monies of revealed truth. But do not let consequences from this doctrine, assumed too hastily, perplex your first steps in the pursuit of Divine knowledge. Rather believe the song of Deborah uninspired, than that the God of Christians has pleasure in treachery; or that the Psalms owe their form, in part, to human infirmity in the Psalmist, than that God would justify or approve private hate and selfish malice. And so of all the rest. But remember, it is one thing to suspend your faith in a doctrine, once held superstitiously, till you can satisfy yourself that it is in harmony with the spirit and scope of God's revelation; and another to reject it, in the face of strong and direct testimonies of God's word that seem to affirm it, when almost every difficulty has been removed. Such a temporary suspense of faith in plenary inspiration may be the safer course for an inquiring and sceptical Christian to pursue, who is honest in his inquiry. To receive nothing on false grounds, and no truth out of its due order, may be the best preparation for a healthy and vigorous faith at the last. But we smooth the pathway of recovery for hopeful sceptics at far too dear a price, when, for their sake, we set aside, or pare down a revealed truth, inject doubts and difficulties into the life-blood of the Universal Church, and impute error to those messages, which the Holy Spirit has caused to be written and recorded for our learning by men of God, and which He has sealed in every part with the signet of heaven. THE NATURE AND EFFECTS OF THE ATONEMENT. ATONEMENT by the sacrifice of Christ is the heart and life of Christianity. The Gospel rests upon the truth, that "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures," that He "was made a curse for us," and "bore our sins in His own body on the tree." But a clear apprehension of this great doctrine is a hard and high attainment, and no slight obscurity rests on it in many minds, which desire to hold it with a reasonable faith. Great questions arise, to which conflicting answers have been given. Did our Lord bear the sins of the saved only, or of all mankind? How far is the transfer of guilt to the innocent consistent with the eternal laws of truth and righteousness? Is the substitution total or partial? Does it include all sins, and sin in all aspects, or some only? What is the nature of the curse which Christ endured? What are the results of the sacrifice itself, and what are those which depend on the faith and repentance of the sinner? Is all punishment of those for whom an atonement has been made illegal and unjust? If Christ died for all, how is it that it is still "appointed for all men once to die?" Can the sentence be repealed by atonement, and still remain ? In the "Ways of God," chap. vii., I have attempted to throw some light on these difficulties. But the thoughts there published are too briefly expressed, and liable to misconstruction; and have been approved by some, and condemned by others, on mistaken or insufficient grounds. A clearer exposition of them will, I trust, be a real help to many perplexed and thoughtful minds. Heresy itself is often the natural recoil from a distorted and lifeless orthodoxy. The moral government of God can hardly be subject to a worse travesty than when lowered to this one claim, that a certain amount of suffering must be exacted, it matters not from whom, for a certain number or amount of sins. The conscience revolts from a view so unworthy of the Divine holiness, so alien from the whole tenour of Divine revelation. A creed in which there is no substitution, and a creed in which there is nothing but substitution, depart equally, on opposite sides, from the truth of God. Let us try, with modesty and reverence, to disentangle, one by one, the difficulties in this part of revealed religion. I. First, what is the extent of the atonement? Christ die for the saved only, or for all mankind ? Did Here the answer of the Bible is plain. There are texts where Christ is said to give himself for the Church, for His sheep. There are others where, indefinitely, He is said to die for many, for sinners, for men unjust. There are none where He is said to die for the Church only, for His sheep only. Such alone could exclude a wider message, while these agree with it, and are included in it, as a part in the whole to which it belongs. On the other hand, the language of many texts is strictly universal. "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" (Isa. liii. 6). "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John i. 29). "The bread I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (vi. 51). "If one died for all, then all died: and he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (v. 19). "That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man (Heb. ii. 9). himself gave دو som for all" (1 Tim. ii. 6). 66 a ran Who tion for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins "We have seen, of the whole world" (1 John ii. 2). and do testify, that the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John iv. 14). The same truth is implied in the very nature of the Gospel. It calls on the sinner to believe what must be true before he believes it, and this on the authority of God's message, not of some secret hidden revelation to himself alone. What he has first to believe is what the Corinthians received first of all from the Apostle, that Jesus Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. xv. 3). If He died for the saved only, then the faith of the sinner, when he first hears the Gospel, cannot rest on the simple word of God. It must be builded rather on a secret persuasion of his own final safety, for which that word, as yet, gives him no warrant. None of the signs of grace, which it supplies to the believer, can precede, but all must follow, the first act by which he believes that Christ died for his sins, and rests his hope on that atoning sacrifice. The Church of England, in full harmony with Scripture, announces plainly the same truth, that Christ died for all men, and for all their sins. We read it in Art. XXXI., in the summary of the Creed, in the Catechism, and in the Communion doubly-both in the prayer of consecration, and in the sublime thanksgiving near the close. Thus it meets us in the first and the last steps of that ladder of Jacob, by which babes and sucklings are promoted into fellowship with the anthems and the worship of heaven. II. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, died for all. He tasted death for every man. He is the propitiation, not for Jews only, nor for believers only, but for the sins of the whole world. And now the question must arise, Did He die for multitudes wholly in vain? Can sins be atoned for, and the sinner still perish? Can punishment be exacted from a Divine substitute, and those be punished for whom this costly ransom has been paid? If the atonement includes all men, and still all men are not saved, but many lost, must we not lower its efficacy, |