. 1' HE ATONEMENT- ,Ok.CH&rST. CSERM. XXXV. . guage to support my doctrine, and how exceeding hard to construe it to any other sense! It maynot be amiss to subjoin the witness of John the baptist, who was more than a prophet, and the very fore- runner of the Messiah : John i. 29.. "Behold the Lamb.of God who taketh away the sin of the world." Now a lamb takes away sin in no other way than by dying as a sacrifice. Thus our. blessed Redeemer who, once in the end of the world, appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, as a great High-priest, was, as it were, ushered into his office by a long train of types and prophecies : All these went before him, that when his great sacrifice was offered, it might not seem a strange thing, but might . be more easily received by all the world,; who stood in so much need of him, and. to whom the tradition of sa- crifices had been conveyed fromNoah ; and especially by the Jews, who had so much notice of him before, by more express revelations beyond what the heathens could learn by, their broken traditions of sacrifice. V. Our Saviour himself, among the rest of his minis- trations as a prophet, taught us the doctrine of atone- ment for sin by his death, and that in these three ways L He did speak of it, though but sparingly, in plain and express language to his own disciples in private. Mat. xx. 28. The. Son of man cane not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom f for many : And this he spoke a little after he had foretold his sufferings, his crucifixion,, his death, and his rising again the third da.v, 2. He preached this doctrine publicly to the multitude in parables and figures of speech; John vi. 51, 53. The, bread that Iwill .give. is my flesh, which Iwill give for the lifeof the world. Except ye, eat theflesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye. have no life in you : Which can signify nothing but his dying as a propitiation for sin, that we might live by our feeding upon his sacri- fice,. or partaking the benefit of it. John xii. 23 24. "The hour is come that the son of man must be glorified. Ex- cept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it a- bideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forthmuch fruit ;" verses 32, 33. " If' 1 be lifted up from the earth, I will draw
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=