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"Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, thou
shalt be no Priest to me."- HOSEA iv. 6.

LONDON:

WHITTAKER & CO., AVE MARIA LANE.
LIVERPOOL:

SMYTH & CO., BERRY STREET.

1852.

101. d. 457.

The Reader is requested to refer to each separate

Note at the end, according to the order marked on its

respective page.

INTRODUCTION.

THE subject of which the following pages treat is in itself so obviously important to any one at all interested in and familiar with the present state of the Church of Christ, as to almost preclude the necessity for any introduction or prefatory remarks. Still, however, a few words as to the treatment of the subject in this little work, with a friendly word of advice, may not be without their use.

Suffice it then to say, in the first place, that the writer's more immediate object was to bring the subject before any enquiring Christians whose minds were hanging in doubt as to the nature of Christian Ministry as at present existing in the Church of Christ:- what it is, and under what conditions, from Scripture, ministers of the Gospel can lawfully exercise any or all of those gifts which, in virtue of their calling, they are almost universally supposed to possess, and which many of them unhesitatingly teach and constantly affirm they do possess, though, alas! when looked for by those whose prerogative it is to "judge all things" (1 Cor. ii. 15), they are too often looked for in vain.

To this end, then, it was found necessary to introduce, from the Old Testament, many texts bearing upon the Levitical Priesthood, as existing under the imme

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