one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ; that is, the body of Christ, which is the Church. For here the head is Christ himself; and under him, all the members, fitly placed, minister to each other, and to the good of the whole body. Some are Apostles, some teachers; some are as eyes to see for the rest; some as tongues, to speak and interpret; some as hands administering to the necessities of others some as ears to receive what others teach; some to govern and order things; others to be under direction in a lower station, as the feet in a natural body. But all these are to consider, that, whatever their place may be, they have but one common interest, and are all animated by the same life. In the natural body there is no schism, no division, no disputing of one part against another; all the members suffer together, and all rejoice together: and so it ought to be in the body spiritual; for to divide the body is to divide Christ, if that could be done. It is a good thing to have an higher place, and to be of more eminent use in this body; and it is an honour much to be coveted: but the most excellent way of all, and that in which every man hath his share, is to preserve the unity of the body, by a principle of love and charity, which is the first of all virtues, and shall outlast all other gifts; for it shall survive after death, and constitute the chief happiness of heaven. The Apostle St. Paul is no where so urgent, as when he presses upon all Christians this great and necessary duty of charity.

THE QUESTIONS.

Q. What doth a body mean, when it is applied to a society?

A. It means a company of people, disposed in an orderly form, as the members are in the body of

man.

Q. What doth this comparison chiefly teach us? A. The use and duty of subordination.

Q. What is subordination?

A. The placing of some persons in offices and stations under others.

Q. Who is the head of such a body?

A. The king, ruler, or leader.

Q. Who are the eyes?

A. The wiser sort, whose duty it is to see and learn for the benefit of the rest.

Q. What was a prophet formerly called?

A. A seer.

Q. Who are the feet?

A. The lower sort of people, who attend upon the higher.

Q. Are some better than others on this account? A. All are necessary to one another, and are therefore all to be honoured in their stations.

Q. Who is the author of order?

A. God.

Q. How do you see this?

A. I see the senses and powers which are intended to direct us, placed in the head, the uppermost part in the body.

Q. Where do you see it again?

A. In the order of the world, where the sun and

moon, that rule over the day and night, are placed above, and the earth and seas below.

Q. How doth St. Paul apply this similitude of a body?

A. To the Church of Christ, and the order of the persons who belong to it.

Q. Who is the head of the Church?

A. Jesus Christ; who is also the head of all the kingdoms of the world, King of kings, and Lord of lords.

Q. What is the life of that body which we call the Church?

A. The Spirit of God; and as one life animates all the limbs of the same body, so one spirit quickeneth all the members of the Church.

Q. What is the great duty we are to learn from this consideration ?

A. That of Christian unity; for as the members of the same body all feel for one another, and all suffer or rejoice together, so should all Christians.

Q. What sin doth this teach us to understand and avoid?

A. That of Church-division, which we call schism. Q. Why is this such a great sin?

A. Because it is contrary to the greatest of all virtues, which is charity: also, it is unnatural that any body should be at enmity with itself; and it is destructive, because such a body, either in whole or in part, must perish. No limb can live, when it is severed from the life of the body.

Q. What is the true meaning of that virtue which the Apostle calls charity?

A. It is the friendship of Christians; the love and unity of the body of Christ, under him who is the head

of it; which shall endure in heaven, when all other things shall fail and vanish away.

THE TEXTS.

Isa. i. 5. &c. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the soul of our foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores.

Col. i. 18. He is the head of the body, the Church. Rom. xii. 4. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Eph. iv. 15. Speaking the truth in love (we) may grow up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

4. There is one body, and one Spirit. Read also 1 Cor. chap. xii, and xiii.

XVII. THE CHAPTER OF THE PRIEST AND THE
SACRIFICE.

A PRIEST is a person chosen of God to intercede for the people; that is, to stand between heaven and earth, to act for both. He presents offerings and

prayers on the part of the people; and pronounces pardons and blessings on the part of God. All ages and all nations (except some wild and fanciful people of these latter days) Patriarchs, Jews, Christians, and the very Heathens, have admitted the authority, and observed the ordinances of priesthood; all of them declaring with one voice, that without intercession, and the shedding of innocent blood, there can be no remission to sinful man.

Being born a child of wrath, under sentence for sin, and subject to death, I am but dust and ashes: dust by death, and ashes by condemnation. My body must return to the dust from which it was taken; and if God were to visit my sin, as he might in justice do, with the fire of his wrath, nothing would remain of me but an heap of ashes, a sad monument of unexpiated sin. In this state, I can do nothing to save myself; I can only suffer what God pronounced on Adam, "In the day thou eatest, thou shalt die."

To shew how I am saved from this death, an innocent creature, a lamb, an ox, or a sheep, was brought to the altar to be consumed instead of the offerer. Sin in me should suffer what the burning bleeding victim suffered, unless God had appointed a priest to intercede for me, and a sacrifice to die for me.

But then, I am to understand, that the blood of bulls and of goats, or of the passover itself, cannot take away sin. These were only the prophetical signs of the law, to teach men that Jesus Christ should act once for all as priest and sacrifice, to take away the sin of the world. Unless his death had been foreordained of God for the salvation of man, there never would have been any such thing as a priest or a sacrifice heard of in the world; they would have had no meaning, and could have been of no effect.