nd intents of the heart.
And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all
things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we
have to do."

The broad foundation of Christianity has now been laid in the person of
the Son, God-Man. In the subsequent chapters of the Epistle this
doctrine is made to throw light on the mutual relations of the two
dispensations.

The first deduction is that the Mosaic dispensation was itself created
by Christ; that the threats and promises of the Old Testament live on
into the New; that the central idea of the Hebrew religion, the idea of
the Sabbath rest, is realised in its inmost meaning in Christ only; that
the word of God is ever full of living energy. Hereafter the Apostle
will not be slow to expose the wide difference between the two
dispensations. But it is equally true and not less important that the
old covenant was the vesture of truths which remain when the garment has
been changed.

At the outset the writer's tone is influenced by this doctrine. He turns
his treatise unconsciously into an epistle. He addresses his readers as
brethren, holy indeed, but not holy after the pattern of their former
exclusiveness; for their holiness is inseparably linked with their
common brotherhood. They are partakers with the Gentile Churches in a
heavenly call. Startling words! Hebrews holy in virtue of their sharing
with Greeks and barbarians, bond and free, in a common call from high
Heaven, which sees all earth as a level plain beneath! The middle wall
of partition has been broken down to the ground. Yet soothing words, and
full of encouragement! The Apostle and his leaders were standing near
the end of the Apostolic age, when the Hebrew Christians were
despondent, weak, and despised, both by reason of national calamities
and because of their inferiority to their sister Churches among the
Gentiles. The Apostle does not bluntly assure them of their equality,
but gently addresses them as partakers of a heavenly call. His words are
the reverse of St. Paul's language to the Ephesians, who are reminded
that the Gentiles are partakers in the privileges of Israel. Those who
sometimes were far off have been made nigh; the strangers and sojourners
are henceforth fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of
God. Here, on the contrary, Hebrew Christians are encouraged with the
assurance that they partake in the privileges of all believers. If the