future state, but by being moral and useful in the present. All hopes in the mercy of God, through the imputed righteousness of Christ, are thus precluded in the most solemn and direct manner. There is however, one passage in this gospel, which is supposed to teach the forgiveness of sins, by the merits of Christ. Mat. xxvi. 26. "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it: for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins."

According to the Hebrew idiom, wine, from its colour, is called the blood of the vine. And in allusion to this figure, Jesus says of the cup, "This is my blood." Blood was used to ratify the old covenant between God and the children of Israel. See Exod. xxiv. 8. And to this he alludes, when he says-This is my blood of the new covenant; and he insinuates, that he was the only sacrifice, by which the new dispensation, which he had introduced, was to be ratified and completed. The Mosaic covenant was confined to the descendants of Abraham; and therefore, the blood by which it was ratified, was comparatively shed but for a few; but the benefits of Christ's death were to extend to Gentiles, as well as to Jews; therefore his blood is said to be shed for many. The blood that was sprinkled on the door-posts as a sign for the destroying angel to pass, was sprinkled only for the sake of the individuals that resided

within, but the blood of Christ is shed to avert the angel of eternal death from all mankind.

The clause" for the remission of sins," means also, "for the dismission of sins;" and intimates that Christ shed his blood, or in other words, he voluntarily laid down his life, in order to supply all, Jews as well as Gentiles, with an adequate motive to dismiss their sins; that being purified from their iniquities by repentance and reformation, they might be received into favour with God. This is the real meaning of the passage, because dismission as well as remission is denoted by the corresponding word in the original, and because this meaning comports with the words of Jesus in other parts of his discourses. The phrase has an allusion to the Mosaic ritual; and this circumstance of itself is sufficient to define, and demonstrate its meaning. Matthew wrote for the Jewish converts, who were alone competent to comprehend such an allusion. Mark and Luke have recorded the same incident; but as they addressed their respective gospels to the Gentile believers, who had not the same partiality for the Hebrew scriptures, they have omitted the clause altogether. omission on the part of these Evangelists, shews clearly, that their divine Master had here only asserted in a figure of speech, harsh and unintelligible as it might appear to the Heathens, what he had asserted in plain and direct terms, in other parts of his ministry.

This

Thus, it appears that the doctrines of the divinity, the miraculous birth, and the atonement of Christ, are not only not taught in Matthew, but are set aside as false and pernicious errors,

by a great variety of facts recorded with that intention. From this, we may conclude with confidence, that the same doctrines are not taught either in the gospel of Mark, or of Luke, or of John, or in any other of the apostolic writings.

The Evangelists and Apostles will be found faithful and consistent; nor has any one of them ever asserted a tenet or a fact which is contradicted by the rest.

CHAPTER II.

THE DOCTRINES OF THE DIVINITY, THE MIRACULOUS BIRTH AND THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST REFUTED FROM THE GOSPELS ́OF MARK, AND OF LUKE.

IN the discussion of these tenets, it is a fact of importance to be remembered, that the books composing the New Testament were not written at the same time, and in the same place, or collected into one volume as they are at present; so that a Christian, or a body of Christians, who had one of these books, must have had all the rest. Mark, it is said, published his Gospel for the use of the believers in Rome, who wanted an authentic account of the things said and done by Jesus Christ, and who therefore must have either remained ignorant of, or uncertain in regard to the truth, of any doctrine not contained in his Gospel. Of this Mark must have been aware; and however brief he intended his narrative to be, he could not think to omit any essential doctrine of the Gospel, and thus to leave in ignorance or doubt those whom he wished to inform. But it is an incontrovertible fact, that he has omitted the story of our Lord's supernatural birth; and this omission clearly supposes either that he was altogether ignorant of such a story, or that he

knew it to be a falsehood, and therefore unworthy of notice.

But Mark was not a stranger to the story, having written his Gospel in the very place where it had, for some time before, been invented and taught. This evangelist, therefore, was called upon by his peculiar situation not only not to give it his sanction, but to set it aside as a fiction unworthy of credit. His Gospel, rendered verbatim from the original, begins thus:

"The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, (as it is written in the prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way in thy presence), was a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John baptized in the wilderness, and preached the baptism of repentance for the dismission of sins.'

According to the tale of our Lord's supernatural birth, he was pointed out as the king of the Jews, at the very time in which he was born. If this were true, the magi from the east were the first who made him manifest. But Mark here says expressly, that the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was a voice in the wilderness; in other words, he says, that John the Baptist was the person in whom originated the first informa tion respecting Jesus, as the saviour of mankind. The term which the historian uses to convey this

* Homer, wishing to represent Paris as the first mover of the Trojan war, says, that he was the beginning of it. εμης εριδος, και Αλεξανδρου ένεκ

Εινεκ'

αρχής.

Il. iii. 100,