remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries: and again, For we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord and again, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: and again, (Rom. v. 9, 10.) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him-for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through his Son, &c. In this last passage, it is not only clearly expressed, that we are from disobedience exposed to the divine displeasure, but also that the way whereby we are rescued from the effects of that displeasure, or, as is here held an equivalent form of expression, reconciled to God, is by the death of Christ.

To quote all the passages that speak a similar language, were a tedious task. Nor indeed was the voice of revelation wanted to inform men that the sinner is the object of God's displeasure. Reason has at all times loudly proclaimed this truth and in that predominating terror, that Andria, which, as shown in Number V. has in every age and clime disfigured, or rather absorbed the religion of the Gentiles, the natural sentiment of the human mind may be easily discerned.

What is the language of the celebrated Adam Smith on this subject?" But if it be meant that vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own sake, the object of abhorrence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right should be punished, the truth of this maxim can by no means be so easily admitted. If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt to fear, lest before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of human nature can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a being of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his fellow-creatures, he may often justly elevate himself, and may often have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a being, he can scarce imagine that his littleness and weakness should ever seem to be the proper object either of esteem or of reward. But he can easily conceive how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, should render him the object of aversion and punishment; neither can he see any reason why the divine indig

nation should not be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he is sensible that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is conscious that he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has justly provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, Jest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime, by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines, must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to his manifest offences.

"The doctrines of revelation coincide, in every respect, with those original anticipations of nature; and, as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most powerful intercession has been made, and the most dreadful atonement has been paid, for our manifold_transgressions and iniquities." (THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, p. 204-206.)

Such were the reflections of a man, whose powers of thinking and reasoning will surely not be pronounced inferior to those of any even of the most distinguished champions of the Unitarian school, and whose theological opinions cannot be charged with any supposed tincture from professional habits or interests. A layman, (and he too the familiar friend of David Hume,) whose life was employed in scientific, political, and philosophical research, has given to the world these sentiments as the natural suggestions of reason. Yet these

When these observations were before committed to the press, I was not aware, that the pious reflections, to which they particularly advert, are no longer to be found, as constituting a part of that work from which they have been quoted. The fact is, that in the later editions of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, no one sentence appears of the extract which has been cited above, and which I had derived from the first edition, the only one that I possessed. This circumstance, however, does not in any degree affect the truth of what had been said by the author, nor the justness of the sentiments which he had uttered in a pure and unsophisticated state of mind. It evinces indeed, that he did not altogether escape the infection of David Hume's so. ciety; and it adds one proof more to the many that already existed, of the danger, even to the most enlightened, from a familiar contact with infidelity. How far Adam Smith's partiality to Hume did ultimately carry him, may easily be collected, from his emphatical observations on the character of his deceased friend, to which I shall have occasion to direct the reader's atten tion in another part of this volume.

are the sentiments which are the scoff of sciolists and witlings. Compare these observations of Adam Smith with what has been said on the same subject in Numbers IV. IX. and XV.

No. XXIII.—INSTANCE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB OF SACRIFICE BEING PRESCRIBED TO AVERT GOD'S ANGER.

PAGE 31. (y)-It was not without much surprise, that after having written the sentence here referred to, I found on reading a paper of Dr. Priestley in the Theol. Rep. (vol. i. p. 404.) that the Book of Job was appealed to by him, as furnishing a decisive proof, not only, "that mankind in his time had not the least apprehension that repentance and reformation alone, without the sufferings or merit of any being whatever, would not sufficiently atone for past offences:" but that "the Almighty himself gives a sanction to these sentiments." Let the Book of Job speak for itself:-The Lord said to Eliphas the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against thee and thy friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath-Therefore take unto you non seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly. (Job xlii. 7, 8.) If this be not a sufficient specimen, we are supplied with another in ch. i. 4, 5. in which it is said, that after the sons of Job had been employed in feasting, Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burntofferings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.-I leave these without comment, to confront the assertions of Dr. Priestley, and to demonstrate the value of his representations of scripture. I shall only add, that in the very page in which he makes the above assertions, he has quoted from Job a passage that immediately follows the former of those here cited.

No. XXIV.- ON THE ATTRIBUTE OF THE DIVINE JUS

TICE.

PAGE 32. (s)-Dr. Priestley (Theol. Rep. vol. i. p. 417.) asserts, that "Justice in the Deity can be no more than a modification of that goodness or benevolence, which is his SOLE governing principle:" from which he of course infers, that under the administration of God, there can be no oc. casion to exercise any severity on penitent offenders;" or in

other words, that repentance must of itself, from the nature of the Deity, cancel all former offences; and that the man who has spent a life of gross vice and audacious impiety, if he at any time reform, shall stand as clear of the divine displeasure, as he who has uniformly, to the utmost of his power, walked before his God in a spirit of meek and pious obedience. This is certainly the necessary result of pure benevolence: pay, the same principle followed up, must exclude punishment in all cases whatever; the very notion of punishment being incompatible with pure benevolence. But surely it would be a strange property of JUSTICE, call it, with Dr. Priestley, a modification of benevolence, or whatever else he pleases, to release all from punishment, the hardened and unrelenting offender, no less than the sincerely contrite, and truly humbled penitent.

But in his use of the term justice, as applied to the Deity, is not Dr. Priestley guilty of most unworthy trifling? Why speak of it as "a modification of the divine benevolence,' if it be nothing different from that attribute; and if it be different from it, how can benevolence be the "SOLE governing principle" of the divine administration?-The word justice then is plainly but a sound made use of to save appearances, as an attribute called by that name has usually been ascribed to the Deity; but in reality nothing is meant by it, in Dr. Priestley's application of the term, different from pure and absolute benevolence. This is likewise evident, as we have seen from the whole course of his argument. Now could it be conceded to Dr. Priestley, that the whole character of God is to be resolved into simple benevolence, then the scheme which by rejecting the notion of divine displeasure against the sinner, involves impunity of guilt, might fairly be admitted. But, as it has been well remarked, "if rectitude be the measure and rule of that benevolence, it might rather be presumed that the scheme of redemption would carry a relation to sinners, in one way as objects of mercy, in another as objects of punishment; that God might be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in the Redeemer." See the 2d of Holmes's Four Tracts, in which he confirms by parallel instances the use of the word as applied in the above passage by Whitby in his paraphrase.— On the subject of this Number at large, see also Numbers IV. XXII, and Balguy's Essay on Redemption.

No. XXV.-ON

OUR

THE TEXT IN JOHN, DESCRIBING LORD AS THE LAMB OF GOD, WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD.

PAGE 32. (a)-What efforts are made to get rid of those parts of scripture that lend support to the received doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ, is evident from the remark made on this passage by the ingenious author of Ben Mordecai's Apology. The allusion here," he says, "seems to be made to the 53d chapter of Isaiah, but the Lamb is not there considered as a Lamb to be sacrificed, but as a Lamb to be sheared." (Let. 7. p. 794. 2d ed. 8vo.)-Now, upon what principle this author is enabled to pronounce, that the allusion in this place is made to the Lamb spoken of in Isaiah, rather than to the Paschal Lamb, or to the Lamb, which under the Jewish law was offered daily for the sins of the people, it is difficult to discover. His only reason seems to be, that in admitting the reference to either of the two last, the notion of sacrifice is necessarily involved; and the grand object in maintaining the resemblance to a Lamb that was to be sheared, not slain, was to keep the death of Christ out of view as much as possible.

But of the manner in which scripture is here used to support a particular hypothesis, we shall be better able to form a right judgment, when it shall have appeared that the reference in John is not made to Isaiah; and also, that the Lamb in Isaiah is considered as a Lamb to be slain.

The latter is evident, not only from the entire context, but from the very words of the prophet, which describe the person spoken of, (liii. 7.) to be "brought as a Lamb to the slaughter;" so that one cannot but wonder at the pains taken to force the application to this passage of Isaiah, and still more at the peremptory assertion that the Lamb here spoken of was a Lamb to be sheared only. It is true indeed, there is subjoined, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb but if Mr. Wakefield's remarks on Acts viii. 32. in which he contends that the word translated shearer, should have been rendered slayer, be a just one, the objection vanishes at once. Retaining, however, the clause as it stands in the present version, that which follows,-so he openeth not his mouth, clearly explains that the character intended to be conveyed by the prophet in the whole of this figurative representation, was that of a meek and uncomplaining resignation to suffering and death.

:

And this also shows us that the passage in Isaiah could not have been the one immediately referred to by John; be