moral efficacy of atoning for sin; they taught and exhibited that atonement, which they themselves intrinsically were unable to accomplish *.

2. We have now ascertained both the actual existence and the inward purpose and the intentional connection of animal sacrifice, as subsisting under the successive Levitical and Christian Dispensations; but, with respect to the Patriarchal Dispensation, we have hitherto ascertained nothing more than the actual existence of animal sacrifice.

(1.) Whether the inward purpose of the patriarchal animal sacrifice were, or were not, the same, as the inward purpose of the levitical and the evangelical animal sacrifice; and Whether any intentional connection subsisted between the several animal sacrifices of all the three Dispensations, as there confessedly subsists between those of the two latter Dispensations: these important points have not, as yet, been determined.

At present, therefore, we can only venture to say, that the presumption, which arises from harmony and analogy, strongly inclines us to favour the affirmative side of the question. For, since the three successive Dispensations are compo

* John i. 29. 1 Corinth. v. 7. Heb. vii. 19-28. viii. 1-6. ix. 6—28. x. 1-14. Rev. v. 6. xiii. 8. See Outram. de Sacrif. lib. i. c. 18. § I, II.

nent parts of one great and consistent whole, and since in the matter of animal sacrifice there is a clear consent and connection between two out of the three Dispensations; it seems more probable, as it is certainly more accordant with analogy, that all the three should be characterized by a similar consent and connection.

(2.) Should this presumption ultimately ripen into a well-established fact, the consequence is abundantly manifest.

As the real piacular sacrifice of Christ under the Gospel, and as the shadowy piacular sacrifices of animal victims under the Law, were alike ordained of God: so, if the animal sacrifices under Patriarchism were shadowy piacular sacrifices of the same nature as those under the Law; they must of necessity have been also ordained of God, and could not have been an unauthorized ordinance of mere human invention.

For, though man himself, without any revelation from heaven, might perhaps have discovered the rite of eucharistic or of homologetic or of deprecatory sacrifice; it is difficult to comprehend, by what rational mental process he could have discovered the totally dissimilar rite of piacular sacrifice and, even if he had discovered it, still we may safely pronounce, that no intentional connec

tion could possibly have existed between animal sacrifice under Patriarchism and animal sacrifice under Christianity, unless God himself had alike instituted each sacrifice; because an intentional connection involves, of plain necessity, a prophetic reference *.

* Mr. Davison has justly pointed out the glaring defect in that system, by which Bishop Warburton would account for the alleged primeval human institution of EVERY kind of sacrifice.

Through a not inconceivable train of thought, man, seeking to clothe his ideas with expressive actions, might peradventure independently arrive at the practice of eucharistic and homologetic and simply deprecatory oblation: but, when, through any essayed line of argument, we attempt to follow him to the practice of expiatory sacrifice, we immediately find our course altogether impeded.

Bishop Warburton's scheme, as Mr. Davison well states the matter, "describes aptly and naturally, how the devoted "victim might be made to express the guilt and self-condem"nation of the suppliant: how it could indicate or convey of "conduce to the atonement required, it is unable to explain. "The dramatic worshipper becomes mute: the luciferous

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principle, as the author calls it, that of representation by "action, the guiding torch of his theory, goes out. So it will "always be. For human principles can no more account for "expiation of sin, than human resources could provide it." Inquiry into the Origin of Primitive Sacrifice, p. 37.

I have much gratification in adducing this remark of Mr. Davison, because I myself had already made precisely the same remark on Bishop Warburton's system two years ante rior to the publication of Mr. Davison's work. See my Treatise on the Genius and Object of the Patriarchal, thẻ Levitical, and the Christian Dispensations, book i. chap. 5. § III. 2. vol. i. p. 214-223. Such an undesigned coincidence is a strong proof, that the estimate of Bishop War

(3.) I have only to add, that, if God were the original institutor of piacular sacrifice under Patriarchism, the very circumstance of its piacularity will alone, without further proof, evince its intentional connection with the consummating piacular sacrifice under Christianity. For, even to say nothing of the analogy afforded by the condition of piacular sacrifice under the Law, the whole reasoning of the great Apostle would imperatively drive us to such a conclusion.

From him we learn, that piacular bestial sacrifice is utterly worthless and inefficient, except so far as it shadows out the alone efficacious piacular human sacrifice under the Gospel. From its typical character it derives its sole value. Abstractedly from that character, it is a moral nothing. Hence, if God really instituted the rite of piacular sacrifice under Patriarchism, he must, of very necessity, according to the argument of St. Paul, have instituted it, not independently, but with an intentional shadowy reference to the one availing piacular sacrifice under the Gospel.

burton's system, made alike by Mr. Davison and myself, is accurate and well-founded.

CHAPTER IV.

·A Statement of the leading Objections to the Opinion, that the Rite of Piacular Sacrifice was originally instituted by God himself under the Patriarchal Dispensation.

AN ingeniously-plausible work, respecting the origin and intent of primitive sacrifice, has been recently given to the world by Mr. Davison *.

In a small compass, the very estimable author seems to have condensed all that can be said on that side of the question which he himself has been finally led to espouse. Hence I deem it wholly superfluous to employ any other work as my text book. If Mr. Davison has failed of convincing me that primitive sacrifice under the Patriarchal Dispensation was of mere human origin, I utterly despair of seeing my supposed error effectually corrected by a writer of inferior attainments.

I. The main hinge of the matter, in the pre

* An Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sacrifice. By John Davison, B.D., late fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.