All covenants are ratified over a sacrifice: and they are valid only over the dead victims, which have been sacrificially devoted; for they are no way binding, while the ratifier is living. But the Levitical Dispensation and the Christian Dispensation are each a covenant between God and man. Therefore each of these two particular covenants must have been ratified over a sacrifice: and they are valid only over the dead victims, which have been sacrificially devoted; for they are no way binding, while the ratifier is living.

3. Such, if I mistake not, is the argument of the Apostle, when condensed within the narrow limits of a syllogism. But let us see, how far this statement of it will agree with the drift of the general context, both previous and subsequent to the text which is supposed to be the basis of the argument.

(1.) Now the drift of the general context, which is antecedent to the text in question, is this.

Under the first Covenant typically, an atonement is made for sinners by the blood of the slaughtered victims: the contracting parties, God and the collective house of Israel, pledging themselves to each other, over the dead victims, to abide by the terms of the Covenant; the victims themselves, in virtue of their typical character, acting as mediators or forming the medium of acceptance between the two con

tracting parties; and the Covenant itself being invalid, except in so far as the victims are sacrificially slaughtered. Whence, as we have seen, the Lord says, in the fiftieth Psalm; Gather unto me my saints, who have ratified my Covenant over a sacrifice.

In a similar manner, under the new Covenant, which God, by the mouth of his prophet Jeremiah as quoted in the present passage by St. Paul, had promised as a successor to the first Covenant, an atonement is really and antitypically made for sinners by the blood of the one sacrificed victim Christ: the contracting parties, God and the Church, pledging themselves to each other, over the dead victim Christ, to abide by the terms of the Covenant, namely eternal salvation to all true and practical believers; the victim Christ himself, the antitype of every typical victim, acting as a mediator or forming the medium of acceptance between God and the Church; and the Covenant being invalid, except in so far as the victim Christ is sacrificially slaughtered. Whence the Apostle argues: If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God'.

1 Heb. ix. 13, 14. St. Paul, in fact, builds his argument upon the respective declarations of Moses and Christ them

(2.) Such I take to be the drift of the general antecedent context; which sets forth the strictly analogous mode wherein the two Covenants, Levitical and Christian, were ratified. These matters being premised, the Apostle next goes on to shew, that the mode of ratifying those two Covenants, namely over the dead bodies of victims devoted in sacrifice, was no other than the established mode of ratifying ALL Covenants in the ancient world: whence he takes occasion to employ that style of reasoning, which argues (as I have already observed) from generals to particulars.

And, on this account, Christ is the mediator of the new Covenant; in order that, death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions which

selves. Moses, as he observes, having taken the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying: This is the blood of the Covenant, which God hath enjoined to you. Such was the inauguration of the Levitical Covenant: and, in the inauguration of the Christian, our Lord has studiously adopted and applied to his own death the language of the Hebrew legislator. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Matt. xxvi. 27, 28. Here Christ virtually declares, that his own blood bore exactly the same relation to the new Covenant as the blood of calves and of goats did to the Levitical Covenant: whence St. Paul takes occasion to argue most strongly from the less to the greater.

were under the first Covenant, the called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For, where there is a covenant, there also it is necessary that the death of the ratifier should be. For a covenant over dead victims is valid: since it is of no strength, while the ratifier is living.

Here the train of reasoning perfectly agrees with the preceding context: for, in fact, it is no other than a continuation of the argument; or rather, to speak somewhat more precisely, it is a logical arrangement of particulars under a general.

The typical mediators of the first Covenant were animal victims: and it was necessary, that the death of these victims, which ratified the Covenant, should take place. For, agreeably to the universally received principle of covenanting, a covenant (that is, any covenant in general, and therefore the Levitical Covenant in particular) could be valid only over the dead: it was of no efficacy, while its appointed ratifier was alive. Analogously to this, as substance answers to shadow, the antitypical mediator of the new Covenant was Christ: whence the conditions of the new Covenant must answer throughout to the conditions of the first Covenant. And, ON THIS ACCOUNT', he is the mediator of the new Covenant; in order that, death having taken place (primarily, the death of the animal victims; secondarily, the death of the human

victim) for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first Covenant, the called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For, where there is a covenant (that is to say, any covenant framed on the then universally received principle of covenanting), there also it is necessary, that the death of the ratifier should be: for (as all acknowledge) a covenant over the dead is valid (whether the immolated victim be an animal or a man); since it is of no strength, while the ratifier is living.

WHEREUPON or WHENCE, as the Apostle proceeds very logically to conclude from the specified and well known principle of general covenanting: WHEREUPON, neither was the first Covenant inaugurated without blood. The reason of which conclusion is obviously found in the text, which I deem the basis of his argument. Where there is a covenant, there also it is necessary that the death of the ratifier should be: for a covenant over dead victims is valid; since it is of no strength, while the ratifier is living. WHEREUPON, neither was the first Covenant inaugurated without blood: because, unless blood had been shed, the typical ratifiers of that Covenant would have been left alive; and, consequently, the Covenant itself, being valid only over the dead victims, would plainly, on the acknowledged principles of covenant-making, have been of no strength or efficacy.

Having advanced thus far in his reasoning, St.