to every sensation of joy, is the abiding thought that we are evil in our Maker's sight, and that, as defiling the beauty of his universe, our only portion is destruction.

Taken apart from the truths which God has joined with it, the belief of this would kill us ; but taken with them, how surely will it make us live. We were dead without Christ; but he has died, and therefore we live. Now those depths which before it would have been madness to gaze upon, should be regarded by us constantly and steadily; we have that which will hinder us from becoming dizzy with the gaze. We may now, we not only may, but ought, to fix our minds upon what we were, whilst we, at the same time, think of what we are. So evil in the sight of God, and yet so loved! It is impossible to touch on such thoughts without the most humiliating sense of the utter unworthiness of our touching upon them; of the painful contrast which they offer to our lives. The following up of all that these ideas contain, must be the work of our own hearts communing with themselves: there is almost a profaneness in embodying it in words, when our lives seem, as it were, to bear such fearful witness, that the words are not spoken in sincerity. For follow out all

that is contained in the saying-" Christ, by one offering, has perfected us for ever;" and the language of humility, of gratitude, of thankfulness, of joy, which we could not avoid using, if we would express our mere understanding's apprehension of the truth, would yet appear to belong to a moral sense so fine, and a moral feeling so perfected, that the best of us, well knowing what we are, must shrink from the exhibition of such a contrast.

But even in saying thus much, it will appear, I think, how truly to believe in Christ is life eternal. We shrink from describing the feelings which this belief implies, because they seem to agree so ill with our lives' reality; so true it is, that if we had the feelings, and could not only see how we ought to have them, we should be at once seen and acknowledged by all to be the children of life. And therefore we may all pray for ourselves and for one another, that this belief may grow in us; that we may truly receive, as the ruling principle of our lives, the fact that Christ has died for us; that each may make it the principle of his own life, saying, Christ has died for me." We know how careless we are; we know how soon we forget the evil of our

we remember the good.

lives, how fondly We know how the

world is ever with us, how alive are all our feelings to its influence, how readily we can be glad or sorry, angry or appeased, full of hope or full of fear, as outward things, and earthly, smile on us or thwart us. And we know also, and all idolatry has been but an example of this feeling, that God is hard to find; that the invisible, the incomprehensible, comes not within the range of our senses or of our minds; over both the condition of our nature has drawn too thick a veil. Therefore we do need a high priest, who may be to us in the place of God, and lead us to God when perfected. Therefore Christ crucified, when we take the words in all their fulness, is all that we need; and without him we are nothing. He is one whom we can understand and love; we can conceive of him in his life; we can conceive of him as crucified and still, because he is still the Son of man, we can also conceive of him as risen and ascended into heaven. With him we may commune, for his words are before us; and not only the words, but even he who spoke them he, through the descriptions of his disciples, is, in a manner, before us too. And when he tells us that he has died for us through the love of God, what does it not say, both of our own evil and of God's goodness! What

does it not say of the danger which is ever near us, and of the safety and happiness in which we may stand, by keeping fast hold on the thought of Christ! He has perfected us; that is, the work is complete, if we would but believe it; but till we do believe it, it is in us not completed. It is complete in us when our hearts are softened, and God, and Christ, and our own sin, are fully before us; but as they pass away, so it becomes again undone. It becomes undone, because then we do not believe; another belief is ruling in our hearts; the belief that we may follow our own ways, and live safely without God. And for how many hours, and how many days, and weeks, and months, does this belief, this belief of evil, this unbelief of good, rule within us! and how naturally does it keep the veil upon our hearts; that veil which, without Christ, will remain on them for ever-the veil between us and God. But when we shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away; when we believe in Christ, we shall also believe in God; when we believe in God, the Father of Christ, we shall know and feel what is meant by infinite holiness and infinite love; and by the one offering of our high priest once offered, we shall feel that we who were dead are made alive-that we are now for ever perfected.

SERMON XI.

CHRIST OUR ONLY PRIEST.

HEBREWS VII. 25.

He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

IN In my Sermon on Friday, I spoke of Christ's Priesthood, especially as it was shown in his sacrifice of himself once for all. The other part of a priest's office is that of intercession; and this part Christ is now performing, and will perform to the end of the world. But this word, "intercession," must not be understood in that limited sense in which we commonly take it, when we mean by it no more than making a prayer or request in another's behalf. Properly, the whole office of a priest may be expressed by intercession; for intercession means the coming in between two parties; and as regards a priest, it is the coming in between God and men, to bring them, as it were, into the presence of God,