antitheses to the "law;" that the law was superseded by these; that, in fact, "grace and truth" are the opposites of "law." The law, in the spirit of its service, was bondage; and in the mode of its teaching, it was typical. Now, that which is typical, is so far unreal, that it is only the representative of the real or true. The gospel is neither bond service nor type. It is "grace," that is, love, in the spirit of its service; and it is "truth," that is, reality, in the real and actual nature of all its parts. The law was shadowy and typical; the gospel is real and true. The Jewish priests "served under the shadow and example of heavenly things." All things were made "after the pattern that was showed in the mount." But the true things are for us, those things of which the things of the law were but copies. The apostle speaks of Christ in heaven as the "minister of the sanctuary, and of the true (åλnowñs) tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. viii. 2); and again, "for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true (åλnov); but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Heb. ix. 24). Among the earlier modes of the teaching of the law were the demonstrative lessons of external and visible means—those picture-lessons by which children are most easily impressed. It was difficult then to express in words, or to cause men to realise in thought, the person and work of Jesus; and therefore secondary means were adopted, to impress the sense, and through the eye to instruct the heart. The whole system of the law was, accordingly, typical; and some of the most eloquent types were contained in the grand and gorgeous ritual of the temple service. The temple buildings, the priests, the furniture, the vestments-all were leading on to the High Priest, and the Holiest of all; and these were but types of Heaven, and of our High Priest, Christ Jesus. Every form and ceremony had its own meaning; and a ritual without meaning is simply contemptible. The Jewish system was a science, each part being a visible expression of some great verity or truth. Now comes this all important question-Was this intended to continue? and does it exist now? Most plainly, all have ceased in Christ, because in Him fulfilled. Hence the contrast: He brought in a "more excellent ministry," a "better covenant," established on "better promises." Such are some of the expressions of contrast; and the dispensations, being thus distinctly contrasted, cannot co-exist. The one must cease before the other is established—" He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second" (Heb. x. 9); and accordingly, to this end the earlier dispensation was terminable, and therefore perishable, with seeds of decline and decay within it-"In that he saith, a new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now, that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away" (Heb. viii. 13). This one thing, then, is plain, that the ritual of the law ceased in Christ. Now follows the question-Was it ever re-enacted in Christ or in the gospel or has anything like it been established in its stead? To this we most distinctly answer, No. In nothing does the essential difference between the Old and the New Testament appear more distinctly than in this. In the Old Testament there are so many special directions, yea, to the minutest particularity of detail; even to the rings and loops of a curtain, the hem of a robe, the tassel or fringe of a phylactery. But in the New Testament, there are none of these; not one solitary direction of the kind. These things are all clean dropped out of sight. The gospel is occupied with the weightier matters of the law, "judgment, mercy, and faith,"-with principles, precepts, counsels; not for the eye to see, but for the heart to feel, and for the understanding to appreciate. In the gospel we learn, not the outline, but the fulness that fills the outline; not the shadow that is cast, but the substance that casts the shadow; not the letter, which killeth, but the spirit which giveth life; not the outward show, but the inward excellence; not the foliage, but the fruit; not the means, but the end; not the sign, but the thing signified. Ritual has a meaning; else it is nothing. The Jewish ritual was full of meaning and significance. Ritual otherwise would be but a toy, and playing with toys, as in a representation. Hence the deep significance of the typical service of the law-the priesthood, the sacrifices, the robes and raiments, the feasts, the temple, the furniture of the tabernacleall material types of heavenly things; not one of them purposeless or meaningless; each and all significant of something spiritual and heavenly, appertaining to the times of the fulness. "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" (1 Cor. xiii. 10). It is well then to inquire, Whence is the ritualism of the present day? Is it from the Jews? No; for ritual is abrogated and fulfilled. Is it from Christ? Certainly not; because all types terminate in Him; they do not pass through Him on to their mission again, but as converging lines they stop there. All trains of typical tendency end in Jesus. "Of Him the prophets wrote and spoke, Sweetly, my Lord, in Thee!" Whence, then, all this revival of Ritualism in this the dispensation of the Spirit? Surely it is from the carnal heart; it is from the lust of the carnal eye supplanting the spiritual eye of the understanding; it is from the lack of a due appreciation of Christian truth, and of the all-fulness dwelling in Christ. It arises, also, from a desire to establish again a human priesthood, and to repeat and renew the one great Sacrifice for sin. But this is to deny Christ's one and universal Priesthood, the fulness of His sacrifice, the perfectness of His atonement, and the all-sufficient intercession by which He now pleads for us in heaven, the Holiest of all. Then, if this be so, Ritualism must be resisted. It forms no part of the Christian system; it is alien to the religion of Christ, and is but to gainsay all that the gospel teaches. What can these things teach us now? One place holier than another place! What can that teach us, seeing that all places are holy where the Spirit of Christ is, and heaven the holiest of all? A sacrifice offered! What sacrifice, seeing that "by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ?" A priest ! What sort of priest, seeing there is but one Priest, even Jesus? Incense! What can this do for us, seeing that the Christian incense is purely spiritual, "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense?" &c. (Ps. cxli. 2). All these are now-a-days reproduced in a carnal and earthly form, masks to hide for a time doctrines which we reject ; outward signs of things which have no signs now, for the things signified have been fulfilled. (To be continued in our next.) THE PROTESTANT AFFAIRS IN PARLIAMENT. (From our Parliamentary Correspondent.) JUNE 1870. HE political fruits of the disestablishment of the Irish Church are now beginning to appear in quarters that were, at first, little suspected. To that Church itself, perhaps, not much harm has been done. Whether as a result, or otherwise, having been thrown upon its own resources, it has manifested a life, energy, and liberality, that has taken its best friends by surprise. But what is the effect upon the State? It is brought disagreeably home to our legislators, that the repeal of the Church Establishment will bring with it the repeal of acts of Government which they did not, at the time, think of. Among them, Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles' Act is selected for the first victim. That Act has, I need not say, been always an eye-sore to the Roman Catholics. They said that it hindered the free working of their system, though they could never clearly make out in what way; but there is no doubt that it galled their pride in putting their titles, as it were, under the ban of the constitution. And the disestablishment of the Protestant Church was to them all the more welcome, as they soon foresaw that it would render some change of that Act necessary; for, after 1871, any bishop that may be appointed to the Irish Protestant Church would have no more right to take to himself a territorial title than a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. It was and is the theory of the constitution, that the conferring of territorial titles, whether in Church or State, is the prerogative of the sovereign alone. But it was pretty certain that the Protestants would not give up their titles, which were originally conferred by the sovereign, and which they might be said to hold in unbroken succession. On the other hand, the Roman Catholics knew their game too well to allow of the rival Church being allowed to retain territorial titles to their bishops, after the Disestablishment Act had taken away their right, while they were to remain prohibited by law from doing the same thing. A Committee of the House, which sat upon the subject even before the Disestablishment Act, reported in favour of the repeal of Lord Russell's Act by, I think, the casting-vote of the chairman; and this year Mr Gladstone's Government has introduced a bill for its repeal into the House of Lords. That bill has passed the second reading, and now stands for committee; but, so far, the Lords have shown no hurry to engage on the discussion. The debate on the second reading was instructive. The Earl of Kimberley, who has been a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, has charge of the bill, and, in moving the second reading, he was careful to make strong protestations in favour of his own Protestantism, and his opposition to the Church of Rome, especially, as he said, after the testimony that Church had borne to its continued hatred of liberty or freedom of thought, in the General Council now holden at Rome. He proposed to abolish the penalty that is attached to the assumption of a territorial title, but, at the same time, to continue, and, if possible, to make more stringent than before, the declaration that no foreign potentate or priest had power to confer any title or dignity within the realm of England. The assumption of such a title would, therefore, be treated as a simple nullity; but it would not be made the subject of a penalty, as now. As there never has been a penalty exacted, nor even a prosecution begun-for that can only be done by leave of the Attorney-General, and no Attorney-General has ever given his leave--the practical difference to be made by the repeal may amount to just nothing at all; but, of course, the moral difference will be considerable. For the Roman Catholics will be able to say that their orders are now practically recognised in the country; and, indeed, they are already boasting what a great step forward this bill will give them in the position they will henceforth occupy in England. Yet there was no effective opposition to the bill in the Upper House. Earl Russell had scarcely a word to say in defence of his measure of 1851, and could only complain that this was not the time at which to make the change contemplated. The only peer who opposed the repeal in earnest was the venerable Lord St Leonards, who is now about ninety years of age, and who for several years past has retired from all interference with affairs of public life. But he had actively supported Lord Russell's bill in 1851, and foreseeing, from the opposition it then met with, that at no distant period efforts would be made for its repeal, he made a resolution that, if ever such an attempt was made in his lifetime, he would, at whatever inconvenience, come forward to resist the proposal. In redemption of that internal pledge, he now appeared before the House, and made an effective stand against the bill, in which he showed that age had not dimmed his intellect, nor seriously impaired his bodily powers. Yet he did not take a division of the House, but allowed the second reading to pass, on the understanding that some further checks and safeguards would be introduced when the bill was brought up in committee. The Government show no sign of bringing forward their measure with these improvements; and when they do, it is doubtful if Lord St Leonards, at his advanced age, will be able to be again in his place; nor is there any other of the peers on whom the mantle of his opposition is likely to fall. But a much more important question is looming before the country. We are seriously threatened with a reversal of the present system of national education in Ireland, and a handing over of the education, at least in large districts of the country, to the priests. The recommendations were from a quarter whence they were not expected. In the latter days of the Conservative Government, a royal commission was appointed to inquire into the working of the Irish national system of education. There were representatives of all the different denominations on the commission; and an English nobleman, Earl Powis, was appointed at its head. It was expected that the Commission would get through its work in about a year at farthest, but nearly three times. that period has elapsed, and though the inquiry was concluded some time ago, yet even now the full reports of the Commissioners, with the evidence which they took, have not been laid before the public. Enough, however, is known to excite a great degree of alarm. It is proposed that in all cases where there are no Protestant children in a school, the management shall be handed over to the control of the priests; so that if there be no Protestants, very effectual care is taken that there shall not be any admitted at any future time, unless their parents consent that they shall be educated as Romanists. The model schools-we believe the only ones where the national system, as it was first designed, is carried out in its completeness, and which for that cause have always incurred the opposition of the Romish hierarchy-are to be sacrificed to their dislikes. On the other hand, the schools instituted by the monks and nuns are to come in for a share of the national funds; but that is not to be allowed to the Church schools, where the Scriptures are read in their entirety-no, not even to the extent of paying for the results. It will thus be seen that the recommendations are one-sided enough, and all in favour of the Romanists. But it must not be supposed that the report is the unanimous production of the Commission. The protests against these concessions to the priests are numerous and strong; and among them, it is right to say, is one by a Roman Catholic, Sir Robert Kane. The representatives of the Presbyterians of Ulster also distinguish themselves by their opposition to their colleagues; but it is disheartening to add that most English members, and among them clergymen of the Established Church, acquiesce very patiently in these recommendations. One Irish Judge-Mr Justice Morris-adds his protest; but it is against the only good thing in the report: the recommendation that the education shall be paid for out of the local rates, and not, as hitherto, out of the Consolidated Fund. Judge Morris thinks Ireland is far too heavily taxed already, which may be true; but, told as we have so long been that it is not fair to tax Romanists for the support of Protestantism, it will surely never be attempted now by a Liberal Government to enact that Protestants shall be taxed for the support of Popery. And yet this is now being extensively done in Great Britain. IN WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY.* N the earliest Greek hymns given in Daniel's "Thesaurus," no trace of this worship is visible; and of all the Greek hymns collected by him, ranging from the third century to the twelfth, only two are professedly, from beginning to end, addressed to Mary, these being of the latest date; but in the fourth century the germs are but too visible. The great Oriental festival of the manifestation of Christ as God at His baptism was not linked with the life of the Virgin; it is through the nativity that the exaggerated reverence first creeps in. The Scripture narrative is lost sight of in the heat of controversy about the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ, and Mary is enthroned as the mother of God. One title after another is lavished on her, as the natural consequence of this supreme title: All holy, surpassingly holy, Mother of the unsetting Sun, Lady, Queen!-what title is too lofty to follow when once it was forgotten that the glory of the incarnation lay in its infinite condescension, in the wondrous grace which made the Lord of glory stoop so low; that the glory of all connected with him consists not in what they are, but in what He is? The mistaken reverence, the utter misapprehension of the object of the incarnation, which threw this false lustre on the mother of Jesus, blotting out her true blessedness, should have traced the pedigree of Christ as a line of light through the history of man, illuminated with none but the most saintly names, and should surely have effaced those of Rahab and of "her who had been the wife of Uriah." But there was another error, as pernicious and as wide-spread, which *From the "Voice of Christian Life in Song." London: Jas. Nisbet & Co. |