nursed by means of such institutions as Ecclesiastical Establishments, we should be greatly at a loss how to regard it as a promise of blessing; past experience, as we shall by and by notice, having largely testified how lamentable a nursing this has been of a spiritual and heavenly community! But what is the plain import of this passage, when taken in its connection? It stands thus:-"Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. ""* What mean these words, if not these two things:-first, that the Church, when in despondency, as the preceding verses represent her, at the casting off, by the rejection of the unbelieving Jewish nation, of the great mass of her nominal but unworthy children, should be replenished with many converts from the Gentile world; and, secondly, that in due time she should number among her humblest and most devoted subjects and servants,-so attached to her interests, and so conscious of her greatness, and of the honour and the blessedness of connection with her, as to "bow down their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of her feet," the most exalted in station, and the mightiest in influence, of the sons of men ; and that these eminent personages should take a part and an interest, heartfelt and pious, in the increase and the training of her spiritual children? Has this been the general character of the kings and queens who have been the heads of the various and contradictory establishments of Christianity that have had place in countries denominated Christian ? † * Isaiah xlix. 22, 23. I would refer the reader for a satisfactory and able exposition and application of the whole passage in Isaiah, to a discourse published not long since by Mr. Ewing, entitled "The Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers of the Children of the Church." The language of the second Psalm has also, on this subject, been appealed to. In the former part of the Psalm,-"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Jehovah and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us;" and, in its close, they are addressed in the following terms-"Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth: serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, if his wrath be kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him." One should think it would require some portion of ingenuity to extract from such words the divine authority of civil Establishments of Christianity, or the power of earthly magistrates, whether legislative or executive, in the Church of Christ. The form of the argument is simply this:-It is in their official capacity that the kings and rulers are represented as opposing Christ; and it must, therefore, be in the same official capacity that they are called to serve him. We demur to the conclusion. It is more ingenious than satisfactory; and even if it were more satisfactory than it is, it would leave us entirely in the dark (a deficiency which no other part of Scripture could supply) as to the manner in which the demanded service should be rendered. When terms are general, and susceptible of different meanings, that meaning is to be preferred which is most in accordance either with the universal tenor, or with other and more explicit declarations of the word of God. The spirit of the passage appears to be this: The kings and rulers of the earth, who set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, are described as, with haughty contempt and indignant stubbornness, refusing subjection to their authority. Jehovah laughs to scorn their impious defiance, and, in spite of it, "sets his King upon his holy hill of Zion." What, then, is the amount of the warning with which the Psalm concludes? That high as they were, there was a higher than they— Jehovah's Royal Son:-that if they persisted, with unholy infatuation, in their rebellion against him, they must feel his superiority, and perish before his kindled wrath :-and that, if they would escape this miserable end, and be safe and blessed, they must lay aside their kingly pride, and, stooping from the loftiness of royalty, become themselves the willing and lowly subjects of him whose power they had defied, and whose elevation they had vainly combined to hinder. Jehovah, who, in the beginning of the Psalm, laughs at the puny efforts of their vain and weak audacity, does not, in the close of it, bespeak the aid of their official functions, but warns them of their own danger, and admonishes them, for their own sake, to timely submission. With regard to the New Testament, which, in a special though not exclusive sense, is the standard of appeal on all questions relative to the constitution and laws of Christ's kingdom, we might take our stand, were there nothing further to support us on our present subject, in its entire silence as to anything resembling such Establishments as are contended for. Let anything, in the form either of precept or example, be produced in their behalf, and we shall bow to the undisputable authority. But, unless we assume the preposterous and perilous position, that human discretion-no matter whose may add, at its pleasure, according to its conceptions of expediency, to the legislative enactments of the supreme Head of the Church, and that we are at full liberty to institute every observance, to adopt every measure, and to pursue every course, on which the New Testament has not, by express specification, laid a prohibitory interdict; we must, on such a subject as the present, consider silence as law. This was not a matter at all analogous to the comparatively trivial arrangements of hours and modes of worship, which it was of little consequence to fix by any formal prescription. It was a matter of vital and momentous concern, intimately connected with the nature of the new dispensation, and essentially and permanently affecting, for the better or for the worse, the interests of the Church of God. Yet we search in vain for either precept or precedent. Not even an indirect hint can be produced. Not a foot-breadth of ground can be cleared away for a foundation to such a superstructure: On the contrary, the text affirms the dissimilarity of the kingdom of Jesus to all the kingdoms of this world; and every thing which we subsequently read concerning it, as well as the whole spirit and genius of the New Testament, is in harmony with this intimation:-nor have we the slightest ground (where, indeed, could we find it?) for considering this kingdom as having ever changed its character, or become more capable of amalgamation with the secularities of earthly governments than it was in the beginning. In particular, with regard to the means of its support and propagation, nothing can be clearer than that the whole system of the New Testament is a system of spontaneous liberality. It is true, that in behalf of the Ministers of the Christian sanctuary an appeal is made, not only to generosity and to gratitude, but also to equity. The appeal, indeed, is to all the three :-to equity-"Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?"* "The labourer is worthy of his hire :"+-to equity, gratitude, and generosity, combined-" If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?"-It is the explicit ordinance of Christ, "that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel:" §-but the fulfilment of this ordinance is left to the voluntary operation of the principles thus appealed to. The duty is enjoined with all simplicity-" Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things : "—" Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his * 1 Cor. ix. 7. Gal. vi. 6. 1 Cor. ix. 11. reward.' But all is to be spontaneous; the dictate of love, and of felt but unconstrained obligation. The law for all the departments of Christian liberality is-"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly or of necessity; for the Lord loveth a cheerful giver: "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not."+ The motives presented to the minds of the disciples to stimulate their liberality are," the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for their sakes he became poor, that they through his poverty might be made rich;" and the consideration of their future responsibility to their divine Master, and the proportion which their gracious reward should bear to their disinterested generosity to his cause and to his people: "This I say, he who soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."§ these passages before me, which are in accordance with the entire spirit and practice of the New Testament, and proceeding on the principle that the will of Christ is the surest criterion of expediency, I feel myself entitled, in reply to the reasonings, how plausibly soever they may be framed, of those who talk loftily about the benefits to the Church of an independent Clergy, to say, in one word, “He that reproveth God, let him answer it." For although an appeal both to principles and to facts would be decidedly in favour of the wisdom of the Church's Head and Lawgiver, yet, where his appointments are so express, we need no such appeal; and the reasonings by which an opposite system is maintained must be the dictate rather of "the spirit of the world,” than of "the spirit which is of God." I am not aware of any passage in the New Testament having been adduced in opposition to these general views, unless it be two expressions in the book of Revelation ;—the * 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. +2 Cor. ix. 7, and viii. 12. § 2 Cor. ix. 6. |