become, within sin's sphere, self-devoting sacrifice. The priesthood of Christ, then, is Divine love under conditions of humanity. As such, it has at once a Godward and a manward aspect. To manward it is the inconceivable condescension and embrace of love, divinely redeeming; to Godward it is the homage, perfect and perpetual-as, primarily, of human penitential atonement for sin—so also of human sinlessness, and unblemished service, and response of love worthy of God.

It follows very clearly from this that the so-called priesthood of the Old Testament is external and symbolic only. The act of slaying a victim is a merely representa

It enacts a sort of outward parable of priesthood. It does not touch the essence of what priesthood means. Willingness, love, is of the essence of sacrifice. As the animal does not willingly die, of love, but its death only presents an outward figure of sacrificial dying, so on the part of the offerer, neither the slaying of the animal, nor the sprinkling of its blood, is in itself directly an act of moral import at all. The enactment of the Old Testament is in itself outward only. But true priesthood is an outward that is perfectly expressive of an inward, and is what it is by virtue of that real inward to which the outward does but give utterance. It seems to me of the utmost importance to insist upon this, and upon the truth which corresponds immediately to this, namely, that any definition of priesthood which stands in terms only of what is ceremonial and outward and official is inadequate and misconceived. There is an outward, but it is but the shell or body or symbolic expression of an inward; only an outward that is the outward of an inward is truly priestly; the outward that rests in being outward-whether in the Jewish or in the Christian Church-is only the symbol and shell, not the truth, of priestliness. Certainly in Jesus Christ, the one true and perfect Priest, it will at once be felt that what He did was inseparable from its own meaning-inseparable, that is, from what He Himself was.

Now I have insisted that what Christ is, the Church, which is Christ's mystical body, must also be. If Christ is Prophet, the Church is prophetic. If Christ is King, the Church is royal. If Christ is Priest, the Church is priestly. And if Christ's priesthood is, in relation to men, fundamental even to His royal and prophetic aspects, then whatever tends to suppress or undervalue the essentially priestly character of the mystical body of Christ, obscures a most fundamental conception of the truth1. And this is undoubtedly the conception of the New Testament. There priestliness of character is a consequence which outflows upon the Church from the Person of Christ; and the Church's priesthood being in its inner truth the priesthood of Christ, is a substantial reality, and stands. therefore in contrast with that 'priesthood' of the Old Testament which did but symbolically represent reality. Priesthood is not abolished, but consummated in Christ's Church. The priests go in continually into the first tabernacle . . . into the second the high priest alone . . . the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest while as the first tabernacle is yet standing: . . . but Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come...

1 This thought receives a great deal of very valuable illustration in Dr. Milligan's exposition of 'the Ascension and Heavenly priesthood of our Lord,' particularly the last three lectures. In lect. v. pp. 236-7, the principle is thus laid down: 'From these considerations it follows that whatever function is discharged by our Lord in heaven must be also discharged by His Church on earth. Is He, as glorified, a prophet? The prophetical office must belong to her. It may, for the sake of order, be distributed through appropriate members; but primarily it belongs to the Church as a whole, the life of Christ in His prophetical office being first her life, and her life then pervading and animating any particular persons through whom the work of prophesying is performed. In like manner is He glorified Redeemer or King? The kingly office must also belong to the Church; and if it is to be represented in any particular members rather than in the body as a whole, her life must so penetrate and pervade them that they may be kingly. If it be thus with our Lord's offices as Prophet and King, it cannot be otherwise with that priestly office which is the foundation of both of these. All who allow that our Lord is a Priest in heaven must, upon the principles now laid down, acknowledge the priestliness of the Church on earth.'

entered in once for all into the holy place. . . . For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, they can never . . . make perfect. . . . Wherefore when He cometh into the world He saith... Lo, I am come to do Thy will. . . . By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus . . . and having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, . . . not forsaking the assembling of ourselves. together 1. .. Ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched . . . but ye are come unto . . . the heavenly Jerusalem . . and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel. . . . We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle... Jesus, . . . that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him. . . . For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come?'

Compare all this with the language of St. Peter, 'Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ 3 ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession ';' and the parallel language of the Revelation, 'unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever.'... 'Thou wast slain, and didst

1 Cp. also above, ch. i. p. 14.

2 Hebrews ix. 6-xiii. 14.

8 Οίκος πνευματικός, ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους Θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 1 Pet. ii. 5.

4 Γένος εκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν,

1 Pet. ii. 9.

5 ̓Εποίησεν ἡμᾶς βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ Θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ, Rev. i. 6.

purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they reign upon the earth'.'... 'Over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years 2.' These passages are explicit, in the use of the priestly as well as royal title; but it may be doubted whether as much might not have been legitimately inferred from such more general statements of the identity of His members with Christ as pervade the teaching of St. Paul. In Him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power: . . . in baptism ye were then ye were raised

also raised with

Him..
Him. . . . If

...

together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. . . . For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.' 'God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us . . . quickened us together with Christ . . . and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus . . . for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them 4.'

...

Now it will be observed that all the passages thus referred to are of general application. We need not desire to deprecate, but rather to emphasize with the utmost distinctness, the essential truth that these phrases are not used of apostles or of presbyters distinctively, but of the body as a whole, and of it just because it is the body of Christ; of it because of Him; and therefore of it, the whole, not of a part

1 Οτι ἐσφάγης, καὶ ἠγόρασας τῷ Θεῷ ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς κ. τ. λ. καὶ ἐποίησας αὐτοὺς τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς καὶ βασιλεύουσιν ἐπὶ τῆς yns, Rev. v. 9, 10.

2 Ἐπὶ τούτων ὁ δεύτερος θάνατος οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν, ἀλλ ̓ ἔσονται ἱερεῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Rev. xx. 6.

3 Col. ii. 10, 12; iii. 1, 3.

4 Eph. ii. 4-6, 10. Cp. Rom. vi. 8; viii. 9 and 17; 1 Cor. ii. 16; Gal. ii. 20, and ver. 19; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12; &c., &c.

of it merely. The whole body of Christ is priestly, with Him and in Him 'raised up and made to sit in heavenly places,' 'offering up spiritual sacrifices,' prepared unto 'good works.' But it is just the priestly character of the Church as a whole which I first desire to establish. If this be once conceded and understood, I do not apprehend that much difficulty will remain about the priestly character of the ministry of the Church. If those be right who deprecate the use of the words priest and priestly, all substantial reality in the conception of the priesthood of the layman must go too1. The priesthood of the ministry is to be established not through depreciation, but through exaltation, of the priesthood of the body as a whole. And in the long run I do not believe that it is those who enter into the solemnity of the universal priesthood, but rather those who would eliminate priesthood and its solemnity altogether, who will be the really uncompromising opponents of the priesthood of the ministry.

In what then does the priestly character of the Church consist? The priesthood of Christ we found in His offering of Himself as a perfect sacrifice, an offering which is not more an outward enactment than an inward perfecting of holiness and of love; an offering whose outward enactment is but the perfect utterance of a perfect inwardness; an offering which, whilst, so to say, containing Calvary in itself, is consummated eternally by His eternal selfpresentation before the presence and on the throne of God. The sacrificial priesthood of the Church is really her identification with the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ. With this priesthood and sacrifice she is identified outwardly and inwardly; by outward enactment ceremonially, and by inwardness of spirit vitally. Christ Himself has prescribed for all time an outward ceremonial, which is the symbolic counterpart in the Church on earth, not simply of Calvary, but of that eternal presentation of Himself in

1 'Sacerdotium laici, id est baptisma,' Jerome, adv. Lucif. 4. Cp. Col. ii. 12, quoted above.