DEAR SIR,

      I come now to examine your notions respecting the nature and design of the legal sacrifices and offerings instituted by Moses. It would be a task equally as irksome as unnecessary to follow you minutely through sixteen pages, to detect the many blunders, sophistical reasonings, and false criticisms which abound in that portion of your work, which appears to be only a lame imitation or [82] imperfect detail, with diminished force, of certain Arian writers, whose works are well known by men of reading to have been refuted long ago. I allude particularly to Dr. J. Taylor of Norwich, in his Key to the Apostolic writings, and his Scripture Doctrine of Atonement:--likewise to Henry Taylor, rector of Crawley, and vicar of Portsmouth, in his Apology of Benjamin Ben Mordicai to his friends for embracing Christianity, &c. Not an idea,--not a sentiment have your advanced respecting atonement, both Mosaic and Christian, but it is to be found there; an ample, learned, and unanswerable refutation of which, you may see, if you will read Dr. M'Gee's masterly performance on Atonement and Sacrifice. And really, Sir, in a matter of such importance, touching your eternal interests, and also of others involved with you, it may be worth your while.

      Such appears to be your hostility to the commonly received doctrines of Christ's atonement and satisfaction, that you have laboured hard in this part of your work, to overthrow the vicarious import, and piacular nature of those sacrifices under the ancient dispensation; so as to make them express nothing more than a mere ceremonial purification. This, to be sure, was highly necessary on your plan of denying the proper divinity of Jesus; for in diminishing the dignity of his person, it becomes expedient to diminish, or rather to destroy the merit of his work. To leave, therefore, the Mosaic institutions in full force against you in their typical and expiatory import, would have rendered all your efforts nugatory and unavailing. The impugner of our Lord's divinity, cannot consistently advocate his propitiatory sacrifice. These two fundamental doctrines support each other, and they stand or fall together. If I admit not the real deity of the Son of God, I instantly reject his vicarious and propitiatory sacrifice, and turn Deist; for I solemnly aver, I see no settled medium. All that is between, is hollow philosophy and mere illusion. "There are only three stages of declension," says an excellent writer, "from Christianity to Deism: Mr. Whitson shewed himself ready for the second, when he dared to charge the Scriptures of God with weakness and absurdity. Mr. Chillingworth had finished two of them, when he died, and was ready, I fear, for the third. Chubb, too, [83] whose name was formerly of some notoriety in the lists of infidel fame, but is nearly lost and forgotten in the crowds upon the rolls at present, was first and Arian, then a Socinian, and finally a Deist. Morgan, also, another phantom of unbelief, that once stalked about, formidable in nothingness, was a Presbyterian minister, who commenced an Arian and concluded an infidel." Whitaker's Origin of Arianism, p. 498.

      But I proceed to examine your book relative to atonement, which is explained so as to signify reconciliation. (p. 35.) For this you say you have "the authority of our translators,--that learned body believed that atonement and reconciliation meant the same thing;" then you add in a note, "so frequently they translate the Hebrew word keper, reconciliation, which word is generally rendered atonement." After all, it is only "frequently" rendered so. It is admitted that these two words are sometimes used synonymously, but not always. Reconciliation sometimes means a being actually in friendship with God, through faith in the blood of Christ; but when synonymously used with atonement, it denotes the satisfaction of justice only, or the opening of a way by which mercy may be exercised consistently with righteousness. So the translators understood it, where you say, "The learned have, after diligent search, found one passage where the word in Hebrew, commonly translated atonement, is translated satisfaction. Num. 35. 31, 32. "Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer--and ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled," &c. Why, really, here are two instances instead of one, where our translators have rendered the original word, satisfaction. But suppose it were but one, what then? If it be God's word, it is as good as one thousand. If our Maker speak but once, we must believe him if he should speak no more. Oh! but the translators, "that learned body" of translators, adduced as witnesses a while ago, will not do now. "I would ask the learned, by what authority did the translators, "that learned body," render this word satisfaction in this passage, and no where else; when commonly (yes commonly, and universally) they have translated the same word, atonement or reconciliation? Here the authority, or conduct of that [84] learned body is arraigned; and from the menace just given, one would naturally expect to see them get a learned drubbing; but lo! instead of one single learned criticism offered; instead of adducing one solitary fact, to condemn them, they are arraigned by dark suspicion, and condemned at your inquisitorial tribunal for heterodoxy: "It may prove that they believed the doctrine;--but it can be easily proved, that they believed many doctrines which were false." (p. 65.) Now see what work you have made here! You have at once rendered suspicious, if not destroyed, the whole of the Bible in the present translation. How can your followers know, whither you are leading them by such a suspicious light? How will the infidel believe your scriptural quotations, and your Bible theories, if the translators are implicated with many false doctrines? And pray, what must the world at large think of the candour and ingenuousness of the man, who can triumphantly adduce their testimony to support himself against his adversaries, when lo! as soon as they speak a language not to suit him, they are immediately set aside on the score of heterodoxy!! They believed the doctrine of satisfaction, you admit. And does not the unanimous testimony of forty-seven translators, "profoundly skilled in all the learning, as well as in all the languages of the East," and consequently knowing the common usage of language, and acceptation of words, bear with considerable force on the point for which I contend? Does it not go very far towards settling the question in our favour?

      That atonement and reconciliation are not always synonymously used, if further evinced from Rom. 5. 10. "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." The apostle adds, in the next verse; "and not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement." Received the reconciliation, I admit to be the proper translation of the sentence. And what then? Does it not refer to the whole of the pacification that has obtained between God and the believing sinner, through the mediation of Christ; and not merely to the atonement, which is the ground of it? Or, to use the language of Dr. M'Gee, "the [85] reconciliation which we have received through Christ, was the effect of the atonement made for us by his death." This very doctrine I will prove from your own book. "The land and congregation were cleansed--union restored--or an atonement made; and made too by the death of the offenders." (p. 38.) Very true: I understand here the death of the offenders, to be the sacrifice, the satisfaction, or atonement, as the prevailing operative cause or ground, with reference to, and in consideration of which, union, pacification, &c. take place. But how can the death of the offenders, which is an authorized act of the congregation of Israel, and the passive results and effects of that act, be the same? Is cause and effect the same? "The blood of victims or beasts destroyed the political separation between God and Israel, under the O. Test. and restored the political union between them." Let this be granted. Was it not with reference to this blood as the procuring cause that this union was brought about as the beneficial result? You add, "the blood of Christ destroys the moral separation between God and believers, and restores the union between them." But how destroyed by the blood of Christ? You reply, "When a man by faith in the blood of Christ is sanctified, cleansed, or washed from sin, then, and not till then, are God and man united, reconciled, or at one." What is the blood of Christ? Just now it destroyed the separation, &c. but immediately we are told that "faith" in the blood does it. Here the ground is shifted, and the blood of Christ is made an object for something called faith to act upon, in order to produce sanctification, reconciliation, union, &c. &c. If the blood of Christ is not the atonement itself, of separate and distinct consideration from reconciliation, union, &c. shed upwards of seventeen hundred years prior to the actual union, reconciliation, &c. of the believers of the present age; then what was it, or what can it be called, if not the blood of atonement? In all my life, I never yet heard a man pray for an atonement, but for reconciliation, union, purging, cleansing, always. Is it not an abuse of the laws of exegesis, and an outrage upon common sense, to jumble and confound all these terms together, as you have done, in order to get rid of the soul-animating, and heart-consoling doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus. [86]

      In order that the unclean person in Israel, "might be cleansed from the iniquity which he bears, the law requires that he brings a sin-offering," &c. (p. 41.) "The immediate effect of the sacrifice was purging," &c. (p. 47.) Now, here it seems, that purging is the effect of sacrifice, and in order to cleansing, a sin-offering must be brought. This is all true; but why is it said again and again, that atonement, reconciliation, purging, cleansing and union, all mean the same thing? And moreover, we are told that "atonement always implies sanctification." (p. 47.) This I presume is intended to express the same idea you expressed in the first book you ever wrote on the subject of atonement; in these words; "atonement differs not from regeneration;" for I understand regeneration to be sanctification begun. Well, now, we have along list of synonymies;--atonement, regeneration, reconciliation, sanctification, union, purging, cleansing, and propitiation, all mean the same thing. Surely it is high time for the English language to have a new nomenclature. What a strange,, ludicrous aspect would it give Scripture, were we to read it with your gloss. For instance, let the place of reconciliation and propitiation be supplied by sanctification. (Rom. 3. 23.) "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (sanctification) for sin." (1 John. 2. 2.) "And he is the propitiation (sanctification) for our sins." "He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation (sanctification) for our sins." (1. John 4. 10.) And in Heb. 2. 17, it would read that Jesus came to sanctify the sins of the people. The inconsistency, and inaptitude, will more glaringly appear, if applied to the Levitical atonements, which you and the reader may do at your leisure.

      I shall notice two instances more, wherein you attempt to make atonement mean reconciliation. The first is from the etymology of the word. "Lexicographers derive the word atone from the two words at and one." And you refer to Johnson and Baily, without quotation. The former witness will be sufficient, and shall speak for himself.

      "To Atone. (verb neuter) To agree; to accord.--2. To stand as an equivalent for something.

      "To Atone. (verb active) To expiate." [87]

      "Atonement. s. 1. Agreement; concord. 2. Expiation; expiatory equivalent."

      Now, as your notion of atonement excludes every idea of expiation, and satisfaction by sacrifice, why did you appeal to a witness so positively against you? Admit that in the neuter verb, it means to agree, to accord; yet, can you find any grammarian besides yourself, you can change a neuter, into an active verb, and thereby change the sense of it altogether. Why will you persist to write it again, in open violation of the established usage of language? This palpable blunder has been repeatedly exposed. Why then write it with your eyes open; and thus continue to call upon Dr. Johnson to establish your unscriptural theory, when any common school-boy, a mere novitiate in grammar, has only to open Johnson's Dictionary to confirm what I state. But more exceptionable still, is your attempt to support your notion by citing Acts 7. 26: "The next day he shewed himself to them as they strove, and would have set them at one; that is, he would have reconciled them." These last words, you have made by quotation a part of the verse. It looks as though it were designed. And no doubt it has had influence on illiterate and superficial readers. But, Sir, it is truly astonishing that a man of your pretensions should cite that passage to prove, that atonement meant reconciliation, when there is no such word in the original text. He would have set them at one--eis eirenen; he would have set them at peace again. Where is there any thing like atonement, purging, cleansing, and propitiation here? Was any victim slain;--any blood shed;--or is there even the smallest hint in the original phraseology, to justify such an application? No, Sir; I boldly publish to the world there is not, and am willing to risk my literary and personal reputation upon the declaration. This was objected to in your former work, and yet it comes out again, verbatim, in a second corrected edition. Those little words at and one in the translation, had such a fascinating power, that the wand of truth itself, either unavailing or unemployed, has not been able to dispel the charm to this day. I would moreover observe, that you cannot shew a single book, except your own, in all the English language, where the word atone, signifies to make one. It is imposing a [88] new sense upon the word, by converting a neuter into an active verb. And I will finally add, on this part of the subject, that you not only have neglected the original, and strict signification of the term, implying sacrificial atonement, and imposed upon it a sense, which is at best but secondary and remote; but also decided on a partial and hasty view of the subject, even as confined to the English translation. We admit that in every case of atonement it was implied, that the thing or person atoned for, was thereby cleansed, and so rendered fit for the service of God; yet it must likewise be admitted, that by this they were rendered pleasing to God, having been before in a state of impurity, and unfit for his service, and being now rendered objects of his approbation and acceptance, as fit instruments of his worship. To make atonement then to God, was to remove what was offensive, and thus, by conciliating the divine favour, to sanctify for the divine service. To assume the latter as the sole end of the atonement, (which is an undoubted consequence form it) and reject the former, is a fallacious proposition.

      We come now to your principal argument against the vicarious import of the sacrifices of atonement, which existed under the Mosaic law. It is built upon the assertion, that, for unpardonable offences no atonements were made under that law: the transgressor must die unpitied and without mercy. I ask, why? You reply, "Because those sacrifices could not purge the offender from moral iniquity; and consequently no atonement was made for such offences under the law." (p. 37.) To this I offer three objections;--it is untrue in point of fact;--it is sophistical in point of reasoning;--and it is impertinent in point of application.

      1. It is untrue; for atonements were made for some of those very offences, which appear in your list of unpardonable transgressions; I mean the cases of adultery, perjury, and profane swearing; which were not transgressions of the ceremonial, but of the moral law, the unbending rigour of which, in general, denounces death against every violation of it. (See Deut. 27. 26. Ezek. 18. 19-23. Gal. 3. 10. Jas. 2. 10.) And yet for the crimes just specified, atonements were appointed, and the divine displeasure [89] thereby turned away. Thus it is decreed, that if a soul----have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and SWEARETH FALSELY, then, because he hath sinned in this, he shall not only make restitution to his neighbor--but he shall bring his trespass-offering into the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock; and the priest shall make an ATONEMENT for him before the Lord, and it shall be FORGIVEN HIM. (Lev. 6. 2-7.) And again, in a case of criminal connection with a bond-maid who was betrothed, the offender is ordered to bring his trespass-offering, and the priest to make an ATONEMENT for him--and the sin which he hath done shall be ORGIVEN him. (Lev. 19. 20, 22.) For the third case, see Lev. 5. 4-10. Comp. Exod. 20. 7, 14. Lev. 24. 16. Thus it will be found that these are cases of moral transgression, or violations of moral law, and consequently deserving the death which it denounces, and yet certain offerings, of a nature strictly propitiatory, were ordained to avert the divine displeasure.

      2. Your argument is sophistical; for, from the circumstance of no atonement being appointed in those cases where death was peremptorily denounced, it is inferred, that as they "could not purge the offender from moral iniquity, consequently no atonement was made for such offences under the law:" whereas the true statement of the proposition evidently is, that life was forfeited, and the transgressor died, only because there was no atonement permitted to be made. "It is true, indeed, there is no express denunciation of death in those cases, where atonements were allowed. The reason is obvious, because the atonement was permitted to arrest the sentence of the law; as appears particularly from this, that when the prescribed atonement was not made, the offender was left under the original sentence of the law, which, in those cases, no longer suspended its natural operation, but pronounced the sentence of death." But,

      3. Your whole argument is inapplicable: We never maintained that the animal suffering in the place of the offender was designed to purge him "from moral iniquity;" or that it was any thing more than an emblematic substitute; the result of divine institution;--a vicarious symbol, representing the penal effects of the offender's demerits, and [90] his release from the deserved punishment in consequence of the death of the victim. Neither do we affirm that the evil inflicted on the victim should be the same in quantity or quality with that denounced against the offender, or that the literal translation of his guilt and punishment could be made to the immolated victim; a thing utterly incomprehensible, as neither guilt, nor punishment, strictly speaking, can be conceived, but with reference to consciousness, which can no more be transferred than personal identity or moral qualities. But we do maintain that such a symbolical translation did take place, as to expose the victim to suffering in consequence of the offender's guilt, and at the same time it did represent to the offender the punishment due to his transgression, from the temporary penal effects of which, it also released him. Here is its vicarious import. But it did not stop here; it pointed the penitent offender to the blood of the Christian sacrifice, the Lamb of God, as a real substitute in his stead, whose blood could purge the conscience from moral impurity, and cleanse him from all sin. Is there any thing contradictory here? Do you inquire, what connection can subsist between the death of the animal and the acquittal of the sinner? I readily answer, I cannot tell. To unfold divine truths by human philosophy, belongs to those who hold opinions widely different from mine on the subject of atonement. It is sufficient for me that the Scripture has clearly pronounced this connection to subsist. That the death of the animal could possess no intrinsic value, is manifest; but that divine appointment could bestow upon it this expiatory power, will not surely be denied. If you can tell how the brazen serpent healed the diseased Israelites, you may be able to account for this.

      I think I have now positively proven the contrary of what you have asserted; namely, that "there were no sins for which the law required death, which admitted of sacrifice or atonement." As for those sins, for which sacrifice was admitted, you aver, that "the law never required the death of the transgressor." What then is the meaning of this law: "The soul that sinneth it shall die?" And also, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them? I am [91] greatly mistaken, if the law of God does not denounce death against every transgressor. The sentence, I believe, may be arrested by an expiatory equivalent, but this is not your plan, either as it respects transgressions of the ceremonial or moral law.

      But here arises another objection to the doctrine of substitution; it is the assertion that atonements were made by the sacrifice of animals in some cases where no guilt was involved. You instance "the woman after childbirth, the leper, and the man with a running issue;" and ask, "what sin had they to confess? Yet for all these things the persons had to bring a sin-offering, by which an atonement was made for them." To which I reply: "the cases here specified did not involve moral guilt, and therefore can only prove that there were sacrifices which were not vicarious, inasmuch as there were some that were not for sin: but it by no means follows that where moral guilt was involved, the sacrifice was not vicarious. Now it is only in this latter case that the notion of a vicarious sacrifice is contended for, or is indeed conceivable. And accordingly it is only in such cases we find those ceremonies used which mark the vicarious import of the sacrifice. The symbolical tradition of sins, and the consequent pollution of the victim, are confined to those sacrifices which were offered confessedly in expiation of sins, the most eminent of which were those offered on the day of expiation, and those for the high priest, and for the entire of the congregation, (Lev. 16. 15-28. and 4. 3-12, 13-22) in all which the pollution caused by the symbolical transfer of sins, is expressed by the burning of the victim without the camp." Dr. M'Gee.

      And moreover, it deserves to be considered, whether the pains of child-bearing, and all the diseases of the human body, being the signal consequences of that apostacy which entailed those calamities on the children of Adam, it might not be proper, on occasion of a deliverance from these remarkable effects of sin, that there should be this sensible representation of that death which was the desert of it in general, and a humble acknowledgment of that personal demerit which had actually exposed the offerer to the severest punishment.

      To make it appear that imposition of hands on the head [92] of the victim, which was common in piacular sacrifices, did not imply an acknowledgment of sin, you triumphantly ask, "did every woman after childbirth, who brought her sin-offering, and according to law, laid her hands on the victim's head--did she by this act confess her sin, because she had brought a child into the world?--Did the leper--the man with a running issue, by laying their hands on the heads of their sin-offerings,"--Stop there, and look into the texts you have referred to for this authority, and if you will not do it, I hope the honest reader will do it to satisfy himself; and he will find it to be the fact, that the offerers in these cases were not at all required to lay their hands on the heads of their respective victims. (See Lev. 12. 6-8. and 15. 1-15, 19-30. and 14. 1-31. Num. 6. 11.) Now, my dear Sir, though I do most cordially abhor your Socinian sentiments, and feel and honest conviction of the propriety of exposing them, yet I did believe you had honesty enough to have rectified such a gross mistake, such and unfounded statement, in a second corrected edition of your works. But behold, after the lapse of seven years, and after the exceptions made to it in reply, it now comes forward again, verbatim, and in the same triumphant tone, approved by its author, who must have been apprized of this unauthorized declaration the very day he first penned it. I ask again, where will you find it required of the puerpera, the leper, the man with a running issue, that they should lay their hands on the heads of their sin-offerings? You can shew no proof it. Then why continue in such an open, barefaced manner, to combat us with pretended scriptural arguments and references of your own making. You may delude your followers, and satisfy them that you are very superior in charity and honesty to every body else, but how such a course as this will operate to the conviction of opponents, is not difficult to determine.

      I contend that the imposition of hands upon the head of the victim, whenever that was required, in piacular sacrifices, implied a confession of sin, a symbolical translation of the sins of the offender upon the head of the sacrifice, and likewise an impressive mode of deprecating the evil due to his transgressions. This is evidently the case in those instances where moral guilt was involved, [93] but in not one where it was not. It also confirms the idea of the acknowledgment of sin being joined with imposition of hands in those sacrifices intended as a substitute for the offender, and as the accepted medium of expiation. The bare recital of the ceremony prescribed on the day of expiation, will put this beyond dispute. "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, AND CONFESS OVER HIM ALL THE INIQUITIES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat--and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities, &c. (Lev. 16. 21, 22.) On this solemn occasion, the two goats made but one sin-offering, expressly so called in the fifth verse, and spoken of as such throughout the chapter, and presented jointly as the offering of the people. The death of the animal was requisite to represent the means by which the expiation was effected: and the bearing away the sins of the people of the head of the animal, was requisite to exhibit the effect; namely, the removal of the guilt. But for these distinct objects, two animals were necessary to complete the sin-offering. This is a most eminent type of the Redeemer of mankind, who was delivered from our offences, but raised again for our justification.

      I now aver, that the ceremony expressed by the imposition of hands, accompanied with acknowledgment of sins, was enjoined in all cases of piacular sacrifice, which is evinced from the general direction given to that effect, in the 4th chap. of Lev.;--from the ceremony of the scape goat and from the description of 2 Chr. 29. 23. of the sacrificed offered by Hezekiah, to make an atonement for all Israel.--They brought forth the he-goats for the sin-offering, before the king and the congregation, and they laid their hands upon them--and the priests killed them, &c. Your only reply here is, that, "laying on of hands, rather signifies to consecrate or devote the thing to God." Only, "rather signifies;" but let it be so, and adopt Dr. Geddes' rendering of Lev. 1. 4. "And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the victim, that it may be an acceptable atonement for him." And on the words, lay his hands, &c. he subjoins this remark--"Thereby devoting it to God: and transferring, [94] as it were, HIS OWN GUILT UPON THE VICTIM." In M'Gee on Atonement, p. 208.

      As to your observations respecting the consecration of the priesthood for the service of the tabernacle; and of men to the gospel ministry by the imposition of hands, they deserve no attention here, on account of the total irrelevancy of these ceremonies to animal sacrifices offered for the sins of transgressors. There exists no analogy whatever, and their application to this argument, seems to betray a want to knowledge or sincerity in the attempt. Your introduction of the sheaf of wheat, to oppose the doctrine of animal sacrifice and substitution, is still worse. "A sheaf of wheat is said to be accepted for you. Lev. 23. 11. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, and it shall be accepted for him: Surely the sheaf was not a substitute, nor sin imputed to it, and it accepted in the stead of the offerer!" (p. 43.) Never did I know an author to be more carried away by the mere sound of words. For no other reason can I conceive why this sheaf of wheat is brought in here. It is not a sin-offering;--not an animal sacrifice;--no life given;--no blood shed. It was an offering of the eucharistic kind, whereby the offerer acknowledged the bounty of God, and his own unworthiness; he here rendered praise for favors received, and desired a continuation of the divine blessing. Sir, are you not afraid that plain folks will begin to suspect you have a very bad cause, when driven to such shifts as these?

      I must no pass over the very learned criticism you have given in pages 49, 50, on the words, bear, bearing sins, &c. as meaning to forgive, to forgive sins; as this is one of your enlargements, and especially as it is a specimen of new attainments in the Hebrew, "an imperfect knowledge of which you have acquired" since the publication of your first Address. As I desire to write for common edification, I regret very much the necessity I am under, of resorting to criticism, and from this consideration shall make as little use of it as possible.

      In your critical research, by the help of Taylor, a Socinian writer, you have found the word nasa, "in twelve texts applied to God, as bearing the iniquities of the people--now, will any say, that when God is said to bear our [95] iniquity so often, he is guilty and unclean by imputation, and therefore must bear the punishment of iniquity? Impossible! Our translators did not believe it, and therefore translated the word differently;"--that is, forgive--forgiven, &c. But how are we to know that our translators did not believe this, seeing "they believed many doctrines which are false?" But references are likewise made to Joseph's brethren, praying him to bear (nasa) their trespass; Pharaoh praying Moses and Aaron to bear his sin; Saul praying Samuel, and Abigail praying David, to bear their sins--in all which places the word nasa is translated forgive. "Surely in none of these cases can the doctrines of imputation of sin, and vicarious punishment be deduced." This is the amount of this new criticism from "an imperfect knowledge" of Hebrew. And really, if I wanted to turn literary knight-errant to fight wind-mills, I might soon become an adept by acquiring only an imperfect knowledge of Hebrew, and making a bold use of it.

      As for this much abused word nasa being rendered to forgive sin, to pardon, to take away iniquity, in that connection, or in that sense in which God is sought unto, or said to do it; let it be remembered that it never denotes the pardon of sin on any other principle, than that of a proper atonement for sin; and on this principle ever penitent offender may plead with his Maker to take away his iniquity, to forgive his sin, using an expression that refers to the procuring cause of that forgiveness, i. e. the blood of atonement, which was poured forth while the victim appointed of God sustained the burden and underwent the suffering due to the transgressor. But I have to observe further, that a well known and established Hebrew critic, who had something more than "an imperfect knowledge" of that language, has not given the word in question, the sense of to forgive, but, "Transitively to bear with sin, or sinners; to forbear punishing them. Gen. 18. 24, 26, and 50.17. Exod. 10. 17. and 23. 21. Numb. 14. 19. Isa. 2. 9." This is the opinion of Dr. Parkhurst; who, in these references, has employed, as you may see, four out of seven, of the very passages you adduced in the case of Joseph's brethren, Pharaoh, Abigail, &c. as proof of your theory, which at once shews your misapplication of the verb nasa. [96]

      But for the sake of argument, and to put this matter out of dispute, let us suppose that the phrase bearing sin, does not mean, bearing the punishment or consequences of sin; or in plain terms, let the words bearing sin, and forgiving sin, be synonymous and convertible, and see into what absurdities we are immediately involved. In every case where a man is spoken of as bearing his sin, we are to understand it of the man's forgiving his own sin; and when, to use your own words, "Jesus bore in his soul the sins of the world," it means he forgave the sins of the world; and when God is in Scripture said to forgive, blot out, or pardon iniquity, we are to understand, that God really bore it, even before Christ appeared in the world; and again, when you say, you "will patiently bear the merited reproaches of the righteous," it is to be understood that you will forgive the merited reproaches, &c. Really this looks like restoring the reign of chaos, and putting the whole art of reasoning out of countenance.

      By this time, some plain readers may inquire,--why all this criticism;--all this particularity about words;--and why so much said about Jewish sacrifices and ceremonies?--what doth it profit? I reply, that hereby we discover the real design of all who deny the Deity of Jesus Christ. To do this consistently, it becomes necessary to set aside the commonly received doctrine of atonement by his blood; and of his substitution in the sinner's place. To accomplish this, it is indispensable to put down the testimony of the Mosaic atonements, and not suffer them to say one word in favour of substitution in any shape whatever. This would prove their overthrow at once. The blood of millions of animals testifying loudly against them, while discharging the N. Testament revelation of all appropriate meaning relative to the sacrifice of the Son of God, and establishing a language suitable to their own theories, would ruin them altogether. Hence the old fashioned phrases by which plain folks used to express, as they thought, the mind of God; such as atonement, propitiation, ransom, redemption, Christ dying for us, in our stead, bearing our sins, &c. &c. must now all be deprived of their old shape, and discharged as the "unintelligible language of our ancestors." An "imperfect knowledge" of the [97] Hebrew, with the Socinian gloss of Priestly, John and Henry Taylors, can easily furnish a new nomenclature, which will define the word atonement, to mean, atonement, reconciliator, propitiation, regeneration, union, sanctification, redemption, ransom, purging, cleansing, and any thing you please, except expiation, and substitution, and satisfaction. The pardon of sin need have no other ground than the sinner's repentance, and the divine favour is afforded as the reward of his obedience. The blood of animals, and the blood of Christ being divested of all vicarious import and expiatory meaning, it is hard to tell of what use they really are, or wherein consists their proper significance in the redemption of mankind. That this is a correct representation, will be fully established, if not already, in the investigation of the next subject, with reference to which the present is considered as only preparatory.

[LBWS 82-98]