and beautiful, however much of evil or of folly may exist beside it. Thus, then, we may correct for ourselves what is else a daily snare to us; the being obliged to read so many unchristian writings; and instead of their insensibly dulling the quickness of our moral sense, and bringing us down to their level, they may serve continually to keep alive and in vigour our knowledge and love of better things, and so make our daily studies and our prayers agree with and help each other.

SERMON X.

CHRIST OUR PRIEST.

[Preached on Good Friday.]

HEBREWS, X. 14.

By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are

sanctified.

THE peculiar circumstances of the Epistle to the Hebrews give it, as we might have expected, a peculiar character. For although many points relating to it are, and ever will be, unknown, yet it seems impossible to doubt that it was written to Jewish Christians; and that not only to persons partly of Jewish blood, and acquainted with the Scriptures before their conversion to Christianity, yet, using the language, and, in many points, the customs of the Gentiles; but to those called Hebrews, Jews of unmixed descent, and, like the Jews of the present day, clinging with fondness to

every peculiarity of their nation, to its language, no less than to its ceremonies. And if this be so, would not the epistle addressed to such a class be written in Hebrew? and would not what we now possess be, according to a very old opinion, no more than a translation. For in all points of national feeling, the Hebrew Christians closely resembled their unconverted brethren; and as we are told that St. Paul, at Jerusalem, was listened to with the more attention when he spoke in the Hebrew tongue, so we can hardly doubt that a letter written to Hebrews, in order to secure their favourable reading of it, must have been written in the Hebrew tongue also.

From being addressed, then, to Jewish Christians, in the strongest sense of the term, that is, to Hebrews, this epistle naturally takes a different view of the gospel from that which we find commonly in the other epistles. In the other epistles, indeed, as being addressed, in part at least, to persons who, before they became Christians, had believed in the true God, and knew the Old Testament, the allusions to the Old Testament are frequent; and its prophecies, and generally the system described in it, are often referred to. Still the minds of their readers were not exclusively Jewish; and therefore other views are, from time to time, presented, such as would be more natural to the heathen convert, or even to the

half Greek or Hellenist Jew. But in an address to Hebrews, the gospel was to be considered solely with reference to Hebrew feelings and institutions; and as one of the most sacred of these last was the priesthood, especially as it regarded that most solemn of the high priest's duties, the great atonement offered by him once in every year for the sins of the people, so it was to be seen in what respects Christianity either did away with this institution or perfected it; what, in short, it had to offer to the Hebrew Christian, which, while it filled up the place of his former priesthood, and satisfied those moral and spiritual wants which a priesthood is meant to satisfy, might make it well worth his while to part with his own national priesthood, as being in all respects better and more perfect than that.

In meeting this peculiarity in the circumstances of those to whom it was written, the Epistle to the Hebrews furnishes us, and all Christians, with one most valuable view of Christ's person and office. It represents him as our high priest, and his office as a priesthood; as a priesthood in the two great parts of the priestly character, sacrifice and intercession, or mediation. And it declares also, that this is the only priest, and the only priesthood, which the gospel acknowledges; for he being eternal, and having done once perfectly one part of his office, namely, sacrifice, and being

for ever engaged in doing perfectly the other part of it, namely, intercession or mediation; what room can there be for any other priest? seeing that any other priest's work would be only a vain repetition, if he attempted to sacrifice, or a no less vain and presumptuous imitation, if he were to attempt to add his own imperfect mediation to the perfect mediation ever offered in the presence of God by the one perfect Mediator.

But first, and for this day's service, it seems best not to consider so much how there can be no other priest, or priesthood, save Christ and Christ's, but rather how he is our priest himself: after which, the other part of the subject may find its place more profitably. For the merely saying that there is no other priest than Christ, may be no better than profaneness, unless we know and feel that Christ is our true priest. Nor is there any thing gained in getting rid of superstition, unless we have first established piety and holiness. But if God's grace has once set these up firmly on the ruins of ungodliness and careless sin, then it becomes our wisdom and our duty to take care that they are not, in turn, corrupted and destroyed by the creeping in of superstition.

Christ then, by one offering, has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. By one offering, namely, the offering up of himself upon the cross, as on this day, for the sins of the whole world.