The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 7

him fear. He surrounds this deity with a moral atmosphere of inflexible, uncompromi■• ing remorselessn8811-the moral shadow, we may say, of the character he attaches to the physical heavelll!. Suppose, then, that one day, when he and Ws sons are reaping their hanresi, their great desire being for a cloudless heaven to dry their sheaves, an ominous eloud gathel'II ; the heavens are soon black, the forked lightning darts with angry quiver from cloud to cloud, and from cloud to earth ; the thunder seems to split the firmament in rage ; till out darts a forked tongue of flame, and 5lays his youngest son at his feet, Will he regard this as lndra's retaliation on account of some offence he has been guilty of? Suppose it is llO. What would human nature suggeat to him to do in order to escape, if possible, Indra's further vindictiveness? Is there anything in his nature that would lead him to cut the throat of his eldest son, and, hurling him on a pile of faggots, to con- sume his body with fire, as a holocaust, to appease the supposed wrath of lndra, and so, under the idea of sacrificing a substitute of the greatest worth in his estiwation, to ward off danger from himself? Would he be likely to filng the blood of his lamb or his kid towards the heavens, under she idea:or sheltering himself from lndra's retaliative stroke? Or could anything in his own natnre suggest to him that lndra required some voluntary sa.crifice ? We cannot touch even the elements of such a thought in man's nature, much less trace their development.. There is nothing whatever, surely, in human nature to suggest such thought or action. But there is a kind of sacrifice which man has always understood-lf-sacrifice for the sake of another. Mr. Conway's illustrations would seem to me to touch this thought rather than the idea of commutation by sacrifice. History is full of this phase of sacri1ice. When Ga.utama Buddha, as related above, was pictured as giving his body 88 food t.o the tigress, the idea was self-sacrifice for the sake of the starving animal and her young. The bravery of Horatius Cocles, though his life was spared, is an illustration of the same thought. There is the idea of substitution: but it is a substitution in the sacrifice of one's self at one's own hands for the salvation of another. This ia a doctrine which man can understand. But the idea of thrusting forward a substitute for the sake of guarding one's self is foreign to man's innate nobility. Turn the matter as we will, nothing ia more difficult than to try to realize what there is in man that would lead him of his own accord to ofl'er the life of a bullock, a sheep, a goat, or a dove, to propititat.e the Divine justice. But it has been done in all ages, How has the custom originated? It hu arisen about the world-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That was a self-sacrifice of the highest conceivable import; but it involved the shedding of a life. .And that one Sacrifice, ooupled with the life, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, was in all its bearingB the most significant event that ever happened in the history of the human race. Should not, then, the world of all time be educated for that one great central " mystery of godliness," the reconciliation of the world by " God manifest in the flesh," the outward circumstance of which was the life-shedding of Jesus on Calvary? The world bas often been divinely taught by signs; and the deeper the degradation of man, the simpler and more pointed the sign. Jeremiah, with his" marred girdle," his "potter's clay," his" good and evil figs;" Ezekiel, with his " tile," his" razor," hia "stafl' upon his shoulder," and his" eeethu-g-pot," are familiar examples. In these days of the Christian Church we are taught by a very significant symbol to realize, as we look upon it, the offering of Jesus Christ on the croBB; a symbol appointed by his own words and acts-" 'l'his do in remembrance of me." The breaking of bread and the eating it, the pouring out of wine and the drinking it, are the symbol under which we are to "ahow the Lord's death till he come." But how was the world to be educated in prospect of that Sacrifice? The great  AN ESSAY ON SACRIFICE.