But to return; take but two brief illustrations further of our subject. You will remember the contention between St. Paul and St. Barnabas concerning “Mark, sister’s son to Barnabas,” whom “Paul thought not good to take with them,” and how it “was so sharp between them that they parted asunder one from the other.” { 17a} Again, you will recollect the occasion when at Antioch St. Paul (as he says), “withstood” St. Peter “to the face because he was to be blamed;” saying to him “before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” Consider that “the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation;” and to such a point did this reach, that St. Paul declares he “saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel;” { 17b} put all this together and then say whether, upon the grounds of the objection urged, any one might not far more plausibly have denied to the Apostles themselves any just power or fitness to rule or teach authoritatively in the Church of God, than any man can deny the priesthood of the Church of England because its power is not more demonstratively shewn among us.
Or, for a second point, note this:—Does, or did ever, the admission to the Christian covenant, and the wondrous gift of God, the new birth of water and of the Spirit, by which, as the Apostle plainly teaches, Christians are made the temples of the Holy Ghost; does it, or did it ever, make such outward show of difference as will enable man to decide, immediately and infallibly, who are Christ’s, and who are forfeiting or have forfeited the gift bestowed? Then, if there be not this palpable manifestation as to the Christian life in each, why should there be a more manifest and outward demonstration of the treasure of the priesthood? If the grace of Baptism be not thus self-evident, and ever recognised by sight, why must the grace of Orders be so either? Oh! when shall we learn to believe instead of to cavil; to use the blessings God gives us, not to dispute about them; to judge, not according to appearance, but to judge righteous judgment; to believe there is a treasure, even the treasure which the Church has ever believed and declared to be in her ministry and stewardship, though it be contained in earthen vessels?