tial doctrines of the Christian religion, which we naturally and justly expect to find upon the front and surface, and in the general strain and tenour, of the New Testament. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the text of St. Paul to Titus is the true and only proper translation of the passage as rendered in the common version : "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." (ii. 13.) Can we even from such an expression conclude, that the Apostle was an asserter of the supreme divinity of his crucified master? Surely not. We argue that, if Paul believed that Jesus Christ was the supreme God, his mind would have been so full of the amazing doctrine, that it must have shone forth in every page of his writings, in every sentence of his discourses. His delight and his duty would have been to insist continually upon this new, unheard of, and astonishing theme, and to have explained the necessity and importance of it in all its bearings in the scheme of redemption. Could the Apostle, under these impressions, have coldly taught the Athenians that "God would judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he had ordained, of which he had given assurance to all men in that he had raised him from the dead?" Could he have written to the Corinthians, what, indeed, would hardly be reconcileable to the simplicity of truth, that “as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead?" How then, it may be asked, is this declaration of the Apostle to Titus to be reconciled to his not acknowledging the divinity of Christ? We answer, upon various suppositions. It may have been a slip of the Apostle's tongue in dictating; or a mistake of his amanuensis; or an error of some early transcriber; or, there may be a various reading; or, the words might be intended in a different sense; or, the Apostle might not study perfect correctness of language; or, there might be some other reason, which cannot now be discovered. We will give up the text as altogether inexplicable, sooner than we will believe that the Apostle intended in this casual incidental manner to teach a doctrine so new, so incredible, and of such high importance, and which is so little countenanced by the general strain of his discourses and epistles, and so repugnant to the whole tenour of the Christian Scriptures.1 Having thus, by the arguments of reason and consistency, shown the firm and solid basis upon which the goodly edifice of our belief and understanding of Christianity is founded, I proceed to detail the several parts of it, with the view to guard against misconception, and, by these means, 1 Reply to the Bishop of St. David's, p. 72-83. rebut the malicious and persecuting charge of being libellers of that Religion which is only preserved in a pure form, and in genuine force, by our rational system. Our doctrine is this: We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a man constituted in all respects like other men; subject to the same infirmities, the same ignorance, prejudices, and frailties; descended from the family of Joseph and Mary, — though some of us still adhere to the popular opinion of the miraculous conception; that he was born in low circumstances, having no peculiar advantages of education or learning; but that he was a man of exemplary character, and that, in conformity to ancient prophecy, he was chosen and appointed of God to introduce a new moral dispensation into the world, the design of which was to abolish the Jewish economy, and to place believing Gentiles upon an equal ground of privilege and favour with the posterity of Abraham in other words, he was authorised to reveal to all mankind, without distinction, the great doctrine of a future life, in which men shall be rewarded according to their works. It does not appear to us that Jesus was at all conscious of the honour and dignity for which he was intended till after his baptism, when the Holy Spirit was communicated to him in a visible symbol, and when he was miraculously announced as the beloved Son of God, that is, as the great Prophet or Messiah whom the Jews had been taught to expect; after which, in the course of his public ministry, he occasionally spoke of himself as the Son of Man, and the Son of God. After his baptism, we conceive that he spent some time in the wilderness, where he was fully instructed in the nature of his mission, and invested with voluntary miraculous powers, which, by the visionary scene of his temptation, he was instructed to exercise, not for any personal advantage, but solely for the purposes of his mission. Others of us, however, imagine that Jesus never performed a miracle but when he was prompted to it by a divine impulse. It is maintained by some of us, that, during the period of his residence in the wilderness, Jesus was favoured with divine visions, in which, like the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. xii.), he apprehended himself to be transported into heaven; and that the language which he uses concerning his descent from heaven is to be explained by this hypothesis; but the greater part of us interpret these expressions as relating to his divine commission; to the perfect knowledge with which he was favoured, above all other prophets; to the will of God concerning the moral state of men; and the new dispensation which he was appointed to introduce. We believe, also, that Jesus, having exercised his public ministry for the space of a year, and, perhaps, a little more, suffered death publicly upon the cross, not to appease the wrath of God; not as a satisfaction to divine justice; not to exhibit the evil of sin, nor in any sense whatever to make an atonement to God for it, for this doctrine, in every sense, and according to every explanation, we explode, as irrational, unscriptural, and derogatory from the divine perfections; but as a martyr to the truth, and as a necessary preliminary to his resurrection. And we hold, that it was wisely ordered, to preclude cavils, that his death should be an event of great public notoriety, and that it should be inflicted by his enemies. We maintain that Jesus was raised to life by the power of God, agreeably to his own predictions, on the third day; and that, by this event, he not only confirmed the truth and divinity of his mission, but exhibited, in his own person, a pattern and a pledge of a resurrection to immortal life; for which reason he is called the first-born of the whole new creation, and the first-begotten from the dead. We further believe, that, after having given sufficient proofs to his disciples, for forty days, of the truth of his resurrection, he was in a miraculous manner withdrawn from their society; a circumstance which is described as an ascension into heaven and that in a few days after this event : |