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dence, for no other reason than because it has been used in controversy, in opposition to the adoption of implicit faith. If the principle contended for by Hume could fairly be presumed to mean the personal experience of an individual inquirer, independently of the knowledge previously accumulated to his hands, it must be acknowledged that an argument founded upon it would not carry much weight; but nothing can be more plain, I think, than the sense which the expression is intended to convey, and in which in candour it should be understood. If, for instance, I were to use the term in the course of a discussion on a subject so general as theology, I should certainly deem it uncandid in an opponent to construe it as my own personal experience, instead of the general experience of mankind. The term undoubtedly admits of a particular as well as a general application, but is it fair on that account to put a construction upon it which the writer could not intend? Do we not, in fact, refer to the experience of the ages of civilization that have gone before us upon every practical occasion? And is it not our endeavour to make youth acquainted with the history of the progress of knowledge from the earliest states of society, in order that he may derive benefit from past experience? And I would now ask further, with this explanation of the word, whether those who first misrepresent and then decry the argument of experience as a criterion of evidence in theological and moral controversy, what preferable guide a novice can call to his aid in the formation of an opinion-to qualify him in judging of the utility of a rule of conduct-or in balancing the probabilities of an historical fact?

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An Essay on the Nature and Design of Sacrifices under the Mosaic Law, and the Influence which Jewish Ideas and Language concerning them had upon the Language of the New Testament. By the late Rev. Henry Turner.

HAT the Mosaic institution stood Tconnected in a very near and important degree with the religion of Christ, will not be denied. Several of the most essential principles of true religion were common to them, and the labour of the Christian preachers would have been greatly increased, if it had devolved upon them to be the first restorers of the elements of religious truth. The Jewish people, though tinctured with harsh and contemptuous sentiments of the rest of mankind, which did but ill qualify them for the office of converting the world, had been led by various circumstances to diffuse the profession of their religious tenets widely abroad. The Babylonish Captivity had first dispersed them; and had, at the same time, powerfully confirmed them in an attachment to their religious institutions, and an abhorrence of idolatry. The persecutions which they subsequently experienced from the Kings of Syria inclined them to embrace the party of the Ptolemies, who were glad

by adopting towards them a system of favour and toleration. Great numbers of the Jews settled in Egypt, and, under the government of the Ptolemies enjoyed, with few interruptions, the entire liberty of worshiping God according to the law of Moses. This privilege was confirmed to them by the wise and magnanimous policy of the Romans, whose vast power was

well directed to the preservation of universal tranquillity amongst those who submitted to their yoke. Thus protected, the Jews indulged that propensity which had become natural to them, to colonize; establishing their synagogues for worship in every place where a few of their nation were settled and in this way it came to pass, that at the time of Christ's appearing, their forms of worship were practised, and their religious tenets known throughout the whole world, so that there was not a province, not a considerable city in the whole empire, where synagogues of the Jews, with Gentile proselytes connected with them, were not to be found. From this statement it will appear, that as it was due to the pre-eminence of the Jewish people, in religious privileges, that to them should belong the honour of giving the world its great Teacher and deliverer, so, the providence of God had wisely ordained that, in the mean time, they should establish in every civilized country such a testimony against the prevailing corruptions of religion, as should be believed by some of the more candid and thoughtful among the Gentiles, and thus lay a good ground-work for the efforts of teachers endowed with superior gifts, more persuasive doctrines and a kinder spirit.

Judaism, then, was in such important respects subservient to the introduction of a system of religious faith, intended for the salvation of mankind, that it certainly deserves to be regard ed by every Christian with sentiments of gratitude and affection. These sentiments may, however, be carried too far: the authority of Jewish precedents may be urged beyond their due limit. It should not be forgotten, that the Mosaic institutions were professedly calculated for a temporary and peculiar dispensation, and had their chief beauty and expediency from being viewed in this light. If considered as expressive of the permanent principles of true and acceptable religion, they may greatly mislead us, and at best can but be precarious and doubtful authorities. Nor does it in the least degree detract from the wisdom of their Divine Author, to suppose them answerable to their professed design. Whoever be the builder, a temporary edifice will naturally be

composed of temporary materials; and the wisdom of its construction appears not in a needless solidity, and an unsuitable magnificence, but in its being fitted to answer the purpose most simply and at the least expense. So that if it had not too much the air of a paradox, we might affirm that the less there was in the Mosaic institutions that had a reference to the permanent principles of religious faith and practice, or that commended itself to approbation, independently of local and temporary propriety, the more evident would be the proof of their divine original. The platform of the Jewish Church was too narrow, too much limited by distinctions of nation, family and district, to demand or even to admit of the incorporation of perfect and irreversible principles of religion and we need no other proof of the imperfection cleaving more or less to the whole Mosaic dispensation, than its being founded on a principle of exclusion and monopoly.

It is hoped that we may now be able to meet an argument which is usually adduced in support of certain views respecting the design of sacrifices under the Mosaic law, which lies at the very threshold of our subject. The argument is this, that Jewish sacrifices can on no other scheme be accounted worthy to have been divinely instituted, but must be abandoned by every man of sense as absurd and unmeaning ceremonies. But if the estimate which we have made of the Mosaic institutions be correct, it follows that it ought not to be considered as any difficulty or objection in the way of their divine authority, even if we could discover no solid nor satisfactory method of explaining their design. Nothing is more probable than that observances calculated for the use of a rude, carnally-minded people, three thousand years ago, should to us appear unnatural, unintelligible and devoid of beauty and propriety. But would it, therefore, have become the All-wise Father and Governor of men to have been the author of a dispensation which they could not have appreciated, and from which they could derive no benefit? Indeed, it is a remarkable instance of the degree in which attachment to a system may be indulged, that any

person should be so unadvised as to lay the entire stress of the argument, for the divine origin of Judaism, upon an alleged reference of some of its prescribed observances to Christian tenets; and should so far commit the cause of revelation, as to avow that the Mosaic ceremonies were in themselves unreasonable and ridiculous, and only to be defended upon the ground of their being typical and prospective.

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We shall presently examine the merits of the theory in recommendation of which his extraordinary position is hazarded; but, in the mean time, it is well to expose the folly of attempting to put a stop to all dispute by a threat of consequences: an old and much practised manœuvre of theologians to set up a scare-crow at the threshold of their argument, and to threaten the abandonment of the cause of God, and the loss and alienaation forsooth of their puny services, if every item of their interpretations be not accepted as infallibly true and orthodox. How presumptuous thus to commit the ark of God to the hazard of being overthrown by human unskilfulness!

If some acquaintance with the history of mankind, and their slow progress in spiritual understanding, have prepared our minds, by a genuine humility, for taking a judicious view of the nature and design of Judaism, we shall not expect to find it a stupendous and magnificent institution, embracing a number of refined and lofty sentiments, but shall think it reasonable to assign easy and palpable meanings to its rites and observances, as most suitable to the circumstances of those for whom they were intended: and we shall be inclined to think that any symbols, obscurely representing distant events and metaphysical tenets, must instantly have lost their proper effect and purpose, if introduced among a people so gross in their conceptions, and so little disposed for spiritual or metaphysical inquiries.

These considerations may serve to guard us against drawing hasty conclusions from any apparent puerility or unreasonableness in the Mosaic ceremonies, according to any given scheme for explaining them, and judging of them by the standard of that more brilliant revelation of divine

truth, which has since arisen to enlighten the world. We have seen how this method of judging has carried some theorists into one extreme: there is an opposite extreme, which appears to originate in the same prejudice. For others, seeing no good reason to believe that the Mosaic ceremonies were appointed with a view to typify the leading features of the Christian dispensation, have concluded that the general fabric of Judaism was strictly of human invention, and that when the Almighty entertained the design of preserving some of the primary principles of true religion from the corruption and oblivion in which they were in danger of being overwhelmed, he thought fit to incorporate them in a system of external observances, borrowed and selected from those which had naturally arisen, and were generally prevalent. Thus in kind compliance, it is thought, with prejudices and customs which had sprung up in the infancy of the world, no one knows how, God was pleased to bestow an outward frame on the Jewish religion, which was calculated to conciliate the attachment of those for whom it was designed, though it was not strictly of divine origin, nor altogether worthy of the Divine mind.

It must be confessed that many great names in the Jewish and Christian Churches have given authority to this opinion. And yet there are some material objections to it. First, it is adopted from an idea, that to suppose the Deity to be the Author of an imperfect and temporary frame of religious worship would be derogatory to the absolute perfection of his character; but is it not so, in a higher degree, to conceive of him as leaving it to his creatures to devise modes of worship which he afterwards adopted? Must it not reflect upon his providence to suppose that he left them without guidance or instruction, in respect to so important a subject? It is surely more agreeable to sound judgment to conclude, that as soon as the Almighty discovered himself to mankind, he instructed them in a mode of worship which would be acceptable to himself, and at the same time edifying and intelligible to them. Indeed, at their first creation, men must have been so helpless and so incapable of directing them

selves, that it is difficult to draw any line between direct revelation and natural impulse; so that primitive custom (if recorded on good authority) may be deemed nearly synonymous with divine institution. Corruption would soon, however, change this state of things; primitive custom would become perverted and depraved, and when a proper occasion presented itself, it surely could not be unworthy of God to restore the purity of ancient observances, or to appoint new ones, adapted to the progressive condition of the human race, or to their increased danger of being seduced from their obedience to him.

Secondly, although there is nothing in Scripture which can be said positively to forbid the supposition of the human origin of sacrifices, yet, if we attach credit to the Mosaic record, it seems highly reasonable to infer from their early and frequent mention, and from their being evidently accepted by the Almighty in the case of Abel, Noah and Abraham, that God himself was the original author of this mode of worship. For it cannot well be admitted that the marks of divine favour and acceptance would follow such acts of worship as were unauthorized and self-invented.

Being assured, then, that God himself was the author of these institutions, and at the same time aware that he gave them only a limited and conditional propriety, and that he hath now entirely superseded them, we might here rest satisfied, and might deem it superfluous to bestow minute attention on the particulars of such obsolete ordinances, were it not, that the frequent allusions to them which are met with in the New Testament, have naturally given them fresh consequence in the eyes of Christians, and have led to their being generally regarded important and legitimate authorities for the determination of doctrinal questions in the Christian church.

This circumstance makes it necessary to go into an inquiry that might otherwise be thought one of mere curiosity, and to look through the ceremonial institutions of the Jewish law, for the purpose of observing whether any traces can be discovered of a prospective reference to the articles of Christian belief. For certainly every

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judicious person must admit that some such declared and original testimony in the records of Jewish law is wanted to furnish proof of this position.

The language of comparison and allusion employed in the New Testament, can scarcely of itself demonstrate the solidity of such a position as this, that the Almighty thought proper to enact an elaborate and multifarious system of religious ceremonies, for the especial purpose of bestowing a shadowy existence upon events and doctrines which were afterwards to receive all the confirmation of a clear discovery, a glorious display of miracles, and a signal increase of spiritual knowledge and understanding. If we cannot in the original record of the Jewish ceremonies discover the remotest allusion to that subsequent event, of which it is argued they were merely emblems, it may reasonably be inferred that there is no inherent nor divinely instituted correspondence between them, but only such a resemblance as might make it natural for persons who were familiar with the former, and interested in the latter, to compare them together. Now since a very slight and fanciful resemblance would be sufficient to suggest comparison, nothing can with any certainty be concluded merely from the use of sacrificial language in the New Testament.

Description of the Mosaic Sacrifices.

Hitherto we have spoken generally of the Mosaic Institutions, (though with a special reference to such of them as related to divine worship,) we must now confine ourselves to more exact views of those parts which are to the purpose of the present inquiry.

The distinct subject of our present inquiry is the nature of sacrifices under the Mosaic law; and it will not be required to take particular notice of every thing that may be included under the notion of Jewish sacrifices, but only of such as are conceived to allude to the person and office of Christ.

Several definitions of the meaning of the word sacrifice, as employed in this connexion, have been proposed; but without canvassing their respective merits, we shall adopt one given by Dr. Outram in his Treatise "De Sacrificiis," printed, London, 1677,

"Sacrificium apud populum Hebræum, ejusmodi sacrum erat, quod cum Deo oblatum erat, tum ritè consumpta erant, quæ ritu divinitùs instituto interempta, cremata, aut effusa, aut ad epulas sacras adhibita essent." A sacrifice, with the Jews, was any thing that being offered to God was by some appointed ceremony dispatched and consumed: that is, "by some rite of divine appointment, slain, or burnt, or poured out in libation, or used in sacred festivals."

The words up and minin, (to which correspond the Greek popopa and Spa, the Latin oblationes and dona) offerings and gifts, are the most general words used to express sacrifices amongst the Jews. These words, however, are sometimes employed to express other things besides religious offerings, and also things which were indeed offered to God, but kept entire for his service, and therefore not to be reckoned sacrifices. Every gift to God was not a sacrifice. Nothing was accounted such, except it was brought to the door of the tabernacle, or to the corresponding altar of the temple, as an offering to God, and then or afterwards consumed according to some prescribed method. And hence, as Dr. Outram has observed, "neither the Levites, nor the vessels set apart for sacred uses, are wont to be regarded as sacrifices, although the word nap is applied to them, and they were expressly offered to God. The same is to be understood of the scape-goat, which, after being offered to God before the altar, was carried away alive into the wilderness."

But of those things which were both offered, and by a rite of divine appointment consumed, (which alone are usually considered as sacrifices amongst the Jews,) some were taken from inanimate things, and some from different species of animals; but all, of either description, were chosen from such as compose the food of man. And for this reason, (says Dr. Outram,) that God willed that such things as are concerned in the support of life, should be given to him as their Lord and Bestower. Those which were taken from inanimate things, (commonly distinguished by the name of unbloody sacrifices,) were by the Jews called ninan,which corresponded

to the Latin, "ferta, dona, dapes." Those taken from different species of animals, (termed bloody sacrifices, were usually called,corresponding to the Latin, victimæ, or hostiæ.)

Next as to the circumstances or rites by which the Mosaic sacrifices were attended: these were variously modified in different cases; but the following may be considered as nearly universal concomitants.

First, Things offered in sacrifice, whether taken from animate or inanimate nature, were not only to be of an useful and salutary kind, but also the best of the kind without blemish or defect.

Secondly, They were to be offered no where but at the door of the tabernacle. There was one great altar for the sacrifices of all Israel.

Thirdly, The offerer was always to bring his own sacrifice to the altar of the Lord, and by some significant ceremony to point himself out as the offerer; as, by laying both his hands on the head of the victim, if it was an animal sacrifice, and in general slaying it himself, and witnessing the succeeding ceremonies, which it was the office of the priest to perform: or if it was a meat offering, by presenting it, prepared in the appointed manner to the priests, who were to burn part of it upon the altar.

Fourthly, It is generally agreed that one of the acts preparatory to the ritual consumption of sacrifices, consisted in the presenting of prayers or verbal addresses to God, in substance corresponding to the particular object of the sacrifice. These prayers were pronounced when the hands were laid upon the head of the victim.

That sacrifice was always to be accompanied by prayer is probable, from their being used in Scripture as interchangeable terms. As in Prov. xv. 8: "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight." So when Solomon had finished the temple at Jerusalem, which was intended for the greater splendour of the sacrificial worship, in his prayer at the dedication of it, he particularizes a number of cases in which prayer and supplication should be offered; but never mentions the sacrifices that were doubtless to accompany them.

The Jewish commentators have fur

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