LECTURE III. MOSES A HUMBLE TYPE AND PRECURSOR OF OUR GREAT APOSTLE, CHRIST JESUS. HEB. iii. iv. Let us labour, therefore, to enter into that rest; lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. iv. 11. In the first two chapters of this most interesting Epistle, Christ Jesus is set before us as the Great "Apostle and High-Priest of our profession," that we may devoutly "consider" Him in these his benign relations to the Church of God, and willingly render to Him that honour, reverence, and adoration, that faith and obedience, to which He is so eminently entitled. Did the time permit, it would be interesting to observe how almost every sacred title which occurs in Scripture has, besides its ordinary use, an emphatic application to our Lord. There have been, for instance, prophets; but Christ is "that" distinguished " Prophet1," who was of old expected to come: the Church has been fed by pastors or shepherds; but Christ is her "Chief Shepherd":" she has been ruled by bishops; but Christ is 1 John vi. 14. and vii. 40. 2 Heb. xiii. 20. pre-eminently the "Bishop of our Souls1." Even the name of Lord or King belongs most properly to Him, who is "Lord of lords and King of kings." But the offices, with which we are at present concerned, are those of Apostle and High-Priest, which are in this Epistle appropriated, in their highest and fullest sense, to our blessed Saviour. Priests, indeed, and highpriests there have been before Christ; but he alone is the everlasting High-Priest in the living temple of the Most High. By an Apostle we understand one who is sent forth as the publicly authorized and accredited messenger, the envoy, in short, or ambassador of some sovereign prince or power. In this sense St. Paul and the chosen Twelve were Apostles of Christ, as Christ himself was the Great Apostle of the Father. For as he sent them to preach the Gospel, so had the Father sent Him. He is the great "Messenger of the Covenant," in subordination to whom all other messengers have acted as his ministers. Christ, then, as the Son of God, sent forth by his Father into our fallen world to preach salvation to it, is the great" Apostle of our profession;" of which also, as the Son of man dying for our sins and interceding for us in heaven, He is the High-Priest;-uniting with his priesthood the kingly power also, as Lord supreme of the world to come." He took upon him our flesh to suffer, and yet to rule; to be at once the humblest of men, and the highest of princes. "Wherefore, holy brethren"-holy, I say, for have you not been "sanctified'," or consecrated to God, 1 1 Pet. ii. 25. 3 Mal. iii. 1. 2 Rev. xvii. 14. 4 See ch. ii. 11. iii. 1. 66 con by the blood of the Son of man?- partakers of the heavenly calling," (that invitation from above to eternal glory which the Son of God has given you), consider, I entreat, yea, with the utmost attention and reverence, sider the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus:"-consider, how far superior he is to any previous priest or ambassador of God, not excepting Moses, the great Apostle, as he may be called, of the Law; and how faithfully he hath discharged the offices which He thus undertook. Moses, it is true, was also faithful, and that in the discharge of a very extensive commission, having for its object not one particular service in the Church or House of God, but the re-establishment, formation, and regulation of "all His house." In this respect he was superior to all the prophets, being the founder, under God, of the Jewish Church: superior to the prophets, but inferior far to Christ, who is, as God, the First Cause of all things, the real Founder of the Jewish Church. The fidelity of Moses in the discharge of his important commis Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this [man] was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faith ful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after ; but Christ as a Son over his own house. iii. 2—6. sion was still that only of " a servant,” and of a servant too sent expressly to supply a testimony, in the mystic types and direct predictions of that elder dispensation, of those things which were to be plainly spoken afterwards by Christ. The Law was subordinate to the Gospel; and Moses was a minister of our Lord, preparing the way for his coming, centuries before he ap peared. The fidelity of Christ, on the contrary, was that of a Son, not serving in another's, but ruling over his own house, even that house which has been in being, more or less, from the beginning of the world, and which is now built up, under the Gospel, of all kindreds, nations, and languages, to whom "the heavenly calling" has been sent. iii. 6. Yes, my brethren, His "house are we, if," at least, "we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." By profession we are members of the Church of Christ; but whether we shall continue such, so as in the final settlement of things at the judgment day to be acknowledged as of the household of faith, will remain to be shown then. Our interest in Christ must be secured by perseverance: they that endure to the end, the same shall be saved. If we would enjoy the everlasting benefits belonging to the Church of Christ, we must be open and resolute in the profession of the Gospel, we must make its hopes our rejoicing and glory, and “hold fast" our religion, through all trials and temptations, "firm unto the end." And in the character of "the High-Priest and Apostle of our profession," have we not every reason for perseverance, which we ought to desire? His greatness and his condescension, his might and his mercy, call alike upon us to cleave unto Him with full purpose of heart'." Then consider the awful danger of unbelief, the penalty which it will incur, the forfeiture which it will involve of that rest in "the world to come," upon which Christ himself has entered, and in which he 1 Acts xii. 23. will admit us to participate, if we continue in the faith and hope of the Gospel stedfast unto the end. Great are the prospects held out to us through Christ; and great in proportion the exertions of our spiritual enemies to destroy our hope, by doing all they can to make us afraid, or ashamed, or weary of openly professing and firmly adhering to the Christian faith. Oh! that men should ever be afraid to show themselves His disciples, to whom the final empire of things in the world to come is put in subjection! or ashamed of that Gospel which the Son of God has brought from heaven! or weary of pursuing so great a prize as everlasting rest in the mansions of glory! Yet so it was with the Hebrews; and so, alas! it is with ourselves. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw myworks hearts, as in The people of God have, indeed, at all times been too forgetful of the rest which the Divine mercy has, under different dispensations, held out to them; too willing to barter it for present gain or pleasure, for ease or honour; too reluctant to encounter those labours, trials, and difficulties, which must first be gone through before we can enter into rest, and which seem necessary, in the appointments of eternal wisdom, to sweeten forty years. Wherefore even the rest of heaven. Observe the warning addressed by the inspired Psalmist to the Church in his own have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, day: how he admonishes the people They shall not enter into of Israel not to harden their hearts, I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they my rest. iii. 7-11. as their fathers in the wilderness had done before them, provoking God by their unbelief, and tempting Him |