sent stage of the discussion, turns upon the specific character of the sacrifice offered.

1. To speak abstractedly and without entering at large into the question under all its bearings, an eucharistic sacrifice may or may not, in the first instance, have been of divine appointment: for, on a rapid inspection of the subject, it might seem uncertain, whether man spontaneously offered to God gifts expressive of his gratitude, or whether God commanded him to make that rite a constituent part of his outward adoration.

2. On the same principle, as a symbol of man's contrition and self-condemnation, or as indicating a confession that he justly deserves the punishment of death at the hands of his offended Creator, a living victim may, or may not, in the first instance, have been devoted by the special appointment of God: for, provided there be no sufficient grounds for maintaining a contrary opinion, perhaps it is not absolutely impossible, that the practice may have occurred to man himself without any direct revelation from heaven.

3. With a much higher, or (to speak more properly) with a full degree of assurance, we may safely assert, that, for the simple purpose of deprecating God's wrath, the crude notion of

devoting a placatory sacrifice MUST, independently of any divine command, have occurred, in the first instance, to some conscious and panic-stricken offender: for, though such an unhallowed mode of appeasing the Deity cannot, consistently with his well-known attributes, have ever been enjoined by the Deity himself; yet the mistaken idea, that punishment may be averted or bought off by a voluntary fine or gift or bribe offered to God on the part of the culprit, presents itself to the human mind without any effort or difficulty*.

4. But the matter assumes a very different aspect, when the case of expiatory sacrifice comes to be considered. Man, peradventure, may express his gratitude to God by uncommanded gifts; or he may, conceivably, set forth his contrition and self-condemnation by the uncommanded symbolical slaughter of an animal; or he may plausibly, because analogically to his dealings with his fellow men, seek to deprecate the wrath of heaven by an uncommanded fine or bribe: but to propound and build upon the idea, essentially inherent in, and expressly con

Accordingly, a very large proportion of pagan sacrifices was avowedly offered up under this precise idea. See Homer. Iliad. lib. ix. ver. 492-497. Ovid. Art. Amat. lib. iii. ver. 651-656. Pers. Satir. ii. ver. 29, 30. But see below, sect. ii. chap. 3. § II. 3. (1.)

veyed by, a piacular sacrifice, can only, in the absence of a divine revelation to that purpose, be an act, of which (as Mr. Davison well remarks*) no consistent and satisfactory account can be given, either from the light of nature or from the principles of reason. Hence, if I mistake not, it is impossible to conceive, how the wild presumption of an uncommanded piacular sacrifice can have been any other than an utter abomination to God: and hence, unless my view of the question be altogether inaccurate, it will follow, that, if, anterior to the law of Moses, God ever accepted a manifestly piacular sacrifice, both the rite of piacular sacrifice and its attendant palmary idea of an atonement must have been ordained and revealed by himselft.

* Inquiry, p. 27.

+ In making these concessions, relative to the possibility under certain particular aspects, of the mere human invention of ANIMAL SACRIFICE, it has been my wish to give every argumentative advantage to the theory of Mr. Davison. But, after all that has been said by Bishop Warburton and himself, we may not unreasonably doubt, whether, independently of a divine command, and as contradistinguished from mere vegetable oblation, ANIMAL SACRIFICE, which involves the practice of slaughtering and burning an innocent and sensitive victim, could ever, under any aspect, have been adopted as a rite likely to gain the favour of the Deity.

I. On this point, we ourselves, accustomed as we are from our infancy to the perusal of scripture, are perhaps not altogether competent judges. Would we learn how so

II. To its fullest extent, this principle is evidently admitted by Mr. Davison: for, in truth,

singular an institution must strike the minds of thinking men who had not been prepossessed by our own course of early education, we should do well to hear the remarks of those, who, independently of the light afforded by revelation, philosophically contemplated the bare rite of ANIMAL SACRIFICE as it existed under paganism.

1. Now it is a remarkable fact, that persons, thus circumstanced, have not unfrequently expressed their astonish. ment how and upon what rational principles so strange an institution as that of ANIMAL SACRIFICE could ever have originated: for, as to the notion of its being pleasing to the Deity, such a matter struck them as being a manifest impossibility.

(1.) Thus we are told, that Pythagoras and Plato, so far from being able to account for the origin of ANIMAL SACRIFICE on any plausibly-rational grounds, expressed their amazement how the dismal, though universal, custom of defiling all places with the blood of brute beasts could ever, in the first instance, have been excogitated. Jamb. de Vit. Pythag. p. 106–118.

(2.) Thus also Porphyry introduces an ancient Greek poet, who roundly declares the utter moral impossibility Of ANIMAL SACRIFICE being grateful to the gods, notwithstanding men hoped to gain their favour by the adoption of such an ordinance. Porphyr. de Abstin. lib. ii. § 58. p. 96.

(3.) And thus Porphyry himself, espousing the sentiments of Theophrastus, strenuously argues against the practice of ANIMAL SACRIFICE, as being clearly both unlawful and noxious and unholy.

When we slaughter an animal which has been guilty of no injustice, says he, do we not practically confess, that we ourselves act unjustly? Therefore, on the ground of honour, we ought in no wise to sacrifice animals. Neither ought we to sacrifice them for the sake of procuring certain benefits. For he, who seeks to obtain a benefit through an act of injustice, may well incur the suspicion of entertaining but small gratitude

the whole of his work is tacitly, perhaps I may rather say expressly, built upon it.

for any benefit which he may receive. Therefore we ought not to sacrifice animals to the gods, through a hope of deriving benefits from them. Hence, if we may not sacrifice animals for any of these reasons, it is manifest, that any sacrifice of animals to the gods cannot but be unlawful. Theophrast. et Porphyr. apud Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. iv. c. 15. p. 90, 91. Lutet. Rob. Stephan. 1544.

2. These masters of reasoning among the Gentiles were encountered by a fact, alike remarkable and indisputable; the universal prevalence of ANIMAL SACRIFICE. For the origination of the rite, under the aspect of a human invention, they professed themselves unable to account on any satisfactory principles: and Porphyry, after Theophrastus, argues, that the practice is altogether irreconcileable to right reason, and that on no such ground can the difficulty be solved.

3. I have thought it proper to state these particulars, by way of evincing the liberality of my concessions to Mr. Davison: for, under the authority of the ancients, I might have contended, that the origin of ANIMAL SACRIFICE, as a mere human institution, is unaccountable on any satisfactory principles of right reason.

II. Perhaps it may not be unimportant, or at least not uninteresting, to add, that Grotius, who advocated the mere human origin of primitive sacrifice, was so fully convinced of the impossibility of uncommanded ANIMAL SACRIFICE having been offered up by the pious anterior to the deluge, that he actually denied the oblation of Abel to have been an animal sacrifice; contending, that Abel devoted, not a firstling from his flock, but only the milk and the wool of his best sheep. Grot. in Gen. iv. 4. apud Outram. de Sacrif. lib. i. c. 1. § III. p. 3, 4.

The circumstance affords a very curious instance of the chivalrous determination evinced by a hard-pressed controvertist, to hazard any assertion rather than give up a