serve convince all true believers connected with the State Church of their inconsistency in remaining in it. May the godly clergy receive the gift of an awakened conscience, and then they will not be wrathful with those who rebuke them for their great sins, in remaining in the fellowship of a semi-popish Church, but will join with us in seeking to obey the commands of Jesus, as he has himself delivered them.

The passages quoted are from our article on the "Nonconformists' Burial Bill,” June, 1861. They show clearly that we have long felt what we have of late expressed, and that our heaviness of soul, when at last we were constrained to speak out, was no result of hasty passion or caprice. Our love to the good men in the Church is not less now than it was then, but we cannot longer spare them, for their equivocation, not to say falsehood, is ruining souls, and turning this nation to Popery and infidelity.

"The political leaders of the Established Church have evidently lost their reason. Proven by the public census to be but a minority of the nation, the Episcopalian sect can only retain its favoured position by the affection or the forbearance of the majority. Affection has become almost impossible. The notorious heresies within her bosom are going very far towards the ejection of the Episcopalian body from the list of Churches of Christ; and were it not for the noble few who maintain inviolate the holy faith of the Reformers, this fearful consummation would long ago have been reached. Towards the Evangelicals of the Establishment we cherish the most loving feelings; we blush for their inconsistency in remaining in communion with Papists and Infidels (these are plain names for Puseyites and Essayists), but we heartily rejoice in their vigorous protests and earnest testimonies against the errors of their denomination. In our very hearts we feel the sincerest affection for our brethren in Christ, who are the salt of Episcopacy and the lights of their dark Church. It is for their sake that many of us have handled too gently a sinful and corrupt corporation. We have feared to offend against the congregation of God's people, and therefore we have kept back our hand from the axe, which we fear it was our duty to have laid to the root of the tree. The earnest ministry and eminent piety of many of our Episcopalian brethren have been a wall of fire around their camp; and many a Dissenting Christian has concealed his detestation of abuses lest he should provoke his brother to anger, or grieve one of the Lord's anointed. Let not the wantonly perverse and cruel Churchfanatic long expect to find water in this well; the day is near when our affection for the good shall prove itself, not by a womanly sparing of the evil, but by a manly declaration of war against error, its adherents, and all who give it fellowship.

"As to forbearance, this, from the force of Christian charity, will endure many and serious trials; while the natural conservatism of the English people will aid their patience, until long-suffering expires under repeated injuries. This is not the age in which godly men fight for the wording of a sentence, or dispute concerning mere forms of ecclesiastical government. We are disposed to be lenient to all; and the prestige of the dominant church ensures especial immunity for its mistakes. Among those who mourn over the solemn iniquities of the Establishment, there are a large number who would not see her despoiled. "She is our sister," say they, "let us not see her shame; we, too, have our own failings, let us not be too severe.' The day of judgment shall declare how often the Dissenters of England have silently endured supercilious behaviour in a clergyman when we would have resented it in another; how frequently we have winked at priestly assumption and sacerdotal impudence, because we would not seem to be uncharitable; and how constantly we have borne, in humble patience, the oppression of parish popes and priest-loving squires, rather than disturb the quiet of Christian spirits.

"What other Protestant Church has been so lordly among the poor, so exclusive in her educational charities, so systematic in her denial of all

ministry beside her own, so stubborn in the fast closing of her pulpits to all other believers? It is a miracle, indeed, that the grace of God has enabled her sister Churches to acknowledge her as one of the family, despite her domineering character. This high and haughty carriage is not to be excused, and it is not blindness to the sin, but love to the cause of Christ, which has constrained other Protestants to tolerate the impertinent wickedness.

"To Churchmen who are not so obtusely exclusive as to have become irrationally bigoted, we would say in honest remonstrance, What right has your sect to be patronised by the State in preference to all others? Do you not perceive that the power which has made you the State-Church can unmake you, and withdraw its golden sanctions ? Your Church was originally fashioned by despotic will, and elected to supremacy by an arbitrary power; but there are no despots now to whom you can look, no irresponsible conclaves on whom you can rely. The people of England are free to cast you off to-morrow if they see fit. Shake off the delusion that you are never to be moved. Monarchical institutions are endeared to Englishmen by the wise concessions which the throne has so cheerfully made; do you not perceive that your strength also must be sought, not in a haughty rejection of all our demands, but in generous conciliations which shall ensure our esteem? When the throne presumed upon a fancied right divine, it reeled beneath the weight of its own folly, but since it has conceded the claims of justice, it has become firm as the ancient mountains, and like some mighty vessel it rides the waves in peace, having grappled for its anchorage the heart-love of every Brition. Will you follow another course, because you imagine you are strong enough to play the despot? In the name of reason and religion, be not so foolish. For your own sakes be wise in time, and bethink you of the maxim of him whom you profess to serve, and do unto others as ye would that they should do to you. Treat your brethren as you would wish them to deal with you, if they were supreme in the State, and you were unfavoured and unendowed. Remember that your position requires the free Churches to exercise great forbearance towards you; do not increase the tax upon their patience by supercilious behaviour. They consider that your alliance with the State is a spiritual fornication, wholly unworthy of the honourable virgins who wait in the Lord's palace. They lament your unchastity to the only Head of the Church, but they would not cast you out of the family; they weep over your sin, and hope that you may yet repent nd forsake it. It ill becomes you to boast over your poorer sisters because you are richly adorned with the jewels and rings which your earthly alliance has procured you, ornaments, let us remind you, which your sisters would scorn to wear, if offered them to-morrow, for they regard them as loathsome badges of degradation, and shameful tokens of apostacy from the simplicity of Christ. Do not let that unhallowed union, which is both your weakness and your shame, excite you to a proud and boastful spirit. Walk humbly with your God, and kindly towards your neighbour. Or, mark the word (for it is a true and kind heart which writes it, not in bitterness and wrath, but in full and fervent charity), if you will, as a Church, lord it over us, and make our yoke heavy, your end is near to come, and your judgment will not tarry. Justice may in her magnanimity endure much insult, but repeated_wrongs shall awake the lion spirit, and woe unto the oppressor in that day. We have been silent, and are willing to be silent still, but do not provoke the whole body of Dissenters to rise upon you; do not compel the spiritual Nonconformist to become political; do not extort our cries; do not wring lamentation from our patient hearts, or you shall know that we can cry aloud, and spare not. You shall rue the day in which oppression unloosed our tongues. We will expose your abuses to the very children in the street; we will teach the peasant at the plough to loathe the inconsistencies of your prayer-book, and the pauper on the road shall know the history of your ferocious persecutions in days of yore. We will collect statistics of your ministers, and let our citizens know how many or how few are Evangelicals; we will demand scriptural

proof for Confirmation and for Priestly Absolution; and we will never again permit the nation to subside into the apathy so favourable to proud pretensions. We court not the struggle, but we are ready for it if you are ambitious for the combat. We know your unhealed and unmollified wounds, and our blows will tell upon your putrefying sores. Our armoury is filled with arrows feathered with your follies and barbed with your backslidings. Provoke not the fray. Let other counsels sway you; be content sorrowfully to reform within your own borders, and cheerfully to make concessions wherever a Christian spirit would suggest them; so shall a true evangelical alliance cover the land, and, unmolested, your Church may increase in influence, and advance in purity, to the heart's joy of those who are now compelled by stern duty solemnly to upbraid you."

Who are the Priests ?

BY LEONARD STRONG.

"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from | have so wonderfully brought us with

our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." Rev. i. 5, 6.

any superior place or privilege. They invited, in the name of Christ, all poor sinners of the Jews, or Gentiles, to receive the blessings freely; to come and stand with them on the same foundation, receive the same anointings, walk | in the same light, and enjoy the same hope with themselves. There is but one common salvation for all. The one blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. The one Christ, the Son of God, risen from the dead, justified all who believe. The one spirit of Christ quickened all together with him.

The apostles were most faithful to their trust in this matter. They showed how, through the cross of Christ, they were able to reckon themselves dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ; though their peculiar temperament had been ambitious, and the question might sometimes be raised among them, "which of them should be greatest?" Yet, they carried out in their Christian life the warnings of their Lord against the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees, and obeyed the command, "Be not ye called Rabbi, for One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are Brethren;" and "let him who would be greatest, be the servant of all."

While faithfully carrying out their service to Christ and their fellow saints, they made themselves servants of all: "Not as Lords over God's heritage, but as examples to the flock:" "Not as having dominion over the faith of others, but as helpers of their joy." They were members in the body for the general good of their fellow-members; all equally precious to Christ the Head.

They never arrogated to themselves any peculiar privileges, such as baptizing, or consecrating bread and wine, or as if their presence was necessary to the worship of assembled brethren and the administration of ordinances. Neither did they arrogate to themselves the distribution of spiritual gifts; for, though they appointed some to minister in the churches, they taught the brethren not to wait upon man for their powers of service, seeing that the Holy Ghost distributed such severally as he willed. They generally contented themselves with stating to the saints the gifts and the moral character that must be manifested in those whom they recognised as

overseers or teachers of others. Peter writes, "as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ." The Apostle Paul exhorts all as his brethren in the Lord, to present their bodies as living sacrifices; and shows that while all were one body, each had his several qualifications for service to God, to one another, and to the world without.

As, therefore, there was no difference in our state as sinners, so now there is no difference in our calling and standing in Christ; for "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name!" Yes! We are all one in Christ Jesus.

Let us now, secondly, consider what is that calling, that standing we have all received who are in Christ?

We are all sons of God as raised from the dead in him, the first begotten of the dead, the first born among his many brethren. We are all of one life. His Father is our Father, and as such he calls us brethren. We are of the assembly of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. We are the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. In this we answer to the Priests and Levites, whom God chose in the place of his first-born from among the children of Israel. We are separated by the blood of Christ as his purchased ones, of whom he says, "they are mine." We are the house of God in which he dwells by his Spirit, and where the Lord Jesus is as a Son over his own house. We are also Priests to minister in his holy things, and offer up spiritual sacrifices. We all have access into the holiest, as being one with Christ. Justified by his blood, we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Yea, our place is in the Sanctuary, the holy of holies! There "our life is hid with Christ in God." We "go in and out, and find pasture." Yes! into this place of blessing, as sons of God, and priests in the true sanctuary, we are now brought, and there kept, until the Lord comes again.

Who, then, are the worshippers in ̧

spirit and truth, whom the Father thus | and as long as the Lord is hidden from honours during the present dispensation? the world, it is given to us, who are his Those who, by union with Christ, are brethren by manifestation of the truth made sons, whom he brings to his glory. as it is in Jesus, to commend ourselves They are the royal priesthood, who will to every man's conscience in the sight of draw nigh to God in the sanctuary God. above. There is the mercy seat sprinkled with the blood of Christ. There is our worship-place. There we shall offer up our spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Having the privilege of entrance by the blood of Jesus, we draw near as true accepted worshippers in the holiest of all.