law were an abomination to the Lord. As, therefore, we must shortly meet our offended Sovereign at his awful tribunal, let us now avail ourselves of this inestimable appointment, and constantly approach his throne of grace, through our faithful and merciful" High-priest and Mediator; that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in every time of need."

ESSAY IX.

ON THE MERITS AND ATONEMENT OF CHRIST.

THE opinion, that the Deity might be appeased by expiatory sacrifices, has been very widely diffused among the human race; and the attempt has generally been made by shedding the blood, and burning a part of the body, of some useful animal. This notion and practice seem very re mote from the dictates of our natural reason; and it is extremely improbable that they should have been the result of man's invention. We may, therefore, most rationally conclude, that it is wholly the doctrine of revelation, and the appointment of God, handed down by tradition, from the progenitors of our race, to the several branches of their posterity and it is certain, that we meet with it in the Bible, immediately after the entrance of sin. When Cain's oblation of the first-fruits of the earth was rejected, and Abel's sacrifice of the firstlings of the flock was accepted; we may naturally conclude, that the latter was presented according to the divine appointment, and that the former was not. But if we inquire into the reason of this appointment, the practice of the patriarchs, &c. and the multiplied precepts in the Mosaic law, as to this particular, we shall not

easily arrive at any satisfactory solution, except we admit the doctrine of Christ's atonement, and suppose them to refer to him, as the substance of all these shadows. I shall, therefore, in this essay, endeavour to explain, illustrate, and prove this doctrine, and to show its importance in the Christian religion.

The rules and general usages respecting ex. piatory sacrifices, under the Old Testament, may assist us in understanding the nature of our Lord's atonement, of which they were types and prefigurations (Heb. x. 1). The offender, whose crimes might be thus expiated, was required, according to the nature of the case, to bring "his offering of the flock, or of the herd, to the door of the tabernacle." The very nature of the animals appointed for sacrifice was significant ;-not the ferocious, the noxious, the subtle, or the unclean; but such as were gentle, docile, and valuable; and none of these were to be offered, but such as were "without blemish," or perfect in their kind. The offender was directed to bring an offering, in which he had a property, to be presented unto God, and thus substituted in his stead, for this particular purpose. He was then "to lay his hands upon the head" of the sacrifice, which denoted the typical translation of guilt from him, by the imputation to the substituted animal. This is generally thought to have been attended by a confession of his sins, and prayers for pardon, through the acceptance of his oblation; and doubtless it implied as much, and would be attended at least with secret devotions to that effect by every pious Israelite (Lev. i. 4; iii. 2; iv. 4; xvi. 21). The priests were next employed "to shed the blood of the sacrifice;" which, being the life of every animal, was reserved to make atonement, and was therefore not allowed to be eaten under the Old Testament dispensation (Gen. ix. 4; Lev.

xvii. 11). Afterwards, the body, or a part of it, as the fat, &c. were burned upon the altar, with the fire which came immediately from heaven, both at the opening of the tabernacle worship, and afterwards at the consecration of Solomon's temple (Lev. ix. 24; 2 Chron. vii. 1-3). Now, who can help perceiving, that this fire represented the avenging justice of God (who is a consuming fire); and that, when it consumed the harmless, unblemished sacrifice, whilst the guilty offerer escaped, it aptly prefigured the way of a sinner's salvation, through the expiatory sufferings of the spotless Lamb of God? The animal's violent death, by the shedding of its blood, denoted the offender's desert of temporal death; and the subsequent burning of its fat, or flesh, showed him to be exposed to future vengeance: but then, they represented the guilt and punishment, in both respects, as translated from him to the sacrifice, which bore them in his stead; and the whole ceremony, which concluded with the sprinkling of the blood, and, in many cases, its application to all those things that pertained to the worship of God, evidently typified the believer's deliverance from guilt and punishment, from the sting and dread of death, and finally from death itself, from sin, and all its consequences; the acceptance of his person and services, and his participation of eternal life and felicity, through "him who loved him, and washed him from his sins in his own blood," &c.

These appointments were varied, in diverse particulars, as they respected the several kinds of sacrifices; but most of them coincided in the grand outlines here mentioned. The paschal lamb, the flesh of which was roasted and eaten, &c.; and the bodies of the sin-offerings for the congregation, &c. which were burned without the camp, form the principal exceptions; but these variations serve to illustrate the several parts of

that great subject, which was exhibited by them. Even the thank-offerings and peace-offerings, though evidently typical of the believer's spiritual worship, and communion with God, and with the saints, were all attended with the shedding and sprinkling of the blood, and the burning of the fat of the sacrifice, on which they feasted. Nay, the very purifications with water (the emblem of sanctification); the re-admission of a leper into the congregation; the consecration of a priest; the performance of a Nazarite's vow, &c. were, in different ways, connected with the same observations. "Almost all things were purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there was no remission" (Heb. ix. 22). So that this ran through the whole ritual law, and was interwoven with every part of the worship performed by the ancient church of God.

We need not be surprised that they, who over. look the typical import of the ritual law, or doubt of the atonement of Christ, should either consider these institutions as "an overgrown mass of trivial ceremonies;" or attempt to account for them from the policy of Moses; or trace them from the customs of the surrounding nations. But indeed the Israelites were expressly forbidden to imitate the Gentiles, and several institutions in the law were intended to keep them at a distance from their superstitions ; and if any agreement be found in other respects, it is far more reasonable to suppose that the Gentiles borrowed their usages from the Israelites. than that the Israelites were encouraged or required to copy the worship of idolators; and the epistle to the Hebrews sufficiently proves to all, who read it as the word of God, that these ceremonies were shadows or types of the redemption by Jesus Christ in its several parts. Indeed some persons, of great eminence in their line, would persuade us, that the penmen of the New Testa

ment accommodated their language on this subject to the usages of the Jews; and rather wrote agreeably to vulgar notions and prejudices, than according to the true nature of their subject. This must mean (if it mean any thing more than at any rate to evade an argument which cannot be answered), that the apostles were mistaken, or that they wilfully misled mankind; and we may safely infer, from this method of reasoning on such a subject, that the divine inspiration of the New Testament in general, of the epistles in particular, and especially of that to the Hebrews, must be given up by all who persist in denying the real atonement of Christ, whenever this argument is used against them with energy by some able and zealous controversialist; or, at least, they must be forced to betake themselves to evasion, and other ingenious ways of losing sight of the precise point which is contested with them.

As every one of the grand divisions of holy scripture carries along with it the evidence of its own divine original, so it may not be unseasonable to observe, that this is particularly the case with the books of Moses, which some have lately affected to speak of as a respectable ancient composition, &c. yet with very plain intimations that they are not to be regarded as of divine inspiration. But are not the prophecies contained in these books fulfilling even to this day, in the state of the Jewish nation, and of the posterity of Ham? Did not our Lord quote them as the unerring word of God, and not merely as the words of Moses? (Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10; xxii. 31, 32; Luke xxiv. 27, 44.) And can any man believe in Christ who speaks of those books as a human composi❤ tion, which he quoted, and, by quoting, authenticated as the oracles of God? But it is most to our present purpose to observe, that the astonishing coincidence between the types of the law,