CHAPTER IV.

We now resume our illustration of the divine economy. We have seen that the oracles of Godthe account of the formation of all things and beings, and of the institution of sacrificial worship, was preserved, and that that worship continued to be observed by Abel and others before, and by Noah and his descendants after the deluge. It seems to us, however, that in process of time, the most. sublime and vital significance of the sacrificial offerings, which was the inbeing oneness of the humanity with the Messiah, and thereby the hope of a glorious resurrection, may have faded from the memory of the nations who descended from Noah. without that idea a sacrifice would appear to be simply an expiation or an atonement for sin, and thereby a means of restoration to divine favor; hence the offering on great occasions of vicarious human sacrifices. And different nations, ascribing different attributes to the Deity, had each their own God, the result being the general Polytheism of the east. It is clear from the record that as early as the day of Abraham, Polytheism, and even idolatry was prevalent among the nations, and the faith in the

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Messiah, and the knowledge of the true God were being lost to mankind, and for that cause God, in his faithfulness" and for his great love, wherewith he loved the world," chose Abraham, by and through whom to renew the promise of the Messiah, declaring "that in and through his seed all nations and families of the earth should be blessed."

And for the same cause, that is, for his love to all mankind, God chose the seed of Abraham as his peculiar people and nation, and set his mark upon them as such, which mark every son of Abraham, wherever born, has borne upon him for four thousand years.

And God further distinguished and set apart that nation from all mankind, by giving a written law and ordinances exclusively to that seed and that nation, and neither the law nor the ordinances were binding upon any individual of any other nation. Neither has God ever sent prophets to any Gentile until the resurrection of Christ from the dead, nor even then did he give any other law than the gospel, which is simply his law of love; and let it be remembered that God has no other law, that which he gave the Jews having been abolished eighteen hundred years ago. In giving that law to that nation God not only reëstablished the sacrificial worship with them, but added thereto a priesthood and ordinances, by which the institution symbolized more perfectly the character of the Messiah, as a priest, and the inbeing oneness with him of all mankind, both in his death and resurrection, in this wise, viz., the names of the tribes of the whole peo

ple were graven upon the breast-plate of the high priest, so that he might bear them upon his heart before the Lord when he went into the most holy places to offer the blood of the sacrifice; which blood was accepted of God as the evidence of the death of the priest, and of the people in him ; and the reappearance of the priest after that offering and acceptance symbolized Christ's death and his coming forth from the tomb at his resurrection.

The ordinance of "anointing the high priest with the holy anointing oil" foreshadowed very clearly the anointing of Jesus with the holy spiritual Son of God, who came down from the opening heaven in emblem as a dove, and rested upon, and became one (as we shall show), with him (Jesus), at his baptism, that baptism answering to the preparatory washing of the priest. So also the divine acceptance of the offering of the first ripe fruit, being a pledge or a promise of the certain and safe ingathering of the whole harvest, was most clearly a foreshadowing of the resurrection of the Messiah, as "The first fruits from the dead." And his acceptance as such, being received up into Heaven and seated at the right hand of God, was the pledge and promise of the Father that the whole harvest of the humanity should be gathered to a like immortality and glory with their head. As saith Saint Paul in few words, viz.: "Christ the first fruits and afterwards they that are his at his coming." They that are Christ's being unquestionably the members of his body, that is "all mankind.”

We now resume our remarks on sacrificial offerings. We have seen that the death of animals offered in sacrifice was accepted as the death of the offerer himself (not in his room or stead), thereby showing that the death of the promised Messiah would be the death also of all mankind, by virtue of their inbeing oneness with him. We now show, according to the Scriptures, why that death was necessary, viz., the earthly humanity as it was caused to exist in Adam, was, as we have before shown, “made subject to vanity or death," and to all the wants, desires and appetites of the fleshly nature, which desires and appetites are called lusts, which lusts are prone to excessive indulgence, and from that proneness, covetousness, iniquity, and all sin is the natural outgrowth. The Scriptures expressly declare that those lusts are the sole origin and cause of sin. James i. 14. It is therefore clear and certain that all mankind have those sinfully inclined lusts, and that death only can destroy them. "He that is dead is freed from sin." Rom. vi. 7. Now we have shown that Christ, who is both the Son of God and the Son of man in one person, is also the head both of the spiritual and heavenly and earthly and fleshly humanity, and that his fleshly body was, as saith the Scripture, "made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and that he was tempted in all points as all mankind are tempted." It was necessary, therefore, that the lusts of the head, the second Adam, the second head of his species, as well as those of the members of his body, should be destroyed by death, and for that cause he sacrificed his body upon

the cross, which cross was the sacrificial altar of the New Testament; and that is the true significance of that cross, and as such the sign of the cross of Christ is an everlasting memorial. Paul "gloried in the cross," because it, and the sacrifice offered upon it, superseded forever the altar and the sacrifice offered thereon of the old dispensation, which, as he says, "served only as a type and shadow of the new." The apostle gloried greatly in the change from the shadow to the substance, but his chief joy, and the object, aim and end of his ministry was to "make all men see and understand that the sacrifice of Christ's body was to them, each and all of them, what the death of the head is to the literal body. And that by virtue of the same relation his resurrection would be as truly and verily theirs also. And he affirmed moreover, that "as they suffered with him (Christ), they should be also glorified together," and he taught further a like sublime and glorious truth, viz., that by that relation and oneness, they, all men, were made to sit together with him " (in their headship existence in him) in his glory, where "he ever liveth to make intercession for them and to be the advocate of every man that sinneth."

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Such, we believe, is the scriptural showing of the cause, the necessity, and (to some extent) the glorious results of the sacrifice of the "Lamb of God," who took away the sin-"the sinful lusts of the world." To the extent of their headship existence in that glorious sacrificial "Lamb."