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"crifice, which was owing to what facri"fice fignified. The customs of the world "had made facrifice the ordinary way of

addreffing God: it put the offerer in "mind of confeffing his fins; and upon

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defiring reconciliation with God, and being reftored to his favour; or of being "admitted into friendship with him. No "wonder then, that that was imputed

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commonly to the blood of the victim, "which was the real effect of folemn

prayer and a purified heart, fince the one

was the external and vifible fign of the "other"".-Here then, we learn, from the "Author's own words, in what sense he understood piacular facrifices to be an application to be restored to favour, and the beginning of reconciliation. They were external, vifible figns, or fymbols, of a purified heart, of penitence, confeffion of fins, prayer for pardon, and a defire of reconciliation; and, as fuch, they were, when accompanied with the things which they fignified, an application to be restored to favour, and the beginning of reconciliation. Very well! but then the Author ought to have confidered, that this is not his notion of the fymbolical nature and defign of facrifices; but a notion which he himself has exprefsly condemned, as an unjust and miftaken

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taken reprefentation of them. He ought to have remembred his own words, "Sa"crifices were always accompanied with

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prayers, or thanksgivings; and therefore "were not external rites by which prayer "or thanks were intended to be fignified, "or the defires of the people were intended "to be expreffed." Thus it appears, that the Author plays his game with two different notions of the fymbolical nature and defign of facrifices, making use of the one or the other, juft as the cafe and his own diftrefs required. But truly, this thuffling and doubling to get rid of difficultys, and to avoid the force of objections, odly demonstrates, that he was incapable of defending his notion of the fymbolical nature and design of facrifices, and to bring it to any agreement with piacular facrifices, in particular.

The Author faith, the offender laid his hands upon the facrifice; he confeffed his fin; he promised and profeffed repentance; (to which he might have added; he prayed for pardon, and defired to be restored to favour;) but till all this was done and over, he was an improper person to partake of the table of God, who was justly conceived to be displeased, And this he gives as the reason why the offerer did not eat any fhare

Page 300, 301.

fhare of his facrifice. Now all, that the Author here fays, is true; and yet, it is not a fufficient reafon, why the offender should not have had a fhare of the facrifice which he offered for his fin, for his own ufe; or the comfort of, what the Author calls, the fymbol of friendship with God, viz. the eating with him at his table. The reason is obvious and evident, viz. because all, that the Author fpeaks of, was done and over, before the facrifical animal was either flain or offered in facrifice; and therefore, being done and over, its not being done and over could be no reafon why the penitent offender fhould not have a fhare of the facrifice, which he offered for his fin, to eat. On the contrary, fince reconciliation and favour were actually obtained by the means aforefaid, before the facrifice was flain or offered, this was a good reafon why the offerer hould have had a fhare of his facrifice to eat; provided his eating of it was a symbol of friendship with God, or a fœderal rite by which he renewed friendship with him. The reafon therefore, which the Author gives for the owners of piacular facrifices having no thare of these facrifices to eat, is no reafon at all for it; fo far from it, that it is, upon the Author's own principles, a good reafon why they should have had a fhare of them to eat. This fhews us again, how much the Author is puzzled with the difficulties

which attend his notion of the fymbolical ufe and defign of facrifices, when he attempts to accommodate and apply it to piacular facrifices.

Again, the Author fays, that the offender, who offered a piacular facrifice, looked upon himself as in a state of offence;-confidered himself as guilty; and, therefore, could not prefume to eat as a friend with God, but acted as under a sense of guilt, viz. by forbearing to eat. And fill to the fame purpose, he was too much a criminal in his own opinion, to be admitted to God's table immediately. In these words, the Author seems to make the offender's own opinion or fenfe of his guilt, the reason why he had no share of the piacular facrifice, which he offered for his fin, for his own ufe. But this, I think, is both unfupported by, and inconfiftent with, the declarations of holy fcripture. In the law of Mofes, we find, that God ordered all piacular facrifices, either to be wholly burnt and consumed with fire; or fome parts of them to be thus confumed, and the whole remainder to be applied towards the maintenance of the priests; by which injunctions it was determined, that the owners or offerers of these facrifices fhould have no fhare of them to eat. The offerers therefore of them, whether they had, or had not, a fenfe of their guilt, could have no fhare for their own ufe.

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Their not eating, did not depend on their opinion or fenfe of their guilt, but on the command and appointment of God, who had ordered thofe facrifices to be difpofed of another way. Perhaps, I cannot exprefs my fentiments, on this head, better, than in the Author's own words, who faith "What could not be vowed to God, nor

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the effect of free-will in the giver, "but was a demand upon him for fome offence, or for fome impropriety, could "not any ways, in part or in whole, be "taken back, as if the owner had any pro

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perty in it; nor could it be any way "with-held. It was all due to another, and, therefore, the perfon that offered, or prefented it, could have no fhare or portion in it. In fin and trefpafs-offer"ings, therefore, the offerer could have no pretence to any fhare in them; for "that would have been, in effect, a draw"back upon what was, by law, given for particular fervices '.' This language of the Author is perfectly agreeable to that of the Levitical-law; but the reverfe of that which we find in those paffages of his book which I have been confidering, though found in their near neighbourhood.

Secondly. The Author fays, "When a man offered a burnt-offering, or a peaceoffering,

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