that Esaias said, &c." he is only to be understood to say, that their unbelief was not to be esteemed surprising, but rather as an additional proof that Jesus was the Christ; because the indisposition of the people towards him was exactly that which had been foretold by Esaias. But that the prediction did not prevent them from believing appears by the fact; for " among the chief rulers also, many believed on him :" but the same love of the world, which prevented others from believing at all, prevented them also from believing to any purpose, so as to confess him before men: "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God". The same solution is applicable to all those passages, where it is said, "The Scripture must be fulfilled ;" and "Thus it must be:" not that any compulsion was exerted on the actors; but that God, having foreseen what they would do, and determined what effects should follow from their actions, pious minds would see and acknowledge in the progress of these proceedings the finger of God, and adore him for the consummation of them. The great Mediator himself, though he knew what awaited him from the malice of his enemies, would not, it was foreseen, withdraw himself, before he had accomplished his part, for fear of the evil hanging over his head. The painful life to which

" John xii. 42, 43.

he submitted, and the ignominious death by which he closed his labours on earth for our salvation, were alike voluntary in him", All this being done under a controling providence and predicted, those, to whom the book of prophecy was laid open, had only to consider the agreement of the event with the prediction. By this comparison discovering the finger of God in every part, they did not stay to make the distinction unusual to them, which was his immediate act, which, that of the inferior agents acting their own will, but disappointed of their end by the complete establishment of his purpose.

This seems the proper sense of all those passages which speak as if God had stirred up wicked men to perpetrate the impious murder of the Lord of Life, when he had only decreed to suffer their malice to take its effect; and from the evil which they did (instigated by their own malicious hearts) to produce the greatest act of mercy which he had ever displayed, the salvation of the human race. That he did no more to cause the death of Christ than abandon him to the will of his enemies, appears by the very account of the matter, which the

I See Mark xiv. 36. quoted below p. 73. From which it may be inferred not only that God might have saved him from death, if he had so pleased; but also that his own acquiescence in suffering it was a voluntary act.

apostle gives to the Jews, when he exhorts them to repent: "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain 13 " For if taking him and crucifying him had not been their own act, why should they be pricked in their heart at the recollection of it? Why called upon to repent1? How can we reconcile with the justice and mercy, which we are encouraged to expect from the Almighty, the woe pronounced (Matt. xxvi. 24.) upon that man by whom the Son of Man was betrayed, that "it had been good for him if he had not been born," if he could not avoid that dreadful crime? To what purpose was it to warn him before he had committed it, if he was by the previous decree of God absolutely compelled to do it? When our Saviour says, John iii. 14. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up," and when in the Revelation he is called "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world 15;" there is no necessity for the supposition of any pre-determination of the Almighty, that certain persons should crucify and slay him: but He having determined to send his

13 Acts ii. 23.

Read the history of the man who was commanded by the prophet to smite him, and refused to do it. 1 Kings xx.

35-37.

15 Rev. xiii. 8.

Son into the world, and foreseeing the reception he would meet with, it is expressive only of his purpose to bring to pass the salvation of the world by the of those wicked men; who were free to execute their own devices at the very time, when they were accomplishing his purposes.

agency

The progressive steps of this dispensation were to be waited for before the end could be obtained. God having foretold the several steps, we could neither have faith in the salvation thus described, nor believe the divine origin of it, till we should see the prediction verified by the accomplishment. So that what he tells us, "That this that is written must* yet be accomplished in me 16," refers rather to our understanding, who must expect that will certainly come to pass which God hath foretold. It does not imply any absolute decree of the Almighty, destroying the freedom of those actions, which must be supposed to depend upon the choice of the human will; for the doers of them are threatened with vengeance for what they should do, which actually overtook them in this world. God forbid that we should so think of this grand scheme of salvation, as if it could not have been accomplished without the necessary damnation of certain individuals of the human race! When our Saviour in his agony prayed that, if it were possible, the hour

See Note 11.

16 Luke xxii. 37.

might pass from him; he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt." Mark xiv. 36. To suppose therefore that our merciful Father could not have saved the world if Christ had not died a violent death, is more than what Scripture gives authority to suppose. How he could have done it, is beyond our province to inquire and our wisdom to determine. Whatever his mercy wills to do, his wisdom will find means to effect. Whatever will come to pass, whether from the choice of those whom he has permitted to will, or from his own decree, he foreknows, or he would not have foretold it. How his foreknowledge and our free agency can consist together is a problem we may solve, when we can by the operations of a mind, which slowly attains to knowledge by the progressive succession of thought, which uses words not only to communicate its thoughts but as instruments" in thinking, measure that Divine Intellect which is all intuition, who is the same "Yesterday, to day, and for ever1 18" with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years; who views past, present, and future, in one comprehensive glance. But if they are not really reconcileable, alas! our faith is vain and our hope fallacious.

17 Diversions of Purley.

18 Heb. xiii. 8.