In to themselves, thus becomes a part of the tribute paid by society to that uniform virtue, which is felt by all men to be worthy both of confidence and of reward. Upon this principle proceeded the pleading of Appius in his own defence: "Majorum merita," says Livy, in rempublicam commemorabat, quo poenam deprecaretur."* like manner Tacitus says, " Plautio mors remittitur ob patrui egregium meritum." And Cicero, proceeding upon his knowledge and experience of the sentiments of mankind, delivers this general rule, "oportebit eum, qui sibi ut ignoscatur postulabit,-majorum suorum beneficia, si quæ extabunt, proferre." So we read in the Old Testament that God was merciful to the children of Israel for Abraham's sake; § that he pardoned their idolatry at the intercession of Moses ;|| and that he accepted the prayer of his servant Job for the three friends, who had not spoken of him the thing that is right.¶ These and other instances of the same kind in the history of Scripture, according with what we often behold amongst men, and corresponding also with our apprehension of the essential difference between the merit of those who have always obeyed, and of those who only repent of their sin, are considered in the middle system as an opening of the great scheme revealed in the gospel. Jesus Christ, the first born of every creature, by whom God made the worlds, the purest and the most glorious being that ever proceeded from the Father of all, beheld the miserable condition of the human race, the forfeiture which they had incurred by the transgression of Adam, and the multiplied offences which they were daily committing against the majesty of heaven. Prompted by love to the souls of men, he left the bosom of the Father, laid aside the glories of his nature, and became a man of sorrows, that he might extricate from evil those whom he had made. All the scorn and persecution which he received while he went about doing good to men; all the amazement and agony which his pure spirit sustained amidst the iniquities of those with whom he dwelt: all the bitter sufferings which marked the end of his life upon earth, were the voluntary acts of a person who had devoted himself to the accomplishment of a most gracious purpose. They were accepted by God, who, not willing that any should perish, had given the Son of his love to be in this manner the deliverer of the human race; and they were rewarded by the powers conferred upon him after his resurrection. His reward added to the dignity of his character, by placing him at the head of the creation, and rendering the most exalted spirits subject to his dominion. But it was not the prospect of any increase of his personal glory which called forth his exertions. He had no need to be greater or happier than he was before he visited this earth; and he would not appear in a light so truly exalted, had he come here merely with the view of holding a higher place in heaven when he returned thither. The joy set before the Redeemer of the world, for which it is said he endured the cross, the recompense in the prospect of which he left the mansions of bliss, and drank the bitter cup given him by his Father, is to be gathered from such passages in the New Testament as the • Liv. iii. 56. Tac. Ann. xi. 36. Cic. de Inv. ii. 35. ¶ Job xlii. following: John v. 26, 27; vi. 39; xvii. 2. Acts v. 31. Heb. ii. 9, 10; v. 9. The idea which is plainly expressed in some of these passages, and which appears to be implied in all of them, is this: that there was given to the Son of man, after his sufferings, the power of recovering a lost world, of removing all the evils which sin had introduced, of raising men from death, which is the punishment of sin, and of bringing those that repent to eternal life. All this is the reward of the services of the Redeemer; that is, although it redounds to the advantage of the penitents, it is not given to them as what they earn for themselves, but it is given to him as his recompense; and in this exalted sense are fulfilled the words which the evangelical prophet Isaiah introduced into his prediction of the sufferings of the Messiah : "he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many."* Jesus Christ did see of the travail of his soul and was satisfied; in other words, he received his reward by justifying many. The natural recompense of disinterested exertion, and the purest joy which a benevolent mind can taste, is an enlargement of the power of doing good. Feeble dependent creatures like us are glad to receive, as a reward of the good which we do from love unfeigned, an extension of the sphere of our private enjoyments, and an establishment of our own security. But he, who is styled in Scripture the Son of Man, and the brightness of his Father's glory, submitted to suffering purely for this purpose, that he might receive from his Father the right of communicating happiness; and the more complete and irretrievable on the part of man the forfeiture by sin had been, and the more extensive and precious the blessings which the Redeemer is empowered to convey, so much the more exquisite and glorious is his reward. This system derives considerable support from its preserving that striking contrast between the first and the second Adam, which we found the Apostle Paul marking in the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous." The punishment of Adam is transmitted to those who do not sin after the similitude of his transgression. But the evils which flow from this constitution meet in the gospel with a remedy perfectly analogous to the disease; for the reward of Jesus Christ is communicated to those who are very unlike himself; and, according to the middle system, it is literally by his obedience that many are made righteous. The middle system is further supported by its exhibiting, in a most pleasing and instructive light, that essential difference between those who have uniformly obeyed God, and those who only repent of their transgressions, which we expect to find under the government of God. That exalted Being, who, in making the worlds, fulfilled the commandment of God, and in whom the Father was always well pleased, by coming to this earth to do the will of God, had an opportunity of displaying before angels and men, in a degree more eminent than they had ever beheld, humility, obedience, * Isaiah liii. 11. resignation, patience, fortitude, generosity; and in this transcendent excellence of virtue was crowned with a reward the most illustrious which the Father ever bestowed, and the most delightful to him upon whom it was conferred, the power of extricating the human race from all the evils which they had incurred by sin, and of restoring to them the gift of immortality which they had forfeited. In this method of saving sinners there is a continual memorial of the evil of sin, and a lesson to all the intelligent creation of God, that without some very singular interposition those who have sinned cannot obtain pardon. For, although the Son of God was connected with the human race from the time that by him God made the worlds, a much closer connexion was necessary in order to their being saved from sin; and the constitution, by which penitents are received into the divine favour, is such as to make them feel a constant and an entire dependence upon their Redeemer. It is by his power that they are delivered from the effects of their transgression: the accomplishment of their salvation is premial to him, not to them, that is, all that they receive is given them, not upon their own account, but upon account of what he hath done. At the same time, this method of checking the presumption of sinners is a bright display of divine love. God the Father provides a method for receiving his returning children into his family; and he rewards the generous exertion of his own Son, by opening the mansions of heaven to those whom his Son shall bring thither. In all the steps of their progress heavenward, they experience the grace of the Redeemer, and daily reap the fruit of his reward; and when they shall at length enter the city of the living God, their numbers and their felicity will redound to his honour. "These are they," as one of the elders about the throne said to John in the Revelation," which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." "They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; and the new song that is sung by every creature in heaven has a peculiar significancy when it proceeds from their mouth, "worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and honour, and glory, and blessing." Many of the passages of Scripture, which Christians are accustomed to apply to the remedy brought in the gospel, receive an interpretation at once more exalted and more natural from those who hold the middle system, than from those who hold the Socinian. According to the middle system, Jesus is said to be the propitiation for our sins, because by his meritorious obedience he hath procured our reconciliation with God. He is said to have given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for us, because he devoted himself to death in order to accomplish our salvation. He is our mediator, because through him we have access to the Father. He is our advocate, who maketh intercession for us, because all that we ask, and all that we receive is for his sake, because nothing is due to us, but all that heaven can bestow is due to the perfection of his obedience; and we are saved by him, because with the same grace which led him to suffer for our sakes, he imparts, to those who repent, the gifts which he hath received from his Father, accounting their salvation his reward. A system, which gives such views of our dependence upon our Redeemer, follows out those lessons of humility by which the gospel has for ever excluded 38* 3 L the presumption of sinners, and the boasting of those who are saved; and it may be regarded as a commentary upon these words of the apostle, "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's ;" and upon the words of our Lord himself, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."t ment. The middle system, which I have now delineated, has the merit of being beautiful and consistent. As far as it goes, it proceeds, in a great measure, upon the language and the views of the New TestaIt appears to unite, in the pardon of those who repent, the rectitude which becomes the Judge of the universe, with that compassion which we feel ourselves so willing to ascribe to the Deity. It gives penitents all that security for being restored to the divine favour, and for obtaining the reward of eternal life, which can arise from the power of their Redeemer; and it seems so peculiarly calculated to illustrate his glory, that, in the affectionate admiration with which it is natural for Christians to regard him, the heart inclines the understanding to receive it as the whole truth. But there are two objections to this system, which, with a great part of the Christian world, are sufficient to counterbalance these advantages, so far as to satisfy them, that although a great part of this system may be true, it is not a complete account of the gospel remedy. The first objection is, that the middle system plainly involves in it the Arian opinion concerning the person of Christ. It presents to our view, a being, who, by performing a hard service in the government of God, acquires new powers, and is advanced to a degree of supremacy and a capacity of conferring happiness, which he did not formerly possess. But this view of Christ is totally inconsistent with the Athanasian system. Those, who believe that Jesus Christ is truly and essentially God, think that they are naturally led, by the manner in which his exaltation is spoken of in Scripture, to consider it as part of the axovoua there revealed, a manifestation of the Son of God, an investiture of the same person in his human nature with that glory which he had from eternity in his divine. But they cannot believe that he became, by suffering, more able to save than he was before. They are compelled, by their creed, to remove from their conceptions of him all those ideas of dependence and changeableness which are necessarily implied in an enlargement of powers; and they cannot degrade him whom they worship as God, equal with the Father, to a rank with those inferior spirits, who, by progressive improvements in goodness, may become worthy of holding more conspicuous stations, and of being appointed to more important offices in the administration of the universe. The second objection to the middle system is, that although a beautiful and plausible theory, yet, like many other theories, it proceeds upon a partial view of facts. It is the theory of men who are satisfied that the Socinian scheme is indefensible, but who are at the same time solicitous to avoid those particular determinate views of the sufferings of Christ, which other Christians derive from a literal interpretation † Rev. iii. 21. * 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23. of Scripture. Hence they are obliged to have recourse to such views as are vague and general. They studiously throw into the shade many parts of that information which the Scriptures have been generally supposed to convey; and they hope, by the splendid parts of their theory, to occupy and please the mind, so that the defect shall not be felt. Accordingly it will be observed, that while the power, which the Redeemer is supposed to have acquired by his sufferings, stands forth in this theory a luminous object, no specific reason is assigned for the sufferings. They are a display of benevolence, a virtuous exertion on the part of the Redeemer, and the reward of them redounds in the most effectual manner to the benefit of the human race. But we do not see, by this theory, any thing in the sufferings peculiarly applicable to the situation of those who are redeemed. Exertions of another kind might have merited the same reward; and we feel ourselves at a loss to account for the fitness of many things which he endured, and for a great part of that language in which the Scriptures speak of his sufferings. SECTION III. THE two preceding schemes concerning the nature of the Gospel remedy are the invention of modern times. What I called the Catholic opinion upon this subject appears to have been derived from the Scriptures by the earliest Christian writers; it has been generally held in the Christian world; and it enters into the creed of the two established churches of this island. The church of England concludes the second article, which is a description of the Son of God, with these words, "who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men." And the same opinion is more fully expressed in the prayer of consecration which forms part of the communion service, "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The words of our Confession of Faith, chap. viii. 5, are these," The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the Justice of his Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto him." It is the first part of this paragraph which is peculiar to the Catholic opinion; for those who hold the middle system also say that by the merit of Christ's obedience, they who repent shall receive the reward of eternal life; and therefore they need not scruple to say that he purchased an everlasting inheritance for them. But they do not admit that he hath fully satisfied the justice of the Father, by his sacrifice of himself offered up unto God; and this is the point in which they unite with the Socinians. This distinguishing part of the Catholic opinion is known by |