The Priesthood of Christ

HIS book is correctly described as a re-statement of vital truth. Throughout its pages I have supposed myself to be addressing an earnest but somewhat sceptical inquirer, with the object of commending to him the work of Jesus Christ as arcumentatively satisfactory and spiritually indispensable. The writing of it has renewed and deepened my own love to the Son of God, and enabled me to preach the Gospel with more than ever of assured and tender emphasis; I cannot but hope, therefore, that the reading of it may bring light and peace to the reader, and that if any of my brother ministers peruse it they may fully enter into the joy, the rapturous yet chastened delight, which has overflowed my own spirit in the study of the Priesthood of Christ. This is not a book of sermons, though most of it has in some form been delivered from the pulpit.

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If any general inference can be drawn from the attention paid to the public discussion of the subject, it would be to the effect that, amid all the distractions of a period of English life unprecedented for tumultuousness, variety, and vehemence — ageravated rather than yet inspired by a noble and hopeful revival of interest in scientific studies — there is an earnest and wide-spread desire for an intelligent conception of the purpose and work of Jesus Christ. Of course in giving this agreeable view of what may be called the Christian situation, I cannot profess to be wholly liberated from the operation of those subtle and pleasant influences which lead a man in the direction of his own hopes when he attempts to interpret the signs of the times. But to show that I am not completely under their flattering spell, I will further state that almost countless numbers of English people either never enter a public place of Christian worship, or do so under all the disadvantages of reluctance approaching antagonism or apathy scarcely distinguishable from death. How far this state of things may arise from the method of Christian worship and Christian teaching now accepted as proper and sufficient is a question of appalling solemnity. It is unques-Preface. Vil

tionably true that it is considered almost, if not wholly, impossible to enter the kingdom of Christ without being in a manner compelled to accept a denominational costume or learn a denominational accent. Christianity is thus debased and impoverished. In this book I gladly join good men of every communion whose supreme object is to show that Christianity is infinitely more than a mere argument; that it is a redemption which can neither be measured by logic nor expressed in words; that it is indeed a fath, a new mode of existence, a life within life, the very kingdom and glory of God!

It is hardly to be wondered at that the higher stratum of intelligence has to so large an extent withdrawn itself from sectarian Christianity. It must be difficult for thoughtful men to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of artificialism as necessary to true worship, and equally difficult for them to find their way through all the intricate mechanism of strictly human dogmas to the feet of the Holy and Eternal Christ. In this expression of opinion I refer to artificialism as the excess and perversion of Order, and to dooma as the undue limitation and literalisation of Truth. Order and Dogma we must have; but the moment viii ‘Preface.

they leave the point of absolute simplicity they mischievously interpose between the soul and Christ. Whoever honours Christ is, in my opinion, in the kingdom of heaven, or not far from its citizenship; he may not, indeed, honour Christ in my form of words, or even with my degree of ardour, but if he see in Him a beauty unique, a holiness unrivalled, a self-sacrifice sublime, he is assuredly to be numbered amongst the hosts of the Lord. Animated by this spirit, it will be a great gratification to me to find a general concurrence of critical opinion as to the broad and hopeful temper of this book, and the more so that I see, as life unfolds itself, that human dogmatism upon infinite questions is the most corrupt and malignant blasphemy; and that the interpretation, so far as is possible, of any of those questions, is likely to be correct in the proportion of its self-suppression and charity.

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