enlightened by the same Spirit-the Spirit of truth, and anointed by him with an internal and divine unction. There is for all the same spirit, the same heavenly life, faith, and hope; the same Savior, who alone is their Master, before whom all who would be his disciples must acknowledge themselves sinners, in order to obtain directly from him alone, and not from man, nor through the mediation of man, salvation and sanctification.

"Henceforth, with Christians, the times in which men served dumb idols, under the direction of their priests, were past; the day had arrived when all men were to be masters in religion. The great High-priest of humanity, whom Christians followed, directed them, not to senseless idols, but to the living God; and, instead of leading them, like blind men, he shed within them a light which never left them, a spirit which manifested itself by every variety of gifts. Each Christian was to receive a particular gift of grace appropriate to his individual character, and by this means to contribute, as a faithful member, to the well-being of the whole society. It was thus with the Christians a well-established principle, which was reproduced in their life, that, by faith in Christ, their sovereign High-priest, and by communion with him, they became an order of true priests consecrated ministers of God, by the internal and sanctifying unction of the Holy Ghost, which the Savior himself shed upon them.”—Citation of facts and passages, in support of this, from Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenæus, and Örigen.

"When, toward the end of the second century, men were inclined to introduce into the Christian Church an institution corresponding to the Jewish pontificate, as if Christianity also needed a visible pontificate, and a caste of priests specially consecrated to God, those Christians who were still animated with the spirit of the primitive Church opposed themselves to this anti-evangelical meásure, and the laity assumed the position that they also, as Christians, were a community of priests. And as the Oriental theosophists, who had embraced Christianity, without, however, designing to conform their habits of thought to its precepts, sought to introduce into it, in imitation of the Oriental systems, the distinction be

tween a doctrine peculiar to the priests and an external religion suited to the people; as the Gnostics prided themselves upon possessing a knowledge superior to the belief of the multitude, who had only a faith founded on authority, and called themselves spiritualists, in opposition to those who attached too much importance to the letter; the Christian Church, on the contrary, laid it down as a principle that all Christians should be united in the same simplicity of faith, and through it partake of the same spiritual life; that all true Christians are necessarily enlightened by the Spirit of God, and animated with a true spirituality.”

To follow Jesus He who heareth my

“We live already," says Clement of Alexandria (Pædagogus, I. i., c. vi.); "we are freed from the chains of death. Christ is to have already obtained salvation. word and believeth in him who sent me,' says the Lord, hath eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.' Thus faith and regeneration are already the true life; for God, who produces them, works not by halves. 'Ye yourselves,' says the apostle (1 Thess., iv., 9), 'are taught of God.' Now we can not believe that he would leave his teaching incomplete: Consequently, he who has been regenerated and enlightened by the Spirit, is from thenceforth delivered from darkness; just as, on coming out of a sleep, a man immediately feels his thought waking up into activity; or, rather, as the operation upon a cataract communicates no new light to the diseased eye, but only removes the obstacle which prevents it from seeing, and restores freedom to the pupil, so baptism delivers from sin, which, like a cloud, intercepts the rays of the heavenly Spirit. When the Holy Spirit deigns to communicate himself to us, he gives us back that spiritual eye by which alone we can behold divine things."

"Faith," continues he, in another place, "is the only way of salvation remaining to man. The Apostle Paul declares this in the clearest manner when he says, Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under

APPENDIX.

349 a schoolmaster.'-Gal., iii., 23-25. Do you not, then, understand that we are no longer under that law which inspired fear, but under the founder of liberty, under the direction of the Son of God? Afterward, the apostle adds, to show that all distinction of persons is anuihilated: For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.'-Gal., v., 26-28. "There are, then," he adds, "no distinctions in Christianity; there is no privileged class which receives truths concealed from others; there is no distinction between spiritual and carnal men (oi δὲ ψυχικοὶ οἱ δὲ γνωστικοί). On the contrary, true Christians are delivered from the yoke of carnal passions; they are equal in the eyes of the Lord, and are all become spiritual men."

"But, by a singular contrast, while Christians who were faithful to the Gospel were thus occupied in defending the rights of simple believers against the ambitious enterprises of a sect, it was, at the same time, necessary for them to sustain the equality of the Christian vocation and of its engagements against another class of individuals, who were anxious to profit by these anti-evangelical distinctions, in order to excuse themselves from leading a holy and Christian life. Under the pretext that they were not philosophers, that they had not learned to read, they thought they need not concern themselves with the Scriptures. Hence Clement says (Pædagogus, 1. iii., fol. 255), 'Even though they could not read the Bible, they were on this account none the less inexcusable, because nothing prevents them from hearing the word of God. Faith does not belong to the wise of this world, but to those who are wise in the judgment of God. The word of faith, which is divine, and not the less because it is within reach of the ignorant, is no other than the word of charity.' Clement means tliat faith manifests itself alike in the hearts of all Christians, by works and labors of love."-NEANDER, - Denkwürdigkeiten, etc. Memoirs with reference to a History of Christianity and of the Christian Life, etc., translated from the German by A. Diacon, Neufchâtel, 1829, vol. i., p. 65–74.

"Tertullian expresses himself forcibly concerning the universal priesthood of all Christians. (De Monog., c. vii.) He starts with the idea that all Christians are now what the priests were under the New Testament. The special priesthood of the Jews was the prophetic image of the general priesthood of Christians ("Pristina Dei lex nos in suis sacerdotibus prophetaviť”). Christ has called us to the office of priests. The sovereign Sacrificer, the High-priest of the eternal Father, has united us to himself; 'for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ' (Gal., iii., 27), ' and thus he has made us kings and priests unto God his Father.'" -Apoc., i., 6. NEANDER, Denkwürdigkeiten, etc., vol. i., p. 179,

"Christ having satisfied the religious want which had, in general, produced the priesthood, and having, by his redemptive work, supplied the needed mediation between God and men, who felt themselves separated from God by sin, there was no longer a place for another intervention. When the apostles, in their epistles, apply to the new religious constitution the Jewish idea of a priesthood, of sacerdotal worship, of sacrifices, they design to show that Christ, having realized forever that which was the object of the priesthood and the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the reconciliation of man with God, all those who receive him by faith, enter into the same relation to God, without need of any other mediation. Consecrated to God, and sanctified by eommunion with Christ, they are all called to offer their entire life as a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God; all their activity is a true sacerdotal, spiritual worship; Christians are a holy nation, a people of priests.-Rom., xii., 1; 1 Peter, ii., 9. This idea of a priesthood belonging to all Christians, and founded upon the consciousness of redemption, is sometimes expressed and developed, sometimes implied in the attributes, images, and comparisons which are applied to the Christian life."-NEANDER, Geschichte der Apostel, etc., translated from the German by F. Fontanès, pastor, Nismes, 1836, vol. i., p. 108, 109.

Of the Universal Priesthood of the Christian Church.

"CHRISTIANITY allows no place to a tribe of priests ordained to direct other men, as under religious pupilage, having exclusive charge to supply men's needs in respect to God and divine things. While the Gospel removes whatever separates men from God, it also calls men to fellowship with God through Christ; it takes away, moreover, every barrier which separates men from one another in respect to their highest interests. All have the same High-priest and Mediator, through whom all, as reconciled and united to God, have themselves become a sacerdotal and spiritual race; the same King, the same celestial Master and Teacher, through whom all have become wise unto God; the same faith, the same hope, the same spirit, by whom all are animated; the same oracle in the heart of all-the voice of the Spirit proceeding from the Father-all citizens of the same celestial kingdom. There were here neither laics nor ecclesiastics; but all, so far as they were Christians, were, in their interior life and state, dead to whatever there was in the world that was contrary to God, and were animated by the Spirit of God. Who might arrogate to himself, what an inspired apostle durst not, to domineer over the faith of Christians? The office of teaching was not exclusively conferred on one man, or many; but every believer who might feel himself called, might speak a word in the assembled Church for the common edification."-NEANDER, Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Religion und Kirche, tome i., p. 177.

"MOREOVER, if we weigh things in a just balance, we shall find that there is no king, by whatever pomp he may be surrounded, who, as a king, is not below the dignity, I do not say of a bishop, but even of a village curate (vicani pastoris), regarded as a pastor. If I seem