Alexander Campbell The Christian System: CS - 77-Breaking the Loaf ő Proposition 04

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Alexander Campbell The Christian System: CS - 77-Breaking the Loaf ő Proposition 04

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PROP. IV.--All Christians are members of the house or family

of God, are called and constituted a holy and a royal

priesthood, and may, therefore bless God for the Lord's

table, its loaf, and cup--approach it without fear and

partake of it with joy as often as they please, in

remembrance of the death of their Lord and Saviour.

The different clauses of this proposition, we shall sustain in order--'all Christian are members of the family or house of God:'¹⁰ 'But Christ is trusted as a Son over his own family; whose family we are, provided we maintain our profession and boasted hope unshaken to the end;'--'are called and constituted a holy and a royal priesthood.'¹¹ You, also, as living stones are built up a spiritual temple, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices most acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.' In the 9th verse of the same chapter he says, 'But you are an elect race, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood;' and this is addressed to all the brethren dispersed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

May not, then, holy and royal priests thank God for the Lord's table, its loaf, and cup of wine? May they not, without a human priest to consecrate the way for them, approach the Lord's table and handle the loaf and cup? If the common priests did not fear to approach a golden table, and to place upon it the loaves of the presence; if they feared not to take and eat the consecrated bread, because priests according to the flesh--shall royal priests fear, without the intervention of human hands, to approach the Lord's table and to partake of one loaf? If they should, they know not how to appreciate the consecration of Jesus, nor how to value their high calling and exalted designation as kings and priests to God. And may we not say, that he who invested with a little clerical authority, derived only from 'the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition,' if borrowed from the Romanists, says to them, 'stand by, I am holier than thou'--may we not say that such a one is worse than Diotrephes, who affected a pre-eminence, because he desecrates the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ, and calls him common and unclean, who has been consecrated by the blood of the Son of God? Such impiety can only be found amongst them who worship the beast, and who have covenanted and agreed that none shall buy or sell, save those who receive a mark on their foreheads, and letters patent in their hands. But allow common sense to whisper a word into the ears of priests' "laymen," but Christ's 'royal priests.' Do you not thank God for the cup while the priest stands by the table; and do you not handle the loaf and cup when they come to you? And would not your thanksgiving have been as acceptable, if the human mediator had not been there, and your participating as well pleasing to God, and as consolatory to yourself, if you had been the first that had handled the loaf or the cup, as when you are the second, or the fifty-second, in order of location? Let reason answer these two questions, and see what comes of the haughty assumptions of your Protestant clergy!! But this only by the way.

I trust it is apparent that the royal priesthood may approach the Lord's table without fear, inasmuch as they are consecrated to officiate by a blood, as far superior to that which consecrated the fleshly priesthood, as the Lord's table, covered with the sacred emblems of the sacrifice of the Lord himself, is superior to the table which held only the twelve loaves of the presence; and as they are, to say the least, called by as holy and divine an election, and are as chosen a race of priests, as were those sprung from the loins of Levi.