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with the feeling of our infirmities.' When in the arms of death, and the soul about to be dismissed from the body, a believing view of the Son of man standing on the right hand of God, a lamb as if he had been slain,' can enable him calmly to resign himself, in the spirit and language of the proto-martyr, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Nay, when anticipating the day of final account, and conceiving himself to stand before the bar of a righteous God, he can possess himself in patience, seeing he knows that there shall be no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,' and that the blood of the covenant shall secure for him an honourable acquittal, and infallibly protect him from the wrath to come: the tribunal of eternal justice appears to be encircled with the rainbow of mercy, and, instead of the shriek of shuddering horror, he is enabled to give expression to the language of confiding hope and exulting anticipation, 'Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more.'

It is, besides, the procuring cause and sole security of eternal glory. Through faith in this blessed truth alone can any of our outcast family 'rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' Heaven is procured, prepared, taken possession of, and retained, by means of the atonement. The blood of the covenant constitutes the title to its possession. The heavenly things themselves are purified with better sacrifices, than those by which the patterns of things in the heavens were purified. We have boldness to enter into the holiest of all

only by the blood of Christ, and to the Lamb in the midst of the throne are the redeemed indebted

cross.

for the permanency of their glory and bliss. Those immortal honours, those glorious hopes, those perennial enjoyments, which are imaged by crowns of glory, palms of victory, harps of gold, and rivers of life, have all their meritorious source in the Heaven has every thing about it to deepen the recollections of Calvary; and, could we conceive a soul suddenly snatched from the foot of the cross to the sanctuary above, it would undergo no violent change of feeling, for it would still breathe the atmosphere and be surrounded with the symbols and memorials of atonement. Yes: the central object of attraction to men and angels is 'the Lamb in the midst of the throne.' The robes of the redeemed are made white in the blood of the Lamb.' 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,' is the burden of the celestial song. And those enlivening, gladdening streams which send forth into the heart an ever-welling tide of unmingled bliss, 'proceed out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.' 'Not one thought in the crowd of eternal ideas, not one note in the compass of eternal anthems, not one moment in the round of eternal ages, can there be, but refers to Christ crucified. Heaven is no place for flight from the recollections of Calvary! It is filled with the apparatus and monuments of atonement ! Its atmosphere is brightened by it-redolent of it-vocal with it.'

V. By the atonement, a way is opened up for the honourable egress of divine mercy in the bestowment of salvation; sinners have ample encouragement to

rely on this mercy; and foundation is laid for every pious emotion in the breasts of saints.

The exercise of mercy in consistency with the claims of justice, is the perplexing problem which only the doctrine of atonement solves. To the flow of the former the demands of the latter seem to present insuperable barriers. These demands must be satisfied, and, if satisfied in those on whom they primarily take hold, the way of mercy is necessarily shut up.

'Die man, or justice must, unless for him
Some other, able, or as willing, pay

The rigid satisfaction, death for death.'

It was the revelation of the all-momentous fact of Christ's atoning death, that enabled the gifted poet to hint even at this method of extrication from the above dilemma. Nought else could supply a reconciling principle. No tears of penitence however copious, no prayers however fervent, no good works however sincere, could warrant 'a just God' to 'justify the ungodly.' The sufferings of Christ solve the difficulty; by these every obstruction to the consistent exercise of mercy is removed; the stream of the Lord's blood has opened up a channel in which full, free, and abundant grace might flow unobstructedly and for ever to the very chief of sinners. God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses.' Not only is this the way by which God has seen meet to make an harmonious display of the perfections of his nature, but it may even, without presumption, be affirmed

to be the only method by which he could do so. It is not, indeed, for us to limit the Mighty One, whose understanding is infinite. Yet, considering the constitution of things, and the peculiarity of the case, we may safely affirm, that the method. which he has adopted is the best that could have been adopted; and, as it is impossible that a Being infinitely wise can do other than what is best, it follows that it was the only plan which even divine wisdom could employ. The necessity, be it observed, which is here supposed, is a moral necessity; and, in asserting that God could not save men otherwise than by the atonement of his Son, we no more impeach the perfection of his nature, than when we say that he cannot lie, cannot love sin, cannot contradict himself: we just affirm that he cannot but do what is best.

By the atonement every encouragement is held ut to sinners to rely on the divine mercy in Christ for salvation. If the view which it exhibits of the rigours of justice and the inviolability of the law are fit to cause the sinner 'meditate terror,' the view which it, at the same time, gives of the greatness of God's mercy and of his willingness to save to the uttermost cannot but awaken hope. If God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, will he refuse to receive such as come to him humbly soliciting pardon? The gift of his own Son is such a demonstration of his merciful design that no sinner need despair; and the merits of Jesus Christ, the intrinsic worth and sufficiency of his sacrifice, are sufficient to inspire the hope of forgiveness, even should our sins be, in

number as the sand of the sea, and in aggravation as crimson and scarlet. 'It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the chief.' 'He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.' No degree of guilt can exceed the worth, no depth of pollution surpass the cleansing virtue, of the Saviour's blood. To the timid, the conscience-stricken, the heavy-laden, the bowed down, he says, 'Come unto me, and I will give you rest.' And even should the whole head be sick and the whole heart faint, and from the sole of the foot even unto the crown of the head there be no soundness,' his call is still, Come now and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.' Unbelief and despair are thus totally without excuse.

As the atonement is the hope of sinners, so is it also the source of every pious emotion in the breasts of saints. It is the very object of faith, 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.' It is the spring of repentance; they shall look on me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn.' The wisdom it displays, the amazing love it discloses, and the mighty power which it exhibits, are all fitted to fill the bosom with adoring wonder. Gratitude, the strongest gratitude, is awakened by a view of the magnitude of the blessings with which it is fraught, and the sacrifices which required to be made in order to secure them. Who that thinks of the Son of God, who, being in the form of God,

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