of the then church, during which God was pleased to make frequent manifestations of himself, on purpose to confirm and strengthen his servants in the midst of the many temptations they were under to idolatry. But, when once the church was settled under the Mosaic economy, and God had, as we may say, fixed his residence between the cherubim within the holy place, then these manifestations in a great measure ceased, and God was from thenceforth seldom seen, except by the high priest once every year in a symbolical manner, by the Shechinah or glory between the cherubim. The same is to be said for the christian church, that, while in her early days she was exposed to enemies on all hands, and had both the power of the heathen emperors, and the learning of their philosophers, as well as the malicious obstinacy of the Jews to grapple with, then God did bless several of his faithful servants with extraordinary exhibitions of his glory, as he did to St Stephen', to St Paul, to Cornelius, to St Peter 4. But, when these dangerous trials were removed, and the christian faith universally propagated, and at last established by the civil sanction, then the divine presence was not to be looked for, and is not now to be looked for, but in the way of God's own divine appointment, and under the sacred symbols of bread and wine, set apart and instituted for that very purpose by Christ himself.

Perhaps another objection against what I have advanced, may be drawn from this circumstance, that in scripture and primitive writings we read of a table, in a sacramental sense, as well as an altar. This I know to be truth; and I also know that its reconciliation with my hypothesis is most easy; especially when it is remembered, that the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper is to be viewed in two lights. In one light it is something that God does to us, and something that we do to God; it is the symbol of the divine presence to us; and it is our offering to God, in which respect the use of an ALTAR is apposite, and the appellation proper: but then, in another light, as we are allowed, nay invited, and called upon to partake of these symbolical offerings, by eating and drinking in this sense, what was before called an ALTAR may justly be called a TABLE, and not only so, but even THE TABLE of THE LORD, as it is by his invitation that we have the honour to repair thither, and as it is of his symbols, of elements madę sacramental by HIS blessing and presence, that we have the privilege to partake. This might be farther explained both from scripture and primitive authority, if my design required it and it is by thus understanding the sacrament, that the promiscuous, at least the seemingly promiscuous use of ALTAR and TABLE, is to be accounted for. Nor will it be any good cause of quarrel against us for using an altar in this sacrament, as if we thereby symbolised with Jews and heathens; since the same objection will hold against the ad

mission

mission of tables, the Jews having had a table of shew-bread, and the heathens their tables before their images'.

From what has now been said, this may at last be drawn as the result of the third point under enquiry, that, since according to St Paul's most ample and excellent reasoning upon the subject, our High Priest is now entered into heaven itself, 'there to appear in the presence of God for us,' he has left with us certain symbols of his presence, corresponding with his Shechinah or glorious presence among the Jews, and that these symbols are the bread and wine in the eucharist, which, by virtue of this divine presence, become his body and blood to the christian church; and that, in consequence of their becoming such, this venerable sacrament is the GLORY of the christian worship, and the great ornament of our religion, by which we are more immediately admitted into the presence of God, and by which we may be said to come before his presence with thanksgiving, asia, bowing down ' and kneeling,' as we are required to do, before the Lord our Maker.'

Before dismissing this head, it seems incumbent

on me to observe, that if the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec' be more excellent than the

P 2

Aaronic

I See Isa, lxv. 11. Ezek. xxiii. 41.

2 Heb. viii. ix. x.

I Cor. X. 21.

Aaronic priesthood, and if no man durst take the honour upon him of the Aaronic priesthood, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron', much less ought any person to usurp or seize to himself the office of Melchisedec's priesthood, unless he be called to it by Melchisedec's order: And if Corah and his company met with so signal and sudden a punishment for invading but a part of Aaron's office, of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought 'worthy,' as St Paul argues in a like case, who dare thrust themselves, without any call, order, or commission, into the ministry of the christian priesthood, and will take upon them to consecrate the symbols of the divine presence, and to stand as priests between God and the people? It is no wonder that such unruly invaders of the priesthood should do what they can to bring the sacrament of the divine presence into contempt, and should refuse to appear in any posture of adoration before it, since they cannot but know that God will not vouchsafe to be present in it, but in the way and method of his own appointment.

This indeed is a separate point of controversy, and I shall insist no further on it here. I hope I have by this time, if not sufficiently, at least in some measure, vindicated the christian religion from the Jewish charge of lameness and defectiveness in this particular privilege of the Shechinah, and have

have shewn, that, as Jesus Christ was the Shechinah or glory of the Lord in the Jewish tabernacle and temple, so in the days of his flesh did he frequently make visible exhibitions of this Shechinah or glory from the tabernacle of the humanity; and before his ascension into heaven, instituted the elements of bread and wine to be the symbols of his Shechinah or glorious presence with his church to the end of the world. I shall only beg the reader's patience a little longer, until I point out two or three observations, that seem naturally to arise from part of the arguments adduced in the course of this enquiry. The first is, that by this doctrine of the Shechinah, or glory of the Lord, rightly understood, we shall be enabled to form some adequate idea of the manner of the original formation of man, revealed to us as being' in the image and after the likeness of God. It has been matter of much labour to ascertain whether this language is to be applied to the body, or to what we call the The hitherto general notion has been, scription can only belong to the soul, the spirit, as God is a spirit: and, as God' must be a spiritual image, it is an expression deemed unsuitable to the body of man. But here this difficulty will occur, that properly speaking there cannot be said to be any likeness of a spirit; since a likeness or image is something (especially when applied to man) that must come under the

soul of man.

that this deor rather to

the image of

cog

I Gen. i. 26.