Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/33

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THE POWERS OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
21

They are fellow-workers[1] with God in the field of the world and in the vineyard of the Church. They are ploughers,[2] and sowers,[3] and reapers.[4] The priesthood has the office of breaking up the fallow ground of the nations, and of destroying the roots of unbelief[5] that hinder the plough. "I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shalt thrash the mountains and break them in pieces, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away."[6] They are sowers who cast the seed of the Word upon all lands and beside all waters.[7] They are reapers who go weeping in the midst of a barren and dying world, who shall one day come with joy, bringing their sheaves with them.[8] But these titles, though expressive, are ideal and pictorial. There are others more homely and lying closer to our life and needs.

Priests are also fellow-builders with God in edifying the Church, and rearing the temple of the Holy Ghost upon the one only foundation which Christ, the Master-builder, has laid. They are fathers of all who are born again by water and the Holy Ghost:

  1. 1 Cor. iii. 9.
  2. Ibid. ix. 10.
  3. S. Mark iv. 14.
  4. S. John iv. 38.
  5. Heb. xii. 15.
  6. Isaias xli. 15, 16.
  7. Ibid. xxxii. 20.
  8. Ps. cxxv. 5-7.