^^w Of pmclf^ 
 
 570 
 
 ."D3?? 
 
 c*. 
 
^'\^''^■ 
 
 AN 
 
 INQUIRY 
 
 '^, 
 
 ^\\ 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND INTENT 
 
 OF 
 
 PRIMITIVE SACRIFICE, 
 
 SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE RESPECTING IT. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE OPINIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 SPENCER, BISHOP WARBURTON, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 MAGEE, AND OTHER WRITERS ON THE 
 
 SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 AND 
 
 SOME REFLEXIONS ON THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 BY JOHN DAVISON B.D. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXV. 
 
LuMiluii : I'lllileil by C. Ko»oith, 
 Bill Y.ii.l, 1oiii|iIcBki. 
 
THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 SHUTE BARRINGTON LL.D. 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING PAGES, 
 
 COMPREHENDING AN INQUIRY ON A SUBJECT 
 
 CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF REVEALED RELIGION, 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH SENTIMENTS OF GREAT RESPECT 
 
 BY HIS lordship's FAITHFUL AND 
 
 OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT 
 
 JOHN DAVISON. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 1 HE following Inquiry is chargeable 
 with some degree of prolixity, which I 
 had hoped to avoid, and which I am far 
 from thinking that the subject itself re- 
 quires. That prolixity has been intro- 
 duced by the extended examination of 
 certain texts of Scripture, which to my 
 own mind convey a direct and perspicuous 
 sense, but are usually quoted, in proof of 
 sentiments and doctrines which do not 
 appear properly to belong to them, by 
 writers who have treated the subject of 
 Primitive Sacrifice. In the progress of 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 the Inquiry I could not forbear to advert 
 to the controverted interpretation of those 
 Texts ; nor could I offer the just defence 
 of my own ideas respecting them, without 
 a detailed discussion of the opinions from 
 which I differ, and of the Scriptural expo- 
 sitions by which they profess to be sup- 
 ported. The deserved reputation and 
 authority of some among those Writers, 
 was a further reason with me for enlarging 
 the statement of my ideas, in the wish, 
 that, if they are erroneous, their error 
 might be more distinctly seen, or, if they 
 are just and well-founded, their truth 
 might recommend itself by the clearer re- 
 presentation of what they are, and of the 
 grounds on which they rest. 
 
 In more respects than one the Inves- 
 tigation has proved irksome. Through- 
 out it, I have had the distaste of main- 
 taining something like a perpetual conflict 
 of debate : and in addition to this unac- 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 ceptable part, although the subject of the 
 inquiry is great, the discussions into which 
 I have been carried are frequently mi- 
 nute; and sometimes, I fear, perplexed. 
 But such was the state in which I found 
 the argument. And thus, according to 
 the present state of Learning, in many 
 of its branches, and in none more than 
 in that of Religion, we seem to be busied 
 in shaking the leaves of the tree of know- 
 ledge, and making a stir among them, 
 instead of reposing beneath its shade, or 
 gathering its fruit ; which last are the 
 satisfactions of other and better studies, 
 such as bring the substance of Divine 
 Truth and its Use more nearly together. 
 
 \(M April, 1825. 
 
\ 
 
 AN INQUIRY, 
 
 c^r. (St. (St. 
 
 The First Ages of the world have left much 
 of their History under a veil, and transmitted 
 to us the difficulty, and the desire, of exploring 
 it. The earliestactof Religious Worship, offered 
 by man to his Creator, of which we have any 
 record, was by Sacrifice. And yet, in this great 
 Institution of Religion, which begins the piety 
 of the Old World ; which afterwards obtained so 
 wide a prevalence, and became the one chief 
 ordinance in the systems both of True Religion 
 and of False ; which seems to involve so much 
 of mystery in its use, and is full of vanity in Pa- 
 ganism, and yet is the image of the prime Truth 
 of Christianity, and the counterpart of tlie real 
 grace of Redemption; in this Institution, we are 
 at this day at a loss, and obliged to discuss it 
 as matter of doubtful inquiry, whether it came 
 originally by Command or by Choice, and bore 
 on its primitive usage the sanction of God, or 
 of Man. 
 
2 Diversity of Opinion on the Origin of Sacrifce. 
 
 Learned writers, fully competent to the ar- 
 gument, have passed different judgments upon 
 it; in which they have had their respective fol- 
 lowers, impressed with the confidence of an 
 opposite conviction. And this diversity of opi- 
 nion has disjoined those who might have been 
 expected to agree. For in this case the first 
 Fathers of the Christian Church have not been 
 able to recommend their notions to those, who, 
 in later times, have professed the greatest zeal 
 for rectitude and piety of belief. Thus, in one 
 instance more, have we been made to feel the 
 uncertainties of our knowledge; of which indeed 
 we have a very constant experience for our 
 monitor ; and to discover, by our inquiries, no- 
 thing so much as this, the change which has 
 befallen our Primaeval condition ; a change to a 
 state of some unhappiness, in our precarious 
 attainment, or our imperfect and unsuccessful 
 communication, of Truth. 
 
 Nor can this question, concerning the Origin 
 of Sacrifice, be treated as an immaterial one, to 
 be dismissed at our option. It derives an im- 
 portance from relations which we cannot dis- 
 regard ; inasmuch as the Rite itself of Sacri- 
 fice is connected with the History of Prophe- 
 cy, with the constitution of the Mosaic Law, 
 and with that which it was the office of Pro- 
 
Connexion of subject with historif of Revealed Religion. .*> 
 
 phecy to disclose, and of the Mosaic Law to 
 prefigure, the doctrine of the Christian Atone- 
 ment. 
 
 Let me state briefly how the Rite of Sacri- 
 fice is so connected, in each of those points. 
 
 \. First, as to the History of Prophecy. If 
 Sacrifice, from the earliest use of that mode of 
 worship, was of Divine Listitutiou, one inference 
 to be deduced from that Origin of it would be, 
 that it was appointed for a Prophetic Type; that 
 is to say, it was an authentic preparatory Ordi- 
 nance, and at the same time a symbolical Re- 
 presentation, adapted to the future Expiatory 
 Sacrifice, to be accomplished by the Death 
 of the Redeemer, in the dispensation of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 If, on the contrary, its Divine Institution be 
 taken away, the rite thereby forfeits its Prophe- 
 tic Character. It becomes simply a branch of the 
 Primitive Religion. In which reduced idea of it, 
 however it might express the piety of the wor- 
 shipper, it cannot be reckoned among the Ty- 
 pical Signatures of Christianity. For though the 
 action of Sacrifice was in either case the same, 
 not so the force of it. What God had not or- 
 dained, could not, under its institution merely 
 human, serve afterwards to attest the design, 
 or confirm tlie truth, or explicate the sense, of 
 
 b2 
 
4 Comiexion of the subject 
 
 any of his special Appointments, so far removed 
 from the reach of all human cognizance, as that 
 of the Evangelical Atonement. In a word, it 
 would speak the mind of man, not of God. 
 
 So far, therefore, the divine, or the liuman 
 Origin of Sacrifice, will make a difference in our 
 \\QW of the character and import of that Rite 
 itself. 
 
 2. But what I have here stated perhaps is 
 not the whole of that difference. For the hii- 
 man origin, if that be admitted, may seem to 
 detract from the sanctity of all that System of 
 Religion, which God subsequently ordained by 
 the Mosaic Law, in which the Sacrificial Wor- 
 ship was made to bear so eminent a part; and in 
 some measure to disturb the doctrine of the Ex- 
 piatory Sacrifice of the Gospel. If Sacrifice 
 was only an adopted worship ; a worship taken 
 into the Mosaic Religion from the existing usage 
 of the world, and that usage the creature of man's 
 own institution, it may be thought> and so, in 
 fact, it has been argued, that the honour of 
 the Mosaic Law, and the doctrinal Scheme of 
 Christianity are exposed, and fatally shaken by 
 this debased origin of the Rite, which forms 
 the predominant Ordinance of the one, and is 
 the expressive image of the great Principle of 
 the other. 
 
 That these consequences, from the human 
 
with the history of Revealed Religion. 5 
 
 origin of Sacrifice, to the prejudice either of 
 the Mosaic Law, or the characteristic doctrine 
 of Christianity, are not justly drawn, is a point 
 which I shall endeavour to establish hereafter. 
 But they are consequences to which the serious 
 Inquirer cannot hold himself indifferent. They 
 are such, that the notions from which they 
 could not be repelled, would deserve on that sin- 
 gle account to be suspected of being essentially 
 wrong. I am now only describing the subject 
 of our inquiry. The investigation of it will de- 
 mand a more patient exercise of our thought. 
 But what has been said may suffice to mark its 
 points of connexion with the History, and with 
 the entire System, of Revealed Religion. 
 
 The result of my own consideration applied 
 to this question, and to the Scripture Evidence 
 respecting it, is, that we cannot insist on the 
 Divine Institution of Sacrifice in its earliest age, 
 nor build any thing upon that assumption. 
 And having had occasion to express this opi- 
 nion in the course of argument pursued in a 
 recent Volume,* but to submit it there only 
 under a cursory statement, I have thought it 
 due to the dignity of the subject itself, in all its 
 relations, as well as to the authority of those 
 
 * Discourses on Prophecy, p. 125, &,c. 
 
6 Object of the present Inquiry. 
 
 eminent persons who have maintained another 
 judgment upon it, to resume it again, and treat 
 it rather more fully, than I could allow myself 
 to do, when it came under my notice as one 
 topic, in common with many others, in the ex- 
 tended History of Prophecy. It has appeared 
 to me that the Inquiry admitted of a material 
 revision, simply by a more correct estimate of 
 the Scripture Evidence bearing upon it, than 
 has hitlierto been made. Had it not been for 
 this persuasion, or had I known any view of the 
 whole subject, satisfactory to my own mind, 
 already given, I could have had no wish to add 
 my inconsiderable observations to what has 
 previously been written, in this controverted 
 argument, with every advantage of consummate 
 learning and ability in some of the writers who 
 have taken it in hand. 
 
 But yet I have no design of obtruding a prolix 
 dissertation, or a precise and definitive conclu- 
 sion, in the controversy. Nor do I conceive that 
 the great interests of the subject require either. 
 For all that is either probable, or useful, in this 
 matter, may be shown, I think, to lie in short 
 compass : and in the following pages, I pretend 
 not to rescue the entire question from uncer- 
 tainty. My object is of another kind. First, to 
 clear the line of investigation, and determine 
 the extent of the Scripture Evidence ; and then 
 
Object of the present Inquhij. "t 
 
 to show, that the uncertainty which is essen- 
 tially inherent in it, as to the Origin of Sacrifice, 
 and which ??iust remain, can inflict no possible 
 detriment upon any one branch of Revealed 
 Religion. And as it is very possible to fix the 
 limits of so much as we can know, in this in- 
 quiry, on grounds worthy of our reliance, so, 
 after that, it is wise to stop where our light 
 fails, and leave the rest to the liberty of a sus- 
 pended speculation. 
 
 As to the conflicting judgments and authori- 
 ties which might be adduced, they are great on 
 either side. For the present, on that head I shall 
 only say, that the early Fathers of the Chris- 
 tian Church, when they touch upon Ancient Sa- 
 crifice, express their belief in its human institu- 
 tion. This they do as if the notion were a 
 received and undisputed one. A later The- 
 ology, of a more inquisitive spirit, and richer in 
 all the resources of theoretical argument, not 
 always to the advancement of Truth, has enter- 
 tained the debate. And here opinions have been 
 greatly divided. But for the sake of preserv- 
 ing the subject in its simplicity, I shall forbear 
 the citation of particular names and authorities, 
 till I have first considered the Scripture Evi- 
 dence ; and ascertained what it is, which that 
 Evidence, correctly stated and applied, has to 
 furnish for our direction. 
 
8 Positions stated. 
 
 The positions which I shall have ultimately 
 to offer, as the result to which the investiga- 
 tion leads, are these: 
 
 First, That a Divi?ie Appointment of Sacrifice 
 cannot be maintained, as the more probable ac- 
 count of the Origin of that mode of Worship. 
 
 Secondly, That its Human Institution, if that 
 be admitted, does not intrench in any manner 
 upon the honour and sanctity of the Mosaic 
 Law ; nor invade, much less invalidate, the es- 
 sential doctrine of the Christian Atonement. 
 
 Thirdly, That if any person shall still prefer to 
 ascribe the First Sacrifices to a Divine Appoint- 
 ment, there is yet no tenable ground for the 
 belief that any revelation of their intent, in refe- 
 rence to the future Sacrifice and Atonement 
 of the Gospel, was joined with them. 
 
 The grounds of these Positions must be con- 
 sidered severally and in order. 
 
 I. A Divine Appointment of Sacrifice can- 
 not be maintained, as the more probable account 
 of the Origin of that mode of Worship. 
 
 First, I begin by stating that there is a total 
 silence in Holy Writ as to the rise of Sacrifice. 
 When the offerings of Cain and Abel, the first 
 recorded instance of that, or any other worship, 
 
No Scripture Evidence of a Divine Origiu. 9 
 
 are introduced, the record adds nothing as to the 
 authority, or the appointment, of that kind of re- 
 ligious service. Whether commanded of God, 
 or framed by Man, the text leaves wholly unex- 
 plained. Not only is there no direct informa- 
 tion, but neither is there any implied evidence 
 in the history of the facts, intimating whether 
 the Worshipper, when he came to bring his 
 Offering, obeyed a Command, or acted upon the 
 suggestions of a customary, or a spontaneous 
 Piety. And so much on all hands is agreed; 
 that the Scripture narrative is neutral in the 
 question. By an inference indeed, deduced 
 from the divine acceptance of Abel's offering, 
 which acceptance is a part of the narrative, it is 
 argued, that the Worship itself must have been 
 commanded; otherwise it could have been no act 
 of faith or obedience, nor, therefore, acceptable 
 to God. Of this mode of reasoning I shall speak 
 in another place. I am now upon the Histori- 
 cal narration. Its sense is perfectly indifferent. 
 Nor in the following examples of Sacrifice, in 
 the Primitive, or Patriarchal Age, antecedent 
 to the Mosaic Law, whether by victims, or any 
 other form of that worship, is there any the most 
 distant disclosure made, directing us to infer 
 lioiv it was originally introduced. 
 
 But this silence of the Scripture history, neu- 
 tral in the narration, is far from neutral in its 
 import. For had Sacrifice been instituted of 
 
10 No Scripture Evidence of a Divine Origin. 
 
 God ; had it been the solemn Rite and Charac- 
 ter with which Religion from the beginning was 
 invested by a special Revelation, most reason- 
 able is it to think, that some notice of such an 
 authoritative Institution of it would have been 
 preserved, and transmitted to memory, for the 
 instruction of after-times. And although in the 
 great conciseness and simplicity of the first An- 
 nals of Religion, as delivered in the Book of 
 Genesis, it will not be right to take this 72ega- 
 tive argument from the absence of all such no- 
 tice, as conclusive in the case, yet it plainly has 
 a great presumption on its side ; and to this 
 original presumption, presented by the histori- 
 cal evidence, there is nothing, as I think will 
 be seen in the sequel, of greater force to be 
 opposed. For if the earlier record of things 
 in Scripture is concise, yet the paramount im- 
 portance of that divine Institution, and of Sa- 
 crifice itself, when so instituted, will constrain 
 us to think, that the memorial of it could 
 scarcely have been altogether withholden. For 
 that institution would make the Worship by 
 Sacrifice, in every view, a different object. In 
 its diff"erence, it would affect the Primitive Wor- 
 shipper, by its authority ; by its History, and 
 its systematic relation to the principles of their 
 Religion, it would affect the Israelite and the 
 Christian. 
 
No Scripture Evidence of a Divine Origin. 1 I 
 
 Moreover, in this Scriptural narrative, brief 
 and contracted as it is, v^e perceive a place is 
 given to things which cannot be said to be of 
 a nature more likely to have been selected for 
 a specific mention. Witness what is said of 
 the divine sanctification of the Sabbath; that 
 second branch of the Primitive Religion ; with 
 some other particulars introduced (as the cloth- 
 ins: of the Human Kind, under a divine direc- 
 tion,) which do not seem to rise to an equal 
 magnitude and moment. 
 
 This express mention of the Sabbath, joined 
 with the omission respecting Sacrifice, has been 
 urged by Bishop Warburton with great force. 
 He holds it as almost decisive in itself, against 
 the divine appointment of Sacrifice. In some 
 of the most important views of the principal 
 question, I shall have to express my dissent 
 from that distinguished writer. But in this one 
 article, his reasoning is most just. The direct, 
 the obvious impression, from the dissimilar 
 state of the Scripture Evidence reflected upon 
 the two institutions, is to create a belief in their 
 different origin. God's own blessing and sanc- 
 tification, from the beginning, adhere to the 
 first,^ that of the Sabbath. His blessing in- 
 deed, but not his precedent sanctification, to 
 the other, that of Sacrifice. This argument, 
 * Genes, ii. o. 
 
12 No Scripture Evidence of a Divine Orii^in. 
 
 however, has lately been discussed again, and 
 rejected, in a work of our own times ; a work 
 which has acquired a just celebrity by the 
 merits of its various erudition, and by its tone of 
 acute and forcible discussion: *' The Discourses 
 and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of 
 Atonement and Sacrifice," by a Prelate of the 
 Irish Church, Archbishop Magee. This very 
 able writer, of whom I can speak only with 
 a great respect, and with the deference due to 
 his learning and his high station, maintains the 
 Divine Origin of Sacrifice, which he makes it a 
 leading object of his work to establish, and 
 treats any deviation from that opinion with a 
 very frank severity. He has suggested some 
 solutions intended to account for the omission, 
 which is now in question, and deny the adverse 
 inference from it. In all which solutions, I can- 
 not but think that the denial is ineflfectually 
 made ; and, in one instance, I could almost say 
 that I desiderate something in the candour and 
 perfect fairness of the learned author towards 
 his subject. For he would diminish and depress 
 the comparative evidence for the first divine in- 
 stitution of the Sabbath, by urging the incidental 
 and indirect mode in which it is referred to, 
 without a positive command for its observance 
 expressed.* To which plea I think the reply 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 79, 80. 
 
No ScrijHure Evidence of a Divine Origin. 13 
 
 must bCj that if the indirect reference to the 
 Sabbatical Institution does not sufficiently prove, 
 or imply, a command for its observance, the 
 no-reference to the Institution of Sacrifice, will 
 render a command for its observance far from 
 credible. 
 
 But * reliance is placed also by the same 
 Author, and by others, f on the confessed omis- 
 sion of important matter in the narrative of 
 Genesis, and in other historical parts of Scrip- 
 ture. Instances of such omission are taken in 
 the observance of the Sabbath itself, and of Cir- 
 cumcision ; the actual observance of the former 
 Rite in the Primitive Age, and of the other 
 Rite in the long* period of a later Age, being pass- 
 ed over without any mention in the series of 
 the History. It is thought that the command 
 for Sacrifice might fall under a similar sup- 
 pression. But the cases are most dissimilar. 
 For what is the fact ? We have the observance of 
 Sacrifice, both in the Antediluvian and the Pa- 
 triarchal Ages, distinctly recorded ; but this 
 mention of the actual observance of Sacrifice, 
 giving the apt opportunity to the sacred Histo- 
 rian, and even inviting from him the information 
 of its divine appointment, is yet unaccompanied 
 by any such information or allusion. Whereas, 
 in the instances of the Sabbath and of Circumci- 
 sion, the inspired Writer has thought the di- 
 * V^ol. ii. p. 81, SCJ. t As Witsius, Kennicott, &c. 
 
14 No Scripture Evidence of a "Divine Origin. 
 
 vine Separation of the one, and the commanded 
 Institution of the other, the memorials the fittest 
 to be given ; memorials more important than the 
 simple observance of the Rites themselves. And 
 so they were. For, from the divine Institution 
 declared, the observance might be inferred — 
 not so the divine Institution from the observ- 
 ance. In Sacrifice, as we see, it is the observ- 
 ance, and that alone, which is specified. The 
 entire comparison, therefore, of these several 
 branches of the Scripture narrative, can lead to 
 no other issue, than to infer, on this head of the 
 proof, a different origin of the respective insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 Upon the whole, there remains a great and 
 substantial force in the disparate evidence rela- 
 tive to these kindred subjects : a force which we 
 shall not be able to evade, without resorting to 
 suppositions too doubtful, and too gratuitous, to 
 be indulged, nor to resist, without disturbing, 
 and throwing into violent disproportion, the 
 great outlines of the Scripture History. 
 
 On these grounds, therefore, which have now 
 been canvassed, I conclude that the historical 
 evidence of Scripture, the first element in our 
 Inquiry, is certainly not favourable, but adverse, 
 to the belief, that Primitive Sacrifice was con- 
 secrated by a Divine Institution. 
 
Human Origin of Sacrijice discussed. 1 5 
 
 But its Human Origin is objected to. And 
 the Objections on that head come next to be 
 considered. 
 
 The first of these objections is, what is de- 
 scribed to be the natural incongruity of Sacri- 
 ficial worship ; its unsuitableness to the dic- 
 tates of reason. Gifts, it has been said, cannot 
 conciliate the Divine Being, or purchase his 
 favour; and the Blood of a Victim seems to 
 possess no remedial expiatory virtue, no power 
 to obliterate sin, which should recommend the 
 effusion of it to Man, or promise the acceptance 
 of it with God. How, then, could Man, of his 
 own accord, devise such a mode of worship 1 if 
 devised, how could he put any confidence in 
 it ? above all, what rational sense could he as- 
 cribe to the immolation of his Victim? 
 
 This exception, taken to the Natural Reason- 
 ableness of Sacrifice, must be reduced within 
 limits. The stress of it, in fact, bears only 
 upon the Sacrifice strictly so called, that of a 
 living creature, slain, or offered as an holocaust 
 upon the altar, and presented as an Offering for 
 Sin. As the Origin of this kind of Sacrifice 
 forms the real difficulty of the question, I shall 
 reserve it for a strict, and a separate examina- 
 tion. For as to the more simple forms of Obla- 
 tion, they admit of being so easily reconciled 
 with the dictates of a Natural Piety, that I do 
 
16 yinma)i Origin of Sacrifice discussed. 
 
 not see how they can require to be very anx- 
 iously vindicated, or explained in their principle. 
 Reason seems to recognise them at once. They 
 are the Tokens of a commemorative Piety, ren- 
 dering to the Creator and the Supreme Giver, 
 by a restitution of some portion of his gifts, de- 
 voted to his honour, the confession of his ori- 
 ginal dominion in them, and of his continued 
 favour and beneficence, experienced in the en- 
 joyment of them. The Sacrifice of this design 
 has been called the Eucharistic. But the same 
 kind of Oblation was also capable of a more 
 extended use than that of being simply Eucha- 
 ristic. It might readily be adapted to other ob- 
 jects and purposes of Religious Service. For 
 when such a mode of Worship was once intro- 
 duced, when Piety had established and conse- 
 crated the Rite, it is natural to think it would 
 be resorted to as a fit medium of approach to 
 God, whether the present object of the wor- 
 shipper were to confess his thankfulness, or 
 to intercede for some new instance of blessing- 
 and favour. For the feelings of devotion are 
 allied together. They are kindred energies ; 
 and the secret of their union lies in every 
 mind. When we have need of God, we begin 
 to trim the fire on his altar, and repair to his 
 presence with " such things as our hands can 
 find," whether it be prayer, or oblation, or 
 
Human Origin of Sacrijice discussed. 1 7 
 
 VOWS, or praise. In such seasons of exigency 
 every thing has its aptitude of use, and every 
 thing promises aid, v^^hich has been accus- 
 tomed to be associated with his service, or 
 been employed to declare our dependence 
 upon him. And there is wisdom and rectitude 
 in all these first propensities of religion. For 
 though the prayer, or the oblation, or the vow, 
 cannot pinxhase the favour of God, they may 
 make us fitter objects of his favour; and there is 
 a profound persuasion, an instinctive aboriginal 
 habit, of this faith, which nature never suspects, 
 and reason, in her greatest illumination, can do 
 nothing better than justify. 
 
 That Eucharistic Oblations, therefore, should 
 become a general tribute of homage to God; 
 that they should accompany the exercise of 
 devotion, either in prayer, or praise ; either in 
 deprecating evil, or suing for good, or setting 
 forth simply the majesty, providence, and law 
 of the Creator ; all this seems to be no hard or 
 arbitrary idea, nor in any way incompatible 
 with the plainest efforts and tendencies of the 
 essential principle of religion in the human 
 mind. 
 
 The demands of the argument do not charge 
 me with the duty of filling up the portrait of 
 the Primitive Religion. But since the natural 
 
 c 
 
18 Human Origin of Sacrifice discussed. 
 
 reasonable7iess of this worship by Oblations and 
 Sacrifices is so keenly disputed and inexorably 
 denied ; simply to abate the edge of that objec- 
 tion, though I have no wish to expatiate on 
 ideal ground, I shall venture to advance a step 
 further, and add a few suggestions tending to 
 support the internal probability of some such 
 Ritual, and significant Scenery, of Religious 
 Service, and connect it with the primitive state 
 of Man. In the first dawn of the world, and 
 the beginnings of Religion, it is reasonable to 
 think that the direction of feeling and duty was 
 more exclusively towards God. The recent 
 Creation of the woi'ld ; the revelations in Para- 
 dise; and the great transactions of his Provi- 
 dence, may well be thought to have wrought a 
 powerful impression on the first race, and to 
 have given them, though not a purer knowledge, 
 yet a more intimate and a more intense percep- 
 tion, of his Being and Presence. The continued 
 miracle of the actual Manifestations of God 
 would enforce the same impressions upon them. 
 Then having less scope of action in communion 
 with their fellow-creatures ; in the solitude of 
 life around them ; in the great simplicity of the 
 social state, and the consequent destitution of 
 the objects of the social duties ; their religion 
 would make the acts of devotion its chief monu- 
 ments of moral obligation. Works of justice and 
 charity could have little place. Works of adora- 
 
Human Origin of Sacrijice discussed. IQ 
 
 tion must fill the void. And it is real action, not 
 unembodied sentiment, which the Creator has 
 made to be the master principle of our moral 
 constitution. From these causes some boldness 
 in the form of a Representative Character, some 
 Ritual clothed w^ith the imagery of a symbolical 
 expression, would more readily pass into the 
 first liturgy of Nature. Not simple adoration, 
 not the naked and unadorned oblations of the 
 tongue, but adoration invested in some striking 
 and significative Form, and conveyed by the 
 instrumentality of material Tokens, would be 
 most in accordance with the strong energies of 
 feeling, and the insulated condition, of the Pri- 
 mitive Race. 
 
 This, indeed, is a supplied portrait of things. 
 It is proposed as nothing more; and it is in- 
 tended to meet the contrary supposal; which 
 pretends the incapacity of Natural Reason for 
 the formation of that kind of Ritual. But if 
 the supplied delineation is such as may be de- 
 duced from the known condition of Man, and 
 the real principles of his nature, it is not so 
 imaginary but that it may at least be admitted 
 to counterbalance the contrary hypothetical 
 assumption. 
 
 Bishop Warburton has laid great stress upon 
 the principle of Rcpresetitation by Actio?!, as if it 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Representation hi/ /Iclion a more expressive Language. 
 
 had been a remedy, from its first introduction, 
 for the " defects and imperfections" which he 
 imputes to the primitive language.* But since 
 this presumed imperfection of early language is 
 unsupported by any known fact ; since there is 
 little cause to think that the Creator left his 
 rational creatures so ill-furnished with the free 
 command of the chief faculty of life, and the main 
 instrument of reason; since the Fail of Man, 
 which alone had intervened to disturb the ori- 
 ginal perfection of his nature, will not account 
 for his loss of an adequate language, though it 
 may for the obscuration of his understanding; 
 this mode of deriving the representative Action 
 of Worship from any disability in the powers of 
 speech, must pass for an ill-grounded, and a 
 most improbable, hypothesis. But the assump- 
 tion of it seems wholly unnecessary. The Repre- 
 sentation by Action is gratifying to men who 
 have every gift of eloquence. It is a second 
 language, and a more animated one: a language 
 which speaks to the eyes, the memory, and the 
 imagination ; and reflects back its power upon 
 the speaker himself. Having more of energy, 
 and palpable reality in it, it is singularly suited 
 to great purposes of solemnity and impression ; 
 and as it has found its use at all times, and in 
 
 * " The Speaking by Action had its original in 
 the defects and imperfections of' earli/ language, &c." 
 Div. Le<?at. Book ix. ch. 2. 
 
Animal Sacrifice for Sin: its twofold Character. 21 
 
 every state of life and society, so I think there 
 are reasons, such as I have already mentioned, 
 why, in the primitive force and simplicity of 
 feeling, and the vacuity of the social v^orld, Re- 
 ligion should have made the dedication of her 
 service to God in that mode above any other. 
 
 This kind of speculation, however, forms no 
 part of the ground on which I infer the Jiumau 
 origin of these significant rites as not impro- 
 bable. It is the state of the Scripture Evidence 
 which dictates that inference. And the ideal 
 speculation is only defensive ; in answer to ano- 
 ther, equally ideal, on the opposite side. 
 
 But the Animal Sacrifice for Sin still remains. 
 As it is this Mhich presents the only real diffi- 
 culty in the scheme of Reason, I have separated 
 it from the other, that we may examine it with 
 an undivided attention. 
 
 In this kind of Sacrifice two Conditions are to 
 be distinguished : the Guilt of the Worshipper ; 
 and the Atonement for, or Expiation of, his Sin. 
 These conditions I shall consider apart. First, 
 his Guilt, and the relation of the Sacrifice to 
 it. In this sense of Sacrifice ; in its use as a 
 confession of guilt ; I venture to believe that, 
 after a candid review, it will not be thought 
 either inexplicable, or any paradox at all. Con- 
 sider the first family of the Human Race, and 
 
2^ Animal Sacrifice for Sin : 
 
 how they stood with God. When He had de- 
 nounced death as the punishment due to man's 
 original transgression, and thereby given him to 
 understand that death was the wages of all other 
 sin ; when he had made this doom the great 
 penal sanction of his Law, and the fearful sign 
 of man's demerit in his disobedience; how can 
 it be said that it was a thing so remote from the 
 ideas of the worshipper, that he should make 
 confession of his guilt, and of the deserved 
 penalty of his transgression, by presenting a 
 Victim to be slain, as the appropriate, but in- 
 terposed, symbol of his contrition and self- 
 condemnation ? The substitution of the Victim 
 was surely no improbable, no extravagant, no 
 very devious effort either of Nature, or Rea- 
 son, when Nature was awakened, and Reason 
 prompted, by the sentence of the divine Law ; 
 that Law which held its terrors before him, to 
 teach the offender by what measure to estimate 
 the desert of his transgression, and almost to 
 suggest the symbols by which he might most 
 adequately express the justice of his foredoomed 
 condition. As the representative of a forfeited 
 life, the creature slaughtered was a confession 
 made to the Divine Justice, neither inapt to its 
 object, nor arbitrary in its moral import. The 
 action performed, and the sentiment implied, 
 had a determinate correspondence. The one 
 
its two/old Character. 23 
 
 would exhibit the other. The sentiment was 
 just; the representation of it natural. The Ho- 
 locausts and Victims of the primitive age, would 
 not, therefore, in this first sense of them, be so 
 perplexed in their design, that we should be 
 obliged to resort to a supernatural appointment 
 to account for their introduction. 
 
 But Man's 7^ight over the life of the creature, 
 in the earliest period of the world, is denied ; 
 and therewith his right to present an Animal 
 Sacrifice : the permission of Animal Food being 
 thought to be subsequent to the Deluge. De- 
 clining this larger question, as to the first grant 
 of Animal Food, and the true date of it, I an- 
 swer that, whether for Food, or no, the dominion 
 over the living creatures was unquestionably a 
 branch of the original grant of the Creator. 
 *' Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
 " earth, and subdue it ; and have dominion 
 " over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 " the air, and over every living creature that 
 ** moveth upon the earth." This is the Pri- 
 mary Charter, these the large terms of it, 
 from the Sovereign Lord of all, conveyed to 
 Man. Here is dominion over the living crea- 
 tures positively and in form conceded to him. 
 But this is not all. For that other preced- 
 ing grant, to replenish and subdue the Earth, 
 and occupy it to his use, could scarcely be 
 
24 Lawfulness of Animal Sacrifice. 
 
 ^^ turned to effect, without the Hberty of sub- 
 
 duing those the wild, and otherwise, the rival, 
 possessors of his domain. Their lives, no doubt, 
 were submitted to him for the furtherance of his 
 natural accommodation in completing his mas- 
 tery and possession of the Earth. But if for his 
 natural accommodation, it will be too much to 
 contend that it was an abuse, an unlawful ex- 
 tension of his power, if he applied it for the rea- 
 sonable purposes of Religion. Religion could 
 not pollute the exercise of a confessed and 
 legitimate dominion. 
 
 It has been endeavoured to extract an evi- 
 dence for the divine appointment of Animal 
 Sacrifice, from a text, which I am about to adduce 
 here, as tending to show the perfect lawfulness of 
 that worship, if it had an origin merely human. 
 It is the text which informs us that a clothing of 
 skins for their bodies was dictated to our First 
 Parents by a divine direction. " Unto Adam 
 " also and to his wife did the Lord God make 
 ** coats of skins, and clothed them."* In this 
 short and memorable passage, we read an in- 
 stance, I think a most affecting one, of the di- 
 vine wisdom and philanthropy ; interposing by 
 the dictation and provision of a more durable 
 clothing, to veil the nakedness, and cherish the 
 modesty, of our fallen Nature, by Sin made sen- 
 
 "* Gen. ill. 21. 
 
LaTif Illness of Animal Sacrifice. 25 
 
 sible to Shame.* The decent covering of rai- 
 ment is the retreat, and the preservative, of 
 our sensitive and trembling, but not altogether 
 degraded, Humanity. As such, the care of it, 
 by an especial sanction, in the beginnings of the 
 usages of our race, was an object worthy of the 
 benevolence of God. But this sense has not 
 been sufficient for the taste of some commenta- 
 tors. They argue that God " would not have 
 ** given the lives of the animals merely" for the 
 sake of the raiment ; that the skins could be 
 none other than the remains of Sacrifice ; and 
 Sacrifice must have been commanded ; other- 
 wise the raiment could not have been obtained. 
 These things are supposed and deliberately said.f 
 
 * Gen. ill. 7. 
 
 t Dr. Kennicott's First Dissertation. " Tliis, horu- 
 " ever unconcerning an information it may appear to 
 " some, would not have been inserted in the middle of 
 " this solemn history, unless something of moment were 
 " contained in it." This something of moment is the in- 
 stitution of Sacrifice. " For now, as God knew the 
 " Prophecy above-mentioned could not as yet be pro- 
 " perly understood, he instituted Animal Sacrifice to il- 
 " lustrate and unfokl this grand event." — p. 67. " Nei- 
 " ther is it possible to suppose that Adam would have 
 " dared to kill God's creatures without his order and 
 " permission ; which, it may be presumed, God ivou/d 
 " not have given only for such coats, when there were 
 ** yet so few creatures in tlie world." — ib. p. 70. The 
 
26 Lawfulness of Animal Sacrifice. 
 
 What we read and see is, the Raiment men- 
 tioned, and not the Sacrifice; and a direction 
 given for the one, not for the other. I shall 
 therefore willingly resign those remote and ha- 
 zardous, not to say most arbitrary, comments, 
 upon the Scripture text, comments which in- 
 volve a petitio principii as to the main question 
 at issue, and a refusal of its obvious sense 
 as to the particular passage, to those who 
 can place more confidence in the exercise of 
 such complicated ingenuity. The deduction to 
 be made from the text is plainly this ; Since the 
 skins of the living creatures were granted for 
 raiment, their lives might lawfully be taken for 
 Sacrifice. This passage, therefore, conspires 
 with the declared concession of a general do- 
 minion over the living creatures already vested 
 in man, to establish in him the right and liberty 
 
 same notions occur in the treatises of Cloppenburch, 
 whom Dr. Kennicott is much disposed to follow : as 
 well as of other writers, as Witsius, Ikenius, &c., who 
 have not been jealous of a mystical interpretation of 
 Scripture. — See Cloppenburch de Foedere Dei Test. 
 Vet. et Nov. Disp. v. sec. 19. Schol. Sacrificiorum 
 Patriarch, cap. ii. sec. 4. But it is not without sur- 
 prise that I perceive some of these expositions of the 
 sacred text transferred literally, and in all their luxuri- 
 ance, into the " Discourses and Dissertations on the 
 Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement." — Vol. ii. pp. 
 230, 231. 
 
Expiatoiy Sacrifice inexplicable by Reason. 27 
 
 of animal Sacrifice, if the objects of his religious 
 worship required it. And so far as the Scrip- 
 ture Evidence will carry us, the spontaneous 
 oblation of that Sacrifice cannot be deemed to 
 have been vitiated by any fault of an intrinsic 
 immorality: as though man had presumed upon 
 a preposterous oblation, in presenting to God 
 what God had not first granted to him. 
 
 Having gone thus far in showing that the 
 i^ight, and the sense, of Animal Sacrifice for Sin, 
 are not incapable of being explained, under its 
 supposed human origin; its sense I mean as to 
 the first condition of that kind of Sacrifice ; I 
 come to its second condition, its Expiatory 
 Atoning Power. A character this, wholly dis- 
 tinct from the former, and of quite another 
 order and import. The guilt of the worshipper 
 is the subject of the first : the remedy, or the 
 remission of his sin, the subject of the second. 
 
 But here, instead of attempting to deduce 
 the doctrine of Expiation and Atonement by 
 Animal Sacrifice from the light of Nature, or 
 the principles of Reason, I confess myself 
 unable to comprehend, with the most igno- 
 rant, how it can ever be grounded on any such 
 principles, or justified by them. There ex- 
 ists no discernible connexion between the 
 one and the other. On the contrary, Na- 
 
28 Expiatory Sacrifice inexplicable 
 
 ture has nothing to say for such an Expiatory 
 Power, and Reason every thing to say against 
 it. For that the life of a brute creature should 
 ransom the life of a man; that its blood should 
 have any virtue to wash away his sin, or purify 
 his conscience, or redeem his penalty ; or that 
 the involuntary sufferings of a being, itself un- 
 conscious and irrational, should have a moral 
 efficacy to his benefit, or pardon ; or be able to 
 restore him with God ; these are things, repug- 
 nant to the sense of reason, incapable of being 
 brought into the scale of the first ideas of nature, 
 and contradictory to all genuine Religion, Na- 
 tural and Revealed. For as to the remission of 
 sin, it is plainly altogether within the prerogative 
 of God ; an act of his mere mercy ; and since 
 it is so, every thing relating to the convey- 
 ance and the sanction, the possession and the 
 security of it, can spring only from his appoint- 
 ment. Reason teaches repentance as a pre- 
 liminary condition to the hope of pardon ; but 
 reason can do no more. External Rites, merely 
 human, whether rites of Sacrifice, or any other, 
 may exhibit the repentance ; but they cannot 
 rise above the efficacy of that inward act which 
 they exhibit. They cannot supply the short- 
 ness, or cure the infirmity, or satisfy the doubt, 
 of its pretensions. The human instruments are 
 here infinitely unequal to the end proposed 
 
on "privciphs of Natural Reason. '2,9 
 
 They may speak the Suppliant suing for pardon : 
 they can never speak the Suppliant absolved. 
 And though mere Natural Reason, when best 
 informed, may not always have thought justly 
 or argued soberly on the subject of Repentance, 
 we may confidently assert that one of its last 
 resources would have been, that of adopting 
 the blood of a Victim as the positive remedy for 
 the guilt of moral transgression. 
 
 If therefore the Primitive Age had its Expi- 
 atory Sacrifices, Sacrifices framed according to 
 this standard, it would be difficult to account 
 for them as rational Rites ; still more difficult 
 to think that under the palpable incapacity of 
 their human origin they could have been ac- 
 cepted by God. No : Expiatory Sacrifice must 
 have been of God's own appointment, to recon- 
 cile it either to God : or to Man himself, till 
 he was fallen under a deplorable Superstition. 
 
 Here then is the dilemma of our Inquiry. 
 But in this dilemma let the Scripture History 
 be explored. It will be found that, in the Pri- 
 mitive Religion, we have actually no evidence 
 extant, no one positive example, of any such 
 expiatory atoning virtue ascribed to the Sacri- 
 fice. This is a material point which I state. 
 But I appeal to the Scripture History. That 
 History, I believe, will fully sustain the state- 
 ment made. In the offerings of Abel; in the 
 
80 No Evidence in Scripture of Expiatory 
 
 sacrifice of Noah ; and in the oblations of 
 the Patriarchs ; the sacrificial worship is given 
 in the utmost simplicity of description. The 
 altar is raised ; the oblation is brought ; and 
 the victim is sacrificed ; but vv^ith what no- 
 tions, with what specific intent, is not de- 
 fined. This simplicity of the record is main- 
 tained in almost every instance : one excepted. 
 In the excepted instance the particular Sacri- 
 fice is described as a commanded Federal Rite ; 
 the ordained seal of God's Covenant with Abra- 
 ham, in the promise of the land of Canaan.* In 
 the others, the precise intent of the Sacrifice is 
 never declared. The piety of the Primeval 
 world is presented to us in its most general 
 form ; that of worship and adoration. This 
 concise record of the earliest times was suf- 
 ficient to connect together the whole line of the 
 History of Man, and of Religion. It was enough 
 for our sympathy in these later days to rest upon ; 
 enough to create a bond in the Communion of 
 Saints, and knit together the faith and piety 
 of the first generations and the last, in Civitate 
 Dei, in the great community of God. But for 
 our questions concerning Eucharistic, Propiti- 
 atory, and Expiatory Sacrifice, the information 
 fails; the sacred oracle refuses an answer; and 
 therefore our judgment of those early times, and 
 their Worship, must be shaped accordingly. 
 * Genes, xv. 8. 
 
Sacrifice prior to the Mosaic Law. 31 
 
 The result then from the actual state of the 
 Scripture Evidence is this ; that the Sacrifice 
 of the Victim slain for Sin, might be a reason- 
 able worship, in one sense : not, in another. 
 Penitential and Deprecatori/ it might be; and 
 then it would have its intrinsic reason. But 
 since the efficacy of a proper E.vpiation is nei- 
 ther imputed to the Victim, nor the belief of it 
 to the Worshipper, we can argue nothing, as to 
 its Origin, from that supposed character of 
 Primitive Sacrifice. And with regard to the 
 acceptance of Abel's offering ; or Noah's ; though 
 this acceptance has been employed to prove 
 that the Sacrifice must have been of an Eipi- 
 atory kind ; it is by a circle of reasoning which 
 would only reduce us to infinite difficulties. It 
 would go to prove that no other oblation could 
 be capable of acceptance: which is too large a 
 notion, either for Truth, or for serious Argu- 
 ment. 
 
 Turn to the Mosaic Law. See what a different 
 scene of things instantly meets our view ; and 
 how prominent the difference. *' For the life of 
 " the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to 
 " yon, upon the altar, to make an atonement for 
 " your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an 
 *' atonement for the soul.''* This is the doctrine 
 
 * Levit. xvii. 1 1 . 
 
32 No Evidence in Scripture of Expiatorij 
 
 of the Mosaic Sacrifice; and the whole body of 
 the Mosaic Law is sprinkled with the Atoning 
 power of Blood. But this, I say, is a new doc- 
 trine ; a doctrine of which we find no positive 
 information, nor any probable vestige, in the 
 Primeval Religion. And, though the trans- 
 ference has been very confidently made, it is 
 most evident that we have no right to transfer 
 this doctrine of the subsequent Law to the 
 elder History. In the Mosaic Economy the Ex- 
 piatory Sacrifice is pre-eminent; the atoning 
 application of blood perpetually inforced ; the 
 need, and the use, of that atonement constantly 
 inculcated. But all this is by a confessed in- 
 stitution. The divine sanction promulged, in this 
 subsequent Religion, is the proper, the unambi- 
 guous, the sole principle of it. Here then, in 
 the Mosaic Law, the declared Expiatory power 
 of Sacrifice, of a certainty, begins. Here also 
 commences the Typical character of Sacrifice, 
 as a Rite of Atonement, on the stock of an ac- 
 knowledged institution. From this stock Sacrifice 
 bears its evidence, on solid grounds, and with 
 unqualified force, to that which is the one con- 
 spicuous and unequivocal object of its Typical 
 character, the grace of the Christian Atonement. 
 And as the human principle of Expiatory Sa- 
 crifice can never be vindicated at all, so the 
 divine principle of it, in the Mosaic Law, will 
 
Sacrifice priur to the Mosaic Law. S3 
 
 never be explained to any purpose, with satis- 
 faction to our reason, or with honour to the 
 divine Economy, except by its reference, as a 
 preparatory Rite, and a prophetic Sign, directed 
 to its pre-ordained Prototype in the Evangeli- 
 cal Dispensation. 
 
 But I must revert to the Primeval Religion. 
 It has commonly been assumed, that Sacrifice, 
 from its first usage, was invested with all that 
 mixed character which it wears in the institu- 
 tions of the Law of Moses ; and if Oblations for 
 Sin were presented, that they were presented 
 with the belief of an Atoning, Expiatory Effect 
 annexed to them. Men have looked through 
 the Law of Moses to the antecedent Religion. 
 They have made the one the image of the other. 
 Of this identity we possess no evidence. If it 
 could be shown, that identity itself would be- 
 speak the institution originally from God. But 
 this has been the unsupported, and therefore, 
 I shall say, the erroneous, hypothesis, as to the 
 facts of the Primeval Religion. A more dis- 
 criminating view of that Religion, governed 
 by the actual evidence of Scripture, will re- 
 lease the human origin of Sacrifice from much 
 of the obloquy under which it has lain. For 
 if the first generations of men sought only to 
 express, by the significant symbol of a dying 
 
34 Bishop Taylor's definitive opinion 
 
 Victim, their own desert of death, they did ho- 
 nour to the Divine Law, and their Sacrifice, 
 though voluntary, was rational in its purpose, 
 and pious in its use ; and they bore witness by 
 it to that primary Truth, which we have now 
 consigned in the first page of Revelation, that 
 Death entered into the world by Sin ; a Truth 
 which seems to be attested, and equally attested, 
 by the bare existence of consumptive Oblations 
 for Sin, whether the Origin of them were human 
 or divine. But since we are not informed that 
 the Primitive Sacrifices went beyond this first 
 signification, their Institution may have been 
 human, and yet that Institution may perfectly 
 consist with their rational use. 
 
 It has been by following this received notion, 
 though of a modern date, of the general identity of 
 the Primitive, and the Mosaic, Sacrifices, that 
 some excellent men have been led, as I conceive, 
 to define positively for the Divine Original of 
 Sacrificial worship. The influence of the notion 
 may be clearly traced in the course of their rea- 
 sonings, operating to a great extent. Among 
 others, and before all the rest, whom I know to 
 have maintained this Origin of Sacrifice, must 
 be named the incomparable Bishop Taylor. I 
 willingly refer to him in the first place, for the 
 high authority of his mind and reason, which 
 
on the Origin of Sacrifice considered. 35 
 
 is as great as any can be; but partly also be- 
 cause his opinions, so far as I have seen, have 
 not been adduced, or mentioned, in the pro- 
 gress of the controversy. In his immortal work, 
 the ** Ductor Dubitantium," he has formally 
 treated this question, and after discussing it with 
 his usual strength and freedom of thought, re- 
 solved it on the side of a Divine Institution.* 
 Upon the hypothesis of an Atoning Virtue, sup- 
 posed to be conveyed by the Sacrifice, or an- 
 nexed to it, his whole argument is unanswerable. 
 But since this positive character of the first Sa- 
 crifices is a precarious assumption in the history, 
 and one which imputes to the earliest Worship- 
 pers more than we certainly know them to have 
 thought of, I hope that the observation which I 
 have made upon the real state of the Scripture 
 History, will reconcile his otherwise invincible 
 reasonings, so far as they are grounded upon this 
 Expiatory character, with the admission of a 
 different inference than that which he has de- 
 duced from them. In fact, the main strength 
 of his argument is in refuting the natural rea- 
 sonableness of an atoning Sacrifice, a Sacrifice 
 representing the belief, or conveying the pledge, 
 of the pardon of sin, or the remission of its pu- 
 
 * Ductor Dubitant. book ii.chap. 3. rule xili. sec. 29, 30. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Opinions of Spencer and 
 
 nishment; all which he was too wise to think 
 could have any other foundation than the re- 
 vealed appointment of God — in which manner 
 of thinking our reason must for ever rest. 
 
 But it is also very clear throughout, upon the 
 examination of what this great author has writ- 
 ten and argued, that he joins together in his 
 ideas the Mosaic and the Primitive Sacrifices, 
 and argues for the supernatural institution of 
 both, from the presumed sameness of their force 
 and nature. The accuracy of which opinion I 
 refer to be examined by the Primitive History. 
 
 It will be in place, next, to advert to the 
 opinions of Spencer and Bishop Warbui^ton, the 
 opposite to those of Taylor, on this same point, 
 the doctrine and practice of Expiatory Sacri- 
 fice. Bishop Warburton has made his theory 
 complete. He has put Expiatory Sacrifice on 
 the same footing with Propitiatory and Eucha- 
 ristic; treating them all as human institutions, 
 proceeding from, and to be explained by, the 
 principles of Reason. His theory therefore is 
 offered as a connected piece, perfect through- 
 out. And in each kind of sacrifice he has pro- 
 fessed to supply, by way of illustration, the lan- 
 guage of address which the Worshipper might 
 be supposed to utter, when he stood before his 
 Altar, and interpreted his Oblations whilst he 
 
Bishop Warburion considered. 37 
 
 presented them.* But these graphical exposi- 
 tions of the Rite, which proceed, with consis- 
 tency, a certain way, stop short in their effect, 
 when they come to the completion of the 
 Piaciilar Worship. The author's scheme de- 
 scribes aptly and naturally how the devoted 
 Victim might be made to express the Guilt, and 
 Self-condemnation, of the Suppliant. How it 
 could indicate, or convey, or conduce to, the 
 Atonement required, it is unable to explain. 
 The dramatic worshipper becomes mute. In 
 truth, there is a palpable void in this, the main 
 branch, of the attempted explanation. The 
 scheme, when we look it in the face, confesses 
 indirectly, but clearly, its own insufficiency. 
 The " luciferous principle," as the author calls it, 
 that of Representation by Action, the guiding 
 torch of his theory, goes out. So it will always 
 be. For human principles can no more account 
 for Expiation of Sin, than human resources could 
 provide it. " It cost more to redeem souls : so 
 '' that he had better let that alone for ever" — 
 both Theorist and Worshipper. 
 
 But the observation which I have submitted 
 on the real state of the Scripture Evidence, 
 as to the First Sacrifices, will help to explain, 
 how it happened that this ardent writer was 
 
 * Divine Legat. book ix. chap. 2. p. 276, &c. ed. 8vo. 
 
38 The Opinions of Spencer and 
 
 carried into such an excess of misconception. 
 He found in Scripture none of the information, 
 which he thought it right to expect, of a Divine 
 Institution, if Sacrifice had been so introduced. 
 He concluded therefore, as the Primitive Fa- 
 thers, and some others, for whom he had a 
 greater reverence, had done before him, its 
 Human Origin. The human institution he took 
 up to analyse, and represent in theory ; but he 
 took it up in the whole, charged with every 
 kind of Sacrifice ; and he was too intent on the 
 unity of his speculation, to watch its defects, 
 or to see that he was laying upon it, more than 
 reason would bear, or the Scripture facts re- 
 quired. The consequence has been, that he 
 has left in his philosophy of Sacrifice a singular 
 and ill-disguised blemish ; but a blemish which 
 will serve to direct us to the truth. That truth 
 is; Either there are no Expiatory Sacrifices, 
 needing to be explained on human principles ; 
 or, if there are, they cannot be so explained, to 
 any rational sense. 
 
 A corresponding defect betrays itself in the 
 pages of Spencer. His Dissertation on the 
 Nature and Origin of Sacrifice, is rather of an 
 historical, than a theoretic, design; though 
 he reasons upon his data, as he adduces them ; 
 and it professes to be as complete in its deduc- 
 
Bishop Warhurton considered. 39 
 
 tion of Early Sacrifices as the hypothesis of his 
 great admirer, and successor in the argument, 
 aspires to be in the theory of them. Such is 
 the extent of the ground which Spencer has 
 taken. But, on the head of the E.vplatorij Sa- 
 crifice, it is not difficult to see that there is a 
 failure of the clear and adequate example of it, 
 in the Antediluvian, or the Patriarchal Ages.* 
 His proftered example is Noah's offering : The 
 evidence of its atoning character is the divine 
 acceptance. "And the Lord smelled a savour 
 " of rest.'' That is, as Spencer argues, the divine 
 anger was appeased. The acceptance of the 
 Sacrifice is certain : but nothing can be de- 
 duced from that event to decide the import and 
 intent of the Oblation, in the mind of the Wor- 
 shipper, or the proper virtue of it, unless the 
 Acceptance is always to prove the Piacular cha- 
 racter; and then every accepted oblation will be 
 of one and the same kind, which is far more than 
 Spencer either intended, or would choose to 
 allow. Nothing can be more manifest than 
 that the ensuing placability of God will never 
 define the ored of the Oblation. If the event 
 of " his anger being appeased" could prove the 
 Sacrifice to be an Expiation, it would equally 
 prove Prayer, which has often had the same ef- 
 
 * See Sect. " Sacrijicia Expiatoria Lege priora," p. 763. 
 
40 The Opinions of Spencer and 
 
 feet, to be an E.vpiation. But these are things 
 too vague and ill-considered to be admitted. 
 
 The same remark is to be made on Abel's Sa- 
 crifice. Neither the favour of God v^ith which it 
 was received, nor even the emanation of that 
 favour, suppose in the Remission of Sin, will 
 open to us the secrets of the Altar, or the spe- 
 cific faith of the Oblation. That Abel, that 
 Noah, and other devout men of those times, in 
 their Sacrifices, and in all their worship, sought 
 for the pardon of sin, and were suitors to the 
 free mercy of God, there is every reason to be- 
 lieve. But that they had a conviction, or doc- 
 trine, of the special Expiatory Use of Sacrifice, 
 which is the true notion of an Expiatory Sacri- 
 fice, that is another proposition. And the ex- 
 ample of such Sacrifice is not produced, nor 
 can it be, from the Religion of the Primitive, or 
 the Patriarchal times. 
 
 Spencer attempts to fortify his system, in 
 this critical point of it, by the sentiments of Jo- 
 sephus respecting the nature and object of 
 Noah's Sacrifice. But as the Jewish Historian 
 had, I suppose, no document of any authority 
 to guide him in this matter, but the Penta- 
 teuch itself; of the contents of which we are 
 no less competent to judge than he; so he has 
 delivered nothing which is of force to sup- 
 port Spencer's ideas, or which is not entirely 
 
Bishop Warhurton considered. 41 
 
 coincident with that view of Primitive Sacri- 
 fice, which I have said the Pentateuch leads us 
 to receive. The words of Josephus are these : 
 " Having set fire to his victims, Noah prayed 
 " to God, that henceforth He would abide by 
 ** His first good arrangement of the world, and 
 " not bring down another such catastrophe upon 
 " it." And then, "he besought Wim favourably 
 " to accej)t his Sacrifice, and that the earth 
 " might not suffer from the like wrath again" — 
 or " that he would not conceive the like wrath 
 " against the earth again."* As modes of depre- 
 cation, and humble intercession, we have seen 
 before that Sacrifices might have a natural 
 sense. More than this Josephus does not as- 
 cribe to Noah's Oblations. 
 
 With regard to Spencer then, as the unequi- 
 vocal facts fail him, so do the reasonings of this 
 learned and candid writer. Some secret per- 
 ception of his failure he does not dissemble. 
 For we must do him the justice to say that he 
 
 * " Ab hoc sensu non reccssit. ... Josephus, qui de 
 " Noacho et Sacris ejus oblatis, heec verba habet : Upsia, 
 
 " XOLXXTa^, sds~lTO T0t5 XOITTOV TOV &SOV STt) T^f TTpcUTrjJ [J^SVSIV 
 
 " iVTct^luc, xu\ avjSev stj too-qutov STrivsyKBtv TTx^og. Antiq. 
 " Judaic, lib. i. cap. 3. Et statim postea ; eu/xsvoij uvtov 
 " TrpotrSsp^scrdaj t^v ^ualuv TrapexaAsi, xai jU,rjS£jU.(av opyrjv etti 
 " T^v yr^v 6ix,olxv Xupeiv." Speucei" de Legg. lleb. lib. iii. 
 cap. iii. sec. ii. 
 
42 The Opinions of Spencer and of Bishop WarhurtoJi. 
 
 writes with candour, though he has not confessed 
 the whole truth, or perhaps he did not perceive 
 it. But his words are so remarkable in showing 
 the weak point of his hypothesis, and his own 
 sense of its weakness, when the human usage has 
 to account for atoning Sacrifice, that I shall sub- 
 join them as auxiliary to the real truth of the 
 question. By his own admission it turns out 
 that a pious simpUcitij of mind, a hope with 
 little faith y and no reason, to support it, is the re- 
 source of his self-directed Worshipper, who has 
 to seek an atonement in the human use of Sa- 
 crifice.* 
 
 * " Haec quidem objectio colore suo non est desti- 
 " tuta, sed non difficulter abluenda. Hoc enim Hbere 
 '* et sine hesitatione dicendum arbitror, Sacrificia nempe 
 ** pacifica, h. e. in pietatis et gratitudinis signum oblata, 
 " a rationis solius prascripto principium habuisse. Nee 
 " interim diffiteri licet homines ante Legis datae tempora, 
 " Sacrificia expiatoria, tanquam dona quadam, ad redi- 
 " mendam Numinis oft'ensi gratiani, ratione tantum dic- 
 " tante, protulisse. Fateor equidem, rationis oculum, 
 " Deum vel peccata remissurum, vel victimani in animcc 
 " peccantis locum surrogatam accepturum, non nisi revela- 
 " tionis alicujns lumine percipere potuisse. Crediderim 
 '' itaque homines, ante Legem traditam, pia quadam 
 " simplicitate ductos, victimas obtulisse. Non quod certo 
 " persuasi, sed spe laeta suffulti essent, benignum Nu- 
 " men respectu ad eoriim dona pio affectu oblata habito, 
 " veniam offensis concessurum, eosque in pristinam^ gra- 
 *' tiam recepturum." 
 
Those of Archbishop Magee considered. 43 
 
 Spencer then, by attempting to stretch the 
 historic of Sacrifice, and Bishop Warburton, by 
 attempting to force the theory of it, farther than 
 either will go, direct us, though unintentionally, 
 to what I conceive is the correct account of the 
 one and the other. The Primitive History 
 wants the clear e.vample of E.vpiatory Sacri- 
 fice. Of that Sacrifice Reason must despair of 
 ever giving the solution. 
 
 To proceed. I apprehend that the elaborate 
 recent publication, to which I have already 
 referred, by a Prelate of the Irish Church, con- 
 curs in giving the like indirect testimony to 
 this same position which I have suggested, re- 
 specting the history of Primitive Sacrifice, as 
 we have it delivered in Scripture. It is one 
 principal object of the work of that learned 
 Prelate, (as has been remarked before,) to main- 
 tain exclusively the Divine Institution of Sacri- 
 fice, in every period of its use : and some of 
 his subjoined Dissertations are intended to es- 
 tablish the use of " Sacrifices before the Laiv, 
 " animal and piacularf* With respect to this 
 complex proposition " Sacrifices before the 
 " Law, animal and piacular, " I grant it is easy 
 to establish the first member of it ; not so the 
 
 * See Discourses, vol. i. p. 48 — 54. and Disserta- 
 tions, Ixvi. Ixvii. by Archbishop Magce. 
 
44 The Opinions of 
 
 second. In the Primitive and the Patriarchal 
 Worship, it is easy to show, by proof sufficient, 
 the animal Sacrifice, the Victims and Holo- 
 causts ; for those are specifically described in the 
 Scripture History. But the fact of their having- 
 been Expiatory Oblations, authentic rites of 
 Atonement, is not so delivered ; and the evidence 
 of that fact, as attempted by the learned author, 
 no otherwise disappoints me, than as I believe 
 every such attempt in the hands of the most 
 acute and zealous advocate, must of necessity 
 fail, under the want of any adequate materials 
 for it in the Scripture records ; however those 
 records may be solicited to lend their aid to the 
 purpose. It is by one or two texts to be handled 
 by a dubious, or, as I think, an erroneous 
 interpretation ; and by some maxims and in- 
 ferences of a disputable doctrine; maxims and 
 inferences much fitter to raise controversies 
 than to end them ; that any ostensible support 
 to his position is obtained. 
 
 But, that I may not decline a respectful atten- 
 tion to the proofs advanced by so able an advo- 
 cate, in this essential point of our Inquiry, I 
 shall state what those proofs are, and offer my 
 observations upon them. 
 
 The main grounds of the Author's argument 
 are laid, 1. In certain notions respecting the 
 nature and object of Abel's faith. 2. In a 
 
Archbishop Magee considered. 45 
 
 corrected version of the text relating to Cain, 
 Ge/ies. iv. 7. 3. In the testimony of the divine 
 acceptance granted to the Sacrifices of Abel 
 and others. 4. In a comparison of the Sacri- 
 fice of Abel with that of Christ, (Hebr. xii. 24.) 
 And lastly, in some general reflexions which 
 represent the Primitive and the Mosaic wor- 
 ship as united in a common system. These 
 topics, I think, embrace the whole course of the 
 author's statements and reasonings applicable 
 to Primitive Sacrifices before the Law. 
 
 On the first of these topics, " the nature 
 *' and object of Abel's faith," I shall speak 
 hereafter. It is a grave doctrinal question, 
 which I wish, for several reasons, to keep dis- 
 tinct from what I have to say upon the his- 
 torical notices, contained either in the Old Tes- 
 tament or the New, relative to the Ante- Mosaic 
 Sacrifices. — To another of these topics, " The 
 *' divine acceptance," I shall repeat the reply, 
 which I have made to it in my remarks upon 
 Spencer ; viz. that unless Expiatory Sacrifice, 
 and the capacity of divine acceptance, are to be 
 taken for convertible terms in the argument ; 
 unless every other Sacrifice is to be excluded 
 from the Primitive Worship, and from the Divine 
 Favour ; there is an end of our reliance on that 
 topic, in proof of the peculiar distinctive nature 
 of any instance of Sacrificial worship. — As to 
 
46 The Opinions of Archbishop Magee. 
 
 the conformity, or common system, of the Mo- 
 saic and Primitive Sacrifices ; this is the thing 
 in discussion. I have already observed that it 
 has been too hastily assumed ; and I shall have 
 other reasons to state, tending to show that it 
 has been assumed erroneously. There remain. 
 The controverted text relating to Cain ; and The 
 comparison made between the Sacrifice of Abel 
 and that of Christ. These I shall now consider. 
 
 1. The text relating to Cain is this: " If 
 " thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? 
 ** and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the 
 " door.''* 
 
 The concluding clause of this text (the part 
 which bears on our question) has been made, 
 as is well known, the subject of some debate. 
 For although the sense of that clause, which is 
 expressed in our English version, " Sin lieth at 
 *' the door," is, either exactly, or in substance, the 
 same as has been stated, and assigned to it, by 
 the great body of the best Interpreters, another, 
 a more recent, explanation of it, has been ad- 
 vanced : viz. " a Sin-offering lieth at the door." 
 For the word ni^zon, translated Sin, one of the 
 most frequent occurrence in the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, and in that idea an appropriate term, 
 bears also the secondary signification, less com- 
 
 * Genes, iv. 7. 
 
New Intei'pretation of Genes, iv. 7. considered. 47 
 
 mon, but equally certain, of a Sin-offering. An 
 interpretation, founded upon this secondary- 
 idea of the word, proposed by Liglitfoot, and 
 espoused by Kennicott and some others, is fully 
 adopted by Archbishop Magee, " as the plain, 
 " natural, and significant interpretation" of the 
 passage.* Hence the text is made to speak of 
 a Sin-offering to Cain, as lijing at his door, ready 
 to e.vpiate his deeds, if they were evil. But 
 further ; This new interpretation is thought to 
 be confirmed by other points in the structure 
 of the text. 1 . The Archbishop argues thus. 
 *' The translation of the passage here given re- 
 " ceives its strongest confirmation from the 
 " peculiar force of the word f n, which is con- 
 " nected with DNian, and which strictly implies 
 *' couching, or lying down as a beast. For this 
 ** see Schindler and Castell on the word" — and 
 " indeed all the commentators have been 
 '* obliged to admit this sense of the phrase" — 
 whereas, ** the idea of Sin lying couched at the 
 " door, is, to say the least of it, a bold image." 
 ** But the word Sin-offering being substituted 
 " for Sin^ the whole difficulty is removed, and 
 *' the peculiar propriety of the term instantly 
 " appears." This is one supposed confirma- 
 tion of the sense proposed. 2. A second coa- 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 235. 
 
4^ New Interpretation of 
 
 firmation of it is derived from the grammatical 
 structure. For the word riKl^n, which " is 
 "feminine, is here connected with a verb of 
 " the mascurme gender, Y^"i; which, as Park- 
 " hurst judiciously observes, is perfectly con- 
 " sistent with the supposition that D't^'n de- 
 " notes a Sin-offering;' for then it would be 
 constructed virtually with the animal, the tiling 
 understood. " In conformity with this reason- 
 " ing, it will be found, that Di^iorr, in other parts 
 *' of Scripture where it is used for a Sin-offer- 
 " ing, is, though feminine itself, connected with 
 " a masculine adjunct. See Exod. xxix. 14. 
 " Levit. iv. 21. 24. v. 9. and other places of 
 " Leviticus where the masculine pronoun Kin is 
 '* used instead of the feminine KTr." 
 
 The examination of this more novel interpre- 
 tation, and of the criticism by which it is sup- 
 ported, will impose upon me the labour of some 
 details, which I could desire to avoid. But if 
 these details, which I shall endeavour to render 
 as intelligible as I can, may conduce to the 
 elucidation of the important text in question, 
 and of the perfect authority and good faith of 
 our received Version, in so great an article of 
 the Scripture-Sense, whilst the more partial ob- 
 ject of our present Inquiry is also pursued, per- 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 237. 
 
Genes, iv. ?• considered. 4& 
 
 haj3s on these several accounts they will be for- 
 given me by my reader, and ought not, irksome 
 as they may prove, to be declined by myself. 
 
 Without confiding too much in a very imper- 
 fect skill in this province of literature, I think 
 it may be shown that the grounds of this new 
 interpretation are any thing rather than secure; 
 being indeed either fallacious, or plainly errone- 
 ous. 
 
 First, as to the peculiarity of the grammatical 
 construction ; a noun feminine connected with a 
 verb or other adjunct masculine; which is thought 
 to be of some force ; it is well known that 
 the Hebrew idiom is far from tenacious of 
 its forms in this respect, and that the free- 
 dom of that language renders it unsafe to trust 
 to such a principle of criticism. The remark 
 of Dathe* upon the passage is just; that it is 
 only a slight difficulty when violations of the 
 grammatical form (in the construction of nouns 
 with their adjuncts) occur : a difficulty not 
 fit to govern the interpretation. Accordingly 
 the best critics in Hebrew have not been 
 ruled by the solecism, if indeed there be any, 
 in the structure of the text; nor have they 
 felt, on that account, any scruple in deter- 
 
 * " Leuisest in vocabulo Jli^lOn dijficultas, quam niiior 
 " interpretes quosdam itiovisse, ut explicationes vald^ 
 " contortas affeneiit." — Dathe Bild. Lai, Not. in loc. 
 
 E 
 
50 New Interpretation of 
 
 mining their sense of the passage. For their 
 opinions I refer to Vatablus, Fagius, Castalio, 
 Clarius, Grotius, in the Critici Sacri: and I add 
 that Fagius cites the Chaldee Paraphrast, and 
 others, Jewish Commentators, no incompetent 
 judges in such a question, as giving to the term 
 the notion of sin, or its evil consequences. Some 
 critics have not hesitated to pronounce the 
 word to be simply of a common gender. Whe- 
 ther this dictum, as to a common gender, be 
 right or no, it is certain that the irregularity, if 
 there be any, of the construction, is not of such 
 moment, that any stress can be safely laid 
 upon it. 
 
 But secondly. The criticism itself being 
 insecure, the evidence of imrallel instances 
 of construction, by which it is supported, is 
 also incorrect. For in the passages cited, 
 and in others similar to them ; whereas it 
 is said that " the masculine pronoun Kin is 
 " used, instead of the feminine ^<'•^T," and that 
 the masculine form of Jli^ion and its secondary 
 sense are thereby shown to go together; I 
 answer that the real construction of all those 
 passages is indeed of a very different kind 
 from that which the Archbishop has repre- 
 sented. For I submit that Kin is not the pro- 
 noun adjunct to niiton at all: but that they are 
 related to each other as subject and predicate 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. 51 
 
 in a sentence. The meaning of those passages, 
 as every one must acknowledge, is not. This 
 Sin-offering: but This is a Siji-offering, Con- 
 sequently the gender of the demonstrative pro- 
 noun is not necessarily identified with that of 
 the noun, or governed by it. To confirm this 
 point, if a point so clear and certain can re- 
 quire confirmation, I add that the constructiofi 
 of >iin with feminine nouns is one of the most 
 constant occurrence. It obtains in the parallel 
 phrase j^in nma, Levit. ii. 6. and 15. " It is a 
 " mincha, or meat-offering." Gen. xxxii. 19. 
 nm'^t:^ ^^^^ rrrriD, " it is a present, sent."- — nma, 
 2i feminine, connected in sentence with ^^')r^. 
 
 This same construction is of larger use. It 
 extends to cases where the principal noun is 
 personal. Thus, Gen. iii. 5. '* the woman she 
 gave me ;" 20. " Eve site is the mother of all 
 ** living." Gen. xx. 2. "she is my sister," 3. 
 " she is a man's wife ;" — in all these instances, 
 (and others might be added) she is Vi,T^ in the 
 original. The construction is legitimate, for 
 this reason as I presume; viz. that the demon- 
 strative pronoun, placed as a subject or predi- 
 cate, expresses simply this or that person, or 
 object, without regard to gender ; and, in that 
 case, its grammatical form is independent of 
 the noun. 
 
 Some eminent Critics, as Michaelis, have 
 e2 
 
52 New Interpretation of 
 
 been led to consider ^*'^^ in the Pentateuch^ 
 because of these constructions of it, to be of 
 a gender merely common:* a supposition to 
 which I do not think it necessary to have re- 
 course, as the other, and more simple reason, 
 which I have assigned, appears to be suffi- 
 cient to account for the construction.f But 
 however this may be, in no case can Kin in- 
 dicate the 7ioun, with which it is thus connected, 
 whether DKian, or any other, to be masculine ; 
 as the last examples which I have produced 
 must evince beyond all contradiction. 
 
 Other Critics, but of an inferior skill, have 
 wished to remodel the text, by substituting at 
 once K\"T in all these constructions. Their 
 emendation is certainly a mistaken one in its 
 principle, and unnecessary. J Their judgment, 
 
 * Supp. ad Lex. Heb. No. 540. See also Schroeder, 
 Instit. ad Fund. Ling. Heb. § 125. 
 
 i* As in Greek it might be correctly expressed, 
 TOUTo TrpotTi^opa 7rep» aixuprlag ; or in Latin, " Hoc oblatio 
 " est." 
 
 ^I It is not of moment to our present purpose ; but in 
 passing I shall mention that the Collations, (Bib. Hebr. 
 Kennicott) generally present the form KNT in these pas- 
 sages as a various reading from fewer or more MSS., 
 and, as I have perceived, this variation is quoted from 
 the greatest number of MSS. in those texts, where the 
 principal noun is personal, as in Gen. iii. 5. £0. &.c. The 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. 5S- 
 
 however, such as it is, is equally adverse to the 
 opinion of the learned Prelate. But from what 
 has been previously shown, it follows that there 
 is no sign or evidence whatever, contained in 
 the passages which he has cited, of the se- 
 condary sense of n><Lan, as a Sin-offer'uig, being 
 discriminated by a viasculine form. 
 
 Thirdly, Suppose a certain degree of philo- 
 logical evidence, in favour of that secondary 
 sense, could really be brought to bear upon the 
 text in question ; we should still have to consi- 
 der the effect resulting from it, and whether the 
 interpretation to be imposed is satisfactory 
 and consistent. An aptitude, a striking cohe- 
 rence, of the sense, might confirm, as an unfit- 
 ness of it, must repel, our philological reasons. 
 To the new interpretation, viewed in this light, 
 I think there are just exceptions to be made, 
 on account of its unsuitableness and irregula- 
 rity of import. For, besides that there is some 
 want of aptitude and felicity in it to Cain's 
 manner of life, of whom it is said just before, 
 that he was " a tiller of the ground," not " a 
 " keeper of sheep ;" and therefore the idea of 
 the animal couching at the door does not come 
 
 learned reader will easily discover how this augmented 
 occurrence of the variation happened. It was a stronger 
 case in the construction which invited the attempt to 
 change it. 
 
54 Neiu Interpretation of 
 
 home, with its images, so naturally to him ; be- 
 sides this, (which is of less moment,) I argue 
 that there is a grave objection to the whole no- 
 tion of a Sin-offering in this place, in its want 
 of harmony with the spirit and general tenour 
 of Scripture ; which is not used to address the 
 wilful sinner, when he is supposed to be 
 doing, or meditating to do, evil, with an invita- 
 tion to go ami sacrifice; but rather to admonish 
 him of his evil deeds and their plague of punish- 
 ment : as reciprocally, in the preceding clause, 
 " If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ?" 
 After this antecedent enunciation it is more 
 conformable to the doctrinal habit of Scripture; 
 as it is also more in connexion with the com- 
 mencement of the passage; to expect some 
 threatening, or severe rebuke to follow.* 
 
 If after God's favour and acceptance pro- 
 mised to Cain in "his well doing," there en- 
 sue a warning of commination to his " doing 
 of evil," there is a just sequel of things, and a 
 Scriptural sense : the doctrine is related and 
 consistent: the Divine Expostulation is com- 
 
 * The attentive reader will easily see the different 
 <yround of the context, in that mild exhortation and consola- 
 tory doctrine of St. John : " These things write I unto 
 " you, my little children, that ye sin not. And if any 
 " man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus 
 " Christ the righteous." — 1 Epist. ii. 1. 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. &5 
 
 plete. In this direction we shall most reason- 
 ably look for the concluding idea of the text ; 
 in this direction we find it, in our own Au- 
 thorised Version ; and the advantage to be 
 gained by disturbing this position of the sense 
 is not so apparent, that the change ought 
 to be conceded to any thing less than a very 
 imperative evidence of grammatical criticism ; 
 from which kind of evidence the new interpre- 
 tation proposed is most remote. 
 
 But fourthly. The whole doctrine concerning 
 the secondary sense of the word rs)Xli:in requires to 
 be more correctly stated : and when so stated, 
 it will be seen to leave no authority to the 
 idea of a Sin-offering in this particular place. 
 The true secondary signification of the word, I 
 take upon me to assert, is not precisely Sin-offer- 
 iw^atall; hut Something for Sin; or some adjunct 
 relative to it ; as its price ; whether that price 
 be a Ransom, or a Punishment : and when the 
 term is put for a Sin-offering, that precise sense 
 is derived to it through the more general idea 
 which I have here stated : in which the re- 
 stricted signification of offering cannot be held 
 to be essential to it, or even strictly to belong 
 to it. And therefore, although Sin-offering is 
 not an improper phrase, as it stands in our 
 Version, in the context of the Levitical Law, 
 (where the institution and description of the 
 
56 New Interpretation of 
 
 Offering are the subject of the text,) yet the 
 word riNton by itself, can be no more, in its se- 
 condary signification, than the xvt^ov, or the 
 TToivrl of sin, indifferently. It is either the con- 
 text, or it is an occasional and accidental use, 
 which invests it with the specific character of 
 an OJfeiing. This remark I expect to be fully 
 confirmed by those who will reflect for a mo- 
 ment on the true principle of the Hebrew 
 language, in the derivation of its secondary 
 senses. But I appeal to some proofs of it. 
 First, I appeal to the Septuagint. The Septua- 
 gint Translators have shown what they thought 
 of the term, and of its true extent, by common- 
 ly translating it, tts^i d^a^Tiaq, or uVsp a/xa^xj'a? : 
 
 without any appendage of Offering. (In some 
 readings of the Septuagint it is simply a/xa^r/a? 
 \rtv\ a correct and consistent translation).* Se- 
 condly, I appeal to the actual force of the word 
 nhitarr as expressive oi punishment ; Sin-siffering 
 as well as Sin-offering. So the English Trans- 
 lators have twice rendered it; " For the punish- 
 
 * So also the ancient Italic Version ; " quia pro pec- 
 " cato est." Levit. iv. 24. v. 8. The Latin Vulgate 
 agrees; see Exod. xxix. 14., Levit. iv. 21. v. 9. 11. 
 Wicliffe, in his Translation of the Bible, preserves 
 the same open and general form. " It is for the sin of 
 " the multitude." — Levit. iv. 21. " It is for sin." — ib. 
 V. 24. Not a Sin-offering. 
 
Genes, iv. 7- considered. 57 
 
 *' ment of the iniquity of my people is greater 
 " than the punishment of the sin of Sodom :" 
 Lament, iv. 6. This complex phrase, " the 
 "punishment of the sin," is simply ni^lDn in 
 the original. — " This shall be the punishment of 
 ** Egypt, and tlie punishment of all nations." 
 (Marg. Sin) Zech. xiv. 19. Heb. ni^iorr. And 
 although in one or both of these passages, 
 some Interpreters have fluctuated betw^een the 
 idea of sin, and that of punishment, yet the 
 translation of punishment is not disputed as 
 though the word w^ere incapable of that sense. 
 In fact, Hebrew Critics, Lexicons, and Concor- 
 dances, are familiar with punishment, as one se- 
 condary signification of the word. My object 
 at present is only to show that its secondary 
 signification embraces at once the two ideas — 
 of atonement and punishment. And this capacity 
 of a twofold notion in the term is in unison with 
 the nature of the things; for expiation is a kind of 
 penalti) ; 2ind punishment is equivalent to an ex- 
 piation. Hence to expiate, in English, is to atone 
 for sin, whether by actual punishment, or by a sub- 
 stituted mulct or satisfaction. Hence the like com- 
 munity of notion in lucre, piaculum, in Latin — 
 and other analogous words in other languages. 
 This account, which I have now given of the 
 history and extent of the secondary sense of 
 the original word in question; though it may 
 
58 New Interpretation of 
 
 have been overlooked in the Lexicons, and in 
 the controversy; I should submit to the judg- 
 ment of none more willingly than of the learned 
 Prelate himself, who has delivered some occa- 
 sional strictures on the subject of language 
 conceived with a philosophic mind. At the 
 least it is no new power that I assign to the 
 word, in extending its secondary signification 
 to punishment, as well as to atonement : but 
 only an explanation which I offer how the two 
 ideas are united, both in the derivative form, 
 and in one general secondary acceptation. It 
 follows, if this account be a correct one, that 
 nNton, in Gen. iv. 7. if it is to be there under- 
 stood in its secondary sense, may as well be the 
 pimishnent of sin, as an atonement for it. It fol- 
 lows also that if there be any evidence in the 
 Hebrew text for a masculine form discrimi- 
 nating the secondary sense, that discriminating 
 form will still undeniably leave the term indif- 
 ferent to the ideas of offering, or punishment: 
 and which is the right one, for any particular 
 passage, must be decided by the special reasons 
 of the text, but can never be decided by the 
 grammatical rule. In every event the gram- 
 matical criticism upon the cotistruction of the 
 term in Genes, iv. 7. as indicating an Atoning 
 Oblation for Sin, is superseded. 
 
 Hence it will be seen that those many excel- 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. SQ 
 
 lent Critics and Theologians to whom I have 
 referred, as maintaining the notion of evil and 
 tlnxaten'nig in the clause under debate, had 
 ample reason for what they did in the capacity 
 of the word itself. Some of them have alleged 
 the more exact notion o{ punishment. Vatablus 
 in loc. "Hebraei diicxxnt peccatum significare /?«- 
 ** nam peccati: q. d. Quod si non benfe feceris, 
 " si non corrigas vitam t\\2im, j)(Ena debita peccato 
 " cabat, jacet prsestoque est, et cupit tibi ad- 
 " haerere." Grotius; " Statim in foribus pecca- 
 *• turn cubat. Culpam poena premit comes. Nam 
 '■'peccati nomine /AETwvu/xixw? pcenam significare 
 " frequens Hebrceis.^' Our English Translators, 
 without committing themselves to this more 
 limited sense oi punishmejit, have yet kept their 
 translation on fair terms with it. They favour, 
 although they do not express it. But I do not 
 ask so much to be conceded, as that the direct 
 sense of piaiislunent should be introduced. Sin, 
 with its consequences implied, is enough. It is 
 sufficient also to have proved that the admission 
 of " Sin-offering'' into the sense of the passage 
 is, in every point of view, as precarious, as it is 
 novel. 
 
 In the last place, some difficulty is made in 
 admitting the union of Sin with the verb X21 ; a 
 word which expresses couching, or l_i/ing down 
 
60 New Inteiprelalion of 
 
 as a beast, and which is thought on that account 
 to create an expression unreasonably bold. 
 
 The sense of the word yni, unquestionably, is 
 that of " couching, or lying down as a beast ;" 
 as such it is descriptive of an animal image, 
 rather than expressive of a moral idea. But as 
 all languages have their figurative phrase, and 
 sometimes it is such, as, if we abstract from the 
 dominion of usage, or the context, or the oc- 
 casion, might well be called bold: so the He- 
 brew abounds in this translated phraseology 
 native to it, and often employs the natural /crce 
 of the image as an ingredient in the import and 
 energy of the expression, merely fitting it the 
 better to its purpose. That we may not hesi- 
 tate, however, in admitting the moral applica- 
 tion in the term -pi, it will be sufficient to cite 
 the second example of it in a place where it 
 indisputably holds that same signification. This 
 second example occurs in the recital of the 
 threatenings of the Law. " But then the anger 
 " of the Lord, and his jealousy shall smoke 
 " against that man, and all the curses, that 
 " are written in this book, shall lie upon him.'' 
 rh^r\-b'2 in Ty^:i'y\ (Deut. xxix. 20.) a passage 
 which probably had escaped the notice of the 
 learned Author; but which is not only paral- 
 lel in its sense to our text in Genes, iv. 7. but 
 decisive in showing that the boldness oi this 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. 61 
 
 phrase is no impeachment of its long received 
 acceptation : viz. " Sin lieth at the door.'' 
 
 The versions of Symmachus and Theodotion 
 express definitely this same sense of the passage, 
 with exactness to the Hebrew, and with aptitude 
 to the genius of the Greek. 'Eav §\ ^j^rt oiya.^^ivvjz, 
 
 TTCt^oi ^v^av oc[jt,oc^Tix'iyKEiTOii. Symmachus. Koii oiv 
 fA,ri dyoc.d'oog Trot-^g, Ittj ^^v^Oig ix,y.oc^rla. iyycd^nroii. Ihc- 
 
 odotion (apud Origen. in Hexapl.) — versions 
 these, true to the Original, and in perfect agree- 
 ment with our own Translation. 
 
 But here again it is my misfortune to be 
 placed in dissent with the observations of the 
 learned Prelate. This very version of Theodo- 
 tion is adduced by him, (Symmachus he does 
 not mention,) as confirmatory of his idea of a 
 Sin-offering lying at the door. For a decision in 
 this point I shall appeal to the Biblical and the 
 Classical Scholar; requesting it may be consi- 
 dered whether it be possible to admit, in The- 
 odotion's version, either that a^aa^Tia, in that 
 simple state of the expression, detached from 
 all context of the Ceremonial Law, can stand for 
 any thing more than Sin; or that lyxix^nrxi in 
 such a passage can be divested of its unfriend- 
 ly and menacing import, that of an adversary, 
 planted in his way, to Cain, rather than of a 
 Sacrifice ready to make his peace ; one of the 
 
62 New Interpretation of 
 
 most definite significations of lyxd^rai being 
 that of an enemifs position, either for open 
 war, or ambuscade. 
 
 But yet whilst I refer to the judgment of 
 others on this point, I shall add one observation 
 more, to assist in clearing the truth. If any 
 person will look into the Hellenistic Text, 
 as it stands in the Septuagint, and in the re- 
 mains of the other Versions, preserved in Ori- 
 gen's Hexapla, and observe how that Text 
 renders the word ni^ZDn when it signifies Siii- 
 qff'ering, in the Levitical Code; he will find, (I 
 speak after some examination made,) that the 
 Greek Translators have been far from satisfied 
 with the simple form of a.y.oc^TU for that purpose. 
 They have much more frequently employed 
 some of those other more correct forms, as 
 
 VTTi^ a,(xa^rKX.;, ttb^i dfAoc^Ticx,?, Or perhaps ocy-oc^rixg 
 
 (fo.) and this they have done in the Ceremonial 
 Code itself, where the previous description 
 of the actual Oblation tends to give both to 
 nKIDn and to dfjkx^Tix something of a local and 
 artificial sense, under that Code. He will 
 also find that when the bare term «jwa^T»a 
 occurs at all, (it seems to belong to the Ale.r- 
 andrine Text, and in that Text it is an oc- 
 casional, not the constant reading,) there is 
 always a great dissentient testimony opposed 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. GS 
 
 to it in the Manuscripts and Editions.* In 
 fact d[A.x^TU is not connect Gixek for the pur- 
 pose of expressing the sense of Sin-offermg : 
 and the Hellenistic Translators have shewn 
 that they were aware of its incorrectness, by- 
 adopting a modification of the noun. But 
 out of the Levitical Law, in the pure Moral 
 or Historical parts of Scripture, I venture to 
 lay it down as a point certain, that dixa^rix 
 neither could express Sin-offering, nor be so 
 used by any Translator not wholly inattentive 
 to the propriety of his expression. 
 
 Accordingly we observe in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews that when the Sin-offerings of the 
 Law come into mention, they are denominated 
 by the phrase which really is the correct one ; 
 and vvhich there can be no doubt that the 
 Apostle took from the existing text of the Sep- 
 
 tuagint. 'OXoxoiVTUfAXTOi nai tts^i ocfAX^riotg oJk eu- 
 ^ox»)(raf. cap. X. 6. 3'variccv km 7r^o(r<po^av x.xi oXo- 
 xxvTicfA.UTx >t*i TTSp] ccfAX^Tiocg oCx. ri^iXri(rxg . 8. This 
 
 citation is an evidence for that one text at least, 
 how the Septuagint Translators had expressed 
 Sin-offering, 
 
 One passage there is in the New Testament, 
 
 * See the Collations in the Septuagint on the several 
 texts. Exod. xxix. 14. xxx. 10. Levit. iv. 3. 21. 24. 
 29. V. 9. vi. 17.25. 
 
64 New Interpretation of 
 
 wherein dfAtz^Tix simply is thought to be used 
 
 for Sin-offering . T(5^ yoi^ [Jt-v yvoura, dfAOi^Tioiv, virip 
 
 QsoZ Iv auTw. 2 Cor. V. 2 1 . Which is commonly 
 explained thus : "he made him a Sin-offering 
 " for us :" and the text is usually quoted as 
 the authoritative example of that definite sense. 
 But in this passage of St. Paul, one of the most 
 expressive and energetic in the w^hole of his 
 writings, I consider that we only enervate 
 the exquisite force of his sentiment and doc- 
 trine, by introducing the idea of Sin-offering. 
 " Him who knew no sin, he made to be sin for 
 " us, that we might be made the righteousness 
 " of God in him." Christ was made sin (a sin- 
 ner), for us : we righteousness (righteous), in him. 
 His being made a sinner, is the being treated as 
 such. But all this force is condensed in the 
 term Sin : and the precise notion of sin-offeri?rg 
 not only is unnecessary, but even detrimental, 
 to the pathos and argumentative eloquence of 
 the Apostle's saying. It is a part of the intel- 
 lectual grandeur of his style to write in that 
 manner. So he often does. Galat. iii. 13. 
 " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of 
 *' the law, being made a curse for as." (xarocpx, 
 not xccTocpoireg). Ephes. V. 8. " Ye were some- 
 " time darkness, but now are ye light in the 
 " Lord." (o-xoTof, <pu?). Rom. xi. 7. ''The Elec- 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. 65 
 
 " tion hath obtained it." It is therefore a cold 
 officious criticism, and not a true sympathy 
 with the pregnant and emphatic style of the 
 Apostle, which would convert Sin, in this pas- 
 sage, mto Sin-qlfering ; and although this sub- 
 stituted idea has had a considerable success 
 among later Commentators, it is only by a 
 specious poverty of thought which really robs 
 the passage of its force. For what is there 
 extraordinary, if the Sinless should be made an 
 Offering for Sin? it is of the very nature of Of- 
 ferings that they be pure and spotless. But when 
 we read that the rig/iteous was made a simier, 
 that we siiiners might be made righteous, then we 
 are at home with St. Paul's striking energy of 
 mind, and the mutual transference of character 
 between the Redeemer and the Sinner becomes 
 perfect. Our Translators therefore have here 
 shown a justness of conception, to which many 
 later Critics, and those of no mean talents, 
 have not attained ; or rather from which they 
 have been carried away by a suggestion of their 
 philological erudition unskilfully applied. Nor 
 do those Translators stand alone. They have 
 Grotius with them : and he cites Chrysostom, 
 Oecumenius, and Theophylact for the same 
 exposition of the text. But, even on the pure 
 philological grounds, what I have already ar- 
 gued perhaps will suffice to show that xfxxpTtx, 
 
 F 
 
66 Netv Interpretation of 
 
 in a passage unrelated to the Institutes of the 
 Law, could not represent Sin-offering. The equi- 
 vocalness of the term, in such a position, would 
 be too violent. And in the Hebrew itself we 
 are not permitted to suppose that n^ilDn was 
 ever a pure equivocal term, expressing equally 
 Sin, and its Atonement, or its Punishment. The 
 primary and the secondary senses no doubt 
 were distinguished by their respective modifi- 
 cations in the vv^ord whilst the language was 
 a living one, though the true nature of those 
 distinctions, effected by means of the Vowels, 
 is now lost, or precariously supplied by the 
 Masoretic system. But if in the Hebrew such 
 a discrimination existed, much more would 
 the superior accuracy of the Greek language 
 demand it. 
 
 To return then to the Version of Genes, iv. 
 7. by Theodotion, I am not unwilling to express 
 it as my opinion, in the largest terms, that 
 Theodotion neither did, nor could, intend, any 
 reference to a Sin-offering, when he wrote that 
 significant sentence, 'Eutj S-u'pa? dy^apTix, lyKol^nToa. 
 
 In the last place I must revert to the gram- 
 matical criticism of Parkhurst, which has sown 
 the seed of much of this discussion. He treats 
 the union of \yi with ni^ion as some great 
 anomaly of construction in the discord oi gender. 
 But indeed his observation in this point is most 
 
Genes, iv. 7. considered. 6? 
 
 inaccurate. For the masadine form of the verb, 
 connected with a feminine noun, is nothing so 
 rare ; and the construction rests upon a reason 
 and principle. The verb, when in its masculine 
 form, is in its original simplicity, and there- 
 fore when it follows 2, feminine noun, it may 
 still decline admitting the change of inflexion ; 
 and the phrase is correct. If a masculine noun 
 were to be followed by a verb inflected as a 
 feminine, it would really be the anomaly. Yet 
 even this construction perhaps is not unexam- 
 pled. The former is the case with yil and 
 JlKIon ; and the construction is an established 
 one.* If Yi") however be taken for the partici- 
 pial form, which probably it is, the whole case 
 becomes still more clear. Besides Parkhurst, 
 other Critics there are who have remarked 
 upon an irregularity of construction in the pas- 
 sage. Some such irregularity there may be, if 
 
 * Schroeder. Institut. ad Ling. Hebr. Append. § 5Q. 
 " Verbuni, quod nominativo additur, ordinaria construc- 
 *' tione cum eo convenit tain genere quam numero. 
 " Generis tamen convenientia )ion est perpetua. Cum 
 " nomine enim farninino interdum construitur Verbum 
 " masculinum, per archai'smum, ut videtur ; cum verisi- 
 " mile sit, omnes Verborum personas olim communes 
 " fuisse, et bine factum esse, ut generis discrimen, post- 
 " quam constitutum fuit, nonnunquam negligeretur." 
 He gives mnni/ examples. 
 
 F 2 
 
G8 Lightfoot, the Author of the 
 
 the following clause, ^npWD ybi^") ("to thee shall 
 be his desire') be referred to Sin ; and not to 
 Abel. But such is not the view which Parkhurst 
 and Archbishop Magee have taken of the con- 
 text; and therefore their grammatical criticism 
 upon the preceding clause, in which yn") is 
 joined with ni^tDn, certainly is incorrect from 
 first to last.* 
 
 And now to bring this discussion to a close, 
 since we discover the critical reasoning, by 
 which the new interpretation of this passage 
 is supported, to be essentially erroneous ; 
 since neither the theological sense of the text 
 is improved by it, nor the phraseology cor- 
 rected ; since the judgment of our own Trans- 
 lators has almost the entire consent of the 
 Christian Church on its side ; I conclude that 
 there is no reason shown for disturbing the 
 received sense in this great article of the 
 Scripture ; and that the text is incompetent to 
 furnish any testimony either explicit, or proba- 
 
 * A critical observation upon the construction occurs 
 in Jerom. " Quod autem in Lxx Interpretibus errorem 
 " fecit, illud est, quia Peccatum, id est, Attath, in He- 
 " braeo veneris mascuJini est, in Graeco fceminini. Et qui 
 " interpretati sunt, masculino illud, ut erat in Hebraeo, 
 " genere transtulerunt." Hieronym. Queest. Hebr. in 
 Genes. Jerom understood " his desire" to be the desire 
 of Sin, not of Ahel, and he pronounces, as we see, Attath 
 in the sense of Sin, to be masculine. 
 
New Interpretation, )iot a judicious Divitie. 69 
 
 ble, to the existence of Expiatory Sacrifice in 
 the days of Cain and Abel. 
 
 Nor can I forbear to mention, for the credit 
 due to the antient and received interpreta- 
 tion of the passage which has now been dis- 
 cussed, that, whereas the learned Prelate speaks 
 of the text as one '* which had long exercised, 
 only to puzzle and perplex the Commenta- 
 tors," this is to do justice neither to it, nor to 
 them. I cannot discover that the Commenta- 
 tors had been thus embarrassed and perplexed. 
 Their comments do not betray it. On the con- 
 trary they seem to have been very generally 
 agreed and satisfied, as to the sense of this one 
 clause here in question. It is in the other parts 
 of the Expostulation with Cain, or in the gene- 
 ral structure of the whole sentence, which are 
 really of a more difficult exposition, that the 
 doubt and difterence of opinion had prevailed. 
 
 It was therefore a voluntary inroad of inno- 
 vation, and invited by no existing perplexity, 
 that was made by Lightfoot, when he advanced 
 the notion, ascribed to him as its author ; an 
 innovation for which I think that celebrated He- 
 braist owes the Christian Church some amends 
 of apology, more ample than he has made in 
 the very slight and precipitate criticism by 
 which he has introduced it; and I think this 
 the more, since he has had influence enough to 
 seduce the assent of some distinguished prose- 
 
70 Lightfvot, the Author of the 
 
 lytes. But a jealousy of these late improvements 
 of the Scripture Sense in all its greater texts 
 would not be misplaced. And of Lightfoot I 
 will say, that, although his knowledge in He- 
 brew Antiquities, and in Oriental and Rabbi- 
 nical learning, is admitted to have been such 
 as made him a fit coadjutor of Walton and Cas- 
 tell, he is one of the last writers to deserve our 
 confidence, either for his perspicacity, as a 
 Scholar, or his justness of thinking, as a Divine. 
 Something of the system of his mind in both 
 those respects maybe seen in the observations he 
 has introduced in union with his novel version 
 of our text. He speaks of " the inspiration of 
 grace manifested in Abel, such as is the portion 
 of the Elect''* A doctrine which may be true ; 
 but it is out of place ; it cannot be built 
 upon this part of Scripture, nor fairly connected 
 with it. Again, to recommend his idea of " the 
 Animal Victim lying at the door,'' he suggests, as 
 the explication of that phrase, that " tthe Vic- 
 tims for Sacrifice were always brought to the 
 
 * '* In Abele autem conspicua erat impiratio gratia^ 
 *' quee Electis contiiigit." 
 
 t " nstan valde communiter accipitur de Sacrificio 
 " pro peccato. Sacrificia autcm semper ad januam 
 " Tabernaculi adducebantur." — Chronic. Vet. Test. 
 cap. iv. ; and this in a work whose title and business it 
 is to adjust Chronica Temporum et Ordineni 'Textuum 
 Veteris Testamenti. 
 
New Interpretation, not a judicious Divine. 71 
 
 door of tlic Tabernacle" The anachronism of 
 which premature allusion, in the days of Cain 
 and Abel, he resolves to ascribe to Moses ; 
 explaining the phrase to be an accommoda- 
 tion to the Levitical times : a supposition most 
 improbable, but which shows that in a fa- 
 vourite opinion difficulties are not perceived.* 
 This occurs in his tract of Observations on 
 Genesis, which he has entitled " paucse ac 7io- 
 " vellcE, quarum plerseque certcE, cceterce pro- 
 *' babiles, omnes autem innoxise, ac raro antea 
 ** audita; " Of these select Observations, whose 
 novelty was to be among their merits, I shall 
 give some further examples. Another is, "That 
 *' the clean beasts were created by Sevens, the 
 ** seventh in each kind being intended for Adam's 
 ** use in Sacrifice after the Fall."t Another, 
 the next adjoining ; *' Homo per Trinitatem 
 ** creatus circiter horam diei tertiam, sive, appel- 
 " latione nostra, nonam meridianam :" with 
 many others of equal authority. Surely these 
 are traditions fitter for a comment on the Tal- 
 mud, than the Scripture ; and I reckon it no pre- 
 
 * " Et mos erat, cui ut notissimo Moses sermonem ac 
 " commodavit, coUocare Sacriticia ad fores Sanctuarii." 
 — Observat. in Genesiii, cap. iv. 7. 
 
 f " Bestiue mundae create sunt septencc, tria paria ad 
 " proleni, ct re/iquca singula Jdanio in Sacrificium post 
 " lapsum ; at immundae tantummodo bina, ad generis 
 " propagationem." Genes, i. 25. ed. Roterd. 
 
72 Liglitfoot, the Author of the 
 
 sumption, to decline being a great admirer of 
 the grave writer who can describe so much 
 more of the Creation than is contained in the 
 book of Genesis, 
 
 But upon such methods of treating the Scrip- 
 ture, and their tendency, it will not be irrele- 
 vant to our present inquiry, if I offer a remark, 
 of which Lightfoot himself shall furnish the 
 illustration. His tract of Novel Ohf>ervatious, of 
 which I have given a specimen, he addressed to 
 his Friends and Fellow-countrymen, an au- 
 ditory of popular readers, whose judgment was 
 not likely to be over severe in examining his 
 notions, nor, as I think, to be greatly improved 
 by taking them unexamined. It was inscribed 
 " Comitatus StafFordiensis Incolis, popular ibus 
 " charissimis, cseterisque in urbe Londinensi 
 " amicis." This was in the year 1642. Ten 
 years afterwards he lived to deliver a disputa- 
 tion on the following thesis : " Post Canonem 
 '* Scripturae consignatum non sunt novcE Revela- 
 " tiones expectandse ;" a thesis which he main- 
 tained, says his Biographer, against the Enthu- 
 siasts, whom he opposed with all his power, 
 grieved and indignant to see that Sect sub- 
 verting the word of Holij Writ by their private 
 revelations. We know what progress in Scrip- 
 ture interpretation was made in England, within 
 the compass of those Ten memorable years. But 
 I must say, it was neither in reason, nor consis- 
 
New Interpretation, not a judicious Divine. 73 
 
 tent, for this really learned and good man, who 
 sat a Master in the Assembly of Divines, to be 
 surprised or offended at novelties, who had 
 himself written what I shall call a Supplement 
 to the first chapters of Genesis, and given his 
 countrymen the example, and the principle, 
 by which they happened to discover only not 
 the same things as he had done. This was 
 a lesson for his times. Ours are in no danger 
 of the like excess. Yet the same principle, ad- 
 mitted in any degree, can never be wholly free 
 from evil, either in tempting some men to see 
 more than the Scripture contains, or furnishing 
 to others one pretext of excuse for seeing less. 
 This I offer as the apology of my own caution, 
 in confining the Scripture evidence, as I shall 
 do, on the whole subject of Primitive Sacrifice, 
 to its real and authentic statements ; or to de- 
 ductions from those statements, perfectly clear 
 and unforced. 
 
 I pass next to the passage in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, which is thought to prove the Sa- 
 crifice of Abel to have been a proper Expiatory 
 Sacrifice. " And to Jesus the mediator of the 
 *' new covenant, and to the blood of spj^inkling 
 ** that speaketh better things than that q/' Abel." 
 Heb. xii. 24. The comparison, which is here 
 made. Archbishop Magee understands to be be- 
 tween the sacri/ice offered by Abel, and that of 
 
74 hiterpretation of'' Abel's blood'' 
 
 Christ ; not between the blood of Abel himself, 
 and that of the Redeemer : and upon that former 
 ground of the comparison he argues for a cor- 
 responding nature of the two Sacrifices ; conse- 
 quently that the Sacrifice of Abel was an E.v- 
 piatory one. These points must be examined. 
 
 First, the Received Text stands thus : Kat 
 
 [zou, xpelTTova, XaXovvri Trocpu tov ApsX. There 
 is a various reading, Trapa ro 'A/3eX, not equally 
 supported. But I shall consider both the re- 
 ceived text, and the second reading ; and exa- 
 mine how they affect our argument concerning 
 the nature of AbeVs Sacrifice. 
 
 The natural, the necessary sense of the re- 
 ceived text is, that "the blood of Christ speak- 
 " eth better things than Abel speaketk." In 
 which view, since the allusion is so pregnant, 
 and the reference so apt, to the words of God in 
 the book of Genesis; that " the voice of thy bro- 
 " ther s blood crieth unto me from the ground ;" 
 since also the opposition of contrast becomes so 
 striking between the blood of Abel, the first- 
 shed blood of the human race, crying to 
 God for justice, and the blood of the Re- 
 deemer speaking mercy ; we shall at once 
 throw away the connexion of the images, with 
 the mutual relation of the Scripture texts con- 
 tainine: them^ and destroy the exuberance of 
 
in Hcbr. xii. 24. considered. 75 
 
 the Apostle's comparison, if we set aside these 
 ideas of AbeFs blood, and go to that of his 
 Oblations. And it is to be observed that the 
 Apostle's remarkable phrase " of the blood of 
 *' the Mediator speaking better things," not ac- 
 complishing or obtaining them, carries us almost 
 irresistibly to the voice of Abel's blood. We 
 scarcely have an option whether to remem- 
 ber it, or no. Now the book of Genesis tells 
 us that Abets blood spoke, and what it spoke ; 
 but that book does not tell what the blood 
 of his Offerings spoke ; whether it was Expi- 
 ation, or not. Consequently the most safe, 
 the most direct, and the most complete ap- 
 plication of the Apostle's words will be to a 
 comparison between the blood of Abel shed, 
 and that of the Redeemer. iVnd the sentiment 
 resulting from the contrast, thus understood, 
 is most worthy of the whole context. I confess 
 that I could as soon forget tJic recorded cry of 
 Abets blood, in the great opposition of the things 
 which create the whole comparison here made, 
 as I could •* the voice of the trumpet which 
 " spoke on Mount Sinai," which is another 
 point of the parallel. The entire parallel con- 
 sists more of opposites, than of things correspond- 
 ing. The known vindictive cry therefore of 
 Abel's blood, is more in unison with the intent 
 of the comparison, than the supposed Eapiatoi^y 
 sense of his Sacrifice. 
 
76 Interpretation of " Abel's blood" 
 
 But again : if we choose to accept the other, 
 though the less supported reading, Trapa to 'A^eA, 
 " than the blood of Abel,'' the phrase still di- 
 rects us to Abel's own blood, rather than ad- 
 mits that his Sacrifice; unless there be some 
 reason ab extra for resorting to his Sacrifice ; 
 which reason I am not aware how it can be 
 pretended. For, ab eMra, " the blood of Abel" 
 still meets us in the Old Testament. It is as 
 likely to be referred to, as the blood of his Sa- 
 crifices ; and the essential sense of the phrase 
 renders that likelihood almost a certainty. 
 
 But to go further : Let us suppose the phrase, 
 in either of its forms, Trapa rov ^A^Xx, or ■n-tx.fx 
 TO 'APeA ; to be intended of Abel's Oblation ; 
 which at the best is but doubtful; the in- 
 ference would be but doubtful again, which 
 concludes a corrcs'ponding nature of the two 
 Sacrifices, so compared, as being both Expia- 
 tory. Some agreement indeed there must be in 
 the things compared together. But the agree- 
 ment, necessary to form the basis of the com- 
 parison, might consist in their being both Sacri- 
 fices : with a total disparity in this very attribute 
 of Expiation. Abel's might be a Sacrifice of 
 prayer; of intercession for sin; without any 
 pledge or promise previously given, to create it 
 an assured medium of Expiation. In Christ 
 
in Hebr. xii. 24. considered. 77 
 
 the blood of sprinkling has its virtue declared, 
 its efficacy sealed, its mediatory power fully 
 established. Unless therefore, by proceeding- 
 first upon doubtful premises, and then throwing 
 more into our conclusion than those doubtful 
 premises contain, that is, by combining one 
 doubt with another, we cannot by this passage 
 argue Abel's Sacrifice to have been a rite of 
 Expiation. 
 
 It is true that Whitby, and perhaps some 
 others, have explained this phrase, by " the 
 *' blood of Abel's oblation ;" But in this re- 
 spect Whitby has most of the interpreters op- 
 posed to him ; as may be seen in the Critici 
 Sacri. And I observe in Wolfius^,* that he 
 quotes it as a singular and peculiar notion ad- 
 vanced by a foreign Critic, Snabelius — **Atque 
 *' is quidem hoc habet singular e, quod per sangui- 
 *' nem non ilium Abelis a Caino fusum, sed agni, 
 " ab Abele in Sacrificium mactati, intelligit." 
 Whitby however does not attempt to establish 
 the existence of Expiatory Sacrifice in the 
 days of Abel by this text. Elsewhere he 
 has avowed his belief that all the Sacrifices 
 before the Law were Holocausts, and that it is 
 certain that many of them were offered to appease 
 
 * lo. Christ. Wolf. Curze Philol. et Crit. in Nov. Test. 
 Heb. xii. 24. Snabel. in Anioenitatibus Theolog. Em- 
 blematica et TypiccB, p. 109- 
 
78 No Evidence of the 
 
 God and expiate for sin* This certamty of his is 
 founded on NoaJis Sacrifice, and the testimony 
 of Josephus, explaining it to have been " a Sa- 
 crifice to atone God, and appease his displeasure." 
 But the certainty thus founded I have already 
 proved to be most fallacious. And Whitby in 
 our present text defends only the first proposi- 
 tion of Archbishop Magee's reasoning : viz. that 
 the blood of Abel is the blood of his Sacrifice. 
 So it may be : and yet there will remain a wide 
 interval, between that proposition, and the ad- 
 mission of his Sacrifice having been an ordained 
 rite of Expiation; an interval w^hich the rea- 
 soning of the Apostle, and the principle of his 
 comparison, will never enable us to pass. 
 
 In this state I leave the consideration of those 
 proofs which this very able Prelate has adduced 
 for the maintenance of his opinion. That they 
 are solid and unequivocal evidences, is more 
 than I think will be said in behalf of them, by 
 those who may be disposed to allow them some 
 degree of weight, whilst I can allow them none. 
 But when we reflect, that besides their great 
 insecurity for any purpose of reasoning what- 
 ever, their object is to introduce into the Pri- 
 mitive History a most important doctrine, of 
 
 * Annot. in Heb. ix. J 9. 
 
Expialori/ Nature of AbeCs Sacrifice. 79 
 
 which that History yields elsewhere no direct 
 acknowledgment; and yet a doctrine, of which 
 some positive memorial might reasonably be 
 expected to have been given ; and that the 
 derivative force of these precarious proofs is 
 thereby to make a great addition to the au- 
 thentic History of the Old Testament ; I shall 
 think it most equitable towards the subject of 
 our inquiry, most impartial to the Scripture it- 
 self, most conformable to the love of Truth, to 
 decline admitting them as any materials of in- 
 formation in the History of the Primitive Reli- 
 gion: and also to suppose, that the imperfect and 
 unconvincing nature of them attests and con- 
 firms the position which I have stated; viz. 
 That before the Law of Moses the Scripture 
 affords no clear example, or proof, of the exist- 
 ence of Expiatory Sacrifice. 
 
 And I the more readily yield to this impres- 
 sion, because I cannot but foresee, that if such 
 dubious and adapted evidence were to be 
 admitted to establish any given hypothesis, 
 there scarcely exists the hypothesis to which 
 the Scripture might not be made to yield its 
 support, by the exercise of the like skill of de- 
 duction. 
 
 The last author whom I shall cite, for a con- 
 firmation of the account which I have given of 
 
80 Outram\s candid and 
 
 the history of Primitive Sacrifice, is Oiitram. 
 This excellent and most accurate writer, in his 
 classical work,* in which he has traced the en- 
 tire system of the Sacrificial Worship through 
 the institutions of Judaism, and demonstrated 
 the relation of it, under those institutions, to 
 the essential doctrine and character of the 
 Atoning Sacrifice of the Gospel, has chosen 
 rather to report the opposite reasons and opi- 
 nions of others, respecting the Original of 
 the Rite, than to interpose any decision of 
 his own upon that primary question. His 
 work preceded the publication of Spencer's 
 De Legibus Hehraoriim ; so that he was not 
 influenced to his neutrality of opinion, by 
 the splendour and authority of that impos- 
 ing composition of learning. He was also 
 a great admirer of Lightfoot ; for his stu- 
 dies had lain very much the same way, in He- 
 braic and Rabbinical erudition. But neither 
 did Lightfoot's peremptory determination of 
 the divine institution of Sacrifice, a determina- 
 tion which he delivered like an axiom of Theo- 
 logy, so disturb Outram's judgment as to hinder 
 him from seeing reason, and weighing the diffe- 
 rent opinions which he knew had been main- 
 tained, and which he saw the question admitted. 
 
 * De Sacrificiis. 
 
acorrnte Opinions statefl. Rl 
 
 The whole subject he has opened, though with 
 great conciseness in its most important points 
 of speculation. In particular he has intro- 
 duced a view of those notions of Maimonides, ex- 
 planatory of the Mosaic Ritual, which Spencer 
 first, and Warburton afterwards, reduced into 
 a more positive system ; and he has handled 
 with discretion, in a few sentences, that prin- 
 ciple, which Spencer took in its extreme lati- 
 tude for the basis of his work ; the principle 
 of an indulgence and accommodation conceded to 
 prior usages, in the constitution of the Mosaic 
 Law. 
 
 But this excellent judge of the subject, who 
 had the interest of no hypothesis wdierewith to 
 prejudice his mind, declines, as I have said, to 
 ofter any judgment on that which has become 
 the principal question; the first appointment of 
 Sacrifice.* The piety and faith of Outram are 
 not to be suspected. It is the main object of 
 his work to refute the Socinian errors, and 
 establish the perfect doctrine of the Christian 
 Atonement. These things notwithstanding, 
 and possessed as he was of a penetrating in- 
 tellect, and an exact learning, to guide him in 
 
 * " Atqiie ha>c de Sacrificiorum oitu; qua de re, me 
 " quod attinet, Ego nihil omnino malim, quAin quic- 
 " quam pro certo pronunciare." Cap. i. Quaj de Sa- 
 crificiorum Originc ultro citr^quc disputari solent. p. 1 1. 
 
 G 
 
82 Out ram's candid and 
 
 his research, he could not discover in the 
 Scripture, nor in reason and Scripture taken 
 together, the evidence of a divine institution of 
 Sacrifice. His neutrality is of some effect. I 
 reckon it among the strong indications, that the 
 Scripture evidence of that institution does not 
 exist. 
 
 But had Outram confined his attention to the 
 general question concerning the Origin of Sacri- 
 fice, I should have attributed less importance to 
 the result of his research. That general question 
 is a large one, and there are some arguments af- 
 fecting it, which in his time had not been much 
 considered. For our learning has grown dif- 
 fuse, and our notions complex, and debate 
 has made our conclusions circuitous. But this 
 accurate inquirer, in the progress of his work, 
 treats of Sacrifice in its sever^al k'mds ; and he 
 falls upon this very consideration ; " Whether 
 there were Expiatory Sacrifices prior to the 
 Mosaic Law :" a point, the intimate connexion 
 of which with the fate of the larger contro- 
 versy does not appear to have struck his 
 mind, but which I can view in no other light 
 than as the hinge of the whole Inquiry. I 
 gladly avail myself therefore of a detached and 
 independent confirmation, which he affords me, 
 of the position which I rest upon : viz. That there 
 is neither example, nor evidence, in Scripture, 
 before the Mosaic Law, of Expiatory Sacrifice. 
 
accurate Opiimws stated. 83 
 
 The confirmation, to which I allude, is contained 
 in the following cautious and discriminating 
 sentence: " Jam vero sacra piacularia, qualia a 
 " Mose descripta sunt, usquamne forth in usu 
 *' flier hit ante legem sacram Hcbrais datum, ego 
 ** minime definiver'wiy (Lib. i. cap. de Holo- 
 caustis.) He could find no such Sacrifices; and 
 he consulted both prudence and truth, when he 
 forebore to define that they existed. 
 
 And now that I may revive the train of our 
 Investigation, 1 shall briefly re-state what has 
 been argued ; and then proceed. I have shown 
 that Natural Reason will account for the other 
 kinds of Sacrifice, including Sacrifice for Sin ; 
 but not the Expiatory : that Expiatory Sacri- 
 fice, therefore, would be the index of a Divine 
 Appointment ; but that the evidence of such 
 Atoning Oblations, in the Primitive and Patri- 
 archal Religion, is wanting. This general view 
 of the subject I have confirmed by the indirect 
 testimony of some of the principal writers who 
 have treated it. For either they have assumed 
 hastily, and without proof, the existence of Ex- 
 piatory Sacrifice in the oldest period of the 
 world : or, if they have attempted to prove it, 
 their proofs have been shown to be improbable 
 and insecure, or, at the best, wholly insufficient 
 for the establishment of such an important fact. 
 
 g2 
 
84 Comparison of I lie Primitive 
 
 Outram alone, as I conceive, has confessed the 
 truth. 
 
 To proceed. I offer it in the next place to 
 be considered that, as the Scripture History 
 does not furnish the proof of Atoning Oblations 
 in the First Ages of the World, so there is one in- 
 ternal reason which renders it highly improba- 
 ble, that an institution of that kind then existed. 
 For, I ask, if Sacrifices of Expiation and Atone- 
 ment were given to that early time, of what 
 were they Expiatory ? For what offences did 
 they ratify the Atonement? For Moral Trans- 
 gression, no doubt: for Sin estimated according 
 to the great Law of God. The Ceremonial Law 
 did not exist. The Moral only could be the 
 rule of duty to the Primitive World. It only, 
 therefore, could receive the rite of Expiation. 
 But since Expiation for Moral Sin was not the 
 privilege of the later dispensation, that of 
 Moses : since Atonement for all the greater in- 
 stances of transgression, and even in the extent 
 of man's ordinary obliquity of practice, was not 
 included in the operation of the Mosaic Rites ; 
 had such an institute of Atonement been granted, 
 in the first period of things, to the Primeval 
 Race, the Divine Economy would have been 
 retrograde ; a Sacrament of grace and pardon 
 would have been withdrawn ; or, which is the 
 
and Mosaic Dispensations of Religiuu. 85 
 
 same thing, it would have reduced from greater 
 purposes to less ; and all this is a change in 
 the revealed ratification of the Divine Mercy, 
 and the remedial provisions of the Divine Law, 
 a change of disproportion in the appointment, 
 and of loss and disfavour in the effect, which is 
 highly inconsistent with our best notions of the 
 progressive order of Revealed Religion, and 
 with the actual evidences of that order con- 
 tained in the general system of it. If the Wor- 
 shipper under the Law sought in vain for a 
 Sacrifice to take away Sin, and absolve his 
 conscience from the burden of his moral guilt, 
 we must be slow to believe that the Penitent 
 before the Law stood on better ground, or had 
 promises and appointments of greater efficacy. 
 David knew of no such Sacrifice ordained; and 
 therefore Abel and Noah scarcely could have 
 had the privilege of it. 
 
 I submit this relative view of the state of 
 Revealed Religion, in the two periods of the 
 Primitive and the Mosaic times, as amount- 
 ing, alone, almost to a decisive proof, in the 
 absence of other more explicit information, 
 that the first Sacrifices could not be express 
 institutions of Pardon and Atonement. If we 
 suppose those Sacrifices to have been the 
 known authentic medium of Expiation, we 
 make them not merely to have been the same 
 
86 Deficiency of the Mosaic Low 
 
 as the Levitical, in their intent; in being a seal 
 of pardon and restoration to God's favour ; 
 which is itself a very questionable assumption; 
 but we make them go beyond the Levitical in 
 their subject, by their use to seal that pardon in 
 the very heart and substance of the Law of 
 Moral Duty ; which is still less credible. 
 
 This essential fact, in the disability/ of the 
 Mosaic Law, from which I argue, is a point 
 which may be placed beyond dispute. The 
 stated Sacrificial Ordinances of that Law 
 do not include the general remission of Sin. 
 They neither exhibit, nor convey, the pro- 
 mise of it. This was its weakness and de- 
 ficiency; a deficiency both in the source of 
 the grace, and in the representation of it to 
 the Offender. And as to the reality of this 
 failure and deficiency, we have it demonstrated 
 by the letter of the Law itself, which takes up 
 the Ritual, and passes almost untouched the 
 Moral, Transgression. It is demonstrated by 
 the confession of the Prophet David, who well 
 understood all the resources of the Law, to 
 which he had given his meditation day and 
 night, but yet could find in them no Atoning 
 Sacrifice for his Sin. {Psalm li.) It is de- 
 monstrated by the want of any connexion made 
 in the Old Testament between the fears and 
 anxieties of Conscience, and the remedies of the 
 
ill Expiation for Moral Transgression: 87 
 
 Ceremonial Law. It is demonstrated in the 
 doctrine of the New, which denies to the Law 
 the power, and the promise, of any such pro- 
 pitiation. It is the general doctrine of St. Paul, 
 when he explains to the Israelite the differ- 
 ence between the Legal and the Evangelical 
 systems. *' Be it known unto you, men and 
 " brethren, that through this man is preached 
 *' unto you the forgiveness of sins ; and by Him 
 " all that believe are justified from all things 
 ** from which j/e could not be justified by the Law 
 *' of Moses."* It is the more precise doctrine 
 of the same Apostle, in those two of his Epis- 
 tles which comprehend a formal and expanded 
 
 * Ka» ocTTO TravTcov uv ovx rj^uvfj^i^TS Iv too v6ix,co Mwcrlwj 
 dix.aia)^r,vai, ev toutm nag 6 Trigsvcuv dixatourau Act. Apost. 
 xiii. 39. The attentive reader will observe by these words 
 that justification was not to be had in the Law, or in its 
 system. He will observe also that St. Paul does not say 
 to the Israelite; " Of the justification which i/e had under 
 " the Law Christ was the source;" but that, *' ye had 
 ** not so much as the power of the justification." This 
 single sentence therefore is decisive of the nature of the 
 Mosaic Dispensation. The same disparity between the 
 Mosaic and the Christian Covenants in the article of 
 Atonement is stated in this other passage. Ka» 8<« toutq 
 §<«^^xr)j xajvij5 [xea-'iTYjg Ij-tv, oVcoj ^ctvocTOV ysvofJisvov elj octto- 
 XvTpcoa-iv ruv Ivi Tt? Trpur'n JtaS'nxw •7rapa(ioc<riuv, t>]V \iva.y- 
 feXmcv Xa^oo(nv ol xsxA>j]oi.evo» t^j alcovlou xXrjpovofiiots. Heb. 
 ix. 15. 
 
88 Dejicieucj/ of the Mosaic Law 
 
 argument upon this very question ; his Epistles 
 to the Galatians, and the Hebrews, For how 
 does the Apostle, in each of those Epistles, argue 
 the specific inferiority of the Law ? Its want 
 of the seal, or the promise, of Atonement and 
 Reconciliation AvithGod, is the very ground upon 
 which his argument is built, to recommend the 
 ordained mercies of the Evangelical Covenant. 
 Once more, and to place this matter in its 
 full light ; there are two ways of considering 
 the disability of the Law. Its institutions 
 might be weak and unprofitable, either because 
 they did not convey at all the grant of pardon, 
 and justification with God, for Moral Sin ; or 
 simply because they did not comprehend within 
 them that effectual and only meritorious Sa- 
 crifice, which is indeed the one source of God's 
 mercy to Man. In other words, the Levitical 
 system might either be destitute of the benefit 
 of such expiation, or merely of the efficacious 
 title to it, which is in the Redeemer. Now St. 
 Paul's reasoning decides the alternative to be 
 taken in these two positions. His doctrine 
 rests on the former of the two. He does not 
 argue that the Law granted a remission of Sin, 
 whilst the future Redeemer was the real author 
 of the antecedent grace so conferred; but he 
 denies that the Law granted the remission. 
 He teaches, what indeed the Law itself noto- 
 
in Expiation for Moral Transgression. 89 
 
 riously shows, that it had not committed to it 
 the administration of God's mercy to the trans- 
 gressor, and therefore was weak and inade- 
 quate in the largest sense : both because the 
 effectual Atonement was not yet made, and be- 
 cause the Sacrifices of the first Dispensation 
 had not imparted to them the vicarious office 
 of anticipating that Atonement. In short, it 
 would be to refute the Apostle, to contend that 
 in the Ordinances of the Law, or under the 
 Ceremonial system, in any manner, an Institu- 
 tion of pardon for the Conscience, in the sphere 
 of God's Moral Law, existed. Prophecy, from 
 the beginning, spoke of a Redeemer ; and, in a 
 later age, it spoke of his Sacrifice of Atoneme?it. 
 The Legal Sacrifices prefigured that Atonement; 
 and by their reference of similitude to the 
 Christian Sacrifice they were hallowed to the 
 inferior ends of the first Dispensation, in which 
 they had their use. But the power of the 
 Redeemer's blood they had not communicated 
 to them ; nor had they a tongue to represent 
 the power of that blood to the conscience of the 
 Sinner. That was a mystery of God's mercy, 
 which Holy men were permitted to see and 
 know when the Redeemer himself came into 
 the world. Meanwhile, the oblations of the 
 Levitical Sanctuary were, like Zacharias, one 
 of the latest priests and ministers of them. 
 
fK) Deficiencj/ of the Mosaic Law 
 
 " dumb for a season :" till they found their 
 voice, as did he, at the Evangelical Advent; 
 for then the time was fully come " to give 
 " knowledge of salvation" to the people of God 
 " by the remission of Sin.'''' 
 
 I have now stated the characteristic inherent 
 debility of the Mosaic Law, with regard to the 
 grant of Expiation and Atonement in Moral 
 Transgression : and the substantial truth of 
 what I have said on this head is abundantly 
 established by the concurrent testimony of the 
 Old Testament and the New. How this debility 
 of the Mosaic Law must influence our judgment 
 of the Primitive Sacrifices, I have partly en- 
 forced already ; and I shall return to the same 
 point again. But there is a kind of qualifica- 
 tion to be admitted, as to this imputed defi- 
 ciency of the Mosaic Law in providing an 
 Atonement for Moral Sin; a qualification which 
 I shall advert to, lest I seem either to disguise 
 and dissemble it, or, by passing it unnoticed, 
 leave behind me as an apparent objection, what 
 is indeed a confirmation, to the entire view 
 which I have taken of the Mosaic System, in 
 this great branch of its appointments. 
 
 The whole range of the Mosaic Sacrificial 
 Atonements may be comprised in the following 
 classes of subjects for which those Atonements 
 were provided. 1. Bodily Impurity. 2. Cere- 
 
in Expiation for Moral Transgression. 91 
 
 monial offence. 3. Sins of Ignorance and Inad- 
 vertency, or offences "unwittingly done."* 4. 
 Certain specified cases of Moral Transgression 
 knowingly committed, in favour of which an 
 exception from the general Severity of the Law 
 was admitted, and an Atonement ordained.f 
 
 These last cases furnish that qualijication and 
 abatement, in the debility of the Law, to which 
 I have alluded. But these cases of exception 
 are so few in number, and they are so confined 
 in the matter of their circumstances, and of so 
 small a latitude in comparison of the whole 
 extent of God's Moral Law, that nothing can 
 mark more distinctly the great deficiencies of 
 the Legal Atonements, than these very articles 
 of a permitted Expiation interposed. I do not 
 say that the offences themselves, thus admitted 
 to a Legal Atonement, are slight or trivial in their 
 nature ; but they are so modified by their pe- 
 culiarity of circumstances, before they are ad- 
 mitted to the Atonement, that they plainly 
 indicate some special purpose of the Lawgiver 
 in reference to them, and only attest the more 
 strongly that the Mosaic Dispensation was not 
 accompanied, nor intended to be, by any free 
 grant of Expiatory Satisfaction. The few ex- 
 cepted cases are in certain offences affecting 
 
 * See Levit. iv. 2. 13. 22. 27. Numbers, xv. 24. 27. 
 t See Levit. vi. 1. 7. 
 
92 Deficiency of the Mosaic Lmv 
 
 the property, or relating to the wrong, of a neigh- 
 bour, wherein a public conviction was not to be 
 obtained ; and they seem to have been entitled 
 to the benefit of a Sacrificial Acquittal, only 
 upon a voluntary confession of his guilt prof- 
 fered by the offender himself, after a previous 
 perjured denial of it; which confession was to 
 be followed by an augmented restitution for the 
 injury done ; and then the Legal Atonement had 
 place. One single offence more there is, for 
 which an Atonement was allowed ; viz. the Sin 
 of Unchastity, when one of the offending parties 
 was a bond-maid and betrothed.* But then we 
 observe that the like offence, if in the person 
 of a free woman, was not susceptible of a Sa- 
 crificial Expiation.'!' Without staying to dis- 
 cuss more minutely the nature of these very 
 few excepted instances of Moral Transgression, 
 it is most obvious, that there was some special 
 design of civil policy, in relation to Public So- 
 ciety, regulating the exceptions made ; and next, 
 which is the thing most important to our pur- 
 pose, that the exceptions, thus admitted, were 
 of so confined a range, that the great body of 
 the Commandments were still left unappeased 
 and unsatisfied, and claiming the blood, not of 
 a vicarious Victim, but of the Transgressor. In 
 
 * Levit. xix. 20. " They shall not be put to death, 
 " because she was not free." 
 t Deut. xxii. 25—29. 
 
i/i Expiation for Moral Transgression. 93 
 
 one word, ask of St. Paul what was the style 
 of the Law. He will answer, it was " the 
 ministration of death. "*= But how could it be 
 the ministration of death, if its Penal Sanctions 
 had, opposed to them, any great antagonist 
 charter of Remedial Expiation ? 
 
 Having then so far cleared our knowledge of 
 the Mosaic Law and its Atonements, and seen 
 how it shrinks before the larger Mercies of the 
 Gospel, let us direct our view to the other side, 
 and consider once more how this Law, whose 
 history and character in its Sacrificial worship 
 we have sufficiently explained to us, must tend 
 to determine our notions of the Primitive Sa- 
 crificial worship, whose history and character 
 are left under some obscurity. For since the 
 indulgence of a Legal Propitiation granted to 
 Moral Offence under the Law was so exceed- 
 ingly limited ; being restricted as we see to an 
 inconsiderable number of specified instances of 
 such offence, and those affecting the Public 
 Rights of Society in a definite manner ; I would 
 ask, is it a rational supposition to make, that 
 any antecedent revelation had ordained a more 
 extended service of Expiatory Sacrifice for 
 Moral Transgression ; that the Charter of Mercy 
 had been larger and more explicit; and then 
 * 2 Cor. iii. 7. 
 
94 Progressive Order of Revelation 
 
 was contracted ; and that God withdrew the 
 best part of his revealed promises, and obscured 
 the light, which he had once given to the faith of 
 Fallen Man ? I am not aware that there is any- 
 positive affirmation of Scripture, asserting that 
 God's Dispensation has always been progressive ; 
 but it cannot be denied that all the appearances 
 of the history of Revelation are in favour of 
 that method ; and that it is an hypothesis at 
 once violent and ill-supported to reverse, by any 
 intrusive opinions of our own, the whole con- 
 sistency of this apparent order. And this we 
 must do, if we assign to the Antediluvian and 
 Patriarchal Church the enjoyment of a more 
 complete Expiatory System, which the Church 
 of Israel was condemned to lose ; and so make 
 the Covenant of Canaan the forfeiture of a bet- 
 ter, a more Evangelical tenure. This is the re- 
 versed sequel of things into which the history 
 of the Divine Economy must necessarily be 
 cast, if it is to be adapted to the belief that 
 an Atoning Expiatory Religion was formally 
 granted to the first ages of the world. Whe- 
 ther the learned authors who have asserted 
 such a belief, have sufficiently adverted to 
 these consequences, and had their eye directed 
 to the disarrangement which must ensue from 
 it to the whole series of Revealed Religion, I 
 am unable to say. 3fost of them seem rather 
 
loith regard to the Pardon of Sin. 9-5 
 
 to have been intent on making Sacrifice a 
 divine Appointment, and an Appointment of 
 Expiation, cost what it might to their Theolo- 
 gical System, than to have taken a very judi- 
 cious view of the genius and provisions of 
 the Mosaic Law, or to have combined with 
 that Law any well-proportioned ideas of the 
 anterior state of Religion. And this same lax 
 principle of Theology has been permitted to con- 
 fuse the Legal and the Evangelical Dispensations. 
 The system of Legal Expiation has been some- 
 times represented as if it were nearly commen- 
 surate with that of the Gospel; the only dif- 
 ference, left between them, being, that the Re- 
 deemer's Sacrifice was expected, in the one, 
 manifested, in the other. Whereas the essential 
 want of an assured Atonement for the Con- 
 science under the Law is the confession of the 
 Law itself, and the contrary possession of that 
 Atonement the avowed privilege, and charac- 
 teristic doctrine, of the Gospel. 
 
 It is on account of this prevalent disregard 
 to the distinctive characters of the Law and the 
 Gospel, in the subject of Expiation, that I have 
 gone to some length in asserting the Scripture 
 Evidence which demonstrates the distinction. 
 For whilst the Legal and Evangelical systems 
 are either not distinguished, or attempted to be 
 
9^ Progressive Order of Revelation 
 
 approximated, there is the less room to hope 
 that we shall come to any just notions of the 
 Primitive Religion. They who think it right 
 to make the Law and the Gospel so much alike, 
 will not be scrupulous of large assumptions 
 concerning the elder times, whose history is 
 confined by less positive criteria of information. 
 Only I think it must operate as a just prejudice 
 against some opinions advanced concerning that 
 first period of Religion, opinions for which 
 there is confessedly a great want of evidence, 
 that they commonly are found associated with 
 other notions, as to the relation of the Law and 
 the Gospel, which are really adverse to a great 
 and luminous existing evidence. Perhaps a 
 more correct, a more Scriptural judgment of 
 the Expiation admitted into the Law, may lead 
 to a more sparing belief of the Piacular power 
 of the first Sacrifices ; Sacrifices, which we 
 know not whether they were from God at all ; 
 and which we vainly try to prove to have been 
 from Him, by their Expiatory character, when 
 of that very character itself we equally want the 
 information, if we have not rather an actual 
 disproof. 
 
 The whole circle then of that Hypothesis 
 which asserts the Divine Original of the Primi- 
 tive Sacrifices is but a speculation, destitute of 
 any real or adequate support in the actual his- 
 
with regard to the Pardon of Siii. 97 
 
 tory of the Patriarchal Times, or of the Mosaic 
 Law, and equally destitute of any probable or 
 implied recognition of it, either in the Old Tes- 
 tament, or the New. And having said so much 
 concerning the Historical Evidence applicable 
 to our Inquiry, I proceed next to the Doctrinal 
 Evidence which is usually adduced, in proof of 
 the divine institution of the first Sacrificial Wor- 
 ship. 
 
 The Doctrinal Evidence, by which the divine 
 Institution of Sacrifice is thought to be evinced, 
 is briefly this : " What is not commanded by 
 God cannot be a worship acceptable to him." 
 For, first, the Worshipper cannot render it in 
 Faith ; since *' Faith cometh by hearing, and 
 hearing by the word of God;" {Rom. x. 17.) 
 and secondly, there is a sentence of reprobation 
 pronounced in Scripture upon *' Will-ivorshipy^ 
 the mere invention of human reason. (Coloss. 
 ii. 23.) In the strength of these objections to 
 all voluntary institutions of Religion, there is 
 thought to be contained the valid conclusion, 
 that Sacrifice must have been God's own ordi- 
 nance to render it capable of his approbation. 
 
 To this reasoning, which contains some por- 
 tion of truth incorporated with it, and wears the 
 countenance of a great piety, I am prepared to 
 say in reply, that it is such as will bear the 
 
 H 
 
HF! Yo DocTRiNAT- Eriii'ciice ill Scriptiii'c 
 
 teyt neither of Scripture, nor any other standard 
 of iMorul Argument. 
 
 For, first of all, we must consider that there is 
 no such dogma delivered in Holy Writ, nor any 
 thing equivalent to it, as that " Will-worship," 
 the invention of human Reason, is on that ac- 
 count incapable of the Divine Favour. The 
 Scripture texts, which are imagined to contain 
 this principle, demand but a little attention, to 
 convince us that they are mistaken and misap- 
 plied, with no small license, when they are set 
 down to express this sense. What they really 
 do express, will be best seen by examining their 
 contents, and taking their own report. Let the 
 passages be read in Isaiah, and the Gospel. 
 " Wherefore the Lord said. Forasmuch as this 
 " people draw near me with their mouths, and 
 " with their lips do honour me, but have removed 
 " their hearts, far from me, and their fear to- 
 ** wards me is taught by the precept of man ; 
 " Therefore, &c."* Or as the same reproof 
 is further explicated by our Saviour; "Thus 
 ** have ye made the commandment of God of 
 " none effect by your tradition. Ye hypo- 
 ** crites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, 
 " saying. This people draweth nigh unto me 
 "' with their mouth, and honoureth me with 
 " their lips; but their heart is far from me. 
 
 * Isaiah, xxix. 13. 
 
for t/ic Divine Indili(tio)i of Sacrifice. 99 
 
 " But in vain do tlieij worship me, teaching for 
 '' doctrines the commandments of men. "'^ 
 
 What do these passages contain? In the 
 first, God reproves the hypocritical service 
 of a people who drew near to him with a mouth- 
 honour and a lip-service, whilst their Iicarf was 
 far from him, and their fear towards him was 
 taught by the precept of men ; their fear towards 
 him was modelled by such precepts of men, as 
 admitted and justified this insincere and equi- 
 vocating form of religion. The gravamen of 
 the charge here, is not, that human reason 
 was consulted, but that the worship and 
 obedience for which he had given a positive 
 Law, was adulterated by such human notions 
 as destroyed the essential piety and obe- 
 dience which that Law enjoined. They took 
 for their instructors " the ivisdom of their ivise 
 " men," and the " understanding of their prudent 
 " men;" so called in derision by the prophet. 
 And these wise and prudent men were busied in 
 *' turning of things upside down;"'\ subverting the 
 greatest duties of a Religion actually Revealed. 
 This is the pi^ecept of men which was teaching a 
 7ieiv fear of God. When human reason is so 
 employed, may our worst wishes be with it. 
 But unless this is the necessary and inevitable 
 
 * Matth. XV. 8. t Verse \6. 
 
 Ii2 
 
lOO [nierprctdlioii of Scriptine Texts, 
 
 delinquency of all efforts of the human under- 
 standing, to instruct men in the service of God, 
 especially when his Revelation is either silent, 
 or wholly wanting, how can we pretend from 
 this text to turn the divine reprobation upon 
 the sincere endeavours of their Natural Reason 
 to supply them with some rule of duty, or 
 service of worship, for the advancement and 
 the direction of His honour and their obedi- 
 ence ? I think it will be admitted, that the 
 Scripture text itself loudly reclaims against 
 such an arbitrary imputation, obtruded upon its 
 meaning. 
 
 So in the Gospel application of the same 
 text, what is there presented to us, but a 
 reproof of those Pharisaic worshippers of God 
 who directly annulled the Fifth Command- 
 ment, upon a dispensation of their own taken 
 out of human traditions ? They were too ivise 
 to obey the commandment; they had a doctrine 
 to defeat it, and a p?^ecept against it. " Thus 
 " have ye made the commandment of God of 
 " none effect by your tradition." They pre- 
 tended a gift, when he asked a moral duti/. In 
 each of these instances nothing can be more ma- 
 nifest than that the precept and doctrine of men 
 were not the honest efforts of reason intending 
 the honour of God, according to the best of its 
 feeble light, but the craft of a wilful hypocrisy. 
 
Isaiah xxix. \3. tnid Matth. xv. 8. cuns'ukreih lOl 
 
 framing adventitious rules whereby to subvert 
 the most conspicuous duties of God's own law 
 revealed. To reason against a command, or a doc- 
 trine, already communicated, was the crime of 
 these men. It is impossible therefore to apply 
 the reproof of such a case, to men who may 
 reason for a duty, where God has not spoken. 
 Human reason may, or may not be, totally dis- 
 qualified for suggesting any single action of 
 duty, or worship. But the texts which con- 
 demn its perverted exercise in undermining or 
 abrogating duties, or doctrines, actually deli- 
 vered, are clearly of another sense; and include 
 no such general maxim as that " whatsoever is 
 " not expressly commanded by God must be 
 " unacceptable to him." 
 
 There are other passages of Scripture, however, 
 which are supposed to speak that maxim. St. 
 Paul is quoted for the condemnation of " Will- 
 " icorship ;" and for the general principle, that 
 ** Faith Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the 
 " word of God." The application which is 
 made of these two passages, is of unequal skill. 
 It is wholly erroneous, as to the first; as to 
 the second, it is only ineffectual to the purpose. 
 For as to the supposed condemnation of 
 ** Will-worship," the text itself must bear wit- 
 ness. " Which things have inileed a show of 
 " wisdom in wHl-irorship and hamilitif, and neg- 
 
102 Interprelalioii ojColoss. ii. 23. 
 
 " lecting of the body." The things spoken of 
 by St. Paul are certain forms of specious, but 
 tinsouml, worship : consequently there is no 
 doubt, but that the things were culpable and 
 wrong. But the zealous masters of contro- 
 versy have not been attentive enough to dis- 
 tinguish between the subject of St. Paul's cen- 
 sure, and the form in which he has conveyed it. 
 The things condemned had a shew of goodness, 
 or of wisdom in them, in their voluntary tribute 
 of worship, and in their humiliti), or lowliness of 
 mind. This fair appearance recommended 
 them. But it was only a fair appearance. For 
 intrinsically they were founded in ignorance^ 
 and they were incompatible with the essential 
 liberty of the Christian doctrine ; they were 
 *' rudiments of the world ;"' unconnected with 
 " the head," that is, Christ. The text therefore 
 no more implies " ivill-ivoi's/up" sls such, to be 
 criminal ; than it implies humility to be crimi- 
 nal. I will not argue that it rather ascribes to 
 will-worship a good sense, since it joins it with 
 humbleness of mind, one of the purest of Christian 
 virtues; which yet I might do, with more reason 
 than others can argue for a bad sense to that 
 kind of worship. But in reality the censure of 
 the Apostle is necessarily independent of the 
 attribute to be assigned to Will-worship, good 
 or bad. It is not his censure which is included in 
 that complex phrase " will-worship and humi- 
 
^nd Rom. X. 17. co?! ■side red. 10.3 
 
 " lity," but a concession which he makes to the 
 religious practices in question ; whilst the pro- 
 per disproof of them is expressed in the pre- 
 ceding verses ; and the same disproof is left to 
 be tacitly understood in a conclusion, in the 
 present verse, which he has not expressed. St. 
 Paul then no more can be said to stigmatise 
 ** will-worsliip" in this passage, than a writer 
 who should describe certain practices of Reli- 
 gion or Morals, as having the show, or rather 
 *as having some proper character, of modesty, 
 bounty, courage, or devotion, but yet on other 
 accounts faulty, and ill-considered ; can be un- 
 derstood to condemn the favourable concessions 
 or recommendations which he admits to belong 
 to those practices. And all this is so clear and 
 obvious to the most ordinary apprehension, that 
 nothing but the mistakes of controversy can 
 make it necessary to insist upon it. 
 
 The other saying of the Apostle contains an 
 essential truth which is of the last importance. 
 " Faith Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the 
 *' word of God." The word of God is the one 
 great fountain of our religious faith. But here 
 comes a question to be put; " Does St. Paul deli- 
 " ver this principle for an exclusive one ?" Does 
 he affirm, that, as our Christianity comes by an 
 
 T«7re»voippocr'jvj;. C'o/o.s.y. Ji. -.'>. 
 
10-i Principles of Natural Religion 
 
 express supernatural Revelation, all our faith, 
 and all our religious knowledge, must come only 
 in the same way ? To this question none can be so 
 worthy, as St. Paul himself, to give the answer. 
 Now the same Epistle which prompts the ques- 
 tion, will furnish the answer also. For in this 
 same Epistle it is, that St. Paul argues that 
 God has made by the works of his hands, in the 
 Creation, a natural discovery of himself to man; 
 and such a discovery, that man might be in- 
 structed by it to some worship and glorification 
 of him. " Because that which may be known of 
 " God is manifest in them : for God hath 
 ** showed it unto them. For the invisible things 
 " of him from the creation of the world are 
 ** clearly seen, being understood by the things 
 " that are made, even his eternal power and 
 " Godhead ; so that they are without eucuse. 
 ** Because that tvhcfi they knew God, they 
 " glorified him not as God, neither were thank- 
 " ful, but became vain in their imaginations, 
 " and their foolish heart was darkened." So 
 full, so unambiguous, is St. Paul's testimony to 
 this revelation of God, M^ritten in " the volume 
 ** of the creatures:" and such a revelation too 
 as he declares man had the intellectual eye to 
 read, if he had but had the will to obey. 
 
 But there is also a second natural revelation 
 of God, which the Apostle will not suffer us to 
 forget : that which is contained in the innate 
 
asserled in Scripture. 165 
 
 sense of our nature ; that moral constitiitioji of 
 our souls, which is the transcript, obscured 
 and defaced indeed, but still the transcript, of 
 the great law of God : that law which the very 
 Heathen know, and cannot avoid knowing, be- 
 cause " they have the work of it written in 
 ** their hearts," and their thoughts " accusing 
 or excusing them" by its dictates. And when 
 St. Paul charges the Gentiles with the knowledge 
 of this law, it is such a knowledge as, in his 
 mind, was sufficient to bring them under the 
 capacity, and consequent obligation, of some 
 obedience. Otherwise his whole doctrine and 
 inculcation of that law, as subjecting them to 
 judgment, would be a lifeless argument, and 
 such as he is little used to employ; "a beating 
 " of the air." In a word, the essential prin- 
 ciples of Natural Religion are here recognised 
 in Scripture ; and what is more, they are so re- 
 cognised as to imply in them a practical power, 
 and a directing use. And thus this great 
 monument of St. Paul's inspiration, his Epistle 
 which gives the most comprehensive view of 
 the entire system of Revealed Religion, be- 
 gins with the professed acknowledgement, or 
 rather the authoritative assertion, of those two 
 great evidences of Natural Religion, the one 
 legible in the book of the Creation, the other 
 indigenous in the soul of man. It is perfectly 
 
Ii06 Pri/iciples of Naiiira/ lie/ig/on 
 
 impossible, therefore, that a subsequent sen- 
 tence in the same Epistle should be intended to 
 affirm e.vclusivelij, that all faith cometh by- 
 hearing, and hearing by the word of God, so 
 as that no other access to religious faith and 
 knowledge can exist : and it is equally impos- 
 sible, by the bare force of that general principle 
 of his, to decide upon any particular act of re- 
 ligious service, whether it might be acceptable, 
 or unacceptable, to God. In fact St. Paul is 
 speaking of Gospel, or Supernatural Faith, which 
 is the pure emanation of God's word ; believed 
 by being heard, and heard when he sends 
 forth his messengers to deliver it. So that 
 there is no less inattention shown to the pro- 
 per subject which the Apostle has here in 
 view, than to his previous doctrine at the 
 opening of the Epistle, when men claim his 
 authority for the universal proscription of hu- 
 man reason in the primary conduct of religious 
 duty. Where God has spoken, there reason has 
 only the duty to obey. But where he has not 
 spoken, there reason has the duty to obey still, 
 but by other rules, and a feebler light: and God 
 has nowhere said that he either rejects, or does 
 not exact and approve, the endeavours of such 
 reasonable and spontaneous obedience. 
 
 And as this maxim of St. Paul, that " Faith 
 " cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word 
 
asserted in Scripture. 107 
 
 " of God," cannot be taken in an absolute 
 and exclusive sense, to debar Reason from all 
 instruction of our Religious Faith, so neither 
 can it be so taken, to debar it from all direction 
 of our practice and icorsliip. For instance, the 
 particular act of Religious Service by Sacrifice 
 could not become culpable, or unfit, merely by 
 the want of a special commandment for it. For 
 if that w^ere so, then all the actions and in- 
 stances of Moral and Religious duty, must 
 equally be made a matter of positive Revelation, 
 and, without an express system of command- 
 ments. Piety, Justice, and Charity must have 
 been wholly at a stand. But where is the evi- 
 dence in Scripture, or where is the probability, 
 that such a positive and systematic Revelation 
 of Duty was originally given? And I say that 
 every instance of Moral Action must be com- 
 manded, as much as every instance of Religious 
 Service. For the JSIoral Action which is not 
 directed by Faith to the Will of God is of little 
 value or account ; and, therefore, if the mere 
 non-commandment of things vitiates them in the 
 service of God, and puts them out of the pale of 
 Faith, it vitiates all alike, actions of Morals, 
 and actions of Worship. 
 
 Let us put the case then, that Abel brought 
 his oblations ; it being the matter in doubt. 
 
108 Principles of Natural Religion 
 
 whether there was a positive commandment 
 for them ; shall we say that his service, al- 
 though it 7mght proceed from the dictate of 
 an uncommanded and spontaneous piety, was 
 incapable of acceptance ; and, on that simple 
 account, and, without regarding the fitness 
 or unfitness of his worship, or the sincerity 
 or iniquity of his life, shall we maintain, that 
 the heinous fault of his offerings being not 
 demanded must fatally disqualify and con- 
 demn them in the sight of God ? I trust there 
 is infinitely more of mercy and equity and reason 
 in his Word, than those persons would ascribe 
 to it who hold such opinions : and I have no 
 doubt there is far more of equity and reason in 
 the minds of those who hold them, than the 
 zeal of adverse disputation will permit to ap- 
 pear in their writings. For though these ex- 
 treme notions are the resources of controversial 
 debate, I think they can scarcely live in any 
 other element. 
 
 But Natural Religion, it appears, has run the 
 fortune of controversy with the worst success. 
 For whilst some men have made it every thing, 
 as the Deist, and others have made too much 
 of it, as the Unitarian, others have thought they 
 could not be answ^ered and refuted, unless it 
 was reduced to nothing, and fairly driven off 
 
asserted ifi Scripture. 109 
 
 the scene of debate. But Revelation needs 
 not the degradation of Natural Reason to vin- 
 dicate her own superior and incommunicable pri- 
 vileges. And since God has been pleased, in the 
 mystery of his providence, to leave a great part 
 of the world without the light of his Revelation, 
 either direct, or traditional, if we pretend that in 
 such destitution of his Revealed Truth men have 
 no religion left to them, no capacity of divine 
 knowledge or service, we so far supersede his 
 Moral Government, by stultifying their nature, 
 and despoiling their religious capacity, and, in 
 fact, absolve them from obligation. 
 
 The Scripture however, as we have seen, 
 countenances no such extravagant opinions. It 
 inculcates the opposite. And in our own Church 
 and Country we have the less reason to admit 
 them to favour, as one of our most distinguished 
 public Institutions, the Lecture founded by 
 Mr. Boyle, has been engaged for the last 
 hundred years and more in demonstrating the 
 principles of Natural Religion, which these 
 opinions would reduce to a chimera : whilst a 
 greater Institution than any of man's — God's 
 own Works — have been demonstrating the same 
 for six thousand. It has been the fault of man 
 to pay less regard than he ought to this natural 
 proof of Religion. But where is the honour to 
 God, or the benefit to man, or where is the 
 piety, or the truth, in deni/ing it ? 
 
1 U) Unreasonable ideas of WiU-worship. 
 
 To resume then the Sacrifices of the Primi- 
 tive Age, I shall consider it as an established 
 truth, that the Scripture has no where author- 
 ised us to treat those Sacrifices as shut out from 
 acceptance, simply because they might not be 
 commanded and instituted by a Revelation. 
 They might be offered in the faith of a true 
 piety, presenting its homage and confession to 
 God : and then, unless there were some other 
 crime, or irregularity in them, besides that of 
 their spontaneous oblation, I shall not fear to 
 leave them, uncommanded as they might be, to 
 the favour of a gracious God, whether they may 
 be so equitably dealt with by some rigid 
 divines or no. For indeed I see it is impossible 
 in this point to agree with them, and the Scrip- 
 ture too. 
 
 But this mode of Theology, which decries all 
 spontaneous piety by the invidious name of m?///- 
 worship, and asks a revelation for every duty of 
 Religion, is the very same as has been actively 
 employed in the Christian Church, to its mis- 
 fortune and disturbance, ever since the Re- 
 formation. It is the Reformation-principle 
 perverted and misapplied. In the writings 
 of many foreign Divines, and in the govern- 
 ment of some foreign Churches, it has gone 
 to the last excess. In our own Country it 
 
HammoinVs Tract o/j Wili-xcnrahip. 1 1 I 
 
 has been the master-engine of the Puritan 
 System. But after the services of Hooker's 
 great and capacious mind, the eloquent wis- 
 dom of Taylor, and the patient and laborious 
 learning of the excellent Hammond, applied, 
 though in different ways, to this common sub- 
 ject, one might have hoped that in the Church 
 of England, which has had such lights of direc- 
 tion, there would have been established a more 
 judicious and a more Scriptural mode of think- 
 ing upon it, and that we might have been con- 
 tributing now to correct the intemperate and 
 unchastised judgment of other Churches, in- 
 stead of receiving at home the rash positions 
 of Cloppenburch, Heidegger, and Witsius ; 
 positions which may as well be drawn, if they 
 are of any value, from the oracles of Dissent, 
 contained in the writings of our own Puritan 
 advisers. 
 
 Nor can I forbear to remark, out of affection to 
 the memory, and respect to the orthodox learn- 
 ing, of Hammond, that there is a very singular 
 sacrifice made of one of the most exact and ela- 
 borate of his writings, by the learned Prelate, 
 Archbishop Magee, in compliment to a few su- 
 perficial ideas of Witsius. Hammond's Tract 
 upon " Will-worship," is that one of his wri- 
 tings to which I allude. Witsius, in his reply to 
 Spencer, has professed to answer the argument 
 of it. And Archbishop Magee has done the 
 
112 Hammond's Tract on Will-worship. 
 
 foreign divine the honour of saying that he has 
 completely answered it* I am persuaded that 
 either this tract of Hammond's had not passed 
 under the notice of the learned Prelate, or that 
 he spoke inadvertently, when he arbitrated in 
 this manner between the adverse parties. For 
 myself, I should be well satisfied, to have my 
 notions refuted in the same manner as Witsius 
 has replied to those of Hammond. I confess 
 indeed that Archbishop Magee does not men- 
 tion Hammond's name, but only Spencer's, 
 in this question concerning Will-worship. But 
 it was Hammond who had discussed the sub- 
 ject at large, and Spencer takes the argument 
 as Hammond had handled it.f Upon Ham- 
 
 ^ Dissertations, &c. vol. ii. p. 4. 
 
 t " Cuivis enim animum advertent! pateat, Apostolum 
 " sensu non malo vocem ld=Ao-&p>ja-x£jav intellixisse.". 
 " Hoc multis probavit Hammondus noster, ad cujus In- 
 " cubrationes eruditas amandari, Lectori non ingratum 
 " esse debet." Spencer de Legg. Hebr. lib. iii. dissert. 
 ii. cap. iv. sect. ii. The answer of Witsius, to which 
 Archbishop Magee refers, is in his Miscell. Sacr. lib, ii. 
 dissert, ii. sect. ii. — vii. Witsius, in his Egi/ptiaca, has 
 really refuted many of the bold assumptions and specu- 
 lations of Spencer. But in the question of Will-wor- 
 ship he had not an adversary who gave him the same ad- 
 vantages — That adversary was not Spencer, but Ham- 
 mond — and not Hammond only, but the Primitive 
 Church. 
 
Hooker s Ecclesiastical Polity. \ 1 3 
 
 mond therefore must fall the credit of Witsius's 
 applauded confutation. And in conjunction 
 with this tribute of respect to the memory of 
 Hammond, may I be allowed to recall the at- 
 tention of my reader once more to Hooker, 
 whose Second and Third books of his Ecclesias- 
 tical Polity contain an ample anticipated answer 
 to the inaccurate reasonings which have been 
 admitted on the adverse side of this whole 
 subject since his time ; as they gave the di- 
 rect reply to every thing which the disputa- 
 tious learning of his own day could produce 
 upon it. Nor is it vv^ithout its use for our 
 guidance and direction in this subject of Theo- 
 logy, to observe, that the zeal which has been 
 most strenuous in maintaining a direct Revela- 
 tion to be man's sole guide in his service of 
 God, has commonly had some palpable inven- 
 tion of mere human reason, and that a reason 
 not of the wisest kind, to introduce, under the 
 veil of that extraordinary deference to super- 
 natural truth, and been itself in contact with 
 the very error which it affected to reprove ; 
 the error of teaching for divine doctrines the 
 precepts, or dictates, of men. 
 
 But here again I have to adjust my opinions 
 with those of Bishop Taylor. He has admitted 
 into the discussion, and with some influence 
 
1 14 Bishop Taylor s reasonings 
 
 upon it, the doctrine that Sacrifice, as being im- 
 commanded, could be no right worship, or pleas- 
 ing to God. He does not take the doctrine, how- 
 ever, that " what is luicommanded is unfit in 
 " Religion," in that universal exclusive way, 
 which is perfectly unreasonable and unscrip- 
 tural, but qualified with great exceptions and 
 limitations. Still he considers that those ex- 
 ceptions and limitations yield no room for spon- 
 taneous Sacrifice. 
 
 But indeed this great writer's own principles 
 justify a different conclusion. He largely 
 grants, that " it matters not by what means 
 *' God does convey the notices of his plea- 
 " sure ; TrotJi/Aw? xou TroXvr^oirui;, in sundry ways 
 *' and in sundry manners God manifests his 
 '' will unto the world ; so we know it to be 
 " his will, it matters not whether hi) nature, or 
 " by revelation, by intuitive and direct notices, 
 "or by argument or consequent deduction, by 
 '' Scripture, or by tradition, we come to what 
 *' he requires and what is good in his eyes ; 
 ** only we must not do it of our own head." — 
 He also grants that '' will-ivorship is a name 
 " general and indefinite, and may signify a 
 " new religion, or a free-will offering, and may 
 *' be good or bad."* Other concessions he has 
 
 ^ Ductor Dub. book ii. chap. iii. p. 347. "Of Will- 
 " worship." 
 
DH Will-Worship considered. 115 
 
 made, which supply a greater latitude than is 
 necessary for bringing Sacrifice within the 
 limits of a laudable, though imcommandedy act 
 of Religion. 
 
 That God's Will is the only measure of right 
 and wrong in Religion, and in all our moral 
 action, is an unquestionable truth. But our 
 obedience to that Will, is not always under a 
 'particular revealed law. And no one under- 
 stood this better, or more largely, than Tay- 
 lor. If then Abel, in pursuance of the wor- 
 ship of God, offered Sacrifice, and that Sa- 
 crifice expressed his gratitude, or his penitence, 
 there is no possible way of making his act 
 either wrong, or indifferent, but by the ri- 
 "forous rule, that what is not commanded is 
 incapable of acceptance. It was an adequate 
 act of worship ; there was no mere human de- 
 vice in it : it relied upon the principles that 
 God is to be worshipped, and that man is a 
 dependent and a sinful creature; and surely 
 these are no heresies. I shall place therefore 
 this act of Sacrifice under the protection of 
 Taylor's own rule : " Every instance that is 
 " uncommanded, if it be the act or exercise of 
 " what is commanded, is both of GocTs chasing 
 " and mans'^^' If there was unfitness in the ser- 
 vice, that might disqualify it. The whole case 
 * Book ii. chap. iii. p. 349. 
 I 2 
 
1 16 AheVs Sucrijice. 
 
 however leans upon the inherent fitness, as 
 that upon the import and design, of the Sacri- 
 fice; and not upon the mere voluntary adoption 
 of it. 
 
 But I shall observe here, as I have observed 
 before, that this admirable writer had mis- 
 taken the data of the question. He had Abel's 
 Sacrifice in view as a Sacrifice of Atojiement ; 
 in which Sacrifice it is most certain there can 
 be no Faith, nor obedience of Faith, without an 
 express command, or revelation, presupposed. 
 " The competent warranty for the prime law" 
 of such a worship, he justly ascribes to God. 
 Wholly agreeing with him in every one of his 
 principles and sentiments, I differ only as to 
 the history of the worship. When, in the 
 progress of that history, we begin to see a rite 
 of Atonement, I have no doubt of the necessity 
 of a commandment to justify it. 
 
 So much then having been said to vindicate 
 the admissibility of a Spontaneous Worship to a 
 divine acceptance, provided there was nothing 
 unfit in the mode, or unreasonable in the in- 
 trinsic design, of the Worship itself; I shall 
 suppose Abel to have presented his oblation at 
 the Altar, without a commandment; and if the 
 design of his oblation was to express Eucharis- 
 tic gratitude, or Penitential confession, I hope 
 it will be granted that the sentiment of his 
 
Doctrine of Hebr. xi. considered. 117 
 
 worship, and the dedication of it in that form, 
 might be accounted a legitimate exercise of 
 faith in God ; that there was reason and piety 
 in the origin of his service, and no intolerable 
 objection in the Rite. 
 
 The debate however does not end here. A 
 more minute examination is pursued into " the 
 " nature and grounds of the Faith evidenced 
 " by the Sacrifice of Abel;" and Archbishop 
 Magee concludes, chiefly from the doctrine of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews (chap, xi.) that 
 the Sacrifice of Abel was the " enjoined mani- 
 " fe.station of faith in t/ie pj^omise of the Messiah; 
 " and his faith therefore, as exhibited in the 
 " Sacrifice, had the Messiah for its definite 
 '^ object.'' The same has been the conclusion 
 of Witsius, Heidegger, Kennicott, and many 
 others. 
 
 Now this conclusion, if valid, establishes 
 an important and remarkable character of the 
 primitive Religion. It connects the Rite of 
 Sacrifice with the promise of the Messiah. 
 And whether the death and suff'erings of the 
 Messiah were then actually revealed to man, 
 as some have maintained, or only the typical 
 worship of Sacrifice ordained to prefigure his 
 death ; yet in each case, the worship by Sa- 
 crifice is made, not merely a divine Appoint- 
 
118 Doctrine of Hehr. xi. considered. 
 
 ment, but an ordained act of faith in the par- 
 ticular promise of the Messiah. This, I say, 
 is a most important character ascribed to the 
 Primitive Religion. In proportion to its im- 
 portance ought to be the force of its proof. 
 
 But although I consider the promise of the 
 Messiah to be the leading object, and the car- 
 dinal point of all God's Revelations, as it is the 
 first subject of prophecy in the original grant 
 of Mercy, interposed when he shut the gates 
 of Paradise, yet I can discover no connection, 
 which the Scripture has made, between that 
 Promise and the Rite of Sacrifice, in the Anti- 
 diluvian Age : and the supposed evidence of 
 this connection derived from the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, is only one link more in that long and 
 brittle chain, which human ingenuity has been 
 winding round the noble simplicity of the 
 Scripture revelation. I make no question whe- 
 ther Abel, and every other good man, from the 
 earliest times, had a faith in the Messiah. 
 How could they want it, when prophecy had 
 once revealed that promise of Mercy, which is 
 the great resource of human nature in its for- 
 feited condition? But had Revelation tied the 
 golden cord of this faith to the Altar of Sacri- 
 fice in those Primitive times ? That is a to- 
 tally different proposition ; confidently asserted 
 indeed, but not so satisfactorily proved. 
 
Doctrine of Hehr. xi. considered. llD 
 
 The doctrine of the Uth chapter to the 
 Hebrews will yield no such proposition. There 
 are but two possible ways, whereby the Faith, 
 spoken of with such large encomiums in that 
 chapter, can be reduced into a definite explana- 
 tion. One medium is the internal doctrine of 
 the chapter itself; the other, the history of the 
 Individuals, who possessed this faith, as written 
 in the Old Testament. I assert, that from nei- 
 ther of these media can it be shown, that Abel's 
 faith in his Sacrifice was specifically directed 
 to the Messiah. 
 
 For to begin with Abel's History in the Old 
 Testament ; it is unnecessary to state, that 
 the book of Genesis furnishes no intimation, di- 
 rect, or indirect, which brings the promise of 
 the Messiah into union with Abel's Sacrifice. 
 There is no sign given that his Altar was the 
 sanctuary of that promise; no mark which indi- 
 cates that his oblation had a specific regard to it. 
 
 Nor does the Epistle to the Hebrews supply 
 the proof which the book of Genesis wants. 
 The Eleventh Chapter of that Epistle per- 
 haps is one of the most perspicuous pieces 
 of Scripture. Its perspicuity is guarded by 
 a definition of its subject. There are clear 
 and striking explications of that subject in- 
 troduced ; and the history of the servants of 
 
120 Doctrine of Ilebr. xi. considered. 
 
 God in ancient times, governed by the power 
 of this faith, whatever it may be, is made the 
 introduction to the duties of the Evangelical 
 religion. But these servants of God in old 
 times, what did they believe ? Was it the tem- 
 'poral, or the Evangelical promises ? I an- 
 swer, that since their " faith was the substance 
 " of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 " not seen," it inevitably follows, that either 
 the Temporal, or the Evangelical promises, and 
 neither of them e.vclusiveli/ , would furnish to 
 them the objects for the exercise of their faith. 
 Those writers therefore have done equal vio- 
 lence to the definition, the argument, and the 
 whole aim of the chapter, who could be satis- 
 fied with nothing less than restraining the ob- 
 jects of ancient Faith, on the one side, or the 
 other, to things tempo}-al, as Grotius and Leckrc, 
 or things of a higher ki)id, as some of their 
 opponents. Both parties have done equal vio- 
 lence to the records of the Old Testament. In 
 those records some of the individuals, here 
 named, plainly had temporal promises in view ; 
 others could have no such confined hopes; or if 
 they had, they greatly failed in the satisfaction 
 of them. For look at the persons and their 
 history. Rahab, who " by faith received the 
 " spies," and thereby secured her life and 
 safety, had a belief in the promised grant of 
 
Doctrine of Hebr. xi. considered. 121 
 
 Canaan to the Israelites. David, who " by faith 
 ** subdued kingdoms," had his faith in the pro- 
 mise of those kingdoms. Daniel who '' by faith, 
 " stopped the mouths of lions," had his faith, 
 that God was able to deliver him from the 
 lions. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who 
 •* by faith quenched the violence of fire," had 
 their faith that God " was able and would deli- 
 *' ver them" from the flames. In these instances 
 there were temporal objects of faith. But as 
 to the Patriarchs who " died in faith not 
 '* having received the promise," and who "de- 
 ** sired a better country" than they, or their chil- 
 dren, ever possessed upon earth; it is nugatory 
 to restrict their views to the sublunary pros- 
 pects of faith. The text asserts that ** they 
 ** desired a heavenly country." Again ; they 
 ** who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, 
 " that they might obtain a better resurrection,'" 
 were the Jewish Jllartyrs, who had \\iQ\x faith 
 in tJie resurrection informed and animated by 
 later Prophecy. It is manifest therefore that 
 the Faith of this chapter is not confined either 
 to Temporal, or Heavenly Objects ; but is of a 
 more general character. 
 
 But here I am drawn on by the subject. 
 For if we will follow the sense of Scripture, 
 we shall now see how God, without having 
 granted to those Patriarchs the explicit re- 
 velation of an eternal heavenly state, a reve- 
 
122 Doctrine of Hebr. xi. considered. 
 
 latioii which is nowhere exhibited in the Pen- 
 tateuch, trained them to the aim and impli- 
 cit persuasion of that eternal state, by large 
 and indejinite promises " of being their God, 
 *' and their great reward," promises, to which 
 the present life, as to them, furnished no ade- 
 quate completion. This, therefore, is that in- 
 termediate Faith, strong, though dim-sighted, 
 which St. Paul so admirably describes, in the 
 distant vision, and the unsatisfied longings and 
 aspirations, of Patriarchal Belief.* These, that 
 I may borrow some expressive language, were 
 the " graspings and reachings of a vivacious 
 " mind," in which Abraham, and other saints 
 of old, died ; and " God was not ashamed to be 
 '* called their God ;" because all that he had 
 promised, and all that they had hoped upon the 
 warrant of his Truth, was verified to the full in 
 the event of its after-consummation, although 
 it had not been explicitly revealed. 
 
 Having thus defined the true principle of 
 this Chapter, I inquire what were the objects 
 of Abel and Enoch's Faith, to whom is given 
 the first place in this immortal register of 
 the Church of God upon Earth. The object of 
 their Faith must clearly be some gift or bless- 
 ing of God ; and the ground of it, reliance 
 upon his Truth. But was the object a tempo- 
 
Doctrine of Hebr. xi. considered. 123 
 
 ral one ? Or was there a special revelation 
 authenticating that object, whatever it might 
 be ? The chapter itself is silent as to any such 
 special revelation. It is silent also as to any 
 limited particular object either of Abel's Faith 
 or Enoch's; and so is the Old Testament equally 
 silent. But to those who can consent to be 
 taught by St. Paul, it is certain, that the me- 
 morable exposition, which he has subjoined, of 
 Enodis faith, takes away all pretence for assum- 
 ing, that any other revelation was necessary to 
 constitute the basis of their faith, than simply to 
 know and be persuaded that " God is, and is a 
 ** rewarder of them that diligently seek him." 
 For unless this general persuasion be sufficient 
 to justify the faith and worship, unquestionably 
 of Enoch, but most probably of Abel also, there 
 is no imaginable sense, or use, in the introduction 
 of that exposition by the Apostle. It must be 
 convicted of being an irrelevant and inapplicable 
 truth. And then, such being i\\e groiaid oi the 
 Primitive Faith, as St. Paul has here described 
 it, viz. a reliance upon God as a Rewarder; I 
 say with regard to the object of it, and the hope 
 which it presented, that they who rely on " a 
 " rewarding God" will not be afraid of trusting 
 him with the means and course of blessing 
 them, although they neither know, nor see, 
 in what mode that reward of blessedness shall be 
 bestowed. This rewarding goodness of God was 
 
124 Doctrine of Hebr. xi. co)isidered. 
 
 the security of Patriarchal Faith, ivitJi out precise 
 stipulations. It is only the offspring of our ex- 
 traordinary poverty and imbecility of mind, who 
 have the privilege of express and definite pro- 
 mises for ourselves, to be always demanding the 
 like explicit revelation for the faith of others, who 
 seem to have known God, and served him with 
 more freedom and largeness of heart, than we 
 are willing to imagine for them. For although 
 there must be some knowledge to inform faith, 
 knowledge is not the strength of faith, but reli- 
 ance and confiding trust. It is very possible, 
 therefore, that with their scantier knowledge 
 those Patriarchs had a greater power of faith, 
 than some of us, who know more, and have a 
 larger Creed. It is possible also, that their 
 Faith will be better understood, when the use 
 of all Faith is more studied. 
 
 Such, I submit, is the survey which St. Paul 
 has here taken of the Primitive Faith. That Faith 
 he represents as beginning in the greatest sim- 
 plicity. Its first creed was, that God is a 
 Rewarder. Afterwards it had positive pro- 
 mises; sometimes large and open; sometimes 
 more restricted. Heaven and earth furnished 
 to it its materials of hope and desire. Some of 
 its worthies whom St. Paul has named, as Rahab^ 
 and, perhaps, Jephtha, seem to have been only like 
 worshippers in the Court of the Gentiles ; but, 
 
Doctrine of Ihhr. xi. considered. 125 
 
 because they had a principle of faith in their 
 action, they are joined in the enumeration with 
 those who were citizens in the proper Church of 
 God. But, in the whole line, the nature and habit 
 of this faith were still the same : inasmuch as 
 ** it was the substance of things hoped for, the 
 " evidence of things not seen." And since the 
 common principle of the chapter is not confined 
 to any single class of objects or truths, as fur- 
 nishing the exercise of faith, it is a dogma of 
 our own, and not St. Paul's, when we obtrude 
 upon it limitations which he has not expressed, 
 and which the recorded personal history of 
 the individuals does not supply. The connec- 
 tion, therefore, which is attempted to be made, 
 by means of this chapter, between the Sacrifice 
 oi Abel, and the doctrine of the Christian Atone- 
 77ient, or even with the promise of the Re- 
 deemer granted in Paradise, is wholly unwar- 
 ranted by this luminous retrospect upon the 
 Faith of ancient Times, as delineated by the 
 Apostle. 
 
 Indeed it is scarcely possible to express, 
 how much of the perspicuity and compass, as 
 well as of the grandeur and argumentative use 
 of the delineation, is destroyed by these inter- 
 polations of adscititious opinion. The Primi- 
 tive ; the Patriarchal ; the subsequent Age ; 
 are all touched by the Apostle : and there is 
 
12G Doctrine of Hehr. xi. considered. 
 
 some difference in the objects of faith assigned 
 to each. But what is most remarkable, and 
 of greatest force to discountenance the notion 
 of the Atonement, or of any reference to it, in 
 this review of the Primitive Faith, is the con- 
 fessed abstinence from all allusion to that no- 
 tion, even in the examples which fall within 
 the Patriarchal and the Legal times. For it is 
 only at the last, and when the long deduction 
 of ancient Faith is brought to a close, that the 
 transition is made to " Jesus, the author and 
 ** finisher of our faith," to Him who has not 
 once been mentioned, or referred to, in the pre- 
 ceding survey, as the object of ancient belief. 
 I have said already that He could never be e.v- 
 cluded from that belief, in as many as knew the 
 Original Promise ; but this reserve, with regard 
 to the Redeemer, has been adhered to, because 
 it was plainly the intent of the Apostle to exhibit, 
 by a cloud of witnesses, the conformity of the 
 Primitive and the Christian Faith in its habit, 
 and action ; not the identity of it in its object. 
 
 I cannot concede, however, that St. Paul has 
 left his illustration of the Primitive Faith am- 
 biguous in any single instance of it. When I 
 ascribe a greater simplicity to the creed of the 
 Primitive Belief, and to St. Paul's account of it, 
 I intend nothing of an equivocal kind. In the 
 case of Enoch he has given us the direct expo- 
 
Divine Testimoiiif lu Abel's Sacrijice. 127 
 
 sition. And in the case of Abel it is not easy 
 to deny that there is the same perspicuity. For 
 how does he illustrate Abel's faith and sacrifice 
 combined together ? " By which (Sacrifice) he 
 " obtained witness, that he teas righteous, God 
 " testifying of his gifts :" ifAocprvpri^ tlvxi ^Uxiog. 
 In like manner the rest of Scripture speaks to 
 AheVs personal righteoiis?iess. Thus in St. John's 
 distinction between Cain and Abel: " Where- 
 " fore slew he him ? because his own ivorks 
 " were evil, and his brothers righteous" — Thus 
 in the remonstrance of God with Cain. That 
 remonstrance with Cain's envy, for the accept- 
 ance of Abel's offering, is directed, not to the 
 mode of their Sacrifice, but to the good and 
 evil doings of their respective lives. " If thou 
 " doest well, shalt thou not be accepted 1 and 
 " if thou doest evil, sin lieth at the door." — Thus 
 also our Saviour directs us to " the blood of the 
 '* righteous Abel." x\ll these collateral illustra- 
 tions confirm the obvious sense of the text 
 of St. Paul. He affirms that Abel, by the ac- 
 ceptance of his Sacrifice, gained the testimony 
 of God, that he was a righteous man. He af- 
 firms, therefore, that it was his personal habit 
 of righteousness, to which God vouchsafed the 
 testimony of his approbation, by that acceptance 
 of his offering. The antecedent faith in God 
 which produced that habit of a religious life, 
 
128 AM's better Sacrifice. 
 
 commended his Sacrifice ; and the divine tes- 
 timony was not to the specijic form of his obla- 
 tions, but to his actual lighteousness. The 
 text may be put to the question, and by tor- 
 ture made to speak another sense, concerning 
 an Ordained Form of Sacrifice, or an Expia- 
 tory Character of it. The testimony which 
 it is ready to deliver, without force, or violence, 
 relates to neither; but to Abel's life, that "he 
 " was righteous." 
 
 Some criticism has been applied to the 
 phrase wXiiova. S-ua-iav, in order to determine the 
 sense of Tc-Aa'ova ; viz. whether it signifies a more 
 abundant, or simply a better. Sacrifice. The word 
 is capable of each signification: and I know of no 
 absolute criterion whereby to decide between 
 them. The " more abundant sacrifice" however 
 is the more probable signification of the pas- 
 sage ; because such is the more natural force 
 of the term isXiiovoc, when applied to a subject, as 
 ^\i(yixv, capable of measure and quantity. The 
 sense will be : " Abel's faith in God, as a Re- 
 " warder, induced him to oflfer a larger or more 
 ** copious Sacrifice." And in this interpreta- 
 tion of the passage we shall have the concur- 
 rence of a great judgment, with which, I reckon 
 it almost a pledge of the truth of any opinion, to 
 agree; that of Hooker, who writes thus inciden- 
 tally upon it. " In that they (our Offerings) are 
 
AheVs hello- Sac rijice. 129 
 
 *' testimonies oi our affection towards God, there 
 " is no doubt but such they should be as hc- 
 " seemeth most his glory to whom we offer 
 ** them. In this respect the fatness of Abel's 
 " Sacrifice is commended ; the flower of all meiis 
 " increase assigned to God by Solomon ; the 
 " gifts and donations of the people rejected as 
 *' oft as their affection to Godward made their 
 *' presents to be little icorth ;"* i. e. induced 
 them to offer things of little value. By which 
 observations it will be seen, at the same time, 
 how far this great writer was from disco- 
 vering in the text of St. Paul those peculiar 
 notions, which a more perplexed and artificial 
 scheme of theology than his would ascribe to it. 
 
 But it is time for me to take leave of the 
 Doctrinal Evidence, by which the Primitive Sa- 
 crifices and the Belief of an Atonement are 
 thought to be linked together. The examina- 
 tion of that Evidence has now been completed. 
 The result of it I shall leave with the judgment 
 of those who may think it worthy of their con- 
 sideration. But if I have justly represented the 
 genuine sense of the Scripture texts which are 
 adduced to jirove either the Expiatory charac- 
 ter, or the positive divine Institution of those 
 
 * Ecclcs. Polit. book \.. chap. 79- 
 K 
 
130 A Divine Institution of Sacrifice 
 
 Early Sacrifices, it must be granted that the 
 system of interpretation pursued for the pur- 
 poses of that proof, is of such a kind as can 
 turn only to the strength and support of the 
 contrary opinions. For when the comment is 
 made to exceed the Scripture text, and to 
 suborn its sense in some passages, and contra- 
 dict it in others, this undue management of the 
 authentic record which ought to be the stan- 
 dard of our opinions, becomes a sign, not only 
 of the weakness, but of the essential error and 
 fallacy, of the cause, to which such services 
 are necessary. 
 
 The grounds, then, of my First Position are 
 these : In the Historical Evidence of Scrip- 
 ture there is nothing to support the Divine 
 Institution of Primitive Sacrifice ; and the 
 negative argument, resulting from the silence 
 of ScrijDture on that head, is of material force. 
 The objections to its Human Institution have 
 been considered ; and, as I conceive, an- 
 swered; except with regard to Sacrifices of 
 Expiation. That kind of Sacrifice, therefore, 
 I have made the one decisive index of a Divine 
 Institution. But since the History of Early 
 Sacrifice keeps aloof from that positive character 
 of Expiation, I have shown that our former ne- 
 gative argument remains undisturbed, if not 
 
not till' prohahh' one. 131 
 
 rather confirmed. The Doctrinal Opinions 
 which have been advanced by learned writers, 
 to remedy the defects of the Historical Evi- 
 dence, have been examined. The licence and 
 unwarrantable nature of those opinions have 
 been argued. They who go so far as to agree 
 with me in the view which I have taken of 
 them, will consider them to have been refuted. 
 But, if only their great insecurity and weak- 
 ness be admitted, it will follow, that they are 
 not the kind of proof which can be received in 
 so important a question, and amount, at the 
 most, only to a doubtful and hazardous specu- 
 lation, utterly insufficient to redeem the failure 
 of the direct Historical Evidence. I consider 
 therefore that our conclusion is established: 
 "That a Divine Institution of Sacrifice 
 " cannot be maintained, as the more probable 
 " account of the Origin of that mode of Wor- 
 " ship." 
 
 END OF PART I. 
 
 K 2 
 
( 132 ) 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Human Origin of Sacrifice being a sup- 
 position which we are obliged to entertain, as 
 contesting the probability, at least, with that of 
 a Divine Institution, it becomes an object of mo- 
 ment to ascertain, whether the admission of its 
 Human Origin entails any dishonour upon the 
 Constitution of the Mosaic Law, or disturbs 
 the proper doctrine of the Atonement, which it 
 is the chief tenet of our Christian Faith, to 
 assert to have been wrought, for the Redemp- 
 tion of the World, by the Sacrifice of the Cross. 
 
 That this admission of the Human Origin of 
 Sacrifice infringes neither upon the Rites of 
 the Law, nor the Doctrine of the Gospel, is the 
 Second Proposition which I am engaged to 
 establish : and the vindication of the truth in 
 these essential points, I trust will be rendered 
 clear and consistent by the previous course of 
 investigation, through which the subject has led 
 me. 
 
 First, with regard to the Constitution of the 
 Law. The human beginnings of the anterior 
 
llumau Origin of Sacrifice not injnriom^, cSr- 13;j 
 
 Sacrificial Worship could not disqualify that 
 mode of worship for a place in the ordinances 
 of the Mosaic Religion, unless the Rite itself 
 were founded in some error of belief, or obli- 
 quity of practice. That no such error, or 
 obliquity, can be imputed to the simple cha- 
 racteristics of Sacrifice, when employed as 
 a rite of Eucharistic Worship, or of Peni- 
 tence and Intercession, has been sufficiently 
 argued already. And unless it can be shown 
 that it was a dangerous heresy, fit to be dis- 
 owned, which taught men to serve God with 
 oblations of Praise and Prayer, or that the 
 presentation of some portion of his Gifts, de- 
 voted again to his honour, or the substitution 
 of a dying Victim, offered to express the self- 
 condemnation of the Suppliant, were unreason- 
 able and faulty modes of exhibiting those sen- 
 timents of Gratitude, and Intercession; it must 
 be granted that both the Form and the Intent 
 of the prior worship would acquit it of any 
 heinous offence, on the part of Man, which 
 should subject it to the necessary rejection and 
 reprobation of God in the positive appointments 
 of his own Law. 
 
 And indeed it should seem that, if men in- 
 tended Thankfulness and Penitence by their 
 Sacrifices, then, to suppose that God would 
 proscribe those Sacrifices simply on account of 
 their human reason, would be equivalent to the 
 
134 Human Origin of Saiiifice 
 
 supposition that he must proscribe the essen- 
 tial duties of Thankfuhiess and Penitence, from 
 which they proceeded. But since the human 
 principle of them, in those intents, was pious 
 and rational, then again, unless there was some 
 collateral cause of objection, to vitiate their 
 use, and unfit them for his service, we must be 
 satisfied to admit, that they might take their 
 beginning from tl^e reason of Man, and yet not 
 be insufferable offences in the eyes of God, the 
 author of that Reason, nor utterly incapable of 
 becoming the adopted rites of a Revealed Order 
 of Religion. For if Sacrifice, because once prac- 
 tised withouta divine command, became thereby 
 for ever unworthy of a Divine Sanction, it would 
 equally follow that Prayer, Justice, Charity, 
 and all Piety and Duty, which had ever begun 
 upon the suggestions of human reason, must 
 fall under the same interdict of exclusion from 
 the Divine Law. 
 
 External Rites indeed are liable to abuse, 
 from which the essential Duties are free. But the 
 inconvenience and evil of any supposed abuse, 
 in Religion, amount only to an occasional, or a 
 prudential motive of rejection, not to an impe- 
 rative and constant reason against the subject 
 to which it attaches. If Superstition, therefore, 
 had corrupted Sacrifice before the institution 
 of the Mosaic Law, that previous corruption 
 would not of necessity bring a stigma upon the 
 
not injunons to the Mosaic Law or the GosjJeL 1 35 
 
 whole use of a Rite which had been piously 
 begun, and which the wisdom of God might 
 reform and adapt to his purposes. Whether 
 the Sacrificial Worship had undergone a great 
 change, and become grossly corrupted, so early 
 as at the institution of the Law, we have no 
 authentic testimony to inform us. The whole 
 history of Religion however, combined with the 
 known workings of the error and perversity of 
 Man, render it highly credible that such had 
 been the case. But upon this concession no- 
 thing decisive can be maintained. It would 
 still be only a rash assertion, to pronounce that 
 the supposed previous perversion of Sacrifice 
 must have been a reason sufficient to debar its 
 usage under the subsequent appointments of 
 Divine Law. Religion would have few of its 
 Ordinances safe, if every corruption of them 
 must condemn their use. 
 
 But this is not all that is to be said in reply 
 to those who think that the Human Origin of Sa- 
 crifice exposed it to rejection with God ; and 
 who think so with the more confidence, if Sacri' 
 fice, having been humanly invented at the first, 
 had also become corrupted. For if the corrup- 
 tion existed, that corruption of the Rite, and not 
 the origin of it, would be the fatal objection to 
 its further use. The evil of its superstitious ad- 
 herences, not the primary source of it, would be 
 the reason for rejecting it from the Mosaic Wor- 
 
136 Ilumaii Oiig'ut of Sacrifice 
 
 ship. This being so, I would demand, if Sacri- 
 fice had degenerated from its simplicity, and be- 
 come charged with Superstition, how the first 
 institution of it could make any difference in 
 the propriety or fitness of its subsequent adop- 
 tion? The evil, whatever it might be, could 
 neither be eMemiated by a Divine, nor aggra- 
 vated by a Human original of the worship. And 
 so we observe, in fact, that God himself after- 
 awards discarded and rejected the Sacrificial 
 Rites of his own institution, when they degene- 
 rated into formality, or were made the unworthy 
 substitute for all other duties. I conclude 
 therefore, that as the first Spontaneous Piety of 
 Sacrifice would not disqualify it for a Divine 
 Sanction, so neither would any incidental Su- 
 perstition, which might have been ingrafted 
 upon it, either in the Pagan, or the Israelitic 
 Worship, necessarily bring it under that dis- 
 qualification : and that the abuses of Supersti- 
 tion, to whatever extent they may have gone, 
 would be just of the same influence to exclude 
 Sacrifice from the Mosaic Law, whether the 
 first ordinance of it were Human, or Divine. 
 
 But then we are to consider that God had 
 purposes in view which rendered Sacrifice a fit 
 instrument of his worship, beyond the power of 
 all human abuse to disable and discredit its 
 adoption into his Law. 
 
not iiijuriona to the Mosaic Law or the Coqx'/. l.'>7 
 
 For, in the second place, the Mosaic Law- 
 was a dispensation of Religion joreparatory to 
 the introduction of the Christian. That Law was 
 neither, on the one hand, a mere republication 
 of Natural Religion ; which Religion is a very 
 real thing, though insufficient for the state of 
 Fallen Man ; nor was it, on the other, an anti- 
 cipated disclosure of Christianity : but it was 
 framed with a subserviency to the ulterior and 
 more perfect Economy of God ; that Economy, 
 which, in the work of it, is the offspring of his 
 unsearchable Wisdom and Mercy ; and in the 
 knowledge of it, is the gift of his pure Revelation. 
 Now this preparatory and subservient genius of 
 the Mosaic Religion is not the imaginary no- 
 tion of an artificial Theology, but the explicit 
 doctrine of the New Testament. It follows, 
 by this office and character which God assigned 
 to his first Code of Revealed Religion, that 
 some things in it would acquire a fitness and 
 wisdom of use, which, except for that introduc- 
 tory design of it, would have been left to their 
 mere original reason. The proper genius of the 
 Religion to be instituted would qualify them 
 anew ; and under God's superadded sanction 
 they would derive a second reasonableness and 
 propriety, conformable to his further purposes. 
 For it must be unequivocally maintained and 
 insisted on, that since God made this subordi- 
 nate design a principle in the constitution of his 
 
138 Human Origin of Sacrifice 
 
 Law, it becomes a rule and principle to our 
 judgment of that Law. Let me apply this view 
 of the Mosaic Law to our subject — the rite of 
 Sacrifice. 
 
 In the Mosaic Institutions Sacrifice is chief. 
 In Christianity the Sacrifice of the Redeemer 
 holds the same exalted place. In the institu- 
 tions of the Law it is not merely the Use, but 
 the Atoning Use, the cleansing Power, of Sacrifi- 
 cial blood, within the purposes of the Mosaic 
 Worship, that is ordained. In the Gospel Doc- 
 trines, the like Atoning virtue and efficacy of the 
 blood of the Redeemer, to the perfect pardon of 
 Sin, and the gift of Eternal Life, is the equally 
 conspicuous appointment. To judge of the 
 Christian Sacrifice upon principles of mere Na- 
 tural Religion, is to overlook the end for which 
 Revealed Religion was given. To judge of the 
 Mosaic Sacrifice without reference to the Chris- 
 tian, is to overlook the distinctive character of 
 the Mosaic, which is in its subserviency to the 
 Christian. To identify the use of the Mosaic 
 and the Christian Sacrifice is to confound their 
 relation. That relation consists in the one 
 being a Type, with an inferior application, not 
 the very image, or co-ordinate model, of the 
 other.* 
 
 * Hebr. chap. vii. viii. ix. x. 
 
not injurious to the Mosaic Laiv or the Gospel. 130 
 
 Sacrifice then, in the Mosaic Law, coming 
 into a participation of this general related cha- 
 racter which belongs to all the Legal Institutions, 
 I have to examine whether its first Human Ori- 
 ginal can disturb it, in regard either to the 
 symbolical design of the Law, or the essential 
 doctrine of the Gospel : in other words, whe- 
 ther that inferior Original can affect either the 
 Mosaic Type, or the Evangelical Truth, which 
 that Type represented. 
 
 I assert that the human origin of Sacrifice 
 has no such power of affecting either ; for this 
 reason. The human service of Oblations for Sin 
 I have shown could express only the guilt and 
 deserved death of the worshipper. Their prin- 
 ciple, on grounds of reason, never could reach to 
 the grant of Expiation and Atonement. That 
 grant is, and must be, wholly from God. His 
 appointment, therefore, of the Atoning power 
 of Sacrifice, whether under the Law, or under 
 the Gospel, is the sole and independent source 
 of that virtue and character of it. Nothing of 
 this virtue, or character, could be anticipated, 
 or discovered, by human reason. And nothing 
 which human reason did discover of the fitness 
 of Sacrifice, makes the smallest approach to the 
 new purposes and effects with which his Reve- 
 lation has invested it. The Worshipper, when 
 he brought his 6/>o/z^tf/i6w/,s Oblation, could render 
 
1 40 Human Origin of Sacrifice 
 
 only confession and penitence ; these were in his 
 power; whilst the gift of Atonement and assured 
 Reconciliation was equally beyond the resources 
 of Nature, and the discoveries of Reason. God 
 alone could confer the grace, or ordain the 
 authentic rite of it. And, on this single account, 
 the prerogative of Sacrifice, from the time when 
 it was adopted into the Divine Law, is inca- 
 pable of being assailed by any of the objec- 
 tions which have been thought to result from its 
 debased earthly original. There was a divine 
 reason in it, and a paramount power, when it 
 came from the hands of God, which the or- 
 dinance of man could never impart to it. 
 
 But Divines who have resisted the human 
 origin of Sacrifice, in the fear lest they should 
 forfeit the proper doctrine of Christianity con- 
 nected with the Rite, have not sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished its twofold character, nor reflected 
 upon the entire separation possible to be made 
 of the one from the other. They have supposed 
 that if Man invented Sacrifice, the greatest 
 doctrine of the Gospel must lose its mystery 
 and its superior import, and be reduced either 
 to a figure, or to an adaptation to an ordinary 
 usage of human piety. Their supposition was 
 just, if man had discovered all that God has 
 revealed and ordained. But God's ixvclation 
 .was in the Atonement. And man's discovery 
 
nut injurious Id the Mosaic hair or the Gospel. 141 
 
 was only in the Guilt. — Things as wide asun- 
 der, as the Disease and the Remedy of it. 
 
 Moreover the visible cohtcidence, which ob- 
 tains in the Act of Sacrijice, on the part of man, 
 when he brought his victim to be slain, with 
 the method of the Redemption appointed by 
 God, creates no difficulty or embarrassment in 
 the case. That coincidence is not the conse- 
 quence of God's adaptation of his method to 
 man's worship, nor of man's previous knowledge 
 of God's design ; but it is the consequence of 
 his own constitution of things. For consider the 
 case. The death of the victim, in man's wor- 
 ship, was introduced in correspondence with, 
 and conformity to, God's Law, which had made 
 dcatli the wages of Sin. Now, that God in 
 framing the method of our Redemption, by the 
 deatli of Christ, had a regard to the sentence of 
 his own law, is undeniable ; inasmuch as the 
 Redeemer's death is explained, in Scripture, to 
 be the positive countervailing ransom to the de- 
 creed penalty of the Law. But this resulting 
 correspondence, betv/een the ixdeembig death 
 of Christ and the penal death of the Law, is 
 altogether the effect of God's own order and 
 constitution of things — the plan of his Mercy 
 adapted to the sanction of his Justice. And 
 thus, although man's Sacrifice happened to exhi- 
 bit a victim's death, and a victim's death, in the 
 Gospel, is the vehicle of our Redemption, it is 
 
1 42 Human Origin of Sacrifice 
 
 manifest that man had not the most distant fore^ 
 knowledge of that mystery, nor any notions, 
 in his Sacrifice, to which God adapted ih^YQUve- 
 dial provision ; except so far as those notions 
 expressed the condemning sentence of the Law: 
 whilst it was the sole work and privilege of 
 God to appoint, and reveal, the Expiation to be 
 effected by the death of the Redeemer. 
 
 Nor is it only the Real Atonement of the 
 Gospel, but the Symbolical System of the Mo- 
 saic Worship, that is rescued from dishonour, 
 by a just consideration of the distant and defec- 
 tive nature of Sacrifice, so long as it remains the 
 mere creation of human reason. For the Typical 
 and Symbolical force of the Mosaic Worship de- 
 pends upon its adaptation and analogy to the fu- 
 ture Sacrifice of the Gospel. And since our own 
 earthly worship could not discover or exhibit 
 the real Atonement of the Gospel, no more could 
 it touch the representative design of the Mo- 
 saic Service. The human rite was neither a 
 real, nor a symbolical. Atonement. For to in- 
 vent a Type, or an adequate Symbol, implies a 
 knowledge of the reality. This knowledge man 
 could never attain to by his own means. How 
 could he soar to heaven in his ideas, to foresee 
 the Sacrifice of the Son of God ? And therefore 
 the Legal Atonements, inasmuch as they are the 
 sio-n of the Christian one, and that is their true 
 
not injurious to the Mosaic Law or the Gospel. 143 
 
 specific character, are as far above any collision 
 with the mere human Rites, as the Christian Sa- 
 crifice itself is above all competition with them. 
 Christianity, as the sequel and completion of 
 the Mosaic Law, has vindicated the Mosaic 
 Symbols : and demonstrated to the world, that 
 God had a sufficient end and purpose in their 
 institution. 
 
 In this one sentence of the Mosaic Law, then, 
 "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I 
 " have given it to you to make an ato)2emeut 
 " for your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh 
 " an atonement for the soul :" there is a Reve- 
 lation conveyed, which plants the Atoning prin- 
 ciple of the Mosaic and the Evangelical Sacri- 
 fice : prefigurative and symbolical, in the one ; 
 real, efficacious, all-powerful, in the other. To 
 this region of Atonement and Expiation Human 
 Reason could never rise. The Genius which 
 inhabits it is that incomprehensible and un- 
 searchable Wisdom, which *' dwells in light, 
 *' which no man can approach unto." And '* who 
 *' hath known the mind of the Lord, or who 
 *' hath been his counsellor," in these appoint- 
 ments, which his wisdom and mercy, alone, 
 have conspired to ordain, and accomplish ? 
 
 But if Reaso7i did not attain to any insight 
 into this mystery, perhaps it will be thought 
 that Superstition did. For I need not inform 
 
144 Human Origin of Sacrifice 
 
 my readers that Pagan Religion believed in 
 that E.vpiatory power of Sacrifice, which I have 
 concluded that God only could either ordain 
 or reveal. The reply to this surmise is ob- 
 vious. Superstition, by an easy corruption 
 of mind, might soon come to think, that the ani- 
 mal Victim was not merely the representative 
 of a deserved punishment, in which use it was 
 rational ; but the real equivalent for it, in which 
 sense it was most unreasonable :. and thus re-' 
 sort to Sacrifice for Pardon, as well as Con- 
 fession. But this ignorance and falsehood of 
 the mind of man could not impeach the dignity, 
 or the truth, of God's appointments. The su- 
 perstitious Sacrifice was no image of the real 
 and efficacious One. And God, who had or- 
 dained the Atoning Sacrifice of the Gospel 
 from the foundation of the world, owed no 
 change of his purpose, or of the Typical repre- 
 sentation of it, to the vanity of human corrup- 
 tions. It remains, that He is " found true, and 
 every man a liar," in this whole system of the 
 Evangelical Atonement. 
 
 These considerations I address to the Ortho- 
 dox Believer, who entertains no doubt of the 
 Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement, 
 but harbours a fear lest the admission of the 
 human origin of Sacrifice should give a shock to 
 that doctrine. They are the considerations hj 
 
tntt injurious (o (lie Mosaic JjOW or f/te Gospel. 145 
 
 which I am entirely convinced and satisfied my- 
 self, that no collision can take place between Sa- 
 crifice in its prior human usage, if such an usage 
 it had, and its Mosaic, or its Evangelical import. 
 And since the state of the Scripture Evidence is 
 such as to render the human institution of it, in 
 the Primitive Times, at the least a probable opi- 
 nion; since we cannot urge the contrary notion 
 of its Divine Origin, without taking a great li- 
 berty in our argument, and doing violence to 
 the documents we possess, by extorting from 
 them a sense which they are unwilling to 
 speak ; I reckon it a more satisfactory mode 
 of proceeding with the whole question, to ex- 
 amine, as I now have done, w^hethcr the human 
 origin of Sacrifice may not be reconciled with 
 those confessed principles which we hold, and 
 which are only thought to be in danger from that 
 human institution, than to sophisticate, or mis- 
 shape the evidence which there is in favour of 
 that institution, upon the fear, that by admitting 
 it, we encounter some formidable objection. 
 Whether the considerations which I have stated 
 may appear in the same light to others, who are 
 concerned for the integrity of Scripture Faith, 
 and are best satisfied when that Faith can be 
 defended without infringement upon other ap- 
 parent truths, or reasonable opinions, I shall not 
 pretend to determine. I can only submit them 
 
 L 
 
1 46 Jleflexions on the recent conduct 
 
 to their judgment ; in the hope, that what 
 carries conviction to my own, may not seem 
 wholly destitute of reason to other minds. 
 
 But either there has been some essential mis- 
 take, or a singular misfortune, in the several de- 
 terminations of this question. For the Fathers 
 of the Christian Church in its first days, read the 
 Old Testament, and understood the doctrine of 
 the New% and they thought that Abel offered 
 his Sacrifice of his own will, though they knew 
 that nothing but the Will of God could be 
 found in the Sacrifice of Christ ; and thus 
 they held an opinion, of the origin of Sacri- 
 fice, which it has become an object of modern 
 Theology, not merely to disprove, but to defame, 
 as if it were incompatible with all reverence 
 either for the Mosaic, or the Christian Religion. 
 This, at the best, is a cheerless and unsatisfac- 
 tory state of the controversy. For although the 
 Fathers of the Church are neither to be reck- 
 oned infallible, nor free from serious error, yet 
 it is a mortification to our charity, in our 
 Communion with them, to find that any impor- 
 tant opinion, which they have taught, should 
 be deemed to be at variance with the founda- 
 tions of our Faith. One would wish to think 
 there might be piety and safety in their errour ; 
 although if we have been blessed, in later times. 
 
of the Controveisi/. 147 
 
 with some superior light, there can be no reason 
 for us to retain their mistakes, but only to spare 
 their honour and memory. But when the Pri- 
 mitive Fathers took their impression from the 
 Scripture history, concerning the First appoint- 
 ment of Sacrifice, I believe that they derived it 
 by reading, in this instance, with a candour and 
 ingenuousness of mind, which we should do 
 well to imitate. And if, in the end, that impres- 
 sion shall be seen to be in perfect accordance 
 with the sanctity of the Mosaic Law, and with 
 the fundamental tenet of the Gospel, then we 
 may have the satisfaction of reading the Scrip- 
 ture History in its obvious sense, and under- 
 standing it, in agreement with the Primitive 
 Church, without detriment to our most exalted 
 Christian Belief 
 
 Nor has it been a satisfactory, or a gracious 
 circumstance, in the conduct of this discussion, 
 that writers of such a name as Spencer and 
 Warburton, with whom must be joined Tillot- 
 son and others, have been represented to the 
 utmost disadvantage in their opinions on the 
 Rise of Sacrifice. They have gone, it is true, 
 into some grave mistakes which merited a Ju- 
 dicious correction. Yet it was scarcely to be 
 thought that persons of so great a command of 
 learning and information, should be totally 
 
 l2 
 
148 Hefiexiom on the recetd conduct 
 
 blind in their inquiries, and follow a mere phan- 
 tom in a question which they undertook to in- 
 vestigate. Nor was it credible that they should 
 adopt the belief of the human institution of 
 Sacrificial Worship, if that belief were not only 
 contrary to the evidence applicable to the in- 
 quiry, but destructive of piety and Christian 
 Faith, and such as deserved to have the re- 
 proach of Infidel Sophistry retorted upon it. 
 Their notions I am far from admitting in the 
 most important branch of Sacrifice; that which 
 relates to the doctrine of Atonement. The ge- 
 neral position, however, which they have taken, 
 had a fair presumption of authority from the 
 Scripture History to support it ; and their mis- 
 take has been in the want of selection and dis- 
 crimination. In departing from their judgment, 
 therefore, I see no sufficient cause why we 
 should treat their theory as a heresy of the first 
 rank, unmixed with any mitigation to redeem 
 it from an acrimonious censure of dissent. 
 Nor can it conduce to the authority and recep- 
 tion of any conclusions, either with the Ortho- 
 dox, or with the Erring Believer, to have it seen, 
 that they are conclusions built upon the unqua- 
 lified contradiction of the most studied prin- 
 ciples, and finished writings, of such justly cele- 
 brated men. For the system which rises upon 
 a wide and promiscuous ruin, may indeed main- 
 
of the Cotttroversi/. 149 
 
 tain its ground. But when the new fabric costs 
 so much in the disturbance and demolition of 
 things around it, though it may be admired for 
 its boldness, the fewer minds may be disposed 
 to make it the asylum and place of rest for 
 their speculation. And thus the best cause 
 may lose proselytes. 
 
 END OF PAIIT 11. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The third and last Position, which I have 
 stated to be among the results of our Inves- 
 tigation, is, That " There exists no tenable 
 " ground for maintaining, that any disclosure 
 " was made, in the Primitive Times, of a con^ 
 " oie.vion between the Rite of Sacrifice, if that 
 *' Rite be still assumed to have been divinely 
 " appointed, and the future E.vpiatory Sacrifice 
 " of the Gospel" In this position I mean to 
 say, that, if Sacrifice was ordained by God in 
 its original usage, we have no warrant for 
 
150 No Scripture Evidence of an Early 
 
 thinking that it was ordained by him any other- 
 wise, than in unrevealed mystery. His ordi- 
 nance, indeed, would confer upon the Rite a 
 Typical character. But of that Typical and 
 Representative character, the luminous side 
 would be turned to us, who know its corre- 
 sponding object in the Christian Scheme, whilst 
 its dark side alone, so far as we can judge, was 
 presented to the Ancient Worshipper. 
 
 The position which I here offer is a negative 
 one. It simply denies that we have any evi- 
 dence of a revelation having been granted 
 to the Primitive Age, of the mystical nature 
 of Sacrifice, in its relation to the Evangelical 
 Atonement. The truth, or falsehood, of this 
 position admits of an easy determination. For 
 since we clearly have no right, or just pretence, 
 to assume an important revelation to have come 
 from God, without some positive record, or 
 intelligible notice, of it; if the Scripture make 
 no mention of it, nor contain any allusion to 
 it, this silence alone is sufficient to decide the 
 point at issue. 
 
 With respect, then, to any disclosure made 
 to the First Race of Men, concerning the mys- 
 tical import of their own Sacrifices, or the Ex- 
 piatory office of a future Redeeming Sacrifice, 
 1 assert, that there are no traces discernible, no 
 
Revelation of the Christian Atonement. IjI 
 
 proofs obvious or implied, of any such early com- 
 munication of those principles of Divine Truth. 
 The Oblations of the Old World, whatever they 
 were, are invested with no intelligible signs 
 of the peculiar nature of the Christian Redemp- 
 tion ; signs, I mean, declaratory to that age of 
 the Sacrifice of the Redeemer. Nothing that 
 is recorded of their intent, in the sentiments 
 and faith of the Worshipper, or of their accept- 
 ance with God, indicates that the ancient be- 
 liever when he brought his Victim to the Altar, 
 beheld in foresight, or expectation, the Holy 
 Victim, ordained to expiate the Sins of the 
 World upon the Altar of the Cross. And since 
 no indication of that kind can be pretended, or 
 alleged, it follows, that we can never be justi- 
 fied in ascribing to the Primitive Religion dis- 
 coveries of supernatural information, model- 
 led according to our own ideas; discoveries, 
 the knowledge of which is derived to our- 
 selves from the subsequent and more complete 
 records of Holy Writ, in a more advanced pe- 
 riod of the Divine Revelation. 
 
 For as to the persuasion which is so confi- 
 dently indulged, that the Object of FaitJi has 
 been in all ages one and the same, it is true in 
 one sense, erroneous in another. One object 
 of Faith has been always the same ; that object. 
 
152 No Scripture Evidoice of fin Barft/ 
 
 the Redeemer. The original promise, in Para- 
 dise, created this prospect of Faith, to be the 
 light and hope of the world for ever. But that 
 original promise could not be interpreted by 
 itself into the several parts of its appointed 
 completion. The general prediction of the Re- 
 deeming Seed, " It shall bruise thy head, and 
 ** thou shalt bruise his heel," though adequate 
 in the mind of God to the determinate form of 
 the Christian Redemption, could not be so 
 deduced into its final sense by the mind of 
 man. And since there is no other promise, or 
 prediction, extant, applicable to the faith of 
 the First Ages, and explanatory of the mode 
 of the Christian Redemption, we can justly 
 ascribe no other knowledge of that Redemp- 
 tion to those Ages, than such as is compre- 
 hended in the proper and apparent sense of 
 that first Evangelical promise; in which the 
 particular notion of a Sacrifice of E.vpiatiou 
 or Atonement, or indeed of any Sacrifice, was 
 then impossible to be discerned. It was the 
 office of later Revelation to fill up the design 
 of this Promise : and Revelation alone could 
 do it. For the deductions of Supernatural 
 Truth are not within the sphere of the human 
 intellect. They are not to be inferred, as 
 discoverable conclusions, from one primary 
 principle. A Redeemer being foretold; his 
 
Revelation of the Christian Atonement. 1.53 
 
 Divine Nature, his Incarnation, the Vicari- 
 ous nature of his Sufferings, his Death, and 
 the Atoning Efficacy of it, all these, though 
 real connexions of truth, comprehended, with 
 the original promise, in the scheme of the 
 Divine Economy, come down to man, like new 
 streams of light, by their separate channels; 
 and when they are communicated in their 
 proper form, then we know them ; not before. 
 Since, then, the general prediction of the Re- 
 deemer did not extend to the articles of Sacri- 
 fice and Expiation, those articles could not be 
 discovered by that prediction : and there is 
 no other prediction remaining, whereby we 
 can enlarge the Primitive Faith as directed to 
 the scheme of Redemption. " It shall bruise 
 thy Ilea d, thou shalt bruise his heel," was a great 
 record, which foretold a conjiict, and a prevailing 
 victory with suffering. To this extent the Pri- 
 mitive Faith was instructed. But the notions of 
 Expiation, Sacrijice, or even DeatJi, are beyond 
 the scope of that primary information. We de- 
 rive them from other parts of Scripture, and 
 from the Event. It is the mere inconsequence 
 of our reasoning to elicit them from the Para- 
 disaical promise. 
 
 But there is a second mode of reasoning which 
 is pursued, for enlarging the knowledge of the 
 
154 No Scripture Evidence of an Earli/ 
 
 Primitive Race in the doctrines of the Chris- 
 tian Redemption, It is said, that it is highly 
 probable that other important revelations were 
 made to the First Ages, besides these which 
 have come down to us in Holy Writ ; and 
 among those suppressed revelations might be 
 included more copious, or more exact disclo- 
 sures of the Expiatory Scheme of the Christian 
 Atonement. 
 
 To the whole of this hypothesis I answer, 
 that the records of the Primitive Religion, 
 as contained in the Scripture, clearly were 
 not designed for the complete history of the 
 earlier revelations made to man. The inter- 
 course which God vouchsafed, both by his Pre- 
 sence and his Word, no doubt, comprehended 
 communications which it has not been deemed 
 fit for us to know. But then I say also, that 
 those withdrawn communications are gone, and 
 we cannot revive them. They are gone, with 
 those past ages, and with the servants of God 
 who enjoyed them, into unseen and inaccessible 
 repositories, where, I believe, nothing of Divine 
 Truth, which has ever been communicated, is 
 lost ; but they are recesses which we cannot ex- 
 plore. And therefore when the fountain of in- 
 spiration has run dry in its source, it is in vain for 
 us to replenish it from our broken cisterns. And 
 this is the great error, as I reckon it to be, to 
 
Revelation of the C/iristian Atonement. 155 
 
 which the zeal of a well-mtentioned piety is so 
 prone, in the wish to enlarge and supply the con- 
 tents of the Sacred Volume, and digest it anew, 
 in some of its greatest topics, upon conjecture. 
 A more correct senseof the prudence and piety 
 of such attempts would go far to reclaim us 
 from them. For the imprudence is too manifest 
 in the hazard of these incorporated additions. 
 They commonly introduce some difficulty, or 
 contradiction, into the scheme of Revelation, 
 which is not merely a collection of doctrines, 
 but of doctrines delivered and unfolded in 
 a given order; and the method of the Spirit of 
 God it is not for us to regulate. Whilst 
 therefore we seem to be taking a method to 
 harmonise Revelation, our very principle may 
 be that of confusion. And there is so great a 
 satisfaction in beholding the face of Truth, as 
 it comes from the throne of God, with a cer- 
 tainty in the reality of its revelation, that I 
 know of no compensation which the mind 
 can receive for the loss, or diminution, of 
 an entire confidence in that certainty. Let 
 the substituted, or adventitious doctrines, be 
 what they may, the authentic stamp is want- 
 ing which should give them their transcen- 
 dent value. 
 
 A second danger, involved in these at- 
 tempts is, that wc embarrass our cause ill the 
 
156 No Scripture Evidence of an Earli/ 
 
 argument with Heresy and Errour. When 
 we mix human hypothesis and divine truth 
 together, we make a vulnerable theology ; we 
 claim assent to positions of which the mere 
 denial is equivalent to a refutation ; and in that 
 case I do not see how the great interests of 
 Revelation, or the honour of its defenders, can 
 escape unhurt ; if their honour is to be placed in 
 the strength of their reasoning, and not merely 
 in the general credit of their cause. And of 
 these consequences, had our own reflexion been 
 insufficient to give the previous warning, an 
 experience of the state of some past, or existing 
 Controversies, might have supplied the obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Such, therefore, are the reasons upon which 
 I decline altogether the admission of hypo- 
 thetical assumptions, not recognised in Scrip- 
 ture, intended to complete the history of the 
 Primitive Religion, with respect either to the 
 doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement, or any 
 other articles of Supernatural Faith. They 
 form my own plea for the account which I 
 give of that history ; and I leave them to the 
 reception which others may choose to grant 
 them. I might indeed go further in question- 
 ing the piety of those auxiliary speculations, 
 which are meant to form a supplement to the 
 
Revelation of I he Chrislidn Atonement. 1,j7 
 
 oracles of Scripture. But I forbear to pursue 
 that topic ; interposing only a wish, that it 
 might be well considered, whether such piety 
 can be acquitted of some degree of presump- 
 tion and levity of mind. 
 
 But further, although I have little occasion 
 to examine into the nature of supposed Revela- 
 tions, now witlidrawn, yet I shall observe, that 
 whatever enlargements to their knowledge the 
 First Generations of men might have received, 
 it cannot be granted, as in any degree probable, 
 that those enlargements materially varied the 
 object of their Faith, such as it is represented 
 in the book of Genesis. For then, in that case, 
 the Sacred Volume would convey to us not 
 merely a concise, but an ill-proportioned his- 
 tory of Religion. If other articles of faith 
 were communicated, eMemUng the range , of 
 knowledge on the subject of the Christian 
 Economy, those articles would leave the pre- 
 sent record something different from what all 
 persons of any reflexion or seriousness of mind 
 must concur in understanding it to be : a Just, 
 though bi^ief] and getieral delineation, of the 
 state of Revealed Religion in the Primitive 
 World. And this is a consequence which for- 
 bids me to entertain the belief that those more 
 
158 No Scripture Evidence of an EarJi/ 
 
 eMencled communications e.visted: although, if 
 we admit the belief of them, we should still 
 be at a loss how to determine their particular 
 nature. The sum of our disquisitions, in the 
 whole of this subject, could only be ignorance 
 and uncertainty. 
 
 The prophecy of Enoch is a document upon 
 which I have already offered some observa- 
 tions, to which, if they are of any value, I have 
 nothing new to add. That prophecy speaks of 
 the Judicial advent of the Lord with his saints 
 (his angels, I presume). A scene of judgment, 
 so described, adds nothing to the knowledge of 
 the method of Redemption. Enoch's prophecy, 
 therefore, unless it contained articles wholly 
 unknown to us, could not impart the notions of 
 the Sacrifice and Atonement of the Redeemer : 
 and thus our inquiries come back to the same 
 point, destitute of information in the Primitive 
 Creed, as it respected that Atonement, or the 
 connexion of Sacrifice with it. 
 
 Nor is it without some degree of incon- 
 sistency, that we see the members of the Pro- 
 testant Church conceding, in this subject, the 
 use and authority of a principle, which it has 
 been the business of the Reformation to reduce 
 to its proper place; the use and authority of 
 
ReveiatiuH of I lie Chrht'uui Atonement. 1.j9 
 
 Tradition, in conveying articles of supernatural 
 doctrine not committed to Scripture. For all 
 that is commonly asserted of those primary 
 revelations concerning the mystery of our Re- 
 demption, as having been given to the First 
 Ages, and conveyed down, in succession, to the 
 Following Ages of the Ancient Church, is an 
 admission, that great truths, beyond the record 
 of Holy Writ, truths of pure and authoritative 
 revelation, were entrusted to that extraneous 
 channel of conveyance: and that there ex- 
 isted a second, a collateral Canon, of Unwritten 
 Doctrine. An admission, which seems not more 
 derogatory to the Scripture, than inconsistent 
 with the main maxim of our Protestant Be- 
 lief. Before the rise of the Written Scripture, 
 Tradition, of necessity, was the record of Faith. 
 But since those primary revelations, not now 
 extant in Holy Writ, are said to have been 
 transmitted to the Following Ages for their in- 
 struction, after the Mosaic Scripture was given, 
 there still would be the flaw and opprobrium of 
 an Unwritten Faith in the Ancient Church of 
 Israel ; and that which we disclaim for our own 
 Church we ought not to impute to theirs. So 
 long as we pretend, that they divided their faith 
 between Scripture and Tradition, we give the 
 Romanist the Mosaic Church on his side : a 
 
iGO No Scripture Evidence of an Earl if 
 
 concession which involves no immaterial part 
 of the pri/iciple in debate between us and 
 the Romanist. And although the doctrines, 
 thus ascribed to the Mosaic Church, may be 
 such as are found contained in the later Scrip- 
 ture, that is no defence of the ascription of 
 them to the earlier age. For the question 
 is not, whether the doctrines in themselves be 
 true, but whether the Ancient Church had 
 the faith of them : of which we make an un- 
 known and unrecorded tradition the witness. 
 These are things which require a serious revi- 
 sion. 
 
 By such considerations as I have now of- 
 fered, for restricting our ideas of the Primitive 
 Faith to those records of it which are actually 
 contained in Scripture, and our interpretation 
 of those records to their inherent and legitimate 
 sense, without enlargement or addition, I think 
 it sufficiently shown that we possess no evi- 
 dence authorising us to attribute to the First 
 Ages an insight into the Typical nature of Sa- 
 crifice, or a knowledge of its relation to the 
 Death and Atonement of the Redeemer. The 
 doctrine of the Atonement is of the very es- 
 sence of the Christian Faith ; it is the chief 
 article of its characteristic system ; but it is also 
 
Jlevelotion of the Christian Atonement. iDl 
 
 that one point of its system which is among the 
 latest touched upon in the predictions of Pro- 
 phecy, not being directly introduced in a spe- 
 cific notice, so far as I know, before the pre- 
 dictions of the prophet Isaiah. For although 
 some of the prophetic Psalms foreshow the 
 sufferings of the Messiah, they do not exhibit 
 the Vica?'ious and Ed'piatory import of those 
 sufferings, as the prophecy of Isaiah does. The 
 unsearchable nature, therefore, of this doctrine 
 of the Atonement, and its late appearance in 
 the Volume of Prophecy, equally tend to dis- 
 countenance the belief, either that man had ex- 
 plored, by means of Sacrifice, or by any other 
 prophetic sign, or that God had communicated, 
 in the prime of the World, a knowledge of this 
 the most transcendent part of his counsel in the 
 Evangelical Dispensation. 
 
 We are confirmed, in this negative belief, by 
 some significant testimonies in the New Tes- 
 tament. For the system of the Gospel is de- 
 scribed there as " the mystcrij which hath been 
 ** hid from ages, and from generations, but now 
 " is made manifest to his saints." (Coloss. i. 2G.) 
 " The mi/stcrij which from the beginning of the 
 " world hath been hid in God." {Epkcs. iii. 9.) 
 These passages do not import, that no disclo- 
 sure of the plan of the Gospel Redemption had 
 been granted to the foregone ages ; but no dis- 
 
 M 
 
l62 Efirli/ Revelation of the Atonement. 
 
 closure sufficient to put men in possession of 
 the perfect truth. Prophecy had been a con- 
 tinual and advancing developement of it. The 
 same Apostle therefore describes *' the Gosjjcl 
 " of God as that which he had promised afore 
 " by his prophets in the holy scripture;' {Rom. i. 
 2.) and " as the jxvdation of the mystery, which 
 " was kept secret since the world began, but 
 " now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of 
 " the prophets;'' (xvi. 25.) and " as being wit- 
 *' nessed by the Law and the prophets ." These 
 are passages, which refer us to no wnoritten com- 
 munications, explanatory of this great secret of 
 God, but to the authentic evidence of the Law 
 and the Prophets, contained in the Scripture. 
 
 I shall not attempt to compose the strife and 
 competition, which these combined texts of the 
 Apostle so forcibly express, between the revela- 
 tion and the mystery, by measuring out in pre- 
 cise degrees^ how much of the cloud of prophe- 
 tic Truth was full of light, and how much of it 
 wrapped in darkness, to the eye of ancient Faith. 
 The attempt at such a partition is unsatisfactory to 
 one's own mind, unconvincing to others. But since 
 the Apostle, even in his day, treats the Gospel 
 as a mystery, which had been hidden in some 
 respects from the ages and generations before ; 
 and since the Vicarious Sacrifice and Atone- 
 ment form the very heart and centre of that 
 
Ujiwarratitahle tiotiotis of Early Hevelations. l63 
 
 mystery, all I ask is, that in those ages, when 
 no prophecy, applicable to the revelation of 
 this the deepest of the hidden things of God, 
 can be produced, we may not, upon the sug- 
 gestion of human hypothesis, be required to as- 
 sume discoveries of it, where it has itself left 
 no track of light behind, whereby to fix our 
 eye, and command our adoration. For these 
 effluxes of Revealed Truth are so sacred, when 
 real, that the false representation of them 
 ought never to be permitted to usurp our ho- 
 mage. 
 
 To what extent this freedom, however, has 
 been carried, in the interpolation of the Primi- 
 tive Creed, cannot be unknown to those who 
 are even so moderately acquainted with the 
 state of Theological opinion, either in our own 
 times, or in those which have preceded. As 
 an example of it in its more prominent form, 1 
 shall subjoin a passage from Bochart. The 
 passage expresses at large what may be found 
 diffused through many other authors. For the 
 same notions are traditional, and derived into 
 the writings of a numerous class of divines ; 
 some of our own country and our own age. 
 But I purposely select the example from the 
 writings of a remote author, that the allegation 
 of it may be the less liable to invidious re- 
 al 2 
 
164 VmoarrnutahJc )iotions of Early Revelations. 
 
 flexions : whilst that author himself is one, who, 
 
 by his great erudition, piety, and high esteem 
 
 in the Reformed Church, might give credit to 
 
 error, if Truth were not above the authority of 
 
 men's names and persons. " In Abel," says 
 
 Bochart, " every thing was different. For he 
 
 '* knew that God had appointed these Sacrifices 
 
 " of lambs for a fgure of the Sacrijice to be 
 
 " offered for us by Christ, in whom alone he 
 
 ** had placed his whole hope of salvation and 
 
 *' reliance. Therefore, in slaying the lamb, he 
 
 *' thought of the Lamb slain for us before the 
 
 *' foundations of the earth were laid. Pouring 
 
 ** forth the blood of the Victim, he had Christ in 
 
 *' his mind, who was aftervs'ards to shed his 
 
 *' blood for the remission of sin. In the fire 
 
 " sent down from heaven, as shall immediately 
 
 " be explained, by w^hich that part of the vic- 
 
 ** tim was consumed which had been reserved 
 
 " for God, he beheld an image of the divine 
 
 " wrath justly kindled against sinners, and de- 
 
 " manding of right, the punishment due, from 
 
 *' Christ our Surety and Redeemer. Finally 
 
 ''feeding upon the remaining ^e^/j of the same 
 
 '* Victim, by faith he embraeed Christ, whose 
 
 " flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink 
 
 *' indeed : so that whosoever eateth his flesh 
 
 " or drinketh his blood, hath eternal life."* 
 
 * Hierozoic. torn. i. p. 5oQ. 
 
Unioarrautahle iiutints of Edrlij Revehitiom. l6.5 
 
 Here is a person, a prodigy of learning, who 
 has written from the Behemoth to the Worm, 
 and accumulated on the Natural History of 
 Scripture, and on the Geography, Migrations, 
 and Language of the Ancient World, the stores 
 of a vast and capacious reading which had car- 
 ried him from the East to the West, through 
 ancient and through modern knowledge ; who 
 yet errs in judgment so far, as to offer to us for 
 the Primeval Faith, what it cost the revelation 
 of the last line of the Prophets, and the Advent 
 of the Saviour himself, to discover to the World. 
 When such men set the example of this licen- 
 tious theology, that divine science is turned 
 adrift on a wide sea, where every man sails by 
 his own star, and has his doctrine, and his in- 
 terpretation. It ceases, however, to afford any 
 cause of surprise, that inferior writers should 
 avail themselves of the precedent: or, if the 
 like views originate in their own minds, that 
 they should be pursued to any length, leaving 
 Scripture at a distance far behind : for the use, 
 I suppose, of more modest inquirers. 
 
 A second shorter quotation of the same 
 stamp I shall produce from Lamy ; a writer of 
 no small authority in some subjects, of none 
 whatever in this. " God," he presumes to 
 say, " revealed this mystery to Adam; namely, 
 " that the Son of God was afterwards to mfjer in 
 
l66 Unwarranlalde notions of JEaiiy Revelations. 
 
 " the same flesh which he had from him (Adam), 
 " and therefore that the value of his sufferings 
 ** was infinite."* The Incarnation of the Son 
 of God is here asserted to have been revealed 
 to Adam. It is an assertion, of which we shall 
 ask in vain for the proof. 
 
 The evil and disservice done to Truth 
 by unscriptural positions like these is great. 
 They bring in a wrong principle; they enforce 
 a comment without a text; and they put to 
 shame the modesty of Scripture, which is 
 made to appear a feeble, indigent, and ill- 
 informed witness of things, compared with the 
 extraordinary disclosures which the expositor 
 furnishes from the fund of his inventive and 
 exuberant interpretation. And the greater la- 
 titude of this freedom gives a kind of unsus- 
 pecting confidence to the less degrees of it. 
 For if some persons go to the Antipodes of Scrip- 
 ture, others, who follow them only a part of the 
 way, will feel assured that they are pursuing 
 the right course ; whereas all that is cer- 
 tain, is no more than this, that they are not 
 equally deviating from it. Instead of adopt- 
 ing these unauthenticated revelations of Bo- 
 chart, Lamy, and others like to them, I reflect 
 much upon the wisdom of a saying of Hilary, 
 
 * Laniy, Apparat. Bibl. p. 173. ed. 8vo. 
 
Outline of (lie Coii/sc of Reveldtioii. Ui? 
 
 a saying produced by Lamy himself, who has 
 given it his praise, although he has so strangely 
 forgotten its application. " Optimus ille Scrip- 
 *' turarum lector est," says the ancient Father, 
 " qui dictorum intelligentiam e.vpectet potius ex 
 *' dictis, quc\m imponat: et retulerit magis qu^m 
 *' attulerit : neque cogat id videri dictis con- 
 " tineri quod ante lectionem prsesumpserit in- 
 *'* telligendum."* 
 
 I have thus assigned my reasons, why I 
 decline to admit into our view of the Primitive 
 Religion a knowledge of doctrines, of which 
 knowledge there is no adequate testimony con- 
 tained in Scripture. But that I may not reject 
 the ideas of others with an ill grace, without 
 offering my own, I shall go on to propose an out- 
 line of the state and progress of Ancient Faith ; 
 such as I conceive is more commensurate with 
 the Records of Holy Writ, the only legitimate 
 standard of opinion in our inquiry into the 
 doctrines of Supernatural Faith, or into the 
 actual communication of them to the world. 
 
 I. In the First Age, the Fallen State of Man 
 is accompanied with a Divine Promise, that 
 the seed of the Woman should bruise the Ser- 
 
 * Appaiat. Bibl. p. 451. flilarius dc Triuit, lib. i. 
 sect. IB. 
 
168 Outline of Revelation on the 
 
 pent's head. In this promise is comprehended 
 the prospect of Redemption. But the specific 
 doctrine of Atonement, or Expiation, by Sacrifice, 
 is not communicated by it: neither is the doc- 
 trine of the Divine Nature and Incarnation of 
 the Redeemer. For the description given 
 under that title " of the Seed of the Woman" 
 could convey no idea of his Supreme Nature ; 
 nor could the " bruising of his heel" impart to 
 the First Race his penal Sufferings and Death. 
 The Primeval Faith, therefore, had for its ob- 
 ject the hope of Redemption, not limited by the 
 knowledge of a Vicarious Expiatory Passion. 
 
 With regard to Sacrifice, w^hich might seem 
 to claim a connexion with this first state of 
 Religion, we want authority for the primary 
 fact of its Divine Institution : and thereby are 
 precluded from admitting it, either as a vehicle 
 of the information of faith, or even as the sub- 
 ject of a Typical character, presented to the 
 First Ages. Primitive Sacrifice therefore must 
 be left in the obscurity under which the Scrip- 
 ture has laid it. I do not press a peremptory 
 decision against its Divine Origin; because there 
 may in fact have been reasons, undiscernible 
 to us, why God may have chosen to withhold 
 from after-ages the knowledge of his institution 
 of it. But in one point I still not scruple to 
 express the most undoubted assurance; it is 
 
Subject of the Atonement. l69 
 
 this, that had he intended us to build any in- 
 struction or argument upon the strength of his 
 ordinance of the Rite, he would have furnished 
 us with far other notices of that Ordinance 
 than now exist ; and divested it of the contrary 
 appearances of a great improbability. I con- 
 clude then, as before, that we possess no 
 evidence to show that God imparted to the 
 First Generations of Men any knowledge of 
 the Atonement, or that he ordained at that 
 early time a Typical Rite to be the prophetic 
 representation of it. 
 
 II. The Age of Abraham is a new period in the 
 progress of Revealed Religion. The prophetic 
 Promise granted to this Patriarch predicts the 
 universal blessing of Mankind as ordained to 
 originate in his offspring. But here again the 
 prophecy is open and general. It does not 
 define the scheme of the Blessing, nor the 
 means by which it was destined to be wrought. 
 Sacrijicial Atonement is not an object intro- 
 duced. 
 
 But two signal incidents there are, in the 
 history of this Patriarch, which demand our at- 
 tention. The Ratification of the Covenant of 
 Canaan is one : the Sacrifice of Isaac, the other. 
 The Ratification of the Covenant of Canaan is 
 by a commanded Sacrifice. As a Federal Rite, 
 Sacrifice was tlie seal of that Covenant : and in 
 
1 70 Outline of Revelation on the 
 
 that light it must be acknowledged to hold a 
 symbolical import. The same Federal Rite is 
 renewed in the Mosaic Covenant. In both in- 
 stances it is the Type of the Federal Sacrifice 
 which seals and ratifies, between God and man, 
 the Covenant of the Gospel. Hence I under- 
 stand that summons and designation of God's 
 people, ** Gather my saints together unto me, 
 ** those that have made a Covenant with me 
 " with Sacrifice" to be descriptive of his Pub- 
 lic Church in every age, in the days of Abra- 
 ham, of the Law, and of the Gospel. The 
 same Federal Rite of Sacrifice is common 
 to all. 
 
 The commanded Sacrifice of Isaac, '* the be- 
 *' loved son" of Abraham, is the second in- 
 cident. This is justly to be considered as 
 a Type of the Sacrifice, as his restoration is 
 of the Resurrection, of Christ. But no E.v- 
 piation, or Atonement, is joined with this em- 
 blematic Oblation. Consequently it was a 
 symbol only of the Act, not of the Power and 
 Virtue, of the Christian Sacrifice. But of all the 
 Prophetic Types, this one, in the commanded Sa- 
 crifice of Isaac, appears to be among the most 
 significant. It stands at the head of the dis- 
 pensation of Revealed Religion, as reduced 
 into Covenant with the people of God in the 
 person of their Founder and Progenitor. Being 
 thus displayed, as it is, in the history of the 
 
Subject of the Atonement. 171 
 
 Father of the Faithful, it seems to be wrought 
 into the foundations of Faith. In the surrender 
 to Sacrifice of a beloved son, the Patriarchal 
 Church begins with an adumbration of the 
 Christian reality. 
 
 But here a question is commenced. Was 
 any contemporary disclosure made of the mys- 
 tical import of this Sacrifice ? Was Abra- 
 ham admitted to see, in the offering of his 
 Son, the greater oblation of the Son of God? 
 or was the vision on Mount Moriah sealed 
 up, till the time of its consummation in the 
 Gospel ? — The opinion of a contemporary dis- 
 closure is opposed by the following reasons. 
 There is no information extant of such a dis- 
 closure having been made; and the indirect 
 arguments by which that opinion is thought to 
 be supported, are far too obscure and uncer- 
 tain for the establishment of it. Had such a 
 revelation been granted, it would have been 
 one of the greatest discoveries of Christian 
 Truth, and one of the chief articles in the 
 progress of Revealed Religion. The fact of 
 its communication, therefore, is not to be as- 
 sumed lightly and upon conjectural ideas : 
 nor upon any thing less than a commanding 
 evidence. 
 
 The hypothesis of Bishop Warburton, who 
 has given to this opinion its principal credit 
 
1 72 Outline of Revelation on the 
 
 and reputation, embraces points of argument 
 which I consider to be most unsatisfactory, 
 or erroneous. Such are his criticisms upon the 
 text, " rejoiced to see mij day^' and the recep- 
 tion of Isaac from the dead *' in a figure." The 
 first phrase he would limit, without a sufficient 
 warrant for the limitation, to the '* cleatK' of 
 Christ : the second he explains to denote, that 
 the resurrection of Isaac was a representative 
 figure to Abraham of the resurrection of Christ: 
 whereas the Apostle is making the scenic re- 
 surrection of Isaac to be the figure of his 
 real resurrection. But I shall forbear the 
 examination of this hypothesis in detail, in- 
 asmuch as the preliminary principles of it 
 are those which are encountered by so great, 
 and, as I think, insuperable objections. For 
 what are the assumptions which it demands? 
 It supposes some of the greatest commu- 
 nications of Divine Truth to be suppressed, 
 or laid under a total disguise, in the Old Tes- 
 tament. It supposes that such communications 
 were not intended for the common use, but 
 granted in exclusive^ favour to the individual : 
 itself a most questionable supposition. It sup- 
 poses further, that we can replace and re- 
 store them. In the particular history of the 
 Sacrifice of Isaac, it supposes the Sacrifice to 
 have originated in a previous request of Abra- 
 
Subject of the Atowment. 1 73 
 
 ham, desiring, as a special favour, an insight 
 into the mystery of Redemption. Thus it 
 inverts the Scripture account of the transac- 
 tion, which makes the Sacrifice to arise from 
 God's trying of Abraham, not from Abraham's 
 trying of God. In every point the hypothesis 
 is burthened with a load of objection and im- 
 probability: and by those several conditions of 
 it, which I have described, it bears a character 
 of bold ingenuity, not free from paradox. This 
 is a quality which I deem a great dispraise to 
 our notions of Holy Writ, or of the scheme of 
 Revelation, and a just prejudice against them. 
 On that account, I commit the faculty of such 
 daring speculation to adventurous minds, who 
 have some superabundance of learning, and 
 other talents, to compensate for its hazards and 
 perplexity. 
 
 III. The next Epoch of Scripture brings us to 
 the Mosaic Law. Here we have solid grounds 
 to rest upon : knowledge instead of conjecture. 
 In this Law there is a Divine Institution of Sa- 
 crifice : there is a declared Expiatory use : 
 and there is a paramount Importance, assigned 
 to the blood of Sacrifice, which renders it the 
 chief instrument of the whole Levitical Worship. 
 Under this Institution and Use, Sacrifice be- 
 comes one of the greatest and most complete 
 
1 74 Ouffirie of Revelation on the 
 
 of the Typical Prophecies. For here Oblation 
 and Atonement are linked together, under a Di- 
 vine appointment ; and this combination consti- 
 tutes them the adequate symbols of the Saci^i- 
 y/ce and Atonement of the Christian Redemption. 
 
 But this species of Prophecy, by Type, is 
 in its nature of a latent kind. It needs to 
 be interpreted by its divine Author, or by the 
 event : that is, either by his Word, or by his 
 Providence. For the Type being a sign of 
 some distant purpose in the Divine Intention 
 not yet revealed ; and not a representative of 
 Human Thought or Action; it defies the power 
 of the human intellect, and is unlocked only by 
 God, either by a specific revelation, or by its 
 completion in due time, which then becomes 
 the luminous exhibition of the sense designed. 
 Not finding in the Law, fully digested as it is, 
 nor in the subsequent history of the Old Testa- 
 ment, full of religious matter, nor in the Psalms, 
 full of religious sentiment and doctrine, any 
 proofs that the Types of the Law had been 
 divinely interpreted, we are not authorised to 
 treat them as more than a concealed Prophe- 
 cy during their Legal use, unless we choose 
 to argue at a hazard, and make an oracle 
 of our Conjectures. In the Gospel they 
 are explained, by their relative and analo- 
 gous completion in its prope)^ truths. They 
 
V Subject of the Atonement,^ 175 
 
 are there explained also by the positive elu- 
 cidation of them dogmatically given : As in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. But in the Old 
 Testament no such key is applied to unlock 
 their sense. And therefore it exceeds our evi- 
 dence, to admit, that in those preceding times 
 they had been explained to their Gospel im- 
 port. They were a sacred Hieroglyphic, of 
 which their Author alone could be the Inter- 
 preter. And when his records do not vouch 
 for the interpretation, I shall not believe it to 
 have been given. The Mosaic Period, then, 
 presents the proper doctrine of Sacrifice and 
 Atonement ; but under the Veil of a Type. 
 
 IV. The last period of the ancient state of 
 Revealed Religion is the Age of the Prophets. 
 In the volume of Prophecy the Gospel Eco- 
 nomy breaks forth in accessions of infor- 
 mation. The Vicarious Sufferings and ap- 
 pointed Death of the Alessiah are now intro- 
 duced ; the atoning jpoioer of his Passion is de- 
 clared; and the cardinal principles of the Chris- 
 tian doctrine. Sacrifice, and E.vpiation, embodied 
 in the prediction of his Redemption. The Pro- 
 phetic Volume hereby becomes the unambiguous 
 witness of the Gospel doctrine. It does not 
 speak in figure, as the Rites of the Law, but in 
 the more direct oracles of truth. The Law 
 
1 76 Outline of Revelation on the , 
 
 foreshadowed. The Prophets foretold. This 
 is the difference between those connected 
 members of the predictive Economy of Reve- 
 lation. Nor perhaps shall I exceed the truth, 
 if I state that there is a discernible progress in 
 all the communications made concerning this 
 very doctrine of the Atonement. For the Pro- 
 phetic Psalms embrace the Sufferings of the 
 Messiah. But we do not read there the Ex- 
 piatory office of those Sufferings. That is an 
 addition made by later Prophecy. Thus, in one 
 brief view, we have the Atoning Sacrifice sim- 
 ply foreshadowed in the Law ; The sufferings of 
 the Messiah depicted in the Psalms ; His Passion 
 and Atonement united together in the later 
 Prophecy. In conformity with this account, I 
 shall observe, that one chapter of the Prophet 
 Isaiah, the 53d, or perhaps a single text of that 
 chapter, " Thou shalt make liis soul an oJferi}ig 
 ''for Sin,'' comprehends more of the real dis- 
 closure of this Christian principle, than could be 
 previously gathered from all the Law and the 
 Prophets. The books of Isaiah, Daniel, and 
 Zechariah, taken together, complete the scheme 
 of Revealed Truth in the Covenant of Grace. 
 And as all the Christian promises, such as are the 
 Pardon of Sin, the Gift of Eternal Life, and the 
 supply of Spiritual Aid, are included in some or 
 other of the representations of Prophecy, the 
 
Subject of the Atonement. 177 
 
 foundation of those promises, in the Atoning 
 Death of the Redeemer, is made conspicuous 
 among them, and completes their system. In 
 this manner was Christianity '* witnessed by 
 ** the Law and the Prophets." 
 
 The mmd of Man, however, is slow in ap- 
 prehending the counsels of God, even when 
 they are imparted to him by some discove- 
 ries of them ; and, the work of our Redemp- 
 tion being entirely a Supernatural dispensation, 
 it seems that even these last oracles of pro- 
 phecy had their difficulty and darkness resting 
 upon them, till the Gospel, which they fore- 
 told, gave them their complete elucidation. 
 So St. Paul has represented the case, in those 
 mixt, and seemingly opposite, descriptions, 
 which I have already quoted. The doctrine 
 of the Gospel had been revealed, and not re- 
 vealed* It was dark, with the excess of the 
 
 * Hence we may understand how it happened, that 
 ihejiist disciples of Christ, of whom we cannot suppose 
 that they were literally unacquainted with the contents 
 of prophecy applicable to this subject, yet experienced 
 so much embarrassment and oflence of mind, when He 
 spoke to them of his sufferings anil death. They had 
 not yet come to see that the things which they objected 
 to were the ordained and foretold mode of his liedemp- 
 
 N 
 
17H Outline of Revelation on the 
 
 mystery ; till it shone in the person of the 
 Saviour, in whom was seen ** the fulhiess 
 " of Grace and Truth." For then was come 
 the time when the plan of Grace and Re- 
 demption was to be rei^ealed by being accom- 
 plished, and the doctrines of it to be made 
 e.vpUcit objects of Faith. Those doctrines were 
 no more to be wrapped in Figure, nor taught 
 by the tongue of Prophecy, which spoke the 
 
 tion. Hence also we perceive the reason of those in- 
 structions in the sense of Prophecy, which yet remained 
 to be given, and which He afterwards gave, on this very 
 subject. " Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
 " things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at 
 " Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them 
 " in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself." 
 {Luke xxiv. 26.) In the preceding verse it is "'12 (xvoyitoi 
 " xoii jSpaSsTj Tjj x.ap'8ia. rou TZifevsiv Ittj Traaiv 0I5 lKa.X-q(Tuv 
 *' o\ TTfiopriTM.'' Our English Version has scarcely 
 done justice to the expostulation applied. The phrase 
 " O fools," exceeds in harsliness, and does not exactly 
 suit the failure of perception and understanding in- 
 tended by avoYjToi. But between such indocility of mind, 
 before the nature of the Christian Faith was fully un- 
 folded, and the opposite belief of subsequent Heresy, 
 there can be no comparison admitted. The perfect 
 illustration of the Sacrificial Atonement now spread 
 over the New Testament, forbids to the modern Soci- 
 nian the use of any of the extenuating pleas of earlier 
 Jewish ianorance. 
 
Siitiject of the Atoncmeiif. 179 
 
 secrets of heaven to earthly cars, and repre- 
 sented things which the eye had not yet seen. 
 They were tilings too precious to lie buried any 
 longer, like gold in the Indian mines, to ripen 
 against a distant day; or to shine darkly, as 
 jewels at the bottom of the great deep, the 
 abyss of God's counsels. They were brought 
 forth in their lustre, and planted, where they 
 now are seen, on the forehead of the Evangeli- 
 cal Revelation. There they remain, the com- 
 pletion of Type, and of Prophecy, and the lu- 
 minous crown of Christian Faith. 
 
 Such, I conceive, is the progressive com- 
 munication under which the knowledge of 
 the Christian Atonement has been conveyed; 
 and whether for our own information, or for the 
 conviction of others, it would be wise that some 
 regard to this order should be maintained— 
 otherwise we shall scarcely represent the Scrip- 
 ture Evidences to advantage, which can only 
 be done when they are represented in confor- 
 mity with their own internal truth. Upon this 
 head therefore I shall offer a few words of con- 
 cluding observation, with respect to the con- 
 duct of the Unitarian, or Modern Socinian, 
 Controversy, in the article of the Atonement. 
 
 There are Three distinct sources of Proof 
 N 2 
 
ISO Jlejic.xioni; on ihe Conduct 
 
 from which the doctrine of the Atonement may 
 be derived. Those are, the positive texts of 
 the New Testament ; the predictions of Pro- 
 phecy ; the Types of the Mosaic Law. In each 
 of these subjects of Evidence, the Scriptural 
 ground of the argument is certain and incon- 
 testable. The Socinian, to evade their force, 
 is driven to deny the palpable and reiterated 
 sense, or dispute the inspiration, of Holy Writ ; 
 a proceeding which, if he would consider the 
 case, he would see is equivalent to a confession 
 of the exposure of his error; and such as brings 
 him precisely within the description given by 
 St. Paul of the maintainers of Heresy, as per- 
 sons " self-condemned." For the gross sophis- 
 tication, or the direct denial, of the Scripture 
 sense, is as clear a conviction, and as decisive 
 a test, of error, as the subject of Christian 
 Faith admits. It is a refusal, or a perversion, 
 of the only authority, by which right and 
 wrong Opinion can in this case be discrimi- 
 nated. 
 
 So long then as we rest the vindication of 
 the Atonement upon those Scriptural Evidences, 
 the doctrine must share the strength of the 
 Scripture Revelation. It must stand with it. 
 And in this unsuborned and unequivocal defence 
 of Our Faith, its advocates may always com- 
 
oj the Vnitui'mu Coidroversj/. ISI 
 
 mand an easy and assured victory to Truth. 
 But by attempting to enlarge the ground of 
 argument, so as to embrace the worship of 
 the Primeval Times, we quit the certainty 
 of a Scripture Evidence, for a disputable spe- 
 culation. We begin to model the documents 
 anew; argue without premises, or upon ficti- 
 tious ones; and expose ourselves to the retorted 
 charge of misrepresenting, or exaggerating, the 
 real state of Revelation. And this extended 
 effort of debate can hope no success. It is 
 sure to be unavailing with those persons for 
 whose conviction it is principally designed. 
 For if men believe not the Law, the Pro- 
 phets, and the Gospel, neither will they be- 
 lieve, nor is it reasonable that they should, the 
 Patriarchs of the First Age, of whose religion 
 we have nothing so authentic to produce. 
 
 Nor is this all. For by insisting on the 
 Div'uie Origin of Primitive Sacrifice, as an es- 
 sential element in the Socinian question, we 
 stir another question, in which we have other 
 opponents than the Socinian, and not so easy 
 to be answered. We bring a new warfare upon 
 our hands, with those orthodox Divines who 
 have held its Human Origin, and make our 
 way to the decision of one controversy througli 
 another and far greater. For in the state of 
 
182 Refiexions oh the Conduct 
 
 their respective evidence, what two things can 
 be more unlike, than the Soc'mian Creed, and 
 the Human Origin of Sacrifice? And thus 
 the Socinian, who shares our attack in com- 
 mon with the Spencers, the Tillotsons, and 
 the Warburtons of later days, and the Fa- 
 thers of the Church in older times, finds 
 some apology for the enormity of his Creed, 
 in the general assault made on men who 
 w^ere better reasoners, and more orthodox 
 believers, and who are unnecessarily involved 
 with him in the fortune of a common debate. 
 These inconveniencies result from the undue 
 extension of the controversy with the Socinian. 
 And since they operate to the disadvantageous 
 appearance of the Truth, which is always most 
 powerful, when it is permitted to be seen in the 
 greatest integrity and purity of evidence, I 
 cannot but wish their removal from the De- 
 fences of Christianity and its proper Doctrines. 
 
 To one Individual, the distinguished Prelate, 
 from whose decisions on the whole subject of 
 Primitive Sacrifice I have had occasion too often 
 to dissent in the foregoing inquiry, I entertain 
 no other sentiments than those of great respect. 
 His services, in the cause of Religion, have 
 been those of a various learning, and a vigorous 
 
vf (he Lull (I lion CunfruiH'isj/. 18;] 
 
 mind, applied to the defence of the characte- 
 ristic article of the Gospel ; the doctrine of the 
 Atonement. He has pursued the Unitarian 
 Creed, which would subvert this principle of 
 Christianity, through its several forms of mis- 
 representation; and given such proof of the in- 
 competence, inconsistency, and false interpre- 
 tations of Scripture, in its advocates, as might 
 suffice to produce a conviction, or, certainly, 
 a great suspicion, of their vitiated Faith, in the 
 minds of those who profess it. If therefore I 
 depart from him, in the view which I take of one 
 branch of an argument, which in its other 
 branches his Grace has investigated with great 
 ability, I hope that I may be considered in the 
 light of a coadjutor in the same design, if any 
 thing which I have written may deserve so fa- 
 vourable an estimation, rather than of an oppo- 
 nent. However this may be, the field of dis- 
 cussion is open to all : and I know of no other 
 way to the advancement of truth, than by first 
 examining the principles of our opinions, and 
 then proposing them with their evidence. 
 
 My endeavour has been to reduce the sub- 
 ject of Sacrifice, in its early history, to its pro- 
 per Scripture Proof. Thence to ascertain, on the 
 one hand, at what point in the course of Re- 
 
1 84 Objects of this Inquiry re-stated. 
 
 vealed Religion, the Rite of Sacrifice begins to 
 afford an effectual attestation to the Christian 
 doctrine ; and, on the other, to obviate the 
 objections which might seem to result from the 
 uncertainty of its Origin. In particular, I have 
 been intent on showing that the admission of 
 its first rise from an Human Usage derogates 
 nothing from the Institutions of the Mosaic 
 Law, or the essential tenets of the Gospel. 
 Some other topics, incidental to the Inquiry, 
 have been admitted. They were topics con- 
 nected with the scheme of Revealed Religion ; 
 to illustrate which, in any of its material doc- 
 trines, or in the history of them, I can consider 
 no pains to be misemployed. 
 
 But I shall not conclude this Investigation, 
 ])rotracted as it has been, without allowing 
 myself a momentary retrospect to the subject 
 with which it began ; the Religion of the Pri- 
 mitive World. 
 
 Of the First Generations of Men, and of their 
 Faith and Piety, a brief memorial is all that 
 remains. We might wish to see further into 
 the lives and notions of the Progenitors of our 
 Race ; but the wish is denied to us ; and our 
 researches in that line must rest where the 
 only authentic record terminates our view. 
 
Conclusion. 1B5 
 
 But this memorial of the Old World, brief as 
 it is, is not insufficient to the ends of a Chris- 
 tian Contemplation. *' Abel was a righteous 
 '' man, and God testified of his gifts ;" and 
 " Enoch walked with God, and God took him ;" 
 ** and Noah was a just man, and perfect in his 
 " generations." These are the great relicks of 
 Piety and Virtue, spared to us out of the ruins 
 of Time and the Deluge. They are monuments 
 which perpetuate the names of those servants 
 of God from the beginning of things, and oc- 
 cupy the Annals of his Church beyond the 
 Flood with an imperishable inscription to their 
 memory. We do not look back into the distant 
 Antediluvian scene as to a dreary void. We 
 find there the instances of their approved faith 
 and obedience, and therein a bond and a mo- 
 tive to our sympathy of communion with them. 
 If their information, in the method of their 
 Redemption and ours, was less, whilst they 
 remained upon earth, than was given to some 
 Later Ages, perhaps by this time the defects of 
 it have been supplied, and its measure made 
 complete. But if not opened to them already, 
 the full revelation of that mystery, we know, 
 is only delayed. It is only deferred, till the 
 time arrives which shall symmetrise all ine- 
 qualities of faith and knowledge ; when the 
 
3 86 CoHclftsion. 
 
 Church of God of every age shall be but " one 
 " general assembly," and " the spirits of just 
 " men made perfect," being gathered to the 
 Holy Jesus, " the Mediator of the New Co- 
 ** venant," shall receive the completion of w^hat- 
 ever has been wanting in their faith, by a 
 direct illumination from the Fountain of Light. 
 
 THE END. 
 
NOTES 
 
 L— Page 16. 
 
 The service of Eucharistic Offerings, or the presen- 
 tation to God of voluntary uncommanded Gifts, has 
 been treated with some liarshness. Those Gifts have 
 been described as wanting a foundation in reason ; and 
 they have been called Bribes,* in their intention. But 
 no service can justly be said to want a foundation in 
 reason, which expresses the acknowledgment of Grati- 
 tude to the Supreme Being, and .the sense of Depen- 
 dence in his creatures. All the materials, and all the 
 forms of our service, for ever fall short of the proper Ma- 
 jesty of God. Their reasonableness cannot be measured 
 by their relative use to him. It is as they denote some 
 just sentiment in ourselves that they receive their pro- 
 priety, and aspire to his acceptance. And by any 
 other mode of conceiving the subject of External 
 Worship, such worship must be wholly abolished. I 
 cannot therefore make the most distant approach to 
 those opinions which disparage the reasonableness of 
 spontaneous oblations devoted to God, or to his 
 honour, whether of our possessions, our talents, our 
 
 * Dissertations nn Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. ii. p. 20. 
 
188 NOTES. 
 
 time, or our lives. If they are Bribes, I am sure they 
 are such bribes, as, when devoutly offered, have no 
 small encouragement to hope for acceptance. " Bring 
 presents to Him that ought to be feared," is a sentence 
 which will defend the spontaneous, as well as the com- 
 manded Oblation, from the invidious censure attempted 
 to be cast upon it. 
 
 Spencer has wished to deduce a great part of the 
 practice of Sacrifice from this notion of Gifts presented 
 to God. One of his arguments is derived from the 
 expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews; " quod illius 
 " oblata, non debita, sed 8«jga ab Apostolo appellentur: 
 " nam inde patet, Abelis oblationem e pio voluntatis 
 " propriae motu, potius quam legis alicujus praescripto 
 " prodiisse. De Leg. Heb. ii. p. 769." This argument 
 has called forth from Archbishop Magee some severe 
 strictures, which I forbear to repeat. But the whole 
 force of those strictures is obviated by Spencer's own 
 observations: and what the learned Prelate* has said, 
 concerning the impossihility of Spencer's being igno- 
 rant of certain points, as of the legal Sacrifices being 
 called Iwqa. and pip, is most true : for Spencer him- 
 self has distinctly stated tliose points in another 
 passage, lib. iii. Diss. ii. sect. i. p. 703. — Nor is it pos- 
 sible to silence Spencer's argument. For if the Legal 
 and commanded Sacrifices were designated by the 
 name of Gifts, that appellation indicates some anterior, 
 or separate character. The legal command, at least, 
 could not invest them with the nature of Gifts. That 
 attribute must be derived from another principle in 
 them, viz. the principle of Oblation to God. For 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. -i. 
 
NOTES. 189 
 
 assuredly it cannot be maintained that Sacrifices were 
 called by the name of Gifts, merely because they were 
 commanded, or merely because they were Sacrifices. 
 Whether they proceeded from God or man, the reason 
 of that name must be sought in the intention and import 
 of the thing. Sacrificial Gifts, then, they were, and not 
 mere Sacrifices. 
 
 II.— Page 30. 
 
 Those who wish to investigate for themselves the 
 intent of Sacrifice antecedently to the Mosaic Law, 
 will find the history of it comprised in the following 
 instances, which I think are all that occur, in the book 
 of Genesis. 
 
 Ch. iv. 4. 
 
 viii. 20. 
 
 xii. 7, 8. 
 
 xiii. 4. 
 
 xiii. 18. 
 XV. 9. By command, for a Seal of the Covenant. 
 
 xxii. 1, 13. By command, in the oblation of Isaac. 
 
 XX vi. 25. 
 xxviii. 18. 
 
 xxxi. 54. 
 xxxiii. ^20. 
 
 XXXV. 1. By command. 
 
 XXXV. 14. 
 
190 NOTES. 
 
 III.— Paee 30. 
 
 The instances of Sacrifice recorded in the Book of 
 Job are cited in proof of early Expiatory Sacrifice 
 for Sin. I do not dispute the high antiquity which is 
 assigned to this book by the Primitive Christian Church, 
 an authority the most entitled to our attention in the 
 question of its age and origin. Let it be supposed as 
 ancient as the time of Moses. The account which it 
 gives of Sacrifice does not denote an Exinatory Institu- 
 tion. " Job offered burnt-offerings according to the 
 " number of them all, (his sons ;) for Job said, it may 
 " be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their 
 " hearts. Thus did Job continually." (ch. i. 5.) We 
 have here a religion of worship and prayer, by Sacri- 
 fice. This, no doubt, might exist, without an ordained 
 sanction of its efficacy, by Atonement. In like manner 
 ** the burnt-offering of Eliphaz" and his companions, 
 is joined with the intercession of Job. (xlii.) The 
 burnt-offering of the three friends was presented : and 
 " the Lord also accepted Job." A proof this, of the 
 efficacy of Job's prayer ; not of the Expiatory power 
 of the sacrifice of his friends. 
 
 IV.— Paffe 146. 
 
 Those who wish to see the opinions of the Primitive 
 Fathers on the Origin of Sacrifice, will find them 
 adduced, or referred to, by Outram (Lib. I. cap. i. vi.) 
 
NOTES. 101 
 
 and by Spencer (tie Legg. Hebr. Lib. II. Diss. ii. sect. 
 2.) They will perceive also by the same testimonies, 
 especially as they are more largely given by Spencer, 
 that some of the Fathers went a great length in admit- 
 ting that the Jewish Ritual, in its Sacrifices and other 
 Forms, was accommodated to the existing usages of the 
 world. Their sentiments on this latter subject must 
 be understood with some discretion ; otherwise I 
 should be far from allowing either the doctrine, or 
 the evidence, of what they have said. At the same 
 time, in supposing that accommodation, they did not 
 overlook the Typical Design. Justin, and TertuUian 
 in particular, who freely admit the first, insist largely 
 also upon the second principle. — See Justin s notions 
 Dialog, cum Tryphone, p. 261. ed. Col. TertuUian^ s, 
 p. 468. ed. Lutet. As to Sacrifice, the prior usage of 
 it was not " heathenish," but Patriarchal. Its Mosaic 
 adoption was therefore consistent and unexceptionable. 
 The dispensation of Religion was progressive ; this is 
 a certain fact : and it accords with the method of such 
 a dispensation to advance the state of religion, by 
 degrees, to greater purity and elevation, in its worship, 
 its faith, and all its duties. Judaism, therefore, may 
 have been modelled to a certain extent by this prin- 
 ciple of an incomplete improvement. But the Scrip- 
 ture evidence is most express that the great object of 
 the Ritual of Judaism was the prefiguration of the 
 Christian system. At the same time it would be un- 
 necessary and ill-founded to assert, that every particle 
 of the minor forms of its Ritual partook of this symbo- 
 lical nature, although they are most accurately ordained 
 and prescribed. For in this Institute of Ceremonies, 
 it might be the purpose of the Divine Lawgiver, by 
 
192 NOTES. 
 
 limiting so far the forms of the ceremonial worship, to 
 exclude the novelties and excess, to which the genius 
 of that worship, when managed by man, and under an 
 imperfect light of Religion, is so prone. The rule of 
 the presciipt law would be a fence equally against native 
 superstition, and the imitation of heathenism. In this 
 manner the Typical Object, and a second prudential 
 design, might be combined. Such are the two gene- 
 ral ideas, by which, I think, the entire scheme of this 
 divine Ritual may be brought into its true light. 
 
 To return to the opinion of the Fathers respecting 
 the human institution of Sacrifice ; their consent in 
 that opinion was not left imnoticed by Hammond. 
 He took his part with the Primitive, against the Mo- 
 dern and Puritan Doctrine, and the rise of Sacrifice 
 was an exemplification of the more recent subject in 
 dispute, concerning Will-worship. " Abel's Oblation, 
 which the Fathers generally observe, not to have been 
 by any precept from God,'' was a precedent to him, 
 both in the instance of the Rite, and in the Primitive 
 authority. Works, vol. i. p. 237. 
 
 v.— Page 158. 
 
 When I wrote the observations, which I have sug- 
 gested against the admission of a Traditional Religion 
 into the Jewish Church, when we object such a Rehgion 
 to the Church of Rome, I was not aware, that the same 
 
NOTES. 193 
 
 kind of argument had been employed by Bishop War- 
 burton, who has made the hke comparison of the two 
 cases. The comparison was an obvious one to make : 
 but I shall now refer to the argument as he has urged it 
 in the Divine Legation. Book V. Sect. v. p. 183. 
 
 VI.— Page 164. 
 
 Luther s version of Genesis iv. 1. has contributed to 
 diffuse in the Lutheran Church high notions of Early 
 Information on the Christian Subject — " Acquisivi 
 hominem, qui Donmms est,"* viz. according to his 
 idea, " the Man Jehovah.'' There is no question, in 
 the present day, but that this version is founded on an 
 inaccurate knowledge of the original text. But the 
 authority of this great Chief of the Reformation has 
 given currency to the same opinions. Deylingius, a 
 writer of the Lutheran Church, thus represents them 
 in their fullest extent. " i^que igitur illustris est 
 " confessio Evangelica Evce, ac 7r\Yjgo(poglx Thomae 
 " Christum ex mortuis redditum amplectentis, et excla- 
 " mantis: 'O Kvgios fxau kcc) 6 Qsog [jlov." — Deyling. 
 Observ. Sacr. torn. v. p. 302. But, in truth, the mani- 
 fest mistake of Eve, if such had been her thought, 
 might have hindered the supposition of such an extra' 
 ordinary belief being present to her mind. 
 
 * Fagius inclines to the same interpretation. See Comment, in 
 loc. 
 
194 NOTES. 
 
 VII.— Pane 170. 
 
 The hypothesis of Bishop Warburton, in connecting 
 the text, " Abraham rejoiced to see my day" with the 
 particular act of the mystical Sacrifice of Isaac, 
 occurs in a fanciful and irregular, though not inelegant 
 writer, of the Ancient Church, Ephraim Syrus. IlaAjv 
 
 IJ.OU ISsTv, x«j elds, Ku) sx^gri, THN TOT nA0OTS 
 AH A A AH EN TX2. TTni2< 'ISAAK, Iv ogsi t<Z ay I'm— 
 EvXoyr^TOs 6 Qeog 'O nPOTTOllSAS ^/aTv ttocvto. nzgoc, 
 (TcoTYjgiav sv xaTj uylais yga<pocii, x«i eXdcJv STzXYjgMas totj; 
 XoyoDs TMv Trgo^YiTMv.* It is doubtful, however, in this 
 passage, whether the Author intends to assert that the 
 mystery was revealed to Abraham, or only prefigured. 
 
 Of the Fathers I shall remark, that they sometimes 
 ascribe a copious knowledge of Christianity to the Pa- 
 triarchs ; sometimes they discuss the qtiestion whether 
 any such discoveries were made to them. In their Homi- 
 lies and popular writings they often translate the Old 
 Testament, without scruple, into its Christian, or other 
 spiritual sense; from which kind of interpretation 
 nothing certain can be deduced, as to their idea of the 
 knowledge which the Patriarchs, and others before 
 Christianity, enjoyed. Origen gives a sketch of the 
 opposite reasons and texts on this head, in his Com- 
 mentary, (in Johan. vol. ii. p. 240.) where he disputes, 
 whether Moses and the Prophets imderstood as much 
 as the Apostles; a question to which I have endea- 
 
 * V. Tib cd. Oxon, 
 
NOTKS. 195 
 
 voured to give some definite solution. There is an 
 image of comparison employed by Origen liimself, 
 which, I think, very happily expresses the truth in this 
 subject. " The Law and the Prophets," he says, 
 " were the Sowers — and the Apostles, the Reajmrs, 
 " when, on the Advent of Christ, the fields became 
 " white for harvest." To ask whether the Patriarchs, 
 or even the Prophets, understood the mysteries of 
 Redemption, as the Apostles did, appears to me to be 
 the same thing as to ask whether the seed is the 
 harvest. 
 
 VIII.— Page 177. 
 
 The Unitarian endeavours to abolish the proper 
 virtue of Christ's Sacrifice and Atonement by resolving 
 the varied and express assertions of it, delivered in the 
 New Testament, into a figure of accommodatioti to the 
 Legal Rites, and their appropriate phrase. In so doing 
 he reverses the Scripture account of the fact, and 
 frames a preposterous argument. The Scripture 
 account is, that the Mosaic Rites were framed in adap- 
 tation to the Gospel Truths ; not inversely, that the 
 scheme or theory of those Truths is accommodated to 
 the Mosaic Rites. The Law had symbolical shadows ; 
 the Gospel, the substance and the Prototype. The 
 Symbols of the Law then must not be allowed to 
 
 o2 
 
196 NOTES. 
 
 evacuate the intrinsic Truths of the Gospel, or destroy 
 their substance : unless the assertion of the modern 
 expositor can be set up against the authentic principle 
 of the New Testament. In truth, this is the real 
 dilemma of the late Socinian Creed. Either it, or the 
 New Testament, must be given up, in their whole re- 
 presentation on this subject. 
 
 Again, if the Atonement of the Gospel is to be re- 
 duced to a parity with those of the Law, what is to 
 become of the Atonetnents of the Law ? Why was 
 Animal Sacrifice ever exalted into Exjnation ? Those 
 Legal Atonements will remain with a dubious and ques- 
 tionable character, which admits of no satisfactory ex- 
 plication. I do not say that they become the mere 
 copy of human superstition : but they are left in a 
 state to perplex the inquirer. Admit their Typical 
 and preparatory office in delineating the Truths of the 
 Gospel; and that office vindicates them at once, in 
 their dignity, and their use. Deny it, and the Mosaic 
 Rites become darker than ever. For tlie Gospel, 
 which is the full and last Revelation, does not leave 
 them in a neutral state; it imputes to them a design, 
 which, H seems, they do not sustain, and explains them 
 by a fallacy. 
 
 The Unitarian may be indifferent to the vindication 
 of the Law, and be ready to leave the Old Testament 
 to its fate, in the discredit which his notions reflect 
 upon it, as well as upon the New. But as a believer 
 in the divine origin of the Scripture Religion, he gives 
 a proof neither of his piety, nor his reason, by this 
 apathy of his creed. Particular articles of error sink 
 in the scale, and become almost venial, when compared 
 with this principle of a general disregard to the honour 
 
NOTES. 197 
 
 and consistency of the whole volume of Inspiratioti. 
 For myself 1 should think it had nothing less than a 
 pure Paganism in its spirit. 
 
 IX.— Page 177. 
 
 In estimating the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and 
 accounting for the difference of their acceptance with 
 God, some of those writers who maintain Animal 
 Sacrifice to have been the ordained Rite, expressive of 
 Faith in the Messiah, impute, in consequence, to Cain 
 a rejection of the Divine Ordinance of this Faith, and 
 charge him with some of the worst sentiments of 
 Modern Unbelief. Parkhurst makes him the First 
 Deist. In tJie Discourses on Sacrifice (Vol. I. p. 5S.) 
 "he takes the^r*^ place in the annals of Deism, and 
 " displays in his proud rejection of the ordinance of 
 " Sacrifice, the same spirit, which, in later days, has 
 " actuated his enlightened followers, in rejecting the 
 " Sacrifice of Christ." This comparison, of Cain and 
 the Modern Unbeliever, I confess, appears to me to 
 include an unjust and unreasonable distribution of cen- 
 sure. The Unbeliever of the present day rejects the 
 doctrine of the Atonement, as we know, and he rejects 
 it against a full and direct evidence. But of Cain, we 
 neither know that he rejected the doctrine, or the ordi- 
 nance, nor that he had the evidence of it proposed to 
 him in any manner. 
 
198 NOTES. 
 
 There can be no similitude in the degree of Unbehef 
 to be ascribed to the two cases. And the Unitarian, 
 or other objector to the Atonement, may think himself 
 not so greatly to blame, if he has to answer only for 
 Cain's indocility in the subject. In reality, the pa- 
 rallel furnishes an apology of extenuation for the 
 Creed of the Modern Objector, to which it is in no 
 degree intitled. 
 
 X.— Page 178. 
 
 The disposition to make evidence, where none exists, 
 is one great vice of inquiry. Of this infirmity there is 
 a singular instance in the use to which some writers 
 have wished to turn the fragment of Phoenician history, 
 preserved in Eusebius;* the fragment of Philo Byblius 
 concerning the Phoenician Sacrifices of only Sons. — 
 " Of these Sacrifices," Mr. Bryant has inferred, " that 
 " they had no reference to any thing past.'' Accord- 
 ingly he, and some others, have wished to make it ap- 
 pear that those Sacrifices in Phoenicia were types of 
 the Christian Sacrifice ; and that they are an evidence 
 of a prospective revelation having been circulated in 
 those countries ; a notion of them favourably received 
 by Archbishop Magee. 
 
 Bishop Warburton has partly checked the freedom 
 of Mr. Bryant's observations; but he has done it with 
 
 * Praep. Evang. lib. i. p. 40. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 199 
 
 a sparing hand; conscious, I suppose, of his own hy- 
 pothesis concerning the Sacrifice of Isaac, some know- 
 ledge of whose prospective import, if given at all, 
 might possibly have passed into Phoenicia, and there- 
 by render Mr. Bryant's ideas not so violent. But 
 the entire fallacy of all this notion ascribed to the 
 Phoenician frasment is most evident. Those Sacrifices 
 were actually offered, as Rites of Deprecation, in pub- 
 lic calamities. With what appearance of truth then, 
 can it be said, that they had no reference to any thing 
 2iast? Or with what satisfaction can one see a learned and 
 pious writer abuse his time and thought on a piece of 
 representation, which ends with the following confession: 
 *' All that I have requested to he allowed me in the pro- 
 " cess of this recital, is the simple supposition that this 
 " mystical Sacrifice was a type of something to come."* 
 But there are too many opinions sent abroad into the 
 Avorld which end in mere postulates. And hence, 
 among other causes, it is, that we lose much of the 
 benefit of religious truth, by the unprofitable uncer- 
 tainties of ingenuity misapplied. 
 
 * Observations on various Parts of Ancient History , p. 286. 
 
 END OF THE NOTES. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 pniNTr.D BY c. nowoinn, hi.i.l vakd, 
 
 TEMl'Lli HA R. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
 1 1012 
 
 01210 6177