Imatges de pàgina
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ciling the world to himself," 2 Cor. v, 19. "By him we believe in God, who raised him up from the dead, that our faith and hope might be in God," 1 Pet. i, 21. "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us," Rom. v, 1, 5. They are to the praise of his (the Father's) glory, who trust in Christ; in whom, after having believed, they are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise," Eph. i, 12, 13. They are "all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; and because they are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore they are no more servants, but sons; and if sons, then heirs of God through Christ," Gal. iii, 26; iv, 6, 7. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his abundant mercy, hath now begotten them again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away," 1 Pet. i, 3, 4. "The God of hope fills them with all joy and peace in believing that they may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost," Rom. xv, 13.

3. "Without Christ," mankind are "without God in the world," Eph. ii, 12. If we "draw nigh unto God, he will draw nigh to us," James iv, 8. Now "no man cometh unto the Father, but by the Son," John xiv, 6. "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father," 1 John ii, 23. "No man, however, can come to the Son, except the Father, who hath sent him, draw him," John vi, 44; but drawn by the Father to the Son, "through him (the Son) we have an access by the Spirit unto the Father," Eph. ii, 18. The Father communicates himself to us through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. "By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit," 1 Cor. xii, 13. Then are we the mystical "body of Christ, and members in particular," 1 Cor. xii, 27. "The Father of glory hath made him (the Son) the head over all to the church, which is the body of him (who is) the fulness of him that filleth all in all," Eph. i, 17, 22, 23. Mystically united with this glorious head, in whom as his "dear Son, it pleased the

Father that all fulness should dwell," Col. i, 10: “Of his fulness all we receive, and grace for grace," John i, 16. Now, therefore, "there is one body, and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all," Eph. iv, 4–6. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," 1 Cor. iii, 11; "to whom coming, as unto a living stone, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house," 1 Pet. i, 4, 5. "Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, on whom ye are builded together for a habitation of God, through the Spirit," Eph. ii, 20, 22. "For this cause," says St. Paul, “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God," Eph. iii, 14-19. "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ," 1 John i, 3, by the communion of that Spirit. "I will pray the Father," says the Son," and he shall give you the Spirit of truth; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. At that day, ye shall know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you," John xiv, 16-20. Thus "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, are with us," 2 Cor. xiii, 14.

Such is the manner in which the sacred writers have delivered to us the doctrine of the trinity. That doctrine is never abstracted from the plan of human redemption, but inextricably interwoven with it. As the foundation cannot be destroyed without the ruin of the whole superstructure, it is consistent enough in the Socinians to attempt at once the destruction of the whole fabric.

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CHAPTER X.

Of the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Death of Jesus
Christ.

To place this important subject on its proper basis, and to exhibit it in that light in which it appears in the book of revelation, we must consider the Old and the New Testament as the history of human redemption. The Old Testament was designed to suggest those ideas, and to establish those principles, which should prepare the minds of God's people for the reception of that method of salvation which was to be more perfectly developed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this purpose its institutions were 66 a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image of the things," Heb. x, 1.

That the legal institutions might answer this great and necessary end, the government erected in Israel was a theocracy. Jehovah was their chief magistrate. "The Lord was their king; the Lord was their lawgiver; the Lord was their judge." Hence, when "the elders of Israel came to Samuel, and said, Make us a king to judge us like all the nations, the Lord said unto Samuel, They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them," 1 Sam. viii, 4, 7.

As God was to them in the place of a secular king, he dwelt in the midst of them. "The Lord his God was with him, and the shout of a king was among them," Num. xxiii, 21. The tabernacle was the place where he held his court, and the holy of holies was his pavilion. There the king of Israel resided, and manifested his royal presence by the shechinah. There, as their lawgiver, he was consulted; and as their judge, he administered justice.

He not only gave them political and civil laws, but also instituted a ceremonial, by which in consideration of his dwelling among them, and to habituate them to a profound reverence for the presence of his truly gracious Majesty, he enforced on them an extraordinary degree of external purity. To preserve the honour of the Jewish ritual, and to promote the reverence which was due to Israel's King,

the priests and Levites were appointed as servants in waiting. Through them only the people could have access to their Sovereign, and by them all their offerings were to be presented to him. Those offerings were of two kinds : some were eucharistical, and were offered in acknowledgment of benefits received; others were piacular, and were offered to avert impending evil, or to regain forfeited blessings. This is an important distinction which is preserved through the whole of the Levitical law, and is particularly noticed by an apostle: "For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things (pertaining) to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins," Heb. v, 1.

The gifts which the apostle here mentions were undoubtedly the meat-offerings, the drink-offerings, the offering of the first fruits, the thank-offerings, the free-will offerings, and the peace-offerings. From these gifts, the "sacrifices for sins" are always to be particularly distinguished, as their nature and design were essentially dif ferent. And this difference renders that comparison which, for the sake of reducing the "sin-offering" to the standard of their own opinion, the Socinians make between them, altogether inadmissible. No proof of what was, or what was not, the design of the "gifts," can afford any decisive evidence concerning the design of the "sacrifices for sin.'

"A sacrifice for sin is a sacrifice to expiate the guilt of sin, in such a manner as to avert the punishment from the offender." (Magee.) Such were the sin-offerings instituted by the Levitical law.

The ceremonial enjoined by the King of Israel was such that it was unavoidable in many cases that persons should, on account of some impurity, or the neglect of some of its ordinances, be excluded by it from the congregation, and from all its privileges. That impurity might be contracted by accident, ignorance, inattention, or natural or constitutional infirmity. A breach of the civil code was followed by the same consequences; for, (however as an offence against a brother it might be pardonable when restitution was made,) as it was an offence against the legislator, the offender, as in the preceding case, was not permitted to appear in the congregation till the perform

ance of certain expiations and ablutions. See Lev. xvii, 20, 21. In such cases "all things under the law were purged with blood, and without shedding of blood was no remission," Heb. ix, 22. For these purposes were appointed the various sin-offerings, by which, when the impure were absolved and purified, they were admitted into his courts, and their worship was accepted.

Of these sin offerings the nature, occasion, and design are fully exhibited in the Levitical law of sacrifices. The following passage, instead of many, will set this subject before the reader at one view : "If the whole congrega. tion of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done (somewhat against) any of the commandments of the Lord, (concerning things) which should not be done, and are guilty; when the sin which they sinned against it is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bul. lock for the sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congregation. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the Lord; and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord. And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation; and the priest shall dip his finger in (some) of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, even before the veil. And he shall put (some) of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the Lord, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burntoffering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and he shall take all his fat from him, and burn it upon the altar. And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin-offering, so shall he do with this and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn him as he burned the first bullock; it is a sin-offering for the congregation," Lev. iv, 13-21.

Here we have a full account of the nature, occasion, design, and effect of a sin-offering.

1. The sin of the congregation is so distinctly marked, that to write one sentence to convince the reader that that

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