what any one would take for granted, from the nature and intent of the ordinance itself? The Lord's Supper is the symbol of that double attitude of the believer—to which we find ourselves ever recurring the backward look of his faith and the forward look of his hope-its present crucifixion and anticipated glorification with his Lord. Now, this is precisely the note which the apostle strikes. He seems almost to go out of his way to get at this, his favourite collocation. He does not bid them show the Lord's death in the Church " always, even to the end of the world". though that had come to the same thing-but he bids them celebrate his death for them, till, as their Life, they find themselves appearing with him in glory. "Show the Lord's death till he come❞—till the affecting be turned into a joyous scene-till the grace ye draw from his first, shall merge into the glory ye receive at his second coming-till He whose table ye bedew with your tears, in "fellowship with his sufferings and conformity to his death," shall interrupt your communion and break in upon you with his glory, and swallow up faith in sight; giving you, in place of the symbols, the immediate and eternal fruition of himself. Thus, the Lord's Supper will cease to be celebrated after Christ's coming, not because the Lord of the Church has so willed it, but because after that it would be meaningless-because the state of things and the attitude of the believing soul, with reference to the two comings of Christ, of which the Lord's Supper is the ordained and beautiful symbol, shall then have no place.

What, then, have we found with respect to these ordained means of grace? Why, that the second advent, come when it may, will put them all out of date. The passages which teach this, make no distinction between the means and the end; they so implicate the grace conveyed with the means of conveying it, that both are seen disappearing together at Christ's coming. If, then, there is to be a millennium after that,

it cannot be an era of Christianity; for the whole Christian furniture, and with it all the Christianity that has hitherto obtained, has been withdrawn from the earth. The word is inapplicable-it was for a totally different state of things: the ordinances are gone: and the "grace which hath appeared unto all men, bringing salvation"-having no more salvation to bring, because "the blessed hope and glorious appearing" to which it points all its possessors as a future event, has become a present and glorious reality-this grace, of which the sacraments are but the symbols and exponents, has retired from the field, having accomplished all its objects.

These conclusions are sufficiently startling, one should think. But it is not every thing that startles the advocates of this commanding theory. Mr Brooks, for example, not only admits all that we have said about its putting the Scriptures out of date, but conceives that this very circumstance furnishes valuable confirmation of his view of the advent. One whole essay, entitled "The approaching New Dispensasation," is devoted to this point; and I have to entreat those who are not hopelessly committed to the doctrine of the premillennial advent, to look well, in the light of the following extract, whither it is likely to lead them:

"Startling, then," says Mr Brooks, "as it may appear to some, yet I apprehend it will be found that the Holy Scriptures would, for the most part, be rendered inapplicable to the then existing circumstances of men in the flesh, and that there would need some further revelation from God. Now, I think it must be allowed, that a state of things which supersedes a portion of divine revelation hitherto enjoyed, and introduces men into a state of things which is the consummation of that revealed, has one grand characteristic of a new dispensation." The first of the things which are to "render the Scriptures

"To avoid being misunderstood, I would observe, that when I say the Scriptures would be for the most part inapplicable, I am aware that there are many glorious declarations concerning the divine attributes and conduct (!), which could never lose their power and influence on a regenerate soul."

for the most part inapplicable," Mr Brooks says, is the binding of Satan, and its consequences; regarding which he tells us, that

"All that is written for the comfort of the believer under such circumstances the promises set before him, to sustain him during the conflict, and the experience of the cloud of witnesses, recorded for his encouragement, will become comparatively a dead letter-a matter inapplicable to the circumstances in which the Church can, for a thousand years, by any probability be placed. I forbear," he adds, after one or two other examples of this kind, "to bring forward many other particulars, which would obviously be rendered NUGATORY by our Lord's personal advent. What I have advanced is sufficient to evince, that the whole character of the Church and of the state of mankind would be so altered, together with their spiritual and religious circumstances, that we should no longer find them portrayed generally in the length and breadth of Scripture; and it would not, perhaps, be too much to say, that the great bulk of what are called practical discourses, at present delivered or published, would be as much unsuited to the condition of mankind, as they would were they addressed to the angels of God! This view of the subject," he continues, “is strikingly confirmed by referring to the past history of the Church, and reasoning from the analogy of the case. Whensoever any great change has been made in its circumstances and condition, it has always been accompanied by a further revelation from God, concerning the dispensation about to be introduced, and containing also some intimations of the dispensation to succeed. . . . . Again, each decidedly marked era in the history of the Church, has not only been accompanied by an increase of revelation, but by a disannulling or superseding of something going before. . . . . When, therefore, a similar difference shall exist in the use of the New Testament revelation, it will be equally manifest that a new dispensation has arrived. Nor will the Scriptures, SUPERSEDED IN THE MILLENNIUM, be devoid of interest or use; but they will serve in the way of retrospection and memorial; excepting some very few passages, respecting the little season,' when Satan shall be loosed-and the events which are to follow."

....

On this memorial use of the Scriptures during the millennium, there is the following singular note, which I take the liberty

of introducing into the text:-" Thus the manna, given in the wilderness, ceased on the entering of the Church into the promised land; but a pot of it was laid up in the ark as a me morial!"*

Thus, then, the Scriptures will be "superseded," as being "inapplicable" during the millennium; and all "practical discourses," founded upon Scripture, will be as unsuitable as to the angels of God." These Scriptures, however, will not be altogether "devoid of interest or use." They will serve in the way of retrospection and memorial," like the pot of manna, when the earth shall be flowing with the milk and the honey of a new and more " applicable" revelation!

But possibly these are extravagancies of Mr Brooks alone, unsanctioned by his brethren. If it were so, the inconsistency would be theirs, not his. Certainly, a NEW DISPENSATION is what they are all looking for, and perpetually dwelling on; and it is a necessary part of their scheme, since the millennium they are expecting will be so organically different from any thing now existing, that it would be ridiculous to imagine it realized, save under a new and perfectly unique dispensation. And who can fail to see that a new dispensation necessarily implies a NEW REVELATION to usher it in; in other words, to authorize and organize it? I am quite aware of the harshness of this sound in the ears of many excellent premillennialists, who flatter themselves that their doctrine may be held without tacking to it the repulsive expectation of a new revelation; and who, amidst the cloud of difficulties in which their scheme is enveloped, in this view of it, are fain to betake themselves to their favourite refuge-that " we have nothing to do with difficulties." But the following extracts will show that Mr Brooks is far from being alone on the subject of a new revelation.

"There are," says Mr BICKERSTETH, some original and valuable remarks on the millennium in the essays of the Rev. H. Wood

* Abdiel's Essays; Investigator, vol. ii. pp. 267-270.

ward. He shows HOW INAPPLICABLE THE SCRIPTURES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, written for a tempted and suffering Church, ARE TO THIS STATE OF THINGS, and thence draws an argument for the personal advent of our Lord on earth, TO OPEN THE VERY FOUNTAIN FROM WHICH THE SCRIPTURES THEMSELVES HAVE FLOWED, FROM WHICH NEW STREAMS MAY ISSUE FORTH TO WATER A RENOVATED WORLD, AND MAKE GLAD THE CITY OF GOD." *

"We may expect [during the millennium] further means of grace"—says the same author, in commenting on my quotation from him in the foregoing paragraph-“ and ▲ VISIBLE ECONOMY

POSSIBLY OF ORAL REVELATION FROM THOSE WHO REIGN UPON THE

EARTH, as we see in the Jewish economy."+

In other words, the glorified saints who are to reign on the earth, may "orally" communicate the mind of God to those then living in the flesh, as the prophets did of old to the Jewish people, and a visible economy of such oral revelation may characterise the millennium !

"These passages of Scripture," says Dr M'NEILE," avowedly belong to this dispensation. . . . . But, on the supposition that the dispensation is to enlarge itself by degrees into the universal blessedness predicted by the prophets, then THESE SCRIPTURES WILL NOT CONTINUE TO APPLY; and who is to determine "—he means, without a new revelation-"at what point of the progress they cease to be applicable? It is obvious, that in the passage from our present state to a state of universal holiness, THESE CHARACTERISTIC SAYINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT MUST CEASE TO HAVE ANY APPLICATION, AND BECOME OBSOLETE, NOT TO SAY FALSE: and again I ask, who is to determine at what point of the progress they cease to apply? We maintain, therefore, that as the statutes of the book of Leviticus continued binding, until another plain and direct communication from the God who gave them showed that they were superseded,

* Guide, pp. 295, 296. Fifth Edition. † Divine Warning, p. 316.

The passages selected, as then inapplicable, are such as the following: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way of life;" "Be not conformed to this world; " "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord." On these passages I shall have occasion to touch at a subsequent stage of the argument.