out, and preached that men should repent, and they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them."* The anointing of the sick with oil, though it has been adopted as a rite of the Roman-catholic church, formed no part of the ritual which was discharged by the Jewish priesthood; and was therefore no invasion of the office, no encroachment on the work of the priest. With what consistency it has been converted into a priestly rite in the Roman-catholic church, will be sufficiently seen, when the correspondence of the cases is considered. The Apostles, in the exercise of the miraculous powers with which they were invested, anointed with oil many that were sick, to heal them. And James, in his general Epistle, says, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church," (miraculous powers being also possessed by those, on whom for their conveyance the hands of an Apostle had been laid,) "and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." The Catholic priest anoints with oil, only at the moment when recovery is deemed impossible, not miraculously to restore the sick to health, but peacefully to dismiss him from the world!

* Mark vi. 12, 13.

James v. 14, 15.

If it were necessary to assign a reason, why Protestants in no case anoint the sick with oil, it would be sufficient to say, that it is the same which prevents them from anointing with clay the eyes of the blind. The anointing in both cases, whether performed by the Saviour or his Apostles, was a significant action, connected with the exercise of miraculous powers. The one was, no more than the other, intended to be a perpetual rite in the Christian church. When the Catholic priesthood can open the eyes of the blind, then they may introduce another rite, and anoint with clay; and when they possess an unction by which they can heal the sick, then we shall be glad to receive their offices, and dismiss the physician.

It

After the twelve had been commissioned, other seventy also were appointed. But their work and instructions corresponded with what had before' been given to the twelve. It was an increase of labourers on the apostolic, not the priestly, model. The apostolic model itself, however, wanted yet its finishing stroke. had been framed hitherto for Judea only; it was to be made sufficiently expansive to embrace the world. Thus extensive was the commission made after the Saviour's resurrection: "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

And when they saw him, they worshipped him : but some doubted. And Jesus came, and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."*

Now, at the time when this commission was given, the Jewish priesthood was virtually abolished. The Saviour had finished the work, which the sacrifices they had been accustomed to offer had prefigured. He, the "Lamb of God," had shed his own blood to take away the sin of the world. He had offered his own body once for all. When, therefore, he had given up the ghost, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The most holy place,-in which the mysterious symbols of a present Deity, the lambent flame of fire hovering over the mercy-seat, and between the wings of the cherubim, had been previously enshrined,-was laid open to the public gaze. The glory was departed, never more to return. Deity, there being none henceforth in the temple to propitiate, sacrifice and priest were there

*Matt. xxviii. 16-20.

alike without an object, and in vain. The priests might retain their names and their vestments, might slay their victims and present their smoking censers, might chant their songs, and offer their intercessions as before; but there was no eye complacently to witness, no ear well pleased to listen, no voice in mercy to answer, no radiance, indicative of divine favour, to spread around the scene of their service, no streams of blessings to make glad the place once holy, but now desecrated, and doomed to the approaching curse. God had departed; and the priesthood, in respect to the purposes for which he had appointed it, was already defunct. The lifeless body indeed yet remained in its vestments, like royalty in the funereal chamber; but the torch of the Roman soldier was enkindling, to fire the devoted pile, and reduce both the priesthood and the temple to ashes, which the winds of heaven should scatter, and which no power on earth should be able to gather together again.

If then, at any time, the office of the priesthood were transferred to the Christian church, this surely, when the Jewish priesthood was in effect abolished, would have been the period. If any men had been invested with its functions, the eleven, when receiving their commission, would have been the first. No rites of conse

cration were however, on this occasion, performed. The eleven came to Christ at the place where he had appointed to meet them, in their usual attire, the raiment commonly worn by their countrymen, and they departed in the same garb. They received from Christ, not the vessels or implements of a worldly service, not the insignia of political or ecclesiastical authority, nothing which could charm the eye, or captivate the sense; they received only the breath of his lips-the words of his mouth. The words however were spirit and life. They could effect, what no ritual has the power to accomplish, the illumination of the understanding, the invigoration of the heart, the transformation of the whole character. They could, and did, make the men who had been struck dumb with astonishment, who had trembled with fear, who had fled like affrighted sheep, in the hour of their Master's sufferings, bold as lions in his cause, ready to go to the ends of the earth at his command, and prompt to bear their testimony for him with celestial fervour, before the kings and rulers of the earth, who were leagued together against him. Those who would give proof of their call to the Christian ministry, should show it, in the development of a portion of the same spirit. In this way only can they commend themselves to the