On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    In regard to the sacrifices instituted < by Moses , they were an adaptation of \ vhat had existed before to the service

    of God in the sanctuary—under particular regulations ; and they were adapted ( as we are informed in different parts of the Old Testament—Jer . vK . 22 , Hos . vi . 6 , Mic . vi . 7 , ) not because God delighted in them , but because of hardness of heart on the part of the Israelites . The whole account which we have of the

    admission rather than the institution of sacrifices by Moses , and the passages just referred to in particular , clearly evince that they were not , that they could not be accepted by the Deity as a reparation for moral offences , as Dr . Magee would have us believe *

    The expressions which were used in the law of Moses concerning sacrifices , are in different wavs applied by the writers of the New Testament to the scheme or mode of redemption through Christ * He is

    ® ur Redeemer , he bought us with his bloody he gave himself for us , he was slain the just for the unjust , he was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him .

    Now it is evident that expressions taken from their proper connexion , and adapted to a new subject , cannot stand for ideas or notions which did not originally belong to them . The doctrine of the atonement , then , if indeed true , must be supported by some other evidence than the use of

    sacrificial terms ; because these terms never had such an extension of meaning—they never signified the transfer of moral qualities-It is a mode of speaking frequently used by the writers of the New Testament , that Christ becomes for us ,

    or is made unto us , every thing in which our salvation consists : —I use the term salvation here in its real scriptural sense , of being truly Christiaus , and not as equivalent to eteroal life . Thus ( 1 Cor . i , 30 , ) " Christ is made unto us of [ by ] God , wisdom and righteousness , sanctification and

    redemption . " In another place ; * ' He is sin for us , and we are the righteousness of God in him . " What !

    Is all this perfectly literal ? What ! Are we wise by a substitute ? Are our sins as truly and properly Christ's as they are our own ? And are we then not virtuous and holy in our

    own persons ? The mode of the figure ( so to speak ) is very evident surely t <* every one that will use hi »

    common sense and understanding-. Christ , through whose instrumentality these blessings become ours , is said himself to be these things to us . ; and for no other reason , and in no other sense . But we shall be told * that this latitude of interpretation is

    unpardonable . Yet what is there in it half so absurd , half so extravagant , as to understand the whole in a purely literal sense ?—As will be shewn more particularly below * The terms redeeming , purchasing \ buying ' , &c * are frequently used in the Old Testament in a sense implying temporal

    deliverances and advantages , and surely thesp strong and significant terms are particularly well calculated to set forth the great deliverance through Christ from ignorance and vice , and from the burden , of ancient carnal institutions , and degrading superstitions .

    The notions entertained concerning appeasing the wrath of God , giving satisfaction to divine justice , appropriating the active and passive merits of Christ , and others equivalent to them , are wholly unscriptural and unworthy of consideration . Whatever Christ is to believers in

    him in the accomplishment of their salvation , he is so by the appointment , and as the instrument of God , acting as he received commandment and power from on high . When our Saviour says that he had power over his life and death , he adds that he received this commandment from

    his Father . John x . 18 . Is Jesus Christ the resurrection and the life ? He raises Lazarus after a solemn prayer to the Almighty : and it is expressly said , John v . 26 , " For as the Father hath life in himself , so

    hulk ' he given to the Son to have life in himself . " Will he judge the world I It is expressly said to be by the a pi- , poiutment of God . It may be said , indeed , that many passages ascribe our salvation , our redemption , our resurrection and everlasting life im *

    mediately to Christ ; but as many other passages ascribe the same to him expressly , as the instrument of God , it is surely evident enough , that the same instrumentality is implied where it is not specifically mentioned . And let the reader b *

    Untitled Article

    On the Atonement . 73 j >

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 739, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/11/