The Pulpit Commentary — Hebrews — Section 140

angels, all creation, all providence with its wide range and marvellous machinery, all the agencies of the Church and the gift of the Divine Spirit, are under his uuidance. h is the throne of grace, and stands in contrast to the awfulness of Sinai, and the solitary chamber of the holy of holies, into which the high priest entered once a year. The throne is radiant with the Divine light, and love; for "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all;" and" God is love," and is exalted that he may be gracious unto us. The writer invites believers to come with boldness, and probably suggests a contrast to the a11cient service of the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and the spirit of bondage in which many of the Jewish people were held. 'l'he Christian state is one of liberty and filial love. God sends forth "the Spirit of his Son, crying, Abba, Father." Since Christ is our High Priest, and the throne is one of grace, we may have access by one Spirit unto the Father, and speak to him with the reverential confidence which he invites and will justify by affording spiritual help. This help we need in the form of mercy to pardon the faults and mistakes of our life, and to regain the waste of spiritual strength in the warfare and collisions of life. He will give grace in cheering proofs of his favour; and in maintaining our fidelity to his cause amid the strain of temptatiuu and the examples of failure in those who once ran well and have been hindered. "Ho will give grace and giory, and no good thing will be withhold from them that walk uprightly."-B. Ver. 1.-The two gospel,s. I. THE FIRST GOSPEL. That which was proclaimed to Abraham, repeated, enforced to his posterity, standing before them in the way of duty and of hope, even in the darkest days of Egyptian bondage. It was a gospel that proclaimed rest, settlement, worship, and service in the land of Canaan. And though special attention is called here to the great Abrahamio and Mosaio promise to Israel, yet be it also noted that God is ever a Being sending forth gospels when there is need of them and ground to show that there will be anything substantial in them. Never did an 1£neAos go forth without an eba.nl11.1ov of some sort. It is we that turn gospels into the worst of news, because in benefiting others they may make it needful for us to suffer. And yet what seems bad news on the first look or it may tum out in the end to he.ve been the best of news. The good news which Moses brought to Israel oi the impending deliverance from servitude may fairly be called, in common parlance, bad news for Pharaoh and the Egyptians, seeing it meant national humiliation, the lciss of so much useful labour, Yet who can doubt that even for Egypt, after all the calamities of the plagues, there was a great good in that which brought good to Israel ? A gospel prominently eet forth for some is really a gospel for all. II. THE SECOND GOSPEL. A seoond, and yet in truth it was nothing but the fulness of the first. Liberty for the enslaved, rest for the weary, a secure and fruitful inheritance for the true children of Abraham, those of like faith with him,-theso are the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so this gospel, an everlasting gospel, remains uttered forth, wherever the need of man presses. This is one of the great uses of preaching, that by it gospel promises, possibilities, and invitations are for ever sounding forth in the ea.re of men. The complaint is that preachers are ever saying the so.me old thing; yet that is to a certain extent their virtue and their value. The ear that heard yesterday belonged to a man who rather preferred to hear the gospel coming from worldly wisdom; but to-day ho has found that gospel to be no gospel, and the true heavenly message not heard at all, or only half heard, is received in all its pertinency, its sweetness, its fulness. The throng of men abounds every day in what conventionally iii called bad news, news of money losses, shattered health, ruined reputation, relntive11 and friends ps~sed away. Over against these how supremely important to feel that there is always good news in this, that "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life" 1-Y. Ver. 2.-TM gospel profitless to an unbelieving heart. With the Israelites their sin was not so much actual and active unbelief, a bold denial of Jehovah's truth, as the lack of an actual and active faith. There was no active spiritual energy in them to meet the abundant energy of their liberating and guiding God. The parable of the seed in the four kinds of ground may well be applied to them. The great bulk of them gave not the slightest real attention to any Divine word of promi:;e or duty, Soma  132 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, [ea. IV, 1-16,