have laid down his life in behalf of mankind. It deserves, then, our especial consideration, that the author of the Epistle from which the text is taken, attributes to the sacrifice of Christ a peculiar virtue to take away sins, which the Mosaic offerings are understood to have merely suggested to the apprehension, or to have indicated by a symbolical representation. This single fact, we apprehend, is sufficient to prove that the death of Christ was strictly vicarious, in procuring the remission of sin, because, unless our Lord died as a substitute for the sinner, and thus effected in reality that which the victim on the Jewish altar presented in a symbol, and of which it could only excite the idea, it must appear impossible to determine that specific property of the blood of Christ to take away sins, in which the blood of bulls and of goats was deficient; since it is in the precise condition of a victim that this peculiar and eminent quality is ascribed to Him.

Those, however, who reject the received doctrine of the Atonement-besides endeavouring in other ways to reduce, as much as possible, the dignity and importance of the sacrificial rite-are unwilling to admit that it was appointed as a type or prefiguration of

the death of Christ. They contend that the allusions so often made to it in the New Testament, as, for example, in the Epistle from which the text is taken,-are merely figurative; suggested by certain features of resemblance between the death of Christ and the Mosaic sacrifices; and made for no other purpose than to give a more lively and affecting description of the former. In maintaining this opinion, considerable stress has been laid on the Jewish education of the Apostles; which, it is alleged, would naturally incline them to this particular species of imagery. It is essential then to the scope of the present argument, to expose the fallacy of this opinion, and to make it evident that the sacred writers have represented the rite of sacrifice under the law as an ordained type of the sacrifice of our Saviour.

With regard to the presumption, that the education of the Apostles would naturally dispose them to take their manner of description or illustration from the institutions of Moses, we are not left to collect the meaning which their language was intended to convey, from considerations of so general and inconclusive a nature. Though, indeed, we may fairly demand why the education of a Jew should

weigh more in our estimation than the inspiration of an Apostle-why the sacred penman should have been permitted to make allusions, which, presuming them to be merely figurative, are not only strained and insipid, but extensively delusive; to employ illustrations which, on that presumption, are calculated, as we conceive, to degrade and impoverish rather than to exalt our conceptions of the death of Christ, and-which is mainly to be considered-to lead the bulk of their readers into essentially erroneous opinions concerning it. But concede what we may to the bias of a Jewish education, the concession is of little moment: for, in the first place, the particular design of the Apostle in making the allusions in question is utterly foreign to the natureinconsistent with the scope of figurative-language; and, secondly, the fact that the rite of sacrifice under the law was appointed as a type or prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ, is supported by direct assertion in the Scrip

tures.

I. In a simile or metaphor-in any species of figurative illustration, the design of the comparison is to suggest some property which is common to the things compared-some property which belongs to that, whatever it may

be, which is the subject of the comparison, and the image or object by which it is illustrated. Thus, if we may offer an example of a fact so obvious, when Jesus Christ is entitled "the chief corner-stone" of the church, the intention is manifestly to point out a certain property, namely, that of giving support or completion,* as common both to our Lord and a chief corner-stone :-to our Lord, with relation to the church, and to a chief cornerstone with relation to a building. But, unless we have utterly mistaken the meaning of the Apostle, his design in alluding to the rite of sacrifice instituted by Moses, and comparing it with the sacrifice of Christ, is not to suggest a property common to both, and constituting a resemblance between them, but to infer the non-existence of a peculiar property in the sacrifices under the law, which was inherent in the sacrifice of Christ. Thus he alludes to "the blood of bulls and of goats," for the express purpose of inferring that there was a virtue to take away sin, which did not and could not exist in the blood of bulls and of goats, but which could and did exist in the blood of

* The precise meaning of λίθος ἀκρογωνιαῖος, is explained by the Bishop of London-"the head or top corner-stone." (Sermons, p. 83.)

Christ;

for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.". "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."* In like manner, he alludes to the high-priest of the tabernacle, and compares him with Jesus, our High-Priest, for the purpose of showing that the former possessed in appearance only, and not in reality, the essential qualification for the priesthood; namely, the power of effectually interceding with God; and that this was the exclusive and unchangeable attribute of Christ, who, as he writes, "is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him; seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them"..."who needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did once when he offered up himself." The Apostle then alludes to the Jewish high-priest, in order to direct our attention to the priesthood of Christ, in the same manner as a person might point his finger to a statue, with a view to bring to our thoughts the individual whom it represented. The high-priest, in the fulfilment of his office, suggested a prevailing † Heb. vii. 25.

*Heb. x. 10.

‡ Heb. vii. 27.

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