which shall be applied in his own time and way: Nevertheless others, as a consequence hereof, are made partakers of some blessings of common providence, so far as they are subservient to the salvation of those, for whom he gave himself a ransom.

ture of any, it may be replied, that it will more reasonably follow, that it was of the nature of all. Resembling that of the Passover, inasmuch as by it we were delivered from an evil yet greater than that of Egyptian bondage; partaking the nature of the sin offering, as being accepted in expiation of transgression; and similar to the institution of the scape-gout, as bearing the accumulated sins of all: may we not reasonably suppose that this one great sacrifice contained the full import and completion of the whole sacrificial system? And that so far from being spoken of in figure, as bearing some resemblance to the sacrifices of the law, they were on the contrary, as the apostle expressly tells us, but figures, or faint and partial representations of this stupendous sacrifice which had been ordained from the beginning? And besides, it is to be remarked in general, with respect to the figurative application of the sacrificial terms to the death of Christ; that the striking resemblance between that and the sacrifices of the law, which is assigned as the reason of such application, would have produced just the contrary effect upon the sacred writers; since they must have been aware that the constant use of such expressions, aided by the strength of the resemblance, must have laid a foundation for error, in that which constitutes the main doctrine of the Christian faith. Being addressed to a people whose religion was entirely sacrificial, in what but the obvious and literal sense, could the sacrificial representation of the death of Christ have been understood?

We come now to the third and principal objection, which is built upon the assertion, that no sacrifices of atquement (in the sense in which we apply this term to the death of Christ) had existence under the Mosaic law: such as were called by that name having had an entirely different import. Now that certain offerings under this denomination, related to things, and were employed for the purpose of purification, so as to render them fit instruments of the ceremonial worship, must undoubtedly be admitted. That others were again appointed to relieve persons from ceremonial incapacities, so as to restore them to the privi lege of joining in the services of the temple, is equally true. But that there were others of a nature strictly propitiatory, and ordained to avert the displeasure of God from the transgressor, not only of the ceremonial, but, in some cases, even of the moral law, will appear manifest upon a very slight examination. Thus we find it decreed, that if a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered to him to keep or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, und SWEARETH FALSELY, then, because he hath sinned in this, he shall not only make restitution to his neighbour-but he shall bring his trespass-offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock; and the priest shall make an ATONEMENT for him before the Lord, and it shall be FORGIVEN HIM. And again in a case of criminal connexion with a bond-maid who was betrothed, the offender is ordered to bring his trespass-offering, and the priest is to make ATONEMENT for him with the trespass-offering, for the sin which he hath done; and the sin which he hath done shall be FORGIVEN him. And in the case of all offences which fell not under the description of presumptuous, it is manifest from the slightest inspection of the book of Leviticus, that the atonement prescribed, was appointed as the means whereby God might be propitiated, or reconciled to the offender.

Again, as to the vicarious import of the Mosaic sacrifice; or, in other words, its expressing an acknowledgment of what the sinner had deserved; this not only seems directly set forth in the account of the first offering in Leviticus, where it is said of the person who brought a free-will offering, he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him: but the ceremony of the scape-goat on the day of expiation, appears to place this matter beyond doubt. On this head, however, as not being necessary to my argument, I shall not at present enlarge.

3. It is allowed on both sides, and especially by all that own the divinity and satisfaction of Christ, that his death was sufficient to redeem the whole world, had God designed that it

That expiatory sacrifice (in the strict and proper sense of the word) was a part of the Mosaic institution, there remains then, I trust, no sufficient reason to deny. That it existed in like manner amongst the Arabians, in the time of Job, we have already seen. And that its universal prevalence in the Heathen world, though corrupted and disfigured by idolatrous practices, was the result of an original divine appointment, every candid inquirer will find little reason to doubt. But be this as it may, it must be admitted, that propitiatory sacrifices not only existed through the whole Gentile world, but had place under the law of Moses. The argument then, which from the non-existence of such sacrifices amongst the Jews, would deny the term when applied to the death of Christ, to indicate such sacrifice, necessarily falls to the ground.

But, in fact, they who deny the sacrifice of Christ to be a real and proper sacrifice for sin, must, if they are consistent, deny that any such sacrifice ever did exist, by divine appointment. For on what princ ple do they deny the former, but this?-that the sufferings and death of Christ, for the sins and salvation of men, can make no change in God: cannot render him more ready to forgive, more benevolent than he is in his own nature; and consequently can have no power to avert from the offender the punishment of his transgression. Now, on the same principle, every sacrifice for the expiation of sin, must be impossible. And this explains the true cause why these persons will not admit the language of the New Testament, clear and express as it is, to signify a real and proper sacrifice for sin: and why they feel it necessary to explain away the equally clear and express description of that species of sacrifice in the oid. Setting out with a preconceived erroneons notion of its nature, and one which involves a manifest contradiction; they hold themselves justified in rejecting every acceptation of scripture which supports it. But, had they more accurately exammed the true import of the term in scripture use, they would have perceived no such contradiction, nor would they have found themselves compelled to refine away by strained and unnatural interpretations, the clear and obvious meaning of the saered text. They would have seen, that a sacrifice for sin, in scripture language, implies solely this, "a sacrifice wisely and graciously appointed by God, the moral governor of the world, to expiate the guilt of sin in such a manner as to avert the punishment of it from the offender," To ask why God should have appointed this particular mode, or in what way it can avert the punishment of sin, is to take us back to the general point at issue with the deist, which has been already discussed. With the Christian, who admits redemption under any modification, such matters cannot be subjects of inquiry.

But even to our imperfect apprehension, some circumstances of natural connexion and fitness may be pointed out. The whole may be considered as a sensible and striking representation of a punishment, which the sinner was conscious he deserved from God's justice : and then, on the part of God, it becomes a pub. lic declaration of his holy displeasure against sin, and of his merciful compassion for the sinner; and on the part of the offender, when offered by or for him, it implies a sincere confession of guilt, and a hearty desire of obtaining pardon: and upon the due performance of this service, the sinner is pardoned, and escapes the penalty of his transgression.

This we shall find agreeable to the nature of a sacrifice for sin, as laid down in the Old Testament. Now is there any thing in this degrading to the honour of God; or in the smallest degree inconsistent with the dictates of natural reason? And in this view, what is there in the death of Christ, as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind, that may not in a certain degree, be embraced by our natural notions? For according to the explanation just given, is it not a declaration to the whole world, of the greatness of their sins; and of the proportionate mercy and compassion of God, who had ordained this method, whereby, in a manner consistent with his attributes, his fallen creatures might be again taken into hig VOL. II.

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should be a price for them, which is the result of the infinite value of it; therefore,

4. The main question before us is, whether God designed

favour, on their making themselves parties in this great sacrifice: that is, on their complying with those conditions, which, on the received notion of sacrifice, would render them parties in this; namely, an adequate conviction of guilt, a proportionate sense of God's love, and a firm determination, with an humble faith in the sufficiency of this sacrifice, to endeavour after a life of amendment and obedience? Thus much falls within the reach of our comprehension on this mysterious subject. Whether in the expanded range of God's moral government, some other end may not be held in view, in the death of his only begot en Son, it is not for us to enquire; nor does it in any degree concern us: what God has been pleased to reveal, it is alone our duty to believe.

One remarkable circumstance indeed there is, in which the sacrifice of Christ differs from all those sacrifices which were offered under the law. Our blessed Lord was not only the Subject of the offering, but the Priest who offered it. Therefore he has become not only a sacrifice, but an intercessor; his intercession being founded upon this voluntary act of benevolence, by which he offered himself without spot to God. We are not only then in virtue of the sacrifice, forgiven; but in virtue of the intercession admitted to favour and grace. And thus the scripture notion of the sacrifice of Christ, includes every advantage, which the advocates for the pure intercession, seek from their scheme of redemption. But it also contains others, which they necessarily lose by the rejection of that notion. It contains the great advantage of impressing mankind with a due sense of their guilt, by compelling a comparison with the immensity of the sacrifice made to redeem them from its effects. It contains that, in short, which is the soul and substance of all Christian virtue-HUMILITY. And the fact is plainly this, that in every attempt to get rid of the scripture doctrine of atonement, we find feelings of a description opposite to this evangelic quality, more or less to prevail: we find a fondness for the opinion of man's own sufficiency, and an unwil lingness to submit with devout and implict reverence, to the sacred word of revelation.

In the mode of inquiry which has been usually adopted on this subject, one prevailing error deserves to be noticed. The nature of sacrifice, as generally practised and understood, antecedent to the time of Christ, has been first examined; and from that, as a ground of explanation, the notion of Christ's sacrifice has been derived: whereas, in fact by this, all former sacrifices are to be interpreted; and in reference to it only, can they be understood. From an error so fundamental, it is not wonderful that the greatest perplexities should have arisen concerning the nature of sacrifice in general; and that they should ultimately fall with cumulative confusion on the nature of that particular sacrifice, to the investigation of which fanciful and mistaken theories had been assumed as guides. Thus, whilst some have presumptuously attributed the early and universal practice of sacrifice, to an irrational and superstitious fear of an imagined sanguinary divinity; and have been led in defiance of the express language of revelation, to reject and ridicule the notion of sacrifice, as originating only in the grossness of superstition: others, not equally destitute of reverence for the sacred word, and consequently not treating this solemn rite with equal disrespect, have yet ascribed its origin to human invention; and have thereby been compelled to account for the divine institution of the Jewish sacrifices as a mere accommodation to prevailing practice; and consequently to admit, even the sacrifice of Christ itself to have grown out of, and been adapted to, this creature of human excogitation.

Of this latter class, the theories, as might be expected, are various. In one, sacrifices are represented in the light of gifts, intended to sooth and appease the Supreme Being, in like manner as they are found to conciliate the favour of men: in another, they are considered as federal rites, a kind of eating and drinking with God, as it were at his table, and thereby implying the being restored to a state

the salvation of all mankind by the death of Christ, or whether he accepted it as a price of redemption for all, so that it might be said that he redeemed some who shall not be saved by him?

of friendship with him, by repentance and confession of sins; in a third, they are described as but symbolical actions, or a more expressive language, denoting the gratitude of the offerer, in such as are eucharistical; and in those that are expiatory, the acknowledgment of, and contrition for sin strongly expressed by the death of the animal, representing that death which the offerer confessed to be his own desert.

To these different hypotheses, which in the order of their enumeration, claim respectively the names of Spencer, Sykes, and Warburton, it may generally be replied, that the fact of Abel's sacrifice seems inconsistent with them all: with the first, inasmuch as it must have been antecedent to those distinctions of property, on which alone experience of the effects of gifts upon men could have been found. ed: with the second, inasmuch as it took place several ages prior to that period, at which both the words of scripture, and the opinions of the wisest commentators have fixed the permission of animal food to man: with the third, inasmuch as the language, which scripture expressly states to have been derived to our first parents from divine instruction, cannot be supposed so defective in those terms that related to the worship of God, as to have rendered it necessary for Abel to call in the aid of actions, to express the sentiment of gratitude or sorrow; and still less likely is it that he would have resorted to that species of action, which in the eye of reason, must have appeared displeasing to God, the slaughter of an uncffending animal.

To urge these topics of objection in their full force, against the several theories I have mentioned, would lead to a discussion far exceeding the due limits of a discourse from this place. I therefore dismiss them for the present. Nor shall I, in refutation of the general idea of the human invention of sacrifice, enlarge upon the universality of the practice; the sameness of the notion of its efficacy, pervading nations and ages the most remote; and the unreasonbleness of supposing any natural connexion between the slaying of an animal, and the receiving pardon for the violation of God's laws, all of which appear decisive against that idea. But, as both the general idea and the particular theories which have endeavoured to reconcile to it the nature and origin of sacrifice, have been caused by a departure from the true and only source of knowledge; let us return to that sacred fountain, and whilst we endeavour to establish the genuine scripture notion of sacrifice, at the same time provide the best refutation of every other.

It requires But little acquaintance with scripture to know that the lesson which it every where inculcates, is, that man by disobedience had fallen under the displeasure of his Maker; that to be reconciled to his favour, and restored to the means of acceptable obedience, a Redeemer was appointed, and that this Redeemer laid down his life to procure for repentant sinners forgiveness and acceptance. This surrender of life has been called by the sacred writers a sacrifice; and the end attained by it, expiation or atonement. With such as have been desirous to reduce Christianity to a mere moral system, it has been a favourite object to represent this sacrifice as entirely figurative founded only in allusion and similitude to the sacrifices of the law; whereas, that this is spoken of by the sacred writers, as a real and proper sacrifice, to which those under the law bore respect but as types or shadows, is evident from various passages of holy writ, but more particularly from the epistle to the Hebrews; in which it is expressly said, that the law having a shadow of good things to come, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers there. unto perfect ;-but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God. And again, when the writer of this epistle speaks of the high-priest entering into the holy of holies with the blood of the sacrifice, he asserts, that this was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect; but Christ being come, an high priest of good things to come; not by the blood of goats

This is affirmed by many, who maintain universal redemption. which we must take leave to deny. And they farther add, as an explication hereof, that Christ died that he might put all

and calves, but by his own blood, he entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us;, ; for, he adds, if the blood of bulls and of gouts sanctifeth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? It must be unnecessary to detail more of the numerous passages which go to prove that the sacrifice of Christ was a true and effective sacrifice, whitst those of the law were but faint representations, and madequate copies, intended for its introduction.

Now, if the sacrifices of the Law appear to have been but preparations for this one great sacrifice, we are naturally led to consider whether the same may not be asserted of sacr fice from the beginning: and whether we are not warranted by scripture, in pronouncing the entire rite to have been ordained by God, as a type of that ONE SACRIFICE, in which all others were to have their consummation. That the institution was of divine ordinance, may, in the first instance, be reasonably inferred from the strong and sensible attestation of the divine acceptance of sacrifice in the case of Abel, again in that of Noah, afterwards in that of Abraham, and also from the systematic establishment of it by the same divine authority, in the dispensation of Moses. And whether we consider the book of Job as the production of Moses; or of that pious worshipper of the true God, among the descendants of Abraham, whose name it bears; or of some other person who lived a short time after, and composed it from the materials left by Job himself; the representation there made of God, as prescribing sacrifices to the friends of Job, in every supposition exhibits a strong authority, and of high antiquity, upon this question.

These few facts, which I have stated, unaided by any comment, and abstracting altogether from the arguments which embarrass the contrary hypothesis, and to which I have already alluded, might perhaps be sufficient to satisfy an inquiring and candid mind, that sacrifice must have had its origin in DIVINE INSTITUTION. But if in addition, this rite, as practised in the earliest ages, shall be found connected with the sacrifice of Christ, confessedly of divine appointment: little doubt can reasonably remain on this head. Let us then examine more particularly the circumstance of the first sacrifice offered up by Abel.

It is clear from the words of scripture, that both Cain and Abel made obla tions to the Lord. It is clear also, notwithstanding the well known fanciful interpretation of an eminent commentator, that Abel's was an animal sacrifice. It is no less clear, that Abel's was accepted, whilst that of Cain was rejected. Now what could have occasioned the disumction? The acknowledgment of the Supreme Being and of his universal dominion, was no less strong in the offering of the fruits of the earth by Cam, than in that of the firstlings of the flock by Abel: the intrinsic efficacy of the gift must have been the same in each, each giving of the best that he possessed; the expression of gratitude, equally significant and fore ble in both. How then is the difference to be explained? If we look to the writer to the Hebrews, he informs us, that the ground on which Abel's oblation was preferred to that of Cain, was, that Abel offered his in faith; and the criterion of this faith also appears to have been, in the opinion of this writer, the amimal sacrifice. The words are remarkable-By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. The words bere translated, a more excellent sacrifice, are in an early version rendered a much more sacrifice, which phrase, though uncouth in form, adequately conveys the original. The meaning then is, that by faith Abel offered that which was much more of the true nature of sacrifice than what had been offered by Cain. Abel consequently was directed by faith, and this faith was manifested in the nature of his offering. What then are we to infer?--Without some revelation granted, some assurance held out as the object of faith, Abel could not have exercised this virtue: and without some peculiar