ble self-respect should come a noble and yet sober
dignity--"Ye shall be a kingdom of priests," a dynasty (for such is the
meaning) of persons invested with royal and also with priestly rank.
This was spoken just before the law gave the priesthood into the hands
of one tribe; and thus we learn that Levi and Aaron were not to supplant
the nation, but to represent it.

Now, this double rank is the property of redeemed humanity: we are "a
kingdom and priests unto God." Yet the laity of the Corinthian Church
were rebuked for a self-asserting and mutinous enjoyment of their rank:
"Ye have reigned as kings without us"; and others there were in this
Christian dispensation who "perished in the gainsaying of Korah" (1 Cor.
iv. 8; Jude 11).

If the words "He hath made us a kingdom and priests" furnish any
argument against the existence of an ordained ministry now, then there
should have been no Jewish priesthood, for the same words are here. And
is it supposed that this assertion only began to be true when the
apostles died? Certainly there is a kind of self-assertion in the
ministry which they condemn. But if they are opposed to its existence,
alas for the Pastoral Epistles! It was because the function belonged to
all, that no man might arrogate it who was not commissioned to act on
behalf of all.

But while the individual may not assert himself to the unsettling of
church order, the privilege is still common property. All believers have
boldness to enter into the holiest place of all. All are called upon to
rule for God "over a few things," to establish a kingdom of God within,
and thus to receive a crown of life, and to sit with Jesus upon His
throne. The very honours by which Israel was drawn to God are offered to
us all, as it is written, "We are the circumcision," "We are Abraham's
seed and heirs according to the promise" (Phil. iii. 3; Gal. iii. 29).

To this appeal the nation responded gladly. They could feel that indeed
they had been sustained by God as the eagle bears her young--not
grasping them in her claws, like other birds, but as if enthroned
between her wings, and sheltered by her body, which interposed between
the young and any arrow of the hunter. Thus, say the Rabbinical
interpreters, did the pillar of cloud intervene between Israel and the
Egyptians. If the image were to be pressed so far, we could now find a
much closer analogy for the eagle "preferring itself to be pierced
rather than to witness the deat