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Gospel Redemption. Yet, if we may judge both from its earlier part and from its concluding part, he would confine the import of the word Mystery to The special doctrine of the Atonement.

Now, so far as I can judge, Mr. Davison has no more right to confine the word Mystery to The special doctrine of the atonement, than Bishop Warburton had to confine it to The special doctrine of a future retributory state. Each limitation is alike arbitrary and erroneous.

The

Mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid with God, was not either this or that particular doctrine of Christianity: but, as Mr. Davison in the middle part of his statement well expresses its import, it was The whole system of the Gospel or The entire plan of the Gospel Redemption.

We may perhaps wonder, why so acute a man as Mr. Davison should gratuitously introduce such a measure of indistinctness into his present objection. The enigma is solved in the concluding part of his statement.

St. Paul had described the great Mystery, as having been promised by God's prophets in the Holy Scripture, and as having been gradually opened by the scriptures of the prophets before its final complete manifestation.

On such descriptions Mr. Davison remarks: "These are passages, which refer us to no "unwritten communications, explanatory of this

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secret of God; but to the authentic evidence "of the Law and the prophets, contained in "the scripture."

He had contended, that we have no revelation of the doctrine of an atonement, until it was communicated through the medium of the written Law. Here, then, he is willing to exhibit St. Paul, as speaking the same language with himself. For, in regard to the doctrine of an atonement, that great secret of God which is characterised by the alleged lateness of its appearance, the Apostle, according to Mr. Davison, refers us to no unwritten communications, but to the authentic written evidence of the Law and the prophets.

With respect to the objection as thus exhibited, I should say, in the first place, that we have no right to confine the word Mystery to The special doctrine of the atonement; and, in the second place, I should say, that the very necessity of the case demonstrates St. Paul to have been setting up no such opposition of written to unwritten communication, as is plainly ne

cessary to the effectiveness of Mr. Davison's objection.

The Mystery, as I have already observed, is not The special doctrine of an Atonement in particular, but The whole system of the Gospel or The entire plan of Gospel Redemption: and, although this Mystery was doubtless in a state of gradual revelation by the scriptures of the prophets, we are surely not to conclude from the language of St. Paul, that therefore there was No revelation of it before the existence of the written word. If we adopt such a conclusion, we shall indeed make short work with the Patriarchal Dispensation: for, in that case, it would follow, that, since there was no written word under the Patriarchal Dispensation, there could have been No disclosure of The system of the Gospel or of The plan of Gospel Redemption; notwithstanding that the promise of the woman's seed, and the enunciation of a blessing upon all nations from a descendant of Abraham, and the express prediction of a Saviour to be born from the house of Judah, had all been delivered anterior to the existence, so far at least as we know, of any divinely-accredited writings.

The truth is, while for the gradual develope

ment of the Mystery St. Paul most accurately refers us to the scriptures of the prophets, he does not therefore, as Mr. Davison would imply, EXCLUDE those unwritten notices of The system of the Gospel, which we know to have existed during the patriarchal ages and anterior to any written communication. In other words St. Paul does not set up written communications in opposition to and in exclusion of unwritten communications for, if he did, he would plainly shut out the patriarchal religionists from ALL knowledge of the plan of Gospel Redemption.

It may be said, that the once unwritten communications of Patriarchism were afterward by Moses committed to writing.

Undoubtedly it may be so said: but then, according to the evident tenor of Mr. Davison's objection (at least if I rightly understand that objection), this is no satisfactory replication to my answer.

During the space of more than two thousand five hundred years, those, who flourished under the Patriarchal Dispensation, had no written communications. Hence, if written communications be essential to any even the smallest knowledge of the plan of Gospel Redemption, the patriarchal religionists must, in every point,

have been totally ignorant of it: a monstrous position, which Mr. Davison himself contradicts; for he justly asserts, that, in the originally-unwritten divine promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, is comprehended the prospect of man's redemption*.

CHAPTER VII.

Respecting the Objection, that the Idea of an Animal couching at the Door of Cain is inconsistent with the recorded Profession of Cain.

As I have now disposed of Mr. Davison's more serious objections, I may be allowed to notice one, which he urges indeed, but which he confesses to be of less moment.

With respect to the proposed translation of the text in Genesis, A sin-offering coucheth at the door, "there is," says Mr. Davison, "some "want of aptitude and felicity in it to Cain's manner of life; of whom it is said just before, that he was a tiller of the ground, not "a keeper of sheep: and therefore the idea

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*Inquiry, p. 167, 168.

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