518 TAE SACRIFICE OF CIIRIST. and advice, in our belief of the doctrine of the atonement óf. Christ for sin ? Is it not most strongly and evidently taught in the New Testament ? Is it not taught in many pages, and in great variety of expression there, and that by almost all the writersof that book ? .Is it not brought in, in the sacred epistles, almostupon every occasion ? Are not the great duties of chris- tianity, faith, love, and prayer, built much upon it by the apostles ? What shall we say to men who will not observe the very cautions and advices, which they themselves lay down, in forming the articles of their faith ? Men who leave out a most plain, ex- press, and important article, and break through all rules of just interpretation, rather than allow of any doctrine in Christi- anity, which doth not suit with their scheme and fancy ? If the prophets andapostles never so expressly reveal and dictate such a truth, the words must be tortured and bowed by all the arts of criticism to make them speak and mean something else. Agrippahas confessed that it was one great design of the coming of Christ to root out superstition from the minds of men, in all the various fooleries of it which had possessed both Jews and heathens : But if both Christ and his apostles taught them the principles of natural religion by such'figurative and sacrifi- cial expressions, was not this the ready way to fill their heads, With superstitious fancies, by taking these things in too literal a sense, when their teachers left them to seek the true sense amidst such far distant and hard tropes and figures ? Has not this very thing been thecause of many superstitions both in the Jewish and Gentile nations, by their taking allegories in a literal sense ? Did they not both indulge thefancy and 'vain opinion ofobtaining pardon,of sin, and favour with God, by substituting their sacri- fices in the room of real godliness, and with the neglect of in- ward religion and true virtue ? This was superstition indeed, and such as neither the Old or the New Testament ever allows. But tell me, Agrippa, could this glorious Reformer of the world, this divine prophet, and his twelve missionariesthink of no better way to drivemen out of all hope and expectations of pardon and acceptancewith God, through any such substitutions or sacrifices whatsoever, than by representing Christ so often as a substitute to die in our stead, and as a sacrificefor 11ìe sins of men? If they designed to banish this doctrine from the earth, would they ever,bave taught men to depend on his death or blood as an atonement for sin, and as the ground of their acceptance with the God of heaven ? It is true, Agrippa will say, Christ and his apostles teach us all the duties of morality and virtue, as neces- sary things to eternal life, and that in very plain language ; and that these sacrificial terms are only eastern and Jewish ornaments of speech in condescension to the humours of the world, both Jews and Gentiles, who could not be all at oncebeat out of their veneration for sacrifices and atonements.
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