CHAPTER XL.

CLOSE OF EXODUS. SCRIPTURAL FORMS. ROMISH RITES SUPPOSE THE NEW TESTAMENT NOT WRITTEN. ALTARS. OILS. HOLY WATER. TYPE OF A PROTESTANT CHURCH.

WE arrive, in the chapter I have read, at the close of one of the most deeply interesting Books in the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures. If this Book were expunged from the annals of the history of the world, we should have lost the most striking and impressive proofs of the providential, the gracious, and the merciful government of God. We have read in chapter after chapter, till it seemed almost bordering on the wearisome, minute, and specific details of Moses fulfilling the minute and specific commands of God in the erection of the tabernacle. But I have told you before, that so minute specifications must have shown some ulterior end, or they would not have been given. It is impossible to suppose that the God who gave that magnificent revelation of himself- most magnificent in thought, magnificent in word the Ten Commandments, could have descended to give the petty details contained in these chapters, if those details were ultimate and final things. We must, therefore, infer, as indeed we shall see, that all these had a distinctly typical import, and were the rudiments and the foreshadows of great, and blessed, and glorious things to come.

In the next place, you will notice here, that if any modern church were to be built after the type and model of

this tabernacle, or after the tyye and model of its more permanent development - the temple, it would in one sense, the builder might say, be most scriptural; for he could quote all these texts, and say, "Here is an order for a golden altar, and an order for a brazen altar; an order for holy water to wash in; an order for anointing oil to be an unction;" and he would really seem to have Scripture thoroughly upon his side: but then, it would be Scripture on his side not looked at in the light of the rest of Scripture. If you tear a text from its context you may prove any thing upon earth, because you treat Scripture in a way you would not treat an Act of Parliament, a law, or a legal document of any sort. You must read every passage of Scripture in connection with and in the light of passages that directly and distinctly refer to it. So, when you read Exodus, which you ought to read, be sure to read it with commentaries, if you like; because commentaries are most useful when you use them as helps, and not as substitutes; though there is a wide distinction between the two. when you read Exodus, read it especially with the inspired commentary of the Epistle to the Hebrews lying beside it; and you will see from that Epistle that a Christian church after the model of the ancient tabernacle would be in the letter most scriptural, but in fact most unscriptural and antichristian; because all these things have here had their fulfilment; and when the antitype comes, the type disappears; when the sun rises, the stars retreat; when the fruit is ripe, the blossom withers and falls away. The end and the object of this institute is come, and to keep it up still is to try to expunge two thousand years or three thousand years from the world's history, and to try to make ourselves Jews in the Christian and New Testament dispensation. this was the great blunder that misled a late most excellent minister of the Church of England, who embraced Romanism. He took the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, and he

But

Now

assumed that all this was the description of something that still should be; and, doing so, he naturally landed in a church which certainly is the nearest approach in its outward details to the Levitical church—namely, the church of Rome. It has incense altars; it has sacrificing altars; it has anointing oil for extreme unction; it has holy water to be sprinkled with when you enter; it has vestments and robes of the richest kind and texture for the priests; it has candles burning in the chancel, as the seven candles burned in the holy of holies. Nothing is more scriptural than the forms of the Romish church in the letter, and on the supposition that the New Testament was never written; but admit the fact of a New Testament, and there is an end to its claims and its pretensions altogether; for these things are all fulfilled by our Blessed Lord. For instance, the altar of brass on which sacrifices were offered is now lost in what is called by the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the true altar-Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Then propitiatory sacrifices are now done away, for the simple reason that a perfect sacrifice has been offered - a sacrifice whose merits fill all time, and consecrate all space; and so perfect that it needs not to be offered year by year in order to do what the Levitical sacrifices could not do; so perfect that it is as available eighteen hundred years after it has been offered, as if it had been offered this very day. We do not want these sacrifices; the end of them is come; the perfection of them is arrived; they lose their place, they cease to be appropriate, because that which they were meant to foreshadow is come; and now Aaron, and Moses, and Levi, disappear, and lose their function, their mission, and their office, in the splendor of the appearance of that Great High-Priest, who, by one sacrifice, offered once for all, has redeemed the souls, and forgiven the sins of all that believe in his blessed

name.

So, in the same manner, the anointing oil now used for extreme unction in the Romish church the apostle says, There is an end of that. He says, "Ye"

speaking to Christians; not to ministers, but speaking to Christians, and speaking - what would shock those that are offended at the laity being supposed to have any place in God's house at all to the elect laity, he says, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things;" and that unction is explained to be the Holy Spirit. Therefore we have the Holy Spirit to anoint our hearts; we do not want Aaron's oil to anoint our heads. We have the true unction, and the type disappears when the antitype arrives.

So again, washing with water before they entered into the sanctuary. David had a clear apprehension of what was the meaning of that when he says, "I will wash mine hands in innocency; so will I compass thy altar, O Lord;" showing that he, even in his day, a prince upon his throne, looked beyond the material symbol, and saw the moral significance of that symbol in the pure hand and the clean heart, as the best preparation for the worship and the service of God. And thus you will see that all these institutions of Levi and of Aaron had a distinct and definite relation to a future thing; and the Jews and the Israelites of that day - the more spiritual amongst them saw along the vista of many thousand years, and like Abraham rested not on the material symbol, but saw Christ's day, and whilst they saw it they rejoiced.

And now, in this chapter we have the tabernacle finished and complete, with all its furniture and apparatus for worship, according to the command of God. I believe there is wanted and I think I have taken the opportunity to say so beforestill in modern times the true type of a truly Protestant church. What are called the medieval cathedrals of Europe are most appropriate to Roman Catholic service: nothing can be more fit. I admire their beauty, I can ap

preciate their magnificence and grandeur; as mere appeals to what is sensuous and tasteful in man nothing can be more triumphant than the very stones seeming to blossom and to shape themselves into every thing that is beautiful. They are most appropriate where there is a sacrificial altar in the east end; where there are processions in honor of the Virgin, of stoled and white-robed priests, the nave that will hold a large multitude, of great dimensions and of great length, and where side-chapels for the saints are used, and where there are transepts -nothing can be more appropriate; they are exactly fitted for these. But when you go into some vast and noble cathedral in England, you find that there is service only in one end, and that three fourths of the cathedral are merely turned into a sort of museum, or a place for monuments, which are the mementos, and so far appropriate, of great and illustrious men. But still that shows that they are not fitted, and were not meant, for our service. The only attempt to take possession of them is in Scotland, where they make the nave into one parish church, and the choir into another parish church; and thus out of one Romish church they make two good Protestant churches. But it is quite plain to me that these are not the proper edifices. And so remarkable is this, that a very distinguished Northern divine, very noted for his ultra notions, has now come to the conclusion, and avowed it, I believe, that mediæval cathedrals are not fitted for Protestant worship, and that there still is required the type and the model of a perfect Protestant church, fitted for perfect Protestant worship. And that one can easily conceive. The great use of the Protestant church is, first, prayer or worship; and, secondly, preaching and teaching; and if one is to lead the worship, the people ought to be so situated that all can hear him. A church, if one is to preach to be understood, ought to be so appointed that all can see, and hear, and be enlightened. Let it be as tasteful as you like; I think it is