(p. 1.)
Treasure in Earthen Vessels.—Faith, not Sight, the Recogniser of the
Priesthood.
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God, and not of us.”—2 _Cor._ iv. 7.
SERMON II.
(p. 23.)
The Witness of the World, before Christ, to the Doctrine of Sacrifice.
“Thus did Job continually.”—_Job_ i. 5.
SERMON III.
(p. 45.)
The Witness of the New Testament to the Doctrine of Sacrifice.
“Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the
altar?”—1 _Cor._ x. 18.
SERMON IV.
(p. 63.)
The Testimony of the Early Church to the Doctrine of the Priesthood.
“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.”—_Jer._ vi. 16.
SERMON V.
(p. 79.)
The Testimony of our Formularies to the Doctrine of the Priesthood.
“And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto
them Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained.”—_St. John_ xx. 22, 23.
SERMON VI.
(p. 97.)
The Christian Altar.
“We have an altar.”—_Heb._ xiii. 10.
SERMON VII.
(p. 113.)
The Christian Altar.
“We have an altar.”—_Heb._ xiii. 10.
SERMON VIII.
(p. 135.)
God Incarnate our Great High Priest.
“In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”—_Coloss._
ii. 3.
SERMON I.
Treasure in Earthen Vessels.—Faith, not Sight, the Recogniser of the
Priesthood.
2 CORINTHIANS iv. 7.
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of us.”
THE words rendered “in earthen vessels,” are easy enough as to their
general sense. _Ἐν ὀστρακίνοις σκεύεσιν_, (the Apostle says,) where
_σκεύος_ may stand for any kind of utensil or household stuff. It is the
word used in St. Matthew, “How can one enter a strong man’s house and
spoil his _goods_;” {1} any of his household stuff or possessions; whilst
_ὀστράκίνοιν_, (the same word which gave its name to the well-known
Grecian _ostracism_, from the mode of voting,) signifying in its first
sense that which is made of shell and therefore brittle, is often used in
a derived sense for anything frail and liable to break, and when broken
not to be re-joined. Therefore, again, it represents anything poor and
mean, as compared with other stronger or more precious material. Thus,
in his second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul uses the very same word to
denote those inferior vessels which are made for less honourable use:
“But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but
also of wood and of earth; _ὀστράκινα_;—and some to honour, and some to
dishonour.” {2a}
We cannot, then, err as to the general meaning of the text, if we take it
to express the fact that great gifts of God—treasure—may be, and are,
according to His will, and for good and wise reason, lodged in weak and
frail tenements, giving little outward sign of that which is hid within:
great riches enshrined in poor and mean caskets, even as the soul of man
dwells in the earthy tabernacle, (that red earth or clay which gave its
very name to Adam,) when “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became
a living soul.” {2b}
But St. Paul’s application of the figure here is somewhat different from
the illustration just used. It is not life, or an immortal soul shrouded
in a mortal body, of which he speaks, but some special gift or gifts of
God for the use of His Church and people, which he declares had been
entrusted to vessels of little “form or comeliness.” And it will be of
much interest and importance both to trace out what this treasure is, and
what are the vessels in which it is placed, as well as to insist upon the
fact that the treasure is not the less, because thus shrouded or
obscured; and that it gives no cause to deny the existence of the
treasure, that those who bear it seem either so like other men as they
do, or so little worthy in themselves of what they bear.
Now, to see what the treasure is, we need turn back but a little way. In
the preceding chapter, speaking of himself and others charged with the
ministry of the Gospel, the Apostle says, deprecating all high thoughts
in those so honoured: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think
anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath
made us able ministers of the New Testament;” and then, after thus
disclaiming all personal merit or glory, he goes on immediately to
contrast the glory of the Gospel with the glories of the earlier
dispensation. “For if the ministration of death,” he says, “written and
engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not
stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance;
which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the
Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be
glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.”
{3a} Pursuing this thought a little further, and enlarging upon the
glories of the ministration of the Spirit of the Lord which giveth life,
he comes back; at the opening of the fourth chapter, more closely to the
subject of his ministry, and says: “Therefore, as we have received this
ministry, we faint not;” {3b} and after a word on the effect of the
Gospel which he preached, that it led to the “renouncing the hidden
things of dishonesty;” {4a} and another, as to its being sufficiently
manifested to every willing heart, and so, if hidden, hidden only “to
them that are lost, whom the God of this world hath blinded;” {4b} he
returns once more to what it was which he preached, and declares how this
great treasure,—“the unsearchable riches of Christ,” as he elsewhere
describes it,—was entrusted to poor and weak instruments; “for we
preach,” he says, “not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and
ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness,” (that is, in the natural world when He
said, “Let there be light:”) “hath shined in our hearts,” (that is, in
the new creation of the spiritual world,) “to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” {4c} And
then, in the text, he seems to meet an objection, that if his call and
ministry in the Gospel were of so glorious a nature, the instruments
thereof would bear more or higher marks of glory themselves, he adds the
words of our text: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that
the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” {4d}
And now, brethren, again I ask, what is the treasure, and to whom
committed? Surely the ministry of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ,
entrusted to human stewardship!
And who shall disparage this, or overlook it, or deny the gifts and
treasure of and in those who bear it, though they be but as earthen
vessels; though they look simply like other men; though they are “men of
like passions;” though they have few or no high marks or tokens, to be
discerned by man’s eye, of the greatness of the treasure which
nevertheless they bear?
This thought, this warning against denying God’s gifts when lodged in
earthen vessels, and so speaking against them as actually to make a new
Gospel totally unlike to that which has been from the beginning, is
especially a danger of our day: a day when men live so much by sight,
and, alas, so little by faith; when restless and free enquiry ranges over
every subject, and men pride themselves upon their refusal to submit to
any authority but their own reason, or their own mere opinion, or to
receive anything beyond that of which they can understand the mode and
assign the use.
Not, perhaps, the most unfrequent of these attacks of the present time is
directed against almost the very subject of our text: the reality of the
treasure or gifts bestowed upon the ministers and stewards of Christ’s
mysteries, because they are contained in earthen vessels. Whereas St.
Paul fully claims and asserts that there is this treasure, and gives as
the sufficient reason for its being so lowlily enshrined, that thereby it
would be seen indeed that “the excellency of the power is of God, and not
of man;” {6} these objectors deny there can be any such treasure as it is
asserted there is, because it is not to their eye exhibited in or by,
glorious, or sufficiently distinctive, instruments.
Take a case in illustration, very near indeed to the argument of the
Apostle in this place. If our Christianity in our beloved Church of
England is, and is to be, the Christianity which has been from the
beginning, it cannot be without a priesthood, and an altar, and a
sacrifice. I do not propose at this moment to go into the proofs of
this, but rather to notice an objection which is sometimes triumphantly
put forward, by modern infidelity or ignorance, as fatal to all such
claims. It is said, that if it were so that there is a priesthood,
(which it is intended to deny;—O sad and fearful thought! That any
should be found to deny and refuse the chiefest means of applying to us
the pardon of the Cross): but if it were so, then, it is said this
priesthood must be seen to be such by some peculiar exhibition of its
powers, by some glorious or distinctive appearance in the
treasure-bearing vessels. So it is said, Whatever there may be
elsewhere, the Church of England at least has no priesthood, and no
priests. No! Can any one believe (it is added) that they are priests
who are young men, as others, one day; and are ordained, with so little
outward difference, the next? Can it be that prayers and a laying on of
hands, even by bishops, can effect such a change when all looks so nearly
the same? No, truly! If such there were, if such there be, if we are to
believe in a power given of this kind, if the priest can consecrate, and
offer upon the altar of God, let us see the difference. Let the young,
who are to fill such an office, be educated, not as other young men are,
living with them in social life at our schools and Universities, but as
set apart for this from their earliest days. Let them be known of all as
a separate kind or caste; let them have a distinctive dress; let them
give up social life; let them, above all, renounce the married state, and
give themselves up to pursue their avocation in the single life; and
then, perhaps, we may be more inclined to believe in their sacrificial
function; in their power to officiate sacerdotally at the altar; in the
committal to them of the power of the keys, and all which is included in
the idea of a distinct order and a priestly authority. Now all this,
brethren, is mere man’s wisdom, setting forth, in truth, not what it
really desires to find as the mark of a priesthood, if it might have this
in vessels of gold or silver, but simply, if it may not disparage and
deny a priesthood of Christianity altogether, (which yet it desires to
do), at least delighting to deny it to _us_; to raise a prejudice against
it, and to drive from the Church of England (if it were possible) all
those who cleave to the statements of our formularies as they are, and to
the faith once for all delivered and handed down to us.
But observe, brethren, what all this really amounts to. I am not saying
whether there should not be (unto the more edification), a more
distinctive theological education for the future priesthood than very
often there is among us. I am not saying whether there might not, with
advantage, be some greater distinction in outward appearance or dress,
than we have among us generally, for those who minister in holy things.
(Let it, however, here be remarked, that the greatest objection and
hindrance as to this proceeds, as we well know, from the clamours of
those who would first deny us all priestly character, and then reproach
any who, claiming it, are anxious to mark it also by some outward
difference.) I am not, however, now dwelling upon these things, nor even
on what are the advantages or disadvantages of a celibate clergy, but I
say that to suppose the presence or absence of these outward signs or
marks should affect the essence of the priesthood, and men being in
reality and truth ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of
God, in the full sense in which these words are understood in all the
primitive writings and liturgies of the Church of Christ, shews, not only
an ignorance of the very first principles of Christian worship, but a
strange overlooking of the truth taught in the text, and confirmed to us
in so many other places of Holy Scripture. If St. Paul confessed that,
even with him, his ministry was confided to an earthen vessel; if there
were no need and no likelihood that any of the primitive stewards of
God’s mysteries should be distinguished as by a star upon their breast,
or any insignia of their rank in the Apostolic band, then it can amount
to nothing as a disproof of the priesthood of the ministry of the Church
of England, that those who serve at her altars have but the outward look
and bearing of other men.
We may even carry this argument further, if it may be so done with due
reverence and humility. We may take, not merely prophets and Apostles,
but our blessed Lord Himself,—our King as well as our great High
Priest,—and say of Him, that, although of course it is not objectively
true that He had any of His gifts or powers in an earthen vessel, (save
in the sense that He took upon Him man’s nature, and so being of Adam’s
race—yet without sin—had His share of the earth of which Adam was
created); but though, I say, except thus, He held not anything in an
earthen vessel objectively, still, on the other hand, subjectively, to
man’s sight and apprehension, He veiled His Godhead, He emptied Himself
of His glory, He obscured His greatness, so that nearly throughout His
life and ministry He was passed over as a common man, or His claims
denied, and Himself treated as an impostor. In spite of the holiness of
His life, the tenderness of His compassion, the purity of His precepts,
the marvels of His teaching, the abundance and power of His miracles, yet
He was not received or accepted generally as other than a common man.
The Jews were offended at Him. He was to them “a stumbling block,” as He
was to the Greeks “foolishness.” He came in no outward manifestation of
glory; He was not in kings’ courts; He had no armies or numerous
followers; He won no carnal victories; He did nothing “to restore the
kingdom to Israel,” in any sense which the Jewish nation could observe or
recognise; nay, in His very priestly acts, and in that greatest of them
in which He did in truth offer up the great sacrifice of all, He appeared
to man’s eye in no such aspect. Even as a victim, He was only considered
as a malefactor put to death, whilst it may be well doubted whether even
His own Apostles had the least insight at the time into the nature of the
sacrifice He made; and none of them had a single thought or perception of
the priesthood which He exercised. So, indeed, He seemed to have “no
form nor comeliness;” {10a} “His visage was so marred more than any man,
and His form more than the sons of men.” {10b} He seemed to have all He
had in an earthen vessel, undistinguished and undistinguishable by the
vulgar eye from others who were around Him, or who had preceded Him, with
some pretensions to be teachers, or reformers of manners, but who had
disappeared and left no trace behind them. Is it, then, so certain that
those who now “seek after a sign” before they admit any claim to “the
office of a priest in the Church of God,” and who look for various marks
and distinctions in outward show or appearance before they will entertain
the doctrine as belonging to the Church of England; is it, I say, so
certain that they would not have rejected Christ Himself, as not coming
up to their mark and requirement, if they had seen Him in the days of His
ministration upon earth?
But let us pass on from the priesthood of our Lord and Saviour, and turn
again for a moment to the Apostles and their fellow-labourers. Observe,
I am not engaged in proving now their priestly character, nor the truth
of the sacrifices, or altars of the Christian religion; (we may come to
this another day;) but I am merely meeting the preliminary objection that
there can be no such things, at least, none such in the Church of
England, because our priesthood is not more manifestly set forth in
outward show to the eye of the world, by a more distinctive priestly
education, or a more distinctive priestly dress, or a more distinctive
(as is supposed) priestly life as separated from social life; and this
particularly by the exhibition of an unmarried clergy. As I have before
said, I am not even giving an opinion on the advantages or disadvantages
of some of these things; but I am asking the plain broad question, What
right have we, from Scripture and Scriptural example, to say these
differences are needful to the existence of a priesthood? Be the
priesthood and ministerial powers of St. Peter and St. Paul, and others
their companions, what they may, did they shew them forth as in vessels
of gold and silver, or were they not what we may call obscured,
undistinguished, not (in many particulars at least) dissevered from
social life, but just like other men; in short, with their treasure borne
in earthen vessels, however really great and precious in itself?
Carry your mind back, brethren, to Simon Peter with Andrew his brother,
to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, fishing on the sea of Galilee.
There is no reason, at I know of, to suppose that they wholly gave up
this their occupation immediately upon their endowments at the day of
Pentecost. They certainly pursued them as long as their Lord was with
them, and after the Crucifixion. Nay, after the Resurrection; after
Jesus had appeared unto the Eleven; after He had “breathed on them and
said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” and conveyed to them, (if any thing
could do so,) the priestly power, saying, “Whose soever sins ye remit,
they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained,” {12} still Simon Peter said to the rest, “I go a fishing; and
they said unto him, We also go with thee.” {13a} Will any one dare to
say, Had they been true priests of God, they must have pursued another
mode of life, and borne the marks of their office more demonstratively
and visibly before the eyes of men? Will any say, We cannot receive it
that the hands, engaged one day in casting a hook into the sea, or
spreading or mending nets, can be those which exercise, the next, (or the
same if so it be,) the Christian ministerial office,—in breaking of
bread, and celebrating the most holy Christian mysteries? Will any say
that the lips which called to their partners for help, or in direction as
to the safety or management of their boats and fishing, must therefore be
incapable of preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel, or of exercising
the commission given them of binding and loosing in the name of Christ?
Or, think of St. Paul, with his fellow-helper and companion in labour,
Aquila, working with their hands at their craft, “for by their occupation
they were tent-makers;” {13b} aye, even “working night and day,” that
they “might not be chargeable” to others: and will any say, Herein they
shewed themselves too like to other men to put forward any pretence or
claim to have or exercise any priestly or sacerdotal function. Will any
again call to mind that St. Peter was certainly a married man; (“Peter’s
wife’s mother,” we read at one time, “was sick of a fever;”) as also
certainly was Aquila the companion in labour of St. Paul, (for he came
“with his wife Priscilla;”) or, once more, St. Paul’s own claim to the
right (though he did not exercise it, but still the right) to marry if he
thought fit; as he says, “Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we
not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other Apostles, and
as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” {14} will any consider so much,
and then say, you must needs have a celibate priesthood, if you are to
have any priesthood at all in the Church of Christ; or, if there be one,
it must be one so separated from all earthly pursuit as to be recognised
at a glance as of a different order?
Nay, my brethren, such things are surely no arguments of even a feather’s
weight in the mouth of any man against a true priesthood in the Church of
England; and one can hardly see how they can be supposed, by any
sober-minded thinker, to be either contained in, or deduced from, Holy
Scripture. They are, in fact, objections merely playing with the
prejudices of those who have already come to a foregone conclusion, and
intended rather to point an unjust shaft at the Church of England,
through a mock admiration of the Church of Rome, than to advance the
cause of truth. And this with no justice, even towards Rome herself,
either in praise or blame; for Rome herself may have something to say in
defence of her practice as to the distinctions with which she marks her
priesthood, if looked on merely as matters of expediency and not of faith
or doctrine; and at the same time, we certainly have no little reason to
maintain that in many of these things, (and however there may be
incidental disadvantages which we need not deny, on the ground of
expediency also,) yet we come the nearer of the two to the following of
the Apostles, in the not making too broad an outward distinction between
priests and people, and in the not having laid a yoke hard to be borne,
perhaps, as a wide and extended rule, too hard to be borne, upon our
priesthood’s neck; and, in short, that we are at any rate close upon the
very type and pattern which St. Paul mentions in our text, in that we too
have our treasure in earthen vessels, and may, in one sense at least,
rejoice that it is so, inasmuch as thereby it may be seen by all “that
the excellency of the power is of God, and not of us.”
Further, it needs surely no words to prove that such objections and such
line of argument in denial of our priesthood, can have but one effect, if
they have any, namely, to forward the interests of the Church of Rome.
This, I presume, ought in consistency to be the last wish of those who
use them. But so it is, and in this way. There is no more possibility
of any one, who has the knowledge of what Christianity has been from the
beginning, being moved by such assertions to disbelieve the great
doctrines of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, as belonging,
and necessarily belonging, to the Church Universal, than there is of the
words of the objectors moving mountains or drying up seas. We can no
more unlearn the very first elements of the appointed mode of our
applying to Christ for His intercession on high for us miserable
sinners,—no more believe the Catholic truths which we have drunk in to be
mere human figments and superstitious inventions,—than we could return to
the system of Ptolemy, and believe the earth to be the centre round which
the sun and the stars revolve. Nothing, therefore, can be gained in this
direction by those who propound such views. But if it should be that
any, who know what the Church Universal holds and has ever held on these
points, should, by weakness or inadvertence, be shaken in their belief
that the Church of England maintains these doctrines and preserves this
sacerdotal order,—if any should come to think that perhaps after all she
has not a priesthood, and an altar, and a sacrifice, then such would no
doubt begin to fail in their allegiance to her, and be afraid longer to
trust their souls to her teaching or her keeping. No well-instructed,
patient, humble-minded member of the Church of England can, I think, be
deceived by so sophistical an argument as that which we have been
considering; but, of course, all are not well instructed, nor, perchance,
are all patient or humble minded, and hence it may be, there _is_ a
danger. But if there be this danger, or if any defections should follow
upon such defamation of our Church, those who put forth the libel must
have upon their conscience the weight of having aided the Church of Rome
against their Mother Church of England.
But to return; take but two brief illustrations further of our subject.
You will remember the contention between St. Paul and St. Barnabas
concerning “Mark, sister’s son to Barnabas,” whom “Paul thought not good
to take with them,” and how it “was so sharp between them that they
parted asunder one from the other.” {17a} Again, you will recollect the
occasion when at Antioch St. Paul (as he says), “withstood” St. Peter “to
the face because he was to be blamed;” saying to him “before them all, If
thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do
the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”
Consider that “the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation;” and to such a
point did this reach, that St. Paul declares he “saw that they walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel;” {17b} put all this
together and then say whether, upon the grounds of the objection urged,
any one might not far more plausibly have denied to the Apostles
themselves any just power or fitness to rule or teach authoritatively in
the Church of God, than any man can deny the priesthood of the Church of
England because its power is not more demonstratively shewn among us.
Or, for a second point, note this:—Does, or did ever, the admission to
the Christian covenant, and the wondrous gift of God, the new birth of
water and of the Spirit, by which, as the Apostle plainly teaches,
Christians are made the temples of the Holy Ghost; does it, or did it
ever, make such outward show of difference as will enable man to decide,
immediately and infallibly, who are Christ’s, and who are forfeiting or
have forfeited the gift bestowed? Then, if there be not this palpable
manifestation as to the Christian life in each, why should there be a
more manifest and outward demonstration of the treasure of the
priesthood? If the grace of Baptism be not thus self-evident, and ever
recognised by sight, why must the grace of Orders be so either? Oh! when
shall we learn to believe instead of to cavil; to use the blessings God
gives us, not to dispute about them; to judge, not according to
appearance, but to judge righteous judgment; to believe there is a
treasure, even the treasure which the Church has ever believed and
declared to be in her ministry and stewardship, though it be contained in
earthen vessels?
One word more, brethren, of most serious weight and import, as to such
objections and I objectors. Carry your mind back to the time of Christ,
to the labours of Apostles and Evangelists, and the infancy of the
Church, and see of what Spirit they are. I am not speaking, remember, of
all who may, from one cause or other, not be able to receive the doctrine
of the Christian priesthood and altar, and who, we may well hope and
believe, many of them receive the blessing of these gifts of Christ,
though they know it not; but I speak of the particular objection with
which I have all along been dealing,—that there cannot be a Priesthood,
unless marked by striking outward differences visible by all. And I ask,
what would have been the part taken, if the framers of such a test, being
consistent in their objection, had lived in the days of Christ on earth?
Surely we should have heard them saying, aye, in spite of His mighty
works and great High Priesthood, “Is not this the carpenter’s Son? Is
not His mother called Mary, and His brethren James, and Joses, and Simon,
and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?” {19a} What is He
different from another? Or what more likely than that expecting
something different in show and demeanour in the great Apostle of the
Gentiles, they would have joined in the reproach: “His bodily presence is
weak and his speech contemptible!” {19b} and have rejected Him?
If these things shew us the dangers of such a line of argument, let them
keep us from any word said to countenance or support it. It is a solemn
thought that we cannot, by even the most careless word of levity, express
approval of such assaults upon the ancient faith, or sympathy with those
who make them, without becoming sharers in their responsibility. For it
is thus, by a few words here and a few there, that public opinion is
formed or strengthened; and what can be more awful than to have helped to
form it adversely to the truth of God, and in derogation of that
“ministry of reconciliation,” and those means of grace, which He has
appointed. Surely the sin of such must be, like that of the sons of Eli,
“very great before the Lord,” when a prejudice is raised by which men, if
they do not “abhor,” are at least taught to deny and despise, “the
offering of the Lord.” At the same time, let us pray earnestly for them,
for, we will hope and trust, “they know not what they do.” Let us not
wish that they went out from us, but let us hope and pray that they may
be turned to better things. Let us remember, too, as a ground of
charity, that many fall into error here because too much, for many years,
the teaching of the primitive Church and of Catholic antiquity has been
overlooked as a guide to the due understanding of the Scriptures; and
again, because the face of Christendom, alas, is not now so one and
undivided as to present all truth in due form, and mode, and weight, to
each man’s acceptance. The glory of our Reformation is, indeed, that it
appeals to antiquity, and carries us back to the early Church; but these
later days have too much overlooked this great principle of the
Reformation. So it has happened, that what is, alas, the misfortune and
the reproach of Christendom—I mean its divided state—may be, and we will
hope is, some palliation before God for defect in those who wish to
follow the truth, but are unable at the present moment to see or to
accept it. So let us above all pray to the one great Lord of all, that
in His good time the Church may again be one, not only in its essence,
which it must be, (we believe in but “one holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church,”) but also in its life, and in a re-established communion of the
Saints; that being indeed, if it may be so, once more one, our Lord’s own
prayer for it may be fulfilled, and His promise accomplished, and “the
world believe that God hath sent Him.” {21a} And let us ourselves,
brethren, ever remember that all we have in treasure is indeed in earthen
vessels, and let us for ourselves be content to be reviled and threatened
(yes, as the holy Apostle was, and his Lord and Master before him), for
“the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.”
{21b} Neither, indeed, let us count it a strange thing, “as though some
strange thing happened unto us,” {21c} if we have to “go forth bearing
the reproach of Christ” {22a} and His Apostles; nay, rather, “being
reviled, let us bless; being persecuted” (if so it be), “let us suffer
it; being defamed, let us intreat;” yea, let us be willing to be “made as
the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things,” {22b} so
that we may but do our Master’s work, and preserve His truth in the midst
of a crooked and perverse generation, and win souls to Christ, and, if it
may be so indeed, “finish our course with joy, and the ministry, which we
have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of
God.” {22c}
SERMON II.
The Witness of the World, before Christ, to the Doctrine of Sacrifice.
JOB i. 5.
“Thus did Job continually.”
THAT which such a man as Job “did continually,” we shall naturally
conclude was well-pleasing in the sight of God. The Almighty’s own
witness to his character is given in His Word addressed to Satan: “Hast
thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth,
a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”
{23} And when we couple this with the circumstances to which the text
relates, and the tone of the whole narrative, we shall find, I think,
more than a _prima facie_ probability that the act so mentioned was not
only right in itself, but that it bore a significant import, not merely
to those who lived near Job’s own time or in his own country, but to the
world at large.
What then is it to which the text alludes?
Job, we read, was a man of great substance as well as great integrity,
living in a very early time in the land of Uz. Moreover, besides his
great possessions, we are told that he had seven sons and three
daughters. And we find that his sons were used, “to feast in their
houses, every one his day;” and that on these occasions it was their
custom to “send and call for their three sisters to eat and to drink with
them;” a token, (as a well-known commentator has fairly enough
conjectured,) both of their harmonious family affection and of the good
order and conduct which prevailed in their feastings, or so holy a man as
Job would not have permitted his daughters to join in their festivity.
But, nevertheless, we read that Job in his anxious care was mindful to
intercede for them, even in case they might have erred or sinned in the
fulness of their rejoicing, or in the exuberance of their mirth. “And it
was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent
and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered
burnt-offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may
be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did
Job continually.” {24}
Here, then, we have no doubtful witness, not merely to the usage of
sacrifice, but to its acceptableness also in the sight of God, as a part
of worship and intercession. And this is all the more, not merely
curious, but important, when we reflect upon the very early date almost
universally assigned to the events related in the Book of Job. Whether
the record itself may have been composed at a somewhat later period, as
some have thought, yet all authorities are, I believe, agreed that the
time of Job’s life was contemporaneous with even the earliest part of the
life of Moses, and, therefore, that he did not derive his knowledge of
God from the institutions of the Jews, or live under the Mosaic
dispensation. The consenting witness, both of the Jews themselves and of
the early Christian writers accepting their testimony, is that Job is the
same as Jobab, mentioned in the first book of Chronicles, who is there
named as the third in descent from Esau; so that he, as well as Moses,
was the fifth in descent from Abraham,—the one in the line of Esau, and
the other in the line of Jacob. Moreover, it would appear that this Job
or Jobab was, if not absolutely what may be termed a king, yet a ruler
and a prince in the land called Uz, or Ausitis, a country on the
confines, probably, of Idumæa and Arabia. If this be so, he would seem,
from the summary given in the first book of Chronicles, to have succeeded
Balaam in the sovereignty or chiefdom of that country. “For,” (says that
narrative,) “these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before
any king reigned over the children of Israel; Bela the son of Beor,”
(undoubtedly the same as Balaam); “and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
And when Bela was dead, Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his
stead.” {26a} Now we find in the book of Numbers, that Balaam the son of
Beor was killed in battle, fighting on the side of Midian in the last
year of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, {26b} and supposing
Job’s trial to have taken place (as some ancient writers assert) some few
years after the Exodus, as he lived one hundred and forty years after
those events, he may very well have succeeded to the chief place among
the Idumæan or Uzzite people upon the death of Balaam. The importance of
this to our present purpose lies in the fact, that he is thus a witness
to the antiquity and the use of sacrifice and burnt-offering, quite
independently of the institutions and commands of the Mosaic law. If Job
were of man’s estate, and had sons and daughters of like estate also, (as
the narrative unquestionably implies,) even before his sufferings, he
must have been born not far in time from the birth of Moses, probably
some little while before him; and what he “did continually” in his own
country, and apart from Moses, is a witness to the practice and
acceptableness of sacrifice, anterior to the enactments of the law from
Sinai; and a witness, not merely, let us observe, to the use of
sacrifice, but to sacrifice by burnt-offering, when the victim was killed
and consumed upon the altar of God.
Now this leads us back to consider what is the probable origin of
sacrifice, and sacrifice of this kind, altogether; for it is thus
evident, that it was adopted into, and not originated by, the peculiar
institutions of the Jewish nation and law.
Now, of course we see at once where we must turn for the first account of
sacrifice. The primal exercise of this mode of approach to God, is that
recorded in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, which shews at
once the need which the Fall had brought upon man of drawing nigh to God,
not without a propitiation; and at the same time exhibits, in sad
prominence, the first-fruits of that corruption of nature entailed by it,
which provoked the eldest-born of the world, in malignant envy of heart,
to slay his next born brother.
Let us turn, then, to a brief consideration of those events, as
illustrative of the origin and nature of sacrifice.
Look first to St. John’s and St. Paul’s account of the cause of Cain’s
quarrel against his brother Abel. “And wherefore slew he him?” (says St.
John), “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”
{27a} And St. Paul tells us wherein Abel’s righteousness and superiority
consisted: “By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts.” {27b} The narrative in the Book of Genesis tells us the
same thing as to the fact that Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s
accepted; but without the Apostle’s comment we should not have precisely
traced the cause of this rejection and acceptance: but we know now that
it was _faith_ in the one and a _want of faith_ in the other, in which
the distinction lay; and also that somehow this difference was exhibited
in the gifts which they brought: “God” (of Abel) “testifying of his
gifts.” By this, too, St. Paul tells us, “He being dead still speaketh;”
a statement which brings the whole matter home to ourselves. The
narrative then is this: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a
tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain
brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel,
he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.
And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and
to his offering He had not respect.” {28}
This takes us back to the origin of sacrifice; and the first remark which
occurs is, that it would seem highly probable that its institution was a
matter of revelation from God to Adam; for though mere reason and moral
feeling might make the creature see the propriety of offering to the
Creator something of that which His bounty had bestowed, and possibly
might lead to the thought that it should be not mean, but good and
precious, yet there are so many attendant circumstances in the
institution, which it does not appear possible to account for upon the
hypothesis of the mere dictates of reason and feeling, that we can hardly
ascribe the practice to anything short of a communication of the divine
will to man. However, be this as it may, it is plain that both Cain and
Abel were conscious of the duty of offering sacrifice or oblation in some
kind to God. And each brought of that which he had. So far, it might be
thought, Cain was not behind his brother. “Abel was a keeper of sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Cain brought of the fruit of the
ground, but Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and (it is
added) “of the fat thereof.” Now it may be we are intended to note a
difference here,—that Abel’s offering, the firstlings and the fat,
denotes the earliest and the best: as if he hastened to acknowledge, in
all thankfulness and humility, that he was not worthy to touch or use
anything he had, until he had sanctified it by first offering of it to
God; and this, the first he had, and the best: whilst the more scanty
narrative as to Cain, that he merely brought of the fruit of the ground,
may mark that he took no heed to bring of the first, nor of the best. He
would offer _something_ as an acknowledgment of God’s power,—perhaps,
too, of His goodness,—but not in that due spirit of unmeasured humility
and thankfulness, which alone was becoming in a son of Adam. But this,
if it were so, does not seem to be all which is implied as to his lack of
faith. To understand wherein this lay, we must remember the promise made
to our first parents after the Fall, of “the seed of the woman” who
should “bruise the serpent’s head.” {30a} Faith in this seed, the hope,
the only hope of the world after Adam’s transgression, seems to be the
thing intended; and if we suppose that God was pleased to reveal to our
first parents some further particulars as to the mode of the atonement to
be made by shedding of blood, by which this hope was to be fulfilled, and
the victory to be obtained, we shall be furnished, not merely with a clue
to the difference in the acceptableness of the offerings of the two, but
also with a key to a large part of the Holy Scriptures, and an
understanding what manner of faith should be in every one of us, as well
as to much that is important as to the history and design of sacrifice.
Let it be granted, then, as highly probable, that to Adam a revelation
was given that in him, as the federal head of mankind, and by his
transgression, as deteriorating the whole race to spring from him, were
all men lost by nature, and further, that “without shedding of blood
should be no remission;” {30b} but that by a worthy sacrifice and
blood-shedding should the promised seed of the woman in due time effect a
reconciliation for them and their descendants, and reverse the evil and
the curse of their transgression. Surely, then, from that time forward,
a faith in the efficacy of a sacrifice by blood would be required, and
would be acceptable to God. Cain, then, would be evidently one who had
not this faith, who denied, and disbelieved, and did not look forward to,
this sacrifice, or cast himself upon this mercy. By bringing of the
fruits of the ground, he may be considered to have made acknowledgment of
the power and goodness of God, in causing the seed to grow and the corn
to ripen; he may have done as much as we do, when we merely confess that
we must look to God for rain, and sunshine, and “fruitful seasons,
filling our hearts with food and gladness;” (therefore, by the way, let
us not think too highly of ourselves if we do confess so much; it is
right, but it is a very small part of religion:) he may have meant to
express thankfulness for blessing, but observe what he did not express.
He made no acknowledgment of sin; he exhibited no sense of unworthiness;
he confessed no shortcomings; he gave no sign of sorrow or repentance; he
asked no mercy; above all, he turned to no one out of himself—no
intercessor, no mediator between his God and him. He shewed no sign of
looking to a Saviour to make atonement, atonement by blood: he looked to
no “Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world” in general, and his
own sins in particular. He ignored, then, the whole promise which was
the sole hope of man. He may have said, “God, I thank Thee,” but he
shewed himself to be wholly without the feeling “God be merciful to me a
sinner.”
But, on the other hand, Abel brought of the sheep or goats which were of
his flock. He offered up not an unbloody sacrifice. He laid the victim
on the altar, and believing God, as well as feeling his need of a
Saviour, he looked forward with the eye of faith to an expiation greater
than that of kids, or lambs, or bulls, or goats, to take away sin. Nay
more, he shewed his sense of the need of an atonement out of and beyond
himself; for the blood of the victim offered described at once the sense
of his own blood being required as a penalty, if justice only held its
course and no expiatory sacrifice were found, and represented also, in
true type and figure, that better sacrifice, that more precious blood,
which should be shed in the fulness of the time to make such an
expiation, even that of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
the world.”
Now I have gone through this history with what I think is its probable
and satisfactory explanation, because not merely does it serve to shew
what the Apostle means when he tells us it was by faith that Abel pleased
God, and that God testified of his gifts, but also because the very same
remarks seem to apply to the whole history and intention of sacrifice, as
either commanded or accepted, or both, by Almighty God from the
beginning. Take such to be the origin of propitiary sacrifice, and I
think nothing can more fully agree with, or illustrate, or be illustrated
by, the further progress both of the fact and doctrine as we find them,
first in the Holy Scripture, and, secondly, in the world at large, even
though by the world’s wickedness so fearfully perverted. In perfect
accordance with such beginning of acceptable sacrifice we have the same
used and practised, and with the like acceptance, by Noah, Abraham,
Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, {33a} and, indeed, by all the patriarchs
until the institution was embodied in the law of Moses. As we know,
also, it was practised by all the heathen nations of antiquity of whom we
have any record, though with them its true meaning and intention were
fearfully lost and perverted. Nor does the difference in the instance of
Abraham on one occasion, as to his being ready to offer a human sacrifice
in the person of his son (which was of course a wholly exceptional case
as regards the sacrifices of those knowing the true God), make any
difference as to the witness of the acceptableness of sacrifice by blood,
or the consuming the victim upon the altar. It has, indeed, been
disputed whether Abraham were not the more easily reconciled to the idea
of sacrificing his son, or even incited to it, by the customary “fierce
ritual” of the Syrians around him; but independently of the utter
contradiction which this view would give to the account in Holy
Scripture, by the attribution of any other motive for Abraham’s conduct
than the command of God, received in all faith, and leading to all
obedience, it may well be doubted whether a perverse misinterpretation of
the sacrifice which Abraham was thus ready to make, and an utter
inattention to the real circumstances of that case, may not have been,
instead of in any way the _consequence_, rather the _cause_ of the
nations around falling into the practice of human sacrifice. But, be
this as it may, we have the plain witness to the usage of sacrifice, and
its efficacy when performed according to the will of God. Also, that it
prefigured the great sacrifice by the blood of a pure victim, as well as
in itself taught the lesson that (as afterwards expressed by the Apostle
to the Hebrews) “without shedding of blood is no remission.” {34}
And all this we see consolidated and confirmed, as well as more fully
expanded and defined, under the Law. And especially there, a certain new
element in its administration is introduced, in the appointment of a
particular order for the performance of the service. In all the earlier
usage, it would seem that the head of the family or tribe acted as the
ministering priest. And there is no disproof of this, as far as I see,
in the account of even the first sacrifice of all. For there is nothing
in the narrative in the Book of Genesis to shew that Cain and Abel were
themselves the acting priests (if we may so term it) in the sacrifice.
They may each, for aught that appears to the contrary, have brought their
offering to Adam, and it may have been by his hand that the different
oblations were placed before God, and presented or devoted to Him. Such
as the office and privilege of the head or chief, would seem to have been
the recognised right and duty of such persons throughout the patriarchal
age; but as the rule of patriarchs in secular matters merged in that of
kings, as nations grew out of families, so the office of chiefs as
priests, however thus exercised by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, or Job,
seems to have been afterwards restricted to a tribe, or family, or other
persons, set apart for the special service, and denominated priests,
ἱερεῖς, or _sacerdotes_; names implying their dedication to holy things,
and their exclusive rights in many particulars to deal with them. And
this theory of worship, if we may so call it, was not merely reduced to a
system by God’s law among the Jews, but also prevailed universally among
the heathen world from the very earliest times of which any records are
preserved. Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, bear witness to it, and the
universal practice of all nations substantiates it, whether in the
barbarian forms of the ancient Druidical or other worship in the ruder
peoples of the world, or in the more refined practice of Greece and Rome,
or in the grotesque or cruel rites of the eastern countries, or
absolutely barbarian tribes. They all have their altars, their priests,
and their sacrifices, and in most, if not in all, the notion of
propitiation by the blood of the victim has prevailed.
It need hardly be added that in the provisions of the Mosaic Law all
these principles were embodied, so that, with every safeguard introduced
against the perversions, the sensuality, the materialism, and the
cruelty, which pervaded all forms and systems of idol worship, yet the
true worship of Jehovah, as established by Himself, embraced, and
contained, and stereotyped under the mark of His own approval, nay, of
His absolute command, the same three points, of an altar, a priesthood,
and a sacrifice; yes, a sacrifice in the sense of more than a mere
oblation or offering,—a sacrifice by blood of a victim slain, and
consumed in the very act of the commanded worship. For it ought never to
be forgotten that amid all other offerings that were permitted,—nay, for
certain purposes enjoined, as, for instance, for thank-offerings, or for
mere legal purification,—yet, under the Jewish Law, the particular
sacrifice which was appointed for expiation of any moral offence was the
burnt-offering, where the victim, as I have said, was killed, and
afterwards consumed by fire upon the altar; {36} and this appears to have
no exception, unless it were in the case of the extremely poor, who might
offer the tenth part of an ephah of meal; but even then, I believe, it is
considered that this was placed upon a victim offered by others, or by
the priest, for the sins of the people, and so may be deemed to have made
a part of a sacrifice with blood. So that, in truth, as St. Paul says to
the Hebrews, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and
without shedding of blood is no remission.”
We might say much on this head, and more particularly upon the
appointment of the Passover, and the light thrown by this institution
upon the typical character of sacrifice generally, and its relation to
the great sacrifice of all,—the Lamb slain, once for all upon the cross,
for the sins of the world; but the outline already given of the doctrine
taught by the sacrifice of Abel will readily suggest a key to the true
intention of the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Jews, and to the manner
in which they (although “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take
away sin,” yet) pointed to, and prepared the way for, our understanding
the nature of the sacrifice of Christ, and, indeed, were the great means
to elicit and foster faith in Him who should come, and to teach all the
world daily and continually to look to Him who alone is its salvation,
without whom, and whose mercy, no flesh should be saved at all.
We have brought, then, our statement, and I may say our argument, to this
point; first, generally that the whole world, with one consent, bears
witness to the usage of sacrifice. The whole world from Adam to
Christ,—Patriarchal, Jewish, Gentile, Barbarian, Civilized, North, South,
East, and West, together (for the new world when discovered was found
herein not to be divergent from the old),—testifies, I say, with one mind
and one mouth, as to the Being of a God, so likewise to this usage of
sacrifice. And again, secondly, and more particularly, the witness
agrees, that the sacrifice is made, (to speak generally,) not without
blood, and made for the purpose of reconciliation, after sin committed,
with the supernatural being or beings invoked, or for propitiation and
intercession in cases of favour sought. Even, still further is there
accordant and consenting witness; that there will be, as necessary
accompaniments to the sacrifice, an altar on which it is to be made, and
a specially set apart order of men: priests (ίερεῖς, _sacerdotes_, or
however particularly designated), by whom these sacrifices should be
offered up, and intercessions made on behalf of the people. So much the
whole world testifies generally, in spite of certain differences of
usage, and the fearful abominations which prevailed amongst those who did
not retain the true God in their knowledge:—the cruelty, licentiousness,
and abhorrent vice into which this worship, when it degenerated into idol
worship, everywhere sunk; which, however, it is plain, is no more an
argument against sacrifice, holily and obediently offered in accordance
with God’s appointment, than the superstitions of heathen invocation are
an argument against godly prayer and intercession. And thus, too, we see
that this very idea of sacrifice, (without the vicious accompaniments,)
prevailed among God’s children from the first,—as with Abel, Noah,
Melchisedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job; whilst by God’s own sanction
and special command, and, with what in human affairs we should call the
most laborious care and pains, the whole system was, under Moses,
recognised, enlarged, defined, and embodied in a whole code of laws, to
be in their very minutest details carried out until the Mediator of a new
covenant should come, when that which was old should be ready to vanish
away.
But it is well worthy of all our care in examination, to see whether it
is the essence of this idea, and even mode, of worship which is done
away, or only its ceremonial and local detail, as established in the
Jewish Church and polity; whether—as all sacrifices before Christ were
intended to look forward to Him, and His precious, inestimable,
expiation, to be once made by blood and suffering upon the altar of the
cross—whether, I say, so it has not been His will to continue an altar
and a priesthood, and therewith and thereby a sacrifice
commemorative—but, though commemorative, nevertheless perfectly real and
true—by which the Christian Church may both look back to Him, then dying
once for all, and ever plead afresh the merits of His death before the
throne of God on high. As Abraham looked forward, and “rejoiced to see
His day, and saw it, and was glad;” {40a} what if, so likewise, the
Christian Church is to look back on Him, and to rejoice; not merely to
see Him and be glad, but to be allowed also, according to His own will
and ordinance,—(aye, brethren, observe, of and by His own very
appointment, whereby His very body and blood are truly offered up to
God,)—allowed thus to plead, week by week and day by day, the very
all-prevailing merits of that same sacrifice upon the cross; yea, and be
the means of Himself graciously pleading it for His people ever afresh
before the mercy-seat of His Father. O, my brethren, if this be so, who
can undervalue this great thing, or disparage it, or attempt to throw it
off, or deny it, or trample it under foot, without a sacrilege fearful to
think of? But, again, if this be so, how is the Lamb of God, and His
precious blood-shedding, made, more than in any other way which we can
conceive, the centre towards which the whole world looks, from its
earliest to its latest day; from the moment of the promise that the seed
of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, {40b} until that awful
hour when that same seed of the woman, the Son of Man, shall come in the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory? I do not say, it is not
conceivable that the whole system and machinery (so to call it), of
priest, and altar, and sacrifice, might have fulfilled its purpose at the
hour of the crucifixion, and nothing remain of it, or like it, in the
Christian Church; nothing in the Christian ministry to answer to the
previous priesthood; nothing in it, but a set of teachers or expounders
of the Christian faith; a faith, however, be it remarked, in that case, a
very different thing from that which the Church has ever supposed it to
be, or (as I think) the Holy Scripture sets before us. But even if all
this be conceivable, I do say, and I think no unprejudiced person should
dispute it, that the whole testimony and usage of all previous time in
this matter, the whole of what holy men “did continually” in relation to
it, not merely with God’s manifest approval, but even with His especial
sanction, and by His positive command, raises a very strong _prima facie_
presumption, that all this was not intended to be, and was not, thus
abrogated and done away; and that, at the very least, we ought to have
shewn us the most express and distinct proofs of its being thus
abrogated, before we can accept its abrogation. We have been accustomed
to see, rather, that instead of being abrogated, the usage is changed and
glorified; changed from the shadow to the image, from wood and stone to
silver and gold, from a comparatively dead state to a glorious living
one, from the ministration of death to the ministration of life; but, if
this be not so, then, indeed, we may surely ask to see this reversal of
all which the economy of God’s dealings would seem to lead us to,
expressly promulgated and proved by the word of Christ or His Apostles;
so plainly set down as to need no explanation further; or else, so
explained by those who immediately followed them, and had the best means
of understanding their sense and design, as to leave us no ground for
reasonable doubt, or we must be excused if we cannot accept the mere
assertion of so improbable a thing as true, or believe the unchangeable
God to be so like a Man that He should thus repent.
A fair examination into this question is most important, but we cannot
enter upon it at the present moment. We must necessarily defer it to
another day. I trust, with God’s help and guidance, to resume our
subject on Sunday next, and endeavour further to see how the doctrine
really stands, taking, briefly but carefully, into consideration these
three points:—
1. What is the testimony of the Holy Scripture as to the doctrine of the
Christian priesthood, altar, and sacrifice?