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An Essay on the Nature and Design ofSaortfieeii under the Mosaic Law . 377
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cc sacrifice of the Son of God is the chief article of our message ^ the sun of our system , the central orb to which all the lines of Christian truth converge . " ( Dr . Pye Smith ' s Disc . p . 58 . ) A thousand equally glowing passages might be collected " from the writings of Christians believing in the real sacrifice of Christ .
We proceed , thirdly , to another argument taken from the Old Testament , as opposed to this typical system of interpreting the ceremonial observances under the Mosaic law : namely , the absence from the writings of the Old Testament of those metaphysico-theological dogmas , upon
which the necessity of a satisfaction for the sins of men by a substituted victim is founded . These dogmas should have been quite familiar to the holy writers of the Jewish Church , if it be true that daily ordinances of worship were formed for the express purpose of reminding- them of it .
And how terrific in the hands of Isaiah , Hosea and Ezekiel , would have been the doctrines of vindictive justice , unmitigated hatred of sin , infinite wrath , inflexible severity in God ; in man , inherent depravity , the burthen of damnation , an infinite penalty , and consequent despair , and an < c indubitable sense of Jehovah's righteous
abhorrence and rejection V In what strains of plaintive melancholy would Jeremiah have lamented over the lost state of man ; and how might the rest of those sublime writers in the Jewish
Church have been expected to have lent the strength of their distinct powers , in magnifying the influence of these doctrines , and placing in every grand and impressive light this awful proof of divine justice , holiness and
severity ! But there is confessedly little or nothing in these writings that can even be adapted to the use of this system of theology ; whilst on the other hand there are those large , unlimited , vast and glorious declarations of tife boundless freedom of the Divine
grace , his absolute sovereignty over all the creatures he hath made , and laws which he hath enacted , enabling him to forgive sin wherever he pleaseth so to do ; and finally , of his willingness to forgive without any payment of the penal debt upon the mere reformation of the sinner , that it seems impossible
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VOL , XVIII , 3 C
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care to guard against being understood to disparage the inherent and essential importance of the rite . And yet , hear the style which they freely adopt : « I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings ,
continually before me . I will take no bullock out of thy house , nor he-goats out of thy folds . For every beast of the forest is mine , and the cattle upon a thousand hills . " Psalm 1 . 8—10 .
" Thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou delightest not in burnt-offering . The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken spirit and a contrite heart , O God , thou wilt not despise . " Psalm li . 16 , 17-" Wherewith shall I come before the
Lord , and bow myself before the most high God ? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings , with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams , or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression , the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul ? He hath shewed thee , O man ,
what is good ; and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee , -but to do justly , to love mercy , and to walk humbly before thy God ? " Micah vi . 6—8 . ' * I desired mercy and not sacrifice , and the knowledge of God
more than burnt-offe rings . " Hosea vi . 6 . " To do justice and judgment is more acceptable unto the Lord than sacrifice . " Prov . xxi . 3 . See also Isaiah i . 12—20 : Amos v . 21— 24 .
There are many other passages of similar import ; and an ingenious and able writer , ( W . J . Fox , in Letters to Dr . Pye Smith , ) makes the following just remarks with regard to them : < f Ceremonial observances are brought into contrast with holiness of heart and life frequently , with a future and
more valuable sacrifice never /' Now , in what way is this to be accounted for , but by supposing inspired men under the old covenant tyholly ignorant of any such prospective reference in their sacrifices ? For only compare their mode of speaking of them , with the expressions used by Christian writers believing in the doctrine of the real sacrifice of Christ . How greatly thi 3 doctrine , too , has been corrupted , all Protestants acknowled ge , and yet what is their language *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1823, page 377, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1786/page/9/
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