ON THE TYPES AND PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN RELATION TO THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Evangelical religion, the remedy which God has provided for the restoration of human nature from its fallen and degenerate state to his favour and friendship, although revealed with more or less clearness at different periods of the world, has always been essentially one and the same. Previously to the advent of the Saviour, it could scarcely be represented otherwise than through the medium of types and prophecies, with which both the patriarchal and the Mosaic dispensations were therefore duly provided. In the preceding chapter it was shown that the peculiar cause and manner of the death of Christ, now presumed to have been demonstrated, furnish a new and powerful illustration of the principle of atonement, the fundamental doctrine of the gospel. In the present one it will be shown that the same fact throws a remarkable light on the types and prophecies of the Old Testament relative to the same subject, and that some of them could not by any other means have been explained or fulfilled.

Of scriptural prophecies, or divine predictions respecting coming events, it seems to be a necessary rule, that until the time of their accomplishment they are to a certain extent mysterious and obscure; for it is obvious that an unreserved disclosure of futurity to the human race would in general be incompatible with their actual condition, as well as with the regular accomplishment of the events predicted. It is indeed the dictate of revelation, as well as of reason, — "that no prophecy of Scripture furnishes its own interpretation;" — and the very circumstance, that precisely such an amount of information is in this manner afforded as tends to do good, without being liable to abuse, is in itself a strong proof of divine superintendence.¹ Another, and not less striking proof of the same kind is suggested by the connection of these prophecies with appropriate types; that is, with familiar illustrations of important facts or principles by sensible and similar objects. Owing to the happy combination of these two modes of instruction, the one supplying certainty, the other clearness, those cardinal truths of Christianity which are necessary for salvation were from the earliest times sufficiently declared and inculcated for practical purposes. No sooner had the first parents of mankind fallen from their original state of innocence and happiness, than it pleased God to give them a prediction, and a type of restoration. The prediction, remarkable for its sententious brevity, assured them that one of their descendants, who should be in a peculiar sense — "the seed of the woman," — would crush the head of Satan, the infernal serpent by whom they had been be guiled into sin; and that the victor himself would be wounded in the conflict.² The type consisted in the rite of animal sacrifice, appointed at the same time as the basis of acceptable worship, plainly intimating that for the reconciliation of sinners to God, the violent death of a suitable victim, offered to him as their substitute, was absolutely necessary. Hence originated the use of skins for vesture, which by his command they then adopted, and by which he practically taught them that, although in the dignity of their native innocence they had no need of clothing, they could not as fallen creatures be permitted to enter his presence, except in the garb of atonement. The prediction conjoined with the type conveyed to them therefore the important information, that the future Saviour would be one of their race, yet descended from a female parent only; and, as such an event implies divine interposition, and every work of God is perfect, would possess a pure and immaculate human nature, wherein by the sacrifice of himself he would render an atonement for the sins of mankind, and deliver them from the tyranny of Satan, who by instigating his death would unwittingly contribute to the destruction of his own power. Thus, by the divine prerogative of regarding the future as the past, Christ was '' the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, . . . . . whom God" — says the apostle Paul, — "foreappointed [to be] a propitiatory [sacrifice] through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his justice, because of the seeming impunity of previous sins through the forbearance of God, to demonstrate his justice at the present time, [and to show] that he is just even in justifying him that believeth in Jesus;" — -a passage of the greatest value, and, with the exception of a somewhat similar one in the first epistle of Peter, almost unique. It is highly probable that, owing to their peculiar position, as well as to their superior knowledge derived from former intercourse with the Deity, these comparatively brief declarations were sufficient for the spiritual instruction and guidance of the primeval pair, and through them of their antediluvian descendants. At that early period however, as in later times, the gracious plan of salvation, although cordially embraced by a few, was by the majority of men rejected to their own perdition. It was, for example,— "by faith that Abel offered to God a more complete sacrifice than Cain, and on that account is recorded [in Scripture] as a just person, God [himself] testifying concerning his gifts;" — whilst Cain, who presuming on the sufficiency of mere natural religion repudiated the atonement, was disapproved, and still persisting in the same evil course, incurred the guilt of fratricide, and the penalty of malediction.³ By this solemn transaction it was plainly proved that animal oblations, representing the sacrifice of Christ, were divinely instituted from the beginning; and this simple but expressive rite was ever afterwards employed for the same purpose till, as the shadow gives place to the substance, the type was at length superseded by the reality.

Still further to designate the purity and beneficence of the future Saviour, a distinction was also established between clean and unclean animals, those only being accepted for sacrifice which exhibit a mild and gentle nature, subsist on vegetable food, and are friendly and serviceable to mankind. Thus — "Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof," — as an offering to the Lord; and after escaping from the deluge, — "Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar." — The animals which Abraham was directed to sacrifice, on his admission into the Israelitish covenant, were the heifer, the goat, the sheep, the dove, and the pigeon; but, when at a later period he was commanded to present his only son Isaac as a burnt- offering on Mount Moriah, he received a significant intimation, that the lamb provided by God as the true atoning victim for the sins of the world would be, like Isaac, a human being, and an only and well-beloved son.⁴ As a recompense of his faith and obedience, Abraham now received a renewed promise, accompanied with an oath, that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; and anticipated with joy the day of Christ, which he was thus enabled to see afar off. His pious successors — "Isaac and Jacob, joint-heirs with him of the same promise," — publicly professed their faith and hope in the future Redeemer, through the same divinely appointed rite of animal sacrifice.⁵ The suitableness and significancy of this rite, in reference to the purpose which it was designed to answer, cannot be better expressed than in the words of Dr. Pye Smith, in his work on the priesthood of Christ.— "A sacrifice, properly so called,"— observes this excellent author, — "is the solemn infliction of death on a living creature, generally by effusion of its blood, in a way of religious worship; and the presenting of this act to the Deity, as a supplication for the pardon of sin, and a supposed means of compensation for the insult and injury thereby offered to his majesty and government . . . . . . Let us in imagination view the striking scenery of a patriarchal, or a Levitical sacrifice. A victim is selected, the best of the flock or the herd, without blemish or defect. It is brought before the altar of the Lord, its owner lays his hand upon its head, its life-blood flows upon the ground, it is divided and burned with fire; whilst the conscious sinner sees his own desert, and prays, — 'Now, O Lord! I have sinned, I have committed iniquity, I have rebelled, thus and thus have I done; but I return in repentance to thy presence, and be this my expiation!' . . . . . . In this solemn and affecting manner was it declared to ages and generations, that — 'God is the righteous judge, of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot countenance iniquity, that his wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, that the wages of sin is death, that there is forgiveness with the Lord and plenteous redemption, but that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.'⁶ . . . . . . The ancient sacrifices were originally designed as symbols, emblems, and representations of the great work, for the effecting of which the Messiah was promised to fallen man. In support of this proposition, our first article of evidence is deduced from explicit declarations of the Old Testament. — 'Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. A body hast thou prepared for me. Burnt offering and sin offering, thou requirest not. Then said I, Lo I come! In the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O God! yea, thy law is within my heart.' — The authority of the New Testament decides the application of this passage to the Messiah. The language of rejection applied to the legal offerings can be understood only as a strong denial of any intrinsic value or efficacy in them; for the command to offer those sacrifices was unquestionably binding upon the Hebrew nation, so long as the Levitical covenant continued in force. The leading idea in this distinguished passage manifestly is, that the Messiah should supersede all the sacrificial observances by actually performing that very requisite, that good pleasure of Jehovah, which they were totally unable to accomplish. Now, their known and avowed intention was — 'to make an atonement before the Lord for the soul that had sinned, that it might be forgiven him for all that he had done. . . . . . The blood I have given to you [to be offered] upon the altar, to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood which maketh atonement for the soul.' — But to this point they could never attain. For this, as considered separately from their declarative intention, he that commanded them had no delight in them. This therefore, must have been the object in which the divine complacency rested, this the grand purpose for which in due time the Messiah should be manifested, — 'to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."⁷

When the descendants of the patriarchs had grown into a nation, and after being delivered from their bondage in Egypt, were conducted by Moses and Aaron to the foot of Mount Sinai, and there brought into covenant with God as his chosen and peculiar people, the system of types and prophecies respecting Christ was more fully developed. From that time till his entrance into the world, — "the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, [and] a shadow of good things to come;" — in other words, it was one of the chief objects of the Mosaic institution to announce and illustrate the great facts connected with his person and office, and more especially to show that he would become the Saviour of mankind, by suffering in their stead the divine malediction due to their sins.⁸ Hence, under the Israelitish dispensation the principle of atonement was typically represented on the largest scale. One of their tribes was wholly consecrated to religious offices, and the rest of the nation was commanded to provide for its maintenance, and to reverence its authority. To intimate the constant presence of God with his people as their benefactor and protector, he commanded that a splendid tent, afterwards exchanged for a still more magnificent temple, should be erected in the midst of them, like a royal palace, where he would statedly dispense his favours, and receive their homage and adoration. But none could enjoy these privileges except through the medium of a figurative atonement, which was therefore continually exhibited in a most distinct and impressive manner. With the exception of the sacred tribe, the worshippers were never admitted into the temple itself, but only into its outer court, where twice every day animal sacrifices were offered on a spacious brazen altar. At each of these times, whilst some of the priests were thus engaged, others within the sanctuary burnt incense on a smaller golden altar, whence a cloud of fragrance, ascending before the most holy place which symbolized the divine presence, signified that, in virtue of the atoning sacrifice wherein they had just participated, the prayers and thanksgivings of the people were accepted by God. Besides these constant and ordinary rites, others still more specific and expressive were occasionally interposed, by which this figurative mode of representation was rendered complete. It was moreover supported throughout by a corresponding series of predictions, delivered by prophets raised up from time to time, and qualified by superior wisdom and virtue, as well as by an extraordinary endowment of the Holy Spirit, to be the religious instructors of the Israelitish nation, to write their annals, and to foretel future events, particularly those which related to the promised Messiah. With a view to prevent interference and abuse on the part of profane persons, whilst communicating sufficient information for the benefit of the pious and well-disposed, these predictions are, with a few remarkable exceptions, brief, partial, and intermixed with other matters. Their separate impression is hereby somewhat weakened; but when collected and arranged, they are found to be so copious, distinct, and precise, as to resemble history rather than prophecy. Retrospectively considered, it seems indeed wonderful that previously to their accomplishment they were not recognised and opposed, and that no Celsus or Porphyry should have subsequently arisen, to denounce them as the forgeries of a later age. The consummate skill displayed in this administration of the prophecies concerning Christ, as likewise in their conjunction with types and ceremonies, which silently presented the same testimony in a form adapted to all capacities, affords a strong proof of the truth and divine origin of the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

A still stronger proof, if possible, is furnished by the event itself; since it involved conditions so singular, complex, and apparently incompatible, that, as formerly remarked, by no wisdom or power less than those of the Deity could they have been either anticipated or fulfilled. That the death of Christ should exactly agree with all the types and prophecies by which it had been previously announced, was obviously necessary; and in various parts of the New Testament this necessity is accordingly affirmed with a degree of earnestness and solemnity, well calculated to rebuke the licentious practice which is sometimes adopted, of suppressing or evading positive predictions of Scripture, merely because it is difficult to conceive how they could be realized. Thus, when Christ on the day of his resurrection conversed with the two disciples travelling to Emmaus, — "he began from Moses, and [proceeding through] all the prophets, explained - to them throughout the Scriptures the things respecting himself;" — and immediately before his ascension said to the apostles, — "These [are] the words which I spake to you whilst [I was] yet with you, that all which is written concerning me in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the psalms, must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them. Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary that Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and discharge of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the Gentiles, beginning from Jerusalem."⁹ — In like manner Peter, when addressing the vast multitude in that city on the miraculous cure of the man who had been lame from his birth, after reproaching them with — "killing the prince of life," — observed. — "Now I know, brethren, that ye did [this] in ignorance, as [did] also your rulers, but the sufferings which by the mouth of all his prophets God had before declared that Christ should undergo, he hath thus accomplished;" — and, after quoting a suitable passage from the writings of Moses, added, — "Yea, and all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel downwards, have also announced these days." — So, in his first epistle to the Corinthian Christians, Paul reminds them, — "I delivered to you at the beginning [the same gospel] which I received, [namely,] that Christ died on account of our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures." — His discourse at the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia commenced with these words, — "Brethren of the race of Abraham! and [all others] amongst you who fear God, to you is the message of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, having neither recognised [Christ,] nor [understood] the words of the prophets which are read every sabbath-day, fulfilled [them] by condemning [him]. Although they did not find [in him] any offence deserving of death, they requested Pilate that he might be slain; and, when they had accomplished all that was written concerning him, they took [him] down from the tree, [and] laid [him] in a tomb; but God raised him from the dead."¹⁰ — Finally, in his celebrated defence before Agrippa, the same apostle said of himself, — "Having received help from God I continue to this day, bearing witness to small and great, [yet] without stating anything more than both the prophets and Moses predicted; [namely,] that Christ should suffer [death,] [be] the first to rise from the dead, [and] show light to the people [of Israel,] and to the Gentiles."

From these and other scriptural explanations it is evident that almost all the types of Christ under the Mosaic dispensation, such as the daily sacrifice, the paschal lamb, the scape-goat, the sin-offering, &c., intimated that his death would be that of an atoning victim, vicariously suffered for the expiation of human guilt; agreeably to which his forerunner, John the Baptist, publicly proclaimed him to be — "the lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." — The predictions of the Old Testament relative to this momentous subject give a similar representation, strengthened by the superior fulness, perspicuity, and authority derived from written language. 'With the types and prophecies thus interpreted, the facts of Christ's death, as recorded in the New Testament, exactly and exclusively correspond; and the internal evidence of truth furnished by a connected view of the whole is like — "a threefold cord, which is not quickly broken."¹¹ — In the following remarks, the principal particulars of this evidence will be produced and illustrated. To make atonement for the sins of the world, it was necessary that Christ should possess a pure and perfect human nature, and in that nature voluntarily suffer the malediction due to human depravity. It has been shown that in his case the divine malediction consisted in a partial loss of God's protection, and a temporary loss of his communion, the former constituting its outward manifestation, the latter its intrinsic reality; and that the result of this infliction was intense mental agony, terminating in sudden death by rupture of the heart, attended with a copious effusion of the heart's blood into its containing capsule, and a subsequent separation of that blood into its solid and liquid ingredients. Marvellous and unparalleled as was this combination of circumstances, it is depicted with almost equal clearness in the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, as in the narratives of the evangelists. In reference to its outward manifestation, the malediction was necessarily confined to the channel of divine institution. It could not have been legitimately pronounced except by the Jewish hierarchy, nor fully sustained except by a member of the Mosaic covenant. Hence Christ was — "born under the law, that he might redeem those [who are] under the law;" — and thereby became subject to the authority of its priesthood, who, whilst professing to expect the promised Messiah, were devoted to worldly affections, and predetermined not to acknowledge any one in that capacity, unless he were a powerful and magnificent prince. The lowly and indigent Jesus of Nazareth was therefore the object of their aversion and contempt; and they firmly persuaded themselves that, should the nation be induced by his discourses or his miracles to accept him as their leader, the result would be ruinous to their prosperity, and perhaps fatal to their existence.¹² They had, however, little ground of apprehension, for in their rejection of his claims, and their hostility to his person, they were zealously seconded by the great body of Israelites assembled at the paschal and other festivals in Jerusalem; and it was thus demonstrated that, in spite of their superior religious advantages, both priests and people thoroughly participated in the general depravity of mankind, and were in consequence abandoned to judicial blindness, and to the most culpable and pernicious delusions. When Jesus was arraigned before the Sanhedrim, he was accordingly declared guilty of blasphemy, and deserving of death, merely for avowing his true character as the Messiah, which had not only been proclaimed by John the Baptist, but also publicly and repeatedly acknowledged by the Deity himself. Had they possessed civil power as well as sacerdotal authority, they would on that occasion, in conformity with the directions of the law of Moses respecting such offences, have despatched him by stoning; and his dead body, after having been suspended or crucified, would have been cast the same day before sunset into some common and dishonoured grave. The law in question is thus cited by Josephus: — "He that blasphemeth God, let him be stoned, and let him hang upon a tree all that day, and then let him be buried in an ignominious and obscure manner." — To the same effect he remarks in another part of his works: — "The Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun." — But such a mode of death, involving the semblance only of malediction, not its reality, would have been unfit for the purpose; and in order to fulfil the conditions of atonement, it was necessary that he should be crucified alive. Hence, as this cruel and infamous punishment was not in use amongst the Israelitish people when governed by their own laws, they were at that critical period placed by divine providence under the dominion of the Romans, by whom it was habitually practised.¹³ But the Roman procurator was neither obliged nor disposed to execute the sentence of death pronounced against Jesus by the Jewish Sanhedrim on the ground of blasphemy, and they were therefore under the necessity of transforming that accusation into one of sedition against the state, before they could obtain a corresponding sentence from the civil tribunal. Of the falsehood of this latter charge the governor, after due inquiry, was fully convinced. In a private conference Christ explained to him, as he had formerly done to his own countrymen, that, although he was truly a king, and in a certain sense the king of the Jews, yet his kingdom was purely spiritual, and totally unconnected with the politics of the present world. On hearing this, Pilate, who probably regarded such a kingdom as the delusion of a visionary mind, acquitted him of all blame, and earnestly laboured to release him; but having been guilty of great abuses in his government, fearful of being accused to the emperor as a favourer of usurpation, and alarmed by the growing violence of the multitude, he was at length induced to comply with their demands, by ordering the crucifixion of their innocent victim. Nothing could, however, be more evident than that in so doing he was merely the instrument of the Jewish priesthood and people, who by their outrageous conduct before the judgment-seat, and their savage triumph at the place of execution, openly avowed that they were the principal, although not the immediate agents in the death of Jesus, and that their chief object in accomplishing it was, to deny on behalf of the nation at large his claim to be the predicted Messiah, and as they supposed effectually to defeat it. Hence, the apostles and their associates soon afterwards charged them, in the most direct manner, with being the authors of this judicial murder. Speaking of Christ to the people assembled at Jerusalem on the subsequent day of pentecost, Peter boldly affirmed, — "This man, having been delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye took, [and] by the hands of wicked men crucified and slew."¹⁴ — The language which they addressed on this subject to the Sanhedrim was equally strong, as appears from the following speech of the same apostle, when first arraigned before them: — "Rulers of the people, and elders of Israel! If we are this day examined concerning the benefit [conferred] on the lame man, [and] the means by which he has been healed, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, [but] whom God raised from the dead, [even] by him, does this man stand before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought by you builders, [but] which has become the head [stone] of the corner."¹⁵ — The prominent part taken by the Jewish people and their rulers in this transaction did not, however, exculpate Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, the legitimate governors of the nation, from their share in its guilt. They were well aware of the innocence of Christ, and humanly speaking, it was not less in their power, than it was their duty to have protected him; yet, through fear or indifference they basely abandoned him to his enemies, and thereby rendered themselves equally responsible for the crime of his crucifixion.

Such were the principal external circumstances which attended this awful event; and it will now be shown how exactly they were intimated long before, more especially in reference to the peculiar mode and cause of the death of Jesus, by the types and prophecies of the Mosaic dispensation. That all the animal sacrifices under the law were types of the one great sacrifice offered by Christ, is plainly declared by the apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews. It is also intimated in numerous other passages both of the New and Old Testaments, particularly in the very remarkable one quoted by the same apostle from the fortieth psalm: — "On coming into the world [Christ] said, — Sacrifice and offering thou desiredst not, but a body hast thou prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and [sacrifices] for sin thou hadst no pleasure; then I said, Lo, I come! (In a chapter of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God!"¹⁶ — In these few words several important truths are announced; namely, that the Levitical sacrifices, although divinely appointed, were incapable of rendering a real atonement for sin, and therefore merely prefigured the perfect and satisfactory sacrifice of Christ; that he came into the world to accomplish by his vicarious death the gracious designs of the Father, who prepared for him a body specially adapted for the purpose; but that his acceptance of this office was purely voluntary, and the result of his own free and benevolent choice. Amongst the many statements of the New Testament to this effect, the following may be cited as specimens. The apostle John says of Christ: — ''Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and that in him there is no sin." — Referring to himself and the other apostles, Paul remarks: — "We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God entreated you through us, we beseech [you] in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God; for he hath made him who knew not sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God by him. . . . . . We have not a high-priest who cannot sympathize with our infirmities, but was in all respects tried as we are, [yet] without sin; . . . . . . for it was fit that we should have such a high-priest [as is] holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. . . . . . . As beloved children, be ye therefore imitators of God; and walk in love, as Christ also loved us, and presented himself to God on our behalf, as a sweet-smelling oblation and sacrifice." — Id a manner precisely similar Peter observes, in his first epistle to the Christian Jews of Asia Minor: — "Christ suffered once on account of sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; . . . . . . for it was not by perishable things, [such as] silver or gold, that ye were redeemed from your unprofitable [religious] course derived by tradition from the fathers, but by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot; who did no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth; who when reviled did not revile in return, when he suffered did not threaten, but committed [himself] to him that judgeth righteously; who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being delivered from sins should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed; for ye were as sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your souls."¹⁷ — In the sentence last quoted, and in some other parts of the New Testament, the well-known and marvellous prophecy which occupies the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, is clearly represented as having been fulfilled in Christ. — "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; but he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." — The language of prophecy respecting the death of Christ, delivered more than seven hundred years before its occurrence, was therefore sufficiently explicit; and the typical indications of the same event, furnished by the Mosaic institution at a still earlier period, were not less so. Besides many other expiatory sacrifices presented on various occasions, two were celebrated in the court of the tabernacle or temple every day, such being the divine direction. — "This [is] the offering made by fire, which ye shall offer unto the Lord; two lambs of the first year without spot, day by day, [for] a continual burnt-offering; the one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at even."

Types and prophecies thus concurred in announcing that the true lamb of God, who by a public and violent death would ultimately make atonement for the sins of the world, was to be perfect in body and mind, the demand of the law respecting every such victim being, — "It shall be perfect to be accepted: there shall be no blemish therein." — Agreeably to this requirement, as well as to the intrinsic exigency of the case, the human nature of Christ was, as he himself declared, specially provided by the Deity: — ''A body hast thou prepared for me;" — and it is obvious that a body so provided could not have been otherwise than perfect. Hence, both the prophet and the apostle describe him as God's — "elect and righteous servant, in whom his soul delighted, who did no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth." — In the primeval promise also, the future deliverer of mankind, who was to bruise the serpent's head, is significantly styled — "the seed of the woman;" — a term evidently implying supernatural interposition, by which alone the prediction could have been realized. The corresponding fact is appropriately supplied by Luke,— "the beloved physician," — who intimates on angelic authority, that the Saviour's body was formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a pious Hebrew virgin, whereby he was entirely preserved from the hereditary corruption of fallen humanity, which he must otherwise have participated.¹⁸ Amongst the numerous proofs of Christ's immaculate sanctity, it will be sufficient to refer to the testimony of the Deity himself, communicated more than once by a voice from heaven. The first declaration of this kind occurred at his baptism, when the Holy Spirit descending in a visible form, conferred on him without measure the extraordinary and miraculous powers necessary for the discharge of his prophetical office, which then commenced, and also distinctly marked him out as the atoning victim of the new covenant; in allusion to which the Baptist thenceforth proclaimed him to be — "the lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." — It was no doubt to this divine testimony that Christ alluded at a later period, when in the synagogue at Capernaum he said to the multitude whom he had recently fed: — "Labour not for the food which perisheth, but for that which endureth to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for him hath God the Father sealed."¹⁹ — It appears from the rabbinical writings that, before a victim of this description was presented at the altar, it was most carefully examined within and without by the priests; and if found in the slightest degree faulty or defective, was rejected as inadmissible. That a similar practice prevailed amongst the ancient Egyptians is stated by Herodotus; who, after minutely describing the details of the process, observes, — "If in all these instances the bull appears to be unblemished, the priest fastens the byblus round his horns; he then applies a preparation of earth which receives the impression of his seal, and the animal is led away. This seal is of so great importance, that to sacrifice a beast which has it not, is deemed a capital offence."20 — Although not positively mentioned in Scripture, it can scarcely be doubted that amongst the Jews also, approved victims were in like manner sealed by the priests; and it is therefore more than probable that when the Saviour said of himself, — "Him hath God the Father sealed," — he alluded to his public designation by divine authority as the true atoning victim, who was to give his flesh and blood for the life of the world.

This office was accordingly prefigured by all the animal sacrifices under the Mosaic law, but especially by those offered on the great day of expiation in the seventh month. On this solemn occasion a bullock and a goat were slaughtered as sin-offerings, the former for the priesthood, the latter for the people. A portion of their blood, accompanied with the fumes of incense, was presented to God by the high-priest in the inner sanctuary, and their bodies were consumed with fire without the camp or city, where the tabernacle or temple was situated. Another goat, ceremonially charged with the collective sins of the nation, was at the same time conducted to a desert, and there abandoned. Deliverance from sin and its consequences by the intervention of an approved substitute, taking on himself the guilt of the transgressor, and suffering in his stead the punishment due to his offences, was by these rites plainly indicated; but to render the figure still more expressive, the animals thus devoted, although clean by nature, were regarded as polluted by the transaction, so that the priests and others who touched them became legally defiled, and were obliged to wash both their persons and their clothes. It is evident, however, that all this was representation only, not reality; a shadow of good things to come, not the substance. In the former point of view nothing could be more significant: in -the latter, nothing could be more absurd; and the very grossness of the absurdity seemed to be an effectual security against any misapprehension or abuse. The following remarks from a treatise on the atonement by the late Mr. Hey of Leeds, may serve to elucidate this subject. — "The true notion of a sacrifice for sin . . . . . . is that of something devoted to death, as the means of expiating guilt, or removing the obligation to punishment from the offender . . . . . . Both the goats appointed for a sin-offering are spoken of as making atonement, Lev. chap. 16, v. 5. They were both likewise made ceremonially accursed, and equally defiled the persons who touched them; for neither the man who led the scape-goat into the wilderness, nor he that carried out the flesh of the goat slain, could return into the camp, until he had washed his clothes, and bathed his flesh in water; from all which it is probable that the two goats were intended to point out the same thing in different respects; the one by its death, the means of pardon; the other by its removal into the wilderness, the certainty of it." — In another passage of the same work the author judiciously observes, — "There is no necessity to suppose that each circumstance of every institution which was designed to typify the method of our redemption by Christ, should have something corresponding to it in the antitype; because many, if not all of those institutions had other purposes to answer, besides that of being types of our redemption. The propitiatory sacrifices, as I have already observed, w^ere branches of a political law, and had an immediate reference to crimes committed against God as civil governor. Various circumstances belonging to them might be needful in this respect, which were not intended to be typical. The same may be said with regard to the passover, and other types of Christ. Besides, so many things were to be prefigured concerning our Redeemer, that no one institution could exhibit them all, and therefore it was necessary that different types should be appointed. The whole ceremonial law did but afford an imperfect resemblance of the things which it typified; it was but the shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things."²¹ — These rites were in fact merely types of the true atonement ultimately accomplished by Christ, and are thus explained by the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews; — "for, of those animals" — says he, — "whose blood is brought as a sin-offering by the high-priest into the most holy place, the bodies are burnt without the camp; on which account Jesus also, that he might consecrate the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate [of Jerusalem;] wherefore let us go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach." — The fact of his having been put to death without the camp was obscurely predicted by Christ himself a few days previously to the event, when in the parable of the proprietor and his husbandmen he represented the latter as casting the heir out of the vineyard, and slaying him; but is more clearly stated by the beloved disciple. — "Bearing his cross," — says John, [Jesus] "went forth to the place named after a skull, and in Hebrew called Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the midst;" — and, after describing his death, subjoins, — "Now in the place where he had been crucified was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb," &c. — These circumstances are decisive; for neither gardens, tombs, nor public executions were permitted within the walls of Jerusalem. The same fact is implied, although not quite so distinctly, by the other evangelists; amongst whom Matthew, when mentioning the report of Christ's resurrection carried to the chief priests by the soldiers who guarded the tomb, says, they — "came to the city;" — signifying, of course, that they had previously been out of it.²² The passage last quoted from the epistle to the Hebrews is of great value and importance, for it proves that the death of Christ on the cross was in the divine estimation a real sacrifice, and the antitype of the various sin-offerings appointed by the Mosaic law. This was indeed the only mode in which such a sacrifice could have taken place, since by the same law, as well as by the law of nature, the formal immolation of human beings was absolutely prohibited; and one of the many charges brought against the ancient Israelites in their own Scriptures is, that — "they shed innocent blood, [even] the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood."²³ — All the essential conditions of a sacrifice were, however, realized in the Saviour's crucifixion; for he was virtually offered up by the legitimate authorities, the Jewish priesthood, who with the other members of the Sanhedrim appeared on the occasion as principals, and of whom the Roman governor was merely the reluctant instrument. Yet, with all their power and malice, they were unable to deny the miracles which proved his mission, or to convict him of the smallest offence; but, on the contrary, were compelled indirectly to acknowledge that he was an innocent victim sacrificed, as they supposed, for the safety of the nation.

The crucifixion of Christ was thus prefigured in a lively manner by the Levitical sacrifices, wherein the violent death of a pure and perfect animal, and its oblation to God on account of sin in the presence of his assembled people, closely resembled the public execution of an innocent human victim. With these typical representations addressed to the senses, the special prophecies of the Old Testament on the same subject strikingly agree; particularly those contained in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and the twenty-second psalm. That Christ died as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people, could not be more clearly stated than in the well-known words of the evangelical prophet, who by the privilege of inspiration describes the future as if it were already past. — "He [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace [Was] upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." — A little after the Deity himself is represented as declaring, — "He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." — That his death should take place by a public execution, the result of a judicial sentence, is expressed in the following terms. — "He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken." — The psalmist is still more explicit, and plainly intimates the specific mode of execution, namely by crucifixion, the principal circumstances of which are detailed with a degree of minuteness, belonging to history rather than to prophecy. The derision of Christ by the priesthood and the people is thus anticipated. — "All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head [saying,] He trusted on the Lord [that] he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him . . . . . . Many bulls have compassed me, strong [bulls] of Bash an have beset me round. They gaped upon me [with] their mouths, [as] a ravening and a roaring lion." — The narrative of the evangelists is precisely similar, and in some parts identical. — "Those who passed by reviled him, shaking their heads, and saying. Aha! thou that destroyest the temple, and rebuildest [it] in three days, save thyself. If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross. In like manner the chief priests also, jesting amongst themselves with the scribes and elders, said. He saved others, [but] cannot save himself. If he is the Christ, the chosen of God, the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. He trusted in God; let [God] now deliver him if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God."²⁴ — But, as before observed, the crucifixion of living persons, although common amongst some other nations, was not practised by the people of Israel: and hence, in language familiar to the Jews, who were in the habit of styling Gentiles — "dogs, the wicked, the profane," &c., — the psalm proceeds to mark that peculiarity in the death of Christ. — "Dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look [and] stare upon me: they part my garments amongst them, and cast lots upon my vesture." — The account given by the evangelists is the exact counterpart of this description. — "When the [Roman] soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his outer garments, and divided them into four parts, for each soldier a part, as likewise his vest. Now the vest was without seam, woven from the top throughout; so they said one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, [to settle] whose it shall be; in fulfilment of the Scripture which saith, — They parted my garments amongst them, and for my vesture they cast lots. Thus accordingly the soldiers did; for after parting his outer garments, they cast lots for them, [to settle] what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him; and they sat down and guarded him there, whilst the people stood looking on." — A remark formerly made may here be repeated; namely, that the prophecies of Scripture are usually clear or obscure, in proportion as there was more or less danger that the information afforded by them might be abused by human interference. In the present instance, those which relate to the Jewish priesthood and people are so full and distinct that, had not their minds been thoroughly blinded by prejudice and passion, in consequence of which they did not understand the words of the prophets read in their synagogues every sabbath-day, it is difficult to conceive how they could have fulfilled them by condemning and persecuting Christ. With respect to the Roman soldiers no such danger was to be apprehended, and their proceedings on this occasion are therefore still more plainly predicted. After crucifying their prisoner, they were to take possession of his clothing, dividing for that purpose his outer garments into portions, but disposing of his vesture, without rend ing it, by lot. The design and use of this minute intimation, in itself of no importance, are sufficiently obvious; namely, to identify Jesus of Nazareth as the Saviour of the world, by showing that in him alone all the numerous and extraordinary circumstances ascribed to the Messiah in the Old Testament actually concurred. A similar remark may be made on the prediction of Isaiah, that, although by the enemies of Christ his grave was appointed amongst the wicked, his tomb should be with a rich man; or, as it is accurately rendered by Dr. Henderson:

"They had also assigned him his grave with the wicked,
  But he was with the rich after his death."

This prediction, than which few things could at the time have appeared more improbable, was wonderfully accomplished when it might least have been expected, by the pious zeal of Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, and a member of the Sanhedrim, who, having promptly obtained the necessary permission from Pontius Pilate, rescued the body of Jesus from the hands of those who would otherwise have speedily thrown it, together with those of the malefactors, into some ignominious pit; and having with the aid of Nicodemus embalmed it according to the Jewish manner, gave it an honourable interment in his own new tomb, hewn out of the native rock in tile immediate vicinity of the place of crucifixion, and wherein no one had previously been deposited.²⁵

The singular combination of Jews and Gentiles, notwithstanding their mutual enmity, in opposing Christ, is likewise noticed in the second psalm, which was quoted and explained in this sense by the twelve apostles shortly after the day of pentecost: — "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take council together against the Lord, and against his anointed, [saying,] Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." — In another part of the prophetical Scriptures, — the book of Daniel, — the particular Gentile nation which would be engaged in this transaction is clearly indicated, as — "the fourth kingdom upon earth," — that is, the Roman empire, under which crucifixion was a common punishment, more especially for political offences, and in the eastern provinces. In this sublime book, the Roman empire, like its predecessors, the Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian, is depicted by the emblem of a ferocious wild beast; and its character is drawn too graphically to be mistaken. — "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces . . . . . . The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. Forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all [things;] and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise." — That the kingdom of God, that is the gospel dispensation, portrayed by a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, and becoming itself a great mountain which fills the whole earth, should spring up under the Roman empire, and ultimately overthrow it, is thus plainly announced: — "And in the days of these kings, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, [but] it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." — The manner in which the incipient fulfilment of this prophecy is intimated by the evangelist Luke, is at once simple and effective. — "Now in those days there went forth a decree from Augustus Caesar, that the whole empire should be registered. . . . . . In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, &c., . . . . . . a message from God came to John the son of Zachariah, in the wilderness . . . . . . In those days" — adds Matthew, — "appeared John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."²⁶ — Amongst the minor types or illustrations of crucifixion, may be reckoned the brazen serpent which by divine command Moses erected in the wilderness, when the Israelites on account of their murmurings against God were plagued with serpents, whereby many of them were destroyed; but, on looking towards the brazen serpent, all who had been bitten and survived, recovered. The aged Simeon may be supposed to have had this type in view, when he said of the infant Jesus to Mary his mother: — "Behold! this [child] is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." — But the principal ground for this opinion is that Christ himself, in his conference with Nicodemus, made a similar application of the fact: — "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life;" — and on two other occasions remarked, that, when he had been thus lifted up or crucified, he would draw all men to himself; and that his Jewish adversaries, in spite of their inveterate repugnance to the doctrine of the cross, would then at length discover his true character and office.²⁷

The indications respecting the Saviour's death, furnished by the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, are not however confined to its outward circumstances, but extend to its intrinsic nature, and show that it was, not in appearance only but in reality, the death of an atoning victim suffering the divine malediction due to human transgression. The Gentile punishment of crucifixion alive was the only one whereby these indications could have been suitably accomplished, because it was the only one in which the sign and the reality of malediction could be effectually united. Hence, both the punishment and the agents by whom it was to be executed were so plainly designated in the ancient Scriptures; and, as it was not in use amongst the Jews, they were at that critical period placed by divine providence under the dominion of the Romans, amongst whom it was familiar. The period may well be termed critical; for in Daniel's celebrated prophecy of the seventy weeks it had been accurately defined, and no other period before or after would either have corresponded in point of time, or have supplied the necessary conditions. As in the atoning sacrifice which he offered Christ was the priest as well as the victim, it was necessary, according to the law of Moses, that at the time of his death he should not be less than thirty years of age. Had it occurred under the reign of Jewish princes, either twenty-three years earlier, when Archelaus was ethnarch of Judea, or eight years later, when Herod Agrippa was king of Palestine, it would not have been the death of the cross; and in the former case he would have been too young for the office. That he should be crucified alive by the hands of Romans, was not however sufficient; for, had he died on the cross in the ordinary manner, his death would have been that of a martyr only, not that of an atoning victim. To signify that he would not die in this manner, it was therefore ordained by the Mosaic law, which in such matters was wisely respected by the Roman governors of Judea, that those who were suspended on a tree should before sunset the same day be taken down and buried; and as crucified persons, if left to themselves, might continue alive on the cross for two or three days, the command implied that the death of Christ would be accelerated by some additional agency. The method usually employed for this purpose was that of breaking the legs, but the same law intimated that in his case there should be no such infliction; for concerning the paschal lamb, one of the principal types of Christ, it positively commanded,— "Ye shall not break a bone thereof:" — a prohibition which is accordingly thus applied by the apostle John.²⁸

But the indications of prophecy on this point are not negative only, they also distinctly describe the agency by which the effect was to be produced; namely agony of mind, under a sense of divine abandonment piously endured to expiate human guilt, and terminating in rupture of the heart, with effusion of the life's blood, and consequently premature and sudden death. The language of the evangelical prophet on these points is strong and unequivocal. — "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . . . . . It pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put [him] to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." — The mental agony of the Saviour could not be more forcibly depicted than by the expression, — "the travail of his soul;"— and this is declared to have been occasioned by divine infliction, in consequence of his becoming the righteous substitute of sinners, and bearing the iniquities of mankind. In the corresponding prophecy of Zechariah, the Deity is in like manner represented as saying,— "Awake, O sword! against my shepherd, and against the man [that is] my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered;" — a passage of which the import and application cannot be mistaken, since it is thus appropriated by Christ himself. In the twenty-second psalm, the very words in which he expressed his bitter sense of divine abandonment are accurately predicted: — "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? [Why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my roaring? O my God! I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent." — A distinct reference seems here to be made to his mental sufferings both at Gethsemane, and at Golgotha, of which the former occurred during the night, and the latter during the day; as likewise to the loud cries which on each occasion were their natural, and almost necessary consequence. A little later, allusion is made to the other physical effects proceeding from the same cause^ including bloody sweat, intense thirst, and ultimately rupture of the heart. — '' I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death."²⁹ — Isaiah goes a step further, and intimates that the Saviour's death was more immediately induced by a copious and rapid effusion of blood; but in order to perceive the full force of this intimation, it is necessary to modify in a slight degree the authorized English version of the passage, and to adopt that proposed by several eminent biblical critics of modern times; a version the more entitled to confidence because, although it strongly confirms the views here advocated, it was made without any knowledge of them. Of these versions, borrowed from Dr. Pye Smith's excellent work on the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ, the first is by the distinguished scholar, Sir J. D. Michaelis, professor at Gottingen, who died in 1791; the second by the celebrated professor of divinity in the university of Erlangen, Dr. G. F. Seller, who died in 1807. The translation of Isaiah, chap. 53, v. 12, furnished by Michaelis is, — "Therefore will I give him a share of booty with the great ones, and he shall have the mighty ones for his spoil, since he hath poured out his life's blood unto death, and was reckoned amongst malefactors; but he bare the sins of many, and will pray for the transgressors." — The version of Dr. Seller is, — "Therefore I assign to him many for his booty, and he himself shall as his booty distribute the mighty; because he poured out his life's blood unto death, because he was reckoned amongst the transgressors, because he hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors." — When it is considered that the Hebrew term corresponding to soul is not unfrequently used in the sense of life, or life's blood, and that in this passage the prophet is describing Christ as a sin-offering, a lamb led to the slaughter to expiate the transgressions of many, there can be little doubt that he is alluding to the sacrificial effusion of his blood, typified by that of ordinary victims both under the patriarchal and the Mosaic dispensations, wherein the life's blood of animals was by divine appointment made the ostensible means of purification, ransom, and atonement; and hence, in order to mark and maintain its ritual sanctity, its use as an article of food was prohibited on pain of death. In the strongest possible language the Deity is thus represented as declaring, — "Whatsoever man [there be] of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn amongst you, that eateth any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from amongst his people: for the life of the flesh [is] in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul;" — and again, — "Be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood [is] the life, and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it, thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do [that which is] right in the sight of the Lord." — The comment of the Jewish historian on these laws is remarkable. — "Moses" — says Josephus, — "entirely forbad us the use of blood for food, and esteemed it to contain the soul and spirit."³⁰ — In order the more exactly to fulfil the divine directions in this respect, it was the practice of the Hebrew priests when slaughtering a victim, rapidly to divide all the large vessels of the neck, as well as the wind-pipe, with a sharp two-edged sword driven nearly to the back-bone, so as to destroy the animal's life by the sudden effusion of the greater part of its blood, which was afterwards solemnly sprinkled or poured out, as the symbol of atonement and propitiation. The process is well described by Outran! in his treatise on sacrifices, who further remarks: — "The most sacred of all rites was the sprinkling of blood, whereby the life or soul of the victim was supposed to be offered to God, as the supreme lord of life and death; for, as in these religious acts whatsoever was laid on the altar of God was thought to be offered to him, so with the blood, as the vehicle of the life and soul, and sometimes even termed the life itself, the life and soul were supposed to be thus offered. Hence may be understood the passage in the Revelation of St. John, — 'I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain on account of the word of God, and of the testimony which they had given-,' — for the souls of whom he here speaks were, as the words themselves show, the souls of those who, like so many sacred victims, had shed their blood."³¹ — That the blood of inferior victims represented that of Christ is declared in many parts of the New Testament, more especially by the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews, who observes, — "According to the law almost all things are purified by blood, and without effusion of blood there is no discharge [of sins. It was] therefore necessary that the types of heavenly things should be thus purified, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these." — This view of the subject is well expressed by Rambach, who remarks that, under the Mosaic law, — '^ the atonement for sin was not made till all the blood of the animal was drained off and poured at the foot of the altar. Hence St. Paul says, that — 'without shedding of blood there is no remission.' — The pouring forth the blood of the sacrifice at the foot of the altar represents with regard to Christ the abundant shedding of his blood on the cross, till the absolute separation of his body and soul. For it is said of Christ, — 'He hath poured out his soul unto death;' — and consequently he poured out his blood with the utmost willingness and overflowing zeal for the honour of God, and the unspeakable good of mankind."³² — But here a formidable difficulty presents itself. The ordinary death of the cross did not furnish the requisite condition. Instead of occurring suddenly by the effusion of the life's blood, it was effected by slow exhaustion, and protracted torture. The scanty drainings of blood from the transfixed extremities could not satisfy the demands of the Levitical law; and if under that dispensation one of the inferior animals had been thus slain, it could not have been accepted as a victim at the altar. The stab with the soldier's spear might, in appearance at least, have answered the purpose, had it been given during life, but Jesus was already dead when it took place. The fatal hemorrhage foretold in Scripture is moreover represented as the result, not of external violence but of inward grief, and in a certain sense as his own act; — "He poured out his life's blood unto death." — During a long succession of ages the types and prophecies of Scripture announced that Christ would suffer the death of malediction, and of the cross; not however in the usual manner, nor yet by the fracture of his limbs, but by some extraordinary process connected with — "the travail of his soul," — and terminating on the very day of his crucifixion in the effusion of his life's blood, the indispensable medium of atonement. The key to this enigma has already been supplied. By voluntarily suffering the divine malediction, of which the cross was the appointed emblem, Christ endured a degree of mental agony which, after previously forcing from him a bloody sweat, at length occasioned sudden rupture of the heart, attended with an internal discharge of blood proving instantly fatal. In order that there might be a public demonstration of this event, which otherwise would not have been perceived, it was further predicted, — "They shall look on him whom they pierced." — This actually happened some time after his death, and the immediate flow of blood and water, which followed the wound made in his side by the soldier's spear, proved that it had been preceded by rupture of the heart, which was likewise predicted in express terms: — "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels." — Thus, as was intimated at the beginning, the peculiar cause of the death of Christ, which by a regular induction from the evangelical narrative has been ascertained as a fact, remarkably illustrates the entire series of types and prophecies relating to that solemn event, which could not indeed in any other manner have been completely fulfilled. These in turn, by their minute and perfect correspondence with the circumstances, afford, if that were necessary, an additional confirmation of the fact itself, and the whole transaction demonstrates with irresistible evidence the special interposition and superintendence of the Deity.

1) 2 Peter, chap. 1, v. 19-21. Τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες, ὅτι· πᾶσα πριφητεὶα γραφῆς ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται.

2) Gen. chap. 3, v. 14, 15; — 2 Corinth. chap. 11, v. 3; — 1 Tim. chap. 2, v. 13, 14; — Heb. chap. 2, v. 14, 15; — Revel, chap. 12. v. 9; chap. 20, v. 1,2.

3) "Ον προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὑτοῦ αἵματι, εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὑτοῦ, διὰ τήν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ Τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς ἔνδειξιν Γῆς δικαιοσύνης αὑτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιριβ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὑτὸν δίκαιον, καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ" — Romans, chap. 3, v. 23-26; — Gen. chap. 4, v. 1-12; — Heb. chap. 11, v. 4; — 1 Peter, chap. 1, v. 18-21; — Rev. chap. 13, v. 8.

4) Gen. chap. 4, v. 3; chap. 7, v. 1, 2, 7-9; chap. 8, v. 20, 21; chap. 15, v. 8, 9; chap. 22, v. 1, 2; — Levit. chap. 1, v. 1-3, 10, 14.

5) Gen. chap. 15; chap. 22, v. 1-18; chap. 26. v. 23-25; chap. 33, v. 18-20; — John, chap. 8, v. 56; — Heb. chap. 11, v. 8-10.

6) Psalm 7, v. 11; Psalm 130, v. 4, 7; — Habak. chap. 1, v. 12, 13; — Rom. chap. 1, v. 18; chap. 6, v. 22, 23; — Heb. chap. 9, v. 27, 28.

7) Dr. J. P. Smith, On the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Jesus Christ, &c., pp. 3, 4, 14-17, 19-21; — Levit. chap. 6, v. 1-7; chap. 17, v. 10-12; — Psalm 40, v. 6-8; Psalm 110, v. 4; — Heb, chap. 9, v. 24-26; chap. 10, v. 1-10.

8) Galat. chap. 3, v. 21-26; — Coloss. chap. 2, v. 16, 17: — Heb. chap. 8, v. 1-6; chap. 10, v. 1-10.

9) Luke, chap. 24, v. 25-27, 44-47.

10) Acts, chap. 3, v. 13-18, 22-24; chap. 13, v. 26-30;1 Corinth, chap. 15, v. 3, 4.

11) Eccles. chap. 4, v, 9-12; — John, chap. 1, v. 29, 36; — Acts, chap. 26, v. 22, 23.

12) John, chap. 11, v. 45-50; — Galat. chap. 4, v. 4, 5.

13) The crucifixion of eight hundred Jewish prisoners at Jerusalem by their king Alexander Jannseus, forms no exception to this statement; since that prince was a usurper and a tyrant, who violated the laws of Moses, as well as those of justice and humanity. Levit. chap. 24, v. 10-16; — Deuteron. chap, 21, v. 22, 23; — Whiston's Josephus, vol. i. p. 188; vol. ii. pp. 243, 244; vol. iv. p. 87.

14) Acts, chap. 2, v. 22, 23.

15) Psalm 118, v. 22, 23; — Matt. chap. 21, v. 42-44; — Acts, chap. 3, v. 13-15; chap. 4, v. 8-12; chap. 5, v. 29-31; ch. 7, v. 51, 52.

16) Psalm 40, v. 6-8; — Heb. chap. 10, v. 110.

17) 2 Coriuth. chap. 5, v. 20,21; — Ephes. chap. 5, v. 1, 2; — Heb. chap. 4, v. 14-16; chap. 7, v. 26; chap. 9, v. 13, 14; — 1 Peter, chap. 1, v. 18-21; chap. 2, v. 21-25; chap. 3, v. 18; — 1 John, chap. 3, v. 5.

18) Gen. chap. 3, v. 14, 15; — Levit. chap. 22, v. 17-25; — Numb, chap. 28, v. 1-8; — Isaiah, chap. 28, v. 16; chap. 42, v. 1; chap. 53, v. 4-7, 9-11; — Luke, chap. 1, v. 34, 35; — Acts, chap. 8, v. 30-35; — Galat. chap. 4, v. 4, 5; — 1 Peter, chap. 1, v. 18-20; chap. 2, v. 3-7, 21-23; chap. 3, v. 18; — 2 Peter, chap. 1, v. 16-18.

19) John, chap. 1, v. 29-39; chap. 3, v. 34; chap. vi. v. 27; — Acts, chap. 10, v. 34-38; — 2 Corinth, chap. 1, v. 21, 22; — Ephes. chap. 1, v. 12 -14; chap. 4, v. 30.

20) Beloe's Herodotus, vol. i. pp. 357, 358; — Job, chap. 38, v. 14.

21) W. Hey, Short Defence of the Doctrine of Atonement, pp, 57, 71, 76; — Levit. chap. 16, passim; chap. 23, v. 26-32.

22) It is remarkable that Josephus often calls the Israelitish camp in the wilderness the city, and the tabernacle the temple; whilst in this part of the epistle to the Hebrews the apostle Paul adopts the opposite practice. See Whiston's Josephus, vol. i. pp. 146-148; — Matt. chap. 21, v. 36-39; chap. 27, v. 31-34; chap. 28, v. 11; — Mark, chap. 15, v. 20-22; — Luke, chap. 20 v. 13-15; chap. 23, v. 26, 33; — John, ch. 19, v. 16-20, 41, 42; — Heb. ch. 13, v. 10-14.

23) Psalm 106, v. 34-38; — Isaiah, chap. 57, v. 4, 5; — Ezek. chap. 16, v. 20, 21.

24) Psalm 22, v. 7, 8, 12, 13; — Isaiah, chap. 53, v. 5, 8, 11; — Matt. chap. 27, v. 39-43; — Mark, chap. 15, v. 29-32; — Luke, chap. 23, v. 35.

25) Dr. Henderson's Isaiah, p. 384; — Psalm 22, v. 16-18; — Isaiah, chap. 53, v. 9; — Matt. chap. 27, v. 35, 36, 57-60; — Mark, chap. 15, v. 24, 42-46; — Luke, chap. 23, v. 33-36, 50-54; — John, chap. 19 v. 23, 24, 38-42; — Acts, chap. 2, v. 22, 23.

26) Psalm 2, v. 1-3; — Daniel, chap. 2, v. 31-45; chap. 7, v. 7, 23-27; — Matt. chap. 3, v. 1, 2; — Luke, chap. 2, v. 1; chap. 3, v. 1, 2; — Acts, chap. 4, v. 23-28.

27) Numb. chap. 21, v. 4-9; — Isaiah, chap. 45, v. 20-25; — Zech. chap. 12, v. 10; — Luke, chap. 2, v. 34, 35; chap. 13, v. 22-30; — John, chap. 3, v. 14-17; chap. 8, v. 28; chap. 12, v. 30-34.

28) Exod. chap. 12, v. 43-46; — Numb. chap. 4, v. 1-3; chap. 9, v. 9-12; — John, chap. 19, v. 30-37; — 1 Corinth, chap. 5, v. 7.

29) Psalm 22, v. 1, 2, 14, 15;— Isaiah, chap. 53, v. 6, 10, 11;— Zechar. chap. 13, v. 7; — Matt., chap. 26, v, 31;— Mark, chap. 14, v. 27; — Heb. chap. 5, v, 5 — 10.

30) Whiston's Josephus, vol. i. p. 146; — Dr. J. P. Smith, On the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Jesus Christ, pp. 284-288, 294; — Gen. chap. 9, v. 3-5; — Levit. chap. 3, v. 17; chap. 7, v. 22-27; chap. 17, v. 10-14; — Deut. chap. 12, v, 1.5, 16, 23-27; chap. 15, v. 22, 23.

31) Outram, De Sacrificiis, pp. 164-169; — Rambach, On the Sufferings of Christ, vol. iii. pp. 281, 282, 289-292; — Heb. chap. 4, v. 12; — Revel, chap. 1, v. 16; chap. 6, v. 9-11.

32) Rambach, as above cited; — Heb. chap. 9, v. 11-15, 19-23.