crilegious profaner; and even a king of Israel, who thought himself entitled, through his regal dignity, to come there to offer up incense, was instantly covered with leprosy, degraded from his royalty, and excluded for the rest of his life from all society and commerce with men. Lastly, after so many barriers and separations, appeared the holy of holies; that place, so terrible and so concealed, covered with an impenetrable veil, inaccessible to every mortal, to every righteous, to every prophet, even to every minister of the Lord, the sovereign pontiff alone excepted; and even he was entitled to appear there only once in the year, after a thousand strict and religious precautions, and bearing in his hands the blood of the victim for which alone the gates of that sacred place were opened.
Yet, after all, what did that holy of holies, that spot so formidable and so inaccessible, contain? The tables of the law, the manna, the rod of Aaron; empty figures, and the shadows of futurity: the holy God himself, who sometimes gave out from thence his oracles, yet dwelt not there as in the sanctuary of Christians, the gates of which are indiscriminately opened to every believer.
Now, my brethren, if the goodness of God, in a law of love and grace, hath no longer placed these terrible barriers between him and us, if he hath destroyed that wall of separation which removed him so far from man, and hath permitted to every believer to approach the holy of holies, where he himself now dwelleth, it is not that his sanctity exacts less purity and innocence of those who come to present themselves before him. His design hath only been to render us more pure, more holy, and more faithful, and to make us feel what ought to be the sanctity of a Christian; seeing he is every day obliged to support, at the foot of the altar, and of the terrible sanctuary, the presence of the God whom he invokes and whom he worships.
And for this reason it is that Peter calls all Christians a holy nation; for they are all equally entitled to present themselves before the holy altar: a chosen generation; for they are all separated from the world and from every profane custom, consecrated to the Lord, and solely destined to his worship and to his service: and, lastly, a royal priesthood; for they all participate, in one sense, in the priesthood of his Son, the High-priest of the new law, and because the privilege of entering into the holy of holies, formerly granted to the sovereign pontiff alone, is become the common and daily right of every believer.
It is solely through the sanctity, then, of our baptism and of our consecration, that these sacred gates are opened to us. If impure, we, in some respect forfeit this right; we have no longer a part in the altar: we are no longer worthy of the assembly of the holy, and the temple of God is no longer for us.
Our temples, my brethren, ought therefore to be the house of the righteous alone. Every thing that takes place there supposes righteousness and sanctity in the spectators; the mysteries which we there celebrate are holy and awful mysteries, and which require pure eyes; the victim we there offer up is the reconciliation of the
