t means to ends; ordinances of which it is
certain that they were made for man, and not man for them.

Whatever may be the diversity of opinion among Unitarians respecting the
ground of the three ordinances just referred to, there is none with
regard to those institutions whose period appears to have been
determined at the moment of their origin.

The institution of Apostolic Ordination, which the Roman Catholic Church
holds to be of a permanent nature, we believe not to have been designed
to outlive the Apostles. We perceive no intimation in the various
instructions given them which can lead us to imagine that their office
was intended to be or could be bequeathed. They were chosen to be
witnesses of the circumstances of the life and death of Christ, and the
depositaries of miraculous powers after his ascension; but as the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, that is the power conferred from on high,
was only a temporary sanction, the peculiar office with which it was
connected could also be only temporary. The evidence which we possess
on this very important subject consists of the words of Christ himself,
addressed to his Apostles respecting their mission, their own incidental
observations, and the facts which ecclesiastical history presents. From
all these sources of evidence we derive our belief that the office of
_witnessing_, which is absolutely untransferrable, was the peculiar
office of the twelve Apostles; that they were especially qualified by it
for the task of preaching and establishing the new Gospel, and that to
enable them to do so with sufficient effect, among the many and great
difficulties which the state of the world then presented, the miraculous
gifts of the Spirit were granted to them, with power to impart them to
whomsoever they would, and that this miraculous power was coexistent
with the apostolic age,--with what is variously called 'the age,' 'the
kingdom of God,' 'the kingdom of Christ,' 'the kingdom of heaven;' that
is, from the descent of the Holy Spirit to the abolition of Judaism on
the overthrow of Jerusalem. We find no evidence of miracles after that
time which is at all to be compared with that on which we rely
respecting the apostolic gifts; none which allows us to hesitate in our
opinion, that with the apostles expired the power of communicating
miraculous privileges; and that on them alone were such privileges
immediately conferred. These gifts of the Spirit served as a Divine
sanction t