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Christ. He again mentions God having made a promise to Abraham, that in him "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," a blessing which came to the Gentiles through Jesus. He considers this circumstance of the communication of blessing, as fully foreteling the atonement of Jesus. The Editor has also quoted the passage in Job, "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth;" being of opinion, that the term redeemer being applied to Christ, proves either his atonement or his deity. I must confess my inability to find out the connexion between these authorities and the conclusion drawn by the Editor from them. Did God, who, according to the Reverend Editor, had no delight even in animal sacrifice, anticipate great delight in human sacrifice, when Noah made an offering to him?

May we not admit, that the divine promise to Abraham has been fulfilled in the blessings we enjoy, derived from the sacred instructions of Jesus, without assuming that other advantages have been reaped by us from the circumstance of his having shed his blood for us, exclusively considered? If not, how can Jesus assure us of the divine blessing merely through the observance of his instructions? Matt. v. 3-11, Luke xi. 28, " But, said he, (Jesus,) Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."

Could not Job, or any one, call another his redeemer or deliverer, without having allusion to his

their gracious Master. It is obvious, from what I stated in my Second Appeal, that I did not dispute the application of that term to Jesus in the scriptural books. I only maintained, that no Christian, whether primitive or modern, could ever apply the word "lamb," in its literal sense, to Jesus, who, as being above the angels of God, is of course far above the nature of a "lamb;" and that, under this consideration, it must have been used for innocence subjected to persecution, as we find the use of the word "lamb" very frequent elsewhere when applied to man. John xxi. 15, (already quoted in the Second Appeal,) "Feed my lambs." Luke x. 3, "Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves." Gen. xxii. 7, 8, "And he (Isaac) said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering." Wherein, Abraham doubtless meant his innocent son about to be subjected to a violent death, hiding the commandment of God from him, as appears from the following verses: "And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood: and Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." Jer. xi. 19, "But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to slaughter."

Upon the same principle, the apostles generally used "blood" for condescension to death, and "sa

crifice" for a virtual one, as I noticed fully in the preceding paragraphs.

The Editor relates, (page 524,) that the priest used to lay his hands on the head of a living goat, " and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, putting them on the head of the goat, and by the hand of a fit 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 indication 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. Exod. 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 Reverend 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 for giveness of sins being founded upon the effusion of blood.

The Reverend Editor now begins with Psalm ii. 1, (page 527,) stating that in Acts iv., the apostles lifted up" their voices with one accord to God in the very words of the Psalms;" adding verse 27, "For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together." Secondly, he quotes Psalm xvi. 8-11, comparing them with Acts ii. 25-27; 3rdly, Psalm xxii. 1, comparing it with Heb. ii. 10-12; 4thly, Psalm xxxi. 5, while he repeats Psalm xl. 6-8, comparing them to Heb. x. 4; 5thly, Psalm xlv. 6, 7, comparing it [them] with Heb. i. 8—12; 6thly, Psalm lxviii. 18, applying it to Ephes. iv. 8-11; 7thly, Psalm lxix. 1, 2, comparing them with John ii. 17, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up," and with Rom. xv. 3, "Even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me;" 8thly, Psalm lxxii. 7—11, 17; 9thly, Psalm lxxxix. 19—37; 10thly, Psalm cii. 4, 5, 10, quoting immediately after this, Heb. i. 7, without comparing one with the other; 11thly, Psalm cxviii. 22; 12thly, Psalm cx. 1, 4. After having filled up more than six pages (527533) with the quotations of the above Psalms, the Editor observes, that, "notwithstanding the abundant evidence of the atonement, and even the deity

of Christ, already adduced from the Pentateuch and the Psalms," &c. But I regret that none of these Psalms appear to me to bear the least reference to the principle of vicarious sacrifice as an atonement for sin, except Psalm fourteenth, in which a declaration of the displeasure of Jehovah at sacrifice in general is made, and which I have fully examined in the preceding paragraphs. I therefore beg my readers to look over all the Psalms introduced here by the Editor, and to form their opinion whether these are properly applied to the discussion of the doctrine of the atonement; and should they find them having little or no relation to a proof of the atonement, they may then judge whether the frequent complaint of the Editor of the want of room, is or is not well founded.

I will examine his attempt to prove the deity of Jesus from some of these Psalms, in a subsequent chapter on the Trinity, but cannot omit to notice here two or three remarks made by the Editor, in the course of quoting these Psalms, on some of my assertions in the Second Appeal, leaving a decision on them to the free judgment of the public. The Editor having quoted Psalm xl. 6-8, and compared 6—8, these verses with Heb. x. 4-7, 9, thus concludes (page 528): "By these declarations various facts are established. They inform us, that the grand design of the Son in becoming man was that of being a sacrifice; which fully refutes our author's assertion, (page 202,) that the sole object of his mis