13).

[351] Chap. ix. 28.

[352] =epispkopountes= (xii. 15).

[353] =hysteron apo=.

[354] Deut. xxix. 18.

[355] Chap. xiii. 4. Cf. Rom. i. 18 sqq.

[356] Gen. xxv. 32.

[357] Gen. xxii. 18.

[358] Gen. xxvii. 36.

[359] =adokimos= (vi. 8).

[360] Chap. vi. 6.

CHAPTER XV.

_MOUNT ZION._

"For ye are not come unto _a mount_ that might be touched, and that
burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and
the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which _voice_ they
that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them:
for they could not endure that which was enjoined, If even a beast
touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the
appearance, _that_ Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: but ye
are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the
general assembly and Church of the first-born who are enrolled in
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men
made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and to
the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than _that of_ Abel.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not,
when they refused him that warned _them_ on earth, much more _shall
not_ we _escape_, who turn away from Him that _warneth_ from heaven:
whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying,
Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also
the heaven. And this _word_, Yet once more, signifieth the removing
of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made,
that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore,
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace,
whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and
awe, for our God is a consuming fire."--HEB. xii. 18-29 (R.V.).

Mutual oversight is the lesson of the foregoing verses. The author urges
his readers to look carefully that no member of the Church withdraws
from the grace of God, that no prison of bitterness troubles and defiles
the Church as a whole, that sensuality and worldliness are put away. In
the paragraph that comes next he still has the idea of Church fellowship
in his mind. But his advice to his readers to exercise supervision over
one another yield