ÅμægтάVOVтα ÉTоge, tractavit eum ut peccatorem; se gessit erga eum, uti erga peccatorem. Sensus est idem." No. XXX. Page 14. Col. 2. ON THE SENSE IN WHICH CHRIST IS SAID IN SCRIPTURE TO HAVE DIED FOR US. Dr Priestley's remarks on this subject deserve to be attended to, as they furnish a striking specimen of the metaphysical ingenuity, with which the rational expositors of the present day are able to extricate themselves from the shackles of Scripture language. Christ being frequently said in Scripture to have "died for us," he tells us that this is to be interpreted, dying "on our account," or "for our benefit." "Or if," he adds, "when rigorously interpreted, it should be found, that, if Christ had not died, we must have died, it is still however only consequentially so, and by no means properly and directly so, as a substitute for us: for if, in consequence of Christ's not having been sent to instruct and reform the world, mankind had continued unreformed; and the necessary consequence of Christ's coming was his death, by whatever means, and in whatever manner it was brought about; it is plain that there was, in fact, no other alternative but his death or ours: how natural, then, was it, especially to writers accustomed to the strong figurative expression of the East, to say that he died in our stead, without meaning it in a strict and proper sense!" Hist. of Cor. vol. i. p. 199. Here then we see, that, had the sacred writers every where represented Christ as dying in our stead, yet it would have amounted to no more than dying on our account, or for our benefit, just as under the present form of expression. And thus Dr Priestley has proved to us that no form of expression whatever would be proof against the species of criticism which he has thought proper to employ for it must be remembered, that the want of this very phrase,-" dying in our stead," has been urged as a main argument against the notion of a strict propitiatory sacrifice in the death of Christ. To attempt to prove, then, in opposition to those who use this argument, that, when Christ is said in Scripture to have died for us, it is meant that he died instead of us, must be, in this writer's opinion, a waste of time; since, when this is accomplished, we are, in his judgment, only where we set out. As, however, there have been some who, not possessing Dr Priestley's metaphysical powers, have thought this acceptation of the word for, conclusive in favour of the received doctrine of atonement, and have therefore taken much Dr Sykes, in his Essay on Redemption, and H. Taylor, in his Ben. Mord. pp. 786, 787, have most minutely examined all the passages, in the New Testament, in which the preposition for is introduced. And the result of their examination is, that, in all those passages which speak of Christ as having given himself for us, for our sins, having died for us, &c. the word for must be considered as on account of, for the benefit of, and not instead of. The ground on which this conclusion is founded. as stated by the latter, is this; that "if the true doctrine be, that these things were done upon our account, or for our advantage, the word for will have the same sense in all the texts: but if the true doctrine be, that they were done instead of, the sense of the word will not be the same in the different texts." But surely this furnishes no good reason for deciding in favour of the former doctrine. The word for, or the Greek words duri, útig, did, wagi, of which it is the translation, admitting of different senses, may of course be differently applied, according to the nature of the subject, and yet the doctrine remain unchanged. Thus it might be perfectly proper to say, that Christ suffered instead of us, although it would be absurd to say, that he suffered instead of our offences. It is sufficient if the different applications of the word carry a consistent meaning. To die instead of us, and to die on account of our offences, perfectly agree. But this change of the expression necessarily arises from the change of the subject. And, accordingly, the same difficulty will be found to attach to the exposition proposed by these writers: since the word for, interpreted on accouut of, i. e. for the benefit of, cannot be applied in the same sense in all the texts. For, although dying for our benefit is perfectly intelligible, dying for the benefit of our offences is no less absurd than dying instead of our offences. The only inference that could with justice have been drawn by these writers is, that the word for, does not necessarily imply substitution in all these passages, and that, therefore, it is not sufficient to lay a ground for the doctrine, which implies that substitution. But that, on the other hand, it is evident that it does not imply it in any, can by no means be contended: the word g, being admitted to have that force frequently in its common application; as may be seen in Plato Conviv. p. 1197, and again, 1178, where dπobvýσxeiv úæèg is manifestly used for dying in stead, or place of another. That the Greeks were accustomed by this expression to imply a vicarious death, Raphelius on Rom. v. 8, directly asserts; and he produces several indisputable instances from Xenophon, in which zig and dri have the force of substitution. 1 In like manner, (2 Sam. xviii. 33) when David saith concerning Absalom, Tis own To Jávaτóv μov ávтil Go; there is clearly expressed David's wish, that his death had gone instead of Absalom's. But, indeed, this force of the word neither can be, nor is, denied by the writers alluded to. The actual application of the term, then, in the several passages in which Christ is said to have died for us, to have suffered for us, &c. is to be decided by the general language of Scripture upon that subject. And if it appears, from its uniform tenor, that Christ submitted himself to suffering and death, that thereby we might be saved from undergoing the punishment of our transgressions, will it not follow, that Christ's suffering stood in the place of ours, even though it might not be of the same nature, in any respect, with that which we were to have undergone? No. XXXI.-Page 14. Col. 2. ON THE PRETENCE OF FIGURATIVE ALLUSION IN THE SACRIFICIAL TERMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. On the whole of this pretence of figurative applications, whereby H. Taylor, (B. Mord.) Dr Priestley, and others, endeavour to escape 1 Raphelius's observations upon this subject are so valuable, that I apprehend his entire note will be acceptable to the critical reader. - " Rom. v. 8. Ὑπὲς ἡμῶν ἀπέθανε—id est, ἀντὶ, loco, vice nostrá mortuus est, ut nos mortis pœna liberaremur. Vicariam enim mortem hoc loquendi genere Græci declarant. Neque Socinianis, qui secus interpretantur, quenquam ex Græcis eredo assensorem esse. Nostræ sententiæ Xenophon adstipulatur. Nam cum Seuthes puerum formosum bello captum occidere vellet, Episthenes autem, puerorum amator, se pro illius morte deprecatorem præberet, rogat Seuthes Episthenem : Η καὶ ἐσέλοις ἂν, ὦ Επίσθενες, ΥΠΕΡ ΤΟΥΤΟΥ ΑΠΟΘΑ NEIN; Vellesne, mi Episthenes, pro hoc mori? Cumque is nihil dubitaret pro pueri vita cervicem præbere, Seuthes vicissim puerum interrogat, i wairu aurò 'ANTI ixsivo; num hunc Ceriri pro se vellet? De Exped. Cyri, &c. Et Hist. Græc. &c. Προειπὼν δὲ ὁ ̓Αγησίλαος ὅστις παρέχοιτο ἵππον καὶ ὅπλα καὶ ἄνδρα δόκιμον, ὅτι ἐξέστι αὐτῷ μὴ στρατεύεσθαι, ἐποίησεν οὕτω ταῦτα συντόμως πράττεσθαι, ὥσπερ ἄν τις τὸν ΥΠΕΡ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΑΠΟΘΑΝΟΥΜΕΝΟΝ προθύμως ζητοίη. Quumque Agesilaus denunciasset fore, ut, quicunque daret equum et arma et peritum hominem, immunis esset a militiâ: effecit, ut hæc non aliter magna celeritate facerent, atque si quis alacriter aliquem suo loco moriturum quæreret.-De Venat. Ρ. 763. 'Αντίλοχος τοῦ πατρὸς ΥΠΕΡ ΑΠΟΘΑΝΩΝ, τοσαύτης ἔτυχεν εὐκλείας, ὥστε μόνος φιλοπάτως παρὰ τοῖς "Ελλησιν άvayoçevonval. Antilochus pro patre morti sese objiciens, tantum gloriæ consecutus est, ut solus apud Græcos amans patris appelletur.-Et quid opus est aliis exemplis ? cum luculentissimum sit, Joh. xi. 50, ubi mortuus dicitur Salvator vrig rou λαοῦ. Quod quale sit, mox exponitur, ἵνα μὴ ὅλον τὸ ἔθνος króna. Raphelii Annot. tom. ii. pp. 253, 254. How forcibly the word rig is felt to imply substitution, is indirectly admitted in the strongest manner even by Unitarians themselves: the satisfaction manifested by commentators of that description, whenever they can escape from the emphatical bearing of this preposition, is strikingly evinced in their late Version of the New Testament. See their observations on Gal. L 4. from the plain language of Scripture, it may be worth while to notice a distinction which has been judiciously suggested upon this subject, by Mr Veysie. (Bampt. Lecture, Sermon 5.)-Figurative language, he says, does not arise from the real nature of the thing to which it is transferred, but only from the imagination of him who transfers it. Thus, a man who possesses the quality of courage in an eminent degree, is figuratively called a lion; not because the real nature of a lion belongs to him, but because the quality which characterizes this animal is possessed by him in an eminent degree: therefore the imagination conceives them as partakers of one common nature, and applies to them one common name. Now, to suppose that language, if it cannot be literally interpreted, must necessarily be of the figurative kind here described, that is, applied only by way of allusion, is erroneous; since there is also a species of language, usually called analogical, which, though not strictly proper, is far from being merely figurative; the terms being transferred from one thing to another, not because the things are similar; but because they are in similar relations. And the term thus transferred, he contends, is as truly significant of the real nature of the thing in the relation in which it stands, as it could be were it the primitive and proper word. With this species of language, he observes, Scripture abounds. And, indeed, so it must; for if the one dispensation was really intended to be preparatory to the other, the parallelism of their parts, or their several analogies, must have been such as necessarily to introduce the terms of the one into the explanation of the other. Of this Mr Veysie gives numerous instances. I shall only adduce that which immediately applies to the case before us; namely, that of "the death of Christ being called, in the New Testament, a sacrifice and sin-offering." "This," says he, "is not, as the Socinian hypothesis asserts, figuratively, or merely in allusion to the Jewish sacrifices, but analogically, because the death of Christ is to the Christian Church, what the sacrifices for sin were to the worshippers of the tabernacle:" (or, perhaps, it might be more correctly expressed, because the sacrifices for sin were so appointed, that they should be to the worshippers of the tabernacle, what it had been ordained the death of Christ was to be to the Christian Church :)“ And, accordingly, the language of the New Testament does not contain mere figurative allusions to the Jewish sacrifices, but ascribes a real and immediate efficacy to Christ's death, an efficacy corresponding to that which was anciently produced by the legal sin-offerings." This view of the matter will, I apprehend, be found to convey a complete answer to all that has been said upon this subject, concerning figure, allusion, &c. Indeed, some distinction of this nature is absolutely necessary. For, under the pretence of figure, we find those writers, who would reject the doctrine of atonement, endeavour to evade the force of texts of Scripture, the plainest and most positive. Thus, Dr Priestley (Hist. of Cor. vol. i. p. 214,) asserts, that the death of Christ may be called a sacrifice for sin, and a ransom; and also, that Christ may in general be said to have died in our stead, and to have borne our sins; and that figurative language even stronger than this may be used by persons who do not consider the death of Christ as having any immediate relation to the forgiveness of sins, but believe only, that it was a necessary circumstance in the scheme of the Gospel, and that this scheme was necessary to reform the world. That, however, there are parts of Scripture which have proved too powerful even for the figurative solutions of the historian of the Corruptions of Christianity, may be inferred from this remarkable concession. "In this, then, let us acquiesce, not doubting but that, though not perhaps at present, we shall in time be able, without any effort or straining, to explain all particular expressions in the apostolical epistles," &c.-(Hist. of Cor. vol. i. p. 279.) Here is a plain confession on the part of Dr Priestley, that those enlightened theories, in which he and his followers exult so highly, are wrought out of Scripture only by effort and straining; and that all the powers of this polemic Procrustes have been exerted to adjust the apostolic stature to certain pre-ordained dimensions, and in some cases exerted in vain. The reader is requested to compare what has been here said, with what has been already noticed in Numbers I. and XIV., on the treatment given to the authority of Scripture by Dr Priestley and his Unitarian fellow-labourers. No. XXXII.-Page 14. Col. 2. ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THE SACRIFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT FIGURATIVE, URGED BY II. TAYLOR AND DR PRIESTLEY. The several arguments enumerated in the page 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. pp. 121-136. 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, to all sacrifice 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 vicarious 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, will 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. he 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 "intrusted 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 the Christian doctrine of redemption in a Jewish dress, could have led to this notion. It is true, he adds, that over the Jewish 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 upon 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 inquire 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 inquiry 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 in the second, no inquiry is in this place necessary: it 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. i. pp. 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. 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 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 (,) 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 () 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 (7), and expiation (D), 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, pp. 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 1 See the form of confession in Maim. de Cull. Divin. de Ve pp. 152, 153. review, that cannot but strike the reader, as it did me, with surprise ; which is this,—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, maintain in direct terms the strict notion of atonement: and though Maimonides has not made use of language equally explicit, yet on due examination it will appear, that he supplies a testimony by no means inconsistent with that notion. Dr Priestley's method of managing the testimonies furnished by these writers will throw considerable light upon his mode of reasoning from ancient authors in support of his favourite theories. It will not then be time misemployed, to follow him somewhat more minutely through his examination of them. He begins with stating, that Maimonides considered sacrifice to be merely a heathen ceremony, adopted by the Divine Being in his own worship, for the gradual abolition of idolatry. This opinion, he says, was opposed by R. Nachmanides, and defended by Abarbanel, who explains the nature of sacrifice, as offered by Adam and his children, in this manner :-viz. "They burned the fat and the kidneys of the victims upon the altar, for their own inwards, being the seat" (not as it is erroneously given in Theol. Rep. as the seal) "of their intentions and purposes; and the legs of the victims for their own hands and feet; and they sprinkled their blood, instead of their own blood and life; confessing that in the sight of God, the just Judge of things, the blood of the offerers should be shed, and their bodies burnt for their sins-but that, through the mercy of God, expiation was made for them by the victim being put in their place, by whose blood and life, the blood and life of the offerers were redeemed." (Exordium Comment. in Levit. de Veil. pp. 291, 292.) Now it deserves to be noted, that Sykes, whose assistance Dr Priestley has found of no small use in his attempts upon the received doctrine of atonement, deemed the testimony of this Jewish writer, conveyed in the above form of expression, so decisive, that without hesitation he pronounces him to have held the notion of a vicarious substitute, in the strictest acceptation (Essay on Sacrifices, pp. 121, 122;) and, that the sense of the Jewish Rabbis at large is uniformly in favour of atonement by strict vicarious substitution, he feels himself compelled to admit, by the overbearing force of their own declarations, aithongh his argument would have derived much strength from an opposite conclusion. (Ibid. pp. 149, 150, 157, 158.) The same admission is made by the author of the Scripture Account of Sacrifices, (Append. pp. 17, 18) notwithstanding that it is equally repugnant to the principles of his theory. But, after stating the passage last quoted at full length, what is Dr Priestley's remark? - That "all this is evidently figurative, the act of sacrificing being represented as emblematical of the sentiments and language of the offerer." And the argument by which he establishes this is, that "this writer could never think that an animal could make proper satisfaction for sin," &c. What then is Dr Priestley's argument?-The modern Jews have never entertained an idea of any expiation for sin save repentance only; for we are told by Abarbanel, that "expiation was made for the offerer by the victim being put in his place;" and by this he did not mean that the animal made expiation for the sin of the sacrificer, because he could never think that an animal could make satisfaction for sin! Now might not this demonstration have been abridged to much advantage, and without endangering in any degree the force of the proof, by putting it in this manner? Abarbanel did hold, that by the sacrifice of an animal no expiation could be made for sin, for it is impossible that he could have thought otherwise. Complete as this proof is in itself, Dr Priestley however does not refuse us still farther confirmation of his interpretation of this writer's testimony. He tells us, "that he repeats the observation already quoted from him, in a more particular account of sacrifices for sins committed through igno rance, such as casual-uncleanness, &c. in which no proper guilt could be contracted:" and that he also "considers sin-offerings as fines, or mulets, by way of admonitious not to offend again," (Theol. Rep. vol. i. p. 410.) Now, as to the former of these assertions, it is to be noted, that Abarbanel, in the passage referred to, is speaking of an error of the High Priest, which might be attended with the most fatal consequences by misleading the people, perhaps in some of the most essential points of their religion. And as the want of sufficient knowledge, or of due consideration, in him who was to expound the law, and to direct the people to what was right, must be considered as a degree of audacity highly criminal, for which, he says, the offender deserved to be punished with death, ignorance not being admissible in such a case as an excuse, therefore it was, that the sin-offering was required of him, "the mercy of God accepting the sacrifice of the animal in his stead, and appointing that in offering he should place his hands on the animal, to remind him that the victim was received as his () vicarious substitute." De Veil. Exord, pp. 313-317.) "For the same reasons," he says, (p. 317) "the same method was to be observed in the sin-offering of the Sanhedrim ;" and he adds also, (p. 325) that "in |