to the idea of the church conveyed to us in the twelfth chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians I believe that the dictatorship, so to speak, which Ignatius claims for the bishop in each church, was required by the circumstances of the case; but to change the temporary into the perpetual dictatorship, was to subvert the Roman constitution; and to make Ignatius's language the rule, instead of the exception, is no less to subvert the Christian church. Wherever the language of Ignatius is repeated with justice, there the church must either be in its infancy, or in its dotage, or in some extraordinary crisis of danger; wherever it is repeated, as of universal application, it destroys, as in fact it has destroyed, the very life of Christ's institution.

But, 2d, The Christian church was absolutely and entirely, at all times, and in all places, to be without a human priesthood. Despotic government and priesthood are things perfectly distinct from one another. Despotic government might be required, from time to time, by this or that portion of the Christian church, as by other societies; for government is essentially changeable, and all forms, in the manifold varieties of the condition of society, are, in their turn, lawful

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INTRODUCTION.

and beneficial. But a priesthood belongs to a matter not so varying the relations subsisting between God and man. These relations were fixed for the Christian church, from its very foundation, being, in fact, no other than the main truths of the Christian religion; and they bar, for all time, the very notion of an earthly priesthood. They bar it, because they establish the everlasting priesthood of our Lord, which leaves no place for any other; they bar it, because priesthood is essentially mediation; and they establish one Mediator between God and man-the Man Christ Jesus. And, therefore, the notion of Mr. Newman and his friends, that the sacraments derive their efficacy from the apostolical succession of the minister, is so extremely unchristian, that it actually deserves to be called antichristian; for there is no point of the priestly office, properly so called, in which the claim of the earthly priest is not absolutely precluded. Do we want him for sacrifice? Nay, there is no place for him at all; for our one atoning Sacrifice has been once offered; and by its virtue we are enabled to offer daily our spiritual sacrifices of ourselves, which no other man can by possibility offer for us. Do we want

him for intercession? Nay, there is One who ever liveth to make intercession for us, through whom we have access to (poσaywyŋv, admission to the presence of) the Father, and for whose sake, Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, and things present, and things to come, are all ours already. His claim can neither be advanced nor received without high dishonour to our true Priest, and to his blessed gospel. If circumcision could not be practised, as necessary, by a believer in Christ, without its involving a forfeiture of the benefits of Christ's salvation; how much more does St. Paul's language apply to the invention of an earthly priesthood-a priesthood neither after the order of Aaron, nor yet of Melchizedek ; unlawful alike under the law and the gospel.

It is the invention of the human priesthood, which falling in, unhappily, with the absolute power rightfully vested in the Christian church during the troubles of the second century, fixed the exception as the rule, and so in the end destroyed the church. It pretended that the clergy were not simply rulers and teachers,-offices which necessarily vary according to the state of those who are ruled and taught,-but that they were essentially mediators between

God and the church; and as this language would have sounded too profanely, for the mediator between God and the church can be none but Christ,-so the clergy began to draw to themselves the attributes of the church, and to call the church by a different name, such as the faithful, or the laity; so that to speak of the church mediating for the people did not sound so shocking, and the doctrine so disguised found ready acceptance. Thus the evil work was consummated; the great majority of the members of the church were virtually disfranchised; the minority retained the name, but the character of the institution was utterly corrupted.

To revive Christ's church, therefore, is to expel the antichrist of priesthood, which, as it was foretold of him, "as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God," and to restore its disfranchised members,-the laity,-to the discharge of their proper duties in it, and to the consciousness of their paramount importance. This is the point which I have dwelt upon in the XXXVIIIth Sermon, and which is closely in connexion with the point maintained in the XLth; and all who value the inestimable blessings of Christ's church should labour in

arousing the laity to a sense of their great share in them. In particular, that discipline, which is one of the greatest of those blessings, never can, and, indeed, never ought to be restored, till the church resumes its lawful authority, and puts an end to the usurpation of its powers by the clergy. There is a feeling now awakened amongst the lay members of our church, which, it if can but be rightly directed, may, by God's blessing, really arrive at something truer and deeper than satisfied the last century, or than satisfied the last seventeen centuries. Otherwise, whatever else may be improved, the laity will take care that church discipline shall continue to slumber, and they will best serve the church by doing so. Much may be done to spread the knowledge of Christ's religion; new churches may be built; new ministers appointed to preach the word and administer the sacraments; those may hear who now cannot hear; many more sick persons may be visited; many more children may receive religious instruction: all this is good, and to be received with sincere thankfulness: but, with a knowledge revealed to us of a still more excellent power in Christ's church, and with the abundant promises of prophecy in