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 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 anti-christian; 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 ([Greek:  prosalogaen], 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 or 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 Melchisedek; 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