REDEMPTION-SACRIFICES OF THE LAW.

IT has, then, been established, upon the testimony of various texts, in which the doctrine is laid down, not in the language of metaphor and allusion, but clearly and expressly, that the death of Christ was vicarious and propitiatory; and that by it a satisfaction was offered to the Divine justice for the transgressions of men; in consideration of which pardon and salvation are offered to them in the Gospel through faith; and I have preferred to adduce these clear and cogent proofs of this great principle of our religion, in the first place, from those passages in the New Testament, in which there are no sacrificial terms, no direct allu­sions to the atonements of the law, and other parts of the Levitical piacular system, to show that, independent of tine latter class of texts, the doctrine may be established against the Socinians; and, also, that by having first settled the meaning of the leading passages, we may more satisfactorily determine the sense in which the evangelists and apostles use the sacrificial terms of' the Old Testament, with reference to the death of Christ, a subject in which, from its nature, time opponents of the atonement, find a freedom of remark and license of criticism, by which they are apt to mislead and perplex the unwary. This second class of texts, however, when approached by the light of the argument already made good, and exhibited also in that of their own evidence, will afford the most triumphant refutation of the notions of those who, to their denial of the Godhead of our Lord, add a proud and Pharisaic rejection of the sacrificial efficacy of his death.

We shall not, in the first instance, advert to the sacrifices under the patriarchal dispensation, as to the origin of which a difference of opinion exists, a subject on which seine remarks will be offered in the sequel. Among the Jews, sacrifices were unquestionably of Divine original; and as terms taken from them are found applied so frequently to Christ and to his sufferings in the New Testament, they serve farther to explain that peculiarity under which, as we have seen, the apostles regarded the death of Christ, and afford additional proof that it was considered by them as a sacrifice of expiation, as the grand universal sin offering for the whole world.

He is announced by John, his forerunner, as "the LAMB OF GOD" and that not with reference to meekness or any other moral virtue; but with an accompanying phrase, which would communicate to a Jew the full sacrificial sense of the term employed-" the Lamb of God Which TAKETH AWAY the sin of the world." He is called our PASS. OVER, sacrificed for us." He is said to have given "himself for AN OFFERING and A SACRIFICE to GOD, for a sweet-smelling savour." As a Priest, it was necessary be should have somewhat to offer; and he offered himself, "his own blood," to which is ascribed the washing away of sin, and our eternal redemption. He is declared to have "put away sin by the SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF," to have "BY HIMSELF purged our sins," to have "SANCTIFIED the people by his own blood," to have "offered to GOD one SACRIFICE FOR SINS." Add to these, and innume­rable other similar expressions and allusions, the argument of the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which, by proving at length, that the sacrifice of Christ was superior in efficacy to the sacrifices of the law, he most unequivocally assumes, that the death of Christ was a sacrifice and sin offering, for without that it would no more have been capable of comparison with the sacrifices of the law, than the death of John the Baptist, St. Stephen, or St. James, all martyrs and sufferers for the truth, who had recently sealed their testimony with their blood. This very comparison, we may boldly affirm, is utterly unaccountable and absurd on any hypothesis which denies the sacrifice of Christ; for what relation could his death have to the Levitical immolations and offerings, if it had no sacrificial character? Nothing could, in fact, be more misleading, and even absurd, than to apply those terms, which, both among Jews and Gentiles, were in use to express the various processes and means of atonement and piacular propitiation, if the apostles and Christ himself did not intend to represent his death strictly as an expiation for sin :- misleading, because such would be the natural and necessary inference from the terms themselves, which had acquired this as their established meaning; and absurd, because if, as Socinians say, they used them metaphorically, there was not even an ideal resemblance between the figure, and that which it was intended to illustrate. So totally irrelevant, indeed, will those terms appear to any notion entertained of the death of Christ which excludes its expiatory character, that to assume that our Lord and his apostles used them as metaphors, is profanely td assume them to be such writers as would not in any other case be tolerated; writers wholly unacquainted with the commonest rules of elocution, and therefore wholly unfit to be teachers of others, not only in religion but in things of inferior importance.

The use of such terms, we have said, would not only be wholly absurd, but criminally misleading to the Gentiles, as well as to the Jews, who were first converted to Christianity. To them the notion of propitiatory offerings, offerings to avert the displeasure of the gods, and which expiated the crimes of offenders, was most familiar, and the corresponding terms in constant use. The bold denial of this by Dr. Priestley might well bring upon him the reproof of Archbishop Magee, who, after establishing this point from the Greek and Latin writers, observes, "So clearly does their language announce the notion of a propitiatory atonement, that if we would avoid an imputation on Dr. Priestley's fairness, we are driven, of necessity, to question the extent of his acquaintance with those writers." The reader may consult the instances given by this writer, in No. 5 of his Illustrations appended to his Dis. courses on the Atonement; and particularly the tenth chapter of Grotius's De Satisfactione, whose learning has most amply illustrated and firmly settled this view of the heathen sacrifices. The use to be made of this in the argument is, that as the apostles found the very terms they used with reference to the nature and efficacy of the death of Christ, fixed in an expiatory signification among the Greeks, they could not, in honesty, use them in a distant figurative sense, much less in a contrary one, without due notice of their having invested them with a new import being given to their readers. From ago~, a pollution, an impurity, which was to be expiated by sacrifice, are derived agnizw and which denote the act of expiation; caqaizw too, to purify, cleanse, is applied to the effect of expiation; and ilazw denotes the method of propitiating the gods by sacrifice. These, and other words of similar import, are used by the authors of the Septuagint, and by the evangelists and apostles; but they give no notice of using them in any strange and altered sense; and when they apply them to the death of Christ, they must, therefore, be understood to use them in their received meaning.

In like manner the Jews had their expiatory sacrifices, and the terms and phrases used in them are, in like manner, employed by the apostles to characterize the death of their Lord; and they would have been as guilty of misleading their Jewish as their Gentile readers, had they em­ployed them in a new sense, and without warning, which, unquestionably, they never gave.

The force of this has been felt, and as, in order to avoid it, the two points, the expiatory nature of the Jewish sacrifices and their typical signature have been questioned, it will be necessary to establish each.

As to the expiatory nature of the sacrifices of the law, it is not neces­sary to show that all the Levitical offerings were of this character. There were also offerings for persons and for things prescribed for puri­fication, which were incidental; but even they grew out of the leading notion of expiatory sacrifice, and that legal purification which resulted from the forgiveness of sins. It is enough to show that the grand and eminent sacrifices of the Jews were strictly expiatory, and that by them the offerers were released from punishment and death, for which ends they were appointed by the Lawgiver.

When we speak, too, of vicarious sacrifice, we do not mean, either on the one hand, such a substitution as that the victim should bear the same quantum of pain and suffering as the offender himself; or, on the other, that it was put in the place of the offender as a mere symbolical act, by which he confessed his desert of punishment; but a substitution made by Divine appointment, by which the victim was exposed to suffer­ings and death instead of the offender, in virtue of which the offender himself should be released. In this view one can scarcely conceive why so able a writer as Archbishop Magee should prefer to use the term "vicarious import," rather than the simple and established term "vicarious;" since the Antinomian notion of substitution may be other­wise sufficiently guarded against, and the phrase "vicarious import" is certainly capable of being resolved into that figurative notion of mere symbolical action, which, however plausible, does, in fact, deprive the ancient sacrifices of their typical, and the ablation of Christ of its real efficacy. Vicarious acting, is acting for another; vicarious suffering, is suffering for another; but the nature and circumstances of that suffering in the case of Christ, is to be determined by the doctrine of Scripture at large, and not wholly by the term itself which is, however, useful for this purpose, (and therefore to be preserved,) that it indicates the sense in which those who use it understand the declaration of Scripture, that Christ "died FOR us," to be that he died not merely for our benefit, but in our stead; in other words, that but for his having died, those who believe in him would personally have suffered that death which is the penalty of every violation of the law of God.

That sacrifices under the law were expiatory and vicarious, admits of abundant proof.

The chief objections made to this doctrine, are, first, that under the law, in all capital cases, the offender, upon legal proof or conviction, was doomed to die, and that no sacrifice could exempt him from the penalty. Secondly, that in all lower cases to which the law had not; attached capital punishment, but pecuniary mulcts, or personal labour or servitude, upon their non-payment, this penalty was to be strictly executed, and none could plead any privilege or exemption on account of sacrifice; and that when sacrifices were ordained with a pecuniary much, they are to be regarded in the light of fine, one part of which, was paid to the state, the other to the Church. This was the mode of argument adopted by the author of "the Moral Philosopher," nothing of weight has been added to these objections since.

Now much of this may be granted, without any prejudice to the argument; and, indeed, is no more than the most orthodox writers on this, subject have often adverted to. The law, under which the Jews were placed, was at once, as to them, both a moral and a political law; and the Lawgiver excepted certain offences from the benefit of a pardon, which implied exemption from temporal death, which was the state penalty, and therefore would accept no atonement for such transgres­sions. Blasphemy, idolatry, murder, and adultery, were those "presumptuous sins" which were thus exempted, and the reason will be seen in the political relation of the people to GOD. In refusing this exemption from punishment in this world, in certain cases, respect was had to the order and benefit of society. Running parallel, however, with this political application of the law to the Jews as subjects of the theocracy, we see the authority of the moral law kept over them as men and creatures; and if these "presumptuous sins," of blasphemy and idolatry, of murder and adultery, and a few others, were the only capi­tal crimes, considered politically, they were not the only capital crimes, considered morally, that is, there were other crimes which would have subjected the offender to death, but for this provision of expiatory oblations. The true question then is, whether such sacrifices were appointed by God, and accepted instead of the personal punishment or LIFE of the offender, which otherwise would have been forfeited, as in the other cases; and if so, if the life of animal sacrifices was accepted instead of the life of man, then the notion that they were mere mulcts and pecu­niary penalties falls to the ground, and the vicarious nature of most of the Levitical oblations is established.

That other offences, beside those above mentioned, were capital, that is, exposed the offender to death, is clear from this, that all offences against the law had this capital character. As death was the sanction of the commandment given to Adam, so every one who transgressed any part of the law of Moses became guilty of death; every man was accursed, that is, devoted to die, who "continued not in all things writ­ten in the book of the law;" "the man only that doeth these things shall live by them," was the rule; and it was, therefore, to redeem the offenders from this penalty that sacrifices were appointed. So, with reference to the great day of expiation, we read, "For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins; and this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins, Once a year," Lev. xvi, 30-34.

To prove that this was the intention and effect of the annual sacrifices of the Jews, we need do little more than refer to Leviticus xvii, 10, 11, "I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for YOUR souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for TILE SOUL." Here the blood which is said to make atonement for the soul, is the blood of the victims, and to make an atonement for the soul, is the same as to be a ransom for the soul, as will appear by referring to Exodus xxx, 12-16 and to be a ransom for the soul, is to avert death. "They shall give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, that there be no Plague among them," by which their lives might be suddenly taken away. The "soul" is also here used obviously for the life; the blood, or the life, of the victims in all the sacrifices, was substituted for the life of man, to preserve him from death, and the victims were therefore vicarious. (Vide Outram de Sacrzf. lib. 1, c xxii.)

The Hebrew word rendered atonement; rpc, signifying primarily to cover, overspread, has been the subject of some evasive criticisms. It comes, however, in the secondary sense to signify atonement, or propitiation, because the effect of that is to cover, or, in Scripture meaning, to obtain the forgiveness of offences. The Septuagint, also, renders it by exilascomai, to appease, to make propitious. It is used, indeed, where the means of atonement are not of the sacrificial kind, but these "in­stances equally serve to evince the Scripture sense of the term, in cases of transgression, to be that of reconciling the offended Deity, by avert­ing his displeasure; so that when the atonement for sin is said to be made by sacrifice, no doubt can remain, that the sacrifice was strictly a sacrifice of propitiation. Agreeably to this conclusion we find it ex­pressly declared, in the several cases of piacular oblations for transgression of the Divine commands, that the sin for which atonement was made by those oblations, should be forgiven." (Magee's Discourses, vol. i, page 332.)

As the notion that the sacrifices of the law were not vicarious, but mere mulcts and fines, is overturned by the general appointment of the blood to be an atonement for the souls, the forfeited lives of men, so also is it contradicted by particular instances. Let us refer to Lev. v, 15, 16, "If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord, he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add a fifth part thereto, and shall give it to the priest." Here, indeed, is the proper "fine" for the trespass: but it is added, "he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord, a ram without blemish, and the priest shall make atonement for him, with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him." Thus, then, so far from the sacrifice being the fine, the fine is distinguished from it, and with the ram only was the atonement made to the Lord for his trespass. Nor can the ceremonies, with which the trespass and sin offerings were accompanied, agree with any notion but that of them vicarious character. The worshipper, conscious of his trespass, brought an animal, his own property, to the door of the tabernacle. This was not an eucharistical act, not a memorial of mercies received, but of sins committed. He laid his hands upon the head of the animal, the symbolical act of transfer of punishment, then slew it with his own hand, and delivered it to the priest, who burnt the fat and part of the animal upon the altar, and having sprinkled part of the blood upon the altar, arid, in some cases, upon the offerer himself, poured the rest at the bottom of the altar. And thus, we are told, "the priest shall make an atonement for him, as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him." So clearly is it made manifest by these actions, and by the description of their nature and end, that the animal bore the punishment of the offender, and that by this appointment he was reconciled to God, and obtained the forgiveness of his offences.

An equally strong proof, that the life of the animal sacrifice was accepted in place of the life of man, is afforded by the fact, that atone­ment was required by the law to be made, by sin offerings and burnt offerings, for even bodily distempers and disorders. It is not necessary to the argument to explain the distinctions between these various obla­tions,[1] nor yet to inquire into the reason which required propitiation to be made for corporal infirmities, which, in many cases, could not be avoided. They were, however, thus connected with sin as the cause of all these disorders, and God, who had placed his residence among the Israelites, insisted upon a perfect ceremonial purity, to impress upon them a sense of his moral purity, and the necessity of purification of mind. Whether these were the reasons, or whatever other reason there might be in the case, and whether it is at all discoverable by us, all such unclean persons were liable to death, and were exempted from it only by animal sacrifices. This appears from the conclusion to all the Le­vitical directions concerning the ceremonial to be followed in all such cases. Lev. xv, 31, "Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; THAT THEY DIE NOT in (or by) their unclean­ness, when they defile my tabernacle which is among them." So that by virtue of the sin offerings, the children of Israel were saved from a death, which otherwise they would have suffered for their uncleanness, and that by substituting the life of the animal for the life of the offerer. Nor can it be urged, that death is, in these instances, threatened only as a punishment of not observing these laws of purification, for the reason given in the passage just quoted, for the threatening of death is not hypothetical upon their not bringing the prescribed atonement, but is grounded upon the fact of" defiling the tabernacle of the Lord, which was among them," which is supposed to be done by all uncleanness as such, in the first instance.

As a farther proof of the vicarious character of the principal sacri­fices of the Mosaic economy, we may instance those statedly offered for the whole congregation. Every day were offered two lambs, one in the morning, and the other in the evening, "for a continual burnt offer­ing." To these daily victims were to be added, weekly, two other lambs for the burnt offering of every Sabbath. None of these could be considered in the light of fines for offences, since they were offered for no particular persons, and must be considered, therefore, unless resolved into an Unmeaning ceremony, piacular and vicarious. To pass over, however, the monthly sacrifices, and those offered at the great feasts, it IS sufficient to fix upon those which are so often alluded to in the Epistle to the Hebrews, offered on the solemn anniversary of expiation. On that day, to other prescribed sacrifices, were to be added another ram for a burnt offering, and another goat, the most eminent of all the sacrifices, for a sin offering, whose blood was to be carried by the high priest into the inner sanctuary, which was not done by the blood of any other victim, except the bullock, which was offered the same day as a sin offering for the family of Aaron. "The circumstances of this ceremony, whereby atonement was to be made 'for all the sins' of the whole Jewish people, are so strikingly significant that they deserve a particular detail. On the day appointed for this general expiation, the priest is commanded to offer a bullock and a goat, as sin offerings, the one for himself, and the other for the people, and having sprinkled the blood of these, in due form, before the mercy seat, to lead forth a second goat, denominated the scape goat; and after laying both his hands upon the head of the scapegoat, and confessing over him all the iniquities of the people, to put them upon the head of the goat, and to send the animal, thus bearing the sins of the people, away into the wilderness; in this manner expressing, by an action which cannot be misunderstood, that the atonement, which it is affirmed was to be effected by the sacrifice of the sin offering, consisted in removing from the people their iniquities by this translation of them to the animal. For it is to be remarked, that the ceremony of the scapegoat is not a distinct one; it is a continuation of the process, and is evidently the concluding part, and symbolic consummation of the sin offering. So that the transfer of the iniquities of the people upon the head of the scapegoat, and the bearing them: away into the wilderness, manifestly imply, that the atonement effects by the sacrifice of the sin offering consisted in the transfer, and consequent removal of those iniquities." (Magee's Discourses.)

How, then, is this impressive and singular ceremonial to be explained! Shall we resort to the notion of mulcts and fines? but if so, then t and other stated sacrifices must be considered in the light of penal enactments. But this cannot agree with the appointment of such sacrifice annually in succeeding generations-" this shall be a statute for e unto you." The law appoints a certain day in the year for expiation of the sins both of the high priest himself and of the whole congregation and that for all high priests, and all generations of the congregation.' Now, could a law be enacted, inflicting a certain penalty, at a certain time, upon a whole people, as well as upon their high priest, thus pre­suming upon their actual transgression of it? The sacrifice was also for sins in general, and yet the penalty, if it were one, is not greater than individual persons were often obliged to undergo for single trespasses)" Nothing, certainly, can be more absurd than this hypothesis. (Vide Chapman's Eusebius.')

Shall we account for it by saying, that sacrifices were offered for the benefit of the worshipper, but exclude the notion of expiation? But here we are obliged to confine the benefit to reconciliation and the taking away of sins, and that by the appointed means of the shedding of blood, and the presentation of blood in the holy place, accompanied by the expressive ceremony of imposition of hands upon the head of the vic­tim, the import of which act is fixed beyond all controversy, by the priest's confessing, at the same time, over that victim, the sins of all the people, and imprecating upon its head the vengeance due to them, Lev. xvi, 21.

Shall we content ourselves with merely saying that this was a sym­bol; but the question remains of what was it the symbol? To determine that, let the several parts of the symbolic action be enumerated. Here is confession of sin-confession before God, at the door of his taberna­cle-the substitution of a victim-the figurative transfer of sins to that victim-the shedding of blood, which God appointed to make atonement for the soul-the carrying the blood into the holiest place, the very per. mission of which clearly marked the Divine acceptance-the bearing away of iniquity-and the actual reconciliation of the people to God. If, then, this is symbolical, it has nothing correspondent with it; it never had or can have any thing correspondent to it but the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, and the communication of the benefits of his passion in the forgiveness of sins to those that believe in him, and their reconciliation with God.

Shall we, finally, say, that those sacrifices had respect not to God to obtain pardon by expiation; but to the offerer, teaching him moral les sons, and calling forth moral dispositions? We answer, that this hypothesis leaves many of the essential circumstances of the ceremonial wholly unaccounted for. The tabernacle and temple were erected for the residence of God, by his own command. There it was his will to be approached, and to these sacred places the victims were required to be brought. Anywhere else they might as well have been offered, if they had had respect only to the offerer; but they were required to be brought to God, to be offered according to a prescribed ritual, and by an order of men appointed for that purpose. "But there is no other reason why they should be offered in the sanctuary, than this, that they were offered to the inhabitant of the sanctuary; nor could they be Offered to him without having respect to him, or without his being the object of their efficacy, as in the case of solemn prayers addressed to him. There were some victims whose blood, on the day of atonement, was to be carried into the inner sanctuary; but for what purpose can We suppose the blood to have been carried into the most sacred part of the Divine residence, and that on the day of atonement, except to obtain the favour of him in whose presence it was sprinkled?" (Outram De Sacrificiis.) To this we may add, that the reason given for these sacred services is not in any case a mere moral effect to be produced upon the minds of the worshippers; they were to make atonement, that is, to avert God's displeasure, that the people might not "DIE."

We may find also another most explicit illustration in the sacrifice of the passover. The sacrificial character of this offering is strongly marked; for it was, CORBAN, an offering brought to the tabernacle; it was slain in the sanctuary, and the blood sprinkled upon the altar by the priests. It derives its name from the passing over, and sparing the houses of the Israelites, on the door posts of which the blood of the im­molated lamb was sprinkled, when the first born in the houses of the Egyptians were slain; and thus we have another instance of life being spared by tile instituted means of animal sacrifice. Nor need we con­fine ourselves to particular instances- "almost all things," says an authority, who surely knew his subject, "are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission."

By their very law and by constant usage, then, were the Jews familiarized to the notion of expiatory sacrifice, as well as by the history contained in their sacred books, especially in Genesis, which speaks of the vicarious sacrifices offered by the patriarchs, and the book of Job, in which that patriarch is recorded to have offered sacrifices for the supposed sins of his sons, and Eliphaz is commanded by a Divine oracle, to offer a burnt offering for himself and his friends, "lest God should deal with them after their folly."

On the sentiments of the uninspired Jewish writers on this point, the substitution of the life of the animal for that of the offerer, and, consequently, the expiatory nature of their sacrifices, Outram has given many quotations from their writings, which the reader may consult in his work on Sacrifices. Two or three only need, be adduced by way of specimen. R. Levi Ben Gerson says, "the imposition of the hands of the offerers was designed to indicate, that their sins were removed from themselves, and transferred to the animal." Isaac Ben Arama-" he transfers his sins from himself, and lays them upon the head of his vic-. tim." R. Moses Ben Nachman says, with respect to a sinner offering a victim, "It was just that his blood should be shed, and that his body should be burned; but the Creator, of his mercy, accepted this victim from him, as his substitute and ransom; that the blood of the animal might be shed instead of his blood; that is, that the blood of the animal might be given for his life."

Full of these ideas of vicarious expiation, then, the apostles wrote and spoke, and the Jews of their time and in subsequent ages heard and read the books of time New Testament. The Socinian pretence is, that the inspired penmen used the sacrificial terms which occur in their writings figuratively, but we not only reply, as before, that they could not do this honestly, unless they had given notice of this new application of time established terms of the Jewish theology; but that if this be assumed, their writings leave us wholly at a loss to discover what it really was which they intended to teach by these sacrificial terms and illusions. They are, themselves, utterly silent as to this, and the varying theories of those who reject the doctrine of atonement, in fact, confess that their writings afford no solution of the difficulty. If, there­fore, it is blasphemous to suppose, on the one hand, that inspired men should write on purpose to mislead; so, on the other, is it utterly inconceivable that, had they only been ordinary writers, they should construct a figurative language out of terms which had a definite and established sense, without giving any intimation at all that they employed them otherwise than in their received meaning, or telling us why they adopted them at all, and more especially when they knew that they must be in­terpreted, both by Jews and Greeks, in a sense which, if the Socinians are right, was in direct opposition to that which they intended to convey.

This will, however, appear with additional evidence, when the typical, as well as the expiatory character of the legal sacrifices are considered. In strict argument, the latter does not depend upon the former, and if the oblations of the Mosaic institute had not been intentionally adumbrative of the one oblation of Christ, the argument, from their vica­rious and expiatory character, would still have been valid. For if the legal sacrifices were offered in place of the offender, blood for blood, life for life, and if the death of Christ is represented to be, in as true a sense, a sacrifice and expiation, then is the doctrine of the New Testament writers, as to the expiatory character of the death of our Lord, explicitly established.

That the Levitical sacrifices were also TYPES, is another argument, and accumulates the already preponderating evidence.

A type, in the theological sense, is defined by systematic writers to be a sign or example, prepared and designed by GOD to prefigure some future thing. It is required that it should represent (though the degree of clearness may be very different in different instances) this future object, either by something which it has in common with it, or in being the symbol of some property which it possesses ;-that it should be prepared and designed by God thus to represent its antitype, which circumstance distinguishes it from a simile, and from hieroglyphic ;-that it should give place to the antitype so soon as the latter appears; and that the efficacy of the antitype should exist in the type in appearance only, or in a lower degree. (Vide Outram De Sacriflciis.) These may be con­sidered as the general properties of a type.

Of this kind are the views given us, in the sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, of the Levitical dispensation, and of many events and examples of the Mosaic history. Thus St. Paul calls the meats and drinks, the holy days, new moons, and sabbaths of the Jews, including in them the services performed in the celebration of these festivals, "a shadow of things to come;" "the body" of which shadow, whose form the shadow generally and faintly exhibited, "is Christ." Again, when speaking of the things which happened to the Israelites, in the wilder ness, he calls them "ensamples" (tupoi) types, "written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." in Hebrews x, 1, the same apostle, when he discourses expressly on the "sacrifices" of mime tabernacle, calls them "the shadow of good things to come," and places them in contrast with "the very image of the timings," that is, the "good things" just before mentioned; and, in the preceding chapter, he tells us that the services performed in the tabernacle prefigured what was afterward to be transacted in the heavenly sanctuary. These in­stances are sufficient for the argument, and, in examining them, we may observe, that if the things here alluded to are not allowed to be type then they are used as mere illustrative rhetorical illustrations, and in their original institution had no more reference to the doc­trines of the Christian system than the sacrificial services' of pagan temples, which might, in some particulars, upon this hypothesis, just as well have served the apostle's pen-pose. But if, upon examination, this notion of their being used merely as rhetorical illustrations be contradicted b the passages themselves, then the true typical character of these event and ceremonies may be considered as fairly established.

With respect to the declaration of St. Paul, that the punishments inflicted upon the disobedient and unfaithful Israelites in the wilderness were "types written for our admonition," it is only to be explained by considering the history of that people as designedly, and, by appointment typical. These things happened for types; and that, by types, the apostle means much more than a general admonitory correspondence between disobedience and punishment, which many other circumstance might just as well have afforded; ho adds, that " they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come," that is, for the admonition of Christians who had entered into the obligations of the new dispensation. For this purpose they were recorded; by their act of God they were made types in the highest sense; and could not become types in the sense of mere figurative illustration, which would have been contingent upon this rhetorical use being made of them by some subsequent writer. This is farther confirmed also by the preceding verses, in which the apostle calls the manna which can only be understood of it as being a type of the bread which came down from heaven, even Christ, who, in allusion to the same fact, so designates himself. The "rock," too, is called the spiritual rock, and that rock, adds the apostle, "was Christ;" but in what conceivable meaning, except as it was an appointed type of him?

This is St. Paul's general description of the typical character of "the Church in the wilderness." In the other passages quoted, he adduces, in particular, the Levitical services. He calls the ceremonial of the law "a shadow," (skia) in the Epistle to the Colossians, he opposes this shadow to "the body;" in that to tine Hebrews, to "the very image ;" by which he obviously means the reality of "the good things" adumbrated, or their essential form or substance. Now whether we take the word skia for the shadow of the body of man; or for a faint delineation, or sketch, to be succeeded by a finished picture, it is clear, that whatever the law was, it was by Divine appointment; and as there is a relation between the shadow and the body which produces it, and time sketch or outline and the finished picture, so if, by Divine appointment, the law was this shadow of good things to come, which is what the apos­tle asserts, then there was an intended relation of one to the other, quite independent of lime figurative and rhetorical use which might be made of a mere accidental comparison. If the apostle speaks figuratively only, then the law is to be supposed to have no appointed relation to the Gospel, as a shadow or sketch of good things to come, and this relation is one of imagination only; if the relation was a designed and an appointed one, then the resolution of the apostle's words into figura­tive allusion cannot be maintained, But, farther, the apostle grounds an argument upon these types; an argument, too, of the most serious kind; an argument for renouncing the law and embracing the Gospel, upon the penalty of eternal danger to the soul: no absurdity can, there­fore, be greater than to suppose him to argue so weighty and important a question upon a relation of one thing to another existing only in the imagination, and not appointed by God; and if the relation was so ap­pointed, it is of that instituted and adumbrative kind which constitutes a type in its special and theological sense.

Of this appointment and designation of the tabernacle service to be a shadow of good things to come, the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews affords several direct and unequivocal declarations. So verse seven and eight, "But into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people; the HOLY GHOST SIGNIFYING this (showing, declaring by this type) that the way into time holiest of all was not YET made manifest." Here we have the declaration of a doctrine by type. which is surely very different to the figurative use of a fact, employed to embellish and enforce an argument by a subsequent writer, and this is also referred to time design and intention of the "Holy Ghost" himself, at the time when the Levitical ritual was prescribed, and this typical declaration was to continue until the new dispensation should be introduced. In verse nine, the tabernacle itself is called a figure or parable: " Which was a figure (parabolh) for the time then present." It was a parable by which the evangelical and spiritual doctrines were taught; it was an appointed parable, because limited to a certain time, "for the time then present," that is, until the bringing in of the things signified, to which it had this designed relation. Again, verse 23, " the things under the law" are called "patterns (representations) of things in the heavens;" and jam verse 24, the holy places made with hands are denominated "the figures," (antitypes) "of the true." Were they them representations and antitypes only in St. Paul's imagination, or in reality and by appointment? Read his argument: "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." On the hypothesis that sacrificial terms and allusions are employed figuratively only by the apostle, what kind of argument, we may ask, is this ? On what does the common necessity of tine purification, both of the earthly and the heavenly tabernacle, by sacrifices, though different in their degree of value amid efficacy, rest? Could the apostle say that this was necessary, to afford him a figurative embellishment in writing his epistle? '['he necessity is clearly grounded upon the relation instituted by the Author of the Levitical economy himself; the heavenly places were not to be entered by sinners, but through the blood of "better sacrifices ;" and to teach this doctrine early to mankind, it was "necessary" to purify the earthly tabernacle, amid thus give the people access to it only by the blood of the inferior sacrifices, that both they amid the tabernacle might be the types of evangelical amid heavenly things, and that they might be taught the only means of obtaining access to the tabernacle in heaven. There was, therefore, in setting up these " patterns," an intentioned adumbration of these future things, and hence time word used is the import of which is shown in chapter viii, 5, where it is associate with the term, the shadow of heavenly things,- "who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things," or "these" priests "perform the service with a representation and shadow of the heavenly things."

The sacrificial ceremonies, them, of the Levitical institute, are clearly established to be typical, and have all the characters which constitute a type in the received theological sense. They are represented by St.' Paul, in the passages which have been under consideration, as adumbrative; as designed and appointed to be so by God; as having respect to things future, to Christ and to his sacerdotal ministry; as being infe­rior in efficacy to the antitypes which correspond to them, the "better sacrifices," of which he speaks; amid they were all displaced by the antitype, the Levitical ceremony being repealed by the death arid ascen­sion of our Lord.

Since, then, both the expiatory and the typical characters of the Jew­ish sacrifices were so clearly held by the writers of the New Testament, there can be no rational doubt as to the sense in which they apply sacrificial terms and allusions, to describe the nature and effect of the death of Christ. As the offering of the animal sacrifice took away sin, that is, obtained remission for offences against the law, we can be at no loss to know what tine Baptist means, when, pointing to Christ, lie exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." As there was a transfer of suffering and death, from the offender to the legally clean and sound victim, so Christ died, "time just for the unjust;" as the animal sacrifice was expiating, so Christ is our ilasmo~, propitiation, or expiation ; as by the Levitical oblations men were reconciled to GOD, so "we, when enemies, were reconciled to God by the death of his Son ;" as under the law, "without shedding of blood there was no remission," so, as to Christ, we are "justified by his blood," and leave "redemption through his blood, the remission of sins ;" as by the blood of the appointed sacrifices, the holy places, made with hands, were made accessible to the Jewish worshippers, that blood, being carried into them, and sprinkled by the high priest, so "Christ entered once, with his own blood into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us," and has thus opened for us a "new and living way" into the celes­tial sanctuary; as the blood of the Mosaic oblations was the blood of the Old Testament, so, he himself says, "this is my blood of the New Testament, shed for the remission of sins ;" as it was a part of the sac­rificial solemnity, in some instances, to feast upon the victim; so, with direct reference to this, our Lord also declares that he would give his own "flesh for the life of the world ;" and that "whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood bath eternal life; for my flesh is meat INDEED, and my blood is drink INDEED ;" that is, it is in truth and reality what the flesh and blood of the Jewish victims were in type.

The instances of this use of sacrificial terms are, indeed, almost in­numerable, and enough, I trust, has been said to show that they could not be employed in a merely figurative sense ; nevertheless there are two or three passages in which they occur as the basis of an argument Which depends upon taking them in the received sense, with a brief consideration of which we may conclude this part of the subject.

 When St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, says, "for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," or "him who knew no sin, lie hath made to be sin for us, that we might be manmade the righteousness of God in him," he concludes a discourse upon our reconciliation to GOD, and lays this down as the general principle upon which that re­conciliation, of which he has been speaking, is to be explained and en forced. Here, then, the question is, in what sense Christ was MADE SIN for us. Not, certainly, as to the guilt of it; for it is expressly said, that "he knew no sin ;" but as to the expiation of it, by has personal sufferings, by which he delivers the guilty from punishment. For the phrase is manifestly taken from the sin offerings of the Old Testament, which are there sometimes called "tins," as being offerings for sin, and because tine animals sacrificed represented the sinners themselves. Thus, Lev. iv, 21, the heifer to be offered, is called, in our translation, more agreeably to our idiom, "a sin offering for the congregation;" but, in the LXX, it is denominated "THE SIN of the congregation." So, also, in verse 29, as to the red heifer which was to be offered for the sin of private persons, the person offending was "to lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering," as we rightly interpret it; but, in the LXX, "upon the head of his SIN," agreeably to the Hebrew word, which signifies indifferently either sin or the offering for it. Thus, again, in Lev. vi, 25, "This is the law of the sin offering," in the Greek, "This is the law of sin;" which also has, "they shall slay the SINS before the Lord," for the sin offerings. The Greek of the Apostle Paul is thus easily explained by that of the LXX, and affords a natural exposition of the passage-." Him who knew no sin, God hath made tin for us," as the sin offerings of the law were made sins for offenders, the death of innocent creatures exempting from death those who were really criminal. (Vide CHAPMAN'S Eusebius, chap. iv.) This allusion to the Levitical sin offerings is also established by the connection of Christ's sin offering with our reconciliation. Such was the effect of the sin offerings among the Jews, and such, St. Paul tells us, is the effect of Christ being made a sin offering for us; a sufficient proof that he does not use the term figuratively, nor speak of the indirect but of the direct effect of the death of Christ in reconciling us to GOD.

Again, in Ephes. v, 2, "Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour." Here, also, he uses the very terms applied to the Jewish sacrifices. How, then, could a Jew, or even a Gentile, understand him? Would an inspired man use sacrificial language without a sacrificial sense, and merely amuse his readers with the sound of words without meaning, or employ them with­out notice being given, in a meaning which the readers were not accus­tomed to affix to them? The argument forbids this, as well as the reason and honesty of the case. His object was to impress the Ephesians with the deepest sense of the love of Christ; and he says, "Christ LOVED us; and gave up himself for us ;" and then explains the mode in which he thus gave himself up for us, that is, in our room and stead, "ten OFFERING and SACRIFICE to God, for a sweet smelling savour ;" by which his readers could only understand, that Christ gave himself up a sacrifice for them, as other sacrifices had been given up for them, "in the way of expiation, to obtain for them the mercy and favour of GOD." The cavil of Crellius and his followers on this passage is easily answered. He says, that the phrase "a sweet-smelling savour," is scarcely ever used of sin offerings or expiatory sacrifices; but of burnt offerings, and peace offerings, by which expiation was not made. But here are two mistakes. The first lies in assuming that burnt offerings were not expiatory, whereas they are said " to make atonement," and were so considered by the Jews, though sometimes also they were eucharistic. The second mistake is, that the phrase, "a sweet-smell­ing savour," is by some peculiar fitness applied to one class of offerings alone, it is a gross conception, that it relates principally to the odour of sacrifices burned with fire; whereas it signifies the acceptableness of sacrifices to God; and is so explained in Phil. iv, 18, where the apostle calls the bounty of the Philippians, "an odour of sweet smell," and adds, exegetically, "a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to GOD." The phrase is, probably, taken from the incensing which accompanied the sacrificial services.

To these instances must be added the whole argument of St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. To what purpose does he prove that Christ had a superior priesthood to Aaron, if Christ were only metaphorically a priest? What end is answered by proving that his offering of himself had greater efficacy than the oblations of the tabernacle, in tak­ing away sin, if sin was not taken away in the same sense, that is, by expiation? Why does he lay so mighty a stress upon the death of our Lord, as being "a better sacrifice," if, according to the received sense, it was no sacrifice at all? His argument, it is manifest, would go for nothing, and be no better than an unworthy trifling with his readers, and especially with the Hebrews to whom he writes the epistle, beneath not only an inspired but an ordinary writer. Fully to unfold the argument, we might travel through the greater part of the epistle; but one or two passages may suffice. In chap. vii, 27, speaking of Christ as our high priest, he says, "Who needeth not daily as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people's, for this (latter) he did once when he offered up himself." The circumstance of his offering sacrifice not daily, but "once for all," marks the superior value and efficacy of his sacrifice; his offering up this sacrifice "of himself" for the sins of the people, as the Jewish high priest offered his animal sacrifices for the sins of the people, marks the similarity of the act; in both cases atonement was made, but with different degrees of efficacy; but Unless atonement for sin was in reality made by his thus offering up "himself," the virtue and efficacy of Christ's sacrifice would be inferior to that of the Aaronical priesthood, contrary to the declared design and argument of the epistle. Let us, also, refer to chap. ix, 13, 14, "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh," so as to fit the offender for joining in the service of the tabernacle, "bow much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works, to serve the living GOD." The comparison here lies in this, that the Levitical sacrifices expiated legal punishments; but did not in themselves acquit the people absolutely in respect to God, as the Governor and Judge of mankind; but that the blood of Christ extends its virtue to the conscience, and eases it of tell guilty terror of the wrath to come on account of "dead works," or works which deserve death under the universal, moral law. The ground of this comparison, however, lies in the real efficacy of each of these expiations. Each "purifies," each delivers from guilt, but the latter only as "pertaining to the conscience," and the mode in each case is by expiation. But to interpret the purging of the conscience, as the Socinians, of mere dissuasion from dead works to come, or as descriptive of the power of Christ to acquit men, upon their repentance, declaratively destroys all just similitude between the blood of Christ and that of the animal sacrifices, and the argument amounts to nothing.

We conclude with a passage, to which we have before adverted, which institutes a comparison between the Levitical purification of the holy places made w'ith hands, and the purification of the heavenly places by the blood of Christ. "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore ne­cessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands. which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." To enter into the meaning of this passage, we are to consider that God dwelt personally among the Israelites; that the sanctuary and tabernacle are represented as polluted by their sins, and even corporal impurities, the penalty of which was death, unless atoned for, or expiated according to law, and that all unclean persons were debarred access to the tabernacle and the service of God, until expiation was made, and purification thereby effected. It was tinder these views that the sin offerings were made on lice day of expiation, to which time apostle alludes in the above passage. Then the high priest entered into thee holy of holies, with the blood of sacrifices, to make atonement both for himself and time whole people. He first offered for himself and his house a bullock, and sprinkled the blood of it upon and before time mercy seat within the veil. Afterward he killed a goat for a sin offering for lice people and sprinkled the blood in like manner. This was called atoning for, or hollowing and reconciling the holy place, and time tabernacle of the congregation, " because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." Tine effect of all this was tine remission of sins, which is represented by the scape goat, who carried away the sins which haul been confessed over him, with imposition of hands; and the purification of the priests and people, so that their holy places were made accesible to them, and they were allowed, without fear of the death which had been threatened, to "draw near" to God.

We have already shown that here the holy places made with hands, amid the "true holy places," of which they were the figures, were purified and opened, each in the same way, by the sprinkling of the blood of the victims-the patterns or emblems of things in the heavens, by the blood of animals, tine heavenly places themselves by better sacrifices," and that the argument of time apostle forbids us to sup­pose that he is speaking figuratively. Let us, then, merely mark the correspondence of tine type and antitype in this case, as exhibited by the apostle. He compares the legal sacrifices and that of Christ in the similar purification of the respective Agia or sanctuaries to which each had relation. The Jewish sanctuary on earth was purified, that is, opened amid made accessible by the one; tine celestial sanctuary, the true and everlasting seat of God's presence, by the other. Accordingly, in other passages, lie pursues the parallel still farther, representing Christ as procuring for men, by his death, a happy admission into hea­ven, as the sin offerings of the law obtained for time Jews a safe entrance into the tabernacle on earth. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a high priest over time house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled front an evil conscience, amid our bodies washed with pure water." Thus, also, he tells us that "we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ Jesus," and that as the bodies of those animals whose blood was carried into the holy of holies by the high priest, to make an atonement for sin, were burned " without the camp," so also Jesus suffered without the gate, "that he might sanctify the people with his own blood."

The notion that sacrificial terms are applied to the death of Christ by rhetorical figure is, then, sufficiently refuted by the foregoing con­siderations. But it has been argued, that as there is, in many respects, a want of literal conformity between the death of Christ and the sacrifices of the law, a considerable license of figurative interpretation must be allowed. Great confusion of ideas on this subject has resulted from not observing a very obvious distinction which exists between figurative and analogical language. It by no means follows, that when language cannot be interpreted literally it must be taken figuratively, or by way of rhetorical allusion. This distinction is well made by a late writer. (Veysies' Bampton Lectures.)

"Figurative language," he observes, "does not arise from the real nature of tine thing to which it is transferred, but only from the imagination of him who transfers it. So, a man of courage is figuratively called a lion, not because the real mature of a lion belongs to him, but because one quality which characterizes this animal belongs to him in an eminent degree, and the imagination conceives of them as partakers of a common nature, and applies to them one common name. But there is a species of language, usually called analogical, which, though not strictly proper, is far from being merely figurative, the terms being transferred from one thing to another, not because the things arc similar, but because they are in similar relations. The term thus transferred, is as truly significant of the real nature of the thing, in the relation in which it stands, as it could be, were it the primitive and proper word. Thus the term foot properly signifies the lower extremity of an animal, or that on which it stands; but, because the lower extremity or base of a mountain is to the mountain what the foot is to the animal, it is therefore called the same name, and time term thus applied is significant of something real, something which, if not a foot in strict propriety of speech, is, nevertheless truly so, considered with respect to the circum stance upon which the analogy is founded. But this mode of expression is more common with respect to our mental and intellectual faculties and operations, which we are wont to denominate by words borrowed from similar functions of the bodily organs amid corresponding attributes of material things. Thus to see, is properly to acquire impressions of sensi­ble objects by the organs of sight; but to the mind is also attributed an eye, with which we are analogically said to see objects intellectual. In like manner, great and little, equal and unequal, smooth and rough, sweet and sour, are properly attributes of material substances; but they are analogically ascribed to such as are immaterial; for without intending a figure, we speak of a great mind, and a little mind; and the natural temper of one man is said to be equal, smooth, and sweet, while that of another is called unequal, rough, and sour. And if we thus express such intellectual things as fall more immediately under our observation, we cannot wonder that timings spiritual and Divine, which are more removed from our direct inspection, should be exhibited to our apprehension in the same manner. The conceptions which we thus form, may be imperfect and inadequate; but they are, nevertheless, just and true, consequently the language in which they are expressed, although borrowed, is not merely figurative, but is significant of something real in time things concerned."

To apply this to the case before us, the blood or life of Christ is called our ransom and the price of our redemption. Now, admitting that these expressions are not to be understood literally, does it follow that they contain mere figure and allusion? By no means. They con­tain truth and reality. Christ came to redeem us from the power of sin and Satan, by paying for our deliverance no less a price than his own blood. "In him we have redemption through his blood." "The Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many;" and we are taught, by this representation, that the blood of Christ, in the deliverance of sinful minim, corresponds to a price or ransom in the deliverance of a captive, and consequently is a price or ransom, if not literally, at least really and truly.

When Christ is called "our passover," the same analogical use of terms is manifest, and in several other passages which will be familiar to the reader; but we hesitate to apply the same rule of interpretation throughout, and to say with the author just quoted, and Archbishop Magee, who refers to him on this point with approbation, that Christ is called a "sin offering" and a "sacrifice" analogically. These terms, on the contrary, are used properly, and must be understood literally. ­For what was an expiatory sacrifice under line law, but the offering of the life of an innocent creature in tine place of the guilty, and, that, in order to obtain his exemption from death? The death of Christ is as literally an offering of himself "the just for the unjust," to exempt the latter from death. The legal sin offerings cleansed the body and quali­fied for the ceremonial worship prescribed by the law; mid the blood of Christ as truly purifies the conscience and consecrates to the spirit­ual service required by the Gospel. The circumstances differ, but the things themselves are not so much analogical as identical in their nature, though differing in circumstances, that is, so far as the legal sacrifices had any efficacy, per se; but, in another and a higher view, the sacrifice of Christ was the only true sacrifice, and the Levitical ones were but the appointed types of that. If, therefore, in this argument, we may refer to the Mosaic sacrifices, to fix the sense in which the New Testament uses the sacrificial terms in which it speaks of the death of Christ, against an objector; yet, in fact, the sacrifices of the law are to be interpreted by time sacrifice of Christ, and not the latter by them.- They are rather analogical with it, than it with them. There was a previous ordination of pardon through the appointed sacrifice of the Lamb of God, "slain from the foundation of the world," to which they all, in different degrees, referred, and of which they were but the visible and sensible monitors "for the time present."

As to the objection, that the Jewish sacrifices had no reference to the expiation of moral transgression, we observe,

1. That a distinction is to be made between sacrifice as a part of the theo-political law of the Jews, and sacrifice as a consuetudinary rite, practised by their fathers, and by them also previous to the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, and taken up into the Mosaic institute. This was continued partly on its original ground, and partly, and with addi­tions, as a branch of tine polity under which the Jews were placed. With this rite they were familiar before the law, and even before the exodus from Egypt. "Let us go," says Moses to Pharaoh, "we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword." Here sacrifice is spoken of, and that with reference to expiation, or the averting of the Divine displeasure. There is in this, too, an acknowledgment of offences, as the reason of sacrificing; but these offences could not be against the forms and ceremonies of an institute which did not then exist, and must, therefore, have been moral offences. We may add to this, that in the books of Leviticus and Exodus, Moses speaks of sacrifices as a previous practice, and, in some cases, so far from proscribing the act, does no more than regulate the mode. "If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male." Had their sacrifices, therefore, reference only to cases of ceremonial offence, then it would follow that they had been deprived of the worship of their ancestors, which respected the obtaining of the Divine favour in the forgiveness of moral offences, and that they obtained, as a substitute, a kind of worship which respected only ceremonial cleansings, and a ceremonial reconciliation. They had this, manifestly, as the type of something higher; and the had also the patriarchal riles with renewed sanctions and under new regulations; and thus there was a real advance in the spirituality of their worship, while it became, at the same time, more ceremonial and exact.

2.   That the offerings which were formerly prescribed under the law had reference to moral transgressions, as welt as to external aberrations from the purity and exactness of the Levitical ritual.

"Atonement" is said to be made "for sins committed against any of the commandments of the Lord." It appears also, that sins of "ignorance" included all sins which were lint ranked in the class of "presumptuous sins," or those to which death was inevitably annexed by the civil law, and, therefore, must have included many cases of moral transgression. For some specific instances of this kind, sin offerings were enjoined, such as lying, theft, fraud, extortion, and perjury.[2]

3.   That if all the sin offerings of the Levitical institute had respected legal atonement and ceremonial purification, nothing could have been collected from that circumstance to invalidate tile true sacrifice of Christ. It is of the nature of a type to be inferior in efficacy to the antitype; and the Apostle Paul himself argues, from the invalidity of Levitical sacrifices to take away guilt from the conscience, the superior efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. It follows, then, that as truly as they were legal atonements, so truly was Christ's death a moral atonement; as truly as they purified the flesh, so truly did his sacrifice purify the conscience.