us for his children and heirs; this ought surely to end all disputes about the doctrine of the satisfaction among Christians, and free that doctrine from every opposer, but the open and professed Deist.

To prove the first of these points, it will be necessary to consider what is meant in holy Scripture by a sacrifice for sin, especially when Christ is represented as such. The common method of doing this is, by weighing the nature and end of the piacular sacrifices under the law, in order to come at the right notion of the great sacrifice, and its effects. And whereas the Septuagint translators were obliged to give, for the Hebrew terms relating to this subject, such Greek ones as expressed the same intent or effect in the Gentile way of worship; which Greek terms, so applied in that translation, the penmen of the New Testament made use of in quoting the Old, and in writing to both the Jews and Gentiles; it hath also been thought expedient to search the ancient Pagan writers for the true sense of these terms. The method is good in respect to the one course of inquiry as well as the other, and can hardly deceive him who pursues it with candour and diligence. But we have a shorter and surer method, as you shall presently perceive.

However, as to this longer one, no ordinary reader of the Greek classics can help observing, that they considered the Deity as angry at their crimes, and disposed to punish them; that they offered sacrifices to appease his wrath, and avert its penal effects; and that they regarded those sacrifices as representatives of the transgressor, and slain in his stead. He who, having observed this (which Grotius and Lomierus will help him to do), casts his eyes afterward over the Greek of the Old and New Testament, cannot but take notice, that the same terms used by the Greek Pagans, in speaking of their sacrifices, for remission, redemption, expiation, atonement, &c. are applied to the piacular sacrifices treated of in both Testaments, not only without any warning given to the Gentile reader of a change of meaning, but evidently to the same effect, and in the same sense; as appears almost every where by the context, and by the confidence which the performers of these sacred rites appear always to have reposed in them. On the modest supposition, that the Holy Spirit, in writing to the Gentile reader in terms familiar to that

reader, did not intend to impose on him, we must take it for granted, since no new sense is professedly given to those terms in Scripture, that they are to be understood in the old ordinary sense. Lucian, who had read the Scriptures, must have thus understood them, or he could not have said that Christ, by the punishment of the cross, had introduced into Palestine a new sacrifice or expiation.

We will now suppose a Greek reader of the Old Testament to have taken the Septuagint translation into his hands, in order, by a search into that, on the strength of his acquaintance with the terms relating to sacrifices, to find out the meaning of what is said in the New, concerning the great sacrifice. In the book before him, he sees God's anger strongly expressed. He sees also the sacrifice of bulls, goats, rams, lambs, &c. appointed by the law to atone for sin, and appease the wrath of God, not only for small sins, or sins of ignorance, but for great and wilful sins, such as denying a deposit, robbery, and perjury, even after the delinquent had repented, and made restitution, Lev. vi. 6, 7. He sees, by some instances, particularly by that of the scapegoat, Lev. xvi. 21, that the animal offered was put in the place of the offerers, and bore their sins, just as the piacu lar sacrifices of the Pagans were supposed to do. And, farther, he sees these sacrifices actually taking effect; and the death of men averted by the sacrificial death of beasts, as in the atonement made by Aaron, Num. xvi. 47, 48; in the sacrifice offered by David at the threshing-floor of Araunah, 2 Sam. xxiv. and in various other instances.

But, in the midst of all this, his reason tells him, that a beast can in reality by no means be made guilty of sin, nor become a true and proper sacrifice for the transgressions of men, because utterly unequivalent. The Scriptures of the Old Testament strongly intimate, and those of the New expressly tell him, the same thing; namely, that the blood of bulls and goats cannot possibly take away sins;' Heb. x. 4.

Here it is natural for him to inquire how this seeming contradiction may be reconciled; which if he does, he will perceive, by what St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the sacrifices of the law were in themselves of no value; but rendered, however, in a certain degree, efficacious, as types and shadows of good things to come, that is, of the

true and great sacrifice offered up by Christ; chap. x. 1, &c. In the New Testament he will find all the terms relating to propitiatory sacrifices, made use of by the Septuagint translators, so applied to the death of Christ on the cross, as to give no room for a suspicion, that they are not there applied in their strict and proper sense.

On this occasion he will observe, what I hinted just now, that there was no need to take such a compass to come at the right notion of the great sacrifice exhibited in the New Testament. He will be convinced, that, in all his long inquiry, he had been only endeavouring to trace the substance by the shadow, when the substance itself was openly offered to his view, in such a manner, as to throw light on the piacular sacrifices of that figurative dispensation, through which he had preposterously chosen to examine it. The true intent and use of Christ's sacrifice is to be sought in the plain and literal account which he and his apostles give of it, rather than in the darkness of the legal symbols appointed to prefigure it. The Jews, indeed, as St. Paul observes, might have been thus led by the law, as by a schoolmaster, to Christ;' but we, who have been taught better things, ought not to use so faint a candle to find out what we seek, in the full light of the gospel. The justness of this assertion you will quickly be made sensible of by an easy method, which leaves no room for mistakes.

You have seen already, that God, as a just Governor of the world, hates sin, is angry with those who commit it, and, consequently, disposed to punish it in the guilty. But the same Scriptures that tell you this, tell you also that he is merciful; and hath made an atonement for sin in the blood of his Son Christ Jesus, who hath taken our sins upon him; suffered the punishment due to them; and, if we are not wanting to the conditions required of us, as effectually cleared us in the sight of God, as if we had never transgressed.

Now, that Christ was the true propitiation, the real original atonement for sin, you may perceive; because those essential properties of a sacrifice, which were only either imaginarily, or, at best, but representatively, in other sacrifices, are really found in this, and in this alone.

First, Christ was a voluntary victim, who, from the be

ginning, devoted himself to death for his church; which no other victim ever had a right to do, because no other was the proprietor of its own life. Wherefore, he saith, I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep;' John x. 11. I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again;' ver. 17, 18.

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Secondly, Christ was a victim of a sufficient value. It is not possible the blood of any other, such as of bulls and goats, should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifices and offering (of beasts) thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. burnt-offerings, and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God;' Heb. x. 5—7. Thus we see, that, other sacrifices being of themselves of no value, Christ comes to perfect the purpose of those sacrifices, and to fulfil the law,' as he says himself, Mat. v. 17; in order to which, we see also there is a body prepared for him, that he might be capable of those sufferings, whereto his divinity giving sufficient dignity, the sacrifice becomes equivalent.

Thirdly, According to the property of a true sacrifice, he exchanged places and conditions with us. He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that through him the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, and that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith ;' Gal. iii. 14. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;' 2 Cor. v. 21.

Fourthly, The sacrifice made by Christ was, in a strict and true sense, propitiatory: We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins;' 1 John ii. 1, 2. 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son for the propitiation of our sins;' 1 John iv. 10, by whom we have now received the atonement;' Rom. v. 11. In these expressions the genuine effect of a true sacrifice is asserted in the terms of the Old Testament, but here applied in their proper and immediate sense.

Lastly, The grand end of a propitiatory sacrifice, namely, peace and reconciliation with the offended Deity, is also strongly and expressly asserted in many places; whereof I shall at present only instance two, because they are full and clear enough to serve for a thousand. Daniel predicts his coming, when he was to finish transgression, and make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity, and to be cut off, but not for himself;' and, having offered up the great efficacious sacrifice, was to cause the typical sacrifice, the representative oblation, to cease; Dan. ix. 24. 26, 27. It pleased the Father,' saith St. Paul, 'that in him (Christ) should all fulness dwell, and (having made peace through the blood of his cross) by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were some time alienated, and enemies in your minds, by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproachable, in his sight;' Col. i. 19— 22. In these remarkable passages, the terms properly relative to the great and real sacrifice are made use of in their true and genuine import. The parties, God and man, formerly at enmity through the sins of the latter, are here represented as reconciled, and at peace, by the sacrifice of the cross, or the blood of Christ. Here the true sacrifice is represented to us as cut off, not for his own sins, but to make reconciliation for our sins; on which all other sacrifices were, of course, to be done away. This, I think, is sufficient to establish the doctrine of Christ's 'satisfaction for sin, without going farther.

But, as the adversaries of this comfortable truth have, with amazing assurance, endeavoured to puzzle this controversy with I know not what forced interpretations of all the sacrificial terms thus applied to Christ as the true and proper sacrifice; I shall now enforce that truth by scriptural quotations, couched in terms so common, and so universally understood, as to take away all pretence of doubt or debate among such as retain any sense of shame.

'The Lord,' saith Isaiah, chap. liii. 6, 'hath laid on him [Christ] the iniquity of us all;' and, ver. 12, He bare the sin of many. He, his own self, bare our sins in his body on the tree;' 1 Pet. ii. 24. Christ was once offered, to bear