It is expressly written, “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death: but he shall surely be put to death." Even in cases where life was taken in chance-medley or misadventure, the matter was not overlooked. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, was the stern inexorable law. Under the theocratic dispensation, in which God was the King and governed Israel, murder was always punished in the most exemplary manner, and there was never any toleration or excuse for it. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” It is true that the first murderer had not his blood shed by man, but then the crime was new and the penalty had not then been settled and proclaimed, and therefore the case was clearly exceptional, and one by itself and, moreover, Cain’s doom was probably far more terrible than if he had been slain upon the spot: he was permitted to fill up his measure of wickedness, to be a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of the earth, and then to enter into the dreadful heritage of wrath, which his life of sin had doubtless greatly increased. As for the blood of man, you remember how God’s threatening ran, “And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Even the blood of bulls and goats thus had a sacredness put upon it by God’s decrees. Things strangled were to be considered unfit for food, since God would not have man became too familiar with blood by eating or drinking it in any shape or form. The Lord thus commanded Noah and his descendants, “Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Man had every moving thing that liveth given him for meat, but they were by no means to eat the blood with the flesh.
He has hedged about this fountain of vitality with the most solemn sanctions. Surely I may hope that while endeavouring to unfold my text, and to proclaim the saving word, the Holy Spirit will be present to take of the things of Christ and to show them unto us and make them saving to our souls.īlood has from the beginning been regarded by God as a most precious thing. With such a text as this before me, if I do not preach the gospel, I shall do violence both to the sacred word and to my own conscience.
IT is frequently my fear lest I should full into the habit of preaching about the gospel than directly preaching the gospel, and hence I labour to return to the first principle, of our faith, and often take a text upon which it would not be possible to say anything new, but which will compel me to recapitulate in your hearing those things which are vital, essential, and fundamental to the life of our souls. “The precious blood of Christ.”- 1 Peter 1:19.