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There is one observation which-by our respect for the character of a pious, and in this instance we believe, a badly treated relation, and still more by our regard for truth-we are compelled unwillingly to make; it is this-that we have reason to know that the chapter which details the character of Leigh Richmond's daughter, Henrietta, married to Mr. A-, has been composed in ignorance, at least, of its true features. Mrs. A is there described as volatile and trifling-sometimes serious, but more often silly; and that it was only when her spirit began to enter into the dark valley of the shadow of death, that she felt the full importance of her responsible and immortal spirit. This, we believe, was not the case. Mrs. A, we understand, partook by nature in a great degree of her father's character of mind; and was, like his other children-for they were all the children of prayer-early and savingly imbued with the doctrines of the Gospel. Brilliant and vigorous in her intellect, she was steady and tempered in her judgment; in every relationship that she was allowed to fill, we believe she acted inferior to none of her family; and we have seen a letter-from one who knew her well, and who is known, we suspect, to the author of this chapter-asserting that she, of all his children, most resembled her father, and was equal to any of them for talent and deep piety.

It is said, that a feeling of delicacy prevented the editor from engaging the services of one who knew and loved her best, to give a notice of her character. Surely it would have been better to have sacrificed these mistaken feelings, than to have harrowed up his widowed heart by the consciousness that his beloved one was misrepresented to the world by one who was too ignorant, or too unkind to do her justice. This is the only matter in these volumes, we can do otherwise than praise, and we are glad it stands so solitary for censure: and although it rescues us from appearing more as eulogists than critics, we are proud to allude to it, for we respect the memory of Leigh Richmond, and we love his family for his sake and their own; and we beg to recommend these volumes, which speak of him and them, to the general possession and perusal of our readers.

ON THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR-Your correspondent W. D., whom, (if I mistake not the person intended) I can say I love and value, begins his paper, in your May number, by stating that he has read with pain, in your March number, an article by me, "On the Priesthood of Christ." I can say, with truth, that I read his reply with not a little pain; not that I was grieved that he should differ with me in opinion -that he should tell me he thought me wrong. I should value his good opinion, and yet not feel any pain that his peculiar cast of mind led him, on minor points, into a different channel from myself. I have, by nature, outlived, if not by grace overcome, that childish, selfish desire of young thinkers and young Christians, of having every body see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. I can adopt the maxim of the ancient, "In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in omnibus charitas." But I was pained at the manner and temper in which your valued correspondent stated his dissent from my views; not pained that I should be called an Irvingite, or by any other hard name; but pained that W. D., in lack of argument, should so far forget himself as to sink to the use of such unworthy weapons. I would put it to his own good sense and that of your readers, is there any argument in calling names? Is there any proof that an opinion is wrong, because W. D. calls it an Irvingite sentiment? Is it any argument that my views of the Priesthood are unscriptural, because W. D., with his very odd powers of vision, sees a connection between them and the opinion that 1260 days of St. John are so many natural days? It may be that there is no connection whatever between these two opinions; or it may be that there is a connection, and that they are both Scriptural and true; but surely that W. D. spies a connection is no proof that my views on the first point are erroneous. As to their being borrowed from Mr. Irving, really their truth or falsehood must be proved by some other argument, than that which can be drawn from the source from which I am supposed to have derived them; but to satisfy W. D. on that point, I would tell him, that I held my present views on the Priesthood of Christ, before I read a line of Mr. Irving's; and that I continue to hold them, though I have, for a long time, given up reading any thing coming from him. When Mr. Irving was in this country in the year 1830, I was convinced that he was radically wrong in the fundamentals of the Gospel. I published my sentiments on that subject in the EXAMINER; and, since that time, I have given up taking the "Morning Watch," or reading any of his publications; feeling that, if an angel from heaven was to preach any other gospel than that which I have received, I should not hear him. W. D. may, therefore, disburden himself of all uneasiness from his apprehensions as to the source from which he has supposed me to derive my opinion. But

has he advanced one single argument to disprove my theory, or to prove any other? There is not a shadow of argument or proof upon the point in his letter; it is nothing but impassioned declamation, which would lead to the conclusion that the writer was angry, if there was any thing to cause or to account for his anger. There are a few points upon which I should wish to make some remarks. Your correspondent supposes me, whilst deprecating extremes, to have fallen into the same evil myself. I would state what I conceive to be the mean which I adopt between several orthodox authors on the one hand, and Socinians on the other. The first often speak of Christ as not only being a Priest whilst he was upon earth, but further, of his having, whilst on earth, so exhausted and fulfilled the whole office of the priesthood' that, when just giving up the ghost, he could of it exclaim, It is finished! Whilst the Socinian, on the other hand, divests him, not only of the work, but of the character and dignity of the priest whilst upon earth, and supposes him, as a reward for his spotless life and death, raised from the dead, and exalted to the office of Priest in heaven. I, rejecting both their extremes, believe and assert Christ to have been, whilst on earth, in God's mind, and by his eternal right, Prophet, Priest, and King-to have been always, and under all circumstances, possessed of the dignity of all these offices. But I can distinguish between a person being in the possession of an office, and being actually engaged in the peculiar employment of that office. The priests under the law were in possession of their office, and were entitled to all the honour due to those holding such an office during every day of the year and during every hour of the day; but they were peculiarly "executing the priest's office before God in the order of their course, when, according to the custom of the priest's office, their lot was to burn incense when they went into the temple of the Lord." Aaron was, during the whole year, the High Priest of God; but he was especially executing the office of High Priest when, on the great day of atonement, he entered, with the blood of bulls and of goats, into the Holy of Holies. So Jesus Christ was always the true High Priest of God's church, but he then peculiarly executed the High Priest's office, when, "by his own blood, he entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

I think I have, in my former paper, sufficiently proved, especially by the quotation from Ezek. xliv., that the sprinkling the blood, and not the slaying of the victim, was the peculiar office of the Priest; and certainly W. D. has brought forward nothing to weaken my proof; and I may ask, where on earth was the altar or mercy-seat upon which the blood of Christ was sprinkled by any priest? I say, no where on earth. Christ brought his blood into heaven, and presented it before the true mercy-seat of God in heaven; and the altar and the mercy-seat on earth were only types and figures of that mercy-seat in heaven, before which Christ, the true High Priest, sprinkles the blood of his sacrifice.

There is, however, on this subject, much very extraordinary language amongst authors, whom I consider to be in error as to the place of the execution of the office of Christ's priesthood. The excellent Archbishop Ussher, whom I certainly consider as far the first man that ever was in our church, but who still was not infallible, and from whom I would differ with much diffidence and humility, has this extraordinary assertion, that "Christ, as he was God, was the altar upon which he sacrificed himself." (Body of Divinity, p. 138.) I have seen a similar sentiment elsewhere, though I cannot, at this moment, turn to the place, that Christ's humanity was sacrificed upon the altar of his Divinity. I confess I cannot understand the meaning of such language; but of this I am sure, that not one text of Scripture could be adduced that speaks such language. I cannot, therefore, adopt it even upon such high authority as that of Ussher. I have found other authors saying that the cross was the altar on which he was sacrificed. Now, he was slain upon the cross; but this is so far from proving that the cross is be considered the altar, that it proves the contrary, for the victim was never slain upon the altar. In Lev. i. 11., we have directions as to the place in which the sacrifice is to be killed. He shall kill it on the side of the altar northward, before the Lord." And afterwards it is said of the animal slain, "he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat, and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar." First kill the animal on the north side of the altar, and then cut him in pieces, and put the pieces upon the altar. Here we see, that even in the whole burnt-offering, when the whole animal was to be consumed by fire upon the altar, he was not slain upon the altar, but slain elsewhere, and, when cut into pieces, then put upon the altar; whilst, in many other sacrifices, the animal was never put upon the altar-no part of him was put upon the altar, but the blood. In looking into the several sacrifices of which we have an account in the Bible, the only instance I can find in which the victim was laid upon the altar to be slain, instead of being first slain elsewhere, is that of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. We read, Gen. xxii. 9, Abraham "built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood." We have no right to expect much satisfaction from conjectures as to the reason of this deviation from the universal practice in this particu→ lar. It might be that the Law not being yet given, there was no regular rule by which to be guided; or it might be, that the Lord, who did not intend that Isaac should be slain, but that every thing else should be done which could testify the devotion of the heart of the patriarch, provided that the slaying should be deferred to the last, so that the offering, as far as it was in the mind of Abraham, should be manifested to be complete, and every thing should be actually performed, except the shedding of the blood of his son. If we look to other sacrifices, we shall find that the victims were not laid alive upon the altar, and there slain. For example,

let us look to Elijah's sacrifice, 1 Kings xviii. 38: "And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two measures of seed; and put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood," &c. Here, according to that prescribed law, he slew the bullock and cut him in pieces first, and then laid him on the altar to be consumed by fire, in the flame of which he was typified as ascending to heaven, and accepted of God.

The only attempt at any thing like argument in W. D.'s letter, is in the last paragraph, where, at the beginning of it, he would prove Christ to have been the priest that made the offering, by this argument, that unless Christ was the priest, there was no priest, and, therefore, no sacrifice-that consequently the sacrifice of the cross would be no sacrifice. Now, I would ask, where, in Scripture, did W. D. find that phrase, the sacrifice of the cross, conveying the idea of the transaction on the cross being a complete sacrifice. As far as I can understand the subject, when the Scripture speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, it does not intend to lead the mind only to the death upon the cross, but to the further part of the sacrifice, the presenting of the blood before the mercyseat of God. The death upon the cross was only a part of the sacrifice the beginning of the sacrifice—and that part which did not require a priest, any more than the burnt offerings (in Lev. 1) required a priest to kill them. It was after the death of the victim that the priest was to begin his part of the sacrifice. So Christ Jesus, after his death, when God had raised him from the dead, commenced the execution of his office of priest, and entered, with his own blood, into the holy place, and presented, before God, his slain body and shed blood, as an atonement for the sins of the world. If, then, by the phrase, the sacrifice of the cross, W. D. would convey the idea, that upon the cross was performed all that was necessary to make a perfect sacrifice, I deny his assertion. There was wanting to its completion the priest's part, and unless that part was added, as it afterwards was, it would not have been a perfect sacrifice. The sacrifice of the cross would have been no sacrifice, just as the death of a beast would, under the law, have been no sacrifice, unless the priest should sprinkle his blood, before God, upon the altar.

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In the same paragraph, the next attempt at argument is directed against the use I made of that text, "for, if he were upon earth, he would not be a priest." W. D. seeks to get rid of this text, and my comments on it, by the following argument I will call it, if he pleases: But what more does this mean than that, if he were confined to earth and to the shadowy tabernacle that stood among visible things, and things that were made there, he then could not be one of these shadowy priests, being of another tribe? The antithesis here is not between earth and heaven, so much as between type and antitype." Such is the argument or assertion of W. D., from which, I venture entirely to dissent. I do think that the antithesis is plainly between earth and heaven; and I

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