The

in adultery, you would have to say of them, they went out one by one," and left the title of watchman alone. As is recorded of the disciples in their treatment of their suffering Master, you would have to tell a tale of our watchmen, in their treatment of this much loved title, when suffering is to be attached to it, "they all forsook it and fled." They will be watchmen in laying on of hands, forgiving sins, conferring the Holy Ghost, administering ordinances, presiding over religious meetings and tea parties, leading captive silly women and a few sillier men, and so forth, but they will have none of the doctrine of Apostolical succession in this or any other title, when poverty, persecution, and scorn is the only temporal benefit they are to derive. Apostles, in their character of watchmen, could say, "God hath set forth us the Apostles last, as the death-doomed;" or, as it is in the margin, as the last Apostles. If they were the last, where are their successors and that they were the last, is it not evident, in that in Babylon, where the Lord was crucified, there was found the blood of all the prophets and righteous men slain upon the earth? If we are to have successors of the Apostles, let them be no mockery, let them be no "men of straw," no ludicrous effigy of the originals, like a Guy Fawkes on the fifth of November. This is the substance: ." A tacle, a theatre, an exhibition, unto the world, and to angels, and to men; fools, weak, despised, defamed, naked, buffeted, reviled, the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things." (1 Cor. iv., throughout.) It is very hard to think how an Archbishop with £15,000, or a Methodist preacher with £50 a-year, can answer this description.

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Having examined the apostolic title of Watchman, I will now proceed to another name whereby these men of God were known. read in Jeremiah iii., “I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." So also in Jeremiah xxiii., when the Lord had said that he would gather the remnant of his flock out of all countries, whether he had scattered them, he added, "I will set up shepherds over them, which shall feed them." Now, David prophesied of this in the 68th Psalm, "The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it." In the parallel explanatory passage to this, which we have in 4th Ephesians, we find pastors among the company: "He gave some pastors.' These pastors, says the Spirit in Jeremiah, were to be according to the Lord's own heart. How did the Lord manifest this? 66 By signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds, the Lord working with them." How did they themselves, in their preaching, bear witness to this? by proclaiming, "We are labourers together with God: we have received a ministry of the Lord: we warn every man, and teach every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." These pastors were to feed with knowledge and understanding. So Paul prays for the Colossian Church, "that they might be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;" and how necessary was the prayer in that day of knowing in part and prophesying in part, when it was neither clear nor dark-how necessary, we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which Paul writes, "Ye are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat,

for every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness, being a babe." So also Peter, having been commissioned, Feed my lambs," follows out the commission in his Epistle, wherein he exhorts to desire the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby. There are pastors, so called, now, as there are watchmen. But

If men, thy pastors do appear,

O Lord, we claim the signs that were

Of old by thee bestowed.

Pastors were for the work of the ministry, for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till all came into the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man. When all were come to the designed end, to a perfect man in Christ Jesus, pastors would be no longer needed, they would be useless, their name would be a nonentity, and their office a sinecure. If this state of the perfect unity of faith, and the perfect man, have not come, then pastors are needed. There are pastors: then comes the unanswerable question, Where are the marks of a pastor whereby to prove them true ? These marks, evidences, signs, are, as we showed in our first diagram, not forthcoming, therefore we are obliged to conclude, that the work for which the originals were ordained and sent forth is a finished work. If it be not, if there are pastors, or even the shadow of any such character, then let us throw down our arms of opposition and join the Roman Catholics, for there can be no question whatever but that they approach the nearest in their pretensions to the originals. But the witness of our conscience, and the plainest declarations of God's word, tell us that Romanism is a system of falsehood, a rebuilding of an accursed Jericho. Therefore, if we are to have pastors, we cannot find them. Are we then to reject the Bible? No; we stand by the testimony of the Apostles, the authorized interpreters of the word, who alone can prove to us the absurdities of religious systems. I will proceed no further with this proof of the ministry, for fear of repeating matter which has been already advanced. I have merely glanced at the Old Testament names of the Apostles, and their fellow ministering servants. Time and space will not allow to examine the title of Ambassador, a title which even some who claim that of minister are compelled to abandon. We forego the pleasure of descanting upon the high dignity of an Apostle, as a ministering spirit: a steward of the mysteries of God: an angel of the churches a king on a throne of judgment: a branch in the true vine one of the twelve gates, and twelve foundations, shadowed out in Elisha's twelve yoke of oxen, and the twelve oxen supporting the molten sea in Solomon's temple. We forego all this, for the purpose of instituting a brief examination into some particulars of the preaching of these men, to whom such magnificent titles are given. We read that they had not shunned to declare all the counsel of God, and therefore we at once have recourse to their writings, rejecting the counsel of those who style themselves their successors. We quarrel not with the honours, the worldly advantages, which modern ministers enjoy, but because they obtain these under false pretences, because, as the present Bishop of Chester affirmed in his charge for 1841, they say that "they sit in the Apostles'

K

seat, and hold the office which they held. * ، They say ;' yes, like certain of old time,' they say and do not.' Let them put off these assumed titles, and appeal to the world without these supports, which do not belong to them, and let them call themselves expounders of, or lecturers upon, a finished work of God, and then, let us see what will become of them, what will become of their systems, what will become of cant, hypocrisy, and fanaticism—then we shall be agreed, but not till then.

In considering some particulars of this counsel of God which the Apostles declared and fully preached, I shall return to Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost; and the first subject concerning which a few observations shall be offered is the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection of Christ! exclaims one, why, is not that a doctrine which requires no comment: is it not perfectly plain and intelligible to all? So far from this being the case, it is my persuasion that there is no doctrine which has been more perverted by religious systems, nor is there any less understood. The Jews, in Christ's ministry, sought a sign, "What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Now did the Jews understand him? Far otherwise : they said, " Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body." Now observe what is written immediately after this; When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them." (John ii. 22.) But before that he appeared unto them after his resurrection, they understood not the Scriptures, that he should rise again from the dead.

I have already commented upon the important position which the doctrine of the resurrection immediately assumed in the ministry of the Apostles. Peter, as we have seen, was anxious that one should be chosen who should supply the place of Judas. For what purpose? That he might be a witness with them of his resurrection: and in his sermon, the moment that Peter comes to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, he couples it with his resurrection. The doctrine is the doctrine of Apostolic preaching. Whence its importance? Because the resurrection of Christ was a pledge of the resurrection of our bodies of clay? But we shall soon see that no such pledge is anywhere to be found in Scripture. Because the resurrection of Christ proved him to be the Christ, the mediator of a new and better covenant ? Granted. I am persuaded that the true solution of the question, Whence the paramount position which the doctrine of the resurrection occupies in the sacred records? is to be found in Peter's declaration, that God, in raising his son Jesus from the dead, had made him both Lord and Christ. Let us examine. Peter related the fact, "God hath raised up Jesus of Nazareth, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." Peter, having received power from on high, could reveal things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world, and, preaching to Jews, of course he goes back to Moses and the prophets, convincing, out of the Scriptures, that the same Jesus whom they had crucified, was he of whom Moses and the prophets did write. He quotes the 16th Psalm; "David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is

*See Note K.

on my right hand, that I should not be moved." When we read, "David speaketh," we are to understand it of David speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, because the words, "I foresaw the Lord alway before me," are not David's words, but Christ's. So Peter immediately declares, "He, seeing this before, (seeing it afar off,) spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." Paul, in Acts xiii., delivers himself much to the same amount; "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, "Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." These commentaries of Paul and Peter must be understood exclusively of the resurrection of Christ. Of the body of which it is here prophesied that it should rise, it is also predicted that it should not see corruption. But this, as Peter shows, could neither be said of David, nor yet of the great mass of the human race. Their bodies do see corruption. They must adopt the language of Job, and "say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister." Let the resurrection of Christ be a pledge as it may, still it is no pattern, of the resurrection of dust. There is a wide difference, an immeasurable distance, a kind of impassable gulf of separation, between the case of a body that has the breath of life breathed into it again on the third day, and while it remains in substance unimpaired, and a body that has been dissolved for centuries, that has been burned by fire, that has undergone a countless series of new combinations of matter, both animal and vegetable.

But it is said, in opposition to this, It is not argued that the material body of the Saviour arose from the grave—it was a spiritual body. To estimate the value of this statement, I will examine the arguments which have lately been brought forward, in a work written in denial of the resurrection of the human body, and in affirmation of the resurrection of a spiritual body. The work in question is by Mr. Bush, Professor of Hebrew in the New York City University, and contains much of Scripture interpretation that is very valuable. The Professor, speaking of the resurrection of Christ, (see Anastasis, p. 151, et seq.,) says, "It seems to be a fair presumption that the same body which rose also ascended. But the evidence is certainly conclusive that it was not a material body which ascended." Granted the pre

sumption, what evidence have we to prove that it was not a material body which ascended? was it a material body in the case of Elijah's translation, and if so, what Scripture warrant is there for concluding differently in that of Christ? Again-Mr. Bush writes, "The circumstances of Christ's appearance, in repeated instances subsequent to his resurrection, are far more consistent with the idea of his possessing a spiritual body, than the reverse." So let it be; but then the like circumstances of appearance are recorded before as well as after the resurrection. "The body of Christ," it is affirmed, " was endowed with power of entering a room when the doors were closed." This is pure assumption, but, supposing that it were fact, was there not the selfsame evidence of a body "divested of conditions of matter," when Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea, and they thought they

had seen a spirit; or, when he went through the midst of his enemies unscathed, while they were purposing to throw him headlong from the bill? But further-The disciples came, and held Jesus by the feet, and worshipped him: he commanded them to handle him, to see that it was himself, flesh and bone, and not a spirit divested of conditions of matter: he told Thomas to reach his hand and put it into his side: he did eat in the presence of his disciples a piece of broiled fish, and an honeycomb, (see Acts i. 4, margin.) All these are facts which scatter to the four winds the indefinite notions generally entertained of a spiritual body, of the human body undergoing some sublimating process of change. How are these facts met in the work to which allusion has been made ? Mr. Bush maintains that these facts were "miraculous adaptations of the visible phenomena to the outward senses of the disciples;" and then he goes on to say, " that the wisdom of this miraculous adaptation is apparent, from the effect which his sudden appearance among them produced, even while his form and aspect were predominantly human. They were terrified and affrighted; how much would their terror have been increased had he appeared a pure, spiritual entity, were that possible." Surely there is, or there need be, no body at all, on Mr. Bush's own showing: surely we are not far disagreed when we find him putting the supposition of the Lord Jesus appearing a pure, spiritual entity; a spirit, say, in the form and likeness of humanity. But again-Our author supports his miraculous adaptation scheme by the circumstance of the three angels who appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. It is said Abraham set meat before them, and stood by them, and they did eat. Mr. Bush says that this eating was doubtless an optical act, and so he evades the question which is very naturally asked concerning these angels, What became of their bodies after they had eaten, and departed? But to conclude these remarks-Mr. Bush, in his third section, sums up his examination of the resurrection of Christ in the following words :-"As our Lord did not ascend in a material body, he must have put it off either at the ascension itself, or at some time previous, during the forty days of his sojourning on earth." Now, of this latter hypothesis he says truly, that we have no proof. Why not take the former, without begging the question, as is done by saying, "As our Lord did not ascend in a material body." Where is the proof of this? where is there not proof to the contrary? What becomes of Enoch's and Elijah's translation ? Did Elijah put off his body before parting from Elisha? I ask, If the material body of Christ did not rise from the grave, what became of it? for it was not found in the grave, only the clothes were left there. Mr. Bush attempts to reply to this; he says, "It must be maintained that the body which hung upon the cross was miraculously dissolved, or resolved into primitive elements." Facts already stated plainly contradict this: such dissolution could not have taken place till the Lord stood in the position of Elijah, that is, till he ascended up to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. Mr. Bush labours to prove that Jesus often ascended during the forty days, but the proof to me is entirely unsatisfactory. What can I think of such an hypothesis, supported by such testimony as the following? After having quoted Jesus saying, "All power is given unto me in heaven," &c., Mr. B. observes, "This language,