be rendered" propitiate for," or "make reconciliation for."

To return to the subject of sacrifice. The manner in which it is treated by the opponents of the present doctrine, and the untenable extremes to which their theory necessarily leads, may be dis-. cerned from the works of the late Dr. Priestley. When that eminent person wrote his "Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion," he seems not to have fully settled his opinion: for he says-" We have no account of the origin of sacrifices; and it is possible, they were not originally of divine appointment."* But at a subsequent period of his life, he went much further, as is evident from one of his papers in "The Theological Repository."+ There he says "Strange as this business of sacrificing appears to us, with whom the rite has been long disused, yet that it was really a natural action in the infancy of the world, may, I think, appear from the following considerations." Then he goes on, at a considerable length, to delineate a train of ideas, which, as he supposed, would lead to the result spoken of: but without alleging a single fact tending to show, that any body of men, or any individual, has been conducted to the rite of sacrifice, as the fruit of their or his reflections. Towards the close of Dr. Priestley's days, he seems to have begun to tread back his steps: for in his Notes on the Bible, published since his decease, he says on Gen. iv. 3, 4.-"It seems most probable, that men were instructed by the Divine Being himself, in this method of worship." It is not from disrespect to the memory of Dr. Priestley, but from the opposite principle, when the opinion is here expressed, that if, in his mind, the probability spoken of had ripen. ed into certainty, and had been pursued into its consequences; it must have landed him on the evan

Part iii. chap. 6. † Vol. i. p. 196. and following.

gelical ground, which it is the object of the present section to maintain.

That this was not the issue, appears from sundry places in the notes: of which the only instance to be now given, is where he comments on the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It may show, to what an extent the maintainers of the opposite opinion carry their freedom of interpretation of scripture. Dr. Priestley says-" Though argu. ments of this kind"-meaning those used by the apostle throughout the epistle-" were calculated to make an impression upon Jews, they are not only of no use to us, who have no Jewish prejudices to remove; but if we be not upon our guard, they may mislead us, by teaching us to look for something more than figurative resemblance in them. In the same work* he delineates his principle as follows: After speaking of the Jewish system as taking away ceremonial uncleanness, he says in allusion to this "To magnify the Christian scheme by a bold figure, the apostle represents the death of Christ, as a sacrifice which takes away moral impurity, and purges the conscience from dead works.

Considering the opinions of this learned man on the subject, it is surprising, that writing notes on the Bible, he not only omits to account for sacrifice, as an accompaniment of the first act of devotion recorded in Sacred Writ, but is silent in relation to the sacrifice of Noah, and to that of Abraham recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. Each of these acts was during a season of the immediate influence of the Deity, and can hardly be otherwise accounted for, than as done by his command; which is expressly said to have been given in the latter

case.

It is still more remarkable, that Dr. Priestley has not given a single note on any verse in the fifth, or

• Vol. iii. p. 427.

in the sixth chapter of Leviticus: which essentially interfere with a position maintained by him-that the legal sacrifices were for ceremonial uncleanness only; and in no respect for transgression against morals.

Another unaccountable omission, is the not noticing of the sacrifice of Job, nor that of his three friends, in obedience to divine direction. Notice of these two incidents was loudly called for by the extraordinary position in "The Theological Repository, "* that "neither Job nor any of his friends seem to have had any notion, or to have been sensible of any want of a scheme of atonement for sin."

These matters are stated, merely as a foundation for the inference, that a theory must be untenable; when a review of the Bible under its influence, presented knots which so expert a hand did not endeavour to untie. In reality, the whole book of Leviticus is equally against the theory; although it has been the way to account for its sacrifices, on the principle of God's condescending to the mode which his creatures had devised, to render to him their homage. In contrariety to this it may be af firmed, that there never was a time since the apostacy in Paradise, when the Christian sacrifice cannot be traced either in institutions of divine appointment, or in human institutions which were the corruptions of the other. Before the coming of Christ, all was by anticipation, in animal sacrifice: and since that period, the legitimate acknowledgment of it is in the commemorative sacrifice of the Eucharist.

Under the present remark, the author has been compelled to attend more to the notes of the version, than to the text; which varies from the plan pursued by him under the other heads. The reason is, that on the subject of the propitiatory sacrifice, the improvers of Archbishop Newcome's version

Vol. i. p. 402.

have principally laboured in the notes, to paralize whatever in the text relates to sacrifice: which, in proportion as the notes may be regarded, has the same effect, as, in relation to two chapters of St. Matthew and two chapters of St. Luke, the printing of them in italicks. The author, however, has applied himself as strictly as the above circumstance would permit, to questions of translation and of fact, rather than to those which require circuitous reasoning. He will only add his opinion, that no version of the New Testament will answer the purpose of the deniers of the propitiatory sacrifice, unless with such critical notes as the present, to check the obvious senses of the several passages. This will render it expedient on the other side, to direct the attention less to the exhibited text, than to the unsound legs on which it stands.

Sixth Remark. Although what was contemplated on the two proposed subjects is finished; yet there is another subject, which has become so combined with them, that correct sentiments in regard to the one, may be considered as sustained by the exhibition of the species of criticism bestowed on the other. The subject now in view, is the question of the ceasing of consciousness at death: there being supposed, on the other side, to be no remnant of existence, except in the decomposed particles of our bodies, between the time of their dissolution and that of a general resurrection.

It is not to be wondered at, that the framers of the version perceived contrariety to their system in the following passage-" And Jesus said unto him, to day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."* The old perversion of it, was by connecting "to day," with the former part of the passage. The late Dr. Priestley, who was a man of too much mind to be content with so paltry a criticism, exhibits the text in its usual form, in his Harmony of the Evan

* Luke, xxiii, 43.

gelists; but subjoins the following note-" By Paradise the Jews meant a place of repose for good men, where they were to sleep till the resurrection." Being himself a disbeliever of the intermediate state, he seems to have supposed, that the Saviour, at the solemn crisis referred to, accommodated his encouraging declaration to the ungrounded prejudice of his countrymen. But the New Version strikes a bolder stroke; putting the whole sentence in italicks, and giving a note expressive of the considering of it as spurious. The reasons given, are as follow. First, it was wanting in the copies of Marcion and other reputed hereticks: so that the very reputation of heresy is to have weight, without a particle of information as to the authenticity of the copies. Next, it was wanting in some of the older copies, in the time of Origen. Why was not this given in the form, in which Origen himself presents it? Mills, in his variations, states the matter thus-" Origen relates, that some of his day, were so dissatisfied with this saying (for how can it be said, that he was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, who, as soon as he died, was to be in Paradise) that they suspected it to have been thrown in by some depravers of this gospel." So that the reference is not to copies, but to suspicion; and this grounded on the supposition of an inconsistency, where, according to general apprehension, there is none. A further reason is given. "The passage," say those who stigmatize it in italicks, "is not cited by Justin, nor by Irenæus, nor by Tertullian; though the two former have quoted almost every text in Luke, which relates to the crucifixion." Had this been correct, it would not have been to the purpose; since the texts might not have applied to the points intended to be established. But it is not correct. St. Luke's account of the crucifixion begins with the chapter, and ends with the forty-sixth verse. Of the fortysix verses, the thirty-fifth and the forty-fifth only