himself, should have kept concealed the doctrine of the atonement, if such were the main source of salvation, from his own apostles, even after his resurrection; and have left them to deduce so material a point from the obscure predictions of the prophets which are susceptible of so many different interpretations.

The Editor then affirms that "it is evident that direct intimations of his nature were not withheld such were, his declaring to them (his apostles) that he came to give his life a ransom for many, his conversing with Moses and Elias-Luke IX. 31. his declaring that the son of man should be betrayed into the hands of men and be killed and rise again the third day that he was about to give his flesh for the life of the world and to lay down his life for his sheep and his discourse with them "This is my body which is broken for you." "This is my blood of the new Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins." "Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." As the Revd. Editor quoted some of these verses in his former review, I noticed them in the Second Appeal (page 57). Entirely overlooking my observations, however, he has thought proper to repeat them here with some

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additions. This is indeed a strange mode of conducting a controversy, but it lays me under the necessity of again adducing my remarks in the Second Appeal on those passages. They are as follow. "Do these passages reasonably convey any thing more than the idea that Jesus Was invested with a divine commission to deliver instructions leading to eternal beatitude, which whosoever should receive should live for ever? and that the saviour, foreseeing that the imparting of those instructions would, by exciting the anger and enemity of the superstitious Jews, cause his life to be destroyed, yet hesitated not to persevere in their promulgation-as if a king, who hazards his life to procure freedom and peace for his subjects, were to address himself to them saying, "I lay down my life for you." This interpretation is fully confirmed by the following, Luke IV. 43. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore I am sent." II. 47 48 49." And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they (his parents) saw him, they were amazed and his mother said unto him, son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it

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that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" Wherein Jesus declares, that the sole object of his commission was to preach and impart divine instructions. disciples in the divine law and will, as appears from the following text, "For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me." (John XVII 8.) Jesus in communing with God manifests that he had completed the object of his commission by imparting divine commandments to mankind. "I have glorified thee in the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Had his death on the cross been the work or part of the work, for the performance of which Jesus came into this world, he as the founder of truth would not have declared himself to have finished the work prior to his death. I now beg that the Editor will be pleased to reconcile all the above passages to his position that the death of Jesus on the cross was the sole object of his appearnce in this world: and that his precepts was a mere code of morality inadequate to procure salvation. Had not Jesus disregarded his life, and suffered his blood to be shed as predicted in the

Again, he instructed his

delivery of the will of the Father, the whole of the Jews would have still remained sunk in superstition and the Gentiles in idolatry, and there would have been no perfect security for the remission of sins and the attainment of eternal comfort in those sayings. Hence the gracious benefactor alludes to this act of delivery from sins through divine instructions even at the expence of his own life, and not to an actual sacrificial death as an equal value or compensation for the sin pardoned; since the new Testament declares that God forgives mankind freely without any equivalent. Romans III. 24. "Being justified freely, (Swgav gratis) by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." So Romans VIII. 32. 15 16 and 18. confirms the idea of justification by the free grace of God. For the further illustration of this subject I quote the paraphrase on the above cited verse (Rom. III. 24)by Locke, one of the greatest men that ever lived, and his notes on its different expressions. Locke's Works Vol. 8th page 304 Paraphrase on verses 24 and 25. "Being made righteous gratis, by the favor of God, through the redemption which is by Jesus Christ: whom God hath set forth to be the propitiatory, or mercy seat in his own blood, for the manifestation of his (God's) righteousness, by passing over their transgressions, formerly

committed, which he hath bore with hitherto, so as to withhold his hand from casting off the nation of the Jews, as their past sius deserv ed."

Note on the word Redemption verse 24. "Redemption signifies deliverance, but not deliverance from every thing but deliverance from that, to which a man is in subjection or bondage. Nor does redemption by Jesus Christ import, there was any compensation made to God, by paying what was of equal value, in consideration whereof they were delivered; for that is inconsistent with what St. Paul expressly says here, viz. that sinners are justified by God gratis, and of his free bounty. What this redemption is, St. Paul tells us, Eph. I. 7. Col. I. 4. even the forgiveness of sins. But if St. Paul had not been so express in defining what he means by redemption, they yet would be thought to lay too much stress upon the criticism of a word, in the translation, who would thereby force from the word, in the original, a necessary sense, which it is plain it hath not. That redeeming in the sacred scripture language, signifies not precisely paying an equivalent, is so clear, that nothing can be more. I shall refer

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