But the very object proposed to us by Ritualists is false and unscriptural in this salvation by incarnation and its extension by sacraments. They say that the object proposed is reunion with God by incarnation. Reunion with God is simple nonsense. Save in the person of the blessed Lord there is no union of God and man, nor never was, still less a reunion. Adam was not united to God when innocent. He was His offspring, [the son] of God, living by a life breathed into his nostrils by his divine Creator, but there was no union. The union of man and God is the sole prerogative of the Word made flesh. It is incarnation, and that is true of none but Him. And when the Word was made flesh it was in a divinely ordered and miraculous way, He was conceived by the Holy Ghost so that that born of the virgin was a holy thing, true flesh and blood surely, but untainted by sin. And this is true now of no other humanity. All are born in sin, and there is no question of any union or reunion with God, nor is the idea in any way scriptural nor is there union with the Lord in incarnation, He was among them "the holy thing ;" but He was alone, God and man in one person, but not united to men, to sinful, corrupt man; but, having miraculously formed sinless manhood in His own person. The union with Godhead was now, for the first time, and only here. Reunion there was none; it was not reestablishing an incarnation which had place in the first Adam, for there was none. Incarnation, or union of man with God, was found in Christ alone. We are

united to a glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost. It is the man whom God has raised from the dead, whom, as we have seen, God has given to be head over all things to the Church. The avowed foundation of Ritualism is deadly error and heresy.

Another point may require more development. The visible and invisible Church. We have already seen that Christ declared He would build His Church, and that both Peter and Paul speak of that progressive work, by which the building is carried on, to be completed only in glory. Set up, no doubt, perfect at first, but carried on by the Lord by the addition of living stones,

and this without recognising any human hand in it. Nay, speaking so as to exclude man's work, whatever wood, hay and stubble might be put by man into the manifested building on earth. But there was, also, as we have seen, an external, visible building, called withal "God's building," into the formation of which, day by day, the responsibility of man entered, built with gold and silver, and with wood and hay or stubble, yea defiled, corrupted by man. The great principle of Popery and (of its poor imitation) Anglicanism, is to appropriate all the intrinsic principles of the body formed by the Holy Ghost-such as being members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven - to those who have been admitted by man into the outward and visible manifestation of the body, or the building upon earth (for these they, with equal ignorance, confound together) and, in order to this, they have attributed to baptism (which is the ordinance by which men are received into the Christian company) what it is not even the figure of, namely, communication of life, and union with Christ. We have seen, and Scripture is express as to it, that baptism is a figure of death, and that the Spirit is the giver of life. Baptism receives a man outwardly, publicly, and actually amongst Christians, where the privileges conferred on these people in this world are found. But it is responsible man's building, not the Lord and His grace adding only living stones, forming members of His body. No doubt, at first, the ostensible body and the real members of Christ were identical, because the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved; but, as to the earthly building, the insertion of wood, hay and stubble are doctrinally contemplated, and false brethren, coming in unawares, historically recorded. The sacramental Church was not identical in principle with the body formed by the Holy Ghost, and, in fact, soon ceased to be so, as to its limits.

1 Indeed it never was coincident in its limits, for the apostles evidently, if we take the divine records, never were baptised at all as Christians I suppose, nor the 120 neither. A singular thing if baptism was life and union with Christ. But that is an utter fable.

This the apostle intimates with warning, when he declares that all Israel were baptised to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink; . . . . but with many of them God was not well pleased. So a Christian may belong sacramentally to the Church, as Simon did, and have neither part nor lot in the matter, have nothing to do with life in salvation, be still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. Not" have

... •

sinned away baptismal grace," m as they say, but not have any part in grace at all; false brethren, spots in the feasts of charity, while they feast with Christians, yet baptised members of the ostensible, visible body. If I turn from the statement of actual circumstances to the prophetic statements of Scripture, I read that in the last days perilous times will come there will be a form of godliness denying the power, from such, turn away; that is, the ostensible body is wholly corrupt, so that the obedient Christian is to turn away; and in Rom. xi. this responsibility of the professing body is definitely pressed on the conscience, comparison is made with the cutting off of the Jews, and it is added: Upon thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. To say that the body of Christ will be cut off from Christ, would be simply monstrous; but the external system which supplanted Judaism will; that is, Scripture contemplates an external thing connected with the responsibility of man, as well as the true body of Christ, and the house which the Lord builds-and to appropriate the conferring the possession of the privileges of the one to the forms of the other is to falsify all the teaching of Scripture, as to the body of Christ, and the substance of these privileges, the true force of being born of God and partaking of

m In the confusion which a false principle brings in, it is curious and sometimes useful to trace it in its results. Thus, in the Romish and Anglican principle, if we fall from baptismal grace, restoration is by the sacrament of penance; but it is not pretended this confers life. Life must remain in the soul, so, if a man dies in mortal sin, and consequently goes to hell, out of which there is no redemption, he goes there with the holy life of Christ.

the divine nature, and union with Christ the head, and to falsify the true character and import of the forms themselves. None are more ignorant of what the Church is than the Anglicans, who talk so much about it.

The body is always real; there can be no false members of it. It is formed by the Holy Ghost and not by sacraments at all, though the Lord's Supper symbolises its unity. The house is building by Christ, and in this there is no bad building, but it is only growing into a temple. But there is a building in which man builds, in which wood and hay and stubble have been built in, and which will be cut off, where Apostacy sets in, which is become as a great house, in which are vessels to dishonour as well as to honour-vessels from which the obedient Christian has to purge himself. We must not confound what Christ builds and what man has built. Against the former the gates of hell shall not prevail in the latter we may expect wood, hay and stubble. We may expect to find a great house in which are vessels to dishonour, from which we have to purge ourselves—a form of godliness in the last days, denying the power, from which we have to turn away—and, having found it, know that the Gentile branches have not continued in God's goodness, and that it will be cut off. Solemn testimony to Christians. Is there anything which we ought more to lay to heart; anything more deeply affecting, than the ruin of that which was planted in grace, in glory and in beauty?

I have done with the substance of these important questions. I add some remarks on the fallacies which prejudice or ignorance has introduced into the statement of the questions to be treated of. And the ignorance of these Essayists is very great. Now, only note what is assumed or slipped in without any proof. "The visible Church," it is said, "that is, a divinely instituted body, and an equally divinely instituted, appointed government of the visible body." Now we have seen that, in speaking of the body, Scripture is clear; but connection of a divinely appointed government of the body there Gifts there are, members of the body, and manifested in the visible body; but it is to be remarked

is none.

that the government of the Church, save as gifts in power-"helps, governments"-is never in any way connected with the body, visible or invisible. Elders were appointed, as we have seen, in each Church; but their office was local, not like the gifts set in the Church. I notice this, because it is the secret of the whole papal edifice, confounding gifts and offices. This made the clergy gradually come in, for open ministry continued a good while in some parts, but the confusion went on till office became the exclusive guarantee for gift. But a divinely appointed government had nothing to do with the body as such. Now, unity is made to depend on, yea, to consist in it.

Of priesthood I have spoken. Of mysteries, and means and channels of grace, we may speak elsewhere; but a divinely appointed priesthood, other than that of all Christians, is a mere lie of the enemy. If not, let it be shewn. And here I beg to insert Tertullian's, and still better the Apostle John's, rule, that what was at the first is right. The Scriptures are the earliest historical testimony we have, and divinely given. They tell us what was divinely appointed at the beginning. It is in vain to talk of interpretation here. I believe I believe every one taught of God can use them. It is wicked, Satanic fraud, to deprive the Church of the Scriptures. They were written, save three epistles, to the flock, not to ministers, but by them. But certainly, as a history, they are worth the corrupt and interpolated trash" which is palmed on the unlearned as the Fathers'. But Luke, Peter, John, Jude, Paul, James, know no such priesthood. If they do, let it be shewn. I say their history

a It is pretty well ascertained that what has long been insisted on as proof of the episcopate (Ignatius's epistles) is on this very point a forgery. Cureton's Syriac edition leads to this conclusion, as to five out of eight, and as to all but about one sentence on it, in the three genuine ones. Forgery on a large scale was the habit of the primitive Church, and as early as the second or third century, and corrections and interpolations since. Except a mass of heretical matter, it is hard to say what is genuine in this class of writing, so very busy were these forgers. Since then, the Roman index has corrected what did not suit. No honest person can deny

what I here state.