was never long continued without the most sensible benefit; never persisted in, without being ultimately productive of that faith, the end of which is the salvation of the soul. Amen.

LECTURE XXII.

HOW DOTH CHRIST EXECUTE THE OFFICE OF A PRIEST?

THE subject of the ensuing lecture is the answer to the twenty-fifth question of our Catechism, which is thus expressed;

"Christ executeth the office of a Priest, in his once offering up himself a sacrifice, to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God; and in making continual intercession for us."

My dear youth, no part of theological truth is more closely connected with what is essential to our salvation, than the priestly office of Christ, the subject which is now before us. Give it therefore your most serious attention.

"A priest is a public person, who, in the name of the guilty, deals with an offended God, for reconciliation by sacrifice, which he offers to God upon an altar, being thereto called of God that he may be accepted. No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron.' Thus, under the Mosaic dispensation, the high priest, in performing his most sacred duties, was the representative of all the tribes of Israel; and in token of it, he was commanded to bear their names on the shoulders of the ephod, and on the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart, whenever he should go into the holy place, "for a memorial before the Lord continually."

* Erskine and Fisher.

In all this, the legal high priest was nothing more than a type of Christ, the true high priest of his church, who appears before God in the name of sinners, to make reconciliation for them; and who, in this transaction, bears as it were, the names of his people on his heart.

You will particularly observe that it is not a mere inference made by me, or by any other fallible man, that the ancient priesthood was truly and circumstantially typical of Christ. The infallible words of inspiration, in the plainest manner declare and explain this truth. They show in detail, how those ancient institutions" are a shadow of good things to come, but that the body is of Christ." This is especially and largely done in the epistle to the Hebrews, where the inspired writer shows the superiority of the antitype to the type; of Christ as a priest, over all who sustained that office in the Mosaic ritual. Now, in relation to this superiority, there are a number of important particulars, which it may be proper cursorily to mention.

1. The superiority of his nature and person. The Jewish priests were but mere men; He was "the true God and eternal life." They were sinful men, and needed to offer "first for themselves, and then for the people;" He had no sins of his own, but was "holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners."

2. Christ was superior to the ancient priests in the manner of his investiture, or installation. "Those priests were made without an oath; but Christ with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. By so much is Jesus made a surety of a better testament." Being thus invested with the priestly office, by the oath of the eternal Father, the most solemn and affecting assurance was given of his being accepted, in whatever he should do in that office for the salvation of his people.

3. The efficacy and perfection of the sacrifice offered by our Redeemer, was infinitely superior to those sacrifices which were but types of his. "It is not

possible (says the author of the epistle to the Hebrews) that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God. By that one sacrifice, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.' ""

4. The superiority of the priestly office of Christ, is manifested in its unchangeableness and perpetuity. "They truly (says the sacred writer last quoted) were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue, by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. For he testifieth, thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Of Melchisedec you know that it is said, "he had neither beginning of days nor end of life;" the meaning of which is, that no account is given us of his birth and parentage, nor of his death. But he was both a king and a priest; and though there is no reason to doubt that he died like other men, yet as he was an eminent type of Christ in many respects, so there was a peculiar resemblance in this, that he succeeded to no other priest, and no other succeeded to him. Christ has no successor, for "he himself abideth a priest continually. He ever liveth to make intercession for us."

As these particulars serve to show the superior nature of our Lord's priestly office, so you will observe that they give us a full scriptural warrant, to consider our Redeemer as executing that office, in all its functions and in all its details. When therefore we do this, we follow no fancy of our own; we adopt no theological or technical fiction, as some would represent it, but deliver sober scriptural doctrine, which we are not only permitted, but required to maintain. Having made these remarks, I now observe that the priestly office of Christ consisted of two parts; I. That of expiation;

II. That of intercession.

Both of these are distinctly noticed in the answer before us, and let us consider each attentively. I. Christ has made expiation for sin.

The Cate

chism expresses it thus, "he once offered up himself a sacrifice, to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God."

According to this statement, the reason why an expiation was necessary lay here, that divine justice required a satisfaction, before human guilt could be remitted. I say before it could be remitted; for among all the impossibilities that can be imagined, none is greater than that God should deny himself; or act contrary to one of his essential attributes, which is the same thing.

We presume not to say indeed, that it was not possible for the Deity to provide for the salvation of man, in any other way than precisely that which he actually chose. We hold it to be presumptuous in worms of the dust, thus to pronounce on the resources and will of the infinite Jehovah. But we do say that justice is an essential attribute of God, and that if this attribute forbade the pardon of human guilt without an atonement or expiation, we cannot otherwise conceive than that the thing was strictly impossible. And I think the Scripture doctrine clearly is, that the divine justice did absolutely forbid pardon without an atonement. There have indeed been those who have admitted the atonement of Christ, and yet have chosen to say, that God might have remitted sin without an expiation, and without an impeachment of any attribute of his nature. But would it not then follow that the sufferings and death of Christ were, if not an absolute superfluity, yet something that might have been dispensed with? Now if we consider how awful and extensive those sufferings were; and if especially we take into view the prayer of Christ in his agony, thrice repeated; "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," it seems to me that we are not at liberty to suppose that these sufferings, in the actual circumstances of the case, were avoidable, in consistency with the divine honour. Would the God of mercy have laid all he did on his only begotten and well beloved Son, if it had not been absolutely indispensable? Would not the Saviour's prayer

have been answered, had his own condition "if it be possible," been admissible? Did not the Father virtually say, in not removing the cup, "it is not possible; the cup cannot be removed, and justice be sustained." Truly it appears so to me. "Die he, or justice must." Yes, he died to satisfy Divine justice, violated and set at nought by the sin of man. The angels had sinned, and justice drove them quick to hell: and when man sinned, justice would have lost its character; it would have ceased to be justice, if it had not demanded the same penalty for the second transgression, which had been equitably inflicted for the first. Justice did demand it, and man must have endured the penalty of death, eternal death, the denounced and stipulated penalty of the violated law, if Christ had not undertaken for him, borne the penalty, and satisfied justice fully in his behalf.

Christ being a person of infinite dignity and worth, his awful and inconceivable sufferings, for a short period, made as great a display, nay, I think a much greater and more fearful display of justice, than if the guilty party had been immediately doomed to endless perdition. This, therefore, was the device of God for saving man; this the astonishing undertaking of Christ in our behalf. It was not competent to any created being to conceive such a plan; nor to propose it, if it could have been conceived. It had been infinite presumption in any creature, to propose that the eternal Son of God should take the law place of a guilty worm. But with God it was competent both to conceive and to execute this device; a device in which all the divine attributes are preserved entire, rendered perfectly harmonious, and displayed more illustriously than in all his other works.

The objections which have been raised against the equity of inflicting the penalty due to sin on an innocent Saviour, and against the propriety of his even consenting to suffer in the place of the guilty, have always, I must say, appeared to me perfectly idle. The objections go directly to subvert the doctrine of the atonement altogether. If established they would