Church, if God have given him ability. Besides, though these extraordinary gifts may have ceased, I by no means admit, that the ordinary gifts for the edification of the Church of believers have ceased. On the contrary, I believe they are the instrument, the only real instrument of edification; nor do I see why, on principle, they should not be exercised in the Church, or why the Church has not a title to the edification derived from them. If I were to speak of lay-preaching, I should be referred to the orderly way in which Christ had given in His Church-some apostles, &c. Now, unless one man centres all these in one person by virtue of ordination, I do not see how it applies. I read, " some, one; some, another." The Head, Christ, "from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, to the edifying of itself in love." And I read, that there are given, one the eye, the other the foot, the other the ear, that there might be no schism in the body. And if we have lost many, and ornamental members, it is no reason why we should cut off the rest; the word of wisdom, or the word of knowledge, or the like. If the Spirit of God be clean gone out of the Church, how came that about? Was it when laymen spoke, or office was maintained? It will then be said, they may do it out of, but not in the Church. Why not? Thus far, then, for speaking in the Church. I advocate no system. I mourn over the departure of many of the comely parts, or, however, on which God set comeliness. I take these Scriptures as scriptural evidence, that the notion of laymen speaking in the Church being wrong, has not the Scriptures to rest on. I speak not here of elders, or appointed teachers; their value or not. I speak merely of the one point, the wrongness of a layman speaking in the Church as such. If we are told of the danger arising from all teaching, I admit it at once. But we are warned against it, not by wrongness as regards office, or its effect merely on others; but as one of the things in which, as evil will come out, so the remedy is applied to the spirit from which it flows: "My brethren, be not many teachers, for so shall ye heap to yourselves greater condemnation." But the warning still again shews, that there was no such restriction of office as is now supposed, for it would have been, "you have no business to teach at all, you are not ordained." But, no; the correction was turned to moral profit, not to formal distinction of pre-eminent office.

But it comes to be more important out of the Church; because it precludes the testimony of the Gospel by a vast number of persons, who may have faithfully borne it to others. Let us inquire the scriptural facts. In the first place, then, all the Christians preached-went every where preaching the word (Acts viii. 4). Some critics have endeavoured to elude this plain passage by saying, that this is speaking, which a Layman may do. The short answer is—It is not. It is ευαγγελιζόμενοι, Evangelizing the word. And we read elsewhere that, "the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Now, unless all the Church were ordained-I think they are to preach, as far as they have abilityhere is the simplest case possible; the case in point. The first general preaching of the Gospel which the Lord blessed beyond the walls of Jerusalem, was by laymen, or, however, it knew no such distinction. It had not entered into their minds then, that they who knew the glory of Christ were not to speak of it, where, and how, God enabled them. And the hand of the Lord was with them. Paul preached without any other mission than seeing the glory of the Lord and His word; in a synagogue, too, and boasts of it. And he gives his reasons for Christians preaching elsewhere" as it is written: I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and therefore speak." Apollos preached; and when Paul would have sent him from Ephesus to Corinth, would not go. Yet, so far from being ordained before beginning to preach, he knew only the baptism of John. And Aquila and Priscilla took him to them, and expounded to him the way of God more perfectly. At Rome, many of the brethren, waxing bold by Paul's bonds, preached the word without fear. And here I must add, as critics vex themselves about this too, the word is кnovoσovoiv-are heralds. The same habits of wandering preaching we find in 2 John and 3 John, guarded not by ordination, but by doctrine. Nor is there such a thing mentioned in Scripture, as ordaining to preach the Gospel. Paul preached before he went out on his work from Antioch. And if they will plead his being set apart there, they are quite welcome; for I reason not against such setting

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apart, but against the assertion that laymen are incompetent to preach. But the case, if it proves any thing for them, proves that laymen can ordain as well as preach, that is all. The only other passage not commonly quoted, but which seems to me nearer the purpose is, "The same commit thou to faithful men, able to teach others also." But the thing committed here was the doctrine, and proves tradition, if any thing, not ordination; for it does not appear that they were ordained for the purpose. I have now produced ample evidence from Scripture to a simple mind. I am not attacking ordination, nor any thing that may, in the eyes of others, appear valuable; but simply the assertion, that laymen ought not to speak in or preach out of the Church: and I say that that assertion is a novelty in christianity, for that Scripture recognises their doing so. I have abstained from diffusive discussions upon what has led to it, or the principles which are involved in it-I put the scriptural fact to any body's conscience and I call upon any one to produce any Scripture positively, or on principle, forbidding laymen to preach, or requiring episcopal, or other analogous ordination, for the purpose. And here I will advert to what is commonly adduced upon the subject, the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. It is remarkable that those who do so, should pass by a case immediately preceding, bearing upon this immediate subject: Eldad and Medad prophesying in the camp, though they had not come up to the door of the tabernacle, because the spirit rested upon them. "Would God," said the meek man of God, "that all the Lord's people were prophets!" What was here typically proposed-the pouring out the Spirit on all-was, in principle, fulfilled in the Christian dispensation. Then, subsequently, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, acted not under the influence and energy of the Spirit in testifying to the people, but would have assumed authority-the kingship of Moses, and the priesthood of Aaron. This was their fault. These things were typical of our dispensation. So the Apostle states. They make universal preaching desirable, and the assumption of priesthood a sin. If this be not the force of these passages, let those who object to the explanation, explain what is. To the same is the argument of the Apostle applied, the exclusion from the office of priesthood save by such call as Christ had; in which, in one sense, all believers are partakers; in another sense, He is alone, unaccompanied into the holy place. In a word, the assumption of preaching by laymen is right. The assumption of priesthood by any, save as all believers are priests, is wrong. This is the dispensation of the out-pouring of the Spirit here, qualifying for preaching any here who can do so-in a word, speaking of Jesus-(for the distinction between speaking and preaching is quite unsustainable by Scripture, as any one may see, if he takes the trouble)—and in which Christ alone exercises the priesthood within the veil in the presence of God for us. This I believe, then, to be the force of these passages. The type of the pouring-out of the Spirit in the camp, with the gracious wish of Moses, is the characteristic, the essential distinction of christianity. Accordingly we find in its primary presentation to the world, the Spirit poured out on the one hundred and twenty who were assembled together, who thereupon began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. And St. Peter, standing up, explains to the Jews, that they were not drunk, but that it was the thing spoken of by Joel-the undistinguished pouring-out of the Spirit upon men of all classes, servants, and hand-maidens, their sons and their daughters prophesying-the pouring-out of the Spirit upon all flesh. This was the characteristic of its agency, and this we have seen acted upon in the subsequent history: to deny this, is to mistake the only power of the dispensation, and, I will add, to lose it. And what is the consequence? Irregular action goes on, and cannot be restrained, for kingly power cannot be assumed to such purpose, or they are taking the part of Dathan and Abiram; but the power of the Spirit, in which God would give competency to restraim evil, has been slighted; and office which has been relied on affords no remedy, unless the rights which the Roman Catholic system has assumed be attached to it, which is the assumption of power not given to the Church at all. It is not for me to assert what is the evil of the present day, I am sure it is not the overflowing boldness of testimony against evil; and if evil teaching exists, the remedy is not in hindering or rejecting (for hindered it surely will not be, nor cannot be) lay-preaching, but the cordial co-operation of those who hold the truth, by which the common energy (and common energy is infinite energy in this matter) should be exercised to sustain it against that which does not hold the truth, and the clergy and all may

be persuaded it will be needed. Thus the distinction will be between truth and error, and not office and the Spirit, the most mischievous that human wit could have devised. In the mean time, those who hold office really from God, will find those who have the Spirit, but not special office, gladly, aye, thankfully, most thankfully, recognise them in it, instead of being thrown into opposition, colour given to those who have not the Spirit, in their apparent similarity of conduct; and apparent evidence afforded, that those who have office are opposed to the Spirit, in their prohibition of those who have it exercising it.

The times call for decision; and the only thing which will withstand evil and error is, truth, and truth wielded as a common cause against error and self-will by the saints under the Spirit, and then God can be wholly with them, instead of being obliged to withdraw His countenance from them when they are opposed to their brethren, and rejecting them when He must justify them, when it is the order of His glory, and all their blessing to do so. May He by His Spirit guide us into all truth J. N. D.

LIBER REDIVIVUS: OR THE BOOKE OF THE UNIVERSAL KIRKE RE-OPENED, BY A PRESBYTER. Glasgow: Symington & Co. 1839.

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"......by the angel, therefore, is not, cannot be meant the whole Church, neither can it mean a body of inferior ministers. Had this been intended, then the superscription would have been to the Presbytery of the Church of Ephesus. It is plain, then, that by the angel is meant the governor of the Church, i. e. the messenger, the apostle; one who held supreme spiritual and ecclesiastical authority; one who tried them who said they were apostles, and were not, and had found them liars." "......the personal address to the angel, places it beyond all doubt that he was supreme spiritual ruler over all the congregations within the precincts of the city. That authority he could have received from no one but an apostle. That the angel, whoever may have been the officer so designated, had in the city where he presided a high spiritual authority, cannot be denied; an authority not only over the orthodox congregations, but over all those who had departed from the faith set up by separate congregations. This is put beyond a doubt by the address to the angel of Thyatira (Rev. ii. 20). This prophetess was certainly a teacher of heresy in the city of Thyatira. She was opposed to the angel; she was not, as people now speak, of the angel's flock. She had thrown off her allegiance to him, aud dissented from him, and was drawing away disciples after her. Yet God held her still subject to the angel, wherefore he accused the angel of still suffering her to teach, and blamed him for his supineness. But how could the angel prevent her? Secular power he had none; the state had not established nor recognised his authority. He could not, therefore, call in the aid of the civil magistrate, to compel her to submit to his jurisdiction, and to cease from her false doctrine. But God exacted this from him. His weapons then must have been the anathemas and excommunications of the Church; the giving of the refractory over to Satan. And though it may be said that the apostolic was an extraordinary office, and hath ceased, the same cannot be said of the angels, for they were not of the twelve: and, moreover, they were in the right hand of God, and who shall dare to pluck them thence ? God then set up that polity in the churches; God gave the angels and their authority; God appointed their territorial jurisdiction; ie. their diocese. Not the care of one, but of several flocks, as well heretics and schismatics, as all the faithful, both clergy and laity. God held them responsible for the doctrines taught in the territory under their care. God could judge them according to their zeal or lukewarmness; and as the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, the successors, therefore, of the angels in every age and country, whether supported, established, and endowed by the state, or existing as bishops of a voluntary, or even persecuted church, must, in all points, resemble their illustrious ancestors" (p. 11, 12).—" the authority herein committed to the angels, the dreadful responsibility attached to the office, the warnings and the threats addressed to them whom God hath made princes in all lands over his household, are by a perpetual decree passed upon their successors to the latest generations. They who are inheritors of their glory, are of their cares and troubles also. They who sit on their thrones here on earth, if they are faithful and overcome, 'will I grant, saith Alpha and Omega,

to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.'

"......In Scotland, a turbulent nobility, and even (oh nefas!) some of the Presbyters themselves, together with the people, rose in rebellion, and expelled the angels from their churches, and their descendants glory in the crime. They pretend Scripture as their warrant. Surely, however, in the Scripture under consideration, neither the emperor, nor the inhabitants of the cities, founded the churches, and gave jurisdiction to the angels, nor had they any to bestow. God had it, and God gave it, and what he planted, men have plucked up. But the angels, though spoiled, still exist; and there are a few names, even in Scotland, which have not defiled their garments."

"......now the sum of all this is, that as God required of the angels a strict watchfulness of their churches, it is manifest that He must also have required at the hands of the clergy and laity an obedience to the angels, and that they were not at liberty to shake off their fealty, and to take the authority unto themselves, for if they might have done this, then God would not have blamed the angel of Thyatira for suffering a false prophetess to teach and seduce his servants; and that jurisdiction is nowhere declared to have been temporary, nor by any new revelation to have been abrogated."

....it is difficult to comprehend by what train of reasoning any body of Christians, professing submission to the sacred Scriptures, can, in the face of this positive revelation from heaven, deny diocesan episcopacy as contrary to Scripture and unlawful; abjure the jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop, and contemptuously administer the blessed sacraments, and preach the Gospel in opposition to his authority, most especially when the opening command to the Apostle runs thus, 'Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. Can any expression mark more decidedly the perpetuity of the ecclesiastical polity, as then existing in the seven churches of Asia?" (pp. 15, 16).

...the Aaronic priesthood hath departed, and the Christian hath succeeded in its room. The natural body, which was the Jewish prelatic priesthood, is dead, and the spiritual body, which is the Christian prelatic priesthood, hath risen to life. "That which thou sowest (saith St. Paul) is not quickened except it die, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.' Now the Jewish priesthood, which was mortal, and propagated by a natural succession from Aaron, is dead and buried; and the Christian priesthood, which is immortal, and propagated by a spiritual succession from the Apostles, has grown out of, and had its glorious resurrection from the dead body. Now if this train of argument be sound, by a parity of reasoning, as no ministrations in the Jewish Church were allowable except those of the Aaronic priesthood, so in the Christian Church none can be allowable or efficacious, except those of the apostolic priesthood. St. Jude held this opinion" (p. 43)......." the Jewish priesthood was the shadow of the Christian, the Paschal Lamb of Christ our passover, and of his representatives, the bread and wine of the holy communion. The altar shadowed the cross, on which Christ was offered, and also the altar, on which the Eucharist is placed. In like manner, all the Jewish festivals were shadows of the Christian; the Feast of the Passover of Good Friday; and Whitsunday, which falls out fifty days after the resurrection, and is commemorative of the miraculous effusion of the Holy Spirit for the propagation of the Gospel."

The above are a few extracts from a little book which has been lately published in Scotland, with the high applause of Episcopalians north and south of the Tweed. The immoderate credulity and arrogance of the sentiments which strike one in every page, might have well secured the condemnation of the book in an age less superstitious than that in which we now find ourselves; but it seems that now a writer has only to put forth excessive dogmatism in favour of the prelacy, in order to gain the sure and immediate approbation of all those who have taken their station under the banners of the mitre. If we are to believe "the Booke of the Universal Kirke," the bishop of Ephesus, or, as it is in the Scriptures, the overseer, had "supreme spiritual and ecclesiastical authority within the precincts of the city.' This authority was given to him by no one but an apostle; and this “high authority"

he had over "the orthodox congregations," and all "the dissenting" conventicles within the city. The bishop of Thyatira had a like authority; and this " supreme, spiritual, and ecclesiastical" authority he was called on to put in force against the common Jezebel, so as to "compel her to submit to his jurisdiction." Then all the bishops received from the apostles "territorial jurisdiction," or "dioceses," in which they were supreme governors of "the clergy and laity." God had made them "princes in all lands, over his household;" had given them "to sit on thrones here," preparatory to their sitting on thrones hereafter. The propounder of these dreams has, however, selected a most unfortunate illustration of his views, for by directing our attention to the "bishop of Ephesus," we immediately are reminded of Paul's parting scene with the elders of Ephesus at Miletus. These elders, who are spoken of in the plural number, and who seem to have been not a few, he said "the Holy Ghost had made bishops, επισкоTоvс, to feed the Church of God" (Acts xx. 28). If, then, these many elders were bishops, as the apostle himself very solemnly asserted they were, with which of these bishops rested the " supreme, spiritual, and ecclesiastical authority" within "the diocese" of Ephesus? and to which of the bishops "enthroned" at Philippi was entrusted the crosier for ruling, and punishing, and lording it over God's heritage, when Paul directed his epistle "to the saints at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." All these bishops wore the mitre, according to the Booke of the Universal Kirke, and sat on thrones, as princes over God's household." If then, there were so many princes in one town, each claiming "supreme, spiritual, and ecclesiastical authority" within the diocese of Philippi, it is to be feared that the flock must have been sorely perplexed to know to which of them it was their duty to submit. The author, in several passages, is much scandalised at the little respect paid by heretics (i. e. non-episcopalians) to the authority of the Fathers. "Not to fraternise," exclaims he, "with SS. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, Irenæus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Chrysostom, Jerome, is to commit spiritual suicide, to separate and schismatise from the Church of the first-born" (p. 80). Well, be it 80. Let us then "fraternise" with Saint Jerome for a while, and embrace him as our dear brother, while he is commenting on the first verse of the epistle to the Philippians. "Here," says he, we understand that bishops are elders; for there could not have been many bishops in one city; but this also is found in the Acts of the Apostles." "Hic episcopos presbyteros intelligimus, non enim in unâ urbe plures episcopi esse potuissent: sed etiam hoc in apostolorum actibus habetur." Why could there not have been many bishops in one city? Because, according to the corrupt idea of Jerome's day, a bishop was a sole lord in a diocese ; whereas according to the practice mentioned in the New Testament, there were many bishops in one city. It therefore followed, that the bishops of Jerome's day, and of our day, sustain not the same office that they did in the apostolical day: and this Jerome knew well, for in other passages he has undertaken to shew at length, that at first the elders and bishops had the same office, and that, in fact, a bishop was only one of many overseers, or elders, in every Church. And all this is fatal to the prelacy, and the Booke of the Universal Kirke. We shall not stop here to comment "the Christian prelatic priesthood," and its taking the place of the Aaronic prelacy. This is the very soul of the apostasy, the breath of the nostrils of the man of sin; but how it comes to pass that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has shewn the entire abolition of the Levitical priesthood, and never once has mentioned or alluded to the "Christian prelatic priesthood;" and how it comes to pass, that "a priest," as an officer in the Church of God, is never once mentioned in the New Testament, but that, on the contrary, it is often asserted that all Christians are priests in the new economy; are facts well worthy the attention of this prelatical writer, and of all those who having drunk with him of the cup of fornication in the hand of the whore, have sunk down into a sleep of the flesh, and dreamed of mitres, and prelates, and ecclesiastical domination, and all the other abominations of the realm of darkness.

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The author emphatically assures us, that "the successors of the Apostles, the angels in every age and country, must in all points resemble their illustrious ancestors:" for "all" these points we turn again to Scripture, and there we find the Apostle Paul uttering the following words to the bishops of Ephesus: "I have