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FEASTS OF PURIM AND THE DEDICATION.

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(Heb. ix. 28)—and who in His one person united all the redeeming qualities foreshadowed in the living goat, and in that which died.

In addition to the feasts enjoined by the Mosaic law, there were two very generally observed by the Jews subsequently to the Babylonian captivity. The first of these was entitled the feast of Purim, meaning lots, in commemoration of the escape of the Jews dwelling in Persia from the massacre meditated by Haman, through the warning given them by Mordecai and Esther:-"Because Haman... had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them and to destroy them; but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they call these days Purim, after the name of Pur" (Esth. ix. 24-26). It was celebrated on the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month Adar, corresponding to our March: the thirteenth, on which Haman is supposed to have cast the lot, was observed as a fast-day.

The other feast, entitled the feast of the dedication, was instituted to commemorate the purification of the Temple in the year 164 B.C., after the profane desecration of it by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes. It was celebrated on the 25th and seven following days of the month Chisleu (December), and was an occasion of great national rejoicing (1 Macc. iv. 52-58). There appears to have been no special ceremonial for the day; but the people illuminated their houses in token of joy, and hence the festival was sometimes termed the feast of light. A casual notice of this feast occurs in the New Testament :-" And it was at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon's porch" (John x. 22, 23).

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PATRIARCHAL OFFERINGS.-THEIR MEANING.-MOSAIC OFFER
INGS-MATERIALS ENJOINED TO BE OFFERED.-THEIR SIG-
NIFICANCE.-METHOD OF MAKING OFFERINGS.-SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE CEREMONIES OBSERVED IN OFFERING SACRIFICE.-
VARIOUS CLASSES OF OFFERINGS. DISTINCTION BETWEEN
SIN-OFFERINGS AND TRESPASS-OFFERINGS. SIN-OFFERING.-
ITS TYPICAL SIGNIFICANCE. - - TRESPASS-OFFERING.-BURNT-
OFFERING. ITS SIGNIFICANCE. PEACE-OFFERING.
AND DRINK-OFFERING. COVENANT SACRIFICES.-CONSECRA-
TION SACRIFICES.

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THE creation of the world, and more particularly of man, was designed to forward the glory of the great Creator. The manner in which this object was to be

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effected, has varied at different periods according as man's condition or the expressions of the Divine will have varied. In the garden of Eden man fulfilled his destiny by an uninterrupted service of praise and contemplation: his was a perpetual Sabbath, and from the altar of his pure heart there ascended a reasonable sacrifice more acceptable to God than the blood of bulls and goats. But when man fell, a change necessarily took place in his service corresponding to the change in his position relative to the Godhead. He was thenceforth to express his sense of his own sinfulness and of the goodness of God towards him in the preservation of his life by outward acts of a more definite character. Accordingly we find the sons of Adam presenting a portion of their substance to the Lord:-"In process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" (Gen. iv. 3, 4).

Whether the patriarchal offerings were presented in obedience to a direct command of God, or whether they were dictated by an instinctive sense of propriety in man's heart, we are not informed: but even if the latter were the case, the Divine institution of sacrifice would be sufficiently established, inasmuch as the instincts of man were in this instance undoubtedly implanted in him by God, and may be regarded as equivalent to a Divine command. Nor is it necessary for us to define with minuteness the religious ideas which accompanied the offerings and sacrifices of the patriarchal age the word "offering" applied to them shows that they were regarded as gifts from an inferior to a superior, and that they expressed the feelings of gratitude for mercies received, together with an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Jehovah. Thus Noah showed his sense of his obligations for his preservation from the flood:- "Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast and of every

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clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar (Gen. viii. 20). Thus again Abraham when he received the promise of the land of Canaan "builded an altar unto the Lord" (Gen. xii. 7). The act of offering was also connected with kindred acts of worship :- "Abram builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord" (Gen. xii. 8), and again he returned "unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 4). We read the same of Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 25), and we infer the accompaniment of prayer from the names given to the altars by Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 20, xxxv. 7). Every offering was acceptable in proportion to its value in the eyes of the giver, and hence the offering by Abraham of his son-his only son Isaac, whom he loved--was the very highest act of devotion, and was rewarded with the remarkable promise" In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. xxii. 18). It was thus, among other acts, that from the very earliest ages the vital principle of faith was exhibited in the saints of God:

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By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain;" "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead" (Heb. xi. 4, 17-19).

The Mosaic law both gave the Divine sanction to the practice of sacrifices and offerings, and laid down minute directions as to the mode in which they were to be offered. The materials to be used were partly from the animal and partly from the vegetable kingdom. Of the former there are specified oxen, bullocks, cows, calves, sheep, goats, turtle-doves and pigeons; of the latter, parched grain, fine meal, oil, frankincense, salt, and wine. The animals were, it will be observed, such as were ordinarily domesticated and eatable; they

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were required to be of a certain age, the young ones of not less than eight days, and generally as yearlings, and the oxen of the age of three years. They were also to be without spot or blemish, so that the "blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed❞ were forbidden (Lev. xxii. 22), and hence the remonstrance of the prophet:-"If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?" (Mal. i. 8). The turtle-doves and pigeons were generally allowed to be offered by the poor in lieu of the larger sacrifices : this was the case, for instance, with the offering for purification :-"If she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons (Lev. xii. 8), and such an offering was presented by the Virgin Mary after the birth of the Saviour (Luke ii. 24). The oil and the frankincense were mixed with the meal and corn in the meat offering. The various kinds of cakes made with these materials are described in Leviticus ii. In the first place we have fine flour, oil, and frankincense mixed together, but not baked (v. 1); then unleavened cakes of fine flour with oil, baked in the oven (v. 4); thirdly, the same materials, baken in a pan, and afterwards broken up, and covered with oil (v. 5, 6); and lastly, the same, baken in a frying-pan (v. 7). The grain was to be presented in the form of "green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears (v. 14). The use of leaven was prohibited, on account of its putrefying qualities; so also was honey, which was liable to ferment:"Ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by fire" (v. 11). The use of salt, on the other hand, was specially enjoined: -"Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt (v. 13). The reason of this was because salt symbo

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