THE ESSENTIAL FAITH OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH.

The primitive Christian Church, gathered together in Jerusalem by the command of Christ, and sanctified by the descent of the Holy Spirit, consisted exclusively of Jews. The three thousand who were baptized on that memorable occasion, the numbers which were daily added to the Church, the multitude who were converted to Christianity during the next fifteen years, were all Jews. In some cases, the process of conversion was probably gradual; but in many, we know it was sudden, being caused by the immediate and irresistible evidence of miracles. The change of conviction which it was necessary to work in converting a Jew, was of a nature which could be effected speedily and completely by the display of one miraculous testimony. It was not a change in all, or any of his views of Deity and Providence. He was not required to relinquish a single article of religious belief which he had previously held under a divine sanction. The fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion,—the strict Unity of Jehovah,—he was authorized to retain. He was confirmed in his dependence on all that the Prophets had spoken, in his conceptions of the Divine attributes, and in his trust in Divine Providence. The only question on which depended his adhering to the Old, or embracing the New Dispensation, was, whether Jesus of Nazareth was or was not the promised Messiah. As the Jews were bound by the requisitions of their own law (Deut. xviii. 19) to receive implicitly whatever should be taught in God's name by a divinely authorized prophet, their reception of the doctrines of Christianity was a sure consequence of their acknowledgement of the Messiah; and that their acknowledgement of Jesus in that character was the only thing essential to make them Christians we have consistent and abundant evidence in the whole Scripture history. In the preaching of the Apostles to the people of their own nation, we find no intimations of any needful change in their conceptions of God, and of his mode of government. On the contrary, it was because the Jews were already prepared for their reception of Christianity by their belief in the Unity of God and the consistency of his moral government, that they were the most immediately and the most easily incorporated with the Christian church. For proof of this, we refer to the whole of the discourse delivered by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost, and to every other discourse addressed by the Apostles to Jewish hearers.

The first Gentiles who were converted to Christianity were not worshipers of a plurality of Gods; but men who from intercourse with Jews, or from other opportunities of spiritual advancement, had attained to the belief of One God, indivisible in his nature and unrivalled in his supremacy. The same mode of teaching which sufficed for the Jews, sufficed for them also, as far as the essential truth of Christianity was concerned; and the same method was therefore adopted, as may be seen in the discourse of Peter in the house of Cornelius.

The next converts were from the disciples of the Pagan theology of Greece and Rome; with them a different method of instruction was needed. Till they knew something of the Divine nature, it was useless to open to them the Divine dispensations. The discourse of Paul at Athens did not therefore begin with announcing the Saviour: if it had, his inquisitive hearers would perhaps have inquired whether this messenger was sent by Jupiter himself, or whether he was a deputy of some of the inferior gods. The Apostle named not the name of Christ till he had taught the fundamental doctrine—that Jehovah is not only supreme, but sole; that all infinite attributes are centered in him; that all dispensations proceed from him; not only those of nature, by which the human race is created and preserved; but—the way being now prepared for the annunciation—that of grace, by which the world is to be redeemed through him whom God had ordained to be a Prince and a Saviour.

The heathen converts of the latter class had much more to learn, before they could become confirmed Christians, than their more enlightened brethren who had been prepared by intercourse with Jews. They were equally ready in admitting the evidence of miracles, but not equally clear as to the object for which those miracles were wrought. When Paul and Barnabas restored the cripple at Lystra, the priests and people could scarcely be restrained from offering sacrifice to them as gods, even after the Apostles had explained to them the true nature of Deity. Yet the true religion, being patiently and faithfully taught, was, at length, fully understood and received; and the three classes of converts, Jews, proselytes, and pagans, were made one in Christ; holding, in undisturbed harmony of conviction, the essential doctrines of the strict Unity of Jehovah, the divine authority of Jesus Christ, and consequently, the divine origin of the Gospel he brought.

This unity of the faith seems to have been first broken in upon by the introduction of a fourth class of converts, who, by incorporating their former philosophical doctrines with the new theology they had embraced, originated the first heresy. There had been disputes, it is true, in the church; but not concerning matters of faith. In these disputes the Apostles themselves had been not only involved, but actually opposed to each other. These questions related to the fancied necessity of the adoption by the Gentiles of the forms of the Jewish law: questions of great importance to the Jews, as affecting their views of the ultimate design of Christianity; to the Gentiles, as involving their spiritual liberties; and to us and the Christian world at large, as throwing light on the transactions of the primitive times, and as having originated some of the Epistles of Paul.

But they bore no relation to the essential doctrines, which were held free from corruption, controversy, or even doubt, till some converts from the philosophical sect of the Gnostics introduced, within twenty years after the death of Christ, the first taint of that corruption from which the true faith has never since been freed.

The fundamental doctrine of the Gnostic philosophy was, that all mind is ultimately derived from the Supreme mind; that the souls of all men have therefore pre-existed; that there is a higher order of spirits, more immediately emanating from the Supreme; that these superior intelligences descend occasionally to inhabit the bodies of men, or to assume their apparent form. This doctrine, to which they were much attached, the Gnostic converts easily contrived to connect with their new theology, believing Jesus to be one of these superior intelligences in a visible form, or that the man Jesus was animated by such a spirit, who was in reality the Christ. Against this corruption of the simplicity of the faith the Apostle John protested in his First and Second Epistles, in which he followed the example of Peter, Paul, and Jude. That the Gnostics were the persons he had in view, is evident from the fact that no other schismatics at that period troubled the peace of the church, and also from his own application of his censure to such as 'confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' (2 John 7.) The 'fables and endless genealogies' which Paul reprobates (1 Tim. i. 4.) had the same origin; and the practices to which they led, of 'forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats,' are condemned by him as the work of 'seducing spirits.' Of the same class were the 'false teachers,' accused by Peter of bringing in fatal heresies, 'by reason of whom the ways of truth shall be evil spoken of.' All the opinions and practices denounced by Jude, were either publicly maintained by the Gnostics, or generally ascribed to them.

In order to disprove the truth of this representation, it will be necessary to show who besides the Gnostics denied that the man Jesus was the true Christ; who besides the Gnostics propounded fables, originated schisms, and were addicted to superstitious practices, at the times in which the Apostles wrote. This, we conceive, cannot be done.

That the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ must have been new and strange to the faithful teachers of the church we know, not only from their own intimation that it was so, but from the positive proof which the Scriptures afford of the absence of all preparation for it. The preaching of John the Baptist, and the conduct and discourses of Jesus were such as to give his disciples the idea of his being truly and entirely man; divine indeed in his derived power and spiritual perfection, but human in his nature. His disciples accordingly testified in their words and actions that they had no thought of his being any thing else. They received him as their Messiah; but in all besides they remained Jews, ascribing to God alone all divine attributes, worshiping him alone, and paying honor to Jesus only as his most exalted messenger. If they had been required to regard him as God, the history of their conversion would have been widely different from what it is. A doctrine to them so new and wonderful, would have engrossed their minds, would have banished familiarity from their intercourse with the Saviour, would have pervaded their preachings and writings; and, instead of being wholly omitted in their addresses to their converts, would have been made, as in modern creeds, a primary and essential article of belief. Not till the introduction of oriental superstitions into the church, however, do we find unquestionable evidence that such a doctrine had been conceived by any individual mind; and then the information is conveyed in the form of decided censure of the doctrine on the part of the promulgators and guardians of the new faith. Even after this heresy was introduced, we find no traces of it in the works of the Apostolical Fathers, till nearly a century and a half from the birth of Christ,—except in a very few writings, so uncertain in their date, so wild and allegorical in their composition, and so evidently and extensively interpolated, as to be of little or no authority. We refer to the works commonly ascribed to Barnabus, Hermas, and Ignatius. The only genuine epistle of Clemens Romanus which has come down to us, neither advocates, countenances, nor alludes to any such doctrine.

Even the philosophizing Christians of the first century, against whom the Apostles wrote, went no further than to suppose the Christ to be a superior intelligence, inhabiting a mortal form, or assuming the appearance of one: Cerinthus maintaining that Jesus was a man born of Joseph and Mary, and that at his baptism the Christ descended upon him; while Marcion held that the Son of God took the exterior form of a man, and appeared as a man; and without being born, or gradually growing up to the full stature of a man, he showed himself at once in Galilee as a man grown. It was not till Justin Martyr, himself a philosopher, wrote an apology for Christianity to a philosophical Roman emperor (A. D. 140), that any distinct mention appears to have been made of the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. It is not surprising that—feeling how great a reproach the death of the cross must be in the eyes of the potentate whom he wished to conciliate, and finding his mode of exposition prepared by the Gnostic Christians, and by the application made by the learned Philo of the Platonic doctrine of the Logos,—Justin Martyr should have been tempted to recommend his new theology by introducing an admixture of that philosophy which has proved, according to the warnings of the Apostle, a 'vain deceit.' Such we have no hesitation in calling it. A doctrine of this nature cannot be in part true, but liable to mistake: it must be absolutely true or absolutely false. We hold it to be the latter; because it was not made a subject of distinct revelation by Christ, a primary article of belief by the Apostles, or even a matter of distinct mention for a century and a half from the birth of Christ.

All that, from the study of the records of Revelation, we hold to be the primary and essential doctrines of Christianity, stand forth conspicuously in the teachings, are confirmed by the deeds, and illustrated in the lives of the Saviour and his followers. We propose to bring them forward, with their evidence, in the following order.

I. The strict Unity of God.

II. The unlimited nature of the Redemption by Christ.

III. The existence of a Future State.

From these, various subordinate principles may be derived, some of the most important of which we shall afterwards specify; and then proceed to treat of the temporary sanctions and institutions of Christianity, in distinction from its permanent principles.

It cannot be necessary for Christians, when addressing Christians, to enter upon the evidence for the divine authority under which the Saviour offered his Gospel, or for the consequent divine origin of that Gospel. The name adopted by both parties is a sufficient testimony to the unity of their faith thus far. Concerning the nature of Christ, we have already declared that, in accordance with what we believe to have been the faith of the primitive ages, we regard the Saviour as human in his nature, but superhuman in his powers, and divinely appointed and sanctioned in his office. The title 'Son of God' is peculiarly and indefeasibly his own; for to no other being, as far as our knowledge extends, has so immeasurable a portion of authority, of power, of grace and truth, been vouchsafed; in no other has dwelt 'all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.' The homage of reverence cannot be too fully and freely rendered to him who was with God in His manifest presence; who was one with Him in his purposes of eternal salvation to the human race; who was the exponent of those purposes, and the means of that salvation. The homage of love cannot be too fully and freely rendered to him who suffered for our transgressions, and died for our justification; who loved us with more than earthly love; who suffered in his compassion for the sins and sorrows of men, as well as in the inflictions he sustained for their sakes; and who, though wounded in spirit and tortured in body, made use of the rule, authority, and power with which he was invested, not for his own relief, but for our deliverance. To him who brought us salvation, it is little to offer deep gratitude and unbounded love. The homage of obedience cannot be too fully and freely rendered to him who was wise with the wisdom of God, pure in heart, sinless in his life, and sanctified by grace from the beginning. Even if we did not know that obedience to Christ is the way to life eternal, that obedience would be due to his divine claims: but knowing this, it should be steadfast as our faith, cheerful as our hope, and boundless as our love. Such was the obedience, such were the reverence and love of the holy Apostles; and we desire to participate in them as fully as we join, with heart and mind, in all that they have said concerning him. They bow before his celestial authority,—so do we. They venerate his perfect holiness,—so do we. They bless his love, testified in his sufferings, sealed by his death, and glorified by his resurrection,—so do we. They strove to be obedient in all things,—and we acknowledge the obligation incumbent on us to be so likewise; and that we may be so, we diligently inquire what were the doctrines which he confirmed and revealed.

The great fundamental doctrine of the strict Unity of Jehovah was abundantly confirmed by the Gospel. It had been long held in its purity by the Jews, and was apprehended by a few, a very few, enlightened heathens. It is called an essential doctrine of Christianity,—not because it was originated by Christianity, but because it was thus first introduced to the world at large, and because no other doctrine could stand without it. It has accordingly been acknowledged in words by all who have taken on themselves the name of Christ, while in its substance it has been held pure by very few, we apprehend, since the apostolic age. By the Unity of God we understand not a unity of substance connected with a variety of persons, or a unity of persons accompanied with a division of attributes; but a concentration of the attributes of Deity in one eternal, indivisible substance. This, our fundamental religious belief, is derived both from reason and from Scripture, and is confirmed equally by both.

If we examine our own minds, we find that our first notions of a God are low and earthly. We conceive of Him as of an earthly parent, watching over our sleep with bodily eyes, furnishing our food with a bodily hand, and following us from place to place with a material presence. As infancy passes away, our conceptions become less gross. We think of Him as omnipresent and invisible; but, deriving our notions from our experience, we conceive of him as subject to emotions and passions. We believe in the real existence—if not of his smiles and frowns—of his joy, sorrow and anger, pleasure and pain. We can then imagine his knowing and remembering all that has ever taken place, but can scarcely conceive of his unlimited presence. Our childish obedience is then yielded as to our parents,—partly through fear, partly through a desire of approbation, and partly with the hope of of giving pleasure. All the qualities or attributes which we ascribe to God have their origin and counterparts in our parents, or those who supply their place to us: and in no other way can the conception of Deity be originated. No mind can arrive at the recognition of a general principle, but through an observation of its particular applications; nor can a conception be formed, otherwise than by the gradual reception of its elements; or enlarged, but by adding to their number. From the watchfulness of its parent in satisfying its wants and defending it from injury, the child forms its first notion of Providence; and from the visitings of parental approbation and displeasure, of a moral governor. When the presence of Deity is thus recognised, some more abstract qualities are by degrees attributed to him. Instances of the strength, foresight, and knowledge of the parent are daily witnessed; and these, somewhat magnified, are transferred to Deity;—and the moral attributes have the same origin. Steadiness in awarding recompence, tenderness in inflicting punishment, or readiness in remitting it on repentance, gradually communicate the abstract ideas of justice, compassion, and mercy. Our first low notions of holiness are formed by putting together all the best qualities we have observed in the persons around us, and supposing them to be unimpaired by the faults we are conscious of in ourselves. All these attributes are ascribed to one Being; and the conception, already more exalted than any we have formed of any other individual being, is further improved by the richer elements of a more extended experience. The imagination becoming stronger as the materials supplied to its activity become more abundant, the conception of Deity perpetually grows in grandeur and beauty, till it absorbs the intellect of a Newton and engrosses the affections of a Fenelon. Still, this notion of a Being whom we know and feel to be infinite, is formed from the results of our finite experience; and the conception, however improved in degree, is unchanged in kind. Let it be magnified to the utmost extent, it is still only magnified, not metamorphosed. As there is a strict analogy between the moral attributes of God and of men, there is also a strict analogy between their natural modes of being. Justice in God is the same quality as justice in men, however perfected and enlarged; and Unity in God is the same as individuality in men, though ascribed to an almighty and omnipresent Being.

A perpetual and perfect concentration of attributes is essential to our notion of one God. We can conceive of his manifesting one attribute in an especial manner on one occasion, and another on another; we can imagine him conferring power analogous to his own on an inferior being; but we cannot conceive of his laying aside, of his depriving himself of any of the attributes of his nature, or of delegating his power,—if by such delegation be implied any diminution or inactivity of it in Himself. It is conceivable that he might employ some superior intelligence in creating the material world (though we have no authority to suppose that he did so;) but it is not conceivable that the work was not, at the same time, wholly his own. It is conceivable that he might send—it is certain that he did send—a being divinely furnished for the work, to institute a dispensation of grace, and to offer pardon and peace to sinful men. But it is not conceivable that the divine attribute of mercy could previously, or subsequently, or ever, be laid aside, or transferred, or suspended; that his unalterable purposes could be changed, his compassion roused, his sympathies moved by any act of any being, human or angelic. To suppose so, is supposing his purposes mutable, and his compassion dormant; that is, divesting him of Deity. We can, in accordance with our conception of Deity, understand how the dispensation of grace may be committed, as it was committed, to a finite being. But to suppose it the indefeasible prerogative of any eternal Being but God, is clearly to suppose two Gods: and if the office of sanctification be appropriated in a similar manner, we must suppose three Gods. However long and deeply we may reflect and strive to reconcile contradictions, we shall find at length that it is essential to our belief in One God, that we ascribe creation, redemption and sanctification, ultimately wholly to Him 'of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things.'

This unalterable decision of the reason is confirmed in every possible way by revelation. It is needless to adduce proof from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, as it is universally known that the Jews held, as the fundamental doctrine of their religion, the strict Unity of Jehovah, in nature, person, and attributes. There is not the slightest intimation, in the records of the new dispensation, that any change took place in the opinions of the Apostles, or of any other Jewish converts, respecting the nature or person of God. They speak and write of Him as One, ordaining the salvation of the world through Christ, and Himself sanctifying those who were appointed to assist in the work. Jesus ever spoke of himself as the servant of the Most High, deriving his purposes and his powers from on high, and ascribing his achievements to the grace manifested thence: 'I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.' (John viii. 28, 29.) 'My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine (whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.' John vii. 16, 17.) Again, in intimating the share which should be apportioned to his disciples in publishing the new dispensation, he says, 'Ye are they who have continued with me in my trials. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' (Luke xxii. 28, 29, 30.) It is not conceivable that, anxious as he ever was to attract the attention of men to the nature of his mission, and to magnify the importance of the new covenant, he should have concealed the most wonderful and important circumstance belonging to it, and have not only left men in ignorance of his highest claims to their homage and obedience, but have led them into it. That even his immediate followers and the primitive Church had no suspicion of the Christ being more than the most exalted of God's messengers, we have already declared our conviction; a conviction which is confirmed by every page of their writings. Paul was careful to declare 'the whole counsel of God.' Yet in the passage of his writings in which, above all others he exalts the Saviour, he tells how, for the meekness with which he bore the honors which constituted in him a resemblance to God, for the humility with which he took on him the office of a servant, and the compassion which caused his submission to the death of the cross,—he was yet more exalted by God, and favored with that name which is above every name, through which every man is privileged to worship, and every tongue permitted to offer praise, confessing 'that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.' (Phil. ii. 5—11.) Peter, in the discourse by which three thousand persons were converted to Christianity, spoke of Jesus of Nazareth as 'a man approved of God by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him;' and as being made Lord and Christ, raised from death and exalted to heaven by God. John repeats, in every form of expression, that the love of God was especially manifested by his sending his Son to be the Saviour of the world; and that as the Lord manifested his love for us by laying down his life, we also should be ready to lay down our lives for one another. Jude addresses his Epistle to the Christians as to men 'sanctified by God the Father;' and in almost every apostolic benediction and salutation we find the work of sanctification as well as of grace ascribed to the Father.

But it is more satisfactory as well as easy to appeal to the whole body of the sacred writings (which we confidently do,) than to separate passages for proof that God the Father is the sole originator of every work of nature and of grace; that as winds are his messengers, and flaming fires his ministers in the world of matter,—righteous men, prophets, apostles, and above all, Christ, the Holy One, are his agents in the administration of the spiritual world, and the establishment of the dispensation of grace.

Jehovah being thus sole in the possession of the attributes of Deity, is the sole object of religious worship; for to God alone may such adoration be innocently paid. This assertion rests not alone on the commands delivered from above to the Israelites; though we hold the authority of the second commandment of the Decalogue, as it stands in Protestant Bibles, and is included in the Jewish version of the commandments, to be equal to that of any part of the Mosaic law. 'Thou shalt worship Jehovah thy God, and him only shalt thou serve,' is a summary of the entire purposes and details of the first dispensation; and the fundamental principle on which the second is based.

The prohibitions to the Jews to pray to any but Jehovah are too numerous to be adduced, and too clear to need any further notice than a passing reference. That the Israelites are not forbidden to seek the intercession of departed spirits is accounted for by their ignorance at first of a life beyond the grave, and their uncertainty respecting its value afterwards: but that there was a total absence of all desire to seek the intercession of a mediator in spiritual communion, is evident. When Elisha stood by Jordan to witness the ascent of Elijah, no prayers were wafted to heaven in the chariot of fire; no grace was sought through the medium of the glorified prophet. When dangers compassed round the prophet and his servant in Dothan, and a vision of heavenly hosts was opened to them, no supplication was offered through the radiant messengers; but Elisha offered his prayer immediately to Jehovah. He, with all his nation, would have felt the liberty of direct communion with God too great a privilege to be forgone, even if the notion had occurred to them. No just fears which they could entertain could be obviated by the employment of an intercessor; no desired blessing could be so easily obtained as by a direct appeal to the compassion of the Father of mercies. It would have been well if the partakers of a fuller measure of grace had, in this respect, been like-minded with their ancient brethren; had felt like them, that the highest spiritual privilege is a free access to the divine presence, the fairest spiritual promise that which declares 'If thou wilt call, Jehovah shall answer thee. Come nigh unto me, and I will hear thee.'—This privilege it was which Jesus himself used most abundantly; and this promise he sanctioned by word and example, and taught his followers to appropriate. He exhorted them to pray as he himself prayed, in full assurance of faith, freely and immediately. On no subject were his teachings more explicit, or his own practice and that of his Apostles more fully ascertained. He taught them in what spirit, in what manner, and for what objects to pray; viz. believing that what they asked should be given, that what they sought should be found;—retiring into recesses where none could intermeddle with the communion of the heart; seeking whatever is needful for the body and the soul; supplies of the means of life, pardon, grace and peace. After this manner his followers prayed and taught others to pray. Paul mingled prayers for forgiveness of his early misguided zeal with thanksgivings for the grace vouchsafed to him, and ascriptions of praise to the supreme ordainer of salvation. Peter prayed for strength to sustain persecution, and for guidance in his mission. James directed his hearers to ask of God, if they sought wisdom. In all their exhortations to prayer, however, there is no intimation of a possibility that it may be offered otherwise than immediately to Him to whom the Saviour prayed. Believing, as we are convinced they did, that Christ was the son and servant of Him who heareth prayer, and not authorised to usurp that holy prerogative, no purpose could be answered by addressing supplications to him, but that of alienating the heart of the suppliant from the prime Giver of good, and no motive could be assigned for the act but a criminal distrust of the divine love, or a groundless hope of evading his justice; motives little likely to actuate apostolic minds. To prevent, however, the supposition that such motives could have occurred, that the practice of praying to Christ could have subsisted, we are in possession of a declaration from Jesus himself which obviates all doubt. When about to bid farewell to his Apostles, and to resign himself to death, he promised them comfort from above; and from the fountain of prophetic light within, casts gleams upon the stormy future for the guidance of the trembling pilgrims whom he left behind. He told them that joy should visit the world through their sorrow; and that his name, exalted by the results of his mission and sanctified by death, should be the seal of the rectitude of their prayers, and the pledge of their success; while he distinctly disclaimed any part in the reception of their prayers, any assumption of the offices of mediation or intercession. 'Ye now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name; and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye love me, and believe that I came forth from God.' (John xvi. 22-27.)

According to these sayings, the Apostles made their requests for the more abundant effusions of grace in the name of Christ; but, believing that the Father himself loved them, they felt no need of other supplication than their own, for benefits which he was more ready to grant than they could be eager to receive. If we may judge of their opinions by the records which remain, we should be convinced that they regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine power only, and not a divine person. As a power, as influence exerted by God himself, is the spirit spoken of in all the writings of the Apostles; as when Paul expresses the relation which the spirit bears to God to be the same as the spirit of a man bears to man; 'What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.' (1 Cor. ii. 11.) The mode in which the operations of the spirit are described by them is perfectly inconsistent with the notion of its being a separate person. Converts were said to be baptized with the spirit and filled with the spirit, and they were exhorted not to quench the spirit. By the direction given to 'baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,' nothing more was understood by the primitive Christians, as we learn from themselves, than the duty of spreading that religion which was given by God through Jesus Christ, and comfirmed by miraculous power, though, in comparatively modern times, it began to be used as a form prescribed by Christ. As a form it does not appear to have been adopted by his followers, who seem to have baptized in the name of Jesus only. Like Christians of the present day, they believed the Holy Spirit to have been the same by which the ancient prophets spoke; but, unlike the modern belief, their conviction evidently was, that this spirit was the same which moved on the face of the waters when the universe was called up from chaos; the same which was manifested at Sinai; the same which filled the temple of Solomon and abode in the Holy of Holies; the same which wrought the works which Christ declared were not of himself; the same which was and ever shall be, 'above all, through all, and in all.' They believed the Spirit to be God himself, working in his creatures 'to will and to do of his good pleasure.'

The peculiar endowments which were conferred on the disciples in the apostolic age were called the gifts of the Spirit; and the thanksgivings which were presented for them were always offered immediately to God, from whom every good and perfect gift was known to come. When this Spirit was spoken of as an impersonal existence, as an influence, a power, it could not, of course, be made the object of worship any more than the gifts it brought. When regarded as a personal existence, i. e. as God, it was, of course, the object of direct worship. But, as possessing any power of intercession, we may confidently declare it never was appealed to, till the Christian theology had been mixed up with the principles of the heathen philosophy. Among all the figurative illustrations of the offices and powers of the Spirit, among all the highly wrought personifications and bold metaphors which characterize the Hebrew style of the apostolic writings, we find no intimation that homage may be offered, or intercession made, through it or any existence whatever, personal or impersonal. Even the highly figurative passage which we meet with Romans viii. 25-28, and which is, we believe, the chief basis on which rests the practice of false worship in the Christian world, admits of no such interpretation as is commonly given to it. It needs only a careful reading of the whole chapter to perceive that 'the spirit' there spoken of is not the Holy Spirit; not the immediate divine influence of which we hear so much; but the new life supposed to be introduced by the Gospel, in opposition to 'the flesh' or evil principle by which men were liable to condemnation under the old dispensation. After declaring that the fulness of salvation must be waited for with Christian hope, the apostle continues, 'Likewise this spirit, also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be expressed. But He who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, that it intercedeth for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to his purpose.' In the weakness of our nature, we know not what most to desire and pray for, but the spirit of the Gospel informs and aids us; obtaining for us benefits which we could not otherwise have enjoyed. And the benefits thus obtained are such as the divine will designed for us; all things thus tending to our good; the divine purposes, the aids of the Gospel, and the circumstances amidst which that aid supports us. All this has a very clear reference, not to any mediation of the Holy Spirit, to which there is no allusion whatever; but to the agency of the new dispensation in delivering men 'from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.'—If the intercession of Christ be needless because the Father himself loveth us, much more needless must be the mediation of the Spirit, even were there such a separate personal existence; and yet more needless must be the good offices of Saints, supposing them capable of rendering such a service to their mortal brethren.

Those who, like ourselves, derive their religious belief from the Bible alone, can scarcely meet on the ground of argument those who profess 'most firmly to admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions,' if the subject of discussion be other than the authority of such traditions. On this discussion we shall enter hereafter. It only belongs to the present division of our subject to observe, that, not admitting the authority of ecclesiastical traditions in matters of faith, and finding in the Scriptures no intimation of homage being due to the mother of Christ, or the holy men who glorified the Gospel in their lives and deaths, we offer no such homage, and that the worship and invocation of such are a direct infringement of the command, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve.'

It is not difficult to trace the origin and progress of a custom which, though founded on a natural veneration for holiness sealed by death, is in our opinion more fatal to the purity, and inimical to the dignity of the Gospel that any other which its professors have adopted.—It was a custom in the early times of Christianity, to meet for worship at the tombs of the Martyrs; not for the sake of paying homage to the departed, but because the survivors found their devotional feelings more sensibly excited there. Their imaginations were at the same time possessed by the poetical fictions of the pagan philosophy, which represented the souls of the departed as hovering round the place of interment, and conscious of what was passing near. From this superstition arose the practice of making offerings annually in the name of the deceased, as an acknowledgement that they were still considered members of their respective churches. This practice appears to have been first adopted at the death of Polycarp, and to have speedily grown into a rite scarcely distinguishable from the superstitions of heathenism. Tertullian observes, 'We make oblations for the dead and for their martyrdom, yearly, on certain days.' At this time it was the general belief that the usual abode of the dead was in subterraneous places, or at least 'below,' somewhere near the earth, and as long as this belief subsisted, prayers were offered for the dead,—for their present repose and joyful future resurrection. The Virgin Mary was thus prayed for. As the Martyrs were more highly thought of, however, than other deceased Christians, it began to be imagined, about the middle of the fourth century, that they were, by peculiar favor, admitted earlier to the immediate presence of God, and permitted to exert influence even over his purposes. Then began the solicitations addressed to men doomed to death, that they would be mindful of the survivors; and the agreements of companions, that whichever should first depart should petition at the foot of the heavenly throne for his mortal friend. In a few more years arose the custom of invoking the spirits supposed to hover near the tombs; some hesitation being implied in the expression 'if they were indeed present, and had any influence in things below.' It was yet a long time before prayer was offered to Saints in general, and in the public services of the Church. That the practice, if it had been originated, was not approved by the Fathers of the Church in the third century, we know on the direct testimony of Origen, who says that men are not to pray to any derived being (not even to Christ himself), but to God the Father of all. Austin disapproved of praying for the Saints, though he believed that the Church might be helped by their intercession; at the same time acknowledging, 'It is true the Saints do not themselves hear what passes below, but they hear of it by others who die and go to them.'

The time when the custom of invoking the Saints was first countenanced by the Church may be fixed about the end of the fourth century. In the fifth, all opposition to it had ceased, and the images of Martyrs began to be regarded with peculiar honor; it being imagined by many that the homage paid to the image drew down into it the propitious presence of the celestial being whom it represented; in the same manner as the statues of Jupiter and other pagan gods were believed by heathen worshipers to become instinct with divine life. The temples of the Martyrs were now, as Theodoret informs us, ornamented with little figures, of gold and silver, representing eyes, feet, hands, &c., deposited for the acceptance of the lords of the temples, as memorials of cures wrought by them on these several members: these memorials proclaiming the power of the dead; whose power, again, demonstrates their God to be the true God. How changed was this Christianity from that given by him who forbade his followers to ask anything even of him, because the Father himself loved them!

Concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus, those who have not vowed to admit ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith, pretend to little knowledge from the time of the death of Christ. Her name is mentioned but once in the Book of Acts, when she is enumerated among the disciples who were collected after the ascension of Jesus; and how and where she lived and died, we have no means of ascertaining. The first act of respect to her memory which is on record is censured by Epiphanius, as 'a heresy of the women.' It consisted of an offering of cakes, prepared and offered by women only, and generally disapproved of, (though oblations on tombs were then very common,) because it was not known where she was interred. It may be inferred, however, from the account given by Epiphanius, that prayers were by some persons offered to the Virgin, though he rebukes the new superstition. The first person of authority who is known to have introduced and countenanced the worship of Mary, is Peter Gnapheus, bishop of Antioch, who in the fifth century appointed her name to be invoked in the prayers of the Church. If such homage were her due, how came the Apostles and the apostolic Fathers to withhold it from her? Why was her claim disallowed so long?

We can fully enter into, and are far from disapproving of, the natural curiosity which prompts an inquiry into the fate of one whom all generations unite in calling blessed. When we ponder, as we cannot but do, her privileges above all womanhood besides; when we imagine the intentness of soul with which she must have watched the course of her holy Son; perceiving perhaps before all others the manifestations of divine grace in him; becoming more and more elated in her hopes, as the presence of God in him became more evident; trembling at the malignity of the rulers and the madness of the people; and finally sinking in desolation of heart when every vital hope appeared extinguished; we cannot but search for an authentic record of what befell her after the day when the beloved disciple took her to his own home. But being convinced, as we are, that no such record exists, we dare not fill up the history with conjectures of our own; much less admit the claims founded on fable and supported by superstition, which are advanced in her favor by writers who possessed no more knowledge of her state than ourselves, and who were much less impressed by experience with the importance of keeping religion pure, simple, and undefiled. We regard Mary as one of the most interesting persons presented by history, but as in no respect connected with the Gospel we receive. Christianity was not revealed till Christ became a man; and as Mary had no act or part in its diffusion, she bears no other relation to us than as a being whose lot engages our sympathies, and whose tender nature and pious character should excite our affection and emulation. For the same reasons, however largely we may share the universal curiosity respecting the state of the dead, however rationally our philosophy may conceive, or however vividly our imaginations may represent them as living, as observing the course of events, as participating in our emotions, as enjoying the manifest presence of God, we dare not found any religious belief or practice on such speculations. If our religious observances had been in any way connected with the dead, we should have known something of their state and offices; but as no such knowledge is imparted, as there was no pretension to it in the earliest ages, and especially as Christianity clearly points to God as the sole object of religious worship, we invoke the departed for no other purpose than to satisfy our speculative doubts, we attribute to them no other office than that of endearing the past and hallowing the future, and offer no other oblations than those of the memory and the affections. Even if we believed them permitted to intercede for us with our Father, we should be slow to seek their aid; for if there be one privilege more precious than another, it is that of direct, intimate communion with Him who knoweth our weakness and our strength; if there be one provision more sacred than another in the charter of our 'glorious liberty,' it is that by which they who are far off and they who are near have equal access unto the Father; not through the ministrations of inferior spirits, but face to face in the sanctuary of his presence. He is not only our sure, but our near refuge; not only our unfailing, but our very present help; not only our hope, but our perpetual joy. The deepest of our joys and griefs, those which it is most necessary to confide to Him who caused them, are absolutely incommunicable to all besides; and what is emphatically true of our self-communings, that 'the heart knoweth its own bitterness,' is yet more true of spirit worship, 'no stranger intermeddling with its joy.'

Having thus stated the grounds of our dissent from that clause of the symbol of Pius IV. which declares that 'the Saints reigning together with Christ are to be honored and invocated, and that they offer prayers to God for us,' it is needless to notice what follows; viz. that their relics are to be venerated; 'that the images of Christ and the Mother of God, ever Virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and retained; and that due honor and veneration are to be given to them.' Such practices we hold to be utterly inconsistent with the principle that God is the sole object of religious worship; which principle is derived from what we have laid down as the first essential doctrine of Revelation,—the Unity of Jehovah.

The next essential doctrine is,

II. The unlimited extent of the Redemption by Christ.

A large proportion of the differences which have arisen in the Christian world respecting the doctrine of redemption, proceed from the variety of meanings which is attached to the term salvation. While one party understands by it an admission to the privileges of the Gospel, and a consequent emancipation from the penalties of the old dispensation; another, the state of virtue and peace which will prevail when Christianity has compassed the globe; and a third, a future state of perfect bliss in contrast to one of eternal torment; there is little hope of a mutual understanding respecting the doctrine of Justification. Our part now is to state our own views, and not to enter on any discussion of those of others.

We believe that by salvation the Scripture writers commonly signified the state of privilege into which Christian believers were brought by their adoption of the principles of holiness and peace which the Gospel affords. Thus, according to its original meaning, the term was appropriated to a state of comparative blessedness in this world; but as the principles of the Gospel exert the most powerful influence over our spiritual state, over our capacity for happiness in a future world, the term Salvation has naturally and not improperly been accommodated to signify a state of future safety and bliss. That it did not always mean this, however, is evident to all attentive readers of the Scriptures; as there is not one of Paul's epistles or discourses which would be intelligible, if he were supposed to declare his converts saved from the pains of hell, instead of from the dominion of the evils of heathenism, or the condemnation of the Jewish law. By redemption, we understand a release from the same evils and penalties effected by a sacrifice on the part of a benevolent mediator. By remission of sins, we understand the forgiveness and consequent remission of punishment which are promised in the Gospel on condition of repentance and newness of life. By justification, we believe the sacred writers sometimes to signify the process by which believers are released from all obligations incurred towards the old law, and brought into a state of spiritual freedom; and sometimes that free state itself. We conceive that this interpretation of terms—not new and arbitrary, but only divested of the false associations which have been long gathering round them—will clear up most of the mysteries which obscure a very important Christian doctrine, and enable us, in comparing scripture with scripture, to discern a consistency of views and a depth of truth which afford an irresistible evidence of their divine authority.

The whole scheme of revelation we conceive to be the method designed by the divine wisdom, and adopted by the divine benevolence, for bringing the human race into a state of purity and peace more rapidly than could be effected by the religion of nature. The welfare of the whole race was no less the object of the Jewish than of the Christian dispensation, though its apparent privileges were confined to the peculiar people. These privileges, immediately and positively advantageous to the chosen people, were remotely and relatively so to others, by establishing before their eyes evidences of a divine moral government; and as a moral government implies consistency of authority, it affords a strong presumption of the unity of the Governor. The Jews were led on from the fundamental principle of the Divine Unity to the apprehension of a divine moral government; while observant heathens, perceiving the moral results of the national vicissitudes of the Hebrew people, deduced thence the truth of the Unity of the Deity. Meanwhile, both were advancing to a state of fitness for a fuller revelation; the Jews more rapidly than the heathens, as being specially placed under the schoolmaster who was to bring them unto Christ; but still, dispensing spiritual benefits towards the heathen, for whose sake as well as for their own they were placed in a state of privilege. The old dispensation, though a condition of light and privilege compared with that of nature, was a state of darkness and bondage when contrasted with Christianity. Though the Hebrews had more elevated conceptions of God and clearer notions of duty than the Gentiles, they yet could not appreciate the riches of divine grace, or the extent of divine and human relations, or the full beauty of holiness. They were burdened by a heavy yoke of ritual observances; an escape from the penalties of the law was impossible; and especially, they had no certain knowledge of a future life. The blessings therefore which Christianity offered,—the redemption from the bondage of the law, the remission of the penalties of sin on repentance, the justification by which they were placed in a condition of spiritual power and freedom,—were worthy of all the exultation experienced and all the thanksgivings expressed by those who were thus redeemed, forgiven, and justified. These blessings were yet more valuable to the Gentiles, in proportion to the more rigorous bondage and deeper moral darkness to which they had been subjected. Instead of the strict but salutary discipline of the law, they had sustained the tyranny of lawless appetites and passions, had lived without other restraints than those of nature; and had no hope in death, but the glimmering and uncertain presages which their own faculties or long-corrupted traditions supplied.

The mode of preparation for the introduction of the Gospel affords a strong presumption that its benefits were intended for the whole race. The Jews had been led on to the point when their spiritual development absolutely required a more expansive revelation; and the Gentiles were prepared, by their observation of the Hebrew people, and by their own wants, sins, and sorrows, to receive with joy happier tidings than their fondest hopes could anticipate, and richer benefits than their desires could previously have comprehended. The benefits of the Gospel, after being offered to the Jews and partially accepted by them, were freely held out to the whole human race, and received by all who were conscious of the need of them: so that the Gospel was truly what the aged Simeon declared it, 'the salvation which God had prepared before all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel.'

Yet there were many among the people of Israel who were blind to this glory, and many of the Gentiles who rejected this guiding light. This rejection was not caused by any restrictive quality in the revelation, any provision in the Gospel itself for the limitation of its privileges: nor was it caused by any previous arbitrary decree of the ordainer of salvation, that on account of some very ancient event, totally unconnected with the present dispensation, a large majority of the human race should be rendered absolutely incapable of participating in the blessings of redemption. It was occasioned by the prejudices of narrow minds, by the ignorance of darkened minds, by the spiritual pride of presumptuous minds, by the petty hopes and fears of selfish minds,—prejudices, ignorance and selfishness naturally arising in the then state of the world, and not to be immediately or speedily got rid of but by miracle: a mode of agency which the Divine Being has frequently made use of to sanction his revelations, but never to prepare the human mind for their reception. Thus spiritual ignorance and moral blindness are, we apprehend, the only obstacles to universal redemption; and we firmly believe that these obstacles are only temporary. The Gospel itself bears such an indisputable character of permanence and universality (as we shall hereafter show), and so evident a provision is made for the gradual dissipation of darkness and error, that we may confidently anticipate the time when the hope of the Gospel shall be the rich possession of every individual of every nation.

That it will be so we conclude, not from the persuasion of our own hopes, or at the bidding of our reason in opposition to the declarations of Scripture; but because every principle derived from the Gospel sanctions the commands of our reason and affords a warrant of our hope. There is in no Gospel, History, or Epistle, a hint of any restriction or limitation of the blessings of redemption. Christ is ever spoken of as having died for all; there are thanksgivings in the name of all, invitations embracing all, and anticipations of the ultimate bliss of all. Those who are mourned over, reproached, entreated, compassionated, because they will not accept freedom and peace, are spoken of as excluded by their own unfitness for grace, arising from natural causes, and not by any sin of any ancestor, or by any arbitrary decree of God, or by any repellant and exclusive character in the dispensation of grace itself. Its most distinguishing character, on the contrary, was its boundlessness. Its first work was to throw down the wall of partition which had separated the favored people from others, to abolish arbitrary distinctions, to exchange the multifarious conditions of the old law for the few, simple and universal requisites of salvation declared in the new. If other distinctions have since been instituted, other conditions imposed, other requisites insisted on, they are no part of Christianity, and shall no more impede its ultimate prevalence than the cloud which shrouds the lightning can prevent its shining from one part of the heaven unto the other.

It may be objected, and with justice, that this method of considering the scheme of justification makes out the gift of grace to be only ultimately and not strictly universal; unlimited in its tendencies, but hitherto very limited in the diffusion of its blessings: and hence may arise an inquiry concerning the fate of those who have died without the hope of the Gospel.

As to the limited spread of the Gospel thus far, it is our business not to assign the final cause of the fact, but to admit and reason on the fact itself. The fact occasions no horror in our minds, and less regret than is felt perhaps by any denomination of Christians besides ourselves; and for this reason, that we do not hold perdition to be the only alternative to salvation by Christ. We find no sanction for so fearful a collocation of terms in the record of the covenant; no mode of reconciling the doctrine thus originated with the attributes of Deity, or with our conceptions of justice, much less of benignity. Moreover we can clearly discern through what misconception the monstrous belief in the everlasting destruction of unbelievers, whether by natural or moral necessity, has sprung to birth. We believe it to have arisen from the before-mentioned misapprehension of the terms Salvation, Remission of sins, and Justification.

To the enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel no alternative could be opposed but their non-possession; to the remission of sins, but their retention; to justification, but condemnation under the law. But it does not follow that when these terms are shifted from their original use, and accommodated to a subject to which they do not naturally belong, they should be still opposed to each other, no others being allowed to intervene. If it be generally agreed to understand by Salvation a state of perfect bliss after death, it is well: but if any man then choose to transfer the term Perdition from meaning the loss of the privileges of Christianity to the loss of the happiness of heaven and a consequent subjection to the pains of hell, he goes further than the customary use of language allows, further than reason can sanction, and much further astray from a true theology than he can at present estimate, or can hereafter sufficiently deplore. It is mournful enough that myriads have died in ignorance and error, that thousands have rejected offered light; but no words can express the horror of the popular doctrine of the eternal condemnation of all who have not died in the faith of Christ, or our reprobation of the corruption through which such a doctrine has been originated, received, and retained. While we believe that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and that 'all things are but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord,' we cannot believe that wrath from above and misery from below, sin from within and darkness around, destined to be dissipated only by the flames of hell, are the portion of all but those who are equally happy with ourselves. Our belief appears to us more consistent with our apprehensions of the perfections of our Father, with our interpretations of his providence, and with the spirit of his revealed law. We believe that though Christianity is the focus in which all the lights of reason and religion are concentrated, every ray is not there absorbed. We believe that though shadows brood more or less darkly over every heathen land, there is in the most remote a glimmering of the dawn; a ray which may direct the eye towards the fountain of glory, and engage the attention to watch the rising of that sun which shall set no more.

We believe that the rewards of righteousness are promised to all; and that the practice of righteousness is not limited to any kindred, tongue, or people, or essentially connected with any religious belief. We hold that retribution is the universal sanction of the universal moral law; and if the nature of the sanction be more fully understood by Christians, and therefore practically admitted with greater readiness, let them be as grateful as they will for the great privilege, but beware of supposing that the sanction is abolished to all besides. Under the various obscurations of this sanction, savage virtue may be inferior to civilized,—Hottentot to Roman virtue, as both are to Christian holiness; but there is every reason to believe that the savage who surrendered his hard-earned meal to the hungry stranger, and the Pagan senators and warriors who toiled and bled for their country, were as sure of an appropriate reward as the most benevolent and heroic of Christians.

The unlimited nature of salvation in this sense, leads us on to another great doctrine of the Gospel; viz.

III. A Future State.

This truth, the most important to human improvement, the most interesting to human affections, was so fully brought to light by the Gospel, that Christians have differed respecting it no further than as to the time and mode in which future retribution will take place. That Jesus died on the cross, was inclosed in the sepulchre, and was led forth thence by the manifest power of God, are facts too well authenticated to be questioned to any purpose by the most hardy sceptic; and on them securely rests the sublime belief which, from the midst of obscurity, had already cheered the bereaved, animated the martyr, and exalted the hopes and fears of the great body of the Hebrew nation. They had been led, like many of the Gentiles, by the mournful questionings of their affections, to inquire concerning a future state, and at length to believe in it; but their indistinct belief was widely different in nature and far inferior in power to the firm and clear faith with which the resurrection of Christ authorized them to look forward. Their former belief was strong enough to reconcile them to death; and perhaps they had sufficiently clear convictions that the future life would be a scene of retribution, to govern their own conduct by some regard to it; but the evidence was not such as to authorize their pressing on the minds of others the motives which the doctrine now affords. Without the evidence of the facts of Christ's resurrection, Paul could not have made Felix tremble at the prospect of judgement to come; or have enforced the duties of masters to their servants by considerations of their accountability to a master in heaven; or have felt how far better it was to depart and be with Christ than to pursue his earthly labors. Without this evidence, Stephen could not have met his fate as if he had been welcoming the hour of rest from which the beams of a new day should awaken him. Without this evidence, no one of the Apostles could have passed through his labors and sufferings with zeal, patience, and cheerfulness; for we have their own testimony, that if in this life only they had had hope in Christ, they would have been of all men the most miserable. Without this evidence, not only would the hopes of millions who have since lived have vacillated, the peace of millions have been at the mercy of sickness and death, and their spiritual strength in perpetual peril from temptation, but the state of morals through the whole civilized world, imperfect as it yet is, would have been far inferior to what we see it, and could never attain the purity which we confidently anticipate in some future age. Without this evidence, Christianity would be almost nothing; for the doctrine of future retribution is not only its most important revelation, but it is so intimately connected with every other, as a sanction, that the Church might as well be supposed complete without its chief corner-stone, as Christianity to be efficacious if deprived of this last grand truth. This evidence we have, however; and possessing it, it is of comparatively little importance how widely men differ in their speculations as to the time and mode in which the future life shall succeed to the present, and as to the nature of the rewards and punishments which shall follow their probation. The belief in a certain and righteous retribution is all that is enforced upon us by Christianity, all that is a necessary consequence of our faith in the resurrection of Christ. Yet, as a tendency to unauthorized speculation, and also a misapprehension of some Scriptural expressions, appear to us to have caused a very extensive forgetfulness that retribution is not only certain, but will be righteous, we must enter on some explanation of our views respecting the extent of punishment of which the life to come is to be the scene.

We say respecting the extent only, because the nature of the punishment is a subject of far inferior importance, and one on which we possess so little light that it may fairly be left to the imagination of each individual to conceive for himself. Some persons, perhaps the great majority of every denomination of Christians, believe that the pains of actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom, where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate that it will not be eternal.

Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place, utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good, and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the final restitution of sinners.

It is confirmed by revelation,—by every passage of the sacred records which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all adverse powers,—death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it is confirmed by the whole tenor of the preachings and writings of the Saviour and his followers,—by the spirit of boundless benevolence, of joyful faith, of exulting hope, which is every where blended with their emphatic warnings of the perils of sin, and their mournful regret for the infatuation of sinners. It appears to us that against all this array of evidence on the one side, little or none can be adduced on the other.

That which is brought forward most frequently and with the most show of reason is the expressions commonly translated everlasting, and which are applied both to the future happiness of the righteous and misery of the wicked. These terms (which are much less frequently applied to a future state than is commonly supposed) do not invariably signify 'everlasting' and 'eternal,' as is evident from their being applied to various institutions and states which have already come to an end and passed away: as to the covenant with Abraham, which is declared to have been long since annulled; to the priesthood of Aaron, of which no vestiges remain; and to the flames of Gehenna, which have been quenched for ages. The strictly correct rendering of the terms in these cases is permanent, continual, lasting, and not absolutely eternal.

In order to reconcile the terms as usually rendered with the attribute of Divine justice, some Christians have imagined that the limited punishment of the wicked will be followed by immediate destruction; but this supposition leaves the difficulty where it was before, and is besides destitute of all support from reason or Scripture; as it is incompatible with the character of the Divine dispensations that punishment should be appointed for any but corrective purposes, or that sin and sorrow should triumph in the annihilation of any individual of God's creatures.

If we are asked why then we firmly believe in the immortality of the righteous? we reply, that we found our faith on much better evidence than the use of the terms we have now been considering. We believe it, because the happiness of the creature is the fulfilment of the ends of creation and providence; because happiness is an eternal principle, while misery is only a temporary influence; and because it would argue imperfection in the Deity, if he were either unable or unwilling to prolong a holy and blissful existence.

This doctrine,—of the limited and corrective nature of future punishment,—is often likened by those who disbelieve and disapprove it, to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory; a likeness which Catholics and Unitarians are perhaps equally unwilling to admit, though the latter have little doubt that the belief in purgatory is a corruption of the genuine doctrine as they hold it now.

It was the opinion of many of the Fathers in very early times, that the world would be destroyed by fire; that the good would be purified by the process, and the wicked consumed. It is clear that they derived a part of this belief from some other source than the Scriptures; but it is equally clear that they had no notion of an eternity of torment. Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, his master, with Gregory Nazianzen, and others of the Fathers, held that the wicked would survive this punishment, and come out purified and fit for a blissful state. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory probably arose out of some of these opinions, though it embraces much which does not appear to have entered into the imaginations of the Fathers. Its substance, as declared in the councils of Florence and Trent, is that every man is liable both to temporal and eternal punishment for his sins; that the eternal punishment may be escaped by faith in the atonement of Christ; but that the temporal must be borne by the individual in this world or at his entrance on the next; that the sufferings of those who undergo purgation may be relieved by the prayers and suffrages of their earthly brethren, though in what manner this relief is wrought, whether by a process of satisfaction, or of intercession, or of any other method, it is not essential to true faith to be certified. Neither is it necessary to know where the place of purgation is; of what nature its pains are, and how long sufferers may be detained there. The belief in purgatory was, for some ages, held by all Christians, except the ancient Waldenses, who left the Church of Rome before the doctrine was established there, and who never admitted it. Soon after the Reformation, it was abandoned by all who left the Church of Rome; so that it has since been peculiar to that church.

Our reasons for rejecting it are, that we find no trace of it in Scripture, and that, as we declared before, we do not admit ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith. We also reject the notion that any part of the punishment of sin can be escaped through the sacrifices, or mediation, or intercession of any being whomsoever. We have been frequently accused of impairing a divinely appointed sanction by asserting the limited extent of future punishment; but we think that the sanction is, in reality, abolished by the admission that the Divine decrees may be set aside by human acts, and that the relations of good and evil, virtue and vice, which are declared to be immutable, may be changed at the pleasure of mortal agents. We believe the punishment of sin to be of limited duration; but as certain as the existence of the moral agent, and as little capable of remission through the will of any created being as the law which regulates the rise and fall of the tides, the changes of the moon, and the revolutions of the planets. We hold it to be awful, not only from its certainty, but from its concealed nature. It will doubtless transcend all that the experience of earth can suggest to the imagination. Can it be said that we impair this sanction when we hold that the suffering consequent on guilt is absolutely certain, lasting in its duration, and inconceivably dreadful in its nature? What apprehensions could be fitted to excite greater dread?

For the purpose of explaining why we believe that no part of the consequences of guilt can be evaded through the sacrifices, mediation, or intercession of any being whatsoever, it is necessary to pass on to the next division of our subject. Having stated the three leading doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of God, the unlimited scope of the plan of redemption, and a future state, we now proceed briefly to examine the principles of morals proposed by the Gospel.

The fundamental truths of Morals are eternal as He to whom they primarily relate, and immutable as the purposes which they subserve. But it is necessary that they should be communicated to men under different forms and according to various methods, as minds are prepared to receive them: and their application must also be regulated according to the circumstances in which men are placed. The same principle was proposed to Adam in Paradise, to Abraham in Beersheba, and to Paul when he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, knowing that bonds and afflictions awaited him there. Obedience to God was the motive proposed for abstaining from the forbidden fruit, for sacrificing an only son, and for facing suffering and death. But an intimation which was all powerful with Abraham was insufficient to secure a much less painful obedience from Adam; and the self-devotion of Paul was ennobled in all its manifold instances, by its springing, not from so many express directions, but from a principle, undeviating and perpetual in its operation. In the infancy of the race, it would have been utterly useless to reveal the grand principles of morals in any other way than that which was adopted, viz. by exhibiting their application in various instances. The Divine will was therefore made known in express directions, probably very few in number at first, and gradually increasing in number and importance, so as to enable observers, from remarking the similar tendency of several, to infer a general principle from them. All the records which we possess of the history of the race to the calling of the Israelites out of Egypt, prove this to have been the method adopted. The commands of God, and the promises and threats by which they were sanctioned, bore an analogy, in their gradual elevation, to those by which we influence an opening mind in its progress from the first manifestation of intelligence to the age when the power of conscience is recognizable. In the Mosaic system, a considerable advance was made, a direct appeal to conscience being instituted, and the gradual revelation of a moral government being provided for. Men were then taught, not what we now know, that the relation between virtue and happiness, vice and misery, is immutable (which they could not have understood,) but that in their particular case, obedience to certain laws would secure prosperity, and disobedience adversity. Such obedience, the most virtuous were incited to render, from a fear and love of God; but they could not have rendered it in any but specified cases, because, not yet being made acquainted with the principle as a principle, they could not direct its application for themselves. The case was the same with the other great principle, Benevolence, as with Piety; and, accordingly, the body of laws which was prepared for the Israelites was voluminous, and their sanctions were expressed in a copious variety of promises and threatenings, and embodied in a burthensome ritual, consisting chiefly of penal acts. When the nation had thus been exercised long enough to prepare it for entering on a new course of moral agency (as we prepare a child for the spontaneous exercise of filial duty and fraternal love by a discipline of express commands and particular acts,) Christianity was dispensed, and men were at length furnished with the principles themselves, with whose application they were henceforth to be entrusted.

Christianity was designed to be permanent and universal; and, therefore, though it was first communicated in the form best adapted to those who were first to receive it, it contains within itself that which shall fit it to be a revelation to the mind of man in every stage.

It contains eternal principles of doctrine and morals, embodied in facts, which are the only immutable and universal language. The character of Christ affords a never-failing suggestion, and a perfect illustration of the principles of morals; a suggestion which only the most careless minds can fail to receive, and an illustration by which only the most hardened can fail to be impressed. From him it was learned what part of the moral law of Moses was to be retained and what forgone; how much was vital and permanent and how much external and temporary. From him it was learned, and shall be learned to the end of time, how the sympathy which caused tears at the grave of Lazarus, the compassion which relieved the widowed mother of Nain, the tenderness which yearned towards the repentant Apostle, the diffusive love which embraced in its prayer all of every age and nation who needed the gospel of grace, combined to enforce and adorn the principle of Benevolence. His parables are eloquent in their praise of benevolence; his entreaties to mutual love are urgent, and his commands decisive; but the eloquence of his example is by far more urgent and irresistible. From him it was, and ever shall be, learned that the rule of life is to be found in the will of God. From his devotion to the work which God had given him to do, from his perpetual reference of all things to the Divine will, from his unhesitating submission to suffering and death, from his supreme delight in devotional communion, we learn how Piety is the pre-eminent principle of feeling and action which men are required to adopt. The parables which inculcate ready filial obedience and sorrow for disobedience, the declarations that it was his meat and drink to do the will of God, and that he was not alone because the Father was with him, are powerful enforcements of the principle; but not so powerful as the acts of obedience and resignation in which its power shone forth. The whole scheme of morals is comprehended in the precepts, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself;' but the concentration of truth and beauty is less resplendant, less engaging, less universally clear and interesting, than in the character of him who deduced these two principles from all the law and the prophets.

With these two principles, and all the subordinate ones which are derived from them, are connected sanctions from above, which attest their origin and secure their adoption. By an irreversible decree of Him who founded nature and vouchsafed a revelation, certain states of enjoyment and suffering are connected with the practical adoption or rejection of the principles of duty, not by way of arbitrary appointment, but of natural consequence. The relations of holiness and happiness, of guilt and misery, are unalterable; shown to be so by the teachings of nature and experience, by the explicit declarations of Scripture, and by every species of evidence which the mind of man is capable of receiving.

Though the chief object of the Christian revelation was to make this relation more evident than it had ever been before, many who received the Gospel imagine that it discovers to them a means by which the relation may be suspended or destroyed. This misapprehension we hold to be more fatal in its moral consequences than any other which human prejudice has originated. By what appears to us a strange perversion of Scripture language, and by the gradual increase of some subordinate errors, it began to be imagined, some centuries ago, that, though misery is necessarily connected with guilt, yet that the guilt may be perpetrated by one person, and the consequent misery endured by another; and this belief has subsisted in almost every Christian church till this day. It is well that it has been confined to the churches, and that its application has been limited, by all but Catholics, to one very peculiar case; for if it had become the common doctrine of our schools, and colleges, and homes, if it had been enforced by parents and moral philosophers and professors as a general truth, as it is by divines with reference to a particular case, the very foundations of virtue would have been overthrown, and the force of its sanctions not only wasted but fatally perverted.

Happily the accents of reason and religion have been too distinct and harmonious to be overpowered by the dictates of error, or very extensively neglected. Notwithstanding all that religious teachers have erroneously inculcated of the possible and actual separation of guilt and its punishment on the principle of vicarious suffering, education has still proceeded, and moral discipline been enforced as if no such false principle had ever been advocated. Children are swayed by hope and fear of the consequences of their actions to themselves; and self-government is enforced at a riper age by the same motives, though enlarged and elevated. In religion alone has an error, as absurd in its nature as injurious in its tendencies, been retained thus long by the force of prejudice; and that it has not spread further we hold to be owing to its manifest folly and to its evidently noxious influence when applied to any case but that to which it is appropriated. There can be no surer proof that the principle itself is false.

It is difficult to know where to begin in disproving a doctrine which is repugnant to every other doctrine, inconsistent with every received truth, and incompatible with every admitted divine and human relation, with every known attribute of mind, divine or human. It will be sufficient to state one reason for utterly rejecting as we do the doctrine of vicarious suffering; that reason being suggested and confirmed both by our own understandings and by Scripture.

It is clear that no man can sin for another. He may sin at the instigation of another, or for the supposed benefit of another; but in the first case, the sin remains with both, and in the last, with the perpetrator only. Moral disease thus bears an exact analogy to natural disease. Natural disease may be communicated, or even incurred for the benefit of another, but it cannot be so transferred as to be annihilated with respect to the person who was first subject to it. The case is precisely the same with the pain which is the inseparable consequence of sin. If endured by any but the sinner, it is actually and completely disconnected with the sin. It is no longer a punishment, but a gratuitous infliction. This is so evident that, if proposed in any court of justice but that from which our purest conceptions of justice are derived, the reason and conscience of every man would exclaim against the monstrous notion of a substitution of punishment. If a man had transgressed the laws of his country by theft, would he not be the most unjust judge upon earth who would sentence his elder brother, known to be innocent and virtuous, to imprisonment or death for the offence?

Would the case be altered, except in the way of aggravation, if the sentence were inflicted at the desire of the innocent man? Would any purpose of justice be answered by such a process? Would not every principle of equity—to say nothing of benevolence—be violated? Would not the sufferer be as foolish and blind in his submission as the judge arbitrary in the infliction? Is it not utterly impossible that a transaction, perfectly analogous in principle, though infinitely more momentous in its influences, should take place between the just Judge, the tender Father of men, a creature made fallible by Him, and His holy and beloved Son?

But we are told it is not for us to argue thus on the right and wrong of a transaction which has taken place, and is continually taking place, by Divine appointment. It is enough that God has appointed this method of salvation.

The lawfulness of examining the Divine decrees with intent to understand them, will be discussed hereafter. Our business now is to declare why we do not believe this to be the appointed method of salvation, set forth in the sacred records. Repentance (including not merely shame and sorrow for sin, but newness of life) appears to us to stand forth on the face of the sacred records as the grand, the sole, condition of forgiveness of sins. The faith in Christ, which is so strenuously insisted on as a requisite, is valuable as inducing sorrow for sin and purity of life. Our obligations to Christ, which are so vividly described, are due to him for the benefits he has bestowed on us through his Gospel, and not for any subsequent arbitrary gift, which we feel it impossible for him to have offered, for us to avail ourselves of, and for God to accept. Our obligations to him are boundless and eternal;—for having devoted and sacrificed his life to furnish us with the conditions of salvation,—to teach us repentance, and incite us to holiness. He was truly a sacrifice for men; he suffered and died because they were sinners, and in order to bring them salvation. This the Scripture teaches, and this we readily admit; finding, however, no intimation that any sin has ever been forgiven on any other condition than that of repentance; that repentance has ever failed to procure forgiveness; that any being whatever has at any time exercised or possessed the power of separating sin and suffering by taking either upon himself, or of transferring both from the consciousness of another to his own; that if the endurance of suffering by substitution were possible, it could not be righteous; or that if it were not unrighteous, it could be available to any beneficent purpose. Finding none of these suppositions, but all their opposites in the spirit and detail of the sacred records, we absolutely reject the popular doctrine of the atonement by Christ, while we regard his sacrifices for us with reverential gratitude, and our obligations to him with awe and rejoicing.

The more attentively we ponder his instructions and the more amply we estimate the benefits he brought us, the more conscious do we become of the impiety of withholding from the Supreme Author of our salvation the gratitude and praise which are due to his free, unpurchased grace. It is given through Christ, but it originates in God. It comes through a mediator; but that mediator was appointed, informed, guided by God. To him Christ ascribed, not only the acceptance of his sacrifice and mediation; but the design in which it originated, the means by which it was wrought, and the end which it should ultimately accomplish; and the more we contemplate the design, become acquainted with the means, and joyfully anticipate the end, the more eagerly do we join with Christ in ascribing to Jehovah the glory and the praise.

We will now explain our meaning in saying that the Catholics alone, of all Christians who have admitted the doctrine of satisfaction for sin, have not restricted its application to one very peculiar case. They have been perfectly consistent in not so restricting it; and they would have been more extensively consistent if they had gone as much beyond the point they have reached, as they have beyond the Church of England and the disciples of Calvin. If the principle be sound, it will bear a boundless application; if it be unsound, it can be no part of revelation, and should be instantly relinquished. If atonement for sin by a transferrence of punishment be possible in any case, it cannot be pronounced impossible in any similar case. If spiritual guilt can be atoned for by ritual sacrifices, in any instance, no one knows that it may not in any other instance. Therefore if the Church of England holds that the Jewish sacrifices were in strict analogy with that of Christ, they cannot reasonably condemn the offering of the mass, and pious gifts offered by the innocent on behalf of the sinner. Neither can the Calvinists, who regard the Mosaic offerings as atonements for spiritual sin, consistently object to the practice of penance, or the principle of granting indulgences. It appears to us that there is no tenable ground between the ultimate extension of the principle and its absolute rejection,—between dissolving to each individual the connection between guilt and punishment, and asserting that connection to be absolutely indissoluble: thereby maintaining the genuine Scripture doctrine that repentance alone can obtain remission of sins.

The lawfulness of the practice of penance and the enjoyment of indulgences is, we perceive, defended by Catholics as being established on the same ground as the Jewish sacrifices. They expressly state that the eternal pain due to guilt cannot be removed by indulgences, or averted by penance, but only the temporal pain over which the death of Christ has no power of remission. This bears a strong analogy to the case of the Mosaic sacrifices, which were ceremonial atonements for breaches of the ceremonial law, and were not of themselves, as is universally allowed, intended to avert the penalties of spiritual guilt. But this analogy yields no countenance to the Catholic practices we are considering, unless it can be proved that two distinct species of punishment were divinely ordained, and two distinct methods of atonement prescribed. And even if this were proved, the case would not be complete: for though we should suppose two kinds of punishment, and two methods of reconciliation appointed, it is further necessary that the offender should be liable to two distinct species of offence; a position in which none but an ancient Jew was ever placed.

The Divine sanctions were altogether so different under the Jewish from what they are declared to be under the Christian dispensation, that no analogy which can be instituted between them will hold with any completeness. A future state of retribution formed no part of the revelation made to the Jews. To them, the ultimate punishment which they could anticipate was national adversity, which was the infallible consequence of moral guilt (unless averted by repentance), as ritual penalties were the necessary atonement for breaches of the external law. Of Christians, a higher obedience is required,—a more spiritual devotion to the will of God; and this higher obedience is enforced by more elevated sanctions. Christians are free from the Divine imposition of external observances, and therefore from all divinely appointed external penalties. They are to worship in spirit and in truth; to yield the obedience of the heart; and all their outward manifestations of devotion are of human appointment;—salutary, no doubt, and even necessary to the maintenance of piety, but still optional, possessing only a derived value, and in their very nature incapable of being made atonement for sin. Spiritual atonement, i. e. repentance, is the only atonement which the Gospel prescribes or supposes possible for spiritual guilt. Reparation indeed is to be made by the guilty to the injured person, when the case admits of it; but this reparation does not constitute the atonement, nor does it partake of the nature of penance. It is only an external atonement for an external injury, and is an evidence that the spiritual atonement,—repentance, has been already made. It bears a relation to that class of offences only which immediately respects our fellow-men, and is impracticable in cases where the offence is against God and ourselves. In such cases, external penance bears no other relation to the offence than such as the weak will of man has originated;—a relation arbitrary, unsanctioned by God, and therefore perilous to man.