Eight Sermons on the Priesthood, Altar, and Sacrifice

by Mayow Wynell Mayow

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.”

The next division of our enquiry is, the understanding of Holy Scripture in the primitive Church as to the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, and its consequent doctrine thereupon. Before, however, proceeding to this examination, let me briefly remind you of the point in the argument from Holy Scripture at which we have arrived, for our time on Sunday last hardly permitted me to sum up the remarks then made. The last passage which we considered asks in the tone of unquestionable affirmation, “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” The parallel, as I then pointed out, lies between those on the one hand, who, eating of the heathen sacrifices, are partakers of the heathen altar, and thus have fellowship with devils; and those, on the other hand, who, eating of the Christian sacrifice, are partakers of the Christian altar, and thus have fellowship with God. For, I must repeat, if St. Paul’s argument have not this meaning and significance, there is no coherency in the things brought into juxtaposition, and nothing on the one side to answer to the requirement of the other. Observe further, before we pass on, how the Apostle’s whole reasoning, as it stands, excludes, and must exclude, the sense of the Christian sacrifice being a mere figurative expression, and that which is eaten in it a mere subjective thing, dependent upon the mind of the recipient for its being there at all; for, if it were so in the Christian sacrifice, it must be so in the idol sacrifice also. But is it so in the latter? Is it that what is there eaten is a mere nothing in itself, dependent upon the mind of the eater? Is the partaking of the idol altar not an effect of an actual eating? Is the consequent fellowship with devils not the result of such actual feasting upon an actual objective sacrifice? And, therefore, if the parallel has any force at all, must it not be that there is a real objective presence of a sacrificial thing at the Christian altar,—the res sacramenti, as in strict theological phraseology it is termed,—by which he that eateth is partaker of the altar, and the result of which is, his having fellowship with Christ and God? From which our inference was plain and direct that in St. Paul’s understanding there is a Christian altar and a Christian sacrifice. Such was the conclusion from Holy Scripture at which we arrived.

I proceed now to shew further, that this, the natural and, as I think, the necessary sense of that passage (supported by numerous other passages of Holy Writ, some of which we have noticed, though many others we have not had time particularly to examine), is the sense in which the Church Catholic has ever understood the doctrine of the Scripture upon this subject, and which our own Church carefully guarded and preserved at her Reformation; thus maintaining, on so essential a point, her connection with the Church from the beginning and in all times.

But yet, before we go into the proof of this, let it be remarked (for it is very important in order to our seeing the full weight and bearing of the facts and records to which we are about to refer) that these three things—the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice—are what we may call correlatives, and reciprocally imply one another. As the word parent implies a child, or brother, brother or sister; so, if there be an altar, there will be a sacrifice, for the altar would be unmeaning without it, would miss its aim and be purposeless if there were nothing to be offered on it; and in like manner, if there be a sacrifice there will be an altar, for it is contrary to the whole sense and usage of the word to make such sacrificial offering to God, and not withal to sanctify some special place and mode of oblation. Again, if there be an altar and a sacrifice, there will be a priesthood; unless the voice of the whole world (over and above the constraining teaching of the Scripture) be in error, and any man that pleases may “take this honour unto himself,” [66a] and offer up “gifts and sacrifices” acceptably to God.

Premising, then, thus much, I proceed to call attention to the fact, that the whole literature of Christianity from the beginning either states or implies the doctrine of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, which we have deduced also from Holy Scripture. It is true that in the very scanty writings which remain to us from the first century, we may not find the word ‘priest’ applied to the Christian ministry. But, as Mr. Carter has well observed, “the real question is not whether the name, but whether the idea, of priesthood is found to exist in the extant writings of the Apostolic Fathers;” [66b] whilst for the absence of the name it is not hard to assign satisfactory reasons. In the first place, the extant writings of that century are too few to let a negative conclusion be built upon them. They amount, I believe, in all, (if we exclude the “Shepherd of Hermas,” a confessedly mere allegorical work,) to not more than what would make about thirty pages of an octavo volume. [66c] Over and above this paucity of material on which to found an argument, other reasons may readily be given for the term ‘priest’ not occurring. It may be sufficient here just to touch upon two. First, there might be great cause why the earliest Christian writers should not designate those who ministered at their altars by a term which might have been understood to imply that they claimed for them a descent from the house of Aaron according to the flesh; which claim the Jews around them would know in many instances to be unfounded, and which, therefore, to be supposed to make, would lay them open to a charge of imposture; whilst again, secondly, they might equally desire to keep clear of all mistake as to their being confounded with the priesthood of the Gentiles, or heathen world, so likely to involve them in the charge of offering up bloody sacrifices like them; a charge which in fact we know, as it was, they did not wholly escape; a wonderful and most unsuspicious witness by the way (for it comes from those who had no thought to forward any interests of Christianity), that Christians claimed to make a true sacrifice in the Eucharist, for it is evidently this, perverted and mistaken by the persecuting heathen, (as if, when they offered the Body and Blood of Christ, they confessed to offering a human victim,) which led to the accusation; a great evidence surely to the doctrine of the real presence of Christ therein, for who could mistake the Eucharistic doctrine of a large portion of modern Christianity for anything open to such a charge, under which we know, upon the testimony of heathen writers, the early Christians suffered reproach?