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defect of other proof , itself furnishes none of the existence of any such import , Dr , Magee takes for granted the thing to be proved . 1 % is obvious that this , ceremony of the laying on of hands was used on occasions of various
and widely different import . " Thus in the case of the blasphemer , those who had borne witness against him , laid their hands upon his head , ( Lev . xxiv , 14 , ) and were wont ( as Maimonides informs us ) to devote him to death , in these words , &c . ' run kip ntrmn : i Ton ,
' Sanguis tuus lti caput tuum recidat , tuo enim merito periisti / On the contrary , the patriarch Jacob , layiqg his hands on the heads of Ephraim and Manasseh , at the same time commended theni in his prayers to God . And Moses , by the same
ceremony , committing the government to Joshua , would doubtless pray for the increase of divine graces , that he might be competent to so great an office . Again , the high-priest , in a religious ceremony , laying hands even upon a brute animal void of reason , viz . the goat that was to be led into
the desert , at the same time confessed upon his head the sins of the people !" Now the only rational method of determining the signification which this ceremony must necessarily have in all cases , ( for this is the least question , ) is to fix upon something common to all the instances in which it is found
to occur . Proceeding according to this obvious maxim , it appears that the laying on of hands was always accompanied by a solemn address to the Supreme Being , and that it was a method of designating such things as were either devoted to death or commended to
divine favour , or , in short , designated to any important office or sacred use . To apply this to the case of the scape-goat . It is expressl y said , that the high-priest laying botn his hands on the head of the goat , was to confess over him all the iniquities of the
children of Israel , putting their sins upon its head . The laying on of hands was merely to designate the object of the ceremony , and to express a solemn religious address ; it was the verbajl confession of prayers , and the giving away the goat in charge to Jb ^ e carried away into the wilderness , that
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were emblematical of the bearipg away of sin . But since in peace-offeringsy there is no evidence of there being a similar confession of sins , over the head of
the victim , and the animal wa » not sent away into the wilderness , but sacrificed up op the altar , the ceremony of the scape-goat e * n prove nothing with respect to the vicarious import of sacrifices $ and it U * not more reasonable to argue for it f * om
this instance , than it would be to argue that the laying on of hands bestows a vicarious import upon the punishment of the blasphemer ; or that the patriarch Jacob did , in a vicarious sense , lay his hands upon the heads of Ephraim and Manasseh .
It admits of question whether this Jewish rite of the scape-goat , ( which was no sacrifice since it was sent away alive into the wilderness , ) does in any degree favour the doctrine of the vicarious import of sin . For the animal is not treated as if there was any
guilt ( symbolically ) inhering in it ; it is merely a mechanical , unconscious instrument in the business of bearing away sin ; and one cannot well regara the ceremony in any other light than as a palpable way of representing to a rude people of gross understanding , an assurance of the forgiveness and
removal of sin . How this pardon was granted remains as much as ever a question to be determined by other evidence-But the ceremony of the scape-goat is applied in another way to prove the vicarious import of several of the Jewish sacrifices . That the argument
may have full justice done to it , we will state it in the words of Dr . Outram . ( De Sacr . lib . i . cap . xxL § 3 . ) He premises " that the sacred writers are wont to speak of unexpiated
crimes , as of a foul stain polluting the guilty . And so it arises thftt the expiation of sins is often expressed by words equivalent to cleansing . Such as in Greek , KaOcz ^ icrfjua ; and KOLtocL ^ tiv , and in Hebrew , nDD and "mro , words
which the Greek interpreters sometimes translate b y KaBu ^ siv , Next , let it be considered that on the appointed day of expiation the sins of the people , of Israel were transferred in a symbolical manner to the goat , which was to be led into the wilder « £ »* -
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334 An Essay , on the Nature and Design of Sacrifices under the Mosaic JL ^ tc ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1823, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1785/page/22/
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