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economy; but suited only to the nature of that government, which being abolished, they consequently disappeared, having answered the end for which they were ordained. The whole economy was typical; and therefore the ceremonial and religious statutes of that kingdom should not be incorporated into the kingdom of Christ, which is established in the minds of men, and is, in fact, the truth and substance of the former economy. In the Jewish theocracy, or kingdom of David, the same divine personage was king of the people and head of the church. The political and ecclesiastical laws were mingled together, and the government was a singular compound of political and ecclesiastical ingredients; for the same individuals were rulers of the church and of the city.

In such a constitution of church and state, the divine dignity, the majesty of the Great Supreme, must have been transcendantly great; so also was the authority of the high-priest, for he was prime minister of their God and King: the ordinary priests also enjoyed extraordinary prerogatives. As the honoured ministers of their God and King, they possessed a typical holiness, and were regarded as sacred and reverend. Subordinate to them was a class of ecclesiastics termed Levites, who, with the priests, were set apart to officiate in holy rites; these alone approached the altar and entered into the holy temple. At the head of this hierarchy was the high-priest, adorned with a regal diadem, arrayed in royal habiliments, and invested with the title of Prince. He exclusively appeared in the holiest of all, before the throne of the celestial majesty, and, by his own authority he regulated the whole worship of God, according to the prescribed form in the law of Moses. He, with the other priests and elders of Israel, constituted the court of judicature, not only in sacred causes, but also in such as were civil and criminal. From their sentence there was no appeal; and the man who refused to obey was punished capitally as being guilty of high treason.

Now, to enter into the import of this singular constitution of things, we must constantly bear in mind that it was a system of types; these high-priests, who were at once both kings and priests, were types or figures of the Messiah, who is at once the Great High Priest over the house of God and King of Zion, or the true church, according to the prophecy of Zech. vi. 13, where, alluding to the Messiah, it is said, "He shall build the

temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory; and he shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the council of peace shall be between them both," that is, between the kingly and priestly offices of Christ.

I have presented you with this brief outline of the Jewish theocracy, or kingdom of David, for this special reason, because, as I shall have many occasions hereafter to show, it became the pattern, platform, and object of imitation to the clergy in the days of Constantine the Great; and, when once adopted and followed out in the church of Rome, it issued in "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." At present I may remark, that the genius of the kingdom of Christ is so essentially different from the old economy, that any attempt at imitation must argue the grossest ignorance or perverseness of mind. Christ's kingdom is not of this world; it is internal, spiritual, heavenly; a kingdom of truth and peace and righteousness; supported by no external force, disdaining all human pomp and display, propagated only in a way of instruction; and all the real subjects of it are equals and brethren. He alone is Priest and King; and the only standing officebearers in it are elders and deacons; the former appointed to labour in the ministry of the word, dispense his ordinances, and rule his house; and the latter to serve tables, or take care of the poor. In the simplicity of New Testament worship, as instituted by the apostles in Christ's name and exemplified in the primitive churches, there is nothing to minister to the pride of the human heart, but every thing the reverse ;-it holds out no iuducement to any man to accept the office of a bishop or overseer, but the promise of a crown of glory to the faithful servant when the chief shepherd shall appear; and, in the mean time, the servant of the Lord is called to tread in the footsteps of the great leader, the Captain of salvation, and set an example to the flock in faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, humility, and every Christian virtue. But these things were far from meeting the approbation, or the views and wishes, of the leaders of religion in the days of Constantine. Dazzled with the ancient lustre of the sacred order under the Jewish dispensation, they broached the distinction between the clergy and the laity,*

The distinction between the Clergy and the Laity. The terms are derived from two Greek words, viz. xλnços, lot or inheritance, and λxos, people. The plain inten

THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN KINGDOMS CONTRASTED. 377 which became the fruitful parent of the various prerogatives of the ecclesiastical order; and in process of time there were to be found in the Christian church new high-priests lording it over their brethren, and arrogating to themselves the supreme dominion on earth in matters both sacred and civil.

Under the former dispensation, God, as the King of Israel, was publicly honoured with great splendour and show. The most holy place of the temple was the fixed abode of his majesty; and here all glittered with gold, all shone with pomp and grandeur, every thing manifested royal magnificence, whether we contemplate the splendid temple with the courts and edifices annexed; the hierarchy of ecclesiastics, composed of ministers, prime and subordinate; the costly furniture; or, finally, the manner of worship, including the music, vocal and instrumental. This pomp and splendour of the Jewish church, which were all designed to be typical of the glory of the Messiah's reign

a glory wholly internal, spiritual, and heavenly, consisting in the remission of sins, peace with God, adoption into his family, the enjoyment of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter, and the hope of a blessed immortality—this outward pomp and splendour in the days of Constantine began to find its way into the temples of professed Christians, and polluted their rational and spiritual worship. Numerous rites that were purely of Jewish origin were, from time to time, adopted and incorporated-ridiculous processions, the tonsure of the clergy, the preparation of lights commonly kindled in the churches, lustral water, various anoint

tion was to suggest, that the former, the pastors, or clergy, were selected and contradistinguished from the multitude, as being in the present world, by way of eminence, God's peculium, or special inheritance. It is impossible to conceive a claim in appearance, or in reality, worse founded. Under the former dispensation, we find Moses, in an address to God, speaking of the whole nation of Israel as God's people and clergy. "They are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power," Deut. ix. 29. Here the same persons are in the same sentence declared to be both the Axos, people, and xλnpos, clergy, SEPT.: they were at once both laymen and clergy! When we recur to the use of the term in the New Testament, we find the apostle Peter giving a charge to the elders or pastors, "not to be lords over God's clergy, xλnpwv, or heritage, but to be examples to the flock," 1 Peter v. 3. Here we find the flock, committed to the charge of overseers, elders, or pastors, termed God's heritage, or clergy. There is therefore no foundation for this arrogant distinction, either in the Old or New Testament. See Dr. Geo. Campbell's Ecclesiastical History, Lect. ix.

ings, stated fasts, sacerdotal vestments, and other institutions, some of Jewish and others of Pagan origin, as Dr. Middleton has clearly shown in his "Letter from Rome." The sacrifice of the mass became a succedaneum for the ancient Levitical sacrifices. The celibacy of the clergy also was derived from the example of the old economy, under which the priests, while officiating on certain occasions, were enjoined to abstain from conjugal rites; but as, according to the opinion of the fathers of the church, the priests of the new economy are to be considered as always employed in their sacred functions, perpetual abstinence from marriage became a natural consequence.

It is unnecessary to pursue this subject further in detail at present, especially as we shall be compelled to resume it on future occasions; and yet I cannot dismiss it without directing your attention to one most deplorable evil which resulted from this perverse and unauthorized imitution of the old economy under the Christian form-I refer to the persecution and punishment of what are termed heretics, solely on account of a difference of opinion on articles of faith or the affairs of religion.

Under the Jewish law there were certain offences, clearly defined and explained, which were not the subject of toleration, but the authors and perpetrators of which were punishable with death. Such were idolators, blasphemers, false-prophets seducing men into idolatry, and sabbath-breakers-these persons were declared guilty of a capital crime, and it was enjoined on the magistrate to punish them to extremity. Disregarding the difference between the two dispensations, no sooner had the church escaped out of the hands of the heathen magistrates, than, her infatuated clergy began to inflict the same cruelties on their fellow Christians, who differed from, or did not follow with, them as they themselves had formerly experienced from idolatrous Pagans. This persecuting spirit, to which we shall often have occasion to advert, is one of the most odious features of Popery. Who could believe that men professing Christianity should so far degenerate from the example of Jesus, the meek and merciful, who "came not to destroy men's lives but to save," as to imagine that they pleased God by murdering others for a difference of sentiment, or for worshipping God agreeably to the dictates of their own consciences ? But such has been the conse

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quence of mistaking the difference between the two dispensations. The reason why crimes of the description above alluded to were punished by the Jewish law is to be found in the peculiar nature of that dispensation. According to the genius of the old, and now abrogated economy, Jehovah was at once the God of the Israelites and their earthly Sovereign. Consequently, whoever rejected the God of Israel as the alone object of religious worship, by the very same act rejected him as King. In so doing, they violated the restraints and authority of the laws and government, were guilty of high treason, and subjected themselves to capital punishment. Sabbath-breakers were also considered in the same light; because in the Sabbath there was exhibited a public sign or testimony that the Israelites worshipped only the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who finished his work in six days and rested on the seventh.

How different now from all this is the genius and spirit of the kingdom of Christ! When the apostles, James and John, after the example of Elias of old, solicited their divine Master to allow them to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans for a supposed affront offered to him, what a reproof did he administer to them! "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save." Illustrious in royal majesty, the King of Zion sits at the Father's right hand, as Head over all things to his church--the government is upon his shoulders, and he has neither vicar nor representative on earth. His subjects are all brethren. His kingdom which is of heavenly origin, and wholly spiritual in its nature, founded in truth, and distinct from all the kingdoms of this world, leaves them wholly untouched; it meddles not with their weapons, but, without any external force or constraint, makes use of no other instrument than divine truth to promote the cause of piety and virtue in the world. The language of its sublime Sovereign is, "If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." No one is compelled to submit his neck to the yoke of this celestial monarch—no one is, or can be, intruded into the kingdom of Christ; it neither