this subject. They represent the death of Christ, not as a proper, but merely as a figurative, sacrifice; and establish this by proving that it cannot be either. For whilst they argue that it is not a proper sacrifice, upon principles which tend to show that no such sacrifice can exist, they prove at the same time that it is not a sacrifice figuratively, since every figure presupposes reality. The writers of the New Testament, who perpetually apply the sacrificial terms to the death of Christ, must surely have been under a strange mistake, since neither in a proper, nor in a figurative sense, did they admit of such application.

Upon the whole, the opposers of the proper sacrifice of Christ, on the ground of necessary inefficacy, are reduced to this alternative;-that no proper sacrifice for sin ever existed, and that consequently, in no sense whatever, not even in figure, is the death of Christ to be considered as a sacrifice; or, that the efficacy which they deny to the sacrifice of Christ, belonged to the offering of a brute animal.

Besides, if they allow the sacrifices under the law to have been proper sacrifices, whilst that of Christ was only figurative: then, since the apostle has declared the former to have been but types and shadows of the latter, it follows, that the proper and real sacrifices were but types and shadows of the improper and figurative.

On the pretence of figurative allusion, in the sacrificial terms of the New Testament, which has been already so much enlarged upon in several parts of this work, Dr. Laurence, in the discourse which he has lately published on The Metaphorical Character of the Apostolical Style, has thrown out some valuable ideas, which well deserve to be considered.

No. XLIV.-ON THE NATURE OF THE SACRIFICE FOR

SIN.

PAGE 36. (n)-I have not scrupled to adopt this definition, as it stands in the 2d vol. of Theol. Rep. Numb. 1. to the judicious author of which paper I am indebted for some valuable reflections on this subject. On the true nature of the sacrifice for sin, see also Hallet's Discourses, 2d vol. p. 293. Although both these writers, in adopting the premial scheme of atonement, endeavour to establish a principle entirely different from that contended for in these discourses, yet are the observations of both upon the subject of atonement particularly worthy of attention.

No. XLV.-ON THE EFFECT OF THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT IN PRODUCING SENTIMENTS FAVOURABLE TO VIRTUE AND RELIGION.

PAGE 37. (x)-Doctor Priestley (Theol. Rep. vol. i. p. 419.) offers upon this head some very extraordinary remarks, He admits, that "the apprehensions of the divine justice, and of the evil and demerit of sin," excited by the scheme of redemption here maintained, are "sentiments of powerful effect in promoting repentance and reformation." But he adds, "that in proportion as any opinion raises our idea of the justice of God, it must sink our idea of the divine* mercy: and since a sense of the mercy of God, is at least as powerful an inducement to repentance, and as efficacious a motive to a holy life, especially with ingenuous minds, as the apprehension of his justice; what the doctrine of atonement gains on the one hand, it loses on the other.

Now does Dr. Priestley seriously think, that the abstract love of excellence, or the hope of distant reward, can produce upon the minds of men, impressions as powerful as the habitual fear of offending? That the desire of happiness acts upon us but through the medium of present inquietude; that we seek after it only in the degree in which we feel uneasy from the want of it: and that fear is in itself, however remote its object, an instant and perpetually acting stimulus, Dr. Priestley is too well acquainted with the nature of the human mind not to admit. And, I apprehend, he would consider that civil government but badly secured, which rested upon no other support than that of gratitude and the hope of reward, rejecting altogether the succour of judicial infliction. But besides, in comparing the effects upon the human mind, of gratitude for the divine mercies, and fear of the divine justice, it is to be remembered, that one great advantage, which we ascribe to the latter, is this; that those humble feelings, which the apprehension of the great demerit of sin

• Bishop Watson, in speaking of that arrogant and dogmatical theology, that decrees the rejection of the doctrine of atonement, as inconsistent with the divine attribute of mercy, uses the following just observations.-" We know assuredly that God delighteth not in blood; that he hath no cruelty, no vengeance, no malignity, no infirmity of any passion in his nature; but we do not know whether the requisition of an atonement for transgression may not be an emanation of his infinite mercy, rather than a demand of his infi nite justice. We do not know, whether it may not be the very best means of preserving the innocence and happiness not only of us, but of all other free and intelligent beings. We do not know, whether the suffering of an innocent person, may not be productive of a degree of good, infinitely surpassing the evil of such sufferance; nor whether such a quantum of good could, by any other means, have been produced.”—Two Apologies, &c. pp. 466, 467

266

DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT CONDUCIVE, &c.

and of the punishment due to our offences must naturally. excite, dispose us the more readily to place our whole reliance on God, and not presuming on our own exertions, to seek in all cases his sustaining aid. Farther, admitting that the bulk of mankind, (who, after all, and not merely ingenuous minds, are, as Doctor Priestley confesses, "the persons to be wrought upon,") were as strongly influenced by love of the good. ness of God, as by fear of his justice, it by no means follows, that "the doctrine of atonement must lose in one way what it gains in another :" because it is not true, that "the fear of the divine justice must sink our ideas of the divine mercy." On the contrary, the greater the misery from which men have been released, the greater must be their gratitude to their deliverer. And thus, whilst the divine rectitude rendered it unavoidable, that the offender should be treated in a different manner from the obedient; the mercy which devised a method, whereby that rectitude should remain uninfringed, and yet the offender forgiven, cannot but awaken the strongest feelings of gratitude and love.

Dr. Priestley however contends, that even the advantage ascribed to the doctrine of atonement, namely, that of exciting apprehensions of the divine justice and of the evil and demerit of sin, does not strictly belong to it; "for that severity should work upon men, the offenders themselves should* feel it." Now, this I cannot understand. It seems much the same as to say, that in order to feel the horror of falling down a precipice, on the edge of which he hangs, a man must be actually dashed down the steep. Will not the danger produce sensations of terror? And will not the person who snatches me from that danger, be viewed with gratitude as having rescued me from destruction? Or is it necessary that I should not be saved, in order to know from what I have been saved? Can any thing impress us with a stronger sense of God's hatred to sin, of the severe punishment due to it, and of the danger to which we are consequently exposed if we comply not with his terms of forgiveness, than his appointing the sacrifice of his only begotten Son, as the condition on which

* The "ne non timere quidem sine aliquo timore possimus" of Tully, seems an idea quite inconceivable to Dr. Priestley-On this subject I beg to direct the reader's attention to the words of the late Bishop Porteus, and particularly to the striking and beautiful expression in the concluding clause, taken from Scott's Christian Life.-"By accepting the death of Christ instead of ours, by laying on him the iniquity of us all, God certainly gave us the most astonishing proof of his mercy and yet, by accepting no less a sacrifice than that of his own Son, he has, by this most expressive and tremendous act, signified to the whole world such extreme indignation at sin, as may well alarm, even while he saves us, and make us tremble at his seve rity, even while we are within the arms of his mercy." Porteus's Sermons ii. p. 56.

alone he has thought it right to grant us forgiveness? Do we not in this see every thing to excite our fear? do we not see every thing to awaken our gratitude?

No. XLVI.- ON THE SUPPOSITION THAT SACRIFICE ORIGINATED IN PRIESTCRAFT.

PAGE 43. (y)-Some of those objectors, who call themselves enlightened, but whose opinions would scarcely deserve notice were it not to mark their absurdity, have sagaciously conjectured, that sacrifice was the invention of priestcraft. Morgan (Moral. Phil. p. 236.) and Tindal, (Christ. as old as the Creat. p. 79.) exult in this discovery. But, in the elevation of their triumph, they have totally forgotten to inform us, who were the priests in the days of Cain and Abel: or, if we consent to set aside the history of that first sacrifice, in compliance with the dislike which such gentlemen entertain for the book in which it is contained, we have still to learn of them, in what manner the fathers and heads of families, (by whom, even Morgan himself confesses, sacrifices were first offered,) contrived to convert the oblation of their own flocks and fruits into a gainful traffic. And indeed, after all, the priests, or as he calls them, "holy butchers," whom Tindal wittily represents, "as sharing with their gods, and reserving the best bits for themselves," seem to have possessed a very extraordinary taste: the skin of the burnt-offering among the Jews, (Lev. vii. 8.) and the skin and feet among the hea thens, (Pott. Antiq. vol. i. book ii. ch. 3.) being the best bits which the priests cunningly reserved for their own use.* Such impotent cavils, contemptible as they are, may yet be considered of value in this light: they imply an admission, that the invention of sacrifice on principles of natural reason is utterly inconceivable: since, if any such principles could be pointed out, these writers, whose main object is to undermine the fabric of revelation, would gladly have resorted to them, in preference to suppositions so frivolous and absurd.

No. XLVII.-ON THE SUPPOSITION THAT THE MOSAIC SACRIFICES ORIGINATED IN HUMAN INVENTION.

PAGE 43. (3)-Among the supporters of this opinion, there are undoubtedly to be reckoned many distinguished names: Maimonides, R. Levi Ben Gerson, and Abarbanel, amongst the Jews: and amongst the early Christians, Justin

See Delany's Revel. Exam. vol. i. pp. 86, 87. and Kennico's Two Dis rt. pp. 204, 205.

Martyr, the author of the questions and answers to the Orthodox in his works, Irenæus, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria; who all concur in pronouncing the divine institution of the Mosaic sacrifices to have been an accommodation to the prejudices of the Jewish people, who had been trained up in the practice of sacrifice among the Egyptians; to whom Porphyry attributes invention of sacrifice, whilst others ascribe its origin to the Phenicians. To the above names are to be added, of later date, those of Grotius, Spencer, and Warburton.

But to suppose that these most solemn rites of worship should have been ordained by a God of infinite wisdom and purity; by a God who presents himself to the Jews in the character of a King jealous of his glory; merely in compli ance with the absurdities of pagan superstition, seems a notion little worthy of the names that have heen mentioned. To imagine also, that the sacrifices of the patriarchs could have received the divine approbation, without the authority of divine institution, is to contradict the general tenor and express language of Scripture; which supplies various instances, in which God resented, and severely punished, every species of will-worship, (as for example, in the case of Nadab and Abihu, who were struck dead for burning incense with strange fire,) and which expressly condemns, in Mat. xv. 9. and Coloss. ii. 22, 23. that thenoxia, which sprung from the devices and inventions of men.

Spencer, indeed, who has most laboriously defended this notion of the human invention of sacrifices, in his book De Leg. Hebr. has endeavoured to prove, (lib. iii. diss. ii. cap. 4. sect. 2.) that St. Paul speaks of *will-worship without

* An argument, which has been used by Spencer in support of this opinion, deserves particularly to be exposed. In speaking of the notion of the sa erifice of Abel having been the consequence of a divine institution and command, he thus expresses himself: "Sententia hæc erroris inde mani. festa est, quod hoc ipso in commate, (Heb. xi. 4.) illius oblata, non debita, sed Jaga, ab Apostolo appellentur: nam inde patet, Abelis oblationem e pio voluntatis propriæ motu, potius quam legis alicujus præscripto prodiisse." Spenc De Leg Hebr. ii. 769-Here it is directly contended, that the authority of the writer to the Hebrews gives support to the assertion that the offering of Abel was purely voluntary; and this is deduced from the force of the term daga employed by that writer in the passage of the epistles above referred to. But the learned author is altogether inexcusable in drawing such a conclusion: inasmuch as it can hardly be supposed, that he was unaware of the sense, in which the writer to the Hebrews has applied the term daga, in every other passage, in which it occurs throughout the epistle; namely, as referring to oblations under the Mosaic law, which consequently were the result of specific institution, and in which no one part even of the ceremonial of the oblation was left to the free choice of the of ferer. Nor can it easily be believed, that the author could have been ignoPant, that in above seventy passages of the Old Testament the word daga is used by the LXX for the Hebrew ap; in every one of which passages near