lieving on him, which is the very resigning the soul to Christ, and living by him. Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life, says Christ. He complains of it as a wrong done to him; but the loss is ours. It is his glory to give us life that were dead; but it is our happiness to receive that life from him. Now these stones come unto their foundation; which imports the moving of the soul to Christ, being moved by his Spirit, and that the will acts, and willingly; for it cannot act otherwise, but as being actuated and drawn by the Father, No man can come to me except the Father draw him: And the outward mean of drawing, is by the word; it is the sound of that harp, that brings the stones of this spiritual building together, and then being united to Christ, they are built up; that is, as St. Paul expresses it', they grow up unto a holy temple in the Lord.

In times of peace the church may dilate more, and build as it were into breadth: but in trouble, it arises more in height; it is then built upwards; as in cities where men are straitened, they build usually higher than in the country. Notwithstanding the church's afflictions, yet still the building is going forward; it is built (as Daniel speaks of Jerusalem) in troublous times. And it is this which the Apostle intends, as suiting with his foregoing exhortation; and this may be read exhortatively too; but taking it rather as asserting their condition, it is for this end, that they may remember to be like it, and grow up. For this end he expressly calls them living stones; an adjunct not usual for stones, but here inseparable: And therefore, though the Apostle changes the similitude from infants, to stones; yet he will not let go this quality of living, as making chiefly for his purpose.

To teach us the necessity of growth in believers, they are therefore often compared to things that grow, to trees planted in fruitful growing places, as by the rivers of water, to Cedars in Lebanon, where Eph. ii. 21.

d Joh. v. 40.

* Joh. vi. 65.

f

they are tallest, to the morning light, to infants on the breast; and here, where the word seems to refuse it, to stones, yet (it must and well doth admit this unwonted epithet) they are called living and growing stones.

If, then, you would have the comfortable persuasion of this union with Christ, see whether you find your souls established upon Jesus Christ, finding him as your strong foundation; not resting on yourselves, nor on any other thing either within you, or without you, but supported by him alone; drawing life from him, by virtue of that union, as from a living foundation, so as to say with the Apostle, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me".

As these stones are built on Christ by faith, so they are cemented one to another by love; and therefore, where that is not, it is but a delusion to think themselves parts of this building. As it is knit to him, it is knit together in itself through him, and if dead stones in a building support and mutually strengthen one another, how much more ought living stones in an active lively way to do so? The stones of this building keep their place; the lower rise not up to be in the place of the higher. As the Apostle speaks of the parts of the body, so the stones of this building in humility and love keep their station and grow up in it, edifying in love, (as saith the Apostle)", importing, that the want of this much prejudices edification.

These stones, because they are living, therefore grow in the life of grace and spiritualness, being a spiritual building: So that if we find not this, but our hearts are still carnal, and glued to the earth, minding earthly things, wiser in those than in spirituals, this evidences strongly against us, that we are not of this building. How few of us have that spiritualness that becomes the temples of the Holy Ghost or the stones of it? Base lusts are still lodging h Eph. iv. 16.

Gal. ii. 20.

and ruling within us, and so our hearts are as cages of unclean birds and filthy spirits.

Consider this as your happiness, and the unsolidness of other comforts and privileges. If some have called those stones happy, that were taken for the building of temples or altars, beyond those in common houses, how true is it here! Happy indeed the stones that God chuses to be living stones in this spiritual temple, though they be hammered and hewed to be polished for it, by afflictions, and the inward work of mortification and repentance. It is worth the enduring all, to be fitted for this building. Happy they, beyond all the rest of men! though they be set in never so great honours, as prime parts of politic buildings, states and kingdoms in the courts of kings, yea, or kings themselves: For all other buildings, and all the parts of them shall be demolished and come to nothing, from the foundation to the cope-stone; all your houses, both cottages and palaces; the elements shall melt away, and the earth, with all the works in it shall be consumed, as our Apostle hath it. But this spiritual But this spiritual building shall grow up to Heaven; and being come to perfection, shall abide for ever in perfection of beauty and glory. In it shall be found no unclean thing, nor unclean person, but only they that are written in' the Lamb's book of life.

An holy priesthood.] As the worship and ceremonies of the Jewish church were all shadows of Jesus Christ, and have their accomplishment in him, not only after a singular manner in his own person, but in a derived way, in his mystical body, his church. The priesthood of the law represented him as the great high priest, that offered up himself for our sins, and that is altogether incommunicable; neither is there any peculiar office of priesthood for offering sacrifice in the christian church, but his alone who is head of it. But this dignity that is here mentioned of a spiritual priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifice, is common to all those that are

i 2 Pet. iii. 10.

in Christ; as they are living stones built on him into a spiritual temple, so they are priests of that same temple, made by him. As he was after a transcendent manner, temple, and priest, and sacrifice; so in their kind are christians, all these three through him; and by his Spirit that is in them, their offerings through him are made acceptable.

We have here, 1. The office; 2. The service of that office; 3. The success of that service.

1. The office. The death of Jesus Christ, as being every way powerful for reconcilement and union, did not only break the partition-wall of guiltiness that stood betwixt God and man, but the wall of ceremonies that stood betwixt the Jews and Gentiles, made all that believe one with God, and made of both one, as the Apostle speaks, united them one to another. The way of salvation was made known, not to one nation only, but to all people; that whereas the knowledge of God was confined to one little corner, it is now diffused through the nations ; and whereas the dignity of their priesthood staid in a few persons, all they that believe are now thus dignified to be priests unto God the Father. And this was signified by the rending the vail of the temple at his death, not only that those ceremonies and sacrifices were to cease, as being all fulfilled in him; but that the people of God that were before by that vail held out in the outer-court, were to be admitted into the Holy Place, as being all of them priests, and fitted to offer sacrifices.

The priesthood of the law was holy, and its holiness was signified by many outward things suitable to their manner, by anointings and washings, and vestments; but in this spiritual priesthood of the Gospel, holiness itself is instead of all those, as being the substance of all. The children of God are all anointed and purified, and cloathed with holiness. But then,

2. There is here the service of this office, namely, to offer. There is no priesthood without sacrifice,

k Rev. i. 6.

for these are relative, and this was the chief employment of the legal priests; now because the priesthood here spoke of, is altogether spiritual, therefore the sacrifices must be so too, as the Apostle here expresses it.

We are saved the pains and cost of bringing bullocks and rams, and other such sacrifices; and these are in their stead, as the apostle speaks', of the high priesthood of Christ, that the priesthood being changed, there followed of necessity a change of the law; so in this priesthood of christians, there is a change of the kind of sacrifice from the other. All sacrifice is not taken away, but it is changed from the offering of those things formerly in use, to spiritual sacrifices.

Now, these are every way preferable; they are easier and cheaper to us, and yet more precious and acceptable to God. As it follows here in the text, even in the time when the other sacrifices were in request, yet those spiritual offerings had ever the precedence in God's account, and without them, he hated and despised all burnt-offerings, and the largest sacrifices, though they were then according to his own appointment. How much more should we abound in spiritual sacrifice, that are eased of the other? How much more holds that answer now, that was given even in those times", Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, &c.? You need not all that trouble and expence, that is at hand which God requires most of all, namely, to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God". So, that which is peculiarly spoke of Christ holds in christians by conformity with him.

But though the spiritual sacrificing is easier in its own nature, yet to the corrupt nature of man, it is by far the harder. He would rather chuse still all the toil and cost of the former way, if it were in his option. This was the sin of the Jews in those times, that they leaned the soul upon the body's service too much, and would have done enough of that to be dispensed from this spiritual m Mic. vi. 6.

Heb. vii. 12.

n Psal. 1. 23.