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NO. XXXII. ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THE SACRIFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT FIGURATIVE, URGED BY H. TAYLOR AND DR. PRIESTLEY.

Page 30. (h)-The several arguments enumerated in the page here referred to, are urged at large, and with the utmost force of which they are capable, in the 7th Letter of Ben Mordecai's Apology, by H. Taylor.-Dr. Priestley has also endeavoured to establish the same point, and by arguments not much dissimilar. Theol. Rep. vol. i. p.

121-136.

NO. XXXIII.-ON THE SENSE ENTERTAINED GENERALLY BY ALL, AND MORE ESPECIALLY INSTANCED AMONGST THE JEWS, OF THE NECESSITY OF PROPITIATORY EXPIATION.

PAGE 31. (--The last of the three arguments here referred to, is urged by H. Taylor (Ben. Mord. pp. 784, 785. 797.) as applied particularly to the notion of vicarious sacrifice: but it is clear from the whole course of his reasoning, that he means it to apply to all sacrifice, of a nature properly expiatory; that is, in which by the suffering and death of the victim, the displeasure of God was averted from the person for whom it was offered, and the punishment due to his offence remitted, whether the suffering of the victim was supposed to be strictly of a vica

rious nature or not.

Such a notion of sacrifice applied to the death of Christ, this writer ascribes to the engrafting of Heathenish notions on Jewish customs; whereby the language of the Jews came to be interpreted, by the customs and ceremonies of the Heathen philosophers, who had been converted to Christianity. Whether this notion be well founded, may appear from the examination of the origin of sacrifice, in

the second of these Discourses, and from some of the Explanatory Dissertations connected with it. But it is curious to remark, how Dr. Priestley and this author, whilst they agree in the result, differ in their means of arriving at it. This author traces the notion of sacrifice strictly expiatory, to heathen interpretation. Dr. Priestley on the contrary asserts, that the Heathens had no idea whatever of such sacrifice. He employs almost one entire essay in the Theological Repository (vol. i. p. 400, &c) in the proof, that in no nation, ancient or modern, has such an idea ever existed: and, as we have already seen in Number V, pronounces it to be the unquestionable result of an historical examination of this subject, that all, whether Jews or Heathens, ancient or modern, learned or unlearned, have been "equally strangers to the notion of expiatory sacrifice; equally destitute of any thing like a doctrine of proper atonement." To pass over, at present, this gross contradiction to all the records of antiquity, how shall we reconcile this gentleman to the other? or, which is of greater importance, how shall we reconcile him to himself? For whilst in this place he maintains, that neither ancient nor modern Jews ever conceived an idea of expiatory sacrifice, he contends in another, (ibid. p. 426.) that this notion has arisen from the circumstance, of the simple religion of Christ having been "entrusted to such vessels, as were the Apostles:" for, adds he, "the Apostles were Jews, and had to do with Jews, and consequently represented Christianity in a Jewish dress," and this more particularly, "in the business of sacrifices." Now, if the Jews had no notion whatever of expiatory sacrifice, it remains to be accounted for, how the clothing of the Christian doctrine of redemption in a Jewish dress, could have led to this notion. It is true, he adds, that over the Jew

ish disguise, which had been thrown on this doctrine by the Apostles, another was drawn by Christians. But if the Jewish dress bore no relation to a doctrine of atonement, then the Christian disguise is the only one. And thus the Christians have deliberately, without any foundation laid for them, either by Heathens or Jews, superinduced the notion of an expiatory sacrifice, on the simple doctrines of the Gospel: converting figurative language, into a literal exposition of what was known never to have had a real existence !!!

To leave however this region of contradictions, it may not be unimportant to enquire into the facts, which have been here alleged by Dr. Priestley. And it must be allowed, that he has crowded into this one Essay, as many assertions at variance with received opinion, as can easily be found, comprised in the same compass, on any subject whatever. He has asserted, that no trace of any scheme of atonement, or of any requisite for forgiveness save repentance and reformation, is to be discovered either in the book of Job; or in the Scriptures of the ancient, or any writings of the modern Jews; or amongst the Heathen world, either ancient or modern. These assertions, as they relate to Job, and the religion of the Heathens, have been already examined; the former in Number XXIII. the latter in Number V. An enquiry into his position, as it affects the Jews, with some farther particulars concerning the practices of the Heathen, will fully satisfy us, as to the degree of reliance to be placed on this writer's historical exactness.

With respect to the sentiments of the ancient Jews, or in other words, the sense of the Old Testament upon the subject, that being the main question discussed in these Discourses, especially the second, no enquiry is in this place necessary: it

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will suffice at present to examine the writings of the Jews of later times, and we shall find that these give the most direct contradiction to his assertions. He has quoted Maimonides, Nachmanides, Abarbanel, Buxtorf and Isaac Netto, and concludes with confidence, that among the modern Jews no notion has ever existed, " of any kind of mediation being necessary, to reconcile the claims of justice with those of mercy:" or, as he elsewhere expresses it, of "any satisfaction beside repentance being necessary to the forgiveness of sin." (Theol. Rep. vol. p. 409-411.)-Now in direct opposition to this, it is notorious, that the stated confession made by the Jews, in offering up the victim in sacrifice, concludes with these words, let this (the victim) be my expiation. And this the Jewish writers directly interpret as meaning, "let the evils which in justice should have fallen on my head, light upon the head of the victim which I now offer." Thus Baal Aruch says, "that wherever the expression, let me be another's expiation, is used, it is the same as if it had been said, let me be put in his room, that I may bear his guilt and this again is equivalent to saying, let this act whereby I take on me his transgression, obtain for him his pardon." In like manner, Solomon Jarchi (Sanhedr. ch. 2.) says, " Let us be your expiation, signifies, let us be put in your place, that the evil which should have fallen upon you may all light on us" and in the same way, Obadias de Bartenora, and other learned Jews, explain this formula.

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Again, respecting the burnt offerings, and sacrifices for sin, Nachmanides, on Levit. i. says, that "it was right, that the offerer's own blood should

* See the form of confession in Maim. de Cult. Divin. de Veil. pp. 152, 153.

be shed, and his body burnt: but that the Creator, in his mercy, hath accepted this victim from him, as a vicarious substitute (,) and an atonement (155) that its blood should be poured out instead of his blood, and its life stand in place of his life.” R. Bechai also, on Lev. i. uses the very same language. Isaac Ben Arama, on Leviticus, likewise says, that "the offender, when he beholds the victim, on account of his sin, slain, skinned, cut in pieces, and burnt with fire upon the altar, should reflect, that thus he must have been treated, had not God in his clemency accepted this expiation for his life." David de Pomis, in like manner, pronounces the victim, the vicarious substitute (in) for the offerer. And Isaac Abarbanel affirms, in his preface to Levit. that "the offerer deserved, that his blood should be poured out, and his body burnt for his sins; but that God, in his clemency, accepted from him the victim as his vicarious substitute (771) and expiation (15) whose blood was poured out in place of his blood, and its life given in lieu of his life.'

I should weary the reader and myself, were I to adduce all the authorities on this point. Many more may be found in Outram de Sacrificiis, p. 251-259. These however will probably satisfy most readers, as to the fairness of the representation which Dr. Priestley has given, of the notion entertained by modern Jews concerning the doctrine of atonement, and of their total ignorance of any satisfaction for sin, save only repentance and amendment. One thing there is in this review, that cannot but strike the reader, as it did me, with surprise: that is, that of the three writers of eminence among the Jewish Rabbis, whom Dr. Priestley has named, Maimonides, Abarbanel and Nachmanides, the two last, as is manifest from the passages already cited,

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