Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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hearing the name of Church, but to remember that the Prophets and
Apostles had, with the pretended Church of their days, a contest similar to
that which you see us have in the present day with the Roman pontiff and
his whole train. When they, by the command of God, inveighed freely
against idolatry, superstition, and the profanation of the temple, and its
sacred rites, against the carelessness and lethargy of priests,—and against
the general avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness, they were constantly met
with the objection which our opponents have ever in their mouths—that by
dissenting from the common opinion, they violated the unity of the Church.
The ordinary government of the Church was then vested in the priests.
They had not presumptuously arrogated it to themselves, but God had
conferred it upon them by his law. It would occupy too much time to point
out all the instances. Let us, therefore, be contented with a single instance,
in the case of Jeremiah.
“He had to do with the whole college of priests, and the arms with which
they attacked him were these: ‘Come, and let us devise devices against
Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the
wise, nor the word from the prophet’ (Jer. 18:18). They had among them a
high priest, to reject whose judgment was a capital crime, and they had the
whole order to which God himself had committed the government of the
Jewish Church concurring with them. If the unity of the Church is violated
by him, who, instructed solely by Divine truth, opposes himself to ordinary
authority, the Prophet must be a schismatic; because, not at all deterred by
such menaces from warring with the impiety of the priests, he steadily
persevered.
“That the eternal truth of God preached by the Prophets and Apostles, is
on our side, we are prepared to show, and it is indeed easy for any man to
perceive. But all that is done is to assail us with this battering-ram,
‘Nothing can excuse withdrawal from the Church.’ We deny out and out
that we do so. With what, then, do they urge us? With nothing more than
this, that to them belongs the ordinary government of the Church. But how
much better right had the enemies of Jeremiah to use this argument? To
them, at all events, there still remained a legal priesthood, instituted by
God; so that their vocation was unquestionable. Those who in the present
day have the name of prelates, cannot prove their vocation by any laws,
human or divine. Be it, however, that in this respect both are on a footing,
still, unless they previously convict the holy Prophet of schism, they will
prove nothing against us by that specious title of Church.