[639:1] Thus, Melito of Sardis is said to have written a work “On the Church.”  Euseb. iv. 26.

[639:2] Apostles’ Creed.  For another form see Bunsen’s “Hippolytus,” iii. 25, 27.

[640:1] 3 John 9, 10.

[640:2] He appears, for certain reasons now unknown, to have been dissatisfied with some disciples who had been engaged in missionary work; and he had influence sufficient to procure the excommunication of the brethren who entertained them.

[640:3] He would be a bold man who would assert that all the pious members of the Society of Friends are in a hopeless condition.

[641:1] Heb. xii. 23.

[641:2] See Rothe’s “Anfange der Christlichen Kirche,” p. 575.

[641:3] Cyprian, Epist. lxxvi. p. 316.

[641:4] Epist. lxix. p. 265.

[641:5] Epist. lxii. p. 221.

[642:1] “De Unit.  Ecc.” p. 397.  See also Lactantius, “De Vera Sapientia,” lib. iv. p. 282.

[642:2] Eph. iv. 12.

[642:3] Acts xx. 32.

[643:1] Rev. i. 6.

[644:1] If our authorized version of the English Bible is to be regarded as a standard of correct usage, the word priest cannot be properly employed to designate a Christian minister.  In the New Testament, as stated in the text, a minister of the word is never called a priest ([Greek:  hiereus]), and the latter term, when used in reference to an official personage in our English Bible, always denotes an individual who offers sacrifice.  To call a gospel minister a priest is, therefore, at once to adopt an incorrect expression and to insinuate a false doctrine.  The English word priest is derived, not as some say, from the Greek [Greek:  presbuteros] through the French pretre, but from the Greek [Greek:  proestos], in Latin praestes, and in Saxon preost.  See Webster’s “Dictionary of the English Language.”

[644:2] Epist. lxix. p. 264.

[644:3] Thus, Tertullian speaks of the “ordo sacerdotalis.”  “De Exhor.  Cast.” c. vii.

[645:1] Cyprian, Epist. lxiii. p. 230; lxiv. p. 239.

[645:2] Cyprian, Epist. lxix. p. 264.  Cotelerius, i. 442.  The Eucharist is called a sacrifice by Justin Martyr (see his Dialogue with Trypho., “Opera,” p. 260) apparently in a figurative sense, but when dispensed by a minister called a priest, such language became exceedingly liable to misconception.

[645:3] In proof of this see Cyprian, Epist. lvi. p. 200, and lxiii. p. 231.  In the former place Cyprian says—­“Mindful of the Eucharist, the hand which has received the Lord’s body may embrace the Lord himself.”

[645:4] Heb. v. 4; Acts xx. 28, xxvi. 16.

[646:1] Cyprian, Epist. xlvi. p. 136.