these occasional flashes from the dark sky do not compose his fears. Nor are they tranquilized, nor can they be, until the storm has spent its fury, and he sees the rainbow painted on the cloud. Such a man, more especially if, in the days of his thoughtlessness and vanity, he has had loose notions of the divine justice and presumptuous expectations from the divine mercy, is much more disposed to believe that God cannot be just and pardon, than that he would be unjust to punish and destroy. To stand on a strong and immovable foundation, he must be placed in the position where justice has no claims upon him, and where the penalty of the law is satisfied, because all his sins are atoned for. This is the only solace for the wounded conscience; this is the refuge the sinner needs; it is the refuge furnished by the Cross, because the Cross furnishes the only effective propitiation for his sins.

Modern Jews, the ancient heretics who maintained that Christ was a mere man, Mahometans, Socinians and Infidels, are, so far as my knowledge extends, the only sects that have ever affirmed that God forgives sin without regard to an atonement. There is no intimation of pardon in the Old Testament Scriptures, except through a piacular sacrifice. The great truth recognized in the bloody sacrifices throughout the patriarchal age, was the doctrine of expiation. Under the Mosaic dispensation, the offerings appointed by God, as an atonement for sin, consisted of animals that were slain, and whose blood was offered on their altars. "The life of the flesh is in the blood: I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." Nothing is more obvious from the Jewish ritual, than that it was the design of God to teach his ancient church the indis

pensable necessity of an atonement in order to procure the forgiveness of sin. The entire history of the Jewish nation, from their deliverance out of Egypt to the final overthrow of their civil and ecclesiastical polity, is written in the blood of their sacrifices-repeated every morning and evening, on every Sabbath and at every new moon, and with emphatic solemnity on the annual recurrence of the great "day of atonement; " while for sins that could not be pardoned, but were punished with death, there was no appointed expiation. If we look into the New Testament, we find this great truth more distinctly, and, if possible, more abundantly revealed. The sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, himself the only personage in human nature against whom law and justice, either of earth or heaven, could prefer no claim, cannot be accounted for under the righteous government of God, on any other principle, than that he was "cut off not for himself." Never would he have uttered that heart-rending and unanswered cry in Gethsemane, 66 'Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me," nor ever have bowed his head on the Cross, were there any other than "redemption through his blood." If there had been " a law that could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." It "became him by whom are all things, and for whom are all things, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." This is heaven's high method of mercy. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission."

Nor are the reasons for this decision unrevealed. "Clouds and darkness are round about him, but justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." The throne of God is built and stands firm only upon the principles of righteousness and judgment. They are the place, the habitation, the basis of his government. I do

not see how men can question the necessity of an atonement, who are themselves the friends of justice; who celebrate its praises as many a celestial anthem celebrates them; who feel towards it as God himself feels. Under the imperfect administration of human laws, justice may be attempered with mercy. It should be so attempered, not only because the administration is imperfect, but because it is written, "Vengeance belongeth unto ME; I will repay, saith the Lord." Human laws, in their best form, are professedly and always founded upon considerations of expediency, and never graduate the punishment of the offender by the ascertained and exact measure of his ill-desert. Justice, simple justice, calls for merited punishment; and in the divine government it is determined by the ill-desert of the transgressor. In men,

it

may be a flexible principle, and lead to a vacillating policy; but not in God. It is an essential perfection of the Divine Being. It is his nature. If there had been no creatures for him to govern, or no transgressors of his law to punish, he would still have been a Being of unchangeable, invincible justice. It belongs to his nature as truly as his spirituality, or his goodness, or his power. "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with thee." It were just as impossible for him to forgive sin in the way of sovereignty, or by any arrangement of mere expediency and general benevolence, and without regard to the claims of equity and moral principle, as it were for him to be unjust. In pardoning the guilty, his prerogatives as the sovereign are merged in his obligations as the Lawgiver. Justice demands the punishment of the transgressor, and forever stands in the way of his exercising pardon as a mere sovereign. Nor is this a fancied difficulty, nor one which any strength or ardor of love may leap over, or break

through. What he once views as sinful, he always views as sinful; what he once views as deserving punishment, he always views as deserving punishment; and what he is once disposed to punish, he is always disposed to punish. He has proclaimed this disposition in his law; nor is it a parade of authority, or an empty declaration, nor is it any the worse for being violated or executed. Nor is there any reason for waiving the execution of it, unless that reason be found in a satisfactory atonement. If there be good and solid reasons why the penalty should be inflicted where no atonement exists, there are the same reasons why an atonement is called for if the penalty be remitted. God was not bound to forgive; it was not necessary for him to forgive; but if he does gratify his love in acts of pardon, he owes to himself, and to that everlasting difference between right and wrong which he himself has established, to do it in a way that satisfies and supports his immutable justice.

The necessity for the sacrifice of the Cross, therefore, is absolute. It is a necessity that is felt in all the stages of Christian experience; and where it is not felt, there is, there can be, no Christianity. Unbelief in Christ as a Saviour is a necessary part of unbelief in God as a Judge. Men despise his mercy, because they do not respect his justice. One of the first lessons which the anxious sinner learns, is to feel his need of Christ. His conscience finds no relief, nor can it ever be disburdened of its mighty woes, save at the Cross. I have never known a man awakened to a sense of his sin and danger by the Spirit of God, however loose his religious training, and however unscriptural his previous views of truth, who had not the most unqualified conviction that the Cross was his only hiding place, and who had not the utmost horror of all his former refuges of lies. The most

stout-hearted sinner needs but to be under this divine teaching, in order to feel that that sacred victim bleeding on Calvary, and he alone, can keep him from despair.

It is not, as some have supposed, an improper inquiry to be instituded, How do the sufferings and death of the Cross constitute an effective propitiation for sin? Atonement is an expiation, or an expiatory equivalent. It is that which makes amends for an offence, so that the offender may be pardoned. It is a reparation which is made by doing or suffering that which is received as a satisfaction for the injury committed. By the Christian atonement, I understand that satisfaction to divine justice made by the sufferings and death of Christ, in the room and stead of sinners, in virtue of which pardoning mercy is secured to all who believe the Gospel. It may be desirable to present a brief view of the different parts of this general position.

The propitiation of which we are speaking, consists in the sufferings and death of Christ. His instructions and his example do not form the matter of his atonement; nor ought his prophetic and priestly offices to be thus confounded. The pardon of sin is not procured except by his sufferings, by the influence of his death, and that simply by its expiatory power. To award him no other honor than that he came as a divine teacher, is to put him upon a level with his own apostles; to take the crown from his head; to have no part in the song, "Unto him that redeemed us unto God by his blood." Whoever undertakes to atone for the sins of men must suffer. His arrangement is with penalty. As the authority of the law lies in its penalty, so the emphasis of the atonement lies in the sufferings of the Mediator. And hence the prominence which the sacred writers give to the Cross. Hence it is, too, that the trembling