n:--with all the other endless and miserable
falsehoods of the Papal hierarchy; falsehoods for which, that there
might be no shadow of excuse, it has been ordained by the Holy Spirit
that no Christian minister shall once call himself a Priest from one end
of the New Testament to the other, except together with his flock; and
so far from the idea of any peculiar sanctification, belonging to the
Clergy, ever entering the Apostles' minds, we actually find St. Paul
defending himself against the possible imputation of inferiority: "If
any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think
this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's" (2 Cor. x.
7). As for the unhappy retention of the term Priest in our English
Prayer-book, so long as it was understood to mean nothing but an upper
order of Church officer, licensed to tell the congregation from the
reading-desk, what (for the rest) they might, one would think, have
known without being told,--that "God pardoneth all them that truly
repent,"--there was little harm in it; but, now that this order of
Clergy begins to presume upon a title which, if it mean anything at all,
is simply short for Presbyter, and has no more to do with the word
Hiereus than with the word Levite, it is time that some order should be
taken both with the book and the Clergy. For instance, in that dangerous
compound of halting poetry with hollow Divinity, called the "Lyra
Apostolica," we find much versification on the sin of Korah and his
company: with suggested parallel between the Christian and Levitical
Churches, and threatening that there are "Judgment Fires, for
high-voiced Korahs in their day." There are indeed such fires. But when
Moses said, "a Prophet shall the Lord raise up unto you, like unto me,"
did he mean the writer who signs [Greek: g] in the "Lyra Apostolica"?
The office of the Lawgiver and Priest is now forever gathered into One
Mediator between God and man; and THEY are guilty of the sin of Korah
who blasphemously would associate themselves in His Mediatorship.

197. As for the passages in the "Ordering of Priests" and "Visitation of
the Sick" respecting Absolution, they are evidently pure Romanism, and
might as well not be there, for any practical effect which they have on
the consciences of the Laity; and had much better not be there, as
regards their effect on the minds of the Clergy. It is indeed true that
Christ promised absolving powers to His Apostles: