take its rise, for many ages afterwards-but did not derive its symbols from divine revelation, and owed its wondrous and circumstantial coincidences to nothing but mere human invention; which was afterwards borrowed by the Deity to typify the sacrifice of Christ.

"The positions" (said a venerable and learned friend, to whom I had mentioned my intention of opposing Mr. Davison's theory,) "the positions, you oppose, seem to disunite the unbroken connection, which existed in the counsels of God concerning the 'Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world.'

His words I am sure express the general sense of many, nay of most pious Christians; who have been accustomed to contemplate that chain of sacrificial type, which Mr. Davison abruptly severs from the Patriarchal world, as extending from the fall of the first, to the victory of the last Adam. But these are points on which I am anticipating the course of my argument.

The following are the principal positions which I shall endeavour to maintain against those of Mr. Davison.

I. There is sufficient evidence of the divine institution of sacrifice.

II. Sacrifice was used, and appointed by God to be used from the beginning as an expiatory rite.

III. The Patriarchs and other holy men had some revelation of the Redeemer as the antitype of sacrifice. The proofs of the divine institution of sacrifice are twofold.

I. Its probability.

II. The direct, and indirect testimonies of Scrip

ture.

The latter are, undoubtedly, the proofs on which the decision of the question principally depends; but the former are by no means unworthy of consideration, and of no slight weight in the scale.

The probability of the divine institution of sacrifice may be maintained. 1st. By arguments deducible from the consideration of God's nature, and of the general circumstances of the case.—2dly. By negative proofs-arising from the improbability of man's being the inventor of it.

CHAPTER II.

Probability of the divine institution of sacrifice maintained by arguments deducible from a consideration of God's nature, and of the general circumstances of the case.

1. THE helpless and corrupt state of fallen man, engaged the attention of God immediately after the fatal transgression. The first recorded manifestations of his wisdom and goodness, as well as the continued exercise of them towards his undeserving creatures forcibly militate against the inference, that he would leave these helpless objects of his mercy without some revelation of the mode, in which they might, in the shame of their corruption and sinfulness, approach their offended but pure and holy God. The incapacity of human unassisted reason to form, or even to retain proper notions upon this momentous subject, is displayed in the general history of the Gentile world, and was strikingly demonstrated in that almost universal apostasy, which preceded the deluge. It is a supposition from which the sense of mankind will revolt, at least upon the first glance, that God should, in the infancy of the world, when man was without experience, suffer his worship, nay the grand type of redemption-to be

settled by the casual * deductions of this frail and uncertain being.

But considering the rite even as a mere eucharistical offering, the probability is greatly in favour of the divine institution. Every action of the Deity recorded, furnishes ground for analogical deduction in supporting the conclusion, that He Himself "set in order" the rites of his infant Church. When we perceive Him conversing with the primitive inhabitants of the earth on various occasions-when we read of his interposition on emergencies, which we might, from inadequate notions respecting their inexperience and feebleness, be tempted to think almost unworthy the dignity of the Almighty-when we read of his condescending to teach them to clothe their nakedness, can we suspect that he deigned

I

say casual deductions for unless we suppose a constraint upon the will amounting in effect to a revelation, there is no saying what rite men might have devised; and according to Mr. Davison's theory they would all have been equally proper.

I recollect to have seen in some work (but I cannot remember whose) that Abel might as probably have offered a dog, as a lamb. Nay more, he might have chosen as most precious of all a human victim.

"The Ruditas et simplicitas," insisted upon by Spenser in defence of his theory (which is Mr. D.'s) are, (at least, in two respects, viz. as to the end and the material of sacrifice,) so described by him as to exhibit the first worshippers completely ignorant of what is suit able to God's worship and service. Is it probable that he would leave persons so ignorant, to excogitate the mode in which he was to be propitiated, when their practice, however absurd, might and ought to influence their successors, and when their example though right in the first instance would clearly establish a precedent, from which their successors might claim a similar right, and exercise it in the greatest absurdities. The patriarchal uniformity of practice respecting sacrifice cannot easily be accounted for upon such grounds.

Spenser observes of the more enlightened Gentiles, that they expressed frequently their astonishment, "unde ritus tam tristis et a natura Deorum alienus in hominum corda veniret."

"REVELATION WOULD HAVE REMOVED THE WONDER and pithy reply of Dr. Magee.

is the brief

"not" to set in order" his worship? The very body is "more than raiment;" how much more, (if we claim for them the knowledge of future rewards, and Mr. D. does not deny it,) how much more the soul. Would God then instruct them to make garments, and not instruct them in the means by which they were to approach him? would he not reveal that typical rite by which they were to cover their inward deformity and shame, and thus to present themselves acceptably before him.

"In this (Gen. iii. 21.) short and memorable passage," says Mr. Davison, "we read an instance, I think a most affecting one, of the divine philanthropy; interposing by the dictation and provision of a more durable clothing to veil the nakedness, and cherish the modesty, of our fallen nature, by sin made sensible to shame. (Gen. iii. 7.) The decent covering of raiment is the retreat and the preservative of our sensitive and trembling, but not altogether degraded humanity. As such, the care of it, by an especial sanction, in the beginnings of the usages of our race, was an object worthy of the benevolence of God."

That the provision of raiment was an "instance of the divine philanthropy" cannot be questioned, but I must entirely dissent from that scanty theory which limits the divine philanthropy to the mere supply of temporal necessities, which affirms that God taught these "fallen," "sensitive," and "trembling" beings to "veil" their bodily nakedness, and to preserve their modesty by raiment; and yet ne

*Is this supposition consistent with the care displayed by God in all ages to preserve his worship uncontaminated, and free from the superstitious inventions of man, which degraded the Heathen systems? We may observe also, that, in subsequent ages, revelations of God's will, and of the means by which man was to seek forgiveness were given, and were adapted to our state and necessities. Is it reasonable to suppose that God, when frequently communicating with man upon other points, should give no revelation upon this momentous subject. Surely if such revelation were ever needed, or ever probable, that, was of all other, the time.

glected to provide a covering for their souls, and encouraged them to present themselves before him in the more perilous NAKEDNESS of self-righteousness. Mr. Davison is, however, more consistent in his view than Mr. Benson, his eloquent predecessor, in the denial of the divine institution of sacrifice, from whose work I subjoin a remarkable extract*, which, to my apprehension contains an admission of the very point he is disputing; and, in fact, as forcibly affirms the divine origin, and expiatory, character of sacrifice, as Dr. Magee's or Kennicott's arguments professedly maintaining, that the skins from which Adam's raiment was formed were the "skins of animals slain in sacrifice."

2. Supposing them to be merely eucharistical

"But whatever be the opinion we form with respect to the sen timents of Abel himself, we can scarce doubt that God in this action, and Moses, in introducing his account of the mode in which raiment was thus provided for man, had a peculiar view to the manner of our redemption, through the death of Christ. For nothing is more remarkable than the frequency of those passages in Scripture, by which the pardon of transgression is represented under the metaphor of hiding or of covering sin. Nor can it escape the recollection of any, that the skin of the victim was reserved in the Mosaic ritual, for the priest who was the medium of atonement. It cannot, therefore, be considered as a position altogether unreasonable to maintain, that the method of obviating the natural consequences of the fall, by the shedding of blood, was intended to be viewed by us, who live when the scheme of redemption has been completed, as having some connection with that more effectual shedding of blood by which God had, as we know, from the very foundation of the world, determined to cover also all our spiritual nakedness and shame. For in both instances it is the Lord God who himself interposes for our good, and in the latter, as in the former, a raiment of righteousness is appointed for our acceptance and use, more excellent than any we had provided for ourselves. It is not necessary, indeed, to view the subject in this light for the introduction of the fact, that the Lord made coats of skins, and clothed them,' may be defended even in its ordinary and more unimportant sense. But when we regard it in combination with the other circumstances I have noticed, it seems to assume a more definite character, and there appears to be a reason for its introduction, which makes it not unworthy of being thus pressed upon our attention."-Benson, Huls. Lect. 1822, p. 245.