offered for our sins : we must go to him : we must confess over him, as it were, our sins : and we must by faith transfer to him our guilt, and declare before God, that we have no hope whatever but in his atoning blood. It has been said also, that on some occasions, the offerer was sprinkled with the blood of his offer- ing : and this, also, must we do ; taking, as it were, the bunch of hyssop in our hands, and dipping it in the Redeemer's blood, and sprinkling our own souls with it, as the only possible means of purging our consciences from guilt, and of bringing us into a state of peace with God. It is in reference to this that we are said to "have come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel." The sacrifice of Abel received, indeed, a sweet token of God's favourable acceptance; but the blood of our sacrifice washes all our sins away, and gives us a title to an everlasting inheritance.
It has been observed, that, on some occasions, the blood was mixed with water, and then sprinkled on the offerer. This shews us, that we must have the Holy Spirit also poured out upon us : according as it is said, " I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you." The Lord Jesus Christ, we are told, " came not by water only, but by water and blood :" and this very mystery was intimated at the time of our Saviour's crucifixion, when the sol- dier pierced our Saviour's side, and forthwith came, in two distinguishable streams, blood and water : the one to cleanse us from the guilt of sin ; the other, from its power : according as it is written, " Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."
We might prosecute this subject in a great variety of particulars, and shew in all of them the corre- spondence between the salvation shadowed forth by the law, and that exhibited by the Gospel. But we wish to keep the subject as simple as possible, and not to perplex it by too great a variety. There is, however, one point which it is of great importance