bolical and wicked act was the means of abolishing the Jewish law and dispensation-Now if it was the will of God that this law should be abolished, and "the sacrifice of the body of Christ Jesus" was the means of its abolishment, as E. H. asserts, then from his own reasoning, the Jews did the will of God, in crucifying Christ, fully as much, as on the supposition that he came to suffer death for the sins of mankind.

Let us state the argument in his own language-For if it was the purpose and will of God, that the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ should sum up in one all the outward atoning sacrifices of the shadowy dispensation, and put an end to them all, thereby abolishing the law, which put an end to that dispensation, together with its law and covenant; then the Jews by crucifying Jesus Christ would have done God's will, and of course would all have stood justified in his sight.

But E. H. says all this was done by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. Therefore, according to his reasoning, the Jews did the will of God in committing this topstone and worst of all their crimes. We have here another specimen of his inconsistency; indeed the letter presents us with a tissue of them, on almost every page.

If to extricate himself from this difficulty, he says that it was not the purpose and will of God thus to abolish the law, he should to be consistent, observe all its rituals and ceremonies. And he has virtually asserted this, for as he declared that Christ did not come "purposely to suffer death," and that his death was the topstone and worst of all the crimes committed by the Jewish nation, and consequently very contrary to the purpose and will of God in sending him into the world, it follows from his mode of reasoning, that if this murderous deed abolished the law, it must have been done away contrary to the purpose and will of God--Ergo, The law of Moses ought still to be in force.

Let any serious person read the account of the delivery of the law to the children of Israel, and the solemn injunc tions which were laid upon them to observe all its rituals; and then say whether he thinks it probable that an event which was to annul that law and do it completely away, never came within the design and purposes and will of the Divine lawgiver?

Is it probable that a law ratified and sealed by so many awful and impressive sanctions, could be abrogated by the mere accidental death of a martyr? We say accidental because E. H. asserts that his death was no part of the divine purpose and will.

Our readers will perceive from the Scriptures that this law partook of the nature of a covenant made between two parties; and of course it could not be dissolved by the consent of one only, and that by far the inferior party.-Consequently if it be repealed, it must have been done with the consent and will of him who gave it. Hence as it was repealed in the will and wisdom of God, and as E. H. asserts that the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ repealed it, he makes the Jews to have done the will of heaven in putting him to death.

He proceeds to tell us, that "he does not consider that the crucifixion of the outward body of flesh and blood of Jesus on the cross, was an atonement for any sins, but the legal sins of the Jews; for as their law was outward, so their legal sins and their penalties were outward, and these could be atoned for by an outward sacrifice."

We have always understood the word sin to mean moral evil-the violation of the law and commands of God, and are utterly at a loss to know what "outward or legal sin" can mean. If God command his creature man to do any thing, however unimportant the thing itself may appear to him to be, the disobedience of that command is positive sin-it is moral evil. The thing itself abstractly considered, may be neither good nor evil; the crime is in transgressing the law of God, and this must always be sin. If therefore, E. H. alludes to the neglect of the Jewish ritual, when he speaks of "legal or outward sin,” the case is not altered. The Jews were as positively commanded to observe all those rituals, as they were to observe the precepts of the Decalogue; and the neglect to do so, was an act of rebellion and disobedience to a positive command of God, and therefore was positive sin or moral evil.

Now E. H. distinctly admits in the sentence which we last quoted from his letter, that the crucifixion of the outward body of flesh and blood of Jesus on the cross, was an atonement for these legal sins of the Jews-that is,

that the Jews were released from the curse or penalty, which they had incurred by transgressing their law, through the atoning sacrifice, or sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, whom he calls "an innocent and righteous one."

In admitting, therefore, that the legal sins of the Jews could be and were atoned for by an outward sacrifice, and that this sacrifice was the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, E. Hicks has fully recognized and granted the principle of vicarious and propitiatory suffering and death of "an innocent and righteous one" on behalf, and in lieu of the guilty, and yet in the same letter, speaking of the Christian's belief in this doctrine, he declares it to be "wicked and absurd"-" an outrage against every righteous law of God and man," and asks whether any rational creature that has any right sense of justice and mercy, would be willing to accept forgiveness of his sins upon such terms?

Is this consistency? To admit the doctrine of atonement on one page, and anathematise it, and the believers in it, on the next? The distinction of "legal or outward sin,” makes nothing in his favour, for the principle of atonement is the same, even if we admit the distinction to be correct, which it evidently is not. If the sins of the Jews could be atoned for by an outward sacrifice, and "this too by the hands of wicked men, slaying an innocent and rightcous one," as E. H. asserts, upon the same principle the sins of Christians may be atoned for, by the same sacrifice. What are we to think then of his expressions in relation to those who believe in the apostle's doctrine of the atonement, when he says, that any person acknowledging a willingness to be saved through such a medium, would shew himself to be a poor selfish creature, unworthy of notice?

He admits the doctrine in behalf of the Jews, why then be so severe upon those who claim it for Christians?

He proceeds in his letter-" And this last outward sacrifice was a full type of the inward sacrifice, that every sinner must make, in giving up that sinful life of his own will, in and by which, he hath from time to time crucified the innocent life of God in the soul"" Now all this life, power, and will of man, must be slain and die on the cross spiritually, as Jesus died on the cross outwardly, and this is the true atonement, which that outward atonement was a clear and full type of."

"The doctrine," to which E. H. attaches this wickedness and absurdity, is evidently that of the atonement of Jesus Christ. We are not aware, however, that "the doctrine," or any of its believers, bring this gross accusation against the Supreme Being. His letter makes this "barbarous act," the appointed means of abolishing the law, and of atoning for the sins of the Jews, who committed it; and hence he would seem, from his own reasoning, quite as fully to make the accusation, as those to whom he wishes to impute it.

We really regret that he cannot refer to the doctrine in question, without branding it with epithets, which must be painful to all pious Christians. Throughout the whole letter, the subject is not once alluded to without an attempt, lamentably obvious, to present it in a forbidding, or even disgusting form. A calm and temperate assertion of his own belief, might be well; but with this he does not seem to be contented. Christian charity would, we should suppose, induce him to respect the feelings of those who sincerely believe, with the Scriptures, that it is the only medium of reconciliation which God hath appointed.

"Surely," he says, "is it possible, that any rational being that has any right sense of justice or mercy, that would be willing to ACCEPT forgiveness of his sins on such terms."

The words "such terms," evidently mean the vicarious sufferings of Jesus Christ-Once more then to the Bible. Does it not tell us in the plainest language that can possibly be used, that this propitiation is the medium of redemption that these are the terms upon which forgiveness of sin is offered ?

Paul says to the Romans, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." To the Corinthians, "For he hath made him to be sin (or as in the Greek, a sin offering) for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." To the Galatians, "Who gave himself for us, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God our Father." To the Ephe

sians, "Be ye kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."—"To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." To the Colossians, "And you that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your minds, by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death; to present you holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight." To Timothy, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a Ransom for all, to be testified in due time." To Titus, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Hebrews, 66 By the which will, ye are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Christ Jesus once for all"—" for by the one offering hath he forever perfected them that are sanctified." Peter, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but by the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." "Who, his ownself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead unto sin, might live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye are healed." "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit."

Now after reading these, and many other portions of Scripture, which we could produce if necessary, can any one doubt that God does offer us "forgiveness of sins upon such terms," (as E. H. calls the propitiation of our Redeemer), and upon none other; yet he queries, whether "any rational being that has any right sense of justice or mercy, would be willing to accept it."

But E. H. by using the word ACCEPT, must necessarily suppose that "such terms" might be offered-for how could a man accept what was not tendered to him?—And yet, although it is God who offers, man the sinner may