Part 4

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.”