ON THE AUTHORITY, PURPOSE, AND EFFECTS OF Christianity, AND ESPECIALLY ON THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION. BY JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." 14Tim. i. 15. London: Printed by S. BAGSTER, Jun. 14, Bartholomew Close, SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. THE original of the following Letter was occasioned by the request of a friend of mine, that I would furnish him with a selection of passages from the Holy Scriptures, on that most important and interesting subject-the Christian doctrine of Redemption. Since, in the course of a private circulation, the Letter has been found useful to some individuals, I am induced to correct and publish it, in the hope that others, who stand in need of the same kind of information, may, through the divine blessing, derive from it a similar benefit. THE mercy of God in Christ Jesus is a subject which I have long been accustomed to regard as superior to all others, in point of interest and importance. Conscious, in some degree, of the perfect purity of an omnipresent Deity, as well as of the corruption of my own heart, I rejoice in the assurance that means are provided through which the stain of my sins may be washed out, and through which I may be accepted with favour by the Author of all true happiness. Nor is it wonderful that I should entertain, for others whom I love, an earnest, and even painful solicitude, that they also may be brought to the discovery of this way of escape, and may come to acknowledge Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, to be "the propitiation for their sins"-their "resurrection" and their "life." Animated by these feelings, I cannot but be willing, according to the best of my ability, to communicate scriptural information on the great doctrine of redemption; and most happy shall I be to assist the anxious enquiries of a friend whom I so sincerely regard, on this all-important article of the Christian faith. Since, however, I am well aware how useless it is to attempt the formation of a superstructure without laying a foundation, I shall take the liberty in the first place, of stating two or three propositions, which will be found necessary to the validity of my future observations, but upon which it is far from my design to enter into any detailed argument. Let it be observed in the first place, that Christianity is to be received, not as a moral science of human invention, but as a religion revealed to mankind by the Creator him self, and promulgated upon his authority. In reference to this primary position, there are a few particulars of evidence to which it may be desirable for us shortly to advert. I. That the principal writings of which the New Testament consists are genuine that they were written in the apostolic age, and by the individuals with whose names they are inscribed is a point evinced to be true by a greater variety and quantity of evidence, than has probably ever been brought to bear on a similar subject. We may adduce, in the first place, a multitude of Christian writers, from the first century downwards, who have made innumerable quotations from the various parts of that sacred volume: secondly, many canons or lists of the books of the New Testament, and commentaries on its several parts, composed at various times during the second, third, and fourth centuries of the christian era: thirdly, versions of the New Testament into a variety of foreign dialects; some of which versions (for example, the Syriac, the old Latin, and the Sahidic,) were probably written in the course of the second century fourthly, the heathen enemies of Christianity, (especially Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian), who, in their attacks on the divine authority of our religion, were so far from denying the genuineness of the New Testament, that * One of these canons or lists is given by Eusebius, the learned Bishop of Cæsarea, who flourished in the early part of the fourth century. Speaking of the books of the New Testament, he informs us that the four Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the first Epistles of John and Peter, (i. e. about seven eighths of the whole volume) were confessed by all to be genuine; but that the Epistles of James and Jude, the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, and the Revelation, were spoken against by some persons. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. xxv. Although the evidences stated above bear with the greatest force on that major part of the New Testament which Eusebius has included in the former of these classes, they are, to a great extent, applicable also to the remaining books which he describes as spoken against, and especially so to the Revelations. See Lardner's Credibility. The Epistle to the Hebrews is reckoned by Eusebius in this passage among the Epistles of Paul. The apostolic date of that treatise is demonstrated by a variety of satisfactory evidence : but since it is anonymous, the question, whether Paul was its author or not, still continues unsettled. It has long appeared to me that the arguments for the affirmative of that question, are on the whole too powerful to be resisted. |