These effects may be very extensive; they may
be interesting even to other orders of intelligent beings. I think it is
a general opinion, and one to which I have long come, that the
beneficial effects of Christ's death extend to the whole human species.
It was the redemption of the world. "He is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world;" 1 John ii. 2.
Probably the future happiness, perhaps the future existence of the
species, and more gracious terms of acceptance extended to all, might
depend upon it or be procured by it. Now these effects, whatever they
be, do not belong to Christianity as a revelation; because they exist
with respect to those to whom it is not revealed.
_________
Secondly; morality, neither in the Gospel nor in any other book, can be
a subject of discovery, properly so called. By which proposition I mean
that there cannot, in morality, be anything similar to what are called
discoveries in natural philosophy, in the arts of life, and in some
sciences; as the system of the universe, the circulation of the blood,
the polarity of the magnet, the laws of gravitation, alphabetical
writing, decimal arithmetic, and some other things of the same sort;
facts, or proofs, or contrivances, before totally unknown and unthought
of.
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