with the practice, in the case of Abel, at a distance of not less than fifteen hundred years from the case last adduced:-'And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof; and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his OFFERING.'

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Nor is even this the highest antiquity to which the evidence of the existence of sacrifices can be carried. We are now, indeed, within little more than a hundred years of the creation of man. But, unless we greatly mistake, there is good reason to believe that the practice of sacrificing was coeval with the fall of man. We know not what else to make of the circumstance of our first parents being provided with garments of the skins of animals:-'Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make COATS OF SKIN, and clothed them." The animals whose skins furnished this primitive clothing, must have been dead, and the question is, how came they by their death ?-Were they slain on purpose, merely to furnish garments for our first parents ? This, to say the least of it, is extremely improbable, when we consider that there were so many other ways by which the same end could have been accomplished, without inflicting pain on sentient and innocent creatures. Can they be supposed to have died of themselves? This is barely possible, but not at all probable. They had just lately been created in perfection, and that in so short a time they should have died a natural death is a most violent supposition. Could they have been slain for

food? This, too, is an unreasonable presumption. It does not appear that animal food was in use till after the flood. The first grant of animals for meat, which we find on record, is that given to Noah after the deluge. To man, at first, we read only of the herb of the field and the fruit of the tree yielding seed being given for meat.' How, then, we repeat the question, could those animals have died whose skins were the clothing of our first parents? And the only answer that accords with reason, or with the facts of the case, is, that they were slain for sacrifices. The impossibility of satisfactorily accounting otherwise for their death, taken in conjunction with the mention made of animal sacrifices immediately afterwards, gives to this supposition the weight of the very highest presumption, if not the force of absolute demonstration. And thus are we entitled to claim, for the practice of sacrificing, the highest possible antiquity. The most ancient records, both sacred and profane, furnish evidence in point. The farthest back that we can carry our inquiries, even with the assistance of divine revelation, we meet with traces of the practice in question. It is as old nearly

8

as creation it is coeval with man.

II. Connect with this, the UNIVERSAL PREVALENCE of sacrifices.

Of this fact there can be as little doubt as of that of which we have just been speaking. The one, indeed, serves to account for the other. The

8

7 See Magee on Aton., v. ii. p. 31. Smith on Sac., p. 230. Magee, v. ii. p. 230.

antiquity of the practice explains its universality. Having its origin at a time when the inhabitants of the earth were few in number, its adoption by all who were then living can easily be conceived; and this again satisfactorily accounts for its being spread by them among their more numerous descendants. The families of Adam and of Noah comprehended, at the respective periods of their existence, all the inhabitants of the earth. At these periods, the practice in question, existing in these families, may be said to have been universally prevalent; and in every period since, both ancient and modern, it has been found to exist among all those who have not adopted the Christian religion. Its prevalence is strictly universal. Among antediluvians and postdiluvians; among the Greeks and Romans, Phenicians and Carthagenians, Gauls and Britons, of former ages; as well as, in modern times, in Africa, India, and the islands of the South seas, the practice is known to prevail. In proof of this, appeal may be made to the history, poetry, and languages of the different nations, as well as to writers of our own day who have made the customs and manners of distant tribes the subject of their researches. Pliny, speaking of sacrifices, says, 'All the world have agreed in them, although enemies or strangers to one another.' The writings of Homer and Virgil, of Ovid, Horace, and Juvenal, abound with allusions of this nature. And, what is more decisive still, the language of every people on earth contains terms which express the idea of sacrifice; a circumstance which cannot

otherwise be accounted for than by supposing that this idea entered deeply into their sentiments and customs. The Greek and Latin languages contain many such words which have been transfused into those of modern times, and especially our own. We need only remind the learned reader of such verbs as ἁγιάζω, καθαίρω, and ἱλάσκω, in the Greek; and pio, expio, lustro, &c., in the Latin tongue.' As for the continuance of the practice down to the present time, the writings of modern travellers, antiquaries, and missionaries, afford the most ample and incontestable evidence.10

III. Now, it is important to ascertain what was the NATURE of those sacrifices, which we have found to prevail from the remotest ages of antiquity, and among every people under heaven.

What idea did those by whom they were offered, attach to them ? Did they involve the notion of atonement? That they should have done so is necessary to our argument; but this has been stoutly and pertinaciously denied. It has been affirmed by certain learned Socinians, that neither Jews nor heathens had any idea of a proper atonement, but were equally strangers to the notion of expiatory sacrifice." It will readily be granted that all the sacrifices of antiquity were not of an expiatory nature; but that some of them were of this description admits, we apprehend, of the clearest proof.

9 See Hill's Lect. on Div., v. ii. p. 467. 10 Magee on Atonement, v. i. p. 96. 11 Theo. Repos., v. i. p. 400; cited by Dr Magee, v. i. p. 258.

M

The ancient sacrifices seem to have been of three kinds. Some were impetratory, or designed to express the desire of the offerer to obtain some favour of Deity. Others were eucharistical, or designed to express thankfulness for favours received. And others again were expiatory, or designed to obtain the forgiveness of sins of which the offerer acknowledged himself guilty. But even those which have been allowed to have a respect to the removal of sin, have not been understood by all to involve the idea of atonement or vicarious suffering. Other theories have been contrived with a view to explain their nature. They have been considered by some in the light of gifts, or as of the nature of a voluntary fine or bribe, offered by the culprit with a view to buy him off from punishment and purchase the favour of God." By others they have been represented in the light of federal rites, expressive of the renewal of that friendship with God which had been broken off by the violation of his law, as eating and drinking together were the known and ordinary symbols of reconciliation." Another theory is, that they are to be regarded as a sort of symbolical language, denoting either gratitude or contrition, according as they are eucharistical or expiatory." These theories, though supported by such names as those of Spencer, and Sykes, and Warburton, are manifestly defective, and come far short of explaining the ancient sacrifices either of the heathen or of the patriarchs.

12 See Magee, v. ii. p. 18. 13 See Magee, v. ii. p. 21. 14See Magee, v. ii. p. 18.