in the flesh, or did come without a human body; or that having come in the body of Jesus, he was as the Christ distinct from the man Jesus.

The gospel not only allowed the distinction which naturally subsists between vice and virtue, but was preached to the world as a power divinely efficacious in enforcing virtue, benevolence, and piety, and in thus rescuing the world from vice and misery. In answering this end, it inculcates two points of supreme importance, namely, that there is to be a future state; and in order to ensure happiness in that state, good, holy, and pious in this.

we must become

These two grand

points the Founder of christianity has established in the following manner. "Mankind shall live again, because they shall rise again; and as a pledge that all men shall rise after death, he himself will rise after having publicly died." He was put to death in the manner foretold by him, and he did actually rise, according to his promise; and having fulfilled this part of his promise, it follows of course, that in due time the other, namely, the resurrection of the dead, shall also be fulfilled. Now this argument supposes, that the person, authorized by God to make this declaration to the world, was really a man; that he possessed the nature of a man, and not of a superior being. If he were a God, his resurrection, as a pattern of the resurrection of mankind,

H H

would be rendered void, as he must then necessarily have risen by virtue of his divinity: nor could the resurrection of a being superior to death, be a conclusive proof of the resurrection of beings by nature subject to death.

Of this the impostors were aware, and they insisted on the divinity of Christ, not only to account for his miracles, but also to supersede the great doctrine of a future existence, founded on the resurrection of Christ. They reasoned thus: "There will be no judgment to come, because there will be no life to come; and there will be no life to come, because the dead shall not rise; and the dead shall not rise, because Christ being a God was crucified in appearance, and rose in appearance, and rose only by virtue of his divine nature." These sentiments, however, they did not always profess, but somewhat disguised them, in order to avoid a direct and obvious hostility to the christian revelation. The prospect of a future state, and the sublimity of a future judgment, constitute, they knew, the glory of the gospel, and render it, conformably to the original name of gospel, good news to men. An avowed disbelief of these fundamental tenets would have appeared to the most superficial observer to be utterly inconsistent with a profession in its divine origin. The impostors, therefore, being enemies in their hearts to these animating

principles of conduct, but unable to refute them, as established on the simple yet solid basis of our Lord's resurrection, sought to render them inefficient by a monstrous fiction, calculated to make the gospel appear not only false, but absurd and ridiculous. They speak of the Saviour's second coming; and in derision of that fact, they represent themselves as destined, in consequence of certain natural qualifications, unconnected with virtue or a holy life, to be married to the angels that shall accompany him. See Irenæus, P. 31, 32.

Thus they endeavoured to defeat christianity, as a principle of reformation and virtue. But they went farther, and made it an incentive to the grossest impurities*. Epicurus made the sensual appetite the only standard of right and wrong, and taught that no pleasure could exist distinct from the pleasures of sense. This was a

* Τουτο πείθουσι τους ανοητους αυταις λέξεσι λεγον τες όντως, ός αν εν κόσμω γενομενος γυναίκα ουκ εφίλησεν, ώςε αυτήν κρατηναι, ουκ εςι εξ αληθείας, και ου χωρήσει

Sanav. Iren. p. 31. They thus persuade their senseless followers, saying in these very words; whosoever being in the world is not in love with a woman, so that she prevails over him, is not of the truth, and will not go into the truth. This language was used, it is plain, at once to deride and pervert what our Lord said to his disciples, in John xvii.

doctrine too flattering to be resisted by men, who were exceedingly depraved by animal gratifications, and who sought no higher and more refined object than their own immediate interests. The founders of gnosticism, therefore, conformably to their master, denied all moral obligations, as founded in the nature of things; and impudently taught, that the distinction of virtue and vice in conduct, proceeded from the malevolence of the Creator, or from the arbitrary institutions of men*. Accordingly, Josephus, with justice and truth, thus speaks of them: "They trampled upon all the rights of men, derided the divine laws, and scoffed at the oracles of the prophets. For the prophets have given many precepts in favour of virtue and against vice, which the zealots violated, and thereby brought upon them

* Non enim esse naturaliter justus, sed accidenti; quemadmodum posuerunt qui mundum fecerunt angeli, per hujusmodi præcepta in servitutem deducendos homines. Quapropter et solvi mundum, et liberari eos, qui sunt ejus, ab imperio eorum, qui mundum fecerunt, repromisit. Irenæus, p. 95. Simon held forth to his followers, that he would deliver them from the restraints of virtue, imposed upon them by the Creator and his prophets; and soothed them with the assurance, that salvation was not to be obtained by virtuous actions, but by grace—ou dia ayatwir πράξεων, αλλά δια χαριτος τεύξεσθαι της σωτηρίας. Theodoret, Hær. Fab, lib. i. 1.

selves the accomplishment of a prediction delivered against our country." Having thus virtually superseded the necessity of maintaining a holy life, they consistently enough transferred the standard of a true and sound faith, from the outward conduct to some inward emotions, from the fruits of virtue to some internal seed im planted in the heart. And it was an obvious inference, which they drew as a cloak to their depravities, that good actions being unnecessary to their happiness in this, would not be requisite to their salvation in the next world.

Among the Jews, they insisted on the works of the law-that is, the ceremonies of the lawas the means of acceptance with God; and strenuously endeavoured to exclude from the privileges of the gospel such of the gentile converts, as did not submit to the rite of circumcision. The indispensible necessity of this rite they maintained, in order at once to set aside the duties of repentance and reformation; and to check the progress of the gospel, by placing on the shoulders of those among the pagans, who were disposed to receive it, a heavy yoke, to which they could not submit. On the contrary, the apostles, with St. Paul at their head, represented the gospel as a free gift, unencumbered by the ceremonies of the Levitical code; and that nothing farther on the part of the heathens was