house against the destroying angel, nor suffers him to smite it." Here is undoubtedly an imposing picture of the transaction, presented to the imagination of the reader; but certainly without any foundation, save what exists in the fancy of the writer. An inaccurate translation indeed of the 23d verse seems to afford some colour to this view of the transac being rendered in our,ולא יתן המשחית לבא אל בתיכם לנגף ; tion common version, "And will not suffer THE DESTROYER to come into your houses to smite you." Rosenmuller attributes this wrong translation to the Septuagint.—“ LXX verterunt • 200peva, secuti Judæorum opinionem, tribuentium angelo cuidam, fati ministro, fulgura, pestem et similia hominibus fatalia: quod commentum et multi Christiani interpretes repetierunt. Sed nil tale in textu." Schol. in Exod. xii. 23. Rosenmuller is undoubtedly right in asserting, that there is. nothing whatever in the text to justify the idea of a second agent. Whoever reads over the entire chapter with any de-. gree of care, will see, that the Jehovah who prescribes the rite, is himself the agent throughout, without the least intimation of any other being concerned. For as to the verse above referred to, its true translation, which I have given in a former part of this discussion, removes at once every semblance of support which it could be supposed to afford to the contrary opinion: the word nne, (the same which is used in the 13th verse as well as in the 23d,) signifying perditio, vastatio, corruptio, exterminatio, (as see Pol. Syn. also Vatabl. on Exod. xii. 13.) and the of the 13th verse, signifying exactly the same as the np of the 23d, i. e. in both places, the destroying plague. Besides, it must be remarked, that the expression suffer in the 23d verse, which seems to imply a distinct agent who would enter the house of the Israelite if not prevented, has no authority from the original; the strict translation being "he will not give,' or "cause," (in); the word in never being used in the sense of permitting, without the marking the dative case of that to which the permission was granted; but the word A not only wants the sign of the dative here, but has actually that of the accusative (x) in MS. 69 of Kennicot's. It appears then, upon the whole, that the fancy of a twofold agent indulged in by Vitringa, Lowth, and some other commentators, derives no support whatever from the text of Exodus and therefore the objections, which that fancy alone suggested in opposition to the explanation which has been. given of the word n, fall to the ground; whilst the admis-. sions of those writers, as to the primary acceptation of the word, must be allowed to stand in confirmation of those very conclusions which they were desirous to overturn. The passage in Isaiah indeed which they were engaged in elucidating, in some degree naturally led them to the view of the subject which we have just noticed. The prophet having there described Jehovah as protecting Jerusalem, in like manner as mother birds protect by hovering over their young; and this being impossible to be conveyed by a term which merely implied passing over, and which, so far from indicating an overshadowing protection, on the contrary necessarily induced an exposure of the defenceless young, and this only the more sudden the more rapid was the transition: the commentators deemed it indispensable to extend the meaning of the word no (here employed) beyond the latter sense, and to give to it such a signification as would admit the former; and perceiving a strong similarity between the application of the term here, and to the deliverance in Egypt, they endeavoured to explain it in such a sense as would embrace both transactions; and were accordingly led to that interpretation of the term which required the twofold agency of which we have spoken. But why recur upon every occasion to the primary sense of a word? Are there not in every language numerous words, in which the derivative becomes the preva› lent and appropriate sense? And if we suppose the deliverance from Egypt to have been alluded to by the prophet, (which, as well from the general similitude of subject, as particularly from the use of the terms no and by which are conjointly used in speaking of the passover and its effect in Exod. xii. 27, seems scarcely to admit of doubt,) what could be more fit than to adopt that form of expression, which,. from its familiar association with the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, had long been employed to designate that deliverance without any reference whatever to its primary acceptation. In other words, was it not most natural, that any providential preservation or deliverance of the Jewish people should be called by the word Pesach, the term used to denominate that recorded act whereby the first great preservation and deliverance of Israel was effected? Might not then the prophet have properly and beautifully employed the word mo, in the passage referred to, in the sense of God's acting again as a protector and deliverer of his people, in like manner as he had done at the time of the no? This gives new beauty to the original passage, and relieves the comparison between its subject and the deliverance in Egypt from all embarrassments; whilst it retains all that attractive imagery, with which the prophet embellishes the original idea. The passage would then stand thus, As the mother-birds hovering over their young: Bishop Stock, in his translation, has much disfigured the beauty of this passage; neither displaying taste in the expression, nor judgment in the criticism.-Birds protecting the winged race, being neither elegant nor quite intelligible: and HOPPING round and over, which is rather an odd signifition of the word mo, being a still-odder reason for translating the word by FLYING round. Some have charged the Greeks with corrupting the original word mo Pesach, by writing it xarxa, and have seemed to intimate that the word was so used by them as if it were derived from wary patior, intimating the sufferings of our Lord, of which the slaying of the passover was a type. That such an allusion may have sometimes been made as might afford some apparent justification to the charge, there seems reason to admit. (See Glass. Phil. Sacr. i. 692. also Greg. Nas. Serm. de Pasch. and Wolf. Cur. Phil. i. 365.) Yet the fact is, that the no of the Hebrew is written noe, Pascha in the Chaldee, from which the waxa of the Greek has immediately flowed. On the subject of the word passover, I shall add the following enumeration of its various applications. 1. It signifies the passing over of Jehovah, who spared the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians. 2. It signifies by a metonymy the lamb slain in memory of that deliverance. 3. It signifies the feast day on which the paschal lamb was slain-viz. the 14th of the first month. 4. and lastly, It signifies the entire continuance and the whole employment of the festival, which commenced with the slaying of the lamb, and continued for seven days. No. XXXVI. ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD TRANS LATED ATONEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. PAGE 34. (m)-The meaning of the word, the original of the term atonement in the Old Testament, has been modelled, like that of other scripture phrases, so as to fall in with the theories of those who are more anxious that scripture should speak their language, than that they should speak the language of scripture. The common artifice, by which the terms of revelation have been discharged of all appropriate meaning, has been here employed with considerable effect. By a comparison of the various passages, in which the term occurs, its most general signification is first explored; and in this generic sense it is afterwards explained, in all the particular cases of its application. The manner in which Doctor Taylor has exercised this strange species of criticism on the word atonement in his Scripture Doctrine, has been already noticed, p. 181-186. One or two additional remarks, will more fully explain the contrivance, by which this writer has been enabled to shape this expression to his purpose. Having laid it down as a principle, "that those passages in the Levitical law, in which atonement is said to be made for persons by sacrifice, supply not so many different instances of a known sense of the word atonement; but are to be considered as exhibiting one single instance of a sense which is doubtful;" (Script. Doct. ch. iv. § 69.) he pronounces (ch. v. § 70.) that "the texts which are to be examined are those where the word is used extra-levitically, or with no relation to sacrifices; that we may be able to judge what it imports when applied to them." And agreeably to these notions he conducts his inquiry. Now what is this, but to pronounce first upon the nature of the thing unknown, and then to engage in its investigation? The meaning of the term, in the several instances of its Levitical application, though as yet supposed unknown, is presumed to be the same in all: and this, notwithstanding these cases of its application must be as different as it objects; persons and things; moral and ceremonial, disqualifications. But not content with thus deciding on the uniformity of an unknown signification, he proceeds to discover the meaning of the term, in those passages which relate to sacrifice, by examining it in others, in which it has no such relation. The result of this singularly critical examination is, that from 37 texts, which treat of extra-levitical atonements, it may be inferred, "that the means of making atonement for sin in different cases, are widely different, being sometimes by the sole goodness of God, sometimes by the prayers of good men, sometimes by repentance, sometimes by disciplinary visitation, sometimes by signal acts of justice and virtue: and that any mean whereby sinners are reformed and the judgments of God averted is atoning, or making atonement for their sins;" (chap. 6. § 112.) What then follows respecting the Levitical atonement? Not that the word, which when used extralevitically is taken in various senses according to the natural efficacy of the different means employed, is to be applied in its Levitical designation in a sense yet different from these, agreeable to the difference of means introduced by the Levitical institutions. Quite the contrary. When specifically restricted to an appropriate purpose, it ceases to have any distinguishing character: and the term, whose signification, when it had no relation to sacrifice, was diversified with the nature of the means and the circumstances of the occasion, is upon assuming this new relation pronounced incapable of any new and characteristic meaning. This argument furnishes a striking instance of that species of sophism, which from a partial concludes a total agreement. Having discovered, by a review of those passages which treat of extra-levitical atonements, that these and the sacrifices which were offered for sin, agreed in their effect; namely, in procuring the pardon of sin, or the removal of those calamities which had been inflicted as the punishment of it: the writer at once pronounces the extra-levitical and the sacrificial atonements to have been of the same nature throughout, without regarding the utter dissimilarity of the means employed, and without considering that the very question as to the nature of the atonement, is a question involving the means through which it was ef fected. But whilst Doctor Taylor has thus endeavoured to overturn the generally received notion of atonement, by an examination of such passages as treat of those atonements which were not sacrificial: Doctor Priestley professes to have carefully reviewed all those instances of atonement which were sacrificial; and from this review to have deduced the inference, that the sacrificial atonement merely implies "the making of any thing clean or holy, so as to be fit to be used in the service of God; or when applied to a person fit to come into the presence of God: God being considered, as in a peculiar manner, the King and the Sovereign of the Israelitish nation, and as it were keeping a court amongst them." (Hist. of Cor. vol. i. p. 193.) Doctor Priestley, by this representation of the matter, endeavours to remove from view whatever might lead the mind to the idea of propitiating the Deity; and by taking care to place the condition of persons and things on the same ground, utterly discards the notion of offence and reconciliation. But in order to effect this, he has been obliged wholly to overlook the force of the original word, which is translated atonement: as well as of that which the LXX have used as its equivalent. The term 9, in its primary sense, signifies to smear or cover with pitch, as appears from Gen. vi. 14. and from this covering with pitch, it has been metaphorically transferred to things of a different nature; insomuch that, in all the 37 instances of extra-levitical atonement adduced by Doctor Taylor, he asserts, that the word retains something of this original sense, (Scrip. Doctrine, ch. vi. § 115.) and agreeably to this, he pronounces "atonement for sin to be |