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THE

No. LXVIII.- ON THE DISPROPORTION BETWEEN EFFECTS OF THE MOSAIC AND THE CHRISTIAN SACRI FICES.

PAGE 49. (x)-On this subject particular attention should be paid to the observations in Numbers XXXI. XXXIV. XXXVI. and XXXVII, especially to those contained in pp. 147, 148, and p. 195-197. of this work.

The following elucidation by the learned Grotius, whose unbiassed reflections are always valuable, deserves to be noticed.-Lex vetus duplicitur spectatur: aut carnalitur, aut spiritualiter. Carnaliter qua instrumentum fuit TELOS, reiπολιτείας, publica Judaica. Spiritualiter, quâ σxia exE TWO MEλROITNI, umbram habebat futurorum. Hebr. x. 1. Quod ad priorem considerationem attinet, sacrificia Legis expiatoria sanctificabant ad carnis puritatem, Hebr. ix. 1.-Deus enim Rex Hebræorum (quoniam Legislatori licet suam legem, præsertim pœnalem, nonnihil relaxare) in quibusdam delictis victimas expiatorias admisit vice ipsius peccatoris, et per illas ac non aliter peccatorem a mortis pœna (quæ juxta carnalem sensum erat sanctio Legis) liberare voluit.-In quibusdam ergo delictis; quod ad pœnam carnalem attinebat, admittebatur placamen, redemptio, satisfactio, compensatio denique mortis bestiæ cum morte hominis alioque debitâ.-Victimæ pro peccato ita in Veteri Fœdere peccata expiarunt; nimirum Deum movendo, ut pœnam carnalem remitteret, idque per satisfactionem quandam.

Quod autem typi præstiterunt carnaliter, hoc aVTITUTE, exemplar, Christus præstat spiritualiter; et quod typi in quibusdam duntaxat delictis, id Christus in omnibus, Deum scilicet movendo, ut spiritualem pœnam remittat, idque per satisfactionem perfectissimam. Plus enim, non minus semper est in re typo designatâ, quam in typo, ut ratio monstrat. Commune est sacrificio expiatorio legali et sacrificio Christi illud, quod sine sanguinis effusione non fit remissio, Hebr. ix. 22. Hanc impetrationem remissionis per sanguinem ibidem divinus scriptor appellat modo ayatμor, sanctificationem (13.) modo xabagiuor, expiationem, (14, 22, 23.) Sed in Veteri Lege victimæ erant pecudes, (12.) in hâc nostrâ Christus ipse non sacerdos tantum sed est victima (14, 26.) Legalis illa expiatio hujus cœlestis sive spiritualis rodayμa (23.) et avTITUTO), * exemplar (24.) quomodo? Quia illa præstabat carni munditiem (14.) id est, reatus ablationem, non autem spiritui sive

Grotius has here used the word antitype improperly, and in a sense directly opposite to that in which he has just before properly applied the

term.

conscientiæ (9.) hæc autem ipsi conscientiæ (14.) Quia quod in Veteri Lege erat mors temporalis, hoc in Novo Fœdere est mors æterna. Hebr. x. 29: ac proinde illic liberatio erat temporalis, hic vero auteris, æterna redemptio, Hebr. ix. 12. Quare sicut eodem loco ab effectu legalis victimæ ad effectum hujus per spiritum oblatæ argumentum producitur, Quanto magis, &c. sic et nobis licet hunc in modum certissime argumentari, Victima legalis reatum carnalem sustulit, Deum movendo ad remissionem; ergo multo magis reatum spiritualem, Deum itidem ad remissionem movendo, tollit oblata per spiritum victima.-Grotii Opera Theolog. tom. iv. p. 331-333.

The principles from which Grotius has derived his conclusion are manifestly these. 1. That the expiation wrought by the sacrifices under the law were typical of that effected by the death of Christ: 2. That in every type there must be something of the same general nature with that which is contained in the thing typified: and 3. That combined with this general correspondence between the type and the thing prefigured, there should exist that disproportion which might be expected between the shadow and the substance.

These principles indeed are so clearly and unequivocally laid down by the apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews, that even the great fathers of the Socinian school, Faustus Socinus and Crellius, admit their evidence, and differ from Grotius only in the application. In establishing the correspondence and the disproportion of the Mosaic and the Christian expiation, they urge the reasoning of the apostle no less forcibly than Grotius has done; as may be seen in the treatise of Socinus, De Jes. Christ. Serv. (Opera, tom. ii. pp. 157, 158.) and in Crellius's Respons. ad Grot. (Opera, tom. i. p. 204211.) These expositors, not having been initiated into the convenient artifice, so familiar to their followers, of rejecting the authority of an Apostle when it made against them, found themselves compelled by the plain language of scripture to acknowledge the validity of these principles.

The nature of their system, however, being at variance with their admission, they were led to strain one principle to an extreme, subversive of the other; and by urging disproportion within the confines of dissimilitude, they were enabled to escape the bearings of that correspondence of the two dispensations, which forms the foundation of the apostle's argument, and for which they had themselves in the first instance strenuously contended. For whilst in professing to represent the expiation by the sacrifice of Christ as of a supe rior order to that effected by the sacrifices of the law, they endeavour to establish this by such a description of its na

ture, as devests it of every character which the Mosaic sacrifice possessed, they in truth show, that the death of Christ bore no relation whatever to those sacrifices by which they admit it to have been typified: that is, in other words, they make the Mosaic sacrifices at the same time typical and not typical of the death of Christ.-See this point well treated, though in a different manner, by Stillingfleet, in his Discourse concerning the true Reasons, &c. p. 365-367.

On another fallacy in the reasoning of the above writers, it is also necessary to remark. Whilst they profess faithfully to follow the apostle's reasoning in his address to the Hebrews, they represent the expiation of the legal sacrifice as wholly typical; whereas it was not less real and effectual under its own proper system, than the sacrifice of Christ was under that by which it was succeeded; whilst at the same time it prefigured that more important expiation, which was to be introduced under the new dispensation; all the parts of which, the apostle distinctly informs us, had their corresponding circumstances in that which went before.

Upon the whole then, briefly to sum up the present subject. The people of the Jews being placed under a peculiar polity, whereby they stood at the same time in a civil and a ritual relation to their divine Governor; their offences in these several relations exposed them to the inflictions appropriate to each. The mercy of the Legislator at the same time provided for them the means of expiation by sacrifice, whereby, in certain cases, the corporeal punishment incurred by the violation of the civil law, and the legal impurities contracted by the neglect of the ritual institutions, might be done away. The entire system, however, being but preparatory for another by which it was to be superseded, was constituted in all its essential parts in such a manner as to be emblematical of that which it was intended to introduce: and the several parts of the one consequently adjusted by the same proportions which were to obtain in the other.

Hence it follows, that the sacrifices under the temporal and ceremonial dispensation of the law had a real efficacy in releasing those who were subjected to it from its temporal penalties and ceremonial disqualifications; in like manner as the one great sacrifice under the gospel possesses the power to release mankind at large from the everlasting penalties of that spiritual law under which all men are bound, and to cleanse the conscience from those moral impurities, which forbid all access to that holy Being, who is to be worshipped only in spirit and in truth. The expiation then, under the old law, was no less real than that which it prefigured under the new, whilst it bore to the dispensation, of which it was a

part, the same proportion which that more perfect expiation by the death of Christ bears to the more perfect dispensation to which it appertains. The wisdom of the divine contrivance, in this as in the other branches of providential arrangement, rendering that which was complete and effectual for its own immediate purpose, at the same time introductory and subservient to other and more important objects.

Berryman, in treating of the typical interpretation of the Law, although leaning a little too much to the notion of its being merely symbolical, places the parallelism and proportion of the two dispensations in a just and satisfactory light. "From what" (he asks) "was the offender delivered by the legal sacrifices? Was it not from the temporal death, and the danger of being cut off from the congregation? And to what privilege was he restored or entitled? Was it not to the privilege of appearing before God, and joining in the public worship? What was the purifying or sanctification consequent upon such atonements? Was it not (as the apostle styles it) the purifying of the flesh; an outward and a transient efficacy, which could not reach to purge their consciences from dead works? And why was all this necessary to be often repeated, but because it had no solid or permanent effect, nor deserved to find acceptance of itself? But if we take it in a symbolical or typical point of view, then it leads us to acknowledge the benefit of Christ's redemption, and those invaluable privileges he has purchased for us. That temporal death, which was denounced by the law, will denote that everlasting punishment to which sinners are exposed as such. The legal impurity, which wanted to be cleansed, will denote the defilement and impurity of sin. The outward admission to the service of the temple, will denote our spiritual privilege of access unto God, as well in the present ordinances of his church, as in the future inheritance of his eternal kingdom. And all this being performed by the oblation of sacrifices, clean and perfect in their kind, will import our being redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, for a sweet-smelling savour, and entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, that true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man, there to plead the merit of his sacrifice, and make for ever intercession for us."-Boyle Lecture Sermons, vol. iii. pp. 776, 777.

On the subject of this Number in general, there are some excellent remarks of Bishop Stillingfleet, to be found in his Discourse concerning the true reasons, &c. p. 315–318.

No. LXIX.-ON THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE SACRIFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THAT EMPLOYED IN THE NEW TO DESCRIBE REDEMPTION BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST: AND THE ORIGINAL ADAPTATION OF THE FORMER TO THE SUBJECT OF THE LATTER.

PAGE 49. (y)-If indeed it be considered, that the sacrifice of Christ was the great object held in view in the appointment of all preceding sacrifices, and that these were primarily designed as sacramental representations of that, it will follow, that in reference to it must the sacrificial terms have been originally framed: and that therefore, when applied by the Apostles to the death of Christ, they were adopted, not merely as being familiar to the Jews from their application to the sin-offerings under the law, but because of their original adaptation to this one great sacrifice, in consequence of which they had been applied to the legal sacrifices ordained to represent it. For some valuable observations on this subject, see Holmes's Four Tracts, pp. 102, 103.

And

If this view of the matter be just, it then follows, that so far were the writers of the New Testament from employing the sacrificial terms in mere accommodation to Jewish notions, (an argument much insisted on by Dr. Priestley, H. Taylor, and others, see pp. 33, 34, and p. 146-148, of this work) that they must have used them as primarily belonging to the death of Christ, and as in strict accuracy more aptly characterizing the Christian sacrifice, than those sacrifices of typical import to which they had been applied under the law. From this also it might be expected, that a fuller light would now be thrown upon the nature of the Jewish sacrifice; and the true force and value of the sacrificial ceremonies and phrases, more perfectly understood. this we find to be the case; the language of the New Testament on the subject of atonement being more precise and significant than that of the old. Instances of this may be seen in pp. 199. 219, 220, of this work, and are not denied by the opponents of the doctrine of Atonement, as it has been already observed in the places referred to. Thus then we find the Old Testament, and the New, bestowing mutual elucidation on this head: the rites and terms of sacrifice in the Old, exemplifying and describing the leading principles and fundamental notions of atonement: and the more exact and perfect delineation of it in the New, filling up the outline, and exhibiting the great work of our Redemption, in its genuine magnitude and beauty.