because they had not spoken of him as they ought to have spoken.

It was so, that, after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. So Eliphaz the Te manite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the Lord commanded them: the Lord also accepted Job*.

II. These two passages undoubtedly record two sacrifices, which were offered up anterior to the delivery of the Law from mount Sinai: and the latter of them is specially remarkable from the circumstance, that it exhibits God himself as enjoining the rite.

That the two recorded sacrifices were neither eucharistic nor simply homologetic, is, I think,

*Job xlii. 7—9.

too evident to be denied: that they were assuredly sacrifices FOR sin, is, I think, too plain to be controverted *. The only question, therefore, with which we are concerned, is this: Under what aspect, and with what prevailing idea, were the two sacrifices devoted?

1. A sacrifice, offered up for sin, may (as I have already observed t) either express a mere act of deprecation, or it may express an act of deprecation associated with the idea of an expiatory atonement.

Hence, though every expiatory sacrifice is deprecatory, it does not of necessity follow, that every deprecatory sacrifice should be expiatory.

The matter, therefore, to be inquired into, is this: Whether the sacrifices for sin, recorded in the book of Job, were real expiatory sacrifices: or whether they simply and nakedly expressed a mere act of deprecation?

2. It will not, I apprehend, be now asserted, that those sacrifices could not have been offered up with the purpose of making an atonement, on the ground that this idea was as yet unknown

* Such, accordingly, of old was the opinion of Cyprian. He describes Job as offering daily sacrifices to God, on behalf of his children, pro peccatis eorum. Cyprian. de Oper. et Eleem. p. 205. Oxon. 1682.

† See above, sect. i. chap. 4. § I. 3, 4.

in the world: for the actual existence of the idea anterior to the promulgation of the Law, whencesoever that idea might originate, is fully established by the fact of the human sacrifices of Canaan and Phenicia compared with the illustrative language of the prophet Micah. The possibility, therefore, of their having been expiatory sacrifices, is clear and indisputable.

With respect to the probability that such was the case, I shall say nothing. What may seem probable to one person, will seem improbable to another person: and, after all, even in its very best estate, probability is not demonstration. Hence, in regard to the probability of the matter, I shall be silent.

As for the simple detail of the transactions, it is couched in such phraseology that it leaves the point altogether undecided. In the Hebrew language, the word, which we translate sinoffering when used in its sacrificial sense, invariably denotes an EXPIATORY offering for sin, agreeably to the strict definition of the term which has been given by Moses himself *. But, in the detail of the transactions before us, that word is not employed. On the contrary, a diffe

* Exod. xxx. 10. See also Exod. xxix. 36.

rent word is used: which different word, though it may be, and often is, fitly employed to describe a proper expiatory sin-offering, does not of necessity, by the mere force of its etymology, convey any such idea; it may, or it may not, just as the context shall determine, express the sense of what Moses calls a sin-offering of atonements*. Consequently, the phraseology of the passages in the book of Job leaves it undetermined, whether the sacrifices, respectively offered up by the holy man and his three friends, were merely deprecatory sacrifices for sin; or whether, with the additional idea of an atonement, they were also expiatory sacrifices.

Hitherto, therefore, from the book of Job, we have learned nothing to our purpose, which can be fairly esteemed definite and explicit.

3. But there is a remarkable circumstance, attached to the sacrifice of the three friends, which may possibly throw some additional light on the subject.

They did not devote it of their own spontaneous motion: but they offered it up BY THE EXPRESS

COMMAND OF GOD.

Hence, let its attendant idea have been what

* Compare Exod. xxx. 10, with Levit. ix. 7.

it may, the sacrifice, Thus attended by ITS OWN SPECIAL IDEA, was offered up UNDER THE FORMAL

SANCTION AND WITH THE UNAMBIGUOUS APPRO BATION OF THE DEITY.

Such being the case, not only was THE SACRIFICE ITSELF commanded of God; but likewise ITS ATTENDANT IDEA was unambiguously stamped by the divine approbation.

Now, if its attendant idea were that of an atonement, we shall experience no difficulty: for we KNOW, that the doctrine of an atonement has been solemnly and expressly and practically ratified by the Deity. But, if its attendant idea were that of simple deprecation without any reference whatsoever to an atonement; we shall forthwith encounter a difficulty, which, so far as I can discern, is plainly insuperable.

(1.) Of a simple deprecatory sacrifice for sin, from which all idea of a vicarious atonement is carefully excluded, the only distinct notion which I can frame to my own mind, so far as its rationale or principle is concerned, is this.

The offerer supposes, that God will accept his sacrifice, as a voluntary fine or bribe or gift for the sin which he has committed: and he thence imagines, that his sin will be pardoned, and that its merited punishment will be bought off, as