Untitled - Saints' Books

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5O Material for Sermons. [PART i.
all states. Salvian adds, that in things in which God
counsels perfection to seculars, he makes it imperative
on ecclesiastics. 1
The priests of the Old Law carried on their forehead
a plate on which was engraved the words Sanctum
Domino? that they might be reminded of the sanctity
that they should profess. The victims offered by the
priests should be entirely consumed. And why?
"It
was,"
says Theodoret,
to symbolize the complete sac
rifice that the priest has made of himself to the Lord." !
St. Ambrose says that to offer sacrifice worthily the
priest ought first to sacrifice himself by the oblation of
his whole being to God. 4 And Hesychius has written
that from youth
till death the priest should be a perfect
6
holocaust of perfection. Hence God said to the priests
of the Old Law: I have separated you from other people,
that you should be mine. 6 Now, in the New Law, the
Lord commands his priests far more strictly to abstain
from worldly business that they may labor only to please
that God to whom they have dedicated themselves.
No man, says St. Paul, being a soldier to God, entangleth
himself with secular business that he may please him to whom
he hath engaged himself ? And the holy Church requires
of those that enter the sanctuary by taking
the first
1
Clericis suis Salvator, non ut cseteris voluntarium, sed imperativum
officium perfectionis
indicit." De Eccl. Cathol. 1. 2.
2 "Sanctum Domini." Exod. xxxix. 29.
3 "
Ut integritas Sacerdotis monstraretur, qui totum se Deo dicaverit."
In Levit. q. 3.
4
Hoc enim " est sacrificium primitivum, quando unusquisque se
offert hostiam, et a se incipit, ut postea munus suum possit
offerre."
De Abel, 1. 2, c. 6.
5
Sacerdos continuum holocaustum offerre praecipitur, ut, a perfecta
sapientia incipiens, in eadem finiat, et totam vitam suam componat ad
perfectionem." In Levit. 1. 2,
6 "
7
c. I.
Separavi vos a caeteris populis, ut essetis mei." Levit. xx. 26.
"Nemo, militans Deo, implicat se negotiis saecularibus, ut ei placeat.
cui se probavit."
2 Tim. ii. 4.