Paul, which he assures us this was the occasion of. But there is one part of this pretended decree, which, if it had been made in that council, that apostle certainly would not have been against, and that is, the forbidding intermarriages between the Christians and the idolatrous Gentiles. For it is evident from what he saith, 2 Cor. vi. 14-16, that he very much disapproved and condemned those marriages between believers and unbelievers.

Pp. 241, 242, he feigns a state of the case at that council, that is neither true in fact, nor, if it were, would be any thing to the purpose at all. He represents it as if the occasion of the council was, that the Judaizing teachers, who urged circumcision and the observation of the law upon the Gentiles, were willing that those among the Gentiles that had been proselytes of the gate,' at the time of their conversion to Christianity, should be admitted into the church and to all its privileges equally with the Jews, without being circumcised. But that they would not admit those that had been converted to Christianity, from being idolatrous Gentiles, to come into the church without circumcision. But this is entirely his own imagination. Those Judaizing teachers that came to Antioch laid it down as an universal rule concerning all the Gentile converts, that except they were circumcised after the manner of Moses, they could not be saved.' This they urged upon the brethren at Antioch, a church that had been originally founded, not by St. Paul, but by some that came from Jerusalem; and which seems to have been chiefly gathered out of such as had been proselytes of the gate;' see Acts xi. 20, 21, 22, 25; though no doubt there were also many among them that had been idolatrous Gentiles at the time of their conversion. Accordingly, the question before the council proceeded concerning all the Gentile converts without distinction. And Peter, in his arguings upon it, puts them in mind that God had chosen him long before, that the Gentiles should hear by his mouth the word of the gospel, and believe, and put no difference between them and the Jews,' Acts xv. 7, 8, 9, where he calls Cornelius and those that were with him, though they were proselytes of the gate, and not idolaters, Gentiles; and St. James, speaking of the same thing, calls them Gentiles too,' v. 14. Indeed all the proselytes of the gate had been once idolatrous Gentiles, and after being turned from their idolatry were still called Gentiles; and were not taken at all into the peculium of the Jews, nor regarded as belonging to their body, without being circumcised. And therefore the Judaizing teachers were not for having them, or any other from among the Gentiles to be taken into the Christian church without being circumcised. They were for having the observation of the law urged as necessary upon all the Gentile converts without exception. And the council was for having all the Gentile converts, without distinction, exempted from it. In this all the apostles and elders agreed, and passed a severe censure upon those false teachers that had urged the necessity of circumcision; so that what was done at that council, instead of proving that there were differences among the

apostles, or between the other apostles and St. Paul, which is what the author brings it for, furnishes a manifest proof that there was an entire harmony among them. Nor has this writer been able to produce any thing to the contrary; but after repeating what he had said before, and what has already been considered, concerning St. Paul's blaming Peter at Antioch, flies into some wild talk concerning Peter's infallibility, when he denied his master, &c.; see pp. 243, 244. And then leaves his argument concerning the difference between the apostles and the different gospels they preached to shift for itself, as well as it can.

He next proceeds to vindicate what he had said with regard to the apocalypse, and represents me as undertaking to prove that it is not the Christian Revelation; as if I denied it to be a Sacred Book of the New Testament; because I would not allow it to be the whole of the Christian Revelation, as he had absurdly insinuated, because it has the words, Revelation of Jesus Christ,' in the title.

What he offers here is so strangely loose, that the difficulty lies, not in confuting it, but in reducing it to any thing that can look like argument. He had asserted that that book teaches the mediatorial worship of saints and angels, and prayers for the dead : that the Christian Jews soon fell into gross idolatry, and set up a great number of mediators and intercessors with God instead of one. And this he pretended to prove from the apocalyse; and the proof he brought was, because the twenty-four elders, whom he supposed to be the principal angels,' are represented as having golden censors in their hands full of incense, which is the prayers of the saints.' But it was shown that those elders were not to be understood of the angels, nor of departed saints; but that it was designed as a figurative representation of the state of the church on earth, and the prayers offered up to God there. And it is evident to any one that hath considered that book, that heaven, and the temple, and altar there, often signify in this prophecy, the visible Christian church on earth, and the worship there performed. Our author hath nothing to offer against this; but to fly out against the prophetic language and style, as something that cannot be made common sense of. But though the style be figurative, and he that would take all the expressions of that book literally, would show himself as absurd as this writer has done; yet it doth not follow but that by a careful comparing one thing with another, and considering the genius of the prophetic style, we may come to know the design of those expressions. And many learned men, every way superior to this writer, and much better judges of good sense than he can reasonably pretend to be, have very profitably employed their pains this way, and found not only a good, but a sublime and useful sense. And notwithstanding the obscurities of this book, there have been many noble discoveries made from it, that affords an illustrious proof of the extent of the divine foreknowledge, and of the truth and reality of prophecy.

This writer makes himself merry with my having said, that the

'word angel admits of so many senses in that book, that no argument can be drawn from it.'* The plain design of which was, that no argument can be drawn merely from that word, as if whenever it occurs in that book, it is to be understood literally of angels properly so called, since it is evident, that this expression is often used, where angels, properly so called, are not intended to be represented by it, of which I gave some instances. Bnt though that word is there taken in very different senses, yet for the most part, by a careful consideration of the circumstances of the context where it is used, we may come to know the meaning of it; and if in some particular passages we cannot be certain as to the precise meaning of it, it will only follow, that no argument can be drawn from it, as used in those passages; which may be safely allowed, since there are many passages in that book, that we do not precisely know the meaning of; and yet this doth not hinder, but that there are other passages plain enough, and of special use. One of which I take to be that of the angel forbidding John to worship him, though it could only be an inferior worship that John intended. And it is an odd thing for this writer to attempt to prove the worship of angels from that book, in which it is as clearly forbidden as in any one passage in the whole Scripture.

As to prayers for the dead, he pretends I have admitted of it so far as he had urged it from the authority of the apocalypse. I had shown that what this author would put upon us as a proof of prayers for the dead, has nothing in it but what is very agreeable to reason, and what no understanding Protestant ever denied. And now he does not so much as undertake to show the absurdity of it; but talks of the primitive Christians in the first ages, as supposing the souls of the departed saints, to be hovering about their tombs and sepulchres,' in which he abuses them as well as St. John; since though they did not suppose them to be admitted into the full glory of heaven, till the resurrection, yet they supposed them to be in a paradise, a state of rest and peace.

He had asserted, that the author of this book confines salvation to the Jews only, and that according to him, not one Gentile was to be saved. Mor. Phil. vol. i. p. 372. The contrary to this was plainly proved by express passages out of the book itself, to which our author has nothing to answer; but according to his laudable custom, still persists in affirming what he had said before. He declares that the whole Jewish nation excluded even the devout Gentiles, or proselytes of the gate, from any possibility of salvation, till they became proselytes of righteousness, and conformed to the whole law; and that the Christian Jews made the entrance still narrower, and excluded all from hope of salvation, who did believe Jesus to be the true national prophetic Messiah; that is, 'a mighty conquering prince of the house of David, who was to subdue all other nations under them.' And so he goes on after his way, to assert that this was the idea under which the prophets represented the Messiah, see pp. 250, 251, which he had said several times before, and which has been already considered.

* See Divine Authority, pp. 252, 253.

He concludes this section with assuring his reader, that by my own acknowledgment the prophetic style and language are unintelligible; and then urges, that it is impossible to convince the Jews that they mistook the prophets; whereas it is both certain that great numbers of the Jews, at the first promulgation of the gospel, were convinced by those prophecies; and that many of the Jews since have been convinced by them, of some of which Mr. Chapman has given him a particular account. As to what he adds, that it is impossible for me, by all my shifts and evasions, to convince him that he has mistaken the prophets, p. 254, I will readily agree, that it is impossible to make him own that he is convinced, or that he has ever been in the wrong, in any one thing he has advanced; but I am satisfied that it is very easy to convince the rest of the world of this.

In his last section, he proposes to consider what I had offered concerning the satisfaction of Christ. He saith this is a turning point, and almost the hinge of the whole controversy, and that therefore he will more particularly consider all that I had offered about it.' One would expect after this, that he should have entered on a distinct examination of the argument, and yet he passes it over without so much as taking off the force of anything I had offered in answer to his objections.

He again represents it as a perfect inversion of all order and justice, that the innocent should suffer for the guilty; that merit and demerit are incommunicable adjuncts, and not transferrable from one person to another; that it is impossible to urge the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction in any way whatsoever, so as not to have a mischievous effect, as not encouraging presumption, quieting men in their sins, and bearing off repentance.' These things he had urged more largely and strongly before; and they have been particularly considered; and as he has not vouchsafed to take the least notice of what was offered on these heads, I shall refer the reader to my former answer.

He still insists upon it, that he had fully proved, that there were no vicarious sacrifices under the law of Moses; and that a man's offering a sacrifice did not exempt him from any other mulct, fine, or penalty in law.' And he is the more sure of this, because I have not been able to give any instance to the contrary. And yet I showed, that in cases where sacrifices were appointed to be offered, a man was always exempted from any fine, mulet, or penalty. That the sacrifice under that constitution was always supposed to avert the penalty, which would otherwise have been due. But he urges, that sacrifices were a part of legal obedience, and therefore they could not possibly typify and represent any real propitiation or sacrifice for sin, p. 261. That what was called making the atonement by the priest's sprinkling the blood, could signify nothing but declaring the atonement, or giving this open, public, and legal notification of it, that the person's sacrifice was accepted, and that by this personal act of obedience to the law, he stood acquitted in law. It was in the nature of a legal discharge,

that the law by such an offering or personal act was satisfied to that time.' p. 263. It will easily be acknowledged, that the offering the sacrifice, in cases where sacrifices were appointed by the law to be offered, was an act of obedience to the law; and that upon offering the sacrifice in such cases in the proper manner, the person was acquitted and discharged in law from the guilt he was supposed to have contracted, and the law was satisfied. But does this prove, that therefore there was no atonement supposed to be made by those sacrifices? It proves the very contrary. And it is a strange way of reasoning, that because the law required a sacrifice to be offered as an atonement, in order to the obtaining legal remission, and upon offering the sacrifice, a man did obtain legal forgiveness; therefore the sacrifice made no legal atonement, or was not supposed to make an atonement in law?

As to what he adds, p. 264, that "in like manner, Jesus Christ, by his obedience to death, and shedding his blood upon the cross, gave a public authentic declaration, or notification, of the acceptableness of such personal obedience, as the true righteousness that God would accept or reward,' I do not see how Christ's suffering and dying could be said to be a notification of the acceptableness of his obedience and death; it was his resurrection and glorification that was the proper notification of this; and therefore if his death or shedding his blood, is represented as a propitiation, on no other account than that it publicly notified the acceptableness of his obedience, his resurrection may be more justly called a propitiation or atonement, which yet it never is in Scripture.

But he urges, p. 260, that there is not one word in Scripture of Christ's dying to reconcile God to us, or to dispose him to be merciful to penitent sinners;' nor do those systematical divines, over whom he triumphs on all occasions, suppose that Christ died to dispose God to be merciful to us; but it was because he was disposed to be merciful to us, that he sent his son Jesus Christ to die, and give himself a sacrifice for our sins. He adds, that there is not one word in Scripture of Christ's dying to procure merit or pardon upon our repentance, or to manifest and display the justice and righteousness of God, and his hatred of sin. But we are told in Scripture, that Christ's blood was shed for the remission of sins; that in him we have redemption through his blood, even the remission of sins; that his blood cleanseth from all sin; that God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness in the remission of sins, that God might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus; that God hath made him to be sin, or a sin-offering for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him; that is, that we might be justified through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, as it is elsewhere expressed: that Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. And many other passages might be produced to the same purpose. And what sense can be made of these and such like expressions upon our author's scheme, I cannot see.