for the Burnt Offering, the other for a Sin Offering: And the Prieft fhall make an Atonement for her. Levit. xii. 6, 8.

All that I would infer from these instances, (which are of every one of the Sorts of Sacrifices mentioned in the Mofaic Law,) is this, That in none of the cafes mentioned can any one conclude, that the End of Animal Sacrifices was the giving Life for Life; or that They implied any Forfeiture of Life; or that God was defired to accept the Life of the Animal instead of the Life of the Offerer. It is certain that Peace Offerings, Sin Offerings, Trefpafs Offerings and Burnt Offerings were made; and Atonement was likewife made for the Party offering; and yet Life was not given for Life in any of the Inftances before mentioned: No Forfeiture of life was acknowledged, No Sin confeffed in fome of them; and confequently the Offerer could not intend to fay-Hanc Animam pro meliore- or that he gave the Life of the Animal in lieu of his own, or instead of his own. The particular End of Each of these Sacrifices will be hereafter fhewn diftinctly: Here

I would

1

I would only fhew what was not their Intent.

I am not infenfible that many Inftances have been produced as well from the Sacred Writers as from Others to fhew that the Great Defign of Animal Sacrifices, (at least of Piacular Sacrifices,) was a vicarious Subftitution of an Animal for a Man, and the giving or offering the Life of the one for the Life of the other. It will be worth while particularly to examine two or three of the Paffages produced from the Old Teftament in proof of this Notion.

The First is, Deut. xxi. If a man be found flain in the land- and it be not known who bath flain him, the Elders of the City which is next unto the flain man fhall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought- and fhall wash their hands over the Heifer that is beheaded in the Valley; And they shall answer and fay, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our Eyes feen it. Be merciful O Lord unto thy people whom thou haft redeemed, and lay not innocent blood to thy people of Ifrael's charge. And the blood fhall be forgiven

them,

them, Deut. xxi. 1—8.

The Law of Mofes would allow no Satisfaction for the life of a Murderer, but infifted that the Murderer should be put to death at all events, for blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is fhed therein but by the blood of him that fhed it, Numb. xxxv. 30-33. In cafe then that a man was found dead, and it was not known who had flain him, there was to be a public declaration of Innocency made by those who were nearest, and therefore most likely to have been the perfons guilty: And there was to be a Heifer, not facrificed, not offered to God, but whofe Head was to be ftruck off in the valley adjacent, with a public request to God not to lay innocent blood to the people's charge. And upon this, the City which lay next to the flain man was acquitted of his blood.

Here the cafe is, a Heifer has its Head ftruck off inftead of the Murderer who can't be found. But then, Here is no Piacular Sacrifice, indeed no Sacrifice of any fort at all, is mentioned: Here is no prefenting or offering any part or the whole

Heifer to God; no confuming any of it on any Altar. The ceremony was purely fymbolical; to declare by that act of cutting off the Heifer's Head, that so the Murderer ought, had he been known, to have been treated. Admitting therefore here a Vicarious Subftitution, yet it has nothing to do with any Sort of Sacrifice; whereas in Truth it was not a vicarious Substitution, but a manner of clearing themselves from all fufpicion of Guilt, with a Declaration how the Murderer ought to have been treated by the Law of the Land.

A fecond Inftance is taken from Lev. x. 17. It is there faid, that the Sin Offering is most boly, and God hath given it you to bear the Iniquity of the Congregation, to make Atonement for them before the Lord. The thing to be proved from this place is, that the Sin Offering was defigned as a Subftitution in lieu of the Congregation. To bear the Iniquity of the Congregation, is certainly to remove it, to carry it away, to bear it off. The Sin Offering therefore that made the Atonement for the Congregation, took away

their Iniquity, or all Punishment due unto them. But How was this done? Not by offering Life for Life; nor by any Transfer of Crime or Punishment upon the Animal that was offered: but by fuch a Repentance and Obedience as was required. The Original word which we tranflate to bear, n, is a word of perhaps the greatest Uncertainty of meaning in the whole Hebrew tongue: and in courfe it is hard to fix its fenfe in particular places. The Vulgate here render it, ut portetis, that ye may carry: The LXX. va àpéλnte, that ye may take away; understanding it of the Priests, not of the Sin Offering; And fo the Arabic, and the Samaritan. In other places this phrase, to bear Sin, fignifies the direct contrary to what it does here, viz. to bring upon themselves Sin. Thus Exod. xxviii. 43. Linnen Breeches fball be upon Aaron, and his Sons, when they come in unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation, that they bear not Iniquity, and

gate very rightly render it, ne iniquitatis rei moriantur: and the LXX, xoy oux, ἐπάξονται πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς ἁμαρτιάν, They fall L

not