prince of the Locrians, made a decree,-That whoever was convicted of adultery, should be punished with the loss of both his eyes. Soon after this establishment, the legislator's own son was apprehended in the very fact, and brought to a public trial. How could the father acquit himself in so tender and delicate a conjuncture? Should he execute the law in all its rigour, this would be worse than death to the unhappy youth: Should he pardon so notorious a delinquent, this would defeat the design of his salutary institution. To avoid both these inconveniencies, he ordered one of his own eyes to be pulled out, and one of his son's, by which means the rights of justice were preserved inviolate, yet the tenderness of a parent was remarkably indulged: and may we not venture to say, that in this case Zaleucus both received and made the satisfaction? received it as a magistrate, even while he made it as a father?

Ther. I cannot see how this suffering of the father was in any degree satisfactory to the law, since the father and the son could not be considered as one and

the same person. It may pass for an extraordinary instance of parental indulgence; it may strike the benevolent and compassionate hearer; but, if tried at the bar of equity and reason, it will hardly be admitted as any legal satisfaction; it will probably be condemned, as a breach of nature's first and fundamental law, self-preservation.

Asp. What you observe, Theron, I must confess has weight: It will oblige me to give up my illustration. Nevertheless, what you urge against the propriety of the comparison, tends to establish the certainty of the doctrine. For Christ and his people are actually considered as one and the same person. They are one mystical body; he the head, they the members; so intimately united to him, that they are "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh;" Eph. v. 30.; Col. i. 20: by virtue of which union, their sins were punished in him, " and by his stripes they are healed," Isa. liii. 5. they obtain impunity and life.

Though there may be nothing in the procedure of men which bears any resemblance to this miracle of heavenly goodness, it receives a sufficient confirmation from the language of Scripture. He who wrote as an amanuensis to the unerring Spirit has declared, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world,"— unto whom? unto some third party? No; but reconciling it, by the death and obedience of Christ, "unto himself," 2 Cor. v. 19. And I can very readily grant, that this divine exertion of benignity and wisdom should be without a precedent, and without a parallel.

Difficulties, I own, may attend the explication of this article, or be interwoven with its consequences. At the same time I must affirm, that our apprehensions of heavenly things are so obscure, and our ideas of the divine benevolence so scanty, that we may very possibly mistake, and fancy that to be absurd, which is only great, wonderful, and incomprehensible.— Nor shall I be thought presumptuous in adding, that it will be impossible for all the sagacity in the world to prove this doctrine an absurdity, though it should ever remain an inexplicable mystery. How many phenomena, in the constitution of external nature, are confessedly mysterious and inexplicable! They challenge, they command our assent; yet baffle all our researches, and defy our utmost penetration. If, then, we find this truth fully and incontestably revealed in the Bible, we must renounce the philosopher before we can consistently act the sceptic.

Ther. Let us see, then, whether it be so fully and incontestably revealed in the Bible. You have given me, as yet, but one of your scriptural images.

Asp. I have another at your service. Christ is called an High-priest. What do you take to be the nature of the priestly office?

Ther. The business of the priest was, I apprehend, to offer sacrifices, and to make intercession for the people.

Asp. Very true; and Christ could not, with any

propriety, receive this appellation, if he had been defective in performing either of the sacerdotal functions. Now, that he offered no such victim as slain beasts, is universally acknowledged. We might presume, therefore, even though we had not the authority of an apostle to assure us, that "he offered himself through the eternal Spirit to God," Heb. ix. 14. The cross, shall I say? rather, his divine nature, was the altar; his soul and body, each immaculately pure, were the holocaust. These he resigned; the one to deadly wounds, the other to inexpressible anguish, and both to be instead of all whole burntofferings. On this invaluable oblation, his intercession at the right hand of his Father is founded; from this it derives that prevailing efficacy, which is the security of his standing, and the recovery of his fallen disciples.

Give me leave to ask farther, what is your idea of a sacrifice? When Iphigenia was slain at the altar, what was the import of that memorable action?

Ther. It was intended, if we may credit Virgil's account,* to appease the indignation of the superior powers, and to obtain a propitious gale for the windbound fleet and confederate forces of Greece.

But

I hope you would not make that solemn butchery of the royal virgin, a pattern for the Supreme Goodness; nor the practice of gross idolaters a model for the religion of the holy Jesus?

Asp. By no means, Theron. Only I would observe, that the custom of offering sacrifices obtained among the most cultivated nations of the heathen world; that these sacrifices were frequently of the vicarious kind, in which the victim was substituted instead of the offerer; and the former being cut off, the latter was discharged from punishment; consequently that the classic authors would (in case there was any need of such auxiliaries) join with the sacred writers to declare the expediency, and explain the

Sanguine placasti ventos, et virgine cæsa.

nature of sacrifices. This also you will permit me to add, that if the heathens talk sensibly on any part of religious worship, it is on the subject of sacrifices. Their sentiments concerning expiatory oblations seem to be the faint and distant echo of revelation; and I have usually considered them, not as the institutions of mere reason, but as the remains of some broken tradition.

However, the truest and most authentic signification of a sacrifice is to be learned from the Jewish ritual, explained by the gospel comment. Do you remember the Mosaic account of that ordinance?

Ther. You are much better acquainted, Aspasio, with those sacred antiquities, and can give the most satisfactory information with regard to this particular. Only let me remind you, that alms are styled offerings; and praises, both in the prophetical and evangelical writings, come under the denomination of sacrifices.

Asp. Though praises and alms are styled sacrifices, they are not of the propitiatory, but eucharistic kind. They are never said to expiate transgressions, only are represented as acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, that divinely precious victim, whose merits both cancel our guilt and commend our services ! According to

Ther. Stay a moment, Aspasio. Let me recollect myself. This may be the meaning of sacrifices, as ordained by Moses, and solemnized among the Jews. "Sacrifices were a symbolical address to God; intended to express before him the devotion, affections, dispositions, and desires of the heart, by significative and emblematical actions." Or thus; "The priest made atonement for sin, by sacrificing a beast, only as that was a sign and testimony of the sacrificer's pure and upright heart."

Asp. Sacrifices, I acknowledge, were a symbolical address to God. But would you confine their efficacy only to the death of the animal, and the purity of the offerer? No, Theron: they always had a reference to the great sacrifice, ordained in the eternal

counsels of Jehovah; prepared when the co-eternal Son was made flesh, offered when the blessed Jesus surrendered himself to be led as a lamb to the slaughter. They were so far from being independent of this divine oblation, that they acted in perpetual subserviency to it, and derived all their virtue from it. They were the shadow, but the body was Christ.

They expressed," you say, "the devotion, affections, dispositions, and desires of the heart." But I rather think they expressed the guilt and the faith of the offerer. His guilt: for this seems to be intimated by the very names of the propitiatory sacrifices; the sin and the sacrifice, the offending action and the expiatory rite, being signified by one and the same word.* It is somewhat more than intimated by the occasion of the offering, and the state of the offerer; since it was only on account of guilt contracted that piacular oblations were made, and only from a guilty person that they were required. His faith, or firm belief that ceremonial guilt, which shut him out from the communion of the visible church, and subjected him to the infliction of temporal judgments, was removed by these; but that moral guilt, which defiles the soul, and excludes from heaven, should be purged by some better sacrifice than these. In the exercise of this faith, Abel offered up a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain; and without this faith exercised in some degree, it was impossible to please God.

If sacrifices were intended to bespeak integrity of heart, methinks the state of innocence had been the properest period for their institution and oblation. But we never hear of this awful ceremony till man is fallen, and sin committed. If intended to denote purity of heart, why should they be particularly enjoined on that solemn day when confession was made. of all the sins of the whole congregation? Lev. xvi. 21.

אשם

* denotes a sin, and sin-offering, Lev. iv. 3. 24. signifies the trespass, and the trespass-offering, Lev. v. 15. 19. They "sanctified to the purifying of the flesh," Heb. ix. 15. "but could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience," Heb. ix. 9.