dered as a finner in all thefe offerings, rather than as one who was merely making a prefent to the Almighty. Our author is certainly mistaken when he says, " it was not the "facrifice, but the priest, that was said in the "Old Teftament to make atonement:" Ib. For nothing can be more express than the declaration, that the facrifice made atonement. 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 fouls: for IT IS THE BLOOD THAT MAKETH AN ATONEMENT for the foul. Lev. xvii. 11. Yet this does not contradict what is elsewhere faid of the priest making atonement; for fince the blood only made atonement as shed by the priest according to the ritual, and the priest only made atonement by fhedding the blood as directed, it comes to the fame thing, whether the atonement be fpoken of as made by the priest, or the facrifice; for both are included in either expreffion. (4.) "Whenever the writers of the Old "Teftament treat largely concerning facri"fices, it is evident, that the idea they had "of them was the very fame with that which they had concerning gifts, or presents of "any other nature." Ib. p. 202.

For the proof of this we are referred to the 50th Pfalm. Hear, O my people, and I will Speak; O Ifrael, and I will teftify against thee: I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee

thee for thy facrifices, or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy houfe, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the foreft is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand bills. I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell thee; for the world is mine, and the fulnefs thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Moft High: And call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Ver. 7-15. The reader must judge for himself, what sort of proof this paffage affords of our author's premiffes. I confess I can fee no evidence in this pfalm, that God inftituted facrifices to be used as presents are in civil life: On the contrary, the people are reproved, in my apprehenfion, for entertaining fuch a notion of them, and for thinking to compenfate by them for their neglect of moral duties. I agree, therefore, intirely with our author in his remark fubjoined to the quotation above given.

So far did the heathens give into this idea "of facrifices, as to imagine, that their gods "did really feast their noftrils, at least, with "the fmell of them; and the reproof con"tained in the paffage quoted above, seems "to intimate the prevalence of some fuch "grofs notion among the Jews."

(5.)

66

(5.) "Sacrifice was not univerfally neceffary for the purpose of making atonement; "for, upon feveral occafions, we read of "atonement being made when there was no "facrifice. Thus Phinehas is faid to have "made atonement for the children of Ifrael

by flaying the tranfgreffors. Numb. xxv. 66 13. Mofes made atonement by prayer only, "Exod. xxxii. 30. And Aaron made atone"ment with incenfe. Numb. xvi. 46, 47.” Ib.

The paffages here quoted fhew us clearly what is the scriptural notion of making atonement, namely, the removal of the obligation to punishment from an offender,' or, which comes to the fame thing, the doing of fomething available for that purpose. What Phinehas did is thus described in the 11th verfe, Phinehas hath turned away my wrath from the children of Ifrael, while he was zealous for my fake among them: This is repeated in other words in the 13th verfe, after the reward of his zeal had been mentioned, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Ifrael. So that making atonement, and turning away God's wrath, are plainly fynonymous expreffions. When Mofes faid to the people of Ifrael, Ye have finned a great fin, and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your fin: by making atonement he undoubtedly meant, averting the punishment due to their fin. So when Aaron ran into the midst of the congregation with fire

taken

taken from off the altar, and incenfe thereon, he made atonement for the people, that is, he did fomething which averted the wrath of God, or stayed the plague begun among them. In these extraordinary cafes, extraordinary methods of making atonement were accepted; but this does not at all affect my argument, which is built upon the clear declarations of holy writ, that the standing appointed method of making atonement under the ceremonial law was by facrifice, and that this was typical of God's method of forgiving offences against the moral law, made known more fully under the gospel dispensation.

4

It may not be amifs in this place, to direct the reader's attention to the manner in which this author opposes the doctrine of atonement. He first proves, as he apprehends, that the death of Chrift is no proper or real facrifice for fin, nor the antitype of the Jewish facrifices; but that it is called fo merely in a figurative sense, by way of allufion to the Jewish facrifices, because Christ offered himself to God for the good of mankind; that we make the fame kind of facrifice as Chrift did, when we yield our bodies living facrifices in God's service, or offer him the facrifice of praife, or lay down our lives for the brethren; and, of confequence, that the facrifices under the law, were transactions of a nature quite different either from our prayers, or Chrift's death.

After he has fettled this point, he then

proves, in like manner, that the legal facricrifices for fin had no relation to the remiffion of offences, but "that the offering of an "animal on the altar was confidered in the "fame light as any other offering or gift." That " agreeable to the ftanding and univerfal "cuftom of the Eaft, with respect to fove"reigns and great men, the Jews were never "to approach the divine prefence without "fome offering," and that "their facrifices "exactly answered to the use of prefents in "civil life."

But how are these things consistent with each other? If Chrift is faid to have made himself a sacrifice because he offered himself to God, and real facrifices are no more than offerings or prefents, then the death of Chrift had the nature of a real facrifice. Or if Chrift did but make a figurative facrifice because he merely made an offering of himself to God, then real facrifices must be more than mere offerings or prefents to the Divine Being. These two representations of the matter appear to me to be directly oppofite, and, in that case, the arguments deduced from them (and our author's principal arguments, I think, are deduced from them) must destroy one another. 16. "Some texts of fcripture feem to represent the pardon of fin as difpenfed in "confideration of fomething else than our repentance or personal virtue; and according to their literal fenfe, the pardon of

"fin