22. The end of this offering was always to make atonement. So the text, yoy "BD? p my, Lev. i. 4;—“ It shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” 52, says one, “quod Latiné ver- titur expiare, hic est, Deo aliquem commendare,”—it is “to com- mend any one to God;” a sense which neither will the word bear nor the nature of the thing admit. $7) is always “to be accepted.” And for what end shall the sacrifice be accepted ? 7B2?, “to appease, atone, to make atonement for him,” as we shall show elsewhere; not absolutely, this it could not do, but in a representation, as they were “a shadow of good things to come,” Heb. x. 1-4, 11.
23. There are reckoned up eighteen times wherein this kind of offering was to be made, by express institution; the enumeration whereof belongs not unto us in this place. Nine of them refer unto
1 Hugo Grotius, in loc.—Ep.
SECT. 21-25.] SACRIFICES OF THE OLD LAW. 537
particular occasions and emergencies; the other nine had their fixed seasons, occurring daily, monthly, or annually. Only, we may ob- serve that of this kind of offering was the 2A, “the juge sacrifi- cium,” or continual sacrifice, which was offered morning and evening; with whose final removal or taking away the church and worship ot the Jews utterly ceased, Dan. ix. 27. And as it had a precise com- mand for its being offered morning and evening continually, so in the constant acknowledgment of God: therein, in the vicissitudes of night and day, there was such a suitableness to the light and law of nature in it, that it prevailed among the heathen themselves in their idolatrous services.) Witness that of Hesiod, "Epya xa? ‘Hy. 838 :—
"Ardrore dn cmovdas Sutscos ve iAdoxtcbas,
“H yedy dx” sbvd&n xa) dray Potos iepdv 2Abg-—
“ Let offerings and sacrifices burn At evening and at sacred light’s return.”
And so at Rome, the Pinarii and Potitii sacrificed to Hercules in Ara Maxima, morning and evening, as Livy, Plutarch, and Dionysius testify. The custom also of feasts at this sacrifice, to testify mutual love and peace amongst men, was common with the Jews and the Gentiles. Thus when Jethro, Moses his father-in-law, offered a burnt-offering and sacrifices, Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat bread with him before God, Exod. xviii. 12. And so also in the sacrifices that Agamemnon offered in Homer, Iliad. B, he called the ancients and princes of the Grecians to a banquet at them with him; as did Nestor likewise with those about him, at his great sacri- fice, Odyss. I.
24, The next sort of offerings that was regulated in the law was the 13), which, as it denoted an especial kind of sacrifice, we have from the matter of it rendered “a meat-offering,” Lev. ii. 1. And this, as was said of the whole burnt-offering before, was not then first instituted and appointed, but only regulated and solemnly ap- proved; for it had been observed from the beginning, and consisting in the fruits of the earth, had a great foundation in the law of nature. Thus Cain brought his "79, “mincha,” of the fruits of the earth ~ to offer unto God, Gen. iv. 8. And there is no doubt but that, as to the kind of it, it was acceptable unto God, as of his own institution, though the person that offered it, for want of faith, was not approved, Heb. xi. 4.
25. The name, as was in part before observed, is, as of an uncer- tain original, so variously used and applied. Sometimes it is used for a civil gift of men one to another, or a present, 1 Sam, x. 27; sometimes for any offering or sacrifice. So Abel’s sacrifice, which was in especial a burnt-offering, is called his mincha, Gen. iv. 4. Hence it is sometimes rendered in the New Testament by Suo/a, “a sacri-
538 SACRIFICES OF THE OLD LAW. | EXERC. XXIV.
fice,’ “a bloody sacrifice,’ Mark ix. 49; Acts vu. 42. And our apostle, from Ps. xl. 7, renders 793121 Nt, “zebach” and “mincha,” by Suoia xa! xpoépopd, Heb. x. 5, “sacrifice and offering;” by both which terms sacrifices of atonement and propitiation only were intended, and not the especial meat-offering, which was properly eucharistical, and not propitiatory. And the expression in that of the psalmist answers directly unto what God speaks concerning the house of Eli, 1 Sam. iii. 14. The sin of the house of Eli shall not be expiated, 193271 N22, “neither by zebach nor by mincha;” that is, by no sort of sacrifices appointed to make atonement or to ex- piate sin. So also is the word used, 1] Sam. xxvi. 19. But as it denotes the especial offering now under consideration, it was not ordinarily appointed to make atonement. I say not ordinarily, because there was an especial dispensation in the case of the poor man, who was allowed to bring flour and oil, the matter of the mincha, instead of the OVS, “ asham,”’ or “ trespass-offering,” Lev. v. 11-18. And yet atonement properly was not made there- by; only in it, or the appointment of it, there was a testification of God’s acceptance of the person, with a non obstante for his trespass. And hence doth our apostle use his oyeddv, his “almost,” in this business: Heb. ix. 22, “Almost all things are purged with blood.” The like allowance was made in the offering of the jealous person. It was to consist of barley meal, the matter of the meat-offering: but it made no atonement; for it is expressly said that it was to “bring iniquity to remembrance,” Num. v. 15, whereas every sacrifice of atonement was for the covering of sin and the casting of it out of re- membrance.