[Of all the subjects that can be offered to our view, there is not any that can bear the least comparison with that Leading subject of the Gospel, Christ crucified : and I had almost said, that the New Testament itself scarcely unfolds it more clearly, than the ordinance before us. What would the most ignorant of the Jews imagine, when he saw the sacrifice led forth, the offerer putting his hand upon it, and the priest slaying it, and afterwards reducing it to ashes? Would he not see that here was a manifest substitution of an innocent creature in the place of the guilty, and that that very substitution was the means of reconciling the offender to his God ? I will grant, that a person ignorant of the typical nature of those ordinances, might be led to ascribe the benefit to the ordinance itself, without looking through it to the sacrifice which it shadowed forth; but he could not be so blind as not to see, that acceptance with God was by means of a vicarious sacrifice. Yet, behold, we Chris- tians, who live under the meridian light of the Gospel, need to be told, that we must be saved entirely through the atonement of Christ : yea, after all that a minister, or God himself, can say, the great majority of us will seek acceptance, in whole or in part, by our own righteousness. Go back to the Law : ask a Jew to teach you : let those whom you despise for their igno- rance, be your preceptors. It is a shame and scandal that sal- vation by Christ is so little known amongst usf, and that the preachers of it are yet represented as setting forth a " new doctrine g." Be instructed then, ye opposers of Christ cruci- fied, who are yet ignorantly " seeking to establish your own righteousness:" learn, even from the Law itself, to embrace the Gospel: and "kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way."]
2. Much for our imitation —
[Every one whose conscience convicted him of sin, offered, " of his own voluntary will," the best sacrifice he could ; grudg- ing nothing whereby he might honour God or promote his own salvation. An irreligious man might have asked, ' Wherefore is all this waste of cattle, which, instead of being consumed by fire, might be sold, or given to the poor V But the man who fears God, would reply, that nothing can be wasted which is in any way conducive to God's honour and our salvation. This is the spirit that should animate us. We may be called to make sacrifices for God: our reputation, our interest, our liberty, our very lives, may be called for in his service : and shall we be backward to make the sacrifice ? Alas ! too many of us are rather for a cheap religion ; and their chief anxiety is, to get to heaven at as cheap a rate as possible, and to sacrifice for God as little as they can : if they are poor,
f 1 Cor. xv. 34. e Acts xvii. 19.