they had to go through all the other process of the sacrifice, their hands reluctant, and their hearts broken, and all their soul crushed down by the sad consciousness that these horrid things were the fruit of their sin, and yet contained the hope of their deliverance; who can imagine the extremity of their feelings? 2. The origin of sacrifices we have good reason to regard as from Heaven, and not of men. In the institutes of the Levitical law, the express divine sanction is indisputable and if we go back to the remotest times, we shall find indications of the same authority. The approbation of God is solemnly recorded to the sacrifices of Job and Abraham, Noah and Abel. But, in religious institutions, the Most High has ever been jealous of his prerogative. He alone is competent to prescribe the terms on which he will hold communion with sinful beings; and he regards as vain and presumptuous, every pretence of honouring him which he hath not warranted. The sacrifice of blood and death, if an idea so revolting could have sprung up in a sinner's mind, could not have been offered to God without impiety, nor would he have accepted it, had not his own authority previously pointed the way by an explicit prescription.* The goodness which pitied our first parents, in their fallen and degraded condition, furnished them with clothing from the skins of animals. It cannot, by any reasonable presumption, be supposed that those animals had been killed for food. The strong pro* Supplementary Note IV. bability, therefore, is that the gracious Being who promised the Messiah as the woman's seed, confirmed the promise, and illustrated the doctrine of forgiveness through him, by the institution of sacrifices.* Now all divine institutions are marked by the wisdom of their Author. The sabbath, the passover, the rite of baptism, and all other ordinances of worship, are significant and instructive: it is fair to infer that sacrifices were so too. 3. The sentiments of those who practised sacrificial rites are in favour of our position. The ancient heathens universally attributed to sacrifices both significancy and efficacy. The oldest representations of their sentiments and manners bear this testimony. Of the classical productions of the western nations, the works of Homer are the most ancient; and who, that has read his two exquisite poems, can be ignorant that by sacrifices, performed or promised, the gods were to be appeased, and the pardon of offences procured? The primitive idea of atonement, buried as it was under idolatrous corruptions, disgraced by superstitions, and polluted with atrocities, was not totally lost. Some of the philosophers, disgusted with the vulgar notions, or shocked at the apparent absurdity of a practice, the meaning and intent of which they knew not, expressed their surprise and disapprobation at so strange a mode of seeking the favour of the Deity: but tradition, uniting with the consciousness of guilt and the dread of * Supplementary Note V. + Supplementary Note VI. punishment, had fixed the notion and practice in the minds of all nations too strongly to be eradicated by philosophical speculations. It was a doctrine held even by some of the Pythagoreans, that the purification of the soul, and its union with God, were effected by sacrifices and sacrificial fire.* The modern Jews, though their aversion from Christianity had led them, in various important points, to abandon the theology of their ancestors, have recognised statements on this subject which we may justly esteem valuable concessions. As a spe cimen of passages which might be adduced, the following is submitted to your attention from one of their most learned and approved writers, Isaac Abrabenel. "The blood of the offerer deserved to be shed, and his body to be burned, for his sin: only the mercy of the [Divine] Name accepted this offering from him as a substitute and propitiation, whose blood should be instead of his blood, and its life instead of his life.”† These inferior authorities are valuable, inasmuch as they may be regarded as the distant emanations of primitive truth, communicated at first by the Author of truth himself. To this high source let us carry our appeal. If, in his holy word, we find pointed declarations of the absolute inefficacy of the legal sacrifices, except connected with moral acts and dispositions; declarations addressed to the people whom he had conmanded thus to worship him, and who could not neglect the observance without incurring * Supplementary Note VII. † Outram de Sacrif. p. 275. his awful displeasure;-can we avoid the conclusion, that they were intended to inform the mind, and assist the faith, of the worshipper? Instances of such declarations in the Old Testament are obvious. "For what purpose to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah. I am disgusted with the burntofferings of rams and the fat of fed beasts: and in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats I delight not." "I hate, I despise your festivals; and I will not accept the odour [of sacrifices and incense] on your solemn days. Though ye present to me sacrifices and offerings, I will not accept them."- "Sacrifice and offering thou desirest not-burnt-offering and sacrifice for sin thou dost not require."* By these considerations it appears satisfactorily established that the intention and use of the ancient sacrifices was to be a SIGNIFICANT REPRESENTATION of spiritual and important truth, and that in this view they were understood by those who practised them. ii. We have next to inquire, WHAT truths were displayed in this symbolical language. Let us in imagination view the striking scenery of a patriarchal or a Levitical sacrifice. A victim is selected, the best of the flock or the herd, without blemish or defect. It is brought before the altar of the Lord; its owner lays his hand upon its head; its life's blood flows upon the ground; it is divided, and burned with fire;—while the conscious sinner sees his own desert, and prays,-"Now, O Lord, I have sinned, I have committed iniquity, I have rebelled: * Isa. i. 11. Amos v. 21. Ps. xl. 6. thus and thus have I done. But I return in repent ance to thy presence; and be this my expiation! Could it have been difficult to perceive the solemn meaning of this significant action? Or was it possible for a serious and thinking mind to avoid recognising and deeply feeling principles such as these?-That sin is an offence against the blessed God, most heinous in its evil nature, aggravated in its inseparable though varying circumstances, and absolutely insufferable before his holy presence:- that the essential righteousness of Jehovah renders it necessary and inevitable that sin should be punished :-that death, in all its tremendous meaning and extent, is the proper punishment of sin :—that the sinner is totally unable, by any powers or resources of his own, to escape the punishment due to his offence :-yet that God is full of mercy, and graciously willing to pardon the guilty offender :—that the way of pardon is through the substitution and sufferings of a piacular victim :—and that, on the part of the suitor for pardoning mercy, there must be such a proprietorship in the victim as to create a beneficiary interest; and such a moral disposition as cordially acquiesces in the punitive acts of divine justice.† * An ancient Jewish form, on sacrificial occasions; in Outram, p. 273. I have great satisfaction in adding an elucidation and confirmation of these sentiments, by so distinguished an orientalist and biblical scholar as Sir John David Michaelis : and the passage is further valuable as giving a concise and luminous statement of the purpose intended to be answered by the most considerable parts of the ceremonial law. "Gal. iii. 19. (PARAPHRASE.) But, it may be said, still the law has been once given: what then is its object? I answer; |