[59] I Cor. i. 30.
[60] Rev. i. 5.
[61] John, vi. 29.
[62] 1 John, iii. 23.
[63] Nec Deus intersit, &c.
[64] Vide Heb. ii. 1, &c.
[65] Any one who wishes to investigate this subject will do well to study attentively McLaurin’s Essay on Prejudices against the Gospel.—It may not be amiss here to direct the reader’s attention to a few leading arguments, many of them those of the work just recommended. Let him maturely estimate the force of those terms, whereby the Apostle in the following passages designates and characterizes the whole of the Christian system. “We preach Christ crucified“—“We determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” The value of this argument will be acknowledged by all who consider, that a system is never designated by an immaterial or an inferior part of it, but by that which constitutes its prime consideration and essential distinction. The conclusion suggested by this remark is confirmed by the Lord’s Supper being the rite by which our Saviour himself commanded his Disciples to keep him in remembrance; and indeed a similar lesson is taught by the Sacrament of Baptism, which shadows out our souls being washed and purified by the blood of Christ. Observe next the frequency with which our Saviour’s death and sufferings are introduced, and how often they are urged as practical motives.
“The minds of the Apostles seem full of this subject. Every thing put them in mind of it; they did not allow themselves to have it long out of their view, nor did any other branch of spiritual instruction make them lose sight of it.” Consider next that part of the Epistle to the Romans, wherein St. Paul speaks of some who went about to establish their own righteousness, and had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. May not this charge be in some degree urged, and even more strongly than in the case of the Jews, against those who satisfy themselves with vague, general, occasional thoughts of our Saviour’s mediation; and the source of whose habitual complacency, as we explained above, is rather their being tolerably well satisfied with their own characters and conduct? Yet St. Paul declares concerning those of whom he speaks, as concerning persons whose sad situation could not be too much lamented, that he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart, adding still more emphatical expressions of deep and bitter regret.
Let the Epistle to the Galatians be also carefully examined and considered; and let it be fairly asked, what was the particular in which the Judaizing Christians were defective, and the want of which is spoken of in such strong terms as these; that it frustrates the grace of God, and must debar from all the benefits of the death of Jesus? The Judaizing converts were not immoral. They seem to have admitted the chief tenets concerning our Saviour. But they appear to have been disposed to trust (not wholly, be it observed also, but only in part) for their acceptance with God, to the Mosaic institutions, instead of reposing wholly on the merits of Christ. Here let it be remembered, that when a compliance with these institutions was not regarded as conveying this inference, the Apostle shewed by his own conduct, that he did not deem it criminal; whence, no less than from the words of the Epistle, it is clear that the offence of the Judaizing Christians whom he condemned, was what we have stated; not their obstinately continuing to adhere to a dispensation the ceremonial of which Christianity had abrogated, or their trusting to the sacrifices of the Levitical Law, which were in their own nature inefficacious for the blotting out of sin.—Vide Heb. vii. viii. ix. x.
[66] Rev. v. 12.