The Mosaic system was only external, 'sanctifying unto the cleanness of the flesh'; partial, for it provided no expiation for the graver moral transgressions; temporary, for the sacrifices had to be repeated 'day by day'; provisional, for 'if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood ... what further need was there that another priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek?' In spite, however, of these obvious defects and limitations in the Mosaic system, there was a constant tendency among the Jews to rest content with it, to rely upon the efficacy of these external sacrifices and ceremonies for their whole religion, to believe that 'the blood of bulls and goats' could 'put away sin,' and that no inner spiritual repentance or renovation was required. And the highest minds of the nation, represented by the prophets, were keenly alive to this danger: their rebukes and remonstrances shew how strongly they felt the imperfection of the sacrificial system, how it failed to satisfy the really religious cravings of spiritual minds. Yet there it was, divinely ordained, clearly necessary as the expression of the national religious life, profoundly significant. It could not be dispensed with, yet it could not satisfy: in its incompleteness, as well as in its symbolism, it pointed forward, and foreshadowed a perfect expiation. (3) This examination of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament is necessary in a discussion of the doctrine of the Atonement, for several reasons. The institutions of the Law were, in the first place, ordained by God, and therefore intended to reveal in some degree His purposes, His mind towards man. We thus find in them traces of the fuller revelation which came afterwards, and the two dispensations throw light on each other. Then again, it was from the Law that the Jews derived their religious language: their conceptions of sacrifice, of atonement, of the effects of sin, were moulded by the influence of the Mosaic ceremonies. For this reason the apostolic doctrine of the Atonement must be looked at in connection with the ideas inspired by the Law, although, of course, the life and work of our Lord so enlarged the religious conceptions of the Apostles as to constitute a fresh revelation. But it was a revelation on the lines, so to speak, of the old; it took up and continued the ideas implanted by the Mosaic religion, and displayed the fulfilment of the earlier promises and forecasts. It is, therefore, from the Old Testament that we have to learn the vocabulary of the apostolic writings. As the Messianic hopes and phraseology throw light upon the apostolic conception of the Kingdom of Christ, so the sacrificial ceremonies and language of the Law throw light upon the apostolic conception of the Sacrifice, the Atonement of Christ. But this is not all. The Mosaic institutions, in their general outlines, were no arbitrary and artificial symbols, but