or the institution of any ordinance, is not from man but from God, the pious Christian, who aspires not to wisdom beyond that which is written, and whose curiosity is regulated by the obedience of faith, will wave every subordinate consideration of its necessity or expedience, of its wisdom, its justice, or its truth. It cannot be supposed that the appointments of God are in vain, or that he condescends to interfere in those arrangements, which human reason is competent to conclude; or that while his holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, they also propose truths which men can discover by their own ability, or recommend duties, which men are of themselves disposed to observe without the authority of a divine commandment. The revelations and appointments of God are so far necessary, that peace and order could not prevail without the one, and that our religious knowledge would be defective and incomplete without the other. Where this deference to the wisdom of God revealed in the Scriptures is admitted, the evidence of the fact will be sufficient, without a specific argument, to substantiate the necessity of a divine origin of the Christian ministry. It will nevertheless be a suitable introduction of the severer examination of the Scriptures, fron which that evidence must be derived, to collect the presumptive proofs, which are afforded by common observation and experience, and by such a cursory and desultory knowledge of scriptural language, as is familiar to every man, from which may be inferred the reasonableness of believing and acknowledging the divine interference in the constitution of the Christian Church. It is one of the most delightful exercises of the human mind to contemplate the care which God entertains for the children of men, and to observe the various provisions, direct and indirect, which he hath made for their peace and happiness, in the various states of civil and religious society. The authority and obedience which constitute the peace and comfort of every private family, originate in the divine institution, by which power has been given to the parent over the offspring, and to the master over his dependents; and the necessity of complying with this order appears every day from the unhappy consequences, which follow the interruption of domestic harmony by the contumacy of the servant, or the disobedience of the child. The domestic order is exhibited on a larger scale in the civil government of nations, where the power of the Ruler, and the obedience of the people, are sanctioned by a divine institution, and by the assurance, that he who resisteth shall receive damnation. Hath then the Almighty thought these cases worthy of his interference, and that it was necessary to regulate the subordination of private families, and to prescribe obedience to the civil administration, and have the affairs of the Church neither needed nor deserved any interposition or control? The advantages of the Christian religion are indeed great and preeminent; and the duties of peace, of love, and of humility, are recommended under the most affecting motives and the most commanding obligations; but the natural * Rom. xiii. 1, 2. Titus iii. 1. 1 Peter ü. 13. disposition of man remains the same; he is still agitated by the same passion for authority and independence, by the same reluctance to obedience and submission. If when an order of acknowledged expedience, which has the most powerful claims to a divine origin, is proposed, every man is prepared with his exception, and provided with a private scheme of ecclesiastical discipline, what would not have been the confusion and disorder, if no divine model had been exhibited? It is painful to reflect on the gradual encroachments of the Papacy for more than eight centuries which preceded the Reformation, and to observe, in more recent times, the progress of the democratical principle, in the affairs of the Church. Even in the time of the Apostles, the Corinthians were disobedient and refractory, under an authority, which was given and exercised, with the most scrupulous attention to their benefit, and sanctioned by marks of divine and miraculous power 5: even when the humility of the most submissive servant was exhibited by the Lord himself, it could not restrain the ambition of his disciples, or prevent them from aspiring to the honours and distinctions of his approaching kingdom". Though the authority of a divine institution has not precluded occasional and extensive contention and disorder, it has been the means of controlling and correcting the forbidden and unbecoming spirit of division, a spirit than which none is more contrary to the unity of Christian love, or more offensive to him, who is the God not of confusion, but of peace*. 1 Cor. iv. 19. 2 Cor. x. 2. Mark x. 35. Luke xxii, 24. 82 Cor. xiv. 12. 展 h Matt. xx. 20. * 1 Cor. xiv. 33. If no man can preach, except he be sent1, nor assume to himself the honour of a divine commission, without being called of God", and if no such commission had been delivered or registered in the Scriptures, men must have been destitute of the offices and ministers of religion, and in the forlorn and pitiable condition of sheep having no shepherd. They would have been incapable of faith and of devotion, from the want of authorized instructors; nor would there have been any means of giving effect to the foolishness of preaching, which God in opposition to the wisdom of Gentile philosophy, and to the visible signs of the Jewish ritual, hath ordained for the salvation of them that believe". Men would have been distracted and perplexed with the difficulty of reconciling their own wants with the divine appointment; and whatever assistance they might receive from men, in the work of salvation, must have been received under the impression, that their ministers were usurping an authority over their fellows, and opposing the institution of God, whose blessings are not annexed to disobedience and presumption. But it has been objected, that this honour which no man taketh to himself is appropriated to Christ; that it refers exclusively to the Aaronical Priesthood; that it certainly cannot prove the necessity of any but such an immediate call as Aaron received; and that it is confined to the offering of gifts and sacrifices for sins. The assertion of the Apostle is however universal and unlimited, and the conclusion only which he draws is particular; and his argument is, that on the same i Rom. x. 15. m Heb. v. 4. n 1 Cor. i. 21. principle on which the Hebrews admitted the Priesthood of Aaron, they were bound to acknowledge the Priesthood of Christ, whose ministerial call not less than Aaron's was divine. This universal proposition must of necessity comprehend more than the particular institution of the Jewish priesthood; for the Apostle's object throughout the whole Epistle is to prove that the Priesthood of Christ was superior to that of Aaron, and designed to supersede it, and that it was of the order not of Aaron, but of Melchisedek; and consequently if the text be confined to the Levitical Priesthood, it is irrelevant in its application to Christ, whose priesthood was of a different kind. Nor was the call of Abraham immediate or personal, but conveyed to him by Moses, and including his sons and successors, whose priesthood throughout all generations was confirmed by virtue of their descent from him: and although it was the distinguishing office of the Jewish high priest, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, those gifts and sacrifices were of a very different description from that which was offered in the person of Christ: nor is it essential to the definition of a priest, that he shall offer any gifts or sacrifices, or that those gifts and sacrifices shall be of a specific nature; but only that he be one that is taken from among men, and that is ordained for and in behalf of men, to minister in the things which belong to God. The necessity of a divine call, seems indeed to have been universally admitted from the beginning. The various priesthoods of the heathen were established under a persuasion of their divine appointment; and he who recommended a new object to the adoration |