the greatest, the best and most holy, to come unto him any other way. Hereby were they taught the everlasting necessity of a high priest, and the discharge of his office, whatever end or issue their typical priests came unto. And herein lies a great aggravation of the present misery of the Jews: High priest of their own they have none, nor have had for many ages. Hereon all their solemn worship of God utterly ceaseth. They are the only persons in the world who, if all mankind would give them leave and assist them in it, cannot worship God as they judge they ought to do. For if Jerusalem were restored into their possession, and a temple reedified in it more glorious than that of Solomon, yet could they not offer one lamb in sacrifice to God; for they know that this cannot be done without a high priest and priests infallibly deriving their pedigree from Aaron, of whom they have amongst them not one in all the world. And so must they abide under a sense of being judicially excluded and cast out from all solemn worship of God, until the veil shall be taken from their hearts, and, leaving Aaron, they return unto Him who was typed by Melchisedec, unto whom even Abraham their father acknowledged his subjection.

Whence this necessity of a high priest for sinners arose, I have so largely inquired into and declared, in my Exercitations on the Original and Causes of the Priesthood of Christ, as that there is no need again to make mention of it. Every one's duty it is to consider it, and rightly improve it for himself. The want of living up unto this truth evacuates the religion of most men in the world.

Upon this supposition, of the necessity of a high priest in general, the apostle declares what sort of high priest was needful for us. And this he shows, 1. In his personal qualifications; 2. In his outward state and condition, verse 26; 3. In the nature of his office and the manner of its discharge, verse 27. And he confirmeth the whole by the consideration of the person who was this priest, and of the way and manner how he became so, compared with them and their consecration unto their office who were priests according unto the law, verse 28.

The first two are contained in this verse, namely, 1. The personal qualifications of him who was meet to be a priest for us, by whom we might come unto God; and, 2, His outward state and condition.

And in the first place, the necessity of such a high priest as is here described, is expressed by PET, "became us;' ἔπρεπε, » Επρεπεν ἡμῖν. decuit," "decebat," "it was meet," "it was just for us,' as the Syriac renders it. And respect may be had therein either unto the wisdom of God, or unto our state and condition, or unto both; such a high priest it was meet for God to give, and such a high priest it was needful that we should have. If the condecency

of the matter, which lies in a contrivance of proper means unto an end, be intended, then it is God who is respected in this word; if the necessity of the kind of relief mentioned be so, then it is we who are respected.

The word is applied unto God in this very case, chap. ii. 10, “It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things." Consider God as the supreme ruler and governor of the world, as the first cause and last end of all, and "it became him," was necessary unto his infinite wisdom and holiness, that having designed the "bringing of many sons unto glory," he should "make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." So the condecency here intended may respect, 1. The wisdom, grace, and goodness of God. It became him to give us such a high priest as we stood in need of, namely, one that was able in the discharge of that office to save all to the uttermost that come unto God by him; for to design our salvation by a high priest, and not to provide such a one as was every way able to effect it, became not the wisdom and grace of God.

2. Respect may be had herein unto our state and condition. Such this was, as none but such a high priest could Ἡμῖν. relieve us in, or save us from. For we stand in need of such a one, as our apostle declares, as (1.) Could make atonement for our sins, or perfectly expiate them; (2.) Purge our consciences from dead works, that we might serve the living God, or sanctify us throughout by his blood; (3.) Procure acceptance with God for us, or purchase eternal redemption; (4.) Administer supplies of the Spirit of grace unto us, to enable us to live unto God in all duties of faith, worship, and obedience; (5.) Give us assistance and consolation in our trials, temptations, and sufferings, with pity and compassion; (6.) Preserve us by power from all ruining sins and dangers; (7.) Be in a continual readiness to receive us in all our addresses to him; (8.) To bestow upon us the reward of eternal life. Unless we have a high priest that can do all these things for us, we cannot be "saved to the uttermost." Such a high priest we stood in need of, and such a one it became the wisdom and grace of God to give unto us. And God, in infinite wisdom, love, and grace, gave us such a high priest as, in the qualifications of his person, the glory of his condition, and the discharge of his office, was every way suited to deliver us from the state of apostasy, sin, and misery, and to bring us unto himself, through a perfect salvation. This the ensuing particulars will fully manifest.

τοιοῦτος.

The qualifications of this high priest are expressed first indefinitely, in the word ro/OUTOS. A difference from other high priests is included herein. He must not be one of an ordinary sort, but one so singularly qualified unto his work, so ex

Τοιοῦτος.

alted after his work, and so discharging his work unto such ends. In all these things we stood in need of such a high priest as was quite of another sort, order, and kind, than any the church had enjoyed under the law, as the apostle expressly concludes,

verse 28.

FIRST, His personal, inherent qualifications are first expressed; and we shall consider first some things in general that are common unto them all, and then declare the especial intendment of every one of them in particular: "Such a high priest became us as is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." And,

First, There is some allusion in all these things, 1. Unto what was typically represented in the institution of the office of the priesthood under the law. For the high priest was to be a person without blemish, not maimed in any part of his body. He was not to marry any one that was defiled; nor to defile himself among the people. On his forehead, in his ministrations, he wore a plate of gold with that inscription, "Holiness to the LORD." And no doubt but personal holiness was required of him in an especial manner; for want whereof God cast out the posterity of Eli from the priesthood.

But all those things were only outward representations of what was really required unto such a high priest as the church stood in need of. For they were mostly external, giving a denomination unto the subject, but working no real change in it. And where they were internal, they were encompassed with such a mixture of sins, weaknesses, infirmities, and the intercision of death, as that they had no glory in comparison of what was required. All these things the apostle observes, reducing them unto two heads, namely, that they were obnoxious unto sin and death; and therefore as they died, so they offered sacrifices for their own sins. But the church was taught by them, from the beginning, that it stood in need of a high priest whose real qualifications should answer all these types and representations of them.

2. It is possible that our apostle, in this description of our high priest, designed to obviate the prejudicate opinion of some of the Hebrews concerning their Messiah. For generally they looked on him as one that was to be a great earthly prince and warrior, that should conquer many nations, and subdue all their enemies with the sword, shedding the blood of men in abundance. In opposition unto this vain and pernicious imagination, our Saviour testifies unto them that he came not to kill, but to save and keep alive. And our apostle here gives such a description of him, in these holy, gracious qualifications, as might attest his person and work to be quite of another nature than what they desired and expected. And their frustration herein was the principal occasion of their unbelief. See Mal. iii. 1-3.

3. I am sorry that it hath fallen from the pen of an able expositor of our own on this place, that "the time when the Lord Christ was thus made a high priest for ever, and that by an oath, was after he had offered one sacrifice, not many; for the people, not for himself; once, not often; of everlasting virtue, and not effectual for some petty expiations for a time; and after he was risen, ascended, and set at the right hand of God."

If by being "made a high priest," only a solemn declaration of being made so is intended, these things may pass well enough; for we allow that in the Scripture, then a thing is ofttimes said to be, when it is first manifested or declared. So was the Lord Christ "determined to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead." But if it be intended, as the words will scarce admit of any other interpretation,-that the Lord Christ was first made a high priest after all this was performed, then the whole real priesthood of Christ and his proper sacrifice are overthrown. . For it is said he was not made a high priest until "after that he had offered his one sacrifice;" and if it were so, then he was not a priest when he so offered himself. But this implies a contradiction; for there can be no sacrifice where there is no priest. And therefore the Socinians, who make the consecration of the Lord Christ unto his sacerdotal office to be by his entrance into heaven, do utterly deny his death to have been a sacrifice, but only a preparation for it, as they fancy the killing of the beast of old to have been. And the truth is, either the Lord Christ was a priest before and in the oblation of himself on the cross, or he was never any, nor needed so to be, nor could he so be; for after he was freed from death, he had nothing to offer. And it is a strange order of things, that the Lord Christ should first offer his only sacrifice, and after that be made a priest. But the order, time, and manner of the call and consecration of the Lord Christ unto his priesthood I have elsewhere declared. Wherefore,

4. We may observe, that all these qualifications of our high priest were peculiarly necessary on the account of the sacrifice which he had to offer. They were not only necessary for him as he was to be the sacrificer, but also as he was to be the sacrifice; not only as he was to be the priest, but as he was to be the lamb. For the sacrifices were to be "without blemish," as well as the sacrificers. So were we "redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot," 1 Pet. i. 19. But however the sacrifices were chosen under the law without blemish, yet were they still in their own nature but calves, and goats, and lambs; and therefore priests who had weaknesses, and infirmities, and sins of their own, might be meet enough to offer them: but here both priest and sacrifice were to be equally pure and holy.

5. We must not pass by the wresting of this text by the Socinians, nor omit its due vindication. For they contend that this whole description of our high priest doth "not respect his internal qualifications in this world, before and in the offering of himself by his blood, but his glorious state and condition in heaven." For they fear (as well they may) that if the qualifications of a priest were necessary to him, and required in him whilst he was in this world, then he was so indeed. He who says, "Such an high priest became us, as is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners," doth affirm that when he was so he was our high priest. In that state wherein these things were necessary unto him he was a priest. To avoid this ruin unto their pretensions, they offer violence unto the text, and the signification of every word in it, and dangerously insinuate a negation of the things intended, to be in Christ in this world. So speaks Schlichtingius on the place: "Unde apparet sequentibus verbis, seu epithetis Christo tributis, non mores ipsius seu vitam ab omni peccati labe puram, sed felicem ac beatum statum describi ac designari, ob quem fiat ut in æternum vivens, nostri quoque perpetuam gerat curam. Licet enim omnia ista ratione vitæ et morum de Christo intellecta verissima sint, tamen nihil ad præsens auctoris institutum faciunt." So also argues Smalcius, de Reg. Christi, cap. xxiii., whom we have elsewhere refuted.

The paraphrase of one of our own seems to comply herewith; which is as followeth : "And this was a sort of high priests which we sinful, weak creatures had need of," (which, by the way, I do not understand; for we stood not in need of a new "sort of high priests," but of one single individual high priest,) "one that, being mercifully disposed, is also incapable of suffering any hurt, of being defiled or corrupted, and consequently of dying; and to that end is exalted unto a pitch above our sinful, corruptible condition here." So anazos and auíavros are rendered in the margin, "free from evil, and undefilable." The sense is plainly the same with that of Schlichtingius, though there be some variety in the expressions of the one and the other. And therefore is Christ said to be exalted that he might be such as he is here described; as though he was not so before in the sense here intended by the apostle, however the words here in another sense might be applied unto him.

Three things seem to be aimed at in this exposition:

(1.) To make way for another corrupt notion on the next verse, wherein these men, with Grotius, would have Christ in some sense offer for his own sins also; which there can be no pretence for, if these things be ascribed unto him as he was a priest in this world.

(2.) To take care that the innocency, holiness, and absolute purity of our high priest, be not supposed to be necessary unto our justifi