phrase as progressive culture make inevitable upon every subject of knowledge, for amid all the agitations the Author and Giver of salvation has maintained His own unswerving position, and imparted His unchanging truth. Notwithstanding occasional aberrations of sects or schools, and individual rejections ("wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved"), none not avowedly atheistic fail to claim recognition in the grand chorus of ascription to Him who should be always and everywhere "called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."

Within the present generation there has occurred one of these re-openings of the subject and demands for revision of specific statement, and an opportunity offers for serious discussion among those who are in essentials united, in non-essentials charitable. The movement is just now stirring the air of churches and pulpits and divinity schools, producing increasing freshness of thought and utterance in many quarters, or, as some fear, circulating malarious influence. Out of it have already come such books as those of Bushnell and Smeaton and Dale, Maurice and Robertson, reminding students of the old works of Anselm and Abelard, Aquinas and Scotus.

In attempting a slight contribution to the discussion, the title of this article will indicate the particular line pursued. The death of Christ had, undeniably, a sacrificial aspect. Was that real or only apparent? Did He, in His death, actually offer Himself as a sacrifice in any proper sense? If so, in what sense? and what place did His sacrifice occupy in the work of redemption which His earthly career fulfilled?

In seeking answers to these questions the method proposed is not the rationalistic, constructing out of the supposed requirements of fallen human nature an a priori scheme; nor even out of the elements of revelation a theory which reason will accept as satisfying all its inquiries; but rather, after the manner and in the spirit of the ancient motto of the schoolmen, "Faith seeking Knowledge," the aim will be to collate a few of the easily verified facts made known by revelation and history, and from them to formulate the doctrine which proves to be most intelligible to reason and most acceptable to conscience.

I. The first of these is the fact that God has, from the beginning, put into men's minds, and made universal, the idea of

Earliest recorded sacrifice.

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propitiation by sacrifice, and caused it to be the basis of their faith of acceptance with Him. Very near the opening of history, under the first intimation of man's effort toward peace with Him after the fall, we encounter this. The two sons of Adam are represented at their altars with their offerings; one is trustful, obedient, and accepted; the other unbelieving, disobedient, and condemned. In the Epistle to the Hebrews. the key to their conduct and its result is given. By that faith which is "assurance of things hoped for, a conviction (or proving) of things not seen," which to rationalism is blindness, but which "wrought with his works and by works was made. perfect," faith in God's requirement and promise, Abel made the acceptable offering to which God had respect. It cannot, indeed, be claimed as entirely clear, that this was a sin-offering rather than a thank-offering; but, judged in the light of similar transactions under positive appointment, the inference that it was so is legitimate. The language of God to Cain, which is often quoted as verifying the supposition, is not so interpreted by the best expositors. "If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door "; i.e. not a sin-offering is at hand—a lamb by whose offering, like that of Abel, thou mayest yet be forgiven and reinstated, but rather "sin," the power of evil, personified as a malignant enemy, "croucheth close to thee." It is a warning against impenitence, not an offer to faith. If thou persistest impenitently in ill-doing, sin will permanently master thee. "His desire is unto thee now, but thou shouldst subdue him and rule over him." If, thus warned and encouraged, Cain had subdued the evil which threatened to control his life, and turned with penitence to God, he would surely have offered a sacrifice like in substance, as well as in spirit, to that of Abel, and God would have had equal respect unto it. But however we may interpret these words, the supposition in regard to the accepted offering, that it was designed as a sacrifice of propitiation, stands at least in strong probability. It is the first recorded in an uninterrupted series through the ages. If so, whence came the conception and the practice in this original family of earth, whose then living head had been in closest communion with the Creator? The notion that it was merely the self-moved and unwarranted act of the natural mind feeling after God and peace, or a fanciful suggestion from the

observed tendency of inanimate objects (as "it was the way of the smoke to go heavenward, giving them a natural hint tɔ make it the vehicle of religion-sending up their cloud of homage by offering in fire upon their altars "), is a very inadequate explanation. Even if in any degree it accounts for that part of the offering which expended itself in the burning, what bearing has it upon the bloody part of their chief sacrificial transactions upon which, though not mentioned in this first instance, yet in all the continued history of religion such supreme stress was laid? Moreover, upon the assumption that it was a self-prompted, natural movement of the human mind, if it proves to be a movement from the beginning and practically uniform, it must be classed among those intuitive moral conceptions which are the developments of the Divine Creator's mind, wrought into the constitution of the creature; essentially a revelation, or equivalent to it. "A law unto themselves," because "the work of the law written in their hearts." So unavoidable is this judgment, that Dr. Bushnell (though with an object contrary to that intended in this Article) declares, "Sacrifices are not the mere spontaneous contrivances of men, but contrivings impelled and guided by God; just as truly appointed by Him as if ordered by some vocal utterance. from heaven."

Passing, however, beyond the first recorded case, we come to another still clearer. We find Noah coming forth from the ark to his act of sacrifice. There the distinction between clean and unclean animals is already recognised, typical of the cleansing from sin and consequent holiness required in the worshipper, and equally of the demand for such offerings as God would accept for the purpose of securing from Him such cleansing. The distinction was more fully developed afterward, when even the allowance of the things which they might eat suggested, by its strictness, to every Israelite their moral relations to Him, and that there could be no sound daily living, as well as no spiritual life, until peace was established with Him. No happiness nor holiness without pardon first. So, as Noah, with whatever foretokenings of "the law of the beasts, to make a difference between the clean and the unclean," was given to the antediluvian world, approached the altar, he took with him such as "a young calf for a sin-offering, and a kid of the goats

Pre-Mosaic sacrifices.

373

for a sin-offering, and a bullock and a ram for peace-offerings." The Divine response manifested both the propitiatory object and the propitiative effect, for" the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake."

Still keeping within the remote period preceding Moses, we read of Job, who "rose up early. in the morning and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of his sons; for he said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." No doubt there of the design of the sacrifices. And again we ask, How did such men, the righteous Abel, the just Noah, the perfect and upright Job, come to such thoughts and practices, with such purposes. and assurances and results, except through more than native instincts, through direct communication with Him who evidently conversed with them and taught them habitually concerning His will? It is a strange perversion, much like arrogance, to imagine otherwise; especially to attribute the whole system to the distorted, misguided operation of crude minds in the childhood of the race.

II. The second fact, more fully manifested in the process of development under Moses and the prophets, is that the sacrificial system has been evidently settled as the one essential method of salvation for all time. It is not necessary to reduce this statement to specifications by referring to the multiplied instances which fill the Scriptural record. It is sufficient to say that, as this well-established "common" law of religion, which had held sway over the race branching in every direction from the dispersion, became perverted, God tabulated it into positive statutes for His representative people. It is incredible that He should have done so if the original idea had been only a human invention, and a monstrous imputation. upon His wisdom and holiness to intimate that He adopted it. from heathen corruptions, to fasten it authoritatively upon His chosen nation for 1500 years. "The law and the prophets proclaim His unqualified sanction of the principle. The sacrifices of the former period were confirmed, and others added. They were required and made available for each generation and each person. There were variations of detail for specified purposes and cases; some were for social ends, collective or

separative, some for individual correction or stimulus; they bore upon every phase of wrongfulness, whether of ignorance, inadvertence, presumption, or guilt, and were carried out in every degree of love, excellence, or devotion consequent upon acceptance, but underneath them all lay the vital idea of expiation and propitiation. In the opening verses of Leviticus this fact is indicated. "If any man would bring an offering to the Lord of his own voluntary will," he must "put his hand upon the head of the offering" (the symbolic act by which in penitent faith he transferred the burden of his sins to the victim), and "it should be accepted for him to make atonement for him." Thus atonement preceded thanksgiving and consecration, as a prerequisite involved in every possibility of Divine favour. No gift presented to God, from the simplest fruit of the tree or soil to the choicest of the flock, would have been received if sin had not been first expiated. To repudiate the necessity was the error of Cain, as it has been the error of selfrighteousness ever since. The principle was always assumed when not expressly stated. The altar to which the gift was brought was a blood-sprinkled altar, and the worshipper must have "a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience." The principle ran also through the current life of the Israelite. The great annual day of atonement in the first month of the year, on which expiation was made for the sins both of priest and people, taught its profound lesson and sent on its hallowed influence for every day of the year, to be renewed by a multitude of minor tresspass-offerings as occasion might require. "According to the law, I may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission." (Heb. ix. 22.)

But while the law was thus making its immediate requisitions and giving its immediate satisfactions, its symbols were always suggesting something to come. The prophecies also, which began with the law and kept pace with it, from Eden onward, pointed distinctly or obscurely to the same—“ a sacrifice of richer blood and nobler name "-which in its turn pointed back to the former for its illustration and interpretation. There is the continual interweaving of one illuminating thought from the beginning of revelation to the end; proving the unity of design and unity of method in the entire scheme