What you object, in Answer to my Poftfcript, is fo very ingenious and diverting, that I can scarce find in my Heart to examine it. I had faid, that to be fovereign Lawgiver, was no Effential Perfection of the Deity: If it were, he must have been Lawgiver ab æterno, when there were no Beings to give Laws to. Upon which you comment thus: Take Take a Specimen of your Reasoning, fay you, Goodness is no Effential Perfection of the Deity; for then must He have been good ab æterno; good before there were any created Beings to be good to. The fame may be faid of God's Juftice.- -Do you call this a Specimen of my Reasoning? Sure you do not think me so fenfelefs. The Attributes of God are to be confidered either ad intra, or ad extra; either as inherent in God, or, as manifefted by Him: God then was internally Good, Wife, etc. ab æterno, before he exerted those Attributes : But to be an internal Lawgiver is a Contradiction in Terms. God is Good by an abfolute Neceffity of Nature. But then the Exertion of his own infinite and unerring Perfection in the Capacity of a Lawgiver is perfectly free. He might have created no Beings, or none that there would have been any Occafion to give Laws to; or he may annihilate them. His Goodness and Wifdom are Effential to Him: But his Manifeftation of that Goodness or Wisdom, in

this or that particular Manner of Acting, is voluntary. If you will fay, that it is neceffary to us that he should be Lawgiver, ftante rerum Hypothefi: I anfwer, this is only a conditional Neceffity; and farther; that, upon a Suppofition of three Perfons in the Deity, it is no more neceffary that the Son fhould be fupreme Lawgiver, than that the Father should be Judge at the last Day. Though the fame Attributes are vested in Both, yet Both need not difplay them in this or that particular Scheme of Action. Till then more forcible Objections are brought, I muft ftill conclude; that what I have advanced in my Poftfcript is a good Solution of your main Difficulty.

Upon comparing the fcattered Paffages in my Letter, which you bring together concerning the Merits of our Saviour, I find a plain Contradiction. I need not point it out to you; who had, I am fure, Sagacity enough to perceive it, and Candour enough to pafs it by.

If the Divinity irrefiftibly over-ruled the Humanity, and made it intirely paffive, then it did not exalt and perfect, but deftroy the human Nature, it made it a mere Machine; but if it did not irresistibly controul it, then our Saviour's human Nature is as much intitled to the Glory of finless Perfection, as Angels and Archangels.

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The human Nature of CHRIST, by it's Obedience to the Will of GOD, did no more than what, as a Creature, was it's Duty to do: Confequently, by your own Way of arguing, it could not merit. The Merit then of his Sufferings, if they could have any Merit, must arife from the Sufferings of a Divine Perfon.

Answer. Though the Sufferings were the Sufferings of a Man; yet the Oblation was the Oblation of a God. We are redeemed, not with any corruptible Thing, but with the precious Blood of Chrift, who, by his eternal Spirit, or Deity, offered himself without Spot to God.

And this Act of the Deity, thus offering up his human Nature, is, I think, fufficient, all Circumftances being taken into the Account, to conftitute Merit. Becaufe, as I obferved in my former, all Creatures fhine with borrowed Light, with Merit not their own: That is, with no Merit at all. They have nothing independent of their Creator. But our Saviour, who was God as well as Man, could, out of his own peculiar Fund, difcharge our Debt. He, as God, had an independent Power over his human Nature. And to offer up what was his own IND EPENDENTLY, what was endeared to him by a perfonal Union, by a free and voluntary Act, may be, I hope, allowed to be meritorious; or elfe I have no Notion of

Merit. Either then you are to prove, that no fupernatural Means were neceffary for our Atonement-or, that God would not, or could not, find out any fuch Means--or, that he could have contrived a better Expedient. For the firft, fee LAW, and my former Letter. The fecond is too derogatory to God's Power and Goodness for you to affert. The laft feems impoffible. Because, fingle out what Angel or Archangel you please for your Purpose, this expiatory Sacrifice will have all the Excellency (viz. a perfect Model of Virtue, without any Alloy of Vice) that any other can have; and will befides be ennobled with diftinguishing Excellencies of it's own. For the perfonal Union will caft a more diftinguished Glory on whatever is fo nearly ånd infeparably allied to the Deity, than any Creature befides can have. To confirm which we may obferve, that the Son of Man is placed above the Angels, where they are said to be ignorant of the Day of Judgment. And whatever was deficient in this Sacrifice, if there was any Deficiency, was, or might be, made up by the infinite Merits of the Offerer fupper-added to it, and placed to our Account. Thus, God was in the World reconciling the World to bimfelf. He became the Author of eternal Salvation, etc.

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What those Merits particularly were, we need not inquire. A Man may know he is ranfomed by another from Captivity, without knowing the particular particular Kind, Manner and Value of the Ranfom. It is enough we know, that a Divine Perfon interested himself in this Affair. We must diftinguish between the Equivalency of the Atonement and the Merit of it. The Equivalency confifted in this, that as one intelligent Being is more valuable than the whole Mafs of infenfate Matter; so one faultlefs Pattern of Perfection is of more Worth than a whole World of finful Creatures. The Merit of it, as far as our general confufed Notions reach, confifted in this, not exclufively of any other Means of meriting unknown to us; that the Oblation was the free, unconftrained Act of One, more worthy than any Creature, offering up what was his own, and transacting the Scheme of Man's Salvation.

To enliven this dry Subject with an occafional Reflection. I wonder why those Writers, who fancy the Scale of Beings to rife gradually from Matter, in a regular Gradation, by an easy Transition from one Species to another, till they make near Approaches to Infinity, do not fuppofe our Saviour, partaking of both Natures, to be the intermediate Link between an uncreated Being and Creatures; as they imagine