parents. To cherish and direct this impulse was a grand object in the various dispensations of divine mercy. From the confinement of God's people in the ark, to their gradual extension in the family of his chosen, we see in the patriarchal simplicity, the father of the family by regular succession become the priest of the houshold. Thus Abraham instructed his children" in the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment," and was appointed to offer sacrifices unto the Lord. Thus Jacob presented his burnt offering on the mount, when his profane elder brother had sold him his birth-right; that birth-right which not only gave him excellency of dignity and excellency of power over his kindred, but also the honor of the priesthood; the honor of being the type of the Great High Priest, the first-born among his brethren.

But no sooner had the Almighty with an outstretched arm brought his people from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, than he gave greater stability and more perfect order to the worship of his servants; he expressed his approbation of the solemn assemblies of his people for paying their homage by honoring with the symbol of his more immediate presence the place of their meeting, and by condescending to prescribe with the most accurate minuteness of detail, the whole order of their church government, its maintenance, its independence, its unity, and the due subordination among the different orders of High Priest, Priests, and Levites. This divinely instituted arrangement was preserved as far as

the nature of the case would admit, and perfected under the Christian dispensation. Our blessed Lord, to remove as far as possible all uncertainty from the minds of men, modelled the ministry of his disciples after that which custom had rendered familiar, and

b

long obedience sacred2. "Our Saviour," says a learned English divine, in quaint but expressive language, "our Saviour, though in reforming the house of Moses he was fain to pull it down, that it might be enlarged; yet both he that began the reformation, and his apostles who finished it, like men who were housholders, used much of the old timber and materials, and conformed it too, as much as they could, after the manner of the old; they introduced as much of Judaism into the Christian religion as the nature of the reformation would well bear, and adhered as much as they could to the old, both in the matter and form of the new economy." In every circumstance, which has been transmitted to us, there has been a marked reference to the occurrences of the Mosaic history. Our Lord selects twelve of his disciples that they should be with him, and when the harvest became too great for these few labourers, he appoints other seventy also, who, although inferior in order, as appears from their never being distinguished by the name of apostles, yet had authority to preach the gospel, and power to work miracles. Thus are the people led from the bondage of sin and Satan by

a See Note.

b Hickes on Infant Baptism, p. 12.

leaders similar to those who conducted the Jews of old from the land of Egypt and the house of bondage. The twelve tribes were conducted by "twelve princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands of Israel," under the guidance of Moses; and the seventy disciples corresponded with the number of the seventy men of the elders of Israel, who were solemnly set apart for assisting Moses in "bearing the burden of the people ;" and this conformity between the establishment made by Christ and that of Moses was considered by many of the ancient fathers as designed to induce the Jews more readily to believe that Jesus was that Prophet whom Moses foretold, from his resemblance to their great lawgiver.

"Let us," says Leslie, "follow the example of the Apostles and most primitive Fathers, to measure the Christian Church with its exact type, the Church under the Law", which are not two Churches but two states of the same Church, for it is the same Christian Church from the first promise of Christ in the book of Genesis to the end of the world, and therefore it is said that the Gospel was preached unto them as well as unto us. And these two states of the Church before and after Christ do answer like a pair of indentures to one another, the one being to an iota fulfilled in the other."

No doubt, this was the view taken by the Apostles and early Fathers of the Church. St. Paul never failed to take advantage of this identity, and he argues most forcibly upon it in his epistle to the Hebrews. He there endeavours to remove the stumbling block, which early attachment to the Mosaic ritual had thrown in the way of the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, and he studiously inculcates that the religion he preached was not intended to abolish, but to give the promised completion to their own favourite dispensation. He states to the Hebrews that the law was but a shadow of good things to come, that its types were to be realized under the Gospel, and that its services had prefigured those which were to be celebrated in the Christian Church. In subsequent years the immediate disciples of the Apostles employed the very same arguments to defend the peculiar species of government, which had been established in the Christian Church, and shewed that the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of the primitive Church were but the ministry of the Mosaic ritual under different names, and a more excellent priesthood. Indeed, Clement, one of those whose "names were written in the book of life," in that celebrated epistle which was for some time admitted into the sacred canon, addresses the Christian priesthood by the names of the Mosaic. "To the High Priest," says he, "are allotted his proper offi

a

a See Note.

ces; to the Priests, their proper places; and to the Levites, their services are appointed;" in these words intending to address the Bishop, Priests, and Deacons of the Corinthian Church.

But while the providence of the Most High thus perpetuated the ministry of his Church, the strict law of ritual observance was relaxed, and a liberty of Church government granted, such as would suit the nature of the new religion no longer confined to one nation, but extending to the remotest corners of the globe. No longer was the particular constitution by which ecclesiastical power was administered, or the rites and ceremonies with which public worship was celebrated, made the subject of precise and peremptory command, but the simple, yet comprehensive precept substituted, "let all things be done decently and in order." Strange confusion of ideas exists upon this subject, and the advocate for the perpetuity of the ministry has been frequently, yet most unjustly classed with the maintainer of a heavenly taught Church polity. It was the error of the Puritans to maintain, that God had delivered in Holy Scripture "a complete, particular, immutable form of Church polity," and against this position Hooker composed one book of his immortal work. "To make," says he", "new articles of faith and doctrine no man thinketh it lawful; new laws of government what commonwealth or Church is there which maketh

a See note.

b Hooker, vol. i. p. 491, Oxf. 1836