have mercy upon them and abundantly pardon. It also appeared, that there were not any new terms of forgiveness prescribed in the New Testament; but that, on the contrary, the readiness of God to forgive sinners upon their repentance only was fully represented to us in the parable of the prodigal son, and by Christ's requiring us to forgive a brother, who has offended us, in the same manner as God forgives us.. "In the second discourse I endeavoured to show you the great design of the death of Christ, that it was in order to his rising again from the dead, and hereby affording us an example of a resurrection from the dead to eternal life, to establish his followers in the belief of that event by an indisputable fact; and that as the belief of a future state of rewards for good men would have the most powerful influence in inducing men to repent of and forsake their sins, these good effects may be justly attributed to the death of Christ; and that the strong language of Scripture, in ascribing so many moral benefits to the sufferings and death of Christ, may be accounted for upon this principle. I also showed you several other secondary purposes, which might be answered by the death of Christ. As the atonements of the law of Moses were supposed to prefigure the atonement of Christ, and to be of a similar nature, in the third discourse I examined their design, by considering the various cases in which they were appointed: from which it appeared, that, although they were called sin offerings and were said

to procure forgiveness, yet they had no relation to wilful offences, being admitted only in respect to sins of ignorance and certain cases of ceremonial uncleanness, and were evidently founded upon the idea of God having a visible and personal residence among the children of Israel as their king, for approaching whom, therefore, certain forms were necessary to be observed, as for approaching other monarchs. Between the death of Christ, which is supposed to satisfy divine justice, and such atonements, there could be no exact resemblance. Yet, in a figurative and less proper sense, the death of Christ might be said to make atonement, in as much as Christ voluntarily gave up his life upon the cross for our benefit, was rewarded with the honour of publishing the Gospel to the world, which Gospel edmits all, notwithstanding their sins, to worship God in company with their fellow Christians, and hereby answers an end something like that of the atonements of the law. In the fourth discourse I endeavoured to explain the other figurative language, which is applied to the death of Christ, particularly that in which he is called a sacrifice, by showing, that the term might be applied to his death, in as much as he died for our benefit, but that the sacred writers never considered Christ as a real sacrifice. I further observed, that to apply the terms and phrases of the law of Moses to every thing which they found to bear any resemblance to it in Christianity, was

unavoidable in men who had been educated Jews, and to whom the ceremonies and language of that institution must have been perfectly familiar. In the fifth, I endeavoured to prove, that the supposed doctrine of the atonement was as inconsistent with reason and the divine perfections, as it was found to be without foundation in Scripture, whether the death of Christ be considered as the payment of a debt, or as the suffering punishment for the offences of others; for in the former case it leaves in the divine Being no room for the exercise of mercy, in the latter it is inconsistent with every idea of justice, in making the innocent to be punished for the guilty, and could therefore answer no useful purpose under the divine government. Lastly I showed you, in what sense Christ might be considered as a propitiation, a ransom, a mediator, and as dying for us, and that these views of his character were perfectly consistent with what had been laid down before as the great design of the life and death of Christ. The first inference I shall make hence is,

I. That it appears, that the doctrine of the atonement has no just foundation. For it has been shown to be inconsistent with the divine perfections, and directly contrary to the plainest declarations of Scripture respecting the manner in which God forgives sin: it has appeared also, that the language of Scripture, which has been supposed to countenance it, had been misunderstood, being taken literally when it ought to have been interpreted figuratively.

Nothing more than this can be necessary to prove any doctrine groundless and false. I could, however, have shown, that this doctrine was wholly unknown to the early Christians, and that it never was exactly defined in it's present form till the time of the reformation by Luther, when the controversies began about indulgences; for as, in order to promote the sale of indulgences, the church of Rome extolled the efficacy of good works, the reformers went into the opposite extreme in contending with their adversaries, disclaiming merit altogether, undervaluing all good works, and building all hopes of future happiness on the perfect satisfaction, that Christ had made to the justice of God for us, and upon his righteousness imputed to us. From this time the doctrine of atonement was reduced to a regular system, grounded upon certain principles and pursued to it's full extent; and from this time it has been 'maintained with great zeal by most Protestants, Lutherans as well as Calvinists, and been deemed to be one of the most important doctrines of revelation. So that it is in fact a modern doctrine and of very late date, which of itself would be a sufficient reason for rejecting it. But as the proof of this must be drawn from many quotations of ancient and modern authors, I thought that arguments founded upon reason and Scripture would be more satisfactory, and have, therefore, confined myself to them,

II. If the doctrine of the atonement be not true, it is improper to ask any favour of God for Christ's sake. For, if the divine Being be inclined to pardon sin and to bestow other blessings upon his rational creatures from his own good will, and independently of the merits of Christ, it is wrong to plead those merits in our addresses to him. Such language is in fact an affront to the divine Being by supposing, that he must be hired to do good by some valuable consideration offered to him by a third person; it represents him as a mercenary being, who will part with no favours until they are purchased and paid for by an equivalent, an idea, to which neither reason nor Scripture gives any countenance. The New Testament uniformly represents the mission of Christ and the blessings of the Gospel as proceeding from the love of God, and as bestowed freely: "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," Rom. iii, 24. There is one passage indeed, in which, according to our translation, God is said to forgive sin for the sake of Christ, Ephes. iv, 32, "Be ye kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." But in the original it is Xgrew, nor can any passage be produced in the whole New Testament, in which the death of Christ is represented as the cause, reason, or motive, why any blessings are bestowed upon us.