conclusion, that moral offences were not comprised in the charter of the former? Is there no other way in which they can be explained, so as to permit the language of the Old Testament to retain its natural sense? The law of Moses could not, St. Paul says, justify; but its application to moral offences and its power of justification are, surely, not necessarily one and the same thing. And Mr. Davison's reasoning seems to rest entirely on the assumption that they are. (Prim. Sac. p. 87.) The Mosaic atonements could not justify, because they could not obliterate the guilt of sin: they were effective so far as to cover it, to procure a suspension of the penalty, but the law, and the conscience, still remained unsatisfied. Since the victim was but a symbol, the expiation effected was but symbolical, not real; there was an inherent impossibility, that the "blood of bulls and goats" should "take away sins." Yet to the symbolical atonement God attached a real efficacy, the restoration of theocratical privileges at least, if nothing more: and here to the worshipper must have been the mystery, and the difficulty: to be solved only on the supposition of a future perfect atonement, of which the present appointments were the substitutes and representatives. Inasmuch, however, as the typical reference was not made known to the Jew, (especially at first,) the conscience could never have been purged by these sacrifices: their efficacy in the sight of God is explained, when we recollect that He had ever Christ's work in view; but the Jew, who could not connect the symbol with the reality, must have walked in comparative darkness. He was told that certain sacrifices would avail to cleanse him from his sins (Levit. xvi. 16, 20.): how or why they did so, he knew not. These considerations seem sufficient to account for St. Paul's language respecting the inferiority

of the legal atonements. In themselves they were worthless; from their connexion, in the Divine mind, with the Christian sacrifice they possessed an atoning power, but only a limited one; and to the worshipper they must have been dark ordinances, save so far as the typical reference became surmised. Moreover, for one whole class of sins, those committed, or presumptuously, the law provided no atonement; whereas "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin*.”

Some minor questions yet remain, to which it will be sufficient to draw attention, without entering into any lengthened discussion. Supposing that moral as well as ceremonial offences were entitled to the benefit of the Mosaic atonements, or rather that all the offences contemplated were, in different degree, moral, we may ask, what effect would the expiatory sacrifice have in procuring a release from any temporal penalties that may have been annexed to the offence committed? According to the view above propounded, not merely were sinful thoughts and words, or breaches of the ceremonial law, in either case arising from inadvertency, capable of atonement; but the same merciful provision extended to such overt crimes as were not punishable by death; as, for example, to theft, not committed, but under the influence of sudden temptation, or to fornication. (Deut. xxii. 28, 29.) Though these cases do not come under those for which a trespass-offering was permitted (Levit. vi. 1-6.), we must suppose, that after the civil penalty was undergone, the transgressor was, by the general propitiation of the day of atonement, restored to theocratical privileges. But not, surely, until after the civil penalty was undergone. The point is here noticed, because Archbishop Magee (Note 37.) seems to suppose that, in all

* 1 John i. 7.

such offences as admitted of expiation, a release from the temporal penalty followed from the atonement. This however would have been inconsistent with public security. If a thief, however unpremeditated the act might be, could escape the civil penalty of his crime by offering a sacrifice, society could not have held together. In such cases then, we must suppose that the civil penalty was first suffered, and then expiation by sacrifice permitted. And very likely, deliberate theft, which was one of the crimes to which (for whatever reason) the penalty of death was not attached, (see Exod. xxii. 1-4.), became, in like manner, after the appointed restitution had been made, expiable by sacrifice.

Sin,

With respect to the extent of the forgiveness which was the effect of these sacrifices (to which the "cleansing" in Levit. xvi. seems equivalent), the expressed benefit could, of course, only be temporal in character, since the sanctions of the law itself were but temporal. of whatever kind, being a breach of the civil law of the Jewish state, excluded the transgressor from theocratical privileges, i. e. the blessings connected with the Mosaic covenant; "forgiveness" could therefore by the Jew only be understood to signify a reinstatement in these privileges. But this does not preclude us from supposing that a further efficacy, unrevealed, may have attached to the Mosaic atonements; and that, by virtue of their being substitutes for the one great sacrifice of the Christian covenant, they may have availed, when offered in penitence and faith, to avert the eternal consequences of sin. In this, as in other instances, the law may have implied more than it expressed, or promised.

If the view thus taken be correct, the whole matter will stand as follows:

1. "Presumptuous" sins were punished by death,

without the benefit of atonement. But by sins of this kind those seem to have been meant, which, whether ceremonial or not, implied a spirit of open rebellion against Jehovah, and contempt for the law. "The soul that sinneth presumptuously .... the same reproacheth the Lord." Numb. xv. 30. The example that follows is that of the man who gathered sticks on the sabbath day.

2. All others were susceptible of expiation by sacrifice: but a distinction arises betweeen those that involved civil injury to others, and those which did not, as, for example, careless breaches of the ceremonial law. In the former case we must suppose that the civil penalty (restitution &c.) was first undergone, and then the theocratical standing restored by sacrifice: in the latter, inasmuch as there was no civil injury to be repaired, the sacrifice alone sufficed to effect this object.

3. What particular sacrifices did for the individual offerer, the general expiations of the great day of atonement effected for the whole people of Israel.

F.

ON THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS IN CONNEXION WITH THE CEREMONY OF THE SCAPE-GOAT.

Page 103, line 1. Because sins are expressly said to have been thus transferred to the live goat on the day of atonement, &c.] The ceremonial of the day of general expiation harmonises so completely with the judicial theory of sacrifice, that it has always presented a difficulty to the maintainers of the opposite view. Some, like Sykes and Taylor, arguing, that the scape-goat was polluted by the transfer of sin (Levit. xvi. 21.), on which account it was not offered to Jehovah, but sent away into the wilderness, infer, that "it was not to transfer sins upon the sacrifice that hands were laid upon the head of the victim; as men would not offer unto God what they knew to be polluted." (Sykes, Essay, p. 37.) Others, like Bähr, (ii. p. 683.) have insisted on the circumstance, that it was on the live goat, and not on the slain, that the sins are said to have been laid; from which they argue, that there was no connexion between the transfer of sin by the imposition of hands and atonement by means of vicarious sacrifice.

In replying to the arguments of Sykes and Taylor, Archbishop Magee (No. 39.) appears somewhat embarrassed, from his assumption that the common view respecting the pollution of the scape-goat is the correct one. But Bähr himself has furnished the most conclusive refutation of this opinion. He has shewn that all the sin-offerings, so far from being polluted, were holy; that it was on this account that, in ordinary cases, they were to be eaten by the priests, while, in the extraordinary cnes of the victims whose blood was brought into the