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the strength of his objections to Christianity, since they relate to the designs of the Almighty in the scheme which we have been investigating.

It is only necessary to premise, that in all ages of the world God has communicated with man by various methods;with the prophets of your nation, by a miraculous voice; with the people, by supernatural signs; and in an equal degree with all nations by the course of Providence, or what is frequently called the voice of Nature. A clear revelation of his will is afforded in those written records which have been formed in consequence of his peculiar communications with your prophets and sages; but the other indications of his will which are afforded by the course of events are no less clear and decisive than those which were given miraculously by visible and audible signs. The solution of our inquiries into His designs may therefore be gained with as much precision from the language of events as the language of men: with equal confidence, in as far as both are the appointed exponents of the Divine will; with greater confidence, in as much as the events constitute the revelation, while the sacred books are only the record of the revelation.

It is therefore of little importance whether our questions are answered in the language of Scripture, or by a reference to the events which are recorded in Scripture.-Orobio requires:

I. Ut assignetur locus aliquis, in quo Deus mandaverit, aut dixerit expresse, quod fides in Messiam est absolute necessaria ad salutem generis humani; adeo ut qui non crediderit damnandus esset.

Such a condition is nowhere imposed, such a threat nowhere held forth. It is easy to trace this mighty error to its source. We have observed that the Gospel was presented in one aspect to the Israelites, and in another to the world at large, because the previous state of the Israelites was different from that of the world at large. They were under a special Divine law; a law so multifarious in its requisitions, that it was morally impossible to avoid its infraction; and so strict in its

penalties, that there was no escape from its condemnation in some point or other. The Gospel was presented to the Israelites as a mode of release from the burdens of their Law,—not by allowing moral laxity, but by substituting the spiritual penalty of repentance for the external penalties to which they had hitherto been subject. Freedom, external and spiritual, was offered them in connexion with the greater spiritual purity which Jesus enforced: the Gospel was declared to free them at once from the yoke of their ritual and the yoke of sin, by making their worship and obedience the worship and obedience of the heart alone, shown forth by spontaneous action. The reception of Jesus and his doctrine, therefore, saved his Hebrew disciples from the inexorable judgements of the Law: and those Hebrews who refused him and his doctrine, remained under the condemnation of the Law, and forfeited those blessings which its repeal would have brought them. Such was the occasional declaration of Jesus, and such was the principal theme of Paul in his Epistles; while both were filled with compassion for those of their countrymen who preferred the bondage of the Law to the freedom of the Gospel. In his Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle of the Gentiles describes at length and with great force the condition of the world at large before the Gospel was offered. He exhibits the nature of the Law, of which he was himself a subject; and after explaining the inexorable strictness of its requisitions and penalties, he adverts to the state of the Gentile world, and declares that their condition was as much worse than that of the Jews, as the bondage of ignorance and sin is more burdensome than the bondage of the old Law. He proceeds to show that their salvation from the grievous penalties, their redemption from the condemnation of guilt, is yet more a cause of thankfulness than the release of the Israelites. Nothing can appear more intelligible, nothing more just, than this reasoning, to those who understand to whom, and concerning whom, and for what purpose, it was written: but, unfortunately, these circumstances are not so generally understood as they might be; and the whole argument has been misinterpreted, in consequence of

the supposition that by the salvation referred to was meant the happiness of a future life, and by condemnation the punishments of a future life. The result of a careful investigation will be, a conviction that nowhere in the records of Revelation is the happiness or misery of a future life connected with belief of any kind: and the same result proves the first question of Orobio to be reasonable, and the doubts implied in it to be well-grounded. While, however, they shake a corrupt doctrine held by many Christians, they leave Christianity itself untouched.He next requires :

II. Ut assignetur locus, in quo Deus dixerit, quod unicum medium ad salutem Israelis, et restitutionis in Divinam gratiam, est fides in Messiam jam adventum.

In this question, as in the former, everything depends on the meaning of the word salutem. The everlasting happiness of any man or order of men is surely nowhere said to depend on faith in the Messiah. But if the Almighty promised the Messiah as his crowning gift to his people; if He declared by a voice from heaven that Jesus was that Messiah; if, according to his warnings, he afflicted those who rejected Jesus with long and grievous calamities,—it is clear that in the Gospel alone is his grace to be found, and that to receive the Gospel is to be restored to his favour. We refer to the whole scheme of Providence towards you, for proof that redemption from the yoke of the Law is appointed in the Gospel alone, and that in the Gospel is to be found the favour which God has dispensed through Jesus to your nation in common with every other under heaven. The time for peculiar favour, as we have seen, is past; not because less is given to you, but because more is offered to others. A boundless store awaits your acceptance in the last revelation which the Almighty has made or will make on earth. The plain answer to Orobio's question therefore is, that your everlasting salvation is nowhere said to depend on belief of any kind. As for the rest, it merely amounts to this,— that you will not possess the grace of the Gospel as long as you reject it.

III. Ut assignetur locus, in quo Deus dixerit, quod Israel propter infidelitatem in Messiam erat deperdendus, et abjiciendus in nationibus, ut non fit amplius Populus Dei, sed in æternum damnandus, donec Messiam adventum non crediderit.

Our foregoing investigation leads to the conclusion that, because a portion of your people refused to acquiesce in an equality with other nations which God had ordained to be restored, they became inferior to other nations in honour and peace. Whether or not the Israelites received the Messiah, they were no longer to be called the People of God, since His peculiar covenant with them was fulfilled, and the purpose of their separation completed. Those therefore who believed in Jesus became speedily incorporated with the Gentile converts, while those who rejected him have been cast out among the nations; and if the voice of God speaking through Christ and the Prophets, as well as in the course of events, is to be believed, your restoration can only take place by your doing as the Christians of your nation have done,-relinquishing the antiquated covenant in which the Supreme no longer bears His part, and listening to the glad-tidings which await the acceptance of all men. That no nation or individual is threatened with eternal damnation for want of faith in Jesus, has been repeatedly declared already.

Nothing is more evident from the well-ascertained facts and the well-authenticated discourses narrated in the Gospel history, than that Jesus ascribed the approaching woes of his nation to their rejection of him; to their misinterpretation of the will of God towards them. He mourned over the lot of his enemies and of their city; he instructed his followers how to escape the fate of their infatuated countrymen; and, since the Christians did actually withdraw in safety before the siege of Jerusalem began, no further proof is necessary that the rejection of Jesus and his counsel was the cause of the miseries of that unhappy remnant of Israel. Mark the contrast which is pointed out by Jesus between those descendants of the patriarchs who accepted the glad-tidings of his kingdom, and those

ye shall

unbelievers to whom he addressed himself. Mark how the Gentiles themselves are exalted above the unbelieving Hebrews, and determine whether this prophetic passage does not exhibit a remarkable coincidence with subsequent events: "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves removed out. And men shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall be guests in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last*."

Again:-"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the Prophets, and adorn the sepulchres of the righteous; and say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets. Wherefore ye bear witness to yourselves that ye are the sons of those who slew the Prophets. Fill ye up therefore the measure of your fathers."—" I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye will kill and crucify; and some of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: so that upon you will come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zachariah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, that all these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! that killest the prophets, and stonest those that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not! Behold, your habitation shall be left by you desolate +."-These words were spoken while your city sat upon her hills as a throned queen, when there was peace within her walls and prosperity amidst her palaces. They were spoken,-not when Jesus had been cast out of the temple; not when his body was subdued

Luke xiii. 28, 29.

+ Matth. xxiii.

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