not without impiety, a federal Rite in one religion, and a bare remembrance of a deceased Benefactor in another.

Further, the same Apostle, in correcting another abuse in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, takes occasion, once again, to declare the NATURE of this holy Rite.-His Corinthians, as appears by the next Chapter,* had been guilty of eating the bread and wine in a very indecent manner, confounding it with the convivial doings in their ordinary repasts; where charity and sobriety had been too often violated. This faulty behaviour, by such an indiscriminate celebration, the Apostle calls the being guilty of the body and blood of Christ a charge immoderately exaggerated, were the Last Supper a mere commemoration of a dead Benefactor. The Corinthians did not make a fit distinction between their more ordinary food, and their eating and drinking in memory of a deceased Friend. This, without doubt, was a high indecorum; yet, to rank such delinquents with the Murderers of the Lord of life, is a severity in which we can see neither justice in the sentence, nor propriety in the terms of it. But let us only suppose (what we have indeed proved), that St. Paul regarded the Last Supper as a feast upon Sacrifice, that is, a Rite in which the benefits of Christ's death and passion were, in a certain manner, conveyed, in a proper celebration, thus impiously abused; and then the charge is fairly and justly made out. The profanation of such a Rite was, indeed, aiding and assisting in the crime of his Murderers, as far forth as it rendered his death ineffectual to the Participants; and therefore properly compared to the prodigious enormity of that impious act.

Such then, I presume, is the true nature of the Lord's Supper, And were the adjusting an exact notion of it a matter of mere speculation, I should have been much shorter; and have left the discussion of it (under the simple idea of a religious custom of Christian Antiquity) to the Ecclesiastical Historian.

But the Institution abounds with important consequences, in support of the Catholic Doctrine, which I here pretend to illustrate and confirm. For, if the Last Supper be a feast upon Sacrifice, the unavoidable consequence is, that the death of Christ was a real Sacrifice. It being the highest absurdity to believe, that a Rite was instituted on the supposition of a real Sacrifice, and to keep such Sacrifice in perpetual memory, and yet that no real Sacrifice, thus commemorated, ever had existence; but only the shadow of one, under a figure of Speech.

And now it is high time to call again upon the SOCINIANS to examine and review this whole matter.

The Writers of the New Testament unanimously and invariably

1 Cor. xi. 27.

call the Death of Christ on the Cross, A SACRIFICE. To this, the SOCINIANS reply, "We confess, indeed, that those Writers do thus uniformly qualify the Death of Christ. But their Phraseology abounds with FIGURATIVE TERMS; and the word SACRIFICE is plainly and eminently of this number.-When the death of Christ, so highly beneficial to mankind, was the subject of their discourse, they could not enforce the value of those Benefits so intelligibly and strongly amongst Men, who had been taught to conceive that the highest benefits were conveyed by the tremendous Rite of SACRIFICE. But that this was all which those Writers meant, when they called Christ's death a SACRIFICE, appears from hence, that SACRIFICE, whatever original it had, soon became, in practice, a superstitious and an irrational Rite; and gloried in an efficacy which right reason disavows, namely a VICARIOUS ATONEMENT; brought, indeed, by Moses, together with other pagan Rites, into the Law, on account of the hardness of heart amongst those with whom their Leader had to deal." This, and a great deal more to the same purpose, hath had its effect, to the discredit of the doctrine of REDEMPTION, on those Men, and on others, as ignorant of the true origin and nature of SACRIFICE as themselves.

To remove these objections to a Doctrine so essential to our faith, is the reason why I have been so large in proving,

1. First, From the origin and nature of SACRIFICE, that it is a

REASONABLE SERVICE.

2. Secondly, That a VICARIOUS ATONEMENT, how much soever disclaimed by natural Religion, is, in the Jewish Sacrifices and in the Sacrifice of Christ, a proper atonement; and may be justified on the surest principles of reason.

3. Thirdly, That the Sacrifices of the Law were TYPICAL of the great Sacrifice of Christ.

4. Fourthly, That, were it the purpose of the sacred Writers, in their history of Christ's death and passion, to represent it as a REAL SACRIFICE, it is not possible to conceive they could convey that meaning in more expressive terms than in those which they have employed.

5. And lastly, That Christ's death and passion was, by himself, ordained to be perpetually commemorated; by a Rite which declares that Death could be no other than a real Sacrifice.

When the SOCINIANS, I say, have well considered all this, they may be asked with propriety, and modesty, whether it can be believed by any reasonable man, that all this apparatus was provided for, and bestowed upon, a MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH? Or whether they deserve the title they give themselves, of being the only rational interpreters of Scripture, who can suppose such a perversion of Order,

in the divine œconomy, as that it should dignify a MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH with preceding TYPES, and a following FESTIVE INSTITUTION; things, most improper for this Service; and only fitted to mislead us in our notions and conceptions concerning this capital doctrine of our holy Religion?

We have now (it is presumed) settled the true SPECIFIC NATURE of the death of Christ; and having before spoken largely of its END, we proceed to consider the effects of it.

They are comprised by the sacred Writers in the words, REDEMPTION and JUSTIFICATION.

Redemption respects the price paid by JESUS for our restoration to eternal life; and Justification, the acceptance of that price by GOD THE FATHER.

From these two terms School Divines coined a third, namely, SATISFACTION; which carries in it the ideas of a debt paid, and accepted.

The disputes amongst Divines concerning the sense and propriety of the terms, Redemption and Atonement, Justification, Satisfaction, &c. have been endless, and the confusion attending them inexplicable; chiefly occasioned by all parties mistaking their ground, and arguing on the principles of NATURAL LAW, when they should have had recourse to the REVEALED, as now explained.

But here a difficulty occurs. LIFE AND IMMORTALITY is, throughout the New Testament, considered as a FREE GIFT; called so in express words by St. Paul-" but not as the offence," (says he) "so also is the FREE GIFT." Yet, we know, a large price was paid for it. And this, likewise, the same Apostle agrees to,-“We were BOUght' (says he) "with a price."+ And St. Peter, speaking of certain heretics, says, They denied the Lord that BOUGHT them.‡ And St. Paul again calls, what he had just before entitled A FREE GIFT, A PURCHASED POSSESSION.§

To clear up this matter, and to reconcile the Apostle to himself, who certainly was neither defective in natural sense, nor in artificial logic, let us once again remind the reader, that Life and Immortality, bestowed on Adam in Paradise, was a FREE GIFT, as appears from the history of his Creation. As a free gift, it was taken back by the Donor, when Adam fell; to which resumption, our original natural rights are not subject; since natural Religion teacheth, that sincere repentance alone will reinstate us in the possession of those rights, which our crimes had suspended. So that when this free gift, forfeited by the first Adam, was recovered by the second, its nature continuing the same, it must still remain a free gift; a gift to which man, by and at his creation, had no claim; a gift which natural religion did not bestow.

• Rom. v. 15.

I Cor. vi. 20; vii. 23.

12 Peter ii. 1.

§ Eph. i. 14.

But, if misled by measuring this revealed mystery of human redemption, by the scant idea of human transactions, where a free gift and a purchased benefit are commonly opposed to one another, yet even here we may be able to set ourselves right; since, with regard to man, the character of a free gift remains to immortality restored. For the price paid for forfeited man, was not paid by him, but by a Redeemer of Divine extraction, who was pleased, by participating of man's nature, to stand in his stead. Hence the sacred Writers seeing, in this case, the perfect agreement between a FREE GIFT and a PURCHASED POSSESSION, sometimes call it by the one, and sometimes by the other name.

CHAPTER III.

So much for the MEANS of recovering what was lost by Adam's transgression.

In the entrance on this subject, I cautioned the Reader to keep in mind the distinction between the MEANS of recovering a lost benefit, and the CONDITION annexed to the enjoyment of that benefit, when recovered, as two different things, to be separately considered, and in their order.

With regard to the MEANS, (already explained at large,) it hath been shewn, that they were of an arbitrary nature, at God's good pleasure to appoint; unrestrained by any thing he had established in the general system of his moral government of man.

These MEANS, had not our holy Religion revealed them, could not, otherwise, have been known.

They were the DEATH AND SACRIFICE of his ever blessed Son, Mediating for us.

And now, Man being restored to his forfeited Inheritance, the secure possession of it still depended, as it did in the original grant, on the performance of a CONDITION.

We have already shewn, Why that first Condition was the observance of a POSITIVE COMMAND. Which reasoning if it have any force, proves, that the new condition, annexed to the recovered blessing, must be the observance of a POSITIVE COMMAND likewise.

IMMORTALITY (as hath been shewn) was a FREE GIFT, as well when recovered, as when originally given; which might be bestowed, or recovered when forfeited, on what Condition the Divine Donor should be pleased to annex to it.

Nay, if we consider the nature of the whole economy, we shall find it could not well be given, or restored when lost, on any other condition than the observance of a positive Command, since the performance of MORAL DUTY was the condition already appropriated, by Natural Religion, to the procurement of God's favour.

It is true, had IMMORTALITY not been a free gift, but what Man

had a right to, on his Creation, while under the government of Natural Religion, the condition annexed to immortality might have been the performance of Moral Duty.

And indeed, those who so far mistake immortality as to esteem it a RIGHT, inherent in our nature, contend strongly for the condition's being of a moral kind; and that the command-not to eat of the Tree of good and evil, enjoined to Man in Paradise, is so to be understood, though delivered under the cover of an Allegory.

But besides the reason given to evince this mistake, another arises from the sacred Writer's not explaining this pretended Allegory: for where an Allegory contains a precept respecting the whole of moral duty, it can never be too plainly nor fully delivered. There would be none of this necessity if both the first and second condition of immortal Life were of a positive nature, though delivered in allegoric terms which spoke for themselves; for then the chief use of an interpretation had been little more than the gratification of our curiosity.

Allow, therefore, the reasoning here offered to explain the nature of the condition annexed to the free gift (when first given, and when, after forfeiture, restored) to be solid and convincing, and it opens to us the abundant goodness of our Maker; who, that the possession of this recovered blessing might be no longer precarious, (as it was when first bestowed, on the condition to Do or to forbear Doing) was graciously pleased to change one positive Command for another; and, instead of something to be Done, hath now required of us something TO BE BELIEVED. From henceforth the free gift of immortality is become more permanent and certain: a GRACE, which the very nature of the new Dispensation would lead us to hope for and expect ; whereby IMMORTAL LIFE under the Gospel, like the FAVOUR OF THE DEITY under natural Religion, is now, when forfeited, to be regained by REPENTANCE.

So much reason, order, and beauty is seen in the various parts of God's moral Government of Man, when compared and explained by one another.

The new CONDITION, as we say, is FAITH IN THE REDEEMER; or our owning and receiving him as the promised Messiah, by whom alone we are to receive that salvation, procured for us by the Sacrifice of himself on the Cross.

And now, we begin to have some reasonable Notion of that great and fundamental principle of Christianity, that FAITH ALONE JUSTIFIETH, or, in other words, is the sole condition of recovering the possession of what we lost by ADAM.

This great Truth, though made the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus, yet (its reason lying hid, or not carefully sought for, and the little of it that was seen being horribly abused) Believers, as well as