be knocked about as a paradox, I should prove that the moral system of our race was not made for the natural, but the natural for the moral. If the reader can make any thing of this, it is at his service, if not, he can let it alone.

Let me then go on to consider Mr. M'C.'s idea, of the representation of the Son of God. And here he has not even a mathematical point to stand on. The deception which has been effected on his understanding by his imagination, is of the most extraordinary kind. We are all represented by Christ when we believe; because we, in fact, are one with him; and nothing more than Christ evolved. How? Did any one human being ever derive a particle of his body from the Lord Jesus Christ? Did ever one human soul become a part of the soul of Jesus Christ in the day of effectual vocation? Are either our souls or our bodies a part of the divine nature of Jesus Christ? Not at all! The conception of such an idea is impossible. And yet the Scriptures say we are one with Christ, and they use the only language by which the idea can be expressed. But let us, avoiding all hard terms, ascertain how much we really know of this unity; that we may know by what name to call it, and how to interpret it.

God elected men to eternal life, and promised them to him as the travail of his soul: they were therefore one with him in the covenant relation; according to the sovereign will, and solemn sanction of the high contracting parties.

God imputes his Son's righteousness to them, and then they are one with him, being equally justified by the law of works. And yet in this case there is this remarkable difference, that though Jesus pur

chased a pardon and heaven for them, he did not purchase either for himself.

God sends his Holy Spirit to work upon their hearts

He shows them that Jesus Christ is willing to save them, he inspires them with faith in the Lord Jesus, fills them with love to him and to his Father, and to righte ousness. They are one with him in moral righteous

ness.

And as they wish to be near him, they all offer him their service. Their first cry is, can I render thee any service? What shall I render to my Lord for all his love? The eloquent offers his tongue, the learned his pen, the rich his purse, his house, and his all, the brave offers his sword to defend the sacred ark, for even military courage may be sanctified into a christian grace. And when they cannot serve him by action, why then they offer themselves to suffer for him: they present themselves to hunger and nakedness, to penury and toil, to reproach and shame, to slander and scorn; they offer themselves to the chains of dungeons, and to the contortions of the shameful tree; they of fer themselves to be torn by wild beasts, to be tortured by racks, to be sawn asunder, to be burned as candlewicks. If they cannot have action, they will have suffering in his cause; that they may demonstrate that his love is better than life to them; and exhibit to mankind the more than angelic majesty of a spirit purified by the blood of the Son of God.

But is there in all this any thing more than a mere moral or spiritural unity. I know perfectly what you mean, when you tell me of two friends that they have but one soul. I know all about it: I can conceive a common love, confidence, interest: already I see them engaged in the same cause, rushing into the same dan

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Jesus Christ, and to prove that thousands were actually melted into one soul. I tell you again there is not one drop of Jesus's bodily blood in one of his saints, there is not a particle of his rational soul in one of them, and here too I must use a metaphor; and I must have the use of another metaphor to say there is not a particle of his divinity in one of them.

I tell you there is no such thing. 1 tell you it is all a metaphor and nothing else than a metaphor. And the whole system is, and ever will be, nothing more than a Pyrrhei dance of military metaphors, armed for battle, and dancing on to the charge. I do not say these things with a single atom of triumphant or exulting feeling; the man who detects such errors forfeits all claim to a triumph over his antagonist-For he never would have detected them, if he had not once been guilty of them.

The Holy Scriptures treating subjects which are the deep things of God; the divine nature, persons, perfections, and government; the things of the eternal world the employments and operations of angels and arch angels; the station in reserve for man, and the man ner in which he is to be conducted there; are under necessity of dealing largely in metaphors, in order t give men of dust and clay any ideas at all of such su blime themes.

On no subject are metaphors more profusely poure

out, than on the moral or spiritual unity between Jesus and his people.

He is a vine, and they are the branches; he is the foundation stone, and they are built on him into a holy temple. He is their brother, their redeemer, their master, their prophet, their priest, their king: when the church is represented as a bride, then he becomes the bridegroom. And if the human body be chosen as the object of figurative meaning, of course he must be the head, and they the members. All these metaphors express a real unity; and fall very far short of the amount of that unity. What man would attempt to find a literal resemblance between any one of them and the thing signified by them all. There is however, one

metaphor, and only one in all the Bible, which rises above the sublimity of this unity; and the reason is, that there is but one more sublime thing within the range of infinite intelligence. The metaphor alluded to is this: I in them, and they in me, that they may be one in us. The union of persons in the Sacred Trinity is employed to illustrate the unity of believers with their Saviour. But the metaphor far excels the object illustrated. For the Son of God possesses the very substance, perfection, and glory of the Father, by eternal and necessary generation; but believers are not at all possessed of the very nature of God, or of his perfections and glory; though they do possess perfections and glory of their own, bearing some resemblance to his.

I have now examined Mr. M'Chord's Theory of Representation, and do solemnly assure him, that it never will do all, or any one of the many good things he has laid out for it to do: nay, that it never will, and never can do any good of any kind: as it consists intirely

principle it will probably terminate in the denial of the atonement. Never once has that false principle got in a creed without doing mischief; and its direction in this system is towards Socinianism. Your bomb-shell has fallen in the midst of us, and the fuse is blazing, let us try to put it out: it cannot explode without doing who knows what damage.

And now as this scheme is purposely devised to vindicate the moral perfections of Jehovah in respect to the universality of the gospel call, let us proceed to that subject.

SECTION VII.

Of the Universality of the Gospel Call.

1. The authority which the gospel minister has to preach the gospel to every creature, or to any creature is the command of his master: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teach ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have com manded you." To preach the gospel, is to preach i as a system enforced by divine authority, commanding submission in the name of the Lord Jesus, under the pain of eternal death; and with a promise of eterna life, to all who shall hear it. The philosophy of the