from a very inferior motive to him, who sees the goodness of God in his varied dispensations to mankind, and admires and adores him for it. The one does it of constraint; the other from the spontaneous feelings of an overflowing heart.

Since, then, the best practice is produced by the clearest and soundest faith, and the only way to increase our faith is by studying the Scriptures, that we may rightly divide the word of truth, let us endeavour to discuss the subject of Christ's atonement, and ascertain, in the First place, what was the end to be accomplished by it; and Secondly, what evidence there is that that end was was completely answered.

I. Now, the end to be accomplished by the death of Christ, was the deliverance of mankind from the effects of sin. St. Paul says in the text, that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." The Scriptures to which he alludes were the writings of the Old Testament, in which Christ's death was prefigured under all the animal sacrifices of the Law, and was expressly foretold by the Prophets, especially by Isaiah, who declared, that he should "make his soul an offering for sin, and that with his stripes we are healed." That the legal sacrifices were types or symbols of something real, and not the realities themselves, is evident from this, that the victims were not put to death for their own faults, nor did they, in any true and positive sense, bear the iniquities of others. They showed the mode

of propitiation most consonant to the human mind, as well as most acceptable to the Deity, and were the representatives of the parties offering; but their innocence was incontestable, and their nature, being different to ours, shut out the supposition that they could be charged with human offences. Yet they died to take away sin. Their death, therefore, was ceremonials of it, bore a

a substitution, and the

mystical allusion to some nobler victim.

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Now, there is no other victim to which these sacrifices could refer, but our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only person spoken of in history as dying expressly to take away sin, and that, not for himself, but for others. His death is emphatically announced to have been intended for that purpose, and to have had that effect. In this way the inadequacy of the Jewish sacrifices is easily accounted for, and St. Paul's mode of contrasting them with the offering of the body of Christ once for all, places the matter in a clear light. 'For," says he, "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he, (the Saviour,) cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. come (in the volume of the me,) to do thy will, O God." of Christ to the will of God, escence in the hands of his destroyers, were admirably shadowed out by the victims under the Law,

Then said I, Lo, I book it is written of The perfect obedience and his patient acqui

which were taken to the altar unconscious of offence, and suffered, without resistance, the punishment due to others. Hence the prophet Isaiah says, "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter," and John the Baptist styles him, "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

But that the rite of sacrifice looked beyond the mere ceremonial of the day, and had higher ends to answer than were visible by it, may be farther gathered, from the nature of the Jewish worship, and the character of their priesthood. The worship was mediatorial, and the priest who ministered, was a man of like passions and infirmities with the people. "For every High Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." If, then, the mediator himself was a frail and erring being, and if the victim was incapable of committing or receiving sin, it is quite evident that the whole economy was of an imperfect kind, and could never be construed into a literal and final sense. To put parties on a level, so that the one shall bear the other's fault, their natures must be the same; and to render the office of a mediator complete, so that he can, of his own merit, come before the presence of the person to be propitiated, and there make a satisfactory tender of his service, he must be qualified in all respects for such an administration, as well by the purity of

his own life, as by the entire fitness of the devotional offering. But the priests under the Law stood in no such circumstances. They had occasion to offer for themselves as well as for the people. Conscious of sin, and fearful of their own reckoning, they lived in awe and apprehension of that great Being in whose sight they were appointed to minister, and their intercessions were accepted only in reference to a higher Mediator and a more perfect sacrifice. Well, therefore, might the Apostle, contrasting the Jewish with the Christian priesthood, say of Christ, "Such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those High Priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself." Christ's approach to God was founded on the spotless sanctity of his character, which gave him free access to the throne of grace; and his title to intercede for sinners, was founded, as well in the merits of the sufferings he underwent, as in the nature of the offering he had to present unto God. He bore our sins in his own. body on the tree, which body was of a nature similar to ours, and his death was undergone as a satisfaction for the sins of the world, which no other victim had ever professed to make. He was, therefore, the literal oblation of which the sacrifices of old were only types and shadows; and his priesthood was a complete ratification and fulfilment of the offices of the Jewish mediator. When the animal

victim died upon the altar, Christ was in reality the true propitiation for the sins confessed; and when the priest tendered the blood to God, Christ was the true minister, by the efficacy of whose intercession the blood was accepted. "Neither is there salvation in any other." He realised the institutions of the law. He fulfilled the conditions of the Mosaic covenant. He was the "minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." "Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."-" Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

Nor was the effect of his sacrifice of himself less extensive, than it was powerful and prevailing. It went to the complete "putting away of sin," and the " abolishing of death," which was the wages of sin; and it consequently led to a reconciliation of God with man, and his restoration to the blessings he had forfeited and lost. St. John has this view of our blessed Lord's crucifixion before him when he says, "He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." It is as an atonement and satisfaction to God that we have any interest in the merits of his

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