Part 1

Transcribed from the 1867 James Parker and Co. edition by David Price, email [email protected]

Eight Sermons ON THE PRIESTHOOD, ALTAR, AND SACRIFICE.

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BY MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW, M.A.,

PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. MARY’S, WEST BROMPTON, AND LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

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“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_.)

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Oxford and London: JAMES PARKER AND CO. 1867.

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[Picture: Decorative graphic]

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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?