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Lastly, If Chrift came to give His Life a Ranfom for Many, for the Redemption of Many (Captives:) If He was Our Paffover Truly and Effectually Sacrificed for Us, and His Blood Shed to Cleanfe Us from all Sin; If He Suffer'd for Us, the Fuft for the Unjust; And did bear our Sins in His own Body on the Tree; And, All This, that we might be fuftified by His Blood; might be Reconciled to God through Him; might be Saved from Wrath by Him; might by Him receive the Atonement: Then did He not come to be a Preacher (as has been pretended) of Simple Repentance; Much lefs did He lay down His Life in Defence of that Doctrine of Simple Repentance; But, He did Perform and Suffer, as aforefaid, Truly and Properly to be a Saviour, to Redeem and Save Us, that our Faith and Hope might be, not in ourselves, but in God. 1 Pet. 1. 21. And,

This in Subftance was Once the Common Senfe of Mankind, Heathens as well as Believers, viz. That Offences and Crimes were to be Expiated, the Offender or Criminal to be Purified, and the Gods Placated or Propitiated with Sacrifices. Some Atonement They All thought there must be for Sins. It was the Direction of an Oracle in a Fictitious Diftrefs, but Dictated according to the Paganic Creed.

Sanguine Placatis ventos, & Virgine cæfâ, Sanguine quærendi reditus, animâque litandum Virg. Æn. Lib. 2. Lin,117,

Argolicâ.

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The Winds ye Placated with Virgin-Blood, With Blood ye muft your wish'd Return Implore, And with a Grecian Life Atone.

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It is plain They were perfwaded, that what They took for Deities, were to be Propitiated, (I fay) with the Blood of flain Animals offered in Sacrifice. And though these poor Wretches were altogether Wrong in the Object of Their Worship, and in fome Refpects Wrong in the Species of Their Sacrifices, as alfo in the many Lewd and Immoral Rites with which They ufually Offered them; yet were They still Right as to the Main Reafon of Sacrifices Themfelves in General; viz. That Sins ever did require, as aforefaid, fome Expiation or Atonement; as alfo that no Expiation or Atonement, in Special, was to be made for Sins otherwife than by Sacrifice; even that, by Shedding of Blood, Life for Life might be repaid: And therefore were they much better Theologifts than the strange Fry of our Modern Reafoners, Penitentiarifts, and Sincerity-Men, who do pretend to have found Abilities in Themfelves, Each to make His own Way to Mercy, without any Sacrifice at all for Atonement. Surely of all the Defections from the Deity that ever yet Appeared among Men, This Arrogant Self-fufficiency, (notwithstanding all Their Affected Pretences to Civil and Social Virtues) is the moft Opprobrious and Accurfed: For all Others have ftill fet up other Prophets, and other Gods; But Thefe are not Content barely to be Their own Prophets, but They Rant in the Strain

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Strain of the Hair-Brain'd Atheift in the Poet Above-cited, who faid, His own Right-Hand was His God. For, fo Thefe Imaginers, fcorning all Helps, rejecting all Means to be fuftified, refufing the Salvation of God, have made Themfelves in Effect every Man His Own God; And, according to Their Principles, They need no Other.

Socrates, (as we find Him Represented in Plato's Euthyphron) fet Himfelf to Sneer this Tradition of Offering Sacrifices with Their Prayers to the Deity; as if the Offerers, in fo doing, did but Stipulate to Receive what They Asked in Return for what They Gave; Which He fcoffingly called, εμπορική τις τέχνη θεοῖς καὶ ἀνθρώποις παρ' ἀλλήλων. A Religious kind of Traffick betwixt the Gods and Men. But,

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Here He ran too faft, there being a Point or Two in His Way, which He did not know, or would not take Notice of, that should have Precluded His Advance to this Tenet: As Firft, That the Offerers wanted fome Things to be Forgiven, as well as fome to be Given, Them: And, Secondly, That Sacrifices were in their Original Reason and Defign to be for Memorials and Pledges of One Great Sacrifice that was to Atone for the Sins of Mankind. Now, the Latter of thefe Points perhaps He did not know, and therefore might be fomewhat more Excufable than Some among Us, who with more certain Means of Information, do Reason ftill the fame Reasonings upon the fame Principles: But, the Former He would not See or take Notice of, And,

This Appears to have been at least fome Part of the Crime of that Father of the Sceptics, for which He was put to Death; Though fucceeding Philofophers endeavoured to draw a Vail over It, that It might not be known what It was; And many Chriftians, too much Addicted to Their Schemes, have taken Him for a Kind of Martyr. He did not directly Deny the Popular or Fabulous Gods, but Ridiculed all the Then-Services, as well Those of which He must have known the Reason, as Those which He knew not; and fo Undermined all Religion. He had a Lax and General Belief of God, but Sub-divided the Deity into one Original or Firft, and many Derived or Subordinate Gods: And Concluded, That (because God is fo Perfect in Himself as to need none of our Outward Services) therefore None of Us need pay Him Any; but Each of Us must be Accepted for certain Mental Allowances and Moral Performances, without any Acts properly Religious: And all this He Uttered, without pretending to any Certainty in these Matters, but Contenting Himself to take up with a few Hypothetic or Suppofititious Notions, from which He drew Conclufions at a Venture. So, He could not be a Martyr to any Creed whatsoever.

I might here Conclude This Difcourfe; But there is an infnaring Commendation of the Excellency of Simple Repentance flyly Infinuated by the Patrons of that Doctrine, which should be taken out of the Way,

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They pretend, that Making Simple Repentance, (as They have done) the only Proper Ground for God to Pardon Sinners upon, mult be the most Proper Motive to Induce Evil and Vicious Men to Reform their Wicked Lives ; Whereas Making Faith in the Redemption by a Saviour, (as Believers from the Holy Scriptures in all Ages have done) the Immediate Ground of that Pardon; And allowing Repentance to be, not the Principal Thing, but only an Acceffory or Appendant to it, They fay, May Encourage Sinners to go on in their Sinful Courses; as Suppofing Repentance in no Respect Neceffary, and fo Trusting in Faith only, without any Repentance at all, for Salvation. To which it may be Answered,

It is True, Foolish and Perverse Men may Abuse any good Doctrine, as Some fuch Men have in Fact done every fuch Doctrine: They may, for the Purpose, separate Faith from Repentance and Works, and confider Believing Alone, without any Reformation of Life and Manners, as Sufficient to bring them to Salvation; even as thefe Scorners do feparate Repentance from Faith, and Talk of Reformation of Manners, without any Belief in a Saviour, as Sufficient to the fame End. Every one knows how the Scripture-Doctrine of Faith in the Redemption by Chrift hath been at all Times fubject to that Abufe; And, in Particular, How it was fo Abused in the Apostle's Time. There were fome Then, who, from the Doctrine of Juftification by Faith as Preached by St. Paul and the other Apoftles, did Re

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