Before, however, coming to these particulars, let me premise that it can be but a brief summary of such evidences which it is possible to give here. The subject is so large, and the full testimony so extensive, that it would require volumes to go through it. Those who would study it in a more complete manner will find it elaborately discussed in the discourses on “The Government of Churches and on Religious Assemblies,” of Dr. Herbert Thorndike, Canon of Westminster, about the middle of the seventeenth century, (a very learned theologian); and in the three octavo volumes of “Treatises on the Christian Priesthood,” by Dr. Hickes, Dean of Worcester, some fifty years later; whilst there is a very thoughtful and condensed statement of the whole matter in a small book by the Rev. T. T. Carter, called “The Doctrine of the Priesthood.” Let us now turn to our own enquiry, as some help (if it please God) to those who may not be so likely, possibly may not have leisure or opportunity, to consult larger works, but may yet have a godly anxiety amid the bold assertions, and I fear we must say, in no small measure, the irreverent scoffing of a free and licentious time, to learn the will of God herein, that they may neither think nor do anything but what is pleasing and acceptable in His sight. Our question is, Has God willed, and has He revealed to us His will, that in His Church, since the death of His Blessed Son upon the cross, there shall be no priesthood, no altar, and no sacrifice? And first, “What saith the Scripture?” {48a} I must take but a few out of many passages.