Our services also must, of necessity, partake of all this defilement: for " who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Verily, as our common actions in life need puri- fication ; so do our very tears need to be washed, and our repentances to be repented of.
But of " the heavenly things" spoken of in my text, heaven itself is the principal : for it is that which was typified by the most holy place ; it is that of which the sanctuary was intended to be a " pattern." And does that need purification ? Yes, it does : nor could God himself endure it as a residence, so to speak, if it were not cleansed from the defilement it contracts by the introduction of sinners into it. Therefore, as the high- priest sprinkled the sanctuary with blood ; so does our great High-priest, who " has entered into heaven, with his own blood^" sprinkle and purify that holy place, and thus " prepare it as a mansion for his believing people \]
But for this end there must be a better sacrifice than any that were offered under the law —
[The blood of beasts might sufiice to cleanse men from ceremonial defilement : but it could never avail for the cleansing of moral guilt in any one particular : no; " it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin\" To effect that was beyond the power of any created being. Had the first archangel assumed our nature for that end, he would have failed in the attempt. To so great a work none but God himself was competent: and God himself must be- come a man, and shed his own blood for us, ere one single sin can be blotted out from the book of God's remembrance, or one of our fallen race be able to present to God one acceptable service. All that was shadowed forth under the law must actually be fulfilled. The Son of the living God must take upon him our nature ; must die as an atonement for sin ; must enter into heaven with his own blood ; must sprinkle that blood upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat; must sprinkle us also, even every child of man who shall ever be interested in his atonement : even the covenant itself, too, must he sprinkle with his blood, in order to its ratification before God, and its application to our souls : all this, I say, must be done, in order to the admission of any human being to the realms of bliss. It is all necessary for God's honour; for no less a sacrifice than this would satisfy his justice : and it is all eqwaWy nece^&axy for our happiness ; since nothing less can bring peace into our consciences, or operate with a trans- forming efficacy on our souls.
As the patterns then of these things needed a purification
h ver. 12. ' John xiv. 2, 3. ^ Heb. x. 4.