a Savior by having offered himself up as a proper sacrifice to propitiate his Father, by expiating our sins. -Are these representations of the divine proceedings consistent with each other? Does not a literal construction of the former class of texts make them irreconcileable with the latter class P-There certainly appears to be either discord between them, or, what is no better than discord-"harmony not understood."

Secondly:-Does the doctrine that Jesus was a proper sacrifice, which seems to result from a literal construction of the sacrificial language applied to him in the New Testament, agree with known facts?

It must be granted,-no one will deny, that if Christ was literally a sacrifice to God, he must have been offered as such he must have been put to death by some one as a sacrifice. For the very notion of a sacrifice is that of a religious offering made by some person or persons to some God or Gods, as a religious act. There is no prayer, where there is no intent to pray. In the idea of a gift, is embraced that of a giver. There can be no sacrifice where there is not an offering made with a sacrificial intent. If Jesus then was a sacrifice, who sacrificed him?

1. Was he offered, as a sacrifice, by the Romans? They were his immediate executioners. It was a Roman magistrate that pronounced sentence of death against him a Roman soldiery that executed that sentence-a Roman spear that pierced his side.Was he offered, as a sacrifice, by the Romans ?-To this hypothesis it may be objected, in the first place, that human sacrifices were never allowed by the established laws of Rome. It is true that a few, very few, cases of human sacrifices can be found in Roman history during the eight hundred years from the foundation of the city to the death of Christ. Some time after Christ, during the reign of Nero or Vespasian, Pliny states that human sacrifices sometimes oc

* Ap. Jahn. Archæologia Bib. § 404.

curred in Rome. But, before that declining period of Roman greatness and virtue, we find but a single instance in which human sacrifices were offered in Rome, to propitiate the gods: and this took place nearly two centuries before Christ, when the approach of Hannibal to its gates had thrown the city into the utmost consternation.* But the historian, to whom we are indebted for the knowledge of this fact, assures us that the place had never before been stained by his countrymen with the blood of human victims.t And from the terms of abhorrence in which the Romans, at that very time, speak of those nations which sacrificed even their prisoners of war, we learn in what detestation human sacrifices were held by that people.‡

To the present hypothesis it may be objected, secondly, that Rome, the city itself, was the only place in which human victims were ever offered by the Romans. But Jesus was put to death in Judea.-A third objection is that, among the Romans, all sacrifices were offered by their priesthood; whereas Jesus was executed by their soldiery. And, fourthly, it may be objected that, whereas the few human victims that were offered in Rome were buried alive,§ Jesus, on the contrary, suffered death upon a cross, a species of punishment inflicted by the Romans, only upon slaves, robbers, assassins, and those who were adjudged guilty of sedition and we know, for the evangelists inform us, that this was the crime for which our Lord was tried and, however improperly, condemned.— Was he, then, offered as a sacrifice by the Romans?

Livii Hist. lib. xiii.

↑ Gallus et Galla, Græcus et Græca, in foro Boario, sub terra vivi demissi sunt, in locum saxo conceptum, ibi ante, hostiis humanis minime Romano sacro, imbutum"-(ut supra.)

See the speech of Cn. Metellus before the Senate, in regard to the Galli, in Asia. Livii Hist. lib. xxxviii.

Jahn, Arch. Bib. § 404.

Jahn, Arch. Bib.

261. ibi laudata.

2. Was he offered, as a sacrifice, by the Jews? To the idea that he was, the first objection which we have to offer is, that there is no evidence in the scriptures that, in procuring his death, they had any intent to offer him as a sacrifice. And we must remember that a sacrificial intent is as indispensable, in order to constitute any thing a literal sacrifice, as an intent to is to render any address a prayer. And secondly we object they could not have intended to offer Jesus as a sacrifice, for the following reasons. 1. The only sacrifices which the Jews ever did, or ever could offer, in the land of Canaan, without committing a crime that was construed into treason, and capitally punished as such, were those which were expressly appointed in the Mosaic law. That law not only does not permit human sacrifices, but it repeatedly forbids them ;* and abounds with the most fearful denunciations against them. 2. All the bloody or animal sacrifices which were required or allowed by Moses, were either piacular, such as were offered in expiation of trespasses, or sins; or eucharistical, such as were offered as testimonials of gratitude. All these must be animals of certain kinds, distinctly specified. With these facts before our eyes, it is a needless waste of labor to prove that our Lord could not have been regarded by the Jews as a literal sacrifice, either eucharistical, or piacular:-either as an expression of gratitude, or as an atonement for sin.-3. A third reason why the Jews could not have considered Jesus as a

*Levit. xviii. 21. Deut. xviii. 10. 2 Kings xvii. 17, 18. Ps. cvi. 37, 38. 40 Deut. xii. 31.- If then, Jesus had been offered by the Jews, animo sacrificandi, with the most sacrificial intent, the offering would have been a capital crime by their law, and, of course, not an acceptable sacrifice with God, who gave their law; for he accepts no sacriźce of which the very offering is guilty. To even a heathen moralist it was obvious "nullam scelere religionem exsolvi :”—that no religious duty is discharged by the perpetration of a crime. Livii Hist. lib. ii.

sacrifice, of any kind, is that, from before the entrance of the Israelites into the land of Canaan, they were strictly and repeatedly forbidden, under penalty of excision, to offer any sacrifices whatever, except in such place as the Lord should appoint for that purpose. Before the building of the temple, the place of sacrifice see.ns not to have been permanently fixed; but the altar was raised whenever the tabernacle stood, or wherever the ark of the Covenant, which was the great sanctuary of the Israelitish religion, happened to rest. The object of this law, from which there was no exception, except that a prophet had authority to dispense with it, was to guard the worshippers, and even the priests of Jehovah, from all temptation and all opportunity of relapsing into the idolatry by which they were surrounded, and to which they were so propense. This law was, it is true, often violated by wicked monarchs before, and even after, the building of the temple. It was occasionally violated even down to the time of the transportation into Babylon; and, indeed, the transgression of this law was the principal cause of the transportation. But, after the return of the Jews from Babylon, they observed that law so faithfully, that not an instance of its violation in Judeas can be shewn till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. And it is owing to the destruction of the temple and altar in Jerusalem, that all Jewish sacrifices have ever since been suspended. From the return of the Jews from Babylon to this moment, the offering of a sacrifice, of any kind, in any other place than the altar and Temple in Jerusalem, would have

*Levit. xvii. 1-9, especially verses 8, 9. Deut. xii. 5-28. Levit. xxvi. 30.

+ Vide Michaelis, Mos. Law. 188. Jahn Arch. Bib. § 376. 1 Sam. xiii. 8-14. xvi. 1-5. 1 Kings xviii. 21-40.

The case of Onias, in Egypt, (Joseph. Ant. Jud xiii. 3. § 3. Michaelis Mos. Law. i 188.) could hardly be considered as an exception, had the observation been general. But it is no exception, restricted, as the statement is, to Judea.

appeared to them as an inexpiable offence, the most shocking of all abominations. But Jesus "suffered without the gate."

Again, 4. As with the Romans, so it was, especially after the captivity, with the Jews: all their bloody sacrifices must be offered by the hands of their own priesthood. The interference of strangers, and espécially of their enemies, with the offering of their sacrifices, would have been regarded by the Jews with the utmost horror. Yet Jesus died by the hands of the idolatrous Romans, and the Jews were clamorous that he might die by their hands. Did they, then, consider him as a sacrifice? Could they have so considered him? If in any sense, it can be said that Jesus was sacrificed by the Jews, it can be only in a figurative sense. It may be said that thay sacrificed him to their envy, to one of the most bitter and malignant of their own passions; but not to the God of their fathers, the God of holiness and mercy, either as an expression of their gratitude or as an expiation of their sins.

3.-Did Jesus, then, sacrifice himself?—It will not be denied that, as, at one time, it might be said that the Jews sacrificed our Lord to their envy, so, at another, it may be said, that he sacrificed himself upon the altar of his duty, or of benevolence, or of pity to the human race. But this is figurative language: and by it we mean that he devoted himself, gave up his life, rather than abandon the arduous and painful offices which he had been commissioned to fill;-the offices of our Teacher, example, and Savior. But this metaphorical sacrifice is the result of a metaphorical construction of the passages under consideration. A literal construction of those passages makes the Savior not only a literal sacrifice, but the greatest of all liteeral sacrifices. As such, we now ask, did he offer himself?

*Heb. xiii. 12.

+ Jahn Arch. Bib. § 378.