CHAPTER IV. OF THE HOLY NATURE OF THAT WORSHIP, WHICH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION INCUL CATES:-ITS SUPERIORITY TO THAT TAUGHT WE have seen, in the first part of this treatise, that the worship of the Almighty, under the Jewish dispensation, was united with a multitude of ceremonies which frequently led its professors to be satisfied with the appearance of religion, rather than the reality, forgetting that the same God, who commanded the observance of these rites, required also the service of the heart; that it was not only the outward cleansing of the body, but the inward purification of the mind, which the God whom they worshiped enjoined. Ceremonies and sacrifices, we have before said, had their uses under the Jewish dispensation, independent of their typical nature. They were memorials of past events, and also they were distinctions, which served to render the Jewish religion conspicuous in the eyes of the idolatrous nations, which surrounded Canaan. But their chief value consisted in their exact application, as types of that Messiah who was to break down all distinctions between Jew and Gentile; who was to open the gates of salvation to "all nations." Let not the Jew then imagine, that the performance of ceremonies adds a lustre to religion. On the contrary, ceremonies prove that religion, which observes them, to be in a degree incomplete: they imply a something unseen, of which they are a type; and if something unseen, then something wanting. Now, we do not find a single ceremony of the Jewish religion which was only a memorial, independent of a typical nature: some mystery was implied in all, as well as some circumstance commemorated. In Jesus every type was realized, every mystery explained, and the Jewish ceremonies are consequently become perfectly useless; for even as memorials they are no longer wanted, the Messiah having in his own person become the memorial of every mercy, as well as the fulfilment of every type; inasmuch as by his death he has procured everlasting mercy for every true Israelite, bringing them out of the Egypt of sin, into the Canaan of a heavenly inheritance. These remarks are applicable, in some degree, to the ceremonies of the Christian religion. Few as they are, and instituted by Christ himself, though necessary and proper, and a great assistance to our finite minds, a manifest help in carry ing our thoughts towards the infinite Almighty Creator, yet they are nothing in themselves, and imply a something wanting, an inward and spiritual grace which the ceremony cannot impart. These ceremonies, properly used, are means of grace; but they are not grace itself. The ceremony of Baptism is a pledge of our nominal entrance into the Christian covenant, but it does not assure us of salvation. The ceremony of the Lord's Supper is a memorial of the death of our Lord; but an outward participation in it, does not necessarily make us partakers of his resurrection. The inward and spiritual grace implied in both of these rites, may be entirely wanting it is unseen, and is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, by whom it is given to all those who earnestly seek it, either for themselves in the holy eucharist, or for their infants, in presenting them with humble confidence in God's promises at the baptismal font. This therefore proves, that ceremonies in themselves are nothing, and that when the reason of their institution is done away with, they should cease also. Will the Christian require either the ceremony of Baptism, or that of the Lord's Supper in the New Jerusalem? The question answers itself. I say then, that this at once proves every ceremony of the Jewish dispensation to be now utterly useless. We possess the reality, we want not the shadow. If the Jew will still cling to the immutability of the ceremonial part of the Law of Moses, let him search in the Prophet Jeremiah, and he will find, that God himself predicted their discontinuance in those words: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord *."-And to teach, not only the Jew, but every denomination of persons, still further the utter uselessness of ceremonies, unaccompanied by spirituality of mind, even where the ceremonies themselves are proper, let us refer to the Prophet Isaiah: "To what purpose is the multi * Jer. xxxi. 31-34. tude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats." Again; at the 13th verse of the same chapter, "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." A little further on, the Prophet teaches the people in what true religion consists: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." By these examples we have sufficiently shewn, that the Lord did not regard even the ceremonies of his own institution, under the Mosaic covenant, as in any degree essential in themselves. And St. Paul very plainly gives us to understand in the following words, that by the coming of Christ, all the purposes of the ceremonies of the Law were fulfilled. "Where remission of" sins "is, there is no more offering for sin †.” After the crucifixion of our Lord, the Jews, we know, for a time retained their usual mode of worship in the temple at Jerusalem, till the Al |