a sense of honour exists, dishonour or disgrace are overwhelming to the heart, even of fallen man, what must have been the pressure of these upon Him (as He could see them) in whom was sublimated more than we can even conceive of moral perfectness? That sublimation is conveyed to us in the words "He was LIGHT;" it supposes a purity infinite and essential; an exquisite sensibility both to purity and impurity-to good and evil. To purity and good as of its own-to impurity and evil as contrary to, and abhorrent to, its own.

On the other hand God has said of those under sin, that they are darkness. There was, therefore, essential opposedness of character between Christ and men—but it was not merely the negative opposedness of light and darkness— not that of contrast only, for the darkness is that of sin, which is an active principle. It hates the light. It hated Him who was the light; as He said they have hated me without a cause."

If therefore we would desire to form an idea of the trying nature of the position of Christ as light amidst darkness; as the Holy one among sinners; we must conceive what was due to Him personally. How exquisitely could He discern that! How poignantly feel that which He did encounter from the hands of sinners. We must remember that the world was made by Him—but refused to know the Creator. It is only when we keep our eye fixed upon Christ as essentially holy, just, and good, as, in Himself, the personification of love, that we can at all estimate the opposition, contempt, buffetings, spittings, Scourging and dishonour, done to Him as in our own eyes terrible in unrighteousness; but if so in ours, what must they have been in His!

Hope and fear are the two mighty engines by which Satan is able to retain men in disobedience; to cheat them into eternal ruin. He presents good, in some form of selfish gratification, suited to the mind of him on whom he practises to deceive, and by it blinds the eyes, or at least averts them from the consequences. But if that fails, he then brings the pressure of distress and privation, and makes them appear to sanction, or at least extenuate evil-and he thus blunts the conscience, and lures to destruction. In both ways he succeeds with men.

It was therefore needful that Christ should be tried in both those ways, and He was so. By the offer of the whole world, Satan tried to seduce Him, and when that failed, he brought the pressure of sorrow and trial, in all those ways which he finds so irresistibly overwhelming to men in general. The sole purpose of Satan was to shake Him by affliction; so powerful an engine for evil does he esteem it. In both ways he failed; and Christ's perseverance in obedience through all that the devil or man could work against Him, has evinced that it was possible for one in the circumstances of man, who could appreciate the pressure of those circumstances in an infinitely greater degree than man can do to persevere, notwithstanding that pressure, in unshaken obedience to God.

It is needless to advert to particular instances of the sufferings of Christ. They are recorded in the Gospels, and in considering them we must look, not only at the things endured, but at Him who endured them. We must carry along with us, in continued power of thought, not only that He was man—in all the perfection in which man had been created, but also that He was the MIGHTY GOD, the EVERLASTING FATHER, the PRINCE OF PEACE, GLORIOUS IN HOLINESS-FEARFUL IN PRAISES-THE CREATOR of everything that was made.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

WHEN Christ was upon the earth, and known to the Jews as the " carpenter's son," whose mother, brethren, and sisters were amongst them, (Matt. xiii. 55, 56) they had no kind of doubt that he was both a man and an Israelite. On the contrary, it was his claiming to be more than these which excited their anger; as they said to him, "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." (John x. 33.)

It has been reserved to the Plymouth Brethren to adopt certain dogmas concerning the condition and circumstances of man, and concerning the position of the Jews when Christ came, which, (if they were founded upon fact) would render it impossible he could have been either a man or an Israelite. They have thus, under the pretence of shielding "the Lord" from dishonour, done their utmost to establish two unavoidable inferences; both dishonouring to God in the highest degree. The first of these is that the Scripture declarations on the subject of Christ's humanity, cover a mere fiction: the second, which necessarily follows from the first, that the claim of Christ, to have glorified God upon the earth, has no foundation in fact.

That there should appear so late in the day of the present dispensation, the revival of a subtle form of doctrine which showed itself but to vanish again in the earliest ages of the church, will surprise no one who has remarked the Scripture affirmation that it is this very form of heresy which is by-and-bye to envelope the world. It is written of the denial that Christ came in the flesh, "this is that spirit of Antichrist"-meaning, that this will be the very declaration of Antichrist, who will (and indeed must) base his claim to reception upon the ground that before he came, God had not been manifest in the flesh : and we are thus enabled to see a new cause for the exceeding earnestness with which the Scriptures reiterate the assurance that Christ has indeed come in the flesh it is the merciful design and desire of God to shield men from looking for another and that can be effectually met only by the firm persuasion that Christ has already come in the flesh.

He who understands the absolute necessity to the glory of God of the boná fide humanity of Christ: who perceives in what respect his obedience as man has vindicated the name of God; and who appreciates the bearing of that fact upon mankind; in that he has furnished a standard of righteousness, whose counterpart must be also furnished by all who decline justification by faithfailing which they will perish eternally-will also be able to appreciate the infinite dishonour to God and to Christ, and the infinite mischief to the souls of men, of every form of subtlety by which the literal fact of Christ's humanity

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is invalidated, and its consequences both toward God and man brought to nought.

The Plymouth Brethren appear to have been unanimous in the reception for truth, of certain false inferences from the Scriptures; and it is the pushing of those inferences to their legitimate conclusions, which has been the means of their disruption. They are at present divided into three parties.

The first of these, though not doubting the correctness of those false inferences, deny the applicability to Christ of the results to which they lead.

The second have permitted those inferences to vitiate the integrity of their faith in Christ, so far as to deny that he shared in man's liability to die, and that he stood in the position of an Israelite. This division abhors their

brethren of the first class, who assert both these doctrines.

The third party have pushed those inferences to their obvious and necessary conclusions conclusions whose atrocity amply demonstrates the falsity of the inferences from which they are derived. These men utterly abhor their brethren of both the other classes.

Their inferences are three in number.

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1st. That the evils under which men labour, as sorrow, sufferings, and death, are circumstances of sin,' ," "of curse," and "marks of God's displeasure." 2nd. That all men are at birth under God's condemnation-because that he imputes Adam's personal transgression to each of his descendants.

3rd. That the Jews, when Christ came, were under the curse of God, because of their failure to keep the law.

The first of these opinions makes it impossible Christ could have partaken of sorrow, sufferings, or death-unless upon the ground of personal sinfulness -and of being under the displeasure of God. The second renders it absolutely inconceivable that Christ could have partaken of man's nature without being also subject by birth to condemnation on Adam's account. The third makes it equally impossible Christ could have been an Israelite except by being also involved in the curse of God!

The counter declarations of the Scriptures, ought to have at once convinced them, that no inference could be true which makes those declarations false.

It is the object of the following paper to demonstrate the entire want of soundness in each of those inferences and to show how necessarily such doctrines compel the adoption of false views of the humanity of Christ.

HERETICAL DOCTRINES

OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN :

THEIR IDENTITY WITH THOSE OF THE MANICHEES.

FOR centuries the doctrine of the humanity of Christ has been unassailed by any opinions which have either directly or virtually set it aside. The world has long beheld the separate existence of a body claiming the Christian name, while denying both the divinity and atonement of Christ, but for centuries the opposite opinions, those touching his human nature, have been neither openly nor covertly disturbed.

But now this has been done. It has been done, not by men who seem to desire to throw off the restraints of religion; not by opposers of God and of Christ, but by men who profess to have a more than common regard for both; it has been done by men who have separated themselves from all other religious communions, who have thereby implicitly, and by their writings explicitly condemned all other forms whatever, in which Protestants assemble to worship God; by men claiming to have been led into the old and simple path of meeting to worship him in sole dependence upon the Lord's promise to be in their midst, and upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth!

And they who have done this have arrogated to themselves the express and loudly asserted pretence of vindicating the honour of the Lord! They have branded the opinions which oppose their own with the epithet, “Dishonouring to the Lord," and have thus virtually involved all classes of believers, of whatever denomination, in the same sweeping censure; for it necessarily follows that if their brethren whom they accuse are guilty of dishonour to Christ, all who now do, and all who for centuries past, have held either implicitly or explicitly the same opinions, both are and have been, equally guilty of dishonouring the Lord. The entire church, is in fact, if their opinions are right ones, proved to have been heretical from the beginning!

The Plymouth Brethren are they who have done this. They have not done If they it by open and undisguised denial that Christ has come in the flesh. had proceeded by that way every one would know how to class their opinions, for they would, in that case, stand at once stripped of their borrowed plumage, and be seen developed as a sect calling itself christian, and having precisely the same claim to that name (but on opposite grounds) which the Socinians have. But they have clothed their error in a garb of zeal for God; sustained it upon false reasonings; hedged it in by verbal subtleties and by false inferences from the Scriptures; and by one or other of these paths they have attained the self-same end they would have done by the open and explicit

denial that Christ has come in the flesh.

The doctrines which virtually place all who dissent from them in the position of "dishonouring the Lord," have been principally invented by themselves, which it is seen to result that Christ cannot have been either a man or and consist in certain false inferences from the Scriptures; inferences from

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Israelite without having been also in moral distance from God. To these they have added a doctrine adopted from the creed of others, which, by pushing it to its legitimate conclusion, they have proved to be inconsistent with the idea of Christ's descent from Adam, excepting by placing him also under imputed sin.

Their former doctrines may be summed up as follows. 1st. That death and curse are synonymous; that mortality and liability to death infer sin. 2nd. That sufferings, meaning thereby the ills to which the flesh is heir, are "circumstances of sin," "penalties of sin," and in fact identical with, because (so they say) springing out of sin. 3rd. That Israel was, when Christ came, under curse because of the broken law; and finally, (the doctrine they have adopted) that all men are born under the imputation of Adam's sin.

The necessary result of such doctrine is, that it is impossible to receive for truth the Scripture declaration that Christ was a man, as descended from Adam, and an Israelite as descended from David, without placing him also in the sinner's position, that of himself needing redemption.

To a plain and candid mind the mere consideration of the genealogies of Christ which are given in the Scriptures (apparently for the very end of meeting such opinions as these) will seem to place these points beyond all dispute. Two genealogies of Christ are given us. The one in Luke expressly traces the descent of Christ from Adam the Son of God. The aspect of this genealogy is towards the Gentiles, its object being to shew them that Christ was the "seed of the woman," who should bruise the serpent's head, and effect the deliverance of man in general. The seed of the woman had also the flesh of Adam. Eve was taken out of his side, and he said, "this is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man." (Gen. ii. 23.)

The genealogy in Matthew shews Christ to have descended from Abraham. Its aspect is towards the Jews alone, to declare to them that Christ was "the seed" promised to Abraham, and the Messiah, the Son of David, the saviour of Israel in particular.

A plain, simple-minded man would therefore perceive that Christ must have been a man, because descended from Adam, and that he must have been an Israelite, because descended from David. He would feel that if there was indeed any thing in the circumstances or condition of man or of Israel which inferred moral distance from God, it would be impossible God should place His own Son in any such circumstances or condition. He would learn from the Scriptures that those descended, in the ordinary way of generation, from Adam, whether Jew or Gentile, are all under sin, and are "by nature children of wrath." But he would observe that those Scriptures expressly declare of Christ, that He did not stand in any such place, seeing it is written of Him in one place, that He did not descend from Adam in the same way as other men do, but that His mother was found with child of the Holy Spirit of God, and that He was therefore called "that holy thing;" and in another place it is written of Him that He was separate and apart from sinners; and that in Him was no sin; and he would infer that sin was the sole moral distance from God, in which all men are, but in which Christ was not.

When such an one reflected how clearly it is recorded in the Scriptures that Christ did suffer sorrow, humiliation and death, he would infer, not that He was therefore a sinner, but that there must needs be some essential