Judge Priest

“ 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.) ”

“ Now as the high priest inspected the sacrificed beasts, cut them up to the back-bone to see whether they were sound at heart, so all things are thus dissected, and lie open to the piercing eye of our great high priest. An he who now tries our sacrifices will at length, as Judge, try our state. ”

“ Once more let it be remembered that the Tribunal of Penance is for the accusation and absolution of sin. Name, nor abode, nor fortune, nor domestic concerns, have any place there. The priest is the spiritual physician, and it is the disease which is submitted to him; all else is foreign to his office, nor has he the right to ask of other matters. ”

“ then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! ”

“ “The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. ”

“ How is it we hear of milk-and-water Catholics going to be married before magistrates, or, what is worse, before ministers of a false religion? How is it that we find Catholics denying their faith and going to a Protestant place of worship for the sake of a little food and clothing? The priest has God's own authority; you are the sheep. The priest has you in charge. God does not come and ask you if you would like a shepherd; he places one over you, and that he may guide you, and not that you may guide him. ”

“ And because a metropolitan—as is the Roman pontiff—may be slow so far as his cardinals are concerned in the execution of this holy duty, therefore, in the third place, they have ordained laws intended to remedy the disorders, namely, that the mass of the priest shall not be heard from him to whom it is notorious that that priest is living in fornication, nor shall the goods of the church be administered to him to encourage the deed. ”

“ They should set patterns of all that is good and praiseworthy; their duty is to do justice and adjudicate in all matters pertaining to a Bishop's court, as a common court in Israel, and they ought to judge in all righteousness, fidelity, and truth. The Priests ought to be full of the Holy Ghost, and should be full of intelligence to act as watchmen over the people, trying to stop ill feelings, evil actions, etc. ”

“ So these callings and Priesthoods are interwoven one with another, for the convenience and furtherance of the kingdom of God, in the absence of a literal descendant of Aaron. A Bishop sometimes officiates as a High Priest, and sometimes as a Bishop. In his High Priesthood he can act, when called upon so to do by the proper authority in every calling in the Church, except that of an Apostle; there are still keys and powers that can be conferred upon him; but when a man is ordained to the office of an Apostle, he is ordained to the fullest extent a man can be on earth. ”

“ No person who is infirm shall be compelled by priests to make a will. (18) The sacrament shall not be withheld from any one for debt or other reason. The church or priest has a remedy in court. (19) Fines for adultery and fornication belong to the king, not to the bishop. (20) The Gospel shall hereafter be taught in every school. (21) Bishops shall consecrate no priest who is incompetent to preach the Word of God. (22) No one shall be made a prelate, canon, or prebend unless he has been recommended by the king, or his name submitted to the king. ”

“ The laws of Wihtred of Kent make the word of a king or a bishop incontrovertible without an oath; a priest, like a king’s thane, is to clear himself with his own oath at the altar; he is to stand before the altar in his vestments, and laying his hand upon the altar, to say, “Veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior;” [68] the superior of a monastery is to make oath like a priest; a clerk, like a “ceorlish man,” to make like oath at the altar, but to have four compurgators. The rank of a priest as equal to that of a thane is frequently recognized. ”

“ This being the case, it necessarily follows that those holding the Priesthood on the earth continue in the exercise of that Priesthood in the heavens, their operations being changed from this to another state of existence; and when the dead, small and great, shall be judged, while God stands at the head, and Jesus is the great High Priest of our profession, all those who have ever lived who are worthy will stand in their proper positions, according to their callings, Priesthood, ordinations or quorums. ”

“ That priests avoid drunkenness, and warn the people against it; that they eschew unbecoming occupations, as ale-scop or glee man, but behave discreetly and worthily; abstain from oaths and forbid them; not consort too much with women, but love their own spouse, that is, their church; not bear false witness, or be the confidant of thieves; that the priest have not to do with ordeals or oaths, or be compurgator with a thane, unless the thane take the first oath; be not a hunter, or hawker, or dicer, but occupy himself with his books, as becomes his order. ”

“ Because those things which are a matter of an order, cannot be deputed to one who has not the order, whereas matters of jurisdiction can be deputed to those who have not ordinary jurisdiction: thus the delivery of a judgment is deputed by the bishop to a simple priest. ”

“ To the "weak" mortal priesthood of the law, never warranted by the vow of God to abide always in possession, succeeds One who is Priest, and King, and Son, sealed for His office by the irrevocable vow, "consecrated for evermore." ”

“ Yet not all sins can be forgiven by every Priest. For, 1. In order that a Priest may be able to absolve validly from sins, it is not only required that he should have received this power in Holy Order, but also that he should have been especially authorized by the Bishop to administer the Sacrament of Penance in his diocese. 2. According to an ancient, lawful, and salutary practice, the Pope and the Bishops are accustomed to reserve to themselves the absolution from certain very grievous sins, from which, therefore, other Priests can absolve only in virtue of a particular authorization. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This is the most natural and harmless action of a bishop, for what spiritual act can take place without that exercise of his jurisdiction? Pronouncing a priest competent for the care of souls is analogous to the action in law of giving a brief to a barrister. What if the church should require a barrister to present himself to the bishop for approbation before he received such a brief? ”

“ Man that is born, &c.
In the Prayer-Book of 1549 the casting the earth upon the body was directed to be done by the Priest, with the words, 'I commend thy soul to God the Father Almighty.' This action was transferred from the Priest to 'some standing by,' when those words were omitted in 1552. The present rubric seems to direct that any one else is to perform the act. If done, as it usually is, by the Parish Clerk, or other inferior Church official, there is more dignity in it than if done by an unofficial person. ”

“ For how can he give consolation or honour to a widow; how can he exhort her to continue a widow, or to preserve that faith to her husband which he has not preserved to his own first marriage? Or what difference would there be between the people and the priest, if they were bound by the same laws? The life of the priest ought to be pre-eminent as well as his graces, for he who obliges others by his precepts ought himself to observe the precepts of the law. ”

“ Lastly, when they perceive that they are not yet extricated from this difficulty, but that it may always be objected, that their priests frequently bind and loose improper persons, who are not therefore bound or loosed in heaven,—as their last resource, they reply, that the commission of the keys must be understood with some limitation, Christ having promised, that the sentence of the priest, which has been justly delivered, according to the merits of the persons bound or loosed, shall be confirmed at his tribunal. ”

“ As no one can be made a Priest except by the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which can validly be administered only by a Bishop, who again has received the power of administering it from another Bishop lawfully consecrated, it is evident that, by an uninterrupted succession of Bishops lawfully ordained and consecrated, the Priesthood ascends to the Apostles, on whom Christ Himself conferred the Priestly and Episcopal powers both for themselves and for their successors. ”

“ Which very thing, too, we observe to come from divine authority, that the priest should be chosen in the presence of the people under the eyes of all, and should be approved worthy and suitable by public judgment and testimony ”

“ This is the dominant note running through the entire rite: the ordained is made a "sacrificing priest." Towards the close of the ceremony, and after the new priest has acted as such by co-consecrating with the Bishop at Mass, the Bishop gives him the power of jurisdiction by placing his hands upon his head saying: "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven," etc.
This was the rite of Ordination to the priesthood which was in existence in England at the time when the First Prayer Book of Edward VI was imposed on the English clergy and people. ”

“ Now whoever has jurisdiction, can depute to another whatever comes under his jurisdiction; so that if a priest is hindered from hearing a man's confession through want of jurisdiction, anyone who has immediate jurisdiction over that man, priest, bishop, or Pope, can depute that priest to hear his confession and absolve him. ”

“ That no dispute between priests shall be brought before secular judges, but reconciled by their fellows or referred to the bishop; no priest shall desert the church to which he was ordained, but hold to it as his lawful spouse. That he do not deprive another of anything which belongs to him either in his church or parish or gildship; he shall not take another’s scholar without his leave; that in addition to lore, he diligently learn a handicraft; that the learned priest do not throw scorn on the half learned, but correct him ”

“ Since, therefore, what we call the priesthood is a ministry, so far as we can learn from the Scriptures, I cannot understand why one who has been made a priest cannot again become a layman; for the sole difference between him and a layman is his ministry. But to depose a man from the ministry is so far from impossible that it is even now the usual penalty imposed upon guilty priests ”

“ See if he was not called through Moses, the servant of God, who received a revelation commanding him to set apart his brother Aaron to the Priest's office, directing him what ordinance to use, how to set him apart, and giving all the particulars of his calling and ordination to the ministry, and what his duties were to be after ordination. All this was given by new revelation. No man can receive the Priesthood, neither officiate in its ordinances acceptably, unless he is called of God as was Aaron. ”

“ The burnt-offerings that the prince shall offer - The chief magistrate was always obliged to attend the public worship of God, as well as the priest, to show that the civil and ecclesiastical states were both under the same government of the Lord; and that no one was capable of being prince or priest, who did not acknowledge God in all his ways. It is no wonder that those lands mourn, where neither the established priest nor the civil magistrate either fear or love God. Ungodly priests and profligate magistrates are a curse to any land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The apostle notes this difference between the high priests of the law, and our high priest Jesus Christ; that they being removed by death, made way for their successors; whereas our Lord Jesus is a priest for ever, and hath no successor; but liveth and concurreth for ever with his ministers, the priests of the new testament, in all their functions. Also, that no one priest of the law, nor all of them together, could offer that absolute sacrifice of everlasting redemption, which our one high priest Jesus Christ has offered once, and for ever. ”

“ And I said, "Sir, if priests were now in measurable measure and number; and lived virtuously, and taught busily and truly the Word by the example of Christ and of his Apostles, without tithes offerings and other duties that priests now challenge and take: the people would give them freely sufficient livelihood."
A Clerk. And a Clerk said to me, "How wilt thou make this good, that the people will give freely to priests their livelihood; since that now, by the law, every priest can scarcely constrain the people to give them their livelihood?" ”