Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec, chap. vii. 12. But if Chrift is only called a prieft because he devoted his life to the service of God, and died in defence of his doctrine; to talk of his fuperior dignity in being conftituted a prieft with an oath, is to make a mere jingle of founds without a meaning.

The fuperior dignity of our Lord as a priest is likewise argued from other particulars, which prove his priesthood to be real, and not metaphorical: As that he excelled the high-priefts under the law in having no occafion to offer up a facrifice for his own fins, but only for thofe of the people. Such an highpriest became us, who needeth not daily, as thofe high-priests, to offer up facrifices, first for his own fins, and then for the people's, for this he did once when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high-priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath which was fince the law, maketh the Son, who is confecrated for evermore, chap. vii. 27, 28.* Now if Chrift did not properly offer any facrifice for the fins of the people, what can the inspired writer mean by informing us, that he excelled the Jewish high-priests in not offering one for himfelf? The argument is important, and conclufive, if we confider the death of Chrift as a real facrifice for fin; on any other fuppofition, the reasoning is childish. *See also chap. v. I, 2, 3.

The facrifice, which this great high-prieft of our profeffion offered up for us, was himself. This facrifice, the apoftle informs us, exceeded in its expiatory virtue those which were offered under the law, and therefore we are affured that it was a proper one. If the death of Chrift has no influence in procuring the remiffion of our fins, but as it leads us to repent of them; then it has no expiatory virtue at all, but only a tendency to promote that which properly expiates our guilt. But the apostle's reasoning does by no means agree with this fentiment: He fays, If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the afbes of an heifer Sprinkling the unclean, fanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: HOW MUCH MORE fhall the blood of Chrift, who, through the eternal spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your confcience from dead works to ferve the living God, chap. ix. 13, 14. It is not good sense to talk of the greater comparative efficacy of a facrifice, which, as a facrifice, has no efficacy at all: Nor could it with any propriety be said, that if the blood of bulls was fufficient to purify the flesh, then the blood of Chrift was much more fufficient to purge the confcience, unless the efficacy of the latter were of the fame kind as that of the former.

When the apostle would point out the dangerous condition of those, who reject the Lord Jefus as their Saviour, or, in his own empha

tical

tical language, who tread under foot the Son of God; he does it by reminding us, that there is no other facrifice for fin than that which our Lord made by his death. If we fin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more facrifice for fin, chap. x. 26. Now if Chrift made no facrifice for fin by his death, it is a strange kind of reasoning, to tell us there is no other: And if the term be applied to the death of Christ only by way of metaphor, then the affertion is false; for there have been many befides our Lord, who have offered their lives in the cause of truth, and for the good of mankind, which is all that the figurative ufe of the term implies.

When the infpired writers inform us, that fome of the circumftances of our Lord's death happened through an intention to conform to particular Jewish institutions, they thereby affure us, that they did not compare the death of Chrift to those inftitutions merely by way of allufion, in order to reconcile mankind to the notion of a suffering Saviour. For then the conformity would have been imaginary or accidental, which is inconfiftent with an intentional one. But, on the other hand, an intentional conformity was neceffary on this suppofition (and on this only), that those inftitutions. were defigned to be typical, and, therefore, an affurance of fuch a conformity strongly intimates that they were fo. The bodies of thofe B 2 beafts,

beafts, whose blood is brought into the fanctuary by the high-priest for fin, are burnt without the camp. WHEREFORE Jefus alfo, that he might fanctify the people with his own blood, fuffered without the gate, Heb. xiii. 11, 12. See likewife John xix. 36.

III. Before I proceed to answer the particular objections made to the doctrine of atonement, I will confider it in another point of view, from whence we may likewise discern that it is founded on divine revelation.

If Chrift died only to confirm his doctrine, and to give us an example of patient fubmiffion to the will of God; then there is nothing different in the nature or defign of his death, from that of any other teacher of christianity, who fuffered in defence of what he taught; Paul, and Peter, and all the martyred christian teachers, died for us juft in the same sense as Chrift died for us: * But this is inconfiftent with the fcriptural account of Christ's death.

St. Paul, reproving the Corinthians for their contentious behaviour in oppofing the principal teachers of christianity to one another, and to Chrift, endeavours to rectify their conduct by informing them, that they were to look

upon

The circumftantial account of the fufferings and "death of Chrift, in the 53d chapter of Ifaiah, might have "been the description of any other good man in the fame "fituation, with this only difference, that the moral ef"fects of it are represented to be more extenfive." Theological Repofitory, vol. I. p. 129.

upon all the minifters of the gospel as standing in the fame relation to them. It hath been declared unto me, fays he, that there are contentions among you that every one of you faith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ, 1 Cor. i. 11, 12. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but minifters by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? chap. iii. 5. Whereas he rejects with abhorrence the thought of their being confidered as standing in the fame relation to them as Chrift did. Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? The apoftle could not mean in this passage to make a question whether he himself had been put to death, or to affert, that if he died in defence of his doctrine it would not be for their benefit; for he speaks elsewhere of being offered up on the facrifice and fervice of their faith; but he evidently means to point out the difference of that relation in which Chrift, and that in which their other fpiritual teachers stood towards them; and gives this as a proof of fuch difference, that Chrift died FOR them. Now if Chrift had only died for them in the fame sense that Stephen and others had already done, and that he himself shortly was to do, to say. that Chrift died FOR them, was giving no proof that he stood in a relation to them distinct from that of other teachers of the gospel.