions of heathen invocation are +an argument against godly prayer and intercession. And thus, too, we see +that this very idea of sacrifice, (without the vicious accompaniments,) +prevailed among God’s children from the first,—as with Abel, Noah, +Melchisedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job; whilst by God’s own sanction +and special command, and, with what in human affairs we should call the +most laborious care and pains, the whole system was, under Moses, +recognised, enlarged, defined, and embodied in a whole code of laws, to +be in their very minutest details carried out until the Mediator of a new +covenant should come, when that which was old should be ready to vanish +away. + +But it is well worthy of all our care in examination, to see whether it +is the essence of this idea, and even mode, of worship which is done +away, or only its ceremonial and local detail, as established in the +Jewish Church and polity; whether—as all sacrifices before Christ were +intended to look forward to Him, and His precious, inestimable, +expiation, to be once made by blood and suffering upon the altar of the +cross—whether, I say, so it has not been His will to continue an altar +and a priesthood, and therewith and thereby a sacrifice +commemorative—but, though commemorative, nevertheless perfectly real and +true—by which the Christian Church may both look back to Him, then dying +once for all, and ever plead afresh the merits of His death before the +throne of God on high. As Abraham looked forward, and “rejoiced to see +His day, and saw it, and was glad;” {40a} what if, so likewise, the +Christian Church is to look back on Him, and to rejoice; not merely to +see Him and be glad, but to be allowed also, according to His own will +and ordinance,—(aye, brethren, observe, of and by His own very +appointment, whereby His very body and blood are truly offered up to +God,)—allowed thus to plead, week by week and day by day, the very +all-prevailing merits of that same sacrifice upon the cross; yea, and be +the means of Himself graciously pleading it for His people ever afresh +before the mercy-seat of His Father. O, my brethren, if this be so, who +can undervalue this great thing, or disparage it, or attempt to throw it +off, or deny it, or trample it under foot, without a sacrilege fearful to +think of? But, again, if this be so, how is the Lamb of God, and His +precious blood-shedding, made, more than in any other way which we can +conceive, the centre towards which the whole world looks, from its +earliest to its latest day; from the moment of the promise that the seed +of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, {40b} until that awful +hour when that same seed of the woman, the Son of Man, shall come in the +clouds of heaven with power and great glory? I do not say, it is not +conceivable that the whole system and machinery (so to call it), of +priest, and altar, and sacrifice, might have fulfilled its purpose at the +hour of the crucifixion, and nothing remain of it, or like it, in the +Christian Church; nothing in the Christian ministry to answer to the +previous priesthood; nothing in it, but a set of teachers or expounders +of the Christian faith; a faith, however, be it remarked, in that case, a +very different thing from that which the Church has ever supposed it to +be, or (as I think) the Holy Scripture sets before us. But even if all +this be conceivable, I do say, and I think no unprejudiced person should +dispute it, that the whole testimony and usage of all previous time in +this matter, the whole of what holy men “did continually” in relation to +it, not merely with God’s manifest approval, but even with His especial +sanction, and by His positive command, raises a very strong _prima facie_ +presumption, that all this was not intended to be, and was not, thus +abrogated and done away; and that, at the very least, we ought to have +shewn us the most express and distinct proofs of its being thus +abrogated, before we can accept its abrogation. We have been accustomed +to see, rather, that instead of being abrogated, the usage is changed and +glorified; changed from the shadow to the image, from wood and stone to +silver and gold, from a comparatively dead state to a glorious living +one, from the ministration of death to the ministration of life; but, if +this be not so, then, indeed, we may surely ask to see this reversal of +all which the economy of God’s dealings would seem to lead us to, +expressly promulgated and proved by the word of Christ or His Apostles; +so plainly set down as to need no explanation further; or else, so +explained by those who immediately followed them, and had the best means +of understanding their sense and design, as to leave us no ground for +reasonable doubt, or we must be excused if we cannot accept the mere +assertion of so improbable a thing as true, or believe the unchangeable +God to be so like a Man that He should thus repent. + +A fair examination into this question is most important, but we cannot +enter upon it at the present moment. We must necessarily defer it to +another day. I trust, with God’s help and guidance, to resume our +subject on Sunday next, and endeavour further to see how the doctrine +really stands, taking, briefly but carefully, into consideration these +three points:— + +1. What is the testimony of the Holy Scripture as to the doctrine of the +Christian priesthood, altar, and sacrifice? + +2. How this has been understood by the Church from the beginning? and, + +3. How it has been received by our own branch of the Church Catholic, +the Church of England? + +And I will only add now, whilst I pray that we may all strive simply to +know the will of God that we may do it, that there can be no more +practical matter than this to engage our thoughts and hearts. For, if it +be so, that Christ has left Him no priests now on earth to minister at +His altars, and no sacrifice with which His people are concerned, a great +part of what so many believe, I might say, of what the Church of God for +eighteen hundred years and more has believed, to be of the essence of our +faith, is a mere fable and superstition; whilst if, on the other hand, +“it be truth, and the thing certain,” {43} that a Christian priesthood, +ordained by Christ Himself, and these sacrificial powers, and altar and +sacrifice, remain and must remain ever in His Church, what words shall +describe the misery and sin of those who are endeavouring to rob a whole +nation of their belief in such truth of God, and to pour more than slight +and contempt upon the ordinances of Christ; so that, in fact, they would, +if they could have their will and way, unchurch the Church of God in this +land, deny the virtue of His mysteries, and starve the children of God +who seek to receive at His altar the benefits of His sacrifice, humbly +waiting on Him there, and partaking of the sacrifice and feast ordained +by Him. + +Oh! let us pray indeed that we may come to the consideration of so +weighty a matter, casting away all passion and prejudice and preconceived +opinion, and whatsoever may hinder us from seeing the truth of God, to +which may He of His mercy guide us. And may He grant us also that we may +not merely know the truth, but when we know it follow it, in our daily +life and conversation, without turning aside to the right hand or to the +left. + + + + +SERMON III. +Witness of the New Testament to the Doctrine of Sacrifice. + + + 1 CORINTHIANS x. 18. + “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” + +I RESUME the subject upon which I have spoken on two previous Sundays—the +reality of the Christian priesthood, altar, and sacrifice. + +I endeavoured to shew in the first of these discourses that it was no +argument against the truth of the priesthood that they who hold it have +“this treasure in earthen vessels,” that a priest is like and “of like +passions” with others, nay, is “weak as another man.” In the second, I +pointed out that sacrifice was an institution as old as the days of our +first parents, and in all probability appointed directly by the Almighty +upon man’s fall, with some revelation of its predictive significance; +that certainly it met with His approval when duly and religiously +performed; and that it was by faith that those who took part in it +“obtained the witness that they were righteous:” {45} whence we were led +to consider more particularly its relation to the sacrifice upon the +Cross of “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world,” and +how from the beginning it looked forward, in its inner meaning, with a +preparing and expectant eye and heart, to that wonderful consummation. +We saw, too, that thus among God’s own chosen people, by special and +minute provision, this doctrine and usage of sacrifice were preserved +even as long as the elder dispensation lasted; whilst, though in terrible +and wicked perversion, both as to the object and the mode of worship, +they yet prevailed universally throughout the heathen world. Admitting +it to be conceivable that in the Almighty’s will it might be intended +that sacrifice should altogether cease when once the great sacrifice was +completed; that, although He had appointed foreshadowing and predictive +rites of that wonderful event, He did not intend that there should be any +reflective or commemorative sacrifice to carry us back to it, or to apply +its virtue, or to plead its merits ever afresh before the throne of God; +we yet saw great reason to think this to be highly unlikely, and reserved +the point more particularly for further examination. What is the +testimony which has been furnished to us upon it? You will remember that +I proposed to consider this testimony under the three heads: first, what +Holy Scripture tells us; secondly, what has been the understanding by the +Church from the beginning of the declarations of Holy Writ; and thirdly, +what is the mind of our own Church in this matter? + +Before, however, coming to these particulars, let me premise that it can +be but a brief summary of such evidences which it is possible to give +here. The subject is so large, and the full testimony so extensive, that +it would require volumes to go through it. Those who would study it in a +more complete manner will find it elaborately discussed in the discourses +on “The Government of Churches and on Religious Assemblies,” of Dr. +Herbert Thorndike, Canon of Westminster, about the middle of the +seventeenth century, (a very learned theologian); and in the three octavo +volumes of “Treatises on the Christian Priesthood,” by Dr. Hickes, Dean +of Worcester, some fifty years later; whilst there is a very thoughtful +and condensed statement of the whole matter in a small book by the Rev. +T. T. Carter, called “The Doctrine of the Priesthood.” + +Let us now turn to our own enquiry, as some help (if it please God) to +those who may not be so likely, possibly may not have leisure or +opportunity, to consult larger works, but may yet have a godly anxiety +amid the bold assertions, and I fear we must say, in no small measure, +the irreverent scoffing of a free and licentious time, to learn the will +of God herein, that they may neither think nor do anything but what is +pleasing and acceptable in His sight. + +Our question is, Has God willed, and has He revealed to us His will, that +in His Church, since the death of His Blessed Son upon the cross, there +shall be no priesthood, no altar, and no sacrifice? And first, “What +saith the Scripture?” {48a} I must take but a few out of many passages. + +1. We have, in our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, the following direction: +“If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy +brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, +and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and +offer thy gift.” {48b} Now if this direction be intended to be a guide +of conduct for Christian people in the Christian Church, can it be denied +that our Lord speaks of an altar to be used, and an offering to be made +thereon; and that, speaking to those who were constantly accustomed to +altars and sacrifices, His words must have conveyed to them the meaning +that an altar and a sacrifice would remain for them whilst they should be +practising the precepts of His religion? If He did not intend so much by +this precept, the question surely arises, How shall we, with any +certainty, know what other portions of that or any of our Lord’s +discourses were designed for the instruction merely of the Jews who were +around Him, or should receive His teaching during the time that their +covenant lasted, but became immediately inapplicable and void in and +under the Christian dispensation? Will any say that the precepts +concerning purity, meekness, government of the tongue, charity, are thus +limited? as, “Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed +adultery with her already in his heart;” or, “Whosoever is angry with his +brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment;” or, again, +“Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay;” or, once more, “Resist +not evil; love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them +that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute +you.” {49} That these and other divine precepts of that same discourse +were injunctions to bind the Jews, to whom primarily they were spoken, +but require other proof or repetition before they can be conclusively +accepted as designed for Christians would seem strange indeed. If no one +will say so, surely we must confess to a strong presumption in favour of +the doctrine of an altar and a sacrifice remaining in the Christian +Church. + +But perhaps it may be said, Not so: we accept those other precepts as +belonging to the Christian Church, because they are simply moral precepts +applying to the heart, but the former passage relates to a ceremonial +usage of the Jewish polity, and may well be taken to be a mere adaptation +of what was then in well-known use; to inculcate, not an act or mode of +worship, but figuratively a frame of mind that would be required in +Christians. So that, as the Jew would literally understand, he should go +his way from the temple and the altar, and be reconciled to any one to +whom he had done wrong, before he could there make his offering; so the +Christian in all time, though having no altar to which to come, and no +real offering or sacrifice in which to join, should yet learn to be in +peace and charity with all men, before he should esteem himself fit to +lift up his voice or heart in prayer to God; and that therefore our +Lord’s words, spoken “while as the first tabernacle was yet standing,” +{50} do not sufficiently prove any altar designed to exist in the +Christian Church. Well, let us allow the utmost weight to such an +argument, and grant that the words in and by themselves might possibly be +so explained, and yet bear just a tolerable though not, I think, at all a +likely interpretation in such sense; but then, let us yet turn and see +whether the other and more natural meaning be not corroborated elsewhere, +where this gloss will not avail. Remember the objection to the proof of +a Christian altar from those words is, that they were spoken whilst the +Jewish polity subsisted, and before the Christian Church was set up, and +therefore that it is only (as is asserted) by a figure, suitable enough +to Jewish ears, but not as really enunciating a truth or principle to +endure in the Christian Church, that they were uttered. But shall we not +find a witness in Holy Scripture to the existence of this altar in the +new dispensation, which is free from this exception or construction? I +turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and I find the Apostle writing, “We +have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the +tabernacle.” {51a} Was not this written to Christians? Does it not +speak to them expressly of their altar at which they are to eat? Was it +not set down for their guidance and instruction? Was it not written +after the great sacrifice upon the altar of the cross had been made, and +made once for all? + +Was it not after the setting up of the Christian Church, and the +establishment of Christian worship? Nay, is it not in an Epistle, the +very whole drift and scope of which is to contrast the usages and +provisions and teaching of the elder covenant with those of the new, and +to shew the superiority in each respect of that which had been ordained, +not by angels, but in the hand of the Son of God Himself. {51b} And can +it therefore be that the inferior part or type in the one can lack the +corresponding superior part, or antitype, in the other with which it is +contrasted, and on which correspondency and contrast the whole argument +depends? Will any one say, Yes, but still the Jewish temple had not then +been destroyed; the Jews’ visible altar and worship still existed, and it +is only by (again) an adaptation, as a mode of speech particularly +intelligible to the Hebrews, and by a very natural economy, that such +terms were employed. But granting that the date of the Epistle is, with +all probability, rightly put some little time before the destruction of +Jerusalem, yet does not the very turn both of the argument and of the +expression of the Apostle shew that he is not making an application of a +figure, but a declaration of a fact? Addressing Hebrews, but most +evidently converted Hebrews, Christians, to keep them firm in the faith, +and to enlighten them to the more full understanding in it, he presses on +them this point, that they have an altar; and not only so, but one +distinguished from the altar of the Jew; one at which “they have no right +to eat which serve the tabernacle.” Take the whole passage together and +see its force: “We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which +serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is +brought into the sanctuary by the High Priest for sin, are burned without +the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with +His own blood, suffered without the gate.” Where evidently the type, the +great day of atonement under the law, is contrasted with its antitype, +the great sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. So far it might be perhaps +thought that our altar is only the cross; but then he continues: “Let us +go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach; for +here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By Him, +therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that +is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” {53} Here it is +evident another sacrifice is to be made, even the sacrifice of praise +(which we must remember is the very phrase universally used in the +ancient Church for the Holy Eucharist). Let us therefore (surely we are +to understand) follow after Christ, being content to bear His reproach +even as we offer to Him, ourselves, our souls and bodies, in and by the +sacrifice of His own appointing, the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the supper +of the Lord, at the enduring Christian altar as well as table. + +But perhaps some may still say, We are not convinced. The allusion to an +altar here may yet be figurative, or only adapting language to the mind +of the Jew, “while as the first tabernacle was yet standing;” and the +sacrifice of praise need not necessarily mean the Holy Eucharist, or, if +it do, may point to no altar or sacrifice by means of a priest, but +merely denote the lifting the heart in sincerity to God. + +Now, although putting the whole argument together and reading the passage +by the light which the continuous belief of the Church throws upon it (as +we shall see presently), nothing, I think, can be more unlikely or +untenable than such an interpretation, still, for the moment, let us +allow it to throw a doubt upon the sense of the passage. Let us, then, +turn to yet another place, and see if the witness of the Apostle is not +unmistakeable as to the doctrine of which we speak. + +Take that passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians in which our +text occurs, and see if it be possible to understand it in any sense but +in that which speaks of a present altar and a continually recurring +sacrifice, in which Christians have an interest and bear a part: “Are not +they which eat of the sacrifice,” says he, “partakers of the altar?” {54} +and this especially in contrast as to the conduct of those engaged in +idol worship, and those in Christian worship. As truly, then, as the +idolater partook of his altar (though his idol be nothing), so, only much +more, does the Christian of the Christian altar. And this cannot be the +one offering on the cross alone, however deriving all its virtue and +power from it, because in that case the Christian could not be said to +eat of the sacrifice in any continuous or recurring act. The sacrifice +would be wholly past, and not present as the idol sacrifices were, and so +there would be no true parallel between the two things brought into +comparison. Mark the progress of the argument: “What say I then? that +the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to the idol +is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, +they sacrifice to devils and not to God;” that is, under the symbol of +the senseless wood or stone there lurked an acknowledgment of demoniac +power, so that, in fact, in the heart of those worshippers there was a +homage paid to Satan and his angels, and this was something wickedly +real, even though the idol was nothing. For he immediately adds what +shews that this worship was not without its effect, an effect impressing +a character on those who shared in it; for he says, “And I would not that +ye should have fellowship with devils,” and why? because thus they would +lose all fellowship with God. “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and +the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of +the table of devils.” {55} Let it make no difficulty that it is called a +table here, as an altar above. It is both, just as the other, the +heathen altar, was both, because in each case there was not merely a +sacrifice, but a feast upon a sacrifice. As truly, then, as the Apostle +says that there is a heathen idolatrous sacrifice which Christians can +never have to do with, because if they do they would have fellowship with +devils, so does he, by the very parallel he draws, and the whole scope of +his argument, imply that Christians have a sacrifice, at which they can +be, and are to be, continually present; in and by which they have +fellowship with the Lord, which also is offered continually in their +assemblies, and of which they eat. For as in the one there were the +heathen feasts upon the victims or offerings offered to devils; so in the +other there is the feast upon the Christian sacrifice, the offering made +in that continually recurring commemorative oblation to God of the body +and blood of Christ. If this be not to be offered up continually, since +the one sacrifice completed as the propitiation by blood made once for +all upon the cross, then there is no coherency or force in the Apostle’s +argument; for there would be nothing in the Christian dispensation like, +or answering to, those sacrifices to devils which the heathen used, and +in which they were forbidden to join. The teaching surely is, and must +be, as they who join in the heathen altar-worship are partakers of it, +and have fellowship thereby with those to whom it is really offered, so +they who join in the Christian sacrifice (not so made and passed in point +of time as to be incapable of continued and continual recurrence by +commemorative but real act) are thereby partakers in and of their feast +upon their sacrifice, and have therein fellowship with the Lord. So this +is the continual memorial of the one “sacrifice upon the cross, and of +the benefits which we receive thereby,” also the appointed means of our +receiving those benefits. And it would be absurd to think of the Apostle +describing the worship of idols as a real act of adoration and sacrifice +to devils, and as impressing a real character by a power upon them for +evil in those who join in such worship, and not to see that he must allow +an equal act of sacrifice, adoration, and homage in the sacrifice and the +altar which he speaks of as the Christian’s constant privilege to +frequent; and which is as much greater to impress a character for good +upon the Christian and to nourish him to life eternal, as the real +presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is greater than the idol, which +is nothing, or the things offered to idols, which are nothing. + +Nor is there any escape, that I can see, from the force of this argument +of St. Paul, unless any one will try to evade it by saying: “Look back a +moment, and see if the whole argument does not belong to the Jew, and not +to the Christian.” Will any one take this line and appeal to the words +immediately before the text? True, it is written, “Behold Israel after +the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the +altar?” But if this be urged, I say, go back a little further still, and +observe the flood of light thrown upon the whole passage, in connection +not merely generally with Christianity, but especially and particularly +with the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, in this true +commemorative Sacrament, which is exactly where and how, we say, the +Christian sacrifice is offered by the Christian priests upon the +Christian altar. After exhortation against yielding to temptation, and +declaration of the ever-ready help of God for those who will use it, “who +will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with +the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear +it,” the Apostle adds: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. +I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” (Oh, let us also be wise +to hear and learn! “Judge ye what I say.”) “The cup of blessing which +we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread +which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? For we, +being many, are one bread and one body: for we are all partakers of that +one bread.” {58} And then all but immediately he adds, “are not they +which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” Can anything be +clearer than that, to the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of +Christ, he attaches the teaching which follows so directly as to the +nature of the sacrifice and the altar? Ah! but, it is said, he +interpolates words that you have omitted which alter the +application:—“Behold Israel after the flesh;” he says, and then adds, +“are not they which eat of the sacrifice partakers of the altar?” Well, +and what do the parenthetical words mean? Surely they must mean merely +this,—that, as his readers would allow such was the case under the law, +and with Israel after the flesh; and that Israel, as well as the heathen, +had an altar and a sacrifice, so it is also with Christians: as if he had +said, We Christians, by this blessed sacramental bond, are one body, even +as we are all partakers of that one Bread; and as you will all allow, the +partaking of a common sacrifice (for instance, that of the Paschal Lamb,) +signified this under the law and with “Israel after the flesh,” so you +must be prepared to admit as much under the Gospel, and with the true +Israel born anew of the Spirit. Thus the interpolation does not for one +moment break the sequence or invalidate the force of the argument as to +the Christian sacrifice, but merely illustrates it by a parenthetical +allusion to what his hearers or readers would allow at once to have been +the case with Jewish rites, sacrifices, and altars: and the conclusion +from the whole is distinct and inevitable, that St. Paul,—speaking to the +Christians at Corinth as to men who would understand the whole force of +his argument, as being acquainted with Jewish customs, and living also in +the very midst of heathen idolatrous worship,—teaches as plainly that +Christians use a Christian altar, and offer up a Christian sacrifice, and +feast together upon it, and that this is undoubtedly the cup of blessing +which we bless, and the bread which we break, and that thereon follows +the blessedness of fellowship with the Lord; I say, teaches this as +plainly as he says there is, or has been, in Jewish worship a Jewish +altar and sacrifice, and as there is in heathen worship an altar and a +sacrifice to devils, and a partaking of the cup of devils, and of the +table of devils, and thereby the having fellowship with them. And, (what +is particularly to the purpose of my citing this passage), herein is the +proof that the sacrifice referred to cannot be the one meritorious, +painful, bloody sacrifice upon the cross, once made and never to be +repeated; both because this was not (no one can say it was) the literal +breaking of bread, and the blessing the cup in the Holy Eucharist, and +because also, if that one sacrifice had been intended, there would have +been no parallel at all between the heathen sacrifices to which the +people were often called, and that sacrifice to which Christians on this +supposition could never be called. Whereas if we do but allow, according +to the plain meaning of the words and of the argument, that there is a +true sacrifice to God, commemorative, but real, as ordained and appointed +by Christ Himself,—no repetition of blood or agony, but the presenting +afresh, and pleading afresh, yea, causing Christ Himself to plead afresh +for us in heaven, the merits of that one precious death,—then we have the +most manifest recognition and declaration of the very doctrine for which +we contend, and both many other passages of Holy Writ are made perfectly +clear,—(who will now doubt the sense of the other two Scriptures which we +examined?)—and the whole sense and usage of the Church from the beginning +is both explained and justified. + +Our time has been so much taken up in examining what was, of course, the +most important question of all, the teaching of Holy Scripture upon this +point, that we have left ourselves no time to-day to consider the further +portion of our proposed subject, viz., what is the teaching of the Church +Catholic from the beginning, and its understanding of the written word on +this doctrine of sacrifice; and, yet again, what is the witness of our +own Church to her having most carefully preserved, held, and maintained +the same. To this we will recur, if God will, another day; in the +meanwhile commending ourselves ever to His mercy, and all we think or do +to His grace and guidance. + + + + +SERMON IV. +The Testimony of the Early Church to the Doctrine of the Priesthood. + + + JEREMIAH vi. 16. + “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the + old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find + rest for your souls.” + +THE next division of our enquiry is, the understanding of Holy Scripture +in the primitive Church as to the priesthood, the altar, and the +sacrifice, and its consequent doctrine thereupon. Before, however, +proceeding to this examination, let me briefly remind you of the point in +the argument from Holy Scripture at which we have arrived, for our time +on Sunday last hardly permitted me to sum up the remarks then made. The +last passage which we considered asks in the tone of unquestionable +affirmation, “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the +altar?” The parallel, as I then pointed out, lies between those on the +one hand, who, eating of the heathen sacrifices, are partakers of the +heathen altar, and thus have fellowship with devils; and those, on the +other hand, who, eating of the Christian sacrifice, are partakers of the +Christian altar, and thus have fellowship with God. For, I must repeat, +if St. Paul’s argument have not this meaning and significance, there is +no coherency in the things brought into juxtaposition, and nothing on the +one side to answer to the requirement of the other. Observe further, +before we pass on, how the Apostle’s whole reasoning, as it stands, +excludes, and must exclude, the sense of the Christian sacrifice being a +mere figurative expression, and that which is eaten in it a mere +subjective thing, dependent upon the mind of the recipient for its being +there at all; for, if it were so in the Christian sacrifice, it must be +so in the idol sacrifice also. But is it so in the latter? Is it that +what is there eaten is a mere nothing in itself, dependent upon the mind +of the eater? Is the partaking of the idol altar not an effect of an +actual eating? Is the consequent fellowship with devils not the result +of such actual feasting upon an actual objective sacrifice? And, +therefore, if the parallel has any force at all, must it not be that +there is a real objective presence of a sacrificial thing at the +Christian altar,—the _res sacramenti_, as in strict theological +phraseology it is termed,—by which he that eateth is partaker of the +altar, and the result of which is, his having fellowship with Christ and +God? From which our inference was plain and direct that in St. Paul’s +understanding there is a Christian altar and a Christian sacrifice. Such +was the conclusion from Holy Scripture at which we arrived. + +I proceed now to shew further, that this, the natural and, as I think, +the necessary sense of that passage (supported by numerous other passages +of Holy Writ, some of which we have noticed, though many others we have +not had time particularly to examine), is the sense in which the Church +Catholic has ever understood the doctrine of the Scripture upon this +subject, and which our own Church carefully guarded and preserved at her +Reformation; thus maintaining, on so essential a point, her connection +with the Church from the beginning and in all times. + +But yet, before we go into the proof of this, let it be remarked (for it +is very important in order to our seeing the full weight and bearing of +the facts and records to which we are about to refer) that these three +things—the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice—are what we may call +correlatives, and reciprocally imply one another. As the word parent +implies a child, or brother, brother or sister; so, if there be an altar, +there will be a sacrifice, for the altar would be unmeaning without it, +would miss its aim and be purposeless if there were nothing to be offered +on it; and in like manner, if there be a sacrifice there will be an +altar, for it is contrary to the whole sense and usage of the word to +make such sacrificial offering to God, and not withal to sanctify some +special place and mode of oblation. Again, if there be an altar and a +sacrifice, there will be a priesthood; unless the voice of the whole +world (over and above the constraining teaching of the Scripture) be in +error, and any man that pleases may “take this honour unto himself,” +{66a} and offer up “gifts and sacrifices” acceptably to God. + +Premising, then, thus much, I proceed to call attention to the fact, that +the whole literature of Christianity from the beginning either states or +implies the doctrine of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, +which we have deduced also from Holy Scripture. It is true that in the +very scanty writings which remain to us from the first century, we may +not find the word ‘priest’ applied to the Christian ministry. But, as +Mr. Carter has well observed, “the real question is not whether the name, +but whether the idea, of priesthood is found to exist in the extant +writings of the Apostolic Fathers;” {66b} whilst for the absence of the +name it is not hard to assign satisfactory reasons. In the first place, +the extant writings of that century are too few to let a negative +conclusion be built upon them. They amount, I believe, in all, (if we +exclude the “Shepherd of Hermas,” a confessedly mere allegorical work,) +to not more than what would make about thirty pages of an octavo volume. +{66c} Over and above this paucity of material on which to found an +argument, other reasons may readily be given for the term ‘priest’ not +occurring. It may be sufficient here just to touch upon two. First, +there might be great cause why the earliest Christian writers should not +designate those who ministered at their altars by a term which might have +been understood to imply that they claimed for them a descent from the +house of Aaron according to the flesh; which claim the Jews around them +would know in many instances to be unfounded, and which, therefore, to be +supposed to make, would lay them open to a charge of imposture; whilst +again, secondly, they might equally desire to keep clear of all mistake +as to their being confounded with the priesthood of the Gentiles, or +heathen world, so likely to involve them in the charge of offering up +bloody sacrifices like them; a charge which in fact we know, as it was, +they did not wholly escape; a wonderful and most unsuspicious witness by +the way (for it comes from those who had no thought to forward any +interests of Christianity), that Christians claimed to make a true +sacrifice in the Eucharist, for it is evidently this, perverted and +mistaken by the persecuting heathen, (as if, when they offered the Body +and Blood of Christ, they confessed to offering a human victim,) which +led to the accusation; a great evidence surely to the doctrine of the +real presence of Christ therein, for who could mistake the Eucharistic +doctrine of a large portion of modern Christianity for anything open to +such a charge, under which we know, upon the testimony of heathen +writers, the early Christians suffered reproach? + +These two reasons, then, may suffice as to the term ‘priest’ not being so +early applied to the Christian ministry, and indeed we need no defence +upon the subject, because the whole idea of the priesthood prevails in +those early writings whether the word ‘priest’ be used or not, inasmuch +as there is constant mention of the sacrifice and the altar as in use in +the Christian Church. + +As we proceed with the stream of Christian writing there is ample proof +of the universal holding and teaching of this doctrine. + +I cannot, of course, pretend here to go through this evidence in detail. +We must rather look for a summary which may give the result of a fair +examination into the records left us, than make a series of extracts from +them. We shall perhaps hardly find a more unexceptionable witness than +the learned writer Vitringa, cited by Mr. Carter in his work already +mentioned. Speaking of the age shortly succeeding the Apostles, Mr. +Carter says: “As to the usage of this period there can be no surer +authority than that of Vitringa. His extensive learning, directed +assiduously to this very point, and his zeal as a partizan, make his +testimony to be peculiarly conclusive.” {68} His zeal as a partizan, be +it observed, was not in favour of the Catholic sense of the writings, nor +of any priesthood or altar, for Vitringa was a Dutch Presbyterian, who +lived about the middle of the last century, and wrote expressly to +explain away the evidence which nevertheless he adduces. He acknowledges +that his own views are opposed to the unvarying testimony and belief of +the Catholic Church for sixteen hundred years. His theory excludes all +idea of priesthood and equally of bishops, (not the name only, but also +the office,) chancels, altars, and oblations, and, indeed, any stated +ministry. In fact, he regards the whole subject as a staunch +Presbyterian, and it is, therefore, certainly not with any bias in favour +of the doctrine which we are considering that he thus sums up the results +of his enquiries into the writings of those early centuries:— + +“That Tertullian, in the beginning of the third century, calls the bishop +‘chief priest,’ (_summus sacerdos_); that before his time, in the second +century, Irenæus calls the gifts made at the Holy Eucharist, ‘oblations,’ +(_oblata_,) and when consecrated by the prayer of the bishop, ‘a +sacrifice,’ (_sacrificium_); and that in Justin Martyr, a still more +ancient writer, the gifts are called ‘offerings,’ (_προσφοραὶ_); are +facts so certainly known to the learned, that it is needless to speak of +them at greater length. In the subsequent writings of the Fathers, the +terms ‘priesthood,’ ‘Priest,’ ‘Levites,’ ‘altars,’ ‘offertories,’ +‘sacrifices,’ ‘oblations,’ used in reference to the Church of the New +Testament, are so obvious and frequent that it can escape no one who has +even cursorily examined their writings. In Eusebius, moreover, and the +rest of the ecclesiastical historians, and the canons of Councils, such +frequent mention occurs of these phrases, that it is evident they must +have struck deep root into the minds of men in those ages.” {70} So much +is the testimony of a very learned man, and a most unsuspicious witness. + +But there is a separate line of evidence to be drawn from another and +perhaps even still more convincing source: I mean the ancient liturgies +of the Church which have come down to us, and tell us in what way the +early Christians worshipped God; the place which they assigned to the +Holy Eucharist, and the light in which they regarded it in connection +with sacrifice, altar, and priesthood. There are four liturgies, (and we +are to remember, the word in all ancient writings means merely and simply +the Eucharistic service,) which have been shewn to have been reduced to +writing in the course of the fourth century, and one of them in the +earliest part of it. They bear their witness to the Church’s faith and +hope and teaching in those days, and even earlier, because it is +generally conceded that they were in use long before they were put into +writing, the days of persecution rendering it unsafe for the Christians +to have documents which might be seized, and turned against them; or +perhaps still more, the desire to preserve the mysteries of their faith, +and especially of the Holy Eucharist, from the inquisition of heathen +scoffing, indisposing them to keep any records which could be thus +profanely used. Of course, after the Empire became Christian, under +Constantine, this reason ceased, and it was only what was natural that +the services which had been orally in use for years should now be reduced +to writing. Now, these four liturgies were used at the four great +central sees of Christendom, and their subordinate branches, and so +pervaded the whole Catholic world. “The first,” to use the words of a +learned writer, Mr. Palmer, the author of the _Origines Liturgicæ_, “is +the great Oriental liturgy, as it seems to have prevailed in all the +Christian Churches, from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, and from the +Hellespont to the southern extremity of Greece; the second was the +Alexandrian, which from time immemorial has been the liturgy of Egypt, +Abyssinia, and the country extending along the Mediterranean Sea to the +West; the third was the Roman, which prevailed throughout the whole of +Italy, Sicily, and great part of Africa; the fourth was the Gallican, +which was used throughout Gaul and Spain, and probably in the exarchate +of Ephesus, until the fourth century.” {71} + +Now, the especially important bearing of these liturgies upon our subject +is this, that in spite of enough of difference to shew that they are +independent witnesses, they yet correspond most closely with one another +in all main features, and particularly in their witness to the +sacrificial doctrine, and the priestly office, in relation to the Holy +Eucharist. And (as Mr. Palmer has pointed out), with regard to the one +first named, the Oriental, existing documents enable us to trace this +liturgy to a very remote period indeed, almost or quite to the Apostolic +age; for he reminds us that in the time of Justin Martyr, whose writings +are the “existing documents” of which he speaks, the Christian Church was +“only removed by one link from the Apostles themselves.” {72a} Nor even +is this all; for there is yet a fifth liturgy, of a date still earlier +than these four already named, called the Clementine, and what is +particularly remarkable in it is, that it agrees with those four great +liturgies in all points where they agree with each other, as well as in +their general structure. + +“Now, in all these liturgies alike,” says Mr. Carter, “the ancient +sacerdotal terms in question are ordinarily used. In reading them, we +open upon a scene which represents a priesthood of different degrees, +with a complete ritual, ministering before God on behalf of the people, +offering sacrifices, and communicating heavenly gifts and benedictions.” +{72b} + +I must forbear both any quotations to shew this, as well as defer any +further remarks upon the progress of events, or (which also is part of +our subject) on the careful attention, by our own Reformers and Revisers, +to preserve the teaching of the primitive Church in this matter. If it +please God, yet once more we may return to the subject, and see how this +stands, as well as make some little practical application of the doctrine +to ourselves at this day, to some of our dangers and temptations in an +age so free-thinking and free-handling as the present. Without +anticipating these things in any detail, let me yet just remind you that +the mere fashion, or usage, or clamour, or forgetfulness, or unbelief of +any age or time can make no difference in the truth of God, or in the +doctrine which has been from the beginning, or in the mysteries of His +kingdom. That men should try to bring all things, however divine and +holy, however deep and mysterious, to the level of their own +understanding, and discard all which they may be unable to explain, need +be to us no matter of surprise. The very same temper which in one +induces a disbelief in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, because the +doctrine is beyond the human understanding to fathom,—or leads another to +reject the mystery of the Incarnation, because it is ineffable and above +his comprehension,—or another to deny the regenerating gift and efficacy +of holy baptism, saying, “How can these things be?”—may readily bring +others to that hard state of scepticism which robs the Holy Eucharist at +once of its deep mysteriousness and of its hidden virtue; which therefore +rejects, and too often ridicules, the very idea of a priesthood and an +availing sacrifice, saying, “How should man have power with God?” or, +“How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” {74a} even though the +priestly power be derived from Christ’s own commission, and the +mysterious virtue assured by His own Word of Truth. That there should be +some who, leaning too much to their own understanding, forsake the old +ways, and dislike and accuse those who desire to cleave to them; that +they should frame worldly arguments for worldly men, and even deceive +some who in heart and wish are not worldly, but rather unwary, or led +away by the mere voice of the multitude, or swayed by prejudice, or +betrayed through an ignorance of what has been from the beginning; that +_some_ should scoff when they cannot reason, and ridicule that which they +have not the heart to understand,—all this, I repeat, need not fill us +with either surprise or dismay, though perchance it may make us (not +wholly unwarrantably) deem that the latter days are come, or close +coming, upon us. I say all this need not surprise us, for have not our +Lord and His Apostles warned us that such things must be? “When the Son +of Man cometh,” He said Himself, “shall He find faith on the earth?” +{74b} as though it would exist but in a remnant. And again, “If they +have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they +call them of his household?” {75a} Why, then, should we expect to escape +such things? But I said, also, we need not be dismayed at them. Is +there not the exhortation, “Ye have need of patience?” {75b} and again +the encouragement, “In your patience possess ye your souls?” {75c} and +again the gracious promise, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved?” +{75d} What though in the latter times some shall depart from the faith? +{75e} What though “the time will come when men will not endure sound +doctrine.” {75f} Shall this make any difference in our faith, or cast +any gloom upon our hope? No! Brethren, let us ever remember that what +we have to rely upon is, not “man’s wisdom,” nor “an arm of flesh:” what +we have to cleave to with all constancy is “that which was from the +beginning;” {75g} for it is this which gives us “fellowship with the +Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” {75h} + +And surely here we may see and bless the goodness of God towards us in +this our Church of England that He put it into the hearts of our +Reformers not for one moment to think of making a new religion or a new +Church, but only (throwing off errors and corruptions) to go back to the +teaching of the early ages, and embrace the doctrine of the Church +universal. If the Church of England had _begun_ at the Reformation, (as +sometimes men speak,) no man, who knew anything of the essentials of +Christianity could belong to her for a moment. But, blessed be God, He +put it into the heart and minds of those who, in His providence, guided +the course of the English Reformation, to make it a maxim, _Stare super +antiquas vias_, to give heed to the injunction of the prophet: “Thus +saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths +where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your +souls.” {76} It is this which has been, under God, our safeguard. From +time to time assaults have been made to destroy our true Catholic +character and our bond of union with primitive Christianity; but God has, +of His mercy, hitherto, ever kept it in the heart of the rulers in our +Church to “ask for the old ways, and to walk in them.” That our Church +has kept to the old ways is manifest from this, that the very persons who +disbelieve and desire to drive us from the ancient faith, are the same +who, as the means of doing so, are striving to new model our formularies +and alter our Prayer-book. They feel no less than we that, whilst we +retain these, we cleave to the doctrine which has been of old; and they, +desiring to deprive us of the doctrine, are as anxious to alter our +formularies as we are to keep them unchanged. And many of them would +perhaps, even more openly than they do, advocate extensive measures of +liturgical revision, in a doctrinal sense, but for the consciousness that +to shew too great anxiety on the point is too like a confession of how +much the Prayer-book is against them. Surely these things are of great +weight when we would know what doctrine is most according to the mind of +the Church of England. “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” +It is this same principle, too, of preserving the one faith once +delivered, which makes it so important to examine, as we are attempting +to do, the sense of Holy Scripture as attested by the consent of the +Church from the beginning, and as accepted by our own Church, upon so +grave and practical a subject as the priesthood, the altar, and the +sacrifice. May God give us His illumination to see His truth as He has +seen fit to reveal it to us, and grace that where we see it, we may +boldly confess it; so shall we pass in safety the waves of this +troublesome world, so may we, perchance, be delivered from the strife of +tongues; or, if not, yet shall we learn not to fear man, nor be troubled +even if we cannot please men, remembering the witness of St. Paul, that +“if he pleased men, he should not be the servant of Christ.” {77} + +And, brethren, let us all pray for an humble, meek, gentle, teachable, +believing heart, that we may not despise or refuse, or disbelieve God’s +mighty works, though His treasure be placed in earthen vessels; nor turn +our back upon His mysteries, though they transcend our utmost powers of +conception, nor neglect His call, be it what it may; to go forth, if it +be so, like Abraham, we know not whither; or, like him, to sacrifice our +dearest hope, if God demand it; or, like Daniel, to be cast even into the +den of lions; or, like the Apostles, to be made the very refuse of the +earth and the offscouring of all things,—so that we may but hold fast the +faith, and yet hand on again to those who shall come after the good +deposit committed to our charge. If this, indeed, we are enabled to do, +we may well “thank God and take courage.” + + + + +SERMON V. +The Testimony of our Formularies to the Doctrine of the Priesthood. + + + ST. JOHN xx. 22, 23. + “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, + Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are + remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are + retained.” + +IN the brief outline which I have submitted in these discourses of the +evidences for the doctrine of the Christian priesthood, altar, and +sacrifice, I first met the objection sometimes made to there being any +such treasure (in our Church at any rate) because lodged in earthen +vessels; secondly, I traced, at least in part, the witness of the whole +world before Christ’s coming to the belief in, and usage of, sacrifice +and altar, with the necessarily attendant priesthood; and thirdly, I +adduced some very small portion of the proofs both from Holy Scripture +and from the universal consent of the early Church in its interpretation +of Scripture, that priesthood, altar, and sacrifice did not expire with +the law, but were intended to be continued, and were continued in and +under the Christian dispensation, in and under Him who was and is a High +Priest of surpassing power and dignity, not after the pattern or lineage +of the priests of the sons of Aaron, but “called an High Priest for ever +after the order of Melchizedek;” of Him who, fulfilling that royal type, +was “King of Righteousness,” and after that also “King of Salem, which is +King of Peace,” and yet, again, in like manner, “priest of the Most High +God,” and who “abideth a priest continually.” {80} + +We brought our examination of this evidence to the fourth century of the +Christian era by, as I think it must be allowed, the summary of an +unexceptionable witness to the substance of the early Christian writings +upon that point, and by a reference to the five most ancient liturgies of +the Christian Church. It is unnecessary to say a word as to the same +doctrine being the universally received doctrine of the Church from the +fourth century to the sixteenth, because its very opponents adduce the +teaching of that thousand or twelve hundred years, in this among other +things, as proving the great darkness and corruption which had then +fallen upon the Church, and obscured, in their view, the simplicity of +the Gospel. So that, whatever may be thought of its orthodoxy, the fact +is not disputed, that for such period the whole of Christendom, with the +most insignificant exceptions, believed in the doctrine which we are +considering. Whether, as is affirmed by such objectors, this universal +belief were a mark of the corruption and ignorance of “the dark ages,” as +the self-complacent pride of later times has designated them, (when +perchance in God’s judgment they may be as light itself compared with +much of the “philosophy and vain deceit” {81a} of this free-handling +nineteenth century, which so often “darkens counsel by words without +knowledge” {81b}); or whether such consent, following the track of the +earliest ages, be not rather the mark of a true understanding of the mind +of the Spirit pervading that body with which Christ has promised to be, +“even to the end of the world,” is another question. It is one which I +need not now pursue, as what we have to say of the course taken and the +doctrine maintained by the Church of England at her Reformation will +throw a light upon the whole matter, which ought, I think, to be +sufficient for any understanding and faithful member of our Church. + +Thus we are brought to the immediate subject of our further enquiry. It +being admitted, as I think I have shewn it must be, that this doctrine of +the priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, is a doctrine founded upon, and +supported by, Holy Scripture; so understood by the Church at large from +the earliest times, so maintained with no faltering lips to at least the +sixteenth century; what, we ask next, is the evidence of the mind of our +own Church at the Reformation and since, as to her preserving or +rejecting it? + +You will hardly expect me to go through all the evidence. +But—remembering what we said on Sunday last, that these three things are +correlatives, reciprocally implying each other, or each one the other +two, (the priest; the altar and the sacrifice;—the altar; the sacrifice +and the priest;—the sacrifice; the priest and the altar;)—let us turn to +some portion of the proof that our Church has fully intended and intends, +has accounted and accounts, those who in her carry on the services of the +sanctuary to be priests of God. + +Now, observe, the three great offices embraced in the idea of a priest +are these:—first, that he is one who has commission to rule and teach; +secondly, one who has power to absolve; thirdly, one who has authority to +offer up sacrifice. The first of these functions, though belonging to +the priesthood, is hardly to be called distinctive of it (as we may see +more clearly presently); the other two are of its essence, that is, +pertaining to none else; so that, on the one hand, he who has them both, +or even he who has, if it were so, either of them, is necessarily in a +true sense a priest; and, on the other, he who is a priest will have one +or other, or both of these powers, not indeed of himself, but committed +to him. To see how this stands with us, who are ministers and stewards +of God’s mysteries in this our Church of England, we must turn to our +service-books, and especially to the Service for Ordaining Priests, to +see what is the commission given to each, and what we learn from this to +be the mind of the Church concerning them who are admitted to that holy +function. + +Turn first, then, for a moment to the Preface, to “The Form and Manner of +making, ordaining, and consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, +according to the order of the United Church of England and Ireland.” We +find it there said: “It is evident unto all men diligently reading the +Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles’ time there +have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church; Bishops, Priests, +and Deacons. Which offices were evermore had in such reverend +estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he +were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as +are requisite for the same; and also by public prayer, with imposition of +hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful authority. And +therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and +reverently used and esteemed, in the United Church of England and +Ireland; no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, +Priest, or Deacon, in the United Church of England and Ireland, or +suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, +tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the form hereafter +following, or hath had formerly episcopal consecration, or ordination.” + +Now this shews, I think, beyond dispute, that the Church of England holds +that no one, according to her mind and rule, is to be accounted or taken +to be a lawful bishop, priest, or deacon, without episcopal ordination or +consecration; for those who are ordained or consecrated according to the +forms which follow, unquestionably have it; and those who are or have +been admitted by any others, are not to be accounted lawfully admitted to +those Orders unless they have at some time been episcopally ordained. + +We therefore find the authority and commission, in each case, given by +the laying on of a bishop or bishops’ hands, though, according to the +Scriptural warrant, accompanied also, in the ordination of priests, by +the laying on of the hands of the priests present. Still it is evident +that these, without the bishop, are not esteemed competent to convey the +gift of Holy Orders. + +But, next, what is the commission given? Observe the difference between +that to deacons and to priests, and you will see the more clearly what is +of the essence of the priesthood. + +To the deacon it is said, with the laying on of hands: “Take thou +authority to execute the office of a deacon in the Church of God +committed unto thee; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost;” and then, further: “Take thou authority to read the +Gospel in the Church of God, and to preach the same if thou be thereto +licensed by the bishop himself.” {85a} + +But to the priest the corresponding, but far higher commission, is: +“Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church +of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of my hands.” {85b} + +Yes, it may be said, but what work? We grant there is the use of the +word ‘priest,’ but the whole question turns upon the sense in which it is +used. Oh, brethren, listen with simple hearts of reverence, loving and +seeking only the truth, to the solemn and awful words which follow: +“Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou +dost retain, they are retained; and be thou a faithful dispenser of the +Word of God, and of His holy Sacraments: in the Name of the Father, and +of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” {85c} + +And then, further, delivering the Bible into the hand of each: “Take thou +authority to preach the Word of God, and to minister the Holy Sacraments +in the congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto.” +{85d} + +Now, not only is there evidently in all this a general superior +commission given, but there is the particular and specific difference +which I affirm can only be accounted for by the intentional full +recognition of the priestly idea and priestly office as we have all along +explained and taken those terms. + +And the words settle, as it seems to me, beyond dispute, another +question,—which yet is not another, though it may bear a separate word of +comment in our argument,—namely, whether the Church of England considers +our Lord’s ministerial commission to His Apostles to have been confined +to them, or whether it was His will, by virtue of His words, “As My +Father hath sent Me, even so send I you,” {86} that they should again +transmit the powers of the priesthood on to others after them? For +observe particularly what words they are which are used by the bishop to +give this commission to the priest. “Receive,” he says, “the Holy Ghost +for the office of a priest, in the Church of God;” and then, “Whose sins +thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, +they are retained.” Now from whence do these words come? Who used them +before, and to whom did they then give a commission? Let us turn to the +twentieth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, and we shall find the Divine +record: “Then said Jesus to them again,” (viz. to the Apostles,) “Peace +be unto you; as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He +had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the +Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and +whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” {87} + +Now is there any one who denies that our Blessed Lord thus gave such +power to those to whom He then spoke, and on whom He then breathed? I +suppose not. It would be wholly to explain away and contradict His word +to say so. It would be to prevent any one relying upon the plainest +meaning of anything to say so. It would be to make every injunction He +ever gave, and every truth He ever uttered, without sense or force, so to +read such a passage, as that it gave no commission even to the Apostles. +If His Apostles did not receive from that commission a power to bind and +loose, to remit and retain sins, it must, I think, be hopeless for any +one to imagine any duties can be proved or any doctrines declared in +Scripture, or, we might add, by any words anywhere set down. But then it +is said, We do not deny the commission as a personal thing to the +Apostles, but we say that it extended no further. We say that if any +imagine such a power and authority to have been intended to be +transmitted further, or to be capable of being thus transmitted, he is in +a grievous error and mistake. Now I am not arguing this question, +whether mine be the right understanding of the Scripture, but I say, is +it not as plain as the sun at noon-day that, right or wrong, it is the +understanding of the Church of England? Surely her meaning here can no +more be questioned as to those to whom she applies them, than our Blessed +Lord’s intention can be questioned as to those to whom He addressed them. +What possible explanation is there of her appointing those words to be +solemnly used in her Ordinal at the time of, and in the ordaining a man +to be a priest, but that she believed the powers of the priesthood, as to +absolution, to be then and thereby given to that man according to the +will of God and Christ? “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” +Would it not shew either an ignorance of the force of words which is +inconceivable, not merely in eminent theologians, which assuredly many of +our Reformers were, but in any one of sane mind, if the words appointed +to be so solemnly used, yet mean absolutely nothing? Or, if not this, +must it not argue an impiety amounting to blasphemy for the Church of any +country to draw up for use a service such as this, and, playing +unmeaningly or deceitfully with such holy words, not to suppose any gift +of the Holy Ghost, or any power of absolution, to be conveyed to those to +whom they are addressed? What could we esteem such a barren equivocation +with the holiest of things, if there were such design, but impious +mockery towards God and deceit towards man? + +But further, we are not even left to such proof that our Church intends +no such mockery. Turn to the work of the priest on this very point of +absolution, and what is the light thrown by this upon the words of +ordination? I will pass over the Absolution both in our Morning and +Evening Prayers and in the Office of Holy Communion, as, though in each +case specifically limited to being given by the priest, they may be +thought to be capable of a sense chiefly or only declaratory, or +precatory. But I ask you to turn to two other places—1. to the end of +the second Exhortation, as to the coming to Holy Communion; and, 2. to +the Office for the Visitation of the Sick. + +In the former place, after explanation of the preparation, “the way and +means” to come worthily to that Holy Sacrament, we find the following: +“And because it is requisite, that no man should come to the Holy +Communion but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet +conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means” (namely, +his own private examination of his life) “cannot quiet his own conscience +herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or +to some other discreet and learned minister of God’s Word, and open his +grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy Word, he may receive the +benefit of absolution,” (What is the benefit if there be no power to +absolve?) “together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of +his conscience, and avoiding all scruple and doubtfulness.” {89} + +Here then, surely, he who has been ordained a priest, and received the +Holy Ghost that he may remit or retain sins, is to exercise his ministry +in the absolution of the penitent soul. + +But if it be said, There is no minute description or account of the mode +of absolution, it may still be but declaratory or precatory; I say, then, +turn once again to another place, and see if the form and method of the +absolution be not there actually all which we can suppose even an Apostle +himself could use. In the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, when +the sick man is in the full contemplation of death, and perhaps death +very near at hand, the priest being solemnly engaged in his office of +preparing him for it, the distinct direction is given that the sick +person shall be “moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he +feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which +confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily +desire it) after this sort.” And the words are: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, +who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent +and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences;” (so +far we have the declaration of the power left to the Church, and either, +it may be said, declaratory or precatory words, “forgive thee.” But this +is not all; immediately it is added), “And by His authority committed to +me, I absolve thee from all thy sins; in the name of the Father, and of +the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” {90} + +Now, brethren, I do not desire to say much in comment on such words as +these. But I do say, and I know not how to avoid saying, first, if such +authority was committed to the priest, when was it committed to him, or +how, but at his ordination, and in and by “the form and manner of +ordering priests,” which we have before noted? And, secondly, can any +reasonable being believe that the Church could have drawn up such a +service, and put such words into the priest’s mouth when dealing solemnly +and truly with a sick or dying man, and yet believe that such power of +absolution, as a part of the priest’s distinctive character and endowment +by God, had not been conferred upon him? or maintain that she thought our +Blessed Lord’s commission extended no further than to its first +recipients, and died out with the Apostles themselves, when still she +uses the words continually in her “ordering of priests?” If it be +said,—Well: still we cannot believe this, and can only say that we +heartily desire to remove from our Prayer-book and Ordinal, as a +blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit, all traces of such authority +being given,—I can only reply that this argument is wholly beside our +present question. I am not now arguing whether such an interpretation +and use of Holy Scripture be the right interpretation and use, (though I +have given reasons before for feeling sure it is,) but I am shewing what +is the mind and understanding herein of the Church of England. I am +silencing, if I may, (and in the judgment of right reason I cannot +conceive that I should fail in doing so,) the calumny that they who +maintain the doctrine of the priesthood are disloyal to the Church of +England, or deviating from the principles of the Reformation. For, not +merely according to what right reason must, I think, enforce to be the +intention of those who drew up our formularies, but according to the +simple sense of those formularies, this doctrine and none other is the +only doctrine which can be made consistent with the documents themselves, +or which they can justly be taken to enunciate. We have at times heard +not a little of the dishonesty of those who, it is said, have taken our +formularies in a non-natural sense, on the Catholic side, though in a +sense which they deemed they would fairly bear. If this argument be good +for anything, against whom can it so conclusively be brought as against +such as will affirm that, when in the most solemn exercise of a bishop’s +office, the bishop says, “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work +of a priest in the Church of God,” the Church intends that there is no +gift of the Holy Ghost bestowed, and no priest made at all? Or, again, +when he says, adopting Christ’s own words of commission,—“Whose sins thou +dost forgive they are forgiven unto them, and whose sins thou dost +retain, they are retained;”—that in this there is no intention to teach +that the commission of Christ extended beyond the Apostles themselves, +and that no power of binding or loosing is conferred by this solemn act? +Or, yet again, who tell us that when the priest is instructed to exercise +this holy function of absolving penitents, either that they may come +“with a full trust in God’s mercy and with a quiet conscience” to the +Holy Eucharist, or, in the solemn moments of serious sickness, perhaps +the near prospect of death, (things and times surely beyond all others to +drive away the very notion of unreal or unmeaning words, which must also, +if they be such, be to the poor penitent most deceitful and misleading +words also); that then the Church gives her instruction to use the word +of absolution, and say, “By His authority committed unto me, I absolve +thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost,” and yet means hereby only a mockery and a delusion; that +there is no such power, no such authority, no such absolving at all; +surely all this is not a mere non-natural sense which the words will +bear, though it may not be the most obvious at first sight, but is a +non-natural sense so monstrous that they will not bear it at all. + +So much I say in proof of the mind of the Church of England upon the +subject of the priesthood, as involved in the priestly function of +absolution. It is but a small part of what might be said, but it is as +much perhaps as our time will now permit, and I cannot understand it to +be less than sufficient (unless our Reformers in the sixteenth century, +and the Revisers of our Book of Common Prayer and offices since, are to +be esteemed either as the most incompetent or the most impious of men,) +to prove the point for which I have adduced the wording of our Ordinal, +and the comment upon this given by other parts of the Prayer-book, +namely, that our Church unmistakably maintains the doctrine of the +Christian priesthood, not merely the name but the thing, in the same +reality and power in which the Church universal has ever claimed and ever +maintained it. + +And this remark may give us, if it please God, a wholesome thought with +which to conclude this morning. Let us ever strive and pray, that we may +never for a moment be severed in heart or hope, or even in thought, from +the universal Church. Let us love it, and cleave to it, as we +contemplate it one and undivided of old, however, alas, now distracted by +unhappy divisions. Let us beware of encouraging a self-sufficient or +self-reliant temper, as if we shewed our wisdom or independence, by +isolating ourselves from that which has been the faith of the Church, not +here or there, but everywhere from the beginning. If we can discover (as +in most points of importance we may if we will,) what are the truths +which have been held always, everywhere, and by all, (_semper_, _ubique_, +_ad omnibus_, according to the well-known rule of St. Vincentius,) we may +be certain that we shall run into no serious error, nor perverted +interpretations of Holy Scripture dangerous to our souls. Individuals, +however gifted, may go astray. Individual Churches may err, and have +erred, even in matters of faith; but the whole Church at large, the +Church Catholic, we may be sure, has not done so, nor ever shall, or how +should it be, what St. Paul tells us “the Church of God” is, “the pillar +and ground of the truth,” {95a} or how should be fulfilled our Blessed +Lord’s word and promise,—“The gates of hell shall not prevail against +It;” {95b} and again, “Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the +world.” {95c} So, indeed, let us look upon Her with tender reverence as +the spouse of Christ. “Oh! pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall +prosper that love Thee.” {95d} + + + + +SERMON VI. +The Christian Altar. + + + HEBREWS xiii. 10. + “We have an Altar.” + +I RESUME our subject: the priesthood, altar and sacrifice in the +Christian Church, and the mind of the Church of England upon it. On +Sunday last we treated of this in part, shewing in relation to it what +were the “old paths,” and pointing to the proof that our Church walks in +them, recognising and maintaining a true priesthood in those who minister +at her altars, by the solemn committal to them of the power of +absolution, a thing which she would not do upon any other hypothesis than +that of their possessing a true sacerdotal character. We had not time to +say much upon the altar or the sacrifice. Our text, however, now leads +us by no uncertain course to this portion of our subject, especially when +placed in connection with St. Paul’s emphatic question in another place: +“Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” You +will remember that we examined both those passages on a former occasion, +{97} when we were regarding the scriptural testimony to the doctrine, and +I need not repeat what I then said. But they will lead us on now +naturally,—after the remarks I made last week upon the Christian +priesthood, as borne witness to by the primitive Church, and maintained +in the Church of England,—to some consideration of the sacrifice also, as +borne witness to and maintained in like manner. + +“We have an altar,” says the Apostle. Of course it is in the celebration +of the Holy Eucharist that this altar is used, and the sacrifice made; +the great commemorative sacrifice of the Christian Church, wherein we do +not repeat, or attempt to repeat, (God forbid,) the one sacrifice, +oblation, and satisfaction once for all made upon the Cross, but yet are +allowed to present before God the Father, the memorial of that +ever-blessed offering, by the Body and Blood of Christ really present, +(though not after the manner of any “corporal presence of Christ’s +natural flesh and blood,” but) after a true though mystical and heavenly +manner; to present this, I say, according to His will and ordinance, by +which it is granted us to apply to ourselves the merits of His death and +passion, and to obtain His own prevailing intercession for us before the +throne of God; whereby, too, our souls and bodies, as we “eat of the +sacrifice are partakers of the altar,” and gain heavenly nourishment and +sustenance unto everlasting life. + +We have seen already that such is the judgment and doctrine of the +primitive Church in its understanding of Holy Scripture, as shewn by the +early Christian writers, and by the ancient liturgies. Also, that the +doctrine was maintained continuously for fifteen hundred years. Our +question now is, What has our own Church said and done in this matter at +or since the Reformation? Does she maintain, or does she reject, the +previous teaching of the Church Universal, and put something else in the +place of its doctrine, and its understanding of Holy Scripture upon the +subject? + +We cannot here go into a minute history of all which was done at the +Reformation in this regard. But I think we may, within reasonable +compass, arrive at a satisfactory general conclusion. If we compare our +Church’s Eucharistic Office with the ancient liturgies which have been +preserved to us, we may see, I might almost say, at a glance, whether in +prayer, in praise, in oblation, in general design and structure, we +follow in their steps, or make “some new thing.” It cannot be disputed +that in design and structure those liturgies all proclaim the doctrine of +priest, sacrifice, and altar. This is interwoven with their whole +system. It was the one understanding of Christians in those days as to +what their liturgies contained. If, then, we find that the Church of +England follows carefully in their steps, and maintains in her +Eucharistic Office the whole substance of those liturgies,—at any rate, +all the main points in which they agree together, even though it be with +some differences of arrangement, such as might naturally be +expected,—surely we prove our point, and cannot doubt that our Reformers +had no design to break away from the ancient faith, though they would +cast off Roman error and Roman usurpation, and therefore that our Church +not only does not condemn, but adopts and continues, (as in truth she +never dreamed of any other thing,) the doctrine of the Church Universal +in this matter. + +Take, then, the following short account of the structure, form, and usage +of the ancient liturgies. I extract it from Mr. Carter’s book, as I know +of no better way to place it before you:—“The following brief digest,” he +says, “may give some idea of this system of devotion into which the mind +of Christendom was habitually casting itself in its communion with God. +It will be readily seen how the outline corresponds with our own +Eucharistic Office. One or more collects; lessons from Holy Scripture; a +sermon, sometimes preceded by a hymn or anthem; prayers for the +catechumens, penitents, and others, who, with a benediction, were then +dismissed; the creed, the offertory, with the oblations of bread and +wine” (observe, first offered by being placed upon the altar); then, +“thanksgivings and intercessions, with a commemoration of the dead in +Christ. Then, the more mystical portion of the Liturgy commenced, and in +all cases with the very same words, _Sursum corda_, (‘Lift up your +hearts’); a thanksgiving, closing with the _Ter sanctus_, (‘holy, holy, +holy’); intercessory prayers; consecration of the elements, with the +repetition of our Lord’s words of institution; a second oblation of the +now consecrated elements, (this was not always expressed in +words,—sometimes silently, and in act only); an invocation of the Holy +Ghost. This is not found in the Roman nor in the Gallican +Liturgies;”—(so, observe, we do not forsake the doctrine of the sacrifice +if we have it not, for no one will suspect the Roman Church, which was +equally without it, of denying or disparaging that doctrine;)—then, +“intercessory prayers for the whole Church, the dead as well as the +living;”—(this, however, would be praying only for the dead in Christ, +for none other would be considered as part of the Church after the time +of probation is over: though in this world, and in the Church on earth, +the good and evil, the wheat and tares grow together, it is not so in the +Church beyond the grave:)—“the Lord’s Prayer; a benediction; +administration or communion; thanksgiving; _Gloria in excelsis_; final +benediction.” {101} + +Now will any one take this account of the liturgies and usage of the +ancient Church, which on all hands confessedly is admitted to have held +the doctrine for which we contend, and then, comparing these with the +Eucharistic Service of our own Church, doubt for a moment that the Church +of England at the Reformation intended to preserve, and did preserve, the +ancient form and practice, and therefore the ancient faith, in this +matter? {102} + +The Articles and Catechism of our Church are perfectly in accordance with +this conclusion. Although the former, as we well know, were drawn up +rather to guard against current errors of that day than to state doctrine +upon points not brought into controversy, {103} they indirectly confirm +what has been said. For instance, the Twenty-fifth Article, guarding +against the notion of a gross carnal presence of Christ in the Holy +Eucharist, expressed by the term ‘transubstantiation,’ might not be +called upon, within its proper scope, to say anything in the way of dogma +asserting the doctrine of sacrifice; but yet we find in it the statement +that sacraments “be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s +profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs +of grace,”—that is, signs effecting what they signify, and therefore, in +the case of the Holy Communion, effecting or procuring for sinners pardon +through Christ’s body broken and blood shed, even as there, “as often as +we eat that bread and drink that cup we do shew the Lord’s death till He +come,” {104} all which is in perfect accordance and harmony with the +doctrine of a true propitiatory commemorative sacrifice therein offered +up to God. + +One point further in relation to the Articles I will notice, lest I seem +to overlook an objection. It is sometimes said, If the doctrine of a +true and propitiatory sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist be admitted, there +is a contradiction to the Thirty-first Article, which tells us that “the +sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did +offer Christ for the quick and dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, +were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” It is assumed that any +doctrine of a real and true sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ in +the Holy Eucharist must come under this condemnation, and so it is +sometimes thought that the whole question is thus decided. But, not to +notice other points not without importance, but which we can hardly spare +time to go into now, one thing surely is evident,—that the whole Article +must be read together if we would rightly understand it. It is: “The +offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, +and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and +actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. +Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said +that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have +remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous +deceits.” Now it is plain that the contrast here is between the one +satisfaction for sin made by agony and blood upon the cross, and any +supposed repetition of that painful and bloody sacrifice. “There is none +other but that alone;” wherefore, for which reason, such attempts at +sacrifice as would repeat it, or such teaching as would imply that Christ +repeats it and suffers again, “are blasphemous fables and dangerous +deceits.” If, then, in anything we say there were a doctrine of its +repetition, if we did not absolutely and entirely disclaim (as we all +along have done) any such attempt and any such view of the sacrifice of +the Christian altar, there would be a condemnation by the Article of our +teaching. But certainly neither its terms nor its scope deal with any +view of a merely unbloody commemorative sacrifice, appointed to be +continually made in the Church of God so long as the world lasteth, by +which the sacrifice upon the cross is never supposed to be repeated, but +its sole merits applied to the believing and obedient heart, and the +prevailing pleading and intercession of the Son of God presenting our +prayers and praises, our penitence and offerings, before the throne of +the heavenly grace are secured, and He Himself, our Advocate with the +Father, is our propitiation. This no more interferes with the one “full, +perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the +sins of the whole world, once offered” upon the cross, than His own +continued intercession at the right hand of God (and certainly “He ever +liveth to make intercession for us,”) {106} interferes with, or is +inconsistent with, the same. + +So much I have thought it well to say on the Thirty-first Article, +because it is sometimes misunderstood and misapplied. + +Next, I would say just a word as to the teaching of the Church Catechism, +which it would not be right to pass over. I think it throws a further +light upon the doctrine of the sacrifice and the altar, for it not only +tells us that “the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken +and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper,” (that is, the +baptized, Christian people, for so the word is always used in strict +theological language,) and therefore certainly that there is a real +presence of His Body and Blood; but it also says that that Holy Sacrament +was ordained “for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death +of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby,”—where, as in +the Communion Office itself, the term ‘remembrance’ is also to be +understood in its complete theological sense as the memorial, the +continual memorial before God, which by the offering up of the sacrifice +is made in the Holy Eucharist; all which is strictly accordant with the +doctrine of the primitive Church and the ancient liturgies; for, to sum +up with the words of the learned Mede, “They (the ancient Fathers) +believed that our blessed Lord ordained the Sacrament of His Body and +Blood as a rite to bless and invocate His Father by, instead of the +manifold and bloody sacrifices of the Law, . . . the mystery of which +rite they took to be this, that as Christ, by presenting His death and +satisfaction to His Father, continually intercedes for us in heaven, so +the Church semblably (i.e. in a like manner) approaches the throne of +grace by representing Christ unto His Father in those holy mysteries of +His death and passion.” {107} + +If further proof still be required of our Church’s mind from the +Reformation downward, let it be noted how often this doctrine has been +assailed, and yet how, on every occasion, the Church has refused to +depart from the ancient rule and faith. As one instance, take the fact, +that at the last revision in 1662, when the real meaning of the Puritan +objections was well and fully understood, and when the demand was +absolutely made by their leaders, both that the absolution by the priest +should plainly be made only declaratory, and that the word ‘priest’ +should be wholly omitted and ‘minister’ substituted, the Church refused +both these demands: the bishops replying to the first, that the words as +standing in the Visitation Service were far nearer to those of Christ +Himself in the commission given, as these were, not, whose soever sins ye +declare to be remitted, but, “whose soever sins ye remit,” and to the +second, “It is not reasonable that the word ‘minister’ should be only +used in the liturgy; for since some parts of the liturgy may be performed +by a deacon, others by none under the order of a priest, viz. absolution +and consecration, it is fit that some such word as ‘priest’ should be +used for these offices, and not ‘minister,’ which signifies at large +every one that ministers in that holy office, of what order soever he +be;” {108} whilst yet again, it has been well noted, that the care of the +Church was increased in this last revision to preserve the distinction +and the doctrine dependent upon the word ‘priest,’ now that the +objections to it were the better understood. For it has been pointed out +that the word ‘priest’ occurs ninety times in the first book of King +Edward the Sixth; fifty-five times in the second book, when the Puritan +influence of the foreign reformers obtained its height; whilst in our +present Prayer-book it occurs eighty-eight times: and an examination in +detail would shew that this restoration was made on principle, and that +wherever the term ‘priest’ is employed, more or less of the sacerdotal, +or strictly priestly character and authority is implied; whilst where the +term ‘minister’ is used, it is either as to simply a ministerial, as +distinguished from a sacerdotal act, or the meaning of the term is +determined by the previous use of the word ‘priest.’ {109} So that as to +this whole ministration, we may well adopt the weighty and persuasive +language of Dr. Hickes, where, summing up a detailed argument against +Cudworth, who had invented the theory that the Holy Eucharist was only a +feast upon a sacrifice, and not a sacrifice itself, he says: “I have said +all this in defence of the old, against the Doctor’s new notion of the +Holy Eucharist, much more out of love to that old truth than to prove +Christian ministers to be proper priests. For, it will follow even from +this,” (that is, from Cudworth’s own view,) “that they must be proper +priests, because, as none but a priest can offer a sacrifice, so none but +a priest can preside and minister in such a sacrificial feast as he +allows the Holy Sacrament to be. Who but a priest can receive the +elements from the people, set them upon the holy table, and offer up to +God such solemn prayers, praises, and thanksgivings for the congregation, +and make such solemn intercessions for them as are now, and ever were, +offered and made in this Holy Sacrament? Who but a priest can consecrate +the elements and make them the mystical Body and Blood of Christ? Who +but a priest can stand in God’s stead at His table, and in His Name +receive His guests? Who but a priest hath power to break the Bread, and +bless the Cup, and make a solemn memorial before God of His Son’s +sufferings, and then deliver His sacramental Body and Blood to the +faithful communicants, as tokens of His meritorious sufferings, and +pledges of their salvation? A man authorized thus to act ‘for men in +things pertaining to God,’ and for God in things pertaining to men, must +needs be a priest; and such holy ministrations must needs be sacerdotal, +whether the holy table be an altar, or the Sacrament a sacrifice or not.” +{110} + +To what conclusion, then, can we come but to that of the learned +Archbishop Bramhall? “He who saith, Take thou authority to exercise the +office of a priest in the Church of God (as the Protestant consecrators +do), doth intend all things requisite to the priestly function, and, +among the rest, to offer a representative sacrifice, to commemorate and +apply the sacrifice which Christ made upon the Cross:”{111a}—or to the +brief but weighty saying of St. Jerome? “Ecclesia non est, quæ non habet +Sacerdotes.” {111b} + +Once more, brethren, we must pause, and as we do so, let us pray to Him +from whom “cometh down every good and every perfect gift,” {111c} that He +may give us His grace more and more to realize, and more and more to +thank Him for the great privileges which He has vouchsafed to us in His +“holy Catholic Church.” “We have an altar” to which we may come, the +same blessed feast, of which we may partake, the same blessed sacrifice, +in which we may join, which has ever been in His Church from the +beginning. As the Israelites were taught to remember, as to their land +flowing with milk and honey, that they “gat it not in possession through +their own sword, neither was it their own arm that helped them;” {111d} +Oh, so let us ever say with heart and voice, “Not unto us, O Lord, not +unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise, for Thy loving mercy, and for +Thy truth’s sake.” {111e} + + + + +SERMON VII. +The Christian Altar. + + + HEBREWS xiii. 10. + “We have an Altar.” + +IT may be well, before we proceed with our general subject, to call your +attention to one particular as to the course of our argument. You may +have observed that I have not, except here and there incidentally, +entered into any examination of the nature of the Christian sacrifice +itself, any more than I have into any details or particulars of the +doctrine of absolution, such as its power and effect, or the necessary +limitations to be understood in its application. And this has been done +advisedly, because I was not so much concerned, for instance, with the +doctrine of absolution in itself, as with it in relation to, and as a +proof of, the necessary existence of a sacerdotal power in those to whom +it is entrusted; and therefore if I shewed that such authority is, in and +by the Church of England, considered to be vested in those who minister +at her altars, I inferred thence, I think justly, the existence of a +priesthood in the mind of our Church. This has been the object with +which I have referred to that doctrine in illustration, and not to +discuss the nature or define the powers of absolution itself. As, +however, I have here touched upon it again, I may add, lest any mistake +or misconception arise, that no one pretends the efficient power to +absolve, (any more than to offer sacrifice,) lies in the priest himself. +He is but the instrument administering the grace of God. The history of +the cure of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the Temple (which we +lately read) may well illustrate this. Surely no one will deny that the +power to heal him was vested in St. Peter and St. John, whilst it is +clear also, beyond all dispute, that not by their “own power or holiness +had they made that man to walk.” {114} What, then, is there incredible +in the affirmation that the power of the keys is vested in a priest as +the instrument, though all the authority and absolving power is from God +only; so that it is God and not man who pardons, and makes any man whole +from sin. “Who, indeed, can forgive sins but God only?” But he who is +invested with such authority, even instrumentally, is exactly what we +term a ‘priest;’ and our argument has been (to recur to it thus for a +moment) that the Church, which regards men as so endowed, regards them as +priests of God. + +I return more generally to the declaration of the text, “We have an +altar;” and I will adduce one further illustration of the mind of the +Church of England hereon, by a reference to the foreign Reformation. +Take the two systems of Luther and Calvin, and what do we find? Luther +was already a priest before he began the Reformation, and he had no +design to cast off the priestly element and character in his Reformation. +He and other priests who joined him did not cease to administer +Sacraments, or to teach their efficacy. The Confession of Augsburgh, +which embodies the principles of the German Reformation, asserts +regeneration in baptism, private confession to a priest, the grace of +absolution, and the real presence in the Holy Eucharist. It also fully +recognises (as with this teaching we should expect it would) the +priesthood in its true meaning. Luther did not design or promulgate a +change of system in any of these doctrines. What he did declare, under +the exigencies of his position, because no bishop joined him, was, that +for the purposes of continuing the priesthood and its powers, no +episcopacy was necessary, but that priests could make priests; as Mr. +Carter observes, a perfectly new doctrine in the Church of God. But the +whole proceeding shewed that a sacramental system was maintained after +the pattern of the Church, nay, with true priests to administer it for a +time, but without the only ordained means of transmitting the same powers +to the succeeding generation. Now how great a testimony is this to the +true doctrine, and how much light does it throw upon the acts of our own +reformers at home, who, with a true episcopate and the power of +succession unimpaired, were not likely to design a less perfect system +than the German Reformer admitted and maintained in his theory, though he +failed in the appointed means validly to carry it out. + +And Luther’s testimony is all the more weighty when we remember that he +was one who had so little reverence for antiquity or authority, that at +one time he rejected and denied the inspiration of the Epistle of St. +James, because he could not make its teaching as to good works square +with his own theory of justification; and, at another time, absolutely +exhorted the elect to sin boldly and shamelessly that they might be fit +objects for the mercy of God, and because no sin which they could commit +could frustrate the grace of God toward them! and yet even such a man +wholly received and enforced the ancient doctrine of the priesthood, and +its accompaniments, the altar and the sacrifice. + +Glance for a moment at the teaching of Calvin, and you will find another +theological aspect. Calvin was not a priest; he had, therefore, no +authority to administer Sacraments; so he took the bold line of rejecting +the doctrine of a priesthood altogether. He taught that Christ was the +only Priest of the New Testament, and that Christian ministers were only, +what such names as elders and pastors might denote, rulers and teachers +that is, in the Church of Christ. This is the first of those three +functions which we spoke of in a former discourse, as connected with the +priesthood, but is just that one which we then said lacked the +distinctive character of the priesthood,—the power of absolution and of +offering sacrifice. So much Calvin allowed to his ministry, but all else +he denied! + +Now, it is obvious, that besides his own defect in point of orders, (that +he was not, like Luther, a priest,) his system was one to dispose him to +reject this doctrine; for what need of a priesthood, or any external +means of approaching God acceptably, when his theory and teaching was +that of individual election and reprobation, determined from all +eternity, according to the mere purpose of God? How naturally would such +a system dispense with the priesthood? Aye, and there seems hardly room +to doubt that it would equally well have dispensed with Sacraments. But +here both the testimony of Holy Scripture, and the whole usage of the +Christian world, as to fact, were too strong for him. He saw he could +not actually reject Sacraments, although his system might well do without +them. It is true, there was evidence of the same kind, both in Scripture +and in antiquity, for the priesthood also. But it was much easier to +discard the doctrine as a mere matter of opinion, (so he might call it,) +than to set aside things so plainly presented to the sight, as the facts +of the use of baptism, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, +everywhere established. The bodily eye could see those usages, but could +not see the inner impress of the priesthood. He could elude or deny the +one, but he dared not, even if he wished it, displace the other. To +what, then, did he have recourse? He kept the outward form and show of +Sacraments, as we may say, but denuded them of all their truth, mystery, +and power. “He taught that they were bare signs; symbolizing, but not +conveying grace; or rather, he separated the sign from the thing +signified, making the one independent of the other.” {118} Yet, as he +wished to keep them, so he saw that he must teach that there was some +good in them. How did he contrive to give them this use in his system? +Why, he invented and taught that the faith of the receiver, and not the +act of consecration, is the cause of grace in Sacraments; not in the +sense that Sacraments do not profit the unworthy (which is true), but +that this subjective faith in the recipient is the sole cause of their +having power or virtue, (which is not true). Thus he, in effect, +constituted every man his own priest, and led directly to the conclusion +further, that unless in each individual case, the receiver were +predestinated to life eternal, there was nothing in the Sacrament at all. +And so, again, we see the Christian ministry became, in Calvin’s system, +nothing but an organ of government and instruction, which the term +‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ might sufficiently describe. And all this, with +full deliberation and design on his part, because Calvin was far too +learned and able a man not to know that, if there were an altar and a +sacrifice, there must needs be a priesthood, which he had not, and was +determined to do without. + +I should hardly have gone into this statement as to Calvin for its own +sake, but I think it worthy of notice, for the sake of a practical lesson +as to those who decry or deny the doctrine of the priesthood, call Christ +our only Priest, and make every man, in fact, his own Priest. Surely we +may see that the root of all this is, not the teaching of the Church of +England, but absolute Calvinism and the teaching of the Helvetic +Confession, the embodiment of the views of the Swiss Reformers. Those +who accept this teaching may, or may not, adopt with it, the +predestinarian part of Calvin’s scheme; but certainly they are adopting +to the letter his denial of a Christian priesthood, which denial, equally +certainly, the English Reformation did not accept. “We,” then, “have an +altar,” however it may be that others may have rejected and cast it off, +and perhaps, alas, some among ourselves may be unconscious of it, or may +disbelieve it. + +And this leads us to a few words further as to our position, when—I fear +there is no denying or concealing it—when some of the priests themselves +among us repudiate their priesthood, and thus follow the Swiss instead of +the English Reformation! What must we say as to the effect of such +unbelief; first as to their ministrations and the effect upon their +flocks, and, secondly, as to themselves? + +And, first, as to the first point. Brethren, blessed be God, we do not, +and we need not, think that, even on this account, they do not offer up +the true sacrifice. Turn, for your comfort, to the Twenty-sixth Article +of our Church, and you will see why I say so. It is headed, “Of the +unworthiness of the ministers, which hinders not the effect of the +Sacraments;” and it tells us of them, as to “their authority in +ministration of the Word and Sacraments,” that “forasmuch as they do not +the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by His +commission and authority, we may use their ministry, both in hearing the +Word of God, and in receiving of the Sacraments. Neither is the effect +of Christ’s ordinance taken away . . . nor the grace of God diminished +from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered +unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ’s institution and +promise. . . .” + +Thus, even such have received the priesthood, and its indelible impress, +the _χαρακτὴρ_, (as it is theologically termed,) which cannot be +destroyed in them by any act or will of theirs. Thus, their ministration +at the altar (so long as it be according to the rule and order of the +Church of England) is the offering a valid sacrifice, and their +distribution of the consecrated elements is the giving to be “verily and +indeed taken and received by the faithful, the Body and Blood of Christ.” +However, therefore, we may mourn for them, however we may feel in +addition to sorrow a godly shame on their account, yet we need not fear +that the flock is deprived of the needful food, nor defrauded of the +blessed intercession of the Lamb, pleading for His people at the right +hand of God, as often as the oblation is made, and the dread and blessed +sacrifice is (even thus) offered up. + +As to such themselves (our second anxious question) what shall we say? I +will say nothing of my own mind or thought, but rather adduce a weighty +passage which I have found upon the matter in the work of the learned Dr. +Hickes, whom I have mentioned more than once, as having so largely +treated on our present subject. Even in his day, more than a +hundred-and-fifty years ago, these deniers of the grace given them, were +not unknown; and he thus speaks of them, going, you will observe, not so +much as I have done here, into the question of the effect of their +misbelief upon their ministrations to their flocks, but more particularly +into its effect upon themselves. “I desire,” he says, “your late +writer,” (the author whom, in his dissertation, he was answering,) “and +such others as he, who have been led into their errors by these and other +writers since the Reformation,” (Cudworth he means more particularly, and +the novel theory propounded by him,) “to consider that, if the Holy +Eucharist be a sacrifice, as the Catholic Church believed in all ages +before that time, how far the defect of administering it only as a +sacrament may affect the holy office and the administration of it; and +whether the Communion administered by a priest, who neither believes +himself to be such, nor the Sacrament to be an oblation or sacrifice, can +be a Communion in or with the Catholic Church? I say, I leave it to +themselves to consider these things, and I think they deserve their +consideration, and hope they will seriously and impartially ruminate upon +them, lest they should not ‘rightly and duly administer that Holy +Sacrament.’ The best of the Jewish writers tells us” (i.e. Maimonides), +“that it was a profanation of a sacrifice, if the priest thought, when he +offered up one sacrifice, that it was another; as if, when he offered a +burnt-offering, he thought it was a peace-offering; or if, when he +offered a peace-offering, he thought it was a burnt-offering. Whether +that obliquity of thought, when it happened, had such an effect or no, I +shall not now enquire; but this I dare say, if a Jewish priest, who did +not believe himself to be a proper priest, nor the Jewish altar a proper +altar, nor the sacrifices of the Law true and proper sacrifices, had +presumed to offer while he was in this unhappy error, that he had +profaned the sacrifice, so far as he was concerned in it, and not offered +it up _ὁσίως καὶ ἀμέμπτως_, (holily and unblameably,) according to the +will of God, though according to all the appointed rites, nor in unity +and conjunction with the Jewish Church. For the Jewish Church would not +have suffered such priests, if known, to minister among the sons of Aaron +and Zadoc; nor would the ancient Catholic Church have endured bishops and +presbyters without censure, who durst have taught that the Christian +ministry was not a proper priesthood, the Holy Eucharist, not a proper +sacrifice, or that Christian ministers were not proper priests.” {123a} + +Oh, my brethren, for those who may have fallen into such error (not +knowing what they do), let us pray, in all tenderness and charity, that +they may be forgiven and enlightened; and for us all, priests and people +alike, let us make our petition that we may never fall into it; whilst, +as to whatever truth or privilege or blessing God has shewn or given to +us, let us “not be high-minded, but fear,” {123b} not being puffed up +because of our advantages, but all the more careful, because we confess +we have them, diligently to use them. + +And this brings us to the great practical question to which this whole +enquiry leads. “We have an altar.” Do we, as we ought, use and profit +by our great privilege? Do we indeed, individually and one by one, value +the altar, use the altar, bring our gift to the altar, join in the +services of the altar, become partakers of the altar, and thereby have +fellowship with the Lord? + +Such questions, seriously considered, may furnish us with a most +important test as to our true state, particularly whether we believe the +doctrine, and whether we so live day by day as to be meet to take our +place and part in the altar worship. Let me say a few words on these +points before I conclude. + +First, do we really believe the doctrine? If we do, surely we must +frequent the sacrifice. We must see in the altar service the highest act +of our devotion. We must perceive that here is the crown and completion +of all other worship, the sum and substance of our praises and +thanksgivings, the prevailing mode of petition for ourselves and of +intercession for others, the greatest and highest means of applying to +our individual wants and individual sins the mercies of God through the +ever-availing sacrifice of Christ. Such persuasion of their dignity and +power has ever pervaded those who have believed in a priesthood, an +altar, and a sacrifice. Heathen testimony witnesses to this, even amidst +all the corruption and debasement of idol worship. The solemn, gorgeous, +awful sacrifice has ever been the central act of all devotion, that to +which all the people congregated, and to which, if they had any religion, +they delighted to be called. We cannot here, and we need not, go into +the proofs of this from the poets or historians of antiquity. We hardly +need adduce any proofs further than we have done already from Holy +Scripture to it. We may, however, just recall the manner of the +sacrifice offered by Samuel previous to the anointing of Saul to be king +over Israel, when all the people would not eat until the Prophet came, +“because he doth bless the sacrifice.” {125a} And the majesty of the +great feast and sacrifice at the dedication of Solomon’s temple; {125b} +and again, the solemn renewal of the covenant and worship of God by +Josiah, King of Judah, when he held the feast of the Passover unto the +Lord, such as had not been “from the days of the judges that judged +Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of +Judah.” {125c} Let us remember, too, that the great Paschal sacrifice +and feast, itself the type of the true Lamb of God, was ordained to be +annually kept under the earlier dispensation, and was assuredly so great +and central a scene and act of Jewish devotion that to it the whole +nation was called, and called so stringently that he who observed it not +was to be cut off from the people. {125d} What an intimation that he who +keeps not its far greater antitype, the Christian Passover in the +Eucharistic Sacrifice and feast, is cutting himself off from the people +of God under the new and better covenant! Do we, then, all of us thus +frequent and delight in the Christian altar? and if not, why not? Do we +suppose that holiness of life, less than that which may allow us to come +worthily to the Holy Eucharist, will be sufficient to let us come to +heaven? Do we think that, though we are without the marriage garment +which we feel is needful for us to go to the Supper of the Lord on earth, +we can enter without it, to sit down at the great marriage of the Lamb in +the courts of heaven? Can we believe that a heart less devoted to God, +and a love and obedience less perfect toward Christ than will permit us +to join in the highest act of thanksgiving in this world, will allow us +to join in the everlasting Hosannas of the world to come? Or do we +imagine that such a service as that of the Christian altar is not +intended for us all, but is to be restricted to a certain few out of the +whole body of the baptized? Surely, however widely such may seem to be +the practical belief (rather, I should say, unbelief) of our day, there +is no support for any such notion in either the Holy Scripture, or the +faith and usage of the Church Catholic, or in the principles of the +Reformation. Not only is the whole teaching of the Bible, of the +primitive Church, and of our Articles, Canons, and Catechism against any +such view, but our very Eucharistic Office itself speaks plainly against +it also. Not to mention more direct proofs in other ways, it is a great +mistake to suppose that office to design any division in its midst where +ordinary Christians have licence to depart, and a few select or chosen +are bidden to remain. The not unfrequent custom of using a collect and +benediction after the sermon may perhaps, however well intended, have +fostered an error here. This may seem to make an authorized close to the +service at that point, as if one service were now ended and another were +to begin. It has, therefore, enabled people the more easily to forget +that we are then in the middle of the Office for Holy Communion, whilst +the usage itself (as well as the custom of saying a collect and the +Lord’s Prayer before the sermon) is certainly without authority, and +rather against than according to the mind of our Church; and although we +may perhaps not unreasonably, to avoid confusion, make a pause whilst +children and those who may be unable, at any particular time, to remain +for the celebration may leave, we are not to think that a certain +barrenness or awkwardness felt by such as then depart is without its +value in instruction. If they who thus habitually absent themselves from +the sacrifice and feast of the altar, may be led to reflect from this +very feeling that the Church herself, by the gentle remonstrance of the +structure of her service, reminds them that they are leaving before the +service in which they are engaged is ended, this may surely give a +wholesome lesson. Oh, if any _one_ even may be thus led to think, Why do +I depart? why need I go away? why do I refuse to join in the Christian +sacrifice, the highest act of thanksgiving and praise? why do I turn my +back upon my Saviour, present to pardon, to feed, and to save me?—if any +feel this, until meditating upon the love and the command of Christ, he +resolves, instead of departing, to come with his gift to the altar, and +taste and see how gracious the Lord is, shall he not find reason to bless +and praise God that He thus brings him to himself, and thankfully +acknowledge the wisdom of our Church, which has not appointed even the +semblance of a finished service in the middle of her holy Eucharistic +Office? + +The opposite conduct to that of those who depart without communicating, I +mean that of such as remain without communicating, has, as we know, been +the subject of no small controversy in the present day. I do not desire +here to enter into that dispute, but just so much I would observe: first, +that if any desire to remain, having perhaps already communicated at an +earlier service, or in a serious anxious wish to learn the will of God +better as to the Christian sacrifice, with a view to the becoming a +partaker of it; or, if any desire to join so far in it as to unite his +heart and voice with those who offer it, being a communicant, though he +may not design on that occasion to communicate, I do not conceive that +the priest would have the wish, or if he had, would have any authority, +to bid him depart. Whilst, nevertheless, I deem it needful to observe, +secondly, that I see no warrant to think they are in anything but a +dangerous error who imagine (if, indeed, any do so) that the presence of +any one as a gazer upon, or witness of, the holy mysteries, is in any way +equivalent to communicating. I do not see how such presence of one +looking on, even joining in words of praise, but habitually and +constantly doing no more; of one who is not a communicant, nor seeking to +become a communicant; of one who does not eat of the sacrifice though +present, perhaps often, at the offering of it, can be an act of worship +or adoration well-pleasing to Almighty God; can, in any way, make up for +his lack of understanding, or preparation, or obedience in that he does +not “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,” without which, +our Lord Himself has told us, we have “no life in us.” {129} To be +present in order to learn, and to learn in order to obey, we may indeed +hope will be an acceptable service, so far as it goes; but to gaze +constantly without obeying ever, and then to think nevertheless that we +“are partakers of the altar,” seems to me nothing less than a dangerous +self-deceit, and therefore certainly a practice not to be encouraged. + +I sum up our remarks then, brethren, in this conclusion, that we should +all of us, with a depth of feeling beyond our words to express it, thank +our merciful God for His tender care and providence over us in this our +Church of England. He has given us the treasure of the priesthood, +though in earthen vessels, handed down from His very Apostles themselves +by the laying on of hands, even according to the powers of their own +commission from Christ Himself. He has shewed us the witness to the +doctrine of sacrifice, as exhibited in the world from Adam to Christ. He +has confirmed the doctrine and the usage of the sacrifice and altar in +the Christian Church by His holy Word in the New Testament, and by the +records preserved to us of the early Church, telling us unmistakeably how +the Church, from the Apostles’ time downward, understood the Scriptures +in this respect. He has let us know the mind of the Church at large to +have been one upon the doctrine for nearly sixteen hundred years; and, +blessed be His name, He “so guided and governed the minds” of those in +authority among us at the momentous period of our Reformation, and in all +revisions since, that our Church has ever maintained, and does maintain, +the doctrine of the Church Universal on the deep and mysterious, but, at +the same time, most important practical subject of the priesthood, the +altar, and the sacrifice. Thus, in His mercy, our Church has made no +“new thing,” nor departed from “the old paths.” She is one with the +Church of God in all times in this matter, and we need have no fears but +that if we come, one by one “with true penitent hearts and lively faith,” +to the altar of God and the table of the Lord among us, we may and do eat +of the sacrifice, are partakers of the altar, and have fellowship with +the Lord; that we have indeed preserved to us, in spite of the unbelief +among us, and the strife of tongues around us, all that true and holy +thing which the Church has ever had as Christ’s own appointed means for +the pardon of our sins and the sustainment of our spiritual life, by the +which we, with His “whole Church militant here on earth,” are allowed to +offer up the never-ceasing, unbloody, commemorative, propitiatory +sacrifice which the Church has ever offered, and by which she pleads +before the throne of God the power of the one great sacrifice upon the +cross for the pardon of sin, yea, even procures the pleading thereof for +our individual sins and transgressions by the Son of God Himself, our +“High Priest set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the +heavens,” {131a} who “ever liveth to make intercession for us;” so that +we thus, in common with the whole Church of God, fulfil the Prophet’s +word, “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, +My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense +shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be +great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts.” {131b} + +And if God has been thus gracious to us in all straits and perils in time +past, it would surely be a grievous want of faith not to put our trust in +Him for the time to come. Though we know that for sin persisted in the +candlestick of a church may be removed, yet we will hope confidingly that +where He has preserved His truth so long He will still watch over it and +keep it; where, too, in the ordering of His providence, so great a door +seems set open before us; where, by our power and extended empire, our +vast colonial possessions and daily increasing colonial Church, (all His +own gift,) we seem fitted to be the means of His “way being known upon +earth, His saving health among all nations,” He will still cause the +light of His countenance to shine upon us; where, again, thousands, as we +verily believe, come before Him daily in humility, penitence, and prayer, +(like Daniel, interceding for his country and his people,) “crying +mightily unto Him” for support in all dangers, and aid in all +adversities; I say, we will hope indeed that He “will hear their cry and +will help them.” Even in the day of thick darkness He can cause that “at +evening time it shall be light.” {132} Whatever be our trial we need +not, on that account, deem ourselves forsaken. Nay, unless we see it +plainly written that for our sins He has turned His face wholly from us, +we will not doubt, in all faith though in all humility, that He will +allow us to hand on to our children’s children, and to the “generations +which are yet for to come,” the same good deposit which we have ourselves +received. If ever we seem to be disheartened or ready to faint by the +way, we will remember on whose word we rely and on whose arm we lean; we +will call to mind His wonders of old time; we will ever with all faith +and hopeful trust, knowing how with Him “all things are possible,” make +the prayer of the Psalmist continually our own, saying, “Turn us again, O +Lord God of Hosts: shew the light of Thy countenance, and we shall be +whole.” {133} + + + + +SERMON VIII. {135} +(Preached on Christmas Day.) +God Incarnate our Great High Priest. + + + COLOSSIANS ii. 3. + “In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” + +THE preceding verses will tell us “of whom speaketh” the Apostle this. +Having declared what great conflict he had for his converts at Colosse +and “for them at Laodicea, and for as many as had not seen his face in +the flesh,” he tells them that this his conflict and desire for them was, +that their “hearts might be comforted; being knit together in love, and +unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the +acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; +in Whom,” he adds, “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” + +As there is nothing on which men may not make a controversy, so there has +been a question raised whether the meaning be, “in Whom,” viz. in Christ, +or, “in which,” viz. in the mystery of God, and the Father, and Christ, +“are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?” But we may well be +excused if we do not desire on such a day as this to run into criticism +of this kind; and I shall therefore take it at once for granted that the +plain and natural sense of the words is the true one, and that we have +here the Apostle’s declaration of and concerning Him of Whom he says just +afterwards unmistakeably, that “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the +Godhead bodily,” {136} that He is the same “in Whom are hid all the +treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And if they be so in Christ, as He +is, at the right hand of God, (for He was there undoubtedly when the +Apostle wrote this of Him,) so, being ever one and the same Eternal God, +“the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,” they were equally in Him +in the days of His humiliation, “when for us men and for our salvation” +He took upon Him man’s nature. As the Second of our Articles of +Religion, in the strictest theological language, expresses it: “The Son, +which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, +the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took +man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that +two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, +were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one +Christ, very God and very Man;” whereof, too, be it well observed, the +just and immediate consequence is, that He—“Who truly suffered, was +crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a +sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of +men,”—was this same one Person, very God, and very Man. So that we speak +simple truth (though a mystery beyond even angelic powers fully to +understand or appreciate) when we say that God Himself was born of the +Virgin Mary; God Himself lay in that manger at Bethlehem; God Himself +grew up from infancy to manhood before men’s eyes; God Himself shed His +Blood, and died upon the Cross, to save the lost and guilty race of Adam, +whom by His Incarnation He made His brethren: even as the Apostle +declares to the disciples at Miletus, that God had “purchased His Church +with His own Blood;” {137a} and again, tells the Ephesians, that through +Christ “we have redemption through His Blood;” {137b} and again, the +Hebrews, that “by His own Blood entered in once into the holy place, +having obtained eternal redemption for us.” {137c} + +This perfect union for ever of the two Natures in the one Person of Jesus +Christ our Lord it is of the highest importance for us to receive, or we +shall have unworthy notions of God, and what He has done for us. We +shall, if we “divide the Substance,” making two Persons to be in Christ, +be in danger of believing that a mere man died for us; or else, that the +death of Christ was not, in a true sense, death at all; so that there +would be either a propitiatory sacrifice made for the sins of the world +by one less than God, or else no propitiatory sacrifice made at all. In +either case, a denial of “the Lord that bought us.” {138} In the one, +that He is the Lord; in the other, that He bought us. For, as we see at +once, God, as God only, cannot die; and man, as man only, cannot make +propitiation for sin. It is, of course, true that the Godhead, +considered in itself, is incapable of suffering, and therefore, the Son +of God, for this reason, (among many others, as we may well believe,) +took upon Him man’s nature, which was capable of suffering and death. +And not less true or less plain is it, that the Manhood, even in its best +and most perfect state, could not make atonement to God for sin, or +enable any man to “save his brother.” But when God became Flesh, when +the Son of God became also the Son of Man, when the two natures in their +Perfection were thus joined in the Person of Jesus Christ: then God being +man could die, and man being God could not only live but give life. So +Christ not only liveth ever, but He “giveth eternal life” {139a} to as +many as are His. “Thus,”—to use the words of the well-known commentator +on our Articles, the present Bishop of Ely,—“thus we understand the +Scripture when it says that men ‘crucified the Lord of Glory,’ {139b} +when it says that ‘God purchased the Church with His own Blood,’ {139c} +because though God in His Divine Nature cannot be crucified, and has no +blood to shed; yet the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, took into His +Person the nature of man, in which nature He could suffer, could shed His +blood, could be crucified, could die.” {139d} All this being done and +suffered by that one Person—Christ Jesus, God and Man—it is no figure or +fallacy but a simple truth, however wonderful, to say that God was born +in Bethlehem and died upon the cross at Calvary. Thus, too, He the one +ever-blessed Son of the Highest, “in Whom were hid all the treasures of +wisdom and knowledge,” could become unto us “wisdom and righteousness and +sanctification and redemption;” our Prophet, Priest and King, our +Sacrifice, our Mediator, our Intercessor, our ever-merciful and +ever-enduring Saviour, Who sitteth at the right hand of God, until He +shall come again with power and great glory to be also our Judge. + +So very far have modern times gone in forgetfulness of the ancient faith, +that, I believe, it is sometimes considered a strange thing to give to +the Blessed Virgin the title of “the Mother of God,” as if it were a +novelty so to designate her. Whereas, to deny her this title, and so in +fact to make two Persons to be in Christ,—one, God, not born of her; and +one, man, born of her,—is precisely the very and exact heresy of +Nestorius condemned by the Third General Council held at Ephesus in the +year 431, which decision was, and has ever since been, received by the +whole Church. So that it is not merely truth so to designate her, but it +is absolutely heretical to maintain the contrary. “Ever since the +Council of Ephesus, the Church has consecrated the peculiar title of +‘Theotokos’ (God’s parent, or Mother of God,) to denote the +incommunicable privilege of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in that she became +the mother of Immanuel, ‘God with us.’ . . . For, though it is as man +that Christ is of the substance of His Mother born in the world, yet, +inasmuch as the Word took man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin +of her substance, she may truly be styled ‘Mother of God,’ because ‘two +whole and perfect natures—that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood—were +joined in One Person never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God +and very Man.’” {140} + +But let us turn back again for a moment to the thought of the text, that +in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” There is +surely an emphatic force in the words “are hid,”—“_εἰσὶν ἀπόκρυφοι_,” not +merely ‘contained,’ but ‘laid up,’ ‘concealed,’—and if in a certain +sense, even now they are hid, because Christ our Lord does not manifest +Himself to the eye of sense in any visible form of glory, though He has +all wisdom and all knowledge ever inherent in Him, it may be said that +they were even more obscured, when, emptying Himself of His glory, “He +took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, +and was found in fashion as a man.” {141} Look upon Him as He was on +this day eighteen hundred and three-score and more years ago! Think of +Him as a little infant, in the arms of His blessed Mother, or laid under +her watchful eye upon some rude pillow in the manger, and then consider +that _there_ was the God of all flesh, the great God of heaven and earth, +God the Son, ever one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, all-powerful, +all-knowing, all-creating, all-upholding, all-preserving, and say if +these treasures were not indeed hid and obscured! + +But though obscured, the treasures were there nevertheless. It were +impious to doubt or deny it. When, then, we hear it asked, as sometimes +in these latter days of almost unlimited free enquiry it is, Are we to +imagine that in that little infant was centred the knowledge of all +history, all learning, all the secrets of nature as we term them, all the +devices of art, all the developments of science? I think we cannot doubt +that the answer is, There was. For what is there in any kind or +department of knowledge or science, or of things past, present, or to +come, which we can suppose the Almighty not to know? This would be to +deny His attribute of Omniscience; and, therefore, to deny it of Christ, +God and Man, would be to deny His Godhead. People think to escape this +consequence by saying that it is merely His human nature which was +ignorant,—that whilst as God He knew, yet as Man He did not know,—not +seeing that thus immediately they must fall into that other error before +mentioned. For if they do not deny the Godhead, they must divide the +Substance of the Son. Perhaps in their defence they will urge such +passages of Holy Scripture as that in which it is written, “Jesus +increased in wisdom and stature;” {142a} or where He Himself said, +concerning the Judgment, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, +not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,” +{142b} of which it may be sufficient to remark to-day, that the first +passage seems to imply no more than that His wisdom, as He grew in years, +and of course appeared to acquire human knowledge, increased, in the +sense of its being more manifested in the eyes of men, just as His bodily +stature increased in visible presence before them: whilst of the other, +(without going into all which may be said on a passage confessedly +difficult,) it may be enough to point out that He does not say even of +the Day of Judgment, that He, the God-Man, Christ Jesus, ever undivided +in His divinity and humanity, did not know it: but that the Son (Who must +be taken of course here to be the Son of Man), knoweth it not. And if it +be thought that this admission grants all that the objector asked, and is +in fact but the enunciation of his own view, I should maintain that it is +not so, and for this reason, that it is a very different thing to say of +the One Person, Jesus Christ, that He, thus one and undivided, was +ignorant of anything, and to _contemplate apart_ His Godhead and His +Manhood, and so, in some sort, their attributes apart. And I conceive +that here our Blessed Lord using the term “the Son” (not ‘_I_ know not,’ +but _the Son_ knoweth not,) contemplates Himself as the Son of Man, and +speaks of Himself as viewed in that relation. What modern unbelief seems +to delight to assert, is, that our Blessed Lord, as He stood and talked +and reasoned with the people, was ignorant or mistaken. What we affirm +to be the really just and consistent sense of the passages adduced, is, +that _if_ His human nature be contemplated apart from His Divine, it +_might_ be taken to be thus ignorant; so, I would repeat, He is not thus +proclaiming that He, the God-Man, the One Christ, is ignorant, nor yet +dividing His Substance and becoming two, but merely contemplating apart +the Divine and human natures, which may well be done; and we may even go +so far as to say that _if_ we contemplate them as separated, then there +would be things unknown to the one, though known to the other, and _if_ +they could be divided there would be a separate province of knowledge in +each; but that, as we must believe the two natures have ever been united +in one Person from the time of His taking our nature of the substance of +the Blessed Virgin Mary, so no one can ever predicate of Him, the thus +born Son of God and Son of Man; of Him “in Whom dwelleth all the fulness +of the Godhead bodily;” of Him “in Whom are hid all the treasures of +wisdom and knowledge;” of Him “Who is over all, God blessed for ever,” +{144a} that it is possible there was, or is, or shall be anything, +whether “of things in heaven, or things in earth, or things under the +earth,” of which He was, or is, or shall be ignorant. {144b} + +Turn then again, brethren, to the stable at Bethlehem. Cast away, at +least on such a blessed day as this, the thoughts of controversy. Come +to the sight which is to be seen in that lowly habitation “where the +stalled oxen feed.” See the blessed Mother! See the glorious Infant, +glorious and divine in Himself, howbeit He may look like any other child +of man, and with the eye of faith “behold thy God!” Think of the wonders +of love in the condescension that He should be found in such an humble +guise and lowly place, only excelled by the marvel that He should abase +Himself to become man at all! And then think that all this is no barren +spectacle, to be gazed upon indeed with wonder, but in which we have no +practical interest. No, it all belongs to us, and has to do with us, in +matters of the very highest moment. It is so important to us, that we +might say all other things are mere bubbles and trifles compared with it. +What should we be, and what would be our hope, if we had not the +Christmas season, and all which it has brought, to gild our year, and +gladden our hearts? Think of what we are, and what are our prospects by +nature! The children of Adam in his fallen state, and therefore “born in +sin and children of wrath.” A degenerate race, from our very birth, with +the sure seed of the first and second death implanted in us, with a +corrupt nature, a depraved will, a heart estranged from God, exiles from +Eden, unable to return to it. Even if we had the heart to seek it, only +doomed to find it barred against us, and “cherubims and a flaming sword +turning every way to keep the way of the tree of life,” on account of +both the original guilt and actual sins of men. Thus, in ourselves with +no access again to God. Placed, it is true, in a world of wonders, a +world adapted by Almighty wisdom to supply our wants and minister to our +comfort and gratification, apparently capable of almost unlimited +development in these things under the fertile mind and ever-busy hand of +man, yielding thus much enjoyment for the time, if we give ourselves to +enjoy it. Even in more than such external things adapted to our +constitution, as furnishing the food for absorbing pursuit and high aim +in the acquisition of wealth or power, or in intellectual cultivation; +nay, more and more widely still, meeting the cravings of our nature by +supplying the field for sweet sympathies and home affections in the +varied scenes of domestic life and mutual love; but yet, after all, not +satisfying the yearnings of man’s heart or the aspirations of his being. +A world, too, however framed with all these means of comfort or +enjoyment, yet with much of pain, sorrow, sickness, bereavement, trial, +fear, and weakness in the lot of every child of Adam. All this without; +and within, a conscience enough alive to make us uneasy, when we have +yielded to temptation, and broken the law written in our hearts, though +of no sufficient power to prevent our yielding to the one and breaking +the other, joined with a certain consciousness, indeed, of God’s +greatness and goodness, but not the heart to love Him. So, with no light +in ourselves to see our way clearly, nor in ourselves any strength to +throw off our chains and turn to God; with dim forebodings of and even +earnest yearnings after something higher, better, and more enduring than +this world, and this earthly life and being, but with no apprehension to +grasp it, and no power to attain to it. And then, as life wanes, and +death draws on, and conscience, it may be, pricks, and the evil one +himself, perchance, mocks and triumphs, and no remedy, in either external +things or in our own selves, is to be found,—how darkly and sadly does +the night close in upon man in his mere natural condition! Survey him in +such aspect from his life’s beginning to its end, and what is there for +him but either blank despair or reckless levity (often the direct fruit +of despair), or a dark and corrupting superstition calling “evil good and +good evil, saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” and resulting in +the utmost dishonour to God, and the greatest licence of an unbridled +sensuality, even under the plea of religion? or else, if not this, an +utter unbelief, merely falling blindfold into judgment and eternity? +Yes: for when once man was lost by the Fall, no one could save himself +and no one could save his fellow. As it is written, “No man may deliver +his brother, or make agreement unto God for him; for it cost more to +redeem their souls, so that He must let that alone for ever.” {147} + +But now, men and brethren, think of Christmas-tide, and all it tells and +brings to us, and what a change is there! On this appalling picture, on +this “day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and of thick darkness, as +the morning spread upon the mountains,” {148a} “the Sun of righteousness +hath arisen with healing in His wings;” {148b} “the day-spring from on +high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in +the shadow of death.” {148c} As we raise our eyes to the Christmas +morning the light dawns not merely on our eyes but on our hearts. Here +we find the “seed of the woman” who reverses our curse, and the curse +upon the earth, by “bruising the serpent’s head.” He comes, He comes, +the Saviour of the world, bringing “life and immortality to light through +the Gospel,” {148d} because He is God and Man. “Unto us a Child is born, +unto us a Son is given: the government is upon His shoulder: His Name is +called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The +Prince of Peace.” {148e} What can more declare His Godhead? But +nevertheless He is “not ashamed to call us brethren;” {148f} nay, we are +told, it even “behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren,” and this, +that “He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things +pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” +{148g} Yes, and although He is such “a great High Priest, the Son of God +passed into the heavens,” yet is He not one “which cannot be touched with +the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we +are, yet without sin.” {149a} What can more declare His Manhood? Like +unto us in all points, sin only excepted. Like unto us, with perfect +manhood, human body and soul taken into the Godhead, so to be unto us +“both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” As the +new federal Head of the human race; as the one, and only one, of the +descendants of Adam in whom sin found no place, and whose obedience was +perfect, “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God +by Him.” Thus is God Incarnate our great High Priest and only Saviour. +“To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world,” +{149b} and such is the mercy which we this day commemorate. By this, the +Incarnation of the Eternal Son, is the cloud of thick darkness rolled +aside; by this, as the first manifested step (so to say) in our +redemption, is the veil lifted; by this, is hope revived; by this, joy +spread; by this, is Satan defied; by this, and by the consequences to +which it led and leads, is he conquered; by this, is the sting taken from +death, and victory wrested from the grave; this, is peace made for man +with God, and peace brought to man within himself; by this, is he enabled +to please God, for by the death of the Son made Man was the purchase and +gift of the Spirit, whereby alone he can be sanctified. By Him, then, +(“the great God and our Saviour,” as St. Paul terms Him,) are “we +reconciled, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” by +Him, “being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath +through Him:” and so truly “we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, +by Whom we have now received the Atonement.” {150} He is the great High +Priest, with power in Himself as none other has, or can have, to offer up +the sacrifice and “make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” He +is the immaculate Victim, the one only meritorious Sacrifice, “once +offered to bear the sins of many,” Whose “Blood speaketh better things +than that of Abel.” He is the true Paschal Lamb, “without blemish and +without spot;” “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;” +the Lamb “slain,” (in God’s design, and His own ever-merciful intention,) +“from the foundation of the world,” but manifested for this purpose “in +the fulness of the time.” He is the great Physician, causing joy +wherever He goeth, because He can heal all diseases; He is the great +Lawgiver, proclaiming His will; He is the great Prophet, ordaining and +promulgating His method of salvation; He is the great King, setting up +His kingdom, marking out its boundaries, and ruling His subjects; He is +the great Captain, ordering His armies, displaying His banners, giving +out His weapons, going forth “conquering and to conquer;” He is the one +Mediator, He is the availing Intercessor; He is the Way, the Truth, and +the Life; He is the Sun and Centre of the whole mediatorial kingdom; He +is the Lord of this world and of the world to come!—And all this, because +He is (as He is and ever hath been) “God the Son: God of God, Light of +Light, Very God of Very God; of one substance with the Father;” and +because, in mercy to us, He became also the Son of Man, “conceived by the +Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary.” + +Surely, then, this is a day “to be much observed unto the Lord,” a day in +which we do well indeed “to make merry and be glad;” so only that our +mirth be with sobriety, and our gladness with godliness. If, indeed, He +had not come, if we had no Christmastide, and Christmas memories, and +Christmas teaching, and Christmas faith, where should we place our hope? +Truly, we should be “of all men most miserable.” Whether God could have +forgiven man in any other way, without Himself becoming Flesh, and doing +all which Christ has done, we know not. But it seems to be unlikely, +according to His attributes and will, inasmuch as St. Paul plainly says, +“without shedding of blood is no remission,” and (as we know,) “the blood +of bulls and of goats could never take away sin;” whilst again it is +declared, that God set forth His Son “to be a propitiation through faith +in His Blood, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which +believeth in Jesus:” {152} from which it would seem that God’s attribute +of justice could not be satisfied unless by the payment, by some one able +to pay it, of the penalty due to man’s transgression. But whether it +could have been otherwise or not, otherwise it is not. This is God’s +way, and undeniably it tells us more of God’s love, Who gave His +only-begotten Son; and of Christ’s tender compassion, Who shrunk not back +from all which He undertook, than if we had been saved by a forgiveness, +without an atoning sacrifice at all. Therefore this mode, God’s mode of +pardon, as it supplies us with greater proofs of His love, so it gives us +higher motives for our own love and gratitude than any other mode which +we can conceive. Therefore this day calls upon us all the more for +praise, adoration, thanksgiving, joy, and obedience. Whatever else we +do, or learn, or think, we can never think aright, unless—in praising and +thanking God for all His mercies, and for the birth of Christ in human +nature, as the source, if we may so term it, of the Gospel scheme of +Redemption,—unless, I say, we attribute all we are in sanctification, and +all we have in hope, and all we feel in peace, to God and Christ. +Whatever be His way to bring us pardon, whatever laws He has set up in +His Kingdom, whatever means He has appointed,—whether His Holy Word, or +His Church, or His ministry of instruction or reconciliation,—all these +are but His instruments, and He Himself is the only efficient cause of +our salvation. “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto His Name give the +praise.” No; even the fruits of the Spirit, wrought in us by Him, +“albeit, indeed, they are the fruits of faith, and follow after +justification, though they are acceptable and pleasing to God in Christ, +yet can they not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s +judgment.” {153a} Nay, not faith itself can do this; for though, as the +means and instrument to lay hold on eternal life, faith may be said to +save us, yet, as the efficient cause of our salvation it would be heresy +to say so. For it is plain, we are not saved by anything of ours, even +when wrought in us by God’s Spirit. As one of our Articles says, they +are in grievous error “who say that every man shall be saved by the law +or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life +according to that law and the light of nature,” for that “Jesus Christ is +the only Name whereby men must be saved;” {153b} so, truly, no one may +affirm that we are saved, except instrumentally or conditionally, either +by good works, (even if they were good, in the sense of being blameless, +which none of ours are,) or by knowledge, or by the priesthood, or by +sacraments, or by the Church, or by the Bible, or by prayer, or even by +faith itself, for it is manifest that we are saved by Christ only, and by +none else, either thing or person. He may have set forth, as He has +done, certain conditions of salvation; He may have appointed, as He has +done, certain means of applying to Him for mercy, and of obtaining mercy +from Him; He may have ordained, as He has done, certain channels of help +by which His grace flows to us, and enables us to receive His favour, and +the reconciliation with God, which He has purchased for us; but it is HE, +and He only, Who is the sole meritorious cause of all we have, and all we +are, and all we hope for. So, truly, again we may repeat in the words of +the Apostle, that it is “Christ Jesus, Who, of God, is made unto us +Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption;” not as if He +could be this to us (God forbid the thought!) if we persist in sin, or in +neglect of His way of life; but, as if (which is the truth), even if we +had done all, we should be but unprofitable servants; as if (which is the +truth) we are very far from having done all; as if (which is the truth) +anything we have done to please God has been only of Him and through the +purchased gift of His Spirit, and the communication to us of Himself. So +that, indeed, we owe all to Him, and without Him are and must be lost +indeed. + +Brethren, as we think of these things, and of all we owe to Him in and +for His abasement and humiliation in His Incarnation, should not “our +hearts burn within us?” Oh, let them do so, with a reverent, loving, +grateful, joyful sense of His goodness; Who, “though He was rich, yet for +our sakes became poor;” Who has gladdened and cheered this otherwise dark +and gloomy World by His presence in it in human form and nature; Who, +since He came to it thus, has (though absent so far as the eye of sense +discerns) yet never left it to be as it was before, but, by the very +means of His Incarnation, dwelleth in it still,—dwelleth, aye, in us, and +we in Him, if we be His by the Spirit. And all this, though He be so +wonderful, high, and mighty—nay, because He is so,—the very and eternal +God, born as on this day in the stable at Bethlehem! In Whom, lying +there, in all appearance, a mere helpless, unknowing, human babe, in Whom +were still “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;” and “in +Whom,” then as always, “dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” + +Oh, my brethren, believe that He sees and knows every one of us; and how +we think of Him this day, and how we love and honour Him. He loves and +longs for every one of us. He wills us to rejoice (and “again I say +rejoice”) at the “good tidings of great joy which should be to all +people” from that day at Bethlehem. Let our joy be, then, such as He +sanctions, such as leads us nearer and nearer to Him, both in the +exercise of dear and holy home affections, and in love to Him Himself; +and then we may hope we shall indeed bless Him, not only now but for +ever, that He has again brought us to this great and happy day. + +When we gather, then, our families around us and see the aged, whom we +love, still permitted to be with us, (though, it may be, now infirm and +feeble,) let us rejoice in that hope, and the object of their faith, +which gilds and cheers their old age. When we meet our fellows and +companions of our own time of life, knit with us in the tenderest bonds +of human affection, and enjoy with them some of that good which God’s +bounty allows us, let us rejoice in the thought that they and we have a +mutual share in things better than all which this world has to give, and +are heirs together of the same common salvation. When we gather round us +our little ones, and thank God for the blessing He has given us in them, +and look forward not without anxious expectation to the future of their +life, yet let us not forget to bless and praise His name that, by the +Incarnation of His Son, He has permitted us to make our children His +children, and has made sure to them all the privileges of their adoption +and the promises of His covenant. So may we, whichever way we look and +whatever meets our eyes, ever overflow with thankful joy that unto us “is +born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” +{156} + + * * * * * + + Printed by James Parker and Co., Crown-yard, Oxford. + + + + +FOOTNOTES. + + +{1} 2 St. Matt. xii. 29. + +{2a} 2 Tim. ii. 20. + +{2b} Gen. ii. 7. + +{3a} 2 Cor. iii. 5, 6–9. + +{3b} 2 Cor. iv. 1. + +{4a} 2 Cor. iv. 2. + +{4b} Ibid., 3, 4. + +{4c} Ibid., 5, 6. + +{4d} Ibid., 7. + +{6} 2 Cor. iv. 7. + +{10a} Isaiah liii. 2. + +{10b} Ibid. lii. 14. + +{12} St. John xx. 22, 23. + +{13a} St. John xxi. 3. + +{13b} Acts xviii. 3. + +{14} Cor. ix. 4, 5. + +{17a} Acts xv. 36, 39. + +{17b} Gal. ii. 11–14. + +{19a} St. Matt. xiii. 55. + +{19b} 2 Cor. x. 10. + +{21a} St. John xvii. 21. + +{21b} St. Matt x. 25. + +{21c} 1 Pet. iv. 12. + +{22a} Heb. xiii. 13. + +{22b} 1 Cor. iv. 12, 13. + +{22c} Acts xx. 24. + +{23} Job i. 8. + +{24} Job i. 5. + +{26a} 1 Chron. i. 43, 44. + +{26b} Numbers xxxi. 8. + +{27a} 1 John iii. 12. + +{27b} Heb. xi. 4. + +{28} Gen. iv. 2–4. + +{30a} Gen. iii. 15. + +{30b} Heb. ix. 22. + +{33a} Gen. viii. 20, xii. 8, xiii. 4, xiv. 18, xxii. 13, xxvi. 25, +xxxiii. 20. + +{34} Heb. ix. 22. + +{36} Calmet, under the head ‘Sacrifice.’ + +{40a} St. John viii. 56. + +{40b} Gen. iii. 15. + +{43} Deut. xiii. 14. + +{45} Heb. xi. 4. + +{48a} Rom. iv. 3. + +{48b} St. Matt. v. 23, 24. + +{49} St. Matt. v. 32, 37, 43, 44. + +{50} Heb. ix. 9. + +{51a} Heb. xiii. 10. + +{51b} Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, 3. + +{53} Heb. xiii. 10–15. + +{54} 1 Cor. x. 18. + +{55} 1 Cor. x. 19–21. + +{58} 1 Cor. x. 13–17. + +{66a} Heb. v. 4. + +{66b} Carter on the Priesthood, p. 71. + +{66c} Ibid. + +{68} See Carter’s “Doctrine of the Priesthood,” p. 6. + +{70} _Vitringa de Synagogâ vetere_. _Prolegomena_, cap. 2, quoted +Carter, pp. 54, 55 + +{71} Palmer’s _Origines Liturgicæ_. See Carter, p. 58. + +{72a} Palmer’s _Origines Liturgicæ_. See Carter, p. 59. + +{72b} Carter, p. 60. + +{74a} St. John vi. 52. + +{74b} St. Luke xviii. 8. + +{75a} St. Matt. x. 25. + +{75b} Heb. x. 36. + +{75c} St. Luke xxi. 19. + +{75d} St. Matt x. + +{75e} 1 Tim. iv. 1. + +{75f} 2 Tim. iv. 3. + +{75g} 1 John i. 1. + +{75h} Ibid. ver. 3. + +{76} Jer. vi. 16. + +{77} Gal. i. 10. + +{80} Heb. vii. 1–3. + +{81a} Coloss. ii. 8. + +{81b} Job xxxviii. 2. + +{85a} Ordering of Deacons in the Church of England. + +{85b} Ordering of Priests. + +{85c} Ibid. + +{85d} Ibid. + +{86} St. John xx. 21. + +{87} St. John xx. 21–23. + +{89} Second Exhortation in Communion Office. + +{90} Office for Visitation of Sick. + +{95a} 1 Tim. iii. 15. + +{95b} St. Matt. xvi. 18. + +{95c} Ibid. xxviii. 20. + +{95d} Ps. cxxii. 6. + +{97} Sermon III. + +{101} Carter on the Priesthood, p. 61. + +{102} Some attempts have been lately made to throw doubt upon the +authenticity of the copies of the ancient liturgies which have come down +to us, as not certainly uninterpolated in places in later times. But +whether there may be any ground at all for such suspicion or not, it is +evident that the inferences drawn from the liturgies, both in this +passage and in a former sermon, will not be affected. For the argument, +as used in these sermons, is not dependent upon a phrase or a sentence +here or there, which, it may be alleged, is open to question, but is +based upon doctrine interwoven with their whole system, and pervading +their whole structure, and is what moreover is borne witness to, as thus +pervading them, by the whole mass of contemporary Christian writing. The +liturgies, therefore, must not merely have been interpolated in places, +but almost entirely re-written in another sense, and the great bulk of +the writings of the Fathers forged to agree with this change, if the +argument above is to be shaken by the question raised concerning them. + +I find a passage in Hickes’s Treatise, “The Christian Priesthood +Asserted,” which, though written more than a hundred and sixty years +before Mr. Carter’s book, seems almost as if it were a comment upon the +passage just cited, and the application which I have made of it. He +says, “I believe no man in the world that was of any religion where +sacrifice was used, and that by chance should see the Sacrament of the +Holy Eucharist administered among Christians, as it was administered in +the primitive times, or as it is administered according to the order and +usage of the Church of England, but would take the bread and wine for an +offering or sacrifice, and the whole action for a sacrificial +ministration; and the eating and drinking of the holy elements for a +sacrificial entertainment of the congregation at the table of their God. +To see bread and wine . . . so solemnly brought to the table, and then . . . +brought by the deacon, in manner of an offering to the liturg or +minister, which he also taking in his hands as an offering, sets them +with all reverence on the table; and then, after solemn prayers of +oblation and consecration, to see him take up the bread, and say, in a +most solemn manner, ‘This is My Body,’ &c., and then the cup, saying as +solemnly, ‘This is My Blood,’ &c., and then to hear him with all the +powers of his soul offer up praises, and glory, and thanksgiving, and +prayers to God the Father of all things, through the Name of His Son, and +Holy Spirit, which they beseech Him to send down upon that bread and cup, +and the people with the greatest harmony and acclamation saying aloud, +‘Amen:’ after which also, to see the liturg, first eat of the bread and +drink of the cup, and then the deacon to carry about the blessed bread +and wine to be eaten and drunk by the people, as in a sacrificial feast; +and, lastly, to see and hear all concluded with psalms and hymns of +praise, and prayers of intercession to God with the highest pomp-like +celebrity of words; I say, to see and hear all this would make an +uninitiated heathen conclude that the bread and wine were an offering, +the whole Eucharistic action a sacrificial mystery, the eating and +drinking the sanctified elements a sacrificial banquet, and the liturg +who administered a priest.”—_Hickes’s_ “_Priesthood Asserted_,” _Library +of Anglo.-Cath. Theol._, _Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 105–7. + +{103} The scantiness of statements in the Articles, as to the +inspiration of Holy Scripture, may illustrate this. Had it been possible +to foresee the boldness of unbelief which these days have brought to +light on this subject, or had our Reformers been now drawing up the +Articles, we may feel very certain they would not have been content to +leave that matter as it there stands. But they were engaged with +practical errors of their own day, and not in stating all dogmatic truth +upon other points. Many things were so fully assumed to be true as to +need no assertion of their truth. + +{104} 1 Cor. xi. 26. + +{106} Heb. vii. 25. + +{107} Mede’s “Christian Sacrifice,” lib. ii. cap. 4, quoted in Carter, +p. 65. + +{108} Cardwell’s “Documentary Annals,” chap. vii, prop. 2. + +{109} Carter, p. 25, note 1. + +{110} Hickes’s Treatises, vol. ii. pp. 183, 184. + +{111a} Bramhall’s “Protestant Ordination Vindicated.” Discourse vii. 3. + +{111b} St. Jerome, adv. Lucif. c. 8. Carter, pp. 22, 23. + +{111c} James i. 17. + +{111d} Ps. xliv. 3. + +{111e} Ps. cxv. 1. + +{114} Acts iii. 12. + +{118} Carter, p. 28. + +{123a} Hickes’ “Christian Priesthood Asserted,” pp. 184, 185. + +{123b} Rom. xi. 20. + +{125a} 1 Sam. ix. 11–13. + +{125b} 1 Kings viii. 62–66. + +{125c} 2 Kings xxiii. 22. + +{125d} “But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and +forbeareth to keep the passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from +among his people: because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his +appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.” (Numb. ix. 13.) + +{129} St. John vi. 53. + +{131a} Heb. viii. 1. + +{131b} Mal. i. 11. + +{132} Zech. xiv. 7. + +{133} Ps. lxxx. 19. + +{135} The following sermon, although perhaps in strictness hardly one of +this course, was preached almost immediately after the others, and, in +some measure, as a sequel to them. It is evidently not unconnected with +their subject, inasmuch as the whole Doctrine of the Priesthood,—Christ +our High Priest, through His Manhood “able to be touched with the feeling +of our infirmities,” and the sacerdotal powers derived from Him to “the +ministers and stewards of His mysteries,”—is intimately related to, and +dependent upon, the doctrine of the Incarnation. + +{136} Col. ii. 9. + +{137a} Acts xx. 28. + +{137b} Ephes. i. 7. + +{137c} Heb. ix. 12. + +{138} 2 St. Peter ii. 1. + +{139a} St. John xvii. 2. + +{139b} 1 Cor. ii. 8. + +{139c} Acts xx. 28. + +{139d} “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” by E. Harold, Lord +Bishop of Ely, Art. II. p. 69. + +{140} Owen’s “Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology,” pp. 265, +266. See also, “Pearson on the Creed,” Art. iii. § 3. + +{141} Philip, ii. 7, 8. + +{142a} St. Luke ii. 52. + +{142b} St. Mark xiii. 32; St. Matt. xxiv. 36. + +{144a} Rom. ix. 5. + +{144b} It may be observed that the above explanation does not in any way +impair the argument in our Lord’s reply to His disciples. It furnishes +quite a sufficient reason why such mysteries as “when shall these things +be, and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the +world?” should be unrevealed to flesh and blood, that they are unknown to +be angels of heaven, and even to the Son of Man, if His humanity be +contemplated apart from His Divinity. + +{147} Ps. xlix. 7, 8. + +{148a} Joel ii. 2. + +{148b} Mal. iv. 2. + +{148c} St. Luke i. 78, 79. + +{148d} 2 Tim. i. 10. + +{148e} Isa. ix. 6. + +{148f} Heb. ii. 11. + +{148g} Ibid. 17. + +{149a} Heb. iv. 14, 15. + +{149b} St. John xviii. 37. + +{150} Rom. v. 9, 11. + +{152} Rom. iii. 25, 26. + +{153a} Art. XII. + +{153b} Art. XVIII. + +{156} St. Luke ii. 11. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHT SERMONS ON THE PRIESTHOOD, +ALTAR, AND SACRIFICE*** + + +******* This file should be named 49115-0.txt or 49115-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/1/1/49115 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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