SERMON IX.

Passion Sunday.

CHRIST'S PERFECT SACRIFICE.

HEB. X. 5, 6, 7.

"Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a Body hast Thou prepared Me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God."

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HESE words were spoken of Him Whose Agony and Bloody Sweat, Whose Cross and Passion, Whose precious Death and Burial, we shall so soon commemorate. They anticipate the coming of the Son of Gon into the world. It is Christ Who saith to His Father, "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not, but a Body hast Thou prepared Me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure; then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God." It is He, the Mediator of the New Testament, Who "taketh

away the first"-the external rites of the old Priesthood"that He may establish the second"-the obedience and Self-sacrifice of Christ. He it is Who assures us that "sacrifices and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin," the ancient forms of devotion, are no longer needed.

Whether, therefore, we consider the dignity of the Speaker, or the deep truths revealed, the subject must be worthy of our most earnest and reverent attention. The things compared are the sacrifices and offerings GOD wills not the burnt offerings and offering for sin in which He has now no pleasure-and the Body He has prepared for His Son, Which Body, by a voluntary act of Self-surrender, Christ offers to His Father on our behalf. Let us enquire, then, into the connection between the two. Let us see why there is no more need of the old sacrifices, and what Christ has supplied in their place.

Very remarkable, indeed, is the prevalence of sacrifice.

Go where you will, enquire into the records of what age or nation you please, you cannot name the period or the place in which sacrifices have not been offered. Whether the sons of men were civilized or barbarous, enlightened or ignorant, this was always the way in which they approached the Deity. Every where, too, the same ideas prevailed as to the significance of this rite. The slain victim was understood to be the substitute for the transgressor, to bear his guilt, in some mysterious way to expiate his offences, and to propitiate the object of worship. These ideas were as much implied in the human victims of those who "offered

their sons and their daughters unto devils," as in the accepted firstlings of righteous Abel. Fearfully superstitious as were the heathen, and shocking as were their errors, they never wholly lost that consciousness of sinfulness, and conviction of having incurred the Divine wrath, to which their religious rites bore witness.3

I think that we may reasonably conclude from these facts the universality of sacrifice, and the uniformity of idea respecting its character-that it must have been instituted by GOD Himself; and that wherever sacrifices have been offered, it has been in consequence of an original revelation on the subject. The Holy Bible presents to our view the very first family of our race, and shews that in this way the children of Adam and Eve worshipped GOD. And, indeed, throughout the patriarchal ages, instances innumerable are on record, when God commanded sacrifices to be offered, or signified His acceptance of the offering.

At length, we find sacrifices embodied in the divinelyappointed ritual of the Jews. The Jewish service was designed not merely as a means of separating the chosen people from the apostate heathen, and as a standing

3"By the offerer's bringing his victim, and with imposition of hands confessing over it his sins, it became symbolically a personation of sin, and hence must forthwith bear the penalty of sin-death. When this was done, the offerer was himself free alike from sin and from its penalty. But was the transaction by which this was effected owned by GOD? And was the offerer again restored, as one possessed of pure and blessed life, to the favour and fellowship of GOD? It was to testify of these things-the most important in the whole transaction-that the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar took place. Having with his own hands executed the deserved penalty on the victim, the offerer gave the blood to the Priest as GOD's representative. But that blood had already paid, in death, the penalty of sin, and was no longer laden with guilt and pollution. The justice of GOD was (symbolically) satisfied concerning it; and by the hands of His Own representative, He could with perfect consistence, receive it as a pure and spotless thing, the very image of His Own holiness, upon His Table or Altar. In being received there, however, it still represented the blood or soul of the offerer, who thus saw himself, through the action with the blood of his victim, re-established in communion with GOD. and solemnly recognized as possessing life, holy and blessed, as it is in GOD Himself." Fairbairn's Typology, vol. i., p. 68.

protest against idolatry, but it was intended also to unfold and expand truths which had been impressed on the human mind from the first.

We see, therefore, the value of these ancient offerings. Intrinsic efficacy they had not, but they were valuable as the outward expression of the inward faith of the worshippers-faith in a conviction of guilt, in a need of pardon, and in the requirement of a substitute.1 They were types and shadows of that One Only true Propitiation which the Son of GoD offered on the Altar of the Cross. Moreover, they were a sacramental memorial "shewing forth the Lord's death till He came," much as the holy Eucharist does until His future coming.

Such, then, being the connection between the ancient sacrifices and the Sacrifice of Christ, it is obvious why there is now no more need of them. They were types: He was the Antitype. They were shadows: He was the Substance. They were outward visible signs: He supplies the inward spiritual grace.

What essential qualities then, in which the old sacri

"Not in itself in anyway efficacious," says Archbishop Magee, "the rite (of sacrifice) as practised before the time of Christ, may be considered as a sacramental memorial, shewing forth the Lord's death till He came; and, when accompanied with a due faith in the promises made to the early believers, may reasonably be judged to have been equally acceptable with that sacramental memorial, which has been enjoined by our Lord Himself to His followers, for the shewing forth His death till His coming again." But it has been objected that this is to assign a greater value to these rites than S. Paul allows; nay, that it contradicts the Apostle's express statement, that the gifts and sacrifices offered in the earthly sanctuary" could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience," or take away sin. It seems to me, however, that there is in reality no contradiction; for the Apostle is expressly proving the Sacramental character of the Jewish ritual, by shewing its connection with the Priesthood and sacrifice of Christ. The notion he combats is the very different one that these observances were in themselves meritorious and efficacious to salvation. "What these sacrifices effected," says the Author of the "Doctrine of the Incarnation," "was to maintain for those who offered them a title to participate in the privileges of the chosen Nation, and in that collective worship whereby it kept its hold on the true Sacrifice which once in the fulness of time was to be offered on the Altar of the Cross."