This distinction is easily understood in the case of the sons of Aaron, and hence it will serve to illustrate, in a very simple manner, the truth as to the members of the true priestly house, over which our great High-Priest presides, and to which all true believers belong. (Heb. iii. 6.) Every child of God is a priest. He is enrolled as a member of Christ's priestly house. He may be very ignorant, but his position as a priest is not founded upon knowledge, but upon life; his experience may be very shallow, but his place as a priest does not depend upon experience, but upon life; his capacity may be very limited, but his relationship as a priest does not rest upon an enlarged capacity, but upon life. He was born into the position and relationship of a priest: he did not work himself thereinto. It was not by any efforts of his own that he became a priest: he became a priest by birth. The spiritual priesthood, together with all the spiritual functions attaching thereunto, is the necessary appendage to spiritual birth. The capacity to enjoy the privileges and to discharge the functions of a position must not be confounded with the position itself: they must ever be kept distinct. Relationship is one thing; capacity is quite another. Furthermore, in looking at the family of Aaron, we see that nothing could break the relationship between him and his sons. There were many things which would interfere with the full enjoyment of the privileges attaching to the relationship. A son of Aaron might "defile himself by the dead;" he might defile himself by forming an unholy alliance; he might have some bodily "blemish;" he might be "blind or lame;" he might be "a dwarf." Any of these things would have interfered very materially with his enjoyment of the privileges and his discharge of the functions pertaining to his relationship, as we read, "No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish: he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and the holy; only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries; for I the Lord do sanctify them." (Chap. xxi. 21-23.) But none of these things could possibly touch the fact of a relationship founded upon the established principles of human nature. Though a son of Aaron were a dwarf, that dwarf was a son of Aaron. True, he was, as a dwarf, shorn of many precious privileges and lofty dignities pertaining to the priesthood, but he was a son of Aaron all the while. He could neither enjoy the same measure or character of communion, nor yet discharge the same elevated functions of priestly service, as one who had reached to manhood's appointed stature; but he was a member of the priestly house, and as such, permitted to "eat the bread of his God." The