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ourselves a 'religion with which we will require our Maker to be content, but acquiefcing with that which he is pleased to give us, though it be, not indeed contrary to our reason, God forbid, yet in fome particulars wonderful even to aftonishment; let us fee what light may be reflected upon the Chriftian Faith from this part of the religion of the Jews.

*

The offerings which they made of Animals to be flain, may be compre-. hended most commodiously, I think, under three general claffes, to which most of the particulars will be, in fome fort, reducible. At least, there are three fpecies of them very conspicuous, in many places of Scripture mentioned together,

fo

* When Jofephus divides the Jewish facrifices into two forts only, he confiders not the occafion, the intention, the order, or a multitude of other differences; but merely this circumftance, whether the whole Sacrifice were, or were not, confumed on the altar. Antiq. Jud. Lib. 3. c. 9.

Levit. ii.

I, 13.

fo as to be distinguished from each other, and in fome, fo as to be put for the whole number.

In the 40th Pfalm, according to the translation in our bible, we read, Sacrifice and offering thou didst not defire; burnt offering and fin offering haft thou not required. Sacrifice and offering: That which is here ftyled offering, is to be taken out of the number, being, as appears plainly in the original, not a facrifice of any animal, but an oblation, confifting of flour, oil, frankincenfe, and salt, and commonly called a meat offering. It fhould have been so rendered here, and indeed is fo in the older tranflation of the Pfalms, generally used in the divine fervice, where it ftands thus; Sacrifice and meat offering thou wouldeft not: burnt offer ings, and facrifice for fins haft thou not required.

Befides therefore the meat offering,

which was of flour; of animal offerings, you fee, here are three forts enumerated, Sacrifice, burnt offering, and fin offering. They are not thus put down cafually, but with care, and quoted accordingly with the fame exactnefs by the Apoftle to the Hebrews; Sacrifice and offering Hebr.x.5, thou wouldeft not; in burnt offerings and facrifices for fin thou haft had no pleasure. And again, no more than two verfes afterwards, arguing from this paffage in the Pfalms, he repeats every one of the fame words: Sacrifice and offering, and v. 8. burnt offerings, and offerings for fin thou wouldeft not.

Now the defign of the Apoftle is to teach us, that the whole collection of the Jewish facrifices, confifting principally of three diftinguifhed kinds, with the oblations that accompanied fome of them, were fuperfeded and abolished; having anfwered the end for which they were originally intended; having pre

figured,

6.

Hebr. x.

figured, in fuch measure as it pleafed God, the great facrifice of the Redeemer of mankind, and being fully and finally accomplished in his death upon the

Crofs.

Above when he faid, Sacrifice and offer8,9,10. ing, and burnt offerings, and offering for

Exod.
c. xxix.

Levit.
c. viii.
c. ix.

fin thou wouldeft not, neither hadft pleasure therein, which are offered by the Law: then Said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may eftablish the fecond. By the which will we are fanctified, through the offering of the body of Jefus Chrift, once for all.

Upon fome folemn occafions the Jewith Law directed these three forts of facrifice to be all offered in the following order *.

In

* There are indeed many paffages in the Leviti

cal Law where the facrifices, which a worshipper brings to be offered, are fet down in a different order: but it does not certainly follow that even in those instances they were offered in a different

order

In the first place was prefented the offering for fin, by him regularly that of

fered it. He laid his hand upon the Levit. iv. head of the fin offering; which was then

flain beside the altar, and the fat indeed burnt upon it, but the body was burnt without the camp: the perfon employed in the removal of it, being sometimes spoken of as defiled at fecond hand by it's imputed uncleannefs. He shall wash his Levit.xvi. clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterwards he shall come into the camp *. Next,

order by the priest. It is written Numb. vi. 14. He fhall offer his offering to the Lord, one He Lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one Ere Lamb of the firft year without blemish for a fin offering, and one Ram without blemish for peace offerings; but you will find . 16, 17. the Priest is directed to arrange thefe very offerings in the order I have mentioned. And the Prieft shall bring them before the Lord, and fhall offer his fin offering, and his burnt offering, and he shall offer the. Ram for a facrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord.

* When another beast upon the fame occafion is reprefented as bearing away the iniquities of the nation into a land not inhabited, the meaning feems to be, that the fins expiated by the folemnities of that day, shall no more be remembered

than

28.

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