exists no discernible connexion between the one | fice of Noah, and in the oblations of the patriand the other. On the contrary, Nature 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 unconscious and irrational, should have a moral efficacy to his benefit, or pardon, or be able to restore him with God; these are things repugnant to the sense of reason, incapable of being brought into the scale of the first ideas of nature, and contradictory to all genuine religion, natural 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 conveyance and the sanction, the possession and the security, of it, can spring only from his appointment. Reason teaches repentance as a preliminary 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 shortness, or cure the infirmity, or satisfy the doubt, of its pretensions. The human instruments are here infinitely unequal to the end proposed. 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 expiatory 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 accepted by God. No: expiatory sacrifice must have been of God's own appointment, to reconcile it either to God, or to man himself, till he was fallen under a deplorable superstition." 6. These conclusions, as just as forcibly expressed, render it essential to the system to which they belong, to evince, that in the primitive religion no expiatory or atoning virtue is ascribed to sacrifice. This is sought to be accomplished by an appeal to the Scripture history, where it is observed, that in the offerings of Abel, in the sacri * Inquiry, p. 27. archs, the sacrificial worship is given with the utmost simplicity of description. The altar is raised, the oblation is brought, and the victim is sacrificed; but with what notions, with what specific intent, is not defined. This, it is conceived, becomes more apparent by contrasting it with the different scene which meets our view on turning to the Mosaic law: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you, upon the altar, to make an atonement for your soul. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Lev. xvii. 11.) This doctrine of the atoning power of blood, the writers whom we are noticing think to be a new doctrine, and one of which we find no positive information, nor any probable vestige in the primeval religion; and it is from disregarding this distinction, they assert, and from viewing primitive sacrifice through the law of Moses, that many writers have been led into erroneous notions of the nature and character of sacrifice in its first usage. It, at least, admits of a question, however, whether Mr. Davison has substantiated his idea, that no expiatory virtue was annexed to primitive sacrifice; whether, if the permission to eat animal food was subsequent to the deluge, man could have any right over the life of the creature, and, by consequence, any right to offer an animal sacrifice: whether the declaration, that "unto Adam, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them" (Gen. iii. 21), do not imply, that as it cannot be supposed God would permit the taking away of the lives of animals merely for clothing, the grant of animal food not being given till the flood, the skins could be no other than those of animals slain in sacrifice-we shall not attempt to determine. It is obvious to remark, however, that if the rite of sacrifice be contrary to the dictates of natural reason, as is here presumed, it probably had some other source; but if it be consonant with reason, it may nevertheless have been instituted by a divine command. It would be absurd to reject the claim of a divine origin merely on the ground of consentaneousness with the natural dictates of human reason. Though Archbishop Magee and many others contend for the unreasonableness of piacular sacrifice, there are some of a different opinion, who deem it irreverent to suppose that the Deity would adopt a rite on account of its being contrary to human reason, and yet contend, with equal zeal, for its divine origin. After all, the natural reasonableness or unreasonableness of sacrifice is a subject upon which the human mind is scarcely competent to form a judgment, without + Ibid., p. 33. argu a knowledge of the whole scheme of Providence is, if possible, of still greater weight in the in the redemption of the world,-which we nei- ment: "And to Jesus, the mediator of the new ther have nor can have.* covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." The comparison which is here made, is understood by the advocates of the divine appointment of sacrifice to be between the sacrifice offered by Abel, and that of Christ; not between the blood of Abel himself and that of the Redeemer. If this construction of the passage be the true one-and the arguments by which Archbishop Magee supports it seem unanswerable-then there must be a correspondency of nature in the two sacrifices; and consequently that of Abel was an expiatory one; which, of course, implies a divine appointment. 7. It is a matter of still higher moment to investigate the grounds which have been alleged for the divine institution of sacrifice; but we can only advert to Archbishop Magee's main arguments, which are laid, (1) In certain notions respecting the nature and object of Abel's faith; (2) In a corrected version of the text relating to Cain, Gen. iv. 7; (3) In the testimony of the divine acceptance granted to the sacrifices of Abel and others; (4) In a comparison of the sacrifice of Abel with that of Christ (Heb. xii. 24); and (5) In some general reflections which represent the primitive and the Mosaic worship as united in a common system. Of these the text relating to Cain is of great importance: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door;" where the clause in Italics is rendered by Archbishop Magee, "a sin-offering lieth at the door;" that is, to make an atonement with, if thy deeds are evil. This construction of the passage, first proposed by Lightfoot, has been espoused by Kennicott, Pilkington, Parkhurst, Faber, Boothroyd, Dr. Adam Clarke, and others. The chief grounds upon which it rests are, (1) The grammatical structure; for the son chattath, though feminine, is here connected with the masculine verb p rebetz, which is perfectly consistent with the supposition that it denotes a sin-offering; and, (2) The peculiar force of the verb p, which strictly implies couching, or lying down as a beast. Against the argument founded upon this passage the oppugners of the doctrine have contended in vain: it remains impervious to all their assaults. 8. The passage in Heb. xii. 24, so often appealed to as confirmatory of the divine origin of sacrifice, See the profound remarks of Bishop Butler, Analogy of Nat. and Rev. Relig., p. 2, cap. v. For the opinions of Pagans see Grotius de Satisfactione Christi: Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry, lib. 2, cap. viii.; Magee's Disc. on the Atonement, Nos. 5, 23, et al. + Dr. A. Clarke, in loc. says, "The words non chattath and chattaah, frequently signify sin; but I have observed more than a hundred places in the Old Testament where they are used for sin-offering, and translated àμapria by the Septuagint, which is the term the apostle uses in 2 Cor. v. 21: 'He hath made him to be sin (apaprav, a sin-offering) for us, who knew no sin.' Cain's fault now was his not bringing a sinoffering when his brother brought one, and this neglect and contempt caused his other offering to be rejected. However, God now graciously informs him, that, though he had miscarried, his case was not yet desperate, as the means of faith, from the promise, &c., were in his power, and a victim proper for a sin offering was lying ( rebets, a word used to express the lying down of a quadruped) at the door of his fold." 9. 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 unto 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-worship," the mere invention of human reason, Col. 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 ordinance, to render it capable of his approbation. In meeting this argument, Mr. Davison, as the champion of the opposite theory, seems to allow too much merit to spontaneous piety. God's will is the only measure of right and wrong in all moral actions; and, if he have given us a revelation, it must contain every thing essential; otherwise it would be an imperfect revelation. But we are not to suppose that a special commandment is given for every pious office, that every instance of moral and religious duty must be made a matter of positive revelation. Leading truths, and general principles, are alone declared; while the application is left to the sober judgment of men. The law of nature and of reason is also confirmed by the Holy Scriptures; so that it becomes a co-existent rule of duty, and whatever is sanctioned by it, is for that reason obligatory broad line of distinction between duties so sancupon the conscience. There is, nevertheless, a tioned, and duties commanded in the sacred writings: they are both binding, but binding upon different grounds; and though it is a palpable error to reject the obligation of the law of nature, it is equally so to place it, in a religious point of view, on the same footing with the law of revelation. If the Bible, and the Bible alone, be the religion of protestants, every thing entitled to the epithet "religious," must be founded on the Bible. Actions may be fit, may be expedient, may be required from other considerations; but, if they be not founded on the Bible, they cannot be called Christian duties. It is dangerous to hold up any practice, not authorized by revelation, as a religious duty; a moral one it may be, and, as such, binding upon the conscience; but to enforce it on religious grounds, is to open a door for all the inventions of papal will-worship. As no article of Christian faith, so no branch of Christian practice, is to be received as such, unless it can be proved by certain warranty of Holy Writ; not indeed always enjoined by a positive enactment, but sometimes deduced by inferential reasoning, yet in all cases resting on the fundamental truths and principles of religion. Supposing, however, that there may be acceptable religious services without a positive revelation; and supposing, further, that the Scripture has nowhere authorized us to treat piacular sacrifices as shut out from acceptance, simply because they might not be commanded and instituted by a revelation; it may be doubted whether this will meet the exigencies of the case before us. The stress of the argument built upon the divine acceptance of the patriarchal sacrifices, appears to be, not that they could by no means have been acceptable without a divine command, but that their being accepted is presumptive evidence of such a command. With respect to Abel's sacrifice, for instance, it is more probable, from the very circumstance of its being approved by the Almighty, that it was an act of obedience to a sacred direction, than a spontaneous offering. Though to assert, with Archbishop Magee, that the early sacrifices could not have received the divine approbation without the authority of a divine institution,* may be to transgress the limits of our knowledge, yet does not such approbation highly favour the notion of their divine institution? manifestation of his faith in the promise of a Messiah. It is at least beyond the reach of controversy, that Abel's offering was "by faith;" and as this virtue cannot be exercised without something revealed as the object of it, his offering must have testified his belief in that object, and therefore must have been in obedience to a divine appointment. Hence it is inferred, that sacrifice had its origin in divine institution. Such is the mode of argument pursued by those who ascribe sacrifice to a sacred original. They aver that the most probable ground of the acceptance of Abel's sacrifice is, that it testified his "faith in the Messiah ;" which it could not do, except it were the instituted means of testifying a belief in the promised deliverer. Cain must have had a general belief that his sacrifice would be approved by the Almighty, or he would not have offered it at all; consequently this general faith could not be that which rendered Abel's sacrifice acceptable. It must then have been a distinctive faith; and if the promise of mercy in the Messiah was revealed to the first pair, it seems the natural conclusion that Abel's offering was approved, because it was in obedience to that revelation. 11. It is thought by the oppugners of the doctrine here indicated, that the human beginnings of sacrificial worship could not disqualify it for a place in the ordinances of the Levitical law, unless the rite itself was founded in some error of belief or obliquity of practice; that to suppose God would proscribe sacrifices merely on account of their human reason, would be equivalent to the supposition, that he must proscribe the essential duties of thankfulness and penitence from which they proceeded; that if superstition had corrupted sacrifice before the institution of the law, that previous corruption would not of necessity bring a stigma upon the whole use of a rite which the wisdom of God might adapt to his purposes; that if sacrifice had degenerated from its simplicity, the first institution of it could make no difference in the propriety of its subsequent adoption; that as the Mosaic religion was preparatory to Christianity, many things would for that reason acquire a fitness and use, which they would not otherwise have; and that the typical and symbolical purport of sacrifice renders it a fit instrument of God's worship beyond the power of all human abuse to 10. Another very important passage is Heb. xi. 4: "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it, he, being dead, yet speaketh." Here it is argued, that the apostle declares "faith" to be the reason why Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Now faith has always relation to some revealed communication of God: without some revelation granted, some assurance as to the object of faith, Abel could not have ex-disable and discredit its adoption into his law. ercised this virtue. The object of this faith cannot be conceived to be any other than the great deliverer promised in the seed of the woman; and therefore the offering of Abel was the ordained * Discourses on Atonement, No. 47. 12. With respect to the essential doctrine of the gospel, it is argued, that those who have resisted the human origin of sacrifice, in the fear lest they should forfeit the proper doctrine of Christianity connected with this rite, have not sufficiently distinguished its two-fold character; that God's rerelation was in the atonement, and man's discovery 14. Such are the principal arguments on either side of this interesting question. We have merely indicated their character and weight, and refer to the respective works already mentioned, for a full and satisfactory discussion of its several parts. II. Under the Mosaic economy, every thing pertaining to sacrifice was prescribed and regulated with the most minute particularity; and any deviation from the sacred order was punished with great rigour. in the guilt; that the coincidence which obtains | the idea that animal sacrifice was enjoined in the between the act of sacrifice on the part of man, general, as the religious sign of faith in the proand the method of redemption on the part of God, mise of redemption, without any intimation of the is not the consequence of God's adaptation of his way in which it became a sign.” method to man's worship, nor of man's previous knowledge of God's design, but of his own constitution of things; that the real atonement of the gospel is rescued from dishonour by a just consideration of the defective nature of sacrifice, so long as it remains the mere creation of human reason; and that, therefore, the legal atonements, inasmuch as they are the legal signs of the Christian one (and that is their true specific character), are as far above any collision with the mere human rites, as the Christian sacrifice itself is above all competition with them. Against this it is to be observed, however, that if the divine institution of sacrifice be taken away, the rite thereby forfeits its prophetic character; it becomes simply a branch of the primitive religion. In which reduced idea of it, however it might express the piety of the worshipper, it cannot be reckoned among the typical 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 ordained, could not, under its institution, merely human, serve afterwards to attest the design, or confirm the truth, or explicate the sense, of any of his special appointments, so far removed from the reach of all human cognizance as that of the evangelical atonement. This is admitted even by Mr. Davison himself; though it is difficult to reconcile the position with his theory. 13. Some importance is attached to the fact, that no disclosure was made in the primitive times of a connexion between the rite of sacrifice and the future expiatory sacrifice of the gospel; but to this it may be replied, that there may be a connexion of this kind, without any such disclosure having been then made. The connexion between the two could be no less real, though it only became apparent by the reflected light of Christianity. It is, moreover, not necessary to the theory of the divine appointment to contend that the particular relation of that rite to the sacrifice of Christ was made known in the patriarchal ages. It is enough if the typical and representative character of sacrifice was then so far understood as to be generally an exercise of faith in the promise of redemption. "There is nothing improbable (says Archbishop Magee) even in the supposition, that that part of the signification of the rite which related to the sacrifice of Christ, might have been, in some degree, made known from the beginning. But not to contend for this (Scripture having furnished no express foundation for the assumption), room for the exercise of faith is equally preserved, on 1. The first thing relating to this subject has reference to the various kinds of sacrifice offered under the Levitical law. Michaëlis, whose division has been adopted by many subsequent writers, divides these sacrifices into three sorts: viz., bloody and unbloody sacrifices, and drink-offerings.+ But this distinction is defective, inasmuch as it excludes those oblations which in some measure partook of the nature of sacrifices, without being wholly such. We shall adopt the more comprehensive division, therefore, of animal sacrifices, and meat and drink-offerings. 2. There were but five kinds of animals accepted as sacrifices by the Mosaic law; viz., bullocks, sheep, goats, turtle-doves, and young pigeons. Of these animals the most careful selection was to be made. Nothing "blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen or scurvy, or scabbed," nor "that which was bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut," could lawfully be brought to the altar, Lev. xxii. 22-24. The prohibition also extended to such animals as had any disproportion in their members, whether of excess or defect. Indeed, the Jews consider the blemishes just enumerated as being only a sample of those which disqualified an animal for a sacrificial victim; and Maimonides has reckoned up fifty of this sort, in his Ratione de Sacrificii. Every animal, therefore, before it was brought to the altar, was diligently examined. It must be added, that no animal procured either by the price of a dog or by whoredom could be offered to God (Deut. xxiii. 18), it being impossible that there should be any value in sacrifices procured by such base means. Of those animals destined for the altar, the age also was to be taken into the account. None were to be offered that were not eight days • Discourse on Atonement, vol. i., p. 52; Quarterly Theol. Review, vol. iii., p. 277. Commentary on Laws of Moses, vol. iii., p. 9 old (Lev. xxii. 27), and the Jews considered it as | type of the sacrifice of Christ; as nothing less absolutely unlawful to offer old cattle. In sacri- than his complete and full sacrifice could make ficing birds, no selection of sex was enjoined; but atonement for the sin of the world. In most other the victims chosen from cattle consisted some- offerings, the priest, and then the offerer, had a times of males, sometimes of females, according share, but in the whole burnt-offering all was to the nature of the sacrifice, and the circum- given to God. This sacrifice might be offered of stances of the offerer. The peace-offerings of any of the five kinds of animals above specified, individuals were both males and females. The and the manner of offering it was as follows: victims offered for the whole congregation (to During the time that the tabernacle stood, the whatever class of sacrifices they belonged) all the offerer brought his victim to the door of the burnt-offerings, all trespass-offerings, and all sin- tabernacle, "before the Lord" (Lev. i. 3); but offerings for a ruler or high-priest, were to be when the temple was erected, this phrase was males; but the sin-offering of a private individual interpreted to mean the court of Israel, and espewas required to be a female lamb or kid, Lev. iv.* cially of the priests. So indispensable was the 3. Dr. Clarke supposes that some such custom of appearance of the offerer, with his sacrifice, before sealing the victim after it had been selected, pre- the Lord, that even women, who were forbidden vailed among the Jews, as among the nations the court of Israel at all other times, were obliged contiguous to them. After quoting a passage to enter it when they presented a burnt-offering. from Herodotus, in order to show the method of The offerer, having brought his sacrifice, laid his selecting and sealing the white bull sacrificed to hands upon its head, and repeated the usual Apis in Egypt, he remarks, "The Jews could not solemn prayer. This was intended as a transfer be unacquainted with the rites and ceremonies of of sin from himself to the animal, and as a sothe Egyptian worship: and it is possible that lemn acknowledgment of his own liability to such precautions as these were in use among suffer, Lev. i. 4. What a striking type of the themselves; especially as they were so strictly great atonement is observable in this transaction! enjoined to have their sacrifices without SPOT and The divinely-appointed victim, CHRIST, “bore without blemish." In allusion to this custom it our sins, and carried our sorrows." Having thus is, he supposes, that our Lord says of himself, presented his offering to Jehovah, the offerer "Him hath God the Father sealed," John vi. 27. transferred it to the priests to be slain, which "Infinite justice found Jesus Christ to be with- was done by cutting the throat and windpipe out spot or blemish, and therefore sealed, pointed through. The blood, being caught in a vessel out, and accepted him as a proper sacrifice and provided for the purpose, was sprinkled upon the atonement for the sin of the whole world. Collate altar (Lev. i. 5), to make atonement for the transwith this passage Heb. vii. 26, 27, 28: Eph. v. gressor; that which remained being poured out 27; 2 Pet. iii. 14; and especially, Heb. ix. 13, 14, at the foot of the altar,|| where was a drain which 'For if the blood of BULLS and of goats, and the carried it to the brook Kedron. It was because ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean sancti- of the blood making atonement for the soul, and fieth—how much more shall the blood of Christ, being, in that case, typical of the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself that the Jews were forbidden to eat it, Lev. xvii. WITHOUT SPOT to God, purge your consciences from dead works?" "+ III. Having noticed the animals used in sacrifice, we proceed to consider the several kinds of offerings to which they were devoted; beginning with 1. Burnt-offerings. The reason of this name is given in Lev. vi. 9, and the Hebrew word for them is oulut, or sacrifices which ascend in flame or smoke. They were either intended to expiate the evil thoughts of the heart, by the faith of the offerer looking to the Messiah as the great antitype, or to expiate the breach of affirmative precepts. The burnt-offering was a very expressive * Outram's Dissertation on Sacrifices, Diss. i. c. 9. † Comment. on John vi. 27. slew the animal himself. There is a very striking allusion to this sacrificial rite, in 2 Tim. iv. 6, where the apostle, seeing his impending fate, and intimating to Timothy its near approach, says, "I am now ready to be offered"-poured out as a libation, as the blood at the foot of the altar; "and the time of my departure is at hand." The same expressive sacrificial term occurs in his Epistle to the Philippians: "Yea, though I be offered upon the service and sacrifice of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all," ch. ii. 17. In which passage, whose force and beauty, or indeed meaning, faith or Christian profession of the Philippians as a sacrifice, cannot be comprehended from our translation, he represents the and his blood, as a libation poured forth to hallow and consecrate it. For which, on account of his willingness to shed his blood in the cause of Christianity, which they had espoused, he rejoiced and congratulated them all; and, adds he, “do you rejoice and congratulate me on the same account." See Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii., p. 220, and Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, Σπεύδω. |