of all our hopes : and it has assured to us, beyond a possibihty of doubt, our own resurrection ; seeing that " Christ was the first-firsts" of the harvest that shall in due season be gathered in^.]
The last is, " Eternal judgment" — [Temporal rewards and punishments were chiefly insisted on under the law ; but under the Gospel, we are taught to look forward to a day of future retribution, when " God will judge the world by that blessed Jesus, whom he has ordained" to that office; and will separate the wicked from the just; consigning the one to everlasting misery, and exalting the other to everlasting blessedness and glory ^.]
The consideration of these principles we shall at the present wave —
[The importance of them cannot be doubted: for the Apostle speaks of them as a " foundation which he had laid." And every minister must inculcate them, with all possible earnestness. In truth, unless his mind be continually under the influence of these principles, a man has not the smallest right to call himself a Christian. He may have been baptized ; but he is no other than a baptized heathen, that has no part or lot in the Gospel salvation.]
Having, times without number, enforced these things on your attention, I now pass them over ; and proceed to the more immediate object of my discourse ; which is, to shew,
II. What are those sublimer views which it is our high privilege to contemplate —
Of course, we cannot in one discourse enter at all fully into this subject : we can only give some faint outline of it ; some hints, which may afford matter for your further meditation in secret.
By " going on unto perfection," the Apostle meant that he would unfold to them the deeper mysteries of the Gospel, which it was of great importance to them to comprehend. These mysteries he unfolds in all the remaining part of this epistle. We shall comprehend them under two heads :
1. The "perfection" of Christ's priestly office —
[The priesthood under the Mosaic dispensation was con- fined to the tribe of Levi. Of this our blessed Lord could f 1 Cor. XV. 20. s Matt. xxv. 32, 40.