lar atonements. How far they are conclusive against the notion of their vicarious import here contended for, it is not difficult to judge. It deserves to be noted, that in the examination of these arguments, I have allowed them the full benefit of the advantage which their authors have artfully sought for them; namely, that of appreciating their value, as applied to the sacrifices of the law considered independently of that great sacrifice, which these were but intended to prefigure, and from which alone they derived whatever virtue they possessed. When we come hereafter to consider them, as connected with that event in which their true significancy lay, we, shall find the observations which have been here made acquiring a tenfold strength.

What the opinions of the Jewish writers are upon the subject of this Number, has been already explained in Number XXXIII. Whoever wishes for a more extensive review of the testimonies which they supply, on the three points-of the translation of the offerer's sins, the consequent pollution of the animal, and the redemption of the sinner by the substitution of the victim,-may consult Outram De Sacrif. lib. xxii. § 4-12.

i. cap.

No. XXXIX.-ON THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS UPON THE HEAD OF THE VICTIM.

PAGE 35. (p)-The ceremony of the imposition of hands upon the head of the victim, has been usually considered in the case of piacular sacrifices, as a symbolical translation of the sins of the offender upon the head of the sacrifice; and as a mode of deprecating the evil due to his transgressions. So we find it represented by Abarbanel, in the introduction to his commentary on Leviticus, (De Veil. p. 301.) and so the ceremony of the scape-goat in Lev. xvi. 21. seems directly to assert. And it is certain, that the practice of imprecating on the head of the victim, the evils which the sa crificer wished to avert from himself, was usual amongst the heathen, as appears particularly from Herodotus, (lib. ii. cap. 39.) who relates this of the Egyptians, and at the same time asserts that no Egyptian would so much as "taste the head of any animal," but under the influence of this religious custom flung it into the river. This interpretation of the cere mony of the imposition of hands in the Mosaic sacrifice, is however strongly contested by certain writers, particularly by Sykes, (Essay on Sacrif. p. 25-50.) and the author of the Scripture Account of Sacrifices, (Append. p. 10.) who contend that this ceremony was not confined to piacular sacrifices, but was also used in those which were eucharistical,

"in which commemoration was made, not of sins but of mercres" it was not therefore, say they, always accompanied with confession of sins, but with praise or thanksgiving, or in short, such concomitant as suited the nature and intention of the particular sacrifice. But in order to prove that it was not attended with acknowledgment of sin, in sacrifices not piacular, it is necessary to show, that in none but piacular was there any reference whatever to sin. In these, indeed, the pardon of sin is the appropriate object; but that in our expressions of praise and thanksgiving, acknowledgment should be made of our own unworthiness, and of the general desert of sin, seems not unreasonable. That even the eucharistic sacrifices then, might bear some relation to sin, especially if animal sacrifice in its first institution was designed to represent that death which had been introduced by sin, will perhaps not be deemed improbable. And in confirmation of this, it is certain, that the Jewish doctors combine, in all cases, confession of sins with imposition of hands. "Where there is no confession of sins," say they, "there is no imposition of hands." See Outram De Sacr. lib. i. cap. xv. § 8.

But, be this as it may, it is at all events clear, that if the ceremony be admitted to have had, in each kind of sacrifice, the signification suited to its peculiar nature and intention; it necessarily follows, that when used in piacular sacrifices, it implied a reference to, and acknowledgment of sin: confession of sins being always undoubtedly connected with piacular sacrifices, as appears from Levit. v. 5. xvi. 21. and Numb. v. 7. The particular forms of confession, used in the different kinds of piacular sacrifice, are also handed down to us by the Jewish writers; and are given by Outram (De Sacr. lib. i. cap. xv. § 10,. 11.) The form prescribed for the individual presenting his own sacrifice, seems particularly significant, "O God, I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have trespassed before thee, and have done so and

So.

Lo! now I repent, and am truly sorry for my misdeeds. Let then this victim be my expiation." Which last words were accompanied by the action of laying hands on the head of the victim; and were considered by the Jews, as we have seen from several authorities, in pp. 150, 151, to be equivalent to this; "let the evils, which in justice should have fallen on my head, light upon the head of this victim. See Outram De Sacr. lib. i. cap. xxii. § 5, 6, 9.

Now that this imposition of hands, joined to the confession of sins, was intended symbolically to transfer the sins of the offerer on the head of the victim; and consequently to point it out as the substitute for the offender, and as the accepted medium of expiation; will appear from the bare recital of the

ceremony, as prescribed on the day of expiation. Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat—and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities," &c. (Levit. xvi. 21, 22.) The sins of the people being thus transferred to the animal, it is afterwards represented to be so polluted, as to pollute the person that carried it away; (Lev. xvi. 26.) and by the entire ceremony, expiation is made for the sins of the people. Now it is to be remarked, that this is the only passage in the entire scripture, in which the meaning of the ceremony, of laying hands on the head of the victim, is directly explained: and from this one would naturally think, there could be no difficulty in understanding its true import in all other cases of piacular sacrifice.

But the ingenuity of the writers above mentioned, is not to be silenced so easily. The goat, says Dr. Sykes, (Essay, p. 37.) was so polluted that it was not sacrificed, but sent away: "it was not, then, to transfer sins upon the sacrifice, that hands were laid, upon the head of the victim: as men would not offer unto God what they know to be polluted." In this notion, of the pollution of the scape-goat rendering it unfit to be offered in sacrifice, H. Taylor concurs with Sykes. (Ben Mord. pp. 827, 828.)

Now to the objection here urged it may be answered, 1. That the scape-goat was actually a part of the sin-offering for the people, as is shown more particularly in page 50, and Number LXXI. and as is confessed by the author of the Scripture Account of Sacrifices, (Append. p. 12.) who agrees with Sykes in the main part of his objection; and as may be directly collected from Levit. xvi. 5, 10. in which the two goats are called a sin-offering, and the scape-goat described as presented before the Lord to make an atonement with him. See Patrick on these verses.

Secondly, Admitting even the scape-goat to have been entirely distinct from the sin-offering; since the same ceremony, which is allowed by Sykes and H. Taylor to be a proof that the scape-goat was polluted by the translation of the people's sins; namely, the person who carried it away being obliged to wash before he was again admitted into the camp; since, I say, this same ceremony was prescribed with respect to the bullock and the goat, which had been sacrificed as sin-offerings; it follows, that they likewise were polluted; and that therefore there was a translation of sins to the animals, that were actually sacrificed in expiation of those sins. Now this translation being accompanied with, is also to be considered

as expressed by the imposition of hands; a ceremony which it was the less necessary specially to prescribe here, as this was already enjoined for all cases of piacular sacrifice, in Lev. ch. iv.-and that this ceremony did take place, we can have no doubt, not only from this general direction in the 4th chapter, but also from the express testimonies of the Jewish writers on this head, (Ainsw. on Levit. xvi. 6, 11.) and from the description in 2 Chr. xxix. 23. of the sacrifice offered by Hezekiah, to make an atonement for all Israel.They brought forth the he-goats for the sin-offering, before the king and the congregation, and they laid their hands upon them--and the priests killed them, &c.

Thirdly, The entire of the notion, that what was polluted (as it is symbolically called) by sin, could not be offered to God, is founded in a mistake, arising from the not distinguishing between the natural impurities and blemishes of the animal, (which with good reason unfitted it for a sincere and respectful expression of devotion,) and that emblematical defilement, which arose out of the very act of worship, and existed but in the imagination of the worshipper. It should be remarked also, that this notion of the defilement of the victim by the transfer of the offerer's sins, so far from being inconsistent with the Mosaic precepts, concerning the pure and unblemished state of the animal chosen for sacrifice, (Ex. xii. 5. Lev. xxii. 21. Numb. xix. 2. Mal. i. 14, &c.) as is urged by Sykes and H. Taylor, and by Dr. Priestley, (Theol. Rep. vol. i. p. 213.) seems absolutely to require and presuppose this purity, the more clearly to convey the idea that the pollution was the sole result of the translated defilement of the sinner. In like manner, we are told in the New Testament, that Christ was made a curse, and also sin (or a sin-offering) for us; whilst, to make it more clear, that all this was the effect of our sin, it is added that he knen no sin himself. And indeed they who consider the pollution of the victim as naturally irreconcileable with the notion of a sacrifice, as Doctor Priestley evidently does, would do well to attend to the xabaguara of the ancients, who, whilst they required for their gods the Tucia, the most perfect animals for sacrifice, (see Potter on the Religion of Greece, ch. iv. and Outr. De. Sacr. lib. i. cap. ix. § 3.) at the same time

The word in the original used to denote the perfect state of the animals to be offered in sacrifice is ', which Rosenm. explains by "perfectum, i. e. sine vitio et defectu corporis, sine ægritudine et membrorum debilitate; id quod Græc. aμauor, quod Alexandrini hic habent" Josephus (Antiq. Lib III. cap. x.) calls these animals ολοκληρα και κατα μηδεν λελωβημένα, entire and without blemish. Herodotus also (Lib. II. cap. xlii) testifies, that the animals offered by the Egyptians were of the like description: T καθαρές άρσενας των βοών και τις μεσχες οι πάντες Αιγυπτιοι θυεσι.

ought to appease them, by offering up human victims whom they had first loaded with imprecations, and whom they in consequence deemed so polluted with the sins of those for whom they were to be offered, that the word xatagua became synonymous to what was most execrable and impure, and with the Latins was rendered by the word SCELUS, as if to mark the very extreme and essence of what was sinful. See Stephanus on zabague, and Suidas on the words xabagua and περίψημα.

It must be confessed, indeed, that the author of the Scrip. Account of Sacr. has gone upon grounds entirely different from the above named authors. He positively denies that either the scape-goat, or the bullock, incurred any pollution whatever; and maintains that the washing of the persons who carried them away, indicated no pollution of the victims, inasmuch as the same washing was prescribed in cases of holiness, not of pollution. (App. p. 11.) But, besides that this author is singular in his notion that the scape-goat was not polluted, he proceeds altogether upon a wrong acceptation of those passages which relate to persons and things that came into contact with the sin-offering; it being commonly translated, in Lev. vi. 18. and elsewhere, he that toucheth them (the sin-offerings) shall be HOLY, whereas it should be rendered, as Wall properly observes, in quite a contrary sense, shall be SANCTIFIED, or CLEANSED, shall be under an obligation, or necessity, of cleansing himself, as the LXX understand it, aɣiatonostal. See Wall's Critical Notes, Lev. vi. 18. where this point is most satisfactorily treated.

Upon the whole then, there appears no reasonable objection against the idea, that the imposition of hands, in piacular sacrifices, denoted an emblematical transfer of guilt; and that the ceremony consequently implied the desire, that the evil due to the sinner might be averted, by what was to fall on the head of the victim. This receives farther confirmation

Dr. Geddes's authority, when it happens to be on the side of orthodoxy, is not without its weight: because having no very strong bias in that direction, there remains only the vis veri to account for his having taken it. I therefore willingly accept bis assistance on this subject of the imposition of hands upon the head uf the victim. He renders Levit. i. 4. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the victim, that it may be an acceptable atonement for him. And on the words, lay his hand, &c. he subjoins this remark"Thereby devoting it to God: and TRANSFERRING, as it were, HIS OWN GUILT UPON THE VICTIM." A mere typical rite, (he adds,) derived, probably, from the legal custom of the accusing witness laying his hand upon the head of the criminal. As to Dr. Geddes's mode of explaining the matter, I am indifferent. Valeat quantum. His admission of the emblematical transfer of guilt upon the victim, I am perfectly contented with and indeed his illustration, by the witness pointing out the object with whom the guilt lay, does not tend much to weaken the significancy of the action,