Wherefore, good children, you shall give due reverence and honour to the Ministers of the Church, and shall not meanly or lightly esteem them in the execution of their office, but you shall take them for God’s Ministers, and the Messengers of our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ Himself saith in the Gospel, “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me.” Wherefore, good children, you shall steadfastly believe all those things, which such Ministers shall speak unto you from the mouth and by the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whatsoever They do to you, as when They BAPTIZE you, when They give you ABSOLUTION, and distribute to you the BODY and BLOOD of our Lord Jesus Christ, these you shall so esteem as if Christ Himself, in His own person, did speak and minister unto you. For Christ hath commanded His ministers to do this unto you, and He Himself (although you see Him not with your bodily eyes) is present with His ministers, and worketh by the Holy Ghost in the administration of His Sacraments. And on the other side you shall take good heed and beware of false and privy preachers, which privily creep into cities, and preach in corners, having none authority, nor being called to this office. For Christ is not present with such preachers, and therefore doth not the Holy Ghost work by their preaching; but their word is without fruit or profit, and they do great hurt in commonwealths. For such as be not called of God, they, no doubt of it, do err, and sow abroad heresy and naughty doctrine.—Cranmer’s “Catechismus.” Edit. 1548. A Sermon of the authority of the Keys.—See also Jewel’s Apology, pp. 28, &c. Ed. 1829.
V.
The arguments used in p. [87], [88], &c. respecting the Priesthood of Christ, still manifesting the One Sacrifice of Christ in the Church, may serve incidentally to illustrate the error of the Romanists respecting both the Priesthood and the Sacrifice. St. Paul certainly implies that an analogy exists between the Ministers and their functions in the respective Churches of the Jews and Christians. And in implying an analogy, he evidently takes for granted that there is not an identity. The Romanist seems to overlook this: his error is truly a Judaizing error; and it seems to result from a virtual forgetfulness, that the ONE great Sacrifice “once for all” has been offered, and that the Christian Priesthood has only continuously to “manifest” it. In speaking of the “Priesthood” of the Church, and the Eucharistic “Sacrifice,” we certainly imply that the Christian Presbyter has truly holy functions to perform, in respect of the great atoning Sacrifice, analogous to those of the Jewish priest: but we must be careful not to make them identical. St. Paul, in the epistle to the Hebrews, evidently assumes the analogy, but his argument is wholly inconsistent with the notion of identity. The Christian Priest cannot “sacrifice,” in a Jewish sense of the word; but in a much better. So it may be truly said, that he has to “offer” continually The Sacrifice once made by The Divine High Priest. (Gal. iii. 1.) But the term “offering,” among primitive writers, is used generally; and does not exclusively refer to the Consecrated Elements alone.—See note E. in the former series of “Parochial Lectures,” on the Holy Catholic Church. There is some historical light thrown on our own Church’s view of this subject by the volume just published by the Principal of St. Alban’s Hall, Oxford, comparing the two Liturgies of King Edward VI.—Oxford, 1838.
THE END.
Gilbert & Rivington, Printers, St. John’s Square, London.
I.
ON THE WHOLE DOCTRINE
OF
FINAL CAUSES:
A DISSERTATION, IN THREE PARTS.—pp. 222.
Price 7s. 6d. cloth.