is not mentioned, for the first time, in the present text: but, on the contrary, it is mentioned repeatedly in yet earlier passages; and clearly, if revealed at all under the Law, it must have been revealed at its earliest introduction. Nor is this the only objection. If we are to view the adduced text from Leviticus, as containing a specific revelation of a new doctrine, certainly the revelation is communicated under a form not a little extraordinary. Had Mr. Davison quoted the entire passage, his readers would have seen, what possibly they may not now have observed, that the supposed revelation of a new doctrine is actually thrown into the unaccountable form of a parenthesis, and that it is delivered merely as the sacrificial reason of the ancient patriarchal prohibition to eat blood *.

Now can any prudent man believe, that this vitally important doctrine would, for the first time, have been thus revealed to our fallen race? Can any prudent man be brought to persuade himself, that the doctrine of an atonement would have been first revealed quite incidentally, and merely under the form of an explanatory parenthesis?

The matter is incredible: and I repeat it, that,

*See Levit. xvii. 10-14.

in the Law, we find no new revelation, but only a recognition and modification, of the doctrine of an atonement. That doctrine, when first mentioned under the Law, is mentioned under the aspect of being already familiar to the Israelites.

CHAPTER IV.

Evidence of the primeval divine Institution of Sacrifice, from the moral Argument, that a divinely-uncommanded superstitious Observance cannot be acceptable or well-pleasing to God.

THE proof of my main position I now consider as accomplished. I am unwilling, however, to pretermit a strong moral argument, in favour of the primeval divine institution of sacrifice, deduced from the position, that A superstitious observance, uncommanded of God, cannot be acceptable or well-pleasing to God.

I. This argument, though under a modification so defective as altogether to destroy its conclusiveness, has been adduced by Hallet.

Abel's sacrifice, says he, could not have been acceptable, if it had not been of divine appointment:

according to that obvious maxim of all true religion; In vain do they worship God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Thus Abel must have worshipped God in vain, had his sacrificing been merely a commandment of his father Adam, or an invention of his own. As Abel, then, did not sacrifice in vain, it was not will-worship, but a divine appointment *.

II. The defectiveness of such statements of the argument, a defectiveness which renders it wholly inconsecutive, so acute a writer as Mr. Davison could not fail to observe and expose. Accordingly, by the familiar process of the reduction to an absurdity, he nullifies it, without much difficulty, when presented under such a form as the present.

Of his reasoning, the sum and substance may be briefly stated in manner following.

The argument in question is avowedly built upon the general maxim, that, Whatsoever is not expressly commanded by God, must be unacceptable to him. But the texts, commonly adduced as the basis of the argument, are insufficient to establish any such general maxim. Therefore the argument itself cannot demonstrate the primeval divine institution of sacrifice t.

* Hallet's Comment. on Heb. xi. 4. cited by Abp. Magee.

† Inquiry, p. 97-113.

III. I readily admit, that Mr. Davison has fully confuted the present argument, when stated in any such defective form as that which has been incautiously adopted by Hallet: but, at the same time, I must take permission to say, that his confutation affects not the genuine argument itself, but only its defective and loosely inaccurate statement. Correct, then, the statement: and the confutation becomes a weapon perfectly innoxious.

1. In the first of his Epistles to the Corinthians, after having given various directions for the meet conducting of God's worship, St. Paul, as if aware that an alteration of outward circumstances might easily at different periods require certain modifications of the ritual, and as if conscious that no regulations could be laid down so minutely as to suit every possible contingency, concludes this branch of his subject with the wise and liberal discretionary precept, Let all things be done DECENTLY and IN ORDER *.

Now this precept clearly confers authority upon the Church to regulate the mode of God's worship in whatsoever fashion shall seem most expedient to her, subject only to the general apostolic ordinance, that DECENCY and GOOD ORDER should be strictly observed. Accordingly, 1 Corinth. xiv. 40.

on such a basis, our English Church, in two of her Articles, most rightly and soundly pronounces, that The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and that Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church, ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying*. Enactments of this description are, doubtless, mere commandments of men: and yet I scruple not to say, that the restless individual, who opposes them on the special ground that They are not divine ordinances set forth in Holy Scripture, unless he can distinctly prove that They contravene the apostolic direction of doing all things DECENTLY and IN ORDER, is guilty, to say the very least, of conduct most unseemly and most unjustifiable. The fantastical notion, here reprobated, was the controversial rock, upon which the Puritans split: for, both from reason and from Scripture, it is clear, that many commandments of men, which respect the outward ritual of divine worship, so far from being offensive to God, are in truth conscientiously binding upon man.

Hence, as Mr. Davison most justly argues, the bare circumstance of primitive sacrifice having

* Art. xx. xxxiv.