bleeding and propitiatory victim is either expressed or implied, and the only object of designating our blessed Lord by this singular title seems to have been, to mark his atoning and expiatory character. His being without spot of sin, answers to the description of the victim which was to be without blemish or defect; and his being a first-born, corresponds to the relation which the Children of Israel bore to God as his adopted first-born, and to the claim which God put in to all their first-born, as the price of their deliverance.-Christ, therefore, being born a Jew, died as one of God's children in the stead of his brethren, and being a first-born son, he was dedicated to God from the womb in a particular manner. St. John says of his advent, "He came unto his own," signifying, primarily, the Jewish nation, and St. Paul, arguing on the humanity of Christ, observes, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death," that is, by tasting death for every man, "he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage." In order that our blessed Saviour might become a victim for human transgression, it was necessary that he should be clothed with a human form, and partake of the infirmities incident to human nature, for how could he have made an atonement for the sin of the world, unless he had assumed that garb in which the sin was committed? The object of a just God is to

punish the guilty. A being of an order different to ours could not have made satisfaction for our iniquity. Hence it was that Christ "took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." The fallen angels, therefore, can have no part in our redemption, because the offering was not made in the angelic form. That which constitutes the very essence of our salvation by Jesus Christ, namely, his humanity, excludes the possibility of other beings, of a different nature, partaking with us. St. Paul insists upon this doctrine of the humanity, as the great proof of our fellowship with Christ, and interest in his sufferings. "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."-If, then, it was fitting that Christ should take upon him a human body to qualify him to make an offering for human sin, it is perfectly clear that no created angel, however high his order, or however faultless his character, could, by any oblation or substitution of himself, have made an atonement for us. The same difficulty which prevented the fallen angels from sharing in the Christian sacrifice, must, by parity of reasoning, have prevented fallen man from sharing in an angelic sacrifice.

It is to be borne in mind, that the virtue of the sacrifice of propitiation, lies in the presentation of a bodily victim. No ideal offering, no merely spiritual and mental sacrifice, no inward act of homage and

devotion, fills the true notion of an atonement, nor can constitute the full design of a sacrament. There must be an outward and visible sign, significant of the inward and spiritual intention. Had our blessed Lord, therefore, come to us purely in a spiritual garb, the same objection would have applied to his offering as to an angel's. There would have been such an entire want of agreement between the nature offering and the nature to be offered for, that the one would have borne no kind of relation to the other. A body, therefore, consisting of flesh and blood, was of necessity to be provided, and this body was at first, till a particular period should arrive, that of an animal which was slain in the stead of a man. But as there is no correspondency of nature between a purely spiritual being, and a being like man compounded of spirit and of matter, so there was no strict and proper affinity between a brute and a rational creature. When, therefore, the sacrifice of animals had continued sufficiently long to answer the purpose of God in awakening the minds of men to the object and importance of this rite, and to the necessity of some more costly and consistent victim being provided in their stead, he sent his own Son into the world, born of a woman, to complete the types then in use, and to render that full and final satisfaction of which they were only repeated proofs of their insufficiency and incapacity. "Wherefore when he," the Author of our salvation, "cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.

In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." The will of God which Christ came to do, was to make satisfaction by his life for the sins of the world. "And this he did once, when he offered up himself." "For by one offering he perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Had our Saviour not been born a Jew, the Paschal sacrifice could have borne no definite allusion to him, whilst, as it was, the lamb slain at the annual feast of their deliverance out of Egypt, foreshowed his connection with their history, and his dying for the redemption of mankind from the bondage of sin and the grave, marked him out, with singular precision, as that great victim, who, "once in the end of the world, should put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

II. In the Second place, the lamb was to be slain in the evening, the blood sprinkled on the houses, and the victim to be wholly consumed before the morning.

Now the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a very accurate and striking fulfilment of this part of the holy ordinance. He died at the celebration of the feast of the Passover, on the day on which, according to the appointment of Moses in Egypt, it was directed to be kept, and the blood which flowed from his cross, did, in a figurative and spiritual sense, sprinkle all true believers. His death took place in the Jewish evening, and was the immediate signal of his triumph over death, and over all the power of the

enemy. For when his last words were uttered, and nature in her dying pangs rent the vail of his body, his soul fled from its earthly prison; the rocks, those emblems of invincible power, split with a strong convulsion; the graves, which had hitherto held their victims in security, were broken up; and the dead, no longer bound by the fetters of sin, rose to declare the Redeemer's victory, and the fall of the empire of his enemy. A new and living way was opened into heaven, similar to the way which opened for the children of Israel into Canaan when they were freed from Pharaoh's yoke, and the true Christian, like the true Israelite, saw himself emancipated from the bondage of corruption, and delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God. As the Jewish legislator instituted the Passover on the night before he led his armies out of Egypt, to be observed in all their generations as a memorial of this great event, so the Christian legislator instituted the Sacrament of the Last Supper on the night before he led captivity captive, to be observed by all his disciples in remembrance of their redemption. As not a bone of the Paschal lamb was to be broken, so not a limb of our blessed Saviour was subjected to similar violence. As the body of the victim was to be fed upon in token of the offerer participating in all the ends for which it died, so the body of our Lord Jesus Christ is verily and indeed taken in the Eucharist, as significant of the receiver sharing in the benefits of his Redeemer's sufferings and death-of his being one with Christ, and Christ with him.