The trespass-offering differed only from the sin-offering, as the learned suppose, in this, that it was a sacrifice for sins of omission, or for the non-performance of duty, while the sin-offering was made for a violation of the specific precepts of the moral law. Whether the design of the different classes of sacrifices was as above specified or not, is not material, further than it shows how nicely the forms of the Levitical economy were adjusted to meet that varied consciousness of sin which the precepts of the law and an enlightened conscience would produce in the human soul. The material point to which attention is necessary, with reference to the present discussion, is that by which the death and destruction of the animal offered in sacrifice were made to represent the desert of the sinner. When an individual brought a sacrifice, he delivered it to the priest to be slain. He then laid his hands upon its head, thereby, in a form well understood among the Jews, transferring to it his sins; and then the life of the sacrifice was taken as a substitute for his own life. He was thus taught that the transgression of the law, or any act of sin against God, was worthy of death; and that the sacrifice suffered that penalty in his stead. Further: the Jews had been taught that the blood of the sacrifice was its life; or rather the principle upon which the life of the body depended. Upon this subject they had the following express instruction--'For the life of the flesh is the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.'[20] Now, this blood, which the Jews were thus taught to believe was the life of the sacrifice, was repeatedly sprinkled by the priest upon the mercy-seat and towards the holy place; thus presenting the life of the sacrifice immediately in the presence of God (the ineffable light, or symbol of God's presence, rested over the mercy-seat between the cherubim); signifying--as plainly as forms, and shadows, and external types could signify, that life had been rendered up to God to make atonement for their souls. [20] Lev. xvii. 11. Thus the idea was conveyed to their minds through the senses, that the desert of sin in the sight of God was the death of the soul. And while they stood praying in the outer court of the tabernacle, and beheld the dark volume of smoke ascending from the fire that consumed the sacrifice which was _burning in their stead_, how awful must have been the impression of the desert of sin, made by that dark volume of ascending smoke! The idea was distinct and deeply impressed, that God's justice was a consuming fire to sinners, and that their souls escaped only through a vicarious atonement.