with the curiosity or indifference of Pilate, but with the earnestness of Saul of Tarsus, when he asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" It is this kind of inquiry will lead us to the knowledge of the truth as revealed in the law and the Gospel. It is this kind of inquiry will bring us to practise this truth as the rule of our faith and our comfort. It is this kind of inquiry will free us from the error of judgment and practice. If we exercise this earnest, prayerful inquiry by the directions of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, we shall be guided into all truth.

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The Second Sunday after Easter.

EVENING SERVICE.-First Lesson: Numbers xxv.

Verse 13.-" And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel."

BALAAM was unable by his divination to curse the people of Israel, but he was able by his perfidy to put them on the road to draw a curse upon themselves. Dr. Adam Clarke labours to prove that Balaam was a good man, and a true prophet of the Lord; and says that his placing a stumblingblock in the way of the Israelites, and his love of money, were the only blots in his character, and he curiously asks respecting the latter, "Who thinks this a sin?" The apostle was of a different opinion when he said: "The love of money is the root of all evil." St. Peter especially draws a dark picture of Balaam. When speaking of the cursed children he says, "which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the ways of unrighteousness." Who can say that such a person was a good man? His strains of poetical eloquence, in speaking of Israel and Israel's God, certainly excel almost everything we meet, even in the Sacred Scriptures, but whilst he spoke as the prophet of God he acted as the emissary of Satan; whilst he had the soft voice of Jacob he had the rough hands of Esau. A lamb in speech but a wolf in heart. At the close of the last chapter it is said that "Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place." He went to return to his place, but he left a legacy behind him in the shape of advice to the King of Moab how to ensnare the Israelites; and either did not arrive at his destina

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tion in Mesopotamia, where it appears his home was, or returned again, perhaps to receive money for the advice he had given, when he found that his plan had drawn a curse the people, so that 24,000 of them were destroyed by the plague in one day. In the thirty-first chapter we find him again amongst the Midianites, fighting against the Israelites, when he was slain by them, with the kings of Midian.

This chapter contains an account of the success of the snare placed before the people, and the awful consequences that followed. This is not the first time that those people were punished in the wilderness for particular sins. On last Sunday morning we referred to a similar punishment, in the tenth chapter, for a somewhat different offence. That punishment was for the sin of rebellion, this was for the sin of idolatry and fornication. But both cases show the corruption and perverseness of the people. In that instance Aaron succeeded to remove the plague by his earnest intercession; in this instance, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, succeeded to remove the curse by his devoted determination in punishing the actual offenders. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake amongst them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy." For this act of zealous faith, God entered into a solemn covenant to bestow a perpetual blessing upon Phinchas and his posterity. "Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel."

Here we have, I., a promise made; II., a reason given.

I. A promise made: "And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." Last Sunday we spoke of Aaron prefiguring Christ as the intercessor of his people particularly. Here we may regard

Phinehas prefiguring Christ both in the nature and perpetuity of his priesthood generally.

1. In the nature of the office, we may regard the promise to Phinehas, not merely in reference to the ordinary priesthood, for to that he was hereditarily entitled, being the son of the existing priest; but it includes also the succession to the high priesthood in preference to any other member of the family. He was to possess the priesthood in a preeminent degree. Thus he became a striking type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who excelled even Phinehas in his office of great high-priest of His people.

The first personal instituted type of Christ was a priest; this was Melchizedec. There were before, real instituted types of His work, such as sacrifices; and there were moral types of His person, as Adam, Abel, and Noah, who represented Him in various things. But the first person who was solemnly designed to represent Him by what he was and did was a priest. God teaches us by this fact that the foundation of all he had to do in and for the Church was founded on his priestly office, whereby he made atonement and reconciliation for sin. The priesthood he holds in a pre-eminent degree, being especially appointed to the office, and "anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows." The apostle argues for the excellency of our Saviour's priesthood in the epistle to the Hebrews, showing that He was not consecrated priest after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedec. Aaron's priesthood in the best hands was imperfect. It was imperfect in respect to God, and in respect to man. It was imperfect in respect to God as it atoned for sin only typically, or by way of representation; really and effectually, as to all the ends of a spiritual reconciliation it could not do it. In respect to man, it did not constitute perfection in any of the blessings connected with a Divine priesthood. There was no removing of the guilt of sin from the conscience of the sinner; there was no righteousness by which the transgressor might be reinstated in the favour of God; there was no peace by which men could

tranquilly endure all the changes of life, and look forward. to death and judgment without a sigh; there was no spiritual light and knowledge with respect to the mysteries of the grace of God; there was no liberty and boldness which believers have in their approaches to God; there was no clear foresight into a blessed state of immortality and glory, with unquestionable evidences and pledges; there was no joy in the Holy Ghost by which man can rejoice with "joy unspeakable and full of glory;" there was no holy confidence and glorying in the Lord, by which the mind is kept in perfect peace; all of which, and infinitely more than tongue can express, are connected with the object obtained through the priesthood of Christ.

2. In the perpetuity of the office, Phinehas may also be regarded as a type of Christ: "And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." The history of the several priesthoods proves the literal fulfilment of His promise. Phinehas himself lived to a good old age, as we may learn in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Judges; his sons, with the exception of a short interval, were successively high priests till the Babylonish captivity. Ezra, the scribe and priest, was of his line, and it is probable that the Maccabees were of the same family, so that the covenant was realized by Phinehas and his seed, according to the meaning of the word everlasting, in connexion with the Jewish economy. Christ is a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec. No change of constitutions, no revolution of empires, no convulsions of nature can affect it. It will survive "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." During the whole of time, the priesthood of Christ will be exercised in the Church, and when time shall be no more its effects will exist for ever in heaven.

3. The promise was not confined to Phinehas personally, but was also extended to his seed after him, so that his posterity, who had nothing to do with the act of procuring the Divine favour, were made recipients of the benefits which were derived from it. It may occur to you that God often