Gospel, he has made ample provision for their support and consolation. Under this head it may be remarked that Christ sometimes authoritatively pronounces the forgiveness of sins: from which his enemies, who were his contemporaries, and many christians in modern times, have erroneously inferred that our Lord arrogates to himself divine attributes. Matt. ix. 2, “He said to the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer: thy sins are forgiven thee." Hearing this, the scribes said within themselves, "Why doth he thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" See Mark ii. 7.12 In this passage there is probably an allusion to an opinion known to have prevailed among the Jews, that every sin was visited with a specific punishment, and that bodily diseases, accidents, and the like, were punishments inflicted for particular crimes. Job's friends, from his misery infer his guilt: and the Pharisees assume that a man was born blind, either as a punishment for sins which he had committed in an antecedent state, or for the sins of his parents. John ix. 2. See also Luke xiii. 1—5. Our Lord upon every occasion peremptorily denies their principle: but in the case of the paralytic, he silences the cavils of the Jews, and supports his divine authority by healing the disease. Mark ii. 10, 11.-In the same sense he confers upon his apostles authority to forgive sins, i. e. to heal diseases, and to remove, and in some cases to inflict, calamities. John xx. 23, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." Compare Matt. xviii. 18. 13 12.66 In Their principle indeed was right, but their application was evidently wrong.-Almighty Saviour, may we each of us receive from thee forgiveness of our sins!" Doddridge in loc. But our Lord's reasoning was very different from that of the pious expositor. 13 Upon this principle, that sin and disease are, according to the theory of the Jews, almost reciprocal terms, the text 1 John-v. 16, may P 2 perhaps In Luke vii. 48, our Lord pronounces, concerning the woman who washed and perfumed his feet, "Thy sins are forgiven," "thy faith hath saved thee." This woman was probably a Gentile: and, as it is said "her sins were many," it is probable that she had been remarkably addicted to idolatrous superstitions: but that by our Lord's preaching and miracles she had been convinced of his divine mission, and converted to the worship of the true God. By this symbolical action she declared her conversion, which our Lord graciously accepted; and by his kind address to her he publicly testified that she was now translated from the community of sinners, i. e. heathen idolaters, into the community of saints or holy ones, i. e. the true worshipers of God: her faith in him had obtained this privilege for her. There is no reason to believe, that, antecedently to her conversion, she had been immoral in her conduct: nor is it to be supposed that a woman of infamous character would have been admitted into our Lord's presence, or even into the Pharisee's house. It is well known to all who have attended to Scripture phraseology, that the word sinner often signifies nothing more than hea. then; and saint expresses only a professed worshiper of the true God: and that a conversion from heathenism, and admission into the community of true worshipers, is sometimes expressed by the terms repentance, and forgiveness of sins 14,' and that without any immediate regard to personal character. The Gospel dispensation is represented in the New Testament, and particularly by the apostle perhaps admit the easiest explanation: The sin not unto death' may mean a curable disorder, for recovery from which it may not be unreasonable to pray. The sin unto death' may be an incurable ma lady; in which case prayer for recovery would be useless and improper. Compare James v. 14, 15. See this fact established by Mr. Locke, in his Commentary on Rom. v. 8, note (q); and in Dr. Taylor's Key to the Apostolic Wri tings, chap. vi. vii. Paul Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, as a scheme for obtaining remission of sins both for Jews and Gentiles; that is, for recovering them from error and superstition, to the knowledge and worship of the true God. Thus the apostle Peter speaks of Christ as exalted to be a prince and a saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. Acts v. 31.-It cannot be doubted that the Gospel teaches the free forgiveness of moral offences to the sincere penitent: but this could not with propriety be represented as the distinguishing peculiarity of the Christian dispensation, because the promises of forgiveness in the Old Testament are as numerous, as clear, as full, and as decisive, as any that are to be found in the New. See Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. Psalm li. 17. Isaiah lv. 7. Micah vii. 18. III. Jesus Christ is appointed to raise the Dead. 1. John v. 28, 29. "The hour is coming, in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." day." life." 2. John vi. 40. "I will raise him up at the last 3. John xi. 25. "I am the resurrection and the 4. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." "The apostle in these words," says Mr. Tyrwhitt, "suggests a remarkable analogy between the two dispensations of death and life, with respect to the nature of the persons by whom they were introduced.-The foundation of which analogy seems to be no other than this; that Christ, as to his nature, was in no respect materially different from Adam; Adam; that he was a man in the same sense of the word in which it was applied by St. Paul to Adam, and in which it is commonly applied to all the sons of Adam. We may reasonably presume that the apostle, in speaking of Adam and Christ, with respect to their natures, if he had known of any material distinction between them, would have been no less attentive to the circumstances of opposition than to those of resemblance. That instead of saying,' As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead,' he would have said, 'Although by man came death, the resurrection of the dead came by a person of a nature far superior to that of man15."" 5. Philipp. iii. 20, 21. "-the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." 6. 1 Thess. iv. 16. "For the Lord himself shall descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." 7. 2 Cor. iv. 14. "Knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." See also John v. 21. 1 Cor. xv. 14-26. Rev. i. 17, 18. Rom. xiv. 9. Dr. Price observes, Serm. p. 147, that the power which the Scriptures teach us that Christ possesses, of raising to life all who have died, and all who will die, is equivalent to the power of creating a world. How inconsistent is it to allow to him one of those powers, and at the same time to question whether he could have possessed the other! Dr. Priestley replies, Letters, p. 142, that Dr. Price ac knowledges that the power by which Christ raised the 15 See Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable Dissertation on this text, in Commentaries and Essays, vol. ii. p. 15, dead dead when he was on earth "was not properly his own, but that of his Father, who was in him, or acted by him." It may also be added, that the Scriptures teach that Christ is to raise the dead, but not that he made the world. IV. Jesus Christ is appointed to the Office of universal Judge, and to dispense the Rewards and Punishments of a future Life: an Office to which, as many think, it is incredible that a mere human Being should be advanced. The passages which are usually understood to assert this doctrine are very numerous, and many of them are perhaps principally applicable to the destruction of Jerusalem. I shall produce some which appear to be most decisive, and refer to the rest. The fact itself is not disputed, that the Scriptures, taken in a literal sense, teach that Christ is to judge the world. The difficulty to be considered is, whether his elevation to this office can be reconciled to the doctrine of his simple and proper humanity. 1. Matt. xxv. 31, to the end. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats," &c. This passage, in connexion with the preceding dis course, is interpreted by some as a scenical representation of the calamities which were shortly to overtake the Jewish nation, and of the escape of the Christians from the general desolation 16. But it is commonly understood as a figurative description of the final appearance of Christ to judge the world. Other texts to the same purpose in this 16 See Bishop Pearce's Comm. in loc. and Nisbett on the Coming of the Messiah, p. 140. evangelist |