ly, or typically, but literally and properly, if we take in both what is directly included in it, and what is neceffarily connected with it, must comprehend the most important things in the world; fuch as, fatisfying divine justice for fin, purchasing remiffion of it, access to God, acceptance with him, deliverance from death, and all the other miseries that are the fruits of fin, (as, according to the doctrine of Mofes, all miferies whatsoever are the fruits of it). To afcribe fuch effects, any otherwise than typically, to the Levitical facrifices, is to ascribe effects of the greatest importance to causes that bear no manner of proportion to them; the substance of what was done in those oblations, viz. shedding the blood of brutes, being no more than what was done daily, for no higher end than subsistence to the body, and bearing no proportion to the expiation of the fins of the foul, Mic. vi. 6.7.8. But befides the abfurdity of the thing in itself, if we compare it with Moses's system, nothing can be more opposite to his doctrine, concerning the holiness, the law, and justice of God, the hatefulness and danger of fin; and nothing more unsuitable to the many awful instances of the terrors of vindictive justice recorded by that author; fuch as, the threatenings denounced, and partly executed, upon man's first apoftafy; the judgements inflicted on the old world in the days of Noah; those inflicted on the cities of the plain; those denounced against the wicked Canaanites; and those executed even on the perverfe Ifraelites in the wilderness. Without pretending to know all the good ends which infinite wisdom promotes by the punishment of tranfgreffion, we are fure of fome of them from fcripture and reafon; fuch as, supporting the just authority of God's law, and inspiring his univerfal kingdom with due veneration of it. But neither thefe, nor any other conceivable ends of punishment, could be promoted by making the Levitical facrifices 1 facrifices atonements for fins any otherwise than typically. 2. Several branches of the law appointing those facrifices, prove they could only make atonement for fin typically; because they were neither fufficient nor necessary for the remiffion of many fins that were actually pardoned. Not to insist upon the reftriction of those sacrifices to one particular place, to the exclufion of all other places, even in the holy land itself, there were many fins that were actually pardoned for which there were no facrifices appointed *. If it be objected, That repentance alone was fufficient to expiate grosser sins; it is obvious, that what was fufficient to expiate these, must have been much more fo with refpect to lesser sins; and if the conjunction of facrifices with repentance was not needful to expiate the former, neither could it be needful as to the latter, it being evident, that if there were any fins, the expiation of which required a greater concurrence of caufes or means, it must have been the greatest sins, and not the lesser: whereas fuch difficulties make the scheme of the unbelieving Jews inconsistent with itself, the gospelscheme dissolves them all, making repentance abfolutely necessary, without making it the atonement for any fin. If it be objected, That the great anniversary facrifices had fome peculiar efficacy for expiating grosser fins; it is sufficient to answer, That it is certain, fincere penitents received remiffion of all their fins, though they died in the intervals between these anniversaries. In the epistle to the Hebrews, it is farther argued, that the inefficacy of those sacrifices, as to proper atonement, is implied in the repetition of the fame facrifices, (and indeed for the fame fins), Heb. x. which could no more take place in real and proper expiation, than in real payment of debt. Compare Pf. li. and Exod. xxxiv. 5. 6. 3. All the predictions of the abolition of the Levitical facrifices after the Meffiah's coming, prove they were infufficient for real atonement, otherwise they behoved to be of perpetual use in the church; whereas their abolition, confidered either as foretold by the prophets, or as rendered unavoidable by providence, in the deftruction of the place to which they were restricted, shews, that they were neither necessary nor fufficient for any other than a typical atonement for fin, suited to the less perfect state of the church, before the exhibition of the only true and real atonement. The very predictions which speak of the state of the church at the time when the ceremonial atonements for sin should be abolished, describe it as a state of fuperior advantages with respect to the comforts of remiffion of fin; as is evident from the promises of remiffion belonging to the new covenant, in Jer. xxxi. from 31. toy 34. which speaks of the time when the ceremonial precepts given at Ifrael's coming out of Egypt should be laid afide. For though remiffion, as to the most effential things belonging to it, be still the fame, mens comfortable apprehenfions of it admit of very different degrees: and according to the prophets, and fuitably to the nature of things, fuperior meafures of these comforts, were to be the effects of the actual exhibition of the true and adequate atonement for fin, and the fuller discoveries of God's incomprehenfible mercy and grace manifested by it. It is therefore an argument of confiderable force on the present subject, that the comforts of the remiffion of fin were to be increased when the Levitical atonements for fin should be abolished. 4. It can be proved from the Old Testament itself, that the fcripture-style concerning ceremonial institutions is frequently figurative; as, when circumcifion is called God's covenant, and when the pafcal lamb is called the Lord's patlover, the meaning is, that these ancient facraments were signs or tokens tokens of those things, the names of which were afcribed to them. This shews how unreasonable it. is, to argue in favour of the Jewish explication of the efficacy of their sacrifices, as if it were more natural, and more probable, because it is more literal: for as the true meaning of words is oft-times capable of the strictest proof, nothing is more certain, than that in many cases the true, and even the most obvious meaning of words, is not the literal, ' but the figurative meaning, Pfal. xviii. 2. &c.; as is abundantly proved by the best writers on the facramental style in refuting tranfubftantiation. 5. The prophecies formerly collected, as containing the doctrine of the Meffiah's priesthood, not only prove, that he was to make a real, proper, and adequate atonement for fin, see If. liii. 4. 5. 6.; but alfo that the efficacy of his atonement extended to those who lived before his coming; that is, to those for whom the Levitical facrifices are faid to have made fuch atonement as they were capable of. When therefore the fame effect is ascribed to so different causes, betwixt which there is so vast a difparity; when making atonement for fin is sometimes afcribed to him who is represented as a divine perfon incarnate, and fometimes to the Levitical facrifices; the only way to reconcile these different scriptures is, to look upon the Levitical facrifices, which were evidently infufficient for real proper atonement, as representations of the facrifice of the Meffiah, which was abundantly sufficient for that purpose; and it is an uncontefted rule of interpretation, That the explication which alone makes words and writings consistent with themselves, and especially in the most important things, must be the true explication. To all which it is proper to add, that the typical relation of the Levitical facrifices to that of the Meffiah, is greatly confirmed by all the predictions which foretell the continuance of of those sacrifices till his coming, and their being afterwards abolished. 6. The principles of just reasoning on final caufes are of great use in proving the most important truths of natural religion, seeing, in proving divine contrivance in the frame of the natural world, we go on this principle, "That the fuitableness, con gruity, or manifeft fubferviency, of the several parts of nature, to certain valuable ends, is a "real proof that those things were actually design"ed as means of those ends." If we apply fuch reasonings to the congruities between the Levitical priesthood, and the things revealed in the Old Testament itself concerning the Meffiah, it will add confiderable strength to the other proofs of the gospel-doctrine about the design of that ancient priesthood, in regard of its evident fitness to give some intimations of the Meffiah's mediatory work, to prepare the way for the actual accomplishment and more clear discovery of it, and to put due honour on it, by making the religious worship of the church, in all ages, to have the highest regard to it. And how fuitable it was that fuch regard should be had to it, is abundantly evident from what was proved before, both concerning the mysterious dignity of the Meffiah's person, the excellency of his mediation, and its extensive energy, as reaching to the ages preceding its accomplishment, as well as to following ages. The reasonings about final causes are not only applicable to the works of nature and art, but to the meaning of words, and in general of all fuch things as partake of the nature of figns or repreSentations; and the reasonings on the subject in view may be illustrated by comparing them with fome others which in many cafes are owned to be convincing; fuch as the reasonings which prove the truth of the key, which is found actually to decipher hidden characters; of dictionaries of dead languages, |