High Priest

“ But the high priest of our profession holds his office by that innate power of endless life which he has in himself, not only to preserve himself alive, but to communicate spiritual and eternal life to all those who duly rely upon his sacrifice and intercession. ”

“ For instance the Presidency of the Priesthood, or the Presidency of the Church, are High Priests. The Twelve are High Priests. The Presidents of Stakes and their Counselors, the High Council of a Stake, and of all the Stakes, are High Priests. The Bishops are ordained and set apart through the High Priesthood, and stand in the same capacity; and thus Bishops and their Counselors are High Priests. Now, these things you all know. There is nothing mysterious about them.
There is another question associated with this matter. Because a man is a High Priest, is he an Apostle? ”

“ For the priesthood is the very highest point of all good things among men, against which whosoever is mad enough to strive, dishonours not man, but God, and Christ Jesus, the First-born, and the only High Priest, by nature, of the Father. Let all things therefore be done by you with good order in Christ. Let the laity be subject to the deacons; the deacons to the presbyters; the presbyters to the bishop; the bishop to Christ, even as He is to the Father. As ye, brethren, have refreshed me, so will Jesus Christ refresh you. ”

“ Through purity of life and most ascetic habits this Most High Priest has to an unusual degree developed the Senses of Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, and when he shall come to understand their real meaning he will become a powerful force in the introduction of the new religion. Perhaps you are aware that all humans possess these senses, and that under favorable conditions all may exercise them. No, the case of this Priest is not exceptional. All high Priests are chosen for the position because of their supposed ability to hold converse with the Deific Ones. ”

“ So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made a high priest." Fundamental to Christian faith and life is this thought: priesthood is not of man, but of God. In particular, in all that Christ has done and is still doing as the High Priest, in the true holiest, He is acting under Divine appointment.
And we are hereby pointed to the truth of which some may need to be reminded, that the work of our Lord in our behalf, and that of the whole universe into which sin has entered, has its cause and origin in the mind and gracious will of the Father. ”

“ And offer the loaves of proposition. Let them therefore be holy because I also am holy: the Lord, who sanctify them.
21:9. If the daughter of a priest be taken in whoredom and dishonour the name of her father, she shall be burnt with fire.
21:10. The high priest, that is to say, the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of unction hath been poured; and whose hands have been consecrated for the priesthood; and who hath been vested with the holy vestments. He shall not uncover his head: he shall not rend his garments. ”

“ The Lesser Priesthood, then, you perceive, comes within the purview of the Apostleship, because a man that holds it has a right to act or officiate as a High Priest, as one of {218} the High Council, as a Patriarch, as a Bishop, Elder, Priest, Teacher, and Deacon, and in every other office and calling that is in the Church, from first to last, when duty demands it. ”

“ And it may be out of proportion in this book to give a complete description of all the privileges and regalia of the high priest, yet the reader could easily imagine the frivolities unfortunately existing even today in the ceremonial dress of the high priest, and to confirm this fact he only has to enter in the first Russian or Greek or Roman Catholic church at any day of some special celebration and there he cannot help but observe an imitation of the lamentable vanity of a high priest of the old Jewish faith. And the truth is visible to the naked eye. ”

“ For such a high priest became us holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners and made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily like those priests, to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people, for this he did once for all when he offered himself. ”

“ Our great High Priest bears us upon His heart continually before the throne. All our affairs are in His blessed hands, and can never fall through. [77] He lives for us, and we live in Him. He will carry us right through to the end. Men speak about "the final perseverance of the saints." Scripture speaks of the final perseverance of our divine and adorable High Priest. ”

“ The apostles themselves never assumed the character of priests; they pointed to the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ the righteous, and would have looked upon it as blasphemy for any man to presume to act as such. To our Great High Priest alone must we confess our sins; He is faithful and just to forgive all those their sins, who put faith in the all-cleansing power of His blood to absolve them. He, too, is One who knows our infirmities, and can sympathise with us, having been tempted as we are. With the Scriptures in our hands, we need no mortal man to declare this glorious truth to us ”

“ If there is no change of ordinances, there is no change of Priesthood. Wherever the ordinances of the Gospel are administered, there is the Priesthood.
How have we come at the Priesthood in the last days? It came down, in regular succession. Peter, James, and John had it given to them, and they gave it to others. Christ is the great High Priest; Adam next. Paul speaks of The Church coming to an innumerable company of angels—to God, the Judge of all—the spirits of just men made perfect; to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, &c., (Heb. III, 23.) ”

“ Conscious that Jesus left no priesthood behind him, that his teaching was anti-sacerdotal and non-sacramental, there was nothing for the writer but to suggest that the great prophet himself was the high priest, the solitary member of the caste in the new gospel, and that therewith men are to be satisfied, because more than compensated thereby for the absence of the altar and hierarchy of old. ”

“ And inasmuch as every high priest is ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices, it is of necessity that this man have somewhat to offer” (Heb. viii. 3) .
Jesus was proved to be our High Priest by offering up His own body for our sins, which is stated in the most explicit terms. “But Christ being come, a High Priest of good things to come; . . . neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained p. 45eternal redemption (for us) ” (Heb. ix. 11, 12) . ”

“ —Has any one ever clearly understood the celebrated story at the beginning of the Bible—of God’s mortal terror of science?... No one, in fact, has understood it. This priest-book par excellence opens, as is fitting, with the great inner difficulty of the priest: he faces only one great danger; ergo, “God” faces only one great danger.—
The old God, wholly “spirit,” wholly the high-priest, wholly perfect, is promenading his garden: he is bored and trying to kill time. Against boredom even gods struggle in vain. [21] What does he do? He creates man—man is entertaining.... ”

“ And when you spoke to me, I did not know
That to my life's high altar came its priest. ”

“ God's promises are true and the reader has only to study the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, to be convinced that the sacerdotal office of the priest sooner or later has to go out of existence as the spirit of Christ spreads upon the hearts of men and women and the knowledge of His salvation makes them "Priests unto God and His Father" and thus establish God's kingdom upon the solid foundations of love. ”

“ Speaking of the Melchisedek Priesthood, one degree of it makes men elders, another high priests, another seventies, another patriarchs, another apostles. Speaking of the Aaronic Priesthood, one degree of it makes men deacons, another teachers, another priests, another bishops—the bishopric is the presidency of and embraces the fullness of this lesser Priesthood. ”

“ And not a pompous High Priest entering by a Secret Place. ”

“ God's body in flesh and blood to make,
And handleth his maker between his hands.
The priest bindeth and unbindeth all bands
Both in earth and in heaven.
Thou ministers all the sacraments seven—
Though we kiss thy feet thou were worthy—
Thou art surgeon that cureth sin deadly.
No remedy we find under God
But all only priesthood.
Everyman, God gave priests that dignity,
And setteth them in his stead, among us to be;
Thus be they above angels in degree.
Knowledge. If priests be good, it is so surely ”

“ The office of Priesthood is, indeed, performed on earth, but it should itself be referred to the class and order of things celestial. Wherefore it is necessary, that the Priest be pure, as if, placed in heaven, he stood among the celestial spirits.-For when you behold the Lord immolated, and the Priest presiding over the Sacrifice, and pouring out prayers, and then the surrounding multitude partaking of the sacred blood, (n) can you, at that moment, fancy, you are among mortals, and dwelling on the earth ? ”

“ The candidate is likewise reminded of the excellence of the priestly office by virtue of which the Passion of Christ is daily celebrated on the altar.
In the course of the rite, the priest's hands are blessed, since he is to consecrate the sacrifice offered for the sins and offences of the people; and he is given the chalice, etc., to show forth and emphasise the power to offer sacrifice and celebrate the Mass; and in the final blessing God is asked to bless the newly ordained in the priestly order who is to offer Sacrifices pleasing to Him. ”

“ Then would there have been no usurping priesthood to stand between the souls of men and their Father in heaven, to bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne and lay them upon men's shoulders, to multiply forms and observances and complicate what should have been simplest of all—the direct way to the Father in heaven, through Christ the great Priest of humanity. ”

“ A noble and worthy priesthood, according to his first encyclical, was to be one of the means towards that restoring of all things in Christ "which was to heal the wounds of the world." "The priest is the representative of Christ on earth," he said on one occasion to the students of the French College in Rome; "he must think the thoughts of Christ and speak His words. He must be tender as Christ was tender, pure and holy like his Lord; he must shine like a star in the world." This was not easy, he acknowledged; it needed a long preparation of study, of self-discipline and of prayer. ”

“ It is the behind-the-scenes of the temple, and it stretches from the sacristy to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the Palace. The profane world suspects nothing; it passes unconcernedly by without dreaming that tempests are rumbling by its side. But, like the revolutions raised by the eunuchs of the Seraglio, the intrigues of the sacristy have been known to change the face of nations.
The priest is the spy upon the priest.
Misfortune to the cassock which unbuttons itself before another cassock. ”

“ What consecrates the priest? Say, what ordains him To be the Lord's interpreter? a heart Devoid of guile, and a reproachless conduct. Well, then, though unordained, be you my priest; To you will I confide my last confession, And take my absolution from your lips. MELVIL. If then thy heart be with such zeal inflamed, I tell thee that for thine especial comfort, The Lord may work a miracle. Thou say'st Here is no priest, no church, no sacrament— Thou err'st—here is a priest—here is a God; A God descends to thee in real presence. ”

“ Is it not like people, like priest; all seek the things that are their own? Each one hastens to his own house, but my house is desolate. [22]
Often to perform the priest’s office, daily to stand at the holy altars and offer sacrifice to God, is held in low esteem, as the duty of common priests, who must live by the altar. But they whom I have exalted, and brought up very delicately, even they have despised me. For they are grown fat, and thick, and gross, and forsake God their Creator: and they who eat of my bread, and live in splendour on my patrimony, even they are greatly supplanting me. ”

“ We have now to go a step farther in our contrast of our Catholic belief with the Reformation principles. This morning I propose to speak of the sacred priesthood. The Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass imples a sacrificing priesthood. To us a priest in the first place is a man chosen, set aside and consecrated for the service of the altar. He is a man and, alas! sometimes, in spite of the dignity of his calling, he shows himself to be very human ”

“ For neither may we address ourselves to Almighty God, but only by Christ. In the same manner, therefore, let the laity make known all their desires to the bishop by the deacon, and accordingly let them act as he shall direct them. For there was no holy thing offered or done in the temple formerly without the priest. “For the priest’s lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth,” as the prophet somewhere says, “for he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.” ”

“ It is a Priest that our spirits cry out for, to lift them above themselves to their God and Father,--to make them partakers of his nature, fellow-workers in one authentic testimony that He is both the Priest and King of Men. ”

“ Bishop Hall’s remarks on this doctrine are as follows:—It sounds not more prodigiously that a priest should every day make his God, than that he should sacrifice him.
Antiquity would have as much abhorred the sense, as it hath allowed the word. Nothing is more ordinary with the Fathers than to call God’s table an altar; the holy elements, an oblation; the act of celebration, an immolation; the actor, a priest. ”