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Mr. Sumner infers the Apostles' belief of the atonement, from their constant enforcement of deep humility, is indeed out of the ordinary process of reasoning, but appears to us solid as well as ingenious. We do not remember, ever before, to have seen this idea fully brought out and developed.

"It may seem an unexpected course o argument, to adduce doctrines in proof of facts. But it is nevertheless true, that when the Apostles insist upon this selfabasement and humiliation as the groundwork of the Christian character, we have strong evidence of their being personally convinced that the death of Jesus was actually ordained as a ransom for men; a ransom required by sin. If they did not really believe this, no reason appears why these new teachers should promulgate doctrines so unpopular and so difficult; should inculcate the strictest possible morality, and yet deny to man the gratification of self-complacency; should allow them no other satisfaction, either from the faith which they professed or the obedience which they performed, than that of evidencing their title to the benefits which Christ's death had procured. If the condition of the world were not such as the incarnation of Christ supposes; if there is not that holiness in God, and that unworthiness in man, which sets one at a distance from the other; then there is no propriety in a confession of unprofitableness which sues for pardon, but dares not claim reward; which looks forward to eternal life, not as a recompense which is to be earned and deserved, but as a boon which is to be bestowed through the merits of the Redeemer. Take away the judicial purpose of the Cross, take away its expiatory effect, and there remains no basis for humility like the Christian. And therefore it is a natural consequence, that those who do not receive the doctrine of atonement, do not pretend to any such humility as the Gospel prescribes, and the Apostles profess. If, on the other hand, human sinfulness is so heinous in the sight of the Moral Governor of the world, that it required a sacrifice like that of Christ, and if every individual is indebted to that sacrifice for reconciliation with God, or still remains unreconciled to him; the humiliation inculcated in the Gospel becomes natural, nay, necessary. But unless there had been, on the part of the promulgators of the religion, an intimate conviction that Jesus did indeed die for our sins,

and rise again for our justification,' it would neither have occurred to them to conceive such an humbling disposition of self-abasement, nor to require it of all who should embrace the religion." pp. 227-230.

All the remarks in this chapter are valuable; but they are not, we think, all perfectly relevant in regard to its title, the Originality of the Christian Character. We have

our doubts whether, in maintaining this originality, Mr. Sumner has not, though most undesignedly, detracted from the excellence of many characters under the Old-Testament dispensation. Many of those worthies displayed the seeds at least of Christian humility, benevolence, patience, and meekness; though, in consequence of the imperfect light they enjoyed, they doubtless wanted some of the principal motives and principles peculiar to the disciples of Christ. The following remarks, though we do not see their precise bearing on the subject of the present chapter, are so important that we cannot refuse them a place. They furnish a decisive answer to the common objection, that the patience and meekness of the Gospel are inconsistent with the peace and well-being of society, as society is at present constituted.

"It has been truly observed, that the virtues inculcated in the Gospel, are the only virtues which we can imagine a heavenly Teacher to inculcate. As selfishness, rapacity, violence, malice, and revenge, are the vices which occasion a great part of the distress which prevails in human society; so in proportion as these are discouraged, and the contrary virtues established, peace, comfort, and harmony are restored. No doubt men have often urged, that meekness and patience under injuries are incompatible with the condition of mankind, and would surrender the feeble as a prey to the violent, and expose the best to be trampled upon by the worst and vilest of their species. And we can readily conceive, that this reasoning would have occurred to a mere man, who might have assumed to himself the title of a Divine legislator. Reverse the case, then, and suppose, that the Christian law, instead of requiring forgiveness, permitted

retaliation. Do we not at once acknowledge, that this would be strong internal evidence against its high pretensions? What is the actual state of society, when private vengeance is suffered to prevail? On the other hand, it is proved by experience, that meekness and forbearance prevent and check the evils which insolence and oppression create, and often disarm the violence which resistance tends to exasperate. Christianity, moreover, is designed for all; proposes to itself universal sway and dominion; and therefore cannot be expected to provide for disobedience to its enactments, or be made accountable for evils which would cease to exist if its precepts were generally followed. This would justify the rules in question, in a dispensation whose object looks beyond this world, even if they were found to occasion present inconvenience. But we possess a further proof of its emanating from more than human wisdom, when it issues a law of which human wisdom would dread the consequences; yet that law is found to correct and diminish mischief, even when imperfectly obeyed." pp. 248, 249.

We proceed to "the_reasonableness of the Christian doctrine," the subject of the next chapter. Mr. Sumner conceives, that a supposed want of reasonableness in the Christian doctrines lies at the root of all unbelief. Men doubt or deny the Christian revelation, in spite of its overpowering evidence, because of the extraordinary and unpalatable nature of the things disclosed by that revelation. He adduces the future punishment of the ungodly, and the vicarious sufferings of the Redeemer, as the two points at which sceptics and unbelievers are most disposed to cavil. But are these the only points against which the charge of unreasonableness is preferred? Do not the doctrines of the Trinity in unity, of original sin, of the influences of the Holy Spirit, and of the permitted agency of satan, almost equally provoke the obstinate contention of the infidel? These doctrines are all decidedly Scriptural; nor can any one of them be proved contrary to reason, how much soever it may surpass the reach of our present facul

ties.

But are not these attacked,

upon the ground of irrationality, equally with the other two? We think, therefore, that they might have been noticed. Mr. Sumner has, however, unquestionably singled out that doctrine which is most violently and most frequently denied

the eternity of future punishments. There are a vast number of professed Christians, in the present day, who, without any of the piety or learning of Origen, plunge into all his heterodoxy on this subject. Our author, in shewing the truth of the awful doctrine of future punishment, has perhaps rather too much lost sight of the circumstance of its endless duration. This is the appalling circumstance, and the great "rock of offence." We believe the doctrine, because we hold it to be unequivocally taught in Scripture; and we even see difficulties in the supposition of a release from punishment after a certain period, if not accompanied with the moral renovation of the sufferers. Here, however, we must "lay our hands upon our mouths," confessing that God is just, but that "the thunder of his power," and the terrors of his indignation, none can perfectly understand. Of all that has been written on this subject, we consider one of Saurin's sermons as the most convincing and satisfactory. It is decided, yet moderate, and comprises nearly all that is important, within a small compass. We recommend it to the perusal of those of our readers whose minds may be inclined to waver with regard to this doctrine. After all, our author says what ought to silence the objector, if it cannot satisfy him.

"Many will be disposed to argue, that God would not have placed mankind in circumstances where he must have foreseen their fall, if the consequences of falling were so fatally serious. He would not have created a race, of whom so large a portion would perish everlastingly.

"We touch here upon a great difficulty, which, in our present state of knowledge, or rather of ignorance, it is impossible to clear up. There would be more force in the objection, if this were the only fact in

the appearance of the world which baffled our inquiries, or contradicted our expectations. But it is only one of a series of difficulties, which meet us at every view of the creation; which revelation does not enable us entirely to unravel; but which are still more inexplicable, if we set aside revelation." pp. 267, 268.

The tenth chapter is on the early promulgation of the Gospel, and "traces the manner in which our religion first gained ground." It abounds with excellent remarks; yet we cannot but think that the matter is hardly arranged with sufficient perspicuity. The argument of the first part of the chapter, if we understand Mr. Sumner rightly, is to infer the probability of miraculous interference from the accounts, given in the Acts, of the proceedings of the Apostles, first in Judea, and afterwards in heathen countries. In drawing this conclusion, the proper mode, we conceive, would have been to have argued directly from the ordinary facts to such as are extraordinary and miraculous. This is what Mr. Sumner intended: but his premises and conclusion are not sufficiently prominent; nor are the steps of his argument sufficiently distinct. He appears in some parts to assume those miraculous facts which attended the preaching of the Apostles; an assumption evidently out of place in any work on the evidence of Christianity. His argument, however, appears condensed in the following paragraph, of which the most important remarks are confessedly extracted from Paley's Hora Paulina.

"He must have unusual confidence in the inventive powers of the early Christians, who can look upon these narratives, and the many others which are contained in the Acts of the Apostles,' as a mere fabrication: remembering, at the same time, the age to which the book indisputably belongs, and the persons by whom it must have been composed. When we consider the immense quantity of matter and the great variety of facts contained in it; the minute circumstances detailed when we compare the speeches of Peter with those of Paul; and those of

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Paul to the Ephesians with those which he addressed to an unconverted audience: when we examine the conduct attributed to the Jews: their open persecution at Jerusalem, and their indirect accusation at Thessalonica; the ingenuity with which the adversaries of the Apostles address themselves to the passions and interests of men in the different cities: the charac

ters of Gallio, of Felix, of Lysias, of Agrippa: it seems impossible to suppose this an invented narrative of things which never took place, or of persons who never had a real existence. This argument, indeed, can have no weight with a person who is not sensible of the air of truth and reality which pervades the whole history.

But whoever is alive to this, whoever does of a writer detailing the account of actual perceive in almost every page the marks transactions and circumstances, should observe that the proof which arises from evidence of this kind, is not to be deemed far-fetched or imaginary, because it is incapable of being drawn out in words, or of being presented to the mind of the sceptic in any other way than by sending him to the books themselves." pp. 311,

312.

In the latter part of this chapter, Mr. Sumner obviates the favourite. objection of Hume, founded on the pretended insurmountable difficulties with which the proof of miracles is encumbered. This objection against miracles, as contrary to experience, has been fully met and overturned by Campbell and by Paley; but the following remarks are striking, and furnish an answer to it which we do not remember to have elsewhere seen.

"The argument stands thus. The laws of nature are fixed and uniform, being es tablished by the Creator as the most suitable for the world he has made. To suppose that he would alter what he has once established, is to suppose mutability in his counsels, or imperfection in his laws. Therefore it is more probable that men should deceive or be deceived, than that he should have suffered that temporary change in the constitution of things which we call a miracle.

"The most satisfactory answer to any abstract argument is that which can be drawn from matter of fact. In speaking of the Deity, more particularly, it is chiefly by considering what he has done, that

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we can safely decide what it may be consistent with his attributes to do. And with regard to the present question, it is certain, that if he created the world, he has already seen fit to interfere with what was before established, and to alter the actual order of things.

"Where our world now exists, and the innumerable worlds which philosophy opens to our view, before they were created there must either have been vacant space, or matter in another form. That space, or that form of matter, was then the order of nature. And a being of some other sphere might have argued with the same plausibility, that God could not, consistently with his attributes, alter the existing state of things, and create a world like ours. But that being would have been mistaken. He would have been refuted by the act of creation. We believe that God did interpose his power, and did create our world. Wherever we look around us, whenever we are conscious of

The eleventh chapter is entitled, "First Reception of Christianity." We think that the headings of some of the chapters might be made more explanatory of the line of argument adopted by the author. The perspicuous announcement of the subject of a chapter is a great help to the majority of readers. The subject of the present is that evidence for the truth of the Gospel, which results from the permanent change of moral character produced in the first Christians; a most important line of argument, but rather imperfectly and ambiguously expressed by "The first Reception of Christianity." The importance of the following passage will excuse its length.

"What the morals of the world were,

our own existence, we have a proof of at the period when Christianity was first that very Divine interference which is de- preached, we know from unquestionable authority. We know that the only Divine clared to be so improbable. Whether we go back six thousand years, or six thou- worship practised at all, was idolatrous worship ; and that this idolatrous worship sand ages, or six thousand centuries, we must believe, if we are not altogether was commonly attended with profligacy atheists, that this world, and all that it of the most debasing kind, and often with contains, once had no existence in its pre-straint was laid upon the evil passions of heinous cruelty. We know that no resent form, and received its being and its properties contrary to the order of things previously existing.

our nature, except by public laws and public opinion. But public laws never did “ That, then, which God certainly saw nor can extend to many of the worst vices; fit to do for one purpose, he might see fit and public opinion, judging from experience, in order that it may become an efto do for another; for another, and not a ficient correction of vicious passions, reless glorious purpose. For when we reflect on the difference which Christianity quires a higher standard of reference than has already wrought in the moral world, human nature ever supplied. I have no and the still greater difference which it is desire to disparage the characters of those calculated to work, and probably will ef- who used to the best purpose the light which they possessed, and exalted the fect in the progress of time, we cannot age in which they lived by noble exhibithink it a less important exercise of power to have introduced the Gospel by suspend-edness, or fortitude. Nor have I any wish tions of temperance, probity, disinteresting the laws of nature, than to have created the world by first establishing them." pp. 322-324.

With respect to the obstinate unbelief of the Jews, Mr. Sumner justly remarks, that "the preaching of the Apostles made the Jews a divided body, and the majority of the earliest Christians were in fact converted Jews. The conversion of one part removes the objection rising from the obduracy of the other. For what account can be given of that conversion, if the whole history is untrue ?"

to derogate from the honour of those philosophers who employed their reason to its noblest purpose; and, in some instances, endeavoured to raise their followers above the dominion of selfish appetite or worldly ambition. It is enough to know, as we do know, what the Asiatic, and Greek, and Roman world was, in spite of individual exceptions, and in defiance of the exertions of philosophy. Wickedness, indeed, will take the same course, and bear in many points the same aspect, in every age. But with the heathen world, taken collectively, habits of life were allowed and uncensured, which we are accustomed to consider as proof

that the restraints are thrown aside by which the rest of the community are bound. Even their moralists appear as libertines, when tried by the standard of the Gospel. Nor did the world give any signs of melioration, or progressive improvement. In all those points which form the real distinction between vice and virtue, Athens and Lacedæmon were no better than Sardis or Babylon; and imperial Rome had no superiority over the Grecian democracies which it supplanted. Thales, Pythagoras, Solon, Socrates, Cicero, had effected no general change, either in the theory of religion or the practice of morals.

“On a sudden, in the midst of idolatry, or of utter carelessness as to all religion, and in the midst of selfish gratifications and sensual indulgences with which they were still on every side surrounded, there grew up in Italy, and in the principal cities of Greece and of Asia, parties of men, more or less numerous, who professed a way of life entirely new both in practice and in principle. Renouncing the idols and imaginary deities which they had been educated to worship, they acknowledged one Almighty Creator and Governor of the world, as revealed to them by his Son ⚫ the man Christ Jesus.' Removed alike from the ignorant thoughtlessness of the vulgar, and the sceptical hesitation of the philosophers, they believed in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and a state of future retribution. Steadfastly relying on this expectation, they treated with indifference the honours and gratifications of the present life; and,

for the sake of future reward, cultivated a character unknown before, and, now that it became known, often despised, and sel

dom much esteemed: a character of which the conspicuous features are piety, humility, charity, purity, and moderation.

"And the persons who entered upon this new course of life, were not persons whose previous habits rendered them more likely to embrace it than their neighbours, whose society they left. They are spoken of, nay, they are personally addressed, as having been brought from darkness to light, with respect to habits as well as principles. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, after enumerating some of the worst vices of our nature, and those to which we know from history that the Corinthians were particularly exposed goes on to say, Such were some of you but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 274.

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God.' He says the same, in effect, to the converts from Colosse, Ephesus, and Rome; and insinuates it universally: with the intent we might suppose of magnifying the extent of his conquests, if his object had not been evidently to exhort, and not to prove a point; and if we had not collateral evidence of the greatness of the change. So great a change, indeed, that it is commonly expressed by the strongest imaginable comparisons; and is represented as a new birth, a new creation. Neither will these figures be deemed overstrained by those who have a clear historical acquaintance with the state of that world out of which the first Christians were taken; and those who have not such acquaintance, are necessarily without one of the most striking proofs of the Divine origin of our religion. The Mohammedan and the Christian are daily now, in common language, set in opposition to each other. Yet a Mohammedan and a Christian may be considered as brothers in opinion, compared with a Gentile before and after his conversion to the Gospel. The perplexities and inconsis tences of the best philosophy; the gross ignorance of the mass of mankind; the depraved habits of all; form a contrast so remarkable to the clear views, the authoritative tone, and the purity of the Gospel, that we seem to have been suddenly con veyed from an opposite hemisphere, and to emerge in a moment from darkness to light." pp. 339–345.

To the pretence, that the prospect of future happiness may alone be deemed sufficient for the production of the change described, we have this admirable reply :-

"Unquestionably, the prospect of eternal happiness is calculated to raise and animate the best hopes of human nature; and, being confidently entertained, is more than equal to the effects above described. But when a present sacrifice is demanded, and definite qualifications are to be laboriously acquired, the prospect must be unexceptionably assured before things seen and temporal are resigned for things unseen and eternal. Let a stranger come with the offer of a noble estate, to revert to us after a certain period. We have no hesitation in closing with so generous an offer. But when we proceed to learn that this estate is in a distant country; and when he annexes as a condition of our enjaying it, that we acquire the language of that country, and the manner of its inhabitants, and devote our whole attention

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