This leads us to inquire, fifthly, what it was in the death of Christ that made it effectual for the accomplishment of this great and important purpose. Or whence was it that the sacrifice of himself was available to put away sin? This did not arise from his being a vicarious sacrifice, the substitute of sinners, having their offences charged to his account, and suffering, in their stead, the full punishment which was due to them; nor did it arise from his sacrifice appeasing the wrath of Almighty God, satisfying the demands of law and justice, and thereby making a complete atone ment to God for all their transgressions; nor did the efficacy of his death consist in this, that by it he reconciled God to his offending creatures and purchased his favour and mercy towards them; nor was the death of Christ designed to exhibit to mankind God's abhorrence and detestation of sin, by the punishment of it in the person of his innocent and wellbeloved Son in the stead of punishing the guilty. Nothing of this sort is attributed to the death of Christ in the Holy Scriptures: they represent the efficacy of it as consisting in this, that the blood which he shed, as the mediator of the new covenant, was the blood of the covenant by which it was sealed, ratified and established, as an everlasting covenant, by which he superseded, annulled and did away the old covenant with all its obligations and penalties, depriving it of its commanding and condemning power, and thus redeeming the transgressions that were under it. For this cause he was the mediator of the new covenant, that by shedding his blood, as the blood of the covenant, he might accomplish the redemption of trans gressions, and thereby open a new and living way for those who were called into the gracious dispensation of the gospel, that they might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. The writer of this epistle, having quoted from Jeremiah the promise of God that he would make a new covenant,

observes upon it, "In that he saith a new covenant, he hath declared the former void. Now that which is declared void and groweth old, is ready to disappear."

The Apostle Paul, in order to prove the total abolition of the law, compares its dominion over those who are under it, to that of a husband over his wife, which entirely ceases when he is dead. "The woman," he says, "that hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth, but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband." Wherefore," he adds,

my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; for," says he, "when we were in the flesh," (1. e. under the carnal dispensation of the law,) "the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death; but now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."+

Thus it appears that the death of Christ put away sin by abolishing the law, which gave to sin its life and power, for without the law, sin is dead. But as the subject is of great importance, and largely insisted on in the New Testament, we shall proceed to a further consideration of it, as stated and illustrated in various other passages of Scripture. In those Scriptures, then, we are informed, that "sin is the transgression of the law," and that "where there is no law, there is no transgression;" that "the strength of sin is the law," and that "without the law, sin is dead." Paul, in his own person, describing the state of a Jew under the dominion of the law, says, "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." And again, "sin is not imputed when there is no law." If then the law be abolished, the power and the very existence of sin is done away.

The apostle enters at large into

Heb. viii. 13. Imp. Ver. 1st edit. † Rom. vii, 1—6.

this subject, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, and proves, that the abolition of the law, by the death of Christ, was the means by which he made peace, and by which he reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to each other and unto God. He first reminds them of their former state, as being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hands; that at that time they were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the cove nants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. He then lays before them the means by which this state was reversed." But now," says he, “in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh" by the blood of Christ," that is, by that blood by which the new covenant, embracing in its promises the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and by which the first covenant (which kept them at a distance from God, and precluded them from all access to him, or knowledge of him) was done away. "For," he adds, "he is our peace, who hath made both," i. e. Jews and Gentiles, "one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both (Jews and Gentiles) unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."

Under the old covenant, the way into the holiest of all was not made manifest. None were permitted to enter into it but the high priest only, and he not without blood; but now, that covenant being abolished, that wall of partition being broken down, and the veil of the temple rent in twain, the way into it is opened, and both Jews and Gentiles have boldness, free liberty, to enter into the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus, the blood of the new covenant, by which the former covenant was entirely set aside. So the apostle says here, having made peace by his cross, and

* Ephes. ii. 11-16.

having slain the enmity thereby, "he came," (that is, by his ambassadors the apostles,) "preaching peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh; for through him we both have access, by one spirit, unto the Father."*

The enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles was abolished by removing the cause of it, the separating wall, which not only prevented any friendly intercourse between them, but was also the cause of the greatest enmity to each other. The enmity said to be slain by his cross, appears to refer to the enmity of both Jews and Gentiles unto God by their wicked works, because it is said to be done away by reconciling both unto God. This enmity with respect to the Gentiles, was slain by God's passing over, and not imputing their former trespasses unto them; for which purpose Jesus Christ was set forth as a mercyseat in his own blood, as the seat or throne where the grace and mercy of God in the new covenant, which he ratified with his own blood, as it were, took their stand. With respect to the Jews, the enmity was slain by the non-imputation of their transgression under the first covenant, Christ having by his death abolished that covenant, which was the only ground upon which the transgressions under it could be imputed; for, as we have before seen, sin is not imputed when there is no law. Thus then did Jesus Christ make peace, reconciling both Jews and Gentiles unto God in one body by the cross.

The same apostle, in another place, t speaking of this reconciliation by the death of Christ, says, that the word, (the doctrine,) the ministry of it, was committed to them, (the apostles). What was this doctrine of reconciliation? He tells us, it was this, "to wit, that God was in Christ," i. e. by his death "reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." That is, passing over and not reckoning to them their former transgressions in their Jewish or Heathen state, but freely forgiving and blotting them out. And this he did by abolishing the law, the minis

* Ephes. v. 17, 18. † 2 Cor. v. 18, 19.

Neuchâtel in 1744. These the Report says were collated in forming the new edition. But it is admitted that the text has been changed and the translation of Martin foisted into Ostervald, in 2 Cor. v. 19, "in order to express more decisively the Divinity of Jesus Christ!" ("Le texte même n'a subi aucun changement quelconque, à l'exception d'un seul passage. Au verset 19, chapitre v. de la 2, anx Corinthiens, la traduction de Martin, conservée sur ce point dans l'édition d'Osterwald de 1724, l'a été également dans la nôtre, comme plus fidèle et exprimant plûs formellement la divinité de Jésus-Christ.") After this we cannot wonder at seeing in the Report a profession of unity with Roman Catholics on the subject of the Trinity (p. 121), or at finding one of the orators describing Christ as the "Saviour-God, who perished on the Cross;" but we confess ourselves a little surprised at some semipapistical language with regard to the Virgin Mary (p. 131). This comes from the Lutherans, and the Reformed suffer it no doubt as tending to conciliate their Roman Catholic neighbours.

With the Report we have received Bulletins 15 and 16 of the Society, subsequently published. The former of these gives an account, which is truly French, of the distribution of Bibles in a country-school, as "Wisdom-prizes." On this occasion, the President addressed the successful candidates, and one sentence of his speech is a curious specimen of Bible-Protestantism: "On this subject (of the Bible) flee all discussion; your piety would be destroyed by it and toleration would be injured." The words must surely be stolen from some Romish Priest's charge to his flock against the use of the Bible. In these Bulletins and in the Report itself much is said of M. Stapfer's visit to the last Annual Meeting of the Bible Society in London. His Speech on this occasion is translated, and all the compliments to him and praises of him are carefully preserved. He makes a special report of his mission, the accuracy of which may be judged of from his describing the friends of the Bible Society under the general term of "Worshipers of

Christ," and from his representing it as common for the English Dissenters to express their wish of seeing the National Church maintain its authority untouched. These publications are full of eulogiums on the late Mr. Owen, one of the Secretaries of the Bible Society. The Report contains an Eloge" upon him of thirty pages. His merits were doubtless great in relation to the Bible Society; but it is a real injury to his memory to speak of his learning, talents and virtues as if they were never equalled and the loss of them can never be supplied.

SIR,

Nov. 1823. you allow me to call the

Wattention of your readers to

what appears to me a striking proof of the progress of those liberal opinions which it is the main object of your Repository to advocate and diffuse? In the Quarterly Review for last September is an article intitled "Buckland's Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” in which I found, not without surprise and I may say delight, some observations so congenial to the opinions which I have always been taught to entertain, that I could not help giving way to a sort of triumphant feeling. It is true I am about as much entitled to triumph as the private who wears a Waterloo medal for having during the battle been somewhere within sound of the cannonading; but one cannot help sympathizing in the triumph of one's party or principles, and we by-standers are apt to forget that we have no right to appropriate to ourselves any part of the glory.

You, Sir, have always advocated the principle that a liberal interpretation of the Scriptures was most conducive to the interests of religion. Point after point has been contended, and though the opponents have struggled desperately and refused to own their defeat, we have seen them gradually abandoning the object of contention, and cautiously avoiding to excite fresh discussion; but I am not aware that so bold an avowal of this fact has ever been made as is contained in the following extracts from the Quarterly Review.

P. 162. "Others object to it,"

(that is, the interpretation of the six days of creation as six indefinite periods,)" with great vehemence, as wholly incompatible with the institution of the Sabbath, which is manifestly set forth as the seventh day, and therefore they contend that the other six must necessarily be regarded as days in the same sense and of the same kind. Instead of presuming to decide peremptorily in this matter,

our object will rather be to caution the friends of religion against a rash and possibly a mischievous mode of vindicating their opinions. We beseech then to bear in mind that similar alarm has been taken and similar zeal manifested for the cause of religion in several instances which have all terminuted in establishing the points so much dreaded. And yet Christianity so far from receiving a shock has only emerged from the controversy with increased vigour and lustre."

And again, p. 163. "We would call to their recollection also the opinions formerly maintained as to plenary and even literal inspiration of the Scriptures, &c. Well indeed is it for us that the cause of revelation does not depend upon questions such as these, for it is remarkable that in every instance the controversy has ended in a gradual surrender of those very points which were at one time represented as involving the vital interests of religion."

I am aware that this is but the opinion of the Quarterly Review, and that nine out of every ten good orthodox religionists would startle at such infidelity. But it is really delightful to see that all the efforts which have been making for the diffusion of liberal opinions are not thrown away, and that the most respectable opponents begin to avow their conviction. We cannot expect that the great mass of uneducated enthusiasts should be open to any argument. The present race will live and die in their present opinions. After a certain age, as Dr. Priestley well observes, there is little chance of change; but the next and succeeding generations will gradually perceive the truth. How pleasant it is to look forward to this happy period! What consolation under all our rebuffs and rebukes to think that we shall have been in any

'THE

HERE appears to have been an incident in the public life of Dr. Benjamin Kennicott, which reflects particular honour on his character, and which has a close parallel in an occurrence, that befel the late Rev. George Walker, of Nottingham. Between these two highly valuable persons a wide diversity existed, in respect of their situation in the world, of their political and theological opinions, of their pursuits and tastes, their attachments and connexions: both of them were governed, however, by that religious principle, without which it is comparatively of little moment to what church a man belongs, what sentiments he professes and defends, or in what studies he engages; and, while, in some things, to which, it may be, an undue importance is attached, I dissent from both the individuals whom I have mentioned, I must equally admire in each that manly integrity, that Christian fortitude, of which each was the example and the advocate.

In the very concise and general account of Dr. Kennicott, which Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, &c. supply, it is said that he "distinguished himself by the publication of several occasional sermons, which were well received." Among his discourses of this class, is one, preached before the University of Oxford, Jan. 25, 1757, on Christian Fortitude, and afterwards printed, for the author, at the Theatre; though, for reasons which are not assigned, the ViceChancellor's IMPRIMATUR was fused to it. I shall be greatly obliged

re

I designate him thus fully, in order that he may not be confounded with a celebrated Irish divine, of similar habits of mind, The Rev. George Walker, who was slain at the battle of the Boyne. + Vol. II. 408.

Then the University press.