ing to the right or to the left, than a drunken man has of keeping his footing, without reeling as he goes, or a lame man of walking upright, without a constant liability to fall. If the same word has any other meaning, as that of sin, or of guilt, or of iniquity, or even of punishment for sin, or the like, (meanings assigned to it in the best lexicons of the Hebrew language,) still it has no such meaning except as derivable from this primary one of distortion, pravity, or perverseness, which lies at the bottom of them all. The proper idea conveyed by the word y, then, would so far correspond to the technical notion of what is meant in the language of divines by original sin: that is, the inherent pravity, the inherent sinfulness, distortion, or perverseness of disposition, and liability to sin, which is a necessary consequence of the corruption of human nature. This proper notion of the word, therefore, is only one degree removed from the idea of Imputed Iniquity; that circumstance in the relative situation of a moral and responsible agent, to him to whom he is responsible, which describes his case who lies and must lie in the sight of God, when considered as he is, under the imputation of inherent depravity; that essential ingrained character of perverseness-which is inseparable in the eye of God from the idea of such of his creatures as labour under a necessary tendency to sin.

Between these several terms, then, and the proper meanings to be attached to each, we may now perceive there is the closest connection, and yet a very clear distinction. They lead to each other as naturally as cause and effect; and they suggest each other as spontaneously as all correlated ideas of necessity do: and yet they are as distinct from each other also. The first can have no being, but it will be followed by the second; nor the second, but it will be succeeded by the

third. Transgression will be the parent of sin, and sin of sinfulness; and sinfulness will carry along with it the imputation of iniquity, the notion of inherent depravity*.

When, therefore, we consider that the subjects, thus brought together in the order of expression, are actually united in the order of thought by community of nature and correlation; it will appear only a reasonable inference from this fact, that the restraining spoken of with reference to the first, must be something analogous to the sealing up spoken of with reference to the second; and both of them to the making of reconciliation spoken of with reference to the third or else there will be no longer any such parity of ratio between the acts predicated of these various subjects, as there might naturally be expected to be, from the parity of ratio or correlation, which prevails among the subjects themselves. And with respect to this act in the last instance of all, the proper subject of which is My or Inherent Depravity, we may observe that what is here expressed by making reconciliation, is properly to change the external appearance of any thing, by

*Ideas or words, which are so connected as the above, will spontaneously suggest one another, in whatsoever order they may be arranged; just on the principle that the effect will suggest the cause, as well as the cause the effect. Hence, it would have made no difference to the relation between the things, if the words which express them had been stated in an order the reverse of the above: as is to a certain extent the case with the enunciation of the same three words in the second of those remarkable texts, Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7, where the

superinducing upon it a new colour, new habit, new coating, a new form and appearance generally; and so hiding or concealing what it was before, by covering it with what is new. It has no sense so proper as that of blotting out or effacing an external appearance of a certain kind, by covering it over with an appearance, still external, of a different kind; as when a wall that was black is whitewashed or plastered, and so rendered white. The transition from this proper sense to that of the change of the aspect, under which the subject of inherent depravity would come to be regarded in the sight of God, by virtue of such an expiation as should make amends for that iniquity, and by virtue of such an imputation of the merits of that expiation to the subject thereof, as should convert the aspect of inherent depravity in the sight of his Creator, into the aspect of inherent righteousness-would be obvious. And such being the sense of the word-to cover over, or efface, the appearance of perverseness or iniquity in the proper subject, by virtue of the imputation of righteousness, the effect of some proper atonement— analogous to this sense of the word, and analogous to the act which it expresses with reference to its proper subject, py, should be the sense of the coordinate terms, and the corresponding acts which they express, with

,חטאות and פשע,reference to the coordinate subjects

respectively; and so they will be, if the one be considered equivalent to shutting up, and the other to sealing up; for to shut up, or to seal up, and to cover over, in the sense and with the effect of putting or keeping out of sight, of hiding or obscuring from view, in each case, are obviously one and the same.

With these changes then of the received translation, in the several clauses of the first verse of the prophecy, the whole will run as follows: Seventy weeeks are de

termined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, To shut up the transgression, and To seal up sins, and To cover over depravity: and the one thing intended under these various modes of expressing it, will be neither more nor less than the great Christian truth of the Atonement, and the effect or consequence thereof, in shutting up-in sealing up-in one word, covering over, and so hiding from view, in the sight at least of God, human transgression-human sins-and human perverseness, sinfulness, or inherent depravity. To shut up the transgression, to seal up sins, and to cover over inherent depravity, by virtue of imputed righteousness, may very well bear this explanation. Nor, should any one ask the reason why Transgression, in the first of these propositions, alone has the article before it and transgression with the article before it alone stands in the singular; and in addition to the explanation already assigned for that peculiarity, should conjecture that by the Transgression alluded to might possibly be intended THE Transgression, preeminently; the one great, original act of Transgression, by which the many were made sinners, as about to be undone and cancelled for ever, by the one great act of obedience on the part of Messiah, to which St. Paul attributes an equally general and extensive efficiency in making the many righteoush should I be disposed to dissent from this conjecture, but rather to agree with it entirely.

After the explanation of the first three clauses of this verse, we may soon dispose of the fourth, which assigns the next object of the Weeks; To bring in everlasting righteousness. There is nothing to object to this version of the words, except that the verb is properly not to bring in, but to bring on; to cause to come: and ever

a Romans v. 19.

b Ibid. 19. Cf. 12. 15-18.

lasting righteousness is properly righteousness of ages, δικαιοσύνην αἰώνων, or, as the Septuagint and Theodotion both have rendered it, δικαιοσύνην αἰώνιον.

Now what is this righteousness of ages, but the effect of justification by faith? that imputation of justice or righteousness in the eye of God, on behalf of his moral and responsible creatures, which takes the place of the imputation of sin or guilt, by virtue of faith in that means of atoning for sin which he has himself appointed; and therefore presupposes both the material act of that atonement, by which sin was expiated, to have preceded, and the proper object of justifying or saving faith, in the merits of that atonement to be applied to the individual sinner through faith, to have been provided. That this, and this only, is the righteousness of ages-the only ground of admission into the kingdom of heaven, which is a kingdom of ages, and the only means of continuing therein through its never ending course and succession of ages-no one familiar with the first principles of Christian doctrine will presume to deny. It is with reason, therefore, that this fourth clause comes next to the preceding in specifying the purposes contemplated by the prophecy; all being referred to the one great scheme of human redemption. Inherent guiltiness must be done away by its proper atonement, before it can be superseded by imputed righteousness: and imputed righteousness must presuppose an object of justifying or saving faith, before it can become effectual to the justification and salvation of the sinner. The first of these effects was provided for by the death of Christ on the cross; the latter, by the proposal of Christ crucified, in the capacity of Saviour, to the faith of his creatures and followThe atonement for sin in general was made by the one; the application of the merits of that atone

ers.