the Old
Economy. In the first place, the _sacrifices_ under the Mosaic law were
not designed to extinguish the sense of guilt,--"for it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin,"--but were
intended merely to awaken the sense of guilt, and thereby to lead the Jew
to look to that mercy of God which at a future day was to be exhibited in
the sacrifice of his eternal Son. The Jewish _priesthood_, again,
standing between the sinner and God, were not able to avert the Divine
displeasure,--for as sinners they were themselves exposed to it. They
could only typify, and direct the guilty to, the great High Priest, the
Messiah, whom God's mercy would send in the fulness of time. Lastly, the
moral _law_, proclaimed amidst the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai,
had no power to secure obedience, but only a fearful power to produce the
consciousness of disobedience, and of exposure to a death far more awful
than that threatened against the man who should touch the burning
mountain.

It was, thus, the design of God, by this legal and preparatory
dispensation, to disclose to man his ruined and helpless condition, and
his need of looking to Him for everything that pertains to redemption.
And he did it, by so arranging the dispensation that the Jew might, as it
were, make the trial and see if he could be his own Redeemer. He
instituted a long and burdensome round of observances, by means of which
the Jew might, if possible, extinguish the remorse of his conscience, and
produce the peace of God in his soul. God seems by the sacrifices under
the law, and the many and costly offerings which the Jew was commanded to
bring into the temple of the Lord, to have virtually said to him: "Thou
art guilty, and My wrath righteously abides within thy conscience,--yet,
do what thou canst to free thyself from it; free thyself from it if thou
canst; bring an offering and come before Me. But when thou hast found
that thy conscience still remains perturbed and unpacified, and thy heart
still continues corrupt and sinful, then look away from thy agency and
thy offering, to My clemency and My offering,--trust not in these finite
sacrifices of the lamb and the goat, but let them merely remind thee of
the infinite sacrifice which in the fulness of time I will provide for
the sin of the world,--and thy peace shall be as a river, and thy
righteousness as the waves of the sea."

But the proud and legal spirit of the Jew blinded hi