Dissenting preachers' Incomes Dissenting veracity Dissent in Rochdale Dissent and schism, answer to, Dissent, pious speculations of, Dissent, the malignities and personalities of, Editors of Common Sense, censure on, Establishments, reasons for, Extracts from " A Reply to the dissenters," Friends of the people, who are the,.. God's word, what is the counsel of, Help to knowledge, extracts from, League, treachery of the, Philp and his enemies, Mr., Philp, remarks on G. W., 32 Testimony of disssent to the Church Unitarianism, on G. W. Philp's renouncing 95, 105 160, 180 REV. J. E. N. MOLESWORTH, D. D. REV. W. N. MOLESWORTH. Fine Sense, and Exalted Sense, are not half so useful as CHURCH HISTORY. (CHAP. II.-continued from Vol. I. page 174.) In the ordinances and regulations of the Jewish national Church the first objects, to which the care of the allwise Sovereign and contriver of it would be directed, must obviously have been the maintenance of that order and union, which are necessary to the well-being, nay existence, of any society; and also to the promotion of the holiness and faith which must be the basis of a religious community. But, while these great ends were attended to, the Almighty deigned also to regard those more minute portions of the Establishment, which concerned the outward decency, and the solemnity of Divine worship. He taught the people, that the very forms of their service should be suitable to the greatness and dignity of the Being, to whom they were to be devoted. The three principal features of the polity of the Jewish Church related-to the Sacrifices-to the Tabernacle-to the Priesthood. On the sacrifices and their prophetic intention we have already made a few observations, in speaking of the Passover. To the greater portion of them may be applied the same interpretation; that though their immediate advantages were conferred directly on the Jewish People, their figurative intent was to preserve a kind of continual prophecy, or rather prophetic picture of the blessings which were to be conferred upon the whole Church of God throughout all ages and all nations, by the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Here too we are struck with the astonishing agreement between these sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ—an agreement of events in which, between the type and the antitype, or the figurative prophecy and its fulfilment, there was a lapse of nearly fifteen • hundred years. How could man have contrived this? Who could have foreseen, and provided for this, but that Great and all-seeing God, to whom "a thousand years are as one day." How could all these strong foundations of our faith have been established, if the Church had been framed according to man's device, and if, in the solution of its sacraments and ordinances, individuals or sects were to follow their own will and judgment? Much indeed of the sacrificial code related to the peculiar situation of the Jews at that period, and was intended to guard them from falling into the idolatrous practices of their neighbours, or to counteract certain superstitious prejudices, which had crept in during their long sojourn among the Egyptians. This however, though by no means an uninteresting field of enquiry, is both too wide for our pages and also foreign to the purpose of our brief history. We will turn next to the Tabernacle. Here again, if we were to take human wisdom for our guide, if we were to take the principles of many, who style themselves liberal and philosophic, and talk loudly of rational religion, and the rights of private judgment, we should find ourselves, most strangely puzzled. The Almighty would be seen acting upon principles very different from our own. We should, upon the said philosophic and rational and liberal dogmas, conclude that as God is every where, so He might be worshipped any where that all forms were useless, or that, if not useless, they might be varied according to every man's private judgment and convenience! But however plausible this may seem to us, God did not think so. He proceeded upon the principle that these things ought to be regulated by the lawful authorities of the Church; and, as He at that time immediately communed with the Church, therefore He gave His directions to Moses His appointed Servant in all these matters. Even the very form and fashion of the tabernacle, its materials, its divisions, its covering, all its arrangements were dictated by Him. Not only were the congregation not consulted at all on the subject, but any, the slightest, deviation from the order laid down was considered as a great sin; and the Divine displeasure at any such attempt was signally shewn in the punishment of Uzzah who, though a Levite, was struck dead for officiously venturing to perform an office, to which his branch of the family of Levi had not been commissioned. The absurd excuse put forward too often by Christians, that they can pray at home as well as at Church (to say nothing of the falsehood which usually belongs to it, that the person making that excuse prays neither at home nor at Church) is at once rebuked in the appointment of the Tabernacle and its various appurtenance by God Himself, as the place in which he chose to be worshipped. The form of it was settled by Him, and in the main continued during the whole period of the National Church of the Jews. For the temple, though built of more solid materials, took the same general outline, and contained the same leading compartments. The Fabric of the Tabernacle was suited to the |