(ix. 8.) And if Jesus was not entitled to the appellation of a Saviour from the saving power of his divine instructions, in what sense should we understand those declarations of Jesus himself, to be found even in a single gospel?—John v. 24, vi. 63, xv. 3.

To his question, "When, previously to Christ's coming, did the Egyptians cry to Jehovah for deliverance, and when, previously, was Israel the third with Egypt and the Assyrians ?" my answer must be in the negative; that is, neither previous to Christ's coming did the Egyptians cry to Jehovah and join the Assyrians and Israel, a blessing in the midst of the land, nor have they subsequently to the coming of Jesus, up to this day, cried to the God of Israel, or joined Israel and the Assyrians in asking a divine blessing.

The Editor says, (page 537,) that "in ch. xxxv. the blessings of Christ's kingdom are declared in the most glowing language." I do not dispute it in the least. If verse 10 (" the ransomed of the Lord shall return," &c.) have any allusion to Jesus, it must have reference to his implicit obedience to the will of Jehovah, even to the laying down of his own life for the safety of mankind; as explained in my Second Appeal, pp. 201, 202. Any one who has a tolerable knowledge of the idiom of Hebrew or Arabic, or even of Persian, must be aware that the word “ ransom" or so is often used to express extreme attachment or obedience, without implying an actual sacrifice as an atonement for sins.

He again quotes Isaiah xlii. [2] 21, “ He shall not cry," &c. "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake;" but I am unable, also, to discover what these quotations have to do with Christ's atoning for sin as a sacrifice in lieu of goats and bullocks. So, 2 Cor. v. 21, “ For he hath made him to be sin," &c., has no reference to the atonement, which the Editor insists upon: it implies no more than that "God hath made him subject to sufferings and death, the usual punishment and consequence of sin, as if he had been a sinner, though he were guilty of no sin; that we, in and by him, might be made righteous, by a righteousness imputed to us by God." See Locke's Works, Vol. VIII. page 232.

66

The Reverend Editor now refers to ch. liii. of Isaiah, laying great stress upon such phrases as the following, found in that chapter: "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;"" He was wounded for our transgressions;" "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all;" "He shall bear their iniquities." Do these sentences prove that he, like a sacrificial "lamb" or sheep," atoned for the sins of others? Did ever a sacrificial lamb or goat bear the iniquities of men? The scape-goats are stated to have borne the iniquities of Israel—a circumstance far from being applicable to Christ, even typically; for he, as was predicted, made no escape from the hands of his enemies. My readers may peruse the whole of ch. liii., and may find that

,ואין לו,brew

xxvii. 4, 12

,אין

,אין לו דמים

בו לו ,ואין עזר לו,12

"no person or nothing for him;" that is, "Shall Messiah be cut off, and no one be for him." The translators used the term "but," instead of "and," as in the Hebrew, and the term "himself," in lieu of "him." In illustration, I shall here cite the same phrase found in other instances, both in the original Hebrew Scriptures and their translation also, in the English version. Exodus xxii. 2, "No blood be shed for him." Numb. "He hath no son." Psalm lxxii. "And him that hath no helper." Dan. xi. 45, 15 s, “And none shall help him.” But, even were we to admit this mistranslation or perversion of the original Scriptures, the words, "Shall the Messiah be cut off, but not for himself," would, to my mind, convey nothing more than that the Messiah should be cut off, not for any guilt he committed himself, but by the fault of his subjects, who continued to rebel against the divine law, though instructed by their intercessor even at the hazard of his own life.

The Editor quotes Hosea iii. [5], "After that [afterward shall] the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king," &c.; and Joel ii. 28, "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," &c.; and also Amos ix. [11], "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen," &c. Had he been pleased to shew the tendency of these quo

tations to the proof of the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus, I would endeavour to examine the connexion between them as he has omitted to do so, and their relation to the question is certainly not obvious, I must spare myself the trouble.

6

The Reverend Editor says, (page 541,) "Nor does Obadiah, in his short prophecy, wholly omit the Redeemer's kingdom. He alludes thereto in verse 21: ́ And saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau: and the kingdom shall be Jehovah's."" To justify the application to Jesus of the noun "saviours," though found in the plural form, he thus argues: "Should he" (the author of the Appeals) "reply, that as the plural number saviours' is used, this cannot refer to Christ; we ask him whether he has not (page 242) affirmed, that the plural form is often used in a singular sense, as of his masters, meaning, his master has given him a wife'"? The Editor, as a diligent student of the Scriptures, should have known that the noun in question, "saviours," being accompanied with the plural verb 1, "they shall come up," is by no means an analogous case to that of the term "masters," masters," as found in Exod. xxi. 4, which is connected with the verb singular in', whereas, in Neh. ix. 27, the term " saviours" is associated with the verb in the plural form and the past tense, as well as with the pronoun plural.

I must, therefore, maintain the correctness of reading "saviours" in Obadiah as required in the former

alternative of the question put by the Editor, (page 541, line 34,) finding myself unable to " acknowledge the triune God," as proposed by him in the latter alternative for having relinquished the notion of the triune, quadrune, and decimune gods, which I once professed, when immersed in the grosser polytheism prevailing among modern Hindoos, I cannot reconcile it to my understanding to find plausibility in one case, while the same notion is of acknowledged absurdity in another. The Editor admits (p. 536) the application of the term Saviour to human individuals, as pointed out by me, (Second Appeal, pp. 289, 290,) yet he is anxious to prove the doctrine of the atonement by the application of that very term to Jesus.

The Editor says, (page 542,) that "Micah, in ch. iv., describes Christ's kingdom nearly in the same terms with Isaiah, and in ch. v., he repeats the place of his birth: Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, out of thee shall he come forth unto me-whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting. The testimony to the eternal deity of Christ, given in connexion with his birth as man, it is wrong to overlook." Any testimony relating to the birth of Jesus, having nothing to do with his atonement, is not in place here; but I will examine the verse here cited in the subsequent part of this discussion, when we come to the subject of the Trinity.

He quotes again Nahum i. 15, for the purpose of proving Christ's kingdom, which is a subject totally