was probably introduced from the Roman law. Tertullian, who was well acquainted with that science, says, "Christus peccata hominum omni satisfactionis habitu expiavit :" which may be, I conceive, justly translated, "Christ atoned for the sins of men by a satisfaction perfect in every respect." He clearly shows his understanding of the term, when he says that our Lord, by healing the wound of Malchus, repaired the injury; "sanitatis restitutione ei, quem non ipse vexaverat, satisfecit." De Patientiâ, cap. iii.

I would not be rude, nor on a sacred subject jocular; but sit mihi liberum sensus animi proferre. As empirics in medicine, contented with a few facts imperfectly understood and illcombined, deride the extensive search and the cautious inductions of the enlightened physician; and as the vulgar, looking only at appearances as they seem to them, reject and often hold in high contempt the demonstrated facts of natural philosophy; so those who disbelieve the atonement of Christ and its correlate doctrines, seem to me to form their sentiments from a very superficial consideration, hasty and incomplete views, and an unwarrantable confidence in first appear. ances; overlooking the great principles and general laws of a comprehensive moral system. Above all, I fear that they overlook the nature and obligations of obedience to the will of God, the rational grounds on which those obligations rest, and the true reasons of the demerit of sin. "Late philosophers," says president Edwards, seem ready enough to own the great importance of God's maintaining steady and inviolable the laws of the natural world. It may be worthy to be considered, whether it is not of as great, or greater, importance, that the law of God, that great rule of righteousness between the supreme moral Governor and his subjects, should be maintained inviolate." Works, vol. viii. p. 534.

Note XVII.-page 56.

66

CHRIST DENIED BY A UNITARIAN TO BE A SAVIOUR.

A monitory testimony to the tendency and the actual influence of the system which denies the doctrine of atone

ment, occurs in the Monthly Repository for March, 1813, p. 182. The passage is the more observable, as the correspondence in which it occurs was communicated to the Repository avowedly to demonstrate the practical utility of the Unitarian doctrine, in the promotion of pious affections, and as a case "in which the experience of the writer had very satisfactorily settled the matter."

"I agree with you in what you say on the doctrine of redemption: but why do we, Unitarians, not believing in the common notion concerning it, call Jesus Christ our Saviour?' Our teacher, divinely inspired, he certainly was: but does not Saviour imply something more? And is not our using the term as we do, implying an acquiescence in the abominable doctrine of a sacrifice for our sins?-a doctrine the source of so much impiety in the world."

This writer deigns not to give any qualification to the naked audacity of his language, though we must suppose that of the terms at least, which he vituperates, he knew the one to be the perpetual style of the N. T. and that the other is repeatedly employed. But let us, by a large extension of candour, supply an explanation. We will grant the writer to intend that his reflections should apply only to modern ideas under the terms Saviour and sacrifice, and that the N. T. uses the former word merely to designate Jesus as our Deliverer from vice and superstition by his salutary lessons of instruction, and the latter to express only an act of exemplary obedience. Having shewn this courtesy, we affirm that the terms Saviour, and sacrifice, in the use and intention of the inspired scriptures, with regard to Christ, denoted those exalted ideas which we entertain. The truth of this position is the point at issue, between us and our theological anta. gonists. Our evidences are before the world; and it is our calm and conscientious belief, that the arguings on the other side have not weakened those evidences.

The reader will be gratified by a sentiment, original, though obvious, from an author who adorned his professional eminence with the riches of elegant and sacred learning. "It was the general opinion of the Jews, about the time of

U

the appearance of our Lord on earth, that God was about to send into the world a Prophet,* or Elijah, who should not only reform them, but, as they flattered themselves, restore the nation to its former temporal † power and glory. A similar opinion in some measure prevailed about that time in the heathen world; and it is remarkable that the ideas of the Gentiles were more correct, and more consonant to what appeared to be the designation of Providence, than those of the Jews. The latter rested chiefly on the gratification of ambition and pride, and perhaps of revenge; the former expected an amendment of the moral character. The child predicted in the Pollio of Virgil, which it was believed was to appear about that time, was not supposed to commence his reign with conquest, victory, and triumph, but with diffusing peace over the world, and improving mankind by the purity of his precepts, and the excellence of his example; by releasing men from the bondage of sin, and the dominion of those evil passions that excited them to hate and oppress, not to love and protect one another." Dr. Falconer's Obs. on the Words of the Centurion; Oxford, 1808, p. 16. Applying this remark to a well-known passage of Cicero, I would ask whether it is credible that the writers of the N. T. would constantly represent Jesus the crucified, by a term, which not only Jewish but Gentile usage considered as breathing the grandeur of divinity?-Verres, imitating the impious vanity of the Greek dynasties of Syria and Egypt, had caused himself to be inscribed THP, Saviour. "This epithet," exclaimed the indignant orator,-"how great! It is such that its full meaning cannot be expressed in any single word. He is a SAVIOUR, who gives salvation!" Cicero in Verr. II. ii. 63.

Another observation forces itself upon us in reading this correspondence, which, it should be kept in mind, is pub

* Matt. ix. 14; xvi. 14. Mark ix. 11, 12. Luke ix. 18. John i. 21; vi. 14.

"When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" Acts i. 6.

lished expressly as a pattern and display of Unitarian piety and "experience." This is, that the basis of the whole is pure naturalism. There is no recognition of a single doctrine of revelation, except it may be reckoned such to admit that the Jews are kept a distinct people by a particular providence. Every other sentiment and expression is perfectly in the character of a Deist. Indeed, to my apprehension, the palm of religious superiority is due to the avowedly infidel meditations of the Lords Shaftsbury and Kaimes, in the Rhapsody of the former, and the Essays of the latter on the principles of Morality and Natural Religion.

Note XVIII.-page 59, and 126.

SOCINIAN NOTION OF CHRIST'S SACRIFICE.

Aided by the critical dexterity of the Polish Socinians, the author of the Notes upon the Improved Version of the N. T. has laboured to deduce from this verse (Heb. vii. 27.) an argument for the subversion of the whole doctrine of atonement. "This he did, i.e. offer up sacrifice, first, for his own sins. But Christ, in a moral sense, was sinless. See ver. 26, and ch. iv. 15. His sins therefore were merely ceremonial; that is, being a descendant of the house of Judah, ver. 14, he was, as to the priesthood, in an unconsecrated state. But in the same sense in which Christ offered up a sacrifice for his own sins, in that very sense did he offer himself a sacrifice for the sins of the people." I. V. p. 514. A similar gloss is given on ch. v. 3.

This great misinterpretation is anticipated and refuted by Dr. Owen, in his Exposition on this Epistle. To his observations I beg permission to add a few remarks, as the question is of the first importance, and as the objectionable comment is now modelled in a new form.

I. It is assumed that the sins mentioned by the sacred writer are, not moral offences, sins properly so called, but only ceremonial disqualifications. Such assumption, without any attempt at proof, especially in a case of so much

importance, deserves to be severely reprehended. It is one of the worst artifices of argumentative injustice; and I am concerned to say that it is often employed in the Notes on the I. V. That the assumption is untenable appears to me from the following considerations :

1. As in settling the import of a term, the first attention should be paid to instances in the book itself under consideration, I must profess my conviction that of the twenty-five instances in which άuapría occurs in the Ep. to the Hebrews, not one is determined to this construction; not one could bear it without a large indulgence to hypothesis; in one example (ix. 28.) it may denote a sacrifice for sin; in all the others it most suitably and plainly bears its usual sense of moral crime; in those which have an affinity to the instance in question, the reference to the evil and heinousness of offence against God, is manifest and emphatic: e. g. iii. 17; iv. 15; x. 17, 18, 26.

2. Of the numerous instances of its occurrence in the N. T. not one exists in which the term can be shewn to bear this novel sense, or rather in which the contrary is not manifest. In two or three passages, it may signify a sacrifice for sin, according to a well-known Hebrew metonymy: but in all the rest, it most clearly expresses moral pravity. Dr. Priestley, indeed, (on Matt. ix. 2, 6,) says: "It appears that, by the phrase, Thy sins be forgiven thee, Jesus at first only means, May thy disorder be removed: sin being considered as the cause of evil in general." Notes on the SS. vol. iii. p. 149. This is easily said, and it helps a weak hypothesis; but the necessary article, PROOF, is absent. The memory of Dr. Priestley, on many accounts, I highly honour; but in questions of criticism and theology, his avròs epa commands not my submission.

3. In the Septuagint and Apocrypha, and in the Hebrew O. T. I can discover no example of άuapría or being used in the acceptation assumed. It appears always to signify moral evil, in the abstract, the act, the actor, the penal consequence, or the expiation. Grotius, on this text (referred to in I. V.) following Socinus and Crellius, proposes our