barbarian forms of the ancient Druidical or other worship in the ruder peoples of the world, or in the more refined practice of Greece and Rome, or in the grotesque or cruel rites of the eastern countries, or absolutely barbarian tribes. They all have their altars, their priests, and their sacrifices, and in most, if not in all, the notion of propitiation by the blood of the victim has prevailed. It need hardly be added that in the provisions of the Mosaic Law all these principles were embodied, so that, with every safeguard introduced against the perversions, the sensuality, the materialism, and the cruelty, which pervaded all forms and systems of idol worship, yet the true worship of Jehovah, as established by Himself, embraced, and contained, and stereotyped under the mark of His own approval, nay, of His absolute command, the same three points, of an altar, a priesthood, and a sacrifice; yes, a sacrifice in the sense of more than a mere oblation or offering,—a sacrifice by blood of a victim slain, and consumed in the very act of the commanded worship. For it ought never to be forgotten that amid all other offerings that were permitted,—nay, for certain purposes enjoined, as, for instance, for thank-offerings, or for mere legal purification,—yet, under the Jewish Law, the particular sacrifice which was appointed for expiation of any moral offence was the burnt-offering, where the victim, as I have said, was killed, and afterwards consumed by fire upon the altar; {36} and this appears to have no exception, unless it were in the case of the extremely poor, who might offer the tenth part of an ephah of meal; but even then, I believe, it is considered that this was placed upon a victim offered by others, or by the priest, for the sins of the people, and so may be deemed to have made a part of a sacrifice with blood. So that, in truth, as St. Paul says to the Hebrews, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.” We might say much on this head, and more particularly upon the appointment of the Passover, and the light thrown by this institution upon the typical character of sacrifice generally, and its relation to the great sacrifice of all,—the Lamb slain, once for all upon the cross, for the sins of the world; but the outline already given of the doctrine taught by the sacrifice of Abel will readily suggest a key to the true intention of the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Jews, and to the manner in which they (although “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin,” yet) pointed to, and prepared the way for, our understanding the nature of the sacrifice of Christ, and, indeed, were the great means to elicit and foster faith in Him who should come, and to teach all the world daily and continually to look to Him who alone is its salvation, without whom, and whose mercy, no flesh should be saved at all.