shadowed them"-probably the Shekinah, or cloud of glory, which rested on the lid of the ark; and the symbolical visible splendour of Jehovah's local presence appeared on the person of Jesus, in manifestation of peculiar divine favour. It is not easy to understand why this glory should be thought to have been inherent in Jesus, instead of derivative from God, whose voice was heard speaking from the cloud. But if it be considered as a proof of supra-human nature and pre-existent glory, a similar inference may be drawn as to the nature of Moses: Exodus xxxiv. 29, "And it came to pass when Moses came down from mount Sinai (with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when, he came down from the mount) that Moses, wist not that the skin of his face shone; and they were. afraid to come nigh him. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face."

It is attempted to discover traces of Christ's preexistence under the Old Testament dispensation.

I COR. X. 4. They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ.

As it is said of the Israelites, "whose are the Fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh [or by natural sonship] Christ came," and as Abraham "saw the day" of Christ, and "was glad," it cannot be difficult to understand that they who were "baptized unto Moses," drank of the spiritual promises in the Christ that was to come.

1 COR. X. 9. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.

"As some also tempted" need not refer to Christ, "Neither let us tempt Christ now, as the Israelites tempted God of old." This must be the sense attached to the passage, till clear proofs shall be established of Christ's pre-existent agency under the Old Testament dispensation. Some MSS.

read the Lord, instead of Christ, and the Alexandrine reads, God.

1 PETER i. 10. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired, and searched diligently; searching what the Spirit of Christ [the spirit of prophecy concerning Christ] which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ.

HEBREWS XI. 26. [Moses] esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Ægypt.

The reproach of Christ, in the literal sense, has nothing in connexion with the cause of the enmity of the house of Pharaoh towards Moses; or if it had, can imply nothing of Christ then existing, otherwise than prophetically, or in promise. If there be a personal reference to Christ, the words must import that Moses, while obeying the will of God. in delivering the Israelites out of Egypt, endured a like reproach to that which Christ endured, while delivering the whole Israel of God from the bondage of death and sin. But Moses is possibly himself spoken of as a Christ, a person anointed-a term applied to Israel, as the chosen race, by David, Ps. cv. 15; and by Habakkuk, iii. 13; he prized reproach as an anointed servant of Jehovah, beyond the pomp which he might have enjoyed as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Use is made of the ambiguous title, Lord, in the Greek and English version.

GEN. Xviii. 1, 2. And THE LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre. And he lift up his eyes, and lo, three men stood by him.

We have here the common figure of the messenger bearing the name of him who sent him. So again, ver. 13, "THE LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh?" The Lord said to him through the mouth of his angel. Ver. 26, "And THE LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes." Ver. 33, "And THE LORD

went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham."

Now that this was one of the THREE MEN, whether prophets armed with power, or angelic beings under a human semblance, who spoke from THE LORD, is plain from the beginning of the next chapter: xix. 1," And there came two angels to Sodom at even. The third was he who had remained behind to commune with Abraham. where is the evidence that this was Christ?

But

Christ is also thought to have walked in the fiery furnace: Dan. iii. 25, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." How should the idolater Nebuchadnezzar have known any thing of Christ, or of his title? The original is, a son of God: a God-like shape, or divine person.

It has been affirmed also to have been Christ that appeared to Moses in the flaming thicket. These notions originated with the Platonic Father Justin Martyr; who is followed by Irenæus, Tertullian, and Eusebius. This fantastical hypothesis is eagerly adopted by the worshipper of a Trinity, and is complacently assented to by the advocates of a super-angelic nature.

These hypotheses of Christ having been the Angel who appeared in place of JEHOVAR, and the medium of all his revelations in the Old Testament history, are explicitly refuted by a passage of Paul Heb. i. 1, "GoD who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last times spoken unto us by his Son."

APPEAL

ΤΟ

SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION.

Part III.

ON THE

DOCTRINE OF A SATISFACTIONAL OR
PROPITIATORY ATONEMENT.

DISSERTATION.

AFTER the Gospel had spread for some time

among the Gentiles, the figures and peculiar idioms of the Jewish writers, and in particular their sacrificial allusions, began to be misapprehended; but the ancient ideas respecting the purposes to be effected by Christ's death fell very short of the doctrine of satisfaction, which, in its full scholastic extent, is absolutely modern. Some of the ancient Fathers either maintain quite contrary opinions, or pass over in silence what is now insisted upon, in the usual spirit of theological dogmatism, as "one of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity." Others explain the ransom, which is the Scripture-metaphor for the means of our deliverance from sin and death, in a very different manner.

Some of these writers, indeed, speak of the blood of Christ as shed for our salvation, in so far as it was a motive for obedience; but, so far from holding the

utter inefficacy, and still less the sinfulness of human righteousness, they suppose that good works and dispositions, humility, charity, compassion, induce God to forgive, and even make satisfaction for sin; an idea which would be now reprobated as heterodox. They do not indeed say that they are of themselves justifications, but that they are so through God's mercy and propitious acceptance of them, and on account of faith; by which is not meant a faith in Christ's vicarious righteousness, but, in the genuine Gospel sense of the term, a faith in Jesus as the Son of God. They assign, as the purposes of Christ's coming, the example which he set of living and dying, and the necessity of death being destroyed through the union of corruptible humanity with incorruptible divinity; and they speak of Christ's buying us with his blood, but explain it only by his purchasing to himself faithful Christians and martyrs, and not at all in the sense of his having paid a price for our forgiveness.

Athanasius supposes that Christ died to procure the resurrection; but even this does not come, up to the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice for the obtaining of pardon for sin.

• Austin says, "in this way, by good works, we come to God, and are reconciled to him. When we shall be brought before his presence, let our good works there speak for us, and let them so speak as to prevail over our offences." But he says not a word of Christ's all-atoning merits, and the inefficiency of our own works and repentance. He talks, indeed, of Christ's taking our punishment, but he adds, "not our guilt;" and says, by taking our punishment, not our guilt, he abolished both guilt and punishment." This is. quite contrary to the received notion of his "bearing our sins;" which, in the original Scripture-term, implies the bearing them away."

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