7^ 3'v 5:^ at 5:^^ o^ .^^ o^ "^2- Of THK PRINCETON, N. J. SAMUEL AONEAV, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. BR 151 .G6 1830 Gisborne, Thomas, 1758-184i A familiar survey of the Christian religion A FAMILIAR SUKVEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. W. M'DONNKLL, Printer 28, Little Sfrand-ftreel. ' A FAMILIAR SURVEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND OF HISTORY, AS CONNECTED WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WITH ITS PROGRESS TO THE PRESENT TIME. INTENDED pniMARILY FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PERSONS OF EITHER SEX DUUING THE COUUSE OF PUBLIC OR OF PRIVATE EDUCATION. BY THOMAS GISBORNE, A.M " Jesus saith to Peter, — Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? — He saitli unto Him, Yea, Lord ; fJiou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto liim. Feed mv Lambs." John xxi. 15. DUBLIN: PRINTED FOR A. * W. WATSON, M. KEENE & SON, R. MILLIKEN AND SON, J. CIJMMIXO, R. M. TIMS, & W. CURRY, JUN. & CO. 1830. TO Tin; REVrnENO BENJAMIN HEATH, D. D. FELLOW OF ETON COLLEGE, ETC. DEAR SIR, IF I venture to assert, that more than customary attention might advantageously be allotted to the inculcation of Christian principles and knowledge on the youth of this country ; let me not be thought desirous of loading their instructers with harsh and indiscriminate censure. My own personal experience might lead me to a more equitable conclusion. Nearly six of the earlier years of my education, were consigned to the care of a Clergyman, ' (1) The Rev. Joliii Pickering, of MuckwortJi, near Derby. VI whose life exemplified the religious lessons, which he endeavoured to impress on his pupils. The years intervening between pri- vate tuition and the university, were passed at the very eminent public school," over which you then presided. I recollect, with pleasure, that the head class, which was under your immediate superintendence, was regularly occupied, during one morning in the common days of the week, in the study of some book of a religious nature. Nor was this the only effort pointed to the same end in the conduct of the school. But I fear that many young persons, if summoned from seminaries of repute to a public examination, would give a better account of the flibled wanderings of Ulysses and jEneas, than of the heaven-directed journeyings of Moses and St. Paul ; and would display a more intimate acquaintance with the fortunes of Athens and Eome, than with the historical progress of a reli gion, designed to be their supreme comfort (2) At Harrow on the Hill vu and guide through life, and the means of acquiring eternal happiness. '^ ' / The principal fciult, when faults exist, is not in the preceptor, hut in the parent. The former is to water the plant ; the latter must sow the seed. But how often does the parent limit his concern for the best interests of his children, to the decorum of mere morals : without impressing on their minds, perhaps without feeling in his own, a firm and habitual conviction, that there is no stable foundation on which morality can rest, except a Christian fear and love of God ? How often does the parent expend his soUcitude, in unremitting efforts to fit his children for worldly eminence ; to pre- pare them to make their vray as politicians, as merchants, as followers of lucrative pro- fessions ; to be skilful seamen, intrepid soldiers, men of learning, of taste, of accom- plishments, and what the world is pleased to call "men of honour:" regardless of the duty of training them up as servants of a i?^7 J^: VIU God of holiness, and disciples of a crucified Saviour ! A work intended to facilitate the attain- ment of the most important knowledge, will experience, I am confident, your favourable acceptance. I offer it to you with additional satisfaction, as it affords to me an oppor- tunity of conveying to you an assurance, that I retain a grateful remembrance of your instructions. 1 am. Dear Sir, Your obliged and faithful servant, THOMAS GISBOENE. YOXAI.I. r.ODGF, NFAIl tlflll'ir.T.n, Nov. 1), 17, THSOLOGICALi PREFACE. Among persons who are convinced that youth, the spring-time of life, is the season Avhen the seeds which are to occupy and fill the heart are to be sown ; and who regard the acquisition of eternal happiness through Jesus Christ, as the great object of human existence ; it is a common, and, I fear, a just complaint, that in any mode of education, sufficient attention is too seldom devoted to religion. Of late years, much has been done, and ably done, to facilitate the communication of rehgious knowledge to youth. Many excellent clemen- ■»■ PKEFACE. tary works, having for their object the explana- tion of scriptural history, and scriptural doctrines, in a manner at once instructive and engaging to the opening mind of the pupil, have been given to the public : and they have been received with the gratitude which the writers merited. Let me not be suspected of a disposition to detract from the value of those works, the circulation and use of which, I wish to see, every day, more widely extended, when I venture to observe, that an additional treatise, on a plan somewhat enlarged, has appeared to me to be wanting ; a treatise which might fitly intervene between the perusal of books of the class to which I have alluded, and the ample range of reading scarcely to be expected but from the leisure and industry of manhood. The deficiency which I conceived to exist, 1 have endeavoured in the following pages to supply. My intention has been, to lay before the reader a familiar and compendious view of the Christian religion, and of the principal historical events connected with its introduction and progress, its corruption and reformation : including a concise account of the Scriptures of the old and new Testaments, and a summary of the evidences of PREFACE. XI the truth of Christianity, together with some remarks on forms of church-government and re- ligious establishments. Bearing in mind, that I have been addressing myself to natives of Great Britain, I have been solicitous to draw the attention of the reader, wherever the subject afforded a fit opportunity, to events or circum- stances which have had a particular influence on his own country ; and by rendering him acquainted with the principles, on which its religious institutions are established, to guard him betimes from being hastily prejudiced against those institutions by misrepresentations or groundless objections. I have endeavoured, on suitable occasions, to obviate, without enter- ing too deeply into argument, some of those cavils of scepticism and infidelity, which a young person may probably hear ; and thus to lead him to withhold implicit confidence from others, which he may afterwards have to encounter. Throughout the whole work, it has been my predominant desire, to direct the acquisition of knowledge to its proper purpose ; the establish- ment and confirmation of Christian views, motives, and practice through life. I may trust that the candour of the public, XU PREFACE. which I have repeatedly experienced respecting other works, will be extended to the present, perhaps, more humble, yet I would hope, under the blessing of God, not less useful attempt. My objects in drawing up this performance, would be abundantly answered, if it should be deemed Avorthy of being placed as a manual, in the hands of the youth of both sexes, during their educa- tion at home or in public seminaries. I am also willing to persviade myself, that it may prove a convenient summary to many persons of all ages, when they happen not to have leisure and opportunity for the perusal of larger works. ^f^RTy Of CONTENTS. CHAP. I. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE STATE OF JVtANKJXD FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD TO THE CALLINC. OF AB RAH AM, PAGE 1 CHAP. II. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH RACE, AND OF THE HISTORY OF THAT I'EOPLE TO THE DEATH OF MOSES, 21 CHAR HI. SUMMARY VIEAV OF THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS, FROM THE DEATH OF MOSES TO 'I HE PRESENT TIME, 46 XIV CONTENTS. CHAP. IV. ON THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 83 CHAP. V. ON THE BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT, 120 CHAP. VI. SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, ,.. IGO CHAP. VII. ON THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 184 CHAP. VIII. ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST, CHAP. IX. THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE SUBVER- SION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE, 242 CHAP. X. ON THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SUB- VERSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, 277 CONTEXTS. XV CHAP. XI. COXTIKUATION OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY TO THE rilESENT TIME, 324 CHAP. xn. ON FORMS OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND ECCLESI- ASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS, 364 CHAP. XHI. CONCLUSION, 375 FAMILIAR SURVEY CHRISTIAN RELIGION. CHAPTER I. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE STATE OF MANKIND FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD TO THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM. The establishment of Christianity was the great object, to which the several dispensations of Di- vine Providence, intervening between the crea- tion of the world and the birth of Christ, were designed to be subservient. If, therefore, we are solicitous clearly to comprehend the nature of the Christian Religion, and fully to perceive the magnitude of the blessings, which it offers to every person who sincerely embraces and faithfully obeys it: our attention ought, in the first place, to be directed to the original situation of the parents of the human race ; and to those successive events, whether in the extraordinary dealings of God with man, or in the civil history of particular nations, which were evidently calculated to pre- pare the way for the advent of the great Redeemer. B 2 SUMMARY View of the Godji saith the scripture, created man in his own image. Wherein did this resemblance of man to his Maker consist ? The answer to that question must be derived from the sacred writings. The true explanation of the counsels of God can be obtained only from the word of God. Some persons, observing that after the Almighty had said, " Let us make man in our own image, after " our likeness," he immediately subjoined ; "and *' let them have dominion over the fish of the " sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the " cattle, and over all the earth, and over every " creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth;" ^ have concluded that the image of God, impressed upon man, consisted in the sovereign authority delegated to mankind over the whole inferior creation. This opinion may not be destitute of truth. Yet it seems to overlook the principal circumstance indicated by the expression under consideration. The most distin.qjuishinsj charac- teristic of the Supreme Being is holiness. And we have scriptural grounds for inferring, that the primitive uprightness and purity of man was the feature in his soul, which constituted his likeness to his Maker. St. Paul, exhorting the Ephesians to labour for that radical change of heart which Christianity requires in her followers ; a change from the corrupt frame of mind natural to fallen man, to one resembling the state of innocence and happiness in which Adam was created ; uses these remarkable words: "Put oh the new man, (1) Gen, i. 27. (2) Gen. i. 26. STATE OF MANKIND. 3 ** which after God " (that is, after the image of God) " is created in righteousness and true lioli- "ness."^ And when addressing his Colossian converts on the same subject, '* Ye," saith he, *' have put on the new man, which is renewed in "knowledge," (the knowledge of righteousness, " through Christ) after the image of him that *' created him." ^ The resemblance, therefore, which man originally bore to God, consisted chiefly, if not entirely, in holiness and righteous- ness, similar in kind, though infinitely inferior in degree, according to the distance between the Creator and the created, to the holiness and righteousness of his heavenly Father. But this blessed state was of short continuance. Ensnared by the Devil, who is repeatedly deno- minated in the Scriptures " the Old Serpent, *' Satan," (the Adversary,) " who deceiveth the ** whole 5 vv^orld ; " and is expressly declared by our Saviour to have been a " murderer from the beginning, the " father of lies, who abode not in " the truth, because there is no truth in him ; " <» our first parents concurred in breaking that single commandment, the observance of which God had enjoined as the test of their obedience. They ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledsce of good^ and evil ; that fruit which taught them the difference between good and evil, by render- ing them acquainted with evil, which, until that .hour, they never had known. Thus they annulled (3) Ephcs. iv. 24. (4) Coloss. iii. 10. (5) Rev. xii. 9, and xx. 3. (6) Jolin vjii. 44. See also J JoIim iii. 8. B 2 4 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE the covenant between them and their Maker. They forfeited all claim to every blessing which they had antecedently possessed. They stripped themselves of all title to every favour, which their Creator had previously given them hopes of re- ceiving from his bounty. For all was to depend on the stedfastness of their obedience to the original commandment. They incurred the pen- alty of death ; the penalty, which from the beginning had been announced to them as annexed to the breach of that commandment. They be- came obnoxious to whatever punishment, in ad- dition to death, the loss of their existence, the unerring justice of God should perceive to be merited by their transgressions. They lost their uprightness and purity of heart, the image and likeness of Jehovah in which they were created : and thus were become more similar, in the disposi- tion and frame of their souls, to the Author of evil to whom they had submitted, than to the glo- rious God of holiness whom they had disobeyed. The Supreme Being, in pronouncing judgment on his guilty creatures, mercifully suspended the execution of the penalty of death. Exclusive of the sentence uttered against the Serpent, the import of which will shortly be considered ; he imposed on Eve the pains of child-bearing, and entire submission to the authority of her husband. On Adam he devolved the laborious cultivation of the earth, now rendered above measure pro- ductive of plants troublesome to the husbandman, and noxious to the crop. And both he expelled STATE OF MANKIND. 5 from the garden of Eden, lest they should put forth their hand, " and take also of the tree of life, " and cat, and live for ever ; " ' lest, by having access to the fruit of the tree of immortality, they should be enabled, from time to time, to counteract the natural tendency of their bodies to decay, and thus hope to evade the unchangeable decree, *' Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."** To prevent any rash attempt on the part of man to re-enter his original abode, God placed, east- ward of Paradise, a fiery guard of Angels, ** Che- " rubim and a flaming sword, which turned every " way, to keep the way of the tree of life." ^ Perhaps you may be inclined to deem it some- what singular, that a circumstance of a nature apparently so trivial as the eating or forbearing to eat of the fruit of a particular tree, should be selected, by the Divine wisdom, for the trial of the obedience of our first parents. You would have expected, it may be, some trial of a more grand and dignified cast ; resembling some of those splendid demonstrations of human virtue, which history records for the admiration of the world. In the first place, however, you may be satisfied, that the mode of proof, which thus suprises you, was perfectly proper, because it was the mode which the Divine wisdom thought fit to select. If the temptation to transgress were, in your ap- prehension, inconsiderable ; cease to wonder that one more powerful was not chosen, when you recollect that even this, weak as it was, proved (7) Gen. iii. 22, (8) Gen. iii. 19. (9) Gen. ii. 9. 6 SUMMAllY VIEAV OF THE capable of overcoming the religious resolution of those whom it assailed. Keflect further, in the next place, that in the situation in which Adam and Eve found themselves in Paradise : the only existing individuals of the human race; with every want anticipated ; before the sight or sound of distress was known ; . antecedently to the intro- duction of arts, and of commerce, and of separate property, and of gradations of rank and power, and of all those habits and institutions of civil society which have proved, since the earth became replenished with inhabitants, the most efficacious stimulants of the passions of men, and con- sequently the most dangerous incentives to sin ; few, if any, of those temptations.by resistance to which, from a principle of obedience to the will of God, human virtue is now to be evinced, could possibly have had an opportunity of presenting themselves. Still, however, you may think that the punish- ment was disproportioncd to the offence. So slight a transgression as the gathering of a pro- hibited fruit to be instantly followed by the loss of the Divine favour, by the forfeiture of existence, by woes and calamities reaching to the latest posterity of the offenders ! Recollect then, that this punishment, great as it might be, was no new penalty devised after the transgression. It was that penalty which the transgressors, fore-warned and fully instructed, had known from the day of their creation to be already ordained as the inevitable consequence of guilt, llecollect also STATE or MANKIND. 7 Uiat the direct communications, which the Su- preme Being had permitted to take place between himself and his creatures, had precluded the pos- sibility of a doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve as to the reality of the Divine command. But you judge most erroneously in terming their transgression slight. The sin consisted not simply in gathering the fruit ; but in breaking the com- mandment of God, v.'ho had enjoined them to abstain from it : the single commandment of Him, who, of his own free grace, had called the offenders into being ; had crowned them with innumerable benefits ; had put immortality and unimpairable happiness into their power, subject only to the observance of one condition ; a condition so plain as to be incapable of being misunderstood, and so easy of performance as scarcely to seem to admit the possibility " of failure. The mode in which disobedience might be manifested was of little moment. The guilt was in the disobedience itself ; and was evidently most heinous. Let us now return to the judgment pronounced against the Serpent; a judgment not more full of terror to the victorious enemy of mankind, than of consolation to those, whom he had degraded into a state of sin and misery. To him, under the emblem of the reptile, whose instrumentality he he had employed in his diabolical machinations, the Divine vengeance foretold disappointment, and humiliation, and anguish, and irrecoverable destruction. A future " seed 6f the woman " was darkly announced ; who, after experiencing some 8 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE temporary injury, equivalent to a bruise on the heel, from the power and malignity of the serpent, should re-establish the cause of man, and vindicate the glory of God, by a complete triumph over the adversary, by " bruising the serpent's head." Here, then, was a direct intimation given to man of the great plan formed and predetermined in the divine counsels for the redemption of the human race through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; who, in reference to this prede- termination, is styled in the New Testament " the " Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.^" To what extent the details of this gracious and stupendous plan were then vmfolded to Adam, the Scriptures do not explain. Sufficient, however, was revealed to enable him to look up with humble hope, on the part of himself and of his posterity, to their future deliverer from the dominion of sin and the grave. In process of time a first-born son and other children successively encreased the family of Adam, now no longer an inhabitant of Paradise ; children born " in his own likeness, after his " image ;" with a nature depraved, corrupt, and sinful, like that of their progenitor ; not " in the *' likeness of God," which the Scriptures, almost in the same sentence,'^ as though it were to pre- vent the possibility of mistaking their meaning respecting the image in which the children of Adam were born, again aver to have been that in which Adam was originally formed. Here, ac- (I) Rev. xiii. 8. (2) Gen. v. 1—3. STATE OF MANKIND. 9 cording to the analogy which we see still subsist- ing throughout the whole living creation, in which the offspring universally inherits and par- takes of the nature of the parent ; man, become frail and prone to guilt, ])roduced a race frail and prone to guilt like himself. The corrupt tree could not but bear corrupt fruit. In like manner, the next generation resembled, in its nature, that from which it sprang. Every individual of the human race born or yet to be born, with the single exception of our Lord Jesus Christ when he assumed the form of man, inevitably brings with him into the world the nature of fallen Adam. And *' as in Adam all die, even so in Christ " only shall any " be made alive."^ — " There is " none other name under heaven given among " men, whereby we must be saved." ^ The radical corruption of human nature is one of those truths, which their very plainness renders it the less easy to support by formal proofs. If a person be unmoved by the decisive arguments, which press upon him every moment at every turn ; you scarcely know in what manner to ad- dress him on the subject. Happily the minds of youth are not thus hardened against fair reason- ing and honest conviction. They have not been familiarised with sin sufficiently to have become bhnd to its inherent enormity. They have not yet been inured by long habits of guilt to *' call " evil good, and good evil." -^ They are not ob- structed by those prepossessions, nor intoxica- (3) 1 Cor. XV. 22. (4) Acts iv. 12. (b) Isaiah v. 20. 10 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE ted with that self-conceit, so common among persons more advanced in life ; who have formed to themselves a favourite system, and examine not at all, or without candour, any evidence against it^ Let young persons then search the Scriptures, to see whether these things be so or not ; and they will find the depravity of human nature inculca- ted, in the strongest terms, throughout the sacred writings ; and inculcated not only as an undeni- able fact, but as the corner-stone of Christianity. Let them look diligently into their own bosoms, and they will be convinced that the continual in- disposition to righteousnes, and proneness to transgression, which they will discover there, can be ascribed to no other cause. Let them behold what passes in the world around them ; and they will be satisfied that the prevailing wickedness of mankind can be traced to no other source. They will perceive that in this, as in every other in-, stance, reason and experience unite in bearing testimony to the truth of the word of God. The natural effects of the Fall were soon felt most severely in the family of Adam. Cain, his eldest son, murdered his own brother Abel ; murdered him because the holy faith of Abel ^ procured from Heaven the acceptance of his sacrifice, while the guilt of Cain caused his offer- ing to be rejected by the Lord. The avenging ju&tice of God immediately drove Cain from the land ; and condemned him to be a wretched vagabond on the face of the eartli. Adam had to (1) Hcb. xi. I. STATE OF MANKIND. 11 deplore, in the loss of two sons in one day, his original breach of the Divine command. By our acquaintance with the laws and the transactions of the Jews, and also with the history of different Pagan nations, we are made so fami- liar with the practice of sacrifices, that it does not strike our minds as singular. Yet if we regard it as a human invention, scarcely any thing can appear less capable of an easy explanation. How could any man think that to take away the life of an unoffending animal, and to consume its flesh in the fire, would be a deed calculated to procure for him the favour of God ? If it be difficult to answer this question in the case of a heathen, much more difficult is it in the case of Abel. For, as the use of flesh for food was not permit- ted before the deluge, to slaughter an harmless animal was an act to which Abel would be unac- customed ; and one which, unless it were com- manded by the Almighty, he would probably estimate as a crime. These considerations lead us to believe that sacrifices were of divine insti- tution ; and that they were enjoined on the family of Adam and on his individual descendants, as we know that they were afterwards made a part of the religious worship of the Jewish people, principally with a view to raise their thoughts and expectations habitually to that effectual atonement, which was to be accomplished, in the fulness of time, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. The use of sacrifices, thus introduced, would gradually extend itself among heathen nations. 12 SUMMAllY VIEW OF THE AVhen the third generation of men had arisen upon earth, we may conclude that iniquity had spread far and wide : for then the family of Seth, joined in all probability by others of a similar disposition, appear to have been distinguished from the rest of men, on account of their ad- herence to true religion, by being called " by the " name of the Lord ;"6 being styled, according to the Hebrew idiom, the " sons," that is to say, the followers and servants of God.''^ In process of time, however, the general corruption overwhelmed them also. The sons of God took to themselves wives of " the daughters of men ;" probably, the daughters of the unrighteous offspring of Cain. In consequence of these intermarriages the conta- gion of iniquity became universal. Husband and wife, parent and child, relation, friend, acquaintance, became the victims of "evil commu- " nication," which, from those days to the days of St. Paul, and from the days of St. Paul to the present hour, has corrupted and " corrupts good " manners ;*^ and seldom more fatally than in the case of persons, who unite themselves by marri- age with others v^^hose hearts are devoid of true religion. The consequences of these most rash and dangerous connections are emphatically stated in few words by the sacred historian: " God " saw that the wickedness of man was great in " the earth ; and that every imagination of the " thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (6) Gen. iv. 26. " Then began men to call themselves by the name of " the Lord " — as tlio verse is rightly translated in the margin of the Bible. (7) Gen. vi. 2. (8) 1 Cor. xv. 23. STATE OF MANKIND. 13 " — And the Lord said, 1 will destroy man, " whom I have created, from off the face of the " earth." '^ Yet here again the Divine justice was tempered with mercy. The execution of the sentence was delayed. God declared that the days of man upon earth, the period of trial during which the universal destruction should be postponed, that opportunity might be afforded for repentance, should be one hundred and twenty years. But trial was granted in vain. The fatal period drew to its close. " God looked " upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt ; for " all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. " And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh " is come before me."i Though the Divine Wisdom reserves for a future life the great distribution of rewards and punishments between the righteous and the wicked ; yet it frequently distinguishes, even in this world, the faithful servant of the Almighty, by signal mercies and blessings, while it crushes the workers of iniquity with exemplary venge- ance. Thus it was on the approach of the deluge : " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." The cause is assigned in the next verse : " Noah " was a just man, perfect in his generations, " and Noah walked with God."^ So likewise " when God afterwards said unto Noah, " Come ** thou, and all thy house into the ark ;" he im- mediately subjoins the reason of this gracious de- liverance : " for thee have I seen righteous before (0) Gen. vi. 5—7. (1 ) Grii. \i. 12, 13. (-2) Gen. vi. 8, 0. 14 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE " me in this generation."'^ St. Peter, speaking of the old world, characterizes Noah by the appella- tion of " a preacher of righteousness."^ From that expression we may conclude that he was not only an example of religion in his own private conduct, but that he publicly protested against the abandoned depravity of the human race ; strenuously laboured to rouse the sinners to a conviction of their guilt ; and denounced against the unrepenting world the impending judgments of God. Confiding in the merciful protection of that Power whom he loved and obeyed, he en- tered the ark with his family ; and with those individuals of the animal race, which God had brought him that they might be preserved to replenish the earth : and " the Lord shut him in." Then " were all the fountains of the great deep "broken up;" the ocean was heaved out of its bed by convulsions and earthquakes ; and " the " windows of heaven were opened :" floods of rain rushed from the sky : " the waters prevailed •* exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the high " hills that were under the whole heaven were " covered." The ark, containing the sole rem- nants of the human race and of the animated world, floated on the boundless deluge. This awful testimony of the Divine indignation ao-ainst sin, took place, as the Scriptures expressly affirm, when Noah was six hundred years old ; and, according to the common computation, one thousand six hundred and fifty seven years after (3) Gen. vii. I. (1) 2 Pctor ii. 5. STATE OF MANKIND. 15 the creation of the world, and two thousand three hundred and forty seven years before the birth of Jesus Christ. At the expiration of one hundred and fifty days the waters were so far abated, that the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, in Armenia^ At the end of ten weeks more the summit, of the mountains appeared above the surface of the flood. At length, on the first day of the succeed- ing new year, Noah, after having successively sent forth a raven and a dove, that he miolit judge, accordingly as they should return to him or not, of the state of the ground, removed the covering of the ark : and perceived that the sur- face of the earth was dried. And on the twenty- seventh day of the second month, after having resided in the ark one year and some days, he and all its inhabitants, by Divine command, de- scended from the frail fabric, in which Omnipo- tence had preserved them amid the universal destruction of their fellow-creatures. On this second father of mankind, and on his family, the Supreme Being conferred blessings and privileges in most respects similar to those which he had bestowed on their first parents : confirm- ing to them the sovereignty of the earth and of the inferior animated creation ; and in one point enlarging the original grant, by permitting to them the use of animal food. To remove the apprehensions of another deluge, by which it might not be unnatural for them or their de- scendants to be harrassed ; he solemnly declared. 16 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE that there never should again be a flood to des- troy the earth. And with the most benignant condescension to the weakness of human faith, he further pronounced, that the rainbow, an appear- ance uniformly produced by drops of falling rain illuminated by the sun, was ordained to be the sign of this everlasting covenant between him- self and his creatures ; and when beheld by him, should for ever bring his promise to his remem- brance. And in order that he might completely dissipate the suspicious fears of men, that, if not a deluge, yet some other convulsion should after- wards be commissioned to ravage the whole earth and extinguish their race ; he made known his merciful and unalterable determination : "Iwill not " again curse the ground any more for man's sake *' — neither will I again smite any more every " thing living, as I have done. While the earth " remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and '* heat, and summer and winter, and day and " night, shall not cease." ^ Shortly after the deluge, Noah, in consequence of the difference between the conduct of his eldest and youngest sons towards him, and that of his other son Ham, was commissioned prophetically to announce to the latter the future subjection which the posterity of Canaan, the child of the offender, should experience under the descendants of Shem and Japheth ; and to foretel that signal blessings should attend the race of these two righ- teous men. Among the reasons for which the pro- (5) Gen. viii. 22. STATE OF MANKIND. 17 pliecy was emphatically detailed by Moses, we may conclude this to have been one; tliat it was singu- larly adapted to encourage the children of Israel to carry, without fear, into the land of the Canaanites, that impending invasion, by which the judgments proclaimed by Noah were to be accomplished. In the days of Peleg, who was born about one hundred years after the flood, and was the fourth in descent from Shem, " the earth was divided." ^ Mankind, still forming one great family, speaking the same language, and journeying still towards the west, fixed themselves in the land of Shinar, or Chaldea ; and arrogantly resolved to " build " themselves a city, and a tower whose top might " reach unto heaven ; and to make themselves a " name, lest they should be scattered abroad upon " the face of the earth." Baffled in their proud design by the diversity of languages, which the Supreme Being suddenly introduced among them, as the instrument both of bringing to confusion their present enterprise, and of facilitating their dispersion into different regions, where they were to become the founders of many nations ; they separated in small bodies from each other, accord- ingly as Providence impelled tliem, whether by special command, or by the familiar course of events, through which the Deity influences the proceedings of men, no less powerfully and no less efficaciously, for the furtherance of his own purposes, than by interpositions evidently miracu- lous. By the posterity of Japheth, " the isles of the (6) Gen. x. 25. 18 SUMMAllY VIEW OF IRE. *' Gentiles" (many of the maritime countries wash- ed by the Mediterranean sea) " were divided in *' their lands ; every one after his tongue, after " their families, in their nations." '^ The descen- dants of Ham occupied, among other lands, Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, Chaldea, and part of Arabia. Among the possessions of the posterity of Shem, we find Persia, and other regions of the east. By this time a striking change had been expe- rienced in the duration of human life. Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years. His posterity, before the flood, appear to have passed, upon an average, nearly as large a portion of time, and some individuals even a longer period, upon the earth. ^ Noah lived to the age of nine hundred and fifty years.9 jjis son Shem fell far short of antedilu- vian longevity : and in the days of Peleg, man ^ appears not to have attained to one half of the original measure of his existence. In succeeding generations a rapid diminution continued to take place : until, at length, by the time when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and perhaps a century before their departure, the length of the pilgrimage of man upon earth was reduced nearly, or altogether, within the present span. Was this event, then, the natural result of alter- ations occasioned by the deluge in the temperature of the air, the fertility of the earth, and the nutri- tive powers of the sustenance of man ? Or was it effected by a secret change wrought in the human frame and constitution, by the immediate hand (7) Gen. x. 5. (8) Sec Gen. v. (9) Gen. ix. 29. (1) See Gen. xi. STATE OF MANKIND. 19 the Creator? The cause is known to God ; but immaterial to us. Our concern is to draw from the fact the moral and religious instruction, which it is so well adapted to suggest ; that our lives are in the hands of God, and depend for their continu- ance, moment after moment, solely on his will. We may also discern reasons for concluding that the shortening of the period of human life was in- tended to be a blessing to mankind; and that, not- withstanding the frailty and corruption of man, it has proved and continues to prove so. Among the circumstances which contributed to swell the wickedness of the ancient world to its enormous magnitude, there were few, probably, more power-, ful than the apparent distance to which death was removed. In the present day, when he who has numbered seventy or eighty successive units, has numbered the years within which he and almost all his contemporaries of the human race will be called to stand before the tribunal of their judge; to what an excess of iniquity do multitudes advance! What then would be the measure of their guilt, if they might, with reasonable expectation, look to many additional centuries of life? At present too, the reign of the oppressor, whether in a private or in a public station, is necessarily short. The hour that shall sweep him away is at hand. Were life restored to its antediluvian period, he might conti- nue, for nearly a thousand years, to render his fel- low creatures miserable. "I have seen the wicked." saith the Psalmist, " in great power, and spreading " himself like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed c 2 20 SUMMARY VIEW. " away, and lo, he was not : yea I sought him, but " he could not be found." ^ The common course of nature speedily puts an end to his career ; and his place may be filled by the righteous. To the righteous themselves, more especially if they are burthened with afflictions, the shortness of life is a gracious dispensation. They enter the sooner into the mansions of the " blessed which die in ** the Lord : that they may rest from their " labours ; and their works do follow them." ^ (2) Psalm xxxvii. 35, 36. (3) Rev. xiv. 13. 21 CHAP. II. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH RACE, ■ AND OF THE HISTORY OF THAT PEOPLE TO THE DEATH OF MOSES The fallen nature of man, that inherent source of corrupt dispositions and corrupt practice, re- mained unaltered by the flood. There does not, indeed, appear to have been any circumstance in that dispensation, awful and stupendous as it was, Avhich could reach the internal constitution of the soul. The truth of this conclusion is as- certained by the unequivocal declaration of God himself; who, when speaking, immediately after the deluge, concerning the future race of mankind which was to spring from the family that des- cended from the ark, and, even when promising to that future race his continual protection and bounty, characterizes them collectively, in terms similar to those which he had applied to their wicked ancestors, whom he had recently destroyed: *' the imagination of man's heart is evil from his *• youth."* The uniform tenor of the holy Scrip- tures, and the universal testimony of experience, (I) Gen. viii 21 •22 SUMMARY VIEW OF concur in evincing the undiminished power of the original depravity. The sacred historian, hastening to record events so interesting to his own people and to all man- kind, as the vocation of Abraham, and the Divine promises confirmed to the succeeding Patriarchs, passes rapidly over the period intervening between the deluge and the call of the father of the Jewish race. The slight notices, however, which he gives of the conduct of men, are such as seem to indi- cate the general prevalence of presumptuous guilt. Their attempt to build the tower of Babel was, evidently, in direct opposition to an humble de- pendence upon God. And the terms, in which the Supreme Being manifests his indignation, on that occasion, strongly suggest the idea, that men were arrived at a very advanced stage of general and daring wickedness : " this they begin to do : " and now nothing will be restrained from them, *' which they have imagined to do."'' In the ful- ness, therefore, of wisdom and mercy, the Supreme Being, in order to preserve true religion alive among mankind, and to prepare the way for the comingof the promised Iledeemer,had determined to select to himself, from among the famihes of the earth, a peculiar people ; to place them in a coun- try which should belong to them from generation to generation ; to reveal to them a clear know- ledge of his attributes and perfections ; to deliver to them a system of laws and sacred rites adapted to answer the purposes both of rendering those (5) Gen. xi. G. THE JEWISH llACE. 23 who should receive them religious, and of shad- owing out the future. sufferings of Jesus Christ and the blessings thereby to be purchased ; and to reward the obedience of this chosen race, with temporal mercies so signal, and to chastise their disobedience by temporal calamities so severe, as might be suited to preserve this people faithful to their Divine Benefactor, to reclaim them when they should revolt from him, and to convince the inhabitants of surrounding countries that He was the only God. Accordingly the Supreme Being, nearly two thousand years before the Christian era, appeared to Abram, the son of Terah, an inhabitant of Ur in Mesopotamia, and said to him : " Get thee out " of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from " thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew " thee. And I will make of thee a great nation ; " and I will bless thee, and make thy name great ; " and thou shalt be a blessing ; and I will bless " them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth " thee." To these glorious promises, which were to be the consequences of Abram's obedience, the Deity added another infinitely more glorious; that from him should descend the Redeemer of man- kind : " and in thee shall all the families of the " earth be blessed."^ Abram, at the time when this divine communication was made to him, was very probably an idolater. The country of the Chaldees, which he inhabited, appears to have been distinguished, from the earliest annals of pa- ce) Gen. xii. 1—3. 24 SUMMARY VIEW OF gan antiquity, for magic, and superstition. And Joshua^ seems nearly to remove the possibility of doubt on the point under consideration, by the following address to the Israelites, which proves the idolatry of Abram's family : " Thus saith the ** Lord God of Israel : Your fathers dwelt on the " other side of the flood," (the river Euphrates, so denominated from its extraordinary magnitude,) *' in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, " and .the father of Nachor, and they served other "gods." Abram, however, convinced of the reality of the Divine command, and of the truth of the Divine promises, immediately prepared to depart.' After the death of his father Terah, who accom- panied him on his journey towards the promised country, but died, by the way, at Haran, Abram proceeded, with his nephew Lot, and their fami- lies, into the land of Canaan : and on his arrival there, God appeared to him again ; and said, " Unto thy seed will I give this land."^ Abram had at this time no child : and the expectation of an offspring was for a very long period a continual and decisive trial of his faith. Some years after the time when the promise was originally given, it was twice renewed to him in terms which fore- told an innumerable multitude of descendants : and " Abram believed in the Lord ; and He *' counted it to him for righteousness."^ At length, about eleven years after his arrival in Canaan, he was rejoiced by the birth of his son Ishmael. (7) Jos^hiia xxiv. 2. (8) Gen. xii. 7. ('J) Gcu. xiii 1 1, &c. and xv. 1— G. THE JEWISH KACE. 25 Four years afterwards, Abram was informed, that the son, indicated by Divine promise, was yet to be born to him : and at the same time, his own name was changed to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah ; an alteration which, according to Hebrew etymology, alluded to the incalculable number of their posterity. But it was not until about fourteen years after the birth of Ishmael, when the age of Abraham and Sarah precluded, according to the common course of nature, all prospect of a child being born to them, that they were blessed with Isaac, the long-expected son, who was to inherit the promises made to his father, particularly that of being the ancestor of the Messiah. The Almighty, in the mean time, imparted to Abraham several prophetic intimations of the fu- ture fortunes of his descendants. He had infor- med him, that one branch of his posterity should dwell, as strangers, in a land that was not theirs, (namely, in the land of Canaan, while it was as yet in other hands, and afterwards in Egypt,) during a period of four hundred years ; but should then be brought forth, in great triumph and prosperity, from the scene of their distress. ^ And concerning Ishmael God declared that, though he should be a wild man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him ; he should be the father of twelve princes and of a great nation, and should dwell in the presence of (1) G<;ii. XV. 13, U. 26 SUMMARY VIEW OF all his brethren.'^ In this case, as in the case al- ready noticed of Canaan, and conformably to the general import of scriptural prophecies in similar instances ; the prediction delivered, respecting the individual, was designed to be descriptive of the characteristic events, Avhich were to distinguish the fate of his posterity. Succeeding generations were witnesses, as we ourselves are in this our day, of the accurate fulfilment of this prophecy in the lot of the Arabians, the descendants of Ishmael. The twelve tribes of the Arabians are specified in Pagan history. Dwelling, like their progenitor, in the deserts ; wild men, their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them ; engaged in perpetual hostility with each other, and with every neighbouring power : they have steadily maintained their national indepen- dence. In vain have the most formidable armies of the greatest empires endeavoured to overturn it. They have retired baffled and dismayed ; or have perished, by the sword and famine, in the wilderness. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the IMacedonians, the Romans, the Turks, have successively confirmed, by their fruitless efforts, the veracity and omnipotence of God. After sustaining the most active enmity of the most powerful nations, for three thousand seven hundred years, the Arabians still live, un- subdued and fearless, in the presence of all their brethren. (2) Gen. xvi. 12 — xvii. 20 — and xxv. 16. See Bishop Nevvton'aDisserU- tion on the Prophecies, vol. i. p. 37—63. .3d edition, 8vo. THE JEWISH RACE. 27 About the time of the birth of Isaac, the merciful acceptance given to the intercession of Abraham, for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, afforded a memorable proof of the condescending goodness of the Supreme Being ; and was gra- ciously adapted to encourage the faithful servants of God, to earnestness of supplication in behalf of themselves and others, by teaching the consoling truth which we learn also from the Apostle ; that " the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth " much ."3 The preservation of Lot, from the general destruction, evinced that the hand of Providence discriminates between the upright and the wicked. In process of time it pleased God to " tempt" Abraham ; that is to say, to try him, to put his obedience to a further test. The trial appointed was most severe. The father was commanded to take his son, his only son Isaac, (his only son by Sarah, and the child of th6 promise,) whom he loved, and to offer him as a burnt sacrifice in the land of Moriah, upon a mountain, M'hich was to be pointed out to him. Abraham, strong in faith, immediately proceeded on the journey. He knew, that whatever God commanded it was his duty to perform. He knew, by long experience, the power and the truth of the Almighty. He knew, that the promise which he had received of an innumer- able posterity, and one of them the Saviour of the world, by that very son Isaac, who was now to be slain on the altar, would assuredly be ac- (3) James v. 16. Sec aho, Ads xii. i>. Kph. ri. 18, 10. 28 SUMMAllY VIEW OP complished. He confided that God, in return for this demonstration of unreserved obedience and entire dependence, would speedily restore his son to life.^ The willing mind was sufficient in the sight of God. The fatal injunction, at the very moment when it was about to be executed, was countermanded by the voice of an angel. The full approbation of God was announced to Abra- ham ; and every former promise, made to him and to Isaac, solemnly reiterated and confirmed. It is evident that the sacrifice of Isaac was a type of the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And the mountain, on which the transaction took place is by many conceived, and on no improbable grounds, to have been the identical mountain on which Christ suffered upon the cross. Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, was afterwards pronounced, by the Supreme Being, to be the per- son, in whose line, the great promises, made to his grandfather and father, were to be continued. And his mother Rebecca, instead of implicitly depending on God, for the fulfilment of his own word, had recourse to a very unwarrantable step, in order to secure to him the patriarchal blessing accompanying the right to those promises ; a bless- ing, which she apprehended that the partiality of Isaac, now far advanced in years, would assign to his first-born Esau, in contradiction to the purpose of Heaven. Jacob, flying from the resentment of his brother Esau, who deemed himself defrauded of his right ; a right, however, which, while he had (1) Hob. xi. 17—19. THE JEWISH RACE. 29 imagined it to be in his power, he had profanely slighted;^ received from God a full assurance of protection, and of the fulfilment of the original promise, in himself and his posterity.^ And, after many years, when he returned into the land of Canaan with his wives and children and great possessions, the promise was again repeated : and, as a signal mark of divine favour, his name was changed to Israel ; a term denoting a person who had power with God.'' He returned in time to pay the last offices of duty to his father Isaac ; and experienced the kindest reception from his reconciled brother Esau. After dwelling somewhat more than thirt}^ years, yet still as a stranger, in the countries occu- pied by the Canaanites, Jacob removed with all his family into Egypt. For this event God had prepared the way, by the sale of Joseph as a slave, into that kingdom ; by having bestowed on that young man, as a reward for his signal virtue, the power of interpreting the prophetic dreams of his fellow- prisoners the servants of Pharaoh, and afterwards, the visions of Pharaoh himself ; by having raised him to be the second person in the kingdom, possessed, in fact, of the full exercise of sovereign authority ; and by having thus enabled him to provide for his father and his repentant brethren, an asylum during the continuance of the general famine. AVhen Jacob was now commenc- ing his journey, he was encouraged with this (o) See Gen. xxv. 34.and Heb.xii. 16. (6) Gen. xxviii. ]:]—\-j. (7) Geri. xxxv. 10, ^c. 30 SUMMARY VIEW OF assurance from the Almighty ; " I am God, the God of thy father ; Fear " not to go down into " Egypt ; for I will there make of thee a great " nation. I will go down with tliee into Egypt ; " and I will also surely bring thee" (thy posterity, at the end of the time predicted to Abraham) ^ " up again : and Joseph shall put his hand upon " thine eyes."^ At the end of seventeen years Jacob died in Egypt ; and was carried into the land of Canaan, according to the solemn charge which he had given to Joseph, and buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. Foretelling, on his death- bed, the appointed fortunes of his posterity, he bestowed on Judah a decided pre-eminence over his other sons : and intimated that he should be the immediate ancestor of the promised Messiah ; and that, until the Saviour should appear, the de- scendants of Judah should remain in possession of a national habitation and an established form of government.^ Joseph, in his turn, confirmed to his brethren, at the time of his death, the certainty of their future departure to the promised land : and enjoined them tocarryhis bones thither v/iththem.a Other kings, who had not known Joseph, now arose successively in Egypt. Alarmed at the vast and still increasing number of the Israelites, they harassed the unhappy strangers with the severest bondage ; condemning them to be incessantly em- ployed in the construction of cities and public works ; and ultimately commanding that every (8) Gen. xv. 13, 14. (9) Gen. iilvi. 3, 1. (iyGen.xli.x.8— 10. ('2) Gen. 1. 25. THE JEWISH RACE. 31 man-child, that should be born unto the Hebrews, should be cast into the Nile. Moses, the chosen instrument for the deliverance of this people, was miraculously preserved from destruction, and educated in the court of Pharaoh. When arrived at the age of forty years, he slew an Egyptian Avho was smiting a Hebrew. He trusted that, from this transaction, the children of Israel, " liis " brethren, would have understood that God, by ** his hand, would deliver them. But they under- " stood not."^ Compelled, therefore, to save his life by flight, from the resentment of Pharaoh, he retired into the land of JNIidian. There, after about forty additional years, while feeding the flocks of his father-in-law on Mount Horeb, in the wilderness inclosed between the two northern points of the Red Sea, his attention was attracted by the appearance of a conflagration raging in a thicket, by which, however, the thicket was not consumed. God, who thus manifested himself to Moses, commanded him to return into Egypt ; that, in conjunction with his brother Aaron, he might bring forth the children of Israel from captivity, and conduct them into the land of Canaan to possess it. After some degree of im- proper hesitation arising from timidity, Moses obeyed ; and, thenceforth, executed with undaunt- ed resolution, resulting from steady confidence in the premised assistance of the Almighty, the the commission with which he was charged. His countrymen, convinced by the miracles which God (3) Acts. vii. 23— ^f). S2 SUMMARY VIEW OF enabled him to work, received him as their leader and deliverer. Tamed by ten successive judgments closed by the death of all the first-born in Egypt, the hardened heart of Pliaraoh sunk within him. The children of Israel, loaded by the Egyptians, who trembled at their presence, with the most valuable gifts, designed to procure their forgive- ness for the cruel oppression which they had sustained, departed, in triumph, from the land of bondage. But Pharaoh speedily relapsed into ob- duracy. Enraged at the loss of six hundred thousand slaves, for to so great a multitude were the men of Israel, exclusive of women and chil- dren, encreased, the king of Egypt followed them at the head of his armies ; and continued the pursuit into the midst of the Red Sea, which God had divided, that it might afford a passage on dry ground, for his people. The waves, at the Divine word, returned to their place ; and not a single Egyptian survived. The departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, after a residence thereof two hundred and fifteen years, took place about fifteen hundred and fifty one years before the Christian era. It was signalized by the institution of thepassover; a religious rite appointed to commemorate the mercy of God, in charging the destroying angel to pass over the houses of the Israelites, when he smote all the first-born of the Egyptians : and ordered to be annually observed, from generation to generation, until the coming of Jesus Christ to put an end to the Mosaic dispensation, and to THE JEWISH RACE. fjfj make that effectual atonement for sin, of which tlie Paschal offering was an emblem.'^ The shortest road from Egypt to the land of Canaan, lay along the coast of the ^Mediterranean, through the country of the Philistines. The Israelites, however, with minds depressed by sla- very, and unaccustomed to repose full confidence on their God, would have preferred a return into their former bondage, to a contest with warlike nations hostile to tlieir passage. For this reason, therefore, among others,-^ the Supreme Being liad conducted them circuitously by the way of the Red Sea. He now directed their course through the wilderness towards Mount Sinai, one part of the chain of ]\^ount Iloreb ; the place concerning which he had said, on his fiirst appearance to Moses, " when thou hast brought forth the people out of " Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain."" On their way thither, by their successive mur- murings, at Marah, in the wilderness of Sin, and at Rephidim, notwithstanding the reiterated miracles by which they were protected and sus- tained, they gave early proofs of meriting the denomination so frequently applied to them in the Scriptures, that of a " stiff-necked" people ; a people stubborn in unbelief, and obstinately rebel- lious. One of these miracles was nothing less than the daily supply of a substance, termed Manna, in quantities sufficient for the sustenance of the whole multitude ; and ultimately continued to them without interruption during forty years. (1) 1 Cor. V 7. (5) Exod. xiU. 17, 18. (6) Exod. iii. 12. D 34 SUMMATIY VIEW OF In the third month after their departure from Egypt they encamped before Blount Sinai. It was here that the Almighty, graciously ac- commodating his conduct to the apprehensions and usages of men, proposed the establishment of a solemn covenant between liimself and the people of Israel. " JMoses went up unto God ; " and the Lord called unto him out of the moun- " tain, saying — Thus shalt thou say to the House " of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel : Ye have " seen what I did to the Egyptians ; and how I " bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you " unto myself. Now then, if ye will obey my voice *' indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be " a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people : " for all the earth is mine : and ye shall be a king- " dom of priests unto me, and an holy nation. " These are the words which thou shalt speak unto " the children of Israel. And Moses came and " called for the elders of the people, and laid be- " fore their faces all these words, which the Lord " commanded him. And all the people answered " together, and said: All that the Lord hath spokon " we will do. x\nd Moses returned the words of " the people unto the Lord."'' In consequence of this unequivocal acceptance and ratification of the covenant proposed, the Supreme Being proceeded to deliver to the Israelites those laws and institu- tions, the faithful observance of which was the condition, on their part, that should entitle them to the privileges and blessings reciprocally promised (7) Exofi. xix, 3—8 THE JEWISH RACE. 35 by their God. That the obedience already due for unnumbered mercies might be confirmed by a display of the terrors of his majesty, he revealed his glory in themost awful manner on Mount Sinai. " There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick '* cloud upon the Mount ; and the voice of the " trumpet exceeding loud ; so that all the people " that was in the camp trembled. And Mount " Sinai was altogether in a smoke, because the " Lord descended upon it in fire : and the smoke *' thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace ; and " the whole Mount quaked greatly. And when ** the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and " waxed louder and louder, JMoses spake ; and " God answered him by a voice." ^ When the voice of God had proclaimed the ten command- ments, the people, unable to support the tremen- dous manifestations of the Divine presence, ear- jiestly entreated^ that they might no more hear the voice of God ; but that his will might be communicated to Moses, and by Moses be declared to them. The Supreme Being listened to their request. The people retired afar off. " Moses drew *' near unto the thick darkness, where God was;" and received many additional laws and regulations, which he recited to the Israelites, and then record- ed in a book : and the people solemnly renewed their promise of punctual obedience. i Moses, then, according to the Divine command, re-ascended the mountain, leaving the Israelites under the (8) Exod. xix. 16—19. (9) Exod. xx. 19. See also Dent v. 22, &c. (1) Exod. xxiv. 3, 7. D 2 36 sum:\iar\' view of conduct of Aaron and Hur, and continued there forty days : during which period he was instructed in the ritual of the service of the tabernacle, and the appointment of the family of Aaron to the priesthood; and received two tables of stone, con- taining the ten commandments, written by the finger of God. In the mean time, the people, weary of his absence, and presumptuously regard- less of their covenanted obedience to the Almighty, who had expressly prohibited them from worship- ping or making any image as an emblem of himself, induced Aaron, who most criminally permitted himself to be overborne by their importunities, to form a golden calf; a form probably adopted in consequence of their having been accustomed to see it adored in Egypt ; that it might be carried at the head of the host, as a visible representation of Jehovah. On the earnest intercession of Moses, God forbore to destroy the people. Their guilt, however, was punished by the loss of the two tables, broken by Moses in his indignation on first being informed of the idolatry established in the camp ; by the still more grievous loss of the im- mediate presence of God, who ordered his taberna- cle to be removed out of the encampment, and declared that an angel, instead of himself, should now be their conductor; by the menace of future visitations, on account of this transgression ; and by the actual penal inflictions implied in the words of Scripture, " The Lord plagued the people, be- " cause they made the* calf."'^ Two fresh 'tables of ('2) Exotl. xxxii. 34, 35. THE JEWISH RACE. 37 stone, ill the place of those which had been broken, were then prepared by Moses, and taken up unto the JMount, according to the commandment of God, who wrote upon them the words which had been inscribed on the former ; and afterwards de- livered to Moses, during this his second continu- ance there of forty days, additional ordinances and directions to be obeyed by the twelve tribes. The remainder of the Jewish code was from time to time imparted to Moses, chiefly from the taberna- cle, and by him made known to the people : and the tribe of Levi was set apart for the service of the sanctuary. In the second month of the second year of their departure from Egypt, the Israelites were com- manded to resume their march towards the pro- mised land ; and in the fourth month of the same year they arrived on its confines. Even the few intervening weeks did not pass without exhibiting two scenes of rebellious murmuring against God, ^ together wdth a sedition, in which Aaron himself was a party, directed against Moses. These out- rages were but the preludes to more flagrant acts of incredulity and disobedience. Twelve leading men, selected one from a tribe, were despatched by Moses, conformably to the desire of the people, to examine into the state and productions of the land of Canaan. All of them, on their return from exploring the land during forty days, concurred in extolling its fertility. But ten of them gave so formidable an account of the personal strength (3) At Taberah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. Numb. xi. 38 SUMMARY VIEW OF and military power of the inhabitants, that, not^ withstanding the utmost efforts of their associates Caleb and Joshua, who strenuously exhorted the Israelites to go up instantly, trusting in the might and the promise of the Lord of Hosts, the people absolutely refused to venture into the country. They even prepared to stone to death Caleb and Joshua, and, as it seems, Moses and Aaron also. At the fervent supplication of JMoses, the destruc- tion with which the Almighty threatened instantly to overwhelm his rebellious people was delayed. But God solemnly declared, that not one of the whole congregation who had arrived at the age of twenty years, his faithful servants Caleb and Joshua excepted, should ever set their foot on the promised land. All the rest were gradually to perish during the forty years, to be numbered from the time of their leaving Egypt, which he now doomed them to pass in wanderings in the desert. The sacred historian, though he gives a catalogue of the subsequent journeys and places of encampment of the Israelites during this period ; has recorded little concerning the further transac- tions, which took place antecedently to the con- cluding year. In the brief account, however, which he has delivered, we meet with one of the custo- mary rebellions of the people, commenced by Ko- rah,Dathan, and Abiram, who, with their families, were swallowed up by the earth, which opened beneath them ; and drawing after it the destruction of near fifteen thousand of the congregation, by fire from Heaven, or by a pestilence."* In the be- (i) Numb. xvi. THE JEWISH RACE. 39 ginning of the fortieth year, when they were encamped near Kadesh on the confines of Edom, they again rebelled for want of water; and by their violence, ensnared Moses and Aaron into a degree of presumption and distrust, which drew from the Almighty this awful sentence : " Because ye be- " lieved me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the " children of Israel ; therefore ye shall not bring *' this conoreoation into the land which I have " given them."^ About four months afterwards Aaron was accordingly commanded to ascend INIount Hor, with his son Eleazar and Moses, in the sight of all the congregation ; where Moses took off the priestly garments from Aaron, and put them on his son : and Aaron died before God, on the top of the mountain. <* At the close of the fortieth year, yet, not until they^had again broken forth into rebellion, and had been punished by fiery serpents ; "' they encamped, after completely subduing the Amorites, who opposed their march, in the plains of Moab, near the river Jordan, op- posite to Jericho. The terror of their name, and the multitude of their host, filled Balak, the king of Moab, with consternation. He instantly des- patched messengers to Balaam, a celebrated pro- phet of Pethor in Mesopotamia, inviting him to come and pronounce solemn maledictions against (5) Numb. XX. 12. (6) Niunb. xx. 23, &c. x.\xiii. 38. (7) Numb. xxi. 4 — 9 From the bite of these serpents they were not to be cured except by looking on a brazen serpent, which God commanded Moses to make, and to raise on a pole in the camp. Our Saviour alhides to this transaction, John iii. 14, as emblematical of that faith in him, by which alone mankind can be delivered from the deadly consequences of guilt. 40 SUMMARY VIEW OF the Israelites, as an infallible method of ensuring their defeat. Balaam, obeying the directions which he received from God, refused to return •with them. A more numerous and more honoura- ble set of ambassadors arrived from the king of JMoab. Balaam, "who loved the wages of un- righteousness,"^ inflamed with the desire of pos- sessing the riches and honours promised on his compliance with the royal request, again laid the matter bei^ore God; although lie had before receiv- ed an answer which precluded all further applica- tion : " Thou slialt not go with them ; thou shalt " not curse the people ; for they are blessed." ^ The Supreme Being, to whom the covetousness of Balaam's heart was manifest, gave him permis- sion to accompany the princes of Moab, on condi- tion of his speaking concerning Israel, that only, wliicli God should put into his mouth, yet shewed him on the journey, by several miraculous intima- tions, that his avaricious desire to undertake it, was highly offensive in the eyes of his Maker. Three successive times did Balaam disappoint Balak, by pronouncing blessings instead of curses on the children of Israel. But the corrupt mind of the soothsayer devised another method of grati- fying his employer. He instructed Balak to en- deavour to ensnare the Israelites into idolatry and its attendant vices ; and thus to withdraw them from the Divine protection. ^ The scheme was attended with considerable success. Israel worship- ped the gods of Moab : the anger of the Lord was (8) 2 Peter ii. 15. (D) Numb. xxii. 13. (1) Numb. xxxi. 16. THE JEWISH IIACE. 41 kindled ; and twenty -four thousand of the congre- gation were immediately destroyed bya pestilence. The zeal of Phineas for the honour of Jehovah, was rewarded with the promise of a perpetual priesthood to himself and his posterity. The Israelites were commanded to make war on the nation, which had seduced them into transgression. The Midianites were utterly destroyed by the sword of Israel : and Balaam perished with them. But why, it may be said, did the all-knowing Searcher of hearts vouchsafe to hold converse with so worthless a character ? Whence comes it that inspiration, and prophetic knowledge, and other especial favours of Heaven, bestowed on so few individuals of the whole human race, are not uniformly conferred upon the righteous ? On the righteous they have been bestowed almost ex- clusively : yet to this rule there have unquestiona- bly been exceptions. Balaam was an exception : Judas Iscariot was an exception : and perhaps one or two more may be discovered in the Scriptures. We may be satisfied, that He who can bestow on his creatures the gifts of inspiration and pro- phecy, and miraculous powers, will not in any instance distribute them without sufficientreasons, whether his reasons be perceptible to us or not. Can we then discover no one advantage likely to result from the occasional selection of an unworthy object for the reception of these peculiar favours ? One benefit seems obviously to present itself to our consideration. We learn the momentous les- son, that it is neither inspiration, nor propiietic 42 SUMMARY VIEW OF knowledge, nor the power of working miracles, which can lead to salvation ; but a life exercised in the fear and the love of God. It is to be ob- served, that the Divine justice has usually dis- played itself in the signal punishment, in this world, of the guilty wretch, whom not even the possession of the peculiar favours of God had subdued unto holiness. Balaam died by the hand of those whom he had beguiled into idolatry : Judas Iscariot by his own. During the two concluding months of the for- tieth year, Moses, knowing that his death was at hand, delivered to the then existing generation of the Israelites, most of whom either were not born when the law was originally given, or were too young to enter fully into its meaning, a recapitu- lation^ of the Divine commands, with such slight additions or variations as he had been instructed to make. That he might inspire them with the deepest conviction of their own unworthiness, and of the long-suffering and kindness of their hea- venly Benefactor ; he recalled to their remem- brance all the wonderful works which God had wrought in their behalf, and their own frequent acts of obstinate incredulity and rebellion. And to persuade them by every motive to continue steadfast for the future in obedient service to that Power, who, nothwithstanding so many provoca- tions, was about to give them possession of the land of Canaan ; he laid before them in detail a most (2) Tlial recapitulation, and the otlier subjects uienlioned in tl)is paragrapli, form tbe contents of the book of Deuteronomy. THE JEWISH IIACE. 43 encouraging catalogue of the blessings which would accompany them as long as they should remain faithful to Jehovah ; and prophetically denounced, in terms equally circumstantial, the miseries with which Divine justice would pursue the disobedience of themselves and their posterity. Having performed this concluding office of duty and affection to his countrymen ; and having ap- pointed, as the Lord directed him, Joshua to be their leader in his place ; having committed the Book of the Law, which he liad written, to the care of the Levites, that it might be preserved by the side of the iVrk ; he ascended to the top of Mount Nebo: and having from that station survey- ed the promised land, which he was not to enter, died before the Lord. His body was buried by the Lord in a valley in the country of" the Moabites,in a spot not disclosed to the children of Israel ; lest, as it should seem, their reverence for the memory of their departed lawgiver, concurring with their in- herent proneness to idolatry, should afterwards lead them to pay religious honours to his remains. Such was, as to this world and its labours, the end of JNIoses, the servant of God. In every in- stance, except in that which was punished, for an awful proof of the impartial dealings of the Su- preme Being with men, by his being forbidden to enter the land of promise, he appears to have dis- charged With unabated zeal the commission with which he was entrusted. The law, which, through his instrumentality, was communicated to the Israelites, consisted partly of instructions and 44 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE precepts in themselves of a moral and religious nature; partly of ceremonial ordinances, and direc- tions, respecting points originally indifferent. The former branch contained a clear revelation of the eternity, the power, the wisdom, the goodness, and the other infinite perfections of the only God, the Maker, the Preserver, the Governor, and the Judge of the universe. In the ten commandments, the sum of moral duty may truly be said to be comprehended ; since the prohibition of the chief crime in each class of offences evidently includes, by parity of reasoning, the prohibition of all infe- rior crimes of that class, as partaking of the sinful nature, and tending ultimately to produce the guilt of the greatest. The subordinate duties, thus implied in the commandments, were afterwards, in a great variety of cases, detailed and exemplified at large in other parts of the books of Moses. This branch of the law is manifestly of universal and perpetual obligation ; and is tepeatedly mentioned as such by our Saviour. The other branch was designed to be obligatory on the Jews only ; and on them no longer than until the coming of the Messiah, whose sufferings and atonement many of its rites and ceremonies prefigured. If in this part of the law we should meet with some direc- tions, the object and utility of which should not, at first sight, be apparent to us ; let us beware of setting up the conclusions of our ignorance against the unbounded wisdom of the Deity. A closer con- sideration of the subject will teach us humbly to acknowledge, that all these institutions answered iiisTOiiY or THE JEWS 45 the purposes of exercising the Israelites in faith and obedience ; of preserving them a distinct and separate people, and of training them by a peculiar mode of discipline,^ wisely according with tlieir habits, prepossessions, and circumstances, for the reception of the new dispensation to be revealed under the Messiah. It will teach us also that many of those directions, which rashness and presump- tion are sometimes heard to censure as trifling, and unworthy of the Divine attention, were specifi- cally calculated to guard the people of Israel, from being betrayed into certain particular modes of idolatry and wickedness, prevalent in the nations among whom they were to dwell. (3) Gal. iii. 23-25. 46 CHAP. III. SUMMARY VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS FROM THE DEATH OF MOSES TO THE PRESENT TIME. Joshua, having received from the Ahnighty a promise of unfailing support,* and a grant, in behalf of the TsraeUtes, of the whole region ex- tending from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and from the mountains of Lebanon on the north to the Wilderness of Sin on the south ;^ prepared to put the twelve tribes into possession of their inheritance. The hand of God was stretched out to aid him. The waters of the river Jordan, at that time overflowing, like the Nile, with its an- nual inundation, were miraculously parted asunder to afford a passage on dry ground to the host. The walls of Jericho fell to the earth. The sun and the moon stood still to afford Israel time for the com- plete overthrow of his enemies. The extirpation of the Canaanites was gradual ; that the beasts of the field might not have time to multiply and overspread the land.^' But before the death of (4) Joshua i. 5. (5) Josh. i. 4. See also Numb, xxxiv.3 — Deut. xi. 24.; —and Gen. xv. 18. (0) Deut. vii. 22. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 47 Joshua, the country, though a considerable portion remained to be subdued, was divided by lot, ac- cording to the command of God, among the tribes ; with the exception of that of Levi, and of those which had already received, at their own request, their inheritance in the conquered king- doms of the Amorites, on the other side of the Jordan. The Levites were provided with cities for the residence of their families ; and with an ample subsistence from the sacrifices and tithes of other tribes, on whose behalf, as well as on their own, they were to minister at the altar. The command, which God had given to Israel respecting the Canaanites, was, that they should be exterminated. *' Of the cities of these people, " which the Lord thy God doth give thee for " thine inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive " that breatheth." The reason of this injunction is immediately subjoined : " thou shalt utterly " destroy them, as the Lord thy God hath " commanded thee ; that they teach you not to do " after all their abominations."^ Persons, who seem to have conceived, that to cavil at the Bible is a mark of discernment, have eagerly seized upon this passage; and have represented it as containing a sanguinary edict, unworthy of a merciful Governor of the universe ; and as afford- ing, in fact, a conclusive proof that the IJible is not the Word of God. Our faith, however, in the truth of Scripture, is founded on too many irre- fragable arguments to be staggered by such an (7) Dent. xx. IG. 48 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE objection as this, even if an answer, in every point satisfactory, could not be returned to it. In every work of God around us there is much that we cannot perfectly understand. Why then should v/e be surprised, if he should permit, that for the exercise of our understandings and the trial of our faith, some difficulties sliould exist in his word also ? But the difficulty, in question, is of no formidable nature. The command is fully justi- fied, even to human apprehension, by the reason which God himself assigned for it. We know that the Canaanites, in their gross and bloody idol-worship, a worship celebrated with the sacri- fice of their own children, and in the universal and unbridled profligacy of their manners, had abandoned themselves to such shameless and de- testable wickedness, that, in the emphatical lan- guage of holy writ, the land itself abhorred and vomited out her inhabitants.^ We know the ob- stinate propensity of the Israelites to forsake their supreme Benefactor; and to pollute themselves ■with idolatry and all its attendant abominations. We know, too, that when they disobeyed the injunction to extirpate all the nations which dwelt in Canaan, and contented themselves with sub- jecting some of them to tribute ; those Canaanites, who were thus permitted to remain, proved thorns and snares to the people of Israel ; grievous as enemies, corrupting as friends, and ultimately the cause of their ruin, according to the previous warnings delivered from God himself, by the (8) Lev. xviii. 24, 25, &c. Dciit. xii. 31 HISTORY or THE JEWS. 4i> mouth of Moses and of Joshua.^ The destruction of the Canaanites, therefore, was fully deserved by theh' crimes ; and was requisite to preserve Israel from being ensnared by them, or by their posterity, into the same crimes. The latter circumstance explains the reason why even the young children of the people of Canaan were included in the sen- tence of extirpation ; and " justifies the ways of " God to man" in an instance which has been al- leged as contrary to all ideas of the divine recti- tude, by objectors, who seem to have forgotten that in earthquakes also, and in famines, and in pesti- lences, the Deity sees fit to let unoffending infancy be involved in the common desolation ; ^ and that a future life affords ample scope for the complete discrimination between innocence and guilt. The employment of the Israelites as ministers to exe- cute the Divine vengeance was calculated to im- press them with a deep conviction of the enormity of the sins of their predecessors in the land ; and with an awful recollection that the same punish- ment was already denounced against themselves, if they should fall into similar transgressions. Joshua, now far advanced in years, assembled the twelve tribes of Israel, to hear his last instruc- tions. He recounted the wonders which God had wrought for them in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in the land of Canaan, nowithstanding their many provocations ; pointed out the punctual accomplishment of every one of the Divine pro- (9) Numb, xxxiii. 55, 5G. Jo.-h. xxiJi. 13. Jiuifr. ii. 3. (.1) See Bi^hcp Wat-ott's Apology for the Bible^ 3J edition, p. 14, &c. E 50 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE mises ; and, having declared beforehand the steadfast determination of himself and his family to remain faithful servants of the Lord, received from the whole c'ongregation a similar assurance repeated in the most solemn terms. He then dismissed the people, every man to his inheri- tance, and shortly afterwards died. During the life-time of the elders, who had been contemporaries with Joshua, the Israelites continued true to their engagement. The follow- ing generation gave themselves up to idolatry. For the space of about three hundred years from the death of Joshua, their history exhibits a con- stant succession of idolatrous revolts from God, punished by captivity under the hand of the neighbouring nations ; and of deliverances mer- cifully vouchsafed to them, when distress and anguish drove them to repentance. During this period they were governed, when free from a fo- reign yoke, by magistrates denominated Judges ; who were, in general, the persons by whose hand the Supreme Being had rescued them from the power of their oppressors. The judge was not regarded as the head of the nation, occupying a station similar to that filled by kings or other chief magistrates in modern times. That station was considered as filled by God himself. Thus when " the men of Israel said unto Gideon," (their judge) " Rule thou over us ; both thou and thy " son, and thy son's son also ; for thou hast deli- *' vered us from the hand of Midian : Gideon said " unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall KtSTORV OF THE JEWS. 51 " my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over *' you," 2 At length, in the latter days of Samuel, who had long been their judge; and somewhat less than eleven hundred years before the Chris- tian era; the people clamorously insisted on having, like other nations, a king to govern them. The Supreme Being testified his displeasure at this act of rebellious ingratitude : " They have rejected " me, that I should not reign over them :" ^ but he commanded Samuel to anoint a king over them, conformably to their desire. Samuel accordingly assembled the tribes. And having set before them their baseness in renouncing the immediate sove- reignty of God : and having forewarned them, according to the directions which he had previously received from the Almighty, of the chastisement which they must expect from Divine justice, through the instrumentality of kings resembling their subjects in wickedness ;* he yielded to the determination in which they still resolutely per- sisted. Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was selected by the designation of Heaven, to be king of Israel : and the continuance of the Divine protection and favour was promised to the sovereign and the people, on the condition of their fidelity to the worship and the laws of God. The obedience of Saul was exercised by two specific trials. In both of them he failed: breaking the positive commandment of God, in the first, through impatience and distrust ;^ in the second, (2) Judgr. viii. 22, 23. (3) 1 Sam. viii. 7. (4) 1 Sam. viii. 10—19. .x. 19. xii. 12. (5) 1 Sam xiii. 8—13. E 2 52 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE through fear of giving offence to the people. " Samuel, was in consequence, obliged to inform Saul, that the sceptre should not continue in his family ; and to anoint David, the son of Jesse, of Ihe tribe of Judah, to be the successor to the throne. David, signalized soon afterwards by his miraculous victory over Goliah ; and held in the highest estimation by the people, on account of the wisdom of his conduct; preserved his life, with difficulty, during many years, from the persecuting jealousy of Saul. On the death of that monarch, after a reign of forty years, in battle against the Philistines, he went up to Hebron, as God di- rected him ; and was there crowned king of the tribe of Judah. And, after seven years of war with the house of Saul, he ascended the throne of all Israel. One of the earliest actions of his reign over the twelve tribes, was to acquire complete possession of the city of Jerusalem, by forcibly dislodging the Jebusites, the old inhabitants of the land, from the fortress of Zion, which they had hitherto retained. This city he enlarged and beautified, and made it his capital; and finally brought thither the Ark of God. For its reception he proposed to build a sumptuous temple. The Supreme Being graciously accepted the piety of the inten- tion ; but forbade the king to execute the under- taking, in consequence of his having necessarily shed much blood in the wars, in which he had (6) 1 Sam. XV. 1—24. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 5f{ been engaged/ This prohibition, however, was accompanied with many glorious promises to David and his family ; and with an assurance, that one of the sons of David, who should inherit the throne, and be " a man of rest," should erect the temple. For the magnificence of this future structure, David made the most ample prepara- tions : and previously to his death, solemnly charged his son and successor, Solomon, to devote himself to the work ; and to complete it, under the Divine protection, in a manner worthy of the sacred purpose for which it was designed. The character and conduct of David, with the exception of certain well-known instances of most flagrant criminaUty, which were followed by public, and exemplary punishment from God, and by the deepest anguish and repentance on the part of the offender, were distinguished by holi- ness and virtue. He was free, and preserved his people free, from the slightest taint of idolatry. ^ His confidence in his Maker was unshaken. To his enemies he was placable, to his friends singu- larly affectionate. His Psalms, whether they describe the glory and majesty of God ; pour forth supplications for his favour ; return the effusions of gratitude for mercies received ; breathe sorrow and humiliation for sins general and particular ; or prophetically describe the future sufferings of the Messiah, ordained to descend from the family of David ; are models of ardent devotion, and will continue, to the end of the world, to exalt the (7) 1 Chron. xxii. 8. 5i SUMMARY VIEW OF THE piety and gladden the bosoms of those, who labour to imitate the righteousness of David, " the man after God's own heart." ^ This phrase, the meaning of which has sometimes been pro- fanely misrepresented, as though the Supreme Being regarded with indifference the heinous transgressions into which David was occasionally betrayed ; refers to the earnest and prevailing desire of David, faithfully to serve God, and his unfeigned contrition when he was ensnared into guilt. It seems, also, to allude particularly to his utter abhorrence of idolatry.^ Solomon, surrounded with peace and prosperi- ty, and endued from above with that wisdom, which he had justly preferred to every worldly possession, immediately, on his accession, began to erect the Temple ; and finished it in less than eight years. Afterwards, it was dedicated to God with the utmost solemnity, by the king and the assembled people of Israel. The Lord testified his acceptance of the building, thus consecrated to him, by filling it with his glory : " the cloud filled (8) Acts xiii. 22. (9) So God, by the moutli of the prophet AJiijah, said (o Jeroboam, " Thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and " who followed me witli all his heart, to do that only which was rig^ht in mine " eyes. But thou hast done evil above all that were before thee- for thou " hast gone and made thee other gods and molteji images, to provoke me to *' anger, and hast cast me behind thy back." 1 Kings xiv. 8, 9. And of Solomon it is said that when he was old " his wives turned away his heart " after other gods ; and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, " as teas the heart of David his father." 1 Kings xi. 4. The phrase, a heart "perfect" or " or not perfect," and other equivalent expressions, are frequently used in the Scriptures to characterize the conduct of subsequent kings of Israel respecting idolatry. Seel Kings xv. 3, 11, 14. 2 Kings x. 31, 2 Chron. xxii. 9 — xxv. 2, II, &c — xxxi. 1, 3. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 55 ** the House of the Lord ; so that the priests *' could not stand to minister, because of the cloud: ** for the glory of the Lord had filled the House " of the Lord."^ And afterwards, God appeared unto Solomon, and declared, that if the kings and people of Israel would continue faithful in their obedience, his eyes and his heart should be on that temple perpetually ; but that otherwise it should be utterly destroyed. From that time, the altar in the temple became, conformably to the Divine command given unto Moses,^ the established and only lawful place for offering burnt sacrifices unto God. Notwithstanding the signal marks of Divine favour which he had enjoyed, Solomon, in his declining years, was seduced by his foreign wives into idolatry. And although there is great reason to believe that he afterAvards repented ; and, in the season of his grief and remorse, composed the book of Ecclesiastes, in which he feelingly proclaims the vanity of every thing except holiness ; he was punished with the information, that the sovereign- ty over ten of the tribes of Israel should be taken from his family, and given to Jeroboam, one of his officers. Immediately after the death of Solomon, the rash and intemperate answer of his son Rehoboam to the Israelites, who requested to be delivered from the burdens imposed upon them by the deceased monarch, was the incident em- ployed by the hand of Providence, to effect the predicted revolution. The ten tribes revolted (1) 1 Kings viii. 10, 11. (2) Deut. xii. 11. 5b SIJMMAIIY VIEW OF THE from the House of David : and Jeroboam became their king, and Samaria their capital. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained under the government of Rehoboam. From that time, the two kingdoms, discriminated by the appellations of Israel and Judah, continued distinct. This separation took place about nine hundred and seventy-five years .before Christ. The men of Israel were bound, pursuant to the Mosaic law, to present themselves, three times in a year, in solemn assembly before the Lord,^ at Jerusalem. But Jereboam, fearing lest they should thus be led to return to the dominion of their former master, would not trust his power in the hands of God who had bestowed it. He " took counsel" with the irreligious politicians of his court ; and received such advice as men of that description commonly give. Professing that the distance of Jerusalem rendered the attendance of his subjects there, inconvenient to them, he erected two golden calves, one at Dan, the other at Bethel, two places at the opposite extremities of his dominions : and commanded his people to resort thither, to offer sacrifices and to worship. Unawed by the Divine judgments denounced against him, and by those which he miraculously experienced,* he resolutely persevered in the estab- lishment of idolatry. Hence, he is distinguised, in subsequent parts of Holy Writ, by the awful appellation of " Jeroboam, who did sin, and made (3) Dent. xvj. 16. (4) 1 Kings xiii. 1, to the end. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 57 Israel to sin :" ^ the man who deliberately re- nounced his allegiance to his God, and established the worship of idols, among his own subjects, through many generations. During eighteen successive reigns, the throne of Jeroboam, passing, chiefly by conspiracies and usurpations, into eight new families, was occu- pied by princes like himself; princes differing from each other in degrees of depravity, but alike resolute in adhering to the idolatrous worship of the golden calves. In vain did the Lord send prophet after prophet, and among them Elijah and Elisha, armed with the power of Avorking stupendous miracles, and commissioned to call the nation to repentance, and to predict the vengeance ready to fall on them, if they should continue in their sins. In vain were the territories of Israel cut short and laid waste by potent enemies, raised up, from time to time, as ministers of the Divine vengeance. At length, in the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea, about thirty years after the foundation of Rome by Romulus, and about seven hundred and twenty one years before Christ, the Supreme Being poured forth the fulness of his indignation on a people, whom neither chastisements nor mercies could reclaim. Shahnaneser, the king of Assyria, took the capital city, iSamaria, after a siege of three years ; and became completely master of the whole kingdom. It was, in those days, a maxim of policy among eastern conquerors, to (5) I Kin^s xiv, I6_xv. 30, &r. 58 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE remove vanquished nations to settlements far distant from their native country ; that, all hopes of returning thither being precluded, and all local incitements, calculated to stimulate the desire of independence, and render slavery less tolerable, being removed, the wretched captives might remain less prone to insurrection and revolt. The depopulated territories were usually replenished with colonies of inhabitants, transplanted from a remote part of the dominions of the victor. Conformably to this practice, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, having conquered, about twenty years before, the countries of the Gadites, the Reubenites, and the Manassites, eastward of the Jordan, together with Galilee, occupied by the tribe of Nepthali, had carried away the inhabi- tants into Assyria ; and had placed them " in *• Halah, and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, " and in the cities of the Medes." To the same cities, Shalmaneser now carried the remainder of the ten tribes ; and " brought men from Babylon, " and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from ** Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed " them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the " children of Israel ; and they possessed Samaria, " and dwelt in the cities thereof."*^ Of the subse- quent fate of the ten tribes, thus carried into captivity, little is known unto the present hour. Many individuals of each tribe, appear to have returned about two hundred years afterwards, in company with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. (6) 1 Chron. v. '26. 1 Kings x\ . 'iO. '2 King.s xvii. 6, '21. HISTORY or THE JEAVS. 59 But the great mass of the ten tribes has continued in obscurity to this day ; yet in that obscurity preserved, as we beheve from the sure word of prophecy, against that appointed period, when all Israel shall be re-united, and restored to their own land. Let us now return to the kingdom of Judah. There the sceptre invariably remained, according to the promise of God, in the hands of the family of David. The successors of Rehoboam, who, like the kings of Israel, after Jeroboam, during a much shorter period, were eighteen in number, were of extremely various characters. Some of them, as Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, were bright examples of piety. Others, among whom Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Manasseh, are conspicuous, notwithstanding the denunciations of prophets, and the judicial infliction of national calamities, abandoned themselves to idolatry. Manasseh, in particular, not only " built up again " the high places, which Hezekiah, his father, had " destroyed ; and reared up altars for Eaal, and " worshipped all the host of heaven and served " them ;" but, as it were in defiance of the true God, " built altars in the house of the Lord, of " which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem \vill I "put my name: and he built altars for all the " hosts of heaven, in the two courts of the house " of the Lord — and he set a graven image, of the " grove, that he had made, in the house."^ — His conduct, during this period, was, throughout, (7) 2 King* xxi.3j 7. 66 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE consistent in wickedness. " He made his son to " pass through the fire, and observed times, and *•' used enchantments, and dealt with familiar " spirits and wizards — " and seduced his " subjects " to do more evil than did the nations whom the *' Lord destroyed before the children of Israel — " and shed innocent blood very much, till he had " filled Jerusalem, from one end to an other." ^ The Supreme Being, therefore, declared that the crimes of Judah should be punished, by a fate simi- lar to that which had overtaken the guilt of Israel. " 1 will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria " — and I will wipe Jerusalem, as a man wipeth *' a dish, wiping and turning it upside down :" ^ a comparison, describing, in the most expressive terms, the utter subversion of the city, and the complete removal of its inhabitants. Captivity and anguish opened the eyes of Manasseh ; and led him to bitter and durable repentance.^ But his successors imitated him only in transgression. The kings of Babylon, foretold from the reign of Hezekiah, as instruments ordained to execute the wrath of Heaven against Judah,^ and, already employed for the chastisement of Manasseh, ap- peared anew before Jerusalem ; unconscious that, while they were bent solely on ambitious views of aggrandizing their empire, they were sent forth by Providence, to fulfil its predetermined purpose. About six hundred and six years before the Chris- tian era, Jerusalem was delivered into the hands (8) 2 Kings xxi. 6, 9, 16. (9) 2 Kings xxi. 13. (I) 2Cbron. xxxiii. 11,18. (2) 2 Kings xx. 17. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 61 of Nebuchadnezzar, who sent to Babylon, a part of the vessels and treasures of the temple of the Lord, together with many persons of the royal blood and of the principal families ; and bound Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, in fetters, that he might also be carried thither i'-^ but at length per- mitted him to remain a tributary vassal in Judasa. Eight years afterwards, the son and successor of Jehoiakim, together with ten thousand of his sub- jects, was carried captive into Chaldea. * And finally, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedc- kiah, about five hundred and eighty-eight years before Christ, and one hundred and thirty-three years after the commencement of the captivity of the ten tribes, Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchad- nezzar at the end of a siege of eighteen months; and, together with the temple of God, was burned to the ground, and utterly destroyed. Zedekiah was brought, at Riblah, into the presence of Nebu- chadnezzar, who, after having commanded his eyes to be put out, sent him in fetters to Babylon : thus, fulfiUing unawares, two, seemingly discordant predictions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel; theformer of which prophets had declared, concerning Zedekiah, that, as a captive, he should see the king of Baby- lon face to face, and be carried to that city ; ^ the latter, that his eyes should never behold it. '^ The principal part of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, was also led captive into Chaldea. ^ (3) 2 Chion. Tcxxvi. 6. Dan. i. 1— C. (1) 2 Kinfjs xxiv. 10, &c. (5) Jercm. xxxii. 4. and xxxiv. 3. (6) Ezck. xii. 13. (7) 2Cliion. xxxvi. 20. 651 SUMMARY S'^IEW OF THE Over the people, of the poorer class, which were left in the land, and were joined by fugitives from contiguous districts, Gedaliah was appointed governor. He, being shortly afterwards killed by a conspiracy, the remnant of the Jews, dreading the vengeance of the Chaldeans, resolved to fly into Egypt. This measure, Jeremiah was directed by the Almighty to forbid ; and was commis- sioned also to inform the Jews, that, if they per- sisted in their design, they should be overtaken, in the country where they sought for refuge, by their dreaded enemy, Nebuchadnezzar, who, in the sublime language of Scripture, should " array *' himself, with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd " putteth on a garment."^ But the people would not be restrained. Carrying Jeremiah with them, they hasted into Egypt; which country, according to the Divine declaration, was subdued, about sixteen years afterwards, by the king of Babylon. Thus was Judaea emptied of its inhabitants. So extreme was the predicted desolation to be, that, four years after the burning of Jerusalem, while Nebuchadnezzar was employed in the siege of Tyre ; Nebuzaradan, the captain of his guard, swept away, to Babylon, the scanty relicks of the people, who had collected together in their native land, amounting to seven hundred and forty-five persons.^ The duration of the Babylonian captivity, had been previously limited, by the Supreme Being, to the term of seventy years, which are to be (8) Jvivm. xlii. and xHii. 12. (9) Jcicni. lii. :?(). HISTORY OF THE JEWS. (jfi computed from the captivity of .Tehoiakim, in the six hundred and seventh year before Christ ; and the destined period had been revealed to the Jews, by the mouth of Jeremiah, at the time of its commencement.^ Isaiah, speaking prophetically, concerning Cyrus, above an hundred years ante- cedently to his birth, had pronounced him to be the monarch destined, in the counsels of God, to restore the people of Judah to their native land. ^ Accordingly, " in the first year of Cyrus, king of " Persia," (the second year after he had become sovereign of the east, by the death of his father, Cambyses, king of Persia, and his father-in-law, Cyaxares, king of Media ; and five hundred and thirty-six years before the Christian era,) " that " the word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of " Jeremiah, might be accomplished, the Lord " stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, " that he made a proclamation, throughout all ** his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying : ** Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia. All the " kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of " heaven given me : and he hath charged me to " build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in " Judah. Who is there among you, of all his " people ? The Lord his God be with him : and " let him go up."^ Cyrus, at the same time, com- manded, that assistance should be given to the poorer Jews, in order to enable them to under- take the journey ; and delivered up the vessels (1) Jerem. xxv. 11, 12. (2) Lsa, xliv. 28. xlv. 1 — 6 (3) 2 Chroti. xxxvi. 22, 23. 64 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE of gold and silver, brought away from the Temple of God, to Babylon, that they might be placed in the new temple, which was now to be erected. ^ In consequence of this encouragement, great numbers, belonging to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, having been joined also by many indi- viduals of the ten tribes ; and amounting, altoge- ther, to near fifty thousand, servants and prose- lytes being included, ^ returned to Jerusalem, under the conduct of Zerubbabel, (otherwise called Sheshbazzar,)^' a chief descended from David, and of Joshua, the high priest. In the beginning of the following year, they proceeded to rebuild the temple on its old foundations. In this work the Samaritans desired to join. These were the posterity of the Cutheans, and other colonists, who had been placed about two hundred years before that time, by the king of Assyria, in the land of Israel ; and had united with the service of Jehovah, the worship of their peculiar idols.^ The Jews rejected the proposal ; and the Samaritans, eager for revenge, exerted themselves to impede the rebuilding of the city, partly by force of arms, and partly by misrepresentations, addressed to the court of Persia.'^ The work was. (4) Ezra i. 4, 7, 8. (5) Ezra ii. G4, 65. (6) Compare Ezra, iii. 8, 10. with v. 16. (7) 2 Kings xvii 24—41. (8) This hostile conduct appears to have been the source of that rooted aversion, with which the Jews continued, for several centuries, to view the Samaritans. It was aj^gravated by subsequent quarrels, and by the asylum always afforded, at Samaria, )o fuj^itivc and discontented Jews. Lonfj before the time of our Saviour, the Samaritans had renounced idolatry. Still, however, the Jews had " no dealings with the Samaritans ; " and vf-od the very name of Samarit;in a^ a teim of tlie hi^he^t reproacii. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 65 by these means, interrupted ; but a favourable decree having at length been obtained from Darius, it was resumed and completed : and the new temple was solemnly dedicated twenty years after the Jews had begun to rebuild it. The Jews had been strongly excited to zeal and perseverance in the undertaking, by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. And when the aged Jews, some of whom had seen the former temple, wept at the recollection of its superiour magnificence ; deplor- ing also, the irrecoverable loss of the ark, the rod of Aaron, the two tables of stone, the pot of manna which had been preserved by Divine ap- pointment from the days of Joshua, and the rest of its miraculous distinctions ; Haggai was com- missioned to assure them, that the glory of this latter house should be greater than the glory of the former ; ^ a prediction fulfilled, when that latter house was glorified by the presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. About fifty years afterwards, Ezra, invested with ample powers by Artaxerxes, arrived from Babylon ; bringing with him some additional ves- sels belonging to the temple, and accompanied by about fifteen hundred Jews. He employed him- self, with great diligence, in reforming abuses and transgressions prevalent among the people. Thir- teen years after his arrival, he was joined by Nehemiah, appointed governor of Judaea by Ar- taxerxes, with authority to repair the ruined walls of Jerusalem : an undertaking, which, not with- (9) Ezra iii. 12. Haggai ii. 2 — 9. 06 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE standing the opposition of factions and of sur- rounding enemies, was at length effected. At this time, Ezra appears to have devoted his attention wholly to religious concerns, and to the collection and revisal of the canonical books of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The Jewish people, now deliberately renewed their covenant with God ; and from that period, to the destruction of Jeru- salem by the Romans, they faithfully abstained from every species of idolatrous worship. After the days of Nehemiah, no mention is made of any distinct governor of Judtea, while it continued subject to the Persians. The country was regarded as a part of the province of Syria. In the time of Alexander the Great, the Jews ex- hibited a signal proof of fidelity to their engage- ments, by refusing, on the ground of the allegiance which they owed to Persia, to supply that con' queror, then occupied in the siege of Tyre, with the succours which he required of them. Alex- ander, having at length, rendered himself master of Tyre, marched, inflamed with resentment, at the head of his army, towards Jerusalem. At a short distance from that city, he was met by a so- lemn procession conducted by the High Priest Jaddua, in his pontifical robes. Alexander, on their near approach, hastened forward; and, to the extreme astonishment of his followers, bowed him- self down before the High Priest, and adored the name of Jehovah inscribed on his mitre. In reply to Parmenio, who expressed his surprise that the victorious monarch of so many nations should HISTORY OF THE JKWS. 6? pay reverence to a Jewish priest ; Alexander de- clared that many years before, when he had been revolving his meditated expedition against Persia, the appearance of this very person had stood before him, and had promised him success in the name of God. Alexander accompanied the High Priest to Jerusalem, offered sacrifices in the Temple, and bestowed many privileges and immunities on the Jews : but gave an evasive answer to the Samari- tans, whom his unexpected bounty to the Jews encouraged to apply for similar favours.^ Nor were these the only proofs of regard which he shewed to the Jews. When he founded Alexan- dria, he fixed many of that nation there ; and bestowed on them, the same rights as were enjoyed by the Macedonians. And when the Samaritans rebelled against him, he assigned their country to the Jews, to be held by them, under the same exemptions from tribute as Judasa. Soon after the death of Alexander, an event which took place three hundred and twenty-three years before Christ ; Palestine, in the division of the Macedonian empire, fell under the power of Ptolemy king of Egypt ; and about a hundred years afterwards, passed into the hands of the Greciali kings of Syria ; who permitted the Jews to be governed by their own laws under the High Priest and his council. In consequence of the intermediate situation of their country between Egypt and Syria, they suffered much, and fre- (1) Josephi Antiq. lib. ii. c. 8. and see Bisliop Newtoti's Disscriations on tlie Prophecies, 3d ejition, vol. ii. p. 37 — 17 F 2 68 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE quently from the contentions, which arose between those rival empires. The Greek lan- guage gradually spread into familiar use among them. And from their connection with foreign- ers, they progressively imbibed foreign manners and foreign vices. Their High Priests became corrupt, obtaining the office, by purchase, from the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes ; and recommending themselves to him, by lending their aid, to draw aside the people from the observance of the Mosaic law, to the adoption of Grecian customs. By his hand, however. Pro- vidence infficted on the Jews, a memorable chas- tisement. Irritated by the opposition which he had experienced in some of his plans, he seized upon the city ; slaughtered or sold for slaves vast multitudes of the inhabitants; despoiled and shattered the temple itself; and, at length, abolished the daily sacrifice ; burned all the copies of the law which he could discover ; fixed an image of Jupiter in the temple ; and endea- voured to constrain the people, throughout the whole land, by the most cruel tortures, to submit to the worship of idols. After some few years, and about one hundred and sixty-seven before the Christian era, God was pleased to raise up a deliverer to his people in JMattathias the Mac- cabee, a priest of equal piety and fortitude ; who levied an army against the tyrant, and pushed on the war with success. After his death, the celebrated Judas Maccabseus and his other sons repeatedly overcame the Syrian armies ; and IIISTOIIV OF THE JEWS. 6<) ultimately expelled them from Judaea. The temple was repaired and purified ; the observance of the Mosaic law restored ; and the supreme authority, civil as well as ecclesiastical, was united for several generations, in the head of the Maccabean family, of whom, Aristobulus was the first who assumed the title of king. In a contest for the crown, beween two of his de- scendants, about sixty-five years before Christ, both parties applied for assistance to the Romans. Pompey availed himself of these dissensions, to render Judaea tributary to Rome. He appointed Hyrcanus, one of the competitors, High Priest ; but allowed him not to possess any other deno- mination, than that of prince. Some years after- wards, the avarice of Crassus plundered the temple of all its treasures. During the domestic troubles which engaged the attention of the Romans, on the death of Julius Caesar, Hyrcanus was deprived of his authority, by his nephew Antigonus, who assumed the regal title. Herod, an Edomite, the son of one of the officers of Hyrcanus, repairing to Rome, and, being there appointed king of Judaea, took Antigonus pri- soner, and sent him into Italy, where he was put to death. Being thus established in the quiet possession of the country, Herod gradually augmented his dominions : and expended vast sums in adorning Jerusalem, and in repairing and enlarging the buildings of the temple. To his family, and his subjects, he was a cruel and sanguinary tyrant. His reign is memorable for 70 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE the birth of the Saviour of the world ; whom he dreaded as a rival, and endeavoured to destroy, by the slaughter at Bethlehem. In the following year, he died in the agonies of a most loathsome distemper. His territories were distributed by the Romans, who ratified the disposition, which he had made in his will, among his three sons, thenceforth called tetrarchs or ethnarchs. Arche- laus governed the ancient possessions of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, together with Samaria, and the land of Edom. Herod Antipas, by whom John the Baptist was beheaded, and Jesus Christ derided before his crucifixion, ruled in Galilee and Persea. Philip obtained the districts of Trachonitis and Iturtea. Archelaus, in the seventh year of the Christian era, (which era, according to the received computation, begins with the fifth year after the birth of Christ,) was deprived of his government by the Romans, in consequence of the complaints of his subjects. His dominions were immediately reduced into the state of a Roman province. On the death of Philip, and the deposition of Antipas, the Roman emperor Caligula gave their dominions, ■with the title of king, to Herod Agrippa, the person who put to death the Apostle James, and imprisoned Peter,'^ and was grandson of the first Herod. He was succeeded in his title, and part of his territories, by his own son of the same name, the Agrippa, before whom Paul^ was produced by Festus, the Roman governor. (2) Acts xii. (3) Acts xxv, xxvi. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 71 In the mean time, Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, had manifested himself in Judaea, and fulfilled his ministry. Though, uniting in him- self, the accomplishment of every ancient pro- phecy respecting the Redeemer of mankind ; born of the tribe of Judah, in the lineage of David, of a pure virgin, in the town of Bethlehem ; having, for his forerunner, a prophet, John the Baptist, commissioned to preach repentance, in the power and spirit of Elijah ; performing all those miracles which the predicted Saviour was to work, in proof of his Divine authority ; executing his office at the precise time prefixed near five hundred years before, by the prophet Daniel ; and, repeatedly, receiving in the sight and hearing of the people, special tokens, in attestation of his JNIessiahship, from God his father ; He was ignominiously rejected by the Jewish nation. One general cause of ofFencC) was his appearance in that humble station, which the prophet Isaiah had expressly foretold :^ while the ambitious and prejudiced minds of the Jews were blindly attached to the idea of a temporal Messiah, who should expel every foreign enemy from the land of Canaan, and reign in triumph on the throne of Jerusalem. Among the higher classes, the principal enemies of Christ were the Scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians. The Scribes, a proud and corrupt set of men, were the established teachers and expounders of the Mosaic law. The Pharisees (4) Isaiah liii. 72 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE were a religious sect, who distorted that law from its genuine import, by the traditional interpreta- tions and accessions with which they loaded it: and under the mask of much outward and cere- monial sanctity, disguised the utmost depravity of heart and conduct. The Sadducees held, as their distinguishing tenet, that there was to be no future life: and were, as might be expected, practically regardless of virtue in this. The Herodians were, as their name intimates, per- sons devoted to the interests of Herod; and formed a political faction, rather than a religious party. — These jarring sects, enraged at the bold- ness and severity with which Christ reproved their vices, and dreading, from his influence, the ruin of their power, co-operated for his destruc- tion. The common people at first received him with joy : but afterwards, according to the usual instability of popular favour, they listened to the calumnious artifices of his persecutors, and aided, with vehement and clamorous importunity, the demand of their superiors for his crucifixion. With this demand Pilate, the Roman governor, though avowing his conviction of the perfect innocence of Christ, and vainly attempting by washing his hands in the presence of the multi- tude, to transfer the whole guilt of that innocent blood from himself to them ; while they blasphe- mously cried out, " his blood be on us and on our "children;" flagitiously complied. Christ was nailed to the cross ; and, while the earth quaked, and the heavens were darkened, and the beholders HISTOllY or THE JEWS. 7S stood aghast with astonishment and terror, yielded up his life, as the great atoning sacrifice* for the sins of the human race. The measure of Jewish guilt was now full : and the vengeance of heaven, of which that infatuated people had been mercifully forewarned by the prophets, and by Christ himself, was poured out upon them ; and poured out by the hands of that very nation, whom they had instigated to cut off the Messiah. Irritated by the oppression of the Roman governors,* they broke out into open rebellion against Florus, in the reign of Nero. Cestius, and afterwards Vespasian, took many cities, and slaughtered immense multitudes of the Jews. At length, at the time of the passover, in the seventy-first year of the Christian era, when the principal part of the nation assembled from many different coun- tries, for the purpose of celebrating that solem- nity, were cooped up, as victims prepared for slaughter, within the walls of Jerusalem ; Titus encamped his army before that devoted city. Unconscious that he was exactly fulfilling the predictions of Christ,^ he surrounded the whole city with an uninterrupted bulwark, nearly five miles in circuit. The miseries which the Jews then sustained from famine, from pestilence, from the assaults of the Komans, and from the im- placable fury of contending parties among themselves, far surpass, in horror, every account (6) Luke xix. 43. 74 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE of any siege in the records of the world.^ The city was taken, burned to the ground, and razed from its foundations. Eleven hundred thousand Jews perished during the siege. Of ninety-seven thousand captives, some were reserved to grace the triumphal return of Titus to Rome ; and the rest dispersed as slaves, or as criminals, throughout the empire. A subsequent revolt, in the reign of Adrian, carried on, with the most furious outrages, by the Jews, great numbers of whom' had again collected in their native land, was followed by the slaughter of more than five hundred thousand, and by their entire expulsion from Judsea. From that day to the present, during a period of seventeen centuries, they have had no national existence. They have continued, according to the unfailing truth of prophecy, " scattered among all people, from one " end of the earth, unto the other ; an aston- " ishment, a proverb, and a bye- word among all " nations."^ Though, in the language of St. Paul, " the " vail is still upon their hearts ;"8 though they still continue inveterately hostile to Christianity ; yet to the devout and reflecting among them, the disappointment of their expectations, as to the coming of the Messiah, and the long continuance of their calamitous dispersion, are subjects of (6) See a very striking summary of the events of the-:e " days of ven- " geance," and of the completion of every particular in the prophecies of Christ, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, in Archbishop Newcome's " Observations on our Lord's conduct." 2d edit. 8vo. p. 203 — 276. (7) Dcut. xxviii. 37, 64. (9) 2 Cor. iii. 15. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 75 extreme embarrassment. When Jesus Christ entered on his public ministry, they were con- fessedly looking out,^ with great anxiety, for the promised Redeemer ; as the time predicted by Daniel, for his manifestation, was arrived. Jesus Christ they rejected ; and no other person has since appeared, in whom their descendants per- ceive any of the characteristics of the Messiah. To account for the seeming failure of the accom- plishment of the prediction, has long been, as it still continues, to the Jews a very difficult and perplexing task. Some of their rabbis allege, in general terms, that the wickedness of their nation prevented the Messiah from being sent at the appointed period. Others, finding themselves unable to reconcile this solution with the truth of the promises of God, affirm, that he was actually sent into the world at the time specified by Daniel ; but that he forbore, in consequence of the sinful state of the Jews, to make himself known ; and that, for similar reasons, he has still continued in obscurity. They are, however, entirely unable to discover what those heinous transgressions are, which have occasioned their disappointment and their miseries. From idola- try, the great crime of their forefathers, they have been free for about two thousand years. (9) Thus, when John the Baptist began to preach, " the people were in " expectation, and all men mused in their heaits, whether he were the Christ or " not ; " Luke iii. 15. and a deputation, of priests and Levites, was sent from Jerusalem to put the question to him, John i. 19 — 27. Tacitus (Hist. lib. v. c. 13.) and Suetonius (lib. viii. c. 4.) record the general hope of the ap- proach of the predicted Deliverer. 76 SUMMAllY VIEW OF THE And for that crime, detestable as it was in the sight of God, a captivity of only seventy years was deemed a sufficient punishment. — *' I would " fain learn of thee, out of the testimonies of " the law, and the prophets, and other Scriptures, " why the Jews are thus smitten in this captivity " wherein we are ; which may properly be called " the perpetual anger of God, because it hath no *' end. For it is now above a thousand years " since we were carried captive by Titus. And " yet our fathers, who worshipped idols, killed " the prophets, and cast the law behind their " back, were punished only with a seventy years " captivity ; and then brought home again ! But " now there is no end of our calamities ; nor do " the prophets promise any." It was thus that Rabbi Samuel Moroccanus wrote about seven hundred years since, to his friend.^ The great council of the Jews, assembled, five hundred and fifty years afterwards, in Hungary, to deli- berate on that very subject, found it altogether inexplicable. It is at this moment equally inex- plicable to the Jews. Nay, every additional year aggravates the difficulty. But the difficulty, insuperable to the Jews, is none to us. Their own imprecation has been tremendously fulfilled. The blood of Christ has been " on them and on ** their children." Such has been the history of the chosen people of God, from the calling of their forefather, (1) See Bishop Patrick's Commentary on Genesis xlix. 10. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 77 Abraham, to the present day ; a period of nearly three thousand eight hundred years. Their situ- ation, in all ages has been characterized by miracles. Their preservation is, at this moment, a standing miracle. The hostile tribes of invad- ers, who successively established themselves in Great Britain, discordant in religion and in man- ners, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, are all absorbed, and lost, in one common mass. The innumerable hosts of Pagan barbarians, who overwhelmed the Christian empire of Rome, speedily coalesced with the natives whom tliey had subdued, each host, in the region where it settled, into one homogeneous assemblage. Faith and practice, laws and customs, even personal appearance, and complexion, became similar, in the course of a very few centuries, among the victors and the vanquished. Not so with the Jews. Scattered in small parcels throughout many nations ; now here, living under their own laws, and in few places indulged in the free exer- cise of their religion ; urged by general con- tempt, and even, in many Christian countries, by shameful oppression, to withdraw themselves from notice, by assimilating themselves to the natives among whom they dwell; they have every where multiplied under affliction, and have every where continued a distinct and separate people. Why have they thus been exempted from the common fate of nations ? They have been exempted, that after having, in their dis- persion, exhibited to the inhabitants of opposite 78 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE extremities of the earth, a stupendous proof of the power and justice of God ; they may be restored, at the time predetermined in his coun- sels, to the perpetual possession of their native land. There is scarcely any topic, on which prophecy is more copious in the Old Testament, than on the final restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. Our Savour, when he foretels that " Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gen- " tiles, until the times of the Gentiles he fulfilled f'^ clearly implies, that, after an appointed time, it should revert to its original possessors. St. Paul, in perfect harmony with the old prophets, pre- dicts the future conversion of the Jews to the religion of their crucified Saviour ; and the powerful and glorious effect which their conver- sion, together with the signal wonders with which their re-estabhshment shall be attended, will produce, in opening the eyes of unbelieving nations, and convincing them of the truth of the Christian faith.'* From the history of this people, let it be your care to draw, and apply to your own heart and conduct, the great practical truth, so forcibly impressed, and so beautifully illustrated by the Apostle.^ " Because of unbelief they were broken " off: and thou standest by faith. Be not high " minded ; but fear." Reflect on the unparal- lelled blessings by which they were distinguished. They are the chosen nation, " to whom pertaineth " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, (3) T.iike xxi. 21. (4) Romans xi. (5) Romans xi. 20, HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 79 *• and the giving of the law, and the service of ** God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers ; " and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ " came, who is over all, God, blessed for ever." ^ They were the favoured " olive tree," planted in the vineyard of God. The branches became unfruitful, and were broken off; and the Gentiles, the "branches of the wild olive tree," were grafted into their place. " Be not high minded; but •' fear. If God spared not the natural branches, •' take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold ** the goodness and severity of God : on them " which fell, severity ; but towards thee, goodness, " if thou continue in his goodness : otherwise •* thou also shall be cut off." Let this lesson of steadfastness in faith and holy obedience recur to your bosom, w^henever you behold an indivi- dual of the Jewish race. Let it teach you to behold him with humility, and with kindness ; and to meditate on the dealings of your Maker with the tribes of Israel. And, while you con- sider, the past and the present state of the chosen descendants of Abraham ; remember the restoration that awaits them. They are "the " natural branches :" and when " they no longer " abide in unbelief, God will graft them in " again." There is yet another lesson of useful instruct] on which the consideration of the Jewish history may impress with particular force upon the mind. The interpositions by which Providence guided (6) Romans ix. 4, 5. 80 SUMMARY VIEW OF THE and protected the Jews were in general, as it has already been observed, in a high degree miracvi- lous. Yet all these signal and unmerited favours produced not in that people either durable grati- tude or obedience. Remember then, in the first place, the favours which God has bestowed and is still bestowing upon yourself. These blessings are not the less, because they are bestowed daily and hourly ; nor because they are bestowed on many other persons, as well as upon you. These blessings are as truly the free and unmerited gifts of your Almighty Benefactor, as the miracles wrought for the deliverance of the Israelites in Egypt, in the wilderness, in the land of Canaan. What title had you to the blessings of creation, of protection, of redemption, more than the Israelites had to a passage on dry ground through the Red Sea ; to the presence of God in a cloudy pillar to guide them by day, and in a pillar of flame by night ; to the supply of manna, during nearly for- ty years ; to the supernatural destruction of the army of Sennacherib ; or to the warnings during many centuries of a succession of inspired pro- phets ? Were mighty works wrought by the hand of Omnipotence for the Jews ? Those very works were wrought not for the Jews only, but for your admonition, for your benefit. Mighty as they were, mightier have been wrought for you. Christ, of whose coming and office, the Jews had learned, through the medium of prophecies, then involved, as to matters of detail, in much obscurity, has since their day descended from heaven ; has lived as HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 81 man, and suffered more than man ; has made that full atonement on the cross, which the law, given by ]\Ioses, was intended only to prefigure and introduce. The intercession of Christ, now pleading for you at the right hand of God, was to the Jews altogether unknown. The sanctify- ing aid of the Holy Spirit of God, to enable you to will and to do what is acceptable to the Deity, was by the Jews very imperfectly understood. Do you admit the magnitude of those your obligations to Heaven ? Ask yourself then, in the second place, whether you are leading such a life as corresponds with an avowed sense of those obligations; such a life, as corresponds with a conviction of the extraordinary blessings con- ferred upon you by the Almighty, of his own free grace ? While you are wondering that the Jews, enlightened by immediate communications from above, could relapse, with such frequency, into the darkness of idolatry ; ask yourself, whether, in the full enjoyment of greater light, you are not deviating into the paths of darkness. " The covetous man," saith the Scripture, " is " an idolater,"^ and " hath no inheritance in the " kino-dom of Christ and of God. The glutton is branded in the sacred volume with the same stigma ;^ and his end is declared to be " destruc- *' tion." Whenever you permit any inclination, any passion, to predominate in your heart, over the fear and love of God, you incur the guilt of (7) Ephes. V. 5. (8) Pliilipp. iii. ID. 82 SUMMARY VIEW. idolatry. And unless, through the divine grace, you sincerely repent, and turn from sin unto habitual holiness, you shall have " no inheritance " in the kingdom of Christ and of God :" — " your end shall be destruction." »a CHAP. IV. ON THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. In the preceding Chapters, the Scriptures of the Old Testament have been regarded as sacred records of unquestionable authority. As the faith of Christians ought, in every particular point, to be established on rational evidence, and sober conviction, it will be proper, in the pre- sent Chapter, to lay before the reader a brief statement of the grounds, on which the claim of the Jewish Scriptures to his belief and reve- rence, is established. The Old Testament resolves itself into two leadino; divisions ; the canonical books, and the apocryphal books. ^ Tho canonical books are (9) These general terms, together wiih many of the modern name.?, as Genesis, Exodus, &c. by which the books of the Old Testament are distin- guished, have been borrowed from the denominations used by the GreeK translators and commentators The words " canon," and " canonical," are derived from Katav, a rule ; and imply, that the authenticity and inspiration of the books of Scripture to which they are applied, have not been easily taken for granted, but have been examined and ascertained by the proper rule Of criterion. Apocrypha and apocryphal, words derived from a'Tox^vrrai, to hide, denote that the writings to which thry are affixed arc not of manifest and indisputable authority. G 2 84 THE BOOKS OF those which were written by the aid, and under the guidance of Divine inspiration. The apocry- phal books were composed by uninspired men, and are therefore liable to error ; but, on account of the religious instruction, and the historical facts which they contain, were subjoined by the Jews, yet separately, and as a detached appendix, to the sacred volume, and have been, for the same reasons, continued in that place and cha- racter, by the Christian church. The canonical books were again subdivided by the Jews, for the sake of convenient reference and quotation, into three classes ; not so distin- guished through any difference in the authority assigned to them, (for in that respect they were all held perfectly equal,) but through a degree of difference in the subjects of which they respect- ively treat. These classes were denominated " the Law," " the Prophets," and " the Psalms." " The Law " contained the five books of Moses : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuter- onomy;^ and received its name from the subject most prominent in those books. In " the Pro- " phets" were comprehended, not only the books of Isaiah, and of all the other prophets, to Malachi, inclusively, together with the book of Job, but likewise the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra^ Nehemiah, and Esther ; these books also having been written or revised by prophets. " The (1) The five books of Moses are frequently termed the Pentateiuli, a word of Greek etymology, hnplying a collation of five voUimcs, THE OLD TESTAMENT. 85 *' Psalms," 2 included Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Sc-ng of Solomon, together with the book of Psalms ; from which book, as being placed first, and of primary importance, this concluding sub- division received its appellation.^ What proof then, of the inspiration and au- thenticity, of the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, in the very form, in which we have them at this hour, is the utmost which, even an objector could reasonably demand ? He might require this, and this only : satisfactory evidence, that those Scriptures were written under the superintendence of inspiration : and, that they have been transmitted in their primeval integrity to the present day. That proof, I apprehend, may be demonstratively furnished. It will, however, be proper, antecedently, to state, with precision, what we mean, when we affirm that the books, in question, were written under the superintendence of inspiration. We do not mean, that, the Holy Spirit of God dic- tated to the inspired writer every word, or every (2) This class was also termed emphatically by the Jews " writings," (chetubim,)|-and by the Greeks Hagiojrrapiia, sacred writings. In latter times we have been accustomed to apply the terms " Scriptures," that is to say, " the writings," by way of eminence, and "the Bible," {" the Book," from the Greek word pufiXos,) to the Old and New Testaments taken collectively. (3) The number of canonical books in our Bible is thirty-nine : whereas Josephus, and other Jewish wiiters, enumerate only twenty-two. The cause of the seeming difference is this : the Jews united Judges and Ruth into one volume, or book ; the two books of Samuel they count as one book, and also those of Kings, aud of Chronicle?, respectively ; Ezra and Nehemiah form one book ; the Prophecies and Lamentations of Jeremiah one ; and the twelve minor prophets, so called merely on account of the coniparati\c brevity of their compositions, one. 80 THE BOOKS OF sentence, of his composition. The Divine inter- ference, to such an extent, was not requisite, as far as we may presume to judge, for the attain- ment of the objects, which inspiration was designed to accomplish. And the opinion of its interference, to that extent, appears to be contra- dicted, by the great similarity of style and manner, which is found to pervade the writings of any one of the inspired penmen considered singly; and by the striking difference in senti- ment and language, by which the several writers are distinguished from each other : circumstances which indicate, that each writer was permitted to follow, in an ample degree, the natural bent of his faculties and thoughts, as to the mode of expressing the Divine communications. Neither do we mean, that the mind of the prophet or historian was, in every case, supernaturally im- pressed with the full knowledge of facts, which, by his own present observation, or by his distant recollection, or even by true and sufficient intel- ligence, received from others, he already was thoroughly competent to describe. We mean, that inspiration was given, so far as it was essentially necessary, to effect all the purposes, special and general, for which it was bestowed ; namel}^, to encourage the righteous, and reclaim the guilty ; to confirm the truth, and unfold the import of the Jewish dipensation ; and when that intro- ductory system should be done away, to demon- strate the Divine origin, illustrate the nature, and forward the universal dominion, of the THE OLD TESTAMENT. 87 religion of Jesus Christ. For these purposes, it seems essentially necessary that, in communi- cating religious truths, in declaring a revelation of unknown, or imperfectly known transactions, and in predicting future events, the instrument employed, should be preserved from all error; and that in reciting facts from his own know- ledge, and in drawing conclusions, by the natural powers of his judgment, he should be preserved from material inaccuracy and omission. That inspiration was vouchsafed further, the Scriptures do not pronounce : that it w^as necessary further, there appears no sufficient reason to conclude : and consequently, that it was given further, is a position, for which there seems no obligation to contend. We may now proceed to state the several proofs, general and particular, which shew, that the canonical books of the Old Testament, were written under the superintendence of inspiration; and that they were preserved in their original integrity to the days of our Saviour. That they have been preserved in the same state, from the coming of Christ, to the present time, is a truth, which will afterwards be established. The books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, containing an ac- count of the creation, and of the fall of man, the heads of the early annals of the world, and a full recital of the Jewish law, and of the events which had happened to that nation, until it had now finallv reached the borders of the land of 88 THE BOOKS OF Canaan, were written by Moses. An exception, however, must be made of the concluding chap- ter of Deuteronomy, evidently added after his death, in order to complete his history : and perhaps of one or two passages (as of that in Genesis,* respecting the kings of Edom) which may have been inserted by some succeeding prophet, not improbably by Ezra, for the purpose of conveying illustration or additional hitelligence. I mention these slight exceptions, obvious as they are ; because absurd cavils have sometimes been founded upon them, as though they afforded an argument, to shew that Moses was not the author of the other parts of the books. The proofs of his having been the author of those books, are numerous and decisive. The fact has ever been firmly believed by the Jews : and con- tinues to this day to be one of the thirteen articles of their creed.^ It is virtually asserted, in the very books themselves : " Moses wrote all *' the words of the Lord ; and took the book of *' the covenant, and read in the audience of the " people."^ Again, near the close of the book of Deuteronomy, which, it must be remembered, was, in substance, a recapitulation of the preced- ing books, it is said tliat, " when Moses had " made an end of writing the words of this " law, in a book, until they were finislied, Moses " commanded the Levites, which bare the ark " of the covenant of the Lord, saying : Take (4) Gen. xxxvi. 31 — 43. (5) See Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible p. 45, 46. (6) Exoil. xxiv. 7. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 89 " this book of the law, and put it in the side of *' the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, •' that it may be there for a witness against thee." ^ In the book of Joshua, in both the books of Kings, in the second book of Chronicles, in the books of Ezra, of Daniel, and of JNIalachi, the writing of the law is unequivocally ascribed to Moses.s And, let it be observed, that, if we for the present admit, what will shortly be demon- strated, the inspiration of these several books of Scripture ; the passages to which I have just referred, are so many distinct and irrefragable testimonies, to the inspiration of the books of Moses. The same remark may be extended to the first book of Chronicles, the book of Psalms, of Isaiah, and of Jeremiah ; in all of which, the Divine mission of Moses is attested.^ Let us proceed to the evidence, which the New Testa- ment presents concerning Moses. Jesus Christ expressly affirms, that Moses gave the law to the Jews.^ He continually refers to that law ; speaks of it with the highest reverence ; appeals to it, as containing decisive predictions concerning himself; affirms, that had his hearers believed Moses, they would have believed himself; and that they who would not believe Moses and the prophets, would not be persuaded, though one should be raised from the dead, purposely to (7) Deul. xxxi. 24 — 26. (8) Joshua viii. 34, 35. xiv. 10, &c. 1 Kinjj.s ii. 3. 2 Kin^ xxiii. 25. 2 Chron. xxiii. 18. xxx. 16. Ezra iii. 2. Dan. ix. 11 — 13. Malachi iv. 4. (9) 1 Chron. xxiii. 14. Psahn ciii. 7. cv. 26. Isaiah Ixiii. 12. Jcrem. xv. 1. (1) John vii. 19. Sec also i. 17. 90 THE BOOKS or convert them.^ After the ascension of Christs, his apostles add their testimony, in the clearest language, to the fact, that the law was written by Moses, and written under the guidance of inspiration."^ And each of the five books is sepa- rately quoted, or referred to by Christ himself, in the Gospels ; and by the sacred writers, in the subsequent parts of the New Testament.^ In recounting the attestations, by which the Jewish lawgiver is thus honourably distinguished ; it must not be forgotten, that when our Lord was transfigured on the mount, Moses was one of the two prophets who were commissioned to appear to him in glory .^ (2) Matt. V. 17, 18. vji. 12. x.\ui. 2. Mark x. 3. Luke xvi. 29, 31, XX. 37. xxiv. 27. John iii. 14. v. 46. These are by no means all the testimonies, which the Gospels bear to the authority and inspiration of the Mosaic writings. (3) See, among many other passages. Acts iii. 22. vii. 35 — 37. xiii. 39. xxvi. 22. xxviii 23. Rom. x. v. 1 Cor. x. ii. 2 Cor. iii. 7 — 15. Heb. iii. 2. vii. 14 x. 28. Rev. xv. 3. (4) Of these quotations and references, whicli are extremely numerous, many are specified, under the proper heads, in Gray's Key to the Old Testa- taraent ; a work which will be found highly useful to all who are sohcitous to to an attain accurate knowledge of the several parts of tlieir Bible. (5) Luke ix. 30. 31. After the numerous and decisive i)roofs of the Divine commission of Moses, which have been produced from the Old and New Tes- taments ; it would be almost superfluous to mention the early lieathen writers, who concur in ascribing the Jewish law to Moses. But it is not unimportant to add, that, in distant regions of the world, among the Egyptians, the Phoeni- cians, the Greeks, the Hindoos, traditions and practices have prevailed ; which, however, loaded and debased with fable and superstition, are yet capable of being traced, as Grotius and other writers have shewn, to Patriarchal or Mo- saical institutions. It is remarkable, too, as Bishop Watson pointedly observes, that the books, which come nearest to the book of Genesis in age, " are those " which make either tlie most distinct mention of, or the most evident allusion " to the facts related in Genesis, concerning the formation of the world, from " a chaotic mass ; the primeval innocence and .subsequent fall of man ; the " longevity of mankind in the first ages of the world ; the depravity of the an- " tediluvians, and the destruction of llie world." Apology for the Bible, p. 75. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 91 Antecedently to any particular observations on the historical books of the old Testament, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the two books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Chronicles, together with the books of Ezra, Neheiniah, and Esther, some general remarks may fitly be premised. After the death of Moses, historical accounts of the transactions of tlie Jews, appear, from the Scrip- tures, t) have been composed by persons profes- sedly favoured with assistance from above, and commonly bearing the prophetic character. That Joshua was appointed by the Supreme Being to govern and instruct the Israelites, is manifest. Samuel was also a prophet or seer;^ and his employment as a historian, and that of other seers, is expressly stated in the first book of Chronicles : — '* Now the acts of David the king, " first and last, behold they are vv^ritten in the " book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of ** Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad " the seer."'' jVgain, when the acts of Solomon are mentioned, it is said : — " are they not written, " first and last, in the book of Nathan the pro- " phet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the " Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer, " against Jeroboam, the son of Nebat ?"» The acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are afterwards affirmed to be written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer, concernincr (6) That "seer" and "prophet" were terms ol' the same import is ex- pressly affirmed in 1 Sam. ix. 0. (7) 1 Chron. xxix. '20. (8) '2 Qiron. ix, '29, 92 THE BOOKS 01' genealogies.'^ The acts of Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, and his ways, and his sayings were also written in the story of the prophet Iddo.' So likewise the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, are said to be written in the book of Jehu, the son of Hanani ;^ which Jehu is proved, by ano- ther passage in Scripture,^ to have been a pro- phet. The acts of Uzziah, first and last, and also the acts of Hezekiah, the prophet Isaiah is said to have written ; and many of the actions of Manasseh are said to be " written among the " sayings of the seers."^ These examples warrant the conclusion, that the transactions of the other reigns, though the writers are not specifically named, were inserted into '^ the books of the " Chronicles of the kings of Israel and of Judah;" those larger records, to which reference is so frequently made in the two books of the Old Testament now bearing the same name ; and also in the books of Kings, by persons invested with the prophetical character. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, their history was continued by Ezra and Nehemiah. Though it is not expressly asserted in the Scrip- tures, that these two holy men were prophets ; ^ yet we may be well assured that, if they had not been confessedly under the guidance of inspira- tion, their writings would not have been added, by the Jews, to the inspired books of the sacred (9) 2 Chron. xii. 15. (1) 2 Chron. xiii. 22. (2) 2 Chron. xx. 34. (3) 1 Kings xvi. 1. (4) 2 Chron. xxvi. 22. xxxii. 32. xxxiii. 19. (5) Nehcmiah, however, professes to act under the immediate guidance of God. Nehem. ii. 8, 18. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 93 volume, nor included by our Saviour, as will speedily appear to have been the case, among the canonical books of the Old Testament. The book of Joshua may owe its name, either to the subject of Avhich it treats, the establish- ment of the Israelites in the promised land, by Joshua, with an account of whose death, the narrative terminates, or to its having been actu- ally written by Joshua himself, with the excep- tion of the five concluding verses of the book, and, perhaps, of some other verses,^ which may have been inserted, for the purpose of elucidation. by one of the subsequent inspired writers, or by Ezra, when he collated the canon of Scripture. The opinion, however, that the book was written by Joshua, rests on much stronger grounds than the other. It is supported by the accordant sentiments of the earliest Jewish commentators ; by the passages in the book itself, which indicate that it was composed by a person contemporary with the events which he describes ;' and by a passage near the close of the book, which proves that Joshua himself wrote, at least, a part of its contents, and probably, therefore, the whole, with the exceptions mentioned above, " in the (6) Josh, xix 47, 48. The remark may a'so ajjply to xv. 13 — 19. — if tlie same expedition, when mentioned in Judjjesi. 10. be not there men- tioned, according to the manner in which some tliink tlie Hebrew words should be translated, as the recapitulation of events which had taken place during the life of Joshua. (7) The author represents himself as one of those who had passed througli the river Jordan, when divided before the Israelites, — v. 1. — and speaks of Rahab, wlio hid the spies at Jericho, as still .alive. — vi. 25. 94 THE BOOKS OF " book of the Law of God ;"8 the volume whici Moses had deposited by the side of the ark. The predictions of Joshua, concerning the rebuilding of Jericho, are denominated in the first book of Kings " the words of God."^ And the book of Joshua is repeatedly noticed, either in the way of quotation, or of reference, in the New Testa- ment, as well as in the Jewish Scriptures.^ The book of Judges, comprising the history of the Israelites, during rather more than three hundred years ; a period in which their native governors were distinguished by the title of Judges, has been ascribed to different authors. It is attributed, with the greatest probability, to Samuel ; as he was the last of the Judges ; as he is known to have written a subsequent part of the Jewish history, and as a comparison of some passages in the book itself, shews it to have been written in his time. Some of these passages, stating that the events which they relate hap- pened " in those days, when there was no king " in Israel," ^ imply, that the book was written when there was a king, namely, after the acces- sion of Saul ; while another passage,'^ which describes the Jebu sites to be still dwelling in Jerusalem, proves it to have been composed before David ascended the throne of Israel ; since immediately after that event he expelled (8) xxiv. 23. (9) 1 Kings xvi. 34. See also Josh. vi. 26. (1) As 1 Chron. ii. 7. x i. 15. Isaiah xxviii. 21. Acts vii. 45. Heb- xi. 30, 31. xiii. 5. James ii. 25. (2) Judges xvii. 6- xviii. 1. xix. 1. xxi. 25. (3) Judges i. 21. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 95 them.* Quotations are taken from this book, or references made to it, in both Testaments.-^' The book of Ruth, which records, with much affecting simplicity, the short history of a JMoab- itish woman, who became a proselyte to the Jewish faith, and was an ancestor of David, belongs also to the times of the Judffes.^ The writer is not certainly known ; but is generally supposed by Jews, as well as Christians, to have been Samuel. It was, evidently, not written until after tlie birth of David ;^ nor, probably, until David was rendered an object of general attention, by being anointed king. A principal purpose of the writer, is to shew that David, in conformity with the prophecy respecting the Messiah, who w^as to spring for him, was regu- larly descended from Judah. Tlie genealogy is confirmed, with a direct allusion to lluth, by Saint Matthew.8 The two books of Samuel carry on the history of the Israelites, during a period of about one hun- dred and fifty years, from the birth of Samuel to the close of the reign of David. As Samuel is expressly declared, in a passage already quoted, from the first book of Chronicles,^ to have re- corded together with Nathan and Gad, the actions of David : there appears no improbability in the opinion maintauied by the early Jewish com- mentators, and adopted by many learned chris- tians, that Samuel composed the first twenty-four (4) 2 Sam. v. (5) As 1 Sam. xii. 9, 11. Sam. xi. 21. Isaiah ix. 4. X. 2G. Hel). xi. 32. (6) Ruth i. 1. (7) iv. 22. (8) Mat. i. 3,0. (9) 1 Chron. xxix. 29. 96 THE BOOKS OF , chapters of the first book : ^ and that Nathan and Gad were the inspired writers, who continued his work. Several very noble prophecies are contained in these books. Our Saviour refers, pointed^, to the first book,^ when vindicating, on a particular occasion, the conduct of his dis- ciples : and it is to be observed, that in the Hebrew canon, the two books were considered as forming but one. The latter portion, however, now called the second book, is not unnoticed in the New Testament.^ The two books of Kings, which form only one book in the Hebrew canon, continue the history, during nearly a hundred and thirty years, to the Babylonian captivity. The author of them is not ascertained. The uniformity of the style and manner, throughout both of them, affords a presumptive argument, that the whole was ar- ranged by one person. And the prevailing opinion is, that they were compiled and abridged by Ezra, or some other inspired person, from the larger accounts of the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah, which have been already men- tioned as written by Nathan, Gad, Ahijah, and other succeeding prophets. To these, or similar records, frequent reference is made.'^ In these books, many striking predictions are contained. Each of these books is authoritatively cited by our Saviour:^ and the first book is afterwards quoted and referred to by his apostles.^ (1) His death is related in the beginnin<:f of xxv. (2) Mat. xii. 3, 4. (3) Helj. i. 5. (4) 1 Kings xi. 41. xiv. '29. and in various otiier places. (5) Mat. xii. 42. Luke iv, 25—27. (G) Romans xi. 2 — 4. James v. 17, 18. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 97 The two books of Chronicles, originally re- garded as one by the Jews, recapitulate the Jewisli History, from the reign of Saul to the Babylonian captivity : confirming, by their agree- ment, the historical books of Scripture already noticed ; and adding various genealogical tables and other particulars, either not stated in those books, or less copiously detailed. They are sup- posed to have been compiled from the records specified in the preceding paragraph ; and pro- bably by Ezra. This account of the manner in which the books of Chronicles, and also of King^, were composed, is confirmed by an observation which has been made by persons, who have studied them with accuracy : namely, that some of the expressions contained in them, are those of contemporary description ; while others denote that the writer is recording transactions which had long taken place. The books of Chronicles ■were compiled after the captivity ; as they men- tion the restoration of the Jews under Cyrus. '^ They contain occasional predictions. And the first book, and consequently the second, which in the days of our Saviour, was a part of it, received undoubted sanction, by being quoted in the New Testament.^ The book of Ezra, so denominated from the name of its author, takes up the Jewish history from the second book of Chronicles, with a repetition of the two last verses, of which this (7) 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. (8) Mat. i. Luke iii. Sec also Heb. i. 5. and compare 1 Chron. xxix. 10, 11. with Mat. vi. 13. and Rev. v. 12, 13. H 98 THE BOOKS OF continuation opens ; and relates the transactions of nearly eighty years. Part of the work, namely, from the eighth verse of the fourth chapter to the twenty-seventh verse of the seventh chapter, is composed in the Chaldee tongue; probably, from a desire in the historian, to recite, with accurate fidelity, the public letters, discourses and decrees there mentioned, which were framed originally in that language. Of Ezra himself, I have already had such repeated occasion to take incidental notice, that much needs not to be ^dded. He was descended from Aaron, and succeeded Zerubbabel in the government of Judaea ; which he held about ten or twelve years. We afterwards find him heartily co-operating in the pious labours of his successor Nehemiah.^ The book of Nehemiah is a continuation of Ezra's history during thirty-six additional years ; and on that account, though confessedly written by the former, was subjoined, in the Hebrew canon, to the work of the latter. With Nehemiah the sacred history terminates, about four hundred and nine years before the Christian era. There is some authority for the opinion of the Jewish writers, that he assisted Ezra in collecting the canonical Scriptures.^ I do not know that there is any particular and separate reference in the New Testament to the books of Ezra and Nehe- miah, or to the book of Esther. Their title, however, to a place among the inspired Avritings, will be established by the testimonies, yet to be (9) Ncl.em. viii. 2, G. (I) 2 Maccab, ii 13. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 99 produced, of our Saviour and his apostles, to the whole collective body of the Jewish Scriptures, of which those three books indisputably formed a part. The book of Esther relates the history of a Jewish captive, who became the wife of Ahasue- ius, king of Persia, and the instrument in the hands of the Supreme Being, by which a signal deliverance was wrought for her countrymen. Ezra, among others, has been accounted the author of the book ; but on that subject nothing is certainly known. It has also been a question, which of the Persian monarchs is intended by the denomination Ahasuerus. The opinion, however, of the Jewish historian Josephus, who affirms Artaxerxes Longimanus to be the person, is deemed to rest on the most solid foundations : and consequently, the events related, took place about four hundred and fifty years before Christ. The fidelity of the narrative is attested by the annual solemnity with which the Jews, after their return from the captivity, continued to Celebrate the festival of Purim; a feast instituted-' in consequence of the deliverance, which they experienced, through the intercession of Esther. It is observed by the Jews to this day. From the examination of the historical books, we may proceed to consider the remaining canoni- cal books of the Old Testament, according to the order in which they stand in the Bible. (2) Esther iii. 7, and ix. 22, 28. It is also called, among the Jews the feast of Haman and Mordecai. H 2 100 THE BOOKS OF The book of Job has been ascribed to various authors. The subject also has been sometimes regarded as a poetical fiction, sometimes as an allegory, rather than as a real history. The reality, however, of the history, though the style be poetical, is confirmed, not only by the uniform testimony of eastern tradition ; but by the prophecies of Ezekiel, in which the Deity repeatedly^ mentions Job, as a man of extraor- dinary righteousness, in conjimction with Daniel and Noah ; and by the reference made by St. James^ to the patience of Job, and to its reward, as an example and encouragement to suffering christians. The land of Uz, where Job resided, is supposed, with much probability, to have been in Edom : though by some writers it is placed in Arabia Deserta. From the longevity of Job, and from his silence, respecting the JNlosaic dispensation, he is thought to have lived during the period, when the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. The style of the work, and the cus- toms incidentally described in it, bear the marks of patriarchal antiquity. And, it appears to have been composed either by Job himself, or from contemporary memorials, committed to writing by himself or his friends. The book of Job contains most sublime descriptions of the power and other (3) Ezek. xiv. 14, 16, 18, 20. (4) James V. 11. " Ye have heard of the patience of Job ; " mu\ have " seen l/te end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." A form of expression very unlikely to be applied to a fictitious character, or to fictitious events. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 101 attributes of God ; and is expressly cited by St. Paul as sacred Scripture.-^ Of the Psalms, the principal part was composed by David ; and his name has been, ' in conse- quence, affixed to the book. They are a collection of sacred hymns, written on various occasions, and under various circumstances. Some of them were prepared for particular solemnities in the Jewish worship : others appear to have been designed, generally, to celebrate the glorious perfections of God : and others to have been drawn from the Psalmist, by the situations of joy or of sorrow, in which he was successively involved. Hence they abound in sentiments of the purest devotion ; in grand and animated descriptions of the works of the Almighty, and of his dealings with men ; and in the warmest effusions of prayer and praise, of gratitude and thanksgiving, of humble contrition, and of pious hope. They abound, also, in the most impressive and consoling predictions. One greater than David, is continually presenting himself, even, Christ the Redeemer. Divine inspiration so guided the Psalmist, that in many instances, his Avords, at the same time that they referred, with sufficient precision, to the circumstances of his own life, prefigured in terms the most accurate, and the most sublime, the humiliation, the suf- ferings, the triumphant resuiTcction, and the eternal kingdom of the Messiah. The book of Psalms is continually cited, as of inspired (5) 1 Cor. iii. ly. 102 THE BOOKS OF authority, by our Saviour and his apostles ; and the prophetic import of many separate passages ilhistrated and explained.^ The book of Proverbs, which was composed by Solomon, according to the declarations at the commencement, and in a subsequent part of the work,'^ consists partly of maxims of religious instruction, partly of lessons of prudence and discretion, drawn up, conformably to the custom of the east, in a pointed and sententious form. The inspiration of Solomon is manifest, from the accounts concerning him, which are supplied by the books of Kings and Chronicles. Learned men have shewn that this book has furnished many heathen authors with their brightest senti- ments. It is imitated, in thought and expression, by several of the sacred writers who succeeded Solomon : and is cited in various parts of the New Testament.^ The book of Ecclesiastes is another of the compositions of Solomon ;9 and is, commonly, supposed to have been written towards the close of his life, when distress and anguish had re- claimed him from idolatry. Its object is to convince men^, by an examination of particulars, that every earthly possession is vain in its nature, and necessarily accompanied with anxiety : and (G) Tlie Sacred wrKers have fixed the sense, by iheir citations of nearly fifty distinct Psalms. The titles prefixed In our Bible to the several Psalms are often of conjectural authority ; and sometimes indicate not tlie comi)oser of the Psalm, but the person appointed to set it to musip. (7) Prov. i. 1. XXV. 1. (8) See Luke xiv. 10. Rom. xii. IG, 17, 20. 1 Pet. iv. 8. V. 5. James iv. 6. (9) Eccl. i. 1. THE OLD TESTAMENT. lOiJ thence to lead them, piously to fix their hearts on that state, in which there will be no vanity nor vexation of spirit. In the course of his argument, the writer sometimes produces, with- out previous notice, the absurd sayings and tenets of supposed objectors, for the purpose of refuting them* From a want of attention to this circum- stance, we occasionally hear, at the present day^ positions asserted on the authority of Solomon, which he quoted only to condemn. The con- clusion of the work is worthy of any inspired author : " Fear God, and keep his command- " ments ; for this is the whole duty of man. " For God shall bring every work into judg- " ment, with every secret thing, whether it be *' good, or whether it be evil."^ The book called the Song of Solomon, from the name of its author, is generally allowed to have been composed by him, as a nuptial poem, on his marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh. Solomon is related to have written above a thou- sand songs or poems ;^ of which this alone (with the exception, perhaps, of some few of the Psalms which may have been his productions) was admitted into the canon of the Jewish Scriptures. This single circumstance appears to intimate, that under the allegorical veil of nuptial emblems, a higher meaning was concealed : and the opinion seems confirmed by various passages in the work, not easily admitting a literal interpretation. Most commentators, therefore, have concluded (1) Ecd. xii. 13,, 11 coiiipaic 2 Cor. v. 10 (2) 1 Kin-, iv. 32. 104 THE BOOKS OF that, in shadowing out things divine by earthly figures, this book has a typical reference to the then future connection between Christ and the Christian Church : a connection which, in the Psalms, and also in the New Testament, is represented, in accommodation to human ideas, under the figurative allusion, of the closest and most affectionate, of all human connections, that of marriage.^ The remaining canonical books of the Old Testament are confessedly the works of the several prophets, whose names they respectively bear. To declare to the Jews the impending judgments of God, for idolatry and other sins ; to comfort that people, when in affliction and captivity, with promises of deliverance ; and to denounce, against their oppressors, the retributive punishments merited by their cruelty and rapine, were among the special objects of the prophetical commission. But the most noble and important office of prophetic inspiration, was to bear testimony to the Messiah ; to predict his coming, the circumstances of his birth, of his life, and of his sufferings ; his victory over death, and the grave, and the powers of darkness ; the diffusion of his religion over the face of the earth ; the final restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel to their own land, in the faith of the Saviour, whom (3) Psalm xlv. 2 Cor. xi. 2. Ephes. v. 25—32. Rev. .xix. 7, 8. xx. 9. xxii. 17. The covenant, between God and the Jewish church, is frequently denoted in the pro|)het.s by emblems borrowed from marriagfe. See Isaiah, Yiv. 5. Ixii. 5. Ezek. xvi &c. Hosea ii. 16. and various other passages ii(> the Old Tcjtamenf. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 105 they pierced, and the complete union of Jews and Gentiles, of all countries, tongues, and nations, into one fold, under one shepherd. That the prophets were divinely inspired, the speedy accomplishment of many of their predictions, attested to their own contemporaries. To us, who live, after the lapse of numerous ages in which so many additional predictions have been verified ; who know, that the great Redeemer has suffered, and performed, what they only foretold, who see, at this moment, the predictions delivered by Moses, the earliest of the prophets, nearly four thousand years ago, verifying, in every quarter of the world, in the fate of the Jews, " scattered " among all people, from one end of the earth to " the other, an astonishment, and a proverb, and " a bye-word among all nations;" to us, the kind of evidence, which was bestowed on the contem- poraries of the prophets, in a degree sufficiently convincing, comes with an accumulation of force irresistible to every thing but ignorance or obdu- racy. To this evidence the New Testament adds its fullest attestation. The proofs which it supplies of the inspiration of the separate books of prophecy, will be noticed, in the short account of each book about to be given. But in this place it is proper to mention some of the many testimonies, which are afforded to the writings of the prophets, taken collectively. " Prophecy " came not in old time by the will of man ; but *•' holy men of God spake a-s they were moved by 106 THE BOOKS OF " the Holy Ghost." * — " God, at sundry times, " and in divers manners, spake in time past unto " the fathers, by the prophets." ^ — " If they hear " not Moses and the prophets, neither would " they be persuaded, though one rose from the " dead."^ — " Beginning at Moses, and all the " prophets, he (Christ) expounded unto them " in all the Sqriptures, the things concerning " himself."^ Isaiah prophesied, as we learn from himself,*.^ in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He probably did not enter upon his oifice, until towards the close of Uzziah's reign, about seven hundred and fifty eight years before Christ ; and he was certainly living about forty-five years afterwards, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah.^ His work, with the exception of some historical parts contained in it, is composed, according to the general custom of the Hebrew prophets,^ in metre. It is characterized by grandeur of con- ception and elevation of style ; and abounds in passages of the sublimest poetry. The predictions; of Isaiah were addressed, principally, to the kingdom of Judah ; though he occasionally adverts to the ten tribes. He proclaims the impendmg destruction of the Assyrian empire ; (4) 2 Pet. i. 21. (5) Hob. i. 1. (G) Luke xvi. 31. (7) Luko xxiv. 27. (8) Laiah i. 1. (9) 2 Kiiifrs xx. 1. (1) On Uie subject of Hebrew poetry, and tlie discriminating exceUencies of of the several Hebrew i)oets, consult Bishop Lowth's admirable Prelections on. Hebrew Poetry, his preliminary discourse to his new Translation of Isaiah, cuid Archbibiiop Ncwcouic's TrantlaUou of tlie minor propiietii. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 the utter and perpetual desolation of Babylon, and the subversion of the Philistines, Syrians, Egyptians, and other surrounding nations. And in his predictions concerning the Messiah, and the final glories of the Christian Church, he expati- ates with such accuracy, and such magnificence of description, that he has been emphatically denominated the evangelical prophet. His book is quoted, with high distinction, by Christ and the apostles.2 Jeremiah was called to the prophetic ministry six hundred and twenty-eight years before the Christian era, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah king of Judah ; and continued in the exercise of it during rather more than forty years, until the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.^ In his writings, which ai'e distinguished for precision and energy, and for their peculiar pathos, the Babylonian captivity^ the time of its continuance, the restoration of the Jews, the destruction of Babylon, and of some other nations, and many cu'cumstances respecting the birth and office of the Messiah, are promi- nent features. He is specifically mentioned and quoted in the new Testament.'*' Ezekiel prophesied in Mesopotamia, on the banks of the river Chebar, where he had been placed, with many of his captive countrymen, by (2) As in Mfltt. iv. 14. viii. 17. xii. 17. xjii. 14. Mark vii. 6. Luke iii. 4. iv. 17. John xii. 39. 41. Acts viii. 28. xxviii. 25. Romans ix. 27. X 16, 20, &c. (3) Jerein. i. 1—3. (4), Matt. ii. 17, 18. xvi. 14. l08 THE BOOKS OF the Chaldeans.^ His prophecies, the chief portion of which is not written in poetical measure, are remarkable for indignant vehemence of style. They are darkened by mysterious visions : and contain many things yet to be accomplished. Of some parts, however, as of the destruction of the Ammonites, Moabites, Philistines, and other countries, by Nebuchadnezzar, the accomplish- ment was speedy ; and to the irrecoverable desolation of Tyre, according to his predictions, many revolving ages have borne witness. Saint John, in the book of Revelations, appears to allude, in a pointed manner, to Ezekiel.^ Daniel, who was of the royal house of Judah, was carried captive six hundred and six years before Christ, with Jehoiachim, from Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar ; and was advanced, by that monarch, and his successors, in consequence of Divine inspiration signally bestowed upon him, to the highest offices in the Babylonian empire. Amid the ensnaring allurements of his exalted condition, he exhibited, for the instruction of future ages, and of statesmen in particular, a glorious example of active and unshaken piety, and of steadfast obedience to the commandments of God, in defiance of all personal hazard, and of the crooked suggestions of worldly wisdom. He lived to see his countrymen return, on the accession of Cyrus, to their native land ; but being then nearly ninety years of age, he pro- (5) Ezek. i. 1 — 3 (6) Compare Rev. xix. 17. lo the end, and xx. 8, 9. wilh Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix lo 20, THE OLD TESTAMENT. 109 bably remained in Babylon. His predictions, which are written in prose, relate, principally, to the four great empires which succeeded each other, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman ; the precise time of the coming of Christ ; the rise and duration of Antichrist ; the final triumph, and universal prevalence of the Christian religion. Many of his prophecies have been fulfilled with such manifest precision, that some sceptical writers, with boldness equalled only by their folly, have asserted, in the face of demonstrative evidence to the contrary, that the predictions were written subsequently to the events which they describe. To the celebrated wisdom of Daniel, a memorable testimony is given by the contemporary prophet, Ezekiel ; ^ in whose predictions also the Supreme Being himself declares Daniel's extraordinary righteous- ness.s To these evidences is to be added the unequivocal attestation of our Saviour.^ Hosea was coeval with Isaiah. ^ His prophecies, which are couched in a style sententious and abrupt, and are attended with considerable ob- scurity, were addressed in part to Judah, but principally to Israel. Together with predictions relating to those kingdoms, he intermingles others respecting the Messiah. His book has the express sanction of the New Testament. ^ Joel was probably contemporary with Hosea : (7) Ezek. xxviii. 3. (8) Ezek. xiv. 14, 18, 20. (9) Matt. xxiv. 15- Mark xiii. 14. (I) See Hos. i. 1. and Isciiah i. 1. (2) Matt. ii. 15. ix. xii. 7. Romans ix. 25, 20. 110 THE BOOKS OF but the exact time in which he lived is not ascertained. His prophecies, which are animated with the most poetical descriptions, were addressed to the kingdom of Judah, and foretel, together with the invasion of the land of Judah by the Chaldeans, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Jlomans, the glories of the Christian dispen- sation. He is cited by the evangelical writers.^ Amos also lived during the earlier part of Hosea's ministry .4 His compositions, which are replete with boldness as well as elegance, chiefly relate to Israel ; though he occasionally menaces Judah, and other contiguous nations, with Divine judgments. The happy reign of the Messiah is also announced. Amos is twice quoted by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles.^ The period in which Obadiah delivered his short prophecy, consisting of denunciations against the Edomites, and promises of future restoration to the Jews, is not known : but is assigned, with probability, to the early part of the Babylonian captivity There is much beauty in his lanmiao-e. I do not know that a distinct and special reference to this single chapter has been observed in the New Testament. The book of Jonah relates the prophetic com- mission given to him against Nineveh; his refusal to undertake it, his punishment and deli- verance ; the repentance of the Ninevites ; the mortification of Jonah, at havino; been charged with prophetic threatnings, the accomplishment (:?) Ads ii. IG. Rom. x. 13. (4) Amos i. 1. (0) Acts vii. 12, 43. xv. 15, 17. THE OLD TESTAMENT. Ill of which was thus averted :^ and the condescend- ing expostulations of the Supreme Being with the angry prophet. Jonah appears to have lived in the reign of Jeroboam, the second of the name who was king of Israel, above eight hun- dred years before Christ.^ His language is gene- rally that of simple naiTative. According to the typical nature of the Jewish dispensation, the miracle by which Jonah was punished, was ap- pointed to prefigure the time of the continuance of Christ in the grave : and is thus applied by Christ himself.*^ Micah lived just before the destruction of Samaria,9 and prophesied both against Israel and against Judah. Together with the captivity of those kingdoms, and the destruction of their Assyrian oppressors ; he foretold the birth-place of the Messiah, and the exaltation of his domi- nion over the whole earth. His language is extremely energetic as well as beautiful. A re- ference to one of his prophecies, when it had been delivered above a hundred years, saved the life of Jeremiah.^ In the New Testament, his prophetic character is fully confirmed.^ The time when Nahum lived is doubtful ; but from a comparison of certain passages in his (6) It is apparent from iv. 2. lliat the dread of experiencing^ siicli a mor- tification was the cause of his original reluctance to be the mcssenj,a'r employed. (7) 2 Kintimonie~ of the Fathers to the several books of the New Testauicu' 128 THE BOOKS OF Clement of Rome, another of the companions of the same apostle, ^ quotes it with the highest respect ; and also the Gospel of St. Luke. Hermas, incontestably a writer of the earliest Christian antiquity, and usually supposed to be the Hermas mentioned by St. Paul, manifestly alludes to the two Gospels already named, and also to that of St. John ; and probably to the Acts of the Apostles. Ignatius, who became bishop of Antioch, about thirty-seven years after the ascension of Christ, repeatedly alludes to the Gospels of Matthew and John. Polycarp, who had conversed with many persons who had seen our Saviour, had himself been instructed by the Apostles, and was by them appointed bishop of Smyrna, alludes to the Gospel of St. Matthew, and, perhaps, to that of St. Luke, and certainly to the Acts, in a letter yet extant ; which, though very short, contains nearly forty clear allusions to the books of the New Testament, particularly to the writings of St. Paul. Papias, who was a hearer of St. John and the companion of Polycarp, speaking of the Gospels of St. Mat- thew and St. Mark, mentions them in a manner which shews that their genuineness was a fact, which had been long recognized. Let it be ob- served, that all the witnesses already quoted, had lived and conversed with some of the apostles ; and that by one or more of them, attestation is are recited, at lenfjth, by Dr. Lanlner : and from his work a judicious coinpcn- dium of the principal attestations is ) Acts xvi. 6. xviu. 23. (7) Gal. i. 6. 138 TILE BOOKS OF way for the coming of the Messiah ; that it was thenceforth, as to its ceremonial rites and ordi- nances, totally abolished f and that to look to it for salvation, was, in effect, to renounce all reli- ance on redemption through Jesus Christ. He concludes with various pertinent and practical admonitions. Ephesus, a city of Ionia, was the capital of the whole region denominated under the Roman government the proconsular Asia. St. Paul had established a Christian Church there, partly in the year A. D. 53 ; and partly in a subsequent residence of two years, beginning A. D, .54. He wrote this Epistle during his first imprisonment ^ at Rome, and probably about A. D. 61. It was occasioned by the intelligence, which the apostle had received, concerning the state of the Ephesian Church.^ In the former part of the letter he affectionately exhorts the Ephesians to steadfastness in the genuine doctrines of the Gospel, and enlarges on the free mercy of God^ as extended to the Gentiles ; intimating that his zeal in upholding the Christian privileges of the Gentile converts had been the cause of his present iraprisonment.2 In the latter part he delivers many practical injunctions, and points out the moral duties peculiarly incumbent on indivi- duals, in consequence of their different relative situations. Philippi, a city of Macedonia, was visited by (8) Gal. iii, iv, v. (9) Ephes. iv. 1. vi. 20. (1) Ephes. i. 15. (2) Kjthes. iii. 1. Sec Acts xxii. 2\, «!»c. THE NEW TESTAMENT. V30 St. Paul, A. D. 51, and at least once afterwards. His Christian converts there, who had already given a strong proof of their faithful regard for him,3 hearing of his imprisonment at Rome, sent one of their number, Epaphroditus, to supply his pecuniary wants, an^ to inquire con- cerning his welfare. By his hands, St. Paul returned this Epistle, which appears to have been written,^ after a residence of some length, at Rome, and probably about A. D. 62, towards the close of his imprisonment.'^ It abounds in expressions of affection for the Philippians ; and in doctrinal and practical exhortations,, similar, in several respects, to those contained in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Colosse was a large city of Phrygia in Asia Elinor, which has been thought not to have been visited by St. Paul himself ; ^ but to have received the Gospel, through the preacliing of his " dear fellow-servant Epaphras."^ In that case it might probably be to confirm, by the sanction of his own apostolical authority, the doctrine preached by Epaphras,^ that St. Paul addressed his Epistle to the Colossians. Yet, the known fact of St. Paul, having already visited Phrygia (3) Philipp. IV. 15, 16. (4) Philipp. ii. 25. iv. 18. (5) Philiiip i. 12—17. ii. 23, 21. (6) Coloss. ii. 1. (7) Col. i. 7, and tee iv. 12, 13. (8) Epaphras, who was himself a Colossian, and was now at Rome, Coloss. iv. 12, 13, had probably been sent, by the Church at Colosse, for a purpose similar to that for which Epaphroditus had been dispatched by the Philippians. We find afterwards, Philem. 23, that he was imprisoned as well as St. Paul, and we cannot doubt that it was for the same cause, the preaching of the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles. 140 THE LOOKS OF twice, and having in the latter journey, gone over all the country in order, strengthening the disciples,^ concurs with the tenor of the Epistle itself, in which affection and authority are hap- pily blended, to confirm the supposition, that St. Paul had originally founded the church at Colosse; and that Epaphras had afterwards laboured, with fidelity and dihgence, for its edification. The epistle was written during the apostle's imprisonment at llome.i And the striking resemblance, which, in many passages, it bears, both in sentiment and language, to the Epistle to the Ephesians, affords a very strong presumption, that the one epistle was composed before the train of thought, suggested by the other, had quitted the mind of the writer. They appear also to have been sent by the same mes- senger.2 Thessalonica, the chief city of Macedonia, had been visited A. D. 51, by St. Paul ; who, being driven away, after a short residence, by a perse- cution, raised by the Jews,'-^ had soon afterwards sent Timothy thither^ again from Athens, to estabhsh the church. Timothy returned to St. Paul at Corinth ; ^ from which place, probably A. D. 52, that apostle addressed his first Epistle to the Thessalonians. Among other topics which he introduces, he thanks God for the Christian (9) Acts xvi. 6. xviii. 23. (1) Coloss, iv. 3. 18. (2) Tjchicus — Eph. vi. 21,22. Coloss. iv. 7, 9. Onesimus, as being of Colosse, is joined witii Tychicus as a messenger to that city. (3) Actsxvii. (I) 1 Thess. iii. 1,2. (5) Acts xviii. 5. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 141 attainments and conduct of. the Thessalonian converts, notwithstanding the opposition of those among them,, who were enemies to the Gospel : dwells on his own affection for them : and exhorts them not to faint under persecution, and to abound more and more in Christian virtues, especially in purity : intimates that to despise his admonitions, is to despise God, by whose inspiration he speaks : warns them against immoderate sorrow for the dead ; encourages them with the prospect of the resurrection ; and expatiates on the suddenness of the coming of Christ. The exhortations of Saint Paul, to be at all times prepared for the tribunal of Christ, appear to have been, in part, misunderstood by the Thessalonians ; and to have impressed them with the opinion, that the dissolution of the world, and the day of judgment, were at hand. To correct this misapprehension, seems to have been the leading object of the apostle in his second letter; which was probably written v»'ithin. some few months after the former. He instructs them, that before the arrival of that awful period, an apostacy should take place in the church of Christ, under the influence of a hostile potentate, figuratively denominated the " man of sin," " the " son of perdition ;" whom the apostle describes, as exalting himself against the Divine jurisdic- tion, and as seating himself in the temple of God, and usurping the power of God : terms which clearly denote an ecclesiastical power 142 THE LOOKS OF assuming to itself, a pre-eminence over the Christian church, and a right to supersede and abrogate the laws of the Gospel. St. Paul refers the Thessalonians to the information which, when present, he had communicated to them respecting this subject : and concludes, according to his general custom, with some practical admonitions. Timothy, the disciple and companion of St. Paul, had been left at Ephesus, with episcopal authority to quiet the disorders, and rectify the abuses prevalent in the church of that city.^* To instruct and animate him, in the execution of this office, was the main purpose of the first Epistle which St. Paul addressed to him. It contains many directions concerning the adminis- tration of Divine worship, the government of the church, and the qualifications of bishops and other ministers of the Gospel : predicts the rise and success of apostate teachers ; and solemnly calls on Timothy to be faithful in the discharge of his duty. The epistle was probably written about A. D. 64.7 St. Paul, when he wrote his second Epistle to Timothy, was evidently a prisoner at Rome. ^ This imprisonment appears, from various cir- cumstances, not to have been that which is recorded in the conclusion of the Acts; but a (G) 1 Tim. i. 3. (7) For the elucidation of the controverted date of these two epistles to Timothy, see Dr. Paley's Horae Paulinsc, p. 323, and Bishop Pretyman'.s KiiMTipnts of Christian Theology, vol. ii. p. 420, &c. (8) 2 Tim. i. 8, IG, 17. ii. '^^- ^°^- '• P- 368. 156 THE BOOKS OF arguments in the present chapter, wliich have tended to establish the conclusion, that the writers of the New Testament were inspired, may fitly be closed with a brief statement of the evidence which the Scriptures themselves advance or suggest. In the first place then, let it be considered whether it is not a thing in itself utterly improbable that the Supreme Being, after havinc: ordained that the relimous books of those who lived under the introductory Mosaic dispensation, should be written by inspired penmen, should leave the Christian world to depend for the records of its religion on unin- spired authority. In the next place, let it be remembered that Christ, in addition to his per- sonal instruction antecedently to his crucifixion, and to those delivered in the forty days after his resurrection, during which he continued with his disciples, " speaking of the things pertaining " to the kingdom of God," <^ promised them " the " Comforter," the Holy Spirit, " the Spirit of " Truth," who should teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever Christ had said unto them ; and should guide them into all truth, and abide with them for ever.^ The aid of this heavenly guide was assuredly not withheld from them, when they were engaged in delivering written instruc- tions, whether in the form of Gospels or of Epistles, for the edification of the Christian (())Aclsi. 3. (7) John xiv. 16 — 26. THE NEW TESTAISrENT. 157 cliureli, to tlic end uf time. The very words of the promise, that it should abide with them for ever, contradict the supposition : and the more so, as we know that the fidl inspiration of the Holy Ghost was specially promised always to attend them on a lighter occasion, namely, when they were to make their defence before magis- trates.^ Now, five of the writers of the New Testament were of the number of the apostles, to whom all these promises were personally made. Of the remaining three, St. Paul repeat- edly asserts his own inspiration, and his equality, in every point, with all the other apostles.^ With respect to the others,. St. Mark and St. Luke, we cannot conceive that God, after inspiring the writers of two Gospels, would leave two other Gospels containing additional facts con- cerning the life of Christ, and also a very important history of the early Christian Church, to be written by uninspired men : nor that these latter writings would have been immediately placed on a level with the former, as it has already been shewn that they were, unless the early Christians had known, what they appear to have unanimously asserted, that St. jMark and St. Luke were filled with the Holy Gliost. Even if it were supposed, though there is no ground for the supposition, that these two writers were not actually inspired ; but wrote, (8) Matt. X. 19, 20. Markxiii. 11. Lukexii. 11, 12. (9) Gal. i. 11, 12. 1 Cor.ii. 10, 1.3. 2 Cor xi. 5. xii. 11. I Thcs. iv. H, 158 THE TJOOKS OF the one under the superintendence of St. Peter ; the other of St. Paul ; the Divine authority of the writings would remain the same. Finally, the fulfilment of predictions recorded in the New Testament forms an additional link in the chain of proofs, by which its inspiration is established. That the Scriptures of the New Testament have descended pure to our hands, is evinced by the accordance of the early versions with our present Greek text : by the collations which have taken place of great numbers of existing manuscripts, some of them extremely ancient ; which collations, while they shew that mistakes, as it was to be expected, have been made in the individual manuscripts by the transcribers, prove those mistakes to be of trifling importance, and afford the means of correcting them : and by the utter impossibility that either negligence or design could have introduced, without detection, any material alteration into a book dispersed among millions, in widely distant countries, and among many discordant sects ; regarded by them all as the rule of their faith and practice ; and in constant and regular use among them all in public worship, in private meditation, and in their vehement and unceasing controversies with each other. Receiving then, on these solid grounds of rational conviction, the Holy Scriptures with thankfulness and reverence as the word of God ; regard and study them daily as the rule to THE NEW TESTAMENT. 159 which you are to conform every thought and word and action : and as the rule by which all your thoughts and words and actions will be tried, at the last day before the judgment-seat of Christ. IGO EVIDENCES OF THE CHAP. VI. SUMMARY OP THE EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. I. If the authenticity and inspiration of tlie Scriptures have been established in the two pre- ceding chapters ; then the truth of the Christian religion has also been demonstrated. This nre- P position is self-evident. Nay, if there had re- mained any doubt concerning the inspiration of the writers of the Old and New Testament ; if it had not pleased God that the Bible should be able to claim a higher character than that of an authentic narrative written by uninspired men ; Christianity still w^ould have been proved. If the predictions there recorded were actually delivered ; if the facts then related actually took place ; in other words, if the Bible had merely spoken truth, through the aid of human infor- mation and veracity ; the certainty of the Chris- tian religion would still have been indisputable. If the miraculous circumstances, which, accord- ing to antecedent prophecies, were to charac- terize the birth, the lifc^ the death, and the CHRISTTAN IIELIGION". l6l resurrection of the Messiah, all united in Jesus Christ; he was the Messiah. If the predictions which Jesus Christ deliA'ered were literally fulfilled; if the supernatural powers which he engaged to bestow on his disciples were punc- tually conferred ; he was what he affirmed himself to be, the Son of God, the promised and long expected Redeemer. But when the real state of the case is taken into the account ; when we consider that, to render knowledge perfect, and to ensure fidelity from suspicion, the superintending aid of the Holy Spirit of God ever accompanied the sacred penmen ; we might presume, that every possibility of doubt, as to the certainty of the religion thus introduced and confirmed to mankind, must vanish from the breasts of miprejudiced enquirers. The question, therefore, of the truth of Christianity might .safely be rested on these grounds. It may be of use, however, on account of the supreme im- portance of the subject, and from regard to the difference in the degree of force, with which experience shews that the different arguments strike different minds ; to subjoin to the fore- going remarks some collateral arguments, which evince that the Christian religion came from God. 11. The general state of the world, at the time when Christianity was promulgated, was confess- edly such as to render a further revelation of the will of God highly desirable to mankind. The M 162 EVIDENCES OF THE Heathen nations, Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, were immersed in the grossest idolatry. It was not merely that they worshipped stocks and stones. Their supposed deities were usually represented of characters so detestibly flagitious, that we should rather have expected them to have been singled out as objects of abhorrence than of adoration. We know with how much greater proneness and facility men imitate a pattern of vice than of virtue. We know how extremely imperfect are the piety and morality of the collective body of Christians, who nomi- nally, at least, profess to take their holy and sinless Redeemer for their model, and to look for eternal happiness or misery, as the certain conseqiience of their conduct in the present scene of probation. We might, therefore, form, by speculative reasoning, a just opinion of the state of morals, likely to be prevalent among nations who worshipped Jupiter, and Bacchus, and Mercury, and their associates in the heathen Pantheon. Turn to history, and you find the display of depravity, which your imagination had pictured, delineated in still more glaring colours. The scattered examples of eminent virtue, recorded in the annals of Greece and Rome, examples the brighter on account of their scarcity and of the gloomy contrast with which they are surrounded, militate not against the truth of this general representation. The occasional efforts of some philosophers, to intro- duce better principles and better practice, had CHRISTIAN RELIGION iGS no effect on the great mass of the community. The philosophers themselves were frequently stained with open vice. INIany of their tenets were absurd and even impious; and the rest were too obscure and too refined for popular apprehension, or too little interesting for popular attachment : and being founded on conjecture and theoretical arguments, carried with them no sanction which could ensiu'e steadfast belief or habitual obedience. Socrates, the wisest of the philosophers, avowed, in the strongest terms, the necessity for the interposition of a Divine instructor for the reformation of the world. From the heathens cast your eyes on the Jews. What had been the fruit of a dispensation deli- vered to their forefathers by the voice of God himself, confirmed by unnumbered miracles, up- held by national rewards and national judgments, and enforced by a long succession of prophets ? Little more among the bulk of the people, for T speak not of the more virtuous exceptions, than that they were at length purified from idolatry. In other respects they were proverbially proud, selfish, and intolerant ; placing their confidence on their groundless traditions, rather than on the Scriptures ; on their descent from Abraham, rather than on personal righteousness ; on the observance of ceremonial ordinances, rather than on the practice of piety and good works. Such beinc: the general condition of mankind, in consequence of their having rendered thus ineffi- cacious, by their own frailty and perverseness, lt)4 EVIDENCES OF THE the invitations and motives to righteousness, which their merciful Creator had, for so many- ages, set before them, partly by the light of natu- ral conscience, and partly by special revelation ; it perhaps was not wholly unreasonable Inimbly to hope, that He who had already done so much, of his own free will, for his undeserving and sinful creatures, might yet, in his infinite mercy, do somewhat more. At least it was evident, that if he should vouchsafe to them a further disco- very of his good pleasure, and encourage them with additional aids and incitements to virtue ; such a dispensation would be a blessing, for which the warmest gratitude would be a most inadequate return. Now, if a considerate man, antecedently to all knowledge of the Christian plan of redemption, had been asked what parti- culars, consistent with the attributes of God and the situation of mankind, he should be princi- pally solicitous to find in a future revelation ; what, after full reflection, would have been his reply ? He would have replied, that the utmost stretch of his hopes and of his wishes extended to the following points : full assurance that, on proper and practicable terms, liis past sins and even his future offences might be forgiven ; a clear and accurate delineation of the path in which he ought to walk ; the promise of Divine help to assist him in following that path, and in regaining it, if he should go astray ; and the certain inheritance, if he should prove obedient, of a life of happiness beyond the grave. All CHllISTIAN IIELIGION. 165 these points are offered and ascertained in the Christian Revelation. Do these facts bear no witness to the truth of Christianity ? III. The truths which the New Testament reveals or confirms respecting the Deity, and the lessons of morality which it teaches, are sucli as thoroughly to accord with the expectations and conclusions which reason, unprejudiced and enlightened, would form. And, thus the sacred book approves itself worthy of God, to that faculty which he has bestowed upon us, that it might be, subordinately to Revelation, our constant guide. The power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God are manifest in his works. His moral government of the world, his love of virtue, his abhorrence of guilt, were evinced, as St. Paul teaches us,i even to the Gentile nations, by the frame and administration of the universe. And as virtue and vice did not appear to be regularly and fully rewarded or punished, under his moral government in the present life ; a presumption thence arose, that another stage of existence remained behind, in which human actions should receive the recompence, which they had severally deserved. Take the Christian Scriptures into your hands ; and behold all those suggestions of reason established, illustrated, and expanded to perfection. Behold all the duties which a creature, such as man, can owe to God ; piety, devotion, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, (I) Rom. i. 18—21. 166 EVIDENCES or THE cheerful resignation, patient confidence, grateful obedience, reverend fear, habitual, supreme, and unshaken love; described in terms the most precise, inculcated in language the most energetic, recommended by motives the most persuasive, and enforced by sanctions the most awful. Con- sider, in the next place, the instructions delivered in that sacred volume, respecting the moral obligations owing from man to man. Hear it summing up the whole of that division of human duties, in the simple and universally applicable injunction, to love your neighbour as yourself. Hear it abolishing all the narrow distinctions, and cutting off all the pretences and evasions which ignorance, and pride, and enmity, are perpetually labouring to establish ; by declaring, that in the term neighbour, every individual of the human race is comprehended. Hear it illustrating, by a variety of details, the import of its universal precept, in exhortations to justice, to mercy, to forgiveness of injuries, to unfailing kindness, meekness, gentleness, peace, and purity, and in the strongest denunciations against the opposite vices : and anticipating transgressions in their very source, by proclaiming that the wish to commit sin is, in effect, the commission of it ; that sanctity, uprightness, and purity of thought, no less than of word and action, are indispensably necessary to every one who seeks salvation through Christ. A tree is known by its fruits. A system of doctrines, thus in every CHRISTIAN IlELIGION. 167 particular, worthy of God, could come from God only.2 IV. Look in the next place, into the character of the teacher of this religion, Jesus Christ, Consider him in his public ministry, and in his private retirement ; in his actions and his dis- courses, his miracles and his sufferings. Compare the piety, the morality, the unbounded love of God and of man, which he inculcated on his disciples, with his own unvarying practice. Ask yourself whether he, who taught and who prac- tised such a religion, could be less than the Son of God ? 3 V. The facts related in the Gospels and the Acts, receive confirmation from the accounts (2) In Dr. Paley's view of the Evidences of Christianity, a work which, on account of its general and very great excellence, 1 wish strongly to recom- mend to universal attention : the chapter which treats of the morality of the Gospel, though abounding in'judicious observations, appears to me, in several material points, liable to just objection. It is, indeed, the general merit of the work which makes me feel obliged, by motives of duty, to suggest an especial caution to the reader, with respect to the particular chapter in question. That I may give, as I ought to do, some reason for this caution, it seems neces- sary to observe, without dwelling on other points, tliat Dr. Paley's account of the morahty of tlie Gospel, is radicedly influenced by the equally false and dangerous standard of morals, general expediency, adopted by him, (under an improved form) from its original assertor, Mr. Hume : tliat it is deteriorated by a studied distinction wholly unwarrantable, and if unwarrantable, extremely pernicious, between public and private morality ; and by a limitation subjoined to certain directions of our Saviour, a limitation unsupported by argument, and completely overthrown (vol. ii. p. 110. 1st edition) by the very first of the texts brought forward to support it : " out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, &c. — And see the preceding paragraph. (3) 1 forbear to enlarge, in this place, on the character of our Saviour, as that subject will afterwards be treated of in a distinct chapter. 168 EVIDENCES OF THE incidentally given by Pagan historians, who lived about the same period. It is not to be expected that the Roman writers, who held the Jews in supreme contempt, aud in consequence of that contempt, take little notice of the internal affairs of this people, should throw much light on the details of the Gospel history, or of the progress of the Christian religion. The religion they regarded as a sect of Judaism ; and did not give themselves the trouble of making any enquiries concerning it. The little, however, which they do say, relative to the subject, has its importance ; and is the unsuspected testimony of enemies. Tacitus expressly ascribes the rise of the Chris- tians to Christ ; whom he also affirms to have been put to death by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judtea. Suetonius represents the Christians, whom he confounds with the Jews, as raising tumults in Rome, at the instigation of Christ, (Chrestus, of whose death he seems to have been ignorant,) and as banished on that account, from the city, by the emperor Claudius. Amidst the want of accurate intelligence which the historian here manifests, he unconsciously bears attestation to the truth of the book of the Acts of the Apostles ; which records the circumstance, " that Claudius had commanded all Jews to •* depart from Rome." * The rapid progress of Christianity and the opposition it experienced, which the same book describes, are also corro- borated by both these historians, and likewise (4) Acts xviii. 2. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 169 by Pliny. Tacitus, speaking of Christianity, avers, that this " detestable superstition," an appellation from which a judgment may be formed of his knowledge of its doctrines and morality, had not only overspread Judeea, where it originated, but had also extended itself to Rome ; and relates, that a " vast multitude " of Christians were condemned there. Suetonius corroborates this relation by mentioning the per- secution (his expression is, the punishment) of the Christians at Rome, by Nero. Pliny, in his memorable letter to the emperor Trajan, des- cribes Bithynia as so filled with Christians, both in the towns and the villages, that a general desertion of the Pagan temples and worship had taken place ; and states himself as sending to execution all persons who were brought before him on the charge of being of this religion, and avowed themselves to be so. All these accounts, it may be added, support, in a manner equally strong, the truth of the Gospels, in which our Saviour repeatedly forewarns his disciples of the persecutions that awaited them ; and of the epistles likewise, in which St. Paul and the other sacred writers speak of those persecutions as then actually taking place. VI. It is impossible to suppose, with any shadow of reason, that the apostles, in preach- ing Christianity, were deceived themselves as to the truth of the religion which they taught. How was it possible that they could be deceived ? 170 EVIDENCES OF THE They did not take up their doctrine from hear- say, or from written documents ; in either of wliich cases there might have been opportunity for fraud or error to have insinuated itself. They were convinced by the long experience of their bwn senses. They were the constant and familiar companions of Jesus Christ. His life and actions were thoroughly known to them. His instruc- tions they received from his own lips ; in public and in private ; before his resurrection, and after it. Of his numerous miracles they were eye- witnesses. The miracles too, were of such a sort, that the disciples could not be mistaken in judging as to their reality. Whether men ac- knowledged to have been blind, even from their birth, became possessed of sight ; whether hear- ing was restored to the deaf, soundness to the lame, life to the dead ; these were facts, con- cerning which the apostles, who were spectators, could entertain no doubts. If such deeds as these, performed too in various places, in the face of day, of multitudes, and of enemies, had been deceits and mere pretences to miraculous power ; the imposture must have been detected instantly. The object of the miracle remained there to be examined ; and was examined, as we know, by the adversaries of Christ, whenever occasion offered, with sufficient strictness. Exa- mination might always take place, and would naturally take place, if any doubt subsisted, by the disciples themselves. They associated, as well as Christ himself, with Lazarus, who had been CHllISTIAN RELIGION. 171 raised from the clead. They associated for forty days with Christ, after his own resurrection. Could they be ignorant whether Lazarus or Christ were really risen ? Could they be igno- rant whether they actually saw Christ ascend into heaven, after giving them his final benedic- tion ? Could they be ignorant whether two angels stood by them, on the disappearance of our Saviour among the clouds, and told them that He should again visibly return from heaven to earth, at the end of the world ? Could they be ignorant whether, on the day of Pente- cost, the Holy Ghost did actually come upon them, according to the promise of their departed Lord ; whether they were actually able from that moment to speak various languages, with which they had, until that moment been unacquainted ; All this, and much more that might be added on the same head, is utterly impossible. VII. But though the supposition, that the apostles Avere themselves deceived, must be given up as untenable ; might not they knowingly deceive the people? This new supposition im- plies three things. It implies that the apostles were wicked enough to preach a religion which they knew to be false ; that they had sufficient inducements to be guilty of this imposition ; and that they could carry on such an imposition without detection. Let us investigate each of those points separately. First then, with regard to the wickedness of the apostles. Not consider- 172 EVIDENCES OF THE ing, or not regarding, the charges of wickedness which might be advanced against them in future ages ; they have not drawn up any formal char- acters of each other. Nor is the omission material. For to those who see other grounds for trusting the apostles, such characters would have been superfluous ; and by those who charge them with wickedness, would not have been believed. You must therefore collect their characters from the incidental notices of the conduct of the indivi- viduals, which you find recorded in the Scrip- tures. AVhat then do you find recorded in the Scriptures concerning them ? You find many instances of human frailty. You find an extreme unwillingness to relinquish the ambitious hopes which they had cherished of worldly power and grandeur under the kingdom of the Messiah. You find a rooted attachment to the prejudices of their countrymen, against Samaritans and Gentiles. You find a cowardly desertion of their Lord and master in the hour of his affliction ; and in the case of Peter, a repeated and blasphemous denial of Jesus Christ, for whom he had recently affirmed himself ready to die. Is the plain and unvarnished confession given by themselves of these and other instances of infirmity, a mark of wickedness? Is it not a token of candour and integrity ? Is not their openness, in record- ing to posterity what they had done amiss, an argument that what incidentally appears to their credit, in the same writings, may be trusted ? If you believe the account of St. Peter's denial, and CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 173 all its aggravations ; will you not credit the ac- count contained in the same books of his bitter and permanent repentance ? If you believe the disciples when they tell you, that, on the appre- hension of Christ they all forsook him and fled ; and that on first being informed of his resurrec- tion, they regarded the report as an idle tale; will you not believe them when they assert their own subsequent conviction, their intercourse with their master after his return to life, and their commission from him to go and baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ? To these consi- derations let me add another, suggested by the doctrines which they taught. The religion which they preached, was, undeniably, a religion of consummate holiness and purity. They went from province to province, from country to country, inculcating the love and the fear of God, abhorrence of sin, and the perpetual practice of integrity, sincerity, truth, and every other simi- lar moral obligation, And this doctrine, it seems, they laboriously preached, day after day, and year after year, conscious, during every moment, that their own conduct was an uninterrupted scene of deliberate falsehood and hypocrisy ! Is there the faintest appearance of credibility in the supposition ? What could induce villains to preach virtue ? Nothing, you reply, except to gain by it. Gain by it ! Let us inquire then, in the second place, what the apostles were to gain by preaching Christianity? Upon the present 174 EVIDENCES OF THE supposition, that they wickedly preached it, knowing it to be an imposture, they, of course, looked for no advantage in the next world, as a reward for their preaching. Their reward, what- ever it might be, must be sought in the present life. What then did they expect to gain in the present life ? They expected to gain what they did gain ; persecution, scorn, and misery. " The " servant is not greater than his Lord. If they " have persecuted me, they will also persecute " you. Because ye are not of the world, there- " fore the world hateth you. Ye shall be " betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and " kinsfolks, and friends. They will deliver you " up to the councils ; and they will scourge you " in their synagogues. They shall lay hands on " you, and persecute you, delivering you up to " the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought " before the king and rulers, for my name's sake. " they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and " shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all na- " tions, for my name's sake. The time cometh, " that he that killeth you will think that he " doetli God service. These things have I told " you, that when the time shall come, ye niay " remember that I told you of them."^ Such was the earthly recompence which our Saviour had taught his disciples to expect. Consult Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Pliny ; consult the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, especially those (5) Luko xxi. 12 IG. Matt. x. 17. xxiv. 9. John xv. 19, '20. xvi. 2 4, CHl^ISTIAN RELIGION. 175 of St. Paul ; and you will find that these expec- tations were not disappointed. " If in this life " only we have hope in Christ," said St. Paul, most truly, of himself and the apostles, and the other Christians of his day ; and in this life only the apostles, if they were deceivers, could have hope : " If in this life only we have hope in " Christ, we are, of all men, the most miserable."" The expectations of the apostles for their reward, were manifestly directed beforehand to a better life, and to that alone. And that single circum- stance is sufficient to prove that they were not deceivers. Thirdly, if they had been deceivers, detection would have stared them in the face, and would have been iiievitable. If their whole narrative was replete with falsehoods, they were falsehoods which the inhabitants of Judeea could not but know to be such. If Christ did not fulfil the predictions which the apostles affirmed him to have accomplished ; if he did not perform the miracles which the apostles affirmed him to have wrought ; all this the Jews must have known. Their willingness to discover fraud in the apos- tles, and to make the most of any discovery, will not be doubted. They were as eager to expose, as to stone and to crucify. But from the Acts we find, that they admitted the miraculous facts averred by the Apostles, and endeavour to explain them away. The premises they allowed ; but drew, through bigotry and prejudice, an erroneous conclusion. Yet even of these bigoted (6) Cor. XV. 10. and see iv. 9, 13. 176 EVIDENCES OF THE and prejudiced men, thousands were converted, almost immediately after the ascension of Christ. Had there been fraud, detection must instantly have followed. And the fraud, detected and ex- ploded in Judsea, could never have hoped to gain a proselyte among the Gentiles. VIII. The difficulties which Christianity had to encounter, from its very commencement and during its progress were such, that its prevalence could result only from the irresistible force of truth. Consider under what unfavourable cir- cumstances, as to worldly advantages, it was introduced. Jesus Christ, the founder of the religion, appeared in the most humble station of life. Without rank, or wealth, or friends, known only as " the carpenter, the son of Mary," ^ and as the inhabitant of Nazareth, a place proverbially in such disrepute, that the mere fact of his be- longing to it, was thought almost conclusive against his prei.ensions to be the Messiah ; ^ he announced himself as the promised Saviour of the world. The disciples, whom he selected to be his instruments in this undertaking, were, like himself, poor, destitute, and disregarded; and and one, at least, of them was of an occupation which rendered those who pursued it singularly odious. In propounding his new religion to his (7) Mark vi. 3. (8) Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him ; we have found him, of whom Mosc-!, in the law, and tlie prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him ■, can there any pood thing come out of Nazareth ? John i. 45, 4G. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 177 countrymen, he enjoyed none of those favourable circumstances, he used none of those arts, to which the authors of new doctrines have so often been indebted, and to which Mahomet, in par- ticular, owed his whole success. He did not begin his undertaking in a country divided into many petty and disjointed sects ; but among a people, united in attachment to a venerable es- tablishment, armed with no small share of civil as well as of ecclesiastical authority. He had neither the inclination nor the means of pro- moting the diffusion of his doctrine by force of arms. He neither permitted vicious indulgences, nor promissed licentious rewards to his adherents. He flattered no sect, however powerful; he attached himself to no party, however numerous ; he disguised no truth, however unpalatable ; he spared no criminals, however formidable and ma- lignant. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, were alike the objects of his severest reprehension. Towards the common people, he used no species of undue conciliation. Their prejudices, in favour of a temporal Messiah, he dis- countenanced ; their offers, to make him their king, he steadily rejected ; their interested attendance, in hopes of being fed by a repetion of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, he pointedly and pub- licly reproved. So little hold had he obtained on their affections, that, after he had employed between three and four years in his ministry, they eagerly co-operated with their rulers in procuring his death. He died, forsaken by his followers, N 178 EVIDENCES OF THE as a malefactor ; and by a mode of death, ac- cording to the opinion of the age and country, the most infamous. When the preaching of his doctrine was renewed, after his ascension, by his disciples, labouring under the weight of the odium which had overtaken their master; it was renewed with additions which rendered it still more hateful to the Jews. The apostles, besides charging them with the innocent blood of Jesus, and affirming his resurrection from the grave, and his exaltation to the right hand of God ; not only annovmced, in plainer terms than he had employed, the abolition of the Mosaic rites and ordinances, so dear to the hearts of the whole Jewish people; but they speedily pro- claimed a doctrine, if possible, still more obnox- ious, to which, in consequence of his own ex- clusive mission to the Jews, he had but slightly and seldom alluded, the annihilation of all the peculiar privileges of the Jewish race, and the free admission of the abhorred Samaritans and Gentiles to every blessing of the Christian cove- nant. The active opposition, the unrelenting enmity and vengeance, with which the Jews per- secuted Christianity and its teachers, were corres- pondent to the virulent detestation which these tenets were adapted to excite. When the apostles turned to the Romans, the sovereign masters of every country, recorded in the Acts as having been the scene of apostolical labours ; were they likely to experience a more favourable reception than they had found among their own CHRISTIAN IIELIGION. 179 countrymen ? The very circumstance of their being Jews, ensured to them, at once, the aversion and the contempt of the Roman world. Personally odious, they were rendered more odious by their doctrine ; a doctrine which not only alarmed, by being misconceived, the jealous suspicions of the Romans, concerning a king, a rival of Ca3sar, whom they expected to arise in Judaea ; ^ but declared war, to extermination, against every deity of the Pantheon, against every one of the idolatrous sacrifices, rites, and institutions, public or domestic, in which the Romans had been trained from their childhood ; and to which, they ascribed the gradual rise of Rome during more than seven centuries, from an obscure village, to the rank of imperial metropolis of the earth. The numerous and sanguinary persecutions, whicli the apostles and the early Christians endured from the Romans, bear indisputa- ble testimony to the abhorrence with which that people regarded and opposed Christianity. Yet, in the face of universal opposition, Chris- tianity, marched forward from conquest to con- quest; and before the end of three centuries from the death of Christ, reigned triumphant over the whole Roman empire. " Thus mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed." What could have thus prevailed, but the word of God ? (9) This prevailin°r expectation is recorded by Tacitus (Hist. lib. v. c. 13.) and by Suetonius (lib viii. c. 4.). And of the jealousy which it occasioned among the Romans, ample proof is afforded by the conduct of Pilate, Matt, xxvii. 11. .John xix. 12 — 16, and by tlie proceedings at Thessalonica, re- lated Acts xvii. see particularly ver. 7. N 2 180 EVIDENCES OF THE IX. There remain two other leading heads of argument, strongly confirming the truth of Christianity, which, at the same time that I pass over some subordinate, yet not unimportant con- siderations tending to the same conclusion, must not be omitted. One of these arises from the completion of many prophecies delivered in the New Testament ; particularly from the fulfilment of those which concern the Christian Church, and the apostacy and usurpations of Papal Rome. The other is drawn from the numerous coin- cidences, reciprocally subsisting between the several Epistles of St. Paul, and between those Epistles and the book of Acts ; coincidences which, while they prove themselves beyond dis- pute, on close examination, are 'SO little obvious to common observers, that it is impossible to suppose they were designedly inserted, or that they were produced otherwise than by the uni- formity of truth. The advantages, howcA^er, of unfolding these two heads of argument, in detail, I am obliged to forego ; as the statement and investigation of particulars, requisite to enable the reader to satisfy himself, respecting their validity, would, inevitably, occupy a space dis- proportioned to the nature and size of the present work. * Such, and so many are the distinct lines of (1) On the first of these heads of arjjument, the reader is referred to Bishop Hurd's twelve Sermons on Prophecy : to Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies ; and to other writers on the subject ; and on the second, to Dr. Paley'sHorxe Pauluuc; a work, in whicli it was originally brought forward, ai}d is illustrated with great acuteness and felicity. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 181 proof, by which the truth of the Christian religion is established ! So provident has been the good- ness of the Ruler of the Universe, in confirming by unanswerable arguments, all concurring, like the rays of a circle, in one central point ; yet differing in. their nature, and thus the more adapted to make impression on different minds, the sacred Gospel of his Son ! Why then are there thousands, enabled by their attainments and opportunities fully to examine and accurately to appreciate the evidences of Christianity, who doubt or disbelieve its truth ? The causes are obvious. These unhappy men do not enquire into the subject ; or they enquire not with suitable dispositions of heart. Immersed in the pursuits of ambition, of profit, or of pleasure ; puffed up Avith arrogant opinions of their own knowledge and of their own virtue ; revolting at the humi- liating doctrine that human nature is corrupt, and in need of an atoning Redeemer : accustomed to disdain whatever they think it possible to class among common prejudices and vulgar supersti- tions ; hearing of the prevalence, in different times and places, of different religions, all of which, they know, cannot be true, but all of which they conclude may equally be false; prepossessed against Christianity, by difficulties which they imagine it to contain ; by witty cavils and objec- tions aimed against it, which they take for granted are just ; and by a cause still more to be regretted, the unchristian lives of many of its professors ; and above all, averse to abandon 182 EVIDENCES OF THE those vicious principles and habits, which they ])erceive to be utterly prohibited by the Gospel and to acknowledge the certainty of that pu- nishment which, if they admit the Gospel to be true, they must necessarily own to await themselves, should they continue in their sins ; actuated by some of these, or similar prepos- sessions, they refuse to examine into the evidences of the Christian religion ; or they examine slightly, partially, uncandidly, with minds pre- disposed to find objections, to take offence, and to condemn. The faith which Christianity claims is not credulity ; but assent, founded on willing enquiry and rational conviction. *' The " people of Berea," saith the Evangelist, " were " more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that " they received the word with all readiness of " mind, and searched the Scriptures daily ivhether those things were so." -^ " Be ready *' always," saith the Apostle, " to give an answer " to every one that asketh you a reason of the " hope that is in you."^ But in all enquiries respecting religion, as with respect to every other subject, the enquirer, if he would really discover truth, must examine Avith seriousness, with pa- tience, with humility; with a heart sincerely disposed to embrace whatever he shall discover to be true; and with a reverend desire that the Supreme Being, who is the fountain of know- ledge, may lead him into all truth. If he examines without these dispositions, what can be expected, (2) Actsxvii. 11. (3) 1 Pet. iii. 15. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 183 but that his examination should confirm him in his prejudices and errors ? " He that will do the *• will of God," saith our Saviour, " shall know " of the doctrine, whether it be of God." ^ Have you any doubt as to the truth of Christianity ? Let your heart be prepared to obey whatever Christianity, if true, shall be found to command : and you wdll not conclude a patient enquiry, without being convinced of its truth, Bnt " keep " thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are " the issues of life." ^ (4) John vii. 17. (5) Proverbs iv. 23. 184 DOCTRINES OF THE CHAP. VII. ON THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. T. The being and the attributes of God are truths, which lie at the root of all religion. " He " that Cometh to God, must believe that He is ; " and that He is a rewarder of them that dili- *' gently seek him."« They are truths to the discovery of Avhich the Heathen world was perfectly competent. In the days of Pagan darkness, when the light of the Divine counte- nance seemed, as it were, withdrawn from man- kind, " God," saith the apostle, " left not himself " without witness ; in that he did good, and gave " us rain from . Heaven, and fruitful seasons, " filling our hearts with food and gladness." ^ Why is it that St. Paul pronounces the idolatrous and abandoned Gentiles inexcusable ? " Because " that which may be known of God is manifest " in them : for God hath shewed it unto them. " For the invisible things of Him, from the " creation of the world, are clearly seen, being " understood by the things that are made ; even " his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they " are without excuse, because that when they (G) Hebrews xi. G. (7) Acts xiv. 17. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 185 *' knew God," (or might thus have known him, liad they been wilHng,) " they glorified Him not *' as God,"8 by purity of worship and hohness of life. The eternal existence, and the attributes of tlie Deity, his omnipresence, his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, his holiness, his justice, and his other unbounded affections, were inculcated on the Jews by express revelation ; and are described in the sublimest language by the sacred writers, especially by the prophets, in the Old Testament. These fundamental truths necessarily form the ground-work of Christianity. They are, however, so obvious in their nature, and so generally recognised, that to dilate upon them, is not requisite. I proceed, therefore, to consider such of the other leading doctrines of the New Testament, as are either peculiar to the Christian religion, or have received from that religion, such additional illustration as to require to be separately noticed. These doctrines may be comprised under four general heads; which will be arranged in the order, according to which they may be most conveniently discussed. The first will relate to the corruption of human nature : the second, to the resurrection and the future judgment : the third, to the nature and office of Christ: the fourth, to the nature and office of the Holy Spirit. II. The depravity of human nature has already been unavoidably noticed in speaking of the fall (S) Romans i. 19,20.21. 186 DOCTRINES OF THE of man, by which it was produced. We learn from the book of Genesis, that our first parents, deluded by the evil spirit, who availed himself of the instrumentality of the serpent to accom- plish their ruin, concurred in disobeying the sole prohibition, which their Creator had imposed, as the trial of their obedience. By this rebellion against their Sovereign and Benefactor, they lost, together with their title to immortality, their primeval innocence ; they lost their purity and holiness, the image of God, in which they had been created. Sin, the forerunner of death, entered into the world, and clave inseparably to fallen man. The children of Adam were born " in his own image," no longer that of God. The tide of wickedness, shewing its early power by the murder of Abel, and gradually spreading itself, until it had absorbed, in its grossest impuri- ties, the whole race of man, Noah and his family excepted ; proved in the antediluvian world, that from a corrupted origin, nothing but what was corrupt could proceed. After the flood, the antecedent depravity remained unaltered. " The " imagination of man's heart" still continued " evil from his youth." At the time of the call of Abraham, almost before the eyes of Noah were closed, and long before the death of his son Shem, idolatry and its attendant enormities had ensnared almost all mankind. The history of the Jews, the chosen people of God, instructed by an immediate and special revelation from Heaven ; separated by rights and usages, scarcely CHRISTIAN RELGIOX. 187 less than by religious knowledge, from the conta- gion of surrounding guilt ; excited, from time to time, to steadfastness in their duty, by miracles, by prophets, by unmerited mercies, and by signal judgments ; yet, under all these appeals to their understandings, their gratitude, their hopes, and their fears, obstinately and irreclaim- ably wicked; the history of this people, from their origin to their dispersion by the Romans, is no other than a practical and unbroken exem- plification of the native corruption of the human heart. The blindness and flagitiousness of the ancient Gentile world, which, enjoying much fainter gleams of religious light, became propor- tionally immersed in blacker depths of ignorance and profligacy ; the continuance of the same state of darkness and guilt, in regions not irra- diated by revelation ; the lamentable prevalence of wickedness among those who enjoy the full light of the Gospel; all these facts unite in attesting and exemplifying the same corruption. To this corruption, the Christian Scriptures, in recording the wonders of that plan of redemption, by which its fatal consequences were to be removed, refer directly or indirectly, on many occasions, and in the clearest manner. It is, indeed, on that corruption, that the whole plan' of Christianity is established. We are, therefore, not surprised at the gloomy catalogue of crimes, which our Saviour describes, as proceeding from the human heart ; ^ nor at the enumeration given (9) Malt. XV. 19. 188 DOCTRINES OF THE by St. Paul, of the works of the flesh,i the works to which men are by nature prone. We are not surprised to hear this apostle affirming, "we " have proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they " are all under sin : as it is written, There is " none righteous, no, not one : There is none that *' understandeth, there is none that seeketh after " God : they are all gone out of the way ; they " are altogether become unprofitable ; there is *' none that doeth good, no, not one."^ We are not surprised to hear him affirming, " I know, " that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no *' good thing : for to will is present with me ; " but how to perform that which is good, I find " not. For the good that 1 would, I do not ; *' but the evil which I would not, that I do." ^ Nor are we surprised, when he avows, concerning himself and his Eph^sian converts, that they also "were formerly " dead in trespasses and sins, ^' accordinij to the course of this world, fulfillino; ** the lusts of the flesh, and of the mind ; and *' were, by nature, children of wrath, even as " others."* To accumulate similar passages is needless. In this doctrine of the natural corruption of the human heart, taken in conjunction with another doctrine, on which the Scriptures are no less explicit ; that the remedy for this corruption is provided by the Almighty, not as a debt owing to man, but as the free bounty of Divine grace ; certain persons have imagined, that they (1) Gal. V. 10. 21. (2) Rom. iii. 9, &c. ' (3) Rom. vii. 18, &e. (*; Eplies. ii. 1, &c. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 189 have discovered difficulties, not to be obviated consistently with some of the attributes of God. If you a feel a doubt of this kind springing in your breast, remember the infinite distance between yourself and your Maker. Remember how little qualified you are, in consequence of that distance, to criticise or to appreciate the details of his plans of governing the universe ; plans of which you perceive so very small a part. Remember that in every one of his works, which you investigate, there are depths to you unfa- thomable. Remember that the corruption of human nature, is a fact demonstrated by experi- ence. Suppose Christianity to be false, or never to have been revealed; the state of human nature remains unaltered. That doctrine there- fore, let it, inevitably, bring with it whate- ver difficulties it may, brings none which press harder upon Christianity, than upon any other religion. Consult the Scriptures. If you there find the existence of this corruption unequivo- cally declared, be satisfied that its existence is perfectly compatible with the justice, with the mercy, with every attribute of God. If you find a further and unequivocal declaration, that the remedy for this corruption and its conse- quences, is a free gift, not a debt, on the part of the Deity : be satisfied that this arrangement likewise, is intirely consistent with all his perfec- tions. You already know, or may know, from the dealings of God with men, what is sufficient to convince you that, although " his ways are " unsearchable, and his judgments past finding 190 DOCTRINES OF THE "out;"^ although "clouds and darkness are " round about him ; yet righteousness and judg- *' ment are the habitation of his throne." ^ The influence of this original depravation of nature, affects every individual, at every period of his life. It is an eternal enemy always at work; but operating in the most dangerous manner, when the concurrence of favourable circumstances arms it with additional force. It perverts the inclinations of men ; darkens the understanding ; adds strength to passion, efficacy to temptation ; disposes the heart to evil, indis- poses it to good. Would you learn to place a true value on the blessings of redemption through Christ ; on that dispensation, which is revealed as the only method by which the Divine wisdom hath appointed, that the fallen descendants of Adam should be restored to the image and favour of God ? Consider the corrupt nature of which you partake ; the guilt, and the punishment with which, but for the grace of God, in the Christian dispensation of mercy, you would,, in consequence of that corrupt nature, be overwhelmed. III. The prolongation of human existence beyond the grave, is a subject which, in all ages,^ has exercised the understandings, the hopes, and the fears of mankind. To serious enquirers there could not but appear a considerable proba- bility, anterior to the light of revelation, that (0) Rom. xi. 33. (B) Psalm xcvii. 2. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. IQl man would survive the stroke of death. That mere matter should be possessed of thought, of imagination, of reasoning powers, of choice, and spontaneous agency, was a position, seemingly- incomprehensible. Hence, it was justly inferred, that the soul was distinct from the body ; and, if distinct, not very likely to be involved in the destruction of the frame which it inhabited. The strong repugnance to annihilation implanted in human nature, by the hand of God, formed a presumption, that annihiliation was not designed to be the lot of humanity. The capacity of progressive improvement in the faculties of the mind, the ardent desires of the soul, for degrees of knowledge and happiness unattainable on earth, excited a reasonable hope, that a stage of being yet remained, in which those faculties might be advanced, and those desires gratified to perfection. Another and still more weighty argument could not escape notice. That the world was under a moral Governor was apparent: yet, that virtue and vice were not uniformly or accurately recompensed with present happiness and present misery, was undeniable. Hence, it seemed an almost necessary deduction, that com- plete retribution was reserved for another scene of existence. All these arguments, however, were only presumptions. They were highly probable conjectures. But, in a matter of such extreme importance, the mind could not repose itself with satisfactory assurance on speculations. The natural and moral arguments for the im- 192 DOCTllINES OF THE mortality of the soul, were, also, too abstruse to make a general or durable impression on the vulgar. To philosophers themselves, they car- ried no permanent conviction.''^ Pluto, and Minos, and Tartarus, and Elysium, afforded imagery, and allusions, and episodes to poets : but reached not the understanding, nor influ- enced the heart. Among the Jews, in the early periods of their history, indications that a life, after the conclusion of this, was expected, are few and obscure. In later times, those traces became more numerous and more distinct. Yet, even in the days of our Saviour, one of the principal sects, the Sadducees, denied a future existence; and does not appear to have been rendered generally unpopular to the Jewish nation by its doctrine. How, therefore, were the minds of men to be set at rest, but by a free communication of the truth, in terms which could not be misunderstood, and from authority which could not be questioned ? The Gospel has made this communication. *' It has " brought life and immortality to light." ^ It has lifted up the veil which hung over eternity. It has revealed to man, that in the unknown and unbounded realms of Omnipotence an habita- tion is reserved for him ; an habitation of bliss, (7) Nescio qiiomodo, dum lego, assentior ; cum posui librum, et mecum ipse de immortal itate animorum coepi cojjitarc, asscnsio omnis ilia elabitur. This is th(? language even of Cicero ; Tusc. Quaest. lib. i.e. 11. In another place, speaking of the same subject, he dejcribes himself as " dubitans, cir- cumspectans, haesUans, tanquam rafis in mari immenso vehitur." c. 30 (8) 2 Tim. i. 10. CHRISTIAN IIELIGION. 19.'i or of misery,, proportioned to his conduct upon earth. It has revealed to him that all his thoughts, words, and actions, shall be examined in the presence of assembled men and angels, on the great day appointed for judgment, before the throne of Jesus Christ. It has revealed to man, that his mortal body shall be raised from the grave ; shall be re-united to his soul ; shall be rendered, like his soul, immortal ; shall be par- taker, with his soul, of punishment, or of reward. *' As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath he " given to the Son to have life in Himself : and ♦' hath given him authority to execute judgment *' also, because. He is the Son of Man ; " ^ because, being the Son of God, he vouchsafed to become the Son of Man, and to take upon himself the personal experience of human infirmities.' " The " Father judgeth no man, but hath committed *•' all judgment unto the Son ; that all men may " honour the Son, even as they honour the " Father."- — " The hour is coming, in which all " that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and " shall come forth : they that have done good, *' unto the resurrection of life ; and they that " have done evil, unto the resurrection of dam- " nation."^—" The Son of Man shall come in " the glory of his Father with his angels : and " then he shall reward every man according to " his works,"* — "When the Son of Man shall " come in his glory, and all the holy angels with (0) John V. 26, 27. (I) Heb. iv. 15. (2) John v. 22. (3) John V. 28, 29 (1) Matt. xvi. 27. O 191- DOCTIilNES OF THE " him ; then sliall he sit upon the throne of " his glory, and before him shall be gathered all " nations ; and he shall separate them one from " another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep " from the goats. And he shall set the sheep " on his right hand ; but the goats on his left. *' Then shall the king say unto them on his *' right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, " inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the " foundation of the world. — Then shall he say " also unto them on the left hand, Depart from " me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared " for the devil and his angels. — And these shall " go away into everlasting punishment ; but the " righteous into life eternal." ^ " We must all " appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ; " that every one may receive the things done in " his body, according to that he hath done, whe- " ther it be good or bad."^ " God shall judge the " secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to " my GospeL"^ " The Lord himself shall des- " cend from heaven, with a shout, with the " voice of the archangel, and with the trump of " God."8 «* For the trumpet shall sound ; and " the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we " shall be changed. For this corruptible must " put on incorruption : and this mortal must put " on immortality."^ Conformable to these repre- sentations was the prophetic vision of the final (5) Malt. XXV. 31—31, 41, 16. (6) 2 Cor. v. 10. (7) Rom. (8) 1 Thcss. iv. 16. (9) 1 Cor. xv. 52, 53. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. J9.'> judgment, revealed to St. Jolin. " I saw a great *' white throne, and Him that sat on it : from " whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; " and there was found no place for Uiem. And " I saw the dead, small and great, stand before " God. And the books were opened : and another " book ^vas opened, which is the book of life : " and the dead w^ere judged out of those things " wiiich were written in the books, according to " their works. And the sea gave up the dead, " which were in it : and death and hell delivered " up the dead which were in them ; and they " were judged, every man, according to their " works ; and whosoever w^as not found written " in the book of life, was cast into the lake of " fire."i The state of happiness, and the state of misery, severally prepared for the righteous and the un- godly, are not described to us in detail ; partly, we may presume, because a knowledge of them in detail would not have been advantageous to us during our mortal course; and partly, because the full comprehension of the bliss to be enjoyed by the glorified spirits of just men made perfect, and of the sufferings to be endured by those whose obstinate wickedness shall have involved them in destruction, is beyond the grasp of the present faculties of man. " Eye. hath not seen," saith the apostle, " nor ear heard, neither hath it " entered into the heart of man to conceive, the " things which God hath prepared for them that d) Rev. XX. 11—15. o 2 196 DOCTRINES OF THE " love him."2 The same description, it is proba- ble, might be applied to the punishments which await the wicked, with respect, however, to that happiness, and that misery, two things are clear; that each is extreme, and that each is unchange- able. The rest is conveyed in general terms, adapted to impress on the Iieart those momentous truths. The recompense of those who are re- ceived into happiness is denominated, " Glory, *' honour, immortality, eternal life '"^ " eternal " salvation ;"* " the presence of the glory of " God ;"^ " a crown of righteousness ;"^ " a crown *' of glory that fadeth not away;"^ " an exceeding " and eternal weight of glory ;"8 " an inheritance " incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in Hea- " ven."9 *' The righteous shall shine forth as the " sun, in the kingdom of their father."^ " They " can die no more ; for they are equal unto the " angels : and are the children of God, being the " children of the resurrection ."^ " They shall be " with Christ ;"^ " they shall be for ever with the " Lord ;" ^ " and be like Him, and see Him as he " is," 5 « face to face." 6 " There shall be no more " death, neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall " there be any more pain."^ " And there shall be " no more curse : for the throne of God and the " Lamb shall be" among the righteous. " And (2) 2 Cor. ii. 9. (3) Rom. ii. 7. (4) Hch. v. 0. (5) Jiide 24. (6) 2 Tim. iv. 8. (7) 1 Pet v. 4. (8) 2 Cor. iv. 17. (0) 1 Pet. i. 4. (1) Matt. xiii. 43 (2) Luke XX. 3f5. (3) John xii. 20. xvii. 24. (4) 1 Thess. iv. 17. (5) 1 Jolin Hi. 2. (6) 1 Cor. xiii. 12 (7) Rev. .\xi. 4. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 197 " they shall see his face : the Lord God giveth " them light : and they shall reign for ever and " ever."8 The future state of the wicked is termed " indignation and wrath, tribulation and an- " guish :"9 " the lake which burneth with jfire " and brimstone :"i " outer darkness, and a fur- " nace of fire, where shall be weeping and wail- " ing, and gnashing of teeth :"2 " everlasting " punishment, eternal damnation :"3 " everlasting " destruction from the presence of the Lord, and " the glory of his power :"^ hell, " where the " worm dieth not, and the fire is never quench- " ed :"^ " the place of torment, day and night, " for ever and ever."^ IV. How then is this happiness to be attained, this misery to be escaped, by a being like man, frail and prone to iniquity ? The Scriptures answer the question ; by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. In the Scriptures this dispensation of mercy is un- folded. They reveal the nature and the office of Jesus Christ. The nature of this great Redeemer is described in language which proclaims him entitled, not merely to our gratitude, our love, our reverence, our homage, but to our adoration. Many centuries before his appearance upon earth, he was an- (8) Rev. xxii. 3 — 5. (9) Rom. ii. 8, 9. (1) Rev. xxi. 8. (2) Matt. viii. 12. xiii. 42. (3) Matt. xxv. 46. Mark iii. 29. (4) 2 Thess. i. 9. (5) Mark ix 43, 46, 48. (6) Luke xvi. '28. Rev. xx. 10. 198 DOCTRINES OF THE noiinced by Isaiah, under the denomination of « The mighty God, God with us."8 The New Testament presents him to the world in the same character. He is styled " the only begotten Son "of God;"^ "the brightness of his Father's " glory, and the express image of his person ;" i " the image of the invisible God ;"2 " the Word " of God ;"3 " the Lord of Glory ;"* " the true " God, God manifested in the flesh, God over " all blessed for ever;"^ " the Word, who in the " betrinnino' was with God, and was God." s By the Father himself he is expressly called God.''' Of himself he says, " I and my Father are one."® " Before Abraham was, I am."^ He commands his disciples to baptize all nations in his name con- jointly with that of the Father and of the Holy Ghost.i He affirms, that none knows the Father, but the Son ; and that none knows the Son, but the Father.2 All the angels of God are com- manded to worship him.^ In him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily.* Adoration and prayer were addressed to him by St. Ste- phen ; and at the very time when that martyr was " full of the Holy Ghost." -^ He is repre- sented in the book of Revelations as receiving universal worship in conjunction with the Father.e (8) Isaiah ix. G. vii. li. Mat. i. 23. (9) John iii. IG. (1) Heb. i. 3. (2) Coloss. i. 15. (3) Rev. xix. 13. (4) 1 Cor. ii. 8. James ii. 1. (5) John xx. 28. Rom. ix. 5. 1 John V. 20. 1 Tim. iii. 16. (6). John i. I. (7) Heb. i. 8. (8) John X. 30, and see 33. (9) John viii. 58, and compare Exod. iii. 14. (1) Matt, xxviii. 19. (2) Matt xi. 27. (3) Heb. i. 6. (4) Coloss. ii. 9. (5) Acts vii. 55. (6) Rev. v. 13. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 199 His name stands united with that of the Father and tlie Holy Ghost, in the apostoUcal benedic- tion. '' He is characterized, and characterized by himself, when he appears to St. John, by the iden- tical terms, expressive of eternal existence and per- fection, which are, at the very same time, applied, and had also been appHed in the Old Testament, as characteristic of God the Father. ^ Further ; to this great and glorious Saviour, the second person in the Divine Trinity, the immediate agency of creating and preserving the world, is unequivocally and repeatedly ascribed. It is he by whom God " made the worlds." ^ It is he who " upholdeth all things by the word of his *' power." 1 " All things were made by him ; ^* and without him was not any thing made that *' was made, "^ " By him were all things created *• that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible " and invisible : whether they be thrones, or " dominions, or principalities, or powers : aU " things were created by him, and for him. And " he is before all things: and by him all things con- " sist." 3 Finally, by his heavenly Father himself he is thus addressed : " Thou, Lord, in the be- " ginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, " and the heavens are the works of thine hand. " They shall perish ; but thou remainest ; and " they all shall wax old, as doth a garment. And (7) 2 Cor. xiii. 14. and see Rev. i. 4, 5. (8) Compare Isaiah, xliv, 6. xlviii. 12. (and at the same time observe, rarefully, the latter part of verse 11.) Rev. i. 8. with Rev. i. 17. ii. 8. xxi.6. xxii. 13. (9) Hcb. i. 2. (1) Heb. i. 3. (2) John i. 3. (3) Colos. i. 16, 17. 200 DOCTRINES OF THE " as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they " shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." '^ To some persons, this fundamental doctrine, the Divinity of our blessed Saviour, seems attended with insuperable difficulties. That it Is attended with difficulties, 1 do not deny. But consider, in the first place, the difficulties on the other side of the question. Suppose, for a moment, the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ to be false : then read, once more, the preceding paragraph; weigh the natural import of the titles, attributes, and descriptions there quoted, as being applied, in the Scriptures, to Christ ; and ask yourself whether, if he, to whom they are so applied, be other than God, there is any meaning in words, any confidence to be reposed in language, even in the language of Revelation. Ask yourself whether it be possible, that inspira- tion would be given, and given by the God of wisdom, goodness, and truth, in such a manner as to have deceived, it is not too much to say, necessarily to have deceived, the mass of the Christian world, from the days of the apostles to the present hour ; and to have deceived Chris- tians, as to a point confessedly of supreme im- portance, the very God whom they were to adore. Ask yourself, whether it be possible that, when the Jewish Scriptures had been, uninter- rnptedly, directing their whole force, for more than fifteen hundred years, to effect the exter- (4) Heb. i. 10—12. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 201 miiiation of all idolatrous worship ; the Christian Scriptures, deriving their authority from the same Divine source, should come forth, abounding in expressions precisely fitted, on the present sup- position, to re-establish idolatrous worship ; for if Christ be not God, to worship him, or to pay- to him any species of Divine honour, is idolatry. Ask yourself whether it be possible that God, who, when alluding to idolatry, continually cha- racterizes himself as " a jealous God ," ^ who solemnly affirms, *• I am the Lord : and my glory " will I not give to another ;"6 would himself address his Son in these terms, " Thy throne, O " God, is for ever and ever ;" ^ if that Son were not a partaker of his godhead. Are these diffi- culties less embarrassing than those which attend the true doctrine, the Divinity of our Redeemer? For, in the second place, what are the difficulties, which that doctrine involves? You may sum them up in these few words. You feel that it is, in your apprehension, hard, perhaps you will choose to say impossible, to reconcile the Divinity of Christ with that great Scriptural truth, the unity of God. The unity of God is, unques- tionably, a great scriptural truth ; and the Di- vinity of Christ, if it were irreconcilable with that truth, would be no true doctrine. But dare you aver, that the Divinity of Christ is irreconcilable with the unity of God ? Dare you, who ex- perience in your own person the intimate union (5) See Exod.xx. 5. xxxiv. 14. Deuf. iv. '24. and many other passages, (6) Isaiah, xlii. 8. and see xlviii. 11, 12. (7) Heb. i. 8 202 DOCTRINES OF THE of two substances of opposite natures, the one spiritual, the other corporeal ; dare you presume, in the face of this experience, to assert that it is impossible for two kindred spiritual beings to be united in the same Godhead ? Dare you, the child of a day, affect to measure, with the scanty span of your ignorance, the secrets of eternal In- finity? Dare you, who cannot examine the smallest of your Creator's works, without finding yourself surrounded with inexplicable difficulties; dare you take upon you to define what is possible, and what is not possible in the Divine nature of Him who made you and all things? If you claim such high prerogatives, for your reason, act consistently with that reason ; forbear, authori- tatively to pronounce on subjects, which exceed the grasp of your comprehension ; and humbly believe what he, who cannot lie, reveals concern- ing himself. The mode of union existing in the godhead, between the Father and the Son. is unknown, and incomprehensible to you. Be it so. Seek not to explain the mode, because God hath not unfolded it to man ; but acknowledge the union, because God hath declared it in the Scriptures. If your mind remains unsatisfied, let me still request your deliberate attention. Reflect that difficulties, respecting moral possibilities, difficul- ties, equally great with those which you conceive to belong to the doctrine of the Trinity, and arising from the same cause, the limited nature of your faculties, attend you during the investi- CHRISTIAN llELIGIOX. 203 gation of the plainest attributes of God. Take his eternity for an example. What maxim are you less disposed to call controvertible, than this ; that nothing can take place without a cause? What can be more staggering, more overwhelm- ing to reason, than that a being should exist without a beginning, without a cause ? If you say, that God is the cause of his own existence, you multiply words only to leave the subject more obscure. For if you mean this explana- tion to remove the difficulty, it must imply these palpable, and impious absurdities; that the Supreme Being once did not exist; and, before he existed, operated to produce his exis- tence. Begin now to reason in another line: infer from your own existence and that of the universe, the necessity of the existence of a Creator; and you find, that this train of argument necessarily leads you on to perceive, that a being must have existed for ever, without beginning, and without cause. But observe, for this is, at present, the material point, that, although it obliges you to acknowledge this truth, it does not, in the smallest degree, lessen or remove the original difficulties with which you found it ac- companied. It takes no notice of them. It leaves them untouched; precisely as they were. The truth remains, in itself, as staggering and over- whelming as before. You see that it is, unde- niably, a truth ; but are utterly incapable of comprehending the mode of the fact. You clearly perceive, however, that what your reason 204- DOCTllINES OF THE is incapable of comprehending, what it is at first disposed to reject, as irreconcilable with some undeniable proposition, may, on other grounds of reasoning, be proved to your complete satisfac- tion, indisputably certain, even while your origi- nal difficulty remains undiminished and un- touched. Apply this example to the case of the Trinity. And if you still feel the continuance of the difficulties, as to the mode of the union, which at first inclined you, presumptuously, to regard the existence of three Divine persons (for to the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, all the foregoing reasoning respecting the Divinity of Christ, may be transferred) as inconsistent with the unity of the godhead : remember that on other grounds of reasoning, namely, on the declarations of the inspired Scriptures, you still have indisputable warrant for believing that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are God, and One God. But all these glories were laid aside, volunta- rily laid aside. " The word was made flesh, and " dwelt among us."^ '' Christ Jesus, who, being « in the form of God, thought it not robbery to " be equal with God, made himself of no repu- " tation, and took upon him the form of a " servant, and was made in the likeness of men. " And being found in fashion as a man, he hum- " bled himself, and became obedient unto death, '« even the death of the cross." ^ " He took not on " him the nature of angels, but (that of) the (8) John i. H. (0) Philip, ii. 6—6. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 205 " seed of Abraham : and ^vas in all things made *' like unto his brethren ; and was in all points *' tempted like as we are, yet without sin." ^ When he became partaker of flesh and blood, his life was marked by humiliation and sufferings. He was born in the lowest station. His mother, indeed, conformably to the prophecies concern- ing the Messiah, was a descendant of the royal house of David. But, it is evident, to what obscurity and poverty that branch of the race of David was reduced, from the circumstance of the Virgin Mary being espoused to Joseph, who was a carpenter. The very place of our Saviour's birth, was a stable ; there being no room for his mother and Joseph in the inn. In a very short time, he was hurried into Egypt, that he might escape the jealous fury of Herod. When, after a youth passed in obscurity, he entered upon his public ministry, he was employed in constant and laborious journeyings, and preachings in towns, in villages, in the wilderness; without leisure, relaxation, or a settled home. The foxes have holes ; the birds of the air have nests : but the Lord of all things, become the Son of man, had not where to lay his head.^ Though, he was continually occupied in doing good to men, heal- ing all kinds of bodily diseases, and teaching the way to everlasting happiness ; he met with un- ceasing opposition, reproaches, calumny, and persecution : and was, repeatedly, compelled to deliver himself, by a miracle, from attempts (1) Hob. ii. IG, 17. iv. 1,'). (2) Mall. viii. 20. 206 DOCTRINES OF THE made upon his life. This course of unjust treat- ment, he well knew, to be preparing the way for usage, still more iniquitous and cruel. Again and again, he forewarned his disciples, of the death that awaited him : and the nearer his death approached, the more frequently did he recall it to their remembrance. On the evening, at the close of which, he was seized by his ene- mies, having retired to the garden of Geth- semane with his disciples, he underwent the most bitter agony, at the prospect of the suffer- ings, which he was about to undergo ; and prayed, in the anguish of his soul, that, if it were possible, possible consistently with the full attainment of those objects, for the accomplish- ment of which, he took human nature upon himself, the bitter cup might pass from him without his drinking of it. Yet he added, with perfect resignation to the good pleasure of his Father ; " nevertheless, not my vnll, but thine, " be done ! " The circumstances, which then took place, were such as were peculiarly calcula- ted to augment the weight of his afflictions. He was betrayed into the hands of his murderers by one of his own disciples. When he was seized, all his other disciples forsook him and fled. And, though Peter afterwards followed him to the house of the High Priest, it was not to comfort, but to deny him three times, deli- berately, and with oaths. When he was brought to trial, though the false witnesses, suborned to accuse him, could prove none of the charges CHllISTIAN RELIGION. 207 which they advanced ; though Pilate, the Roman irovernor, declared himself convinced of his inno- cence, and shewed a strong desire to set him at liberty ; the malice and violence of his enemies prevailed. Exposed to the grossest and the most savage insults, scourged, derided, smitten, crowned with thorns, he was nailed by his hands and feet to the cross : while the triumphant scoffs of his persecutors continued, and even one of the two malefactors, crucified together with him, joined in reviling him. On that cross, however, it was not necessary that he should linger in anguish. The past misery was all that his glorious undertaking exacted of him. He there- fore cried with a loud voice, " It is finished : " ^ and while the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent, and the beholders stood aghast with astonishment and terror, bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Such were, in few words, the sufferings of Jesus Christ. They were sufferings so extraor- dinary in their nature and extent, and sustained by one, who was not only free from all taint of sin, but of such transcendent dignity and power ; that the cause for which they were endured, must necessarily have been of unparalleled im- portance. What was that cause ? You will say, and you will say truly, that one great purpose, for the attainment of which, Jesus Christ came in the flesh, was to communicate to men, a clearer knowledge of their duty to God, and to (3) Jolin xix. 30. 208 DOCTRINES OF THE set before them, in his own conduct, a pattern of practical hohness. Without all doubt, this was one of the momentous purposes, for which the Son of God became man. But, was this, the only purpose? Consider, before we examine futher, what the Scriptures teach us on the subject, how improbable it seems, that this should have been the only purpose. Consider the methods which the Almighty, on former occa- sions, had seen fit, in his wisdom and goodness to adopt. When the Jewish religion was estab- lished, by revelations from heaven ; God did not judge it necessary, to send down to earth a messenger higher than men and angels. He deemed it sufficient to employ a mere prophet, Moses, for that purpose. When the Jews had grievously departed from the holy worship, which they had been commanded to observe ; Elijah, and other mere prophets, were the min- isters whom God sent forth to reclaim them. It is not vinreasonable, therefore, humbly to con- clude that, if, at the time when Christianity was first revealed, the only purpose of the Deity had been, to instruct men in a purer mode of worship, and a more holy course of life ; he might probably have employed some prophet to execute the commission, instead of his own Son, the Lord of glory. Again, if no other purpose than that which has been specified, was to be accomplished by the coming of Christ in the flesh; why was it ordained that he must be put to death, and even to the most cruel and CHRISTIAN RELIGiuX. 209 ignominious death, that of the cross? When the Deity appointed prophets in ancient times, to preach a new religion, or to recall men from wickedness and idolatry ; he did not think it requisite that those prophets should be put to death, either as a proof of the truth of all that they pronounced in his name, or as an example of patient constancy and obedience to their fol- lowers. Moses died a natural death, in peace, full in years and of honour. Elijah, instead of being cut off by his enemies, was blessed with the privilege of not dying at all : and was taken up alive into heaven. There appears then very strong reason to conclude, before we consult the Scriptures further, that God would not have sent his own Son as man upon earth, and sent him to be " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with " grief,"* to be betrayed, to be scourged, to be derided, to be crucified ; if some other most important end, beyond that of giving to men directions for their future conduct, had not been thus, perhaps thus only, to be attained. What then was that other end, for the attainment of which, Christ came and suffered ? Turn to the sacred volume : " Surely he hath borne our griefs, " and carried our sorrows. " He was wounded " for our transgressions : he was bruised for our " iniquities : the chastisement of our peace" (by which our peace with God was effected) " was *• upon him : by his stripes we are healed. All " we, like sheep, have gone astray ; and the Lord (4) Isaiah liii. 3. 210 DOCTRINES OF THE " hath laid on him the iniquities of us all."^ His soul was made " an offering for sin : for the " transgression of the people was he stricken." ^ Such is the language of the old Testament, prophetically describing the then future sacrifice of the Messiah as already past. Consult the New Testament, and acknowledge the prediction veri- fied*. Christ is " the Lamb of God, which taketh " away the sins of the world." ^ He is " the good " shepherd," that came to " lay down his life for " the sheep, to give his life a ransom for many."*^ " Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." ^ — *' Christ hath loved us ; and given himself for us, " an offering and a sacrifice unto God."i " We " were reconciled to God by the death of his son ; " by whom we have now received the atone- *' ment."^ " We have redemption, through his " blood, even the forgiveness of our sins."^ " He " has reconciled us to God, having made peace " through the blood of his cross."* " God made " him, who knew no sin, to be sin (a sin-offering) " for us, that we might be made the righteous- " ness of God in him ;"^ " who his own self bare " our sins, in his own body, on the tree."^ " Christ " suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that " he might bring us to God."'^ " He washed us " from our sins in his own blood." ^ " We were (5) Isaiah liii. 4—6. (6) Ibid. 8, 10. (7) John i. 29. (8) John X. 15. Matt. xxii. 28. (9) 1 Cor. v. 7. (1) Eplies. V. 2. (2) Rom. v. 10, 11. (3) Coloss. i. 14. (4) Coloss. i. 20. (5) 2 Cor. v. 21. (G) 1 Pet. ii. 24. (7) 1 Pet. ill. 18. (8) Rev. i. 5. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 211 ** redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as " of a lamb without blemish and without spot." ^ He it is " whom God hath set forth to be a pro- " pitiation, through faith in his blood." ^ " He " hath appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice " of himself. By his own blood he hath obtained " eternal redemption for us. We are sanctified " with his blood."'^ But is it clear that you, that I, may have an interest in these blessings ? Did Christ suffer and make atonement for all man- kind, or but for a part of the human race ? These are momentous questions. For if Christ died only for a part of the human race, he may not have died for you or for me. But let us take comfort. Our God, the God of mercy, is no respecter of persons. Hear his gracious language long before the coming of the Redeemer. " Have I any " pleasure that the wicked should die, saith the " Lord God ? As I live, saith the Lord God, I " have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; " but that'the wicked turn from his way and live, " Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil way ; why " will ye die."'^ Hear the voice of the same God proclaiming, by the inspired writers of the New Testament, the universality of the offer of salva- tion through Christ. " The Lord is not willing " that any should perish ; but that all should " come to repentance." * " God our Saviour will " have all men to be saved." -^ " Christ gave (9) 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. (1) Rom. ui. 25. (2) Heb. ix. 12, 26. x. 10. xiii. 12. (3) Ezek. xviii. 2.3. xxxiii. 11. (1) 2 Pel. iii. 9. (5) 1 Tim. ii. 3, -l. P 2 212 DOCTRIKES OF THE " himself a ransom for all."6 " Jesus Christ the " righteous is the propitiation for our sins : and " not for ours only, but also for the sins of the *' whole world." 7 Hear the gracious invitation of Christ himself. " Come unto me, all ye that " labour and are heavy laden, and I will give " you rest." 8 Hear his explicit declaration : " The " Son of Man must be lifted up (on the Cross,) " that whosoever believeth in him should not " perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved " the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, " that whosoever believeth in him should not " perish, but have everlasting life."^ Hear his final commission, on his departure from earth, to his disciples. " Go ye into all the world, and " preach the Gospel to every creature. He that " believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved." ^ But perhaps there may be crimes of too deep a dye to be washed away by the blood of Ciirist ! Fear not : " The blood of Christ cleanseth us " from all sin."^ In return for the meritorious obedience and sufferings of our blessed Saviour, " the Lord " from heaven," when he appeared as the Son of Man, " the second Adam,"^ to repair the evils brought on the human race by the first ; (for " as " in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be " made alive," *) and to bruise the head of the serpent, the devil, who by corrupting our first (6) 1 Tim. ii. 0. (7) 1 John ii. 2. (S) Matt. xi. 28. (9) John iii. 15, 10. (1) Mark xvi. 15, IG. (2) 1 John. i. 7. (.3) 1 Cor. XV. 47. (1) 1 Cor. xv. 22. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Qrl3 parents, had entailed sin and misery on a ruined world ; his Heavenly Father exalted him, in his human nature, to his own right hand, and placed him at the head of the universe. " Christ Jesus, *' being found in fasliion as a man, humbled " himself; and became obedient unto death, even *' the death of the cross. Wherefore God also *' hath highly exalted him ; and given him a " name which is above every name ; that at the " name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things " in heaven, and things in earth, and things *' under the earth : and that every tongue should " confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory " of God the Father."^ " God raised him from " the dead, and set him at his own right hand, " in the heavenly places, far above all principality, " and power, and might, and dominion, and every " name that is named, not only in this world, but " in that which is to come ; and hath put all " things under his feet : and given him to be " head over all things to the church."^ The apostle, when he affirms that " the Saviour, the " Lord Jesus, shall change our vile body, that " it may be fashioned like unto his glorious *' body" carries the mind forward to his omnipo- tence ; " according to the working whereby he is " able to subdue even all things to himself." '^ Hear our Saviour's own words : " All things are " delivered unto me of my Father."^ All power (5) Philip, ii. 5-11. (6) Ephes. i. 20 — 22: and see Coloss. i. 18. ii. 10. l7) Philip, iii. 21. (8) Matt. xi. 27. 214 DOCTRINES OF THE " is ffiven unto me, in heaven and in earth." ^ In this state, supreme exaltation of the church, which he purchased with his blood, is still the object of his affectionate and unremitting care. "Lo, I " am with you always, even unto the end of " the world. ^ Where two or three are gathered " together in my name, there am I in the midst " of them." '^ At this hour he pleads his merits, as an atonement, for the continual transgressions to which, even his faithful servants are exposed during their state of probation. " He is entered *' into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence " of God for us. 3 If any man sin, we have an " advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the '' righteous.* He is able to save them to the " uttermost that came unto God by him : seeing " he ever liveth to make intercession for them. ^ This mediatorial kingdom of Christ, in his human nature, shall continue to the consummation of all things. " He must reign, till he shall have p,ut " down all rule, and all authority, and power ; " till he hath put all enemies under his feet. " And when all things shall be subdued unto " him ; " when he shall have raised the dead, and pronounced judgment on the whole human race, on the fallen angels, and on Satan himself ; ^ " then shall the Son deliver up the kingdom to " God, even the Father : then shall the Son also " himself," as man, " be subject unto him that O) Malt, xxviii. 18. (1) Mall, xxviii. 20. (2) MrU. xviii. 20. (3) Heb. ix. 24. (4) 1 John, ii. 1. (5) Heb. vii. 25. (6) 2 Pet. ii. 4. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 215 " put all things under him, that God may be all " in all." 7 Such is the dispensation of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What are the impressions with which it fills your heart ? Are you overwhelmed with the magnitude of the mercy ; and ready to cry out, in astonishment, with the Psalmist, " Lord, what is man, that " thou hast such respect unto him ; and the son " of man, that thou so regardest him ?^ The " thoughts of God, are not as our thoughts ; nor " his ways as our ways : " ^ the mercy, vast as it is, is not too great for the God of Mercy. Are you surprised, that you cannot fathom the depths of this mysterious plan for the salvation of man- kind ? It is a mystery into which the very " angels desire to look." ^ Or are you proudly disposed, with presumptuous and profane rea- soners, to cavil at the inscrutable counsels of Infinite Goodness; to question the justice of God in permitting his guiltless Son to suffer for sinful man ; while yet his Son, voluntarily took the sufferings upon himself, or to contend that human transgression might have been freely forgiven, without an atonement ; while yet it is impossible, for you to know, that they could thus have been forgiven freely, in consistence with the attributes of God ; and while it seems highly probable, as far as our limited faculties can pre- (7) Jude 6. Rev. xx. 2. 10, (8) Psalm viii. 4. (9) Isaiah Iv. 8, 9. (1) 1 Pet. i. 12. 216 DOCTRINES OF THE sume to conjecture, that such an example, of im- punity, would have been an encouragement to disobedience throughout the universe? Leave to God " the secret things which belong to him :"^ and accept, with humble thanksgiving, the stu- pendous blessing which he has revealed. Remem- ber too that this blessing is, as to yourself, condi- tional. Salvation, through Christ, is offered to you, not forced upon you. It is promised to you, only on the terms of entire submission to him and to his laws. If you love that Saviour who has loved you ; if you give yourself to him, who gave himself for you ; he will reward you with everlasting glory. " But how shall you *' escape, if you neglect so great salvation ? " 3 There is salvation in no other : " there is no other " name under heaven given among men, whereby " we must be saved." ^ If Christ affirmed to his disciples, when he charged them to preach the Gospel to every creature, " He who believeth, *•' and is baptized, shall be saved : " he ad4ed, in the same sentence, " He who believeth not shall " be damned." ^ To you, the Gospel is preached: and the alternative is set before you, that you may make your choice. If you reject the Gos- pel ; or if, speculatively believing its truth, you lead the life of one who disbelieves it : if you follow the maxims and practices of a wicked world, instead of the commandments and the ('2) Dent. xxix. 29. (3) Hcb. ii. 3. (*) Acts iv. 12. (5) Mark xvi. 15^ 16. CHIIISTIAN RELIGION. 217 example of Christ : you have akeady read your doom. V. But how, you exclaim, is a being like man, by nature prone to evil and disinclined to good ; surrounded with powerful and unceasing tempta- tions ; and assailed by the unremitted malice of the same subtle adversary, who ensnared the in- habitants of Paradise : how is such a being, so circumstanced, to fulfil the conditions, on the performance of which, his salvation is to depend ? This question leads to the disclosure of another blessing purchased for you by your Redeemer. He has purchased for you, the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to enable you to do what by nature you cannot do. The Holy Ghost is one of the persons of the Trinity ; partaking of the Godhead with the Father and the Son, yet in some respects, unex- plained, and probably inexplicable to man, dis- tinct from each. It has already been shewn, that the mysteriousness of this doctrine, af- fords not any argument for hesitating to re- ceive it, if plainly revealed in the Scriptures. Many are the proofs, which the Scriptures fur- nish, of the Divinity and the distinct personalty of the Holy Ghost. In the form of baptism, prescribed by our Saviour, for all nations, 6 his name is united with that of the Father and of the Son. He is again united with them, in the apostolical benediction.^ To lie to him, is to lie (6) Malt, xxviii. 19: (7) 2 Cor. xiii. 11. 218 DOCTRINES OF THE unto God.^ To despise him is to despise God. ^ To blaspheme him is an unpardonable sin ; and the only unpardonable sin.i He is denominated the Spirit ; '^ the Spirit of God ; 3 the Spirit of Christ;'^ the Spirit of Truth ;5 the Eternal Spirit ; ^ the Comforter.^ He is said to search all things, even the deep things of God.^ His dis- tinct agency is frequently specified in the Scrip- tures. " The Spirit said unto Philip ; _ Go near, ■" and join thyself to this chariot : " ^ and after- wards " the Spirit of the Lord caught away " Philip," and conveyed him to Azotus. Unto St. Peter, " the Spirit said. Behold, three " men seek thee: arise, therefore, and get " thee down, and go with them, doubting " nothing : for I have sent them." " The Spirit ** bade me go with them," ^ saith St. Peter, re- citing the same event. " The Holy Ghost said, " separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work, "whereunto I have called them."^ Afterwards, when Paul, with Timothy, " had gone through " Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were " forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the (8) Acts V. 3, 4, 9. (9) 1 Thes. iv. 8. (1) Matt. xii. 31, 32. Mark iii. 28, 29. Luke xii. 10. The sin is, pro- bably, unpardonable, as not to be followed by repentance : for they who blaspheme the Holy Ghost, blaspheme tliat spirit, who alone worketh repen- tance. (2) Acts xi. 12, xvi. 7. 1 John v. G. (3) Rom. viii. 9. (4) Gal. iv. 6. 1 Pet, i. 10, 11. compared with 2 Pet. i. 21. (5) John xiv. 17. xv. 26, and see 1 John v. 6. (6) Heb. ix. 14* (7) John xiv. 16, 26. xv. 26. xvi. 7. (8) 1 Cor. ii. 10. (9) Acts viii. 29,39. (1) Acts x. 19, 20. xi. 12. (2) Acts xiii. 2. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 219 " word in Asia ; after they were come to Mysia, *' they assayed to go into Bithynia : but the " Spirit suffered them not." ^ Feed the church " of God," saith the same apostle, over which the " Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." "* He it was who spake by the mouth of the ancient pro- phets : ^ and who revealed to Simeon, that he should not die, until he had seen the Messiah. ^ He visibly descended in a bodily shape on Jesus Christ, when baptized : ^ and Avas given without measure to the Son of God, now become man. ^ Our Saviour promised to his disciples that, after his own departure, he would send to them from the Father, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to teach them all things, to shew them things to come, to bring to their remembrance whatsoever Christ had said to them, to guide them into all truth, to endue them with power from on high, and to enable them to make good their cause against worldly opposition.^ These promises were faithfully accomplished. On the day of Pente- cost, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, and ever afterwards abode with them.^ He em- powered them to speak various languages pre- viously unknown to them ; to attain to extraordi- nary degrees of wisdom, of knowledge, and of faith ; (3) Acts xvi. 6, 7. (4) Acts xx. 28. (5) Mark xii 36. Acts 1. 36. xxi 11. xxviii. 25. 2 Pet. i. 21. Heb. iii. 7. (6) Luke ii. 26. (7) Luke iii. 22. (8) John iii. 34. (9) John xiv. 26. xv. 26. xvi. 7, 13. Matt. x. 18—20. Mark. xiii. 11, Luke xii. 11, 12, xxi 12 — 15. xxiv. 49. Acts i. 8. (1) John ,\iv. 16. 220 DOCTRINES OF THE to prophesy, to heal diseases; to perform many other signal miracles ; and by imposition of hands to convey to others the gifts of the Spirit.^ These miraculous powers and endowments, were calcu- lated for the infancy of the Christian church. They qualified the apostles to preach the religion of Christ to the inhabitants of far distant coun- tries ; and in every country to produce indispu- table credentials, that they came ambassadors from God.3 In process of time, when Christia- nity had taken such firm root, in different parts of the world, that it no longer needed, for its sup- port and progress, such visible and wonderful interpositions of Divine power, they were gra- dually withdrawn. The influence of the Holy Ghost has since continued to be exercised, prin- cipally, in another most important office, an office, in which it was also employed no less actively in the days of the apostles, that of en- lightening and purifying the heart of each par- ticular Christian. It is " God that worketh in " us both to will and to do" '* that which is " right : and he worketh by the agency of the Holy Ghost. " Except a man be born of water " and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the " kingdom of God." ^ We are to be " saved by " the renewing of the Holy Ghost." ^ By him we are to be changed into the image of Christ. ^ " Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, (2) Actsii. 4. viii. 17. Rom. xv. 19. 1 Cor. xii. 4. &c. (.3) 2 Cor. V. 20. (4) Phil. ii. 13. (5) John iii. 5. (G) Tit. iii. 5. (7) 2 Cor. iii. 18. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 221 " goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," arc enumerated by the apostle as " the fruits of the " Spirit ; " in opposition to a list of the most flagitious crimes, which, he denominates " the *' works of the flesh," the works to which the corrupt nature of man disposeth him : with res- pect to which latter works he solemnly affirms, that they, who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God.^ But have we full assu- rance, that the assistance of the Holy Ghost, essential as it is to our salvation, will be afforded? Our Saviour has anticipated the question. " Ask, " and it shall be given you : seek, and ye shall *'find : knock, and it shall be opened unto you. " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts " unto your children : how much more shall your " Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to " to them that ask him ? " 9 How then may his blessed help be secured ? By fervent prayer to God, and by earnest endeavours to " grow in " in grace ; "^ to improve, day by day, in piety and good works. Think not that the Divine assistance will be bestowed unasked, unsought, unsolicited. Nor think that it will be bestowed, that it may supersede the necessity of your own exertions ; that it may enable you to lead a care- less life, without labouring to " work out your " salvation with fear and trembling." ^ Ask in the name of Jesus Christ, for the sanctifying (S) Gal. V. 18— 23.- fO) Luke xi. 9, 13. (1) 2 P«l. hi. 18. (2) Pliilip. ii. 12. 222 DOCTRINES, E T C. aid of Divine grace ; and it will not be withheld; study to improve, by that which is bestowed5 and more will be granted. But " grieve not," by transgression, the " Holy Spirit of God ; ^ lest you be abandoned to yourself, *' and given over to a reprobate mind." ^ • (3) Ephes. iv. 30. (4) Rom. i. 28 223 CHAP. VIII. ON THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. The great pattern which a Christian is uni- formly to propose for his imitation, is the character of his Saviour. " Learn of me ; for I ** am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find " rest unto your souls."^ " I have given you an " example, that ye should do as I have done." ^ " Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, " that ye should follow his steps." "^ Be like- " minded one towards another, according to the "example of Christ Jesus." ^ "Let that mind " be in you, which was in Christ Jesus." ^ When our Lord laid aside the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, and took human nature upon him ; " he was made Rke unto his " brethren, and was in all points tempted like " as we are." i Hence, he is repeatedly styled in the Scriptures, the Son of Man, the JNl an Christ Jesus ; and is described as growing not (5) Matt. xi. 29. (6) John xiii. 1.5. (7) 1 Pet. ii. 21. (8) Rom. XV. .5. in the marginal translation. (9) Philip, ii. 5. (1) John xvii. 5. Heb. ii. 17. iv. I."}. 224 THE CHARACTER OF in stature only, but in wisdom, and in favour with God. Hence too, there appears an obvious reason for those expressions, in which he speaks of his inferiority to his Father, and his ignor- ance of a part of the Divine counsels : "^ expressi- ons which, but for this consideration, might have been deemed inconsistent with other expressions of his own,3 and wdth the doctrine of his Divinity. Regarding him then in the state in which he manifested himself in the flesh, as a man, conversant with men, encompassed with the infirmities, and subject to the pains and sor- rows of mortality ; let us investigate, with some degree of detail, the example which he has left for our imitation. The first duty required of men, is piety towards God. The fervent piety of our Lord was his earliest and most prominent distinction. At the age of twelve years, he left his mother and Joseph, and repaired to the temple at Jeru- salem ; where he was found by them in the midst of the Jewish teachers, hearing them, and asking them questions. In answer to the Virgin Mary, whose address to him implied considerable surprise, he said, " How is it that ye sought me ? " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's " business ;" ^ employed in promoting the object for which I came into the world, the glory of my Heavenly Father ? AVhen occupied in the labours of his public ministry, we find that it (2) Joliu xiv.28. Mark xiii. 32. (3) Jolin x. 15. 30. (I) Lukoii. 18. &c. JESUS CHRIST. 225 was his custom, regularly to attend the synago- gues, the established places of worship, on the Sabbath, and to explain to the people the word of God.^ On every occasion he spoke with the utmost reverence of the Holy Scriptures. He exhorted his hearers to read and search them out : he interpreted such parts as related to himself : he affirmed that they could not be broken ; that not one circumstance recorded therein, should pass away without being fulfilled. In one of his parables, he speaks, in the severest terms, of those who despised or neglected the Scriptures ; declaring that if the persons, whom he described, would not hear and obey Moses and the pro- phets, neither would they be convinced, though one should even be raised from the dead for their conversion. The rejection of Christianity, by the Jews, after his own resurrection, practi- cally confirmed the truth of this declaration. In all his actions he shewed the warmest zeal for the glory of God. When he came into the temple, and saw the outward court crowded Avith people who sold oxen, sheep, and doves for sacrifices ; and with money-changers, who sup- plied such as wanted Jewish money in exchange for foreign coin ; he drove them from the place with indignation ; and told them, that the house of God was to be a house of prayer ; but that they had made it a den of thieves. All his own mighty works, his doctrines, his sufferings, and his resurrection, he ascribed to the glory of God (5) Luke iv. 10. 226 THE CHARACTER OF his Father. To him he habitually gave thanks on partaking or distributing of food. To him he prayed continually, at all seasons, sometimes alone, at other times with his disciples. He encouraged them to be earnest and constant in offering their petitions ; and at their request drew up a form of prayer, admirable alike for piety, simplicity, energy, wisdom, and compre- hensiveness, to direct and assist their devotions. In all things he submitted himself wholly to the will of God. And in his last agony, when he prayed with such fervency, that his Father would remove from him, if it were possible, the bitter cup ; he closed his supplication with these words : " Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, *' be done." Thus, completely did our Blessed Saviour, in all things, obey the "first and great " commandment : " Thou shalt love the Lord " thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy " soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy ** strength." <5 Let us proceed to the second great command- ment, which Christ pronounces to be " like unto " the first : Thou shalt love thy neighbour as " thyself."''' Of this command, love, in the lan- guage of Scripture, that is to say, perfect benevolence necessarily including perfect justice, is the fulfilment. " He that loveth another " hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not " commit adultery ; thou shalt not kill ; thou (G) Matt. xxii. 37, 3^!. Mark xii. 30. (7) Mark xii. 31 . .JESUS CHRIST. 227 " shalt not steal ; tlioii shalt not bear false wit- " ness ; thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any " other commandment, it is briefly comprehended *' in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy " neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to " his neighbour : therefore love is the fulfilling "of the law." 9 Christ, by laying aside the majesty of his Divine Nature, and suffering upon the cross for our sins, gave a proof of love towards mankind, so wonderful as to exceed the grasp of the most capacious understanding, and the acknowledgments of the warmest gratitude. Well do the Scriptures attempt, and they can do no more than attempt, to illustrate the tran- scendent love of Christ towards a depraved and guilty world, by contrasting his conduct with the strongest examples of human affection. " Greater love hath no man than this ; that a " man lay down his life for his friends. Scarcely " for a righteous man will one die : yet peradven- " ture, for a good man some would even dare to *' die. But while we were yet sinners, and ene- " mies, Christ died for us."^ During his abode upon earth, he was continually occupied in works of kindness and compassion. In the words of the apostle, " he went about doing good." For the comfort of the soul, he preached for- giveness of sins through his own death ; and pointed out the sure way to the kingdom of God. For the relief of the body, he healed all kinds of (9) Rom. xiii. 8 — 10. (I) John XV. l'}. Rom. v. 7 — 10. See also Coloss. i, 21 , 22. (l2 228 THE -€HAIIACTER OF diseases. He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to walk. He cleansed lepers, cast out evil spirits, raised the dead. Though in general he performed his miracles upon those persons who stood most in need of his assistance, and were also the most recommended to it by their faith : on some occa-r sions he signalized his Divine mercy by bestow- ing benefits upon objects, whose unworthiness excluded them from any pretension to his favour. Speaking of the loving-kindness of his Father, he describes him not as pouring out his mercies only upon righteous men ; but as making his sun to shine on the evil as well as on the good ; as sending rain on the just and on the unjust. The same description may be applied to himself. It is recorded of him, that he frequently associated with " pubhcans and sinners," notwithstanding the odium which his condescension excited, labouring for their conversion. When the ten lepers requested that he would heal them, he immediately cleansed them all ; though he knew beforehand that only one of them would acknow- ledge the kindness, by returning to give thanks to God. His benevolence appears, in a distin- guished light, from his steady discouragement of Jewish prejudices. At the well of Jacob, he revealed his JMessiahship to a woman of Samaria ; and abode two days in the city, delivering in- structions to the inhabitants. In his parable of the wounded traveller, the compassionate man was a Samaritan. Though in sending forth his JESUS CHRIST. 229 twelve disciples to preach during his own hfe- time, he forbade them to go into the countries of the Samaritans or of the Gentiles ; he explicitly declared to them, antecedently to his ascension, that tfiey should be his witnesses, not in Judsea only, but in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.2 When two of his apostles, enraged at the Samaritans, who would not receive himself and his disciples, because their journey was towards Jerusalem, were desirous of consuming the inhospitable city, by fire from heaven ; they experienced, from their Master, a severe repre- hension. He not only exhorted his followers to love each other, but taught them a further lesson strange to their ears : " I say unto you, love your " enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good " to them that hate you ; pray for them that '* despitefuily use you, and persecute you : that " ye may be the children of your Father which *' is in heaven." Still more forcibly to impress upon us the duty of benevolence, he constrains us to acknowledge, in our daily prayers, that we cannot desire the forgiveness of our sins, unless we forgive them that trespass against us ; even them that trespass against us times without number,^ For his own murderers he prayed while he was hanging upon the cross, at the time when he was enduring the utmost force of their torments. He solemnly assures us, in language the most encouraging, that by whomsoever any act of kindness shall be rendered, any assistance (2) Malt. X. 5. Acts i. 8. (3) Matt, xviii. 21, 22. 230 THE CHAllACTER OF administered, even if it be but a cup of cold water, to the lowest of his followers, from a spirit of Christian charity ; he will look upon it and reward it as done to himself.^ And now that he is ascended into heaven, he still continues his affection for mankind. He guards and up- holds his faithful servants ; and guides and comforts them by the Spirit of his grace. By the same Spirit he labours to lead the wicked to re- pentance. He is at this hour making interces- sion for us, at the right hand of God. And at the last day he will bestow everlasting glory and happiness on those, who shall have kept his commandments. It is to pride that a very large portion of the impiety, the injustice, and the other crimes prevalent in the world may be traced. This detestable passion our Saviour opposes in the most decided and pointed manner :^ and particu- larly by setting before us, in his own conduct, a perfect pattern of meekness and humility. For- bearing to recur to the unparalleled condescension which he evinced in " taking upon himself the " form of a servant, in the place of that of God, *' and being made in the likeness of men ;" con- sider the station in which he chose to appear upon earth. He was born of lowly parentage, and laid in a manger. To this beginning his whole life was conformable. Though Lord of all (4) Matt. X. 42. xxv. 35 — 46. (5) Ypt in these days we hear people, who profess themselves Christians, applauding and inculcating what they call " a projier pride ! " JESUS CHRIST. 231 things, he had not where to lay his head. He chose for his disciples not the powerful and the wealthy, not the wise and the learned, but indi- viduals who were poor, ignorant, and despised. His conduct towards them was marked with singular mildness. He bore with their prejudices, their blindness, their unbelief ; corrected their mistakes with gentleness ; and explained to them in private, with unwearied kindness, the instruc- tions which, when delivered in public, they had not understood. After his last supper before his crucifixion, with his own hands, and partly for the purpose of impressing on them a lesson of humiHty,^ he washed their feet. '* I have given " you," said he on that occasion, " an example, "that ye should do as I have done." — " He " came," he said, " not to be ministered unto, " but himself to minister unto others." -^ He was not elated by the mighty wonders which he had performed ; but was accustomed, after he had wrought a signal miracle, to ascribe the glory to God. " Go," said he to the Gadarene, out of whom he had cast many devils, •* retire to thine " own house, and shew how great things God " hath done unto thee."^ By instances such as these, conclusive as to his own unassuming charac- ter, he has left a memorable admonition to every one who may be distinguished by superior powers iHt) His conduct was also meant to be emblematical of the atonement which he was then about to make. See the whole account of the transaction, John xiii. See also Luke xxii. 24. (7) Malt. XX. 2S. (8) Luke viii. 39. 232 THE CHAllACTER OF of body or mind, to beware of being puffed up by these endowments, as though they were proofs of merit in the possessor ; to ascribe to God, with thankfulness and humiUty, the glory of his own gifts ; to pray that, by the aid of his grace, they may ever be applied to righteous purposes ; and to remember that it is not the possession, but the right application of abilities, which is praise- worthy. Our Saviour commanded his disciples to guard, under all circumstances, against A^ain- glory and ostentation ; especially in the great Christian duties of prayer and of alms-giving. " When ye pray, be not as the hypocrites are : " for they love to pray in the corners of the " streets, that they may be seen of men. But " thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet : " and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy " Father which is in secret/ And when thou " doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before " tliee, as the hypocrites do, that they may have " glory of men. But when thou doest thine alms, " let not thy left hand know what thy right hand " doeth : that thine alms may be in secret." To these injunctions he subjoins this encouragement: " And your Father, which seeth in secret, shall " reward you openly." ^ And at the same time he explicitly teaches his followers, that they who perform these or other duties " to be seen of " men," for the sake of human applause, " have " their reward" in this world, and shall " have no (9) Malt. vi. 1_6. JESUS CHRIST. 233 " reward from their Father who is in heaven." The barren and fleeting breath of praise they may obtain from the world which they deceive : from God, whom they seek not to please, and cannot delude, they have nothing to expect but the punishment due to their hypocrisy. From the brief accounts of our Lords conduct recorded in the Gospels, we learn, that the rules which he prescribed to his disciples were observed by liim- self. He set before them an example of constant attendance on public worship, by regularly fre- quenting the synagogue ; but we are repeatedly told of his retiring to a mountain, or into a desert, for the purpose of prayer. And it inci- dentally appears that he did not himself keep the purse, out of which alms were distributed to the poor ; but committed the charge of it to Judas, who afterwards betrayed him.^ One of the severest reproofs which he gave to the Jewish rulers is this ; that they were ambitious of receiv- ing honour one from another, and sought not the honour which cometh from God only ; or, as it is expressed in another place by the evangelist, " they loved the praise of men more than the " praise of God :" a disposition to which our Saviour ascribed, as an almost necessary^ conse- quence, their rejection of the Christian faith. In contradistinction to this spirit hear his own in- structions, " Blessed are the meek." " He that *' humbleth himself shall be exalted." " Who- " soever shall humble himself as a little child, the (1) John xii. 6. xiii.' 29. (2) John v. 44. xii. 43. 234 THE CriARACTER OF *' same shall be greatest i» the kiugdam of " heaven." 3 It has been shown that his own actions were a faithful illustration of these precepts. Our Saviour, whose abhorrence of all mixture of hypocrisy, in acts of charity and of devotion, has been recently noticed, stigmatizes deceit in general, and in terms which imply extreme aver- sion. The falsehood of the Jews he pointedly reproves ;* and ascribes lies to the Devil as their author.^ Of himself he says, " For this cause '•' came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth." ^ " Because I tell you the " the truth, you believe me not."^ " In my " Father's house are many mansions : if it were " not so, I would have told you." ^ His veracity shone conspicuous under the hardest trials. He boldly rebuked and exposed the vices of the Jews, and discountenanced their darling prepos- sessions, though perfectly aware of the hatred and active enmity which he thus drew upon himself. The great purpose of his life, was to establish his religion. Yet he never concealed froni his followers the dangers and the persecutions which they would bring upon themselves, from the powers of this world, for professing his doctrine : but plainly forewarned them that they should be hated and despised of all men, that they should be driven fron city to city, that they (3) Matt. V. 5, xviii. 4. Luke xiv. 11. (1) John viii. 55. (5) John viii. 44. (6) John xviii. .37. (7) John viii. 45. (8) John xiv, 2. JESUS CHRIST. 1235 should be scourged, afflicted, and put to death. In answer to Pilate's question, whether he was a king, he returned, without hesitation, the dangerous avowal, that he was. ^ A clear and forcible admonition is this to us that no worldly- advantage whatever will justify a deviation from the paths of truth. Courage is a quality which obtains from man- kind much higher praise than it deserves. In consequence of its obvious utility, it is commonly permitted, without inquiry, to take its place among the virtues. But, considered in itself, it has no more an inherent title to be denominated a virtue than bodily strength, or swiftness, or than wit, or reason. It is an instrument : and becomes the object of approbation or disappro- bation, (for in this case as in others, we transfer to the quality, according to the ordinary use of language, the praise or blame which belongs to the agent) solely according to the principles upon which it is cultivated and employed. When natural fortitude is cultivated by its possessor, for the sake of promoting the glory God, and the welfare of his creatures ; and is exerted in the face of danger, for the purpose of promoting that glory and that welfare ; w^e behold it with (9) John viii. 37. Pilate therefore said unto him, " Art thou ii king then ?" Jesus answered, " Thou sayest that I am a king : " that is, according to the idiom of the language. Thou sayest riglulij, that I am a king. That this mode of expression was an acknowledgement and affirmation of the fact, concern- ing which the question inquired, is evident from Luke xxii. 70. 71. and also from a comparison of Matt. xxvi. 64. with Mark xiv. 62. where the latter rvangclist, in&lead of the words, " Thou hast said," in our Saviour's answer to the question, whether he was the Son of God, substitutes the words, " I am." 23() THE CHARACTER OF reverence. Such was tlie fortitude of Jesus Christ. In this sense, his whole Hfe w^as a demon- stration of his fortitude. Several of those par- ticulars in his conduct, which have been cited, as proofs of his veracity, might be repeated as shining examples of religious magnanimity. As the hour of his death drew nigh, and after- wards when the fatal period had now overtaken him, the manifestations of his magnanimity were numerous and matchless. Though he knew the sufferings which awaited him at Jerusalem, he undauntedly went thither to the passover ; foretelling to his disciples, who followed him in amazement and terror, every thing which was to befal him. At his last supper, when Judas was about to betray him, Jesus calmly said to him, " That Avhich thou doest, do quickly." And when the traitor arose, and went out to conduct the soldiers, that they might seize upon his Master, our Lord, who knew the reason of the departure of Judas, far from shewing any marks of fear, rejoiced at the approach of his death, for the redem.ption of mankind ; and said, " now is the Son of Man glorified ; and God is " glorified through him." In his agony in the garden, his human nature recoiled at the thoughts of the anguish which he was to undergo. But his most fervent prayers to be delivered, if it were possible consistently with the redemption of man, from that anguish, were accompanied with another, that the determination of his heavenly Father should take place. Let it be JESUS CHRIST. 237 remembered that the death and sufferings of our Saviour were perfectly optional. All was in his own power. " I lay down my life : no man *' taketh it from me ; but I lay it down of "myself."^ Thinkest thou that I cannot now " pray to my Father, and he shall presently " give me more than twelve legions of angels ? " But how then," added our Lord, " shall the *' Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" ^ He spoke ; and resigned himself to his enemies. When Peter denied him, Christ looked upon the fallen apostle with an eye of calm pity that pierced his heart. When smitten unjustly, he replied with magnanimous composure ; " If I *' have done evil, bear witness of the evil : but ** if well, why smitest thou me ? " When derided and blasphemed, before his crucifixion, by the chief priests, scribes, and elders, by the Roman soldiery, and by Herod and his men of war ; when mocked and reviled, as he hung on the cross, by his enemies who exulted in the specta- cle, and even by one of the malefactors crucified with him: he bore without emotion all that malice could devise ; and, as the prophet had foretold,^ was like a lamb led to the slaughter, and opened not his mouth. A principal founda- tion of this holy fortitude in our Saviour, was his conviction of the perfect innocence and righteousness of his life. Herein also he hath given us an example. He, who conscientiously (1) Join. X. 17, 18. (2) Malt. xxvi. 53, 51. (3) Isaiah liii. 7. 'SSS THE CHARACTER OF and habitually endeavours to discharge, as the disciple of Christ, his duty to God and his neigh- bour, will receive such gracious assistance from above, as will sustain him under all the distresses and afflictions of life, and ffll him with hope and consolation on the bed of death. By superficial inquiries it has been affirmed, that the Gospel inculcates not either patriotism or friendship. And this false assertion has been brought forward as an objection to Christianity. That the Gospel mentions not the term patriot- ism, nor commands, under the shape of a formal precept, the duties obviously comprehended in the term, is true. And, he who considers that the Jews regarded the love of their country, as consisting in contempt and abhorrence of every other nation ; and that the Romans had con- verted the same principle into a pretext for subjugating the world to the dominion of Rome; will not deem it wonderful tliat Christ was •cautious of referring to the subject in direct precepts, which, in consequence of the erroneous and mischievous opinions universally prevalent on the subject, would probably have been per- verted or misunderstood. Yet, while by teaching the equality of all nations in the sight of God, under the Gospel, and by inculcating on all men, the duty of mutual benevolence as between brethren, he guarded against the mistakes and excesses to which patriotism, ill understood, has so often led : he taught both by precept and example, the duty of loving our country. When JESUS CHRIST. 239 in reply to an ensnaring inquiry, he commanded the Jews to render unto Cassar the things which were Caesar's ; he taught the first duty of patri- otism, faithful obedience to lawful governors. Tribute he paid himself: and wrought a miracle, that he might pay it.*^ The impending destruc- tion of .Tei'usalem he lamented with the most affectionate concern, and with tears."' After having been obliged, when he came to preach at Nazareth, the place where his youth was passed, to save his life by a miracle, from the rage of his unbelieving countrymen ; he returned in the following year, to that city, to renew his attempt, at the risk of equal danger.^* With respect to friendship, oiu* Saviour confirmed its obligations by the sanction of his own example. His whole conduct to his disciples, is a pattern of tender friendship. St. John is particularly distinguished as " the disciple whom Jesus loved." Lazarus, who was not one of his disciples, is called by Christ himself, his friend ; '^ and was one of the very few persons whom Christ raised from the dead. The affectionate regard of our Saviour to Lazarus and his sisters, is beautifully •expressed in the simple and touching language of the evangelist ; " Now Jesus loved Martha, " and her sister, and Lazarus." ^ Consider, too, the remarkably kind attention of our Saviour towards Peter ; who, after his shameful denial of his Lord, might justly apprehend that he <1) Matt. xvii. 27. (5) Liike xix. 41, 42. (6) Luke iv. IG— oO. Matt, xiii 51— SS- (7) John xi. 11. (8) John xi. .0. 240 THE CHARACTER OF should no longer be owned as a disciple. One of the angels who appeared to the women at the sepulchre, on the morning of the resurrection, addressed them, conformably, we may presume, to the injunction of Christ, in these terms : " Depart, say to his disciples, and to Peter, he " goeth before you into Galilee." ^ To St. Peter, and to him only, Christ shewed himself sepa- rately, on the very day on which he arose, ^ And afterwards, in the presence of six of his other disciples, he confirmed St. Peter, with marks of great confidence and distinction, in the apostoli- cal office.^ Finally, it was in the very act of blessing his disciples, that Christ ascended into heaven.'^ To the instances which have been produced of different virtues so gloriously exemplified in our Saviour's actions, many circumstances of his life, evincing the same and other virtues, might have been added. Far from wishing to exhaust, had it been possible to exhaust, the subject ; my desire is to lead you to apply habitually to the sacred source, from which the preceding examples have been derived. Study the life of your Saviour, in his thoughts, words, and deeds. By prayer and exertion endeavour to be con- formed to his image upon earth, as you hope to be conformed to it in heaven. Take for your (9) Mark xvi. 7. (1) Luke xxiv. 34. 1 Cor. xv. 5. (2) John xxi. 15. (3) Luke xxiv. 51. A very copioas ."selection, . accompanied witli many excellent observations, may be found in Arclibishop Newcome's Observations on our Lojd'.s conduct. JESUS CHRIST. 241 guide, imitate, as far as human weakness can imitate, this perfect pattern of perfect holiness. Far as you will ever remain short of it, labour still to approach nearer to it. The more ear- nestly you strive to be a faithful disciple of the Lord, the more of " that mind will be in you, " which was in Christ Jesus." ^ (4) Philipp. ii. 5. THE EARLY HISTORY CHAP. IX. THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE SUBVERSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. When the Divine Author of Christianity had withdrawn his visible presence from the earth ; his rehgion speedily experienced, according to his predictions, the encreasing enmity of a world, whose practices it condemned, whose forms of worship it superseded. The pure gold was to be tried in the furnace of adversity. Scarcely had the apostles of Christ opened their commis- sion, when a violent persecution, commencing with the martyrdom of Stephen, was raised " against the church which was in Jerusalem : " and they were all scattered abroad throughout " the regions of Judsea and Samaria, except the " apostles." ^ This sudden dispersion of the Christians was rendered, by the overruling hand of God, the cause of an immediate and exten- sive diffusion of the true faith. " They which " were scattered abroad, upon the persecution that (5) Artsviii. 1. OF CHRISTIANITY. ^ iJ? " arose abcmt Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, " and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word.'"' The implacable hatred of the Jews remained un- diminished. Some few years afterwards, " Herod *' the king, stretched forth his hands to vex " certain of the church : and he killed James, the *' the brother of John, with the sword. And " because he saw it pleased the Jews, he pro- " ceeded further, to take Peter also." ^ The vi- rulence with which St. Paul was constantly op- posed, and his life repeatedly attempted, by the Jews, both in Judaea and in distant countries, attested the rooted inveteracy with which that nation beheld Christianity and its preachers. From this enemy, however, the faith of Christ was, in a great measure, delivered by the vic- tories of Titus. But an enemy far more terrible remained ; the idolatrous empire of Rome. From his throne, in that capital, the emperor from time to time, " stretched forth his hands," not, like Herod, merely to seize some unfortunate victims within the walls of the city where he dwelt ; but <' to " vex and to kill," even in the utmost parts of the Roman world, those who, conscientiously, re- fused to burn incense to the gods of the pan- theon. The persecutions which the Christians endured, under the emperors, are usually enu- merated as ten : a number not very accurate, as it exceeds in amount the persecutions which were general throughout the empire ; and falls far (ft) Arts xi. 1!). . (7) Actsxii. 1— 3. R o 244 THE EARLY HISTORY short of those which raged, at different times, in particular provinces. Polytheism, limited by no bounds, was always ready to admit the reception of a new deity. The Romans had never scrupled to venerate the gods of the countries which they subdued : and the conquered countries had, with- out hesitation, united the gods of Rome with the original objects of their national worship. The Christians, therefore, who steadily refused all intercourse with idols, were regarded by the pos- sessor of the throne of the Cassars as rebels alike against the majesty of heaven and his own. They suffered also from being, to a certain degree, con- founded, in the common apprehension, with the Jews ; whom, in the words of Tacitus, the Ro- mans, like the Persians and the Greeks, con- sidered as " the most despicable portion of their ** slaves." In addition to these causes of suspicion and abhorrence, they had to encounter the effect of the grossest and most malignant calumnies, raised and spread abroad with unwearied activity, by their Jewish and Pagan adversaries : calum- nies, partly calculated to rouse the imperial jea- lousy, by representing the Christians as the par- tisans of " another king, one Jesus ; " ^ partly to render them objects of universal detestation, by describing them as addicted, in secret, to the most flagitious and horrible crimes, and as being the cause, by their impiety and vices, of every calamity, foreign or doniestic, which afflicted the state. Hence arose the miseries which they sus- (8) Acts xvii. 7. Ol' CHRISTIANITY. 245 tained during nearly three centuries, sometimes from the fury of legal vengeance, at other times, from the unauthorized but unrestrained outrages of the people. The Christians, for such were evidently the persons whom Suetonius, ignorantly, denominates '' the Jews who raised continual tumults in Rome, " at the instigation of Christ," were expelled from that city, by Claudius.^ With this indica- tion of displeasure, the emperor appears to have been satisfied. His successor Nero, led the way in enacting sanguinary laws against the Chris- tians ; and in subjecting the wretched objects of his antipathy to the most cruel tortures. Sus- pected of being, himself, the author of the con- flagration, by which Rome was desolated, he laid the crime to the charge of the Christians ; fixing the accusation, as Tacitus informs us, on them, in consequence of the general abhorrence in which they were held. He caused many of them to be crucified ; to be devoured by wild beasts ; or, being first wrapped in garments overspread with pitch and sulphur, to be fast- ened to stakes, and in that situation, burned to illuminate his gardens by night.^ With his death, A. D. 68, this persecution closed ; and his edicts were annulled by the Senate. About twenty-five years afterwards, the flame broke (9) The fact probably wa?, that the Jews, stigmatized and oppressed, might create some disturbances ; and that Christians, being regarded as a sect of Jews, were involved in the sentence of banishment. (1) A. D. 64. See the account in Tacitus. 246 THE EAllLY HISTORY out afresh, with great violence, under Domitian. It was, however, extinguished in a short time, by the death of the tyrant ; whose laws were abrogated by Nerva. But let it not be sup- posed that in these or other times, when there existed no law against Christians, they enjoyed a freedom from persecution. They were in fact subjected, throughout the empire, to local perse- cutions, even to death ; whenever the populace, impelled by its own blind rage, or stimulated by an interested and idolatrous priesthood, clamoured for their destruction. On this head, it will be sufficient to refer to the well-known letter of Pliny the younger, written by him, while go- vernor of Pontus and Bithynia, to Trajan : in which he appears weary, at length, of ordering to execution the numbers of persons brought before him, on the charge, and on the single charge, of Christianity ; and requests directions from the emperor for his future conduct. Trajan replies, that the Christians should not be officiously sought out : but that every person who should be accused and convicted of being a Christian, and should refuse to recant, must be put to death. Such was the treatment which the Chris- tians received from a prince celebrated, and justly celebrated, for general mildness and equity! What treatment then* must they have expe- rienced under such characters as commonly filled the imperial throne? Under this edict, by which, the situation of the Christians was cer- tainly meliorated, many distinguished persons OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 suffered martyrdom. Simeon, the bishop of Je- rusalem, and son of Cleopas, was crucified : and Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was flung, by the command of Trajan, to wild beasts in the am- phitheatre. In the reign of Adrian, it speedily became the practice of the people, in different provinces, to require, during the celebration of their public games, the destruction of the Christians : a de- mand with which the magistrates, fearing, or pretending to fear, that popular commotion would be the consequences of a refusal, fre- quently complied. Adrian, at length, issued an edict, commanding that the law of Trajan shoidd be punctually obeyed. In the reign of Antoninus Pius, the charge of atheism and impiety, reiterated against the Christians, and made the ground-work of many severities, was repelled by Justin Martyr, in his " Apology " presented to the emperor ; who, in consequence, confirmed the edict of Adrian. That law which forbade the Christians to be sought after and punished, unless they were guilty of some crime, being evaded afresh by their enemies, who interpreted Christianity itself to be a crime; the emperor interposed, with equal justice and vigour, to prevent the repeti- tion of the cruel enormities, which, under that subterfuge, had been committed. His successor, Marcus Antoninus, without ex- pressly revoking any existing law which afforded protection to the followers of Christ, disgraced 248 THE EAllLY HISTORY himself by listening to the obloquy poured forth against them ; and by edicts, in which he branded them as arrogant, obstinate, and wicked. In consequence of these proofs of the temper of the prince, a furious persecution of the Christians, A. D. 177, arose in many parts of the empire. Against a Christian, the most improbable accu- sation was instantly received ; and great numbers, among whom was the aged Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and the disciple of Saint John, suffered death in its most horrid forms. In some places Christianity was almost annihilated. After an interval of comparative quiet, perse- sution raged again, at the end of the second century, and the beginning of the third, under Severus, who promulgated a law, prohibiting any of his subjects from renouncing the religion of his ancestors for the Christian faith. The names of various eminent persons who suffered death under the operation of this edict, are re- corded by ecclesiastical historians. And in this persecution, no less than in others, the holy fortitude of the weaker sex, under dangers and torments, was as conspicuous as that of men. From the death of Severus to the reign of Maximin, the Christians experienced no moles- tation ; and occasionally enjoyed marks of favour from the intervening emperors. With the acces- sion of Maximin their calamities recommenced. Dreading the resentment of the Christians, on account of his assassination of the younger Severus, whom they loved as their protector ; OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 he, in the first instance, seized and put to death the bishops, whom that emperor had received into the number of his intimate friends; and afterwards directed his vengeance against the leaders of the church, with a degree of fury, which roused the enemies of the gospel to vent their rage in the most sanguinary manner against Christians of every description. When Decius ascended the throne, A.D. 249, the horizon grew darker than ever ; and such a storm fell upon the Christians as they had never yet encountered. The emperor commanded the Praetors, on pain of death, to annihilate the Christian name, by extirpating all persons of that religion, or by torturing them until they should recant. During two years vast multi- tudes of Christians were put to death, with circumstances of the most savage cruelty. Vast multitudes also, shuddering at the prospect of the lingering horrors which awaited them, " hav- *' ing no root, fell away ;"^ and screened them- selves by apostacy or by dissimulation. Under the two succeeding emperors, Gallus and Volusi- anus, the persecution continued. The Christians were not only exposed, in common with the rest of the empire, to the general miseries of the age, among which famine, and civil war, and a pesti- lence raging during fifteen years with unexampled havoc, are painted, in the strongest language, by contemporary writers ; but they had also to bear the odium of being the cause of tlie public cala- (2) Luke viii. 6—13. 250 THE EARLY HISTORY mities, and , to meet the vengeance which this accusation drew upon them. Valerian, A. D. 254, becoming emperor, restored peace to the church during the first years of his reign. But when Macriaims, a bitter foe to the Christians, acquired the ascendant in his councils, he forbade their assemblies, and sent their bishops and principal teachers into exile. In consequence of another edict, a consi- derable number of Christians, among whom were Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and Sixtus, bishop of Rome, were put to death. The perse- cution extended itself throughout the empire ; and was accompanied with every possible aggra- vation of torture. Valerian was at length taken captive by the Persians, and the Christian world rested until the reign of Aurelian. In A. D. 275, this prince was meditating its destruction. But his plans were rendered abortive by his own death. And the church, though not exempt from occasional instances of oppression, was suffered to continue, during the remainder of the century, in tolerable tranquility. Early in the following century, a persecution, more severe and bloody than any of those by which it had been preceded, assailed, and almost overwhelmed the professors of Christianity. Diocletian, who governed a large portion of the Koman empire, which now began to be divided among several colleagues, was averse to sangui- nary measures, and was originally no enemy to the Christians. But the calumnious artifices of OF CHKlSTIANlTy. 251 the Pagan priests, wlio now saw additional cause of alarm, as Constantius Chlorus, one of the junior emperors, had renounced idolatry, were aided by the indefatigable solicitations of the other Caesar, Galerius, the soh-in-law of Diocle- tian. The enemies of the true faith prevailed. An edict issued by Diocletian, A. D. 303, com- manded all the churches to be demolished ; and the Christians to be deprived of their sacred writings, and of all their civil privileges and immunities : and occasioned the death of many individuals, who refused to surrender to the magistrates their religious books. A second edict ordered the imprisonment of all bishops and ministers of the Gospel. A third commanded that the most exqviisite tortures should be em- ployed to constrain these captives to lead the way in open apostacy. A fourth, promulgated A. D. i>04, enjoined all magistrates to exercise these tortures upon all Christians, without dis- tinction of rank or sex, for the purpose of forcing them to renounce their religion. These edicts, which extended over the whole Roman empire, with the exception of the province of Gaul, over which Constantius Chlorus presided, were exe- cuted witli such active and unrelenting zeal, that the Christian faith v/as reduced to the extremity of distress. On the resignation of Diocletian, Galerius was advanced to the vacant dignity : and the sufferings of the Christians, in the pro- vinces under his controul, were augmented. Soon afterwards, to his extreme mortification, the va- S52 THE EARLY HISTORY cancy in the Imperial throne, occasioned by the death of Constantius in Britain, A. D. 306, was filled by Constantine, son of the deceased empe- ror, and afterwards denominated the Great. Between Constantme and Galerius a evil war speedily commenced. At length the latter, weighed down to the grave by a horrid distem- per, accompanied with inconceivable anguish, commanded, by a solemn edict, A. D. 311, the persecution against the Christians to cease. It was prolonged, however, by his successors, Maximin and Licinius ; and by Maxentius, who had made himself master of Italy and Africa. The war continuing, and Maxentius having perished in the Tiber, after a defeat from Constantine, A. D. 312 ; the victorious emperor immediately pub- lished, in conjunction with his colleague Licinius,, who now saw the propriety or the necessity of acquiescence, an edict which accorded to the Christians the unmolested enjoyment of their re- ligion. In the following year Maximin, being vanquished in a contest with Licinius, ended his own life by poison. And Licinius himself, who in the second of the civil wars which afterwards broke out between himself and Constantine,. renewed his persecution of the Christians, and tortured and slew many of their bishops ; being finally defeated and deposed, A. D. 324, left Constantine sole master of the Roman world. The protection which this emperor granted to the Christians in the early part of his reign, does not appear to have flowed from a decided con- OF CHRISTIANITY. 2.53 viction, tliat their faith had an exclusive title to universal reception.'^ His humanity rendered him adverse to persecution. His sound under- standing taught him the policy of cultivating the good-will of his Christian subjects. And he appears to have entertained a favourable, though very indistinct opinion of the claims of their religion to a divine origin. He regarded, howe- ver, the ancient religion of the empire as also true and useful ; and professed an impartial desire that the old and the new faith should be equally exercised and honoured. But he who already knew somewhat of Christianity, and was desirous of knowing more, could not permanently continue in a state of indifference and suspense. By degrees the emperor perceived that Chris- tianity was true, and that every other religion must necessarily be false. Conformably to this conviction, he earnestly exhorted all his subjects, by edicts issued A. D. 334, to receive and embrace the Gospel: and towards the close of his reign proceeded to exert the powers of his au- thority, for the abolition of idolatrous sacrifices, and for the destruction of heathen temples. He died A. D. 337. During the three centuries, -which had now elapsed since the death of our Saviour, Chris- tianity, upheld by the promised assistance of its Divine Author, and rising with augmented force, from the bloody conflicts of persecution, had (3) See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, translated by Maclaine, Bvo. 1782, vol. i. p. 321. To the same author I refer the enquirer into the controverted subject of the cross, said to have ajipeared to Con. Hence, a more wilUng ear was lent, in the beginning of the next century, by his subjects, to the preaching of Remigius : and numerous converts professed the Gospel. Converts multiplied also among the Heruli, the Alani, and other barbarous nations of the AVest : and in the East among; the Abaso-i, who bordered on Mount Caucasus. It is, howe- ver, to be feared that many of the new Christians were imperfectly acquainted with the doctrines, and still more imperfectly with the spirit, of the religion which they adopted. And the conver- sion of vast numbers of Jews, in France, Spain, and Libya, appears to have been effected, rather by menaces and violence, than by the influence of fair argument on the understanding. Colum- bus, an Irish monk, passing as a missionary into Scotland, laboured among the natives with sue- 278 THE HISTORY OF cess. In England also the foundations of the true faith were laid afresh. Ethelbert, monarch of Kent, the most powerful of the contemporary Saxon princes, was gradually disposed towards Christianity by his queen Bertha, the daughter of Cherebert, king of Paris. At this period, A.D. 596, the Roman pontiff, Gregory, surnamed the Great, sent Augustine, at the head of forty Benedictine monks, to preach the Gospel. The king, and the greater part of his subjects were baptized : and Augustine became the first arch- bishop of Canterbury. In other parts of the island, the idolatrous Saxons continued to exer- cise unrelenting cruelties against the ancient inhabitants, who retained the Christian faith. In Italy, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths was destroyed, A. D. 566, by Narses, the general of the Eastern emperor Justinian : and Rome, transformed into a dukedom, and degraded from the rank of a capital, was subjected to the lieu- tent of that monarch, who resided with the title of exarch at Ravenna. Two years afterwards, a new revolution, terrible to the Christians, super- vened. A Pagan army of Lombards, rushing from Pannonia, overwhelmed Italy : and, with the exception of Rome and Ravenna, having mastered the whole country, and established their kingdom at Ticinum, grievously afflicted the followers of the Gospel. In a short time, howe- ver, they embraced the religion which they had oppressed. Autharis, their third monarch, adopt- ed, A. D. 587, the tenets of Arianism ; and his cHiiisTiANiTV, inc. 279 successor acknowledged the Nicene faith. Dur- ing the course of these transactions, Persia upheld its established character, for cruelty to the Christian name. Chosroes, its monarch, denounc- ing vengeance, not only against the person, but against the God of Justinian, slaughtered the Christians, with every aggravation of torture, which inhumanity and impiety could furnish. Not many new controversies, of moment, broke forth in this century. Of the old sects, Arianism, after a short triumph, received a blow, from which it never was able to recover, by the expulsion of the Italian Goths, and the African Vandals, before the arms of Justinian ; and by the defection of Reccared, a Spanish sovereign, and of other princes. The Donatists also, having lost the protection of the Vandals, finally dwin- dled, after a concluding effort, into oblivion. But the advantage which the church gained, in these respects, Avas balanced by the still en- creasing prevalence of ignorance and superstition. In the West, the little learning which remained, was confined within the walls of the monasteries, It was by the protection of those walls, that the manuscripts of the classical authors, though neg- lected, were preserved ; and have descended, with the sacred records of antiquity, to a happier age. The tranquillity and the taste of the Eastern empire were rather more favourable to science and literature ; yet were unequal to the preven- tion of their decline. Additional rites, no less trivial than cumbrous, and usages fitted only to 280 THE HISTORY OF lead men from looking for salvation, through a life of Christian holiness, disfigured and tended to explode true religion, both in Europe and in Asia. The honour due unto God, was transferred more and more to saints. An opinion was indus- triously circulated, by a corrupted and avaricious priesthood, that the forgiveness of sins was to be purchased by liberality to monasteries and convents, which multiplied daily : and that the irresistible intercession of departed saints, would be exerted for the man, who had enriched the temples dedicated to their memory. After stating this fact, it is almost needless to add, that vice rapidly encreased among the clergy as well as among the laity. The bishops of Rome and of Constantinople were still antagonists. The tidings that John, prelate of the latter city, had assumed the title of oecumenical, or universal bishop, struck Pelagius, the Roman pontiff, with horror. Rousing himself, at length, to repel the fatal blow, he declaimed, by his representatiS'^e, Greg- ory, (who afterwards became pope,) against the blasphemy of the title; and thundered against his daring rival, the portentous appellation of Antichrist. Perhaps he forgot that his own predecessors, whose rights he was thus eager to maintain, had long claimed the jurisdiction implied in the name of universal bishop ; and had assumed the kindred denomination of head of the universal church. At this period, howe- ver, the Gothic kings of Italy, no less than the J^astern emperors, denied the unlimited authority CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 281 of the pontiff; and exacted from him various tokens of submission. The seventh century witnessed the extension of the Christian faith in the East to China, and the remotest parts of Asia, chiefly by the labours of the Nestorians. In the West, the faith of the Gospel became universal throughout our own island; whence it was carried to Batavia, and other parts of the continent. Compulsory con- versions of the persecuted Jews were urged for- ward by the emperor Heraclius ; and by the monarchs of Gaul and Spain, in the face of the avowed disapprobation of the Roman pontiff. Darkness and ignorance overspread the Christian world, under the auspicious aid of the subtleties of the Aristotelian logic. The vices of the monas- tic clergy augmented with their riches. The su- perstitions of the preceding age multiplied. Peni- tential discipline was formed into a system ; and became generally recognised as a full expiation for sin. By a law of pope Boniface V. the churches were rendered places of refuge to all persons, who should fly to them for protection ; and thus became public asylums for the most abandoned criminals. To the turbulent remains of ancient divisions the new sect of Monothelites was added ; and tormented and per^^lexed the East and the West witli metaphysical disputes concerning the unity of will in the two natures of Christ. In the course of this controversy, pope Honorius, and his Monothelite doctrine were formally condemned, in the presence of the 282 ' THE HISTORY OF papal legates, by the general council of Constan- tinople : a circumstance which has produced no small embarrassment to Roman Catholic writers, who have felt themselves bound, by their faith, to uphold the perfect infallibility, both of general councils and of popes. The claims, however, of papal supremacy were urged with such unceasing ardour, that Boniface III. sought and obtained, A. D. 606, from the emperor Phocas, one of the most detestable of tyrants, that very title of oecumenical or universal bishop ; the desire of which, Gregory, his predecessor in the see of Rome, had stigmatized in John of Byzantium as a characteristic of Antichrist. Yet, much oppo- sition continued to be made to them by temporal sovereigns. Pope Martin, having treated the Imperial edicts with extreme contempt, in con- sequence of their being favourable to Monothel- itism, of which, unlike to the future pope Hono- rius, he was a bitter enemy ; and having solemnly anathematized and consigned to the devil and his angels, the Monothelites and their patrons, was seized, at the command of the enraged emperor Constans, by the exarch of Italy, and detained pri- soner for a year, with much cruel usage, in the isle of Naxos. The ancient Britons and the Scots distinguished themselves, by perseverance in maintaining their religious independence. In the midst of these contentions, and from a remote and disregarded corner of the East, a new and tremendous scourge of Christianity had arisen. Mahomet had established his imposture CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 283 ill Arabia. 13orn of the noblest family of the most honourable tribe among his countrymen, yet beset with indigence and obscurity, he passed his early years in the humble occupations of a camel- driver, and of a commercial agent to a wealthy widow ; until he was raised to distinction by be- coming the husband of his employer. In the political and religious situation of the inhabitants of Arabia, he perceived an opening, by which a daring, and sagacious, and unprincipled adven- turer might arrive at unlimited dominion. Divi- ded into a number of unconnected and hostile tribes, the Arabians were not likely to unite into a general confederacy against any person, who might appear to aim at superiority over one or two tribes. The very enmity of some was likely to conciliate to him the friendship and assistance of others. Those whom private and national antipathies had thus separated, were kept asun- der still more widely by differences in religion. Arabia, the land of freedom, was peopled with discordant sects of every persuasion. With Jews it abounded as early as at the day of Pentecost ; and had received numbers of fugitives from the arms of the Romans. In many parts of the country,Christianity had made powerful advances. Among some tribes the religious tenets of the Magi had been introduced from Persia. The rest of the people, though generally holding the unity of God, were absorbed in idolatry. But Jews, Christians, and idolaters were enveloped in uni- versal ignorance. What then might not be hoped 284 THE HISTORY OV by a deceiver, who should cautiously lay before the Arabians, as coming from God, a form of religion dexterously accommodated to the leading tenets of the different parties, on whose ignorance he wished to impose ? On this foundation, and according to this plan, Mahomet erected his superstructure. Having attracted, during some years, the public attention, by frequent retire- ments to a cave in a mountain in the neighbour- hood of Mecca, the city where he resided, he at length announced himself, A. D. 609, privately in the outset, and to his own family, as a prophet invested with a Divine commission to establish true religion upon earth. His sacred doctrine and institutions he professed to receive from heaven by the communication of the angel Gabriel. He imparted them to the world in the Koran ; the chapters of which he produced in slow succession during three and twenty years : and usually for the evident purpose of meeting some emergency in his affairs, or of authorizing the gratification of his licentious passions. Dis- carding all mysteries as adverse to his prospect of success, he unremittingly inculcated the tenet in which all descriptions of his hearers were disposed to agree, the unity of God. The Jews he con- ciliated by upholding the Divine authority of the Old Testament ; the Christians he allured by paying similar respect to the New. Moses and Christ he averred to have been sent as forerun- ners of himself; and to have predicted his ap- proach and his superiority, in passages which CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 285 had been blindly misunderstood, or maliciously corrupted or expunged. Pretensions to miracu- lous powers lie warily disclaimed. JNIiraclcs, he said, had been proved, by the examples of Moses and of Christ, ineffectual to secure the reception of truth. Unbelievers he menaced with unspeak- able and eternal anguish in a future life. To believers he promised the everlasting pleasures of a sensual paradise. But he reserved the highest enjoyments and glories of the world to come for those who should expend their possessions or their blood in support of his religion. The tardiness of his progress might have driven a less resolute impostor to despair. Fourteen proselytes were the fruit of three years. Some years afterwards the number scarcely exceeded one hundred.^ The rage of his enemies constrained him to save his life by flight from ^lecca, A. D. 622 ; an event from which the ^lahometans date their era, denominated the Hegira, or tlie Flight. His fortunes now changed. He was received at Medina as a prince and a prophet. Converts and adventurers flocked to his standard. Laying aside the tolerating language which his feebleness had inserted into the earlier parts of the Koran ; he declared himself sent forth to establish true religion, the belief in the unity of God, and in himself as the apostle of God, by the sword. Against all Infidels, he declared war. To ido- laters, he offered conversion or death. To the followers of Moses and of Clnist, a more liberal (f)) Gil;ljoii's Hi^^tory, 4t.., vol. V. |>. 220. 286 THE HISTORY OV choice was offered. " Ye Christian dogs,^ ye " know your option : the Koran, the tribute, or " the sword." Such was the address usual among his successors to their enemies of the Eastern Empire. Victory and defeat were ahke con- verted by Mahomet into engines for consolidating his power. The one was a special proof of his Divine mission ; the other a punishment on the incredulity of his followers. At length his arms were every where triumphant. He was enthroned in Mecca, and acknowledged and obeyed through- out all Arabia as a Divinely-appointed lawgiver and sovereign. Tranquil at home, he looked around for conquest. Palestine he invaded ; and fixed his eye on the fertility of Syria. But his career was arrested, A. D. 632, by death. The tide of victory, however, flowed on without interruption. Succeeding Caliphs trod in his footsteps. Frantic with religious zeal, and the thirst of plunder, and steeled against fear and danger by a belief in the most rigid predestina- tion ; innumerable hosts of Saracens, so termed from a principal tribe of the Arabians, rushed forth on all sides. Within six years after the death of Mahomet, Syria, after the destruction of immense armies, dispatched for its protection, was completely wrested from the emperor Hera- clius ; who publicly acknowledged, that the (6) Do of these and other sects, it becomes me to be silent. The number, and the subdivisions of the sects in question, and the duty of describing, if at all, with fulness and precision, opinions dif- fering from my own, would, necessarily, lead to an extent of detail inconsistent with the brevity of my general plan. Those opinions may easily be learned from the discourses or the writings of the individuals who hold them. Yet, 1 would not willingly dismiss the subject, without press- ing the importance of warm and habitual regard to two momentous and most consistent branches of Christian duty : the obligation, on the one hand, of " earnestly contending for the faith, " which was once delivered to the saints ; " ^ and on the other, of " putting on charity, which is " the bond of perfectness," ^ and of habitually evincing the Spirit of the apostolic prayer; " grace be with all those," all of every descrip- tion, " who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sin- cerity."^ (3) Jude 3. (4) Coloss. iii. 14. (5) Ephesians vi. 24, 364. ON FOllMS OF CHAP. XII. ON FORMS OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. It is an apostolical direction, that a Chris- tian should always be prepared to give " a " reason of the hope that is in him." The ground of the injunction extends to all institutions closely connected with his faith. My present purpose, therefore, is to assist the judgment of the younger part of my readers, by endeavouring briefly to satisfy them, that reasons, substantial reasons, may be advanced in support of the ec- clesiastical institutions of their own country. In every community or body of men, civil or ecclesiastical, some species of Government is requisite for the good of the whole. Otherwise, all is irregularity, confusion, and interminable contention. How then, in any particular country, is the Christian church to be governed ? " Every *• separate congregation," answers the indepen- dent, " is a sovereign church ; amenable to no " extrinsic jurisdiction, and entitled to no juris- " diction over other churches." — " That mode of CHURCH COVEUNMENT, ETC. 365 *' government," replies the presbytcrian, " is " calculated to destroy unity, co-operation, and " concord among Christians. All congregations " within the same state, which agree in doctrine, " ought to be under the general superintendence " of a representative assembly, composed of their " ministers and delegates." " Such a representa- " tive assembly," returns the episcopalian, "wants " vigour and dispatch ; and is perpetually open " to tumult, partiality, and faction. Divide the " country into dioceses ; and station a bishop in " in each, armed with sufficient authority, and *' restrained by adequate laws from abusing it. " Such was the apostolical government of the •• church ; such," perhaps he adds, " was the ** government enjoined on succeeding ages." " Away ! " cries the papist, " with these treason- " able discussions. The pope, the successor of " St. Peter, is, by divine right, the only source " of ecclesiastical power ; the universal monarch " of the universal church." Writing as I am, to Protestants, I may pass by the claim of the successor of St. Peter. But the concluding words, of the episcopalian, are of prime importance. If Christ, or his apostles, en- joined the uniform adoption of episcopacy ; the question is decided. Did Christ, then, or his disciples, deliver or indirectly convey such an injunction ? This topic has been greatly con- troverted. The fact appears to be this ; that our Saviour did not pronounce upon tiie subject ; that the apostles, uniformly, established a bishop 366 ON FORMS OF in every district, as soon as the church, in that district, became numerous; and thus clearly evinced their judgment as to the form of ec- clesiastical government most advantageous, at least in those days, to Christianity : but that they left no command, which rendered episcopacy universally indispensable in future times, if other forms should evidently promise, through local opinions and circumstances, greater benefit to religion. Such is the general sentiment of the present church of England on the subject. « (G) I have pleasure in quoting, on this point, the words of two eminent prelates and defenders of the church of England, one at the beginning, the other at the end of the present century. " Ecclesias Reformatas, etsi in " aliquibus a nostra Anglican^ dissentientes, libenter amplector. Optarem '' equidem regimen episcopate bene temperatum, ct ab omni injuslk domina- " tione sejunctum, quale apud nos obtinet, (et si quid ego in his rebus sapiam, *' ab ipso apostolorum sevo in ecclesia receptum fuerit,) et ab lis omnibus " fuisset refentum : nee despero quin aliquando restitutum, si non ipse videam, •' at posteri videbunt. Interim absit ut ego tarn ferrei pectoris sim, ut ob *' ejusmodi defectum (sic mihi absque omni invidia appellare liceat) aliquas '' earum a communione nostra abscindendas credam ; aut, cum quibusdam *' furiosis inter nos scriptoribus, eas nulla vera ac valida sacramenta habere, " adeoque vix Christianos esse, pronuntiem." Letter from Wake, arch'- bishop of Canterbury, to Mr. Le Clerc, published in the appendix to Mac- laine's Translation of Mosheim, 8vo. vol. vi. p, 124. " We may safely " challenge the enemies of episcopacy to produce evidence of the existence of " a single ancient independent church, which was not governed by a bishop : " I mean, after it was fairly established.— But though I flatter myself that I " have proved episcopacy to be an apostolical institution ; yet I "readily ac- " knowledge, that there is no precept in the New Testament, which commands " that every church should be governed by bishops. No church can exist " without some government. But though there must be rules and orders for " the proper discharge of tlie offices of public worship ; though there must be " fixed regulations concerning the appointment of ministers ; and though a " subordination among them is expedient in the highest degree ; yet it 'does " not follow that all these things must be precisely tiie same in every Christian ''^ country. They may vary with the other varying circtnnstances of human "society; with the extent of a coimlry, the manners of its inhabitants, the CHUllCIl (iOVEllNMENT, ETC. 367 'J'hat the two orders of priests and deacons, into which, subordinately to bishops, the whole body of English clergy is distributed, Avere instituted by the apostles, is a fact too plain to require a formal proof. The deacons were in- ferior to the priests; they were authorized to baptize ; they assisted in the administration of the sacrament, but were not admitted to conse- crate the bread and wine : and they Avere spe- cially intrusted with the care of the poor. The several functions of our priests and deacons are in no essential point, different from the corres- ponding offices of similar ministers of the church in primitive times. The silence of the Scriptures, and the usages of the ancient church, sanctioned the appointment of archbishops, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers ; whenever the appointment appeared, as the numbers of Chris- tians were multiplied, beneficial to the interests of religion. If any state should be of opinion, that to give to some of its leading ecclesiastics a share in the legislative authority, would also advance the interests of religion ; there is no scriptural objection to the plan. Thus England stations its bishops in the upper house of par- " nature of its civil government, and many other peculiaritieB wliieh might be " specified. As it has not pleased our Ahnighty Father to prescribe any " particular form of civil government for the security of temporal comforts to " his rational creatures : so neitlier has he prescribed any particular form of " ecclesiastical polity, as absolutely necessary to the attainment of etcruiil " happiness. The Scriptures do not prescribe any definite form of church " government."— Bishop Prelyman's Elements of Clnistia:i Theology, vol. ii. p. 383. 39G. 39M. ^^^ ON FORMS OF liament. Observe, however, that the clergy in England, form not a distinct body from their fellow-subjects. They are amenable to the same laws : they pay the same contribution to taxes : they suffer the same punishment for crimes. The property which they possess as clergymen, from the bishop to the curate, is the salary of an office : and the succession to it is open to any family in the kingdom. But why are the clergy to have salaries ? Why ? Upon the scriptural principle of uni- versal justice; that "the labourer is worthy of " his reward ; " that he who labours, should live by his labour ; that he who employs his time and his talents for the benefit of others, should receive from them, an adequate retri- bution. Is not this general principle applicable to the clergy ? Jesus Christ himself has applied it to them : « The Lord hath ordained, that they « which preach the Gospel should live of " the Gospel." ^ But, although the clergy ought to be sup- ported, why should not they be left, as in apos- tolical times, to the voluntary support of their congregations ? Because in these days, volun- tary support, it is to be feared, would too often be no support. Through the affectionate zeal of the Christians, towards their pastors in early ages, legal provisions were needless : and if they had been necessary, they could not have been ob- (7) 1 Cor. ix, M. CHUKCII GOVERNMENT. 369 taiiied from Pagan law-givers. At present, such af- fectionate zeal would be very rare. Even by many of the English dissenters, whom the existence of an established church, of another persuasion na- turally stimulates to exertions in behalf of their own clergy ; the inadequate payment of their ministers is lamented. The law, therefore, inter- poses with respect to the national church, to prevent the many injuries to religion, which •would result from general poverty in the clergy : and the temptations to remedy that poverty by conciliating accommodation of doctrine and practice, to the humour of wealthy subscribers. But the revenues of the church are excessive ! The great Lord Chatham was not of your opinion. " The church," said he, *' God bless " it ! has but a pittance." Calculate the whole annual revenue of the church, and the number of the clergy ; compute what the former would produce, if equally divided, to each of the latter : consider the necessary expenses of a clerical education : recollect that a clergyman is properly excluded from ordinary occupations and their profits ; and you will not think that Lord Cha- tham was in the wrong. But their revenues are unequally divided ! Are you sure that religion would derive advantage from their equalization ? But tithes are an objectionable mode of paying the clergy ! It is true : and what mode of pay- ment would be unobjectionable ? What, however, are your objections to tithes ? They impede agricultural improvements; and they occasion 2 B 370 ON FORMS OF dissensions between the clergy and their parish- ioners. 1 admit that your first objection is not without its weight ; though I believe that weight to be commonly overrated. For it is not ac- cording to human nature, that men should very frequently decline to improve their estates nine pounds a-year, because another person would be entitled to the tenth pound. Even if the owner, by expending the same sum in another way, could secure the tenth pound to himself ; the satisfaction of improving his own permanent landed property, would, in most cases, turn the scale. The second objection is, I confess, so forcible, that I have only to avow my sincere regret that no practicable means of providing for the clergy, less objectionable than tithes, have yet been dis- covered and proposed. But when I make this avowal, justice, not professional prejudice, re- quires me to express my conviction, that in by far the greater number of instances, the dissen- sions, which we agree in deploring, arise from the selfish opposition of those who are to pay tithes, not from the exorbitancy of him who demands them. Of seven hundred suits on ac- count of tithes, brought by the clergy into the court of Exchequer, from the year I66O to 1713, six hundred were decided in their favour.^ If 3, new search, " down to the present day, were made into the records of the Exchequer, the re- *sult, I apprehend, would bear a testimony no less lionourable. I take no credit for peculiar mode- (S) Soc Archbishop Scrkrr's Clinrges, p. 129. CHURCH GOVERNMENT, ETC. 371 iration in the clergy : but the nature of the case speaks for itself. The clergyman, foreseeing that the interest of himself and of his family in the profits of his living terminates, at the latest, with his life, is much more likely to relinquish a just demand, through a dread of an expensive contest, than to appeal to the law in support of an unrea- sonable claim. And his usual inability to fight the purse of a w ealthy lord of a manor, or that which is replenished by the combination of in- ferior proprietors, inculcates on him the same lesson. But is it not invidious, is it not unjust, to take tithes from the property of dissenters, and to give them to clergymen of another persuasion ? A little explanation may convince you, that there is no injustice nor invidious intention in the matter. In the first place, the tithes are not required from the dissenter as such : they are an outgoing from the land (or what amounts to the same thing, the produce of the land) which he happens to possess. When he or his ancestor bought the land, he bought it proportionally cheaper, because it was subject to that outgoing. In the second place, whenever the legislature imposes a tax, for the purpose of applying its produce to an object which it deems of national utility, the tax must be imposed on the country at large, though many individuals may think the object to which it is to be applied useless or pre- judicial. On no other principle could public measures be conducted. Were a land-tax im- 2 B 2 3721 ox roKMS OF posed for the prosecution of a war ; would you exempt the land of those who disapproved the war? Or if the legislature believed that the institution of a medical board would be of national utility, and should lay a general house-tax for its support ; would it be unjust to require the tax from householders who should think unfa- vourably of the institution ? Were the leffisla- lature to prohibit those householders from em- ploying any other than the estabhshed physician, the case would be very different. But if it leaves them, though necessarily subject to the general tax, at liberty to employ any physician of their own ; they cannot complain of being invidiously or unjustly treated. The case of tithes is exactly parallel. The legislature, deeming the mainte- nance of a national church essential to the public good, and the only method of securing the uni- versal and regular performance of public worship, in a suitable manner, throughout the kingdom, imposed, and continues, for its support, a tax on land, to be paid by the owner, whoever he may happen to be. But with the conscience of the owner it interferes not; it leaves him at liberty to attend the national church, or any other church which he may prefer. The temptations to pretended dissent, the complicated and endless collusions which must ensue, were the legislature ta exempt any man from tithes, who should profess not to belong to the national church, would render such a plan subversive both of the national church and of sincerity. CllUllcn (JOVKKNMKNT, ETC. .173 But, uhy is tlie national church hedged round with creeds and articles ? Because, otherwise, it either could not exist at all, or could not exist with public utility. Would you have a pulpit open to be filled in the morning by a protestant, in the afternoon by a catholic ; to-day by a fol- lower of Socinus ; next week by a disciple of Swedenborg ? Would a congregation be edified and confirmed in " the truth as it is in Jesus," by hearing the fundamental doctrines of Chris- tianity alternately asserted, questioned, denied ? In primitive times, when a variety of doctrines sprang up among Christians, particular churches perceived the necessity of manifesting their opi- nions, by drawing up creeds and confessions of faith. At the reformation, the church of Eng- land, like other protestant churches, ildded to the creeds adopted in its congregations, a sum- mary of its faith, contained in thirty-nine articles, and directed them to be presented for the assent of any person who should apply to be admitted to the office of minister in the church, as a test by which it might be known v/hether he accorded with the doctrines of the church. If he did not, he was of course, an unfit person to be appointed one of its public teachers. The same practice is continued for the same reason. Is the ecclesiastical establishment then, it will finally be said, free from attendant imper- fections and misconduct ? It is free from neither. Shall I express the answer in other words ? It is a human institution administered by men. 374 ON FOKMS OF, ETC. Every work of man is tinctured with imperfec- tion ; every proceeding of man with misconduct. But what is the rational line of argument ? Take the most obvious of examples, civil government, and apply it. A king may be oppressive. Is a republic less likely to be oppressive ? An here- ditary crown may devolve into unworthy hands. Did the condition of Poland before its downfall recommend an elective monarchy ? A parliament may be misguided or corrupted. Would you be ruled without a parliament by the despotism of an individual or of a mob ? The utmost to be expected in a human institution is, that the ad- vantages should greatly preponderate, and that disadvantages should be open to consideration and remedy. Try the ecclesiastical establishment and the administration of it by that rule. If afterwards you still feel a doubt remaining, re- member, with gratitude to heaven, that you live under the legislature of a free country ; a legisla- ture empowered to apply a remedy in its wisdom, to any of those defects which, according to the common fate of all things below, may adhere to its noblest works. CONCLUSION. S7,5 CHAP. XIII. CONCLUSION. If the summary accounts, which the preceding chapters furnish, concerning the several subjects of which they treat, have tended to evince the goodness and the providence of God, to establish the truth of Christianity, and of the protestant faith : to explain the nature and the utility of our ecclesiastical establishment: the conviction thus produced, may justly derive additional con- firmation from every inquiry into the detail of those topics, of which only the leading features have been sketched. The prosecution of such inquiries, as the source of most important know- ledge, and of steadfast, rational, and uncontami- nated faith, it is difficult to recommend with adequate solicitude. May the reader prosecute them, under the Divine blessing, with the at- tention which they deserve ; and with a disposi- tion adapted to the discovery and to the love of truth. In the mean time, he will receive, I trust, with candour, some concluding, and, perliaps, not unnecessary observations relative to Chris- tian faith and Christian practice. 376 CONCLUSION. I. Young persons who, though little, if at all instructed in the evidences and groundwork of Christianity, have been accustomed, during their education, to the society, the language, and the public worship of Christians, usually come forth into active life, not only with full persuasion of the truth of their religion, but with scarcely a suspicion that there can be many persons in this country who doubt or disbelieve it. An avowed sceptic, or unbeliever, is in their eyes, a pheno- menon like a comet. And every one who is not a notorious sceptic or unbeliever they regard, as in faith at least, though perhaps not in practice, a good Christian. It may be well for them to know, without waiting until the lesson be incul- cated by longer experience of the world, that they have formed a scanty conception of the number of those, who take little pains to conceal their scepticism, or their unbelief; and that there exists in the middle and higher classes of society, a large description of persons, who, without openly rejecting Christianity, can by no means be said to believe it. That the number of those who do not embrace the gospel, affords no argu- ment, either against the truth of the religion, or the goodness of God, is a fact which I have already had occasion to explain.^ The evidence which God has supplied on behalf of the religion of his Son, is wisely ^adapted to the situation of (9) In the concluding pages of ch. 6. It may, perhaps, be properto add, that the same subject is further noticed in the Inquiry into the Duties of Men, Ac. 4th ed. vol. ii. p. 515— &20. CONCLUi^IUK. 377 moral agents, of beings in a state of trial. It is not instantaneously overpowering, irresistibly bearing down alike the assent of the prejudiced and the candid, the careless and the considerate. It soHcits examination ; it demands fair inquiry ; and the fair inquirer it rewards with conviction. They who will not inquire, or who inquire not rationally and fairly, deservedly remain in their blindness. This observation belongs to the per- sons recently described as not openly rejecting Christianity, no less than to its avowed opposers. They came forward into life, as you, perhaps, are coming forward, with an extremely superficial knowledge of their religion, but without any doubt of its Divine authority. In no long time, they began to hear indirect cavils and witty sar- casms aimed against detached passages in the Scriptures ; intimations dropped with a significant air of sagacity about priestcraft ; and expressions of wonder that the indulgence of natural incli- nations should ever be a sin. Their ears, at first a little shocked, soon became familiar to the sound ; and learned, by degrees, not to be of- fended at plainer language. Direct charges of absurdity, falsehood, and imposture advanced, first against the Old Testament, then against the New, though they did not produce conviction, were heard without emotion. In the mean time, the prejudices of education in favour of religion, for in these persons, uninstructed in the grounds of Christianity, belief was nothing more than a prejudice, were gradually loosened. Habits of 378 CONCLUSION. life too, perhaps, were formed, wliicli rendered the truth of Christianity, and the consequent certainty of future punishment for vice, highly undesirable. However that might be, the man grew absorbed in the business or the trifles of the world. Political pursuits, professional occupations, his regiment, or his vessel, or his compting-house, or his shop, or his hounds and horses, his gun, his company at home, his visits abroad, filled up his whole time. Religion grew more and more fo- reign to his thoughts. Not that he decidedly disbelieved it. He felt, when it crossed his mind, doubts of its truth, and a secret wish that it might not be true : he felt the most preposterous of all persuasions, that possibly there might be something of truth in it, but that certainly there was much less than was represented : but he had not thought on the subject sufficiently to disbelieve it altoge- ther, or to have any clear opinion. Yet perhaps he was now and then seen at church ; at least in the country, wheii he had nothing to do : for he was desirous of preserving a respectable appear- ance ; and he was convinced that religion, true or false, should be encouraged among the lower people, to keep them in order, particularly in these days of Jacobinism. Suspicions too, of the possibihty of the truth of Christianity, had still hung about him ; and at times, he had half in- tended to examine into the matter. Once or twice, a fit of sickness, or a domestic affliction, had increased his surmises : and he had deter- mined that at some future convenient opportu- CUXLLUSIOX. 379 iiity, he would endeavour to satisfy liimself. But the convenient opportunity never happened to arrive. Days, months, and years, found him occupied as before : and death surprised him at last in his grey hairs, — uncertain of his faith. I do not speak lightly, when I express my appre- hensions, that of the leading features in this picture, many originals are to be found. The guilt of such conduct, like all other guilt, may be diminished or aggravated by attendant cir- cumstances. How is it in the present case? Was the object in question unimportant ? The eternal salvation of the individual was at stake. But had he means of information, and encou- ragements to use them ? He lived in an enlight- ened age ; in a protestant country ; he lived where the Scriptures are open, and inquiry free to every man ; where the most eminent learning and talents have devoted themselves to the de- fence of Christianity ; where religion is publicly reverenced, and genuine piety the most honour- able distinction. To set before you this example, is to warn you against its dangerous contagion ; and to impress you with the duty of warning, on fit occasions, and with the earnestness of a Christian, those whom it may be likely to infect. As long as you remain upon earth, a scene of probation, it is reasonable to expect that your faith no less than your conduct should be sub- jected to trial. When you have been convinced on rational grounds that Christianity is true ; be 380 CONCLUSION. not hastily staggered by slight difficulties, which Providence allows to exist, probably for the very purpose of exercising your faith. I do not mean that you should neglect them. Bring them to the test of enquiry. Count as nothing the pe- remptory assertions, with which they are ad- vanced ; the conclusions sophistically and dogma- tically deduced from them ; the sneers and the contempt aimed at all persons who acquiesce not in those conclusions. Examine the difficulty itself with care : consult those who are most conversant with the subject. You will either find the difficulty vanish, perhaps that it even affi)rds a new attestation to Christianity i ; or that (I) Thus the boasted antiquity of Indian Chronology, which has been so often triumphantly announced as a conclusive proof of the falsehood of the Mosaic history, is not only disproved by the labours of Mr. Maurice and Sir William Jones ; but is shewn to bear unexpected testimony to the truth of that history. For the very earliest period of that antiquity, as recorded in the most sacred book of the Bramins, produces a narrative, which no man who remem- bers his Bible can read without perceiving it to be a transcript of the singular transactions of Noah and his three sons. Another example of the futility of an argument still heard against the Mosaic Chronology, may suggest to the reader some useful inferences with respect to other arguments and theories mw afloat. Mr. Brydone, in his Travels through Sicily and Malta, writes thus concern- ing the neighbourhood of Etna. " Near to a vault, which is now thirty feet " below ground, and has probably been a burial-place, there is a draw-well, " where there are several strata of lavas with earth to a considerable thickness " over the surface of each stratum. Recupero has made use of this as an " argument to prove the great antiquity of the eruptions of his mountain. For " if it requires 2,000 years or upwards to form but a scanty soil on the surface " of a lava," (a calculation framed, I believe, from the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Herculaneum,) " there must have been more tlian that space " of time betwixt each of the eruptions which have formed these strata. But " what shall we say of a pit they sunk near to Jaci, of a great depth '/ They " pierced through seven distinct lavas one under the otlier, the surfaces of " which were parallel, and most of them covered with a thick bed of rich earth. CONCLUSION. .181 ■whatever may yet be unexplained to you weiglis less, when compared with the evidence of " Now, says he, the eruption which formed the lowest of tliese lavas, if we " may be allowed to reason from analogy, must have flowed from the mountain " at least 14,000 years ago. Recupero tells me he is exceedingly embarrassed " by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain : that Moses hangs " like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry ; for that " really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that " prophet makes the world. What do you think of these sentiments from a " Roman catholic divine ? The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox— for it " is an excellent see — has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not " to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses, nor to presume to " urge any thing that may, in the smallest degree be deemed contradictory to " his sacred autliority." Vol. i. p. 140 — 142. To this argument a satisfactory answer has been given : that different lavas may be mouldered into soil, by the action of the air, within very different periods, propoHioncd to the hardness of the lava ; and that these supposed beds of rich earth are nearly or altogether beds of ashes, which might immediately succeed the lava, and be almost immediately fit for cultivation ; and that it is possible that several alternate strata of lava and ashes might be formed even during the same eruption. The material parts of this answer are confirmed by the observations of Swinburne, (Travels in the Two Sicilies, 2d edit. vol. iv. p. 141.) who incidentally says, that the smaller mountains thrown up by eruptions on the flanks of Etna, are soon covered with wood planted with vines ; and that while a lava which flowed in 1669 had not yet a blade of grass or a fibre of moss on its surface, another which had flowed only 20 years ago, was already in many places covered with lichens. The Sicilian bishop then seems to have had better reasons for his orthodoxy than the excellence of his see. Bnt tliere is a decisive witness against Mr. Brydone, who, as far as I know, has not yet been produced ; 1 mean Mr. Brydone himself. Speaking of tlie country near Hybla, (vol. i. p. 172, 173,) he gives the following recital : — " It was so celebrated for its fertility, and particularly for its honey, tliaf " it was called Mel Passi, till it was overwhelmed by the lava of Etna : attd " havino- then become totally barren, by a kind of pun its name was changed " to Mai Passi. In a second eruption by a shotcer nf ashes from the " mountain, it soon resumed its ancient beauty and fertility ; and for many " years was called Bel Passi. Last of all, in 1669, it wa>i again laid under " an ocean of fire and reduced to the most wretched sterility ; since which " time, it is known again by its second appellation of Mai Passi. However, " the lava, in its course over tliis beautiful country, has left several little " islands or hillocks, just enough to shew what it formerly was. These make " a singular appearance, in all the bloom of luxuriant vegetation, surrounded " and rendered almost inaccessible hy large fields of black and rugged lava." 383 CONCLUSION. Christianity, than a grain of sand in the balance against a mountain. On the subject of faith I have yet to submit an additional observation. You will meet among be- lievers in Christianity with persons who appear to think, that if by forced explanations they can represent some scriptural narration as an allego- ry, or pare away the corner of a miracle, they lighten the difficulties of religion to reasoning- believers and unbelievers. The attempt, however well intended, is palpably most absurd. Miracles, are the foundation of Christianity. The scrip- tural history is a history of miracles. What if one miracle out of an hundred could be solved into natural causes ? Would those who were staggered by a hundred be more willing, is it reasonable that they should be more willing, to credit the ninety-nine ? Receive with sub- mission, the history of mankind as it is in Scrip- ture, and the Christian faith " as it is in Jesus," In your present stage of existence there will, necessarily, be parts of the Divine councils and " The first eruption which destroyed the country of Mel Passi is of very old " date. It destroyed particularly two noble churches, regretted much on " account of three statues in them, which were reckoned the most perfect in " the island. They have been searched for in vain." p. 174. I have exam- ined several authors without success, to discover the date of this first eruption. By the particulars, however, which Mr. Brydone specifies concerning the churches, it must have been very far posterior to the Christian era : and apparently must have been subsequent to the recovery of Sicily from the Maliometans in the eleventh century ; as it reems impossible to suppose that statues in churches should escape their fury throughout a period of nearly two hundred and fifty years, during which they were masters of the island. At any rate there cannot be a more complete demolition of the calculations of Recupero, than that which Mr. Brydone here furnishes unawares. CONCLUSION. 3S.S dispensations, which you "see as through a ghiss darkly." ^ Why needs your faith to be troubled, be the amount somewhat less or more ? II. That practice is Christian practice, which proceeds from Christian motives. He, who per- forms the duties of morality, because he sees that it is the custom to perform them, is a punctual imitator ; and may be destitute of religion. He, who performs them for the sake of worldly in- terest, is a prudent man ; and may be an un- principled hypocrite. He, wiio is observant of such of them as the laws of honour condescend to sanction, is " a man of honour ; " and may be a villain. He who in conformity to the dictates of custom or of prudence, (1 speak not of honour, for it meddles not with the subject,) attends to the outward duties of Christian worship, has no claim to tlie reward of a Cliristian. A^umbers belonging to one or other of these descriptions, you will hear celebrated in tlie Avorld as most respectable persons : for, *' man looketh on the " outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on " the heart."^ Leave such characters, for even yet they may be awakened and reclaimed, to the for- bearance and mercy of an offended God : but make it the business of your life not to be like to them. Love and gratitude to God and your Jlqdeemer must be your ruling principle, if you are really a Cliristian. Every duty wliicli you perform on that principle, your Ciod and Ke- {i) 1 Cor. xiii. 12. (.',) 1 Sam. xvi. 7. f^84 CONCLUSION. deemer will reward. For any duty which you perform on some other principle, on what pre- tence can you expect a reward from them ? The ways of religion " are ways of pleasantness; " and all her paths are peace." ''' Unquestionably they are. They may be intricate, and craggy, and strewed with thorns : but they are surround- ed with " joy unspeakable, and full of glory ; " ^ with " the peace of God which passeth all un- derstanding." ^ But do you forget that there will be intricacies, craggy obstacles, and thorns ? Do you imagine that, after all that Christ has done, nothing on your part is necessary for the attain- ment of salvation ? Or do you think that what- ever you may have to do, the Divine grace, pro- mised to fervent prayer, will enable you to per- form without difficulty ? Why then do the Scriptures speak of the life of a Christian as a warfare ? Why do they speak of " denying " yourself ; " of " taking up the cross ; " of " cru- " cifying the flesh with its affections and lusts ;" of " wrestling against principalities and powers " of darkness ; " of " putting on the whole armour " of God, that you may be able to stand against " the wiles of the devil ? " If, with the assistance which God has promised to afford, you will not manfully " fight the good fight of faith ; " if you will not watchfully pursue, through what- ever intricacies, the path of duty ; if you will not strenuously labour to surmount the obstacles which impede your Christian course ; if you (4.) Prov. iii 17. (5) 1 Pcler i. 8. (6) Phil. iv. 7. CoycLUSION; 385 will not patiently and cheerfully sustain the thorns, with -which the ways of religion are strewed : if you will not " endure hardness," call not yourself " a good soldier of Jesus Christ." ' " The Captain of your salvation was made per- " feet through sufferings." '* He suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.^ He may call you, as he did his pri- mitive servants, to " resist " his enemies and those of your soul, even " unto blood." i You are not the faithful servant of Christ, unless you are wholly his servant ; prepared to relinquish all things, to bear all things, for him. He calls you, and every one of his servants, to resist and overcome *' the world : " its ridicule no less than its applause, its smiles no less than its frowns, its allurements no less than its indignation. Try tlien habitually the principles on which you act, the line of conduct which you pursue, the ends at which you aim, not by the rule of worldly custom, of worldly interest, of worldly praise ; but by the Gospel of Christ. Ask yourself, with respect to every undertaking, with respect to every mode of proceeding, and every dis- position of heart Avith which you prosecute that undertaking, whether Christ on his throne of judgment will approve it. If you cannot an- swer that question, to the satisfaction of your conscience, desist : whatever advantage you abandon, whatever detriment, whatever scorn, (7) 2 Tim. li. 3. (8) Heb. ii. 10. O) 1 l'^' "• -1- (1) Hcb. xii. 1. 2 C mQ CONCLUSION. you incur, desist. "What shall it profit you, " if you gain the whole world," all its wealth, all its honours, all its pleasures, all its praise, *' and lose your own soul ? " ^ Would you con- fess Christ in the face of persecution and death ? Confess him then in the face of smaller evils, of smaller sacrifices. Hear and remember through- out life his own words : *' Whosoever shall con- " fess me before men, him will I confess also " before my Father which is in heaven. But " whosoever shall deny me before men, him will " I also deny before my Father which is in "heaven."^ C2) Mark viii. 30. (3) Maft. x. 3'2, 33. i^lNIS.