Bellarmine and Pascal. As to the Reformed Church, the quotations I have given above, from the Formula Consensus Helvetica, from the Westminster Confession and Catechism, and from Ursinus and Turretin, must suffice, in connection with the following from Theodore Beza, the great pupil and friend and successor of John Calvin. Writing on Rom. v. 12, he says: “Two things should be considered in original sin, namely, guilt and corruption; which, although they cannot be separated, yet ought to be distinguished accurately. For as Adam by the commission of sin first was made guilty of the wrath of God, then, as being guilty, hé underwent as _ the punishment of sin the corruption of soul and body ; ' so also he transmitted to posterity a nature in the first place guilty, next corrupted. Concerning the propaga- tion of guilt the apostle is properly teaching in this passage, in contrast with which the imputation of the obedience of Christ is set forth. Hence it follows that that guilt which precedes corruption is by the imputation of Adam’s disobedience, as the remission of sins and the abolition of guilt is by the imputation of the obedience of Christ. Nothing can be plainer.” * Testimony of the Rocks.
eran, and Reformed Churches.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHRIST WAS, IN THE STRICT JEWISH SENSE, A SACRIFICE. THE JEWISH SACRIFICES WERE STRICTLY PIACULAR, AND THEY WERE TYPICAL OF THE SACRIFICE OF OUR LORD.
CHAPTER |e ap ee
val xe UR third argument is derived from the fact that d, Rete the Scriptures constantly represent Christ as Heads of iN \@ Ai dying, and thus effecting the salvation of his argument ““"_—~ people as a SACRIFICE. The points involved in this argument are the following :—1. From the dawn of sacred history the first and everywhere prevailing mode in which the true people of God worshipped him with acceptance was in the use of bloody sacrifices. From the family of Adam this usage prevailed among the inhabitants of all countries and the votaries of all re- ligions up to the time of Christ. And these sacrifices were nine? regarded by those offering them as ‘iearious sufferings, expiating sin and propitiating. God. 2. The sree which God SLY under the Mosaic economy were certainly expiatory. 3. They were, more- over, certainly typical of the sacrifice re Christ ; that is, Christ, in dying, expiated the sins of chis-Oreiy’ people on precisely the same principles that the Jewish.sacrifices. - e s violation of the ceremonial law. otsaxi 1, That sacrifices originated in the family of Adam, Hees. that down to the time of Christ they continued the in- separable accompaniment of all acceptable worship, and that they were diffused among the people of all lands and all religions, are simple matters of fact admitted by
SACRIFICES PIACULAR AND TYPICAL. 115
all. It has, however, been much disputed whether they cmarrzr originated in an immediate divine revelation, and whether hi their observance was at first imposed by divine authority. The early Christian Fathers generally, the learned and orthodox Outram, the great body of Socinian, Rational- istic, and Broad Church writers, as Maurice and Bush- nell, have answered this question in the negative; while the Unitarians, Priestley, Dr. John Young, and the great body of orthodox divines, have decided affirmatively. _ This is just as we should have expected to find it. The question as to the origin and character of the primitive sacrifices is not necessarily bound up with the far more important questions which concern the Mosaic sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ. Men may take orthodox views as to the divine origin of sacrifice, while they utterly misconceive its true nature and design. Yet truth is so self-consistent in all its parts, that it is eminently natural for all those who believe that the Mosaic sacrifices were piacular, and that they were typical of the work of Christ, to believe that the whole system of primitive sacrifices was ordained by God to be typical of that great event. At any rate, their divine origin appears to be estab- Divine _ lished with sufficient certainty by the following con- Wa siderations :—-l. It is inconceivable that either the propriety or probable utility of presenting material gifts to the invisible God, and especially of attempting to propitiate God ‘by the slaughter of his irrational creatures, should ever have occurred to the human mind as a spontaneous suggestion. Every instinctive sentiment and every presumption of reason must, in the first instance, have appeared to exclude them. 2. On the hypothesis that God intended to save men, it is incon- ceivable that he should have left them without instruc- tion upon a question so vital as that concerned in the
CHAPTER vill.
Primitive sacrifices piacular.
116 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.