pents in the body, and he heals the wounds made by Chap. 7. fin in the confcience. The corporal cure came by the eye, by looking to the brazen Serpent; the fpiritual one comes by faith, by looking to our Saviour for falvation. God dwelt in the Tabernacle and Temple, and in Christ he dwelt in the flesh; not in types and fymbols, but really and hypoftatically; not for a time, but for ever. Chrift is the true Tabernacle and Temple, who hath all the holy things in him. Here's the Shecinah, the Divine Majefty appearing in our nature. Here's the Ark, where the Tables of the Law, broken by men, are kept inviolate. Here's the Mercy-feat, or Propitiatory, which covers our fins, and from whence God communes with us in words of grace. Here's the vail, the flesh of Chrift, which hid his Deity, and through which there is a way into Heaven it felf. Here are the holy Lamps, the Spirit of Wisdom and Grace derived from our Saviour. Here's the Altar of Burnt-offering, the Deity of Christ fanctified his Humanity to be a fufficient facrifice for a World: And the Altar of Incense, the odours of his Merit perfume all our fervices, and render them acceptable unto God. Almost every thing did breathe forth Chrift, and speak to his Honour. He was, in one, all the Sacrifices, and more than all of them. Sacrifices began with the first promife of the Meffiah, The feed of the woman fhall break the Serpents head, Gen. 3. 15: and after almost 4000 years standing, they ended in his death: a fingular respect they had to him, and a full complement in his perfect Sacrifice. Adam and the an- De Sacrif. cient Patriarchs (as the learned Franzius obferves) Disp. 4. used at the sacrifices to speak of the Meffiah and

Chap. 7. his fufferings: thefe being the fcope and ultimate mark of all the facrifices, were not altogether unknown to them: A hint of them we have in that first promise of the Meffiah, the feed of the woman, Gen. 3. 15, who was to fuffer a bruise in his heel, his human nature, that the Serpents, that is, Satans head might be broken. Thofe Ancients knowing fomething of Chrifts fufferings, though imperfectly, and at a distance, did in all probability at their facrifices fpeak of them. The believing Jews did not hang upon the fhadow, the outward facrifices only, but look at Chrift the fubftance and marrow of them; elfe they did, as it feems, worship God in their facrifices in an ignorant manner, without knowing the fpiritual meaning of them: nay, elfe they of fered them up in a mistake, in the belief of that falle impoffible thing, that the blood of Bulls and Goats could take away fin: They knew that there was no remiffion without expiation; they knew, that moral guilt did as much, nay more require it, than ceremonial; and if they knew nothing of an Expiating Meffiah, they fought no further for the expiation of moral guilt, than the blood of bulls and goats. Now touching the Sacrifices, two things are to be noted:

The one is this, there is fomewhat in Christ which anfwers to the Expiatory Sacrifices. The facrifice was to be perfect and without blemish, that it might be accepted; the blind, or broken, or maimed, or corrupted thing, was not to be offered up to God: anfwerably, the human nature of Chrift, which was the great Sacrifice,was without fpot or guile; it was formed by the Holy Spirit, and breathed out nothing but

fancity,

The Sacrifice, pure room of finful defeuxs, the life of a Sutably, Christ the

fanctity, that it might be a pure offering unto God. Chap. Had there been any blemish in it, it could not have been united to the Perfon of the Word, nor offered up as a facrifice to God for us. in it felf, was fubftituted in the ctive men; there was 4ux ali Beast instead of that of a Man. meek, patient, immaculate Lamb of God, stood in our room; he died for us, he gave his life a ranfom ali mov, instead of many, Mat. 20. 28. His Perfon πολλῶν, was put in the room of ours, and his fufferings too in the room of ours. Had he not stood in our stead, he could not have been capable either to bear the stroke of penal sufferings, or to free us from the fame; not to bear penal fufferings, he being nothing but meer innocency in himself; nor to free us from them, he being in no conjunction with us. The facrifice being put in the finners room, had fin imputed to it; they were to lay their hands upon the head of it, Lev. 1. 4 a confeffion of fins was made over the Scape-goat, Lev. 16. 21; their fins were in a fort transferred upon the facrifice, that it might bear them away. Thus it was with Chrift, he was made fin for us, 2 Cor. 5.21. The Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all, Ifa. 53. 6. Our guilt, as it was fundamentum pana, was imputed to him fo far, as to render his fufferings penal; and, as an Ancient hath it, he was delictorum fufceptor, non commiffor; having no guilt of his own, he stood under ours, in order to a glorious expiation and abolition of it in his death and fatiffaction. Sin being charged upon the facrifice, there was deftructio rei oblata, a destroying of the thing offered: fo it was with Chrift, when our fins were

Chap. 7.

laid upon him; with the Corn he was bruised, with the Wine and Oyl poured out, with the Lamb flain and roafted in the fire of Gods wrath, and with the Scape-goat driven into the wilderness of defertion, crying out, My God, my God, why haft thon for faken me? His fufferings were very many and great for us. The facrifice being slain, its blood did expiate fin, an atonement was made, remiffion enfued upon it: Thus Christ dying on the cross, his blood was expiatory, our fault was compenfated, Justice was fatisfied, wrath was averted, and God appeafed and reconciled towards us. In these things appears a fair analogy between those ancient facrifices, and Chrift the great Sacrifice.

The other is this: There is that in Chrift which infinitely transcends all the legal facrifices. In the facrifice there was only a brute in perfection, but in Chrift there was an human nature in perfection; an human nature which had the Spirit above measure, and was as full of grace as the capacity of a creature could hold: there was in his humanity fuch a beauty and unmatchable perfection of grace, as far furpaffed the united and accumulated excellencies of all the Angels in Heaven. The facrifice ftood and fuffered in the room of offenders by constraint and compulfion, it was bound with cords to the horns of the Altar: but Chrift food and fuffered in our room by choice and voluntary fponfion; his foul was not fnatched away, but poured out; his life was not meerly taken away, but laid down; he was under no constraint but that of his own compaffion; he was tied with no cords but those of his own love. In the private facrifice fome particular fin was charged

upon it; in the publick one, the fins of the Jewish Chap. 7. Nation were charged upon it: But upon Chrift were laid the fins of a World, fins of valt diftances, as far remote in place as the quarters of the earth, and in time, as the morning and evening of the world, met all together upon him. In the facrifice there was a meer fimple death,and the blood was but the blood of a brute:but Chrifts death was not a meer fimple one, but a death with a fting and a curfe in it; a death with as much wrath in it,as was due to the fin of a world; nor was his blood the blood of a brute,but the blood of a man,nay of God himself: and what manner of Sacrifice was this! how compenfative for fin! how fatisfactory to Justice! how averfive of wrath! how impetrative of all good! In every respect it was infinitely valuable and fufficient. The Sacrifice fro modo did expiate fin, it took away civil guilt, by freeing the offender from that temporal death which in the strict fanction of the Law was due to him. It took away ceremonial guilt, by freeing him from those legal impurities which excluded him from the publick WorThip; hence the Apostle faith, That the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer Sprinkling the unclean, did fanctifie to the purifying of the flesh, Heb. 9. 13. Thus far went the facrifice, but it could go no further: the moral guilt was ftill unremoved, Juftice was ftill unfatisfied, the wrath to come was ftill unaverted, God as yet was unreconciled; there was fomewhat done to the flesh, nothing to the confcience; fomewhat in foro foli, in the Jewish Judicature, nothing in foro poli, in the Court of Heaven, to give a full fatisfaction to Divine Juftice. Hence the Apoftle faith, that thofe facrifices, though often repeated,

V 2

could