a

and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus"—or in the words of our text, that he might be "a just God and a Saviour." We are here taught that the "sins which are past," that is, sins committed before the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, were remitted or forgiven on the credit of that sacrifice; and that the actual shedding of his blood declared or shewed God's righteousness in doing so. What is this, but to say that, without such an atonement, he could never have righteously pardoned a single sinner; that he could not have been " just God" and at the same time "a Saviour;" that he could not have been 46 "just" and yet "the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus?" For several thousand years it might seem as if God was relaxing his perfect righteousness by pardoning sin without an atonement; but "when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son" to be a sacrifice for sin, thus openly declaring his righteousness in "the remission of sins that are past," and shewing how he had all along been a Saviour to his people without giving up one atom of his perfect justice.* On the cross of Calvary mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other." Ps. lxxxv. 10. Unitarians deny that mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, were ever at variance; what then is the meaning of their meeting together and kissing one another? Nothing can be plainer than that, when man fell, "truth" required the punishment which had been threatened to be inflicted on him, while "mercy" pleaded for pardon; God had thoughts of "peace" towards him, while his "righteousness" stood in the way. God felt towards him as a father, and yet must act towards him as a judge. How are all these to be reconciled? Scripture tells us— -By the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Here every difficulty is removed, and all the Divine attributes displayed in beautiful harmony.†

III. The next objection is, that it would be unjust to make the innocent suffer for the guilty. Now if this be an objection at all, it lies just as much against the Unitarian theory as

Mr. Barker wants to make out that "righteousness" here means mercy, and that "just" means merciful. They have as much to do with mercy as they have to do with murder. It is astonishing that eminent writers should have endeavoured to wrest this word in the same way, to get out of what they considered difficulties in certain passages of the New Testament. Donegan gives the meanings of dikaios to be "just, upright, honest, correct, right, good, genuine, fitting, suitable, proper, worthy of, meriting, deserving, equal, even, matching." Nor do I believe that any untheological Greek writer in the world would ever dream of saying that it could possibly mean merciful. If it be said that in Matt. vi. 1, dikaiosune is translated "alms"-we reply that it is no such thing. Some Greek manuscripts have dikaiosune, which means righteousness; while others have eleemosune, which means alms. Our translators have taken the latter.

"It never was incompatible with God's justice," says Mr. Barker, "to pardon sin when men ceased to commit it. He who asserts that it was so is wise above what is written." What is written we have seen above,

against ours. The Unitarian acknowledges, that Christ did not deserve to die, and yet that he did die, and for our benefit. Why it should be more unjust for Christ to suffer as a sacrifice for us, than as an example to us, I am at a loss to conceive In both cases the innocent suffers for the guilty; and it is in this that the injustice is supposed to consist. But any such objection is at once removed, by remembering that Jesus was a willing sacrifice. 66 'No man taketh my life from me," he said, "but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." And though he proved the reality of his human nature by the shrinking of his flesh from suffering, when he prayed, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," yet he immediately afterwards shewed that all he underwent was purely voluntary, by saying, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently send me more than twelve legions of angels ?" If Christ then so loved us as to be willing to die for us, there could be no possible injustice in God permitting him to do so, and accepting his sacrifice as an atonement for our sins,

IV. But how, it may be asked, can one be accepted as a substitute for many millions? Because of the dignity of the sufferer. The union of Deity with his manhood gave an infinite value to his atonement, although it was only the manhood that died. Suppose you wilfully killed an animal belonging to your neighbour; you might probably be imprisoned a few months for it. But suppose you killed the man himself; it would be murder and you would be hung for it. Yet in both cases you only kill a body; the man's soul still lives after you have killed him. Then what makes the putting one body to death so much greater an offence than putting the other body to death? Why evidently the union of an immortal soul with the man's body gives it a dignity far above that of the beast's. So, (if we venture to follow the Saviour's example in comparing Divine things with human) did Christ's Godhead render the sufferings and death of his manhood an infinite

atonement.

Having thus, it is hoped, cleared the subject from some of the mistakes and misrepresentations, with which it is often obscured, we may proceed without further delay to consider the different points of view in which this great doctrine is presented to us in Holy Scripture. Let us begin with

SACRIFICE.

From the earliest times, to which history carries us back, until Jesus Christ appeared on earth, every nation under the sun followed the practise of offering sacrifices to their Gods; and almost, if not quite, every nation, on extreme occasions

offered human sacrifices. Their object in doing so, as every one knows, was to propitiate, appease, or render favourable, their supposed deities. "That the Greeks and Romans, and other ancient nations, of whose religion any sufficient notices have descended to us, believed in the propitiatory effect of sacrifices, is so familiar a fact to all who are acquainted with ancient authors, that to produce the instances is as unnecessary as it would be almost endless. Herodotus tells us, that the Egyptians believed that the public or private calamities, which might be impending, were avoided by being "turned upon the head" of the sacrificed victim. Some very interesting examples occur in Livy. Horatius, the survivor of the brothers in the combat, was saved by popular applause from the death which he had incurred by killing his sister; but it was thought necessary that his father should provide an expiation by sacrifice, at the public expense. When the elder Decius devoted himself to death for the supposed salvation of his country, he was regarded “as sent by heaven to be an expiation to the wrath of the Gods." His son, in another public danger, followed his example, exclaiming that "it was granted to that family to be expiations to remove the perils of the state." Were one to go through all the Greek and Roman historians, the instances would swell to a vast collection; and the earlier are the times to which they belong, the more numerous and striking they are. Thus, in the earliest ages of mankind, while the impression of primitive tradition, though so lamentably misapplied, and united with the ferocity of idolatry, were not yet lost by philosophy and civilization, thus strongly and universally did men recognise, that their crimes insured the vengeance of the higher powers, except it was prevented by the atonement of sacrifices, often highly difficult, costly, and terrific. As amidst the errors of idolatry it is easy to see the effects of the primitive belief and worship of the only God; so, under this mass of corruption, we plainly see the foundation of original truth. The idea that man could be saved in no other way than by the substitution of a victim, was as universal as the idea itself of a God; and indeed more universal than that of mere prayer; for travellers have discovered tribes, whose worship presented no appearance of prayer in words, but they prayed by action, namely, "by sacrifices." "No one can deny," says Eugenius, who was not a believer in the Atonement, "that in countries so remote from one another, as to preclude all supposition of communication of opinion, the approval of human sacrifice has constantly prevailed in the early stages of society. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, all furnish proofs of the uniform approbation bestowed on deliberate and disinterested murder during the infancy of social life. No explanation can be given of the infernal custom, by

saying it was introduced by those who pretended to hold intercourse with divinities, unless it can be shown that such persons were gainers by its practise. What could priests gain by it, except in nations of cannibals? Neither the Celts, Peruvians, Mexicans, nor the early Greeks were cannibals. So truly meritorious was the practise esteemned, that it was thought more likely than any thing else to propitiate the favour of the Deity, at all times when such favour was earnestly desired. The sacrifice of innocence and purity was generally thought to be particularly acceptable among the Greeks. Children, or young virgins, were resigned by their unhappy parents, when it was supposed that the shedding of their blood would be the means of arresting the progress of pestilence, or furthering the progress of cruelty and rapine.”

Let us now inquire into the cause of this extraordinary and universal fact. "A plain truth," says Dr. Delany, "which no candid reader will, I believe, contest, is this; that whatever practise is universally followed in the world, for any considerable number of years, must arise either from some dictate of reason, or some demand of nature, or some principle of interest, or some powerful influence or injunction of some being of universal authority. Now, that sacrifices were universally practised for many ages over all the regions of the known world, will not be denied by any man, who makes the least pretence to the knowledge of antiquity. That the practise did not arise from any dictate of reason, the adversaries of revelation will, I believe, readily own; it being evident that unpre judiced reason never could teach us, that destroying the best of our fruits and creatures could be an office acceptable to God; but quite the contrary. That it did arise from any demand of nature is undeniable: for, I believe, no man will say that we have any natural instinct or appetite to gratify, in spilling the blood of an innocent, inoffensive creature upon the earth, or burning his body upon an altar. Nor could there be any temptation from appetite to do this, in those ages when the whole sacrifice was consumed by fire; or when, if it were not, yet men wholly abstained from flesh:-consequently, this practise did not arise from any principle of interest, and so there could be no priestcraft in the case. In after ages, the duty of sacrificing belonged to the father of the family, who was more interested in their well being than any other person whatsoever, and consequently could have no interest in creating an unnecessary expense.-When fathers grew up into princes, sacrifices were then also at the worshipper's own expense. Offerings of various kinds were the constant practise of private men in their own families; and priests had no perquisites from them." (The author goes on to show the groundlessness of the pretence, that sacrificing was a rite invented by any order

of men, to serve their own purpose at the expense of others.) "Since then sacrifices are demonstrably not the invention of priestcraft, nor the dictate of reason, nor the demand of nature; I should be glad that infidels would so much as attempt to tell us, with any colour of reason and proof, how they came to be practised so universally in the world, otherwise than from Divine appointment. How any practise could be followed in the world, to which mankind were neither urged by the interests and craft of any particular set of men, nor by any dictate of reason, nor by any instinct or demand of nature, nor by any interest of any kind; but quite the contrary, in direct contradiction to every principle of reason and nature and interest;-I say how such a practise could prevail, and prevail universally, is impossible to be accounted for but from some powerful and irresistable influence of example, or injunction of authority. And what example could have such influence except that of Adam, or what authority could have such power except that of God, is to me utterly inconceivable."-The conclusion then to which we are irresistably led by facts alone, even without the aid of Scripture, is, that sacrifices must have been originally a Divine appointment; and when we come to ask, what can have led to such a frightful corruption of the rite of sacrifice as the offering up of human beings, there is but one rational answer can be given, namely that it arose from a vague tradition being preserved of the original promise of a Saviour who should die for the sins of the world. As the families of the earth sank deeper and deeper into idolatry, they still retained some idea of the revealed truth, that "without shedding of blood is no remission," but instead of looking forward in faith to the great sacrifice which was to come, they "changed the truth of God into a lie," and "offered up their sons and their daughters unto devils."

We now turn to Scripture, and see what light it throws on the origin and intention of sacrifice.

The first recorded instance is that of Cain and Abel, Gen. iv, 3-5; "And it came to pass in process of time, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; but unto Cain and his offering had he not respect." On which St. Paul observes, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," Heb. xi. 4. From this circumstance alone "it is easy to be demonstrated that sacrifices owed their origin to the will and appointment of God. The Apostle expressly says, as Moses said before him, that Abel's sacrifice was acceptable to God. But it would not have been acceptable, if it had not been of Divine institution; according to that plain, obvious, and eternal maxim of all true