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the law of fin; the process of this deliverance is the work of atonement, or reconciliation.

The reader will now fee, with ease, that, that power which caufes us to hate fin, and love holinefs, is the power of Chrift, whereby atonement is made. All the law and the prophets refted on this fpirit of love, by which alone they can be fulfilled. This eternal. fpirit of love is the word, or logos, which was, in the beginning, with God, and was God, which was hidden behind the letter of the law, and in the cabalistical allegories of the prophets, until it brake forth in the official. character of Jefus and rent the veil of the tem-ple from top to bottom. Our Saviour,in his official character, is always called by the name, or names, which is, or are, applicable to God, manifeft in the flesh, which figuratively means the letter of the law; this circumftance will fully account for all the fcriptures which my opponent would urge, in fupport of Jesus' being effentially God.

Chrift came not to deftroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them; the law is as far fulfil fed, in the foul, as it is brought to love God, in his adorable image, Jefus; and a complete fulfilment of the law and the prophets, will effect love, in every foul, on whom the law, in a moral fense, is binding.

Let it be afked, by what means are we brought to love God? Anfwer, "We love him, because he firft loved us." God's love to us is antecedent to our love to him, which refutes the notion of God's receiving the atonement; but the idea, that the manifeftation of God's love to us, caufes us to love him, and brings us to a renewal of love, (in which fpirit we all ftood, in our fpiritual head, Jefus, before formation; and from which, we,

125 in a certain fenfe elapfed, after being made fubject to vanity) is perfectly confonant to the neceffity of atonement, it fhows us what atonement is, and the power which the Mediator muft have and exercise, in order to reconcile all things to God.

The method, by which we are brought to love any object, whatever, is, by feeing, or thinking we fee, fome beauty in the object; and our love is always in proportion to the apparent good qual ities of the object seen.

While our minds are darkened, by the veil on the heart, in reading of Mofes, fo that the beau ties of the miniftration of life are hidden from our eyes, and its excellent glories are out of our fight, it is impoffible that we should love Chrift, or his word. Yet, during this darkness, we must love something; therefore, as fin and the vanities. of elementary life prefent the greatest beauty to our eyes, of any objects which we behold, our affections are placed on thofe corruptible things.

Now I call up the queftion again, has Jefus pow er to cause us to love holiness, and to hate fin? Anfwer, yes, if he have power to reveal the divine beauties of the word, to remove the letter and its adminiftration which are death, to take the veil from the heart, and to caufe ús to fee himself altogether lovely.

When a finner views God as an enemy, and grumbles concerning his being hard and auftere, when he feels an averfion to him, and wishes to avoid his prefence, it is certain the Son hath not revealed the Father to that foul. The ideas thus entertained of God are altogether wrong, and the mind that entertains them has no juft conceptions of the Almighty. But bleffed be the exprefs im

age of the Invifible; he hath power to reveal the true character of the Father, to remove the veil. from the heart, and to let the fun-beams of divine light gently into the understanding; then God appears altogether lovely, and the chiefeft among ten thoufand, while the foul in ecftacy embraces the brightness of his glory, crying "My Lord, and my God." But the idea of the letter is fo fixed in the minds of christian people, in general, that the veil of the law is as fully on their minds, as it was on the Phari fees of old, which caufed them to be blind to their Meffiah when he came.

Christians have, for a long time, believed, that the temporal death of Chrift made an atonement for fin, and that the literal blood of the man who was crucified, has efficacy to cleanse from guilt; but furely this is carnality, and carnal mindedness, if I have any knowledge of the apoftle's meaning, where he fays, "To be carnally minded, is death." The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The apof tles were made able minifters of the new teftament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. Chrift faith, "except ye eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no life in you." Muft we understand this in a literal fenfe? If we do, how fhall we underftand what he further fays of this matter?" The flefb profiteth nothing; the words which I fpeak, they are Spirit and they are life."

The apoftacy of the Jews happened, in confe quence of the lips of the priests not preferving knowledge; they fell from the Spirit of the law,, were loft in the wilderness of the letter, and there-fore were blinded indeed. This was a figure of the more dreadful apoftacy of chriftians, as were various other circumftances recorded in the old

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teftament. The chriftian apoftacy happened, in the fame way; and the church has been led into the wilderness of the letter, by an hireling priesthood, who knew nothing of the Spirit of the law; who have preached, in the name of the Lord, the letter, which killeth, in room of the Spirit, which giveth life.

The literal death of the man, Chrift Jefus, is figurative; and all the life we obtain by it, is, by learning what it reprefented. The literal body of Jefus reprefented the whole letter of the law, with all the allegories contained in the word of prophecy. The death of the body of Jefus, represented the death and destruction of the letter, when the fpirit comes forth, bursting the veil thereof, which. is reprefented by the refurrection of Jefus from the dead. Agreeably to this, the reader will underftand all the facrifices, under the law, by which the High Priests entered within the veil.

Being thus enabled to pafs from the letter to. the fpirit, we fee what death it is, which is the proper facrifice for fin, and what blood it is that cleanfes from guilt. The blood is faid to be the life, it is therefore the spirit or life of the law which does away fin, and gives life to the foul.

I am fenfible there are thoufands, who profefs. christianity, who are blind enough to object and fay, "Then the gofpel has nothing to do, in the falvation of mankind." But fuffer me to fay, the: gofpel is nothing but the fpirit of the law, which is the word, or logos, fpoken in the law, brought forth from the fhadows of the firft difpenfation.. To believe in any other atonement, than the putting off of the old man, with his deeds, and the putting on of the new man, which, after God, is created in righteoufnefs and true holiness, is carnal mindedness, and is death

There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away fin, but love; and we have reason to be eternally thankful, that love is ftronger than death, that many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it; that it hath power to remove the moral maladies of mankind, and to make us free from the law of fin and death, to reconcile us to God, and to wash us pure, in the blood, or life, of the everlasting covenant. O love, thou great Phyfician of fouls, what a work haft thqu undertaken! All fouls are thy patients; profperous be thy labors, thou bruifer of the head of carnal mind.

In this view of the fubject, we may see how the divine grace of reconciliation may be communicated to those who have never been privileged with the volume of divine revelation, and who have never heard the name of a Mediator proclaimed, as the only way of life and falvation. I have no doubt but thoufands, whofe education has taught them to look on the chriftian religion as an imposture, may poffefs a good degree of this love, which is the fpirit of life in Chrift Jefus; and though none can feel or experience this divine animation, only through the medium of the fecond Adam, I do not conceive that its agency is confined particularly to names, fects, denominations, people or kingdoms.

The word, which is nigh us, even în our hearts and mouths, is every where, operating, in fome degree, in all hearts. The enmity, which God put between the feed of the ferpent and the feed of the woman, is every where felt, and the two children are ftruggling in every breaft. When the creature-like nature, or the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, leads the whole man captive,

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