to endure the sufferings with which the Father put him to grief, in the stead of our suffering the punishment due to us for our sins. This class of passages is referred to in the New Testament as being accomplished in the death and the atonement of Jesus Christ. He gave his life a vicarious ransom for many. He was made a sin-offering for us. He died the Just for the unjust. He was made a curse that the curse of the law might not be inflicted on man.

Hence it was prophesied that this deliverance from sin should be on account and for the sake of his sufferings. We were to have peace, through his suffering our chastisement, and by his stripes we were to be healed. To us guilty sinners who had no worthiness, he was to be the Lord our righteousness. It was on account of his intercession that gifts were to be given to men, even to the rebellious. The mediation of Christ fills up these prophecies. It is for Christ's sake that God forgives sin; it is by faith in the name of Christ that pardon is received by the sinner. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin; and every saved man is found not in his own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ only.

All the prophecies of the Scripture form a complete, connected, and harmonious system of truths,* in the

"Since the prophecies, though delivered by various persons, were dietated to all by one and the same omniscient spirit, the different books and the scattered passages of prophecy, are not to be considered as the works or the sayings of different men, treating a variety of subjects, or delivering various and contradictory opinions upon the same subject; but as parts of an entire work of a single author-of an author who, having a perfect comprehension of the subject which he treats, and at all times equally enjoying the perfection of his intellect, cannot but be always in harmony with himself. We find in the writings of a man of any depth of understanding, such relation and connection of the parts of any entire work-such order and continuity of the thoughts-such consequence and concatenation of arguments-in a word, such unity of the whole, which, at the same time that it gives perspicuity to every part, when its relation to the whole is known, will render it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to discover the sense of any single period, taken at a venture from the first place where the book may chance to open, without any general apprehension of the subject, or of the scope of the particular argument to which the sentence may belong. How much more perfect, is it reasonable to believe, must be the harmony and concert of parts-how much closer the union of the thoughts-haw much more orderly the arrangement-how much less unbroken the conse

centre of which is the Lamb as if it had been slain from the foundation of the world. The doctrine, or the testimony concerning the mediation of Christ is the very spirit and life of prophecy, without which prophecy would be a body without a soul. The atonement of Christ is the central point, from which alone the eye of faith can command a view of the whole panorama of prophecy. All unfulfilled prophecy, as well as the already accomplished predictions, have their sum and substance in the character and the work of Jesus Christ. To deny the atonement is, to take away the life-blood of prophecy. The Biblical critics who reject the atonement, like the Jews who rejected the Messiahship of Christ, make the whole apparatus of their learning, to bear against the prophecies which 'predict a suffering Savior, and a Vicarious Sufferer. This fact shews that the doctrine of the atonement is the heart of Christianity. A Socinian divine puts the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to critical torture, with the same unmercifulness and spleen as a Jewish Rabbi would put it. They both agree, like Herod and Pilate, to do away with the claims of Christ, to sap the foundation of Christianity, to throw away the blood of atonement as an unholy thing.

The New Testament regards the whole system of prophecy as having its scope and meaning, its spirit and truth, its life and glory, in the person and the atonement of Jesus Christ. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." To him gave all the prophets witness. Paul witnessed, both to small and great, saying no other things than those, which the prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people and to the Gentiles. The apostle Peter describes salvation as being according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through

quence of argument in a work which has for its real author that Omniscient Mind to which the universe is ever present, in one unvaried, undivided thought."-Bp. HORSLEY on 2 Pet. i. 20, 21. Sermons, vol. ii. p. 22. Ed. 1816.

sanctification of the spirit, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, and then says "of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you; searching what, or what manner of time, the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified before hand, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow."

Here, then, we meet with a complete system of prophecies delivered by various men and in divers ages, and yet pointing to One remarkable Personage of the highest majesty and excellency. These prophecies treat of his person, his name, his character, his work, his life, his death, and his glory; each of them consistent with the others, and one casting light on all the rest. They all meet together and have their full accomplishment in One Person, and in no one else, but in him most fully and clearly. Though they were delivered in various generations, they have but one object in view; and other events are hinted at only as they are connected with that object, and that object is the work of Christ. He is the true Seed of the woman, the true Prophet, the true Redeemer, the true Immanuel, the true Sun of Righteousness.

II. All the truths contained in the ceremonial institutions and sacrificial types are connected with the atonement of Christ.

It is confessedly true that many of the early Christian fathers, as well as many of the modern interpreters of types and shadows, have discovered similitudes, drawn parallels, pursued analogies, and pressed out truths that were never designed by such symbols. But such extravagant deductions of undisciplined imaginations supply no fair and valid arguments against a scriptural, sober, and judicious application of the typical character of the Jewish institutions and ceremonies.*

Among the best works on this subject are, Mather's 'Figures and Types of the Old Testament.' 4to ed., London, 1705; and Dr. D. G. Wait's Course of Sermons before the University of Cambridge, in 1825.' London, 1826, 8vo.

The sacred scriptures indisputably assert that there is a designed coincidence and an intended connection between the religious institutions of the Jews and the essential doctrines of Christianity. Indeed, I might argue, that of so much importance in the system of divine truth, is the symbolical character of the Israelitish ceremonies, that the Holy Spirit has given one entire book -the epistle to the Hebrews, not only to give a distinct recognition of that principle as designed by God to prefigure the realities of the gospel-but also to mark out and explain the relation and agreement between that principle, and the events and the doctrines of the mediation of Christ. Hence the Jewish institutions are called, "a shadow of good things to come, but the body [the substance] is of Christ." Col. ii, 16, 17. gifts and sacrifices of the priest "serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle." Heb. viii, 5. This tabernacle and the vessels of the ministry are called "the patterns of things in the heavens" and "the figures of the true." Heb. ix, 23, 24. The entire constitution of the Levitical law is described as "having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." Heb. x, 1.

The

The body, the substance, the filling up, the meaning and truth, of all these ceremonial institutions, "is of Christ," and of him only. Extraordinary and illustrious characters were types of his person. Holy offices were shadows of his work and undertaking. The Jewish polity was an outline of his kingdom. The distinguished privileges of the theocracy were figures of his glorious rewards, the vicarious and expiatory sacrifices were representations of his glorious atonement. Various classes of types were employed to shadow forth the great truths of our salvation. Some types shadowed that man was a sinner;--others, that he had forfeited his life; others, that another life was substituted and accepted instead of it; and others shadowed that this

substitution should take place in the Messiah, who, according to Isaiah would “make his soul an offering for sin," and be "led as a Lamb to the slaughter." Exod. xx, 7. Lev. vi, 3, 4; xvii, 11; xxiv, 16. Deut. xxii, 26.

The Jewish institutions taught the Israelites no truth which the gospel has not attached to the atonement of Christ, and revealed it, "the truth as it is in Jesus." The very truths that were obscure in the ceremonial types are now made clear and defined by the gospel. And the truths which appeared defective and imperfect in the Jewish ritual, now, in the light of the Christian atonement, stand out in prominent relief, and with a fulness of meaning which they never had before.

The sacred scriptures regard all symbolical truths as meeting in the atonement of Christ. This is evident from the facts, that sacrificial names and appellations are given to Christ; that Jewish sacrifices are represented as shadows of the satisfaction of Christ; that the value which was but nominal in them, is described as intrinsic in the sacrifice of Christ; that the efficacy which was but ceremonial in them, is declared to be real and actual in the atonement of Christ; that the sacrifice of Christ is pointed out as the last that should be offered for sin; and from the fact, that animal victims ceased to be sacrificed, after the Great Propitiation had been publicly offered by Christ. He himself was the truth of them all. He was the true sacrifice, the true priest, the true altar, the true temple, and the true Savior.

III. All the doctrinal truths of divine revelation are connected with the atonement.

All doctrinal truth is the mind of God, the expression of his thoughts; and all his thoughts have a reference to the atonement. The Person of Christ is the centre of every truth, and the Mediation of Christ is the circumference of every truth. In him all truths live, move, and have their being. The atonement magnifies and honors every truth implied in the reality of the ex