scribed modes of oblation, be accepted as the means of deliverance from the penal consequences of transgression. And with respect to the peculiar efficacy of animal sacrifice, we find this remarkable declaration,—the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make atonement for the Soul †: in reference to which words, the sacred writer, from whom I have taken the subject of this day's discourse, formally pronounces, that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Now in what conceivable light can we view this institution, but in relation to that great sacrifice, which was to make atonement for sins: to that blood of sprinkling, which was to speak better things than that of Abel §, or that of the law? The law itself is said to have had respect solely unto him. To what else can the principal institution of the law refer?-an institution too, which unless so referred appears utterly unmeaning. The offering up an animal cannot be imagined to have had any intrinsic efficacy in procuring pardon for the transgression of the offerer. The blood of bulls and of goats could have possessed no virtue, whereby to cleanse him from his offences. Still less intelligible is the application of the blood of the victim, to the purifying of the parts of the tabernacle, and the apparatus of the ceremonial worship. All this can clearly have had no other than an instituted meaning; and can be § Heb. xii. 24.

+ Lev. xvii. 11.

understood, only as in reference to some bloodshedding, which in an eminent degree possessed the power of purifying from pollution. In short, admit the sacrifice of Christ to be held in view in the institutions of the law, and every part is plain and intelligible; reject that notion, and every theory devised by the ingenuity of man, to explain the nature of the ceremonial worship, becomes trifling and inconsistent.

Granting then the case of the Mosaic sacrifice, and that of Abel's, to be the same; neither of them in itself efficacious; both instituted by God; and both instituted in reference to that true and efficient sacrifice, which was one day to be offered the rite, as practised before the time of Christ, may justly be considered as a SACRAMENTAL MEMORIAL, shewing forth the Lord's death until he came *; and when accompanied with a due faith in the promises made to the early believers, may reasonably be judged to have been equally acceptable with that sacramental memorial, which has been enjoined by our Lord himself to his followers, for the shewing forth his death until his coming again. And it deserves to be noticed, that this very analogy seems to be intimated by our Lord, in the language used by him at the institution of that solemn Christian rite. For in speaking of his own blood, he calls it, in direct reference to the blood wherewith Moses established and sanctified the first covenant, the

* 1 Cor. xi. 26.

blood of the NEW covenant, which was shed for the remission of sins: thus plainly marking out the similitude, in the nature and objects of the two covenants, at the moment that he was prescribing the great sacramental commemoration of his own sacrifice.

From this view of the subject, the history of Scripture sacrifice becomes consistent throughout. The sacrifice of Abel, and the Patriarchal sacrifices down to the giving of the law, record and exemplify those momentous events in the history of man,—the death incurred by sin, and that inflicted on our Redeemer. When length of time, and mistaken notions of religion leading to idolatry and every perversion of the religious principle, had so far clouded and obscured this expressive act of primeval worship, that it had ceased to be considered by the nations of the world, in that reference, in which its true value consisted: when the mere rite remained, without any remembrance of the promises, and consequently unaccompanied by that faith in their fulfilment, which was to render it an acceptable service: when the nations, deifying every passion of the human heart, and erecting altars to every vice, poured forth the blood of the victim, but to deprecate the wrath, or satiate the vengeance of each offended deity: when with the recollection of the true God, all knowledge of the true worship, was effaced from + Matt. xxvi. 28.

the minds of men and when joined to the absurdity of the sacrificial rites, their cruelty, devoting to the malignity of innumerable sanguinary gods endless multitudes of human victims, demanded the divine interference; then, we see à people peculiarly selected, to whom, by express revelation, the knowledge of the one God is restored, and the species of worship ordained by him from the beginning, particularly enjoined. The principal part of the Jewish service, we accordingly find to consist of sacrifice; to which the virtue of expiation and atonement is expressly annexed: and in the manner of it, the particulars appear so minutely set forth, that when the object of the whole law should be brought to light, no doubt could remain as to its intended application. The Jewish sacrifices therefore seem to have been designed, as those from the beginning had been, to prefigure that one, which was to make atonement for all mankind. And as in this, all were to receive their consummation, so with this, they all conclude: and the institution closes with the completion of its object. But, as the gross perversions, which had pervaded the Gentile world, had reached likewise to the chosen people; and as the temptations to idolatry, which surrounded them on all sides, were so powerful as perpetually to endanger their adherence to the God of their fathers, we find the ceremonial service adapted to their carnal habits, And since the law itself, with

its accompanying sanctions, seems to have been principally temporal; so the worship it enjoins, is found to have been for the most part, rather a public and solemn declaration of allegiance to the true God in opposition to the Gentile idolatries, than a pure and spiritual obedience in moral and religious matters, which was reserved for that more perfect system, appointed to succeed in due time, when the state of mankind would permit.

That the sacrifices of the law should therefore have chiefly operated to the cleansing from external impurities, and to the rendering persons or things fit to approach God in the exercises of the ceremonial worship; whilst at the same time they were designed to prefigure the sacrifice of Christ, which was purely spiritual and possessed the transcendent virtue of atoning for all moral pollution, involves in it no inconsistency whatever, since in this the true proportion of the entire dispensations is preserved. And to this point, it is particularly necessary, that our attention should be directed, in the examination of the present subject; as upon the apparent disproportion in the objects and effects of sacrifice in the Mosaic and Christian schemes, the principal objections against their intended correspondence have been foundedx.

The sacrifices of the law then being preparatory to that of Christ; the law itself being but a * See No. LXVIII,