fession implied in the laying on of hands, here spoken of; the tendency of which was to cleanse, not to defile the animal?? Respecting the scape-goat, the command is, And 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.'* Here is not merely an implied, but an actual and particular confession, accompanied with a suitable action, expressly intended to transfer, representatively, the sins of the people to the animal: whereas nothing of the kind is involved in the acknowledgement and confession mentioned by Swedenborg, as forming part of the worship included in the representation of laying the hand of an offerer upon his sacrifice. There can be no worship at all without acknowledgement and confession, either express or implied: if, therefore, the sacrificing of an animal represented the worship of the offerer, and derived this representation from his laying his hand upon it, it must represent his acknowledgement and confession as a part of his worship. What was thus representatively transfered to the animal was, not the worshiper's sins, but the good from which all self-acknowledgement proceeds,---the good of humility and of innocence.

6

"In Lev. v. 1---6,' says Omega' there is a specification of several sins, with directions that the offender should confess his sin, and bring an offering to the Lord; but there is no mention of the laying on of hands:' and he asks, 'how is this passage to be understood '?

"Part of it has been cited above, and the error corrected of supposing, that, in this case, there was no laying on of hands. What has been observed just above, about confession as a part of worship, will apply here. A person has been in a state of evil or defilement, either knowingly or otherwise. In the latter case, when it comes to his knowledge, he is to employ the means of purification, as well as in the former. No one can be purified from any evil who does not acknowledge it to be an evil. Such acknowledgement, then, is meant by his being required to confess it. He is then enabled to worship the Lord from the good of that confession, or from the good of repentance: which was represented by the trespass-offering which he was then directed to bring.

"Omega finds his last difficulty in Ps. xxxvii. 20: 'but the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume, into smoke shall they consume away.' But the only difficulty arises from supposing, that the *Lev. xvi. 21.

h*

fat of lambs, as consumed in divinely representative sacrifices is what is meant: and there would indeed be a difficulty in seeing how this could be a proper symbol of the enemies of the Lord. But there is nothing either in the text or context to intimate that the fat of lambs is here spoken of in reference to its application to the most holy use.' Most things in the Word admit of opposite significations: and if, in its good sense, the fat of lambs signifies the good of innocence of celestial love, in its contrary sense it will denote an evil which is opposite to such innocence. If there is here any reference to the burning of fat in sacrifices at all, the sacrifices alluded to must be those of the enemies of the Lord offered to false gods and idols.

"I hope that the above remarks may be received as tending to show, that no solid objection can be raised to the New Church Doctrine of Atonement, and that no support for the common erroneous doctrine can be derived from any just view of the sacrifices of the Mosaic law."

From the whole, then, that has been offered on the subject of sacrifices, I trust we may now discern, how truly atonement, or reconciliation was made between God and man by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The enmity, or contrariety, between man and God, was first abolished in his own person, and in him man or human nature in general, was reconciled to God :* and then, by his agency and influence, it is abolished in us also, and we are reconciled, and restored to agreement with God, in and by him. In the expressive language of the apostle ;† “If, when we were enemies "---when human nature in general was in a state of contrariety,---" we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,"--the separation was abolished by the glorification of the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Son of God, and of which glorification his death was the immediate cause,---" much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life,"---much more now that the utter seperation no longer exists, shall we be endowed with saving graces through the life giving influences proceeding from Him, who ever liveth to make intercession for us. What reason then, have we to "joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement ! " # Blessed be God who "hath atoned us to himself by Jesus Christ!" Adored be the

mercy, by which God was in Christ atoneing the world unto himself!"

*See this truth which is usually so entirely overlooked largely proved and insisted on in Sherlock on Happiness and Punishment in the Next World, Ch. v. § 3.

† Rom. v. 10.

Ver. 11.

SECTION VIII.

THE ATONEMENT, SACRIFICE, AND MEDIATION OF JESUS CHRIST.

PART II.

Other Modes of Atonement, besides that by Sacrifices, mentioned in the

Scripture.

ATONEMENT, we have seen, according to the meaning of the word in the Scripture use of it, and the only meaning which it bore at the time of translating the Scriptures into English, is Reconciliation. Consequently, "The Atonement of Christian Doctrine is Reconciliation with God, including the means by which reconciliation is effected." But in consequence of the erroneous views which have been introduced into religious systems respecting the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and its being supposed that he underwent the punishment of our sins as a substituted victim, to appease the wrath of another Divine person, the word "Atonement" has come to be confined, in common use, to express this unfounded idea. Whenever atonement is now spoken of by religious persons, they always mean by it, the apeasement of divine wrath, by Jesus Christ's suffering the punishment due to sinners, as their substitute, or in their stead, the innocent for the guilty. And because the word is often used in the Old Testament, or in the Levitical law, in connexion with the sacrifices, it is concluded that thisthe substitution of one being to undergo the punishment incurred by another-is what Atonement realy means. The erroneousness of this notion has already been amply shown, in the exposition that has been given of the true nature of Sacrifices: and it may easily be proved by other means: For there are several other modes of making atonement, beside that of sacrifices, mentioned in the Old Testament. An examination of these will establish, beyond all doubt, what atonement, in Scripture really means. To this, therefore, we will devote a short PART of this SECTION.

1. The first instance of other modes of Atonement beside

that of Sacrifices, occurs in Ex. xxx. 10-16. It is there commanded, when the children of Israel were numbered, that "they should give every man a ransom for his soul, unto the Lord, that there be no plague among them." They were to give for this purpose, half-a-shekel a piece. "The rich (it is said) shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than half-a-shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls." This is expressly called, their "atonement money." This every one was to pay for himself. There was here no substitution of one being for another, no death or punishment inflicted on any thing: but to avert the plague of death with which they would have been visited, had they, under that representative dispensation, attempted to ascertain their strength, by counting their numbers, without any symbolic act implying their dependence for life and existence on the Lord, the payment of the half-a-shekel, for the service of the tabernacle, was required. The half-a-shekel, which was a piece of silver, represented the truth, reverently acknowledged, that man derives his life, with all the endowments which accompany it, and especially all power in spiritual conflicts, from the Lord, and is continually dependent for it on him; the non-acknowledgement of which dependence includes the privation of spiritual life: and the payments being the same for all, for rich and poor alike, was to express that the life of all, especially the spiritual life, is of equal value in the eyes of the Lord, that the souls of all are equally precious in his sight, that rich and poor, the highly or the poorly gifted either with worldly wealth or with mental endowments, are all equal before Him, and that he equally regards the life, especially the eternal life, of every one of his rational creatures. To retain eternal life, man must acknowledge that he derives it from the Lord. This, every one must do for himself, not another for him. The piece of silver representing this acknowledgement, is expressly denominated his "atonement money: "and the giving of it is most pointedly declared to be "to make an atonement for your souls." By doing that spiritually, then, which this natural action represented, every one makes an atonement for his own soul.

Thus this circumstance of the payment of atonement-money, is alone a sufficient proof, that no such idea as that commonly attached, in modern times, to the word Atonement, belongs to it as used in Scripture. No allusion to substitution, to a vicarious undergoing of punishment, can possibly be here intended. Neither is any such thing intended, when it is said in the directions about sacrifices, that a man's offering "shall be ac

cepted to make an atonement for him."* The animal, in this case, represents a principle of goodness from which man offers an acceptable worship to the Lord; just as, in regard to the atonement-money, the piece of silver denotes the truth, as confessed by the giver, that man owes his life, spiritual as well as natural, to the Lord as its Source: and there is no more allusion to the undergoing of punishment by one being instead of a different being, in the one case than there is in the other.

2. In another instance, we find the prayers of Moses described as making atonement for the sins of the people. How inconsistent is this with all that is so frequently said about Moses in the common doctrines of the day! Moses is usually described as the accuser, of mankind, as bringing them into condemnation; not as making atonement for them! He is perpetually represented as something like an antagonist of the Lord Jesus Christ; as delivering a law, at the command of the angry Father, to bring all men under a curse; not an intercessor, who mediates to deliver them, and to "make an atonement for their sin." Yet, according to the Word of God, this he actually did. After Israel had sinned so greviously in the affair of the golden calf, and three thousand men had been slain in consequence, it is written thus: "And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people. Ye have sinned a great sin and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.t What plainer proof can be desired, that, in the Scripture sense of the expression, the word Atonement does not mean, the suffering as a substitu ted victim for the sin of others? Moses, most certainly never thought of making atonement in the way that the Lord Jesus Christ is supposed to have done, by suffering in his own person the punishment due to the sins of the people: yet he cer tainly did undertake to endeavor to make an atonement. But all is easy when it is known, that the proper sense of atonement is reconciliation or agreement, without any specific mode of causing such agreement or reconciliation. How did Moses proceed with his work of atonement? The sacred narative adds, "And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written."‡ Moses certainly does here offer himself for death. But how? as a substitute for the people. and that his death might be accepted instead of theirs? Did he thus adopt the common perverted sense of the word Atonement, and pray that he might be *As Lev. i. 4. + Ex. xxxii. 30. Ver. 31, 32.