IT may be well, before we proceed with our general subject, to call your attention to one particular as to the course of our argument. You may have observed that I have not, except here and there incidentally, entered into any examination of the nature of the Christian sacrifice itself, any more than I have into any details or particulars of the doctrine of absolution, such as its power and effect, or the necessary limitations to be understood in its application. And this has been done advisedly, because I was not so much concerned, for instance, with the doctrine of absolution in itself, as with it in relation to, and as a proof of, the necessary existence of a sacerdotal power in those to whom it is entrusted; and therefore if I shewed that such authority is, in and by the Church of England, considered to be vested in those who minister at her altars, I inferred thence, I think justly, the existence of a priesthood in the mind of our Church. This has been the object with which I have referred to that doctrine in illustration, and not to discuss the nature or define the powers of absolution itself. As, however, I have here touched upon it again, I may add, lest any mistake or misconception arise, that no one pretends the efficient power to absolve, (any more than to offer sacrifice,) lies in the priest himself. He is but the instrument administering the grace of God. The history of the cure of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the Temple (which we lately read) may well illustrate this. Surely no one will deny that the power to heal him was vested in St. Peter and St. John, whilst it is clear also, beyond all dispute, that not by their “own power or holiness had they made that man to walk.” {114} What, then, is there incredible in the affirmation that the power of the keys is vested in a priest as the instrument, though all the authority and absolving power is from God only; so that it is God and not man who pardons, and makes any man whole from sin. “Who, indeed, can forgive sins but God only?” But he who is invested with such authority, even instrumentally, is exactly what we term a ‘priest;’ and our argument has been (to recur to it thus for a moment) that the Church, which regards men as so endowed, regards them as priests of God.