Ministerial Priesthood Book

Subtitle: Chapters (preliminary to a Study of the Ordinal) on the Rationale of Ministry and the Meaning of Christian Priesthood, With an Appendix Upon Roman Criticism of Anglican Orders General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1897 Original Publisher: J. Murray Subjects: Priests Religion / Christianity / Anglican Religion / Christian Ministry / Pastoral Resources Religion / Clergy Religion / Christianity / Denominations Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II THE RELATION BETWEEN INWARD AND OUTWARD It will not improbably occur to the minds of some who have in the main agreed with what has hitherto been said, that the real drift of the argument is towards -- not a principle of unity, expressing itself in the organization of a visible Church, but rather an invisible unity, independent of, and indifferent to, all external appearance of disunion. Unity, it may be said ? -- Yes, indeed. But this unity, by the very terms already used, is distinguished as spiritual not mechanical, as ideal not externalized -- as lying behind diversity, as unifying diversity, as therefore implying, nay, requiring, the diversity which it unifies; certainly not as incompatible with it. It is the ' unity of the spirit': and unity of spirit is made real, not in proportion as it is expressed by -- rather as it is frankly contrasted with -- unity of body. It seems to be therefore worth while, if the conception of what we mean by unity is to be, after all, consistent and practical, to examine more fully this question as to the true relation between the outward and the inward, between the ideal and the real, in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now it is undoubtedly true that, in one sense, the un...Read More