a compassionate High Priest.' This is what we profess to believe.

Now, to "hold fast" this profession includes two things: the holding fast, the continuing stedfast in, the faith of what we profess; and the holding fast, or persevering in professing this faith-publicly acknowledging it as our faith.

Christians should continue in the faith of what they have acknowledged respecting Christ Jesus. They should hold fast their acknowledgment. It must not be let go. It must not be lost sight of. We must habitually keep it before our minds, and keep it before our minds as the truth-the truth which we have acknowledged. The great reason why we should do so is, that it is the truth most sure. What we profess about our High Priest is the testimony of God, who cannot lie. When we received it, we "set to our seal that God is true." We cannot let it go without calling Him a liar. While this is the primary reason for holding fast the truth we have professed in reference to our High Priest, another very powerful reason is, that it is only in holding fast this truth that we can enjoy the advantages connected with Jesus being our High Priest. All the saving results of His high-priesthood come to us through the belief of the truth. Pardon, justification, free access to God, sanctification, support under trials, consolation amid afflictions, all come to us through faith, and are enjoyed by us as believers, and according to our faith. Hence the great weight which the inspired writers place on faith-true faith, persevering faith.

But to hold fast our profession refers not merely to the holding fast the truth professed, but to the holding fast the profession of that truth. Some might be disposed to say, It is quite right we should hold fast the truth, but may we not "hold it to ourselves before God," and shield ourselves from the evils to which we are sure to expose ourselves by an open profession of it? No, says the Apostle; we have professed this truth; we have openly avowed that this is our profession; and we must persevere in this open avowal. Faith in the heart is the first thing; confession with the mouth, the second. Both are required to make a consistent Christian. The profession referred to includes in it not only the acknowledgment made by connecting ourselves with the Christian community, and observing the ordinances of Christ, but also the giving expression to our in

ward convictions on every proper occasion to our fellow-men, and the exhibiting, in the entire conformity of our temper and behaviour to the law of our Lord, that our profession is an honest one. We must not be "ashamed of the testimony of our Lord Jesus," which we have made our profession.

A regard to Him, a regard to ourselves, a regard to our fellow-men, all require this at our hand. Is our High Priest not worthy to be acknowledged? Have we any cause to be ashamed of Him? Has He not required us to acknowledge Him in terms as explicit as He has required us to believe in Him? Is not confession with the mouth to salvation conjoined with faith of the heart to right conversion? And is not our interest deeply involved in this matter? Has He not told us what will be the result of our not being ashamed of Him, and of our being ashamed of Him, in that day when He appears in the glory of His Father, in His own glory, and in the glory of the holy angels? It is the honest, open, consistent professor of the truth as it is in Jesus that has the promise of the crown of righteousness at last, and who only, in the very nature of the case, can have the joys and consolations which even here are bestowed on those who hold fast what they have received. And, still further, this holding fast the profession of our faith is the way of our doing good to our fellow-men;-to our fellowChristians, by strengthening and comforting them; to our unbelieving fellow-men, by holding forth to them the word of truth, by the knowledge and faith of which alone they can be saved.

We have but to look into the Apostle's statements to find abundant reason why we should comply with his exhortation. If it be indeed so, that we have a High Priest-that Jesus Christ is our High Priest, and is such a High Priest as becomes us, as we absolutely need, as completely suits our circumstances as guilty, depraved, weak, helpless creatures a High Priest so great, a High Priest so compassionate,-surely, having acknowledged Him as such on abundant evidence, we should hold fast the truth acknowledged, and hold fast, too, the acknowledgment of the truth. Where can we find a substitute for Him? can be compared to Him? Where shall we find expiation, forgiveness, acceptance, sanctification, comfort, eternal life, but in Him? What is there that we want, that is not to be found in

Who

Him? And can the universe of being do for us what He has done, what He is doing, for us? What blood but the blood of our High Priest's sacrifice can cleanse us from all, from any sin? And who but HE, who ever lives to make intercession for us, can be able to save us-as we need to be saved-to the uttermost, and for ever? Does He not deserve to be clung to by persevering faith? Does He not deserve to be honoured in persevering public acknowledgment?

II. The Apostle's second exhortation is, "Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in the time of need." The language and the imagery, here, exactly correspond to the view the Apostle has been giving us of Jesus Christ as the High Priest of our profession. They are borrowed from the most sacred and recondite portion of the Old Testament worship. In the expression, "the throne of grace," there is without doubt an allusion to the mercy-seat in the holy of holies, over which the Shechinah, or cloud of glory -the emblem of the divine presence-occasionally, if not constantly, hovered, and which therefore might with propriety be represented as the throne of Jehovah, who dwelt between the cherubim.

The question of greatest importance here is, What is that which, under the new economy, answers to the mercy-seat under the old dispensation, which was a figure of good things to come? What is that throne of grace to which the Hebrew Christians are exhorted to come boldly? Some consider the mercy-seat as emblematical of our Lord Jesus Christ, grounding their opinion chiefly on what the Apostle says, Rom. iii. 25: "Whom"-that is, Jesus Christ-" He hath set forth to be a propitiation;" or, as they would render it, 'propitiatory or mercyseat.' There is no doubt that it is the same word which is rightly rendered 'mercy-seat' in the 5th verse of the 10th chapter of this Epistle; but in the passage in the Romans there can be little doubt that the word refers to a propitiatory victim or sacrifice, and not to the sacred gold-covered chest, on which the blood of the sacrifice of atonement for the congregation was sprinkled; and it obviously better suits the whole connected system of emblems, to consider the whole of the mystic furniture of the holy of holies-the Shechinah hovering over the ark of the covenant containing the law, sprinkled with atoning

blood-as a figurative representation of the Divine Being, the Righteous Governor, propitiated by sacrifice.

It is common in our own language, as well as in that in which this Epistle was originally written, to speak of a monarch under the name of things which are characteristic of his royal dignity. We speak of the prerogatives of the crown, and of addressing the throne, when we mean the distinguished individual who wears the crown and sits on the throne. In like manner, the throne of grace is a figurative expression for God, as seated on a throne of grace, dispensing pardon and all saving blessings to sinners-the God of Peace, the pacified Divinity, who was angry, but whose anger is turned away; God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing to men their trespasses, seeing He has made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him; for, as the Apostle expresses it in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. iii. 12, it is "in," or by, "Christ Jesus that we have boldness and access—that is, to God—in the faith of Him."

To this propitiated Divinity the inspired writer exhorts the believing Hebrews to "come "-to draw near. It is plain that this expression is figurative, denoting mental, not local movement. To draw near to the propitiated Divinity, as seated on His throne of grace, is, in the firm faith of the truth respecting His reconciled character, and in the exercise of those affections which the belief of this truth naturally excites, to render Him religious homage to present the desires of our heart before Him.

When Christians thus worship the reconciled Divinity, they are to do it "boldly;" that is, not with the trembling apprehension with which the Israelites approached, not to, but towards the mercy-seat, who, when their high priest, having offered a sacrifice of atonement for their souls, had entered in their name within the vail, to present and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice there, were ignorant what might be the event—whether the sacrifice would be accepted or rejected,—but with a holy reverential confidence, arising from the assurance that our High Priest, having completed His one infinitely valuable and availing sacrifice on the earth, has passed through these heavens into the heaven of heavens, with the blood which cleanseth from all sin, and, ever living there to make intercession for us, is able to

save us to the uttermost, coming to God by Him. Boldness is not here opposed to reverence, but to slavish apprehension and appalling terror, which estrange men from God.

The object of our coming thus boldly, like cherished children, to Jehovah propitiated in Christ, is, "that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." The words mercy and grace seem nearly synonymous; and so do the two phrases, to "obtain mercy," and to "find grace." Both of the words are primarily expressive of the principle of benignity in the divine mind: the first, in its exercise to us as miserable; the second, in its exercise to us as undeserving. But here, as in many other places, they, by a common figure of speech, are used to denote the manifestations of this principle. To obtain mercy, to find grace, is to receive manifestations of God's mercy to us as miserable, and of His grace towards us as undeserving-to receive proofs that God is our loving Father, our eternal Friend, who for His own sake, for His name's sake, for His Son's sake, will supply all our need. And those proofs are afforded by Him in answer to our believing prayers, in his conferring upon us such assistance as is needful for us in the time of trial, to enable us to hold fast our profession. The words literally are, "that we may obtain mercy, and find grace for seasonable help." The direct reference here is not, as ordinarily supposed, to pardon of sin-though we are to be ever coming to the throne of grace for that blessing, of which we are ever in need -but to those kind assistances of the good Spirit which are requisite amid the trials of life, to enable us to hold fast our pro

fession.

This exhortation is plainly based on the statements which precede it. We were at variance with God. As the righteous Judge, He had condemned us. But a High Priest, a great High Priest, the Son of God, has interposed in our behalf. He has given Himself a sacrifice for us; and as a token that that sacrifice has been accepted, He has passed through these heavens into the heaven of heavens, and is there a Priest on His throne. This High Priest is as gracious as He is great; and notwithstanding His divine and mediatorial glories, notwithstanding our sinfulness and His sinlessness, He is, both physically and morally, capable of such sympathy with us in all our infirmities, as to secure that His unbounded powers of