suddenly on any one, and I dare say he did on elders or bishops, but God has taken care it never should be stated in Scripture. As to conferring a gift, it was by the laying on of the apostles' hands exclusively.

The question of priesthood and another important one remain. The setting up of a distinct priesthood is the denial of Christianity. A distinct priesthood is a body who can go to God for me, because I cannot so approach God myself. To say there is such a body in Christianity is to deny it. The essence of Christianity is, that we can directly approach God, even the Father, ourselves. We are (1 Pet. ii.) a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ. He has made us kings and priests to God and His Father (Rev. i.). That is our Christian place; to say that others are priests to approach for us, is to deny our place. We cannot hold this too fast that whoever sets up a priesthood other than that of all saints, entering in spirit into heaven, denies (it may be ignorantly, no doubt,) Christianity itself. What does Scripture tell us of priesthood now? First: in the epistle to the Hebrews, we read that if Christ himself were on earth He could not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. Now this is exactly what is urged for Christian priesthood by the Ritualists. They say indeed that they are not merely (Toderyμara) copies, shadows, figures (p. 308) of the worship in heaven, but the priest is the "present vicarious representative of the one true, real, and everliving priest," (now for a time corporeally absent), acting "in His name. Or,

"It is the one Mediator, acting in heaven directly, as we may say, and immediately by Himself; acting on earth indirectly and mediately by His minister as His visible instrument, who, forasmuch as in that most solemn of all His duties, He represents the priestly functions of His heavenly Master, is Himself, for that reason, and for that reason only, called a 'priest'" (p. 309).

And so "the Christian Eucharist. is called 'a sacrifice," " and 'that whereon it is celebrated an 'altar.'” (p. 310).

Now it is clear, Christ on earth, at the time the

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Epistle to the Hebrews was written, could not have been a priest. There were priests who ministered to the example and shadows. But if Christ could not be a priest on earth, His ministers were. Is it not strange that this whole service is left out where the subject is treated of. Does any honest man (yes, I repeat, honest man,) believe that when this was written, and it was said Christ could not be a priest on earth, there was a Christian priesthood who served as the mediate and indirect instrument, offering sacrifices on earth, a vicarious representative of the great High Priest in heaven. The apostle tells us that such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens; that on earth he could not be a priest seeing there were those that served in the example and shadow of heavenly things. Yet at this very time, we are to believe, there was on earth what was expressly constituted of God to carry the priesthood on on earth not as a copy, but as gloriously real" (p. 308). Further, can an honest man believe what the epistle teaches, that repetition of sacrifices was a proof that sin was not taken away but remembered, but that Christ having, by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified, there was no more sacrifice for sin nor remembrance of sins, and that the worshippers, once purged, should have no more conscience of sins, left it equally true that there was a sacrifice, a memorial sacrifice, gloriously real. And note, it is not merely intercession in virtue of the sacrifice as alleged; that would be scriptural enough, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. It is breaking His body, it is His blood shed. It is offering a sacrifice, which is not intercession. That is founded on a sacrifice, and appeals to its efficacy, but this is the memorial sacrifice itself. I shall enter more fully and directly into this in another paper, I now refer to it in connection with priesthood. The declaration that priesthood is in heaven, and Christ could not be a priest on earth, and that there was no more sacrifice for

k (Todayμa) is not, as stated, a mere copy. Christ has left us (John xiii.) an example, so (2 Peter ii. 6). It is what sets a thing forth in the way of model or example, so in Hebrews.

sin-means that there is a priesthood on earth, who are priests only because they offer a sacrifice. Strange that the New Testament writers should never say a word of this priesthood. But they do speak of priesthood, and in a way which excludes this ordained distinctive one. We are all a holy priesthood, all made a kingdom of priests, and to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Peter too, it seems, had forgotten or never heard of this "gloriously real" priesthood, and puts us altogether as priests. But it affects, as I have said, our place as Christians. Where there was a distinctive priesthood on earth, the vail was not rent, the people could not come beyond the altar, nor were the priests to go within the vail, the Holy Ghost this signifying (Heb. ix. 8) that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest. In contrast with this, the one offering which has perfected for ever them that are sanctified having been offered, the vail is rent and we all have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, boldness to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, His flesh, and we are to draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith:-where is the place for a mediating priest here, when I draw near myself into the holiest in full assurance of heart? I am a priest and enter myself where the great High Priest is, over the house of God, the family of God upon carth. There is a great High Priest and a whole body of priests under Him. That is, the whole notion of any other priests between me and God, is thus sedulously excluded. I enter into the holiest where the great High Priest is, and this is founded on the sedulously elaborated declaration that there is, and can be, no more offering for sin, that a memorial offering is a memorial, or remembrance of sins, and there is a diligent application of this to the conscience, that once purged we have no more conscience of sins, that Christ has sat down, is not standing, because there is no more offering, neither by Him nor by any, and with the so urgent and so just reason given by the Spirit, that it must be real, and that if there was, Christ must have often suffered from the foundation of the world, that the reality of suffering was necessary to

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the reality of His sacrifice; without it there was none accomplished. Christ is not offering Himself now, and on this, that He is not doing so now, the apostle insists. Those high priests were standing," offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." What a picture of ritualistic priests. But this man, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies were made His footstool, for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Offering for His friends, He has finished once for all, He is seated, and that expecting till His enemies are made His footstool. That Christ is offering Himself now is a heinous anti-Christian falsehood. He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him he shall appear the second time without sin (χωρις ἁμαρτιας) apart from sin to salvation. He is in the presence of God according to the efficacy of that sacrifice, and intercedes for us; but it was when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. But, save to deceive souls, there is not as much value in any pretended sacrifice now, as in the letters I am forming here. As a lie of the enemy's, it may be a snare for those who have no knowledge of the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice, and that, by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified-for those who have not received that word: who needeth not daily, as these high priests, to offer first for His own sins, and then for the people's, for this He did once, when He offered up Himself. Christianity, then, teaches us that in virtue of that one sacrifice we, all believers, enter in through the rent vail into the holiest of all, having a Great High Priest over the house of God, in full assurance of faith. We are the priests, and to set up a priesthood to do it, is to deny the efficacy of Christ's work, the believer's place, and the rending of the vail, that access of every believer to God which is the essential distinction of Christianity. A Christian priesthood, save as all

saints are priests, is an anti-Christian lie. Christ offering Himself now, is unscriptural and false, a repetition of His sacrifice in any shape or form, or under any semblance, is a denial of the perfect efficacy of His one offering once for all, in which He offered up Himself. Both, the pretended priesthood and the pretended sacrifice, are a subversion of Christianity; one of the believer's place, the other of Christ's one offering. An offering of Himself implies the cross, implies suffering; He cannot suffer and die now.

Another point, calling for notice, as subversive of Christianity in ritualistic doctrine, is the Church being founded on incarnation, of which the sacraments are an extension. It is false upon the face of it, even on the ground they put themselves upon, that of the sacraments. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord both signify death, have no sense or meaning without it. If these form and nourish the Church, the Church begins by the death of Christ, not by His previous life, and feeds on Him also as having died. All of us that are baptised unto Christ are baptised to His death. Nothing can be more distinct than this. It is not to a living Christ that we are brought by baptism, which they allege forms the Church and unites to Christ; it is to His death we are baptised, the very profession of a Christian can have no place, no existence, till Christ is dead. And, indeed, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, if it die it brings forth much fruit. A living Christ remained alone; lifted up, He drew all men to Him; He died to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you." And Paul, who alone teaches the doctrine of the Church, declares, if he had known Christ after the flesh, he knew Him no more. One of these passages is only stronger than the other, and when the incarnate Saviour is so blessedly spoken of as the bread that came down from heaven to give life unto the world, then He especially presses on them-"except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you;" and to this, as we are aware, the second