GENERAL OBSERVATIONS on the REDEMPTION of MANKIND by JESUS CHRIST.

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F the loadstone can communicate its virtue without suf

fering any decrease, and if this virtue can completely incorporate itself with iron, why might not the eternal WORD, who dwells essentially in the Father, communicate himself to an individual of the human species, and reside particularly in the soul of the Saviour Jesus Christ as God-Man, by which other men may be made partakers of the holiness and felicity of GOD, without becoming real gods; as the needle having its extremes powerfully touched with the loadstone, partakes of the attraction and polarity of the loadstone, without being of the nature of the loadstone? GOD is an infinite Being, and all his perfections are infinite as himself: his holiness, his justice, his bounty, and his wisdom, are such a vast profound that the human mind cannot fathom. Can we then affirm, without temerity, that in the depths of justice, of holiness, and of love for order, that there ought not to be such extreme severity, as to preclude the pardon of sin, even after a just indignation had been manifested against the same? If the majesty of God is infinite, is it reasonable to say, that the sins committed against him by an innumerable multitude of beings;-of crimes committed with the greatest insolence, and the most daring pride;-of crimes perpetrated by creatures loaden with his benefits;-of crimes repeated with a thousand aggravating circumstances, during thousands of years, in all parts of the world? is it reasonable, I say, to maintain, that these crimes ought to be pardoned by a Legislator of infinite justice, without punishing this criminal race in a most exemplary manner? And if such a punishment had bruised all the guilty; and if the bounty of God is as vast as his justice, is it reasonable to suppose, that an infinite bounty cannot present to an infinite justice, a victim of boundless merit fully to expiate, under conditions worthy of God, sins whose num

bers

bers were become infinite and boundless, by their duration, by violating the holiness of the laws, by the grandeur of the offended Benefactor, by the majesty of the outraged Legis-lator, and by the insolence of the violators of these laws? Hath not boundless WISDOM power to reconcile the rights of infinite justice and bounty? What absurdity is there in forming the plan of redemption, according to which, a Being of innocence, of love for obedience, of an incomprehensible fortitude, in generously uniting himself with human naturė, to pay the immense debt of this nature, to soften the hearts of the rebels, and to give to all reasonable beings the most perfect demonstration of a wisdom, of a bounty, of a holiness, and of a justice, which are infinite; and accommodating himself to the maintenance of their rights, and completely to develope them in time and in eternity? Is it not strange that such a plan, formed by the love, the justice, the wisdom, and the bounty of the Supreme Being, executed by the incarnate WORD, confirming a great number of prophecies;—a plan which has the admiration of angels, and of millions of pious persons for so many ages, which hath comforted such multitudes of penitents, in the most frightful circumstances, and hath made so many martyrs to triumph under the greatest torture, and even sing in the cold arms of death: is it not strange, I say, that such a plan should be the constant topic of ridicule to Socinians and Deists? Can the finite always judge of the infinite? Are the pretended advocates for reason constantly so unreasonable, as absolutely to fix what the justice of the Supreme Being ought to demand, what the moral order of the universe ought to require, and how infinite Bounty ought to accommodate himself to his creatures? How absurd must that religion be, which lays for its foundation this dogma of the sages of our age! A being bounded as I am, who neither knows his grandson nor grandfather, who is ignorant of the nature of his own soul, and of those vile atoms which constitute his body, can he be so perfectly acquainted

quainted with the profound depths of divine justice, mercy, and wisdom, as clearly to decide that the Redemption of Mankind by the propitiatory sacrifice of the Son of God, is contrary to his perfections? Is not the base incredulity of our modern philosophers owing to their contracted views of the bounty of God, the excellency of an immortal soul, and of the odious nature of sin! "It is impossible (say they) that the eternal Word, the Prince of Life, should become incarnate, and be sacrificed for human nature." But, if the soul of man was formed in the image of God; if it is infinite in its duration and desires; if its progress towards perfection is boundless; if God loves him with that tenderness with which a father nourishes his child; if the love which is in God as much surpasses the generosity of all fathers, and the tenderness of all mothers, as the infinite surpasses the finite; is it reasonable to say, that our heavenly Father, for the ransom of millions of souls, would not offer such a sacrifice as his incarnate WORD? If king Codrus loved his subjects so far, as to disguise, and to offer himself to death, in order to procure them certain temporal advantages; if the Daciuses and the Curtiuses felt so strong an interest in the welfare of their country, as to sacrifice their lives in order to deliver their fellow-citizens from a transient calamity; if a Swiss so generously devoted himself to death, by running to Sampach covered with the lances of conflicting hosts, to clear the way for his victorious companions; if mothers have sacrificed their own lives to preserve those of their children; and if love, or the generous desire of saving one's neighbour, hath produced many sacrifices; is it absurd to say, that infinite Bounty never could, nor ever would, perform an act of compassion equally glorious and efficacious, to deliver millions of souls from more dreadful miseries, and to procure to them the blessings of an infinite duration, and of an inestimable value?

O ye, who love wisdom, and who merit the name of philo3 Z sophers,

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sophers, if you contemplate the majesty of the Supreme Being, the immensity of his perfections, the holiness of his laws, the beauty of the moral order, the demerit of sin, and the price of souls which Jesus Christ hath redeemed, you will see, that it is absurd even to doubt that God had power or bill to offer a sacrifice of infinite value for their redemption. If you say, that this redemption of human nature by the humiliation and sufferings of the incarnate, WORD, is unworthy of God; it is demanded of you, whether it be unworthy of a being infinitely good, to give an astonishing proof of his bounty? Is it unworthy of a being infinitely just, to display his justice in a most exemplary manner? Is it unworthy of infinite wisdom to form a divine man, sufficiently rich to become the pledge of his brethren, sufficiently strong to bear the burden which must otherwise have depressed them, sufficiently wise and good to obtain for them the pardon of sin, and becoming for them the model of perfect holiness, and the channel of all grace by which they may recover that holiness and glory from which they have fallen?

But it is incredible (you say) that the Prince of Life should die. Understand us: the Prince of Life did not properly die; this being absolutely impossible: but the Prince of Life being united to a mortal body, could easily quit it for two or three days, after having endured unutterable anguish. As the mortal body entered into a state of death, the sacrifice offered to divine justice was complete, the tomb was consecrated for the consolation of mortals, the faithful have a certain earnest or pledge of their resurrections in that of their Chief, and the Saviour fully sheweth himself the resurrection and the life, in rising victorious from the grave, into which he entered, "to destroy him who had the power of death, and to deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage," Heb. ii. 14, 15. In short, if the WORD was abased on e: rth for the space of thirty-three

years,

years, and by his condescension to leave his body to repose in the tomb for three days, what is this short space for the Prince of Eternity? A thousand years in his sight are but as one day; and three days are but as the twinkling of an eye; and, far from being dishonoured by this momentary act of pity, of love, and of mercy, he hath acquired, in the sight of all reasonable beings, a glary so grand, that sooner or later every knee both in heaven and on earth shall bow before him. We may then conclude with St. Paul, "That the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto them who are saved, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God," 1 Cor. i. 18-24.

II. Particular Observations on the Redeemer. If the preceeding reflections prove that the opinion of redemption by Jesus Christ is conformable to reason, the following will serve to prove that the Deists are unreasonable, and that the foolish credulity with which they tax us, may with justice be charged upon them.

O ye, who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, can you absolutely refuse to credit any thing concerning him? And if you believe something, will you not have greater difficulty in giving an account of your belief, than the Christian has in giving a reason of his faith? If you think the Christian Legislator never existed but in the imagination of his followers, you are pressed with a multitude of witnesses, both Jewish and Pagan, as well as by those of the Christian, and even by all the Mahomedans. The Jews never denied the existence of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection, though they have thought themselves justified in rejecting him, notwithstanding the striking prediction of David, Psa. xxii. 16.

The heathens do not permit us to doubt the reality of his existence; witness Pliny the younger, Tacitus, Lucian, and

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Suetonius,