We have now looked separately into the meaning of the two principal terms made use of in Scripture to describe the character of the Atonement, the terms ransom and sacrifice. And if now we compare these two terms together, and, dismissing those points in which they differ from each other, retain the one or more points in which they agree with one another, we may hope to approximate to an understanding of the real nature of the Atonement. The one point then in which ransom and sacrifice agree (to which may be added the word curse, as referred to in Gal. iii. 13), is the notion of substitution of some thing or person in the place of another. And this then would appear to be the real character of the Atonement, in so far as these words help to explain it to us.

Still, ponder it and define it as we may, the Atonement will always remain an inexhaustible mine for us to work in. It is the deepest mystery of all the many mysteries of the Incarnation. The Incarnation, including in this the birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension into heaven of our Blessed Saviour, forms a string of richest and rarest jewels, and the central jewel and costliest of them all is the Atonement. It is like a diamond flashing out light, now from this one and now from

that one of its many facets, accordingly as we approach it from this side or that, or as we turn it over in our hand. And yet neither the light which flashes from it, nor all its many facets taken together, constitute the diamond.

I commenced this chapter with remarking upon the number and variety of expressions which are made use of in Scripture to describe the nature of the Atonement. And now, in conclusion, let us take all these expressions, together with all others which are found in Scripture descriptive generally of our Lord's life and work, and let us notice how they arrange themselves into a kind of gradually ascending series, mounting upwards, step by step, from the earth whence they derive their origin, towards the heaven whither they help to lift us, some of them busying themselves more with the outward accompaniments and lesser details, and others with the more real and essential features of the great character which they combine to portray.

Perhaps the one word which most completely sums up and expresses the relation in which Jesus Christ stands towards us is the word Mediator.. By partaking fully of each nature, Divine and human, He occupies the place of God towards us

and of man towards God; a position which He alone of all beings, created or uncreated, is comHe stands for ever as the one

petent to occupy. open door between Heaven and earth, not, however, as a mere passive medium of communication between the two, for in His person God is for ever descending out of Heaven upon the earth, and man is being lifted up into the presence of God in Heaven. There is but one name, if possible still higher and dearer to us, under which to conceive of Him and by which to address Him, and that is the name Saviour by which He was first announced, and which He has ever since borne amongst us. 'Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins' (Matt. i. 21).

IF we regard the subject now before us as a mere abstract question of right and wrong, we shall feel compelled to say that no one ought to be made to suffer except in the way of consequence of what he himself has done or neglected to do; that each person ought to bear his own load of suffering which he has brought upon himself, and that alone. And yet how very far is this from being actually the case. Not to speak of pain intentionally inflicted by one person on another, we are all of us constantly suffering, indirectly at least, through the agency or instrumentality of others. We suffer even at the sight of others' sufferings, much more owing to what they do or omit to do. And they in like manner suffer in exactly the same way at our hands. We are all of us always contributing to the main stream of human suffering, from which both we and they alike are forced to drink. Again, besides this continued overflow and interchange of

suffering, we also see occasional instances still more at variance with our notions of what ought to be. We see cases of a positive diversion of suffering, when the guilty are allowed, for the time at least, to escape unpunished, and some quite innocent person is visited with the consequences of their guilt. This suffering on the part of the innocent person may be and often is quite involuntary, and in such a case he is simply an object for our pity; though in proportion to the readiness and patience with which he submits to it, the more we are moved to sympathy and admiration at the sight of his suffering, and most of all so when he not only readily stoops to the burden which is being laid upon him, but freely of his own accord goes forward to meet it.

And now let us ask how far a resemblance is traceable between the sufferings which one man may and occasionally does undergo in the place of or for another, and those which Jesus Christ is represented in Scripture as having undergone for us.

As far, then, as outward appearances go, the resemblance in some instances is very striking. Men have been known to give themselves up to all kinds of suffering and to death itself for the sake of their fellow-men, or to uphold some cause which they