though it may have remained as a system of truth, yet as a system of religion it would have been annihilated.

But while we fully admit that the great business of religion is to prepare for immortality, he, I greatly fear, wholly misrepresents the practical influences under which it is that this preparation is carried forward. According to his representation, it might appear that nothing more was wanted to put us in a right state of preparation than just a reward great enough to lure us into virtue, and a punishment great enough to deter us from vice. I can conceive no other impression to be taken from his account of the matter than this, that all which was needed for giving a right impulse to humanity was to furnish it with an adequate motive, and that motive was made adequate simply by sufficiently enhancing the remuneration for obe dience, and sufficiently aggravating the penalty for transgression. It appears to me as if in the mind both of Butler and Paley upon this subject, the great charm and efficacy of the doctrine of immortality lay in the multiple power which eternal had over temporal sanctions, and in that it proposed to man a better bargain for his services, a higher wage for the work which God put him to, a severer and more appalling chastisement, should he prove a remiss or an unfaithful laborer. At this rate, you will observe, the whole spirit of the legal economy is kept entire. There is no account taken of Christianity as a restorative system, or of that mediatorial economy under which the guilt of sin is expiated, and the power of sin is done away. All the anxieties and fears which attach to the condition of "Do this and live," abide in full force after such a statement; and I do think that with no other guidance to the scope of the gospel than what is furnished in this passage by our author, we should miss altogether the great characteristic and leading peculiarity of the gospel.

What I should call the essence of the gospel is the revelation of that great event by which, after man had forfeited all his rights and incurred the penalties of a broken law, these penalties were borne for him, and those rights again earned for him, by Him on whom the chastisement of his peace was laid, and who brought in an everlasting righteousness. He does not now work to make out his claim to heaven, but heaven, already his by gift, offers the powerfulest incitements to work and to watch with all perseverance. He is distinctly informed that it is a place of holiness, and that none but those of congenial character and feelings can be happy there. His business is not to make out his title-deed by his virtues, but by his virtues to make out his meetness for that inheritance of glory. You will find a difference, as wide as the east from the west, between the condi

tion of him who toils for heaven as a recompense, and of him who, already regarding heaven as his own, prepares himself, with all the alacrity which faith and hope can inspire, for its pure delights, for its holy services.

In the note at the beginning of the chapter on the subject of the extent of those benefits which have been achieved by the death of Christ, if Paley does not enter into the region of conjecture, he at least plants a footstep on the very margin of it. I can scarcely say he goes too far, though he certainly could not with safety or prudence have gone further. There is one passage, and but one which I at present recollect, in Scripture, which seems however to warrant the length to which he has actually proceeded-I mean that where it is said that Christ reconciled all things to God, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven,* intimating that there is a some thing, we know not what, connected with the enterprise of redemp tion which has a bearing on other orders of being, and a relation with distant parts of the universe-a grandeur in it commensurate with the greatness of Him by whom it was accomplished, and in vir tue of which, instead of being limited in its effects to the destiny of but one planet and one species, it seems as if involved with larger and higher interests, thus having a scope wide as infinity, even as it has a consequence that will last forever.

But the most practically interesting part of this rather adventurous speculation, is that which relates to the people of our own world, in regard to whom Dr. Paley seems to intimate that the benefit of Christ's death may extend to those who never heard of it. And so it may, for aught we know. With this qualification I would not quarrel with the conjecture, and would only interpose a caution, lest we should regard the people who lie without the limits of Christendom to be so benefited already by the mysterious and untold infuence which the redemption by Christ has had upon them, as at all to slacken or supersede the ardor of missionary benevolence. Certain it is, that whatever unknown advantage the death of the Saviour may have obtained for those to whom the tidings of it never have been borne, there is unspeakable enlargement-there is all the magnitude of a greatly overpassing good represented in Scripture as resulting from the knowledge of the Saviour. We lie, indeed, under an express and imperative obligation to spread these tidings all over the world, "Go and preach the gospel to every creature;" and let us not, therefore, find any apology for that inertness which is so prevalent among Christians in regard to missionary exertion, in any

*Coloss. i. 20.

imagined good which we may conceive is already wrought for them by some unrevealed channel of conveyance. Throughout the whole of the New Testament the main benefit of Christ's death is represented to descend upon men through the intermedium of faith and "how can they believe except they hear? how can they hear without a preacher?"

As to the text which Dr. Paley quotes, that Christ died for the whole world, let it well be understood that his death is not represented as having achieved an actual pardon for the whole world, but as having achieved an amnesty which might be proposed to the whole world. But to receive the benefit of the amnesty, we must hear of it; we must understand the footing on which it is held out, and comply with the terms of it. I for one do not object to the expression of eternal life being yours in offer, but in order that it may be yours in possession, there must be an acceptance on your part, and that it is your faith in the reality of the offer which constitutes this acceptance. Christ died for the whole world, because now and in consequence of his death the offer of the remission of sins may be made to the whole world; and when the expression is thus understood, so far from superseding, it enhances to the utmost the obligation which lies upon us to bear this precious overture of reconciliation among all the families of earth. They whom that overture never reached lie, in consequence, we have every reason to believe, under a heavy destitution, which tells on their state through eternity; and they, again, whom it has reached, and who have nevertheless rejected it; so far from experiencing the benefit and virtue of the atonement by the Saviour, will entail upon themselves the burden of a sorer condemnation. That atoning death is the savor of life unto life to those only who accept of its offered benefits; to those who refuse, it will be the savor of death unto death.-Chalmera

CHAPTER III.

THE CANDOR OF THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I MAKE this candor to consist, in their putting down many passages, and noticing many circumstances, which no writer whatever was likely to have forged; and which no writer would have chosen to appear in his book, who had been careful to present the story in the most unexceptionable form, or who had thought himself at liberty to carve and mould the particulars of that story, according to his choice, or according to his judgment of the effect.

A strong and well-known example of the fairness of the evangelists, offers itself in their account of Christ's resurrec tion, namely, in their unanimously stating, that, after he was risen, he appeared to his disciples alone. I do not mean that they have used the exclusive word alone; but that all the instances which they have recorded of his appearance, are instances of appearance to his disciples; that their reasonings upon it, and allusions to it, are confined to this supposition; and that, by one of them, Peter is made to say, “Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." The most common understanding must have perceived, that the history of the resurrection would have come with more

* See note A, at the end of this Chapter.
Acts, x. 40, 41.

advantage, if they had related that Jesus appeared, after he was risen, to his foes as well as his friends, to the scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish council, and the Roman governor: of even if they had asserted the public appearance of Christ in general unqualified terms, without noticing, as they have done, the presence of his disciples on each occasion, and noticing it in such a manner as to lead their readers to suppose that none but disciples were present. They could have represented in one way as well as the other. And if their point had been to have the religion believed, whether true or false; if they had fabricated the story ab initio; or if they had been dispos ed either to have delivered their testimony as witnesses, or to have worked up their materials and information as historians, in such a manner as to render their narrative as specious and unobjectionable as they could; in a word, if they thought of anything but of the truth of the case, as they understood and believed it; they would, in their account of Christ's several appearances after his resurrection, at least have omitted this restriction. At this distance of time, the account as we have it, is perhaps more credible than it would have been the other way; because this manifestation of the historians' can dor, is of more advantage to their testimony, than the difference in the circumstances of the account would have been to the nature of the evidence. But this is an effect which the evangelists would not foresee; and I think that it was by no means the case at the time when the books were composed.

Mr. Gibbon has argued for the genuineness of the Koran from the confessions which it contains, to the apparent disad vantage of the Mahometan cause.* The same defence vindicates the genuineness of our Gospels, and without prejudice to the cause at all.

There are some other instances in which the evangelists honestly relate what, they must have perceived, would make against them.

Of this kind is John the Baptist's message, preserved by * Vol. ix., c. 50, note 96.