made part of the triumph that was granted to Titus, and were afterwards deposited in the temples of Jupiter Capitolinus and of Peace.

SECT. II.

The Animal Sacrifices.

The kinds of animals used; and vegetables and minerals. Burnt-offerings; the occasion of them; way of devoting them; killing; sprinkling the blood; salting; laying on the altar. Manner of offering turtle-doves and young pigeons. Burnt-offerings prior to the Mosaic dispensation. Sin-offerings; the occasion of them; persons by whom they might be offered; the whole congregation; individuals under three supposed cases. Trespass-offerings; how they differed from sin-offerings; commonly divided into certain and doubtful; the doubtful explained; the five certain cases specified; the place where the priest's portion of them was eaten, and the time: the probable origin of the Agape, or love-feasts, among the first Christians. Peace-offerings; comprehending thank-offerings, free-will-offerings, and vows. The animals used; how devoted by the offerer, and slain by the priests; the portion of them that belonged to the priests, and that which was eaten by the offerer; the meat-offering that accompanied them; the additions made to the law concerning them under the second Temple; the persons who could offer them.

ALTHOUGH the animal sacrifices were different according to the situations and wishes of the worshippers, there were only five kinds of animals which were accepted; viz. bullocks, sheep, goats (including the young of each kind of eight days old,)" turtle-doves and young pigeons. But let us attend to the animal sacrifices more particularly, beginning with burnt-offerings.

The reason of their name is given in Lev. vi. 9; and the Hebrew word for them is by, Ouluth, or sacrifices which ascend in flame or smoke. It is disputed among the Jews concerning the occasion of burnt-offerings, and when they became due: but the following appears to be the general opinion; viz. that they were either intended to expiate the evil thoughts of the heart,

a Lev. xxii. 27.

by the faith of the offerer looking to the Messiah as the great antitype; or to expiate from the breach of affirmative precepts. Burnt-offerings might be offered of any of the five kinds of animals just mentioned; and the manner of offering them was as follows:

1. The offerer brought his burnt-offering to the door of the Tabernacle before the Lord, while the tabernacle stood; but when the Temple was erected, this phrase "before the Lord" was interpreted to mean-from the gate Nicanor inward, or in any part of the Court of Israel, but especially of the Priests, which was inclosed within the Court of Israel. This part of the injunction, concerning the appearance of the offerer, was considered so indispensable, that even women, who were forbidden the Court of Israel at all other times, were obliged to enter it when they offered a burnt-offering.

2. The owner of the sacrifice, after having brought it, laid his hand upon its head while it was yet alive." This was intended as a solemn transfer of sin from himself to the animal; and in its death he acknowledged his own liability to suffer. Who does not see in this transaction a striking type of the atonement, when Christ, our sacrifice, bore our sins, and graciously became our great propitiation? It was commonly at the place of rings, on the north side of the altar, and with his face directed towards the Temple, that this transaction took place; and the words made use of were as follow: “ I have sinned: I have done perversely: I have rebelled, and done thus and thus (here specifying, either mentally or audibly, the specific cause of his offering.) But I return by repentance before thee, and let this be my expiation."

3. The next thing commonly done was, the bleeding

a Lev. i. 3.

b Ib. i. 4.

Ib. 1. 11.

of the animal, which was performed by tying it to one of the rings if large, or by the feet if small; its head lying towards the south, and its face towards the west, while he that killed it stood on the east side of the animal with his face to the west, or to the Temple. During the Tabernacle, the bleeding of the animal was often performed by the offerer himself; but in the time of the Temple it was transferred to the priesthood, because they were then more numerous, and better skilled in the right manner of doing it. The blood was received in a sacred vessel, and taken by the priest to be sprinkled on the altar; which sprinkling, during every period of the Mosaic economy, was exclusively the prerogative of the priesthood. But as this was deemed a very important part of the service, the Jews, especially after the introduction of traditions, were very anxious to have it done aright. Accordingly, no priest that was a mourner, by having a person dead in his house that day, nor one who was unclean in any way,-nor one who had not on all his priestly garments,-nor one who sat or stood on any thing but the bare pavement while he was receiving the blood,-nor one who received it with his left hand, might carry the blood to sprinkle it on the altar. But if they had a mixture of precept and tradition in the requisites for the priest, so had they also in their manner of sprinkling. For having established the rule, that it was essential to the merit of the sacrifices that the blood should be sprinkled either above or below the red line which encircled the altar, and divided it into two equal parts; the priest, in the present case, had to go with the blood, first to the northeast corner, and then to the south-west, and throw a part of it against the altar, below the red line, in such

a manner as that it spread on both the sides of the corners equally, forming the figure of the Greek letter gamma; and if any blood remained in the vessel, it was ordered to be poured out upon the foundation of the altar on the south-west corner, where the two holes were, which we formerly mentioned when treating of the altar, and through which the blood that remained was conveyed to the brook Kidron. It was in consequence of the blood making atonement for the soul, and thus typical of the blood of Christ, that the Israelites were forbidden to eat it."

b

4. In the next place, the person whose office it was to flay and divide the animal, proceeded as follows: he hung it on the hooks near the place of rings; removed the skin; opened the heart to let the remaining blood escape (notice how accidentally, to human appearance, this happened to Christ, our great sacrifice, although the express subject of prophecy;) took out the fat; and, dividing the animal into its several parts, gave them in succession to the priests in waiting; first, the head, then the shoulders and foreparts, and lastly, the hind quarters. The Jewish treatise Tamid is very particular with respect to all the pieces, but such an enumeration would be here unnecessary.

5. Having each received their allotted portions, the priests carried them to the ascent of the altar, where they laid them down to salt them, according to the law, which said "With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt." Indeed, no injunction in the whole law was more sacredly observed than this; for the Jews themselves tell us, that nothing came to the altar unsalted but the wine of the drink-offering, the blood sprinkled, and

a Lev. xvii. 10-14.

a Lev. i. 8, 9. 12, 13.

b John xix. 34.

e Ib. ii. 13.

< Zech. xii. 10.

the wood for the fire." And in three places they used salt, namely, in the salt chamber on the north-west corner of the Court of Israel, for salting the skins; upon the rise of the altar, for salting the sacrifices, to season them, and to take away the smoke; and on the top of the altar, for salting the handful of flour, oil, and frankincense." It was to this typical law that our Saviour referred in Mark ix. 49, 50, when he says, concerning the effect of the gospel on those who embrace it, "Every one shall be salted with fire, (up for the fire of God's altar, as a spiritual sacrifice, holy and acceptable) and (or rather, as) every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have ye salt then in yourselves, and have peace one with another." For as salt, when plentifully applied, preserves meat from putrefaction," so will the gospel keep men from being corrupted by sin. And, as salt was indispensable to sacrifices, in order to render them acceptable to God, so the gospel, brought home to the hearts of men by the Holy Ghost, is indispensably requisite to their offering up of themselves living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, which is their most reasonable service. Perhaps the heathen derived their salted cakes from this Jewish practice.

d

6. The next particular concerning the burnt-offerings was, that he, whose office it was to lay the pieces on the altar, having received them from those who brought and salted them, cut out the sinew that shrank, threw it among the ashes, and when there was no reason for haste, laid the pieces in order upon the altar, or as near their natural position in the animal as possible:

Lev. ii. 2. See Lightf. Heb. and Talm. Exer. Mark ix. 49.

b Whitby on Mark ix. 49.

d Gen. xxxii. 32.

Rom. xii. 1.

e Lev. i. 8.