Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/220

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16
Mede.

own sense is of it, I have declared many years since to the world in print; and in the same way received thanks, and a public acknowledgment of my moderation from a French divine. And yet more particularly in my reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon, Pres. p. 144. and cap. i. p. 164. Episcopal divines will readily subscribe to the determination of the learned Bishop of Winchester, in his answer to the Second Epistle of Molineus. "Nevertheless, if our form (of Episcopacy) be of divine right, it doth not follow from thence, that there is not salvation without it, or that a Church cannot consist without it. He is blind who does not see churches consisting without it: he is hard-hearted who denyeth them salvation. We are none of those hard-hearted persons, we put a great difference between these things. There may be something absent in the exteriour regiment, which is of divine right, and yet salvation to be had." This mistake proceedeth, from not distinguishing between the true nature and essence of a Church, which we do readily grant them, and the integrity or perfection of a Church, which we cannot grant them, without swerving from the judgment of the Catholic Church.


Mede, Presbyter.Sermon on Urim and Thummin. Works, Book I. p. 186.

The Ministers of Christ must be Lux Mundi, the Light of the world—Vos estis Lux Mundi—"Ye are the Light of the World: Ye are the World's Urim," saith Christ unto His Apostles. "For the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge, and they should learn the law at his mouth." This light of knowledge, this teaching knowledge, is the Urim of every Levite; and therefore Christ, when He inspired His Apostles with knowledge of heavenly mysteries, He sent a new Urim from above, even fiery tongues of Urim from heaven. He sent no fiery heads, but fiery tongues; for it is not sufficient for a Levite to have his head full of Urim, unless his tongue be a candle to show it to others. There came, indeed, no Thummin" [integrity or perfection] "from heaven, as there came an Urim; for though the Apostles were secured from errors, they were not freed from sin; and yet we who are Levites