nister. In the New Testament, as
stated in the text, a minister of the word is never called a _priest_
([Greek: hiereus]), and the latter term, when used in reference to an
official personage in our English Bible, always denotes an individual
_who offers sacrifice_. To call a gospel minister a priest is,
therefore, at once to adopt an incorrect expression and to insinuate a
false doctrine. The English word priest is derived, not as some say,
from the Greek [Greek: presbuteros] through the French _pretre_, but
from the Greek [Greek: proestos], in Latin _praestes_, and in Saxon
_preost_. See Webster's "Dictionary of the English Language."

[644:2] Epist. lxix. p. 264.

[644:3] Thus, Tertullian speaks of the "ordo sacerdotalis." "De Exhor.
Cast." c. vii.

[645:1] Cyprian, Epist. lxiii. p. 230; lxiv. p. 239.

[645:2] Cyprian, Epist. lxix. p. 264. Cotelerius, i. 442. The Eucharist
is called a sacrifice by Justin Martyr (see his Dialogue with Trypho.,
"Opera," p. 260) apparently in a figurative sense, but when dispensed by
a minister called a _priest_, such language became exceedingly liable to
misconception.

[645:3] In proof of this see Cyprian, Epist. lvi. p. 200, and lxiii.
p. 231. In the former place Cyprian says--"Mindful of the Eucharist,
the hand which has received _the Lord's body_ may embrace the _Lord
himself_."

[645:4] Heb. v. 4; Acts xx. 28, xxvi. 16.

[646:1] Cyprian, Epist. xlvi. p. 136.

[646:2] Epist. lxix. p. 262. See also Epist. lv. p. 177. "If any amount
of difference of opinion as to the truth or untruth of the teaching of a
geographical priesthood, will justify separation under another Christian
ministry, then it at once ceases to be true that there _can_ be but one
bishop, or one priest, over any given area in which such differences
exist; there then _may_ obviously be as many bishops, or as many
priests, as there may be different bodies of men differing from each
other's teaching in what they deem sufficiently essential points to
justify separation."--_Letter from the Duke of Argyll to the Bishop of
Oxford_, p. 8.

[647:1] Epist. lxix. p. 264.

[647:2] Acts x. 48.

[648:1] Jerome, "Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers."

[648:2] Some of those called heretics had many martyrs. Euseb. v. 16.

[648:3] "De Unit. Ecc." Opera, p. 399.

[648:4] "De Unit. Ecc." p. 401.

[648:5] "De Unit. Ecc." p. 401.

[649:1] Jeremiah xxiii. 21, 22.

[649:2] Phil. i. 15, 18. See also Mark ix. 38, 39.