from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ; who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who through Him are believers in God, which raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God' (vers. 18-21). In the second chapter, after commending to our imitation the meekness with which the Saviour submitted to the indignities heaped upon Him, he adds, "Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed' (ver. 24). And in a subsequent passage he writes, Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God' (iii. 18).

3. In the First Epistle of St. John we have several impressive statements respecting the mediation of our Lord, and His vicarious and propitiatory death. Towards the beginning of that Epistle we read, 'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world' (ii. 1, 2). In another passage he writes, Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren ' (iii. 16). And in a later portion of the Epistle, the Apostle refers to the gift of the Son to atone for our sins, as the greatest proof of the Father's love to man. 'Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins' (iv. 9, 10).

To crown the testimony of St. John, we must pass to the glorious visions which he beheld in Patmos, and which he has recorded in the Apocalypse. Among these visions we dwell

with deep interest on that in which the Lamb, amidst the profound silence of heaven, took the book' out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne, and then the anthem of adoration and praise rose from the representatives of the glorified Church and the representatives of creation generally: 'Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth' (v. 9, 10). That anthem was re-echoed by the angelic hosts, and by the whole universe of intelligent beings, not alienated from God, and banished from His presence, who united to ascribe blessing, and honour, and glory, and dominion, unto Him that sat on the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.

N the two preceding Chapters we have considered the

death, and the leading statements of the Apostles respecting that great event. We have now to gather up the results of our inquiries, and to present the doctrine of the Atonement as it is embodied in the New Testament.

1. One point, distinctly set forth in many of the passages which we have considered, is the substitution of our Lord for the sinful race of man. We need only recall attention to the words of Christ Himself recorded in Matt. xx. 28, to the statements of St. Paul in Rom. v. 6-8, 2 Cor. v. 21, and to the emphatic declaration of St. Peter in his first Epistle, iii. 18, to establish this position. These passages distinctly teach us that the Lord Jesus, Himself pure and spotless, took the place of the guilty. The suffering which came upon Him, and which was consummated by His death upon the cross, came upon Him as the Representative of our race, constituted such by the appointment of the Father, and His own voluntary acceptance of that position. We are justified, too, in saying that He bore for us the penalty of sin, so far, at least, as to render it consistent with the upholding of the law, and the accomplishment of the highest ends of a moral administration, for God to accept and justify every one who penitently believes in Him.

2. A second view under which the death of Christ is presented to us is that of a sacrifice offered unto God for us. This

view is clearly and impressively set forth in Heb. ix. 13, 14, 1 Cor. v. 7; and we may refer further to St. Paul's statement in Ephes. v. 2, that Christ gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell.' These declarations go beyond the fact, that in the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus we have the most stupendous instance of selfsacrifice they imply that His sufferings and death had an important relation to the Divine government,-that Christ 'offered Himself to God' for our sins.

3. Intimately connected with this is the truth, that the death of Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. This term is used both by St. Paul and St. John, and that in connections which give to it a peculiar emphasis. We understand it to imply that the vicarious death of our Lord causes the judicial displeasure of God to pass away from those who penitently trust in it, while it forms the basis of an economy of grace to the whole world. We do not, indeed, imagine, that there is any implacability in God. So far from this, the scheme of redemption originated in the love of the Triune Deity to man, and especially reveals the Father's benignity and grace. But, on the other hand, we hold that there is wrath in the Divine Mind against sin, and against those who practise it in known and wilful resistance to the truth which they possess; not, indeed, a turbulent passion of anger, but the deep, calm, intense displeasure of a perfectly holy nature against that which is morally base and vile. But this displeasure and all its judicial manifestations cease towards the man who penitently relies on the Redeemer's sacrifice. Christ becomes our peace'; and the soul, released from its burden of guilt, rejoices in the Father's smile.

4. The death of Jesus is brought before us as so meeting the claims of the Father's government, and upholding its great principles, as to render the justification and eternal life of all who receive Him by faith consistent with the essential righteousness of God. This view is clearly presented to us by St. Paul in Rom. iii. 24-26. The propitiatory death of Christ, he teaches

us, was designed for a manifestation of that righteousness, both in passing over transgressions committed in former ages, and in the remission of sins under the present economy. God can now be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.' We are only enlarging on the truth here affirmed when we say that, as the Moral Governor of the Universe, God cannot treat sin with indifference, or so pardon it as to suggest or allow the supposition, that to Him it is all one whether His creatures obey His precepts, or rush into disobedience and guilt. The moral government of God, as we have seen, proceeds on the principle of retribution. There is a moral necessity that sin should be visited with suffering. The moral order of the Universe would be subverted if sin and holiness were treated in the same manner by the Eternal One; if bold impiety, and settled malignity, and unrelenting cruelty, and reckless self-indulgence were to receive the same treatment from the hands of the great Ruler of all, as piety, and benevolence, and self-control, and diffusive kindness and compassion. The displeasure of God against sin must be manifested; the great principles of His government must be maintained. The problem, which but for revelation could have had no solution, is, how this can be done, and yet mercy come forth to invite the return of sinful men, and then to welcome and embrace them. The sacrifice of the Cross solves this difficulty. There we see One, possessed of infinite dignity and spotless purity, dying as the Representative of our race; and when a sinner, melted into penitence by the grace of the Spirit, commits himself to the Lord Jesus as having loved' him and given Himself' for him, he obtains a personal and saving interest in His death, and is 'accepted in the Beloved.' No cloud now darkens the essential righteousness of God: no relaxation of the principles of His government now affords the slightest license to sin. In the Person of the Incarnate Son, the voluntary Substitute of our guilty race, our sin is visited with suffering. No one can stand beneath the cross and imagine that, under the Divine government, sin can be trifled with no one can rightly con