himself the attributes of divinity-omnipotence, omniscience, ubiquity, and infallibility.

It is important to observe that all the sacrifices were offered by the ordinary priests, assisted by the Levites: and the functions of the high priest in the tabernacle were limited to lighting the lamps, and offering the incense daily, ordering the shewbread on the sabbath, and the annual services of the day of atonement; but the dress of the priests was wholly of white linen, with no gold, no colours, no ornament of any kind; and on the annual day of atonement, when it became the duty of the high priest to offer sacrifice, even he was commanded to lay aside the high priest's garments, and wear only the white linen dress of the priest (Lev. xvi. 4, 23). So that he that typified Christ Jesus himself, in the act of entering heaven as a priest, to present the sacrifice of his own blood before the Father's throne, wore only the linen garment; much more, therefore, should the lower acts of priesthood, which are proper to the Church, require those who minister therein to be clothed only in white, according to the canons of our own Church.

That the earliest vestments of the Christian priests were only of white linen, and that not of a costly kind, there can be no reasonable doubt; and the reasons assigned for it are simplicity and propriety. Jerome is a great authority with the Romanists when it serves their turn, but on this point he is quite with us. "Vestes pullas æque devita ut candidas. Ornatus ut sordes pari modo fugiendæ sunt quia alterum delicias, alterum gloriam redolet. Non absque amictu lineo incedere, sed pretium vestium linearum non habere, laudabile est." And there can be no doubt that the fantastic and motley wardrobe of the Romanists came in piecemeal, and not on any principle; and long after the different articles were brought in, they invented reasons, and imagined new meanings, which those who first introduced them never dreamt of; and now, in process of time, we have made further discoveries forsooth, and are asked to believe that the gold, and purple, and scarlet, are sacramental.

The gold, and jewels, and gorgeous colours in the dress of the high priest, indicated not priesthood, but authority of different kinds, as the golden crown upon the head, the breastplate of judgment, &c.; which rule in the high priest subsisted to the same extent as long as the nation itself, as St. Paul testifies, in saying of the high priest, "Thou shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." But this was not civil rule; for the state was ordered by Moses, Joshua, and afterwards the kings of Judah; it was rule in all that concerned the service of God, or

the duties of man towards God, and not the duties of men towards each other. Moses the king, and Aaron the priest, were both required to set forth the Melchizedek dignity of Christ, and the royal line of David and the priestly line of Aaron ran parallel to the end of the dispensation. Rome has disregarded this, and intruded her priests continually into the throne and prerogatives of royalty; Presbyterians have muddled the two things, and in jealousy of kingly intrusion have cast all rule out of the Church: both would have been saved from their mistakes if they had remembered and applied the words of our Lord to one who sought his interference in a wordly matter: ❝ Man, who made me a ruler or a divider among you?"

It is not sufficiently borne in mind by these parties, that there is a double function in priesthood-first to make offerings from men to God, in which act all priests are on a footing of equality; secondly, to impart blessings from God to men, in which act there must be difference of standing or inequality, from the nature of some of the blessings to be imparted; and this imparity in the one priesthood has been seen in the Church from the beginning. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper might be administered by any priest, and if administered by a bishop, or by an apostle, acquired no higher value than when administered by a simple priest; but not so ordination, by virtue of which the priest is qualified and authorized to do acts like these which are common to the whole priesthood; this authority must come from those of a higher rank-from bishops, in short, mounting through them to apostles, who received their commission immediately from the Lord himself.

And in like manner, of every blessing, we may say with St. Paul, without contradiction the less is blessed of the greater." Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. The order which was set at the commencement is the order designed to continue through all generations of the Church, and therefore the presence of Christ is promised unto the end--not to be continually changing the order of the Church, as if one period required one kind of order which another period did not, but present to sustain, carry on, and consummate that which the Father of lights, who is free from variableness, had at the first determined. In the infancy of the Church, from the paucity, and poverty, and obscurity of its members, all that God designed could not then be brought out, but there was no change of plan, and therefore it is so strongly inculcated on every suitable occasion, that the body is one, the spirit one, and all are called in one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all. And in this one body, the Church, are diversities of operations to perfect every member, and bring the whole finally to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. iv.; 1 Cor. xii). Just as to Abram, GOD determined from the first, to give the land and a posterity numberless as the sands, yet this first intention did not begin to find an accomplishment till four hundred and thirty years after the promises were made.

It should be remembered, that in the Church, the living presence of Christ, is the faith to be held, and the doctrine to be taught in all our acts. We look back to the cross, as the sacrifice, by virtue of which we have been rendered acceptable to God, and are admitted into his presence; but being buried by baptism into his death, we are forthwith raised with him to newness of life, and look to him, raised from the dead, as our strength to fulfil the duties of our calling in the church. And it is remarkable, that wherever Christ has appeared in resurrection glory, as at the transfiguration, or to Saul, or in the Apocalypse, it has been in white raiment, and not in anything resembling the garments of the Jewish high priest. This is both an argument against the uses which the Romanists make of these colours, and a further point of resemblance between the services of the day, of atonement and the present condition of the Church. For the high priest, on the day of atonement, retained the linen robes until all the sacrificial services of the day were completed, and then resumed his splendid garments, and appearing as high priest again, came forth to the people, and gave them the final benediction. In like manner, St. Paul, in applying the services of this day to the work of Christ declares, that unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation (Heb. ix). Which glorious appearing tarries for the completion of his sacrificial work, or rather for the reaping of all its fruits, by the gathering of the full number of those who constitute the Church. The filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for his body's sake, which is the Church (Col. i. 24). We not accounting the Lord slack concerning his promise, but knowing that he is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. iii. 9).

No man knows how many remain to be gathered, or how few may yet remain to complete the Church: the day of the Lord, whensoever it comes, will come upon the world as a thief in the night; but in proportion as we see signs of its approach, the Church, which is called to be of the light and of the day, should arouse herself more and more, and prepare to meet her

Lord. And this preparation is not theoretic, speculative, and imaginary, but active, practical, and real; it consists in seizing and using, for the service of God in the Church, all the opportunities and means which the Providence of God brings within our reach if we are watching the Providence of God, means will be found for doing that which ought to be done; and using imperfect instruments is better than doing nothing, and may be the very way intended to make known to us the better instruments, and to teach us to use them.

Whatever obscurity may hang over the future condition of the Jewish people, there is no doubt concerning what our duty towards them is at the present time. God never leaves us in helpless ignorance of our present duties; we always may know what we ought to do, if we will but be at the pains of enquiring. It is unquestionably our first duty towards the Jews to encourage them to believe, and teach them to understand, all the promises of God: to speak to them in their own way, and to speak by acts, when words fail to reach their hearts to acknowledge the debt of gratitude we, as Christians, owe to Sarah, to the Jerusalem which is above, and which is the mother of all. (Gal. iv. 26). Moreover, though the Jews are a very hard people to deal with, and seem to us as if preternaturally blinded, we should remember that, but for them, and humanly speaking, but for their rejection of Christ, we might have been now in a condition farther removed from salvation than they are; we might have been not merely stopping short of the Gospel by misunderstanding of the law, but wholly alienated from God through heathen idolatry. The Jews have ever held fast to the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.

And where we cannot lead the Jews beyond the mere letter of the promises made to their fathers, we should encourage them even in this; and we may rest assured that it is not without a purpose, and not without an end, still to be accomplished, that God has kept them thus far faithful, and thereby a separate people for so many ages, and under such unprecedented scattering and persecution. A bishop of the Hebrew race and a bishop of Jerusalem cannot but excite attention among the Jews, and if it lead to nothing further than provoking to jealousy, in the first instance, even this is a preparation for another step, whether that be their gathering into the Christian Church, or reinstating them in that land which was so often promised to their fathers. And, above all, we should, in our respective spheres, co-operate with all those who are endeavouring to benefit the Jews in a legitimate way; such as the societies for promoting Christianity among them, and for affording shelter

and employment to such as are cast off or persecuted by the Jews on account of their faith in Christ. God ordinarily uses things already existing for accomplishing his purpose, rather than new things; and it is by endeavouring to use the existing things to the utmost that we ascertain their full capability, and learn more of the ways of God, and track the leadings of His Providence. In no country, not even in those where Christianity flourishes most, has the Church had a more promising beginning than at Jerusalem. It remains for us to endeavour to the utmost to uphold and forward that which has been so well begun, and all, without exception, may do something towards this good work, for all may give it THEIR Prayers.

ART. VI.—A Memoir of Felix Neff, Pastor of the High Alps; and of his labours among the French Protestants of Dauphine. By WILLIAM STEPHEN GILLY, D.D. Small 8vo., with Map. Rivingtons.

2. Biography and Letters of Felix Neff, Protestant Missionary in Switzerland and the High Alps. By M. Bosт. Translated from the French, by MARGARET ANNE WYATT, Author of a translation from the German of a Memoir of John Huss. Foolscap Svo. Seeley and Burnside.

THE history of Christian Missions would form a most interesting investigation into the various methods which Divine Providence hath ordained to be pursued, for effecting that wonderful increase of the "grain of mustard seed," which is now "waxed into so great a tree," and shoots out such expansive branches as reach to almost every nation under heaven. Our divine Master was the first originator of Christian missions, when he sent forth his own Apostles "into all the world to preach the Gospel to every creature." By this act he left a plain undeniable intimation of what the Church (his visible representative on earth) ought to do towards the same glorious end. Whilst it also affords an unanswerable argument against those who would wilfully cast reproaches and ridicule on the Missionary cause, it emphatically refutes those who allege that we have no right to interfere with another man's religion; that it is more charitable and liberal to leave the heathen to his own darkness-the Jew to his own prejudices,—and the sectarian to his "false doctrine, heresy, and schism," than to use any efforts to bring them back "into the way of truth," and into "one fold under one Shepherd." It is clear that our divine Master did not consider the matter in this light, or we cannot suppose he would so