Glance for a moment at the teaching of Calvin, and you will find another theological aspect. Calvin was not a priest; he had, therefore, no authority to administer Sacraments; so he took the bold line of rejecting the doctrine of a priesthood altogether. He taught that Christ was the only Priest of the New Testament, and that Christian ministers were only, what such names as elders and pastors might denote, rulers and teachers that is, in the Church of Christ. This is the first of those three functions which we spoke of in a former discourse, as connected with the priesthood, but is just that one which we then said lacked the distinctive character of the priesthood,—the power of absolution and of offering sacrifice. So much Calvin allowed to his ministry, but all else he denied!
Now, it is obvious, that besides his own defect in point of orders, (that he was not, like Luther, a priest,) his system was one to dispose him to reject this doctrine; for what need of a priesthood, or any external means of approaching God acceptably, when his theory and teaching was that of individual election and reprobation, determined from all eternity, according to the mere purpose of God? How naturally would such a system dispense with the priesthood? Aye, and there seems hardly room to doubt that it would equally well have dispensed with Sacraments. But here both the testimony of Holy Scripture, and the whole usage of the Christian world, as to fact, were too strong for him. He saw he could not actually reject Sacraments, although his system might well do without them. It is true, there was evidence of the same kind, both in Scripture and in antiquity, for the priesthood also. But it was much easier to discard the doctrine as a mere matter of opinion, (so he might call it,) than to set aside things so plainly presented to the sight, as the facts of the use of baptism, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, everywhere established. The bodily eye could see those usages, but could not see the inner impress of the priesthood. He could elude or deny the one, but he dared not, even if he wished it, displace the other. To what, then, did he have recourse? He kept the outward form and show of Sacraments, as we may say, but denuded them of all their truth, mystery, and power. “He taught that they were bare signs; symbolizing, but not conveying grace; or rather, he separated the sign from the thing signified, making the one independent of the other.” { 118} Yet, as he wished to keep them, so he saw that he must teach that there was some good in them. How did he contrive to give them this use in his system? Why, he invented and taught that the faith of the receiver, and not the act of consecration, is the cause of grace in Sacraments; not in the sense that Sacraments do not profit the unworthy (which is true), but that this subjective faith in the recipient is the sole cause of their having power or virtue, (which is not true). Thus he, in effect, constituted every man his own priest, and led directly to the conclusion further, that unless in each individual case, the receiver were predestinated to life eternal, there was nothing in the Sacrament at all. And so, again, we see the Christian ministry became, in Calvin’s system, nothing but an organ of government and instruction, which the term ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ might sufficiently describe. And all this, with full deliberation and design on his part, because Calvin was far too learned and able a man not to know that, if there were an altar and a sacrifice, there must needs be a priesthood, which he had not, and was determined to do without.