^ There is a story told of the great Dr. Doddridge. During his Northampton ministry an Irishman was convicted of sheep- stealing and, according to the cruel custom of the time, con- demned to death. Doddridge did everything he could to save him, but in vain. When the man was being driven in the death- cart to the place of execution, he asked that they should stop at Dr. Doddridge's house, and they did. Then he said : " Dr. Doddridge, every drop of my blood loves you, every vein of my heart loves you because you tried to save me." And how shall we carry ourselves to Christ, who died and lives to save us ? Say to Him, " Shall I not love Thee back again for all the miracle of Divine love Thou hast brought to me ? " For He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us.^
^ W. Robertson NicoU, Sunday Evening, 364.
The Cleansing of the Conscience.
I THESS.-HEB. — 24
Literature.
Body (G.), The Guided Life, 103.
Dale (E. W.), The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, 211.
Hickey (F. P.), Short Sermons, ii. 78.
Holland (C), Gleanings from a Ministry of Fifty Years, 173.
Hopkins (W. M.), The Tabernacle and its Teaching, 168.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 192.
Ingram (A. F. W.), The Love of the Trinity, 145.
Knegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., ii. 219
Liddon (H. P.), Passiontide Sermons, 69.
Lilley (A. L.), Nature and the Supernatural, 93.
Mabie (H. C), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 122.
Manning (H. E.), Sermons, i. 241.
Matheson (G.), Voices of the Spirit, 215.
Meyer (F. B.), The Way into the Holiest, 136.
Mortimer (A. G.), Lenten Preaching, 49.
Sapliir (A.), Expository Lectures on the Hebrews, ii. 123.
Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 204.
Selby (T. G.), The Holy Spirit and CJiristian Privilege, 25.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxv. (1879), No. 1481 ;
xxxi. (1885), No. 1846. Temple (F.), Rugby Sermons, iii. 165. Vaughan (C. J.), Epiphany, Lent and Easter, 195. Williams (I.), Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, iii. 136. Cambridge Review, iv. Supplement No. 92 (A. Barry). Christian World Pulpit, xlviii. 134 (W. Alexander) ; xlix. 185 (G. Body) ;
lix. 192 (G. Body) ; Ixvii. 225 (G. Body). Cliurch of England Pulpit, Ixii. 292 (C. Wordsworth). Churchman's Pulpit : Fifth Sunday in Lent, vi. 196 (G. E. L. Cotton),
198 (C. J. Vaughan), 201 (J. T. F. Farquhar). Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., ix. 201 (W. P. Roberts). Guardian, Ixvi. 126 (W. Lock). Keswick Week, 1900, p. 103 (J. Smith). National Preacher, v. 65 (J. B. Woodford). Sermon Year Book, ii. 237 (C. Gore).
370
The Cleansing of the Conscience.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh : how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ?— Heb. ix. 13, 14.
The whole power and meaning of these words depend on the contrast they express between the Jewish ceremony of purification and the purifying sacrifice of Christ. The Apostle implies that there is a resemblance between the two. The Hebrew worshipper needed cleansing before he could enter the sacred precincts of the Temple : the human soul needs cleansing before it can worship in the presence of the Holy God. The sacrifice of animals purified the Jew ; the sacrifice of Christ purifies the Christian ; and the one is the type of the other. But beneath that resemblance the author of the Epistle finds eternal difference. The one purifying cleansed the flesh — the outward man — and freed it from the penalties of unhallowed worship ; the other cleanses the conscience — the inner man — and quickens it to serve the living God, And just on that difference he founds the triumphant question in which he asserts the power of the blood of Christ to cleanse the conscience of humanity.
1. The Apostle is alluding specially to the ceremonial by
which the Jewish worshipper was cleansed from the defilement of
contact with death. By the law of Moses, the touch of a human
corpse, whether it lay sacredly guarded in the quiet death-chamber,
or exposed on the field of battle ; the touch of a human bone or
the dust of a human grave were defiling, and on pain of being cut
off from Israel no man dare enter the Temple until cleansed from
such pollution. Through that exact and terrible demand for
purity from the very associations of death, God trained the Jews
for ages to feel the connexion between death and sin, and made
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372 CLEANSING OF THE CONSCIENCE
them know that not one shadow of impurity must darken the man who ventured to approach the presence of Him whose name is Holy. Now all this could purify the flesh only: it could cleanse the outward man, and deliver the worshipper from the outward penalties of unhallowed service; but there was an inner man, defiled by death, which those sacrifices of purification had no power to make pure. Within the spirit's temple there was a conscience, heavenly and sacred, which had been darkened by sin and which needed redemption before the worshipper could go in joy and freedom into the presence of the Most High. No blood of bulls or of goats, no sprinkling of ashes could touch it — they had only a fleshly ceremonial power ; it needed a living, holy, spiritual sacrifice to purge it from its dark pollution. And herein lies the power of our author's argument. If the outward ceremonial cleansed the outward man from the defilement of death, " how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ? "