SECTION XXXVI.

Christianity in harmony with the faith of Abraham; the system of the Jews repugnant to it.-Illustration from Gibbon.

Let us read even an infidel historian's account of the religion of Jesus, and we shall see, how completely that dispensation harmonised with the religion, the faith, and the promise of Abraham; as that of the Jews was repugnant to it.

'An exclusive zeal for the truth of religion, and the unity of God, was carefully inculcated. Whatever was now revealed to mankind, concerning the nature and designs of the supreme Being, was fitted to increase their reverence. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted series of predictions had announced and prepared the long-expected coming of the Messiah. By his expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were, at once consum

mated and abolished,' (abolished, because consummated.)

'The ceremonial law, which consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well as to every condition of mankind. The promise of divine favour, instead of being partially confined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the free-man and the slave; to the Greek and to the Barbarian ; to the Jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege, that could raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, and secure his happiness, was reserved for the members of the christian church. All mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the glorious distinction. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse, among his friends and relations, the inestimable blessing which he had received.' (pp. 276. &c.)

This beautiful system, which dived through the past abyss of two thousand years, and brought up, as it were, to the surface, the long-forgotten faith of Abraham; this perfect scheme, which the elegant historian evidently so much admires, even while he hurls against it the shafts of his sarcasm-was expounded by a fisherman of Galilee, and by a bigotted Pharisee. That a society of despised Jews should have overturned, should have utterly annihilated, the poetical mythologies of Greece and Rome, with all their attractions of architecture, statuary, literature,

games, festivals, and processions, has been considered a most marvellous achievement. But the wonder is as nothing, when compared with the consideration that the law of Moses was declared by two Jews, and one of them a Pharisee, to be superseded by the primitive faith of Abraham; and, that the expected Messiah had appeared in the person of a carpenter's son, who had been crucified on a charge of blasphemy! Could the utmost ingenuity of Mr. Gibbon have assigned one plausible cause for this? Let him make the most of the growing corruptions incident to human depravity, which so early deformed the pure beauty of the primitive Church. Let him point out exaggerated, or suspicious miraculous pretensions; rude and misguided zeal; increasing ambition; ascetic enthusiasm; and every other alloy which he can cull out of the histories or writings of the presbyters and bishops, during the three first centuries. We would ask, in what way they can affect, (supposing them to merit all the obloquy which he heaps upon them,) the genuine character of Christian precepts and doctrines; and, above all, how they account for its origin? The credentials of the Christian religion are in itself; in its foundation, not in its superstructure; in its own essential properties, not in the qualities or conduct of its teachers. Had the weaknesses of its ministers in Africa, Syria, or Rome, been a thousand times more preposterous, even than he represents them to have

been, they could not, in the slightest degree, have affected the precepts of Jesus Christ; the expositions of Paul and Peter; or the fact that this religion appeared at the time and in the manner that it actually did.

As the evangelical faith of Abraham reappeared, under those great reformers, Paul and Peter; so the vital principle of true religion, of God's real revelation, has been in like manner proof against all the subsequent heresies and schisms with which the depravity of human nature has corrupted the Church of Christ. The misapprehension of the intent of the law by the Jews obscured the anticipated Christianity of Abraham. The abuses of church-government, and the subtleties of inquisitive sophists, and the artful designs of priest-craft, obscured the pure light of Christianity. As the misconceptions of the law were done away, after the lapse of sixteen hundred years, by the Reformers Paul and Peter; so we, who are now living, can bear witness to a second revival of the same faith, after another long lapse of fifteen hundred years. That which Peter and Paul were to the Christianity of Abraham, the same have Wicliffe, Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Zuinglius, Ridley, Latimer, and a host of more modern witnesses, been to the same faith. Whatever shades of difference may have sprung up among them, as to some points of doctrines, they preached the Christianity of Abraham, when they preached righteous

ness freely imputed to "faith, which worketh by love," through the atonement offered by his seed: and, its destined reward-"resurrection from the dead."

He

The moral effects, which were produced by the revival of Abraham's faith in the Christian Church, of which he was the Father, are well known to all, who have looked into the history of its early days. We will take the description of the same author, whose historical candour has been, in this respect at least, proof against his individual prejudices. refers to the well-known letter of the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, using, however, this unfair expression' the Christians assured the Proconsul,' instead of the Proconsul reported to the Emperor.' The Christians assured the Proconsul, that they were bound by a solemn obligation, to abstain from the commission of those crimes, which disturb the private or public peace of society; from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, and fraud.’

These were the first fruits of Abraham's faith, which worketh by love. He proceeds to say, on the authority of Tertullian, Near a century afterwards very few Christians had suffered by the hands of the executioner, except on account of their religion. Their serious and sequestered life, averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity, temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues.' He gives them credit for the strictest in