common people erred, he must bring a female kid, or a, female lambn, or, if he could not afford that, he might bring two young pigeons0. And, to mark yet further the superior criminality of the priest, his offering was to be wholly burnt, and its blood teas to be sprinkled seven times before the veil of the sanctuary, and to be put upon the horns of the altar of incense ; whereas the offerings of the others were to be only in part consumed by fire ; and their blood was not to be sprinkled at all before the veil, and to be put only on the horns of the altar of burnt-offering^. Further still, if a person were so poor as not to be able to afford two young pigeons, he might be sup- posed to have still less opportunities of information, and was therefore permitted to bring only an ephah of fine flour ; part of which, however, was to be burnt upon the altar, to shew the offerer what a destruction he himself had merited q. And this is the excepted case to which the Apostle alludes, when he says, with his wonted accuracy, that " almost all things are by the law purged with blood1."
But, under the Gospel, there is no distinction whatever to be made. We must now say, without any single exception, that " without shedding of blood there is no remission." We need Christ as much to bear the iniquity of our holy things, as to purge our foulest transgressions s : there is no other fountain opened for sin*, no other way to the Father11, no other door of hopex, no other name whereby we can be saved y. Christ is " the Ramz," " caught in the thicket a," if we may so speak, who must be our substitute and surety, whether our guilt be extenuated by ignorance, or aggravated by presumption.]
This point being clear, we proceed to,
II. Suggest such reflections as naturally arise from the subject —
A more instructive subject than this cannot easily be proposed to us. It leads us naturally to observe,
1. What a tremendous load of guilt is there on the soul of every man!
[Let but the sins, which ive can remember, be reckoned up, and they will be more than the hairs of our head. Let those be added, which tve observed at the time, but have now for- gotten, and oh, how awfully will their numbers be increased ! But let all the trespasses, which we have committed through
n Lev. iv. 27, 28, 32. ° ver. 7.
p Lev. iv. 6, 7, 12. comp. with Lev. iv. 25, 26, 30, 31.
1 ver. 12. r Heb. ix. 22. s Exod. xxviii. 38.
1 Zech.xiii. 1. u John xiv. 6. x John x. 9.
>' Acts iv. 12. z Seethe text. a Alluding to Gen. xxii. 13.