Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

the moral guilt was still unremoved, Justice was still unsatisfied, the wrath to come was still unaverted, God as yet was unreconciled; there was somewhat done to the flesh, nothing to the conscience; somewhat in foro solely, in the Jewish Judicature, nothing in foro poli, in the Court of Heaven, to give a full satisfaction to Divine Justice. Hence the Apostle saith, that those sacrifices, though often repeated, ⟨p. 148⟩could not make the comers thereunto perfect, Hebr. 10.1. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, v. 4. Still there was a conscience of sin, and a remembrance of it every year, v. 2, 3. Hence God reprobated all those sacrifices, and would have none of them; they were not rejected for the hypocrisy of the offerer, as they were Isa. 1.12, 13; nor comparatively as being in the outward work less than mercy, Hos. 6.6: But they were rejected as not able to do the great work, to expiate sin; they were to vanish as Clouds before the Sun, as Types before the substance. But when Christ gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour, Ephes. 5.2, there was a penal, total expiation of sin; not the flesh but the Conscience was purged, not ceremonial, but Moral guilt was done away. Thus the Apostle, comparing his Sacrifice with the legal ones, saith, The blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered up himself without spot to God, shall purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God, Heb. 9.14. Emphatica omnia, & totidem pene causae, quot verba, aeternae [Greek or Hebrew]; per Christum partae, saith the worthy Paraeus; all things in the Text are Emphatical, and there are almost as many causes, as words, of the eternal redemption obtained by Christ. He offered, not as the Gentiles to Devils, but to God; he offered, not as the Priest under that Law, a Sacrifice distinct from himself, but he offered himself: the thing offered and the Priest, beyond all parallel, were one and the same. He offered, not as the deceiver, a corrupt thing,