Lord of Hosts." Upon this, one of the Seraphim flew to him, and touched his lips with a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and at the same time pronounced this absolution, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged."

And Isaiah believed this, for when the Lord Himself asks immediately afterwards, "Whom shall I send?" he answers with holy confidence, "Here I am, send me." Now we should, I think, have supposed that God would have pronounced with His own mouth the absolution of such a man as Isaiah; or rather, we should have expected that God in such a transaction would have not even allowed His voice to be heard, but would have given to the prophet some secret assurance of his forgiveness. But it was God's good pleasure to take neither of these Though Isaiah was one who was continually receiving revelations direct from God, and saying in His name, "Thus saith the Lord," and though the prophet was standing in His immediate presence, yet God pronounced his absolution through the angel, and the angel himself used a significant act, or outward sign, to assure the prophet. But even this is not all; the angel connected the "taking away of iniquity" with the authorized templeservice of atonement, or sacrifice, for he touched the prophet's lips with a live coal from off the altar, on which some sacrifice was burning.

means.

.

Unless, then, this vision is delusive, it cannot be contrary to the glory of God to make use of subordinate agents and outward visible signs to convey even such things as cleansing and forgiveness, for He actually represents Himself as employing such agents when He is visibly present; and in the case of one to whom He vouchsafed such direct communications respecting the One Atoning

Sacrifice as we have in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah's prophecy.1

We shall now take the three dispensations, Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian, in their order, and see how they bear on this matter.

The first mention of a priest

I. As to the Patriarchal. is in the following passage: "And Melchizedec, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the most high God, and he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the most high God which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. And he (Abraham) gave him tithes of all." (Gen. xiv. 18-20.)

Now, we should have said, that if ever a man trod the earth who needed no blessing from the lips of his fellowmortal it was Abraham, for thrice before this had God appeared to him, and once at least had God promised to Abraham that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him. What need, then, had such a man of Melchizedec's blessing? Why should a priest interpose betwixt God and Abraham? And yet it was needful, because God ordained that this Priest King of Salem should bless even "him that had the promises."

And this benediction of Abraham, by Melchizedec, was immediately followed by Abraham's justification.2

1 "Lo, this hath touched thy lips." He shows that the confirmation which was obtained by the sign was not without effect; but that the blessing signified by it was at the same time bestowed, so that Isaiah knew that he had not been deceived. Hence we may

infer that in the Sacraments the reality is given to us along with the sign; for when the Lord holds out a Sacrament, He does not feed our eyes with an empty and unmeaning figure, but joins the truth with it so as to testify that by means of them He acts upon us efficaciously. (Calvin on Isaiah, vi. 7.)

2 Compare Genesis xv. 1-6, with Romans iv. 1 and 20, 21, 22.

Now it does not appear to me that God, by this transaction, conferred any honour or dignity on any order of men, considered as priests or ministers, but rather that in all this He asserted His own sovereignty-that He had a right to convey His blessings as He chose.

And

For here was Abraham, whom God had honoured above all other men, by frequent personal converse with Himself. God had made his name great, and the name of no mere man stands out in history like that of Abraham. Abraham was the especial type of the Christian, as one who is justified by faith, and embraces the promises. And yet God's providence leads this man to a priest, to be blessed by this priest; a priest who, whatever be the typical glories of his person and office, was then known only as one among the kings of Canaan.

Whatever else, then, we are taught by this account, we are certainly taught this, that no man, no matter what his spiritual hold on Christ, can assume to be above receiving blessing from any one to whom God may have given a commission to impart that blessing: we are also most emphatically taught, that direct communications from God Himself, by no means supersede the necessity for more indirect communication from Him, if God has been pleased so to ordain.

II. We now come to the Jewish dispensation. I need scarcely multiply proofs, that in this dispensation, the principle for which we are contending occupies a very prominent place.

God ordained that out of the twelve tribes into which His people were divided, one whole tribe should be set apart, to give attendance in His Sanctuary. Their chief function in this Sanctuary was to make atonement.

God, Who could have pardoned His people without the intervention of any outward means, seeing that He had it

in His mind to provide an all-sufficient, all-prevailing Sacrifice, was yet pleased to ordain that the sins of His people should be formally remitted only through the offering of certain sacrifices, which the priests were to receive from them, and to offer to the Lord.

Thus, with respect to such sins as violence, or deceitfully appropriating the property of another, and even swearing falsely concerning it; it is said that to be forgiven, a man must not only restore and add the fifth part, but "bring a trespass-offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein." (Levit. vi. 1-8.) No sacrifices of any sort were lawful, except the priests assisted in some way or other in their offering.1

Other functions pertained to the priests: they had to offer incense; to pronounce respecting the cleansing of the leper; to set the shewbread in order upon the table ; and to bless the people in the name of the Lord.

More particularly, one of their number, the high-priest, had to offer yearly certain sacrifices of peculiar sanctity. By these he apparently procured for the whole Church and nation, what the inferior priests procured for each individual who brought his separate offering. We read (Levit. xvi. 30), "On that day shall the priest make an atonement for you to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord . . . . and the priest. . shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments: and he shall make an

....

1 For the case of the burnt-offering, see Levit. i. 7, 11, 12, 15, 17; of the meat-offering, Levit. ii. 2, 8, 16; of the peace-offering, Levit. iii. 2, 5, 8, 11, 13; of the sin-offering, Levit. iv. 5, 16, 17, 20, 25, 26; of the trespass-offering, Levit. v. 8, 10, 13.

atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation."

So far, then, as the Jewish dispensation is concerned, the fact or principle is very clearly revealed, that God led His people to expect certain great blessings through the agency of their brethren.

But this dispensation was only preparatory. It was intended to pass away after it had fulfilled its mission, which was to set forth principles which would lead men in due time more faithfully to accept, and better to understand a final dispensation-the dispensation of the One Only True and Real Priest.

There are three points in which the subordinate priesthood of this preparatory dispensation bears upon the ministerial agency of the New Testament dispensation.

First, the fact that God separated or sanctified the whole nation to Himself, to be a "kingdom of priests," did not prevent His separating the tribe of Levi to be His priests in a peculiar sense; to do things on behalf of their brethren, which it was not lawful for them to do themselves, and to convey certain blessings which were not ordinarily to be expected, except through their hands.

The priesthood of all Christians, as members of the mystical body of the One Priest, is not more distinctly recognised by St. Peter, when he writes to his converts, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood" (1 Pet. ii. 9); than is the corresponding priesthood of all the Israelites recognised by God Himself, speaking to them through Moses, in the words, "Ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." (Ex. xix. 6.) Indeed, the words of St. Peter are but a citation or adaptation of these words of God to the Jews.