the oblation of our Redeemer? A common opinion is, that it was latent, or quiescent, or withdrawn. But not to lay any stress upon the absence of Scripture testimony to this effect, it is difficult to perceive how it could impart efficacy to a sacrifice in which it had no share. The notion, moreover, is involved in an obscurity which no reasoning can ever dissipate. What is meant by quiescent Deity? How is it possible that the Deity could be withdrawn from the person of Christ, of which it formed an essential part? The sacred narrative, besides, decisively contradicts this hypothesis. The address to the penitent malefactor is sufficient evidence as to the presence and agency of the Divinity in the last hours of our Lord, since to communicate pardon and the promise of paradise belongs to God alone.

But if we assume the view of the Apostle, as here expounded, the subject is abundantly clear. In the act of oblation our Lord was the Priest, with respect to that nature which was eternal, (xarà dúvaμiv Zwñs ȧkataλúrov, vii. 16,) and which therefore could not suffer death; which was purely and infinitely spiritual, and therefore incapable of the physical circumstances essential to a true sacrifice, such especially as the shedding of blood; while, with respect to that nature which was passible and mortal, he was the sacrifice.

Against this view two objections may possibly be urged. The one is, that it attributes to the personal Godhead of our Lord those acts which, in the Scripture, are represented as performed personally by the Father; and this, could it be substantiated, would undoubtedly be fatal to the opinion. But a few additional observations, it is presumed, will show that it is without the force which, at the first view, it may be thought to possess. The subject may be illustrated by a reference to the legal sacrifices. It was the office of the Levitical functionary to place the victim before the Lord; to slay and dismember it; to arrange its parts upon the altar; to sprinkle and to present the blood in the most holy place. But the fire by which the holocaust was consumed, originally came from God. It was his to accept the offering, and to communicate the tokens of his acceptance.

May we not, then, with great reverence, apply the analogy to the oblation of our Lord? To bring the immaculate victim

to the altar, there to present it before God; to subject it, through the permissive agency of wicked men, to the physical suffering and the mortal agony; to bear the oblation into the holiest place, and there to offer it to the acceptance of the Father, was the office of our divine High Priest. But that bruising and putting to grief; that revelation of the infinite turpitude of sin, of the heinousness of human guilt, and of the divine resentment against transgression; that general penal infliction in which the human mind of our Redeemer alone was concerned, and which was symbolized by the fire for the consumption of the victim under the law,—this was the work of the Father. His was it also to accept the oblation of the Son, and to afford those tokens of his acceptance which, at a subsequent period, were so abundantly displayed. The analogy, of course, is imperfect; but the points of resemblance are sufficiently numerous to illustrate the distinction between the agency respectively of the Father and of the Son.

A second objection is, that the assigning to the Deity and to the humanity of Christ offices so distinct, is a disruption of the hypostatical union. This allegation is evidently applicable to the theory which supposes the Deity quiescent, or withdrawn, especially the latter; but against the view before us is of no weight. Whenever we speak of a being doing any thing with himself or to himself, we necessarily regard him in two distinct respects. He cannot be, in one and the same respect, the agent and the patient: yet, in such a case, no one supposes a disturbance of personal identity and oneness. So when our Lord is said to offer himself, he cannot be, exactly in the same sense, the offerer and the offered, the Priest and the sacrifice. Yet it will not follow that there is the slightest interruption of the hypostatical union.

If, upon a subject so awful, we may venture to draw analogies from our own character and circumstances, there are many operations of the human mind in which a distinction equally palpable may be observed. Take, for example, the internal struggle so strikingly described in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and so well known to every repentant sinner. Indeed, it is more than intimated in the New Testament that the subjugation and extinction of the evils of our nature, which we are called to effect by the grace

of God, is a moral process, analogous to the sacrificial act of Christ. (e. g. Rom. vi. 6; Gal. v. 16—24.) The analogy, in fact, is susceptible of clear proof. As in the person of our Lord there was a nature that abhorred and shrunk from suffering, which is evinced by the prayer at Gethsemane; so is there in us the carnal principle, which “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." And as in him there was a superior nature which led the inferior on through the various stages in the work of redemption; so is there in the believer a spiritual principle, by which the workings of nature are constrained, and the law of the flesh is subdued.

Such an illustration is adduced, not as presenting any proper resemblance to the oblation of Christ; this is prohibited by the defilement of our nature: but to show that even in ourselves, and of consequence under our own observation, where there is no disruption of perfect personal unity, there is yet an intelligible and real distinction of agent and patient. And if such is the fact where the person and the nature are alike one, how easily supposable is it where the person consists of natures so absolutely heterogeneous as the human and the divine.

If, then, the oblation of Christ derived its efficacy from the union of the divine with the suffering nature; and if, in respect of his Divinity, our Lord was the actual functionary in the work of atonement, we are prepared to understand why the argument of the Apostle is on the excellency of the priesthood, rather than on that of the sacrifice, of the new dispensation. This is the natural procedure of thought from the agent who, as such, is always the superior, to the patient, who, as such, is always the inferior; and, in this instance, from the Priest, who is the Eternal Spirit, to the victim, who is human flesh. The argument which proves the dignity of the one is equally available, in its subordinate application, to the efficacy of the other. If, on the contrary, the sacerdotal eminence of our Redeemer is not derived immediately from his Godhead, it must be referred to his oblation. This, however, which is the only alternative, would be a reversal of the Apostle's reasoning.

SECTION V..

APOSTASY FROM CHRIST.

HAVING now gone through the three main topics of the Apostle's discourse, it remains that we briefly consider their practical application. This respects the evil of apostasy; and whatever tended to render Christianity eminent above the previous dispensation, was obviously available here, in the same proportion, to inspire deep and salutary apprehension. Upon this subject the epistle contains two passages of terrible energy; the one occurring at the commencement, the other at the conclusion, of the argument on our Lord's priesthood. They are thus given in our version.

"For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom (for whom, di ovc,) it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God but that which beareth thorns and briers [is] rejected, and [is] nigh unto cursing; whose end [is] to be burned."*

"For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of

Heb. vi. 4-8.

judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance [belongeth] unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. [It is] a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."*

These passages are far too comprehensive to allow a detailed examination. We must content ourselves with a very cursory survey of their scope and general reasoning. One argument, striking in itself, and especially calculated to affect the Hebrew converts, is founded upon the well-known rigour of the Mosaic law. And if a dispensation thus evidently inferior,-such is the spirit of the discourse, was yet guarded by sanctions so awful, what will be the desert and doom of those, who outrage to the utmost a dispensation so infinitely superior as is that of Christianity! More particularly, if the sacrificial rites of the Mosaic economy could not be desecrated without fatal consequences to the transgressor; how aggravated the guilt, and how terrible the punishment, of him who, by lapsing from his Christian profession, declares the blood of the covenant, by the application of which he was really sanctified, a thing common and unholy! His is a rejection of the only prevalent oblation; and having thus cut himself off from the sole medium of divine mercy, "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful

* Heb. x. 26-31.