scendants. 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 ας 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.† 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. The ancient sacrifices seem to have been of three kinds. Some very 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 * See Hill's Lect. on Div., v. ii. p. 467. † Magee on Atonement, v. i. p. 96. p. 258. Theo. Repos. v. i. p. 400; cited by Dr. Magee, v. i. 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. That the ancient heathen sacrifices were of an atoning nature-that they involved the idea, not merely of contrition for sin, but of satisfaction to God by substitutionary suffering, appears from the language in which they are spoken of by the writers of antiquity. This language clearly denotes that the guilty were spared on account of * See Magee, v. ii. p. 18. See Magee, v. ii. p. 21. the punishment borne by the guiltless. Homer, Hesiod, and Plutarch, among the Greeks; and Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Cesar, Ovid, Livy, &c., among the Latins, have all been adduced as witnesses on this particular point.* The testimonies are indeed innumerable, as those conversant with the ancient authors are aware. And the earlier the times from which they are collected, they are always the more numerous and striking. The very name given to the second month in our year, originated in what itself affords strong confirmation of the fact; that being the last month in the ancient Roman calendar, when it was customary to make atonement for the sins of the soul by sacrifices which were called Februa or expiations.† 'Thus,' as has been well observed, 'strongly and universally did men recognise that their crimes insured the vengeance of superior powers, except its course was stayed by the atonement of sacrifices, often in a high degree difficult, costly, and terrific. As, amidst the errors of idolatry, it is easy to perceive the indelible effects of the primitive belief and worship of the only God; so, under this mass of corruption, we obviously see the foundation of original truth.' Of the vicarious nature of the ancient patriarchal sacrifices, the evidence is not less decisive. The learned theories, before mentioned, cannot * See Magee, v. i. p. 124...128; Hill's Lec., v. ii. p. 465; Smith on Sac., p. 234. This circumstance is referred to by Cicero, by Ovid, and by Pliny. The passages are quoted by Dr. Pye Smith in one of his supplementary notes. Disc. on Sac., p. 236. า explain the early sacrifices of scripture. The sacrifices of our first parents and of Abel, for example, cannot be looked upon as mere gifts, for this palpable reason, that the distinction of private property, which is supposed in a gift, had not then an existence. Neither can they be regarded as federal rites merely, inasmuch as there is no evidence that the practice of partaking of the sacrifice was introduced till a much later period; and, even supposing its existence, it is an unwarrantable presumption to maintain that this participation constituted the whole essence of the sacrifice, instead of being a mere adventitious circumstance connected with it. With as little propriety can they be reckoned as only a species of symbolical language, there being no good ground for supposing that the language given to man at first was so defective as to require such a supplement. That they were, indeed, vicarious in their nature, best accords with their substance being animal. All other purposes but that of substitutionary suffering, might have been equally well served, if not better, by vegetable productions. The preference given to the offering of Abel over that of Cain, corroborates this view, the fruit of the ground being as suitable as a gift or as an expression of gratitude as a firstling of the flock. ground of preference may be supposed to have been the state of Abel's mind, he being said to have acted in faith; and this is no doubt true; but we have reason to believe that the state of his mind directed him in the choice of the kind of offering that would be acceptable to God, and that The |