orders concerted measures and means which were directed to this monopoly of power. As it is not natural for men to wish to be slaves, they never would be, if they were not decoyed into it, either by force or fraud. These are both employed, but fraud generally leads the way. In our context we have the following statement. "For among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth snares: they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich." Whatever false predictions were wanted for the purpose of deceiving the people, the prophets were ready to predict; and the priests stood ready to take advantage of those deceptions to bring the people into entire submission to their measures. If, on the one hand, a fallacious prosperity was predicted, the priests, having the confidence of the people, could dictate the terms by which such prosperity might be realized. If on the other hand, a fallacious calamity was predicted, the priests could point out those measures by which such calamity might be averted; and in proportion as the people loved their own prosperity, or desired to avoid the dire judgments of heaven, they esteemed this priestly rule and the slavery to which it subjected them. Such was the blind, preposterous folly of a misguided people, who had eyes, but saw not; who had ears, but could not hear; who had hearts, but could not perceive. Driven by this force, and blinded by this craft, the house of Israel became the most stupid and degraded idolaters, supporting an hireling priesthood, at an enormous expense, which consumed their corn, their oil and their wine, and which wrenched the last mite they possessed from them; and to cap the climax of folly and madness, immolated their sons and daughters on the altar of Moloch!

In view of such perverseness, the hearer may be led to exclaim, Why was such an order of men

ever suffered to hold a standing in society? Far better would it be to have no priesthood! Away with the whole order of clergy! Let us not be too hasty. Remember that the priesthood of the house of Israel was established as an ordinance of heaven; it was set up by the special command of God. It is not this order of men which is the evil of which God, by his prophet complains, but it is their perverse and wicked conduct. A well ordered state of human society requires an order of men, who specially devote themselves to the interests of religion. The great and glorious head of the christian church appointed a ministry. While he laboured in the flesh he chose twelve disciples, and appointed them as apostles to bear the tes timony of his truth to mankind; and at one time he sent forth seventy others to minister his truth and favour to the Jewish nation. But this immaculate high Priest of our profession, this Bishop of our souls, gave frequent lessons to the ministry which he appointed, designed to guard them against a departure from the sacred duties of the office to which he had appointed them. He called them the salt of the earth; but cautiously pointed out the dangerous consequences which would result from their losing the savour of his spirit. He called them the light of the world; but prudently set forth the uselessness of a light which is hid. He acknowledged them his servants; but did not fail to inform them that nothing short of attention to their duty would secure them from sharing the dreadful calamities, which he had, in their hearing, denounced on hypocrites and unbelievers.

There is no blessing which man enjoys that may not be perverted to his disadvantage; and it is generally, if not always the case that the perversion of the greatest of blessings produces the greatest evils. It is too often the case that law is used for a trap to ensnare the simple, and through the perverseness of corrupt adjudication, its severest penalties are made to fall on the innocent, while

the guilty escape with impunity. But we should egregiously err should we contend that law was unnecessary, and that there ought to be no such orders of men in society as judges and executioners.

The complaining, the accusing, the warning voice of inspiration is not raised against the priesthood or the administrators of law and government, as an order established in society; but against the wickedness which men practice, who are honoured with appointments in these useful establishments. It is when the ministers of religion, forgetful of their responsibility, devote themselves to the study of craft, and employ all the means of deception in their power, to obtain the confidence of the people, to secure to themselves the affections of the people, to make the multitude look up to them for security against threatened vengeance, and to depend on their interest with heaven for all the blessings they need; and when these deceivers use the whole weight of this immense influence to bring the people into the most degrading bondage and slavery, that the accusing voice of heaven is heard against them. Nor is this voice heard against them alone who practice this deceit, and who, by means thereof, rule the people; but it is equally against the people themselves, who debase their nature and dishonour God, by such stupidity.

"And what will ye do in the end thereof?" is a question, the prophet, by the Spirit of God, put to prophets, priests and people, who were all united in the commission of the horrible thing of which complaint was made. By this question was indicated the deplorable ruin which awaited that wicked, perverse and rebellious nation. We read their wickedness in the records of their true prophets; we read the vengeance which their sins procured in the prophecies of Moses, their lawgiver, and in the rest of their prophets; and we read their end in Josephus, their own historian.

Do you ask why destruction should be sent on a nation for the deceptions practised by its priest.

hood, and for the rule which was exercised over them, so long as they are agreeable to the people? If the people loved to have it so, why should it offend God? These questions are answered by the author of our text, as follows: "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger; do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their cwn faces?-They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire." It is not necessary that an offended God should pour out his vengeance on a people, whose folly and madness bring swift destruction on themselves. There is no need of a miracle to ruin a people, whose religion and policy dissolve the tenderest ties of nature, and freeze the compassions of the parental heart. We need not look up for a minister of wrath to be sent from heaven, to distress a people, who are all engaged in their own destruction. Heaven's arm would save; its voice would recall; but deafness and resistance drive on to ruin. A blinded people, guided by priestcraft, doom themselves to deplorable calamities.

That which is recorded in the scriptures, relating to this subject, is written for our admonition; and it behooves us to listen to its instructions. Let us open our eyes and look about us. What do we see? and what do we hear? We both hear and see evidences, which are gross and palpable, of an aspiring priesthood, an order of clergy, who for thirst of power, and for arts and intrigues to obtain it, were never outdone, by a similar order, in any age or country.

The false prophets in Israel, who prophesied lies, were of incalculable service to the priests,

who bore rule by their means. But our clergy can do their own prophesying; they have no need of prophets to prophesy falsely. Indeed, such short sighted prophets as those who made a trade of lying, in the days of Jeremiah, and who then obtained a good living by their business, would now answer little or no purpose in assisting our clergy in their craft. Those prophets did not pretend to extend their predictions into a future state of existence; their predictions regarded the temporal concerns of the people; and this answered all the purposes which were to be served by their falsehoods; but our clergy, having united the profession of prophesy with their own functions, look directly into the future world, and pretend to predict what awaits us there. There they have a God, whose favours and frowns are at their disposal. There they have a heaven, on whose territories none are allowed to enter, but such as comply with conditions dictated by them. There they have a hell, furnished with all the apparatus of torture necessary to torment, to the last degree, all who do not submit to their rule, in this life; and a devil also at their service, to administer their wrath and the vengeance of their God for ever. With all these advantages to aid their cunning, and to render their craft successful, they leave no exertion untried, which promises the least success in deceiving the people, and in drawing them into their snares. They come to the people with the strongest professions of love and friendship; they can command even the tears of the crocodile, and weep over us in fearful apprehensions of the wrath of their god, which they say is suspended over our heads; and from which they are, as it were, in a dying agony to save our poor, ruined, immortal souls. They bring us the terms of salvation, and use every persuasion, which rhetoric commands, to make us yield to their proffers. The people, who are taken by their craft, look on them as their sole dependence; and hope, by submitting to their