SIB THE SACRIEIer OE CHRIST. ingratiate those divine doctrines with unbelievers, by reducing them to such a similitude to their opinions, and sinking them almost down to their size and dimensions ? Can we ever ex- pect thanks from our blessed Lord in the great day for this sort of service ? For my part, I am fully persuaded, That the books, which have been written in vindication of the atonement of Christ in the two last centuries, carry such abundant force and evidence in them, that they can never be answered. Let Agrippa try to refute some of the chief discourses which have been published in former years by protestant divines on this subject: Let him destroy all the arguments used by Dr. Owen, Dr. Bates, and Dr. Edwards in their writings on this theme, and in confutation of the Socinian tenets ; Let him give an effectual answer to the first part of Truman's Great Propitiatiòn, to Bishop Stilling- fleet, or Archbishop Tillotson's writingson the sacrifice of Christ, and several others, before he grow to such an assurance of hts sentiments. I will not pretend to run over all this controversy again, nor have I any of these authors at hand, being absent from my study. Yet if I were within reach of Agrippa, I would put into his hands a few such questions as these, which any own thoughts and my memory suggested to me since I first readhis creed : A deep concern for such an important truth hung about my soul, and set my pen at work in these queries. ,_ Pray, Paulinus, let us be favoured with the rehearsal of them, says Cavenor, in great haste ; the rest repeated the same request, and Paulinus began to read. SECT. II.Queries to prove the doctrines denied by Agrippa. I. Does not St. Paul appear to be aman of good sense by all bis writings ? But sorely Agrippa's explication of his epis- tles, supposes him to be one of the most strange, odd, irrational writers that ever used a pen. What ? Has the christian reli- gion so little in it beyond the restoration of the religion of nature ? And could not Paul teach the restorationof natural religion but in such very improper terms, and such foreign and distant lan- guage, as that wherein he represents the gospel of Christ n Is this his plainest and his clearest manner of instructing the hea- then world in the religion of nature, or of restoring it where it was lost, to tell them, they must be reconciled to God by the death or bloodof Christ, that he has made peace by the blood of his cross, that Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God unto andfor the salvation of men? that he diedfor our offences, that hegave himself a ransom for men, that God has set hint ford¿ lo be a propitiation throughfaith in his blood, that we must trust ie his name, that we must hejustified by his blood and by faith in hirn, that by the obedience of one marry shall be made
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