Chapter XL: Preface (12)

Plausible as this complaint may appear, I venture to affirm, that it is vastly easier to ascertain the common belief of Unitarians, than that of the members of the Established Church: and for this plain reason, that with us there really is such a thing as a common faith, though defined in no confession; in the Anglican Church there is not, though articles and creeds profess it. The characteristic tenets of Unitarian Christianity are so simple and unambiguous, that little scope exists for variety in their interpretation: to the propositions expressing them all their professors attach _distinct and the same_ ideas;—so far, at least, as such accordance is possible in relation to subjects inaccessible both to demonstration and to experience. But the Trinitarian hypothesis, venturing with presumptuous analysis far into the Divine psychology, presents us with ideas confessedly inapprehensible; propounded in language which, if used in its ordinary sense, is self-contradictory, and if not, is unmeaning, and ready in its emptiness to be filled by any arbitrary interpretation;—and actually understood so variously by those who subscribe to them, that the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Tritheist and the Sabellian, unite to praise them. Indeed, in the history of the English Church, so visible is the sweep of the centre of orthodoxy over the whole space from the confines of Romanism to the verge of Unitarianism, that our ecclesiastical chronology is measured by its oscillations. Our respected opponents know full well, that it is not necessary to search beyond the clergy of this town, or even beyond the morning and afternoon preaching in one and the same church, in order to encounter greater contrasts in theology, than could be found in a whole library of Unitarian divinity. What mockery then to refer us to these articles as expositions of clerical belief, when the moment we pass beyond the words, and address ourselves to the sense, every shade of contrariety appears: and no one definite conception can be adopted of such a doctrine as that of the Trinity, without some church expositor or other starting up to rebuke it as a misrepresentation! How poor the pride of uniformity, which contents itself with lip-service to the symbol, in the midst of heart-burnings about the reality!

In order to test the force of the objection to which I am referring, let us advert, in detail, to the topics which exhibit the Unitarian and Trinitarian theology in most direct opposition. It will appear that the advantage of unity lies, in this instance, on the side of heresy; and that if multiformity be a prime characteristic of error, there is a wide difference between orthodoxy and truth. There are four great subjects comprised in the controversy between the church and ourselves: the nature of God; of Christ; of sin; of punishment. On these several points (which, considered as involving on our part denials of previous ideas, may be regarded as containing the _negative_ elements of our belief) all our modern writers, without material variation or exception, maintain the following doctrines:

UNITARIAN DOCTRINES, _opposed to_ CHURCH DOCTRINES.

(1.) The Personal Unity of God. (1.) The Trinity in Unity.

(2.) The Simplicity of Nature in (2.) Two distinct Natures in
Christ. Christ.

(3.) The Personal Origin and (3.) The Transferable Nature and
Identity of Sin. Vicarious Removal of Sin.

(4.) The Finite Duration of (4.) The Eternity of Hell
Future Suffering. Torments.

Now no one at all familiar with polemical literature can deny, that the modes and ambiguities of doctrine comprised in this Trinitarian list, are more numerous than can be detected in the parallel “heresies.” I am willing indeed to admit an exception in respect to the last of the topics, and to allow that the belief in the finite duration of future punishment has opposed itself, in two forms, to the single doctrine of everlasting torments. But when the systems are compared at their other corresponding points, the boast of orthodox uniformity instantly vanishes. Since the primitive jealousy between the Jewish and Gentile Christianity, the rivalry between the “Monarchy” and the “Economy,” the believers in the personal Unity of God, though often severed by ages from each other, have held that majestic truth in one unvaried form. Never was there an idea so often lost and recovered, yet so absolutely unchanged: a sublime, but occasional visitant of the human mind, assuring us of the perpetual oneness of our own nature, as well as the Divine. We can point to no unbroken continuity of our great doctrine: and if we could, we should appeal with no confidence to the evidence of so dubious a phenomenon; for if a system of ideas once gains possession of society, and attracts to itself complicated interests and feelings, many causes may suffice to ensure its indefinite preservation. But we can point to a greater phenomenon; to the long and repeated extinction of our favourite belief, to its submersion beneath a dark and restless fanaticism; and its invariable resurrection, like a necessary intuition of the soul, in times of purer light, with its features still the same; stamped with imperishable identity of truth, and, like him to whom it refers, without variableness or shadow of a turning. Meanwhile, who will undertake to enumerate and define the succession of Trinities by which this doctrine has been bewildered and banished? Passing by the Aristotelian, the Platonic, the Ciceronian, the Cartesian Trinity,—quitting the stormy disputes, and contradictory decisions of the early councils, shall we find among even the modern fathers of our national church, any approach to unanimity? Am I to be content with the doctrine of Bishop Bull, and subordinate the Son to the Father as the sole fountain of divinity? Or must I rise to the Tritheism of Waterland and Sherlock? or, accepting the famous decision of the University of Oxford, descend with Archbishop Whately, to the modal Trinity of South and Wallis? Are we to understand the phrase, three persons, to mean three beings united by “perichoresis,” three “mutual inexistences,” three “modes,” three “differences,” three “contemplations,” or three “somewhats;” or, being told that this is but a vain prying into a mystery, shall we be satisfied to leave the phrase without idea at all? It is to the last degree astonishing to hear from Trinitarian divines, the praises of uniformity of belief; seeing that it is one of the chief labours of ecclesiastical history to record the incessant effort, vain to the present day, to give some stability of meaning to the fundamental doctrines of their faith.

The same remark applies, with little modification, to the opposite views respecting the person of the Saviour. It is true that Unitarians, agreed respecting the singleness of nature in Christ, differ respecting the natural rank of that nature, whether his soul were human or angelic. But, for this solitary variety among these heretics, how many doctrines of the Logos and the Incarnation does orthodox literature contain? Can any one affirm, that when the council of Ephesus had arbitrated between the Eutychian doctrine of absorption, and the Nestorian doctrine of separation, all doubt and ambiguity was removed by the magic phrase “Hypostatic union?” Since the monophysite contest was at its height, has the Virgin Mary been left in undisputed possession of her title as “Mother of God?” Has the Eternal Generation of the Son encountered no orthodox suspicions, and the Indwelling scheme received no orthodox support? And if we ask these questions: “What respectively happened to the two natures on the cross? what has become of Christ’s human soul now? is it separate from the Godhead like any other immortal spirit, or is it added to the Deity, so as to introduce into his nature a new and fourth element?” shall we receive from the many voices of the church but one accordant answer? Nay, do the authors of this controversy suppose that, during its short continuance, they have been able to maintain their unanimity? If they do, I believe that any reader who thinks it worth while to register the varieties of error, would be able to undeceive them. If the diversities of doctrine cannot easily and often be shown to amount to palpable inconsistencies, this must be ascribed, I believe, to the mystic and technical phraseology, the substitute rather than the expression for precise ideas,—which has become the vernacular dialect of orthodox divinity. The jargon of theology affords a field too barren, to bear so vigorous a weed as an undisputed contradiction.

It is needless to dwell on the numerous forms under which the doctrine of atonement has been held by those who subscribe the articles of our national church: while its Unitarian opponents have taken their fixed station on the personal character and untransferable nature of sin. One writer tells us that only the human nature perished on the cross; another that God himself expired: some say, that Christ suffered no more intensely, but only more “meritoriously,” than many a martyr; others, that he endured the whole quantity of torment due to the wicked whom he redeemed: some, that it is the spotlessness of his manhood that is imputed to believers; others, that it is the holiness of his Deity. From the high doctrine of satisfaction to the very verge of Unitarian heresy, every variety of interpretation has been given to the language of the established formularies respecting Christian redemption. Nor is it yet determined whether, in the lottery of opinion, the name of Owen, Sykes, or Magee, shall be drawn for the prize of orthodoxy.

And if from those parts of our belief, to which the accidents of their historical origin have given a _negative_ character, we turn to those which are _positive_, not the slightest reason will appear for charging them with uncertainty and fluctuation. All Unitarian writers maintain the Moral Perfection and Fatherly Providence of the Infinite Ruler; the Messiahship of Jesus Christ, in whose person and spirit there is a Revelation of God and a Sanctification for Man; the Responsibility and Retributive Immortality of men; and the need of a pure and devout heart of Faith, as the source of all outward goodness and inward communion with God. These great and self-luminous points, bound together by natural affinity, constitute the fixed centre of our religion. And on subjects beyond this centre, we have no wider divergences than are found among those who attach themselves to an opposite system. For example, the relations between Scripture and Reason, as evidences and guides in questions of doctrine, are not more unsettled among us, than are the relations between Scripture and Tradition in the Church. Nor is the perpetual authority of the “Christian rites” so much in debate among our ministers, as the efficacy of the Sacraments among the clergy. In truth, our diversities of sentiment affect far less _what_ we believe, than the question _why_ we believe it. Different modes of reasoning, and different results of interpretation, are no doubt to be found among our several authors. We all make our appeal to the records of Christianity: but we have voted no particular commentator into the seat of authority. And is not this equally true of our opponents’ church? Their articles and creeds furnish no textual expositions of Scripture, but only results and deductions from its study. And so variously have these results been elicited from the sacred writings, that scarcely a text can be adduced in defence of the Trinitarian scheme, which some witness unexceptionably orthodox may not be summoned to prove inapplicable. In fine, we have no greater variety of critical and exegetical opinion than the divines from whom we dissent: while the system of Christianity in which our Scriptural labours have issued, has its leading characteristics better determined and more apprehensible, than the scheme which the articles and creeds have vainly laboured to define.

The refusal to embody our sentiments in any authoritative formula appears to strike observers as a whimsical exception to the general practice of churches. The peculiarity has had its origin in hereditary and historical associations: but it has its defence in the noblest principles of religious freedom and Christian communion. At present, it must suffice to say, that our Societies are dedicated, not to theological opinions, but to religious worship: that they have maintained the unity of the spirit, without insisting on any unity of doctrine: that Christian liberty, love, and piety are their essentials in perpetuity, but their Unitarianism an accident of a few or many generations;—which has arisen, and might vanish, without the loss of their identity. We believe in the mutability of religious systems, but the imperishable character of the religious affections;—in the progressiveness of opinion within, as well as without, the limits of Christianity. Our forefathers cherished the same conviction: and so, not having been born intellectual bondsmen, we desire to leave our successors free. Convinced that uniformity of doctrine can never prevail, we seek to attain its only good,—peace on earth and communion with heaven,—without it. We aim to make a true Christendom,—a commonwealth of the faithful,—by the binding force, not of ecclesiastical creeds, but of spiritual wants, and Christian sympathies: and indulge the vision of a Church that “in the latter days shall arise,” like “the mountain of the Lord,” bearing on its ascent the blossoms of thought proper to every intellectual clime, and withal massively rooted in the deep places of our humanity, and gladly rising to meet the sunshine from on high.

And now, friends and brethren, let us say a glad farewell to the fretfulness of controversy, and retreat again, with thanksgiving, into the interior of our own venerated truth. Having come forth, at the severer call of duty, to do battle for it, with such force as God vouchsafes to the sincere, let us go in to live and worship beneath its shelter. They tell you, it is not the true faith. Perhaps not: but then, you think it so; and that is enough to make your duty clear, and to draw from it, as from nothing else, the very peace of God. May be, we are on our way to something better, unexistent and unseen as yet; which may penetrate our souls with nobler affection, and give a fresh spontaneity of love to God and all immortal things. Perhaps there cannot be the truest life of faith, except in scattered individuals, till this age of conflicting doubt and dogmatism shall have passed away. Dark and leaden clouds of materialism hide the heaven from us: red gleams of fanaticism pierce through, vainly striving to reveal it; and not till the weight is heaved from off the air, and the thunders roll down the horizon, will the serene light of God flow upon us, and the blue infinite embrace us again. Meanwhile, we must reverently love the faith we have: to quit it for one that we have not, were to lose the breath of life, and die.

NOTE.

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_The Jewish Passover not a proper Sacrifice._

In an essay on “the one great end of the life and death of Christ,” Dr. Priestley makes the following observations on the words (occurring in 1 Cor. v. 7,) “_Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us_:” “This allusion to the paschal lamb makes it also probable, that the death of Christ is called a sacrifice only by way of figure, because these two (viz., sacrifice and the paschal lamb) are quite different and inconsistent ideas. The paschal lamb is never so much as termed a sacrifice in the Old Testament, except once, Exodus xii. 27, where it is called ‘_the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover_.’ However, it could only be called a sacrifice in this place, in some secondary and partial sense, and not in the proper and primary sense of the word; for there was no priest employed upon the occasion, no altar made use of, no burning, nor any part offered to the Lord; all which circumstances were essential to every proper sacrifice. The blood indeed was sprinkled upon the door-posts, but this was originally nothing more than a token to the destroying angel to pass by that house; for there is no propitiation or atonement said to be made by it: and the paschal lamb is very far from having been ever called a _sin-offering_, or said to be killed on account of sin.”[626]

Every reader, I apprehend, understands this description of the manner of celebrating the passover, to refer to the particular “occasion” spoken of “in this place” (Exod. xii. 27). ‘The writer of this verse,’ argues Dr. Priestley, ‘could not use the word _sacrifice_ in its strictest sense; for his own narrative of the very celebration to which it is applied, describes it as destitute of all the essentials of a proper sacrifice.’ The allusion to the blood sprinkled upon the door-posts, as “a token to the destroying angel to pass by that house,” immediately connects Dr. Priestley’s assertions with the Egyptian passover. By cutting out this allusion, and otherwise breaking up the passage in quotation, Archbishop Magee has contrived to conceal its character as an historical description of a single occasion, and to give it the air of a general account of the Jewish paschal ceremony in all ages. Having accomplished this, and obtained for himself the liberty of travelling for a reply over the whole Hebrew history and traditions, he says; “Now in answer to these several assertions, I am obliged to state the direct contradiction of each; for, 1st, the passage in Exodus xii. 27, is _not_ the only one, in which the paschal lamb is termed זבח, a _sacrifice_, it being expressly so called in no less than four passages in Deuteronomy (xvi. 2, 4, 5, 6), and also in Exodus xxxv. 25, and its parallel passage xxiii. 18.—2. A priest _was_ employed.—3. An altar _was_ made use of.—4. There _was_ a burning, and a part offered to the Lord: the inwards being burnt upon the altar, and the blood poured out at the foot thereof.”[627] The _last three_ of these “direct contradictions” establish nothing but this Prelate’s habit (not adopted, we may presume, without urgent necessity) of misrepresenting his opponents in order to confute them: for it is quite needless to observe that, in the Egyptian passover, of which alone Dr. Priestley speaks, there was neither priest, altar, nor burning: and though the Archbishop should be able to detect all these elements in a festival of King Josiah’s time, he will have proved no error against the passage which he criticises. In his _first_ contradiction, he would have gained an advantage over his opponent, had not his eagerness induced him to strain his evidence too far. A more modest disputant would have thought it sufficient to reckon _three successive verses_ (Deut. xvi. 4, 5, 6) _in which the same phrase is simply repeated_, as a _single_ instead of a _triple_ authority: the other citation from the same passage is not to the point, as will presently be shown: and in one of the verses quoted from Exodus (xxiii. 18) the word זבח does not occur at all in relation to the passover. So that Dr. Priestley having discovered two passages _too few_, the Prelate makes compensation by discovering two passages _too many_.

Having said thus much in reference to Archbishop Magee’s fairness to his opponent, I will add a few strictures on the reasonings by which he supports his general position, that the passover was a proper sacrifice. He adduces two arguments from _words_, and three from _facts_. 1. The word זבח, _sacrifice_, is applied to the passover.—2. The word קרבן, _Corban_, a _sacred offering_, is applied to it.—3. The slaying of the lamb took place at the tabernacle or temple.—4. The blood was offered at the foot of the altar.—5. The fat and entrails were burnt as an offering on the altar fire.

(1.) It has been already stated, that Archbishop Magee has improperly adduced _two_ passages, as applying the word _sacrifice_ to the passover. The first of these is Exod. xxiii. 18, where it is said: “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain till morning.” The second clause here undoubtedly refers to the paschal lamb: but the term “_sacrifice_” occurring in it is not the proper translation of the original; nor is the Hebrew word the same that is correctly so rendered in the first clause. The phrases being not the same, but discriminated, in the two parts of the verse, the less reason exists for supposing that both allude to the passover. More probably, the reference in the former is to the sacrifices appropriate to the _feast of unleavened bread_, which being contiguous to the passover in time, is naturally conjoined with it in the precepts of this verse.

The second irrelevant passage is Deut. xvi. 2: “Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and of the herd.” Since the paschal _lamb_ could not be taken “_from the herd_,” it is evident that the word “_passover_,” is used here in a wider sense,[628] to denote _the joint eight days’ festival, including that of unleavened bread_, when _heifers_ were offered “from the herd.” This more comprehensive meaning of the term is frequent, not merely with Josephus and the later Jewish writers, but in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves; and renders inconclusive most of the arguments by which the passover is made to assume the appearance of a proper sacrifice. An example occurs in the very next verse: “_Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread therewith_,” that is, with the passover; and in 2 Chron. xxxv. 9: “Conaniah also (and other persons) gave unto the priests for the _passover offerings_, 2,600 small cattle, and 300 _oxen_.”

In the remaining places, however, this feast is undoubtedly called a sacrifice. But then it is clear that the Hebrew word זבח is used with a latitude, which renders it impossible to draw from it any inference as to the character of the ceremony to which it is applied. It denotes _slaying of animals for food_, without any necessary reference to a sacred use.[629] Thus, 1 Sam. xxviii. 24. “And the woman had a fat calf in the house; and she hasted and killed it,” (_sacrificed_ it, תזבחהו); also 1 Kings, xix. 21. “And he took a yoke of oxen, and slew them (ויזבחהו), and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat.” And the substantive occurs thus in Prov. xvii. 1. “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacrifices (evidently _meats_,—the luxury of animal food) with strife.”

(2.) The passover is called קרבן, _Corban_, _a sacred offering_, in Numb. ix. 7, 13. Certain men who had been defiled by performing funeral rites, present themselves to Moses, and say, “Wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer the offering of the Lord in his appointed season among the children of Israel?” And then follows the law which Moses takes occasion from this incident to announce; that persons disqualified by absence on a journey, or by uncleanness, from joining in the celebration at the appointed time, may observe it at the corresponding period of the next month. Such disqualifications, if existing at all, would have excluded from _the whole eight days’ festival, including the feast of unleavened bread_, and held the parties away till the following month; “the offering of the Lord,” therefore, which they were kept back from presenting, comprised all the sacrifices proper to the “season;” and the word “offering” is comprehensively applied to the whole set, from its particular propriety in reference to the most numerous portion of them, the sacrifices at the feast of unleavened bread. The paschal lamb, by itself, is never, I believe, designated by this term.

In treating of the actual details of the paschal ceremony, it is necessary to distinguish between those which were of legal obligation, and those which were merely consuetudinary or occasional. Nothing can justly be pronounced an essential of the celebration, which is not enjoined in the statutes appointing it; and should other customs present themselves in the historical instances of the commemoration which we possess, they cannot be received as authoritative illustrations of its intended character, but as accessaries appended by convenience, tradition, or sacerdotal influence.[630] With this remark I proceed to the next argument.

(3.) The slaying of the paschal lamb is said to have been restricted to the tabernacle or temple.

The only passage from the law, adduced to prove this, is Deut. xvi. 2, 5, 6, where it is said, “Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee; but _at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose_ to place his name in, there shalt thou sacrifice the passover at even.” The reader might naturally suppose that _Jerusalem_ was here denoted by the phrase, “the place which the Lord thy God shall choose,” in contradistinction from the provincial cities described as “any of thy gates;” but Archbishop Magee sets aside this interpretation, by referring us to this very same expression in Deut. xii. 5, 6, 11, 14, where it evidently means the _tabernacle or temple_, not the city; for a multitude of rites are there enumerated, to be performed, “in the place that the Lord shall choose,” which could be celebrated only at the sanctuary. It so happens, however, that in this enumeration, the _Passover_ is precisely _the one thing which is not mentioned_; from which we might fairly infer, that it was not among the ceremonies limited to the sanctuary; and further, that in addition to the vague description of place common to both passages, there occurs exclusively in the latter, the additional one, “there shall ye eat, BEFORE THE LORD YOUR GOD,” which is well known to be the usual mode of designating the tabernacle. And that in the passover-law, the locality intended was the city, and not the sanctuary, is evident from a verse which Archbishop Magee has not thought it necessary to quote, though it is the immediate sequel of his citation; “and thou shalt _roast and eat it_ (the paschal lamb) in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.” Whatever doubt may exist about the _slaying_, the _roasting and eating_ could not take place at the tabernacle.

The law, then, nowhere prescribes the slaying of the paschal lamb at the sanctuary. But neither does it _forbid_ this; and therefore we are not surprised that the act should take place there, on any particular occasion rendering such arrangement obviously convenient; or as a general practice, in concession to any strong interests tending to draw it thither. When, therefore, a long period of idolatry and political confusion had obliterated from the minds of the Israelites the very memory of their religious rites; when new modes of worship had become habitual, and the annual festival had grown strange; when, to induce them to come up to the passover at all, their monarch was obliged to provide for them the whole number of their victims, and the officiating Levites needed to study again the appointed ceremonies of the season; it is no wonder that king Josiah thought it expedient to collect “the whole congregation” at the temple, and there to let them witness the form of slaying, by well-trained hands, and receive instruction how to complete the celebration of their feast. Such was the solemn passover described in 2 Chron. xxxv. and that in the reign of Hezekiah, mentioned in the thirtieth chapter of the same book; the circumstances of both which were too peculiar to afford evidence of a general practice, much less of a legal essential.

That in later times it was the custom to slay the paschal lambs in the Temple courts, there can be no doubt. The system of ecclesiastical police, and the operation of sacerdotal interests created the practice. It was the business of the priests to see to the execution of the festival-law; to ascertain who incurred the penalty due to neglect of the prescribed rite: to register the numbers of those who observed it; and to take care that neither too many nor too few should partake at the same table. All this required that the heads of families should present themselves, and report their intended arrangements to the authorities at the temple. The priests moreover, being the judges of the qualifications of the animals for the paschal table, availed themselves of this power, to become graziers and provision-dealers. As the lambs must be presented for their inspection, and were liable to be turned back if pronounced imperfect, it became more convenient to buy the victim at once at the Temple courts: and on the spot where the purchase was made, the slaying would naturally follow. Lightfoot, speaking of the law which originally required the lamb to be chosen four days before it was killed, says, “It is not to be doubted but every one in after times took up their own lambs as they did in Egypt, but it is somewhat doubtful whether they did it in the same manner. It is exceedingly probable, that as the priests took up the lambs for the daily sacrifice four days before they were to be offered, as we have observed elsewhere; so also that they provided lambs for the people at the passover, taking them up in the market four days before, and picking and culling out those that were fit, and agreeable to the command. For whereas the law was so punctual that _they should be without blemish_, and their traditions had summed up so large a sum of blemishes, as that they reckon seventy-three, it could not be but the law and their traditions which they prized above the law should be endlessly broken, if every one took up his own lamb in the market at Jerusalem at adventure. The priests had brought a market of sheep and oxen against such times as these into the temple, (for if it had not been their doing, they must not have come there,) where they having before-hand picked out in the market such lambs and bullocks as were fit for sacrifice or passover, they sold them in the temple at a dearer rate, and so served the people’s turn and their own profit: for which, amongst other of their hucksteries, our Saviour saith, _they had made the house of prayer a den of thieves_.”[631]

(4.) The blood is said to have been poured out as an offering at the foot of the altar.

The only _legal_ evidence adduced to prove this, will be found in the parallel passages, Exod. xxiii. 18, and xxxiv. 25. “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.” I have already shown that this command probably refers, not to the paschal lamb, but to the sacrifices at the feast of unleavened bread. There is therefore no evidence, throughout the law, in favour of the alleged regulation. Yet in cases of undoubted sacrifice, Moses is usually very explicit in his directions respecting the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar: as may be seen from Lev. i. 5, 11, 15; iii. 2, 8, 13; iv. 5-7, 16-18; vii. 2.

The only _historical_ evidence adduced from Scripture on the point before us, is from the accounts of Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s solemn passovers before mentioned; 2 Chron. xxx. 15, 16; xxxv. 11. In both these instances, it is merely said, that the priests “sprinkled (or poured out) the blood,” receiving it from the hands of the Levites, who were employed, for reasons already assigned, to slay the lambs on these two occasions, instead of the heads of families, on whom that office properly devolved. The altar is not named: but as the blood must be disposed of _somewhere_, and as there was a drain for that purpose at the foot of the altar, no doubt it was there that the priests sprinkled or poured it away. The act was simply an act of cleanliness,—in plain speech, a resort to the sink,—from which theology can extract nothing profitable. The priests were the parties to perform the office because no other persons could approach the altar under penalty of death. In later times, when the sacerdotal influence had made the temple the scene of the paschal slaughter, each head of a family killed his own lamb in the court: the blood, received in a basin, was handed to the first of a row of priests reaching to the foot of the altar, where it was poured away at the usual place.[632] In this there is nothing of the nature of an offering or proper sacrifice.

(5.) But it is said that the fat and entrails were placed on the altar fire and burned.

Archbishop Magee says, that this “may be collected from the accounts given of the ceremony of the passover in the passages already referred to.”[633] It requires perhaps that able controversialist’s peculiar mode of “managing passages” (to use a favourite phrase of his own) to elicit this from the authorities named; at least, I am unable, after careful examination of them, to conjecture what he means. The passages however are before my readers, and I must leave the assertion to their judgment. Meanwhile, I must conclude, that there is absolutely no trace in Scripture of such a practice as is here pronounced to be one of the essentials of the passover.

I am aware that there is _Talmudical_ authority for considering this “burning” as a part of the process connected, in later times, with the killing of the paschal lamb.[634] It was probably one of the modifications of the rite, introduced by the priests on its transference from the private homes of the people to the temple. The original law required, that the lamb should be roasted whole, not even the entrails being removed; it also enjoined, that whatever was left should be immediately burned with fire, and every trace of it destroyed before morning.[635] This private burning was clearly no religious and sacrificial act, though, perhaps, a provision against any superstitious use of the remnants: and it is easy to perceive, that the parts thus destroyed would be the same, which subsequently it was the custom of the priests to consume on the altar fire. When the killing became a collective act, and the temple the scene of it, doubtless both people and priests thought it more cleanly and agreeable to burn the parts which were sure to be left, _before hand_ on the public fire, than _afterwards_ on the hearths of their private dwellings: and it would require a very illiberal interpreter to pronounce this a violation of the original law, the spirit of which it certainly observed. This view, which treats the burning on the altar as simply a mode of consumption, substituted for the destruction of the same worthless parts at home, is less insulting to the Jewish religion than the opinion which discerns here an act of worship. The Jews were certainly a very coarse people, and offered many disagreeable things to God: but really, such a gift as this is without any parallel. They always,—in obedience to their law,—presented _something_ valuable (sometimes the whole animal, sometimes the breast and right shoulder), either to Jehovah on the altar, or to his ministers the priests:[636] and the pious Jew would have indignantly resented the idea of quitting the temple courts with the whole value of his sacrifice on his shoulder, and only the refuse remaining in the sanctuary.

By law, then, there was nothing of the paschal lamb burned on the altar: and by custom there was no part offered to Jehovah or given to the priests: and without these characteristics, there is no proper sacrifice.

Archbishop Magee admits, that the ceremony of laying the hand on the head of the victim, which was observed in the undoubted sacrifices, did not take place in the rite under consideration: and he notices the statement of Philo, that the animal was slain, not by the priest, but by the individual presenting it.[637] He considers Philo to have been mistaken, however, in his assertion that this immolation by private hand was peculiar to the passover; and cites the language of Lev. i. 4, 5; iii. 2; iv. 24, to show that the burnt offering, the peace-offering, the sin-offering, might all be slain by the offerer. Certainly these passages appear to leave such permission open to the Israelitish worshipper: but it seems more likely that the sacrifices here enumerated were intended to be made by the hands of the priest: nor would it be easy to reconcile the liberty of private sacrifice with the sacerdotal duties and privileges defined in Num. xviii. 1-7. As to the actual practice, it cannot be reasonably doubted that Philo was correct: and his expressions seem to imply that, in the paschal rite, the priest might be altogether dispensed with, and his intervention required for no religious act. He says: “On the fourteenth day of this month, at the coming of the full moon, is celebrated the public festival of the passover, called in the Chaldee language the Pascha: when, instead of the private citizen presenting his victim at the altar to be slain by the priest, the whole nation officiates in sacred things, every one in turn bringing and immolating his own victim with his own hands. The whole people is festive and joyous, every one being entitled to the dignity of priesthood.”[638] He uses similar expressions in his treatise on the decalogue: The festival, “which the Hebrews in their language call the Pascha,” is a time “when each and all of them slay their victim, without waiting for the services of their priests: the law, on an appointed day of every year, conceding to the whole people the sacerdotal functions, to the extent of permitting them to officiate for themselves at a sacrifice.”[639] This language evidently implies, that _every essential part_ of the passover rites, every act necessary to constitute and complete its character as a religious celebration, was performed by private hand: so that the auxiliary operations of the priests,—the pouring out of the blood and burning the inwards,—must be regarded as non-essentials and accessaries; menial contributions to the main act; and in the performance of which, therefore, the usual law, forbidding to the non-official Jew all approach to the altar, came into effect again. Had the paschal celebration required, as an indispensable ingredient in it, any transactions at the altar, the private Israelite, being temporarily invested with whatever sacerdotal privileges were needful for the rite, would have gone himself to make his offering. Philo indeed obviously conceived of the subsequent part of the ceremony, in which the temple and the priest had no share,—the domestic meal which took place in the several homes of the people,—as its peculiarly sacred element: “Each house,” he says, “at that time put on the form and sanctity of a temple, the victim that has been slain being made ready for a suitable meal.”[640] Fond as this writer is of types, it is impossible to express the retrospective and commemorative character of the passover more emphatically than in his words: ὑπομνητικὴ τῆς μεγίστης ἀποικίας ἐστὶν ἡ ἑορτὴ, καὶ χαριστήριος.[641]

In one passage of his note on the Passover, Archbishop Magee appears to admit that the paschal lamb was not a “_sacrifice for sin_,” and affirms that he “would not dispute with Dr. Priestley any conclusion he might draw from so productive a premiss.”[642] Yet, a few pages further on, he quotes with apparent approbation the arguments by which Cudworth sought to prove the rite to be an _expiatory sacrifice_.[643] I cannot pretend to reconcile these two portions of his Essay. But if the passover cannot be shown to be an expiatory sacrifice, I do not see what the advocates of the doctrine of atonement gain by proving it a sacrifice at all. If the paschal lamb was not a _sin-offering_, to what class did it belong? It must have been either of the eucharistic kind, or else unique and simply commemorative; and so far as the death of Christ was analogous to any _such_ offering, it was destitute of expiatory efficacy: and either was an expression of thanksgiving, (which seems absurd) or, like the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the lintel, a mere _sign_ of some deliverance which it was not instrumental in effecting, but which, simultaneously perhaps, yet independently occurred. Those, therefore, who are disposed to strain the resemblance between the passover and the cross, must either maintain the _expiatory_ nature of the Jewish right, or admit the Lord’s Supper to be, not even the celebration of a real deliverance, but the mere _commemoration of a sign_.

POSTSCRIPT.

In the notes to the Sixth Lecture of this series (p. 89-92,) I have adduced an example of Archbishop Magee’s misrepresentation of Mr. Belsham, and stated that the Prelate had quoted his opponent falsely. In comparing the two authors, I employed the latest editions of both their works; not being able to procure a copy of the first edition of the Calm Enquiry, which has been out of print for twenty-two years. At the same time, I thought it only just to insert the following note: “There is a possibility, which I think it right to suggest, of a difference between the two editions of Mr. B.’s work; as, however, the accusation is still found in the newest edition of the Archbishop’s book, I conclude that this is not the case. Indeed, even if the Prelate’s quotation had been _verbally_ true, it would _in spirit_ have been no less false; for, at all events, Mr. B. cites the Vulgate, to give evidence as to the _text_, not the _translation_; and had he used the word _renders_, it would only have been because the term naturally occurs when a VERSION is adduced to determine a READING.”

I have since obtained a copy of the first edition of the Calm Enquiry; and I hasten to acknowledge that the Archbishop’s quotation _is_ “_verbally_ true,” as far as it goes. But I regret to say that this makes only a formal difference in his favour; for by stopping short in his citation, he accomplished the very same object, of leaving an absolutely false impression, which I had supposed him to have effected, in this as in other instances, by direct falsification of his author. He wishes to make it appear, that Mr. Belsham (purposely mistranslating for the occasion,) appeals to a certain verse in the Vulgate in evidence, not of a READING, but of a RENDERING; and so he cites these words from the Calm Enquiry: “The Vulgate renders the text, the first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man was from heaven, heavenly;” but he leaves out the very next words, in which _the point intended to be proved_ by this testimony of the Vulgate is cited, “This is not improbably the TRUE READING.” Doubtless it was one of Mr. Belsham’s _incuriæ_ that he did not attend to his italics in his first edition: but the charge of intentional mistranslation is simply injurious; except indeed, that it is also absurd, seeing that Mr. Belsham has put the Latin of his mistranslated passage at the bottom of the page;—a policy which this heresiarch could scarcely have thought safe, unless he had taken his Unitarian readers to be either more “dishonest critics,” or more “defective scholars,” than even our learned opponents are prepared to think them.

------------------------------------

Footnotes for Lecture XIII.

Footnote 607:

Ps. li. 16, 17.

Footnote 608:

Is. i. 13, 14, 16.

Footnote 609:

Conference with Fisher, § 15; quoted in Tracts for the Times, No. 76.
Catena Patrum, No. II. p. 18.

Footnote 610:

Of Persons dying without Baptism, p. 979; quoted in _loc. cit._ pp.
19, 20.

Footnote 611:

History of Popish Transubstantiation, ch. 4; printed in the Tracts for
the Times, No. 27, pp. 14, 15.

Footnote 612:

Bishop of Exeter’s charge, delivered at his Triennial Visitation in
August, September, and October, 1836, p. 44-47.

Footnote 613:

Tracts for the Times, No. 4, p. 5.

Footnote 614:

Ibid. No. 5, pp. 9, 10.

Footnote 615:

Luke iv. 18, 19.

Footnote 616:

Archbishop Whately, speaking of the word ἱερεὺς and its meaning,
says; “This is an office assigned to none under the gospel-scheme,
except the ONE great High Priest, of whom the Jewish Priests were
types.”[c] Of the “_gospel-scheme_,” this is quite true; of the
_Church-of-England scheme_, it is not. There lies before me Duport’s
Greek version of the Prayer-Book and Offices of the Anglican Church:
and turning to the Communion Service, I find the officiating
clergyman called ἱερεὺς throughout. The _absence_ of this word from
the records of the primitive Gospel, and its _presence_ in the
Prayer-Book, is perfectly expressive of the difference in the spirit
of the two systems;—the difference between the Church _with_, and
the “Christianity _without_ Priest.”

Footnote c:

Elements of Logic. Appendix: Note on the word “Priest.”

Footnote 617:

Matt. xviii. 18.

Footnote 618:

See Rom. vi. 2-4. “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer
therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him
by baptism into death; that, like as Christ was raised up from the
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.” Mr. Locke observes of “St. Paul’s argument,” that it
“is to show into what state of life we ought to be raised out of
baptism, in similitude and conformity to that state of life Christ was
raised into from the grave.” See also Col. ii. 12. “Ye are ... buried
with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the
faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” The
force of the image clearly depends on the sinking and rising in the
water.

Footnote 619:

See Note.

Footnote 620:

Compare Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19, 20, with
Exod. xii. 3-11, 14, 24-27, 43-49; Lev. xxiii. 5; Num. ix. 10-14;
xxviii. 16; Deut. xvi. 1, 4-7.

Footnote 621:

Compare Matt. xxvi. 17-21; Mark xiv. 12-17; Luke xxii. 7-17, with John
xiii. 1, seqq.; xviii. 28; xix. 14, 31, 42. See also 2nd Lecture, pp.
38, 39.

Footnote 622:

See 1 Cor. xi. 17-34.

Footnote 623:

Prov. ii. 4.

Footnote 624:

Mr. Dalton’s Lecture on the Eternity of Future Rewards and
Punishments, p. 760.

Footnote 625:

Mr. Dalton’s Lecture, p. 760.

Footnote 626:

Theological Repository, vol. i. p. 215, and Priestley’s Works, by
Rutt, vol. vii. pp. 243, 244.

Footnote 627:

Magee on the Atonement, vol. i. pp. 291, 292, 5th edit.

Footnote 628:

This is admitted by a learned writer, with whose work on sacrifices
Archbishop Magee was familiar, and who had anticipated most of his
arguments on the subject of the passover: “Cum ad Paschale sacrificium
etiam pecudes ex armento lectas in sacris literis imperatas legimus,
non designatur illa victima, quæ פסח proprie appellatur, sed alia
quædam sacrificia eidem victimæ adjungenda.”—_Outram de Sacrificiis_,
lib. i. ch. xiii. § 10.

Footnote 629:

Simonis describes the _verb_ זבח as meaning (1.) in genere _mactavit_;
(2.) in specie _mactavit ad sacrificandum_; and the _noun_, as proprie
_mactatio_; metonym. (1.) _caro mactatorum animalium_; (2.)
_sacrificium_.—_Lex. Hebr. et Chald. Ed. Eichhorn, in_ v.

Footnote 630:

The following passages constitute the whole passover-law: Exod. xii.
3-11, 14, 24-27, 43-49. Lev. xxiii. 5. Num. ix. 10-14; xxviii. 16.
Deut. xvi. 1, 4-7. We have here the original statutes provided for the
perpetual regulation of the rite: and in any discussion respecting its
character, the appeal should be to these alone. The advocates for its
sacrificial nature must be aware that this rule would destroy their
whole case.

I subjoin a list of the passages relating to the feast of unleavened
bread: Exod. xii. 15-20; xiii. 6-10; xxiii. 18, first clause; xxxiv.
25, first clause. Lev. xxiii. 6-14. Num. xxviii. 17-25. Deut. xvi.
2-4, 8.

Footnote 631:

Lightfoot’s Temple Service, ch. xii. Introd.

Footnote 632:

See Lightfoot’s Temple Service, ch. xii. sec. 5. “The Mishna says:
Mactat Israelita, excipit sanguinem sacerdos.”—The Treatise
_Pesachim_, in Surenhus. ii. 153.

Footnote 633:

P. 294.

Footnote 634:

See Lightfoot’s Temple Service, xii. 5, and the Treatise _Pesachim_,
Surenh. ii. 135.

Footnote 635:

Exod. xii. 9, 10. The phrase “_the purtenance thereof_,” in the common
version, means “_the entrails thereof_,” קרבו.

Footnote 636:

See Lev. i. 9, 13, 17; vi. 15-18, 26, 29; vii. 3, 6-10, 14, 15, 30-36.

Footnote 637:

Pp. 295, 296.

Footnote 638:

De vitâ Mosis, p. 686. E.

Footnote 639:

De decalogo, p. 766. D.

Footnote 640:

De sept. et fest. p. 1190. B.

Footnote 641:

_loc. cit._ After the remarks which have been made on the word זבח as
an epithet of the passover, it is hardly necessary to notice the
application to the same rite of the word θυσία by Philo and Josephus.
It must be clear to any one who will open Trommius or Biel at the
word, that it will not bear the stress laid upon it by Archbishop
Magee. No one denies that the paschal lamb was slain and eaten, in
observance of a religious celebration, in obedience to a religious
law, and in expression of religious feeling; and this surely is enough
to attract to it the word θυσία. In itself, however, the term,
according to Biel, does not necessarily denote even so much as this.
He defines it _hostia_, _sacrificium_, etiam _epulum_ ac _profana
manducatio_: and he exemplifies this latter meaning by reference to
Judg. vi. 18. Biel’s Thesaurus, Ed. Schleusner in v.

Footnote 642:

P. 292.

Footnote 643:

Pp. 298, 299.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX OF TEXTS.

EXPLAINED OR REFERRED TO IN LECTURES II. V. VI. XI. XIII.

Lect. & Page.

Genesis.

ii. 17 VI. 17
iii. 1 XI. 16
— 14-19 — 17
— 15 — 19
xviii. 1, 2 V. 18
— 22 — —
xix. 10 — —
— 15 — —

Exodus.

xii. 3-11 XIII. 35 - 59
— 14 — — - 59
— 15-20 — 59
— 21-27 — 35, 59
— 27 — 55
— 43-49 — 35, 59
xiii. 6-10 — 59
xxiii. 18 — 56, 57, 59, 61
xxx. 10 VI. 58
xxxiv. 25 XIII. 56, 59, 61

Leviticus.

i. 5 XIII. 61
— 9 — 63
— 11 — 61
— 13 — 63
— 15 — 61
— 17 — 63
iii. 2 — 61
— 8 — —
— 13 — —
iv. 5-7 — —
— 16-18 — —
v. 11-19 VI. 57
vi. 15-18 XIII. 63
— 26 — —
— 29 — —
vii. 2 — 61
— 3 — 63
— 6-10 — —
— 14, 15 — —
— 30-36 — —
xii. 1-8 VI. 57
xiv. — —
xvi. — 58
xx. 25, 26 — 57
xxiii. 5 XIII. 35, 59
— 6-14 — 59
— 26-32 — 58

Numbers.

vi. 9-12 VI. 57
ix. 7 XIII. 58
— 10-14 — 35, 59
— 13 — 58
xiv. 19, 20 VI. 23
xviii. 1-7 XIII. 64
xix. 11-20 VI. 57
xxii. 22 XI. 21
xxviii. 1-6 XIII. 59
— 17-25 — —
xxix. 7-11 VI. 58

Deuteronomy.

xii. 5, 6 XIII. 59
— 11 — —
— 14 — —
xvi. 1 — 35, 59
xvi. 2 XIII. 56, 57, 59
— 4-7 — 35, 59
— 5, 6 — 59
— 8 — —
xxix. 1-6 VI. iii
— 2-6 V. 18

Judges.

vi. 18 XIII. 65

1 Samuel.

xxviii. 24 XIII. 58
xxix. 4 XI. 21

2 Samuel.

xxiv. 1 XI . 22

1 Kings.

xi. 25 XI. 21
xviii. 21 V. 77
xix. 21 XIII. 58

2 Kings.

xv. 29 V. 28
xix. 21 — 67

1 Chronicles.

v. 26 V. 28
xxi. 1 XI. 22

2 Chronicles.

xxx. XIII. 60
— 15, 16 — 61
xxxv. — 60
— 9 — 57
— 11 — 61

Job.

i. 6-12 XI. 22
ii. 1-7 — —

Psalms.

xiv. V. 37
li. 16, 17 VI. 25
— — XIII. 9
cxix. 6 XI. 22

Proverbs.

viii. 22 V. 73
— 30 — —
xvii. 1 XIII. 58

Isaiah.

i. 13, 14 XIII. 10
i. 16 XIII. 10
— 16-18 VI. 25
v. 18-20 XI. 3
vii. 14-16 V. 25
— — — 66
viii. 23 — 68
— — IX. 4
viii. 8 V. 67
— 18 — —
ix. 5, 6 — 28
— 6 — 68
xxiii. 12 — 67

Jeremiah.

xiv. 17 V. 27
xxxi. 4 — 66
— 13 — 67

Lamentations.

i. 15 V. 67

Ezekiel.

xxxiii. 14-16 VI. 25

Amos.

v. 2 V. 27

Jonah.

iii. 5-10 VI. 23, 24
iv. 10, 11 — 24

Micah.

iv. 8, 9 V. 27

Zachariah.

iii. 1, 2 XI. 22

Matthew.

i. 23 V. 24
ii. 15 II. 55
— 23 — —
— — V. 68
iv. 1-11 XI. 27
— 12-22 II. 36
xii. 3 — 29
xiii. 58 — 25
xv. 24 VI. 36
xviii. 18 XIII. 30
xix. 16-21 VI. 25
xxvi. 17-21 XIII. 35
— 26-28 — —
xxvi. 28 VI. 40
— 69 seqq. II. 37
xxvii. 32 — —
— 37 — —
— 44 — —
xxviii. 19 V. 50
— — VI. iv

Mark.

i. 12, 13 XI. 27
— 16-20 II. 36
x. 45 VI. 40
xiii. 32 V. 50
xiv. 12-17 XIII. 35
— 22-24 — —
xv. 26 II. 37
— 32 — —

Luke.