XIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. the eucharist into a corporeal reality; and in the blasphemous sacri- fice of the mass the sacerdotal theory found its fitting apotheosis. The fundamental error of this theory, so early developed, did not lie merely in the notion of apostolic succession, or in conceiving that the powers and honours of the apostolate had been transmitted to the rulers of the church, a point on which Barrow has made some pertinent remarks., (Treatise, p. 100, &c.) The root lay deeper, and may befound, wehumbly think, in a fallacious idea of the authority vested in the apostles themselves. That idea was, that our blessed Lord had delegated to the apostles his authority over the church. The expressions employed by some of the earlier bishops obviously proceed on the assumption that our Lord, bygiving a commission to his apostles, invested them with a share of his authority over the church, so that they after his ascension acted as his deputies, and "judged in his stead." It is easy to see how this notion, having once taken possession of the minds of the clergy, should have ger- minated into all the arrogant assumptions of the Papacy; for let such a delegation once be granted, and it follows that the apostles were, during their lifetime, thevicars and vicegerents of Christ upon earth. And as it seems hard that the church should be deprived by death of officials invested with powers so large and influential, it was no abrupt transition to drop into the conclusion that, in the persons of certain rulers, distinguished by local dignity from their brethren, or occupying seats which fond tradition had ascribed to these venerated men, we are to seek the successors of the apostles in this deputed jurisdiction. The circumstance of the apostles having been divinely inspired did not necessarily imply that their jurisdic- tion might not descend to others, on whom the government of the church devolved; and it was not difficult to find, in Christ's promise of the continuance of his Spirit with the church to the end of the world, something analogousto inspiration. To this someofthe bishops in the fourth century actually pretended. But as clerical ambition rose to its full height, the lust of dominion proved too strong to be shared among such a multitude of claimants; and in course of time, aided by the adroit interpretation of a single passage of Scripture, which speaks of Peter in connection with the rock on which Christ should build his church, and with the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xvi. 18, 19), the see of Rome, the city which tradition had vaguely identified with that apostle, and which had now become the capital of Christendom, as it had formerly been that of the world, attained, after many a struggle, the acknowledged supremacy. The application of the text can be clearly shown to have been a mere
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