II 228 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST MANIFESTED. of Adam's first sacrifice after his fall from God, and the sense of his anger". 4. It was in theview of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, that all the schemes of the Jewish sacrifices, all the slaughter and burnt-offerings of the animals, and the pour- ings-out and sprinklingsof blood, and the washings with water inthe Jewish sacrifices, were first appointed as figurativemethods to cleanse them from sinful defilements : And the Lord Jesus Christ at last appeared, or was set forth hereby, as the great deliverer from the wrath of God, and as typified under all these figures and shadows. Heb. x. 1 -12. " The law having a sha- dow of good things to come, but not the very image of the things," those sacrifices were allimperfect asto the grand design ; for they could not cleansetheconsciences ofmen fromguilt before God ; Heb. x. 1, 2. In this respect Christ alone was the true sacrifice; Heb. ix. 11, 12. And this wasthe reason of sheddingof the blood of beasts according to the law : Heb. ix. 14, 15, 22. For therewas no remission without blood. The blood of Christ, by virtue of his unionwith the true God, had infinite and immortal value in it. " Christ, the Lambof God, offered himself without spot unto God, to purgeour consciences from deadworks, (or from works that deserve death) that we might serve the living and true God with acceptance :" Thus Israel, considered as a national church, derived this advantage from our Lord Jesus Christ. And it was with this view that the national atonement, or the bullock that was offered every year for the sins of the whole nation, Lev. xvi. and xvii. chapters, attained its proper effect, and delivered the whole nation from national guilt, and that des- truction which the justice of God might have brought upon it for sin. 5. It was in the view of this great sacrifice, slain from the foundation of the world, that God pardoned the personal guilt of men, and forgave thousands of sins under the Old Testament, and spared the guilty, each of them in their day and season, and * As it is generally supposed by our divines, that it was Jesus the Son of God, who, in the name of his Father, appeared to Adam in the garden after his sin, and had this conversation with him; no it is not unlikely that God, in the personof his SonJesus, taught Adam how to manage these sacrifices, by taking off the skins, and cutting the beast into proper parts, and burning them; of which there is a hint given in the Greek translation of the septuagist; Gen. iv. 7. which is not found in the Hebrew original at present, where God says to Cain, if thou hastrightlyoffered, but has; not rightly divided the sacrjfice, thou hast sinned. And if this is supposed to be a true account of thematter, then Jesus Christ himself, in a preludium tohis incarnation, was the first high- priest, and he that taught Adam first to offer a sacrifice, and so,in the sight of God, it was accepted from the hands of him, whom God hail constituted an everlasting high priest; though, at the same time, the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, might be typified by the slaughter and sacrifice of the beast itself.
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