rent capacities?
and are the names attached to their offices of any consequence? Ah, the
Bible answers now, and that loudly. The Church is built on the
Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
corner-stone. Well; we cannot have two foundations, so we can have no
more Apostles nor Prophets:--then, as for the other needs of the Church
in its edifying upon this foundation, there are all manner of things to
be done daily;--rebukes to be given; comfort to be brought; Scripture to
be explained; warning to be enforced; threatenings to be executed;
charities to be administered; and the men who do these things are
called, and call themselves, with absolute indifference, Deacons,
Bishops, Elders, Evangelists, according to what they are doing at the
time of speaking. St. Paul almost always calls himself a deacon, St.
Peter calls himself an elder, 1 Peter v. 1; and Timothy, generally
understood to be addressed as a bishop, is called a deacon in 1 Tim. iv.
6--forbidden to rebuke an elder, in v. 1, and exhorted to do the work of
an evangelist, in 2 Tim. iv. 5. But there is one thing which, as
officers, or as separate from the rest of the flock, they _never_ call
themselves,--which it would have been impossible, as so separate, they
ever _should_ have called themselves; that is--_Priests_.

196. It would have been just as possible for the Clergy of the early
Church to call themselves Levites, as to call themselves (ex-officio)
Priests. The whole function of Priesthood was, on Christmas morning, at
once and forever gathered into His Person who was born at Bethlehem; and
thenceforward, all who are united with Him, and who with Him make
sacrifice of themselves; that is to say, all members of the Invisible
Church become, at the instant of their conversion, Priests; and are so
called in 1 Peter ii. 5, and Rev. i. 6, and xx. 6, where, observe, there
is no possibility of limiting the expression to the Clergy; the
conditions of Priesthood being simply having been loved by Christ, and
washed in His blood. The blasphemous claim on the part of the Clergy of
being _more_ Priests than the godly laity--that is to say, of having a
higher Holiness than the Holiness of being one with Christ,--is
altogether a Romanist heresy, dragging after it, or having its origin
in, the other heresies respecting the sacrificial power of the Church
officer, and his repeating the oblation of Christ, and so having power
to absolve from si