"stone the prophets and kill those who were sent to her"? The Editor will not admit that it was; yet the proposed inference from the bare fact would be as legitimate in these cases as that of Jesus. The plain and obvious conclusion to be drawn from the text is, that God prepared for Christ a body, that he might communicate a perfect code of divine law to mankind, and that he loved him for the devotion with which he fulfilled his divine commission, regardless of the comfort or safety of that body, and his readiness to lay it down when it suited the purpose of the Maker.

The Reverend Editor expresses his indignation at the mode of reasoning adopted by me, in the passages above quoted; saying, "Should not a creature, a worm of the dust, who cannot fully comprehend the mysteries of his own being, pause before he arraign his Maker of gross injustice, and charge him with having founded all religion on an act of palpable iniquity?" (Page 529.)

There appears here a most strange mistake on the part of the Editor. It is he who seems to me to be labouring to prove the absurdity that God, the almighty and all-merciful, is capable of a palpable iniquity-determined to have punishment, though he leave quite unpunished; inflicting the marks of his wrath on the innocent for the purpose of sparing those who justly deserve the weight of its terrors. If he mean to object to the rashness of applying the limited capacity of the human understanding to

judge the unsearchable things of the wisdom of God, and therefore denies my right, as a worm of the dust, to deduce any thing from human ideas inimical to his view of the divine will, I can only say, that I have for my example that of a fellowworm in his own argument, to shew the necessity that the Almighty laboured under to have his justice satisfied. For I find this very Editor, in his endeavour to prove the doctrine of the atonement, arguing (p. 506) thus: "He who has kept the law has not broken it, and he who has broken it cannot have kept it: that the same man, therefore, should incur its penalty for violating it, and also deserve its reward for keeping it, is an outrage on common sense." "This will clearly appear, if we refer to human laws, imperfect as they are." Apply this to the divine law." "For him, therefore, to be rewarded as one who had kept the divine law, would be directly contrary to righteousness." "Human judges inquire not [about the] repentance of the robber or murderer, but respecting his guilt."

From these passages does it not appear as if the Editor were of opinion that it is quite right and proper to apply human reason as a standard, by which to judge what must be the will of God, when he thinks it supports his views of the ways of Providence; but that, on the contrary, it is blasphemous and rebellious against the Divine Majesty, to deduce from human reason conclusions from the Scriptures contrary to his interpretations of them? The Editor

has not attempted to dispute that, applied to human affairs, the motive to which he assigns the will of God, in ordaining the death of Jesus on the cross, would be palpably iniquitous. Should not this induce him to pause, and permit nothing but the most express and positive declaration, couched in language not capable of being explained in a metaphorical sense, to sway him to a belief so irreconcilable to common sense? Yet he is willing to assume, at once, this conclusion, on the bare fact that Jesus was provided with a body.

Do not orthodox divines often offer it as a reason for the necessity of an atonement being made for the crimes of men, that it would be inequitable, in the perfect nature of the just God, to remit sin without some sort of punishment being inflicted for it as a satisfaction to his justice? Do they not, in consequence, represent the death of Jesus as an atonement for the sins of mankind? If they do, and are allowed to do so, I think myself also authorized to urge, in reference to human notions of justice, that "it would be a piece of gross iniquity to afflict one innocent being, who had all the human feelings, and who had never transgressed the will of God, with the death of the cross, for crimes committed by others, especially when he declares such great aversion to it." But if the Editor abandon this mode of reasoning, and confess the unsearchable, inscrutable nature both of divine justice and of divine mercy, am perfectly ready and willing to do the same.

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The Editor now refers to the prophets, (page 533,) saying, that Isaiah, in ch. vii., " predicting the birth of Christ, identifies his divine and his human nature." As Isaiah vii. 14, and ix. 6, have no relation whatever to the doctrine of atonement, I deem it proper to defer the notice of them to the subsequent chapter on the Trinity.

The Editor, in his next quotation from Isaiah, first introduces ch. xi. [3], "And he shall make him (Jesus) of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord;" but my limited capacity has failed to enable me to ascertain what he really means to establish by the quotation of this passage (page 536). The Editor was in the course of an attempt to prove the deity and the atonement of Jesus Christ, but the force of truth would appear to have induced him here to cite a verse which, containing such phrases as-" make him of quick understanding," and "in the fear of the Lord," go to prove his created nature. In like manner I must confess my inability to discover any allusion whatever to the atonement, in his next quotation from Isaiah xix. 19, 20.

The Editor having endeavoured, in his former review, to prove the doctrine of the atonement from the application of the term "Saviour" to Jesus, I noticed, in my Second Appeal, that "we find the title Saviour applied frequently in the divine writings to those who have been endued with the power of saving nations, whether in a spiritual sense, by the imparting of the Divine will, or by affording tempo

rary protection to them; although none of those saving prophets or princes atoned for the sins of their fellow-creatures by their death;" (page 208 ;) and, that "all those who have been instrumental in effecting the deliverance of their fellow-creatures, from evils of whatever nature, were dependent themselves upon God, and only instruments in his hand.” The Editor, though unable to deny this fact, thus turns away the subject; saying, "It surely required but little knowledge to discern, that a man's delivering his country does not elevate him to an equality with God, or, that to overcome an invading enemy is an act totally different from saying sinners from their sins." But the force of truth again makes the Reverend Editor quote here the following passage, ("and he shall send them a Saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them,") which does not only refute his own position, but proves what I advanced in my Second Appeal; that is, as Christ and others, who saved people at different times in their capacities, were dependent themselves upon God, and only instruments in his hands; is it not possible for God, who could raise, as the Editor confesses, personages to save men, by their miraculous strength, from the grasp of their enemies, to raise one to save mankind from sin through his divine instructions? If not, how should we reconcile such disavowal of the power of God to the following assertion of the Evangelist Matthew, that the people glorified God, who had given such power to men"?

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