CHAPTER III. THE HEBREW SACRIFICES FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW. THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THEIR TRUE COMPLEMENT. WHEN we consider the bearings of the Mosaic laws on the religion of Christ, it is impossible to avoid a careful attention to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which so clearly sets forth the unity of design between the different revelations, and the manner in which the institutions of the former prefigured and led up to the higher, purer, and holier covenant of the Gospel. The mode in which the author deals with the highest subjects and persons bespeaks for him the position of one of the revelations had been made, and whose mind was disembarrassed from the prejudices of the past, and accepted without reserve the fully developed light and spirit of the Gospel. Who else could venture on language like the opening verses of this book; or those words in the second chapter, "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb. ii. 10). To him the transition from the Law to the Gospel is perfectly natural and necessary. As the morning dawn passes on into the perfect day, so the Law, having done its preparatory work, merges into the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ; or, to use the author's own simile, the Law decays, waxes old, and vanishes away just as the glory of the Gospel appears. The one must increase, the other decrease; the type be swallowed up in the antitype. Nothing is discordant; everything fits naturally to its bearings on the other. Moses as lawgiver gives place to the Prophet whom the Lord would raise up to His people. The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is superseded by the High Priesthood of Christ. The blood of animals, which had no inherent healing power-by the blood of Him, who (uniting the Divine and the human-God and Man), "through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God," "an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour" for the sins of men. The beneficent provisions of the Mosaic laws-of which Moses could say (Deut. iv. 8): "What nation is there. so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?"-give place to the yet purer principles of the Gospel of Christ. Had it not been for the long course of many ages, how would it have been possible in the latter days to establish the value and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ? The sacrificial rites of heathen nations, so degrading to morality and purity of thought and life, would alone have led no one to imagine such a sacrifice as His: although when viewed as corruptions of revealed truth they have, as accessories, a valuable significance. We propose now to look at the intrinsic value of the sacrifices under the Mosaic institutions from the Christian point of view, and the superiority of the sacrifice and religion of Christ, as explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Chapter 1 sets forth that God, who had formerly spoken to men by Prophets, has now spoken to us by His Son, who, being the brightness of His glory and express image of His person, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at Nothing is discordant; everything fits naturally to its bearings on the other. Moses as lawgiver gives place to the Prophet whom the Lord would raise up to His people. The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is superseded by the High Priesthood of Christ. The blood of animals, which had no inherent healing power-by the blood of Him, who (uniting the Divine and the human-God and Man), "through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God," "an offering and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour" for the sins of men. The beneficent provisions of the Mosaic laws-of which Moses could say (Deut. iv. 8): "What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?"-give place to the yet purer principles of the Gospel of Christ. Had it not been for the long course of |