516 THE SACRIFIEt. OF CHRIST. without any thing of an atoning sacrifice intimated therein, this will make hard figures and metaphors indeed, and strainand pervert thewords into sucha far-fetched and distant meaning, as they are not, nor ever were, suited to convey to any person who reads or hears them. Thus much I thought proper to say in vindication of the expressions of Christ himself. But secondly, perhaps Agrippa and his friends will tell us concerning the apostles, as well as concerning their Master, that this sort of sacrificial and atoning language being used by some of the Jewish prophets in their inspired raptures, concerning the Messiah, the first preachers of christianity might imitate them ; and it is well known they sometimes dealt in very far-fetched metaphors. You read, say they, what Daniel speaks, that the Messy h should be cut of, but not for himself ; that he comes to finish transgression, to make an end of sin, and make reconci- liation for iniquity; Dan. ix. 24-26. and Isaiah in chapter liii. 5 I0. especially abounds in this sort of prophetical language concerning- the Messiah ; He was wounded for our transgres- sions, he was bruisedfor our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed: His soul was made an offering jar sin when it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all. It is na wonder now, say they, that Christ and his apostles should repeat such language as this, when they speak of the deathof the Messiah, since the prophets, by their rapturous and timid style, had made this sort of language . familiar and natural to them. It is granted, Agrippa, that this language was as it were made natural and easy to the great Founder and first preachers of christianity, by sò much use of them in the prophetical writ-. ings : But this does not at all prove that these expressions are not used in their natural sense, but rather confirms the plain and obvious sense of the words, since both the prophets, and their interpreters the apostles use the same. For suppose the prophets had usedsuch strange phrases as these, in the midst of their rap- tures, to signify the Messiah's restoring of natural religion, and dying as a martyr for it, could St. Paul and his brethren use no clearer form of speech to instruct us in the true meaning of the prophets, and the business of the Messiah, than by repeating the same sort of sacrificial phrases again and again ? And would neither he nor they ever once tell us, that though they use this sort of sacrificial language, they mean no more by it than Agrippa does.? Were Paul, Peter and John proper interpre- ters to be sent into the world, and particularly to the Gentile nations, to explain the words of the Jewish prophets concerning the Messiah and his great work, if the reformation of natural religion by Jesus Christ be all that the Messiah was to do, and
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