and therefore it is of little concern what hath "been said by them of old time," or is still said in the present day: amidst all superstitions, and fancies, and philosophies, there is one clear voice uttered on the house tops-"hearken unto ME, every one of you, and understand." Here is divine authority, and human freedom, we have one Master; to whom we are to listen with our own understanding.

To be true to what we already know, is the grand canon by which to know more our spiritual discernment and intuition, like all other discernment, grows with our spiritual character; this kind of knowledge, is experienced and not merely taught :-" the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him :”—if ye do the will, ye shall know the doctrine; it shall grow into a part of your convictions and experience," I understand more than the ancients, BECAUSE I keep thy precepts."-(Ps. cxix. 100.) On the other hand, why had not men an ear to hear the Saviour? How was it, that seeing they saw not, and hearing did not understand? It was because the word of God, was of none effect through their traditions: because not being accustomed to listen unto God, they had lost all sense of the harmony of his voice; and by following senseless traditions, had become senseless;-stupefied in natural faculties, and hardened in spiritual sensibilities. But God gives an ear to hear, an understanding whereby to judge; and if this be kept open, and employed on his truth, it becomes the avenue to still further knowledge.

"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,”—and if we continue in iniquity, in spite of his warnings, then we shall not hear the Lord: the same course stops his ears against our prayers, and our minds against his instructions and entreaties. When his voice breaks through the stoppages and fences of our passions, and fastens on the conscience, that is a crisis in our history, the true "tide in the affairs of men," and if we turn at his reproof, and seek pardon at the cross of his Son, his word gains free course along the avenues to our souls, and will dwell in us richly, in all wisdom and understanding: but if we beat back these approaches, and plunge deeper into sin or forgetfulness, we thus commence that searedness of conscience,-which results from doing despite to the spirit of grace;-a second life of sin, on higher grounds, and against better light; not the light of the age, but a light from heaven-the true light; which came into the world to enlighten every man.

"It was Adam's doom," says Dr. South, "to return to the earth, and his soul fell to the ground first:"(sermon on Deut. xxix. 4.)—but as when God had curiously fashioned the body, and it lay breathless on the ground, he then breathed into it the breath of life, and by inspiration, gave an understanding soul: so now that the soul has fallen,-prostrate on the earth, by reason of forgetting God, it is only a divine remembrancer, that can raise the soul from that prone condition; as by a second and higher exercise of wisdom and creative power-the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding, by means of that word, whose entrance giveth life.

This is the true standard, the touchstone divinely provided-not man's authority over us; not a test supplied by the growth of human traditions; but the light which "maketh manifest"-which distinguisheth the true nature of all things, and is to be employed by private judgment as the test of ourselves and of others.

II.

PRIEST'S RELIGION.

HUMAN AUTHORITY AND INVENTION versus CONSCIENCE AND THE BIBLE.

The Scriptures are the only standard of Christian faith and practice: every one is at liberty to examine them; but no one is at liberty to decline this examination: and though we may receive the help of others, we may not rest on their authority, (which is man-worship;) nor receive as religion, what is not in the Scriptures, (which is willworship.)

KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM.

THE TABLES TURNED.

THE history contained in the book of Numbers (chap. xvi. 1—40.) of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, against Moses and Aaron, or rather against God, whose instruments alone they professed to be ;— and of the awful punishment inflicted on the impious offenders by the sudden and supernatural intervention of the divine wrath, was doubtless intended by the Holy Spirit to be had in everlasting remembrance. For "the censers of these sinners against their own souls," were by the express command of Jehovah, made into broad plates for a covering to the altar, "to be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he be not as Korah and his company." And that this striking lesson was not designed for the Jewish dispensation alone, is manifest from the reference made to it in the Epistle of Jude (v. 11.) even were it not certain that as we are reminded by Paul, (1 Cor. x. 11.) all the Old Testament facts " were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." No Christian therefore can allow himself to be so far misled by the malicious zest and unction, not of the Holy One, with which this inspired narrative has in every age been perverted by dominant hierarchical factions, to their unclean ends, from Cyprian in the third century, down to the fanatical Puseyite priest, the mock-evangelical curate, or the sanctimonious popeling of Methodism in the nineteenth, as to pass it over with neglect. We are Apostolically forewarned of men who wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. The rather therefore is it our duty in this, as in all similar cases, to endeavour to ascertain the simple truth, whose wilful or unconscious abuse has generated the misapplication. Moreover, a moment's reflection will convince us that if our cause be good, it cannot but be immensely to its advantage to do so. No Scripture, when fairly examined, can afford the least foot

hold to any unscriptural notion. For the Bible is an undivided whole, like the seamless robe of Christ. It consists of parts, but not of fragments, so that "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." If therefore the enemies of divine truth are ever allowed to shelter themselves behind the Ægis of Revelation, her friends must be to blame. Never should the foe be so hotly pursued as when in his presumptuous infatuation he seeks to hide beneath the thick bosses of the Almighty's buckler. There is a profound truth contained in the dogma of Rome, that the Scriptures are the inalienable dowry of the Church, and may never be cited against her. This must even necessarily hold good of that Church which is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. The ark carried in triumph into the temple of Dagon,* always shivers the idol whose glorification the Philistines mean it to subserve.

On these grounds an enlightened Christian man, far from feeling any sympathy with the too common pastime of bandying texts from one side to another of a controversy; childishly counting their number, measuring their lengths, weighing their respective merits one against another, and so striking an illusory balance of inspired authority, he will rather give especial heed precisely to those passages which may be alleged against the view that commends itself on the most impartial consideration, to his religious consciousness. For he will not doubt that so far as his conviction accords with the mind of the One Spirit of God, those vouchers that are tendered to him whether in good or in bad faith, in behalf of an opposite conclusion, can possess only a simulated validity. And in following this course he will not seldom be rewarded by the discovery how completely error herself is held in check by the strong hand of Providence, and how by virtue of a mysterious fatality she can never handle the twoedged sword of the Spirit, without wounding herself to the death. The very texts she is fondest of quoting, are sure to be those which when thoroughly sifted will be found most fatal to her pretensions. Thus the ancient Gnostics were wont to cite, in justification of their denial of the resurrection of the body, the words "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," and this from the middle of the fifteenth chapter of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians which is wholly taken up with proving the truth which they gainsaid. So the modern Socinians will point with triumph to our Lord's words "My Father is greater than I," as though such words from the lips of a mere man, as they represent him to have been, were not either nonsense or blasphemy: We have seen the Apostolic saying "Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" alleged by a Romish bishop in defence of holy water. It would equally sanction holy batter-pudding, and is plainly as flat a denial as could be given of that very theory of particularistic sanctification, from which the use of holy water is a deduction. The Scribes and Pharisees appealed to the law of the Sabbath against our Saviour's doing good on that day, by healing the man with the withered hand, but in their blind zeal they forgot that whether the commandment *The Fish-god, as the name means, suggesting the "loaves and fishes," for which some, "whose god was their belly," followed Christ.

forbade the saving of life or not, it could hardly sanction murder, of which they were guilty in their hearts when they went out of the synagogue and took counsel how they might destroy him. Nor will many words be needed to shew that their successors in Christian times are equally unlucky in their favourite reference, for the amiable purpose of blackening their opponents, to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

Of course it is very consoling to the spiritual pride of priests, to compare themselves to Moses and Aaron, and all who resist their domination, to the wretched victims of the divine displeasure. Hence the greediness with which they seize the bait, which a specious appearance of an analogy in their favour presents, little dreaming that they must therewith swallow a very jagged hook. Was not the sin of these offenders they triumphantly ask, rebellion against sacerdotal authority? And, was not the plea by which they defended their revolt, precisely that of the modern Dissenters, when they advocate a popular constitution of the Church, on the ground that "all the congregation are holy, every one of them." Thus the matter is settled, quite to their hearts content, and accordingly with an unctuous tenderness for souls, they warn all good people against the ministrations of schismatic teachers, in the words of Moses, "Depart from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins." But there are two or three circumstances about the narrative which might suggest a slight misgiving. The men who make this application of it are always bragging of numbers, and twitting Dissenters with being a contemptible minority. Now the merest glance at the history will shew that the overwhelming majority was with the rebels on this occasion. "All the congregation of the children of Israel," to use the words of the narrative, were in a sense on their side, and against Moses and Aaron. This has an awkward look, since we know him who has said, woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you; for so did their fathers unto the false prophets," as e. g. when they canonized "these sinners against their own souls," Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and called them "the people of the Lord." Again, the appeal of Moses to the great Searcher of hearts, "I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them," ill befits the devouring mouths of a rapacious and persecuting hierarchy. The words would choke these bashful successors of the man who " was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." Peter's primacy and Peter's sword they may deem very well, but they have at any rate never been suspected of any liking for Peter's poverty-stricken avowal, "silver and gold have I none." Priests have always been noted for being very mercenary, very merciless, and not very meek. This striking difference between their character and that of Moses, does not favour the presumption of the identity of their cause with his.

We are naturally emboldened by these discoveries, to look more narrowly into the pretended analogy. We are told, and most truly, that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, gainsaid sacerdotal claims, by an assertion of the priesthood of every individual Israelite, and that Dissenters do the like. Hence it is plausibly argued, that Dissenters are guilty of their sin, and liable to their punishment. But this by no means follows, unless we be living under the same dispensation as they. It was precisely in

the confusion of two widely different dispensations, that the error of these men consisted. They wrested the Scripture, "ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation," (Exod. xix. 6.) which rightly understood, was a prophecy of what would be realized in Christianity, but which they in their self-will chose to treat as a fact, belonging to their own times, just because it squared best with their selfish purposes to do so. They little cared that thus interpreted, this portion of the divine testimony stood in flagrant contradiction with that other, by which the priesthood was assigned to Aaron and his sons. In this they were the forerunners of all, priests amongst the number, who for paltry pelf, place and power, jumble together the different divine œconomies, and quote the Bible against the Bible. They were not the men to say with David and with Paul, "let God be true, and every man a liar." For the divine veracity they were by no means so jealous as for their own consequence. Nor are those, who whilst pretending to be Christians make a dead letter of the glorious oracle which these wicked men abused. That declaration must have been either prophecy, or fact. The question as to whether Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were wrong in viewing it as a fact, the dreadful judgment of God set for ever at rest. It was therefore a prediction, which is either fulfilled under the Christian dispensation, or has been falsified altogether. If it has been fulfilled, it follows that what was wrong then, just because it was antedated, is right now, because the fulness of time has come, and God has sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And again, what was right then, viz., a particularistic priesthood, is, just because it is postdated, wrong non, and those who contend for such a priesthood, are fighting against God, as much as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. If priests disrelish this conclusion, there is no alternative for them, save to deny the fulfilment of the prophecy, i. e. to join their friends the Jews in still expecting the coming of the Messiah, and thus making God a liar, by disbelieving the record which he hath given concerning his Son. Even then, however, they will still have to settle it with their circumcised and Levitical allies how they, who are strangers and not of the seed of Aaron, dare, after the example of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, to invade the sacerdotal office. From this ugly dilemma there is for priests no possible escape. And on either horn they are impaled as the genuine and undoubted successors of-Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

On the other hand, if priests will still persist in classing Reformers with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for affirming in Christian times, what these men under a totally different though preparatory dispensation, alleged fifteen centuries too early, they unwittingly do us the highest honour. For they do but associate us with the " glorious company of the Apostles," whilst the ribaldry they mean for us, lights on those heads on which

For the Apostles everywhere most strenuously assert the claims of the universal Christian priesthood, and thus utterly overthrow the impious pretensions of all human mediators whatsoever. Thus John declares that