Page images
PDF
EPUB

death for offences, which were not, in à civil sense, capital by law and that is sufficient for my present purpose, which was to shew, that your reasoning in this paragraph against the vicarious nature of such sacrifices, from their not being offered for offences punishable with death, is not conclusive.*

[ocr errors]

But you add, No. 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

* As the expiatory sacrifices were understood to preserve those from death, upon whose account they were offered; it would have been very strange indeed, if the law had directed them to be offered for such offenders, as it appointed to be put to death without mercy: had this been the case, (if such a thing may be supposed) there would have been some room for your objection: because those sacrifices, in that case, would have been without effect: but as they were understood to preserve, and did indeed actually preserve the offenders from a death, to which they were liable as offenders against God; it seems to me rather favourable than otherwise to the notion of their being vicarious; that they were not appointed to be offered for such offences as were, in the sense intended, punishable with death,

[ocr errors]

'be false.'

God, as such. Which is well known to As to which I shall only observe, that I have already shewed in a note above, that the piacular sacrifices always had their effect, so far as to preserve, or be a ground of preserving (through the divine appointment, which gave them their virtue or efficacy) the offerers from that death, to which they are all along considered in the law as liable; but that those sacrifices were equally acceptable to God, considered as general expressions of the homage or devotion of the offerers, is what I do not say; neither is it necessary I should; as I think, I have also shewed in the same note.

But your following paragraph (No. 56.) may perhaps be thought to require a more particular notice; where you are pleased to tell us, '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 6 devote his life and soul to God,' &c. The death of the victim, so far as I can perceive, was intended to suggest to the offer-

er, that he had forfeited his life, or deserv ed to die for his sins; but that God, by accepting of the blood or life of the victim in his stead, was disposed to shew mercy, and to remit, upon reasonable terms, of his demands upon his forfeited life. And in this view of it (which, I must own, seems to me the scriptural one) the death of the victim, as it was fitted to let the offerer see that God was merciful, so had it a very plain and obvious tendency to shew him the evil and demerit of sin; as it pointed out death to him as the wages of sin, and both shewed him, what he must have undergone, if it had not been for the mercy of God, and what he had reason to look for, if he continued obstinately and impenitently in sin. Whereas, in your view of it, the death of the victim (whatever tendency, we may suppose, it had to put the offerer in mind of his obligations to devote his life and soul to God) had no (at least direct) tendency, so far as I can see, to shew him the demerit of sin:

if it had any such at all, it must have been (as you suggest) as it shewed him, how he ought to slay the brute in himself.' But how obscure and remote, as it were, was its ten

dency to do it in this way? Not to observe, that the death of the victim pointing out this to the offerer, was not so much shewing him the demerit of sin, as that it was his duty to refrain from, or destroy it.

But after all; what grounds have we from what the scripture says concerning sacrifices to think, that the victim represented the person of the offerer in such a manner as you suppose? for my own part, I do not see that we have any on the contrary, it is no small objection with me against considering expiatory sacrifices in the light in which you have represented them (as indeed it is no inconsiderable argument in favour of that, in which they are generally viewed ;) that they are so often represented in scripture as offered, 'not to signify what the offerers should do ' for the time to come, of which the law says nothing that I know of; but in or'der to make expiation for sins, which had 'been committed before; or to prevent 'those fatal effects of them, which, it is supposed, would otherwise have taken 'place' for what can be plainer than that, when such or such sins or uncleannesses were committed or contracted, such or

such sacrifices were to be offered in order to prevent the effects of them; and that, when they had been offered, the guilt and pollution of those sins and uncleannesses were considered as removed? to quote passages to this purpose, as, I presume, it is needless, so it would in a manner be endless. I do not however deny, but that the legal sacrifices were both intended and fitted to be a means of holiness ; and must own, that, when in any instance they led to the practice of it, they were productive of a very important effect, and so far answered what, I doubt not, was ultimately intended by them: but this, though indeed remote, or at least different from the victim's dying in the offerer's stead, yet was by no means inconsistent with it. The death of the victim, when properly considered as to its moral tendency and design, might very well lead the offerer to the hatred of sin, and the love and practice of holiness; at the same time that he considered it, as more directly and immediately intended, not to shew him, how he ought to slay the brute in himself, &c. but to represent to him, that he had forfeited his life, and deserved to die (like the victim) for

« PreviousContinue »