We have brought, then, our statement, and I may say our argument, to this point; first, generally that the whole world, with one consent, bears witness to the usage of sacrifice. The whole world from Adam to Christ,—Patriarchal, Jewish, Gentile, Barbarian, Civilized, North, South, East, and West, together (for the new world when discovered was found herein not to be divergent from the old),—testifies, I say, with one mind and one mouth, as to the Being of a God, so likewise to this usage of sacrifice. And again, secondly, and more particularly, the witness agrees, that the sacrifice is made, (to speak generally,) not without blood, and made for the purpose of reconciliation, after sin committed, with the supernatural being or beings invoked, or for propitiation and intercession in cases of favour sought. Even, still further is there accordant and consenting witness; that there will be, as necessary accompaniments to the sacrifice, an altar on which it is to be made, and a specially set apart order of men: priests (ίερεῖς, _sacerdotes_, or however particularly designated), by whom these sacrifices should be offered up, and intercessions made on behalf of the people. So much the whole world testifies generally, in spite of certain differences of usage, and the fearful abominations which prevailed amongst those who did not retain the true God in their knowledge:—the cruelty, licentiousness, and abhorrent vice into which this worship, when it degenerated into idol worship, everywhere sunk; which, however, it is plain, is no more an argument against sacrifice, holily and obediently offered in accordance with God’s appointment, than the superstitions of heathen invocation are an argument against godly prayer and intercession. And thus, too, we see that this very idea of sacrifice, (without the vicious accompaniments,) prevailed among God’s children from the first,—as with Abel, Noah, Melchisedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job; whilst by God’s own sanction and special command, and, with what in human affairs we should call the most laborious care and pains, the whole system was, under Moses, recognised, enlarged, defined, and embodied in a whole code of laws, to be in their very minutest details carried out until the Mediator of a new covenant should come, when that which was old should be ready to vanish away.