John Brown, Hebrews Quote 16

Hebrews by John Brown  p. 241
    Now, as it was with these persons that the high priest had to do—as it was their interests he had to manage with God, it was necessary that he should be a person who “could have—who was capable of having—compassion on them.”  The word translated “have compassion,” is rendered in the margin, reasonably bear with.  A person could not be expected to do the duties of a high priest aright if he could not enter into the feelings of those whom he represented.  If their faults excited no sentiment in his mind but disapprobation—if they moved him to no feeling but anger, he would not be fit to interpose in their behalf with God—he would not be inclined to do for them what was necessary for the expiation of their guilt, and the acceptance of their services.  But the Jewish high priest was one who was capable of pitying and bearing with the ignorant and the erring; “for he himself also was compassed with infirmity.”
    “Infirmity,” here, plainly is significant of sinful weakness, and probably also of the disagreeable effects resulting from it.  The Jewish high priest was himself a sinner.  He had personal experience of temptation, and the tendency of man to yield to temptation—of sin, and of the consequences of sin; so that he had the natural capacity, and ought to have had the moral capacity, of pitying his fellow sinners.  Of this truth, of which the Apostle makes use afterwards in illustrating the superiority of Jesus Christ to the Levitical high priests, we have a striking proof in the undeniable fact, that they were appointed to offer sacrifices for “their own sins, as well as for the sins of the people,”—a plain proof that they needed pardon as well as those in whose room they stood.  And it deserves particular notice, that the high priest was required first to offer sacrifices for himself that he might be purified and accepted in offering for the people,--an intimation that, in order to available interposition with God, the person who interposes must be considered as himself an object of His favorable regards.  Lev. Iv. 3, ix. 7, xvi. 6, 24.  Such is the Apostle’s description of the Levitical high priest.  From what has been said it is plain that there is no human ministry under the New Economy which corresponds to the priesthood or high-priesthood under the law.  There is an essential difference between the Christian ministry and the Levitical priesthood.  Christians do not need a human priesthood.  We have a great High Priest, who requires no coadjutors.  His character and work are perfect.