s to the still more urgent warning to watch themselves,
and especially to shun the most dangerous even of these evils, which is
worldliness of spirit. Esau was rejected; see that ye yourselves refuse
not Him that speaketh.

That the passage is thus closely connected with what immediately
precedes may be admitted. But it must be also connected with the entire
argument of the Epistle. It is the final exhortation directly based on
the general idea that the new covenant excels the former one. As such it
may be compared with the earlier exhortation, given before the allegory
of Melchizedek introduced the notion that the old covenant had passed
away, and with the warning in the tenth chapter which precedes the
glorious record of faith's heroes from Abel to Jesus. As early as the
second chapter he warns the Hebrew Christians not to drift away and
neglect a salvation revealed in One Who is greater than the angels,
through whom the Law had been given. In the later exhortations he adds
the notion of the blood of the covenant, and insists, not merely on the
greatness, but also on the finality, of the revelation. But in the
concluding passage, which now opens before us, he makes the daring
announcement that all the blessings of the new covenant have already
been fulfilled, and that in perfect completeness and grandeur. We _have_
come unto Mount Zion; we _have_ received a kingdom which cannot be
shaken. The passage must, therefore, be considered as the practical
result of the whole Epistle.

Our author began with the fact of a revelation of God in a Son. But a
thoughtful reader will not fail to have observed that this great subject
seldom comes to the front in the course of the argument. Reading the
Epistle, we seem for a time to forget the thought of a revelation given
in the Son. Our minds are mastered by the author's powerful reasoning.
We think of nothing but the surpassing excellence of the new covenant
and its Mediator. The greatness of Jesus as High-priest makes us
oblivious of His greatness as the Revealer of God. But this is only the
glamour cast over us by a master mind. After all, to know God is the
highest glory and perfection of man. Apart from a revelation of God in
His Son, all other truths are negative; and their value to us depends on
their connection with this self-manifestation of the Father. Religion,
theology, priesthood, covenant, atonement, salvation, and the
Incarnation itself, do not attain a worthy and fin