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Do you say again, It can do no good? You are too late. God is beforehand with you; and by the injunction, Be baptized,' he implicitly declares its advantages. It can do no good!' O, what a slander on the Almighty. Has God required what is useless? O, say it not, lest thou be convicted of folly and pride.

2. It is a mean of grace, in the observance of which many have been blessed. In receiving baptism, we publicly renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil; and pledge ourselves to keep God's holy commandments all the days of our lives. To say nothing, therefore, of the grace received on the occasion, the results of so holy a profession and solemn pledge, on our subsequent conduct, cannot be unimportant. Such is the significancy and impressiveness of this rite, that its obligations are not easily obliterated from the mind. They spring up, as it were, spontaneously, in the mind, to suppress our rising depravity, and stimulate to the performance of every duty. Well therefore is it said, Baptism doth save us.' So salutary is its influence, it seems very desirable, if not indispensable.

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The utility of baptism, however, is not fully developed in its natural influence on the conduct of man. As the Spirit descended like a dove upon Christ when He came up from the water, so it invariably accompanies the proper administration and reception of baptism. The eunuch, when he was baptized, went on his way rejoicing. The three. thousand, baptized on the day of pentecost, for the remission of sins, 'continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.' The rejoicings of the baptized, also, form an important item in this evidence. On this I might enlarge; but I leave you to make your own reflections. Thus it is obvious that baptism is a glorious mean of grace, and not to be slighted with impunity. If we slight it, we do it at our peril.

3. I urge baptism, lastly, by the consideration that it can do no harm. This, I allow, is not a sufficient reason for action in every case; but in this it is: for the least Friends themselves can admit is, that baptism is very possibly a Divine ordinance. But if it be, it is of importance, and cannot be neglected without spiritual loss. In being baptized then, we risk nothing; whereas, in neglecting it, we risk every thing. Since, therefore, the devout observance of it can do us no injury, we are sacredly bound to be baptized. If we must err, it is better to err on the safe side. Rather perform five ceremonies not required, than neglect one the Gospel enjoins. The penalty of disobedience is severe; but supererogation is not threatened. Then abandon your prejudices, and be baptized every one of you, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.'

The God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.

A SHORT ESSAY

ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ACTIONS AND SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST.

Introduction.

SOMETHING more than forty years ago, being in company with the Rev. Christopher Spry and the Rev. Evan Rogers, two Methodist preachers of high standing at that time, one of them asked the other, Whether Jesus Christ suffered as man only, or as God and man?' After some conversation upon the subject, it was dropped, without any decision upon the question. I took no part in the conversation, but listened, as became my youth, to the observations of older men. Indeed, I had no opinion to offer, as that was the first time I had heard the subject agitated. Soon after this, being in company with a young man who had been educated for the ministry, but who had unfortunately become a disciple of Thomas Paine, he put the same question to me- -that is, Whether Jesus Christ suffered as man only, or as God and man?' and seeing that I hesitated, he remarked, that He could not suffer in His Divine nature; and if He suffered only in His human nature, the sufferings of Peter or Paul would have gone as far toward making an atonement for sin as His.' The subject now assumed an importance in my view, as it disclosed the ground on which he, and probably many others, had rejected Divine revelation. On turning my attention to the Scriptures for a solution of the difficulty, I became satisfied, that, as Jesus Christ united both the Divine and human natures in His person, He must have suffered in both; and that this was the testimony of the Scriptures on the point. But it is one thing to say Christ suffered and died as our Redeemer, and another to say the Godhead suffered and died. The latter sentiment would be improper, as it excludes the other part of his complex person, and conveys the idea that God died. But that may be predicated of a complex person which cannot be of a simple person. And it should be borne in mind, that when the Divine and human natures became united, that union formed a distinct person, with new attributes and capabilities, even our Savior; of whom we may affirm, that he suffered and died: that is, that the two natures of our Savior suffered together, till a separation took place between that which was spiritual and that which was corporeal in His person, which is what we understand by His death. But no separation ever took place between the Divine nature and the human soul of Christ.

This Essay assumes that the union of the Divine and human nature, in the person of Christ, was such, that neither could be excluded in any action, suffering, or state of His; and that to exclude one is to dissolve the union. And on this ground it is that the Scriptures frequently refer suffering to the complex person of our Savior, as when they say, 'Christ suffered for us, Christ died,' &c, without once intimating that it is to be limited to a part, or to the human nature. Nay more: they refer suffering and death to the Divine nature directly, as the most important part of, and as implying His complex person. The Scriptures indifferently refer suffering and

death to the human or Divine nature; and that for this obvious reason, that whatever part of a complex person, known and acknowledged to be such, be mentioned, the whole person is understood.

It has appeared quite strange to me, that at a time when so much is said from the pulpit and the press upon the doctrines of the trinity, the Divinity and incarnation of Christ, the doctrines of the atonement, &c, that scarcely any thing should have been said or written upon the character of those labors and sufferings by which the redemption of the world has been accomplished. And this is the more strange, as the Unitarians have accused the friends of the atonement as vacillating upon this point. They say, 'The orthodox think the doctrine of the atonement as they hold it, gives them greatly the advantage, as it rests on a sacrifice of infinite value; but when we object, that this involves the worse than absurd idea, that God himself died, they change their ground, and tell us that Jesus Christ suffered only in his human nature.' And this every trinitarian must know to be the fact. Hence something more consistent and satisfactory is certainly desirable. The following Essay it is hoped will supply the desideratum. The subject, in itself, and in its influence on practical and experimental piety, is important; and the writer only regrets that it had not fallen to the lot of some one of more ability and leisure to set it in a proper light. Such as the attempt is, he commends it to God and his brethren, and hopes for a successful issue.

It is frequently said of our blessed Savior, that He did this as man, and that as God;' that he suffered in his human nature alone, and that he could not suffer in his Divine nature.' But this is a mode of speaking which it is believed the Scriptures will not warrant, and which is calculated to mislead the inquirer in some important respects, and betrays those who use it into inconsistency and self contradiction. Whatever is said or done by our Savior respects His whole person, and not merely a part of it.

All orthodox Christians represent sin as an evil of such magnitude that it cannot be expiated but by an infinite sacrifice; but when the difficulty of conceiving how the Divine nature could suffer is presented to view, they seem to retract, and give us this sentiment, that Jesus Christ suffered only in His human nature.' But if the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction rests alone on the suffering of the mere human nature of Christ, it follows, that the merit of His suffering was finite, and could

never atone for sin.

Nor will it obviate the difficulty to say that the human nature was ennobled and dignified by its union with the Divine, and therefore His sufferings possessed an infinite value.' It is one thing to assert this, and another to prove it. However ennobled and dignified the human nature was by its union with the Divine, it was human nature still, and could merit nothing.

It will avail as little to say that the human nature was offered upon the altar of, or was supported by the Divine nature, and therefore pos sessed an infinite value.' To this it may be replied,

First, That the Divine nature, in distinction from the human, is nowhere in Scripture represented as an altar for this purpose; and

Secondly, That if the office of the Divine nature, in making the atonement, was to support the human nature in its sufferings, it could have done this as well without becoming incarnate, as to support the saints in their sufferings without becoming incarnate for each individual. But Thirdly, It nowhere appears that the human nature of Christ had this support, but the contrary. He was dismayed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of His sufferings; and His soul was in agony: He sunk, and died. We are told that the angels ministered to Him' in His extremity; but if He had been supported by the infinite, unsuffering Divinity, there would have been no room for the ministry of angels in the case.

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It would not, however, be proper to say, without qualification, that the Deity suffered, or that the Divinity died. This would be as improper as to limit the sufferings of Christ to his humanity. We cannot say that the Deity, as Deity, can suffer; but we can say that that which is impossible to the Deity, as Deity, is possible to Him as incarnated. It was impossible that the Deity, as Deity, should be born of a woman; but it was not impossible for him as incarnated. The fact that He was so born proves that it was not impossible.

The proposition laid down and defended in the following pages is this: That all the actions and sufferings of Jesus Christ were the actions and sufferings of the God-man, or, in other words, the complex person of our blessed Savior.

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prepare the way for what may be said in support of this proposition, it may be well to premise a few things.

Those who limit the sufferings of Jesus Christ to his human nature, speak on the subject, as though each part of a complex person has a property in every other part, and in the actions and sufferings of the whole person, though they do not act or suffer together. Hence they say the sufferings of the human nature of Christ were the sufferings of the Divine nature, though the latter did not suffer. But a little attention to the subject will show this to be an error.

Every person and thing has something which makes it what it is, and which distinguishes it from every thing else. This is called identity. The two natures of Jesus Christ were united in His incarnation, and formed one person, having identity, which is essential to Him as the one Mediator between God and men. If, therefore, we destroy the identity of His person as Mediator, or disunite the two natures, it follows of course, that there is no Mediator, though the two natures exist separately.

But how can the personal identity of the Mediator be destroyed? We answer, In one way only, by separating the two natures, the human and the Divine; and this it is conceived is done when we limit any action or suffering to one nature, and exclude the other. While the identity of our Savior's person remains, every action and suffering must be the action and suffering of His whole person, unless we choose to say that the same person may both act and not act-suffer and not suffer at the same time, which would be a contradiction in terms, and cannot be true.

Thus we see that the property which any part of a complex person has in every other part, and in the actions and sufferings of the whole, depends entirely on the identity of person. But, if we separate the VOL. VI.-July, 1835.

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parts of which the person is composed, there remains no common interest in the attributes of either. If we limit the sufferings of our Savior to His human nature, and exclude the Divine nature from sharing in them, we separate the two natures; and the sufferings of the former are no more the sufferings of the latter, than were the sufferings of Peter or Paul. It is conceived that only on the ground maintained in this Essay, this personal identity of our Savior, can He claim any personal property in the sufferings of the human nature. On this ground alone, the sufferings and blood of the human nature are the sufferings and blood of the Divine nature; because on this ground the whole complex person suffered.

The reader will frequently meet in the following pages with this and similar language: The Scriptures refer suffering and death to the Divine nature of Christ.** But let him not misunderstand the writer in these instances. Though the Scriptures do this, (this is the fact,) His complex person is always understood, of which the Divine nature is the most important part.

The complex person of the Savior is analogous to that of man. When a man dies, the soul and body suffer together till the separation takes place, when the soul performs its wonted functions, without the medium of material organs. Those who are accustomed to view death, or rather the effect of death, in a lifeless, clay-cold body, are startled at the thought of our Savior's dying, as though it implied that the Deity ceased to exist, or his life became extinct. Unworthy thought! Does even the soul of a man cease to exist, or become extinct when he dies? Does it not often exert its powers in a higher degree, while passing through those sufferings which are commissioned to dissolve its mysterious connection with the body, than at any former period? And, after death, does it not exist in a more perfect state, and act in a more perfect way than it did before? All this, and more, is true in the superlative degree, with the Divine nature, in the sufferings and death of Christ. The sufferings and death of Jesus Christ did not prevent His perceptions, nor take from Him the power to act in all things as became the God-man, Mediator. All the parts of His complex person suffered together till death, when pain ceased, and the soul and Divine nature, closely and indissolubly united, passed together into paradise, where they remained till their reunion with the body. So that neither in the sufferings before death, nor in death itself, nor in the state after death, do we see any thing that need impair the faculties, or in any way prevent the exercise of the powers of his intelligent and efficient nature.

We have seen above that the actions and sufferings of a complex person must be the actions and sufferings of all the parts of which

*The reader is not to understand from this expression that the Divine nature of Jesus Christ ceased either to be, to live, or to act, as neither of these can ever be truly declared of His human soul, or of His Divinity; but the meaning is, that for a short season only-from the time that Jesus Christ expired on the cross until His resurrection-His soul and Divinity were separated from the body; so that during that time He ceased to appear in the complex character of God-man, and ceased to perform any of those visible works which pertained to Him as the Redeemer of the world. No one, therefore, is authorized to attribute to the author the belief, that the Deity of Jesus Christ actually expired upon the cross, because nothing is more foreign from his thoughts.

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