between him and his people, and whose blood cleansed and sanctified the book of the Law, and the vessels of divine service, so Christ, as the mediator of a new and perfect covenant, having devoted himself to death, and purged all mankind by the sprinkling of his blood, and having dedicated them as holy to God, has ratified the treaty between God and us, sanctified us to the service of heaven, purified us from sin and uncleanness, and confirmed to us for ever the blessings of that inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away.

II. The Next particular I wish to notice as contained in the Old Law, and opened out and perfected in the New, is the mode of sacrifice. St. Paul says, "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood."

When any one brought his sin-offering to the altar, it was presented to God and slain there. This was accompanied by a very singular ceremony. The offerer stood over the victim and confessed his sins, placing his hand (one) upon its head, in token of his putting upon it the guilt he had contracted, and thus dedicating it to God by prayer. No unclean animal, no imperfect creature, could be admitted. It was without blemish and without fault, young, a male of the first year. Then it was slain, and the priest took of the blood, which contained the life of the animal, and offered it to God, in token that the owner's life was forfeited by transgression, but that the animal died in his stead, and as proxy for him.

But this singularity is still more strikingly exhibited in the ordinance of the annual atonement. Once every year a solemn sacrifice was offered up, not for individuals, as in the former instance, but for the common benefit of the whole body of the people. It was a grand national propitiation. Two victims were selected. On one, the sins of the people were put by the High Priest, who placed both his hands upon its head, and confessed over it the collective trespasses of all the descendants of Abraham, and then it was led away to the wilderness, and permitted to escape. This was called the scape-goat. The other was drawn to the altar and slain. The High Priest alone officiated. He took the blood of the slaughtered victim, and passing the vail, which hid the most holy place from the outer court or congregation of the people, he approached the mercy-seat, where upon and before the mercyseat he sprinkled the blood, and hallowed with it the holy place, the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar of burnt-offering, and made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel. The carcase of the victim was then carried forth without the camp, and wholly burnt to ashes, the skin, the flesh, and all that appertained to them, because, how pure soever they were before, they were now accounted unclean, and even he who touched them was required to wash and purify himself.

Now, the interpretation of all this singular and awful ceremonial is illustrated in the death and

ascension of Jesus Christ. He sustained the two offices of the High Priest, and of the victim. He came to make his life an offering for sin, and was without spot of sin, holy, harmless, undefiled. He dedicated himself to God by previous prayer, and bore our sins, as proxy, in his own body on the tree. When he died the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, opening to the eyes of the beholder, the hitherto concealed sanctuary of propitiation and peace, and intimating that its secrets were now disclosed, and that the kingdom of heaven, which it typified, was open to all true believers. He suffered without the gate of the holy city, because, bearing the sins of mankind, he was, though an innocent victim, held, in a legal sense, to be unclean and accursed. He went up into heaven itself, the more immediate residence of God, and there exhibited his body, and tendered his blood, as an atonement to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He drew down the divine blessing and forgiveness upon man in a way which the High Priests never could do, having obtained eternal redemption for us. "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."

III. A Third point worthy of consideration is

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the object of sacrifice.

there is no remission."

"Without shedding of blood

The rite of sacrifice was common to all nations, and it appears to have been exercised with a propitiatory view, to appease the being to whom it was addressed. But it does not seem to have included the notion of an atonement in that sense in which

we apply the term. To atone for sin is, strictly and properly, to abrogate and put away sin, which can only be done by the substitution of something equivalent to the offence. The Heathen sacrifices appear always to have had in view the winning over the divinity to be appeased, not the eradicating of the offence. There is an essential difference between rendering a party propitious, and taking away the cause of the displeasure. In the one case pardon results from mere compassion; in the other it flows from satisfied retribution. Now, the Heathen had no notion of this latter kind of sacrifice. It was a principle applied to their rite, which seems not ever to have been contemplated by them. When they slew a victim, or made their offspring to pass through the fire, their idea was that it appeased the wrath of the divinity, and not that it actually superseded, and did away the offence.

Nor did the Jewish sacrifices include the true notion of an atonement. A large class of sins, and that the worst class, wilful crimes and iniquities, had no rite of expiation assigned for them in the Mosaic Law. The offences comprehended under that Law were what might be called statutory offences, trans

gressions against the written commandment, and for these particular modes of expiation were expressly appointed. But for gross and deliberate wickedness, -for immoral offences against the light of nature, and the laws of revelation,-for acts in which the conscience was wounded, there was no provision, but every one was left to the just judgment of God. St. Paul notices this in his Epistle to the Hebrews, and founds upon it an argument for a more perfect sacrifice. Speaking of the annual atonement he says, that the blood was offered for the errors of the people, and that the gifts and sacrifices presented in the tabernacle could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience; and he shows, from the disproportion between the nature of man and the nature of animals, between the party offering and the party offered, that no real satisfaction for sin could be made. His language is remarkably strong: "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." As if he had said, How can an intelligent mind conceive that in such sacrifices there is any real virtue! The enlightened Jew, when he beholds the blood of the beast poured as a libation to the God of spirits, must feel the inadequacy and unworthiness of the offering, and look beyond the life of the victim, for the mysterious qualification which renders it available for sin. "It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."