8. "An equally strong proof that the life of the ani- mal sacrifice was accepted in the place of the life of man is afforded by the fact that atonement was re- quired by the law to be made, by sin offerings and burnt oflt'erings, for even bodilj' distempers and disor- ders. It is not necessarj' to the argument to explain the distinctions between these various oblations, nor j'ct to inquire into the reason for requiring propitiation to be made for corporal infirmities, which in many cases could not be avoided. They were, however, thus connected with sin as the cause of all these disor- ders; and God, who had placed his residence among the Israelites, insisted upon a perfect ceremonial puri- ty, to impress upon them a sense of his moral purity, and the necessit}' of purification of mind. Whether these were the reasons, or some others not at all dis- coverable bj^ us, all such unclean persons were liable to death, and were exempted from it only hy animal sacrifices. This appears from the conclusion to all the Levitical directions concerning the ceremonial to be observed in all such cases : ' Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their nncleanness ; that they die not in,' or by, 'their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle which is among them' (Lev. xv, 31). So that, by virtue of the sin offerings, the chil- dren of Israel were saved from a death \\ bioh other- wise they would have suffered from their uncleanness, and that by substituting the life of the animal for the life of the offerer. Nor can it be urged that death is in these instances threatened only as the punishment of not observing these laws of purification ; for the rea- son given in tlie passage just quoted shows that the threateniug of death was not hypothetical upon their not bringing the prescribed purification, but is ground- ed upon the fact of ' defiling the tabernacle of the Lord which was among them,' which is supposed to be clone by all uncleanness, as such, in the first instance.
9. "As a farther proof of the vicarious character of the principal sacrifices of the IMosaic economy we may instance those statedly offered for the whole congrega- tion. Ever}' day were offered two lambs, one in the morning and the other in the evening, ' for a continual burnt offering.' To these daily victims were to be added weekh' two other lambs for the burnt ofl!ering of everj' Sabbath. None of these could be considered in the liglit of fines for offences, since they were offer- ed for no jiirticular person, and must be considered, therefore, unless resolved into an mimeaning ceremo- ny, jiiacular and vicarious. To pass over, however, the monthly sacrifices, and those offered at the great feasts, it is suflicient to fix upon those, so often alluded to in the Epistle to the Hebrews, offered on the solemn anniversary of expiation. On that day, to other pre- scribed sacrifices, were to be added another ram for a burnt ofifering, and another goat, the most eminent of the sacrifices for a sin offering, whose blood was to be carried by the high-priest into the inner sanctuary,
EXPIATION
423
EXPIATION
which -(vas not done by the blood of anj' other victim, except the bullock, which was offered the same daj' as a sin offering for the family of Aaron. The circum- stances of tliis ceremony, where!)}' atunement was to be made 'for all the sins' of the whole Jewish people, are so strikingly significant that they deserve a partic- ular detail. On the day appointed for this general expiation the priest is commanded to offer a bullock and a goat as sin offerings, the one for himself and the other for the people ; and, having sprinkled the blood of these in due form before the mercj' seat, to lead forth a second goat, denominated ' the scape- goat;' and, after laying both his hands upon the head of the scape-goat, and confessing over him all the in- iquities of the people, to put them upon the head of the goat, and to send the animal, thus bearing the sins of the people, away into the wilderness ; in this man- ner expressing, by an action which cannot be misun- derstood, that the atonement, which, it is affirmed, was to be effected by the sacrifice of the sin offering, con- sisted in removing from the people their iniquities by this translation of them to the animal. For it is to be remarked that the ceremony of the scape-goat is not a distinct one : it is a continuation of the process, and is evidently the concluding part and symbolical consum- mation of tlie sin offering ; so that the transfer of tlie iniquities of the people upon the head of the scape- goat, and the bearing them awaj^ into the wilderness, manifestly imply that the atonement effected by the sacrifice of the sin offering consisted in the transfer and consequent removal of those iniquities.
10. " How, then, is this impressive and singular ceremonial to be explained ? Shall we resort to the notion of mulcts and fines? If so, then this and other stilted sacrifices must lie considered in the light of pe- nal enactments. But this cannot agree with the an- pointment of such sacrifices annually in succeeding generations : ' This shall be a statute forever unto you.' The law appoints a certain day in the j'ear for expiating the sins both of the high-priest himself and of the whole congregation, and that for all high-priests and all generations of the congregation. Now, could a law be enacted inflicting a certain penaltj', at a cer- tain time, upon a wliole people, as well as upon their high-priest, thus presuming upon their actual trans- gression of it ? The sacrifice was also for sins in gen- eral ; and yet the penalty, if it were one, is not greater than individual persons were often oliliged to iindergo for s'.ngle trespasses. Nothing, certainly, can be more absurd than this hypothesis. Shall we account for it by saying that sacrifices were offered for the benefit of the worshipper, but exclude the notion of expiation ? But here we are obliged to confine the benefit to rec- onciliation and the taking away of sins, and that by the appointed means of the shedding of blood, and the presentation of blood in the holy place, accompanied by the expressive ceremony of imposition of hands upon the head of the victim ; the import of which act is fixed, bej'ond all controversy, by the priests confess- ing over that victim tlie sins of all the people, and at the same time imprecating upon its head the venge- ance due to tham (Lev. xvi, 21). Shall we content ourselves with merelj' saying that this was a symbol 1 But the question remains. Of what was it the symbol ? To determine this, let the several parts of the symbolic action be enumerated. Here is confession of sin ; confession before God at the door of the tabernacle ; the substitution of a victim ; the figurative transfer of sins to that victim ; the shedding of blood, which God appointed to make atonement for the soul ; the carrying the blood into the holiest place, the verj' per- mission of which clcarlj' marked the divine accept- ance; the bearing away of iniquity; and the actual reconciliation of the people to God. If, then, this is Bj'iiibolical, it has nothing very correspondent with it; it never had or can have anything correspondent to it but the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, and the com-