plication of CHRIST's Eternal Sacrifice for our own daily propitiation, brings also before our eyes the certainty of our own particular judgment. In order then, to make self-sacrifice complete, we must have the external Personal interference of the Mediator. Now the Christian priesthood is hated just because it does bring palpably before us the all-sufficiency of CHRIST, and our own inherent hatefulness until we are hallowed by His touch. The natural heart would fain destroy the tokens of God's Personal control, and if it cannot do that, then at least the positive checks of CHRIST'S mediatorial kingdom. "Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us." Such is the cry of the natural man against any authoritative representation of CHRIST. A Priesthood which originated with men would be accepted with joy, for men delight at any cost to build a tower whose top they think will reach to heaven: but a Priesthood that embodies the presence of a Divine Person, makes us realize in one conception the Omnipotence of GOD and our own alienation from His Love. It personifies a judgment, either future and irresistible, or present and voluntary. Where the object of worship is untrue, the priesthood is but a toy of the imagination, which clouds essential Truth by mocking its realities with empty phantoms. The shallow sense of propitiation at an idol's altar is even gratifying, because it is but as the voluntary emotion of the tragic stage. We must know the true GOD and the true Mediator if we are to learn true humility. have the presence of a Personal GOD, the interference of a personal Mediator acting in somewhat external to ourself, if we are to be brought to personal self-sacrifice. A priestly system must be hated by the natural heart if it really bring GOD near, because we are personally guilty in God's sight; and the natural heart will certainly not come near to GOD unless there be some priestly system bringing GOD near to man, because we cannot of ourselves shake off the personal guilt which separates us. This then, is the foundation of the kingdom of grace, a missionary system acting in the Person of CHRIST, entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and showing forth the LORD's death until He come. This meets the wants of human nature, for it reveals the hostility of man to GOD, while it also stands forward as the channel of the atonement. Let us now endeavour by the help of Mr. Carter's volume to trace out the elements of this priestly system, as the apostles whom CHRIST left behind Him transmitted it to the Church of every age and nation.

We must

It has often been supposed, and is often stated in common conversation, that the slaughter of an animal victim is the constitutive act of priesthood. The remarks we have made hitherto will show us that the victim slain is really only a vicarious figure. The victim of a true sacrifice is the person of the worshipper. The true priest effects his sacrifice, not by the shedding of external blood

but by the annihilation of the inward self. This annihilation is accomplished, in the case of fallen man, by the exercise of a divinely appointed mediation. The self of the worshipper is annihilated by the substitution of the second self of the Mediator, in the acknowledgment that we have no right or power to come near to GOD by our own selves at all. When the person of the Mediator comes between our presence and GOD, then we can say, "The LORD hath chosen to Himself the man that is godly: when I call upon the LORD, He will hear me."

The true victim, therefore, is the person of the true worshipper; and since GOD heareth not sinners, the only true worshipper is the one who alone of mankind is without sin. CHRIST is at once the true Priest and the true Victim, because He is the only acceptable worshipper, being alone able to make a freewill offering of His Innocent Self, all others being exposed to God's anger before they can do aught to claim His love. Therefore He says, by the Psalmist, "Sacrifice and meat-offering Thou wouldest not," such as sinful men could bring under the law, "but a body hast Thou prepared Me." This sacrifice being the sacrifice of One Who needed none for Himself, being equal with GOD, and united to Him in the perfection of Love, is meritorious in itself, and applicable to the redemption of others. The Body of CHRIST, therefore, became the vicarious offering for mankind, our sole vicarious offering, because "He did it (noinov) once for all, in that He offered up Himself," one Eternal Offering, because He our High Priest is now made to be higher than the Heavens where He "ever liveth for the purpose of making intercession" on our behalf. This intervention in behalf of man by the presentation of a vicarious offering is what constitutes His Priestly Character.

The First Adam was the Priest of the world when he had the privilege of access to GOD. He then was a Priest upon his Throne, as lord of creation. When he fell into sin, the fear of him no longer held the subject brutes in awe. Then too was he stripped of the right of filial access to his Heavenly FATHER. He now needed some one to intervene between himself and his angered GOD. The promise of the Second Adam was given, and he was encouraged to express his reliance upon that Promised Seed by significant acts of faith. The idea of a Priesthood existed accordingly from the earliest times. The scanty records of Genesis do not teach us how it was regulated, or upon what occasion it was entrusted to special persons. This, however, is clear, that from a very early date such a limitation did exist. Perhaps, indeed, the coat of many colours, which was the object of so much envy to Joseph's brethren, was part of the insignia of a Priesthood, which they hated to see him exercise after his father, as has been suggested, had made it over to him as the eldest son of Rachel, when Leah's firstborn had forfeited it by his trespass. Melchizedek, we know, was a priest of

the Most High GOD, and he, the great type of our SAVIOUR in His Priesthood, exercised the priestly function, not by animal sacrifices, but by the oblation of bread and wine, and the act of benediction. Such at least is the view of his ministry, which has prevailed in the Church, (vide p. 125, for a quotation from Eusebius ;) and if he be identical with the Patriarch Shem, our LORD, in choosing to be called a Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and instituting a service after the model of His great progenitor, was really claiming back, as the Heir and Restorer of the world, that ancient ministry which, after the breaking up of the original constitution, had become assigned in the limited economy of the Israelites to the family of Aaron.

The word ispeús itself does not imply any shedding of blood. It originally signified merely "one employed about holy things." "The distinctive attributes of Priesthood," says Mr. Carter, "are superadded to the original meaning, in consequence of association with the special doctrines and offerings of religion which, by common use, it came to represent." (P. 12.) The Priest, therefore, is one who has access to GOD, in its original meaning; and under the circumstances of mankind, after the Fall, it is one who in this character is distinguished from the rest of mankind, who can have no access to GOD because of sin, one who can be a mediator.

We have seen that there is no access to GOD for sinful man, save by becoming identified with the Person of the Mediator, JESUS CHRIST. How then are we to become thus identified? It is as baptized into His Body," that we" all by one SPIRIT have access unto the FATHER." In Him we are brought into a new relation towards GOD, as "a peculiar people, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." As the whole Jewish nation did partake of a priestly character, by their connection with the Temple where God had placed His Name, so do all Christian people now as "members of CHRIST." The words of S. Peter refer us to the Old Testament, and "the identity of language," then and now, " tends to prove in this as in other respects, the unity of purpose pervading both Covenants." Now the priestly character of the Jewish nation did not suffice without a ministerial Priesthood to be its divinely authorized exponent and guide, we therefore see at once that there is "a probability of both Priesthoods," a popular and a ministerial Priesthood "reappearing in the same harmonious co-operation in the Christian Church," (P. 146,)-a Priesthood of regenerate character correspondent to the Priesthood of original righteousness by which Adam, as yet unfallen, could draw near to GOD, and a Priesthood of outward function, applicatory of the work of CHRIST, Correspondent to the ancient Priesthood which was typical of Him.

This leads us, consequently, to expect that besides the general capacity of access to GOD, which the mediation of CHRIST imparts to the members of His Body, there will be some outward institution to supply a law of unity and vigour. So in fact we know that "the

whole body by joints and bands, hath its nourishment ministered from the Head" Who is in Heaven. We are brought into union with CHRIST, and maintained in unity with Him by the instrumentality of Sacraments. Here, then, we see how the mediation of CHRIST is attended by the mediation of a subordinate Priesthood, to carry out and apply the grace which His mysterious Priesthood has obtained. To mark the difference, we speak sometimes of our LORD's Priesthood being a 'proper' Priesthood, and that of man being only so in an improper' sense. Priesthood, Patriarchal and Jewish, as well as Christian, depends for its value upon that of CHRIST alone. Priesthood is proper (proprium) to CHRIST, for it is His alone of right, in that He alone of mankind possesses the natural right of access to the FATHER, and therefore He alone can communicate a participation in that privilege. To all priests besides it is only delegated, (p. 129.) This will be made still more clear by the following extract:

All

"The law of intervention specially characterizes the Gospel. This vital principle pervades the central truth of the Incarnation of GOD; for the Incarnation is the assumption of the Humanity, in order to become a medium of communication between GOD and Man. GOD willed not to act on man directly, but through the intervention of the human nature of CHRIST. 'In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' and from Him flow forth all the gifts that GOD has willed to impart to man. They flow not directly from GOD, but indirectly through the Manhood of CHRIST. It is the same principle of interposition which characterizes priestly attributes in created natures, the essential difference being that in CHRIST the principle of Priesthood exists as a self-originated attribute inherent and independent of all others; and, therefore, the Fathers distinguished Him among all His brethren, as 8 μóvos puoε aрxiepevs, 'the only High Priest by Nature,' in the same sense in which Holy Scripture distinguishes Him as the 'One Mediator between GOD and man,' while yet they held that the operations of His Priesthood and Mediation were extended from Him through subordinate and dependent agents to the redeemed world."-P. 99.

If from the general appellations of Jews and Christians as a royal priesthood we might infer that there would be an outward ministerial order in the one as in the other, are we not still more forcibly led to the same conclusion by the very designation of our LORD Himself as the Antitype of the High Priest? Around the one High Priest there were of old many subordinates, and so is it now around the other. The argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews is frequently misrepresented from inaccurate apprehension of the points compared.

successor.

"The conclusion of S. Paul's argument is that there is one true Priest adequate to the wants of humanity to whom there can be no The argument excludes the possibility of a priesthood offering acceptable sacrifices irrespective of the Sacrifice of the Cross. But whether any means were ordained to apply the victims of

the Sacrifice of the Cross, or a new order of priests to be the agents in administering them, are questions wholly untouched by it. Nor is the fact that the Sacrifice has been offered, any reason against a continued system of mediation to apply its perfected merits, any more than it was against a prefigurative system to obtain an interest in its virtue before it was offered."-P. 109.

"The argument touches not the question of a subordinate priesthood ministering under its own High Priest. The comparison turns only on the High Priest's special ministry. S. Paul contrasts the typical with the One Eternal High Priest, and the animal sacrifice of the day of atonement with our LORD's ascension into the heavens. . . . The allusion throughout is to the Jewish High Priest and to his going into the holy of holies with the blood of the one animal sacrifice, which the Apostle shows to have been fulfilled once and for ever by the Ascension of CHRIST into the highest heavens with His own Blood, 'there to appear in the presence of GOD for us.' Now the offering of the great day of atonement had a special purpose. It was ordained for the annual purification of the Mosaic system, to cleanse away the imperfections and impurities of the services of the past year, remove the disabilities which had occurred to priests and worshippers, repair the involuntary breaches of the law, and thus reinstitute the covenant between GOD and His people. (Lev. xvi. 35.) The daily sacrifices and offices then continued on under the shadow and seal of that annual act of reconciliation, and thus year by year the national life was renewed, and the acceptableness of the covenanted people sustained.”—P. 110.

The Priesthood of CHRIST, it will thus be seen, equally with the priestly character of all who are made alive to GOD in Him, so far from excluding a subordinate order of ministerial mediation, does, when regarded in the light of typical institutions, really involve such an order as its "necessary complement."

In accordance with these anticipations we do actually find an appointed order of ministers in the Church to whom the name of priest has been attached from a date closely touching upon the lifetime of the Apostles, and not the name only, but all the essential qualities which the name implies. It is true that in the New Testament we do not find the name iepeús applied to the Christian Minister, but surely this only serves to make it the more remarkable that so quickly afterwards the ancient name should have been universally restored. Had the name continued it might have been retained in some modified signification, but the reason of its being restored was that the thing it signified was still continuing.

Although therefore the name of "priest" be wanting in the New Testament nomenclature, yet we find ample tokens that the idea existed in the corporate functions of the Apostolic Church. The name of the Sabbath is in like manner retained only to be slighted, because the Jewish Sabbath had passed away; yet the principle of the weekly and annual festivals survived in the observance of the LORD's Day and Christian feasts.