Chapter I: RESUME our subject: the priesthood, altar and sacrifice in the (1)

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.”