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son.

'Christ to be really and properly a king and judge, ' and also an advocate or priest.' To this observation we at present answer; That Christ is a king to us, and a priest to God; that as a king he rules us by his laws and by his power, assists us with the aids of his Holy Spirit, and is near at hand on all occasions: that as a priest he commends us and our prayers to God; us when he desires God to be propitious to us, and our prayers when he desires God to accept them. But these his desires are not conveyed in humble petitions, but expressed with that authority which becomes the dignity of his perYet this authority must be considered as not interfering with or diminishing the dominion and authority of God the Father. For he who hath put all other things under Christ, hath not made himself subject to him,* nor hath he communicated his kingdom to him, as Mediator, in such a manner as to have abdicated it himself; so as to render it no longer of any importance to us, whether the Father is propitious to our persons and accepts our prayers. If this is of no importance, why do we address prayers to him that he may be pleased to regard us with mercy? Why have the apostles, why have all Christians, done the same in every age? But if it is of the highest importance to our interest, that God be propitious to us, it is also of importance that our high priest Jesus Christ, who certainly has the greatest authority and favour with God, should desire that God be propitious to us.

There is no weight therefore, in the following argument of Crellius;† 'Since God has given to Christ all power in heaven and in earth, for the express * Ubi supra.

* I Corinth. xv. 27.

that he may

purpose, that he bestow upon us remission of 'sins and eternal life, and may cherish us who are 'his members with his perpetual aid, why should he 'still plead with God and intercede with him that he 'would be pleased to forgive us our sins?' This, I say, is an argument of no weight. For we suppose not that Jesus our high priest uses any humble or supplicant intercession, but the most powerful commendation of us and our prayers, such as becomes his character. Nor is it unimportant that God remit our sins, if by remission of sins, signifies the mercy or favour of the Divine Mind towards us. For let his mind be hostile to us, and what greater or heavier evil can befal us? Do we imagine that Christ will be propitious to those to whom his Father is hostile? It is, therefore, of the utmost importance, that God be propitious to us; and of equal importance, that Christ desire him to be propitious to us; unless it be maintained, either that the beloved Son has no authority and favour with the Father, or that we need no commendation before God. Either of these suppositions would be contradictory to St. John. For what is his language? "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Fa"ther, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the Here he teaches us "propitiation for our sins."*

that Christ is our advocate, and a most powerful advocate with the Father, and that we have the greatest need of such a potent advocate. We reply, in the last place, that Christ administers his kingdom according to the will of God, and bestows eternal salvation only on those whom the Father also determines to save. And thus the persons on whom he

*I John ii. 1, 2.

chooses to bestow eternal salvation, them he also commends to God the Father.

To conclude this argument, therefore: since Christ is expressly called a priest in the scriptures, and since nothing can be adduced to justify our denying him the real office which that term imports, the necessary conclusion is, that the priesthood of Christ is a priesthood properly so called.

If any person, relying upon new subtleties should say, that the priesthood of Christ is indeed immediately exercised towards God, and that Christ commends us and our prayers to God, but that this is no proof of his having a true and real priesthood; such a person, admitting the thing, would raise a dispute about a name, the most vain of all controversies; and would discover more subtlety than Crellius himself: for to divest Christ of a true and real priesthood, is no other than to deny that he exercises immediately towards God any office at all. Having made these observations respecting the Priesthood of Christ, we now proceed to his Sacrifice.

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CHAPTER III.

To what Class of Sacrifices the Sacrifice of Christ belongs,

and in what it consists.

THE sacrifices prescribed to the Jewish people were of various classes. Some were burnt offerings; others, piacular offerings; others, peace offerings; others, similar to the peace offerings, yet not precisely the same: there were also different kinds, both of piacular offerings, and of peace offerings: of all which we have treated in the first Dissertation. If it be inquired to which class the Sacrifice of Christ belongs, the scriptures will easily determine this question. He is declared to have "put away sin by "the sacrifice of himself," to have "by himself

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purged our sins," to have "sanctified the people "with his own blood," and to have "offered" to God "one sacrifice for sins:"* whence it is evident that his sacrifice belongs to the piacular class. I apprehend, however, that we are indebted to his sacrifice, not only for pardon of sins, but also for the aids of the Holy Spirit, and all other things pertaining to our eternal salvation; these blessings having been procured by his blood. For as all the sacrifices of the Jews, accumulated together, were offered in order to obtain the benefits of the present life; so I consider the one sacrifice of Christ as having procured all things relating to eternal life, And I am confirmed in this opinion, because all the sacrifices of the Jews, though with various degrees of clearness or obscurity, prefigured the sacrifice of Christ. Nor is it to be wondered at if that sacrifice, which procures

*Heb, ix, 26. i. 3. xiii. 12. x, 12,

for us with God the grace connected with eternal life, should also procure every thing else necessary to our attainment of that life.

II. Having ascertained to what class the sacrifice of Christ must be referred, we proceed to show in what it consists. And never having seen this subject sufficiently explained, we shall be the more careful in discussing it. To this end it is necessary to remember, that the victims whose carcasses were burned without the camp typified the sacrifice of Christ more evidently than any others; and that among these victims, those whose blood was sprinkled in the holy of holies on the day of atonement, did this more clearly than those whose blood was only carried as occasion required, into the outer sanctuary: but on these things we have sufficiently enlarged in the first Dissertation.

Those victims, therefore, with which the sacrifice of Christ must be compared as its most eminent types, were the young bullock and he goat, the former offered in sacrifice for the high priest and the family of Aaron, the other for the whole congregation of the people, on the day of atonement. These victims were first brought by the high priest himself to the altar that stood in the court of the priests. In the next place, being thus offered to God, for the victim was offered at the time of its being placed before the altar; they were slain by him near the same altar. After this he carried their blood into the innermost sanctuary, and sprinkled it, as we have elsewhere stated, burned the entrails upon the altar, and took care that the bodies should be wholly consumed by fire without the camp, or without the city of Jerusalem. In imbruing the altar with the blood and entrails, the

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