versal, the sense of guilt and need of pardon. The death of Christ, connected with his resurrection and ascension, since he came as the ambassador of God's mercy, answered the same purpose in the New Dispensation. The death of Christ then, by figure of speech, might be called a perpetual sacrifice.

Another office of priesthood is intercession, and Christ, being raised to immortality, is our perpetual Intercessor. The crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ are the main facts in the Christian history. They are the keystones of Christian faith. Take them out of the arch, and the whole structure tumbles to ruins.

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives them their due pre-eminence. And although, in writing to the ancient people of God, he gives them a Jewish costume, we see that they were to his mind, as they are to ours, the anchor of hope, which entereth within the veil, and brings us near to the glorious realities of the eternal world.

DISCOURSE XXIV.

SACRIFICIAL LANGUAGE.

AND HE TOOK THE CUP, AND GAVE THANKS, AND GAVE IT TO THEM, SAYING, DRINK YE ALL OF IT FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT, WHICH IS SHED FOR MANY FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. - Matthew xxvi. 27, 28.

THE subject of this Discourse is the sacrificial language of the New Testament, when applied to the death of Christ. It is, as is acknowledged on all hands, of very frequent occurrence. The question concerning it is, Is it literal or is it figurative? Do the sacred writers mean to assert, that Christ's death was literally a propitiatory sacrifice, offered to God to atone for the sins of mankind, or do they mean to say that it is analogous to a sacrifice, or may be compared to the various sacrifices which constituted so large a part of the ceremonial of the Mosaic religion?

In my judgment, the latter representation is the true one, that the death of Christ was analogous to a sacrifice; and therefore I place the sacrificial language of the writers of the New Testament in the category of phraseology. If it were otherwise, I

should have placed the atonement among the doctrines of Christianity.

The common and popular doctrine upon this subject has been, that Christ's death was a real propitiatory sacrifice. Not only so, it was the only true and efficacious sacrifice that has ever been offered. All other sacrifices, ordained under the old dispensation, were only types and foreshadowings of this. They had no efficacy in themselves, but only as they pointed the faith of the offerer forward to the only real atonement, in the blood of Christ.

In corroboration of this apprehension, various passages of the New Testament are appealed to, but especially the Epistle to the Hebrews. "Behold the Lamb of God," says John the Baptist, "that taketh away the sin of the world." Paul says: "Christ hath loved us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor." In another place: "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption there is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Peter says:

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." In another place: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God." John declares: "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world."

In the institution of the supper, Christ himself said of the vine, " Drink ye all of it: for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

On the strength of these and similar passages, it is affirmed that the death of Christ was a real sacrifice to God, the means of procuring God's forgiveness, the indispensable condition of God's pardon of any sin of any individual of the human race. No matter how penitent any individual might have been, however thoroughly he might have reformed, or how holy he might have become, God could not have forgiven him, and he must have been consigned to everlasting burnings.

Such was the strictness of God's law; and so necessary was it to maintain its honor, that its authority would have been annulled, its force would have been broken, had not the punishment it threatens, and the penalty it exacts, been suffered by Christ.

Not only so, it has been maintained that the guilt of the sinner is taken from him and transferred to Christ, and thus is expiated and blotted out, and the righteousness of Christ is transferred to the sinner, so that he becomes righteous as Christ was, and as deserving of everlasting happiness.

To these views of the death of Christ the most weighty and insurmountable objections may be urged.

And, first, the death of Christ was not a literal sacrifice; it wanted the conditions and circumstances of a sacrifice. A sin-offering, and it is in this sense that Christ's death is said to be a sacri

fice, was an offering brought by a penitent person in token of his contrition. If a victim, it was slain by a priest, a consecrated official person, set apart for this especial function. Some part of it at least was placed upon an altar and burnt. Who brought about the death of Christ? Were they penitent persons? The Apostles, immediately after the resurrection of Jesus, accuse the Jews of his death as a murder. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did, by him, in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." If there were any offerers of Christ as a sin-offering, it must have been these Jews. And yet, on their part, so far from being an offering of penitence was it, that the Apostles characterize it as a guilty murder. No thought of a penitential offering ever entered into their minds.

If there were any priests in this sacrifice, they must have been the soldiers who crucified him. But they were Romans, and we have no evidence that they ever knew or recognized the true God. As far as they were concerned, Christ was on a level with the two thieves who were crucified at his side. To them the act was a matter of official duty, and we have no reason to suppose that any thought of offering any species of a sacrifice ever entered their minds.

The victim, according to the Mosaic ritual, was laid, in part, upon an altar. There was no altar in