was accepted, and that the high-priest was interceding within. But where were the Jews when the high-priest was within? They were all waiting outside, till the high-priest should come forth and bless them. That is just our position now. Jesus has offered up a sacrifice once for all on the cross; he is now in the holy of holies, with the names of all his people on his heart, pleading for us; and the joyful sound, or the preached gospel, still in our ears, is the evidence to us that Christ has entered within the veil, and we are waiting outside till the High-Priest shall come forth, as he will do soon, and pronounce that grand and lasting benediction that will strike down into nature's heart, and make her. very deserts to rejoice, and her bleakest and her most solitary places to blossom even as the rose.

The pomegranate was a fruit with which you are all acquainted; it has a sort of pulpy substance inside, a little larger than an orange, and is full of seeds; and in fact the origin of the word pomegranate is pomum granatum, that means an apple with a great many seeds in it. And pomegranates were the symbol of fruitfulness, and were the sign to the Jews the constant sign- that the whole earth should yet be covered with Christ's glory, and all flesh see his salvation.

Upon the high-priest's mitre there was the inscription, "Holiness to the Lord," which was meant to denote how completely he was sequestered to God; how truly he was dedicated to him; and that holiness to God was the great end and object of that economy of which he was the chief.

The following very instructive descriptions are from Bush, the American commentator:

adam, to be ruddy

1. SARDIUS. Heb. N odem, from the radical or red. Chal. p samkan, and p samketha, red. Gr. oapdiov, sardine, a name supposed to be taken from Sardis or Sardinia, where it was originally found. It was a stone of the ruby class, and answers

to the carnelian of the moderns. The finest specimens now come from Surat, a city near the gulf of Cambay, in India.

2. TOPAZ. Heb. 7 pitdah. Etymology unknown. Gr. TOTAĞIOV, topazion, a name which Pliny says is derived from Topazos, an island in the Red Sea. Chal. yarkan and pyarketha, signifying green. It is supposed to be the modern chrysolite, and its color to have been a transparent green-yellow. It comes now from Egypt, where it is found in alluvial strata.

bareketh, from p

3. CARBUNCLE. Heb. p barak, to lighten, glitter, or glister; answering to the avopas, anthrax, of the Greeks, so called because when held to the sun it resembles a piece of bright burning charcoal. Indeed its name carbuncle means a little coal, and refers us at once to a lively coal-red. Its modern name is the garnet. The Septuagint, Josephus, and Lat. Vulgate have rendered in this place by cuapaydos, smaragdos, emerald. But this is more properly the rendering of the next in order. The carbuncle and the emerald have in fact in some way become transposed in the Greek version.

4. EMERALD. Heb.nophek. Gr. avopas. This gem is undoubtedly the same with the ancient smaragdos, or emerald, one of the most beautiful of all the precious stones. It is characterized by a bright green color, with scarcely any mixture, though differing somewhat in degrees. The true Oriental emerald is now very scarce. The best that are at present accessible are from Peru. In the time of Moses they came from India.

5. SAPPHIRE. Heb.

sappir. Gr. oanpεɩроs, sapphiros. The word is very nearly the same in all known languages, and as to the sapphire itself it is, after the diamond, the most valuable of the gems, exceeding all others in lustre and hardness. It is of a sky-blue, or fine azure color, in all the choicest specimens, though other varieties occur. Indeed among practical jewellers it is a name of wider application perhaps than that of any of the rest of the precious stones. Pliny says that in his time the best sapphires came from Media. At present they are found in greater or less perfection in nearly every country.

6. DIAMOND. Heb. yahalom, from halam, to beat, to smite upon, so called from its extraordinary hardness, by which like a hammer it will beat to pieces any of the other sorts of stones. Thus the Greeks called the diamond adapaç, adamas, from Gr. a, not, and daμaw, damao, to subdue, on account of its supposed invincible hardness. Accordingly Pliny says of diamonds, that "they are found to resist a stroke on the anvil to such a degree that the iron itself gives way and the anvil is shattered to pieces." This is no doubt exaggerated and

fabulous, but it is sufficient to justify the propriety of the Hebrew name, that diamonds are much harder than other precious stones, and in this all are agreed. This quality of the diamond, together with its incomparable brilliancy, renders it by far the most valuable of all the gems. The Gr. here, has laσni, jaspis, or jasper.

7. LIGURE. Heb. leshem. Gr. Ayvpiov, ligurion. This is one of the most doubtful of the precious stones as to color. It is supposed to be closely related to the hyacinth (jacinth) of the moderns, which is a red strongly tinged with orange-yellow.

8. AGATE. Heb. 1 shebo. Gr. axarns, achates, agate. This is a stone of a great variety of hues, which is thought by some to be identical with the chrysopras, and if so, it is probable that a golden-green was the predominant color.

9. AMETHYST. Heb. ahlamah. Gr. que votos, amethystos, from a, not, and μɛvvoros, drunken, because wine drank from an amethyst cup was supposed by the ancients to prevent inebriation. The oriental amethyst is a transparent gem, the color of which seems to be composed of a strong blue and a deep red; and according as either prevails, affording different tinges of purple, and sometimes even fading to a rose color. It comes from Persia, Arabia, Armenia, and the East Indies.

10. BERYL. Heb. tarshish. Gr. Xpvooλidos, chrysolithos. A pellucid gem of a sea or bluish-green. But if, as many mineralogists and critics suppose, the beryl is the same as the chrysolite, it is a gem of yellowish-green color, and ranks at present among the topazes.

11. ONYX. Heb. D shoham; called onyx from Gr. ovvž, onyx, from the resemblance of its ground color to that lunated spot at the base of the human nail, which the Greek word signifies. It is a semipellucid stone of a fine flinty texture, of a waterish sky-colored ground, variegated with bands of white and brown, which run parallel to each other. It is here rendered by the Gr. npv2ov, beryllion, beryl, from some apparent confusion in the order of the names. See Note on Gen. ii. 12.

The

12. JASPER. Heb. 2 yashepheh. Gr. ovvxiov, onuchion. similarity of the Hebrew name has determined most critics to consider the jasper as the gem intended by this designation. This is a stone distinguished by such a vast variety of hues, that it is extremely hazardous to fix upon any one as its distinguishing color. The brown Egyptian variety is conjectured to have been the one selected for the breastplate.

CHAPTER XXIX.

NO NEW TESTAMENT LEVITICUS.

APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.

FERINGS FOR THE PRIESTS. RETURN OF THE JEWS.

OF

I STATED, in the course of previous explanatory remarks, that one reason, at least, for the very minute details respecting the ceremonial offerings of Aaron and his sons - the consecration of the altar, the form of robe, and the accompaniments of all the services that were to be on that altaris, that the children of Israel, who were set apart for the specific purpose of being a model nation to all mankind, and the conservators of God's Word to successive generations, were to be preserved from contact with every thing like heathenism, and to be kept in the most striking way from incorporating into their worship any thing that was not instituted and ordained by God. If a single opening had been left in these regulations of Levi, that opening would have been filled up by some rite or custom borrowed from heathendom, and that rite, or custom, or ceremony, thus borrowed, would have been a medium of connection between the holy Jew and the profane Gentile, and have led to the desecration of the one, and not to the consecration or conversion of the other.

Do we not also gather from this another very important lesson that if God had designed that in the New Testament economy there should be only one form of worship, one form of ecclesiastical polity—whether that form be Episcopacy, Presbytery, or Congregationalism-if it had

been God's mind that the whole church should agree and correspond as minutely, in every rite, as the ancient church in all the jots and tittles of the requirements of Levi, would he, in the announcement of this dispensation, have omitted to lay down as minutely all those regulations for the government of the New Testament Church in all generations? But the very fact that we have no Leviticus of the New Testament- the very fact that we have no such rules laid

down there - is positive demonstration that God never meant that all his people should worship publicly in precisely the same manner and form, or that they should all be under the same ecclesiastical rule. He has laid down great doctrina truths, exceedingly distinctly defined; but he has left discipline in a latitudinarianism that is as beautiful as it is instructive to us respecting his mind and will concerning us. I never yet could discover in the New Testament either the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or any of the dissenting bodies. I can find in the New Testament great, broad government laws; I can see that there were always to be taught and teachers; I can see there were always to be sacraments; I can see there was to be a Sabbath; that there was to be public worship and the reading of God's holy Word in public; I can see a reason for the existence of a visible Church, and in such a Church there must be some order, some design, so that when you come into the sanctuary you shall not be at your wits' end what is the form or the custom of the place; and that there should be a governing power, whether it be in the. Archbishop or in the General Assembly -I say that this is most proper, most expedient, most reasonable; but I cannot discover in the New Testament that an apostolical succession, or an order of bishops, or gradations of Presbyteries, are vital elements of the constitution of the Christian Church. And here, speaking of that very thing-apostolical successionyou will notice, that Aaron and his sons, and their sons' sons,