these asunder, to come forth of them, and take up with the Gospel; it was a rude tearing of the heart's fibres that had clung about them so tightly. Shadows though they were, to them it was all one as if essence and substance; and even though they had suffered much already for the Gospel, and in some cases taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, yet sometimes they felt almost at sea again, drifting away from the haven, half ready to embrace any opportunity that offered itself, of returning whence they had come out. He had need to say to them, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise: now if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." These weak unestablished Christians he takes by the hand, and especially commends to the strong the comfort and help of the feeble-hearted. "Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed."+ But most of all he desires to fortify and corroborate them by leading them back from the accidental to the essential, from the shadow to the substance, from the transitory to that which is eternally abiding; from that which is changeful, fluctuating, and variable, to that which is always and everywhere the same. And thus the word which is the key-note of the Epistle, seems to be this, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Dispensations might wane; the priests themselves could not continue by reason of death: priesthoods might pass, and old sacrifices be proved inoperative and inefficacious; and the old commandment disannulled, "for + Heb. xii. 13.

* Heb. x. 35, 36, 38.

the weakness and unprofitableness thereof:" and the worthies of faith, those that staked all on the faith of God's testimony, and counted His word ample warrant for fearless action, might disappear one by one from the lists of the Church Militant. But in opposition to all these, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." He has arrived at this high summit, or what we may call solid nucleus of truth, by a kind of exhaustive process; taking one thing after another of the things they had clung to and rested in, and dismissing them, as proved to be variable and imperfect, this he establishes as the alone abiding, unchangeable residue. And then, like a traveller that has gained a good height or vantage ground, he stops there to shape his course and determine on his plan of action; to make a note of experience gained, and take a calm survey of the country that lies around. So does the apostle, having reached in the process of his argument this great fundamental principle, plant his foot firmly at this point, and lay down some simple rules and heads of counsel and exhortation which seem naturally to flow from that central thought of his letter.

And among other lessons resulting from it he deduces that of contentment with all that the day brings by God's appointment. "Be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. ""* Next, "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines."+ As a man would not spend his time and temper, and waste words in discussing the colour and shape of a cloud, which * Heb. xiii. 5, 6. + Heb. xiii. 9.

never continues two moments together in one stay, so questions of meats should not irritate and agitate men's minds, as if they were of the weightier matters : but rather let them seek to be established in that grace of God, to which faith finds access; in the peace and pardon of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son; for there is stability here, and never-ending progress towards glory.

Another lesson- -a lesson of comfort was this-that though it was with them as with the holy seed, the faithful remnant, in Isaiah's time," their brethren hated them, and cast them out, for Christ's name's sake, and said, Let the Lord be glorified," as if their excommunication were a pious act, most pleasing, and bringing glory to God; yet those who excluded them were themselves most of all in a state of exclusion, while they, the excluded ones to all appearance, were the true inheritors and possessors of the covenant blessing. "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” ↑ Grudge them not their boasted possession of the things which are decaying and vanishing away, as the tabernacle and its worship; they are blindly fastening on the images of things; lay your firm hold on the inmost truths. They are your portion and birthright as Christians. Your Jewish brethren after the flesh have the Jewish altar, with its ritual. Theirs are the legal sacrifices, the daily sin offerings, and the other more solemn and imposing sacrifices at the great festivals and commemorative seasons; and they eat of the flesh of some of the victims so offered. But to us there is an altar, by which, clearly, he does not mean the * Isa. lxvi. 5. + Heb. xiii. 10.

Lord's table; because the whole course of his argument throughout this wonderful Epistle had been to prove that the sacrifice was once for all: "Once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."* "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." And therefore to talk of repeating and reproducing and re-enacting, must be, to say the least, highly perilous. Yet he says we have an altar, the heavenly altar of burnt offering, where the victim that is also (considered in another aspect) the Great High Priest, stands ever to minister, offering and presenting there, and pleading the merits of the sprinkled blood : "Able to save to the uttermost, all who come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them."‡ And of that altar, and the sacrifice there offered, there is a double fruit; the atonement and propitiation first; and then the daily refreshing and quickening of the once cleansed and pardoned penitent; one principal and divinely appointed channel of which is the Lord's supper. We eat of that altar then, as well as are washed and sanctified and justified. As our service has it, "We most heartily thank Thee, for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." That word spiritual continually recurs in our services, "the spiritual food." The neglect of the Holy Communion (which has sometimes gone near to break my heart) arises much from this want of recognising that the spirit is a real thing, a very true part of man, and that it needs its proper sustenance, its kindred food. St. John, in the midst * Heb. ix. 26. + Heb. x. 14. Heb. vii. 25.

of the throne, saw "a Lamb as it had been slain.”* On the heavenly altar, that slain Lamb is always; it needs no fresh repetition of the sacrifice on earthly altars; the Lamb is always slain, "slain from the foundation of the world;"† but not on earth, except in the virtue and fruits of it. "Once for all, Jesus, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God;" but it is of undying, perfect, matchless efficacy, first for the washing out of those stains of your souls that cry to heaven; like the poor leper's dirge of lament, Unclean, unclean, so those stains of sin cry aloud, Guilty, guilty: and then of efficacy also for the purging of the conscience from the oppressive sense of defilement, and enabling you to go in peace, like a prisoner whose fetters and manacles are struck off, in a course of brave happy service and loving obedience. And further, it is what the peace offering under the law was, a feast upon a sacrifice. The slain Lamb is taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper; and it is in vain we thank God every Sunday for "the means of grace and hope of glory," whilst we habitually, and without even feeling much ashamed and humbled, cast aside one of the greatest and most blessed of means. Our thanksgiving for the means of grace becomes thus a hypocritical form, instead of an honest, genuine, outspeaking of praise. I thank God that there have been some few who have broken off this dull apathy and indifference and callousness about ordinances, and have come out of the mass, and dared to be singular in this matter, some few lately; and I would venture to hope still, that before I leave you there may yet be some few whose hearts are at that very point when

* Rev. v. 6.

Rev. xiii. 8.

+ Heb. ix. 14.