SERM.

IX.

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: : ر} ,".

were accepted. It will be necessary therew fore in the next Places in order to prove that

the High Priest lo represented is really comé,
and that Jesus was he, to proceed to the

.
II. SECOND Head of my Discourse, una
der which I am to Thew, how Jefus, as the
Mesiab or Cbriff, did assume and sperform
and finish all which that Priesthood prefi-
gured. í

LOS
And here first we must observe that ac-
cording to the Law of Moses, the High Priest-
bood was an Honour which no Man ever took
unto himself ; but be that was called of God,
as was Aaron, Heb. v. 4. This made it
necessary, that even Jesus himself (especially
as he was none of Aaron's Family or Tribe)
should be called and appointed by God him;
self. And therefore the Holy Penman inime-
diately subjoins : So also Christ glorified not
himself to be made an High Priest ; but be that
said unto him, Thou art my Son, to Day bave
I begotten thee, ver. 5. His Commiffon and
Authority therefore must be uncontested, being
so much clearer than the Commission of any
High Priest before him (Aaron and his Sons
alone excepted) as his Appointment was by
the solemn Nomination, and Oath also, (as we
fhall see hereafter) of God himself.

And

IX.

And as he was thus duly appointed our SERM. High Priest, fo did he also as duly fulfill those several Offices, which the High Priest was used to perform. - For was the High Priest ordained (on the great Day of Atonement molt especially) to offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for Sins ? And therefore was it of Necesity (as the Holy Penman affirms it

was,
Chap. viii. 3.) that this Man (pur High Priest
of the New Testament) have somewhat also
to offer ?If it was --we shall find in the
Sequel, that fomewhat he had ; and some-
what infinitely preferable to what the Jewiss
High Priest could bring.
For what brought he, upon

this
great

Occasion, for himself and the People, but a Bullock and a Goat? Whereas the Author of my Text gives us to understand, that it is not possible tbat the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away. Sins, chap. x. 4. i. e. fhould take them away so, as that no further. Sacrifice should be needful to that End : It could not make the Comers unto Juch Sacrifice perfect, ver. 1. It could not expiate their Sins for ever; so far from it, that their legal Atonements were forced to be renewed every Year, ver. 3. Neither could they make him that did the Service perfect, as

pertaining

SERM. pertaining to their conscience ; for those Of

ferings ftood only in Meats and Drinks and divers Washings, and carnal Ordinances only, and imposed only until the Time of Reformation, chap. ix. 9, 10, at the coming of the Meffias, who was expected with a better and more sufficient Sacrifice. Consequently if our Christian High Priest, when he came, had offered only the Blood of a Bull and a Goat, Mankind must have continued in the fame Case they had been in before. F

For tha Insufficiency of the Offering could never have been removed by the Dignity of the Offerer. The transcendent Excellency of the Priest could never have altered the Disproportion between the Justice of God provok, ed by the Sins and Tranfgressions of Mankind, and the Death of a filly Beast in their stead. For in this case it would not have been the offending Nature that suffered, but a Nature much inferior, and withal innocent,

However since, by the Appointment of God himself, all Things were by the Law purged with Blood, and without shedding of Blood was no Remiffion; the Sacrifice of the High Priest under the Law 'must signify, that our High Priest must also make the Expiation and Atonement by thedding of

Blood.

IX.

Blood. But what Blood it should be, was S ERM. left to that High Priest himself to explain : Wherefore when he cometh into the World, he faith, Sacrifice and Offering, and BurntOfferings, and offerings for Sin thou wouldest not, neither badf Pleasure in those Things which were offered by the Law; but a Bodr. halt thou prepared me : And lo, I come to do thy Will, O God, Ch.x.5.-9. His own Death and his own Blood therefore was what the legal Sacrifices foreshewed: For which Reason when we are comparing the one with the other, we must always remember that our Lord is as well the Sacrifice as the Priest. Our Sacrifice in respect of his buman Nature, our Priest in Virtue of his Divine : Our Priest in that Nature which came down from Heaven, I., I come (in the Volume of the Book it is written of me) to do thy Will, O God, compare Psalm xc. 6.-8. Or Sacrifice in that Nature which he assumed when he came, that Body which was prepared for him, that human Body, without Blemish and without Spot.

This human Nature personally united to him, did the Divine Person of the Son of God offer to his Father upon the Altar of the Cross. And this is what the holy Penman means when he asks in the Words

immediately

IX.

SERM. immediately following my Text, If the Blood

of Bulls and of Goats, and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the Unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the Flesh; how much more Jhall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, (i. e. by his own eternal Spirit or Divine Nature,) offered himself without Spot to God, purge their Conscience from dead Works to serve the living God? Upon this Account of his offering his Blood through his Divine Nature he is called God by St. Peter in the very Act of the Oblation of his Blood for the Redemption of his Church, Feed the Church of God (faith that Apoftle to the Ephesians) which he (which God) hath purchased with bis own Blood, Acts xx. 28. For though it was the human Nature only that suffered, yet since this was personally united to the Divinity of our Lord, therefore, by Reason of this admirable Union, and the Reflection of the Divinity upon the Humanity of our Saviour, what was done to his human Nature only, is ascribed to his whole Person, to the whole God-Man. And therefore the Princes of the World are faid to have crucified the Lord of Glory, 1 Cor. ii. 8.

Having now feen, how Jesus, as our Priest, had a Body prepared for him,