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standings, it is falsely so called. It is not the peace of the kingdom of Christ, but the lethargy of it."-The Nature of the Kingdom, or Church, of Christ.

The same views are advocated by the present Archbishop of Dublin.

Note M, p. 145.

Much has been said and written in late years on the Mosaic law, and on the question whether it be binding on Christians. That Christians are not to obey the law in the hope of obtaining salvation by it is certain; and that its moral precepts are to be obeyed in the spirit of devoted love is equally certain; so that the only question is, From what authority do those precepts derive their obligatory character? From the Old Testament or from the New? Many answer, unhesitatingly,-From the Old; but without sufficient reason, and very often to the prejudice of Christian obedience. The answer that seems most consistent with scripture is,-From the New. It is certain that the Apostle Paul often speaks of the termination of the Mosaic law, and of the exemption of Christians from its obligations, without ever limiting or qualifying his assertions.

This answer is of considerable importance in the question of antinomianism. The practical antinomian-the man who violates the moral precepts of the Bible—it is impossible to defend; the man who keeps these precepts, not because they are found in the law, but because they are enjoined in the gospel, has certainly scripture on his side, while he thus gets rid of the difficulties involved in the unscriptural distinction between precepts moral, and precepts ceremonial, or civil. He, too, equally with other Christians, is a moral man; only his morality is founded, not on the claims of the Mosaic law, but on the "constraining love" of the "better covenant." Christian union and Christian morality have both suffered from an over-statement of the authority of the previous dispensation. It is more consistent with New-Testament language to practise divine precepts because spoken by "the Son," than to practise them because spoken by angels." The man who sets aside the law to

obey the gospel, such an antinomian no one can condemn; his is the antinomianism of the New Testament.

Note N, p. 145.

The Levites correspond, in part, to what Mr. Coleridge calls a "national clerisy." They were the learned class of the nation; they studied natural philosophy, medicine, mathematics, history, civil polity, and jurisprudence; they were the physicians, the inspectors of weights and measures, surveyors of land, astronomical calculators, receivers of the customs, judges and counsellors of the king. Civil regulations, the performance of sacred services, the religious instruction of the people, all were entrusted, though not exclusively, into their hands. Their different duties are more or less specifically enumerated in the following passages:-1 Chron. xxiii. 4; xxvi. 29; Deut. x. 10; xxviii. 11; Lev. xxv. 8—12; Deut. xvii. 9; xx. 2; Lev. xiii. xiv.; Mal. ii. 4—7.

It was not, therefore, as priests only that they were endowed.
See JAHN, History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, book ii. § 12.

Note O, p. 162.

The following remarks on the theory of Mr. Gladstone, taken from a paper of the Edinburgh Review for April, 1839, are so appropriate and beautiful, that no apology can be necessary for the insertion of them :

"Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government, as goverument. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once.

"As to some of the ends of civil government all people are agreed. That it is designed to protect our persons and our property,—that it is designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by industry,—that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences, not by the strong hand, but by arbitration,—that it

is designed to direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society which may offer us injury, these are propositions which will hardly be disputed.

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Now, these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every man, be he idolator, Mahometan, Jew, papist, Socinian, deist, or atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires those comforts which can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, to be exposed to the outrages of gangs of foreign banditti calling themselves patriots, these are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common interest in being well governed.

"But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all orders of intellects, from Bacon and Newton down to the rudest tribes of cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one God or many,-what may be his natural and what his moral attributes,-in what relation his creatures stand to him,-whether he have ever disclosed himself to us by any other revelation than that which is written in all the parts of the glorious and well-ordered world which he has made,—whether his revelation be contained in any permanent record,-how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased him to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and respecting which the great majority of our race has, ever since the dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error.

"Now, here are two great objects :-One is the protection of the persons and estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can

well be imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond the reach of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to that which is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance of the former object, and as to the way of attaining it, differ as widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must therefore pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are entrusted with power for the promotion of the former object, ought always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object.

"Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal, a doctrine which we shall not believe till he can shew us some government which loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as superior in intelligence to its subjects as a father is superior to a child. He tells us, in lofty, though somewhat indistinct language, that government occupies in moral the place of To may in physical science.' If government be indeed to wav in moral science, we do not understand why rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned to them. Why should they not take away the child from the mother, select the nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground, fix the hours of labour and of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall be sung, what tunes shall be played, what books shall be read, what physic shall be swallowed? Why should not they choose our wives, limit our expenses, and stint us to a certain number of dishes, of glasses of wine, and of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was, perhaps, more wonderful than any other peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and who shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length. Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid; he contents himself with laying down this proposition-that, whatever be the body which, in any community, is employed to protect the persons and property of men, that body ought also, in its corporate capacity, to profess a religion, to employ its power for the propagation of that religion, and to require conformity to that religion, as an indispensable qualification for all civil office. He distinctly

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declares that he does not in this proposition confine his view to orthodox governments, or even to Christian governments. The circumstance that a religion is false does not, he tells us, diminish the obligation of governors, as such, to uphold it. If they neglect to do so, we cannot,' he says, 'but regard the fact as aggravating the case of the holders of such creed.' 'I do not scruple to affirm,' he adds, 'that if a Mahometan conscientiously believes his religion to come from God, and to teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be beneficial, and beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man; and he must, therefore, and ought to desire its extension, and to use for its extension all proper and legitimate means; and that if such Mahometan be a prince, he ought to count among those means the application of whatever influence or funds he may lawfully have at his disposal for such purposes.'

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"Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian, in employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the extinction of Christianity, was doing no more than his duty,before we admit that the Arian Theodoric would have committed a crime if he had suffered a single believer in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil employment in Italy,-before we admit that the Dutch government is bound to exclude from office all members of the church of England, the King of Bavaria to exclude from office all protestants, the great Turk to exclude from office all Christians, the King of Ava to exclude from office all who hold the unity of God, we think ourselves entitled to demand very full and accurate demonstration. When the consequences of a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that its foundations shall be very solid.

"The following paragraph is a specimen of the arguments by which Mr. Gladstone has, as he conceives, established his great fundamental proposition:

"We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it surely must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in the universe, that power is the property of God, the King of that universe-his property of right, however for a time withholden or abused. Now this property is, as it were, realized, is

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