brose, Philastrius, Chrysostom, Austin, and perhaps Eusebius,) understood Melchizedek to have offered a sacrifice of lauds to God, besides his conveying the grand sacrifice, that is, the blessings and benefits of it to Abraham.

XII.

Having thus far observed, by what names of distinction Christian sacrifices were discriminated from Jewish and Pagan, jointly or singly considered, I may pass on to some other notes of distinction, by which Christian sacrifices, differently circumstantiated, were distinguished one from another. Here may come in the distinction between external and internal sacrifice, which is of very different consideration from a distinction before mentioned, between extrinsic and intrinsic.

Origen, mysticizing the two altars which belonged to the temple, the inner and the outer altar, makes mental prayer or service to answer to the incense on the one, and vocal prayer to answer the burnt offerings on the other. Such was his notion of internal and external sacrifice under the Gospel ". Neither is it amiss, provided we take in manual service, or good works, into the notion of external sacrifice, to render that branch of the division complete. But here it is to be noted, that though mental service alone may make internal sacrifice, yet vocal or manual alone, without mental, will not make external sacrifice. Outward service is but the shell and carcase of sacri

Altaria vero duo, id est interius et exterius, quoniam altare orationis indicium est, illud puto significare quod dicit Apostolus, Orabo spiritu, orabo et mente. Cum enim corde oravero, ad altare interius ingredior- -Cum autem quis clara voce, et verbis cum sono prolatis, quasi ut ædificet audientes, orationem fundit ad Deum, hic spiritu orat, et offerre videtur hostiam in altari quod foris est ad holocaustomata populi constitutum. Origen, in Num. Hom. x. p. 303.

w Good works were always eminently reckoned among the Christian sacrifices, as may be seen in Justin, p. 14. Clemens of Alexandria, p. 836, 848. Chrysostom, tom. v. p. 231, 503. and indeed in all the Fathers. How that is to be understood, see in Review, vol. vii. p. 354, 355,

fice, without the sacrifice of the heart. How both the internal and external sacrifice are performed in the Eucharist, see particularly noted and explained in Dean Fieldy.

XIII.

Christian sacrifices may be divided into private and public: which is a distinction somewhat like to, but not altogether the same with the former. For though internal sacrifice, as such, is always secret, yet it may be performed in company with others, as well as when we are alone: and though external sacrifice, as to the outward part, is open to view, may be seen or heard, yet it may be performed in private, as well as in company. Therefore both external and internal sacrifices may be subdivided into private and public, accordingly as they are respectively offered up to God, either from the private closet in retirement, or from among our brethren met together in the public assemblies for the same purpose. Private prayer is private sacrifice, and public prayer is public sacrifice. Good works likewise are sacrifices, if really and strictly good, if referred to God and his glory: therefore when they are done in private, they are private sacrifices; but if so done as to "shine before men," for an example to them, then they become public sacrifices.

XIV.

Christian sacrifices may be distinguished likewise into lay-sacrifice and clerical. In a large sense, all good Christians are sacrificers, and, so far, priests unto Godz. St. Austin, in few words, well sets forth both the agreement

Vid. Chrysostom. in Rom. Hom. xx. p. 657. tom. ix. Origen, tom. ii. p. 363. ed. Bened. Nazianz. Orat. i. p. 38. Gregor. M. Dial. iv. cap. 59. y Field on the Church, p. 204.

2 Exod. xix. 5, 6. 1 Pet. ii. 9. Revel. xx. 6. Just. Mart. Dial. p. 386. Irenæus, lib. iv. cap. 8. p. 237. Tertullian de Monogam. cap. vii. p. 529. Origen in Levit. Hom. ix. p. 236, 238. Cyrill. Hierosol. Catech. xviii. c. 33. p. 301. Ambros. in Luc. vi. Hieronym. contr. Lucif. p. 290. tom. iv. Augustin, tom. viii. p. 477, 478, 588. Leo Magn. Serm. iii. p. 107. Isidor. Pelus. lib. iii. Ep. lxxv. p. 284. And compare Review, vol. vii. p. 390, 391. · Christian Sacrifice explained, above p. 154, 165.

and the difference; observing that all Christians are priests, as they are members of Christ, members of one and the same High Priest; but that Bishops and Presbyters are in a more peculiar or emphatical manner entitled to the name of priests. So I interpret proprie b; not to exclude Christian laics from being, properly speaking, sacrificers, but so only as to exclude them from being emphatically and eminently such as the clergy are: for though they are all equally sacrificers, they are not equally administrators of sacrifice, in a public, and solemn, and authorized way.

The Protestant doctrine, commonly, has run, that clergy and laity are equally priests: not equally Bishops, Presbyters, or Deacons, but equally priests, (in the sense of iepes,) that is, equally sacrificers. For like as when a senate presents a petition, by their speaker, to the crown, every member of that senate is equally a petitioner, though there is but one authorized officer, one speaker commissioned to prefer the petition in the name of the whole senate; so in this other case, the whole body of Christian people are equally sacrificers, though the clergy only are commissioned to preside and officiate in a public characterd. The sacrifice is the common sacrifice of the whole body, and so the name of sacrificer is also common: but the leading part, the administration of the sacrifice, is appro

a Erunt sacerdotes Dei et Christi, et regnabunt cum illo mille annis, Apoc. xx. 6. Non utique de solis episcopis et presbyteris dictum est, qui proprie jam vocantur in ecclesia sucerdotes: sed sicut omnes Christianos dicimus, propter mysticum chrisma, sic omnes sacerdotes, quoniam membra sunt unius sacerdotis. Augustin de Civit. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 10. p. 588. tom. vii. b Compare Whitaker upon that place of St. Austin. Answer to Reynolds, p. 77. Chrastovius de Opific. Missæ, lib. i. cap. 11. p. 104. Fulke's Defence of Translations, p. 62.

c Cranmer against Gardiner, p. 424, 440. Jewell's Answer to Harding, Art. xvii. p. 429. Defence of Apol. p. 576. Pet. Mart. Loc. Comm. p. 788. Hospinian. Histor. Sacram. part. i. p. 584, 590.

d Utut omnes offerant preces, laudes, eleemosynas, et hujusmodi sacrificia, non tamen eodem modo omnes hæc offerunt: nec debent homines privati pastorum munus et officium usurpare. Sutliff. contr. Bellarmin. p. 294.

priate to the commissioned officers; and so also are the names of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. This is all that any sober Protestants have meant; though their expressions have been sometimes liable to misconstruction, by reason of the latent ambiguity of words and names. The word priest is equivocal, as denoting either a presbyter or a sacrificer: and the word sacrificer is still farther equivocal, as meaning either one who barely sacrifices, or one that administers a sacrifice in a public capacity, as the head or mouth of an assembly.

Perhaps, after all, some shorter and clearer way might be thought on, for compromising the debates concerning lay-priesthood. If "steward of the mysteries of Gode," may be thought a good general definition of sacerdos, or a title equivalent to priest f, then the disputes about the precise meaning of ¡epeùs, sacrificer, and how far that name is common to clergy and laity, may be superseded, and the name of priest may be appropriated in the sense of ambassadors of God, or stewards of Divine mysteries, to the Bishops only in the first degree, and to Presbyters in the seconds, or in a third degree to Deacons also h, as some of the ancients have estimated, perhaps not amiss.

There is yet another way of compromising this matter, viz. by passing over the Greek isgeùs, sacrificer, and running higher up to the Hebrew word cohen', as of the elder house, and primarily signifying a person of nearest access to God, or a commissioned agent between God and

e 1 Cor. iv. 1.

f Equipollent ista dispensator mysteriorum Dei, et sacerdos: mysteria namque Dei sancta sunt, et sacerdos dictus est a sacris dandis. Chrastovius, Polan. p. 197.

8 Nazianz. Carmin. tom. ii. p. 6. Eusebius, Demonstr. lib. x. cap. 6. Hieronym. in Epitaph. Paulæ. Optatus, lib. i. p. 15. Leo I. de Quadrig. Serm. x. Sidonius, Ep. xxv. Facundus, lib. xii. cap. 3. Conf. Basnag. Annal. tom. ii. p. 652. Hickes's Christian Priesthood, vol. i. p. 36.

h Optatus, lib. i. p. 15. See Hickes's Christian Priesthood, vol. i. p. 36, 37.

iVox genuina sua significatione notat familiarioris accessús amicum. Vitringa, Observat. Sacr. lib. ii. cap. 2. p. 272. Conf. in Isa. vol. ii. p. 830, 885, 950, 951.

man. Let but that, or something of like kind, be the proper notation of priest, and then it will be a clear case that God's peculiar ambassadors in ordinary, solemnly set apart for that office, are more properly priests than any other persons can be justly presumed to be.

It has been thought that the Aaronical priests were as agents for men with God, and that the evangelical priests are as agents for God with men'. There may be something in that distinction: but considering that the evangelical priests do offer up both the spiritual sacrifices and sacrificers to God m, as well as bring God's messages and God's blessings to men, it seems that their agency looks both ways, and perhaps equally; and they appear to be indifferently and reciprocally agents from God to man, and from man to God.

Some have made it a difficulty to conceive how a priest, being ignorant of what passes in the heart, can be said to present to God the intrinsic and internal sacrifices of his people. The truth is, that which the priests offer, they offer in the name or in the person of the Church, as before noted: and therefore what they therein do, is to be considered as the act and deed of the whole Church, independent of the knowledge, or attention, or intention, or personal virtues of the officiating ministers. Their ministration is the outward mean appointed by God, and by that appointment made the ordinary condition of God's acceptance. As God accepts not the devotions of the people, however otherwise sincere or fervent, without the outward

k In ordinary, to distinguish them from prophets as such, who were ambassadors or legates extraordinary.

1 Prophetarum et Apostolorum erat res Dei apud homines agere, sacerdotum autem res hominum apud Deum. Illi Dei legati apud homines, hi hominum patroni apud Deum.— -Ministerium Evangelicum a sacerdotio Aaronico multum differt, idque in eo præcipue cernitur, quod illud pro Deo apud homines præcipue constitutum sit, hoc pro hominibus apud Deum. Outram de Sacrif. lib. i. cap. 19. p. 220, 222.

m See my Review, vol. vii. p. 349, 390, 391. and compare Vitringa in Isa. lxvi. 20. p. 951.

"See above, p. 293.