p. 375: "Jesus, by being a propitiation, did in no way make God propitious. I do not hesitate in declaring, as my full and firm conviction, that the death of Christ made no change in the Divine purposes to mankind." "A finite being cannot be an infinite sinner." No, Sir, but he may sin against the infinite: the orthodox never use phrases so absurd. Lord Jesus, against all these sophisms, "We pray thee help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood!"

CHRISTIAN READER, you who sincerely seek the truth, take the Bible, and the Bible only, for your guide. Eli said to his sons, "If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for him." 1 Sam. ii. 25. A man in his own house may pardon great faults; but a king cannot do so with his subjects. Hence "it behoved Christ to suffer and rise again." Now, as the blood of atonement was sprinkled seven times; and as the Saviour bled in his hands and feet, and head, and back, and side, take a sevenfold view of this atonement as in the Bible; for all comments seem to spoil it as a tool spoiled the stones of the altar.

I. The death of Christ is a sacrifice for sin. "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." John i. 29. "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands." Isa. liii.

10. Men, from the beginning, had some faint notions, that bruising the heel indicated the Messiah's dying for sin. Hence the origin of human sacrifices among all nations in times of extremity. Eusebius mentions a desperate act of Cronus (Ham), who offered up his son Jeoud in the time of a plague, as a λurgov, or expiatory sacrifice: Anobret was mother of this Jeoud. Amosis abolished the practice of offering human sacrifices out of Egypt, and substituted human figures of wax. Præp. Evang. lib. iv. c. 16.

II. The death of Christ is a vicarious sacrifice for sin. "All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah liii. 6. "He bare the sins of many :" " He suffered, the just for the unjust :" "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree:" "God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification:" "He died for all."

III. The death of Christ, the atoning altar of Calvary, leads to the mercy-seat, or grand throne of propitiation, never approached without the sprinkling of blood. "Jesus Christ-whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our's only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

IV. The death of Christ is the incomparable price of our redemption. "When he seeth the blood upon the lintil, and upon the two side

posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses." Exod. xii. 23. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' Gal. iii. 13. "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." Tit. ii. 14. Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without spot." 1 Pet. i. 18. 19.

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V. The death of Christ is the sacrifice of reconciliation with God. "He is our peace, and hath made peace by the blood of the cross. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. 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." Col. i. 20: 2 Cor v. 18: Rom. v. 10.

VI. The death of Christ is the great fountain of purification, to wash away the guilt of the nations. "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." Zech. xiii. 1. "They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” "Unto him that hath loved us, and hath washed us from our sins in his own blood." Rev. i. 5; vii. 14.

VII. The death of Christ is the ratification of the Covenant of Redemption. "Moses took the blood of the covenant and sprinkled it on the people, and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you." Exod.

xxiv. 8; "I will give thee for a covenant to the people; by the blood of my covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water." Zech. ix. 11. "This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you for the remission of sins." "He is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Heb. ix. 15.

Our conclusions, our most calm reflections are, as worms of dust, who think with the Bible in our hands, in the presence of God, and on the confines of eternity, that we cannot, as sinners, and as the chief of sinners in our Maker's eyes, leave this altar, this atoning, this most instructive altar of the cross.

We cannot leave this priest, this Great high Priest, who needed no atonement for himself; this priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmity: this priest who is able "to save to the uttermost all that come to God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us." Heb. vii. 25. "He prays not as we pray," says Dr. W. Bates, "but solicits our salvation on the ground of right." No, we cannot leave this priest to put our souls under the pastoral care of men who blush not to tell us, that "Jesus is Joseph's son;"" that he has now no personal concern in the regulation of his spiritual kingdom, or at any time, or in any way directly influences the minds. of his disciples;"" that our lord was liable to

sin ;" and that it is "their full and firm conviction that the death of Christ made no change in the divine purposes to mankind."

Shall we leave the gentle philosophy of the Saviour, which has softened the ferocious manners of the Scythians, and made the Goths and Saxons, the best of Christians; a religion every way worthy of God to reveal, and of man to embrace, for the home-spun philosophy of Unitarianism, which is wholly silent as to the fall of man, original sin, and the consequent depravity of nature; a philosophy which says nothing of the renovation of the soul in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness; and nothing of virtue, except what man may acquire by contemplation? The philosophers of the East, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, have taught many good things, according to the light they had, concerning a future state, and never impugned the altar; but here we are invited to leave" the Lord of glory," for Birmingham Disquisitions, which more than twenty times entomb our hope in a material soul!!!

O what times we have lived to see! Rachael weeping for her children; children that have gone backward, that have forsaken the right way. Well take comfort. The homo-ousion faith has once converted more than the Roman world; it has rose above Arianism supported by imperial influence; it has lately triumphed over the Atheism of the continent; it will still triumph over the new philosophy. The long insulted word; the Son of God, the Son of Man, is not an indifferent spectator. He was rejected of the Jews, and heaven rejected