tion, consisted of three kinds, moral, political, and ecclesiastical, mentioned in the Pentateuch, under the names of laws, judgments, and statutes. By laws, I understand the moral law, or ten commandments, by judgments, rules for the peaceable and prudent administration of the commonwealth, and by statutes, those ceremonial and sacrificial rites, intended as a kind of prophecy by action, to prefigure to the world, the death of Christ. St. Paul tells us, that the ancient tabernacle was a figure for the time present. In the service performed in it, victims were continually offered, under the name of sin-offerings, and by them an atonement was made for the sins, and for the souls of the people. This is clear from many passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially with regard to those sacrifices, called vicarious, piacular, and expiatory. But we learn from the same apostle, that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sin, yet this blood is said in many parts of scripture, to be the means of making an atonement, for those who offered it. In what manner was this true? St. Paul himself hath taught us, that it was true in the typical or

physical sense only. All these sacrifices, as he has told us expressly in the 9th and 10th chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews, were only types of the sacrifice of Christ, and the atonement professedly made by them, was only a type of the real atonement made by him,-particularly the ceremonial of the sacrifice on the great day of expiation, (when the high priest made an atonement for himself, his family, the priests, and the whole congregation of Israel,) was a remarkable, and most striking type of the death and resurrection of Christ. On this day, the tenth day of the seventh month, annually, two goats were selected for an offering to Godone of these was killed, and his blood sprinkled upon, and before the mercy seat, and upon the horns of the altar. This was called making an atonement for the holy place, and reconciling the holy place, the tabernacle and the altar unto God, as having been polluted during the preceding year, by the imperfect services of sinful beings. On the head of the living goat, called the scape goat, the high priest bound a piece of scarlet, (in allusion to that passage in Isaiah, i. 18.) Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall

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be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool;" and confessing over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, sent him away by a fit man into the wilderness of this goat it was said, that he should bear upon him, all their iniquities, into a land not inhabited.

As the Mosaic religion was preparatory to the Christian, it was indeed fit and proper to connect these two parts of God's moral government, in such a manner, that their mutual relation might in due season become evident to all men. For in two religions, allied to each other, as the means and the end, the foundation and the superstructure, nothing can be more conformable to our ideas of divine wisdom, than the contrivance of some ties, which might establish the knowledge, and perpetuate the memory of that close relation, without immaturely explaining the particulars of it. And what can be conceived more effectual for this purpose, than to make the rites of the one religion, typical, that is, declarative and expressive of the ral nature of the other.

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To the emblematical ceremonies and institutions of the law, I add the written testimony of prophecy, that messenger of heaven, sent at an early period to foretell glad tidings of salvation to the world. With different degrees of precision, at dif ferent times, she drew the character she described- the progress of the coming Christ, (but in every portrait, in every sketch, conflict and suffering were conspicaous,) unfolding gradually all that the Messiah should endure, from the. persecutions of his infancy, to the last insult of the piercing spear. Now she breaks forth, as if beholding one covered with anxiety and blood, and now with pencil dipped in saddest hue, she gives the entire and affecting piece," He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 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. He was oppres sed, 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. Isaiah liii. 2-7. In the acts of the apostles, these words are applied to Christ most distinctly; for the pious treasurer of Ethiopia, who was reading the passage in his chariot, and being at a loss to whom it referred-saith to Philip, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself or some other man? and Philip, we read, taught him-that it was spoken of Christ.

There is a strong and very apposite text of St. Peter, in which the application of the term lamb, to our Lord, can admit of no question at all. "For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot," 1 Peter, i. 18, 19. The use I