*[[ In the outer court of the Temple there stood a large bath, or brazen sea, in which the high priest was required to wash before he entered the most holy place. This washing was repeated in the course of the day, at a more advanced stage in the services ; and the intention of the ceremonial, no doubt, was to impress him, and through him the people, with the need of personal purity as a condition of acceptable communion with God.^
^ Eeaders of such a book as the late James Adam's Beligious Teachers of Greece know what a splendid succession there was of men who thought deeply about God, and taught lessons that were permanent additions to the spiritual wealth of mankind. I am tempted to add a reference to a less familiar source for the study
^ John Duncan, The Fuljnt and Communion Table, 401. 2 W. Eamage, Sermons, 360.
HEBREWS X. 19-22 403
of Greek religion, which is very instructive. A black marble column of the age of Hadrian, found near Lindus, in Khodes, gives the conditions on which men may enter the temple before which it stood. " First and foremost, being pure and healthy in hands and mind, and with no consciousness of wrong-doing." How much the first combination resembles Heb. x. 22 ! Ckanliness was even in Christian worship a worthy emblem of godliness — ■ what else did baptism originally mean ? ^
^ The sacred writer regards sin as a pollution of the con- science, which keeps a man away from the presence and the worship of God. The object of sacrifice is to remove this pollu- tion of the conscience. The power which can alone cleanse the conscience is the forgiving love and acceptance of God Himself brought home to the heart. The one necessity for man, and the highest privilege to which he can aspire, is to be at peace and in communion with God. When this communion is broken, as it is broken, by sin, which in its essence is departure from God, the man is unclean, and. so far as his conscience is alive and awake, he is conscious of defilement. Sin, or departure from God, is in the nature of things, a pollution ; and it is impossible for a sinner to think of the true God at all, and to have the faintest desire of being at peace with Him, without the sense of sin, which is the sense of not being pure enough for the presence of God, being stirred within him. Thus the sacred writer holds : Man's true evil is sin, or departure from the living God ; because his true glory is fellowship with the living God. The sinner desirous of returning to God becomes conscious of defilement ; the great work of Christ's sacrifice is to remove the defilement, and to lead back the sorrowing but trusting sinner into peace with the Father. The sacrifice of Christ does this because He is the Son whom the Father sent to redeem the world ; because when He came into the world He bore and He still bears our sins ; because sharing in the flesh and blood of sinful humanity, and having learnt sympathy and become perfect through temptation. He has been received as the Son of man into the holiest, which is the Father's love and confidence, and sits down for ever pleading our cause at the Father's right hand.^
4. Such, then, is the ideal state and standing of the Christian worshipper, the manner of approach to God possible and real for one who understands and appreciates his position as living in the era of the better hope through which we draw nigh to God. He
^ J. H. Moulton, Religions and Religion, 62. » J. LI. Davies, Tlie Work of Christ, 67.
404 THE WAY OF ACCESS
can and does come into the Divine presence with gladness and sincerity, with heart and with the whole heart, having no doubt at all of his welcome, and untroubled by the thought of his sin, being assured of forgiveness and conscious of Christ's renovating power ; he comes in the evangelic, filial spirit of thankfulness, not in the legal spirit of a slave ; asking not, How may I satisfy the exacting demands of an austere Deity ? but, " What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits ? " This is the type of Christian piety which prevails at all times when the intuition of God's grace in Christ is restored. It was pre-eminently the prevailing type in the apostolic age among all who understood the epoch- making significance of Christ's work, and the extent to which He made all things new.
^ The confidence of Fox in the real presence of God was the root of his power in the ministry. He had other gifts, such as a firm grip on the essentials of his own position, and "an extra- ordinary gift in opening the Scriptures." But this conviction of being guided of God was fundamental. Penn tells us that the abruptness and brokenness of his sentences, the uncouthness of some of his expressions, which were " unfashionable to nice ears," showed beyond all contradiction that God sent him. But the truest mark of his nearness to God, Penn rightly discerned in the character of his prayers. " Above all," he says {Journal, I. xlvii.). " he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and the fewness and fulness of his words, have often struck even strangers with admiration, as they used to reach others with consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame I felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer. And truly it was a testimony, he knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men ; for they that know Him most will see most reason to approach Him with reverence and fear." ^