of the Apostles, and connect ideas with their words either our Lord's death must have had its efficacy, wholly or in part, out of the usual order of providence, directly producing without any intermediate agency some change in the divine disposition, or purposes, or exercise in the divine attributes towards mankind, or it must have been a means operating according to the usual order of providence, and in the then circumstances necessary to promote the purposes for which he came from God. Various plain and unambiguous declarations are in direct opposition to the former supposition, and no plain positive declaration can be adduced in its support; and I cannot, therefore, receive it as Christian doctrine: On the other hand, the latter appears from the N. T. history obviously to have been the fact, and at the same time, taken in connexion with the voluntary and disinterested nature of the acute sufferings undergone, satisfactorily accounts for the stress which the Apostles lay on the death of Christ; and this, therefore, I regard as the Scriptural view of the subject.

The best way of ascertaining the importance of any fact often is, to consider what important results would have been prevented, and what injurious consequences would have followed, if it had not taken place: for instance, in 1 Cor. xv. the Apostle not only states the all-important consequences of the resurrection of Christ, but also, vs. 14-19, the deplorable state in which the Christian believers would have been if that event had not really happened; and in like manner the vast importance of the fact, that Jesus was the Son of God,

can only be fully appreciated by considering how great our loss would be if we were to be deprived of Christian guidance, hopes, and consolations. It will assist in leading us to the truth as to the efficacy of our Saviour's death, if we pursue the consequences which in the then circumstances (and it were useless to consider any other) would have followed from his not submitting unto death; and if it appear, that in those circumstances Jesus could not have avoided death, without either on the one hand destroying the authority of that message of pardon and everlasting life which he came to bring, or at least preventing the extensive reception of the offered blessings,-or, on the other, altogether deserting the purposes for which he was sent,-we can have no difficulty in accounting for the frequency and earnestness with which his death is dwelt upon by the N. T. writers, nor for the fact, that the benefits arising from his glad tidings are sometimes ascribed to his death.

I do not perceive that he could have avoided death in any but one of four ways: either first, by according with the wishes of the Jews, and assuming the office of a temporal Messiah; or secondly, by endeavouring gradually to instil into the minds of his countrymen more just views, and at the same time withholding the more ungrateful truths; or thirdly, by privately withdrawing into some place of secrecy where he might be secure from the attacks of his enemies; or fourthly, by employing his miraculous powers to effect his escape. If there appear to be any other case, I apprehend that it may fairly be referred to one or other of these, or,

at least, that the same method of reasoning may applied to it.

be

First, If Jesus had acceded to the wishes of the Jews, and come forward as a temporal Messiah, as their deliverer from Roman bondage, he might have gained every object of worldly ambition; but it must have been by the complete desertion of the purposes for which he came forth from God, by the complete annihilation of all those important changes in the spiritual condition of men, which have been effected by his continuing even unto death to execute those purposes. He might thus have freed his countrymen from the Roman yoke, but he could not have freed mankind from the yoke of sin he might thus have been a powerful monarch, but he could not have ruled in the hearts of men, creating them anew to righteousness and true holiness.

Secondly, He might (at least for a time) have avoided death by concealing offensive truths, and endeavouring gradually to prepare the minds of his countrymen for them, by giving them more correct notions as to duty and the divine purposes. Let such as have studied the character of his countrymen in the Gospel narratives, and in the writings of their own Josephus, say, whether it is in the slightest degree probable, that those who rejected the evidence which Jesus gave, that he spoke under divine authority, because the truths which he declared were offensive to their prejudices, and hostile to their vices, would by any such means have been led to embrace the blessings of the Gospel, and

submit to its requisitions &: and even for a moment admitting that by a long course of instruction he had persuaded a considerable part of the Jewish nation, how would such timid temporizing conduct (so utterly unworthy of one who knew that his mission was of the utmost importance) have diffused Gospel blessings through the Gentile world? It is obvious too, that, if so far successful among the Jews, it would only have protracted the actual event; for by degrees the offensive truths must have been declared, and the offensive censures must at least have been implied, and a violent death hastened by success, would at last have been the consequence. Or, if he had finally escaped a public and violent death, the invaluable advantages of his resurrection would have been totally destroyed, or their efficacy most essentially lessened.

8 See our Lord's own remark in Luke xvi. 31.

h It is clear that, except by a total change of circumstances, or by a great accession of miraculous interference, the Gentiles could have been Christianized only through the medium of Jews or Jewish proselytes, or those who had gained from Judaism some correct notions of the attributes and dispensations of God.

i The resurrection of Jesus, if we follow the Scriptural representations, answered at least three important purposes: it presented a most striking demonstration that he acted under divine authority in declaring the purposes of God,-it afforded a pattern and pledge of our own resurrection, and it gave men an assurance of a future state of righteous retribution. Now the extensive diffusion of a thorough conviction of this fact required, that his death should take place at such a time and in such a manner, that it should not be a doubtful point among distant Jews or proselytes to Judaism, whether Jesus really died and it is impossible that there should have been any time more suitable to give publicity to the event, than the

Thirdly, Jesus might have avoided death by privately withdrawing himself to some place of se-curity. In this case the important instructions which he had communicated, would probably have been efficacious among the worthy part of his disciples, and brought forth fruit unto everlasting life; but this would have been all. Who would have stood forth to propagate his religion, when he himself declined the dangers in which it involved him? Who would have regarded his declarations as of divine authority, and in consequence submitted to the restraints which he imposed, when he himself would not take up his cross? Who would have believed that he himself felt the immense importance of these declarations, that he himself had full confidence in the prospects of eternity, when, to purchase a few short years of ease and security, he shrunk from the sufferings which he had himself predicted would befal him, in accomplishing the end for which (as he himself says) he was born, for which he came into the world; namely, to bear A witness to the truth? Leaving, therefore, out of account the great loss which would have been sustained in the Christian scheme by his death being private, even if still it had pleased God to

passover, when at least 1,200,000 persons attached to the law of Moses were on the spot, of whom a large proportion did not usually reside in Jerusalem, and numbers came from other countries; or any circumstances better calculated to give them the conviction that he really died, than those which actually occurred. Indeed we have no reason to believe that any denied the reality of our Lord's death, till some false or mistaken friends of the Gospel advanced this absurd and dangerous opinion, which the Apostle John, an eye-witness of the fact, severely but most justly reprehends.