notion of an atonement and the practice of piacular sacrifice have been UNIVERSALLY familiar to the Gentiles.

Now this accordance, in a notion and a practice alike altogether arbitrary, can only be rationally accounted for on the supposition of its having sprung from a common origin and that common origin we shall vainly seek elsewhere than in the patriarch Noah.

But the patriarch Noah could not communicate, what he himself did not possess.

Therefore, to the second great father of mankind, the communicated notion and practice of atonement and piacular sacrifice must, I think, inevitably have been familiar.

Such was the conclusion, which I drew from the UNIFORMITY of Paganism in a matter purely arbitrary and, with it, the view, which I have been led to take of the recorded sacrifice of Noah, perfectly corresponds. The two confirm each other and the general result from the whole inquiry is, that We have sufficient evidence of the DIVINELY-APPROVED existence of the doctrine of an atonement during the period of early patriarchism,

VI. Since Mr. Davison, perhaps, (as we may

G

hereafter find *,) somewhat too hastily, claims the suffrage of the whole body of the ancient Christian Fathers in regard to the mere human institution of primitive patriarchal sacrifice: it may not be improper, at the close of the present discussion, to gather, through the same evidential medium, the apparent opinion of the early church, relative to the existence or the non-existence of the doctrine of an atonement, during the patriarchal ages, and under the Patriarchal Dispen

sation.

1. Our Lord, according to St. John, declared to the Jews, that Their father Abraham rejoiced to see his day: and he saw it, and was glad t. From this remarkable text, Cyril of Alexandria contends, that Abraham and his posterity down to Moses were instructed, not only in the doctrine of an atonement by the sacrifice of the promised Saviour, but likewise even in the mystery of the incarnation itself.

2. The knowledge of an atonement, thus ascribed by Cyril to Abraham and his successors, Eusebius of Cesarea would carry yet further

*See below, sect. iv. chap. 8.

† John, viii. 56.

See Cyril. Alex. cont. Julian. lib. viii. p. 280, 281. Lips. 1696.

back than the times of that patriarch. He asserts, that the ancient lovers of God, from the very beginning, had learned, through the teaching of the Divine Spirit, that a certain venerable victim should at length purify the whole world by the sacrifice of himself: and he adds, that, of the future expiatory devotement of this august victim, they were well aware, through the same heavenly teaching, that every animal victim, from the first-recorded sacrifice of Abel down to the last-offered sacrifice of the Mosaic Law, was an appointed and intentional symbol *.

3. Whether properly or improperly, whether with reason or without reason, simply as a matter of fact, Cyril at least and Eusebius, probably also the generality of their Christian contemporaries, do not seem to have thought with Mr. Davison, that The doctrine of an atonement was FIRST revealed by Moses, and that It was altogether UNKNOWN during the continuance of the Patriarchal Dispensation.

*Euseb. Cæsariens. Demons. Evan. lib. i. c. 8. p. 24, 25. Lutet. Rob. Stephan. 1545.

SECTION III.

EVIDENCE OF THE PRIMEVAL INSTITUTION OF

EXPIATORY SACRIFICE.

CHAPTER I.

Evidence of the Primeval Divine Institution of Expiatory Sacrifice from the History of the Offerings of Cain and Abel.

PART. I.-RESPECTING THE IMPORT OF THE HEBREW WORD CHATTATH.

By those persons, who maintain the primeval divine institution of piacular sacrifice, the scriptural history of the offerings of Cain and Abel has been thought very strongly to favour their opinion.

Instead of a mere eucharistic offering of vegetable productions which acknowledged no sin and which confessed no want of an atonement, they contend, that, by the very necessity of a remarkable passage in that history, when the passage itself is properly translated, God must plainly be understood as ENJOINING Cain to offer up an animal victim under the precise aspect of a piacular sacrifice.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?