offered for the purpose of averting the anger of the gods and obtaining their favour.* Ενθαδε μιν ταυροισι και αρνείοις ιλαονται. Homer: Il. ii. 550. Αλλοτε δη σπονδησι θυεσσιτε ιλασκεσθαι. Hesiod. Oper. et Dier. i. 336. Hinc etiam xaλλepe dictus est, cui exta victima deos propitios pol licebantur. Ea mihi cotidie, Aut thure, aut vino, aut aliqui semper supplicat Lar apud Plautum, in Prolog. Aulular. Magna est pecori gratia in placamentis deorum. L. viii. c. 48. Et thure et fidibus juvat Plin. Hist. Nat. Placare, et vituli sanguine debito Custodes Numidæ deos. Horat. Carm. L; i. Od. 36. Prudens placavi sanguine divos. Horat. Serm. L. ii. Sat. 3. Sanguine placasti ventos. Virgil. Æneid. ii. 116. Galli, pro vita hominis nisi vita hominis reddatur, non posse deoruin immortalium numen placari arbitrantur. Cæsar de Bell. Gall. L. vi. Vide etiam Cicer. pro Fonteio. Dicitur Otho per omnia piaculorum genera manes Galba propitiare tentasse. Sueton. in Othone, c. 7. Nec minus propitii erant mola salsa supplicantibus, imo vero, ut palam est, placatiores. Plin. Hist. Nat. L. xii. c. 18. Per dies aliquot hostiæ majores sine litatione cæsæ, diuque non impetrata pax deum.—Senatus majoribus hostiis usque ad litationem sacrificari jussit. Cæteris diis perlitatum ferunt, Saluti Petilium perlitasse negant. Livii. Hist. L. xxvii. c. 25. L. xli. c. 15. Quid? quum pluribus diis immolatur, qui tandem evenit, ut litetur aliis, aliis non litetur? Cicero de Divinat. L. ii. Dein pluribus hostiis cæsis cum litare non posset, introiit in curiam spreta religione. Sueton. in Julio, c. 81. Si hercle istuc unquam factum est, tum me Jupiter Plaut. in Panulo. Secundum Servium, ad Æneid. 4. et Macrobium, L. iii, c. 5. vox, litare est sacrificio placare numeu.—Secundum Nonium Marcellum, c. 5. n. 12. Sacrificare est veniam petere: litare est propitiare et votum impetrare.-Secundum Vossium, Etymolog. Sacrificare generale erat: liture autem locum habebat, cum sacrificium esset diis gratum S It is of no importance to our argument, if there were some Heathens who considered it improper to worship their gods with animal sacrifices, or with any sacrifices at all. For those who refused to worship their gods in this way, did not deny that they were so worshipped, or that these services had respect to them; which is as sufficient for our present purpose, as if they had agreed with others, who formed a very large majority, in regarding sacrifice not only as a proper mode of worship, but also as possessing a propitiatory efficacy. VII. If we inquire what the Christian fathers thought of sacrifices, we shall find it to have been their unanimous opinion that it was never lawful to offer sacrifices except to the one true God; and consequently that they considered sacrifices as including the nature and design of divine worship. On this principle they condemned those who sacrificed to the heathen deities as guilty of idolatry. Thus Tertullian:* If I comply with an invitation to attend a sacrifice, 'I shall be a partaker of idolatry.' And again: If any one deliver wine to a person who is sacrificing, nay, if he assist by a word necessary to the sacrifice, he will be accounted a promoter of idolatry.' Thus Cyprian, to guard the Christians against sacrificing to the gods of the Heathens, urges the divine denunciation: "He that sacrificeth unto any "god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly "destroyed." But it is needless to adduce testimonies on so plain a matter. One remark will be sufficient. They who thought that sacrifices could never, without the dreadful crime of idolatry, be offered to any other than the one true God, which, • De Idololat. c. 16. + De Lapsis. Exod. xxii. 20. was the opinion of all the Christian fathers; must have attributed to sacrifices the proper nature and design of divine worship, and consequently must have concluded that all sacrifices, legitimately offered as aets of sacred worship, had respect to God. VIII. Since it is evident that all sacrifices legitimately offered were intended to have respect to God, it follows that the same may be affirmed of the Sacrifice of Christ. For whatever was the object of every legitimate sacrifice, must necessarily have been the object of the sacrifice of Christ. And as his sacrifice belongs to the piacular class, and the whole class of piacular sacrifices was designed to obtain the pardon of transgressions, it follows that his sacrifice was designed to procure from God the pardon of our sins, on whose behalf it was offered. It seemed proper to remark this in passing, that we may not appear, in this and the preceding chapter, to have been pursuing an argument of no importance to our main subject. 260 CHAPTER XXI.. Vicarious Punishment explained, and Proofs that it was inflicted on the Piacular Victims. HAVING shown that all the kinds of sacrifices appointed by the law of Moses had respect to God, we proceed to a more particular discussion of the Piacular Victims, respecting which we have affirmed, and are about to prove, that they were the subjects of Vicarious Punishment. Vicarious punishment is any evil inflicted upon one being to expiate the guilt of another, with a design to save the sinner himself from punishment, and to procure the pardon of his sin. There is nothing of vicarious punishment in those evils which a man, in consequence of his sinė, suffers in any person connected with him: as when parents on this account are bereaved of their children. For the end of vicarious punishment is to procure pardon for the offender; who equally fails of obtaining it, whether he is punished in his connections, or in his own person. And all vicarious punishment is intended for the advantage of the sinner; but a contrary result is produced by that punishment, in which the calamity of another always causes loss, grief, or disgrace, to redound to the sinner himself. Vicarious punishments are of two kinds. One, when the same kind of punishment as the offender has deserved is inflicted on the substitute; as if any one should give himself up to die, in order to deliver another from death:-the other, when the punishment inflicted on the substitute is different from that which the offender has deserved; as if any one were to go into exile, in order to redeem another from slavery. The only difference between these two cases is, that in one there is a commutation of persons only, and in the other of persons and punishments: but this difference prevents not their being both equally within the description of vicarious punishment. II. The vicarious punishment inflicted on the piacular victims accomplished the expiation of sins, as a condition prescribed in the law, without which God would not remit those offences on account of which he commanded the victims to be slain. For though they were chiefly of the lighter kind, yet God would not pass them by without any sort of punishment, lest such entire indulgence should operate as an encouragement to sin. While he commanded the greater transgressions, therefore, to be expiated by the blood of the sinner himself, he required the smaller ones to be atoned for, and their pardon to be sought and obtained from him by the blood of a victim. Hence it is evident that the piacular sacrifices included a condition of pardon, which was not ineffective and useless, but which at once afforded an apt representation of God's justice and holiness and displeasure against sin, and was well calculated to excite and maintain a reverence for his holy laws. III. But that I may not appear to have hazarded unwarrantable assertions, I hasten to a more particular discussion of the subject propounded at the commencement of the chapter. And here I request the reader's attention to the following remarks. In the first place, the sacred writers frequently speak of sins which have not been expiated, as of a taint by which the sinner is dreadfully defiled:* and hence the expiation * Levit. xviii. 20. Psal. cvi. 39. Jer. ii. 23. Ezek. xx. 7, 18, 31. xxii. 8. Matt. xv. 18. 20. |