this last dispensation to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself"."
In causing therefore the offerings of the Lord to be thus abhorred, the young men sinned in a peculiar manner against God himself: they poured contempt upon the very means which God had provided for their obtaining of pardon and reconciliation with him. Thus they rendered their situation desperate : had they only committed some heinous offence against man, a judge, intrusted with the execution of the laws, might have arbitrated between the parties : he might have punished the delinquents, and obtained satisfaction for the injured person : and, the offenders, if truly penitent, might have brought their offering to God, and thus, through the blood of their sacrifice and the intercession of the priest, have obtained the remission of their sin. But they had sinned imme- diately against God himself; so that there was no third person to redress the grievance or settle the dispute. Moreover they had despised the only atonement that could be offered for them : yea, in despising the typical, they had, in fact, disclaimed all trust in the real atonement. What hope then remained for them ? Having provoked God, they had no person of authority sufficient to arbitrate between them: and having rejected the only Sacrifice, the only Advocate, the great High-priest, they had none to make atonement for them, they had none to intercede: they must therefore be left to their fate, and reap the bitter fruits of their iniquities. In confirmation of this, God declared that " their sin should not be purged by sacrifice or offering for ever^"
With this explanation we see at once the force and emphasis of the words before us. They were intended to express the exceeding heinousness of the sins that had been committed, and to deter the offenders from persisting in such fatal conduct. While they intimate the danger to which a violation of human laws will expose us, they insinuate the infinitely greater danger
e Heb. ix. 25, 2G. and x. 1, 4, 14. <" 1 Sam. iii. 14.