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in the sun, there is found only created and communicated perfection; in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, there is the perfection which is inherent and divine. In the fulness of its meritorious efficacy, there is all which the church or the world can want; a fulness which, in all its generations, to whatever period they may be extended, and to whatever numbers they may be multiplied, can never be exhausted or diminished. Its glory, diffusive like that of the sun, but infinitely more rich in the value of the influence which it imparts, will at length shine before all nations, will attract every eye, and cheer every dwelling of mankind. Christ, as an atoning sacrifice, has been lifted up upon the cross, and the declaration must be fulfilled, that all men shall be drawn unto him. God, with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day, is not slack concerning his promise, which he made to Abraham, as some men count slackness. It has been written with his finger; it lives before him in his word; it is pleaded with him by his people; it forms the basis and warrant of their exertions; the steady and unfailing motive to their perseverance; the assurance of their ultimate success; the ground of their anticipated triumph over selfishness, suspicion, reproach, slander and opposition, that in the seed of

Abraham (which is Christ) all the families of the earth shall be blessed. To his one perfect sacrifice for sin, the eye of every guilty descendant of Adam must at length be directed; on its efficacy every heart be taught exclusively to rest; for the pardon and full salvation which it freely imparts, every tongue be tuned to melody and joy.

SECTION III.

CHRIST THE ALL-SUFFICIENT PRIEST-THE PREVALENCY OF HIS

INTERCESSION..

"AND they truly were many Priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death; but this (that is, Christ,) because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."*

Now, as the sacrifice of Christ was prefigured daily in the Jewish temple, by the offering of the lamb; so the intercession of Christ was prefigured with the same frequency by the associated rite, the presentation by the priest of the smoking censer on the altar of incense : And thou shalt put it" (the altar of incense) "before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony; before the mercy-seat, that is over the

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*Heb. vii. 23-25.

testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning when he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it; and when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it; a perpetual incense before the Lord, throughout your generations."*

In the blessing of Levi, therefore, Moses, the man of God, said of his sons, "They shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar." When Solomon sent to the king of Tyre, for materials for building the temple, he informed him, that it was to be dedicated to God, to burn before him "sweet incense," as well as the burnt-offering, morning and evening. When Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, in the war which was waged against him by the revolted tribes, asserted the justice of his cause, he reminded them, that on his side the priests, which ministered unto the Lord, were the sons of Aaron, and that "they burned unto the Lord, every morning and every evening, burnt sacrifices and sweet incense." And Luke informs us, respecting Zacharias, that "while he executed the priest's office before God, in the order of his course, according to

* Exod. xxx. 6-8.

Deut. xxxiii. 10.

2 Chron. xiii. 11.

the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord and the whole multitude of the people were praying without, at the time of incense."*

It will be remembered, in illustration of these associated rites (the bleeding lamb and the priest presenting the censer of incense), that when Noah came forth from the ark, and again took possession of the earth, from which the deluge had swept every living thing that had breathed upon it; his first work was to build an altar to the Lord. Of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, which had been preserved with himself and his family in the ark, he offered burnt offerings upon the altar. And then, with the prospect of man's renewed apostacy before him, and implying that a sacrifice has power to avert a deserved curse, and secure the perpetuation of undeserved blessings, it is immediately added, "And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for" (because that) "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth

* Luke i. 8-10.

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