But perhaps it may be said, Not so: we accept those other precepts as belonging to the Christian Church, because they are simply moral precepts applying to the heart, but the former passage relates to a ceremonial usage of the Jewish polity, and may well be taken to be a mere adaptation of what was then in well-known use; to inculcate, not an act or mode of worship, but figuratively a frame of mind that would be required in Christians. So that, as the Jew would literally understand, he should go his way from the temple and the altar, and be reconciled to any one to whom he had done wrong, before he could there make his offering; so the Christian in all time, though having no altar to which to come, and no real offering or sacrifice in which to join, should yet learn to be in peace and charity with all men, before he should esteem himself fit to lift up his voice or heart in prayer to God; and that therefore our Lord’s words, spoken “while as the first tabernacle was yet standing,” { 50} do not sufficiently prove any altar designed to exist in the Christian Church. Well, let us allow the utmost weight to such an argument, and grant that the words in and by themselves might possibly be so explained, and yet bear just a tolerable though not, I think, at all a likely interpretation in such sense; but then, let us yet turn and see whether the other and more natural meaning be not corroborated elsewhere, where this gloss will not avail. Remember the objection to the proof of a Christian altar from those words is, that they were spoken whilst the Jewish polity subsisted, and before the Christian Church was set up, and therefore that it is only (as is asserted) by a figure, suitable enough to Jewish ears, but not as really enunciating a truth or principle to endure in the Christian Church, that they were uttered. But shall we not find a witness in Holy Scripture to the existence of this altar in the new dispensation, which is free from this exception or construction? I turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and I find the Apostle writing, “We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” { 51a} Was not this written to Christians? Does it not speak to them expressly of their altar at which they are to eat? Was it not set down for their guidance and instruction? Was it not written after the great sacrifice upon the altar of the cross had been made, and made once for all?