THE PRIDE OF INTELLECT. 251 



Of these the latter, if not the commonest, is the 

 most obvious danger. The " pride of the priest- 

 hood " is no mere scandal invented by those who 

 are enemies of the faith ; and we feel that the 

 common protest against what men call sacerdotal- 

 ism is a true and at heart a Christian protest, 

 though it is little careful to distinguish between 

 the true and the false. Yet true sacerdotalism is 

 not a theory but a fact, the fact that God appoints 

 to all their work, and in religious truth as every- 

 where else uses the ministry of some for the good 

 of all. The Jews he chose to be the priests of the 

 pre-Christian world, the Church to be the priests 

 of the whole family of man, the ministry to be the 

 priests of the Church ; while Christ is Himself the 

 Eternal Priest, the one and only source of Priest- 

 hood from whom through all and to all the love of 

 God is revealed. 



But,4t is so hard for man not to assume that a 

 special function or work for God carries with it 

 a magnifying of the individual or official self. We 

 think to magnify our office, and almost without 

 knowing it we come to magnify ourselves. It is 

 against this danger, the pride of the ministry, that 

 St. Paul warns us, when he asks, "Who is sufficient 

 for these things?" and answers the question with 

 the words, " Not that we are sufficient of ourselves 

 to think anything as of ourselves ; but our suffici- 

 ency is of God ; who hath also made us able 



