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His justice has a claim, its claims must not only be suspended, they must be wholly set aside; and set aside by the power of Him to whose nature justice is essential. How this can be possible, I must leave for others to discover.

Let us now suppose that God, in order to show mercy without an atonement, should wholly set aside the claims of justice.......Now a God without justice is a God unjust; and a God unjust is not a necessarily perfect Being; and He who is not a necessarily perfect Being is not God. He who can divest himself of justice for one hour can divest himself of it during a day —a week—a month-a year—a century-and for ever. But, since justice cannot possibly be separated from the nature of God, its claims must first be satisfied before mercy can be permitted to operate effectually in behal of the criminal.

How, then, shall justice and mercy be reconciled together? This is a question which nothing but redemption can solve. As the law was given to human nature in its purity, from which its precepts required a fulfilment; so, when this nature transgressed, it was on human nature that justice had a claim, and from human nature that it demanded satisfaction. Hence, when Christ undertook our cause, He assumed the offending nature; and, in behalf of man, magnified the law and made it honourable, while He fulfilled all righteousness. It was in this nature that He offered Himself as our Substitute, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It was on this cross that He bore our sins and carried our sorrows; that He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him, that through His stripes we might be healed. It was thus that He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Nor were His sufferings merely voluntary; they were penal also. It was the cause of man which He undertook; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. To accomplish this amazing work, no finite being could be fully qualified. A finite being can perform only a finite work. But Jesus, who "heaved the mountain from a sinking world," comprised in His own personal life and death those sufferings which it would otherwise have taken the millions of the human race an eternity to endure. Who, then, can calculate the greatness of redemption? the greatness of infinite love? or the greatness of those obligations which that redemption and this love have laid us under?

"But how," it may be asked, "could God, consistently with His justice, accept the innocent for the guilty?" I answer, God must, in the abstract, either be able to pardon offenders, or He must not. If not, the power of man, who can forgive offences without becoming unjust, although he has derived that power from God, must be greater than that of Omnipotence ; which it is absurd to suppose. God therefore must have the power, consistently with His justice, of pardoning transgressors. Now, if He can pardon transgressors, it must be either through a medium or without one. But, if He can pardon without one, He must be able to pardon through one:

for it is an unquestionable fact, that the introduction of a medium can never render that action unjust which was just without it. The utmost that can be said is, that a medium is unnecessary; but even if we admit it to be unnecessary, this will not make it unjust. Now, every moral action that is not unjust must coincide with justice; and every moral action that coincides with justice must necessarily be just. If, therefore, it be just in God to show mercy to offenders, it is just in Him to accept the innocent in the room of the guilty; and, consequently, the objection against the justice of the action wholly disappears.

But as it is not unjust in God to accept the innocent in the room of the guilty, so neither can we reasonably conclude that a medium is unnecessary. We know that God must be infinitely wise; and it is demonstrable, that, as infinite wisdom can only do that which is good, it cannot do any thing which is wholly unnecessary. The same arguments, therefore, which will prove the Scriptures to be genuine, will also prove that a medium of reconciliation was absolutely needful. But even if we set aside this argument, and view the question in the abstract, we shall not be led to a less favourable conclusion.

To assert, on the present occasion, that a medium is unnecessary, is to affirm that justice and mercy can be reconciled together without its intervention. It is to assert that we are acquainted with all the possible forms in which infinite wisdom can be displayed; that all the varieties of justice are placed within the reach of our finite comprehension; and that we are competent to decide upon the moral economy of God. To this stupendous knowledge all must aspire, who contend that the death of Jesus was not necessary to make an expiation for the sins of mankind. But to this knowledge none can justly make any pretensions.*

It may, perhaps, be objected, that "since man can on many occasions pardon an offender without an expiation, we have no reason to believe an atonement to be necessary for the sins of mankind." To this it may be replied,-1. That the laws of all civil communities are either more or less imperfect; and therefore their precepts and prohibitions are not always the dictates of justice. 2. The evidence which convicts the culprit is frequently uncertain; and those who depend upon it cannot be sure that they will always do right. 3. Many mitigating circumstances may sometimes be urged in favour of the offender, which will lessen his turpitude, if not render his guilt doubtful. The sentences of human tribunals are therefore not so much the decisions of justice as they are of law. 4. The right which one man has over another is only relative; it is not absolute; and therefore can never fully resemble that of God. 5. As the want of absolute perfection will always render us liable to error, man might be guilty of a greater deviation from the principles of eternal justice, by demanding on

* The value of the three foregoing paragraphs seems to us to be relative. It may be well to put another point: They who deny that the innocent may suffer for the guilty, (i. e., in place of the guilty,) have to meet the question, How the innocent can be allowed to suffer at all?-EDITOR.

all occasions an expiation as the medium of pardon, than by omitting it. 6. No comparison can be made between the violation of human and Divine laws.

But, although these are the necessary consequences of our present condition, the result must be totally distinct where finite imperfection does not exist. For where the law is known to be founded upon the principles of immutable justice-where the evidence cannot be mistaken—where all circumstances are known-where the fact is free from doubt-and the Judge is absolutely perfect, it will be impossible for Him to set aside the claims of justice, without reducing justice itself to a mere arbitrary principle. God is this absolutely perfect Being, who cannot act in opposition to the principles of eternal justice through ignorance, because it is necessarily excluded from His nature, nor through design, because rectitude is essential to it.

Since, then, we have no reason to believe a medium to be unnecessary, and it can be proved that it is perfectly consistent with justice, we plainly perceive how God can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Through His atonement we behold mercy and truth meeting together, and righteousness and peace kissing each other. And, in the harmony of both attributes, we behold with joy the kingdom of heaven opened to all believers. Christ, therefore, is the way to happiness and God, through His atoning sacrifice.

PAGES FOR THE YOUNG.

NO. XIV.-A PERSIAN YOUTH TO A CHRISTIAN TEACHER.

(CONTAINING GOOD HINTS FOR MANY AT HOME.)

HONOURED LADY, MISS FISKE,-I have a petition to lay before your zeal, which is active in doing good to all poor insignificant ones like me. Dear lady, whose love is like the waters of the Nile, and spreads more than they; for it reaches the sons of the mountains of Kurdistan, as well as those of the plain. I am venturing to trouble you more than ever before. This summer, when I went to my country, (Tehoma,) my mother and uncles, who greatly love me with a natural love, beset me to marry one of the daughters of my country, whomsoever I should please; but I made known to them that I wished, if possible, to take one of the pupils of your school: for I said to them, "If I take one of these, who are so wicked, ignorant, immodest, and disorderly, she will embitter my life." I entreated of them not to put this yoke of iron upon my neck. They listened a little to my petition, from the mercy of God; but made me promise that, if it should reach my hand, I would marry this winter. The girl on whom I have placed my eye, to take her, is Sarah; because she has the fear of God, which is "the beginning of wisdom," and she has been brought up in all the graces of Christianity, and has well learnt the holy doctrines; and in the fear of God, and the knowledge she has acquired, she can help me, and

strengthen me, in the work of God, on which I have placed my heart for life.

And now, to whom shall I look to help me in this matter? I will look to God, the Lord of heaven and earth. But He works by instruments. Then, to whom shall I look, as the instrument to do this work? I am a stranger, poor, and without a name here. My relatives are far away. If I have friends in Oroomiah, they cannot do this kindness for me. If I remain silent, silence alone shall I see. Now, my lady, I look to you for help; and with confidence shall I do so, more than I should to my parents: for you have guided me and my sister better than any Nestorians have guided their children. Yes, by your hand God will supply my need. Now do as you think proper.

From your unworthy

OSHANA.

P.S. The other letter (enclosed) is for Sarah, and on this subject.

GLANCE AT PUBLIC OCCURRENCES.

A NATION'S feeling has been most painfully excited by the frightful calamity at Sheffield, through the bursting of the Bradfield reservoir. And no wonder that it should be so : for the sacrifice of human life, and the destruction of valuable property, are both very great. There have actually been battles fought, with decisive results, in which the number of the slain has not exceeded that of the victims of this appalling catastrophe. In this unequal contest, moreover, no trumpet gave its warning sound. While families slept in their peaceful beds, unconscious of danger, their dwellings, like those of Egypt on the night of the Passover, were invaded by a resistless destroyer; and not the first-born only, but young and old, have been caught in the death-grasp of the giant foe. Like the house in which Job's family feasted, found in the track of the whirlwind from the wilderness, many a happy English dwelling in the valleys of the Loxley and the Don, met by the rushing waters, seething and roaring on their march of ruin, has been swept from its foundations; while, here and there, the lone sur

viver of a household tells the tale of that dismal night, with the melancholy refrain, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

The prompt steps taken by Government, in sending down a Commissioner to the scene of the disaster, offer a guarantee that the origin of this most terrible calamity will be intelligently investigated by men who are competent to the task. If it be found that it has arisen from defective construction in the dam of the reservoir, it will greatly aggra vate the general sorrow to think that this great sacrifice of life was altogether needless, and might have been averted by human forethought and care. Sometimes, in the case of shipwreck, Christian men reconcile themselves to the idea of loss, by considering that it is inevitable; that the puny might of man is unequal to a contest with the tremendous powers of nature. But against the blundering or carelessness of man the mind naturally chafes. If the embankments of the Bradfield reservoir were unequal to the weight of pent-up waters that pressed upon them, nothing short of a Divine miracle could

have prevented the fatal chasm into which those mounds have been rent from top to bottom; and for expecting such an interposition we have no warrant. (Of course, awaiting the inquiry, we speak but hypothetically.) The victims, it is true, were not responsible for any defect in the construction of the dam; and yet society is so constituted, that one member of it cannot transgress either physical or moral law without bringing suffering, more or less, upon others. How strange, that the first victim of the destroyer, after leaping from its bed, was a child of only two days old, that the affrighted mother in her flight let drop from her arms! And, probably, as innocent as that newborn babe, in regard to the cause of mischief, were all the others caught away by the hissing flood. How shallow the judgment, therefore, of those who would pronounce (as the Jews did respecting the eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell) that the hapless two hundred were sinners above all others! A truer lesson to be drawn from the sad event is, that "in the midst of life we are in death." Who, of all that lost their lives in Sheffield on that dreadful night, thought it even remotely possible, upon retiring to rest, that before morning's dawn they should be drowned in their own dwellings? Danger from fire some of them might have apprehended; and, in such a case, they would console themselves with the thought, that fire-brigades were organized for their safety, fire-engines and fire-escapes were ready to hurry to their rescue. But little did they dream that seven miles away the waters, intended for their health and comfort, were mustering their forces to attack them with certain destruction. Little did they think that, literally, the enemy would come in as a flood!

VOL. X.-FIFTH SERIES.

In regard to the lives which have been lost, man is helpless, and can do nothing. Much, however, may be done toward repairing the damage inflicted upon property. With our recollection of the superabundant liberality in the case of the Holmfirth inundation, no doubt can be entertained that in the present instance a generous British public will act in a manner worthy of itself. The display of benevolence shown in the case of the Irish and Indian famines, in the Hartley colliery catastrophe, and in the still more recent instance of the Lancashire distress, is sufficient to allay misgivings on this score. Sympathy for the sufferers will be on a scale commensurate with the extent of their calamity.*

The recent judgment of the Committee of Privy Council, in the matter connected with "Essays and Reviews," has evidently caused a widespread alarm among the clergy and religious laity of the Church of England. Nor can any one wonder: for, considering that this most startling deliverance has been pronounced by the highest court of appeal in the realm, we must all feel that nothing more embarrassing to the Established Church could well have happened. And, certainly, nothing more encouraging to infidelity and latitudinarianism could have been desired by the broadest Rationalist that intrudes into a Christian pulpit. The worst of the case is, that the Church of England seems shorn of power to redress the wrong. It is only by declarations which can have no legal effect, by pamphlets and articles in Church newspapers, or, at most, by unavailing talk in Convocation, that the clergy can defend the orthodoxy of the Church against the legally-constituted judges of her doctrines. In addition to these methods,

* See the next article.

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