THE WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE, FOR 1852. The right of private judgment in the reading of the Sacred Volume. VOLUME THE FIFTEENTH. LONDON: ASSOCIATION BOOK ROOM, 5, HORSESHOE COURT, LUDGATE HILL MDCCCLII. WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1852. CEREMONIALISM. The substance of a Lecture, delivered, on the 1st of September, 1850, at the Monthly Meeting of Ministers and Churches, held in Vernon Chapel, Pentonville, London, by the REV. ROBERT ECKETT. THE lecture now to be delivered is the fourth in the series. The Introductory lecture was delivered by the Rev. Owen Clarke; then followed one on 66 Romanism," by the Rev. J. Weir; the next was on "Puseyism," by the Rev. B. S. Hollis; and the topic assigned us for this evening's service is, "Ceremonialism." By this term we understand the heresies which give undue significance to forms, rites, or ceremonies used in professedly religious services; attaching to them a supposed efficacy, which is unauthorized by, and contrary to, the teaching of God's Word. em In the ancient Jewish religion, there were numerous, divinely appointed, sacerdotal rites and ceremonial observances. These were not superstitious ceremonies. They were important religious services, and types, or emblems, of glorious facts and doctrines which were to be fully manifested, at the appointed time, under the Christian dispensation. The sacrifices offered on account of sin, were blematical predictions of the one sacrifice which had to be offered, for the sin of the whole human race, by Him who, in the fulness of time, "gave himself a ransom for all." The burning of incense, legal purifications, and the other rites, enjoined under the Levitical dispensation, were appointed only for a season, as material representations of spiritual things. But when the Son of God was manifested in the flesh, had accomplished the work of atonement, and ascended to take possession of his mediatorial throne, to exercise in heaven his priestly office, as our everliving intercessor, then the rites and ceremonies of the Levitical dispensation ceased to be obligatory. The priesthood had been changed, and all the ceremonials of the abolished priesthood were superseded by the institutions of the Christian dispensation. Among many of the first converts, from Judaism to Christianity, there was manifested strong attachment to the abrogated Levitical rites. Some of the Jewish converts contended, that circumcision, and other Levitical rites, should be continuously observed; and at B |