ssion, the terrors of the Law when its demand
is met only by the miserable failures of the sinner. Then, humbled lower
than the dust, let him turn towards the eternal Sion, and not only turn
towards it but recollect that in the Spirit, and in the Son, he has
"_come unto it_." In the Lord Christ, his better Moses, his saving
Mediator, he has already arrived beside it and rests upon it. No voice
of thunder bids him not to touch it "lest he be thrust through." He is
commanded to come as near to it as it is possible to be, because he is
to come to "the Lord of the Hill" Himself, in the absolute proximity of
faith, love, and life. He is welcomed to its recesses, and to its
heights. The first-born are his brethren; the just made perfect are his
own beloved; every angel of all the host is his friend; the supreme
Judge is his omnipotent Protector; Jesus is his Peace, through the blood
of His Cross. "Blest inhabitant of Sion, washed in the Redeemer's
blood!" Shall he not address himself to the path and pursuit of
holiness with a heart beating with an inexhaustible hope, and with a
life present while eternal?

Then, as the great paragraph approaches its climax, the note of warning
sounds again (ver. 25). The convert, fresh from the reminder of the
"voice" of the sprinkled blood of the better covenant, is cautioned not
to "refuse" it, not to "decline" it ([Greek: me paraitesesthe]). The
primary reference is manifestly to that perpetual danger of the Hebrews,
the temptation to turn back from the Gospel, with its spiritual order
and its hopes of things not yet seen, to the outworn Dispensation, with
its externally majestic circumstances of glorious ritual and imposing
shows of polity and power. They would need again and again to open the
soul's ears and eyes, and steadfastly to recollect, against all
appearances, that we "_are come unto_ the Mount Sion," if they were to
resist the magnetic forces which drew them back towards Sinai--and
towards death. So they were to hear the sweet voices of heavenly love,
and festal life, and blood-bought covenanted peace, sounding from the
true Sion, with joy indeed but also with holy dread. They were to _fear_
lest they should "decline" them, lest sense should conquer faith and the
soul be lost under the mountain of condemnation after all. "For if they
did not escape who on earth declined Him who spoke oraculous warning
([Greek: chrematizonta]), much more shall we not escape, turning from
Him who