rigorous sanction of the Mosaic law in general, by which he, who did not continue in ALL the words of the law to do them, was pronounced accursed, (Gal. iii. 10. Deut. xxvii. 26.) and consequently subjected to the severest temporary inflictions; but also the particular cases, in which the piacular sacrifices are directly stated, to have procured a release from the temporal punishments specifically annexed to the transgression: as in the cases of fraud, false-swearing, &c. which, with the punishments annexed by the law, and the remission procured by the piacular oblation, may be seen enumerated by Grotius (De Satisfact. Chr. cap. x.) and still more fully by Richie. (Pecul. Doct. vol. i. p. 232-252.) Houbigant also speaks of it, as a matter beyond question, that in such offences as admitted of expiation under the Mosaic law, a release from the temporal penalty of the transgression was the necessary result of the atonement: on Levit. v. 4. he describes the effect of the atonement to be, "ut post expiationem religione factam, non sit amplius legum civilium pœnis obnoxius." Hallet says, that the sacrifices" procured for the offender, a deliverance from that punishment of moral guilt, which was appointed by the law;" and instances the case of theft, in which though the offender was liable to be cut off by the miraculous judgment of God, yet the sacrifice had the virtue of releasing from that immediate death,

which the law had denounced against that particular sin. Notes and Disc. p. 276-278.

That the remission of sins obtained by the Levitical sacrifices, was a remission only of temporal punishments, cannot weaken the general argument; as the sanctions of the law, under which the sacrifices were offered, were themselves but temporary. The remission of the penalty due to the transgression was still real and substantial: the punishment was averted from the offender, who conformed to the appointed rite: and the sacrificial atonement was consequently, in such cases, an act of propitiation. The sacrifices of the law, indeed, considered merely as the performance of a ceremonial duty, could operate only to the reversal of a ceremonial forfeiture, or the remission of a temporal punishment: that is, they could propitiate God only in his temporal relation to his chosen people, as their Sovereign: and for this plain reason, because the ostensible performance of the rite being but an act of external submission and homage, when not accompanied with an internal submission of mind and · a sincere repentance, it could acquit the offender only in reference to that external law, which exacted obedience to God as a civil prince. In such cases, the Jewish sacrifices, merely as legal observances, operated only to the temporal benefits annexed by the Levitical institution to those expressions of allegiance: but, as genuine and

sincere acts of worship and penitence, whenever the piety of the offerer rendered them such, they must likewise have operated to procure that spiritual remission and acceptance, which, antecedent to and independent of the Levitical ordinances, they are found in several parts of Scripture to have been effectual to obtain.

The author of the Scripture account of Sacrifices, (p. 168.) thus reasons upon this subject." This people, (the Jews) as to their inward state, were doubtless under the same controul, both of the law of nature and of the divine providence, as they were before the law; this having introduced no change in this respect. They were consequently entitled to the pardon of all their sins, of what nature soever, upon the same terms as before." And then he goes on to shew, that with the sacrifices of the law, they continued to offer such also as had been customary in the Patriarchal times. And in proof of this, he adduces instances from the law itself, in which such sacrifices are referred to and recognized. They appear manifestly alluded to in the two first chapters of Leviticus, in which the language marks the offering to be of a purely voluntary nature, and merely prescribes the manner in which such an offering was to be made; whereas, when specific legal and moral offences are to be expiated, the law commands the offering, and the specific nature of it. He adduces

also the cases of David, and of Eli's house, to shew that Scripture supplies instances of "sacrifices offered out of the occasions prescribed by the law, for averting the divine displeasure upon the occasion of sin." (p. 173.) What this writer justly remarks, concerning sacrifices distinct from those prescribed by the law, I would apply to all; and consider the penitent and devout sentiments of the offerer, as extending the efficacy of the Levitical sacrifice to the full range of those benefits, which before the Levitical institution were conferred on similar genuine acts of worship.

Nor let it be objected to this, that the Apostle has pronounced of the Levitical offerings, that they could not make perfect as pertaining to the conscience. (Hebr. ix. 9. x. 1.) The sacred writer here evidently speaks in comparison. He marks the inferiority of the figure to the substance: and the total insufficiency of the type, considered independently of that from which its entire virtue was derived, to obtain a perfect remission. It might indeed, he argues, by virtue of the positive institution, effect an external and ceremonial purification, but beyond this it could have no power. The blood of bulls and of goats could not, of itself, take away sins. It could not render the mere Mosaic worshipper PERFECT as to conscience. It can have no such operation, but as connected, in the eye of faith, with that more

precious blood-shedding, which can purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It could not, says Peirce, on Hebr. ix. 9.

with reference to the conscience, make perfect the worshipper, who only worshipped with meat and drink-offerings and washings, &c."-In this view of the subject, the remarks contained in this Number, seem no way inconsistent with the language of the Apostle.

One observation more, arising from the passage of the Apostle here referred to, I would wish to offer.-In pointing out the inferiority of the Mosaic to the Christian institution, we find the writer, in the tenth chapter, not only asserting the inefficacy of the Mosaic sacrifice for the full and perfect remission of sins, but taking considerable pains to prove it. Now from this it seems, that the Jews themselves, so far from confining their legal atonements to the mere effect of ceremonial purification, were too prone to attribute to them the virtue of a perfect remission of all moral guilt. Of this there can be no question as to the later Jews. Maimonides expressly says in his treatise, De Pœnit. cap. i. § 2. that "the scape-goat made atonement for all the transgressions of the law, both the lighter and the more heavy transgressions, whether done presumptuously or ignorantly all are expiated by the scape-goat, if indeed the party repent." I would remark here, that