To all, then, I say, " Fear and tremble before the God of heaven ; and lose not one hour in seeking reconciliation with him through the Son of his love" ]
Luke xxiii. 34. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them ; for they know not ivhat they do.
AS one of the most essential qualifications for a due discharge of the priesthood was, a disposition to " commiserate those who were ignorant and out of the waya," so it was the express office of the priest to " offer sacrifices for the errors of the people V Our blessed Lord, who was our great High-Priest, shewed himself on all occasions, but more especially in the instance before us, abundantly qualified for the office he had undertaken ; and, in the very hour that he offered himself a sacrifice for sin, he particularly pleaded the cause of those who ignorantly " crucified him as a malefactor0."
In discoursing on his words we shall shew,
I. In what respects ignorance extenuates the guilt of rejecting Christ —
There doubtless have been instances wherein men have known the Gospel, and yet refused subjection to it —
[The sin against the Holy Ghost seems evidently to in- clude in it a wilful, deliberate, and contemptuous rejection of Christ in opposition to the clearest convictions of our own minds ; and there is every reason to believe that this sin has often been committed : many also have " sinned wilfully after they had received the knowledge of the truth d," and have so " fallen away, as never afterwards to be renewed unto repent- ance6:" from whence it is evident that all contempt of the Gospel does not proceed from ignorance.]
Yet, generally speaking, a rejection of Christ arises from an ignorance of his true character —
a Heb. v. 1, 2. b Heb. ix. 7. c See ver. 33.
d Heb. x. 26. • Heb. vi. 4—6.