part of the Jewish religion, was typical in its constitution and design. But more—we have, in the following passage, a circumstantial and striking illustration of the fact, that the particular rite of sacrifice was designed to be a type of the sacrifice of Christ:*" For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate." Here it is, in effect, affirmed that the death of Christ was divinely appointed to take place without the city of Jerusalem, which was considered as corresponding with the camp in the wilderness, in order to produce a closer conformity between the sacrifice under the law and that of Christ. For what other reason, however, such a conformity should have been ordained, than that the former was intended to prefigure the latter, we are wholly unable to imagine.

We have alleged some of the numerous proofs which might be collected from the sacred writings, that the rite of sacrifice was significant of an expiatory virtue, operating

* Outram, (lib. i. c. xviii. § 6.)

† Διὸ καὶ Ἰησοῦς..... Heb. xiii. 11.

to the absolution of the guilty; and that, as such, it was an ordained type of the sacrifice of Christ :-that is, that our Saviour sustained the imputation of human guilt, and died as a substitute for transgressors. But, now, if this be disputed, we ask, In what manner is it possible, or can it be conceived, that the sacrifice of Christ in contradistinction to the Jewish offerings could take away sins? It is contended by some, that sacrifice was merely expressive of the devotional sentiments of the persons who offered it: but if this was the whole of its import, we look in vain for that virtue to take away sins, which was wanting in the blood of bulls and of goats, and which was supplied in the blood of Christ. If the rite of sacrifice was instituted for no other purpose than to be symbolical of the ideas and affections of the worshipper of God, it could have been deficient no otherwise than as an act of piety in the offerer; whereas, it is not the offerer of "the blood of bulls and goats," but "the blood of bulls and goats" itself, which the text asserts to have been wanting; and wanting, be it observed, as the result of necessity it being "not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats"-whatever might be the piety of the offerer of it-it being "not possible

that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." This important distinction has been strangely overlooked by opponents of the established creed on this subject: as, for example, by a divine of the last century,* whose opinions afford perhaps the most specious view of the sacrifice of Christ, at variance with the doctrine commonly received, that has been offered, or could be conceived on the subject.

That author makes the important admission, that the sacrifices under the law were types of the death of Christ, and maintains, with whatever consistency, the mediatorial agency of the Son of God; but he will not allow the symbolical transfer of sin to the animal sacrificed, nor the actual imputation of it to Christ in his submission to the accursed death of the cross. He defines sacrifices to be "symbolical addresses to God, intended to express before him the devotions, affections and desires of the heart by significant and emblematical actions." Thus he conceives that the act of pouring out the blood of the sacrifice at the foot of the altar, denoted, to use his own words, "the readiness or resolution, or,

* J. Taylor, in his "Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement examined."

however, the duty of the person who offered the sacrifice, to lay down his life in adherence to God." Again, he argues" that the victim being without spot and blemish, denoted that the sacrificer ought to perform the service or to lead his whole life with the utmost sincerity and sanctity of heart." Farther, he supposes that "the victim represented the person who offered it, and showed the demerit of sin in general, and how the sacrificer ought to slay the brute in himself, and devote his life and soul to God"* (a most infelicitous explanation this, of the act of slaying a lamb without blemish and without spot!) Accordingly, this writer explains the sacrifice offered by Christ for the sins of the world, to have consisted in his perfect obedience and goodness, which was manifested through the whole of his life, but especially at his death. "The blood of Christ" he therefore considers as an elliptical, compendious expression for the perfect rectitude of Christ. Now, apart from many other objections to this explanation of the sacrifice of Christ, which it were remote from our purpose to allege, the author, as we observed, has failed to remark the essential fact, that it is not the defective obedience of the person * Chap. ix.

offering the animal in sacrifice, which, in the text and elsewhere, is affirmed to be ineffectual to take away sins, but the animal itself which was offered, that it was the blood of bulls and goats that was shed by the offerer, which shadowed that efficacy to take away sins which was realized in the sacrifice of our Saviour. This essential fact, we say, he has failed to remark, for it is manifest that the streaming blood of the animal sacrificed could not have symbolized that unblemished rectitude of character which was wanting in the persons who offered it could not have prefigured the spotless purity of the Son of God.

There are, doubtless, other ways of accounting for the influence of the death of Christ in "taking away sins," besides that of ascribing to it an expiatory virtue. It may be said, for example, that the death of Christ operated to "take away sins," inasmuch as it confirmed the truth of his doctrines and the authority of his precepts; delivered as both were to counteract the depravity of our nature, and to amend and sanctify the human character. But the question still remains unanswered-In what manner did the shedding of Christ's blood avail" to takeaway sins," as contrasted with the inefficacy of the blood of bulls and goats? If, on the