n and the truest benefactor of our race;
One that 'was dead and is alive again, and lives for evermore.' The
religious instinct which craved for mediation and intercession was
gratified, and the worship of saints made for the future inexcusable, by
the gift of one Mediator between God and men, a perpetual advocate and
intercessor.[253] It was the same, Tillotson added, with sacrifice. On
this point he dilated more at length. The sacrificial character, he
said, of the atonement was not to be explained in any one manner. To
open a way of forgiveness which would at the same time inspire a deep
feeling of the guilt and consequences of sin, and create a horror of it,
which would kindle fervent love to the Saviour, and pity for all in
misery as He had pity on us; these are some of the effects which the
sacrifice of Christ is adapted to fulfil, and there may be other divine
counsels hidden in it of which we know little or nothing. But he thought
that further explanation might be found in a tender condescension to
certain religious ideas which almost everywhere prevailed among mankind.
Unreasonable as it was to suppose that the blood of slain animals could
take away sin, sacrifice had always been resorted to. Perhaps it implied
a confession of belief that sin cannot be pardoned without suffering.
Whatever the ground and foundation may have been, at all events, both
among Jews and heathens, it was an established principle that 'without
shedding of blood there is no remission.' God's providence may be deemed
to have adapted itself to this general apprehension, not in order to
countenance these practices, but for the future to abolish them,
deepening at the same time and spiritualising the meaning involved in
them. 'Very probably in compliance with this apprehension of mankind,
and in condescension to it, as well as for other weighty reasons best
known to the divine wisdom, God was pleased to find out such a sacrifice
as should really and effectually procure for them that great blessing of
the forgiveness of sins which they had so long hoped for from the
multitude of their own sacrifices.'[254]

It is curious to see in what sort of light these not very formidable
speculations were construed by some of Tillotson's contemporaries. 'He
makes,' says Leslie, 'the foundation of the Christian religion to be
some foolish and wicked fancies, which got into people's heads, he knows
not and says no matter how; and instead of reforming them, a