from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever." Now, all these promises are to me clear evidence that the Jews are to return to their own country. And the more spiritual a Jew becomes, the less he desires to have political position among the nations of the earth. Whether the present regulations with regard to the Jews are right or wrong, it is the worldly, and not the spiritual, Jew who desires such honors. Those who do not yet see their way to embrace the Messiah, but to whom, as waiting and longing, the Messiah, as to Simeon, will yet be revealed, have their hearts, not in England, but in Palestine. I believe we are on the very verge of an exodus more majestic than was witnessed from Egypt to Palestine; and that, as soon as Turkey falls - and all the kings of the earth may prop it up as they please, but it will fall soon that in a very short time the great river Euphrates shall be dried up; and, as soon as the crescent wanes, then God's ancient people will return to the land of their fathers, and restore Jerusalem to a greater splendor than was ever witnessed before; and then Jesus- who is David, their king- shall reveal himself to them. And if their fall was the benefit of the Gentiles, what shall their return be but as life from the dead? - for it has been decreed CHAPTER XXX. LEVITICAL AND EVANGELICAL WORSHIP. GOLDEN ALTAR. ANGEL BY THE GOLDEN ALTAR. ATONEMENT FOR GOLDEN ALTAR. WASHINGS. HOLY OIL. ALL NATURE TAINTED. I EXPLAINED, in the course of my remarks upon the chapters that immediately precede this, that all this minute regulation was necessary to a people not sufficiently enlightened, and prepared, wherever there was an opening for it, to admit idolatrous and extraneous rites of the surrounding nations; and, therefore, that there might be no excuse or apology for borrowing from the heathen a single rite, God laid down minutely every regulation, built up every interstice with his own Divine prescription, and made Leviticus one solid and compact whole, full of complete rites and observances for this rebellious, obdurate, and so often, and so painfully, wavering people. In this chapter, we have a succession of additional rites and prescriptions by God himself, for special parts of his worship. Now, it would, in one sense, be most scriptural for any Church to adopt all the material rites that are here laid down burning incense, anointing with oil, washing, as you enter the sanctuary, with holy water, having an altar for it; all this would, in one sense, be most scriptural that is, in the letter it would be so; but, in the spirit of Scripture, it would be a gross apostasy from the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. The whole Levitical economy was a system of various observances, intended, like dark shadows, to indicate the approach of the sun, whose rise should dispel the shadows, and necessarily take their place; and, therefore, every rite that was instituted in Leviticus had its moral or spiritual significance; and he acts scripturally, and that Church is the most scriptural, that lets alone the material incense and the material holy water, and washes his hands in innocency, and has the unction of the Holy One, and lifts up, not incense that the outer sense can appreciate, but the incense of pure affection, loving hearts, joyful and thankful praise to the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. So that you will see how wrong it is to quote literally a portion of Scripture, in order to justify a practice, while really, understood as it should be understood, it condemns the practice altogether. The fact is, take away the New Testament, and then all this will be proper enough; but add the New Testament, and then the material gives way to the moral; and God, a Spirit in the days of Levi, just as he is a Spirit now, and to be worshipped both in spirit and in truth — but then in limited formulas; now, neither on this mountain nor on that, but wherever there is a spiritual mind, there there may be offered spiritual worship through Christ Jesus. The first thing that comes before us here is the golden altar. You will recollect the fact and nothing, I believe, is more instructive to a Christian than these material institutions of Levi, provided you allow the light of the Sun of Righteousness to shine upon them—you will recollect, I say, the fact, that there was first of all the altar of brass, on which burnt propitiatory sacrifices were offered. Then, there is here the golden altar-inlaid and covered over with gold on which incense was burnt, and from which that incense arose, as a sweet perfume to God. Now, the two altars were thus intended to designate one grand truth that, first of all, there is a sacrifice without the gate which Jesus offered, and which was perfected when he exclaimed upon the cross, "It is finished;" and then, when he had offered the sacrifice without - by which your sins and my sins are blotted out — he entered within the holy place, and now presents the prayers of his people with intercession and pleading beside his Father who is in heaven. The brazen altar answers to Christ's atonement without the camp; the golden altar corresponds to Christ's offering our praises and our prayers, purified with the incense of his own merits, in the presence of God, and in glory for ever. Hence, in Revelations viii. we read: "And another angel came and stood at the altar"- that is, evidently, the altar of incense,-"having a golden censer,"used for perfume," and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it, with the prayers of all saints, upon the golden altar which was before the throne." Now, the high-priest alone had a golden censer; the common priests had silver ones; and to this priest angel, who is none else than Jesus Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, who with the golden censer stood beside the golden altar"there was given much incense"- his own precious merits "that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints" not as a celebrated Roman Catholic dignitary has interpreted it, that saints in heaven could join with him in supplicating for us on earth; but it is, that he should offer the prayers of all saints. Who are saints? Not those that the Pope canonizes, and proclaims to be in heaven; but those that the Holy Spirit consecrates and leaves on earth. Every epistle in the New Testament is addressed to the saints at Rome, at Philippi, etc., etc., to the people set apart by God to become Christians; and this Angel, or Christ, offers in his censer his own incense of merit with our prayers; it being a sad and sorrowful fact, that our purest prayers have so much alloy of imperfection, that unless placed in the golden censer of the Great HighPriest, and presented amid the perfume of his own blessed intercession, they never could cleave the skies, or draw down an answer of mercy and of peace. But how blessed is the thought that, for all our sinsthe sins of every - day we have a perfect atonement, finished on the altar of brass without; for all our short-comings and defects every day, our imperfect prayers, our imperfect praises, we have One who is by the golden altar with the golden censer, and who finds admission for the least petition that an orphan utters, and for the loftiest want that an archangel feels. Thus, the golden altar was the symbol of Christ's ceaseless intercession; and on that altar, Aaron—that is, the high-priest through successive generations was to burn incense. But it is a very striking phase in this history, that it says in the tenth verse, that Aaron should make an atonement upon the horns of it. How strange! There was no atonement upon it, as upon the altar of brass; but, to indicate that that economy was altogether imperfect, and that there needed to be an atonement offered for the prayers, for the intercessions of the high-priest himself, once a year, upon the great day of atonement, the golden altar itself had the horns touched with atoning blood, to show that those sacrifices that were offered year by year could never make the comers thereto perfect, could never take away sin―and to make all Israel, from its inmost heart, long and yearn for a more perfect sacrifice, which, once offered, takes away sin, and which needs no atonement; for it is in itself infinitely perfect and complete. We then read of the "laver of brass," with water in it, in which the priests were to wash before they approached the altar. Now, it might be literally scriptural if you were to have a font, with what is called "holy water," at the door, and to sprinkle yourself with it before you come into the congregation; but it would be most unchristian; and to quote this passage as a reason for it really is to misquote and |