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ment which they themselves should really bear. If as others think, he personated God; then he prophetically represented God's bearing their sin patiently, or his forbearing their punishment a certain number of years.

52. Upon the whole, it is abundantly evident, no proof can be drawn from Scripture, that bearing sin includes the notion. of "transferring of guilt" from the nocent to the innocent.

CHAPTER IV.

OF VICARIOUS PUNISHMENT, AND ATONEMENT.

53. III. BUT if the sacrifice was substituted in the stead of the offender, and suffered the death due to him: or, in other words, if the death of the victim was a vicarious punishment ;* then it will follow, that the victim did so far bear the sin of the of fender, that it suffered in his stead, and bore the punishment which should have fallen up

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* Victimae anima, seu vita, vice sontis ipsius animae daOutram de Sacr. p. 337. Victimae Mosaicae piaculares sontium in locum surrogatae erant; ut quae idem poenae genus (nempe vitae exitium) passae fuerint, quo sontes ipsiliberati erant. Ibid. p. 349.

on him. Ans. The victim is never said to be offered, or to die in the stead of the sinner. Abraham (Gen. xxii. 13) took the ram and offered him up for a burnt-offering instead of his son Isaac. But every body knows this is foreign to the present purpose. The cutting off the heifer's head in case of secret murder (Deut. xxi. 1-10,) might represent the punishment due to the murderer, and the readiness of the elders to punish him, by shedding his blood, could he be found; and so was a proper mean of clearing themselves of the guilt which would have lain upon them, had they taken no notice of a murder committed in their neighbourhood; nor expressed their abhorrence on it, and their readiness to discover and punish the murderer. And thus indeed, till the murderer was discovered, the slaying the heifer served their purpose as well as if they had put him to death. But not as if the heifer died either in their stead, or his stead, (for, if afterwards he was found, he was to suffer capital punishment) but as by the whole ceremony they signified their willingness and true desire to find him out and to punish him. Which, as the case stood, was all they could possibly do.

54. The sins for which sacrifices were generally offered were sins of ignorance, and ceremonial uncleanness, which were not capital by law. The victim therefore could not die in the offender's stead, when his offence was not punishable with death.

55. If the virtue or efficacy of every piacular sacrifice consisted in suffering a vicarious punishment; then, whereas that punishment was the same in all such sacrifices, by whomsoever offered, it must have had its effect in all those sacrifices; and they must all have been equally acceptable to God, as such. Which is well known to be false.

56. Indeed the victim might, and I suppose did, represent the person who offered it, in the symbolical, interpretative sense; namely, as whatever was done to that was to be applied to himself, to shew him the demerit of sin in general, how he ought to slay the brute in himself, and devote his life and soul to God, &c. But this is very remote from the victim's suffering in his stead, the death which he deserved to die for his sins; or suffering a vicarious punishment. Which seems to be a contradiction in terms. For as there cannot be a vicarious guilt, or as no one can be guilty

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in the stead of another; so there cannot be a vicarious punishment, or no one can be punished instead of another. Because punishment in it's very nature connotes guilt in the subject which bears it.

57. IV. But is not vicarious punishment, or the victim's suffering death in the offender's stead, as an equivalent to divine justice, included in the notion of atonement? Ans. No for atonement was made with the scape-goat, Lev. xvi. 10, though he was not slain, but let loose in the wilderness, the properest place for his subsistence. And in three instances of sin, one of which was wilful, Lev. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, if the offender was not able to bring a lamb, or two turtle doves, or young pigeons, he was allowed to bring the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering, and by burning a handful of it, the priest is directed to make an atonement for him, ver. 11, 12, 13. Which, however it might serve to assist the offerer's meditations, could never suggest the idea of vicarious punishment.

58. Nor did the shedding of blood in itself imply atonement by vicarious punishFor it is never said, that atonement was made for sin by peace-offerings: con

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sequently, we have no ground to suppose vicarious punishment in such sacrifices; though blood was shed and sprinkled in them, as well as in sin offerings.

59. It is said indeed, Lev. xvii. 11, Ye shall not eat blood: for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. But how? By way of vicarious punishment? Not a word of that. Therefore we are at liberty to judge; that the blood made atonement in sin-offerings, as the shedding, sprinkling, and pouring of it out at the foot of the altar signified the sacrificer's devoting his very life to the honour and service of God. And these being the principal rites relating to the expiation of sin, God prohibited the eating of blood (and of fat too, Lev. vii. 25,) to keep up in the people's minds a reverend regard to religious solemnities.

60. But as the sense of atonement seems hitherto rather to have been taken for granted than understood, let us search the scriptures, and try if we can gain clear and distinct ideas of it. Observe then;

61. The word atonement is always in our bibles, (I mean in the Old Testament) rendered from some tense or noun derived from the root caphar. Nor is there any

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