' Numb. xix.
Heb. ix. 22. Without shedditig of blood is no remission.
THE external administration of religion has been extremely different in different ages of the world : but the method of acceptance with God has been invariably the same. Before the Mosaic ritual was formed, pardon was dispensed through the blood of sacrifices : and since it was abolished, men obtain mercy through that blood, which the sacrifices both before and under the law were intended to prefigure.
To mark the correspondence between the sacrifices under the law, and that offered by Jesus on the cross, is the great scope of the Epistle to the He- brews. In the preceding context it is observed, that the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry were purged with blood ; and then it is asserted as an universal truth, " that without shedding of blood there is no remission."
This assertion being of infinite importance, we shall,
I. Establish it —
The observances of the ceremonial law shew that men were saved by blood under the Mosaic dispen- sation— •
[For every offence, sacrifices were to be offered according to the rank and quality of the offender : and whatever animals were sacrificed, whether bullocks, goats, lambs, or pigeons, they were to be slain, and their blood was to be sprinkled both on the altar, and on the offerer : and it was by the blood so sprinkled, that the offerer was cleansed from guilt. If a person were so poor that he could not bring a pair of young pigeons, he was at liberty to offer a measure (about five pints) of fine flour : a portion of which, answerably to the destruction of the beasts, was to be burnt, in order to shew the offender what he merited at the hands of God^
There were indeed other purifications, some by fire, and
a Lev. V. 6 — 13.