offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."*

ever.

Now, while the declaration, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," sufficiently exposes the pretension, that there is efficacy, or use, in the sacrifice of the mass, which is an unbloody sacrifice; the reiterated declarations in both of the passages which we have quoted from the Hebrews, that Christ's sacrifice was one, and offered once for all, precludes the possibility of introducing any other sacrifice for sin whatsoThe appointment of the sacrifice, like the appointment of the priest, is one and exclusive. So soon as that one sacrifice had been offered, in the body which had been prepared for the work of expiation, the will of God, in the provision made for the removal of human guilt, was at once, and for ever, completely performed. The sacrifices, as well as the priests of the first dispensation, were taken away; that the second, combined and complete in Christ, might alone be established. The satisfaction in the first, though offered by Divine appointment, was not entire; the com

* Heb. x. 4—14.

placence in them was not perpetual. They were preparatory and introductory, yet, in some respects, imperfect prefigurations of the sacrifice of Christ, who is the Lamb of God, offered once for all, to take away the sin of the world;-of the world, as including its former, as well as subsequent generations. They of former generations without us could not be made perfect. Their sacrifices, unconnected with our sacrifice, were of no value, could not take away sin. They were rendered efficacious, by the anticipated virtue of the one Christian sacrifice, actually offered in the end of the Old Testament ages, but slain, in the immutable purposes of the Father, from the foundation of the world. He sees the end from the beginning, and calls things which are not as though they were; and his eye, resting upon the sacrifice which his son was to offer, could be satisfied with the sacrifices of the law no further than as they were offered through faith in the promise of his Son; he would suffer their continuance no longer than the time when the promise was fulfilled, and the Son, assuming the body which was prepared, put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

It is here important for us to inquire on what grounds the efficacy, the exclusive efficacy of the sacrifice, which Christ has offered for us, rests. It rests on the dignity of his person, and consequent value of his blood. In his person, the divine and human natures are mysteriously united. "God is manifest in the flesh." The human nature, which he derived through

the virgin from our common father, identified him with us as bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and rendered him a proper substitute to bear the imputation of our guilt, and the expression of divine displeasure which it deserved; while the Divinity imparted the value and meritorious efficacy of divine perfection to the sacrifice which he offered. If there be divine perfection in the sacrifice, then it follows, that nothing can be wanting to it,—that nothing can be associated with it, that no limits can be put to the range or power of its application, that no conception of ours,-that no conception of any finite mind, can comprehend all which it is able to effect. The blood which has been shed for the remission of sins, is the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son; and to whatever character it be applied, in whatever country,-in whatever age of the world, in whatever multiplicity of cases,- -it cleanseth from all sin. It can do this under the Christian dispensation, and now that it is set before us in the. ⚫ word of God, which may be hid in the heart, without the intervention of any outward rites whatever. The eye of faith can look to the atoning sacrifice: the lip of devotion can supplicate pardon on its account; and then the conscience, which was uneasy, feels tranquillity, by the sprinkling of its blood; the burden of guilt falls off, and rolls away; and the heart joys in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom it has received the atonement. This exercise is the habit of the true Christian's life. In its production and preserva

tion, he is indebted to the written word, which he reads; to the preaching of the gospel which he hears; and to the institution of the supper, which he observes. But then, no portion of the tranquillizing efficacy is in them, but in the sacrifice to which they conduct him, and to which, in their absence, as well as in their enjoyment, he can repair. His conscience is easy, not because he has gone through the forms of an appointed ritual; but because he has applied to Christ, who, in the means of grace, has been set before him ;-because he has cast the burden of his guilt upon him, and committed the keeping of his soul unto him. "The life which he lives in the flesh" is, like that of the Apostle, "by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave himself for him." Christ, in the power of his cleasing blood, dwells, by faith, in his heart, the perennial spring of peace nnd joy,—the hope of glory.

If restrictions exist in the actual enjoyment of the advantages which are provided in the atonement, those restrictions arise, not from any imperfection in the sacrifice itself, but from the censurable inaptitude of those who are, or who should be, the recipients of its virtue. If limitation or fluctuation of peace and joy is found, in the case of any individual who has by faith received the atonement, it results from some remaining obscurity in his views of divine truth; from the contraction of his desires; or from the restraint of his prayers. In Christ we are not straitened, but in ourselves. His kind and gentle reproof to us, as well

as to his disciples of old, is, "Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name:" his command,-" Ask, and ye shall receive, and your joy shall be full." If the believing reception of the atonement is partial only, among those to whom it is proclaimed, the fault is to be attributed to the perverseness of the human mind on religious subjects,-its preference of error to truth, —of darkness to light,—of the transitory and delusive enjoyments of sense, to the spiritual blessings in heavenly places, which are in Christ Jesus. It may be resolved into the reason declared by the Redeemer to the Jews, as matter of deepest lamentation, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;" and it should, in every case, be met by the heart-stirring question of the Apostle, "How shall ye escape, if ye neglect so great salvation?" If the world is but partially enlightened with the knowledge of the fact, that an atoning sacrifice has been offered for it,—a sufficient reason may be assigned, in the want of enterprise, zeal, and devotedness on the part of those whose duty it has been to send abroad the proclamations of redeeming mercy. The churches which the Apostles formed, before John, who survived his brethren, had rested from his labours, had begun to cool in their first love, and relax from their first works; and having neglected to spread the light, which they possessed, around them, their own candlestick was at length removed out of his place. The mass of those who, in what has been subsequently called the church, have