I sum up our remarks then, brethren, in this conclusion, that we should all of us, with a depth of feeling beyond our words to express it, thank our merciful God for His tender care and providence over us in this our Church of England. He has given us the treasure of the priesthood, though in earthen vessels, handed down from His very Apostles themselves by the laying on of hands, even according to the powers of their own commission from Christ Himself. He has shewed us the witness to the doctrine of sacrifice, as exhibited in the world from Adam to Christ. He has confirmed the doctrine and the usage of the sacrifice and altar in the Christian Church by His holy Word in the New Testament, and by the records preserved to us of the early Church, telling us unmistakeably how the Church, from the Apostles’ time downward, understood the Scriptures in this respect. He has let us know the mind of the Church at large to have been one upon the doctrine for nearly sixteen hundred years; and, blessed be His name, He “so guided and governed the minds” of those in authority among us at the momentous period of our Reformation, and in all revisions since, that our Church has ever maintained, and does maintain, the doctrine of the Church Universal on the deep and mysterious, but, at the same time, most important practical subject of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice. Thus, in His mercy, our Church has made no “new thing,” nor departed from “the old paths.” She is one with the Church of God in all times in this matter, and we need have no fears but that if we come, one by one “with true penitent hearts and lively faith,” to the altar of God and the table of the Lord among us, we may and do eat of the sacrifice, are partakers of the altar, and have fellowship with the Lord; that we have indeed preserved to us, in spite of the unbelief among us, and the strife of tongues around us, all that true and holy thing which the Church has ever had as Christ’s own appointed means for the pardon of our sins and the sustainment of our spiritual life, by the which we, with His “whole Church militant here on earth,” are allowed to offer up the never-ceasing, unbloody, commemorative, propitiatory sacrifice which the Church has ever offered, and by which she pleads before the throne of God the power of the one great sacrifice upon the cross for the pardon of sin, yea, even procures the pleading thereof for our individual sins and transgressions by the Son of God Himself, our “High Priest set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens,” {131a} who “ever liveth to make intercession for us;” so that we thus, in common with the whole Church of God, fulfil the Prophet’s word, “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts.” {131b}