mode of sacrifice, as well as the occasion of its being offered, clearly ascertained the case of its vicarious import.

But it deserves to be considered, whether even the cases of the puerpera, the leper, and the Nazirite, on which, as they seem to imply nothing of crime, Sykes and other writers of that class lay so much stress, do not bear such à relation to sin, as to justify the oblation of the animal sacrifice in the view here contended for. It deserves to be considered, whether the pains of childbearing, and all diseases of the human body, (of which leprosy in the Eastern countries was deemed the most grievous,) being the signal consequences of that apostacy, which had entailed these 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 an humble acknowledgment of that personal demerit, which had actually exposed the offerer on so many occasions to the severest punishment. That this was the notion entertained by the Jewish doctors, with the additional circumstance of the imputation of actual crime, in these cases of human suffering, has been already shewn, pp. 268, 269.-see also Vitringa on Isai. hii. 4. There seems likewise good ground to think, that the idea of distempers, as penal in

flictions for sins, was prevalent in the earliest ages even among the heathen, see Harris's Com ment. on the lid. ch. of Isai. p. 235, also Martini, as quoted by Rosenm. Schol. in Jesai. p. 909. The case of the Nazirite, it must be confessed, seems more difficult to be reconciled to the principle here laid down. And yet, if with Lightfoot (Hor: Hebr. in Luc. i. 15.) it be admitted, that "the law of the Nazirites had a reference to Adam, while under the prohibition in his state of innocence," and that it was " designed in commemoration of the state of innocence before the fall," (an idea for which he finds strong support in the traditions of the Jews) it may seem not unreasonable to conclude, that the sacrifice offered by the Nazirite polluted by the DEAD, was intended to commemorate that death, which was the consequence of Adam's fall from innocence, and which was now become the desert of sinful man. And thus the case of the Nazirite, as well as those of the puerpera and the leper, seems sufficiently reducible to the notion of sacrifice here laid down. But let this be as it may, it is clear, that to prove that a sacrifice may be vicarious, it is not necessary to shew that every sacrifice is so: no more than, for the purpose of proving that there are sacrifices for sins, it is necessary to shew that every sacrifice is of that nature.

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We come now to the fifth, and last, objec tion; in which it is urged, that atonements for sin being made in some cases without any animal sacrifice, but merely by an offering of flour; by piacular sacrifice it could never be intended to imply the vicarious substitution of a life. To this the answer is obvious, that although no vicarious substitution of a life could be conceived, where life was not given at all: yet from this it cannot follow, that where a life was given, it might not admit a vicarious import. It should be remembered, that the case here alluded to was a case of necessity; and that this offering of flour was accepted, only where the offerer was so poor, that he could not by any possibility procure an animal for sacrifice. Can then any thing be inferred from a case, such as this, in which the offerer must have been altogether. precluded from engaging in any form of worship, and shut out from all legal communion with his God, or indulged in this inferior sort of offering? Besides is it not natural to conceive, that this offering of flour being indulged to the poor man, in the place of the animal sacrifice which, had he been able, he was bound to offer, he should consider it but as a substitute for the animal sacrifice? And that being burnt and destroyed upon the altar, he might naturally conceive of it, as a symbol and representation of that destruction, due to his own demerits? And

to all this it may be added, that this individual might be taught to look to the animal sacrifices, offered for all the sins of all the people on the day of atonement, for the full and complete consummation of those less perfect atonements, which alone he had been able to make.

These constitute the sum total of the arguments, which have been urged against the vicarious nature of the legal piacular atonements. How far they are conclusive against the notion of their vicarious import here contended for, it is not difficult to judge. It deserves to be noted, that in the examination of these arguments, I have allowed them the full benefit of the advantage, which their authors have artfully sought for them; namely, that of appreciating their value, as applied to the sacrifices of the law considered independently of that great sacrifice, which these were but intended to prefigure, and from which alone they derived whatever virtue they possessed. When we come hereafter to consider them, as connected with that event in which their true significancy lay, we shall find the observations which have been here made acquiring a tenfold strength.

What the opinions of the Jewish writers are upon the subject of this Number, has been already explained in Number XXXIII. Whoever wishes for a more extensive review of the testimonies which they supply, on the three points,

of the translation of the offerer's sins, the consequent pollution of the animal, and the redemption of the sinner by the substitution of the victim,-may consult Outram De Sacrif. lib. i. cap. xxii. 4-12.

NO. XXXIX.

-ON THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS UPON THE HEAD OF THE VICTIM.

PAGE 34. (1)—The ceremony of the imposi tion of hands upon the head of the victim, has been usually considered, in the case of piacular sacrifices, as a symbolical translation of the sins of the offender upon the head of the sacrifice; and as a mode of deprecating the evil due to his transgressions. So we find it represented by Abarbinel, in the introduction to his commentary on Leviticus, (De Viel. p. 301.): and so the ceremony of the Scape Goat in Lev. xvi. 21. seems directly to assert. And it is certain, that the practice of imprecating on the head of the victim, the evils which the sacrificer wished to avert from himself, was usual amongst the heathen, as appears particularly from Herodotus, (lib. ii. cap. 39.) who relates this of the Egyptians, and at the same time asserts that no Egyptian would so much as "taste the head of any animal," but under the influence of this religious