Eight Sermons on the Priesthood, Altar, and Sacrifice

by Mayow Wynell Mayow

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. . . .”