ESSAY Vl. 173 offered himself up to God for us as a sacrifice ; Eph. v. 2. and his blood was shedfor the remission of our sins, as in the words of the institution of the Lord's-supper, recited by the several evan- gelists, andby St. Paul ; 1 Cor. xi. Is. liii. 10. God theFather was pleased to make his soul an offeringfor sin. Our salvation this way has the same names as nutter the former head, viz. the washing away our sins by his blood ; Rev, i. 5. The fórgireness of sin, reconciliation to God, eve. Our faith is called faith or trust in his blo4d as our propitiation ; Rom. iii. 24. It is a dependence on the virtue and efficacy of this blood of Christ, for the procuring our pardon : It is a sort of confession of our sins over the head of the sacrifice, which was an ancient ceremony in the levitical law, sometimes performed by the offender, and sometimes by the priest, where- by sins were transferred to the sacrifice who was to suffer for them, either by being slain, or by being sent into the land of separation and destruction ; Lev. i. 4. and iii. 13. and v. 6. and xvi. 21. It is as it were a putting our guilty soul's under the sprinkling of this atoning blood, that we may be cleansed front every defilement; and it (loth, as it were, present to God the Father, that blood on which our hope is placed. V. Christ is yet farther represented to us an advocate, which idea is a very different thing from his intercession as a high-priest; 1 John ii. 2. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. The proper design of an high- priest is to transact affairs between God and man, for reconciliation and divine favour, &c. An advocate is a person appointed and chosen to pleadbefore a court of justice against a charge or accusation, and by his pleading to bring off his client with honour, or to defend one who is charged with a crime, from the condemnation and death which might be due to it. So our Lord Jesus Christ, our advocate, pleads against the charges which the law of God, or which Satan, our adversary, may bring against us ; not by pretend- ing that we are not guilty, but by pleading the atonement made by his blood for our sins, by pleading our pardon in the court of heaved, and by pleading his own righteousness, as the foun- dation of our hope ; and therefore as the apostle in this very text calls him 'Jesus Christ the righteous; in Rev. xii. 10, 11. Satan is represented as accusing the saints day and night before God. Jesus Christ is their advocate, representing his own blood, and in this sense they are said to cast down the accuser by the blood of the Lamb, which pleads and speaks better things than the blood of Abel ; that is, it pleadsfor mercy, whereas the bloodof Abel pleaded for vengeance. Our salvation, in this sense, is called freedom from guilt, absolution or acquitment from the penalty, and a vindication of
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