"Be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."

HEBREWS vi. 12.

THE PROMISES OF GOD! That is a keyword here. Inherit the promises (ver. 12); God made promise (ver. 13); he obtained the promise (ver. 15); the heirs of promise (ver. 17). But perhaps the reiteration of the word does not awaken the interest or stir the heart of those who read it. We are so familiar with it; and, above all, we are not in circumstances which make the divine promises specially precious. The night of sorrow must obscure our sky, or we can never descry or appreciate the stars of promise that sparkle as gems in the firmament of Scripture. Those who are rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing cannot realize what the promises of God really mean.

Possessed of a good income, guaranteeing the supply of every need, it is of little moment that God has pledged himself to provide all needful things for those who seek his kingdom first. Environed by troops of faithful friends, like so many successive lines of defense entrenched in the strong fortress of position and rank, there is less interest in the assurance that God will be the shield and buckler, the munition of rocks, the refuge from the storm for his saints. But when riches dwindle, and friends fail, and health declines, and difficulty, persecution, and trial threaten, then the soul betakes itself to the promises of God, and cons them over, studying them by the hour together, until it wakes up to find mines of treasure under pages which were blank as the moorlands beneath which coal-beds lie. It would be well for some of us if God would strip us of all those things in which we place such confidence; so that we might be compelled, perhaps for the first time in our lives, to seek in himself all that we are now wont to seek in his gifts. Oh, blessed loss, which should teach us our true wealth! Oh, happy deprivation, which should reveal our inexhaustible resources! Oh, loving discipline, which should break the cisterns that hold the brackish rainwater, and compel us to betake ourselves to the river of God, which proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb!

The lax and cursory manner in which we read pages begemmed with divine promise is largely due to the fact that we have never been put into such straits of sorrow and privation as to appreciate their value. One crushing trial would open up whole tracts of promise, which are now like the shut doors of a corridor in a royal palace. This is one reason why such a man as the Christian hero, Gordon, would spend hours over the Word of God, counting his Father's promises, holding them up as jewels in the sunshine, and rejoicing over them as great spoil; such men as he have had little else; they have had no other resources to fall back upon; they were driven to lay hold on them for very existence. And thus they fulfilled the enigma of the Apostle, "Having nothing, yet possessing all things." Those who are conscious of their poverty are they who become rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom.

It was in precisely such a condition that the Hebrews here addressed were found. Their goods had been spoiled; they had endured a great fight of affliction; they had been made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions; all on which men are accustomed to rely had been swept from them; and therefore the Holy Ghost, in these pages, directs their minds to the exceeding great and precious promises, in which God pledged himself to supply all their need; and to furnish from his own treasuries all, and more than all, that they had lost; not giving them these things in visible possession, but supplying them as they were needed, and in proportion to their faith. It was surely a good exchange, to lose all, and to recover all in God!

GOD'S PROMISES ARE RELIABLE. A good man's word is his bond. And when such a one has given a promise our anxiety is allayed, our fears are quieted, we have strong consolation. But if, in addition to the promise, our friend has solemnly bound himself by an oath, calling heaven and earth to witness, and God to ratify, the asseveration is so momentous, the appeal so awful, the impression made on the mind so deep, that, whatever happens, the soul shelters itself in the immutability of his decision. It is doubly impossible for him to change or deceive. And this is the bond by which God has bound himself.

When dealing with Abraham, God gave him repeated promises, first of the land, then of the seed, also of the blessing which should accrue to all generations of men through him. On one occasion he went through the form of covenant making in vogue among the surrounding peoples (Gen. xv. 17). But, on Mount Moriah, when the faithful patriarch had given the one stupendous evidence of faith and obedience, even unto death, God sware, and "because he could sware by no greater, he sware by himself." "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord', (Gen. xxii. 16).

And so it is with us. We who by faith are the spiritual seed of Abraham are blessed with him. "The promise is sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all" (Rom. iv. 16). All the promises of God are Yea and Amen. He is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. He has well calculated his resources, before he has pledged himself; and when once he has done so it is impossible that he should fail. Fall flat on the divine promises; cling to them as a shipwrecked sailor to the floating spar; venture all on them; their fulfillment is guaranteed by covenant and oath; by blood and agony and death; by the light of the resurrection morning and the glory of the ascension mount; by the experience of myriads, who have never found them fail. If any man living has found one promise untrustworthy, let him publish it to the world; and the heavens will clothe themselves in sackcloth, and the sun and moon and stars will reel from their seats, the universe will rock, and a hollow wind moan through creation, bearing the tidings that God is mutable, that God can lie. And that voice will be the herald of universal dissolution. But it can never, never be. Heirs of promise! God's power Is eternal, his counsel is immutable. Heaven and earth may pass away, but his word shall never pass away. Ye therefore may have strong consolation; though ye lose all else, your heritage in the word and oath of God shall be unimpaired, world without end.

GOD'S PROMISES, THUS ASSURED, MAKE AN ANCHORAGE FOR THE SOUL. Few things are more important for the mariner than to secure a good anchorage ground, where the soil will not give before the weight of the vessel and the strain of the storm. And with all those inclinations toward drifting which we have already considered, we urgently need to discover something permanent, unchanging, and satisfying, with which we may grapple by the anchor of our hope.

The faculty of hope in a Christian is not different to that of a worldly man. It is the same faculty or quality in each. But there is a vast difference in the ground in which the anchor is fixed. In the case of the worldly man, it is the loose, light, unreliable soil of peradventures and speculations. In the case of the Christian, it is the unyielding, immutable promise and oath of the Eternal God. Therefore the former is often darkened with misgiving and fear; while the latter cries, without a shadow of doubt, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded."

Hope is something more than faith.  Faith accepts and credits testimony; hope anticipates. Faith says the fruit is good; hope picks and eats. Faith is bud; hope blossom. Faith presents the check; hope lays out the amount received. And such hope is the anchor of the soul. The comparison between hope and an anchor is familiar even to heathen writers, and it is easy to see how fit it is. It steadies the soul. Take an illustration from common life. A young man pledges his troth to a poor but noble girl. He is drafted for foreign service, and says farewell for long years. Meanwhile she is left to do as well as she can to maintain herself. Work is scanty, wages low, she is sometimes severely tempted and tried. But, amidst all, she is kept true to her absent lover, and to her nobler self, by the little strand of hope which links her to a happy and united future. So, when suffering or tempted or discouraged, our hope goes forward into the blessed future, depicted on the page of Scripture in glowing colors, and promised by the word of him who cannot lie; and the anticipation of it fills the soul with courage and patience, so as to endure the trials of time, in view of the certain blessedness of eternity.

THE ANCHORAGE IN THE PROMISES HAS A THREEFOLD VALUE. It is sure, there is no fear of its failing; sure as the sure mercies of David; sure as the "everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure"; sure as God can make it. It is steadfast, its influence on the soul is to keep it steady: "Steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." It entereth into that within the veil. In the ancient world, when there was not water enough to float a ship into the harbor, a man would carry the anchor over the shoals, and fix it in the calm waters of the inner basin. In some such way as this, our Lord Jesus, when, like the high-priest in the Jewish Tabernacle, he passed through the blue veil that hides the celestial world from ours, took our hope with him, and holds it there. The Lord Jesus is our hope (1 Tim. i.1 ; 1 John iii. 3). He is our forerunner. He has preceded us into his Father's presence, the first fruits of them that slept. He has gone thither as our Representative and Priest. When he majestically passed from the sight of his disciples, and was hidden from the eyes that longingly followed him, he entered within the veil. There he ever liveth; and because of it our hopes follow him, center in him, and connect us already with that bright home of which he is the radiant center.

THERE ARE CERTAIN QUALITIES WHICH WE MUST LEARN TO EXERCISE. Faith and patience can alone inherit the promises (ver. 12). Abraham had patiently to endure before he received the promise (ver. 15). It is not easy to wait, or to let patience have her perfect work; and it is only possible to faith. There is no sublimer instance of long waiting than the history of Abraham, for which his faith nerved him, and to whom the promise was literally fulfilled. And so shall it be again. Patience weary, eager hearts. The time shall come when you shall lay hands on your capital; but be content in the meanwhile to enjoy the interest. The auspicious moment hastens when you shall know and taste all the blessedness of Paradise regained; but feast in the interim on the grapes of Eshcol, the pomegranates and other produce of the land. Claim the patience of Christ, of which the last of the apostles, who had need of it to sustain him in the long delay, so sweetly speaks (Rev. i. 9). "Be ye patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." "Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus." Thus shall we manifest "the patience of the saints"; and thus shall we, like those who have preceded us, finally inherit the promises.

"Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."-HEBREWS vii. 17.

VARIOUS fancies have gathered around the person of Melchizedek, investing him with extraordinary qualities; but it is better far to think of him simply as the head or chieftain of a large family or clan, which gathered around the site to be known, in after years, as the holy city." Already its name was shadowed forth in the term "Salem," which designated the clustered rude huts or tents. Amid the almost universal lawlessness and depravity which swept over Palestine, righteousness and peace seem to have fled for shelter to this little community, where alone due reverence was given to the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.

How this oasis had come into existence amid the surrounding moral desert we cannot tell; but it may have been due to the commanding personal influence of the king, who, according to patriarchal custom, as father of the family, was not only the ruler of the family life, but leader in the family devotions; and thus, while Melchizedek was king of Salem, he was also priest of the Most High. Moreover, it would appear that he bore a special commission, and was raised up for a specific purpose, as the ordained messenger between God and men; and as embodying a striking portraiture of the priesthood to be exercised for man by the Son of God.

Note the significance of the words, made like unto the Son of God (ver. 3). Christ's eternal Priesthood was the archetypal reality, after the similitude of which that of Melchizedek was fashioned. It was as if the Father could not await the day of his Son's priestly entrance within the veil but must needs anticipate the marvels of his ministry by embodying its leading features in miniature. Let us now study some of them.

CHRIST IS KING AS WELL AS PRIEST (ver. 1). History gives its unanimous judgment against the temporal and the spiritual power being vested in the same man. In Israel the two offices were kept rigorously separate; and when, on one occasion, a king passed the sacred barrier, and, snatching up a censer, strode into the inner court, he was at once followed by the remonstrances of the priestly band, whilst the white brand of leprosy wrote his doom upon his brow; "and he himself hastened to go out, because the Lord had smitten him." But the simple monarch of whom we write, living before gathering abuses forbade the union, combined in his person the royal scepter and the sacerdotal censer. And herein he foreshadowed the Christ.

Jesus is King and Priest. He is King because he is a priest. He is highly exalted, demanding homage from every knee, and confession from every lip, because he became obedient to the death of the cross. He bases his royal claims, not on hereditary descent, though the blood of David flowed in his veins; not on conquest or superior force; not on the legislation that underpins the kingdom of heaven among men: but on this, that he redeemed us to God by his blood. He is the King of glory, because he is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The cross was the steppingstone to his throne.

And he cannot fulfill his office as Priest unless he be first recognized as King. Many fail to derive all the blessing offered to men through the Priesthood of Christ, because they are not willing to admit his claims as King. They do not reverence and obey him. They do not open the whole of the inner realm to his scepter. They endeavor to serve two masters; and to stand well with empires as different as light and darkness, heaven and hell, God and Satan. There must be consecration before there can be perfect faith; coronation before deliverance; the King before the Priest.

The order is invariable first King of Righteousness, and after that also King of Peace (ver. 2). " Peace, give us peace!" is the importunate demand of men; peace at any price; by all means peace. But God, in the deep waters, lays the foundation of righteousness; "and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." It is of no use to heal the wound slightly, saying, "Peace, peace," when there is none. Infinitely better is it to probe to the bottom, and to build up from a sound and healthy foundation to the surface of the flesh. And the King of Peace will never enter your soul until you have first acknowledged him as King of Righteousness, submitting yourself to his righteous claims, and renouncing the righteousness which is of the law for that which is by faith.

It is lamentable to find how few Christians, comparatively, are realizing the full meaning or power of Christianity. Joyless, fruitless, powerless, they are a stumbling block to the world, and a mockery to devils. And is not the reason here? They are not right. They are harboring traitors and aliens in their souls. They constantly condemn themselves in things that they allow. No doubt they excuse themselves, and invent special reasons to palliate their faults, so that what would be inadmissible with others is pardonable in them. What special pleading! What ingenious arguments! What gymnastic feats are theirs! But all in vain. Let any such who read these lines learn that it is peremptory to make Christ King, and King of Righteousness, before ever they can appreciate the peace which accrues from his Priesthood on our behalf.

CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD WAS NOT INHERITED (ver. 3). This also comes out clearly in the history of the priest-king of Salem. The Levitical priest had carefully to trace his connection with Aaron, and hence the elaborate genealogies of which some parts of the Bible are full. The priests, at the time of the return from Babylon, who could not prove their pedigree, were suspended until a priest arose with Urim and Thummim. But Melchizedek's priesthood had evidently nothing to do with his descent. He was independent of priestly pedigree. Of course it is not necessary to infer that he really had no human parentage and that he knew neither birth nor death. This is neither stated nor assumed. The argument is simply built on the omission of any reference to these events in ordinary human life; and aims to prove that, therefore, this old-world priesthood was quite independent of those conditions which were of prime importance in the Levitical dispensation. It was of an entirely different order from that which officiated in the Jewish Temple; and was, therefore, so capable to represent Christ's.

As God, our Lord had no mother. As man, no father. He did not Spring from a family of priests; for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the priesthood. What was allegorically true of Melchizedek was literally true of Jesus; who has had neither beginning of days nor end of life. His Priesthood, therefore, is utterly unique. He stands amongst men unrivaled. There have been none like him before nor since. His functions derived from none, shared by none, transmitted to none. Made what he was from all eternity by the foreknowledge and counsel of God.

There never was a beginning to the priestliness of our Savior's heart. There is no date in heaven's calendar for the uprising within him of mercy and pity, and of the intention to stand as the Advocate and Intercessor for our race. Before the mountains were brought forth, or the heavens and earth were made, there was already in his thoughts the germ of that marvelous drama which is slowly unfolding before the gaze of the universe. He was Priest, as well as the Lamb slain, from before the foundation of the world. Love is eternal. Sacrifice is one of the root principles of the being of God. Priesthood is part of the texture of the nature of the Second Person in the adorable Trinity. There need be no fear, therefore, that he will ever desert his office; or lay it aside for some other purpose; or cease to have compassion on the ignorant and erring, the tempted and fallen.

CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD IS CONTINUAL (ver. 3). The priests of Aaron's line were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But of him "it is witnessed that he liveth" (ver. 8). Hallelujah! a Priest has arisen "after the power of an endless life" (ver. 16). "The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a Priest forever" (ver. 21). "Because he abideth forever, his Priesthood is unchangeable" (ver. 24). "He ever liveth to make intercession" (ver. 25). "Consecrated forevermore" (ver. 28). What explicit and abundant testimony! Our High-Priest shall never ascend Mount Hor to be stripped of his robes of office and die. The secrets confided to him need never be told again to his successor. The tender love which links him and us shall never be snapped or cut in death. No one else will ever be called in to take his place in the superintendence of our souls.

This teaching rebukes two errors-(1) The error of those who teach sinlessness in the flesh. It is impossible to exaggerate the mischief which is being wrought just now by some who take advantage of the universal yearning for a higher experience, and are holding out to credulous souls the prospect of reaching a position in which they will no longer need to confess sin, no longer require perpetual cleansing in the blood of Christ, no longer be sensible of their sinnership.

They who speak thus confound sin and sins. They apply the term infirmity to acts and dispositions which the Word of God calls by blacker, darker names. This teaching lowers a man's standard of sin to suit the erroneous doctrine which he has imbibed. It is contrary to the distinct teaching of Scripture that the flesh in the believer may yet lust for the upper hand. It is in Opposition to all deeper experience of the Christian life, which goes to show that, even when we know nothing against ourselves, yet are we not hereby justified; because there may be many evils of which, for want of clearer light, we are completely ignorant, but which stand out patent enough to the eye of him who judges us, the Lord who searches the heart and reins.

The error of those who teach the perplexity if sacrificing priesthood. Of course all believers are priests, in the sense of offering the sacrifice of praise and prayer, the offerings of self-denying love. But there are many among us who persist in affirming that they are called, in addition, constantly to offer the perpetual sacrifice of Calvary, in the elements of the Lord's Supper. Amid the ceremonial of the mass, as offered in too many of our English churches by professed Protestants, claiming to be priests, it is hard to see any trace of the simple institution of the Lord's Supper. And it makes one tingle with righteous indignation to see the way in which these blind leaders of the blind are deceiving the multitudes to the ruin of their soul Sometimes one longs for the withering sarcasm of an Erasmus, the sturdy common sense of a Latimer, the vehemence of a Knox, to show up the unscriptural pretensions of these men, tricked out in the gaudy finery of pagan costumes, and going through mummeries which would provoke to laughter, if the whole system were not so inexpressibly sad. "How long, Lord, how long!"

But, after all, the true way to meet these errors is to insist upon our Lord's continual and unchangeable intercession and priesthood. Surely if he lives and continues his work, it is a piece of impertinent and arrogant folly to intrude upon his functions. We must revert to the earlier methods of Scriptural interpretation and exposition before ever we shall be able to forearm our young people against the monstrous errors of our times, or win back those who have been so disastrously led astray.

"Able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."-HEBREWS vii. 25.

THIS chapter needs to be read under a deep sense of sin, to be properly understood and appreciated. It is the conscious sinner who needs the Priest. We can do very well with Christ as Teacher, Philanthropist, Ideal Man, until we see ourselves as we are in the sight of God; but when that vision is given to us, our hearts cry out with an exceeding great and bitter cry for the Priest, who can stand for us with God, and for God with us.

There is urgent need for a fresh consciousness and conviction of our sinnership, both amongst unbelievers and professing Christians. Light views of sin give slight views of the sacrifice of Calvary, of the need for propitiation, and of the dread future penalty on willful wrongdoing. Did men really understand what sin is, they would not talk so glibly of their complete deliverance from it; confounding as they do the few sins of which they are cognizant with the mass of evil that lies still in their nature, like the mud at the bottom of a pellucid lake, only needing to be stirred to show itself. And if men really felt their sins, there would be a unanimous rush to the precious Blood and to the only priest for absolution and pardon.

It is hardly likely that these poor words can affect the set of the current; yet, if it were possible to reach the great mass of the preachers of the present day, one would urge them to lay aside their literary essays, their arguments with evolutionists, their poetry and rhetoric, and to bring the trenchant teaching of God's Word to bear on human consciences and lives. Let them attack sin as sin. Let them deal with the sins of their congregations specifically, as the Boer marks his man for his bullet. Let them show what God thinks of the sins which we treat so lightly. And as soon as we get back to the old fashioned style of preaching, we shall see a revival of old fashioned conversions. It is of no use complaining, when we are ourselves to blame. Human nature is unaltered. The law of God is unchanged. The cry of the conscience is stifled, not silenced. Again shall we hear of multitudes pierced to the heart, and crying for mercy. And then the Priesthood of Christ, as described here, will acquire a new preciousness.

HE IS A GREAT HIGH-PRIEST (ver. 4). How great, appears from the episode here referred to. Flushed with victory, bringing with him all the captives and goods which Chedorlaomer had swept away from Sodom, the patriarch Abraham had nearly reached his own camp. But as he drew nigh to Salem, where peace and righteousness dwelt beneath the rule of Melchizedek, he was met by this saintly figure, bearing in his hands the sacred emblems of bread and wine: meet type of him who often accosts us on the road of life, when weary with conflict, or when entering into subtle temptation, and refreshes us with the bread of his flesh, and the wine of his blood. And Abraham knelt to receive a blessing at his hand, and gave him tithes of all (Gen. xiv. 19, 20).

Does not this prove the greatness of Melchizedek? The Levites and priests were indeed permitted to take tithes of their brethren; but this glorious priest feels no compunction to take tithes of one of another race. He rose above the narrow boundaries of race or blood, and was prepared to do his office with equal care for an alien as for his own. This unsectarian, cosmopolitan, large-hearted view of his obligations to man as man is a true mark of greatness. And in this he manifests a trait of the greatness of our dear Lord, whose Priesthood overleaps the limits which might be set by nationality or birth, and deals with man as man; with thee, reader, and me, if only we will come to him.

Besides this, since the greater must bless the less, it is obvious that Abraham, great and good though he was, the friend of God, and the recipient of the promises, must have felt that Melchizedek was his superior, or he would never have treated him with such marked respect (Heb. vii. 6, 7). Surely, then, this holy man was a fit representative of our blessed Lord, to whom all the noblest in heaven and earth bow the knee; confessing that he is Lord; and consecrating to him, not a tenth only, but the whole of what they have and are.

HE IS A GREATER HIGH-PRIEST THAN AARON OR HIS SONS. When Abraham knelt beneath that royal and priestly hand, he did not do so for himself alone, but as a representative man. First and head of his race, his descendants were identified with him in his deed. Levi, therefore, who receiveth tithes paid tithes in the patriarch; and, in doing so, forevermore took up the second place as inferior, and second best.

"Stop," cries an objector; "if you affirm this inferiority of the Jewish priesthood to that of Melchizedek, you are making an assertion so far-reaching in its results as to need some further corroboration. Are you quite sure that this is as you say?"

"Certainly," is the reply; "else, why should there be so emphatic an announcement made in David's Psalms of the coming of another Priest long after the Jewish priesthood had been in operation? 'If perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another Priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron?'"

"But stay," again interposes the objector; "if you are going to supersede the Levitical priesthood, you are of necessity making a change in all that ceremonial law which rested on the priesthood as an arch upon its keystone. Are you prepared to sweep away a system so venerable, so religiously maintained, the bulwark of religion, the institution of God?"

"I am prepared for this," is the reply; "the previous commandments that relate to sacrifices and rites and ceremonies will have to go. They were temporary and imperfect. Types, not realities; molds, not the real vessels; shadows, not the substance. They made nothing perfect. Their office was to bring in a better hope; but, now that this is come, they may be annulled and laid aside."

It seems a light thing to us; but it was of the gravest import to those who were here addressed. To them the Jewish priesthood and ceremonial were more than a state religion; they were religion itself. Tradition, custom, ancestral veneration, personal admiration, and adherence, all these ties had to be rudely snapped, as they were compelled to admit the cogency of this inspired and irresistible argument. If Jesus were indeed the Priest spoken of by David in Psalm cx.- and of this there seemed no doubt because it was so often applied to him (Matt. xxii. 44; Acts ii. 34)- then there could be no doubt that his Priesthood was better than Aaron's; and that the whole system of which the Levitical priesthood was the essential characteristic must pass away before that system which gathers around the person and work of the Lord Jesus.

We must distinguish between the moral and the ceremonial law: the latter is transient, and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ; the former, of course, is of permanent and eternal force, written on the conscience of man and the government of the world.

We can only stay for a moment here to show how absurd it is for either the Roman or the Anglican priest to base his pretensions on the example of the Old Testament. To do so is to confess their inferiority to the only Priesthood which is recognized in the present age. They are in evil case. Press them for their warrant of existence. If they quote Rev. i. 6, then we all have an equal right to wear their dress and fulfill their office. If they quote Leviticus, then are they hopelessly undone; for that priesthood has been superseded. The time is coming when all his people will have to disavow connection with those men whose pretensions are baseless, or worse, delusive; and an unwarrantable intrusion into the sacred offices of Christ. Alas I poor souls, deluded and fleeced by them!

HE IS THE GREATEST OF HIGH-PRIESTS. Because he was made priest by the oath of God (vv. 20, 21). Ordinary priests had no such sanction to their appointment; but he by an oath. Jehovah sware, and will not change his mind. His appointment is final, absolute, immutable. It never can be superseded, as that of Aaron has been. Heaven and earth may pass away, but it will not pass away.

Because he continueth ever. His is the Priesthood in which throbs the power of an endless life (ver. 16). It is witnessed of him, that he liveth. "Behold," said he, "I am alive forevermore." What a contrast to all human priests, on whose graves this epitaph may ever be inscribed, "Not suffered to continue by reason of death." One by one they grow old and die: the eye, often filmed with tears, is closed; the heart stands still; the hands, often raised in absolution, crossed meekly on the breast, as if asking for pardon. But he ever liveth. And of this perpetual life there are two blessed results. On the one hand, he has an untransferable Priesthood (ver. 24); on the other hand, he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him (ver. 25). There is no limit to his salvation, no barrier beyond which he may not pass. Uttermost in time, and in character, and in desperation, you may be at one of the ends of the earth; yet you shall be lifted to the uttermost degree of glory. To the uttermost-from sins of thought as well as of word and deed; to the uttermost, in cleansing the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Because of his blameless character. Holy toward God; harmless toward man; undefiled in heart; separate from sinners in life. Not needing to offer up sacrifice for himself, as the priests did always before offering for the congregation; not requiring to make a daily or yearly repetition of that perfect sacrifice and oblation which was once made on the cross (vv. 26, 27).

Because of the dignity of his Person (ver. 28). The office of mediation is no longer entrusted to a man, or set of men, encompassed by infirmities. See! through the shining ranks of being there advances the Son, Light of Light, Fellow of Jehovah, Coequal with God, One with Father and Spirit in the ever-blessed Trinity. He is solemnly consecrated to this task of reconciling and saving sinners. All heaven hears and ratifies the oath. And surely we may well ponder what must be our worth in the thought of God, and what our destiny, when our case is undertaken, amid such solemnities, by One so August, so glorious, so divine, as the High-Priest, who now awaits the appeal of the humblest penitent of the human race. "Such a High-Priest became us."

"To THE UTTERMOST." Eyes may light on these words, weary with weeping, of those who have been reduced well-nigh to despair through the greatness and virulence of their sins. Not only does the record of the past seem too black to be forgiven, but old habits are perpetually reasserting themselves; ridiculing the most steadfast resolutions, and smiting the inner life of the soul down to the ground. At such times we are disposed to envy the vegetable and animal creation, which are not capable of sin; or the myriads of sweet children who have been taken home to God before the time of conscious rebellion and war could rend their infant hearts. But the greatness of our sin is always less than the greatness of God's grace. Where the one abounds, the other much more abounds. If we go down to the bottoms of the mountains and touch the heart of the deep, deeper than all is the redeeming mercy of God. The love and grace and power of Jesus are more than our unutterable necessities. Only trust him, he is "able to save unto the uttermost"; and he is as willing as able.

There are many in these days filled with questionings about the clean heart, the extent to which we may be delivered from sin, and such like speculations. To these we say: Cease to think of cleansing, and consider the Cleanser; forbear to speculate on the deliverance, and deal with the Deliverer; be not so eager as to the nature of the salvation, but let the Savior into your heart; and be sure that so long as he is in possession, he will exert so salutary an effect, that sin, however mighty, shall instantly lose its power over the tempest-driven soul that comes through him to God, the source of holiness.

 "According to the pattern showed to thee in the mount."-HEBREWS iii. 5.

THERE were three stages by which Moses, the man of God, ascended into the Mount. To the first, he went in company with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy elders of the children of Israel, the chosen representatives of the people. "And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness; they saw God, and did eat and drink" (Exod. xxiv. 10, 11). This eating and drinking was evidently a symbol of friendship and peace, based upon the shedding of the blood, which is recorded in the previous verses. We, too, may see God, and eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of the Son of Man, on the basis of that precious blood by which we have been made nigh.

When this feast was over, the voice of God called Moses up to a higher range, a further steep. He first bade the elders tarry where they were; and then, accompanied only by Joshua, he rose up, and went into the mount of God, on which the cloud brooded, steeped and bathed in the glory of the Lord, like the long bars of cloud in the brilliance of a setting sun.

But on the seventh day, even Joshua was left behind. God called unto Moses out of the cloud. And Moses went up further into the mount, deeper and yet deeper into the heart of the burning glory. All his senses were keenly awake to the scenes around him, and entranced; each the channel for tides of rapturous enjoyment, without pain, without self-consciousness, without the paralysis of fear, as if one were borne ever onward by a tide of glory and music, each movement of which was rapture. "And Moses was in the Mount forty days and forty nights."

During that time minute instructions were given Moses concerning the Tabernacle, which was to be erected on the plains below. Those instructions are given in Exod. xxv., xxvi.,xxvii., And are exceedingly minute. But nothing was left to human fancy. Beginning with the ark and its mercy-seat as the throne of God, the instructions pass through the table of shittim wood, the candlestick with its seven branches, the boards and curtains and hangings, until they end at the great brazen altar in the court of the Tabernacle, where God and the sinner met. Is not this also the path trodden by the Lord himself, the substance of all these types, who came from the bosom of the Father to the cross of Calvary, the brazen altar where he put away the sins of men?

But, in addition to the minute description thus given, there appears to have been presented to the mind of Moses some representation of the things which he was bidden to construct. It was as if the eternal realities which had dwelt forever in the mind of God took some visible shape before his vision. The unseen became visible. The eternal took form. A pattern was shown him. He trod the aisles of the true Tabernacle. He beheld the heavenly things themselves. And it was after this pattern that he was repeatedly urged and commanded to build. "According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the Tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it" (Exod. Xxv 9, 40; xxvi. 30; xxvii. 8).

THE JEWISH RITUAL DESERVES DEVOUT STUDY. It is always interesting to study methods of religious worship, even though the rites have become obsolete, the altars deserted, and the dust of priest and votary has long since mingled in the sand of the desert or the verdure of the glade. Who can look unmoved at the gigantic monuments which rear themselves in the dense forests of Central Mexico, the remnants of an age of giants who have passed away, giving no clew to the symbols or hieroglyphs which they have carved? Who can walk unmoved through the stone circles of Stonehenge, Keswick, or Penmaenmawr, and not fall into pensive musings?

For this reason, if for no other, the Levitical ritual would ever be possessed of intrinsic interest. When we think of the noble spirits who have bequeathed us our most precious religious records, who sang in the Psalms, and wept in the Lamentations, and flashed with the ecstasy of Messianic prediction and prophecy; and all of whom were trained in the system of which the Tabernacle was the focus and heart, we cannot fail to examine it with holy and reverent curiosity, as if one should visit the nursery or schoolhouse where loved and honored teachers spent their earliest years.

But there is a yet deeper interest here. For we are told that these things were made after the pattern of things in the heavens. Every knob, and tache, and curtain, and vessel, and piece of furniture, had some analogue, some spiritual counterpart of which it was the rude and material expression. Through these examples and shadows there is no doubt that the ancient saints caught glimpses of the eternal realities. We infer this, because there is such a similarity between their religious life, as expressed in their writings, and our own. But if they, who had nothing but the type to guide them, were able to discern so many deep and holy lessons through its medium, how much more evidently should we be able to see the grand principles of redemption in the ancient ritual, when before us have passed the scenes of Bethlehem, Calvary, the Garden of Arimathea, and the Ascension Mount!

Sometimes in a shadow we may see details of workmanship which otherwise in the substance we might have missed. One of the most wonderful achievements of the present day is sun-photography, by which photographs are obtained of the sun-disk under certain conditions. And it is obviously much easier to investigate the nature of the sun from such photographs than to study it amid the unbearable glory of his presence. The eye may quietly pursue its investigations undazzled and unabashed. So we may better understand some of the details of Christ's work, as we study Leviticus, than when we stand with the apostles amid the marvels of the cross, or with the Seer amid the supernal blaze of Apocalyptic vision.

Turn not lightly then from the Book of Leviticus, which shadows forth the Gospel; and, indeed, gives much of the terminology, the phrases and symbols, to be afterward employed. Beneath the teaching of the same Holy Spirit as taught Moses of old we explore the sacred meanings which underlie ark and propitiatory; fine twined linen and blue; candlestick and table; altar of incense and altar of burnt-offering; basin and vessel and snuffer. Each is like a hook in the divine household, to which God has attached a sacred meaning, and which will yield up its secret to those who reverently ask and seek and knock. Adapting some memorable words, we may say: "The invisible things of God, from the construction of the Tabernacle, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that were made, even his eternal purpose of redemption."

THE TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL ARE ETERNAL REALITIES. We must not think that they are ever destined to pass away, as the Jewish types did. They cannot. They are the heavenly things themselves. They are the true, the ideal, the divine. They have always been what they are. They always will be what they are. We may yet have to see much deeper into them; we may need to be taught them in yet higher methods of divine communication. We may have to be lifted on to a loftier region of experience in order to comprehend them. But they are essentially and forever settled, the granite of eternal fact. Any structure built on them shall last forever. The Jews had only the example, we have the reality; they the picture, we the person; they the shadow, we the substance.

It is interesting to feel that Moses saw no other truth in God's revelation than what Paul saw; though to Moses it shaped itself in the Tabernacle with its layers of skins, whilst to Paul it took shape in glowing trains of splendid argument and rhetoric. But ever in the mind and thought of God there has been the same distinction between holiness and sin; ever the need of sacrifice, even unto death; ever the demand for shed life, as the only means through which the sinner may approach his holy Majesty; ever the requirements of the incense of praise, the bread of obedience, the light of an illuminated character; ever the priest to make intercession; and ever the aisles and courts and spaces dedicated to worship and intercourse, lofty as the fellowship between the Father and the Son.

Calvary is no novelty, nor the Priesthood, nor the work of Jesus; they represent the shining forth of eternal facts in the deepest nature of God. To ignore them is to miss union with God on the most fundamental laws and processes of his being. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world: and lie appears in heaven still bearing the marks of his death, "a Lamb as it had been slain."

OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP. We must needs assemble ourselves in places of assembly with fellow Christians; but in point of fact not one of them is essential to true worship. The type has passed, and we know that the Jewish Tabernacle is no more. But what do we see? Men are trying to reproduce it, or to invent a substitute for it. Ah, how greatly they misconceive our true position! We certainly neither need the Jewish Tabernacle nor any substitute; because we are constituted priests of the heavenly tabernacle, which no human hand ever reared, and which is the meeting place between God and all true hearts, yea, of all who love God. "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father." When we meet a company of our fellow Christians, we are not to think of them as the whole of those with whom we worship. The true worshiper is one of a great festal throng, which is filling the spiritual temple. We are but part of a congregation consisting of all the sainted dead, and the believing living, in all communions, and throughout the universe of God. The prisoner, the traveler, the invalid, the mother, the nurse- a11 meet there in unison, and worship God together. All are priests, and yonder is the High-Priest, who has passed through the heavens and ever lives to make intercession. "A minister of the true tabernacle." How ridiculous do those appear to such an assembly who arrogate to themselves priestly pretensions, and who would make us believe that they are repeating the sacrifice of Christ! In this temple at least they are not wanted, for Christ is here to offer the sacrifice himself.

THE TRUE PATTERN OF OUR LIFE IS SUGGESTED HERE. We have many plans and schemes and patterns; but how often abortive and disappointing! Would that we could spend long periods with God in the mount, getting his pattern of our life and work! There is nothing higher for us than to build up some resemblance to God's eternal thought. All structures built on that scheme will stand forever. And God will ever find material, more than enough, for those who dare to be singular, because they are true to the pattern which he shows on the mount. And if it be asked what that pattern is which God will show us in the mount of communion, we may reply: it is the life and character and work of Jesus Christ our Lord; the model and exemplar and pattern of all that is true and just and pure and lovely and of good report. See that thou make thy life on this pattern, which God waits to show thee in the mount. God calls thee to it, and he will enable thee to perform.