such a view, however, of the Divine being, as that which has been just mentioned, actually and fully believed by any man of an ordinary construction of mind, it would assuredly produce very strange and very melancholy results. He would learn from it to consider the connexion between sin and misery, not as a necessary connexion, but as an arbitrary one, which might be dissolved, and had been dissolved by the authority of mere power. Thus he could not identify in his thoughts and feelings misery with sin,—which is one of the prominent lessons of the Bible. He could see nothing in the character of God either venerable or lovely. And even the restraint of fear would be removed by the idea that a penalty had been already paid of greater price than any debt of crime which he had contracted or could contract. His heart could find in this doctrine no constraining power urging him to the fulfilment of the great commandments of love to God and man. In fact, this doctrine undermines the divinity of Christ as much as Socinianism, inasmuch as it makes a separation between the views and character of the Father and those of the Son.

There is another view of this doctrine, which, though less revolting to the feelings than that

which I have just stated, is quite as inconsistent with reason. According to it, the atonement is a scheme by which God has mitigated the strict purity of his law; so that those who live under the gospel are merely required to yield an imperfect but sincere obedience, instead of that perfect obedience to which they were bound before they professed the faith of Christ. Now, let it be remembered, that the love of God with all the heart, constitutes the substance of the law which we are called on to obey; and let it also be remembered, that the sacrifice of Christ was made not only as a vindication of God's justice in proclaiming pardon to the guilty, but also for the purpose of presenting to the human heart, an object most worthy, and most admirably fitted to attract all its love; and then it will appear, that those who give this interpretation of the doctrine, do in fact maintain, that God dispenses with our giving him our full love, on condition that we are convinced that he deserves this full love at our hands. The whole end and scope of religiou is lost sight of in this interpretation. gave himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. A perfect conformity to the will of God, is not only perfect obedi

Christ

ence-it is also perfect happiness; and that gracious Father who calls on his creatures to be holy as he is holy, calls on them, by the very same exhortation, to be happy as he is happy. To dispense with our obedience, is not mercy to us; for it is in truth to dispense with our happiness. We are not received into the favour of God at all on the ground of our own deservings, but on the ground of his mercy manifested in the cross; and the belief of this mercy, by its natural operation, gradually subdues the heart to the love and the obedience of God. Perfect obedience, then, though it is required, and though it is indispensable to perfect happiness, is not the foundation of our hope for eternity: It is the object of our hope, not the foundation of it. We must be trained up to it by the faith of the gospel. It is never attained here in its blessed fulness; and therefore perfect happiness is never attained: But the seed of it may be attained, and may take root in the heart; and it has an eternity before it, to grow and flourish in. An imperfect but sincere obedience, will almost always mean, in the human judgment, that degree of obedi ence which it is convenient to pay ;-and this degree is paid by all men. The real glory of Christianity is thus extinguished,

because the

standard of moral duty is lowered. True humility can have no place in this system, because we limit our duty by our performance. And gratitude for undeserved mercy is excluded, except that base gratitude which thanks God for permitting us to be unholy. God's mercy is a holy mercy: It pardons, but never sanctions imperfection.

This subject has been already illustrated by examples drawn from human life. I shall now therefore vary the view of it, by considering it in connexion with the rite of sacrifice.

The same truth with regard to the character of God and the condition of man, which is so fully developed in the New Testament, is exhibited also in the Old through an obscurer medium, a medium of types and shadows and prophecy. When the Messiah was promised to our First Parents, the memory and the principle of the promise were embodied in the institution of sacrifice. Sensible objects were necessary, in order to recall to the thoughts, and to explain to the understanding of man, the spiritual declarations of God. Under the Jewish economy, this institution was enlarged and diversified; but still it pointed to the same fact and illustrated the same principle. The fact was, the death of Christ for the sins of the

world; the principle was, that God is at once just and merciful, and that these attributes of his nature are in joint and harmonious operation. Multitudes, probably both of the Jews and of those who lived before the Mosaic system, recognized in their sacrificès that future salvation which was to be wrought out by the promised seed; but a far greater number must be supposed to have stopped short at the rite, through want of spiritual discernment. When the prefigured fact was thus forgotten, let us consider whether the moral principle exhibited in the ceremony might not still in some measure be understood, and affect the character of the devout worshipper. The full vindication of God's holiness, and of the truth of his denunciations against sin, could indeed rest only on the sacrifice of the Divine Saviour; but although those who saw this great thing through the types which partially obscured whilst they represented it, could alone receive the full benefits of the institution, shall we think that those who did not enter into the spirit of prophecy, were entirely excluded from the operation of its principle, and saw nothing of the Divine character manifested in it? As the prosecution of this inquiry may tend to throw greater light on some views which have been