Our time has been so much taken up in examining what was, of course, the most important question of all, the teaching of Holy Scripture upon this point, that we have left ourselves no time to-day to consider the further portion of our proposed subject, viz., what is the teaching of the Church Catholic from the beginning, and its understanding of the written word on this doctrine of sacrifice; and, yet again, what is the witness of our own Church to her having most carefully preserved, held, and maintained the same. To this we will recur, if God will, another day; in the meanwhile commending ourselves ever to His mercy, and all we think or do to His grace and guidance. SERMON IV. The Testimony of the Early Church to the Doctrine of the Priesthood. JEREMIAH vi. 16. “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” THE next division of our enquiry is, the understanding of Holy Scripture in the primitive Church as to the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, and its consequent doctrine thereupon. Before, however, proceeding to this examination, let me briefly remind you of the point in the argument from Holy Scripture at which we have arrived, for our time on Sunday last hardly permitted me to sum up the remarks then made. The last passage which we considered asks in the tone of unquestionable affirmation, “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” The parallel, as I then pointed out, lies between those on the one hand, who, eating of the heathen sacrifices, are partakers of the heathen altar, and thus have fellowship with devils; and those, on the other hand, who, eating of the Christian sacrifice, are partakers of the Christian altar, and thus have fellowship with God. For, I must repeat, if St. Paul’s argument have not this meaning and significance, there is no coherency in the things brought into juxtaposition, and nothing on the one side to answer to the requirement of the other. Observe further, before we pass on, how the Apostle’s whole reasoning, as it stands, excludes, and must exclude, the sense of the Christian sacrifice being a mere figurative expression, and that which is eaten in it a mere subjective thing, dependent upon the mind of the recipient for its being there at all; for, if it were so in the Christian sacrifice, it must be so in the idol sacrifice also. But is it so in the latter? Is it that what is there eaten is a mere nothing in itself, dependent upon the mind of the eater? Is the partaking of the idol altar not an effect of an actual eating? Is the consequent fellowship with devils not the result of such actual feasting upon an actual objective sacrifice? And, therefore, if the parallel has any force at all, must it not be that there is a real objective presence of a sacrificial thing at the