we be impatient and rebellious while we suffer for our own sins? For let it ever be remembered, that if we had not been sinners, suffering had never been known, either by our Saviour or by ourselves. Sin is the cause of all the suffering in the universe. The sin of man has produced whatever of pain and misery has been felt by our guilty race, and by our glorious Redeemer. He endured the awful penalty due to the guilty, without a regret or a murmur, when he stood in their place and shall any sinner, on this side the place of torment, murmur, when he endures only a very small part of what his iniquities have deserved? With what pertinence and force is it asked in Holy Scripture" Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins ?"

By what Christ endured in his humiliation, the sufferings of his own people have changed their character. Their sting is extracted. They are no longer the wrathful inflictions of an incensed judge, but the wholesome, however painful discipline, of a wise, a kind, and a loving Father. Have the people of God, this assurance, and can they think of what it cost their Saviour to give them this assurance, and yet can they complain? No-In the lively exercise of faith they cannot, they do not. A delicate woman, under one of the most painful operations of surgery which human nature can sustain, was observed to pass through the whole without a sigh or a groan-How could you bear it thus? was the earnest inquiry, after the operation was safely over. I thought, said she, how much more than I endured, my Saviour bore for me, and I could not find it in my heart to utter a complaint. Here, my dear children, is the blessed secret of bearing pain, and affliction of every kind, of which the ungodly world is entirely ignorant. The true believer thinks much of what his Sa

viour bore; thinks that it was borne for him; thinks that his own suf ferings are light in the comparison; thinks that they are all inflicted by a Father's hand; thinks that they are all needed, and that infinitely more are deserved; thinks that they give him the opportunity to exercise precious graces, that shall have an abundant reward; thinks that they will all increase the bliss of heaven; thinks, in a word, that "our light affliction which is bat for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

3. In the humiliation of Christ, we see more strikingly and impressively than anywhere else, the evil of sin. We see this evil, as already observed, in all the sufferings which mankind endure-in all the painful diseases to which our race is subject; in all that man inflicts on his fellow man; in all the calamities which arise from war, and famine, and pestilence, and inundation, and earthquake; in all the mortality which has long since made the number of the dead, a thousand fold greater than the number of the living-In all this, you see the consequences and the evil of sin; and truly it is an appalling view. But if you look into the invisible world, and contemplate the state of those who have gone to the place of endless perdition; to the abodes of hopeless despair; to the inconceivable agony described in Holy Writ, by the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched-by the blackness of darkness forever; by the weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth, of those, the smoke of whose torment ascendeth up forever and ever-When you contemplate this, you think nothing of all the sufferings of the present life.

Here you are ready to say-here, in "the damnation of hell," we see, in the most awful manner, the evil of sin-No, my dear children, there is one other view, that is more awful still. In all you have yet seen, not an individual being endures any thing, beyond what he has personally and justly deserved. But now turn your eyes to Gethsemane and Calvary, and there see "the Holy One of God," suffering by imputation only, for the sins of his people-suffering agonies beyond all your conceptions and then tell, or conceive, if you can, what must be the malignity of that evil, which a righteous God could not consistently pardon, without these ineffable inflictions on his only begotten and well beloved Son. O flee to him!-that as your sins have caused his sufferings, so his meritorious righteousness, wrought out in pain and humiliation, may save you from suffering without hope and without end. This leads me to remark

4. That we may learn our infinite indebtedness to the Saviour, by contemplating his humiliation. We are accustomed to estimate our obligations to a benefactor, by considering both the intrinsick value of his gift, and what it cost him to bestow it on us. Estimate in this way, if it be possible, the obligations we are under to our adored Redeemer. Can man or angel tell, what is the value of the gift of eternal life, to those who were doomed to eternal death? But such is the gift of Christ to every glorified spirit, that shall be found in "the General Assembly and Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven." Every individual of that whole assembly owes, and will eternally and entirely owe it, to Christ, that his are all the unknown joys of heaven, in place of all the unknown miseries of hell. And to procure for his people this happy exchange of destiny-to make them the gift of eternal life, their Saviour, in his

humiliation, answered a debt which none but a God could pay. "We were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without a spot-Feed the church of God-said the holy apostlewhich he hath purchased with his own blood." Now, when we thus consider what an infinite benefit our blessed Lord bestows on his people, and at what an expense he' procured it, do you not perceive that their indebtedness to him is strictly inconceivable, is literally infinite. He knows that we can never repay him, and he does not require it-Nay, he not only intended that what he did should be gratuitous, but he demands that we receive it as such. It is the height of arrogant and impious self-sufficiency, so much as to think of rendering to Christ an equivalent for what he has done for us, or to think of adding to it by any deeds. of our own. We are to receive his gifts "without money and without price." But he does expect and demand our gratitude-He expects and demands it, as the evidence of our sense of obligation. And where is the gratitude of that human being, who hears the gospel message, and does not feel that he is indebted to the Saviour, beyond what can be uttered or imagined.

Consider then, I entreat you, in what manner you are to make known that you feel your indebtedness to your Redeemer. It is by accepting him as your only Saviour; it is by making nothing of yourselves, and every thing of him; it is by coming to him to deliver you at once from the guilt, the pollution, and the dominion of your sins; it is by devoting yourselves unreservedly to his service and glory; it is by obeying all his commandments; it is by cultivating a temper and spirit like his own, and walking as you have him for an example; it is by adorning his reli

gion, and using all your means and influence to gain others to embrace it; it is by living as citizens of heaven-holding communion with your Redeemer now, and anticipating the happy period when you shall see him as he is, be in your measure like him, and dwell for ever in his presence, in the mansions which he has gone to prepare for his people. Amen.

ON THE ATONEMENT.
No. XII.

The Redeemer's Glory. My dear Brother, This will be the last letter on the important 'subject that has so long occupied our attention. It remains only to show, that, as the views of the old school reflect higher honour on the perfections and law of God, than those of the new, so they present a nobter and more scriptural tribute of praise to the great Redeemer.

The atonement, says Mr. Beman, merely opened the door of mercy to fallen man. The writer of Dialogues, while he admits that Christ died with an intention to save the elect, and not others, and that he satisfied publick justice, denies that he made any satisfaction to distributive justice, and affirms that the gift of Christ resulted from no special love of Jehovah to his chosen, but from that general benevolence in which all share, and that common compassion which is not denied even to the damned. Others represent the atonement as consisting in an exhibition of the evil of sin, and in a declaration of God's hatred of it and its desert of punishment; and affirm that, if not one soul were saved, the proper end of the death of Christ would be answered, and its full effect produced.

With these views of our brethren we cannot accord. They are either erroneous or defective. They de

tract from the honour due to the atonement of our blessed Lord; they remove it from that central and all important point in the scheme of salvation, which inspired writers have assigned to it; and they detract from it the glory of effects which it really produces. That it opened the door of hope and mercy to this wretched world is certain; but we regard it also as the meritorious cause of our salvation. While we admit a display of the evil of sin, of its desert of punishment, and of God's hatred of it, and of his justice, to be the result of the atonement; we maintain its true nature to consist in making satisfaction for sin. The idea that the end of the atonement would have been answered, although none of our fallen race had been saved, we reject as entirely derogatory to the wisdom of God and the merits of his Son; contending that, as an atonement carries in its nature the notion of a satisfaction, the salvation of all who were given to the Redeemer must certainly follow in the manner and time agreed upon in the eternal counsels of the Holy Trinity; and that to have left their salvation uncertain, as it would have reflected on Infinite Wisdom, so it would have been inconsistent with the infinite value of the price paid for their redemption. We make the atonement of Jesus Christ the procuring cause of every blessing bestowed on the church, both in this and the next world.

In my third letter (pp. 200, 201,) it was shown, that the inspired writers represent every blessing of salvation as the fruit of Christ's death: such as forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, peace, adoption, sanctification, and the heavenly inheritance. Now, it is plain such a representation could not be properly made, if the death of Christ merely opened the door of hope and mercy. These blessings ought, in that case, to be denominated the fruit of Divine grace

ONLY, and not of the atonement; but as the atonement did really merit them for sinners, they are justly represented as the fruit, at once of the death of Christ, and of Divine grace; because they really are so; and grace is justly celebrated as reigning "through righ teousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. v. 21.

An inspection of the texts cited in the letter just referred to, must convince any reflecting mind, that there is a real established connexion, between the death of the Redeemer and all the blessings of salvation. But what, it will be asked, is that connexion? In reply to this question, it may, I think, be truly affirmed, that it is the connexion which exists between cause and effect, between a price and a purchase, between a service rendered and a stipulated reward.

Let not the investigation of this question be regarded as a mere matter of curious speculation. If the scriptures speak on it we are bound to hear and learn; and it would ill become us to turn away our ears from the voice of heavenly wisdom, contenting ourselves with believing that some general undefined connexion subsists, between our salvation and the death of Christ. Will any say that this point belongs merely to the philosophy of Christianity? I would admonish them not to disparage by such a name, a truth which Infinite Wisdom has seen fit to teach the church. It is precisely one of those particulars, in which the knowledge of Christians transcends that of ancient saints; one that involves the glory of the Redeemer and the comfort of his people. We proceed therefore to inquire what the New Testament teaches on this question.

1. It teaches that the connexion between the death of Christ and our salvation is that of cause and effect. If it were not of this nature, with what propriety could

the inspired writers attribute the cleansing of the soul from its moral pollutions to his blood? That they do so is incontrovertibly plain: "Unto him that loved us, and hath washed us from our sins in his own blood." But this, it will be said, is figurative language. Admitted; it has however, a real meaning; and what can the meaning be, except this: that, as the body is cleansed from its pollution by the application of water, so the soul is really cleansed from the pollution and guilt of sin, by the application of the Saviour's blood to it by faith. Accordingly we hear the apostle (1 John i. 7,) say, in plain language, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin:" teaching us that his precious blood operates, as a cause, in purifying the soul from moral defilement, as really as water does in purifying the body from the pollutions of contaminating substances. The same truth is taught by the write of the epistle to the Hebrews, chap. ix. 13, 14, where he shows the superiority of Christ's sacrifice to the typical sacrifices that were offered under the law:

For, if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" The blood of the Levitical sacrifices were the constituted cause of ceremonial purification; and, in like manner, the blood of Christ is a more powerful cause, of real internal purification of the sinner's conscience, from the guilt and pollution of sin.

2. Between the death of Christ and the blessings of salvation, there exists the connexion found between a price and its purchase. That his blood is denominated a price, and that we are said to be bought, is asserted by inspired writers too