Lev. v. 5, 6. And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that
thing. And he .shall bring his trespass-offering unto the Lord for his sin tvhich he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb, or a kid of the goats, for a sin-offering ; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.
IN the words before us, the terms " sin-offering."
and " trespass-offering" are used as signifying pre- cisely the same thing: and in the 11th and 12th verses the trespass-offering is thrice mentioned as " a sin-offering." But they are certainly two different kinds of offering ; though learned men are by no means agreed respecting the precise marks of differ- ence between them. Indeed, almost all who have undertaken to explain them, confess, that they are not satisfied with what others have written upon the subject. The difficulty seems to lie in this; that the sin-offering seems to have respect to a lighter species of sin, and yet to require the more solemn offering ; whilst the trespass-offering relates to considerably heavier offences, and yet admits of an easier method of obtaining forgiveness : for in the trespass-offering, pigeons or turtle-doves might be offered, or, in case of extreme poverty, a measure (about five pints) of flour: but in the sin-offering no such abatement, no such commutation, was allowed. This leads many (contrary to the plain letter of the Scripture) to re- present the sin-offering as relating to the lighter, and the trespass-offering to the heavier, transgressions. But we apprehend that sufficient stress has not been laid on some peculiarities respecting the trespass- offering, which give by far the most satisfactory solu- tion to the difficulties that occur in it. As for those things which the sin-offering has in common with the burnt-offerings or peace-offerings, we forbear to touch upon them, they having been already noticed in our discourses on those subjects : nor shall we enter very fully into the trespass-offering, because that is reserved for a future occasion11. We shall contract our present discussion into as short limits as possible, by omitting all that would lead us over ground al- ready trodden, and fixing our attention on those few
a See Discourse on Lev. v. 17 — 19.