tortures of the cross in his body. Many martyrs probably have suffered all that the human body and soul could suffer without a groan or cry of agony. But he seems to have suffered infinitely more than the mere human could suffer. the greatness of his agony, and perhaps to intimate to us the greatness of that agony, he exclaims, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" For any end short of satisfying distributive justice, short of exhausting the full claims of immutable righteousness, it is inconceivable that the Father should forsake the beloved Son. But if the cup of distributive justice is to be drained to its dregs; if the full exactions of infinite justice are to be suffered, then the Father, who is the only executioner of justice, must strike the blow. And if he strike this terrible blow, he must withdraw from the sufferer, as he could not be at the same time the executioner and the sufferer, the propitiated and the propitiator. In the view of actual expiation, the whole scene is both natural and stupendous. It is now natural to see him sweating great drops of blood in Gethsemane; it is natural to hear him say then, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death;" and feeling the actual sinking of his soul under the infinite weight of the divine wrath, it is natural that he should break forth into the heartrending petition, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" The prophetic description of the scene of agony by Zechariah is natural: "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts; smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered;" which smiting, the evangelist, in recording the crucifixion wonders, ascribes directly to God. "For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." But not only are the circumstances rendered natural in the view of actural expiation, the whole scene is also rendered stupendous. God the father, the executioner of his son, and such a son, in order that he may both satisfy and uphold immutable justice, and exercise pardoning and saving compassion towards a fallen and much-loved race! This is enough to silence all heaven, draw the awe-struck angelic hosts about the hill of Calvary, and fill them with inquiry and wonder insatiable. Mrs. Browning in "The Seraphim," caught glimpses of the effect upon

the cherubic legions such as the Scripture representations of expiation naturally open to the highest powers of sanctified imagination.

Ador.

Zerah.

The Earth.

Ah me, ah me, ah me! the dreadful why!
My sin is on Thee, Sinless One! Thou art
God-orphaned, for my burden on thy head.
Dark sin, white innocence, endurance dread,
Be still, within your shrouds, my buried dead

Nor work with this quick horror round my heart!

But how different is the whole scene, how unnatural and belittled, if we reject or slur over the expiatory character of Christ's sacrifice! If we regard the object of atonement to be to impress dependent creatures, as Dr. Beman and other writers do. For diminishing the kind and degree of justice to be vindicated, diminishes to the same extent the character, worth, and wonder of the sacrifice. Moreover, this view of the atonement as expiatory and propitiatory, more fully accounts for the emphasis which the inspired writers lay upon that great mystery, the divine as well as human nature of the sin-offering. Other mysteries gleam through the sacred record, but they are not made prominent and vital as this is. That the Word was God, that in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, that he was one with the Father in all divine attributes, such are the expressions that are multiplied in the Bible,

just as if the great fact that he is very God was an essential pillar of the gospel arch. "God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory," was everywhere," without controversy," the great "mystery of godliness. No reason can be given for this so satisfying as that which is furnished by the expiatory character of the atonement. Here it is seen at once that no being but very God could endure the concentrated punishment which was due to a whole race of sinners. It is also as readily seen that we must receive the fact of the divine nature of Christ before we can fairly understand and receive the great central doctrine of the atonement. Perhaps the human mind will never generally be satisfied with any reason for so profound and astonishing a mystery but that of expiation. If men are led to believe that it was not essential to the validity of the atonement that Christ should bear the actual punishment of our sins, or the full equivalent, and be made a curse for us, they will continually return the inquiry, why then was it necessary that Christ should be Godman? Why was it necessary that such a price should be given for our ransom as is God's very Son? And if men are led to believe that less than actually bearing the punishment due to sin, or its full equivalent, on the part of Christ, suffices to make atonement, then they will be ready to ask why will not less. than the suffering of the full penalty in hell avail for the finally damned, and so eternal punishment be shortened.

It is not intended here to deny that a less degree of duration of suffering endured by Christ as the Son of God, may, on account of the infinite dignity and glory of his person, be an equivalent to the curse of the law endured by sinners, and so a strong argument for the divinity of Christ be drawn from the nature of an atonement which does not include satisfying expiation. But as a fact, Christ's worthiness is seen not to have saved him from deep and mysterious suffering. Therefore is not the argument perfected, as well as rendered more definite and convincing, if to the dignity and worthiness of the sufferer, there be added the sharp necessity for such penal sufferings as require infinite capacity to bear? Let the dignity and glory of the sufferer be taken into the account in estimating the de

gree and duration of suffering, but let the suffering and dignity be so combined or balanced as to come fully up to the demands of distributive justice, and the whole case is met and all conditions satisfied. President Edwards the elder, insists on the sufferings of Christ as being "infinitely terrible," in order to meet and satisfy the demands of justice, notwithstanding his infinite excellency of person and character. On pages 606 and 607 of Vol. I. of his works, after having shown that "Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins in such a way as he was capable of," though in some respects not what the damned in hell suffer, yet in other respects what they did not suffer, he says:

"For an atonement that bears no proportion to the offence, is no atonement. An atonement carries in it a payment or satisfaction in the very notion of it. And if satisfaction was so little necessary, that the Divine Majesty easily admitted one that bears no proportion at all to the offence, . . . then he might have forgiven sin without any atonement; and an atonement could not be so greatly to be insisted upon, as is represented by all the prodigious expense and labor, and multitude of services, and ceremonies, and so great an apparatus, and so great pomp, which, with so much exactness were prescribed. . . .

...

"II. Another way in which it was possible that Christ should endure the wrath of God was, to endure the effect of that wrath. All that he suffered was by the special ordering of God. There was a very visible hand of God in letting men and devils loose upon him at such a rate, and in separating from him his own disciples. Thus it pleased the Father to bruise him and put him to grief. God dealt with him as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved, and whose infinite love he had eternal experience of. Besides, it was an effect of God's wrath, that he forsook Christ. This caused Christ to cry out once and again, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' That was infinitely terrible to Christ."

That this latter expression was not a slip, or an indefinite use of language, is evident from his repeating it in various ways, as on page 604:

"Thus Christ suffered that which the damned in hell do not suffer. For they do not see the hateful nature of sin. They have no idea of

sin in itself, that is infinitely disagreeable to their nature, as the idea of sin was to Christ's holy nature; though conscience in them be awakened to behold the dreadful guilt and desert of sin. And as the clear view of sin in its hatefulness necessarily brought great suffering on the holy soul of Christ, so also did the view of its punishment. For both the evil of sin and the evil of punishment are infinite evils, and both infinitely disagreeable to Christ's nature; the former to his holy nature, or his nature as God; the latter to his human nature, or to his nature as man."

In closing this part of the subject it is satisfactory to be able to quote a few of the many expressions which the same great theologian used in teaching that Jesus Christ did really and substantially suffer the penalty of the divine law :

"There is the same need of Christ's obeying the law, in order to the reward, as of suffering the penalty of the law in our stead, in order to our escaping the penalty." "That Christ suffered the full punishment of the sin that was imputed to him, or offered that to God that was fully and completely equivalent to what we owed to divine justice for our sins, is evident from Psalm lxix. 5." "If he unites himself to guilty creatures, he of necessity brings their guilt on himself." "The general meaning of the phrase, to bear sin, is lying under the guilt of sin, having it imputed and charged upon the person, as obnoxious to the punishment of it, or obliged to answer and make satisfaction for it." "Thus Christ bore our sins; God laid on him the iniquity of us all; and he bore the burden of them."

It is sometimes objected to this expiatory element which the Scriptures so manifestly make essential to the atonement, that it has a basis of fatalism. A writer in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1861, who may be taken as a representative of a class, says, p. 285:

"If from this point, we step back upon the fatalist's ground, and recognize an absolute necessity, higher than God, binding his will and all its issues, with the chain of an inexorable destiny, then our inquiry is at an end; Christ's death was necessary in the same sense, and for the same reason, that all things are necessary. But if we regard the divine will as free, and all its purposes spontaneous and self-determined, then the way is still open to pursue our inquiry touching the ground of the necessity for the Saviour's passion."

The objection, as related to the subject, must mean, if it