LETTER IV.

DEAR FRIENDS;

FIRMLY as the doctrine of a trinity of persons in the Godhead may appear to be established in these days, and by it's antiquity entitled to the praise of indisputable truth, it was by no means so in the first ages of Christianity. For several centuries the church was divided, not only upon the doctrine of the Trinity, as established for the first time by the council of Nice, but the supporters of the Deity of Jesus were of themselves split into many parties, and the most eminent theologians traced for themselves and their respective followers, the influence which such a doctrine appeared to have upon the scheme of salvation. In this unsettled state the chief articles of the orthodox faith continued until the Reformation, when the promoters of that measure, finding it necessary to come to some agreement of opinion upon points of so much intricacy, revised the scheme, and grounded upon the basis of the old corruption, what, for distinction's sake at least, I will venture to call the Trinitarian scheme of salvation.

The Deity of Jesus being assumed as an indisputable truth, and as the groundwork of the new church that was to be erected on the scite of the old and tottering fabric of popery, it remained to trace out for the great mass of mankind, who have little leisure or ability for such inquiries, what were the designs of the Almighty in the Christian dispensation, and what the expectations and hopes annexed to, or deducible from the particular manner of it. For what purpose, it would be asked, did the great Jehovah, the Lord of Heaven and Earth (if such the Messiah really was) descend from his exalted station, and, till the preaching of Jesus essentially and perfectly happy, consent to embroil himself in the troubles of this lower world, to submit to hunger, pain, and insult, to expire on the cross, and finally to undergo for a season (as some have believed) the torments of the invisible world? What was there accomplished by Jesus, that could not have been as well effected by a prophet like unto Moses, furnished with powers, and endued with knowledge sufficient for the establishment of the new religion?

An answer to these questions was found in the doctrine of the atonement, which represents the Divine Being as withholding, or unable consistently with the equity of his government to extend, his forgiveness to the truly penitent, until full satisfaction be made for their sins to his offended justice; and as substituting, for that purpose, his own innocent Son, in the place of guilty men. Sin, it is urged, being an offence against an infinite being, requires infinite

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satisfaction, which can only be afforded by one, who is also infinite. It is therefore argued on the one hand, that the great Jehovah cannot have taken upon himself the pains and evils incident to mortality but for some work of infinite magnitude and importance; and on the other, that infinite satisfaction being required, it can only have been offered by one whose nature is infinite, and therefore God. The atonement is thus held to prove the Godhead of our Lord, and his Godhead to prove his atonement. The atonement, therefore, grows out of the doctrine of the Deity of Jesus, and must stand or fall with it. Without stopping at present to consider minutely the peculiar proofs on which this doctrine rests, there are on the face of it objections, which must immediately present themselves to every person moderately read in the Scriptures. A free and voluntary forgiveness of sin is undoubtedly represented to have been from the beginning of the world an essential part of the moral government of the Deity. Innumerable are the passages of Scripture in which a restoration to favour, with all it's attendant advantages, is held out to the vicious as an inducement for them to repent and amend their ways. The patience and longsuffering of God towards the worst of sinners, the ardour with which he is represented as meeting and seconding the first impulse or effort towards a return to the path of duty, with the threatenings of a just retribution upon those who continue obdurate, are so many irrefragable proofs, that the true atonement for sin is not the act of any one being, performed at any

every

individual

given point of time, but is the act of for himself, and that the efficacy of it depends solely upon the disposition and power of the Deity to accept it as soon as offered. Our Lord himself forgave the sins of numbers, in virtue of his high commission, long before he submitted to that death, which is reputed to be the atoning chastisement for all transgressions; and does any Christian doubt such persons having been really forgiven?

Sin, it is said, is an infinite offence, and on this account infinite satisfaction is required by the punishment of a person to whom infinity belongs. But can a finite being be guilty of infinite sin, any more than he can of infinite virtue? Or, are there not evidently as great differences in sins as there are in good and moral actions or qualities? So that the sinfulness of any human being (and by a parity of reasoning of all men) must depend, first, upon his capacity to do evil; and, secondly, upon the evil actually done, and an atonement more or less extensive be accordingly required.

But history shows, that this doctrine, so far from being held from the first ages of the church as a necessary article of Christian belief, was, like all other corruptions, of gradual growth, and was not reduced to a system, or grounded on any fixed principles, until the period of the Reformation. Two reasons are assigned why the reformers laid great stress upon this doctrine: the one, because the controversy with the church of Rome began on the subject of indulgences, which the papists publicly sold

for money, and by which they pretended to authorise even the commission of sin, on the plea, that the merits of Christ and all the saints were a fund at the disposal of the pope, applicable at his pleasure to such purposes; and the other, because to disclaim merit altogether, to undervalue all good works, and to build all hopes of future happiness on the perfect satisfaction of Christ for sin, and his righteousness imputed to us, was a likely means of extirpating the dishonest and scandalous practices which the doctrine of merit had been made to sanction.

The satisfaction made by the death of Christ admitted, it was yet necessary to reconcile the contradiction it seemed to involve, of God forgiving the repentant sinner (which could never be doubted), and yet insisting upon the full measure of punishment as a debt due to his offended justice. If sin be freely forgiven, no satisfaction is necessary; the penalty of the law is remitted, and no one suffers. But if atonement be made, or if, in other words, the full measure of punishment be exacted, no matter upon whom, there can be no forgiveness. But repentance being adverse to the notion of satisfaction, it became necessary to go a step farther, and for fear a doubt should be entertained respecting the necessity of such an atonement, and lest it's importance should be underrated by it's being thought to be an equivalent for no more than the fluctuating and uncertain quantity of moral evil in the world, the doctrine of original sin was retained and grafted upon it. According to this doctrine, all mankind are involved in