be regarded with awful reverence? If the services which they rendered
were necessary to salvation, and if these services could be performed by
none else, they were possessed of absolute authority, and it was to be
expected that they would forthwith begin to act as "lords over God's
heritage."

Under the Mosaic economy none save the descendants of a single
individual were permitted to present the sacrifices or to enter the holy
place. In the celebration of the most solemn rites of their religion the
Jewish people were kept at a mysterious distance from the presence of
the Divine Majesty, and were taught to regard the officiating ministers
as mediators between God and themselves. This arrangement was
symbolical, as all the priests were types of the Great Intercessor. But
every believer may now enjoy the nearest access to his Maker, for the
Saviour has made all His people "kings and priests unto God." [643:1]
The ministers of the gospel do not constitute a privileged fraternity
entitled by birth to exercise certain functions and to claim certain
immunities. They should be appointed _by_ the people as well as _for_
them, and no service which they perform implies that they have nearer
access to the Divine Presence than the rest of the worshippers. In the
New Testament they are never designated _priests_, [644:1] neither is
their intervention between God and the sinner described as
indispensable. But Catholicism invested them with a factitious
consequence, representing them as inheriting peculiar rights and
privileges by ecclesiastical descent from the apostles. According to
Cyprian, "Christ says to the apostles, _and thereby to all prelates who
by vicarious ordination are successors of the apostles_. 'He that
heareth you, heareth me.'" [644:2] About the commencement of the third
century the pastors of the Church began to be called priests, [644:3]
and this change in the ecclesiastical nomenclature betokens the
influence of Catholic principles on the current theology. The Jewish
sacrificial system had now ceased, and the Hebrew Christians were
perhaps disposed to transfer to their new ministers the titles of the
sons of Levi; but, had not the alteration been in accordance with the
spirit of the times, it could not have been accomplished. It was,
however, justified by Catholicism, as that system set forth the clergy
in the light of mediators between God and the people. This misconception
of the nature of the Christian ministry