who would so resolutely derive the whole manifestly connected theology of the Gentiles from the history of Moses and the Israelites, that, as Bishop Warburton somewhere expresses it, they will scarcely leave Rome in possession of her own Romulus *? Even if an adventurous spirit of literary chivalry prompted us to undertake, on its own abstract merits, such an utterly hopeless enterprise we should at once be checked, in mid career, by the stubborn FACT, that both the doctrine and the practice existed in the pagan world anterior to the promulgation of the Law by Moses and anterior to the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

2. Clearly, the common origin, of which we are in quest, must be far more ancient than the time of Moses: and perhaps it will not be easy to give any satisfactory account of it, if we stop short of that second father of mankind whom the traditions of the Gentiles themselves harmoniously describe as the earliest postdiluvian sacrificer.

Let Noah be propounded, as the common origin of the doctrine and the practice to ALL his posterity; and the riddle of pagan UNIFORMITY will be forthwith read: let Noah be rejected, as this common origin; and the riddle of pagan

* See Huet. Demons. Evan. Propos. iv. c. 3-10.

UNIFORMITY must then be left for a more satisfactory solution to those who advocate Mr. Davison's opinion.

3. But, if Noah be admitted as the common origin of the doctrine and the practice to ALL his posterity, the necessary conclusion will, I fear, be fatal to the system now under discussion.

Noah could not communicate what he himself did not possess. Hence, if Noah communicated the doctrine and the practice to all his posterity, Noah must assuredly have been well acquainted both with the doctrine and with the practice.

But in what manner did the doctrine and the practice become known to that great patriarch? Was it from a special revelation, made to himself or to his remote ancestors? Or was it from the wayward operation of a presumptuous and unauthorised superstition?

The character of the just man, who was perfect in his generations, and who walked with God, forbids, I think, the latter part of the alternative. Mr. Davison himself allows, that the doctrine and the practice could not emanate from the light of nature or from the principles of reason. It remains only, that Noah received them from revelation either mediate or immediate.

CHAPTER III.

Evidence of the divinely-approved Existence of the Doctrine of an Atonement during the Patriarchal Ages, from the Character of the Sacrifices recorded in the Book of Job.

Ir may be said, that a common origin, of a far less venerable nature than that propounded by myself, may be well assigned to the doctrine and the practice of atonement and piacular sacrifice as they UNIVERSALLY prevailed among the Gentiles.

From Babel the nations of the earth proceeded, as from a general source: Babel was confessedly the fruitful parent of idolatry and superstition; what hinders then, that we should seek at Babel the common origin of the doctrine and the practice in their unauthorised condition of mere superstitious derivation?

The objection to such a theory is such, I think, as cannot easily be removed.

If the doctrine and the practice, anterior to the promulgation of the Law, sprang only from the working of a presumptuous and unhallowed superstition; they must alike, from their very

nature and tendency, have been utterly abominable to God. But we seem to have sufficient proof from Scripture, that such was not the case. Therefore, apparently, the doctrine and the practice, anterior to the promulgation of the Law, cannot have sprung from the mere working of a presumptuous and unhallowed superstition.

Whatever inspired writer may have been the author of the book of Job; there can be no reasonable doubt, I think, that the individual Job flourished anterior to the promulgation of the Law: and, whatever possible incidental allusions to the peculiarities of the Law may be detected in the poetical and parabolical parts of the book, thus evincing the book itself to have been written subsequent to the promulgation of the Law; we cannot believe, consistently with the inspiration of its author, that he would exhibit Job and his friends, as performing certain acts under a certain peculiar aspect, which yet they never did perform.

On this basis, which (I trust) is unexception ́able, I am willing to frame my present argument*.

* Respecting my basis, I have no dispute with Mr. Davison. He fully admits the high antiquity even of the book of Job, supposing it to be as old as the time of Moses. If

I. In the book of Job, the rite of offering up sacrifice to God is twice mentioned and described.

1. The ordinary practice of the holy man himself, prior to the occurrence of his trials, is approbatively detailed by the inspired writer in manner following.

His sons went, and feasted in their houses, every one his day: and sent and called for their three sisters, to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all for Job said; It may be, that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually*.

2. Such was the ordinary practice of Job anterior to his trials: at the conclusion of them, we find a charge given by God himself to Eliphaz and his two friends, that they should devote a burnt-offering, on the express ground that the wrath of the Almighty was kindled against them

such, therefore, be the admitted antiquity of the book, the individual must obviously be yet more ancient. So far as I can judge, there is no reasonable doubt that Job flourished anterior to the delivery of the Law. See Davison's Inquiry, p. 190.

* Job i. 4, 5.