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Again: The modern infidel thinks, that nothing should be imposed upon him, as an article of faith, which he cannot perfectly comprehend; and that nothing should be required of him in point of practice, but what arises from the impulse of nature: but the Gospel not only demands his belief of many things above the narrow limits of his capacity, but, what is still worse, exacts from him the performance of several duties, which are opposite to the bias of inclination, and seem to bear hard upon human nature itself.

This is the true state of the grounds of that antient and modern infidelity, by which the doctrine of the cross is branded as foolishness. Let us, therefore, try if we cannot remove these vain prejudices of foolish men, by shewing that the plan of the Gospel dispensation is in these several articles perfectly agreeable to the rules of true wisdom, and equally suitable to the honour of God, and advantage of man.

And 1st, With regard to the abrogation of the ceremonial part of the Mosaic law, we may justly observe, that it was from the first of a temporary nature, and plainly intended to give way to a fuller and more extensive display of the divine will, to which it bore, in all its parts, a

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clear and distinct relation. In early times, indeed, it was of great use to mankind, that the purity of truth did not every where and entirely lose its lustre, but remained in one small corner of the earth, where it was suffered to take root and fill the land. But it was surely neither agreeable to the goodness nor intention of God, that it should remain shut up and confined there for ever. Nor indeed would the Jews themselves allow it to do so: For even they had so blended error with truth, superstition with religion, and vice with virtue, that a farther discovery of the will of God was become as necessary to them, as to the rest of the world. therefore, in mercy, sent his Son into the world to dispel the dark mists of ignorance, and to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord, even as the waters cover the sea. What reason then had the Jew to complain, that the Gospel exchanged the shadow for the substance, removed a dim light to substitute a brighter in its room, abolished the Mosaic law to introduce a law more perfect, more intelligible, and founded on better promises; and which was, in fact, the long-predicted end and completion of the Jewish dispensation itself? Or, why should he repine, that God who is the common parent of Jew and Gentile, and is willing that all men should come to the knowledge of the truth and

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be saved, should promote his own glory and their happiness, by extending the means of salvation to all nations, and by making his name known from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same?

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A second cause, why the Jews thought the preaching of the cross foolishness, was the obscure birth, the mean and afflicted life, the painful and ignominious death of the blessed Jesus. Mistaking the nature of Christ's kingdom, and misinterpreting the ancient prophecies which related to it, they foolishly expected a conqueror surrounded with all the pomp of regal splendor, who should sit on the throne of David his father; a deliverer, who should liberate them, not from the bondage of sin and death, but from the tyranny of the Roman yoke, under which they had long groaned.

Our Jesus, we readily acknowledge, answers not to these high characters of earthly greatness. and temporal power. He was, on the contrary, both in life and death, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; he was despised and rejected of men, stricken for the transgression of the people, bruised and wounded in the day of the Lord's fierce anger. But, at the same time, we know, that these afflictions were expressly

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foretold by the antient prophets, and that the whole tenor of the Old Testament, both in its types and predictions, represents the Messias as the lamb, which was to be slain for the sins of the world. We know too, that the kingdom he was to establish, was a kingdom of righteousness; that the victories he was to gain were victories over the powers of darkness; that his triumphs were to be over the grave and death; triumphs far more glorious than if he had come,, as the Jews expected, riding on Cherubim and Seraphim, or, like the great Jehovah himself, flying on the wings of the wind.

Besides; the greatness of our Saviour's suf ferings were so far from derogating from his dignity, as the Jews pretend, that they serve to give us a more exalted idea of his divine temper and character. The heathen philosophers, as well as the Gospel, tell us, that man must be made perfect through sufferings, and that no sight is so well deserving the admiration of a God, as a virtuous man struggling with afflic tions, and refusing to yield to them. As much, therefore, as our Redeemer's sorrow was above any sorrow, and his patience superior to every other patience, by so much was he the more deserving of our admiration and esteem. Nay, we may carry the argument still farther; his

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mean appearance and sufferings even add to the evidence of his divine mission, by making his miracles appear still more astonishing, when we behold this man of sorrows, this despised and rejected Galilean, commanding all nature by a single word, and exerting the powers of omnipotence, by recalling the dead to life. The Jews indeed fancied, when they saw him expiring on the cross, that he was in reality the carpenter's son, whom they had so often mocked and derided. But when we see the graves pouring forth their dead, and nature in convulsions at the death of this despised sufferer; nay, what is more, when we see death itself swallowed up in victory by his resurrection; we cannot but be convinced, as well as astonished, by wonders so unsuitable to the outward appearance of their author; we cannot stand out against such plain credentials of heaven; credentials, as incapable of being counterfeited, as they are of ever, being paralleled.

Let us consider, again, our Saviour's obscure appearance and sufferings in another light. The professed design of his coming into the world was to teach men the hard lessons of mortification and self-denial, of humility and meekness, of contentedness and peace, of charity and forgiveness, of patience under afflictions, and resig

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