Yet those sprinklings under the law were effectual for their purpose. There was no failure in them: they accomplished all for which they were intended; every promise made respecting them was fulfilled. The legal cleansing in all cases was complete. Now then, I come to the point. If these sacrifices, so insignificant, so valueless, and to the eye of man so powerless, were effective for their purpose,—shall not that most marvellous wonder in the whole history of the Godhead, the sacrifice of the Son of God, be effective for His? It is true their concern was with the flesh, His with the conscience; but is there any one prepared to say, ‘They never failed: but He may’? Can any one of us admit for one moment, that the man who was sprinkled with the ashes of an heifer was invariably reinstated as a clean man in the sanctuary; and that there can be the least shadow of the possibility of a doubt that the blood of Christ is completely restored to fellowship with God? Look at Him as the Son of God, as the anointed Messiah, as the Spotless Lamb, as offering Himself in obedience to the Father’s eternal will; and tell me, ye that cannot trust Him,—Can such a sacrifice as that fail? Shall that which is infinitely little succeed, and that which is infinitely great fail? Can you believe that the blood of a poor little kid was sufficient, but the blood of the Son of God insufficient? Think then of the ancient Jew walking home after his sacrifice, notwithstanding all that had passed, now clean and reinstated. Then think of the most precious blood of Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,—slain too for those very sins that weigh on the conscience; and consider why should not you go home this day, as that Jew did in ancient times, Free?—in the position of those described by St. Paul, when he said, ‘Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God’? THE CLEANSING BLOOD. ‘But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’—1 JOHN, i. 7. IT should be the earnest desire of our hearts, in commemorating the great facts of the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour, to know the fellowship of His sufferings, and realise all that He endured. On this account it is well to dwell on His wounds, His sorrows, His tears, His prayers, and His bitter cry: but it is well to look also at the power of His precious blood, and at the great results accomplished in the covenant of God by that wonderful blood-shedding of the Son of Man.