The two great moments of the Christian Religion are, Original Sin and Redemption; _that_ the Ground, _this_ the Superstructure of our faith. The former I have exhibited, first, according to the scheme of the Westminster Divines and the Synod of Dort; then, according to the[125] scheme of a contemporary Arminian divine; and lastly, in contrast with both schemes, I have placed what I firmly believe to be the _Scriptural_ sense of this article, and vindicated its entire conformity with reason and experience. I now proceed to the other momentous article--from the necessitating _Occasion_ of the Christian Dispensation to Christianity itself. For Christianity and Redemption are equivalent terms. And here my Comment will be comprised in a few sentences: for I confine my views to the one object of clearing this awful mystery from those too current misrepresentations of its nature and import that have laid it open to scruples and objections, not to such as shoot forth from an unbelieving heart--(against these a sick bed will be a more effectual antidote than all the argument in the world)--but to such scruples as have their birth-place in the reason and moral sense. Not that it is a mystery--not that _it passeth all understanding_;--if the doctrine be more than an hyperbolical phrase, it must do so;--but that it is at variance with the Law revealed in the conscience; that it contradicts our moral instincts and intuitions--_this_ is the difficulty, which alone is worthy of an answer. And what better way is there of correcting the misconceptions than by laying open the source and occasion of them? What surer way of removing the scruples and prejudices, to which these misconceptions have given rise, than by propounding the mystery itself--namely THE REDEMPTIVE ACT, as the transcendent _Cause_ of Salvation--in the express and definite words, in which it was enunciated by the Redeemer himself?
But here, in addition to the three Aphorisms preceding, I interpose a view of redemption as appropriated by faith, coincident with Leighton's, though for the greater part expressed in my own words. _This_ I propose as the right view. Then follow a few sentences transcribed from Field (an excellent divine of the reign of James I., of whose work on the Church it would be difficult to speak too highly)[127] containing the questions to be solved, and which is numbered, as an Aphorism, rather to preserve the uniformity of appearance, than as being strictly such. Then follows the Comment: as part and commencement of which the Reader will consider the two paragraphs of pp. 135, 136, written for this purpose and in the foresight of the present inquiry: and I entreat him therefore to begin the Comment by re-perusing these.