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sER!1I. 1.3
INWARD WITNESS
TO
CHRISTIANITY.
Li
men, could
never
acquaint
us
with the
foundation
of
divine
forgiveness, nor
shew us
any merit
sufficient
to
procure
it;
and
in
this sense
we
are
left
at
a
loss in
all
other
religions, upon
what
ground
we
could expect
par-
don
from
God
:
For
they knew
nothing
of
an atonement
equal
to
our
guilt;
nothing
of
a satisfaction
great
as
our
offences,
and
that
could answer the
high
demands
of
infinite
and
offended
justice. Mankind
found
out
by
reason, and
by the stings
and disquietudes
of
a-
guilty
conscience,
that
there
was
an
offended
God
in
heaven;
and
in several
countries
they followed the
dictates
of
a
wild
and
uneasy imagination, inventing an endless
va-
riety
of
methods
to
appease the angry
Deity.
What
multitudes
of
rams,
and
goats,
and thousands of
larger
cattle, were
cut
to
pieces,
and burnt,
to
atone
for
the
sins
of
men
?
What
deluges
of
blood have overflowed
their altars? What
fanciful sprinklings,
and vast
efflu-
sions
of
wine
and
oil
?
The
first
-born
son for
the
trans-
gression
of
the father,
and
the
fruit
of
the body
for
the
sin
of
the
soul
?
What
cruel practices on
their
own
flesh
?
What
cuttings and burnings
to
procure
pardon?
And
yet,
after
all,
no true
peace,
nor reasonable hope.
The Jewish
religion indeed
was
invented
by
God
him-
self,
and it contained
in
it
the
way
of
obtaining pardon,
but it
was
vailed
and darkened
by
many types
and
sha-
dows
:
though
it
was
not
defective
as
to
real pardon,
yet
it
was
very defective as to solid
peace; therefore the
apostle
tells
us,
Heb.
x.
t,
2, &c.
The law
having
a
shadow
of
good
things
to
come,
and
not the very
image
of
the things,
can never,
with
those sacrifices which
they
offered
year
by
year
continually,
make
the
comers
there-
untoperfect,
¿c.
The
sense
of
which,
compared
with
the
following verses,
is
plainly
this,
Those
sacrifices,
that
were
so
often repeated,
could
never
perfectly
take
away the
conscience
of
guilt:
there
still
remained
some
trembling
fears, some
uneasy doubts,
some
painful con-
cern
of
mind,
whether their iniquities
should
be
entirely
cancelled or
no
:
because they were convinced
that
the
blood
of
bulls
and goats could
not
do
it,
and
they
could
not
fully
and
plainly
see
the blood
of
Jesus,
the
Son
of
God, the
Saviour.
Dark
hints,
and obscure notices
of
such a Messiah,
and
such
a
sacrifice, they had
;
but