holiness. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." Here we firmly fix our feet-here we stand, and never will give way; no, not one inch. Christ has risen-our surety, our sin-bearer, our law-fulfiller has risen. He has left our sins in his grave, and by faith we also are "married to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God."

In this faith we have access to God. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand ;" and thus enjoying the privilege of nearness to the Heavenly Father, we at once enter into a superior ground than was known under the law. The Mosaic ritual was in all its parts a shadowing forth of the ministration of righteousness, "which exceedeth in glory." It was a preparation of mysteries, a system of hieroglyphs, indicating the Gospel: and it is obvious that the object of all the service of the tabernacle, was to impress this doctrine on Israel, that through the ministration of the Priests and Levites there was to be obtained an intercourse with Jehovah. But this intercourse was achieved by ceremony and sacrifice, by many rites and reverential ordinances, by close attention to all the rules laid down in the Levitical books; and, though approach to God was the end of all the service of the tabernacle, yet it was through the careful observance of that ritual which betokened fear in all its arrangements. The tabernacle was the palace of the great King, the mercy-seat was his throne, veiled from the eyes, not only of the multitudes, but of the priests themselves, for only one individual in all the many thousands of Israel could go behind the veil, and that one individual not without many ceremonial preparations enjoined under the penalty of death. "Speak unto Aaron, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail, before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark, that he die not (Lev. xvi. 2). Only once in the year could the high priest enter into the Holy of Holies, and no other person of all the twelve tribes, whether king, priest, or prophet, could accompany him. One man only could act as mediator for Israel on the great day of Atonement, and he, as the appointed mediator, entered into communion with the Eternal King on that solemn occasion. "Thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and there will I meet with thee; and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony."

Thus, though there was access to God, yet the idea of distance was most vividly expressed by all those rites through which this access was to be obtained. If then the grace of God was ever to be revealed to man, man might expect something more of consolation, encouragement, and assurance, than this awful distance in his intercourse with the Almighty. The death of Christ had consequently an immediate effect on the Holy of Holies. "The vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," just as the dying Lord of Glory declared that all was finished. Then from that hour there was another access to God, and another Israel, with a better ministration. The Holy Place then was set up in heaven itself; the High Priest was not taken from the dying and sinful sons of Adam, but such a High Priest as became the true circumcision, who should be holy, blameless, undefiled, and made higher than the heavens. The blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean became now of no avail; they could not now sanctify, even to the purifying of the flesh; but the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purged the consciences of the heirs of promise from all dead works to serve the living God. Sin was no longer dealt with through the blood of animals, but it was estimated in all respects by an infinite measure. The guilt of sin was now declared to be infinite, and, therefore, an infinite price must be paid for it. The union of the divine with the human nature was now revealed in all its ineffable efficacy, and the Church of God was purchased even with nothing less than His own blood (Acts xx. 28). Weigh oceans of blood of bulls and goats against one drop of the divine blood of redemption shed by Emmanuel, God with us, and you may then perceive how incomparably, how infinitely, the atonement of the Gospel is above ten centuries of daily atonements under the law. As sin then was treated as infinite, so was the pardon of sin immeasurable also. The forgiveness of sin, through the atonement of the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, is as perfect as His own person; but if He was any one less than the Word of God has revealed Him to be, then never was one sin pardoned through faith in him, since the day he went up into heaven. But that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the rock on

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which he will build his Church, and against it the gates of hell shall never prevail : for in the knowledge of his person rests that perfection in his Church which he, being such a one as the incarnate Son of God, was alone qualified to bestow. The Son of God designed to have a perfect Church, and the first element of its perfection is that it should not have any spot (Eph. v. 27). This is, in fact, to participate in his own righteousness, for he was offered up a lamb without spot or blemish" (1 Pet. i. 19). The righteousness of the Church, justified by faith in him, is nothing less than the whole righteousness, active and passive, of the incarnate Son of God imputed to the Church; for "by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom. v. 19); and if he, crucified, dead, and buried, raised up again by the Spirit of Holiness, exalted at God's right hand, and living thus after the power of an endless life, has close communion with the Eternal Father, so have all his people a close communion also in and with him, and they sit in heavenly places in him, all joined together by one spirit into one body, to be as members of the Great High Priest in the Holiest Place of all.

An

We have seen how all the sacerdotal appointments of the tabernacle were, for this one object, to procure an approach to God for Israel, in the person of the priest, the mediator. If all Israel could have had access to the holiest place, and could have gone behind the veil to commune with God on the mercy-seat, the Levitical order never would have been established, for a priesthood has no other office to perform, no other privilege to boast of, than that it can draw nearer to God than the people. Nearness of approach to God is the whole prerogative of a priesthood, so that if this nearness is to be obtained by any other means than through the functions of the sacerdotal order, there is no further use for the priests, and they may be disbanded, and forthwith incorporated with the rest of the people. On this ground it is, that we want no priest in the kingdom of grace; nay, the presence of such a functionary, claiming a privilege distinct from the rest of the children of God, is offensive and odious to a rightly instructed Christian. official priest, in the true tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched, and not man, is an enemy, an antichrist, a deceiver; for all his pretensions are destructive of the Gospel of the grace of God, and his very name is an abomination. As soon as an official priest is admitted amongst Christians, as soon as a distinction is allowed between clergy and laity, then immediately the beggarly elements, which were nailed to the cross of Jesus, are brought back into the Church of God, and with them comes in a dark cloud, to shroud the glories of the Sun of Righteousness. An official priest upon earth, standing in the Church of God, does by his very presence undo the work which it is the whole object of the Gospel to teach us is complete; for if the sins of the children of God are freely forgiven, fully forgiven, entirely forgiven; if they, being justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power;" if they are in Christ, and Christ is in them (John xvii. 23); if they are all one, as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father (xvii. 21); if the Son of God has promised them, that whatsoever they shall ask the Father in his name, he will give it them; if they are invited to ask and receive, that their joy may be full (John xvi. 23); and if their fellowship is truly with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John i. 3), what is a poor earthly priest to do for them? Can he draw nearer to God than the Holiest Place ? Can he claim a station closer to God, than to the throne of grace? and when he is there, can he do something more for them than the Holy Ghost, which is poured out in a large effusion on all the adopted family? God in His Word bids his children "to come boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain mercy, and to find grace to help in time of need-to enter with boldness into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for them through the vail, that is to say, his flesh-yea, because they have an High Priest over the house of God, to draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." What shall we imagine more than this, as long as we are in the flesh? And is it not quite obvious to those who are not labouring under that worst of all blindnesses, the blindness of the heart, that these invitations, exhortations, precepts, promises, are all given, on the idea that priestly functions are abolished in the Gospel; that Jesus Christ is the only priest; and that all believers are, by virtue of their mystical union, placed by their justifying faith in the Holiest Place with Him. In fact, they have a close access to God, because "the law of the spirit

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of life in Christ Jesus has made them free from the law of sin, and of death;" and having fellowship with the Father, and the Son, a priest is of no use to them.

"The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually, make the comers thereunto perfect; for then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins." The inference from this passage is evident. The law repeated its sacrifices, because its atonements and its priesthood were imperfect, and because all who worshipped God in the law never could be made perfect. Had it been otherwise, the sacrifices would have ceased; because in that case the worshippers having no more sin in their conscience, would have needed no more sacrifice. But in the Gospel there is only one sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. They, therefore, that come to God in faith of this sacrifice, are perfect; they have no more conscience of sins; and if it is otherwise with them, then do they not know what this sacrifice means. They are not justified by faith; and for that reason, and on that account, they have not access by faith into that grace wherein the saints stand. This is the order of privilege in the word of God (Rom. v. 1,2); and they that understand not this, know nothing of the Gospel of the grace of God.

And the knowledge of this order of privilege is, in fact, understanding the glories of the ministration of righteousness, as revealed when the grace of God is known. We have shewn that priesthood means nearness of approach to God. Next, then, observe what Peter says:-"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people" (1 Pet. ii. 9); words which plainly declare, that all believers are now the priests of God. To which some, who are ignorant of the doctrines of grace, object, that as the same promise was made to all Israel under Moses, and that as, nevertheless, none were priests in the tabernacle but the Aaronical order, we have no right to take the doctrine as literal for Christians, which was not literal for the Jews. This objection we have seen stated with all possible confidence in the books of the Apostasy, as if the argument were wholly unanswerable; but now mark the words of Scripture:-" If ye will obey my voice, indeed, and keep my covenant...ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Exod. xix. 5). The promise was conditional-" If Israel will keep my covenant, the whole nation shall be a kingdom of priests;" but the words of promise in the new covenant are unconditional; a promise freely given, and of grace alone:-"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel in those days; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people-for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.' (Heb. viii.) The gratuitous justification in the new covenant cleanses the believer entirely of all sin. He is by grace, through faith, purged in his conscience of all guilt; he is taken into union with Christ, with whom the covenant has first been made; and because Christ has kept the covenant of obedience, the obedience of Christ is by grace imputed to the believer, who becomes a saint and a priest, is enrolled in the holy nation, and is made to sit together with Christ in heavenly places, "in whom also he has boldness and access, with confidence by faith of Him." (Eph. iii. 12.)

The sovereign grace of God imparts the priesthood, that is, the privilege of access, to all his evangelical nation; but under the law, as all privilege was conditional, so the priesthood was conditional; and as the condition was not observed, the privilege of access was imperfect, and put into the hands of a few select mediators. Had all Israel kept the covenant, the promise would have been made good; but they were dealt with in this matter, as they themselves had dealt with God. The privilege of access was shut up in Aaron and his successors, till the Son of God rent the veil of the temple, and anointed all his people with the Holy Ghost, sealing them by it for the prerogative of standing in the holiest with Himself.

Now these remarks, by way of preface, may perhaps enable us to see more clearly the gross error pervading the sentiments of those writers who, with the most imposing apparatus of holiness, would bring back the law into the Church of God, and poison the righteousness of faith by mixing it with the righteousness of works. No

one, in our opinion, is more conspicuous, or perhaps has been more successful in this attempt, than Thomas à Kempis, whose famous book "On the Imitation of Christ," is said to have more readers than any book in the world, excepting only the Bible.

"The Imitation of Christ" is in our language generally given in three books. The fourth, which is entirely Popish, is commonly omitted in the English translations : and a most instructive fact this is, that a book of devotion, written in the fifteenth century, by a monk profoundly attached to the Romish Church, should in these days be read with avidity by multitudes of professing Protestants, and be considered by many of them as the most useful and instructive volume in the whole library of theology. It proves clearly enough, that all men are in substance Papists, till they come to understand the doctrines of grace; and that where justification by faith is not admitted into the heart, the sceptre of Rome, unknown and unrecognised, rules in the inner man.

The following is the fifth chapter of the fourth book of "The Imitation of Jesus Christ, by Thomas à Kempis."

66 ON THE DIGNITY OF THE SACRAMENT AND THE SACERDOTAL ORDER."

"The Voice of the Beloved."

1. "If thou shouldest possess the purity of angels, and the holiness of John the Baptist, thou wouldest not be worthy to receive or handle this sacrament.

"For it is not owing to the merits of men, that man may consecrate and handle the sacrament of Christ, and take for his food the bread of angels.

"Great is the mystery, and great the dignity of the priests, to whom that is granted which is not conceded even to the angels.

"For the priests alone, who have been duly ordained in the Church, have the power of celebrating and consecrating the body of Christ.

"The priest indeed is the minister of God, using the word of God, by the command and institution of God. But God himself is there the principal author, and the invisible operator, to whom every thing which he wills submits, and to whom every thing which he orders obeys.

2. "Thou shouldest, therefore, more trust the Omnipotent God in this most excellent sacrament, than thine own senses, or any visible sign.

"With fear and reverence, therefore, is this work to be approached. Look to thyself, and see whose ministry has been committed to thee, through the imposition of the hands of the Bishop.

"Behold! thou hast been made a priest, and hast been consecrated for celebrating the sacrament. Be careful, therefore, that with all fidelity and devotion, at the proper time, thou offer the sacrifice to God, and shew thyself on that occasion beyond the reach of blame.

"Thou hast not lightened thy burthen (by becoming a priest), but thou art bound with a tighter chain of discipline, and art held to attain to a greater perfection of holiness.

"A priest ought to be ornamented with all virtues, and to afford an example of a good life to others.

"His conversation is not with the popular and common ways of mankind, but with the angels in heaven, and with perfect men upon earth.

3. "A priest arrayed in the sacred vestments, bears the office of, or represents (vices gerit) Christ, that he may suppliantly and humbly entreat God for himself and all the people.

"Before him and behind him he carries the sign of the Lord's cross, in order to remember continually the passion of Christ. Before him he carries the cross on the casula, that he may diligently behold the footsteps of Christ, and fervently endeavour to follow them.

"Behind him he is marked with the cross, that the crosses which are laid on him by others he may meekly bear for God's sake.

"Before him he bears the cross, that he may lament his own sins; behind him, that he may weep in compassion for the sins of others, AND MAY KNOW THAT HE HAS BEEN APPOINTED A MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD

AND THE SINNER:-Et se medium inter Deum et peccatorem constitutum esse sciat.

"Neither let him relax from prayer and holy oblation, until he shall have merited to obtain grace and mercy.

"When the priest celebrates this sacrament, he honours God, rejoices the angels, edifies the Church, helps the living, secures repose for the dead, and makes himself the partaker of all good things."

In the eleventh chapter of the fourth book, "the voice of the disciple" thus responds to the sentiments expressed by "the voice of the beloved."

"Oh! how great and honourable is the office of the priests, to whom it is granted to consecrate the Lord of Majesty with sacred words, to bless him with their lips, to hold him in their hands, to take him into their own mouths, and to administer him to others!

"Oh! how clean ought those hands to be, how pure that mouth, how holy that body, how immaculate that heart of the priest into whom enters the Author of all purity!

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Nothing but what is holy, nothing but what is comely and for edification, ought to proceed from the mouth of the priest, who so often receives the sacrament of Christ.

"The eyes of him who is accustomed to behold the body of Christ, ought to be full of simplicity and modesty. The hands of that man ought to be pure and lifted up to heaven, which are accustomed to handle the Creator of heaven and earth.

"It is especially said to the priests in the law, Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

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May thy grace, O God Omnipotent, help us who have undertaken this priestly office, so that we may be able to minister to thee worthily and devotedly, in all purity, and in a good conscience.

"And if we cannot walk in so much innocence as we ought, grant us, nevertheless worthily to lament the evil we have done: and in the spirit of humility, and in the determination of a good will, to serve thee more zealously for the time to come.”

In another section "the voice of the disciple" thus speaks :—

"Greatly ought we to lament and mourn over our lukewarmness and negligence, that we are not drawn with stronger affections to take Christ (in the sacrament) in whom consists the whole hope and merit of those who are to be saved.

"For he is our sanctification and redemption: he is the consolation of the travellers, and the eternal fruition of the saints.

"It is, therefore, a subject of deep lamentation, that many come so seldom to this salutary mystery, which makes heaven glad, and upholds the universal world :Mundum conservat universum.

:

"Alas! the blindness and hardness of the human heart, not more to attend to this ineffable gift, and by reason of daily use to lapse at last into carelessness about it.

"For if this most holy sacrament were celebrated in only one place, and were consecrated by only one priest in the world, with what great desire would men hasten to that place, to see the divine mysteries celebrated, and how would their hearts be affected towards such a priest of God!

.

"But now there are many priests appointed, and Christ is offered in many places, that the grace of God, and his love towards men may appear so much the greater, in proportion as the sacred communion is diffused over all the world.

We render thee thanks, O good Jesus, Eternal Shepherd, who hast deigned to refresh us beggars and exiles with thy precious body and blood; and even to invite us to participate in these mysteries by the words of thine own mouth, when thou didst say, 'Come unto me, all ye that Ïabour, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.'" And again, "Thou hast given to me, a poor weak creature, thy holy body for the refreshing of my mind and body, and hast given me thy word as a light to my feet.'

"Without these two I could not live, for the word of God is the light of my soul, and thy sacrament is the bread of life.

"These may be called the two tables, henceforward and for ever placed in the treasury of the Church.