09. EIGHTH LECTURE

THE CONSECRATION OF AARON'S SONS.

LEV. CHAP. VIII

IN our comment thus far upon this chapter, we have occupied ourselves mostly with the High-priest — with Aaron, and the Lord Jesus Christ as represented in Aaron. And the High-priesthood, indeed, includes the whole priesthood, and everything that appertains to the work and office of mediation. But it had some inferior and subordinate honors and services, which were distributed among a number of associated, lower priests. Aaron was not alone; his sons were consecrated with him; not to the same high office, not in all things in the same way, but to a lower grade of priesthood, in connection with, and depending upon, the one only High-priest. There were two orders. There was the High-priesthood of Aaron, and there was the lower, associated priesthood of Aaron's sons. We have considered Aaron's induction into the one; and it now remains for us to consider the induction of his sons into the other. This, then, is what I propose for the present occasion. (See Verses 6, 13 to 16, 22 to 25, and 30 to 36.) You will notice in these consecration services, that in many things Aaron and his sons are dealt with alike — made partakers alike of the same rites. Apart from his peculiar investments, Aaron occupied a position in common with the inferior priests. This was not accidental. It pointed to a great fact in the history of our great High-priest that has passed into the heavens. In many things he was a man, the same as other good men. Whatever there was super-human and divine in him, he lacked nothing that was human. He is "the Son of Man"—the child of Mary. "Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren." And it is an affecting thought, that in many particulars, and in all the common constituents and conditions of human life, we occupy a place just as high, and exactly the same as our blessed Savior. If we feel the pressure of this world's woes, so did he. If we are tried with sore temptations, he was "in all points tempted like as we are." If we have the duties of piety to go through with, it is no more than our glorious Redeemer had in common with ourselves. Though he is "the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," "yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." Aaron, in a great part, was consecrated by the selfsame services with his sons. It is also proper to remark here, that these ancient priesthoods had nothing in common with the pretended priesthoods of modern times. The Levitical priesthood embraced two orders—no more, and no less—the High-priesthood of Aaron, and the common priesthood of Aaron's sons. The first could never have more than one occupant at a time, who, in that position, represented the Lord Jesus Christ.

12*

The inferior priests, according to divine arrangement, were all of equal dignity, and represented all the people of Christ—his sons by regeneration through his Spirit. Christ having come, and entered himself upon the High-priesthood, there can now be no High-priest but himself; for there could not be more than one High-priest at the same time. And as all the people of Christ are alike priests of God and of Christ, we have the two orders complete, and there is no other priesthood but these two, and even these two are one.

We know certainly that Christ is a priest; that he is a priest now; and that he always will be a priest; for he is "a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedek." In him, then, we have the High-priesthood.

And it is equally certain, that all Christ's people, without distinction of laity or clergy, male or female, are also priests; that they are priests now; and that they will ever continue to be priests hereafter. Of old already did God say to all who should obey him—"Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests." Isaiah, by the inspiration of God, repeated the announcement—"Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord." Peter, by the same Spirit, says to all the scattered household of faith, "Ye are a royal priesthood." Paul says, "We have an altar." John, in the name of all the saints, ascribes glory and dominion to him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, for having "made us kings and priests unto God." And of all who have part in the first resurrection, it is written, "They shall be priests of God and of Christ." All Christians, then, are priests. This is the dignity which God himself has conferred upon them. Here, then, are the common priests. We thus identify the present occupants of both orders. The High-priesthood is filled by Christ; the common priesthood is filled alike by all the people or children of Christ. This is the entire priesthood, so far as God has constituted it. Any other priesthood is therefore foreign to the divine constitution, and an innovation upon it. God has not appointed any other, or sanctioned any other, in his word. Whatever claim may be set up for another priesthood, it is a mere device of man, an earthly fabrication, without warrant or authority. If it is really a priesthood, it is antichristian, and an invasion of the rights and honors of Christ or his people; and if it is not really a priesthood, it is wrong to call it so. Aaron and his sons, that is Jesus with his children, as such, are the only divinely appointed priests; and to hold to any other priests, is to pronounce against the institutions of God, and a sin against holy order. Our High-priest is Christ, and all we are common priests alike. It is further to be noticed, that common priests were the sons of the High Priest. Their attainment of this high honor depended upon, and was the result of their filial connection with Aaron. They became common priests, because their father was the High-priest. In other words, their priesthood grew out of the High-priesthood of Aaron, and was based upon it. This fact was also the shadow of a great Gospel truth. We can only become priests, by connection with Jesus the High-priest. Our priesthood proceeds out of his, and can only become ours by virtue of a filial relation on our part to him. If Aaron is not our father, we cannot be God's priests.

We must be "born again"—"born of the Spirit"—born children of the ever-blessed Lord,—or these high honors do not belong to us. Christ must first become our life; we must become members of him, of his flesh and bones and blood; we must be grafted upon him, and united to him, as the branch is united to the vine, as the child to the father, as the wife to her husband; we must become one with him in the bonds of a spiritual sonship; or we are in no way partakers of his glory. There was no priesthood for Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, or Ithamar, but by virtue of their being Aaron's sons.

And this thought refers us back again to those spiritual experiences and acts to which our attention was directed by the law of offerings. It is by means of those acts and experiences, that a man comes into saving relationship with Jesus, and is made spiritually his son. So here now we have the results of that sonship, a blessed priesthood. I cannot but more and more admire the deep moral, spiritual, logical, and connected history of the sinner in the process of his redemption, that is presented in the order and construction of this Levitical ritual. First we see him helpless, casting about for something wherewithal to come before the Lord, and at length finding a sufficient sacrifice in Jesus the Lamb, upon whose head he leans with his burden, and is released. Next he is presented as offering himself in grateful return a living sacrifice to Him who hath redeemed him with the price of blood. Then we behold him feasting upon the fat things of hope and joy that come to him through his offerings. After that we see him struggling with remaining weaknesses of nature, but still clinging closely to his great Advocate in heaven. And by virtue of all this, we here come to view him as designed for, and actually being induced into, the high honors of a glorious and eternal priesthood. It is this sacred inauguration that we are now to consider.

We will first look at some of its surroundings, and then at the particulars of which the transaction was composed.

1. These sons of Aaron, as well as Aaron himself, had been previously and divinely called to be priests. They had not been elected by men, but designated of God. The voice of the Almighty had said to Moses, "Take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons." Even so our calling and election to be priests of God and of Christ has come not from any workings of nature, but from the supernatural interposition of Divine grace. God, by his word and Spirit, has come forth, and nominated every one of us to the high service of ministering at his altar. He has sent forth his ministers and commissioned them to set apart all men whom they can reach, to be his priests. There is not one among you, however thoughtless, however wicked, but Jehovah has said of him, set him apart that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Whether old or young, poor or rich, high or low, male or female, young man or maiden, there is no difference; every individual, of all nations and times, has been divinely singled out and nominated for this holy consecration. The command is, "Go and make disciples of all nations." Not one is left out. All are named, and all that hear the Gospel are called, elected, and appointed, to enter at once upon this sublime and holy office. And not more really were Aaron and his sons called of God to the ancient priesthood, than you, and I, and all the people among whom we live, have been called of God to the "royal priesthood" of believers in Christ Jesus.

2. Aaron and his sons obediently assented to their Divine appointment. Would to God that I could say as much for all who are called to be priests under the new and better covenant! But it cannot be said. Though God calls, many refuse. Though all are nominated, thousands will not consent to serve. They prefer to be priests of sin and self, to being priests of God and of Christ. They choose rather to minister for iniquity and Satan, than minister at the pure altar of Him who made them. It is a sad, and melancholy, and wicked perverseness, thus to resist heaven's high election to heaven's highest honors; but alas, it is a perverseness which multitudes cherish and glory in. God has commanded us to set them apart to be his priests, but they will not consent; and without their obedient concurrence they never can be inducted into the offices for which they have been named. Like Aaron and his sons, we must agree to be made priests, or we cannot become priests.

3. Aaron and his sons were consecrated according to specific Divine directions. As Moses proceeded to attend to it, he said, "This is the thing which the Lord commanded to be done." No wisdom or ingenuity of man can set apart priests for God. No rites that we can devise, no observances which this world's sages may invent, can ever induct a man into Christian offices. Not even Moses had any right to proceed a single step, or to do one thing, except as God directed him. And everything which God commanded had to be done. There was to be no adding to, and no taking from the services as God had arranged them. The investment of Aaron and his sons with the dignities of priesthood, was God's work. And he did, in the ceremonies which he appointed, put forth his hand, and lay it, as it were, upon the heads of these men, and himself constituted them his ministers in the priest's office. Nor is it different now. We can only be set apart as priests of God and of Christ by the ceremonies which God himself, by his Son, has prescribed. No rites of human make, no decrees of councils, or commands of earthly sovereigns, in Church or State; no liturgies; no manual impositions; no services, however solemn or dignified; nothing, can avail one feather's weight toward making any one a priest of God. His own clear and specific appointments alone can do this. It must be done by means of God's own unmutilated prescriptions, or it cannot be done at all. 4. The consecration of Aaron and his sons was a public and open transaction. The command of God was, "Gather thou all the congregation together;" and the history says, "the assembly was gathered together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," around the spot where the solemn deed was done. We cannot secretly be inducted into the holy priesthood to which the Gospel calls us. If there is any such a thing as secret discipleship, it is a very imperfect discipleship. People sometimes think they will be good, and prayerful, and holy, and gain for their souls the full portion of the blessed, and do it all without letting the thing be known. They will come to Jesus, but only like Nicodemus, under covert of the night, and in the secrecy of retirement. They wish to be the priests of God and of Christ, but they are not willing to be brought before the congregation of

Israel—not willing to submit to a public and daylight consecration. With all their many valuable experiences, they yet have a lingering shame to give themselves up to all God's appointments. They wish to abridge God's own ritual; and are sometimes more than half offended because their way of expecting to get into the holy Christian priesthood is not thought as good as God's way. But, whatever people may think, God's prescriptions for the consecration of his priests involve publicity. Christ requires of us to confess him before men. He demands of us an open and unreserved following of him. He exacts submission to all his holy ordinances, some of which are essentially public. He has arranged the way to enter into the sheepfold, and pronounces him a thief and a robber who undertakes to climb in some other way. Let men beware, then, how they undertake to stint and curtail the appointments of

God. If he has instituted sacraments, it is our business to attend to them. If he has commanded a public acknowledgment of the faith and identification with his people, we have no right to decline it.

And if we are not willing to be openly known as

God's consecrated priests, I doubt whether your secret religion is of a sort that will avail in the great day.

We come now to consider the particulars of the consecration itself.

1. "And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water." This was the first item in the service. And what does it typify, but that "washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior?" "Verily, verily," says the Son of God, "except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Nay, for this very purpose hath Christ given himself for the Church, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word."

I said a little while ago, that God has sent forth and commissioned his ministers to set apart all men to be his priests. And that same commission prescribes how it is to be done; viz. by "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Not merely by the outward application of water to them in solemn religious service; but also "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded." Our washing is not a mere external rite, but an inward grace, "the answer of a good conscience toward God." It is not mere water; but water joined with the word of God, in which we by faith receive the cleansing and renewing efficacy of the Holy Ghost. A man may be outwardly baptized, and still be impure, but he cannot spiritually apprehend, appropriate, and enter into his baptism, without becoming a renewed and sanctified man. Nay, his whole spiritual renovation is included in this washing; so that his baptism is virtually no baptism at all, unless attended or followed by the death and burial of the old man of sin, and the planting in the soul of a new, pure and vigorous righteousness. I have no sympathies with the aberrations of Tractarian folly upon this subject. I locate no transforming or renewing power in the mere outward ceremony. K

The outward rite is not the substance of the baptism. It is the moral purgation, the inward renovation, the spiritual experience of the purifying grace of the Holy Ghost, that fills out the scriptural conception of Christian baptism. And without this spiritual cleansing, the baptismal washing is a mere empty rite, and our baptism is no baptism to us. But if we have the real faith to lay hold of the grace offered and proposed to us in our baptism, it becomes to us the "laver of regeneration"—the burial of the old man, and the quickening of the new man; "that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And this is the true washing of the Christian priest—the first item of his consecration to the holy ministry of eternal priesthood. "Except we be born of water and of the Spirit, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

2. "And Moses brought Aaron's sons, and put coats upon them, and girded them with girdles, and put bonnets upon them." This was the second item in the service. After their cleansing they had to be clothed with ornaments "for glory and for beauty." The long flowing robe of linen, clean and white, covering the whole body from the neck to the hands and feet, the curious girdle, figured with blue, purple and scarlet, surrounding the loins, and the pyramidal crown upon the head, constituted the beautiful and imposing regalia in which each was arrayed. But this also was a figure for the time then present. It was a type of the glory of grace, and the beauty of holiness, in which we must be enveloped in order to become priests of God and of Christ; "for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints." We must be pure, and we must be holy. Our native deformities must all be covered. We must "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," and be arrayed in his loveliness. His own glorious attirements are to be reflected in ours. The one must be, in its degree, of the same kind as the other. By our own weak endeavors, this never could be. No man is able to work out a satisfactory righteousness of his own. But it was not left to the priests to find their own dress. God had provided it for them. The wedding guest need not bring a wedding garment with him; that is an article furnished by the maker of the feast. And so, our moral equipment in Christ Jesus is given us by him who hath called us to be his priests. Our Savior is our Righteousness. What we lack personally, is supplied by him as our surety. "As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." And "as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." If we are in Christ Jesus, united to him as his sons by faith, he is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption;" that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord. The law contemplates the saints in Christ, and sees them arrayed in his holiness, and accordingly pronounces them acceptable and just. Their faith in Christ secures to them the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. And under the complex workings of grace, this imputed righteousness also takes root in the believer's heart, and works itself into his experiences, so as in part to become a personal as well as an imputed righteousness. "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Every Christian must needs be holy; holy by virtue of relationship to Christ, and holy in the aims, purposes, desires, and efforts of life. And this is the robe of glory and beauty that we must needs put on to be constituted priests of God. As without the wedding garment we cannot partake of God's supper, so without holiness we cannot come into the presence of our Lord to minister in the priest's office. Jehovah hath written on the gates of the everlasting city, "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." And unless we have fully given up to be holy and good, we have not yet come to be God's priests.

3. A third item in this consecration service, was the leaning of hands upon the head of the sin-offering. Sin—sin—sin—in everything there is remembrance made of sin, as man's great, ever present, crushing burden, and of the bloody sacrifice of Christ Jesus as its only remedy. Everywhere, even in our holiest moods and most sacred doings, there still flashes out the stern and humiliating accusation—"O man, thou art a sinner! All thy goodness is but abomination apart from Christ! Thy only hope is in him whose body was broken and whose blood was shed for the remission of sins!" There must, therefore, be a habitual recurrence of our minds to this fact. Our hand must be ever kept on the brow of the atoning Lamb. We must never cease to rest upon Jesus and his offering of himself for us. Here must we

— sit, forever viewing

Mercy streaming in his blood.

This underlies everything else. There is no heavenly consecration which does not take in this. It is the beginning, and the middle, and the end, of all human sanctification. And without resting upon Christ as the sin-offering, we never can come to the high honors of the priesthood of saints.

4. "And Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet." The whole person is visibly dedicated to the Lord. Every faculty and power is consecrated with the blood of the Lamb. Jehovah touches that blood to the right ear, hand, and foot; as much as to say, "As my priests, all the faculties and powers represented in these parts, from ear to toe, are to be used only for me." The ear is consecrated, that it may be ever open to the gentlest whispers of the Divine word, and listen to nothing but what is of God. The hand is consecrated, that it may never more be stretched out unto iniquity, but ever lifted up in devotion to him to whose service it is set apart. The foot is consecrated, that it may never again be set down in the ways of sin, but ever made to move and carry us in the paths of righteousness. Such is our solemn consecration of the whole man as God's priests. We are no longer our own; we are bought with a price—"with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;" and forever set apart to glorify God in our bodies and our 13 * spirits which are his. This is the consecration of priests; and unless we have surrendered to be thus devoted to God, we are not partakers of the glorious priesthood to which we have been called.

5. "And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with him." Even after their setting apart to be priests, they needed to be yet further sanctified as priests. Not only themselves, but their very garments also, were marked as holy. The sacred oil was emblematic of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Ghost, in conjunction with the blood of the Lamb, sanctifies and endows us for holy services. Sprinkled with these sacred elements—touched with moral unction and constrained by the dying love of Jesus, we become equipped for duty, and qualified "to show forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light." It is not enough that we are installed in the priesthood. It is not the ultimatum of our calling merely to attain the honor and place of priests. Even this honor and place are to be made subservient to something more. Our very priesthood must be consecrated, as well as we to the priesthood. Not for our beauty and glory only does God invest us with our Christian offices and gifts, but for his own praise. We must therefore aim not merely at getting ourselves into heaven, but at being saved for the further purpose, that, as saved men, we may the better glorify God, and set forth the praise of his glorious grace. There is danger that we think too much of the blessings of the Gospel and our portion as believers, as the end. They are not the end. They are only means to the end. We are not called to be priests, for the mere sake of being priests; but that we may "minister unto God in the priest's office." We are ordained for a purpose beyond our ordination. Our very priesthood must be set apart for God. All the gifts and efficacies of the Spirit and the blood upon our nature, are to be for the everlasting praise of our Redeemer. And as we look forward to that nearing world when our sanctification shall be complete, we must not contemplate it as a mere scene of resting upon our dignities, but as a scene of sublime, noble, and unceasing services, rendered unto God and the Lamb.

6. Still another item in the consecration of God's ancient priests, was, that they had to eat the boiled flesh of the offered lamb with unleavened bread, at the door of the tabernacle. This boiled lamb of course typifies the Savior as offered for our sins. It calls to mind the great sufferings which he endured as our substitute and sacrifice of consecration. Every joint in him was relaxed. He was "poured out like water." We cannot contemplate the scenes of his passion without feeling that "his countenance was more marred than the face of any man." But it was a necessary part of the process by which we are constituted priests of God. Christ had to die, and have all the tender parts of his nature brought under the fires of wrath, and his body given to be food for our souls, to qualify us to come acceptably before our Maker. And now that he is thus made an offering for our sanctification, it appertains to us to put forth our hands, and eat of that offering, as the life and feast of our souls. He is the bread of life, and upon that bread we must feed to be God's priests. For, "Except we eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, we have no life in us." And as our washing is connected with our baptism, so this eating is connected with the sacramental supper. The one points to the birth of the new man; the other points to the nurture and nourishment of that new creature. Merely receiving the baptismal water is not regeneration; and so merely eating and drinking in the holy Supper is not partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ. There is an inward in both, as well as an outward. But as it is only real renewal by the Holy Ghost that takes up and fills out our baptism, so it is only a believing and real appropriation of Christ's body and blood that constitutes a complete and effective participation of the holy supper. It is more a spiritual than an oral eating; nay, it is essentially a spiritual eating, only assisted by means of outward elements and bodily manducation. Faith must do the work, and the external is only a representation on which faith may more easily lean, and receive aid in laying hold upon Christ crucified. Faith is the hand that reaches out to take Christ as our salvation, and faith is the mouth by which we receive him; but the physical hand is extended to grasp the consecrated elements, and the mouth of the body receives them, to give unto faith a greater vigor, and thus aid the inward thought by an outward act. And thus feeding continuously upon our slain and boiled Lamb, we are nourished and strengthened for our spiritual priesthood, and consecrated to serve in it for ever. 7. There is yet one point in these consecration services to which I will call your attention, and then leave the subject to your own management. Aaron and his sons, having attended to these several particulars, were further required to "abide at the door of the tabernacle day and night seven days," before they could enter fully upon the high offices to which they had been consecrated.

The number seven is very often used in the Scriptures as the type of perfection and completeness. The "seven Spirits of God" represent the fulness and perfection of the one Holy Spirit. "The seven stars," or "the seven angels," represent the entire or complete ministry of the Christian Church. And so generally, the number seven is identified with completeness. This is especially true when used with reference to time. We read of the "seven days" of the week in which creation was finished; "seven years" as completing a reckoning; and seven times seven years bringing round the grand sabbatic year of jubilee, when things went back and started again afresh. It was a completion of the period. So then, the priesthood of Aaron and his sons was made perfect; it took in the completing number seven—"seven days." The consecration period was a complete period—a full measure of time. It was not only the fact of completeness, but a duration through which this fact was brought out. We are not only to be completely consecrated to a complete spiritual priesthood; but it is to take a complete period of time in which this completeness is to be effected. We are called and consecrated now. We are real priests as soon as we have attended to the sanctifying services of which I have spoken. But we must yet abide "seven days" at the door of the tabernacle before we can go into it. We must yet wait the revolution of a complete period before we can come into the Holy of holies. That complete period can be nothing short of our entire earthly life.

These present days, then, are the days of waiting. Though we are set apart as priests, we have to abide here at the door of the Holy Sanctuary until the days of our consecration be at an end. We cannot yet go in to see God in his glory, and to bend before him where his holy angels adore and wonder. We must wait until the "seven days" are fulfilled. It may seem like an imprisonment. It may often make us feel somewhat impatient. It may tie down and fetter our desires. But it is only to make us perfect. It is necessary to complete our glorious installation, as priests of God and of Christ. And it will soon be over. It is only "seven days"—the shortest of all the complete periods of human reckoning. Before we think of it, it will have passed. For some of us, much of it has already gone. Two, three, four, five, six, and to some even a part of the seventh, of these days of waiting, are even now numbered with the past. Presently the whole term will have expired. It will not be long till we all find the period completed. And what a scene then awaits the elected and consecrated priests of the Lord! Found abiding at the door of the tabernacle when the clock strikes the finishing hour, who shall describe what follows!

In vain our fancy strives to paint

The moment after death;

The glories that surround a saint,

When yielding up his breath.

One gentle sigh his fetters breaks;

We scarce can say "He's gone!"

Before the willing spirit takes

Its mansions near the throne.

And then begin the everlasting services. Then shall we hear the tinkling of the golden bells that herald the motions of the great High-Priest in heaven. Then shall we look upon the beauties of redemption's jewelry that hangs in glorious splendor around his noble form. Then shall we walk in the light of the golden lamps which fill the celestial sanctuary with the brightness of wisdom and the warmths of love. Then shall we eat holy bread in the presence of God, and wave the golden censers of heaven with the sweet incense of everlasting praise. Then shall we hear Jehovah speaking to us from his eternal seat, and look with adoring angels into the awful mysteries of his Being, and rejoice in the great heart of our Father's love pulsating with Almightiness.

Oh! glorious hour! Oh, blest abode!

We shall be near, and like our God!

And flesh and sin no more control

The sacred pleasures of the soul.

NINTH LECTURE.