standeth only in the wisdom of man. Far different from this is the Gospel of Christ," that hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory"—and far different from this must be the religion of its followers, and the preaching of its faithful ministers; they, if they would retain that glorious title, must still preach (as the very perfection of reason, as truths, which we could never have known, had they not been revealed, but which when revealed, are found in no ways contrary to our reason, only above it) a spiritual God, mysteriously existing in three undivided persons--must still preach the incarnation of the Son, and the sanctifying graces of the Spirit-must still " preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them that believe, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

June 7, 1821.

C.

as by its controversion his main argument will not be materially affected.

In the third discourse, Mr. B. introduces his subject from the message sent by John the Baptist to our Lord, Matt. xi. 2—5. In examining this text, he is inclined to reject the usual interpretation, that the Baptist's sole design on this occasion, was to induce his disciples to follow Jesus Christ; and adopts the explanation given by the author of the questions which stand among the works of Justin Martyr, attributing the enquiry to a doubt in the Baptist's own mind; which Mr. B. supposes to result from a want of confidence, either in those who had already informed him of the miracles of Jesus Christ, or in the identity of the person by whom they were performed. This appears to Mr. B. to be a sufficient explanation of the difficulty arising out of John's previous acknowledgment of Jesus as

the Messiah.

The alternative of the Baptist's enquiry seems to me to be decisive against this interpretation. " Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" John had already borne witness, and directed the pub

SIR,

Ir the following observations should be thought deserving of a place in your valuable miscellany, you will oblige me by inserting them,

In the Hulsean lectures for 1820, Mr. Benson has, in my opinion, very ably discharged the laborious duty which he had undertaken, of preparing in the course of one year twenty discourses, fit to be delivered before a learned university, and to be submitted to public criticism. His considerations upon the Evidences of Christianity, which occupy the principal portion of his volume, are highly interesting and important; but there is one point on which I am disposed to differ from him, and do so with the less scruple,

He had also been informed of His entrance upon His ministry, (John, iii. 26.) before he was himself cast into prison (24.), and had taken that opportunity of again giving testimony to His character and office, while he confessed his own inferiority. If any doubt then, could have arisen in his mind concerning the mighty works of which he heard or the identity of the person who performed them; yet he could not but have been convinced that his successor and superior was already arrived; and there could be no room for the future expectation implied in the question, η έτερον προσδοκωμεν ; Mr. Benson finds an objection to the usual interpretation of this passage, in the circumstance of our Lord's special direction to the mess

sengers to return to John with His answer: "go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see," &c. This form of expression, he conjectures, would scarcely have been used by our Saviour, who knew the thoughts of men had He not been assured, that the satisfaction of the Baptist himself was principally intended.

The consideration of this divine intuition will be equally serviceable to my view of the case, which is this. John, being in prison, had not, it may be supposed, the privilege of conferring with the large body of his disciples; but being informed by some of them, (Luke, vii. 18.) who were admitted to see him, of the wonderful acts reported to be done by Jesus Christ, and knowing that the prophets had foretold these things concerning Him; selected two (duo Tiras as St. Luke expresses it) who might make themselves personally acquainted with Jesus, wit ness His miracles, be instructed by their own master in the correspondence of these miracles with the predictions of the prophets, and thus be qualified as apostles to the rest of the followers of John, to convince them of the propriety of joining themselves to the long-expected Saviour of the world. Our Lord knowing what was in the mind of John, gave exactly the answer that was desired, and afforded to the forerunner the best means of impressing his injunctions on those, who had hitherto been his followers. It might add to the force of this explanation, if we were certain that St. Matthew wrote in the second verse of this chapter Tα egyα TOU Xgirov," and not as some copies have it "Ta gya rov Ingou :" for as that evangelist never uses the word Christ singly to denote the person, but only the office of our Lord, if the former could be established as the true reading, the sense might then be, that, "John heard in the prison the works of" the "Christ;" that is to say, he heard that Jesus was then

actually performing the miracles which designated Him to be the Christ foretold by the prophets. That, therefore was the precise time for satisfying any doubts, which his disciples might have concerning Him.

As to the nature of those doubts, exclusive of peculiar attachment to their present master; I think, we may find it in the discourse of our Lord after the messengers of John had been dismissed, wherein He blames the Jews for rejecting the Baptist on account of his austere, and himself on account of His social habits. The contrast would be a great stumbling-block to the disciples of the former, when they were to transfer their attention from one teacher to the other; and this is perhaps alluded to at the end of our Saviour's answer to the messengers. "And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me."

Taking this view of the question, I cannot be so surprised as Mr. Benson expresses himself to be, that he has looked in vain either in the majority of the fathers or the more modern commentators, for the opinion which is given in the works of Justin Martyr; the plain way counting for which is, that the opinion is evidently wrong.

Before I conclude, I wish to give a hint to Mr. Benson (for whose talents and industry I feel the highest respect) against inaccurate quotation.

In his thirteenth discourse, p. 338, he says, "I bring my body under subjection," says St. Paul, 1 Cor. 9, 27; and then, lest we should foolishly misinterpret his meaning, or conceive that he gloried in his own strength, he immediately adds, "yet not I, but the Spirit of God which is in me." St. Paul adds no such thing; but it is obvious whence the mistake originated.

I am, Sir, &c. &c.
BIPARY.

May 19, 1821.

ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS.

To the Editor of the Remembrancer. Sir,

In a review of Brown's Antiquities of the Jews, contained in the Christian Remembrancer for December last, it is very justly observed that many customs enjoined to that extraordinary people, though they may seem unaccountable in themselves, are found to be perfectly rational, when it is considered that they were directed against the superstitious customs of heathen idolatry. It was certainly one great object of the law to keep the children of Israel as distinct a people as possible; and to guard them against contracting the impure and disgusting habits of their neighbours: and I make no doubt that if we could obtain a perfect account of all the religious opinions and practices of the Egyptians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, and other nations with whom they were connected, we should be able to elucidate, in the most satisfactory manner, the reasons of the minutest particulars commanded in the Mosaic code. But in the review, two instances are adduced illustrative of the truth of this general remark, in which the prohibition uttered to the Jews strikes me as grounded upon a different reason to that alleged, and I trust you will not charge me with captiousness for taking the li. berty of making these remarks.

The first is, the order to abstain from eating blood, which the reveiwer says was given "because the blood was accounted by various heathen nations the food of demons, with whom they thus had communion, and became prescient of futurity." But, Sir, was not this prohibition issued by the Almighty himself, in an age of the world when demon-worship was unknown? and the reason of it afterwards expressly assigned? It was a limitation of the use of animal food, when flesh was first permitted as the sustenance of man. Gen. ix.

3, 4. "Every moving thing that liveth (declared God to Noah and his sons,) shall be meat for you. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." The prohibition is repeated under the Levitical law, with this important addition. "I have given it (sc. the blood) upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." Levit. xvii. 11. Is not the reason then for disallowing the eating of the blood clearly such, as none but a Socinian or Infidel can deny? because it was peculiarly consecrated to a purpose of the highest religious import; representing the great doctrine of vicarious satisfaction, and typifying the blood of that sprinkling by which the sins of the world are taken away.

It is observed again, "If the Israelites were forbidden to sow their fields or vineyards with divers seeds, it was to counteract the superstitious custom of thus propitiating Bacchus, Ceres, and other rural deities." But is there not an anachronism in this remark? According to the chronology of the learned Shuckford, the Cretan Jupiter was contemporary (or nearly so) with Moses; therefore Bacchus and Ceres, with the other deities of Grecian and Roman mythology, could not have begun to be worshipped as gods at the time of the delivery of the law. The prohibition of the use of mingled seed, together with two others contained in the same verse (Lev. xix. 19.) appears to have been directed against some other superstition. Dean Spencer supposes that they had reference to the customs of the Zabii and Amorites, and probably in addition to this, they might be designed as generally emblematical to the Jews, of the impropriety of holding intercourse and uniting themselves by marriage with idolatrous nations. I am, Sir, yours, &c.

C. P.

STATE OF MAN BY NATURE.

not thought by myself, on re-perusal, or by others who have seen it

Sir,

IN reply to your correspondent OXONIENSIS (in your Number for June) I shall not enter into any argument: but request the favour of you to lay before him a note from Macknight, on Eph. ii. 8., and a passage from Bishop Butler. (Sermon on Repentance.)

"Nature often signifies one's birth and education; Gal. ii. 15.— We who are Jews by nature.-Also, men's natural reason and conscience; Rom. ii. 14.-The Gentiles who have not a law, do by nature the things contained in the law.—Also, the general sense and practice of mankind; 1 Cor. xi. 14.-Doth not nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, &c.-Also, the original constitution of any thing; Gal. iv. 8.- Who are God's by nature. Also, a dispostion formed by custom and habit: thus Demetrius Phalereus said of the Lacedæmonians, φύσει εβραχυλογον οι Λακωνες— The Lacedæmonians by nature speak shortly. In the passage under consideration, nature is that second corrupt dead nature which men form in themselves, by habitually indulg ing vicious inclinations; for the Apostle speaks of men's being by nature children of wrath, as the effect of their having their conversation in the lusts of the flesh."

"We should learn to be cautious lest we charge God foolishly, by ascribing that to HIM, or the nature He has given us, which is owing wholly to our own abuse of it.-Men may speak of the degeneracy and corruption of the world according to the experience they have had of it; but Human Nature, considered as the Divine Workmanship, should be treated as sacred: for in the image of GOD made He MAN."

I shall only add, that the passage he has quoted from the article on "Enmity to God by Nature," is

compared with either what had pre-
ceded, or what follows it; and I
submit the deciding upon that to
your candid readers.
I am, Sir,

Your very humble Servant,
N. R.

June 4th, 1821.

ON THE STATE OF MAN BY
NATURE.

To the Editor of the Remembrancer.
Sir,

I OBSERVE that two of your cor. respondents take very different views of the subject of Original Sin, and the State of Man by Nature: and I am induced to make these remarks upon the arguments by which each supports his own opinion, as it ap pears to me that they advance into opposite extremes, and that the real truth of the case will be found to lie in a due medium between the two. I allude to the article of N. R., at page 193, and that of W***r, at p. 260 of the Christian Remembrancer.

The former of these writers argues strongly against the notion of man's being a mere mass of unmixed depravity and corruption. I agree with him in reprobating this doctrine as at variance with the declarations of Scripture, and dangerous in its consequences, when urged in its full and unqualified extent. But in opposing the notion that man is altogether depraved, N. R. seems to deny that he contracts any degree of sinfulness whatever in consequence of Adam's transgression, and thus to involve himself in the error of Pelagius. He says, after quoting some texts on which the advocates of man's total guilt dwell: "These, and other like passages, whatever of actual depravity they may imply, yet have no connecting

cause in them from Adam, so as to make it a necessary intimation that we are totally corrupt, wholly evil, by descent from him." But is it therefore a necessary conclusion, that we may not have derived a partially vitiated nature from Adam, may not have descended some degrees in the moral scale? N. R. allows very properly that there is much variety and contradiction in the human character, but does not admit that any thing wrong in it is derived by participation in the sinfulness of Adam's fallen nature. Such at least is the meaning which his language conveys to me. And if I have not mistaken his expressions, I am totally at a loss to reconcile his opinion with the declaration of Scripture, that "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners;" (Rom. v. 19.) or with the doctrine of the Church of England; "Original sin consisteth not in the following of Adam; but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil." (Art. 9.)

To come to a right understanding on this subject, these two points require to be settled. 1. Is man born with any inherent propensity to evil? 2. If he is, to what cause is it to be ascribed? Now I think the case so often adduced of infants will enable us to answer the first of these questions in the affirmative; for surely it cannot be denied that infants in many cases manifest signs of a bad disposition and violent passions, at a period before the understanding can be sufficiently exercised to discern the difference between moral good and evil. And I own that I can desire no stronger proof than this for my conviction, that we are born with some seeds of evil implanted in our nature. Nor do I see how, upon the contrary supposition, the Scriptures could talk of

"the sin within us," or how we could ever "do the evil which we would not," (Rom. vii.) because, if we had no inherent propensity to sin, the will would never have the slightest difficulty in following the dictates of better reason and conscience. Granting, then, that there is such a thing as sin by nature, whence does it derive its origin ? Either from the nature given to us by God, or from that which we inherit from Adam. The impugner of the Calvinistic doctrine recoils with justice from the impiety of the former notion: for "God made man upright," (Eccl. vii. 29.) nor is it possible to conceive that he should be the author of sin. We can therefore only attribute the evil that is mixed up in the moral composition of man to something inherited from his first parent: and this we know is not man's original nature when he came from the hand of his Maker; but a derived and secondary one: which circumstance amply vindicates the Almighty from the charge of creating him with a will inclined to evil.

Nor let it be said that this doctrine militates against the notion of man's free will, as if he were under an actual necessity to sin. There is a wide difference between saying that we are prone to evil, and that we are under an irresistible compulsion to do evil. And however our reason may find itself unable to comprehend how the Almighty should make us liable to his wrath for our original sin, with which we are not personally chargeable, yet the diffi. culty vanishes when we consider that he has provided an atonement, the effects of which are co-extensive with the effects of Adam's transgression. And we must remember too, that the Gospel offers to us the assistance of the Spirit, which (our own good will co-operating with it) enables us to combat the evil principle successfully, and serve God acceptably to salvation.

W***r, in controverting the po.