to the gospel-scheme, be as important as it is mysterious: it must be the very key, as it were, to eternal happiness; since, according to this view, it is only through the obedience of Christ imputed to us, that we can have any claim or hope to be admitted to the glories of his heavenly kingdom.

§ 2. It is not once or twice, therefore, it is not obscurely or obliquely,—that we might expect to find Paul speaking to his converts of this imputed sin, and imputed obedience. As the foundation of salutary dread, and of consolatory hope, as connected most intimately with every question relative to the punishments and rewards of the next world,-we might expect him to make the most explicit declarations respecting a point of such moment,-to dwell on it copiously and earnestly, to recur to it in almost every page.

Now when we proceed to the actual examination of Scripture, do we find these most reasonable expectations confirmed? Far otherwise: it is not, perhaps, going too far, to say that the whole system is made to rest on a particular

C

interpretation of one single text (Rom. v. 19), "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." For though there are other passages which have been considered as alluding to and confirming the tenet in question, there is none that could, without manifest violence, be construed into an express declaration of it.

The passage in question is one which we cannot reasonably hope to interpret aright, if we contemplate it as an insulated proposition;if we do not take into account the general tenour of the Apostle's teaching. Now, it is most important to observe, that frequent as are his allusions (as might be expected) to the Christian's redemption, and acceptableness to God, through Christ; the reference is made, throughout, to his death,-to his cross,-to his blood,to his sufferings,-to his sacrifice of himself, as the meritorious cause of our salvation; not, to the righteousness of his life imputed to believers; the transfer of the merit of his good works. For instance, "He hath reconciled us to God,

coi Toλo the many; i. e. the whole mass of mankind.

in the body of his flesh through death." "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood:" "He hath brought us nigh to God, and made Him at peace with us, through the blood of the cross:" "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all;" -besides numerous other passages to the same purpose.

Frequent again as are the allusions to the pure and perfect holiness of our Saviour's life, we nowhere find this spoken of as imputed to Christians, and made theirs by transfer of merit ; but always, as qualifying Him to be, on the one hand, an example to Christians, and on the other, both the Victim and the Priest, of spotless purity; as constituting Him the true Lamb without blemish,-" the innocent blood," which "taketh away the sin of the world," because He who offered it had no need of atonement for Himself. For instance, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your bodies from dead works to serve the living

God?" "Such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." In these and many other such passages, in which the personal holiness of Christ is spoken of, and spoken of too in reference to our salvation, it is not said that the obedience of Christ is imputed to us, and the merit of his good works transferred to us, (which we might surely have expected to find there mentioned, had it been designed to teach such a doctrine); but, on the contrary, it seems rather to be implied that his obedience was imputed to Himself as necessary to qualify him for the great sacrifice of atone

ment.

And the language of Scripture on this point coincides with the most sound moral judgment; which indicates that nothing short of a life of unsinning virtue could have made Him, Himself, acceptable, and fit for his great office; that, in short, it behoved Him "to fulfil all righteousness," in order that he might be a spotless Victim, and an undefiled Priest: that in suffering indeed an accursed death, He did more than could be required of an innocent person on his own account; and that, therefore, He died, "the

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just for the unjust;" but that his being just,-the perfect obedience of his life,-could not be more than requisite to constitute Him perfect as a man. I speak, of course, of his obedient life in reference to his human nature alone; in respect of which He always declared, My Father is greater than I;" to speak of his obedience, considering Him as a Divine Person, would be at least approaching very near to the Arian doctrine;d since all obedience necessarily implies a superior.

Surely, then, when we read that "by the obedience of [the] one, many [the many] shall be made (or constituted, (or constituted, — κατασταθήσονται) righteous," the presumption is strongly in favour of such an interpretation as shall accord with

a There is, I fear, in many Christians a strong habitual leaning of the mind to this view of the Scripture doctrines; though they are unconscious of it, from their having formally condemned Arianism, and distinctly asserted the equality of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father: forgetting that this is no security against a tinge being given to their ordinary course of thought on the subject, a tendency practically to contemplate three distinct Divine Beings, the second inferior to the first, and the third to both.-See Note A, at the end of this Essay.