only heed them as the merest accessories or the humblest illustrations?

-It cannot be maintained for its possession of any inherent virtue. Sin presents a most serious evil. No language can express its enormity. Its just, its condign, desert, no thought can conceive. There is no bolt of "tribulation, wrath, and anguish," but it necessarily draws down upon itself. To mark the abhorrence in which He holds it, God makes its "plagues wonderful." But if the sacrificial institute had been designed to terminate on itself, had it been of itself a complete system, no contrivance could have been more calculated to extenuate our views of sin. If it could "make the comers thereunto perfect," if after the offering there was "no more conscience of sin," if this was an atonement absolutely sufficient, the heinousness of all offence against the Divine law could only be an exaggerated representation. It is a most unfounded assertion that moral offence was never contemplated by ancient sacrifice. If man "did not well,” “the sin offering couched at the door."* The idolatry at the base of Sinai was so included: "Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin." Different social crimes are mentioned as possibly committed by a man,-" if he lie unto his neighbour, or take a thing away by violence, or swear falsely." Is he debarred?" He shall bring his trespass-offering unto the Lord: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all he hath done in trespassing therein."+ But could such offerings be truly received commutatively and piacularly for sin? We know that they could only "sanctify to the purifying of the flesh." "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."

It is their law: "the beasts that perish." We are now, by the demerits and consequences of sin, "like" them. If there had been no death, how could the menace have been understood? "Thou shalt surely die:" the example was general and notorious. In short, the animals do not die because man sinned, but because man sinned he must die even as the animals. This is not the place to show how much more is included in his death.

-It cannot be vindicated but as the prospective memorial of some great explanatory and absorbing fact. The terms are multiplied. Satisfaction, Expiation, Redemption, Ransom, Propitiation, and Atonement, are found in the ancient Sacrificature, either implied or affirmed; and every description is repeated of the oblations,—the trespass, the sin, the burnt, the whole burnt, the peace, offerings. Now we find counterparts of these terms in that latter part of Scripture which is history, in contradistinction to allusion, shadow, and prophecy. In one portion of the New Testament, the Epistle from which the text is selected,—which might not improperly be called the book of the Christian Leviticus, the points of resemblance are formally argued and the correlative systems minutely compared. Similar phraseology is adopted, the purport of it is rigidly examined, and what was but figure is now retained as the strict exponent of truth and fact. The ritual which had lasted four thousand years is demonstrated to have no self-existence and sufficiency: its sacrificial and sacerdotal appointments are made to determine in Christ. There never was an actual sacrifice but His: there never was a proper priest but He. A uniform style of reasoning occurs in the other sacred writings. The death of the cross, "the decease accomplished at Jerusalem," is the only interpretation and warrant of all the costly and fearful apparatus of the ancient law.

The Hebrew Pontiff was the living witness of that dispensation. He expressed its genius and embodied its character. All his duties and badges were distinctive. The temple was his home. The altar was his charge. The ephod was his authority. He was separate from all that was common and unclean. His life was a holy devotement. And when the annual day of atonement broke, that sabbath of sabbaths, then the expiations of the year seemed condensed, every image which could convey the thought of forgiveness was elaborated, and Israel was taught the doctrine of that "Blood which cleanseth us from all sin." The manner in which the offered blood was at different times applied is most worthy of notice: now it was sprinkled on the MercySeat, and then upon the People.

The Messiah is the antitype. "He has come a high priest of good things to come." His temple was his own Body. His altar was his own Divinity. His ephod was his own Authority. Yet in abasement and œconomic subordination, "He glorified not himself to be made a high priest." The blood of his sacrifice realises the two-fold use of the emblem: it is the blood of sprinkling, toward the Divine Throne for its honour and vindication, for its exercises of justice and mercy,-toward the penitent sinner for his relief and hope, for his obedience of faith and love.

2. To present Intercession. The priests, the ministers of the Lord, might weep between the porch and the altar but our attention is turned to an advocacy more efficacious and direct. The high priest went alone into the Holiest once every year. There he stood with the vessel of the victim's blood in the one hand and with the censer of frankincense in the other. He bowed in breathless adoration. No form of words did he repeat. Silent, significant, actions were his only prayer. The breastplate was "on his heart," and its gems burnt beneath the glory-cloud. Yet to the waiting multitude assurance was given of his dread employment. "His sound was heard." "His sound was heard." The sweet chime of the bells which hung from his skirt testified his every movement. He was arrayed and appointed to entreat for all the tribes. He was empowered by sacrifice. This gave him his right of access and his weight of plea.

His sacrifice is But it is conti

"We have such a High Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." single and complete. It cannot be repeated. nually presented. "He now appeareth in the presence of God for us." He need not beseech. Utterance is not required. He hath entered into the heavenly places not without blood. The heavenly things themselves have been purified by that blood. He is a Lamb as it had been slain, newly immolated, yet living with all the wounds of recent slaughter, "standing in the midst of the throne." And surely it is strange that this perpetual intercession should be accounted by any as derogatory from the efficacy of his death. Honour is thus accorded to it as the constant basis of mercy. It is a ceaseless remembrance and cele

bration of the cross. It is the triumph of the atonement in the acknowledgment of its claims and the diffusion of its virtues. When this "Blood speaketh,"-importunity and vehemence cannot describe its voice, suggestion and argument cannot explain its appeal,—it is intercession and not demand, advocateship and not challenge, but then it is only as a deference to the eternal principles and rights of holiness and justice, as the confession that such a gracious arrangement need not have been allowed, and as the orderly succession of claims founded on an infinite desert. It is the sign and the force of His "unchangeable priesthood." Beautiful is the invitation of the Father to the Son: "Ask of me!" Unfailing are the assurances of Jesus to his people: "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” The Sacred Writings, so far from supporting the idea that the intercession of Christ bears unfavourably upon the honour of his death, reason in exactly the contrary way: "Wherefore He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us.”

3. To pronounce Benediction. tribe of Levi to bless in his name."*

"The Lord separated the

"Aaron lifted up his hand

toward the people, and blessed them."+ The language is preserved. It seems the outline of Christian formula. But it was not to be given until the sacrifice had bled and until the incense was kindled. The more painful and anxious ministrations were first to be accomplished. During their performance he was clothed in his most common garb. Only in that linen tunic was he admitted within the veil. It was a day of mourning. All reminded of sin and called to contrition. But the atonement being made, the intercession being accepted, he came forth from his dread retirement, and prepared to appear before the people in all the sumptuous habiliments of his office: the robe of embroidery, the binding of woven work, the hem of blue and purple and scarlet, "the curious girdle" of gold and fine twined linen, the golden plate of the mitre, the holy crown glittering above all.

Deut. x. 8.

+ Lev. ix. 22.

Numb. vi. 23, &c.

Then, standing at the gate of the temple, he poured forth this benison of deep meaning and presage upon the bending crowd, who were praying without and awaiting his return.

Our Lord, clothed in the days of his flesh with poverty and humiliation, seen in the form of a servant and the fashion of a man, having laid aside the ensigns of his glory,-has now gone into heaven. His array on earth was for abasement, for sacrifice. "Many were astonished at him." He is now within the veil, and the heaven has closed upon him as the curtain hid the most holy place. His intercession there is the cause and source of all spiritual blessings. We saw him pass from the altar of the cross, his vesture dipped in blood, to the penetralia of the celestial temple with its throne and its ark and its glory. Even then he lifted up his hands and blessed us: and while he blessed us he was parted from us. He has for us entered" that mysterious chamber, "into heaven itself." The perfect benediction remains, then, to be vouchsafed. "To them who look for him shall He appear the second time without a sin-offering unto salvation." He shall come in his glory. He shall be girded with the richest garments of his excellent ministry. He shall cover himself with all his honours and surround himself with all his angels. But it shall be a priestly act. It is his return in like manner as we have seen him go into heaven. When shall the tapestry of this vaulted sky dispart and reveal the Crowned Priest?

Perfect analogies we cannot expect in relations like these. The Law was the "shadow," but not the "perfect image." In the priesthood of our Saviour there must be peculiarities which cannot be reflected nor transferred.

It is real. The title is not allusively conferred upon Him because it is common and known. Whatever is common and known in the title is only derived from his office. He is not thus distinguished because men have been styled in this manner : they were so styled in reference and honour to him.

It is founded on His actual death. The ancient priests slew the clean beasts and birds for the offering. They saw in the infliction the death they might have died, but for the atonement which their services adumbrated. But he "laid down his life.”

M