Dear Christian reader, let it be our care so to walk, so to "keep ourselves unspotted from the world," so to stand apart from all unhallowed associations, that we may enjoy the highest privileges and discharge the most elevated functions of our position as members of the priestly house of which Christ is the Head. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest through the blood of Jesus:" "we have a great High-Priest over the house of God." (Heb. x.) Nothing can ever rob us of these privileges. But then our communion may be marred, our worship may be hindered, our holy functions may remain undischarged. Those ceremonial matters against which the sons of Aaron were warned in the section before us, have their antitypes in the Christian economy. Had they to be warned against unholy contact? So have we. Had they to be warned against unholy alliance? So have we. Had they to be warned against all manner of ceremonial uncleanness? So have we to be warned against "all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." (1 Cor. vii.) Were they shorn of many of their loftiest priestly privileges by bodily blemish and imperfect natural growth? So are we by moral blemish and imperfect spiritual growth.
Will any one venture to call in question the practical importance of such principles as these? Is it not obvious that the more highly we estimate the blessings which attach to that priestly house of which we have been constituted members, in virtue of our spiritual birth, the more carefully shall we guard against every thing which might tend in any wise to rob us of their enjoyment? Undoubtedly. And this it is which renders the close study of our section so pre-eminently practical. May we feel its power, through the application of God the Holy Ghost. Then shall we _enjoy_ our priestly place; then shall we faithfully discharge our priestly functions. We shall be able "to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God" (Rom. xii. 1); we shall be able to "offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name" (Heb. xiii. 15.); we shall be able, as members of the "spiritual house" and the "holy priesthood," to "offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. ii. 5.); we shall be able, in some small degree, to anticipate that blissful time when, from a redeemed creation, the halleluiahs of intelligent and fervent praise shall ascend to the throne of God and the Lamb throughout the everlasting ages.