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their own purposes, and on this principle accused, and indeed may be said to have condemned our Lord. If the propriety of the principle is conceded, it cannot be said that with their views of the character and claims of Christ, they made an unfair use of it. They maintained, against all evidence and truth, that he was a mere man, and therefore his claims to be the Son of God-to equality with the Father-to forgive sins, to judge the world-they contended were blasphemous. They were so, on the principle referred to, provided that principle be correct, and that the divine character of Christ is given up. But if blasphemy be an act, or series of acts, of verbal, direct calumny, or defamation, then it will follow that constructive blasphemy is about as great an absurdity as constructive murder or theft. The charge must be brought home, not in the shape of inference from general language, opinions, or conduct; or by proofs of the tendency, or supposed tendency, of such things. There must be proof of the actual language of defamation or reviling having been used.

The law of Moses recognized the crime of blasphemy. The following passage shews how it originated, and how it ought to have been understood :-" And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp: and the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:) and they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever cursed his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name

of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death." Lev. xxiv. 10-16.

Two things are here perfectly clear :-that the crime consisted in the employment of reproachful and malignant language against Jehovah-or cursing the God of Israel. The case of the individual, and the language of the law, clearly prove that this was the offence. It was not any opinion or doctrine asserted by the individual, or an inference drawn from his behaviour, but the language of cursing and reproach that brought him into danger. It is very evident, that the punishment provided by the law of Moses for this offence was stoning to death.

In the case of Stephen, the Jews acted upon this law; but they brought the doctrine of construction into operation, to make good the charge. It is stated in Acts vi. 13, that "they set up false witnesses who said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against the holy place and the law.” Here one offence is evidently substituted in place of another. "The holy place and the law," were the objects of Stephen's blasphemy, according to his accusers. But the holy place and the law were not God, but the things of God; and the Mosaic law required, that the blasphemy should be directed immediately against Jehovah, or that his great and terrible name should be cursed. In the next place, the witnesses depone, that they heard him say, "That this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and change the customs which Moses delivered us." v. 14. Thus a second inference must be drawn to establish the charge of blasphemy - that the words of Stephen were a blasphemy of the temple and the law. This certainly is not very clear.

Here then an individual actually loses his life for blasphemy, established by a double construction. In the first place,

a declaration that the temple and the law should be abolished, was blaspheming the temple and the law; and secondly, blaspheming the temple and the law was blaspheming or cursing God. Such are the consequences resulting from a departure from the plain principles of reason and of justice, in human affairs.

On the propriety of the crime of blasphemy being recog nized by the law of Moses, and of the punishment of it provided by that law, it is unnecessary to say any thing. Both were clearly defined by the Divine Lawgiver, who had an undoubted right to enact what he deemed proper as to those things. The crime, during that dispensation, from the very nature of the Theocracy, was equivalent to high treason against a human government, and was punished accordingly.

Ought blasphemy to be regarded as a crime punishable by man, in countries called Christian, and what punishment should be annexed to it? are questions too grave to be discussed in this place, and within the narrow limits of a Note. Yet I can scarcely refrain from expressing my feelings on the indefinite nature of the offence as it stands in the law of England, and the prosecution of individuals upon that law.

No man can suppose that because this offence belongs to the Mosaic system of legislation, other nations are called to adopt it. In that case, the Mosaic code ought to be adopted entirely, with all its provisions. Those who took the law of blasphemy from that system, would have been consistent had they adopted the punishment too. But if the same punishment can no longer with justice or propriety be inflicted, ought not some alteration to be made in the law? Blackstone defines blasphemy to be "an offence against the Almighty, by denying his being or providence; or by contumelious reproaches of our Saviour Christ. Whither also may be referred all profane scoffing at the Holy Scripture, or exposing

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it to contempt and ridicule. These," he says, are offences punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment: for Christianity is part of the laws of England."

According to this view of the matter, blasphemy may be a crime against natural religion, or revealed religion, or against both; and it may be committed in a great variety of ways. Whether human laws ought to provide punishments for crimes committed exclusively against God, his being or providence, I shall not at present enquire. But I will venture to say, that nothing has been more injurious to revealed religion than subjecting men to punishment for opposing or even ridiculing it. Christianity disclaims such a mode of defence, and disowns such defenders. Its appeal is to the truth of its own statements, to the evidence by which they are sustained, to its glorious congeniality to the character of God, and to the nature and wants of men. It promises no rewards but those of salvation to such as receive it; and threatens no punishment, but the most awful of all, the damnation of eternity, to those who reject it. It has been compelled, contrary to its own nature and declared design, to become "part and parcel of the laws" of a kingdom of this world, from which it has suffered grievous wrong, and by which it has occasioned inconceivable trouble. Christ will take care of his own cause, and of his own glory; and had there not been a single prosecution for blasphemy, from the trial of the celebrated Woolston, down to that of the unhappy maniac who has lately courted, and by this means obtained, an ignominious notoriety, -there would have been fewer blasphemers than are now to be found.

Note [C]. p. 8.

"Neither in this world, nor that which is to come." οὔτε ἐν τούτω τῷ αἰῶνι, οὔτε ἐν τῶ μέλλοντι. This phrase I have rendered in the preceding note, neither in the present nor the future state, i. e. in time or eternity. The Jews appear to have been in the habit of using this phrase, in two several senses. To distinguish their own age or dispensation from that of the Messiah; and to distinguish the present world from the world to come.* Bishop Pearce understands the passage under consideration in the former sense. He re. marks, "The Greek word aiùv seems to signify age here, as it often does in the New Testament, (see ch. xiii. 40, and xxiv. 3. Col. i. 26. Eph. iii. 5, 21.) and according to its most proper signification. If this be so, then this age means the Jewish one, the age while their law subsisted and was in force; and the age to come, (see Heb. vi. 5, and Eph. ii. 7.) means that under the Christian dispensation. Under the Jewish law there was no forgiveness for wilful and presumptuous sins: concerning them it is said, in Numb. xv. 30, 31: < The soul which doeth ought presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandments.' See to the same purpose, Numb. xxxv. 31. Lev. xx. 10. 1 Sam. ii. 25. With regard to the seculum futurum, the age to come, or the Christian dispensation, no forgiveness could be expected for such sinners, as these Pharisees were; because, when they blasphemed the Holy Spirit of God, by which Jesus wrought his miracles, they rejected the only means of forgiveness, which was the merit of his death applied to men by faith, and which, under Christianity, was the only sacriSee Lightfoot's Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on Matt. xii. 32.

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