of the inefficacy of these principles, to effect any moral renovation among mankind? How is it? or what is the cause of this unbroken slumber, while all other societies are awake, and on the alert? Individuals, not a few in this denomination, abound in wealth; but why is it not consecrated to the Lord? I am apprehensive, that sin, in its influence on the eternal state of men, is but slightly regarded. That the terrible denunciations of God against it, in reference to another world, are but seldom considered; and that the crimes of men are viewed as their frailties, infirmities, and misfortunes, rather than wilful offences, obstinate and criminal attachment to folly, determined hatred of truth, and heartenmity against God. I have not allowed myself to speak so freely in these remarks, from an ill-tempered or licentious freedom but I consider the freezing coldness and death-like stillness of Socinianism, as the natural consequence of a denial of the atonement of Christ, and perfectly consistent with the deductions legitimately drawn from the rejection of this fundamental truth. It is a mercy that such indisposition to spread these pernicious sentiments abroad, does so generally prevail. We congratulate the world on this stillness of death, which pervades this department of error. Sufficient activity is apparent in other crooked ways: no need of exertion here. Indeed, at home, there has been something like a movement occasionally, in circulating tracts, preaching about the non-existence of the devil, &c. among those already professing the doctrines of the gospel ; but few villages have been entered, little has been attempted to chase the darkness yet pervading many parts of our own land. Nor, indeed, can any thing influence men generally to laborious and lasting exertions, self-denial, and sufferings, in the cause of the Redeemer, but a full conviction, that the Saviour is divine, and that we are not our own, but His who redeemed us unto God by his own blood. These truths felt warm upon the heart, lead the Christian Missionary to forsake all the comforts of home, and go to China or Japan, or to the farthest extremities of the globe, amongst nations the most rude and barbarous, with holy alacrity and pleasure, "not accounting his life dear unto himself, so he may but finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he has received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” CHAPTER IV. The Atonement of Christ argued from the Sacrifices under the Jewish Dispensation. "That when they see "Law can discover sin, but not remove, "Of conscience; which the law by ceremonies Milton. Ir T would be going far beyond my design, to take a particular and distinct view of all the various sa-crifices and offerings under the Jewish dispensation. I can only select such as most evidently support my leading design. And, in correspondence with this intention, I observe, that sacrifices were not designed to express the gratitude of the worshipper. It may admit of a question, whether sacrifices, properly so called, were ever intended for this purpose. There were various oblations appointed, which had this especially in view; as, the "thank-offerings”— "peace-offerings"-"wave-sheaf"-all "first-fruits” -"first-born of men and of cattle:" but sacrifices immediately concerned the transgressions of men. Nor is there any reason to conclude, that their chief intention was to prevent idolatry. It is true, nations were, in the early ages of the world, prone to idolatry: the Jews had a strong propensity to this aberration from the worship of the true God, in common with the nations around them. But it may rather seem, that idolatry grew out of the abuse of the appointment of sacrifices by Jehovah. In a little while after the fall, the worship of God was corrupted, and the name of Jehovah was attached to the names of the founders of different tribes and nations; and those victims which had bled by divine appointment, were continued to be offered when the true object of worship was forgotten. Every day brought before the worshipper his own sins, but he gave up the service due to his Creator, and deprecated the displeasure of Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, or any other imaginary tutelary deity, which he, his aneestors, or his countrymen, had chosen as an object of worship. Nor was the ritual of Moses designed merely for civil or political purposes. No doubt can be entertained, but a system of civil polity was interwoven with the various laws of the Mosaic Economy: but sacrifices seem to have been instituted for purposes purely of a religious nature. And I may, in the very first instance, remark, that in many cases thé laws of them supposed the imputation of sin to creatures morally innocent. The creature to be presented as an offering, was to be "without spot or blemish." Exod. xii. 5, Lev. ix. 3. xiv. 10. xxiii. 12. An awful curse rested on that man who dared to vow and offer unto the Lord a corrupt thing: "But cursed be the deceiver who hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing." Mal. i. 14. This might seem to intimate, that if an atonement were made for sin, that could never be performed by any suffering the offender himself might endure; for he who needed the atonement was altogether diseased: "From the sole of his foot even unto the head," was he destitute of soundness; he was wholly "wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores." Isa. i. 6. Who then shall present a suitable, an acceptable offering, for sin, to the insulted Majesty of Heaven? Surely not man in his own person. If a natural blemish rendered a sacrifice inefficacious, how shall a sacrifice wholly corrupted by sin be regarded with pleasure? When a man had sinned through ignorance he was to bring to the door of the tabernacle, "a young bullock, without blemish, unto the Lord, for Н |