that in the confined state, in which religion has since continued, it has been gathering strength to enable it to burst its bonds and enlarge its progress; when the discussions and disputes of the several sects shall end in a more enlarged view of its nature and design, in a greater agreement in its essential principles, and a more unanimous co-operation in judicious plans for its propagation.

DISSERTATION VIII

OBJECTS OF FAITH.

CHAP. I.-Mediation.-Incarnation.-Divinity of Christ.-Trinity.

HAVING endeavoured to vindicate our holy religion from the charge of unreasonableness in the principle, on which the admission into it is founded, the next step is to repel the charge urged against it on account of the several objects proposed to our faith. In order to form a right judgment of these, we must hear what the Christian revelation, as contained in the books of the New Testament, says of itself. Now it professes to be a revelation of the means used by the Almighty, in recovering a revolted race to their allegiance to himself-in restoring a world, lost in sin and sunk in misery, to a state of pardon for their sins, and to a capacity of being raised to that happiness, for which they were at first designed, and even to greater degrees of it. The happiness thus proposed, being of a pure and spiritual nature, can be conse

quent only on that pure and spiritual conduct, which the Creator has made the indispensable means of obtaining it. He wills that all should obtain it; to pursue a different course of life is therefore disobedience to his will: but without obedience no one can expect his favour.

Neither if any one disobeys, can he flatter himself that he shall be exempt from the penalty awarded by unerring wisdom to the disobedient: for no unforeseen circumstances can arise to thwart the purposes of the Supreme Legislator, as is often the case with human governors. From various causes, some more, some less, the result of our own choice, men never attain that accuracy of principle and conduct, which, on the plea of a perfect qualification, would entitle them to such happiness, as can be the condition of none but a sinless creature. In this lia

bility of ours on one hand to do wrong, and the necessity of strict justice on the other, the scheme of mercy intervenes-which preserves the creature from the ill consequences of its frailty, without undermining the certainty of the divine decrees. In the natural world, the end proposed by the Creator seems to be the happiness of the creatures during their continuance in it and in every part there appear1 compensations for evils suffered, or contrivances to ward off or remedy evils, which seemed unavoidable

'See Paley's Nat. Theol. Cap. xvi,

R

in the first plan of Providence-if, speaking in human words, it may be allowed to be so designated. In a dispensation therefore appointed by the same Providence, the end of which is to bestow on the rational creatures of this world, after they are removed from it, happiness in a greater degree than was designed for them during their continuance here, and endless in duration; it does not at all derogate from the majesty of God to have it shewn, that some important consideration, arising from his regard to the creatures which he hath made, has induced our great King to relax from his first decree, so far as to pardon the past offences, and accept for the future the improved behaviour of those, who had not (from the interference of an evil being) perfectly obeyed. This view of the case does not at all represent the Almighty as changeable in his purposes, which are accomplished in time and varied in manner, according to the circumstances and conduct of those, who are in this state of probation.

Nor is it at all incongruous in a world, where every blessing is communicated and every evil averted by the intervention and agency of the better and wiser sort among men, to believe, that some great and good friend of the human race should appear as a compassionate advocate and ready instrument, to bring back those, who, without such mediation and assistance, could not be restored to a temper or placed in a situation fit to become objects

of the divine mercy. As God carries on the affairs of this lower world by the instrumentality of the inhabitants of it, there can be nothing surely to shock our reason, when we find, that as the fall happened through the frailty of one man, the restoration of it should be effected by the superior power and excellence of another. And these are the very means employed to ob→ tain the end proposed: for one of that race which was to be saved, came and lived among them, a pattern of every virtue, an example of perfect patience and fortitude. He taught them the whole will of God, with respect to their salvation, and proved his divine authority by the miracles which he wrought. At length, yielding to the violence of the wicked, he voluntarily laid down a life, devoted to these benevolent purposes*, in testimony of the truth of which he taught, and took it again as an undeniable evidence that the object, for which he came upon earth, was accomplished.

But the death of Christ is represented not simply as a testimony to the truth of his doctrine, or an example of patient suffering, but principally as a vicarious atonement for the sins of the whole world. For in a dispensation, in which there is no salvation, temporal or eternal, but by obedience; and the steadfast law of which is, that every transgression, and disobedience shall receive its just re

*See Note 54.