But a respectable writer objects, — namely, Rutherford on Provi- dence, chap. xxii. p. 355, — that this argument, that that which men know of God by the natural power of conscience must be naturally
* Socin., de Autlioritate Scripturoc; lib. edit, sub nomino Dominici Lopez, Soc. Jc3.
ARGUMENTS FOR VINDICATORY JUSTICE — CONSENT OF MANKIND. 523
inherent in God, is of no Aveiglit. " For," says he, " by the natural power of conscience, men know that God does many good things freely, without himself; as, for instance, that he has created the world, that the sun rises and gives hght; — and yet in these opera- tions God does not act from any necessity of nature,"
But this learned man blunders miserably here, as often elsewhere, in his apprehension of the design and meaning of his opponents ; for they do not use this argument to prove that the egresses of divine justice are necessary, but that justice itself is necessary to God; which Socinians deny. What is his answer to these arguments? "Man- kind acknowledge many things," says he, " which God does freely." To be sure they do, when he exhibits them before their eyes; but what follows from that? So, too, they acknowledge that God punishes sin, when he punishes it. But because all mankind, from the works of God and from the natural power of conscience, acknowledge God to be good and bountiful, we may, without hesitation, conclude good- ness and bounty to be essential attributes of God : so likewise, because, from the natural power of conscience and the consideration of God's works of providence, they conclude and agree that God is just, we contend that justice is natural to God.
But as mankind have testified this consent by other methods, so they have especially done it by sacrifices; concerning which Pliny says, " That all the world have agreed in them, although enemies or strangers to one another." But since these are plainly of a divine origin, and instituted to prefigure, so to speak, the true atonement by the blood of Christ, in which he hath been the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, — that is, from the promise made of the seed of the woman, and from the sacrifice of Abel which followed, — the use of them descended to all the posterity of Adam : therefore, though afterward the whole plan and purpose of the institution was lost among by far the greatest part of mankind, and even the true God himself, to whom alone they were due, was unknown, and though no traces of the thing signified, — namely, the promised seed, — remained, yet still the thing itself, and the general notion of appeasing the Deity by sacrifices, hath survived all the darkness, impieties, dreadful wickedness, punishments, migrations of nations, downfalls and destructions of cities, states, and people, in which the world for these many ages hath been involved ; for a consciousness of sin, and a sense of divine and avenging justice, have taken deeper root in the heart of man than that they can by any means be eradi- cated.
There were four kinds of sacrifices among the Gentiles: — First, the propitiatory or peace-making sacrifices; for by those they thought they could render the gods propitious or appease them, or avert the anger of the gods, and obtain peace with them. Hence
524 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART I.
these verses on that undertaking of the Greeks, in the exordium of Homer : —
" Ent let some prophet or some sacred sage J^xplore the cause of great Apollo's rage : Or leam the wasteful vengeance to remove By mystic dreams ; for dreams descend from Jove. If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, Let altars smoke and hecatombs be paid : So Heaven atoned shall dying Greece restore, And Plioebus dart his burning shafts no more." — Pope's Homer.
They were desirous of appeasing Apollo by sacrifices, who had in- flicted on them a lamentable mortality. To the same pui-pose is that passage of Virgil, —
* The prophet ' first with sacrifice adores The greater gods; their pardon then implores." — Dryden's Virgil.
Hence, too, that lamentation of the person in the Poenulus of Plau- tus, who could not make satisfaction to his gods : — ■
" Unhappy man that I am," says he, " to-day I have sacrificed six lambs to my much- incensod gods, and yet I have not been able to vender Venus propitious to me ; and as I could not appease her, I came instantly off."
And Suetonius, speaking of Otho, says, " He endeavours, by all kinds of piacular sacrifices, to propitiate the manes of Galba, by whom he had seen himself thrust down and expelled." And the same author affirms of Nero, " That he had been instructed that kings were wont to expiate the heavenly prodigies by the slaughter of some illustrious victim, and to turn them from themselves upon the heads of their nobles;" though this, j^erhaps, rather belongs to the second kind, But innumerable expressions to this purpose are extant, both among the Greek and Latin authors.
The second kind were the expiatory or purifying sacrifices, by which sins were said to be atoned, expiated, and cleansed, and sin- ners purified, purged, and reconciled, and the anger of the gods turned aside and averted. It would be tedious, and perliaps super- fluous, to produce examples; the learned can easily trace them in great abundance. The other kinds were the eucharistical and pro- 2)hetical, which have no relation to our present purpose.