in them." The apostle enjoins, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." The people will not do justice to themselves, unless they act in this manner.

As ministers have no dominion over the faith of their people, so much less have they power to impose any arbitrary laws on them. All they have in commission is, that they put in execution the laws of Christ, relating to worship, discipline, and government of the church; and this they are to do by no other force than what they derive from the Scriptures, and the nature of their office, which is a ministry, not a domination. They have no judicial power: they are not to rule by the sword of the civil magistrate, but by the "word of God," which is the "sword of the Spirit." The power of "binding" and "loosing," means no more than their pronouncing things to be lawful or unlawful, according to the lively oracles. The power of "remitting" and "retaining" the sins of men, is to be understood of their publishing and applying the promises of the gospel to penitent sinners; also, the threatenings to impenitent persons in general, and to obstinate offenders in particular.

In the exercise of the sacred office, they are strictly to adhere to the simplicity of gospel worship, guarding against the introduction of every thing that would corrupt or blemish it. This is necessary to be constantly observed, as well as purity of Christian doctrine is to be received and faithfully inculcated. For any person, however learned and distinguished, to attempt to worship God otherwise than he has appointed, a daring intrusion, and a presumptive boldness, very sinful and dangerous. Yet to this very thing men are strangely addicted, and therefore ministers have the more need to be on their guard against it. The Jewish church had a most exact

rule given of worship, which Moses received immediately from God, and faithfully communicated to the people. The ceremonial worship under the law was of Divine appointment, and every particular of it was prescribed and commanded.

The law of God concerning public worship is, "What thing soever I command, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." This command relates to the rules for worship he had been prescribing. Here is an exact obedience, to be performed with care and watchfulness, demanded—"observe to do it." The authority on which this exact obedience is enforced, is the divine command-" observe to do what thing soever I command you." And the completeness and perfection of both" thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." To add to his prescribed worship, is usurpation and invasion; and to diminish from it, is the worst sort of sacrilege and contempt. Though the rules of worship, to which this scripture immediately relates, were peculiar to the Israelites: yet this injunction is as moral in its nature, as any other of the divine commands, and of as long duration: it guards against the corrupting of God's institutions, and enjoins the exact observance of them without the least alteration, to the end of the world.

God is very tender of this part of his prerogative. He would not have any thing in the tabernacle or temple but what had his special authority. To Moses he said, "Look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount." Nothing was left to his own invention, though a man of letters and science, nor to the fancy and choice of the people; but the revealed will and high authority of God must be religiously observed in every particular. Directions are

given concerning the altar, under the law, which was to be of rough or unhewn stone. "If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.”

Yet every one who reads the history of that church, may easily perceive that little attention was paid to the word of God, and that often the people and priests not only deviated from it, but acted in direct contradiction to it; which conduct frequently brought down on them the awful effects of divine displeasure. One of the most affecting instances of this, we have in the sin and punishment of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. Aaron and his sons were solemnly consecrated to the priestly office; immediately after the seven days appointed for their consecration were ended, they entered on the execution of it; which consecration and entrance on their holy function, God ratified by sending fire from his presence, which consumed the burnt-offering on the altar. "And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering, and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces." This fire is said to "come out and from before the Lord;" whether it came from heaven, or out of the holy of holies, or of that visible appearance of the glory of God, which all the people saw, we cannot determine. However, of this we are certain, that it was a manifest token of the ratification of their consecration, and acceptance of their sacrifices. This fire tney were never to suffer to go out. "The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out." And, therefore, as some imagine, this fire was carefully carried, in a vessel prepared for that purpose, when they journeyed in the wilderness. And so it con

tinued, till the temple was built by Solomon, and then fire came down again from heaven, which continued till the Babylonian captivity.

It belonged to the priest's office to burn incense every morning on the altar of incense. "And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning; when he dresseth the lamps he shall burn incense upon it." This altar stood within the holy place, near to the vail which separated it from the holy of holies. This incense was to be burnt with sacred fire, taken off the altar of burnt offering, that is, with the fire which "came out from before the Lord." Now, these newly consecrated priests, rashly and presumptuously, in the very first exercise of their office, neglected this sacred fire, and took common fire in their censers, and putting incense thereon, put it on the altar of incense, and so offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. Now, though they were not expressly, in so many words, forbidden to put strange fire in their censers; yet it was crime enough that God had not commanded it: it is not a sufficient reason to introduce any thing into religious worship, because it is uot expressly prohibited. Nadab and Abihu sinned greatly, because they In this sense, what

offered what was not commanded. ever is not commanded of God, is forbidden by him; who will accept of no homage from us, in the matter of religious worship, unless it be enjoined by him, and by him only.

The punishment inflicted on them was sudden and awful. "There went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." The enormity of their sin was visibly expressed in the exemplary punishment they suffered; by fire they sinned, and by fire they died. They expired "before

the Lord," that is, at the altar of incense; there they were immediately struck dead, and died after the manner men do who are killed by lightning, for neither their bodies nor clothes were burnt to ashes. God thus punished them for this sacrilegious interference with his own institution, to show how jealous he is in matters of his own appointed worship; as well as for a warning to all, both ministers and people, not to alter and corrupt his worship, by mixing with it their own vain imaginations, and unnecessary and foolish inventions. Bishop Hall very judiciously observes, "It is a dangerous thing to decline from divine institution in the worship of God, for we have to do with a God who is wise to prescribe his own worship, just to require what he has prescribed, and powerful to revenge what he has not prescribed."

Under the New Testament dispensation, the rule which Christians have for their direction and government in the worship of God, is also plain and perfect; spiritual in its nature, simple in its form, and easy of comprehension. Yet how many additions, since the primitive times, have been made to it, of mere human invention and authority; and imposed on the people, by false assertion and assumed power, as the unquestionable injunctions of God himself. How many different forms and modes of worshipping God, are there practised at this day! How many symbolical ceremonies of mystical signification, invented by men, and appended to the rule of divine institution! The simplicity of Christian worship, is almost totally obscured by human rites and ceremonies, and the spirituality of the religion of Jesus Christ, nearly lost and discarded, as in the Romish Church, by a vast heap of superstitious observances. A sincere inquirer after the truth as it is in Christ, attending a mixed and deformed worship of this kind, might with great pathos