[IBRARY Of PRINCETON 1 FEB 1 n?m I M LE C TU R E S HBRARY OF PRINCETON IN FEB I 02005 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY DIVINITY. BY THE LATE V GEORGE HILL, D.D. ?BINCIPAL OF ST. mart's COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS. EDITED FROM HIS MANUSCRIPT, BY HIS SON, THE REV. ALEXANDER HILL, MINISTER OF DAILLT. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER i& BROTHERS, No. 285 BROADWAY. 1851. PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. The author of the following Lectures was appointed Pro- fessor of Divinity in 1788, and completed the plan which he had formed for himself, in about four years. In every succeeding year, he revised with unwearied care that part of his course which he intended to read to his students ; and not a few of the Lectures appear to have been recently transcribed. He took no steps himself for publishing them as a whole ; but he is known to have had this in contemplation ; and at his death he consigned them to the Editor, in such terms as implied that the publication of them would not be in opposition to his wishes. It will be agreeable, the Editor believes, to the wishes of that large proportion of the ministers of the church of Scotland, who went from the hall of St. Mary's College with unfeigned respect for the character and talents of the Author, to peruse those prelections which commanded the attention of their earlier years. And he is well persuaded, that there are many, who, from personal attachment to the Author, or from a knowledge of his high reputation, are anxious to become acquainted with his sentiments, on points so important as those which his Lec- tures embrace. These considerations alone, however, would not have induced the Editor to disclose his father's manuscripts to the public eye. In the conclusion of his opening address, as Professor of Di- IV PREFACE. vinity, llie Author pledged himself by making this solemn declaration : " Under the blessing and direction of the Almighty in whose hands I am, and to whom I must give account, no industry or research, no expense of time or of thought, shall be wanting on my part, to render my labours truly useful to the students of divinity in this college." It was under a strong impression that this pledge has been fully redeemed: — in the firm belief that the publication of his theological lectures, one of the principal fruits of the Author's active and laborious life, will do honour to his memory ; — and in the anxious hope that the object for which the Lectures were written, to teach and to defend "the truth as it is in Jesus," may be thus more largely attained, that the Editor resolved to present them to the world. He cannot withdraw from the charge, which he has felt it both a duty and a pleasure to fulfil, without expressing the in- creased veneration, which an attentive perusal of the Lectures has excited in his bosom for the Author; and without offering a fervent prayer to God, that the church, of which he formed so distinguished a member, may never want men, on whom the example of his diligence and success may freely operate, who may be equally eminent in biblical and theological learning, and may cherish his liberal, enlightened, and truly Christian views. The Author himself divided his course into Books, and Chapters, and Sections, first when he printed the heads of his Lectures for the use of his students, and afterwards in a larger work, entitled " Theological Institutes." In the present publi- cation, the same arrangement has been adopted. This has necessarily led to some inconsiderable changes on the Lectures, as tney were read from the chair. But the Editor has been scrupulous in making as few other alterations on the manuscript as possible. The introductory discourse to the students, which related to the sentiments and character essential for them to maintain, has been much abridged, as it bore in some measure PREFACE. upon local circumstances in the University of St. Andrews. And towards the end of this work> it will be found, by a refe- rence to the notes, that those parts of the course have been omitted, which the Author himself had previously given to the public. It was the wish of the Editor to subjoin a note of reference 0 every quotation made by the Author. But in the manuscript it frequently happened that there was nothing to lead him parti- cularly to the passage or authority cited. In his remote situa- tion he had not access to all the books which it was necessary to consult ; and even with the assistance of his friends, he has not been uniformly successful in comparing the quotations with the works from which they are extracted. He has annexed to different chapters the names of the books which the Author was accustomed to recommend to his students, with some of the comments which he made on them. His remarks, however, were usually delivered without having been written ; and hence, comparatively few are preserved. It may be thought, that the printed lists of books recom- mended are far from being complete. But it is to be considered, that, at the commencement of the Author's labours, the library of St. Andrews was deficient in modern theological works ; that those which were more immediately useful were only gradually procured ; that it was far from being his object to load the memory, or to distract the attention of his students by multi- farious reading; and that, as the business of his profession occupied his mind to the end of his days, it is probable that there was no publication of moment, which he had an opportu nity of perusing, of which he did not in his class-room deliver an opinion. Manse of Daillv, April 23, 1821. 2 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. It was in contemplation to present the following course of Lectures complete, by subjoining to this edition the View of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland, and the Counsels respecting the Duties of the Pastoral Office, which were pub- lished during the Author's hfetime. But being unwilling to make alterations on a work which has been so favourably received, the Editor sends it forth in the state in which it originally appeared, only freed, he trusts, from many of the errata which had crept into the first edition. Such readers as may wish to peruse those parts of the course which are not contained in this work, will find a note referring to them at the end of the volume. Manse of Dailly, ^pril 21, 1825. Tii Fags 1 CONTENTS BOOK I. EVIDENCES CIP THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE, Belief of a Deity founded on the constitution of the Human Mind — Almost universal — Moral government of God traced in the constitution of Human Nature, and the state of the world— Brought to light by the Gospel. CHAP. I. COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY FROM HISTORY, . - 10 CHAP. n. AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 12 Sect. 1. External Evidence of their authenticity full and various — Internal marks. 2. Various readings — Sources of correction. CHAP. m. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, 18 Manner in which the claim of containing a divine revelation is advanced in the New Testament— Contents of the Books— System of religion and morality- Condition of the sacred writers — Character of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles. CHAP. IV. DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY — MIRACLES, . . 27 Sect. 1. Argument from the miracles of Jesus — Uniformity of the course of nature — Power of the Almighty to interpose — Communication of this power a striking mark of a divine commission—Harmony between the internal ^and external evidence of Christianity — Mira- cles of the Gospel illustrate its peculiar doctrines. 2. Mr. Hume's argument against miracles — Circumstances which render the testimony of the Apostles credible — Confirmation of their testi- mony—Faith of the first Christians— Manner in which the miracles of Jesus are narrated — No opposite testimony. 3. How far the argument from miracles is affected by the prodigies and miracles mentioned in history— Duration of miraculous gifts in the Christian church. CHAP. V. ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, .... 53 urn xi. Exhibition of character— The historian— The other Apostles— The family of Lazarus — Our Lord — Resurrection of Lazarus — Effects produced SY the miracle. ' CHAP. VI. EXTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY PROPHECY, .... 70 S£c>T. 1. Antiquity and integrity of the books of the Old Testament— Hope of the Messiah founded on the received interpretation of the prophecies. 2. Correspondence between the circumstances of Jesus, and the predic- tions of the Old Testament. 2* C ix X CONTENTS. 3. Direct prophecies of the Messiah— Double sense of prophecy— Not ^^ inconsistent with the nature of prophecy — Supported by the general , use of language. 4. Quotations in the New Testament from the Old Testament. 5. Amount of the argument from prophecy. CHAP. VII. PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS, 93 Magnificence and extent of the system of prophecy — Jesus the object of the old prophecies, and the author of new ones — Advantages of attending to the pro- phecies of our Lord and his Apostles— Clearness and importance of his pre- dictions— Specimens. CHAP. VIII. RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, 123 Resurrection of Christ an essential fact in the history of his religion — Evidence upon which it rests— Evidence of it in these later ages— Universal belief of the fact — Clear testimony of the Apostles — Their extraordinary powers. CHAP. IX. PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY, 132 Sect. 1. When the success of a religious system forms a legitimate argument for its divine original — Progress of Mahometanism and Christianity compared. 2. Secondary causes of the progress of Christianity assigned by Mr. Gibbon considered. 3. Rank and character of some of the early converts to Christianity. 4. Measure of the effect produced by the means employed in propagatintr the Gospel — Objections drawn from it — Answers. BOOK II. GENERAL VIEW OP THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. CHAP. I. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE, 154 Inspiration not impossible — Three degrees of it— Necessary to the Apostles for the purposes of their mission — Promised by our Lord — Claimed by them- selves—Admitted by their disciples— Not contradicted by any thing in their writings. CHAP. IL PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY, 173 CHAP. III. CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE, 188 Sect. 1. The Gospel a republication of Natural Religion— Mistakes occasioned by the use of this term. 2. The Gospel a method of saving sinners — Duties consequent upon the revelation of this method. CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYS'^M, 203 Difficulties to be expected — Extent of our knowledge. CHAP. V. USE OP REASON IN RELIGION, .... -^ , . 209 CONTENTS. XI CHAP. VI. ^ CONTROVERSIES OCCASIONED BY THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM, . . , 216 Multiplicity of Theological Controversies — Platonic and Peripatetic Philosophy — Progress of Science — Authority of the Fathers. CHAP. vn. ARRANGEMENT OF THE COURSE, 224 The Gospel a remedy for sinners — All opinions respecting it relate to the per- sons by whom the remedy is brought, or to the nature, extent, and application of the remedy — Church government. BOOK III. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SON, THE SPIRIT, AND THE MANNER OF THEIR BEING UNITED WITH THE FATHER. CHAP. I. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE PERSON OF THE SON, .... 231 Three systems — Socinians — Arians — Council of Nice. CHAP. H. SIMPLEST OPINION CONCERNING THE PERSON OF CHRIST, . . . 239 Christ truly a Man — Not the whole doctrine of Scripture respecting him. CHAP. m. PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS, 242 Explicit declarations of Scripture — Socinian solution. CHAP. IV. ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE — CREATION, . 252 Sect. 1. John i 1—18. 2. Coloss. i. 15—18. 3. Heb. i. 4. Amount of the proposition, that Jesus Christ is the Creator of the world. CHAP. V. ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE — ADMINISTRATION OF PROVIDENCE, 283 Sect. 1. All the divine appearances recorded in the Old Testament, referred to one Person, called Angel and God. 2. Christ the Jehovah, who appeared to the Patriarchs, was worshipped in the Temple, and announced as the author of a new Dispensation. 3. Objections to the preceding proposition — Different opinions as to the amount of it. CHAP. VI. DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON OF CHRIST TAUGHT DURING HIS LIFE, 309 Reserve with which he revealed his dignity — Circumstances attending his Birth — Voice at his Baptism — Manner in which he spoke of the connexion between the Father and him — Omniscience — Miracles. CHAP. VII. DIRECT PROOF THAT CHRIST IS GOi», 319 Sect. 1. Jesus called God — Circumstances which intimate that the name is applied to Jesus in the highest sense. 2. Essential attributes of Deity ascribed to Jesus. 3. Worship represented as due to Jesus — Supreme and inferior worship of the Arians — Socinian explanation of passages in which worship is given to Jesus. XU COXTENTS- Pjg' CHAP. VIII L'NION OF NATURES IN CHRIST, 341 Passages which present the divine and human nature of Christ together — Opi- nions as to the manner of their union — Gnostics — Apollinaris — Nestorius — Eutyches — Monophysites — Monothelites — Miraculous conception — Hyposta- tical union the key to a great part of the phraseology of Scripture — That which qualifies Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world. CHAP. IX. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT, 358 Form of Baptism — Instruction connected with the administration of Baptism — Catechumens — First Christians worshipped the Holy Ghost — Gnostics — Macedonius — Socinus — Personality of the Holy Ghost — His divinity. CHAP. X. DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITV, 367 Sect. 1. Unity of God, the doctrine of the Old and New Testament. 2. Three systems of the Trinity — Sabellian — Arian, and Semi-Arian — Catholic. 3. Principles by which the Catholic System repels the charge of Tritheism. 4. Dr. Clarke's system — Amount of our knowledge respecting the Trinity — Inferences. BOOK IV. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE, THE EXTENT, AND THE APPLI- CATION OF THE REMEDY BROUGHT BY THE GOSPEL. CHAP. I. DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED, .... 391 Sect. 1. Genesis iii. — History of a real transaction, related after the symbolical manner. 2. Effects of Adam's fall upon his posterity — Four systems — Pelagius — Arminius — Human nature corrupted — Sin of Adam imputed — Calvinistic view embraces both corruption and imputation — Adam the representative of the human race — Difficulties. CHAP. n. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE REBIEDY, . . . .413 Sect. 1. Socinians — The Gospel the most effectual lesson of righteousness — Defects of this System. 2. Right acquired by Jesus of saving men from their sins, and giving them immortality — Merits and defects of this system. 3. Catholic system, or that which has been generally held in the Chris- tian church — Atonement or satisfaction of Christ. CHAP. HI. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT, 420 Sect. 1. Not irrational — God the righteous Governor of the universe — Honour of his laws to be maintained — Sin the transgression of law — Mean- ing of Satisfaction — Acceptance of the Lawgiver, and concurrence of the Substitute in the substitution of Christ— Vicarious punish- ment— W^hy not practised in human judgments — Power of Christ over his own life — Deep malignity of sin, and exceeding kindness and love of God. 2. Whether there was understood to be a substitution in the heathen sacrifices. CONTENTS. Sm Page 3. Substitution implied in certain sin-ofFerings in the law of Moses — Day of atonement — Efficacy of the substitution — Nature of the sin- offerings. 4. Three great divisions of the law of Moses — The political and ceremo- nial law temporary — Ceremonial law emblematical of the Gospel dispensation — Intimated by the prophets — Implied in many passages of the New Testament — Epistle to the Hebrews — Confirmation of the Catholic system from the views of the Apostle Paul — Reason- ings of the Socinians. 5. Direct support of the doctrine of the atonement from Scripture — Value annexed to the sufferings of Christ — His sufferings represented as a punishment of sin — Effects- ascribed to them — Reconciliation — Redemption— Forgiveness of sins — Justification. CHAP. IV. t-rERNAL LIFE, 482 Completeness of the Catholic system — Foundation of the hope of eternal life — Merits of Christ — Right to eternal life acquired for us by the death of Christ, confirmed by his life. CHAP. V. EXTENT OF THE REMEDY, 493 Sect. 1. First preliminary point — The Gospel designed to be an universal religion — Law of Moses a local dispensation — True character of the Gospel opened by incidental expressions — Unlimited commission given to the Apostles. 2. Second preliminary point — Remedy of the Gospel only for those who repent and believe — Speculations respecting the final condition o. the wicked — -Subject, beyond the limits of our faculties. CHAP. VI. PARTICULAR REDEMPTION, 505 Arguments for Universal and Particular Redeiription stated and compared. CHAP. VII. PREDESTINATION, 513 Sect. 1. Socinians — Contingent events not subjects of infallible foreknowledge — No predestination of individuals. 2. Arminians — Predestination of individuals dependent on the foreknow- ledge of their faith and good works, or of their unbelief and impeni- tence. 3. Calvinists — Entire dependence of the creature on the Creator — Extent of the Divine knowledge — One decree embracing all that is to be, means and end — Supralapsarians — Sublapsarians — Decree of Elec- tion absolute — Good pleasure of God — Covenant of redemption — Merits of Christ a part of the Decree of Election — Decree of repro- bation— Extent of the Remedy determined by the Divine decree. CHAP. VIII. APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY, 533 Production of the character required for enjoying the blessing of the Gospel — Opinions of the Socinians, Arminians, and Calvinists — Grace — Its nature and efficacy. TIV CONTENTS. r»8» CHAP. IX. ARMINIAN AND CALVINISTIC SYSTEMS COMPARED, .... 541 Sect. 1. Arminian system satisfying upon a general view — Tliree difficulties, under which it labours, stated. 2. Objections to the Calvinistic System reducible to two. 3. Calvinistic System not inconsistent with the nature of man as a free moral agent — Definition of liberty — Efficient and final causes — Both embraced by the plan of Providence — Whence the uncertainty in the operation of motives arise — How removed — Gratia Cungrua — Renovation of the mind — Exhibition of such moral inducements as are fitted to call forth its powers. 4. Calvinistic System not inconsistent with the attributes of God — The ultima ratio of the inequality in the dispensation of the gifts, both of Nature and of Grace — Decree of reprobation exerts no influence upon men leading them to sin — Objection resolvable into the ques- tion concerning the Origin of Evil — Philosophical Answer — Armi- nians recur to the same Answer — The Glory of God — Moral Evil the object of his abhorrence. CHAP. X. SUPPORT WHICH SCRIPTURE GIVES TO THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM, . .571 Sect. 1. All the actions of men represented as comprehended in the great plan of Divine Providence. 2. Predestination ascribed in Scripture to the good pleasure of God — vSystem of those who consider the expressions employed, as respect- ing only the calling of large societies to the knowledge of the Gospel. 3. Representations given in Scripture of the change of character produced by Divine Grace. 4. Objections arising from the commands, the counsels, and the exhorta- tions of Scripture. CHAP. XI. HISTORY OF CALVINISM, . . 587 BOOK V. INDEX OF PARTICULAR QUESTIONS, ARISING OUT OF OPINIONS CON- CERNING THE GOSPEL REMEDY, AND OF MANY OP THE TECHNICAL TERMS OF THEOLOGY. CHAP. I. REGENERATION CONVERSION FAITH, 601 External and Effectual Call — Synergistic System — Fanaticism — Calvinistic v'iew of Conversion — Faith — Different Kinds — Saving Faith. CHAP. n. JUSTIFICATION, CIO A Forensic act — Its nature — Church of Rome — First Reformers — Sociniansand Arminians — Calvinists — First and second Justification — Justification one act of God — Saints under the Old Testament — Other individuals not outwardly called — Perseverance of Saints — Assurance of Grace and Salvation — Reflex act of Faith — Witness of the Spirit. CHAP. III. CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION, . . . 6IS Good works, fruits of Faith — Apparent contradiction between Paul and James- Solifidians-^ — Antinomians — Fratres liberi spiritus — Practical Preaching CONTENTS. X» CHAP. IV. ^"^ SANCTIFICATION, 625 Sect. 1. First part of Sanctification, Repentance — Its nature — Popish doctrine — Late Repentance — Precise time of Conversion. 2. Second part of Sanctification, a new life — Habit of Righteousness — Immutability of the Moral Law — Christian Casuistry — Counsels of Perfection — Merit of good works — Works of Supererogation. 3. Imperfection of Sanctification — Anabaptists — Mortal and venial sins — Distinction unwarranted — Romans vii. — Christian Morality. CHAP. V. COVENANT OF GRACE, 640 Scriptural terms — Kingdom of Christ — Union of Christ and his disciples — Adoption — Covenant of Grace. Sect. 1. Meaning of dtadriKr] — Covenant of Works — Sinaitic Covenant — Abra- haraic Covenant — New Covenant, 2. Mediator of the New Covenant — Offices of Christ — Mediatores Se- cundarii of the Church of Rome. 3. Prayer — Encouragements to it in the Covenant of Grace — Nature of Christ's intercession. 4. Sacraments — Explanation of the term — Signs and Seals of the Cove- nant of Grace — Seven Sacraments of the Church of Rome. CHAP. VI. QUESTIONS CONCERNING BAPTISM, 656 SecT. 1. Prevalence of Washings in the religious ceremonies of all nations — How Baptism is a distinguishing rite of Christianity — Opinions of the Socinians and Quakers — Immersion and sprinklino- — Givino- a Name. 2. Baptism more than an initiatory rite — Opinions of the Church of Rome, and of the Reformed Churches. 3. Infant Baptism — View of arguments for it — Godfathers and God- mothers— Confirmation — Admission for the first time to the Lord's Supper. CHAP. vn. QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE LORd's SUPPER, 668 Institution — Correspondence between the Passover and the Lord's Supper — Origin of different opinions respecting it — System of the Church of Rome Transubstantiation — Of Luther — Consubstantiation — Ubiquity — OfZuino-lius — A Commemoration — Of Calvin — Spiritual presence of Christ — Time of observing the ordinance. CHAP. VIII. CONDITION OF MEN AFTER DEATH, 680 Happiness of Heaven — ^Intermediate state — Purgatory — Duration of hell torments. BOOK VI. OPINIONS CONCERNING CHURCH GOVERNMENT. CHAP. L FOUNDATION OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, 683 f' Obligation to observe Ordinances. ■%,' CHAP. II. OPINIONS RESPECTING THE PERSONS IN WHOM CHURCH GOVERNMENT IS VESTED, 686 Sect. 1. Quakers — Deny necessity and lawfulness of a standing Ministry ^^ — " > Consequent disunion and disorder — Their principles repugnant to ,« reason and Scripture. / J^l CONTENTS. 2. Independents, or Congregational Brethren — Leading principle — Un- authorized by the examples of the New Testament, and contrary to the spirit of its directions — Implies disunion of the Christian Society. 3. Church of Rome — Papists and Roman Catholics — Galilean Church — Catholics of Great Britain — Unity of the Church — Grounds on which the primacy of the Pope is maintained — Matthew xvi. IG. — Scriptural and historical view of the Church of Rome — 2 Thess. ii. — Daniel vii. — Rev. xvii. 4. Episcopacy and Presbytery — Principles of the Episcopal form of Go vernment — Of the Presbyterian — Points of agreement and differ- ence— Timothy and Titus — Bishop and Presbyter — Right of Ordi- nation— Succession of Bishops — Presbyterian form of government not a novel invention — Imparity among Bishops, of human institu- tion— Opinions of ancient writers upon the equality of Bishops and Presbyters — First Reformers — Presbyterian parity. CHAP. III. NATURE AND EXTENT OF POWER IMPLIED IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT, . 733 Not created by the State — Erastianism — A spiritual power — Conduct of our Lord and his apostles — Anabaptists — Church of Rome — Excommunication — The Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the Church — Purpose for which he gives power to his Ministers — Its limits. CHAP. IV. POTESTAS AoyiJiaTiKri, . 751 Scripture the only rule of faith — Articles of faith — Reasons for framing them — History of Confessions of Faith — Subscriptions to them. CHAP. V. POTESTAS AiaraXTiKi?, 76t Conditions of Salvation declared in Scripture — What enactments the Church has power to make— Liberty of Conscience — Rule of Peace and Order — Puritans. CHAP. VL POTESTAS ^laKpiTiKTi, 777 Jo.di(Sial power of the Church warranted — System of the Church of Rome— of Pi-ctestants. LECTUEES IN DIVINITY. BOOK I. EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. The professed design of students in divinity is to prepare for a most honourable and important office, for being workers together with God in that great and benevolent scheme, by which he is restor- ing the virtue and happiness of his intelUgent offspring, and for hold- ing, with credit to themselves and with advantage to the public, that station in society, by the establishment of which the wisdom of the state lends its aid to render the labours of the servants of Christ re- spectable and useful. Learning, prudence, and eloquence never can be so worthily employed as when they are devoted to the improve- ment of mankind ; and a good man will find no exertion of his talents so pleasing as that by which he endeavours to make other men such as they ought to be. We expect the breast of every student of di- vinity to be possessed with these views. If any person is devoid of them, if he despises the office of a minister of the gospel, if the char- acter of his mind is such as to derive no satisfaction from the employ- ments of that office, or from the object towards which they are directed, he ought to turn his attention to some other pursuit. He cannot expect to attain eminence or to enjoy comfort in a station, for which he carries about with him an inward disqualification ; and there is an hypocrisy most disgraceful and most hurtful to his moral character in all the external appearances of preparing for that station. In attempting to lead you through that course of study which is immediately connected with your profession, I begin with what is called the Deistical Controversy, that is, with a view of the Evidences of Christianity, and of the various questions which have arisen in canvassing the branches of which they are composed. I assume, as the ground-work of every religious system, these two great doctrines, that " God is, and that He is a re warder of them that 3 1) 1 2 INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. seek him." * When I say tliat I assume them, I do not mean that human reason unassisted by revelation was ever able to demonstrate these doctrines in a maimer satisfactory to every understanding. But I mean that these doctrines are agreeable to the natural impressions of the human mind, and that any religious system which purifies them from the manifold errors with which they have been incorpor- ated, corresponds, in that respect, to the clear deductions of enlighten- ed reason. It is not my province to enter into any detail upon the proofs of these two doctrines of natural religion; and I am afraid to engage in discnssions which have been conducted with much erudition and metaphysical acuteness, lest I should be enticed to employ too large a portion of your time in reviewing them. Leaving you to avail yourself of the copious sources of information which writers upon this subject afford, I will not enumerate, far less attempt to appreci- ate the different modes of reasoning which have been adopted in proof of the being of God, and his moral government. But, having assumed these doctrines, 1 think it proper to give by way of introduc- tion to my course, a short view of the manner in which it appears to me that they may be established as the ground-work of all religion. When we say that there is a God, we mean that the universe is the work of an intelligent Being; that is, from the things which we behold, we infer the existence of what is not the object of our senses. To show that the inference is legitimate, we must be able to state the principles upon which it proceeds, or the steps of that process by which the mind advances from the contemplation of the objects with which it is conversant, to the conviction of the existence of their Creator. These principles are found in the constitution of the human mind, in sentiments and perceptions which are natural and ultimate, which are manifested by all men upon various occasions, and which are only followed to their proper conclusion when they conduct us to the knowledge of God. One of these sentiments and perceptions ap- pears in the spirit of inquiry and investigation which universally pre- vails : another is invariably excited by the contemplation of order, beauty and design. A spirit of inquiry and investigation has larger opportunities of exertion, it is better directed, and is applied to nobler objects with some than with others. But to a certain degree, it is common to all men, and traces of it are found amongst all ranks. Now you will observe, that this spirit of inquiry is an effort to discover the cause of what we behold. And it proceeds upon this natural perception, that every new event, every thing which we see coming into existence, every alteration in any being, is an eflect. Without hesitation we conclude that it has been produced, and we are solicitous to discover the cause of it. We begin our inquiries with eagerness; we pursue them as far as we have light to carry us ; and we do not rest satisfied till we arrive at something which renders farther inquiries unneces- sary. This persevering spirit of inquiry which is daily exerted about trifles finds the noblest subject of exertion in the continual changes which we behold upon the appearance of the heavenly bodies, upon • Hebrews xi. 6. INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. 3 1 the state of the atmosphere, upon the surface of the earth, and in those hidden regions which the progress of art leads man to explore. To every attentive and ititelligent observer these continual changes present the whole universe as an effect ; and, in contemplating the succession of them, he is led, as by the hand of nature, through a chain of subordinate and dependent causes to that great original Cause from whom the universe derived its being, upon whose operation depend all the changes of which it is susceptible, and by whose uncontrolled agency ail events are directed. Even without forming any extensive observations upon the train of natural events, we are led by the same spirit of inquiry from con- sidering our own species to the knowledge of our Creator. Every man knows that he had a beginning, and that he derived his being from a succession of creatures like himself However far back he supposes this succession to be carried, it does not afford a satisfying account of the cause of his existence. By the same principle which directs him in every other research, he is still led to seek for some original Being, who has been produced by none, and is himself the Father of all. As every man knows that he came into existence, so he has the strongest reason to believe that the whole race to which he belongs had a beginning. A tradition has in all ages been pre- served of the origin of the human race. Many nations have boasted of antiquity. None have pretended to eternity. All that their re- cords contain beyond a certain period is fabulous or doubtful. In looking back upon the history of mankind, we find them increasing in numbers, acquiring a taste for the ornaments of life, and improv- ing in the liberal arts and sciences ; so that unless we adopt without proof and against all probability the supposition of successive deluges which drown in oblivion all the attainments of civilized nations, and spare only a few savage inhabitants to propagate the race,' we find in the state of mankind all the marks of novelty which it must have borne, had it begun to be some few thousand years ago. But if the human race had a beginning, we unavoidably regard it as an effect of which we require some original cause ; and to the same cause from which it derived existence we must also trace the qualities by which the race is distinguished. The Being who gave it existence must be capable of imparting to it these qualities, that is, must possess them in a much higher degree. " He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ?"* Thus, from the intelligence of men, we necessarily infer that of their Creator; while the number of intelligent beings with whom we converse cannot fail to give us the noblest idea of that original primary intelligence from which theirs is derived. While the spirit of inquiry which is natural to man thus leads us from the consciousness of our own existence to acknowledge the exis- tence of one supreme intelligent Being, the Father of Spirits, we are conducted to the same conclusion by that other natural perception which I said is invariably excited by the contemplation of order, beauty, and design. • Psalm xciv. 9. 10. 4 INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. The grandeur and beauty of external objects do not seem to affect the other animals. But they afford a certain degree of pleasure to all men ; and in many persons a taste for them is so far cultivated that the pleasures of imagination constitute a large source of refined enjoyment. When the grandeur and beauty are conjoined as they seldom fail to be with utility, they do not merely afford us pleasure. We not only perceive the objects which we behold, to be grand and beautiful and useful ; but we perceive them to be effects produced by a designing cause. In viewing a complicated machine, it is the de- sign which strikes us. In admiring the object, we admire the mind that formed it. Without hesitation we conclude that it had a former; and although ignorant of every other circumstance respecting him, we know this much, that he is possessed of intelligence, our idea of which rises in proportion to the design discovered in the constiuction of the machine. By this principle, which is prior to all reasoning, and of which we can give no other account than that it is part of the constitution of the human mind, we are raised from the admiration of natural objects to a knowledge of the existence, and a sense of the perfections of Him who made them. When Ave contemplate the works of nature, distinguished from those of art by their superior elegance, splendour, and utility ; when we behold the sun, the moon, and the stars, performing their offices with the most perfect regularity, and although removed at an immense distance from us, contributing in a high degree to our preservation and comfort ; when we view this earth fitted as a convenient habita- tion for man, adorned with numberless beauties, and provided not only with a supply of our wants, but with every thing that can minister to oin- pleasure and entertainment ; wiien, extending our observation to the various animals that inhabit this globe, we find that every creature has its proper food, its proper habitation, its proper liappiness ; that the meanest insect as well as the noblest animal has the several parts of its body, the senses bestowed upon it, and the degree of perfection in which it possesses them, adapted with the nicest proportion to its preservation and to the manner of life which by natural instinct it is led to pursue ; when we thus discover within our own sphere, numberless traces of kind and wise design, and when we learn both by experience and by observation that the works of nature, the more they are investigated and known, appear the more clearly to be parts of one great consistent whole, we are necessarily led by the constitution of our mind to believe the being of a God. Our faith does not stand in the obscure reasonings of philosophers. We but open our eyes, and discerning, wheresoever we turn them, the traces of a wise Creator, we see and acknowledge his hand. The most superficial view is sufficient to impress our minds with a sense of his existence. The closest scrutiny, by enlarging our acquaintance with the innumerable final causes that are found in the works of God, strengthens this impression, and confirms our first conclusions. The more that we know of these works, we are the more sensible that in nature there is not only an exertion of power, but an adjustment of means to an end, which is what we call wisdom ; and an adjustment of means to the end of distributing happiness to all the creatures, which is the highest conception that we can form of goodness. INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE 5 A foundation so deeply laid in the constitution of the human mind for the beUefof a Deity has prodncedanacknowledgmentof his being, almost universal. The idea of God, found amongst all nations civi- lized in the smallest degree, is such that by the slightest use of our faculties we must acquire it. And accordingly the few nations who are said to have no notion of God are in a state so barbarous that they seem to have lost the perceptions and sentiments of men. The Atheist allows it to be necessary that something should have existed of itself from eternity. But he is accustomed to maintain that matter in motion is sufficient to account for all those appearances from which we infer the being of God. The absurdities of this hypo- thesis have been ably exposed. He supposes that matter is self- existent, although it has marks of dependence and imperfection in- consistent with tliat attribute. He supposes that matter has from eternity been in motion, that is, that motion is an essential quality of matter, although we cannot conceive of motion as any other than an accidental property of matter, impressed by some cause, and deter- mined in its direction by foreign impulses. He supposes that all the appearances of uniformity and design which surround him can pro- ceed from irregular undirected movements. And he supposes lastly, that although there is not a plant which does not spring from its seed, nor an insect which is not propagated by its kind, yet matter in motion can produce life and intelligence, properties repugnant in the highest degree to all the known properties of matter. I do not say that it is possible by reasoning to demonstrate that these suppositions are false ; and I do not know that it is wise to make the attempt. The belief of the being of God rests upon a sure foundation, upon the foundation on which He himself has rested it, if all the sup- positions by which some men have tried to set it aside contradict the natnral perceptions of the human mind. These are the language in which God speaks to his creatures, a linguage which is heard through all the earth ; and the words of which are understood to the end of the world. By listening to that language, we learn from the various yet uniform phenomena of nature, that there is a wise Creator: we are taught by the imperfection and dependencf^ of the soul, that it owes its being to some original cause ; and in its e.^tensive faculties, Us liberty, and power of self-motion, we discern that cause to be essen- tially different from matter. The voice of nature thus proclaims to the children of men the existence of one supreme intelligent Being, and calls them with reverence to adore the Father of their spirits. The other great doctrine which I assume as the ground-work of every religious system, is thus expressed by the A.postle to the Hebrews: "God is a revvarder of them that seek Him;" in other words, the government of God is a moral government. We are here confined to an inconsiderable spot in the creation, and we are permitted to behold but a small part of the operations of Providence. It becomes us therefore to proceed in our inquiries con- cerning the Divine Government with much humility : but it does not become us to desist. The character and the laws of that government under which we acknowledge that we live, are matters to us of the last importance ; and it is our duty thankfully to avail ourselves of the light which we enjoy. The constitution of human nature and 3* 6 INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. the state of the world are the only two subjects within the sphere of our observations, from which unassisted reason can discover the character of the divine government. When we attend to the constitution of human nature, tlie three following particulars occur as traces of a moral government. 1. The distribution of pleasure and pain in the mind of man is a moral distribution. Those affections and that conduct which we de- nominate virtuous are attended with immediate pleasure ; the opposite affections and conduct with immediate pain. The man who acts under the influence of benevolence, gratitude, a regard to justice and truth, is in a state of enjoyment. The heart which is actuated by resent- ment or malice is a stranger to joy. Here is a striking fact of a very general kind, furnishing very numerous specimens of a moral govern- ment, 2. There is a faculty in the human mind which approves of virtue, and condemns vice. It is not enough to say that righteousness is prudent because it is attended with pleasure ; that wickedness is fool- ish because it is attended >i'ith pain. Conscience, in judging of them, pronounces the one to be right, and the other to be wrong. The righteous, supported by that most delightful of all sentinjents, the sense that he is doing his duty, proceeds with self-approbation, and reflects upon his conduct with complacence ; the wicked not < nly is distracted by the conflict of various wretched pass ions, but acts under the perpetual conviction that he is doing what he ought not to do. — The hurry of business or the tumult of passion may, for a season, so far drown the voice of conscience, as to leave him at liberty to accomplish his purpose. But when his mind is cool, he perceives that in following blindly the impulse of appetite he has acted beneath the dignity of his reasonable nature ; the indulgence of malevolent affections is punished by the sentiment of remorse ; and he despises himself for every act of baseness, 3. Conscience, anticipating the future consequences of human actions, forebodes, that it shall be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked. The righteous, although naturally modest and unassuming, not only enjoys present serenity, but looks forward with good hope. The prospect of future ease lightens every burden, and the view of distant scenes of happiness and joy holds up his head in the time of adversity. But every crime is accompanied with a sense of deserved punishment. To the man who has disregarded the admonitions of conscience, she soon begins to utter her dreadful pre- sages ; she lays open to his view the dismal scenes which lie beyond every unlawful pursuit ; and sometimes awaking with increased fury, she produces horrors that constitute a degree of wretchedness, in comparison of which all the sufferings of life do not deserve to be mentioned. The constitution of human nature being the work of God, the three particulars which have been mentioned as parts of that constitution are parts of his government. The pleasure which accompanies one set of affections and the pain which accompanies the opposite afford an instance in the government of God of virtue being rewarded, and vice being punished : — the faculty which passes sentence upon human actions is a declaration from the Author of our oature of that conduct which is agreeable to Him, because it is a rule INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. 7 directing his creatures to pursue a certain conduct : — and the presenti- ment of the future consequences of our behaviour is a declaratioi\ from the Author of our nature of the manner in which his govern- ment is to proceed with regard to us. Tlie hopes and fears natural to the human mind are the language in which God foretells to mau the events in which he is deeply interested. To suppose that the Almighty engages his creatures in a certain course of action by de- lusive hopes and fears, is at once absurd and impious ; and if we think worthily of the Supreme Being, we cannot entertain a doubt that He, who by the constitution of human nature has declared his love of virtue and his hatred of vice, will at length appear the righteous Governor of the universe. I mentioned the state of the world as another subject within the sphere of our observation, from which unassisted reason may discover the character of the government of God. And here also we may mark three traces of a moral government. 1. It occurs, in the first place, to consider the world as the situation in which creatures, having the constitution which has been described, are placed. Acting in the presence of men, that is, of creatures con- stituted as we ourselves are, and feeling a connection with them in all the occupations of life, we experience in the sentiments of those around us, a farther reward and punishment than that which arises from the sense of our own minds. The facuky which passes sentence upon a man's own actions, when carried forth to the actions of others becomes a principle of esteem or contempt. The sense of good or ill desert becomes, upon the review of the conduct of others, applause or indignation. When it referred to a man's own conduct, it pointed only at what was future. When it refers to the conduct of others it becomes an active principle, and proceeds in some measure to execute the rules which it pronounces to be just. Hence the righteous is rewarded by the sentiments of his fellow- creatures. He experiences the gratitude of some, the friendship, at least the good-will of all. The wicked, on the other hand, is a stranger to esteem, and confidence, and love. His vices expose him to censure; his deceit renders him an object of distrust ; his malice creates him enemies ; according to the kind and the degree of his demerit, contempt or hatred or indignation is felt by every one who knows his character ; and even when these sentiments do not lead others to do him harm, they weaken or extinguish the emotions of sympathy ; so that his neighbours do not rejoice in his prosperity, and hardly weep over his misfortunes. Thus does God employ the general sense of mankind to encourage and reward the righteous, to correct and punish the wicked; and thus has he constituted men in some sort the keepers of their brethren, the guardians of one another's virtue. The natural unperverted senti- ments of the human mind with regard to character and conduct are upon the side of virtue and against vice ; and the course of the world, turning in a great measure upon these sentiments, indicates a moral government. 2. A second trace in the state of the world, of the moral govern- ment of God, is the civil government by which society subsists. 8 INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. Those who are employed in the administration of civil government are not supposed to act immediately from sentiment. It is expected that without regard to their own private emotions they shall in every case proceed according to certain known and established laws. But these laws, so far as they go, are in general consonant to the senti- ment of the human mind, and, like them, are favourable to the cause of virtue. The happiness, the existence of human government depends upon the protection and encouragement which it affords to virtue, and the punishment which it inflicts upon vice. The government of men, therefore, in its best, and happiest form is a moral government; and being a part, an instrument of the government of God, it serves to intimate to us the rule according to which his Providence operates through the general system. 3. Setting aside all consideration of the opinions of the instrumen- tality of man, there appear in the world evident traces of the moral government of God. Many of the consequences of men's behaviour happen witiiout the intervention of any agent. Of this kind are the eflects which their way of life has upon their health, and much of its influence upon their fortune and situation. Effects of the same nature extend to communities of men. They derive strength and stability from the truth, moderation, temperance and public spirit of the members; whereas idleness, luxury, and turbulence, while they ruin the private fortunes of many individuals, are hurtful to the com- munity ; and the general depravity of the members is the disease and weakness of the state. These effects do not arise from any civil institution. They are not a part of the political regulations which are made with different degrees of wisdom in different states; but they may be observed in all countries. They are part of what we commonly call the course of nature; that is, they are rewards and punishments ordained by the Lord of nature, not affected by the caprice of his subjects, and flowing immediately from the conduct of men. There arises indeed, from the present situation of human affairs, many obstructions to the full operation of these rewards and punishments. Yet the degree in which they actually take place is sufficient to ascertain the character of the government of God. In those cases where we are able to trace the causes which prevent the exact distribution of good and evil, we perceive that the very hindrances are wisely adapted to a present state. Even where we do not discern the reasons of their existence, we clearly perceive that these hindrances are accidental ; that virtue, benign and salutary in its influences, tends to produce happiness, pure and unmixed ; that vice, in its nature mischievous, tends to confusion and misery ; and we cannot avoid considering these tendencies as the voice of Him, who hath established the order of nature, declaring to those who observe and understand them, the future condition of the righteous and the wicked. And thus in the world, we behold upon every hand of us openings of a kingdom of righteousness corresponding to what we formerly traced in the constitution of human nature. By that constitution, while reward is provided for virtue and punishment for vice, there arise in our breast the forebodings of a higher reward and a liigher INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE. V punishment. So in the world, while there are manifold instances of a righteous distribution of good and evil, there is a tendency towards the completion of a scheme which is here but begun. This view of the government of God, which we have collected from the constitution of human nature and the state of the world, is brought to light by the religion of Jesus Christ. The language of God in his works leads us to his word in the Gospel. All our disquisitions concerning the nature of his government only prepare us for receiving those gracious discoveries, which, confirming every conclusion of right reason, resolvhig every doubt, and enlarging the imperfect views which belong to this the beginning of our existence, bring us perfect assurance, that, in the course of the Divine government, unlimited in extent, in duration, and in power, every hindrance shall be removed, the natural consequences of action shall be allowed to operate, virtue shall be happy, and vice shall be miserable. Abernethy on the Attributes. Cudworth's Intellectual System; a magazine of learning, where all the different schemes of Atheism are combated with profound erudition and close argument. Boyle's Ijectures ; a collection of the ablest defences of the great truths of religion that are to be found in any language. Having been composed in a long succession of years by men of different talents and pursuits, they furnish an abundant specimen of all the variety of argument that has ever been adduced upon the subject of which they treat. Butler's Analogy, the first chapters of which should be particularly studied in relation to the subjects of this discourse. Essays on Morality and Natural Religion, by Henry Home, Lord Kaimes. Paley's Natural Theology, the last and perhaps the most elaborate work of this author. He had h«re his pioneers as well as his forerunners. But his inimitable skill in arrang- ing and condensing his matter, his peculiar turn for what may be called " animal me- chanics," the aptness and the wit of his illustrations, and occasionally the warmth and the solemnity of his devotion, which, by a happy and becoming process, was rendered more animated as he drew nearer to the close of life, stamp on this work a character more valuable than originality. E 10 COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER I. COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OP CHRISTIANITY FROM HISTORY. The ground-work which I suppose to be laid in an inquiry into the truth of the Christian rehgion, is a behefof the two great doctrines of natural religion, that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him. You consider a man as led by the principles of his nature to believe that the universe is the work of an intelligent Being, although wandering very much in his apprehensions of that Being : you consider him as feeling that the government of the Creator of the world is a righteous government, although conscious that he often transgresses the law of his Maker, and very uncertain as to the method in which the sanctions of that law are to operate with regard to him : and you propose to examine whether to man in these circumstances, there was given an extraordinary revelation by the preadiing of the Son of God, or whether Jesus Christ and his apostles were men who spoke and wrote according to their own measure of knowledge, and who, when they called themselves the messengers of God, assumed a character which did not belong to them. It is manifest at first sight, that such a revelation is extremely desirable to man ; and a closer investigation of the subject may show it to be desirable in such a de- gree, so necessary to the comfort and improvement of man, as to create a presumption in favour of the proofs that the Father of the human race has been pleased to grant it. But the necessity of reve- lation is a subject upon which, in my opinion, it is better not to enter at the outset ; because, if the proofs of the truth of Christianity be de- fective, the presumption arising from this necessity will not be suffi- cient to help them out ; and if they be clear and conclusive, the neces- sity of revelation will be more manifest after you proceed to examine its nature and its effects. The truth of Christianity turns upon a question of fact ; which, like every other question of the same kind, ought to be judged calmly and impartially — not by the wishes wh.ch it may be natural to form upon the subject, but by the evidence which is adduced in support of the fact. We allow the great body of the people to retain all the early prejudices which they happily acquire on the side of Christianity. — We allow its full weight to every consideration which is level to their capacity, and which corresponds to their habits; because, what we wish to impress upon them is a practical belief of the truth of religion: and this practical belief may be sufficient to direct their conduct and to establish their hope, although it be not grounded upon critical in- quiries and logical deductions. But it is expected that the teachers of religion should be able to defend the citadel in which they are FROM HISTORY. 11 placed, against the attack of every enemy, and that they should be acquainted with the quarters which are most likely to be attacked, with the nature of the blow that is to be aimed, and the most success- ful method of warding it off. With them, therefore, belief ought to be not merely the result of early habit, but a conviction founded upon a close examination of evidence ; and in this, as in every other inquiry, they ought to take the fair and safe i^iethod of arriving at the truth, by bringing to the search after it, a mind unembarrassed with any prepossession. A person who, in this state of mind, begins to examine the question of fact upon which the deistical controversy tnrns, will be struck with that support which the truth of Christianity receives from the whole train of history for more than 1700 years. The impartial historians of those times, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny, in passages* which have been often quoted and commented upon, and the exact amount of which every student of divinity ought to know, concur with Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, the learned, inveterate, and inquisitive adver- saries of the Christian faith, in establishing beyond the possibility of doubt the following leading facts; — that Jesus Christ, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death ; that this man during his life founded, and his followers after his death supported a sect, upon the reputation of performing miracles ; and that this sect spread quickly, and became very numerous in different parts of the Roman empire. A succession of Christian writers is extant, some of whom lived near enough the event to be witnesses of it, and all of whom published books, which must have appeared absurd to their contemporaries, if the facts upon which these books proceeded had then been known to be false. A chain of tradition can be shown by which the principal facts were transmitted in the Christian Church. The existence of our religion can be traced back to the time and place to which the beginning of it is referred ; and since that time, by the institution of a Gospel ministry, by the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and by the observance of the Lord's day, there have continued, in many parts of th-e world, standing memorials of the preaching, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. • I begin with mentioning these things, because every literary man will perceive the advantage of taking possession of this strong ground. By placing his foot here he is furnished with a kind of extrinsical evidence, the force of which none will deny, which cannot be said to create any unreasonable prepossession,and yet which prepares the mind for the less remote proofs of a Divine revelation. Grotiiis fie Veritate Rel. Chris. Mack night on the Truth of the Gospel History. Addison's Evidences. Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. * Sueton. Claud, cap. 25. Sueton. Nero. cap. 16. Tacit. Ann. 1. xv. 44. Plin. I. x. ep. 97. 12 AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF CHAPTER II. AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, The whole of that revelation which is peculiar to Christians is con- tained in the books of the New Testament ; and therefore, it appears to me that before we begin to judge of the divine mission or inspira- tion of the persons to whom these books are ascribed, we ought to satisfy ourselves that the books themselves are authentic and genuine. For even although the apostles of Jesus did really receive a commis- sion from the Son of God, yet if the books which bear their names were not written by them, or if they have been corrupted as to their substance and import since they were written, that is, if the books are not both authentic and genuine, we may be very much misled by trusting to them, notwithstanding the divine mission of their supposed authors. I oppose the word authentic to suppositions; the word genuine to vitiated ; I call a book authentic which was truly the work of the person whose name it bears ; I call a book genuine which re- mains in all material points the same as when it proceeded from the author. Upon these two points, the authenticity and genuineness of the books of the New Testament, I am at present to fix your attention. Both the subjects open a wide field, and have received much discus- sion. All that I can do, is to mark to you the leading circumstances which have been discussed, and with regard to which it becomes you to inform and satisfy your minds. 1. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books written by apostles, or by persons under their direction, and received by Christians as of divine authority. This canon was not formed by any General Council, who claimed a power of deciding in this matter for the Christian Church ; but it continued to grow during all the age of the apostles, and it received frequent accessions, as the different books came to be generally recognised. It was many years after the ascension of Jesus before any of the books of the New Testament were written. The apostles were at first entirely occupied with the labours and perils which they encountered in executing their com- mission to preach the Gospel to all nations. They found neither leisure nor occasion to write, till Christian societies were formed ; and all their writings were suggested by particular circumstances Avhich occurred in the progress of Christianity. Some of the Epistles to the Churches were the earliest of their writings. Every Epistle was re- ceived upon unquestionable evidence by the Church to which it was sent, and in whose keeping the original manuscript remained. Copies were circulated first among the neighbouring churches, and went THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 13 from them to Christian societies at a greater distance, till, by degrees, the whole Christian world, considering the superscription of the Epistle, and the manner in which it came to them, as a token of its authenticity, and relying upon the original, which they knew where to find, gave entire credit to its being the work of him whose name it bore. This is the history of the thirteen Epistles which bear the name of the apostle Paul, and of the First Epistle of Peter. Some of the other Epistles, which had not the same particular superscription, were not so easily authenticated to the whole Church, and were, upon that account, longer of being admitted into the canon. The Gospels were written by different persons, for different pur- poses ; and those Christian societies upon whose account they were originally composed, communicated them to others. The book of Acts went along with the Gospel of Luke, as a second part composed by the same author. The four Gospels, the book of Acts, and the fourteen epistles which I mentioned, very early after their publication, were known and received by the followers of Jesus in every part of the world. References are made to them by the first Christian writers ; and they have been handed down, by an uninterrupted tradilion,from the days in which they appeared, to our time. Polycarp was the disciple of the Apostle John ; Irenaius was the disciple of Polycarp ; and of the works of Irensus a great part is extant, in which he quotes most of the books of the New Testament, and mentions the number of the Gospels, and the names of many of the Epistles. Origen in the third century, Eusebius and Jerome in tlie fourth, give us, m their voluminons works, catalogues of the books of the New Testa- ment which coincide with ours, relate fully the history of the authors of the several books, with the occasion upon which they wrote, and make large quotations from them. In the course of the first four cen- turies the greater part of the New Testament was transcribed in the writings of the Christians, and many particular passages were quoted and referred to by Celsus and Julian, in their attacks upon Christianity. From the beginning of the Church, throughout the Avhole Christian world, the books of the New Testament were publicly read and ex- plained to the people in their assemblies for divine worship ; and they were continually appealed to by Christian writers as the standard of faith, and the supreme judge in controversy. The Christian world was very far from being prone to receive every book which claimed inspiration. Although many were circulated under respectable names, none were ever admitted by the whole Church, or quoted by Christian writers as of divine authority, except those which we now receive. And it was very long before some of them were universally acknowledged. When you come to examine the subject particularly, you will find that we stand upon ground which we are fully able to defend, when we admit the Epistle to the Hebrews, the smaller Epistles, and the book of Revelation, as of equal authority with any other part of the New Testament. At the same time, the hesitation which, for several ages, was entertained in some places of the Christian world with regard to these books, is satisfying to a candid mind, because this hesitation isof itself a strong presumption, that the universal and cordial reception which was given to all the other books 4 14 AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF of the New Testament, proceeded upon clear incontestable evidence of their authenticity. If, then, we readily receive, upon the authority of tradition, the History of Thucydides, the Orations of Cicero, the Dialogues of Plato, as really the composition of these immortal authors, we have much more reason to give credit to the explicit testimony which the judg- ment of contemporaries, and the acknowledgment of succeeding ages, have borne to the writers of the New Testament. There is not any ancient book with regard to which the external evidence of authenti- city is so full and so various : and this variety of external evidence is confirmed to every person who is capable of judging, by the most striking internal marks of authenticity, — by numberless instances of agreement with (he history of those times, which are most satisfying when they appear to be most trivial, because they form altogether a continued coincidence in points where it could not well have been studied ; a coincidence which, the more that any one is versant in the manners, the geography, and the constitution of ancient times, will bring the more entire conviction to his mind, that these books must have been written by persons living in the very country, and at the very period to which we refer those who are accounted the authors of them. Undesigned coincidences between the Acts and the Epistles are pointed out with admirable taste and judgment in Paley's HoraB Paulinae, which is perhaps the most cogent and convincing specimen of moral argumentation in the world ; and in the first volume of his Evidences of Christianity, — which are professedly a compilation, but so condensed and compacted, so illuminated and enforced, that it is impossible not to admire the matchless powers of the compiler's genius in turning the patient drudgery of Lardner to such account, — the authenticity of the Gospel and Acts is established. 2. Having ascertained to yaour own satisfaction the authenticity of the books of the New Testament, you will next proceed to inquire whether they are genuine, that is, uncorrupted. For even although they proceed at first from the apostles or evangelists whose names they bear, they may have been so altered since that time as to conve}' to us very false information with regard to their original contents. It does not become you to rest in the presumption that the providence of God, if it gave a revelation, would certainly guard so precious a gift, and transmit entire through all ages "the faith once delivered to the saints."* The analogy of nature does not support this presumption ; for the best blessings of heaven are abused by the vices or the negli- gence of those upon whom they are bestowed ; and succeeding genera- tions often suffer in their domestic, political, and religious interests, by abuses of which their predecessors were guilty. It becomes a divine to know, that the manuscripts of the books of the New Testament, which were originally deposited with the Christian societies, no longer exist ; that there have been the same ignorance, haste, and inaccuracy in transcril)ing the Gospels and Epistles, as in transcribing all other books; and that the various readings arising frohi these or other sources were very early observed. Origen speaks of them in the third century. They multiplied exceedingly, as was (o be expected • Jude V. 3. THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 15 from the nature of the thing, after his time, when the copies of the original MSS. became more numerous and more widely diffused ; so that Mill, in his splendid and valuable edition of the Greek Testament, has numbered 30,000 various readings. This has been a subject of much declamation and triumph to the enemies of our Christian faith. Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Collins, Toland, Tindal, and many other deistical writers in the beginning of the last century, boasted that Christians are not in possession of a sure standard ; and they built upon the supposed corruption of the Greek text, an argument for the superiority of the light of nature above that uncertain instruction which varies continually as it passes through the hands of men. A scholar must be aware of this difficulty, and prepared to meet it. When you come to estimate the amount of the 30,000 various readings, you will find that almost all of them are trifling changes upon letters and syllables, and that there is hardly one instance in which they affect the great doctrines of our religion. It will give you much satisfaction to observe, that the different sects into which the Christian church was early divided, watched one another ; that any great alteration of a book which, soon after its being published, had been sent over the whole world, was impossible ; that even those who corrupted Christianity have preserved the Scriptures so entire, as to transmit a full refutation of their own errors ; and that from the most vitiated copies the one faith and hope of Christians may be learned. Still, however, it is desirable that these various readings should be corrected, and it is proper that you should have a general acquaintance with the sources from which the correction of them is to be derived. These sources are four. 1. The MSS. of the New Testament which abound in Germany, France, Italy, England, and other countries of Europe. I mean MSS. written long before printing was in use, some of which, particularly Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus, are referred to one or other of the first three centuries of the Christian era. 2. The ancient versions of the New Testament, which having been made in early times from copies much nearer the original MSS. than any that we have,. may be considered as in some degree vouchers of the contents of those MSS. The most respec- table of the ancient versions is the old Italic, which, we have reason to believe, was made in the first century for the benefit of those Christians in the Roman empire who understood the Latin better than any other language. It has, indeed, undergone many alterations; but so far as it can be recovered in its most ancient form, it is the surest guide, in doubtful places, to that which was the original reading. 3. A third source of correction is found in the numberless quotations from the New Testament with which the works of the Christian fathers and other early writers abound. Had they always copied exactly from books lying before them, the extent of their quotations would have rendered them as certain guides to the genuine reading, as they are unquestionable witnesses of the authenticity. But it cannot be denied, that as the books of the New Testament were perfectly fami- liar to them, they have often quoted from memory, and that being more careful to give the sense than the words, they differ from one another in some trivial respects, when quoting the same passage, so 16 AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF that their quotations cannot be applied indiscriminately to ascertain the original. 4. The last source of correction is sound chastised criticism, which, joining to the sagacious use of the most ancient MSS., versions, and quotations, cautious but skilful conjecture, determines which of the various readings is to be preferred, upon principles so clearly established, and so accurately applied as to leave no hesitation in the mind of any scholar. The canons of scripture criticism have been investigated and digested by many learned men. You will find collections of them in the Prolegomena to the larger editions of the Greek Testament. They are frequently applied by the later com- rnentators, and they are the introduction to a kind of learning which, although it is apt, when prosecuted too far, to lead to what is minute and frivolous, yet is in many respects so essential that it does not become any one who professes to interpret the Scriptures to others to be entirely a stranger to if. Superficial reasoners may think it strange that so much discussion should be necessary to ascertain the true reading of the oracles of God, and in their haste they may pronounce, that it would have been more becoming the great purpose for which these oracles were given, more kind, and more useful to man, that the originals should have been saved from destruction ; and that if the great extent of the Christian society rendered it impossible for every one to have access to them, the ail-ruling providence of God should have preserved every copy that was taken from every kind of vitiation. They who thus judge, forget that there is no part of the works of creation, of the ways of Providence, or of the dispensation of grace, in which the Almighty has done precisely that which we would have dictated to him, had he admitted us to be his counsellors, although we are generally able, by considering what he has done, to discover that his plan is more perfect, and more universally useful, than that v/hich our narrow views might have suggested as best. They forget the extent of the miracle which they ask, when they demand, that all who ever were employed in copying the New Testament should at all times have been etfectually guarded by the Spirit of God from negligence, and their works kept safe from the injuries of time. And they forget, in the last place, that the very circumstance to which they object has, in the wisdom of God, been highly favourable to the cause of truth. The infidel has enjoyed his triumph, and has exposed his ignorance. Men of erudition have been encouraged to apply their talents to a subject which opens so large a field for the exercise of them. Their research and their discoveries have demonstrated the futility of the objection ; and have shown that the great body of the people in every country, who are incapable of such research, may safely rest in the Scriptures as they are ; and that the most scrupulous critics, by the inexhaustible sources of correction which lie open to them, may attain nearer to an absolute certainty with regard to the true reading of the books of the New Testament, than of any other ancient book in any language. If they require more, their demand is unreasonable ; for the religion of Jesus does not profess to satisfy the careless, or to overpower the obstinate, but rests its pretensions upon evidence suflicient to bring conviction to those who with honest hearts inquire after the truth, and are willing to exercise their reason in attempting to discover it. THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 17 Griesbach, professor at Jena in Saxony, published in 1796 the first volume of his second edi- tion of the (Jreek Testament, containing the four Gospels ; and in 1806, the second volume, containing the other books of the New Testament. He availed himself of the materials which sacred criticism had been collecting from the time of the publication of Mill's edition. And, adverting to all the manuscript quotations and versions which the research of a number of theological writers, in different parts of the world, had brought into view, he went farther than the former editors of the New Testament had done. They adhered to what is called the textus receptus, which had been estabhshcd in the Elzevir edition of the Greek Testament in 1624, which is very much the same with that of the editions of Besa and Erasmus, and which is now in daily use. They only collected various readings from manuscripts, versions, and quotations, introduced them into a preface or notes, and explained in large and learned prolegomena, the degree of credit that was due to them; thus furnishing materials for a more correct edition of the Greek Testament, and unfolding the principles upon which these materials ought to be applied. But Griesbach pioceeded himself to apply the materials, by introducing emendations into the text. This he is said, by Dr. Marsh, late Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and now Bishop of Pe- terbro', to have done with unremitted diligence, with extreme caution, and with scrupulous integrity. His emendations never rest merely upon conjecture, but always upon authority which appeared to him decisive. They are printed in a smaller character than the rest of the text, or in some clear way distinguished from the received text; and when he was in any doubt, they are not introduced, but remain in the notes or margin. I have great satisfaction in saying, that in as far as I have examined Griesbach's New Testament, it does not appear to differ in any material respect from the received text; so that all the industry and erudition of this laborious and accurate editor serve to establish this most comfortable doctrine, that the books of the New Testament are genuine. Dr. Marsh says, that Griesbach's edition is so correct, and the prolegomena, or critical apparatus annexed to it, so full and learned, that there will be no occasion for a different edition of the Greek Testament during the life of the youngest of us. I quote Dr. Marsh, because in that por- tion of his lectures which has been published, he gives the most minute and ample infor- mation concerning all the editions of the Greek Testament. He mentions repeatedly, with due honour, Dr. Gerard's Institutes of Biblical Criticism, to which I refer you. Marsh's Lectures, and his Translations of MichaeUs's Introductions. Macknight's Preliminary Discourses in his Commentary on the Epistles. Lardner's Credibihty of the Gospel History, and Supplement to it. Iceland. • Jortin. Hartley in vol. 5th of Watson's Theological Tracts. Pretty man's Institutes. Paley's Horse Paulina, and Evidences of Christianity. 4* '3 INTlienNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER III. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. The leading characteristical assertion in the books of the New Testament is, that they contain a divine revelation. Jesus said, " My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me ;"* and when he gave his apostles a commission to preach his gospel, he used these words, " As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you."f " He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth him that sent me. "J This is the highest claim which any mortal can advance. It holds forth the man who makes it under the most dignified char- acter; and, if it be well founded, it involves consequences the most interesting to those who hear him. Such a claim is not to be care- lessly admitted. The grounds which it rests ought to be closely scruti- nized ; and reason cannot have a more important or honourable office tl)an in trying its pretensions by a fair standard. As every circumstance respecting those who advanced such a claim merits attention, the first thing which presents itself to a rational inquirer, is the manner in which the claim is made, and the state of mind which those who make it discover in their conduct, in the general style of their writings, or in particular expressions. Now, if you set yourselves to collect all the characters of enthusiasm, either from the vVritings of those profound moralists who have analyzed and discrimi- nated the various feature^ of the human mind, or from the behaviour of those who, in different ages, have mistaken the fancies of a distem- pered brain for the inspiration of heaven, you will find the most marked opposition between these characters and the appearance which the books of the New Testament present. Instead of the general, indistinct, inconsistent ravings of enthusiasm, you find in these writings discourses full of sound sense and manly eloquence, connect- ed reasonings, apposite illustrations, a multitude of particular facts, a continual reference to common life, and the same useful instructive views preserved throughout. Instead of the gloom of enthusiasm, you find a spirit of cheerfulness, a disposition to associate, an accommo- dation to prejudices and opinions. Instead of credulity and vehe- ment passion, you observe in the writers of these books a slowness of heart to believe, a hesitation in the midst of evidence, perfect posses- sion of their faculties, with calm s^. ate manners. Instead of t.ie self- conceit, the turgid insolent tone or enthusiasm, you find in them a reserve, a modesty, a simplicity of expression, a disparagement of their own peculiar gifts, and a constant endeavour to magnify, in the eyes of their followers, those virtues in which they themselves did ♦Johnvii. 16. f John xx. 21. t Luke x. 16. INTERNAL EVIDENCE OP CHRISTIANITY. l^' not pretend to have any pre-eminence. The claim which they advance sits so easy and natural upon them, that the most critical eye cannot discern any trace of that kind of delusion which has often been exposed to public view ; and they are so unlike any enthusiasts whom the world ever saw, that, as far as outward appearances are to be trusted, they " speak the words of truth and soberness."* But you will not trust to appearances. It becomes you to examine the words which they speak, and you are in possession of a standard by which these words should be tried, and witliout a conformity to which they cannot be received as divine. Reason and conscience are the primary revelation which God made to man. We know assuredly that they came from the author of nature, and our apprehensions of his perfections must indeed be very low, if we can suppose it possible that they should be contradicted by a subsequent revelation. If any system, therefore, which pretends to come from God, contain palpable absurdities, or if it enjoin actions repugnant to the moral feelings of our nature, it never can approve itself to our understandings. It is unnecessary to examine the evidences of its being divine, because no evidence can be so strong as our perception of the falsehood of that which is absurd, and of the inconsistency between the will of God and that which is immoral. When I say that a divine revelation camiot contain a palpable absurdity, I am far from meaning, that every thing contained in it must be plain and familiar, such as reason is already versant with. The revelation, in that case, would be un- necessary. Neither do I mean that every thing contained in it, although new, must be such as we are able fully to comprehend; for many insuperable difficulties occur in the study of nature. We have daily experience, that our ignorance of the manner in which a thing exists, does not create any doubt of its existence ; and in the ordinary business of life, we admit without hesitation, the truth of facts which, at the time we admit them, are to us unaccountable. The presump- tion is, that if a revelation be given, it will contain more facts of the same kind; and it addresses you as reasonable creatures, if it require you, in judging of the facts which it proposes to your belief, to follow out the same principles upon which you are accustomed to proceed with regard to the facts which you see or hear. If the books of the New Testament be tried with this caution by the standard of reason, they will not be found to contain any of that contradiction which might entitle you to reject them before you examine their evidence. There are doctrines, to the full apprehension of which our limited faculties are inadequate ; and there has been much perplexity and misapprehension in the presumptuous attempts to explain these doc- trines. But the manner in which the books themselves state the doctrines, cannot appear to any philosophical mind to involve an absurdity. The system of religion and morality which they deliver is every way worthy of God. It corresponds to all the discoveries which the most enlightened reason has made with regard to the nature and the will of God ; and it comprehends all the duties which are dictated by conscience or clearly suggested by the love of order. The few objections which have been made to the morality of the • Acts xKvi. 25. 20 INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. gospel, as being defective in some points, by not enjoining patriotism or friendship, or too rigorous in others, admit of so clear and so easy a sokition, that nothing but the desire of finding fault, joined to the difficulty of discovering any exceptionable circumstance, could have drawn remarks so frivolous from the authors in whose works they appear. You may, then, without much trouble, satisfy yourselves that neither the manner in which the writers of the New Testament advance their claim, nor the contentsof their books, afford any reason for rejecting that claim instantly, without examining the evidence. — I do not say that this affords any proof of a divine revelation ; for a system may be rational and moral without being divine. This is only a pre-requisite, which every person to whom a system is pro- posed under that character has a title to demand. But we state the matter very imperfectly when we say, that there is nothing in the manner or the contents of these books which deserves an immediate rejection. A closer attention to the subject not only renders it clear that they may come from God, but suggests many strong presumptions that they cannot be the work of men. These presumptions make up what is called the internal evidence of Christianity. The first branch of this internal evidence is the manifest superiority of that system of religion and morality which is contained in the books of the New Testament, above any that was ever delivered to the world before. Here a Christian divine derives a most important advantage from an intimate acquaintance with the ancient heathen philosophers. He ought not to take upon trust the accounts of their discoveries which succeeding writers have copied from one another. But setting that which they taught, over against the discourses of Jesus Christ, and the writings of his Apostles, he ought to see with his own eyes the force of that argument which arises from the com- parison. Do not think yourselves obliged, to disparage the writings of the heathen moralists. The effort which they made to raise their minds above the grovelling superstition in which they were born was honourable to themselves ; it was useful to their disciples, and it scattered some rays of light through the world. It does not become a scholar, who is daily reaping instruction and entertainment from their works, to deny them any part of that applause which is their due ; and it is not necessary for a Christian. You may safely allow that they were very much superior in the knowledge of religion and morality to their countrymen ; and yet, when you take those philoso- phers who lived before the Christian era, and compare their writings Avith the books of the New Testament, the disparity appears most striking. The views of God given in these books are not only more sub- lime than those which occasional passages in the writings of the philo- sophers discover, but are purified from the alloy which abounds in them, and are at once consistent with, and apposite to the condition of man. Religion is here uniformly applied to encourage man in the discharge of his duty, to support him under the trials of life, and to cherish every good affection. To love God with all our heart, and strength, and soul, and mind, and to love our neighbour as ourselves, the two conmiandments of the Gospel, are the most luminous and compre- hensive principles of morality that ever were taught. The particular INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 21' precepts, which, although not systematically deduced, are but the unfolding of those principles, form the lieart, regulate the conduct, descend into every relation, and constitute the most perfect and refined morality, — a moralit}^, not elevated above the concerns or occasions of ordinary men, but sound and practical, which renders the members of society useful, agreeable, and respectable, and at the same time carries them forward by the progressive improvement of their nature to a higher state of being. The precepts themselves are short, ex- pressive, and simple, easily retained, and easily applied ; and they are enforced by all those motives which liave the greatest power over the human mind. That future life, to which good men in every age had looked forward with an anxious wish, is brought to light iu these books. There is not in them the conjecture, the hesitation, the embarrassment which had entered into the language of the wisest philosophers upon this subject. But there is an explicit declaration, delivered in a tone of authority which becomes that Being who can order the condition of his creatures, that this is a season of trial, that there willhereafterbeatimeofrecompense,andthatthe conduct of men upon earth is to produce everlasting consequences with regard to their future condition. To the fears, of which a being who is conscious of repeated transgressions cannot divest himself, no other system had applied any remedy but the repetition of unavailing sacrifices. These books alone disclose a scheme of Providence adapted to the condition of sinners, announced, introduced and conducted with a solemnity corresponding to its importance, admirably fitted in all its parts, sup- posing it to be true, to revive the hopes of the penitent, to restore the dignity, the purity, and happiness of the intelligent creation, and thus to repair that degeneracy which all writers have lamented, of which every man has experience, and to the cure of which all human means had proved inadequate. This grand idea, which is characteristical of the books of the New Testament, completes their superiority above every other system, and gives a peculiar kind of sublimity to both the religion and the morality of the Gospel. The second branch of the internal evidence of Christianity arises from the condition of those men in whose writings this superior system appears. We can trace a progress in ancient philosophy ; we see the principles of science arising out of the occupation of men, collected, improved, abused ; and we can mark the ettect which both the improvement and the abuse had in producing that degree of perfection which they attained. To every person versant in the history of ancient philosophy, Socrates must appear an extraordinary man. — Yet the eminence of Socrates forms only a stage in the progress of his countrymen. His disciples, who have recorded his discourses, were men placed in a most favourable situation for polishing and enlarging their minds ; and the Roman philosophers trod in their steps. But, if the books of the New Testament be authentic, the writers who have delivered to us this superior system, were men born in a mean condition, without any advantages of education, and with strong national prejudices, which the low habits formed by their occupations could not fail to strengthen. They have interwoven in their works their history and their manner of thinking. The obscurity of their station is vouched by contemporary writers, and it was one of the 22 INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. reproaches thrown upon the Gospel by its earliest adversaries. Yet the conceptions of these mean men upon the most important subjects, far transcend the continued efibrts of ancient philosophy ; and the sages of Greece and Rome appear as children when compared with the fishermen of Galilee. From men, whose minds we cannot suppose to have been seasoned with any other notions of divine things than those whichthey derived from the teaching of the Pharisees, who had obscured the law by their traditions, and loaded it with ceremonies, there arose a pure and spiritual religion. From men, educated in the narrowness and bigotry of the Jewish spirit, there arose a religion which enjoins universal benevolence, a scheme for diffusing the knowledge of the true God over the whole earth, and Ibrming a church out of all the nations under heaven. The divine plan of blessing the human race, in turning them from their iniquity, originat- ed from a little district, — was adopted, not by the whole tribe as a method of retrieving their ancient honours, but by a few individuals, in opposition to public authority, — and was prosecuted with zeal and activity under every disadvantage and discouragement. When his contemporaries heard Jesus speak, they said, "Whence hath this man wisdom? How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"* When the Jewish council heard Peter and John, they marvelled, because they knew that they were ignorant and unlearned men ;"t and to every candid inquirer, the superiority of that system, and the magnificence of that plan contained in tlie books of the New Testa- ment, when compared with the natural opportunities of those from whom they proceed, must appear the most inexplicable phenomenon in the history of the human mind, unless we admit the truth of their claim. A third branch of the internal evidence of Christianity arises from the character of Jesus Christ. It is often said with much truth, that the gospel has the peculiar excellence of proposing in the character of its author, an example of all its precepts. That character may also be stated as one branch of the infernal evidence of Christianity, whether you consider Jesus as a teacher, or as a man. His manner of teaching was most dignified and most winning. " Never man spake like this man." He taught by parable, by action, and by plain discourse. Out of familiar scenes, out of the objects which surrounded him, and the intercourse of social life, he extracted the most pleasing and useful instruction. He repelled the attacks of his enemies with a gentleness which disarmed, and a wisdom which confounded their malice. There was a plainness, yet a depth in all his sayings. He was tender, persuasive, or severe, according to circumstances ; and the discourse, which seemed to have been dictated to him merely by the occasion, is found to convey lasting and valuable counsel to posterity. His character as a man, is allowed to be the most perfect which the world ever saw. All the virtues of which we can form a conception, were united in him with a more exact harmony, and shone with a lustre more bright and more natural, than in any of the sons of men. His descending from the glories of heaven, assuming the weaknes? of human nature, and voluntarily submitting to all the calamities * Matt, xiii, 54. John vii. 15. f Acts iv. 13 INTERNAL EVIDKNCE OF CHRISTIANITY. SIS which he endured for the sake of men, exhibits a degree of benevolence, of magnanimity, and patience, which far exceeds the conception that Plato formed of the most tried and perfect virtue. The majesty of his divine nature is blended with the fellow feeling and condescension implied in his office ; and although the history of mankind did not afford any model that could here be followed, this singular character is supported throughout, and there is not any one of the words or actions ascribed to him, which does not appear to the most correct taste to become the man Christ Jesus, It is not possible that a manner of teaching, so iniinitely superior to that of the Scribes and Pharisees, or that a character so extraordhiary, so godlike, so consistent, could have been invented by the fishermen of Galilee. Admit only that the books of the New Testament are authentic, and you must allow that the authors of them drew Jesus Christ from the life. And how do they draw him ? Not in the language of fiction, with swoln panegyric, with a laborious eff'ort to rmmber his deeds, and to record all his sayings, but in the most natural artless manner. Four of his disciples, not many years after his death, when every circumstance could easily be investigated, write a short history of his life. Without attempting to exhaust the subject, without studying to coincide with one another, without directing your attention to the shining parts of his history, or marking any contrast between him and other men, they leave you, from a few facts, to gather the character of the man whom they had followed. Thus you learn his innocence not from their protestations, but from the whole complexion of his life ; from the declaration of the judge who condemned him ; of the centu- rion who attended his execution ; of a traitor, who having been admit- ted into his family, was a witness of his most retired actions, who had no tie of affection, of delicacy, or consistency, to restrain him from divulging the whole truth, and who might have pleaded the secret wickedness of his master as an apology for his own baseness, who would have been amply repaid for his information, and yet who died with these words in his mouth, " I have sinned, in that I have be- trayed the innocent blood."* Had Judas borne no such testimony, an appeal to him was the most unsafe method in which the writers of this history could attest the innocence of their master. But if the wisdom of God had ordained, that even in the family of Jesus the wrath of his enemies should thus praise him, it was the most natural for one of the evangelists to record so striking a circumstance : and I mention it here, only as a specimen of the manner in which the char- acter of Jesus is drawn, not by the colouruig of a skilful pencil, but by a continual reference to facts, which to impostors are of difficult in- vention, and of easy detection, but which, lo those who exhibit a real character, are the most natural, the most delightful, and the most effectual method of making their friend known. " Shall we say," writes Rousseau, no uniform champion for the cause of Christianity, " shall we say that the history of tlie gospel is invented at pleasure ? No. It is not thus that men invent. It would be more inconceivable that a number of men had in concert produced this book from their own imaginations, than it is that one man has furnished the subject * Matt, xxvii. 4. 24 INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. of it. The morality of the gospel, and its general tone, were beyond the conception of Jewish authors ; and the history of Jesus Christ has marks of truth so palpable, so striking, and so perfectly inimitable, that its inventor would excite our admiration more than its hero."* A fourth branch of the internal evidence of Christianity arises from the characters of the apostles of Jesus as drawn in their own writings. Their condition renders the superiority of their doctrine inexplicable, without admitting a divine revelation : their character gives the highest credibility to their pretensions. We seldom read the work of any person, without forming some apprehension of his character ; and if his work represent him as engaged in a succession of trials, pouring forth the sentiments of his heart, and holding, in interesting situations, much intercourse with his fellow creatures, we contract an intimate acquaintance with him before we are done, and we are able to collect from numberless circumstances, whetlier he be at pains to disguise himself from us, or whether he be really such a man as he wishes to appear. No scene ever was more interesting to the actors, than that in which the writings of the apostles of Jesus exhibit them ; and the gospels and epistles taken together, afford to every attentive reader a complete display of their character. We said, that they appear from their writings devoid of enthusiasm, cool and collected. Yet this coolness is removed at the greatest distance from every mark of im- posture. They are at no pains to disguise their infirmities ; all their prejudices shine through their narration ; and they do not assume to themselves any merit for having abandoned them. We see light opening slowly upon their minds, their hopes disappointed, and them- selves conducted into scenes very different from those which they had figured. " We trusted," said they, after the death of their master, " that it was he which should have redeemed Israel. "t Yet it is not long before they become firm, and cheerful, and resolute. Not over- awed by the threatenings of the magistrates, nor shaken by the per- secutions which they endured from their countrymen, they devoted their lives to the generous undertaking of spreading through the world the knowledge of that religion which they had embraced. Appearing as the servants of another, they disclaim the honours which their followers were disposed to pay them ; they uniformly inculcate quiet inoffensive manners, and a submission to civil authority ; and labour- ing with their hands for the supply of their necessities, they stand forth as patterns of humility and self-denial. The churches to which they write, are the witnesses to posterity of their holy unblameable conduct ; their sincerity and zeal breathe through all their epistles ; and, when you read their writings, you behold the most illustrious example of disinterested beneficence, that exalted love of mankind, which made them forego every private consideration, in order to pro- mote the virtue and happiness of those to whom they were sent. They had differences amongst themselves, which they are at no pains to conceal ; yet they remained united in the same cause. They had personal enemies in the churches \vhich they planted ; yet they were not afraid to reprove, to censure, to excommunicate ; and, in the im- mediate prospect of death, they continued their labour of love. * Rousseau, Emile, ii. 98. f Luke xxiv. 21. , INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 Such is the character of the apostles of Jesus, as it appears in tlieir authentic writings, not drawn by themselves, but collected from the facts which they relate, and the letters which they addrv^ss to those who knew them. It is a character so far raised above the ordinary exertions of mortals, and so diametrically opposite to the Jewish spirit, that we naturally search for some divine cause of its being formed. We are led to consider its existence as a pledge of the truth of that high claim which such men appear not unworthy to make ; and this assurance of their veracity which we derive from their conduct, disposes our minds to attend to that external evidence which they olfer to adduce. I have thus stated what appear to me the principal parts of the internal evidence of Christianity. I have not mentioned the style or composition of the books of the New Testament, because, although I am of opinion that there are in them instances of sublimity, of tender- ness, and of manly eloquence, which are not to be equalled by any human composition, and although the mixture of dignity and sim- plicity which characterizes these books is most worthy of the author and the snbject of them, yet this is a matter of taste, a kind of senti- mental proof which will not reach the understandings of all, and where an affirmation may be answered by a denial. The only evi- dence which Mahomet adduced for his divine mission, was the inimi- table excellence of his Koran. Produce me, said he, a single chapter equal to this book, and I renounce my claim. We are not driven to this necessity ; and therefore, although every person of true taste reads with the highest admiration many parts of the New Testament, al- though every divine ought to cultivate a taste for the sacred classics, and has often occasion to illustrate their beauties, it is better to' rest the evidence of our religion upon arguments less controvertible. — Neither have I mentioned that inward conviction which the excellence of the matter, the grace of the promises, and the awfulness of the threatenings, produce on every mind disposed by the influence of heaven to receive the truth. This is the witness of the Spirit, the highest and most satisfying evidence of divine revelation ; the gift of God, for which we pray, and which every one who asks with a good and honest heart is encouraged to expect. But this witness within ourselves, although it removes every shadow of doubt from our own breasts, cannot be stated to others. They are to be convinced, not by our feelings but by their own ; and the truth of that fact, upon which the Deistical controversy turns, must be established by arguments which every understanding may apprehend, and with regard to which the experience of one man cannot be opposed to the experience of another. Of this kind are the points which I have stated ; the superior excellence of that system contained in the books of the New Testament, taken in conjunction with the condition of those whom we know to be the authors of them, the character of Jesus Christ, as drawn by his disciples, and their own character as it appears from their writings. 1 do not say that these arguments will have equal force with all ; but I say that they are fitted by their nature to make an impression upon every understanding which considers them with attention and candour. I allow that they form only a presumptive evidence for the high claim advanced in these books ; and I consider 5 G 26 INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. the external evidence of Christianity as absolutely necessary to estab- lish our faith. But I have called your attention particularly to the various branches of this internal evidence, not only because the result of the four taken together appears to me to form a very strong presump- tion, but also because they constitute a principal part of the study of a divine. By dwelling upon these branches — by reading with care the many excellent books which treat of them, — and, above all, by search- ing the Scriptures with a special view to perceive the force of this inter- nal evidence, your sense of the excellence of Christianity is confirmed ; your hearts are made better, and you acquire the most useful furniture for those public ministrations in which it will be more your business to confirm them that beheve, than to convince the gainsayers. The several points which I have stated perpetually recur in our discourses to the people; our lectures and our sermons are full of them; and therefore, the more extensive and various our information is with regard to these points, and the deeper the impression which the frequent contemplation of them has made upon our own minds, we are the better able to magnify, in the eyes of those for whose sakes we labour, the un- searchable riches of the Gospel, and to build them up in hoUness and comfort through faith unto salvation. Newconib on the Character of our Saviour. Leechman's Sermons, Conybeare's Answer to Tindal. L eland on the Advantages of the Christian Revelation. Leland's View of the Deistical Writers. DuchaFs Sermons. Jenyns on the Internal Evidences of Christianity. Macknight on the Truth of the Gospel History. Paley's Evidences of Christianity, Vol. II. Bishop Porteus' Summary of the Evidences of Christianity. DIRECT on EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 CHAPTER IV. DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Having satisfied your minds that the books of the New Testament are authentic and genuine, that they contain nothing upon account of which they deserve immediately to be rejected, and that their con- tents afford a very strong presumption of their being wiiat they profess to be, a revelation from God to man, it is natural next to inquire what is the direct evidence in support of this presumption ; for, in a matter of such infinite importance, it is not desirable to rest entirely upon pre- sumptions: and it is not to be supposed that the strongest evidence which the nature of tiie case admits will be withheld. The Gospel professes to offer such evidence ; and our Lord distinguishes most accurately between the amount of that presumptive evidence which arises from the excellence of Christianity, and the force of that direct proof which he brought. Of the presumptive evidence he thus speaks : '' If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God."* i. e. Every man of an honest mind will infer from the nature of my doctrine, that it is of Divine origin. But of the direct proof he says : " If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not : But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works."t To the direct proof he constantly appeals : " The works which the Father hath given me to do, bear witiress of me, that the Father hath sent me. "J He declares, that the same works which he did, and greater than them, should his servants do :§ And what these works are, we learn from his answer to the disciples of John the Baptist, who brought to him this question, " Art thou he that should come ?" " Go," said he, " and show John again those things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk ; the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. "II The Gospel then professes to be received as a divine reve- lation upon the footing of miracles ; and, therefore, every person who examines into the truth of our religion, ought to have a clear appre- hension of the nature of that claim. That I may not pass hurriedly over so important a subject, I have been led to divide my discourse upon miracles into three parts: in the first of which I shall state the force of that argument for the truth of Christianity which arses from the miracles of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. • John vii. 17. f John xv. 24 ; x. 37, 38. t John v. 36. § John xiv. 12. p, Matt. xi. 4, 5, 38 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDESCiJ Section I. All that we know of the Almighty is gathered from his works. He speaks to us by the effects which he produces ; and the signatures of power, wisdom, and goodness, which appear in the objects around us, are the language in which God teaches man the knowledge of himself. From these objects we learn the providence as well as the existence of God ; because, while the objects are in themselves great and stupendous, many of tliem appear to us in motion, and through the whole of nature, we observe operations which indicate not only the original exertions, but also the continued agency of a supreme in- visible power. These operations are not desultory. By experience and information we are able to trace a certain regular course, accord- ing to which the Almighty exercises his power throughout the uni- verse ; and all the business of life proceeds upon the supposition of the uniformity of his operations. We are often, indeed, reminded that our experience and information are very limited. Extraordinary ap- pearances at particular seasons astonish the nations of the earth : new powers of nature unfold themselves in the progress of our discoveries ; and the accumulation of facts colle-cted and arranged by successive generations, serves to enlarge our conceptions of the greatness and the order of that system to which we belong. But although we do not pretend to be acquainted with the whole course of nature, yet the more that we know, we are the more confirmed in the belief that there is an established course : and every true philosopher is encour- aged by the fruit of his own researches to entertain the hope, that some future age will be able to reconcile with that course, appearances which his ignorance is at present unable to explain. Although the business of life and the speculations of philosophy proceed upon the uniformity of the course of nature, yet it cannot be understood by those who believe in the existence of a Supreme In- telligent Being, that this uniformity excludes his interposition when- soever he sees meet to interpose. We use the phrase, laws of nature, to express the method in which, according to our observation, the Almighty usually operates. We call them laws, because they are independent of us, because they serve to account for the most dis- cordant phenomena, and because the knowledge of them gives us a certain command over nature. But it would be an abuse of language to infer from their being called laws of nature, that they bind him who established them. It would be recurring to the principles of atheism, to fate, and blind necessity, to say that the author of nature is obliged to act in the manner in which he usually acts; and that he cannot, in any given circumstances, depart from the course which we observe. The departure, indeed, is to us a novelty. We have no principles by which we can foresee its approach, or form any conjec- ture with regard to the measure and the end of it. But if we conceive worthily of the Ruler of the universe, we shall believe that all these departures entered into the great plan which he formed in the begin- ning ; that they were ordained and arranged by him ; and that they arise at the time which he appointed, and fulfil the purposes of his wisdom. OF CHRISTIANITY. XO There is not then any mutabiUty or weakness in those occasional interpositions which seem to us to suspend the laws and to alter the course of nature. The Almighty Being, who called the universe out of nothing, whose creating hand gave a beginning to the course of nature, and whose will must be independent of that which he himself produced, acts for wise ends, and at particular seasons, not in that manner which he has enabled ns to trace, but in another manner con- cerning which he has not furnished us with the means of forming any expectation, and which is resolvable merely into his good pleasure. The one manner is his ordinary administration, under which his reasonable offspring enjoy security, advance in the knowledge of nature, and receive much instruction : the other manner is his extra- ordinary administration, which, although foreseen by him as a part of the scheme of his government, appears strange to his intelligent creatures, but which, by this strangeness, may promote purposes, to them most important and salutary. It may rouse their attention to the natural proofs of the being and perfections of God ; it may afford a practical confutation of the scepticism and materialism to which false philosophy often leads ; and, rebuking the pride and the security of man, may teach the nations to know that the Lord God reigneth "in.heaven and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places."* To such moral purposes as these, any alteration of the course of nature, by the immediate interposition of the Almighty, may be sub- servient ; and no man will presume to say that our limited faculties can assign all the reasons which may induce the Almighty thus to inter- pose. But we can clearly discern one most important end which may be promoted by those alterations of the course of nature, in which the agency of men, or other visible ministers of the divine power, is employed. The circumstances of the intelligent creation may render it highly expedient that, in addition to that original revelation of the nature and the will of God which they enjoy by the light of reason, there should be superadded an extraordinary revelation, to remove the errors which had obscured their knowledge, to enforce the practice of their duty, or to revive and extend their hopes. The wisest ancient philosophers wished for a divine revelation : and to any one who examines the state of the old heathen world in respect of religion and morality, it cannot appear unworthy of the Father of his creatures to bestow such a blessing. This revelation, supposing it to be given, may either be imparted to every individual mind, or be confined to a few chosen persons, vested with a commission to communicate the benefits of it to the rest of the world. It is certainly possible for the Father of spirits to act upon every indivkiual mind so as to give that mind the impression of an extraordinary revelation : it is as easy lor the Fatlier of spirits to do this, as to act upon a few minds. But, in this case, departures from the established course of nature would be multiplied without end. In the illumination of every individual, there would be an immediate extraordinary interposition of the Al- mighty. But extraordinary interpositions so frequent would lose their nature, so as to be confounded with the ordinary light of reason • Psalm cxxxv. 6. 30 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE and eonscionce : or if they were so striking as to be, in every case, clearly discriminated, they would subdue the understanding, and overawe the whole soul, so as to extort, by the feeling of the imme- diate presence of the Creator, that submission and obedience wiiich it is the character of a rational agent to yield with deliberation and from choice. It appears, therefore, more consistent with the simplicity of nature, and with the character of man, that a few persons should be ordained the instruments of conveying a divine revelation to their fellow-creatures; and that the extraordinary circumstances which must attend the giving such a revelation should be confined to them.. But it is not enough that these persons feel the impression of a divine revelation upon their own minds : it is not enough that, in their com- munications with their fellow-creatures, they appear to be possessed of superior knowledge, and more enlarged views : it is possible that their knowledge and views may have been derived from some natural source ; and we require a clear indisputable mark to authenticate the singular and important commission which they profess to bear. It were presumptuous in us to say what are the marks of such a com- mission which the Almighty can give ; for our knowledge of what He can do, is chiefly derived from our observation of what He has done. But we may say, that, according to our experience of the divine pro- cedure, there can be no mark of a divine commission more striking and more incontrovertible, than that the persons who bear it should have the privilege of altering the course of nature by a word of their mouths. The revelation made to their minds is invisible ; and all the outward appearances of it may be delusive. But extraordinary works, beyond the power of man, performed by them, are a sensible outward sign of a power which can be derived from God alone. If he has invested them with this power, it is not incredible that he bas made a revelation to their minds ; and if they constantly appeal to the works, which are the signs of the power, as the evidence of the in- visible revelation, and of the commission with which it was accom- panied, then we must either believe that they have such a commission, or we are driven to the horrid supposition that God is the author of a falsehood, and conspires with these men to deceive his creatu»es. _ When I call the extraordinary works performed by these men, the sign of a power derived from God, you recollect that all the language which we interpret consists of signs ; i. e. objects and operations which fall under our senses, employed to indicate that which is unseen. What are the looks, the words, and the actions of our fellow crea- tures, but signs of that internal disposition which is hidden from our view ? What are the appearances which bodies exhibit to our senses, but signs of the inward qualities which produce these appearances? What are the works of nature, but signs of that supreme intelligence, " whom no man hath seen at any time.?"* Upon this principle, all those events and operations, beyond the compass of human power, which happen according to the established course of nature, form part of the foundations of Natural Religion; and any person who foretells or conducts them, only discovers his acquaintance with (hat course, and his sagacity in applying what we call the laws of nature. Upon * John i. 18. OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 the same principle, all those events and operations which happen in opposition to the established course of nature, imply an exertion of the same power which established that course, because they counter- act it ; and any person who, by a word, produces such events and operations, discovers that this power is committed to him. To com- mand the sun to run his race until the time of his going down, and to command him to stand still about a whole day, as in the valley of Gibeon in the time of Joshua,* are two commands which destroy one another ; and therefore, if wc believe that the will of the Almighty Ruler of the universe produces an uniform obedience to the first, we must believe that the obedience which, upon one occasion, was yielded to the second, was the effect of his will also. As no creature can stop the working of his hand, every interruption in that course according to which he usually operates, happens by his permission ; and the power of altering the course of nature, by whomsoever it be exerted, must be derived from the Lord of nature. This is the reasoning upon which we proceed, when we argue for the truth of a revelation, from extraordinary works performed by those through whom it is communicated ; and here we see the im- portant purpose which the Almighty promotes by employing the agency of men to change the order of nature. Those changes which proceed immediately from his hand, however well fitted to impress his creatures with a sense of his sovereignty, do not of themselves prove any new proposition, because their connexion with that propo- sition is not manifest. But, when visible agents perform works be- yond the power of man, and contrary to the course of nature, they give a sign of the interposhion of the Almighty, which, being applied by their declaration to the doctrine which they teach, becomes a voucher of the truth of what they say. To works of this kind, the term miracles is properly applied ; and they form what has been called the seal of heaven, implying that delegation of the sovereign authority of the Lord of all, which appears to be reserved in the con- duct of providence as the credential of those to whom a divine com- mission is at any time granted. This was the rod put into the hand of Moses, wherewith to do signs and wonders, that Pharaoh and the children of Israel might believe that the Lord God had sent him. This was the sign given to Elijah, that it might be known that he was a man of God ; and this was the witness which the Father bore to " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles, which God did by him in the midst of the people,"! and to the apostles of Jesus who went forth to preach the Gospel, "the Lord working with them, and confirming the words by signs following.''^ The nature of the revelation contained in the books of the New Testament affords a very strong presumptive proof that it comes from God ; whilst the works done by Jesus and his Apostles are the direct proof; and the two proofs conspire with the most perfect harmony. The presumptive proof explains the importance and the dignity of that occasion upon which the Almighty was pleased to make the inter- position, of which these works are the sign : The direct proof accc unts for that transcendent excellence, in the doctrine and the character of • Joshua X. 12—14, t Acts ii. 22, t Mark xvi. 2P 32 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE the author of this system, which, upon the supposition of its being ol human origin, appeared to be inexphcable; and thus the internal and external evidence of Christianity, by the aid which they lend to one another, make us "ready to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in us."* We have found, that the reasoning involved in the argument from miracles, proceeds upon the same principles by which a sound theist infers the being and perfections of God ; in both cases, we discover God by his works, which are to us the signs of his agency. This analogy between the proofs of natural and revealed religion is very much illustrated by considering the particular miracles recorded in tlie Gospel. When we investigate the evidences of natural religion, we find that any works manifestly exceeding human power would lead us, in the course of fair reasoning, to a Being antecedent to the hu- man race, superior to them in strength, and independent of them in the mode of his existence. But it is the transcendent grandeur ot those works which we behold, their inimitable beauty, their endless variety, their harmony, and utility; it is this infinite superiority of the works of nature above the works of art, which renders the argument completely satisfying, and leaves no doubt in our minds, either of the power or of the moral ciiaracter of that Being from whom they pro- ceed. In like manner, ahhough, in stating the argument from mira- cles in support of the Gospel, we have reasoned fairly upon this sim- ple principle, that they a-re interruptions of the course of nature, yet, when we come to consider those particular interruptions upon which the Gospel founds its claim, we perceive that their nature furnishes a very strong confirmation of the general argument, and that, like the other works of God, they proclaim their Author. In Him who ruled the raging of the sea and stilled the tempest, we recognise the Lord of the universe. In that command which gave life to the dead, we recognise the author of life. In the works of Him who, by a word of his mouth, cured the most inveterate diseases, unstopped the ears which had never admitted a sound, opened the eyes which had never seen the light, conferred upon the most distract- ed mind the exercise of reason, and restored the withered, maimed, distorted limb, we recognise the Former of our bodies and the Father of our spirits. This is the very power by which all things consist, the energy of Him " in whom we live, and move, and have our being. "t The miracles of the Gospel were performed without pre- paration or concert ; they were instantaneous in the manner of being produced, yet their effects were permanent; and, like the works of nature, although they came without effort from the hands of the workman, they bore to be examined by the nicest eye. There does not appear in them that poverty which marks all human exertions ; neither the strength nor the skill of Him who did them seemed to be exhausted ; but there was a fulness of power, a multiplicity, a di- versity, a readiness in the exercise of it, by which they resemble the riches of God that replenish the earth. Yet they were free from parade and ostentation. There were no attempts to dazzle, no anxie- ty to set off every work to the best advantage, no waste of exertion, • 1 Peter iii. 15. f Acts xviii. 28. OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 no frivolous accompaniments ; but a sobriety, a decorum, all the dig- nified simplicity of nature. The extraordinary power whicli appear- ed in the miracles of the gospel was employed not to hurt or to terrify, but to heal, to comfort, and to bless. The gracious purpose to which they ministered declared their divine origin ; and they who beheld a man who had the command of nature, and " who went about doing good,"" dispensing with a bountiful hand the gifts of heaven, lighten- ing the burdens of human life, and accompanying every exercise of his power with a display of tenderness, condescension, and love, were tavi2:ht to venerate the messenger, and the "express image" of that Al- mighty Lord whose kingdom excels at once in majesty and in grace. As the religion which these miracles were wrought to attest, is in every respect worthy of God, so they were selected with divine wisdom to illustrate the peculiar doctrines of that religion ; and in the admira- ble fitness with which the nature of the proof is acconunodated to the nature of the thing to be proved, v/e have an instance of the same kind with many which tlie creation affords of the perfection of the divine workmanship. Jesus came preaching forgiveness of sins ; and he brought with him a sensible sign of his having received a commis- sion to bestow this invisible gift. Disease was introduced into the world by sin. Jesus therefore cured all manner of disease that we might know that he had power to forgive sins also. His being able to re- move, not by the slow uncertain applications of human art, but instant- ly by a word of his mouth spoken at any distance, those temporal mala- dies which are the present visible fruits of sin, was an assurance to the world of his being able to remove the spiritual evils which flow from the same source. It was a specimen, a symbolical representation of his character as physician of souls. Jesus was that seed of the woman who was to bruise the head of the serpent, and he gave in his miracles a sensible sign of the fall of Satan. The intiuence which this ad- versary of mankind in every age exercises over the minds of men, was in that age connected with a degree of power over their bodies. It was the general belief in Judea, that certain diseases proceeded from the possession which his emissaries took of the human body. To the Jews therefore, the casting out devils was an ocular demonstration that Jesus was able to destroy the works of the devil. It was the beginning of the triumphs of this mighty prince, a trophy which he brought from the land of the enemy, to assure his followers of a complete victory. I have bound the strong man. Do you ask a proof? See, I enter his house and spoil his goods. I set free the mind and conscience which he had enslaved. My people will feel their freedom and will need no foreign proof But does the world require one? See, by the finger of God, I set free those bodies which Satan torments. His raising the dead was a practical confirmation of that new doctrine of his religion, that the hour is coming when they who are in their graves, shall hear his voice, and shall come forth to the resurrection. You cannot say that the thing is impossible ; for you see in his miracles a sample of that almighty power which shall quicken them that sleep in the dust, a sensible sign that Jesus " hath abolished death," and is able to " ransom his people from the power of the grave, "t * Acts X. 38. t 2 Tim. i. 10 ; Hos. xiii. 14. H 34 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE Other miracles of Jesus may be accommodated to the doctrines of religion, and much spiritual instruction may be derived from them. But tliese three, the cure of diseases, the casting out devils, and the raising the dead, are appUed by himself in the manner which I have stated. They are not only a confirmation of his divine mission, by being a display of the same kind of power which appears in creation and providence, but, from their nature, they are a proof of the charac- teristieal doctrines of the Gospel ; and we are led by considering works so great in themselves, and at the same time so apposite to the purpose for which they were wrought, to transfer to the miracles of Jesus that devout exclamation which an enlarged view of the creation dictated to the Psalmist; " How manifold are thy works, 0 Lord ; in wisdom hast thou made them all."* I have thus stated the force of that argument which arises from the miracles of Jesus, as they are recorded in the New Testament, They who beheld them said, " When Messias cometh, will he do more miracles than those which this man doth? This is the prophet."t They spoke what they felt, and the deductions of the most enlighten- ed reason upon this subject accord with the feelings of every unbiass- ed spectator. But Ave are not the spectators of the miracles of Jesus ; the report only has reached our ears ; and some further principles are necessary in our situation to enable us to apply the argument from miracles in support of the truth of Christianity. Section II. It appeared more consistent with the simplicity of nature and the character of man, that one or more persons should be ordained the instruments of conveying an extraordinary revelation to the rest of the world, than that it should be imparted to every individual mind. The commission of these messengers of heaven may be attested by changes upon the order of nature, which the Almighty accomplishes through their agency. But the works Avhich they do, are objects of sense only to their contemporaries with whom they converse. Without a perpetual miracle exhibited in their preservation, those facts which are the proof of the divine revelation must be transmitted to succeed- ing ages, by oral or written tradition, and, like all other facts in the history of former times, they must constitute part of that information which is received upon the credit of testimony. Accordingly we say, that Jesus Christ, for a few years, did signs and wonders in the presence of his disciples, and before all the people : the report of them was carried through the world after his departure from it by chosen witnesses, to whom he had imparted the power of working miracles ; and many of the miracles done both by him and his apostles are now written in authentic genuine records which have reached our days, that we also may believe that he is the Son of God. Supposing then we admit, that the eye-witnesses of the miracles of Jesus reasoned justly when they considered them as proofs of a divine conmiission; still it remains to be inquired, whether the evidence which has trans- • Psalm civ. 24. f John vii. 31—40. OP CHRISTIANITY. 35 mitted these miracles to us, is sufficient to warrant us in draM'iug the same inference which we should have drawn if we ourselves had seen them. There are three questions which require to be discussed upon this subject. Whether miracles are capable of proof? Wliether the testi- mony borne to the miracles of Jesus was creditable at the time it was given ? And whether tlic distance at which we live from that time destroys, or in any material degree impairs its original credibility? 1. It was said by one of (he subtlest reasoners of modern times, that a miracle is incapable of being pl-oved by testimony. His argu- ment was this : " Our belief of any fact attested by eye-witnesses rests upon our experience of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses. But a firm and unalterable experience hath established the laws of nature. When, therefore, witnesses attest any fact which is a violation of the laws of nature, here is a contest of two opposite experiences. The proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can be imagined; and if so, it cannot be surmounted by a proof from testimony, because testimony rests upon experience." Mr. Hume boasted of this reasoning as unanswerable, and he holds it forth in his Essay on Miracles as an everlasting check to superstition. The prin- ciples upon which the reasoning proceeds have been closely sifted and their fallacy completely exposed, in Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles; one of the best polemical treatises that ever was v/ritten. Mr. Hume meets here with an antagonist who is not inferior to him- self in acuteness, and who, supported by the goodness of his cause, has gained a triumphant victory. I consider this dissertation as a standard book for students of divinity. You will find in it accurate reasoning, and much information upon the whole subject of miracles, and, in particular, a thorough investigation of the question which I have now stated. It is not true that our belief in testimony rests wholly upon expe- rience ; for, as every man has a principle of veracity which leads him to speak truth, unless his mind be under some particular wrong bias, so we are led, by the consciousness of this principle, and by the ana- logy which we suppose to exist between our own mind and the mind of others, to believe that they also speak the truth, until we learn by experience that they mean to deceive us. It is not accurate to state the firm and unalterable experience which is said to establish the laws of nature as somewhat distinct from testimony; for since the observa- tions of any individual are much too limited to enable him to judge of the uniformity of nature, the word experience, in the sense in which it is used in this proposition, presupposes a faith in testimony, for it comprehends the observations of others communicated to us through that channel. It is not true that a firm and fmalterable experience hath established the laws of nature, because the histories of all coun- tries are filled with accoimts of deviations from them. These are objections to the principles of Mr. Hume's argument, which his subtle antagonist brings forward, and presses with much force. But, independently of these inferior points, he has shown that the argument itself is a fallacy ; and the sophism lies here. Expe- rience vouches that which is past; but, if the word has any meaning, 56 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE experience does not vouch that which is future. Our judgment of the future is an inference which we draw from the reports of experience concerning the past : the reports may be true, and yet our inference may be false. Thus experience declares that it is not agreeable to the usual course of nature for the dead to rise. Suppose twelve men to declare that the dead do usually arise, there would be proof against proof; a particular testimony set against our own personal observa- tions, and against all the reports and observations of others which we had collected upon that subject. But suppose twelve men to declare that one dead man did arise, here is no opposition between tlie reports of experience and their testimony; for it docs not foil within the pro- vince of experience to declare that it is impossible for the dead to rise, or that the usual course of nature in this matter shall never be depart- ed from. We may iiastily draw such inference from the reports of experience. But the inference is our own : we have taken too wide a step in making it ; and it is sophism to say, that because experience vouclies the premises, experience vouches also that conclusion which is drawn from them merely by a defect in our mode of reasoning. When witnesses then attest miracles, experience and testimony do not contradict one another. Experience declares that such events do not usually happen: testimony declares that they have happened! in that instance. Each makes its own report, and the reports of both may be true. Instances somewhat similar occur in other cases. Un- usual events, extraordinary phenomena in nature, strange revolutions in politics, uncommon efforts of genius or of memory, are all received npon testimony. Magnetism, electricity, and galvanism are opposite to the properties of matter formerly known. Yet many who never saw these new powers exerted, give credit to the reports of the expe- riments that have been made. Experience indeed begets a presump- tion with regard to the future. We are disposed to believe that the facts which have been uniformly observed will recur in similar cir- cumstances ; and we act upon this presumption. But as new situa- tions may occur, in which a difference of circumstances produces a difference in the event, and as we do not pretend to be acquainted with all the circumstances which discriminate every new case, this presumption is overturned by credible testimony relating foots differ- ent from those which have been observed. Without the presumption suggested by experience, we should live in perpetual amazement; without the credit given to testimony, we should often remain igno- rant, and be exposed to danger. By the one, we accommodate our conduct to the general uniformity of events; by the other, we are ap- prized of new facts which sometimes arise. The provision made for us by the Author of our nature is in this way complete, and we are prepared for our whole condition. There does not appear, then, to be any foundation for saying that a miracle is, from its nature, incapable of being proved by testimony. As nothing can hinder the Author of nature from changing the order of nature whensoever he sees meet, and as one very important pur- pose in his government is most effectually promoted by employing, at particular seasons, the ministry of men to change this order, a miracle is always a possible event, and becomes, in certain circumstances, not improbable. Like every other possible fact, therefore, it may be com- OP CHRISTIANITY. 37 municated to such as have not seen it by the testimony of such as have. It is natural indeed, to weigh veiy scrupulously the testimony of a miracle, because testimony has in this case to encounter that pre- sumption against the fact which is suggested by experience. The person who relates it may, from ignorance, mistake an unusual appli- cation of the laws of nature for a suspension of them ; an exercise of superior skill and dexterity for a work beyond the power of man ; or he may be disposed to amuse himself, and to promote some private end by our credulity. Accordingly, we do not receive any extraor- dinary fact in common life upon the credit of every man whom we chance to meet. We attend to the character and the manner of the reporter ; we lay together tlie several parts of his report, and we call in every circumstance which may assist us in judging whether he is speaking the truth. The more extraordinary and important the fact be, there is the more reason for this caution ; and it is especially pro- per, in examining the reports of those facts which deserve the name of miracles, i. e. works contrary to the course of nature, said to be performed by man, as the evidences of an extraordinary revelation. 2. We are thus led to the second question which I stated, Whether the testimony borne to the miracles of Jesus was credible ? The Apostles were chosen by Jesus to be witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, and of his resurrection from the dead. This was the commission which they received from him immediately before his ascension, the character under which they appeared before the Jewish council, and the office which they assume in their writings. It is not my business to spread out the circumstances which render theirs a credible testimony, andgive to each its propercolouring. It is enough for me to mention the sources of argument. In judging of the credibility of this testimony, you are led back to that branch of the internal evidence of Christianity which arises from the character of the Apostles, as it appears in their writings — in their unblemished conduct, and distinguished virtues — in that soundness of understanding, and calmness of temper which are opposite to enthusi- asm,— and in those simple artless manners which are most imlike to imposture. You are further to observe, that their relation of the miracles of Jesus consists of palpable facts, which were the objects of sense. The power by which a man born blind received his sight was invisible ; but that the man was born blind might be learned with certainty from his parents or neighbours : and that, by obeying a simple command of Jesus, he recovered his sight, was manifest to every spectator. The power which raised a dead man was invisible ; but that Jesus and his disciples met a large company carrying forth a young man to his burial — that this young man was known to his friends, and believed by all the company to be truly dead, and that upon Jesus' coming to the bier, and bidding him arise, he sat up and began to speak ; all these are points which it did not require superior learning or sagacity to discern, but concerning which, any person in the exercise of his senses, who was present and who bestowed an ordinary degree of attention, could not be mistaken. The case is the same with the other miracles. We are not required to rest upon the judgment of the Apostles — upon their acquaintance with nhysical 6 88 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE causes, for the miraculous nature of the works which Jesus did ; for they gave us simply the facts which they saw, and leave us to make the inference for ourselves. There is no amplification in the manner of recording the miracles, no attempt to excite our wonder, no excla- mation of surprise upon their part ; they relate the most marvellous exertions of their Master's power with the same calmness as ordinary facts; they sometimes mention the feelings of joy and admiration which were uttered by the other spectators ; they hardly ever express their own. This temperance with which the Apostles speak of all that Jesus did, gives every reader a security in receiving their report, which he would not have felt, liad the narration been turgid. Yet he cannot enter- tain any doubt of their being convinced that the works of Jesus were truly miraculous ; for by these works they were attached to a stranger. While they lived in honest obscurity, an extraordinary personage ap- peared in their country, and called upon them to follow him. They left their occupations and their homes, and continued for some years the witnesses of all that he did. They were Jews, and liad those feelings which have ever distinguished the sons of Abraham with regard to the national religion. Their education, instead of enlarging their views, had confirmed their prejudices. Yet they were converted : with every thing else, they forsook their religion, and joined a man who was the author of a system whidi professed to supersede the law of Moses. They received him as the promised Messiah. But, pos- sessed with the fond hopes of the Jewish nation, they believed that he was a temporal prince, come to restore the kingdom to Israel, and to make the Jews masters of the world. They were undeceived. Yet this disappointment did not shake their faith. Although they had followed Jesus in the expectation of being the ministers and favourites of an earthly prince, they were content to remain, during his life, the wandering attendants of a man who had " not where to lay his head;'* and they appeared in public, after his departure from the earth, as his disciples. The body of the Jewish people, attached to the law of Moses, regarded them as traitors to their nation. To the priests and rulers, whose influence depended upon the established faith, they were peculiarly obnoxious. That civil power with which the spirit of the Jewish religion had invested its ministers, was directed against the apostles of Jesus : and without any attempt to disprove the facts which they asserted, every effort was made to silence them by force. They were imprisoned and called before the most august tribunal of the state. There the high priest, armed with all the dignily and authority of his sacred ofiice, commanded them not to preach any more in the name of Jesus. Yet these men, educated in servile dread of the higher powers, with the prospect of instant punishment before their eyes, de- clared that they would obey God rather than man. Their conduct corresponded to this heroic declaration. Although exposed to the fury of the populace and the vengeance of the rulers, they continued in the words of truth and soberness to execute their commission ; and they sealed their testimony with their blood ; martyrs, not to specula- tive opinions in which they might be mistaken, but to ficts which they declared they had seen and heard, which they said they were commanded to publish, and which no threatening or punishment C/-nld make them either deny or conceal. OF CHRISTIANITY. 3® The history of mankind has not preserved a testimony so complete and satisfying as that which I have now stated. If, in comformity to the exhibitions which the writings of these men give of their character, you suppose their testimony to be true, then you can give tlie most natural account of every part of their conduct, of their conversation, their steadfastness, and their heroism. But if notwithstanding every appearance of truth you suppose their testimony to be false, inexpli- cable circumstances and glaring absurdities crowd upon you. You must suppose that twelve n}en of mean birth, of no education, living in that humble station which placed ambitious views out of their reach and far from their thoughts, without any aid from the state, formed the noblest scheme that ever entered into the mind of man, adopted the most daring means of executing that scheme, and conducted it with such address as to conceal the imposture under the semblance of simplicity and virtue. You must suppose that men guilty of blasphe- ^ my and. falsehood united in an attempt the best -contrived, and which has in fact proved the most successful, for making the world virtuous; that they formed this singular enterprise without seeking any advan- tage to themselves, with an avowed contempt of honour and profit, and with the certain expectation of scorn and persecution ; that although conscious of one another's villany, none of them ever thought of providing for his own security by disclosing the fraud; but that, amidst sutlerings the most grievous to flesh and blood, they persevered in their conspiracy to cheat the world into piety, honesty, and bene- volence. They who can swallow such suppositions have no title to object to miracles. They should remember that there is a moral as well as a physical order ; that tliere are certain general principles by which human actions are regulated, and upon which we are accustomed to proceed in our judgments of the conduct of men; and that it is nuich more difficult to conceive that, in opposition to those principles which analogy and experience have established, such a testimony as the apostles uttered should be false, than that the laws of nature in some particular instances should have been suspended. Of the suspension of the laws of nature we can give a rational account : the purpose for which it is said to have been made renders it not incredible. But the falsehood of testimony in such circumstances would be a phenomenon in the history of the human mind so strange and inexplicable, that we need not be afraid to apply to this case the words of Mr. Hume, although he certainly did not mean them to be so applied : "No testimony is suf- cient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony^ be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact whicii it endea- vours to establish." The falsehood of the testimony of the apostles would be more miraculous, i. e. it is more improbable than any fact which they attest. 3. BiU although the testimony of the apostles appears, upon all the principles according to which we judge of such matters, to have been credible at the time when it was given, it remains to be inquired, whether the distance at which we live from that time does, in any material degree, impair to us its original credibility. It is allowed that the testimony of the apostles received the strong- est confirmation from its having been emitted immediately after the 40 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE ascension of Jesns, in the very place where they said he had performed many of his mighty works, under the eye of that government which had persecuted him, and in presence of multitudes to whom they ap- pealed as witnesses of what they declared. This must be allowed by ail who are qualified to judge of evidence. Now let it be remember- ed that the benefit of this confirmation is not lost to us, because, although their testimony was at first oral, given in their preaching to those whom they converted, it was soon recorded in books which we receive upon satisfying evidence as authentic and genuine. There is therefore no room to allege in disparagement of this testimony, the inaccuracy of verbal reports, or the natural disposition to exaggerate in the repetition of every extraordinary event. We are put in posses- sion of the facts as they were published in the lifetime of the apostles, without the embellishments of succeeding ages ; and every circum- stance which moved those who heard their testimony, is preserved in their books to establish our faith. The early publication of the Gospels and Acts is to us an unques- tionable voucher of the following most important facts, — that the miracles of our Lord and his apostles were not done in a corner before a few selected friends, and by them artfully spread through the world, but were ])erformed openly, in the fields, in the city, in the temple, before enemies who had every opportunity of examining them, who did not regard them with indifference, who were alarmed with the effect which they produced upon the minds of the people, and were zealous in bringing forward every objection. Had any one of these circnmstances been false, the early publication of books asserting them would have overturned the scheme. Fnrther,there is much particu- larity in the narration of mau}^ of the miracles: reference is made to time and place ; many local circumstances are introduced ; persons are marked out, not only by their distress, but by their rank and their names ; the emotions of the spectators, the joy of those who received deliverance, the consultations held by rulers, and the public orders in consequence of certain miracles, all enter into the record of these books. While every intelligent reader discerns in this particular detail the most accurate acquaintance with the prejudices and the manners of the times, and is from thence satisfied that the books are authentic, he must also be satisfied that a detail which, by its particu- larity, called so much attention, a^nd admitted, at the time it was published, of so easy investigation, is itself a voucher of its own truth. Again, the history of the miracles is so closely interwoven with the rest of the narration, that any man who reads it may be satisfied that it could not have been inserted after the books were published. — There are numberless allusions to the miracles even in those passages where none of them are recorded ; the faith of the first disciples is said to have been founded upon them, and the change upon their sentiments is truly inexplicable, unless we suppose tlie miracles to have been done in their presence. All, therefore, who received the Gospels and the Acts in early times, when they could easily examine the truth of the facts, may be considered as setting their seal to the miracles of Jesus and his apostles ; and the number of the first converts out of Judea and Jerusalem forms, in this way, a cloud of wit- nesses. OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 That confirmation of the testimony of the apostles, which appears to be implied in the faith of all the first Christians, is rendered much more striking, by the peculiar nature of a large part of the New Testament. I mean the epistles to the different churches. Paul, in several of the epistles which he sent by particular messengers to those whose names they bear, and which were authenticated to the whole Christian world by his superscription, mentions the miracles which he had performed, the effect which his miracles had produced, and the extraordinary powers which he had imparted. A large portion of the first Epistle to the Corinthians is occupied whh a discourse con- cerning spiritual gifts, in which he speaks of them as common in that church, as abused by many who possessed them, and as inferior in excellence to moral virtue. In his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is known to have been the earliest of the apostolical writings, Paul says, " Our Gospel came to you not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost ; and they, i.e. your own citizens, in their progress through different parts of the world, show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, atid how ye turned from idols to serve the living God."* Here is a letter written not twenty years after the ascension of Jesus, sent, as soon as it was written, to the church of Thessalonica to be read there, and in the neighbouring churches, copied and circulated by those to whom it was addressed, uniformly quoted since that time by the succession of Christian writers, and come down to us with every evidence that can be desired, indeed without any dispute of its being a genuine letter. In this letter the apostle tells the Thessalonians that they had been converted to the Gospel by the miracles of those who preached it, and that the effect which this conversion had produced upon their conduct was talked of every- where. If these facts had not been known to the Thessalonians, the letter would have been instantly rejected, and the chai'acter of him who wrote it would have sunk into contempt. Its being publicly read, held in veneration, and transmitted by them, is a proof that every thing said in it concerning themselves is true, and therefore it is a proof that those who could not be mistaken, believed in the miracles of the apostles of our Lord. This argument is handled by Butler, and all the ablest defenders of our religion ; and I have been led to state it particularly, because it has always appeared to me an unanswerable argument arising out of the books themselves, a confirmation of the testimony of the apostles that is independent of their personal char- acter, and yet is demonstrative of the estimation in which they were held by their contemporaries, and of the credit which we may safely give to their report. 4. It only remains to be added upon this question, that a testimony thus strongly confirmed is not contradicted by any opposite testimony. The books of the New Testament are full of concessions made by the adversaries of Christianity; concessions, the force of which must be admitted by all who believe the books to be authentic : and it is very remarkable, that concessions of exactly the same kind with those made by the Jews in our Saviour's days, were made by the zealous and learned adversaries of our faith in the first four centuries. Celsus, • 1 Thess. i. 5, 9. 6* I 42 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE Porphyry, Hierocles, and Julian did not deny the facts ; they only at- tempted to disparage them, or to ascribe them to magic. Julian was emperor of Rome in the fourth century. He had renounced Chris- tianity, and his zeal to revive the ancient heathen worshij) made him the bitterest enemy of a system which condemned all the forms of idolatry. Yet this man, with every wish to overturn the establish- ment which Christianity had received from Constantine, does not pre- tend to say in his work against the Christians, that no miracles were performed by Jesus. In one place he says, " Jesus, who rebuked the winds, and walked on the seas, and cast out daemons, and as you will have it, made the heavens and the earth." In anotlier place," Jesus has been celebrated about three hundred years, having done nothing in his lifetime worthy of remembrance, unless any one thinks it a mighty matter to heal lame and blind people, and exorcise daimoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany."* The prejudices of the emperor led him to speak slightingly of the miracles ; but the facts are admitted by him. It was reserved for infidels at the distance of seventeen hundred years from the event, to dispute a testimony which had appeared satisfying to those who heard it, and which' had not re- ceived any contradiction in the succession of ages. Because tbey did not believe in magic, and saw the futility of that account of the works of Jesus which the prejudices of the times had drawn from their pre- decessors in infidelity, they have taken a new ground, and they affirm, against the principles of human nature, against the faith of history, and the concessions of the earliest adversaries, that the works never were done. But Christianity has nothing to fear from any change in the mode of attack. Sound philosophy will always furnish weapons sufiicient to repel the aggressor ; and the truth will be the more firmly established by every display of tiie mutability of error. It appears then, that even that part of the external evidence of Christianity, which from its nature is the most likely to be affected by length of time, is not evanescent ; that various circumstances preserve it from diminntion ; and that we, in these latter ages, njay certainly know the truth of the testimony borne by those who declare in the books of the New Testament that which they saw and heard. Section III. The subject would now be exhausted if the only miracles recorded in history were those to which Jesus and his Apostles made their ap- peal. This singular attestation, given upon so in)portant an occasion, would then appear a decisive mark of the interposition of the Al- mighty; and every person who believes the books of the New Testa- ment to be authentic, might be expected to join in the opinion of Nico- demus, who said to Jesus, " We know that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do these miracles that thou dost, except God be with him."t But the subject is involved in new difficulties, and assumes a nuich more complicated form, when we recollect that * Lardner's Heath. Test. ch. xlvi. j- John iii. 2. OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 accounts of prodigies and miracles abound in all history, that these miracles are generally connected with the religion of the country in which the record of them is preserved, and that, as the religions of diilerent countries are widely different, the miracles of one country appear to contradict the miracles of another. If it be said that all the reports of miracles, excepting those recorded in the scriptures, are felse, then it follows that there must be a facility of imposition in this matter against which the human mind has never been proof. If some other reports of miracles, besides those in scripture, are admitted to be true, then it seems to follow, that miracles are not the unequivocal mark of a divine commission. This multitude of reports concerning miracles has afforded much triumph to the adversaries of Christianity, and, in the opinion of Mr. Hume, the authority of any testimony concerning a religious miracle is so much diminished by the ridiculous stories, and tlie gross imposi- tions of the same kind in all ages, that men of sense should lay down a general resolution to reject it without any examination. The zeal with which he writes, has led him to recommend a resolution very unbecoming a philosopher. At the same time, it must be allowed that, upon the one hand, the prejudice arising from the multitude of false miracles which have been reported and believed, and, upon the other hand, the suspicion tliat out of the number preserved in ancient history, some may have been real miracles, furnish a very plausible objection against this branch of the external evidence of Christianity; an objection which every person whose business it is to defend the truth of our religion must be prepared to meet ; and an objection which there is the more reason for studying with care, because the attempts to answer it have not always been conducted with sufficient ability and prudence, and some zealous champions for Christianity have mistaken the ground which ought to be maintained in repelling this attack. The four observations which follow, appear to me to embrace the leading points in this controversy, and when properly extended by reading and reflection, will be found sufficient to remove the objection arisin-^: from the multitude of miracles mentioned in history. 1. No religion, except the Jewish and Christian, which, by every person who understands the Gospel, are accounted one religion, — no other religion that we know of, claimed to be received upon the foot- ing of miracles performed by its author. Some of the ancient lawgivers said, that they had private confer- ences with the Deity, in which the system of religious or civil polity, which they established, was communicated to them. But none of them pretended to produce, in the presence of the people, changes upon the order of nature. The Pagan mythology was much more ancient than any'record of miracles in profane history. Many of the achievements of the gods run back into those periods of which there is no history that is not accounted fabulous ; — some are known to the learned to be an allegorical method of conveying moral or physical truth ; and others are merely the colouring which fable and poetry gave to the transactions of a remote antiquity handed down by oral tradition. The miracles recorded in the times of authentic history co- incided v/ith a superstition already established, the influence of which 44 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE prepared the minds of men for receiving them. They were performed by priests, or men of rank, to whom the people were accustomed to look up witli reverence ; generally in temples consecrated by the of- ferings of ages, where it was impious for the eye of the worshippers to pry too closely: under the protection of civil government ; and in support of a system which antiquity had hallowed, and which the law commanded the citizens to respect. The miracles of the Gospel, on the other hand, were performed by obscure despised men, in the midst of enemies, as the vouchers of a new doctrine which was accounted an insult to the gods, and which did not flatter the passions of men. It is manifest that the cases are widely different; and before proceeding to any particular examination of the heathen miracles, you are war- ranted in considering the whole multitude of them as clearly discrimi- nated from the miracles recorded in Scripture, by this circumstance, that they were not wrought for the purpose of procuring credit to a new system of faith. In the seventh century, Mahomet appeared in Arabia, calling himself the chief of the prophets of God, sent to extir- pate idolatry, and to establish a new and perfect religion. He ac- knowledged the divine mission both of Moses and of Jesus. He often mentions the evident miracles which Jesus wrought, and he has pre- served the names of the persons whom our Lord raised from the dead. Those who opposed him demanded a sign of his mission. He gave various reasons for not complying with this demand, and in difterent places of the Koran appears solicitous to obviate the doubts which his refusal excited. But although his reasons were not satis- fying, and he was harassed with importunity, — although he lived amongst a barbarous unlearned people, and although he possessed a very uncommon share of ability and address, he had the prudence never to make the experiment of working a miracle, and he confesses that God, in his sovereignty, had withheld from him that power. The Church of Rome claims the power which Mahomet did not assume, and the history of that Church is full of wonders said to be performed at the shrines of saints and martyrs, by the divine virtue residing in a relic, or by the power committed to a religious order, to a particulai sect, or to the whole Church. But all these are in support of a sys- tem already established, and in conformity to the wishes and expec- tations of the spectators ; and, like the heathen miracles, they extend the prevailing superstition by introducing or confirming doctrines, rites, and practices, exactly similar to those which had been formerly received. It appears, then, from this review, that the history of the world does not present, out of that multitude of miracles which it has record- ed, any that were performed under the disadvantages which attended the Christian, for the purpose of introducnig a change upon the religi- ous sentiments of mankind. All the rest were aided by the prevailing opinions ; these alone were opposed by them : all the rest found men ready to believe; these alone produced a new faith. 2. As the circumstance which I have mentioned forms, upon a ge- neral view of the matter, a clear discrimination of the miracles of the Bible, so, when we enter upon a particular examination, there ap pears to be the most striking difference between them and all other miracles, in the evidence with which they ^re transmitted. The tes- OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 timony for a miracle requires to be tried with caution, because it con- tradicts the presumption suggested by experience ; and the more in- stances there are of imposition or mistake in reports of this kind, there is the more reason for weighing every report with the most scrupulous exactness. When we proved the testimony borne by the apostles to the miracles of Jesus, we found a multitude of circum- stances which conspire to render it credible. But wlien we try, by the same standard of sound criticism, the testimony borne either to heathen or to popish miracles, it is found to be very much wanting. Many of the heathen miracles were prodigies which had no con- nexion with any religious system, or they were phenomena which appeared wonderful to ignorant men, but which a more enlarged ac- quaintance with nature lias enabled us to explain. Others were ex- traordinary works, recorded long after tlie time when they are said to have been performed, and recorded by historians who, while they adorn their writings with popular stories, are careful to distinguisii the narration, which they consider as authentic, from the rep^orts which they retail, because they received them. The miracles which Tacitus reports as performed by the Emperor Vespasian, the feats of Alexander of Pontus, which we learn from Lucian, who represents him as an impostor, and the works ascribed to ApoUonius of Tyana, whom some of the later Platonists are said to have raised up as a rival to our Lord, — all these have been examined by men of learning and judgment; and the most zealous friend of Christianity could not wish for a more favourable display of the unexceptionable testimony upon which its miracles are received, than is obtained by contrasting it with the air of falsehood which runs through all these accounts. Mr. Hume has been solicitous to place the evidence of some popish miracles in the most advantageous light, and he has collected, with an air of triumph, various circumstances which conspired to attest the miracles said to be performed about tlie beginning of the last century, in the church-yard of St. Medard, at the tomb of Abbe Paris. But although a particular purpose induced him to assume the appearance of an advocate for these miracles, yet the imposture was manifest at the time to many who lived upon the spot, and it has since that time been completely exposed in several treatises. In CampbelPs Disser- tation, in the Criterion by Dr. Douglas, late bishop of Salisbury, in Macknight's Truth of the Gospel History, and in other books, there is an investigation of many pretended miracles ; and I believe it will be acknowledged, without heshation, that Dr. Campbell and Dr. Douglas have clearly shown, with regard to all the miracles to which their investigation extends, either that the accounts of them, from the cir- cumstances, appear to be false, or tliat the facts, from their nature, are not miraculous. I am inclined to think that, as far as this investiga- tion can be carried, it will be found uniformly to apply to the miracles recorded in heathen story, or in popish legends; and that, as a person who had been accustomed to read much history and much fable, is at no loss to distinguish the one from the other when they are presented to him, so any one who duly considers the circumstances of the case, will most readily discriminate the precise assured testimony of miracles wrought by Jesus as a divine teacher, which eye-witnesses submitted at the very time and place to the examination of their enemies, from 46 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE the hesitating suspicions record of wonders said to bo performed for some insignificant purpose, which the historians did not see, or whicli the rank and characters of the person to whom they are ascribed, pre- served from the scrutiny even of those who saw them. Tlie evidence of the miracles of the Gospel, far from being diminished by the number of impostures, is very much illustrated by this contrast. Men indeed cannot perceive the difference with an exercise of understanding. — They are required here, as uj)pn every other subject, to separate truth from falsehood, to "prove all things, and to liold fast that which is good."* Extensive information and enlightened criticism are caUed in to be the handmaids of religion ; and the continued increase of human knowledge, instead of giving Christians any reasonable ground of apprehending danger, enables them to defend the principles whicii they have embraced, dissipates objections which might occur to the ignorant, and establishes the faith of those who inquire. I said, I am inclined to think, that if the investigation of which Dr. Douglas and Dr. Campbell have given a specimen, were extended farther, it would be found to apply uniformly to the miracles recorded in heathen story or in popish legends. I used this guarded expres- sion, because I do not consider any man as warranted to say, before he has examined them, that all apparent miracles, excepting those recorded in the Bible, may be accounted for by the dexteritj^^ of an impostor, or by the carelessness or ignorance of the spectators. 3. And, therefore, my third observation is, that although we should ascribe some of the extraordinary works recorded in history to the agency of evil spirits, the argiunent from miracles, for the truth of Christianity, is not impaired. They who can satisfy their minds that such works are not miracu- lous, or that the accounts of them are false, leave the argument from miracles entire to Judaism and Christianity. They who cannot satisfy their minds in this manner, and who judge from the nature of the works, or the purpose which they promote, that they did not proceed from God, are led by their principles to ascribe them to some inter- mediate beings between God and man. But this system, as we have been taught by our Lord to reason,! does not affect the argument from miracles. For thus stands the case : Tlie orders of intermediate beings are wholly unknown to human reason. There may be good, and there may be bad spirits, and their measure of power may be more, or it may be less. But as we infer from all the appearances of nature, and especially from the constitution of our own minds, that this world is not the work of an evil being, so having found that the nature of the revelation contained in the New Testament affords a very strong presumption of its coming from God, we cannot suppose that the miracles, which are the direct proof of this presumption, and which actually were the means of establishing the Gospel, came from an evil being. The conduct of the adversary of mankind was indeed very opposite to the cunning which is ascribed to him, if he gave his sanction to the man who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, and employed his power to undermine his own kingdom, and put an end to his own malicious joy. As far, then, as the argument * 1 Thess. V. 21. f Matt. chap. xii. OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 from miracles for the truth of Christianity is concerned, the power of evil spirits is merely a speculative point, upon which,, as upon many other speculative points concerning which our information is imper- fect, dilferent opinions may be held without any injury to the truth. Whatever system we adopt with regard to the power of Satan, how- soever evil spirits may be supposed to have acted at other times, we are as certain as the nature of the thing can make us, liiat tlieir power was not exerted in the establishment of our faith, and we rest in the miracles of Jesus as wrouglit by the finger of God. But, although speculations concernhig the power of evil spirits are in no degree necessary to a rational belief of Christianity, yet they will naturally fall in your way, when you are investigating the argu- ment from miracles, and you ought not to be strangers to the grounds upon which the different opinions rest. It has been said, that God alone can work miracles, because the sovereign of the universe never will permit any evil spirit to encroach so far upon the prerogative of his majesty, as to produce any work contrary to the order of nature. This opinion seems to present the most honourable view of the Almighty ; it professes to atford security against many delusions, which, according to other systems, are practicable ; it leaves the argu- ment from nhracles clear and unembarrassed, audit has been support- ed by much ingenious reasoning. But it appears to me presumptu- ous, because it assumes more, and pronounces with a more decisive tone concerning the conduct of the divine government, than is com- petent to our ignorance. It contradicts the obvious interpretation of several passages of scripture, and the attempts to give those passages a meaning not inconsistent with it, have tortured scripture in a manner which is not justifiable. It has been said, on the other hand, that evil spirits have been accustomed, in all ages, to exercise their power in astonishing, deluding, and misleading the minds of men ; that all false religions have been supported by their influence, and that they are continually busied hi corrupting true religion. Even the able and profound Cudworth represents it as unquestionable, that Apollonius of Tyana was made choice of by the policy, and assisted by the powers ofthe kingdom of darkness, for the doing some things extraor- dinary, in order to derogate from the miracles of our Saviour, and enable Paganism to bear up against the attacks of Christianity. When the matter is thus stated, a most uncomfortable view of the moral state of the universe is presented to us ; a view which, without some qualification, approaches very near to the Manichsean sys- tem, by subjecting the feeble race of man, in their most important cfoncerns, alternately to the dominion of opposite powers. The safe opinion upon this subject appears to me to lie in the middle between these two. We cannot pretend to say that an intermediate being never is allowed to suspend the laws of nature. But we are certain, that all power is dependant upon the Lord of nature. We should be careful not to bewilder ourselves, by carrying the ideas sug- gested by the weakness of human government into our speculations concerning the ways of God ; and we should always remember, that, in the administration of Him, whose eyes are in every place, there can be no delay or opposition to his purpose from the multitude of his ministers. " He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven.'* 48 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE God is all in all. The power of working miracles may descend from the Almighty through a gradation of good spirits ; and he may com- mission evil spirits, by exercising the power given to them, to prove his people, or to execute a judicial sentence upon those who receive not the love of the truth. But both good and evil spirits are abso- lutely under his control ; they fulfil his pleasure, and he works by them. This is the system which .appears to be intimated in Scripture, as far as the Spirit of God hath seen meet to reveal a speculative point which is not essential to our improvement or comfort. It is indeed very remarkable, that at the introduction of botli the Jewish and the Christian dispensations, there seems, according to tiie most natural interpretation of Scripture, to have been a certain display of the power of evil spirits — I mean in the works of the Egyptian magicians, and in the demoniacs of the New Testament. But in both cases the display appears to have been permitted by God, that it might be made manifest there was in nature a superior power. The magicians, after they liad imitated some of the works of Moses, could go no farther, but said," This is the finger of God ;" and therefore God says to Pharaoh, " For this cause have I raised thee up for to shov.'' in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth."'' Tlic evil spirits which had afflicted the bodies of men. owned, in like manner, the power of Jesus, and retired at his com- mand. Therefore, he says, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven;" andagain," If I with the finger of God cast out devils, n(j doubt the kingdom of God is come to you."t Both dispensations give warning of false prophets who should show signs. Moses says. "If there arise among you a prophet and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, saying, let us go after other gods, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love him with all yotn- soul. "J Our Lord says, " There shall arise false christs, and shall show great signs and wonders ;"§. and, it is part of the description which his Apostle gives of Antichrist, " His coming is after the working of Satan ; with all power, and signs and lying wonders." || Even although you suppose it to be meant by these warnings, that the signs and wonders were to be performed with the assistance of evil spirits, still the miracles upon which the two dispensations are founded, afford a clear demonstration of the supremacy of their Author; and if evil spirits had permission given them to exercise a certain power at those times, it was only to prepare for the destruction of their power. In the very constitution of the evidence of the two religions, pro- vision is made for preserving the true disciples from the dread of evil spirits. Whatever opinions may have been entertained concerning their power, they manifestly stand forth in the Bible, confessing their inferiority, and furnishing by this confession, to all Avhose understand- ings are sound, and whose hearts are upright, a perpetual antidote against the fears of superstition. It appears, then, that tlie system which ascribes many of the mira- • Exod. viii. 19; ix. 16. f Luke x. 18; xi. 20. t Deut. xiii. 1, 2, 3. § Matt. xxiv. 24. i 2 Thess, 2, 9. OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 cles recorded in Iiis.ory to the agency of evil spirits, does not detract from the evidence of Christianity, because our faith rests upon works whose distinguishing character, and whose manifest superiority to the power of evil spirits, are calculated to remove every degree of hesita- tion in applying the argument which miracles afibrd. One observation more shuts up the subject. 4. Tlie uncertainty with regard to the duration of miracles in the Christian Church, does not invalidate the argument arising from the miracles of Jesus and his apostles. All Protestants, and many Catholics, believe, that the claim of working miracles which the Church of Rome advances as one mark of her being the true Church, is without foundation ; and no impar- tial discerning person, who reads the history of the wonders which for many centuries have been recorded by that Church, can hesitate a moment in classing them with the tricks of h-eathen priests. Dr. Mid- dleton, in his letter from Rome, has shown that many of the Popish are an imitation of the heathen miracles, and even those wlio do not admit that they have been borrowed, cannot deny the resemblance. On the other hand, every Christian believes, that real miracles were performed in the days of the Apostles ; and the unanimous tradition of the Christian Church has preserved the memory of many in succeed- ing ages. It is natural then to inquire at what period the true mira- cles ceased, and the fictitious commenced. Some mark is called for, to distinguish so important an era, and the imprudence of which some Christian writers have been guilty in their attempts to fix it, has afforded a kind of triumph to those who were willing to expose every weak quarter in the defence of Christianity. Dr. Middleton, in his book, entitled — A free Inquiry into the miraculous powers which have been supposed to subsist in the Christian Church, maintained this position, that after the days of the Apostles, the Church did not possess any standing power of working miracles. Those who were zealous for the honour of the early fathers, attacked, with much bitter- ness, a position which directly impugned their authority. Some of them very unadvisedly said, that if all the miracles, after the days of the Apostles, which were attested unanimously by the primitive fathers, are no better than enthusiasm and imposture, then we are deprived of our evidence for the truth of the Gospel miracles. Others undertook to defend the reality of the miracles in the first four centu- ries ; and they weakened their defence by extending their frontier. — The controversy was keenly agitated about the middle of tlie last century -, and the attention of the world was lately drawn to it, by the fascinating language of Mr. Gibbon, who mixing truth and falsehood together, and colouring both with his masterly pencil, has contrived to reflect from the claims of the primitive Church, a degree of suspicion upon the Gospel miracles. No person who believes the Gospel will think it incredible, that miracles were performed during the whole of the first century, because the Apostle John lived about the end of it, and many of those to whom the Apostles had communicated spiritual gifts, probably surviv- ed it. All the Christian writers of the second and third centuries affirm, that miraculous gifts did, in certain measure, continue in the Christian Church, and were, at times, exerted in the cure of dis- 7 K 50 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE eases, and the expulsion of demons. But those who have examined their writings with critical accuracy, have shown that there is much looseness and exaggeration in the language which Mr. Gibbon has employed with regard to these gifts. To satisfy you of this, I shall place a passage from that historian, over against passages from Ire- naius, Origen, and Eusebius. Mr. Gibbon says, the Christian Church, from the times of the Apostles and their first disciples, has claimed an uninterrupted succession of miraculous powers. Amongst these he mentions the power of raising the dead. In the days of Irenseus, he affirms, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was far from being esteemed an uncommon event ; the miracle was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplications of the church of the place, and the persons thus restored to their prayers, lived afterwards among them many years.* Now hear Irenseus himself. The true disciples of Jesus, by a power derived from him, confer blessings upon other men, as each has been enabled. Some expel demons so effectually, that they who have been delivered from evil spirits, believe and become members of the church ; others have knowledge of futurity, see visions, and utter prophecies ; others cure diseases by the imposition of hands ; and, as we have said, the dead too have been raised, and remained some years with us.t Observe he changes the tense in the last clause ; it is l^yi^er^na.v, Tia^efiswav. He docs uot spcak of the powcr of raising the dead as present, but as having been exerted in some time past, so that the persons who were the objects of it reached to his own days. Mr. Gibbon himself has shown that the Bishop of Antioch did not know, m the second century, that the power of raising the dead existed in the Christian church ; and no Christian writer, in the second or third century, mentions this miracle as performed in his time. You may judge from this specimen of the accuracy of Mr. Gibbon. Origen says, in the third century, signs of the Holy Spirit were shown where Jesus began to teach, more numerous after his ascension ; and, in succeeding times, less numerous. But even at this day, there are traces of it in a few men who have had their souls cleansed.! Euse- bius, in the beginning of the fourth century, says. Our Lord himself, even at this day, is wont to manifest some small portions of his power in those whom he judges proper for it.§ If you give credit to these respectable testimonies, and they are entitled to respect both from the manner in which they are given, and from the characters of the authors, you will believe that the profusion of miraculous gifts which was poured forth in the days of the Apostles was gradually withdrawn in succeeding ages, and that the fathers were sensible of this gradual cessation, but boasted that some orifis did continue, and were occasion- ally exerted during the first three centuries. This gradual cessation is agreeable to the analogy of the divine procedure in other matters. It left an occasional support to the faith of Christians, so long as they were exposed to persecution under the heathen emperors ; and it serves to account for what Mr. Gibbon calls the insensibility of the Christians with regard to the cessation of miraculous powers. If * Gibbon's Rom. Hist. ch. 15. f Iren. lib. ii. cap. 32. 4 Orig contra Gels. lib. vii. p. 337. § Eus. Dem. Ev. lib. iii. p. 109. * OP CHRISTIANITY. 51 these powers were withdrawn, one by one, and the display of theui became gradually less frequent, the insensibility of Christians with regard to the cessation of miracles is not wonderful ; and the writers whom I have quoted, have spoken of the subject in that nianner which was most natural. Although it seems probable that miraculous powers did, in certain measure, continue in the Christian church during the first three centuries, yet it cannot be said that the testimony borne to all the miracles of that period, is unsuspicious. There probably was much credulity and inattention in the relater's, and their reports are destitute of many of those circumstances which are found in the testimony of the Apostles. But, it is always to be remembered, that the two are independent of one another. We do not receive the miracles of the Gospel upon the testimony of the fathers ; and, although all the miracles said to be wrought after the days of the Apostles be rejected, the evidence of the works which Jesus and his Apostles did, would rest exactly upon that footing on which we placed it. It was to be expected, that miraculous git^ts, which had perceptibly decreased till the days of Constantine, would cease entirely when the protection afforded by civil government to the Christians render- ed them less necessary. Yet we find ecclesiastical history, after Christianity became the religion of the state, abounding with a diver- sity of the greatest miracles. No wise champion of Christianity will attempt to defend the reality of these wonders; at the same time, the extravagance of the later fictions will not discredit, with any wise inquirer, the miracles of former times. It is obvious to observe, that the Christian world was prepared by having been witnesses of real miracles, for receiving without suspicion such as were fictitious, that the eifect which true miracles had produced, might induce vain or deceitful men to employ this engine in accomplishing their own purposes, and that after Christianity was the established religion, the use of this engine became as easy to the Christians, as it was to the heathen priests of old. Tiie innumerable forgeries of this sort, says Dr. Middleton, strengthen the credibility of the Jewish and Christian miracles. For how could we account for a practice so universal, of forging miracles for the support of false religions, if on some occasions they had not actually been wrought for the confirmation of a true one ? Or how is it possible that so many spurious copies should pass upon the world, without some genuine original from whence they were drawn, whose known existence and tried success might give an ap- pearance of probability to the counterfeit? We may add, that if these counterfeits were at any time detected, the strong prejudice which would arise from the detection against that religion, in support of which they were adduced, could be counterbalanced only by the unquestionable evidence of the miracles of former times. It appears then, that the duration of miracles in the Christian church is a question of curiosity in no degree essential to the evidence of our religion. If no miracles were really performed after the days of the apostles, then every Christian receives all that ever were wrought upon unquestionable testimony. If there were some real miracles in aftertimes, they must stand upon their own evidence. We may re- ceive them, or reject them, as they appear to us well or ill vouched; 52 DIRECT OR EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. and we can draw no inference, from the multiplicity of imitations oi forgeries, unfavourable to the truth and divinity of the original. Bonnet, in his philosophical and critical inquiries concerning Christianity, has given, besides much other valuable matter, the most satisfying statement that I have met with of the argument from miracles. Bonnet's work was written in French. An extract of the part of it most interestmg to a student in divinity, was translated by a clergyman of this church, and published some years ago. Bishop Sherlock, in his first volume of sermons, which is chiefly occupied in stating the superiority of revealed to natural religion, has two discourses, the ninth and tenth, upon miracles considered as the proof of revelation. He treats the subject in his usual lumi- nous manner, and suggests many just and useful views. Newcombe, in his observations on the conduct of our Saviour, has written largely and delightfully of his miracles. Jortin also, in some of his essays or discourses, and in his remarks on ecclesiastical history, has very ably illustrated the fitness with which our Lord's miracles were adapted both to prove the truth of his religion, and to impress upon his followers the characteristical doctrines of the gospel. This view of the subject is also prosecuted by Ogden in hi» sermons. Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles. Douglas's Criterion. Butler's Analogy. Macknight's Truth of the Gospel History. Paley's Evidences, Farmer on Miracles. Cudworth, translated by Mosheim. Leland's View of Deistical Writers. Randolph's View of our Lord's Ministry. Clarke. Bullock. Boyle's Lectures. Middleton. Sir David Dalrymple. ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 CHAPTER V. ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. Those lectures upon Scripture are properly called critical, which are intended to elucidate the meaning of a difficult passage, and to bring out from the words of an author the sense which is not obvious to an ordinary reader. The sources of this elucidation are, such emendations upon the reading or the punctuation as may warrantably be made, an analysis of the particular words, a close attention to the manner of the author, to the scope of his reasoning, and to the circum- stances of those for whom he writes ; and, lastly, a comparison of the passage, which is the subject of the criticism, with other passages, in which the same matters are treated. There is great room for criti- cal lectures of this kind, and my theological course abounds with speci- mens of them. Much has been done in this way since the beginning of the last century, by the application of sound criticism to the Holy Scriptures ; and one great advantage to be derived from an intimate acquaintance with the learned languages, and from the habit of ana- lysing the authors who wrote in them, is, that you are thereby pre- pared for receiving that rational exposition of the word of God, which is the true foundation of theological knowledge. There is another kind of critical lecture, which professes by a gene- ral comprehensive view of a passage of scripture, to illustrate some important points in the evidence or genius of our religion. This kind of lecture is applicable to those passages where there is not any ob- scurity in the expression, any recondite meaning, or any controverted doctrine, but where there is a number of circumstances scattered throughout, the force of which may be missed by a careless or igno- rant reader, but which by being arranged and placed clearly in view, may be made to bear upon one point, so as to bring conviction to the understanding, at the same time that they minister to the improve- ment of the heart. The inimitable manner of Scripture, so natural and artless, yet so pregnant with circumstances the most delicate and the most instructive, affords numberless subjects of this kind of lec- ture ; and I do not know any method so well calculated to give a per- son of taste and sensibility a deep impression of the excellency awd the divinity of the Scriptures. One is tempted by the peculiar fitness of the passages which occur to him, to adopt this mode of lecturing occasionally in speaking to an assembly of Christians, although it can- not be denied that the ordinary method of lecturing by suggesting re- marks from particular verses, is more adapted to that measure of imderstanding, of attention, and of memory, which is found in the generality of hearers (7* 54 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES But such a mode may here be followed with advantage ; and I am led to give you now a specimen of this criticism upon the sense, rather than upon the words of an evangelist, because the eleventii chapter of John's Gospel may be stated in such a light as to illustrate much of what has been said with regard both to the internal evidence of Christianity, and to that branch of the external evidence which arises from miracles. The eleventh chapter of John is the history of the resurrection of Lazarus, the greatest miracle which Jesus performed. Upon such a general view of the chapter as a critical lecture of this kind is meant to give, we are led to attend to that exhibition of character which the chapter contains — to the nature and circumstances of the miracle — and to the eifects which the miracle produced. I. The exhibition of character which this chapter contains is vari- ous, and our attention is directed to several very pleasing objects. It is natural to speak first of the exhibition given of the character of the historian. The other evangelists have not mentioned this mira- cle, perhaps out of delicacy to Lazarus, who was alive when they wrote. They did not choose to expose the friend of their master to the fury of the Jews, by holding him forth in writings that were to go through the world, as a monument of his power. But John, who lived to see the destruction of Jerusalem, probably survived Lazarus ; and there was every reason why this evangelist, who has preserved other miracles and discourses which the former historians had omit- ted, should record this event. It is a subject suited to the pen of John : the beloved disciple seems to delight in spreading it out ; for he has coloured his narration with many beautiful circumstances, which unfold the characters of the other persons, and discover his intimate acquaintance with his master's heart. It is a striking instance of that strict propriety which pervades all the books of the New Testament, and which marks them to every discerning eye to be authentic writ- ings, that the tenderest scenes in our Lord's life, those in which the warmth of his private affections is conspicuous, are recorded by this evangelist. From the others we learn his public life, the grace, the condescension, the benevolence which appeared in all his intercourse with those that had access to him. It was reserved to " the disciple whom Jesus loved " to present to succeeding ages this divine person in his family, and amongst his friends. In his Gospel, we see Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at the last supper that he ate with them. It is John, the disciple that leaned on the bosom of Jesus while he sat at meat, who relates the long discourse in which, with the most delicate sensibility for their condition, he soothes the troubled heart of his disciples, spares their feelings, while he tells them the truth, and gives them his parting blessing. It is John, whom Jesus judged worthy of the charge, who records the filial piety with which, in the hour of his agony, he provided for the comfort of his mother; and it is John, whose soul was congenial to that of his Master, ten- der, affectionate, and feeling like his, who dwells upon all the particu- lars of the resurrection of Lazarus, brings forward to our view the sympathy and attention with which Jesus took part in the sorrows of those whom he loved, and making us intimately acquainted with OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 them and with him, presents a picture at once delightful and in- structive. The next ohject in this exhibition of character is the friendship which Jesus entertained for the family of Lazarus. Bethany was a small village upon the mount of Olives, within two miles of Jerusa- lem, in the road from Gahlee. Jesus, who resided in Galilee, and went only occasionally to Jerusalem, was accustomed to lodge with Lazarus in his way to the public festivals : and we are led to suppose, from an incidental expression in Luke,* that during the festivals he went out to Bethany in tlie evening, and returned to Jerusalem in the morning. To this little family he retired from the fatigues of his busy life, from the disputations of the Jewish doctors, and the bitterness of his enemies ; and being, like his brethren, compassed with infirmity, like his brethren also he found refreshment to his soul in the inter- course of those whom he loved. " Now Jesus," says John, " loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." He loved the world ; he loved the chief of sinners. That was a love of pity, the compassion which a superior being feels for the wretched. This was the love of kind- ness, the complacency which kindred spirits take in the society of one another. Of the brother he says to his apostles, with the same cor- diality with which you would speak of one hke yourselves, " Our friend Lazarus." And although we shall find the character of the two sisters widely different, yet he discerned in both a mind worthy of his friendship. It appears strange to me, that any person who ever read this chap- ter can blame the Gospel, as some deistical writers in the last century were accustomed to do, for not recommending private friendship. Can there be a stronger recommendation than this picture of the Au- thor of the Gospel, drawn by the hand of his beloved disciple ? When you follow Jesus to Jerusalem, you may learn from his public life, fortitude, diligence, wisdom. When you retire with him to Bethany, you may learn tenderness, confidence, and fellow feeling, with those whom you choose as your friends. The servants of Jesus may not in every situation find persons so worthy of their friendship as this fa- mily, and there is neither duty nor satisfaction in making an improper choice. Many circumstances may appoint for individuals days of solitude, and therefore the universal religion of Jesus has wisely re- frained from delivering a precept which it may often be impossible to obey. But they who are able to follow the example of their master, by having a heart formed for friendship, and by meeting with those who are worthy of it, have found the mfedicine of life. Their happi- ness is independent of noise, and dissipation, and show ; amidst the tumult of the world, their spirits enter into rest; and in the quiet, pleasing, rational intercourse of Bethany, they forget the strife of Jerusalem. The next object in this exhibition is the character of the two sis- ters, painted in that most perfect and natural manner, which the Scriptures almost always adopt, by actions, not by words. As soon as Lazarus is sick, the two sisters send a message to Jesus, with entire confidence in his power to heal, and his willingness to come. He is * Luke xxl 37, 38 56 ILLUSTRATION OP THE EVIDENCES now beyond Jordan ; the countries of Samaria and Galilee lie between Bethan^raiid his present abode. But the sisters of Lazarus knew too well his atfection for their brother, and his readiness to do good, to think that distance would prevent his coming. They say no more than, " He whom thou lovest is sick," and they leave Jesus to inter- pret their wish. When Jesus arrives at Bethany, after the death of Lazarus, the different characters of the two sisters are supported with the most delicate discrimination, even under that pressure of grief which, in the hand of a coarse painter, would have obliterated every distingaishing feature. Martha, who had been " cumbered with much serving," when she had to entertain our Lord, rises with the same officious zeal from the ground, where she was sitting dishevelled and in sackcloth, amongst the friends who had come to comfort her. She rises the moment she hears by some chance messenger that Jesus is at hand, and runs to meet him. Mary, who had sat at the feet of Jesus, so much engaged with his discourse as not to think of providing for his entertainment, is incapable of so brisk an exertion, or thinks it more respectful to Jesus to wait his coming. This difference in the conduct of the two sisters is in the style of nature, according to which the particular temper, and feelings of particular persons, give a very great variety to the language of passion upon occasions equally inte- resting to all of them. A man may know, he ought to know, every corner in his own heart, how far any part of his conduct proceeds from the defect of good, or the prevalence of wrong principles. But the most intimate acquaintance does not give him access to know all the notions of delicacy and propriety which may restrain, or urge on others at particular seasons, and may give to their conduct, in the eye of careless observers, a very different appearance from that which the)'' would wish ; and it argues both an uncandid spirit, and very little knowledge of the world, to say or to think this man does not feel as he ought, because he does not express his feelings as 1 would express mine. Martha ran and met Jesus : Mary sat still in the house. When Martha comes to Jesus, there is in her first words a mixture of re- proach for his delay, and of confidence in his kindness, " I^ord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." A gleam of iiope, in- deed, shoots athwart the sorrowful mind of Martha at the sight of Jesus. But her wish was so great that she is afraid to mention it. " I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." She has conceived a hope, in the state of her mind it was a wild hope, that her brother whom she had lost might be in- stantly restored. Jesus comf)oses her spirit, prepares her for this gift, by recalling her thoughts from the general resurrection to himself, and probably gives her some sign or some direction, in consequence of which she goes to the house, and without alarming the Jews who were assembled there, says secretly to her sister, " The Master is come, and calleth for thee." This message instantly rouses Mary Her spirit, bowed down with grief, revives at his call, and without knowing, probably without conceiving the purpose for which he called her, she arose quickly and went to liim. When she arrives, there is more submission in her manner than there had been in that of Mar- tha. The marks are stronger of a depressed and afflicted spirit. She fell down at his feet, weeping. But, as if to remind us that we should OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 look beyond these outward expressions, which, being very much a matter ot"constitution,vary exceedingly in different persons, the evan- gelist puts the same words into the mouth of both, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died ;" and whatever interpreta- tion we give to these words when they are spoken by the one sister, we cannot avoid giving them the same when they are spoken by the other. In this exhibition of the manner of the two sisters there is so much of nature, and of nature appearing strongly in minute circum- stances, as to be far superior to that truth of painting which we ad- mire in a fancied picture, and to carry with it an internal evidence that John was a witness of what he describes, and that his drawing is part of a scene which, from the powerful, yet different emotions of the two sisters, had made a deep impression upon his feeling breast. Tlie next object which presents itself in this moral exhibition, is the character of the Apostles. The Gospels present us with the most natural picture of the Apostles ; their doubts, their fears, their slow- ness of apprehension and of belief By circumstances that seem to be incidentally recorded, we see them feeling and acting, not indeed in the manner which would have occurred to a rude, unskilful hand, had he attempted to draw those who were honoured with being the companions of Jesus, but in the manner which any one intimately acquainted with the human heart will perceive to be the most natural for men of their condition and education, and situated as they were. We see them differing from one another in sentiments and conduct, with the same kind of variety which is observable amongst our neighbours and companions, each preserving in every situation his peculiar character, and all at the same time uniting in attachment to their master. Although the companions of Jesus were interested in the fate of his friend Lazarus, yet they did not understand the hints which our Lord gave them. Although sleep is one of the most common images of death, they suppose when Jesus says, " Our friend Lazarus sleep- eth," that he was enjoying a refreshing sleep, by which nature was to work his cure ; and not attending to tiie impropriety of Jesus going a long way to awake him out of such a sleep, they say, " Lord, if he sleep he shall do well." When Jesus tells them plainly "Laza- rus is dead," Thomas stands forth, and by one expression pre- sents to us the same character which is more fully unfolded in an- other chapter of this Gospel.* All the disciples were filled with sorrow and despair, when they saw their Master condemned, executed, and laid in the tomb. " For as yet," says John, " they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead." At length, " Jesus came and stood in the midst of them." " Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." It happened that Thomas was not present. And when '' the other disciples had said to him, we liave seen the Lord," his answer was, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust ray hand into bis side, I will not believe." About eight days after, Jesus condescended to give him this proof " Reach hither," said he, " thy finger, and * John XX. 9, 19, 20, 24—28. L 58 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES behold my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answered and said, My Lord and my God." He had felt doubts, but his heart ap- pears full of affection and reverence. Now, mark here the same Thomas. The disciples were alarmed at the danger of going back to Judea. They had tried to dissuade their Master, but they find him fixed in his purpose. " Lazarus is dead, nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas unto his fellow disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him." You see here the same warmth of temper, the same firm determined mind which appeared at ihe other time, but you see also the same defect of faith. Thomas does not think it possible that Jesus could shelter himself from the Jews. He does not see any purpose that could be served by the journey. He thinks Jesus is going to throw away his life. Yet he resolves himself, and he encourages his fellow disciples not to part with him. Our Master makes a sacrifice of his life. We have forsaken all and follow- ed him. Let us follow him also in this journey ; " let us go that we may die with him." It is the strong effort of a mind which loved and venerated Jesus, yet distrusted and did not know his divine power : Thomas faithless, yet affectionate and manly. Such is the mixture of character which we often meet with in common life. They who are most intimately acquainted with the workings of the human heart, and who have observed most accurately the manners of those around them, will best perceive the truth of that picture which the Evangelists have drawn of themselves, and they will be struck with the force of that internal evidence for the Gospel history which arises from this simple natural record. We cannot attend to this picture without recollecting the divine power which, out of these feeble doubting men, raised the most successful instru- ments of spreading the religion of Jesus. There was no want of faith after the day of Pentecost. Thomas was one of that company which was assembled, when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost ; and he who now says, " Let us go and die with Jesus," with power gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord.* The principal object in this moral exhibition yet remains. It is Jesus himself. The striking feature throughout the whole is tender- ness and love. But we discern also prudence, fortitude, and dignity ; and this chapter may thus serve as a specimen of that most perfect and most difficult character, which the Apostles were incapable of con- ceiving, and which, had they conceived it, they would have been vmable to support in every situation with such exact propriety, if they had not drawn it from the life. After he receives the message from the sisters, he relieves himself from the importunity of his disciples, by an assurance which was sufficient to remove their anxiety, and he lingers for two days in the place where he was. The purpose of his lingering was, that Lazarus might be truly dead, that he might not merely recover a man who was sick, but that he might raise a man who had been in the grave. But this lingering did not proceed from indifference. Mark how beauti- fully the fifth verse is thrown in between the assurance given to the dis- * Acts iv. 31. 33. OP CHRISTIANITY. 59 «iples, and the resolution to delay. He loved the family. He entered into their sorrows. His sympathy for them, indeed, yields to his prose- cution of the great purpose for which he came, yet his love is not the less for delay. How tender and how soothing ! The merciful High Priest, to whom Christians still send their requests, is not forgetful, although he does not instantly grant them. He loves and pities his own. But he does not think their time always the best. His own time for showing favour is set. No intervening circumstance can prevent its coming; and when it arrives, they themselves will acknowledge that it has been wel! chosen, and all their sorrow will be forgotten and overpaid by the joy which is brought to their souls. One of the finest moral lessons is con- veyed by this delay of Jesus. It is pleasing to act from kindness, com- passion, and love. But the excess of good affections may sometimes mislead us; and there are considerations of prudence, of fidelity, and justice,which may give to the conduct of the most tender-hearted man an appearance of coldness and severity. The world may judge hastily in such instances. But let every man be satisfied in his own mind, first, that he has good aflections ; and next, that the considerations which sometimes restrain the exercise of them, are such that he need not be ashamed of their influence. It is strongly marked in this moral picture, that the delay of Jesus, although dictated by prudence, did not proceed from any consideration of his personal safety. For, when the disciples represented the danger of retiring to Judea, his answer is, " Are there not twelve hours in the day ? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him." His meaning is explained by other similar expressions. The Jews divided the day both ill summer and winter into twelve hours, so that an hour with them marked, not as with us, a certain portion of time, but the twelfth part of a day, longer in summer, and shorter in winter. The time of his life upon earth was the day of Jesus, during which he had to finish the work given him to do. While this day continued, none of his enemies had power to take away his life, and he had nothing to fear in fulfilling the commandment of God. When this day ended, his work ended also ; he fell indeed into the hands of his enemies ; but he was ready to be offered up. And thus in the same picture Jesus is exhibited as gentle, feeling, compassionate to his friends, undaunted in the face of his enemies, assiduous and fearless in working the work of Him that sent him. There shines throughout the whole of this picture a dignity of manner ; no indecent haste ; no distrust of his own power ; a delay, which rendered one work more difficult, yet which is not employed in preparing for an uncommon exertion. — " Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe." He wishes to give his disciples a more striking manifestation of his divine power ; and the display is made for their sakes, not for his own. With what awful solemnity does he unfold to Martha his exalted character in these words : " I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die ;" and how suitably to the authority implied in that character does he require from Martha a confession of her faith in him ! 60 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES Yet how easily does he descend from this dignity to mingle his tears with those of his friends. " When he saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled :" and as they led him to the sepulchre, " Jesus wept." How amiable a picture of the Saviour of the world ! He found upon earth an hospital full of the sound of lamentation, a dormitory in which some are every day falling asleep, and they who remain are mourn- ing over those who to them are not. He hath brought a cordial to revive our spirits, while we are bearing our portion of this general sorrow, and he hath opened to our view a land of rest. But even while he is executing his gracious purpose, his heart is melted with the sight of that distress which he came to relieve, and although he was able to destroy the king of terrors, he was troubled when he beheld in the company of mourners a monument of his power. We do not read that Jesus ever shed tears for his own sufFerhigs. When he was going to the cross, he turned round and said, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me." But he wept over Jerusalem when he thought of the destruction that was coming upon it :* and here the anguish of his friends draws from him groans and tears. He was soon to remove their anguish. But it was not the less bitter during its continuance ; and it is the present distress of his friends into which his heart enters thus readily. Let the false pride of philosophy place the perfection of the human character in an equality of mind, unmoved by the events that befal ourselves or others. But Christians may learn from the example of him who was made like his brethren, that the variety in the events of life was intended by the author of nature as an exercise of feeling ; that it is no part of our duty to harden our hearts against the impres- sions which they make, and that we need not be ashamed of express- ing what we feel. That God, who chastens his children, loves a heart which is tender before him ; and Jesus, who wept himself, commands us to weep with them that weep. The tears shed are both a tribute to the dead, and an amiable display of the heart of the living, and they interest every spectator in the persons from whom they flow. Thus have we seen in this mortal picture of tlie character of Jesus, tenderness, compassion, prudence, fortitude, dignity, " Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God,"t the strength of an almighty arm displayed by a man like his brethren, "the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. "J The assemblage of qualities is so luicommon, and the harmony with which they are blended so entire, that they convey to every intelligent reader an impression of the divinity of our religion, and we cannot contemplate this picture without feeling the sentiment which was afterwards ex- pressed by the Centurion who stood over against the cross of Jesus : " Truly this was the Son of God."§ H. Circumstances of the miracle, Mr. Hume and other philosophers, both before and after his time, have denied the conclusiveness of the general argument from miracles, • Luke xxiii. 28; xix, 41. f 1 Cor. i. 24. t John i. 14. § Matt, xxvii. .54. OF CHRISTIANITY. 61 or Ihey have endeavoured to destroy that evidence from testimony upon which we give credit to tlie works recorded in the Gospel. But there is a set of minute writers in the deistical controversy, who have adopted a style of philological or verbal objections, which would set aside the truth of the record, not by any general reasoning, but by supposed instances of inaccuracy or impropriety in particular narra- tions. This style of objections enters into ordinary conversation ; it is level to the understanding of many, who are incapable of apprehend- ing a general argument ; and it is the usual refuge of those who have nothing else to oppose to the evidences of the Christian religion. You will find objections of this kind occasionally thrown out in many deistical writers. But they were formed into a sort of system in a treatise published about sixty years ago, by Mr. Woolston, and entitled, " Discourses upon the Miracles of our Saviour," a book now very little known, but which drew great attention at the time, and was overpowered by a variety of able answers. Mr. Woolston at- tempted to show that the earliest and most respectable writers of the Christian church understood the miracles of our Saviour purely in an allegorical sense, as emblems of the spiritual life ; and that there was good reason for doing so, because the accounts, taken in a literal sense, are absurd and incredible. He has been convicted by those who have answered him, of gross disingenuity in maintaining the first of his positions. It is true that the fathers, even of the first century, were led by their attachment to that philosophy in which they had been educated, to seek for hidden spiritual meanings in the plain historical parts of Scripture. And Origen, in the third century, went so far as to imdervalue the literal sense in comparison with the alle- gorical, saying, " the Scriptures are of little use to those who under- stand them as they are written."* He has pursued this manner of interpreting the miracles of our Saviour much farther than became a sound reasoner. But although it appeared to him more sublime and instructive than a simple exposition of the facts recorded, yet it pro- ceeds upon a supposition of the truth of the facts ; and accordingly in his valuable work against Celsus the Jew, where he answers the objections to the truth of Christianity, and states with great force of reason the arguments upon which our faith rests, he appeals repeatedly to the miracles which Jesus did, which he enabled his apostles to do, and some faint traces of which remained in the days of Origen. He says that the miracles of Christ converted nations, and that it would have been absurd in the apostles to have attempted the introduction of a new religion without the help of miracles. Mr, Woolston, there- fore, is left without the support of that authority which he pleads ; for Origen, the most allegorical of the fathers, even where he prefers the allegorical, does not exclude the literal sense ; and his argumentative discourse proceeds upon the acknowledged truth of the facts recorded. The second position does not profess to rest upon the authority of any name, but upon the nature of the narration, which, Mr. Woolston says, is so filled with monstrous incredibilities and absurdities, that the best way in which any person can defend it, is by having recourse to the allegorical sense. But in this way, the argument from miracles • Origen, Stroniata, lib. x. 62 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES is totally lost, because, if we regard them not as facts, but as a method of conveying spiritual instruction, the appeal which Jesus continually made to the works that he did, must appear to us chimerical or false. Although, therefore, Mr. Woolston has the effrontery to pretend a zeal for the honour of Jesus, in his attempts to get rid of the difficul- ties arising from the literal sense, that literal sense must be defended by every Christian. It is impossible to lead you through all the objections which have been made by Woolston and other writers. But I shall point out the sources from whence satisfying answers may be drawn, and give some specimens of tlie application of these sources. The sources of answers are three : An intimate acquaintance with local manners, customs, and prejudices — an analysis of the true mean- ing of the words in the original — and a close attention to the whole contexture of the narration. 1. An intimate acquaintance with local manners, customs, and pre- judices. One of the most satisfying evidences of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament, arises from their reference to the peculiarities of that country in which we say the authors of them lived, a reference so exact, so uniform, and extending to such minute- ness, as to afibrd conviction to any person who considers it properly, that these are not the production of a later age or another country. — This continual reference, while it is a proof of their authenticity, colours every narration contained in them, with circumstances which appear strange to a reader who is not versant in Jewish antiquities ; and this strangeness furnishes many objections to those who are themselves ignorant, or who wish to impose upon the ignorance of others. But the phantom is dissipated by that local knowledge which may be easily acquired and easily applied. 2. An analysis of the words in the original. Particular objections against the miracles of Jesus are multiplied by this circumstance, that we read a narration of them, having a continual reference to ancient manners, not in the language in which it was originally written, but in a translation. For, allowing that translation all the praise that is due to it, and it deserves a great deal, still it must happen that the words in the translation do not always convey precisely the same meaning with those to which they correspond in the original. — Different combinations of ideas, and different modes of phraseology diversify those words which answer the most exactly to one another in different languages ; and although translations even under this dis- advantage are sufficient to give every necessary information to those who are incapable of reading the original, yet we have experience, in reading all ancient authors, that the delicacy of a sentiment and the peculiar manner of an action may be so far lost by the words used in a translation, that there is no way of answering objections ground- ed upon the mode of exhibiting the sentiment or action, but by having recourse to the original. 3. A close attention to the whole contexture of the narration. — Those who are forward to make objections, are not disposed to compare the different parts of the narration, because it is not their business to find an answer. They choose rather to lay hold of par- ticular expressions, and to give them the most exceptionable form, by OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 presenting them in a detailed view. The beautiful simplicity of Scripture leaves it very much exposed to this kind of objections. — When all the circumstances of a story are artfully arranged, so as to have a visible reference to one another, the manifest unfairness of attempting to present a part of the story disjointed from the rest, betrays the design of a person who makes such an attempt. But when the circumstances are spread carelessly through the whole narration, inserted by th*^ historian as they occurred to his observation or his recollection, without his seeming desirous to prepossess the readers with an opinion that the story is true, or aware that any objection could be raised to it in this natural manner, which is the manner of truth and the manner of Scripture, it is easy to raise a variety of plausible objections; and a connected view of the whole is necessary in order to discern the futility of them. From these three sources answers may be drawn to all the objec- tions that have ever been made to the literal sense of the miracles of Jesus. To show their utility, I shall give a specimen of the applica- tion of them to some of the objections which Mr. Woolston has urged against three of the miracles of our Lord ; the cure of the para- lytic in the second chapter of Mark, the turning of water into wine at Cana, in the second chapter of John, and the resurrection of Lazarus in the eleventh chapter. " And again he entered into Capernaum, after some da^^s ; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door : and he preached the word unto them. And they came unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay."* Mr. Woolston says, in a mode of expression which he uses with- out any scruple, this is the most monstrously absurd, improbable, and incredible of any, according to the letter. If the people thronged so much that those who bore the paralytic could not get to the door, why did not they wait till the crowd was dismissed, rather than heave up the sick man to the top of the house with ropes and ladders, break up tiles, spars, and rafters, and make a hole large enough for the man and his bed to be let through to the injury of the house, and the danger and annoyance of those who were within ? A slight attention to the ordinary style of architecture in Judea, and to the words of the original, removes every appearance of absurdity in the narration. The houses in Judea were seldom more than two stories high, and the roofs were always flat, with a battlement or parapet round the edges, so that there was no danger in walking or pitching a tent, As was often done upon the roof There was a stair within tlie house, which led to a door that lay flat when it was not opened, forming to all appearance a part of the roof, and was secured by a lock or bolt on the inside, to prevent its being readily opened by thieves. By this door the inhabitants of the house could easily get to the roof, and • Mark ii. 1 — 4. 64 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES there was often a fixed stair leading to it from the outside, or where that was wanting, a short ladder was occasionally apphed. Suppos- ing then, the house mentioned by Mark to have been built after this common fashion ; the court before it so full, that it was not possible to get near the door of the house ; the people so throng, and so earnest in listening, that it was vain to think of their giving place to any one ; in this situation, the four persons who carried the palsied man upon a little couch, xxiviSiov, think of going round to another part of the house, at which by a stair or ladder they easily reach the roof. They find the door laying flat, and the word c^o^v^avte; implies that some force was necessary to break it open. That force might have disturbed the family had they been quiet. But at present they are too much engaged to attend to it, or their knowledge of the purpose for which the force was used, prevents them from giving any interruption. The door being made to allow persons to come out upon the roof, and the couch being a x%ivl8i.ov,* it would not be ditficult for four men to let down the couch by the stair on the inside, two of them going before to receive it out of the hands of the others. After the couch is thus brought into the room v/here Jesus was, in the only method by which access could be found to him, he rewards the faith of the sick man by performing, in presence of his enemies, several of whom appear to have mingled with the multitude, an instantaneous and wonderful cure. The palsy is a disease seldom completely, never suddenly removed. The extreme degree in which it affected this man was known to the four who carried him, to the multitude in the midst of whom he was laid, to all the inhabitants of Capernaum. Yet by a word from the mouth of Jesus, he is enabled to rise up and carry his couch. Judge from this simple exposition, whether the narrative of Mark deserves to be called monstrously absurd and incredible. The turning of water into wine is recorded in the second chaptei of John. The only objection to this miracle which merits consider- ation, is the offence conceived by Mr. Woolston at the expression which our Lord uses to his mother. And I doubt not that it sounds harsh in the ears of every English reader. " When they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, they have no wine ; Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee ? Mine hour is not yet come." Here an analysis of the words in the original appears to me to afford a satisfying answer to the objection. I need scarcely remark, that yw*? is the word by which women of the highest rank were addressed in ancient times by men of the most polished manners, when they wished to show them every mark of respect. It is used by Jesus, when with filial affection, in his dying moments, he provides every soothing attention for his mother. The phrase tv fi^ot, xai. aoi occurs in some place of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, and also in the New Testament. It is uniformly rendered " What have I to do with thee }" and seems to mark a check, a slight reprimand, a degree of displeasure. It was not unnatural for our translators to give the Grcelc phrase the same sense here ; and many commentators under- stand our Lord as checking his mother for directing him in the exer- cise of his divine power. I do not think that such a check would have • Luke V. 19, 24. QF CHHISTIANITT. 65 been inconsistent with that tender concern for liis mother which our Lord sliowed upon the cross. It became him who was endov/cd with the Spirit without measure, to be led by that Spirit in the discharge of his pubUc office, and not to commit himself to the narrow concep- tions of any of the children of men. I do not therefore find fault with those who understand Jesus as saying, the time of attesting my commission by miracles is not come, and I cannot receive directions from you when it should begin. This may be the meaning of the words. Bnt as they will easily bear another translation, perfectly consistent with the meekness and gentleness of Christ, 1 am inclined to prefer it. " What is that to tliee and me ? The want of wine is a matter that concerns the master of the feast. Bnt it need not distress you ; and ray friends cannot accuse me of unkindness in withholding an exercise of my power, that may be convenient for them, for I have yet done no miracle, the season of my public manifestation not being come." We know that Jesus did not enter upon his ministry till after John was cast into prison. We find John, in the next chapter, bap- tizing near Salim, and this is called the beginning of miracles. Ac- cording to this translation, every a|)pearance of liarshness is avoided, and the whole story hangs perfectly together. You will observe, Mary was so far from being offended at the supposed harshness of the answer, or conceiving it to be a refusal, that she says to the servants, " Whatever he saith unto you, do it :" and onr Lord's doing the miracle after this answer, is a beautiful instance of his attention to his mother. Although his friends had no reason to expect an inter- position of his power, because his hour was not come, yet, in com- pliance with her desire, he supplies plentifully what is wanting. To the resurrection of Lazarus, in the eleventh chapter of John, Mr. Woolston objects, that the person raised was not a man of emi- nence sufficient to draw attention — that he gives no account of what he saw in the separate state — that it was absurd in Jesus to call with a loud voice to a dead man -that Lazarus having his head bound is suspicious — and that the whole is a romantic story. Now the answer to all this is to be drawn from the contexture of the narrative, in which, beautiful, simple, and tender as it is, there are interwoven such circumstances as can leave no doubt upon the mind of any person^ who admits the authenticity of this book, that the greatest of miracles was here really performed. Instead, therefore, of following the frivolous objections of Mr. Woolston one by one, I shall present you with a connected view of these circumstances, as a specimen of the manner in which the credibility of other miracles may be illus- trated. Jesus lingered in the place where he was, when he received the message from the sisters, till the time when, by the divine knowledge that he possessed, he said to the apostles, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." After this, he had a long journey to Bethany; and it does not appear that he performed it hastily, for he learned, as he approached the village, that Lazarus had lain four days in the grave. He delayed so long, that the divine power, which he was to exert in the resurrec- tion of Lazarus, might be magnified in the eyes of the spectators ; and, at the same time, he provided an unquestionable testimony for the truth of the miracle, by arriving before the davs of mourning were 8^ M 66 ILLUSTRATION OF THE EVIDENCES expired. You will be sensible of the effect of this circumstance, if you attend for a moment to the manners of the Jews respecting funerals. One of the greatest calamities in human life, is the death of those persons whose society had been our comfort and joy. It has been the practice of all countries to testify the sense of tliis calamity by honours paid to the dead, and by expressions of grief on the part of the living. In eastern countries, where all the passions are strong, and agitate the frame more than in our northern climates, these ex- pressions of grief were often exceedingly violent ; and notwithstand- ing some wise prohibitions of the law of Moses, the mourning in the land of Judea was more expressive of anguish than that wliich we commonly see. The dead body was carried out to burial not long after the death. But the house in which the person had died, the furniture of the house, and all who had been in it at that time, became in the eye of the law unclean for seven days. During that time, the near relations of the deceased remained constantly in the house, unless when they went to the grave or sepulchre to mourn over the dead. They did not perform any of the ordinary business of life : they were not considered as in a proper condition for attending the service of the temple, and their neighbonrs and acquaintances, for these seven days, came to condole with them, bringing bread and wine and other victuals, as there was nothing in the house which could lawfully be used. Upon this charitable errand, a number of Jews, inhabitants of Jerusalem, had come out t^ Bethany, which was with- in two miles of the city, upon the day when Jesus arrived there ; and thus, as we found the sisters brought out to the sepulchre one after an- other, by the most natural display of character, so here, without any appearance of a divine interposition, hut merely by their following the dictates of good neighbourhood or of decency, the enemies of Jesus are gathered together to be the witnesses of this work. When the Jews saw Mary rise hastily and go out, after the private message which Martha brought her, knowing that she could not go any where but to the sepulchre, they naturally arose to follow her, that they might restrain the extravagance of her grief, and assist in composing her spirit and bringing her home. They found Jesus in the highway where Martha had first met him, groaning in spirit at the distress of the family, and soothing Mary's complaint by this kindly question, "Where have ye laid him?" a question which showed his readiness to take part in her sorrow by going with her to the house of the dead. The Jews answered his question, " Lord, come and see ;" and Jesus suffers himself to be led by them, that tiiey might see there was no preparation for the work he was about to perform, when he stepped oat of the highway along with them, and allowed them to reach the sepulchre before him. His tears draw the attention of the crowd as he approaches the place ; and the Evangelist has presented to us, in their different remarks, that variety of character which we discover in every multitude. The candid and feeling admired this testimony of his affection for Lazarus, " Behold how he loved him !" Others, who pretended to more sagacity, argued from the grief of Jesus, that, in the death of Lazarus, he had met with a disappointment which he would liave prevented if he could. Jesus, without making any reply to either remark, arrives at the grave. John, who wrote his Gospel OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 at a distance from Jerusalem, for the benefit of those who vvere strangers to Jewish manners, has given a short description of the grave, which we must carry along with us. The Jews, especially persons of distinction, were generally laid, not in such graves as we commonly see, but in caves hewn in the rocks, with which the land of Judea abounded. Sometimes the sepulchre was in part above the ground, having a door, like that in which our Lord lay. Sometimes it was altogether below ground, having an aperture from which a staii led down to the bottom, and this aperture covered witii a stone, except when the sepulchre was to be opened. The body, swathed in linen, with the feet and hands tightly bound, and the whole face covered by a napkin, was laid, not in a coffin, but in a niche or cell of the sepulchre. As the Jews, at the command of Jesus, were attempting to take away the stone, Martha seems to stagger in the faith which she had formerly expressed. " Lord, by this time he stink- eth, for he hath been dead four days," mo.eta.ioc, ya^ latc. The word means that he has been four days in some particular condition, with- out expressing what condition is meant. Now, his present condition is, being in the cave. It was mentioned before, tliat he had been there four days, and therefore our translators should have inserted in italics the word buried, not the word dead. Jesus revives the faith of Martha ; and as soon as the stone is removed, he lifts up his eyes to heaven, and thanks the Father for having heard him. His enemies said, that he did his mighty works by the assistance of the devil. Here, in the act of performing the greatest of them, he prays with perfect assurance of being heard, ascribes the honour to God, and takes to himself the name of the messenger of heaven. Think of the suspense and earnest attention of the multitude, while, after the sepulchre is opened, Jesus is uttering this solemn prayer. How would the suspense be increased, when Jesus, to show the whole multitude that the resurrection of Lazarus was his deed, calls with a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth !" And what would be their astonishment when they saw this command instantly obeyed ; the man who had lain four days in the sepulchre, sliding his limbs down from the cell, and standing before it upright ! The bandages prevent him from moving forward. But Jesus, by ordering the Jews to loose him, gives them a nearer opportunity of examining this wonderful sight, and of deriving, from the dress of his body, from the state of the grave clothes, from the manner in which the napkin smothered his face, various convincing proofs, that the man whom they now saw and touched alive, had been truly numbered among the dead. The contexture of this narration is such as to efface from our minds every objection against the consistency of it ; and the greatness of the miracle is obvious. We behold in this work the Lord of Life. None can restore a man who had seen corruption, but He who in the be- ginning created him. Jesus gives us here a sample of the general resurrection, and a sensible sign that he is able to deliver from the second death. This is the meaning of that expression, " Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,"or ^rj anoeavy] «? tov aiwa, {, e. shall not die for ever. Natural death is the separation of soul and body; eternal death is the loss, the degradation, and final wretched- ness of the soul. Both are the wages of sin, and Jesus dehvers from 68 ILLUSTRATION 01 THE EVIDENCES the first, which is visible, as a pledge of his being able to deliver, in due time, those who live and believe in him, from the second also. The miracle is in this way stated by himself, both as a confirmation of his mission, and as an illustration of the great doctrine of his reli- gion. Before leaving the circumstances of the miracle I would observe, that however ably such objections as I have mentioned may be answered, there is much caution to be used in stating tliem to a Chris- tian assembly. It is very improper to communicate to the people all the extravagant frivolous conceits tliat have been broached by the enemies of Christianity. The objection may remain with them after they have forgotten the ansv;-er ; and their faith may be shaken by finding that it has received so many attacks. It becomes the ministers of re- ligion indeed, to possess their minds with a profound knowledge of the evidences of Christianity, and of the answers that may be made to objections. But out of this store-house they should bring forth to the people a clear unembarrassed view of every subject upon which they speak, so as to create no doubt or suspicion in those who hear them, but to give their faith that stability which is always connected with distinct apprehension. III. It remains to say a few words upon the effects which this miracle produced. Some of the persons who had come to comfort Mary, when they saw " the things which Jesus did, believed on him.'" It was the conclusion of right reason, that a man who, in the sight of a multitude, exerted, without preparation, a power to which no human exertion deserves to be compared, was a messenger of heaven. It was the conclusion of an enlightened and unprejudiced Jew, that this extraordinary person, appearing in the land of Judea, was the Messiah, whose coming was to be distinguished by signs and wonders. The chosen people of God, who " waited for the consolation of Israel," found in this miracle the most striking marks of him that should come. The conclusion seems to arise naturally out of the pre- mises. Yet it was not drawn by all. Many believed, " but some went their ways to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done." They knew the enmity which these leading men enter- tained against him. They were afraid of incurring their anger, by appearing to be his disciples : they hoped to obtain their favour by informing against him; and, sacrificing their conviction to this fear and this hope, they go from the sepulchre of Lazarus, where with astonishment they had seen the power of Jesus, to inflame the minds of his enemies by a recital of the deed. And what do these enemies do ? They could not entertain a doubt of the fact. It was told them by witnesses who had no interest in forging or exaggerating miracles ascribed to Jesus. The place was at hand ; inquiry was easy ; and the imposture, had there been any, could not have remained hidden at Jerusalem for a day. The Pharisees, therefore, in their delibera- tions, proceed upon the fact as undeniable. " This man doth many miracles." But, from mistaken views of political expediency, the result of their deliberation is, " They take counsel together to put him to death." There is thus furnished a satisfactory answer to a question that has often been asked, If Jesus really did such miracles, how is it pes- OP CHRISTIANITY. 69 sible that any who saw them could remain in unbeUef ? Many, we are told, did believe ; and here is a view of the motives which indisposed others for attending to the evidence which was exhibited to them, and even determined them to reject it. You cannot be surprised at the influence which such motives exerted at that time, because the like influence of similar motives is a matter of daily observation. The evidence upon which we embrace Christianity is not the same which the Jews had ; but it is sufficient. All the parts of it have been fully illustrated; every objection lias received an apposite answer; the gainsayers have been driven out of every hold which they have tried to occupy ; the wisest and most enlightened men in every age have admitted the evidence, and " set to their seal that God is true." Yet it is rejected by many. Pride, false hopes, or evil passions, detain them in infidelity. They ask for more evidence. They say they suspect collusion, enthusiasm, credulity. But the example of those Jews, who went their ways to the Pharisees, may satisfy you that there is no defect in the evidence, and that there is the most literal truth in our Lord's declaration, " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." The difl*erent effects which the same religious truths and the same religious advantages produce upon diff'erent persons, aftbrd one in- stance of a state of trial. God is now proving the hearts of the chil- dren of men, drawing them to himself by persuasion, by that moral evidence which is enough to satisfy, not to overpower. Faith in this way becomes a moral virtue. A trial is taken of the goodness and honesty of the heart. " If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light ; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness !" The same seed of the word is scattered by the blessed sower in various soils, and the quality of the soil is left to appear by the produce. Pierce's Commentary. 70 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY — PROPHECY. Had Jesus appeared only as a messenger of heaven, the points already considered might have finished the defence of Christianity, because we should have been entitled to say that miracles such as those recorded in the Gospel, transmitted upon so unexceptionable a testimony, and wrought in support of a doctrine so worthy of God, are the complete credentials of a divine mission. But the nature of that claim which is made in the Gospel requires a further defence : for it is not barely said that Jesus was a messenger from heaven, but it is said that he was the Messiah of the Jews, " the prophet that should come into the world."* John, his forerunner, marked him out as the Christ.! He himself, in his discourses with the Jews, often referred to their books, which he said wrote of him.^ Before his ascension, he expounded to his disciples in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself § They went forth after his death declaring that they said none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say sliould come ;]] and in all their discourses and writings they held forth the Gospel as the end of the law, the fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham, the performance of the mercy promised to the fathers. If the Gospel be a divine revelation, these allegations must be true ; for it is impossible that a messenger from heaven can advance a false claim. Although, therefore, the nature of the doctrine, and the con- firmation which it receives from miracles, might have been sufficient to establish our faith, had no such claim been made ; yet, as Jesus has chosen to call himself the Messiah of the Jews, it is incumbent upon Christians to examine the correspondence between that system contained in the books of the Jews, and that contained in the New Testament; and their fahh does not rest upon a solid foundation, unless they can satisfy their minds that the characters of the Jewish Messiah belong to Jesus. It is to be presimied that he had wise rea- sons for taking to himself this name, and that the faith of his disciples will be very much strengthened by tracing the connection between the two dispensations. But the nature and force of the argument from prophecy will unfold itself in the progress of the investigation ; and it is better to begin with attending to the facts upon which the • John iv. 26; vi. 14. f John i. 29— 31. + John V. 39, 46. § Luke xxiv. 27. J AcU xxvi. 22. OF CHRISTIANITT. 71 argument rests, and the steps which lead to the conclusion, than to form premature conceptions of the amount of this part of the evidence for Christianity. ' Section I. * In every point of investigation, it is of great importance to ascer- tain precisely the point from wliich you set out, that there may be no danger of confounding the points that are assumed, with those that are to be proven. There is much reason for making this remark in entering upon the subject which we are now to investigate, because attempts have been made to render it confused and inextricable, by misstating the manner in which the investigation ought to proceed. Mr. Gibbon, speaking of that argument from prophecy, which often occurs in the apologies of the primitive Christians, calls it an argu- ment beneath the notice of philosophers. "It might serve," he says, " to edifj'" a Christian, or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the other acknowledge the authority of the prophets, and both are obUged with devout reverence to search for their sense and accomplishm.ent. But this mode of persuasion loses much of its weight and influence, when it is addressed to tliose who neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation, or the prophetic spirit."* Mr. Gibbon learned to use this supercilious inaccurate language from Mr. Collins, an author of whom I shall have occasion to speak fully before I finish the discussion of this subject, and who lays it down as the funda- mental position of his book, that Christianity is founded upon Judaism, and from thence infers that the Gentiles ought regularly to be con- verted to Judaism before they can become Christians. Tlie object of the inference is manifest. It is to us, in these later ages, a much shorter process to attain a conviction of the truth of Christianity, than to attain, without the assistance of the Gospel, a conviction of the divine origin of Judaism: and, therefore, if it be necessary that we become converts to Judaism before we become Christians, the evi- dence of our religion is involved in numberless difficulties, and the field of objection is so much extended, that the adversaries of our faith may hope to persuade the generality of mankind that the subject is too intricate for their understanding. The design is manifest ; but nothing can be more loose or fallacious than the statement which is employed to accomplish this design. In order to perceive this you need only attend to the difterei^ce between'a Jew and a Gentile in the conduct of this investigation. A Jew who respects the Mosaic dispensation and the prophetic spirit, looks for the fulfilment of those prophecies which appear to him to be contained in his sacred books, and Avhen any person declares that these prophecies are fulfilled in him, the Jew is led by that respect to compare the circumstances in the appearance of that person with what he accounts the right interpretation of the prophecies, and to form his judgment whether they be fulfilled. A Gentile, to whom the divinity of the prophecies was formerly un- * Gibbon's Roman Hi^^taiy, chap. xv. 72 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES known, but who hears a person declaring that they are fulfilled in him, if he is disposed by other circumstances to pay any respect to what that person says, will be led by that respect to inquire after the books in which these prophecies are said to be contained, will com- pare the appearance of that person with what is written in these books, and will judge from this comparison how far they correspond. Both the Jew and the Gentile may be led by this comparison to a firm conviction that the messenger whose character and history Ihey examine, is the person foretold in the prophecies. Yet the Jew set out with the belief that the prophecies are divine ; the Gentile only attained that belief in the progress of the examination. It is not possible, then, that a previous belief of the divinity of the prophecies is necessary in order to judge of the fulfilment of them ; for two men may form the same judgment in this matter, the one of whom from the beginning -had that belief, and the other had it not. The true point from which an investigation of the fulfilment of prophecy must commence, is this, that the books containing what is called the prophecy, existed a considerable time before the events which are said to be the fulfilment of it. I say, a considerable time, because the nearer that the first appearance of these books was to the event, it is the more possible that human sagacity may account for the coincidence, and the remoter the period is, to which their existence can be traced, that account becomes the more improbable. Let us place ourselves, then, in the situation of those Gentiles whom the first preachers of the Gospel addressed ; let us suppose that we know no more about the books of the Jews than they might know, and let us consider how we may satisfy ourselves as to the preliminary point upon which the investigation must proceed. The prophecies to which Jesus and his apostles refer, did not pro- ceed from the hands of obscure individuals, and appear in that sus- picious form which attends every prediction of an unknown date and a hidden origin. They were presented to the world in the public records of a nation ; they are completely incorporated with these re- cords, and they form part of a series of predictions which cannot be disjoined from the constitution and history of the state. This nation, however singular in its religious principles, and in what appeared to the world to be its political revolutions, was not unknown to its neigh- bours. By its geographical situation, it had a natural connection with the greatest empires of the world. War and commerce occa- sionally brought the flourishing kingdom of Judea into tb.eir view ; and although repugnant in manners and in worship, they were wit- nesses of the existence and the peruliarities of this kingdom. The captivity, first of the ten tribes by Salmanazar, afterwards of the two tribes by Nebuchadnezzar, served still more to draw the attention of the world, many centuries before the birth of Christ, to the peculiari- ties of Jewish manners. And ther(^ was a circumstance in the return of the two tribes from captivity, which was to those who observed it in ancient times, and is to us at this day, a singular and unquestion- able voucher of the early existence of their books. Neheniiah was appointed by the king of Persia to superintend the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. He had received much opposition in this work from Sanballat, the governor of Samaria, that district of Palestine OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 which the ten tribes had inhabited, ard into which the king of As- syria had, at the time of their captivity, transplanted his own subjects. The work, however, was finished, and Nehemiah proceeded in making the regulations which appeared to him necessary for main- taining order, and the observance of the law of Moses amongst the multitude whom he had gathered into Jerusalem. Some of these regulations were not universally agreeable ; and Manasseh, a son of the high priest, who had married a daughter of Sanballat, fled at the head of the malecontenl Jews into Samaria, The Law of Moses was not acknowledged in Samaria, for the king of Assyria, after the first captivity, had sent a priest to instruct those whom he planted there, in the worship of the God of the country, and for some time they had offered sacrifices to idols in conjunction with the true God. But Manasseh, emulous of the Jews whom he had left, and consider- ing the honour of a descendant of Aaron as concerned in the purity of worship which he established in his new residence, prevailed upon the inhabitants to put away their idols, built a temple to the God of Israel upon Mount Gerizim, and introduced a copy of the law of Moses, or the Pentateuch. He did not introduce any of the later books of the Old Testament, lest the Samaritans, observing the pecu- liar honours with which God had distinguished Jerusalem, "the place which he had chosen, to put his name there," should entertain less reverence for the temple of Gerizim. And as a farther mark of dis- tinction, Manasseh had the book of the law written for tlie Samar- itans, not in the Chaldee character, which Ezra had adopted in the copies of the law which he made for the Jews, to whom that language had become familiar during the captivity, but in the old Samaritan character. During the successive fortunes of the Jewish nation, the Samaritans continued to reside in their neighbourhood, worshipping the same God, and using the same law. But between the two na- tions there was that kind of antipathy, which, in religious differences, is often the more bitter, the less essential the disputed points are, and which, in this case, proceeded so far that the Jews and Samaritans not only held no communion in worship, but had " no dealings with one another," Here then are two rival tribes stated in opposition and enmity five hundred years before Christ, yet acknowledging and preserving the same laws, as if appointed by Providence to watch over the corrup- tions which either might be disposed to introduce, and to transmit to the nations of the earth, pure and free from suspicion, those books in which Moses wrote of Jesus. The Samaritan Pentateuch is often quoted by the early fathers. After it had been unknown for a thou- sand years, it was found by the industry of some of those critics who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century, amongst the rem- nant who still worship at Gerizim. Copies of it were brought into Europe, and the learned have now an opportunity of comparing the Samaritan text.used by the followers of Manasseh, with the Hebrew or Chaldee text used by the Jews. While this ancient schism thus furnished succeeding ages with jealous guardians of the Pentateuch, the existence and integrity of all their Scriptures were vouched by another event in the history of the Jews. 9 N 74 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES Alexander the Great, in the progress of his conquests, either visited the land ^f Judea, or received intelligence concerning Ihe Jews. His inquisitive mind, which was no stranger to science, and which was not less intent upon great plans of commerce than of conquest, was probably struck with the peculiarities of this ancient people ; and when he founded his city Alexandria, he invited many of the Jews to settle there. The privileges which he and his successors conferred upon them, and the advantages of that situation, multiplied the Jewish inhabitants of Alexandria ; and the constant intercourse of trade oblig- ed them to learn the Greek language, which the conquerors of Asia had introduced through all the extent of the Macedonian empire. — Retaining the religion and manners of Judea, but gradually forgetting the language of that country, they became desirous that their Scrip- tures, the car.on of which was by this time complete, should be trans- lated into Greek ; and it was especially proper that there should be a translation of the Pentateuch for the use of the synagogue, where a portion of it was read every Sabbath-day. We have the best reason for saying that the translation of the Old Testament, which, from an account of the manner of its being made, probably in many points fabulous, has received the name of the Septuagint, was begun at Alexandria about two hundred and eighty years before Christ ; and we cannot doubt that the whole of the Pentateuch was translated at once. Learned men have conjectured, indeed, from a diii'erence of style, that the other parts of the Old Testament were translated by other hands. But it is very improbable that a woric, so acceptable to the numerous and wealthy body of Jews who resided at Alexandria, would receive any long interruption after it was begun ; and a subse- quent event in the Jewish history appears to fix a time when a trans- lation of the prophets would be demanded. About the middle of the second century before Christ, Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, committed the most outrageous acts of wanton cruelty against the whole nation of the Jews ; and as he contended with the King of Egypt for the conquest of Palestine, we may believe tliat the Jews of Alexandria shared the fate of their brethren, as for as the power of Anti- ochus could reach them. Amongst other edicts which he issued, he for- bade any Jews to read the law of Moses in public. As the prohibition did not extend to the prophets, the Jews began at this time to substitute portions of the prophets instead of the law. After the heroical exploit of the AsmouEean family, the Maccabees had delivered their country from the tyranny of Antiochus, and restored the reading of the law, the prophists continued to be read also ; and we know that before the days of our Saviour, reading both the law and the prophets was a stated part of the synagogue service. In this way the whole of the Septuagint translation came to be used in the churches of the Hellen- istical Jews scattered through the Grecian cities ; and we are told it was used in some of the synagogues of Judea. When Rome, then, entered into an alliance with. the princes of the Asmona3an line, who were at that time independent sovereigns, and when Judea, experiencing the same fate with the other allies of that ambitious republic, was subdued by Pompey about sixty years before the birth of our Saviour, the hooks of the Jews were ])ublicly read in a lanv aiwwi', hath Christ appeared." At the conclusion of that dispensation under which the blood of bulls and goats was offered upon the altar of God, " Christ appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." The apostle to the Corinthians says, " These things are written for our admoni- tion, upon whom are come T'a •f^?.}? rwi/ atwcor/'t our translation renders it, "the ends of the world." Yet the world has lasted about 1800 years since the apostolic days ; the meaning is, the ends of the ages, the conclusion of the one age, and the beginning of the other, are come upon us ; for we have seen both. It is agreeable, then, to the phraseology of Scripture, and to the expectations of the apostles, to interpret their question here, " What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world ?" as meaning nothing more than the corresponding question, to which an answer, in substance the same, is given in the 13th chapter of Mark, and the 21st of Luke. What shall be the sign when these things, this prophecy of the destruction of the temple, shall be fulfilled, or come to pass ? But the language in which the question is proposed in Matthew, suggests to us the sentiment which had probably arisen in the minds of the apostles, after hearing the declaration of our Lord, as they walked from the temple to the Mount of Olives. They con- ceived that the whole frame of the Jewish polity was to be dissolved, that the glorious kingdom of the Messiah was to commence, and that, as all the nations of the earth were to be gathered to this kingdom, and Jerusalem was to be the capital of the world, the temple which now stood, extensive and magnificent as it was, would be too small for the reception of the worshippers, that on this account it was to be laid in ruins, and one much more splendid, more suitable to the dignity of the Messiah, and far surpassing every human work, was to be erected in its stead. Possessed with these exalted imaginations, and anticipating their own dignity in being the ministers of this temple, they come to Jesus and say, " Tell us when these things shall be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age ?" The • Matt. xvi. 28. -J I Cor. x. 11. PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS, 105 question consists of two parts. They ask the time, and they ask the signs. Our Lord begins with giving a particular answer to the second question. He afterwards hniits the time to the existence of the generation then aUve upon tlie earth. But he represses their curiosity as to the day or the hour.. Of the signs mentioned by our Lord, I shall give a short general view, deriving the account of the fulfilment of his words from the history of the events left us by Josephus, and shall then fix your attention upon that prophecy of the general progress of Christianity before the destruction of Jerusalem, which you will find in the 24th chapter of Matthew. The first sign is the number of false Christs who were to arise in the interval between the prophecy and the event ; impostors who, finding a general expectation of the Messiah, as the seventy weeks of Daniel were conceived to be accomplished, and a disposition to revolt from the Romans, assumed a character corresponding to the wishes of the people. There is frequent reference to these impostors in the book of Acts ; and Josephus says, that numbers of them were taken under the government of Felix. They led out the deluded people in crowds, promising to show them great signs, and to deliver them from all their calamities, and thus exposed them to be cut to pieces by the Roman soldiers, as disturbers of the peace. Our Lord graciously warns the apostles not to go after these men ; to put no faith in any message which they pretended to bring from him, but to rest satisfied with the directions contained in this prophecy, or hereafter communi- cated to themselves by his Spirit. While he thus preserves his fol- lowers from the destruction which came upon many of the Jews, he enables them, by reading in that destruction the fulfilment of his words, and a proof of his divine character, to derive from the fate of their unwise countrymen an early confirmation of their own faith. The second sign consists of great calamities which were to happen during the interval. The madness of Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, butchered many of the Jews ; and there was in his reign the rumour of a waj", which was likely to be the destruction of the nation. He ordered his statue to be erected in the temple of Jerusalem. Not conceiving why an honour, which was granted to him by the other provinces of the empire, should be refused by Judea ; and not being wise enough to respect the religious prejudices of those who were subject to him, he rejected their remonstrances, and persisted in his demand. The Jews had too high a veneration for the house of the true God, to admit of any thing like divine honours being there paid to a mortal, and they resolved to suffer every distress, rather than to give their countenance to the sacrilege of the emperor. Such was the consternation which the rumour of this war spread through Judea, that the people neglected to till their lands, and in despair waited the approach of the enemy. But the death of Caligula removed their fears, and delayed for some time that destruction which he meditated Although, therefore, says Jesus, you will find the Jews troubled when these wars arise, as if the end of their state was at hand, be not ye afraid, but know that many things must first be accomplished. What strength was the faith of the apostles to derive from this prophecy, but a few years after our Lord's death, when they heard of rumours R 106 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. of wars, when they beheld the despair of their countrymen, and yet saw tlie cloud dispelled, and the peace of their country restored ! The peace, indeed, was soon interrupted by frequent engagements between the Jewish and heathen inhabitants of many cities in the pro- vince of Syria; by disputes about the bounds of their jurisdiction, amongst the governors of the different tetrarchies or kingdoms into which the land of Palestine was divided ; and by the wars arising from the quick succession of emperors, and the violent competitions for the imperial diadem. It was not the sword only that filled with calamity this disastrous interval. The human race, according to the words of this prophecy, suffered under those judgments which pro- ceed immediately from heaven. Josephus has mentioned famine and pestilence, earthquakes in all places of the world where Jews resided, and one in Judea attended with circumstances so dreadful and so unusual, that it was manifest, he says, the whole power of nature was disturbed for the destruction of men. The third sign is the persecution of the Christians. The sufferings of which we read in the Epistles and the Acts were early aggravated by the famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes with which God at this time afflicted the earth. The Christians were regarded as the causes of these calamities ; and the heathen, without iisquiriiig into the nature of their religion, but viewing it as a new pestilential super- stition, most offensive to the gods, tried to appease the divine anger which manifested itself in various judgments, by bringing every indignity and barbarity upon the Christians. The example was set by Nero, who, having in the madness of his wickedness set fire to Rome that he might enjoy the sight of a great city in flames, turned the tide of that indignation, which the report excited, from himself against the Christians, by accusing them of this atrocious crime. He found the people not unwilling to helieve any thing of a sect whom they held in abhorrence : and both in this, and in many other instances, the Christians suffered the most exquisite torments for crimes not their own, and as the authors of calamities which they did not occasion. The persecution which they endured^ has been well called by one of the oldest apologists for Christianity,* a war against the name, proceeding not from hatred to them as individuals, but from enmity to the name which they bore. " Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." The fourth sign is the apostacy and treachery of many who had borne this name. Although persecution naturally tends to unite those who are persecuted, and although the religion of Jesus can boast of an innumerable company of martyrs, who in the flames witnessed a good confession, yet there were some in the earliest ages who made shipwreck of faith, and endeavoured to gain the favour of the heathen magistrates by informing against their brethren. This apostacy is often severely reprehended in the epistles of Paul ; and the Roman historian speaks of a multitude of Christians who were convicted of bearing the name, upon the evidence of those who confessed first.t It cannot surprise any one who considers the weakness of human nature, that such examples did occur. But it must appear very much * Justin Martyr. f Tac. Ann. xv. 44. PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BT JESUS. 107 to the honour of Jesus, that he adventures to utter such a prophecy. He is not afraid of sowing jealousy and distrust amongst his followers. He knew that many were able to endure the trial of affliction, and he leaves the chatf to be separated from the wheat. The fifth sign is the multitude of false teachers, men who, either from an attachment to the law of Moses, or from the pride of false philosophy, corrupted the simphcity of the Gospel. This perversion appeared in the days of the apostles. Complaints of it, and warnings against it, are scattered through all their epistles. Neither the sword of the persecutor, nor the wit of the scorner has done so much injury to the cause of Christianity, as the strifes and idle disputes of those who bear his name. Many in early times, were shaken by the errors of false prophets. Improper senti;nents and passions were cherished ; the union of Christians was broken, and the religion of love and peace became an occasion of discord. But these corraptioijs, however dis- graceful to Christians, are a testimony both of the candour and the divine knowledge of the author of the Gospel; and even those who perverted his religion fulfilled his words. We have now gone through those signs which announced the destruction of Jerusalem, and we are come to the circumstances, marked in the prophecy, which happened during the siege. The first is, Jerusalem being compassed with armies, or, as Mat- thew expressed it, the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place. There were commonly engraved upon the Roman standards, after the times of the republic, the images of those emperors whom admiration or flattery had trans- lated into the number of Gods. The soldiers were accustomed to swear by these images, to worship them, and to account them the gods of battle. Tlie Jews, educated in an abhorrence of idolatry, could not bear tiiat images, before which men thus bowed, should be brought within the precincts of their city ; and soon after the death of our Lord, they requested a Roman general, Vitellius, who was leading troops through Judea against an enemy of the emperor, to take another road, because, said they, it is not^'af^toi'jj^M'to behold from our city any images. With strict propriety, then, the dark expression of Daniel, which had not till that time been understood, is interpreted by our Lord as meaning the offensive images of a great multi- tude of standards brought within that space, a circumference of two miles round the city which was accounted holy, in order to render the city desolate ; and he mentions this as the signal to his followers to fly from the low parts of Judea to the mountains. It may appear to you too late to think of flying, after the Roman armies were seen from Jerusalem. But the manner in which the siege was conducted justified the wisdom of this advice. A few years before Titus destroyed Jerusalem, Cestius Gallus laid siege to it ; he might have taken the city if he had persevered ; but without any reason that was known, says Joscphus, he suddenly led away his forces. And after his departure many fled from the city as from a sinking ship. Vespasian, too, was slow in his approaches to the city; and by the distractions which at tliat time took place in the government of Rome, was frequently diverted from executing his purpose ; so that the Christians, to whom the first appearance of Cestius's army brought 108 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. an explaitation of the words of Jesus, by following his directions, escaped entirely from the carnage of the Jews. Our Lord warns his disciples of the imminency of the danger, and urges them, by various expressions, to the greatest speed in their flight. The reason of this urgency is explained by Josephus. After Titus sat down before Jerusaleuj, he surrounded the city with a wall, which was finished in three days, so that none could escape ; and factions were by tliat time become so violent, that none were allowed to surrender. The party called zealots, who in their zeal for the law of Moses, and in the hope of receiving deliverance from heaven, thought it their duty to resist the Romans to the last extremity, put to death all who attempted to desert, and thus assisted the enemy in enclosing an immense mul- titude within this devoted city. With what gracious foresight does the divine prophet guard his followers against this complication of evils, and repeat his warning in the most striking words, in order to convince all who paid regard to what he said, that their only safety lay in flight ! A second circumstance by which our Lord marks this siege, is the unparalleled distress that was then to be endured. " Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of tliis world to this time ; no, nor ever shall be." It is a very strong expression, of itself suflicient to distinguish this prophecy from conjecture. And the expression, strong as it appears, is so strictly applicable to the subject, that we find almost the same words in Josepiius, who cer- tainly did not copy them from Jesus. " In my opinion," he says, " all the calamities which ever were endured since the beginning of the world were inferior to those which the Jews now suffered. Never was any city more wicked, and never did any city receive such pun- ishment. Without was the Roman army, surrounding their walls, crucifying thousands before their eyes, and laying waste their coun- try : within were the most violent contentions among the besieged, frequent bloody battles between different parties, rapine, fire, and the extremity of famine. Many of the Jews prayed for the success of the Romans, as the only method to deliver them from a more dread- ful calamity, the atrocious violence of their civil dissensions." A third circumstance mentioned by our Lord, is the shortening of the siege. Josephus computes that there fell, during the siege, by the hands of the Romans, and by their own faction, 1,100,000 Jews. Had the siege continued long, the whole nation would have perished. But the Lord shortened the days for the elect's sake : the elect, that is, in scripture language, the Christians, both those Jews within the city, whom this fulfilment of the words of Jesus was to convert to Chris- tianity, and those Christians who, according to the directions of their Master, had fled out of the city at the approach of the Roman army, and were then living in the mountains. The manner in \vhich the days were shortened is most striking. Vespasian committed the con- duct of the siege to Titus, then a young man, impatient of resistance, jealous of the honour of the Roman army, and in hnste to return from the conquest of an obscure province to the capital of the empire. He prosecuted the siege with vigour ; he invited the besieged to yield, by offeritig them peace ; and he tried to intimidate them, by using, contrary to his nature, every species of cruelty against those who fell PBEDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. 109 into his hands. But all his vigour, and all his arts, would have been in vain, Imd it not been for the madness of those within. They fought with one another ; they burned, in their fury, magazines of jirovi- sions sufficient to last them for years ; and they deserted with a fool- ish confidence strong holds, out of which no enemy could have dragged them. After they had thus delivered their city into his hands, Titus, when he was viewing it, said, " God has been upon our side. Neither the hands nor the machines of men could have been of any avail agahist those towers. But God has pulled the Jews out of them, that he might give them to us." It was impossible for Titus to restrain the soldiers, irritated by an obstinate resistance, from executing their fury against the besieged. But his native clemency spared the Jews in other places. He would not allow the senate of Antioch, that city in which the disciples were first called Christians, to expel the Jews; for where, said he, shall these people go, now that we have destroyed their city ? Titus was the servant of God to execute his vengeance on Jerusalem. But when the measure of that vengeance was ful- filled, the compassion of this amiable prince was employed to restrain the wrath of man. " The Lord shortened the days." A fourth circumstance is, the number of false Christs, men, of whom we read in Josephus, who, both during the siege and after it, kept up the spirits of the people, and rendered them obstinate in their resistance, by giving them hopes that the Messiah was at hand to de- liver them out of all their calamities. The greater the distress was, the people were the more disposed to catch at this hope ; and, there- fore, it was necessary for our Lord to warn his disciples against being deluded by it. The last circumstance is, the extent of this distress. Our Lord has employed a bold figure. But the boldest of his figures are always literally true : " As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be : For wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together." The Roman army, who were at this time the servants of the Son of man, entered on tlie east side of Judea, and carried their devastation westward ; so that, in this grand image, the very direc- tion of the ruin, as well as the suddenness of it, is painted : and it extended to every place where Jews were to be found. A gold or silver eagle, borne on the top of a spear, belonged to every legion, and was always carried along with it. Wheresoever the carcase — the Jewish people who were judicially condemned by God — was, there were also those eagles. There was no part of Judea, says Jo- sephus, which did not partake of the miseries of the capital ; and liis history of the Jewish war ends with numbering the thousands who fell in other places of the world also by the Roman sword. I have thus led you, as particularly as appears to me to be neces- sary, through the prophecy of our Lord respecting the signs, which announced the destruction of Jerusalem, and the circumstances which attended the siege ; and I v/ish now to fix your attention upon a par- ticular prediction interwoven in this prophecy, concerning the pro- gress of Christianity previous to that period, both because the sul)ject renders it interesting, and because the place which our Lord has 12 110 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. given it in this prophecy, opens a most instructive and enlarged view of the economy of the divine dispensations. 6. The prediction is — " And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end" of the Jewish state "come." We find our Lord always speaking with confidence of the establish- ment of his religion in the world. It is a confidence which could not reasonably be inspired by any thing he beheld : multitudes following him out of curiosity, but "easily offended, and at length demanding his crucifixion — a few unlearned, feeble men, afi'ectionately attached indeed to his person, but with very imperfect apprehensions of his religion, and devoid of the most likely instruments of spreading even their own apprehensions through the world — a world \vhich hated him while he lived, and which he kncAV was to hate his disciples after his death— a world, consisting of Jews, wedded to their own rehgion, and abhorring his doctrine as an impious attempt to supersede the law of Moses ; and of heathens, amongst whom the philosophers, full of their own wisdom, despised the simplicity of the gospel, and the vulgar, devoted to childish abominable superstitions, and averse from the spiritual worship of the gospel, were disposed to execute the vengeance of jealous malignant deities upon a body of men who refused to offer incense at their altars — a world, too, in which every kind of vice abounded — in which the passions of men demanded indulgence, and spurned at the restraint of the holy commandment of Jesus. Yet in these circumstances, with such obstacles, our Lord, conscious t)f his divine character, and knowing that the Spirit was given to him without measure, foretells, with perfect assurance, that his gospel shall be preached in all the world. Had he fixed no time, this prophecy, bold as it is, might have been regarded as one of the acts by which an impostor tries to raise the spirits of his followers; and we should have heard it said, that, instead of a mark of the spirit of prophecy, there was here only the sagacity of a man, who, aware of the wonderful revolutions in the opinions and manners of men, trusting that, in some succeeding age, after other systems had in their turn been exploded, his system might become fashionable, had ven- tured to say, that it should be preached in all the world, and left the age which should see this publication to convert an indefinite expres- sion into an accomplished prophecy. But here is nothhig indefinite — a pointed, precise declaration, which no impostor, who was anxious about the success of his system, would have hazarded, and concerning the truth of which, many of that generation amongst whom he lived remained long enough upon earth to be able to judge. The end, by the connection of the words with the context, means the conclusion of the age of the law ; and it is still more clearly said, in the 13th chapter of Mark, in the middle of the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusa- lem, " But the Gospel must first be published to all nations." Now, the destruction of Jerusalem happened within forty years after the death of our Saviour, so that we are restricted to this space of time in speaking of the fulfilment of the prophecy. We learn from the book of Acts, that many thousands were converted soon after the day of Pentecost, and that devout Jews out of every nation under heaven, PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. 11. were witnesses of the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost. These men, all of whom were amazed, and some of whom were converted, by what they saw, could not fail to carry the report home, and thus prepared distant nations for receiving those who were better qualified, and more expressly commissioned, to preach the gospel. After the death of Stephen, there arose a great persecution against the church of Jerusalem, which by this time had multiplied exceedingly ; and they "were scattered abroad through the regions of Jndea and Samaria-, and they travelled as far as Phoenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch; and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed."* The book of Acts is chiefly an account of the labours of the Apostle Paul; and we see this one apostle, to adopt the words of a fellow- labourer of his, a preacher both in the East, and to the utmost boundaries of the West, planting churches in Asia and Greece, and travelling from Jerusalem to Illyricum, a tract which has been computed to be not less than 2000 miles. 11" such were the labours of one, what must have been accomplished by the journey- ings of all the twelve, who, taking different districts, went forth to fulfil the last command of their master, by being his witnesses to the uttermost ends of the earth. The Apostle Paul says, in his epistle to the Romans, "that their faith was spoken of throughout all the world ;" and to the Colossians, " that the word which they had heard was by that time preached to every creature." We know certainly that Paul preached the gospel in Rome ; and such was the eflfect of his preaching that, seven years before the destruction of Jerusa- lem, Tacitus says there was an immense number of Christians in that city.t From the capital of the world the knowledge of Christianity was spread, like all the improvements in art and science, over the world ; that is, according to the common sense of the phrase, through- out the Roman empire. When the whole known world was governed by one prince, the communication was easy. In every part of the empire garrisons were stationed — roads were opened — messengers were often passing — and no country then discovered was too distant to hear the gospel of the kingdom. It is generally agreed, that with- in the forty years which I mentioned, Scythia on the north, India on the east, Gaul and Egypt on the west, and ^Ethiopia on the south, had received the doctrine of Christ : and we know that the island of Britam, which was then regarded as the extremity of the earth, the most remote and savage province, was frequently visited during that time by Roman emperors and their generals. It is even said that the gospel was preached publicly in London ten years before the destruc- tion of Jerusalem. As far, then, as our information goes, whether we collect it from the book of Acts, from the occasional mention made by heathen historians of a subject upon which they bestowed little attention, or from the concurring testimony of the oldest Christian historians, the word of Christ was literally fulfilled ; and you have, in the short space of time to which he limits the fulfilment of this word, a striking proof of his prophetic spirit. But it is not enough to attend to the fulfilment of this prophecy. The place which it holds, and the manner in which it is expressed, * Acts viii. I ; xL 19, 20. f Tacit. Ann. lib. xv 44. 113 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS, suggest to US something further. The gospel, at whatever time it b* published, is a witness to those who hear it, of the being, the provi dence, and the moral government of God. I3ut, as it is said, "it shall be preaclied to all the world, for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come," we are led to consider that particular kind of witness which the preaching of the gospel, before the end of the .Jew- ish state, afforded to all nations ; and it is here, I said, that there opens to us a most instructive and enlarged view of the economy of the divine dispensations. Had it not been for this early and universal preacliing, the destruc tion of Jerusalem by Titus wonld have appeared to the world an event of the same order with the destruction of any other city. They might have talked of the obstinacy of the besieged — of the fury of the conquerors — of the unexampled distress which was endured ; but it would not have appeared to them that there was in all this any thing divine, any other warning than is suggested by the ordinary fortune of war. But when the gospel was first published, it was a witness to all nations, that in the end of the Jewish state there was a fulfilment of the prophecy — a punishment of infidelity — and the ter- mination of the law of Moses. 1. It was a witness of the fulfilment of the prophecy. Wherever the first preachers of Christianity went, they carried the gospels along with them, as the authentic history of Him whom they preached. We have reason to think, that in many parts of the world the three gos- pels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were translated into the language of the country, or into the Latin, which was generally understood, before Jerusalem was destroyed. The early Christians, then, in the most distant parts of the world, had in their hands the prophecy be- fore the event. The Roman armies, and the messengers of the em- pire, would soon transmit a general account of the siege. The history of Josephus, written and published by the order of Vespasian and Titus, would transmit the particulars to some at least of the most illustrious commanders in distant provinces ; and thus, while all who named the name of Christ would learn the fact, that Jerusalem was destroyed, they who were inquisitive might learn also the circum- stances of the fact, and by comparing the narration which they received, with the prophecy of which they had been formerly in possession, would know assuredly that he who had uttered that prophecy was more than man. There are still great events to happen in the history of the Christian church, which we trust will bring to those who shall be permitted to see them, a full conviction of the divine character of Jesus. But it was wisely ordered, that the earliest Christians should receive this long prophecy before it came to pass, that the faith of those who had not seen the Lord's Christ, might, at a time when education, authority, and example, were not on the side of that faith, be confirmed by the event ; and that all the singular circumstances of this siege might afford to the nations of the earth, in the begni- nings of the gospel, a demonstration that Jesus spake the truth. 2. A witness of the punishment of infidelity. The destruction of Jerusalem was foretold, not merely to give an example of the divine knowledge of him who uttered the prophecy, but because the Jews deserved that destruction. The crime which brought it upon them is PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. 113 intiniatecl in many of our Lord's parables, and is declared clearly in other passages, so that those who were in possession of the prophecy could not mistake the cause. All the nations of the earth to whom the gospel was preached, knew that the Jews had killeJ the Lord Jesus with this horrid imprecation, " His blood be upon us, and upon our children ;" that they had rejected all the evidences of the truth of Christianity which were exhibited in their own land, and not con- tent with despising the gospel, had stirred up the minds of the heathen against the disciples of Jesus, and appeared, so long as their city ex- isted, the most bitter enemies of the Christian name. The nations of the earth saw this obstinacy and barbarity recompensed in the very manner which the Author of the gospel foretold, and having his pre- dictions in their hands, they beheld his enemies taken in the snare which he had announced. The mighty works which he did upon earth were miracles of mercy, by which he meant to win the hearls of mankind. But the execution of his threatenings against a nation of enemies was a miracle of judgment. And the unparalleled cala- mities which the Jews, according to his words, endured, were a warn- ing from heaven to all that heard the gospel, not to reject the counsel of God against themselves. 3. A witness that, in the destruction of Jerusalem, there was the termhiation of the law of Moses. While many Jews persecuted the Christians, there were others who attempted by reasoning, to impose upon them an observance of the law of Moses. They said that it was impious to forsake an institution confessedly of divine original, and that no subsequent revelation could diminish the sanctity of a temple built by God, or abolish the offerings which he had required to be presented there. You find this reasoning most ably combated in the Epistles of Paul, and particularly in the Epistle to the He- brews. I5ut the arguments of the apostle did not completely coun- terbalance the evil done by the Judaizing teachers, to the cause of Christ. Many Avere disturbed by the sophistry of these men in the exercise of their Christian liberty ; and many were deterred from embracing the gospel, by the" fear of being brought under the yoke of the Jewish ceremonies. Some signal interposition of Providence was necessary to disjoin the spiritual universal religion of Jesus from the carnal local ordinances of the law of Moses, and to afford entire satisfaction to the minds of those who wished for that disjunction. The destruction of Jerusalem was that interposition ; and the general publication of the gospel before that event, led men both to look for it as the solution of their doubts, and to rest in it after it happened, as the declaration from heaven that the ceremonial law was finished. The service of the temple could not continue after one stone of the temple was not left upon another ; the tribes could no longer assemble at Jerusalem after the city was laid in ruins ; and that bondage, un- der which the Jewish nation wished to bring the Christians, ceased after the Jews were scattered over the face of the earth. And thus we are enabled, by the place which this prophecy holds, to mark a beautiful consistency, and a mutual dependency in the reve- lations with which God hath favoured the world, — the manifold wis- dom of God conspicuous in the whole economy of religion. The Almightv committed to Abraham and his descendants the hope of the 12* S 114 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. Messiah, and the law was a school-master to bring men to Christ. When he who was the end of the law appeared, he appealed to Moses and the prophets as testifying of him, and he claimed the cha- racter of that prophet whom they had announced. But the purpose of the law being fulfilled by his appearance, it was no longer neces- sary that the preparatory dispensation with its appurtenances should continue. He gave notice, therefore, of the conclusion of the age of the law, and as that age began and was conducted with visible sym- bols of divine power, so with like symbols it was finished. The de- claration of these symbols, published to the world in the gospels, prevented them from looking upon the event with the astonisiiment of ignorance, and taught them to connect this awful ending of the one age with the character of that age which then commenced. Having seen a period elapse sufficient for the fiiith of Christ to gain proselytes in many countries, they saw the temple of Jerusalem by an interpo- sition which was the literal fulfilment of the words of Christ taken down, and were thus assured that the hour was indeed come at which ancient prophets had more obscurely hinted, and which Jesus had declared in express words as not very distant, when men were not to worship the Father at Jerusalem, but when the true worshi])pers, every one from his place, should worship God in spirit and in truth. The effect of the event, thus interpreted by the prophecy, was power- ful and instantaneous. It furnished the earliest Christian fathers with an unanswerable argument against the Judaizing teachers : it solved the doubts of those who were stumbled by their reasonings: it re- moved one great objection which the Gentiles had to the gospel : and when the wall of partition was thus removed, numbers were " turned from idols to serve the living God." 7. I mentioned as the next subject of the predictions of Jesus, the condition of the Jewish nation subsequent to the destruction of their city. You may mark first the immediate consequences of the siege. " Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give- her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven." It seems to be plain that these expressions point to the consequences of the siege, for they are thus introduced, " immediately after the tribulation of those days," i. e. the distress endured during the siege, and as if on purpose to show us that the event pointed at was not very distant, it is said a few verses after, " This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." To perceive the propriety of using such expressions in this place, you will recollect that symbolical language of which we spoke formerly, — dictated by necessity in early times, when the conceptions and the words of men were few, — retained in after times partly from habit, and partly to render speech more signi- ficant,— universally used in eastern countries, — and abounding in the writings of the prophets, who, speaking under the influence of inspira- tion, full of the events which they foretold, and elevated above the ordinary tone of their minds, employ a richness and pomp of Imagery which exalts our conceptions of the importance of what they say, but at the same time increases the obscurity natural to prophecies, and PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. . 115 made the people whom they addressed often call their discourses dark sayings. This eastern imagery, which pervades the prophetical style, is especially remarkable when the rise or fall of kingdoms is foretold. The images are then borrowed from the most splendid objects ; and as in the ancient mode of writing by hieroglyphics, the sun, the moon, and stars, being bodies raised above the earth, were used to represent kingdoms and princes, so in the prophecies of their calamities, or prosperity, changes upon the heavenly bodies, bright light, and thick darkness came to be a common phraseology. Of the punishment which God was to inflict on Judea, he says by Jeremiah, " I will stretch out my hand against thee and destroy thee ; she hath given up the ghost ; her sun is gone down, while it is yet day."* Of Egypt, by Ezekiel, " All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and make darkness over thy land, saith the Lord God."f So by Joel, " The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble ; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining ; and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army."J And when God promises deliverance and victory to his people, it is in these beautiful words, "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. But the light of the moon sliall be as the light of the sun, and the light of tiie sun shall be sevenfold."§ It was most natural for the Messiah of the Jews to introduce this uniform language of former prophets in foretelling the dissolution of their state ; and all that he says was fulfilled, according to the appro- priated use of that language, immediately after the siege. For the city was desolated ; the temple was burnt ; that ecclesiastical consti- tution which the Romans had tolerated after Judea became a province of the empire was dissolved ; the Sanhedrim no longer assembled : the office of the High Priest could no more be exercised according to the commandment of God ; every privilege which had distinguished the people of the Jews ceased ; the sceptre, in appearance as well as in reality, departed from Judah, and the very forms of the dispensation given by Moses came to an end. As changes upon the kingdoms of the earth are produced by the all-ruling providence of God, so the ancient prophets often represent him in their figurative language, as coming in the clouds of heaven to execute vengeance upon a guilty nation ; and Daniel applies this Ianguage|| to the exertion of the power of the Son of Man, when he was to take away the dominion of the four beasts whom Daniel had seen in his vision, and to give the kingdom to the saints of the Most High. You find our Lord referring to this expression, which was familiar to every Jew. Immediately after the distress of the siege, you shall see the sign of the Son of man in heaven. The sign which you have been taught to look for, is not a comet, or meteor, a won- derful appearance in the air to astonish the ignorant : it is the Son of man employing the Roman armies as his servants, to execute ven- geance upon those who crucified him, and demonstratijig to the world, by the complete dissolution of the Jewish state, that all power is com mitted to him. * Jer. XV. 6. 9. f Ezek. xxxii. 8. t Joel ii. 10, 11. § Isaiah Ix. 20 ; xxx. 26. | Dan. vii. 13, 14, 27. 116 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS The first part, then, of our Lord's prophecy concerning the condition of the Jewish people, subsequent to tlie siege, ahhough expressed in subhme and figurative language, may be understood, by the analogy of the prophetical style, to mean, that the political and ecclesiastical con- stitution of Judea was to be annihilated immediately after that event. But you may observe in Luke another prophecy concerning their condition, reaching to a remote period, and marking events in their nature, most contingent. "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."* Not only shall the city be taken, and the constitution be dissolved, and many Jews fall by the edge of the sword, and many be led captive into all na- tions ; but Jerusalem shall belong to the Gentiles, and be used by them in a contemptuous manner till the times of the Gentiles be ful- filled. As this prediction, when taken in connexion with other pas- sages of Scripture, means a great deal more than is obvious at first sight, and as the present state of the Jews is one of the strongest visible arguments for the truth of Christianity, I shall lay before you the history of Jerusalem since it was taken, the condition of the Jewish people during the desolation of their city, and that prospect of a better time which is intimated in the concise expression of our Lord. The history of Jerusalem from the time of its being destroyed by Titus till this day, is a literal fulfilment of the expression, " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles." The emperor Adrian con- ceived the design of rebuilding Jerusalem about forty-seven years after its destruction. He planted a Roman colony there, and in place of the temple of the God of the Jews, he erected a temple to Jupiter. The Jews, who inhabited the other parts of Judea, inflamed by this insulting act of sacrilege, engaged in open rebellion against the Romans, and assembling in vast multitudes, got possession of theii city, and kept it for a short time. But Adrian soon expelled them, demolished their towns and castles, desolated the land of Judea, and scattered those who survived over the face of the earth. He re-es- tablished the Roman colony in Jerusalem, gave it a new name, and forbade any Jew to enter it. Three hundred years after the death of our Saviour, Constantine, the first Roman emperor who embraced Christianity, built many splendid Christian churches in this Roman colony, and dispersed the Jews who attempted to disturb the Chris- tians in their worship. Within thirty years after the death of Con- stantine, the Emperor Julian, who is known by the name of the Apos- tate, because, although he had been bred a Christian, he became a heathen, out of hatred to the Christians, and with a view to defeat the prophecy, invited the body of the Jewish people scattered through the empire, to return to their city ; and professing to lament the oppression which they had endured, gave orders for rebuilding their temple. His lieutenants did begin.' But, says the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, whose respectable authority there is no reason in this instance to question, balls of fire, bursting forth near the foundation, made it impossible for the workmen to approach the place, and the enterprise was laid aside.t Julian did not reign above two years; and as all the emperors who succeeded him were Christians, no at- * Luke xxi. 24. f A mm. Marcel, lib. xxiii. PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. 117 tempt was ever made to rebuild the temple, and the Jews were prohibit- ed from living in the city. It was only by stealth, or by bribing the guards, that they obtained a sight of the ruins of their temple. In the year 637, Jerusalem was taken by the successors of the great impostor Mahomet. A mosque was built upon the very spot where tiie temple of Solomon had stood ; and this mosque was afterwards so much enlarged and beautified, that it became the resort of the Mahometans in. the adjoining countries, in the same manner as the temple had been of the Jews. Since that time, it has passed, in the succession of con- quests made by different nations and tribes, through the hands of the Turks, the Egyptians, and the Mamelukes. It was for some time in possession of Christians, who, haviiig marched from Europe at the era of the Crusades, to deliver their brethren in the holy kmd from oppression, and to rescue the sepulchre of our Lord out of the hands of the Mahometans, took Jerusalem, and established a kingdom which lasted about a century. The Christian forces were at length expelled ; the Mamelukes, and after them the Ottoman Turks regained the city, and till this day the Mahometan worship is established there. Chris- tians who are drawn tliither by reverence for tlie place where our Lord lay, are admitted to reside ; and their worship is tolerated upon their paying a large tribute. But hardly any Jews are to be seen in the city. They consider it as so much defiled by the Mahometans and Christians, that they choose rather to worship God in any other place ; they are persecuted by the reigning power. And the poverty of the city does not aftbrd them much temptation in the way of gain to counterbalance the inconveniencies to which they would be obliged to submit if they attempted to live there. Jerusalem, then, is still trodden down of the Gentiles. During the seventeen hundred years that have elapsed since it was destroyed by Titus, the Jews have never been quietly settled there. It has, with hardly any interrup- tion, belonged to Gentile narions; audit has received everything which the Jews account a pollution. You will attend next to the condition of the Jewish people during this desolation of their city. Amongst the many striking circum- stances in the history of the ancient Jews, every intelligent observer will reckon the frequent dispersions of that unhappy people. Most other nations, when subdued by a warlike or powerful neighbour, have continued to inhabit some portion of their ancient territory. They have either adopted the laws and manners of their conquerors, and in process of time have been so completely incorporated with them, as not to form a distinct body, or if the cruel policy of the con- querors marked out for them a humbler station, they have descended from their former rank of freemen, without changing their climate, and have remained as servants in the land of which they were once the masters. But the conquerors of Judea in all ages, not content with the subjection of the inhabitants, transplanted them into other countries, and in distant lands marked out the cities which they were to possess, and the fields which they were to cultivate. Thus Esar- haddon, king of Assyria, took away the ten tribes of Israei, and planted them beyond the river Euphrates, in the cities of the Medes. Nebuchadnezzar, one hundred and thirty years after, carried the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin captive to Babylon ; and the Romans 118 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. also at a later period led the Jews captive into all nations. Whatever were the motives which led the enemies of the Jews to adopt this singular system of policy, in following it out, they only fulfilled the appointment of heaven : and the kings of Assyria and Babylon, and the emperors of Rome, although they meant it not so in their hearts, yet by the peculiar sufferings which they brought upon the captive nation, were the instruments of accomplishing the prophecies con- tained in its sacred books. Moses, amongst other curses which were to overtake the children of Israel in case of disobedience, mentions this : " I will make thy cities waste, and I will bring the land into desolation ; and thine enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. The Lord shall bring against thee a nation from far, and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down. And ye shall be plucked off the land whither thou goest to possess it ; and the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other.""* Tiie frequent captivities and dispersions of the Jews corresponded exactly to the words of the curse ; and this singular punishment has been repeated as often as the sins of the nation called for the judgments of heaven.. It might have been expected that, by these frequent dispersions, the whole race of the Jews would be confounded amongst other na- tions. But it is most remarkable, that although distinguislied from all other people by being scattered over the face of the earth, they remain distinguished also by their religion and customs ; and although every where found, they are every where separated from those around them. I speak not of the ten tribes carried away by Esarhaddon, who were so far estranged from the true God before they left their own land, that they easily adopted the idolatry of the nations to which they were led captive, and so ceased to be a people. t But I speak of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, composing what was properly called the kingdom of Judah, which adhered to the family of David after Israel had rebelled against them, to which the promise of the Messiah had been restricted by the patriarch Jacob, and in which the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the fortunes of the Jewish nation is to be looked for. Now we know that when Judah was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, the captives did not worship the gods of the conquerors. Daniel and other great men were raised up by God to preserve the spirit of piety, and the forti- tude of the servants of heaven. And by a concurrence of circum- stances which the providence of God combined to fulfil his pleasure, those who were for the God of Israel received an invitation to return to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the temple. The edict of Cyrus king of Persia contained these words :% " The Lord of heaven hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem. Who is there among you of all his people ? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusa lem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel." It was under the character of the servants of God, by which character they were distinguished from their idolatrous neighbours, that the Jews returned ; and the calamities which they had endiu'ed * Levit. xxvi. 31, 33; Deut. xxviii. passim. ■(• Buchanan's Christian Researches. ^ Ezra i. 2, 3. PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. 119 during their captivity, seem to have cured that proneness to idolatry, which the more ancient prophets so often reprove. All that returned are spoken of in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as zealous for the worship of the true God. Their descendants, who settled and multi- pUed in the Holy Land, never showed any inclination to worship idols. They endured a severe persecution under Antiochus, because they would not submit to the worsliip which he prescribed ; and one of the causes which incensed the Romans against them, was their abhorrence of the gods of the empire. Since their dispersion by Titus and by Adrian, they have never joined in heathen. Christian, or Ma- hometan worship. Their rites, burdensome as they are, and con- temptible as they appear in the eyes of strangers, have been religiously observed by the whole nation. A sullen, uncomplying covetous spirit has conspired with the singularity of their rites to render them odious and ridiculous. The character of a Jew is marked in every corner of the earth ; and one can find no words which so literally express the condition of this people, as the words uttered more than three thousand years ago by their own lawgiver. " These curses shall come upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever ; and thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all the nations whither the Lord shall lead thee."* In this wonderful manner have the Jews, whose native land is still trodden down of the Gentiles, been preserved in all parts of the earth a dis- tinct people. But the prediction brings into our view the prospect of a better time : " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" which, in plain grammatical construction, implies, that when the times of the Gentiles are ful- filled, Jerusalem shall no longer be trodden down. Our J^ord is referring to the latter part of Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks : " The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood ; and — he shall make it desolate, even mitil the consummation, and that deter- mined shall be poured upon the desolate ;" or, as I am assured by the best authority, it may be rendered, " upon the desolator."t Now this consummation, what the Septuagint calls n ovrjtixsia. tov xai^ov,\s to be learned from other parts of the book of Daniel, in which there is a most circumstantial prophecy of the fate of the great empires of the world, and amongst the rest of the empire of the Ro- mans, who were the desolators of Judea.t A great part of that prophecy has been fulfilled. Learned men have traced so striking a coincidence between the words of Daniel and the history of the world, as is sufficient to impress every candid mind with the divine inspira- tion of this prophet, highly favoured of the Lord, and to beget a full conviction, that every word which he has spoken will in due time be accomplished. When that will be, or how it will be, we know not. But as the events that have already happened have reflected the clearest light upon former parts of the prophecy, we may rest assured that the end, when it arrives, will explain those parts which are still dark, •and that there are methods in reserve, by which the times of the * Deut. xxviii. 37. 46. f Dan. ix. 26, 27. + Dan. ii. and vH. 120 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. Gentiles, that which is determined upon the desolator, all tl)e purposes of God's providence respecting the kingdoms which have arisen out of the Roman empire, shall be fulfilled. It is perfectly agreeable to our Lord's words, to consider the return of the Jews to their own land as connected with this end, the fulfilment of the times of the Gentiles : and when we take into our view other parts of scripture, hardly any doubt is left in our minds that this was his meaning. Moses, wiien he threatens the Jews with dispersion, gives notice, that if, in their captivity, they returned to the Lord, he would gather them from the nations to which he had scattered them : " And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God."* You find this hope expressed by David, by Solomon, by Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Accordingly the two tribes who remembered the God of their fathers, in fulfihnent of this promise, as Nehemiah interprets their deliverance, were gathered from their captivity. After their return, the same threatenings of dispersion were denounced against them if they dis- obeyed, and the same promises of being brought back if they repented. Zechariah, who prophesied after the return, says, " I will gather all nations against Jerusalem, and the city shall be taken." But he says also, the day is coming when " I will seek to destroy all the natioiis that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication. "t And this is agreeable to the words of more ancient prophets ; for God says by Jeremiah, " Though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee ;"j: and bj?- Amos, " I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled out of the land which I have given them."§ These prophecies, and many others of the same import, open to our view a time when the Jews arc to be brought back from captivity. Their return from Babylon, which was a fulfilment of their own prophecies, is a pledge that the greater promise of an ever- lasting settlement in their own land shall be fulfilled also. Their being to this day a distinct people, separate from all others, renders the fulfilment of the prophecy possible, and seems intended as a standing miracle to keep alive in the world the faith of this evAit. Our Lord, at the very time when he foretells the destruction of the holy city, and the second long captivity of the Jews, intimates, by his mode of expression, that it was not to be perpetual ; and his apostle Paul, to whom Jesus, after his ascension, revealed the whole counsel of God, delights to dwell upon this thought — " I would not, brethren," he says to the Romans, " that ye should be ife;norant of this mystery, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved. "|| What a glorious view is here presented of the universal kingdom of the Messiah, which is at length to comprehend even the children of those who slew him ! What«a consistency and grandeur in the conduct of divine Providence with regard to the Jews, that people * Lcvit. XX vi. 44. j- Zech. xiv. 2 : xii. 9, 10. + Jer. xxx. 11. () Amos ix. 1.5. || Rom. xi. 25. PREDICTIONS DELIVEKED BY JESUS. 121 whom God formed for himself to show forth his praise ! Raised up at first as a light in a dark place — retaining the knowledge and worship of the true God amidst the idolatry of the nations — keeping in their oracles the hope of the Saviour of mankind — carrying by their dispersions these oracles, this knowledge and hope, through the whole earth, and thus rendering the Messiah the desire of all nations — ex- hibiting in their singular misfortunes the holiness and the power of their God — a monument to the world in their present state, that Jesus is able to take vengeance of his enemies — and yet preserved, even in the midst of liiat punishment which they endure for obstinacy and infidelity, to receive Christ as a nation, and thus to be the future in- struments of the conversion of the whole world ! When this people, by the out-stretched arm of tlie Almighty, shall be brought back in his time from the lands where they now sojourn, to that land which, in the begiiming, he chose for them, and Jerusalem, which is now trodden down of the Gentiles, shall be delivered to the Jews; when every prophecy in their books shall be found to conspire most exactly with the words spoken by Christ and his apostles, and all shall receive a striking accomplishment in events most interesting to the whole universe — what eye will be so sealed as to exclude this light, what mind so hardened as not to yield to a conviction which the infinite know- ledge and power of God will then appear to have united in producing ! Every charge of partiality in the Lord of nature, which the superficial infidel is hasty to bring forward, shall then be swallowed up in the full exposition of that great scheme which is now carrying forward for the final salvation of all the children of God, and every tongue will join in that expression of exalted devotion with which the Apostle Paul shuts up this subject — " 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?"* S. I mentioned, as the last subject of our Lord's prophecies, the final discrimination of the righteous and the wicked at the day of judgment. This great event is foretold under similitudes, in plain words, without hesitation, with solemnity, with minuteness. The veil is in some measure removed, and we, whose views are generally confined to the events of the little spot which we inhabit, are enabled by the great f'rophet to look forward to the end of the world. He has, indeed, hidden the time from our e^^es, but he has minutely des- cribed every other circumstance. The clearness of his predictions upon such a subject distinguishes him from every other teacher who had appeared before his time, and aff"ords a presumption of his divine character. But this is not the place for enlarging upon these predic- tions, and I mention them at present only to state the connection be- tween them and the prophecy which we have been considering. The darkening of the sun, and moon, and stars — the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven — his sending forth his angels with a trumpet, and gathering his elect from the four winds ; all these circumstances bring to our minds a day more awful and important than the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, or any of its immediate consequences. And • Rom. xi. 33, 34. 13 T 122 PREDICTIONS DELIVERED BY JESUS. although it is possible, and agreeable to the analogy of Scripture lan- guage, to find a meaning for the various expressions here used, in the dissolution of the Jewish state, in the general publication of the gospel after that event, and the great accession of converts which it contri- buted to bring to Christianity — yet we know that these are tlie very ex- pressions by which our Lord and his apostles have described that day, when all who have lived upon the face of the earth shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Several commentators have been of opinion that there is here, in addition to the prophecy of the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, a direct prophecy of the day of judgment. But the limitation of the time of the fulfilment to the existence of the generation then alive, is an unanswerable objection to this opinion ; and, therefore, I consider the latter part of this prediction as a specimen given by our Lord of a prophecy with a double sense. We found tliat, in the Old Testament, the language of the prophet is often so contrived as to apply at once to two events, the one near and local, the other remote and imiversal. Thus David, in describing his own sufferings, introduces expressions which are a literal description of the suflerings of the Messiah, and are applied as such by the Evange- lists ; and the words in which he paints the peaceful reign of Solo- mon, received a literal accomplishment in the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. So here the Messiah, who often, in other respects, copies the manner, and refers to the words of ancient prophets, while he is immediately foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, looks for- ward to the day of judgment, and expresses himself in a language which, although, by the established practice of the prophets, it is applicable in a figurative sense to the fall of a city and the dissolution of a state, yet in its true, literal, precise meaning, applies to that day in which all cities and states are equally interested. While the ful- filment then of the direct sense of this prophecy is a standing proof of the divine knowledge of Jesus, it is also a pledge, that the secondary sense shall in due time be accomplished ; and thus the exhortation with which our Lord concludes this prophecy, and which is manifestly expressed in such a manner, as shows that it was intended for his disciples in every age, is enforced upon us as well as upon those that heard him. The Christians were delivered from the destruction in which t'heir countrymen were involved, by following the directions of Jesus; and upon our watchfulness and obedience to him depend our comfort, our improvement, and the salvation of our souls, in the great day of the Lord. * Josephus, Hurd, and Commentaries on the 24th chapter of Matthew, in the works of Til- lotson, Jortin, Newton, Newcome, &c. RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 123 CHAPTER VIII. RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. Many of the principal facts in the Christian rehgion may be intro- duced as instances of the fulfilment of the prophecies of Jc«us, and as thus serving to illustrate the abundant measure in which the spirit of prophecy was given to that Great Prophet who had been an- nounced from the beginning of the world. But two of these facts deserve a more particular consideration in a view of the evidences of Christianity, because, independently of their having been foretold, they bring a very strong confirmation to the high claim advanced in the Scriptures. The two facts which I mean are, the resurrection of Jesus, and the propagation of Christianity. The first of these tacts is the resurrection of Jesus. Had he never returned from the grave, his enemies would have considered his death as the completion of their triumph : and those who had admired his character, and had been convinced by his works that he was a teacher sent from God, must have considered his blood as only adding to the sum of all the righteous blood that had been shed upon the earth. His friends might have made a feeble attempt to transmit, with dis- tinguished honour to posterity, the name of Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet mighty in word and in deed. Yet even they would have been stumbled when they recollected his pretensions and his prophe- cies. He had claimed a character and an authority very inconsistent with the notion of his being a victim to the malice of men ; and he had foretold that after being three days, that is, according to the Jew- ish phraseology, a part of three days in the grave, he would rise from the dead on the third day : resting the truth of his claim upon this fact as the sign that was to be given. The resurrection of Jesus, then, is not merely an important, it is an essential fact in the history of Christianity. If the author of this religion did not return from the grave, he is, according to his own confession, an impostor : if he did, ail who are satisfied with the evidence of this singular fact, must ac- knowledge, from the nature of the case, that he was the Son of God with power, by his resurrection from the dead. It behoves you to examine with particular care the kind of evi- dence upon which the wisdom of God has chosen to rest a fact so essential. To the apostles, who were with Jesus when he was ap- prehended, who knew certainly that he was crucified, one of whom saw him on the cross, and all of whom were permitted to converse with him after he was risen, his resurrection was as much an object of sense, at least it was an inference as clearly deducible from what 124 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. they did see, as if they had been present when the angel rolled the stone from the door of tlie sepulchre, and when Jesus came forth in the same manner as Lazarus had done a little before at his command. But this evidence of sense could not extend beyond tlie forty days during which Jesus remained upon earth. And the first thing that meets you, in an inquiry into the truth of the resurrection, is the number of persons to whom this evidence of sense was vouchsafed. The time is limited. But there is no necessary limitation of the num- ber that might have seen Jesus during that time, and, as the faith of future ages must in a great measure rest upon their testimony, it is natural to consider whether there be any thing in the particular num- ber to whom this evidence of sense was confined, that serves to ren- der the fact incredible. The number is much greater than will appear at first sight to a careless reader of the gospels. The soldiers, the women, and the dis- ciples only are mentioned there. But you will find it said, that Jesus went before his disciples into Galilee, where he had appointed them to meet him ; and one of the appearances narrated by John is said to have been at the sea of Tiberias, which lay in Galilee. Now Galilee was the country where our Lord had spent the greatest part of his life, where his person was perfectly well known, where his mother's relations and the families of the apostles resided. His going to Galilee, therefore, after his resurrection, was giving to a number of persons deeply interested in the fact, an opportunity of being con- vinced by their own senses that the Lord was risen indeed, and thus crowned those evidences of his divine mission which they had derived from their former acquaintance with him. Accordingly, Paul says, that our Lord " was seen of above five hundred brethren at once," which must have happened in Galilee, for the number of disciples in Jeru- salem after the ascension was but " an hundred and twenty." The testimony of this multitude of witnesses in Galilee was sufficient to diffuse through their neighbours and contemporaries a conviction of the fact which they saw. But, it has been asked. Why did Jesus retire to a remote province, and show himself at Jerusalem only to a few witnesses ? Why did he not appear openly in the temple, in the synagogue, in the streets of the holy city, as he was accustomed to do before his death, and overpower the incredulity of the Jews by an ocular demonstration of his divine power ? It is admitted that he did not show himself to all the people. But the objection arising from this supposed deficiency in the evidence, has been completely answered by some of the best commentators upon the New Testament, and by writers in the deist- ical controversy. The heads of the answers are these. The Jewish nation, who had resisted all the evidences of our Lord's divine mis- sion which were exhibited before their eyes during his ministry, were not entitled to expect that any further means should be employed by heaven for their conviction. The probability is, that the same nar- row views and evil passions which had produced their vmbclief while he lived, would have rendered his appearance in their city after his death ineffectual. Our Lord, who foresaw this inefficacy, seems to suggest it as the reason of his conduct in this matter, when he con- cludes one of his parables with saying, " If they hear not Moses and RESDRRECTION OF CHRIST. 125 the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose fr^ the dead." After our Lord spake these words, the experiment M'as made in the case of Lazarus, Many of the neighbours of JNIary might know certainly that her brother had been raised by the power of Jesus, Yet some of them v/ho had seen all things that were done, went and told the Pharisees ; and the Pharisees, upon tlie re- port of this miracle, took counsel to put Jesus to death. It was not meet that his own resurrection should give occasion to similar plots again to take away his life. To all this it is to be added in the la^vt place, that, whatever reception Jesus had met with in Jerusalem, the evidence for Christianit}'- might have been injured by his appearing there after liis resurrection. Had the Jews continued to reject and persecute him, the united testimony of the nation against the resur- rection might have been represented as sufficient to outweigh the positive testimony of the apostles. Had they received him as their Messiah after he was risen, the Christian religion might have been represented as a state-trick devised by able men for the glory of the nation, which met with opposition at first, but to the faith of which, a well-concerted story of the death and resurrection of its author did at last subdue the minds of the people. From this specimen of the answers which may be made to the objection, it appears that God tries the honesty of our hearts by the methods which he employs to enlighten our reason, that the evidence of religion was not intended to overpower those whose minds are perverted, but to satisfy those who love the truth, and that, in examining any branch of that evi- dence, our business is not to inquire what God might have done, but to consider what he has done, and to rest on those facts which appear to our understanding to be sufficiently proven, although our imagina- tion may figure other proofs by which they are not supported. Having seen that the objection suggested by the limitation of the number of those who saw Jesus after his resurrection, may easily be answered, I proceed to state the different kinds of evidence which we, in these later ages, have for the truth of this fact. They are three. The traditionary evidence arising from the universal diffusion of the belief of this fact through the Christian world — the clear testimony of the apostles recorded in tiieir writings — and the extraordinary powers conferred upon the apostles. The lowest degree of evidence which we enjoy for the resurrection of Jesus, is that kind of traditionary evidence which arises from the universal diffusion of the belief of this fact through the Christian world. It appears from the earliest Christian writers, that it was the general faith of all who named the name of Christ, that he had risen from the dead. We are told that the first Christians, in that exulta- tion of mind of which our familiarity with the great truths of religion makes it difficult for us to form a just conception, were accustomed to salute one another when they met w^th this expression, ^^iBro^aviarti-. and the first day of the week, which, from the beginning of the Chris- tian church was called Kv^Mxr; ^j^f^a, and in all parts of the Christian world has been observed as the day upon which the followers of Jesus assemble for the exercises of devotion, is a standing unequivocal memorial of the truth of the fact which upon that day especially is remembered. It is impossible to conceive how so extraordinary a 13* 126 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. fact should have been so universally propagated, if it had not been founded in the certain uncontradicted knowledge of those who lived near the time. But, strong as this presumption may justly be held, the faith of future ages in so essential a fact required a more deter- minate support. And this is found in The clear precise testimony of tiie apostles, those witnesses chosen before of God, who did eat and drink with Jesus after he rose from tlie dead ; a testimony transmitted to us in the authentic genuine re- cord of discourses that were delivered before his murderers in the city where he suffered, six weeks after he rose ; and of other dis- courses, and histories, and epistles, in which eye-witnesses declare what they had seen, and heard, and handled of the word of life. To this ofiice Jesus separated the apostles, when he called them, as soon as he began to teach, to be always with him; and when he said to them a little before his death, " Ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning ;" and a little before his ascension, " Ye shall be witnesses unto me to the uttermost parts of the earth." The apostles had this apprehension of the nature of their office ; for when the place of Judas was to be supplied, Peter says to the disciples, " Of these men that have companied with us, all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, must one be or- dained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." And to Paul, who was an apostle '' born out of due time," Jesus appeared from heaven, that he might also be a witness of the things which he had seen. You may mark here an uniformity in the evidjence of Christianity. The same persons, who are to us the witnesses of the signs which Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, are witnesses also of his having risen from the dead. In both cases they do not declare opinions upon doubtful points, but they attest palpable facts, level to the ap- prehension of the plainest understanding ; and their clear unambigu- ous testimony to the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus, in which they agreed with themselves and with one another till the end, is written in the same books, that we may believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God. We are thus led back to those circumstances which were formerly stated as giving credibility in our days to the miracles of Jesus ; such as the character of the apostles, the scene of danger and suffering in which their testimony was given, the fortitude with which they ad- hered to it, and that simplicity, that air of truth, which pervades the evangelical history, and which falsehood cannot uniformly preserve. All these circumstances are common to the record of the miracles and to the record of the resurrection. But there are some internal marks of truth in the history of the resurrection, wliich are peculiarly fitted to impress conviction upon all who are capable of apprehending them. I shall mention the three following. The history of the resurrection, published during the life of the witnesses of that event, relates the consternation which it excited amongst the enemies of Jesus, the awk- ward attempts which they made to affix the charge of imposture upon the disciples, and the currency of that report among the Jews at the time of the publication of the history. Again, the historians exhibit the prejudices of the apostles, their slowness of heart to be- RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 127 lieve, the natural manner in which then* doubts were overcome, and the combination of circumstances by which a firm beUcf of the resur- rection was established in the minds of the witnesses, and a founda- tion was laid for the faith of succeeding ages. There are, lastly, that apparent imperfection and inaccuracy in the several accounts of this transaction, and those seeming contradictious, which render it impos- sible for any person to believe that there v/as a collusion amongst the evangelists in framing their story, and which yet are of such a kind, that the ingenuity of learned men, by attending to minute and delicate circumstances which escape ordinary observers, has formed out of the four narrations a consistent, probable account of the whole transac- tion. It is not possible for me to enlarge upon these points. But they are so essential to this most interesting article of our faith, that they deserve your closest study. And for that purpose I recommend to you the four following books, which every student of divinity ought to read. The first is Ditton on the Resurrection. One part of this book is a general view of the nature of moral evidence, and of the obligation which lies upon every reasonable being to assent to certain degrees of moral evidence ; the other part is an application of this general view to the testimony upon which the resurrection of Cln-ist is received ; and is calculated to show that this testimony has all the qualifications of an evidence obligatory to the human understanding. The second book is known by the name of the Trial of the Witnesses. There are a judge, a jury, and pleaders upon both sides of the ques- tion. The arguments are summed up by the judge, and the jury are unanimous in their verdict that the apostles were not guilty of bear- ing false witness in their testimony of the resurrection. The form of the book, as well as the excellence of the matter, has rendered it popular; and it will be particularly useful to you by making you acquainted with the objections and the heads of the answers. The third is, Gilbert West's Observation upon the History of the Resur- rection of Jesus Christ, which you wiU find both as a separate book and also inserted in Watson's Tracts. This masterly writer lays together the several narrations, so as to form a consistent account of the whole transaction. He gives a very full view, first, of the order and the matter of that evidence which was laid before the apostles, and then of the arguments which induce us, in this remote age, to receive that evidence. His book, according to this plan, not only places in the strongest light those internal marks of credibility by which the history of the resurrection is distinguished, but also em- braces most of the arguments for the truth of Christianity. The fourth is Cook's Illustration of the General Evidence of the Resur- rection of Christ, a work which displays much acuteness, and a degree of novelty in the manner of stating that evidence. Even Dr. Priestley,an author whom I frequently mention in the following parts of my course, but whose name I seldom have occasion to quote in support of any doctrine of the Christian religion, and whose creed Mr. Gibbon has well called a scanty one, has said in one of his latest publications, "The resurrection of our Saviour, being the most extra- ordinary of all events, the evidence of it is remarkably circumstantial, in consequence of which, there is not perhaps any fact in all ancient 128 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. history so perfectly credible, according to the most estabUshed rules of evidence, as it is."* Besides the universal tradition in the Christian church, and the writteti testimony of the apostles, there is yet a third ground upon which we believe the resurrection of Christ. "■ If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater ;'" and tluit witness was given in the extraordinary powers which were conferred upon the apostles before ihey began to execute their com- mission, and which continued with them always. I stated these powers formerly as the fulfilment of prophecy. But they present themselves at this place as the vouchers of the testimony of the apostles; and in this light they are uniformly stated both by our Lord and by the witnesses themselves. He said to them before his death, " But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, he shall testify of me;" and "he will convince the world of sill, because they believe not on me."t Again, a little before his ascension, he said, " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses to me. "J Peter, in one of his first sermons, speaking of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, says, '* We are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Gliost whom God hath given to them that obey him."§ The word translated comforter, in the first passage that I quoted, is 7ta^ax\r]tug, wliicli cxactly corrcsponds in etymology to the Latin word advocattcs,ii'om. which comes our word advocate, a person called in to stand by another in a court of justice, to assist him in pleading his cause, and confuting his adversaries. The apostles spake before kings and governors, before the whole world, bearing witness to the resurrection of Christ. But lest they should be confounded by the subtlety, or overwhelmed by the power of their enemies, here is a divine person promised to confirm what they said, and to join with them in convincing the world of their sin in rejecting Jesus, and of his righteousness, that although he had been condemned as a male- factor, he was accounted righteous in the sight of God. His own works were the evidence, to which he always appealed in his lifetime, that God was with him; and when he left the earth, the works which he enabled his servants to perform, the same in kind with his own, were the evidence that he had returned to his Father. " There- fore," says Peter on the day of Pentecost, " being by the riglit hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear,"|| Here is another instance of that uniformity which we have often occasion to mark in the evidence of Christianity; the same divine attestation of the servants of Jesus as of himself; the same proof of his resurrection from the dead, as of the high claim which he advanced when he was alive. " The works which I do," he said, "bear wit- ness that the Father hath sent me ; and the works which I do, shall ye my apostles do also, because I go to my Father." We are thus led back to the amount of the argument from miracles, in order to perceive the nature of that confirmation which this testimony of the * Hist, of Early Opinions, iv. 19. f John xv. 26 ; xvi. 8, 9. i Acts i. 8. § Acts V. 32. n Acts ii. 33. IIESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 129 Spirit gives to the testimony of the apostles. If there be an almighty- Ruler of the universe, who has established what we call the laws of nature, and who can suspend them at his pleasure; and if this al- mighty Ruler be a God of truth, who takes an interest in the happi- ness of his reasonable offspring, it is impossible that the apostles of Jesus could be invested with powers, the exertion of which was fitted to convince every candid observer of the truth of an imposture; and, therefore, since signs and wonders far beyond the measure of human power are ascribed to the apostles in authentic histories published at the time, in epistles addressed by themselves to the witnesses of those signs, and in the writings of authors nearly contemporary ; since no attempt was made to disprove the facts at the time when the impos- ture might have been easily exposed, and since the signs were ex- pressly wrought' in confirmation of this assertion of the apostles, that their Master was risen from the dead, we are constrained by the strongest moral evidence to believe that that assertion was true. It is impossible for words to make this argument plainer. But there are some particulars which may illustrate the economy of the divine dispensation in conferring these extraordinary powers, and the connection which they have with the other branches of the evidence for Christianity, The day upon which our Lord rose was the day after that Sabbath which was the passover, i. e. it was the first day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath being the seventh ; and it was called in the Levitical law, the wave-offering. Pentecost was the Tuvtrixoatri sj^f^a, the 50th day from the wave-offering. It was therefore also the first day of the week, and it .was a day upon which all the males of Judea were supposed to be present before the Lord in Jerusalem. Our Lord re- mained forty days upon earth after his resurrection, and he probably spent the greatest part of that time in Galilee. But he was in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem upon the fortieth day, for he ascended from Mount Olivet.* The apostles, who probably would feel it to be their duty as Jews to be present at the approaching festival, were commanded by their Master not to depart from Jerusalem till they received the promise of the Father : for, said he, " Ye shall be bap- tized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." Accordingly the eleven returned from the mount, where they had witnessed tlie ascension, to Jerusalem, and continued quietly with the disciples in prayer and supplication. We have reason to tliink that they did not appear in public ; and we do not read of any other trans- action but filling up the Apostolical College, till the day of Pentecost, the tenth day after the ascension, when, being "all with one accord in one place, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The gift of tongues was the first that was exercised, because it was suited to the occasion. Devout Jews and proselytes were assembled, from re- spect to the festival, out of all countries. To every one in his own tongue, the apostles, inspired with fortitude, another gift of the Spirit, spoke the wonderful works of God. And Peter explained the ap- pearance which excited their wonder, to be the attestation which, in fulfilment of their own prophecies, God was now bearing to the re- * Luke xxiv. 50; Acts i. 12. u 130 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. surrection of the Messiah, whom, after all the works that he had done in the midst of them, their rulers had crucified, but whom God had exalted. You can thus trace, in the time of conferring these powers, the wise adjustment of means to an end. You see the silence and quietness, which had been maintained after the death of Christ, abundantly compensated by the public manner in which the gospel is first preached. The apostles are directed to submit their claim to the examination of the greatest multitude that could be assembled at Jerusalem; and the report, which this muhitude would carry to their own countries of so extraordinary an appearance, was employed as an instrument of preparing many different parts of the world for the preaching of the apostles, who were soon to visit them. The powers themselves are delineated in the Acts and in the Epistles. You read of the word of wisdom, i. e. a clear comprehensive view of the Chris- tian scheme — the word of knowledge, probably the faculty of tracing the connection between the Jewish and Christian dispensation — prophecy, either the applying of the prophecies in the Old Testa- ment, or the foretelling future events — healing— the gift of tongues — the gift of interpreting tongues — and the gift of discerning spirits, that is, perceiving the true character of men under the disguise which they assumed, so as to be able to detect impostors.* There is a variety in these gifts corresponding to all the possible occa- sions of the teachers of this new religion. Some of them, being external and visible, were the signs and pledges of those which, although invisible, were not less necessary. Some of them were dis- seminated through the Christian church, and the gifts of healing and of tongues were often conferred by the hands of the apostles upon believers. This abundance of miraculous gifts was proper at that time, to demonstrate to the world the fulness of those treasures which were dispensed by the Lord Jesus, the dignity with which he had in- vested his apostles, and the obhgation which lay upon all Christians to receive his word at their mouth. It was proper to rouse the atten- tion of the world to a new religion, to overcome those considerations of prudence which made them unwilling to forsake the religion of their fathers, and to inspire them with steadfastness in the faith. It was proper also to remove the prejudices which the Jews entertained against the heathen, and to satisfy those who boasted of the privi- leges of the law, that God had received the Gentiles. Cornelius and his kinsmen and his friends were the first uncircumcised persons to whom the gospel was preached. They of the circumcision who believed were astonished when they saw the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon them, and heard them speak with tongues. Peter considered this as his warrant to baptize them : and when he reported it after- wards to the apostles and brethren at Jerusalem, they no longer blamed what he had done, but " held their peace, and glorified God, saying. Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto Ufe." This abundance of miraculous gifts, which so many reasons rendered proper at the first appearance of Christianity, was gradually withdrawn as the occasions ceased. We have no reason to think • 1 Cor. xii. 8—10. RESURBECTION OF CHRIST. 131 that any but the apostles had the power of conferring such gifts upon others. We are not indeed warranted to say that miraculous gifts were never visible in any who had not received them from the hands of the apostles. But we know that in the succeeding generations they became more rare. And when we were speaking of this sub- ject formerly, we found writers in the third, and beginning of the fourth century, acknowledging that only some vestiges of such gifts remained in their days. If you lay together the several particulars which have been men- tioned respecting the economy of these miraculous gifts, it will appear that as, from their nature, they were the unquenchable witnesses of the Spirit, confirming the testimony which the apostles bore to the resur- rection of their Master ; so, in the manner of their being conferred, every wise observer may trace the finger of God. There is none of that waste which betrays ostentation, none of that scantiness or delay which implies a defect of power, no circumstance unworthy of the divine author of them ; but the wisdom and power of God are united in the cause of the Gospel, and the same fitness and dignity, which distinguished the miracles of Jesus, are transferred to the works which his Spirit enabled his apostles to perform. 132 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER IX. PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY, In our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, we meet with these v/ords : " This Gospel of the kingdom shall first be preached to all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall tlie end come." These words mark the space intervening between the pre- diction and the termination of the Jewish state, tliat is, a space of less than forty years, as the period within which the Gospel was to be preached to all nations. When we attended to the fulfilment of this prophecy, we found that the account given in the book of Acts, of the multitude of early converts, of the dispersion of the Christians, and of the success of Paul's labours, is confirmed by the most unexcep- tionable testimony. We learn from Tacitus, that in the year of our Lord 63, thirty years after his death, there was an immense multitude of Christians in Rome. From the capital of the world, the communi- cation was easy through all the parts of the Roman empire ; and no country then discovered was too distant to hear the gospel. Accord- ingly it is generally agreed, that before the destruction of Jerusalem, Scythia on the north, India on the east, Gaul and Egypt on the west, and Ethiopia on the south, had received tlie doctrine of Christ. And Britain, which was then regarded as the extremity of the earth, being frequently visited during that period by Roman emperors or their generals, there is no improbability in what is affirmed by Christian historians, that the gospel was preached in the capital of this island thirty years after the death of our Saviour. The last fact which Scripture contains respecting the propagation of Christianity, is found in the book of Revelation. It appears from the epistles which John was commanded to write to the ministers of the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, that there were, during the life of that apostle, seven regular Chris- tian churches in Asia Minor. We may consider the facts hitherto mentioned as the fulfilment of that prophecy which I quoted. As to the progress of our religion, subsequent to the period marked in the prophecy, we derive no light from the books of the New Testa- ment, because there is none of them which we certahily know to be of a later date than the destruction of Jerusalem. But there are other authentic monuments from which I shall state you the fact ; and then I shall lead you to consider the force of the argument for the truth of Christianity, which has been grounded upon that fact. The younger Pliny, proconsul of Bithynia, writes in the end of the first century to the emperor Trajan, asking directions as to his conduct PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITT. 133 with regard to the Christians. The letter of Pliny, the 97th of the 10th book, ought to be famiiar to every student in divinity. He repre- sents tljat many of every age and rank were called to account for bearing the Christian name ; that the contagion of that superstition had spread not only through the cities, but through the villages and fields ; that the temples had been deserted, and the usual sacrifices neglected. There are extant two apologies for Christianity, written by Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century, and one by Tertullian before the end of it. These apologies, which were public papers addressed to the emperor and the Roman magistrates, mention with triumph the multitude of Christians. And there is a work of Justin Martyr, entitled a dialogue with Trypho the Jew,pub- lislied about the year 146, in which he thus speaks. " There is no nation, whether of Barbarians or Greeks, whether they live in wag- gons or tents, amongst whom prayers are not made to the Father and Creator of all, through the name of the crucified Jesus," Both Chris- tian and heathen writers attest the general diffusion of Christianity through the empire during the third century ; and in the beginning of the fourth, Constantine, the emperor of Rome, declared himself a Christian. If we consider the emperor as acting from conviction, Christianity has reason to boast of the illustrious convert. If we consider him as acting from policy, his finding it necessary to pay such a compliment to the inclinations of the Christians is the strongest testimony of their numbers. After Christianity became, by the declaration of Constantine, the established religion of the em- pire, it was difiused, under that character, through all the provinces. It was embraced by the barbarous nations who invaded different parts of the empire, and it received the sanction of their authority in the independent kingdoms which they founded. From them it has been handed down to the nations of modern Europe. It is at present professed throughout the most civilized and enlightened part of the world ; and it has been carried in the progress of modern discoveries and conquests to remote quarters of the globe, where the arms of Rome never penetrated. Upon these facts therfe has been grounded an argument for the truth of our religion. Gamaliel said in the sanhedrim, when the gospel was first preached, " If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."* The counsel has not been overthrown, therefore it is of God. The argument is specious and striking, and, with proper qualifications, it is sound. But much caution is required in stating it. And as I have given you the facts without exaggeration, so it is my duty to suggest the difficulty to which the argument is exposed, and to warn you of the danger of hurting the cause which you mean to serve, by arguing loosely from the success of the gospel. » Acts V. 36, 39. 14 134 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Section I. We are not warranted to consider the success of any system which calls itself a religion, as an infallible proof that it is divine. The prejudices, the ignorance, the vices, and follies of men, a particular conjuncture of circumstances, and the skilful application of human means, may procure a favourable reception for an imposture, and may give the belief of its divinity so firm possession of the minds of men, as to render its reputation permanent. We justly infer from the moral attributes of God that he will not invest a false prophet with extraordinary powers. But we are not warranted to infer that he will interpose in a miraculous manner to remove the delusion of those who submit their understandings to be misled by the arts of cunning men. He has given us reason, by the right use of which we may distinguish truth from falsehood. He leaves us to suffer the natural consequences of neglecting to exercise our reason ; and it is presumptuous to say that there can be no fraud in a scheme, because the Almighty, for the wise purposes of his government, or in just judgment upon those who had not the love of the truth, permitted tiiat scheme to be successful. As the reason of the thing suggests that success is not an unequivocal proof of the divine original of any system, so the providence of God has afforded Christians a striking lesson how careful they ought to be in qualifying the argument deduced from the propagation of Cliris- tianity. For, in the seventh century of the Christian era, there arose ar individual in Arabia, who, although he be regarded by every rational inquirer as an impostor, was able to introduce a religious sys- tem, which in less than a century spread through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Persia, which has subsisted in vigour for more than eleven hundred years, and is at this day the established religion of a portion of the world much larger than Christendom. The followers of Ma- homet triumph in the extended dominion of the author of their faith. But a Christian, who understands the method of defending his reli- gion, has no reason to be shaken by the empty boast. For thus stands the argument. When we are able to point out the human causes which have produced any event, the existence of that event is no de- cisive proof of a divine interposition. But when all the means that were employed appear inadequate to the end, we are obliged to have recourse to the finger of God ; and the inference, which arises from our being unable to give any other account of the end, will be drawn without hesitation, if there be positive evidence that^ in the accom- plishment of the end, there was an exertion of divine power. When you apply this universal rule in trying the argmxient which appears at first sight to be equally implied in the success of the two religions, you find the history of the one so clearly discriminated from the history of the other, that the inference, which a proper examina- tion of circumstances enables a Christian to draw from the success ot the gospel, does in no degree belong to the disciples of IMahomet. The best guide whom you can follow in making this discrimination is Mr. White, who, availing himself of that acquaintance with east- ern literature to which his inclination and his profession had conspired PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. 135 to direct him, has published a volume of Sermons, entitled, A Com- parative View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their history, their evidence, and their effects. There is in these sermons much valuable and uncommon information combined with great judgment, and expressed in a nervous and elevated style. They meet many of the objections of modern times, and form one of the most complete and masterly defences of the truth of Christianity. You will learn from him, better than from any other writer, the favourable circum- stances to which Mahomet owed his success. And the short picture, which I am now to give you of these circumstances, is little more than an abridgment of some of Mr. White's sermons. Born in an ignorant unciviUzed country, and amidst independent tribes of idolatrous Arabs, when the Roman empire was attacked on every side by barbarians, when the Christian world was torn with dissension about inexplicable points of controversy, Vv'hen the simpli- city of the gospel was corrupted, and when Christian charity was forgotten in the bitterness of mutual persecution, Mahomet, who pos- sessed strong natural talents, saw the possibility of rising to eminence as the greatreformer of religion. Having M^aited till his own mind was matured by meditation, and till he had established in the miinds of his neighbours an opinion of his sanctity, he began at the age of forty to deliver chapters of the Koran. During the long space of twenty-three years, he had an opportunity of trying the sentiments of his countrymen. By successive communications he corrected what had proved disagreeable, and he accommodated his system so as to give the least possible offence to Jews, or Christians, or idolaters. He admitted the divine mission of Moses and of Jesus. He inculcated the unity of God, which is a fundamental article of the Jewish and Christian religions, and which was not denied by many of the sur- rounding idolaters. From the Old and New Testament he borrowed many sublime descriptions of the Deity, and much excellent morality ; and all this he mixed with the childish traditions and fables of Ara- bia, witli a toleration of many idolatrous rites, and with an indul- gence to the vices of the climate. And thus the Koran is not a new system discovering the invention of its author, but an artful modey mixture, made up of the shreds of different opinions, without order or consistency, full of repetitions and absurdities, yet presentmg to every one something agreeable to his prejudices, expressed in the captivating language of the country, and often adorned with the graces of poetry. To his illiterate countrymen such a work appeared marvellous. The artifice and elegance with which its discordant ma- terials were' combined so far surpassed their inexperience and rude- ness, that they gave credit to the declaration of Mahomet, who said it was delivered to him by the angel Gabriel. The Koran became the standard of taste and composition to the Arabians ; and the blind admiration of those who knew no rival to its excellence was easily transformed into a belief of its divinity. In the beginning of his scheme, Mahomet met with much opposi- tion, and he was obliged at one time to fly from Mecca to Medina. His reputation had prepared for him a favourable reception in that city. 'His address, his superior knowledge, and the influence of his connections, soon gathered round him a small party, with which he 136 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITr. began to make those predatory excursions, which have, in every age, been most agreeable to the character of the Arabs. Mahomet pre- tended, that as all gentle methods of reforming mankind had proved ineffectual, the Almighty had armed him with the power of the sword; and he went forth to compel men to receive the great prophet of hea- ven. His talents as a leader, the success of his first expeditions, and the hope of booty, increased the number of his followers. It was not long before he united into one body the tribes of Arabs who flocked around his standard : and at the time of his death he was meditating distant conquests. The magnificent project which he had conceived and begun was executed with ability and success by the caliphs, to whom he transmitted his temporal and his spiritual power. They led the Arabs to invade the neighbouring provinces, and by their victo- rious arms they founded, upon the religion of the Koran, an empire, which the joint influence of ambition and enthusiasm continued for ages to extend. Mahomet, then, is not to be classed with the teachers of piety and virtue, whose success may be considered as an example of the power of truth over the mind. He ranks with those conquerors whom the spirit of enterprise and a concurrence of circumstances have conducted from a humble station to renown and to empire. He is distinguished from them chiefly by calUng in religion to his aid ; and his sagacity in employing so useful an auxiliary is made manifest by the progress and the permanence of his scheme. But the means were all human ; the only assistance which Mahomet pretended to receive from heaven consisted of the revelation which dictated to him the Koran, and the strength which crowned him with victory. How far a revelation was necessary for the composition of the Koran may be left to the decision of any person of taste and judgment who remembers, when he reads it, that Mahomet was in possession of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. How far the strength of heaven was necessary to give victory to Mahomet may be left to the judgment of any one who compares the spirit of the Arabs, influenced and directed by the character and the views of their leader, with the wretched condition of those whom they conquered. Yet these were the only pretences to a divine mission wliich Mahomet made. He declared tiiat he had 310 commission to work miracles ; and he appealed to no other pro- phecies than those which are contained in our Scriptures. And thus, as the introduction of his scheme did not imply the exer- cise of supernatural powers, as no positive unequivocal evidence of his possessing such powers was ever adduced, so his success may be fully accounted for by human means. The more Ihat an intelligent reader is conversant with the Koran, he discerns the more clearly the internal marks of imposture ; and the more that he is conversant with the manners of the times in which Mahomet lived, and with tlie his- tory of the progress of his empire, he is the less surprised at the pro- pagation and the continuance of that imposture. When you turn from this picture to view the history of the progress of Christianity, the striking contrast will appear to you to warrant the conclusion which the followers of Jesus are accustomed to draw from the success of his religion. In a province of the Roman empire, after it had reached the sum- Propagation op Christianity. 137 mit of its glory, and in the Augustan age, the most enlightened period of Roman jiistory, there appeared a Teacher delivering openly, in tlie temple and the synagogue, tlie purest morality, the most spiritual institutions of \vorship, and the most exalted theology, not in a sys- tematical form, but in occasional discourses, and in the simplest lan- guage. He committed his instructions, not to writing, but to a few illiterate men who had been his companions; and the number of his disciples after he was crucified by the voice of his countrymen, did not exceed one hundred and twenty. His apostles, in teaching what they received from their Master, had to encounter an opposition winch, in all human rules of judging, was sufficient to create an insurnjountable ob- stacle to tlie progress of their doctrine. They had to combat the vices of an age which, according to all the pictures that have been drawn of it, appears to have exceeded the usual measure of corruption. Yet they did not accommodate their precepts to the manners of the world, but denounced the wrath of God against all unrighteousness of men, against practices which were nearly universal, and the indulgence of passions which were esteemed innocent or laudable. They had to com- bat what is generally more obstinate than vice, the religious spirit of the times ; for they commanded men " to turn from idols to serve the living God." That reverence for public institutions which even an unbeliever may feel, that attachment to received opinions, that fond- ness for ancient practices, and those prejudices of education which always animate narrow minds, united with tlie influence of the priests, and of all the artists who lived by administering to the mag- nificence of the temples, against the teachers of this new doctrine. The zeal of the worshippers, revived by the return of those festivals at which the Christians refused to partake, often broke forth with fury. The Christians were considered as atheists ; and it was thought that the wrath of the gods could not be better appeased than by pour- ing every indignity and abuse upon men who presumed to despise their worship. The wise men in that enlightened age, who rose above the superstition of their countrymen, although they joined with the Christians in thinking contemptuously of the gods, were not disposed to give any countenance to the teachers of this new system. They despised the simplicity of its form, so different from the subtleties of the schools. When at any time they condescended to listen to its doctrines, they found some of them inconsistent with their received opinions, and mortifying to the pride of reason. They confounded with the popular superstitions a doctrine which professed to enlighten the great body of the people, and they condemned the proliibition of idolatry ; for it was their principle, that philosophers might dispute and doubt concerning religion as they pleased, but that it was their duty, as good citizens, to conform to the established modes of wor- ship. Upon these grounds, Christianity was so far from being favourably received by the heathen philosophers, that it was early opposed and ridiculed by them ; and they continued to write against it after the empire had become Christian. The unbelieving Jews were the bitterest enemies of the Christian faith. They beheld with peculiar indignation the progress of a doc- trine, which not only invaded the prerogative of the law of JNJoses, by claiming to be a divine revelation, but even pro.^oo^d to supersede 14* X 138 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. that law, to abolish the distinctions which it had established, and to enlighten those whom it left in darkness. National pride, and the bigotry of the Jewish spirit, were alarmed. The rulers, who had crucified the Lord Jesus, continued to employ all the power left them by the Romans in persecuting his servants ; and the sufferings of the first Christians arose from the envy, the jealousy, and a fear of a state, which tlie prophecies of their Master had devoted to destruction. •It was not long before the Christians felt the indignation of the Roman emperors and magistrates. The Roman law guarded the es- tablished religion against the introduction of any new modes of wor- ship which had not received the sanction of public authority : and it was a principle of Roman policy to repress private meetings, as the nurseries of sedition. " Ab nuUo genere," says M. Porcius Cato, in a speech preserved by Livy, " non seque summum periculum est, si coetus, et concilia, et secretas consultationes esse sinas."* Upon this principle, the Christians, who separated themselves from the estab- lished worship, and held secret assemblies for the observance of their own rites, were considered as rebellious subjects ; and when they multiplied in the empire, it was judged necessary to restrain them. Pliny, in the letter to which I referred, says to Trajan, " Secundum tua mandata ftat^taj esse vetueram ;" and Trajan, in his answer, re- quires that every person who was accused of being a Christian should vindicate himself from the charge, by offering sacrifice to the gods. " Conquirendi non sunt; si deferentur et arguentur puniendi sunt ; ita tamen ut qui negaverit se Christianum esse, idque re ipsa mani- festum fecerit, id est, supplicando dels nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum fuerit, veniani ex poenitentia impetret." It was not always from the profligacy or cruelty of the emperors that the sufferings of the Christians flowed. Some of the best princes who ever filled the Roman throne, men who were an ornament to human nature, and whose administration was a blessing to their sub- jects, felt themselves bound, by respect for the established religion, and care of the public peace, to execute the laws against this new society, the principles of whose union appeared formidable, because they were not understood. Accordingly, ecclesiastical historians have numbered ten persecutions before the conversion of Constantino ; and an innumerable company of martyrs are said to have sealed their tes- timony with their blood, and to have exhibited amidst the most cruel sufferings a fortitude, resignation, and forgiveness, which not only de- monstrated their firm conviction of the truths which they attested, but conveyed to every impartial spectator an impression that these men were assisted by a divine power, which raised them above the weakness of humanity. Voltaire, Gibbon, and other enemies of Christianity, aware of the force of that argument which arises from the multitude of the Christian martyrs, and from the spirit with which they endured the severity of their sufferings, have insinuated that there is much exaggeration in the accounts of this matter ; that the generous spirit of Roman policy rendered it impossible that there should be an imperial edict enjoining a general persecution ; that although the people might be incensed against the obstinacy and sul- • Liv. xxxiv. 3. PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 139 lenness of the Christians, the magistrates, in their different provinces, were their protectors ; that there was no wanton barbaritj'^ in the manner of their sufferings; and that none lost their lives, but such as, by provoking a death in which they gloried, put it out of the power of the magistrates to save them. It is natural for a friend to humanity, and an admirer of Roman manners, to wish that this apology were true ; and it is not unlikely that the vanity of Christian historians, indignation against their perse- cutors, and the habits of rhetorical declamation, have swelled, in their descriptions, the numbers of the martyrs. It is most likely that the mob were more furious than the magistrates ; that those who were entrusted with the execution of the Roman laws would observe the spirit of them in the mode of trying persons accused of Christianity ; and that the governors of provinces might, upon several occasions, restrain the eagerness with which the Christians were sought after, and the brutality and iniquity with which they were treated. But, after all these allowances, any person who studies the history of the Christian church will perceive that there is much false colouring in the apology which has been made for the Roman magistrates ; and we can produce inco'itestible evidence, the concurring testimony of Christian and heathen writers, that, upon the principles which have been explained, Christianity was pubhcly discouraged in all parts of tlie Roman empire ; and that, although favourable circumstances pro- cured some intervals of respite, there were many seasons \vhen this religion was persecuted by order of the emperors — when the Chris- tians were liable to imprisonment and confiscation of their estates — and when death, in some of its most terrifying forms, was inflicted upon those, who, being brought before the tribunals, refused to ab- jure the name of Christ. Such was the complicated opposition \vhich the apostles of Jesus had to encounter. Yet the measure of their success was such as I have stated. Without the aid of power, or wealth, or popular pre- judices; without accommodation to reigning vices and opinions; without drawing the sword, or fomenting sedition, or encouraging the admiration of their followers to confer upon them any earthly honours — but by humble, peaceable, laborious teaching, they dift'nsed through a great part of the Roman empire the knowledge of a new doctrine ; they turned many from the idols which they had worshipped, and from the enormities which they had practised, to serve the living God ; and this spiritual system advanced under every discouragement, till the conversion, or the policy, of Constantine rendered it the estab- lished religion of the Roman empire. All speculations concerning the contagion of example, the zeal that is kindled by persecution, the power of vanity, and the love of the marvellous, are visionary, when you apply them to account for the change which Christianity made during the three first centuries. That multitudes in every country, and of every age and rank, should forsake the religion in which they had been educated, and embrace one which was much stricter, and which brought no worldly advantage, but exposed them to the heaviest afflictions; that they should be thus converted by the preaching of mean men ; and that their conversion should appear in the reforma- tion of their lives as well as iu the aheration of their worship, is a 140 PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITF. phenomenon of which we require some cause, whose influence does not depend upon refined speculations, but is real and permanent : and not being able to find any such cause in the human means that were employed, we are led by the principles of our nature to acknow- ledge the interposition of the Almigiity. But this is the very conclusion to which we were formerly con- ducted. It is said in their books that God bare witness to the apostles by signs, and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost. And there is as clear historical evidence as the nature of the case admits of, that this assertion is true. The change, then, wliich we have been contemplating, is no longer unaccountable. Miracles wrought by the first teachers of Christianity were sufficient to rouse the attention of the world even in the most superstitious age, and the argument employed in them was so plain as to be level to every un- derstanding, and so powerful, that we are not surprised at its over- coming, in the breasts of those who beheld them, all considerations of prudence and expediency. The eye-witnesses of the miracles yielding to the demonstration of the Spirit, gave glory to God by re ceiving his servants ; and when the signs done by the hands of the apostles were transmitted to succeeding ages, attested by an innume- rable cloud of witnesses, the certain knowledge that they had been wrought produced in the minds of numbers a full conviction that the religion of Jesus was introduced into the world by the mighty power of God. Tlius, then, stands the argument arising from the propagation of Christianity. The human means appear wholly inadequate to the effect. But there is positive evidence of a divine interposition ; and if that be admitted, the effect may easily be explained. The two parts of the argument illustrate one another. The miracles, which we receive upon a strong concurring testimony, enable us to assign the cause of the propagation of Christianity ; and the knowledge of that propagation, which we derive from history, reflects additional light and credibility upon the miracles. The discrimination between the success of Mahomet and the establishment of Christianity is so clear and striking, that we may with perfect fairness apply the reasoning of Gamaliel to the latter, although we do not admit that it has any force when applied to the former. These are the principles upon which you may safely argue from the success of the gospel that it is of divine origin. But although the argument, when thus stated, approves itself to every candid niind as sound and conclusive, there are still several difficulties respecting the propagation of Christianity. Section II. I MENTION, first, an objection, which a celebrated part of the writ- ings of Mr. Gibbon has suggested, to the account given in the pre- ceding Section. The fifteenth chapter in his first volume professes to be a candid, but rational inquiry into the progress and establislmient of Christianity. " Our curiosity is naturally prompted to niquire by PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the estabhshed rehgions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious but satisfactory answer may be returned ; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling Provi- dence of its great Autiior. But as truth and reason seldom find so fovourable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart and the general circumstances of mankind as instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted, though with becoming submis- sion, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secon- dary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church." The soundest divine might have used this language. We acknow- ledge that the Providence of God condescends to employ various instruments to execute his purpose ; and therefore, while we aftn'm that the manifestation of the power of God was the great mean of overcoming those prejudices, which prevented the easy admission of truth and reason into the minds of the first hearers of the gospel, we admit that there were also means prepared by the providence of God to facilitate the progress of this religion. But it happens that Mr. Gibbon is doing the office of an enemy, while he speaks the language of a friend. His object is to show, that the joint operation of the five secondary causes, which he enumerates, is sufficient to account for the propagation of Christianity ; and the influence which the whole chapter tends to convey to the mind of the reader, although it be nowhere expressed, is this, that there is not any occasion for hav- ing recourse, in this matter, to the ruling providence of God. The five secondary causes enumerated by Mr. Gibbon are these, 1. "The inflexible and intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses." 2. " The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth." 3. " The miraculous powers of the primi- tive church." 4. "The virtues of the primitive Christians." 5. " The union and disciphne of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Ro- man empire." Mr. Gibbon's illustration of these five causes is not a logical dis- cussion of their influence upon the propagation of Christianity, such as might have been expected from his manly understanding. But it is filled with digressions, which, although they often detract from the influence of the causes, serve a purpose more interesting to the author than the illustration of that influence, by presenting a degrading view of the religion which these causes are said to promote. It is filled Math indirect sarcastic insinuations, with partial representations of facts and arguments, and with very strained uses of quotations and authorities. I consider the fifteenth chapter of Mr. Gibbon's history as the most uncandid attack which has been made upon Christianity ill modern times. The eminent abilities, the brilliant style, and the high reputation of the author, render it particularly dangerous to those whose information is not extensive : and therefore I recommend to you, not to abstain from reading it. Such a reconniiendation would 142 PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. imply some distrust of the cause which Mr. Gibbon has attacked, and a compUance with it would be very unbecoming an inquirer after truth. But I recommend to you to read along with this chapter some of the answers that have been made to it. I know no book that has been so completely answered. The author, indeed, continues to disco- ver the same virulence against Christianity in the subsequent volumes of his work, upon subjects of less importance than the causes of its propagation, and where the indecent controversies amongst Christians give him the appearance of a triumph in the eyes of those who con- found true religion with the corruptions of it. But any person who has examined the fifteenth chapter with due care, and with a suili- cient measure of information, must, I think, entertain such an opinion of the inveteracy of Mr. Gibbon's prejudices against Christianity, and of the arts which those prejudices have made him stoop to employ, as may fortify his mind against any inclination to commit himself to a guide so unsafe in every thing which concerns religion. When you attend to the nature of the five secondary causes, you are at a loss to conceive how they come to be ranked in the place, which Mr. Gibbon assigns them. If by the intolerant and inflexible zeal of the first Christians be meant their ardour and activity in promoting a religion which they believed to be divine, we readily admit that the labours of the apostles and their successors were an instrument by which God spread the knowledge of the gos- pel. But this cause is so far from accounting for the conviction which the first teachers themselves had of the facts which they attested, that their ardour and activity is incredible, unless it proceeded from this conviction ; and the kind of inflexibility and intolerance of the idolatry and the vices of the world, which was necessarily connected with their conviction of the great facts of Christianity, was more likely to deter than to invite men to embrace it. If by the doctrine of a future life be meant the hope of life eternal, which is held forth with assurance in the gospel to the penitent, this is so essential a branch of the excellence of the doctrine, that it cannot with any pro priety, be called a secondary cause ; and those adventitious circum stances which Mr. Gibbon represents as connected with this hope, h« means the speedy dissolution of the world, and the reign of Christ with his saints upon earth for a thousand years, commonly called th^ Millenium, appear to every rational inquirer to have no foundatior* in Scripture, and never to have formed any part of the teaching ot the apostles. If by the miraculous powers of the primitive church be meant the demonstration of the Spirit, which accompanied the first preaching of the gospel in the signs and wonders done by the hands of the apostles, this is manifestly a part of the ruling providence of its great Master. It is not denied that the miracles, which rest upon unexceptionable historical evidence, were succeeded by many pre- tensions to miraculous powers after this gift of the Spirit was with- drawn. But it is not easy to conceive how these pretensions obtained any credit in the Christian Church, unless it was certainly known that many real miracles had been wrought ; and it is obvious that the multitude of delusions which were practised tended to discredit the gospel in the eye of every rational inquirer, and, instead of promoting the success of the new religion, was most likely to confound it with PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 143 those Pagan fables which it commanded men to forsake. The virtues of the primitive Christians were exhibited in circumstances so trying that they reconuuended the new rehgion most powerfully to the world. But these virtues, which were the native expression of faith in the gospel, and the fruit of the Spirit, must be resolved into the excellence of the doctrine. Mr. Gibbon, indeed, has drawn under this head a picture of the manners of the primitive Christians, which holds them up to the ridicule and censure, not to the admiration of the world. The colouring of this picture has been discovered to be, in many places, false and extravagant : and this glaring inconsistency strikes every person who attends to it, that an author who assigns the virtues of the primitive Christians as a cause of the propagation of Christianity, chooses to degrade that religion by such a representation of these virtues, as, if it were true, would satisfy every reader that they had no influence in producing the effect which he ascribes to them. In stating the last cause, there is an obvious inaccuracy, which Mr. Gibbon would not have been guilt}^ of upon another subject. He is professing to account for the rapid growth of the Christian church. His fifth cause is the union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent state ; and his account of the maimer of its formation extends through the three first centuries of the Christian era. It matters not to the subject upon which it is introduced, whether the account be just or false ; for it is manifest that the rapid growth of the Christian church in the first and second centuries cannot be ascribed to the union and discipline of the Christian republic, which was not completed till after the third century. You will perceive by the short specimen which' I have given, that the danger of Mr. Gibbon's book does not arise from hie having dis- covered five secondary causes of the propagation of Christianity, to which the world had not formerly attended. It arises from the manner in which he has illustrated them : and the only way to obviate the danger is to canvass his illustration very closely. There is very com- plete assistance provided for you in this exercise. Mr. White has touched upon Mr. Gibbon's five causes shortly, but ably, in his Comparative View of Mahometanism and Christianity. Bishop Watson, in his Apology for Christianity, has given, with much animation, and without any personal abus-e, a concise clear argument upon every one of the five causes, which appears to me to show in the most satisfactory manner, that they do not answer the purpose for which they are introduced, and that it is still necessary to have re- course to the ruling providence of the great Author of Christianity in order to account for its propagation. After Bishop Watson's Ajiology was published, an answer was made to this 15th chapt-er, by S'ir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, entitled, An Fnquiry into the secondary causes which Mr. Gibbon assigns for the rapid growth of Christianity. Sir David was peculiarly fitted for such an inquiry. He had an acute distinguishing mind, enriched with a very uncommon measure of theological reading, and capable of the most patient minute investi- gation. He was a zealous friend of Christianity. And he has applied his talents with great success in hunting out every misrepre- sentation and contradiction into which Mr. Gibbon was betrayed by 144 PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. his favourite object. There is not so much general reasoning in the Inquiry as in the Apology. But Lord Hailes has sifted the 1 5th chapter thoroughly. He treats his antagonist with decency, and yet he triumphs over him in so many instances.^ and brings conviction home to the reader in so pointed a manner, that he is warranted to draw the concUision which I shall give you in the moderate terms that he has chosen to employ. " IMr. Gibbon's first proposition is, that Ctiristianity became victorious over the established reUgions of the earth, by its very doctrine, and by the ruling providence of its great Author ; and his last, of a like import, is, that Christianity is the truth. Between his first and his last propositions there are, no doubt, many dissertations, digressions, inferences, and hints, not altogether consistent with his avowed principles. But much allowance ought to be made for that love of novelty which seduces men of genius to think and speak rashly ; and for that easiness of belief, which inclines us to rely on the quotations and commentaries of confident persons, without examining the authors of whom they speak. From a review of all that he has said, it appears that the things which Mr. Gib- bon considered as secondary or human causes, eflicaciously promoting the Christian religion, either tended to retard its progress, or were the manifest operations of the wisdom and power of God." Section III. As Mr. Gibbon jiwells upon secondary causes, it occurs in this place to mention the rank and character of those who were converted to Christianity in early times. It is obvious to observe, that although the condition and circumstances of the first teachers had been ever so mean, if by any accident their doctrine had been instantly adopted by men of superior knowledge or of commanding influence, there might have been, in this way, created a secondary cause, sufficient, in some measure, to account for the propagation of Christianity. But the fact long continued to correspond to the description given by the apostle Paul, not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble were called. But God employed the foolish to confound the wise, and those who were despised to confound those who were highly esteemed, that no flesh might glory in his presence, and that the excellency of the power might appear to be of him.* Yet even here a bound was set by tlie wisdom of God. Had Christianity been embraced in early times only by the ignorant vulgar, it might have been degraded in the eyes of succeeding ages ; and the universal indiflerence or unbelief of those, whose understandings had received any degree of culture and enlarge- ment, might have conveyed to careless observers an impression that this new religion was an irrational, mean superstition. To obviate this objection, even the Scriptures mention the names of many per- sons of superior rank who embraced Christianity at its first publica- tion ; and we know, that during the two first centuries, men com- pletely versed in all the learning of the times left the schools of the • 1 Cor. i. 26, 27, 28 ; 2. Cor. iv. 7. PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 145 philosophers, and employed their talents and their knowledge in ex- plaining aud defending the doctrines of Christ. Qiiadratus and Aris- tides were Athenian philosophers, who flourished in the very beginnmg of the second century, and who continued to wear the dress of phi- losophers, after they became Christians, Their apologies for Chris- tianity are quoted by verjr ancient historians ; but the quotations made from fhem are the only parts of them now extant. We still have several works of Justin Martyr, who lived in the second cen- tury. In his Dialogue with Tripho the Jew, he gives an account of the time and attention which he had, bestowed upon the study of Platon- ism, and the admiration in which he once held that doctrine. But now, he says, having been acquainted with the prophets and those men who were the friends of Jesus, I have found that this is the only safe and useful philosophy. And thus I have become a philosopher indeed. Tavfjjv jxoiov tv^uaxov fi%oao^Lav an^a'h.y] n xot avix^o^ov. There was one early convert to Christianity, whose attainments and whose character may well be considered as constituting a most powerful secondary cause in its propagation. I mean the apostle Paul, a learned Pharisee, bred at the feet of Gamaliel, a man of an ardent elevated mind, and of a strong well-cultivated understanding, who laboured more abundantly than all the apostles, with indefatiga- ble zeal, and with peculiar advantages. But it is remarkable that this man, in preaching the Gospel, did not avail himself of all the arts which he had learned to employ. His knowledge of the law was used not to support but to overturn the system in which he had been bred. There is not in his v/ritings the most distant approach to the forms of Grecian or Asiatic eloquence ; and there is a freedom and a severity in his reproofs, very different from the courtly manner which his education might have formed. His conversion is, in itself, an illustrious argument of the truth of Christianity. You will find the force of this argument well stated in a treatise of the first Lord Lyttelton, entitled, Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul ; one of those classical essays Avhich every student of divinity should read. The elegant and amiable writer, whose name is dear to every man of taste and virtue, demonstrates the following points with a beautiful persuasive simplicity, 1. The supposition, neither of enthusiasm nor of imposture, is sufficient to account for the conver- sion of this apostle; 2. The character of his mind, and the history of his life, conspire in confirming the narration so often repeated in the book of Acts ; 3. That narration involves in it the truth of the resur- rection of Jesus, the great fact which the apostles witnessed ; 4. Paul had had no opportunity of holding any previous concert with the other apostles, but was completely separated from them ; 5. His situation gave him the most perfect access to know whether there was truth in the report published by them, as witnesses of the resurrec- tion of Jesus ; and therefore his concurrence with the other apostles, in publishing that report, and preaching the doctrine founded upon it, is an accession of new evidence after >he first promulgation of Chris- tianity. The force of this new evidence will always remain with those who acknowledge the books of the New Testament to be authentic. And, for the benefit of the Christians who lived before the books were pubhshed, it was wisely contrived that the new 15 Y 146 PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. evidence should arise out of the history of that man whose labours contributed most largely to the conversion of the world, so that in the very person from whom they received their faith, they had a demon- stration of its being divine. And thus you observe, that while the humble station of the rest of the apostles necessarily leads us to a divine interposition, as the only mean of qualifying such men for being the instructors of the world, the condition and education of the apostle Paul, which fur- nished a secondary cause that was useful in the propagation of Christianity, do, at the same time, render his conversion such an argu- ment for the truth of that religion, as is much more than suflicient to counterbalance all the advantages which it could possibly derive from his knowledge and his talents. All this you will find illustrated in a very full life of St. Paul, which Dr. Macknight has prefixed to his commentary on the epistles. Section IV. I HAVE stated the qualifications which are necessary in order to render the argument arising from the propagation of Christianity sound and conclusive ; I have suggested the manner of obviating the objections contained in Mr. Gibbon's account of the secondary causes which promoted the rapid growth of the Christian church ; and I have marked the argument implied in the conversion of the apostle Paul. All that I have hitherto said respects the means employed in pro- pagating the gospel. But there is another set of objections that will often meet yon respecting the measure of the effect which these means have produced. " If the gospel was really introduced by the mighty power of God, why was it not published much earlier? It is as easy for the Almighty to exert his power at one time as at another, yet the world was four thousand years old before the gospel appeared. Why is this beneficent religion diffused through so small a portion of the globe ? It has been said that if our earth be divided into thirty equal parts. Paganism is established in nineteen of those parts, Mahome- tanism in six, and Christianity only in five. Why have the evil pas- sions of men been permitted to mingle themselves with the work of God? Why has the sword o( the persecutor been called in to aid the counsel of heaven ? Why does the gospel now spread so slowly, that the triumphs of this religion seem to have ceased not many centuries after they began? Why has a system, in support of which the Ruler of the universe condescended to make bare his holy arm, degenerated, throughout a great part of the Christian world, into a corrupt form, very far removed from its original simplicity ? And why is its influ- ence over the hearts and lives of men so inconsiderable, even in those countries where the truth is taught as it is in Christ Jesus ? This par- tiality, and delay, and imperfection in the propagation of the gospel resembles very much the work of man, whose limited operations cor- respond to the scantiness of his power. But all this is very unlike the word of the Almighty, which runneth swiftly throughout the PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 whole earth, to execute all the extent of the gracious purpose formed by the Universal Father of mankind." I have stated these objections in one view with all their force. You will find them not only urged seriously in the works of deistical wri- ters, but thrown out lightly and scoffingly in conversation, so tliat it behoves you very much to be well apprized of the manner of answer- ing tliem. It is impossible for me to enter into any detail upon this subject; but I shall suggest to you, in the six following propositions, tlie heads of answers to all objections of this kind, leaving tiiem to be enlarged and applied by your own reading. 1. Observe, that these questions, were they much more pointed and unanswerable than they are, could not have the effect to overturn historical evidence. If there be positive satisfying testimony that the divine power was exerted in support of Christianity at its first pro- mulgation, our being unable to account for the particular measure of the effect which that exertion has produced does not, by any clear connection of premises with a conclusion, invalidate the testimony, but only discovers our ignorance of the ways of God ; and this is an ignorance which we feel upon every other subject, which, in judging of the works of nature, we never admit as an argument against mat- ter of fact, and which any person, who has just impressions of the limited powers of man, and the immense extent of the divine coun- sels, will not consider as of weight when applied to the evidences of religion. 2. Observe that all the questions imply an expectation that God will bestow the same religious advantages upon the children of men in every age and country. But, as no person who understands the terms which he uses, will say that God is bound in justice to distri- bute his favours equally to all -his creatures, so no person who attends to the course of Divine Providence will be led to draw any such ex- pectation as the questions imply, from the conduct of the Almighty in other matters. Recollect the diversities of the human species, the differences amongst individuals, in vigour of constitution, in bodily accomplishments, in the powers of understanding, in temper and pas- sions, in the opportunities of improvement, and the measure of com- fort and enjoyment, or of toil and sorrow, which their situations afford. Recollect the differences amongst nations in climate, in government, in the amount of natural and political advantages, and in the whole sum of national prosperity. It is impossible for us to conceive how the subordination of society could be maintained, if all men had the same talents ; or how the course of human affairs could proceed, if every part of the globe was like every other. Being thus accustomed to behold and to admire the varieties in the natural advantages of men, we are prepared, by the analogy of the works of God, to expect like varieties in their religious advantages ; and although we may not be able to trace all the reasons why the light of the gospel was so long of appearing, or is at present so unequally distributed, yet if we bear in mind that this is but the beginning of our existence, and that every man shall, in the end, be dealt with according to that which had been given him, we shall not for a moment annex the idea of injus- tice to this part of the Divine conduct. 3. Observe that these questions imply an expectation, that, while 148 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. human works admit of preparation, the v/ork of God will, in every case, be done instantly. But it is manifest that this expectation also is contradicted by the whole course of nature. For although God may, by a word of his mouth, do all his pleasure, yet he generally chooses, for wise reasons, some of which we are often able to trace, to employ means, and to allow such a gradual operation of those means, as admits of a progress, in which one thing paves the way for another, and gives notice of its approach. In all that process by which food for man and beast is brought out of the ground — in the opening of the human mind from infancy to manhood — and in those natural changes which affect the bowels or the surface of the earth, we profit very much by marking the slow advances of nature to its end ; and therefore we need not be surprised to find the steps of Divine Providence in the publication of the gospel very different from the haste, which, in our imagination, appears desirable. As there is a time of maturity in natural productions to which all the preparation has tended, so the gospel appeared at that season which is styled in Scripture the fulness of time, and which is found, upon a close atten- tion to circumstances, to have been the fittest for such a revelation. There is an excellent sermon upon this subject by Principal Robert- son, which you will find in the " Scots Preacher," distinguished by that soundness of thought, and that compass of historical informa- tion, which his other writings may lead you to expect. The same subject will often meet you in the books that you read upon the deist- ical controversy ; and when you attend to the complete illustration which it has received from the writings of many learned men, you will be satisfied that, as the need of an extraordinary revelation was at that time become manifest, so the improvements of science, and the political state of the world, conspired to render the age in which the gospel appeared better qualified than any preceding age for examin- ing the evidences of a revelation, for affording many striking confirm- ations of its divine original, and for conveying it with ease and ad- vantage to future ages. The preparation. which produced this fulness of time had been carrying forward during four thousand years ; and nearly two thousand have elapsed, while Christianity has been spread- ing through a fifth part of the globe. But this slowness, so agreeable to the general course of nature, will not appear to you inconsistent with the wisdom or goodness of the Almighty, when you, 4. Observe that in all this there was a preparation for the universal diffusion of the gospel. A considerable measure of religious know- ledge was diffused through the world before the appearance of the gospel ; and the delay of its universal publication has perhaps already contributed, and may be so disposed in future as to contribute still more, to prepare the world for receiving it. The few simple doc- trines of that traditional religion which existed before the deluge, were transmitted, by the longevity of the patriarchs, through very few hands for the first fourteen hundred years of the world. Methu- selah lived many years with Adam ; Sheni lived many years with Methuselah ; and Abraham lived with Shcm till he was seventy-five. Between Adam and Abraham there were only two intermediate links ; yet a chain of tradition, extending through nearly seventeen hundred years, and embracing the creation, the fall, and the promise of a Sa- PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 149 vionr, was preserved. The calling of Abraham, althongh it conferred pecnUar advantages upon his family, was fitted, by his character and situation, to enlighten his neighbours; and the whole history of the Jewish people — tlieir sojourning in Egypt, the place which they were destined to inhabit, their conquests, and the captivities by whicli they were afterwards scattered over the face of the earth, rendered them, in an eminent degree, the lights of the world. Bryant, in his " My- thology," and men who have applied to such investigations, have traced, with much probability, a resemblance to the Mosaic system in the religions of many of the neighbouring nations; and if we pay any attention to the force of the instances in which this resemblance has been illustrated, even although we should not give credit to all the conjectures that have been advanced, we can hardly entertain a doubt that the revelation with which the Jews were favoured was a source of instruction to other people. During the existence of this peculiar religion wise men were raised, by the providence- of God, in many countries, who did not, indeed, pretend to be the messengers of heaven, but whose discoveries exposed the growing corruptions of the established systems, or whose laws imposed some restraint upon the excesses of superstition ; while the progress of society, and the advancement of reason, opened the minds of men to a more perfect instruction than they had formerly been qualified to receive. These hints suggest this enlarged view of the economy of Divine Providence, that God in no age left himself without a witness, and that the several dispensations of religion, in ancient times, both to Jews and heathens, were adapted to the circumstances of the human race, so as to lead them forward by a gradual education from times of infancy and childhood to the rational sublime system unfolded in the gospel. It is following out the sa.me view, to consider the partial propaga- tion of the gospel as intended to prepare the world for receiving it. Many of the heathen moralists, who lived after the days of our Sa- viour, discover more refined notions of God, and more enlarged con- ceptions of the duties of man, than any of their predecessors. They profited by the gospel, although they did not acknowledge the obliga- tion ; and they disseminated some part of its instruction, although they disdained to appear as its ministers. The Koran inculcates the unity of God, and retains a part of the Christian morality; and thus the successful accommodating religion of Mahomet may be considered as a step, by which the providence of God is to lead the nations that have embraced it from the absurdities of Paganism to the true faith. When Christianity became the established religion of the Roman em- pire, the other parts of the world were very far behind in civilization, and many of the countries that have been lately discovered, are in the rudest state of society. But the conversion of savage tribes to a spiritual rational system is impracticable. Much time is necessary to open their understandings, to give them habits of industry and order, and to render them, in some measure, acquainted with ideas and man- ners more polished than their own. A long intercourse with the nations of Europe, who appear fitted by their character to be the in- structors of the rest of the world, may be the mean appointed by God for removing the prejudices of idolatry and ignorance ; and as the 15* 150 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. enlightened discoveries of modern times make us acquainted with the manners, the views, and the interests, as well as with the geograph- ical situation of all the inhabitants of the globe, we may, not indeed with the precipitancy of visionary reformers, but in that gradual pro- gress which the nature of the case requires, be the instrument of pre- paring them for embracing our religion : and by the measure in which they adopt our improvements in art and science, they may become qualified to receive, through our communication, the knowledge of the true God, and of his Son Christ Jesus. 5. Observe, that the objection, implied in some of the questions that I stated, necessarily arises from the employment of human means in that partial propagation of the Gospel which has already taken place. Any such objection might have been effectually obviated by a con- tinued miracle ; but it remains to be inquired whether the nature of the case, or the general analogy of Divine Providence, gives any reason to expect this method of obviating the objection. Had the outstretched arm of the Almighty, which first introduced the Gospel, continued to be exerted through all succeeding ages in the propaga- tion of it, the course of human affairs would have been unhinged, and the argument from miracles would have been weakened, because the extraordinary interposition of the Almighty would, by reason of its frequent returns, have been confounded with the ordinary course of nature. The divine original of the gift, therefore, being ascertained, the hand of him from whom it had proceeded was wisely withdrawn, and human passions and interests were combined, by his all-ruling Providence, to diffuse it in the measures which he had ordained. The pious zeal of many Christians in early and later times, the vanity, ambition, or avarice, which led others to promote their private ends by spreading the faith of Christ, the wide extent of the Roman empire at the time when Christianity became the established religion of the state, the subsequent dismemberment of the empire by the invasions and settlements of the barbarous nations, and the spirit of commerce which has carried the descendants of these nations to regions never visited by the Roman arms, are some of the instruments employed by the providence of God in the propagation of Christianity. It was not to be expected, that in a propagation thus committed to human means, the heavenly gift would escape all contamination from the imperfect and impure channels through which it was conveyed ; and it cannot be denied that there have been many corruptions, many improper methods of converting men to Christianity, and many gross adultera- tions and perversions of " the faith once delivered to the saints." But you will observe in general, that although the gifts of God are liable to abuse through the imperfections and vices of men, such abuse is never considered as any argument that the gifts did not proceed from him : and with regard to the corruptions of Christianity in particular, you will observe, that so far from theircreating any presumption against the evidence of our religion, there are circumstances which render them an argument for its divine original. They are foretold in the Scrip- tures. They arose by the neglect of the Scriptures, and they were in a great measure remedied at the Reformation, by the return of a considerable part of the Christian world to that truth which the Scrip- tures declare. The case stands thus. The Gospel contains a system PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. 151 of faith and practice, which is safely deposited in those authentic records (hat are received by the wliole Christian world. That system was indeed deformed in its progress by the errors and passions of men, but it breaks through this cloud by its own intrinsic light. The striking manner in which the prophecy of the corruptions of Chris- tianity has been fulfilled forms an important branch of the evidence of our religion. The discussions which they occasion have contri- buted very much to render the nature of the Gospel more perfectly understood ; and the further that the Christian world departs either from those corruptions to which the Reformation applied a remedy, or from any others which the Scriptures condemn, the divinity of their religion will become the more manifest. Hence 3'^ou may perceive an advantage arising from the slowness with which the Gospel was pro- pagated for many centuries. In its rapid progress before the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, the pure doctrine of the apostles was carried by themselves, or their immediate successors, through all the parts of the then known world. But had it spread with equal rapidity in the dark ages, all the absurdities which at that time adhered to it would have spread also ; and so universal a disease could hardly have admitted of any remedy. It is now purified from a great part of the dross. The influence of the Reformation has extended even to Roman Catholic countries; and in those which are reformed, the progress of knowledge, and the application of sound criticism, are continuing to illustrate the genuine doctrines of Christ. The Gospel will thus be communicated with less adulteration to those parts of the world which are yet to receive the first notice of it : and that free inter- course, which the spirit of modern commerce is now opening between countries which formerly regarded each other with jealousy, may be the means of extirpating the errors of Popery which were soWn in remote regions by the zeal of Roman Catholic missionaries. These are pleasing views, sufficient to overpower the peevish objection sug- gested by the corruptions of Christianity ; they lead us to consider the Almighty as making all things work together for the establishment of truth and righteousness upon earth ; and they teach us to rest with assurance in the declaration of Scripture, that " all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord." 6. One part of the objection only remains. It cannot be denied that there is much wickedness in Christian countries, even those which hold the truth in its primitive simplicity. It is not unnatural for a benevolent mind, which wishes the virtue of mankind as the only sure foundation of their happiness, to regret that the Gospel does not produce a more complete reformation of the vices of the world ; and if the most important blessing which a revelation can confer is to turn men from their iniquities, a doubt may sometimes obtrude itself even upon a candid and devout mind, how far the effect really produced is proportioned to the long preparation, and the mighty M'orks which ushered in the Gospel. The following observations serve to remove this doubt. It is extremely difficult to attain to any precise notion of the sum of wickedness in ancient times ; and there are no data upon which we can form any estimate of what would have been the mea- sure of wickedness in the present circumstances of society, if the Gospel had not appeared. The religion of Jesus has extirpated some 152 PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. horrid practices of ancient times : it has refined the manners of men m war, and in several important articles of domestic intercourse ; and it has produced an extension and activity of beneficence unknown in the heathen world. It imposes restraints upon those evil passions and inordinate desires, which, were it not for its intiuence, would be indulged by many without control ; and it cherishes in the breasts of individuals those private virtues of humility, patience, and resignation, which do not receive all the honour which is due to them, because their excellence withdraws them from public observation. It ad- dresses itself to every principle of action in the human breast with greater energy than any other system ever did : the tendency of all its parts is to render men virtuous ; and if it fails in reforming the world, we cannot conceive any method of reformation consistent with the character of free agents, that is likely to prove effectual. It is according to this character that God always deals with the children of men. Religion joins its influence to reason. But it is an incon- sistency in terms to say that religion should compel men to be virtuous, because compulsion destroys the essence of virtue. These observations appear to me to be a sufficient answer to the objection against the truth of Christianity, which has been drawn from its appearing to have little influence upon the lives of Christians. But I am sensible that they are not sufficient to counteract the influ- ence of this objection upon the minds of men. The wickedness of those who call themselves Christians is undoubtedly a reproach to our religion. It is a grief to the friends of Christianity, and the most ready sarcasm in the mouths of its enemies. It is your business, the office for which all your studies are meant to prepare you, to diminisl the influence of this objection. If you convert a sinner from tht error of his ways, or brighten, by your example and your discourse, the graces of the disciples of Christ, you confirm the argument arising from the propagation of our religion. And the best service that you can render to that honourable cause, in support of which you profess to exert your talents, is to exhibit in your own character the genuine spirit of Cimstiamty, and to illustrate the principles of that doctrine which is according to godliness, in such a manner as may render them, through the blessing of God, the means of improving the cha- racter of your neighbours. The amount of the answers which I have suggested may be sum- med up in a few words. Any objection, arising from the measure of effect produced by the gospel, camiot overturn direct historical evidence of a divine interposition. We are not warranted, by the course of nature, and the conduct of Divine Providence in other mat- ters, to expect either that the Almighty will confer the same religious advantages upon all his creatures, or that he will accomplish, in a short space of time, that publication of the gospel which formed part of his original purpose. A considerable measure of religious know- ledge was diffused through the world during the preparation for the appearance of the gospel, and the delay of its universal publication may contribute to prepare the world for receiving it. The corrup- tions of Christianity, which arose unavoidably from the human means employed in its propagation, could not have been obviated without a continued miracle ; and the imperfect degree in which the gospel has PROPAGATION OP CHRISTIANITY. 153 actually reformed the world, however much it may be a matter of regret to Christians, yet, when compared with the excellence and en- ergy of the doctrine, is only a proof that religion was given to improve, but not to destroy, the character of reasonable agents. Besides the hooks mentioned in the course of (his chapter, you may read two excellent sermons of Bishop Atterbury, on the Miraculous Propagation of the Gospel. You will derive the most enlarged views upon this, as upon every other subject connected with Christianity, from Butler's Analogy, particularly from Part ii. chap. vi. at the be- Consult also Jortin. Law's Considerations on the Theory of Religion. Paley's Evidences, vol. ii. Hill's Sermons. Shaw and Dick upon the Counsel of Gamaliel. Macknight's Truth of the Gospel History ; a book that deserves to be better known, and more generally read than it is. All the authorities and arguments, which are concisely stated by other writers, are spread out in that large work with a fulness and clearness of illustration that is very useful, and, in many places, with a degree of acuteness and in- genuity that is not commonly met with. He has dealt very largely upon the argument for the truth of the Christian religion, which arises from the conversion of the world to Christianity. You will find, in this part of his work, a most complete elucidation of the whole argument — the history of the ten persecutions before Constantine — and a great deal of information with which it is highly proper your minds should be furnished, and which you will not easily gather from any other single treatise. z BOOK II. GENERAL VIEW OF THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. CHAPTER I. INSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. 1 HAVE Stated the evidence upon which we receive the books of the New Testament as authentic genuine records ; and I have long been employed in examining this high claim which they ad- vance, that they contain a divine revelation. It appeared that this claim was not contradicted by the general contents of the books, but rather that there was a presumption arising from thence in its favour. We found tlie claim directly supported by miracles received upon clear historical evidence, by the agreement of the new dispensation with a train of prophecies contained in books that are certainly known to have existed many ages before our Saviour was born, by the striking fulfilment of his prophecies, by his resurrection from the dead, by the miraculous powers conferred upon his apostles after his ascension, and by the propagation of his religion. But, even after this review of the principal evidences of the truth of Clrristianity, there remains a very interesting question, before we are prepared to enter upon a particular examination of the system of truth revealed in the books of the New Testament. The question is, whether we are to regard these books as inspired writings ? It is pos- sible, you will observe, that Christ was a divine messenger, that the persons whom he chose as his companions during his abode upon earth were endowed by him with the power of working miracles ; and yet that, in recording the history of his life, and publishing the doctrines of his religion, they were left merely to the exercise of their own recollection and understanding. Upon this supposition, the mira- cles of our Lord and his apostles maybe received as facts established by satisfying historical evidence ; and an inference may be drawn from them, that the person who performed such works, and who com- mitted to his disciples powers similar to his own, was a teacher sent from God ; and yet the writings of the apostles will be considered as human compositions, distinguished from the works of other men 154 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 155 merely by the superior advantages which the authors had derived from the conversation of such a person as Jesus, but in no respect dictated by the Spirit of God. Tliis is the system of tiie modern Socinians, which their eagerness to get rid of some of the doctrines, that other Christians consider as clearly revealed in Scripture, has led them of late openly to avow. I quote the sentiments of Dr. Priestley from one of his latest publica- tions, the very same in which he bears a strong testimony to the cre- dibility of the resurrection of Jesus. " 1 think that the Scriptures were written without any particular inspiration, by men who wrote according to the best of their knowledge, and who, from their circum- stances, could not be mistaken with respect to the greater facts of which they were proper witnesses, but (like other men subject to pre- judice) might be liable to adopt a hasty and ill-grounded opinion concerning things which did not fall within the compass of their own knowledge, and which had no connection with any thing thai was so." " Setting aside all idea of the inspiration of the v/riters, I con- sider Matthew and Luke as simply historians, whose credit must be determined by the circumstances in which they wrote, and the nature of the facts which they relate." And again, when he is speaking of a particular doctrine, in proof of which some passages in the Epistles are generally adduced, Dr. Priestley says, " It is not from a few casual expressions in epistolary writings, which are seldom composed with so much care as books intended for the use of posterity, that we can be authorised to infer that such was the serious opinion of the apos- tles. But if it had been their real opinion, it would not follow that it was true, unless the teaching of it should appear to be included in their general commission."* And thus, according to Dr. Priestley, there is no kind of inspiration eitlier in the gospels or the epistles. He admits them to be writings of the apostles. But he maintains that the measure of regard due to any narration or assertion contained in these writings is left to be de- termined by the rules of criticism, by human reason judging how far that assertion or narration was included in the commission of the apostles, i. e. how far it is essential to the Christian religion. Diiferent persons entertain different apprehensions concerning that which is essential to revelation. And, according to Dr. Priestley's system, every person being at liberty to deny any part of Scripture that ap- pears to him unessential, there is no invariable standard of our reli- gion ; but the gospel is to every one just what he pleases to make it. Accordingly Dr. Priestley, who sometimes argues very ably for the divine mission of Jesus, by availing himself of that liberty which he derives from denying the inspiration of Scripture, has successively struck out of his creed many of those articles which appear to us fundamental. And you may judge of the length to which his prin- ciples lead, when one of his followers, in a publication avowedly mi- der his protection, has written an essay to show that our Lord was not free from sin. Many years before Dr. Priestley's writings ap- peared, the received notions of the inspiration of the apostles, which had been held by Christians without much examination, were acutely * History of Early Opinions, vol. iv. p. 5, 58 — vol. i. p. 70. 156 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. canvassed. Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the Life of Cicero, has done eminent service to the Protestant cause, by exposing the impos- ture of the Popish miracles, and by tracing, in his Letter from Rome, the heathen original of many ceremonies of the church of Rome. But his attachment to Christianity itself is very suspicious, and he is far from being a safe guide in any questions respecting the truth of our holy faith. In some of his miscellaneous tracts, he infers from the dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch,* from the variations in the four evangelists, and from other circumstances, that the inspi- ration of the apostles was only an occasional illapse, communicated to their minds at particular seasons, as the power of working mira- cles was given them only at those times when they had occasion to exert it; that they were not under the continual direction of an un- erring spirit; and that, on ordinary occasions, they were in tlie con- dition of ordinary men. Nearly the same opinion was held by the late Gilbert Wakefield, who was a disciple of Priestley, but who does not appear to advance so far as his master. He contends, that a plenary infallible inspiration, attending and controlling the evangel- ists in every conjuncture, is a doctrine not warranted by Scripture, unnecessary, and injurious to Christianity; although he admits that the illuminating Spirit of God had purified their minds, and enlarged their ideas. The system of Bishop Benson, in his essay concerning inspiration, prefixed to his paraphrase of St. Paul's epistles, is, that the whole scheme of the gospel was communicated from heaven to the minds of the apostles, was faithfully retained in their memories, and is expounded in their writings by the use of their natural facul- ties. The loose notions concerning inspiration, entertained by the vulgar and by those who never thought deeply of the subject, go a great deal farther. But it is proper that you should know distinctly what is the measure and kind of inspiration which we are warranted to hold. In order to establish your minds in the belief that the Scriptures are given by inspiration of God, it is necessary to begin with observing, that inspiration is not impossible. The Father of Spirits may act upon the minds of his creatures, and this action may extend to any degree which the purposes of divine wisdom require. He may superintend the minds of those who write, so as to prevent the possi- bility of error in their writings. This is the lowest degree of inspira tion. He may enlarge their understandings, and elevate their con- ceptions beyond the measure of ordinary men. This is a second degree. Or he may suggest to them the thoughts which they shall express, and the words which they shall employ, so as to render them merely the vehicles of conveying his will to others. This is the highest degree of inspiration. No sound theist will deny that all three degrees are possible ; and it remains to be inquired, what reason we have for thinking that the Almighty did act in any such manner upon the minds of the writers of the New Testament. If they were really inspired, the evidence of the fact will probably ascertain the meastire of inspiration which was vouchsafed to them. The evidence consists of the following parts : The inspiration of the apostles was • Gal. ii. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 157 necessary for the purposes of their mission — It was promised by our Lord — It is claimed by themselves — The claim was admitted by ihei disciples — And it is not contradicted by any circumstance in theii writings. I. Inspiration of the apostles appears to have been necessary for the purposes of their mission ; and, therefore, if we admit that Jesus came from God, and that he sent them forth to make disciples of all nations, we shall acknowledge that some degree of inspiration i? highly probable. The first light in which the bo.oks of the New Testament lead us to consider the apostles is, as the historians of Jesus. After having been his companions during his ministry, they came forth to bear witness of him ; and as the benefit of his religion was not to be con- fined to the age in which he or they lived, they left in the four Gos- pels a record of v/hat he did and taught. Two of the four were written by the apostles Matthew and John. Mark and Luke, whose names are prefixed to the other two, were probably of the seventy whom our Lord sent out in his lifetime ; and we learn from the most ancient Christian historians, that the gospel of Mark was revised by Peter, and the gospel of Luke by Paul ; and that both were after- wards approved by John, so that all the four may be considered as transmitted to the church with the sanction of apostolical authority. Now, if you recollect the condition of the apostles, and the nature of their history, you will perceive that, even as historians, they stood in need of some measure of inspiration. Plato might feel himself at liberty to feign many things of his master Socrates, because it mat- tered little to the world whether the instruction that was conveyed to them proceeded from the one philosopher or from the other. But the servants of a divine teacher, who appeared as his witnesses, and pro- fessed to be the historians of his life, were bound by their office to give a true record. And their history was an imposition upon the world, if they did not declare exactly and literally what they had seen and heard. This was an office which required not only a love of the truth, but a memory more retentive and more accurate than it was possible for persons of the character and education of the apostles to possess. To relate, at the distance of twenty years, long moral discourses, which were not originally written, and which were not attended with any striking circumstances that might imprint them upon the mind ; to preserve a variety of parables, the beauty and significancy of which depended upon particular expressions ; to re- cord long and minute prophecies, where the alteration of a single plirase might have produced an inconsistency between the event and the prediction ; and to give a particular detail of the intercourse which Jesus had with his friends and with his enemies ; all this is a work so very much above the capacity of unlearned men, that, had they attempted to execute it by their own natural powers, they must have fallen into such absurdities and contradictions as would have betrayed them to every discerning eye. It Avas therefore highly expedient, and even necessary for the faith of future ages, that besides those opportunities of information which the apostles enjoyed, and that tried integrity which they possessed, their understanding and their memory should be assisted by a supernatural influence, which 16 158 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. might prevent them from mistaking the meaning of what they had heard, which might restrain them from putting into the month of Jesus any words which he did not utter, or from omitting wliat was important, and which might thus give us perfect security, that the Gospels are as faithful a copy, as if Jesus himself liad left in writing those sayings and those actions which he wished posterity to remem- ber. But we consider the apostles in the lowest view, when we speak ■.^f them as barely the historians of their Master. In their epistles they assume a higher character, which renders inspiration still more necessary. All the benefit, which they derived from the public and the private instructions of Jesus before his death, had not so far opened their minds as to qualify them for receiving the whole counsel of God. And he, who knows what is in man, declares to them the night on which he was betrayed, " 1 have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now."* The purpose of many of his parables, the full meaning even of some of his plain discourses, had not been attained b}'' them. They had marvelled when he spake to them of earthly things. But many heavenly things of his kingdom had not been told them : and they, who were destined to carry his religion to the ends of the earth, themselves needed, at the time of their receiving this commission, that some one should instruct them in the doctrine of Christ. It is true that, after his resurrection, Jesus opened their understandings, and explained to them the Scriptures, and he continued upon earth forty days, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. It appears, however, from the history which they have recorded in the book of Acts, that some further teaching was necessary for them.t Immediately before our Lord ascended, their minds being still full of the expectation of a temporal kingdom, they say unto him, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? It was not till some time after they received the gift of the Holy Ghost, that they understood that the gospel had taken away the obligation to observe the ceremonies of the Mosaic law : and the action of Peter in baptizing Cornelius, a devout heathen, gave offence to some of the apostles and brethren in Judea when they first heard it. J Yet in their epistles, we find just notions of the spiritual nature of the religion of Jesus as a kingdom of righteousness, the faithful subjects of which are to receive remis- sion of sins, and sanctification through his blood, and just notions of the extent of this religion as a dispensation, the spiritual blessings of which are to be communicated to all in every land who receive it in faith and love. These notions appear to us to be the explication both of the ancient predictions, and of many particular expressions that occur in the discourses of our Lord. But it is manifest that they had not been acquired by the apostles during the teaching of Jesus. They are so adverse to every thing which men educated in Jewish prejudices had learned, and had hoped, that they could not be the fruit of their own reflections ; and, therefore, they imply the teaching of that Spirit who gradually impressed them upon the mind, guiding the apostles gently, as they were able to follow him, into all the truth • John XV. 12. t Acts ch. L t Acts ch. xi. INSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. 159 connected with the salvation of mankind. As inspiration was neces- sary to give the minds of the apostles possession of the system that is unfolded in their epistles, so many parts of that system are removed at such a distance from human discoveries, and are liable to such misapprehension, that unless we suppose a continued superintendence of the Spirit by whom it was taught, succeeding ages would not have a sufficient security that those, who were employed to deliver it, had not been guilty of gross mistakes in some most important doctrines. Inspiration will appear still further necessary, when you recollect that the writings of the apostles contain several predictions of things to come. Paul foretells, in his epistles, the corruptions of the church of Rome, and many other circumstances which have taken place in the history of the Christian church : and the Revelation is a book of prophecy, of which part has been already fulfilled, while the rest, we trust, will be explained by the events which are to arise in the course of Providence. But prophecy is a kind of writing which implies the highest degree of inspiration. When predictions, like those in Scrip- ture, are particular and complicated, and the events are so remote and so contingent as to be out of the reach of human sagacity, it is plain that the writers of the predictions do not speak according to the mea- sure of information which they had acquired by natural means, but are merely the instruments through which the Almighty communi- cates, in such measure and such language as he thinks fit, that know- ledge of futurity which is denied to man. And although the full meaning of their own predictions was not understood by themselves, they will be acknowledged to be true prophets, when the fulfilment comes to reflect light upon that language, which, for wise purposes, was made dark at the time of its being put into their mouth. Thus the nature of the writings of the apostles suggests the neces- sity of their having been inspired. They could not be accurate his- torians of the life of Jesus without one degree of inspiration ; nor safe expounders of his doctrine without a higher; nor prophets of distant events without the highest. As all the three degrees are equally possible to God, it is natural to presume, from the end for which the apostles were sent, that the degree which was suited to every part of their writings was not withheld ; and we find the promise of Jesus perfectly agreeable to this presumption. II. Inspiration of the apostles was promised by our Lord. It is not unfair reasoning to adduce promises contained in the Scriptures themselves, as proofs of their divine inspiration. It were, indeed, reasoning in a circle, to bring the testimony of the Scriptures in proof of the divine mission of Jesus. But that being established by the evidence which has been stated, and the books of the New Testament Having been proved to be the authentic genuine records of the per- sons whose names they bear, we are warranted to argue from the declarations contained in them, what is the measure of inspiration which Jesus was pleased to bestow upon his servants. He might have been a divine teacher, and they might have been his apostles, although he had bestowed none at all. But his character gives us security that they possessed all that he promised. We read in the gospels that Jesus " ordained twelve that they should be with him, 160 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. and that he might send them forth to preach."* And as this was the purpose for which they were first called, so it was the charge left them at his departure — " Go," said he, " preach the gospel to every creature ; make disciples of all nations."f His constant familiar in- tercourse with them was intended to qualify them for the execution of this charge ; and tlie promises made to them have a special refe- rence to the office in which they were to be employed. When he sent them during his life to preach in the cities of Israel, he said, " But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you."t And when he spake to them in his pro- phecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, of the persecutions which they were to endure after his death, he repeats the same promise : " For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist."§ It is admitted that the words in both these passages refer properly to. that assistance, which the inex- perience of the apostles was to dejive from the suggestions of the Spirit, when they should be called to defend their conduct and their cause before the tribunals of the magistrates. But the fulfilment of this promise was a pledge, both to the apostles and to the world, that the measure of inspiration necessary for the more important purpose implied in their commission would not be withheld ; and accordingly, when that purpose came to be unfolded to the apostles, the promise of the assistance of the Spirit was expressed in a manner which ap- plies it to the extent of their commission. In the long aff'ectionate discourse recorded by John, when our Lord took a solemn farewell of the disciples, after eating the last passover with them, he said, " And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com- forter, that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth ; for he shall not speak himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak ; and he will show you things to come."|| Here are all the degrees of inspiration which we found to be neces- sary for the apostles : the Spirit was to bring to their remembrance what they had heard — to guide them into the truth, which they were not then able to bear — and to show them things to come ; and all this they were to derive, not from occasional illapses, but from the perpetual inhabitation of the Spirit. That this inspiration was vouch- safed to them, not for their own sakes, but in order to qualify them for the successful discharge of their office as the messengers of Christ, and the instructors of mankind, appears from several expressions of * Mark iii. 14. f Mark x\4. 16 ; Matt, xxviii. 19. See original. + Matt. X. 19, 20. See original. § Luke xxi. 15. 1 John xiv. 16, 17, 26: xvi. 12, 13. See original. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 161 that ]irayer which immediately follows the discourse containing the promise of inspiration; particularly from these words, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word ; that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they may be one in us; that the world may btlieve that then hast sent me."* In conformity to this prayer, so becoming iiim who was not merely the friend of the apostles, but the light of the world, is that charge which he gives them immediately before his ascension. " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and. of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," — the conclusion of the age that has been introduced by my appear- ance. I am with you alway, not by my bodily presence, for inmie- diately after he was taken out of their sight, but I am with you by the Holy Ghost, which I am to send upon you not many days hence, and which is to abide with you for ever.t The promise of Jesus then implies, according to the plain construc- tion of the words, that the apostles, in executing their commission, were not to be left wholly to their natural powers, but were to be assisted by that illumination and direction of the Spirit which the natiu-e of the commission required ; and you may learn the sense which our Lord had of the importance and effect of this promise from one circumstance, that he never makes any distinction between his own words and those of his apostles, but places the doctrines and command- ments which they were to deliver upon a footing with those which he had spoken: "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me."| These words plainly imply, that Christians have no warrant to pay less regard to any thing contained in the Epistles than to that which is contained in the Gospels ; and teach us, that every doctrine and precept clearly delivered by the apostles, comes to the Christian world with the same stamp of divine authority as the words of Jesus, who spake in the name of him that sent him. The author of our religion, having thus made the faith of the Chris- tian world to hang upon the teaching of the apostles, gave the most signal manifestation of the fulfilment of that promise which was to qualify them for their office, by the miraculous gifts whh which they were endowed on the day of Pentecost, and by the abundance of those gifts which the imposition of their hands was to diffuse through the church. One of the twelve indeed, whose labours in preaching the Gospel were the most abundant and the most extensive, was not present at this manifestation, for Paul was not called to be an apostle till after the day of Pentecost. But it is very remarkable, that the manner of his being called was expressly calculated to supply this deficiency. As he journeyed to Damascus, about noon, to bring the Christians who were there bound to Jerusalem, there shone from heaven a great light around about him. And he heard a voice, saying, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. And I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these • John xvii. 20, 21. f Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. See original. t Luke x. 16. 16* 2 A 162 INSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee ; and now I send thee to the Gentiles to open their eyes.* In reference to this manner of his being called, Paul generally inscribes his epistles with these words : Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will or by the commandment of God ; and he explains very fully what he meant by the use of this expression, in the begin- ning of his epistle to the Galatians, where he gives an account of his conversion. " Paul an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I neither received the Gospel of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen ; innne- diately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me ; but I went unto Arabia."! All that we said of the necessity of inspiration, and of the import of the promise which Jesus made to the other apostles, receives very great confirmation from this history of Paul, who, being called to be an apostle after the ascension of Jesus, received the Gospel by immediate revelation from heaven, and was thus put upon a footing with the rest, both as to his designation, which did not proceed from the choice of man, and as to his qualifications, which were imparted not by human instruction, but by the teaching of the author of Chris- tianity. The Lord Jesus, who appeared to liim, might furnish Paul with the same advantages which the other apostles had derived from his presence on earth, and might give him the same assurance of the inhabitation of the Spirit that the promises, which we have been con- sidering, had imparted to those. III. Inspiration was claimed by the apostles, and their claim may be considered as the interpretation of the promise of their JNIaster. You will not find the claim to inspiration formally advanced in the Gospels. Tliis omission has sometimes been stated by those super- ficial critics whose prejudices serve to account for tiieir haste, as an objection against the existence of inspiration. But if you attend to the reason of the omission, you will perceive that it is only an instance of that delicate propriety which pervades all the New Testament. The Gospels are the record of the great facts which vouch the truth of Christianity. These facts are to be received upon the testimony of men who had been eye-witnesses of them. Tiie foundation of Christian faith being laid in an assent to these facts, it would have been preposterous to have introduced in support of them, that super- intendence of the Spirit which preserved the minds of the apostles from error. For there can be no proof of the inspiration of the apostles, unless the truth of the facts be previously admitted. The apostles, therefore, bring forward the evidence of Christianity in its natural order, when they speak in the Gospels as the companions and eye-witnesses of Jesus, claiming that credit which is due to honest inen who had the best opportunities of knowing what they deelared This is the language of John.J " Many other signs did * Acts xxvi. 12—18. t Gal. i. 1, 13, 15, 16, 17. J Joha XX. 30, 31, anJ *xi. 24. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 163 Jesus in the presence of his disciples. But these are written that ye may believe, and this is the disciple which testifie'ih these things." The evangelist Luke appears to speak ditferently in the introduction to his Gospel f and opposite opinions have been entertained respect- ing the information conveyed by that introduction. There is a ditference of opinion, first, with regard to the time when Luke wrote his Gospel. It appears to some to be expressly intimated that he wrote after Matthew and Mark, because he speaks of other Gospels then in circulation ; and it is generally understood that John wrote his after the other three. But the manner in which Luke speaks of these other Gospels does not seem to apply to those of Mat- thew and Mark. He calls them many, which implies that they were more than two, and which would confound these two canonical Gos- pels with imperfect accounts of our Lord's life, which we know fiom ancient writers were early circulated, but were rejected after the four Gospels were published. It is hardly conceivable that Luke would have alluded to the two Gospels of Matthew and Mark without dis- tinguishing them from other very inferior productions; and therefore it is probable, that when he used this mode of expression, no accounts of our Lord's life were then in existence but those inferior produc- tions. There appears also to very sound critics to be internal evidence that Luke wrote first. He is much more particular than the other evangelists in his report of our Lord's birth, and of the meetings with his apostles after his resurrection. They might think it unnecessary to introduce the same particulars into their Gospels after Luke. But if they wrote before him, the want of these particulars gives to their Gospels an appearance of imperfection which we cannot easily ex- plain. The other point suggested by this introduction, upon which there has been a differecne of opinion, is, v/hether Luke, who was not an apostle, wrote his Gospel from personal knowledge, attained by his being a companion of Jesus, or from the information of others. Our translation certainly favours the last opinion ; and it is the more general opinion, defended by very able critics. Dr. Randolph, in the first volume of his works, which contains a histor^^ of our Saviour's life, supports the first opinion, and suggests a punctuation of the verses, and an interpretation of one word, according to which that opinion may be defended. Read the second and third verses in con- nexion. Ka9cof rca^fhoaixv rjfjiw oi art a^;^);? antortr'at scat irfj/ff rat ytro^st'oi. toi; ^oyou E6o|£ xauot,, 7ia^t]xoKov9rixott avu)6(v rtaaiv ctxgifjcoj xaQi^tj; aoo y^a-^v, xgattcft's Qio^i'hi' By iuiv is understood the Christian world, who had received informa- tion, both oral and written, from those that had been avtoTttai, xm inr^gftai. Ka^oc means Luke, who proposed to follow the example of those auronrai- in writing what he knew ; and he describes his own knowledge by the word 7ia^rixo7,ov9Yjxot(„ which is more pr'^cise than the circumlocution, by which it is translated, " having had perfect under- standing of all things." Perfect understanding may be derived from various sources : but nae^axoxovOeu properly means, I go along with as a companion, and derive knowledge from my own observation. And, it is remarkable, that the word is used in this very sense by the Jew- • Luke i. 1—4. 164 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE, ish historian Josephiis, who pubUshed his history not many years after Luke wrote, and who in his introduction represents himself as worthy of credit, because he had not merely inquired of tliose who knew, but rca^y]xoxovOrjxo-ta tot,i ycyovosw, whicli he explains by this expres- sion, TtoVKu>v f4.fv avTOv^yo^ Ti^a^euv, rt'Ksi'j'ruiv b'avtOTCtTji ysvo/xti'D;, If tilis inter- pretation is not approved of, then, according to the sense of those verses which is most commonly adopted, Luke will be understood to give in the second verse, an account of that ground upon which the knowledge of the Christian world with regard to these things rested, the reports of the avroTttav xm vTiyi^nai,; and to state in the third verse, that he, having collected and collated these reports and employed the most careful and minute investigation, had resolved to write an ac- count of the life of Jesus. Here he does not claim inspiration : he does not even say that he was an eye-witness. But he says that, having like others heard the report of eye-witnesses, he had accurately examined the truth of what they said, and presented to the Christian world the fruit of his researches. The foundation is still the same as in John's gospel, the report of those in whose presence Jesus did and said what is recorded. To this report are added, I. The investigation of Luke, a contemporary of the apostles, the companion of Paul in a great part of his journey- ings, and honoured by him with this title, " Luke the beloved physi- cian."* 2. The approbation of Paul, who is said by the earliest Christian writers to have revised this gospel, written by his com- panion, so that it came abroad with apostolical authority. 3. The universal consent of the Christian church, which, although jealous of the books that v/ere then published, and rejecting many that claimed the sanction of the apostles, has uniformly, from the earliest times, put the Gospel of Luke upon a footing with those of Matthew and Mark ; a clear demonstration that they who had access to the best informa- tion knew that it had been revised by an apostle. As then the authors of the Gospels appear under the character of eye-witnesses, attesting what they had seen, there would have been an impropriety in their resting the evidence of the essential facts of Christianity upon inspiration. But after the respect which their character and their conduct procured to their testimony, and the visible confirmation which it received from heaven, had established the faith of a part of the world, a belief of their inspiration became necessary. They might have been credible witnesses of facts, although they had not been distinguished from other men. But they were not qualified to execute the office of apostles without being inspired. And therefore, as soon as the circumstances of the church required the execution of that office, the claim which had been conveyed to them by the promise of their Master, and which is implied in the apostolical character, appears in their writings. They instantly exercised the authority derived to them from Jesus, by planting ministers in the cities where they had preached the gospel, by setting every tiling per- taining to these Christian societies in order, by controlling tlie exer- cise of those miraculous gifts which they had imparted, and by cor- recting the abuses which happened even in their time. But they de- * Coloss. iv. 14. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 165 manded, from all who had received the faith of Christ, submission to the doctrines and commandments of his apostles, as the inspired mes- sengers of heaven. " But God hath revealed it," not them, as oiu translators have supplied the accusative, revealed the wisdom of God, the dispensation of the Gospel "unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now we have re- ceived not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God ; which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth."* " If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord :" i. e. Let no eminence of spiritual gifts be set up in opposition to the authority of the apostles, or as implying any dispensation from submitting to it.t " For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God. "J Peter speaking of the epistles of Paul, says, "Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you."§ And John makes the same claim of inspiration for the other apostles, as well as for himself " We are of God : he that knoweth God, heareth us ; he that is not of God, heareth not us."|| The claim to inspiration is clearly made by the apostles in those passages, where they place their own writings upon the same footing witli the books of the Old Testament ; for Paul, speaking of the wga ygafi/iara, a commou cxpressiou among the Jews for their scrip- tures, in which Timothy had been instructed from his childhood, says, " All scripture is given by inspiration of God.""[[ Peter, speaking of the ancient prophets, says, " The Spirit of Christ was in them ;" and " The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."** And the quotations of our Lord and his apostles from the books of the Old Testament are often introduced with an expression in which their inspiration is directly asserted. " Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias;" " By the mouth of thy servant David thou hast said,"tt &c. &c. With this uniform testimony to that inspiration of the Jewish scrip- tures, which was universally believed among that people, you are to coDJoin this circumstance, that Paul and Peter in different places rank their own writings with the books of the Old Testament. Paul com- mands that his epistles should be read in the churches, where none but those books which the Jews believed to be inspired were ever read-H He says that Christians " are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets;" trtt rci ^£ftfXt9 t'cov artocfToxui' xat rt^ocjijji'wv,^^ a conjunction which would have been highly improper, if the former had not been inspired as well as the latter : and Peter charges the Christians to " be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles."{||j » Cor. ii. 10, 12, 13. f 1 Cor. xiv. 37. i^ 1 Thes. ii. 13. § 2 Pet. iii. 15, fl 1 John iv. 6. 12 Tim. iii. 16. •« 1 Pet. i. 11. 2 Pet. i. 21. ff Acts i. 16. iv. 25. xxviii. 25. + ^ Col. iv. 16. §§ Ephes. ii. 20. y 2 Pet. iii. 2. 166 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. The nature of the book of Revelation led the apostle John to assert most directly his personal inspiration ; for he says that " Jesus sent and signified by his angel to his servant John the things that were to come to pass :" and that the divine person, like the Son of Man, who appeared to him when he was in the spirit, commanded him to write in a book what he saw : and in one of the visions recorded in that book. Rev. xxi. 14, when the dispensation of the gospel was present- ed to John under the figure of a great city, the new Jerusalem, de- scending out of heaven, there is one part of tlie image that is a beautiful expression of that authority in settling the form of the Christian church, and in teaching articles of faith, which the apostles derived from their inspiration : " The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."* These are only a few of the many passages to the same purpose which will occur to you in reading the New Testament : but it is manifest even from them, that the mariner in which the apostles speak of their own writings is calculated to mislead every candid reader, un- less they really wrote under the direction of the Spirit of God. So gross and daring an imposture is absolutely inconsistent not only with their whole character, but also with those gifts of the Holy Ghost, of which there is unquestionable evidence that they were possessed ; and which, being the natural vouchers of the assertion made by them concerning their own writhigs, cannot be supposed, upon the princi- ples of sound theism, to have been imparted for a long course of years to persons who continued during all that time asserting such a falsehood, and appealing to those gifts for the truth of what they said. IV. The claim of the apostles derives much confirmation from the reception which it met with amongst the Christians of tlitjir days. It appears from an expression of Peter, that at the time when he wrote his second epistle, the epistles of Paul were classed with the other scriptures, the books of the Old Testament ; i. e. were accounted in- spired writings.f It is well known to those who are versant in the early history of the church, with what care the first Christians dis- criminated between the apostolical writings, and the compositions of other authors, however much distinguished by their piety, and with what reverence they received those books which were known by their inscription, by the place from which they proceeded, or the manner in which they were circulated, to be the work of an apostle. In Jjard- ner's Credibility of the Gospel History you will find the most par- ticular information upon this subject ; and you will perceive that the whole history of the supposititious writings, which appeared in early times, conspires in attesting the veneration in which the authority of the apostles was held by the Christian church. We learn from Justin Martyr that, before the middle of the second century, to. o.7ioavrjuovfvi.ia.ta. rui' Aiio6-eo>Mv xai -to. oDyy^au^ttT'a fwe rtgo<}»7T'to>' were read together in the Chris- tian assemblies ; we know that, from the earliest times, the church has submitted to the writings of the apostles as the infallible standard of faith and practice ; and we find the ground of this peculiar respect expressed by the first Christian writers as well as by their successors, * Rev. i. 1, 10—19 ; xxi. 14. f 2 Peter iii. 16. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 167 who speak of the writings of the apostles as ^"ai y^atou., f| sTUTtpoiai oywHi V. The only point that remains to be considered is, whether there be any thing in the books themselves inconsistent with the notion of their being inspired. It is impossible for me to follow the detail into which this point runs. But I may suggest the general heads of an- swer to the multiplicity of objections which fal-l under it. Even those who acknowledge the excellence of the general system contained in the New Testament, who admit that it must have been revealed to the authors of the books by the Spirit of God, and that there are some instances in which the clearness of the predictions, and even the majesty of the style imply a peculiar illumination and direction of their minds, even such persons meet, in reading the New Testament, with difficulties which they are unable to reconcile with the notion of inspiration ; and if they are stumbled, others, who wish to dis- credit the truth of Christianity, represent the notion of inspiration as rendered wholly indefensible, and even ridiculous, by the mistakes in small matters, the contradiction, the varieties, and littlenesses that occur in several places, and the numberless instances of a style very far removed from that which the Almighty might be conceived to assume. When you come to examine these objections, there are two general remarks which it will be of great importance for you to carry in your minds. 1. Recollect that the objectors upon such a subject have great ad- vantage. It is very easy to start difficulties and objections. And when the solution is to be derived from an examination of the con- text, and from a knowledge of ancient languages and customs, the difficulty or objection may be urged in so specious or lively a manner as to make a deep impression, before the solution can be brought for- ward. But the diligence, the learning, and sagacity of modern com- mentators have furnished every student, who wishes the scriptures to be true, with satisfying answers to the most formidable objections against particular parts of them ; and it is a general rule which you ought to observe in your study of the scriptures, never to suppose, never to allow the most positive affirmation or the most pointed ridi- cule to persuade you, that a passage is indefensible, because that measure of information respecting antiquity and of experience in sacred criticism which you possess, does not suggest the manner in which it can be defended. You will find, upon inquiry, that apparent contradictions in the narration of the gospels, or in the doctrine of the epistles, may be easily reconciled ; that expressions which have been represented as mean, are justified, by the practice of classical writers ; that the harsh sense, which single phrases seem to contain, is removed either by a more accurate translation of the original, or by the con- nection in which they stand ; that supposed errors in chronology or geography either disappear upon being closely examined, or arise from some of those trifling variations in the copies of the New Tes- tament which modern criticism has investigated; that those parts of the conduct of Peter and Paul which have been censured are in no * Lardner's Cred. vol. i. p. 273 ; vol. iii. p. 230. 168 ■ INSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. respect inconsistent with the general doctrine which they taught ; and^ upon the whole, that as the general matter of the New Testament could not have been known to any who were not inspired of God, and as the manner in which that matter is delivered appears, the more it is considered, to be the more fit and excellent, so there is nothing througliout all the books unworthy of that measure of inspiration of which we have hitherto spoken, 2. Observe that the objections which have been urged against par- ticular passages of the New Testament are in general of no weight in overturning the doctrine of inspiration, unless you suppose that the authors wrote continually under the influence of what has been called the inspiration of suggestion, i. e. that every thought was put into their mind, and every word dictated to thein by the Spirit of God. But this opinion, which is probably entertained by many well-mean- ing Christians, and which has been held by some able defenders of Christianity, is now generally abandoned by those who examine the subject with due care. And the following reasons will satisfy you that it has not been lightly abandoned. It is unnecessary to suppose that this liighest degree of inspiration is extended through all the parts of the New Testament, beca\ise there are many facts in the gospels, which the apostles might know perfectly from their own observation or recollection, many expressions which would naturally occur to them, many directions and salutations in their epistles, such as were to be expected in that correspondence. It is not only unnecessary to suppose' that the highest degree of inspiration was extended through all the parts of the New Testament, but the supposition is really in- consistent with many circumstances that occur there. I shall mention a few. Paul in some instances makes a distinction between the coun- sels which he gives in matters of indifference, upon his own judgment, and the commandments which he delivers with the authority of an apostle : " I speak this by permission, and not of commandment." " This I command, yet not I, but the Lord :" a distinction for which there could have been no room, had every word been dictated by the Spirit of God.* Paul sometimes discovers a doubt, and a change of purpose as to the time of his journeyings, and other little incidents, which the highest degree of inspiration would have prevented. t It is allowed that there is a degree of imperfection and obscurity, which, in some instances, remains on the style of the sacred writers, and par- ticularly of Paul, which we cannot easily reconcile with the highest degree of inspiration. J Once more, there are peculiarities of expres- sion, and a marked manner, by which a person of taste and discern- ment may clearly distinguish the writings of every one from those of every other. But had all written uniformly under the same inspira- tion of suggestion, there could not have been a dilTerence of manner corresponding to the ditTerence of character; and the expression used by all might have been expected to be the best possible. These circumstances lead us to abandon the notion that the apos- tles wrote under a continual inspiration of suggestion. But they are not in the least inconsistent with that kind of inspiration which we found to be necessary for the purposes of their mission ; which is • 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10. f 1 Cor. xvi. 3—6, 10, II. i2 Peter iii. 16 rNSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. 169 commonly called an inspiration of direction, and which consists in this, that the writers of the New Testament, although allowed to exercise their own memory and understanding, as far as they could be of use ; although allowed to employ their own modes of thinking and expres- sion, as far as there was no impropriety in their being employed, were, by the superintendence of the Spirit, eflectually guarded from error while they were writing, and were at all times furnished with that measure of inspiration which the nature of the subject required. In his history every evangelist brings forward those discourses and facts wliich had made tlie deepest impression upon his mind ; but while, from the variety which thus naturally takes place in the histories, there arises the strongest proof that there was no collusion, the recol- lection of every historian was so far assisted, that he gives us no false information ; and by laying together the several accounts, we may attain as complete a view of the transactions recorded as the Spirit of God judged to be necessary. In the book of Acts we see the mind of the apostles gradually led, by the teaching of the Spirit, to a full apprehension of the whole counsel of God. In the Epistles they apply the knowledge which had thus been imparted to them by reve- lation, in ministering to the edification, the comfort, or reproof of the churches which they had established ; and the Spirit, who had by this time guided them into all truth, abode with them, so that from tlie words and commandments of the apostles we may learn the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. It hath pleased God that the Christian world should derive those treasures of divine knowledge which resided in the apostles, not by formal systematical discourses composed for the instruction of future ages, but by the short familiar incidental mention of the Christian doctrines in their epistles. This form of the doctrinal writings of the apostles has been stated as an objection to their being inspired ; but by a little attention you will perceive the great advantages of their being permitted to adopt this form. Our industry is thus quickened in searching the Scriptures. The doctrines are rendered more level to the capacity of the great body of Christians, and more easily re- called to their minds by this mode of being delivered : and the books containing the doctrines are thus made to bring along with them in- ternal marks of authenticity, which could not have belonged to them had they been in another form.* The inscription of the epistle is a sure voucher, transmitted from the earliest times, that a letter had truly been sent by an apostle of Christ to a church. The character of the apostle is marked in his epistle, and the many little circum- stances, which his situation or that of the church introduces into an afiectionate letter, while they exhibit the natural expressions of Chris- tian benevolence, bring a conviction, more satisfying than that wliich arises from any testimony, that the apostles of Jesns proceeded, in execution of the charge given them by their Master, to make disci- ples of all nations. In the prophecies which the New Testament contains, tliere must have been the inspiration of suggestion. Neither the words nor the thoughts could there come by the will of man; and the writers spake * Paley's HorjE Paulinse. 17 2 B 170 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Accordhigly Paul introduces his predictions with these words : The Spirit speaketh expressly ; and John, we found, says in the book of Revelation, that f)e was com- manded to write what he saw and heard. I have explained under this second remark that kind of inspiration, which the different branches of the evidence that has been stated ap- pears to me clearly to establish, and which is now generally consider- ed as all that was necessary for the purposes of the apostolical office. We do not say that every thought was put into the mind of the apos- tles, and every word dictated to their pen by the Spirit of God. But we say, that by the superintendence of the Spirit, they were at all times guarded from error, and were furnished upon every occasion with the measure of inspiration which the nature of the subject re- quired. Upon this view of the matter, we can easily account for all the circumstances that are commonly urged as objections against the notion of inspiration. We may even admit that the apostles were liable to err in their conduct, and were left ignorant of some things which they wished to know : and at the same time we have all that security against misrepresentations of fact, or error in doctrine, which the nature of the commission given to the apostles and the importance of the truths declared by tliem render necessary for our faith. By this kind of inspiration, while a provision is made for the introduc- tion of those internal marks of authenticity by which the Bible is dis- tinguished above every other book in the world, there is also a perfect fulfilment of the promise given to the apostles by Jesus, a justification of the claim which their writings contain, and a rational account of that entire submission which the Christian church in every age has yielded to the authority of the apostles. Here then is the ground upon which I rest my foot, and the point from wiiich I desire to be considered as setting out in my Lectures upon Divinity. Jesus was a teacher sent from God. His apostles, who were commanded by him to publish his doctrine to the world, received, in fulfilment of his promise, such a measure of the visible gifts of the Spirit as attested their commission, and such a measure of internal illumination and direction, as rendered their writings the in- fallible standard of Christian truth. From hence it follows, that every tiling wliich is clearly contained in the gospels and epistles, or which may be feirly deduced from the words there used, is true ; and that every thing which cannot be so proved is no part of the doctrine that Christians are required to believe. After we have attained this point, sound criticism becomes the foundation of theology. My busi- ness is not to frame a system of divinity, but to delineate that system which the Scriptures teach, by a clear exposition of the passages in which it is taught: and to defend it, by rescuing the Scriptures from misinterpretation. We shall be very much assisted in this course by our knowledge of the Greek language. The Greek Testament will be our constant companion ; and the best preparation for what you are to learn from me is to apply the knowledge, which you have ac- quired elsewhere, in rendering the Greek Testament familiar to your minds. The doctrine of tlie Inspiration of Scripture is touched upon in all the coaiplete defences INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 171 of Christianity ; of most of which you have both an Index and an Abridgment in Le- land's View of the Deistical Writers. Bishop Burnet has treated it shortly in his Exposition of the sixth article of the Church of England. There are many excellent Sermons of English divines upon this subject. I mention par- ticularly Archbishop Seeker's, in the third volume of his works. And there is a rational, masterly Essay upon this subject, in Bishop Benson's Paraphrase on the Epistles of Paul. Potter's Prffilectiones Theologicse in Opera Theologica, torn. iii. Le Clcrc's Letters on Inspiration, with Lowth's Answer. Randolph's Works. Wakefield on Inspiration. Middleton. Prettyman's Elements of Christian Theology. Watson's Apology for the Bible and for Christianity. Preliminary Essays prefixed to Dr. Macknight's new translation of the Epistles. Dick on the Inspiration of Scripture. Jones's Can6r\ 6i Scripture. Doddridge. Paley. Marsh's Michaelis. 172 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITT. CHAPTER II. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. Having established the divine inspiration of the books of the New Testament, we have next to learn from this infaUible guide that sys- tem of doctrine which characterizes the Christian reUgion. It is pre- sumptuous and childish to busy ourselves in fancying .what that system ought to be. If the books containing the Gospel of Christ were really written by men under the direction of the Spirit of God, they will teach us the truth without mixture of error: and all our speculations vanish before the authoritative declarations which they bring. I need not occupy time with delineating the great truths of natural religion. These must be the same in every true system, because they are unchangeable ; and it occurred formerly, in stating the evidences of Christianity, that this revelation carries along with it one strong presumption of its divine original, by giving in the simplest language, and the plainest form, views of the nature of God, and of the duty of man, more clear, more consistent, and more exalted than are to be found in any other writings. If you were to throw out of the Scrip- tures all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, there would remain a complete system of natural religion, in comparison with which, even the speculations of the enlightened and virtuous sage of Athens appear low and partial. But it is of these peculiar doctrines that Christian theology consists ; and I mean at present to prepare for examining them particularly, by stating them in a short connected view. I cannot propose to meet in this view the sentiments of all the diHerent sects of Christians ; for if I were to attempt to accommodate the sketch that is to be given, to the peculiar tenets of some sects, I should be obliged to leave out several doctrines which appear to me most essen- tial to Christianity. But although I cannot meet the sentiments of opposite sects, I do not wish to derive this short system from the discriminating tenets, or the peculiar language of any one sect : I wish to avoid the use of any terms that are not scriptural, and to present to you the form of sound words which is taught by the apostles themselves. We shall have enough of controverted opinions when we come to attend to the different facts of the system. But it seems to me proper that you should c^-ry in your minds a general distinct conception of the subjects upon which the controversies turn, before we be entangled in that thorny path. The foundation of the Gospel is this, that men are sinners. If you take away this proposition, the whole system is left without meaning : PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 173 if you receive it in its full import, you perceive the use of the different parts, and the harmony with which they unite in producing the effect that is ascribed to the whole. The proposition is often enunciated in Scripture ; but the truth of it is independent of the authority of any revelation, and must be admitted by every candid observer, whether he believes or rejects the divine mission of Jesus. Although different states of society have exhibited different forms of wickedness, authentic history does not record any in which human virtue has appeared pure. A great part of the business of every government is to inter- pose restraints upon the evil passions of the subjects : yet so ineffectual are tiiose restraints, that the peace of the best constituted society is often disturbed by enormous crimes, while there are transgressions of virtue which elude the law, that indicate a deeper depravity of mind than those enormities which are punished ; and even the best of the sons of men, those who by the innocence of their lives are exempted not only from the punishments, but even from the censures of human society, have the consciousness of imperfection, of failing, and demerit. The Scriptures connect this abounding of iniquity with a transac- tion which took place soon after the creation of Adam. " By one man," says Paul, "sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: — By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation ; in Adam all die."* This is the commentary made by an apostle upon the third chapter of Genesis; and when we take that chapter, the commentary of Paul, and other incidental expressions in connexion, we are led by the Scriptures to consider the transgressions of the first parents of the human race as altering the condition of their posterity, rendering this earth a less comfortable, and less virtuous habitation, than without that transgression it would have been, and introducmg sin, with all its attendant misery, amongst a part of the rational crea- tion who were made at first after the image of God. Something analogous to this effect of the transgression of our first parents, may often be observed iii human connections. And we are guarded against wantonly rejecting the Scripture account of this, early transaction, as incredible or inconsistent with the government of God, when we see, in numberless instances, the sins of some persons extending their baleful influence to the minds and the fortunes of others, a father corrupting the manners of his children, entailing upon them disease, disgrace, poverty and vice, and thus reducing them by his wickedness to a calamitous state, which, had they sprung from other parents, it appears to us they might have avoided. To this it must be added, that in the present condition of the human race there are many symptoms of degradation. The combat between the higher and the lower parts of our nature, the temptations to vice which every thing around us presents, the judgments which are often executed by changes upon the face of nature, that abridgment of the comforts of life which arises from our own faults, or those of others, and the violence which is done to our feehngs and our affections by the manner in which we are called out of the world ; all this, and • Rom. V. 12, 18. 1 Cor. xv. 22. 17* 174 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. much more of the same kind, indicates a disordered state, and accords witli the shght incidental openings wliich the Scriptures give us into that ancient transaction, to whicii tliey trace the sin and misery of mankind. The effects of this transaction continued in the world not- withstanding all the efforts of philosophy, good government, and civilization. Neither the vigilant education and rigorous discipline prescribed in some ancient states, nor the circumspection and morti- fication learned in some ancient schools, were able to cleanse the heart of any one individual from every kind of defilement, or to maintain a life, in all respects blameless. And, whatever remedy the progress of im- provement may be conceived to have apj>lied to the other evils which proceed from sin, there is one standing memorial of its power, which defies the wit and the strength of man. None can deliver his own soul, or the soul of his brother from death. " It is appointed uiito all men once to die."* But death is represented in the Scriptures as tiie fruit of sin ; and therefore the continuance of death is one of those practical lessons which the Almighty often administers, wiiich is independent of speculation, but, being by its nature a strong confir- matiou of the discoveries that are made, is sufficient to teach all who receive the Scriptures, that the transaction to which they ascribe the introduction of death, has not exhausted all its force. The gospel then proceeds upon a fact, which was not created by the revelation, but would have been true, although the gospel had not appeared, that that part of the reasonable offspring of God who inhabit this earth are sinners, and that their efforts to extricate them- selves out of this condition had proved ineffectual. But sin is repug- nant to our moral feelings, and excites our abhorrence. How much more odious must it appear in the sight of Him, whom natural reli- gion and the declarations of Scripture teach us to consider as infinitely holy ! We see only a small portion of human wickedness. But all the demerit of every individual sinner, and the whole sum of iniquity committed throughout the earth, are continually present to the eyes of Him with whose nature they are most inconsistent. The sins of men are transgressions of the law given them by their Creator, an insult to his authority, a violation of the order which he had estab- lished, a diminution of the happiness whicli he had spread over his works. It is unknown to us what connections there are amongst dif- ferent parts of the universe. But it is manifest that no government can subsist if the laws are transgressed with impunity. It is very conceivable that the other creatures of God might be tempted to dis- obedience, if the transgressions of the human race received no chas- tisement. And therefore, as every temptation to disobey laws which bring peace to the obedient, is really an introduction to misery, it appears most becoming the Almighty, both as the Ruler and the Fa- ther of the universe, to execute his judgments against the human race- Accordingly the Scriptures record many awful testimonies of the divine displeasure with sin ; and they represent the whole world as the children of wrath, guilty before God, and under tiie curse, be- cause they are the children of disobedience. It is not in the nature • Heb. ix. 27. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 175 of repentance to avert those evils which past transgressions had de- served. JBut we liave seen that men were vmable to forsake their sins; and we cannot form a conception of any mode, consistent with the honour and the great objects of the divine government, by which a creature who continues to transgress the divine laws, can stop the course of that punisliment, which is the fruit of his transgression. In tills situation, when the reasonings of nature fail, and every ap- pearance in nature conspires to show tliat hope is presumptuous, the revelation of the gospel is fitted by its peculiar character to enlighten and revive the human mind. We there learn that God, who is rich in mercy, moved by compassion for the work of his hands, for the great love wherewith he loved the world, conceived a plan for deliv- ering the children of Adam from that sin and misery out of which they were unahle to extricate themselves.* Having foreseen, before the foundation of the world, that they would yield to the temptation of an evil spirit, and ahuse that liberty which forms an essential part of their nature, he comprehended in the same eternal counsel a pur- pose to create, and a purpose to save.f Immediately after the trans- gression of the first man there was some discovery of the gracious plan. At the same time that a curse is pronounced upon the ground, and death is declared to be the punishment of sin, there is an intima- tion of future deliverance in these words : " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. "J The promise was unfolded, and the plan gradually opened through a succession of dis- pensations, all conspiring in their place to produce the fulness of time, when the plan was executed by the manifestation of that glorious person whom prophecy had announced. The light of nature does not give any notice of the existence of this person. But as the im- portance of the office which he executed renders his character most interesting to the human race, the Scriptures declare that he was with God in the beginning, that he had glory with the Father before the world was, that by him God made the world, that he was God, but that veiling his glory, although he could not divest himself of the nature of God, he was born in a miraculous manner, was made in the likeness of men, took part of flesh and blood, and dwelt with those whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren. § The purpose for which this extraordinary messenger visited the earth, was declared b)^ the angel who announced the singular maimer of his birth : " Thou shalt call his name Jesus ; for he shall save his people from their sins."|| John his forerunner thus marked him out : " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."T[ He said of him- self, " I am come to call sinners to repentance ; to give my life a ran- som for many,"** And the charge which he gave to his apostles, and which they executed in all their discourses and writings, was this, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name amongst all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.tt These expressions * Ephes. ii. I, 2, 3, 4, 5. Rom. iii. 19 ; v. 12. Gal. iii. 10, 22. Col. iii. 5, 6, 7. f Ephes. iii. 11. ^ Gen. iii. 15. § John i. 1,2, 3, 14 ; xvii. 5. Heb. i. 2 ; ii. 14. Phil. ii. 6. 7. Luke i. 26—38. I Matth. i. 21. ^ John i. 29. ** Matth. ix. 13 : xx. 28. ff Luke xxiv. 47. 176 PP.CULTAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. imply that the peculiarity of the Jewish state was concluded by the appearance of this prophet, and that the benefit of his manifestation was to extend to all nations. The same expressions imply also that the nature of that benefit was accommodated to what we have found the situation of mankind to require. In fulfilment of that character of a Saviour which he assumed, he not only taught men the will of God by precept and by example, unfolded that future state in which they are to receive according to the deeds done in the body, and en- forced the practice of righteousness by every motive addressed to the understanding and the affections, but he voluntarily submitted to the most grievous sufferings, and the most cruel death, as the method or- dained ill the counsel of heaven for procuring their deliverance from sin. There is no mode of expression that we can devise, which is not employed by Scripture to convey this conception, that the death of Christ was not barely a confirmation of the truth of Christianity, an example of disinterested benevolence and of heroic virtue, but a true sacrifice for sin, offered by him to God the Father, in order to avert the punislmient which the sins of men deserved, and to render it consistent with the character of the Deity and the honour of the divine laws, to forgive men their trespasses. " I am the good shep- herd," says Jesus ; " the good shepherd giveth his lite for the sheep."* " God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past."t " We are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."J The natural conclusion which any person, whose mind is not warped by a particular system, will draw from these and numberless other expressions of the same kind, is this, that as the scheme for the deliverance of the human race originated from the love of God the Father, so it was accomplished by the instrumentality of that person, who is called in Scripture the Son of God. As the effect of this instrumentality is clearly declared in Scripture, so it is analogous to one part of the divine procedure which we have often occasion to observe. The whole course of human affairs is car- ried on by alternate successions of wisdom and folly. Evils are incurred, and they are remedied. The good aff^'ctions or the generosity of some are employed to retrieve the faults or the mis- fortunes of others : and the condescension and zeal, with which the talents of an exalted character are exerted in some cause which did not properly belong to him, are often seen to restore that order and happiness which the extravagance of vice appeared to have destroyed. The dispensation revealed in the Gospel is the same in kind with these instances, although infinitely exalted above them in magnificence and extent. We see there sin and misery entering into the world by the transgression of one man, the effects spreading through the whole race, and the remedy brought by the generous interposition of a per- son who had no share in the disaster, whose power of doing good was called forth purely by compassion for the distressed, and, in opposition to all the obstacles raised by an evil spirit, was exerted with perse- verance and success, in removing the deformity and disorder which * John X. 11. t Rom. iii. 25. ^^ 1 Pet. i. 18. 19. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 177 fie had introduced into the creation. " For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the dtvil.''* " He took part of flesh and blood, that through death he njjght dcs- stroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who tlirougli fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage."'!" , That the interposition of the Son of God was effectual in promoting the purpose for which it was made, and that his death did really ovaM'come that evil spirit, who is styled the prince of this world, J was declared by liis resurrection, and, by the gifts which in fulfilment of his promise were sent upon his apostles after his ascension. § Tliis is the Scripture proof, " that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him.'''|| So speaks Peter in one of his first sermons.^ " The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him." i. e. Our testimony of his resurrection, confirmed by the wit- ness of the Holy Ghost, is the evidence that God hath exalted him to be a Saviour. He is now, by the appointment of God, the dispenser of those blessings which he died to purchase;** the Mediator of the new covenant, which was sealed by his blood, and which is established upon better promises,tt of the fulfilment of which we receive perfect assurance from the power that is given to him in heaven and in earth.Jt Pardon, grace, and consolation, flow from him as their proprietor, who hath acquired by his sufferings the right of dis- tributing gifts to men.§§ " Being justified by his blood, we have peace with God, and access to the Father tin-ough him.|||| He is now the advocate of his people,!!^ who appears in the presence of God for them ;*** " who ever lives to make intercession, "fff and by whom their prayers and services are rendered acceptable. JJ:]: He directs the course of his Providence, so as to promote their welfare, not by abolishing the present consequences of sin, but by rendering them medicinal to the soul :§§§ and death, which is still allowed to continue as a standing memorial of the evil of sin, shall at length be destroyed by the working of his mighty power, which is able to quicken the bodies that had been mingled with the dust of the earth-llllll "lam," says he, "the resurrection and the life."1I'1Il " The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth."**** " Power is given him over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as he will."tttt And the crown of life that shall be conferred at the last upon those for whom it is prepared, is represented in Scripture * I John iii. 8. ff Heb. viiL 4 ; ix. 12, 15. H^ Rev. viii. 3, 4. f Heb. ii. 14, 1.5. i^ Matlh. xxviii. 18. §§§ Kom. vii. 28. *Johnxiv. 30. §§ Rom. v. 1, 2, 9,11, Eph. ii. 18. ||I||: Phil. iii. 21. § Rom, i. 4. Acts ii. 32, 33. 1|!| Ephes. iv. 8. 11 T John ii. 25. II Heb. vii. 25. n 1 John ii. 1. **** John v. 2, 29. If Acts V. 30—32. *** Heb. ix. 24. fftl John xvii. 2. •* Heb. xii. 2. f ff Rom. viii. 34. 2 0 178 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. not as a recompense which they have earned, but as the gift of God through him. " The wages of sin is death ; bat eternal Ufe is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord."* In this manner the blessings which that divine Person who inter- posed for the salvation of mankind is able to bestow, imply a com- plete deliverance from the evils ef sin. " As through one man's offence, death reigned by one, so they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. "t Hitherto we have confined our attention to the interposition of that Person, who appeared upon earth to save his people from their sins. But we are introduced in the gospel to the knowledge of a third Per- son, who concurs in the salvation of mankind ; who proceedeth from the Father, who is sent by the Son as his Spirit,| whose power is spoken of in exalted terms,§ to whom the highest reverence is chal- lenged,|| and who in all the variety of his operations, is one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every one severally as he will.^ One God and Father of all is known by the works of nature : the Son of God is made known by revelation, because the world which he had made stood in need of his interposition to redeem it : and the Spirit is made known by the same revelation, because the benefits of this redemption are applied through his agency. Our knowledge in this way grows with our necessities. We learn how inadequate our faculties are to comprehend the divine nature, when we see such im- portant discoveries superinduced upon the investigations of the most enlightened reason. And we learn also that the measures of know- ledge, which the Father of Spirits sees meet to communicate, are not intended to amuse our minds with speculation, and to gratify curiosity, but are immediately connected with the grounds of our comfort and hope. They comprehend all that is necessary for us in our present circumstances. But they may be far from exhausting tlie subject revealed : and from the very great addition which the revelation of the gospel has made to our knowledge, it is natural for us to infer that creatures in another situation, or we ourselves in a more advanced state of being, may see distinctly many tilings, which we now in vain attempt to penetrate. The mode in which the Son and the Spirit subsist, and the nature of their connexion with the Father, however much they have been the subject of human speculation, are nowhere revealed in Scriptin-e. But the offices of these persons, being of infinite importance to us, are revealed with such hints only of their nature, as may satisfy us that they are qualified for these offices. We have seen the office of the Son in the redemption of the world, the right which he acquired by his perfect obedience and suftering to dispense the blessings of his purchase. It is in the dispensation of these blessings that the office of the Spirit appears. This office com- menced from the earliest times: " For he spake by the mouth of all the holy prophets, who prophesied, since the world began, of the * Rom. vi. 23. f Rom. v. 17. t John xv. 26. § Actsiv. 31, 33. Rom.viii. 11, 26. 2 Cor. iii. 17, 18. 1 Heb. ix. 14 ; x. 29. T 1 Cor. xii. 4— 11. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 179 sufferings of Christ, and of the glory that should follow."* To his agency the miraculous conception of the Son of man is ascribed.! He descended upon Jesus at his baptism :J he was given to him without measure during his ministry ;§ and after his ascension he was mani- fested in the variety and fulness of those gifts which distinguished the first preachers of Christianity.|| But all these branches of the office of the S})irit, so necessary for confirming the truth, and for diffnsing the knowledge of the Christian religion, were only the pledges of those ordinary infiuences, by which the same Divine Person continues in all ages to apply the blessings which are thus revealed. The ordinary intluences of the Spirit are represented in Scripture as opposed to all those circumstances in the present condition of hu- man nature, which indispose men for receiving such a religion as the gospel. Thus you read, that " the natural man receiveth not the tilings of God; they are foolishness to him, because they are spirit- ually discerned."^ But the spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to Christians, that " the eyes of their understanding being enlighten- ed, thoy may know what is the hope of their calling."** You read, that "the carnal mind is enmity against God, and cannot be subject to his law : but they that are led by the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit. "ft You read of a complacency in their own righteousness, which prevents many from submitting themselves to the righteous- ness of God.JJ But the Spirit casts down every high thought which exalteth itself ^§ In all this tliere is nothing contrary to the reasonable nature of man. We liave daily experience of the influence which one mind has over another, by presenting objects in the light best fitted to com- mand assent and conviction, by suggesting forcible motives, by over- ruling objections, by addressing every generous principle, and exciting every latent spark of good affection. You sometimes see or hear of persons formed for commanding others, not by force, but by an ac- knowledged eminence of talents and virtues: and you often see men conducted by a skilful exposition to the clear apprehension of truths which seemed to be above their capacity, and irresistibly, yet freely, led, by well-adapted persuasion, to exertions which they considered as beyond their power. All this is a very faint image indeed, but it may assist you in forming some conception of the action of the Spirit of God npon the mind of man. He, who knows every spring of that heart which he formed, every method of a-pproach, every secret wish, every reluctant thought, and whose power over mind is as entire as that which he exercises over matter, can in various ways illuminate the darkest understanding, and bend the most stubborn will, without destroying that freedom which is the essential character of the being upon whom he acts. The influence is efficacious, and the purpose of him from whom it proceeds cannot be defeated. Yet the being who is thus moved has as little feeling of constraint, acts as much from choice and deliberation, as if the views and motives had occurred to * 1 Pet. i. 11. § John iii. M. •• Ephes. i. 17, 18. t Luke i. 35. Ii Acts ii. 4. f f Rom. viii. 5, 7. i Luke iii. 22. % 1 Cor. ii. 14. ii Rom. x. 3. §§ 2 Cor. X. 5. 180 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. his own mind without a guide, or had been suggested to him by any of his neighbours. Hence, although this intiueuce of the Spirit is expressed in Scripture by a new creation,* and the quicl^ening of those who were dead,t aUhough our Lord hath said, " Except a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," i. e. become a Christian ; and again, " No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,"J yet the persons thus created, quickened, and drawn, are said to be " wilhng in a day of power."§ " Where the Spirit of the Lord is," says the apostle, " there is liberty ,"|| the Uberty which belongs to those wliose under- standings know the truth, whose affections are orderly, and who are not the servants of sin. The gospel is styled " the perfect law of liberty."1I A Christian is significantly called " the Lord's freeman."** And .Jesus said to those who believed on him, " If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."tt Such is the nature of that influence which the Scriptures represent the Spirit of God as exerting upon every true Christian. The imme- diate effect of that influence is called in Scripture faith ; a word which, according to its etymology, nvatii, denotes a firm persuasion of truth, but which, in the Scripture sense of the word, comprehends all the sentiments and affections which naturally arise from a firm persua- sion of the truth of Christianity; a cordial acquiescence in the doc- trines of the gospel, a thankful acceptance of the method of salvation from sin there offered, a reliance upon the promises of God, and a submission to his will. Although an acquaintance with the historical evidences of the truth of Christianity be the natural foundation of a persuasion of its truth, yet a person may have studied these evidences with care, and may be able to answer the objections that have been urged against them, who, at the same time, from some wrongness of mind, does not attain to the sentiments and dispositions implied under faith. The Scriptures hold forth examples of this in the enemies of our Lord during his life, who had clearer evidences of his divine mission before their eyes than we are able to attain with all our in- vestigation, and in many of those, who, by teaching and doing won- derful works in his name, had that evidence within themselves, yet are for ever separated from him by his own declaration. J.J And these examples will not appear strange to any person who has bestowed a philosophical attention upon the inconsistencies in the human mind, and the small influence which deductions of the understanding often appear to have upon the heart. On the other hand, both the Scrip- tures and our own experience afford many examples of persons, who, with limited information and narrow powers of reasoning, yet by a tractable disposition, a love of the truth, and a fairness of mind, have attained to what the Scriptures call fliith, and become the disciples of Christ indeed. To this purpose Jesus says, " I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."§§ And again, " Except ♦ 2 Cor. V. 17. t Ephes. ii. 1. t John iii. .3, 5 ; vi. 44. ■§ Psalm ex. 3. 8 2 Cor. iii. 17. 1 James i. 25. ** I Cor. vii. 22. ff John viii. 36. XX Matt. vii. 22, 23. §§ Matt. xi. 25, 26. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 181 ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ;" i. e. Except ye receive the truth with that freedom from prejudice, that desire of learning, and that simplicity of intention, which are all implied in the character of children, ye cannot become Christians.* In another place our Lord says, " If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whetlier it be of God ;"t and he explains the good soil, in which the seed fell that produced an hundred fold, by a good and honest heart, in wliich they keep the word, who bring forth fruit with patience. J All these ex- pressions imply not merely that faith is an exercise of understanding, but that a certain preparation of heart is requisite for it ; and hence you will perceive that, although faith be a reasonable act proceeding upon evidence, there is room for the influence of the Spirit in dis- posing the mind to attend to the evidence, and to see its force, in over- coming prejudice, and carrying home the truth with power to the heart. Accordingly the apostle Paul says expressly, that faith is " the gift of God ;"§ and this declaration is only expressing, in one sen- tence, the uniform doctrine of Scripture upon this subject. Faith, which is thus produced by the influence of the Spirit of God upon the mind of man, is the character with which a participation of the blessings of the gospel is always connected in Scripture. These blessings were acquired, and are dispensed by the Lord Jesus. But they are applied by his Spirit only to them who believe. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish." "He that believeth and is bap- tized shall be saved ; he that believeth not shall be damned." " This is the word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." We are said to be "justified by feith ;" and tlie only direction which Paul gave to the jailer, when he cried out, " What must I do to be saved ?" was this, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." || Declarations of this kind abound in Scripture. But there are two mistakes which such declarations are apt to occasion ; and both are so opposite to the Scripture system, that they require to be mentioned in tliis short account of it. The first mistake, into which you may be led by the Scripture de- clarations concerning faith, is to imagine that faith is the procuring cause of our salvation ; that because Christ says, " this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent," any person who does the work receives the blessings of the gospel as the wages which he has earned. Bat such an opinion contradicts all the views which we have hitherto deduced from Scripture. For the gospel being a salvation from sin, those who are to be saved are considered as sin- ners, until they partake of the salvation. The investiture with a cer- tain character is indeed a present, and in some sense an immediate effect of the salvation, and is so inseparably connected with it, as to be the Scripture mark, that a person has " passed from death unto life." But being an effect, it cannot in the nature of things be a * Matt, xviii. 3. f John vii. 17. t Luke viii^. 15. § Ephes. ii. 8. g John iii. 16. Mark xvi. 16. Rom. x. 8, 9 ; v. i. Acts xvi. 30, 31. IS 182 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. cause of that from which it proceeds ; and therefore the Scriptures speak in perfect consistency with themselves, when they declare, " God hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus."* " When we were dead in sins, he quick- ened us together with Christ, for by grace ye are saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."t Faith is the in- strument by which the Spirit of God applies to us the blessings which Christ hath acquired the right of dispensing. But there is no merit in the instrument. Since all had sinned and come short of the glory of God, " we are justified freely by the grace of God, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ;" and he is " the Lord our right- eousness." The second mistake into which you may be led by the Scripture declaration concerning faith is, that faith is the only thing which is required of a Christian. If all that Paul said to the jailer was, " Be- lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," it seems to follow that, if he believed, it mattered not how far he disregarded every other precept of the gospel. But the Scriptures, by all their descriptions of faith, mean to teach us that it cannot be alone. It is the principle of a divine life, by which we are united to Christ and derive from him grace and strength for the discharge of every duty. It works by love, and purifies the heart, and overcomes the world. So we read in Scripture of a life of faith, of the obedience of faith, of faith being dead, because it is without works. " Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."± Here then you will mark the place which good works hold in the Christian system. They are not the ground of oiu- acceptance with God, for the whole world, according to this system, being guilty be- fore God, we must have remained for ever excluded from his favour had good works been the condition upon which oar being received into it was suspended. "Therefore," the apostle Paul says, "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God." Neither are those the good works of a Christian, which, although fit in themselves, and profitable to those who do them, and to others, are done merely upon considerations of reason, honour, and con- science, which ought to actuate the mind in every situation. But the good works required in the gospel flow from faith, i. e. they are per- formed in the spirit of a Christian, from the motives suggested by a firm persuasion of the truth of the gospel. Good works, therefore, are stated in Scripture as the fruits and evidences of faith, the neces- sary effect of the operation of the Spirit of God. " For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them ;"§ and there thus appears to be the most perfect consistency between the doctrine of Paul and that of James. Paul says that we are not justified by any thing that we can do ourselves, but freely by grace, through faith in the blood of Christ. James says, Show me thy faith by thy works; *2Tim. i. 9. f Ephcs. ii. 1, 8. ^ Gal. V. 6 ; ii. 20. Acts xv. 9. 1 John v. 4. Rom. i. 5 : iii. 31. James ii. 12. § Ephes. ii. 10. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 183 faith without works is dead, as the body without the spirit. And he conckides, that a man is justified not by faith only, i. e. by such a faith as does not produce what Paul had stated to be tiie constant effect of true faith, but by that faith which by worlds is made perfect. As the gospel calls men, by motives peculiar to itself, and with an energy which no other system ever possessed, to the practice of righteousness, so it is uniformly supposed in Scripture, that the fol- lowers of Jesus are to be distinguished by the zeal and constancy with which they abound in the work of the Lord. " The question of our Lord, " What do ye more than others .'"' and such expressions as these, " being dead to sin," " crucifying the flesh with the affec- tions and lusts," "being alive unto God," "putting on the new man," " walking after the Spirit," imply an eminence and uniformity of virtues, a light which shines before men. That innocence which the laws of our country enjoin, that measure of virtue which a regard to public opinion or even the principles of natural religion require, falls very far short of the evangelical standard. It is the duty of a Chris- tian to aspire after perfection, yet never to count that he has attained it ; to forsake the vices of others, and to endeavour to excel their virtues, yet to be deeply sensible of his own imperfection, and ready to allow his brethren all the praise which they deserve ; to fill up his life with the various exertions of active, difiusive, disinterested benevolence, yet to guard against the emotions of vanity, and that spirit of ostentation by which a good deed loses all its value ; and to ascribe the honour of his progress in virtue, not to his natural disposi- tion, to his own diligence and watchfulness, or to any concurrence of favourable circumstances, but to that God who called him to the knowledge of tiie Gospel, to that Saviour by the faith of whom he lives, and to that Spirit by whose influence he is sanctified. The Scriptures assure us that the good works which thus proceed from faith, although imperfect in degree and mingled with many infirmities, are well pleasing in the sight of God through Jesus Christ. He, in allusion to the Jewish law, is represented as the high priest over the house of God, who, having yielded a perfect obedience to the divine law, has no occasion to make any offering for his own sins, but appears in the presence of God for his people.* And the good works which they perform through the streivgth which his Spirit imparts, are styled spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by him.t The Almiglity lifts the light of his countenance upon those who offer this sacrifice ; he admits them into his family ; he rejoices over them to do them good ; he chastens them with the tenderness of a father ; he seals them by his Spirit unto the day of redemption ; and he will receive them hereafter to that incorruptible inheritance, which is not due to their services, but a reward of grace, purchased by the death of Christ, secured by his intercession, and " reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." It appears then from the Scriptures, that the religion of Jesus, having for its ultimate design the removal of those evils which sin ♦ Heb. vii. 25—28. f ^ ^^^^^ "* ^' 184 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. had introducBd, destroys the present dominion of sin in all true Christians. Its tendency is to restore upon the soul of man that image of God after which he was made, to revive those sentiments and desires which constitute the excellence and dignity of his nature, to elevate his affections from earth to heaven, and, at the same time, to enforce the discharge of those relative duties which his present condition renders necessary to the comfort of society. It is plain that if this religion were universally acknowledged and obeyed, the character of every individual would be rescued from the degradation of vice, and assimilated to the most exalted beings in the universe ; that the happiness of human life would receive the most substantial and permanent improvement, and that the abode of the human' race upon earth would be a stage in the progress of their existence to the perfection and the joys of heaven. It is not possible to conceive any design more worthy of the father of mankind, and more beneficial to his creatures. There is implied in the nature of this design the strongest obligation upon every reasonable being to whom the knowledge of it is communicated, to co-operate in its accomplishment : and it is especially to be remarked, in a view of the Scripture system, that this co-opera- tion is not only required by precept, but is recommended by the most illustrious examples. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost con- descended to take a part in this scheme ; the angels attend to the progress of it, rejoice in the conversion of a sinner, and are " minister- ing spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation." All the prophets and holy men in ancient times, of whom the Scriptures speak, looked forward to it, and contributed in some measure to its approach. And now that it is manifested, every one is called upon to be a worker together with God. The whole Christian world is represented as one great society, united, by their submission to the same Master and by the guidance of the same Spirit in following " after holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord ;" and " after the things — wherewith one may edify another." We are warranted to speak of this co-operation in accomplishing the great design of the gospel ; for although the Scriptures represent the blessings there revealed as acquired by the interposition of the Son of God, and the character necessary in order to a participation of them as originating from the influence of the Spirit, yet they uniformly address us in a style which supposes that there is something for us to do. We are commanded to " work out our own salvation," and we are required to help our brethren in the good ways of the Lord. We soon bewilder ourselves in our speculations, when we attempt to settle the boundaries between the agency of God and the agency of man. But the Scriptures, without condescending to enter into these discus- sions, abound in exhortations ; and we cannot suppose that our shal- low reasonings upon subjects so infinitely above our comprehension, will be sustained as an excuse for neglecting to obey precepts so often repeated and so plainly expressed. The Scriptures mention various means, which the Spirit of God employs, in producing that faith which is the principle of the Chris- tian character, and those good works which flow from this principle. Bat they have nowhere furnished any marks to distinguish the ijatural operation of these means from that agency of the Spirit, with- PECULIAR DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 185 out which they are ineffectual. " The wind," says our Lord, " bloweth where it hsteth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The Spirit may act as he Avill, but there is no warrant to expect that the conversion of any individual will be brought about in a sudden sensible manner. The exercises of a pious education, the habits of virtuous youth, the impressions fixed upon the mind by the continued instruction and conversation of the wise, may have so gradually disposed a person for receiving the Gospel in faith, that he shall not be able to- mark any great change which ever took place in the state of his soul, or the time when faith, the gift of God, was imparted to him by the Spirit. Yet this man may appear to be a Christian indeed, by bringing forth in his life those fruits of the Spirit, which are the evidences of faith. The assurance which arises from these evidences may give him that "peace of God which passeth understanding;" and the Spirit itself may bear witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. From hence we deduce the duty of using the means by which the influences of the Spirit are ordinarily conveyed, and the presumption of all who, undervaluing the means, say that the}'- wait for an extraordinary instantaneous illapse of the Spirit. H(ijice too you perceive the reason why the Scriptures repre- sent the earliest Christians, and speak of Christians in all succeeding a2:es, as a society distinguished by certain regulations and outward ordinances. If the Spirit operated immediately upon every indivi- dual, all these would be a yoke'of ceremonies. But if the heavenly gift, as well as the common bounties of Providence, is to be dispensed by the instrumentality of men, the establishment of what we call a church is necessary for "perfecting the saints, and for edifying the body of Christ." So speaks the apostle Paul. " How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? And how shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they preach except they be sent ? So faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."* The promise of our Lord to his apostles, " Lo, I am with you alwaj^'s, even to the end of the world," seems, by the terms of it, to extend to a much longer period than their ministry required ; and that it does really imply the presence of Jesus with his church in all ages, not indeed by extraordinary inspiration, but by his countenance and protection, is manifest from another declaration of his, " The gates of hell shall not prevail against ray church," and from the practice of his apostles, who ordained teachers, overseers of the flock, in every city where they preached, and who made provision that the instruction which they gave by word or writing should be transmit- ted to future generations. " The things," says Paul to Timothy, the minister of Ephesus, "That thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."t Some of the epistles of Paul contain a delineation of the form of those churches to the ministers of which he writes, and directions concerning the conduct of the several office- bearers, and concerning the exercise of discipline. There can be no ♦ Rom. X. 14, 15. f 2 Tim. ii. 2 18* 2D 186 PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. doubt that this form had been established by his authority ; and it is natural for all Christian churches to endeavour to show that their ecclesiastical institutions do not depart far from it. Yet it is nowhere said that this ought to be the form of the church universal : and there are expressions in the epistles of Paul which imply that Christians are allowed to use a prudent accommodation to circumstances in matters of external order. The spirit of Christianity calls our atten- tion to things infinitely more important than the varieties of church government. " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost:"* and those societies, whose institutions approach nearest to the apostolical prac- tice, have no warrant to condemn their brethren, who have been led by a different progress of society to establishments farther removed from it. But amidst this difference in matters of order, which the Scriptures do not condemn, there are points resulting from the design of their institution in which all churches ought to agree, otherwise they are not the churches of Christ. They must acknowledge him as their head and master, teaching no other doctrine than that form of sound doctrine, which is to be gathered from the writings of his a))ostles. They mast maintain that spiritual worship which he hath substituted in place of the idolatry of the heathen, and the ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation ; and they must observe, according to his institu- tion, the ordinances which he hath established in his church. We apply the word ordinances or sacraments to baptism and the Lord's Supper ; the first, a rite borrowed from the Jewish custom of plunging into water tiie proselytes from heathenism to the law of JMoses, but consecrated by the words of Jesus, and the universal practice of his disciples, as the mode of admitting members into the Christian society : the second, a rite which originated in the affectionate leave which our Lord took of his disciples at the domestic feast that follow- ed the celebration of the Jewish passover. The words of the institu- tion, ^' As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come,'^ imply that the Lord's supper is, by the appointment of Christ, a perpetual ordinance in the Christian church, in which there is a thankful commemoration of the benefits purchased by his death ; and the Scriptures lead us to entertain a very high conception of the spiritual effects of this ordinance with regard to those who partake of it worthily, by calling it " the com- munion of the body and the blood of Christ."f Baptism and the Lord's supper are the external badges of the Christian profession, the rites by which the author of the Gospel meant that the society which lie was to f)und should be distinguished from every other. Thej^ are most apposite to the peculiar doctrines of his religion ; there is a simplicity and significancy in them which accords with the whole character of the Gospel ; and, as they were appointed by Jesus himself, no human authorhy is entitled to add to their number, or to make any material alteration upon the manner of their being observed. Upon this account, we rank the right administration of Baptism and • Rom. xiv. 17. f 1 Cor. x. 16. PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 187 of the Lord's Supper, the preaching the "faith once delivered to the saints," and the maintenance of spiritual worship, as the marks of a Christian church. We gather all tlie three marks from the naJture of such a society, and from several places of Scripture ; and we find the three brought into one view in the description, given in the book of Acts, of the three thousand who were added to the number of the disciples by the sermon, which Peter preached ten days after the ascension of Jesus. " Then they that gladly received his word were baptized. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."* The Church of Christ, separated from the rest of the world by these marks of distinction, is not set in opposition to human government. But the gospel, without entering into any discussion of the claims made by subjects and their rulers, enforces obedience by the example of Jesus and of his apostles, and by various precepts such as these, " Render unto Cassar the things that are Caesar's." " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."t The ministers of this religion, although invested with a sacred character, and constituted by their master the spiritual rulers of that society, for whose good they labour, are not entitled to assume, in virtue of their office, any measure of civil power. They are not tlie arbiters between the parties who contend for dominion. But they co-operate with the authority of government, by their prayers, by their exhortations, and by the natural tendency of discourses composed upon the true principles of Christianity, to diffuse a general spirit of industry, sobriety, and order. Upon this account they have received, in every Christian country, the protection of the state ; and in these happy lands where we live, the establishment of that form of Church government, which was sup- posed to be most agreeable to the inclinations of the people, is incor- porated with the civil constitution. The ministers of the establish- ment have legal security for their livings. They have, in critical times, by their influence over public opinion, rendered very important services to their country; and, although that unwillingness to part with any portion of their property, which is felt by all the orders of the state, and which grows with the progrcvss of luxury, may prevent any great augmentation of the moderate provision which is made for the ministers of our church, they cannot fail, while they discharge their duty, to continue to receive the countenance, the support, and the indulgence of the legislature. • Acts ii. 41, 42. f Matt. xxii. 21. Rom. xiii. 1. 1 Pet. iL 13. 188 CHRISTIANITr OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. CHAPTER III. CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. Out of the preceding view of the Scripture system, there arise some general observations upon which I wish to fix your attention, because I think they may be of use in preparing your minds for the more particular discussions upon which we are to enter. The first observation respects the importance of Christianity. This is a subject upon which, for the reason Avhicli I mentioned in the outset, I have hitherto hardly said any thing. The common method is, to place what is called the necessity of revelation before the evidences of it, and to argue from the necessity to the probfibility of its having been given. But I have always thought this an unfair and a presumptuous mode of arguing. It appears to me, that we are so little qualified to judge what is necessary, and so little entitled to build our expectation of heavenly gifts upon our own reasonings, that the only method becoming our distance, and our ignorance of the divine counsels, is first to establish the fact that a revelation has been given, and then to learn its importance by examining its contents. Agreeably to this method, I have led you through the principal evidences of the divine mission of Jesus ; I have given a general account of the system contained in those books, which his servants wrote by inspiration ; and I now mean to deduce from that account the im- portance of what the inspired books contain. There are two views under which the importance of Christianity may be stated. We may consider the gospel as a republication of the religion of nature, or we may consider it as a method of saving sinnera. Section I. We may consider the religion of Jesus as a republication of the religion of nature. I have adopted this phrase, because, from the very respectable authority by which it has been used, as well as from its own significancy, it has becom.e a fashionable phrase ; and yet there are two capital mistakes which the unguarded use of it may oc- casion. The first is an opinion, that Christianity is merely a republi- cation of the religion of nature, containing nothing more than the doctrines and duties which may be investigated by tlie light of reason. But it follows clearly from the general view of the Scripture system, CHRISTIANITY Of INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 189 that this is an imperfect and false account of Christianity ; because in that system there are doctrines concerning the Son and the Spirit, and their offices in the salvation of men, of which reason did not give any intimation ; and there are duties resulting from the interpo- sition recorded in the gospel, which could not possibly exist till the knowledge of that interposition was communicated to man. The gospel then, professing to be more than a republication of the religion of nature, a view of its importance, proceeding upon the supposition that it is merely a republication, must be so lame as to do injustice to the system thus misrepresented.. The second mistake, which the unguarded use of this phrase may occasion, is an opinion that the religion of nature is essentially defec- tive either in its constitution, or in the mode of its being promulgated, and that the imperfection originally adhering to it called for ame.nd- ment. But this is an opinion which appears at first sight unreasonable. If the Creator intended man to be a religious creature, it is to be pre- sumed that he endowed him in the beginning with the faculty of attaining such a knowledge of the divine nature as might be the foundation of religion. If he intended him to be a moral accoinitable creature, it is to be presumed tliat he furnished him with a rule of life. These presumptions are confirmed, when we proceed to examine the subject closely ; for we cannot analyze the human mind, without dis- covering that an impression of the Supreme Being is congenial to many of its natural sentiments. There is a strain of fair reasoning, by which we are conducted, from principles universally admitted, to some knowledge of the divine attributes. There are obligations im- plied in the dependence of a reasonable bein'g upon his Creator. There is a certain line of conduct dictated by the constitution and the circumstances of man ; and there is a general expectation with regard to the future conduct of the divine government, created by that part of it which we behold, and corresponding to hopes and fears of which we cannot divest ourselves. All this makes up what we call natural religion. And it is manifestly supposed in Scripture; for we read there, that " that which may be known of God is manifest among them : for God hath shown it to them ; for the invisible things of God are clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead : so they are without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God," We read that those who had no written law "are a law to themselves, their conscience bearing witness."* And, through the whole of Scripture, there are appeals to those no- tions of God which are agreeable to right reason, and to that sense of right and wrong which is there considered as a part of the human constitution. Although, therefore, some zealous unwise friends of Christianity have thought of doing honour to revelation by depre- ciating natural religion, and although you will find that some sects of Christians have been led by their peculiar tenets to deny that man has naturally any knowledge of God, you will not suppose that all who use the phrase. Republication of the religion of nature, adopt these opinions, or even approach to them ; and you will find, that the * See Macknight's translation of Rom. ii. 15; i. 18, 19, 20. 190 CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. soundest and ablest divines consider natural religion as suited to the circumstances of man at the time of his creation. If you take the known history of the human race in conjunction with the principles of human nature, you will readily perceive that the opinion of these divines is well founded. There would undoubtedly be transmitted from the first man to his descendaius a tradition of his coming into the world, and of his finding every thing there new; and if you ad- mit the truth of the Mosaic account, this tradition, by the long lives of the first inhabitants of the earth, would pass for inany centuries through very few hands. It is to be presumed, too, even indepen- dently of the authority of Moses, that, in the infancy of the human race, there would be a more immediate intercourse between man and his Creator, than after the connections of society had been formed and established upon the earth. This tradition and this revelation might fix the attention of the posterity of the first man upon tiiose suggestions and deductions of reason, which give some knowledge of the being, the attributes, and the moral government of God ; and there might be thus a foundation laid for the universal observance of some kind of worship as the expression of gratitude and trust. From a sense of dependence upon the Creator, there would arise the feeling of obligation to serve him, so that natural religion would come in aid of the dictates of conscience ; and the obedience which man yielded to the law of morality, while by the constitution of his nature it was rewarded with inward peace, would enable him, by his apprehension of a righteous Sovereign of the universe, to look forward with good hope to those future scenes of the divine government under which he might be permitted to exist. I do not say that this complete system of pure natural religion ever was established in any country merely by reasoning : but I do say, that all the parts of it may be referred to principles of reason ; that early tradition called and directed men to apply these principles to the subject of religion ; and that, had they been properly followed out, man would have been possessed, inde- pendently of any extraordinary revelation, of a ground of religion, and a rule of life, suited to the circumstances in which he was cre- ated. Having guarded against the second mistake which I mentioned, by fixing in your minds this preliminary point, that the religion of nature was not originally defective, you proceed to consider what importance the Gospel derives from being a republication of that religion. You will begin with observing it to be very conceivable that the whole system of natural religion may admit of being proved by reason, and yet that particular circumstances may have prevented that continued exercise of reason, by which the knowledge of it might have been attained. We often see men remaining, through their own fault or neglect, ignorant of many things which they might have known; and the recency of many great discoveries is a proof how slowly the human mind advances to truth, although no one is so absurd as to infer, from the abounding of error, that truth is not agreeable to reason. If there was an early departure from the duties of natural religion, it is plain that this circumstance in the history of mankind would estrange them from that God whom they were conscious of disobeying, would weaken the original impression oftha* CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 191 law which they were breaking, and would overcast the hopes con- nected with tlie observance of it. Tlie universal tradition of the creation might, for a few generations, in some measure counterbalance this tendency. But as men spread, over the earth, the memory of the truths received from their first parents would become fainter; as their passions were excited by a multiplicity of new objects, the restraints to wliicli they had submitted in a simpler state of society would lose tlieir power, and a growing corruption of religion would accompany the progress of vice. Tliis is the very account of the matter which the apostle Paul gives us. " When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, nor were thankful, but became vain in tlieir imagi- nations, and their foolish heart was darkened ; and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God info an image made lilie to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not con- venient." Tiiese are the words of Paul in his Epistle to the Romans ; and the best commentary upon them is the religious history of the heathen world. You need not look to those savage tribes, where the faculties of the human mind, depressed by unfavourable circum- stances, have a very limited range, and man appears raised but a few degrees above the beasts with whom he associates. Recollect the polished and learned nations, whose philosopher we study, and to whose writings every scholar feels and owns his obligations ; and in their religious history you will find abundant confirmation of the words of St. Paul, Although reason was there highly cultivated ; although art and science made distinguished progress ; although the public establishments of religion were magnificent and expensive, yet the fathers of science, in respect of religious knowledge were as children, "and the world by wisdom knew not God." There was a darkness with regard to the nature of God. The knowledge of one supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of all things, the rewarder of those who seek him, the friend and protector of the good, and the avenger of the vr'icked, this most valuable knowledge was lost in the belief of a multiplicity of gods, who had the passions, the vices, the contentions of men, whose character and conduct, instead of adminis- tering comfort in distress, and strength under temptation, sunk the afflicted in despair, and corrupted the manners of the worshipper. There was a darkness with regard to the method of pleasing the gods. Multiplied sacrifices offered with much doubt, and with the fear of giving ofience, a pageantry of costly ceremonies, a wearisome round of superstitious observances, made up the religion of thehea.then, and excluded that worship in spirit and in truth, which it is the honour of a reasonable creature to ofter to the Searcher of hearts. There was a darkness with regard to the duties of life. The voice of conscience was not only left without the support of true religion, but was in many instances perverted by corrupt systems. No scholar will deny, that the laws and the constitution of ancient states cherished certain public virtues which were both useful and splendid ; and the names of many citizens will be celebrated as long as the world lasts, for heroism, the love of their country, disinterestedness, and generosity. But any person, who takes a near view of the manners of the great 192 CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. body of the people in ancient times, finds that the established system of morality was loose and debauched ; for, although the state often required great exertions from the citizens for its own preservation, no restraint was imposed upon the indulgence of many evil passions, and the grossest vices were conceived to be consistent with pure virtue. There was still greater darkness with regard to the hopes of men. The impression of a future state is so congenial to the mind of man, that it could not be effaced. But the opinions generally entertained with regard to the future place of both the good and the bad were mixed with a number of childish fables, which exposed to ridicule, and even brought into suspicion, that important truth which they only obscured. The wise men who arose in dilferent ages, although they did not implicitly adopt the vulgar errors, were not fitted to dispel this darkness. Some were led by the absurdity of the received creeds rashly to reject the fundamental articles of religion ; and that they might depart as f^^ir as possible from the superstition of their country- men, they denied tjie being of a God, or they excluded him from the government of the world. Those who did not thus contradict the natural sentiments of the human mind were unable to divest them- selves of an attachment to prevailing opinions and universal practice; and while their writings contain many traces of a rational system, they sacrificed in public to the gods of their country. Their writings and their discourses did enlighten the minds of their scholars. But these scholars were few. The great body of the people had neither leisure nor capacity to follow their investigations. But they saw that the practice of the philosophers did not, in any material respect, diff'er from their own. The authority of the wise, therefore, instead of correcting, confirmed the popular system, and that system, founded in ignorance of the true God, took deep root in the minds of men, and was established by law, by example, and by custom. I need not dwell longer upon this picture of the religious state of the heathen world. You find it drawn at full length in the books which are commonly read upon this subject, particularly in Clarke's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, in Leland's Advantages of the Christian Revelation, and in the first volume of Bishop Sher- lock's Discourses. But even from the slight sketch that has now been given, it is manifest that there is a very great difference between the system of natural religion, which we are able to deduce from princi- ples of reason, and the forms of religion which obtained in the 'most enlightened nations. It is true that the land of Judea enjoyed, from very early times, a revelation of one God. The Maker of heaven and earth was worshipped in that country for many ages without the mixture of idolatry, and a system of pure morality was contained in the books that were read in the Jewish synagogue. But the revela- tion which distinguished this narrow district was not intended, and was not fitted, to be the light of the world. At the time of our Saviour's birth, it was obscured by tradition ; and the law given to the children of Israel, instead of being able to correct the prevailing superstition, stood in need of a more spiritual interpretation than it received from the Jewish doctors. But whatever was the measure of light which the Jews enjoyed, it extended in very scanty uncertain portions to Other nations, and they were, as the apostle speaks, " without God, CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 193 and without hope in the world," till the pure system of natural reli- gion which they had lost was republished in the gospel. It appears, then, from the religious history of the world, that a re- publication of the religion of nature was most desirable. And when you attend to the gospel, you will find that it not only contains the knowledge which was lost, but is peculiarly fitted by its character to give such a republication as the circumstances that have been stated seem to require. Those notions of the being, the attributes, and the government of God, which, as soon as they are proposed, appear most agreeable to right reason, are delivered by a teacher who was sent from heaven to declare God to man. That law, which the Al- mighty wrote in the beginning upon the human heart, is taught by authority as the will of our Creator; and the hope of future recom- pense is established by his promise. The manifest signatures of a divine interposition, which attended the introduction of tlie gospel, rouse the attention of the world to the system there republislied ; the form in which that system is delivered renders it level to the capaci- ties of every one ; and the institutions of the gospel perpetuate the instruction which it conveys. It is particularly to be remarked upon this subject, that the simpli- city which distinguishes the gospel, corresponds in the most adnjirable manner to its character, as a republication of the religion of nature. The ancient philosophers were accustomed to exercise their reason in profound and subtle disquisitions, and valued any system according to the depth and acuteness of thought which it discovered. There are many points respecting the nature of the soul, the manner of its ex- istence, and its operations, which they had investigated with much care, and which, after all their research, they found involved in much darkness. But such speculations, however agreeable an aniusement they afibrd to a thinking mind, form no part of natural religion ; and accordingly they do not enter into the republication of it. There is not in the gospel any delineation of the nature and properties of spiritual substances, or any solution of those questions about which the ancient schools were divided. All abstruse points are left just where they were ; and the important practical truths, in which the learned and the unlearned are equally concerned, are rested not upon long deductions of reasoning, which the great body of the people find themselves incapable of following, but upon an authority which they are at no loss to apprehend, the simple assertion of men who bring with them the most satisfying evidence that they speak the truth. The order and precision of a philosophical system might have pleased the learned. But had the gospel condescended, in this respect, to assimilate itself to works of human genius, it would have borne on its face this manifest inconsistency, that while it professed to teach doctrines of equal importance to all, it taught them in a manner which few only could understand. That it might be of universal use, and might truly supply what was wanting, it came at first "not with ex- cellency of speech, or of wisdom," but with great plainness of words, accompanied with the demonstration of the Spirit. The book in which this republication is handed down, from the historical form of some parts, and the familiar epistolary style of others, imprints itself 19 2 E 194 CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE. deeply upon every understanding, mingles itself readily with the habits and modes of thinking of ordinary men, and is retained in the memory, so as to be easily applied upon every occasion. Those who are not accustomed to form general views, to connect in their minds the parts of a whole, or to act systematically, carry away from the reading of this book detached sentences and precepts, which minister to their comfort and improvement : and even when their quotations discover narrow or mistaken notions of theology, their hearts are made better by the facility with which the quotations occur. To all this there must be added that popular and familiar mode of instruction, which the institutions of the gospel furnish. The crowd of worshippers, who assembled in a heathen temple to behold a splendid sacrifice, retired without any rational conceptions of the Supreme Being. No attempt was made to connect the ordinary services of religion with the information of the great body of the people, and lessons of morality were confined to the schools of the philosophers. But all who live in a Christian country enjoy, by the republication of natural religion, a standhig kind of admonition, with which the world was unacquainted in former ages. Those truths and those duties which are intimately connected with the happiness of society as well as with the eternal interests of man, are placed before them in a language which every one that is willing to hear may understand. Persons, who feel themselves unequal in every other respect, are admitted to receive the same benefit and consolation. The ignorant are enlightened, and the careless are put in remem- brance. And thus, as we formerly found that the system of natural religion contained in the books of the New Testament is infinitely more per- fect than any that had been published before, as we found also that the growing improvement of those that have been published since eannot reasonably be ascribed to any other cause than to the benefit which they derived from this republication, so to the same cause we may ascribe the universal diff"usion of the principles of natural religion "in every Christian country. The public establishment of Christianity is a standing memorial, a perpetual remembrancer of the fundamental truths of religion, and the great duties of life. It has given the vulgar in our days more sound and enlarged conceptions of the nature and government of God, of the extent of our obligations and our hopes, than almost any philosopher in ancient times was able to attain ; and it is not easy to find any words, which so perfectly express the dif- ference between the heathen world and those countries where Chris- tianity is professed in simplicity and purity, as the words by which, Jeremiah foretold the change. " After those days," saith the Lord, " I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts: And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord ; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."* The sum of what has been said upon the first view of the impor- tance of Christianity is this. The gospel is a republication of the religion of nature, imparting that knowledge upon this subject, which • Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 195 is agreeable to the deductions of the most enhghtened reason, but which unfavourable circunristances had prevented any man from attaining by means of reason, removing those errors to which no other method of instruction had applied any effectual remedy, and diffusing by its institutions, to men of every condition, the information, the instruction, and the comfort which it conveys. If knowledge be better than ignorance, if, of all kinds of knowledge, an acquaintance with the principles of true religion contribute the largest share to the consolation and improvement of human life; and if this most valuable knowledge be now rendered accessible, extensive, and permanent, — Christianity, which has accomplished so happy a change by repub- lishing the religion of nature, is in this view most important. It deserves to be received with thankfulness, to be cherished with care, to be honoured and encouraged by every friend of mankind. He, whose discourse or example recommends Christianity to others, con- tributes by so doing to preserve and to spread the light that is in the world. He, who employs any means to depreciate the public estab- lishment of Christianity, does so (ay contribute to extinguish that light, and (o bring back those times of heathen darkness, from which this republication of natural religion hath rescued a great part of the human race. Section II. The general account of the Scripture system presented Christianity to us as a remedy for the depravity which has pervaded the human race. I am now to illustrate its importance considered in this view. Although the religion of nature be liable to be obscured by the general practice of vice, yet if it were fitted by its original constitution to be the religion of a sinner, nothing more than a republication would at any time be required, in order to render it suitable to the circum- stances of man. But even after the religion of nature has been restored in its original purity, the provision made by it for the com- fort, the direction, and the hope of man, is inadequate to the new situation in which he is placed, by being a sinner. In this new situation, the deformity, the weakness, the depravity of mind, which belong to sin, enter into his condition ; he is also a transgressor of the divine law, and as such is liable to the consequences of transgression. But religion cannot exist in such a situation, without the knowledge of some method of obtaining pardon. For the expression which you read in the 1 30th Psalm, is strictly accurate. " If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who shall stand ? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared ;" i. e. there can be no fear of God, no religion to a sinner, unless there be forgiveness with God: and, therefore, the' first thing to be considered in judging of the im- portance of Christianity under this second view is. What are the hopes of forgiveness in the religion of nature ? From whence are these hopes derived ? It is manifest, that the hopes of forgiveness are not necessarily con- nected with that law which the relia;ion of nature delivers. A law 196 CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. enjoins obedience, promises reward, it may be, to those who obey and always denounces punishment against those who disobey. It would destrov itself, if it were delivered in these terms : You are com- manded to obey, but you shall be forgiven although you transgress. The hopes of forgiveness, then, are to be sought in «£)me part of the religion of nature distinct from the law. But d .s not pretended that the religion of nature contains any specific promise of forgiveness, the record of which may be pleaded by transgressors as a bar to the full execution of the sanctions of the law. It is not possible to show the place where such a record is to be found. And therefore there is no source from which the hopes of forgiveness can be drawn under the religion of nature, but those general notions of the compassion of God, from which it may appear probable that he will accept of the repentance of a sinner, and reinstate in his favour those who have oifended him, when they return to their duty. It is admitted, by all who have just notions of the divine character, that the same process of reasoning, which conducts us to the knowledge of the being of God. establishes in our minds a belief of his goodness. It is natural to think, that the goodness of the Supreme Being, when exercised to frail fallible creatures, will assume the form of compassion or long suffering. We see, in the course of his Providence, various instances of a delay or mitigation of punishment; and there are many appear- ances, which clearly indicate that we live under a merciful constitu- tion. But we are by no means warranted from them to draw this general conclusion, that all who repent will finally be forgiven under the Divine government. You will be satisfied that this conclusion goes very far beyond the premises,if you attend to the following circum- stances. The same process of reasoning which leads us to the belief of the goodness of God, ascertains also his holiness, his wisdom, and his justice, all of which seem to require the punishment of sinners. It is true those perfections, of which our conceptions lead us to speak as separate from one another, unite in the Deity with entire harmony to form one purpose, and that there never can be any opposition among them in the Divine mind, or in the execution of the Divine counsels. But it is impossible for us to say how far any particular exercise of justice or of goodness is consistent with this harmony ; and it is manifest that every reasoning, which proceeds upon a partial view of the divine character, must be insecure. Further, we are not acquainted with the relations which subsist amongst the parts of the universe. But, we can suppose that reasons of the divine conduct, inexplicable to us, may arise from these relations ; and even in that part of the universe which is most open to our observation, although we cannot always account for the limitations of the divine goodness, we can mark instances where the long suffering of God seems to be exhausted, where repentance ceases to be of any avail, and men are left to endure, without alleviation, all the evils which they had incurred by transgression. It is possible, that instances of this kind, which are very numerous, may be mingled with the examples of compassion in the Divine government to guard us against the conclu- sion which repeated compassion might seem to warrant, to give us warning that the time for repentance has an end, and that, in the final issue of the system in which we are placed, the obstinate transgressors CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 197 of divine law shall bear without remedy the full weight of that punisluiient wliicii they deserve. But even although there were not so many analogies in nature, conspiring to show that repentance is not always efficacious, the bare inipossibili-ty of demonstrating, from any known principles, tliat every penitent shall be forgiven, is sufficient to evince the infinite impor- tance of Christianity. If the religion of nature, with all those intima- tions of the divine goodness, which are the ground of trust and hope to those who obey, does not give a positive assurance that it is con- sistent with the nature and government of God to forgive all who transgress, then it is plain that the new situation, into which men are brought by being sinners, renders a promise of pardon most desirable to them, because without this special declaration of the divine will, their religion must rest upon a very precarious foundation ; and tlierefore the Gospel, whose peculiar character it is to contain such a declaration, which publishes the forgiveness of sins through the blood of him, by whom all that believe are justified, and have peace with God, deserves the name of fDayymoi/, good tidings, better than any other message which the world ever heard, and is in truth the best gift which heaven could bestow. It is further to be observed, that while the religion of nature leaves the reason of a sinner to struggle with his passions, and does not revive his soul, under the experience of his weakness, by the assurance of his receiving any assistance in the con- flict, the Gospel contains a promise of grace as well as of pardon. It confirms the law of his mind by those influences of the Spirit, which we stated as perfectly consistent with the reasonable nature of man, and while it publishes the remission of sins that are past, places him in circumstances so favourable to his moral improvement as may prevent a repetition of sins. That progress in virtue, which the grace of the Gospel forms, is connected with the hope of a reward which is in- finitely more precious than the most exalted creature of God can claim as a recompeuce due to his obedience, but which, having been pur- chased by the death of Christ, is reserved in heaven to crown the feeble divided services of a degenerate race, and the security of which is so completely incorporated with the whole constitution of the law, that no doubt of this unmerited gift being at length conferred can remain in the breasts of those who live under the power of the Christian religion. From the circumstances that have been mentioned, you may mark the precise diff"erence between the religion of nature and the religion of Christ. The former has no original defect. When properly under- stood, i. e. when conclusions are fairly and fully drawn from premises which the light of reason may discover, it includes the most exalted views of the perfections of God, and of his moral government, and a complete delineation of the duties of man as a creature of God, an individual, and a member of society. But being, by its constitution, the reliafion of those who perform their duty, it holds forth only general doubtful grounds of hope to those who transgress. The gospel, on the other hand, having been revealed after transgression was introduced, and professing to be the religion of sinners, makes an adequate provision for the new situation of man. It is this differ- ence which constitutes the infinite importance of Christianity. A 19* 198 CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE. remedy is there offered for that state of depravity which is acknow- ledged to be universal. The remedy is complete in its nature. But it is not of use to those by whom it is rejected. In what degree its efficacy may extend to those who never heard of it, we have no warrant to say. But it is most reasonable, that those, who refuse the remedy when it is offered to them, should remain under the disease. The disease was not created by the gospel ; it existed before-hand, and unless it be removed, the natural effects of it must be felt. The Scripture, therefore, says, that " he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him,"* i. e. the sentence of condemnation, which his sins deserve, retains its force. And he cannot surely complain, if when he despises the deliverance which the gospel brings, he continues in the same state in which the whole world would have been, if there had been no gospel. Hitherto we have deduced the importance of Christianity from its suitableness to the present circumstances of man, from the value of the blessings which are peculiar to this religion, and from this plain position, that a rejection of it necessarily implies a forfeiture of its peculiar blessings. But we have not yet exhausted the subject, and there remain some awful views of the importance of Christianity, which imply that the rejection of it is not only a forfeiture of bless- ings, but is attended with a high degree of positive guilt. In order to enter into these views, you will recollect, from the general account of the Scripture system, that the manner in which the assurance of pardon is conveyed by the gospel discloses to us the Son and the Spirit of God, two persons, of whose existence the light of nature had not given any intimation, but who, by their active interposition in our behalf, claim the reverence and gratitude of all to whom that interposition is made known. The sentiments, which it becomes us to entertain towards any person, correspond to the knowledge that we have of his character and his exertions. And therefore as the first duties of natural religion respect the God and Father of all, who is made known to us by his works, so there are duties resulting immediately from that knowledge of the Son and the Spirit which is communicated by the gospel ; and a failure in these duties is as truly a breach of morality as any transgression of the law of nature. It may be said, indeed, that these duties are binding only upon those who study the revelation of the gospel, and that if any person willingly remains ignorant of the peculiar nature of that interposition which it records, he is not answerable for neglecting the duties created by that interposition. But it will readily occur to you, in answer to this objection, that a reasonable creature is as much bound to make himself acquainted with the extent of his duty, as to perform it after it is known : and you will find that the plea, drawn from wilful ignorance or unbelief to excuse the neglect of the peculiar duties of the gospel, is diametrically opposite to the declarations of Scripture. We read there, that "he that believeth not is condemned," for this very reason, " because he hath not believed on the name of the Son of God."f His unbelief is the cause of his condemnation. The • John iii. 36. f John iii. 18. CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE. l99 enemies of Christianity have formed, out of such declarations, a very- heavy charge against our religion. They say that the gospel means to threaten men into a belief of its doctrines, and that the manner in which we are now stating the importance of Christianity is calculated to supply the defect of evidence by working upon the principle of fear, and to force assent in spite of reason. We admit that if this charge were true, the gospel would indeed be unworthy of God, and unworthy of man. We admit that authority never can supply the place of truth, and that not even the immediate prospect of danger can compel a reasonable creature, to yield his assent without sufficient evidence. But, at the same time, we assert, that it is often incumbent upon a reasonable creature to exercise his reason, and that he may deserve punishment for refusing his assent when sufficient evidence is offered him. In common life, we meet with many instances where men bring calamities upon themselves and their families, by not believing what they would have believed, if they had bestowed pro- per attention. It is therefore no new doctrine, and it is perfectly analogous to the ordinary procedure of the Divine government, that men should suffer for unbelief; and in the case of the gospel, there are circumstances which render unbelief, in a peculiar degree, criminal. The gospel contains the strongest call which a reasonable creature can receive, to exercise his reason in judging of evidence. It professes to be a message from God, the author of human nature, affording man that assistance in recovering the dignity and happiness of his nature, of which he is conscious that he stands in need. The person, who delivered this gracious and seasonable message, appealed to a series of prophecies meant to prepare the world for his coming, and to works of his own, far exceeding human power. Unlike the former servants of heaven, he called himself the Son of God ; and he introduced his doctrine, not as a temporary institution, looking forward to something beyond itself, but as a complete, universal, and unchangeable religion. " Last of all," says Jesus, " he sent unto them his Son, saying, they will reverence my Son." We behold here every circumstance, which is fitted to rouse attention, and which can render inattention unpardonable. That the most exalted Spirit should refuse to listen to any thing which bore the name of a message from his Creator, were presumption. But, that a feeble imperfect creature, who is conscious that he has offended God, should precipitately reject a religion which brings the offers of mercy, were madness. It might be expected, that, even although he doubted of its truth, he would eagerly examine it, because, if it be true, it brings him the most joyful tidings, and, if it be true, to reject it is to reject the counsel of God against himself, and to exclude himself from all future hope of mercy. For you will notice, and it is an awful consideration which places the importance of Christianity in the strongest light, that, how- ever men might flatter themselves, under the §imple religion of nature, with general reasonings concerning divine mercy, the moment that a special revelation is published, promising the mercy of God upon certain terms, and disclosing a particular manner of dispensing pardon to those who repent, these general reasonings are at an end. If every one must admit that God knows better than we do, what is becoming his nature and consistent with his administration, it follows 200 CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE undeniably that it is most presumptuous in those who acknowledge that pardon is necessary, to reject the particular method of dispensing pardon that is revealed, and yet still to build upon uncertain reason- ings an expectation that it will be dispensed. If the words which Jesus uttered be true, the hopes of nature are included in the hopes of the gospel, and no hope is left to those who, neglecting the "great salvation spoken by the Lord," betake themselves to the religion of nature. " This," then, " is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It is supposed by your profession that you understand and acknowledge the infinite importance of Christianity considered in this view ; and it will be your peculiar business to impress upon the minds of others a sense of that importance. For this purpose you must "be ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you ;" you must show, by your manner of defending Chris- tianity, that you are not afraid of the Ught, and that you consider the evidences of Christianity as capable of bearing the narrowest scru- tiny, and those whom you call to receive it as entitled to examine into the truth. But your chief difficulty will be to bring them to this examination with a fair unprejudiced mind. You will meet with many who ascribe to want of evidence, or to a peculiarity in their understanding, what does in fact proceed from an evil heart. You have to encounter that pride which refuses to submit to the righteous- ness of God, and those evil passions, which, because they do not ex- pect to receive indulgence under the gospel, create a secret wish that it were false. If your labours, performed with good intention, with diligence, with prudence, and with ability, shall, through the blessing of God, overcome these obstacles, shall form in the minds of your hearers what our Lord calls a good and honest heart, and shall estab- lish their faith upon a rational foundation, you will not only promote the welfare of society by teaching in the most effectual manner the great duties of morality, but you will be the instruments in the hand of God of saving the souls of men from death, and so carrying for- ward the great purpose for which this dispensation of grace was given. I have chosen throughout this chapter to avoid a phrase which you often hear, the necessity of the Christian revelation, because that phrase, when unguardedly used, is apt to convey improper notions. It may be conceived to imply, that God was in justice bound to grant this revelation ; whereas it should always be remembered, in theolo- gical discussions, that sinners have no claim to any thing, and that the gospel is a free gift proceeding from the unmerited grace of God, for the bestowing or withholding of which He is in no degree accounta- ble to any of his creatures. The phrase, necessity of the Christian revelation, may also be conceived to imply, that it was impossible for God, in any other way, to save the world ; whereas we have no prin- ciples that can enable us to judge what it is possible for God to do. We investigate, according to the measure of our understanding, the fitness of that which he has done. But there is an irreverence in our saying confidently, that infinite wisdom could not have devised other ways of accomplishing the same end. I have chosen rather to speak CHRISTIANITY OF INFINITE IMPORTANCE. 201 of the desirableness and the importance of Christianity, whicli imply all that should be meant by the necessity of it, viz. that it republishes with clearness and authority the religion of nature ; that it gives the penitent that assurance of pardon which the religion of nature did not affoi'd them; that it brings along with it an indispensable obliga- tion upon those to whom it is made known to examine its evidence : and that it leaves those who wantonly reject it to perish in their sins. I have spoken of this subject with an earnestness and seriousness suited to its nature. You often hear it stated from the pulpit, and there are many printed sermons where it is fully illustrated. It enters into most of the books which treat of the evidences of Christianity. But it requires from you a particular study ; and when you have leisure to bestow close attention upon it, I would recommend to you to read the ablest book that ever was written against the importance of Christianity, I mean Tindal's book, entitled, Christianity as old as the Creation. The object of the book is to show, that the law given to man at his creation was complete ; that it is published in the most perfect manner ; that it does not admit of amendment ; and that the additions, which succeeding revelations profess to make to it, are a proof that these revelations are spurious. The positions of this book, then, if they be true, completely annihilate the importance of Chris- tianity; for they go thus far, to show that there is nothing in the gospel true, but what was from the beginning contained in the reli- gion of nature, and published more universally, and with much less danger of error, by being written on the heart of man, than by being recorded in the books of the New Testament. I would not advise you to read this book, which is written with great art, without at the same time reading some of the answers to it. Leland, on the Advan- tages of the Christian Revelation, has given a full picture of the reli- gious and moral state of the world, when the gospel was published, which demonstrates that there is much false colouring in Tindal's book. Foster also, the author of Sermons and Discourses on Natural Religion, has written against Tindal. But the most complete answer, which ought to be read by every student who reads Tindal, is Cony- beare's Defence of Revealed Religion. There have been few abler divines than Bishop Conybeare. He had a clear logical understand- ing, and his talents were whetted and called forth by very formidable antagonists. He was contemporary with Lord Bolinsbroke, whose numerous writings against Christianity are replete with false philo- sophy, malicious misrepresentations of facts, and keen satire. Lord Bolingbroke used to say, that it cost more trouble to demolish Cony- beare's out-works, than to take the citadel of any of his other oppo- nents; an expression which implies, that this divine took always strong ground, and knew well where to rest his defence. Accordingly in his answer to Tindal's book, he has detected all its sophisms and equivocations : he has affixed a precise meaning to his words, and has shown, in a train of the most convincing and masterly reasoning, that that republication of the religion of nature, and that method of redemption, which the gospel contains, were most desirable ; and that these views of the importance of Christianity are not inconsistent with the original perfection which every sound theist ascribes to the law of nature. Bishop Conybeare's book is a complete illustration of the 2 F 202 CHRISTIANITY OP INFINITE IMPORTANCE. importance of Christianity. But there are three other names which cannot be omitted at this time. Clarke, in his Evidences, has stated fully what is commonly called the necessity of revelation. In the first volume of Sherlock's Discourses, which is almost wholly occupied with this subject, you find those luminous views which distinguish the writings of that eminent prelate ; and Bishop Butler, in the first chapter of the second part of his Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, with rather less obscurity than is found in other chapters of that precious treatise, but with no less depth of thought, has stated, in a short compass, the importance of Christianity. Leland on the Christian Revelation. Foster on Natural Religion. Coiiybeare's Defence of Revealed Religion. Clarke's Evidences. Sherlock's Discourses. Butler's Analogy. Paley's Evidences. Brown against Tindal. Haly burton on Deiam. DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. 203 CHAPTER IV. DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. A si-coND general observation arising out of the short account of the Scripture system, is this, that we may expect to find in that sys- tem many things which we do not fully comprehend. Deistical writers urge this as an objection against the gospel. They say that it is the very character of revelation to make every thing plain, but that a system which contains mysteries, leaves us still in the dark, and therefore, that the mysteries with which the gospel abounds, are a convincing evidence that it did not proceed from the God of light and truth. The same word, mysteries, which generally enters into the statement of this objection, occurs often in the writings and the dis- courses of many pious Christians, who mean to speak of the gospel with the highest reverence. And yet, there is reason to think, that neither the former class of writers, nor the latter, have paid a proper attention to the Scripture use of the word. Upon this account, be- fore I proceed to answer the objection by illustrating my second ob- servation, I shall state the sense in which the Scriptures use the word mystery, and in so doing shall explain the reason why I choose to avoid that word upon this subject. The ceremonies of the ancient heathen worship were of two kinds. Some were public, performed openly in the temple, before the great body of the people who were supposed to join in them. Others were private, performed in a retired place, often in the night, far from the view of the multitude ; and they were never divulged to the crowd, but were communicated only to a few enlightened worshippers. The persons to whom these secret rites were made known, were said to be initiated ; and the rites themselves were called i^vatrj^M- Every god had his secret as well as his open worship ; and hence various mys- teries are occasionally mentioned by ancient writers. " But," says Dr. Warburton, who has investigated this subject in his Divine Lega- tion of Moses, " of all the mysteries, those which bore that name by way of eminence, the Eleusinian, celebrated at Athens in honour of Ceres, were by far the most renowned, and, in course of time, eclipsed, and almost swallowed up the rest. Hence Cicero, speaking of Eleusina, says, ubi iiiitiantiir gentes orarum ultimse.''* I have quoted this passage from Warburton, because it contains the reason why you seldom read of any other than the Eleusinian mysteries, although the word had originally a general acceptation. The theme of the word is ^two, occludo, from whence comes jwdew^ in sacris instituOy • Vol. ii. book ii. 4. 204 DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. referring to the silence which the initiated were required to observe , and from f^vao comes fivatr;^i.ov^ the amount of which may be considered as equivalent to arcanum. The writers of the New Testament have adopted this word, which was at that time well understood ; and it is used by them in a variety of insletnces to denote that which God had purposed, but which was not known to men till he was pleased to reveal it. When the disciples of Jesus came to him, and said, " Why speakest thou to the people in parables?" his answer was. Matt. xiii. 11, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given," i. e. there are circumstances respecting the nature and the history of my religion, which I explain clearly to you my disciples by whom it is to be pub- lished, but which it is proper at present to convey to the people un- der the disguise of parables. You will not understand however, from these words, that there were always to continue, under the religion of Jesus, two kinds of instruction, one for the initiated, and one for the vulgar ; for our Lord had said to these very disciples a little be- fore, Matt. X. 26, 27, " There is nothing covered that shall not be rev^ealed, and hid that shall not be known. What I tell you in dark- ness, that speak ye in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house tops." Accordingly, when the apostles came forth to execute their commission; the character under which they appeared is thus expressed by Paul, 1 Cor. iv. 1 : " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God:" dispensers of that knowledge which was communicated to us first, for this very purpose, that we might be the instruments df convey- ing it to others. Paul calls the gospel. Col. i. 26, — "The mystery hid from ages and from generations, but now made manifest to his saints," hid from ages, because it was not investigated by reason, and must have remained for ever unknown, if it had not been declared by God in his word. The rejection of the Jewish nation, who had always considered themselves as the favourite people of heaven, is called a mystery, Rom. xi. 25, because it was very opposite to the opinions and expectations of men; and for the same reason, the calling of the heathen by the gospel to partake of all the privileges of the people of God is in many places styled a mystery. Ephes. iii. 3, 5, 6. I men- tion only one other instance, 1 Cor. xv. 51. The resurrection of the body is called a mystery, because, although many philosophers had speculated concerning the immortality of the soul, it had never en- tered into the minds of any that the body was to rise. Dr. Campbell, in the first volume of his new translation of the gospels, has one dissertation upon the word mystery. He states that the leading sense of i^.vati^^i.ov^ in the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament, is arcanum, any thing not published to the world, though perhaps communicated to a select number. Wirh his usual accurate and minute attention, he mentions another meaning very nearly related to the former, or more properly only a particular application of that general meaning. It is sometimes employed to denote the figurative sense, which is conveyed under any table, parable, allegory, symbolical action, or dream. The reason of this application is obvious. The literal meaning of a fable is open to the senses: the spiritual meaning requires penetration aiid reflection, and DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. 205 is known only to the intelligent. In Rev. i, 20, and xvii. 7, John saw the fignres, but he did not understand the meaning intended to be conveyed by them, till it was explained to him by the angel. To him it v/as arcanum. There is an allusion to this import of the word mystery in Mark iv. 11. " Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God ; but unto them that are without, all thes(! things are done in parables." The Eleusinian mysteries being accessible only to the initiated, the early Christians, to whom the language and the practice of the heathen were familiar, transferred to the Lord's Supper the word mysteries; because from that ordinance were excluded the catechumens, who had not yet been baptized, and the penitents, who had not yet been restored to the communion of the church. It was administered only to those who had been initiated by baptism ; and from fear of persecution it was often administered in the night. On account of this secrecy, and the select number of communicants, strangers might apprehend a similarity between the Lord's Supper and the heathen mysteries ; and from whomsoever this use of the word originated, the Christians might not be unwilling to retaiti it, as conveying, according to the language of the times, an exalted conception of their distinguishing rites. It appears then, from this deduction, that there are three accepta- tions of the word ^uDurj^^iov. In the New Testament it is used to express that which God had purposed from the beginning, which was not known till he was pleased to reveal it, but which by the revelation was shown and made manifest. With early ecclesiastical writers, it means the solemn positive rites of our religion; and so, in the com- munion service of the church of England, the elements after conse- cration are called holy mysteries. In modern theological writings, and in the objections of the deists, mystery denotes that which is in its nature so dark and incomprehensible, that it cannot be understood after it is revealed. As this sense is really opposite to the sense in which the Scriptures use the word mystery, it appears to me advisa- ble, both in discourses to the people, and in theological discussions, to choose other expressions for denoting that which cannot be compre- hended. But although, by avoiding an unscriptural use of a Scripture word, we may guard against the abuses and mistakes which the change of its meaning has probably occasioned, yet we readily admit that there are, in the Scripture system of the gospel, many points which we do not fully comprehend. And this is so far from being a solid objection to the gospel, that to every wise inquirer it appears to arise from the nature of that dispensation. In order to account for the difficulties which are found in the revelation made by the gospel, we may follow the same division which occurred when we were speaking of the importance of Christianity, and consider the gospel as a republication of the religion of nature, and as a method of saving sinners. 1. Even were the gospel nothing more than a republication of the religion of nature, we could not expect to find every -hing in it plain ; for we have experience that many points in natural religion, concern- ing the evidence of which we do not entertain any doubt, are to our understanding full of difficulties. We have very indistinct concep- tions of the nature of spirits, or of the manner in which spirit acts 20 206 DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. upon matter. The eternity and infinity of God are connected with all the intricate speculations concerning time and space. The origin of evil, under the government of a Being, whose wisdom and good" ness are not restrained by any want of power, has perpk'xed the human mind ever since it began to reason ; and liberty, '^h*" very essence of morality, appears to be afi'ected by that dependence of a moral agent upon the infliience of a superior Being, wiiich is insepa- rable from the notion of his being a creature of God. Reason is unable to solve all the difficulties that have been started upon these points, yet she draws, from premises within her reach, this conclusion, that a Spirit who exists in all times and places exercises a moral government over free agents. Revelation has given assurance to this conclusion, has diffused the knowledge of it, and inculcates with authority the practical lessons which it implies. But revelation, far from professing to enter into the speculations connected with this conclusion, leaves man, with regard to many metaphysical questions that have no influence upon his virtue or happhiess, in the same dark- ness which all the sages of antiquity experienced. A clear explica- tion of these points, supposing it possible, might have afforded amuse- ment to a few inquisitive minds. To the great body of mankind, for whose sake the religion of nature is republished in the gospel, it is insignificant, and would have only loaded a system whose simplicity is fitted to render it of universal use, with subtleties which the gene- rality find neither interesting nor intelligible. Such an explication, then, would have been of little importance. I said, supposing it possible ; for they who demand it, know not what they ask. Diffi- culties in any subject are merely relative to the understanding and opportunities of those who consider it. As a child cannot form any conception of the nature of the exertion which is made, or of the object which is proposed in many of the employments of men : as a man, whose mind has been untutored, or whose observation has been narrow, wonders at the discoveries of Astronomy, or the refined operations of art, and while he believes that both exist, is incapable of apprehending the principles upon which they proceed : so it is likely that we feel ourselves involved in an inextricable labyrinth upon questions, which superior orders of being can easily resolve. We inhabit a spot in the creation of God. We are placed in a system consisting of many parts, the relations and dependencies of which are beyond our observation ; and our faculties in vain attempt to explore the intimate essence of those objects which are most familiar to us. There are measures of knowledge to which our condition is manifestly not suited. There is a degree of mental exertion of which we may be supposed incapable. " Now we see through a glass darkly ;" and it is forgetting our condition and our character, to ask that every thing in nature should at present be made plain to our apprehension. It there be such a thing as Natural Religion, the comfort and improve- ment which it administers cannot imply a kind of illumination, which man is not qualified to receive. They must be compatible with tiie rank which he holds in the intellectual system, and they may leave him unacquainted with many parts of that system, the whole extent o-f which he is at present incapable of apprehending. It cannot, therefore, be stated as an objection to the gospel, tliat while, bv DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. 207 republishing the reUgion of nature, it restores that comfort and im- provement in the most perfect manner, it keeps his knowledge confined within the limits suited to his condition. Other orders of spirits may clearly apprehend the nature of objects, and the solution of questions, to which his faculties are inadequate ; because the knowledge of them is not, in any degree, necessary for his enjoy- ment of the portion, or his discharge of the duties, assigned him by his Creator. 2. If difficulties belong to the Gospel, as it is a republication of the religion of nature, we may expect to meet with more difficulties, when we consider it in its higher character, as the religion of sinners. By this character, the Gospel makes provision for a new situation, which had brought upon men evils, any remedy of which was not sug- gested by their knowledge of nature. We found tliat all those no- tions of the Divine character and government, which constitute natural religion, fail us in this new situation ; and that the assurance of par- don rests upon an interposition of the Creator. What parts of the universe may be affected by that interposition we cannot say : and it is presumptuous to think, that all the branches and the ends of it may be fully comprehended by our understanding, since it is a subject con- fessedly farther beyond our reach than any part of nature. But if the revelation of the gospel leaves no doubt that the interposition has been made, and that the effects of it with regard to us are attained, this is all the knowledge that is of real importance upon the subject. Clear evidence of the fact is sufficient to revive our hopes ; and although the manner in which the interposition is calculated to pro- duce the effect had not been, in any measure, revealed to us, we should have been in no worse situation with regard to this fact than with regard to many others in nature, most important to our being and comfort, where we know that an effect exists, but have no apprehen- sion of the kind of connexion between the effect and its cause. If this interposition involve the agency of other beings that are not made known to us by the light of nature, and if their agency be a ground of hope, or the principle of any duty, the revelation must inform us that they exist. But the knowledge of their existence and agency does not require an intimate acquaintance with their nature. There are in natural religion many intricate questions concerning the manner in which the Deity exists, that do not in the least affect the proof of his existence. The manner in which those beings exist, who are made known to us merely by revelation, may be still farther removed beyond the reach of our faculties. At any rate the knowledge of it is not necessary for the purposes of the revelation ; and, therefore, although so very little be revealed concerning them, as to leave im- penetrable darkness over all the speculations by which men attempt to investigate the manner in which they are distinguished from one another, and the manner in which they are united, still their existence and their agency may be placed beyond doubt by explicit declarations, and the reliance upon these declarations may establish, on the firmest grounds, that hope which the revelation was meant to convey. The state of the case, then, with regard to the difficulties of religion, is precisely this. We have, by reason, the means of acquiring that knowledge which the original condition of our being required, but not 208 DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. that which our curiosity may desire ; and accordingly when we launch into questions and speculations of mere curiosity, our pride is rebuked, and we are reminded that " we are of yesterday, and know nothing." The gospel, by the provision which it has made for the change in our original condition, has opened to us a state of things in many respects new, by which we perceive how very limited the range of our natural knowledge was. But this state of things is intimated, only in so far as the provision for our condition renders an intimation necessary ; and wliile all the facts of real importance to our comfort and hope are published with the most satisfying evidence, we are checked in our speculations concerning this new state of things, by the very scanty measure of light which is afforded us to guide them. This is a view of the extent of our knowledge not very flattering to our pride. But it may be favourable both to our happiness and to our improvement ; and if we are wise enough to cultivate the temper of mind which such a view is peculiarly calculated to form, we may derive much profit from the bounds which are set to our inquiries, as well as from the enlargement which is given to our hopes. There does arise, however, from this view of our knowledge, one most interesting and fundamental question, which is the subject of my third preliminary observation, What is the use of reason in matters of religion ? Butler. Sherlock. Campbell. USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. 209 CHAPTER V. USE OP REASON IN RELIGION. If the Cliristian religion contain many points which we do not fully comprehend, and if we be required to believe these points, a difficulty seems to arise with regard to the boundaries between reason and faith. This is a subject upon which it is of very great importance to form distinct apprehensions, before we proceed to a particular consi- deration of the doctrines of Christianity. When you study church history, you will find that this question has been agitated in various forms from the beginning of Christianity to this day. It is not my province to relate tiie progress of this dispute, or the different appear- ances which it has assumed. And, in truth, many of the controver- sies to which it has given occasion are insignificant, because when they are examined they appear to be purely verbal. Those who said that reason was of no use in matters of religion, sometimes meant nothing more than that religion derived no benefit from that which is really the abuse of reason, false philosophy, and the jargon of meta- physics. The argument was kept up by the equivocation between reason and the abuse of reason ; and had the disputants shown them- selves willing to understand one another by defining the terms which they used, it would have appeared that there was very little differ- ence in their opinions. But this account will not apply to all the controversies that have turned upon this question. The sublime incomprehensible nature of some of the Christian doctrines has so completely subdued the under- standing of many pious men, as to make them think it presumptuous to apply reason any how to the revelation of God ; and the many instances in which the simplicity of truth has been corrupted by an alliance with philosophy, confirm them in the belief that it is safer, as well as more respectful, to resign their minds to devout impressions, than to exercise their understandings in any speculations upon sacred subjects. Enthusiasts and fanatics of all different names and sects agree in decrying the use of reason, because it is the very essence of fanaticism to substitute, in place of the sober deductions of reason, the extravagant fancies of a disordered imagination, and to consider these fancies as the immediate illumination of the Spirit of God. Insidious writers in the deistical controversy have pretended to adopt those sentiments of humility and reverence, which are inseparable from true Christians, and even that total subjection of reason to faith which characterises enthusiasts. A pamphlet was published about 20* 2 G 210 USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. the middle of the last century, that made a noise in its day, although it is now forgotten, entitled, Christianity not Founded on Argument, which, while to a careless reader it may seem to magnify the gospel, does in reality tend to undermine our faith, by separating it from a rational assent; and Mr. Hume, in the spirit of this pamphlet, con- cludes his Essay on Miracles, with calling those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. " Our most holy reli- gion," he says, with a disingenuity very unbecoming his respectable talents, " is founded on faith, not on reason," — and "mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity." The Church of Rome, in order to subject the minds of her votaries to her authority, has re- probated the use of reason in matters of religion. She has revived an ancient position, that things may be true in theology which are false in philosopliy ; and she has, in some instances, made the merit of faith to consist in the absurdity of that which was believed. The extravagance of these positions has produced, since the Re- formation, an opposite extreme. While those who deny the truth of revelation consider reason as in all respects a sufficient guide, the So- cinians, who admit that a revelation has been made, employ reason as the supreme judge of its doctrines, and boldly strike out of their creed every article that is not altogether conformable to those notions which may be derived from the exercise of reason. These controversies, concerning the use of reason in matters of re- ligion, are disputes not about words, but about the essence of Chris- tianity. They form a most interesting object of attention to a student in divinity, because they affect the whole course and direction of his studies; and yet, it appears to me that a few plain observations are sufficient to ascertain where the truth lies in this su-bject. 1. The first use of reason in matters of religion is to examine the evidences of revelation. For the more entire the submission which we consider as due to every thing that is revealed, we have the more need to be satisfied that any system which professes to be a divine revelation, does really come from God. It is plain from the review which we took of the evidences of Christianity, that very large pro- vision is made for affi^rding our minds a rational conviction of its divine original ; and the style of argument, which pervades the dis- courses of onr Lord, and the sermons and the writings of his apostles, is a continued call upon us to exercise our reason in judging of that provision. I need not quote particular passages ; for that man must have read the gospels and the Acts of the apostles with a very care- less or a very prejudiced eye, who does not feel the manner in which our religion was proposed by its divine author and his immediate dis- ciples, to be a clear refutation of the position which I mentioned lately, that Christianity is not founded on argument. You will recol- lect, too, that all the different branches of the evidence of Christianity are ultimately resolvable into some principle of reason. The internal evidence of Christianity is only then perceived, when you try the sys- tem of the gospel by a standard which you are supposed to have derived from natural religion. The argument which miracles and prophecies afford is but an inference from the power, wisdom, and holiness of God, all of which you assume as premises that are not disputed ; and USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. 211 that complication of circumstances which constitutes the historical evidence for Christianity, derives its weight from those laws of proba- bility which experience and reflection suggest as the guide of our judgment. It is not easy to conceive that a creature, who is accus- tomed to exercise his reason upon every other subject, should be re- quired to lay it aside upon a subject so interesting as the evidences of religion ; and it is plain, that to substitute as the ground of our faith certain impressions, the liveliness of which depends very much upon the state of the animal spirits, in place of the various exercises of reason which this subject calls forth, is to render that precarious and inexplicable which might rest upon sure principles, and to disregard the provision made by the author of our faith, who hath both com- manded and enabled us to " be always ready to give an answer to every one that asketh a reason of the hope that is in us." 2. After the exercise of reason has established in our minds a firm belief that Christianity is of divine original, the second use of reason is to learn what are the truths revealed. As these truths are not in our days communicated to any by immediate inspiration, the know- ledge of them is to be acquired only from books transmitted to us with satisfying evidence that they were written above seventeen hundred years ago, in a remote country, and a foreign language, under the direction of the Spirit of God. In order to attain the meaning of these books, we must study the language in which they were written, and we must study also the manners of the times, and the Svtate of the countries in which the writers lived, because these are circun)stances to which an original author is often alluding, and by which his phraseology is generally affected: we must lay together different passages in which the same word or phrase occurs, because without this labour we cannot ascertain its precise signification ; and we must mark the difference of style and manner that characterizes different writers, because a right apprehension of their meaning often depends upon attention to this difference. All this supposes the application of grammar, history, geography, chronology, and criticism in matters of religion, i. e. it supposes that the reason of man had been previously exercised in pursuing these different branches of knowledge, and that our success in attaining the true sense of Scrip- ture depends upon the diligence with which we avail ourselves of the progress that has been made in them. It is obvious that every Christian is not capable of making this application. But this is no argument against the use of reason of which we are now speaking. For they, who use translations and commentaries, only rely upon the reason of others, instead of exercising their own. The several branches of knowledge, which I mentioned, have been applied in every age by some persons for the benefit of others ; and the progress in sacred criticism, which distinguishes the present times, is nothing else but the continued application, in elucidating the Scriptures, of reason enlightened by every kind of subsidiary knowledge, and very much improved in this kind of exercise, by the employment which the ancient classics have given it since the revival of letters. As the use of reason thus leads us into the meaning of the single words and phrases of Scripture, so it is equally necessary to enable us to attain a comprehensive view of the whole system of Scripture 812 USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. doctrine. Our Lord said to his apostles a little before his death, " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now.'* The Spirit guided them into all truth after the ascension of their master ; and tlieir discourses and epistles are the fruit of that perfect teaching, whicli they had not been able to receive during his life. The epistles of Paul to the different churches refer to points which he had explained to the Christians when lie was with them, or to ques- tions which had risen amongst them after his departure. They men- tion rather incidentally than formally the great truths of the gospel: and there is no passage in them which can be considered as a complete delineation of all that we are called to believe. Yet the apostles speak of" the form of sound words," of" the truth as it is in Jesus," of " the faith once delivered to the saints," for which Christians ought to contend. The knowledge of this form of sound words, this truth and faith, we are left to attain by searching the Scriptures, by com- paring the discourses of our Lord, and the writings of liis apostles, by employing expressions which are plain to illustrate those which are obscure, by giving such interpretations of the sacred writers as will preserve their consistency with themselves and with one another, by marking the consequences which are fairly deducible from their explicit declaration, and by framing, out of what is said and what is implied in their writings, a system that shall appear to be fully war- ranted by their authority. Without all this, we do not learn the revelation which is contained in the gospel ; and yet this implies some of the highest exercises of -reason, sagacity, investigation, com- parison, abstraction ; and it is the most important service which sound philosophy can render to Christianity, that it enables us by these exercises to attain a distinct and enlarged apprehension of the gospel scheme in all its connexions and consequences. It is very true, that many pious Christians derive much consolation and improve- ment from the particular doctrines of Christianity, although the narrow- ness of their views, and the distraction of their thoughts, render it im- possible for them to form a just and comprehensive view of the whole. But it is the professed object of those who propose to be teachers of Christianity to attain such a view. It is an object for which they are supposed to have leisure and opportunity : and unless they thus know the truth, they are not qualified to show that Clirist is indeed " the power of God and the wisdom of God," or to defend the gospel scheme against the objections, and rescue it from the abuses, to wliich a par- tial consideration has often given occasion. 3. After the two uses of reason that have been illustrated, a third comes to be mentioned, which may be considered as compounded of both. Reason is of eminent use in repelling the attacks of the adver- saries of Christianity. When men of erudition, of philosophical acuteness, and of accom- plished taste, direct their talents against our religion, th^ cause is very much hurt by an unskilful defender. He cannot unravel their sophis- try ; he does not perceive the amount and the effect of the concessions which he makes to them ; he is bewildered by their quotations, and he is often led by their artifice upon dangerous ground. In all agea of the church there have been weak defenders of Christianity; and the only triumphs of the enemies of our religion have arisen from USE OF REA-ON IN RELIGION. 213 their being able to expose the defects of those methods of defending the trutli, which some of its advocates had unwarily chosen. A mind, trained to accurate pliilosopliicai views of the nature and the amount of evidence, enriched with liistorical knowledge, accustomed to tlu'ow out of a subject all that is minute and unrelated, to collect what is of importance within a short compass, and to form the comprehension of a wliole, is the mind qualified to contend with the learning, the wit, and the sophistry of infidelity. Many such minds have appeared in this honourable controversy during the course of this and the last century; and the success has corresponded to the completeness of the furniture with which they engaged in the combat. The Christian doctrine has been vindicated by their masterly exposition from various misrepresentations ; the arguments for its divine original have been placed in their true light ; and the attempts (o confound the miracles and prophecies, upon which Christianity rests its claim, with the delusions of innposture, have been efi'ectually repelled. Christianity has, in this way, received the most important advantages from the attacks of its enenues ; and it is not improbable that its doc- trines would never have been so thoroughly cleared from all the cor- ruptions and subtleties which had attaclied to them in the progress of ages, nor the evidences of its truths have been so accurately under- stood, nor its peculiar character been so perfectly discriminated, had not the zeal and abilities, which have been employed against it, called forth in its defence some of the most distinguished masters of reason. They brought into the service of Christianity the same weapons which had been drawn for her destruction, and, wielding them with confidence and skill in a good cause, became the successful champions of the truth. I cannot speak of this third use of reason in matters of religion, without recommending to you an excellent book, in which you will find the advantage that Christianity has derived from it very fully illustrated. I mean Dissertations on the genius and evidences of Christianity, by Dr. Gerard, formerly Professor of Divinity in King's College, Aberdeen. All his works show Dr. Gerard to have been an acute distinguishing man. The observations in this book are very ingenious, and although there is in some of them an appearance of remoteness and research tliat is not perfectly agreeable, yet they are spread out at such length, and placed in so many different views, as to satisfy every reader not only that they are just, but that they add considerable weight to the collateral presumptive evidence of Chris- tianity. The first part of the book is intended to show that the maimer in which our Lord and his apostles proposed the evidences of Christianity was the most perfect. It is the second part which relates more directly to our present subject. Dr. Gerard entitled the second part, Christianity confirmed by the opposition of Infidels. He states the advantages which it derived from the opposition of early infidels, and then, with much useful reference to the present state of theological discussions, the advantages which it has derived from opposition in modern times, and the argument thence arising for its truth. The whole second part is the best illustration, that I can point out, of the use of reason in repelling the attacks of the adversaries of Christianity. 214 USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. But while many of the champions of Christianity have adorned and illustrated that truth which they defended, you will lind that others, by a licentious use of reason, have mutilated the Christian doctrine, and reduced it to little more than a system of morality. And there- fore it becomes necessary to speak, 4. Of the fourth use of reason in judging of the truths of religion. The principles upon this subject are so simple and clear, that I shall be able to state them in a kw words ; and, although there has been very gross abuse of reason in judging of the truths of religion, it will not readily occur to you, how any person who understands the prin- ciples can fail essentially in the application of them. Every thing which is revealed by God comes to his creatures from so high an authority, that it may be rested in with perfect assurance as true. Nothing can be received by us as true which is contrary to the dictates of reason, because it is impossible for us to perceive at the same time the truth and the falsehood of a proposition. But many things are true which we do not fully comprehend, and many propositions, which appear incredible when they are first enunciated, are found, upon examination, such as our understanding can readily admit. These principles appear to me to embrace the whole of the subject, and they mark out the steps by which reason is to proceed in judging of the truths of religion. We first examine the evidences of revela- tion. If these satisfy our understandings, we are certain that there can be no contradiction between the doctrines of this true religion, and the dictates of right reason. If any such contradiction appear, there must be some mistake : by not making a proper use of our reason in the interpretation of the gospel, we suppose that it contains doctrines which it does not teach : or, we give the name of right reason to some narrow prejudices which deeper reflection and .more enlarged knowledge will dissipate; or, we consider a proposition as implying a contradiction, when, in truth, it is only imperfectly under- stood. Here, as in every other case, mistakes are to be corrected by measuring back our steps. We must examine closely and impartially the meaning of those passages which appear to contain the doctrine: we must compare them v/ith one another : we must endeavour to derive light from the general phraseology of Scripture and the analogy of faith ; and we shall generally be able, in this way, to separate the doctrine from all those adventitious circumstances which give it the appearance of absurdity. If a doctrine, which, upon the closest examination, appears unquestionably to be taught in Scripture, still does not approve itself to our understanding, we must consider care- fully what it is that prevents us from receiving it. There may be preconceived notions hastily taken up which that doctrine opposes ; there may be pride of understanding that does not readily submit to the views which it communicates ; or reason may need to be remind- ed, that we must expect to find in religion many things which we are not able to comprehend. One of the most important offices of reason is to recognise her own limits. She never can be moved by any authority to receive as true what she perceives to be absurd. But if she has formed a just estimate of the measure of human knowledge, she will not shelter her presumption in rejecting the truths of revela- tion under the pretence of contradictions that do not really exist ; she USE OF REASON IN RELIGION. 215 will readily admit that there may be in a subject some points which she knows, and others of which she is ignorant; she will not allow her ignorance of the latter to shake the evidence of the former ; but will yield a firm assent to that which she does understand, without presuming to deny what is beyond her comprehension. x\nd thus availing herself of all the light which she now has, she will wait in humble hope for the time when a larger measure shall be imparted. The importance, and indeed the meaning, of the principles which I have stated, would be best understood by examples. But were I to attempt to exemplify them, I should anticipate the subjects upon which we are to enter. These principles will often recur in the pro- gress of my Lectures upon the particular doctrines of Christianity ; and therefore I sliall content myself with having stated them in this general manner at present. A right apprehension of this fourth use of reason in matters of reli- gion constitutes the defence of Christianity against a large class of objections, that are often urged against some of its peculiar doctrines. You will find it therefore occasionally stated in all the writers who treat of these doctrines, and if there is a proper selection of your read- ing, just views upon this important subject will become familiar to your minds at the same time that you are studying the Scripture system. The best preparation for these views is sound logic, which, in teaching the right use of reason, ascertains its boundaries, and guards against the abuse of it. You bring that furniture with you when you enter upon the study of divinity. You improve it during the prosecution of that study, by reading Bacon, Locke, and Reid, and the other writers who treat of the intellectual powers, and by all those exercises, which render your own intellectual powers more sound -and more acute, which increases their vigour, while they check their presumption. I would recommend to you particularly to read and study upon this subject, Reid's Essay on the Intellectual Powers, and five chapters of the 4th book of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, which treat of assent, reason, faith and reason, enthu- siasm, wrong assent and error. They contain a most rational, and I think, when properly understood, a just view of reason in judging of the truths of religion ; and every student ought to be well acquainted with them. Potter, Pralectiones Theologicae, vol. iii. Randolph. 216 CONTROVERSIES OCCASIONED BY CHAPTER VI. CONTROVERSIES OCCASIONED BY THE SCRIPTURE SYSTEM. The last, preliminary observation arising out of the general view of the Scripture system respects the controversies, to which that system has given occasion. Even those, who agreed as to the divine authority of the Christian religion, have differed very widely in their interpretation of its doctrines. These differences have not been confined to trifling matters, but have often touched upon points which are said to concern the very essence of the religion, and they, who held the opposite opinions, have discovered a mutual contempt and bitter- ness, very inconsistent with -the spirit which might be supposed to animate the disciples of the same Master. When we endeavour to account for the controversies in religion, gement as in all respects improper. It was •adopted by very able men ; it is most useful for giving a thorough acquaintance with all the parts of the Scripture system; and there is one book in which it appears to such advantage, that what I account its imperfection is almost forgotten, I mean Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion ; a book written in Latin, that is not only perspicuous, but elegant, and giving a most masterly comprehensive view of the great points in theology. It consists of four books. The first is entitled, De Cogni- tione Dei Creatoris. The second, De Cognitione Dei Redemptoris. The third, De Modo Percipienda3 Christi gratia, et qui fructus inde nobis proveniant, et qui effectus consequantur. The fourth, De Ex- ternis Mediis ad Salutem. It requires much time to read this book carefully ; but when a student has leisure to make it his business, he will find his labour abundantly recompensed ; and I do not know a more useful book for a clergyman in the country. It may be pur- chased for a trifle, and it is the best body of divinity. But excellent and profitable as this book is, the imperfection which I mentioned adheres to the plan upon which it is composed ; and althougli the order of Calvin's Institutes appears to me simpler and more natural than that of any other system which I have read, yet I think that, if I were to attempt to follow it, I should be remhided by frequent repetitions, that a more perfect arrangement might have rendered the course shorter and less fatiguing, Tliis impression led me to attend to another arrangement of the controversies, which has been executed with much ability by some theological writers. Every controversy is stated by itself; i. e. all the distinguishing opinions of those, who derive a particular name from the peculiarity of their tenets, are brought into one view, and are referred to one general principle, so that you see the system of their creed, and can mark the connection between the several parts. To give an example : Socinianism is the system of those who hold the opinions of Socinus. The principle of Socinianism is, that man maybe saved by that religion, which is founded upon the relation between God the Creator and man his creature. From this principle flow their opinions with regard to the intention of Christ's death as a witness to the truth, and an example to his followers, but not as an atonement for sin ; their exclusion of mysteries from religion ;. and all those tenets by which they transform the Christian religion into the most perfect "system of morality. The principle of Pelagianism, or of those who hold the opinions of Pelagius, is this, that the natural powers of man since the fall are sufficient to enable him to krep the law of God. From this principle flow the opinions of the Pelagians concerning original sin, the decrees of God, the influences of the Spirit, and the measure of perfection which may be attained upon earth. This method of arranging the controversies is manifestly much more scientific than the former. In every set of opinions which de- serves the name of a system, there are some leading prniciples which connect the several parts. It is an agreeable exercisf? of the under- standing to trace these principles, and to mark that kind of unity and subordination which arises from their influence. It is an act of jua- 21 226 ARRANGEMENT OP THE COURSE. tice in those who examine the opinions of others, to take into view that mutual dependence which renders them a consistent whole; and it is an endless unavailing task to attempt to defend the truth against a multitude of detached errors, unless your reasoning reach the sources from which these errors proceed. I recommend it, therefore, lo those students who, in the course of their reading, have attained an intimate acquaintance both with the evidences of Christianity and with the particular doctrines of our faith, to study the most important controversies in this scientific manner. You will derive much assist ance in this branch of your researches from Mosheira's Church His- tory, which is an invaluable treasure of theological knowledge. This most learned and higenious author, who, when read along with the able and judicious notes of his translator Maclaine, is in almost every instance a safe guide, has given, in one division of his work, a sum- mary of all the heresies or particular opinions that were held in the dif- ferent ages of the church. He has traced their rise and their progress, and has discriminated, with critical acumen, those which appear to an ordinary eye almost the same. As his work, from its nature, makes mention of all the controversies, both those which are impor- tant and those which are trifling, you cannot expect that even the opinions upon v/hich he has judged it proper to bestow the most par- ticular attention, will be fully elucidated in a book which comprehends such an extent of time, and such a variety of matter. You will sup- ply this unavoidable defect by the books which Mosheim quotes in his notes, or which I recommend : and from the general index which he furnishes, and the treatises which professedly explain the particu- lar subjects, you will be able to form a distinct connected view of every one of the five controversies which are universally interesting, and which are commonly known by the names of Arianism, Pelagi- anism, Socinianism, Arminianism, and the Popish controversy. There are many other controversies that turn upon very important points. But they have not been so perfectly digested into the form of a sys- tem as the five now mentioned, nor have they been defended with such ability as to occupy a great part of the attention of a student. Although I thus earnestly recommend attention to the scientifical arrangement of the controversies, I have been restrained from adopt- ing it as the plan of my course by the following reasons. Some of the five great controversies res€inble one another in several points. Thus Pelagianism and Arminianism both turn upon the natural powers which man has, since the fall, to obey the will of God. So- cinianism agrees with Pelagianism upon this point, and it agrees with Arianism in denying that Jesus is truly God, while it differs from Arianism in the account which it gives of his person. You may judge from this specimen, that although the scientifical method, which I mentioned, is unquestionably the best for making you acquainted with any particular system of opinions, yet to us, who mean to re- view all the most important controverted points, it would necessarily be attended with much repetition. We should often meet, under differ- ent names, with the same objections, and the same heretical opinions, and we should be obliged to bring forward the same arguments and the same passages of Scripture in answer to them. Further, our object is not so much to know who held the particular opinions, and ARRANGEMENT OP THE COURSE. 227 what was the age in which they Uved ; hut what were the various opinions upon the great subjects of theology, and what were the grounds upon which they rested. We may attain this object, although we confound the shades of difference between systems that nearly approach, and therefore to us it were a needless waste of research and of time to discriminate them nicely. Further still, as every one of the five great controversies embraces particular opinions upon many different points, the arranging the five separately breaks the subjects of theology into parts, and does not afford a full united view of any one subject. You will understand what I mean from an ex- ample. Besides the opinions of the early ages concerning the person of Christ, one opinion was held in the third century by Arius, another at a much later period by Socinus, and a third has been the general doctrine of the Christian church. Any one who wishes to make him- self master of this interesting subject will desire to see the different opinions brought together, that he may compare their probability, that he may judge of the support which every one of them receives from particular passages of Scripture, or from the analogy of faith, and may thus attain a conclusion which he can defend by good rea- sons. Had you a book continually by you, in which all the contro- versies were arranged singly, you might make a collation of the different opinions upon the same subject, by reading first a part of Arianism, then the corresponding part of Socinianism, and next the corresponding part of that system which is called Orthodox, in the same manner as you get a full view of a siege in the Peloponnesian war, by passing directly from the portion of the siege which is writ- ten in one book of the history of Thucydides, to the portion of the same siege which is written in another book. But you could not m'a\\e this collation in hearing a course of lectures, unless I repeated under one controversy as much of what I had said under the corres- ponding part of another, as to bring it to your mind ; and this repe- tition would be a proof that the arrangement, however favourable to your understanding any one system of opinions, is unfavourable to your understanding the whole controverted subject. Once more, there is in the different opinions upon the same subject a progress that may be traced, by which you see how one paved the way for the other ; and the succeeding opinion is often illustrated by the preparation which had been made for its reception. This advan- tage is lost, when you throw together the different subjects that were agitated in one system of opinions. You see, in this way, the chain which binds together all the parts of Pelagianism, Arminianism, or Socinianism. But in passing along the chain, you miss the thread which conducts you from the opinions on a particular subject found under one system, to the opinions on the same subject found under another. For these reasons, I resolved neither to follow the path of the ordi- nary systems of theology, nor to adopt the more scientific mode of classing the opinions that distinguish different sects of Christians. The plan of my course is this : Out of the mass of matter that is found in the system, I select the great subjects which have agitated and divided the minds of those who profess to build their faith upon the same Scriptures. I consider 228 ARRANGEMENT OF THE COURSE. every one of tnese subjects separately ; I present the whole train and progress of opinions that have been held concerning it; and I state the grounds upon which they rest, passing slightly over those opinions which are now forgotten, or whose extravagance prevents any danger of their being revived, and dwelling upon tliose whose plausibility gave them at any time a general possession of the minds of men, or which still retain their intluence and credit amongst some denomina- tions of Christians. In selecting the great subjects to be thus brought forward, I was guided by that general view of the Gospel which was formerly illus- trated. We found its distinguishing character to be the religion of sinners, — a remedy for the present state of moral evil, provided by the lore of God the Father, brought into the world by Jesus Christ, and applied by the influences of the Spirit. All the controversies which are scattered through the ordinary systems, and which have been classed under the different heads, Arianism, Pelagianism, Arminian- ism, and Socinianism, respect either the Persons by whom the remedy is brought and applied, or the remedy itself The different opinions respecting the Persons comprehend the whole of the Arian, a part of the Socinian, and all that is commonly called the Trinitarian contro- versy, upon which so much has been written since the beginning of the last century. The difierent opinions concerning the remedy itself respect either the nature of the remedy, the extent of the remedy, or the application of it ; and they comprehend the whole system of Pela- gian and Arminian principles, a part of the Socinian, and many of the doctrines of Popery. Opinions as to the nature of the remedy depend upon the apprehensions entertained of the nature of the disease ; so that all the questions concerning original sin, the demerit of sin, and the manner in which guilt can be expiated, fall under this head. Opinions as to the extent of the remedy embrace the questions concerning universal and particular redemption, and concerning the decrees of God. Opinions as to the application of the remedy turn upon the necessity of divine assistance, the manner in which it is bestowed and received, and the effects which it produces upon the mind and the conduct of those to whom it is given. It appears to me, therefore, that by this distribution we do not omit any of the great controversies, with which students of divinity ought to be acquainted: at the same time, by tracing with undistracted attention the progress of opinions upon every subject, by viewing their points of opposition, and examining their respective merits, we consider one subject closely upon all sides before we proceed to another, and are thus saved the necessity of returning at any future period upon the ground which we had formerly trodden. Much light Avill probably be struck from this collision of different opinions. You have experience that you are never so thoroughly acquainted with a subject, as when you have hoard the discussion of the several ques- tions to which it gives rise, either in conversation, or in more formal debate ; and therefore you have reason to expect that your knowledc of theology will be rendered much more accurate and profound, by canvassing the different opinions held in a succession of ages by very able men, and defended by them with a zeal that cannot be supposed ARRANGEMENT OF THE COURSE. 22b to have omitted any argument, because it was dictated not merely by the love of truth, but ui many instances by the desire of victory. After I have derived all the benefit which the labours of these men can afford, in opening to you those doctrines of Christianity which are the great subject of your studies, I next consider the church of Christ as a society founded by its Author. This brancii of our course entered into the general view of the Scripture system ; and it demands your particular attention, not only from the mention made of it in Scripture, but also from the many violent controversies to which it has given birth. The notion of a society implies the use of certain external observances, which are necessary to distinguish it from other societies, and to maintain order amongst the members. It is natural, therefore, in speaking of the Christian society, to give a history of church government, or an account of the various practices and ques- tions which have occurred upon this head ; and in this account I am led to investigate the grounds of that claim advanced by the Bishop of Rome, as the head of the church, and the Vicar of Christ upon earth. There are many of the doctrines of the church of Rome, which fall under some of the controversies that we propose to review. But these doctrines were only called in as auxiliaries of the hierarchy, to lend their aid in supporting that system of spiritual power, of which the claim made by the Bishop of Rome was the principal pillar ; so that by much the greater part of the Popish controversy belongs to the head of church government. It is impossible, in this country, to consider Church government without bestowing attention upon the claims of Episcopacy and Pres- bytery. After examining the support which they derive from the word of God, and from the practice of antiquity, the transition is natural to the constitution of that Church, of which you expect to become members. The Church of Scotland, like every other established Church, requires her office-bearers to subscribe a declara- tion of their faith. It is proper, therefore, to consider the right upon which such requisition rests, and the propriety of that right being exercised. The peculiar doctrines contained in that declaration, which we call the Confession of Faith, will have passed in review before we come to this part of our course. But it will be proper that you then attend to the reason of the peculiarities of that worship, in which you may soon be called to preside, and to the principles of tliiet discipline and government, of which you may soon be called to be the guardians and the administrators. The different parts of the office of a parish minister are familiar to those who live in this country, where they are not neglected. But some observations, with regard to the importance of performing them properly, and the manner in which they may be rendered most use- ful, will not appear unseasonable to those who are about to enter upon the office of the ministry ; and there is one branch of that office, I mean the preparation and the delivery of sermons, concerning which, after all that you have heard of composition elsewhere, you will naturally expect some practical rules in a place where your own discourses, the legal specimen of your proficiency in the study of theology, are exhibited and judged. When I have filled up this plan to my own satisfaction, I shall think 230 ARRANGEMENT OF THE COURSE. that I discharge that part of the public duties of my station which consists in lecturing, by contributing the whole stock of my informa- tion and experience for your advantage. My principle is, to con- dense the execution of the plan as much as possible. I shall be disappointed, if I be not able to comprise my whole course in such a period as will give to every residing student of divinity an opportu- nity, if he chooses, of hearing all the parts of it ; and I shall think it an advantage, if, by omitting some parts, and abridging others, I can so reduce the course, as to admit of passing over it twice, in the time prescribed for regular attendance at college. Turretin, abridged by Russenius, is a very useful book for giving a short view of all the controverted points. Stapferi Instit. Theol. Polemicae, in .5 vols, is a valuable work. The different systems of opinions concerning the truths of religion are there separately arranged- BOOK III. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SON, THE SPIRIT, AND THE MANNER OF THEIR BEING UNITED WITH THE FATHER. The Gospel reveals two persons, whose existence was not known by the light of nature ; the Son, by whom the remedy offered in the Gospel was brought into the world, and the Spirit, by whom it is applied. The reyelation concerning the first of these persons is much more full than that concerning the second, and has given occasion to a greater variety of opinions. 1 shall begin therefore with stating the opinions concerning the Son ; I shall next give a short view of the opinions concerning the Spirit ; after which, there will remain a general subject, arising, as we shall find, out of the illustration of these separate branches : and, in speaking of this, I shall have to state the opinions respecting the manner in wtiich these two persons are united with the Father. CHAPTER I. OPINIONS CONCEEMNG THE PEESON OF THE SON. In entering upon the opinions concerning the person of the Son, I must warn you not to consider the subject as unimportant. It is the langu-age of Dr. Priestley, that the value of the Gospel does not, in any degree, depend upon the idea which we may entertain concerning the person of Christ, because all that is truly interesting to us, is the object of his mission, and the authority with which his doctrine is promulgated. But this language is inconsistent with the general strain of the New Testament, a great part of which we shall find occupied in giving us just conception.^ of the person of Christ : It is uicon^istent with the general sentiments of the Christian Church, who have canvassed this subject with much diligence, and with deep interest, ever since the Gospel appeared : It Ls inconsistent with the aeal which Dr. Priestley and his associates have discovered in com- 231 232 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE municating their opinions upon this subject to the world ; and it is inconsistent with the natural propensity to which the Scriptures have graciously accommodated themselves, and by which every one is led to connect the importance of a message with the dignity of the messenger. It does not become any one to suppose, that the discover- ies made in the gospel concerning the person of Christ contain merely a popular argument, to which it is unnecessary for him to attend. But it becomes every person, who beUeves that the message proceeds from heaven, to receive with reverence the discoveries concerning the messenger, as conveying important truth, which claims the attention of every understanding to which it is made known, and creates duties which a Christian ought not to neglect. With this impression of the importance of the subject, I proceed to analyse the opinions concerning the Person of Christ. I do not pro- pose to follow the order of time, because there is some difficulty in ascertaining the dates of particular opinions, because the order in which they arose is not always very material, and because the frequent revival of old opinions in new systems would render a chro- nology of them full of repetitions. Neither do I propose to fatigue your attention with the useless uninteresting detail of all the extrava- gant conceits broached by particular men, or of the minute shades of difference among those who agreed in their general system. I shall furnish you with the information that is of real importance, by bring- ing forward the three great systems upon this subject. Their features are strongly marked and clearly discriminated, and they appear to comprehend all the variety of which the subject admits, because the several opinions which have at some times been exploded and at other times revived, are always reducible to one or other of these three systems. The simplest opinion concerning the person of Christ is, that he was merely a man who had no existence before he was born of Mary ; who was distinguished from the former messengers of heaven, not by any thing more sacred in his original character, but by the virtues of his life, and by the extraordinary powers with which, upon account of the peculiar importance of his commission, he was invested ; who, after he had executed this commission with fidelity, with fortitude, and zeal, was rewarded for his obedience to God, his good-will to men, and his patience under suffering, by being raised from the dead, and exalted to the highest honour, being con- stituted at his resurrection the Lord of the creation, and entering at that time into a kingdom which is to continue to the end of the world, and the administration of which entitles him to reverence and sub- mission from the human race. Some who held this general system admitted that Jesus was born in a miraculous manner of a virgin ; while others contended that he was literally the son of Joseph and Mary. Some said that Jesus might be worshipped upon account of the dominion to which he is raised ; while others, who allow that gratitude and honour are due to him, confine adoration to the Fathi-r. But these two differences do not afiect the general principle of the system. In whatsoever manner Jesus came into the world, he is, according to this system, M'^i avQ^uHo^, a mere man ; and whether reve- rence in general, or that particular expression of reveience that is PERSON OF THE SON. 233 called adoration, be considered as due to him, it is not upon account of any essential property of liis nature, but upon account of a domi- nion tlmt was given him by God. The grounds upon which this opinion rests, are the general strain of the prophecies of the Old Testament, in which Jesus is foretold as the seed of the woman ; the general strain of the New Testament in wiiich our Lord speaks of himself, and his apostles speak of him as a man ; the accounts of his birth, his childhood, his sutferings, and his giving up the ghost ; and tlie manner in whicli the Scriptures frequently state his glory as the recompense of what he did upon earth. The argument drawn from this language of Scripture is supported by general reasonings concerning the fitness of employing a man, whose life is a pattern which we may be supposedtcapable of imitating, and whose resurrection and exaltation furnish an encourage- ment, suited to the condition of those who encounter hardships the same in kind with those which he overcame : and this argument is defended by attempts to explain away such passages of Scripture, as seem to contradict the system, and particularly by referring every thing that is said of the glory of Christ to that power which was given iiim upon earth, or to that state of exaltation which he now holds in heaven. It is said that this opinion was held in the first century by a small sect of Jewish converts, called the Ebionites, who received no other part of the canon of the New Testament but the Gospel according to Matthew, after rejecting the first two chapters. The opinion v/as openly taught by Theodotus and Artemon, about the end of the second century : and Eusebius says that Theodotus was the first who taught the simple humanity of Christ.* It may be traced also in other systems that divided the Christian church before the Council of Nice, which met in the beginning of the fourth century. But after that Council, this opinion appears to have been exploded till the time of the Reformation, when it was revived by Socinus, and propagated among his disciples, who abounded in Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland. It continues to form one of the leading characteristical features of those who are called Socinians. It was insinuated with modesty and diffidence by some eminent men in the course of the last century, amongst whom is Lardner, who has deserved so well of the Christian world by that laborious and valuable collection enlitled the Credibility of the Gospel History. It has of late been published with zeal and confidence by Lindsey, Priestley, and tlieir associates; and it is the avowed principle of those Socinians who choose to dis- tinguish themselves by the title of Unitarians. The second opinion concerning the person of Christ, is, tliat he was not a mere man, but that he existed before he appeared upon earth. It occurs to mention under this second opinion one branch of the tenets of the Gnostics, those heretics who began, even in the days of the apostles, to corrupt the simplicity of tlie gospel by a mixture of oriental philo- sophy. They held that the Christ was an emanation from the supreme mind, one of those beings whom they considered as filling the pleroma, and to Avhom they gave the name of ^ons. This * Eus. Hist. Ecc. lib. v. 22* . 2K 234 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE glorious iEon, who was sent by the Supreme Being to the earth, according to some of the Gnostics, united himself to the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him at his crucifixion ; according to others, he only assumed the appearance of a man ; so that the body which the Jews saw, and which they thought they crucified, was a shadowy form tliat eluded their malice. Hence this latter class of Gnostics were called by the ancient fathers, Docetae, from Soxn^, videor, as they ascribed a seeming, not a real body to Jesus. It were endless to fol- low all the differences of opinion concerning the person of Christ among those who held the Gnostic principles ; because as the princi- ples were merely the fruit of imagination, resting upon no solid ground either in reason or in revelation, they admitted of infinite variety. A. sounder philosophy has exploded these abuses of fancy, and given human speculations a more useful direction, so that the whole system of Gnostic principles is now an object of study, only in so far as some acquaintance with it is necessary to throw light upon those parts of the sacred writings in which it is attacked. Mosheim has delineated that system in his Church History with great ingenuity and learning, with more minuteness in some instances, than it appears to deserve, and with as much precision and clearness as its obscure airy form admitted. You will learn from him all that needs to be known upon this subject; and you will find that almost all the Gnostic sects considered Jesus as dignified and animated by some kind of union with a celestial iEon, who had existed in the pleroma before he descended to earth.* It is of more importance to fix your attention upon the substantial definite form which the second opinion concerning the person of Christ, I mean that which raised him above man by ascribing to him pre-existence, assumed in the system of Arius. It was the lead- ing principle of this system, that the Christ, the first and most exalted of the creatures of God, existed before the rest were created, and is not like any thing else that was made. I call this the charac- teristical principle of Arianism ; because, whatever traces of it some have pretended to discover in more ancient writers, Arius is univer- sally allowed to be the first who taught it systematically; and this principle was the opinion for which he was condemned by the council of Nice in the beginning of the fourth centnry. The writings of Arius, in which he unfolded and defended his system, were burnt by the authority which condemned his opinions. But a few of his epistles, the creed which he gave in to Constantine, and the sentence pronounced against him by the council of Nice, are extant ; from a comparison of which, a candid inqilirer may attain a clear concep- tion of the outlines of his system. His system was this — the one Eternal God, the source of all being and power, did, in the beginning, before any thing was made, produce by his own will a most perfect Creature, to whom he communicated a large measure of glory and power. By this Creature, God made the worlds, all things that are in heaven and that are in earth, so that he alone proceeded immediately from God, while all other creatures not only existed after him, but were called into being by his instrumentality, and placed by the • Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Cent, II. Part II, ch, V. PERSON OF THE SON. * 235 Father under his administration. Having been the Creator of the fii-st man, he was from the beginning tiie medium of all divine com- munication with the human race. He appeared to the patriarchs; he spake by the prophets, and in the fuhiess of time he was incarnate, 2, e. clothed with that body, which, by the immediate operation of Gdd, was formed out of the Virgin Mary: and thus, according to the Arian system, the man Christ Jesus had a real body, like his brethren. But that body, instead of being animated by a human soul, was in- formed by the super-angelical spirit, who had been with God from the beginning, who condescended to leave that glory, partook in the sorrow and agony which filled up the life of Jesus, and in recompense of this humiliation and obedience, was exalted to be the Saviour, the Sovereign and the Judge of mankind. Arius professed to have received this faith from the gospel, and to hold the sense of the Scriptures ; and he might suppose that his system reconciled those passages which speak of the dignity and eternity of the Son of God, with those which seem to imply an inferiority to the Father. It appeared to him, that this first creature, upon account of the super-eminent glory and power communicated to him, might without impropriety be called the only begotten Son of God, and God ; and he admitted that this Creature was in one sense eternal, because he proceeded from God before the existence of those measures of time, which arise from the motion and succession of created objects. He thought himself at liberty, therefore, to hold this language in his creed, " We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made by him, begotten before all ages, God the word, by whom all things were made in heaven and in earth." But although all these expressions, except one, " who was made by him," might have been used by those who held the received opinions, there were three points in his system which were condemned by the council. He said of the Son, t^v notB un ovx rjv—n^w yBuvr^Grjiai, ovx t]v — and f| ovx oKftov tyevBto. The meaning of the three points upon which he was condemned was this. Although Arius carried back the existence of the Son before all worlds, and so before all times, yet it was possible, according to his system, to conceive some point from whence that existence commenced. The Son had no existence till the act of the Father produced him, and he was produced, not out of the substance of the Father, but like other creatures, out of nothing. We suffer persecution, says Arius in one of his epistles, because we have said, the Son hath a begmning, but God hath no beginning:, and because we have asserted that the Son is out of nothing.* This opinion was opposed by the authority of successive councils, and by the decrees of the Roman Emperors, who had by this time embraced Christianity, and those by whom it was avowed were exposed to contumely and barbarity. Before the end of the fourth century it was extirpated in the greater part of the Roman empire, and appears to have been so much forgotten, that all the Divines who wrote upon this subject after that period till the Reformation, were almost wholly employed, not in explaining or combating the Arian system, but in proposing different modifications of that which I am to state as the ♦ K. !^. apud Epiph, H. 69. N. vi. 236 * OPINIONS CONCERNING THE third opinion concerning the person of Christ. The opinion of Arius revived in the seventeenth century, when tlie progress of the Refor- mation allowed greater Uberty in reHgious speculation ; and, although it be contrary, not only to the confessions of the established churches of Great Britain, but to the laws of the land, it has appeared with little disguise in many able treatises, and was held with certain quali ficatioiis, by some of the most eminent divines in the last centmy. The third opinion concerning the person of Christ is, that from all eternity he was God. Neither tiie Socinians nor the Arians deny that the name of God is ascribed to him. But as, according to their systems, the only foundation of that name is the degree of glory and dominion with which he was invested at an earlier, or a later period, and as the same will, which thus freely distinguished him above the other creatures, may remove the distinction when the purposes of it are accomplished, it is manifestly implied in these systems, that Christ has a dependence upon the will of another, and a possibility of change, which require that the word God, when applied to the Son, be under- stood in a sense very different from that in which it is applied to Him who from everlasting to everlasting is God. Although therefore the three opinions coincide in the use of the same name, the third is essentially distinguished from the second as well as from the first in this point, that according to it Christ eternally and necessarily co-ex- isted with God. All the perfections of the divine nature belong to him essentially; no past time can be conceived in which he did not possess them, and no time shall arrive hereafter in which any of them can be separated from him. There has been much controversy whether this was the general opinion of the Christian church before the council of Nice. Petavius, a learned Jesuit, in his immense work, entitled Dogmata Theologica, has laboured to show, that the Fathers of the first three centuries in- clined to Arianism, and have in many places spoken of Christ as an inferior God. Bishop Bull, who wrote in the seventeenth century, and is by much the ablest defender of this third opinion, has rendered it, in my opinion, more than probable that Petavius gives a false representation of those who are called the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and that, although upon many occasions they expressed themselves loosely* and inaccurately, yet it was the constant opinion of the most respect- able writers in the first three centuries, that Christ was from eternity God. Bat the truth is, this controversy concerning the opinion of the Ante-Nicene Fathers has derived more importance, from the laljour and zeal with which it has been agitated than it deserves. For the ■ question does not depend upon human authority ; and in whatever manner ancient writers have expressed themselves upon this subject, the truth remains the same. Even although Dr. Priestley could cstab lish the position which he has maintained in other s"maller treatl^t;o, and in a great work of four octavo volumes, entitled, the History of Early Opinions concerning the person of Christ, that the Christian church from the earliest times was in general what lie calls Unitarian, and that the Godhead of the Son, in the proper sense of the word, was unknown to the great body of Christians, and is found only occasionally mentioned in the works of a iew authors; still the mat- ter rests upon its original ground, and the question recurs, which of PERSON OP THE SON. ' 237 the three opinions concerning the person of Christ is most agreeable to the revelation made in Scriptnre upon that subject. We derive from the study of the ancient Christian writers the history of the pro- gress of theological opinions: we may learn the manner in which very able men, who bestowed their whole attention upon theological subjects, illustrated and defended the opinions wliich they held, and we may thus be assisted in understanding the truth, and directed where to find the proper arguments in support of it. But these argu- ments must ultimately be drawn from Scriptnre, and Dr. Clarke, however persons may differ as to the merits of his system, of which I shall have occasion to speak afterwards, must be allowed to have suggested the only proper method of attaining the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity, by collecting all the texts in which there is any men- tion of that doctrine. You will understand, then, that when at any time I quote the sayings of ancient or respectable Christian writers, 1 quote them as evidences of what their opinion was, not as proofs that that opinion was true ; and you will agree with me in thinking, that I should very much misspend your time, if I entered into a minute investigation of those passages in their works which appear to be contradictor}^, and followed the labours of many modern authors in thus endeavouring to ascertain what were the sentiments of Tertullian, Eusebius, or Origen. But while we disclaim every kind of submission to the authority of the Fathers, there are expressions which recur frequently in their writings so marked and significant, that they deserve to be brought forward, as they may assist you in understanding what the third opinion concerning the person of Christ truly is. The Ante-Nicene Fathers often speak of the kindling of one light by another, as the image ^yhich most fitly expresses the generation of the Son from the Father, because in this case there is no separation or difference of kind. The original light remains undiminished, and that which is kindled appears to be the same. They say, that as the sun in the heavens cannot exist without emitting light, as no interval can be conceived between the existence of the sun and the emission of his rays, so Christ always existed with God ; and they argue the eternity of Christ from his being the wisdom, the reason, what the Greek writers called the ^oyoj of the Father. The words of Athanasius, the great antagonist of Arius, are these, o uv ©sof. f| avtov xm ovto.'tov^oyov txf^' «M ovtB 6 Xoyoj £Tti,yiyov!:v, ovx COP Tt^oie^ov, ovts 6 rtatr;^ a'koyoi tjv note-* The meaning of these, and other similitudes, with which the Ante-Nicene Fathers abound, was precisely ascertained by that word which the council of Nice adopted in opposition to the opinion of Arius. They said that tlie Son is oixonmof with the Father. This word the Arians could not, in consistency with their principles, admit into their confes- sion. They held that the Son was produced immediately by the Father out of nothing. But they saw that, if he be of the same substance with God, he is God, and that if he is God, he cannot have a temporary precarious existence, but must have always been with the Father what he now is. This word therefore became the mark of distinction between the second and the third opinions concerning • Athanas. Oral, passim. 238 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE the person of Christ, and the precise amount of oaoiiwj when appliea to the Son, is this, that although it be implied in the name of the Son, that he proceeded from the Father, and aUhough, in reference to his proceeding from God, he be called the only begotten of the Father, yet the essential glory and perfections of the Father and the Son are the same. It is further to be stated, that while the Socinians believed the Christ to be a mere man, in whom an extraordinary measure of the power of God dwelt, while the Arians believed that the Christ was composed of a super-angelical spirit, and a human body, those who hold the tliird opinion believe that Christ assumed, at the incarnation, the complete human nature into union with the divine ; in other words, that the body of Christ was animated by a human soul, and this soul was so united with the Godhead that the divine and human nature f)rmed one person. I enter not at present'into the grounds of this third opinion. I mean only to state what it is, and in order to assist your apprehension of both parts of it, I shall recite to you a part oftheNicene Creed, by which this third opinion was more clearly defined than it had been before, and those parts of the confessions of the two established churches in Britain, by which it appears that both of them have adopted the third opinion concerning the person of Christ. The words of the Nicene Creed, translated literally from the Greek, are these: " We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of all things, both visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made both in heaven and in earth, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down, and was incar- nate, being made man." The second of the thirty-nine articles of the church of England is in these words : " Tlie Son, which is the word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the godhead and manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man." The words of our Confession of Faith are : " The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance, so that two whole perfect and distinct natures, the Godhead and the Manliood, were inseparably joined together in one person; without conversion, com-* position or confusion, which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ." PERSO\ OP CHRIST. 339 CHAPTER II. SIMPLEST OPINION CONCERNING THE PERSON OF CHRIST. Having stated the three opinions concerning the person of Christ, to which all others may be reduced, I proceed to compare the grounds upon wliich they rest. And here I must begin with observing, that general reasonings con- cerning the probability of any of these opinions, or its apparent suita- bleness to the end of Christ's manifestation, ought not to enter into this comparison. Ingenious men have said plausible things in the way of general reasoning in support of all tiie three. It may to some appear difficult to balance one of the speculations against the other, because men will be inclined to give a preference according to the complexion of their understanding, and their former habits of thinking. But you will be satisfied that such reasonings are of little or no weight in tlie scale of evidence, when you recollect how soon they lead us beyond oiu' depth. Probability in this subject depends upon a multi- tude of circumstances, which are not within the sphere of our obser- vation. Fitness or expediency in this subject depends upon the order and the designs of that universal government of which we see only a part. Tne fact, that Jesus Christ appeared in the land of Judea the teacher of a new religion, could not have been investigated by reason, but like all other facts is received upon credible testimony. The par- ticular character and dignity of this person therefore, is a matter of revelation to be gathered from the books that inform us of his appearance ; and the only solid ground of any opinion concerning his character is a right interpretation of the books in which it is described. After we have attained by sound criticism the information which is thus aflbrded us, reason may be employed in vindicating the opinion which that information warrants us to hold, in bringing forward those views of its expediency which revelation enables us to assign, and in balancing the difficulties which may adhere to it, against those diffi- culties and objections which appear to attend other opinions not taught by Scripture. Reasoning comes here in its proper place to support our faith, by being opposed to other reasonings that attempt to shake it, and to rescue the opinion that is delivered in the word of God from the charge of absurdity. But we profess to learn the opinion from the Scriptures ; and we hold it with firmness, because it is revealed. This general observation suggests the plan upon which I mean to proceed in comparing the grounds of the three opinioas. 1 defer all speculations concerning them, till we have learned what the Scrip 940 SIMPLEST OPINION CONCERNING Hres teach. I begin with the simplest propositions, advancing, as ihe information ot" Scripture leads us, to those which are farther removed from ordinary apprehension; and in this way, I shall not arrive at the most intricate parts of the subject, till our minds are estabhshed in the belief of those facts which ought to guide our rea- •jonings. This patient method of proceeding is not the most fnvour- able to disputation upon this subject; it is not the best calculated for lecturing upon it in a showy amusing manner ; but it appears to me that in which I ought to persevere, as the only method becoming our distance, and the certain method of attaining truth. The simplest opinion concerning the person of Christ is, that he was merely a man, 4"''^o5ai/0^wrtos; and the advocates of this opinion rest it upon numberless passages of Scripture, upon a solution of those declarations concerning Christ, which appear to be inconfeistent with their opinion, and upon the insuperable difficulties in which they represent all other opinions as involved. I lay aside at present all consideration of these ditficuhies, because I consider every specula- tion concerning them, as calculated to create a prejudice either for or against the evidence that is to be examined ; and I direct your atten- tion only to the Scripture grounds upon which this opinion is rested, and the declarations of Scripture by which it is opposed. I take the Scripture grounds of this opinion from a book published about the year 1773 by Mr. Lindsey, who gave the world a pledge of his honesty, by resigning his preferment in the Church of England, because he held this opinion. The following arguments and testi- monies, he says, will abundantly show that Christ was a man like ourselves, saving those extraordinary gifts of divine wisdom and power by which he was distinguished from the rest of mankind. 1, The prophecies that went before concerning Christ speak of him as a man, — the seed of the woman ; the seed of Abraham ; a prophet like to Moses ; the son of David. 2. In consequence of these predictions, the Jews in all times have expected the Messiah to be a man. " Hath not the Scripture said," observe the people in the gospel of John, "that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was ?" 3. Christ's appearance in the world ; his birth ; his increase in wisdom and stature ; and the visible circumstances of his condition answered to the prophecies concerning him that he was to be a man. 4. Christ continually spake of himself as a man, the son of man being the phrase by which he commonly designed himself; and the son of God, the title which he sometimes assumed, admitting of an interpretation which does not contradict his being a man. 5. John, his forerunner, calls him a man. And, 6. The four evangelists show by their narration that they took him to be a man ; and in the other books of the New Testament he is often so designed. The testimonies which Mr. Lindsey has collected under these heads* prove that Christ was truly a man; they undoubtedly convey an im- pression that he was a man in all respects like us; and, if they con- tained the whole doctrine of Scripture concerning the nature and per- son of Christ, the first opinion would claim to be received upon the * Sequel to Apology, by Theophilus Lindsey, ch. 7- THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 241 highest possible evidence. But Mr. Lindsey is aware that there are passages in Scripture which appear to contradict this opinion. Like all those who have agreed with him in opinion, he attempts to give a solution of them ; and the point that must be considered is, whether there are declarations in Scripture of such a kind, as to efface the im- Toression made by the testimonies collected under the six heads now mentioned, and to show that the first opinion rests upon a partial view of Scripture. « i 242 PRE-EXISTENCE OP JESUS. CHAPTER III. PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS. The philosophy which you have learned has completely exploded the fancifal doctrine of some ancient sects, that the souls of men existed before they animated those bodies with which we behold them connected. You know that this doctrine supposes a fact, which is no where revealed, which is not vouched by human testimony, which is not supported by any solid argument, and is contradicted by the principle of consciousness. You believe that the souls of men began to exist with their bodies ; and, although you cannot explain the time or the manner of the union between these two companions, you never ascribe to the being of the man any date more ancient than the first formation of his body. If then there be evidence that Christ had a being before he was conceived of the Virgin Mary, he cannot be a man like us. He may be trvilv a man with all the essential pro- perties of human nature, so that there is no impropriety ni -a-icribing to him the name of man, or the S„n of Man. But the opinion of those who consider him as 4'^'^o5av9^cdrtoj, nothing more than man, must be false. Accordingly all those who hold the second and third opinions, oppose to the Socinian system one simple position, viz. there is evidence from Scripture of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ. This position is sufficient to overturn the first opinion, and it is necessary to lay a foundation for the second and third. For, although it does not fol- low from the pre-existence of Christ, either that he is the most exalted creature in the universe, or that he is God, yet, if he did not exist before he was born of Mary, he cannot be either the one or the other. A position which contradicts the first opinion, and which is assumed in the other two, seems to be the proper point from which to set out in examining the three opinions concerning the person of Christ. Un- less you are satisfied of the truth of this position, you will not be dis- posed to give yourselves much trouble in canvassing the second and third opinions. But if you find evidence, that by his pre-existence he is more than man, it will be natural to proceed to inquire how far he is exalted above man, whether he is a creature of a higher rank, or whether he be entirely exempted from the order of creatures. In examining this position, I shall first bring forward those pas- sages of Scripture, which teach plainly that our Saviour did pre-exist ; and I shall next direct your attention to those passages, which ascribe to him different actions in his state of pre-existence. From the first set of passages, I do not mean to derive any thing more than simply PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS. 243 :i proof of the pre-existence of Jesus ; but, in attending to the second, we shall unavoidably be led by the descriptions of those actions which are ascribed to Christ, to consider his original character and dignity, and we shall thus pass naturally from the proofs of his pre- existence to the proofs of a higher point, to those passages, upon a right interpretation of which turns the decision of the question be- tween the second and third opinions. I shall at present bring forward only those passages of Scripture which teach plainly that our Saviour existed before he was born of Mary ; and, in reviewing them, I Shall lay before you those solutions of tlieir meaning which are given by the more early or the later Socinian writers, that you may judge how far it is easy to reconcile them with the opinion of our Lord's being ■4'i^oj ategwrtoj. You will recollect a language which runs through a great part of the New Testament, that " God sent Jesus into the world," that Jesus " came in the flesh," " was made flesh," " was made a little lower than the angels," "took part of flesh and blood." Now, this language is greatly wanting in propriety and significancy, if Jesus began to exist at that time when he is said to have come in the flesh ; whereas the expressions recited are the very manner in which it is necessary to speak of his becoming a man, if he had an existence be- forehand. A language which thus implies that Jesus existed before he was- born of Mary, being found in numberless places, may be con- sidered as meant to correct the inference which might otherwise be drawn from the phraseology of Scripture, in which he is spoken of as a man. At the same time you will not consider this implication as the proper ground upon which to rest so important a conclusion. We derive the knowledge of the pre-existence of Jesus from explicit declarations of Scripture, and, having in this way attained assurance of the fact, we find the general phraseology of Scripture so contrived as to reconcile this fact with his being truly a man. These explicit declarations were made by John the Baptist, by our Lord himself, and by his Apostles. 1. John the Baptist bore witness of Jesus in these words. Jo. i. 15, 30. "After me cometh a man, which is preferred before me, for he was before me," rt^^foj ftou jyi^. You would expect rtgoff^oj instead of ngutoi- But there are many instances in the best Greek writers of a similar construction. H^;t£ *« iii^au>v ft^u-tov Havtuv Aa^nov, is an expres- sion used by Aristophanes ;* and if x^^^toi \i.ov, first, when compared with me, be equivalent to rtjoft^oj ^lov, there seems to be here a plain declaration of the pre-existence of Jesus. The Socinian interpretation is, " the Christ, who is to begin his ministry after me, has by the divine appointment been preferred before me, because he is my chief or princi'pal, rt^corocrraT'*?? ftov, and I am only his servant." But Bishop Pearson, on the second article of the creed, has well observed, that according to this interpretation a thing is made the reason of itself. He is preferred before me, because he is my chief; whereas if rt?wroj 4*01) riv be considered as expressive of time, not of dignity, it contains a reason for the former clause. He who was born a few months after mo, and whose ministry begins after mine, has been placed before me, * Aristoph. Ofi/tOtj, Un. 484. 244 PRE-EXISTENCE OP JESUS. has a higher station assigned him in the economy of that dispensation which is now opening, because he had an existence before me. It is true that tlie three other evangeUsts mal- portant article, that he is the Creator of the world, does by no means rest upon this incidental expression, which, supposing that it was not originally written by the apostle, would never have obtained a place in the text, had it not been literally derived from the more full decla- rations contained in other passages of Scripture. These full declarations are found in the beginning of the gospel of John, in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, and in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. AH the three appear to teach, explicitly and particularly, that Jesus is the Creator of the world. Yet they have received difterent interpretations, of which you ought not to be ignorant ; and your being able to deduce with certainty that which we account the true meaning of the words, and to defend it against the objections by which it has been attacked, IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 253 depends upon the knowledge ot circumstances which form so essen- tial a branch of your studies, that I think it my duty to give a parti- cular elucidation of these three passages. Section I. John i. 1 — 18. You will begin with observing the steps by which the apostle pro- ceeds in enunciating his meaning. The first five verses do not of themselves mark out the person to whom they apply. It would seem that a person is intended : For time, iv a^zv' place, rt^oj tov @sov, and action, ^avta Si avtov eyivsto, are ascribed to 6 Aoyoj. But the name is not clear enough to mark out who he is. In the 6th verse there is tlie proper name of a man, it^awrn. And it appears from the sequel of the chapter, that this lujari/jjj is the person whom we are accustomed to call John the Baptist. It is said of this I"aw>?5, in the 7th verse, wro? tpSiv tii ixa^tv^iav, iva fia^tv^rjuyj rieQi tov ^uroj. The article defiucs the word ?>"T'oj, and leads you back to a light already spoken of, and consequent- ly supposed to be known to the reader ; i. e. the light mentioned in the 4th verse, which, from the construction, is unquestionably the same with o Xoyo^. Ev avt<^^ i. e. ^yoj, ^u»; »^i/, xm ^ ^cd»^ r^v to $wj tuv av9^u>7iixiv. It is said in the 5th verse that this light appears ; and the 7th verse establishes a connexion between the appearance of the light and the appearance of John, for he came to bear witness of it. 8th verse, ovK. r;v exuvoi to ^wj, aXX* Iva iM3^tv^yj!jy] rie^v tov ^i^to^. The time of tllis shiuing of the light must have been posterior to the appearance of John, and the manner of the shining must have been explained by his words, otherwise his testimony could not have been of any use in making men believe. But John the Baptist was the contemporary and the countryman of the writer of this gospel. He died, indeed, at an early period of life. Still, however, many of the persons into whose hands this gospel came, might know perfectly, either from their own recollec- tion, or from what they had heard others report, the general purport of John's testimony, so as to be directed by his words in applying the expression of the evangelist. Those who knew what John the Bap- tist had said, could not fail to know what was the to fu^ of which he came to bear witness. It is further stated, that the person who had been called in the first five verses, 6 -Koyoi, and to ^wj, was an inhabitant of earth at the time of John's appearance ; for you read in the 10th verse, (ve^^ xoesy.w t]v — 14th verse, idsa-iafieOatrfv So^av avtov. And this glory which was beheld, was not a celestial transient glory, dazzling the sight of mortals like a meteor, and quickly hid in clouds ; for w >.oyof ctt^l lysvito, xM laxtjvMiv sv r^^iiv. It appeared in a bodily substantial form. The person who has been called o^.oyoj, pitched his tent, dwelt for some time amongst men, and while the glory which they beheld uripressed them with a notion of his dignity, he engaged their affec- tions by the grace of his manners ; for he was rfhrj^rji xo^ito^ xaiaxyjOnai. Here are limiting circumstances so peculiar in their nature, that they 24 254 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS cannot apply to any other inhabitant of earth in the days of John Baptist but that extraordinary personage, whose memory was fresh in the minds of his countrymen when this gospel was written, and whose name is expressly mentioned in the 17th verse, ^ciotj x^taroj. It deserves particular notice, that with all that simplicity of maimer which distinguishes the writer of this gospel, lie has inserted this name in such a way as to make it the explication of all that had gone before. He had said in the 1 4lh verse, o xoyo; aa^^ sycvtto' xm totirivu>oiv tv ^/xw, (xat (OtaoafitOa rrjv 6o|af avrov, So^av u>5 juoioyfi'ou; na^a rtar^oj,) rC7.rj^t;i S:"C''^°^ *'** axr^hiai. Here he applies to o Ttoyoj, the person of whom he had been speaking from the beginning of the chapter, two phrases, luoroyt^j^j, and rtxri^r^i xa^Ltoi XM a-KrjOsiai : and ill the 17th versc he introduces the name, irjnovi x^irrrof, after the repetition of one of these phrases, and before the repetition of the other, manifestly connecting the name with both the phrases. It appears, then, from this general analysis of these eigliteen verses, that this evangelist must be not merely a most incon- sequential writer, but a writer who purposely and artificially misleads his readers, unless the person who is called o xoyoj in the first verse be the same who is called Ijjotuj x^toTo? in the 17th, that is, unless the whole of this passage be applicable to Jesus Christ. But if the whole be applicable to liim, we have the testimony of an apostle, that all things were made by him. Ilavta di avtov sysvsto' xm x^^<'i o-vtov cysvcto ou5f tv o yiyovi. I have chosen to lead you in this manner to the knowledge of the person meant by o xoyoj, because the fairest way of interpreting a passage is to lay the whole of it together, and so bring the sense of an author out of his words. But it is natural to inquire, why did John use this dark expression ? Why has he begun his gospel in such a manner as to require this circuitous method of arriving at his mean- ing ? Would it not have been better to have said plainly. In the beginning was Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was with God, and Jesus Christ was God ? In answer to this question, you will recollect that many of those modes of expression in ancient writers, which appear hurtful to perspicuity, were dictated by some circumstances peculiar to the country, or the times in which the writers lived ; and that the obscu- rity, in which to us such expressions seem to be involved, is removed by the knowledge of those circumstances which rendered them the most proper and significant when they were used. There has been much dispute what were the circumstances that led John to use this expression, u?ioyoj. The subject is involved in considerable obscurity from our imperfect knowledge of the dates of particular tenets. But I shall endeavour to give, in a short compass, the result of a very fatiguing examination of the dispute. Before the days of our Saviour, there were Targums, /. e. Chaldee paraphrases of the Old Testament, for the use of the vulgar Jews, who, upon their return from the Babylonish captivity, did not under- stand the original Hebrew, As these Targums were composed by the learned men of the nation, and portions of them were read every Sabbath-day in the Synagogues, they may be considered as the national interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures ; and they have often been quoted by those who have entered deeply into the argument IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 255 from prophecy, as the vouchers of the sense which the Jews affixed to their own predictions before the days of our Saviour. These Targums, in ahnost every place wliere Jehovah is mentioned in the Hebrew as talking with men, assisting them, or liolding any imme- diate intercourse with them, have used this circumlocution, the word of Jeliovah. In the Hebrew, Jehovah created nmn in his own image ; in the Targum, the word of Jehovah created man. In the Hebrew, Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God; in the Targum, they heard the voice of the word of the Lord God. In the Hebrew, Jeliovah thy God, he it is that goeth before thee; in the Targum, Jehovah thy God, his word goeth before thee. Those who are qualified to judge of this matter say that all the personal charac- ters of action are ascribed in the Targums to the Word ; and that there are places where the sense renders it impossible to understand the word of Jehovah as merely an idiom of the language equivalent to Jehovah. Thus in the Hebrew it is, God came to Abimelech ; in the Targum, his word came from the face of God to Abimelech. And the 110th Psalm is thus paraphrased. Jehovah said to his Word, sit thou at my right hand. We cannot suppose that this mode of expres- sion would have been introduced into the Targums, at the time when they were composed, had it then appeared a novelty ; and there is no doubt that, by the weekly reading of the paraphrases, it would become familiar to the ears of the Jews. Accordingly, in the Wisdom of Solomon, a book which is understood to have been written a hundred years before Christ, we meet with the following expression, referring to the judgment upon the land of Egypt : " Thine almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thine unfeign- ed commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up, filled all things with death, and it touched the heavens, but it stood upon the earth."* This may appear to you only a bold expressive figure for the divine energy which was exerted in the punishment of the Egyptians, in the same manner as that passage in Psalm xxxiii. " By the word of the Lord were the heavens made," does not necessarily convey to a mind accustomed to weigh the import of language any thing more than that the heavens were made by the Lord. But there appears the best reason for thinking that the constant use of this circumlocution cherish- ed in the minds of the body of the Jews the belief that there was a person distinct from the Father whose name was the word of Jehovah ; and it is certain that Philo, a learned Jew, bred at Alexan- dria, who lived about the time of our Saviour, whose books were pubUshed before his death, speaks in numberless places of the ?.oyos, whom he calls a second God, the Son of God, the image of God, the instrument by whom God made the worlds. Philo did not learn this word in the Platonic school ; for although ^-oyoj occurs often in the writing of the later Platonists, who lived in the second and third centuries, there is no evidence that Plato, or any of his disciples before Philo, used ^yo^ as the name of a person distinct from God. It is doubted by Mosheim, whether Philo himself believed that there was a distinction ; and that indefatigable inquirer has brought together, in • Wisdom of Solomon, xviit. 15, 16. 256 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS his notes upon Cudworth, several passages which appear to me to make it probable that Philo, hke many otlier philosophers, had an esoteric and an exoteric, a secret and an ostensible doctrine. His secret doctrine was, that what his countrymen called ^-oyoj was nothing else but the conception formed in the mind of God of the work which he was to execute, and that what they accounted a distinction of persons was ideal and nominal, acconmiodated to the narrowness of our apprehension. But if this was truly his private sentiment, his calling the >.oyoj the Son of God, and a second God, is a proof that the opinion concerning the Word of Jehovah as a person, had so firm a possession of the minds of his countrymen, that he did not wish to offend them by teaching openly and unequivocally a doctrine opposite to that which they had derived from Scripture and tradition. Not long after the writings of Philo were published, there arose the Gnostics, a sect, or rather a multitude of sects, who having learnt in the same Alexandrian school to blend the principles of oriental philosophy with the doctrine of Plato, formed a system most repug- nant to the simplicity of Christian faith. It is this system which Paul so often attacks under the name of" false philosophy, strifes of words, endless genealogies, science falsely so called." The foundation of tlie Gnostic system was the intrinsic and incorrigible depravity of matter. Upon this principle they made a total separation between the spiritual and the material world. Accounting it impossible to educe out of matters any thing which was good, they held that the Supreme Being, who presided over the innumerable spirits that were emanations from himself, did not make this earth, but that a spirit of an inferior nature very far removed in character as well as in rank from the Supreme Being, formed matter into that order which constitutes the world, and gave life to the ditferent creatures that inhabit the earth. They held that this Inferior Spirit was the Ruler of the creatures whom he had made, and they considered men, whose souls he imprisoned in earthly taber- nacles, as experiencing under his dominion the misery which neces- sarily arose from their connexion with matter, and as estranged from the knowledge of the true God. Most of the later sects of the Gnos- tics rejected every part of the Jewish law, because the books of Moses give a view of the creation inconsistent with their system. But some of the earlier sects, consisting of Alexandrian Jews, incorporated a respect for the law with the principles of their system. They con- sidered the Old Testament dispensation as granted by the Srjfiiov^xoi, the Maker and Ruler of the world, who was incapable, from his want of power, of delivering those who received it from the thraldom of mat- ter : and they looked for a more glorious messenger, whom the com- passion of the Supreme Being was to send for the purpose of eman- cipating the human race. Those Gnostics who embraced Christianity, regarded the Christ as this Messenger, an exalted ^on, who, being in some manner united to the man Jesus, put an end to the dominion of the 6>7uiovfyof, and restored the souls of men to communion with God. It was natural for the Christian Gnostics who had received a Jewish education to follow the steps of Philo, and the general sense of their countrymen, in giving the name -Koyoi to the 6j?;Ucov^yos ; and as x^tofoj was understood from the beginning of our Lord's ministry to be the Greek word equivalent to the Jewish name Messiah, there IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 257 came to be, in Iheir system, a direct opposition between x^i.^t'os and xoyoj. Aoyoj was tlie maker of the world : X^catos was the JKon sent to destroy the tyranny of ?toyoj. One of the first teachers of this system was Cerinthus. We have not any particular account of all the branches of his system : and it is possible that we may ascribe to him some of those tenets by which later sects of Gnostics were discriminated. But we have authority for saying that the general principle of the Gnostic scheme was openly taught by Cerinthus before the publication of the Gospel of John. The authority is that of Irentens, a bishop who lived in the second century, who in his youth had heard Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John, and who retained the discourses of Polycarp in his memory till his death. There are yet extant of the works of Jrenaeus, five books which he wrote against heresies, one of the most authentic and valuable monuments of theological erudition. In one place of that work he says, that Cerinthus taught in Asia that the world was not made by the Supreme God, but by a certain power very separate and far removed from the Sovereign of the Universe, and ignorant of his nature.* In another place, he says, that John the Apostle wished, by his Gospel, to extirpate the error which had been spread among men by Cerinthus ;t and Jerome, who lived in the fourth cen- tury, says that John wrote his gospel, at the desire of the Bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and chiefly against the doc- trines of the Ebionites, then springing up, who said, that Christ did not exist before he was born of Mary .J From laying these accounts together, it appears to have been the tradition of the Christian Church, that John, who lived to a great age, and who resided at Ephesus, in pro-consular Asia, was moved by the growth of the Gnostic heresies, and by the solicitations of the Chris- tian teachers, to bear his testimony to the truth in writing, and parti- cularly to recollect those discourses and actions of our Lord, which might furnish the clearest refutation of the persons who denied his pre-existence. This tradition is a key to a great part of his gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, had given a detail of those actions of Jesus which are the evidences of his divine mission : of those events in his life upon earth which are most interesting to the human race ; and of those moral discourses in which the wisdom, the grace, and the sanctity of the Teacher, shine with united lustre. Their whole narration implies that Jesus was more than man. But as it is distinguished by a beautiful simplicity which adds very much to their credit as historians, they have not, with the exception of a few incidental expressions, formally stated the conclusion that Jesus was more than man, but have left the Cliristian world to draw it for them- selves from the facts narrated, or to receive it by the teaching and the writings of the Apostles. John, who was preserved by God to see this conclusion, which had been drawn by the great body of Christians, and had been established in the Epistles, denied by differ- ent heretics, brings forward, in the form of a history of Jesus, a view of his exalted character, and draws our attention particularly to the * Iren. contra Hffir. lib. iii. cap. \i. 1. t Id. lib. i. xxvi. 1. + Jerome De Vit. Illust. cap. ix. 24* 2 N '»S8 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS truth of that which had been denied. When you come to analyze the gospel of John, you will find that the first eighteen veri;es contain the positions laid down by the Apostle, in order to meet the errors of Cerintlius ; that these positions, which are merely affirmed in the introduction, are proved in the progress of the gospel, by the testimony of John the Baptist,and by the words and the actions of our Lord ; and that after the proof is concluded by the declaration of Thomas, who, upon being convinced that Jesus had risen, said to him, " my Lord, and my God," John sums up the amount of his gospel in these few words : " These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," i. e. that Jesus and the Christ are not distinct persons, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Apostle does not condescend to mention the name of Cerinthus, because that would have preserved, as long as the world lasts, the memory of a name which might otherwise be foi-gotten. But although there is dignity and propriety in omitting the mention of his name, it was necessary, in laying down the positions that were to meet his errors, to adopt some of his words, because the Christians of those days could not so readily have applied the docrine of the Apostle to the refuta- tion of those heresies which Cerinthus was spreading among them, if they had not found in the exposition of that doctrine some of the terms in which the heresy was delivered : and as the clwef of these terms, >.o>oj, which Cerinthus applied to an inferior spirit, was equiva- lent to a phrase in common use among the Jews, the word of Jehovah, and was probably borrowed from thence, John, by his use of xoyoj, rescues it from the degraded use of Cerinthus, and restores it to a sense corresponding to the dignity of the Jewish phrase. You will perceive from this induction the fitness with which the Apostle John introduces this word xoyo?, although it had not been used by the other Evangelists who wrote before the errors of Cerinthus. You may think it strange that ^^oyo?, which is announced with snch solemnity at the beginning, does not occur again in this gospel. But the reason is suggested by the introduction itself John has said in the 14th verse, oxoyoj (501^1 jyfi/sro, and he has inserted Jesus Christ in the 17th verse as the name of the man who was the Word made flesh. Our Lord was ^yo5 in the beginning. But during his ministry upon earth, his name was properly Jesus Christ ; and John might suppose that every reader who was acquainted with his introduction would understand by that name, as often as it occurred, the same person whom he had there called ?^yoj- But although this name could not with propriety occur in a history of the man Christ Jesus, it is found in the beginning of the first Epistle of John, which, like his gospel, was opposed to the errors of Cerinthus. " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, rtf^i foi) ^you fj?; Cu)j?, that declare we unto you." And in one of those sublime descriptions of the person of our Saviour, in his glorified state, which are found in the book of Revelation, this name is directly applied to him. '' And he was clothed with a vesture dipt in blood ; and his name is called the Word of God," oJ^yOi rov ©sw. Rev. xix. 13. If the book of Revelation was written, as there has always appeared to me great reason to suppose, before the gospel of IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 259 John, this direct application of S xoyoj to our Saviour, would render it easy for the Christians to understand the meaning of this intro- duction. After having gone at such length into the reason of the use of the word ^oyoi, which is the only real difficulty in this passage, I shall easily deduce the proposition for the sake of which I quoted it, that Jesus created the world. Observe then, that (v o^x^i necessarily brings to our minds the first words of Genesis, iva^x-u tnoirjaev 6 ©eoitov ov^avov xm frv r^v\ and that both by this obvious reference to a well-known passage, and by what is said in the third verse, rtafta hi ovrov sy^wro, iv a^xv niust be understood to mean a time before any thing was made. The Apostle asserts that, at this time, fv a^xib the Word was. He does not say, sywro, was made, but »?»', existed ; and that the Word existed, not in a state of distance, but Tt^o^ tov @eov, at, or with God; not in a state of inferiority, but 0£O5 ^v o xoyoj. This last clause is properly rendered, " the Word was God." It is common in the Greek language to distinguish the subject of a proposition from the predicate, by pre- fixing the article to the subject, and giving no article to the predicate. Examples of this will be found in Dr. Campbell's Commentary, and will occur to those who are familiar with the New Testament in the original. John iv. 24; xvii. 10. To draw the attention of the Christians to the error of Cerinthus, the second position is repeated in the second verse, o xoyos jjvrt^ofro^/Qfov; and then after this explicit repeated affirmation of his original dignity, it is added, Tiavta hi avtov iyivito. It is not said that all other things were made by him, as if he was one created being. But navto. Si avtov lysveto -. and, according to the manner of this apostle, which abounds in repe- tition, and is here peculiarly fitted to meet the error of Cerinthus, it is added, x^^i-i aurov eyivito ovSi iv o yeyove, which marks strongly that his creating power extended to all parts of the universe. " In him," says the apostle, " was the life of men." Not only the great objects of nature were formed by him, but every individual being, every animal, derived existence from him. When he came to enlighten the world which he had made, he came "jfaiSta, to his own dominion, and those who did not receive him were ot iStoi, his own subjects. According to the system of the Gnostics, the Christ, the light of the world, came into the territory of another, to emancipate men from the tyranny of their maker. But here original creation and future illumination are expressly ascribed to the same person, who being before all things with God, in the beginning made, and at a subse- quent period enlightened, the world. I have only further to remark, that >.oyo; and ixovoyivris, which, in the system of some of the Gnostics, were different ^Eons, are in this passage the same with Jesus Christ. Having thus easily attained the proposition, which this passage was adduced to prove, I shall not have occasion to occupy time in refiuing the two other interpretations which it has received. The one is the old Socinian interpretation, according to which, Jesus is called »^vos merely because he revealed or spoke the will of God to man; and the first three verses receive the following paraphrase. " In the beginning of the gospel, there was a man, who, being the revealer of God's will, was called oxoyoj, who was with God, being taken up to heaven after his birth, that he might there learn what he was to 260 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS teach to others ; and who received, after his resurrection, the title of God, in virtue of the powers conferred upon him, and the office to which he was exalted. By this person the gospel dispensation was established, and without him no part of the world was reformed." According to this interpretation, it is supposed, without evidence, that the man Jesus was taken up to heaven ; Ex a^x^j contrary to its ob- vious meaning, is Applied to the beginning of the gospel : the phrase Qeoi r^v o xoyoi is Considered as equivalent to this proposition, which ap- pears to be directly opposite, the man who was not God, is now made God ; and expressions which, by the analogy and use of the Greek language, denote that things were brought into being, are explained of a reformation of their state. But, besides all these reasons suggested by tlie words themselves, the history which I have given of the term 'toyoj, is a clear refutation of this forced construction. For ?^oyo;, or its equivalent in the Chaldee, being, at the time when this gospel was written, commonly applied to a person who made the world, John unavoidably misled his readers, if he gave that name to a man v/ho did not exist before he was born of Mary, and said of that man bearing this name, that all things were made by him, when he only meant that all things were reformed by him. This Socinian interpretation is generally abandoned, even by those who deny the pre-existence of Jesus ; and they have adopted in place of it, the old Sabellian interpretation. Aoyoj signifies reason as well as speech ; ratio mente concepta, and ratio enunciativa. If it be translated in this place reason, the words of John will bear a striking allusion to a remarkable passage in the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs. Wisdom thus speaks, " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. When he prepared the heavens, I was there ; when he appointed the founda- tions of the earth, then I was by him, as one brought up with him." Solomon, says Mr. Lindsey, represents Wisdom as a person dwelling with God, beloved by him, present with him, attending upon him in all his works of creation ; and so John says, in the beginning reason or wisdom was with God, i. e. God was complete in wisdom before he made any manifestation of himself to his creatures ; and all things were made by reason, i. e. were created according to the most perfect wisdom ; and reason was made flesh, i. e. the same divine wisdom which had appeared from the beginning in the creation of the world, was communicated in large measure to the man Jesus Christ, and residing in him became visible to us. When you judge of this interpretation, you will carry along with you, that all the Christian writers, from the earliest times, apply the description of Wisdom in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, to Christ. It is quoted and argued upon in this light ; and both those who held that Christ was God, and those who held that he was a creature, defended their opinions by particular expressions in this passage. To us who enjoy the revelation of the gospel, every fact of that descrip- tion appears most apposite to Christ. The true doctrine of the gospel respecting the person of Christ, seems to have been anticipated by his IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 261 ilhistrions predecessor ; and John, by the manifest similarity of some expressions in this passage to expressions in the description of Wis- dom, appears to give his sanction to this interpretation of the meaning of Solomon. It is not, however, in my opinion, probable that any person who had not our advantages, would iiave found the person of Christ in this description ; and if you lay out of your mind what you know of Christ, and attend merely to the poetical strain of the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs, you will probably be disposed to consider the passage in the eighth chapter as a beautiful and well-supported instance of prosopopcsia. But, allowing what no person can certainly know, that Solomon meant nothing more in that passage than to personify the divine attribute of wisdom, this does not aiford the most distant reason for imagining that John also personifies reason. For observe the difference of the cases. The prosopopoeia of Solomon is in the midst of other passages of a like kind; and there is no part of it inconsistent with those rules which are not of modern invention, but are essential to the nature and the beauty of this figure. But the prosopopoeia in this place, if there be one, is introduced abruptly, without preparation, at the beginning of a plain history. It is executed in so inartificial a manner, that words and phrases per- petually occurring in the passage destroy the illusion, and require a great effort of imagination to recai it. Reason, one attribute of the Deity, is called the only begotten, as if he had no other. Reason is called a man to whom another man bore witness ; and instead of oofia, the word used by the Septuagint in that personification which John is supposed to imitate, he introduces, and applies to the man of whom he speaks ?^oyo?, a term applied at the very time of his writing to a person different from God, and inferior to him. To consider John, therefore, as meaning here a personifi-cation of the divine attri- bute of wisdom, is to suppose that he employs a misplaced and ill- supported figure of speech on purpose to mislead his readers ; that when he intended to say, Jesus was a man in whom the wisdom of God the maker of all things dwelt, he used language which, to the persons living in those days, and to all who study that language, can- not fail to convey the impression, that this man was a being who existed before any thing was made, and who created the world. Section II. CoL.i. 15—18. The Apostle, in reminding the Christians at Colosse, amidst the sufferings to which their faith might expose them, of the grounds of thankfulness which it afforded, is led into one of those digressions which are common in his writings. He had been speaking of that redemption through the blood of Christ, which is the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion. The redemption suggests to him the dignity and character of the ransomer. He expatiates upon these topics for a few verses, and then returns to the point from which he had set out. The digression, although it appears to interrupt the 262 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS course of his argument, promotes most effectually the great design of his Epistle, because it serves to satisfy the Colossians, that the Author of the new religion was qualified for the otfice which he assumed, and that their faith in him, without any aid from Jewish ceremonies, was able to save them. This digression is contained in the loth, 16th, 17th, and 18th verses of the first chapter. I shall first give that interpretation of these verses, which seems to arise out of the words themselves; and I shall next comment upon another interpretation which they have received. 'Oj tativ sixuv -fov ©£ou tov ao^afoi). It is proper to take along with this expression, two corresponding phrases in Heb. i. 3. — * 05 uv artavyaaiua ryjc 8o^y]i, xoa x^^oLxtrit ''^^i^ vHojtaaeui avtov. AH the three are highly figura- tive, as the whole language in which we presume to speak of the Almighty necessarily must be. But attention to the point in which the three images coincide may assist us in understanding every one of them. Etxiou is a likeness or portrait, representing the features of a person, the expression and air of his countenance ; artauya^^a, that which shines forth from a ray, a bright ray of his glory. The expres- sion is probably borrowed from the book of Wisdom, vii. 25, where W^isdom is called arto^^oia ttj^ tov rtavrox^Oito^o; 8o|);j siKix^ivrj^, artavytt7,ua ^co-roj aiSiov, " a pure ray flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the bright- ness of the everlasting light." As light, says Dionysius of Alexan- dria, who wrote before the Council of Nice, is known by its shining forth, so oi'to; ail tov ^wfoj, SyjXov wj siytcv acv to anavyai/xa. On this expression was grounded an argument for the eternity and consubstantiality of the Son, his being always with the Father, and of the same nature. XaPaxtT]^, from ;^a?a5cyu), imprimo, a stamp, an impressiwi, as that by which the figure engraved on a seal is truly represented in wax. Tjjj vHostacssioi avtov. I must Warn you that the word vTtoata^ji^, which our translators have rendered Person, does not, either by its etymology, or by its use in the days of the Apostle, necessarily convey that distinction which we now mark, when we speak of the three Persons in the Godhead. For the first three centuries, avaiaand i^toata-m were used promiscuously, and it was in the progress of controversy, that men being obliged to speak with more precision, and to define their terms, came to appropriate vftoatami to denote a person, while ovaia signified that nature or substance which different persons might have in common. It would therefore have been more correct, because more agreeable to the language of the Apostle's time, to have render- ed x<^C"'Xtr;^ t*ii vHoatastui avtov, the cxpress image, or representation of his substance, i. e. of his essential attributes. It is always unsafe to build an argument upon figurative expressions ; and, until we be further advanced in this inquiry, we are not warranted to say whether these three phrases ought to receive that strict interpretation which renders them descriptive of the nature of Christ. Tins much they certainly imply, that the glory of the divine perfections was most accurately reflected and exhibited to man in Jesus Christ, They may imply that this accurate exhibition arises from a similitude, or sameness of nature ; and if plain declarations of Scripture shall authorize us to affix this meaning to these figurative phrases, you will recollect that it is such as they seem easily to bear. ngwtof oxoc ftaarii xrtfffwj. The word rt^wrotoxo; is applied by Homer, U IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 263 xvii. 5, to an animal who, for the first time brought forth young ; ft^io-toroxoi xcvv^rj, ov rt^iv si.5vM roxoio, noji prius experta partum. If we followed the analogy of the passage, we should translate rt^wToroxoj rtooj?? zrwfwj, he who first brought forth the whole creation, which would render it equivalent to a phrase, Rev. iii. 14, where Jesus calls him- self rj a€,xn ■^'75 xtiaa^i tov ©fov. A^x^i' in the language of ancient philosophy, denoted an efficient cause, that which gave a beginning to other things, a principle or source of existence. According to this received sense of the .word, a^x^ rrji xttaioi^ tov ®iov means more than our English translation conveys, — the beginning of the creation of God ; it is he who gave a beginning to, produced, the creation of God. But there are several reasons which prevent us from giving rt^utotoxoi ■ra'jtji x-ftoftoj the sense which renders it equivalent to this true meaning of 04x1 '''?« xtKTfwj. 1. Although rt^^tofoxoi, like other compounds of ttroxa, occurs in an active sense, there is no instance of its governing a case of the word, denoting the thing brought forth ; and that case, if there were one governed by it, would not be the genitive. 2. In other places of the New Testament, and in the 18th verse of this chapter, rt^ufofoxo; must be translated in a passive sense, not the first who brought forth, but the first who was brought forth. 3. If you translate it here in an active sense, then the 16th verse only repeats in a multitude of words that proposition of which it professes to give a reason. He brought forth the whole creation ; " for all things were created by him." For these reasons, Christian writers from the earliest times have under- stood this expression in a passive sense ; and you will understand the meaning which they affix to it, from the commentary of Justin Martyr in the second century ; o ^oyoj, rf^o ruv TtouYi^a-tuiv owuv xm ysvofxivoi. And, rt^uttotoxov tov ©sou, xav rtgo Ttav-ec^v tuv xti,aij.aii^v. By their use of the prcpo- sition rt^o in explaining this word, it appears that they would have translated it in English, born or begotten before every creature ; and this method of rendering the superlative is agreeable to the expression in John, Tr^ioTo^ jxov t]v, he was before me, i. e. in comparison with me, he was the first ; and it is analogous to several other expressions that occur in the best Greek writers. I mention only one, suggested by Dr. Clarke, from Euripides ; ovtii aVK^i hvotvxfO'to.'tri ywri (ixovth^vxsv; there is no other woman, who, considered in comparison with me, deserves the name of the most unhappy. So here, Jesus, in respect of ^aoj/j xti6(^i, is rt^cjto-foxoj, the first born, i. e. he was born before it. xiaoj^j xtiacui is rendered in our translation, " every creature." According to the analogy of the Greek language, if xti^oi means creo, x^kjij is creatio, the act of creating, and xti<;ixa creatura, the thing created. It is true that this distinction is not invariably observed ; for as rf?a|t$ often denotes an action, a thing done, so xtiaii sometimes in the New Testa- ment must be translated a creature. But there are several passages where it must be understood in its original import, as Rev. iii. 14, already quoted, and Rom. i. 20, -to. ao^ata a-vtov arco xT-taiu? xoa^w, twj 7toirina,6L voov^iiva, xoSo^atai. The English would have come nearer the Greek if the word creation had been used here instead of creature ; and if, at the same time, the true force of rt^^totoxo^ had been express- ed by the insertion of the preposition, so as to make the whole clause stand thus, begotten before the whole creation, an inconvenience would have been avoided which arises from the present translation. 264 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS To a careless reader, indeed to every one who is not capable of looking into the orighial, these words, first-born of every creature, seem to convey that Jesus is of the same rank and order with other creatures, distinguished from them only in seniority ; and some Arians have urged this phrase in proof of the leading position of their system. But the words, if closely examined, really contain a refutation of that position which they appear to support. Had it been said, rtgcoroxnaroj Ttaurji xtt-aei^f, this would havc implied that Jesus was a xna^ua, like all other beings. But the word n^oirotoxoi separates him from all Ihe xtieixara. The act of producing them is x^iUi. But he is f£;t9»s» derived, produced from the Father in a different manner, before any of them were made. It is not intimated in the word rt^wroroxoj, or in the phrase used by John iv a^xv^ at what time the Son was thus pro- duced, whether immediately before the creation, or from eternity. That must be gathered from other passages of Scripture. All that we learn here is, that the existence of the Son of God was prior to that of any created being, and that the manner of his being produced is marked by a word different from creation. In verse 'sixteenth, the Apostle mentions an infallible proof of that which we have given as the amount of ^^wt'ot'oxo? Ttaarn xttaacoj. The Son of God was born before the whole creation, for every thing that can be conceived as a part of the creation was made by him. 'On ev auT'&j ixtLsdrj ta Tiavta -ra tv toi^ OD^ocot^ xai -taerti -triiyrji, tao^ataxa.i'faao^ata, nts ^ovoi, £iti xv^Mtrjtti, iits a^j;at, ti-ts flovuion' to, rtavta 6i avtov xat, ftj avtov ixfis-fcU' The proposition is enunciated in such a manner as to draw our atten- tion very strongly to the universality of it. There is first the same division as in the first book of Genesis. Ef a^xn tJioi,r;atv 6 ©to; tov o\^a,vov XM -triv yriv. Here *» Tiav-Ca, fa iv fotj oi'^owotj xat -to, iTli, ifrji yyj^. And with the same anxiety to mark the universality of the proposition, which suggested the repetition that we found in John, this Apostle adds, ■fa u^ata xm fa ao^ata,. We deduce the propriety of this addition from what we know of the tenets of the Gnostics. They said that the visible world was made by the 5?7^ioD^yo5, an tEou of inferior rank ; but that the invisible world, all the different orders of angels, were emanations from the Supreme mind. To them, therefore, Ttai^ra ra ?«/ focj oD^ai-otj xat, to. nit, trji yj^j, might Seem ouly to imply that the celestial bodies and this lower world were the work of Jesus. But ta ao^ata, joined to ra o^ara, has no meaning unless it comprehends the angels ; and that no order of angels might be conceived to be exempted, the Apostle adds several names, all of which, being introduced by the particles "tc, appear to be partitions of ■fa ao^ata. We cannot explain the reason why these particular names are chosen. But we naturally infer, from their being chosen, that they refer to a system and a lan- guage with regard to angels that was then known. It was one of the doctrines of heathen philosophy, that between God, the Father of spirits, and man, there were many intermediate spirits, who had particular provinces allotted them in the government of the universe; and this doctrine was readily embraced by those who wished to incor- porate heathen philosophy with Rabbinical learning. For it accorded with the views given in the Old Testament of the dispensation of the law which was ordained by angels, and with the whole of that inter- course which the Almighty condescended to maintain with his chosen IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 265 people. We read in Scripture of Michael an archangel, and of a chief prince, of cherubim and seraphim, all which gives us reason to suppose that there are different orders amongst the spirits who excel in strength. Learned men have collected from the most ancient writings of the Jews that are extant, and from the mention which other authors incidentally make of their tenets, that they not only agreed in opinion with the heathen as to the superintendence of angels, but that many of them formed systems with regard to the orders and offices of these spirits, gave names to the different orders, and paid them a degree of homage corresponding to the opinion en- tertained of their nature. To these opinions and practices the Apostle manifestly refers, Col. ii. 18. And in accommodation to the systems formed upon this subject, he says here, that the angels, all of whom are withdrawn from the eyes of mortals, were made by the Son, whatever be their rank, implied in ^gowt; or power, in xv^ioT;rirti, from xo^toj; or extent of dominion, in "Ca:«'5 or liberty allowed them in ex- ercising their power, in itovaiac, from, flscfr't, licet. All ^v aiitoj ix-eioeri, and 5i a.vtov (xtiotM. These two expressions are equivalent. They were made through the exertion of a power residing in him. But tt5 wtov impUes more ; »j marks the point to which an object tends ; and the use of it in this place suggests that Jesus did not create all things for the purpose of ministering to the pleasure or glory of another, but that as ihey proceeded from him, so they refer to him as their end. It is equivalent to an expression in the book of Revela- tion, i. 8. Eyu ft;Ui I'D A xac ro Q, a^;^?; xat ff^f, Ttfytt o Kv^toc. It deSCrVCS your particular notice, that by the use of this preposition "5» one of the forms of expression, which, in other places, seems to be appro- priated to the Father, is here applied to the Son. We read, Rom. xi. 36, i% avtov, xac 81 autoi), xm m; avfof ■fa rtavra, and 1 Cor. viii. 6, Axx' rfxw ili ©foj 6 rtatr;^, f| ov ta rtavta, xai /jfitu; tiy av-tov. xai stj Kr^toj IjjSovj XgWT'oc, fit oti fa rtavtl xav r;ixcii fia aufou. 'H^ustj tij avfoi/ is not, " wc in him," as in our translation, but " we to him," or " for him." The distinction made by the Apostle to the Corinthians, seems to be removed, when it is said, rCavtadvavtol xom eiiavtop ex-tid'iat,. Verse 17th. Kat mtoi latv rtgo rtwT'wv. The Apostle may be considered as repeating the amount of the expression rt^wfoToxof Ttacrjjs xtiaa^i, that the existence of Jesus was prior to that of any created being, a repe- tition made with propriety, after the thing affirmed by him has been proved, by his being the Creator of all things; or he may be con- sidered as saying something new. There are two circumstances which lead us to understand him so. 1. The import of autoj, a pro- noun which is more proper to introduce a new proposition than to repeat a former one. 2. The tense of t^ixi,, which intimates not what Jesus was before the creation, but what he is now. These circumstances render the first clause of the seventeenth verse an expression of pre-eminence. He who existed before all, and who created all, now stands before all, in a higher rank than any created being. Kai ta Tnw-ea, iv avtoi awcaff^xs ; and in him they consist, being continually preserved by his agency. Paul has expressed creation fully in the sixteenth verse. And the pronoun au^-^ giving notice that something further is to be said of the same person, it is most natural to translate aweatTjxiv, according to classical use, by preservation. This 25 2 0 266 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS is perfectly agreeable to the passage in Aristotle, a^xo-^o^ ^£v f'f ^oj xtti Ttat^ioi tati rtaiLv av^^wrtoij, wj sx I'ov 0£ov ia rtavta, xai 8ia 0£ov tj/xcv avveatrixi' ovSsixta Si 4)V(jt5, avtrj xa9^ savtyjn avta^xrii t^tjfiudsiaa 'trji ex tovfou fftofjj^taj.* And also to an expression of Paul, Acts xvii. 28, where Paul shows an acquaintance with the Athenian poets. The quotation has been referred both to Aratus and Cleanthes. Thus, then, by an analysis of these three verses, we Ijave found a learned Jew employing the language suggested by the writers of his own country and the philosophers of the times, as the most proper for expressing that Jesus, the Son of God, is the creator and the preserver of all. It cannot be denied that Jesus Christ is the person here spoken of. For there is no other antecedent to the relative oi, but vlov rjj? ayartj^j a-vrov ; and as the eighteenth verse, by its meaning, must be applied to Jesus Christ, the first-born from the dead, there is as clear an intima- tion as can well be given, that the verses intervening between the fifteenth and the eighteenth, apply to him also. But these intervening verses, according to the analysis that has been given of them, are inconsistent with the first opinion concerning the person of Christ. And, therefore, those who hold that opinion, being unable to apply these verses to any other, are obliged to bring forward a system of interpretation, according to which they may, in consistency with their opinion, be applied to Christ. As this system is employed in the explication of several other passages, and is a characteristic mark perpetually recurring in the writings of those who are called Soci- nians, I shall take this opportunity of laying it before you fully, with the grounds upon which it is rested by themselves. The gospel is represented in Scripture as making a complete change upon the character of all who embrace it in faith. The opinions, the sentiments, the alfections, the desires, the whole conduct of those who were converted from the superstition and gross vices of heathen- ism became different. They put off the old man which was corrupt, and they put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. This total change, which restores the image of God upon the soul of man, is called in different places by St. Paul, xMvrj xtwis,- a significant figure, the meaning of which be- comes more obvious, if you translate it literally a new creation, rather than a new creature. Etfij sv X.^iata, xMvrj xnMs" ta a^x^o, rta^rjxdsv, tSow ysyoi.ixai.va, tavta- 2 Cor. V. 17. And the apostlc, in an epistle to the Ephesians, written at the same time as this Epistle, joining himself, according to his usual manner, with the converts, says, Avtov ya^ tafxiv TCoii^ixa, xfi'Odevtti ev X^t,r!t(f> Irjaov frtt ffyotj ayaSotj. Epll. ii. 10. But the figurative language of Scripture does not stop here. The Jewish prophets were accustomed to describe future events relative to the fail of kingdoms, or their restoration, by images drawn from the Mosaic account of the creation. I will shake the heavens and the earth, is explained by Haggai to mean, I will overthrow the throne of kings. That I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, means, in Isaiah, the deliverance and restoration of the Jews. — In conformity to this frequent language of ancient prophecy, the * Arist. Opera, vol. i. lab. de Mundo, ch. vi. 375. Ed. Lug. IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 867 evangelical prophet Isaiah paints those blessed events which were to be the consequences of Christ's coming, the conversion from idolatry, the assurance of pardon, the practice of righteousness, and the union of Jews and Gentiles under one head, by these words : " Behold I create new heavens and a new earth: And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."* There was a particular reason for the apostles of our Lord adopting and extending this image of Isaiah, because, in the interval between the days of the prophet and their days, the early opinions with regard to the ditlerent orders of spiritual beings had been formed, by a mixture of Jewish tradition and heathen philosophy, into a regular system. It was believed that those angels, who had rebelled against God, exercised a malignant influence over the minds and bodies of men ; and that the heathen were subject to the rule of the prince of those spirits, who is styled in Scripture, '' the prince of this world. "t But Jesus " was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. "J He himself says, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. "§ He gave his disciples power over evil spirits : and he is said to be now " set in the heavenly places far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion ; angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject to him,"|| The gospel dispensation, then, is represented in Scripture under the idea of a new creation of men : a regulation of the heavenly communities, a reformation of all things, 7ta%Lyy(v(aia: and all this is only a figurative language, according to the style of ancient prophecy, describing in a manner the most likely to convince the understandings, and to affect the imaginations of those who were addressed, the infinite importance of the gospel, the power exerted in its propaga- tion, its intended universality, and the efficacy with which it establishes truth and virtue in the mind of man. According to this general system of interpretation, which is applied to many passages of Scripture, the three verses in question are thus understood. The Son of God, under whose rule you converts are now placed, is the representative of the invisible God, the Lord, (the word first-born is conceived to be adopted instead of Lord, in reference to that right which primogeniture conveys amongst men,) the Lord of the new creation ; Jews and Gentiles being regenerated into one mass by that doctrine which he first preached. For the efi'ects of his reli- gion may be represented under the figure of a new creation of all things, there being not only a reformation of the world of mankind, but a subjection to Christ of those heavenly powers who, according to Jewish notions, formerly bore rule on earth. The terms in which these powers are here spoken of were found in Jewish traditions. But it matters not how far the traditions were well-founded. Whether the powers were real or imaginary, the style used would convey to those whom the apostle is addressing, the same exalted idea of the power of Christ. And the whole image is introduced merely to paint the excellency of the gospel above all former dispensations. I have endeavoured, in the exposition of this system of interpreta- tion, to do justice to the principles upon which it rests. And I have • Isaiah Ixv. 17. f John xiv. .30. + 1 John iii. 8. § Luke X. 18. 1 Ephes. i. 20, 21. 1 Peter iii. 22. 868 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS explained it, not according to the rude form which it first bore, but with all the improvements and corrections to which modern Socinians have been driven by a multitude of objections. Before we proceed to examine particularly the apj)lication of this system to the passage before us, there are two general observations which I wish to premise, the one concerning the use of allegory in Scripture ; and the other concerning the interpretation of allegory. — 1. It is allowed that allegory was a favourite method of conveying truth in ancient times, and that while the vulgar rest in the literal sense, an enlargement of understanding is discovered in apprehending the further meaning. There are allegories of different kinds in the Old Testament. There are many passages, such as Psalm Ixxii., which apply, in a certain sense, to events that fell under the prophet's observation, but the full explication of which is found in the dispen- sation of the gospel. This arose naturally from the character of the Old Testament, which was a preparatory dispensation, looking for- ward in all its points to the grace and truth that were to come by Jesus Christ. When grace and truth did come, this reason for the use of allegory ceased. For the gospel being the last dispensation, it has not, like the law, to give intimation during its existence, of an approaching change. Yet still the general uses of figurative language continue ; and it may be expected that the writers of the New Testa- ment, educated in reverence for the books of the ancient prophets, and full of their images, would not lay them aside entirely in de- scribing the events which those images had been employed to foretell. Hence an acquaintance with the figurative language of the Old Testament is of great service in expounding the New ; and the exact correspondence between the two dispensations may be so employed as to make them throw light upon one another. 2. With regard to the interpretation of the allegories which are found in Scripture, I have to observe, that the same 'propensity to allegorize, or to find hidden spiritual meanings in plain expressions, which is discovered by some commentators upon Homer and other ancient writers, has been the occasion of very great abuse in the exposition of Scripture. From the days of Origen to the present times, the inspired writings have been brought into ridicule, or have had the truths in them per- verted by the intemperate exercise of this propensity. In mystical authors, the gospel has been made to assume a form which disfigures its simplicity, and alters its character : and by those writers, whose principles lead them to banish out of Christianity every doctrine that is not easily comprehended, the language of that religion is often rendered enigmatical. For, as has been pointedly said of them, the Socinians take mystery out of the doctrine of Scripture, where it is venerable, and they place it in the phrase of Scripture, where it is repugnant to God's sincerity. The recollection of these abuses should make you receive with some suspicion every allegorical ex- position of Scripture. And in judging of it, it becomes you to recol- lect those rules concerning the proper introduction of figurative lan- guage, which have been dictated by good sense and enlarged obser- vation, and which are commonly applied in reading other writers, both as a test of their good taste, and as a method of attaining their true meaning. You have direct notice from some expressions in a IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 269 passage, that the words are to be understood in a figurative sense. Or you find, upon examining them closely, that there is a defect in the meaning if you understand them literally. Or the context in- timates, that a passage which appeared when considered singly to be hteral, is really figurative. There does not occur to me any other way, in which you can be warranted to give a passage of an inspired author a sense diflerent from that which the v/ords naturally bear ; and if none of these directions are given us in this place, the Socinian interpretation of these three verses must be considered as an unneces- sary and licentious introduction of allegory. There is not any expression in these verses which necessarily suggests a figurative sense. All the nominatives introduced as distri- butives of f a rtai/fa, are words generally used in the language of those limes to denote created objects ; and xti^w with its derivatives, is the verb commonly used in the New Testament to denote creation. A^ioj £1, Kv^if , 7M8tiv -triv So^av — ort av ixtiaa^ "fa rtavta, xai 5ia -to ^iXr^jAa dov not, xok. ixtioOrjaav. Rev. iv. 1 1, arto xT'tawj xoojuor. Rom. i. 20. It is true that jcfiC"? and x-fKjij, are employed to denote reformation. But some expression is always joined with them in these passages to give notice that they are transferred from their original meaning. When Paul uses xti-aii in this sense, 2 Cor. v. 17, Gal. vi. 15, he prefixes the epithet xawt], which is probably borrowed from the Septuagint transla- tion of that passage in Isaiah, whicli runs in our Bibles,"! create new heavens and a new earth." Eafav 6 ov^ai/05 xm r; yy; xaiviq ; and when he uses the verb xn^u in the same figurative sense, the intimation is still more direct, xit,se(vt(i snt ^gyoij aya.eoiu Ephesians ii. 10. In these places, the writer plainly leads us from the literal to the figurative sense. Here there is no such intimation ; and the first appearance of the words does not suggest any reason why we may not translate them literally. When we examine them according to this literal translation, we do not find such a defect in the meaning as might warrant our rejecting it and substitutisig a figurative sense in its place. We believe, by the light of nature, that all the things here spoken of, extiarai, were called out of nothing. The new information given us is, that this was done ««' avro, by the Son of God. But it is a very bold speculation to reject the obvious meaning of a proposition con- tained in the gospel, merely because it gives new information ; and those who believe the inspiration of Scripture will require some other reason to be assigned before they find themselves at liberty to depart from the obvious meaning ; more especially as they observe that the attempt to bring plain truth out of the words in this place, by such departure, is very unsuccessful. You cannot conceive a reason for so particular an enumeration as is here given in the partitives of ta rtou/ra, uuless the actiou meant by the word ixtiatai extended to all the things enumerated. But that action cannot be reformation ; for with regard to the phrase t ov^a.v(^. The modern Socinians, aware of the force of tliis objection, have substituted in place of xcih'?/ xrwtf, or rather have added to it what they call regulation. The evil angels, they say, are stripped of their power by Jesus, and he is placed at the head of the angelic host. But this is a figurative use of the word xn^w not warranted by the other expressions in the Epistles of Paul, where a new creation is meant ; and if it be adopted here, by departing from the plain literal sense oi ixtt-oOr^, you are obliged in the same sentence to give it two figurative meanings, one reformation, applied to those inhabitants of earth who become by the gospel "the workmanship of God, created unto good works; the other regulation or subjection, applied to all those beings whose character is not changed by the gospel. It is plain then, that as the words themselves do not neces- sarily suggest a figurative sense, nothing is gained in point of easy or significant interpretation by forcing it upon them. But perhaps the context will justify it. In an extended allegory, the first sentence is generally obscure. But the primary and secondary sense are gradually unfolded by the art of the composition ; and, when we look back to the beginning after having arrived at the end, the whole becomes clear. Here the case is totally different. In the eighteenth verse, Jesus is styled "the head of the body of the church," i. e. of those who were rescued by his blood out of the slavery of sin, and translated into his kingdom. The same word, rt^^ororoxoj, which had been applied to him in reference to nasrn xTiaa^i, is there applied to him in reference to vsx^o^v, because he was the first that rose, or was brought forth out of the bowels of the earth, never to die any more ; and as he was not only before the creation but produced it, so he was not only the first that rose, but also a^x'i^ the efficient cause of the resurrection of others. The Head, by rising, gave assurance that the members of the body should in due time be raised also. And thus, as the pronoun avroj is the natural intimation that something else is to be said about the Person who had been mentioned before, so if you understand the sixteenth and seventeenth verses as expressing a literal creation, there is a striking analogy between the phrases that had been used upon that subject, and the phrases used upon the new subject in the eighteenth verse. And there seems to be a direct notice given, thai the subjects are different, by the last clause of the eighteenth verse, iw yev/jtat, sv narnv avtof rt^Mttuw, by which means he , might become the first in all things. He was the first in creation, both as existing before all creatures, and as having made them : He became after his death the first also in the scheme for the recovery of the world, because being the first that rose, he is the cause of the resurrection of others. Such is the light which a plain interpretation of the first three verses throws upon the context. If, on the other hand, you understand them figuratively, you are reminded as you advance in the context that the harsh interpretation, which you had been obliged to impose upon the phrases contained in them, is not the true one, because by it you confound these three verses with the eighteenth ; you lose the beauty in the analogy of the corresponding IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 271 parts, and in the repetition of the word rtgwf otoxo; ; and you destroy entirely the meaning of the last clause of the eighteenth verse. It appears, then, that according to those rules of interpretation, which a regard to perspicuity or ornament suggests, the Socinian sense of this passage is indefensible ; and, therefore, it must be con- sidered in the sense which naturally presents itself to every person who reads it, as a declaration that Jesus Christ is the Creator of the world ; a declaration introduced most seasonably in this place, to exalt the dignity of the Author of the Gospel in the eyes of the new converts to that religion. "^ECTION III. Hebrews i. The last passage which I mentioned as containing a full declara- tion that Jesus is the creator of the world, is the first chapter to the Epistle of the Hebrews. I do not mean to give a particular com- mentary upon all the parts of that chapter, because many of them have no immediate connexion with our present object ; but I shall state in general the purport of the apostle's argument, that you may see the propriety and significancy with which the declaration that we seek finds a place in this chapter. The apostle is wrUing to Jews, who had embraced the Gospel, in order to furnish them with answers to those objections, which their unbelieving countrymen urged against the new religion. The first source from which the answers are drawn, is the superior dignity of the author of that religion. The law, indeed, was given from Mount Sinai by the ministry of angels ; and the succession of prophets who enlightened the Jewish nation were messengers of heaven. But the various manifestations of himself which the Almighty had made in former times, rtoxt^f^f^wj xai rtoy.Dr^orfuj, cannot claim so high a degree of reverence; as that message which, in the last days, the time that had been announced as the conclusion of the law, was brought by a person more glorious than a prophet or an angel : 'Ov iBr.xi x^^ovonop Ttcuvtuv^ 8i oil xat, tov; atcjva; (ftoiridcv 'Oj uv arCavyaafia "tfji 5o|»7j, xat 3;a^azr>;^ -itji irtoata,oeu>i avtov, ft^o^v ti •fa rtavta t'9 ^tjixaift, irii Swa-nsui aviT'ov, Si iavtov xa9a^i,6jxov Ttoit^nafxtvoi tuv afio^tLOiv jj^ucoj/, ixaOLatv sv Sc^ia ftj^ ix(ya%ic>(3vv7j^ iv v-^t^T^oii. TluS IS the description given of that person by whom, says the apostle, God ill these last days hath spoken to us. When it is said of the King Eternal, iOr;xs x^r^^ovofiov, we must understand this figurative expression in a sense consistent with his unchangeable glory, and such a sense is suggested by the ideas universally annexed to xhr^oio^ioi. The heir has an interest in the estate more intimate than that of any one per- son except the proprietor ; and he may be intrustedfivith a degree of authority over it, because it cannot be supposed that he will abuse that which he is to possess. Hence in the old Roman law, hxres and dominus were considered as equivalent terms. " Pro harede gerere est pro domino gerere," says Justinian : and Paul, in allusion to this 272 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS Viiaxim of law, says, Gal. iv, 1, " The heir while he is a minor, is under tutors, xu^wj Ttavti^v w." Agreeably to this import of the word xxyj^ovofioi, Christians of every sect understand the expression here used to mean that God constituted Jesus Lord of all. They agree also that his appointment to this sovereignty was declared to tlie world at his resurrection. The point jpon which they differ is the character of Jesus before this appoint- ment. Those who hold the first opinion concerning his person, that he is ^^t'-os av9^<^7toi, consider the titles of honour, that are ascribed to kirn in Scripture, as flowing from his being constituted Lord of all things : and they endeavour to explain the first three verses in such d maimer, as that they shall not seem to imply any original dignity of nature. He is called the Son of God, they say, because he is made heir or Lord of all. By him God regulated and reformed the world ; or, understanding at-umj, according to the literal import of the word and its use in several places of Scripture, to denote the ages, and considering 5i ov as equivalent to 5t o^, they thus paraphrase the last clause of the second verse ; for whom, in respect to whom, in order to illustrate whose glory, when he should be constituted Lord of all, God disposed or ordered the ages : i. e. the antediluvian, the patri- archal, and the legal ages, all the divine dispensations towards the sons of men. They interpret the first two clauses of the third verse as expressions of that perfect representation of the divine perfections, which appeared in the character of Jesus while he dwelt upon earth. Every one who saw that excellent man in whom the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God resided, saw the Father also. They apply the clause, upholding all things by the word of his power, to his transactions upon earth, that command over nature which was given him, and all those miracles by which he proved his divine com- mission, and established that dispensation which, having been opened by his preaching, and sealed by his death, is magnified in the eyes of men by the resurrection of its author, and by their knowing assuredly that he is set on the right hand of the throne of God, having obtained an authority and a rank superior to that of the angels. There is an apparent consistency in this interpretation which ren- ders it plausible. But when you weigh the several expressions Here used, you will find that it is by no means adequate to their natural import. 1. Jesus is called the Son of God, whom he made jeir, a construction which implies that he was the Son of God before jis appointment to the sovereignty. 2. St oh xm fovjawmj frtotj^sff, are Tvords that would not probably suggest to the first readers of this epistle, either by whom God reformed the world, or, by whom he disposed the ages. Some critics have thought the natural translation of them to be, by whom God made the angels, as it is likely that, before this epistle was written, the Gnostics used ol awvii to mark the multitude of spirits who were emanations from the supreme mind. But although this use of the word might be known to the apostle, we have no reason fbr thinking that it was at that time so familiar to Christians, that the apostle would choose, without any explication, to introduce it into an epistle written for the purpose of confirming their faith in the Gospel, more especially as another interpretation of these words could not fail readily to occur to their minds. We are told that IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 273 ot iUM'n is equivalent to a Hebrew phrase, which the ancient Jews employed to mark the whole extent of creation, divided by them into three parts, this lower world, the celestial bodies, and the third heavens, or habitation of God. The Greek word activ, an lov, was applied to the world as marking its dnration in contradistinction to the short hves of many of its inhabitants. The word occurs often in the New Testament in this sense; and there is one passage which appears to be decisive of the meaning of tliis phrase. Heb. xi. 3, tClotii i'00vfJ.(i' xatr^f^ticOai, -fovi atui/ai IjTjfiatv ®eov. If yoil join tO tllis received use of atcoms, that «rtot9;(5£ is the word used in the Septuagint translation of the first verse of Genesis, and that Sia is one of the prepositions which we found in the Epistle to the Colossians, expressing the creation of all things by the Son, you will not be inclined to doubt that this clause contains another declaration to the same purpose; and when you so understand it, you see the reason of the particle xcu, being introduced. The Son, whom God did <' appoint heir of all, 8i 01) XM, by whom also," it is a further information concerning his person, no way implied in the appointment, and its being additional is marked by sjcti, " he made the worlds." 3. According to this interpretation of 8i ov xat, T'onj aiw^aj srtotjjsf, (fii^av -a la rtai'ta Ta> l,r}fi.a.ti, t?;; hvvaj.icui<; airou, will naturally express his being the preserver and supporter of all things which he created, as the apostle to the Colossians had said, " by him all things consist." And, 4th, The first two clauses of the third verse, which are equivalent to the expression that we found there, nxuv tov ©£ou rov ao^aroD, appear by their form, as well as their meaning, intended to convey additional information concerning the person of the Son, so that the amount of the third verse may be thus stated, the Son, appointed by God the Lord of all, by whom God created the world, who being originally a bright ray of the Father's glory, and the exact representation of his essence, and sup[)orting without any fatiguing exertion all the things made by him, did in the last days appear to wash away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and having acconjplished this work, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. It appears from this review of the first three verses, that besides the simple proposition which the Socinians find in them, that the man by whom God spoke in the last days is now the Lord of all, they contain also further intimation concerning this man, as being the Son of God, by whom he made the world. These further intimations require proof, and they do not admit the same kind of proof with the simple proposition that he is now Lord of all. That was made mani- fest by the extraordinary gifts with which he endowed the first preachers of his religion, gifts sufficient to prove that all ])ower in heaven and in earth is now given to him, but not sufficient to establish with certainty any conclusion, which extends to jiis state previous to the time of his receiving that power. As there is thus occasion for proving the further intimations concerning the person of Christ, which we have found in the first three verses, it is natural to look for ttiat proof in the remaining part of the chapter, which seems at first reading to relate to the same subject ; and the proof is formally- introduced by the fourth verse. Tooovta x^utruv ysvo^ivos tuv a.yyf%uv, 6a<^ 8t*^o^i^t£^ov Ttafi avtovs x£x7.')^^ovoix*ix(v ovofia, whicli may be literally rendered thus : " being as far superior to the angels, as the name which he hath 2 P 274 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS inherited is more excellent than theirs." The point to be proved is not that he is now superior to tlie angels; that is self-evident, if he be Lord of all; but that the name which he has inherited as always belonging to him, and the characters by which he has been announced in the former revelations of God, imply a pre-eminence over the angels corresponding to his present exaltation. This point, a proof cf which the train of the apostle's argument requires, is fully established in the following verses, in the manner most satisfactory to the Hebrews, by a reference to their own Scriptures. I shall just mark the steps of the proof, without staying to illustrate fully the several quotations. 1. He is called the Son of God, with an emphasis which is never applied to any other being. Of the two citations in the fifth verse, the one is taken from Psalm ii. which the Jews considered as a pro- phecy of the Messiah ; the other from a message which the prophet Nathan brought to David, I Chron. xvii. 11 — 14. There is no mention in that message of the Messiah, but there are these words, which point to a greater than Solomon. " And it shall come to pass when thy days be expired, that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons. I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son ; and 1 will settle him in mine house, and in my kingdom for ever." 2. The Psalmist represents the Son as the object of worship to angels. 6. 'Oral' 8i TiaXiv f tffuyayij t!ov rt^u-totoxov f tj trjv oixovf^evr^v, Xiytr Kat, rt^oazDiJjtjartojai' avrcp Ttavtii ayytxoi, ©sou. The repetition of the adverb rta^tr is the common method by which the apostle introduces a succession of quota- tions. It is therefore a very forced construction which has been given to this verse, "When he bringeth again the first begotten, wiien he raiseth him from the dead." The command is taken fr«m the Septua- gint translation of Psalm xcvii. The psalm appears to relate to God the Father. But we are taught by the authority of the apostle, in this citation, to apply it to the Son. "When God bringeth in the first begotten, i. e. when he announceth his coming into the world, he saith. Let all the angels of God worship him." 3. The pre-eminence of the Son over the angels is inferred from the very different language which is employed in relation to the angels and him, n^o^ nsv tov^ ayycxovi xsyit. n^oi 8i 'tov vlov 7,8,9. The angels are spoken of as servants ; the Son is addressed by the name of God, as a king, whose throne is everlasting. The quotations are taken from Psalms civ. and xlv. which the Jews were accustomed to apply to the Messiah. Although it be not very much to my present purpose, I cannot avoid mentioning an ingenious criticism on the 7th verse, which is found in Grotius, which was adopted by Dr. Lowth in his elegant book De SacrS Poesi Hebrajorum, and is illustrated by Dr. Campbell in one of his critical dissertations. Three authorities so respectable claim our attention. It is not easy to atfix any meaning to the seventh verse, which both in this place, and in Psalm civ. is thus rendered, " Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." But the Hebrew as well as the Greek word for spirits may be translated " winds," and ayyixo^ is the general word for " messenger ;" so that the verse admits of a translation most agreeable to the context in Psalm civ. " Who maketh the clouds his chariot, IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 875 who walketh upon the wings of the wind; who maketh the winds his messenger, and the flaming fire his servant," i. e. wlio employs wind and fire to accomplish his pnrposes. This meaning enters most naturally into the Psalm, which celebrates the glory of God as it appears in tlie material creation, and, if adopted here, contributes very much to the force of the apostle's reasoning, by the improvement which it makes upon the sense of the quotation, " So little sacred- ness is there in the name Angels, that it is appHed in Scripture to inanimate objects, storm, and Hghtning. But so sacred is the name of the Son, that the Person who bears it is addressed by the Almighty as an everlasting King. Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever." There is one objection to this change which I was very much surprised to find the minute accuracy of Dr. Campbell had omitted to mention. It is contrary to the rule to which I referred when speaking of these words, ©so? 9?i/ 6 ?toyo?, that in Greek the predicate is commonly distinguished from the subject of a proposition by being without the article, more especially when the predicate stands first; w^rjij^ee.a'iyfvi'eo. I doubt not that it was a regard to this rule which led our translators of the Old and New Testament to adopt a dark expression instead of an obvious one. I believe that this distinction between the predicate and the subject of a proposition is observed, with very few exceptions, and much advantage arises from the observance of it. At the same time, as the rule is founded merely upon practice, and not, as far as 1 know, upon any thing essential to the constitution of the language; and as, in the best writers, anomalous expressions sometimes occur, it does not appear to me that the place of the article in this verse is a sufficient reason for rejecting a translation which is so striking an improvement. 4. The fourth quotation, 10, 11, 12, is taken from Psalm cii. There is not in that psalm any direct mention of the Son of God. But if you admit that the books of the New Testament are inspired, you cannot suppose that the apostle was mistaken in applying these words; and, therefore, the only question is, whether he does apply them to Jesus Christ. The succession of quotations leads you to expect this application, for there would be an abruptness inconsistent both with elegance and perspicuity, if between the third and the fifth quota- tions, both of which are addressed to the Son, there should be intro- duced, without any intimation of the change, one addressed to the Father; and all the attempts to establish a connexion made by those who consider it as thus addressed are so forced and unnatural, as to satisfy us that they are mistaken. You may judge of the rest by that attempt which is the latest, and is really the most plausible. Those, then, who consider the 10th, 11th, and 12th verses, as addressed to God the Father, endeavour to prepare for this application of the words by translating the beginning of the 8th verse in a manner which the syntax admits, although it creates a very harsh figure. " Unto the Son, he saith, God is thy throne for ever," i. e. the support of thy throne. As it is said by God to the Messiah, Psalm Ixxxix. 4. "I will build up thy throne to all s^enerations." And they con- sider the 10th, 11th, and 12tli verses as introduced to show the un- changeableness of that God who is the support of the Messiah's 876 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS throne. It shall endure for ever ; for that Lord who hath promised to support it has laid the foundations of the earth, and remains the same after the heavens are dissolved. And thus the apostle is made to interrupt a close argument by bringing in three verses, in order to prove what nobody denied, that God is unchangeable. The question is not whether God be able to fulfil his pronnse. That was admitted by all the Hebrews, whether they received the Gospel or not. But the question is, what God had promised and declared to the Messiah ; and, therefore, these three verses, according to the interpretation now given of them, may be taken away without hurting the apostle's argument, or detracting in the least from the information conveyed concerning the person of Christ. On the other hand, if, following the train of the apostle's reasoning, you consider this quotation as addressed to the same person with the third and fifth, it is a proof of that assertion in the end of the 2d verse, 6' ov x.m rov? aiwj/aj moirini, of which no proof had hitherto been adduced; and it is a direct proof of such a kind that it cannot be evaded. For the figurative sense, given by the Socinians to the passage in the Colossians, will not avail them here, because the heavens and the earth spoken of in this place are to perish, and wax old like a garment. But the kingdom of righteousness, which Isaiah expressed by new heavens and a new earth, shall endure for ever. The number of its subjects is continually increasing: and they who are "the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus, created unto good works," shall shine for ever with unfading lustre in the kingdom of their Father. The material, not the mora'l creation, shall be changed ; and, therefore, the material creation must be meant by that earth and those heavens, which are said to be the work of the Lord here addressed. 5. The original pre-eminence of Jesus Christ is inferred, in the last place, from the manner in which the promise of that dominion, ^vhich was to be given him, is expressed in the Old Testament. The quo- tation in the 13th verse is taken frotn Psalm ex. which the ancient Jews always applied to the Messiah. It contains a promise Avhich was fulfilled in the Son's being appointed Lord of all things, and in his sitting down on the right hand of the majesty on high. The argument turns upon the style of this promise. A seat on the right is in all countries the place of honour; and when the Almighty says to tlie Messiah, " Sit thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool," the address conveys to our minds an impression of the dignity of the person upon whom so distinguished an honour was conferred, as well as of the stability and perpetuity of his kingdom. The Almighty never spoke in this manner to any angel. They do not sit at his right hand. They are spirits employed in public works, sent forth at his pleasure in different services. They are not the ser- vants of men. But the services appointed them by God are Sta Ton fteXKovra? xxyj^ayo^tw (TwTjy^tai', upou accouut of, for the benefit of, those who are to inherit eternal life. The Son, on the other hand, remains in the highest place of honour, without ministration, till those who resist his dominion be completely subdued. There arises from this review of the latter part of the chapter, tVie strongest presumption that we. gave a right interpretation of the first three verses. For if we consider the apostle as there stating the IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 277 original pre-eminence of the person who is now appointed Lord of all, we find the most exact correspondence between the positions laid down at the beginning, and the proofs of them adduced in the sequel: whereas if, by a forced interpretation of some plu'ases in the first three verses, we consider them as stating simply (he dominion of Christ, without any respect to his having been in the beginning the Son of God, and the Creator of the world, we are reminded, as we advance, of the violence which we did to the sense of the author, by meeting with quotations which we know not how to apply to that simple proposition to which we had restricted his meaning. Section IV. Having now found in Scripture, full and explicit declarations that Christ is the creator of the world, I shall direct your attention to the amount of that proposition, hefore I proceed to the other actions that are ascribed to Jesus in his pre-existent slate. The three passages that have been illustrated are a clear refutation of the first opinion concerning the person of Christ. If he was the Creator of the world, he cannot be4'^o5ai'&^wrto5. But it is not obvious how far this proposition decides the question between the second and third opinions, whether he be the first and most exalted creature of God, or wliether he be truly and essentially God. It has, indeed, been said by a succession of theological writers, from the Ante-Nicene fathers to the present day, that creation, i. e. the bringing things out of nothing to a state of being, is an incommunicable act of Omnipo- tence ; that a creature may be employed in giving a new form to what has been already made, but that creation must be the work of God himself; so that its being ascribed in Scripture to Jesus Christ is a direct proof that he is God. It appears to me upon all occasions most unbecoming and pre- sumptuous for us to say what God can do, and what he cannot do : and I shall never think that the truth or the importance of a conclu- sion warrants any degree of irreverence in the method of attaining it. The power exerted in making the most insignificant object out of nothing by a word, is manifestly so unlike the greatest human exer- tions, that we have no hesitation in pronouncing that it could not proceed from the strength of man ; and when we take into view the immense extent, and magnificence, and beauty of the tilings thus created, the different orders of spirits, as well as the frame of the material world, our conceptions of the power exerted in creation are infinitely exalted. But we have no means of judging Avhether this power must be exerted immediately by God, or whether it may be delegated by him to a creature. It is certain that God has no need of any minister to fulfil his pleasure. He may do by himself every thing that is done throughout the universe. Yet we see that in the ordinary course of providence he withdraws himself, and employs the ministry of other beings ; and we believe that, at the first appearance 26 278 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS of the gospel, men were enabled by the divhie power residing in them to perform miracles, i. e. such works as man cannot do, to cure the most inveterate diseases by a word, without any appUcation of human art, and to raise the dead. Although none of these acts im- ply a power equal to creation, yet as all of them in}ply a power more than human, they destroy the general principle of that argument, upon which creation is made an unequivocal proof of deity in him who creates. And it becomes a very uncertain conjecture, whether reasons perfectly unknown to us might not induce the Almighty to exert, by the ministry of a creature, powers exceeding in any given degree those by which the apostles of Jesus raised the dead. But although I do not adopt the language of those who presume to say that the Almighty cannot employ a creature in creating other creatures, there appears to me, from the nature of the thing, a strong probability that this work was not accomplished by the ministry of a creature ; and when to this probability is joined the manner in which the Scriptures uniformly speak of creation, and the style of those passages in which creation is ascribed to Jesus, there seems to arise from this simple proposition, that Christ is the Creator of the world, a conclusive argument that he is God. I. A strong probability, from the nature of the thing, that the work of creation was not accomplished by the ministry of a creature. By creation we attain the knowledge of God. In a course of fair reasoning, proceeding upon the natural sentiments of the human mind, we infer from the existence of a world which was made tlie existence of a Being who is without beginning. But this reasoning is interrupted, in a manner of which the light of nature gives no warning, if that work which to us is the natural proof of a Being who exists necessarily, was accomplished by a creature, /. e. by one who owes his being, the manner of his being, and the degree of his power entirely to the will of another. By this intervention of a creature between the true God and the creation, we are brought back to the principles of Gnosticism, which separated the Creator of the world from the Supreme God ; and the necessary consequence of considering the Creator of the world as a creature is, that, instead of the security and comfort which arise from the fundamental principle of sound theism, we are left in uncertainty with regard to the wisdom and power of the Creator, to entertain a suspicion that he may not have executed in the best manner that which was committed to him, that he may be unable to preserve his work from destruction or alteration, and that some future arrangements may substitute in place of all that he has made, another world more fair, or other inhabitants more per- fect. It is not probable that the uncertainty and suspicion, which necessarily adhere to all the modifications of the Gnostic system, would be adopted in a Divine Revelation ; that a doctrine which combats many particular errors of Gnosticism would interweave into its constitution this radical defect, and would pollute the source of virtue and consolation which natural religion opens, by teach- ing us that the heavens and the earth are the work, not of the God and Father of all, but of an inferior minister of his power, removed, as every creature must be, at an infinite distance from his glory. IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 279 II. This presumption, which, however strong it appears, would not of itself warrant us to form any condusion, is very much con- firmed, when we attend |o the manner in which tlie Scriptures uniformly speak of creation. You will recollect, that in the Old Testament, Maker of heaven and earth is the characteristic of the true God, by which he is distinguished from idols. " The Lord," says Jeremiah, '"is the true God; he is the living God, and an ever- lasting King. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." Jer, x. 10, 11, 12. Creation is uniformly spoken of as the work of God alone,* And it is stated as the proof of his being, and the ground of our trust in him.t " The heavens deckare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work. The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 0 come, let us worship and bow down ; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. 0 Lord, how manifold are thy works : in wisdom hast thou made them all. "J I have selected only a few striking passages. But they accord with the whole strain of the poetical books of the Old Testament : and the apostle Paul states the argument contained in them, when he says to the Romans, i. 20. " The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- stood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- head." The things made by God are to us the exhibition of his eternal power ; and a few verses after, when he is speaking of the worship of the heathen, the form of his expression intimates that no being intervenes between the creature and the Creator. " They served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever ;" roi> xtioavta, ii (Gtiv £v%oyt]-toin,stovi aiuiui. I have Only to add, that the book of Revelation states creation as the ground of that praise which is off'ered by the angels in heaven. " The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power ; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. "§ III. The style of the three passages of the New Testament, in which creation is ascribed to Jesus Christ, does not admit of our con- sidering him as a creature. In the first of the three passages, Jesus is called God. It is admitted that the word God is used in Scripture in an inferior sense, to denote an idol, which exists only in the imagi- nation of him by whom it is worshipped as a god, and to denote a man raised by office far above others. But it has been justly observed, that the arrangement of John's words renders it impossible to affix any other than the highest sense to ©foj in this place. In the first verse of John, the last word of the preceding clause is made the first of that which follows. E^ a^;^^ rjv u Xoyoi, XM u "koyoi r,v n^oi xov Qiov, xat 0£Oi • Job. xxxviii. Isaiah xl. 12 ; xliv. 24. f Isaiah xl. 26. Jer. xiv. 22. \ Psalm, xix. xcv. civ. § Rev. iv. 10, 11. 280 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS tjvoxoyoi. There must be a purpose to mislead, in a writer who with this arrangement has a different meaning to ©foj at the end of the second, and at the beginning of the third clause. The want of the article is of no importance. For in the 'Sixth verse of that chapter, and in numberless other places, ©fo? without the article is applied to God the Father. In the second passage, Jesus is called «txwi' tov @sov ■gov ao^atov. And in the third artavyart/ua rjjj 605)^5, xai ;)(a^axrr^^ trj^ v7toara6su>i avfov, phrases which must be understood in a sense very far removed from the full import of the figure, unless they imply a sameness of nature. In the second passage, it is said that all things were made ^l avtov, a phrase which might apply to a creature whom the Almighty chose to employ as his minister. But it is said in the same passage, that they were made "j auTov, which signifies that he was much more than an instrument, and that his glory was an end for which things were made. It is said also, rfavra ev a.\)tu> aweatrixi, which implies that his power is not occasional and precarious, but that he is able to preserve what he has made, and so may be an object of trust to his creatures. In the third passage, it is said that God made the worlds by the Son. But the quotation from the Psalms adduced in proof of this position, represents the Son as the Creator; and as in no degree susceptible of the changes to which his works are subject. " Thou, Lord, in the begitming hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." When you take, in conjunction with the strong probability that the Creator of the world is not a creature, the language of the Old Testa- ment, which makes creation the work of the true God, and the lan- guage of the New Testament, where creation is ascribed to Jesus, you discover the traces of a system which reconciles the apparent discordance. Jesus Christ is essentially God, always with the Father, united with him in nature, in perfections, in counsel, and in opera- tions.— " Whatsoever things the Father doth, these also doeth the Son likewise."* The Father acts by the Son, and the Son, in creating the world, displayed that power and Godhead which from eternity resided in him. If this system be true, then creation, the character- istical mark of the Almighty, may, in perfect consistency with the passages quoted from the Old Testament, be ascribed to Jesus, because, although the Father is said to have created the world by him, upon account of the union in all their operations, yet he is not a creature subservient to the will of another, but himself "the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth." This system is delivered in the earliest Christian writers. " The Father had no need," they say, " of the assistance of angels to make the things which he had deter- mined to be made ; for the Son and the Spirit are always with him, by whom and in whom he freely made all things, to whom he speaks when he says. Let us make man after our image ; and who are one with him, because it is added. So God created man in his owo image."t * John V. 19. •j- Irenseus, lib. iv. cap. 20, edit. Massuet. IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 281 We require more evidence than we have yet attained, before we can pronounce that this system is true. You will only bear in mind, that it is suggested in all the passages of the New Testament, which give an account of the creation of the world by Jesus Christ ; and that if it shall appear to be supported by sufficient evidence, it recon- ciles that account with the natural impressions of the human mind, and the declarations of Scripture concerning the extent of power and the supremacy of character implied in the act of creation. •20* 2 Q 882 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS CHAPTER V. ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. ^Administration of Providence. Those passages, from which we learnt that Jesus is the Creator of the world, tauglit us also to consider him as the Preserv-^v .;f all the things which he made. Tliis last character implies a continued agency, and resolves all that care of Providence by which the creatures have been supported from the beginning, into actions performed by Jesus in a state of pre-existence. There is nothing in the ordinary course of nature which indicates the agency of this person ; there is no part of the principles of natural religion which requires that we should distinguish his agency from the power of the Almighty Father of all ; and therefore, the Scriptures, in speaking of those interpositions of Providence which respect the material world, and the life of the diiferent animals, are not accustomed to direct our attention particu- larly to that Person, by whom the divine power is exerted. But they do intimate, that the particular economy of Providence, which respects the restoration of the human race, was administered in all ages by that Person, by whose manifestation it was accomplished : and upon these intimations is founded an opinion which, since the days of the apostles, has been held by almost every Christian writer who admits the pre-existence of Jesus, that he who in the fulness of time was made flesh, appeared to the patriarchs, gave the law from Mount Sinai, spake by the prophets, and maintained the whole of that intercourse with mankind, which is recorded in the Old Testa- ment as preparatory to the coming of the Messiah. The early date of this opinion, and the general consent with which it has been received, the frequent mention made of it in theological books, the uniformity which it gives to the conduct of the great plan of redemption, and the extent of that information which it promises to open, all conspire to draw our attention to it, and induce me to lay before you the grounds upon which it rests. They consist not of explicit declarations of Scripture, suflicient by themselves to establish the opinion, but of an induction of particulars, which, although they may escape careless readers, seem intended to unfold to those who search the Scriptures, a view both of that active love towards the human race which characterizes the Saviour of the world, and of the oriG:inal dignilv of his person. The general principles of this opinion are these. God, the Father, is represented in Scripture as '• invisible, whom no man hath seen at IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 283 any time." But it is often said in the Old Testament that the patriarclis, the prophets, and the people saw God ; and there is an ease, a familiarity of intercourse in many of the scenes which are recorded, inconsistent with the awful majesty of him who covereth himself with thick clouds. The God of Israel, whom the people saw, is often called an angel, i. e. a person sent ; therefore he cannot be God the Father, for it is impossible that the Father should be sent by any one. But he is also called Jehovah. The highest titles, the most exalted actions, and the most entire reverence are appropriated to him. Therefore he cannot be a being of an inferior order. And the only method in which we can reconcile the seeming discordance is, by supposing that he is the Son of God, who, as we learn from John, " was in the beginning with God, and was God," who being at a particular time " made flesh," and so manifested in the human nature, may be conceived, without irreverence, to have manifested himself at former times in different ways. This supposition, suggested by the lariguage of the Old Testament, seems to be confirmed by the words of our Lord, John vi. 46, " Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father," and of his apostle, John i. IS, " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared iiim." The meaning of this passage extends to the former declarations of God under the Old Testament. For it is remarkable, that it is not the preterperfect tense which is used in the original, but the aorist, which intimates that he, " who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him" also in times past. He who alone was qualified to declare God, who certainly did declare him by the Gospel, and who is styled by the apostle, " the image of the invisible God," as the person in whom the glory of the Godhead appeared to man, seems to be pointed out as the angel who was called by the name of God in ancient times. These general principles receive a striking illustration when we attend to the detail of the appearances recorded in the Old Testament, because we find upon examination that all the divine appearances made in a succession of ages, are referred to one person, who is often called in the same passage, both Angel and Jehovah, and that several incidental expressions in the New Testament mark out Christ to be this person. Section I. ALL APPEARANCES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT REFERRED TO ONE PERSON, CALLED ANGEL AND GOD. In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, it is said that "the Lord," which, when written in capital letters, is always the translation of Jehovah, that "Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre ;" and the manner of the appearance is very particularly related. " Abraham lifted up his eyes, and three men stood by him." He received them hospitably, according to the manners of the times. 284 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS In the course of the interview, one of the three speaks with the authority of God, promises such blessings as God only can bestow, and is called by the historian Jehovah. Two of the men departed and " \v«iit toward Sodom, but Abraham," it is said, " stood yet be- fore the Lord." He inquires of him respectfully about the fate of Sodom ; he reasons witli him as the Judge of ah tlie earth, who has it in his power to save and to destroy ; and we may judge of the impressions which he now has of the nature of the man, whom a httle before he had received in his tent, when he says to iiim, " Be- hold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes." It is the same Lord, whom Abraham saw in this manner, that appeared to him at other times, and, after his death, to his son Isaac; for a reference is made in the future appearances to the promise that had been made at this time. To Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the Lord appeared upon different occasions, under the name of the God of Abraliam and Isaac, i. e. the God who had bless- ed them ; he repeats to Jacob what he had said to them, that his posterity sliould possess the land of Canaan, and become a great nation, and that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed, xxviii. 13, 14. Jacob, after one appearance, said, "I have seen God face to face," xxxii. 30 ; after another, " Surely the Lord is in this place, and he called the name of the place Bethel," i. e. the house of God, xxviii. 16 — 19. He raised a pillar; he vowed a vow to the God whom he had seen, and at his return he paid the vow. Yet this God, to whom he gave these divine honours, and of whom he spoke at some times as Jehovah the God of Abraham and Isaac, at other times he calls an angel. "The angel of God," he says, " spake unto me in a dream, saying, I am the God of Bethel," xxxi. 11 — 13; and upon his death-bed he gives in the same sentence the name of God and angel to this person, xlviii. 15. "He blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." The pro- phet Hosea refers in one place to the earnestness with which Jacob begged a blessing from the Lord who appeared to him, which is called in Genesis his wrestling with a man and prevailing. So says Hosea, xii. 2 — 5. " By his strength he had power with God, yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed ; he found him in IBethel, and there he spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial." The same person is called in this passage God, the angel, and the Lord God of hosts. In Exodus iii. we read, that when Moses came to Horeb, "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses turned about to see tliis sight, "And when the Lord saw tliat he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, I am the God of thy father, tlie God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face ; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and I am come down to deliver them, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people." You Avfll IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 285 observe in this passage an interchange of the names angel and God, a reference to the former appearances which the patriarciis had seen, and a connexion estabhshed between this appearance and the subse- quent manifestations to the children of Israel; so that the person whom Abraham saw in the plains of Mamre, and who bronglit Israel out of Egypt, is declared to be the same. Moses asks the name by which he should call the God who had thus come down to deliver the children of Israel. '• And God said, I am that I am : thou shalt say to tiie children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you." This very particular mode of expression is intended to be the interpretation of Jehovah, the incommunicable name of God, implying his necessary, eternal, and unchangeable existence. Other beings may be, or mciy not be. There was a time when the)/' were not: the will of him who called them into existence may annihilate them; and even while they con- tinue to exist, there may be such alterations upon the manner of their being, as to make them appear totally difterent from what they once were. But God always was, and always will be, that which he now is : and the name which distinguishes him from every other being, and is truly expressive of his character, is this, ty^o hhi, h u>v. It is very remarkable that in the same passage in which the person who appeared to Moses assumed this significant phrase as liis name, he is called by the historian, the angel of the Lord ; and Stephen, Acts vii. 30, 35, in relating this history before the Jewish Sanhedrim, shows the sense of his countrymen upon this point, by repeating twice the word ans:el. " There appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire." And again, " This Moses did God send to be a ruler and deliverer by the hands of the angel which appeared to him in the bush." Stephen says most accurately that Moses was sent to be a ruler and deliverer by the hands of this angel; for it was the same angel who appeared to liim in the bush ; that put a rod in his hand wherewith to do wonders before Pharaoh ; that brought forth the people with an out-stretched arm, and led them through the wilderness. Accordingly, Exod. xiii. 21, we read " The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire." In the next chapter, xiv. 19, we read, " The angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them." The same Jehovah who led them out of Egypt gave them the law from Mount Sinai; for we read, Exod. XX. 1, 2, " I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Our atten- tion is thus carried back by the preface of the law to that appearance which Moses had seen; and accordingly Stephen says, Acts vii. 3S, " Moses was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai.'' An angel then spake to Moses in Mount Sinai, yet this angel in giving the law takes to himself the name of Jehovah. The first connnandment is, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me :" and Moses when he recites in Deuteronomy the manner of giving the law, says expressly, that God had given it ; iv. 33, 36, 39, '< Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as thou hast heard, and live ? Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee ; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. Know, therefore 286 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven' above, and upon tlie earth beneath, there is none else." All the interpositions recorded in the Pentateucii, by which the enemies of the children of Israel were put to flight, and the people were safely conducted to the land of Canaan, are referred to the same person, who is often called the angel of the Lord that went before them. Moses, who begins the blessing which he pronounced upon the children of Israel before his death with these words, Deut. xxxiii. " The Lord came from Mount Sinai," seems to intend to connect the first appearance, which this Lord made to him in Horeb, with every subsequent manifestation of divine favour, when, in speaking of Joseph, he calls the blessing of God for which he prays, " the good will of him that dwelt in the bush." During a succession of ages all the affairs of the Jewish nation were administered with the attention and tenderness which might be expected from a tutelary deity, or guardian angel, to whom that province was specially committed ; and the prophet Isaiah has expressed that protection amidst danger, that support and relief in all their distresses, which the people had experienced from his guardianship, in these beautiful words, Isaiah Ixiii. 7, 9 : "I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all the great goodness towards the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed them, and he bare them and carried them all the days of old." Yet we are guarded in other places against degrading the God of Israel to a level with the inferior deities to whom the nations offered their worship. " Where are their Gods," says the Lord by Moses, Deut. xxxii. 36—40, " their rock in whom they trusted ? See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me : For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say I live for ever." And Isaiah xliv. 6. " Tlius sahh the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God." This is the language in which the God of Israel speaks of himself, and in which he is addressed by the people through all the books of the Old Testament ; and in the long address- es, several of which are recorded, the high characters which distin- guish the true God are conjoined with the manitestations in former times, of which I have been giving the history, in such a manner as to show that both are applied to the same Person. One of the most striking examples is the solemn thanksgiving and prayer offered, Nehemiah, ch. ix. by all the congregation of Israel, who returned from the Babylonish captivity, in consequence of the edict of Cyrus the Great. " Thou, even thou, art Lord alone ; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the sea, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all, and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abraham, — and madest a covenant with him, — and didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, — and didst divide the sea before ihem, — and leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire. Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, — yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness," &c. There IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 2S7 is no interruption, no change of person in the progress of this prayer, so that we must suppose a dehision to run through the whole of the Old Testament, unless the Creator of heaven and earth be the same Person whom Jacob, and Moses, and Isaiah, and Stephen call the Angel of the Lord. In order to connect all the intimations which tlie Old Testament gives concerning the God of Israel, you must carry this along with you, that the person wiio appeared to Moses, and who gave the law from Mount Sinai, commanded the people to make him a sanctuary, that he might dwell amongst them. The command was given to Moses at the time when he went up into the midst of the cloud that abode upon Mount Sinai, and when the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the Mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. At this time Moses received from God the pattern of the ark of the tabernacle, and of the mercy-seat on the top of the ark, having cherubims which covered the mercy-seat with their wings, and looked towards one another. " Thou shalt put," said God, " the mercy-seat above upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-sent, from be- tween the two cherubims, of all things which I will give thee in com- mandment to the children of Israel." Exod. xxv. 21. As soon as the tabernacle was reared, and the ark with these appurtenances was brought into it, " a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." This cloud was the guide of the children of Israel in their journeyings. When the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, they went on; when it was not taken up, they rested; and you may judge how intimately they connected the appearance of the ark with the presence of God, from the \vords recorded, Numb. x. 35, 36, as used by Moses in the name of the con- gregation. The ark of the Lord, it is said, went before them. " And when it set forward, Moses said, Rise up, Lord', and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee, flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, " Return, 0 Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel." Wheresoever the ark was, the God of Israel was con- ceived to be. In that place, he met with his people. There they consulted him in all their exigencies; and the glory which filled the tabernacle, called the Schechinah, was the visible symbol of the pre- sence of the God of Israel. When Solomon built a temple, he intro- duced info it the ark and the tabernacle. And the joy which he felt in accomplishing that work, arose from his having found a fixed habitation for that sacred pledge of the divine favour v/hich had often been exposed to danger, which had for some time been in the pos- session of the enemy, but which every devout Israelite regarded as the glory and tiie security of his nation. In Psalm cxxxii. which appears to have been composed to celebrate the introduction of the ark into the temple, you find these words : " Arise, 0 Lord, into thy rest, thou, and the ark of thy strength. The Lord liath chosen Zion ; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell." In the solemn prayer of Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings vi. it is declared to be a house built for the Lord God of Israel, who had made a covenant with their fathers, when he 288 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS brought them out of the land of Egypt. As soon as the ark was bi ought into its place in the temple, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. To this place all the prayers and services of the people in siicceeditjg generations were directed. The Lord was known by tliis name, Jehovah the God of Israel, who dwelleth be- tween the cherubims. And hence arises the significancy of that prayer of the good king Jehoshaphat, when he stood in tlie house of the Lord before the new court, 2 Chron. xx. 7, 8. " 0 Lord God of our fiithers, art not thou our God who didst drive out the iniiabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever ? and they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein, for thy name." These circumstances also explain to us various expressions in the book of Psalms, which, without atterjding to them, appear unintelli- gible. The Psalms were the hymns composed for the service of the temple. The particular occasions upon which several of them were composed, are mentioned in the Old Testament history. And many of them have a special reference to that principle which was incor- porated into the very constitution of the Jewish state, that the peculiar residence of the God of Israel was in the ark, and that his presence was manifested by a visible glory encompassed with clouds, and shining sometimes with a dazzling splendour which none could ap- proacfi ; sometimes with a milder lustre which encouraged the ser- vants of the sanctuary to draw nigh. Ps, Ixxvi. 1. '• In Judah is God known : his name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling in Zion." Ps. xcix. 1. "The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble : He sitteth between the cherubims, let the earth be moved." Many of the Psalms, by their reference to events in tlie history of the Jewish nation, show us that the God who was worshipped in the sanctuary, is the same who made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who appeared on Mount Sinai, and led his people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Psalms Ixxviii. cv. and cvi. contain an historical detail, and Psalm Ixviii. confirms in a striking manner the glory in which God appeared in the sanctuary with his former manifestations to Israel. " 0 God, when thou wentest forth before thy people ; when thou didst march through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God : Even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. They have seen thy goings, 0 God, my king, in the sanctuary. Because of thy temple at Jerusalem, shall kings bring presents to thee. 0 God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places." While the Psalms thus bring together the former events in the history of Israel, and the glory of their God in the sanctuary, they address this person as Jehovah, the Lord of hosts, who made the world and the fulness thereof, the mighty God, the king and judge of all the earth, whom the angels worship, and who alone is to be feared. The view of the information contained in the Scriptures of the Old Testament concerning the person by whom the law was given, will be complete when it is added, in the last place, that the writings of the later prophets represent him also as the Saviour of Isra(3l, and the author of a new dispensation, which was to be introduced in the last IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 289 days. The interposition of the God of Israel, to deliver tlicm out of the many national calamities which mark their history, do by no means exhaust the meaning of the prophecies and thanksgivings, which abound in the sacred books of the Jews. The expressions even of the earlier writers bear a more exalted sense, than is attained by explaining them of any temporal mercies. And about the time of (he captivity of the nation, and of their return to their own land, the prophets, in some places, speak plainly of a spiritual deliverance, and in others adopt a richness of imagery, which is unmeaning and even ridiculous, unless it be understood to point to the days of the JNIessiah. But the clearest intimations of the future glorious dispensation are always conjoined with the mention of its being accomphshed by that very person who was the God of Israel. Isaiah sometimes represents the Almighty as himself the Saviour and Redeemer of Israel ; at other times, he speaks of a servant, an elect of God, wlio was to be mighty to save. But this elect is distinguished by such names, Immanuel, i. e. God with us, the mighty God, the Prince of peace ; and his character and appearance are described with such majesty, that we soon recognise the God of Israel, for whom the people are commanded to wait. Later prophets give the name of Jehovah to the person who was to be employed in bringing the salvation. Zech. ii. 10, 11. " Sing and rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee." Here is one Jehovah sending another to dwell in Judah. " I will have mercy upon the house of Judah," Hosea i. 7, "and will save them by the Lord their God." Micah V. 2, foretells a " ruler in Israel that was to come out of Bethle- hem," not a new person, but one " whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." Jeremiah says expressly that the new, covenant with Israel was to be made by the same person who had made the old. Jer. xxxi. 31. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah ; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days saith, the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people." In reference to the covenant mentioned by Jeremiah, Malachi, the last of the pro- phets, announces the coming of the Messiah in these words, Mai. iii. 1 : " Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me : And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in ; behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." The Lord coming to his own temple is the God of Israel returning to illuminate and glorify by his presence that Jewish temple, which had been originally built for his name, but which, after the destruction of the fabric erected by Solomon, had been left without the Shechinah, the visible symbol of his presence. By his coming, the glory of the latter house, according to the prophecy of Haggai,* was made greater than the glory of the • Hagg. ii. 9. 27 2 R 290 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS former, because no symbol, however sacred or splendid, deserved to be compared with the actual presence, and inhabitation of tlie Lord of glory. The Lord coming to his own temple is called in this pro- phecy the Angel or Messenger of the covenant, in whom the Jews delighted, /. e. a person sent by another for the purpose of making thai new covenant with the house of Israel, which their sacred books taught them to expect. Here, then, we are brought back, at the end of the Old Testament, to the same word Angel or Messenger, which we found at the beginning of it. The Angel, who had appeared to Abraham, to Jacob, and to Moses, who had made the old covenant with Israel, who had been worshipped in his own temple at Jerusa- lem, is here called the Angel of the covenant which was to be established upon better promises. The conjunction of names in this concluding prophecy collects all the information concerning this per- son, which we have found scattered through the Old Testament, and seems to be introduced on purpose to teach us, that he who had con- ducted the former dispensation was to open the new ; that the same person, by whom the whole plan of Divine Providence respecting the souls of men had been carried on from the beginning of the world, was to visit the Jewish temple before it was demolished a second time; and having received the adoration of that people whom he had chosen in the temple, which was his own during all the time that it stood, was to be entitled by another manifestation, and a fresh dis- play of his love, to adorations and thanksgivings corresponding to the nature and extent of the blessings conveyed by the new covenant. This singular prophecy, which collects all the information concern- ing the person of whom we have been speaking, is found in the con- clusion of the Old Testament ; and in the beginning of the New, it is applied by Mark to Jesus Christ. This application is a favourable omen of the success to be expected in the second part of this discussion, in which I propose to show, that, as all the divine appearances made in a succession of ages are referred in the Old Testament to one person, who is called both Angel and Jehovah, so many incidental expressions in the New Testament mark out Christ to be this person. Section II. There is no passage in the New Testament which directly affirms that every thing said in the Old Testament of that Person who is called both Angel and Jehovah belongs to Christ. But this is not the only instance in which the intimate connexion between the two dis pensations is left to be gathered by those who inquire. There are many parts of the counsel of God, with respect to which, as the Apostle speaks, to those whose minds are blinded, the veil remains •jntaken away in reading the Old Testament. And it does not appear unworthy of the wisdom of God to have provided in this way a reward for that industry which is directed to the Scriptures, a satisfac- tion to speculative minds, and an increase of the evidence of Chris- IN HIS PRK-EXISTENT STATE. 291 tianity, according to the progress wliich men make in sacred know- ledge. In tiie progress of this part of the discussion, you will have a speci- men of what the Apostle calls " comparing spiritual things with spiritual," in order to "know the things that are freely given us of God." You will find the proof consisting of a numher of detached circumstances. But you will not, upon that account, think it incom- plete. Circumstantial evidence is often resorted to in human affairs. There are many occasions upon which it is not judged worthy of less credit than the most direct testimony ; and, with regard to the parti- cular ohject of this discussion, if we are attentive and patient in the interpretation of Scripture, the sentiments of the apostles, whose writ- ings are the standard of our faith, may be as certainly known from the manner in which they have expressed themselves at many differ- ent times, as if any of them had judged it proper formally to show that Christ is the Jehovah who appeared to the patriarchs, who was worshipped in the temple, and who was announced as the author of a new dispensation. In collecting the evidence of this whole proposition, it is natural to invert the order in which I brought forward the different parts of it. For Christ is known in the New Testament as the author of the new dispensation. That is the character under which we find him there. The first thing, therefore, to be derived from thence, is an answer to this question, whether the terms in which the author of the new dis- pensation was announced under the Old Testament are applied to Christ in the New. If they are, we should be warranted to infer, from the induction of particulars formerly stated, that he was also worship- ped in the temple, and that he appeared to the patriarchs. But our faith in the whole proposition will be very much confirmed, if, inde- pendently of proof of the second and third facts which necessarily arises from the proof of the third, we find them also established by separate evidence. 1. It appears from various expressions in the New Testament, that Christ is Jehovah, the Saviour of Israel, who was announced in the Old Testament as the author of a new dispensation. The allusions that occur in the New Testament to expressions in the Old respecting the Saviour of Israel, are infinite in number, and constitute a striking illustration of this part of the general proposition. But there are two heads under which we may arrange those passages, which afford the most conclusive proof that Christ is the person who was thus announced. The first is the application made in the New Testament of the prophecies respecting the forerunner of Jehovah, the Saviour of Israel ; and the second is a number of quotations, from a long prophecy of Isaiah, that extends from the seventh to the twelfth chapter. 1. Application of the prophecies respecting the forerunner of Jeho- vah, the Saviour of Israel. The first two verses of Mark's Gospel are these; "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; As it is written in the prophets. Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee ;" and the same prophecy is applied in Matthew and Luke to John Baptist. The words are taken, with a small variation, from Malachi iii. 1. 292 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS 111 the prophet, the person whose messenger was to prepare the way before him speaks, " Beliold, I send my messenger, and he shall pre- pare the way before me." In the gospels, the Almighty speaks to the pe''son, whose way the messenger was to prepare. " I send my messenger before thy face." As the passage is literally the same in all three gospels, the variation from the present reading of the Old Testament was probably occasioned by some version or copy of the Hebrew, different from any now extant. The amount of the pro- phecy is the same, and the fulfilment equally exact, whether you read " before me," or "before thee ;"and the direct application to John the Baptist of the first part of the verse in Malachi, is a clear warrant to apply the second part of the verse to Jesus, the person before whom John went, i. e. to consider Jesus as Jehovah coming to his own temple, the messenger of the covenant, whom the Jews were taught by the later prophets to expect. This inference, legitimately drawn from the use made of the first part of the verse in Malachi, is established by that quotation which immediately follows in Mark, and which is adopted by the other Evangehsts in the beginning of the gospels. " The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. This is the account which John gave of himself when the Jews sent to him, asking, " Who art thou ? 1 am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias." The quotation is taken from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, the first eleven verses of which are an account of the nature and the manner of that salvation which the God of Israel was to bring. When you recollect the language which John uniformly employed with regard to himself, " I am not the Christ, but I am sent before him ; that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come, baptizing with water;" and when you find the inspired historians agreeing with John him- self in applying to him this prophecy of Isaiah, you have no doubt that Jesus is the Lord, whose way the voice was to prepare ; and you are directed to apply to Jesus all the expressions employed in that passage to characterize the person before whom the voice went, ?'.e. you will find, upon reading these eleven verses of Isaiah, that you are taught by this application of one of them to consider Jesus as Je- hovah, the God of Israel, who came himself, with a strong hand, to be their Saviour, and their Shepherd. Accordingly, the angel, in the first chapter of Luke's gospel, thus announces to Zachariah the birth of John ; " Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God ; and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord," referring, in this annunciation, to the prophecies, both of Isaiah and Malachi : and our Lord, by taking to himself the name of the good shepherd, and by frequently calling his disciples his flock, his sheep, and his lambs, plainly refers to these words of the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, " He shall feed his flock like a shepherd ; he shall gather the lambs with his arm." But as all the parts of that prophecy mark one person whom the voice was to announce, if this expression belong to him, the rest belong also. II. The other head, under which I proposed to arrange those ex- pressions, which afford the most conclusive proof that Jesus is the IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 293 person who was announced in the Old Testament, as Jehovah, the Saviour of Israel, is a number of quotations from a long prophecy in Isaiah, that extends from the seventh to the twelfth chapter. The kings of Syria and Israel had comhined against the kingdom of Judah, and they threatened to dethrone Ahaz,the king, and to raise a stranger to rule over the house of David. The prophet is sent to comfort the king and the people, by giving them assurance of the stability of the kingdom of Judah, and of deliverance from their present enemies. The prophecy has an immediate reference to the circumstances of the kingdom. But you find, upon reading it, such a mixture as is not uncommon in the Old Testament prophecies. You meet with ex- pressions which seem to look far beyond the events of which the prophet is speaking, names and epithets which cannot, without a striking impropriety, be applied to any person born about that time, but which are a natural description of the character and oifice of that illustrious descendant of David, whom former prophecies had an- nounced, and whose everlasting dominion is introduced into this pro- phecy of a temporal deliverance, as the most entire security that the designs of the enemies of Judah must fail, because the counsels of heaven did not admit of any interruption in the lineal succession to that crown, wiiicli was to fiourish for ever upon the head of the Mes- siah. This is the train of thought by which the promises of temporal and of spiritual deliverance are blended together in this message to the king of Judah. It is not easy to separate them from one another, and some of the expressions are so dark, that in order to form a just con- ception of their meaning, you will find it necessaty to call in the assistance of some of the many authors by whom (hey have been illustrated. You will derive particular advantage from reading one of Bishop Hurd's Lectures, in which a part of this prophecy is eluci- dated with the clearness and accuracy which distinguish this master of sacred criticism. It is also fully illustrated by MaccuUoch. Even although you should not follow the prophet in all the changes of sub- ject, or assign the precise meaning of every expression, you are led by a general acquaintance with the language of the Old Testament prophecies to consider many of the names that occur in this prophecy as descriptive of the Messiah ; and you find the apostles of our Lord making the application to him. Matthew, in relating the miraculous conception of our Lord, as announced by the angel to Mary, says, " Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name- Em- manuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." I'liis is taken from Isaiah vii. 14, and being applied to Jesus, we are taught that he is God with us, the Jehovah of Israel, who, according to the promise by Zechariah, was to come and dwell in the midst of them.'' The Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst US. The angel who appeared to Mary said, in the first chapter of Luke, " Thou shalt bring forth a Son, and shalt call his name J(;sus : And he shall be great, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David ; and he shall reign over the house of • Zechar. ii. 10, 11. 27* 294 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS Jacob for ever and ever : and of his kingdom there shall be no end.'' There is a reference here botli to Isaiah vii. 14, and also to Isaiah ix. 6, " Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given ; and the govern- .ment shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called Won- derful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order and to establish it for ever." Jesus, then, being, according to this application of the prophecy, that Son of David who was to sit for ever on the throne of his Father, is also the mighty God. In another part of this prophecy, Isaiah calls this Son " a rod out of the stem of Jesse," and " a branch out of his roots, which should stand as an ensign to the people, and to which the Gentiles should seek." And the Apostle Paul, in the course of an argument to show that Jesus Christ not only fulfilled the promises made to the fathers, but was given also that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, applies these words to him, Rom. xv. 12 : "And again Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gen- tiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust." Allusions to other expressions of this prophecy are to be found in the writings of the apostles. But the direct quotations which have been made are sufficient to show that, in their eyes, Jesus Christ is that Saviour of Israel whom the prophet, from the beginning to the end of the spiritual part of the propiiecy, announces. That Person, according to the prophet, is Je- hovah the God of Israel. Therefore we have the authority of the inspired books of the New Testament for the truth of the third part of our general proposition. It is true that he is often styled in the New Testament a man sent, given, raised up by God to be the Saviour of the world. It is said that he received power of God ; that the Spirit was given him; that he came to do his Father's will. And this language may seem to be inconsistent with his being Jehovah. But you will recollect that we meet with the same inconsistency in the Old Testament. The ancient Scriptures speak of the Saviour of Israel as Jehovah sent by Jehovah, himself the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and as a Son born of a virgin. It is by this peculiar manner of designation that we dis- tinguish him in the Old Testament from God the Father. When we find the same peculiarity in the New Testament, we are confirmed in the application which we have made ; and Jesus the Saviour must be the Jehovah, who was to come and save Israel, because, like him, he is called both the messenger of God, and God. J I. The second part of the general proposition is, that Jesus is the Person who was worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem, and whose glory filled the tabernacle. It might bo sufficient to rest the proof of this upon the prophecy of Malachi. The same Person is there called the Lord coming to his own temple, and the messenger of the covenant. But Jesus is unquestionably the messenger of the covenant. There- fore the temple to which he came was his, and it could not without impiety be called his, unless he was worshipped there. This proof is confirmed by many analogies, and by some express intimations in the New Testament. The analogies are of this kind. Jesus is called the effulgence of IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 295 the Father's glory. John saySjtozjj.'toofi', lie tabernacled amongst us, and idiaaaufOa SoSac avtov, we Contemplated his glory ; a phraseology most natural in a Jew, who considered the Shechinah as the visible symbol of the divine presence, if he also believed that the Person, who had exhibited that symbol for many ages in the temple, became by his incarnation an inhabitant of earth. His body was a tabernacle which veiled the glory of his presence in such a manner as to make it safe for mortals, Oiai^aaeai., to look steadily for some time upon it. There is one occasion, indeed, recorded in the gospels, when this 2;lory burst forth so as to overpower the beholders. Upon a mount to which Jesus led three of his disciples, " he was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as snow, and a bright cloud overshadowed them." This is called by Peter, when relating this vision, nsya'Mrt^iTxr;? ?,o^a, the transcendant glory. The veil which usually concealed the majesty of the God- head from the sight of the disciples was for a moment dropped, and their senses were astonished with an effulgence, such as filled the tabernacle at those times when it was unsafe even for the sons of Aaron to enter. This appearance, however transitory, was fitted to mark oi't Jesus to those who were permitted to behold it as the Lord of glory and it is stated by the apostle as the pledge of that glory in which he is now enthroned, and in which he shall come to judge the world, 2 Peter i. 16, 17. " We have not followed cnnniiigly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, when we were with him in the holy mount." The new Jerusalem is thus described by John. " Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. The glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Rev. xxi. 3, 23. It is said that Jesus shall come at the last day, iv nv^i ^■Koyoi : And that he shall destroy the man of sin, rfj £}ti^avit.(s. T^rji la^ov^Mi avtov, \vi\h the manifestation of his presence, 2 Thess. ii. 8. All this language of the New Testament is borrowed from the Shechinah. And it will appear most proper and significant, when you consider Jesus, whose glory enlightens heaven, whose brightness dazzled the eyes of the disciples on the mount, and whose excellence might be contemplated when it shone '' full of grace and truth" through the veil of his flesh, as the Lord of the temple, whose presence had formed both the more awful and the more encouraging appearances of the Shechinah. Analogies of this kind, when they are frequent and striking, constitute a very satisfying evidence to those who are capable of tracing them. But as they may be abused, it is always desirable to have them supported by some direct proofs of which the judgment may lay hold, without the aid of imagination. The direct proofs of the point suggested by these analogies, are of two kinds. The first consists of quotations applied to Jesus from those Psalms in which the glory of the Jehovah of Israel in his temple is described. The second is the testimony of the Apostle John. 1. The Psalms were hymns composed for the service of the temple ; and several of them were mentioned formerly in proof of this position, that the Person worshipped in the temple was the same who had 96 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS appeared to the patriarchs. But several expressions in these very PsaUiis are applied by the apostles to Christ. We read in Psalm xviii. " This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in. They have seen thy goings, 0 God, my king, in thy sanctuary." But the apostle, Eph. iv. 8, when speaking of the gift of Christ, quotes in proof of it, the ISth verse of this Psalm : " Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men ; and he argues that the propriety of the expression, ''he ascended," arises from this, that the same person who ascended had first descended. Now one person is addressed or spoken of from the beginning to the end of the Psalm. It is impossible that at the 18th verse there can be an abrupt address to Christ, without any intimation that the per- son addressed is different from him mentioned in the 17th verse, and spoken of in the sequel. We have, therefore, the authority of the Apostle Paul for applying the whole of Psalm Ixviii. to Jesus, so that we may say of him, as in the 29th verse," Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents to thee." Again, the apostle to the Hebrews derived one proof that Jesus was originally superior to angels from the command given them to worship him. But this command is fomid in Psalm xcvii. where the majesty of the God of Israel is described in his temple. " The Lord reigneth. Clouds and darkness are round about him. A fire goeth before him. Con- founded be all they that serve graven images; worship him, all ye gods, or angels. Zion heard, and was glad." The command is introduced in a manner which plainly distinguishes the person to be worshipped from idols, and marks him to be the God of Israel. He then, whom the apostle to the Hebrews calls the first begotten, is the same who in Judah " was high above all the earth." Once more, the apostle derives his proof that Christ created the world from a passage in Psalm cii. But we cannot consider these words as addressed by the Psalmist to Christ, without admitting that ho is the person mentioned in the former part of the psalm. And the reasoning of the apostle is inconclusive and sophistical, unless the person of whom he is speaking in that chapter be the same of whom the Psalmist is speaking in that psalm, /. e. the God who was worshipped in Zion, the Saviour of Israel, who was to appear in his glory, and whose praise was to be declared in Jerusalem, when he built up Zion. 2. The argument founded upon these quotations is confirmed by the express testimony of John xii. 41. The evangelist, speaking of the many miracles which were performed by Jesus before the Jews, but which had not the effect of leading them to believe on him, quotes a passage from the sixth chapter of Isaiah, in which the unbelief of the Jews is foretold ; and then he subjoins, — " These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory and spake of him." When you road that chapter of Isaiah, you will find a most awful and ma- jestic description of the glory of the Almighty in the temple, not that cloud which encouraged the priests to draw near, but that bright refulgent glory which no man could see and live. " I saw," says isaiah, " tlie Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up ; and his train filled the temple." The expression in the Septuagint is, TtAjj^jy? ootK05r>ji- Sol?;; aurou. This was showu in tlie vision to Isaiah before IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 297 the date of the long prophecy to which I formerly referred, as if to qualify the prophet for receiving that extraordinary communication of the spiritual deliverance prepared for his people. But he felt the weakness of humanity in this manifestation of the glory of the Lord. " Wo is me," he said, " for I am undone ; for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts." Now that wliich Isaiah saw is called by John his glory, /. e. according to tlie context, the glory of Christ. Therefore Christ is the Lord of hosts, whose glory filled the temple. In order to evade the force of this evident conclusion, those who deny the pre-existence and the divinity of Christ have adopted the paraphrase of Dr. Clarke. "The true meaning,'' he says, " is, when Esaias saw the glory of God the Father revealing to him the coming of Christ, he then saw the glory of him who was to come in the glory of his Father. Esaias in beholding the glory of God, and in receiving from him a revelation of the coming of Christ, saw, that is, foresaw the glory of Christ just as Abraham saw, i. e. foresaw his day and was glad."* You may judge of the influence which attachment to system has upon the most acute and enlightened minds, when such a man as Dr. Clarke could do such violence to words in this short sentence of John. He considers saiu as equivalent to foresaw, although neither Isaiah nor John intimate that the objects presented to the prophet's sight were a prophecy of future events; and he con- siders his glory, i. e. the glory of Christ, as equivalent to the glory of God revealing to him the coming of Christ at the end of the world. I should rather say that his interpretation gives a double meaning to each of the words, stSs t-qv Solw avtov. He saw the glory of God, and he foresaw the glory of Christ. III. One part of the general proposition still remains. That Christ is the person who appeared to the patriarchs, and gave the law. We are entitled to consider this as an inference from the points already proved. For Christ having been found to be the Saviour of Israel, who was worshipped in the temple, he must, according to the induction stated in the former section, be the same who appeared to the patriarchs, and who gave the law from Mount Sinai. But we are not obliged to have recourse to this mode of proof. Even of this last point, seemingly the most remote from the gospel, the New Testa- ment contains separate evidence; for there are many expressions in the New Testament, of which this part of the proposition gives the most natural interpretation, and there are others which require the belief of it. Of the first kind are the following : When our Lord says, John viii. 59, "Abraham saw my day, and was glad;" the words will appear most significant, if Christ was the person who appeared to Abraham. When Peter says, 1 Pet. i. 10, 11, "The prophets prophesied of the grace which should come, searching what the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify," he seems to sny that Christ spake by the prophets ; and when he says, in the same Epistle, "Christ was quickened," i. e. raised from the dead "in the .spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-sutferitig of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing," all the * Clarke's Works, vol. iv. No. 597. 2 S 298 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS Other meanings which have been affixed to these obscure words, appear forced and unnatural, when compared with this, that Christ is Jeiiovah, who said before the flood, " My spirit shaU not always strive witli man, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years," and who, during this time of forbearance, raised up Noah, a preacher of righteousness. Once more, when our Lord says, Matth. xxiii. 37, "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would 1 liave gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !" if you consider our Lord as the person who had carried the Jews in the days of old, who had sent prophets, and by a mixture of mercies and chastisements, had called them to repentance, this lamentation over Jerusalem has a con- sistency, a beauty, and an energy, which are very much lost, by sup- posing that his peculiar care of them only began with his manifesta- tion in the flesh. It is plain that all these passages derive much light and improve- ment from admitting that Jesus is the person who appeared to the patriarchs and gave the law. But there are other passages in the New Testament, the sense of which obviously requires the truth of this part of tlie proposition. The Apostle, 1 Cor. x. 4, in applying the history of the children of Israel as an example and warning to Christians, has these words: "They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." The part of Jewish his- tory to which the Apostle refers, is thus related, Psalm Ixxviii. 15, 16, "He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock." In grateful remembrance of this seasonable exertion of divine power, God is often called in the Old Testament the Rock of Israel; so Psalm Ixxviii. 35, it is said, " They remembered that God was their rock, and the High God their Redeemer." Now the Apostle says, that the spiritual rock that followed, i. e. went along with them in their journey, was Christ. His power brought water out of the rock, and the same power continued to defend and guide them. Again, 1 Cor. X. 9, the Apostle, continuing to draw a lesson to Christians from the history of the Israelites, says, " Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." We read, Dent. vi. 16, "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah." And here the Apostle substitutes Christ in place of the Lord their God. The Greek runs thus, Myj5s sxnsL^a^oifiev tovX^i,r^rov,xa9LJi xai tivii ahtuiviTiii^aiav. It has been Well observed that the particles xa9wj xm, require us to repeat after trtngacrav the same accusatives which had followed «5«rta^a^to,u£i/: and almost all the MSS^ and the most ancient versions agree with the earliest writers who quote this passage in reading x^t-r-r'oj/ as the first accusative. The 18th verse of Psalm Ixviii. which I mentioned formerly as quoted by the apostle to the Ephesians, and applied to Christ, immediately fol lows anotlier verse of that Psalm, in which are tiiese words, — " The Lord is among them in the holy place, as in Sinai;" so that the same person who ascended on high was in Sinai : and accordingly the apostle to the Hebrews xii. 25, 26, has taught us that it was the voice of Christ which shook Mount Sinai. " See that ye refuse not him that IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 299 speaketh from heaven ; for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on eartli, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. Whose voice then shook the earth." It is not easy for one who is acquainted with the phraseology of the New Testament, to understand any other by "him that speaketh from heaven" than Jesus Christ. But this is the immediate antecedent to the relative, which begins the next clause, " Whose voice ;" and the time marked by " then" is sufliciently determined by the context to be the time of giving the law from Mount Sinai. All these particulars laid together constitute an evidence which appears to be satisfactory, that Jesus Christ is the person who appear- ed to the patriarchs, and gave the law from Mount Sinai, who was worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem, and who was announced by the prophets as the author of a new dispensation. Section III. There are some objections to the conclusiveness of the evidence now adduced, and there is a difference of opinion with regard to the amount of the proposition, supposing it to be proved. It is proper that you should be acquainted both with the objections and with the different opinions. In following out this discussion, I was led to con- sult a variety of authors, many of wliom repeat the same things, with a small change of expression. By comparing them together, I shall be able to state the objections and the different opinions clearly ; and it may be both agreeable and useful to you to know the names, and to receive a specimen of the manner of those writers who have entered most deeply into this controversy. In the quotations which follow, I shall have occasion to oppose Socinian, Arian, and Athanasian writers to one another. For the objections which the Socinians make to the evidence of the proposition, are answered not only by the Athanasians, but by the Arians also ; and the futility of the inference which the Arians draw from the proposition is exposed by the Socinians, as well as by the Athanasians. So that those who hold the third opinion concerning the Person of Christ, have for their allies, in one part of this discussion, those who hold the second opinion, and in another part of it, those who hold the first. The Socinians are obliged, in consistency with their principles, to combat the whole of that proposition which we have been endeavour- ing to establish, because, if it be true, it leaves no doubt with regard to the pre-existence of Jesus. I will not follow them in their attempts to give another interpretation to those texts which constitute the evidence of the proposition, but will leave you to judge from review- ing them, whether that interpretation by which the proposition is supported be not agreeable to the natural sense of the words in every particular passage, and to the analogy of all of them taken together In stating the objections to the evidence, I have two things to lay before you. — 1. The Socinian solution of that expression in the Old Testament, an Angel of Jehovah, which furnishes one of the general grounds of the proposition. 2. A plausible argument against it, 300 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS drawn from a mode of expression which occurs in different places of the New Testament. 1. The person whom we traced tiirough the Old Testament is often called an angel, the angel of the Lord, from whence it has been inferred that he cannot be God the Father. But Mr. Lindsey, one of the latest and ablest defenders of pure Socinianism, in the Sequel to his Apology, furnishes the following solution of that expression : '•' In the account which is given of the divine appearances in the Scriptures, it is sometimes related in what form and manner they were notified and made, viz. by an extraordinary light, fire, cloud, audible voice, &c. At all other times it cannot be doubted but there was some sensible sign given, though it be not always mentioned. Now this outward toicen of the presence of God is what is meant generally by the angel of God, where not particularly specified and appropriated otherwise ; that which manifested his appearance, whatever it was." He considers the Shechinah, or material symbol of glory, and the audible voice of the oracle from thence, as angels of the Lord, the true God acting upon them, and manifesting himself by them ; and therefore he concludes that it was not any great angel or separate spirit who was seen and heard in the instances quoted from the Old Testament, but God himself appearing in the only way in which a spiritual being can appear, by sensible tokens and actions, exhibited for the end proposed, such as an extraordinary light, a particular shape or figure, an articulate voice, &c. &c.* The solution proceeds upon this sound principle of theism, that all the creatures of God may be employed to execute his purposes. He maketh the winds his messengers, and fire, pestilence, and sword, receiving their destination from him, may be called his angels. But this principle, however true, does not give a satisfactory explication of the subject to which it is applied. For the appearances to be accounted for are not occasional, unconnected, and varying. We have found one angel of God stand- ing forth through all the Scriptures, bearing a certain character, and employed in offices and actions which are described with every circumstance of time and place that can serve to mark a person, and often with a reference to former offices and actions of the same person. I shall give you this answer to the Socinian solution, in the words of Mr. Taylor, an English clergyman, who published, some years ago, a book entitled. The Apology of Ben Mordecai to his friends for embracing Christianity. Under the assumed appearance of a Jew, stating the reasons which made him think the Christian faith not inconsistent with the law of Moses, Mr. Taylor artfully introduces, and defends with learning and ingenuity, his own views of the pecu- liar doctrines of Christianity. He considers Jesus as the first of the creatures of God, an angel distinguished above every other, who conducted the dispensation of the Old Testament, and who completed the scheme for the redemption of the human race, by assuming a body at the time when the Gospel was preached. This part of his creed leads him to defend the pre-existence of Jesus against the attacks of the Socinians ; and in answer to their hypothesis, that all the appearances which we have ascribed to one person are nothing * Sequel to Lindsey's Apol. p. 324, 336. IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 301 more than the appearance of the invisible Jehovah by symbol, he thus reasons: " The accountsof many of these appearances arc given in so plain and historical a manner, and with so many circumstances, which cannot be accounted for either by vision or figurative expres- sion, that both the Jews and Christians of former ages have looked upon them to be literal; and if they are not historical facts, there is no dependence upon the literal sense of any one action recorded in Scripture. "" A plague or an earthquake may be called a ntessenger of Jehovah, though it be no person. But it is never called Jehovah : and it is impossible to conceive how an angel called Jehovah, who was visible to several people at the same time, and conversed with them personally, can be considered merely as a symbol, or as any other than a real person."* 2. The second objection against the proposition which we have been illustrating, is a plausible argument drawn from a mode of expression that occurs in different places of the New Testament. It is said in the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." And there are many other expressions to the same purport, which seem to imply that God had not spoken by his Son till the last days ; and imdoubtedly, if we knew nothing more of the divine dis- pensations than these words contain, this is the interpretation we should give them. But every author is to be explained in a manner which renders his meaning in one place consistent with his meaning in another; and every author, supposing that his readers will ob- serve this rule, is not accustomed to say in one place every thing that may be said upon a subject, but leaves much to be supplied from other places. When we take into view what we may learn from the rest of Scripture concerning the character and ofiices of the Son, it is easy to interpret the words of the apostle in this manner. God spake formerly by the prophets, the messengers of his will to the fatliers. The Son did not appear. It was not known to the world or to the prophets that they were inspired by the ministry of the Son ; and no inconvenience arose from this circumstance not being made known, because the message was equally divine, and claimed the same reverence, whether the prophets received it from God, or from the Son of God. But now the Son hath been made manifest. A person assuming that name, and conversing freely with men, hath declared God, not in vision to prophets, but openly to the people. Now, therefore, it is fit to reveal the original dignity of this Person, in order that respect for the messenger may procure attention and obedience to the message. The earliest Christian writers furnish the answer which I have now given. " The Lord was truly the instructor of the ancient people, first by Moses, afterwards by the prophets. But he is the guide of the new people, by himself face to face."t And the answer has been adopted by those who hold the second and third opinions concerning the Person of Christ, as sufficieiit to repel this, part of the Socinian objection. " The plain sense of the word," says * Ben Mordecai, p. 228, 256. t Clem. Alex. Paedag. h. I. c. 8, 11. 28 302 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS Mr. Taylor, "appears to me to be this: God spake formerly to our fathers by the mediation or ministry of the prophets, but now speaks to us by the Son liimself, without any such mediation."* But there is another part of this objection arising from those expressions in the New Testament where the law seems to be ascribed to angels. " Our fathers," says Stephen, Acts vii. 53, " received the law by the disposi- tion of angels." And the apostle to the Hebrews argues upon this ground, that the gospel is superior to the law. " If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which began to be spoken by the Lord ?" It is impossible, then, say the Socinians to olher Christians, that the Son, whom you account a being superior to angels, was the Author of the law, for the excellence of the gospel is made to consist in this, that it was given by him. Tlie answer to this objection is, in part, the same as to the former. It is implied in some passages of the Old Testament, that the giver of the law was attended upon Mount Sinai by a multitude of the heavenly host. — " The Lord," says Moses, Deut. xxxiii. 2, "came from Sinai: He shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousand of his saints ; from his right hand went a fiery law for them." The Son of God was not then revealed. His superiority to the retinue of angels was not known ; and no particular mention being made of him, it is said accurately by Stephen that the fathers received the law »5 ^larayaj ayy^xui/, i^^er turmas ungdoruin. Whereas the gospel was spoken by the Lord himself without that attendance of the heavenly host which consti- tuted part of the awful scene upon Mount Sinai, but with a mani- festation of his own original glory. In this respect the manner of giving the law is clearly distinguished from the manner of giving the gospel, without our being obliged to infer from the expressions used that an angel was the author of the law. But in order to perceive the full force of the answer to this objection, you must recollect that the ten commandments are not included under "the word spoken by angels;" for the history of Moses requires us to make a distinction between the decalogue and the rest of the law. The ten command- ments were spoken by God himself " God spake these words, say- ing, I am Jehovah." But the majesty with which they were delivered was so terrible, that the people entreated God would not speak to them any more. " Speak thou with us," they said to Moses, " and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Accord- ingly Moses says, Deut. v. 22, " These words," the decalogue, " the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of fire, with a great voice, and he added no more." " The rest," says Dr. Randolph, "both the judicial and the ceremonial law, was delivered, and the covenant was made, by the mediation of Moses; and therefore the apostle says, Gal. iii. 19, 'The law was ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator :' hence it is called the law of Moses. And the character given of it in the Pentateuch is this — • these are the statutes, and judgments, and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, by the hand * Ben Monkcai, p. 317. IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 303 of Moses. In like manner, after the tabernacle was reared, God communed with Moses from between the cherubims on the mercy- seat, who represented angels, and with the priests who entered the tabernacle. But the people were not permitted to approach."* So far Dr. Randolph, formerly Professor of Divinity in Oxford, whose writings, one entitled a Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and another, Prailectiones Theologicae, chiefly upon the divinity of our Saviour, I have found very useful, composed with sound judg- ment, and with much knowledge of the Scriptures. You will attend to the force of the distinction which he has mentioned. The ten commandments, which are of perpetual and universal obligation, and which are incorporated as part of the gospel, so that the moral law is established by faith, were spoken by God himself. But the judicial and ceremonial law, which were local temporary institutions, not ex- tending beyond the boundaries and the duration of the Jewish state, were ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator, The divine Author of them was withdrawn from the eyes of the people, for Moses stood between him and them : but there was no intervention of this kind in the delivery of the gospel. Instead of that terrible majesty which had accompanied the giving of the ten commandments, which made the people request that God would not speak any more, there was in the appearance of Jesus a grace which invited men to draw near; and he himself spoke the words of eternal life. Considering, then, the Socinian objections as not sufficient to inva- Hdate the evidence that has been adduced, I shall now direct your attention to the different opinions that have been held concerning the amount of the general proposition. If Jesus appeared to the patriarchs, gave the law, and was worshipped in the temple, it is plain that he existed before he was born of Mary. But it is not self- evident whether he be an exalted creature, or essentially God. And many of those who consider him as the first of the creatures of God, while they defend his pre-existence against the Socinians, endeavour to reconcile this proposition with their own system. You will judge of the nature of the attempt, from two books in which it is formally made. The one is entitled, Essay on Spirit, by Dr. Clayton, formerly Bishop of Clogher, in Ireland. The principles of his book are these. The whole expanse is full of spirits of different ranks and degrees. God may communicate what proportions of his attributes he pleases to the ditferent gradations of created beings : and, according to an ancient opinion, he may employ those upon whom he has conferred more exalted powers, to act in a middle station between him and the lower productions of his Almighty hand. Now, while inferior angels were appointed to preside over other people and nations upon earth, one angel, who is called by Moses Jehovah, had Israel assigned to him by the Most High as the portion of his inheritance. He was tlie guardian angel of the posterity of Abraham ; and the peculiar dis- tinction conferred upon him was this, that he was authorized to ap- pear in the name and person of Jehovah, as his image and represen- tative. Hence, although in some places he is distinguished from the • Prsl. Theolog. vol. iii. p. 397. 304 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESTTS Almighty who sent him, yet, in others, he takes the name of Jehovah, and claims and receives the honours due to God. The other book is the apology of Ben Mordecai, one great object of which is to elucidate and support the opinion that had been delivered in the Essay on Spirit. Mr. Taylor lays down this principle, that as it is said in the Jewish Scriptures that Jehovah often appeared and conversed with men ; and as the supreme God and Father never was seen by any one, there must be some other person besides hira who is called by that name. He illustrates the truth of this principle by most of the passages in the Old Testament, to which I have re- ferred in Section First ; and then he concludes from them : — " Thus we see that the sacred writers attribute to the angel who acts in the nams, and authority, and moral character of God, the name Jehovah, And this angel, speaking in the name of God that sent him, uses the first person ; and whatever is performed by this angel is said to be performed by God himself. So the angel who appeared to Moses in the busli, said, ' I am that I am. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.' All this is agreeable to the received customs of mankind, and well understood. The angel takes the name of Jehovah, because it is a common maxim, loquitur legatiis sermone mittentis eum, as an ambassador in the name of his king, or the fecialis when he denounced war in the name of the Roman people : and what is done by the angel, is said to be done by God, according to another maxim. Qui facit per aliuin,facit per se.^ From these two writers you may learn the Arian opinion with re- gard to the amount of the proposition which we have been consider- ing. That person, they say, v/hom the Scriptures of the Old Testa- ment call both angel and Jehovah, is a created spirit, who was allowed to personate the Almighty, not only speaking by his authority, but appearing in his person, and bearing his name, who having, in the name of Jehovah, conversed with the patriarchs, and given the law, came in the last days in his own person to preach the gospel. To this opinion I shall oppose the words of Mr. Lindsey and of Dr. Randolph. It is an opinion which the Socinians cannot admit, because it establishes the pre-existence of Jesus : and as this opinion appears to remove some of the difficulties which attend the third opinion con- cerning the person of Christ, and has been adopted by many as a middle system between that which degrades the Saviour of the world to the rank of a man, and that which exalts him to be equal with God the Father, the Socinians consider it as peculiarly formidable to their tenets, and they attack it with much vigour, and often with sound argument. Mr. Lindsey, after quoting the manner in which the Lord passed by and proclaimed his nam.e before Moses, says, " If this be not a description and peculiar character of God, where shall we meet with it? An angel ever so great, ever so ancient, is still a creature ; and can never be clothed, nor ought to be clothed with these divine attributes upon any occasion." " The whole transaction at Mount Sinai shows that Jehovah was present, and acted, and not another • Ben Mordecai, p. 24.5, 233. IN HIS PRE-EXISTE^T STATE. 305 for him. It is the God that had delivered them out of Egypt, with whom they were to enter into covenant, as their God, and wiio there- upon accepted them as his people, and who was the author of iheir religion and laws, and who himself delivered to them those ten com- mands, the most sacred part. There is nothing to lead us to imagine that the person who was their God, did not speak in his own name ; not the least intimation that here was another representing him."* The author of the Essay on Spirit is aware of the force of these objections to his system. "The only difficulty in this case," he says, "is that the Jehovah of Zion does not always declare that he is deputed, but actually and literally speaks in his own name, calls him- self Jehovah, and positively prohibits the worship of any God but himself Thou shalt have none other Gods before me ; thereby seeming to forbid even the worship of the Supreme Jehovah." His answer to this difficulty is, that the Hebrews were far from being explicit and accurate in their style ; and that it was customary for prophets and angels to speak in the name and character of God.f You will judge how far this answer removes the difficulty, from the following extract out of the writings of Dr. Randolph, who, in his vindication of the doctrines of the Trinity, has given a formal answer to the Essay on Spirit ; and in other parts of his works also, employs much pains to establish this point, that the angel who is called Jehovah in the Old Testament is not a creature, but truly God. " Some, to evade these strong proofs of our Lord's divinity, have asserted that this was only a created angel, appearing in the name or person of the Father ; it being customary in Scripture for one person to sustain the character, and act and speak in the name of another. But these assertions want proof I find no instances of one person acting and speaking in the name of another, without first declaring in whose name he acts and speaks. The instances usually alleged are nothing to the purpose. If we sometimes find an angel in the book of revelation speaking in the name of God, yet from the context it will be easy to show that this angel was the great angel, the angel of the covenant. But if there should be some instances in tlie prophetical or poetical parts of Scripture, of an abrupt change of persons, where the person speaking is not particularly specified, this will by no means come up to the case before us. Here is a person sustaining the name and character of the most High God from one end of the Bible to the other; bearing his glorious and fearful name, the incommunicable name Jehovah, expressive of his necessary existence ; sitting in the throne of God ; dwelling and presiding in his temple ; delivering laws in his own name ; giving out oracles ; hearing prayers ; forgiving sins. And yet these writers would persuade us that this was only a tutelary angel ; .that a creature was the God of Israel, and that to this creature all their service and wor- ship was directed ; that the great God, ' whose name is jealous,' was pleased to give his glory, his worship, his throne, to a creature. What is this but to make the law of God himself introductory of the same idolatry that was practised by all the nations of the heathen? But » Lindsey, p. 313—339. f Essay on Spirit, p. 65. 28* 2 T 306 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS we are told, that bold figures of speech are common in the Hebrew language, which is not to be tied down in its interpretation to the severer rules of modern criticism. We may be assured that those opinions are indefensible, which cannot be supported without charging the word of God with want of propriety or perspicuity. Such pre- tences might be borne with, if the question were about a phrase or two in the poetical or prophetical parts of Scripture, But this, if it be a figure, is a figure which runs through the whole Scripture. And a bold interpreter must he be, who supposes that such figures are perpetually and uniformly made use of in a point of such importance, without any meaning at all. This is to confound the use of language, to make the Holy Scripture a mysterious unintelligible book, surficient to prove nothing, or rather to prove any thing, which a wild imagi- nation shall suggest.'"* I have not been willing to interrupt the impression which thir.. whole passage is fitted to make. The three great circumstances con tained in it, and which constitute the whole argument upon this subject, are these. 1. The uniformity with which the angel appears in the person of Jehovah. It is not upon a few particular occasions, when an abrupt change of persons might be dictated by strong emotions, or interpreted by interesting situations. But throughout the whole Bible, at the delivery of laws, in plain historical narration,, as well as in impassioned poetry, the angel, without any intimation of a figure, speaks as God. But, as has been well said, even an ambas- sador, when he declares the commands of his prince, speaks in the third person, — The King my master. The prophets commonly introduced their revelations with this exordium, Thus saith the Lord, before they presumed to speak in his name. Angels, when they appeared in vision, declared that they were sent by the God of heaven ; and there appears the grossest impiety in supposing that a creature during a succession of ages, histrioniam exercuisse, in qua Dei nomen assumat, et omnia, quse Dei siuit, sibi attribuatA 2. The second circumstance is, that this angel not only takes tlie other names by which the Almighty is known, but calls himself Jehovah, although that word, both by its natural import, and by the manner in which the Scriptures introduce it, appears to be the proper distinguish- ing name of the Supreme God. Eyw tifxi 6 uv, is the exposition which the Septuagint give of this name. Now toov was the name given by Plato to the Supreme Being. 'Et, Thou art, was the single word written upon the entrance of the temple at Delphos; and Plutarch says that this name is solely applicable to God, since that which truly is must be sempiternal. The Scripture use of the name Jehovah corresponds to the import of this exposition. " Thou whose name alone is Jehovah." " Jehovah is my name, and my glory will I not give to another.''^ . Yet this word the angel takes to himself; and when Moses asked him, if " they shall say unto me, what is his name ? What shall I say unto them ?" this is the name which he desires Moses to carry to the children of Israel as his.§ 3. The third circurastance is, that the angel not only demands worship, but claims * Randolph's View, vol. ii. p. 139, f Bull. p. 10. i P«.lxxxiu. 18. § Exod. iii. 13, 15. , IN HIS PRE-EXISTENT STATE. 307 it as his to the exclusion of every other being. The professed object of the law of Moses was to preserve the Jews from tlie idolatry of the surrounding nations. But if the author of their law was only a creature of a liigher rank than the angels who presided over otlier kingdoms, and if the continued use of a figure of speech, which was never properly explained, led them to consider this creature as God, then did the Almighty lend his name to establish in the land of Israel the worship of a creature ; and all the preparation and s[)len- dour of the law were insignificant, since it only taught the Jews to worship one creature, while their neighbours were worshipping another. These reasons appear to show, that without supposing an inextri- cable delusion to run through all the Scriptures, we must admit that the person whom we have traced in the Old arid New Testament is not a creature, but that the name which he uniformly takes to him- self, belongs to him by nature. It may perhaps occur to you, that by ascribing that intercourse with mankind which is recorded in the Old Testament to a person who is himself truly God, we remove God the P'ather from all care of the children of men, and detract from the honour due to him. But we may find, as we advance in this subject, that the Scriptures have obviated this difficulty, by intimating that perfect union between the Father and the Son, which was just mentioned in summing up the argument from creation. Although God made the work! by his Son, yet he is also the Creator of all, because the Father and the Son are one ; and although God from the beginning manifested himself by his Son, " who is the image of the invisible God," yet the glory of the Father and the Son are the satne. It was the power of the undivided Godhead which was exerted by the So-n at creation; it was the majesty of the undivided Godhead which appeared in the Son upon Mount Sinai ; and all the adorations offered through ages to the giver of the law were the tribute which the one true God is alone worthy to receive. We may find that this system is revealed in Scripture ; and that it reconciles all the discoveries made concern- ing the person of the Son of God. At present we are employed in collecting the facts upon which this system rests ; and without pre- tending to speculate as to the probability of any particular fact, we receive the information which the Scripture affords. One great advantage we derive from the proposition which has lately engaged our attention. It connects in the closest manner the Old and the New Testament. They not only point to one great object, but they were conducted by one person, who, as Justin Mar- tyr speaks, although he did at length for good reasons take to himself a body, yet had always been doing good to the human race : for no excellent thing was ever performed by men without the presence of this Divine Person. You may expect then to find in the Old and New Testament, that unity of design, that correspondence and analogy of parts which mark all the schemes of a superior enlightened mind. According to this proposition, the glorious person who had established the dispensation of the Old Testament, is not made to withdraw as soon as it comes to an end. But he appears in the New Testament under another character, with a display of more conde- 308 ACTIONS ASCRIBED TO JESUS, ETC. scending and more universal love, to complete the work which he had begun, and to fulfil the words of his prophets. Every thing said by them concerning the person who had sent them is applied by this proposition to the person whom they announced ; and there is a depth and perfection of wisdom in the manner of the application. As it was not necessary that the Son of God should be known while the Old Testament dispensation existed, we find that the ancient Jews had very imperfect conceptions of his nature. But when he came in the flesh, he took off the veil from the ancient Scriptures. The Old Testament now appears to be full of Jesus Christ ; and all the reve- lations, from the beginning of the world, collected and interpreted by their application to him, redound to the honour, and illustrate the original dignity of the angel of the covenant. DOCTRINE CONCERNING CHRIST'S PERSON, ETC. 309 CHAPTER VI. DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON OF CHRIST TAUGHT DURING HIS LIFE. I HAVE considered both those passages of Scripture, which teach plainly that Jesus existed before he was born of Mary, and those which ascribe certain actions to him in his pre-existent state. The manner in which these actions are described, not only contains a clear refutation of the first opinion concerning the person of Christ, but seems intended to convey an impression that he is not a creature ; and with the prejudice arising from this impression, we now proceed to attend to those passages of Scripture which are to direct us in forming a conception of his original dignity. Dr. Clarke, in his Introduction to the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, expresses himself thus : " 'Tis a thing very destructive of religion, and the cause of almost all divisions amongst Christians, when young persons, at their first entering upon the study of divinity, look upon human and perhaps modern forms of speaking, as the rule of their faith ; understanding those also according to the accidental sound of the words, or according to the notions which happen at any particular time to prevail in the world, and then picking out, as proofs, some few single texts of Scripture, which, to minds already strongly prejudiced, must needs seem to sound, or may easily be ac- commodated, the same way ; while they attend not impartially to the whole scope and general tenor of Scripture. Whereas on the con- trary were the whole Scriptures first thoroughly studied, and seriously considered, as the rule and only rule of truth in matters of religion ; and the sense of all human forms and expressions deduced from thence, the greatest part of errors, at least of uncharitable divisions, might in all probability have been prevented." Dr. Clarke speaks the language of all true Protestants, when he says that the Scriptures, thoroughly studied and seriously considered, are the rule, and the only rule of truth in matters of religion. He speaks like a sound critic, when he says that texts ought not to be understood according to the accidental sound of the words, or accord- ing to the notions which happen at any particular time to prevail. But it does not appear to me how we can attain a certain knowledge of the whole scope and general tenor of Scripture, without a close examination of particular texts. In every inquiry we find it neces- sary to guard against the errors which arise from partial views, by comparing different parts of the subject, and by correcting the conclu- sions which had been too hastily formed. But still, notwithstanding 310 DOCTRINE CONCERNING CHRIST's PERSON this danger, the scientific method of arriving at truth in all subjects is to proceed by an induction of particulars to an apprehension of the whole; and in the study of theology, which is in truth the study of the Scriptures, any notions formed of the doctrine contained in them must be loose and precarious, unless you investigate by sound criticism the amount of words and phrases. Although therefore I consider the collection of texts from the New Testament relative to the doctrine of the Trinity, which Dr. Clarke has made the ground- work of his propositions, as a most useful lielp to any one who sets himself to examine the subject, I do think that by following the method of studying it which he recommends, there is a danger of being prevented, by a phraseology which runs through many of the texts, from receiving the obvious sense of others. If, because it is said in numberless places that the Son is sent by the Father, and came to do the will of the Father, and that all things are given him by God, we infer that there is an inferiority to God in his nature, and after- wards find this inference in direct opposition to those texts, which teach that there is an equality, we have reason to presume that we have committed a mistake ; and we are reminded, that the proper method of proceeding was not to draw a conclusion from a general impression, but to begin with ascertaining the sense of particular texts, and to rest in that conclusion which affords a consistent inter- pretation of all the passages that relate to the same subject. I said, indeed, that we bring with us to the part of the subject upon which we are now entering, an impression that Jesus is not a creature. But this is an impression suggested by a careful and patient examina- tion of those texts in which he is described as the Creator of the world, and by the whole tenor of those parts of the Old and New Testament, in which he is described as the Person by whom all inter- course between the Deity and the human race has been conducted. It is impossible to make progress in any subject without forming some opinion as we advance. If that opinion receive no support in the further prosecution of the subject, it rests upon its original foundation. If it be contradicted, we ought to revise the grounds of it, that we may discover where the mistake lies: but if it be found to coincide with the amount of future researches, it receives light and confirma- tion from this concurrence of evidence. These are the principles upon which I am to proceed in a critical examination of those texts of the New Testament, the true meaning of which must decide the question between the second and third opinions concerning the person of Christ. But as the texts are found chiefly in the Epistles, which were not written for twenty years after our Lord's death, I think it proper to begin with an historical view of the manner in which the doctrine concerning his person was taught during his life. It is manifest to any one who reads the gospels, that our Lord did not unfold all the truths of his religion at once to his disciples. In condescension to the narrowness of their views, and the strength of their prejudices, there was a preparation by which he led them on, as they were able to bear it, to points of difficult apprehension. When we observe that he never spoke plainly of his sufferings, till they had declared their faith in him as the Messiah — that the future extension TAUGHT DURING HIS LIFE. 311 of his religion was intimated to them in parables — that they were not permitted before his death to preach the gospel to any but Jews — and that their expectations of a temporal kingdom continued till his ascen- sion, we cannot doubt that some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity were very imperfectly known by the apostles while our Lord was with them ; and we are not surprised to find these words in his last discourse to them, *' I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."* If he was truly God, there was a pecu- liar fitness in the reserve with which he chose to reveal the dignity of his person. He appeared as a man, that he might converse familiarly with his brethren — that, by leading a life of sorrow, he might go before his companions in the practice of those virtues which they also were to be required to exercise — and that, by falling in due time a victim to the malice of his enemies, he might accomplish the salvation of the world. For these purposes, the veil of liunmnity was assumed ; and if it was indeed the Godhead which that veil con- cealed from the eyes of ordinary beholders, the same purposes re- quired that those persons who were continually around the person of Jesus, should have, during his life, only an indistinct impression of the glory and majesty of him with whom they conversed — and that the clear knowledge that he was God, should be conveyed to their minds after his death, by that recollection and explication of his words, which they were to derive from the illumination of liis Spirit. After he had ascended to heaven, they could not think too highly of his character; and their conceptions of the wisdom and grace of their Master would be very much raised, when they found that those words, the full force of which they understood not at the time when they were spoken, admitted of an interpretation every way suited to the exalted notions which they were taught by the Spirit to enter- tain concerning the dignity of him from whom they had proceeded. This appears fo be the plan wMiich the wisdom of God followed in revealing this subject. We find, during the life of Jesus, intimations of the superiority of his character, such as are not only perfectly con- sistent with the future revelation that he is God, but such as nothing less than that revelation can fully explain. At the same time, we find both the apostles and Jews rather confounded than enlightened by these intimations; and it is not in the conversations recorded in the Gospels, but in the expressions used by the authors of them, or by the other apostles after the day of Pentecost, that we discern their knowledge of the character of their Master. By giving a short con- nected view of these previous intimations, I shall follow the prepara- tion which our Lord used in showing himself to his disciples. All the circumstances which attended the birth of Jesus, marked him out as an extraordinary person. The annunciation by the angel of the Lord, first to Mary, and afterwards to Joseph — the reference to ancient prophecy, in the language which the angel used — the glory which shone around the shepherds of Bethlehen) at the time of the birth — and the song of the multitude of the heavenly host which was with the angel that spake — together with the visit of the wise men, who, led by a star in the East, " came to Jerusalem to worship him * John xvi. 12. 312 DOCTRINE CONCEBNING CHRISt's PERSON that was born King of the Jews," — all these things could not fail to be noised abroad ; they were matter of wonder to those that heard them, and Mary, not nnderstanding what they meant, " kept all these things," we are told, " and pondered them in her heart." The first direct explication of them was at the baptism of Jesus. John, whose mother Elizabeth was a relation of Mary, had been born a few months before Jesus. The Angel, who appeared to his father Zacharias the priest, had said that the son who was to be born "should go before the Lord God of Israel in the spirit and power of Elias:" and Zacharias, instructed by the temporary dumbness, which had been the punislmient of his unbelief, to repose entire confidence in the words of the angel, said, after John was born, " Thou, child, shalt he called the Prophet of the Highest ; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways."* When John was about thirty," the word of God came unto him," and he appeared, accord- ing to the destination of ancient prophecy applied to him at his birth, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord."t Although personally acquainted with Jesus, John knew not that he was the Messiah, till taught by these words, in what manner he was to be distinguished from others : " Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. "J Soon after this revelation was made to John, Jesus came with the multitude to be baptized of John, who preached (he baptism of repentance ; and as he went up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended, cither in the shape of a dove, or in the manner in which a dove descends, and lighted upon him, " And lo, a voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Instantly John recognized Jesus as the person to whom he was sent to bear witness. Having seen, he "bare record, that this is the Son of God," and pointed out .Tcsus as such to the Jews.§ It appears impossible to me, that any person, who, to all the circumstances that had conspired to raise the highest expectations concerning Jesus, joins the solemnity and splendor of that appearance by which he is made known to John, his forerunner, can interpret the words uttered by the voice from heaven in an inferior metaphorical sense, or can give them any other than that exalted import which they naturally bear, and which is suggested by the use of them in ancient prophecy. This opinion fcnnided upon the circumstances of the case is confirmed by two criticnl remarks which deserve attention. The one is, that in all the three Evangelists who record them, the article is prefixed both to the substantive and the adjective, Matt. iii. 17, oito^ uativ t vioi ixov o ayarit^toi ; the most discriminating mode of expres- sion that could be employed, as if to separate Jesus from every other who at any time had received the appellation of the Son of God, and to lead back the thoughts of the hearers to the prophecies in which the Messiah had been announced under that name. This is that Son of mine who is the beloved. The other critical remark is, that, in ah the three Evangelists, the verb of the second clause, in whom I am * Luke ch. i. | Luke iii. 3—6. ii John i. 33. § Mat. iii. 16, 17. John i. 34. TAUGHT DURING HIS LIFE. 313 well pleased, is in the first aorist, iv L fvBoxrjea. Now, although we often render the Greek aorist by the English present, yet this can be done with propriety only when (he proposition is equally true whether it be stated in the present, in the past, or in the future time. Taj ^ujv tuv ^av-Kw avvrjOsMi oxi-yoi p^^otoj 6u%v!j£v. It matters nothing to the truth or significancy of this proposition, in what time you translate StEXucs; for a short space of time has dissolved the connexions of the wicked in past ages, does dissolve them in our days, and will dissolve them in the days of our posterity. Tliis force of tlie Greek indefinite tense is preserv^^d in English by introducing the adverb always. A short space of time always dissolves the connexions of the wicked.* And thus the analogy of the Greek language requires us not only to con- sider the name, Son of God, as applied in a peculiar sense to Jesus, but also to refer to the expression used at his baptism, to that inter- course which had subsisted between tlie Father and the Son, before this name was announced to men. This voice from heaven which John heard appeared to have con- veyed to his mind the most exalted apprehensions of that Person whom it marked out to him. For the words in which he afterwards speaks of Jesus correspond to the third opinion concerning his Person, rather than to the second. " He that cometh from above is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand."t We can- not say that the full meaning of the expression was known to the apostles, and that they could not consider a man, to whom such a name had been given in such a manner, as merely a man whom God had sent. And yet, when we find them introducing at different times into declarations of their faith, this expression. Thou art the Son of the living God, it is natural to suppose that they referred to the voice heard at his baptism. There is one place in John's Gospel, where our Lord appears to found an argument for his divine mission upon this voice. John v. 37, 3S. He had spoken of the Witness which he received from John, and of the works that he did, which bare witness that the Father had sent him : and he adds, according to our translation, " And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you ; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. "A different translation of these verses, which had been suggested by others, and which always appeared to me probable, is adopted and ably defended by Dr. Campbell. His translation is, " Nay, the Father who sent me, hath himself attested me. Did ye never hear his voice, or see his form? Or have ye forgotten his declarations, that ye believe not him whom he hatli commissioned?" The reader will observe, says Dr. Camp- bell, in a note, that the two clauses which are rendered in the English Bible as declarations, are in this version translated as questions. The difference in the original is only in tlie pointing. That they ought to be so read, we need not, in my opinion, stronger evirlence, than that they throw much light upon the whole passage, which, read in the * Dalzel's Coll. Grxca Majora, Notse in Herod. 19, 6. Ed. 1808. t Johniii. 31, 32,35. 29 2U 314 DOCTRINE CONCERNING CHRISt's PERSON common way, is both dark and ill-connected. Our Lord here refers them to the testimony given of him at his baptism; and, when you read the two clauses as questions, all the chief circumstances attend- ing that memorable testimony are exactly pointed out. Have ye never heard his voice, ^wi/j; (x tuiv ov^avi^v, nor seen his form — the (jto^uaf txoj/ f i6o{, ill which Luke says the Holy Ghost descended? And have ye not his declaration abiding in you, tov -koyov, the words which were spoken at that time ? There appears to me very strong internal evidence for the correction proposed by Dr. Campbell, according to which our Lord here refers to the ?toyo5, the words uttered at his baptism, as his warrant for calling liimself the Son of God. There is no doubt that he takes that name to himself in an eminent sense, both in his discourses with his disciples, with Nicodemus, a master in Israel, with the people of the Jews, and at his trial, when, being asked by the High Priest, •' Art thou the Son of God ?" he acknowledged that he was : a confession which, according to the sense affixed to the question by those who put it, was direct blasphemy. " What need we any further witnesses," said the High Priest : " ye have heard the blasphemy." It is very remark- able, that although our Lord seems to delight in calling the Almighty, when he is speaking of him to the disciples, your Father, your heavenly Father, a gracious name most suitable to the discoveries of his religion ; and although, in the prayer which he taught them to use, the address is, " Our Father which art in heaven," yet he never uses the expression our Father in such a manner as to include him- self vv^ith them. All his discourse implies that God is his Father, in a sense different from that in which he is the Father of -all mankind ; and the form of his expression in one place seems chosen to mark the distinction, John xx. 17, " Go tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God, and your God." Indeed the strongest proofs of the divinity of Jesus, that are found in his own words, arise from the manner in which he speaks of the connexion between his Father and him. " All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father: neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."* Here the Father and the Son are held forth as alike incomprehensible to mortals. " What things soever the Father doth, these doth the Son likewise."! Here is an exact like- ness in their works, ^y^ xm o ttanrj^ tv santv. "I and the Father are one."J The argument arising from the two last passages becomes much stronger than it appears at the first hearing them, when you attend to the circumstances in which the declarations were made. In the fifth chapter of John, our Lord, being accused of breaking the Sabbath, because upon that day he made a man whole, makes this apology, V. 17 : 'O ri-x-trie, .wou ew; a^T'e, f^yaCstcu., xayw s^yafo^at. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," /. e. My Father, who rested on the seventh day from the work of creation, never rests from the work of preserving and blessing his creatures ; and I, after his example, do works of mercy on the Sabbath day. The Jews were offended with this saying, because they conceived it to imply that Jesus called God * Mat. xi. 27. f John v. 19 + John x. 30. TAUGHT DURING HIS LIFE. 315 rtats^a, iSiov, which means much more than our translation has express- ed, " said that God was his Father." U^ov rtate^a means his Father, in a sense appropriated to him. iSwj is opposed to xoivoi. And I call him i5io; rtar>?^, who is not the Father of others as well as of me, but who is the Father of me only. From his calling God pecuharly his Father, they inferred that he made himself equal with God ; and therefore they sought to kill him. Attempts have been made to give a different interpretation to the 18th verse. But they appear to me so forced that I will not recite them. What the verse conveys to every plain reader is this, that the Jews, although they looked up to God as the father of their nation, considered it as blasphemy in any individual to call God in a peculiar manner his Father, because this was putting in a claim to that title, the Son of God, which seems to imply a sameness or equality of iiatiu'e with the Supreme Being, and which they were taught by their Scriptures to regard with the high- est reverence. But our Lord, instead of giving such an explication of his words as inight exculpate him from this charge of blasphemy, subjoins in his answer, other expressions which appear to be a direct assertion of that equality with God, which the Jews conceived to be implied in his calling God peculiarly his Father. He says, " What things soever the Father doth, these also doth the Son likewise," assuming the omnipotence of God. He says, " The Father showeth the Son all things that himself doth," making his knowledge com- mensurate with the works of God. He says, '' The Son quickeneth whom he will. As the Father hath life in hitnself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." It is acknowledged in all these expressions, that whatsoever the Son has is communicated to him by the Father; and this is implied in the very name the Son of God. But if this communication be not of so peculiar a kind as to imply an equality with God, a sameness of nature and perfections, there is not only an unwarrantable presumption in the words of our Lord, but in the circumstances in which they were uttered, there is an equivoca- tion inconsistent with the sincerity of an honest man. This argument is confirmed by attending to a similar passage in the 10th chapter of John. Our Lord, speaking of that assurance of eternal life which his religion conveys to his disciples, says, x. 29, 30, " They shall never perish. My Father which gave them me is greater than all ; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 1 and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones to stone him." And they assign as the reason for so doing, the very same which John had mentioned in the fifth chapter : " We stone thee for blasphemy, because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Our Lord's answer is, " Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scriptures cannot be broken, i. e. if the language of Scripture be unexceptionable, say ye of him whom the-Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" These words are quoted in support of their opinion, by those who hold that our Saviour is called the Son of God, purely upon account of the commission which he received. But the force of the argument, and the consistency of the discourses, require us to affix a much highei meaning to that expression. Our Lord is reason- 316 DOCTRINE CONCERNING CHRISt's PERSON ing a fortiori. He vindicates himself from the charge of blasphemy, in calling himself the Son of God, because even those who hold civil offices upon earth, are called in Scripture gods. But that he might not appear to put himself upon a level with them, and to retract his former assertion, " I and the Father are one," he not only calls him- self, " him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world," which implies that he had a being, and that God was his Father before he was sent ; but he subjoins, " If I do not the works of my Father be- lieve me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him ;" expressions which appear to be equivalent to his former assertion, " I and the Father are one," and which were certainly understood by the Jews in that sense ; for, as soon as he had uttered them, •' they sought again to take him." The full argument of our Lord is, that the union between the Father and him gives him a much better title to the name of the Son of God than any office can give men to the name gods: and thus at the very time that he shelters himself from the charge of blasphemy under this Scripture expression, he inlimates repeatedly, in the hearing of those who accused him of blasphemy for what he said, the superior dignity of his person. As our Lord, in this emphatical manner, took to himself the name of the Son of God, so there is a remarkable passage in which he guards those with whom he conversed, against supposing that his being called the Son of David, implied a sameness of nature, or an equality in point of dignity with his earthly progenitor. "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, What think ye of Christ ? Whose son is he ? They say unto him, the son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son ? And no man was able to answer him a word."* It is known to those who have read psalm ex. in the original, that although the Septuagint version be imiv 6 Kt^toj t<^ Y^v^i'a fxov, and our . English translation be " The Lord said unto my Lord ;" yet the word in the nominative is different from that which is in the dative. The nominative is Jehovah, the incommunicable name of God expressing his necessary existence. The dative is Adonai, a word expressing dominion or sovereignty. It admits, therefore, of being construed with a possessive pronoun, my Lord ; and it may denote different kinds and degrees of dominion. The difficulty, then, is not what our translations might suggest, that the same name Lord is applied to the Messiah as to the Supreme Being. But it lies here. David, a Sovereign Prince, who had no earthly superior, who was taught by the promise of God to consider the Messiah as his descendant, yet many ages before the Messiah was born, calls him " My Lord ;" an expression which is a direct acknowledgment of his inferiority to his own descendant, and which implies that the Messiah existed in a superior nature before he descended from him. Our Lord draws the attention of the Pharisees to this difficulty in their own Scriptures, which they seem to have overlooked, and which they were unable • Matth. xxii. 41—46. TAUGHT DURING JHIS LIFE. 317 to solve. He could not solve it, without unfolding to them what he chose at present only obscurely to intimate. Bat he leaves it with them as a proof drawn from an authority which they did not ques- tion, that if they considered the Messiah as of no higher extraction than a son of David, they were mistaken. The whole conduct of our Lord tended to confirm the impressioji arising from this manner in which he spake of himself. Amidst all the simplicity, the humility, and condescension of his life, there was an unaffected dignity uniformly supported in his words and actions, which mark him, to an unprejudiced observer, as more than man. He discovered, upon many occasions, that knowledge of the secret workings of the heart, and that acquaintance with transactions the most retired from the eyes of men, which constitute a large part of the divine omniscience. And you cannot suppose, that repeated dis- plays of this omniscience would be overlooked by those who were continually with him, when you observe the effect which one instance produced ; John i. 47, " Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. Na- thanael saith, whence knowest thou me ? Jesus answered, before that Philip called thee, when thon wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee ;" referring probably to some act of secret devotion, or of private beneficence. Nathanael, finding that this stranger knew a transaction which no eye had seen, and no ear had heard from him, immediately exclaims, " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel." In our Lord's miracles there was an ease and readiness which showed that he exerted inherent powers, and a command over nature which indicates its Lord. Upon some occasions he chose, for the instruction of the spectators, to direct their attention to his Father, from whom he acknowledged that he received all power; but at other times, he healed diseases, or raised the dead by a word. " I will, be thou clean." " Young man," speaking to him that was dead, " I say unto thee, arise." He taught men to infer from all his works, the union between his Father and him: and he interprets one of his miracles as a direct proof of his having power to do what be- longs to God alone. Mark ii. Knowing, probably, that the sick of the palsy who was brought to him was humbled by disease, and prepared to receive with contrition the Lord's Christ, he said to him, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." The scribes, who were sitting by, reasoned in Iheir hearts, " Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies ? Who cam /brgive sins but God only ?" He discerned their reasonings, and ho aviswered them by saying, " Whether is it easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise, and take up thy bed and walk ?" The same divine power which would have rendered the one of these sayings, when pronounced by me, effectual, entitles me to use the other : " And therefore, that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, arise." Here, then, Jesus takes to himself a right to forgive sins ; that prerogative wliich Ihe scribes, both by reason, and by express declarations of their own scriptures, were taught to consider as belonging exclusively to God. Such are the proofs of the superior nature of Jesus, which were laid before the world during his abode upon earth. The ablest critics on the New Testament have not agreed as to the inference which 29* 318 DOCTRINE CONCERNING CHRISt's PERSON, ETC. the apostles drew from these proofs, whether a belief of the divinity of Jesus accompanied their belief of his being the Messiah. The question appears to me problematical, and I do not think that the New Testament contains sufficient evidence to decide tlie point. But it is not of great importance. I observed, that the intimations of the divinity of our Lord, given during his life, were purposely obscure; and the apostles brought with them such prejudices, and met with such disappointment in their expectations, that it is no wonder if they did not reason from these intimations as they might have done. But there is recorded in the conclusion of the Gospel of John a declaration made by one of the apostles, after the resurrection of Jesus, of his having then attained the knowledge of that doctrine, which all these intimations seem intended to prepare them for receiving. Thomas, after his scruples were removed, answered and said to Jesus, John XX. 28, o Kd^ios ^ov, xat o Gfoj fiov ; a Conjunction of words probably from Ps. XXXV. 23, " Awake to my judgment, my God, and my Lord." The Socinians consider the words of Thomas as an exclamation of surprise upon seeing Jesus alive, or of gratitude to God who had raised him : My God and my Lord hath done this. But you will observe, it is expressly said that these words are addressed to Jesus, as an answer to what he had spoken, arttx^iOrj xat, urtsv avtc>; and our Lord, in his reply, considers them as a confession of Thomas's faith ; " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Either, therefore, the nominative is here as in many other places equivalent to the vocative, or the ellipsis is to be supplied by » ou. It is so natural to interpret these words as a declaration of Thomas's believing Jesus to be his God, that if our Lord had wished them not to be so understood, the ambiguity required a correction from him. But by accepting this declaration, and pronouncing his blessing upon those who, without the same evidence of sense, should make the same declaration, he approves of what Thomas had said, according to the obvious sense of the words, and teaches his followers, in succeeding ages, to acknow ledge him not only as their Master or Lord, but as their God. DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 319 CHAPTER VII. DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. The confession made by the apostle Thomas may be considered as an introduction to those plain assertions of the divinity of Jesus, which are found in the writings of the apostles after the ascension of their Master : and the words of that confession direct us to attend, in the first place, to those passages in which Jesus Christ is called God. But, before we begin to examine them particularly, it is proper to advert to a difficulty attending the argument that is founded upon them. Section I. If the name, God, were in Scripture appropriated exclusively to the Supreme Being, those passages of the New Testament in which it is applied to Jesus Christ, would afford an unequivocal proof that he is not a creature. But the fact is, that although God, in the strict and proper sense of that word, is the name of the Almighty, there is a loose or figurative sense, in which the use of it is very much extended. Admiration, which delights in magnifying its ob- jects, li;is often prompted men to speak of their fello vv -creatures in language to which no mortal is entitled. The expression in Homer, iBoOioi (j)L05, we have copied in the epithets god-like and divine. By frequent use and by the progress of science these epithets have come to be regarded as figures of speech. But they were originally dictated by a principle which is most observable in ruder states of society, a proneness to consider all who discover eminent qualities, or extraor- dinary powers, as raised above the condition of human nature. The sup[)osed existence of many of the heathen gods may be traced to this principle. The protectors and benefactors of their country, who had been admired during their life, were adored after their death, i. e. were em-oUed amongst those higher orders of being, to whom it was conceived they had always been assimilated. Nay, there were in- stances in which the extravagance of flattery, and the excess of vanity which that flattery nourished, conspired in ascribing to a mortal, even while he remained upon earth, the name and honours of a god. The Scriptures, which must speak according to the sentiments and usages of those who are addressed, have adopted, in numberless places, this popular extension of the name of the Su- 320 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. preme Being. The first commandment is, Thou slialt have no other gods before me, as if any other could exist. The name, gods, is uniformly given in the Old Testament to those fictitious objects of worsJiip before wliich the nations bowed ; and the apostle Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 5, at the very time that he says, '' An idol is nothing in the world, and there is none other God but one," adds, " Tiiough there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many." The Hebrew word for gods is applied to the angels " who excel in strength," and who "dwell in heaven."* To rulers, because they are exalted above their subjects, it is said, "Ye are gods."t The belly of the sensualists, to the service of which they are devoted, is called their god :+ and the Almighty himself says to Moses, Exod. vii. 1, " See, 1 have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet," i. e. the king shall be astonished at the displays of thy power ; and the orders which thou shalt issue to him shall be dehvered by the mouth of Aaron, who shall thus be thy prophet to Pharaoh. This extended figurative use of the name of God has suggested, to those who liold Jesus to be an exalted creature, the following system, which I give in the words of the author of the Essay on Spirit, p. S9. "As the self existent cause, of whom are all things, can alone be properly called God, when this title is given in the Scriptures to any other being but the Father, we are to understand it only as expres'- sive of some god-like power which hath been given or communicated to that being by God the Father. In this sense the application may be attributed to tlie Son, because, when all power in heaven and earth was given to him, he was made a god to those beings over whom that power was given." This system is supported by aVemark borrowed from Sir Isaac Newton, and adopted by Dr. Clarke. " God," says Sir Isaac, " is a relative term, which has reference to subjects ; and the word deity denotes the dominion of God over sub- jects;" and again, " we worship and adore God on account of his dominion." In like manner. Dr. Clarke, having laid it down as the 25th proposition in his scripture-doctrine of the Trinity, " The reason why the Son, in the Old Testament, is sometimes styled God, is not upon account of his metaphysical substance, how divine soever, but of his relative attributes and divine authority, communicated to him from the Father over us" — supports the proposition in the notes by the following reason— " The word God, when spoken of the Father himself, is never intended in Scripture to express philosophically liis abstract metaphysical attributes, but to raise in us a notion of his attributes relative to us, his supreme dominion, authority, power, jus- tice, goodness," &c. However profound the respect is which every one, who has imbibed the rudiments of science, must entertain for the name of Sir Isaac Newton, you will probably find reason to think, when you examine his writings upon subjects not capable of strict demonstration, that in them, according to the expression used by Bishop Horsley, the editor of his mathematical works, the great Newton went out like a common man. It has been shown by Dr. Waterland, in his Vindication of Christ's Divinity, and by Dr. Ran- • Psalm viii. f>. f Psalm Ixxxii. 6. \ Phil. iii. 19. DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 321 dolph, ill his Vindication of the Trinity, that the name God, when applied in Scripture to the Supreme Being, involves in it the notion of the excellence of his nature, his wisdom, power, eternity, and all- sufficiency. I need not mention any other Scripture-proof of this, than that decisive passage in Psalm xc. — " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Dr. Waterland observes, that although dominion enters into the notion of God, yet it is the excellence of the divine nature manifested to us in his works, which is the object of our adoration, and the foundation of his dominion over us : so that the whole idea of God is that of an eternal, unchangeable, almighty Ruler and Protector. " If," says Dr. Ran- dolph, p. 77, " God be only a relative term, which has reference to subjects, it follows, that when there were no subjects, there was no God; and, consequently, either the creatures must have been some of them eternal, or there must have been a time when there was no God. Again, as the creatures are none of them necessarily existent, it will follow that God himself does not exist necessarily; and if we suppose God to annihilate all creatures, he would thereby annihilate his own Deity, and cease to be God." Althougli this reasoning should satisfy you that the word God is not merely a relative term, but that, in its proper sense, it implies a transcendent and independent excellence of nature, yet, at the same time, you will perceive, that as it does imply dominion founded upon this excellence of nature, it may be used relatively. My God, is that being whose infinite perfections are employed in my protection, and are an object of trust and submission to me. You will perceive, also, from this account of its true meaning, how it may be applied in a loose figurative sense to those who resemble the Supreme Being in any part of the whole idea annexed to the word ; who have either attained any measure of the excellence of his nature, or who are intrusted by him with the exercise of any portion of his universal dominion. It appears, from what has been said, that much circumspection is necessary in drawing an argument for the divinity of Jesus from those passages in which he is styled God ; but it does not follow that the argument is necessarily inconclusive. There is hardly any word which is not occasionally used in a sense somewhat loose and figura- tive. It is one of the offices of sound criticism, to judge whether we are to interpret words and phrases more or less strictly ; and every accurate composition furnishes some discriminating circumstances which guide us in making this judgment. No person can be led into so gross a mistake as to think Moses truly a god, when the Almighty says to him, — " See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh ;" or civil magistrates truly partakers of a divine nature, when we read, " I said ye are gods ; but ye shall die like men ;" or the angels, however exalted above men, really like to God, when we read a command given them to worship another being ; or the idols, before whom the nations bowed, worthy of trust, when the prophets, at the same time that they call them gods, say they are vanity, the work of errors, and have no power to do good or evil. It may be expected, from the analogy of these instances, that if this name be given in an improper 2X 322 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. figurative sense to any other person, more especially if it be often so given, we shall, in some way, be effectually guarded against mistake. The preservative, indeed, it has been said, against applying the term God ill the highest sense to that person who is often called God, is to be found in those general declarations of Scripture that there is but one God : " Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our Lord is one Lord." " There is none good but one, that is God." But a little attention will satisfy you that this preservative is not sufficient; for the very person who is often called God in the New Testament, says, " I and the Father are one;" and this declaration, taken in conjunction with the expres- sions of the Divine unity, has appeared to many pious Christians, and to many of the most able and inquisitive men in all ages, to teach this system, that although there be but one God, the Person to whom that name is often given in the New Testament, is, in the highest sense of the word, God. The general preservative being thus insuffi- cient to guard against mistake, if the highest sense of the word does not belong to that Person, there was much occasion for some marks of inferiority in the manner of its being applied to him which might suggest a lower sense. But if, instead of meeting with such marks we mept with circumstances in the manner of his being called God, which imply that the word, in the strict and most exalted sense, belongs to him ; and if the interpretation which we are thus led to give to the name correspond with other scripture proofs of the Divinity of the Person to whom it is applied, we cannot avoid con- cluding, that the Scriptures, by calling Jesus Christ God, meant to teach us that he is God. Let your examination of the texts which are commonly alleged for this purpose be scrupulous and suspicious. Every point of import- ance ought to be carefully examined ; and it is the great advantage which accrues from diversity of opinion, that you are both guarded against that supine indolence with which assent is yielded to points in which men are generally agreed, and that you are furnished with the best means of attaining the truth, by having an opportunity of opposing to one another the arguments which very able men have adduced upon either side. 1 shall not, therefore, barely enumerate the texts in which Jesus is plainly called God, but I shall endeavour, in canvassing their meaning, to exhibit a specimen of that kind of scripture-criticism, without the continued exercise of which you can neither arrive at certainty, nor give a good reason of your own opinions upon any of the disputed questions of theology. 1. The first text is contained in that passage at the beginning of John's Gospel, which has already been fully explained. The whole passage was then vindicated, from the Sabellian interpretation, by showing that o xoyo? is a distinct person from the Father, the same who is called in the 17th verse Jesus Christ. It was observed that in the second clause of the first verse, o xoyo; t^v ^^05 top ®eov, the word ®foj occurs in the highest sense ; and that, as the form of the apostle's expression is to make the last word of one clause the first word of the succeeding, nothing but a purpose to mislead could have induced him, without any warning, to apply the name God to Jesus Christ in the beginning of the third clause, if he had meant it to be understood there in a sense different from that in which he had used it at the end of the DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 323 second. It was observed, further, that the want of the article makes no essential difference, both because the analogy of the Greek language requires that the article should be prefixed to the subject rather than to the predicate of a proposition ; and also, because ©eoj, without the article, in the following verses of this chapter, and in many other places, is used in the highest sense. I have only to add to these observations, that ©so? cannot be understood here merely as a relative term, because it is not said ©foj lytvEto o xoyoj, the word became, or was made God after the world was created ; but 0fof rjv o Jtoyo?, the word was God in the beginning, /. e. before he proceeded to make any thing, when there were no creatures and no subjects. Even Dr. Clarke, therefore, is obliged to paraphrase this expression thus : " Partaker of divine power and glory with and from the Father, not only before he was made flesh, or became man, but also before the world was." Now, if the manner in which the name God is here given to Jesus implies that the excellencies of the Divine nature belonged to him in the beginning when no creatures existed, and if there is no limitation of the degree in which he then possessed these excellencies, we seem warranted, by fair construction of the apostle's words, to infer from his being called God, that he is God. 2. The second passage is Acts xx. 28. n^oas^ff^ ow laufoij, :«cu navti, TfCji rtoijuvtcjj, IV 4> vjxai to Uvivfia to ayioi/ tdtto f jtcojcortou;, TCot,ficuv£i,v rr^v exxXyjiiav tov ©fov, ^v ni^isnoiriaato 6ca tov t6tov otjuaroj. The nommative tO rte^Lertoirj^ato, which is not expressed in the Greek, and is supplied in our translation by the pronoun he, must be taken from the nearest substantive, @eov. There is no other noun in the whole verse which admits of being made the nominative. But @eov cannot here mean the Father ; for the doctrine of the gospel is, that we are redeemed or purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is an action appropriated to him in all the descriptions of the method of our salvation. He took a body that he might shed his blood for us ; and the phrase tSiov al^a, the blood which was proper, peculiar to him, is used also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and there opposed to at,«a a%%ot^i,ov, Heb. ix. 12, 25, to show that it was truly the blood of Christ, and of no other person, that was shed. The nominative to m^i-eTtoirinato, therefore, whatever the word be, must mean Jesus Christ; and consequently in this place he is called God. But it is proper to mention that the MSS. of the New Testament do not agree hi reading ©fw. Grotius conjectures that the original reading was x^tarov, abbreviated into xor, and that out of xw came 0oi;, for ®fov. But this conjecture is unsupported by any authority. Mr. Mill, who, in his most valuable edition of the Greek Testament, has collected the various readings, and mentioned the authorities by which every one of them is supported, informs us that some read xv^vov ; others xv^i-jv xm @fov ; others, @eov. Mr. Mill, who had access to judge of all the manuscripts, versions, and quotations in favour of each of the three, has no difficulty in preferring &fov as the best supported. Griesbach, the latest editor of the New Testament, pre- fers xv^iov, and says it is supported by the best and most ancient manu- scripts, by the most ancient versions, and by the fathers. There is not any reason, from the nature of the thing, for giving up our read- ing, ixx-Kriaw, ©ton ; it Is a very common conjunction of words in the 324 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. New Testament, and God's purchasing the church with liis own blood is an expression fully justified by the perfect union between the divine and human nature of Christ, At the same time, as xv^iov appears to be a very ancient reading, which may be traced as far back as the time of Irenseus, in the second century, the present reading, however probable, cannot be certainly known to have been that which pro- ceeded from the apostle ; and no man who is guided purely by the love of truth, would choose to rest the divinity of our Saviour upon such questionable ground. 3. With regard to the next passage, Rom. ix. 5, there is no diffi- aulty of this kind. Upon the authority of Mill, I say that all the manuscripts, and all the ancient versions support the present reading ; and Griesbach does not propose any various reading. It is quoted by the fathers both before and after the Council of Nice, as clear proof that Christ is God. And there does not appear the least ground for thinking that the text was ever read in any other manner. We are at liberty, therefore, to argue from the words as they now stand ; and the only question is, what is the true interpretation of them ? Dr. Clarke says, that the Greek words, being of ambiguous construc- tion, admit of three different renderings ; and I choose to quote him, because he expresses accurately and concisely what others have spread out more loosely. " They may signify either, of whom, as concern ing the flesh, Christ came : God, who is over all, be blessed for ever, Amen : or, Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all : God be blessed for ever, Amen : or, Of whom, as concern ing the flesh, Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever, Amen." He admits that the third rendering is the most obvious. But he inclines to prefer to it either the first or second, for these two reasons. 1. EvXoyj^roy is applied in Scripture to God the Father, and seems to have been used by the Jews as his proper name ; for the High Priest said to Jesus on his trial, Sv ci6 x^ioroj, 6 woj ton fvxoyjyfou.* 2, o erti. fiavtiov ©toj was generally understood to be a title so peculiar to God the Father, that it could not be applied to the Son, without danger of Sabellianism, i. e. of confounding the person of the Father and Son. These are Dr. Clarke's reasons for preferring either of the two first renderings to the third. But you will observe the present question is, whether these two titles are here applied to Christ. It is not an answer to this question, to say that they are commonly applied to the Father. For it is possible, and there may be very good rea- sons for so doing, that names and titles which are generally appro- priated to the Father, should, in some places, be given to the Son. We may learn from such occasional applications that the two persons are equal, and yet by attending to the discriminating marks which the Scriptures furnish, we may be preserved from the danger of con- founding them. It remains, then, to be examined, whether the construction of the words warrants, or seems to require, that these titles be, in this place, applied to Christ. In order to judge of this, it will be of use to attend to the four following observations. 1. The first observation respects the clause *o xofo oa^xa. The apos • Mark rir. 61. DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 325 tie, having expressed in the preceding verse the warmest affection for the IsraeUtes, his countrymen, *"»' avyyevuv ^ov xnta aa^xa, enumerates in the 4th verse many privileges which distinguished his nation from every other ; and he proceeds in his enumeration at the beginning of the 5th, ^v ol Ttati^a, " Whose are the Fathers, "^.e, Who are descended from the patriarchs, tho^'e venerable names that are found in Jewish history, *! ^v o x^wroj, " and from whom is descended the Christ." The apostle adds a limiting clause, to xata (jo^a, secundum id quod pertinet ad carnem, which implies that there were circumstances pertaining to the Christ, in respect of which he did not descend from the Israelites, Had the sentence ended here, this clause would have been a warning to the reader that the Christ was not xa.ua rca-vta ii avu^v, and the reader Avould have been left to supply, by his knowledge of the subject derived from other sources, what the respects are in which the Christ did not descend from the Israelites. 2. But you will observe, that the sentence does not appear to end with this limiting clause, because the form of the subsequent clause refers it to X^.sroj. u wv is a relative expression, which carries you back to the preceding nominative. This kind of reference is perfectly agreeable to the analogy of the Greek language. And it is used by this apostle, 2 Cor. xi. 31, where the form of expression is very similar. 3. You will observe, that by thus referring the last clause to x^kjt'os' you obtain an antithesis to fo xata aa^xa and you discover the reason why the apostle introduced that restricting clause, viz. that the same person, who in one respect was descended from the Israelites, was also God over all, and in that respect certainly was not of human ex- traction. It is a most satisfying coincidence, that the connection of the two clauses, which we have seen to be strictly grammatical, fur- nishes that very information concerning the person mentioned, which, without this connexion, you would be obliged to derive from other sources of knowledge. And it is usual with the apostle, in some such manner as this, to complete the description of this person, Rom. i. 3, 4, the same person is the Son of God, and the descendant of David. He was visibly the descendant of David, by the manner of his birth: He was demonstrated to be the Son of God, by that attestation which the Holy Spirit gave to his claim when he was raised from the dead ; and thus, in that passage, as well as in this, the apostle himself fur- nishes the antithesis to the restricting clause, xata aa^xa. 4. Observe, that the complete description which the apostle, accord- ing to his manner in other places, and according to the expectation raised by the limiting clause, here gives of Xgwroj, is perfectly agree- able to the general scope of his discourse in this place. He wishes to magnify the honours of his nation ; he has enumerated many of their privileges ; and he concludes by crowning all of them with the mention of this, that he who is God over all, when he assumed the human form, took a body from the seed of Israel. These four observations seem to constitute a strong internal evidence in favour of the received translation ; and this evidence is confirmed, when you attend to the consequences which result from adopting either of the other two renderings. If you put a point at xara oa^xa, you obtain the first ; " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came : 30 336 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. God, who is over all, be blessed for ever. — Amen." By this rendering, the information concerning x^kj-^oj is incomplete. There is introduced most abruptly a doxology to God the Father ; and the form of ex- pression in this doxology is not classical. For ^ wy being a relative expression, which leads you back to a preceding word, the participle wv is redundant and improper, if a succeeding word, ©fo,-, be the nomi- native that agrees with it. If you put a point at navtu.v, you obtain what Dr. Clark calls the second rendering ; " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all : God be blessed for ever. Amen." By this rendering, the information concerning x^iaros is more complete, and "" is referred to a preceding nominative. But still there is the abrupt introduction of a doxology to a Person who had not been mentioned in the preceding clause ; and there is a barrenness in the word ©fo?, which in this situation requires to be clothed with an article, o ©to? f vxoyjjto; . It is further to be added, that the earliest Christian writers who quote this passage appear, by the course of the argument, to understand it as a plain declaration that Christ is God over all, blessed for ever. It is so rendered in the most ancient ver- sions, and the possibiUty of another interpretation was not suggested till the sixteenth century. If the apostle, then, did not mean to give these titles to Jesus, he employs a form of expression, in which the natural grammatical construction of the words misled the whole Christian church for 1500 years. If he did mean to give them to Christ, then not only is this Person called God, but the name has such accompaniments that it must be understood in its most exalted sense. It is not said that he was appointed God to a particular district, but in the most absolute terms that he is God. 'o wr irti- nai/TtoK ©so?, as it is said of God the Father, Eph. iv. 6, m ©fo? xm rtattj^ rtai'T'wv, u stu- rtwtuv. To him is ascribed the title tu^oyj^f 05 , which is used in the New Tesla- nlent as the name of the Most High, and which was employed by the whole congregation of the Jews in their adoration of the God of Israel, 1 Chron. xxix. 10, Evxoytjtof, «, Kv^k, 6 ©105 la^arj-K. We can place no reliance upon the language of Scripture, if there be an inferiority of nature in a Being thus designed. And the very purpose of the expressions here used seems to be, to teach us that every notion which can be conceived to be implied under the name of God, belongs to this Person as well as to the Father. 4. 1 Tim. iii. 16. — There is a diflerence of opinion with regard to the reading of one word in this verse. Two of the most ancient versions of the Greek Testament render the verse as if ©fo? were not there. One Greek MS. has 0 in place of ®fo? ; another has 05. It has hitherto been conjectured that ©fo? is an interpolation made by some zealous Christian, who wished to add this verse to the other proofs of the divinity of our Saviour. But you will observe, that if the word be o, the neuter of the relative, the antecedent is nvatf;^iov, {. e. the Gos- pel j in which case, the sense of several of the clauses will be forced and unnatural. The Gospel, " manifested in the flesh, seen of angels, received up into glory." If the word be 'i?^ either the masculine of the relative, or the pronoun of the third person, it is not manifest who is meant. Jesus Christ, to whom, by this reading, all the clauses are referred, had not been mentioned in the preceding A'-erse ; and it is not according to the manner of a perspicuous or grammatical writer, DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 327 to oblige his readers to educe an antecedent to ^s, out of the amoimt of the preceding clause M^y* *^f ^ * " ■'''?5 fv^sSna; fivatrj^Lov. There is, thus, internal evidence that some substantive noun, marknig the person spoken of, is the nominative to the succession of verbs ; and all the Greek copies of the New Testament, except the two mentioned above, concur in reading ©fos as the nominative. It is true that we do not find this verse formally quoted in the Arian controversy till the end of the fourth century, so that we have not an opportunity of judging by early quotations what was the original reading. But besides the authority of the most ancient Greek MSS. in support of the word 0£os, there is this further evidence for the genuineness of that reading, that if 0£os be the nominative, we can give an easy explication of every one of the clauses in perfect agreement with the analogy of facts, and the language of the most ancient writers. Having mentioned the MSS. of the New Testament, I shall notice, as a matter of curiosity, the state of the controverted word in the Alexandrian, one of the oldest and most respectable of these MSS, There has been some controversy with regard to the age of this manu- script. But there appears good reason to believe that it was written in the fourth century, not long after the Council of Nice, by the hand of an Egyptian lady. It was carried from Alexandria to Constanti- nople. It was given by the Patriarch of Constantinople to Charles I. of England. It is now deposited in the British Museum; and a /ac simile, i. e. an edition in which the form of the letter is an exact representation of the original, has been published by Mr. Woide. To understand his description of the controverted word, it should be known that abbreviations of such words as frequently occur being common in the ancient MSS. there was written, instead of ©so;, the Greek capital © and o, with a line above the two letters, as a mark of the abbreviation. Mr. Woide says, " While I am writing, and looking at this place, which has been often too imprudently touched by the finger, I can hardly distinguish any thing but the short line of abbreviation, the point in the middle of the © now become faint, and some small remains of the circle round the point." Bishop Walton, who published a Polyglott edition of the New Testament, who has collected the various readings with great industry and fidelity, and who has mentioned the change upon this word in another MS. appears, by expressing no doubt with regard to the reading of ©so; in the Alexandrian MS. to have found it there in his time. Bishop Pearson, the very learned author of the Exposition of the Creed, says, that all the transverse line was even then so faint, that at first he thought the Avord was o?, yet, upon a narrower inspection, he saw marks which satisfied him, that there had been such a line ; and Mr. Woide says, that, on first inspecting the manuscript, he agreed in opinion with Mill, although, as the © is now almost wholly effaced, he cannot affirm the same from the present state of the MS. From this induction of particulars, it appears to be the opinion of the most learned men who have examined this subject, that ©fo; is the genuine reading of the Alexandrian MS. coeval Avith the MS. itself They think that the reading ^s, arose from the faintness of the transverse line, and that o; was changed into u, because the neuter antecedent \ivatri^<.ov did not admit of a masculine relative. I observe that Gries- 328 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. bach prefers the reading os. and has introduced it into the text : but I adhere to the opinion of former editors of the New Testament, sup- ported, as they say, both by the Alexandrian, and by other very ancient MSS. ; and you will observe, that if ©fos be the genuine read- ing in this passage, it affords an instance not only of the name being applied to Jesus, but of its being applied to him, when it is the subject, not the predicate of a proposition. This is an advantage in the argument for the divinity of Jesus, because those who contend that he is called God only in an inferior sense of that word, affirm that the word may be predicated of him, but that when it is the subject of a proposition, it is always the name of the Father. Dr. Clarke's 11th Proposition is, " The Scripture, when it mentions God absolutely and by way of eminence, always means the Person of the Father, particu- larly when it is the subject of a proposition." The reason of the rule is, that when the word is predicated of Jesus, we are taught by this very circumstance, that it is predicated of a Person different from the Supreme Being, to give it certain limitations ; but when it is the sub- ject of a proposition, it is of necessity stated absolutely, without any sign of limitation. This would be the reason, if the Scriptures did make such a distinction in the use of this word. But here is an instance in direct opposition to Dr. Clarke's rule, where the Father cannot be meant, because he was never manifested in the flesh, where the person meant is Jesus Christ, and God is stated as the subject of the propositions affirmed concerning this person. Dr. Clarke, indeed, aware probably that the present reading cannot upon any sufficient grounds be rejected, says that it is, in reality, of no importance ; for the sense is evident, that that Person was manifested in the flesh whom John, in the beginning of his Gospel, styles ©foj. But this is giving up his own distinction between the subject and the predicate of a proposition. For, in John, ©foj was the predicate ; here ©foj is the subject : and, therefore, either the distinction which he made in his 11th Proposition is of no importance, or something more decisive with regard to the divinity of our Saviour is contained in this passage of Timothy than in the beginning of John's Gospel. 5. 1 John V. 20. In some manuscripts and versions, ^lov is inserted after oxyiOivov in this verse. This is of no importance to the sense. But there is a controversy with regard to the application of the last clause ; and that you may judge whether it is most natural to refer it to the Father, or to his Son Jesus Christ, I sliall give two interpretations of it, in the words of Dr. Clarke and Dr. Randolph. Dr. Clarke's is, " The Son of God is come, and has enlightened the eyes of our under- standing, that we may know the true God; and we are in that true God by or through his Son Jesus Christ. This God, whom the Son has given us an understanding to know, is the true God, and to be in him by his Son is eternal life. This is the worship of the true God, and the way to eternal life." Dr. Randolph's is. This Jesus Christ, who hath "given us an understanding to know him that is true, is the true God and eternal life." By this interpretation, ovroj is referred to the antecedent immediately preceding, which is also the principal subject of the whole verse ; the tautology which Dr. Clarke's para- phrase fixes upon the apostle, " The true God is the true God," is avoided; the strongest reason is given for our being in the true God DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 329 by Jesus Christ, that he himself is the true God, and so cannot mislead us : and, lastly, no more is affirmed concerning Jesus Christ than may be gathered from other places of John's writings. He is elsewhere called life.* "Eternal life," it is said, "is in the Son."t He is called God; he is called oaxri0t,voi.% And if John meant to teach us that he who is called God is truly God, it was inost natural for him to join this adjective to the substantive when speaking of the Son, in the same manner as when speaking of the Father. This text was urged in the Council of Nice against the Arians; and they did not deny that Jesus Christ is here called the true God; but contented themselves with saying, that if he was truly made God, he is the true God : an evasion which, joined to many others, produced the inser- tion of the term ojwoouoioj in the orthodox creeds, as a term necessarily implying that the Son had not been made God, but is essentially God. Section H. To those passages in which the name of God is given to Jesus Christ, there naturally succeed those which ascribe to him attributes that constitute the character of the being to whom that name belongs. Tiie passages in which all power is ascribed to Jesus are innumera- ble ; and they are various and strong in point of expression. But to the argument for his divinity that is derived from the extent of his power, it is opposed by the Arian system, that the Almighty is the sole fountain of all the power that is exerted throughout the universe, that we behold various measures of power communicated to the creatures with whom we converse, that the purposes of the divine government may require that a degree, infinitely beyond any which we beliold, or which we can conceive, may be imparted to that being by whom God made, by whom he saves, and by whom he is to judge the world; but that as all the power in heaven and in earth which is given to Jesus Christ was derived from God, it redounds to the honour of Him from whom it proceeds, and does not, in fair argument, prove the divinity of him by whom it is received. This argument will ap- pear to many to be counterbalanced by the manner in which the Scriptures speak of the power of Jesus. They will think it not likely that, if Jesus were a creature, any exertion which he was enabled to perform would be described in language by which they are assimilated, both in the greatness and facility of them, to those of the Creator. But as this language may not make the same impression upon every mind, and as it was acknowledged by Jesus, and is often said by his apostles, that he received all power from God, we require, in arguing from the attributes of Jesus to his divinity, some attributes which do not admit of the same communication as power does, some which respect rather the maimer of his being, than the extent of his exer- tions. You may attend, first, to the time of his being. If Jesus is the Creator of all, it follows that he existed before any of those measures *lJohni. 2. flJohnv, 11. + Rev. iii. 7, 14. 30* 2 Y 330 DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. of time which are deduced from the motion or succession of created objects. In this sense the Arians allow eternity to Jesus, saying that he was begotten rtcortavtufacwvw.'. But the Scriptures do not admit of any equivocation with regard to this attribute of Jesus, because the very same terms in which the eternity of God is described are applied to him; so that if the Scriptures are not sufficient to prove the eternity of the Son, neither do they prove the eternity of llie Father. The ancients, all of whom applied the description of wisdom in Proverbs viii. to that person whom John calls ^^oyoj, argued from the similarity between Psalm xc. 2, " Before the mountains were brought forth, thou art God ;" and a part of that chapter, " I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." If we con- sider that Christ is only a beautiful personification of wisdom, we shall not admit the force of this argument. But there are plain de- clarations to the same purpose in the book of the Revelation. And you will observe the reason why in that book they become plain. In the conversations with the apostles which the gospels record, Jesus purposely obscured his divinity, because he was with them in the human form. But when Stephen, before his martyrdom, " looked up steadfastly to heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." When Jesus appeared to Paul after his ascension, " there was at mid-day a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun ;" and out of that light the Lord spake to Paul, saying, " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." In both instances, it was the full effulgence of the Schechinah, which every Jew regarded as the visible symbol of the divine presence. In like' manner, in the book of the Revelation, Jesus speaks to his servant John from heaven in his glorified state. In the description of the person whom John saw, the most splendid objects in nature are brought together to con- vey some conception of his majesty. The brightness ol'the sun is the image of his countenance ; his eyes are like a flame of fire ; in his hand he wields seven stars ; and when he speaks, it is not the weak sound of man's voice ; it is as the sound of many waters, loud, con- tinued, and impetuous. The manner in which Jesus speaks of him- self, Rev, i. 7, 8, corresponds most properly to this description of his Majesty. It has been doubted whether the person speaking in the 8th verse is the Father or the Son. But you will find when you con- sider the whole passage, that by applying this verse to the Father there is a most abrupt change of person ; whereas the context leads us to consider Jesus Christ, the person who is described in the 7th verse, and who begins to speak to John at the 11th, as giving this account of himself in the 8th. The only reason for not following the direction of the context, in applying this 8th verse to Jesus Christ, is that the two last titles here introduced arc considered as peculiar to the Father. But it has been clearly shown that this reason proceeds upon a mistake. Owv, xaio r,v, xat, u f^xoatvos, is indeed used in the 4th verse, as the distinguishing cha- racter of the Father, But it is known by the learned that the amount of these words is the full exposition of the name Jehovah. Now we found, by comparing the Old and New Testament, many places in which the name Jehovah is given to Jesus ; and our Lord seems to take it to himself by the peculiarity of that expression, John viii. 58, DIRECT PROOFS THAT CHRIST IS GOD. 331 7(^(,v A§^aaft yeviaOat, not fyw rjv, but fy" eifxi,. iia.v'iox^a'tu)^, a word express- ing the most exalted power and the most universal dominion, the sovereign and proprietor of all, is used occasionally by the Septua- o-int as the translation of the same Hebrew phrase which they else- where render. Lord of Hosts, xv^ioj dwaf^n^v. But there are many places in the Old Testament, where that Hebrew phrase is applied to the an- gel of the covenant ; and we learned from John xii. 41, that the glory of the Lord of hosts which Isaiah saw was the glory of Christ. The application, then, of the two last titles to Jesus does not afford any reason for transferring the whole verse from the Son to the Father ; and the two first titles are elsewhere assumed by the Son as Lis.* " I am the first and the last." " I am a and o, the beginning and the end." But these are the very descriptions which the Father gives of his eternity. Isaiah xliv. 6, " I am the first ; and I am the last ; and beside me there is no God." Isaiah xliii. 10, " Before me was there no God formed, neither shall there be after me ;" titles which, both by their natural import, and by their being consecrated as the description of God the Father, imply that a being to whom they are applied had no beginning, and shall have no end. As the existence of Jesus is thus affirmed to be without beginning, so the Scriptures declare that it is not susceptible of change. An un- changeable existence is the character of Him " who i-s, who was, and who is to come." And the same thing, which is clearly implied in this name, is directly expressed in that part of Psalm cii. which we found the apostle to the Hebrews in the first chapter applying to Jesus. " Thou art the same, and thy years fail not :" and to this cor- responds another expression, Heb. xiii. 8, i>?wd5 x^uatos x^'-s xai 6rifiie,ov V avzos , xai as Tovs aiums . For, although the Ariaus understand these words to mean nothing more than this, that the doctrine of Christ is unchangeable, yet it is plain that this is a figurative sense of the words; that, according to the literal interpretation, they teach that the person of Jesus Christ is the same in all times, past, present, and future; that this literal meaning is the only sense which the words in the first chapter will bear ; and that the unchangeableness of his person is the surest foundation of the unchangeableness of his doctrine. It is not easy for any one who attends to these things to believe that the apos- tle,in commending the steadfastness with which Christians ought to adhere to the faith, would choose to introduce an expression which so naturally leads his hearers to ascribe immutability to the author of that faith, if Jesus were not truly exempt from all the vicissitudes that are inseparable from created beings. An existence thus without beginning, and continued in all times without change, is represented also as extended through all space. While it is the essential condition of a creature to inhabit the spot assigned him, or to change his habitation according to the will of his Creator, and thus to be only in one place at one time, Jesus says of himself John iii. 1 3, u f*: tou or^arou xataSa^, ov, tyu ^fO' i'^wf fi^it, ttn^as raj rixf^o-s, ttoj rrjs jj a|ta, ov fiev xax n^oaxwrjaius ^°^ of(Ja3;uoi'. And yet, notwithstanding this distinction, the two verbs 7. The Sociniaiis, who do not admit that Jesus Christ ever was in any state more dignified than that of a man, have no other mode of explaining this phrase, but by applying it to those extraordinary displays of divine wisdom and power which Jesus exhibited upon earth, and by which he who was merely a man, appeared to the eyes of the beholders to be a God. But this interpretation, besides that it is by no means adequate to the import of the phrase, inverts the order, and impairs the force of the whole passage. It represents the /xo^^t]®iov as posterior to the actvwctj, and the humility of Christ as consisting purely in this, that he did not employ his extraordinary powers in preserving his life. Whereas the ,«ogt)7 @eov appears intended by the apostle to represent a state prior to the xfvwa^, by which means the whole of Christ's appearance upon earth becomes an example of humility. The Arians, who admit that Jesus Christ often appeared under the Old Testament, in the person, and by the name of Jehovah, employ these appearances to explain this phrase, '' Who, being before his incarnation in the form of God, appeared during his life in the form of a man." The Athanasians, who believe that Jesus is essentially God, understand by no^iprj&cov. not a character which he occasionally personated, but those glories of the divine nature which from eternity belonged to him, which, in reference to the phrase used in the 4th verse, may be called tatavtov, and which correspond to the concluding clause of the 6th verse, -ro nvai noOfv Whether the Arian or Athana- sian interpretation of ito^l"? ®fo*' be adopted, Jesus Christ did display great humility in becoming a man. But the Arians find it difficult to reconcile their system with the second clause of the 6th verse. They cannot adopt our translation, " thought it not robbery to be equal, with God," because that clearly implies that he was once equal with God, and that he considered this equality as his right, which he was not under any obligation to resign. They translate the clause, there- fore, thus, " He did not look upon the being honoured equally with God, as a prize to be snatched, eagerly laid hold of. He did not covet it." Dr. Clarke has defended this translation with the ability of a scholar ; and, in my opinion, as far as a^na)fiov rjyriaaro is concerned, with success. For whether we consider these two words in them- selves, or compare the few places of other authors where they occur, it appears more natural to render them, " thought a prey of which he was eager or tenacious," than " thought it a robbery." But if you read the perspicuous able commentary which Bishop Sherlock has given in the first three parts of his discourse on this text, at the beginning of the fourth volume of his discourses, vou will perceive UNION OP NATURES IN CHRIST. 343 that, although the Ariaiis are delivered from that direct contradiction to their system which the translation in our Bible bears, yet even their own translation does not give any essential support to their system. For ro ttrat toa ©e^ refers to the same thing with ;uo^(}»? ©eou, and, being set in opposition to the appearance of a creature which Christ assumed, impUes an essential equality with God. But if he had no right to this equality, it is a strange instance of humiUty in Christ, that he had not the presumption to lay hold of it. Whereas if he had a right, his not eagerly retaining it, but laying aside the appearance of it, was the greatest humility. So tliat the apostle's argtmient turns upon the right of Christ to be like God ; and the only difference created by the two translations is this — according to our translation, tlie last clause of the 6th verse is a continuation of the description of the prior state of Christ : according to Dr. Clarke's, it is the beginning of the description of his humiliation. You will per- ceive the course of the apostle's argument in the following paraphrase : "Jesus Christ, who, before he appeared upon earth, was in the form of God, i. e. possessed all the glories of the divine nature, was not tenacious of this equality with God, did not consider it as a thing to be eagerly grasped, but emptied himself. He could not cease to be God, but he divested himselfof those glories which constitute the form of God, having taken the form of a servant. Had he appeared as an angel, this would have been taking, in respect of God, the form of a servant; and therefore it is added as the specific description of that form of a servant which he took, having become in the likeness of men ; and although he retained the nature of God, yet, as to outward appearance or fashion, being found by those who sought to take avi^ay his life, such as man is, he humbled himself so far, that, when he had power to retain his life, he surrendered it, and submitted to an igno- minious death." By this natural interpretation, the succession of propositions con- tained in this passage teaches us that the same person who was God became man ; and since he who was once God must be always God, the nature of God being unchangeable, it follows that he was at the same time both God and man. The same thing is intimated less clearly, but with a little attention it will appear, not less exclusively, in the third passage, Heb. ii. 14, 16. The apostle is giving a reason why the Captain of Salvation took part of flesh and blood. The reason is, that he might have it in his power to die, because his death was to be the instrument of our deliverance from death. But as nobody thinks of giving a reason why a man should be a man, the apostles givmg a reason why Christ took part of flesh and blood, implies that this was not the necessary condition of his being, but that it was a matter of choice ; and there- fore it follows not only that he existed before he made the choice, but that he had it in his power to make a different choice, i. e. that he existed in a state which admitted of his choosing a more splendid appearance, had he so inclined. That this state was superior to the condition of angels, is made plain by the 16th verse, the most literal and proper rendering of which is, " For truly he lays not hold of angels, but he lays hold of the seed of Abraham," u9fv, upon account of his making which choice, it was necessary that he should in ail 344 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. things be made like his brethren. Now whether " laying hold of angels" implies, as the Socinians are fond of interpreting the phrase, "helping angels," because they do not suppose that Christ had it in his power to be like an angel ; or whether it means, according to our translation, laying hold of them, so as to assume their nature and form, the phrase is very improper, unless the Being to whom it is ap- plied was so far superior to angels, that he had it in his power to pass by them or not, to lay hold of them or not, as he pleased. And this Being, who, in his antecedent state of existence was superior to an- gels, it is here said, took part of flesh and blood, which are the cha- racteristics of men ; and because he was thus made in all things like them, they are called his brethren. The review of these three passages suggests the whole of the argu- ment upon this subject, which may be thus stated in a few words. The names, the characters, the actions, and the honours of God are ascribed to Jesus Christ : the affections, the infirmities, and the sufljer- ings of man are also ascribed to Jesus Christ ; therefore in him the divine and human natures were united, or the same Person is both God and man. It would seem that this inference should be admitted by all those who pay a due regard to the plain declarations of Scripture ; and, had Christians rested in this inference, there could not have been much variety of opinion upon the subject. But when men began to speculate concerning the manner of that union which the Scriptures teach us to believe, they soon went far beyond the measure of infor- mation Avhich the Scriptures aftbrd. They multiplied words without having clear ideas ; their meaning being, in this way, never perfectly apprehended by themselves was readily misunderstood by others ; and the controversies upon this point, which, at the beghming, involved a fundamental article of the Christian faith, degenerated at last into a verbal dispute, conducted with much acrimony, hi the mere jargon of metaphysics. Those sects who considered Jesus as merely a man, whatever was the date of their existence, or whatever were the numbers that em- braced their tenets, escaped by the simplicity of their system from this controversy. But the great body of Christians, who learned from Scripture that Jesus Christ was more than man, differed widely in their speculations as to the manner of reconciling the opposite descrip- tions of his Person ; and, in the early ages of Christianity, the dis- pute was of much importance, because it turned upon the reality of the two natures, or the permanency of their union. In the history of this controversy our attention is first engaged by the opinion of the Gnostics. All the Gnostics agreed in considering the Christ as an emanation from the Supreme Mind, an JEon of the highest order sent from the Pleroma, i. e. the space inhabited by those spirits who had emanated from the Supreme Mind, to deliver the hu- man race. But as the fundamental principle of their system was the inherent and incorrigible depravity of matter, all of them agreed also in thinking it impossible that so exalted a spirit was truly and perma- nently united to a gross material substance. Some of them, there- fore, snp])osed that Jesus, although made in the likeness of men, w?£ not really a man ; that the body which the Jews saw was either a UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. 345 phantasm that played upon their senses, or, if it had a real existence, was a spiritual substance, not formed of the same corruptible mate- rials as our bodies, standing in no need of those supplies which it seemed to receive, and incapable of those sufferings which it seemed to endure. Those Gnostics, who considered Jesus as a man only in appearance, are known by the name Soxjjtai. Other Gnostics, who found it difficult to reconcile the mere phantasm of a body with the history of Jesus Christ, followed the more substantial system of Ce- rinthus, who held that Jesus of Nazareth was a man born like other men, and not distinguished from his countrymen, till he was thirty years of age, in any other way than by the innocence of his life ; that when he came to John to be baptized, that exalted JEon called the Christ, descended upon him in the form of a dove, or in the man- ner in wljich a dove descends, and continued to inhabit his body during the period of his ministry ; that the person called Jesus Christ was a man, all whose actions were directed by the ^on who dwelt within him, but that when he was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the Christ returned to the Pleroma, and Jesus was left to suffer and to die. It is a tradition derived from the earliest Christian writers, that the Apostle John lived to witness both these branches of the Gnostic heresy, and that he wrote his gospel and his epistles on purpose to correct their errors ; and this tradition is very much confirmed by our observing that by means of the continual reference which his writings bear to the tenets that were then spreading among Christians, we are able to derive from them the clearest proofs both of the divinity and of the humanity of our Saviour. Thus, in his gospel, as he begins with declaring "the word was God," so he says at the 14th verse, " the word was made flesh :" and in his 1st Epistle, v. 20, as he says of Jesus Christ, " This is the true God," so he bears his testimony both against the Cerinthians, who separated Jesus from Christ, (ii. 22,) and against the Docetae, who said that Jesus Christ was not truly a man. (iv. 2, 3.) The phrase used in the last of these passages, " Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," furnishes an argument which Dr. Horsley has urged with his wonted acuteness against the modern Unitarians. The argument is this : Unless the words " in the flesh" are mare ex- pletives, they limit the words " is come" to some particular manner of coming. This limitation either is nugatory, or it presumes a pos- sibility of other ways of coming. Bat it was not possible for a mere man to come otherwise than in the flesh ; therefore .Jesus Christ is more than man. And thus in this proposition, " Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," the deuial of which John makes a mark of Antichrist, there is an allusion both to the divinity and to the incarnation of our Saviour. While the general principles of the Gnostics led them to deny the reality of Christ's body, it is the character of that system which is known by the name of the ApoUinarian, to ascribe to our Saviour a true body, but not a human soul. We have reason to believe that the ancient Arians, who held Christ to be the most exalted spirit that had proceeded from God, considered this spirit as performing the functions of a human soul in the body which it assumed, so that, as in all mere men, there is the union of a body with a human soul, there was in the oerson of Jesus Christ the union of a body with an angelical 3 A 346 TTNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. spirit. ApoUinaris did not hold the distinguishing tenet of Arius. He was the friend of Athanasius, himself an able and zealous assertor ol the divinity of Christ. But he conceived that the most natiu-al way of explaining the incarnation of the Son of God was to consider the Godhead as supplying the place of a soul, and the body which the Godhead animated, as in all respects like the bodies of other men ; and as this system appeared to degrade the Godhead, by subjecting it to all the sensatiojis of a human soul, ApoUinaris endeavoured to obviate the objection arising from this degradation, by recurriug to a distinction well known in the ancient Greek philosophy ; a distinction between -^vxr;, the sensitive soul which man has in common with the other animals, and vuvi, the rational soul by which he is raised above them. ApoUinaris held that Christ assumed, together with the body, the ■h>xi^ or principle of animal life ; but that he did not assume the fovi, the principle of thought and reason, because all the offices which belong to this higher power were in him performed by the Godhead. The modern Arians, who, in the last century, have revived the ancient tenet, that Christ the Word is an exalted angel, incline to adopt the Apollinarian system. It appears to them superfluous to place the spirit of an angel and the spirit of a man in the same body ; and they say, that the easiest explication of this phrase, " the Word was made flesh," that which preserves the most proper unity of person, and renders Jesus Christ, strictly speaking, one intelligent agent, is this, that the spirit of the angel, who is called the Word, inhabited and animated a human body. The modern Arians defend this Apollina- rian system by the following arguments. As the body is the only part of human nature which we perceive, and as we are entirely ignorant of the manner of the union between body and mind, the name man is properly applied to every being which possesses a human body, performing its functions under the guidance of a spirit, whatever the origin or rank of that spirit be : and accordingly those inhabitants of heaven who appeared frequently under the Old Testament, and the angels who appeared at the resurrection of Jesus, are called men, because they had the appearance of men, although it was never sup- posed that they had a human soul. The Scriptures speak of Christ's coming in the flesh, of his being made flesh, of his taking part of flesh and blood : they never speak of his taking a soul ; and all the phrases in which the soul and spirit of Christ are mentioned, do not denote diflerent parts of the same person, but are Hebrew idioms which mean nothing more than Christ himself. The answers to these arguments of the modern Arians which readily occur are the following : that Jesus Christ was not truly a man, imless he assumed that kind of spirit which is characteristical of the human species ; that man is what he is, by his mind more than by his body ; and that if our Lord stooped to the external form, it is not likely that he would disdain to connect himself with the spiritual inhabitant ; that there is no analogy between the transient appearances of angels recorded in Scripture, and the permanent complete humanity manifested in the words, the actions, and the sufferings of him who "dwelt among" men ; and that the expressions of Scripture referring to the soul of Christ are so many, and repeated in such a variety of forms, that a gl'eat part of the history of Jesus is enigmatical and illu- UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. 347 sory, unless he was truly a man in respect of his soul as well as ui respect of his body. Such are the arguments which our habits and modes of thinking suggest, and which the Athanasians and Socinians of our days con- spire in opposing to the Apollinarian system. But there is another argument which was considered in ancient times as a more effectual refutation of the Apollinarian system than any that I have mentioned. It was universally believed in the first ages of the Christian church, that there is a place for departed spirits, where the souls of the righteous rest in joy and hope, although they are not put in possession of the complete happiness of heaven, until they are re-united to their bodies at the last day. This place was called Hades, hell, a word which, in ecclesiastical writers, denoted originally not a state of pun- ishment, but merely the habitation of departed spirits, as the grave is the receptacle of the body. Of this place David was supposed to speak in Psalm xvi. " For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption ;" and, as the Apostle Peter expressly applies these words to Jesus, Acts ii. 31, when he says, " David, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul v/as not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption," it was believed on this authority, that when the body of Christ was committed to the grave, his soul went to the place of departed spirits, and remained there till his resurrection. But if the soul of Christ went to the place of departed spirits, it follows that he had a complete human soul, and was in this respect, as well as in respect of his body, made like his brethren. For the ^vxn-: the sensitive soul of animals, does not enter that place : the Godhead cannot be supposed to have been confined there ; and therefore it could be nothing but the ^wj, the reasoning soul, which the Apollinarian system denied to Christ, that waited, in the same place with other souls, the resurrection of his body. VVIien the council of Constantinople, in the end of the fourth cen- tury, the second of those which are called general councils, condemned the opinion of Apollinaris, they declared that they considered Christ as being ov-ti oAfVxov-, outs avovK, and that they did not hold amxri trv trie, aa^xo^ nxoi'ouiav, i. e. that they believed him to be truly and completely a man. The church did not long rest in this acknowledgment of that truth which the Scriptures seem to teach upon this subject, but soon began to speculate concerning the manner in which this com- plete human nature is united with the Godhead, and from their specu- lations upon this incomprehensible point there arose different sects, whose peculiar tenets are still retained in some parts of the Christian church. It is the business of ecclesiastical history to trace the origin and the progress of these sects. I shall content myself with marking their distinguishing opinions, and, instead of attempting to follow them througii the labyrinth of metaphysics, in which they contended with one another, I shall barely suggest the general views upon which the different opinions proceeded. Nestorius, who had been taught to distinguish accurately between the divine and human nature of Christ, was offended with some ex- pressions commonly used by Christians in the beginning of the fifth century, which seemed to destroy that distinction, and particularly 348 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. with their calHng the virgin Mary ^toroxoj, as if it were possible for the Godhead to be born. His zeal provoked opposition ; in the eager- ness of controversy he was led to use unguarded expressions; and he was condemned by the third of the general councils, the council of Ephesus, in the year 431. It is a matter of doubt whether the opinions of Nestorius, if he had been allowed by his adversaries fairly to explain them, would have appeared inconsistent with the doctrine established by the council of Ephesus, that Christ is one person, in whom two natures were n)ost closely united. But whatever was the exteirt of the error of Nestorius, from him is derived that system con- cerning the incarnation of Christ, which is held by a large body of Christians in Chaldea, Assyria, and other regions of the east, and which is known in the ecclesiastical history of the west by the name of the Nestorian heresy. The object of the Nestorians is to avoid every appearance of ascribing to the divinity of Christ the weakness of humanity; and therefore they distinguish between Christ, and God who dwelt in Christ as in a temple. They say, that from the moment of the virgin's conception, there commenced an intimate and indis- soluble union between Christ and God, that these two persons pre- sented in Jesus Christ one 7te,osi^7iov, or aspect, but that the union be- tween them is merely an union of will and affection, such in kind as that which subsists between two friends, although much closer in degree. Opposite to the Nestorian opinion is the Eutychian, which derives its name from Eutyches, an abbot of Constantinople, who, about the middle of the fifth century, in his zeal to avoid the errors of Nestorius, was carried to the other extreme. Those who did not hold the Nestorian opinions had been accustomed to speak of the " one in- carnate nature" of Christ. But Eutyches used this phrase in such a manner as to appear to teach that the human nature of Christ was absorbed in the divine, and that his body had no real existence. This opinion was condemned in the year 451, by the council of Chalcedon, the fourth general council, which declared, as the faith of the catholic church, that Christ is one person ; that in this unity of person there are two natiu'es, the divine and the human; and that there is no change, or mixture, or confusion of these two natures, but that each retains its distinguishing properties. The decree of Chalcedon was not universally submitted to. But many of the successors of Euty- ches, wishing to avoid the palpable absurdity which was ascribed to him, of supposing that one nature was absorbed by another, and anxious at the same time to preserve that unity which the Nestorians divided, declared their faith to be, that in Christ there is one nature, but that this nature is twofold or compounded. From this tenet, the meaning of which I do not pretend to explain, the successors of Eutyches derive the name of Monophysifes ; and from Jacob Baradasus, who in the following century was a zealous and successful preacher of the system of the Monophysites, they are more commonly known by the name of Jacobites. The Monophy- sites or Jacobites are found chiefly near the Euphrates and Tigris; they are much less numerous than the Nestorians ; and although they profess to have corrected the errors which were supposed to adhere UNION OP NATURES IN CHRIST. 349 to the Eutychian heresy, they may be considered as having formed their peculiar opinions upon the general principles of that system. The Monothelites, an ancient sect, of wliom a remnant is found in the neighbourhood of Mount Libanus, disclaim any connexion with Eutyches, and agree with the Catholics in ascribing two natures to Christ; but they have received their name from their conceiving that Christ, being one Person, can liave only one will : wliereas the Catholics, considering both natures as complete, think it essential to each to have a will, and say that every inconvenience whicli can be supposed to arise from two wills in one person, is removed by the perfect harmony between that will which belongs to the divine, and that which belongs to the human nature of Christ. Only one circumstance remains to be stated, in order to complete the view of the doctrine of the church, concerning the incarnation of the Son of God. It is what is called the miraculous conception of our Saviour ; by which is meant that the human nature of Christ was formed, not in the ordhiary method of generation, but out of the sub- stance of the Virgin Mary, by the immediate operation of the Holy Ghost. The evidence upon which this article of the Christian faith rests, is found in Matt. i. 18 — 23, and in the more particular narration which Luke has given in the first chapter of his gospel. If we admit this evidence of the fact, we can discern the ernphatical meaning of the appellation given to the Saviour, when he is called the seed of the woman. Gen. iii. 15 ; we can perceive the meaning of a phrase which Luke has introduced into the genealogy of Jesus, Luke iii. 23, and of which otherwise it is not possible to give a good account ; ">', tob svoi-u^sro, 'loili05rj^; and we can discover a peculiar significancy in an expression of the Apostle Paul, Gal. iv. 4, " God sent forth liis Son, made of a woman." Some sects of early Christians, whose principles did not allow them to admit the miraculous conception, got rid of this article of the Chris- tian failh by rejecting the first two chapters of Matthew's gospel, the only gospel which they received ; and Dr. Priestley has spent half a volume in attempting to show that this doctrine may be false, although it is delivered by two Evangelists. Upon those who believe the authenticity and inspiration of Scripture, his argument will make no impression, and as these are the two fundamental principles upon which my course proceeds, I will not, at this stage of our progress, spend any time in combating the reasons which Dr. Priestley pre- sumes to oppose to the authority of Scripture. The miraculous con- ception, the last article, as Mr. Gibbon says, which Dr. Priestley has struck out of his scanty creed, has been the uniform faith of the Christian church : it is the foundation of several questions concerning Mary, more curious than useful, which have been eagerly discussed ; and it is implied in those honours which, from the beginning, have been paid to her, and which, in the church of Rome, have degene- rated into idolatry. The conception of Jesus is the point from which we date the union between his divine and human nature ; and, this conception being miraculous, the existence of the Person n whom they are united was not physically derived from Adam. But, as Dr. Horsley speaks in his sermon on the incarnation, union 32 350 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. with the uncreated Word is the very principle of personality and individual existence in the Son of Mary. According to this view of the matter, the miraculous conception gives a completeness and consistency to the revelation concerning Jesus Christ. Not only is he the Son of God, hut, as the Son of man, he is exalted ahove his brethren, while he is made like them. He is preserved from the contamination adhering to the race whose nature he assumed ; and when the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, was made flesh, the intercourse which, as man, he had with God is distinguished, not in degree only, but in kind, from that which any prophet ever enjoyed, and is infinitely more intimate, because it did not consist in communications occasionally made to him, but arose from the manner in which his human nature had its existence. After the fact is admitted, that the divine and human natures were united in Jesus Christ, all speculations concerning the manner of the fact are vague and unsatisfying ; all disputes upon this point instantly degenerate into a mere verbal controversy, in which the terms of human science are applied to a subject which is irjfinitely exalted above them, and words are multiplied very far beyond the number and clearness of the ideas entertained by those who use them. There are no disputes, even in scholastic theology, which are more frivolous, and none which, in the present state of science, appear more uninteresting, than those that respect the doctrine of the in- carnation ; and there is a danger that you may from thence conceive a prejudice against the importance of the doctrine itself. I mean, therefore, to lay aside all consideration of the different opinions, and to take hold of that simple proposition which the Scriptures declare, that I may show you the rank which it holds in the scheme of Chris- tianity— the consequences which flow from it — and the influence which it sheds over other articles of our faith. We have learned from Scripture that Jesus Christ is truly God : we have learned from Scripture that he is truly man ; and therefore it is unquestionably the doctrine of Scripture that he is both God and man. This union of the nature of God and the nature of man in his person, is called by divines the Hypostatical or Personal Union, of which it is impossible for us to form an adequate conception, and upon which the mind soon wanders when it begins to speculate ; but which, with those who rest in the declarations of Scripture, is under- stood to mean, that the same person is both God and man. Since Jesus Christ is both God and man, it follows that each nature in him is complete, and that the two are distinct from one another. If the divine nature were incomplete, he would not be God ; if the human nature were incomplete, he would not he man ; and if the two natures were confounded, he would neither be truly God, nor truly man, but something arising out of the composition. In this respect the union of the soul and body of a man is a very inadequate representation of the hypostatical union. Neither the soul nor the body is by itself complete. The soul without the body has no instrument of its operations: the body without the soul is destitute of the principle of life ; the two are only different parts of one complex nature. But Jesus Christ was God before he became UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. S51 man, and there was nothing deficient in his humanity ; so that the hypostatical union was the union of two distinct natures, each of which is entire. The hypostatical union, thus understood, is the key which opens to us a great part of the phraseology of Scripture concerning Jesus Christ. He is sotnetirnes spoken of as God ; He is sometimes spoken of as man ; and things peculiar to each nature are affirmed concerning him, not as if he possessed one nature to the exchision of the other, but because, possessing both, the characters of each may with equal propriety be ascribed to him. This is known in the Greek theological writers by the nauie of ttvttSocrt? iStuftarwi/, which the Latins have translated comniunicatio proprietatum. the communi- cation of the properties. You will not understand them to mean by this phrase, that any thing peculiar to the divine nature was com- municated to the human, or vice versa ; for it is impossible that the Deity can share in the weakness of humanity, and it is impossible that humanity could be exalted to a participation of any of the essen- tial perfections of the God-head. Although, therefore, the Word fills heaven and earth, because by him all things consist, yet as it is of the very nature of body to occupy a'certain portion of space, the body of Christ, without losing that nature from which it derives its name, cannot, by union with the Word, become omnipresent, but during our Lord's ministry was upon earth, forty days after his resurrection ascended, /. e. was transferred by a local motion from earth to heaven, and is now in heaven. I have chosen this example, because the Lutheran church, in attempting to explain the words used by our Lord in the institution of the Lord's supper, " This is my body," have conceived that ubiquity is derived to the body of Christ from its conn;ixion with the Tioyoj. This error our church justly condemns. Each nature we conceive to retain its own properties, and there is said to be a communication of properties for this reason, because the properties of both natures are ascribed to the same person, in so much, that even when Jesus Christ derives his name from his divine nature, as when he is called the Son of God, things peculiar to the human nature are affirmed of him. " Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself. Yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is somstimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature."* Thus, when we read of the " church of God which he hath pur- chased with his own blood" — " that God laid down his life for us" — " that th3 Lord of glory was crucified," — we do not, from such ex- pressions, infer that God could suffer : but, taking the passages from which we had inferred the union of two natures in Christ as a guide, we consider these expressions as only transferring, in consequence of the closeness of that union, to him who is called God, because he is God, the actions and passions which belong to him because he is man. In like manner, when we read that all things were made by the Wot 4, we do not suppose that they were made by the Word after * Confession of Faith, riii. 7. 352 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST he became flesh ; and when our Lord says, " the Son of man hath power to forgive sins," we recollect that the Person who claims this high and incommunicable prerogative of the Deity is the Word who " in the beginning was with God, and was God ;" and the truih of the proposition does not appear to us to be in the least impaired by his condescending to remind us, at the very time when he claims this prerogative, that he is also the Son of man. This mode of speaking, so frequent in Scripture, by which the pro- j)erties of both God and man are applied to Jesus Christ, the properties of God even when he is called man, and the properties of man even when he is called God, has given occasion to one distinction which is used by the ancient theological writers, and to another which is used by the modern. Neither distinction is expressed in the words of Scripture : but both are warranted by the authority of Scripture ; and both are employed for the same purpose, to explain several passages concerning Jesus Christ, which, without attending to such distinctions, appear to contradict the analogy of faith. The ancient distinction is thus explained by Bishop Bull,'" whose words I shall nearly translate. " The whole doctrine concerning Christ was divided by the ancient doctors of the church into two parts, which they called ^foy.oyta and oixovo^i!).. By "^ioxoyia. they meant every thing that related to the divinity of our Saviour ; his being the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, and the world's being made by him. By oixovomo. they meant his incarnation, and every thing that he did in the flesh to pro- cure the salvation of mankind. Our God Jesus Christ, says Ignatius, was born by Mary xa.t'' oLxo%>oi.aav esou. Christians, says Justin, acknow- ledge Christ the Son of God, who was before the morning star, and condescended to be made flesh "■» hia. trj? oixovofua^ tavrr;^ the serpent might be destroyed. We believe, says IrenaQus, in the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom are all things, xau m -raj oizoro,wiaj avrov, by which the Son of God became man. These three primitive writers, all of whom lived before the middle of the second century, led the way to their successors in the use of the word oixovofiia ; and the ancient way of explaining those passages which seemed to be inconsistent with the divinity of our Saviour, was to refer them to the oixovnixia. The same thing is meant by the modern distinction, according to which some things are said to be spoken of our Saviour in his human nature, and others in his divine. It is allowed that the words divine and human nature of Christ are not found in Scripture. But it can- not be denied that he is there spoken of sometimes as God and some- times as man, and that some propositions which would appear to be false, if he were only God, and others which would appear to be false, if he were only a man, are affirmed concerning him who is both God and man. We conceive, therefore, that the Scriptures, althougli they do not use the words, afford us a sufficient warrant for the modern distinction : and we learn from numberless instances in which the dis- tinction is clearly implied, to exercise our judgment in interpreting those passages which have some degree of obscurity, according to either the divine or the human nature of Christ, as may best preserve the analogy of faith. • Judicium Ecc. Cath. cap. v. p. 45. UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. 353 I shall give you a specimen of this use of the ancient and modern distinctions, by applying them to the explication of passages respecting the three following subjects, the humiliation of Jesus, his exaltation, and the termination of that kingdom which is said to have been given him. 1. The ancient and modern distinction suggested by the doctrine of Scripture concerning the incarnation of Christ, is of use to explain the descriptions that are given of his humiliation. It is said that " Christ came down from heaven ;" that he wlio "■ was rich became poor;" that "he was made a little lower than the angels;" that txivi^Ofv kavtov, which we render " made himself of no reputation," but which properly means, emptied himself of that which he had. Now it has been asked with triumph by those who deny the original dig- nity of our Saviour's person, how a God could leave heaven ; how it is consistent with the character of the Creator and Ruler of the universe to desert his station, and confine himself for thirty years within a human body ; and how his place was supplied during this temporary relinquishment of the care of all things ? The answer to these ques- tions is derived from the distinction of wPiich we are speaking, i. e. the expressions now quoted are to be referred to the otxoj^o^uia. They do not imply any change upon the divine nature of Christ, which by being divine is incapable of change ; they do not mean that the powers of the Godhead were impaired or suspended, but only that the exercise of them was concealed from the eyes of mortals, and that the form of God, which Jesus had before the worlds were made, was veiled by the humanity which he assumed. For, as Eusebius speaks, (see Bull, 275,) " he was not so entangled with the chains of flesh as to be confined to that place where his body was, and restrained from being in any other ; but at the very time when he dwelt with men, he filled all things, he was with the Father, and he took care of all things which are in heaven and which are in earth." And all this is but a commentary upon these words of our Lord, John iii. 13, " And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven ;" who is in heaven at the very time when the body with which he has united himself is upon earth. The same distinction suggests the proper interpretation of those phrases in which our Lord speaks of himself according to the language of the prophet Isaiah, as the servant of God. " As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him who sent me."* The Apostle to the Hebrews, v. 7, 8, speaks still more strongly. Now if we kneAv nothing more of Jesus than these passages contain, we could not hesi- tate to admit all that inferiority to the Supreme Being which the Arians or even the Socinians teach. But if we recollect that the attributes and names of God are elsewhere applied to him, then according to the rules of sound criticism, which teach us to adopt that interpretation by which an author is made consistent with him- self, we must refer the passages containing that strong language to the oixovofiia, and consider them as spoken of the man Jesus Christ; • John xiv, 31 ; viii. 28 ; vi. 38. 32* 3 B 354 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. who at his incarnation became the minister of his Father's will, who, as man, prayed and gave thanks to his God, and whose human nature admitted of learning, and suffering, and strong crying, and fear. In the same manner we are accustomed to explain that remarkable expression of our Lord, Mark xiii. 32 : " Of that day knoweth no man, no, not the angels, neither the Son, but the Father." The Son of God cannot be ignorant of the day of judgment. For we read, that in him " are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ;" that " the Father showeth the Son all things that himself doth ;" that "no man knoweth the Father, save the Son."* We are obliged, therefore, to have recourse to the distinction between the divine and human nature of Christ : and as the expression, Luke ii. 52, " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature," unquestionably means that the human soul which animated his body improved as his body grew, although the ^oyoj united to the soul knew all things from the begin- ning, so here the Son, considered as the Son of man, by which name our Lord had spoken of himself at the 26th verse, is said to be igno- rant of that which the Son of God certainly knew. 2, We avail ourselves of the same distinction to explain what is said in Scripture concerning the exaltation of Jesus. You read in numberless places of a dominion being given to Jesus, of his receiv- ing power from the Father, of his overcoming and entering into his glory. You find the connection between his sufierings and his ex- altation stated explicitly, Heb. ii. 9, and Phil. ii. 8, 9, 10; and the words of our Lord, John v. 26, 27, appear to be to the same pur- pose. The inference obviously drawn from such passages is this, that Jesus Christ receiA'^ed from God the Father a recompense for his obe- dience and sufferings in procuring our salvation •, that this recompense was not only the highest honour and felicity conferred on himself, but also a sovereignty over those whom he had redeemed ; and that thus by his recompense there is derived to him from God a right to the worship and service of the human race. It is so agreeable to our natural sense of justice, that eminent virtue should be crowned with an illustrious reward ; it is so flattering to our ideas of the dignity of human nature, to behold a man raised by the excellence of his character to the government of the universe,- that this inference constitutes by much the most pleasing part of the Socinian system : and as it may be stated in such a manner as to be perfectly consistent with that doctrine which you profess to teach, you will find that you cannot introduce into your sermons a more popular topic of exhortation, and of encouragement to persevering exertion in the discharge of our duty. But pleasing and useful as this view of the exaltation of Jesus is, it plainly does not contain the whole account of the matter, for the following reasons: — 1. Some of the very passages which speak of a recompense being given to Jesus had declared, a little before, the ori- ginal dignity of his person. He had been styled in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " the brightness of the Father's glory ;" in the Epistle to the Philippians, " he who was in the form of God ;" and he had said • Col. ii. 3. John v. 20. Matt. xi. 27. UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. 355 of himself, John v. 1 9, " What things soever the Father doth, these also doth the Son hkewise," 2. Many passages of Scripture, by de- claring that Jesus Christ created all things, teach us that before he obeyed or suffered in the flesh, he possessed a clear title to universal dominion. And, 3. This original dignity of person, and this most ancient title to dominion, are of such a kind that it was impossible for them to receive any accession. He who is the image of the invisible God could not by any new state be rendered more glorious or more happy ; and no gift or subseqiient appointment could constitute a more perfect right, or a more complete subjection of all things to Jesus Christ, than that which arose from his being the Word by whom all things were made, and by whom they consist. For these reasons it is manifest that if we consider Christ only as the Son of God, his exaltation can mean nothing more than that his original title to dominion was published by the preaching of the gos- pel, and universally recognized, and that to this original title there was superadded the new title of Redeemer of the world. But this is not a full explication of all the places in which his exaltation is spoken of; for the passages quoted from the Hebrews, the Philip- pians, and from John, lead us to attend, in the very appointment of this dominion, to the incarnation of the Son of God. The dominion is said to be given him because he is the vSon of Man — for the suffer ing of death — because he humbled himself; and we are thus obliged, in explaining that dominion, to have recourse to the ancient and mo- dern distinction which we are now applying. It is part of the oixovofiM, which the Scriptures teach, that, as the Son of God, when he was made flesh, veiled his glory, so after his resurrection, the flesh which he had assumed was exalted to partake of that glory. All that from the beginning had appertained to the Son of God, is now declared to belong to that person who is both God and man : and he is invested with the office of Ruler and Judge, in the execution of which he completes that work which he began, when he was made flesh. It is not, therefore, in respect of the divine nature of Christ, which does not admit of a recompense, but in respect of his human nature, that his exaltation is stated under the notion of a reward : the scandal attending his humiliation is thereby completely removed : and the declaration of his appointment to the sovereignty of the universe is the provision which God hath made, that, notwithstanding his humi- liation, " all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." 3. By the same distinction we are enabled to account for what is said in Scripture concerning the termination of the dominion given to Christ. The words of the Apostle Paul upon this subject, 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28, cannot mean that the dominion of Christ, which is founded on his having created all things, shall come to an end ; for this must continue as long as any creature exists; neither can they mean that the gratitude and worship of those whom he redeemed by his blood, and that right to their obedience which arises from his interposition, shall ever cease ; for this is an obligation which must co-exist with the souls of the redeemed. Accordingly, John heard every creature in heaven and in earth saying, " Blessing, and iionoiir, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb 356 UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. for ever and ever:"* and the kingdom of Christ is represented, both in the Old and in the New Testament, as everlasting. The meaning, therefore, of the words of the Apostle must be, that the office with which the Son of Man was invested, in order to carry into full effect the purposes of his incarnation, which divines are accustomed to call his mediatorial kingdom, shall cease when these purposes are accom- plished. His autliority to execute judgment must expire, after the quick and tlje dead have received according to their works : and he can no longer rule in the midst of his enemies, after they are all put tinder his feet. Every thing which the ancient theological writers meant by otxow^ua will then be concluded : and although tlie Son of God never can lay aside his relation to those whom by that economy he hath brought to his Father, yet the office implied under the character of Mediator, which had a reference to their preparation for heaven, can have no place amongst the glorified saints, but God shall be all in all, and the Son shall reign in the glory which he had M'ith the Father before the world was. In this manner, from the union between the divine and human natures of Christ, and the communication of the properties of the two natures, we are able to deduce an explication of several passages of Scripture which would otherwise appear unintelligible. There is one other use of the doctrine concerning the incarnation, which is clearly stated in Scripture, and with which I close all that relates particularly to the person of Jesus Christ. It is by the union of the natures in one person that Christ is quali- fied to be the Saviour of the world. He became man, that with the greatest possible advantage to those whom he was sent to instruct, he might teach them the nature and the will of God ; that his life might be their example ; that by being once compassed with the infirmities of human nature, he might give them assurance of his fel- low-feeling ; that by suffering on the cross he might make atonement for their sins ; and that in his reward they might behold the earnest and the pattern of theirs. But had Jesus been only man, or had he been one of the spirits that surround the throne of God, he could not have accomplished the work which he undertook ; for the whole obedience of every creature being due to the Creator, no part of that obedience can be placed to the account of other creatures, so as to supply the defects of their service, or to rescue them from the punishment which they deserve. The Scriptures, therefore, reveal, that he who appeared upon earth as man is also God, and, as God, was mighty to save ; and by this reve- lation they teach us that the merit of our Lord's obedience, and the efficacy of his interposition, depend upon the hypostatical union.f All modern sects of Christians agree in admitting that the greatest benefits arise to us from the Saviour of the world being man ; but the Arians and Socinians contend earnestly, that his sufferings do not derive any value from his being God ; and their reasoning is specious. * Rev. V. 1 3. f 'Hi-wuf v ovv tov avO^oirtof tcf> @icjt. — E5f t ya^ fuaitrjv @tov te xat, miB^urCuv fiia -ftji t^toj jt^oj exatt^ovi o(.xiioti^toi ttj ^tKuw »ttt ojuoyMOU' rovj a/i^(W«^ovj a\,vayo/)fii,v> Iron. COnt Haer. lib. iii. cap. 187. UNION OF NATURES IN CHRIST. 357 You say, they argue, that Jesus Christ who suffered for the sins ot men, is both God and man. You must either say that God sulfered, or that he did not suffer; if you say that God siitiered, you do indeed affix an infinite vahie to the sufferings, but you aflirm that the God- head is capable of suffering, which is both impious and absurd: if you say that God did not suffer, then, ahhough the person that suffered had both a divine and a human nature, the sufferings were merely those of a man, for, according to your own system, tlie two natures are distinct, and the divine is impassible. In answer to this method of arguing, we admit that the Godhead cannot suffer, and we do not pretend to explain the kind of support which the human nature derived under its sufferings from the divine, or the manner in which the two were united. Bnt from the uniform language of Scripture, which magnifies the love of God in giving his only begotten Son, which speaks m the highest terms of the precious- ness of the blood of Christ, which represents him as coming in the body that was prepared for him, to do that which sacrifice and burnt- offering could not do — from all this we infer that there was a value, a merit, in the sufferings of this Person, superior to that which be- longed to the sufferings of any other: and as the same Scriptures intimate in numberless places the strictest union between the divine and human natures of Christ, by applying to him promiscuously the actions which belong to each nature, we hold that it is impossible for us to separate in our imagination this peculiar value which they affix to his sufferings, from the peculiar dignity of his person. The hypostatical union, then, is the corner-stone of our religion. We are too much accustomed, in all our researches, to perceive that things are united, without being able to investigate the bond which unites them, to feel any degree of surprise that we cannot answer all the questions which ingenious men have proposed upon this subject: but we can clearly discern, in those purposes of the incarnation of the Son of God which the Scriptures declare, the reason why they have dwelt so largely upon his divinity ; and if we are careful to take into our view the whole of that description which they give of the person by whom the remedy in the gospel was brought; if, in our specula- tions concerning him, we neither lose sight of the two parts which are clearly revealed, nor forget, what we cannot comprehend, that imion between the two parts which is necessarily implied in the revelation of them, we shall perceive in the character of the Messiah, a com- pleteness, and a suitableness to the design of his coming, which of themselves create a strong presumption that we have rightly inter- preted the Scriptures. 358 OPINIONS CO\CERNING THE SPIRIT. CHAPTER IX. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. I HAVE now given a view of the different opinions that have been held concerning that person, by whom the remedy offered in the gos- pel was brought to the world. But there is also revealed to us another person by whom that remedy is applied, who is known in Scripture by the name of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost; and whom our Lord, in different places of that long discourse which John has recorded in chaps, xiv. xv. and xvi. of his gospel, calls 7ta^ax%7jroi. When you read John xv. 26, you cannot avoid consider- ing o Tta^axXijtoi as the same with *o Ttviv/xa, and as a person distinct from the Father and the Son. xia^axxj^roj is derived from Tra^axaxao, the pre- cise meaning of which is, " standing by the side of a person 1 call upon him to do something," and which is commonly translated, "I comfort or encourage." Hence the word na^axxriroi is rendered in our Bibles the Comforter ; but if you attend to the analogy of the Greek language, you will perceive that the manner in which it is formed from the verb, suggests as the more literal interpretation of the noun advocatus, advocate, " one who, being called in, stands by the side of others to assist them." Of the offices of this person I shall have to speak, when I proceed in the progress of my plan to the application of the remedy. At pre- sent I have only to state the information which the Scriptures afford, and the different opinions to which that information has given rise, concerning the character of this person. The subject lies within a much narrower compass than that which I have just finished. Dr. Clarke has collected, in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, all the passages of the New Testament in which the Spirit is men- tioned. They are very numerous ; they have been differently inter- preted ; and corresponding to this difference of interpretation is the variety of opinions which have been held concerning this person. The simplest method in which I can state the progress of these opinions, is to begin with directing your attention to the form of bap- tism taught by our Lord, Matt, xxviii. 19. Baptism, or washing, is found in the religious ceremonies of all nations. Among the heathen, the initiated after having been instructed in certain hidden doctrines and awful rites were baptized into these mysteries. The Israelites are said by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. x, 2, to have been baptized into Moses, at the time when they followed him as the servant of God, sent to lead them through the Red Sea. Proselytes to the law of Moses from other nations were received by OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. 35? baptism ; and all the people who went out to hear John, the forerun ner of Jesus, were baptized by him into the baptism of repentance. In accommodation to this general practice, Jesus, having employed his apostles to baptize those who came to him during his ministry, sent them forth, after his ascension, to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them. But, in order to render baptism a distinguishing rite, by which his followers might be separated from the followers of any other teacher who chose to baptize, he added these words, " into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The earliest Christian writers inform us that this solemn form of expression was uniformly employed from the beginning of the Chris- tian church. It is true, indeed, that the Apostle Peter said to those who were converted on the day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 38, " Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ ;" and that, in different places of the book of Acts, it is said that persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus : and from hence those, who deny the argument which I am about to draw from the form of baptism, have inferred tliat, in the days of the apostles, this form was not rigorously observed. But a little attention will satisfy you that the inference does not follow, because there is internal evidence from the New Testament itself, that when the historian says, persons were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, he means they were baptized according to the form prescribed by Jesus. Thus the question put by Paul, Acts xix. 2, 3, shows that he did not suppose it possible for any person who administered Christian baptism to omit the mention of the Holy Ghost ; and even after this question, the historian, when he informs us that the disciples were baptized, is not solicitous to repeat the whole form, but says in his usual manner, Acts xix. 5, '• when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." There is another question put by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. i. 13, which shows us in what light he viewed the form of baptism. The question implies his considering the form of baptism as so sacred, that the introducing the name of a teacher into it was the same thing as introducing a new master into the kingdom of Christ. There is nothing, then, in the New Testament contrary to the clear information which we derive from the succession of Christian writers, who agree in declaring that the form of baptism originally prescribed by Jesus was from the beginning observed upon every occasion. At a time when Christianity was not the established religion of the state, but was spreading rapidly through the Roman empire, many were daily baptized who had been educated in the knowledge and belief of other religions, and baptism was their initiation into the faith of Christ. In order to prepare them for this solemn act, they received instruction for many days in the principal articles of the Christian faith, particularly in the knowledge of the three Persons into whose name they were to be- baptized, and they were required at their baptism to declare that they believed what they had been taught. The practice of connecting instruction with the administration of baptism rests upon apostolical authority ;* and upon this was probably founded the following practice, which we learn from early writers to • Acts viii. 35—38. Rom. x. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 21. 360 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. have been universal. Those who were to be baptized underwent a preparation, during which they were called, in the Greek church, xatrjxo^H-f^oi- y in the Latin church, cotnpetentes. Y^o.xrixov\iiwi is derived from xo.trixi'^', a compound of xara and nx^^^ sono, which implies that they were instructed viva voce by catechists, whose business it was to deliver to them in the most familiar manner the rudin)ents of tlie doctrine of Christ : Co/w/?e/e;2/e*, competitors, or candidates, implies that they were seeking together the honour of being initiated into Christianity. When the catechumens or coinpetentes were judged to have attained a sufficient measure of knowledge, they were brought to the baptismal font, and immediately before their baptism two things were required of them. The one was called artoraltj rov latava, segregatio a Satana ; the other, avvca^i.i n^o^ Xgioroi/, aggregatio ad Christum. By the one they renounced, in a form of words that was prescribed to them, the devil, his works, iiis worship, and all his pomp, i. e. they professed their resolution to forsake both vice and idolatry : by the other, they declared their faith in those articles in which they had been instructed. The most ancient method of declaring this faith was taken from the form of baptism. The person to be baptized said, " I believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." By these words, he professed that his faith embraced that whole name into which he was to be baptized ; and the creeds, which came to be used in different churches, appear to have been only enlargements of this original declaration, the substance of which was retained in all of them, but was extended or explained by insertions which were meant to oppose errors in doclri** as they sprang up, and which consequently varied in every church according to the nature of the errors that prevailed there, and the light in which these errors were viewed. Every church required its catechumens to repeat its own creed before they were baptized, so that the repeti- tion of the creed was a dec'aration on the part of the catechumens, that their faith in the name into which they were to be baptized was the same with that of the church from which they were to receive baptism. It appears by this deduction, that faith in the Holy Ghost was a branch of the rudiments of Christianity, derived from that form by which our Lord appointed disciples to be initiated into his religion ; and in this form you will observe that the Holy Ghost is conjoined with the Father and the Son, in such a manner as obviously to imply that he is a person of equal rank with them. When you recollect the exalted conceptions which the gospel gives of the Father, and the full revelation which it has made of the dignity of the Son ; when you recollect that there is authority in the New Testament for worshipping the Son as the Father; and when you consider further that the persons who professed their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, did at the very same time renounce the worship of idols, you will acknowledge that there is an unaccountable ambiguity in the expression prescribed by our Lord ; nay, that the form used upon his authority has a necessary tendency to lead Christians into the practice of idolatry which they then reiioiuiced, unless the Holy Ghost be, with the Father and the Son, an object of worship. This clear inference from the form of baptism was probably confirmed in the OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. 361 earliest ages by its being observed, that, besides all those places of the New Testament whicli teach us to reverence the Spirit, there is one passage where the Apostle Paul has joined the three persons together in such a manner as seems intended to convey to his readers a con- ception of tlie equality of their rank."* "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all." Upon these authorities the Christian church, from the very begin- ning, worsliipped the Holy Ghost. There is clear evidence of this fact, in a passage from Justin Martyr,t whom we are accustomed to quote as the best voucher of the opinions and the practices of early times. The succession of Christian writers from Justin say the same thing, and the Spirit is conjoined with the Father and the Son in the most ancient doxologies. But it was a principle with the first Christians, tov &sov fiovov 5^ Tt^oaxvt^nv. The worship of any creature was in their eyes idolatry ; and therefore tlieir worshipping the Holy Ghost was expressing by their practice the same inference which they draw in their writings from the form of baptism, viz. that the Holy Ghost is a person of the same rank with tlie Father and the Son. If this uniform testimony of the Christian writers could be supposed to require any support, we might quote a dialogue entitled Philopatris, commonly ascribed to Lucian, and certainly written either by him, or by some contemporary of his, about the middle of the second century. The author means to give a ludicrous representation of the manner in which the catechumens were instructed, and amongst other circum- stances, he introduces the following.^ The scholar asks by whom he should swear, and the christian instructor answers in words which imply that the Christians, in the days of Lucian, were accustomed to swear by all the three Persons mentioned. But as swearing by a Person is one of those honours which are most properly called divine, Lucian infers, from this part of the practice of the Christians, that in their estimation every one of the three Persons was Zivixai,@(o;; and thus his testimony comes to be a voucher of both theopiiiions and the practice of the great body of Christians with regard to tlie Holy Ghost. During the first three centuries, there was not any particular con- troversy upon this subject, except that which was occasioned by the system of the Gnostics. The numerous sects that come under this description, who corrupted the simplicity of the gospel by a mixture of the tenets of oriental philosophy, held both Christ and the Spirit to be ^ons, emanations from the Supreme Mind. But as they de- nied the divine original of the books of Moses, they said that the Spirit, which had inspired him and the prophets, was not that exalted ^on whom God sent forth after the ascension of Chris^t, but an JEon * 2 Cor. xiii. 13. f Axk' txeivov ti (rtarf^a,) zou, tov ria.^ avtov vlov i'hBovta, xai hi.ha.'-avta. /jfiai tavta xat rov rcov a^Xof trofisvuiv xat, e^ouoiovufviov aya3^v ayyiXiov OT^arov, rCvtvaa -ts •fo 7t^o^r;-fixov niSofxcOa ;cai. rC^o-^xwovufv, Xoya xai a'krjSiM ■fi.uidt'T'f {. ^ee Bull, Def. 70. + See Bull, Dcf. F. N. 73, and Jud. 32.' 33 SC 362 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. very much inferior, and removed at a great distance from the Su preme Being. It was, on the other hand, the general behef of the Christian church, that the same Spirit who was afterwards sent to the apostles had operated in the saints from the beginning ; and the cha- racter uniformly given of the Spirit by Justin Martyr, Irenajus, and the other primitive writers, was in such words as these : to n^o^r^tixov rtviv/xa — to 5ta tuv rt^o^j^fwj/ xixr^v^os ta$ oixovufiias ©fov. In Order, therefore, to oppose the errors of the Gnostics, there came to be introduced into the creed of the church of Jerusalem, which was honoured through- out the east as the mother of all the churches, in addition to the ori- ginal words, " I believe »$■ to ayw Ttfuuixa,'^ the following, " to Tta^axTL^^Tov, to Kaxrioav bia tuv rt^o^) j^fw*-." We kuow that Cyril, who was Bishop of Jerusalem in the fourth century, wrote an exposition of the creed of which these words are a part ; and we learn from his writings, that this creed was explained to the catechumens in the church of Jerusa- lem, and that they were required to repeat it before they received baptism. Here the matter rested till after the time of the Arian controversy. As Arius held the Son to be the most excellent creature of God, by whom all others were created, the Spirit was necessarily ranked by him amongst the productions of the Son : and accordingly the an- cient writers who have left an account of the heresy of Arius, say that he made the Spirit xtiofia xTw^af oj, the creature of a creature. But as his attacks were chiefly directed against the divinity of the Son, and as his opinions concerning the Spirit were only an inference from the leading prhiciples of his system, they did not draw any particular attention in the council of Nice. This first general council, which met A. D. 325, published the creed, which is known by tlie name of the Nicene creed, in direct opposition to the errors of Arius. Accord- ingly, they are added in this creed to the second article of the ancient creeds, that concerning the Son, several clauses which were meant to declare the dignity of his person, and his consubstantiality with the Father ; but the third article, that concerning the Spirit, is continued in the same simple mode of expression which had been originally suggested by the form of baptism, xm «j to Ttvtvfia to ayiov. In the course of the fourth century, Macedonius, who held a par- ticular modification of the Arian system concerning the Son, follow- ing out the principles of that system, openly denied the divinity of the Spirit, and was the founder of a sect, known in those times by the name Uviv^iato^axoi. Macedonius is said by some to have denied that the Holy Ghost is a person distinct from the Father, and to have considered what the Scriptures call the Spirit, as only a divine energy diffused throughout creation. According to others, he held the Spirit to be a creature, the servant of the Most High God. We are not acquainted with the detail of his opinions. We only know in general that lie did not admit, what in his time had been generally received hi the Christian church, that the Holy Spirit is a person of the same divine nature with the Father and the Son ; and we have the clearest evidence that the opinion of Macedonius appeared to the church to be an innovation in the ancient faith. For as the first general coun- cil, the council o^ Nice, had, A. D. 325, condemned the opinions of Arius with regard to the Son, so the second general council, the OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. 363 council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, condemned the opinions of Macedonius with regard to the Spirit. The council of Nice testified their disapprobation of the opinions of Arius, and guarded those who should be received into the Christian church against his errors, by the additions which they made to the second article of the ancient creeds ; and the council of Constantinople, in like manner, entered their tes- timony against the errors of Macedonius by the following change upon that creed which had been used in the church of Jerusalem, and which appears to have been the same in substance with that used throughout the Christian world. The third article of the ancient creed had run thus, f i? to ayiov nvsvixa, to Tta^axXritov, to TM^rjaav Sia t(^v rt^o^r^tiov. In- stead of TO 7ta^a,x-Kr;tov, whicli might be conceived to convey a notice of inferiority and ministration in the Holy Ghost, the council of Con- stantinople introduced the following expressions : Kat a? to rtwv,ua to oytoi/, to xi'^toy to ftoortotovf, to ex tov rtar^oj exrto^evojXFyov, to aw rtat'jt xat, viat rt^otj- xwovj-iivov xttt (Jui'6o|a^OjU£i'o»', to JM.'Krjaav 6ta t<^v rt^o^jji'cov. The expressions inserted instead of ro na^axxritov, were intended to declare, what the natural import of the words very strongly conveys, that majesty of character in the Holy Ghost, and that equality with the Father and the Son in worship and glory, which those who are admitted to Christian baptism after being catechumens had been taught, in the application of the original form, to believe, and which it does not appear that the great body of the church, till the time of Macedonius, had ever thought of questioning. When, in the sixteenth century, opinions concerning the Son, much bolder than those which had been held by Arius, or any of his fol- lowers, were avowed and published by Socinus, it was not possible that he could acquiesce in the received creed concerning the Spirit : and the opinion which he adopted upon this subject was the same with that refined system which has been ascribed by some to Mace- donius. Socinus did not say that the Holy Ghost is a creature ; he said that it is the power and energy of God sent from heaven to men ; that by its being given Avithout measure, as the Scriptures speak, to Jesus Christ, this great Prophet was sanctified, and led, and raised above all the other messengers of heaven ; that by the extraordinary measure in which it was given to his apostles, they were qualified for executing their commission ; and that it is still communicated in such manner and such degree as is necessary for the comfort and sanctification of the disciples of Jesus. This is the system of the modern Socinians, which Lardner has brought forward in some pieces that are published in the tenth and eleventh volumes of his works, and which is found often recurring in the v/ritings of Priestly and Lindsey. The arguments upon which this system rests are of the following kind. An attempt is made to reconcile with this system all those passages of Scripture which seem to imply that the Holy Ghost is a distinct person ; it is said that the. Spirit of God sometimes denotes the power or wisdom of God, as they are communicated to men, i. e. spiritual gifts; that it is some- times merely a circumlocution for God himself; and that when the Spirit of God appears to be spoken of as a person, we are to under- stand that there is a figure of speech, the same kind of prosopopoeia by which it is said that charity is kind and envieth not — that sin 364 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRI'I deceives and slays us — and that the law speaks. It is allowed that the figure is variously used in different places; but it is alleged, that, by a moderate exercise of critical sagacity, all those passages of the New Testament, in which the Spirit of God is mentioned, may be explained without our being obliged to suppose that a person is denoted by that expression. This is the Socinian mode of arguing with regard to the Holy- Ghost. Upon the other side, it is argued by Bishop Pearson, who has treated the subject very fully and distinctly in his Exposition of the Creed ; by Dr. Barrow, in one of his Sermons on the Creed ; by Bishop Burnet, on the Thirty-nine Articles, and by others, that num- berless actions and operations which unavoidably convey the idea of a person are ascribed to the Holy Ghost — that there are many places in which neither prosopopoeia nor any other figure of speecli can account for this manner of speaking — and that the attributes, and names, and description of this person, are such as clearly imply that he is no creature, but truly God. The subject, it may be seen, from this general account of the argu- ment upon both sides, runs out into a long detail of minute criticism. Without attempting to enter into this, I will only suggest four general observations, which it is proper to carry along with you when you examine those passages which Dr. Clarke has fairly collected in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and upon which the other writers argue, 1. in many places of Scripture, " the Spirit of God" may be a cir- cumlocutior: for God himself, or for the power and wisdom of God. Thus, when we read, " whither shall I go from thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy presence ?" — " they vexed his lioly spirit" — " by his spirit he hath garnished the heavens ;" or when Jesus says, " If I by the Spirit of God ;" in another gospel it is, " if I by the finger of God cast out devils," it is not more reasonable to infer from these expressions that the Spirit of God is a person distinct from God, than it would be to suppose that, when we speak of the spirit of a man, we mean a person distinct from the man himself You will not think that, because the circumlocution, for which the Socinians contend, does not give the true explication of all the passages to which they wish to apply it, there is no instance of its being used in Scripture: and you will always carry along with you this general rule of scrip- ture criticism, that it is most unbecoming those, who profess to derive all their knowledge of theology from the Scriptures, to strain texts in order to make them appear to support particular doctrines, and that there never can be any danger to truth, in adopting that interpreta- tion of Scripture which is the most natural and rational. 2. There are many passages in which "the Spirit of God" means gifts or powers communicated to men, and from which we are not warranted to infer that there is a person who is the fountain and dis- tributer of these gifts. So we read often in the Old Testament, " the Spirit of the Lord came upon him," when nothing more is necessarily '.mplied under the expression, than that the person spoken of was endowed with an extraordinary degree of skill, or might or wisdom. So the promises of the Old Testament, " I will pour out my Spirit upon you," were fulfilled under the New Testament, by what are OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. 365 there called " the gifts of the Holy Ghost ;" in reference to which we read, "that Christians received the Holy Ghost" — " that the Holy Ghost was given to them" — " that they were filled with the Spirit." Neither the u^ords of the promise, nor tlie words that relate the fulfil- ment of it, suggest the personality of the Spirit ; and if we knew nothing more than what sucli passages suggest, the Socinian system upon this subject would exhaust the meaning of Scripture, and the Spirit would appear to be merely a virtue or energy proceeding from God. 3. But my third observation is, that if there are passages in which the Holy Ghost is clearly and unequivocally described as a person, then, however numerous the passages may be in which "the Spirit of God" appears to be a phrase meaning gifts and powers communi- cated to men, this does not in the least invalidate the evidence of the personality of the Spirit, because it is a most natural and intelligible figure to express the gifts and powers by the name of that person who is represented as the distributer of them. The true method, then, of stating the question upon this subject between the So- cinians and other Christians, is not, whether it be possible to inter- pret a great number of passages that speak of the Spirit of God, without being obliged to suppose that there is a distinct Person to whom this name is given, but whether there are not some passages by which the personality of the Spirit may be clearly ascertained. There are two passages of this last kind to which I would direct your attention. The first is, the long discourse of our Lord, in chaps, xiv. XV. and xvi. of John's Gospel, where, in promising the Holy Ghost to the apostles, he describes him as a person who was to be sent and to come, who hears, and speaks, and reproves, and instructs ; as a person different from Jesus, because he was to come after Jesus departed, because he was to be sent by Christ, and to receive of Christ, and to glorify Christ; as a person different from the Father, because he was to be sent by the Father, and because he was not to speak of himself, but to speak what he should hear. The second passage is a discourse of the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 1 — 13, where the apostle, in speaking of the diversities of spiritual gifts, represents them as under the administration of one Spirit. It is impossible to conceive words which can mark more strongly than the 11th verse does, that there is a Person who is the author of all spiritual gifts, and who distributes them according to his discretion. You will meet, in the collection of texts upon this subject, with many other passages which show that the apostles considered the Spirit as a person : and to the inference obviously suggested by all these passages, you are to add this general consideration, that as the prosopopoeia, to which the Socinians have recourse in order to evade the evidence of the personality of the Spirit, appears to be forced and unnatural, when it is applied to the long discourse recorded by John, so the supposition of any such prosopopoeia being there intended, is rendered incredible by our Lord's introducing, after that discourse, the Holy Ghost in the form of baptism, and thus conjoining the Holy Ghost, whom he had described as a person, with the Father and the Son, who are certainly known to be persons. There is, in all this, a continued train of argument, so much fitted to impress our minds with 33* I 366 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE SPIRIT. a conviction of the personality of the Spirit, that, if the Socinian sys- tem on this subject be true, it will be hard to fix upon any inference from the language of Scripture in which our minds may safely acquiesce. 4. My fourth observation is, that if the Spirit of God be a person, it follows of course that he is God. I do not say that the Spirit is anywhere in Scripture directly called God : and aUhough the writers on this subject have repeatedly said that this name is given him by implication, because, Acts v. 3, 4, lying to the Holy Ghost is stated as the same as lying to God ; and our bodies are called, 1 Cor. vi. 19, the temple of the Holy Ghost, and 1 Cor. iii. 16, the temple of God, yet I would not rest so important an article of faith upon this kind of verbal criticism. The clear proof of the divinity of the Holy Ghost may in my opinion be thus shortly stated. Since all spiritual gifts arerepresented as being placed under the administration of this per- son ; since blasphemy against him is declared to be an unpardonable sin ; since our Lord commands Christians to be baptized into the name of this person as well as into the name of the Father and the Son; and since the apostle Paul prays or wishes for the communion of the Holy Ghost as for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, it is plain that the Scriptures teach us to honour and worship this person as we honour the Father and the Son ; and it is not to be supposed that if he bore to these two persons the relation of a creature to the Creator, we should be in this manner led to con- sider all the three as of the same nature. So much force is there in this argument, that the supposition of the Spirit's being a creature has long been abandoned. It has not even that support which the Socinian opinion concerning Jesus Christ appears to derive from the expressions relating to his humanity. The Spiiit is nowhere spoken of in those humble terms which belong to the man Christ Jesus : and they who are not disposed to admit his divinity, finding no warrant for affixing to him any lower charafier, are obliged to deny his existence, by resolving all that is said of him into a figure of speech. Your business, therefore, in studying the controversy concerning the Spirit, is to examine whether this figure of speech, which is natural in some passages, can be admitted as the explication of all ; or whether the impropriety of attempting to introduce it into some places where the Spirit is described, be not so glaring as to leave a convic- tion upon the mind of every candid inquirer, that tlie Scriptures reveal to us a third person, whose agency is exerted in accomplishing the purposes of the Gospel : and if your minds are satisfied of the person- ality of the Spirit, you have next to examine whether the descriptions of this person, being incompatible with the notion of that inferiority of character which belongs to a creature, do not lead you to consider him as truly and properly God. DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 361 CHAPTER X. DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. From the information which is given us concerning the two per- sons whom the Gospel reveals, it appears to follow that both the Son and the Holy Ghost are truly and essentially God. But this com- munication of the attributes, the names, and the honours which belong to God the Father, implies that these two persons have an intimate connexion with him, and with one another : and we are thus led, after considering the two persons singly, to attend to the manner in which they are united with the Father. For when reason is able to dediice from Scripture tliat there are three persons, each of whom is God, that curiosity, which is inseparable from the exercise of our powers, renders her solicitous to investigate the connexion that sub- sists amongst the three : and it is not till after she has made many unsuccessful attempts, that she is forced to acquiesce in a conscious- ness of her inability to form a clear apprehension of the subject. I am now therefore to subjoin to the Scripture account of the Son and the Holy Ghost, a view of the opinions that have been held con- cerning the manner in which they are united with the Father; a subject which is known in theology by the name of the Doctrine of the Trinity. In stating these opinions, I shall not recite a great deal that I have read without being able to penetrate its meaning : nor shall I attempt to go minutely through all the shades of difference that may be traced ; but I shall produce the fruit which I gathered from a wearisome perusal of many authors, by marking the great outlines of the three systems upon this subject, which stand forth most clearly distinguished from one another. I shall give them the names of the Sabellian, the Arian, and the Catholic systems. I call the third the Catholic system, because it is the opinion concerning the Trinity which has generally obtained in the Christian Church. Section I. The point, from which a simple distinct exposition of opinions con- cerning the Trinity sets out, is that fundamental doctrine of natural religion, the unity of God. Ahhough the heathens multipHed gods, yet, even in their popular mythology", a wide distinction was made between the subordinate deities and that Supreme Being from whom they were derived, and by whom they were controlled ; and the more enlightened that the mind of any philosopher became, he rose the nearer to an apprehension of the divine unity. Our notions of SB8 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITT. the perfection of the divine nature involve the idea of unity; and that nice analogy of parts, which a skilful observer discovers in the works of nature and Providence, is an experimental confirmation of all the reasonings upon which tliis idea is founded. The law of Moses, which separated the Jews from the worship of the gods of the nations, cjeclares that there is none other besides him, and asserts his unity in these words, Deut. vi. 4, " Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Our Saviour, Mark xii. 32, adopts the unity of God as the principle of the first and great conunandment of his reli- gion. In another place, Mark x. 18, he disclaims the appellation of good, saying, " there is none good but one, that is God." The divine unity is asserted in the strongest terms by his apostles, " To us there is but one God, the only wise God, who only hath immortality."* It is said that those who were converted, " turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God ;"t and we cannot read the New Testament without being strongly impressed with this truth, that the supposition of a number of gods, which philosophy and Judaism discard, is most repugnant to the perfect revelation made by Him who came from the bosom of the Father, to declare God to man. If there be truth in this first principle of natural religion, so earnestly inculcated by the general strain of the New Testament, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost cannot be three Gods, but there must be a sense in which these three Persons are one God. Our Lord has been generally understood to intimate that there is such a sense, when he says, John x. 30, " I and my Father are one ;" and his apostle says the same thing with regard to all the three, 1 John y. 7. It is proper, however, that you should be aware of the objec- tions that have been miade to tliis application of these two texts. With regard to the first, it has been said that the words of our Lord do not necessarily imply that unity of which wc are speaking, and that, whether we consider the context, or the similar expressions which he uses in the seventeenth chapter of John, his words may mean no more than this, I and my Father are one in purpose, /. e. his power, which none can resist, is always exerted in carrying into effect my gracious designs towards my disciples. With regard to the second text, it has been said that the whole verse is an interpolation, because it is wanting in many Greek manuscripts, and because it is not quoted by any Christian father who wrote in Greek before the Council of Nice. The authenticity of this verse is certainly proble- matical, for very able jndges have formed different opinions concern- ing it. Mill, the celebrated editor of the New Testament, in the beginning of the last century, after stating at great length the argu- ments upon both sides, gives it as his judgment, that the verse is genuine. But Gricsbach, the latest editor of the New Testament, after a long investigation, declares in the most decided manner, that the strongest testimonies and argimients are against this verse; and that, if it is admitted upon the slight grounds which have been alleged in defence of it, Textus Novi Teslamenti tiniversns plane incertii^ esset Clique dubhis. This was also the opinion of Person, the late celebrated Greek Professor in England, and of Herbert Marsh, the • 1 Cor. viii. G. 1 Tim. i. 17 ; vi. 16. f 1 Thcs. i. 9. DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 369 Editor of Michaelis. I must accede to such authorities — and I have further to say, tliat eveu ahhough we should admit this verse, we cannot positively affirm that it teaches an unity of nature in tliree persons ; for it may mean nothing more than an agreement in that record, which all the three are there said to bear. It is not, then, upon this controverted verse in John's Epistle, nor upon the probability, however strong, that the emphatical words of our Lord, " I and my Father are one," mean something more than an unity of purpose, that the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ought to be rested ; but it is upon the following clear induction. The Scriptures, in conformity with right reason, declare that there is one God : at the same time, they lead us to consider every one of three Persons as truly God, But the one of these pro- positions must be employed to qualify the other; and therefore there certainly is some sense in which these three persons are one God. This induction is confirmed by the language of the New Testament, which never speaks of three Gods, but uniformly mentions these three persons in such a manner as to suggest an union of council and operation infinitely more perfect than any which we behold. The force of the induction which I have now stated has been felt in all ages of the church. The earliest Christian writers, who paid the same honours to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as to the Father, declared their abhorrence of polytheism, and considered themselves as worshippers of the one true God. In the second century, the word r^taj, trinitas, was imported from the Platonic school, to express the union of the three persons; and the whole successioti of Ante-Nicene fathers, although their illustrations are not always the most pertinent, discover by innumerable passages that they worshipped the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as constituting what Tertullian calls, in the second century, Trinilas unius divinitatis, and Cyprian, in the third, Jidunata trinitas, and Athanasius, in the fourth, aZuu^ito^ Section H. The first attempt, in the way of speculation, to reconcile with the unity of the Godhead what Christians had learnt to call the Trinity, was made in the second century by Praxeas, and was continued, in the beginning of the third century, by Noetus, and in the middle of it by Sabellius. There may be some shades of difference in the opi- nions of these three men : but as the leading parts of their system were the same, the names of Praxeas and Noetus came to be lost in the name of Sabellius, and the points common to all the three consti- tute that system of the Trinity vvhich is known by the name of Sa- bellianism. According to this system, God is one Person, who, at his pleasure, presents to mortals the different aspects of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In respect of his creating and preserving all things, he is the Father ; in respect of what he did as the Redeemer of men, he is the Son ; and in respect of those influences which he exerts in their sanctification, he is the Holy Ghost. The accounts which aa- .S D 370 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. cient writers give of the opinions of Sabellius lead us to think tha he considered the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as merely nominal, calling God retwu-uoj. But several circumstances, collected by the acute and industrious Mosheim, render it probable that Sabellius conceived a ray or portion emitted from the divine sub- stance to have been joined to the man Jesus Christ, in order to form the Son ; so that his opinion concerning the Person of Christ coin- cided with that of the Gnostics, who considered Jesus Christ as a man to whom an emanation of the Supreme Mind was united, and with that of the modern Socinians, who consider the power and wisdom of God as dwelling in the man Christ Jesus. But even after this re- finement upon the opinions of Praxeas and Noetus ; God coiitinued to be staterl in this system as one person, who assumes ditierent names from the different aspects, which himself or a part of himself pre- sents : and the true character of Sabellianism is this, that it destroys the distinction of persons which the Scriptures teach, confounding the sender with the person sent, him that begat with him that is begot- ten, and the Holy Ghost with the Father, from whom he is said to proceed. Tertullian, who wrote against Praxeas in the second cen- tury, and the writers of the third who opposed Sabellius, urge with great strength of argument the various passages in which this dis- tinction is expressed or implied : and that they might place in the most odious light the doctrine by which it was confounded, they gave to SabeUius and his followers the name of Patropassians, meaning to represent it as a consequence of their doctrine, that the God and Fa- ther of all had endured those sufferings which the Sci'iptures ascribe to Jesus Christ. Sabellianism preserves in the most perfect manner the imity of God ; and on this account it may appear to be the most philosophical scheme of the Trinity. But insuperable objections to it arise from the language and views introduced into the New Testament. Those who wrote after this^system was first published, were so sensible of the force of these objections, that they discover an extreme solicitude to express clearly the distinction between the Father and the Son. They were sometimes led by this solicitude into modes of speaking, which have been represented as inconsistent Avith a belief of the divi- nity of the Son ; and the great controversy which was agitated about a hundred years ago, with regard to the opinion of the Ante-Nicene fathers concerning the person of the Son, took its rise from this cir- cumstance, that there being in their times some who denied the divi- nity of our Saviour, and others who denied the distinction of persons in the Godhead, these fathers wrote against both, and, from their zeal for the truth, or from the eagerness of controversy, used expressions in attacking the one of those heresies, which it is not easy to recon- cile with tlie expressions used against the opposite heresy. The language employed by some of the ancient writers in con- demning Sabellianism encouraged Arius, about the beginning of the fourth century, to avoid every appearance of confounding the person of the Father and the Son, by broaching an opinion which his con- temporaries represent as an innovation, till that time unheard of He said that the Son was a creature who had no existence till lie was made by God out of nothing — that his being begotten means nothing DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. 371 more than his being made by the will of the Father— and that this peculiar terra is applied to him, because he was made before all other creatures, that he might be the instrument of the Almighty in creat- ing tliem. By this system Arius steered clear of Sabellianism, and at tne same time he preserved tlie unity of God. For Jesus Christ according to hnn^is in reality a creature, and only called God upon account of the offices in which he was employed, and the honour and dignity with which he was invested by the Father Almic^hty To Anus, therefore, there was but one God, in the proper sense of that word : but as he admitted that Jesus Christ, a diiterent person from the Father, was also God, because he was constituted God, iiis opi- nion must be stated as one of the ancient systems of the Trinity I have formerly explained,* at great length, the grounds upon which this opinion of Arius concerning the Son was rejected by the Christian church. At present I have to advert to the meanino- of those terms in which the council of Nice, A. D. 325, expressed Their condemnation of this opinion. The council, who knew the sense in which Anus applied the words God, and only begotten Son of God, to Jesus Christ, wished to frame such a creed as could not be repeated by those who held the Arian opinions; and with this view they made a large addition to the second article of the ancient creed and annexed to the creed a condemnatory clause.t * The word, in this addition, which requires the most particular at- tention, upon account of its frequent use in the controversy concern- ing the Trmity.is >ou..oj. It is compounded of u^oj, idem, and o.ua, substantia ; denoting that which is of the same substance or essence with another. It had been used by classical Greek writers in this sense. So Aristotle says, o^oo^ua ^a^ra ant^^j.. it jiad been appliedt bv Christian writers long before the council of Nice, in the very sense in which It was used by the council : and it only expresses the amount of those images which had been employed 'by the succession of writers from the earliest times, to mark the relation between the Fa- ther and the Son, one of the most common and significant of which IS introduced into the creed itself, tco? ix tuto;. As a derived lio-ht is the same in nature with the original light at which it was kindled so whatever be the meaning of POys.r,_, tovt,6tw sx trj, ou^.a; tov rtat^oy • 0,o. .« ^,ov. t-5 ^x ^.to, , %,ov aX«9^.o^ « ^Eou o.-Kri0.vov, y,uvr;9B,ta ov rtovriOsvta, ^oaimo. t^ rtar^,, 8, ov ra Havta, sysv.to. x. f. r.. T0i,5 8. ■K.yovra,, r^v riot,, 6ts 0u6 ;?., xao n^,, yf..,j9^„ac, ovx r^v, xa. it. t% ovx o.r«v .yt..To. ri f I .r.^ar vHo,Ta,,^i^ovaia; ^a.xo.ra, «m^ r, xtc,ro.,rit^srttuv, rj aXXov^to, tov v,ov tov &,ov, rovrov; a.a9f^,atc^,, ^ xaeoUxr, x^ ari.atoX.xrj ,xxXri,ca. Tiie second clause ,s thus translated by the church of Engla.id, in thai creed which they call the Mcene Creed, and wh.ch forms part of the communion service. " And in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his F uher before all worlds, God of God, Li.rht of Light, very God of very God, begotten not ma,le, bein- of one substance with the Fa- ther by whom all things were made." &c. &c. The anathematizing clause is not adopted by the church of England. + Bull, D. F. N. 28. 372 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITV. There is a circumstance respecting the ancient use of the word o/«)OD3toj, which it is proper to state, because it creates some embarrass- ment, and has been the subject of satire and ridicule. This word, which the council of IN ice introduced into their creed, had been pro- hibited by a council which met sixty years before at Antioch ; and this inconsistijncy between two early councils has been stated in a light very unfavourable to the uniformity of the Christian fahh. But the true account of the matter appears to be this. At the time of the council at Antioch, the controversy was with the Sabellians, who de- nied the distinction of persons between the Father and the Son. The Sabellians, employing every method to fix an odium upon th*^ doc- trine generally held concerning the Son, represented the word o^oovaioi, wliich Christians often used, as implying that there was a substance anterior to the Father and the Son, of which each received a part. The council of Antioch judged that the easiest way of repelling this attack of the Sabellians, was by layhig aside the use of ofioovcio^ ; and although they did not mean to acknowledge that those who had used the word held the doctrine said by the Sabelhans to be couched under it, they effectually disowned that doctrine, by recommending that other terms should be employed for expressing the Catholic opinion. At the time of the Council of Nice, Sabellianism was less an object of attention. The impossibility of reconciling that system with the language of Scripture had been completely exposed ; the sense of the church with regard to the distinction of the Father and the Son had been precisely expressed ; there was little danger of any misap- prehension of terms upon this subject ; and a new adversary, who held opinions directly opposite to those of Sabellius, but whose sys- tem was conceived to be not less inconsistent with Scripture, by agree- ing with the church in the expression which had been introduced into former creeds concerning the Son, seemed to demand some unequi- vocal declaration of the common faith. The council of Nice, therefore, whose faith we have the best reason for thinking was the same with that of the council of Antioch, revived the word oA'oovfwq, not in the Sabellian sense, upon account of which the council of Antioch had laid it aside, but in the sense in which it had been used by more an- cient writers, and in which it was perfectly agreeable to the general train of their doctrine ; and the reason of the council's adopting this particular phrase was this, that no other could be found so diamet- rically opposite to the Arian system. For although the Arians might call Jesus God, meaning that he was constituted God, and might say that he was begotten of the Father, meaning by begotten created, yet as they held that he was made fS <'vx ovto^v, they could not say that he was (X T'>7? outjta? rtar^ 05 ; and as they said that he was ix fr,i; Irf^a? ov Sia^ , being a creature in respect of the Creator, they could not say that he was Cfxoov6i,o^- Eusebius, the patron of the Arians, declared in a letter to the council of Nice, that this word was incompatible with their tenets ; and for this very reason we are told it was adopted by the council, that according to an expression of Ambrose, which has been often quoted, " with the sword which the heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, they might cut off the head of the monster." Whether it would have been more prudent to have avoided a term which a great body of Christians declared they could not use, and to DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. S73 have introduced into the creed only those general Scripture phrases in which the Arians were ready to join with the Catholics, is a point to be decided by some of the general principles of" church govern- ment. At present, in explaining the terms that have been introduced into the controversy concerning the Trinity, we have only to observe, that an aversion to the word u^uoovuoi; is the mark which distinguishes all those who hold any modification of the Arian system. Some of the followers of Arius, wishing to avoid the harshness of calling so exalted a Being a creature, said that the Son was different from all other creatures, but still they were obliged by their principles to say that he was aw.uoi.oj f ^ rtat^u Others who received the name Semi-Arians, substituted oftoioocrto; in place of o^uoouaoq, i, e. they admitted that the Son was not only unlike all other creatures, but that he was like the Father, having this peculiar privilege granted to him, to have a sub- stance in all things similar to that of God. The Semi-Arians spoke in the highest terms of the dignity of the Sou ; and it was not easy for those who approached so near to one another as the Catholics and they did, to preserve, upon an incomprehensible subject, a marked difference in their writings. But the Semi-Arians never admitted the word o^ooD,7i,o? into their creeds, because it implied more than they be- lieved. They believed that the Father had granted to the Son a simi- larity to himself; but o,uoov5i,o5 implies that there is an essential same- ness of nature between them. We are thus led, by the explication of this discriminating term, to what I called the third or Catholic system of the Trinity, which may be shortly expressed in words of common use with the Ancient Church, M'* ovata, xai, ■t^i<-i irto^faosii-, or, «^J 0£O5 ^v t'^hJh' vTtoctaaiSt. Section III. The ecclesiastical sense of the word irtoctfa^t? was not perfectly ascertained in the beginning of the fourth century. By some it was considered as denoting the being or subsistence of a thing, and so as equivalent to ovrjia. : by others it was understood to mean that which has a subsistence, the thing subsisting, a person. It appears to be used in the first sense by the council of Nice, when in one part of tlie anathematizing clause they condemn those who said that the Son f| Irf^as ou5ca5 »? vrtoafaifioj nvat ; and according to this sense the council of Sardis, in the fourth century, declared fttav wm irfocrrasir tov Ttat^oi xai tov vtov, xai tov aytou Hvivfia-toi. Had the couucil meant by vjioa-eaaLi, a person, their decree would have been pure Sabellianism. Some alarm was spread through the church when the decree was first published, from an apprehension that this might be the meaning of it. But when the matter came to be investigated, it was found that, as the council of Sardis understood vrtoiraai^ in the first sense, and those, who said ^-^ek Kwt. vrtnffra(jEi,5, uudcrstood it in the second, the meaning of both Avas precisely the same ; and after this explication, it was generally under- stood that ovcrta should denote the being or essence of a thing, rrto-rastj the person subsisting. In this sense the last word had been used by the Platonic school and by many of the Christian writers, before the 34 374 DOCTRINE OF THE IRINITY council of Nice. It is explained in the ancient Greek lexicons by Tt^oaunov, and it was rendered by the Latins persona, a living intelli gent agent. The third system, then, was distinguished from Sabellianism, by admitting ^^"5 irto(JT«5ftj ; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in- stead of being considered as one person manifesting himself in various Avays, were stated as three persons, each of whom has a permanent distinct subsistence. It was distinguished from Arianism by ascribing to all the three persons /uta ovcno. And as Athanasius speaks, to fitv pvai.v SrjjMi, Trj; ^lo-fyjtof to 8i Taj fuv r^icov tStorj^raj. ThosC wllO held this system would not, with the Arians, call the Son and the Holy Ghost itf^ovaioi,, because this conveyed the idea of separation and inferiority, such an essential difference, as there is between the nature of the creature and that of the Creator, Neither did they adopt the words i-auroovtTtot and ^oi-oovmoL, because these might seem to favour the Sabel- lian confusion of persons. But they said the three persons were oiuooumot, of one substance. Jesus Christ, said the council of Chalcedon, is ofioGVoioi r;jxi.v xata, tT^v avS^utrtotrjra, XM ufioovOiOi rta-t^t, xaia -trjv ^lorirra : an ex- pression which leads us to conceive the meaning of the churcli in those days to have been, that as all men partake of the same human nature, so the divine nature was common to three persons. But it will occur to you that three persons having a distinct sub- sistence, and having the same divine nature, are in reality three Gods ; that the most perfect agreement in purpose, and the most invariable consent in operation, do by no means correspond to that unity of God, which is a first principle of natural religion ; and that if those vvdio held the third opinion had reason to accuse the Arians of Paganism and idolatry for worshipping a supreme and an inferior God, the Arians had reason to accuse them in turn of polytheism for believing in three Gods. Accordingly, the names Avhich Mr. Gibbon gives to the three distinct systems concerning the nature of the Divine Trhiity, which he professes to delineate in the second volume of his History, are these, Arianism, Tritheism, Sabellianism ; and the charge which is commonly brought against Athanasians, the name given to those who hold the third or Catholic opinion, is that they are tritheists. It is certain, however, that Athanasius and his followers uniformly dis- claimed tritheism, — and that while they asserted the equality of the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father, by saying that the divine nature was common to all the three, they maintained, at the same tune, that the three persons were united in a manner perfectly different from that union which subsists amongst individuals of the same species. In order, therefore, to do justice to the Catholic system, it is necessary to state the manner in which those who l.old this system endeavoured to reconcile the divine unity with the subsistence of the three persons. What I have read of their writings upon this subject, appears to me reducible to two heads. 1. That the Father is, in their language, the fomitain of deity, the principle and origin of the Son and Holy Ghost. 2. That the three persons are inseparably joined together. 1. The Father is the fountain of deitj, nrjyv^fottjToi. They called the Father aix*i^ not in the common sense of that word, the beginning, as if the Father existed before the Son and the Holy Ghost, but in the DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 375 philosophical sense of the word, the principle from which another arises. In this sense he was called ava^xoi — aya'i'j^ro;— atna vlov. It was said to be implied in the very name of Father that he was o,i.na xm a^xrj tov (^ avtov yivvrjdevto;; and the difference of the three persons was conceived to consist in this, that the Father was avotrtoj ; and that both the Son and the Holy Ghost were MtMtoi,. Upon this principle the ancient Catholics gronnded the Unity of God. They did not conceive that there were three unoriginated beings, but that there was ftia a^x*! ^torjjtos, and that the Father, by being the aix'",yis the ti-watj- God, they said, is one because the Son and the Holy Ghost are referred "5 £>' at^'O"- On this account they held, that, although there are three Persons hi the Godliead, y-omi Ditferent names were employed to express the manner of causation with regard to the two persons who were considered as aitcatoi. It was said of the one that he was begotten, of the other that he pro- ceeded. The generation of the one was suggested by his being called in Scripture vloi tov Qsov — fxwoyevtji rta^a rtaf^oj. Tlic proccsslou of the other was suggested partly by his being called nvivixa, a rtvfw, spiro, I send forth breath ; and partly by our Lord's saying in one place, John XV. 2fy, to 7ti'fi;p.a, rj^j a'A5j9f laj, o rta^a tov rtar^oj ex^ic^svirai. But although generation be applied to the Son, we must be sensible tliat the man- ner in which he derived his origin from the Father cannot bear any analogy to the proper meaning of the word ; and that all attempts to explain the manner of this derivation must be in the highest degree presumptuous and unprofitable. The procession of the Holy Ghost is a word of more general signification, and does not convey any pre- cise idea of the manner in which this Person is derived. It is appro- priated to Him, because the Scripture nowhere says of him that he is begotten of the Father. But it is impossible for us to form a clear apprehension of the distinction between procession and generation, the two terms which are stated as the tStors^Tfj of the Son and the Holy Ghost ; both denote the communication of the divine essence from the Father ; and all the attempts of ancient and of modern writers to discriminate the modes in which the communication may be made, consist of words without meaning. Although those who held the system of the trinity maintained the unity of t!ie Godhead, by saying that the Son and the Holy Ghost were derived from the Father, they are not to be understood as meaning that the existence of these two Persons had a begiiming, or that the Father, after existing for some time alone, brought them into being by an act of his will, and imparted to them such powers as he chose. This is the Arian creed ; but it cannot be received by those who hold f^eci vTtoatariHi ev lA-iaovsia; for the dlvine nature, being incapa- ble of change, cannot be extended to three Persons after having been peculiar to one; and if the being of two of these Persons had been precarious, communicated to them at a certain time by the will of another, both of them would want eternity and immutability, two of the essential properties of the divine nature. The Athanasians, therefore, in consistency^ with the leading princi- ples of their system, considered the Son and the Holy Ghost as iiaving always existed with the Father; and they illustrated tlieir meaning 376 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. by saying that as light cannot exist without effulgence, nor the sun without emitting his rays, nor the mind without reason — so the Father never existed without the Son and the Spirit. The Son was fioj ot'Stoj alSiou TtaT'^oj — uiv cwcuStof xow, "foi Ki-^tGj jtvevftati'* And in the confession of faith of Gregory, an illustrious writer of the third century, after a description of the three Persons, it is added, t^Mi rs^fia 6o|>j, jcai dCdiofrjti, xcu. ffaoi>.fKx fxt] fxt^L^ofiivrj. The same general reasoning apphes to the necessary and eternal co-existence of both the attiatot, with the aLHoi. But as the dignity of the person of the Son was much more an object of attention and con- troversy ill the early ages, than that of the Spirit, most of the images, and the greatest part of the language employed on this subject refer particularly to him. One of the images, probably suggested by the Apostle John's often calling the Son xoyoj, arose from the meaning of that word. It was said by the Platonic fathers, that " God, being an eternal intelligence, from the beginning had the ?oyo5 in himself, being eternally rational ;" and hence they often called Jesus Christ ?^o>of ciiSiOi rtar^oj. I siiall illustrate this principle by the words of Bishop Horsley, who concurs in it with the ancient Platonists. " The per- sonal subsistence of a divine ^oyoj is implied in the very idea of a God. The argument rests on a principle which was common to all the Platonic fathers, and seems to be founded on Scripture, that the ex- istence of the Son flows necessarily from the divine intellect exerted on itself; from the Father's contemplation of his own perfections. For as the Father ever was, his perfections have for ever been, and his intellect hath been ever active. But perfections which have ever been, the ever-active intellect must ever have contemplated ; and the contemplation which hath ever been, must ever have been accom- panied with its just effect, the personal existence of the Son."t This method of illustrating the necessary co-existence of the Son with the Father, which has passed from the Platonic fathers of the second century through a succession of Athanasian writers to the present time, does certainly convey to ordinary readers an idea that the Son is merely an attribute of the Father, the reason of God ; and, accordingly. Dr. Priestley and others have represented the earlier writers who called the Son >^cyo5i as speaking a Sabellian language; and they say that it was to avoid the Sabellianism implied in the use of this word, that the Arians made a distinction between the xoyo;, which always was with God, i. e. his own reason, and the ^-oyoj by whom he made the world, i. e. the person whom he created to be the instrument of making other things, Tiie former is ^oyo^ ft/Sio^tfoj, ratio insita, reason. The latter is ?^cyo? rt^cijjo^vxof, ratio prolata, speech, reason, brought forth in words. The Son, said Arius, might be com- pared to the latter, in order to express that he proceeded immediately from God, but he cannot be compared to the former, which means only an attribute of the Deity. This was a distinction, by which Arius wished not only to avoid the appearance of Sabellianism, but also to evade the argument, for tiie necessary and eternal co-existence of the Son with the Father, drawn from his being called xoyo?©fov. It cannot be denied that the analogy between the relation of the Father to • Bull, D. F. N. 199 \ Horsley's Tracts, p. 61 3cl. edit. DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 377 the J^oyos, and the relation of every man's mind to its own thoughts, which the early writers laid hold of as furnishing an argument for the eternal co-existeiice of the Son, was pursued too far by some of them, and that tlie obscurity and inconsistency which always flow from an abuse of images, was the consequence. At the same time, it is cer- tain that the very same writers, who make the most frequent use of this image, far from conceiving the ?toyo5 to be an attribute of the Father, speak of the Son as a distinct person, and as eternal ; it has been made probable by Bishop Bull, that, when they spoke of xoyoj eidLaOeta, they meant a person, the offspring of the divine mind, who having been from eternity with the Father, became before the creation J^oj-oj n^o^o^ixoi; and we know that Athanasius, probably aware of the abuse of tills image, does not approve of applying either ^oyoj evSiaOnfoi or ^oyoj rtfo^o^txo; as a description of the Son, but calls him vlo^ avtotixrji. The distinction, which the ancient Catholic writers upon the Trinity made between y^oyoi svbiaditoi and ^oyo? Ttgoifo^txoj, is connected with a circumstance which has contributed very much to this apparent embarrassment and contradiction in what they say of the person of the Son. The circumstance is this, that the generation of the Son has with them different meanings, according as it respects the divine nature of this person, or his exertions towards the creatures. The generation of the Son properly means the manner in which the divine essence was from all eternity communicated to him. In respect of this, he is styled in Scripture y-owyivrn na^a rtar^oj; and, in the Nicene creed, ©foj bx ©eod; and, in reference to this, Athanasius says, ©fo? ati wi' ast tov v'tov Ttatr;^ eati. But the aucieuts ofteu speak of a generation of the Son which took place at a particular time, immediately before the creation of the world. By this they mean, not the beginning of his existence, but the display of his powers in the production of external objects. In reference to this, Athanasius explains the expression which Paul applies to the Son, rtgufotoxos rtanr^ xn-rfw;, begotten before all creation ; not that he then began to be, for lie had existed as a distinct person from all eternity, but he had remained with the Father without exerting his powers upon external objects, and at the creation came forth from the Father. This, therefore, was properly named «;?ofXfuatj— rt^o(?o7.»7, ^ro/«/^o, the projection of his energies ; and the ancient writers who gave it the name of genera- tion, never conceived that this coming forth to act was the beginning of the Son's existence. But the Arians, laying hold of this improper expression, and sheltering their opinion concerning the creation of the Son under what the ancients had said of his figurative generation, declared it to be an article of their faith, that the Son did not exist before he was begotten. The declaration appears to carry intrinsic evidence of its own truth. Yet the council of Nice condemned those who say of the Son rt^u' yswriOrjiui oi'z>;i';a part of the anathematizing clause, of which we could not make sense, if we did not know that the ancient writers, who say that the Son was begotten when he came forth to create, understood by this expression merely a figura- tive generation, not the beginning of his existence but the exertion of his powers, and that tliey believed that before this rt^ofXtv^t^, u xoyoj, as John speaks, ■yjv n^oi rov ®sov. There is yet a third generation of which the ancients s]-)eak, when 34* 2E 378 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. " the Word was made flesh." This generation is part of (hat oixovoiua which the Scriptures reveal, and there is much better authority for applying the word generation in this sense than in the former. For the angel suid to Mary, " the Holy Gl)ost shall come upon thee, — therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."* It is plain Irom wliat has been said, that neither the rt^o(%tvnci of the Son, nor his incarnation, has any connexion with the manner of his being. They were only what the ancients called avyxaraGaoni, acts of condescension in a person who had a complete existunce. lint in this view they serve to illustrate the first principle of Avhich we are now speaking. For, by being acts of condescension, they imply that subordination in the Son which results from the Father's being the founr'alion of deity. There cannot be degrees of perfection in the godhead, a greater and a less divinity ; and, if the Son be i^oovwoj f(at^h he must possess all the essential perfections of deity. But he is, in this respect, less than the Father, that he hath received them from him. Ha is avtoesoi, a word of frequent use among the ancient writers of the Trinity, if the word be understood to mean ipse Dens, very God, but he is not aDTo^foj if the word be understood to mean Deus a se ipso ; for, in this sense, the Father alone is avtoOiOi, while the Son is ^5oj fx ^«ow. When Jesus therefore, says, "= my Father is greater than I," although, upon the principles of the third system, he cannot mean an^ difference of nature, he may mean that pre-eminence of the Father which is necessarily implied in his being ay twr^roi; a pre- eminence which does not appear to us to admit of any act of condes- cension ni the Father, of his receiving a commission, or being appointed to hold an office ; whereas there is a manifest congrnity in the Son, who derived his nature from the Father, being emj)loyed to exert the perfjctions of the godhead in the accomplishment of a particular purpose. Hence, as our Lord speaks of the Father's giving him a commission, of his being sent by God, of his coming to do the will of God, so those ancient writers who represent the Son as equal to the Fatlier, speak of him at the same time as a.yyi-kou inr.^strji ©sou; and the fitness of that oixovoixm, which he undertook for the salvation of mankind, results from the essential subordination of the Son to the Father. In like manner, the Spirit who " proceedeth from the Father" is, upon that account, subordinate to the Father. Hence, in numberless places of Scripture, he is both called the Spirit of God, and is said to be sent by the Father. But the Scriptures intimate also a subordina- tion of the Spa-it to the Son, for he is called the Spirit of Christ. Jesus says, in the discourse formerly quoted from John's Gospel, " I will send him — He shall glorify me ; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you."" It is not indeed any where said in Scripture, that the Spirit proceedeth from the Son, and, for this reason, the council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, when they condemned the errors of Macedonins, introduced amongst the exalted titles which they applied to the Spirit, this designation, taken literally from Scripture, fo ex tov rtar^oj sxTto^ivojxsvov. In the fifteenth century it became a con- * Luke i. 35. | John xv. 26 ; xvi. 14. DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. 379 troversy whether the Spirit, not in respect of occasional mission, for none could deny what the Scriptures say that the Spirit is sent by the Son, but, in respect of his nature, proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father. Most of the Greeli Fathers, while they acknow- ledged the personality and divinity of the Spirit, would not adopt an expression concerning him, which appeared to them improper, because it is unscriptural, and preserved the language of the council of Con- stantinople, fo Tii'ivixa i sx rot) riaepi ixrto^svetai,. But the Latiu fathers argued in this manner. Since the Spirit, who is called in Scripture the Spirit of God, is called also tlie Spirit of his Son ; and since the Spirit, who is sent by the Father, is also said to be sent by the Son, it follows that there is the same subordination of the Spirit to the Son as to the Father. But the subordination of the Spirit to the Father is grounded upon his proceeding from the Father, and his being subordinate to the Son must have the same foundation, /. e. as the divine nature was communicated by the Father to the Son, so it was communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. Upon the strength of this reasoning, the Latin fathers made an addition to the creeii of Constantinople, and instead of simply trans- lating tlie clause used in that creed, ^^ qui a Patre procedit,^^ they said, ^'■qui a Patre Jilioque procedit.^' The Greek cliurches, who did not admit the truth of that which was added, were enraged at the presumption of the Latin churches in making an addition, upon account of their peculiar tenets, to a creed which had been composed by a general council, and had been declared to be unchangeable ; and a contention for authority thus mingling itself, as has often happened in the church of Christ, with a difference of opinion, the word '■'■JiUoque'^ came to be an ostensible ground of that schism between the Greek and Latin churches, which began in the eighth century, and continues till this day. Tlie reformed churches, without vindicat- ing the Latin church, or asserting its right to make the addition, acquiesce in the reasoning upon which its opinion was founded, and say with it that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son. I have now stated the full amount of the first principle, by which I said, those who hold the third or Catholic system of the Trinity, endeavour to maintain the unity of God. They do not believe in three unoriginated beings, co-ordinate and independent. But they believe in three persons, from the first of whom the second and third did, from all eternity, derive the nature and perfections of the god- nead ; and, upon this communication of the substance of the Father to the Son, and the substance of the Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost, they ground that gradual subordination, which, with an entire sameness of nature, constitutes the most perfect consent and co-opera- tion of the three persons. But after we have admitted all that is implied in this first principle, the third system of the Trinity appears to fall very short of those conceptions of the unity of God wliich reason and Scripture teach us to form. We must therefore take into view the second principle. 2. It may be thus expressed; the three persons are inseparably joined together. So necessary and indissoluble is this connexion, hat as the Father never existed without the Son and the Spirit, so 380 DOCTBINE OF THE TRINITV. the Son and the Spirit were not separated from hitn, by being produced out of his substance. Every idea of section, and division, and inter- val, which is suggested to us by material objects and by individuals of the same species, is to be laid aside when we raise our conceptions to that distinction of persons under which the Deity is revealed to us ill the Scripture. We are to attempt to conceive that this distinction does not dissolve the continuity of nature — that wiiile every one of the three persons has his distinct subsistence, they are never ^iif^f^^-nfiivct, There were two phrases v/hich the ancient Catholics employed to mark this idea. In order to show that they did not consider the Son as sent forth from the Father, as our children are sent forth to have an existence separated from their parents, they called his generation an interior, not an external production, meaning that he remained in the Father, from whom he was produced ; and, in order to mark the in- dissoluble connexion of all the three persons, they used the word ft^(-XM^/;^t,i or fjUrtf^i;t"C'?'^''5' circiim-incessio, which is thus defined, " that union by which one being exists in another, not only by a participa- tion of nature, but by the most intimate presence with it, so that, although the two beings are distinct, they dwell in and penetrate one another," They considered both these phrases as warranted by such expressions in Scripture as the following, John x. 38, " That ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him ;" and, John xiv. 10, " The Father that dwelleth in me, he doth the works." And they considered this indwelling of the persons in one another as com- pleting the unity of God. If, upon this subject, they sometimes speak unintelligibly, and at other times approach to the language of Sabellianism, the apology is to be found in their own confession, that the manner of the divine existence is above the comprehension of man, and in their anxiety to reconcile a fundamental truth of natural religion with the discoveries of revelation. I cannot better illustrate the third or Catholic system which I have now delineated, tiian by giving an account of what is called the Platonic Trinity. I do not mean the Trinity held by Plato himself; for, although it has been said that this philosopher anticipated the revelation of three persons in the godhead, and that his philosophy prepared the world for receiving this incomprehensible truth, yet the passages relating to this subject, which I either found in his works, when I read them, or which I have, since that time, seen extracted from him, are so few in number, so short, and so obscure, that it seems to me impossible for any person, who had not much previous know- ledge of the subject, to draw that conclusion from them, which they have sometimes been brought to establish. It has been said indeed that the Trinity of persons in the Deity was a secret doctrine of Plato, which, although couched in his writings under dark words, was plainly taught to those disciples who were able to receive it, I know not upon what evidence this is said ; but supposing it to be true, it must be allowed that this secret doctrine was not published to the world till the second or third century of the Christian era, when the Platonic school, following out the sublime views of the divine nature given by their master, which in some points corresponded with the Christian revela DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 381 tion, and themselves enlightened by acquaintance with the gospel, which they could not fail to acquire while it was spreading over the Roman empire, and was embraced by many Platonists, brought for- ward in the language of Plato a scheme very nuicii resembling what I called the third system of the Trinity. The following is a short view of this scheme, in the words of Bishop Horsley, who writes like one deeply read in ancient philoso- phy, and whose acknowledged eminence as a mau of science procures credit for his account of the opinions of other men. Dr. Priestley having asserted in one of his publicatit)ns, tliat it was never imagined that the three component members of the Platonic Trinity were either equal to each other, or were, strictly speaking, one, his zealous and able antagonist ascribes this assertion to an ignorance of the true prin- ciples of Platonism, and opposes to it the following account of these principles, which I gather from different parts of his 13th letter to Dr. Priestley. The three principles in the Deity are to ayaQov, goodness, vovi, intelligence, ^vxri, vitality. These three, strictly speaking, are more one, than anything in nature of which unity may be predicted. No one of them can be supposed without the other two. The second and tiiird being, the first is necessarily supposed ; and the first being, the second and third must come forth. All the three were included by the Platonists in the divine nature, the to jrsto*'; a notion implying the same equality which the Christian Fathers maintained. To the first principle they ascribed an activity of a very peculiar kind — such as nnght be consistent with an undisturbed immutability. He acts Mfi/cdi/ fv lauroi) 5^9? [, by a simple indivisible unvaried energy; wliich, as it cannot be broken into a multitude of distinct acts, cannot be adapted to the variety of external things; on which, therefore, the first God acts not, either to create or to preserve them, otherwise than through the two subordinate principles. But eternal activity was supposed to be the consequence of the goodness of the Deity; and from this eternal activity flowed, by necessary consequence, the existence of intellect, and the vital principle, in which alone the divine nature is active upon external things. Accor ing to this system too the world was supposed to be eternal, because it was conceived that the goodness of the Deity could not suffer that to be delayed which, because he hath done it, appears fit to be done. But the world was supposed to be eternal, not by its own nature, but by the choice of a free agent who might have willed the contrary ; whereas intellect and the vital principle have been eternal by necessity, as branches of the divinity; and therefore, when the converted Platonists, upon the authority of revelation, discarded the notion of the world's eternity, they did not find themselves obliged to dis(;ard with it the eternity of thcfouj, which they considered as equivalent to the Christian ?Loyoj, because that was an eternity of quite another kind. Such is the view of the Platonic Trinity given by Dr. Horsley ; and in perfect conformity to this is the confession of his faith in the Chris- tian Trinity, which his 13th and 15th letters to Dr. Priestley contain, and which form the most useful recapitulation that I can give of what has been said upon the Catholic system. " I hold," says Dr. Hors- ley, " that the Father's faculties are not exerted on external things, otherwise than through the Son and the Holy Ghost ; that the Scrip- 382 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITT. tures, by discovering a trinity, teach clearly that the metaphysical unity of the divine nature is not an unity of persons, but that they do not teach such a separation and independence of these persons as amounts to tritheism. I maintain that the three persons are one being — one by mutual relation, indissolute connexion, and gradual sub« ordination ; so strictly one, that any individual thing in the whole world of matter and of spirit presents but a faint shadow of their unity. I maintain that each person by himself is God, because each possesses fully every attribute of the divine nature. But I maintain that these three Persons are all included in the very idea of God. I maintain the equality of the three Persons in all the attributes of the divine nature, and their equality in rank and authority with respect to all created things, whatever relations or differences may subsist between themselves. Differences there must be, lest we confound the persons, which was the error of Sabellius. But the differences can only consist in the personal properties, lest we divide the substance, and make a plurality of independent gods." Section IV. The third or Catholic system of the Trinity is the declared faith of both the established churches of Great Britain. The first of the thirty- nine articles of the church of England contains this clause : " And in the unity of this Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." And the creed called the Creed of Athanasius, because it delivers with great fulness of expression that doctrine of Avhich he was the distin- guished champion, is appointed to be read upon certain days, as the most explicit declaration that the Church of England is equally re- moved from the Sabellian and the Arian systems. The words in the second chapter of our Confession of Faith are nearly the same with those of the first article of the Church of England. " In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding ; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father ; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son." And this doctrine is accounted by our church so essential, that it is introduced into the catechism which they recommend for the instruction of young persons in the principles of tlie Christian religion. In Scotland there were few publications during the course of the last century that particularly respected the doctrine of the Trinity ; and in most parts of the country the minds of the great body of the people, from the force of early instruction, acquiesce, perhaps without much speculation or inquiry, in the Catholic system. But in England many writers, since the beginning of the last century, have drawn a large share of the public attention, and have produced a considerable degree of agitation in the minds of Christians, by the theories wiiich they have offered, in order to reconcile the trinity of persons with the unity of the Godhead. A particular account of these theories would DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, 383 lead into a very perplexed and tedious detail, and is in reality of no use, because all of them approach to one or other of the three systems that have been mentioned. By assuming a new name they may seem to keep clear of the objections that have been urged n gainst their parent system ; but when they are narrowly canvassed, th'^y are always found to be resolvable into the same principles, and they must be tried upon the same grounds. Altliough for these reasons I shall not recite the names of all who have held some particular opinion about the Trinity, or attempt to discriminate their tenets, there is one exception which I cannot avoid making. Dr. Samuel Clarke is so deservedly held in high estimation for his abilities as a general scholar, and for the excellence and use- fulness both of his sermons and of his discourses on the evidence of natural and revealed religion : his theory of the Trinity is a work executed with such labour and skill, and the controversy to which it gave occasion was carried on with such eagerness at the time, and is still referred to in so many theological treatises, that there would be an essential defect in this view of opinions concerning the Trinity, if no particular notice were taken of his system. Dr. Clarke has entitled his book. The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity. The first part is a collection and explication of all the texts in the New Testament relating to the doctrine of the Trinity. The collection is a complete and a fair one ; his explication of some of the texts does not agree with the interpretation most generally re- ceived ; but he defends his criticisms like a scholar and an acute rea- soner ; and upon this collection of texts and his explication of them, is founded the second part, in which what he accounts the true doc- trine of the Trinity is set forth at large in fifty-five distinct propositions. He accompanies these propositions with references to the particular texts which support them, and often both with illustrations of his own, and with citations from ancient and modern writers ; his object being to show that the doctrine which he professes to ground upon the Scriptures is also agreeable to the sentiments of the succession of ecclesiastical writers. It has been said that there is not the same fair- ness in his citations, as in the collection of texts. He not only omits those passages which are unfavourable to his own opinion, but he often leaves out parts of the sentences which he quotes, and he gives them in so detached a form, that they sometimes appear to spjak a meaning perfectly different from that which a reader, who has an op- portunity of comparing them with the context, perceives to be the sense of the author. His book, therefore, is by no means a safe guide to those who wish to be instructed in the sentiments of the ancient church with regard to the Trinity. But to those who have derived that knowledge from other less exceptionable authority, or who read his book merely from a desire to know what Dr. Ckirke him^ielf thought, it presents the following consistent and intelligible sc'ieme, which I give as the amount of the fifty-five propositions that consti- tute the second part of his book. There is one living intelligent agent, or person, who alone is self- existent, the author of all being and the origin of all pov/cr, who is supreme over all. With this first Supreme Cause and Father of all, there has existed from the beginning a second divine person, who is 384 DOCTRINE OF THE 1 BINITY. his Word or Son, and a third divine person, who is his Spirit ; and these three are distinguished in Scripture by their personal characters. When the Scriptures mention the one God, the only God, or God by way of eminence, tiiey always mean the Person of the Father. The Son derived his being and all his attributes from the Father, and therefore he is not the self-existent substance. But as the Scriptures have not declared the metaphysical manner of this derivation, they are worthy of censure who affirm that the Son was made out of no- thing ; and, as the Scriptures never make any limitation of time in declaring the Son's derivation from the Father, they are also worthy of censure who say that there was a time when the Son was not. The Son derived his being from the Father, not by mere necessity of nature, but by an act of the Father's incomprehensible power and will. In like manner, the Spirit, without any limitation of time, de- rived his being from the Father. The Son is sometimes called God, not on account of his metaphysical nature, how divine soever, but on account of his relative attributes and divine authority communicated to him from the Father over us. To the Son are ascribed all com- municable divine powers, i. e. all powers which include not the inde- pendence and supreme authority by which the God and Father of all is distinguished ; for, in this the Son is evidently subordinate to the Father, that he derived his being, attributes, and power from the Father. Every action of the Son is only the exercise of the Father's power communicated to him, and the reason why the Scriptures, although they style the Father God, and also style the Son God, yet at the same time always declare there is but one God, is, because there being in the monarchy of the universe but one authority, origi- nal in the Father, derivative in the Son, therefore the one God, abso- lutely speaking, always signifies him in whom the power and authority is original and underived. In like manner, the Holy Spirit, whatever his metaphysical nature be, and whatever divine power or dignity be ascribed to him, is evidently subordinate to the Father ; and, in Scrip- ture, he is also represented as subordinate to the Son, both by nature and by the will of the Father. And thus all authority and power is original in the Father, and from him derived to the Son, and exer- cised according to the will of the Father, by the operation of the Son, and by the influences of the Spirit. This system was regarded at its first appearance as heretical. A prosecution was commenced against the author by the lower house of Convocation in England ; and he was attacked by many divines, at the head of whom is Dr. Waterland. After reading a great part of what has been written by Dr. Clarke and his antagonists, it appears to me that the difference between them may be stated within a nar- row compass. Dr. Clarke avoids the most oftensive expressions used by the Arians. Instead of calling Christ a creature, or limiting the beginning of his existence, he says " that the Son was eternally be- gotten by the will of the Father." But the word eternally in this sentence means nothing more than that the Son was begotten before all ages, before those measures of time which the succession of created objects furnishes, in the incomprehensible duration of the Father's eternity : and the phrase " by the will of the Father," implies that the Father might not have produced the Son, or that he might have DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 385 prodaced him at any other time as well as at the time when he did; so that however great the powers are which the Father hath been pleased to communicate to the Son, he is not essentially God, but there are, in the manner of liis existence, a mutability and a depen- dence inconsistent with our ideas of the Divine Nature. The opinion of Dr. Clarke, therefore, is in reality that of Semi-Arians, who were called Homoiousians, because they exalted Christ above tlie rank of creatures, and held that, not by necessity of nature, but by special privilege, he was like to God. On the other hand, according to the third system, eternity in its proper sense, and necessary existence, are ascribed to the Son. All the attributes of the Godhead are conceived to belong to him by nature, and it is not supposed possible that he could be other than that which he is. Dr. Clarke and his opponents agree that the Son is not self-existent ; for both account the Father the fountain of deity. ]3ut Dr. Clarke thhiks, that, shice the Son is not self-existent, he does not exist necessarily, while his opponents affirm, that, with the consent of the Father, and according to his will yet by necessity of nature, tlie Son derived his being from the Father. Dr. Clarke and his opponents agree that the Son is subordinate to the Father : but the subordination of Dr. Clarke implies an essential infe- riority of nature, while his opponents do not admit of any difference in point of duration or dignity, and understand the word subordina- tion as respecting merely order. Dr. Clarke and his opponents agree that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are three distinct persons, to every one of whom the name God is applied : but Dr. Clarke considers that name as belonging in its highest sense to the Father, and only in an inferior sense to the other two, and thus main- tains the unity of the Godhead upon the same principle with the Arian system, while his opponents, making no distinction between the word of God when applied in Scripture to the Father, and the same word when applied in Scripture to the Son, and inferring, from the language of Scripture, that it may also be applied to the Spirit, have recourse to the principles which were stated under the third system, for maintaining the unity of three persons, each of whom is truly God. In stating this unity, the opponents of Dr. Clarke adhered to the word which had been used by the council of Nice, saying that the three persons were oftoouotot, con-substantial, which is rendered, both in the English Articles, and in our Confession of Faith, " of one sub- stance." It did not escape the acuteness of Dr. Clarke, that the phrase is ambiguous. " One substance" may mean one numerical substance, i. e. a substance which is one in niunber, individual ; or one generical substance, i. e. the same in kind, that which belong; to all of one kind, as Aristotle said all the stars are u.uoavcnu,. On account of this ambiguity Dr. Clarke required his opponents to declare in what sense they understood the word ; and by a succession of writers, who followed his steps, and wished to expose the third system as untenable, the following dilemma is often stated. " If you mean, by con-sub- stantial, that the three persons are of the same individual substance, you destroy their personality ; for three persons, of whom each has not his own distinct substance, but who are in one substance, are only dif- ferent modifications or manners of being, so that your Trinity becomes nominal and ideal, and in your zeal for the unity of the godhead, you 35 3F 386 DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. recur to Sabellianism. If, on the other hand, you mean by con-sub- stantial, that the three persons are of the same generical substance, then you destroy their unity ; for three persons, having the same sub- stance in kind, have each of them his own substance, and are, in reahty, three beings." This dilemma, like many others which appear to be inextricable, is merely captious. For the ancients, who seem to have understood ofioovaioi, as marking a generical identity of substance, declare that they consider the three persons as not separated from one another like three individuals of the same species, but as united in a manner more per- fect than we are able to conceive ; and the moderns, many of whom seem to imderstand con-substantial as marking a numerical identity of substance, declare that they consider each of the three persons as having a distinct subsistence, and the divine substance as in this respect essentially distinguished from every thing material, that with- out diminution or division it extends to three persons. The difficulty, therefore, arising from the ambiguity of the word con-substantial, with which those who hold the Catholic system have been so often pressed, is only a proof that it is a vain attempt to apply the terms of human science to the manner of the divine existence, and that the multiplication of words upon this subject does not in any degree increase the stock of our ideas. We are thus brought back, after reviewing a multiplicity of opinions, to the few simple positions which constitute the whole amount of the knowledge that Scripture has given us concerning the Trinity, and which may be thus briefly stated. The Scriptures, while they declare the fundamental truth of natural religion, that God is one, reveal two persons, each of whom, with the Father, we are led to consider as God, and ascribe to all the three distinct p«rsonal pro- perties. It is impossible that the three can be one in the same sense in which they are three : and therefore it follows, by necessary infer- ence, that the unity of God is not an unity of persons ; but it does not follow that it may not be an unity of a more intimate kind than any which we behold. An unity of consent and will neither corresponds to the conclusions of reason, nor is by any means adequate to a great part of the language of Scripture, for both concur in leading us to suppose an unity of nature. Whether the substance common, to the three persons be specifically or numerically the same, is a question, the discussion of which cannot advance our knowledge, because neither of the terms is applicable to the subject ; and, after all our researches and reading, we shall find ourselves just where we began, incapable of perceiving the manner in which the three persons partake of the same divine nature. But we are very shallow philosophers indeed, if we consider this as any reason for believing that they do not partake of it ; for we are by much too ignorant of the manner of the divine existence to be warranted to say that the distinction of persons is an infringement of the Divine unity. " It is strange bold- ness in men," says Bishop Stillingfleet, (iii. 352,) " to talk of contra- dictions in things above their reach. Hath not God revealed to us that he created all things ; and is it not reasonable for us to believe this, unless we are able to comprehend the manner of doing it ? Hath not God plainly revealed that there shall be a resiurection of the DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 387 dead ? And must we think it unreasonable to believe it, till we are able to comprehend all the changes of the particles of matter from the creation to the general resurrection ? If nothing is to be believed but what may be comprehended, the very being of God must be rejected, and all his unsearchable perfections. If we believe the attributes of God to be infinite, how can we comprehend them ? We are strangely puzzled in plain, ordinary, finite things ; but it is madness to pretend to comprehend what is infinite ; and yet, if the perfections of God be not infinite, they cannot belong to him. Let those who presume to say that there is a contradiction in the Trinity, try their imaginations about God's eternity, not merely how he should be from himself, but how God should co-exist with all the difiierences of times, and yet there be no succession in his own being ; and they will perhaps con- cur with me in thinking that there is no greater difficulty in the con- ception of the Trinity than there is of eternity. For three to be one is a contradiction in numbers ; but whether an infinite nature can communicate itself to three different substances, without such a division as is among created beings, must not be determined by bare numbers, but by the absolute perfections of the divine nature : which must be owned to be above our comprehension." Since then the Scriptures teach that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, and since the unity of three persons who partake of the same divine nature must of necessity be an unity of the most perfect kind, we may rest assured that the more we can abstract from every idea of inequality, division, and separation, provided we pre- serve the distinction of persons, our conceptions approach the nearer to the truth. But since the manner of the Divine existence is con- fessedly above our comprehension, and since no words or images that we can employ are found to correspond to the unity of these three persons, there are two inferences or advices that present themselves upon this subject, which I shall just mention in taking leave of it. The first inference is, that men of speculation ought to exercise mutual forbearance if they differ from one another in their attempts to explain that which all acknowledge to be inexplicable. It is vain to think of confining the human mind to those researches in which she may easily attain some certain conclusion. She loves to soar and to roam, and she gathers much wisdom from her own most adventiu*- ous flights ; but this lesson surely should not be one of the last, that those who presume to expatiate in the sublime regions where the light of human science becomes dim and uncertain, need not be sur- prised to meet with many wanderers. Every sober inquirer who finds that, after all his investigations, the union of the three persons in the Godhead remains to him involved in impenetrable darkness, will judge with candour of the attempts made by other men to obtain a solution of the difficulties which presented themselves to their minds ; and he will not readily suppose that they doubt of the fact, although they may differ from him in the manner of explaining the fact. The second inference or advice is, that as you cannot expect to give the body of the people clear ideas of the manner in which the three persons are united, it may be better in discoursing to them, to avoid any particular discussion of this subject ; and to follow here, as in. every other instance, the pattern of teaching set in the New Testa- 988 DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. ment. Our Lord and his Apostles do not propose any metaphysica, explication of the unity of the Divine nature. But they assume it, and declare it as a fundamental truth ; and they never insinuate that it is in the smallest degree infringed by the revelation which they give of the three persons. After this example, I advise you never lo per- plex the minds of the people with different theories of the Trinity, and never to suggest that the unity of the Divine nature is a question- able point ; but without professing to explain how the three persons are united, to place before your hearers, as you have occasion, the Scripture account of the Son and the Holy Ghost, as well as of the Father, and thus to preserve upon their minds what the Scriptures have revealed, and what upon that account it is certainly of impor- tance for them to learn, the dignity of the second and third persons, their relation to us, and their power to execute the gracious offices necessary for our salvation. These essential points of Christian in- struction, which it is the duty of the ministers of the gospel to impress upon the people, are revealed in the Scriptures in such a manner as to be in no danger of leading into the Sabellian, the Arian, or the Tritheistic scheme of the Trinity ; and, therefore, if we adhere, as we ought always to do, to the pure revelation of Scripture in our account of the three persons, we have no occasion to expose to the people the defects of these schemes ; and we may reserve to ourselves all the speculations about the manner in which the three persons are united. I conclude this specimen of the variety of opinions, and of the kind of language which you may expect to find in ancient and modern writers upon the Trinity, with mentioning the books from which I have derived most assistance. The best writer in defence of the Catholic system of the Trinity is Bishop Bull. His works are published in a large folio volume, more than half of which is filled with the three following treatises : Defensio fidei Nicenae — Judicium Ecclesise Catholicae — Primitiva et Apostolica Traditio. All the three respect the Trinity, and are often quoted by succeeding writers, who borrow the greatest part of their matter from this very learned and able divine. His principal work is, Defensio fidei Nicenae, which consists of four parts. 1 . The rt^ wrto^lt?, pre-exist- encc of the Son — 2. todfiodvmov, consubstantiality of the Son — 3. to (!viui8i.ov, his eternal co-existence with the Father. 4. His subordination to the Father. Bishop Pearson, in his Exposition of the Creed, gives the same view of the Trinity with Bishop Bull ; which is the true Athanasian scheme ; and he states it as he states every other point in theology of which he treats, with clearness, with sound judgment, and with much learning. Dr. Cudworth, in that magazine of learning, which he calls the Intellectual System, gives a full view of the Chris- tian and the Platonic Trinity. If you consult, when you read him, the ingenious and learned notes which Mosheim has added to his Latin edition of Cudworth, you will be preserved from some errors, and your views of the subjects treated will be much enlightened and improved. When you come down to the last century, Dr, Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity is the first book which will engage your attention. As a collection of texts upon the subject it is most useful ; as a view of the opinions of the ancient church it is to be read, for the reasons which I mentioned, with suspicion ; and as the argu- DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. 389 merit of a very able and acute man, upon a subject which seems to have been near his heart, it is proper that you should read at the same time wliat was said by his opponents. There are two books by Dr. Waterland. The one, Sermons in Defence of the Divinity of Jesus Ciirist; the other, A Vindication of Clirist's Divinity. And there is an excellent book, not so controversial as Dr. Waterland's, which should be read by every student of divinity. A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, by Dr. Thomas Randolph. Dr. Ran- dolph opposes the principles of Dr. Clarke. Rut he writes directly in answer to a small book entitled. An Essay on Spirit, which presents a modification of the vVrian System. You will read with pleasure a rational intelligible history of Arianism, which Dr. Jortin, who is very far from having any prejudice in favour of the Catholic system, gives in the third volume of his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. I referred formerly to Ben Mordecai's Apology by Taylor. You will find many able attacks upon all the parts of the Catholic system, in the works of Mr. Thomas Emlyn. — Mosheim, in his valuable work, De Rebus Christianorum ante Cljristianum Magnum, gives the most complete information as to Sabellianism, and the other early systems of the Trinity; and his Church History joins to a short account of all the variety of opinions upon this subject, references to the authors who have treated of them more largely. Mr. Gibbon has introduced into his second volume a history of the Arian controversy, in which he professes to delineate the three systems of the Trinity. But there is the same inveterate prejudice against religion, and the same con- stant endeavour to turn into ridicule every branch of that subject, which disgrace so large a portion of the writings of this illustrious historian. Some of the books which I have mentioned will prepare you for reading this part of Gibbon, by enabling you to discern where his account is lame, or unfair. Lardner, Priestley, Lindsey, and the other Socinians of later times, incline to the Sabellian system, and employ every art to represent the other two as contrary to Scripture, to reason, and to the opinions of the primitive church. They have been attacked by many modern writers. But you will need no other antidote to their heresy than the volume of tracts by Bishop Horsley, a formidable antagonist, whose superiority in argu- ment and in learning gives him some title to use that tone of disdain which pervades the volume. It consists of a charge to the clergy of his Archdeaconry, exposing the errors in one of Dr. Priestley's publica- tions ; of letters to Dr. Priestley, occasioned by his reply to the charge ; of a sermon on the incarnation, and of supplemental disquisitions. Of other writers who have published particular schemes of the Trinity, I am almost entirely ignorant. From the short accounts of their works which have come in my way, I found that their schemes are only certain modifications of the first or the third systems, by which ingenious men have attempted to satisfy their own minds, or to remove the objections which others had made ; and knowing well that, after all om* researches, difficulties must remain, and that these difficulties furnish no argument against the truth, I thought that my time might be employed more profitably than by labouring to fix in my mind their nice discriminations, which it might be difficult to apprehend and impossible to retain. 35* BOOK IV. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE, THE EXTENT, AND THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY BROUGHT BY THE GOSPEL. Having given a view of the different opinions which have been held concerning the two persons, who are revealed in the gospel, I come now to treat of the remedy which was brought by the one of these persons, and is applied by the other. It appears to me that the best method in which I can state the most important questions in theology upon this great division of the subject, is by leading you to attend to the opinions which have been held concerning the Nature — the Extent — and the Application of the remedy. By considering these three points in succession, we shall exhaust the remaining part of the Socinian, together with the Pelagian and Arminian controver- sies, and shall thus obtain, without more repetition than is unavoida- ble upon subjects so closely allied, a complete and connected view of the capital branches of controversial divinity. CHAPTER L DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED. The gospel proceeds upon the supposition that all have sinned. It assumes the character of the religion of sinners, and professes to bring a rem dy for the moral evil which exists in the world. Our attention is thus called back from the remedy to the disease ; for we cannot entertain just apprehensions of the nature of that provision which the gospel has made, unless we understand the circumstances which called for that provision ; and we may expect that those, who have formed different systems with regard to the nature of the remedy, are not of tiie same opinion with regard to the disease. In one point 391 392 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE however, all sects of Christians agree, that there is much sin in the world. The Sociuian do(;s not liesitate to say with the Calvinist, that all have sinned ; and those fanatics who conceived that ihey them- selves liad attained the perfection of virtue, were led, by this self- conceit, to magnify the wickedness of the rest of mankind. That men are sinners, is a point concerning which those who respect the authority of Scripture cannot entertain any doubt; for it is uniformly taught there, from the period preceding the flood, when, as we read, " God saw that the wickedness of man was great."* At the appearance of Christianity, the angel gave to the son of Mary the name of Jesus, " for he shall save his people from their sins."t Jesus himself said, " they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ;"J and Paul, the apostle of Jesus, in his Epistle to the Romans, builds his whole doctrine upon the position which he proves in the commencement, " that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, and that the whole world is guilty before God."§ But this position does not rest entirely upon the authority of Scripture. It is abundantly established by the experience of all ages ; and they who never received the revelation of the gospel, agree with Christians in acknowledging the fact upon which that revelation proceeds. The violence of human, passions, the inefficacy of all the attempts which have been made since the beginning of legislation to restrain them, the secret wicked- ness which abounds, the horrors of remorse which rack the minds of some, the self-reproach of which those who are less guilty cannot divest themselves, and the dissatisfaction with their own attainments, which the most virtuous feel — these circumstances conspire in afford- ing the clearest evidence, that men do not act up to the dictates of right reason, but that the conduct of all falls short, in one degree or other, of that standard which they perceive it to be both their duty and their interest to follow. Men will differ in their opinion of the grossness and the extent cf the corruption of manners, according to the opportunities which they have had of observing it — according to the degree of severity in their natural disposition — according to the sentiments and principles which they had imbibed during their educa- tion, or which the reflections and habits of advanced life isave formed ; but no difference in character or situation can render men wholly insensible to this corruption. Even those, who plead upon system for an indulgence to their own defects, meet with numberless instances where they cannot allow others to plead the same indulgence. The vices of one rank are regarded with contempt or with indignation by another ; and the easy accommodating moralist, who resolves the vices of the age into the progress of society, looks back with horror upon the enormities of former times. It is true that the forms of wickedness vary according to the state of society; it is also true that some forms are marked with deeper depravity than others ; and it will not be denied by any scholar, that a concurrence of favourable circumstances has at some periods gone far to mitigate the atrocity of crimes, and to invigorate the exertions of virtue. But it is in the writings of the poets,not of the historians of antiquity, that a golden • Gen.vi. 5. f Mat. i. 21. t Mat. ix. 12. ^ Rom. iii. 9. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 393 age IS to be found. The authentic records of the civil and political transactions of man, from the earliest times, are full of the effects of his wickedness ; no date is fixed in these records for the first introduction of sin into the world ; and all our information with regard to this most important era in chronology is derived from Scripture. Section I. It is well known that in the third chapter of the book of Genesis the first act of disobedience is related, and that the history of this act is connected with a command and a threatening, which had been mentioned in the second chapter. This interesting history demands our particular attention, when we are beginning to speak of that state of moral evil for which the gospel brings a remedy ; and in order to prepare you for the information which it conveys, it may be proper to mention two extremes, which are to be avoided in the interpreta- tion of this chapter. 1. Several parts of the history cannot be understood in a literal sense. Thus it is not to be supposed that the tree, of which man was forbidden to eat, had the power which the name seems to imply, and which the serpent suggests, of making those who ate the fruit of it wise, knowing good and evil ; neither is it to be supposed that the serpent at that time possessed those powers of speech and reason which the narration seems to ascribe to him, or that the plain mean- ing of these words, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," expresses the whole punishment of the tempter. — Several writers, indeed, who are disposed to turn the Scriptures into ridicule, have stated what they call the absurdity or the frivolousness of the literal sense, as a reason for rejecting both the narration and the books in which it is contained. But it has been well answered, that the narration bears upon the face of it the marks of that symbolical style which prevailed amongst all nations in early times from the poverty of language, and which, even after it has ceased to be neces- sary, continues to be used, both because it is ancient and because it is expressive. In this symbolical style, the objects of sense are em- ployed to represent the conceptions of the mind ; actions or things material to represent things spiritual ; and under words which are true when interpreted literally, there is couched some more exalted meaning. To the learned it cannot appear surprising, that the book which claims to be the most ancient should adopt a style which oc- curs in other early productions ; that a transaction, which assumes a date next to that of the creation, and the memory of which had pro- bably been preserved amongst the first men by symbols, should be recorded by the historian of a future age in a language which refer- red to these symbols ; and that circumstances might prevent hirr from attempting to remove the veil which this symbolical language threw over the transaction. If the rules for expounding the symbolical style, which have been investigated by the learned, are applied to the narration in the third 3G 394 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE chapter of Genesis, with the same candor with which they are usually applied to every other subject, the difficulties arising from the literal sense of the words will in a great measure vanish. It will readily be admitted, that although the tree did not possess any power of making those who ate the fruit of it wise, it might be called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because, the prohibition to eat of it being the trial of man's obedience, it was made known to other beings, by means of this tree, whether he was good or evil, and he himself, in eatmg of it, learnt by sad experience the distinction be- tween good and evil; it will be admitted, that if an intelligent spirit chose for a season to conceal himself under the body of a serpent, the actions of this spirit might, during that time, be ascribed to a ser- pent ; and that if Moses had no commission to explain the rank, the character, and the motives of this spirit, because the state of religious knowledge which the world then possessed rendered it inexpeJient for them to receive this commimication, he could in no other way re- cord the transaction but by retaining the name of the animal under whose form the spirit had appeared ; and, if these things be admitted, it will follow that the words of the sentence, " it shall bruise thy head," are the most proper words that could have been used upon the occasion, because, while they apply literally to the animal, they admit easily a higher sense, in which they express the punishment of the spirit. 2. But although it be necessary to look beyond the literal sense of the words, in order to perceive the aptness and the significancy of this history, I must warn you against another extreme. Some, with an excess of refinement, have sought to avoid the inconveniences of the literal sense, by considering the third chapter of Genesis as an allegory, not the history of a real transaction, but a moral painting of the violence of appetite, and the gradual introduction of vice in conjunction with the progress of knowledge and the improvements of society. But, however true it may be, that vice arises from the prevalence of appetite over reason, and that men in a civilized state know vices of which barbarous times are ignorant, yet there are two reasons which seem to render it impossible for those who respect the authority of Scripture, to admit this as the true interpretation of the third chapter of Genesis. 1. This chapter is part of a continued his- tory. It is inserted between the account of the creation of the first pair and the birth of their two sons ; and it explains the reason of their being driven out of that place, which we had been told in the second chapter had been allotted them by their Creator. Now, not only is it inconsistent with the gravity of an historian, but it detracts in a high degree from the authority of his writings, that in the pro- gress of relating facts so important he should introduce a chapter which, with all the appearance of being a continuation of the history, is only an allegorical representation of the change of manners. 2. The references to this third chapter, which are found in the New Tes- tament, are to us unquestionable vouchers of its being a real history. If you look to 2 Cor. xi. 3, you will perceive that the allusion of the apostle implies his conviction of the fact to which he alludes ; and, if you look to 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14, 15, you will find, that what was only implied in the former passage is there expressly asserted. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 395 The transgression of Adam is introduced as a fact of the same autho- rity and notoriety as his creation. The occasion of the transgression, viz. deceit — the order of the transgression, that the woman, not the man, was deceived — and one part of the punishment of the trans- gression, viz. " in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children" — these three important circumstances are mentioned in such a manner by the apostle, that the historical sense of the whole chapter may be consi- dered as having the sanction of his authority. It appears from these remarks that we are sufficiently warranted by the rules of sound criticism, in adopting that interpretation Avhich lies in the middle between the two extremes ; and the middle inter- pretation is this, to consider the third chapter of Genesis as the history of a real transaction which took place soon after the creation ; and as a history related after the symbolical manner common in early times, but exhibiting clearly under this manner the following im- portant facts. Adam and Eve, being tempted by the suggestions of an evil spirit who appeared to them under the form of a serpent, transgressed the conmiandment of iheir Creator. In consequence of this transgression, the ground which God had given them was cursed, sorrow became the portion of their hfe, and they were subjected to death, the sanction which God has annexed to his commandment. Sentence was also pronounced upon the tempter. As he appeared before God in the same shape in which he tempted the woman, the whole of the sentence is applicable to a literal serpent : and the first part of it, Gen. iii. 14, has been generally understood to imply a degradation of the serpent from the figure which he had, and the life which he led before the temptation, to the state in Avhich we see him. But the second part of the sentence. Gen. iii. 15, although applicable to the antipathy with which the human race regards an odious and dangerous animal, admits also of a higher sense ; and whatever it might convey to Adam and Eve, is now understood by us to be sig- nificant of that victory which the seed of the woman, i. e. a person descended from the woman, was at a future period to gain through suffering, over the evil spirit, who had assumed the form of a ser- pent. This middle hiterpretation of the third chapter of Genesis, which the rules of sound criticism warrant, is very much confirmed by its being agreeable to the sense of the Jewish church. Bishop Sherlock, with the ingenuity and ability which distinguish all his writings, has collected the evidence of this point in the third of his discourses upon prophecy, and in a dissertation annexed to them, entitled. The sense of the ancients before Christ upon the circumstances and consequences of the fall. His account of the history of that transaction is so sound and clear, that I shall give a short specimen of the manner in which he attempts to prove, that what I called the middle interpretation, is agreeable to the sense of the Jewish church. We know that the books of the Apocrypha were written before the days of our Saviour ; and in them we find the following expressions, which are clear evidences that the Jews of those days considered the third chapter of Genesis as the history of a real transaction, and at the same time looked beyond the literal sense. Wisd. ii. 23, 24, " For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image oi 396 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it," Eccles. XXV. 24, " Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." Dr. Sherlock traces in the book of Job, which we have reason to believe was written before any of the books of Moses, many delicate allusions to the circumstances mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis, sufficient to show that the transaction there recorded was known to the author of this book. The words of Zophar, Job xx. 4, 5, 6, have a good moral meaning according to any interpretation which you can give them. But if you understand by the hypocrite, as the Chaldee paraphrast has done, the tempter or accuser, ?. e. the spirit who tempted by deceit, and at the same time recollect the views suggested to Eve, and the punishment pronounced upon Adam, you will feel that the significancy and energy of the verses are very much improved. The twenty-sixth chapter of Job is a magnificent description of the works of creation, and it concludes with these words, " By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. If nothing more is meant than the formation of the animal, it appears strange that an exertion of power so much inferior to all the others should be mentioned after them. But if the crooked serpent is employed to mark the spirit who once assumed that form, this expression forms a fit conclusion of the whole description, because it is the most explicit declaration of the sovereignty of God, in opposhion to an opinion which early prevailed, that there is in nature an evil principle independent of the good. Dr. Sherlock further observes, that in different places of Isaiah and Micah, the enemies of God are metaphorically styled Leviathan, the crooked serpent, the dragon ; that the Son of God is represented by the Psalmist as treading upon th« adder, and his enemies as licking the dust ; and that in one of those figurative descriptions of the new heavens and the new earth, i. e. the blessed change introduced by the dispensation of the Gospel, which occur often in Isaiah : the con- cluding words are, " And dust shall be the serpent's meat." Isaiah Ixv. 25. It will not appear to any person of taste that some of these allusions are of little avail in this argument, because they are expressed in few words ; for it is universally allowed that the shortest incidental refer- ence to an historical fact, by a subsequent writer, may be of such a kind as to afford a decisive proof of his knowledge of that fact ; and when we add to these allusions, what Bishop Sherlock's subject did not lead him to mention, the frequent references to this history which are found in the New Testament, it seems to be a matter beyond doubt that he has given a just account of the sense of the ancient Jewish church. Thus Paul says, Rom. v. 12, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Satan is styled in the book of Revelation, xii. 9, " the old serpent which deceiveth the whole world;" and John viii. 44, our Lord calls him a murderer and a liar from the beginning, avee^i^rtoxtovoi art' u^xt]c, xm, -^fsv^rrii, two names which most fitly express his having brought death upon the first pair by deceit. John says, 1 John iii. 8, " The devil sinneth from the begin- ning ; for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might rlestroy the works of the devil ;" and, Rev. xx. 2, xii. 10, he represents REMEDY IS PROVIPED. 397 the coming of the kingdom of God, and the power of his Christ, by "that old serpent the accuser of the brethren being cast down." Christians are represented as partaking in this triumph ; for as Christ, while he was upon earth, gave his disciples power over all the power of the enemy, and made the spirits subject to them, so the apostle, writing to the church of Rome,says, Rom. xvi. 20, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly ;" and the last chap- ter of the book of Revelation describes, with the most marked allusion to the third chapter of Genesis, a time when all the eti'ects of his temptation are to disappear. In Genesis, the ground is cursed, and a llaming sword guards the tree of life, hi the Revelation, they v/ho enter through the gates into the city, which is there described, are said to have a right to the tree of life ; the tree grows in the midst of the street, and on either side of the river ; and the leaves of it are for the healing of the nations ; and, it is added, there shall be no more curse. The effects of the curse are exhausted with regard to all who enter into the city, Thu;^ the beginning and the end of the Bible lend their authority in support of each other. The transaction recorded in the beginning explains the reason of many expressions which occur in the progress of Scripture ; and the description which forms the con- clusion reflects light upon the opening. Whatever opinion we may entertain of the third chapter of Genesis when we read it si)igly, it swells in our conceptions as we advance ; and all its meaning and its importance become manifest, when we recognise the features of this early transaction in that magnificent scene by which the mystery of God shall be finished. Section II. I HAVE judged it necessary to unfold thus fully the principles upon which we interpret the account given in Scripture of the introduction of sin. The event thus interpreted is known by the name of the fall ; a word which does not occur in Scripture, but which has probably been borrowed by Christians from Wisdom x. 1. " She preserved the first formed father of the world, that was created alone, and brought him out of his fall." " His fall" is expressive of that change upon his mind, his body, and his outward circumstances, wliich was the consequence of Adam's transgression. Wishing to begin with the simplest view of the subject, I have not hitherto spoken of this event in any other light than as if it had been merely personal. But I have now to engage in those intricate ques- tions that have been agitated concerning the effects, which the fall of Adam has produced upon his posterity. The opinions with regnrd to this matter may be reduced to four; and the order of stating them is dictated by their nature, for they rise above one another in the follow- ing gradation. 1. The first opinion is that which was published by Pelagius, a Briton, A. D. 410, which was adopted by Socinus in the sixteenth century, and is held by the modern Socinians. It is admitted, even according to this opinion, that Adam, by eating of the tree of the 36 398 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE knowledge of good and evil, transgressed the divine commandment and exposed himself to the displeasure of his Creator. But the con- sequences of this displeasure are not considered as having impaired the powers of his nature, or as extending to his posterity in such a manner as to do them the smallest hurt. He was a fallible mortal crea- ture by the condition of his being, i. e. he was liable to sin from the moment that he was created, and he would have died whether he had sinned or not. He continued, after the action recorded in Genesis, to be such as he was at his creation, and all his posterity are born in similar circumstances. Adam was indeed driven from that paradise which had been assigned as his abode, and by many incon- veniences in his situation, was made to feel the effects of his trans- gression ; but these very inconveniences, while they reminded him that he had transgressed, tended to prevent him from going farther astray ; the labour with which he had to eat his bread was a salutary discipline, and the recollection of his folly became a lesson of wis- dom. The posterity of Adam in like manner are placed in a state of trial ; and as their minds are as enlightened and as virtuous as his was, their situation is not more unfavourable. Death to them, as to him, is a natural event, arising from the structure of the body, and indicated by many symptoms; and the shortness of their abode upon earth joins its influence to the common evils of life, in teaching them to apply their hearts to wisdom. If Adam and Eve, by being the first that sinned, had not any examples of vice to entice them, yet neither did they behold any examples of its punishment : whereas if we are in danger of following the vices of those who went before us, yet we may learn from the history of the world, and from our own observation, to guard against the fatal tendency of the principle of imitation. Tlie amount then of this opinion is that our first parents, who sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, were not distinguished in any essential respect from those who sin in after ages, and that our con- dition is not the worse f(jr their sin ; that as they were to blame for yielding to a temptation which they might have resisted, so all of us, by a proper attention in cultivating our natural powers, may m lin- tain our innocence amidst the temptations with which we are sur- rounded ; and, therefore, that we fall short of that which it is in our power to do, if we do not yield a more perfect obedience to the law of God than Adam yielded. There is a simplicity in this system which appears at first sight to recommend it. It seems to be rational and philosophical to say, that human nature is the same now as when it proceeded from the hands of the Creator, and to resolve the changes oC character which it has exhibited, into the effects of the progress of society. But the fact is, that even the ancicMU philosophers did not consider this as a satisfying account of many circumstances in the present condition of human na- ture, and the account falls so very far short of all the -views which the Script ures give upon this subject, and requires such violence t » he done 10 particular passages, that many, who are deci iedly hostile to the Calvinistic system, finding the Pelagian luitenable, have had re- course to a second opinion. 2. The second opinion may be called the Arminian, as deriving its REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 399 origin from Arminins, a divine of the seventeenth centnry. It holds the middle place between the Socinian and the Calvinistic systems. It is explained with clearness, and defended with much abihty in a Latin treatise by Whitby, the commentator upon the New Testament, entitled, Tractatus de Imputatione Peccati Jidami, from which I take tile account of it that 1 am now to give. According to this opinion, although the first man had a body naturally frail and mortal, his life would have been for ever preserved by the bounty of his Creator, had he continued obedient ; and the instrument employed by God to preserve his mortal body from decay was tiie tree of life. Death was declared to be the penalty of trans- gression ; and, therefore, as soon as he transgressed, he was removed at a distance from the tree of life ; and his posterity inheriting his natural mortality, and not having access to the tree of life, are sub- jected to death. It is therefore said by Paul, " By one man sin entered into tlie world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. In Adam all die. By one man's offence death reigned by one."* Tliese expressions clearly point out death to be the conse- quence of Adam's transgression, an evil brought upon his posterity by his fault ; and this the Arminians understand to be the whole meaning of its being said, " Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ;"t and of Paul's saying, " We have borne the image of the earthly."J It is admitted, however, by those who hold the second opinion, that this change upon the condition of mankind, from a life preserved without end, to mortality, was most unfavourable to their moral character. The fear of death enfeebles and enslaves the mind ; the pursuit of those things which are necessary to support a frail perishing life engrosses and contracts the soul ; and the desires of sensual plea- sure are rendered more eager and ungovernable, by the knowledge that the time of enjoying them soon passes away. Hence arise envy- ing of those who have a larger share of the good things of this life — strife with those v/lio interfere in our enjoyments — impatience under restraint — ^and sorrow and repining when pleasure is abridged. And to this variety of tmbulent passions, the natural fruits of the punish- ment of Adam's transgression, there are also to be added, all the fretfulness and disquietude occasioned by the diseases and pains which are inseparable from the condition of a mortal being. In this way the Arminians explain such expressions as these, " by one man's disobedience many were made sinners;" "all are under sin ;" "be- hold I was shapen in iniquity," § i. e. all men, in consequence of Adam's sin, are born in these circumstances, — under that disposition of events which subjects them to the dominion of passion, and exposes them to so many temptations, that it is impossible for any man to maintain his integrity. And hence, they say, arises the necessity of a Saviour, who, restoring to man the immortality which he had for- feited, mvay be said to have abolished death; who effectually delivers his followers from that bondage of mind, and that corruption of • Rom. V. 12, 17. 1 Cor. xv. 22. f Gen. v. 3. % 1 Cor. XV. 49. § Rom. v. 19; iii. 9. Psal. li. 5. 400 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE character which are connected with the fear of death ; who, by his perfect obedience, obtains pardon for those sins into which tliey have been betrayed by their condition ; and by Iiis Spirit enables tliem to overcome tlie temptations wliich hnman natnre of itself camiot with- stand. According to this opinion, then, the human race has suffered uni- versally in a very high degree by the sin of their first parent. At the same time, the manner of their suffering is analagous to many circum- stances in the ordinary dispensations of Providence ; for we often see children, by the negligence or fault of their parents, placed in situa- tions very unfovourable both to their prosperity and to their improve- ment ; and we can trace the profligacy of tlieir character to the defects of their education, to the example set before them in their youth, and to the multiplied temptations in v\^hich, from a want of due attention on the part of others, they find themselves early entangled. All this is the same in kind with that account of the effects of Adam's trans- gression which the Arminians give ; so that the second opinion is not attended with any difficulties peculiar to the Christian religion ; and did it exhaust the meaning of those passages of Scripture from which our knowledge of that transaction must be derived, Ave should be delivered from some of the most embarrassing questions in theology. But we must not be afraid of following the truth, because it might be easier to stop short before we arrive at it ; and therefore it is neces- sary for me to state, that this second opinion, however plausible, does not appear to give a complete account of all the circumstances, which both Scripture and experience direct us to take into view, when we speak of the effects which the sin of Adam produced upon his pos- terity ; and that the third opinion implies a great deal more. 3. As the third opinion, which forms the foundation of what is called the Calvinistic system, is delivered both in the articles of the church of England, and in the Confession of Faith of the church of Scotland, I shall give the amount of it in the words of the two churches. In the sixth chapter of the Confession of Faith, it is said, "our first parents, by their sin, fell from their original righteousness and com- munion with God, and so became dead in sin ; the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, are conveyed to all their posterity, de- scending from them by ordinary generation; and from this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions." In like manner, it is said in the ninth article of the church of England, " Original sin standeth not in the following or imitation of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk,) but it is the fault or corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is en- gendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil." This opinion is supported in all the Calvinistic systems of divinity by nearly the same arguments. But in stating the grounds of it, I shall take, as my principal guide, Mr. Edwards, formerly president of the college of New Jersey in America, who has written able treatises upon different branches of the Calvinistic system, and whose defence REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 401 of the doctrine of original sin contains the fullest and aciitest answers that I have seen, to the objections commonly urged against ttiat doctrine. The fundamental fact, upon which the third opinion rests, is this, (hat men in all countries and in all varieties of situation are sinners ; by which it is not meant that all men are equally bad, or that every man commits every sin ; but the meaning is, that the whole history of mankind does not afford an instance of a perfect freedom from sin, either in any body of people, or even in any one individual. With- out looking back upon the universal prevalence of idolatry, and the enormities with which it was accompanied in the heathen world, even if wefjrmour opinion of the human race from the appearances which it has exhibited in those lands that have been blessed with revelation, we shall fmd that a great part transgress the laws of God in a high degree, and in various respects ; that all the means employed to pre- vent or to correct wickedness prove incfiectual for their amendment ; and that in the obedience of the best, there are such defects as consti- tute them sinners. But the universal prevalence of sin, in all possible circumstances, and under every measure of advantage, is the decisive proof of a natural propensity to sin ; for we have no other method by which to judge of tendency or propensity, than by observing the same effect in every change of situation. It is from this kind of observation we say that heavy bodies have a tendency to fall ; that animals have certain instincts ; that individuals of the human race have characteristical propensities. In like manner, the propensity of the whole race to sin is gathered from the uniformity with which the race has sinned. If the effect arose merely from external circum- stances, without any natural propensity, it could not take place so steadily ; if the mind had no greater propensity to that wliich is evil than to that which is good, some circumstances must have occurred, in the infinite variety of events since the beginning of the world, fitted to prevent the appearance of the effect altogether, by exhibiting the human race completely virtuous. But if men have always in one degree or other sinned, there must be something in their nature that indisposes them for their duty, which is the very thing meant by a corruption of nature. While we thus infer, from the universal practice of sin, that the nature of man is corrupt, we learn from Scripture that this is not the state in which Adam was created. Solomon gives us as the res^ilt of all his observations, Eccles. vii. 29, " Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright ; but they have sought out many inventions." The solemnity with which the remark is introduced, and the natural significancy of the words, lead us to consider Solo- mon as speaking of the very great difference between the crooked paths which men now pursue, and the state of uprightness in which the first man was made : and the remark, thus understood, is agree- able to what we may easily gather from laying different passages to- gether. Thus, Gen. i. 31, man was made at the time, when "God saw every thing that he liad made, and behold it was very good ;" and the formation of this part of the divine workmanship is express- ed hi these peculiar words. Gen. i. 27, " So God created man in his own image, xar' iixom ®cov, in the image of God created he him." The 36* 3 H DISEASE FOR WHICH THE Socinians indeed interpret this expression as meaning nothing more than dominion ; man, they say, tlie lord of this lower world, is the unage of God, the sovereign of the universe. But the words, as they are placed in Genesis, appear to imply something distinct from the dominion given to man, and antecedent to it ; and that they really express the character of his mind, is manifest from the references made to them in the New Testament, where the character, formed by the Spirit of God in all true Christians, is thus described, " The new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holi- ness,— which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."* Any person who has studied the Old and the New Testament together, and who has marked the perfect consistency that runs through the whole language of Scripture, cannot entertain a doubt that Paul, who gives these descriptions, understood by Adam's being created in the image of God, his being created in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Bnt Adam, who, in the day that God created him, was made in the likeness of God, is said, after he had transgressed the commandment of God, to have begotten a son in his own likeness after his image. Now this image of Adam, which all his posterity bear, is something very difterent from the image of God in which he was made ; and it is not expressive merely of mortality, as the Arminians say, but it marks, as the image of God did, a character of mind. Tliis is mani- fest from the general strain of Scripture. For the Scriptures not only declare that all have sinned, but they seem to refer the abounding of iniquity to a cause antecedent to education, example, or the operation of particulau circumstances ; and in numberless places they represent the nature of man as corrupt. Of this kind are the following : " The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." " The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." " The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead."t To these are to be joined from the Old Testament several very striking expressions in the book of Job, a book regarded as at least of equal antiquity with the books of Moses, and of the more weight in this argument, that the personages introduced into it do not discover any acquaintance with the Mosaic dispensation. Of this kind are the following : " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." " What is man, that he should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous ? Be- hold he putteth no trust in his saints ; yea the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water."J: In the New Testament, the expres- sion of our Lord, John iii. 6, " That which is born of the flesh is "flesh ;" and the words of his apostle, Rom. vii. 18, " For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing ;" and all those pictures of the works of the flesh which abound in the epistles ap- • Ephes. iv. 24. Colos. iii. 10. * f Gen. viii. 21. Ps. li. 5 ; Iviii. 3. Eccles. ix. 3. + Job xiv. 4 ; xv. 14, 15, 16, REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 403 pear to afford evidence that, throughout the New Testament, the natural state of every man is represented as a state of depravity and aUenation from God. I have now given a general view of the train of argument vvliich is employed to establish this fact, that human nature is corrupted by the fall of Adam. But after the fact is established, there remain various questions with regard to the manner of the fact, which have been agitated with much heat, and with very little eclitication. The church of Rome consider that universal propensity to evil of which we have been speaking, and to which they give the name of concvpiscentia, as the natural state of man, i. e. the state in which he was created. This propensity was, in Adam, under the restraint of that superior divine principle which he derived from communion with (lod ; and in this restraint consisted his uprightness. When the superior principle was, in consequence of his transgression, withdrawn from him and his posterity, the propensity remained. But, being the nature of man, it is not in itself sinful, and becomes sin only when it is carried forth into action ; as it is said, James i. 15, " Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." In answer to this system, it has been justly argued, that the disorders of the passions are in themselves strong indications of depravity ; that they are opposite to the spiritual and refined morality of the gospel, which requires purity of heart ; that concupiscer,ii(t,'\x\ several places of the New Testa- ment, particularly in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. vii. is spoken of as sin, and that James means that lust, which is sinful wliile it dwells in the heart, when it hath conceived, brings forth sinful actions. An opinion, diamptrically opposite to this system of the church of Rome, was broached in the last century by Flaccus Illyricus, an obscure divine, that original sin is the very substance of human nature, a being operating and existing in all men. This opinion is justly regarded as monstrous, even by those who hold the corruption of human nature in its greatest extent; and it would not have found a place in this general view of opinions concerning original sin, if the mention of it did not assist you in apprehending the true systi m of the Calvinists upon this point. They consider the corruption of human nature, not as a substance, but as a defect or perversion of its qualities, by which they are deprived of their original perfection ; and applying to this corruption various expressions in which the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, describes the state of the heathen world before Christianity appeared, they consider the natural state of man as a state in which the understanding is darkened, the heart alienated from the life of God, the affections set upon earthly things, and all the powers of the mind employed in fulfilling the desires of the flesh. This state is called by the apostle " being dead in trespasses and sins;" an expression which, when taken in conjunc- tion with the threatening to Adam, " in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die," has suggested what divines call spiritual death. This denotes an estrangement from God, the fountain of life, and an inability in man to return to God ; and being consider- ed as extending from Adam through his posterity, it is, in the highest sense, the corruption of the nature of a creature, who was made after the image of God. 404 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE This account of the corruption of human nature does not imply that man has lost the natural capacity of knowing God, or the natural sense of the distinction between right and wrong. The same powers of reason by which he conducts the business of life, or makes discoveries in science, lead him to infer, from the works of creation, the existence and the perfections of the Deity ; and those moral senti- ments, upon which all the intercourse of society and the principles of legislation proceed, dictate to him that conduct which, as an indivi- dual, he ought to observe. Accordingly, the apostle to the Romans, at the very time he is proving the universal corruption of himian nature, says that heathen idolatry was inexcusable, because the invisible things of God may be understood by the things which he hath made ; and further, that the Gentiles, who have not the law, i. e. any written law, are a law unto themselves.* Man, therefore, is not, according to the third opinion, so far degraded by the corruption of his nature as to cease to be a moral agent. In every situation he appears capable of the sentiment of religion ; in every country, and under every form of society, his heart has glowed with the feelings of private affection and tenderness ; and the history of his exploits has been ennobled by many disinterested and heroic exertions. But, without any invidious detraction from those amiable dispositions and those splendid actions, which constitute the principal charm of the ancient poets and historians, it will occur to you that they were either wholly unconnected with principles of religion, or that they were accompanied with superstition so gross and childish, as not in reality to contradict that system, which places the corruption of human nature in an estrangement from the true God. Amidst all the offices of private kindness or of public spirit which we have been accustom- ed to admire, men were without God in the world ; and there does not appear, from the full experiment which was made under the philosophy and government of ancient times, the smallest probability that any improvement of the understanding which they could pro- duce, or any refinement of the heart which they could form, would have recovered man from what is termed the spiritual death of the soul, so as to bring him back to the fountain of life, and restore that communion with God, and that image of God, which are essential to the rectitude of his nature. After ascertaining what is meant, according to the third opinion, by the corruption of human nature, it has been inquired in what manner this corruption is transmitted, how it comes about that the powers of our nature inherit from Adam this defect and perversion. But this IS an inquiry in which it is impossible to attain any satisfying conclu- sion, because it resolves into principles of which we are totally ignorant. We infer, from various appearances, that besides the body which is obvious to our senses, and the growth of which may be traced from the time of its conception, every human being has a principle distinct from matter, which we call the soul. But we know not enough of the nature of the soul to form any judgment with regard to the manner of its cotmexion with the body, or the kind of influence which the one exerts over the other. If we say with some * Rom. i. ii. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 405 sects of Christians animam esse ex traduce, that the soul is generated like the body by the act of the parents, we seem to approach to materialism. If we say, as the Calvinists generally do, that souls are successively made by the Creator, and joined by ids act to those bodies which they are to animate, we seem to form a rational iiypo- thesis. But having never been admitted to the secret counsels of the Father of Spirits, we find this act of his in many points to us inex- plicable. Here are two substances, not only of a diti'erent nature, but, according to this hypothesis, of a different origin, most intimately joined. We feel daily the effects of their junction. Yet we cannot pretend to assign the period when it commenced, the reasons which determined the Creator to join a soid to one body rather than to another, or the bond which keeps together that soul and body whicli he chose to unite. These are questions which reason does not resolve, and upon which revelation does not profess to throw any light. They meet us upon many subjects in natural religion, and they recur when we attempt to speculate concerning the manner in which the corruption of human nature is transmitted. But in revela- tion, as in natural religion, they are questions concerning the manner of the fact, not concerning the fact itself; and, therefore, if the Scrip- tures reveal, or if experience assures us, that this corruption is trans- mitted, the questions which may be started, and which cannot be answered, are of no more weight to shake the evidence of this fact, than questions of the same kind are to shake the evidence of the union of soul and body. We cannot doubt, from our acquaintance with the government of God, that if the Creator infuses a soul into a body, either at the time of the conception of the body, or at any subsequent period, he acts according to 'a general course which is established with wisdom ; and it appears from our experience to be part of this course, that the likeness of children to their parents extends beyond the features of their body. There are not only constitutional diseases, but constitutional vices ; there is a character which often runs through a family for many generations ; and there are numberless instances where the resemblance cannot bo explained by imitation. The same Scriptures, from which we infer that a general corruption pervades the posterity of Adam, intimate that it is transmitted by natural generation, that is to say, that the constitution of which we observe many particular instances extends to this universal fact. But they leave the transmission of this corruption upon the same footing, and in the same darkness, with the propagation of the soul ; and their silence is sufficient to check the speculations of every sober inquirer. This third opinion concerning the effects of the sin of Adam is supported by many passages in Scripture; it appears to have been the received opinion of the Jewish church ; and some traditions of it having probably reached the heathen philosophers, and coming in aid of the conclusions that might be drawn from universal experience, may have led Socrates to speak o{ xaxov fn^vtov, a phrase equivalent to what we call natural corruption ; and Plato to ascribe the causes of our vices to those first principles which we inherit from our parents. But there yet remains a fourth opinion upon this subject. 4. It is held by many divines, it is part of the creed of the church 406 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE of Scotland, and it seems to be implied in the language of the arti cles of the church of England, although it is not there directly ex. pressed, that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity ; and that by means of this imputatiX)n, all who are descended from him are guilty before God. The opinion of those who hold the imputation of the sin of Adam includes the truth of the third opinion ; but they hold something more ; and you will understand in what respect the fourth opinion goes beyond the third, by attending to the meaning of two terms which are of frequent use amongst those who write upon original sin, the mediate and immediate imputation of the sin of Adam. The corruption which we derive from Adam has been styled the mediate imputation of his sin ; it becomes ours only in conse- quence of our connexion with him, but it is truly ours because it in fects our nature. Now those who hold the fourth opinion say, thai besides this corruption of nature, although always in conjunction with it, there is an immediate imputation, by which the sin of Adam is counted in the sight of God as ours. Accordingly, you will find the third and fourth opinion joined in the sixth chapter of our Confession of Faith, as forming together the complete view of the effects of Adam's sin. " They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same deatli in sin and corrupted nature con- veyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary gene- ration." The reasoning, upon which this fourth opinion has been grounded, is of the following kind. In those transactions which took place soon after the creation, Adam appears as the representative of the human race. The first blessing, " be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it," both by the terms in which it is conceived, and by the nature of the thing, was not a personal blessing, but, although addressed to Adam and Eve, conveyed to their posterity, as well as to themselves, a right to occupy the earth, to rule over the inferior animals, and to employ their service. Had the penalty annexed to disobedience, " in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," been executed as instantly as the words might have led Adam to ex- pect, he could not have had any posterity. It was the delaying the execution of this part of the sentence which left time for the appear- ance of the human race upon earth ; but in consequence of the sin of their first parents, they come into the world subject to death ; and the calamities in their persons, which mankind continually expe- rience, are the daily execution of the former parts of the sentence pronounced upon Adam. The ground is cursed to them for his sake; and even if we admit the ingenious theory which Bishop Sherlock has ably supported, that part of the curse upon the ground was re- mitted by the blessing pronounced upon Noah after the flof)d, we must acknowledge that the full extent of that curse had been felt by all the inhabitants of the earth for many generations. Here then are unquestionably the effects of the sin of Adam reaching to his poste- rity ; in other words, it is counted to them in the judgment of God as if it were their own ; so that Adam in this sin, as well as in the other transactions between the Creator and our first parents, appenrs not as an individual, but as being what divines call a federal head, who, in the covenant that was made with him, acted for his posterity. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 407 These views, suggested by the consequences of the transaction be- fore the full, are considered as imphed in an expression, Ephes. ii. 3, fvacirixvao^-Arii; and they are very much confirmed by the reasoning of the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. v. The apostle had proved largely, in the beginning of that epistle, the uni- versal sinfulness of mankind. From thence, he had proceeded to dis- course of the richness of that grace by which sinners are justified, ^. e. brought into a state of favour and reconciliation ; and in reference to what he had said of the manner of this justification, he thus expresses himself, Rom. v. 11, " we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement." At this point, he looks back upon the two subjects which he had discussed, and with the comprehension and rapidity of thought which distinguish the writings of Paul, he brings forward to the view of the Romans a striking simi- larity between the two subjects. The similarity is this, that both sin, and the remedy of sin, were introduced through one man. By Jesus we have received the atonement : by one man sin entered into the world. This similarity in two things diametrically opposite was of itself worthy of attention. But the apostle had a particular reason for bringing'it forward and dwelling upon it, which we may gather from the preceding part of the epistle. The great distinction of man- kind in those times was into Jew and Gentile. Accordingly, the apostle, when he was proving the sinfulness of mankind, found it necessary to sliow that the Jews in this respect had no advantage above the Gentiles, and rendered his proposition, in the apprehension of those to whom he wrote, completely universal, by concluding both Jews and Geniiles under sin. But there could not be a more effectual way of confirming the universality of this his fundamental proposi- tion, than by recurring to the similarity which he is now going to state. For, in stating this similarity, he draws the attention of his readers from Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, of whom they boasted, and through whom they inherited many blessings, to a more remote ancestor, from whom both Jews and Gentiles were descended, and through whom both inherited the same disn^al legacy. In ascending to Adam the distinction between Jews and Gentiles is lost, and the necessity of a Saviour is laid hi that condition which is common to all mankind. This account of the occasion of introducing the discourse, which we are about to consider, explains the meaning of the two words Sia tovto, with which the twelfth verse begins. Ata rovro JjaTue; 8L Iwj ai'S^wT'ou 57 aua^tca, tt^ tov xosfiov ciSrjXOe, xai 8ia irii; a.uoi^T'tas u ^ai-aroj, xat ovrwj ft? rtavra; aj'i9^tortoi;s o ^ttcaT'o; hrfkOfv, f^' ^ riavti^ r^fia^fov. Tovto doCS UOt refer tO any particular word in the preceding verse, but to the whole of what the apostle had said in the former part of the epistle. " This being the view which I have given of the sinfulness of mankind and of their deliverance, you will perceive that similarity between the two which I am now to state." ' ^^ine^ gives notice that the similarity is to be Stated ; but the reddition of it, or the other subject similar to that mentioned in the twelfth verse, is not formally enunciated till the eighteenth. The intervening verses, after the manner of Paul, are filled up with illustrations of the first subject, or with the mention of points of dissimilitude between the two, before the point in which 408 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE they are similar is clearly expressed. The first three claui^s of the twelfth verse have already occurred in speaking of the effects of Adam's sin, and they are not attended with any peculiar difficulty. But the last clause of this verse, {?>' 9 rtavtii ^^la^rov, admits of three different interpretations, and the nature of its connection with the rest of the verse appears to vary according to the interpretation wliich is adopted. It has been rendered, "in whom, viz. the first man, all sinned" — " unto which, viz. death, all sinned" — " inasmuch as, viz. for this which is, all sinned." The first does not really express more than may be gathered from the apostle's argument, and therefore the sense is no reason for rejecting it. But it will occur to you, that according to this interpretation, the antecedent, ai-o^wTtco), is very re- mote, and that several masculine words have intervened. The second refers the relative to the nearest antecedent ^aiafoj, and marks truly the effect or consequence of sin, but it marks that eff"ect by an xpression harsh and obscure. The third renders «*' 9 in a manner agreeable to the analogy of the Greek language, and the use of this phrase in classical writers. But it would have been more accurate to have rendered r;fxa^tov, ^^ did sin," than " have sinned;" and if our translation be read with this small correction, "forasmuc.-h as, or upon this account which is, all did sin," the last clause of the twelfth verse, in which the apostle is still stating the first subject, will appear to be perfectly equivalent to the first clause of the nineteenth verse, where the same subject is repeated. " All were constituted siimers by the act of this one man." The reason of this assertion is given in the thirteenth verse. " For before the law of Moses was given, sin was in the world." I need not refer to the book of Genesis for tlie sins of that period, which are there related : for none will be disposed to deny that sin was in the world, i. e. was universally practised, before the children of Israel went out of Egypt ; and yet whatever the actions of men in that poiod had been, they could not have been counted to them as sins, had there been no law ; since, according to an axiom often repeated by the apostle, " where no law is, there is no transgression." But the apostle had clearly proved, in the first and second chapters of the epistle, that men never were left without a law, because " the invisible things of God from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," and " the nations who have not the law, are a law unto themselves." There is a primary universal rule of righteousness written on the heart of man, under which every man is born, by which every man, although he has no other revelation of the divine will, knows that he shall be judged, and every transgression of which is felt to be worthy of death. Had there been no such law, sin could not have been attended with its penal consequence, i. e. death. The word »"-«. in the fourteenth verse, gives notice of an objection which the apostle is aware might occur to his doctrine in the thirteenth, but which he purposely brings forward, because it is the strongest confirmation of his capital position, that sin and death entered into the world by one man. The objection is, that sin appeared by its penal effect, death, in the interval between Adam and Moses, even over those who hud not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans- gression. It is not obvious who are the persons here meant, ana REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 409 different interpretations have been given. It appears plain to me, that the apostle cannot mean, as some say, those who had not sinned like Adam, with the punishment of death before their eyes; because the apostle had expressly said, Rom. i. 32, " That the heathen, who were filled with all unrighteousness, knew the judgment of God, and they who commit such things are worthy of death." Besides, it is not pertinent to his argument to say iiere, that any who sinned, in the interval between Adam and JNIoses, siimed without knowing, as Adam did, that death is the punishment of sin. For his argument is this ; sin cannot be counted to a person, so as to be punished in liim, without a law : but sin was punished before the law of Moses existed; the consequence is, that there must be some law antecedent to the law of Moses, and more universal, viz. the law of works given to the first parent of mankind, and extending to all his posterity. Every one that commits sin, therefore, sins after the similitude of Adam's transgression, in this respeqt, that he sins against the law of his Crea- tor, knowing that he deserves death. But v.'ho then are they that have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, and yet death reigns over them ? They can be none other than infants, the persons of whom this clause is generally understood ; that large proportion of the human race who die before their faculties are so far unfolded, that they are capable of committing any sin. They die in consequence of the law given to their first parent, by which death is declared to be the punishment of sin, and their dying is a proof that his sin is counted to them as theirs. The mention of this striking fact leads the apostle to style Adam fvrtoi tov nc^-Kovfoi, an image or represen- tation of him that was to come, of Christ, the person by whom the deliverance was to be brought. But he does not form.ally state the similarity between the two, until he has touched upon the points of dissimilitude. These are stated in the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses; and the amount of them is this: the value of the gift tran- scends the extent of the forfeiture, and the grace manifested in the gift goes far beyond every appearance of severity in the condi'mna- tion. I will not arrest your attention upon these points of dissimili- tude now, because they will occur more properly when we come to speak of the remedy. From the mention of them, the apostle passes on to state explicitly, in verses IS, 19, the similarity between the method in which sin and death were introduced into the world, and the method of our deliverance. The particles o^aow give notice that he is continuing his discourse, and that he is collecting the former parts of it in approaching to his conclusion. The similarity is this. As by one offence all men are under the condemnation of death, as by the disobedience of one man many were constituted in the sight of God sinners, so by one righteousness, all men obtain the justifica- tion of life, and by the obedience of one mnny shall be constituted in the sight of God righteous. The offence of one is counted lo us in such a manner that we suffer the punishment of sin, which a just God would not inflict upon us if we were not considered by hiin as sinners ; the obedience of one is counted to us in such a manner, that we who ■were sinners are upon account of it justified, i. e. considered as righteous by a just God, and received into his favour. This whole reasoning of the apostle favours the notion of an im- 37 31 410 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE putation of Adam's sin. The phrase indeed does not occur ; but tht thing meant by the phrase appears to be the natural meaning of the passage ; and I know no better way in which you can satisfy your- selves that it is the true meaning, than by comparing the interpreta- tion now given, with the forced paraphrases to which those are obUged to have recourse, who wish to show that the fourth opinion does not receive any countenance from the authority df Paul. Upon these two grounds, our daily experience that the effects of Adam's sin yet subsist in the world, and the manner in which the apostle reasons from this fact, that all die, there has been founded that notion, which, from the religious education commonly received in this country, is familiar to your minds, that there was at the begin- ning of the world a covenant in v/hich Adam acted as the represent- ative of his posterity. It is generally said, in support of this notion, that Adam had every possible advantage for keeping the covenant, and no reasonable temptation to break it, so that human virtue could not have had a fairer trial ; that human affairs could not proceed un- less parents acted for their children, and rulers for their subjects ; and that we are accustomed to behold not only many instances in which individuals suffer for the faults of those who went before them, but also many kinds of civil contracts, that include posterity in transac- tions, which, although they had no opportunity of giving their con- sent to them, are considered, in the eye of the law, as theirs. It is further said, that our usages and ideas with regard to such transac- tions occur often in the Old Testament, where the Almighty con- descends to represent that act of sovereignty, by which he chose the posterity of Abraham, as a covenant made with their ancestor, and the law given by Moses as a covenant made with the Israelites in the wilderness, not for themselves only, but for their posterity ;* a covenant which both conveyed blessings to the descendants of those with whom it was made, and also laid them under many restraints ; and a covenant constituted in this manner, that succeeding generations endured many calamities, and the Jews at this day are contimiing to suffer, for the sins of their fathers. It is true indeed that we are not warranted to consider this part of the constitution of that covenant which was made with the Israel- ites, as in all respects a specimen of the general plan of the divine administration, because this constitution extended only to the temporal affairs of the Jewish nation. And yet, when we are told by that apostle, from whose writings our knowledge of the new dispensation is chiefly derived, that those who have committed no sin suffer death, which entered into the world by the sin of the first Adam, it is im- possible for us to avoid concluding, that as there was a particular constitution for the Jewish state, in which the iniquities of the fathers were visited upon the children, there may be an universal constitution for t)ie human race, by which the sin of their first parent extends to all his offspring. It is readily admitted that difficulties appear to us to attend this constitution. But difficulties of the same kind are perpetually occur ring upon subjects in theology, not peculiar to this system, but nearly • DeuL xxix. 10—15. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 41 1 the same, in whatever manner we attempt to account for the origin of evil : and the same accomit may he given of all of them. We see only in parts ; but we are not qualified to judge of the ways of God witliout seeing the whole, because his administration embraces the Avhole. There may be a depth of wisdom in the constitution of which we are now speaking, that we are unable to penetrate : there may be advantages resulting from it to the human race, that infinitely cotmter- balance the evils to which it gives occasion. That it is not unbecoming the Ruler of the universe, appears with the clearest evidence from hence, that a constitution of the same kind, with regard to some par- ticulars, may be observed in the orduiary course of his providence towards all men, and in the whole history of that people, of whom he condescended to appear as the immediate Governor. Although it may appear to you from what has been said, that we are warranted to employ the notion of a covenant, when we speak of the manner in which the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, it is proper to warn you that there is a danger of falling hito very great improprieties both in language and in sentiment, by pushing the analogy too far, and that you must not be surprised if all the explica- tions of this subject appear to you unsatisfactory. When you read that Adam is the root, and that, as in the communication of the juices of a tree, the guilt is necessarily conveyed from the root to all the branches ; — that Adam and his posterity constitute one moral person ; — that the whole human race was, at the beginning, one mass acting by its head ; — and that all the individuals of that mass consented to his act, because they were in him, from whom they afterwards pro- ceeded,— ^you will probably feel, as I did, that they are repugnant to that distinct agency, which enters into our notion of accountable beings, as essential to that character. But you will remember that those who say such things attempt to explain what they do not under- stand ; and you will learn, by their failure, that it is wiser to refrain from such attempts, and to rest in what the Scriptures teach with regard to the imputation of Adam's sin, which may be summed up in a few words. The effects of the sin of Adam reach to his posterity in such a manner, that they suffer death, which is declared in Scrip- ture to be the wages of sin, as if his sin had been committed by them. The Scriptures, in stating the effects of Adam's sin make no distinc- tion between that death which his posterity visibly suffer, and that eternal destruction which is often called by the name of death ; and therefore we are not warranted to say that the dissolution of soul and body is the only effect of Adam's sin, which extends to his posterity. In what manner the mercy of God will dispose hereafter of those infants who die in consequence of Adam's sin, without having done any evil, the Scriptures have not declared ; and it does not become us to say more than is said in the excellent words of our Confession of Faith : " Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where, and how he pleaseth."* With regard to those that are grown up, the corruption of nature inherited from Adam, in consequence of which they daily commit sins of their own, is joined with the imputation of • Confession of Faith, x. 3, 412 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED. his sin ; and when we think of their situation, we ought not to allow ourselves, even in imagination, to separate the two. The amount of all that has been said concerning that situation for which the Gospel brings a remedy is this. Those wlio consider the Scriptures as declaring that the whole human race are both guilty and depraved before God perceive, in this picture, the absolute neces- sity of a remedy. But even those who do not admit the truth of this picture acknowledge, without hesitation, that men are sinners. They differ in opinion from the former with regard to the malignity of sin, the manner in which it was introduced into the world, and the nature of that constitution under which the guilt and misery of it are trans- mitted ; and hence they entertain different apprehensions with regard to the nature and extent of the remedy, and the manner in which it is applied to the soul. But as the words of the aposde, " All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," are subscribed by every Christian, the fundamental proposition upon which the Gospel rests is universally assented to ; and from this proposition we now proceed to examine the different opinions concerning the remedy. OPIMIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE REMEDY 413 CHAPTER II. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OP THE REMEDY. As Christians of all denominations admit that men have sinned, they admit also that the Gospel is a remedy for the present state of moral evil. They readily adopt that " faithful saying," which the apostle Paul declares to be "worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," They adore the love of the Father in sending the Son upon this errand. They profess the warmest gratitude to him " who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." They acknowledge that the greatest benefits are derived to the Avorld by his sufierings ; that we '•' have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ;" and that by what he did and underwent for our sakes, he is entitled to be honoured as the Saviour, the Deliverer, and the Redeemer of man- kind. But under this uniformity in the language which all who receive the Scriptures are constrained to use, there is concealed much diversity of opinion ; and the nature of that remedy, which it is the character of the Gospel to have brought, is one of the subjects in their specula- tions upon which Christians have departed very far from one another. — The opposite systems are supported partly by general reasonings, and partly by passages of Scripture. The general reasonings are by no means of equal weight upon all sides. But it is possible for able men to reason so plausibly in support of any of the opinions which have been held upon this subject, that the mind might remain in sus- pense, if the general language of Scripture, when fairly interpreted, did not appear decidedly to favour one of the systems ; so that the question concerning the nature of the remedy, like those which we lately discussed concerning the character and dignity of the persons revealed in the Gospel, must be ultimately determined by sound Scripture criticism. There are three systems with regard to the nature of the remedy, to which we may be able afterwards to affix more significant names from the leading features by which they are distinguished, but which it may suffice at present to mark by calling them the Socinian, the Middle, and the Catholic opinions. By calling the first the Socinian. I do not mean that it was held by Socinus himself, for his opinion went a great deal farther ; but it is the opinion held by those who now call themselves Socinians, and it is the simplest system that can be formed with regard to the nature of the remedy. I call the tliird the Catholic opinion, because it has been generally held in the Chris- 37* 414 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE tian church since the days of theapostles, and enters into the creed of almost every established church in Christendom. What I call the Middle opinion arose in the course of the last century out of a part of the system of Socinus. It is disavowed by the modern Socinians; but it has been brought forward by some very able divines both in the church of England, and amongst the dissenters, as the best method of steering clear of the objections that have been made either to the Socinian or to the Catholic system. I think it of importance to give a fair and complete exhibition of every one of these three systems ; and the order of stating them, which appears to be dictated by their nature, is to begin with the Socinian, which is the simplest; to proceed to the middle, which professes to be an improvement upon the Socinian ; and to end with the Catholic, which, if it is the truth, will bear the disadvantage arising from the previous exhibition of two systpms that are founded upon objections to it, and will approve itself to the understanding to be agreeable both to reason and to Scripture. Section I. The fundamental principle of the Socinian system is this. Piu-e goodness, or a desire to communicate happiness, is conceived by the Sochiians to constitute the whole character of the Deity. All the moral attributes of the divine nature are regarded as only modifica tions of benevolence, and it is believed that nothing either exists in God, or forms a part of his government, which may not be resolved into this principle. Infinitely blessed in himself, he could have no reason for creating the human race but to make them happy. His wisdom discerns the best means of communicating happiness ; his power carries these means readily and certainly into effect; j^nd although the means vary according to circumstances, the benevolent purpose from which they proceed is ahvays the some. He hates sin, because it makes his creatures unhappy ; he forbids it, that his authority may deter them from doing \vhat is hurtful to themselves ; he punishes it, that the experience of snfiering may convince them of their error. He employs various means for their reformation ; he 43ears patiently with their obstinacy and heedlessness; and at what time soever the recollection of his prohibition, the sufferhigof evil, or any other circumstance, brings back to their duty those who have sinned, that goodness of the Deity, which had been exercised niider the form of long-sutfering during their error, bccouics compassion and clemency; he receives his returning children into his favour; j-nd without regard to any external circumstance or any other being, freely forgives their sins. The supreme ruler of the universe, say the Socinians, in thus freely forgiving all sins merely upon the re- pentance of the sinner, docs injury to none. He only remits a part of his own right, a debt whicli his oflending creatures have contracted to him. The independent felicity of his nature suffers no diminution from his not exacting all that lie might claim ; the glory of his good- ness is illustrated by the happiness which the pardon conveys to the NATURE OP THE REMEDY. 415 penitent ; and in conferring this pardon freely without any considera- tion foreign to himself, he sets his creatures an example of generosity in forgiving those offences, which they are daily commitiiig against one another. This fundamental prhiciple of the Socinian opinion, which seems at first sight to flow from the infinite perfection of the divine nature, and to be most honourable to the Creator and Father of all, is sup- ported by numberless passages of Scripture, which magnify the free grace of God in the pardon of transgressors, which invite them to return, which describe the readiness with which they shall be received, and the joy that there is in heaven over a sinner that repenteth. It is supported by the many instances in which we experience the forbearance of God, that long-suftering which spares as amidst repeated provocations, and leads us by unmerited blessings to repentance. It is supported by all those candid and indulgent sentimeiits, which dispose us to forget the offences of persons in whom we discover a change of mind, and particularly by parental affection, which, instead of being worn out by the waywardness and perverse- ness of children, is impatient to embrace them on the first symptoms of a return to obedience. It can easily be conceived that the argu- ments, of which I have given a short sketch, are capable of receiving much embellishment, and that eloquent men, by fixing the attention upon a particular view of the subject, may leave little doubt in the minds of ordinary readers, that a theory concernhig the nature of tlie remedy offered in the gospel, resting upon this principle as its basis, contains the whole of the truth. When this principle is applied in forming such a theory, it follows obviously from the principle, that the person who brought the remedy had nothing to do hi order to procure the pardon of those wlio repent. That is freely and purely the eff'ect of the divine goodness, liut the circumstances of the world might render it expedient that a declara- tion of pardon should be made. For if men have been sinners from the beginning of the world, as the Socinians do not deny, if the religion of the heathen was connected with much superstition, i. e. with a blind excessive fear of the deity ; and if the Jewish religion appointed a costly burdensome method of approaching the God of Israel, which could not be observed by all the nations of the earth, there seems to be much occasion that a religion not confined to a particular tribe, but profes^'ing to spread itself over the whole world, and appointing a spiritual worship, should declare, in the most unequivocal and soleimi manner, that encouragement to the penitent which is derived from the essential goodness of God. Now such declarations are known to abound in the gospel : and they appear to the Socinians to give the religion of Jesus that importance which every one expects to find in a divine revelation. God appears there in Christ reconciling the world to himself, arid repentance and remission of sins are preached in the name of Christ among all nations ; not that God is more gracious than he was at any former time ; not that Christ did any thing to render God propitious: but he is the messenger who pubhshes the divine grace. His first words were, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ;" his own discourses represent God as merciful ; his apostles, after his ascension, preached the forgiveness of sins, ijlg OPINIONS CONCERNING THE saying, " Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out "'^and his whole religion is a standing declaration of this proposi- tion, which was always equally true, but the truth of which was not at all times perfectly understood, that "whosoever confesseth and forsiketh his sins shall have mercy." This proposition, say the Socinians, approves itself by intrinsic evidence to a philosophical mind. But, in order to rouse the atten- tion of the multitude, the person employed by God to publish it to the world was rendered respectable in their eyes by many mighty works. The miracles, which the power of God enabled the messen- ger of this grace to perform, Avere the credentials of a divine com- mission ; and a splendor was thrown around his character by the other purposes which his appearance accomplished. One of these additional purposes was his being the instructor of the world, who not only restored, by the declaration which he was commissioned to make, the natural confidence that men ought to have in the goodness of their Creator, but also taught them the will of God. As the Socinians do not admit that the first man possessed more knowledge and righteousness than any of his posterity, their princi- ples lead them to deny those remains of the image of God which other Christians trace, to detract very much' from the authority of the law of nature, and to resolve all religious knowledge into the tradi- tion of some primary revelation. This tradition could not fail to be obscured and corrupted in the progress of ages; and as gross igno- rance of the duties of men is known to have overspread the earth, it is manifest that there was mucii need of the perfect teaching of a man, whose miracles were both a security that he taught the will of God truly, and a call upon men to listen to him. In this opinion of the usefulness of Christianity, all who receive it as a divine revelation .eadily agree. But the Socinians, as if desirous to atone by this branch of^their encomium upon Christianity, for the dishonour which other parts of their system are conceived to do to that religion, go far beyond other Christians in magnifying the importance of the gospel as a method of instruction. They represent its precepts as not only simple, clear, and authoritative, but as inculcating virtues which are neither explicitly taught in the law of Moses, nor deducible from any of its principles; and the^ allow the messenger of the grace of God all the honour which can 'accrue to his character and to his religion from the essential superiority of his precepts. In delivering to a world full of superstition and vice, precepts so opposite to their maxims and manners, the messenger of the grace of God encountered much opposition ; he provoked the civil and eccle- siastical rulers— he alarmed the evil passions that he endeavoured to restrain— and after a life marked with uncommon difliculties and un- merited persecution, he was put to death by the violence of his ene- mies. His death is considered by the Socinians as the unavoidable result of the circumstances in which he published his excellent reli- t^ion ; an event happening without any special appointment of hea- ven, according to the course of human aff"airs ; for having persevered during a life of suflering in bearing witness to the truth, and being incapable of retracting, even in the immediate prospect of death, like other martvrs he sealed his declaration with his blood. The death NATURE 01' THE REMEDY. 417 of Christ, even although regarded nierciY as a natural event, is full of instruction to his followers. The innocence of the illustrious suf- ferer was made conspicuous by all the circumstances which attended histiial; the patience, the magnanimity, the piety and benevolence which marked the hour of his sufferings, imprint upon those who cherish his memory with affection, all the lessons of his religion : and having taught men tlie will of God while he lived, he sulfered for their benefit, " leaving them an example that they should follow his steps." But the example exhibited in his sufferings, and the testimony which he bore by them to all that he had said during his life, are not the only benefits of the death of Christ which the modern Socinians admit. They say also, that it confirmed the truth of the promises of God; for his death was necessary in order to his resurrection, and his resurrection not only completes the evidences of his mission, but is the earnest to mankind of life and immortality, that great blessing which he was commissioned to promise. It is this further purpose of the death of Christ which completes the Socinian scheme of Chris- tianity ; and therefore, in order to render the view which 1 am now giving a fair exposition of that scheme, it is necessary to state the peculiar importance which it affixes to this purpose. Not admitting any forfeiture to have been incurred by the trans- gression of Adam, the Socinians consider man as mortal, a creature who would have died whether he had sinned or not. Dr. Priestley goes farther upon this subject than some of those who adopt his other principles have yet been able to follow him. He holds that the dis- tinction between soul and body is a popular error, derived from hea- then philosophy, but contradicted by reason and Scripture ; that man is a homogeneous being, i. e. that the powers of thought and sensa- tion belong to the brain, as much as gravity and magnetism belong to other arrangements of matter; and that the whole machine, whose complicated motions had presented the appearance of animal and rational life, is dissolved at death. To Dr. Priestley, therefore, the resurrection promised in the gospel is the highest possible gift, be- cause, according to his system, it is the restoration of existence. But even those Socinians, who do not so far depart from the conclusions of sound philosophy as to believe that the phenomena of thought can be explained without supposing an immaterial principle in man, while they allow that this principle may survive the body, are inclined to compare the state in which it is left, after the dissolution of the body, to a khid of sleep, in which all the faculties of the soul con- tinue suspended till the resurrection. Being led, by their system concerning the fall, to infer from the present appearance of deatli, that it is part of the original constitution of nature, and finding no reason- ing in favour of a future state amongst those who had not the benefit of revelation, so clear and decisive as to satisfy a speculative mind, and no explicit promise in the law of Moses, they consider immor- tality as a free gift which the Almighty may have bestowed upon those who died in ancient times, but a gift, the assurance of which is conveyed to the human race solely by the religion of Christ. Here, therefore, the Socinians place the great vulue and importance of the 3K 418 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE gospel. Whether man consists of spirit and body united in an inex- plicable manner, or whether his whole frame be only an organization of matter more exquisite than any which he beholds, he cannot infer with certainty from any deductions of his own reason, that he shall survive that event, which, happening in the established course of na- ture, puts an end to all his labours and enjoyments upon earth. But the gospel brings life and immortality to light. While it declares that the God who made man is ready to forgive all his wanderings, and to receive him into favour upon his repentance, it promises to reward the obedience and virtues of this short life, by raising him from the sleep of death, by restoring to him at the resurrection, whatever had been his state in the intervening period, all those capacities which death seemed to have annihilated, and by introducing him to a life of endless and complete bliss. This promise corresponds with that essential goodness of the Deity from which the declaration of pardon flows; but it is infinitely beyond The deserts of a frail sinfnl creature: and, therefore, that it may take possession of the mind of man, that he may rest without hesitation in the certainty of the gift, and that he may derive all the comfort and improvement which the prospect is fitted to administer, it is necessary that every confirmation of the promise, every sensible proof which the nature of the case admits, should be given him. Now this sensi- ble proof is afforded by means of the death of Jesus Christ ; and hence the great advantage which the world derives from that fact. A man, say the Socinians, not distinguished from his brethren in his origin or in the powers of his nature, having been employed by God to teach his will and to declare the promise of pardon and life eternal to those who repent, is exposed, in the execution of this commission, to sufferings more severe than those which fall to the lot of ordinary men ; he endures them whh patience, and the virtues of his character are illustrated by his sorrows. But instead of being enabled to sur- mount them, he is delivered by God into the hands of his enemies, that being put to death by their malice, he might be raised t>y the power of the Creator. In three days he returns from the grave ; and the evidence of his resurrection is so remarkably circumstantial, that there is not, perhaps, says Dr. Priestley, any fact in ancient history sc perfectly credible according to the established rules of evidence. But the resurrection of the man, who promised in the name of God that, at the last day, all shall rise, is a demonstration in his person that a general resurrection is possible ; it is an assurance from God of the fulfilment of the promise, the most level to the apprehensions of the generality of mankind, and it is connected with that glorious reward upon which the Scriptures say this man has already entered. For, whatever may be the state of other men till the general resurrection, we are told that this man has ascended to heaven, and is now invested with supreme dignity and bliss. His recompense is held forth in Scripture as the encouragement and the security to his disciples that they shall in due time receive theirs ; and the encouragement and security are founded upon this circumstance, that he was a man like them, who suffered and died. So speak the apostles ; " if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them a\so which sleep in Jesus NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 419 will God bring with him."* " Every man in his own order ; Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's."! And our Lord himself said to his apostles, " Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto n-ie."J Socinus and his immediate followers admitted that power of Christ in dispensing tlie recompense of his disciples, which seems to be intimated in the last of these passages, and in such other expressions as tliese, his giving a crown of life, his granting to sit down with him on his throne, his raising the dead, and his judging the world. But the modern Socinians pre- serve the consistency of their scheme by giving figurative interpreta- tions of all such phrases, and so resolving the accomplishment of that promise which proceeded from the love of God, purely into his power and will, without the interposition of any other being. Christ may be employed as an instrument of fulfilling the pleasure of the Almighty; but so may angels, so may virtuous men ; and it is not from any inherent power that Christ possesses, but from that example of the truth of the promise, which Christians behold in his having been raised from the dead and set at God's right hand, that they derive the full assurance of hope. This system of pure Socinianism which I have now delineated, I shall state in a few sentences, gathered from Dr. Priestley's History of (he Doctrine of Atonement. " The great object of the mission and death of Christ was to give the fullest proof of a state of retribution, in order to supply the strongest motives to virtue ; and tlie making an express regard to the doctrine of a resurrection to immortal life the principal sanction of the laws of virtue is an advantage peculiar to Christianity. By this peculiar advantage the gospel reforms the world, and remission of sin is consequent on reformation. For, although there are some texts in which the pardon of sin seems to be represented as dispensed in consideration of the sufferings, the merits, the resurrection, the life, or the obedience of Christ, we cannot but conclude, upon a careful examination, that all these views of it are partial representations, and that, according to the plain general tenor of Scripture, the pardon of sin is, in reality, always dispensed by the free niercy of God upon account of men's personal virtue, a penitent upright heart, and a reformed exemplary life, without regard to the sufferings or merit of any being whatever." The Socinians endeavour to accommodate to this system all those expressions, which Christians have learned from Scriptiu'e to apply to the gospel remedy. The following instances may serve as a spe- cimen of their mode of interpretation. Christ died for us, i. e. for our benefit, because we derive much advantage from his death. He is our mediator, because he came from God to us to declare the divine mercy. He saves his people from their sins, because the influence of his precepts and his example, supported by the hope of a future life which he has revealed, leads them from sin to the practice of right- eousness. His blood cleanseth us from all sin, because, being shed in confirmation of his doctrine, and as a step to his resurrection, it fur- » 1 Thess. iv. 14. f 1 Cor. xv. 23. \ Luke xxii. 28, 29. 420 OPINIONS CONCERNING THK nishes the most powerful incentives to virtujj ; and we have redemp- tion, through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, because we are led by the due consideration of his death and its consequences, to that repentance, which, under tl>e merciful constitution of the divine gov- ernment, always obtains forgiveness. According to this system, then, Jesus Christ is a teacher of right- eousness, the messenger of divine grace, the publisher of a future life, the bright example of every virtue, and the most illustrious pattern of its reward. As far as these expressions go, he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the world ; but it is not allowed that he did any thing further to merit this character. His religion is the most perfect sys- tem of morality, delivering with the authority of heaven a more plain, and complete, and spiritual rule of duty than is any where else to be found, and exciting men to follow that rule by hopes which no other teacher was commissioned to give. It is in these respects the most effectual lesson of righteousness which ever was addressed to the world ; and in this sense only it is a remedy for the present state of moral evil. This system accords with all the principles held by those who are now called Socinians, and forms part of a great scheme, which, how- ever blameworthy it may be in many respects, has the merit of being consistent. But to Christians who do not hold these principles in their full extent, it appears to labour under insuperable difficulties. Those who believe in the pre-existence of Jesus, cannot consider his death as merely a natural event, like the death of any other man ; and they look for some purpose of his dying, beyond that of afford- ing, by his resurrection, an example of a dead man brought to life, because Jesus, appearing to them in this respect essentially distin- guished from all other men, that he existed before he was born, may be also distinguished in this further respect, that he returned to exist- ence after he died. We know that some of the ancient philosophers were accustomed to argue for a future life from that state of pre-ex- istence which they assigned to the soul ; and the inference is so natu- ral and obvious, if the supposition upon which it proceeds is admitted, that, whether the Arian or Athanasian system be adopted with regard to the dignity which Jesus had before he was born, no argument, drawn from the death and resurrection of this singular personage, can be a sufficient warrant for ordinary men to expect that they also shall be raised. Those who have a strong apprehension of the evil of sin and of the authority of the divine government, and who ob- serve, that even amongst men repentance does not always restore a person to the condition in which he was before he sinned, cannot readily admit that a simple declaration of forgiveness to all who re- turn to their duty is consistent with the holiness and majesty of the Ruler of the universe ; more especially as this declaration does not barely remit the punishment of transgression, but is connected with a promise of eternal life ; a promise which other Christians consider as restoring what had been forfeited by Adam, which the Socinians consider as so peculiar to the gospel, that it gives to man a hope which he never had before, and which all acknowledge to contain a jfree inestimable gift. There appears to be an expediency in some testimony of the divine displeasure against sin, at the time of declar NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 421 ing that such a gift is to be conferred upon penitents ; and if there are in Scripture many intimations of such a testimony, they who are impressed with a sense that it is expedient will not be disposed to ex- plain them away. Those who form their system of theology upon the language of Scripture, do not find themselves warranted to sink Jesus to the office of a messenger of the divine mercy, when they recollect that he is said to have washed us from our sins in his own blood, and to have bought us with a price ; that repentance and remission of sins are uniformly connected with something which he did ; that according to his command they were preached by his apostles in his name, and that they are said to be granted by him. Different systems have been formed for explaining such expressions ; but many Christian writers, who do not pretend to decide which of the systems is true, or whe- ther it is becoming in us to form any system upon the subject at all, consider expressions of this kind as plainly teaching that the interpo- sition of Christ was somehow efficacious in procuring the pardon of sin ; and it appears to them that this efficacy, whatever be the nature of it, must go very far beyond the bare declaration of a proposition which was always true, that God is merciful. All these reasons for rejecting the Socinian system are very much confirmed, by attending to the descriptions given in Scripture of the honour and power to which Jesus Christ is now exalted. Although the modern Socinians, feeling that these descriptions are inconsistent with their system, have attempted to resolve into mere figures of speech what Socinus himself interpreted literally, any Christian who reads the New Testament, not with a viev/ to reconcile it to his own system, but in order to learn what it contains, cannot entertain a doubt that the person who appeared upon earth in a humble form, the Saviour of men, is now exalted as their Lord ; that all power in heaven and in earth is committed to him ; and that he is ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead. But why is Jesus thus exalted ? Although his being preserved from that sleep of the soul which some Christians have supposed, or his being raised out of the grave from that complete dissolution which Dr. Priestley's mate- rialism teaches, may be useful to Christians as a living example of a resurrection, it cannot be said that his being advanced to the govern- ment of the imiverse is necessary to give us assurance of a future life. According to the Socinian system, we cannot discern in the ser- vices of this man any merit beyond that of other messengers of hea- ven, or even of his own apostles ; and we do not perceive any purpose which is to be attained by his receiving a recompense so infinitely above his deserts. If the forgiveness of sin and the gift of immor- tality flow entirely from the mercy of God, without regard to any other being whatever, the security of them does not, in the smallest degree, depend upon the condition of the messenger by whom they were promised ; so that the powers, which the Scriptures ascribe to that messenger, are a mere waste, and his exaltation, unlike any other work of God, is without meaning. Such are the objections which Christians of different descriptions are led, by their principles, to urge against the Socinian system of -edemption. Many able and serious men, who felt the force of these 38 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE objections, could not reconcile their minds to the third system, which they found to be the general faith of the Christian church ; and hence has arisen a middle system, which, as it is certainly clear of the objec- tions that have now been stated, appears to some to comprehend the whole doctrine of Scripture upon this subject. Section II. The middle system is founded upon a part of the doctrine of Socinus, which the modern Socinians have thrown out, viz : the power given by God to Jesus Christ after his resurrection. But many additions were made to this article in the course of the last century, and it has been spread out by several writers into a complete and beautiful system. My knowledge of it is derived from an Essay on Redemp- tion, written by an English clergyman, John Balguy, and republished by Dr. Thomas Balguy ; from a book entitled Ben Mordecai's Apology for becoming a Christian, consisting of letters upon the peculiar doc- trines of Christianity, written by Mr. Taylor, another English clergy- man ; and from a volume of sermons published by Dr. Price, the celebrated English dissenter, who, rejecting both the Socinian and the Calvinistic systems, gives to this the name which I have borrowed from him, calling it the middle system. Availing myself of these sources of information, I shall give a short exposition of the middle system, which may enable you to form a conception of the manner in which the parts of it are linked together, and of the principles by which it is supported. The fundamental principle of the middle system is, that under the government of a righteous God a distinction ought to be made between innocents and penitents. It is allowed that God, who is accountable to none, may freely forgive the sins of his creatures ; it is allowed that, being infinitely merciful, he has no delight in punishing them ; it is allowed that repentance, without which no sinner can be received, is a commendable disposition. But after all these things are granted to the Socinians, it is still conceived to be right in itself, that those, who have sinned, should not feel their situation in every respect the same as if they had uniformly obeyed the commands of their Creator ; and it is considered as a lesson which may be useful both to them- selves and to other parts of the universe, that the restoration of the human race to the divine favour should be marked by some circum- stances sufficient to preserve the memory of their transgression. It is observed that, in the course of human affairs, iho effects of the vices of some are often repaired by the virtues of others, repaired not only to society, but to themselves. When they become sensible of their misconduct, they do not always find it possible by any personal effort to extricate themselves from all the evils in which they are involved, or to recover that place in society which they had forfeited ; but they are relieved by some generous interposition ; their professions of repentance are accepted at the intercession of a respectable friend, for the sake of something which had been done by another ; and their re-establishment in their former condition, which was not duo NATURE OP THE REMEDY. 423 to themselves, thus becomes a part of the tribute paid by society to that uniform virtue, which is felt by all men to be worthy both of confidence and of reward. Upon this principle proceeded the plead- ing of \ppins in his own defence : " Majorum merita," says Livy. '' in rempublicam commemorabat, quo poenam deprecaretur."* In like manner Tacitus says, " Plautio mors remittitur ob patrui egregium meritum."!" And Cicero, proceeding upon his knowledge and ex- perience of the sentiments of mankind, delivers this general rule, " oportebit eum, qui sibi ut ignoscatur postulabit, — majorum suorum beneficia,si quae extabunt, proferre."t So we read in the Old Testa- ment that God was merciful to the children of Israel for Abraham's sake ; § that he pardoned their idolatry at the intercession of Moses ;|1 and that he accepted the prayer of his servant Job for the three friends, who had not spoken of him the thing that is right.f These and other instances of the same kind in the history of Scrip- ture, according with what we often behold amongst men, and cor- respondhig also with our apprehension of the essential difference between tlie merit of those who have always obeyed, and of those who only repent of their sin, are considered in the middle system as an opening of the great scheme revealed in the gospel. Jesus Christ, the first born of every creature, by whom God made the worlds, the purest and the most glorious being that ever proceeded from the Father of all, beheld the miserable condition of the human race, the forfeiture which they had incurred by the transgression of Adam, and the multiplied offences which they were daily committing against the majesty of heaven. Pro-aipted by love to the souls of men, he left the bosom of the Father, laid aside the glories of his nature, and became a man of sorrows, that he might extricate from evil those whom he had made. All the scorn and persecution which he received while he went about doing good to men ; all the amaze- ment and agony which his pure spirit sustained amidst the iniquities of those with whom he dwelt: all the bitter sufierings which marked the end of his life upon earth, were the voluntary acts of a person who had devoted himself to the accomplishment of a most gracious purpose. They were accepted by God, who, not willing that any should perish, had given the Son of his love to be in this manner the deliverer of the human race ; and they were rewarded by the powers conferred upon him after his resurrection. His reward added to the dignity of his character, by placing him at the head of the creation, and rendering the most exalted spirits subject to his dominion. But it was not the prospect of any increase of his personal glory which called forth his exertions. He had no need to be greater or happier than he was before he visited this earth ; and he would not appear in a light so truly exalted, had he come here merely with the view of holding a higher place in heaven when he returned thither. The joy set before the Redeemer of the world, for which it is said he en- dured ihe cross, the recompense in the prospect of which he left the mansions of bliss, and drank the bitter cup given him by his Father, is to be gathered from such passages in the New Testament as the * Liv. lii. .56. f Tac. Ann. xi. 36, + Cic. de Inv. ii. 35. § Ps. cv. 42. 43. I Exod. xxxii. ^ Job xlii. 424 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE following: John v. 26, 27; vi. 39; xvii. 2. Acts v. 31. Heb. ii. 9, 10; V. 9. The idea which is plainly expressed in some of these passages, and which appears to be implied in all of them, is this : that there was given to the Son of man, after his sntferings, the power of recovering a lost world, of removing all the evils which sin had introduced, of raising men from death, which is the punishment of sin, and of bring- ing tliose that repent to eternal life. All this is the reward of the services of the Redeemer ; that is, although it redounds to the advantage of the penitents, it is not given to them as what they earn for tliemselves, but it is given to him as his recompense ; and in this exalted sense are fulfilled the words which the evangelical prophet Isaiah introduced into his prediction of the sufferings of the Messiah : " he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied ; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many."* Jesus Christ did see of the travail of his soul and was satisfied; in other words, he received his reward by justifying many. The natural recompense of disinterested exertion, and the purest joy which a benevolent mind can taste, is an enlargement of the power of doing good. Feeble dependent creatures like us are glad to receive, as a reward of the good which we do from love unfeigned, an exten- sion of the sphere of our private enjoyments, and an estabhshment of our own security. But he, who is styled in Scripture the Son of Man, and the brightness of his Father's glory, submitted to suffering purely for this purpose, that he might receive from his Father the right of communicating happiness ; and the more complete and irretrievable on the part of man the forfeiture by sin had been, and the more extensive and precious the blessings which the Rvideemer is empowered to convey, so much the more exquisite and glorious is his reward. This system derives considerable support from its preserving that striking contrast between the first and the second Adam, which we found the Apostle Paul marking in the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. " As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous." The punis'nment of Adam is transmitted to those who do not sin after the simihtude of his transgression. But the evils which flow from this constitution meet in the gospel with a remedy perfectly analogous to the disease ; for the reward of Jesus Christ is communicated to those who are very unlike himself; and, according to the middle system, it is literally by his obedience that many are made righteous. The middle system is further supported by its exhibiting, in a most pleasing and instructive light, that essential difference between those who have uniformly obeyed God, and those who only repent of their transgressions, which we expect to find under the govern- ment of God. That exalted Being, who, in making the worlds, fulfilled the commandment of God, and in whom the Father was always well pleased, by coming to this earth to do the will of God, had an opportunity of displaying before angels and men, in a degree more eminent than they had ever beheld, humility, obedience. * Isaiah liii. 11. NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 425 resignation, patience, fortitude, generosity ; and in this transcendent excellence of virtue was crowned with a reward the most iMustrious which the Father ever bestowed, and the most dehghtful to him upon whom it was conferred, the power of extricating the human race from aU the evils which they had incurred by sin, and of restoring to them the gii't of immortality which they had forfeited. In this method of saving sinners there is a continual memorial of the evil of sin, and a lesson to all the intelligent creation of God, that without some very singular interposition those who have sinned cannot obtain pardon. For, although the Son of God was connected with the human race from the time that by him God made the worlds, a mucli closer connexion was necessary in order to their being saved from sin ; and tlie constitution, by whicli penitents are received into the divine favour, is such as to make them feel a constant and an entire depend- ence upon their Redeemer. It is by his power that they are delivered from tiie eft'ects of their transgression : the accomplishment of their salvation is premial to him, not to them, that is, all that they receive is given them, not upon their own account, but upon account of what he hath done. At the same time, this method of checking the pre- sumption of sinners is a bright display of divine love. God the Father provides a method for receiving his returning children into his family ; and he rewards the generous exertion of his own Son, by opening the mansions of heaven to those whom his Son shall bring thither. In all the steps of their progress heavenward, they experience the grace of the Redeemer, and daily reap the fruit of his reward; and when they shall at length enter the city of the living God, their numbers and their felicity will redound to his honour. " These are they," as one of the elders about the throne said to John in the Reve- lation, " which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." "They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ; and the new song that is sung by every creature in heaven has a peculiar significancy when it proceeds from their mouth, '' worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and honour, and glory, and blessing." Many of the passages of Scripture, which Christians are accustomed to apply to the remedy brought in the gospel, receive an interpretation at once more exalted and more natural from those who hold the mid- dle system, than from those v/ho hold the Socinian. According to the middle system, Jesus is said to be the propitiation for our sins, because by his meritorious obedience he hath procured our reconciliation with God. He is said to have given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for us, because he devoted himself to death in order to accom- plish our salvation. He is our mediator, because through him we have access to the Father He is our advocate, who maketh inter- cession for us, because all that we ask, and all that we receive is for his sake, because nothing is due to us, but all that heaven can bestow is due to the perfection of his obedience; and we are saved by him, because with the same grace which led him to suffer for our sakes, he imparts, to those who repent, the gifts which he hath received from his Fatlier, accounting their salvation his reward. A system, which gives such views of our dependence upon our Redeemer, follows out those lessons of humility by which tlie gospel has for ever excluded 38* 3L 426 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE the presumption of sinners, and the boasting of those who are saved , and it may be regarded as a commentary upon tJiese words of the apostle, " All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's;"* and upon the words of our Lord himself, <' To hiru that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne, "t The middle system, which I have now delineated, has the merit of being beautiful and consistent. As far as it goes, it proceeds, in a great measure, upon the language and the views of the New Testa- ment. It appears to unite, in the pardon of those who repent, the rectitude which becomes the Judge of the universe, with tliat com- passion which we feel ourselves so willing to ascribe to the Deity. It gives penitents all that security for being restored to the divine favour, and for obtaining the reward of eternal life, which can arise from the power of their Redeemer ; and it seems so peculiarly calcu- lated to illustrate his glory, that, in the aflectionate admiration witii which it is natural for Christians to regard him, the heart inciii^es the understanding to receive it as the whole truth. But there are two objections to this system, which, with a great part of the Christian world, are sufficient to counterbalance these advantages, so far as to satisfy them, that although a great part of this system may be true, it is not a complete account of the goL'pel remedy. The first objection is, that the middle system plainly involves in it the Arian opinion concerning the person of Christ. It presents to our view, a being, who, by performing a hard service in the government of God, acquires new powers, and is advanced to a degree of supre- macy and a capacity of conferring happiness, which he did not formerly possess. But this view of Christ is totally inconsistent with the Athanasian system. Those, who believe that Jesus Christ is truly and essentially God, think that they are naturally led, by the manner in which his exaltation is spoken of in Scripture, to consider it as part of the oLxovofxva there revealed, a manifestation of the Son of God, an investiture of the same person in his human nature with that glory which he had from eternity in his divine. But they cannot believe that he became, by suffering,more able to save than he was before. They are cumpelled, by their creed, to remove from their conceptions of him all those ideas of dependence and changeableness which are necessarily implied in an enlargement of powers; and they cannot degrade him whom they worship as God, equal with the Father, to a rank with those inferior spirits, who, by progressive improvements in goodness, may become worthy of holding more conspicuous stations, and of being appointed to more important offices in the administration of the universe. The second objection to the middle system is, that although a beau- tiful and plausible theory, yet, like many other theories, it proceeds upon a partial view of facts. It is the theory of men who are satisfied that the Socinian scheme is indefensible, but who are at the same time soliritous to avoid those particular determinate views of the stifTerings of Christ, which other Christians derive from a literal interpretation • 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23. f Rev. iii. 21. NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 427 of Scripture. Hence they are obliged to have recourse to such views as are vague and general. They studiousiy throw into the shade many parts of that information which the Scriptures have been generally supposed to convey ; and they hope, by the splendid parts of tlii'ir theory, to occupy and please the mind, so that the defect shall not he felt. Accordingly it will be observed, that while the power, which the Redeemer is supposed to have acquired by his sufferings, stands forth in this theory a luminous object, no specific reason is assigned for the sutferings. They are a display of benevolence, a virtuous exertion on the part of the Redeemer, and the reward of them redounds in the most effectual manner to the benefit of the human race. But we do not see, by this theory, any thing in the suff'erings peculiarly applicable to the situation of those who are re- deemed. Exertions of another kind might have merited the same reward ; and we feel ourselves at a loss to account for the fitness of many things which he endured, and for a great part of that language tn which the Scriptures speak of his sufferings. Section III. The two preceding schemes concerning the nature of the Gospel remedy are the invention of modern times. What I called the Catho- lic opinion upon this subject appears to have been derived from the Scriptures by the earliest Christian writers ; it has been generally held in the Christian world ; and it enters into the creed of the two esta- blished churches of this island. The church of England concludes the second article, which is a description of the Son of God, with these words, " who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to recon- cile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men." And the same opinion is more fully expressed in the prayer of consecration which forms part of the com- munion service, " Almighty God, our heavenly Father, w4io of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there, by his one obla- tion of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The words of our Confession of Faith, chap. viii. 5, are these," The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satis- fied the Justice of his Father ; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto him." It is the first part of this paragraph which is peculiar to the Catholic opinion ; for those who hold the middle system also say that by the merit of Christ's obedi- ence, they who repent shall receive t-he reward of eternal life ; and therefore they need not scruple to say that he purchased an everlasting inheritance for them. But they do not admit that he hath fully sat- isfied the justice of the Father, by his sacrifice of himself offered up unto God ; and this is the point in which they unite with the Socin- ians. This disthiguishing part of the Catholic opinion is known by 428 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE the name of the doctrine of the atonement, or the satisfaction of Christ. The subject is in itself so important, it has received such ample and acute discussion from the times of Socinus to the present day, and the points in controversy enter so much into all the discourses and offices of the ministers of the Gospel, that I should fail hi my duty if I did not speak of it fully. A much shorter illustration will suffice for the other part of the Catholic opinion, — the manner in which those who hold it connect the promise and the hope of life everlasting with the obedience of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the atonement or satisfaction of Christ is not neces- sarily connected with a belief in his divinity ; for this doctrine was ably defended by Dr. Clarke, and it is held by many who avow that they do not consider the Son as truly God. But it is impossible for any one, who believes that Jesus Christ is a mere man, to entertain such an opinion of the value of his sufferings, as to think that they could be a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and a satisfaction to the justice of God. A denial, therefore, of the pre-existence of our Saviour, and a denial of the doctrine of satisfaction, are the two leading fea- tures of Socinianism, and they necessarily go together ; whereas all, as far as I know, without exception, who believe in the Trinity, and a part of those who consider Jesus as the most exalted creature of God, embrace that part of the catholic opinion which we are now to state, that is to say, they believe that as this glorious person could not suffer in the form of God, he was made in the likeness of men, and dwelt amongst us in the body prepared for him, for this purpose chiefly, that he might sufter for the sins of men ; that the sorrows of his life, the agony of his last hours, and the bitterness of his death, were the punishment due to our transgressions, which it pleased the Father to lay upon him, and which he cheerfully undertook ; and that the sins of those who repent and believe are forgiven upon account of this substitution of Jesus Christ in their stead, which is called his vicarious suftering. It is well known, that the general strain of Scripture favours this opinion; for we meet with numberless expressions of this kind. " Christ was delivered for our oflences ; he suffered for sins the just for the unjust ; by his stripes we are healed ; he hath made peace by the blood of his cross — he hath given himself for us an offering, and a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour." But it is not by a bare enu- meration of such texts,than which there is nothing more easy, that the Catholic opinion is to be established. For those who oppose it do not deny that it appears to be favoured by the language of Scrip- ture. But they maintain that it is liable to so many objections, and in particular is so contrary to the moral attributes of the Deity, that it cannot be true, and that they would not beheve it even although it were taught in Scripture more plainly than it is : and they say further, that this opinion, though apparently favoured by Scripture, is not necessarily implied in tlie language there used, that the phrases em- ployed by those who hold it, viz. vindictive justice, vicarious suffering, substitution, and satisfaction, are of human uivention, and that the 3xpressions in Scripture which liave been conceived to warrant such phrases admit of a milder interpretation. This being the manner in which the Catholic opinion is combated. NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 429 those . who defend it have to show, in the first place, that it is not irrational or unjust ; for, if it were, it could not form, as (hey say it does, the most important article in the Christian revelation ; and hi the second place, after they have fairly stated and vindicated their opinion, it remains for them to show that it is unquestionably the doctrine of Scripture, that the views there given of the method of our redemption by the sufferings of Christ, correspond with the language which they employ in stating their opinion, and with the principles upon which they rest the vindication of it. I shall follow this natural division of the defence of the doctrine of the atonement ; and I think that I shall thus be able to furnish you with a complete view of the kind of argument employed to prove that it is agreeable to reason, and that it is taught by Scripture. 430 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. CHAPTER III. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. The first thing necessary for those who defend the CathoHc opinion, respecting the gospel remedy, is to show ihat it may be stated in such a manner as not to appear irrational or unjust. The objections urged against it are of a very formidable kind. Christians who hold other systems concerning the gospel remedy unite with the enemies of revelation in misrepresenting this doctrine ; and if you form your notion of it from the accounts commonly given by either of these classes of writers, you will perhaps be disposed to agree with Socinus in thinking, that whether it be contained in the Scriptures or not it cannot be true. It has been said that this doctrine represents the Almighty as moved with fury at the insults offered to his Supreme Majesty, as impatient to pour forth his fury upon some being, as indifferent whether that being deserves it or not, and as perfectly appeased upon findmg an object of vengeance in his own innocent ■ Son. It has been said that a doctrine which represents the Almiility as sternly demanding a full equivalent for that which was due to Itim, and as receiving that equivalent in the suflerings of his Son, translcrs all the affection and gratitude of the hvmian race, from an inexorable being who did not remit any part of his right, to another being who satisfied his claim. It has been said that a translation of guilt is impossible, because guilt is personal, and that a doctrine, which represents the innocent as punished instead of the guilty, and the guilty as escaping by this punishment, contradicts the first principles of justice, subverts all our ideas of a righteous government, and. by holding forth an example of reward and punishment dispensed by heaven without any regard to the character of those who receive them, does, in fact, encourage men to live as they please. These objections are the more formidable, tliat tliey have received no small countenance from the language of many of the most ztalous friends of this doctrine. The atonement presents a subject of spe- culation most interesting to the great body of tjie people, wh.o are always incapable of metaphysical precision of though't ; it enters into loose and popular harangues delivered by many who are more ac- customed to speak than to think ; a)id the ma' ner of statin.g it has been too often accommodated to prejudices winch are incor.sistcnt witli truth, and adverse to morality. It is not surprising that, in such circumstances, the mistakes of the friends of this doctrine have given much advantage to the misrepresentation of its enemies; and it is upon this account very necessary for you, the great object of whose DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 43l Study is to acquire just and enlarged apprehensions of the whole scheme of Christian doctrine, that you may be able to defend that truth which you understand, to beware of forming your notions of this capital article of our faith from the incorrect superficial statements of it which may come in your way. Happily for your instruction, the objections to this doctrine have called forth some of the greatest masters of reason in its defence. Grotius, whose comprehensive vigorous mind was illuminated by an intimate acquaintance with jurisprudence, wrote, in answer to Socinus, a treatise, De Sathfactione Christi., which is both a fair exposition and a complete vindication of the doctrine ; and the reply published by Crellius, an adherent of Socinus, was answered in the end of the seventeenth century by the learned and able Bishop Stil- lingtlect, who, in his discourse on the sufferings of Christ, has unfolded and illustrated the leading principles laid down by Grotius, and by applying them to the acute reasonings of Crellius, has shown how ready a solution they afford of every objection. Dr. Clarke, with that accuracy of thought and that precision of language which are his characteristics, has explained within a short compass, in a sermon upon the nature of the sufferings of Christ, and elsewhere occasionally, the true principles of this doctrine. The general circulation of Dr. Clarke's works has rendered these principles familiar to many, who have not leisure to study the more elaborate treatises of Grotius and StillingHeet; they are now pretty generally understood, and you will find them spread out, and applied with much propriety to the form in which some modern writers have brought forward the ancient objec- tions, in two treatises published not many years ago, the one entitled, Jesus Christ the Mediator between God and Man, by Tomkins ; the other. Vicarious Sacrifice, by Elliot. Availing myself of these helps, I shall now proceed to state that precise notion of the doctrine of the atonement, upon which the reasonableness of it is rested by those who know best how to defend it. This fair statement of the Catholic opinion will involve in it an answer to the objections which I mentioned, and will prepare us for discovering, by a critical examination of various passages of Scripture, the evidence that it is there taught, and the views of it which are , there given. Section I. The first principle upon which a fair statement of the doctrine of the atonement proceeds is this, that sin is a violation of law, and that the almighty, in requiring an atonement in order to the pardon of sin, acts as the supreme lawgiver. So important is this principle, that all the objections to the doctrine proceed upon other views of sin, which to a certain extent, appear to be just, but which cannot be admitted to be complete without acknowledging that it is impossible to answer the objections. Thus, if you consider sin as merely an insult to the majesty of heaven, God the Father as the person ofiended by this insult, and that wrath of God, of which the Scriptures speak, as 432 DOGTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. something analagous to the emotion of anger excited in our breasts by the petulance of our neighbours, it would seem, according to the notions which we entertain, more generous to lay aside this wrath, and to accept of an acknowledgment of the oftence, than to demand reparation of the insult ; and it may be thought that the Almigljty, in requiring another to suffer before an olTence which is personal to himself can be forgiven, discovers a jealousy of his own dignity un- becoming that supreme majesty, which is incapable of being tarnished by the conduct of his creatures. In like manner, if, because our Lord sometimes calls trespasses by the name of debts, we stretch the comparison so far as to make it a complete description of sin, if, fol- lowing out the similitude, we consider the Almighty as a creditor to whom the sinner has contracted a debt, and forgiveness as the remis- sion of that debt which would have been paid by the punishment of the sinner, tliere does not occur from this description any reason why the Almighty may not as freely forgive the sins of his creatures, as a creditor may remit Avhat is due to himself; and, therefore, when, in- stead of doing so, he requires payment of the debt by the sufierings of his Son, he appears in the light of a rigorous creditor, who, having insisted upon his own, although the person originally bound was not able to pay, receives it from a surety, so that all that grace of God in the forgiveness of sin, which the Scriptures extol, is without meaning, for when the debt is paid, the liberation of the debtor is a matter of right, not of favour. Further, if the intrinsic evil of sin is tlie only thing attended to, and the sinner be considered in no other light than as a reaso lable creature who has deformed his nature, and whose character has become odious, it may be thought that repentance is the proper remedy of this evil. Men, not being quahfiedto judge of the sincerity of those who profess sorrow for their past trespasses, would act unwisely if they pardoned -every person who appears to be penitent ; ])ut it is impossible that the Supreme Being can be mistaken in judging of t!ie hearts of men ; and, therefore, if the hatefulness of their conduct be the only cause of alienation, whenever he discerns in them the marks of true reformation, that cause no longer exists, and the siimer, by a real change upon his character, returns into favour with his Creator. According to this view of the matter, all that is necessary for dispensing forgiveness is an effectual method of promoting reformation ; and the Socinians appear to give a complete account of the gospel of Christ, when they say that it saves us from our sins l)y leading us to forsake them. Thus many of the principal objections against the doclrine of atonement remain without an answer, when we confine our notions of sin to t!iese three views of it. But although it be true that sin is an insult to the majesty of heaven, by which the Supreme Being is offended, that it is in some sense a debt to the Creator, and that it cannot be beheld by a pure spirit without the highest disapprobation, there is a further view of it not directly included under any of these ; and all the obj'ctions which I mentioned arise from the stopping short at some one of these views, or at least employing the hmguage pecu- liar to them, without going on to state this further view, that sin is i- violation of the law given by the Supreme Being; But it is under the character of a lawgiver that the Almighty is to be regarded both in DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 43S punishing and in forgiving the sins of men. For although by creation be is the absohite lord and proprietor of all, who may without challenge or control dispose of every part of his works in what manner he pleases, he does not exercise this right of sovereignty in the government of his reasonable creatures, but he has made known to them certain laws, which express what he would have them to do, and he has annexed to these laws certain sanctions which declare the rewards of obedience, and the consequences of transgression. It is this which constitutes what we call the moral government of God, of which all those actions of the Almighty, that respect what is right or wrong in the conduct of his reasonable creatures, form a part, and under which every man feels that he lives. For although this moral government be administered with very unequal measures of instruc- tion to the subjects, there is no situation in which the human race have the use of their faculties, without recognising in one degree or other the law of their nature ; and whether this knowledge be derived from sentiment, or reason, or tradition, or written revelation, every thing which to them is sin may with accuracy be defined the trans- gression of a law. If the Almighty, then, is to be regarded as a lawgiver, we must endeavour to rise to the most exalted conceptions which we are able to form of the plan of his moral government ; and for this purpose it is necessary that we should abstract from every kind of weakness which is incident to the administration of human governments, and lay hold of those principles and maxims which reason and experience teach us to consider as essential to a good government, and without which it does not appear to us that that expression has any meaning. Now it is the first principle of every good government, that laws are enacted for the benefit of the community. The happiness of the whole body depends upon their being observed, for they would not have been enacted, if the observance of them had been a matter of indifference to the public. Hence every person who violates the laws, besides the disrespect which he shows to that authority by which they were enacted, besides the hurt which individuals may sustain by his action, does an injury to the public, because he disturbs that order and security which the laws establish. It is therefore essential to the excellence of government, that there succeeds, immediately after disobedience, what is called guilt, i. e. the desert of punishment, an obligation to suffer that which the law prescribes. Accordingly in the code of laws of many northern nations, who were accustomed to estimate all crimes at certain rates, a murderer not only paid a sum to the relations of the deceased, as a compensation for their loss, but he paid a sum to the king for the breach of the peace.* And in all countries, that which is properly called punishment does not mean the putting the rights of a private party, who may have been imme- diately injured, in the same state in which they were before the trespass was committed, but it means the reparation made to the public by the suffering of the criminal, for the disorder arising from his breach of the laws. The law generally defines what the measure of this suffering shall be, and it is applied to particular cases by • Tac Germ. xii. 39 3M 434 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. criminal judges, who, being only iHterpreters of the law, have no power to remit the punishment. It is true that in most human governments a power is lodged somewhere of granting pardon, because from the imperfection which necessarily adheres to them, it may often be inexpedient or even unjust, that a person who has been legally condemned should suffer; and there are times when the legislature sees meet to pass acts of indemnity. But it is only in very particular circumstances that the safety of the state admits the escape of a criminal ; and in most cases the supreme authority proceeds, not with wrath, but from a calm and fixed regard to the essential interests of the community, to deter other subjects from violating the laws, by exhibiting to their view punishment as the consequence of transgres- sion. If we apply these maxims and principles, which appear to us im- plied in the very nature of good government, we shall find it impos- sible to conceive of God as a lawgiver, without thinking it essential to his character to punish transgression ; and the perfection of his government, far from, superseding this exercise of that character, seems to render it the more becoming and the more indispensable. It is not that the wickedness of men can hurt him, that his throne is in any danger of being shaken by their combinations, or that his trea- sures may be exhausted if his subjects do not pay what they owe him ; it is not from any such emotion as personal injury excites in our breast ; but it is because his laws are founded in the essential differ- ence between good and evil ; because they are adapted with wisdom and goodness to the circumstances of those to whom they are given, and because the happiness of the whole rational creation depends upon the observance of them, that guilt under the divine government is followed by punishment. Hence you will observe that what divines call vindictive ':>^ punitive justice, far from deserving the opprobrious epithets with which it has been often loaded by hasty and superficial writers, belongs to the character of the Ruler of the universe, as much as any other attribute of the divine nature. For if the goodness of the lawgiver, and the excellence of his laws, do not lead men to ob- serve them, it remains for him to vindicate their authority, and to pre- serve that order for the sake of which they were given, by employing the punishment of transgression as the mean of preventing the repe- tition of it. This mean is employed according to the natural course when the sinner bears the punishment of his own transgression ; and he can have no title to complain, although he endures the whole of that suf- fering which the law prescribes. In human governments, those who execute the laws seldom have much liberty of choice in the exercise of punitive justice, because they are either merely the interpreters of law, or are accountable to some higher authority ; and even when they feel no such external restraint, their imperfect knowledge of the effects of their own decisions makes it appear to them safer and wiser to follow the established course. But the Almighty, who has an entire comprehension of the whole circumstances of every case, may perceive that different manners of exercising punitive justice are equally well calculated to attain the ends of punishment. As he giveth not account of his matters, he cannot be restrained by any cir- DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 435 cnmsfance foreign to himself from adopting that manner which ap- pears to him hest suited to the circumstances of the case ; and even our understandings can discern in the situation of a guilty world the strongest reasons for departing from that method of exercising puni- tive justice, which lays the whole punishment of transgression upon the transgressor. For if all men are sinners, and if death, which is declared to he the punishment of sin, cannot possibly mean that those who die for their sins shall be happy hereafter, but must include the dissolution or the future misery of the sinner, it is manifest that the Supreme Lawgiver, by exercising punitive justice in this manner, would have put an end to the existence of the human race, or ren- dered them for ever wretched ; and therefore, if there is any manner by whicli the ends of punitive justice can be attained in a consistency with the salvation of the human race, it appears to us, judging a priori, that it is becoming the Almighty to adopt this manner, be- cause in so doing he acts both as the Lawgiver of the universe, and as the Father of mankind. In the substitution of Jesus Christ, according to the Catholic opi- nion, there is a translation of the guilt of the sinners to him, by whicli is not meant that he who was innocent became a sinner, but that what he suffered was upon account of sin. To perceive the reason for adopting this expression, you must carry in your minds a precise notion of the meaning of the three words, sin, guilt, and punishment. Sin is the violation of law ; guilt is the desert of punishment which succeeds this violation ; and punishment is the suffering in consequence of this desert. When you separate suffering from guilt, it ceases \q be punishment, and becomes mere calamity or affliction ; and although the Almighty may be conceived, by his sovereign dominion, to have the right of laying any measure of suffering upon any being, yet suf- fering, even when inflicted by heaven, unless it is connected with guilt, does not attain the ends of punishment. In order, therefore, that the sufferings of the Son of God might be such as it became the Lawgiver of the universe to inflict, it was necessary that the sufferer, who had no sin of his own, should be considered and declared as taking upon him that obligation to punishment which the human race had incurred by their sins. Then his sufferings became punishment, not indeed deserved by sins of his own, but due to him as bearing the sins of others. Although the sufferings of Jesus Christ, in consequence of this translation of guilt, became the punishment of sin, it is plain that they are not that very punishment which the sins deserved ; and hence it is that they are called by those who hold the Catholic opinion, a satisfaction for the sins of the world. The word satisfaction is known in the Roman law, from which it is borrowed, to denote that method of fulfilling an obligation which may either be admitted or refused. When a person, by the non-]:erformance of a contract, has incurred a penalty, he is entitled to a discharge of the contract, if he pays the penalty ; but if, instead of paying the penalty itself, he offers some- thing in place of it, the person who ha»a right to demand the penalty, may grant a discharge or not, as he sees meet. If he is satisfied with that which is offered, he will grant the discharge ; if he is not satis- fied, he carmot be called unjust ; he may act wisely in refusing it. 436 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. According to this known meaning of the word, the sufferings of Christ for sin liavc received the name of a satisfaction to the justice of God, because they were not the penalty that had been incurred, but were something accepted by the Lawgiver instead of it. It appears even to us inconsistent with the character of the Lawgiver of the universe, and many reasons in his universal government, which we are not qualified to perceive, may have rendered it in the highest degree unfit, that an act of indemnity, by which the sins of all that repent and be- lieve are forgiven, should be published to the human race without some awful example of the punishment of transgression. It pleased God to exhibit his example in the sutferings of his own Son. By declaring that the iniquities of the whole world were laid upon this person, he transferred to him the guilt of mankind, and thus showed them, at the very time when their sins are forgiven, that no transgres- sion of his law can escape with impunity. It follows from the account which has been given of a satisfaction for sin, that it cannot procure the pardon of the sinner without the good will of the lawgiver, because it offers something in place of that which he was entitled to demand ; and for this reason the Catholic opinion concerning the nature of the remedy brought in the gospel, far from excluding, will be found, when rightly understood, to magnify the mercy of the Lawgiver. Those, who know best how to defend it, never speak of any contest between the justice and the mercy of God, because they believe that there is the most perfect harmony amongst all the divine perfections : they never think so unworthily of God as to conceive that his fury was appeased by the interposition of Jesus Christ ; but they uniformly represent the scheme of our redemption as originating in the love of God the Father, who both provided and accepted that substitution, by which sinners are saved ; and they hold that the forgiveness of sins is free, because although granted upon that consideration which the Lawgiver saw meet to exact, it was given to those who had no right to expect it, and who could have fulfilled their obligation to punishment only by their destruction, or their eternal misery. One essential point in the statement of the Catholic opinion yet re- mains. Allowing that it became the Ruler of the universe to exhibit the righteousness of his government, by punishing transgression at the time when remission of sins was preached in the gospel, and that we are thus able to assign the reason of that translation of guilt, without which a guilty world could not be saved, it may still be inquired upon what principle an innocent person was made to suffer this punish- ment : and it is one part of the objections to the Catholic opinion, that no reason of expediency, not even mercy to the human race, can render it right or fit, that he who had done no sin should be punished as a sinner. When the Socinians are asked in what manner they can account for the sufferings of Jesus Christ, who, even in the judg- ment of those who lower his character to that of a peaceable mortal, must be allowed to have suffered more, although he sinned less, than other men, they resolve them into an act of dominion in the Creator, the same kind of sovereignty by which he often sends the heaviest afflictions upon the worthiest persons, and, disposing of his creatures at his pleasure, brings good out of evil. But this is an account to DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 437 which those who hold the Catholic opinion cannot have recourse, because their whole system proceeds upon this principle, that the Almighty is to be considered, in every part of this transaction, not as an absolute proprietor, who does what he will with his own, but as a righteous governor, who derives the reasons of his conduct from the laws which constitute his government. In the Catholic opinion, therefore, the consent of him who endured the sufferings is conjoined with the act of the Lawgiver, who accepted them as a satisfaction for sin ; and it is by the conjunction of these two circumstances, the con- sent of the sufferer and the acceptance of the Lawgiver, that the suf- ferings of Christ are essentially distinguished from all other instances of vicarious punishment. The ordinary course of human affairs, and the Scripture history, furnish many cases in which persons suffer for the sins of others. It is part of the positive laws of many states, and of the general constitu- tion of nature, that the effects of transgression extend beyond the lives and fortunes of those by whom it was committed, and that children, subjects, or other connexions thus endure a larger portion of evil than it is likely they would have endured had it not been for the sins of those who went before them. You will find cases of this kind brought forward, and very much dwelt upon, even in the most masterly vindications of the Catholic opinion ; but I own it appears to me, that the principles upon which the Catholic opinion is defended destroy every kind of similarity between these cases and the sufferings of Christ. In all such instances of the extension of punishment, per- sons suffer for sins, of which they are innocent, without their consent, in consequence of a constitution under which they are born, and by a disposition of events which they probably lament ; and their suffering is not- supposed to have any effect in alleviating the evils incurred by those whose punishment they bear. The constitution by which pun- ishment is thus extended has a striking similarity to the effects produced by the fall of Adam upon his posterity. It suggests a general analogy by whicli the second or the fourth opinion upon that subject may be vindicated ; but it is wholly inapplicable to the sufier- ings which procured the remedy. Cases which appear to be more similar are those in which parents or friends, from affection and choice, submit to much labour and pain, by which they are able to mitigate the afflictions of others, and often to extricate them from danger or sorrow. Such cases intimate, as has been well said by Bishop Butler, that the general constitution of the universe is merciful, i. e. that evils, however deserved, are not left without remedy ; and the generosity and willingness which brings the remedy, have been considered as suggesting an analogy favourable to that which I call the Middle opinion. But all such cases fall very far short of the Catholic opinion. For although persons in certain situations may conceive it to be their duty, or may feel an inclination to make an exertion of benevolence painful to themselves, and profitable to others ; and although the enthusiasm of affection has sometimes pro- duced a wish to bear for others all that they had deserved, yet, from the nature of the thing, there cannot be in such cases a legal substi- tution. No person is entitled to give a formal consent that his life shall be taken by God in place of that of another, because his own is 39* 438 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. entirely at the disposal of his Creator; and it would be presumptuous in him to offer to the Almighty to suffer the punishment of another man's sins, for every man has to bear his own iniquity, and every man may know, that if God were to enter into judgment with him, this is a load more than suifjcient for him. When you turn to human judgments, you will find nothing exactly similar to what is called a satisfaction for sin by the sufferings of Christ; and a little attention will satisfy you that the dissimilarity is not accidental, but is founded on the nature of things. In those cases in which the penalty incurred by breach of contract is a sum of money, or a prestation that may be performed by any one, he who pays the sum, or does the service for the person originally bound, undergoes what may properly be called vicarious punishment ; but he camiot be said to make satisfaction, because he does the very thing which was required, and the liberation of the pannel becomes, in con- sequence, of such substitution, a matter of right, not of favour. In those cases in which the penalty incurred is a punishment that attaches to the person of the pannel, as imprisonment, banishment, stripes, or death, human law does not admit of substitution, because in all such cases there cannot be that concurrence of the acceptance of the law- giver, and the valid consent of the substitute, without which substitu- tion is illegal. Corporal chastisement and imprisonment for a limited time are intended not only as examples to others, but as a method of reforming the vices of the criminal, — they are a medicine which must be administered, not to another, but to the patient. Perpetual im- prisonment, banishment, and death, are inflicted upon those whom the law considers as incorrigible ; and besides being examples, are intended to prevent the danger of any further harm being done to the community by the persons who are thus punished. 13ut if anorher were punished in their stead, the danger would still exist ; at least it is impossible for human government to judge how far the lesson ad- ministered by the punishment of another would correct the vice of those who deserved to have suffered it. There was a circumstance in the practice of ancient nations, which may appear to furnish an exception to these remarks ; for it is known that, in the intercourse of states, hostages were often given as a security that a treaty should be fulfilled ; and that in private causes, persons called avti-^vxai. pledged their own lives for the lives of those who had been convicted of a capital crime. If the nation did not fulfil the contract, the hostage was put to death ; — if the criminal did not appear, the surety was executed. But there are two essential points of dissimilarity between these cases and the subject of which we are now speaking. The first is, that neither the nation nor the criminal was liberated by this vicarious suffering. The criminal was amenable to the sentence of the law, whenever he was apprehended, although the o.vti-^v;)(Oi Jiad suffered ; and the nation was considered as havhig broken the treaty, although it had sacrificed its citizen. And thus in the sufferings inflicted upon hostages and sureties, there was not that translation of guilt by which the punishment of one person takes away the obligation of another to suffer punishment. But the second point of dissimilarity is still more essential. Supposing it had been understood as a part of the law of nations, that tlie punishment DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 439 of a hostage cancelled the obligation of a treaty ; supposing it had been part of the criminal jurisprudence of any country, that one sub- ject might be carried forth to execution in place of another who had been condemned to die, still such substitution would Imve been unjust : it might have expressed the sentiments of those times with regard to vicarious punishment, but it could not have reconciled that punish- ment with the eternal law of righteousness, because no man is entitled to consent that his life shall be given in place of the life of another. He has power to dispose of his goods and of his labour, in any way that is not contrary to the laws of God, or the regulations of the com- munity under whose protection he lives ; but he has not power to dispose of his life, which he received from his Creator, which he is bound to preserve during the pleasure of him who gave it, and of the improvement of which he has to render an account. A man, indeed, is often called to expose his life to danger in the discharge of his duty ; and it is not the part either of a man or of a Christian to value life so much as, for the sake of preserving it, to decline doing what he ought to do. But that he may be warranted to make a sacrifice inconsistent with the first law of his nature, the law of self-preservation, it should be clearly marked out to him to be his duty, by circumstances not of his own choosing. It is true also, that the first principles of social union give the rulers of the state a right to call forth the subjects in the most hazardous services, because a nation cannot exist unless it be defended by the members. But if, in consequence of this connexion with the community, a good citizen should not feel himself at liberty to decline when he is sent as an hostage, and if he should be put to death because the nation from which he came did not fulfil the treaty, the illegality of the substitution would only be transferred from the individual who did his duty in obeying, to the commmiity who took the life of a subject, not to defend the state, but to leave the state at liberty to break its faith. To the ai/ri>Vvarot of the ancients there was not the apology of a public order. Theirs was a private act, proceed- ing often, it may be, from the most laudable sentiments, but exceeding the powers given to man, and upon that account invalid. The purpose of this long deduction was to account for what might at first sight appear an objection to the Catholic opinion, that of all the instances commonly alleged as similar, there are none which can properly be called a satisfaction by vicarious punishment ; and the amount of the deduction is this : The imperfect knowledge, which every human lawgiver has of the circumstances of the case, disquali- fies him from judging how far the ends of punishment may be attained by substitution, so that it is wiser for him to follow the established course of justice which lays the punishment upon the transgressor : and in capital punishments the law of nature forbids substitution ; because no warmth of affection, and no apprehension of utility, war- rant a man voluntarily to sacrifice that life which is the gift of God to him, merely that another who deserved to die might live. For these reasons I said, that in every thing which seems to approach to a substitution amongst men, there is wanting that concurrence of the acceptance of the lawgiver, and the consent of the substitute, without which substitution is illegal. But these two circumstances meet in 440 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. f the substitution of Christ ; and it is this peculiar concurrence which forms the complete vindication of the Catholic opinion. Jesus Christ was capable of giving his consent to suffer and to die for the sins of men, because he had that power over his life which a mere man cannot have. JDeath did not come upon him by the con- dition of iiis being ; but having existed from all ages in the form of God, he assumed, at a particular season, the fashion of a man, for this very cause that he miglit suffer and die. All the parts of his suffer- ings were known to him before he visited this world ; he saw the consequences of them both to mankind and to himself; and, with every circumstance fully in his view, he said unto his Father, as it is written in the volume of God's book concerning him, " Lo ! I come to do thy will, 0 God !"* His own words mark most explicitly that he had that power over his life which a mere man has not ; " No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again ;"f and upon this power, peculiar to Jesus, depends the significancy of that expression which his Apostles use concerning him, " he gave himself for us," i. e. with a valid deliberate consent he acted in all that he suffered as our substitute. It affords a favourable view of the consistency of the Catholic opinion, that the very same dignity of character, which qualified the substitute to give his consent, implies the strongest reasons for the acceptance of the Lawgiver, — the other circumstance which must concur in order to render vicarioiis suffering a satisfaction to justice. The support, which the human nature of Jesus received from his divine, enabled him to sustain that wrath which the Lawgiver saw meet to lay upon a person who was bearing the sins of the world. The exalted character of the sufferer exhibited to the rational creation the evil and heinousness of sin, which the Supreme Lawgiver did not choose to forgive without such a substitution ; and the love of God to the human race, which led him to accept of the sufferings of a substitute, was illustrated in the most striking manner, by his not sparing for such a purpose a person so dear to him as his own Son. These grounds of the reasonableness of the Catholic opinion, which we deduce from the character of the substitute, have no necessary connexion with some assertions which occur in many theological books. It has been said, that our sins, being committed against the infinite majesty of Heaven, deserved an infinite punishment ; that none but an infinite person could pay an equivalent, and therefore that God could not pardon sin without the sufferings of his Son. This manner of speaking, which pretends to balance one infinite against another, must be unintelligible to finite minds; and as far as it can be understood, it appears to be unjustifiable; because it ill becomes creatures whose sphere of observation is so narrow, and whose faculties are so weak as ours, to say what God could do, or what he could not do. It has also been said, that such was the value of the sufierings of Christ, that one drop of his blood was sufficient to wash away the sins of the world. Tliis is a manner of speaking which appears to be both presumptuous and false ; because, under the • Heb. X 7. f John x. 18. DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 441 semblance of magnifying the Redeemer, it ascribes cruelty and injus- tice to the Father in the measure of suflering which he laid upon his Son. Neither are we warranted to say, that the purpose of making an atonement for the sins of men contains the whole account of the suiferings of Christ; because there may be in this transaction what the Scriptures call a manifold wisdom to us unsearchable ; reasons founded upon relations to other parts of the universe, and upon the general plan of the divine government, which we have not at present the capacity of apprehending. It is of great importance to vindicate the Catholic opinion from that appearance of presumption, which the language of some of its zealous friends has annexed to it. But such language is by no means essential to the statement of this opinion. We do not say what God could have done, or what were all the reasons for his doing what we think the Scriptures tell us he has done : but we say, that in the revelation which is given of the dignity of Jesus Christ, we discern both that he was capable of giving consent, and that he is such a substitute as it became the Lawgiver to accept. It appears then to follow, from what has been stated, that when the sins of the penitent are 'forgiven upon account of the substitution of the sutierings of Christ, the authority of the divine government is as completely vindicated as if transgressors had suffered all the punishment which they deserved ; at the same time, the most tender compassion is displayed to the human race, so that the Supreme Lawgiver appears both merciful and just. The harmony with which the divine perfections unite in this scheme, is considered by those who hold the Catholic opinion, as a strong internal evidence, that it is the true interpretation of Scripture. For it has been often said, and it must always be repeated when this subject is discussed, that had the gospel been a simple declaration of forgiveness to all that repent, men would both have felt that a general act of indemnity, so easily pro- nounced, was an encouragement to sin ; and, instead of being deeply- impressed with the richness of that grace from which it flowed, might have regarded it as an ordinary exertion of divine goodness, of the same rank with those bounties of Providence which are daily com- municated. Whereas the preparation, the solemnity, and the expense, which, according to the Catholic opinion, attended the pronouncing of this act, at once enhances the value, and guards against the abuse of it. When we behold the Son of God descending from heaven, that he might bear our sins in his body on the tree, and the forgive- ness of sins preached through the name of a crucified Saviour, we read in the charter which conveys our pardon, that there is a deep malignity in sin, and we learn to adore the kindness and love of God which, at such a price, brought us deliverance. All those declarations of the placability of the divine nature, which the Socinians cjuote in support of their system, are thus allowed by the Catholic opinion their full force. We say as they do, that the Lord God is merciful and gracious, and ready to forgive ; and although we contend that pardon is dispensed only upon account of the sufferings of Christ, yet, far from thinking that the love of God is in this way obscured, we hold that this manner of dispensing pardon is the brightest display of the greatness of the divine mercy. But we claim it as the peculiar advantage of the Catholic opinion, that according to it, the display of 3N 442 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. mercy is conjoined with an exhibition of the evil of sin ; and when we advance to other parts of the subject, we say further, that the remedy thus procured is dispensed and applied in a manner wisely calculated to give the most effectual check to those abuses, of which so striking an instance of the divine compassion is susceptible. Section II. We have seen that, from the nature of the thing, nothing exactly similar to vicarious punishment is to be found in the transactions of men with one another. But if vicarious punishment is the foundation of the gospel remedy, that analogy which, from other circumstances, we know to pervade all the dispensations of I'eligion from the be- ginning of the world, leads us to expect, in the previous intercourse between man and his Creator, some intimation of this method of saving sinners. As soon as we turn our attention to this subject, we are struck with the universal use of sacrifice. A worshipper bringing an animal to be slain at the altar of his God, presents an obvious re- semblance, which has been eagerly laid hold of by those who defend the doctrine of pardon by substitution ; and yet you will find, that much discussion and an accurate discrimination are necessaiy, before any sound and clear argument in favour of that doctrine can be war- rantably drawn from this general practice. P'or, in the first place, many of the sacrifices of the heathen were merely eucharistical ex- pressions of gratitude for blessings received, or festivals in honour of the deity worshipped by the sacrifice, at which he was supposed to be present, and in which it was conceived by the vulgar that he par- took. Even the votive and propitiatory sacrifices, i. e. those which expressed a wish of the worshipper, and his earnest desire to obtain the favour of the deity, may be considered as only a method of suppli- cation, in which a solemn action accompanied the words that were used ; or as a bribe, by which the worshipper, presenting what was most precious in his own sight, solicited the protection of his god. But, in the second place, although there were sacrifices among the heathen which approached nearer to the notion of a substitution, it is not certain whether they were of divine or of human original. To some the universality and the nature of the practice taken together appear to furnish a strong presumption, or even a clear proof, that it was in the beginning commanded by God ; whilst others think, that by attending to the state of the mind under the influence of religious emotions, and to the early mode of speaking by action, a reasonable and natural account can be given of the introduction and progress of sacrifice, without having recourse to the authority of the Creator and there are many to whom it appears a strange method of defend ing a peculiar doctrine of revelation, to have recourse to a practice, which, although it originated in sentiments dictated to all men by particular situations, and might at first be innocent and expressive, is known to have degenerated in process of time, not, merely into a frivolous service, but into cruel and shocking rites. I know few subjects upon which more has been written to less DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 443 purpose, than the origin of sacrifices. The only facts which are certainly known with regard to this subject are the following. No command to offer sacrifice is found in the book of Genesis. Yet Cain and Abel, the two first sons of Adam, brought offerings to the Lord, and the offering of Abel was of the firstlings of his flock.* Job, who is not supposed to have been acquainted with the books of Moses, offered burnt-offerings according to the number of his sons ;t and all the nations of the earth, of whom it is at least doubtful whether their religion was derived from the Mosaic law, introduced sacrifices into the ceremonial of their worship. Now these facts are so few, and they run back into a period of which we know so little, and in which they are so naked of circumstancss, that it is possible for men of ingenuity and fancy, to give a plausible appearance to any kind of reasoning upon them, and thus to accommodate their opinion of the origin of sacrifices, to the general system of their opinions upon other subjects. I should go very far out of my province, if I entangled myself in the labyrinth opinions upon this problematical subject. But there are two points, totally independent of any of the particular systems that have been formed concerning it, which it appears to me of much im- portance for those who defend the Catholic opinion to carry along with them. The one is, that amidst the multiplicity of heathen sacri- fices, there were some in which the people understood that the victim was substituted in place of the offerer, and suffered the whole or a part of the punishment which the offerer deserved. I do not inquire into the origin of this kind of sacrifices, because whatever were the steps by which they were introduced, and whether they were the earliest or the latest sacrifices, it remains equally true that they were known and used by ancient nations, and that this is a fact of which the classics furnish the most abundant and various evidence. The anger of the gods, excited by some transgression, and olgnified by prodigies or calamities, was supposed to be averted by sacrifices, which for this reason were called averrunca, i. e. iram divinam avertentia. This was implied in the action of the worshipper, when he presented such sacrifices, viz : his laying his hands upon the head of the victim while he confessed his sins, and uttered the solennia verba : and the same thing is expressed in these words of Ovid, "hanc animam vobis pro meliore damns;" J and of Horace, mactata veniet lenior hostia ;" § and in terms often used by Livy upon such occasions, "pacem exposcere deum."|| As the animal was supposed to bear the anger due to the offerer, it was believed that the more precious the victim, and the more nearly connected with the offerer, the gods would the more certainly be appeased. Hence arose the splendid hecatombs of which we read in Homer ; and hence too the human sacrifices, and the offering of children by their own parents, of which we read amongst many nations. Thus Caesar says of the Gauls, " pro vita horainum nisi vita hominis reddatur, non posse aliter Deorum immortalium numen placari arbitrantur."1[ Justin says of the Carthagenians, " hommes ut victimas immolabant, et impuberes * Gen. iv. 3, 4. -j- Job i. 5. + Ovid. Fast. vi. 162. § Hor Oarm. i. 19. H Liv. iii. 7. 1[ Cscs. De B. G. vL 16. 444 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. aris admovebant, pacem Deorum sanguine eorum exposcentes."* The following lines of Virgil show, that the idea of a victim suffering for the sins of another was familiar to the poet and his countrymen. They are put into the mouth of Simon, who, pretending to have escaped out of the hands of the Greeks, by whom he had been destined for the altar, is brought before Priam. Nee mihi jam palriam antiquam spes uUa videndi, Nee dukes natos exoptatumque parentem : Quos illi fors ad poenas ob nostra reposcent Effugia, et culpam banc miserorum morte piabuntf No words can mark more significantly the nature and the effect of vicarious suffering, than the beautiful lines in which Juvenal describes the act of the Decii, in devoting themselves to death for their coim- try ; an act which Livy had caMed piaculum omnis Deorum irae.X 391 Plebeiae Deciorum animae, plebeia fuerunt Nomina : pro totis legionibus hi taraen, et pro Omnibus auxiliis, atque omni plebe Latina, Sufficiunt Dfs infernis, Terraeque parenti : Pluris enim Decii, quam qui servantur ab i]lis.§ The second point which may be gathered from the heathen sacri- fices, independently of any speculation with regard to the origin of sacrifice, is intimately connected with the first. It is this: as the practice of substituting a victim to bear the wrath due to the offerer was nearly universal, an idea which could not fail to become so fami- liar to the minds of all men, was everywhere expressed, so that in the languages of all nations, there are found various words which were significant of this idea, and the meaning of which evaporates, if you throw it aside. Every language must be interpreted accord- ing to the sentiments and customs of those who used it. Whether these sentiments and customs be founded in nature or in prejudice, is a matter of another consideration : but since the persons amongst whom they prevailed spoke according to their views of things, we speak unintelligibly, or with a design to mislead, if we employ their words without recollecting their ideas ; and when we profess to in- terpret ancient books, we err against the first rules of criticism, if, instead of adopting the interpretation suggested by ancient manners, we attempt to bend the words which occur there, to ideas which we may believe to be right, but which we must acknowledge to be new. It is known to every classical scholar, that in the language of the best Greek writers ayo? denotes a crime, which was to be expiated by a sacrifice ; that a^wC^ and ayta^u, which are derived from c^yoj, denote the act of expiation ; that xo-Omc,^, with many of its derivatives, was also applied to this effect ascribed to sacrifice ; that Ixaaxi^ denotes the method of propitiating the gods by sacrifice ; and that the force of these words, or the end conceived to be obtained by substituting • Justin. Hist, xviii. 6. f Virg. En. ii. 139. % Liv. Hist. viii. 9. § Juv. Sat. viii. 35. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 445 something else in place of the punishment due to the offender, was expressed in Latin, hj pio, expio, lustro, puriJico,placo, and the like. All these are what we call voces signal a e, i. e. words which, when applied to sacrifice, are appropriated to a particular idea, and they were diffused through ancient languages, by an opinion which Pliny has thus described : " Vetus priscis temporibus opinio obtinuit, feb- rua" (an old Latin word, for which piacula and piamina came to be afterwards used,) " esse omnia, quibus malefactorum conscientiae purgarentur, delerenturque peccata." From the Latin words now mentioned there have been transfused into modern languages, and particularly into ours, several single words and phrases significant of this opinion ; and many of the Greek words passed with the universal language of ancient Greece to the other nations, and particularly to the authors of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, and to the writers of the New Testament, in whose works every sound critic must understand them, unless some notice is given of a different acceptation, according to that which he knows to have been their received sense in the country from which they came. Having gathered these two points from the sacrifices of other na tions, we proceed to direct our attention to that people, whose history forms a large part of the Scriptures which Christians receive. Section IIL It pleased the Almighty to select the posterity of Abraham from the surrounding tribes, and out of the son whom he gave that vene- rable patriarch in his old age, to raise a nation, whom, by a succession of wonderful events, he reared and formed for himself, till they were ready to be planted in that land which his promise to Abraham had marked out as their habitation. The whole plan of their civil gov- ernment, and all their religious institutions, had been prescribed in the intercourse which Moses their leader was permitted to hold with the Almighty during their long pilgrimage from Egypt into that land ; and when they settled there, the minutest parts in the ceremonial of their worship were exactly conformable to the pattern which had been shown to Moses upon the mount. Now sacrifice constitutes a very large part of this ceremonial ; so that, amongst the people of Israel, the question with regard to the origin of sacrifices had no existence ; and every circumstance relating to the quality of the victims, the purpose and the manner of oflering them, was there regulated by the express appointment of Heaven. It cannot be denied by any who receive the Scriptures, that the sacrifices prescribed in the law of Moses were of divine institution. But it has been said by many, that in the multiplicity of these sacri- fices there was an accommodation to that taste which the people of Israel had acquired during their long residence in Egypt, the ancient nursery of superstition ; and from thence it is insinuated, that the Jewish sacrifices do not afford a sound argument in favour of any particular opinion with regard to the nature of the gospel. The ob- 40 446 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. servation upon which this inference is meant to be founded may be true to a certain extent, i. e. we may suppose that the Almighty, who in all his dealings with his creatures remembers their infirmities, gave this people such a dispensation of religion as they were qualified to receive ; and, accordingly, we are accustomed to vindicate the ac- knowledged imperfection of the Mosaic dispensation by saying, that it was suited to the circumstances of the Avorld in those days. But the slightest attention will satisfy you, that to say the Mosaic ritual was accommodated to the acquired taste of the people, is to assert a proposition which cannot be admitted without very great limitations. Forty years were spent in the journey from Egypt to Canaan for this declared purpose, that the whole generation who had lived in Egypt might perish before the people Avere settled in their new habitation. Those whom Joshua led into Canaan were ordered to exterminate the former inhabitants, that they might not be enticed to imitate their idolatry. They were warned against inquiring how these nations had served their gods ; and they were taught to regard many practices which they had left in Egypt, and which they found in the nations around Canaan, as an abomination to the Lord. " The Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do ; and after the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you, shall ye not do : neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God."* In- deed it is impossible to read the books of Moses without feeling, that as the posterity of Abraham were, in the language of the law,t a chosen generation, a royal priestliood, a peculiar people holy unto the Lord, so one great object of their ritual was to preserve them from the surrounding idolatry, by keeping their minds so much occu- pied with the service which the true God had appointed, as to leave them neither leisure nor inclination to go after other gods. In this view, it must appear not only unworthy of God, but inconsistent with the very end for which the nation was formed, that there should be imported into this ritual from their idolatrous neighbours any prac- tice inconsistent with reason and justice ; and we are entitled to as- sume it as a principle, that all those directions with regard to sacrifice which are found in the Jewish law, were agreeable to the nature and the perfections of that God by whose authority Moses delivered them to the people. When we apply this principle in examining the Mosaic ritual, we immediately discover that a substitution of the victim for the offerer, which we had found amongst the sacrifice of all heathen nations, was there consecrated by the express appointment of God. It is not meant, that all the Jewish sacrifices implied this substitution. Some, as the feast of tabernacles, were national festivals in commemoration of the blessings by which the God of Israel had distinguished his people ; others, as the offerings of the first-fruits, were an acknow- ledgment of the returning bounties of Providence ; and many of the peace-offerings and freewill-offerings mentioned in the law, were ex- • Levit. xviii. 1—4. f Exod. xix. 5, 6. 1 Pet. ii. 9. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 447 pressions of the devotion and gratitude of individuals, called forth by the particular events of their life. But in all burnt-offerings there were circumstances strongly expressive of a consciousness of guilt in the worshipper ; and many of the burnt-ofTeriiigs were called trespass and sin oiferings, a name which corresponds with all the ceremonies that attend them, in conveying to us this idea, that the death of the victim was instead of that death which the worshi{)per deserved. Of every burnt-oftering of the herd, the law thus speaks : " If his oli'ering be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish. — And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him."* The making atonement or propitiation has precisely that notion in the law of Moses which the words appear to us to imply, viz. the turnmg away tlie wrath of God ;t so that every burnt-oliering of the herd implied an acknowledgment that the worshipper deserved wrath, and was an appointed method of turning it away. In the trespass-offer- ings and sin-offerings, the manner of turning away wrath by the sub- stitution of a victim to bear it, is still more directly expressed; for it appears from Leviticus iv, v. vi. that the ceremonies to be observed in such offerings consisted of the following parts. The worshipper, being conscious of his sin or his trespass, brought an animal, his own property, to the door of the tabernacle. It was understood by the nature of the animal, by the manner of his bringing it, or by the words which he uttered, that he was not bringing a freewill offering, a simple expression of gratitude and devotion, but that he was bring- ing an offering for the sin which he had sinned. He laid his hands upon the head of the animal, and being understood by this action to transfer to it the guilt which he had contracted, he slew it with his own hand, and then delivered it to the priest, who burnt the fat and a part of the animal npon the altar, and who, having employed part of the blood in sprinkling the altar, and in some cases the worshipper, poured all the rest at the bottom of the altar. And thus, says the law, " the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him." The most particular directions are given with regard to the manner of disposing of the blood of all sin-offerings, and the Israelites were not permitted to eat any manner of blood : the reason of both which parts of the law is given in the following words : " I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people : for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh an atone- ment for the souL"t The force of the reason lies here. As death was the sanction of the commandment given to Adam, so every per- son who transgressed any part of the law of Moses became guilty of death ; for the law spoke on this wise, " the man which doth those things shall live by them ;"§ and therefore it followed, that he who did them not was to die in liis trespass Now, in a sin-offering, the life of an animal was presented instead of that life which the sinner had forfeited. To mark this in the most significant manner, all the » Levit. i. 3. ■}■ Numb. xvi. 46—48. t Levit. xvii. 10, 11. § Gal. iii. 12. Levit. y.viii, 5. v^ ^ 448 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT blood, in which is the Hfe of the animal, was employed in the sacri- fice ; and to remind the people that blood made an atonement for their souls, they were not permitted at any time to use it for food. Sin-offerings and trespass-offerings were presented occasionally by individuals. But there was one stated day of the year, called the day of atonement, when the sin-offering was presented with peculiar solemnity for the whole congregation of Israel.* Upon that day, the high-priest, having first presented a bullock as a sin-offering for him- self and his house, took of the congregation two goats, upon which he cast the lots ; and the lot determined which of the two should be offered, and which should be sent away alive. There being no indi • vidual for whom the first was peculiarly offered, the high-priest him self presented and slew it; and then he took of the blood of both the bullock and the goat, and carried the blood into the holy of holies the inmost recess of the temple, where stood the mercy-seat, which was conceived to be the residence of the God of Israel, and was dis- tinguished by the schechinah or cloud of glory, the visible symbol of the divine presence. Into this holy place no other person ever en- tered ; and the high priest only upon the day of atonement. The blood which he carried with him he sprinkled upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat ; and then he came out, and sprinkled it as usual upon the altar. After he had thus, by the blood of the one goat, reconciled the holy place, and the tabernacle, he laid both his hands upon the head of the other goat, called the scape-goat, and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their trans- gressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and sent him away thus bearing all their iniquities into the wilderness. What remained of the other goat and of the bullock was carried forth out of the camp and burnt. While the Mosaic ritual thus clearly presents, in many of its sacri- fices, vicarious punishments, or an atonement for sin, by the life of an animal which the proprietor substituted, according to the appointment of the lawgiver, in place of his own life, it limits the efficacy of this substitution to certain cases marked in the law. These cases appear to me to be three. The first respects what is called in the law un- cleanness, which is described in several chapters of Leviticus. It might be contracted without any fault by certain diseases, in the dis- charge of pious offices, by touching a dead body, and in various other ways ; and it had the effect of excluding a person from joining with his countrymen in the services of the temple. If he presumed to approach while the uncleanness continued, he incurred the penalty of deatii ; but after purifying himself by sacrifice offered in a certam manner, he was restored to the privileges of the sanctuary. The second case respects what may be called sins of ignorance. When a person unwittingly sinned in the holy things of the Lord, or did any of the things forbidden in the law, although he wist it not, he was guilty. But upon his bringing the sacrifice prescribed in Leviticus iv. v. the priest made an atonement concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not ; and it was forgiven him. The third case is mentioned in the beginning of Leviticus vi. It respects those sins which admit • Levit. xvi. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. - 449 of full restitution being made to tlie persons immediately affected by them : as when a thing is taken away by violence, or fraudulently detained from the right owner. The law ordered the person who had committed such a sin, in the first place, to restore the principal, and to add the fifth part more thereto, as a compensation for the loss or anxiety which the owner had sustained by the want of his property ; and after he had by this restitution put the rights of the private party in the same state hi which they were before, the law admitted him, although the sin was done with knowledge, to make an atonement by sacrifice for his trespass against the Lord. " He shall bring his trespass-offering unto the Lord : and the priest shall make an atone- ment for him before the Lord ; and it shall be forgiven him." The effect of sacrifice did not reach to any sin not comprehendea under one of these three cases. Thus it is said in general. Numb. XV. 30, 31, "The soul that doeth aught presumptuously, because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his command ment, that soul shall utterly be cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him." And this general expression of " doing aught presumptuously" is par- ticularly applied to two kinds of sins : first, to such sins as blasphemy and idolatry, which indicated a contempt of the God of Israel ; secondly, to such sins as adultery and murder, which admit of no restitution to the injured person. Neither kind could be atoned for by any sin-offering, but were punished with death. Accordingly David, who had been guilty of both adultery and murder, does not propose to bring any sin-offering, but speaks of a broken heart, as the only sacrifice which, in such a case, could be presented.* Of murder it is said, " Blood it defileth the land ; and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it."t As it sometimes happened, however, that the murderer could not be found, the land was permitted to expiate the defilement which it had contracted by a sin-offering, and the murderer was conceived to carry the guilt with him. The detail which I have now given appeared to me necessary in order to convey to your minds the true notion of the sin-offerings under the law of Moses. They are not to be regarded merely as emblematical of holiness ; for although they certainly had a moral import, of the same kind as that which is often inculcated in the Old Testament by such expressions as these," circumcising the heart, washing the heart from wickedness, he that hath clean hands," yet the words of the law by which the sin-offerings are appointed imply a great deal more than the emblematical lesson of holiness, which may be drawn from other parts of the ritual. Neither are they to be regarded merely as memorials of the placability of God towards those who had sinned ; for had this been their only use, they would not have failed in the case of those heinous sins where the fears of < on- science rendered such memorials the most necessary. But they ire to be regarded as part of a constitution given by God to a particular nation ; a constitution which, for wise pm'poses, appointed a variety of observances, which declared that whosoever continued not in all things written in the book of the law to do them was accursed and • Psalm li. ir. f Numb. xxxv. 33. 40* 3 0 450 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. guilty of death ; but which admitted in certain cases of relaxation of the punishment threatened, upon the substitution of the life of a vic- tim slain by the offender, and delivered by him to the priest to be offered to the Lord. God dwelt amongst this people upon a mercy- seat, towards which all their worship was directed. But this mercy- seat was approached only by the high-priest, and never by him without blood, which had iDeen shed as an atonement for the sins of the people. The method of dispensing pardon, in the cases and to the extent in which it was dispensed among this people, was by vicarious suffering ; and the lawgiver, by appointing this method, gave, at the very time when he appeared merciful, an awful display of the purity of his nature, and the authority of his laws. This example of vicarious punishment, which we have found in the Old Testament, is a sufficient answer to many of the objections against the Catholic opinion ; because whatever may have been the origin of expiatory victims amongst the heathen, the sin-offerings of the law, being part of a ritual which every Christian believes to be of divine institution, constitute an analogy in favour of the substitution of Christ, furnished by the express appointment of God. But this part of the Mosaic ritual is much more than an example, under the government of God, of somewhat strictly analogous to the substitution of Christ : for when it is considered with all the circumstances which belong to it, and all the light which it has received from inspired writers, it appears not only to vindicate the reasonableness, but to afford a conclusive argument in favour of the truth of the Catholic opinion- Section IV. The connexion between the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations may be assumed in this part of our course, because we formerly found that it forms a capital branch of the evidence of Christianity. We saw, in reviewing the deistical controversy, that the Mosaic dispensa- tion was preparatory to the Christian ; that the change was intimated by the prophets ; that the time and place of the new dispensation had been exactly marked out ; and that even predictions, which, when they were uttered, appeared to relate to events in which the prophets of their contemporaries had a part, received their full accomplishment in those events which constitute the character of the new dispensation. In order to illustrate the force of that argument which those who hold the Catholic opinion derive from this connexion, it is proper to attend to the three great divisions of the Mosaic dispensation, which may be styled the moral, the political, and the ceremonial law. The moral law comprehended all those precepts,. whether in the decalogue or in the books of Moses and the prophets, which, being founded in the nature of God and the nature of man, do not derive their obliga- tion from temporary and local circumstances, but are in all situations binding upon reasonable creatures. The Socinians represent the moral law of Moses as essentially defective, and they say that the gospel has superinduced many new precepts. But other Christians, BOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 451 wlio entertain more honourable apprehensions of the original state of man, and who have not the same reason for taking this method of magnifying the gospel, hold, that as morality is in its nature unchailge- able, the moral precepts of every true religion must be the same ; and that wliat the Socinians call new precepts, are only interpretations by which the great prophet, following out the true spirit of the law, vindicated the word of JNIoses and the prophets from those false glosses, and those absurd limitations, by v/hich a succession of Jewish teachers had perverted their meaning. This opinion is defended at great length by a particular review of the Ten Commandments, in that chapter of the Ordinary Systems which is entitled De Decalogo. It is well illus- trated in the section of Calvin's Institutes de Decalogo, — a most useful part of that valuable book. The opinion is clearly supported by the reason of the thing, by the respect with which our Lord and his apostles always speak of the moral law, and by the resemblance manifestly borne by those precepts of the gospel which the Socinians call new, to both the words and the spirit of the Old Testament. The political law comprehends all those regulations which respected the civil government of the people of Israel, the decision of contro- versies, the private lives of the subjects, and their intercourse with one another. Although these regulations were of divine appointment, yet, being given to a particular nation, they are not binding upon any other nation, except in so far as it chooses to adopt them into the code of its own laws ; and even to that nation to whom they were given, the possibility, and consequently the obhgation, of observing these regulations varied with circumstances. For the political liberty oi the nation was abridged in their captivities, in the desolations which different conquerors spread over the country, and in their subjection to the Roman empire ; and it was completely taken away when the city was razed to the ground, and the remnant Avho survived the cp-lamities of those days were scattered over the face of the earth. The Jewish State, which was at first literally a theocracy, hi which God acted as the immediate ruler, and which was afterwards ad- ministered by judges, then by kings, then by princes or governors dependent upon other nations, has long ceased to be. The Jews, although separated by many of their customs from the people amongst whom they live, nowhere exist as a nation : it is said that they have lost that distinction of tribes which was an essential part of their civil constitution ; and the Almighty, as if to show that the purpose for which he gave this singular constitution has been accomplished, has continued them above 1700 years in a situation which renders the observance of their political law impracticable. The ceremonial law comprehends all those directions concerning the method of approaching the God of Israel, from which the Mosaic dispensation derives its peculiar character as a religious institution, and in particular the various sacrifices ordained by Moses, of which we have found sin-ofterings to form a large part. But the regulations which constitute the ceremonial law had respect to particular seasons of the year, to a particular place, and to a particular succession of men, by whom many of the services were to be performed, and through whose hands all the sacrifices were to pass ; and therefore, in the present situation of the Jews, when it is impossible for them to 452 DOCTRIBTE OF THE ATONEaiESTT. assemble at the prescribed season, or in the place which God chose, and when the order of priesthood is lost in the confusion of tribes, the ceremonial law cannot be observed. From this review of the three great divisions of the Mosaic dispen- sation, it appears that the ceremonial law, like the political, is in this respect essentially distinguished from the moral, — that it has a preca- rious temporary existence. The moral law is always the same. But the ceremonial law was not given till after the world had existed more than two thousand years, — it was then given only to a particu- lar people, — and the present situation of that people, which lias put an end to their political law, renders it impossible to observe the cere- monial. Unless, then, we say, that there was no true religion in the world before the days of Moses, which the Jews, who boast of tlieir descent from Abraham, will not say ; and unless we say also, that there has been no true religion in the world since tlie destruction of Jerusalem, which no Christian will say ; we must admit that the ceremonial law is not essential to the worship of God, but consists of positive institutions, which, however wisely they may have been adapted to particular circumstances, have nothing in their nature inconsistent with change or repeal. Thus the precarious nature of the ceremonial law is incontroverti- bly established by that expiration of this law, which is a matter of fact arising necessarily from the present circumstances of tfie nation to whom the law was given. But this fact cannot be regarded as an unexpected consequence of the fortune of war; for it is the fulfihrient of prophecies contained in the sacred books of that nation. All those intimations of a new covenant, which constitute part of the evidence of Christianity, point to the abolition of the ceremonial law. They speak of a time when the ark of the covenant shall no more be remembered nor visited,* when there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of Egypt,t when in every place pure incense shall be offered,! '^^id God will take priests out of all nations :§ and it is declared, that sacrifice, although the most solemn and essential part of the ceremonial, was not to remain after this change of dispensation ; for the prophets not only explain to the people, that sacrifices were in the sight of God of very inferior value to the observance of the moral law, and that when separated from obedience, or offered with the view of obtaining a license to sin, they were an abomination to the Lord; but they also foretell, that at the coming of that person who was to bring in the new covenant, sacrifice was (o cease. The cessation of sacrifice is intimated in a part of Psalm xl. which we have learned from the apostle to the Hebrews to consider as spoken by the Messiah : " Burnt-offering and sin-offering thou hast not required. Then said I, lo ! I come :' in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God." There are many passages, both of the evangelical prophet Isaiah, and of the later pro- phets, which are most fitly interpreted of this event ; and it is explicitly declared by the prophet Daniel, who, after marking pre- cisely the time at which the Messiah was to be cut ofi', adds these * Jer. iii. 16. -}■ Isaiah xix. 19. i Mai. i. II. § Isaiah Ixvi. 21. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 453 words, " and he sliall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease."* It is further to be remarked, that the same prophets who foretell the cessation of sacrifice intimate that the person, at whose coming it was to cease, would assume a character and perform actions fitted to supply the place of it. David calls him a priest ;f Isaiah says that he sliall "make his soul an oifering for sin ;" j and Daniel, who says that the Messiah shall be cut off, bat not for himself, represents him as making an end of sins, making reconciliation for iniquity, and bringing in everlasting righteousness at the time when, by causing the sacrifice and oblation to cease, he seals up the vision and the prophecy.^ In this manner the general connexion between the two dispensa- tions is particularly applied to the ceremonial law, and we seem to be warranted by the language of the Old Testament to expect, that this very large part of the Mosaic institution did not merely go before the gospel, but that it has some peculiar relation to the remedy which the gospel brings. When we recollect that in all the works of God things are set over against one another, linked together by various relations, the discovery of which brings to our knowledge a fitness and perfection of design, it appears to be agreeable to our experience, as well as our ideas of the divine wisdom, that when the Almighty employed one religion to be introductory to another, he should bind tliem in the most intimate manner, bj^ making the ceremonial, which was characteristical of the former religion, a figure and representation of the nature of that religion at whose coming it was to cease. And when we recollect further, that many of the prophecies which primarily respected David, Solomon, Cyrus, and other personages under the Old Testament, received an ultimate and complete accom- plishment in Jesus Christ, it may occur to us as a thing analogous to this secondary sense of prophecy, that the sacrifices in the ceremonial law were intended as types and emblems of the sacrifice on the cross. It is manifest that by this kind of connexion the ceremonial law, besides accomplishing the purpose for which it was immediately given, becomes in an eminent degree subservient to that religion which is the end of the lav/ ; and the gospel, in addition to all the evidences of a divine original which it brings with itself, derives much importance, in the eyes of every devout observer, from its being so literally the fnlfilment of a former dispensation. It is not a sound argument against the reality of this kind of connexion, that the typical use of the ceremonial law was not distinctly perceived by the ancient Jews. For in all subjects, the nature and tlie extent of the general plan of Divine Providence keeps long in the dark many points which are afterwards brought to light. The knowledge of one period of life, of one state of society, of one age of the world, although sufficient for every purpose whicli is then of real importance, is afterwards found to have been incomplete, and our minds are enlarged and delighted by discovering properties and uses of objects, not inconsistent cer- tainly with the ends to which they had been applied, but of which even those who thought they understood the objects best had hardly * Dan. ix. 27. t P^alm ex. 4. 4 Isaiah liii. 10. § Dan. ix. 24, 26. 454 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. formed any conception. Had the ancient Jews clearly understood that the dispensation under which they lived was subservient in all its parts to another, their respect for it must have been diminished. Bat it was necessary that their attachment to the rudiments of faith should be preserved entire till the faith was ready to be revealed ; and therefore the hints of the new covenant, given from the earliest times, and gradually explained as the season of its manifestation drew near, although sufficient to produce and to cherish amongst that people the expectation of a Messiah, were not enough to create any degree of contempt, or even indifference, for the institutions of their own law. The foregoing speculations seem to render it not improbable, that the ceremonial law of Moses and the dispensation of the gospel have that intimate kind of connexion, which consists in the former being emblematical of the latter; and these speculations are Ixiautifully illustrated and confirmed, by attending to the manner in which the New Testament gradually unfolds this typical nature of the Jewish ceremonies. The later prophets, we have seen, had announced that sacrifice was to cease, and had said that the Messiah was to make his soul an offering for sin, and to make an end of sins. Accordingly;, no sooner did Jesus appear in public, than John, the forerunner of the Messiah, marked him out by these words, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ;"* thus directly apply- ing to Jesus as his character, what Isaiaii had used as a simile, " he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter."t After Jesus had, by his public discourses, by his private intercourse with his disciples, and by the succession of miracles which they beheld, confirmed their attach- ment, and obtained a declaration of their faith in him as the Clirist, he spake to them privately of his sutferings. Afterwards he said to them more plainly, " The Son of Man canie to give his life a ransom for many.";]; At the last supper which he ate v/ith his disciples before he suffered, he spoke of his blood being shed for many for the remission of sins ; and upon that occasion he intimated, both by action and by words, the connexion between his sufferings and the Jewish sacrifices. On the first day of unleavened bread, when the law required the passover to be killed, he sat down with his disciples at the domestic feast which every master of a family in Israel was then holding; and before he arose from the feast he instituted the memorial of his death. § This circumstance naturally led his disci- ples to coimect that event with the passover which they were eating; and this inference was confirmed by that significant expression uttered by Jesus while he was sitthig with them, the full import of which we now understand, " With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God ;" /. e. the event which is to happen this night is the fulfilment of the passover. Whether the apostles entered into the meaning of this expression at the time of its being uttered, we know not. For the divine wisdom, which guided the minutest actions of our Lord's life, restrained him • John i. 29. f Isaiah liii. 7. 4 Matt. XX. 28. 4 Luke xxii. 14—20. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 455 from disclosing to them hastily the typical nature of the Jewish ritual. As according to the flesh he came of David, and was thus horn under the law, it was part of his entire obedience to the will of God, to comply in all things with the law of Moses ; and the principle of his compliance was thus expressed by himself, when John the Bap- tist discovered a surprise at his coming to be baptized by him, " Suf- fer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all Righteousness."* There would have been an unfitness in his appearing to disparage that ceremonial, which continued in force till iiis death, while he was daily observing it. But in the interval between his resurrection and his ascension, after he had fulfilled the passover by dying on the cross, he showed, by an interpretation of all tl>e hints which he had given during his life, in what sense he was the end of the law. " These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me."t He had been accustomed while he was with them to apply to himself many expressions in the ancient Scriptures of the Jews ; but now " he opened their understandings, that they might understand the Scrip- tures : and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Ac- cordingly his apostles who heard this discourse, and Paul, who was enlightened by a special revelation, appear in the book of Acts build- ing their preaching of the gospel upon this foundation, that they said "none other things than those which Moses and the prophets did say should come, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead."J Now, ahhough the prophets foretell that Christ should sufler, there is not in the books of Moses, after the original promise respecting the seed of the woman, any prediction that the Shiloh, the Prophet, the Star out of Jacob there foretold, was to suffer ; and we are at a loss to conceive how any thing in these books can be considered as an intimation of the sufferings of the Messiah, except the types that are to be found in the sacrifices of the law. It seems natural, therefore, to presume, that our Lord upon that occasion, when he opened the jnderstandings of his disciples, that they might understand the Scrip- tures, explained to them these types, and that from thence they learned to speak, as they do, of the typical nature of the Jewish sacrifices. John the Evangelist, in relating the circumstances of our Lord's death, introduces the last word which he uitered, fiti'^iatai, "it is finished," in a manner which shows that he referred it to the fulfil- ment of the Scriptures : and having mentioned, that when the soldiers came to Jesus they did not break his legs, as they had broken the legs of those who were crucified with him, the Evangelist leads us back to a direction given about the paschal lamb, " For these things were done that the Scriptures should be fulfilled ; a bone of him shall not be broken. "§ The Apostle Paul says in one place, " Christ our pass- over is sacrificed for us:"j| in another place, " Christ gave himself for * Matt. iii. 15. f Luke xxiv. 44, 45, 27. i Acts xxvi. 22, 23. § John xix. 26—37. J 1 Cor. v. 7. 456 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. US an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.'^* He says tliat the law was a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ ; that Christ is the end of the law ; that the meats, and drinks, and washings under the law, were a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ :f and by all these incidental expressions he has prepared us for that full account of this matter which we receive ia the Epistle to tlje Hebrews. It appears from several circumstances, that the Epistle to the He- brews was written a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem; an event which of necessity put an end to the ceremonial law, by rendering the observance of that law impracticable. The epistle is addressed to the Hebrews, i. e. natural born Jews, who had been educated in reverence for the law, who had suffered persecution from their countrymen for having embraced Christianity, and who, after they had resisted this fiery trial, were assailed by reasoning. The unbelieving Jews represented the gospel as an innovation upon a sys- tem which was confessedly of divhie original, a presumptuous attempt to supersede the law which the God of Israel, in terrible majesty, gave by Moses, and an insult to the wisdom and piety with which their ancestors had cherished the national faith. For many years after the ascension of Jesus, his apostles had shown much tenderness to the prejudices of the Jews, But as the destruction of Jerusalem ap- proached, they found less occasion for reserve in arguing against iliese prejudices. There was no unfitness in explaining the precarious sub- ordinate nature of the Mosaic system, when the whole fabric was just about being dissolved ; and it pleased God, in the reply which the apostle to the Hebrews enabled the Christian Jews to give to the arguments of their adversaries, to furnish Christians in all ages with a most instructive view of the continuity of the two dispensations ; a view which, whlle.-it opens many circumstances respecting the use of the law of Moses, implied indeed in other parts of Scripture, but no where else so clearly taught, assists us in deriving from the con- nection between the Law and the Gospel the fullest illustration of the truth of that opinion concerning the nature of the Gospel remedy, which considers the death of Christ as a vicarious sacrifice for sin. The plan of the first ten chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews may be thus shortly delineated — The apostle begins with unfolding the dignity of that Person by whom the Gcspel was given ; the glory which originally belonged to him, as the Son of God, and the Creator of the world ; and the honour with which he is now crowned, after having accomplished that gracious purpose, in the conduct of which he appeared, for a little, lower than the angels. A message brought by this exalted Person claims particular attention : Moses was faith- ful as a servant, but Christ comes as a Son over his own house ; and all the instances in which the blessings of the Mosaic dispensation were forfeited by unbelief, and disobedience to the word spoken by angels received punishment, are lessons of reverence and attention to the v/ord spoken by Him, who has a name that is above every name. The appearance of this messenger was not unexpected, for God had declared of old times in the law, tliat he was ordained to the offict* * Ephes. V. 2. t ^*'- "i- 24- Rom. x. 4. CoK ii. 16, 17 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 457 which he undertook. The same dispensation which estahhshed the Levitical priesthood spoke of a time when that priesthood was to be changed ; and taught those who submitted to it to look for one who was to arise, not according to the Hneal succession of the house of Aaron, but who pertained to the tribe of Judah, a tribe which had never given attendance at the altar, and who was called after another order. This new order is named the order of Melchisedek, because in the book of Genesis a person of this name is mentioned, who, being king of Salem, and a priest of the most high God, received tithes of Abraham. He was a priest, therefore, in the days of Abraham, the great-grandfather of Levi. But as the house of Aaron, and the whole tribe of Levi were descended from Abraham, it was not possible to give any more express intimation of a change of that priesthood which was after the order of Aaron, than by declaring, that the new priest was after the order of Melchisedek, a priest whose descent, although left in such perfect obscurity by Scripture, that he is said to be " without father, without mother, without descent," could not possibly be counted from Levi, because his office existed in the days of Abraham, that illustrious progenitor to whom the Jews traced back all the privileges of their nation. While intimation was thus given in the law itself of a complete change of the Levitical priesthood, no change or succession was spoken of in the new order ; but it was declared and confirmed by an oath, that the person who should arise after the order of Melchi- sedek was to be a priest for ever. In this respect, therefore, he was manifestly superior to all the priests who had been called after the order of Aaron, that while the individuals were not suffered to con- tinue, by reason of death, and the whole order was at length to be abolished, he had an unchangeable priesthood : and he was superior to them in this further respect, that all their ministrations, and all (he appurtenances of divine service which they used, were only shadows and faint images of the manner in which he was to exercise his office. The tabernacle of Moses was indeed made according to a pattern showed to him by God in the mount ; but the heavenly things to be accomplished by the unchangeable priesthood, having been ordained by God from the beginning, were in his contemplation at the time when the pattern was shown ; and the tabernacle, formed in the in- termediate space according to that pattern, was only an example and shadow of these heavenly things. Such is a general view of the argument in the first ten chapters ol the Epistle to the Hebrews, containing a complete answer to the rea sonings of the unbelieving Jews. They said that the gospel was an innovation upon the Mosaic system, a presumptuous attempt to su- persede the revelation given to their fathers ; and therefore, that it became every person who believed in the divine institution of the law of Moses, without examining the contents of the new faith, instantly to reject its claim. But the apostle shows that the gospel was given by a glorious Personage, superior to all the former messengers of heaven ; a personage whose appearance had been announced in the law of Moses, whose office as a priest had been there declared to be unchangeable, and whose actions in fulfilling that office were shad- owed forth and prefia-ured by all the institutions of the law. Far 41 3P 458 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. therefore from there being any impiety to the God of Israel, any de- rogation from the respect due to Moses, any apostacy from the Jew- ish rehgion, in embracing the gospel, it was the duty of every obedi- ent and intelligent disciple of Moses to receive him who is the end of the law. That branch of the argument, in which the apostle represents the sacrifices of the law of Moses as figures and shadows of the sacrifice on the cross, deserves particular attention. The following passages of the epistle will sufficiently exhibit it : — Heb. viii. 5. Afiy^ua is a part taken from a thing as a method of showing the rest. Its compound ■vrtoSstyjwa, in this verse, is a more obscure method of showing ; not a specimen but a figure. 2xta presents the outlines of the body from which it proceeds. Tv^oj is a mark made upon an object by striking it; an impression; John xx. 25, -tov TfvTtov fuv ^"^.^ov; hence the likeness of the striking body which remains in the body struck ; in general, a figure or representation. Heb. ix. 9-14. — 9, rta^aSoxri, coUocatio, placing two things by the side of one another, in order to observe their points of resemblance and dissimilitude ; such a representation of the things that were to come, as it was proper for persons living in that time to have before them. — 10. " Carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation;" /. e. ordinances which had the effect of making a per- son righteous before God, in respect of the flesh, but did not reach the conscience, lying upon them, imposed, till the fit season of making things right by another covenant. — 1 1. " A tabernacle not made with hands ;" i. e. not in the manner in which the tent of Moses was made. This is a circumlocution by Avhich the apostle gives notice that he is using the phrase figuratively for the body of Christ. — 13. The water of separation, mentioned in Numbers xix. was thus obtained. A red heifer was killed and burnt ; the ashes were gathered and kept in a clean place ; and some of the ashes were put into a vessel and running water added to them. A bunch of hyssop dipped in this water was employed to sprinkle every person, who upon any account had touched a dead body, before he was permitted to approach the taber- nacle. Every thing that was separated from other uses for the service of God was by that separation holy. Every thing that was employed for the ordinary purposes of life was, by this common use, unfit for the service of God. Hence xowoj, impure ; xoivooi, polluo. The sprink- ling with hyssop did not make the person a better man than he was, or obtain remission of his sins ; it only removed that accidental defile- ment, or unfitness for the service of God which he had contracted. — 14. Sitt tov ni'su.uafoj atcoMou. The Holy Ghost is represented throughout the New Testament as having a part in all the actions of our I^ord ; — as given to him without measure, — and as descending upon him at his baptism. It is said that our Lord was led by the Spirit, — that by the Spirit of God he did mighty works, — that he was raised, quickened, justified by the Spirit. So here the Spirit supported him in his sacri- fice on the cross. Every victim was required by the law to be blame- less. He was without sin. The water of separation purified from the touch of a dead man. His offering purified from dead works, or those sins which defile the conscience. Heb. ix. 21-24. %Hiov^yia, public service. — 22. cxi^ov, "Almost all DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 459 things are by the law purged with blood." Poor persons were allowed, upon some occasions, to bring offerings in which no raiimal was slain. Ar"?'s> referring to that expression in the law, " Blood maketh atonement for the soul." — 24. avtirvrta in 1 Pet. iii. 21, means what we call the antitype ; here, the type or impression representing another thing. Heb. X. 11-18. — In this passage the apostle argues from the nature of the ofterings under the law, and from the daily repetition of them, that they did not take away sin ; and he quotes the ancient Scriptures, which promised forgiveness of sin as one of the blessings of the new covenant, in proof of the perfection of the sacrifice offered under that covenant. The passages above referred to suggest the following remarks, which are so clearly grounded upon the words and the reasonings of the apostle, that I think it enough barely to mention them without adding any illustration, 1. The apostle ascribes a certain eflect to the Jewish sacrifices,whichhecallspurifyingtheflesh,and which we find it easy to interpret by our knowledge of the Mosaic law. 2. This effect was attained by the shedding the blood of those victims which were offered day by day, and year by year, according to the com- mandment of God, and by the priests sprinkling the blood upon the altar, 3. An effect of a very superior kind is said to be attained under the Gospel, which the apostle calls purifying the conscience, making the worshippers perfect, and which he explains by the remis- sion of sins. 4. In describing these two effects, he uses the two words xaOa^L^io and aryi.a^io, which, in the language of ancient Greece, denoted what we call expiation by sacrifice. 5. Agreeably to this received meaning of these words, he represents the superior effect as attained by the one sacrifice for sins, which the High Priest of our profession offered, when he gave his body on the cross once for all ; and by his carrying his own blood into heaven. 6, And he repre- sents the manner of attaining the inferior eftect, as intended by God to be a shadow, a figure, a type of that manner of attaining the supe- rior effect which had from the beginning entered into the councils of heaven, and with a view to which all the services that pertained to the inferior effect had been established according to the pattern shown to Moses. When we lay these parts of the apostle's argument together, this conclusion seems clearly to follow, that in his apprehension the offer- ing of Christ upon the cross was a true sacrifice for sin, which has as real an influence in procuring the forgiveness of sin, and so relieving the conscience from a sense of guilt, as the sacrifices under the law had in removing those legal defilements which rendered men unfit to approach the tabernacle. As this conclusion is the most direct confirmation of the Catholic opinion, the Socinians have employed all their ingenuity to evade the necessity of drawing it ; and their reasonings upon this subject, as far as I have been able to collect them, may be reduced to the two follow- ing heads : — 1. They say that the whole language and reasoning of the apostle to the Hebrews is merely an allusion to Jewish customs; that it was natural for an apostle of Jesus, who had been bred at the feet of 460 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. Gamaliel, to endeavour to avail himself of tiie education, in which he tells us he had profited above his equals, in order to do honour to the new faith which he had embraced; that in all his writings Paul discovers a propensity to use bold figures of speech, and that there was a peculiar propriety in tlie figure which pervades this Epistle, because it tended to magnify the religion of Jesus in the eyes of those to whom he was writing. Men, who had been accustomed to rever- ence the splendour of the Mosaic institution, could not instantly be reconciled to the simplicity and spirituality of the faith of Christ. The apostle, therefore, decking out the gospel in trappings borrowed from the law, presents to the Hebrews, a sacrifice, a tabernacle, and a High Priest : and although he knew that the only effect of the death of Christ is to furnish motives for that repentance, the consequence of which is forgiveness, he accommodates the sacrificial terms of the law, to give this effect a more venerable appearance. The prejudices of the J ews were soothed by this accommodation ; but it was not intend- ed for other Christians; and we miss the design of a writer, whose principle it was to become all things to all men, if we form our notions of the gospel from a manner of expressing himself, which condescen- sion to persons of a particular denomination led him to assume. This account of the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot proceed from persons who entertain an exalted idea of the inspiration of Scripture. It is indeed inconsistent with the lowest degree of inspiration which can be supposed necessary to render the Scriptures a safe guide into all truth. The account is incorrect in representing this view of the connexion between the sacrifices of the law and the sacrifice of the cross, as peculiar to the Epistle to the Hebrews ; for although particu- lar circumstances led the writer of that epistle to give a fuller illustra- tion of the subject than is elsewhere to be found, yet we discover traces of the same, connexion, both in the law itself, and in different places of the New Testainent ; and there is not the smallest incon- sistency between all that is said by this writer and any thing that is said in any other part of Scripture. The account is dishonourable to this writer, because it represents him as arguing falsely, and using both words and reasonings with an intention to mislead. You will be satisfied of the dishonour which this account does to tlie writer of the epistle, if you attend to the folloAving circumstances : — . 1. The words xaOat^w andayta^w, which had a received meaning in tlie sacrifices of those nations to whose language they belong, are applied by the apostle, according to that sense, to the sacrifices under the law ; and in the same discourse they are applied to the eflects of the death of Christ. But there cannot be a greater abuse of figurative language than to employ words, first literally, then metaphorically and in the progress of a long argument often to alternate, the literal and the metaphorical sense of them, without giving any notice of the change. 2. But the purport of the apostle's argument does not admit of our understanding these words metaphorically. Whatever were the motives which led the apostle to argue in this manner, it is unques tionably the purport of his argument to show, that Christ is a high priest, that his death was an offering, and that this offering attained the end of sacrifice. Now, such an argument requires the use of the DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 461 words xa^aifw and oyia^w, not in a metaphorical, but in the Hteral sense for if these words apply to the sacrifices of the law hterally, and to the sacrifice of Christ metaphorically, then the whole argument is a sophism, and the apostle is guilty of something much worse than an abuse of figures, he is a false reasoner. 3. The apostle says expressly, that the sacrifices under the law were shadows, figures, types of the true sacrifice of the cross ; i. e. instead of applying the words xa9ai^w and aytafco, in allusion to the law, he maintains that the truth of the terms is found under the gospel, and that tlie law was an allusion to this #uth. You will observe, that as a shadow mast present the outlines of the body from which it pro- ceeds, as a T'DTtof , in the primary sense of that word, must express the figure of that body by the stroke of which it was formed ; so in the use which we are accustomed to make of the words type and antitype, there must be a resemblance between them, because it is by means of this resemblance that the one thing becomes the type of the otlier. What we call a symbol is an arbitrary sign of something past or pre- sent, whose meaning depends upon invention ; and we understand that any one thing may be made the sign of another, as sounds of thought, and written characters of sounds. But what we call a type is a sign of something future, whose nature is expressive of the thing typified ; and there could be no connexion between the two, if the thing typified were destitute of that which is characteristical of the type. Hence, when Ave say the Jewish sacrifices were typical of the Messiah, we mean by the use of the. word Wpical, that their nature somehow corresponded to the design of his coming. Had they attained the end of sacrifice completely, there would have been no need for his becoming a sacrifice ; had they not attained it in any measure, they would not have been types of his sacrifice ; but by purifying the flesh, i. e. rendering it lawful and safe for persons to approach the tabernacle, who, from legal uncleanncss, or sins of ignorance, could not have approached it without death, and yet leav- ing the consciences of the worshippers in the same state as before, they were in their nature fitted to typify, i. e. to exhibit, by an imperfect resemblance, that sacrifice which relieves the conscience, and by which " all that believe are justified from all things, from which tliey could not be justified by the law of Moses." The logical propriety of terms, therefore, requires that we ascribe a certain efiject to the Jewish sacrifices, and that we ascribe a higher eflect of the same kind to the sacrifice of the cross. But this is the very thing which the apostle does ; for we found by an analysis of his argument, that he speaks of both effects as real. And thus, if we only give the words xaSai^u, and ayca^w, in his discourse the same interpretation which we are accustomed to give them in the writings of the ancient Greeks, he appears to be strictly accurate in the use of the term -ri'rto^ ; w?iereas, if we give these two words a new interpretation, by which we make him guilty of an abuse of figurative language, and a kind of false reasoning, we also fix upon him the absurdity, that he calls one thing a type of another, although the thing typified wants that which is characteristical of the type ; so that the type mentioned by the apostle, instead of being an imperfect representation, has more than the antitype ; and the things to which these names are applied 41* 462 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. have not that resemblance in kind, without which the names have no meaning. 4. To all that has been said, it must be added, in the last place, that the apostle is not here handling an argument, but lie is address- ing a great body of people, converted from Judaism to Christiajiity ; and he professes to relieve their minds from the apprehension of im- piety in forsaking the law of Moses, by stating, that all the sacrifices which had been oftered for ages according to the law were superseded by that one sacrifice on the cross, which, being the truth shadowed forth by them, rendered furtHer offering unnecessary. The argument was most satisfying to those Jews who received it upon the authority of the apostle. But if he only spoke in accommodation to their pre- judices, he dealt unfairly with them ; because whenever they disco- vered, by their intercourse with other Christians, that the death of Christ Avas in reality no sacrifice, the scruples which the apostle had professed to remove would naturally revive ; and since he had as- sumed it as a principle, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, it will appear to them their safest course to return to that religion in which they certainly knew that blood made an atonement for the soul. This last reason is stated in its full force in a passage of this epistle, xiii. 9 — 14 ; in reading which it must be remembered, that the cere- monies of the law were familiar to the persons whom the apostle is addressing ; that he combats teachers who endeavoured to di"aw them back from the simplicity of tha gospel, to the observance of these ceremonies ; and that his epistle was written about eight years before the destruction of Jerusalem. From these four reasons it seems to follow, that, unless we hold the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews to be both an inconclusive and a sophistical reasoner, we cannot admit the first position, by which the Socinians endeavour to evade the argument in favour of the Catholic opinion drawn from that epistle ; but we must consider the manner in which the Jewish sacrifices are there spoken of as involv- ing this principle, that the offering on the cross did efficaciously take away sin by the substitution of a victim for the sinner. 2. But if it should be found impossible to resolve the reasoning of the apostle into a bare accommodation to Jewish customs, or a moral lesson, — ^if there must be something substantial in that which the Mosaic ritual shadowed forth, a second position is adopted by tliose who deny the truth of the Catholic opinion. It is the refuge to which the early followers of Socinus betook themselves, in order to evade the reality of the sacrifice of the cross ; and it coincides with that which I called the middle opinion concerning the nature of the gos- pel remedy. They said that under the law the priest made the atonement ; that it was not the victim, which was of little value, and was slain by the offerer himself, but the oblation of the victim by the priest, which procured forgiveness ; and that on the great day of atonement, the most important part of the ceremony was the high priest entering into the holy of holies, and appearing before the mercy-seat for the people. They learned from the Epistle to the Hebrews, that these typical parts of the law were fulfilled by the priesthood of Christ ; DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 463 they found the apostle stating the superior excellence ot his priest- hood as consisting in this, that he went not into the holy place made with hands, but into the true holy place, i. e. heaven, there to appear in the presence of God for us ; and they understood the apostle as saying that it is his entering there which makes him a priest ; for so they interpreted these words, Heb. viii. 4, " If he were on earth he should not be a priest." Upon these grounds they conceived that the priesthood of Christ commenced when he ascended to heaven, and that he is said to be a priest for ever upon this account only, because he continues without intermission, through his power and favour with God, to take away the guilt of our sins. The amount, then, of the second position is, that Christ was not truly a priest, and that he did not ofier any real sacrifice while he was upon earth ; but that his suf- ferings were merely a preparation for his priesthood which is exer- cised in heaven. The imperfection of this system is obvious to any person who carries the whole subject in his mind. The priests indeed made atonement, but it was by the blood of the victim which had been slain. The high priest entered in once a year into the holy place, but it was with the blood of the goat and the bullock, both of which he had on that day slain with his own hand ; and he reconciled the holy place by sprinkling it with the blood. " Every high priest taken Irom among men," says the apostle, Heb. viii, 3, 4, "is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin ; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." Jesus then performed the office of a priest in offering a sacrifice, but he did not complete the office by that act ; for, in order to fulfil the types of the law, it was necessary that he should carry the blood which he had offered into the holy place. Upon this account he went into heaven ; and this is the meaning of these words of the apostle, " If he were on earth he should not be a priest," i. e. if he had remained on earth after his sacrifice, no part of his actions would have corresponded to the entrance of the high priest into the holy place. But his appearance in heaven is stated, in various places of the Epistle, as subsequent to his sacrifice, and as deriving its efficacy from the blood which he has carried thither. We are led to consider him as completely a priest, because there are in his case both the mactatlon and the oblation of a victim ; and the nature of the victim is conjoined with the place where it continues to be pre- sented to God, in all the views of the excellence of his priesthood. Thus, according to our interpretation of the apostle's reasoning, every part of the Mosaic ritual finds its accomplishment in the priest- hood of Christ, and the analogy between the two dispensations is so entire and so exact, that we are satisfied of the truth of the whole reasonmg. According to that system which is adopted in the second position, a large portion of the ceremonial of Jewish sacrifice has no counterpart under the gospel ; Jesus bears the name of a priest without having done what is characteristical of tliat office ; and that method of procuring the blessings of the gospel, whicli the Scriptures reveal, is confounded with the power and the tenderness which the High Priest of our profession exhibits in dispensing them. 464 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. Section V. The argument upon which we have dwelt so largely appears to me coiiclusive. But it is not desirable that so important an article of our faith as that which the Catholic opinion involves, should rest uj)on a single view of the subject, or upon the pertinency of a particular kind of phraseology ; and therefore, in order to show that this opinion is unquestionably the doctrine of Scripture, and that the phuRses employed in stating it, although not used by the inspired writers, are clearly warranted by the revelation which they have given, it is proper to take a more enlarged survey of the language and the views upon this subject which the Scriptures present. We shall meet in this survey with some of the sacrificial terms which we have lately been considering; but if we find, that even when a re- semblance to the Jewish ritual was not the leading idea, the amount of what the inspired writers say concerning the gospel remedy is per- fectly agreeable to the Catholic opinion, we may rest without hesita- tion in the conclusion which they taught us to draw from that resemblance. It is known to those who search the Scriptures, that the discourses of our Lord and the writings of his apostles abound with allusions to passages in the Old Testament, even when no express quotation is made ; and therefore it is not surprising to find in one passage the ground-work of all that we read in the New Testament concerning the doctrine of atonement. That passage is Isaiah liii. The prophet, in many places of his book, blends with the description of the Mes- siah's kingdom events of his own time, as types of that glorious period; but in this chapter he appears to have lost sight of every inferior personage, and his mind is completely occupied with the illustrious deliverer that was to come to Zion, particularly with the nature, the character, and the effects of his sufferings. The ancient Jews understood this chapter to refer to the Messiah, although they certainly did not enter into the true meaning of all the parts of it. But to us it is interpreted by the manner in which the writers of the New Testament relate those events which the prophets there foretold ; and when we avail ourselves of the light which his predic- tion and their commentarj'- throw upon one another, we are enabled to arrange that support which the Catholic opinion derives from the general language and the views of Scripture, under the three follow- ing heads : — the bitterness of the sufferings of Christ taken in conjunc- tion with the innocence and dignity of the sufferer; — the character uniformly given of his sufferings as a punishment for sin ; — and the various descriptions of the effects of this punishment. These three points, collected from Scripture in one complex view, constitute the evidence, that the doctrine of pardon by the substitution of the suffer- ings of Christ in place of the punishment due to sinners is the doctrine of Scripture. 1. The first point to be attended to is what may be called the value of the suft'erhigs of Christ ; because had they been of little value, they could not have answered that purpose which is assigned to them iti DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 465 the Catholic opinion. I need not particularly quote the well-known texts of Scripture, which place this value in the bitterness of the sufferings cheerfully undergone by an innocent and exalted person. The whole history of his life is a commentary upon the significant words of the prophet, " He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;" for he was not a stranger to any kind of affliction, and, in the hour of his greatest distress, every alleviation was removed from him. To the meanness of his condition, the scorn and persecution of his enemies, the pains of his body, aiid all the visible circumstances by which death to him was aggravated, there falls to be added what the New Testament calls an agony, whicli is described, Mark xiv. 33, 34; Luke xxii. 41 — 44; John xii. 27. In these passages we meet with the following terms, ycvofiivoi ev aywua ; •^vxrj ,uov Tcta^axrai,; rtf^avrtoj tuj^mrov; cx9aiJ.8Ha9M, to be amazed, or in that state of mind which we express by the word horror; to be astonished, stupified with grief: to lose for a little the power of exercising the mind ; aSfj^ioinw, extra popidi confiortium degere, hominuni vestigia vitare, to have the mind stupified and absorbed in its own feelings. The expressions used by the historians paint the utmost distress of mind, during which the human nature of Jesus shrunk at the prospect that lay before him ; and the apostle to the Hebrews manifestly refers to their description when he says, Heb. v. 7, " Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears "Those who consider Jesus as merely a man, and who by consequence must consider his sufl^erings as no atonement for sin, find it impossible to give a reasonable account why, in the prospect of death, an event which to him surely was no great evil, he should discover an agitation of mind, so unlike that firmness which many other men have displayed in circumstances to outward appearance exactly similar. But those who hold the Catholic opinion consider this agony as the fulfilment of the words of Isaiah liii. 10, " It pleased the Lord to bruise him ;" and of these words, Isaiah Ixiii. 3, where the Messiah says of himself, " I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me." They connect this agony with the words spoken by Jesus on the cross, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" and although they presume not to explain in what it consisted, yet as they believe that the wrath of God due to the sins of the world was laid immediately upon Jesus, they find no difficulty in conceiving that his spirit, left without the wonted measure of support and comfort which it derived from its union with the Word and from the presence of his Father, experienced a darkness and desertion in comparison with which all the sorrow that man can inflict is light. Some have applied to this agony that article of the creed, " he descended into hell." But as we know that these words meant, according to the sense of those who first introduced them into the creed, that the soul of Jesus went into the region of departed spirits at the time when his body was laid in the grave, so if .we believe there is no such region, we are not warranted by the language of Scripture to apply to the sufferings of Christ an expres- sion which will seem to us to convey that they were the same in kind as the punishment of the damned. Whatever was the nature of the agony which shook and troubled 3Q 466 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. the spirit of Jesus, it was connected with entire resignation. He said in the time of it, " Not as I will, but as thou wilt ; for this cause came I to this hour :" and at all other times he spoke of his sufferings with a readiness to encounter them, which magnifies his character, and adds to their value. The innocence of Jesus was illustrated by his sufferings ; for as the prophet Isaiah had said, liii. 8, 9, according to Bishop Lowth's translation, " he was taken away by an oppressive judgment ;" " he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth;" so it appeared upon the trial which he underwent, that all the malice of his enemies could not convict him of sin. One of his companions on the cross, while he acknowledged that he himself received the just reward of his deeds, declared of Jesus that he had done nothing amiss ; and the disciple who betrayed him, after having been intimately acquainted with his private as well as his public life, is introduced in the gospels repenting of his foul deed, and bearing the most unexceptionable testimony to his Master, in these words, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." In this manner does the New Testament place the innocence of Jesus fully in our view, at the very time when it describes his sufferings. But it represents him as much more than innocent ; for, as I stated formerly in relation to the importance of the doctrine of the Hypostatical Union, the general strain of the New Testament leads us to conjoin the peculiar value which is there affixed to the sufferings of Jesus with the peculiar dignity of his person ; and we can clearly discern, in those purposes of the incarnation of the Son of God which the Scriptures declare, the reason why they have dwelt so largely upon the divinity of his character. Thus his condescension is said to con- sist in this, that he who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, humbled himself, and became obedient to the death of the cross ;* " hereby perceive we," says John, " the love of God, because he laid down his life for us;"t the love of the Father is commended to us in different places, by his giving his only begotten vSon, his beloved Son, and delivering him to the death for us ; and Jesus is never classed with martyrs or other righteous men, who '' loved not their lives unto the death ;" but the apostles, in speaking of his blood, affix to it a preciousaess infinitely beyond that of any blood which ever was shed. 2. The second point to be collected from a general survey of the language and the views of Scripture is this, that the sufferings of Christ, the peculiar bitterness of which derived such a value from the innocence and dignity of the sufferer, are not stated as mere calamity, but are always described under the characters which belong to a punishment of sin. God is never represented as exercising in the sufferings of his Son that right of sovereignty which belongs to the Lord and Proprietor of all, but as inflicting what was due to the transgression of his law ; and Jesus Christ, who is essentially distm guished from all other men in this respect, that he did not know sin, is represented in these sufferings as bearing the sins of others. The different expressions by which this character of the sufferings of Christ is intimated may be reduced to two general classes : • Phil. ii. 6— 8. t 1 John iii. 16. DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 467 1. The first includes all the prepositions in the Greek language that are employed to mark substitution. As it is said by Isaiah " he was wounded for our transgressions," so it is said in the New Testa- ment that " he was delivered for our offences, that he died for us, that he suff'ered for sins, the just for the unjust."* These expressions certainly suggest the notion of a substitution, in which the sufferings and dealii of one person are instead of the sufferings and death which the sins of others deserved. But Socinus has led the way to all who hold any part of his system, in attempting to elude this notion, by saying, that Christ's suffering for sins means nothing more than his suffering for this end, that we might be led to forsake our sins ; and that his dying for us only means his dying for our advantage. No person who is accustomed to study language, will assert in answer to this interpretation, that for necessarily implies substitution, because every scholar knows that even when he is able to ascertain the primary meaning of a preposition, he often finds that primary mean- ing so qualified by the words Avith which the preposition is joined, that in different situations it appears totally different. We say in English, Christ suffered for sins, and Christ suffered for us ; but every one understands the preposition for to have different meanings in tliese two phrases. We explain the first, Christ suffered upon account of sins; the second, Christ suffered instead of the sinners. And this ambiguity is not peculiar to the English ; in Greek also the same pre- position vTit^ is employed to express these different ideas ; for we read, 1 Pet. ii. 21,2 Cor. v. 15, X^wros jrtaSfr, artsearsi' irtf^ j^ftwv ; l Cor. XV. 3, 0-TiiBo.viv V7is^ tiov d^a^nwi/ gj^ucov. The propcr meaning of v^i^ is over, above. It suggests primarily the notion of covering ; and this may be applied, either to the covering a person from danger, or the cover- ing a thing from sight. The phrase vhc^ tjficov may denote any kind of benefit which we derive from another person ; but it marks with peculiar fitness his sustaining that harm which we should have sustained, had we not been covered by him. It cannot be denied that classical writers use V7ts^ in situations where a substitution is plainly implied ; and the Scriptures intimate that there is a peculiar emphasis in the application of this preposition to the sufferings of Christ. For although the apostle Paul, Col. i. 24, speaks of toi^ naStjixat^i, (lov V7tt^ v^uv, yet he asks, 1 Cor. i. 13, i^f^iiavWo^ lotav^uOrj V7ii^vy.uv; intimating, that even although his enemies should crucify him, his crucifixion could not give him that kind of connexion with Christians which arose from the crucifixion of Christ. In the other phrase, t-rtf^ aixa^tiuv, irtf^ cannot denote advantage ; and without a violent ellipsis it cannot be under- stood of the final cause; for the end of Christ's sufferings was not our sins, but the remission of our sins. But it is naturally understood, according to a frequent use of this preposition, of what we call the antecedent cause ; that cause which, having a previous existence, produces an action. Sins existed before Christ died, and their demerit produced his sufferings ; therefore it is said, artcdaviv vrti^ oLixa^tiuv, as we read in Isocrates, 'rf?^ fyv Sovtei ■toi^ ^fotj Stxaj,* and often in Latin, pro injuriis ulcisci. The antecedent cause is expressed in * Rom. iv. 25 ; v. 8. 1 Pet. iii. 18. f Isoc. Plat. p. 716. Edit. Basil. 468 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. different places of Isaiah liii. by the preposition 5ta, the preposition most commonly used in that sense. iLreavnanoOrj 6ttt raj a.y.a^ria.i r^jxu>v — 6ia faj avo,ui.aj avrwv Tta^iboOri ; and the apostle Paul appears to have copied this expression, Rom, iv. 25 ; yet, in that very verse, ^lo- is also used to mark the final cause ; for while our offences were the antecedent cause which produced the sufferings of Christ, our justification is the end obtained by his resurrection. n«ft is also used in the Greek Testament for this purpose, as Rom. viii. 3; 1 Peter iii. IS. Hf^t aua^tu^v means, in relation to our sins ; and the nature of the relation is to be gathered from the Septuagint, where what is rendered in our English Bible, " he shall bring for liis sin which he hath sinned," runs in the Greek, oian, ne^t, tru a^a^tuxi g^? rjfxa^rs. This expression, therefore, is one of the many instances in which the New Testament leads us back to the sacrifices of the law. There is one Greek preposition yet remaining, w*'? which our Lord himself uses, Matt, xx. 28 ; from whence the apostle Paul, 1 Tim. ii, 6, probably formed the compound word avtavf^ov. It is well known that avti., which perfectly expresses that one thing is set over against another, conveys the nature of commutation, substitution, succession : and it was impossible to find any preposition which could have marked more precisely this idea, that the life of Christ is given instead of many. Even avti,, however, may be used by the best writers in a looser sense, for the advantage of; and no scholar would choose to rest an important article of faith upon the strict acceptation of a pre- position. We do not therefore argue, that because we find ine^. ^la, and avti employed upon this subject, the Catholic opinion is unques- tionably the doctrine of Scripture, But we maintain, that if there was in the death of Christ a substitution of his sufferings for the pun- ishment of sin, it could not have been more naturally or significantly expressed than by these prepositions ; and that the meaning which a reader whose mind is unwarped by system feels himself disposed to affix to them, and the violent interpretations which are necessary in order to evade that meaning, create a strong presumption in favour of the truth of this opinion, 2, But there is a second class of expressions in Scripture, in which that character of a punishment for sin which seems to be signified by the use of these prepositions, is directly applied to the sufferings of Christ. Isaiah, after having said " he was wounded for our ti'ansgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities," adds, "rtaoSna fi^j^w? ?«' avrov, r^ fiio%u7ti,avtovr;fisviia£i^ucv; (he cliastisemeut of our peace was upon him, by his stripes we are healed." Again, "avotuft, he shall bear their iniquities, wj^wyxt, he bare the sin of many," This language of the prophet is copied, 1 Peter ii. 24, and it is referred to, Heb, ix, 28. The significancy of the preposition ova in the compound verb avr,vsyxe lies in this, that as Jesus was lifted up on the cross, he may be said to have carried our sins upward when he bore them ; and that this cir- cumstance was attended to in the use of this compound verb appears not improbable, when we find the apostle, Heb. vii. 27, applying the same verb ava^i^u first to the sacrifices of the law which were lifted upon the altar, and then to the offering of Christ upon the cross. There are two ways in which Socinus and his followers endeavour J DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 469 vO evade the force of the expression avr^viyxsv dftagf taj. They admit that according to the usual sense of the verb the phrase is properly ren- dered as in our*translation, "he bare our sins." But they say that, as the nature of the thing does not admit of a literal translation, we are to consider the phrase as equivalent to another which is used in different places by the apostle John, " his taking away sins," i. e. his leading us to forsake them. But it is a forced mode of interpreting Scripture, to have recourse to an unusual sense of a phrase, when that sense manifestly omits a part of the information given concerning the subject to which the phrase is applied. For although it be true that Jesus is said, John i. 29, 1 John iii. 5, »'?»>' ajua^i'tas, yet the precise mode of taking them away is declared to be by bearing them ; and although the scape-goat, which carried the sins of the children of Israel into the wilderness on the day of atonement, may be considered as a type of Christ's taking away sin, yet the scape-goat was only one part of the ceremonies prescribed for that day ; and when all the ceremonies are laid together, if the scape-goat denoted that the sins were taken away, for the very SLime reason, the other goat which was killed on that day must be considered as a type of his blood being shed for sin. The other Avay in which Socinus and his followers endeavour to evade the force of the expression avrjvsyxiv a^a^nas, is by saying that bearing our iniquities, if that translation be admitted, means nothing more than that they were the occasion of his suffering ; as a person is said in the Old Testament to bear the sins of his ancestors, when he suffers calamities in his person or his fortune, which he would no" have endured if they had been innocent. But this method of evading the natural sense of the phrase by no means answers the purpose for which it is resorted to. For it may be observed in general, that that part of the constitution of nature, by which posterity may be thus said to bear the sins of their ancestors, is in reality an extension of the punishment of sin, which is declared by God in the second com- mandment, " visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children." This extension of the punishment of sin demonstrates in a striking manner the painful nature of transgression, and calls in the natural affection of parents for their offspring as a guard to their own inno- cence. In every case therefore, where bearing the sins of others is allowed to mean suffering of which these sins are the occasion, that suffering is truly the punishment of sin. But with regard to this par- ticular case, it is to be observed farther, that we are not left to sup- pose that the connexion between sin and the sufferings of Christ was incidental, or merely the result of the general constitution of nature ; for we are taught by a variety of the most precise expressions, that this connexion was specially constituted by God, and that in it are to be found the reason and the intention of the sufferings of Christ. Isaiah says, "the chastisement of our peace was upon him;" but chastisement always means suffering connected with a fault, intended either for the correction of the person who endures it, or for an ex- ample to others. As chastisement which includes death cannot be designed to correct the sufferer, and as Jesus stood in no need of cor- rection, the chastisement which he endured must be considered as exemplary; and its being called "the chastisement of our peace" 42 470 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. clearly means that the punishment, without which we could not be restored to peace with God, was borne by him. The same thing is more fully expressed by Isaiah, as his words are rendered by Bishop Lowth. "The Lord made to meet upon him the iniquities of us all. It was required of him, and he was made answerable." There are two striking expressions to this purpose used by the apostle Paul. The one is in 2 Cor. v. 21. The apostle vindicates the pei"sonal innocence of his Master by saying, that he did not know sin. At the same time, in order to show that he was counted and treated as a sinner, not merely in the judgment of men, but in the judgment and by the appointment of God, he says, that God hath made him to be sin. This most significant manner of marking the connexion between his sufferings and sin is taken from the Septuagint, Lev. iv. 29 ; V. 9 ; where a sin-offering is often called a.;tta^f>?ua, a^a^na, because it was ofiered for sin ; and the Latin writers intimate the same con nexion in a similar manner, when they use piaculum both for the crime, piacula commissa, and for the victim by whose death the crime was supposed to be expiated. The other expression of the apostle Paul is. Gal. iii. 10, 13. The reason assigned for the kind of death which Jesus died clearly implies a substitution for sinners. The Jews employed other methods of taking away the life of a criminal. But they did, in some cases, hang upon a tree the body of a person who had been put to death for a crime. They were forbidden by their law, however, to allow the body to remain all night upon the tree. Deut. xxi. 22, 23. "If a man have connnitted a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree ; his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day, (for he tiiat is hanged is accursed of God,) that thy land be not defiled." The reason of this order is plainly no part of the civil punishment ; that was completed by the death of the criminal, and by the infamy of his hanging upon a tree ; it is merely a declaration of the light in which the person who had suffered this civil pimishment was viewed by God. The law also said, " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." All men, as transgressors of the law, were subject to this curse ; and Jesus, in order to redeem them from the curse, was made a curse for them, by hanging on a tree ; for when we consider that he who had power to lay down his life, had certainly power to choose the manner of laying it down, and that the Scriptures expressly say, " he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,"* we cannot but consider his choosing to hang upon a tree, a situation declared by the ceremonial law to be accursed of God, as intended to demonstrate to the world, that although he himself continued in all things written in the law to do them, his death was not merely the infliction of human law upon an innocent man, but a suffering which in the sight of God was penal. By this variety of the most marked expressions do the Scriptures present to us the sufferings of Christ under the character of punish- ment, i. e. as suffering which could not from the nature of things, be • Acts ii. 23. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 471 the very punishment which the sinner deserved, but which was laid upon an innocent person for the sins of others. 3. To complete the argument in favour of the CathoUc opinion which arises from a general survey of the language and views of Scripture, we have now to attend to the different classes of expres- sion by which the effects of the sufferings of Christ are described. 1. The first class comprehends all those expressions in which the words reconciliation, propitiation, atonement, and making peace, are connected with the sufferings of Christ. Of this kind are the follow- ing: Col. i. 19, 20. 1 John ii. 2: iv. 10. Rom. iii. 25; v. 11. « It pleased the Father, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. He hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. By him we have now received the atonement." The verbs translated reconcile are xaraxAasffu, artoxarauacww; and the noun rendered atonement is xataXKaytj. The verbs mean nothing more than a change from one state to another, but the situation in which they are introduced determines the change to be from enmity to friendship. The words rendered propitiation are derived from tJta^xw; a verb known in the Greek classics to denote propiiiuTn reddo, the action of the person, who in some appointed method, turned away the wrath of a deity ; and a verb used by the authors of the Septuagint to express the action of the priest, who by presenting the sin-offering made atonement for the offerer. As these actions are precisely similar, both are expressed by the verb in the middle voice. Homer says, oij>p rifiiv "-Exae^yov iTM'jrssat., ie^a pslaj ;* and it is Said of the priest in the Septuagint, staaisrai, or e^acnato, Tii^i dutt^rtaj.f But when the interces- sion of Moses had upon one occasion turned away the wrath of God, this is expressed by the verb in the passive, aai^;; Ku^toj.t As the use of the verb aasxw in the Septuagint is thus exactly agreeable to the classical sense of it, it seems natural to understand, in the same sense, the words derived from that verb which are applied in the New Tes- tament to express the effects of the death of Christ. The words are, IxiKSfio;, which having been applied in the law to the sin-offering is applied 1 John ii. 2. and iv. 10. to our Saviour; and 'W7')7^iov, Rom. iii. 25, which may be rendered, as in our English Bible, propitiation, by supplying >u.ua, but which from the analogy of x^i-ttj^uov, iiovuvT^tj^wv, ^vgiarstr^^cof, supplying iSjj'fta, should rather be translated propitiatory or mercy-seat ; a sense of the word which has been eagerly laid hold of by some of the Socinians, but which appears to be not less adverse to their system than the word propitiation, because the mercy-seat never was approached without blood. There is only one place in the New Testament, Heb. ii. 17, in which the verb aatjxw is applied to our Saviour. Although the construction be not exactly the same as m the Septuagint, where the noun is governed by rts^i, it is plain that the sense of the verb is totally changed if it be translated, as the Socinians propose, taking away sin, i. e. destroying its power in the sinner; for here is a third person intervening between God and the sins of the people, whose action in turning away wrath is expressed, as in Homer and in the Septuagint, by the middle voice of aa-xw, • Horn. II. i. 147. f Levit. v. i Exod. xxxii. 14. 472 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEiMENT. It appears then, that the amount of all the expressions, compre- bended under the first class, is precisely that which the apostles have sometimes stated, when, speaking of the death of Clirist, they say, " we are saved from wrath by him :" and no person who reads the Scriptures can be at a loss to know what that wrath is. For although, in the refinement of some modern systems, it is counted a degradation of the Supreme Being to ascribe to him what has been called punitive justice, there are no views of the divine govermnent more frequent or more clear in Scripture, than those upon which this attribute is rested. When we open the Old Testament, we find justice and judgment accompanying mercy in the descriptions of the Almighty, and many of the passages which have been quoted, in proof of the placability of the divine nature, contain this clause ; "who will by no means clear the guilty."* The history of the Old Testament abounds with examples, in which the hatred of sin often ascribed to the Almighty was made manifest by awful punishments of the wicked; and one of these examples is thus interpreted by Jude ; Sodom and Gomorrah rtgoxEtiTtti, Sfiyfta, rtugof tttcoi'iou Sixj^K i>rt£;KO'^(Tat.t John the Baptist introduces the new dispensation, by declaring that if any one believed not on the Son of God, 97 o^yrj ©eou jusm trt' avtov-X The character of the new dispensation is tlius drawn by Paul, Rom. i. 18, aTtoxuxvTtt erai ^o^ o^yi; @£ov art' ovgtti/OD frtt 7ia6av aasSftav xat. a8i,xi.av avO^corHoV nOt a transient emOtioU, but a fixed purpose to punish transgression. This expression of the law, f/tot fxSixjjritj, lyio avta-Tiobioau,, is quoted as the principle of that punishment of which he shall be thought worthy who despises the gospel. § Retributive justice is thus accurately described, 2 Thess. i. 6, Etrffg hxaiov rta^a ©59 a,vta.Tiobovva.t, -foi; ^^'KiSovaw vfxai ^\i^iv' and although immediate and tem|)oral calamities are not the standing method of executing retributive justice, as they were in part under the former dispensation, yet the future judgment which the gospel reveals, and unto which the wicked are .said to be reserved, is called j^Atfga o^yr^i, and is described both by our Lord and his apostles, in terms which imply the most complete display of what those who hold the Catholic opinion mean by the punitive justice of the Supreme Lawgiver. Such are the descriptions of the Almighty which pervade the Scriptures, and they clearly explain to us that effect of the death of Christ which is marked by the first class of expressions. The gospel, proceeding upon the truth of these descriptions, assumes, as its prin- ciple, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins ; and declaring that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins, it deduces from thence the necessity of a better sacrifice. It asserts, Heb. ii. 10, that it became him by whom and through whom are all things, to make the Captain of salvation perfect through sufferings ; tn^intv a.vt^, i. e. that there was a fitness in them resulting from the character of the Supreme Ruler ; and by representing them as vicarious punishment, with which reconciliation and atonement are con- nected, it teaches clearly that the wrath of God is turned away from the sinner, by the punishment which he deserved being laid upon another. The Socinians endeavour to evade the argument drawn from the • Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. -j- Jude 7. % John iii. 36. § Heb. x. 28—30. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 473 first class of expressions, by maintaining that reconciliation means nothing more than the taking away the enmity which we entertained against God ; that it is nowhere said in Scripture that God is recon- ciled to us by Christ's death, but that we are everywhere said to be reconciled to God ; that the sufferings of Christ can produce no change in God, and that the change must be brought about in man ; that there can be no need of reconciling God to man, when he had already shown his love to man so far as to send his Son to reconcile man to God. But in addition to what has been said of the punitive justice of God, I would farther observe, that as the term which we translate reconcihation implies a previous enmity or variance which was mutual, so the Scriptures explicitly declare, by all those views of the Almighty which I have been collecting, that there was an enmity on God's part ; and the exhortation to lay aside the enmity on our part proceeds upon this foundation, that the enmity on God's part is taken away by the death of his Son, i^iaXKatttaOav and words connected with it are five times applied in the New Testament with respect to God : Rom. V. 10, 11 ; xi. 15; Ephes. ii. 16; Col. i. 20, 21. In this last passage particularly there is implied a previous enmity or variance which was mutual. The words are twice used with respect to man ; Matt. V. 24 ; 1 Cor. vii. 11. In both these passages the meaning is, see that he be reconciled to thee ; for in both the person addressed has done the injury. The verb 8i.^rKattiG9ai, occurs in the same sense in the Septuagint version of 1 Sam. xxix. 4. If you read 2 Cor. v. 18 — 21, the passage upon which the Socinians ground their argument, you will be satisfied that their method of interpreting reconciliation leaves out half its meaning. Here is a previous act of God, who hath reconciled all things to himself by Jesus Christ, who does not count to men their trespasses, and who committed to the apostles of Jesus the word or the ministry of reconciliation ; and subsequent to this act of God there is the execution of that ministry, by their beseeching men to be reconciled to God. The ministry is distinct from the act of God, because God does not immediately receive all sinners into favour by his Son, but requires something of those to whom the word of recon- ciliation is published, in order to their being saved by it. But the ministry could not have existed had not the act of God, reconciling all things to himself, previously taken place ; and accordingly the very argument by which the apostle urges the exhortation committed to him is this ; " for he hath made him to be sin for us," i. e. God hath provided a method by which we may be assured that his anger is turned away from us; it only therefore remains that ye return to hin). 2. The second class comprehends those expressions in which we read of redemption ; as 1 Peter i. 18 ; Eph. i. 7. " Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ ; we have redemption through his blood." As our English word redeem literally means, I buy back, so y^'j-f^ooi artoxvr^cdcts, the Greek words used in the New Testament, are properly applied to the action of setting a captive free by paying %vt^ov, a ransom ; and thus the sufferings of Christ are presented under the particular view of a price, by the payment of which we are set free. Those who deny the truth of the Catholic opinion attempt to with- draw the support which it appears to receive from this class of ex- pressions by the following reasoning. It is impossible, they say, to 42* 3 R 474 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. apply these expressions in their hteral acceptation to the eflect of the sufferings of Christ. For as a ransom is always paid to the perso-n by whom the captive is detained, and as we were the servants of Satan, these expressions, literally understood, would imply that the death of Christ was a price paid to Satan. Since we must depart from the literal sense, it seems most natural to understand redemption as equivalent to deliverance ; for we read in the Old Testament of God's redeeming his people from trouble, from death, from danger, when no price is supposed to have been given ; and Moses, who was the instrument employed by God to deliver his people from the bondage of Egypt, is called, Acts vii. 35, ^.vt^oittji. But if redemption means nothing more than a deliverance from sin, as effectually as if a ransom had been paid, the second class of expressions gives no real support to the Catholic opinion ; and is not inconsistent either with the Socinian opinion, which ascribes the deliverance to the influence of the doctrine and precepts of the Gospel, or with the Middle opinion, which ascribes it to the power acquired by the Redeemer. This reasoning proceeds upon a principle which is readily admitted, that both the English and the Greek words are often extended beyond their original signification. Although they denoted primarily deliver- ance from captivity by paying a ransom, they are applied to deliver- ance from any evil, and they are used to express deliverance by any means. Almost all other words, which originally denoted a particular manner of doing a thing, are susceptible of a similar extension of meaning, and it is the business of sound criticism to determine, by considering the circumstances of the case, how far the primary sig- nification is to be retained, or with what qualifications it is to be understood in every particular application. Now when we judge in this manner of the second class of expressions, the following remarks naturally present themselves. 1. It is not necessary to depart from their literal meaning, when they are applied to the effect of the death of Christ. For according to the true statement of the Catholic opinion, we are considered as under the sentence of condemnation which our sins deserved, as prisoners waiting the execution of the sentence, and as released by the death of Christ from this condition. Deliverance from the dominion of sin and the power of Satan is a secondary effect, a consequence of the application of the remedy ; redemption of our bodies from the grave is another effect still more remote. Both are mentioned in Scripture ; but the immediate effect of the death of Christ is, our deliverance from punishment, what the apostle calls the curse of the law ; and this punishment being in the power of the lawgiver by whom it was to be inflicted, the ransom, in consideration of which it is remitted and the condemned are set free, may be said to be given to him. 2. Although a captive may be released without any ransom, and although ^vu, or verbs derived from ^vt^ov, may be employed most naturally to express such a gratuitous release, yet this extension of the primary meaning of those words is excluded from the case to which they are applied in the New Testament, because a ^vtQov is there expressly mentioned. When a Greek author, in relating the release of a prisoner, speaks repeatedly of artoira, or xvt^a, as Homer does in the first book of the Iliad, it camiot be supposed that the re- DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 475 demption was without price. Every one feels this effect of intro- ducing the noun ^vt^ov, when the captive was detained hy force under the power of an enemy ; and the significancy of the noun is not in the least diminished, when the prisoner is redeemed from a captivity which the Scriptures represent as judicial. The ^vr^ov indeed, in that case, is not a price from which the lawgiver is to derive any advan- tage ; it is the satisfaction to justice upon which he consents to remit the sentence ; but still the mention of a y^vr^ov is absolutely inconsistent with a gratuitous remission. 3. The Septiiagint has used the word xvt^ov in two places, to denote the consideration upon which a judicial sentence was remitted. There was the r.vt^a ■^v^yji, Exod. xxx. 12-16, called in our translation the atonement-money ; half a shekel given for the service of the sanctuary, by every one who was numbered, upon all occasions when the number of the people was taken, that there might be no plague among them. There was also ^f ^f a Ti^i^totoxuv. The first-born of every animal was sacred to the Lord. But God declared, Numb. iii. 12,46-51, that he took the whole tribe of Levi, instead of the first-born of all the tribes, on which account they are called ^vr^a rtgwroroxuj/ ; and as the whole number of the tribe of Levi fell short of the first-born males of all the other tribes by some hun- dreds, the Lord required for every one of this odd number the sum of five shekels, which is called in our translation, the redemption-money, in the Greek, ^.vt^a tuv Ttuova^ovtuv. Here, then, is ^vr^ov, which is known to denote in classical writers, a ransom paid in order to pro- cure the release of a captive, applied in the Septuagint, by a most natural extension of meaning, to the consideration given for deliver- ance from death ; an evil which the person so delivered could, in no other way, have escaped, any more than the captive could have re- covered his liberty without the ransom ; and the same idea is followed out in the New Testament. For as Paul says, 1 Cor. vi. 20, viyo^aaefjtc ^'^j?? ; and as Peter, i. 18, in describing the price, has a manifest refer- ence to the atonement-money and redemption-money of the law, so the price by which we are bought and redeemed is called, Matt. xx. 28, ^vrgof wT'trtoxT.wi'; and 1 Tim. ii. 6, avtavr^ov irti^ rtwruv. Whether, then, we interpret the New Testament according to the classical Greek, or according to that which has been called the Hellenistical Greek, i. e. the Greek spoken by those Hebrews who, living mostly in the Grecian cities, used that universal language, but corrupted it by many Hebrew idioms ; we cannot avoid considering the second class of expressions as suggesting that something v/as given for our deliverance. And thus, the second class of expressions, by which the Scriptures mark the effects of the death of Christ, exactly coincides as to its amount with the first. The first class represents the wrath which the sins of mankind deserved, as turned away by the sufferings which another endured ; the second class represents prisoners under sentence of death for sin as set free, upon account of the sufferings by which another paid a ransom for their souls. 3. The third class comprehends all those passages, in which for- giveness of sins is connected with the death of Christ. The words commonly used in the Greek Testament for this purpose are aftj^^t and a^eat;. The verb, which signifies mitto a me, may be applied in man_, different situations ; the meaning is always understood to be qualified 476 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. by the circumstances of the case, and may easily be accommodated to that which we mean by forgiveness. P^or, as every sin involves an obligation to punishment, when the Lawgiver sends away from hijn the sin, lie cancels the obligation and declares his resolution not to inflict the punishment which the transgression of his law deserved. The Socinians argue from the frequent use of this expression in the New Testament, that forgiveness of sin is an act of the same kind with the remission of a debt, A^trfii, is applied, in classical writers, to both acts ; for we read (vpi-rmc ai-tov x^fov^, and a^irniv as tov iyxxrj^ato^:* and our Lord seems to teach us that there is no difference between the acts by giving sins the name of debts, and applying to them under this name the verb a$t>;^i. Thus, one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer \s,a^ii r-i^iiv -ta o^ii,-Kr^ixa.-ta. iifx.uiv ; and in the parable, Matt, xviii. the Almighty is represented as a master who says to the servant that owed him ten thousand talents, 7ta.aavT^vQ^ia.rivixiwriva^Yixa. mi. This manner of expression certainly proceeds upon an obvious resemblance between the two subjects: the creditor has a perfect right to demand payment of his debt ; the lawgiver has a perfect right to inflict punish- ment upon the transgression of the law; and therefore, when the one remits the debt, and the other forgives the transgression, they do what no person is entitled to require of them. But the New Testament, in order to guard us against inferring from this resemblance, that the act of the Supreme Lawgiver in forgiving sin is of the same kind with the act of a creditor who remits a debt without asking payment, con- nects the forgiveness of sins with the blood of Christ, which is else- where declared to have been shed as a punishment of sin. For it is not only said that remission of sins is one of the blessings of the new covenant preached in the name of Jesus, expressions which might be reconciled with the Socinian system that the Gospel is merely a de- claration of forgiveness : but it is said. Acts xiii. 38, 5ia tovT-ou, through the means of this man, v^iiv a^saii a^a^-eMv xa.-fa,yyi%%i-to.v. And the means employed by this man are explained in such passages as the follow- ing: 1 John i. 7, " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin ;" Rev. i. 5, " To him that washed us from our sins in his own blood." And still more expressly. Matt. xxvi. 28, and Eplies. i. 7 ; in which last passage the remission of sin is introduced as the expli- cation of that redemption or release from the sentence of the law, which was purchased by the blood of Christ, and both are ascribed to the riches of the grace of God. It is plain therefore, that to the writers of the New Testament there did not appear any inconsistency between the forgiveness of sins and the laying the punishment of them upon another ; and by declaring the intimate connexion between these two, they give their sanction to that leading principle in the statement of the Catholic opinion, which distinguishes the act of a lawgiver who in forgiving sins has respect to the authority of the law, from the act of a creditor who in remitting a debt disposes of his property at his pleasure. 4. The last expression by which the Scriptures mark the death of Christ is that in which we are said to be justified by his blood, and through faith in his blood. • ScapultB Lexicon, in verb, o^ijjut. DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 477 I mean not to speak at present of many questions respecting that act of God called justification, which will find their proper place under the application of the Gospel remedy. But as the change upon our condition, which is implied in the word justification, and which is ascribed to the efficacy of the blood of Christ, corresponds most exactly with the principles upon which the reasonableness of the Catholic opinion rests, I cannot better conclude the defence of that opinion, than by illustrating this particular view of the subject. And for that purpose I shall take, as the ground of my observations, that part of the apostle Paul's writings, in which he discourses fully of justifica- tion through the death of Christ, I mean Rom. iii. 19 — 31. The word Sixmos is used both in the Septuagint and in the Greek Testament, in a sense to which nothing perfectly analogous occurs in classical writers. The sense is called forensic, i. e. it expresses the act of a Lawgiver or judge pronouncing a person righteous in the eye of the law, so as to be acquitted from all obligation to punishment. Rom. viii. 33, Ttj tyxaXeaii, xata exXcxtoiv @tov ; ©toj o bt,xat,ocov. T'tj 6 xatax^wuiv i the word is used in the same sense by the Psalmist, Ps. cxliii. 2. Kai fit] iiaAOrji ftf x^isiv fifta, tov BovT^ov aov, oT't ov SixaiiodtjaetM {vwrttof nov rta^ ^uv. The apostle, who had just been quoting the ancient Scriptures of the Jews, seems to have had this passage of the Psalms in his view, when he says, Rom. iii. 20, ^lo*' tl i^yuv vo/j-ov ov SixaMOr^attai naaa cajl tvurttouavtmj.5Laya^voij.ovirtcyi'ioai.iana^-ti.ai. This is the COUclusion from the preceding part of his discourse, in which he has proved that all, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin, and the whole world inobixoi t

;ecov. The meaning of this name is in part explained by its being opposed, Rom. x. 3, to t^ta Sixaiortir*?. The apostle has shown that idMSixMoawr;^ or, ^ixcuomr} Siavofiov, Gal. ii, 2i, does not exist; and therefore, the method of justifying men may most properly be called BixMoawr; ©tov, because it must be such as God is 478 DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. pleased to appoint. But this name implies further that it is a method becoming that God who is just; a part of the sigiiificaiicy of the name which the apostle places fully in our view, when he comes to explain the method. But before he gives the explication, he dis- tinguishes the method which he is going to explain from justification flf^ywi/ or Stifo^oi), by this addition, Sm ^ifjrfwf it^aov x^vatov ; and he says it extends to all who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles, because in this respect there was no distinction between them, that all stood in need of the revelation of such a method, since by having sinned they had come short of that approbation which proceeds from God, and their actions, however agreeable to the maxims and customs of the world, could not, when tried in his righteous judgment, entitle them to a sentence of acquittal. The necessity of a method of justifying men, not formerly revealed Deing now fully proved, and the method being discriminated from every other by the names applied to it, the apostle proceeds to illus- trate the propriety of these names, by explaining what it is. His ex- plication is found in the 24th, 25th, and 26th verses. The apostle has introduced into this short description the great principles upon which the reasonableness of the Catholic opinion rests, and the chief of those Scripture expressions by which the truth of it is proved. He begins with ascribing this method of justifying men to the free grace of God. As far as they are concerned, justification is granted to them Sw^fav, as a free gift ; because their works did not entitle them to acquittal, and had it not been for the good-will of the Lawgiver, they must have been condemned. But this free gift is dispensed in a par- ticular manner. The Lawgiver does not simply justify, but he justi- fies through the redemption that is in or by Jesus Christ. ArtoxuT'^wMj suggests that the vmBixoi were delivered from the execution of the sentence of the law by the payment of a ransom ; and necessarily implies the good will of the ransomer. This interpretation of the word is confirmed by our being told immediately after, that the vmSlxoi, were delivered, not merely by the power, but by the blood of the ransomer ; for the apostle adds, " whom God set forth, or exhibited to the world, i'Ka6T'r;^t,ov 8ttt *»;? rtKJTfwj iv T'9 avTfov otftari.'" Whether i%a(3ty;^tov be translated a propitiation or a propitiatory, the amount is the same. Either way his blood is the mean of turning away wrath ; and we found formerly that there is not only consistency, but the most inti- mate connexion between his blood propitiating the lawgiver, and being the ransom by which the vftoSixov are set free. The purpose for which God chose this particular manner of dis- playing his grace in justifying sinners is next mentioned. Ec? tvStv^w trji St,x(uo(ivvr;i avtov ; rt^oj f cSftltv ttj^ Sixcuoawtji avtov. This repetition IS a proof that the two intervening clauses are to be considered as a parenthesis, thrown in to illustrate the propriety of this method of declaring the righteousness of God. The intervening clauses are thus rendered in our translation ; " for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God :" but they might be more literally rendered, " upon account of the passing by of former sins in the for- bearance of God." n^oysyovotiov marlcs the sins committed before setting forth the propitiation, i. e. before the time of the Gospel. The rta^taii of these sins is rendered in our translation, the remission of DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 479 them ; yet it is remarkable that the apostle does not here use a^ieti, the word used for remission, both by our Lord and by the apostle himself, at all other times, and formed from a^ijjjut, the verb used in the Septuagint for forgiving sin. It is probable that the apostle had a reason for this singularity ; and many attempts have been made to find a reason in the different signification of the two words. The truth is, that the joining a^ssij and rto^satj to a.ixa^ttjfiatuv is an applica- tion of both words, almost peculiar to the sacred writers ; and that neither the etymology of Jta^t^ri^h nor the practice of classical authors entitles us to say that it marks a less complete degree of forgiveness than a^'-rjua. This passage, therefore, gives no countenance to a sys- tem which has been formed with regard to the extent of the Gospel- remedy, that those who lived under the Mosaic dispensation, did not obtain entire deliverance from the punishment of sin till Christ came ; and there is no other passage which warrants us to consider the for- giveness of sins committed before that period, as different in kind, with respect to its effects upon the sinner, from the forgiveness of sins committed after it. But when it is recollected that the sacrifices offered by the Jews did not purify the conscience, and that the heathen who had no direction from heaven often violated the laws of morality in the manner of offering their sacrifices, it is manifest that the for- giveness which was dispensed before the Gospel could not be in con sideration of any satisfaction which was then made to the divine justice ; and, therefore, that this time may be called avoz'ti @sov, a time of forbearance, or as the word is often rendered in classical Avriters, hiduciae, a truce, during which the punishments due to the sins of men were suspended in so far, that the human race was allowed to exist, and to enjoy the bounties of Providence, although the whole world was guilty before God ; and many, whose names are mentioned in Scripture with honour, obtained forgiveness, although we cannot avoid considering them also as concluded vmder sin, because there is not a just man upon earth that liveth and sinneth not. The forgiveness granted during this truce may most fitly be called 7iae,iati; because, however complete in respect of the persons to whom it was granted, it " sent by their side," transmitted to another time, the punishment which their sins deserved. This interpretation of the word corresponds exactly with an expression of the same apostle in his discourse at Athens ; Acts xvii. 30. Tooj inv ouf xe,