LIBRARY OF PRINCETON FEB I 0 2005 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY LECTURES IN DIVINITY. LIBRARY OF PRINCETON FEB I 0 2005 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY LECTURES IN DIVINITY BY THE LATE / GEORGE HILL, D. D. PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY^ COLLEGE; ST. ANDREWS. EDITED FROM HIS MANUSCRIPT, BY HIS SON, ALEXANDER HILL, D.D. MINISTER OF DAILLY. THIRD EDITION. VOL. II. EDINBURGH: WAUGH AND INNES, AND WHITTAKER, TREACHER & CO., LONDON. MDCCCXXXIII. Edinburgh : Printed by A. Balfcrtir & Co. Niddrjr Street. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. BOOK IV. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE^ THE EXTENT, AND THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY BROUGHT BY THE GOSPEL. Page CHAP. I. DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED, . Sect. 1. Genesis iii. — History of a real transaction, related after the symbolical manner. 2. Effects of Adam's fall upon his posterity — Four sys- tems— Pelagius — Arminius — Human nature cor- rupted— Sin of Adam imputed — Calvinistic view embraces both corruption and imputation — Adam the representative of the human race — Difficulties. CHAP. II. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE REMEDY, 33 Sect. 1. Socinians — The Gospel the most effectual lesson of righteousness — Defects of this System. 2. Right acquired by Jesus of saving men from their sins, and giving them immortality — Merits and de- fects of this system. 3. Catholic system, or that which has been generally held in the Christian church — Atonement or satis- faction of Christ. VOL. II. b VI CONTENTS. CHAP. IX. Page ARMINIAN AND CALVIN ISTIC SYSTEMS COMPARED, 217 Sect. 1. Arminian system satisfying upon a general view — Three difficulties, under which it labours, stated. 2. Objections to the Calvinistic System reducible to two. 3. Calvinistic System not inconsistent with the nature of man as a free moral agent — Definition of liberty — Efficient and final causes — Both embraced by fhe plan of Providence — Whence the uncertainty in the ope- ration of motives arises — How removed — Gratiacon- yrua— Renovation of the mind — Exhibition of such moral inducements as are fitted to call forth its powers. 4. Calvinistic System not inconsistent with the attributes of God — The ultima ratio of the inequality in the dispensation of the gifts, both of Nature and of Grace — Decree of reprobation exerts no influence upon men leading them to sin — Objection resolvable into the question concerning the Origin of Evil — Philosophical Answer — Arminians recur to the same Answer— The Glory of God — Moral Evil the object of his abhorrence. CHAP. X. SUPPORT WHICH SCRIPTURE GIVES TO THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM, ■ . . . . . 260 Sect. 1. All the actions of "men represented as comprehended in the great plan of Divine Providence. 2. Predestination ascribed in Scripture to the good plea- sure of God — System of those who consider the expressions employed, as respecting only the calling of large societies to the knowledge of the Gospel. •3. Representations given in Scripture of the change of character produced by Divine Grace. 4. Objections arising from the commands, the counsels, and the exhortations of Scripture. CHAP. XL HISTORY OF CALVINISM. . . 283 5 CONTENTS. Vll BOOK V INDEX OF PARTICULAR QUESTIONS ARISING OUT OF OPI- NIONS CONCERNING THE GOSPEL REMEDY, AND OF MANY OF THE TECHNICAL TERMS OF THEOLOGY. CHAP. I. Page REGENERATION — CONVERSION — FAITH, 304 External and Effectual Call — Synergistic System — Fanaticism — Calvinistic View of Conversion — Faith — Different Kinds — Saving Faith. CHAP. II. JUSTIFICATION, . 316 A Forensic act — Its Nature — Church of Rome — First Reform- ers— Socinians and Arminians — Calvinists — First and Second Justification — Justification one act of God — Saints under the Old Testament — Other individuals not outwardly called — Perseverance of Saints — Assurance of Grace and Salvation — Reflex act of Faith — Witness of the Spirit. CHAP. III. CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION, 327 Good works, fruits of Faith— Apparent contradiction between Paul and James — Solifidians — Antinomians — Fratres liberi spiritus — Practical Preaching. CHAP. IV. SANCTIFICATION, . . . 337 Sect. 1. First part of Sanctification, Repentance — Its Nature — Popish doctrine — Late Repentance — Precise time of Conversion. \ 111 CONTENTS. Page 2- Second part of Sanctiflcation, a new life — Habit of Righteousness — Immutability of the Moral Law — Christian Casuistry — Counsels of Perfection — Merit of good works — Works of Supererogation. 3. Imperfection of Sanctiflcation — Anabaptists — Mortal and venial sins — Distinction unwarranted — Ro- mans vii. — Christian Morality. CHAP. V. COVENANT OF GRACE, . . 359 Scriptural terms — Kingdom of Christ — Union of Christ and his disciples — Adoption — Covenant of Grace. Sect. 1. Meaning of Iiu.6yix.7i — Covenant of Works — Sinaitic Covenant — Abrahamic Covenant — New Covenant. 2. Mediator of the New Covenant — Offices of Christ — Mediatores Secundarii of the Church of Rome. 3. Prayer — Encouragements to it in the Covenant of Grace — Nature of Christ's intercession. 4. Sacraments — Explanation of the term — Signs and Seals of the Covenant of Grace — Seven Sacraments of the Church of Rome. CHAP. VI. QUESTIONS CONCERNING BAPTISM, . 382 Sect. 1. Prevalence of Washings in the religious ceremonies of all nations — How Baptism is a distinguishing rite of Christianity — Opinions of the Socinians and Quakers — Immersion and sprinkling — Giving a Name. 2. Baptism more than an initiatory rite — Opinions of the Church of Rome, and of the Reformed Churches. 3. Infant Baptism — View of Arguments for it — God- fathers and Godmothers — Confirmation — Admis- sion for the first time to the Lord's Supper. CHAP. VII. QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE LORD'S SUPPER, 399 Institution — Correspondence between the Passover and the Lord's Supper — Origin of different opinions respecting it CONTENTS. IX Page mk System of the Church of Rome — Transubstantiation — Of Luther — Consubstantiation — Ubiquity — Of Zuinglius — A Commemoration — Of Calvin — Spiritual presence of Christ — Time of observing the ordinance. CHAP. VIII. CONDITION OF MEN AFTER DEATH, . 47 1 Happiness of Heaven — Intermediate state — Purgatory — Du- ration of hell torments. BOOK VI. OPINIONS CONCERNING CHURCH GOVERNMENT. CHAP. I. FOUNDATION OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, , 420 Obligation to observe Ordinances. CHAP. II. OPINIONS RESPECTING THE PERSONS IN WHOM CHUROH GOVERNMENT IS VESTED, . 424 Sect. 1. Quakers — Deny necessity and lawfulness of a stand- ing Ministry — Consequent disunion and disorder — Their principles repugnant to reason and Scripture. 2. Independents, or Congregational Brethren — Leading principle — Unauthorized by the examples of the New Testament, and contrary to the spirit of its directions — Implies disunion of the Christian So- ciety. S. Church of Rome — Papists and Roman Catholics — Gallican Church — Catholics of Great Britain — Unity of the Church — Grounds on which the pri- macy of the Pope is maintained — Matthew xvi. 16. — Scriptural and historical view of the Church of Rome — 2 Thess. ii. — Daniel vii. — Rev. xvii. CONTENTS. Paga 4. Episcopacy and Presbytery — Principles of the Epis- copal form of Government — Of the Presbyterian — Points of agreement and difference — Timothy and Titus — Bishop and Presbyter — Right of Ordina- tion— Succession of Bishops — Presbyterian form of government not a novel invention — Imparity among Bishops, of human institution — Opinions of an- cient writers upon the equality of Bishops and Presbyters — First Reformers — Presbyterian parity. CHAP. III. NATURE AND EXTENT OF POWER IMPLIED IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT, . . 430 Not created by the State — Erastianism — A spiritual power — Conduct of our Lord and his apostles— Anabaptists — . Church of Rome — Excommunication — The Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the Church — Purpose for which he gives power to his Ministers — Its limits. CHAP. IV. ARTICLES OF FAITH, . 51^ Scripture the only rule of faith— Articles of faith— Reasons for framing them — History of Confessions of Faith— Sub- scriptions to them. CHAP. V. RITES AND CEREMONIES, • 537 Conditions of Salvation declared in Scripture — What enact- ments the Church has power to make — Liberty of Con- science— Rule of Peace and Order — Puritans. CHAP. VI. DISCIPLINE, . . 557 Judicial power of the Church warranted— System of the Church of Rome— of Protestants. Index, .... .565 LECTURES IN DIVINITY, BOOK IV. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE, THE EXTENT, AND THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY BROUGHT BY THE GOSPEL. Having given a view of the different opinions which have been held concerning the two persons, who are revealed in the Gospel, I come now to treat of the remedy which was brought by the one of these persons, and is applied by the other. It appears to me that the best method in which I can state the most important questions in theology upon this great division of the subject, is by leading you to attend to the opinions which have been held concerning the Nature — the Extent — and the Application of the reme- dy. By considering these three points in succession, we shall exhaust the remaining part of the Socinian, together with the Pelagian and Arminian controversies, and shall thus obtain, without more repetition than is unavoidable upon subjects so closely allied, a complete and connected view of the capital branches of controversial divinity. VOL. II. B 2 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE CHAP. I. DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED. The Gospel proceeds upon the supposition that all have sinned. It assumes the character of the religion of sinners., and professes to bring a remedy for the moral evil which exists in the world. Our attention is thus called back from the remedy to the disease ; for we cannot entertain just apprehensions of the nature of that provision which the Gospel has made, unless we understand the circum- stances which called for that provision ; and we may expect that those, who have formed different systems with regard to the nature of the remedy, are not of the same opinion with regard to the disease. In one point, however, all sects of Christians agree, that there is much sin in the world. The Socinian does not hesitate to say with the Calvinist, that all have sinned; and those fanatics, who conceived that they themselves had attained the perfec- tion of virtue, were led, by this self-conceit, to magnify the wickedness of the rest of mankind. That men are sinners is a point, concerning which those who respect the authority of Scripture cannot entertain any doubt ; for it is uniformly taught there from the pe- riod preceding the flood, when, as we read, " God saw that the wickedness of man was great."* At the appearance of Christianity, the angel gave to the Son of Mary the name of Jesus, "for he shall save his people from their sins."f Jesus himself said, " they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ;"^ and Paul the apostle of Jesus, in his Epistle to the Romans, builds his whole * Gen. vi. 5. -f Mat. i. 21. J Mat. ix. 12. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 3 doctrine upon the position which he proves in the com- mencement, " that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, and that the whole world is guilty before God."* But this position does not rest entirely upon the authority of Scrip- ture. It is abundantly established by the experience of all ages ; and they who never received the revelation of the Gospel agree with Christians in acknowledging the fact upon which that revelation proceeds. The violence of human passions, the inefficacy of all the attempts which have been made since the beginning of legislation to re- strain them, the secret wickedness which abounds, the hor- rors of remorse which rack the minds of some, the self-re- proach of which those who are less guilty cannot divest themselves, and the dissatisfaction with their own attain- ments which the most virtuous feel — these circumstances conspire in affording the clearest evidence, that men do not act up to the dictates of right reason, but that the con- duct of all falls short, in one degree or other, of that stand- ard which they perceive it to be both their duty and their interest to follow. Men will differ in their opinion of the grossness and the extent of the corruption of manners, ac- cording to the opportunities which they have had of ob- serving it — according to the degree of severity in their na- tural disposition — according to the sentiments and princi- ples which they had imbibed during their education, or which the reflections and habits of advanced life have formed ; but no difference in character or situation can render men wholly insensible to this corruption. Even those, who plead upon system for an indulgence to their own defects, meet with numberless instances where they cannot allow others to plead the same indulgence. The vices of one rank are regarded with contempt or with in- dignation by another ; and the easy accommodating mo- ralist, who resolves the vices of the age into the progress of society, looks back with h0rror upon the enormities of former times. It is true that the forms of wickedness vary according to the state of society ; it is also true that some forms are marked with deeper depravity than others ; and it will not be denied by any scholar, that a concurrence of favourable circumstances has at some periods gone far to * Rom. iii. 9. # DISEASE FOE WHICH THE mitigate the atrocity of crimes, and to invigorate the ex- ertions of virtue. But it is in the writings of the poets,- not of the historians of antiquity, that a golden age is to be found. The authentic records of the civil and politi- cal transactions of man, from the earliest times, are full of the effects of his wickedness; no date is fixed in these re- cords for the first introduction of sin into the world ; and all our information with regard to this most important era in chronology is derived from Scripture. SECTION I. It is well known that in the third chapter of the book of Genesis the first act of disobedience is related, and that the history of this act is connected with a command and a threatening, which had been mentioned in the second chapter. This interesting history demands our particular attention when we are beginning to speak of that state of moral evil for which the Gospel brings a remedy ; and in order to prepare you for the information which it conveys, it may be proper to mention two extremes; which are to be avoided in the interpretation of this chapter. 1. Several parts of the history cannot be understood in a literal sense. Thus it is not to be supposed that the tree, of which man was forbidden to eat, had the power which the name seems to imply, and which the serpent suggests, of making those who ate the fruit of it wise, knowing good and evil ; neither is it to be supposed that the serpent at that time possessed those powers of speech and reason which the narration seems to ascribe to him, or that the plain meaning of these words, " the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," expresses the whole pun- ishment of the tempter. Several writers indeed, who are disposed to turn the Scriptures into ridicule, have stated what they call the absurdity or the frivolousness of the literal sense, as a reason for rejecting both the narration and the books in which it is contained. But it has been well answered, that the narration bears upon the face of it the marks of that symbolical style which prevailed REMEDY IS PROVIDED. O amongst all nations in early times from the poverty of language, and which, even after it has ceased to be neces- sary, continues to be used, both because it is ancient and because it is expressive. In this symbolical style, the ob- jects of sense are employed to represent the conceptions of the mind ; actions or things material to represent things spiritual ; and under words which are true when interpre- ted literally, there is couched some more exalted meaning. To the learned it cannot appear surprising, that the book which claims to be the most ancient should adopt a style which occurs in other early productions ; that a transac- tion, which assumes a date next to that of the creation, and the memory of which had probably been preserved amongst the first men by symbols, should be recorded by the historian of a future age in a language which referred to these symbols ; and that circumstances might prevent him from attempting to remove the veil which this sym- bolical language threw over the transaction. If the rules for expounding the symbolical style, which have been investigated by the learned, are applied to the narration in the third chapter of Genesis with the same candour with which they are usually applied to every other subject, the difficulties arising from the literal sense of the words will in a great measure vanish. It will readily be admitted, that although the tree did not possess any power of making those who ate the fruit of it wise, it might be called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, be- cause, the prohibition to eat of it being the trial of man's obedience, it was made known to other beings, by means of this tree, whether he was good or evil, and he himself, in eating of it, learnt by sad experience the distinction be- tween good and evil ; it will be admitted, that if an intelli- gent spirit chose for a season to conceal himself under the body of a serpent, the actions of this spirit might, during that time, be ascribed to a serpent ; and that if Moses had no commission to explain the rank, the character, and the mo- tives of this spirit, because the state of religious knowledge, which the world then possessed, rendered it inexpedient, for them to receive this communication, he could in no other way record the transaction but by retaining the name of the animal under whose form the spirit had appeared ; and, if these things be admitted, it will follow that the 6 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE words of the sentence, " it shall bruise thy head," are the most proper words that could have been used upon the occasion, because, while they apply literally to the animal, they admit easily a higher sense, in which they express the punishment of the spirit. 2. But although it be necessary to look beyond the lite- ral sense of the words, in order to perceive the aptness and the significancy of this history, I must warn you against another extreme. Some, with an excess of refinement, have sought to avoid the inconveniences of the literal sense, by considering the third chapter of Genesis as an al- legory, not the history of a real transaction, but a moral painting of the violence of appetite, and the gradual intro- duction of vice in conjunction with the progress of know- ledge and the improvements of society. But however true it may be, that vice arises from the prevalence of appetite over reason, and that men in a civilized state know vices of which barbarous times are ignorant, yet there are two reasons, which seem to render it impossible for those who respect the authority of Scripture to admit this as the true interpretation of the third chapter of Genesis. 1. This chapter is part of a continued history. It is inserted be- tween the account of the creation of the first pair and the birth of their two sons ; and it explains the reason of their being driven out of that place, which we had been told in the second chapter had been allotted to them by their Creator. Now, not only is it inconsistent with the gravity of an his- torian, but it detracts in a high degree from the authority of his writings, that in the progress of relating facts so im- portant he should introduce a chapter which, with all the appearance of being a continuation of the history, is only an allegorical representation of the change of man- ners. 2. The references to this third chapter, which are found in the New Testament, are to us unquestionable vouchers of its being a real history. If you look to 2 Cor. xi. 3, you will perceive that the allusion of the apostle im- plies his conviction of the fact to which he alludes ; and, if you look to 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14, 15, you will find that what was only implied in the former passage is there expressly asserted. The transgression of Adam is introduced as a fact of the same authority and notoriety as his creation. The occasion of the transgression, viz. deceit — the order of the transgression, that the woman, not the man, was REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 7 deceived — and one part of the punishment of the trans- gression, viz. " in sorrow thou shalt bring forth child- ren"— these three important circumstances are mention- ed in such a manner by the apostle, that the historical sense of the whole chapter may be considered as having the sanction of his authority. It appears from these remarks that we are sufficiently warranted by the rules of sound criticism, in adopting that interpretation which lies in the middle between the two extremes ; and the middle interpretation is this, to consider the third chapter of Genesis as the history of a real trans- action which took place soon after the creation ; and as a history related after the symbolical manner common in early times, but exhibiting clearly under this manner the following important facts. Adam and Eve, being tempted by the suggestions of an evil spirit who appeared to them under the form of a serpent, transgressed the command- ment of their Creator. In consequence of this transgres- sion, the ground which God had given them was cursed, sorrow became the portion of their life, and they were subjected to death, the sanction which God had annexed to his commandment. Sentence was also pronounced upon the tempter. As he appeared before God in the same shape in which he tempted the woman, the whole of the sentence is applicable to a literal serpent ; and the first part of it, Gen. iii. 14, has been generally understood to imply a degradation of the serpent from the figure which he had, and the life which he led before the temptation, to the state in which we see him. But the second part of the sentence, Gen. iii. 15, although applicable to the antipathy with which the human race regards an odious and dangerous animal, admits also of a higher sense ; and, whatever it might convey to Adam and Eve, is now understood by us to be significant of that victory which the seed of the wo- man, i. e. a person descended from the woman, was at a future period to gain, through suffering, over the evil spirit, who had assumed the form of a serpent. This middle interpretation of the third chapter of Gene- sis, which the rules of sound criticism warrant, is very much confirmed by its being agreeable to the sense of the Jewish Church. Bishop Sherlock, with the ingenuity and ability which distinguish all his writings, has collected the evidence of this point in the third of his discourses upon 8 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE prophecy, and in a dissertation annexed to them, entitled, The sense of the ancients before Christ upon the circum- stances and consequences of the fall. His account of the history of that transaction is so sound and clear, that I shall give a short specimen of the manner in which he attempts to prove, that what I called the middle interpretation is agreeable to the sense of the Jewish church. We know that the books of the Apocrypha were writ- ten before the days of our Saviour ; and in them we find the following expressions, which are clear evidences that the Jews of those days considered the third chapter of Genesis as the history of a real transaction, and at the same time looked beyond the literal sense. Wisd. ii. 23, 24, " For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it." Eccles. xxv. 24, " Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." Dr. Sherlock traces in the book of Job, which we have reason to believe was written before any of the books of Moses, many delicate allusions to the circum- stances mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis, suffi- cient to show that the transaction there recorded was known to the author of this book. The words of Zophar, Job xx. 4, 5, 6, have a good moral meaning according to any interpretation which you can give them. But if you understand by the hypocrite, as the Chaldee paraphrast has done, the tempter or accuser, i. e. the spirit who tempted by deceit, and at the same time recollect the views suggested to Eve, and the punishment pronounced upon Adam, you will find that the significancy and energy of the verses are very much improved. The twenty-sixth chapter of Job is a magnificent description of the works of creation, and it concludes with these words, " By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath form- ed the crooked serpent." If nothing more is meant than the formation of the animal, it appears strange that an ex- ertion of power so much inferior to all the others should be mentioned after them. But if the crooked serpent is employed to mark the spirit who once assumed that form, this expression forms a fit conclusion of the whole de- scription, because it is the most explicit declaration of the sovereignty of God, in opposition to an opinion which REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 9 early prevailed, that there is in nature an evil principle independent of the good. Dr. Sherlock further observes, that in different places of Isaiah and Micah the enemies of God are metaphorically styled Leviathan, the crooked serpent, the dragon ; that the Son of God is represented by the Psalmist as treacling upon the adder, and his ene- mies as licking the dust ; and that in one of those figura- tive descriptions of the new heavens and the new earth, i. e. the blessed change introduced by the dispensation of the Gospel, which occur often in Isaiah, the concluding words are, " And dust shall be the serpent's meat." Isa. lxv. 25. It will not appear to any person of taste that some of these allusions are of little avail in this argument, because they are expressed in few words ; for it is universally al- lowed that the shortest incidental reference to an histori- cal fact, by a subsequent writer, may be of such a kind as to afford a decisive proof of his knowledge of that fact ; and when we add to these allusions, what Bishop Sher- lock's subject did not lead him to mention, the frequent references to this history which are found in the New Tes- tament, it seems to be a matter beyond doubt that he has given a just account of the sense of the ancient Jewish church. Thus Paul says, Rom. v. 12, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Satan is styled in the book of Revelation, xii. 9, " the old serpent which de- ceiveth the whole world ;" and, John viii. 44, our Lord calls him a murderer and a liar from the beginning, a\iQvu-:rox.-7M6g a**' a,p^7}g, zai -^suarqs, two names which most fitly express his having brought death upon the first pair by deceit. John says, 1 John iii. 8, " The devil sinneth from the be- ginning ; for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil ;" and, Rev. xx. 2, xii. 10, he represents the coming of the kingdom of God, and the power of his Christ, by " that old serpent, the accuser of the brethren, being cast down." Christians are represented as partaking in this triumph ; for as Christ, while he was upon earth, gave his disciples power over all the power of the enemy, and made the spirits subject to them, so the apostle, writing to the church of Rome, says, Rom. xvi. 20, " And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly;" and the last chapter of the book 10 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE of Revelation describes, with the most marked allusion to the third chapter of Genesis, a time when all the effects of his temptation are to disappear. In Genesis, the ground is cursed, and a flaming sword guards the tree of life. In the Revelation, they who enter through the gates into the city, which is there described, are said to have a right to the tree of life ; the tree grows in the midst of the street, and on either side of the river ; and the leaves of it are for the healing of the nations; and, it is added, there shall be no more curse. The effects of the curse are exhausted with regard to all who enter into the city. Thus the be- ginning and the end of the Bible lend their authority in support of each other. The transaction recorded in the beginning explains the reason of many expressions which occur in the progress of Scripture ; and the description which forms the conclusion reflects light upon the open- ing. Whatever opinion we may entertain of the third chapter of Genesis when we read it singly, it swells in our conceptions as we advance ; and all its meaning and its importance become manifest, when we recognise the fea- tures of this early transaction in that magnificent scene by which the mystery of God shall be finished. SECTION II. I have judged it necessary to unfold thus fully the prin- ciples upon which we interpret the account given in Scrip- ture of the introduction of sin. The event thus interpret- ed is known by the name of the fall ; a word which does not occur in Scripture, but which has probably been bor- rowed by Christians from Wisdom x. 1, " She preserved the first formed father of the world, that was created alone, and brought him out of his fall." " His fall " is expres- sive of that change upon his mind, his body, and his out- ward circumstances, which was the consequence of Adam's transgression. Wishing to begin with the simplest view of the subject, I have not hitherto spoken of this event in any other light than as if it had been merely personal. But I have now REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 11 to engage in those intricate questions that have been agi- tated concerning the effects which the fall of Adam has produced upon his posterity. The opinions with regard to this matter may be reduced to four ; and the order of stating them is dictated by their nature, for they rise above one another in the following gradation. 1. The first opinion is that which was published by Pe- lagius, a Briton, A. D. 410, which was adopted by Soci- nus in the sixteenth century, and is held by the modern Soeinians. It is admitted, even according to this opinion, that Adam, by eating of the tree of the knowledge of £ood and evil, transgressed the divine commandment and exposed himself to the displeasure of his Creator. But the consequences of this displeasure are not considered as having impaired the powers of his nature, or as extending to his posterity in such a manner as to do them the small- est hurt. He was a fallible mortal creature by the condi- tion of his being, i. e. he was liable to sin from the mo- ment that he was created, and he would have died whether he had sinned or not. He continued, after the action re- corded in Genesis, to be such as he was at his creation, and all his posterity are born in similar circumstances- Adam was indeed driven from that paradise which had been assigned as his abode, and by many inconveniences in his situation, was made to feel the effects of his trans- gression ; but these very inconveniences, while they re- minded him that he had transgressed, tended to prevent him from going farther astray ; the labour with which he had to eat his bread was a salutary discipline, and the re- collection of his folly became a lesson of wisdom. The posterity of Adam in like manner are placed in a state of trial ; and as their minds are as enlightened and as virtu- ous as his was, their situation is not more unfavourable. Death to them, as to him, is a natural event, arising from the structure of the body, and indicated by many symp- toms ; and the shortness of their abode upon earth joins its influence to the common evils of life, in teaching them to apply their hearts to wisdom. If Adam and Eve, by being the first that sinned, had not any examples of vice to entice them, yet neither did they behold any examples of its punishment : whereas if we are in danger of follow- ing the vices of those who went before us, yet we may 12 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE learn from the history of the world, and from our own ob- servation, to guard against the fatal tendency of the prin- ciple of imitation. The amount then of this opinion is that our first pa- rents, who sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, were not distinguished in any essential respect from those who sin in after ages, and that our condition is not the worse for their sin ; that as they were to blame for yielding to a temptation which they might have resisted, so all of us, by a proper attention in cultivating our natural powers, may maintain our innocence amidst the temptations with which we are surrounded ; and, therefore, that we fall short of that which it is in our power to do, if we do not yield a more perfect obedience to the law of God than Adam yielded. There is a simplicity in this system which appears at first sight to recommend it. It seems to be rational and philosophical to say, that human nature is the same now as when it proceeded from the hands of the Creator, and to resolve the changes of character which it has exhibited into the effects of the progress of society. But the fact is, that even the ancient philosophers did not consider this as a satisfying account of many circumstances in the pre- sent condition of human nature, and the account falls so very far short of all the views which the Scriptures give upon this subject, and requires such violence to be done to particular passages, that many who are decidedly hos- tile to the Calvinistic system, finding the Pelagian unten- able, have had recourse to a second opinion. 2. The second opinion may be called the Arminian, as deriving its origin from Arminius, a divine of the seven- teenth century. It holds the middle place between the Socinian and the Calvinistic systems. It is explained with clearness, and defended with much ability in a Latin trea- tise by Whitby, the commentator upon the New Testa- ment, entitled Tractatus de Imputatione Peccati Adami, from which I take the account of it that I am now to give. According to this opinion, although the first man had a body naturally frail and mortal, his life would have been for ever preserved by the bounty of his Creator, had he continued obedient ; and the instrument employed by God REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 13 to preserve his mortal body from decay was the tree of life. Death was declared to be the penalty of transgres- sion ; and, therefore, as soon as he transgressed, he was removed at a distance from the tree of life ; and his dos- x. terity inheriting his natural mortality, and not having ac- cess to the tree of life, are subjected to death. It is there- fore said by Paul, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. In Adam all die. By one man's offence death reigned by one."* These expressions clearly point out death to be the consequence of Adam's transgression, an evil brought upon his posterity by his fault ; and this the Arminians understand to be the whole meaning of its be- ing said, " Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ;"f and of Paul's saying, "We have borne the image of the earthly." \ It is admitted, however, by those who hold the second opinion, that this change upon the condition of mankind, from a life preserved without end to mortality, was most unfavourable to their moral character. The tear of death enfeebles and enslaves the mind ; the pursuit of those things which are necessary to support a frail perishing life engrosses and contracts the soul ; and the desires of sensual pleasure are rendered more eager and ungovern- able, by the knowledge that the time of enjoying them soon passes away. Hence arise envying of those who have a larger share of the good things of this life — strife with those who interfere in our enjoyments — impatience under restraint — and sorrow and repining when pleasure is abridged. And to this variety of turbulent passions, the natural fruits of the punishment of Adam's transgres- sion, there are also to be added, all the fretfulness and disquietude occasioned by the diseases and pains which are inseparable from the condition of a mortal being. In this way the Arminians explain such expressions as these, "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners ;" " all are under sin ;" " behold I was shapen in iniquity," § i. e. all men, in consequence of Adam's sin, are born in these circumstances, — under that disposition of events * Rom. v. 12, 17. 1 Cor. xv. 22. + Gen. v. 3. % 1 Cor. xv. 49. § Rom. v. 19 ; hi. 9. Psal. li. b. 5 14 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE which subjects them to the dominion of passion, and ex- poses them to so many temptations, that it is impossible for any man to maintain his integrity. And hence, they say, arises the necessity of a Saviour, who, restoring to man the immortality which he had forfeited, may be said to have abolished death ; who effectually delivers his fol- lowers from that bondage of mind, and that corruption of character, which are connected with the fear of death ; who, by his perfect obedience, obtains pardon for those sins into which they have been betrayed by their condi- tion ; and by his Spirit enables them to overcome the temptations which human nature of itself cannot with- stand. According to this opinion, then, the human race has suffered universally in a very high degree by the sin of their first parent. At the same time, the manner of their suffering is analogous to many circumstances in the ordin- ary dispensations of Providence ; for we often see child- ren, by the negligence or fault of their parents, placed in situations very unfavourable both to their prosperity and to their improvement ; and we can trace the profligacy of their character to the defects of their education, to the ex- ample set before them in their youth, and to the multi- plied temptations in which, from a want of due attention on the part of others, they find themselves early entangled. All this is the same in kind with that account of the ef- fects of Adam's transgression which the Arminians give ; so that the second opinion is not attended with any diffi- culties peculiar to the Christian religion ; and did it ex- haust the meaning of those passages of Scripture from which our knowledge of that transaction must be derived, we should be delivered from some of the most embarrass- ing questions in theology. But we must not be afraid of following the truth, because it might be easier to stop short before we arrive at it ; and therefore it is necessary for me to state, that this second opinion, however plausi- ble, does not appear to give a complete account of all the circumstances, which both Scripture and experience di- rect us to take into view, when we speak of the effects which the sin of Adam produced upon his posterity ; and that the third opinion implies a great deal more. 3. As the third opinion, which forms the foundation of REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 15 what is called the Calvinistic system, is delivered both in the articles of the Church of England, and in the Confes- sion of Faith of the Church of Scotland, I shall give the amount of it in the words of the two churches. In the sixth chapter of the Confession of Faith it is said, " Our first parents, by their sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin ; the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, are conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation ; and from this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions." In like manner, it is said in the ninth article of the Church of England, " Ori- ginal sin standeth not in the following or imitation of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk,) but it is the fault or corruption of the nature of every man, that natur- ally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, wherelty man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil." This opinion is supported in all the Calvinistic systems of divinity by nearly the same arguments. But in stating the grounds of it, I shall take as my principal guide, Mr. Edwards, formerly president of the college of New Jersey in America, who has written able treatises upon different branches of the Calvinistic system, and whose defence of the doctrine of original sin contains the fullest and acutest answers that I have seen, to the objections commonly urged against that doctrine. The fundamental fact, upon which the third opinion rests, is this, that men in all countries and in all varieties of situation are sinners ; by which it is not meant that all men are equally bad, or that every man commits every sin ; but the meaning is, that the whole history of man- kind does not afford an instance of a perfect freedom from sin, either in any body of people, or even in any one indi- vidual. Without looking back upon the universal preva- lence of idolatry, and the enormities with which it was ac- companied in the heathen world, even if we form our opi- nion of the human race from the appearances which it has exhibited in those lands that have been blessed with reve- lation, we shall find that a great part transgress the laws of 16 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE God in a high degree, and in various respects ; that all the means employed to prevent or to correct wickedness prove ineffectual for their amendment ; and that in the obedience of the best, there are such defects as constitute them sin- ners. But the universal prevalence of sin, in all possible circumstances, and under every measure of advantage, is the decisive proof of a natural propensity to sin ; for we have no other method by which to judge of tendency or propensity, than b}' observing the same effect in every change of situation. It is from this kind of observation we say that heavy bodies have a tendency to fall ; that ani- mals have certain instincts ; that individuals of the human race have characteristical propensities. In like manner, the propensity of the whole race to sin is gathered from the uniformity with which the race has sinned. If the ef- fect arose merely from external circumstances, without any natural propensity, it could not take place so steadily ; if the mind had no greater propensity to that which is evil than to that which is good, some circumstances must have occurred, in the infinite variety of events since the begin- ning of the world, fitted to prevent the appearance of the effect altogether, by exhibiting the human race completely virtuous. But if men have always in one degree or other sinned, there must be something in their nature that indis- poses them for their duty, which is the very thing meant by a corruption of nature. While we thus infer, from the universal practice of sin, that the nature of man is corrupt, we learn from Scripture that this is not the state in which Adam was created. So- lomon gives us the result of all his observations, Eccles. vii. 29, " Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright ; but they have sought out many inventions." The solemnity with which the remark is introduced, and the natural significancy of the words, lead us to consider Solomon as speaking of the very great difference between the crooked paths which men now pursue, and the state of uprightness in which the first man was made ; and the re- mark, thus understood, is agreeable to what we may easily gather from laying different passages together. Thus, Gen. i. 31, man was made at the time, when " God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good ;" and the formation of this part of the divine work- KEMEDY IS PROVIDED. 17 manship is expressed in these peculiar words, Gen. i. 27, " So God created man in his own image, 7tar sixova ©soy, in the image of God created he him." The Socinians in- deed interpret this expression as meaning nothing more than dominion ; man, they say, the lord of this lower world, is the image of God, the sovereign of the universe. But the words, as they are placed in Genesis, appear to imply something distinct from the dominion given to man, and antecedent to it ; and that they really express the cha- racter of his mind is manifest from the references made to them in the New Testament, where the character, formed by the Spirit of God in all true Christians, is thus describ- ed, " The new man, which after God is created in right- eousness and true holiness ; which is renewed in know- ledge after the image of him that created him."* Any person who has studied the Old and the New Testament together, and who has marked the perfect consistency that runs through the whole language of Scripture, cannot en- tertain a doubt that Paul, who gives these descriptions, understood by Adam's being created in the image of God, his being created in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. But Adam, who, in the day that God created him, was made in the likeness of God, is said, after he had trans- gressed the commandment of God, to have begotten a son in his own likeness, after his image. Now this image of Adam, which all his posterity bear, is something very dif- ferent from the image of God in which he was made ; and it is not expressive merely of mortality, as the Arminians say, but it marks, as the image of God did, a character of mind. This is manifest from the general strain of Scrip- ture. For the Scriptures not only declare that all have sinned, but they seem to refer the abounding of iniquity to a cause antecedent to education, example, or the opera- tion of particular circumstances ; and in numberless places they represent the nature of man as corrupt. Of this kind are the following : " The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." " The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they * Ephes. iv. 24. Colos. iii. 10. 18 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE be born, speaking lies." " The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead."* To these are to be joined from the Old Testament several very striking ex- pressions in the book of Job, a book regarded as at least of equal antiquity with the books of Moses, and of the more weight in this argument, that the personages intro- duced into it do not discover any acquaintance with the Mosaic dispensation. Of this kind are the following: " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." " What is man that he should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous ? Behold he putteth no trust in his saints ; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water."-|- In the New Testament, the expression of our Lord, John Hi. 6, " That which is born of the flesh is flesh ;" and the words of his apostle, Rom. vii. 18, " For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing ;" and all those pictures of the works of the flesh which abound in the Epistles, appear to afford evidence that, throughout the New Testament, the natural state of every man is re- presented as a state of depravity and alienation from God. I have now given a general view of the train of argu- ment which is employed to establish this fact, that human nature is corrupted by the fall of Adam. But after the fact is established, there remain various questions with re- gard to the manner of the fact, which have been agitated with much heat, and with very little edification. The church of Rome consider that universal propensity to evil of which we have been speaking, and to which they give the name of conmipiscentia> as the natural state of man, i. e. the state in which he was created. This propen- sity was, in Adam, under the restraint of that superior di- vine principle which he derived from communion with God ; and in this restraint consisted his uprightness. When the superior principle was, in consequence of his trans- gression, withdrawn from him and his posterity, the pro- pensity remained. But, being the nature of man, it is not * Gen. viii. 21. Ps. li. 5 ; lviii. 3. Eccles. ix. 3. f Jobxiv. 4; xv. 14, 15, 16. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 19 in itself sinful, and becomes sin only when it is carried forth into action ; as it is said, James i. 15, " Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." In answer to this system it has been justly argued, that the disorders ot the passions are in themselves strong indications of depra- vity ; that they are opposite to the spiritual and refined mo- rality of the Gospel, which requires purity of heart ; that concupiscentia, in several places of the New Testament, par- ticularly in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. vii. is spoken of as sin ; and that James means that lust, which is sinful while it dwells in the heart, when it hath conceived, brings forth sinful actions. An opinion, diametrically opposite to this system of the church of Rome, was broached in the seven- teenth century by Flaccus Illyricus, an obscure divine, that original sin is the very substance of human nature, a being operating and existing in all men. This opinion is justly regarded as monstrous, even by those who hold the cor- ruption of human nature in its greatest extent ; and it would not have found a place in this general view of opi- nions concerning original sin, if the mention of it did not assist you in apprehending the true system of the Calvin- ists upon this point. They consider the corruption of hu- man nature, not as a substance, but as a defect or perver- sion of its qualities, by which they are deprived of their original perfection ; and applying to this corruption va- rious expressions in which the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, describes the state of the heathen world before Christianity appeared, they consider the natural state of man as a state in which the understanding is dark- ened, the heart alienated from the life of God, the affec- tions set upon earthly things, and all the powers of the mind employed in fulfilling the desires of the flesh. This state is called by the apostle " being dead in trespasses and sins ;" an expression which, when taken in conjunction with the threatening to Adam, " in the day that thou eat- est thereof thou shalt surely die," has suggested what di- vines call spiritual death. This denotes an estrangement from God, the fountain of life, and an inability in man to return to God ; and being considered as extending from Adam through his posterity, it is, in the highest sense, the corruption of the nature of a creature, who was made after the image of God. 20 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE This account of the corruption of human nature does not imply that man has lost the natural capacity of know- ing God, or the natural sense of the distinction between right and wrong. The same powers of reason by which he conducts the business of life, or makes discoveries in science, lead him to infer, from the works of creation, the existence and the perfections of the Deity ; and those mo- ral sentiments, upon which all the intercourse of society and the principles of legislation proceed, dictate to him that conduct which, as an individual, he ought to observe. Accordingly, the apostle to the Romans, at the very time he is proving the universal corruption of human nature, says that heathen idolatry was inexcusable, because the invi- sible things of God may be understood by the things which he hath made ; and further, that the Gentiles, who have not the law, i. e. any written law, are a law unto them- selves.* Man, therefore, is not, according to the third opinion, so far degraded by the corruption of his nature as to cease to be a moral agent. In every situation he ap- pears capable of the sentiment of religion ; in every coun- try, and under every form of society, his heart has glowed with the feelings of private affection and tenderness ; and the history of his exploits has been ennobled by many disinterested and heroic exertions. But, without any in- vidious detraction from those amiable dispositions and those splendid actions, which constitute the principal charm of the ancient poets and historians, it will occur to you that they were either wholly unconnected with principles of religion, or that they were accompanied with superstition so gross and childish, as not in reality to contradict that system, which places the corruption of human nature in an estrangement from the true God. Amidst all the offices of private kindness or of public spirit which we have been ac- customed to admire, men were without God in the world ; and there does not appear, from the full experiment which was made under the philosophy and government of ancient times, the smallest probability that any improvement of the understanding which they could produce, or any re- finement of the heart which they could form, would have recovered man from what is termed the spiritual death of * Rom. i. ii. REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 21 the soul, so as to bring him back to the fountain of life, and restore that communion with God, and that image of God, which are essential to the rectitude of his nature. After ascertaining what is meant, according to the third opinion, by the corruption of human nature, it has been inquired in what manner this corruption is transmitted, how it comes about that the powers of our nature inherit from Adam this defect and perversion. But this is an in- quiry in which it is impossible to attain any satisfying con- clusion, because it resolves into principles of which we are totally ignorant. We infer, from various appearances, "that besides the body which is obvious to our senses, and the growth of which may be traced from the time of its con- ception, every human being has a principle distinct from matter, which we call the soul. But we know not enough of the nature of the soul to form any judgment with regard to the manner of its connexion with the body, or the kind of influence which the one exerts over the other. If we say with some sects of Christians animam esse ex traduce, that the soul is generated like the body by the act of the parents, we seem to approach to materialism. If we say, as the Calvinists generally do, that souls are successively made by the Creator, and joined by his act to those bodies which they are to animate, we seem to form a rational hypothesis. But having never been admitted to these secret councils of the Father of Spirits, we find this act of his in many points to us inexplicable. Here are two substances, not only of a different nature, but according to this hypothesis of a different origin, most intimately joined. We feel daily the effects of their junction. Yet we cannot pretend to assign the period when it commenced, the reasons which determined the Creator to join a soul to one body rather than to another, or the bond which keeps together that soul and body which he chose to unite. These are questions which reason does not resolve, and upon which revelation does not profess to throw any light. They meet us upon many subjects in natural religion, and they recur when we attempt to speculate concerning the manner in which the corruption of human nature is trans- mitted. But in revelation, as in natural religion, they are questions concerning the manner of the fact, not concern- ing the fact itself; and, therefore, if the Scriptures reveal, 22 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE or inexperience assures us, that this corruption is trans- mitted, the questions which may be started, and which cannot be answered, are of no more weight to shake the evidence of this fact, than questions of the same kind are to shake the evidence of the union of soul and body. We cannot doubt, from our acquaintance with the government of God, that if the Creator infuses a soul into a body, either at the time of the conception of the body, or at any subsequent period, he acts according to a general course which is established with wisdom ; and it appears from our experience to be part of this course, that the likeness of children to their parents extends beyond the features of their body. There are not only constitutional diseases, but constitutional vices ; there is a character which often runs through a family for many generations ; and there are numberless instances where the resemblance cannot be explained by imitation. The same Scriptures, from which we infer that a general corruption pervades the posterity of Adam, intimate that it is transmitted by natural gene- ration, that is to say, that the constitution of which we ob- serve many particular instances extends to this universal fact. But they leave the transmission of this corruption upon the same footing, and in the same darkness, with the propagation of the soul ; and their silence is sufficient to check the speculations of every sober inquirer. This third opinion concerning the effects of the sin of Adam is supported by many passages in Scripture ; it ap- pears to have been the received opinion of the Jewish church : and some traditions of it having probably reach- ed the heathen philosophers, and coming in aid of the con- clusions that might be drawn from universal experience, may have led Socrates to speak of y.azov spfyvrdv, a phrase equivalent to what we call natural conniption ; and Plato to ascribe the causes of our vices to those first principles which we inherit from our parents. But there yet remains a fourth opinion upon this sub- ject. 4. It is held by many divines, it is part of the creed of the church of Scotland, and it seems to be implied in the language of the articles of the church of England, although it is not there directly expressed, that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity ; and that by means of this impu- 1 REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 23 tation, all who are descended from him are guilty before God. The opinion of those who hold the imputation of the sin of Adam includes the truth of the third opinion ; but they hold something more ; and you will understand . in what respect the fourth opinion goes beyond the third, by attending to the meaning of two terms which are of frequent use amongst those who write upon original sin, the mediate and immediate imputation of the sin of Adam. The corruption which we derive from Adam has been styled the mediate imputation of his sin ; it becomes ours only in consequence of our connexion with him, but it is truly ours because it infects our nature. Now those who hold the fourth opinion say, that besides this corrup- tion of nature, although always in conjunction with it, there is an immediate imputation, by which the sin of Adam is counted in the sight of God as ours. According- ly you will find the third and fourth opinion joined in the sixth chapter of our Confession of Faith, as forming toge- ther the complete view of the effects of Adam's sin, " They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted na- ture conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation." The reasoning upon which this fourth opinion has been grounded is of the following kind. In those transactions which took place soon after the creation, Adam appears as the representative of the human race. The first blessing, " be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sub- due it," both by the terms in which it is conceived, and by the nature of the thing, was not a personal blessing, but, although addressed to Adam and Eve, conveyed to their posterity, as well as to themselves, a right to occupy the earth, to rule over the inferior animals, and to employ their service. Had the penalty annexed to disobedience, " in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," been executed as instantly as the words might have led Adam to expect, he could not have had any posterity. It was the delaying the execution of this part of the sentence which left time for the appearance of the human race up- on earth ; but in consequence of the sin of their first pa- rents they come into the world subject to death ; and the calamities in their persons, which mankind continually 24 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE experience, are the daily execution of the former parts of the sentence pronounced upon Adam. The ground is cursed to them for his sake ; and even if we admit the in- genious theory which Bishop Sherlock has ably support- ed, that part of the curse upon the ground was remitted by the blessing pronounced upon Noah after the flood, we must acknowledge that the full extent of that curse had been felt b}' all the inhabitants of the earth for many generations. Here then are unquestionably the effects of the sin of Adam reaching to his posterity ; in other words, it is counted to them in the judgment of God as if it were their own ; so that Adam in this sin, as well as in the other transactions between the Creator and our first parents, appears not as an individual, but as being what divines call a federal head, who, in the covenant that was made with him, acted for his posterity. These views, suggested by the consequences of the . transactions before the fall, are considered as implied in an expression, Ephes. ii. 3, (pvtiit nzva ogyqg ; and they are very much confirmed by the reasoning of the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. v. The apostle had proved largely, in the beginning of that epistle, the universal sinfulness of mankind. From thence he had proceeded to discourse of the richness of that grace by which sinners are justified, i. e. brought into a state of fa- vour and reconciliation ; and in reference to what he had said of the manner of this justification, he thus expresses himself, Rom. v. 11, " we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement." At this point he looks back upon the two subjects which he had discussed, and, with the comprehension and rapi- dity of thought which distinguish the writings of Paul, he brings forward to the view of the Romans a striking simi- larity between the two subjects. The similarity is this, that both sin, and the remedy of sin, were introduced through one man. By Jesus we have received the atone- ment : by one man sin entered into the world. This si- milarity in two things diametrically opposite was of itself worthy of attention. But the apostle had a particular reason for bringing it forward and dwelling upon it, which we may gather from the preceding part of the epistle. The great distinction of mankind in those times was into REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 25 Jew and Gentile. Accordingly, the apostle, when he was proving the sinfulness of mankind, found it necessary to show that the Jews in this respect had no advantage above the Gentiles, and rendered his proposition, in the appre- hension of those to whom he wrote, completely universal, by concluding both Jews and Gentiles under sin. But there could not be a more effectual way of confirming the universality of this his fundamental proposition, than by recurring to the similarity which he is now going to state. For, in stating this similarity, he draws the attention of his readers from Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, of whom they boasted, and through whom they inherited many blessings, to a more remote ancestor, from whom both Jews and Gentiles were descended, and through whom both inherited the same dismal legacy. In ascend- ing to Adam the distinction between Jews and Gentiles is lost, and the necessity of a Saviour is laid in that condi- tion which is common to all mankind. This account of the occasion of introducing the dis- course, which we are about to consider, explains the meaning of the two words dice rowr% with which the twelfth verse begins. A/a tovto wffreg di' hog uvQgu-o-j r, UfxaoT/a sig rov zofyAov uffrjXds, zcci dia rr^g aiLaonag 6 ^avaroc, y,ai ovrag ug Kavrag avfyutfovg 6 §avarog dir/Ahv, zip* w cravrsc fl/j,oiZTov. Tovto does not refer to any particular word in the preceding verse, but to the whole of what the apostle had said in the former part of the epistle. " This being the view which I have given of the sinfulness of mankind and of their deliverance, you will perceive that similarity between the two which I am now to state." 'floweg gives notice that the similarity is to be stated; but the reddi- tion of it, or the other subject similar to that mentioned in the twelfth verse, is not formally enunciated till the eighteenth. The intervening verses, after the manner of Paul, are filled up with illustrations of the first subject, or with the mention of points of dissimilitude between the two, before the point in which they are similar is clearly expressed. The first three clauses of the twelfth verse have already occurred in speaking of the effects of Adam's sin, and they are not attended with any pecu- liar difficulty. But the last clause of this verse, s7 every man, although he has no other revelation of the divine will, knows that he shall be judged, and every transgression of which is felt to be worthy of death. Had there been no such law, sin could not have been attended with its penal consequence, i. e. death. The word aXXa, in the fourteenth verse, gives notice of an objection which the apostle is aware might occur to his doctrine in the thirteenth, but which he purposely brings forward, because it is the strongest confirmation of his capital position, that sin and death entered into the world by one man. The objection is, that sin appeared by its penal effect, death, in the interval between Adam and Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. It is not obvious who are the persons here meant, and different interpretations have been given. It appears plain to me, that the apostle cannot mean, as some say, those who had not sinned like Adam, with the punishment of death before their eyes ; because the apostle had expressly said, Rom. i. 32, " That the heathen, who were filled with all unrighteousness, knew the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death." Besides, it is not pertinent to his argument to say here, that any who sinned, in the interval between Adam and Moses, sinned without know- ing, as Adam did, that death is the punishment of sin. For his argument is this ; sin cannot be counted to a person, so as to be punished in him, without a law : but sin was punished before the law of Moses existed ; the consequence is, that there must be some law antecedent to the law of Moses, and more universal, viz. the law of works given to the first parent of mankind, and extending to all his poste- rity. Every one that commits sin, therefore, sins after the similitude of Adam's transgression, in this respect, that he sins against the law of his Creator, knowing that he de- serves death. But who then are they that have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, and yet death reigns over them ? They can be none other than infants, the persons of whom this clause is generally understood ; that large proportion of the human race who die before their faculties are so far unfolded that they are capable of committing any sin. They die in consequence of the law 28 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE given to their first parent, by which death is declared to be the punishment of sin, and their dying is a proof that his sin is counted to them as theirs. The mention of this striking fact lead^ the apostle to style Adam ryjrog rou /usXXoercg, an image or representation of him that was to come, of Christ, the person by whom the deliverance 'was to be brought. But he does not formally state the simi- larity between the two, until he has touched upon the points of dissimilitude. These are stated in the loth. 16th, and 17th verses; and the amount of them is this: the value of the gift transcends the extent of the forfeiture, and the grace manifested in the gift goes far beyond every appearance of severity in the condemnation. I will not arrest your attention upon these points of dissimilitude now, because they will occur more properly when we come to speak of the remedy. From the mention of them, the apostle passes on to state explicitly, in verses 18, 19. the similarity between the method in which sin and death were introduced into the world, and the method of our de- liverance. The particles aza ov\> give notice that he is continuing his discourse, and that he is collecting the for- mer parts of it in approaching to his conclusion. The si- milarity is this. As by one offence all men are under the condemnation of death, as by the disobedience of one man many were constituted in the sight of God sinners, so by one righteousness, all men obtain the justification of life, and by the obedience of one many shall be constituted in the sight of God righteous. The offence of one is counted to us in such a manner, that we suffer the punishment of sin, wrhich a just God would not inflict upon us if we were not considered by him as sinners ; the obedience of one is counted to us in such a manner, that we who were sinners are upon account of it justified, i. e. considered as righteous by a just God, and received into his favour. This whole reasoning of the apostle favours the notion of an imputation of Adam's sin. The phrase indeed does not occur ; but the thing meant by the phrase appears to be the natural meaning of the passage ; and I know no better way in which you can satisfy yourselves that it is the true meaning, than by comparing the interpretation now given with the forced paraphrases to which those are REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 29 obliged to have recourse who wish to show that the fourth opinion does not receive any countenance from the autho- rity of Paul. Upon these two grounds, our daily experience that the effects of Adam's sin yet subsist in the world, and the man- ner in which the apostle reasons from this fact, that all die, there has been founded that notion which, from the religious education commonly received in this country, is familiar to your minds, that there was at the beginning of the world a covenant in which Adam acted as the repre- sentative of his posterity. It is generally said, in support of this notion, that Adam had every possible advantage for keeping the covenant, and no reasonable temptation to break it, so that human virtue could not have had a fairer trial ; that human affairs could not proceed unless parents acted for their children, and rulers for their subjects ; and that we are accustomed to behold not only many instances in which individuals suffer for the faults of those who went before them, but also many kinds of civil contracts, that include posterity in transactions, which, although they had no opportunity of giving their consent to them, are consi- dered, in the eye of the law, as theirs. It is further said, that our usages and ideas with regard to such transactions occur often in the Old Testament, where the Almighty condescends to represent that act of sovereignty, by which he chose the posterity of Abraham, as a covenant made with their ancestor, and the law given by Moses as a co- venant made with the Israelites in the wilderness, not for themselves only, but for their posterity;* a covenant which both conveyed blessings to the descendants of those with whom it was made, and also laid them under many restraints ; and a covenant constituted in this manner, that succeeding generations endured many calamities, and the Jews at this day are continuing to suffer for the sins of their fathers. It is true indeed that we are not warranted to consider this part of the constitution of that covenant which was made with the Israelites, as in all respects a specimen of the general plan of the divine administration, because this constitution extended only to the temporal affairs of the * Deut. xxix. 10 — 15. SO DISEASE FOR WHICH THE Jewish nation. And yet when we are told by that apostle, from whose writings our knowledge of the new dispensa- tion is chiefly derived, that those who have committed no sin suffer death, which entered into the world by the sin of the first Adam, it is impossible for us to avoid conclud- ing, that as there was a particular constitution for the Jewish state, in which the iniquities of the fathers were visited upon the children, there may be an universal con- stitution for the human race, by which the sin of their first parent extends to all his offspring. It is readily admitted that difficulties appear to us to at- tend this constitution. But difficulties of the same kind are perpetually occurring upon subjects in theology, not peculiar to this system, but nearly the same, in whatever manner we attempt to account for the origin of evil : and the same account may be given of all of them. We see only in part; but we are not qualified to judge of the ways of God without seeing the whole, because his admi- nistration embraces the whole. There may be a depth of wisdom in the constitution of which we are now speaking, that we are unable to penetrate : there may be advantages resulting from it to the human race that infinitely coun- terbalance the evils to which it gives occasion. That it is not unbecoming the Ruler of the universe, appears with the clearest evidence from hence, that a constitution of the same kind, with regard to some particulars, may be ob- served in the ordinary course of his providence towards all men, and in the whole history of that people, of whom he condescended to appear as the immediate Governor. Although it may appear to you from what has been said, that we are warranted to employ the notion of a co- venant, when we speak of the manner in which the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, it is proper to warn you that there is a danger of falling into very great improprie- ties both in language and in sentiment, by pushing the analogy too far, and that you must not be surprised if all the explications of this subject appear to you unsatisfactory. When you read that Adam is the root, and that, as in the communication of the juices of a tree, the guilt is necessa- rily conveyed from the root to all the branches ; — that Adam and his posterity constitute one moral person ; — that the whole human race was, at the beginning, one REMEDY IS PROVIDED. 31 mass acting by its head ; — and that all the individuals ot that mass consented to its act, because they were in him, from whom they afterwards proceeded, — you will probably feel, as I did, that they are repugnant to that distinct agency, which enters into our notion of accountable be- ings, as essential to that character. But you will remem- ber that those who say such things attempt to explain what they do not understand ; and you will learn, by their failure, that it is wiser to refrain from such attempts, and to rest in what the Scriptures teach with regard to the im- putation of Adam's sin, which may be summed up in a few words. The effects of the sin of Adam reach to his poste- rity in such a manner that they suffer death, which is de- clared in Scripture to be the wages of sin, as if his sin had been committed by them. The Scriptures, in stating the effects of Adam's sin, make no distinction between that death which his posterity visibly suffer, and that eternal destruction which is often called by the name of death ; and therefore we are not warranted to say that the disso- lution of soul and body is the only effect of Adam's sin, which extends to his posterity. In what manner the mere}*- of God will dispose hereafter of those infants who die in consequence of Adam's sin, without having done any evil, the Scriptures have not declared ; and it does not become us to say more than is said in the excellent words of our Confession of Faith : " Elect infants, dying in in- fancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleas- eth."* With regard to those that are grown up, the cor- ruption of nature inherited from Adam, in consequence of which they daily commit sins of their own, is joined with the imputation of his sin ; and when we think of their si- tuation, we ought not to allow ourselves, even in imagina- tion, to separate the two. The amount of all that has been said concerning that si- tuation for which the Gospel brings a remedy is this. Those, who consider the Scriptures as declaring that the whole human race are both guilty and depraved before God, perceive in this picture the absolute necessity of a remedy. But even those, Mho do not admit the truth of ♦ Confession, of Yalth, %> 3. 32 DISEASE FOR WHICH THE REMEDY IS PROVIDED. this picture, acknowledge without hesitation that men are sinners. They differ in opinion from the former with re- gard to the malignity of sin, the manner in which it was introduced into the world, and the nature of that constitu- tion under which the guilt and misery of it are transmitted ; and hence they entertain different apprehensions with re- gard to the nature and extent of the remedy, and the man- ner in which it is applied to the soul. But as the words of the apostle, " All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," are subscribed by every Christian, the fun- damental proposition upon which the Gospel rests is uni- versally assented to : and from this proposition we now proceed to examine the different opinions concerning this remedy. 83 CHAP. II. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE REMEDY, As Christians of all denominations admit that men have sinned, they admit also that the Gospel is a remedy for the present state of moral evil. They readily adopt that " faithful saying," which the apostle Paul declares to be " worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." They adore the love of the Father in sending the Son upon this errand. They pro- fess the warmest gratitude to him 'f who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." They ac- knowledge that the greatest benefits are derived to the world by his sufferings ; that we " have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ;" and that by what he did and underwent for our sakes, he is entitled to be honoured as the Saviour, the Deliverer, and the Re- deemer of mankind. But under this uniformity in the language which all who receive the Scriptures are constrained to use, there is concealed much diversity of opinion ; and the nature of that remedy, which it is the character of the Gospel to have brought, is one of the subjects in their speculations upon which Christians have departed very far from one another. The opposite systems are supported partly by general reasonings, and partly by passages of Scripture. The general reasonings are by no means of equal weight upon all sides. But it is possible for able men to reason so plausibly in support of any of the opinions which have been held upon this subject, that the mind might remain in suspense, if the general language of Scripture, when 34 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE fairly interpreted, did not appear decidedly to favour one of the systems : so that the question concerning the na- ture of the remedy, like those which we lately discussed concerning the character and dignity of the persons re- vealed in the Gospel, must be ultimately determined by sound Scripture criticism. There are three systems with regard to the nature of the remedy, to which we may be able afterwards to affix more significant names from the leading features by which they are distinguished, but which it may suffice at present to mark by calling them the Socinian, the Middle, and the Catholic opinions. By calling the first the Socinian, I do not mean that it was held by Socinus himself, for his opin- ion went a great deal farther ; but it is the opinion held by those who now call themselves Socinians, and it is the sim- plest system that can be formed with regard to the nature of the remedy. I call the third the Catholic opinion, be- cause it has been generally held in the Christian church since the days of the apostles, and enters into the creed of almost every established church in Christendom. What I call the Middle opinion arose in the course of the last century out of a part of the sj^stem of Socinus. It is dis- avowed by the modern Socinians ; but it has been brought forward by some very able divines both in the church of England, and amongst the dissenters, as the best method of steering clear of the objections that have been made either to the Socinian or to the Catholic system. I think it of importance to give a fair and complete ex- hibition of every one of these three systems ; and the or- der of stating them, which appears to be dictated by their nature, is to begin with the Socinian, which is the simplest ; to proceed to the middle, which professes to be an improve- ment upon the Socinian ; and to end with the Catholic, which, if it is the truth, will bear the disadvantage arising from the previous exhibition of two systems that are found- ed upon objections to it, and will approve itself to the un- derstanding to be agreeable both to reason and to Scrip- ture. 7TATTJRE OF THE REMEDY. 35 SECTION I. The fundamental principle of the Socinian system is this. Pure goodness, or a desire to communicate happiness, is conceived by the Socinians to constitute the whole character of the Deity. All the moral attributes of the divine na- ture are regarded as only modifications of benevolence, and it is believed that nothing either exists in God, or forms a part of his government, which may not be resoived into this principle. Infinitely blessed in himself, he could have no reason for creating the human race but to make them happy. His wisdom discerns the best means of com- municating happiness ; his power carries these means readi- ly and certainly into effect ; and although the means vary according to circumstances, the benevolent purpose from which they proceed is always the same. He hates sin, be- cause it makes his creatures unhappy ; he forbids it, that his authority may deter them from doing what is hurtful to themselves ; he punishes it, that the experience of suf- fering may convince them of their error. He employs va- rious means for their reformation ; he bears patiently with their obstinacy and heedlessness ; and at what time soever the recollection of his prohibition, the suffering of evil, or any other circumstance, brings back to their duty those who have sinned, that goodness of the Deity, which had been exercised under the form of long-suffering during their error, becomes compassion and clemency ; he receives his returning children into his favour ; and without regard to any external circumstance, or any other being, freely forgives their sins. The supreme ruler of the universe, say the Socinians, in thus freely forgiving all sins merely upon the repentance of the shiner, does injury to none. He only remits a part of his own right, a debt which his offending creatures have contracted to him. The inde- pendent felicity of his nature suffers no diminution from his not exacting all that he might claim ; the glory of his goodness is illustrated by the happiness which the pardon conveys to the penitent; and in conferring this pardon freely without any consideration foreign to himself, he sets his creatures an example of generosity in forgiving those 36 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE offences which they are daily receiving from one an- other. This fundamental principle of the Socinian opinion, which seems at first sight to flow from the infinite perfec- tion of the divine nature, and to be most honourable to the Creator and Father of all, is supported by numberless pas- sages of Scripture, which magnify the free grace of God in the pardon of transgressors, which invite them to re- turn, which describe the readiness with which they shall be received, and the joy that there is in heaven over a sin- ner that repenteth. It is supported by the many instances in which we experience the forbearance of God, that long- suffering which spares us amidst repeated provocations, and leads us by unmerited blessings to repentance. It is supported by all those candid and indulgent sentiments, which dispose us to forget the offences of persons in whom we discover a change of mind, and particularly by paren- tal affection, which, instead of being worn out by the way- wardness and perverseness of children, is impatient to em- brace them on the first symptoms of a return to obedience. It can easily be conceived that the arguments, of which I have given a short sketch, are capable of receiving much embellishment, and that eloquent men, by fixing the atten- tion upon a particular view of the subject, may leave little doubt in the minds of ordinary reader^, that a theory con- cerning the nature of the remedy offered in the Gospel, resting upon this principle as its basis, contains the whole of the truth. When this principle is applied in forming such a theory, it follows obviously from the principle, that the person who brought the remedy had nothing to do in order to procure the pardon of . those who repent. This is freely and purely the effect of t^e divine goodness. But the cir- cumstances of the world might render it expedient that a declaration of pardon should be made. For if men have been sinners from the beginning of the world, as the So- cinians do not deny, if the religion of the heathen was con- nected with much superstition, i. e. with a blind excessive fear of the Deity ; and if the Jewish religion appointed a costly burdensome method of approaching the God of Is- rael, which could not be observed by all the nations of the earth, there seems to be much occasion that a religion 5 NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 37 not confined to a particular tribe, but professing to spread itself over the whole world, and appointing a spiritual wor- ship, should declare, in the most unequivocal and solemn manner, that encouragement to the penitent which is de- rived from the essential goodness of God. Now such de- clarations are known to abound in the Gospel : and they appear to the Socinians to give the religion of Jesus that importance which every one expects to find in a divine re- velation. God appears there in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and repentance and remission of sins are preached in the name of Christ among all nations ; not that Christ did any thing to render God propitious : but he is the messenger who publishes the divine grace. His first words were, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ;" his own discourses represent God as merciful ; his apostles, after his ascension, preached the forgiveness of sins, saying, " Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out ;" and his whole religion is a standing declaration of this proposition, which was always equally true, but the truth of which was not at all times perfectly understood, that " whosoever confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy." This proposition, say the Socinians, approves itself by intrinsic evidence to a philosophical mind. But, in order to rouse the attention of the multitude, the person employ- ed by God to publish it to the world was rendered respect- able in their eyes by many mighty works. The miracles, which the power of God enabled the messenger of this grace to perform, were the credentials of a divine commis- sion ; and a splendour was thrown around his character by the other purposes which his appearance accomplished. One of these additional purposes was his being the in- structor of the world, who not only restored, by the de- claration which he was commissioned to make, the natural confidence that men ought to have in the goodness of their Creator, but also taught them the will of God. As the Socinians do not admit that the first man possessed more knowledge and righteousness than any of his posterity, their principles lead them to deny those remains of the image of God which other Christians trace, to detract very much from the authority of the law of nature, and to re- solve all religious knowledge into the tradition of some 38 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE primary revelation. This tradition could not fail to be obscured and corrupted in the progress of ages ; and as gross ignorance of the duties of men is known to have overspread the earth, it is manifest that there was much need of the perfect teaching of a man, whose miracles were both a security that he taught the will of God truly, and a call upon men to listen to him. In this opinion of the usefulness of Christianity, all who receive it as a di- vine revelation readily agree. But the Socinians, as if de- sirous to atone by this branch of their encomium upon Christianity for the dishonour which other parts of their systems are conceived to do to that religion, go far beyond other Christians in magnifying the importance of the Gos- pel as a method of instruction. They represent its pre- cepts as not only simple, clear, and authoritative, but as inculcating virtues which are neither explicitly taught in the law of Moses, nor deducible from any of its principles ; and they allow the messenger of the grace of God all the honour which can accrue to his character and to his reli- gion from the essential superiority of his precepts. In delivering to a world full of superstition and vice precepts so opposite to their maxims and manners, the messenger of the grace of God encountered much opposi- tion ; he provoked the civil and ecclesiastical rulers — he alarmed the evil passions that he endeavoured to restrain — and after a life marked with uncommon difficulties and unmerited persecution, he was put to death by the violence of his enemies. His death is considered by the Socinians as the unavoidable result of the circumstances in which he published his excellent religion ; an event happening with- out any special appointment of heaven, according to the course of human affairs ; for, having persevered during a life of suffering in bearing witness to the truth, and being incapable of retracting, even in the immediate prospect of death, like other martyrs he sealed his declaration with his blood. The death of Christ, even although regarded merely as a natural event, is full of instruction to his fol- lowers. The innocence of the illustrious sufferer was made conspicuous by all the circumstances which attended his trial ; the patience, the magnanimity, the piety, and bene- volence, which marked the hour of his sufferings imprint upon those who cherish his memory with affection all NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 39 the lessons of his religion ; and having taught men the will of God while he lived, he suffered for their benefit, " leaving them an example that they should follow his steps." But the example exhibited in his sufferings, and the tes- timony which he bore by them to all that he had said du- ring his life, are not the only benefits of the death of Christ which the modern Socinians admit. They say also, that it confirmed the truth of the promises of God ; for his death was necessary in order to his resurrection, and his resur- rection not only completes the evidences of his mission, but is the earnest to mankind of life and immortality, that great blessing which he was commissioned to promise. It is this further purpose of the death of Christ which com- pletes the Socinian scheme of Christianity ; and therefore, in order to render the view which I am now giving a fair exposition of that scheme, it is necessary to state the pe- culiar importance which it affixes to this purpose. Not admitting any forfeiture to have been incurred by the transgression of Adam, the Socinians consider man as mortal, a creature who would have died whether he had sinned or not. Dr. Priestley goes farther upon this sub- ject than some of those who adopt his other principles have yet been able to follow him. He holds that the distinction between soul and body is a popular error, derived from heathen philosophy, but contradicted by reason and Scrip- ture ; that man is a homogeneous being, i. e. that the powers of thought and sensation belong to the brain, as much as gravity and magnetism belong to other arrange- ments of matter ; and that the whole machine, whose com- plicated motions had presented the appearance of animal and rational life, is dissolved at death. To Dr. Priestley, therefore, the resurrection promised in the Gospel is the highest possible gift, because, according to his system, it is the restoration of existence. But even those Socinians, who do not so far depart from the conclusions of sound philosophy as to believe that the phenomena of thought can be explained without supposing an immaterial prin- ciple in man, while they allow that this principle may sur- vive the body, are inclined to compare the state in which it is left, after the dissolution of the body, to a kind of sleep, in which all the faculties of the soul continue sus- 3 40 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE pended till the resurrection. Being led, by their system concerning the fall to infer from the present appearance of death that it is part of the original constitution of na- ture, and finding no reasoning in favour of a future state amongst those who had not the benefit of revelation so clear and decisive as to satisfy a speculative mind, and no explicit promise in the law of Moses, they consider im- mortality as a free gift which the Almighty may have be- stowed upon those who died in ancient times, but a gift the assurance of which is conveyed to the human race solely by the religion of Christ. Here, therefore, the So- cinians place the great value and importance of the Gos- pel. Whether man consists of spirit and body united in an inexplicable manner, or whether his whole frame be only an organization of matter more excpiisite than any which he beholds, he cannot infer with certainty from any deductions of his own reason that he shall survive that event, which, happening in the established course of na- ture, puts an end to all his labours and enjoyments upon earth. But the Gospel brings life and immortality to light. While it declares that the God who made man is ready to forgive all his wanderings, and to receive him into favour upon his repentance, it promises to reward the obedience and virtue i of this short life by raising him from the sleep of death, by restoring to him at the resurrection, whatever had been his state in the intervening period, all those capacities which death seemed to have annihilated, and by introducing him to a life of endless and complete bliss. This promise corresponds with that essential goodness of the Deity from which the declaration of pardon flow^s ; but it is infinitely beyond the deserts of a frail sinful crea- ture : and, therefore, that it may take possession of the mind of man, that he may rest without hesitation in the certainty of the gift, and that he may derive all the com- fort and improvement which the prospect is fitted to ad- minister, it is necessary that every confirmation of the promise, every sensible proof which the nature of the case admits, should be given him. Now this sensible proof is afforded by means of the death of Jesus Christ ; and hence the great advantage which the world derives from that fact. A man, say the Socinians, not distinguished from NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 41 his brethren in his origin or in the powers of his nature, having been employed by God to teach his will and to declare the promise of pardon and life eternal to those who repent, is exposed, in the execution of this commission, to sufferings more severe than those which fall to the lot of ordinary men ; he endures them with patience, and the virtues of his character are illustrated by his sorrows. But instead of being enabled to surmount them, he is delivered by God into the hands of his enemies, that being put to death b}' their malice, he might be raised by the power of the Creator. In three days he returns from the grave ; and the evidence of his resurrection is so remarkably cir- cumstantial, that there is not, perhaps, says Dr. Priestley, any fact in ancient history so perfectly credible according to the established rules of evidence. But the resurrection of the man, who promised in the name of God that at the last day all shall rise, is a demonstration in his person that a general resurrection is possible ; it is an assurance from God of the fulfilment of the promise, the most level to the apprehensions of the generality of mankind, and it is con- nected with that glorious reward upon which the Scrip- tures say this man has already entered. For, whatever may be the state of other men till the general resurrection, we are told that this man has ascended to heaven, and is now invested with supreme dignity and bliss. His recom- pense is held forth in Scripture as the encouragement and the security to his disciples that they shall in due time re- ceive theirs ; and the encouragement and security are founded upon this circumstance, that he was a man like them, who suffered and died. So speak the apostles ; " if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."* Every man in his own order ; Christ the first-fruits ; af- terward they that are Christ's."-f- And our Lord himself said to his apostles, " Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations ; and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me."| Soci- nus and his immediate followers admitted that power of Christ in dispensing the recompense of his disciples, which seems to be intimated in the last of these passages, and in * 1 Thess. iv. 14. f 1 Cor- xv. 23. + Luke xxii. 28, 29. 42 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE such other expressions as these, his giving a crown of life, his granting to sit down with him on his throne, his raising the dead, and his judging the world. But the modern So- cinians preserve the consistency of their scheme by giving figurative interpretations of all such phrases, and so re- solving the accomplishment of that promise which pro- ceeded from the love of God, purely into his power and will, without the interposition of any other being. Christ may be employed as an instrument of fulfilling the plea- sure of the Almighty ; but so may angels, so may virtuous men ; and it is not from any inherent power that Christ possesses, but from that example of the truth of the pro- mise which Christians behold in his having been raised from the dead and set at God's right hand, that they de- rive the full assurance of hope. This system of pure Socinianism which I have now de- lineated I shall state in a few sentences, gathered from Dr. Priestley's History of the Doctrine of Atonement. u The great object of the mission and death of Christ was to give the fullest proof of a state of retribution, in order to supply the strongest motives to virtue ; and the making an express regard to the doctrine of a resurrection to im- mortal life the principal sanction of the laws of virtue is an advantage peculiar to Christianity. By this peculiar ad- vantage the Gospel reforms the world, and remission of sin is consequent on reformation. Fgt, although there are some texts in which the pardon of sin seems to be re- presented as dispensed in consideration of the sufferings, the merits, the resurrection, the life, or the obedience of Christ, we cannot but conclude, upon a careful examina- tion, that all these views of it are partial representations, and that, according to the plain general tenor of Scripture, the pardon of sin is, in reality, always dispensed by the free mercy of God upon account of men's personal virtue, a penitent upright heart, and a reformed exemplary life, without regard to the sufferings or merit of any being whatever." The Socinians endeavour to accommodate to this sys- tem all those expressions which Christians have learned from Scripture to apply to the Gospel remedy. The fol- lowing instances may serve as a specimen of their mode of interpretation. Christ, died for us, i. e. for our benefit, be- NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 43 cause we derive much advantage from his death. He is our mediator, because he came from God to us to declare the divine mercy. He saves his people from their sins, because the influence of his precepts and his example, sup- ported by the hope of a future life which he has revealed, leads them from sin to the practice of righteousness. His blood cleanseth us from all sin, because, being shed in confirmation of his doctrine, and as a step to his resurrec- tion, it furnishes the most powerful incentives to virtue ; and we have redemption, through his blood, even the for- giveness of sins, because we are led by the due considera- tion of his death and its consequences, to that repentance which, under the merciful constitution of the divine go- vernment, always obtains forgiveness. According to this system, then, Jesus Christ is a teach- er of righteousness, the messenger of divine grace, the publisher of a future life, the bright example of every vir- tue, and the most illustrious pattern of its reward. As far as these expressions go, he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the world ; but it is not allowed that he did any thing fur- ther to merit this character. His religion is the most per- fect system of morality, delivering with the authority of heaven a more plain, and complete, and spiritual rule of duty than is anywhere else to be found, and exciting men to follow that rule by hopes which no other teacher was commissioned to give. It is, in these respects, the most effectual lesson of righteousness which ever was addressed to the world ; and in this sense only it is a remedy for the present state of moral evil. This system accords with all the principles held by those who are now called Socinians, and forms part of a great scheme, which, however blame- worthy it may be in many respects, has the merit of being consistent. But to Christians who do not hold these principles in their full extent, it appears to labour under insuperable difficulties. Those who believe in the pre-existence of Jesus cannot consider his death as merely a natural event, like the death of any other man ; and they look for some purpose of his dying beyond that of affording, by his resurrection, an example of a dead man brought to life, because Jesus, appearing to them in this respect essentially distinguished from all other men, that he existed before he was born, may 44 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE be also distinguished in this further respect, that he re- turned to existence after he died. We know that some of the ancient philosophers were accustomed to argue for a future life, from that state of pre-existence which they as- signed to the soul ; and the inference is so natural and obvious, if the supposition upon which it proceeds is ad- mitted, that, whether the Arian or the Athanasian system be adopted with regard to the dignity which Jesus had before he was born, no argument, drawn from the death and resurrection of this singular personage, can be a suf- ficient warrant for ordinary men to expect that they also shall be raised. Those who have a strong apprehension of the evil of sin and of the authority of the divine go- vernment, and who observe that even amongst men re- pentance does not always restore a person to the condition in which he was before he sinned, cannot readily admit that a simple declaration of forgiveness to all who return to their duty is consistent with the holiness and majesty of the Ruler of the universe ; more especially as this de- claration does not barely remit the punishment of trans- gression, but is connected with a promise of eternal life ; a promise which other Christians consider as restoring what had been forfeited by Adam, which the Socinians consider as so peculiar to the Gospel, that it gives to man a hope which he never had before, and which all acknow- ledge to contain a free inestimable gift. There appears to be an expediency in some testimony of the divine dis- pleasure against sin, at the time of declaring that such a gift is to be conferred upon penitents ; and if there are in Scripture many intimations of such a testimony, they, who are impressed with a sense that it is expedient, will not be disposed to explain them away. Those who form their system of theology upon the language of Scripture do not find themselves warranted to sink Jesus to the office of a messenger of the Divine mercy, when they recollect that he is said to have washed us from our sins in his own blood, and to have bought us with a price ; that repentance and remission of sins are uniformly connected with something which he did; that according to his command they were preached by his apostles in his name, and that they are said to be granted by him. Different systems have been formed for explain- NATURE OF THE REMEDY. 45 ing such expressions ; but many Christian writers, who do not pretend to decide which of the systems is true or whether it is becoming in us to form any system upon the subject at all, consider expressions of this kind as plainly teaching that the interposition of Christ was somehow efficacious in procuring the pardon of sin ; and it appears to them that this efficacy, whatever be the nature of it, must go very far beyond the bare declaration of a pro- position which was always true, that God is merciful. All these reasons for rejecting the Socinian system are very much confirmed by attending to the descriptions given in Scripture of the honour and power to which Jesus Christ is now exalted. Although the modern So- cinians, feeling that these descriptions are inconsistent with their system, have attempted to resolve into mere figures of speech what Socinus himself interpreted literal- ly, any Christian who reads the New Testament, not with a view to reconcile it to his own system, but in order to learn what it contains, cannot entertain a doubt that the person -who appeared upon earth in a humble form, the Saviour of men, is now exalted as their Lord ; that all power in heaven and in earth is committed to him ; and that he is ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead. But why is Jesus thus exalted ? Although his being preserved from that sleep of the soul which some Christians have supposed, or his being raised out of the grave from that complete dissolution which Dr. Priestley's materialism teaches, may be useful to Christians as a living example of a resurrection, it cannot be said that his being advanced to the government of the universe is ne- cessary to give us assurance of a future life. According to the Socinian system, we cannot discern in the services of this man any merit beyond that of other messengers of heaven, or even of his own apostles ; and we do not per- ceive any purpose which is to be attained by his receiving a recompense so infinitely above his deserts. If the for- giveness of sin and the gift of immortality flow entirely from the mercy of God, without regard to any other being whatever, the security of them does not, in the smallest degree, depend upon the condition of the messenger by whom they were promised ; so that the powers, which the Scriptures ascribe to that messenger are a mere waste, 46 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE and his exaltation, unlike any other work of God, is with- out meaning. Such are the objections which Christians of different descriptions are led, by their principles, to urge against the Socinian system of redemption. Many able and seri- ous men, who felt the force of these objections, could not reconcile their minds to the third system, which they found to be the general faith of the Christian church ; and hence has arisen a middle system, which, as it is certainly clear of the objections that have now been stated, appears to some to comprehend the whole doctrine of Scripture upon this subject. SECTION II. The middle system is founded upon a part of the doctrine of Socinus, which the modern Socinians have thrown out, viz. the power given by God to Jesus Christ after his re- surrection. But many additions -were made to this arti- cle in the course of the last century, and it has been spread out by several writers into a complete and beauti- ful system. My knowledge of it is derived from an Essay on Redemption, written by an English clergyman, John Balguy, and republished by Dr. Thomas Balguy ; from a book entitled Ben Mordecai's Apology for becoming a Christian, consisting of letters upon the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, written by Mr. Taylor, another English clergyman ; and from a volume of sermons published by Dr. Price, the celebrated English dissenter, who, rejecting both the Socinian and the Calvinistic systems, gives to this the name which I have borrowed from him, calling it the middle system. Availing myself of these sources of information, I shall give a short exposition of the middle system, which may enable you to form a conception of the manner in which the parts of it are linked together, and of the principles by which it is supported. NATURE OF TttE BEMEDY. 47 The fundamental principle of the middle system is, that under the government of a righteous God a distinction ought to be made between innocents and penitents. It is allowed that God, who is accountable to none, may freely forgive the sins of his creatures ; it is allowed that, being infinitely merciful, he has no delight in punishing them ; it is allowed that repentance, without which no sinner can be received, is a commendable disposition. But after all these things are granted to the Socinians, it is still con- ceived to be right in itself, that those, who have sinned, should not feel their situation in every respect the same as if they had uniformly obeyed the commands of their Creator ; and it is considered as a lesson which may be useful both to themselves and to other parts of the universe, that the restoration of the human race to. the divine favour should be marked by some circumstances sufficient to preserve the memory of their transgression. It is observ* e vrs^/ovffai.f John the Baptist introduces the new dispensation, "by de- claring that if any one believed not on the Son of God, rt ooyn esov f&evsj s-t' ctvrov.^ The character of the new dis- pensation is thus drawn by Paul, Rom. i. 18, aKozaXvvrsrai 7H °r/^ ®£oy ay/)g, and is described both by our Lord and his apostles, in terms which imply the most complete display of what those who hold the Catholic opinion mean by the punitive justice of the Supreme Lawgiver. * Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. f Jude 7. t John iii. 36. § Heb. x. 28—30. 120 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. Such are the descriptions of the Almighty which per- vade the Scriptures, and they clearly explain to us that effect of the death of Christ which is marked by the first class of expressions. The Gospel, proceeding upon the truth of these descriptions, assumes, as its principle, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins ; and declaring that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins, it deduces from thence the necessity of a better sacrifice. It asserts, Heb. ii. 10, that it became him by whom and through whom are all things, to make the Captain of salvation perfect through sufferings ; EWgefttf* a-jru), i. e. that there was a fitness in them resulting from the character of the Supreme Ruler ; and by represent- ing them as vicarious punishment, with which recon- ciliation and atonement are connected, it teaches clearly that the wrath of God is turned away from the sinner, by the punishment which he deserved being laid upon an- other. The Socinians endeavour to evade the argument drawn from the first class of expressions, by maintaining that re- conciliation means nothing more than the taking away the enmity which we entertained against God ; that it is no- where said in Scripture that God is reconciled to us by Christ's death, but that we are everywhere said to be re- conciled to God; that the sufferings of Christ can produce no change in God, and that the change must be brought about in man ; that there can be no need of reconciling God to man, when he had already shown his love to man so far as to send his Son to reconcile man to God. But in addition to what has been said of the punitive justice of God, I would farther observe, that as the term which we translate reconciliation implies a previous enmity or vari- ance which was mutual, so the Scriptures explicitly de- clare, by all those views of the Almighty which I have been collecting, that there was an enmity on God's part ; and the exhortation to lay aside the enmity on our part proceeds upon this foundation, that the enmity on God's part is taken away by the death of his Son. AiaWarrsffQai and words connected with it are five times applied in the New Testament with respect to God : Rom. v. 10, 11 ; xi. 15 ; Ephes. ii. 16 ; Col. i. 20, 21. In this last passage particu- larly there is implied a previous enmity or variance which DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 121 was mutual. The words are twice used with respect to man; Matt. v. 24; 1 Cor. vii, 11. In both these pas- sages the meaning is, see that he be reconciled to thee ; for in both the person addressed has done the injury. The verb daXXa-rzcOat occurs in the same sense in the Septua- gint verson of 1 Sam. xxix. 4. If you read 2 Cor. v. 18 — 21, the passage upon which the Socinians ground their ar- gument, you will be satisfied that their method of inter- preting reconciliation leaves out half its meaning. Here is a previous act of God, who hath reconciled all things to himself by Jesus Christ, who does not count to men their trespasses, and who committed to the apostles of Jesus the word or the ministry of reconciliation ; and subsequent to this act of God there is the execution of that ministry, by their beseeching men to be reconciled to God. The mi- nistry is distinct from the act of God, because God does not immediately receive all sinners into favour by his Son, but requires something of those to whom the word of re- conciliation is published, in order to their being saved by it. But the ministry could not have existed had not the act of God, reconciling all things to himself, previously taken place ; and accordingly the very argument by which the apostle urges the exhortation committed to him is this ; " for he hath made him to be sin for us," i. e. God hath provided a method by which we may be assured that his anger is turned away from us ; it only therefore remains that ye return to him. (2.) The second class comprehends those expressions in which we read of redemption ; as 1 Peter i. 18 ; Eph. i. 7. " Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ; wre have redemption through his blood." As our English word redeem literally means, I buy back, so Xvtpou, a:orPO)rr,c. But if redemption means nothing more than a deliverance from sin, as effectually as if a ransom had been paid, the second class of expressions gives no real support to the Catholic opinion ; and is not inconsistent either with the Socinian opinion, which ascribes the deliverance to the influence of the doctrine and precepts of the Gospel, or with the Middle opinion, which ascribes it to the power acquired by the Redeemer. This reasoning proceeds upon a principle which is rea- dily admitted, that both the English and the Greek words are often extended beyond their original signification. Although they denoted primarily deliverance from capti- vity by paying a ransom, they are applied to deliverance from any evil, and they are used to express deliverance by any means. Almost all other words, which originally denoted a particular manner of doing a thing, are suscep- tible of a similar extension of meaning, and it is the busi- ness of sound criticism to determine, by considering the circumstances of the case, how far the primary significa- tion is to be retained, or with what qualifications it is to be understood in every particular application. Now when we judge in this manner of the second class of ex- pressions, the following remarks naturally present them* selves. ]. It is not necessary to depart from their literal mean- ing, when they are applied to the effect of the death of Christ. For according to the true statement of the Catho- lic opinion, we are considered as under the sentence of condemnation which our sins deserved, as prisoners wait- ing the execution of the sentence, and as released by the death of Christ from this condition. Deliverance from the DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 123 dominion of sin and the power of Satan is a secondary effect, a consequence of the application of the remedy ; redemption of our bodies from the grave is another effect still more remote. Both are mentioned in Scripture ; but the immediate effect of the death of Christ is, our deliver- ance from punishment, what the apostle calls the curse of the law ; and this punishment being in the power of the lawgiver by whom it was to be inflicted, the ransom, in consideration of which it is remitted and the condemned are set free, may be said to be given to him. 2. Although a captive may be released without any ransom, and al- though Xuw, or verbs derived from 7>.vtpov, may be employ- ed most naturally to express such a gratuitous release, yet this extension of the primary meaning of these words is excluded from the case to which they are applied in the New Testament, because a Xurgov is there expressly men- tioned. When a Greek author, in relating the release of a prisoner, speaks repeatedly of aAeout*, or Xvroa, as Homer does in the first book of the Iliad, it cannot be supposed that the redemption was without price. Every one feels this effect of introducing the noun Xvrsov, when the captive was detained by force under the power of an enemy ; and the signifieancy of the noun is not in the least diminished, when the prisoner is redeemed from a captivity which the Scriptures represent as judicial. The avtpov indeed, in that case, is not a price from which the lawgiver is to de- rive any advantage ; it is the satisfaction to justice upon which he consents to remit the sentence ; but still the men- tion of a A'jr;o!/ is absolutely inconsistent with a gratuitous remission. 3. The Septuagint has used the word Xvrgo* in two places, to denote the consideration upon which a judicial sentence was remitted. There was the avtov. $»%v&) Exod. xxx. 12 — 16, called in our translation the atonement-money ; half a shekel given for the service of the sanctuary by every one who was numbered, upon all occasions when the number of the people was taken, that there might be no plague among them. There was also A-jT^a i°ig vo/uov, i. e. abstractedly from law, independently of the precepts contained in the Mo- saic system, or written on the hearts of men ; and yet not in opposition to the law, for this method of justifying men was witnessed, i. e. foretold and foreshown by the law and the prophets. The method of justifying men, which is independent of law, and yet was witnessed by the law, is called most significantly, br/.aioa\)vr\ ©soy. The meaning of this name is in part explained by its being opposed, Rom. x. 3, to ibicc dr/.GUoffw7}. The apostle has shown that ibicc bixaiotfvvrj, or, binatotivvri bia i/o/xoy, Gal. ii. 21, does not exist ; and therefore, the method of justifying men may most properly be called dmaioavvri ©sou, because it must be such as God is pleased to appoint. But this name implies far- 128 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. tlier that it is a method becoming that God who is just ; a part of the significancy of the name which the apostle places fully in our view, when he comes to explain the method. But before he gives the explication, he distin- guishes the method which he is going to explain from justification e£ si7°°v or ^/a vo/mu, by this addition, btcc