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or that they spoke the language of penitence and prayer , &c . And now I observe more expressly , 2 . That the anger of God is , in effect , declared to have been removed
from the transgressors by them . We learn from Numb , xvi ., that the Israelites were highly displeased with Moses and Aaron , because of the punishment of Korah , &c . " And they said , Ye have killed the people of the Lord . And they gathered themselves
together against Moses and Aaron . And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron , saying , Get ye up from among this congregation , that I may consume them in a moment * , and they fell upon their faces . And Moses said unto Aaron , Take a censer , and
put fire therein from off the altar , and put on incense , and go quickly unto the congregation , and make an atonement for them ; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord : the plague is beguiu And Aaron did so . And he stood between the dead and the
living , and the plague was stayed . " It seems as if there was no time to offer a living sacrifice . Dr . Priestley observes on-ver . 46 , "That whatsoever it was that was the means of appeasing the Divine Being , was said to make atonement /* Priestley in loc .
David also says , in 1 Sam . xxvi . % 99 to king- Saul , If the Lord have stirred tbee up against me , let him accept an offering . " If David had committed any offence against God , which had been the cause of his persecution by Saul , he might have been appeased by an offering . " Dr . Priestley in loc . In 2 Sam . xxi . we have an account of the sons of Saul that were put to death to make atonement for their own crimes and their father ' s . On this Dr . Priestley observes , " They
did not suffer as malefactors , who were to be buried on the day that they died , but were exposed , as it were , to appease the Diyine anger . And that this was effected , appears by God ' s sending the rain that had been long wanted . " Priestley in loc .
Also various things are said to have quieted the spirit of God against his enemies , or to have appeased him , or to have tur ned away his anger from them . See Zech . vi . * Ezek . xvi . 6 & ; Weut . Kiin ; and Joshua viw 26- On ^ eeh . vi . 7 , 8 , Dr . Priestley observes . " These quieted the jroirit of God , or
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satisfied his ^ wrath with respect to them . " Also Ecclus . iii . SO , Water will quench a flaming fire , and alms inaketh an atonement for sin . And so quench the fire of God ' s wrath , as surely the writer means to suggest . 2 Maccab . iii . 27—S 3 .
It appears then , that , according to the plain language of Scripture , and of the apocryphal writers , that the blessed God laid aside his wrath towards the transgressors of his laws , when the appointed sacrifice was
made , that is , that his mind was changed towards them , for his treatment of them was altered , which was the thing to . be proved ; and it also appears most evident , ( hat even Dr . Priestley thought proper to adopt such language on this subject .
If , then , these declarations of Scripture , and of Scripture honestly explained , do not accord with our refined notions , and double-refined feelings , I hope we shall have sense enough to discern that we refine by far too much ; that the Scripture representations of
things are made to meet common understandings , and are doubtless best suited to edify the most learned and enlightened minds , and that it is not in our power to change them for the better . And as no Jew could probably go seriously through the process
which attended his making atonement for a wilful breach of the Jaw of Moses , without considering bis atonement as having wrought a favourable change in the mind of God towards him ; so no sensible and unprejudiced Christian can probably seriously read all that is
said in the Scriptures concerning the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin , without , at least , suspecting that all this cannot be metaphor and allusion only , and the mere shadow of a shade , but that there must be something real and substantial in it , whether he . can
acquire a perfectly satisfactory idea of what that is or not . And if so , then it certainly becomes us to think and speak of it as the sacred Scripture * do , that is , as a sin-offering , through which God , of his infinite mercy , is
pleased to forgive all penitent believers in Jesus Christ , their past sins , and to receive them intotiis favour , and make them the honoured and happy subjects of his spiritual kingdom ; in other words , s ^ crificially to sanctify them , that is , to cleanse them from all their
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Mr . Jevans aft the Doctrine of Atonement * 581
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1819, page 551, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1776/page/27/
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