The Atonement

(Part Two)

"Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).

In my former lecture on THE ATONEMENT, I confined myself chiefly to the obvious considerations opposed to the doctrine of our Savior's vicarious or substituted suffering. I showed you that this doctrine has no place in the recorded teachings of our Savior, of his apostles, or of the early Christian fathers; that the forgiveness of the penitent was always a part of God's law; that the forgiveness of the penitent is not only consistent with perfect justice, but an essential part of justice; that Christ's vicarious sufferings destroy the doctrine of pardon, inasmuch as there can be no pardon, where the full penalty is paid; and that, so far from being an encouragement to sin, the free forgiveness of the penitent, and of those only, is the surest inducement to goodness. I then spoke of the absurdity of maintaining, as our Trinitarian brethren do, that God can punish God, or can be punished by God. I then showed you that there are no traces, in the gospel history, of the infinite weight of agony said to have been laid upon our Savior. I next exhibited the inconsistency of the vicarious atonement with some of our Savior's principal statements of religious doctrine--then too, with the immutability of the divine attributes. I then took up the frequent comparison of our Savior to the Jewish sacrifices, on which rests perhaps the most frequently urged argument in favor of the vicariousness of his death. I showed you that the Jewish sacrifices were not vicarious; that Christ is more frequently compared to the paschal lamb, which was not even a sin-offering, than to any other part of the Jewish ritual; that comparisons with reference to his death are drawn indifferently from every portion of the Jewish ritual, which comparisons, if they designate doctrinal truths, are inconsistent with each other and can be harmonized only by supposing them mere figures; and that the word sacrifice, with its corresponding phraseology, is employed with reference to a large variety of subjects and persons other than Christ and his death. I now resume the subject and may tax your patience for an unusual length of time, as I am solicitous to complete my discussion of the atonement this evening.

The advocates of the doctrine of vicarious suffering allege in its favor certain proof-texts, the principal of which we will now pass in cursory review. Many of these texts are, to my mind, entirely opposed to the doctrine, in behalf of which they are quoted; for they refer to Christ and his death, not as removing the punishment of sin, but as taking away sin itself--an efficacy, which no Christian denies. Such are these texts: 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29).  'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin' (1 John 1:7).  'How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?' (Hebrews 9:14). These passages cannot imply vicarious punishment; for that does not take away sin, or have any effect upon the sinner; it simply takes away the wrath of God and the penalty of his law. The taking away of sin is a work which can be wrought only upon the individual's own soul and character, and with which a vicarious atonement has no possible connection. In point of fact, there is not a single text in the Bible in which Christ is said to have taken away the punishment of men's sins, or to have appeased God's wrath, or to have made him propitious.  

I omit now the consideration of those texts where Christ is merely spoken of as a sacrifice; for they were sufficiently discussed in the last lecture. I pass to the class of texts in which Christ is said to bear men's sins. 'Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree' (1 Peter 2:24). In like manner, Isaiah says, 'Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;' and, 'The Lord hath laid on him (to be thus borne) the iniquity of us all' (Isaiah 53:4,6). We fortunately have in St. Matthew's gospel an authoritative interpretation of this phraseology. It is in the following passage: 'He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses' (Matt. 8:16,17). He bore them by bearing them off, by taking them away; for no one of course supposes that he assumed the sicknesses, which he cured. In fact, in each of the original languages of the Scriptures, the word, which means to lift or bear, means also, and perhaps full as frequently, to take off, or to carry away.

Another class of texts is of those in which the word ransom is employed. Our Savior, as reported by Matthew and Mark, says: 'Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your minister: even as the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many' (Matthew 20:27,28; Mark 10:44,45). St. Paul also says of Christ that he 'gave himself a ransom for all' (1 Timothy 2:6). These are the only instances in which the word occurs with reference to Christ. Now the word rendered ransom undoubtedly means, in its literal sense, money paid to the captor for the redemption of a captive. Is it contended that the word is used literally in the passage just quoted? Let those, who think so, tell us then, who was the captor of men's souls, and when and how any sum of money was paid to that captor. Do they say that there was no captor, and that no money was paid? Then they must acknowledge that the word is figuratively employed with reference to our Savior. But, if it be figuratively employed, we must look for its interpretation to its figurative use in the Bible on other subjects. Now the corresponding word (both the noun and the verb) is often used in the Old Testament with reference to the Israelites, in such a way that it can only denote the means or the act of deliverance. Thus, in Isaiah, God says to his covenant people, 'I gave Egypt for thy ransom,' (Isaiah 43:3), by which we cannot understand the price paid to those who held the Israelites in captivity; for Egypt was the very power that kept Israel captive, and Egypt could not have been given to Egypt, but, on the other hand, was utterly subdued and spoiled. The sense obviously is: 'I gave up Egypt to defeat and humiliation for thy deliverance.' In like manner says Jeremiah: 'The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he' (Jeremiah 31:11), that is, not paid a price for him, but manifestly delivered him. With reference to the Babylonish captivity, the Israelites are called the ransomed, and the ransomed of the Lord, by which is evidently meant, not redeemed by the payment of a price, but simply delivered. Deliverance, then, is the idea attached to the word ransom, when figuratively employed in the Bible; and, as it cannot be literally used with regard to our Savior, I have not the slightest doubt that the word means, as used with reference to his mediation, deliverance from darkness, error, and sin.

I would next refer to the texts, in which Christians are said to be bought with a price. There are two of these texts. The death of Christ is not spoken of in connection with either of them; and they both stand in such a connection as to show that it is not the impunity, but the allegiance, the service of Christians, that is purchased. In one of them, the language is: 'He that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men' (1 Corinthians 7:22,23), that is, by what Christ has done and suffered in your behalf, he has purchased your service--has laid upon you an imperative obligation to be the servants of no other master. The other text, in which this phrase occurs, relates to the duty of self-consecration to God's service. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's' (1 Corinthians 6:19,20). The obvious sense of this passage is, 'God, by the spiritual aid and grace, which he has bestowed upon you, has bought your allegiance--has established an indefeasible claim to your service--has made it your obvious and imperative duty to live, not as your own, but as his, as his in body, soul, and conduct.'

I next ask your attention to the texts, in which Christ is spoken of as a propitiation. They are three. One is in the Epistle to the Romans. 'Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus' (Romans 3:25,26). This text, as a whole, is certainly opposed to the idea of vicarious suffering as the ground of pardon; for 'the remission of sins that are past' is expressly said to be, not through the sufferings of Christ, but 'through the forbearance of God,' and Jesus is said to be 'set forth' or manifested, not to make God merciful, but 'to declare' or exhibit 'his righteousness.' The word rendered propitiation, means mercy-seat. So say nearly all critics and commentators of any authority or value. This is one of the instances, in which our Savior, by one who was born and educated a Hebrew of the Hebrews, is compared to a prominent portion of the religious apparatus of the Jews. The mercy-seat was the lid of the ark of the covenant. It was within the Holy of Holies. Above it were the cherubim. Upon it, and between their wings, rested, in the day of miracles, the luminous cloud, betokening the divine presence. On it was laid neither sacrifice nor offering. But, once a year, the high priest alone, entered the Holy of Holies, sprinkled the blood of victims upon the mercy-seat, offered supplication for the divine forgiveness of the sins of the whole people, and came forth to declare to the assembled nation God's pardon to the penitent. How appropriately then is Jesus termed the mercy-seat, both as the fullest possible manifestation of the divine attributes, and as the messenger and pledge of the divine forgiveness! But the appropriateness of the comparison ceases, if you connect with it the idea of vicarious punishment. The true meaning of the rich and beautiful passage now under consideration may, perhaps, be discerned from the following paraphrase. 'Whom God has set forth as a mercy-seat through faith [that is, a spiritual mercy-seat], sprinkled, not with the blood of victims, but with his own blood, to exhibit or manifest in his own example the righteousness which he [God] requires (for such was the forbearance of God, that, instead of visiting men's sins with desolating judgments, he sent his Son to take away sin), to manifest in our own times the righteousness that God requires, that God might be just, might still adhere to that law, by which only the penitent are pardoned, and yet that, through the beauty of Christ's example and the reconciling power of his cross, many might be led to repentance and a holy life, and might thus be accounted as righteous in his sight.'

The other two passages, in which the word propitiation is used, are these: '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 for the sins of the whole world’ (1 John 2:1-2). 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' (1 John 4:10). In these texts the Greek word is not the same as that used in the text last under discussion; but it is a very similar word, derived from the same verb. It is the word employed in the Septuagint to designate the sin-offerings under the Jewish ritual; and this I suppose to be its meaning as used by St. John. These texts then are instances of yet another of the comparisons, so numerous in the New Testament, of Jesus and his death to features and portions of the religious ceremonial of the Jews. In my last lecture, I showed you that the Jewish sacrifices were not vicarious; and this being the case, the comparison of our Savior to one of those sacrifices can be of no weight as an argument for the vicariousness of his atonement.

There are two or three single texts which now demand our notice. One, which claims a passing comment on account of the frequency with which it is quoted, though it has no connection with the subject, is this: 'Without shedding of blood is no remission' (Hebrews 9:22)—not of sins, as it is usually quoted; for the sentence relates to the furniture of the tabernacle, which was of course incapable of sin. The word rendered remission, means letting go. The whole passage is: 'He sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no, remission,' that is, nothing is let go, is left, without being sprinkled with blood--the simple statement of a well known fact in the Jewish economy, which an ignorant or careless person may indeed cite as referring to the death of Christ, but which I see not how a biblical scholar or a theologian could honestly quote as teaching one thing or another with regard to it.

Another passage is: 'He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Corinthians 5:27). I know of no commentator who does not make sin here to denote a sin-offering. Among those who give this exposition, I would mention Doddridge, McKnight, and Scott, all names of approved orthodoxy. Says McKnight on this verse, and with perfect truth, 'There are many passages in the Old Testament where sin signifies a sin-offering. Thus, Hosea iv. 8. They (the priests) eat up the sin (that is, the sin-offerings) of my people. In the New Testament, likewise, the word sin hath the same signification, Hebrews ix. 26, 28; xiii. 11.' The apostle's assertion then is, 'God has made him, who was sinless, to be a sin-offering for us, that we through him might be made righteous or holy.' Now, unless it can be proved that the sin-offerings under the Jewish dispensation were vicarious, the comparison of Christ to these sacrifices cannot indicate the vicariousness of his sufferings.

Another text, on which some reliance is placed, is this: 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree' (2 Corinthians 5:27). The phrase, being made a curse for us, many regard as denoting, becoming accursed of God for our sakes, that is, bearing his wrath and indignation due to the guilt of man. But, on this point, I will quote a part of McKnight's note on the passage, simply saying that I accord entirely with his view. 'Christ's dying on the cross is called his becoming a curse, that is, an accursed person, a person ignominiously punished as a malefactor; not because he was really a malefactor and the object of God's displeasure, but because he was punished in the manner in which accursed persons, or malefactors, are punished. He was not a transgressor, but he was numbered with the transgressors. That this is the true import of the phrase, having become a curse, is evident from the passage in the law by which the apostle proves his assertion: It is written, accursed is every one who is hanged on a tree.'

In addition to these passages, there are several in the New Testament in which Christ is said to have suffered or died for us, or for our sins--reiterations in fact of the prophet's words: 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace (that is, the chastisement, through which our peace came), was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed' (Isaiah 53:5). These texts express, without ambiguity to my own mind, the great fundamental truth with regard to Christ's death, in which all Christians are agreed, namely, that he died for us, died in our behalf, and that his death is the means of our peace and happiness, both here and hereafter. They present no difficulty, they demand no forced interpretation, to make them consistent with the simplicity of our faith. Nay, it is only by a forced interpretation that they are made to denote Christ's vicarious punishment. When you say that a patriot died for his country, that a self-devoted citizen suffered for the liberty or peace of his fellow-citizens, or that a missionary offered himself to privation, suffering, or death, for the ignorance or guilt of benighted pagans, you do not mean that one individual suffered or died in the stead of others, but simply that he suffered in their behalf and incurred death in his disinterested exertions for their good. Now why should we interpret the language of the Bible on different principles from those on which we interpret other language? But all these complicated doctrines are founded on a broad departure from the common laws of interpretation, and on a stubborn determination to make words and phrases between the covers of the Bible mean something widely different from what they would mean in any other book. The phrases, which denote one's dying for another, when they occur elsewhere and on other subjects, are never deemed mystical. Why should any mystery hang over them as we read them in the Bible?

I believe that I have now referred to the principal texts, or classes of texts, usually quoted by those who believe that Christ was punished in our stead. I have not knowingly omitted any which seemed to demand notice. In closing my remarks upon the doctrine of vicarious atonement, I would observe that the doctrine, if true, is not one which there is any need of our knowing, or which can exert any practical influence upon our hearts or lives. If it be true, it is impossible (as I showed you in the last lecture) for us, in the present state of our faculties, to reconcile it with the justice of God; and the belief of it would therefore stand in the way of right feelings with reference to his character. And, if it be true, it simply indicates an effect that was produced two thousand years ago on the divine mind--a change that was then wrought in the divine character. It teaches nothing with regard to our hearts or characters. It indicates no change to be wrought in us. A blood, shed to make God propitious, cannot be sprinked upon our hearts and consciences. We cannot be conscious of a penalty paid, or a punishment inflicted, in our behalf, ages before we were born. It can then make no essential difference whether we believe this doctrine or not. The work, if wrought, may have been wrought for the benefit of us who can trace no authentic records of it, no less than for that of the patriarchs and prophets of the infant world who died before it was wrought. We may safely remain ignorant of what cannot possibly affect our hearts or lives. It can be of no vital consequence for us to know those things only, by knowing which we may be led to do what we should otherwise leave undone, or to omit what we should otherwise do. Tried by this test, Christ's punishment in our stead, whether true or false, cannot claim the place usually assigned to it, among essential, fundamental: doctrines. The denial of it, if it do not (as I believe that it does) enhance the obligation to gratitude, penitence, and holiness, at least leaves the obligation to those duties unimpaired.

I now proceed to give a brief exposition of my own views of the atonement. The three great points, which seem to me to characterize the Scriptural doctrine of the atonement, are, first, that God is the author; secondly, that man is the object; and, thirdly, that holiness is the end of the atonement. These three ideas are found combined in very many of the instances, in which the mission, mediation, and. death of Christ are spoken of in the New Testament. I will read two or three passages of this nature, as specimens of scores that I might quote.

‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself' (2 Corinthians 5:19). God, the author; the world, the object; reconciliation to himself, that is, holiness, the end.

‘God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Corinthians 5:21). God, the author; for us, the object; that we might be made the righteousness of God, the end.

Where God is not mentioned in the very sentence in which our Savior's mission, mediation, or death is spoken of, still the end, the production of holiness in man, is in hardly a single instance omitted. How clearly is this end, in contradistinction to any purpose with reference to the disposition or character of God, expressed in the following passages: 'Christ hath also once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God’ (1 Peter 3:18). 'Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works' (Titus 2:10-11). 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15). 'Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness' (1 Peter 2:24).

The leading idea of the Scriptural doctrine of the atonement then is that Christ died to make men holy, to reconcile them to God, to lead them to his love and service, to make them 'followers of God as dear children;' in fine, that Christ died to work, not upon God, but upon man, and for him to perform, not an outward, but an inward service--a service, the efficacy of which is upon the human heart and character.

I am well aware that many represent this as an inferior work—as a work which needed not for its discharge a personage so eminent and heavenly, and which can hardly have authorized the strong language used in the Bible in regard to Christ's death, or the exalted titles and homage ascribed to Jesus on earth and in heaven. Had I not often heard this objection, I should think it no compliment to your spiritual discernment to take notice of it; for I feel sure that I have your entire sympathy when I say that the greatest service which God himself can render to man is to make him holy, perfect, godlike, to redeem him from the power of sin, and to shed the consecration of a devout and dutiful spirit over his whole soul and his whole life. And if Christ has performed this service for man, then has he performed for him the most momentous and godlike service, possible--a service for which he cannot but have a name above every other name, and for which the eternal ascription of gratitude and praise must echo through the ranks of the redeemed. Leave this service unperformed, leave me in unrepented sin, with my groveling aims and unconsecrated life, and it is a small service that a price is paid, or a penalty borne in my stead--I carry my hell about with me, a hell which would shed its blackness over my spirit were I in paradise. But save me from my sins, purge my conscience, sanctify my soul, reform and consecrate my life, in hell itself I should be proof against its torments--I cannot but be happy--my heaven is within and cannot be taken from me. The idea that to elevate and sanctify the inner man is a subordinate work proceeds from the unspiritual, groveling ways of thinking that have been but too characteristic of our race taken collectively. Men most admire what comes with observation, what is external and formal. They appreciate not what is wrought in the hidden man of the heart and ripens for eternity. On this ground, the conqueror has always seemed a greater man than the philanthropist, and the founder of a hospital than he who heals the diseases of the soul. On precisely the same principle is it that men have assigned a higher dignity and worth to an atonement which should wipe away all punishment at a single stroke, than to an atonement which must be wrought over afresh in each individual heart, creating it anew in the beauty of holiness and in the fullness of the divine image. To my own mind, the latter office with regard to the individual soul is the highest office which I can imagine as belonging to the Savior; and to say that the blood of Christ has cleansed a single soul from sin, and has wholly sanctified that soul, is to ascribe more to it than were we to say that it has removed the mere penalty of violated law from a whole universe of sinners.

But someone may say: 'If Christ does no more than to cleanse the soul from sin, and to renew it in the divine image, my hope of pardon for my past sins is gone.' It is gone, I reply, if you will persist in looking upon God as essentially vindictive and unforgiving; but not if you will only take God's testimony concerning his own character, uttered many ages before Christ died, when he revealed himself to Moses, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin.' I believe that God was never otherwise than he then declared himself. I build no more than those who hold an opposite doctrine on my own merits. I depend for forgiveness on the eternal mercy of God, made known to the fathers, made manifest and incarnate in Christ. Let none call this a sandy foundation. If God's mercy be not a sufficient basis for our trust, I know not what can suffice. It is a foundation broader than the universe--immovable, though heaven and earth pass away. It belts creation with a zone of love. It upholds all worlds and beings. It is boundless and infinite. The need, so often expressed of Christ's vicarious punishment, is a need which the doctrine itself creates. I should feel it if I believed that God was ever unwilling or unable to forgive. I should feel it if I believed, in Doctor Watts's language, that God's throne 'once was a seat of dreadful wrath,' and that 'Vengeance was his name.'

But let it not be supposed that I do not connect Christ, his sufferings, and his death most intimately with the forgiveness of sins. My hope of pardon is in God through Christ. The doctrine of pardon, even if revealed before Christ, was not so brought to light and made manifest that it could be the object of a sustaining and satisfying faith. On the question whether God will forgive sin, the analogies of nature shed no light; for her subtle powers and majestic agencies have never sinned, but are all obedient. Those, therefore, who have been left to the light of nature have never found peace under the burden of transgression, but have gone the whole round of fasts, penances, pilgrimages, and self-tortures without obtaining through any or all of these means the assurance of forgiveness. Nor did the fainter and often mysterious light of God's earlier revelations communicate this assurance in its fullness. To the heart that knows itself, and feels its unworthiness and sinfulness, the most vital of all questions is, Can I be forgiven? And to this question, no sufficient and satisfying answer has been afforded, except in the loving and paternal attributes of the Almighty, as made manifest in the person, the ministry, the cross of Christ. But when we look to Jesus as the image of God, we behold in him a love full and free, ready to forgive, waiting to be gracious. We feel that there is no limit to the mercy which, amidst the agonies of death, could make intercession for the transgressors; and we can thus look for pardon with implicit confidence to that mercy on the throne of the universe, which he, who on the cross prayed for his murderers, came to declare and manifest. It is then to God, as revealed and beheld in Christ, that we look for pardon. But we regard the promise and pledge of pardon as but the means and motive to personal holiness. Jesus says to us, 'Your sins be forgiven,' only that he may add, with an emphasis, which pardoning mercy alone could send home to the soul of the penitent, 'Go, and sin no more.' God permits us to behold his forgiving love in Christ, that, through the energy of this love, our souls may be transformed, renewed, and sanctified.

But in behalf of a vicarious atonement, I have sometimes heard an appeal made to personal experience. Let us then analyze experience and see how far it can go. There are many here, I trust, who have personally received the atonement, 'who cherish the faith and hope and lead the life of the Christian, who feel the peace of God in their hearts and breathe his spirit in their daily conversation. Were I addressing myself to an individual of this class, I should appeal to his own consciousness and say, What, my friend, are you conscious that Christ has done for you? That he has paid any price for you? That he has incurred any penalty due to you? No. Of this, even if it be the case, you cannot be conscious. Of what, then, are you conscious? That Christ has made the name of God a dear and cherished name to your heart; that he has brought you near to him, as a child to a Father; that he has taught you to pray; that he has made you love virtue; that he has led you, drawn you on, in the path of duty; that his cross and death have appealed to your best affections, have rebuked your selfishness and worldliness, have made you feel the beauty of holiness, have been to your soul a touching manifestation of divine love, have laid you under a pleasing constraint to live, not for yourself, but for him that died for you. You have looked upon the cross and said, 'Herein is love;' and that love has made the yoke of obedience easy, and the burden of duty light, has called out your own love, has made you heartily penitent for sin, and earnestly desirous to live as the cross bids you live, and to be a follower of the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. This is the sum of the Christian's religious experience—this, the atonement wrought in the true disciple's heart—this, the work which takes precedence of all others, in its dignity, its worth, and its fruits.

Let us now pause for a moment, and consider how much is implied in that one word, atonement—reconciliation. Here is a human being, either sunk in gross depravity or immersed in the heartless pursuit of gain or pleasure. He is alienated from God, renders him no thanks, offers him no prayers, and lives as he might live, were he self-created and in a world of his own. His sympathies are either shut up within his own bosom, or flow within the narrow channel of home and kindred; and, even for those whom he loves, he seeks not the best gifts, loves not their souls—his love may be false, fatal to their highest interests—he may wreathe around them his own chains of worldliness or guilt—his example and influence may be pestilential to all within his reach. For that man atonement is to be made. He is to be brought to God. Those stains upon his spirit and his life are to fade away before the light of God's countenance. That soul must look on Jesus, till his divine features stamp themselves upon it. That heart, so cold, or so filled with lower loves, must be wholly filled with the love of God. That life, so selfish, must breathe a diffusive, all-embracing charity. That example, that influence, now neutral, if not baneful, must bless all on whom it shines, and lead neighbors, friends, strangers, to give glory to God for its beautiful light. The whole character must reflect the divine image. There must be a reconciliation of will and purpose, a blending of the man's will with his God's, a oneness of aim and effort, a frame of soul and of life, of which the man may say with truth, 'God dwells in me, and I in him.' Not until all this is the case, not until the Father's love throbs in every pulsation of the child's heart, and the Father's will rules in every action of the child's life, is the atonement, the at-one-ment, fully made.

It is this high and glorious work which Jesus performs, when he brings us to the Father, when he reconciles us unto God. This is the atonement, of which God is the author, Christ the agent, man the object. To effect this was the whole work of Christ's ministry, miracles, teachings, life, death, resurrection, and intercession. But in this work, the New Testament assigns the most prominent place to the death of Christ; and every Christian heart assigns to it the same place. He is no Christian to whom the cross is not dear, and who has not felt the need and worth of a suffering Redeemer. The blood of Calvary has been the life-blood of the Church.

For, in the first place, it is by love that man, when alienated from God, is softened, humbled, and made penitent. He could resist threats. He could steel his heart against the denunciations of vengeance. In the fearful might of a rebellious spirit, he could dare a frowning heaven and a vindictive Deity. But love has a voice, to which none can listen unmoved, especially when it makes itself heard from amidst torture and mortal agony, incurred in behalf of those with whom it pleads. How does the thought of one who suffered and died for every man rouse the last faint spark of virtuous feeling and of moral strength and fan it into a generous flame! How does it bring near those who were afar off, make them ashamed of their wanderings, and excite the earnest longing, that for themselves such love may not have been in vain! 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' Jesus might have dwelt on earth in glorious majesty, and passed to heaven from an unsuffering ministry, and yet have loved man no less; but man would not have discerned the depth, or felt the power of his love, had he not gone as a lamb to the slaughter and freely given himself up for us all.

But was it his own love only that Jesus manifested on the cross? No; but also the love of One greater than he. For he came from the bosom of the Father; and he represented his own mission and death as the fruit, the expression, the pledge of the Father's love. 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.' In him was manifested the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and, in the depth of his compassion and the perfectness of his love, he was exhibiting the intensity of God's pity and the fervor of his affection for his human family. By carrying his love to the last point of endurance and of sacrifice, he exhibited the boundlessness of that mercy, which is the sinner's hope--he made the promise of pardon full, free, all-embracing--he bore the image of a Father always ready to forgive, always waiting to be gracious. 'Scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commandeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' When we look at the cross, we are constrained to ask, with St. Paul: 'He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' When we view God in Christ, as Christ seals his mission with his blood, we can exclaim, with the same apostle: 'I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' It is in the love and the cross of Christ that the Father goes forth to meet the wandering child. It is in Christ crucified that he reveals the fullness of paternal love; and thus, from the first moment, gives the penitent broad, firm ground for encouragement and hope, without which he would have neither confidence nor strength to retrace his evil ways, and to return to the path of God's commandments.

Then, too, it behooved Christ, as our guide and example in duty, as the way and the life, to be made perfect through suffering. His godlike purity and virtue might have been no less perfect and entire in a manifestation without suffering and full of outward glory. But the beauty of the picture would have been marred by the gold and tinsel of its setting. It shows itself most perfect and divine when encompassed by no outward form or comeliness, wrapped in the weeds of sorrow, and shining forth from the shadow of death. His submission, his tenderness, his forgiveness, his philanthropy, his piety could have had, in no other form, their full manifestation. His example could have been, under no other circumstances, so radiant with spiritual beauty, so attractive, so inviting. It is at the cross that we learn the full preciousness and loveliness of Christ's character and feel ourselves the most loudly called, the most tenderly entreated, to become his followers.

Then also Christ's sufferings and death bring his example home to those scenes of trial, conflict, sorrow, and agony in which we are the most strongly tempted to forsake the service of God, and in which, therefore, we stand in the most urgent need of divine help and strength. We behold in him a full and perfect victory over every enemy to our peace and progress. We see the sting of sorrow destroyed, the power of death subdued. We behold him triumphant over grief, and agony, and the bitterness of the grave, and trace, through the shadow of his tomb, a path of living light that leads to heaven. We hear from his cross the voice, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life;' —' To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.'

In all these points of view was Christ's death an essential part of that plan of redemption, by which man is saved from sin and made one with God. Without his death his own love would not have been fully shown and might have pleaded in vain. Without his death God's love in him would not have had its utmost manifestation; God's promise of pardon through him would have lacked its seal; God's invitation, his offered mercy to the returning sinner, would not have had full emphasis of utterance. Without his death his example would have wanted its most godlike aspects. Without his death his example would not have applied itself to those scenes and seasons of life in which we are the most liable to faint or to wander and the most in need of divine light and guidance. His death, then, was essential to the full power of the gospel, and thus to the restoration and sanctification of the human soul.

Yet, because I deem Christ's death thus essential, I do not undervalue his life, his teachings, his resurrection, or his intercession. They all combine to constitute the vast and beautiful system of means by which God reconciles man to himself, and through which man receives the atonement.

If these things be so, brethren, the atonement is a work wrought, not for us, but within us. It is Christ's work of grace in our souls. When we feel in our inmost hearts, and show forth in our daily walk and conversation, the power of his death, the power of his spirit; when the cross is redirected in our souls, and our sins are nailed to it; when his last prayer, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' is the prayer of our whole lives, then, and not till then, have we received the atonement. Let our discussion awaken us all to self-examination as to our part in this work of grace in this inward salvation. And let us account 'Christ formed within' as our only hope of glory, and deem ourselves his, only so far as we bear the image of his purity, submission, obedience, love, and piety.

I have now, my friends, in a series of eight lectures, reviewed with you some of the heads of Christian doctrine, on which I dissent from the established creeds of those portions of the church, with which, next to our own, we are the most conversant. In my first lecture, I labored to establish the divine unity. In my second, I discussed the question of our Savior's supreme divinity. In my third, I endeavored to exhibit a comprehensive view of the teaching of Scripture with regard to Christ's true rank and dignity. My fourth was upon the nature and agency of the Holy Spirit. My fifth was on human nature; my sixth, on regeneration; my seventh and eighth have been on the atonement. There are other points of Christian doctrine, which I wish to present in. similar systematic and argumentative discourses; and, particularly, I hope, at some future time, should my life be spared, to present to you, in a course of sermons, the positive side of our views of Christian truth, without reference to points in controversy. But other engagements dispose me now to close the present course, especially as I have embraced in it a group of subjects which naturally belong together, and so connect themselves with each other, as to give to the course a certain unity and wholeness.

In conclusion, let me urge you, on all these subjects, to search the Scriptures for yourselves, diligently and prayerfully, and not to accept my results without making them your own by the careful use of the reason with which God has endowed you, and the light which he has given you. And may he, the spirit of truth, guide you into all truth and make you faithful in the way of his commandments, even in that path, which grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.