provision for such difficulties? And if it does, what is the provision? These are some of the questions which I desire now to consider, and I hope it may please God to fulfil to both writer and reader the prayer of the Apostle: ‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Now one of the great difficulties of the subject is, that in all languages certain words are employed to express more than one idea, and that the idea connected with the word often changes as time advances. To a certain extent this applies to the word ‘sanctification’ in sacred Scripture. It has no less than four distinct meanings in the Word of God; and, if we treat them all as if they were the same, we are sure to be confused. It has its original sense, and three others that have grown out of it. The original sense is separation unto God, or dedication; and the three that have grown out of it are legal cleansing, personal holiness, and the exaltation of the holiness of God. If therefore we wish to understand the teaching of Scripture, we must clearly examine the use of the word in these four senses. May the Lord Himself help us to do so! If we turn then to the beginning, we shall find that the original sense of the word ‘to sanctify’ is to set apart unto God. So in the Old Testament the Hebrew is frequently rendered ‘to hallow,’ or to set apart as a holy thing. In this sense it is used of the Sabbath (Gen. ii. 3): ‘God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.’ He separated it from the ordinary purposes of common life, and set it apart as a day peculiar to Himself. So again the first-born were set apart unto God, and therefore said to be sanctified; as we read, Exod. xiii. 2: ‘Sanctify unto Me all the first-born—both of man and of beast: it is mine.’ So of the Temple, God said (2 Chron. vii. 16), ‘I have chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever.’ The same is said of the priests, the vessels of the sanctuary, and the lamb taken from the flock for sacrifice: they were all separated unto God, and thus said to be sanctified. It is in this sense that our blessed Saviour made use of the word, when He said in John, xvii. 19, ‘For their sakes I sanctify myself.’ No one can suppose for one moment that He made Himself more holy, or cleansed Himself from actual sin, for He had been from all eternity holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. There was no possibility of any increase of holiness in Him. But He did, from the deep love that filled His heart, set Himself apart unto God, to be the one perfect sin-offering for man. As the lamb was sanctified when it was taken from the flock, and set apart for sacrifice, so did He sanctify Himself when He separated Himself from all human fellowship, and, as one set apart unto God, bore alone the whole burden of human guilt.