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the head of a liririgvgo&t , * and confess aver him all the iniquities ' of ' the children of Israel , putting them on ihe head of the goat , and . by the hand of a tit person to send it away into the wilderness as an atonement for all their sins in every year / He then infers from this
circumstance ' that , commandments like these did more than merely foretel the atonement of Christ . * Were we to consider at all the annual scape-goat as an iadicatioa of some other atonement for sin , we must esteem it as a sign of Aaron ' s bearing the iniquities of Israel ; both the scape-goat and-Aaron having alike borne the sins of others Without sacrificing their
lives : but by no means can it be supposed a sign of the atonement of Christ , who , according to the author , bore the sins of men by the sacrifice of his own life , and had therefore no resemblance to the scape-goat or Aaron . Exodus xxviii . 38 : * And it shall be upon Aaron ' s forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their
holy gifts ; and it shall be always upon his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord . ' I wonder that the Rev . Editor himself notices here that the iniquities of Israel were forgiven by confession over the scape-goat , without
animal or human victims , and yet represents the circumstance of the scape-goat as a prediction of the sacrificial death of Christ , and insists upon the forgiveness of sins being founded upon the effusion of blood . " —Ibid , pp . 50 , 51 .
The Indian convert shews continually that he has weighed orthodox epithets and exclamations , and that he will not accept them for arguments . The following is a case in point : " The Rev . Editor expresses his indignation at the mode of reasoning adopted by me in the passages above quoted ;
saying , c Should not a creature , a worm of the dust who cannot fully comprehend the mysteries of his own being , pause before he arraign his Maker of gross injustice , and charge him with having founded all religion on an act of palpable iniquity ? ' ( P . 529 . )
" There appears here a most strange mistake on the part of the Editor . It is he who seems to me to be labouring to prove the absurdity that God , the AJmighty and all-merciful , is capable of a palpable iniquity — determined to have
punishment , though he leave quite unpunished ; * indicting the marks of his wrath on the innocent for the purpose of sparing those who justly deserve the weight of .-its . terrors . If he mean to object to the rashness of applying the
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limited capacity of the human understanding to judge the unsearchable things of the wisdom of God , and there fore denies my right , as a worm of the dust to deduce any thing from human ideas
inimical to his view of the Divine will , I can only say that I have for my example , that of a fellow-worm in his own argument to shew the necessity that the Almighty laboured under to have his justice satisfied /' - « -Ibid . pp . 60 , 61 .
The accomplished Hindoo has been too long accustomed to look through sophistry in the writings of Heathens , to be imposed upon by it in those of Christians , By a single remark he levels the whole fabric of Missionary theology :
" To this assertion of the Editor , the blood of no mere creature could take away sin , ' I add the assertion also maintained by the Editor , that * the Creator is not composed of blood and flesh / and leave to him to say , if the blood of Jesus
was not that of a creature , whose blood it was . It is evident from the circumstance of the blood of a creature being unable to take away sin and the Creator having no blood , that the taking away of sin can have no connexion with blood
or a bloody sacrifice . '—Ibid . p . 85 . Rammohun Roy can retort smartly without ill-nature , e . g . " In answer to one of the many insinuations made by the Editor in the course of his arguments , to wit , * If this
be Christ , what must become of the precepts of Jesus ? ' ( Page 576 . ) I most reluctantly put the following query in reply . If a slain lamb be God Almighty or his true emblem , what must be his worship , and what must become of Ijis worshipers ?"—Ibid . pf 209 .
The Indian Unitarian well exposes the inconsistency of the system of " Satisfaction" in imputing contrary attributes to the Father and the Son , whom it yet supposes to be one and the same being :
" The Editor in common with other Trinitarians conceives that God the Son Squally with God the Father ( according to their mode of expression ) is possessed of the attributes of perfection , sudh as mercy , justice , righteousness , truth , &c ,
yet he represents them so differently as to ascribe to the Father strict justice or rather vengeance , and to the Son unlimited mercy and forgiveness , th&fc * # > the Father , the first person of ? the Oodhead , haying beeq in wrath at the- smfw
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£ 40 Reviet # . ~~ - Unitarian Controversy at Calcutta .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1823, page 542, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1788/page/46/
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