branches reach to heaven. My meaning is this, that there should be breathings and pantings after perfection, and there should be springings up towards eternal life. Examine yourselves now about this point. I dare say, that the greatest part of Christians, sound honest Christians, have more mind to beg grace of God, that they may glorify him here, than they feel of any great desires of enjoying a perfect state hereafter. It is a shame, Sirs, to think, how many Christians are plucked to heaven against their will; my meaning is, before they would be there. They would be there at last; but the shame is, that we should be so unwilling to be there, whenever he calls. A believer, an heir of heaven, to be sorry to leave this earth, is a most shameful thing; but the churches of Christ are full of such shameful things. It was wont to be otherwise, and God can make it otherwise again. We groan within ourselves, being burthened, says the apostle. Why, what burthened the man? Did his afflictions burthen him? No; he gloried in them. Was it his temptations burthened him? No; he rejoiced in them too. His burthen was, that he was out of heaven, 2 Cor. v. 2, 4.

Lastly, You that are the house of God and believers, concern yourselves in the prosperity of the great house of God. Every believer is a temple of God, and the whole church is the great one. Is Christ set over the house of God as a great Priest; is his charge lying there? and should not the care of our hearts go where Christ's charge is ?

1st, Walk honourably, you that are the house of God; do not disgrace and disparage the temple of God: Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. The true spring of true tenderness and holiness in all manner of conversation, is the faith of those privileges that by the grace of God we are possessed of.

2dly, You that are the house of God and believers, labour to bring in many to the same house with you. The leavening power of godliness is greatly gone: time hath been when it was otherwise, when the enemies took no tice of it, that Christianity was in a manner catching where

ever it came; that some Christians, by their conversations and by their example, by their exhortations, and speakings, and teachings of others, have been of great use to bring in many strangers to the house. O that that were more

minded!

Lastly, Let us all pray more for the prosperity and increasing of the house of God. There is room enough in this house for Jew and Gentile. The great High Priest is able to take care of them all, and he will take care of all that are given him; they shall be spoke for, and brought in, in his time. So much now for this second thing.

The third thing in the verse, and which I would dispatch also at this time, is the interest that the church hath in the High Priest: Having an High Priest over the house of God. Christ is the High Priest, the house of God is his charge, all his people have him; that is what the apostle speaks. It is not, seeing there is an high-priest, though that is something; but it is an argument of far greater force, having him. But though the word having be not in the original here, it is necessarily understood from the 19th verse, and is expressed chap. iv. 14. That which I am to speak to then is this, That the church of believers has a true and certain interest in and possession of Jesus Christ, as their High Priest. I shall only speak unto this, and then make application, What that interest is that believers have in Jesus Christ as a High Priest, how far we may carry this word having.

1. We have this High Priest taken from amongst men. He is a man as we are; he is one of our nature, though not of our condition. Every high-priest, says the apostle, is taken from amongst men in things pertaining to God, Heb. v. 1. So Jesus Christ must be taken from among men.

2. We have this High Priest, as the Spirit of God calls it, with us: He shall be called Emmanuel, God with us, Matth. i. 23. taken from Isa. vii. 14.; with us not only in the union of nature, but with us in another union, as he is our Lord, and head, as he is the head, and surety, and undertaker for his people.

3. We have him made, and framed, and shapen for us.

271 What did Jesus Christ do in the world, and what had he to do to be a High Priest, but only for his people? In all things it behoved him to be like unto his brethren; that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest, in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, Heb. ii. 17. There is a greater word in Heb. vii. 26. For such an High Priest became us. Pray what doth become us? Nothing doth become a sinner, as a sinner, but hell; that he deserves, and that he is ripe for but, says the apostle, such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; such a High Priest became us. In the framing of our Lord Jesus as a High Priest, and as a Mediator, the infinite wisdom of God consulted what was fit,' and meet, and needful for poor men. Thereupon, says the apostle, He is made unto us of God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, 1 Cor. i. 30. So that if we must conceive, as indeed we must some way, of the works of God, according to the weak thought that we are capable of bestowing upon them, the Father, in framing his Son Christ, considered what man needed; and whatever was needful, and wanting in them, as all good was, that Christ was made to be. If they are fools, he is made wisdom; if they are guilty sinners, he is made righteousness; if they are defiled creatures, he is made sanctification; if they be captives and slaves, he is made redemption.

4. We have him not only made thus, but sent, sent with the highest authority, coming in his Father's name; as he says himself, I am come unto you in my Father's name: he is consecrated by the word of the oath for evermore, Heb. vii. 21, 28. This man is made a Priest by an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

5. We have this Priest with the greatest part of his work done already, and the rest he is daily doing. The comfortable doctrine of Christ's priestly office was not so clearly known, until he had done the greatest part of it. It is marvellous to think what dreadful darkness was in the minds of believers before he died. Peter very readily saith, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, Matth. xvi. 16. And the Lord owns

him a blessed man for so saying, and tells him, that the Father had revealed this to him; that it was true faith he had, and that it was of a divine original; so that it was an infallible evidence, that the man was a believer: but as soon as Christ comes immediately after to preach to them the doctrine of his sufferings, that he was to be a sacrifice, and was to go up to Jerusalem, and there was to be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and to be slain, Be it far from thee, says Peter. Accordingly you know how sharply he was reproved by our Lord. But we need not aggravate the wickedness of that word of the good man; for their darkness was such that they commonly stumbled in these things grievously. What! speak against Christ's offering the grand sacrifice, by the virtue whereof Peter himself was to get eternal life! But so it was with him. But now we have this advantage, that the main, the hardest part of it is past: We have a great High Priest, saith the apostle, the Son of God, that is passed into the heavens. There were some that saw him upon the cross, that beheld our Lord in his agony, that saw him paying that price to divine justice, by the sacrifice of himself. We see Jesus, saith the apostle, who was a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man, Heb. ii. 9. As for his intercession, he is daily about it.

Lastly, Every true believer hath Jesus Christ given to him, and he is possessed of him, with all the virtues and benefits of his great office, the virtues of his sacrifice, and the benefits of his daily intercession; the virtue of that one offering, and the benefit of his interceding before God, this is the proper and complete meaning of this word, We have an High Priest; we have an interest in him, we have all the benefit of this great office the Father hath set him in.

Thus I have gone through these arguments of the apostles. What follows in the following verses, is the proper use the apostle makes of this doctrine; yet as I have, upon every one of the particular arguments and branches of them, made some little use thereof; so would I of this.

The only thing I would speak to you about from this truth is, That since believers have Christ the High Priest, I would

exhort you to try and see carefully whether you have him or no. That is a plain question, Have you Christ or no? Christ saves none but them that have him: Christ saves no man at a distance; he enters into us, and we into him; and, if I may so speak, we go to heaven together. The question is this now, and it is a very plain one, and an important one; and it is a pity that the question is not more frequently put, and seriously considered, and that there are so few can truly answer it, Whether you have Christ or no? I believe if there were one to stand at the door as you go out, and ask every one this question, whether you have Christ or no, there would be confounded answers. You can tell what you have, and what you want of worldly things; cannot you tell, whether you have Christ or no? The importance of this inquiry should prompt you highly to the resolution of it.

1. It is certain, that Jesus Christ is come into the world, and did all his work he came for, and that he is gone to heaven, and is about that work he has there, and will quickly finish it, and return again: Behold, I come quickly.

The inference I draw from it, as to this question, is, If Christ be certainly an High Priest of good things to come, it is mighty important for people to know, whether they have a special interest in him; for Christ's coming does not make it absolutely necessary, that all that are in the world after his coming should be in heaven; but multitudes perish, notwithstanding the light is come into the world, and many perish thereby, through the corruption of their hearts, refusing this tender of the grace of God.

2. It is certain, that you have heard of Jesus Christ as a great High Priest, and this is a great blessing that many want, and perish for the want of it. Now, to hear daily of Jesus Christ, and not to have him, is a grievous thing. The Lord has ways unknown to us to justify himself, when he shall judge the Heathen world: but the greatest judgment will be upon them that daily have heard of Christ, and never labour to get him.

3. There is more than that, it is sure that you have had the offer of him. The gospel is properly made up of two things, a declaring of what Christ is by the Father's appointVOL. III.

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