“That I allow,” said Dr Thorpe, after some meditation.
“See you what you allow, friend?” Avery answered, softly. “If, then, the lesser priests be yet needed, it must be by reason that the High Priest is yet insufficient, and the sacrifice which He offered is yet incomplete.”
“Nay, nay, Jack, nay!” cried the old man, much moved, and shaking his head.
“It must be so, dear friend. To what good were those common and ordinary priests, save to aid the high priest in that which, being but a man, he might not perform alone? Could the high priest have sufficed alone, what need were there of other? But our High Priest sufficeth, and hath trodden the wine-press alone. His sacrifice is perfect, is full, is eternal. There needeth no repeating—nay, there can be no repeating thereof. What do we, then, with priests now? Where is their sacrifice? And a priest that sacrificeth not is a gainsaying of words. Friend, whoso calleth him a priest now, by that word denieth the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus.”
“And whoso calleth the Table an altar—” began Dr Thorpe.
“Is guilty of the same sin,” pursued he; “the same affront unto the Majesty of Him that will not give His glory to an other.”
“They mean it not so, I verily believe,” responded Dr Thorpe, a little uneasily. “They mean assuredly to do Him honour.”
“And He can see the difference,” said Avery, tenderly, “betwixt the denial of Peter that loved Him, and the betrayal of Judas that hated Him. Our eyes are rarely fine enough for that. More than once or twice, had the judgment lain with us, we had, I think, condemned Peter and quitted Judas.”
“I would all this variance betwixt Lutherans and Gospellers might cease!” resumed Dr Thorpe, rather bitterly. “When we should be pointing our spears all against the enemy, we are bent on pricking of each other!”
“A vain wish, friend,” answered he. “So far as I can see, that hath been ever since the world began, and will last unto the world’s end. I am not so fond as to look for Christ’s kingdom until I see the King. The fair Angel of Peace flieth in His train; but, methinks, never out of it.”