God grant that the reader may know what it is to be ready in title and ready in state; that he may have a purged conscience and a truly exercised heart. Then he will be able to enter into the meaning of the fourth and last passage, to which we call his attention. It occurs in Matt. xxv. 10. 4. "And while they (the foolish virgins) went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were _ready_ went in with him to the marriage; and the door was shut." How solemn! How awfully solemn! Those who were _ready_ went in, and those who were not ready were shut out. Those who have life in Christ, who are indwelt by the Holy Ghost, will be ready. But the mere professor--the one who has truth in the head and on the lip, but not in the heart; who has the lamp of profession, but not the Spirit of life in Christ--will be shut out into outer darkness--in the everlasting misery and gloom of hell. O beloved reader, let us, as we take a solemn leave of you, put this question home to your very inmost soul, "ART THOU READY?" "HOLY BRETHREN" "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, _consider_ the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus" (Heb. iii. 1). "And let us _consider_ one another, to provoke unto love and good works" (Heb. x. 24). The two passages we have just penned, are very intimately connected. Indeed, they are bound together by the simple fact, that the inspired writer makes use of the same word in each; and, further, that this word occurs only in these two places throughout the whole of this marvellous treatise.[4] [4] The English word, "consider," occurs four times throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews; but it represents three different Greek words. In chapter vii. 4, "Consider how great this man was." Here the word is θεωρειτε, which occurs, in its various inflections, about fifty-six times in the Greek Testament, but only in this one instance is it rendered by the word "consider." Its simple and general meaning is to "see" or "perceive." Again, in Hebrews xii. 3, we have, "Consider Him who endured such contradiction," etc. Here the word is αναλογισασθε, which occurs only in this place throughout the entire New Testament, and expresses the idea of comparison or analogy. But in the two verses which stand at the head of this paper, the word is κατανοεω, which has an intensive force, and signifies an earnest application of the mind. We are to consider Jesus; and we are to consider all those who belong to Him, wherever they are. These are the two grand departments of our work. We are to apply our minds diligently to Him and to His interests on the earth, and thus be blessedly delivered from the miserable business of thinking about ourselves or our own interests: a morally glorious deliverance, most surely, for which we may well praise our glorious Deliverer.