given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory."*

But again, we are told that Melchisedec blessed Abraham, when he returned from the slaughter of the kings; and of Aaron and his sons under the law, that they blessed the children of Israel, or, as it is also called, “put the name of God"† upon the children of Israel, and God blessed them; so did He, and so does He still, who was made an High Priest with the oath of Him that said, "Thou art a priest for ever." See with what solemnity, at once dread and joyful, He prepared for His bodily departure from His temple on earth, to enter on His priestly session at the Father's right hand. What benedictions of priests under the law, or of holiest of Christian patriarchs, on earth, could adequately symbolize the great scene of our Lord's departure?" He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them." See the Priest going before! The Church follows in the person of the disciples. This greater than Elijah will leave more than a prophet's mantle to the Elishas who shall represent Him on earth. "He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, that while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." §

The entrance of the glorified High Priest in our nature within the veil, though predicted of prophets and seen of angels, no apostle's eye witnessed. Ascending they saw Him, ascended they saw Him not. For angelic hosts that day of triumph was reserved; they alone were spectators: and yet our share in it was greater than theirs, as many of us as are "yieldLuke xxiv. 50. § Luke xxiv. 50, 51.

*

John xvii. 24.

+ Num. vi. 27.

ing our members as instruments of righteousness unto God; "* and acting upon the great apostolic principle, "The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body;" "And as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” Our share in it is greater far: He has borne our flesh, and presented it immortal, incorruptible, before the mercy-seat; thereby has pledged Himself to the body's resurrection. As a forerunner, He has entered, in pledge and token that the whole "spirit and soul and body" shall have each and all their portion assigned them in the resurrection of the just. As the priest for us, He has waved the sheaf of firstfruits; and the bodies of His saints rest in sure and certain hope of the whole ingathered harvest. This our Melchisedec, Priest of the most high God, shall meet them returning from the slaughter, from the victory over lusts that war and sins that seek to bring them into bondage; and bring forth the bread and wine, not of the table on earth, but the new bread and wine of the kingdom, of which these are the types and shadows only; and His blessing shall be to you the settlement of all your doubts, and the drying of all your tears, the crowning of all your hopes; it shall be to you rest and glory, and a home with God and Christ, and the true Church of Christ for ever.

Rom. vi. 13.

+ Cor. vi. 13.

I Cor. xv. 49.

VII.

Christ's Rest, and His People's Rest in Him.

HEB. iv. 9, 10.

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His."

THIS

HIS chapter contains a whole body of divinity, little dreamt of by those who think that a very cursory glance at the Scriptures will be sufficient to inform them as to its whole meaning. None are so ready to confess as those who have studied the Bible patiently, thoughtfully, for thirty, forty, fifty years, what babes they are as regards attaining an insight into the deep, rich substance- truth of God's word; and what humbling discoveries are sometimes made to them of their poverty of knowledge and darkness of understanding; and how they have sometimes been almost overwhelmed by disclosures made to them of whole harvests full of knowledge, and garners full of truth, where they only looked for the scantiest pickings and gleanings.

Further, this chapter tends strongly to confirm our belief that St. Paul was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. For, first, the reasoning is like his, very close, rigid, forcible, and sometimes apparently involved; apparently only, because of the depths of thought and of truth from which he fetches some of the links which form his chain of argument, which make

it hard for the untrained and sluggish mind to follow him and, in the next place, the doctrines, though agreeable to those of the other apostles, and to that of the Lord Himself, are yet those which were presented to St. Paul's mind with unusual clearness, and unfolded by him in their connection with other Christian doctrines and in their application to the Christian life.

May the Spirit of God be pleased to shed His light upon them, that we may understand them aright, and find in them, not only food for reflection, but matter of edification and comfort, and instruction in righteous

ness.

A rest or Sabbath-keeping laid up in store for the people of God: this is the great subject of this chapter. The term people of God is a very common expression to us, by which we understand that "faithful people, whose hearts God teaches by sending to them the light of His Holy Spirit;" but when the Apostle wrote, it had but just come to be used in that sense; it was a new, strange, unfamiliar use of the word. It had always meant the people of Israel, exclusively and alone; but the prophet had foretold the day when it should be used in a far wider and more enlarged sense: "As He saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved."* And the same Apostle had maintained in Romans ix. that this prophecy was clearly proved in the call and ingathering of the Gentiles. He had advocated and proved the appropriateness of this new significance of the word people of God. It was not necessary, therefore, for him to stop to show this again. He employs it * Rom. ix. 25.

in the sense already explained by him. The people of God, otherwise called the children of the kingdom, the children of God, as opposed to the children of the wicked one, have a rest remaining in store for them, a rest into which even now already are we entering, as he shows in verse 3. These are a people that have come out of the world to God, choosing Him as their portion and inheritance; satisfied they have really lost nothing by so doing, but rather have infinitely gained; because he who has the source already need not wander far and near to assuage his thirst from the waters of the streams; he that has found the pearl of great price must, if he knows and realizes its value, be indifferent to those of less clearness, lustre, and purity.

So is it with those that come to God. The upright have good things in possession. They are made partakers of Christ, joint-heirs with Christ, and thereby heirs of God: a very remarkable expression. That which is God's own possession is the possession of the firstborn of God. The right of property which resides in Christ the firstborn is shared by all the children! Oh matchless and amazing privilege! Human thought loses itself in the ineffable glory of this condescension.

This having been laid down in Romans viii. as the privileged position of believers, a position which, however passing our present state of knowledge and attainment, we are unceasingly to strive to rise unto; the Apostle bases all his argument in this chapter upon it. He takes it as a postulate which will be conceded him by those to whom the doctrines of grace are not mere shadowy theories, but truths reaching deep into the heart of things, types whose original is