conviction, than the rapturous? Perhaps you have not duly confidered this fubject, nor feen it in the proper point of view. I have fometimes beheld a fhip of war feveral leagues off at fea. It feemed to be a dim cloudy fomething, hovering on the skirts of the horizon, contemptibly mean, and not worthy of a moment's regard. But, as the floating citadel approached, the mafts arose; the fails fwelled out; its ftately form and curious proportions ftruck the fight. It was no longer a fhapeless mafs, or a blot in the profpect, but the mafter-piece of human contrivance, and the nobleft fpectacle in the world of art. The eye is never weary of viewing its structure, nor the mind in contemplating its ufes.

Who knows, Theron, but this facred fcheme likewife, which you now look upon as a confufed heap of errors, may very much improve, when more closely examined; may at length appear a wife and benign plan, admirably fitted to the condition of our fallen nature, and perfectly worthy of all acceptation?

Ther. I know not what may happen, Aspasio; but there feems to be very little probability of fuch a change. For, though my laft oppofition was a mock-fight, in my prefent objections I am very fincere, and to this doctrine I am a drmined enemy. The notion of a substituted and vicarious righteousness, is abfurd even to common fenfe, and to the most natural and easy reflections of men.

Afp. It may not, my dear friend, agree with our natural apprehenfions, nor fall in with the method which we might have devised for the falvation of mankind. But

have espoused such notions. They seem to me extremely wrong, and equally dangerous. I am apt to think, you have not duly confidered either the little ground they have to fupport them, or the pernicious confequences that may attend them."

Why should not our controverfies from the prefs be carried on with fuch a candid and amicable ftrife? This would certainly render them more pleafing to the reader, more profitable to the public, and much more likely to have their defired effect upon our opponent. For my part, I admire the humanity and tendernefs of the poet's refolution, even more than the boldness of his figures, or the beauty of his expreffion :

Tu lapides loqueris, ego byffina Verba reponam."

this is the voice of fcripture, and a maxim never to be forgotten: God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. nor his ways as our ways, Ifa. Iv. 8. His righteousness is like the ftrong mountains, and his judgments are like the great deep, Pfal. xxxvi. 6. the former immoveable, the latter un-unfearchable.

Ther. The mention of mountains puts me in mind of what I was reading yesterday; the keen irony with which Abimelech's principal officer chaftifed the bluftering Gaal: Thou feeft the fhadow of the mountains, as if they were men, Judg. ix. 36. He, it is farcaftically intimated, was afraid, and my Afpafio feems to be fond of, fhadows.

Afp. Happy for your Afpafio, that irony is no argu ment. If a jury was impannelled to try me and my doctrine, I fhould certainly except against irony. Generally fpeaking, he is neither a good man, nor a true. And, if I remember right, you yourself confented to fet hin afide in this debate. I fhall therefore adapt my reply rather to what is folid, than what is fmart. This notion,' you fay, ❝is abfurd even to common fenfe." A faying, upon which I muft beg leave to put a query. It was, I own, abfolutely beyond the power of common fenfe, unaffifted by divine revelation, to discover this truth. I will grant farther, that this bleffing infinitely tranfcends whatever common fenfe has obferved in all her converfe with finite things. But, if I have any, the leaft, acquaintance with common fenfe, I am very fure fhe will not, she cannot pronounce it an abfurdity. To this judge I refer the -caufe.

And, to open the caufe a little, let me juft obferve, that God imputed our fins to his Son. How elfe could the immaculate Jefus be punifhed, as the most inexcufable tranfgreffor? Awake, O fword, against the Man that is my Fellow, faith the Lord of Hofts, Zech. xiii. 7. Is not this the voice of a judge, pronouncing the fentence, and authorifing the execution? Or rather, does it not describe the action of justice, turning the sword from us, and fheathing it in Chrift? who, if he was our substitute, with regard to penal fuffering, why may he not ftand in the fame relation with regard to justifying obe

dience? There is the fame reason for the one, as for the other. Every argument in favour of the former, is equally conclufive in behalf of the latter.

Ther. I very freely grant, that Chrift Jefus was punished in our stead; that his death is the expiation of our fin, and the cause of our fecurity from penal fuffering. But this

Afp. will undeniably prove, that fin was imputed to him; otherwife He could not truly fuffer in our stead, nor be juftly punished at all. "And imputation is as reasonable and juftifiable in one case, as in the other; for they both stand upon one and the fame foot; and, for that reafon, he who throws down one, throws down both."-I should not have interrupted my Theron, only to introduce this anfwer from an eminent divine; who adds what should be very feriously confidered: " And therefore, whoever rejects the doctrine of the imputation of our Saviour's righteousness to man, does, by fo doing, reject the imputation of man's fin to our Saviour, and all the confequences of it. Or, in other words, he who rejects the doctrine of the imputation; does, by fo doing, reject the doctrine of the expiation likewife *"

Ther. I know nothing of this divine; and, eminent as he is, can hardly take his ipfe dixit for a decision.

Afp. I was in hopes you would pay the greater regard to his opinion, because he is not in the number of the whimsical fanatics.

Give me leave to obferve farther, that the imputation of Chrift's righteousness bears an evident analogy to another great truth of Chriftianity. We did not perfonally commit Adam's fin, yet are we chargeable with guilt, and liable to condemnation, on that

Ther. How! We chargeable with guilt, and liable to condemnation on account of Adam's tranfgreffion! This pofition I must deny; I had almost faid, I must abhor.

*

Stayone upon Salvation by Jefus Chrift alone. Vol. 1. p. 334. Where the reader may find feveral weighty confiderations, clear ly propofed, and ftrongly urged, for the explanation and establishment of this capital doctrine.

None other could, in the eye of juftice and equity, be blameable for any offence of our firft parents, but they only.

Afp. So fays Theron; but what fays St Paul? This may be the voice of natural reason; but what is the language of divine revelation? In whom, that is in Adam, all bave finned.

Ther. The words, if I remember right, are-For that all have finned.

Afp. In the margin, they are tranflated as I have repeated them. For this interpretation I might contend, as not in the leaft incompatible with the original phrafe*, and as the most precifely fuitable to the facred argument. But I wave this advantage. Let the words run into your mould, and the tranflation take your form. They are equally decifive of the point in debate. They af fign the reason why death came upon all men, infants themselves not excepted: For that, or inafmuch as, all have finned. How? Not in their own perfon; this was utterly impoffible. But in that first grand tranfgreffion of their federal head; which, as it could not be actually committed by them, muft, according to the tenor of the apoftle's arguing, be imputed to them.

Ther. Pray, what do you mean by that stiff, and to me unintelligible phrafe, federal head?

Afp. I mean what Milton celebrates, when he reprefents the Almighty Father thus addreffing his eternal Son:

The Head of all Mankind, though Adam's Son..
As in Him perith all Men, fo in Thee,
As from a fecond root, fhall be reflor'd
As many as are reftor'd, without Thee none

Εφ 'ω πανίες ημαρτον. Rom. v. 12.

*

Not to mention the

famous distinction of Epictetus, ta nu, nor the well-known

adagy of Hefiod, μελλον δ' επι πασιν αβίζον. 2. of this epistle, where the preposition fenfe.

See chap. iv. 18. v. is used in Afpafio's

*Book 3. 1. 285.

I mean what the apoftle teaches, when he calls Chrift the fecond man, I Cor. xv. 47. and the laft Adam, I Cor. xv. 45. The fecond! the laft! How? Not in a numerical fenfe; not in order of time; but in this refpect. That, as Adam was a public perfon, and acted in the ftead of all mankind; fo Chrift was a public perfon, and acted in behalf of all his people. That, as Adam was the first general reprefentative of this kind, Christ was the fecond and the laft; there never was, and there never will be, any other: That what they severally did, in this capacity, was not intended to ter minate in themfelves, but to affect as many as they respectively represented. This is St Paul's meaning, and this is the foundation of the doctrine of imputation.

Ther. If you build it on no other foundation, than your own particular fenfe of the apoftle's words, perhaps. your ground may prove fandy, and treacherous to its truft.

Afp. I build it upon mine, and I deduce it from yours, Theron. But I am far from refting the whole weight of the cause upon a single text. It is established, again and again, in this fame chapter.

Neither do I wonder

at the prejudices which you and others may entertain against the doctrine. It lies quite out of the road of reafon's refearches: it is among the wonderful things of God's law. This the infpired penman forefaw, and modelled his difcourfe accordingly. Like fome skilful engineer, who, though he makes the whole compass of his fortification ftrong, yet bestows peculiar and additional strength on thofe parts, which he apprehends will be expofed to the fierceft attack: fo the wife, the divinely wife apoftle, has inculcated, and re-inculcated, this momentous point; has enforced it with all the affiduity of zeal, and confirmed it by all the energy of expreffion. If through the offence of one many be dead The judg ment was by one to condemnation- -By one man's offence death reigned by oneBy the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, Rom. v. 15, 16, 17, 8. That there may remain no poffibility of mistaking his meaning, or of eluding his argument, he adds, By

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