PREFACE.

THE following Inquiry is chargeable with some degree of prolixity, which I had hoped to avoid, and which I am far from thinking that the subject itself requires. That prolixity has been introduced by the extended examination of certain texts of Scripture, which to my own mind convey a direct and perspicuous sense, but are usually quoted, in proof of sentiments and doctrines which do not appear properly to belong to them, by writers who have treated the subject of Primitive Sacrifice. In the progress of the Inquiry I could not forbear to advert to the controverted interpretation of those Texts; nor could I offer the just defence of my own ideas respecting them, without a detailed

discussion of the opinions from which I differ, and of the Scriptural expositions by which they profess to be supported. The deserved reputation and authority of some among those Writers, was a further reason with me for enlarging the statement of my ideas, in the wish, that, if they are erroneous, their error might be more distinctly seen, or, if they are just and well-founded, their truth might recommend itself by the clearer representation of what they are, and of the grounds on which they rest.

In more respects than one the Investigation has proved irksome.

Throughout it,

I have had the distaste of maintaining something like a perpetual conflict of debate: and in addition to this unacceptable part, although the subject of the inquiry is great, the discussions into which I have been carried are frequently minute; and sometimes, I fear, perplexed. But such was the state in which I found the argument. And thus, according to the present state of Learning, in many

of its branches, and in none more than in that of Religion, we seem to be busied in shaking the leaves of the tree of knowledge, and making a stir among them, instead of reposing beneath its shade, or gathering its fruit; which last are the satisfactions of other and better studies, such as bring the substance of Divine Truth and its Use more nearly together.

16th April, 1825.

AN INQUIRY,

&c. &c. &c.

THE First Ages of the world have left much of their History under a veil, and transmitted to us the difficulty, and the desire, of exploring it. The earliest act of Religious Worship, offered by man to his Creator, of which we have any record, was by Sacrifice. And yet, in this great Institution of Religion, which begins the piety of the Old World; which afterwards obtained so wide a prevalence, and became the one chief ordinance in the systems both of True Religion and of False; which seems to involve so much of mystery in its use, and is full of vanity in Paganism, and yet is the image of the prime Truth of Christianity, and the counterpart of the real grace of Redemption; in this Institution, we are at this day at a loss, and obliged to discuss it as matter of doubtful inquiry, whether it came originally by Command or by Choice, and bore on its primitive usage the sanction of God, or of Man.