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transactions of ordinary life. How honourable is our calling, thus to be instruments of glory to Jehovah, and thus to share the priestly dignity of God's dear Son ! This honour have all his saints, Ps. cxlix. 9; and the time approaches when, like as now, we in a measure partake of priestly servitude in the House of God, so shall we also share the kingly office, and thus, through unspeakable and boundless favour, shall we be both kings and priests unto our God. Rev. v. 10. Creation will again acknowledge man as its rightful lord and through him, as its intelligent and vocal organ, will all creatures worship and adore their wise and beneficent Creator. The lamp of the sanctuary will then indeed burn gloriously: the pure oil-olive will flow in richest streams of replenishment, and through the anointed priesthood of a regenerated world, the Lord will be loved and worshipped throughout his vast illimitable dominion. Eph. iii. 9-12.

9. The whole appointment, with its accompanying ministry, was to form a memorial on the behalf of Israel. It will be useful to remark that the word, 'remembrance,' in Ps. cii. 12, and other scriptures, is the same as the term memorial. Hence, the Lord's remembrance or memorial endureth to all generations. This memorial we regard as two-fold: first, Christ is the memorial of the church in heaven and secondly, the church is Christ's memorial upon earth. God looks upon the face of his Anointed there, and is as it were memorialized of his people here, Ps. lxxxiv. 9: he looks upon his people here, and is reminded of all his appointments on their behalf in Christ. Hence, all things are for both Christ and his church, 2 Cor. iv. 15, and Col. i. 16, and the eventual declaration of

Jehovah's grace will be, You have I known of all the families of the earth. Amos iii. 2. Therefore have I sought you, chastened you, humbled you, blessed you, kept you, made you as a burning lamp to shed my light abroad, replenished you with my Spirit, and meetened you for my kingdom: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. Isa. xliv. 21. To be thus remembered, and thus regarded, will constitute the honour and felicity of God's dear children, when the loftiest titles and the noblest distinctions of earth are crumbled into nothingness and lost in forgetfulness. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory, Isa. xlv. 25: and when they shall stand fixed and determined in the full realization of the Gospel-hope, they will appear as trophied monuments of mercy in the house of God, everlastingly to perpetuate the memory of that great goodness which could stoop so low in order to exalt us sinners of the human kind to such a height of glory and felicity. Rev. iii. 12. O give thanks unto the God of gods-who remembered us in our low estate, for his mercy endureth for ever. Ps. cxxxvi. 2. 23.

For, 10, and finally, The ordinance was to endure throughout the generations of Israel, by a statute for ever. The expression for ever is not always to be taken in an absolute manner, as meaning endless perpetuity or duration: it must sometimes be limited to a definite, although a lengthened period. The context will usually determine which import is intended. The spirit of a command, however, may continue where the letter thereof has been annulled. Thus, the replenishment of the golden candlestick with pure oil-olive, continued in its type through all the Levitical state: in its spiritual

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appliance, it is still enjoyed, and through everlasting ages do we believe, there will be fresh manifestations of Godhead power and glory to the intelligence and the admiration of our redeemed capacities. Increased light will but enable us to comprehend the more. A purer vision will take in more extensive prospects. divested totally of all remains of selfishness, will become more and more replete with God and God's eternal interests. What, indeed, we shall be, has not yet appeared: but when we see Him-even the altogether Lovely-we shall be like unto him. 1 John iii. 1, 2. Commensurate with his humiliation, will doubtless be Messiah's exaltation. Isa. lii. 14, 15. Now, the Father giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him; consequently, he can immeasurably bless his ransomed people. And this he most assuredly will do, according to the import of his own high-priestly prayer. John iii. 34, and xvii. 22. Thus, in some sort, shall we possess the glory of the Lord himself, and for ever will the lamp of the heavenly tabernacle burn to relume the universe with its joyous radiancy. The city will need no other candle, neither light of the sun nor of the moon to lighten it; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. Rev. xxii. 5. Meanwhile,

Thou, CELESTIAL LIGHT,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mists from thence
Purge and disperse, as day dispels the night.

DISCOURSE VIII.

THE PRIESTHOOD.

EXODUS XXx. 30.

And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them; that they may minister unto me in the priest's office.

THE sceptical philosopher asks, with much apparent modesty and pretended self-renunciation, How a Being of such ineffable perfections as the Creator of all things must necessarily be, can demean himself to be concerned about a world so inconsiderable as this, and with creatures so feeble and unworthy as ourselves? It may suffice to reply, that with Him who inhabits eternity and fills immensity, nothing can, strictly speaking, be either great or small; and if it please the supreme and only Lord to exhibit the moral grandeur of his character and government upon a spot so little as earth, and in a period so brief as time, and that in order to the recovery of a rebellious province of his extensive empire to his own paternal sway, and to obediential love in his creatures, who are we that we should question its propriety, and not rather avail ourselves of every possible

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appliance to become at one with him again? unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say unto him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy worker, He hath no hands? Isa. xlv. 9. To adore is the disposition of a creature unfallen or saved: to cavil is the symptom of a will still in rebellion against the Creator and his sovereign rule.

It surely argues infinite beneficence in God that he should graciously condescend to appoint a priesthood of mediation between himself and his offending creatures. Sacrifices, we know, were offered immediately upon the Fall. We also learn from the earliest records of the world, that a Priest of the most high God exercised his vocation in the days of Abraham. Gen. xiv. 18. With modifications, varying according to existing circumstances, the priesthood was re-enacted under the Law. It is still continued under the Gospel, and will be finally consummated in its gracious purposes in the prevalent and triumphant kingdom of the great King-priest, our adorable Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Two orders or kinds of priests only have obtained from the beginning: the one meeting its representative in Melchisedec; the other in Aaron. Each has its pe

culiar and distinguishing characteristics. Hence, we might denominate the Aaronic priesthood, a sacrificing priesthood; or, the priesthood of mediation as divested of all worldly splendour: whereas, the priesthood of Melchisedec was the priesthood of government; or, the visible exhibition of kingly power in unison with priestly intercession. It is the latter of the two particularly that St. Paul so fully and emphatically dilates upon in his Epistle to the Hebrews. The order of Aaron was subordinate and intercalary to that of Melchisedec. It is a

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