This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ...in the Church Visible which is harmonious with, and which expresses and conserves the great truth of, the Mediation. Try now the effect of the destruction of the outwork or bulwark of the Priesthood of Christ, the second great spiritual fact of Christianity. Strike down the Apostolic ministry of the Visible Church Catholic, and you equally expose the spiritual fact of the Priesthood of Christ. And thus laid bare and unprotected, it also falls before the attacks of Rationalism. Let us look at this a little: The Protestant cry is, " There is no such thing as a visible Priesthood on earth; the ministry need not originate from the apostles alone, and come down in the regular succession which the Catholics claim; it originates as well from the people, in whom primarily its powers are lodged." In other words, as a recent writer says, "The people and not the apostles are the true ultimate source of ecclesiastical and ministerial power;" the Christian ministry, according to the Protestant cry, " are not a distinct order of men; and hence there is no such thing as a Christian Priesthood in distinction from the people at large." "Every man his own priest to God," is the popular cry. Every man his own priest to God, indeed, Mr. Protestant? Nothing between God and man? Ah, beloved, do you not perceive that Protestantism, though it may not yield all at once the naked fact of the spiritual priesthood of Christ, has, after all, by this fatal step, yielded the principle of any priesthood whatever? Do you not see that, with the vital principle gone, with the practical denial of the principle rooted in their minds, the mere intellectual notion of Christ's Priesthood, which they still retain for a while, has been...