of sin." The moral precept addresses the conscience. Sacrifice and ceremony speak the same language. This was the grand design of sacrifice, and, indeed, of the whole dispensation. In point of fact, the priest and the offerer acknowledged their criminality by imposition of hands on the head of the victim. It must be equally kind to show him the extent of his guilt. The violated statute declares the crime amounts to the forfeiture of life, with all its rights and privileges. "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die." And the violent death of the victim, the out-streaming of its blood, the dismemberment of the body, and consumption of the flesh by fire on the altar, proclaim the death and destruction the offerer deserved. It must be kinder still to point him to the remedy. The sacrifice appealed to the "promise" as the means by which its beneficent intention should be realized. It pointed to mercy without showing clearly how it could be legitimately dispensed. By signals of wrath, it urged the offerer to flee to the Legislator, who had announced his own "name," almost in the same breath, with the "fiery law;"-a name so full of assurances of mercy and pardon for every species of guilt-"The Lord, the Lord. God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." This was its spiritual intention. It had another: it opened a way to the Israelite to all the rights and immunities guaranteed to the honouring of its requirements. The sacredness of the tabernacle and of the priest's office; the ransom of the first-born; and the prohibition to eat blood-the feeder of the natural, and the symbol of the restoration of both the natural and spiritual life-ministered directly to the former intention, and also subserved the latter. the penal statutes, which form no inconsiderable portion of the law, and so strikingly demonstrate guilt, present the semblance of a powerful argument against the benevolence of the entire dispensation. Without pretending to perfect accuracy in our enumeration, there appear to be sixteen capital offences.* How is this amount of capital But * The criminal code specifies twenty-seven offences, of which the punishment is death. Of these, seventeen are violations of the first table of the law; three are infringements of the fifth commandment; one, of the sixth; and six, of the seventh. They are arranged in this order in the following catalogue: 1. Idolatry; Deut. xiii. 1-11; xvii. 2-7; Ex. xxii. 20. 2. Divination; Ex. xxii. 18; Lev. xix. 31; xx. 2-6. 3. Blasphemy; Lev. xx. 10-16. 4. Sabbath profanation; Ex. xxxi. 14, 15; Num. xv. 32–36. 5. Presumptuous transgression; Num. xv. 30, 31. 6. Civic contumacy; Deut. xvii. 8-13; xviii. 20-22. 7. Human sacrifice; Lev. xx. 2-5. 8. Private sacrifice; Lev. xvii. 8, 9. 9. Blood-eating; Lev. xvii. 10-14. 10. Eating peace-offering after the second day; Lev. xix. 8. 11. Not fasting on the day of annual atonement; Lev. xxiii. 29, 30. 12. Intrusion into the priest's office; Num. xvi. 10. 13. One not a Levite entering the sanctuary; Num. i. 51; iii. 10-38. 14. Counterfeiting the sacred oil; Ex. xxx. 33. 15. Pouring it on one not a Levite; Ex. xxx. 33. 16. The impure eating the peace-offering; Lev. vii. 20, 21. punishment consistent with the universal benevolence of the systein ? Suppose the apostolic expression, "the law was added because of transgression" (Gal. iii. 19), to mean, that the law was a punitive ispensation added to the promise, or, to adopt parliamentary language, a punitive rider on the bill of human salvation-which is, taking a view of the case, the most unfavourable to our position -the question is, "Are these penal enactments inconsistent with justice ?" Is the punishment of crime unjust? It is an axiom that it is not. It is an illustration of justice. But, if not unjust, it is not unkind. For what is justice but benevolence regulated?-goodness equalized and defended? Justice and benevolence are of equal dimensions; and whatever is unjust is unkind. Moreover, human life is forfeited; and its possession is the result of forbearance, founded on the vindication of the claims of equity of its Author and Lord. Are the statutes, the infringement of which dooms to death, such as the subject could obey? It will not be pretended that any one of them is too hard, even for depraved man. They are moral and religious principles expressed in acts that might be avoided and enforced by a sanction. And the Hebrew people, debased as they were, were perfectly competent to the task of honouring every one of them, and enjoying an entire immunity from their threatened inflictions. But what was the character of the world at the age of that legisla tion? The nations were sunk in the deepest debasement. The coarser passions bore sway: sensuality, unbridled lust, cruelty, rapacity, implacable rage, and contempt of moral sanction, with an utter absence of all spiritual conception, and recognition of a purely spiritual almighty Governor and Judge. Crimes, the name of which must not pollute christian lips, and which it were an outrage of decorum to mention in mere morally polished society, were esteemed venial, and practised with avidity. The effusions of a sensual muse, the recital of deeds of hardihood and blood, and the adventures of marauding and plunder, were listened to with relish and merriment, and applauded as lawful transactions. Their social assemblies were Bacchanalian revels, 17. Eating the fat of the sacrifice; Lev. vii. 24, 25. 18. Filial insubordination and debauchery; Deut. xxi. 18-21. 19. Execration of parents; Lev. xx. 9; Ex. xxi. 17. 20. Kidnapping; Ex. xxi. 16.. 21. Murder; Ex. xxi. 12-14; Lev. xxiv. 17. 22. Adultery; Deut. xx. 22–26; Lev. xx. 10-14. 23. Incest; Lev. xx. 14-17. 24. Impure intercourse; Lev. xx. 18. 25. Confirmed unchastity in the high priest's daughter; Lev. xxi, 9. 27. Beastiality; Lev. xx. 15, 16. It may be objected we are making the penal statutes more numerous than they actually are. This may be true. Some of the offences specified in the list were merely particular cases of the same crime. Thus, Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, and 17, range under idolatry. Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, might rank with presumptuous transgression, or under the general head of overt acts of infidelity. This arrangement reduces the penal statutes to sixteen, the number specified in the text. It may be noticed, too, that human sacrifice ranges under both the first and sixth commandments,-a double crime. their wars, massacre and extermination, and their war-songs, the gloatings of revenge over mangled victims. The deities before whom they bowed were personifications of passion and crime, and their religious festivals, carnivals of impurity and riot. The immediate subjects of the law were rude, sensual, refractory, lawless tribes, just emancipated from thraldom, and licentious of liberty-a strange compound of contumacious self-well and pusilanimity, pride, and dastardly meanness; who, ere ever the penal statutes had been promulgated, "had filled up the measure of their iniquity," as well as the nations they were to supersede. They had witnessed the lightings down of Jehovah's arm on their oppressors, and reposed in safety under the blood of atonement; and they retained neither the impressed awe of the judgments, nor the gratitude of the protection. They had walked on a dry pathway through the deep, while their reckless pursuers sank as lead under the rolled-back billows; and their bursting song of triumph merged into the murmurs of discontent, and the tumult of insurrection. Delivered, and led through wilderness and flood by miracle, and accompanied by the visible symbols of the presence of Jehovah, they rose in rebellion against the chosen agents of their emancipation, and betrayed the reigning infidelity of their spirit in the pointed question, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" And at the base of Sinai they consummated their guilt by ascribing to an idol the glory of their emancipation and guidance, while the God of majesty thundered in the heavens, and the voice of his fiery law" was ringing in their ears. But incorrigible offenders, who will neither be overawed by judgments, nor won by kindness, must be persuaded by the terrors of law; (I Tim. i. 8-10.) If considerations of their true interests as men and citizens, and regard to their liberties and lives, have ceased to impel; if moral sanctions have lost their power; if men are proof against all the conciliating influences of kind treatment and signal mercies; if faith in a presiding Divinity has vanished; if open resistance of his will, and defiance of his power, knit the brow, and lower the eye, in the scene of his marvels, and within hearing of his words from the thunder-cloud of his ire, there remaineth nothing for them but law, with its penalties. The lawgiver and the statute-book, the officer of justice, the tribunal and its solemn decision, are the appropriate agents and appliances of the case. Whatever vitality is in the conscience must be pierced with the pointed statute; the instinctive love of life must be plied, when the deadness of the soul to higher interests neutralizes the moral and spiritual motive; and the blunted sensibility of the heart must be reached by the dread of corporeal infliction. But the beneficent design of the criminal statutes must not be overlooked. Their intent unquestionably was to deter from the commission of crime, and thus diminish the number of overt acts; to moralize at least the outward conduct; to demonstrate, by obvious marks, the ungodliness of the heart, and the powerlessness of all compulsory enactments for the reformation of the world. And shall the holy God suffer iniquity, unchecked, to stalk abroad in open day, and lift its head to the heavens? Shall he be so unjust as to treat alike the obedient and the rebellious? Shall the Father of the great family put no distinction between the son who obeys him, and the prodigal of NO. VIII. VOL. XI.—AUGUST 1843. 3 D contumacy and vileness? Shall the Judge of all the earth teach this revolted province of his dominions, that flagrant transgressions are no crime, even among the people of his choice, and the recipients of his favours? Shall he confound the Jehovah of the Hebrews with the gods of the nations, and bid higher than they for the patronage of impurity? Shall infinite benevolence abrogate the eternal boundaries. of vice and virtue, and convert earth into a theatre of hell, when the righteous and beneficent expedient of salutary punishment lies open for his adoption? Shall he abandon, or even interrupt, his gracious purpose of redeeming the world-of diffusing peace and felicity over the nations, and peopling heaven with myriads of ransomed immortals -on the plea of leniency to incorrigible outlaws, for whose sake one almost wishes he belonged not to the species, and whom it were kindness to cut off from the liberty of earning for themselves a deadlier doom in the regions of woe? Shall infinite goodness slumber in the heavens, while earth revels in crime around the altar of his holiness, and leave the pure intelligences of the universe without the protection of his shield? Shall they be constrained to draw the conclusion, that the glorious Head of the universe is a sharer of imperfection, and, for aught that appears, the author of the disorder-the surmise of which, in the spirits of the holy, would be the first step of their departure from allegiance to their dread Sovereign, and the shock of expulsion from the thrones of their glory? No! Justice and expediency, goodness and mercy, religion and virtue, man's welfare, angels' safety, and the great name of God, forbid it. Thus righteousness and goodness, the interests of the human family, and the felicity of the universe, set the seal of benevolence on the penal statutes of the legal dispensation. Thus, in whatever aspect we view man, the law bears the relation of a benevolent institution. Its provisions are large, and exactly adapted to his circumstances; and it extends its kind references to every descendant of the patriarch. The legal atonement is based on the principle of universal benevolence. We are warranted to infer as wide a reference of the atonement, as the extent of the benefits of the insti tution of which it is the centre. This much, at least, whatever more, the first principles of the case argue. We forbear, however, to take this short though patent path to our conclusion, and proceed to an examination of the facts. Sacrifice is the most splendid symbol in the legal dispensation-as complete a portraiture as type could embody of its leading designs-the exhibition of the magnitude of human guilt, and the awful import of the grand principle of the redeeming provisions, that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Standing between the moral code and the purpose of mercy-the suggestive sign of the means by which the purpose was to be achieved, and of the unbending rectitude of that law which is embosomed in the holiness of the Lord of glory, and redolent of his benignity-it erects the standard of substitution, and throws its shield over the transgressor. But we must ascertain the boundaries of its range. To minister to the evolution of the paramount ends of the economy, the Legislator constructed two species of statutes-one moral, and the other ritual. The moral and ritual are not kept entirely distinct: they, of necessity, overleap each other; for what is physical in one aspect, is in another moral. Of the former class he has framed at least sixteen, which interdict ten moral acts, from the commission of which even fallen man might abstain. To their violation he has annexed the punishment of death. These are a portion of the moral code, fashioned on the type of man's fallen estate, to bring clearly to view and expose the utter ungodliness of his spirit, and his helplessness, and to stigmatize it as rebellion by legitimate inflictions: (Rom. v. 20.) To this class of statutes, representing the whole moral law, the legal atonement bears a direct reference. It proclaims their glory, and suggests the means of answering their claims, and retrieving their injured honours. But here its office terminates. It owns its incompetence to aid the guilty farther. It holds out no immunity from the retribution of the moral law, and affords no protection from its thunderbolts. But ere it retires from the field, it kindly points with the finger of blood to the mysterious expedient of benevolence wrapt up in the promise of the Seed of the woman, who should destroy the headship of the usurper; of the Son of Abraham, who should diffuse blessedness over all nations; of Shiloh, the missioned One, to whom the gathering of the people should be; and of the Prophet like to Moses, for whom Jehovah claims, with power of awful sanction, the reverent ear and entire obedience of every soul of man; and that, too, with perhaps nearly as much distinctness of index, to the mind of a people accustomed to read fact, event, and circumstance, in sign, similitude, and symbol, as an unfigured declaration would note the reference to a man trained by modern literature to conventional signs and abstract thinking, and gifted by the evangelical system with pure, moral, and spiritual conception. The reference, therefore, of their atonement to the Hebrews, as subjects of moral law, was that of a solemn testimony to its glory, and an index that directed their eye to the great High Priest, who needeth not daily to offer for his own sins and the people's, but who, by the one offering of himself, exalts to glory all the sanctified. The second class of statutes is ritual. A great variety of objects, acts, and circumstances, were constituted ritually unholy. Their grand characteristic was rituality, while they had a salutary moral influence. They were intended to impress the mind with the sense of the constant presence and operation of sin in the heart and life; and the sacrifice by which they were answered, directed the worshipper to the great remedy. By violation of these statutes, guilt was contracted, and the subject of it was excluded from the rights and privileges of the entire dispensation. To these the legal atonement bears an immediate relation. The nature and extent of its reference to them is this:-The atonement of Moses satisfactorily answered and honoured all the ritual causes which interdicted the reading of the law and the communication of its benefits to the Hebrew nation, and produced ample ritual reasons for the conveyance of all the kind intentions of the Legislator to every descendant of Abraham. It was a perfect vindication of the ritual government of the Lawgiver, and illustration of his character, as revealed in it. The ritually unholy were debarred from the national sanctuary, where the law, which was the charter of their rights, was promulgated in the audience of the purified congregation. On the presentation of the appointed sacrifice, and the observance of the |