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empire, in which Christianity had been so repeatedly persecuted, should have been visited with expressions of divine displeasure, can excite no surprise; but, that the Roman empire christianized, with Christianity for the first time established and endowed, instead of enjoying, as uninspired men would have predicted, an unmingled cup of prosperity, should have the prophetic page of its history illumined with not one cheering ray of promise; relieved by not one line of relenting pity; but, like Ezekiel's scroll, written within and without, only with lamentation, mourning, and woe ;--that its woes should be more unmingled, and in more unbroken succession than the prophetic page of its pagan history contained, does induce us with astonishment to ask, How can this be! The only answer which can be given is, that Christianity, as it appeared before the eye of the world, in the character and ceremonial observances of the mass of its professors, was no longer that which Christ had originally made

trumpets foreshew the fate and condition of it afterwards. 'The sound of the trumpet,' as Jeremiah says, and as every one understands it, 'is the alarm of war,' and the sounding of these trumpets is designed to rouse and excite the nations against the Roman empire, called the third part of the world, as perhaps including the third part of the world, and being seated principally in Europe, the third part of the world at that time."-Bishop Newton on the Prophecies.

it; was no longer that which in his government of the earth he would own; was no longer that for which, in his priestly office, he would intercede. Those who composed what was called the church, had made or chosen other priests besides him, and were inhaling the perfume of censers, which he had never authorized. He cast his own, whose efficacy was disregarded, filled with the fire of indignation, amongst them; and awful voices followed, and thunders rolled, and lightnings flashed, and earthquakes inspired their terror, and plagues spread their desolation around, and sounds of Woe! woe! woe! by reason of the voices of the trumpets, were heard.

There are no sins which God visits with heavier judgments, than he does the sins of those who corrupt the institutions of his worship; because there are no sins, which, in their consequences, inflict such injury upon mankind. When Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not, there went fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with the two hundred and fifty princes of the people, rose up before Moses, and murmured

on account of the sacerdotal pre-eminence which Aaron possessed, and wished to usurp the priesthood which had been given exclusively to him, they and their adherents miserably perished. The two hundred and fifty leaders of the usurpation were allowed to take the censers in their hand, but the experiment which they made in an unauthorized office, was fearful and ruinous, both to themselves and to their adherents;-their adherents were swallowed up in an earthquake, and they themselves were consumed by fire. "And it came to pass as he (Moses) had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods; they, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them; for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense."* The brass of which their censers were made, was after

* Numb. xvi. 31-35.

wards, by divine command, converted into broad plates for a covering to the altar, to be a sign before the children of Israel, a memorial to them, "that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord; that he be not as Korah and as his company.'

If those, who have taken upon themselves the office in the Christian church to which Christ only has been appointed by the Father, who burn incense without any authority from God, who kindle it with fire which never came from heaven, nor ever flamed on any altar which the Scriptures warrant, were well to consider this memorial, it would teach them a very different application of the passages which we have quoted, from those which they are accustomed to make. They would see that the correspondence of the cases most closely and ominously affects themselves; and that there is reason for serious apprehension, on account of the antichristian nature of the office which they have sustained, and the work which they have discharged.

The memorial of the Old Testament church should also be connected with that, scarcely less obvious and impressive, which has been

*Numb. xvi. 40.

woes.

presented in the New, the scourges of every name which repeatedly desolated the Christian Roman empire, and which have embodied in admonitory facts the prophetic outline of its How many times have the places, which men calling themselves Christian priests, pretended, by unauthorised rites, to consecrate, been palpably desecrated before the world, and trodden down by the foot of barbarian rudeness, and Mahomedan scorn! How often have the altars, on which incense uncommanded smoked, been overturned, and stained with the blood of those who ministered before them! How has the eastern part of the Roman empire, on which the woes of the fifth and sixth trumpets more especially fell, and which once comprised the provinces most illustrious and flourishing, been desolated, depopulated, and politically and morally debased! There Christianity first spread and flourished, and was first corrupted; and there the scourge of the false prophet has been most frequently and fearfully applied. Next to the sufferings of the Jews, who deprecated all share in the work of the Priest of the Christian church, and exclaimed, "His blood be upon us and our children," have been the sufferings of the Christians who disregarded his work, and trusted to the priesthood which men had usurped. That which was spoken of old to

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