offering, a meat and drink-offering was. "made likewife "." And he fays further, "The reason why a meat and drinkoffering were annexed to these two kinds "of facrifices, is, the fymbols of friendship were offered. "."-In these two paffages he intimates, that a meat and drink-offering were annexed to all burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; and that the oblation of thefe to God, being the oblation of meat and drink to him, was the oblation of the fymbols of friendship to him: fo that, according to the Author, burnt-offerings themselves, with their appurtenances, as well as the peace-offerings, were fymbols of friendship with God; or foederal rites by which he and the offerers engaged in, renewed, and kept up friendship with one another. ANSWER. Our Author ought to have confidered, that no meat-offering, nor drink-offering, was annexed to those burnt-offerings which conftituted a part of the trefpafs-offerings, (ex-. cepting only the trefpafs-offerings offered by the leper, Levit. xiv.) This is evident from Levit. v. 7--10.--xii. 8.--xv. 14, 15; 29, 30. And it is acknowledged by the Author himfelf, X felf, who faith exprefly, "The fin-offering "and the trefpafs-offering had no meat-offering nor drink-offering accompanying "them. "The burnt-offerings, therefore, which were offered for trefpaffes, not having any meat-offering or drink-offering (which our Author calls, the fymbols of friendship) annexed to them, could not be fymbols of friendship, or fœderal rites by which God and the offerers engaged in, renewed, or kept up friendship with one another. Our Author ought, likewise, to have remembred, that it is not the meat-offering, nor the drink-offering, nor any part of the apparatus of a table, whether flesh, bread, or wine, but eating and drinking together, that he confiders as being the symbol of friendship betwixt God and the offerers of facrifice. And if this be true; it cannot, at the fame time, be true, that, when a meat-offering and a drink-offering were offered to God, the fymbols of friendship were offered to him and, therefore, his mentioning them as being symbols of friendship, which were offered to God, is a real departure from his own system. Withal, where a meat-offering and at drink-offering were annexed to burnt-offerings, ings, yet even here, God and the offerers did not eat or drink together: and therefore, burnt-offerings, even taken in connection with those their appendages, neither were, nor could be, in our Author's fenfe, fymbols of friendfhip, or fœderal rites by which God and the offerers engaged in, renewed, or kept up friendship by eating and drinking together. Thirdly. The laft, and indeed, the main thing, which our Author advances, in order to fhew that his notion of the fymbolical nature and defign of facrifices is applicable to piacular facrifices, is, that peace-offerings were, in all cafes, joined to thofe facrifices of which the owners had no fhare to eat. To this purpose he faith, "There were, from "the earliest times, even from the flood, burnt-offerings; and probably peace-offer❝ings were added to them. For as the burntofferings were totally confumed, the party facrificing could not eat of them. They joined therefore to them, or had in ufe, as early as Jacob's days at leaft, facrifices of "which they partook, and thus did eat with "God"." Again, "If one may argue "from what was in ufe under the Mofaic "inftitution, to the cuftoms before that "time, one may reasonably conclude, that peace-offerings were always annexed to › Page 269, 270. burnt burnt-offerings, even from the beginning. "For holocaufts were to deprecate the "wrath of God; and peace-offerings were, "after a reconciliation with God was made, "to eat, as it were, at God's table, and to "be in a state of friendship with him. And "this is the reason why they were fo regu«larly, and, I think, conftantly, joined to"gether in all private facrifices under the "Mofaic difpenfation "." Again, "When " he had made this offering, (i. e. a burnt offering,) and expreffed his repentance, "he joined to the burnt-offering his peace offering. The latter was confidered as a "reconciliation made, and a restoration to "favour, and a partaking of the Lord's ta"ble, and an eating of it as friends. And "ftill to the fame purpose, " Hence too fee the reason why a fin-offering "being made, they offered a burnt-offering "with it, with its meat-offering and drink we may offering. The first was to remove the of"fence given by fome particular crime; the "other was to fhew a defire of reconcilia"tion by renouncing all fin that a man might have been guilty of; and when "to these was afterwards added a peace"offering, this implied an actual reconcilia U ❝tion Page 252. 2 p. 277, 278. "tion by partaking of the fame common "table "." ANSWER. -The Author's conjecture, that peace-offerings were added to the burnt-offerings which had been offered before the days of Jacob, I have confidered before; and have nothing to add to what I have already said, excepting this, that customs, being arbitrary, and of a very variable nature, there is no arguing from the cuftoms which prevail in one part of the world, to the customs which take place in another part of it; much lefs from the customs which obtain in one age, to the customs which may have obtained in preceeding and diftant ages. The Author, in the paffages here quoted, and all along, acknowledgeth, that the owners of all piacular facrifices, whether burntofferings, fin-offerings, or trefpafs-offerings, had no fhare of thefe facrifices to eat or drink. And the fact, which he thus acknowledgeth, is abundantly fupported by fcripture-evidence. Now, if the owners of thefe facrifices had no fhare of them to eat or drink, 'tis plain, that God and they did not eat or drink toge ther; and, confequently, that these facris fives were not, in the Author's fenfe, fymbls of friendship, or fœderal rites by which he and they did engage in, or re new |