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facrifice of Chrift, as being his perfect obedience and goodness; I fhall, before I conclude this head, fubjoin one general remark upon this notion of the Dr. with fome illuftrations of the truth of it.-The remark is this, that it will be very difficult, impoffible, I think, to reconcile the Dr's notion of the facrifice of Chrift, with the current phrafeology of the holy fcriptures; or with his own notion of Jewish facrifices, which, moft certainly, were true and proper facrices; and muft, for that very reafon, agree, in the general nature of facrifice, with the facrifice of Jefus Chrift, provided it was a true and proper facrifice, as there is good reafon to think, it was.

§. 30. I. THIS notion of the facrifice of Chrift cannot, I think, be brought to accord with the fcripture-phrafeology. The fcriptures always fpeak of this facrifice as being the death of Chrift; as being his blood, the shedding of his blood, his cross, his being made a curfe by hanging on a tree, his giving, or laying down, his life, his offering himself (not his actions) an offering and a facrifice, &c. But they never once mention his perfect obedience and goodness, as being the facrifice which he offered to God.-If it be urged here, that we must understand these fcripture-phrafes in the Dr's way, or we cannot make the doctrine, which is grounded upon them in the fcrip M

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ture, confiftent with reafon and common fenfe. I answer; this objection fuppofes, and takes for granted, that which ought to be clearly proved, viz. that the doctrine, grounded upon the death or facrifice of Chrift, is inconfiftent with reafon and common fenfe, unless his death or facrifice be understood to fignify his perfect obedience and goodness. But this fhould be fairly proved, before the truth of it is admitted. One thing feems to be pretty clear, viz. that the fcripture-phrafes, now mentioned, cannot be understood in the Dr's fenfe, without the most violent and unnatural straining, a departure from the obvious fenfe of the words, and the putting a fenfe upon them in which they are not to be found in any writing. Withal, if any perfon fhould underftand them in this fenfe, he would ftill have it to prove from fcripture, that they ought to be fo understood; which, I am of opinion, will never be proved, unless it be by a proof of the fame kind with that of the Dr, which, as we have feen, is no proof at all.

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S. 31. II. THE Dr's notion of the facrifice of Chrift cannot be brought to agree, in its nature, as a facrifice, with his notion of Jewish, piacular-facrifices. His notion of the laft mentioned facrifices, is, that they were fymbols of the penitence and penitent addrefs of thofe by whom they were offered. But

But the facrifice of Chrift, according to him, was neither the penitence nor penitent address of the offenders for whom it was offered, nor the fymbol of them; but a quite different thing, even the perfect obedience and goodness of the whole life of another perfon. In the one cafe, atonement was made for fin by the fymbolical, penitent addrefs of the offender himfelf: In the other, it was made by the perfect obedience and goodness of the priest who offered the facrifice. And how two fpecies of things, which agree in nothing, fhould yet agree in the general nature of facrifice, is what I cannot comprehend.

§. 32. THE Dr. indeed, tells us, "That "the virtue and efficacy of Jewish facrifices (in' their inferior kind and degree, as

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types, figures, and emblems,) coincide "with the virtue and efficacy of Chrift's "facrifice."-ANSW. The virtue and effi cacy of Jewish-facrifices, confidered as. types, figures, and emblems, cannot, in any kind or degree, coincide with the virtue and efficacy of what the Dr. calls Chrift's facrifice, viz. his perfect obedience and goodness; because they were things of a very diffimilar nature and efficacy. Types, figures, and emblems, confidered in themfelves,

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See Scripture-doctrine of Atonement examined, Chap. XI. §. 190.

felves, have no virtue or efficacy, can do nothing, can produce no manner of effect: confidered even in reference to the things which they reprefent, they have no efficacy, but only as they ferve to excite the ideas of thefe things, and to occafion thoughts and meditations about them, which is a very different efficacy from what the things themselves have. Yea, the Jewish-facrifices, confidered even as types, figures, and emblems, of what the Dr. calls," the fa

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crifice of the perfect obedience and good"nefs of Jefus Chrift," cannot coincide, either in the fame kind, or in any degree, of efficacy, with this latter facrifice. To fuppofe that they did, would be the fame thing as to fuppofe, that a fhadow of a thing has the fame kind of efficacy, or fome degree of the fame efficacy,, as the substance; or that the print or draught of a corn-mill has the fame kind of efficacy, or fome degree of the fame kind of efficacy, as a real corn-mill.

S. 33. BUT in order to fupport the coincidence between the efficacy of Jewish-facrifices and that of the facrifice of the perfect obedience and-goodness of Jesus Christ, the Dr. fubjoins, མ "They (ie. the Jewish"facrifices) were fymbolical inftructions in holinefs, till Chrift came, and offered up himfelf a facrifice of real holinefs, obedience, and goodness, to inftruct us in a

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"more perfect manner "."ANSW. All the inftitutions and external dutys of religion muft, as fuch, agree in a general tendency to inftruct men in holiness, and promote piety; for unless each of them had this tendency, they could not be religious inftitutions and dutys. But though all the inftitutions and external dutys of religion do, and muft, agree in this general tendency; yet, to infer from their agreement in it, (as the Dr. feems to do, in the cafe before us,) that all the inftitutions and external dutys of religion are of one fpecies, or, that the virtue and efficacy which each of them has in producing its peculiar and appropriated effect, is the fame kind of virtue and efficacy, would be to reafon, not only in a wrong, but in a very strange and wild manner. Wherefore, fuppofing both Jewith-facrifices, and the facrifice of the perfect obedience and goodness of Chrift, as the Dr. calls it, to have agreed, as inftructions in holiness, in the fame general tendency with one another, and all other inftitutions of religion; yet, it will not follow, that the virtue or efficacy of Jewith-facrifices, and of this facrifice of Chrift, is of the fame nature and kind; any more than it will follow, that the virtue or efficacy of circumcifion, or of eating the M 3 Lord's

See Scripture-doctrine of Atonement examined, Chap. XI. §. 190.

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