for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul," verse 11. This passage is given substantially in the same sense by all the ancient versions. The word w, nephesh, which is rendered "life," in the former part, is twice translated "soul" in the latter; and the same uniformity of phrase is preserved in the most ancient versions. Some of them read, "The life or soul of all flesh is in the blood," and this explains the word "flesh" as signifying, what it often elsewhere means, all animals possessing a sensitive life. The passage, therefore, may thus be paraphrased: "The sensitive soul of all living beings is in the blood; and the blood or life of beasts offered in sacrifice I have given to make, by sacrificial death, a propitiation for your souls; for it is by the shedding of blood, the effusion of the life, that a propitiation is made for the soul." Nothing, surely, can more clearly convey the notion of transfer and substitution. The nephesh of the sacrifice is instead of the nephesh of the offerer; and because this nephesh is in the blood, therefore blood was sacred from ordinary uses. The life of the victim was the appointed means by which propitiation was to

be made for the life of man.

Life for life, soul for soul, the sacrifice for the sacrificer.

The primary, or, as some critics call it, the formal, signification of the word

copher,

here rendered "atonement," is "to cover; hence the mercy seat, which covered the ark of the covenant, is expressed by it. Now as the cover of any thing conceals from the eye all that is beneath it, so is the life of the victim in the passage before us represented as covering the soul from the stroke of divine justice. The blood interposes between God and the sinner, as a surety between a judge and a criminal, or a substitute between the executioner and the convict. The soul is given as a covering for the soul. Then, in continuation of the same meaning, the word is employed to signify that which propitiates, renders a being not only placable, but actually complacent towards another. This is its regular acceptation when applied to the Levitical rites; and here I cannot but remark, that it perfectly corresponds with the Greek word ιλασκω, or aqua, which, with its derivatives, is used by the LXX for its translation; and this is the very word employed by New-Testa-.

ment writers to Christ. "He is the propitiation for our sins." As the shedding of blood under the law was that which interposed between God and him who offered the sacrifice, and as it propitiated the Governor of the universe, even so Christ comes between sinful man and the Father, and hence is called the Mediator. Even so does he, by the infinite virtue of his blood, render God complacent towards the sinner, who otherwise must have stood exposed, in the naked deformity of his transgressions, to the just infliction of the punishment of a violated law. Here, therefore, you will perceive, in both cases, is the notion of substitution, intervention, and propitiation; and these render the analogy as complete as we are capable of conceiving it.

Observe how fully this doctrine pervades the Jewish rites. It was required that a propitiation should be made, not merely for the people, but for the tabernacle and the instruments of religious worship. God, in effect, refused to look with complacency upon any thing which had been touched by the hand of man, except so far as it was purified by the

sprinkling of blood. No part even of inanimate substances could be employed for religious purposes, except there was connected with it the recognition of the great doctrine under consideration. Every thing must present the memorial of man's sinfulness, and of the only method of salvation by a transferred penalty and a substituted victim. The principle was to be preserved even in eucharistic acts, and in many of the civil rites, as well as in those more particularly tending to expiation, and the doctrine that it is blood which makes atonement for the life, extended to ordinary food and the daily habits of men.

It may, I think, be safely affirmed, that no system could be more fully saturated, if I may so speak, with the memorials of expiation by blood than that of the Israelites; but while this principle presented itself on every hand, there were certain rites to which its exposition peculiarly belonged, and to which it was, in a great degree, indebted for its impressiveness. To these I may briefly direct your particular attention.

The first of these is the daily oblation. In Exod. xxix. 38-42, you will find an account

of this ordinance. The design of it appears to be twofold. To effect a daily propitiation, and to supply evidence of the constant complacent regard of God to his people. It is not difficult to perceive how such an institution was likely to operate. To the mind of a pious Hebrew, it would represent the necessity of a constant reference to the great doctrine which it taught. It would teach him, that the favourable regard of God was to be obtained only by a perpetual substitution, and that no single day could be blessed, except so far as it was hallowed by the shedding of blood. Upon this were to be founded all those religious emotions which are of the more agreeable kind; the tokens of the divine favour were obviously its result; and thus were taught, at once, reverence for the divine character, and gratitude for divine benefits.

But a still more impressive rite was that of the animal expiation,-a service the avowed and sole object of which was the acknowledgment of transgression, and propitiation for it. The day appointed for it was wholly consecrated to religious engagements; it was a Sabbath of rest. It was also a season of peculiar humilia