ment of the Israelites was properly a theocracy, in which the two societies, civil and religious, were of course incorporated. They had indeed after their settlement in the promised land at first several temporary judges occasionally raised up; and afterwards permanent magistrates, called kings, to lead their armies in war, and to give vigor to the administration of justice in peace: but neither those judges nor kings could abrogate a single law of the original code, or make the smallest addition to it but by the spirit of prophecy. They cannot therefore be considered as supreme magistrates, by whatever title they governed; for they were to go out and come in at the word of the priests, who were to ask counsel for them of the Lord, and with whom they were even associated in all judicial proceedings, as well of a civil as of a spiritual nature. Under any other than a theocratic government the Hebrews could not have been kept separate from the nations around them; or, if they could, that separation would not have answered the great purpose for which it was established. Hence it was that, under the Mosaic dispensation, idolatry was a crime of state, punishable by the civil magistrate. No mere human authority could have lawfully established it.

It was for the same purpose of guarding them against idolatry, and preventing all undue communications with their heathen neighbours, that the ritual law was given. After their repeated apostacies, and impious wishes to mix with the surrounding nations, it was necessary to subject them to a multifarious ritual, of which the ceremonial parts were solemn and splendid, fitted to engage and fix the attention of a people whose hearts were gross; to inspire them with awful reverence, and to withdraw their affections from the pomp and pageantry of those idle superstitions which they had so long witnessed in Egypt. To keep them warmly attached to their public worship, that worship was loaded with operose and magnificent rites, and so completely incorporated with their civil polity as to make the same things at once duties of religion and acts of state. The service of God was indeed so ordered as to be the constant business as well as entertainment of their lives, supplying the place of all other entertainments; and the sacrifices which they were commanded to offer on the most solemn occasions were of such animals as the Egyptians and other heathens deemed sacred.

Few precepts in the Jewish law are more frequently repeated than that which prohibits the seething of a kid in its mother's milk; among the nations round Judea, the feasting upon a kil boiled in its mother's milk was an essential part of the impious and magical ceremonies celebrated in honor of one of their gods, who was supposed to have been suckled by a she goat. Hence in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the text runs thus:-Thou shalt not seeth a kid in its mother's milk; for whoever does so is as one who sacrifices an abominable thing, which offends the God of Jacob.' Another precept, apparently of very little importance, is given in these words: -Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.'

But its wisdom is seen at once, when we know that at funerals it was the practice of many of the heathens, in that early period, to round the corners of their heads, and mar their beards, that by throwing the hairs they had cut off upon the dead body, or the funeral pile, they might propitiate the shade of the departed hero; and that in other nations, particularly in Phoenicia, it was customary to cut off all the hair of their heads except what grew upon the crown, which, with great solemnity, was consecrated either to the sun or to Saturn. The unlearned Christian, if he be a man of reflection, must read with some degree of wonder such laws as these:- Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown and the fruits of thy vineyard be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, or of woollen and linen together.' But his wonder will cease when he knows that all these were superstitious practices from which the Sabian idolaters of the east expected the greatest advantages. Their belief in magic and judicial astrology led them to imagine, that by sowing different kinds of corn among their vines they should propitiate the gods which were afterwards known in Rome by the names of Bacchus and Ceres ; that, by yoking animals so heterogeneous as the ox and the ass in the same plough, they should by a charm secure the favor of the deities who presided over husbandry; and that a garment composed of linen and woollen, worn under certain conjunctions of the stars, would protect its owner, his flocks, his herds, and his field, from all malign influences, and render him in the highest degree prosperous through the whole course of his life. But magical ceremonies, of which the very essence seems to have consisted in uniting in one group, or jumble things never brought together by nature, were always performed to render propitious, good or evil demons (see MAGIC); and therefore such ceremonies, however unimportant in themselves, were in that age most wisely prohibited in the Mosaic law. If an accurate examination of the whole Jewish ritual be made in this manner, every precept of it will be found to be directed against some idolatrous practice of the age in which it was given.

That these laws might operate more powerfully on minds gross and carnal, they were all enforced by temporal sanctions. This was indeed the natural and even necessary consequence of the theocratic government established in Israel. Nor were temporal rewards and punishments held out only to the nation as a collective body; they were promised and threatened to every individual in his private capacity as the certain consequences of his obedience or disobedience. Every particular Hebrew was commanded to honor his father and mother, that it might go well with him, and that his days might be prolonged; whilst he who cursed his father or mother was sure to be put to death. Against every idolater, and even against the wilful transgressor of the ceremonial law, God repeatedly declared he would set his face, and would cut off that man fom among his people.

From these peculiarities in the Jewish dispen-
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This incarnation of the Son of God is perhaps the greatest mystery of the Christian faith, and that to which ancient and modern heretics have urged the most plausible objections. The doctrine of the Trinity, though expressly scriptural, is equally incomprehensible; but the nature of God and his mode of existence must necessarily be incomprehensible by finite beings. And therefore it is a philosophical truth that a revelation, which should contain nothing but comprehensible truths, would be equally incredible and useless. As well may we expect a river to contain the ocean as a finite being to comprehend the infinite God. The difficulty is not how two natures so different as the divine and human can be so intimately united as to become one person; for this union in itself is not more inconceivable than that of the soul and body in one man: but that which at first is apt to stagger the faith of the reflecting Christian is the infinite distance between the two natures in Christ, and the comparatively small importance of the object, for the attainment of which the eternal Son of God is said to have taken upon him our nature.

Much of this difficulty however will vanish to him who considers the ways of Providence, and attends to the meaning of the words in which this mystery is taught. The importance of the object for which the Word condescended to be made flesh, we cannot adequately know. The oracles of truth indeed inform us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; but there are passages scattered through the New Testament (Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 19, 20) which indicate not obscurely that the influence of his sufferings extends to other worlds besides this: and, if so, who can take upon him to say that the quantity of good which they may have produced was not of sufficient importance to move even to this condescension, a Being who is emphatically styled love?

Perhaps the very improper appellation of mother of God, which at an early period of the church was given to the Virgin Mary, may have been one cause of the reluctance with which the incarnation has been admitted; for such language, in the proper sense of the words, implies what those by whom it is used cannot possibly believe to be true; but it is not the language of Scripture. We are there taught that Christ being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man;' that God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons' (Phil. ii. 6, 7; Gal. iv. 4, 5), and that the Word who was in the beginning with God, and was God, by whom all things were made, was made flesh, and dwelt among men (who beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth; but we are no where taught that, as God, he had a mother!

While the Jews were instruments of enlightening the heathen nations of antiquity, their intercourse with those nations made them almost

unavoidably acquainted with the philosophy which was cultivated among the Chaldeans, the Persians, and the Egyptian Greeks; and, ingrafting many of the opinions derived from those schools upon the doctrines of Moses and the prophets, they corrupted their own religion while they improved that of their neighbours. Hence, by the time that Christ came among them, they had made the word of God of none effect through a number of idle fancies which they inculcated on the people as the traditions of the elders; and, as they had attached themselves to different masters in philosophy, their unauthorised opinions were of course different according to the different sources whence they were drawn. The peculiar tenets of the Essenes seem to have been a species of mystic Platonism. The Pharisees are thought to have derived their origin from a Jewish phi losopher of the Peripatetic school; and the resemblance between the doctrines of the Sadducees and the philosophy of Epicurus has escaped no man's observation.

Most of these sects agreed in the expectation of the Messiah, but, unhappily for themselves, expected him to be a great temporal prince. To this mistake several circumstances contributed; some of their prophets had foretold his coming in lofty terms borrowed from the ritual law, and the splendor of earthly monarchs. The necessity of casting this veil over those living oracles is evident from the very nature of prophecy. And, at the time when the predictions were made, the Mosaic system had not run out half its course, and was therefore not to be exposed to popular contempt by an information that it was only the harsh rudiment of one more perfect. The Jews had suffered so much from the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and other nations by whom they had been conquered, and were then suffering so much from their masters the Romans, that their carnal minds could think of no deliverance greater than that which should rescue their nation from every foreign yoke. And what men earnestly wish they are very ready to believe.

As our Saviour came for a very different purpose, the first object of his mission was to rectify these notions of his erring countrymen. Accordingly he embraced every opportunity of inveighing against the false doctrines taught as traditions of the elders; and, by his knowledge of the secrets of all hearts, he exposed the vile hypocrisy of those who made a gain of godliness. The importance in which Moses held the ritual law, and to which, as the means of preserving its votaries from the contagion of idolatry, it was justly entitled, had led the Jews to consider every ceremony of it as of intrinsic value and perpetual obligation; but Jesus brought to their recollection God's declared preference of mercy to sacrifice; showed them that the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith, claimed their regard in the first place, and its ceremonial observances only in the second; and taught them, in conformity with the predictions of their own prophets, that the hour was about to come when the worship of God should not be confined to Jerusalem, but that 'true worshippers should every where worship the Father in spirit and in truth.'

By thus restoring the law to its original purity, and in many cases extending its sense, the blessed Jesus executed the office of a prophet to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but, had he not been more than an ordinary prophet, he could not have abrogated the most trivial ceremony of it, nor even extended the sense of any of its moral precepts. It was necessary, therefore that Jesus, as he taught some new doctrines, and plainly indicated that greater changes would soon be introduced, should vindicate his claim to that exalted character which alone could authorise him to propose innovations. This he did in the amplest manner, by fulfilling prophecies and working miracles (see MIRACLE); so that the unprejudiced part of the people readily acknowledged him to be of a truth that prophet who should come into the world-the Son of God and the King of Israel.' He did not, however, make any change in the national worship, or assume to himself the smallest civil authority. On the contrary he chose from the lowest and least corrupted of the people certain followers, whom he treated with the most endearing familiarity for three years, and commissioned at his departure to promulgate such doctrines as, consistently with the order of the divine dispensation, he could not personally preach himself. With these men, during the course of his ministry on earth, he went about continually doing good, healing the sick, casting out devils, raising the dead, reproving vice, preaching righteousness, and instructing his countrymen, by the most perfect example which was ever exhibited in the world, of whatsoever things are true, or honest, or just, or pure, or lovely, or of good report. The Scribes and Pharisees, however, finding him not that conqueror whom they vainly expected, becoming envious of his reputation among the people, and being filled with rancor against him for detecting their hypocritical arts, delivered him up to the Roman governor, who, though convinced of his innocence, yielded to the popular clamor, and crucified him between two thieves, as an enemy to Cæsar.

That Christ died for the benefit of the human race is a truth so apparent, from numberless texts, that no man professing Christianity has hitherto called it in question. Very different opinions have been formed indeed concerning the nature and extent of that benefit, and the means by which it is applied; but that the passion and death of the blessed Jesus were essential parts of his ministry on earth has never been controverted, unless perhaps by those modern Unitarians who have presumed to correct the supposed errors of the apostles and evangelists. That on the cross he made satisfaction to his Father for the sins of the world is the general belief of Christians; but presumptuous men, aiming at being wise beyond what is written, have started a thousand idle questions concerning the necessity of such satisfaction, and the manner in which it was made. We enter not into these debates. The Scriptures have nowhere said what God could or could not do; and on this subject we can know nothing but what they have taught us. That we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son' is the principal doctrine

of the New Testament; and, without presuming to limit the power, the mercy, or the wisdom, of him who created and sustains the universe, we shall endeavour to show that it is a doctrine worthy of all acceptation.' In doing this we shall state impartially the opinions which men really pious have held respecting the form or manner in which Christ by his death made satisfaction to God for the sins of the world; and leave our readers to embrace that opinion which shall appear to them most consonant to the general sense of Sacred Scripture.

The stricter Calvinists, interpreting literally such texts of Scripture as speak of his being made sin for us, of his bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, and of the Lord's laying on him the iniquity of us all, contend that the sins of the elect were lifted off from them and laid upon Christ by imputation, much in the same way as they think the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity. By bearing the sins of his people,' says Dr. Gill, he took them off from them, and took them upon himself, bearing or carrying them as a man bears or carries a burden on his shoulders. There was no sin in him inherently, but sin was put upon him by his Divine Father, as the sins of the Israelites were put upon the scape-goat by Aaron.'-See Gill's Body of Divinity, vol. ii. b. iii. c. v.

The zeal with which this doctrine was taught by some of the reformers, and the impossibility of admitting it, which every reflecting and unprejudiced mind must feel, was probably one of the causes which drove Socinus and his followers to the other extreme of denying Christ's satisfaction altogether, and considering his death as nothing more than that of an ordinary martyr, permitted for the purpose of attesting the truth of his doctrine, and paving the way for his resurrection, to confirm the great promise of immortality. According to these men, forgiveness is freely dispensed to those who repent, by the essential goodness of God, without regard to the merit or sufferings of any other being; and the gospel is said to save from sin, because it is the most perfect lesson of righteousness. The great objection of Crellius to the doctrine of the satisfaction is, that it is a hindrance to piety: for, if Christ has paid the whole debt, he thinks that we must have nothing to do, as nothing more can be required of us. And if it were indeed true that our sins are imputed to Christ, and his righteousness imputed to us, this objection would be insurmountable; for God could not justly exact a double punishment for the same sin, or inflict misery upon those to whom he imputes perfect righteousness. But, as to this imaginary transferring of virtues and vices from one person to another, the Christian Scriptures give no countenance, so they nowhere call the death of Christ a satisfaction for the sins of men. The term has indeed been long in use among divines, and when properly explained it may be retained without danger; but, in treating of this subject, it would perhaps be more prudent to restrict ourselves to the use of Scripture language, as the word satisfaction carries in it the idea of a debt paid and accepted; whereas Paul says, that eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord;

and that we are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.'

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To attain adequate notions of redemption and justification, it will be necessary to look back to the fall, and to remember that, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life; that, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous;' and that, 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' It is therefore undeniable that whatever we lost in the first Adam is restored to us by the second; and so they who believe that the punishment denounced against eating the forbidden fruit was death corporal, spiritual, and eternal, must believe that we are redeemed from all these by Christ; who, having' appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him.' If the image of God in which man was created was lost by the breach of the first covenant, it is more than restored to us by the mediator of a better covenant, which is established upon better promises; if by the sin of Adam we were utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually, we are freed from that dreadful curse by our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works;' and if for our share in the first transgression we be justly liable to all punishments in this world and in that which is to come, the apostle assures us, that when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, because that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.' As Jesus is the Lamb slain in the divine decree from the foundation of the world,' these beneficial consequences of his death have been extended, by a retrospective view, to all in every age whose names are written in the book of life, though it is absurd to suppose that he literally took their sins upon him, and impious to imagine that he suffered under the imputation of sin. Such is the general doctrine of redemption, as it is taught by the more moderate Calvinists and the more moderate Remonstrants; for moderate Christians of all denominations, though they express themselves differently, have nearly the same views of the fundamental articles of their common faith.

It is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Calvinistic school that none are redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only' (Confession of Faith, c. iii. sect. 6); and if the notions of redemption which, in the end of the seventeenth century, were very generally embraced, be admitted as just, it will not be easy to overturn the arguments by which that doctrine is supported. It is also farther argued in this school that the doctrine of universal redemption reflects on the wisdom, the justice, and the power of God, and robs him of his glory.

The Scriptures assure us that all men shall not be saved; but how can this be if Christ died for all, and the scheme of salvation by his death was formed by infinite wisdom? The Arminians indeed say that those who fail of salvation fail through their own fault in not performing the conditions required of them; but God either knew or knew not that such men would not perform such conditions. If he knew it not his knowledge is limited; if he did know it, where was his wisdom in providing a scheme of redemption for men to whom he was aware that it would be of no benefit? This notion of a limited redemption, as they think it more worthy of the sovereignty of God, they believe to be taught by our Saviour himself in John vi. 37-40. But the Arminians, on the other hand, contend that it is impious to limit the effects of Christ's death to a chosen few, since it appears from Scripture that, by the decree and intention of his Father, he tasted death for every man, that all, without exception, might through him obtain remission of their sins. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.' In perfect conformity with the doctrine of his divine Master St. Paul teaches that Christ died for all; that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;' that he will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth; that Christ gave himself a ransom for all' and that Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man.' The very same thing is taught by St. Peter and St. John. The former says that the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;' and the latter that Jesus Christ the righteous is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the whole world.'

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Upon these texts the Arminians are willing to rest their doctrine of universal redemption; though they think that a very strong additional argument for its truth arises from the numberless absurdities which flow from the contrary opinion. Thus, say they, the apostles were commanded by our Saviour to 'go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature;' and all who hear it preached are required to believe it. Lastly, if Christ died not for all, then is it certain that he cannot claim dominion over all in consequence of his death and resurrection but St. Paul says expressly that to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living." The Arminians, however, acknowledge that though Christ died for all, there are many who will not be saved: for, say they, the death of Christ did not literally pay the debts incurred by sinners, but only obtained for them the gracious covenant of the gospel, by which all who believe in him, and sincerely endeavour to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, are entitled to forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

Among these various opinions respecting the complete object of the death of Christ the seri