sufferings. Man having broken the tie which bound him to his Maker, something must be done to unite them together again. It was not sufficient for his hapless circumstances, that he should merely be forgiven his past transgressions. He wanted far more than this as an accountable agent, in which light especially his condition must be viewed. He wanted a restoration to the blessings of his primeval innocence, and a reconciliation with that God on whom his happiness depended. It is one thing to pardon an offender, and even to blot out his transgressions, and another to raise him again to favour, and restore him to all the privileges and advantages he had lost. The difference between these states is immense. When a prosecutor foregoes his right to punishment, or a judge recommends a criminal to the royal mercy, the party relieved gains nothing more than an exemption from the penalty incurred. He is not restored to the rank of an innocent man, nor can he claim, by such clemency, the confidence and esteem he enjoyed before. He has nothing to offer as an atonement for his guilt; nothing which can buy back again the character he had lost, or place him in exactly the same circumstances from which he fell. An atonement implies an equivalent, and the party offering and the party receiving it, agree to consider it in that light. In this it differs from mere acts of concession and favour, and is viewed, on a principle of justice, as a fair compensation for the evil done. When, therefore, both pardon and reconciliation were to be obtained for man, and he was

to be brought back again from the gulph of sin and destruction into which he was plunged, and replaced in his former privileges and advantages, it was necessary that an atonement should be made, of a nature so free and so full, so powerful and so efficacious, as to satisfy the ends of divine justice, by bearing the punishment due to voluntary guilt, and so to purify man's nature as to renew his innocence, create his heart afresh, and enable him, by spiritual grace and help, to become meet for the mercy of Heaven in a future state.

II. Now Christ, by his death, made this atonement, the ends of which we have been considering, and that this atonement was accepted by God and those ends fully answered, we have the strongest and most satisfactory evidence that can be required. This is the second particular I proposed to consider.

The Apostle, having stated that Christ died for our sins "according to the Scriptures," goes on to say, "and was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

That Christ's death, as an atonement, procured our deliverance from the curse of the fall, and consequently our justification or acquittal in God's sight, we can clearly show by his resurrection from the dead. Death had not the dominion over him, as it had over all others. Yet when he took our nature upon him, and was made like unto his brethren, he took upon him the effects of sin, and the liability to its guilt and punishment. If sin involves the

penalty of death, and no man "can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption," there must have been something accomplished by the death of Christ, which altered the state of man in this most essential particular, and gave him a covenanted claim to deliverance from the grave, and hope of eternal life. In this view it is that Christ's death was an atonement. It made a plenary satisfaction to God, so that the ends of divine justice being answered, and punishment being exacted and duly paid, the justification or acquittal from all future suffering immediately took place. Hence, our justification is made to appear from the act of our Lord's resurrection, that being the proof that God was satisfied. As Christ was delivered for our offences, so he rose again for our justification; that is, for the evidence of it; because as death was the wages of sin, that forfeiture or penalty being rendered and done away, Christ arose by his own natural innocence and strength, it being impossible for him to be holden any longer of death. In this view we see that our blessed Lord's resurrection was not the effect of any supernatural influence exercised over him, as in the case of Lazarus and of ordinary resurrections, but was the immediate and inevitable consequence of that end being accomplished for which he died in the same way as a prisoner ceases to be such when he has fulfilled the legal term of his confinement. It is this particular in the death of Jesus which deserves our attentive consideration, because it shows, what

the Scriptures labour to inculcate, that his resurrection was a spontaneous act, and the result of the success of his object. As our ambassador he came back to prove the efficacy of his embassy. As our hostage and propitiation he produced the body which had been delivered as the security for the payment of our debt. The ransom being completed, he returns to exhibit the tokens of his success; and peace being made, the injured party has now no longer any cause of offence against us. "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

There was, therefore, that in our Saviour's taking upon him our nature and voluntarily suffering for our sins, which subjected him to all the pains and penalties of transgression, and he, consequently, in our stead and for our sakes, tasted death for every man; but there was likewise in his death that expiation and atonement made, by which, he, as our representative, became freed from the effects of death, was emancipated from the bondage of the grave, and arose of himself without the aid or interference of any, by virtue of the justification or acquittal which he had obtained from God for us. His resurrection and re-appearance were the evidences of his triumph, and afford ample proof that our debt is cancelled. The denial, therefore, of the

resurrection of Jesus was, as is evident from the thing itself, a rejection of the whole scheme of Christianity viewed as a method to obtain forgiveness of sin for mankind; and hence St. Paul argues with his wonted zeal and eloquence in the defence and establishment of this cardinal doctrine of the new religion. If Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and rose again from the dead according to the same holy records, his resurrection was an attested evidence, that in his death he accomplished our deliverance. We have no other

ground for hope; we have no other promise of salvation; we have no other pretence to God's favour, but what rests on this. We cannot claim a pardon from God for our own deservings, nor can we expect it through Christ as the mere agent for us. Our best services are but the bare obligations of duty, and the agency of a man, even though that man were higher than the angels, could not procure pardon by his mere intercession and death. Neither could the example of Jesus, however perfect and apposite, however interesting or affecting, be of any avail in the reconciliation of God and man. An example may instruct man in the fulfilment of any particular part he has to sustain, or of any class of duties which devolves upon him, but it brings him no nearer to offended justice than what he was independently of it. To teach men how to bear adversity with patience and resignation, and how to encounter death with firmness and serenity, is well, and, as far as it goes, merits the closest observation.