In contemplating the mass of sacrifices thus noted, we may easily enter into the feeling expressed by Paul (more especially as regarded circumcision)—“which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear;” and we can the more fully appreciate the blessing of the Gospel, which has relieved us from all such burdens, and given us individually a free access (whether Jew or Gentile) to the Father of Mercies, through the one only High Priest, Jesus Christ our Lord. But it was not so much to point out the burdens which our forefathers in the faith of Christ had to bear—burdens which, nevertheless, were light compared with the burden of unforgiven sin—that we have traced the requirements of the law; but to point to the testimony they bore to Christ and His Kingdom. Under the law no Israelite could obtain pardon for his sin except through the _Priest_, who was the appointed mediator—to him he brought the prescribed offering, and slew it at the Tabernacle door; the priest received the blood, and some of the internal fat; the former he sprinkled, and the latter he burned, on the altar; and, in the words of the text, “_The priest shall make an atonement for his sin_, _and it shall be forgiven him_.” We may not be able to define the extent to which the Holy Ghost was then enjoyed, but we cannot doubt that the testimony of a conscience free of offence towards God was sealed on the mind of the offerer when the atonement was made agreeably to the words, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments; which if a man do he shall live in them” (Lev. xviii. 5). The Apostle Paul confirms this language, saying, “The man that doeth them” (the statutes of the Law) “shall live in them” (Gal. iii. 12); and when we consider the words of the same writer: “The children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished” (2 Cor. iii. 13), we need not suppose the offerers had, in general, any understanding that what they did had a special relation to the better Mediator to come. As in the case of the brazen serpent they looked to it and were healed; so here they made their offerings believing in their efficacy, and reaped the fruit of pardon and peace.