re of the case,
irresistibly suggest the sacrificial terms and metaphors which our
author uses in a large part of his argument. Moreover, his precise
aim in writing compelled him to make these resemblances as
prominent, as significant, and as effective as possible. Griesbach
says well, in his learned and able essay, "When it was impossible
for the Jews, lately brought to the Christian faith, to tear away
the attractive associations of their ancestral religion, which
were twined among the very roots of their minds, and they were
consequently in danger of falling away from Christ, the most
ingenious author of this epistle met the case by a masterly
expedient. He instituted a careful comparison, showing the
superiority of Christianity to Judaism even in regard to the very
point where the latter seemed so much more glorious, namely, in
priesthoods, temples,

19 Heb. i. 4 14, ii. 2; Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii.

20 Heb. ii. 1 3.

altars, victims, lustrations, and kindred things."21 That these
comparisons are sometimes used by the writer analogically,
figuratively, imaginatively, for the sake of practical
illustration and impression, not literally as logical expressions
and proofs of a dogmatic theory of atonement, is made sufficiently
plain by the following quotations. "The bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest for
sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he
might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp,
bearing his reproach." Every one will at once perceive that these
sentences are not critical statements of theological truths, but
are imaginative expressions of practical lessons, spiritual
exhortations. Again, we read, "It was necessary that the patterns
of the heavenly things should be purified with sacrificed animals,
but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than
these." Certainly it is only by an exercise of the imagination,
for spiritual impression, not for philosophical argument, that
heaven can be said to be defiled by the sins of men on earth so as
to need cleansing by the lustral blood of Christ. The writer also
appeals to his readers in these terms: "To do good and to
communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well
pleased." The purely practical aim and rhetorical method with
which the sacrificial language is employed here are evident