that the old forms should be replenished with new life, and God's eternal truths be brought forward, as powerful and fresh as in the days of the Deuteronomist, but clothed in such language, enforced by such arguments, as may best suit our own day, and not his? If the people love to have it so, I ask, what will the end be? It is easy to foreseean end like that which befell the National Establishment in Israel, and, with the Church, the State also. Dishonesty and untruthfulness would spread, like a hateful canker, over the land, if it is not spreading now, under this very process. It would be with us, as in the days of Jeremiah, when he cried

'From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness, and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.' vi.13.

Let us hope and believe that the people will not love to have it so,—that, at all events, the laity of England will not desire-will not allow-the truth to be suppressed in the congregation,-that they will wish to have the whole truth told them,-that they will not believe that God can be served with falsehood, or that any portion of God's Truth can harm us,—nay, that anything in heaven or earth can harm us, if we are following that which is good.'

XXIII.

THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD.

PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST PEter's, maritzBURG, ON SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 13, 1866.

DEUT. XII. 19.

TAKE HEED TO THYSELF THAT THOU FORSAKE NOT THE LEVITE AS LONG AS THOU LIVEST UPON THE EARTH.'

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I EXPLAINED this morning the circumstances under which these words were written, by one who most probably lived in the reign of Josiah, towards the end of the kingdom of Judah, but at a time when it was still hoped by devout and earnest men, like the prophet Jeremiah, that, by a timely repentance and a complete reformation, the impending evils might yet through God's Mercy be averted. I explained also some facts in the history of the Levitical body, both in former ages and in that particular age, which throw light upon such a command as this, to forsake not the Levite,' -a command which must strike every one at once as singularly inconsistent with the privileges assigned to them in the Pentateuch, and the ample provision there made for their maintenance. I showed that they never really appear to have enjoyed those prerogatives, that in Josiah's time, at all events (the time of the Deuteronomist), they were beyond all doubt in a very necessitous condition; so that, as Dean Stanley writes (Jewish Church, 2nd Series, p.421):

They often appear to have been a needy and ill-provided class. The Levites are constantly reckoned amongst the objects of eleemosynary support, and are described as dependant on irregular channels for their supplies even of ordinary food.

Let us now consider the questions which are suggested by the text before us, somewhat more closely from a

practical point of view. These questions appear to be

two:

(i) That of the existence of 'Levites,'-in other words, of persons set apart for the due performance of religious acts and ceremonies on behalf of the community;

(ii) That of their maintenance, as justly to be supplied by those for whom they are expected to minister.

Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite, as long as thou livest upon the earth.'

I do not think that in this congregation I need dwell upon the second part of this subject. You have shown your willingness, you show it every Sunday, and you have shown it of late in a yet more forcible way-to recognize your duty to contribute to the support of a minister of God's Word among you. I shall rather, therefore, speak of what that minister should be, in accordance with your wants and the special needs of the present day.

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We have lately been considering the question of the 'Prophet.' We have now to do with that of the 'Priest' --that is, of one whose special business it is not to teach, not to exhort, reprove, rebuke, not to advise and comfort, not to administer spiritual medicine to a mind diseased,for all this is the work of the prophet, who may, indeed, be also a Priest, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel were, but to stand before God on behalf and in the name of their brethren, to administer the rites which bind men together in one body, as a religious community, to offer gifts and sacrifices,' and be the mouthpiece of the whole congregation, in lifting up the voice of praise and prayer to God. The Prophet's gifts come from above, from the Father of Lights.' The Priest is ordained of men, and enters upon his office vested with authority at the hands of his brethren, to act as their spokesman and representative. The Prophet speaks, in the Name of God, the Word of Truth, which goes to the conscience and the heart. The Priest speaks in the name of the Church; he absolves or condemns in the name of the Church; and his judgment may be utterly wrong, as it was of old when Caiaphas pronounced, 'He hath spoken blasphemy!'-or as it was in later days, when, in strict accordance with the laws of the Church, the Priest sent the unbelieving philosopher to the prison, and the heretical reformer to the stake.

In the childhood of the world, as in the childhood of the individual, the Father in every Family was both Priest and Prophet, and was both by Divine ordinance. We need no proof of the right which a father, simply as such, possesses, to impress on the young and pliant mind a sense of its duties towards an Unseen Parent, to lead the devotions, to shape the creed, of his children. Does any one suppose that there would be no honour for parents, no reverence from children, unless the Commandment of God was written on tables of stone to enforce it? It was His Command, most surely, long before written letters were invented. These, indeed, were a Divine Gift, and to be devoutly attributed to Him, who is the spring and source of all Light and Life. But an earlier, a more universal law has been written on the heart of man, has been enforced among us by those Divine affections which God's own Breath has kindled, the law that a child should hear the instruction of a Father.'

And you, parents, will feel, I am sure, your duty in this respect, to be the Prophets, and Priests, as well as the Rulers, of your household, for all three functions are gathered up in the sacred name of Father. These are difficult times, no doubt, in which to exercise the most holy of all offices, in which to discharge the most momentous of all duties, within your own family circle, when you feel that with you it rests to shape more or less the faith of your child, to train its feet gently in the way of life,—and when you feel perhaps also, that so much of what was taught, as unquestionable truth, in your own younger days, has now passed away never more to return. Yes! but the essence

of all faith is there.

'He that cometh unto God must believe that HE IS, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.'

You can say to your child, in the language of the Prophet

'What does the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'

If perplexed yourself with many thoughts, and harassed with the controversies, to which the present age has given rise, and in which you feel you must take a part, from which you cannot escape, rather, from which, as a true servant of God, as a faithful Christian, you cannot consent to with

draw yourself, for you cannot consent, with a weak cowardice or a guilty indolence, to let the whole burden of them fall upon your children in the next generation, you may always fall back on those words in which the writer of Ecclesiastes sums up the conclusion of the whole matter,'

'Fear God, and keep His Commandments, for this is the whole duty -rather, this is the whole-of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil;'

words of which an eminent living Divine has truly said (Dean Stanley, Jewish Church, 2nd Series, p.259) :

For all students of ecclesiastical history, for all students of theology, for all who are about to be religious teachers of others, for all who are entangled in the controversies of the present, there are no better words to be remembered than these, viewed in their original and immediate application. They are the true answer to all perplexities about Ecclesiastes and Solomon: they are no less the true answer to all perplexities about human life itself.

But you can do more than this: you can turn to the Bible, as a treasury of Divine Instruction, and teach them out of it. The Lord's Prayer is there, with its simple petitions, which the child can understand, while the hoary-headed saint can never exhaust their meaning. The Psalms are there, which tell how men lived and laboured, and longed after God and were suffered to find Him, in the ages long ago as now. The lives of good men and true are there, -with all their patient faith, their noble self-sacrifice, their joyous confidence, their sure belief in the final triumph of God and His Truth, though checkered, it is true, with signs of human infirmity. Above all, the history of Christ himself is there, with its calm serene trust in the ever-present help of His Heavenly Father, with its purity and goodness, its holy hatred of sin, its pitiful compassion for the sinner, its boundless love to God and Man, exhibited in life and sealed in death. And you will find enough in all these, if you are faithful, to help you to do God's Work and speak God's Word in your families, to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.' You can do this while you let them gradually receive the light of the present age, as God in His Providence shall send it to them,-in the reading of books, in the hearing of sermons, in the converse of friends, in the musings of their own hearts. You can aid them to draw from the Scripture narratives the rich lessons.