Mayow Wynell Mayow

“ 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? ”

“ Without anticipating these things in any detail, let me yet just remind you that the mere fashion, or usage, or clamour, or forgetfulness, or unbelief of any age or time can make no difference in the truth of God, or in the doctrine which has been from the beginning, or in the mysteries of His kingdom. That men should try to bring all things, however divine and holy, however deep and mysterious, to the level of their own understanding, and discard all which they may be unable to explain, need be to us no matter of surprise. ”

“ We must perceive that here is the crown and completion of all other worship, the sum and substance of our praises and thanksgivings, the prevailing mode of petition for ourselves and of intercession for others, the greatest and highest means of applying to our individual wants and individual sins the mercies of God through the ever-availing sacrifice of Christ. Such persuasion of their dignity and power has ever pervaded those who have believed in a priesthood, an altar, and a sacrifice. Heathen testimony witnesses to this, even amidst all the corruption and debasement of idol worship. ”

“ Who but a priest can receive the elements from the people, set them upon the holy table, and offer up to God such solemn prayers, praises, and thanksgivings for the congregation, and make such solemn intercessions for them as are now, and ever were, offered and made in this Holy Sacrament? Who but a priest can consecrate the elements and make them the mystical Body and Blood of Christ? Who but a priest can stand in God’s stead at His table, and in His Name receive His guests? ”

“ What, then, is there incredible in the affirmation that the power of the keys is vested in a priest as the instrument, though all the authority and absolving power is from God only; so that it is God and not man who pardons, and makes any man whole from sin. “Who, indeed, can forgive sins but God only?” But he who is invested with such authority, even instrumentally, is exactly what we term a ‘priest;’ and our argument has been (to recur to it thus for a moment) that the Church, which regards men as so endowed, regards them as priests of God. ”

“ I do not see how such presence of one looking on, even joining in words of praise, but habitually and constantly doing no more; of one who is not a communicant, nor seeking to become a communicant; of one who does not eat of the sacrifice though present, perhaps often, at the offering of it, can be an act of worship or adoration well-pleasing to Almighty God; can, in any way, make up for his lack of understanding, or preparation, or obedience in that he does not “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,” without which, our Lord Himself has told us, we have “no life in us.” ”

“ And it would be absurd to think of the Apostle describing the worship of idols as a real act of adoration and sacrifice to devils, and as impressing a real character by a power upon them for evil in those who join in such worship, and not to see that he must allow an equal act of sacrifice, adoration, and homage in the sacrifice and the altar which he speaks of as the Christian’s constant privilege to frequent ”

“ Surely these things are of great weight when we would know what doctrine is most according to the mind of the Church of England. “I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” It is this same principle, too, of preserving the one faith once delivered, which makes it so important to examine, as we are attempting to do, the sense of Holy Scripture as attested by the consent of the Church from the beginning, and as accepted by our own Church, upon so grave and practical a subject as the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!
p. 5And 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? ”

“ If ever we seem to be disheartened or ready to faint by the way, we will remember on whose word we rely and on whose arm we lean; we will call to mind His wonders of old time; we will ever with all faith and hopeful trust, knowing how with Him “all things are possible,” make the prayer of the Psalmist continually our own, saying, “Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts: shew the light of Thy countenance, and we shall be whole.” ”

“ It is: “The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” ”

“ When we meet our fellows and companions of our own time of life, knit with us in the tenderest bonds of human affection, and enjoy with them some of that good which God’s bounty allows us, let us rejoice in the thought that they and we have a mutual share in things better than all which this world has to give, and are heirs together of the same common salvation. ”

“ Is the partaking of the idol altar not an effect of an actual eating? Is the consequent fellowship with devils not the result of such actual feasting upon an actual objective sacrifice? And, therefore, if the parallel has any force at all, must it not be that there is a real objective presence of a sacrificial thing at the Christian altar,—the res sacramenti, as in strict theological phraseology it is termed,—by which he that eateth is partaker of the altar, and the result of which is, his having fellowship with Christ and God? ”

“ 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 ”

“ To be present in order to learn, and to learn in order to obey, we may indeed hope will be an acceptable service, so far as it goes; but to gaze constantly without obeying ever, and then to think nevertheless that we “are partakers of the altar,” seems to me nothing less than a dangerous self-deceit, and therefore certainly a practice not to be encouraged. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When we gather round us our little ones, and thank God for the blessing He has given us in them, and look forward not without anxious expectation to the future of their life, yet let us not forget to bless and praise His name that, by the Incarnation of His Son, He has permitted us to make our children His children, and has made sure to them all the privileges of their adoption and the promises of His covenant. So may we, whichever way we look and whatever meets our eyes, ever overflow with thankful joy that unto us “is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” ”

“ Like unto us, with perfect manhood, human body and soul taken into the Godhead, so to be unto us “both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” As the new federal Head of the human race; as the one, and only one, of the descendants of Adam in whom sin found no place, and whose obedience was perfect, “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by Him.” Thus is God Incarnate our great High Priest and only Saviour. “To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world,” [149b] and such is the mercy which we this day commemorate. ”

“ So, with no light in ourselves to see our way clearly, nor in ourselves any strength to throw off our chains and turn to God; with dim forebodings of and even earnest yearnings after something higher, better, and more enduring than this world, and this earthly life and being, but with no apprehension to grasp it, and no power to attain to it. ”

“ It is so important to us, that we might say all other things are mere bubbles and trifles compared with it. What should we be, and what would be our hope, if we had not the Christmas season, and all which it has brought, to gild our year, and gladden our hearts? Think of what we are, and what are our prospects by nature! ”

“ If no one will say so, surely we must confess to a strong presumption in favour of the doctrine of an altar and a sacrifice remaining in the Christian Church.
But perhaps it may be said, Not so: we accept those other precepts as belonging to the Christian Church, because they are simply moral precepts applying to the heart, but the former passage relates to a ceremonial usage of the Jewish polity, and may well be taken to be a mere adaptation of what was then in well-known use; to inculcate, not an act or mode of worship, but figuratively a frame of mind that would be required in Christians. ”

“ For, as we see at once, God, as God only, cannot die; and man, as man only, cannot make propitiation for sin. It is, of course, true that the Godhead, considered in itself, is incapable of suffering, and therefore, the Son of God, for this reason, (among many others, as we may well believe,) took upon Him man’s nature, which was capable of suffering and death. And not less true or less plain is it, that the Manhood, even in its best and most perfect state, could not make atonement to God for sin, or enable any man to “save his brother.” ”

“ 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. ”