SERMON XII.

CHRIST'S SACRIFICE.

BY REV. MOSES BALLOU.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."-1 PETER iii. 18.

FOR what were the sufferings and death of Christ?

The Church has given us three answers to this question, viz.,

1st. They were a substitute for those of the sinner.

2d. They were designed to appease the anger, and placate the wrath of God.

3d. They were designed to vindicate the honor of the divine law.

It is well known that we reject the sentiments involved in these replies. We believe that nothing of this kind can be harmonized, either with the dictates of reason, or the teachings of

revelation. Those, therefore, who have held these opinions, have made the inquiry a somewhat anxious one. They have asked us, on the supposition that these replies were incorrect, For what did Jesus suffer and die? In what are we to look for its necessity? What purposes did his sacrifice serve to aid? Where are the advan

tages to be derived from it?

And how shall that

large class of passages be interpreted, which speak of Christ, as "being made a curse for us?" Gal. iii. 13, as bearing "our sins in his own body on the tree?" 1 Peter ii. 24, and suffering "for sins, the just for the unjust?” 1 Peter iii. 18.

I. In the first place, the death of Christ was the closing up of the whole system of legal offerings which the Jews, by divine appointment, had observed under the old dispensations.

No small part of the religion, instituted through the mediation of Moses, consisted in its sacrifices. These, though of many kinds, and required to be offered under a great variety of circumstances, you will find, if you examine them carefully, are never spoken of as affecting, in the least degree, or designed to affect, the Supreme Being; but