tion, and ends without benediction. It is true, the writer sometimes speaks, but without naming himself in the first person, and addresses his reader, without naming him in the second. But this colloquial style is very common in all writings of a plain familiar cast: instances of it occur in St. John's gospel; and it is by no means a distinguishing character of epistolary composition. It should seem, that this book hath for no other reason acquired the title of an epistle; but that, in the first formation of the canon of the New Testament, it was put into the same volume with the didactic writings of the apostles, which, with this single exception, are all in the epistolary form. It is, indeed, a didactic discourse upon the principles of Christianity, both in doctrine and practice: and whether we consider the sublimity of its opening with the fundamental topics of God's perfections, man's depravity, and Christ's propitiation, the perspicuity with which it propounds the deepest mysteries of our holy faith, and the evidence of the proof which it brings to confirm them; whether we consider the sanctity of its precepts, and the energy of argument with which they are persuaded and enforced, the dignified simplicity of language in which both doctrine and precept are delivered; whether we regard the importance of the matter, the propriety of the style, or the general spirit of ardent piety and warm benevolence, united with a fervid zeal, which breathes throughout the whole composition, we shall find it in every respect worthy of the holy author to whom the constant tradition of the church ascribes it, “ the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

The particular subject of the two last chapters is the great doctrine of the incarnation, or, in St. John's own words, of Christ's coming in the flesh. It may seem that I ought to say, the two doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement: but if I so said, though I should not say any thing untrue, I should speak improperly; for

the incarnation of our Lord, and the atonement made by him, are not two separate doctrines: they are one ; the doctrine of atonement being included in that of the incarnation, rightly understood, and as it is stated by St. John.

The doctrine of the incarnation in its whole amount is this: That one of the three persons of the Godhead was united to a man, i. e. to a human body and a human soul, in the person of Jesus, in order to expiate the guilt of the whole human race, original and actual, by the merit, death, and sufferings of the man so united to the Godhead. This atonement was the end of the incarnation, and the two articles reciprocate: for an incarnation is implied and presupposed in the Scripture doctrine of atonement, as the necessary means in the end. For if satisfaction was to be made to divine jus. tice for the sins of men, by vicarious obedience and vicarious sufferings, in such a way (and in no other way it could be consistent with divine wisdom) as might attach the pardoned offender to God's service, upon a principle of love and gratitude, it was essential to this plan, that God himself should take a principal part in all that his justice required to be done and suffered, to make room for his mercy; and the divine nature itself being incapable of suffering, it was necessary to the scheme of pardon, that the Godhead should condescend to unite to itself the nature capable.

For, make the supposition, if you please, that after the fall of Adam another perfect man had been created. Suppose thaí this perfect man had fulfilled all righteousness,--that, like our Lord, he had been exposed to temptations of Satan far more powerful than those to which our first parents yielded, and that, like our Lord, he had baffled Satan in every attempt. Suppose this perfect man had consented to offer up his own life as a ransom for other lives forfeited, and to suffer in his own person the utmost misery a creature could be made to suffer, to avert punishment from Adam, and from Adam's whole posterity. The life he would have had to offer would have been but the life of one; the lives forfeited were many. Could one life be a ransom for more than one? Could the sufferings of one single man, upon any principle upon which public justice may exact and accept vicarious punishment, expiate the guilt of more than one other man? Could it expiate the apostacy of millions? It is true, that in human governments, the punishment of a few is sometimes accepted as a satisfaction for the offence of many; as in military punishments, when a regiment is decimated. But the cases will bear no comparison. The regiment has perhaps deserved lenity by former good services, which, in the case between God and man, cannot be alleged. The satisfaction of the tenth man goes to no farther effect than a pardon for the other nine, of the single individual crime that is passed. The law remains in force, and the nine, who for that time escape, continue subject to its rigour, and still liable to undergo the punishment, if the offence should be repeated. But such is the exuberance of mercy, in man's redemption, that the expiation extends not only to innumerable offences past, but to many that are yet to come. The severity of the law itself is mitigated: the hand-writing of ordinances is blotted out, and duty henceforward is exacted upon a principle of allowance for human frailty. And who will have the folly or the hardiness to say, that the suffering virtue of one mere man would have been a sufficient price for such a pardon? It must be added, that when human authority accepts an inadequate satisfaction for offences involving multitudes, the lenity, in many cases, arises from a policy founded on a prudent estimation of the imperfection of power in human government, which might sustain a diminution of its strength by the loss of numbers. But God hath ne need of the wicked man; it would be no diminution of strength to his government if a world should perish: it is therefore from pure mercy that he ever spares. The disobedience of our first parents was nothing less than a confederacy with the apostate spirit against the sovereign authority of God: and if such offenders are spared by such a sovereign, it must be in a way which shall unite the perfection of mercy with the perfection of justice ; for in God mercy and justice must equally be perfect.

Since, then, one mere man could make no expiation of the sins of myriads, make, if you please, another supposition. Suppose an angel had undertaken for us had desired to assume our mortal nature, and to do and suffer for us, what, done and suffered by a man, we. have found would have been inadequate. We shall then have the life of one incarnate angel, still a single life, a ransom for myriads of men's lives forfeited; and the merit and sufferings of one angel to compensate the guilt of myriads of men, and to be an equivalent for their punishment. I fear the amended supposition has added little or nothing to the value of the pretended satisfaction. Whatever reverence may be due from man in his present condition upon earth to the holy angels as his superiors, what are they in the sight of God? They are nothing better now than the glorified saints in heaven will here. after be; and “ God charges even his angels with folly, and the heavens are not pure in his sight,"

But admit that either a perfect man, or an incarnate angel, had been able to pay the forfeit for us; and suppose that the forfeit had been paid, by a person thus distinct and separate from the Godhead; what effect would have been produced, by a pardon so obtained, in the mind of the pardoned offender ? Joy, no doubt, for an unexpected deliverance from impending vengeance,-love for the person, man or angel, who had wrought the

deliverance, --remorse, that his crimes had involved another's innocence in misery; but certainly no attachment to the service of the sovereign. The deliverer miglit have been loved: but the Being whose justice ex. acted the satisfaction would have remained the object of mere fear, unmixed with love, or rather of fear mixed with aversion. Pardon thus obtained neyer could have inflamed the repentant sinner's bosom with that love of God which alone can qualify an intelligent creature for the enjoyment of the Creator's presence. This could only be effected by the wonderful scheme in which Mercy and Truth are made to kiss each other; when the same God who in one person exacts the punishment, in another, himself, sustains it; and thus makes his own mercy pay the satisfaction to his own justice.

So essential was the incarnation of the Son of God to the effectual atonement of man's guilt by the shedding of his blood. On the other hand, the need there was of such atonement, is the only cause that can be assigned which could induce the Son of God to stoop to be made man: for had the instruction of man, as some have dreamed, been the only purpose of our Saviour's coming, a mere man might have been empowered to execute the whole business; for whatever knowledge the mind of man can be made to comprehend, a man might be made the instrument to convey.

This inseparable and necessary connection with the doctrine of atonement, constitutes an essential difference between the awful mystery of the incarnation in the Christian system, and those avatars in the superstitious religion of the Indian Brahmin, which have been compared with it, but in which it is profanely mimicked rather than imitated. Yet the comparison is not unfounded, nor without its use, if it be conducted with due reverence and circumspection. In those impious incoherent fables, as in all the Pagan mythology, and in