LECT. VII. He knew the worth of silence and secret communion

The mysteries.

The mystery of Sacrifice.

he had perceived a force in what the teachers of Alexandria said of principles, which the carnal and vulgar soul cannot apprehend. But how near are precious truths to the falsehoods which are most destructive of them! The reverence for mystery, which in the mind of an earnest and faithful man means the reverence for a truth which he cannot grasp, but on which he can rest, and which is as close to others as it is to him, may become in the worse moments of his own life-will become, when other men catch it from him—the boast of some profound treasure which he and one or two more have got sight of, which is hid in a mine of theirs, of which men in general are to know nothing. Mysteries there had been in all the religions of the world-mysteries there were in nearly all the schools of philosophy; surely Christianity cannot be without its mystery! Might it not be said that the mystery of Christianity was the deepest of all-that it was that depth which was quite unfathomable?

Surely this might be said. If there was any meaning in the facts or principles which the Church proclaimed, it must be said. Was not the sacrifice of

the Only-Begotten of the

Father this mystery of

unfathomable love? Was not this something which no words could measure, no images set forth? So The Eucha the Church believed. The celebration of the Eucharistical mys- rist, as the centre and principle of all its worship, embodied the belief; but it embodied also the belief that a sacrifice had been offered for the sins of the

tery.

whole world, a sacrifice which had taken away the LECT. VII. sins of the world. It embodied the belief that that unfathomable love of God had been revealed to men, and that the poorest beggar, the most miserable sinner, might enter into it, dwell in it, feed upon it, be penetrated and possessed by it. If one of these convictions drove out the other, what would happen? The celebration of the Eucharist would become indeed a mystery, the Christian counterpart of that which the Egyptian priests gloried in; but it would no longer be a mystery of thanksgiving for a love that had been manifested in a stupendous act. The service would be mysterious, that is to say, it would be kept from the public gaze; it would be reserved for the initiated; but that which it signified would more and more disappear,-it would be lost in the service. Those who had sought for something too inward, too unutterable for words or forms, would find these continually putting themselves forth in place of it. And then, in process of time, there would be a Opposite Idemand that the other side of the truth which had united. been suppressed should be brought out. The sacrifice which is for men must be made broad, palpable, visible, that men may confess it and adore it. If there is that in it which answers to the heathen mysteries, there must be also that which answers to the open heathen sacrifices. The Eucharist, considered as a bond of peace to all the members of the Church-a testimony of Christ's death to the world-answered to both, for it declared in the simplest form the fulfilment of both by God, the full realization of both by

errors.

LECT. VII. man. The same Eucharist, reduced into a mere part

The Presbyter cele

Eucharist.

of a religious system, corresponded now to one, now to the other; it was a new mystery, gathering up into itself all the exclusiveness of the old; it was a new sacrifice, gathering into itself all the superstition of the old. What could it do, when it assumed this shape, to break in pieces the fetters by which men were bound; to testify of the truth which makes free?

There are some who fancy that they can trace up this brating the evil in the second century, and in subsequent centuries, to the growth of a persuasion that the presbyter in the Christian Church corresponded to the old sacrificial priest of the Jew and of the Gentile, and, therefore, that he was the person who could alone administer the Eucharist. I do not myself see how the Church could have avoided feeling that the elder brother of the community was testifying of the great Elder Brother who had gone up to the right hand of God, and, therefore, that the duty of setting forth the finished sacrifice appertained most fittingly to him. I do not suppose that there was any law or decree designating him to the office, any more than there was a law or decree fixing which were the books of Scripture, or that the Sunday should supersede the Saturday as the day of rest. I do not suppose that the Reasonable Church did adopt this practice at once; it seems to me to have been one of those ordinances which

ness of the practice.

worked themselves out in the called body under the Divine teaching, because it was suitable to its whole character and constitution,-because in no other way could the unity and universality of the sacrifice, and

the fact that Christ had already offered and completed LECT. VII. it, have been so perfectly expressed. It is not in the association of the presbyter with the old priest that I find the degradation of the Christian Sacrament, but in the confusion of the one with the other, in the notion that the Christian presbyter was like the Jewish, a witness of that mystery which was not yet revealed, of a Lamb which had not yet been offered and accepted-like the heathen, a witness that the mind of the Father was to be made propitious by the oblations of His creatures. Here is that mystery of The real confusion. iniquity which I believe has ever been working itself out by the side of the mystery of godliness. I have been tracing some of the indications of them both in these last two Lectures; and I wish you to meditate on them well, that you may be able to watch their growth in each subsequent century; still more, that you may be able to distinguish them in your own hearts.

LECTURE VIII.

LECT. VIII.

The Over

seer or

Bishop.

THE CHURCH AND THE EMPERORS.

WHAT I said about the Presbyter in my last Lecture will have perplexed you, if you have not connected it with some hints which I threw out respecting the constitution of the Church in former Lectures. You will have observed that I have scarcely ever used the word Bishop in speaking of the different Christian communities. I have abstained from it, not because I dislike the word, or because I think it does not fitly describe any class of persons in the second century, but because it does not at once suggest the meaning of the Greek word of which it is the rendering. At the risk, therefore, of appearing pedantic, I have talked of the "Overseers" of the Churches whenever I have had occasion to translate the original word. But I have taken one or two opportunities of remarking, that I do not think that even this title expresses fully and satisfactorily the

condition of the person who commonly bore it, or the Patri- feeling with which the Church regarded him. I bearchal con- lieve that not only in that century, but in all subsestitution of the Church. quent centuries, we should understand the character of the Church better, if we resorted to our own old