Seventh Reading.

EXODUS xix. 5, 6; 1 PETER ii. 4, 5, 9.

Now therefore, if ye will obey My Voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine. And ye shall be unto Me a Kingdom of Priests, and an holy nation.

To Whom coming, as unto a Living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of GOD, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy Priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to GOD by JESUS CHRIST. . . . But ye are a chosen generation, a Royal Priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

VII.

THE REVELATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH.

THE practical point we have been reaching in the course of the preceding Readings may be defined as this: that the life of the Regenerate, if lived under its true conditions, is a life of conscious realization of their union with the Ascended and Enthroned JESUS.

To-day we have to advance another step in our study of the LORD'S Ascended Life, and to learn that His children are called on not only to live in conscious communion with Him, but also in conscious co-operation with Him in His blessed activities. The Ascended Life of JESUS has for its great object the realization in Time of the fruits of His Passion. Our great High Priest has passed into the Heavens, there to intercede for us, with the purpose of extending His Kingdom among men, and bringing them to live in loyal subjection to His beneficent sway; and in the Bible we are clearly taught to recognize this fact, that all who believe in the Ascended JESUS will respond to their knowledge of the meaning of His Ascension by doing their utmost to carry on His work in the world. Recall for a moment the exhortation addressed by the Angels to the assembled disciples as they lingered on

Olivet after their LORD's Ascension: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This same JESUS, Which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven" (Acts i. 11).

The disciples are quick to apprehend the implied direction. Between the Departure and the Return of their LORD their posture is not to be that of the idle dreamer, of mere sentimental contemplation,-there is a great evangelizing work to be done amongst their fellow-men, there are valleys of degradation to be exalted, and mountains of pride to be made low, and the crooked ways of deceit and guile to be made straight, and the rough places of violence and wrong to be made plain, before the glory of the LORD shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it (Isa. xl. 4, 5), and they brace themselves at once for the task. "Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet; and they went forth, and preached everywhere, the LORD working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" (Acts i. 12; S. Mark xvi. 20).

We have seen that our Ascended LORD is as Priest for ever interceding, as King for ever going forth conquering and to conquer, seeking the establishment of His Kingdom upon the earth. We have seen that the instrument whereby He carries out His work on earth is His Body the Church, that in and through His Church He goes forth to establish His rule among men. Now we have to go on to consider a further revelation respecting the Catholic Church of CHRIST; and it is that which is given us by S. Peter, as in

thought he turns back to the high calling set by GOD before His ancient people, and points out to the Christian converts of his own day that they are called to rise up and possess those privileges to which their spiritual ancestry had failed to respond. "If so be ye have tasted that the LORD is gracious," says S. Peter, "to Whom coming, as unto a Living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of GOD, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy Priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to GOD by JESUS CHRIST" (I S. Peter ii. 3-5). In this passage the Church is revealed to us as a great Sacerdotal Society. S. Peter's point is, that our LORD, in dealing with individual souls, does not simply meet their felt personal needs, but having first poured into the soul the satisfaction of its felt wants, He leads it on into a state of corporate union with its fellow-Christians; so that Christian after Christian, having been sought and found by the Ascended Jesus, is brought by the power of His Spirit into the organized community of His Church. And this organized community .s built up for one special purpose, as S. Peter tells us, to be "a chosen generation, a Royal Priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light" (ver. 9). A Royal Priesthood!—that is, "a Kingdom of Priests" (Exod. xix. 6), "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable unto God." It is important to grasp as clearly as possible the fact of this sacerdotal character of the Kingdom of GOD, and the consequent possession of a sacerdotal character by every member