Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/169

unto them, and have also, with temerity, taken to themselves the things which they ought not to take, and have thereby provoked God to anger, as did Uzziah and the children of Korah, who, against the ordinance, and without God's permission, took unto themselves the high-priesthood, and the latter were burned with fire, and Uzziah was smitten with leprosy. And we know that those who do the like provoke Jesus Christ, whose are these ordinances, and despise the Holy Ghost, by making His witness void. Hence we are assured of the severe punishment of which those are worthy who do these things, and the contempt which is cast upon the Sacrifice and Eucharist by those who offer it in iniquity and unworthily, and who count the reverence due to the high-priesthood a trifling thing, but which in reality is an emblem of the high-priesthood of the Great High-Priest. It becomes us, therefore, to give warning of these things, since for some time past persons have been going after such vanities, and we decree as did Moses,—the man who pleased God, and with whom God spake face to face as a man speaks with his friend, and of whom it was said by the Lord, 'I know thee above all others,'—he to whom the Lord Himself spake, but not in dreams, or visions, or by angels, or by signs,—when He gave directions about the keeping of the divine Law, He declared severally what things should be performed by the high-priests, what by the priests, and what by the Levites, thus giving to each a proper and distinct function in the celebration of the service of God. And if any one dared to trespass upon that which was not committed to him, he was punished with death, which sentence was carried out in the trial of Saul, who dared to offer sacrifice without the prophet and high-priest Samuel, and thereby he drew down upon himself a sin and a curse, which is not loosed unto this day. … And God dealt in the same way with Uzziah, for He does not stay His vengeance, but pours it out upon such as transgress His law; and so he that coveted the priesthood was made a stranger to the sovereign power which had been committed to him. And you cannot be ignorant how that the things which concern us are ordered after the same manner, since you must know that those constituted by us bishops, presbyters, and deacons, by prayer and the laying-on of hands, have attained unto different functions by this change of