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butes, and of thereby restoring the sinner, otherwise without hope and without God in the world, to grace and succor, and consequently to rectitude and happiness. The misery inseparable from sin depends primarily on loss of the divine favor and protection, and not on any positive infliction from that adorable Being whose work is perfect, whose nature is love, and who cannot be directly the author of evil, either physical or moral. It depends more immediately on bereavement of the conditions necessary to happiness; on disorder internal and external, producing anguish, disease, and death; and on exposure to the assaults of other depraved beings, more especially Satan and his angels. In sustaining the divine malediction, the impenitent sinner is distressed by those evils only which are its remote result. In reference to God, his desperate enmity prompts him to say,—“Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways; "—but, could such an infliction befall a pure and perfect human being, his language would be,-" Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." *As such a being could not, however, thus suffer on his own account, but only as the substitute of others, it will here be proper to inquire what are the conditions requisite to constitute an atoning victim, capable of propitiating divine justice, and of making reconciliation for trans

gressors.

The Scriptures, which in such an inquiry must be our principal guide, represent the atonement as having regard not only to the intrinsic nature of God, but also to his relative character, as the moral governor of the universe. Hence it was necessary that it should be both adequate and exemplary, for an insufficient and clandestine transaction, under the name of an atonement, would have been

* Job, chap. 21, v. 14, 15;-Psalm 51, v. 11.

rather an insult than a satisfaction. In a work planned and executed by the Deity, it might be expected that the three sacred persons would perform their respective and appropriate offices; and they are accordingly found harmoniously coöperating in every step of the process. To constitute a suitable mediator between God and man, it was requisite that the two natures should be intimately associated, and that the human nature thus adopted, although derived from a fallen race, should be pure and perfect. Hence the necessity for that special interposition of the Holy Spirit in the conception of Christ, which is so plainly described in Luke's gospel. By means of this mysterious union, the sufferings and death which the human nature alone could sustain, were invested with that transcendent dignity and value which the divine nature alone could impart.* To render an atonement for human guilt, it was necessary that the victim thus provided should endure the penalty incurred, namely, the divine malediction, which in such a case could assume no other outward form than that of a public execution, wherein all parties concerned should in some measure concur in acknowledging the innocence of Christ, and at the same time in subjecting him to a cruel and ignominious death, such as that of crucifixion. It was further necessary to show that he died not merely as a martyr, but as a victim. For this purpose the ordinary sufferings of the cross would not have been sufficient, but those which he actually endured were conclusive, by exhibiting the awful spectacle of an innocent human being dying of grief under the divine malediction. The discharge of such an office was an act which, although requiring the sanction of the Deity, could not even by the Deity be commanded, but

*Matt. chap. 1, v. 18-25;-Luke, chap. 1, v. 26-38;-1 Tim. chap. 2, v. 5, 6;-Heb. chap. 2, v. 9-18; chap. 4, v. 14-16; chap. 7, v. 1317, 23-28; chap. 9, v. 11-15.

must have been purely voluntary; implying a virtual compact between the parties, securing to the meritorious sufferer a commensurate reward, namely, the salvation of all who should embrace the atonement which he thus accomplished. The well-known statement of prophecy is,— "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."*-To such a being the divine malediction must have been productive of the severest mental anguish; and, although from a regard to the object in view this infliction would be sustained with the most dutiful submission, yet in reference to his own personal feelings it must have been endured with the greatest horror and repugnance. This conflict of opposite motives, far from indicating, as some have imagined, any defect of character or of cordiality, implied on the contrary the highest moral excellence; since the strong aversion of Christ to incur the malediction, and his still stronger resolution to bear it with all its consequences, were alike expressive of the most exalted piety and benevolence. With the utmost reluctance to lose his habitual enjoyment of the divine communion, he nevertheless submitted to abandonment in compliance with the gracious purposes of God toward mankind, which could no otherwise have been fulfilled. The natural effect of such a struggle on the body of Christ must have been, not a simple extinction of vitality, as might have happened from mere sorrow or consternation, but violent excitement and excessive palpitation, occasioning in the first degree bloody sweat,

* Isaiah, chap. 53, v. 10-12 ;-Luke, chap. 24, v. 25-27;-Heb. chap. 12, v. 1-3;-1 Peter, chap. 1, v. 10-12.

and in the second sudden death from rupture of the heart.* That the Saviour's death was actually thus induced, has already it is presumed been demonstrated; it now appears that such a mode of death was not only in full accordance with the principle of atonement, but also its necessary expression and result; and it will next be shown, rather more distinctly than before, that the agony which ruptured the heart of Christ was really occasioned by his pious endurance of the divine malediction due to human depravity.

To render this atonement complete and effectual, it was indispensable that it should be both real and public; in other words, that the malediction should be borne truly, in order to satisfy the claims of divine justice, and conspicuously, in order to produce on the human race, and perhaps also on other classes of intelligent beings, a salutary and indelible impression. In accomplishing this design, notwithstanding difficulties seemingly almost insuperable, the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Deity were strikingly displayed.-"This thing"-said the apostle Paul,-" was not done in a corner."-On the contrary, nothing was omitted which could attract attention to the crucifixion of Christ, and mark it as an event unparalleled in the history of the world. The place, the time, the season, the agents, the circumstances, were all admirably adapted to the purpose. The place was Jerusalem, then in the perfection of its strength and beauty, the centre of revealed religion, the city of the living God, and the only spot on earth where sacrifice could be lawfully offered;-the time, the latter period of the Mosaic dispensation, shortly about to be superseded by the new and better covenant, a period long before predicted, when Judah, deprived of his sceptre, had become tributary to

* Matt. chap. 26, v. 36–44, 53, 54;—Mark, chap. 14, v. 32–39;— Luke, chap. 22, v. 39-44 ;-Heb. chap. 5, v. 5–10.

the Roman empire, then in the zenith of its power; * the season, the passover, that solemn festival, typical of human redemption, to which millions of worshippers from all quarters of the world zealously resorted ;-the principal agents, the Israelitish nation, once the favored people of God, but now in a low and degenerate state, and evidently laboring under his displeasure; seconded in their hostility to Christ by their Roman masters, but headed by their own civil and ecclesiastical rulers, who throughout the whole transaction took a prominent and official part; the circumstances, the crucifixion of a holy and mysterious person charged with the most atrocious crimes, but whom all parties virtually acquitted, and who died on the cross suddenly and prematurely, after first complaining of abandonment by the Deity, and finally claiming his acceptance. To render this extraordinary person an object of universal attention, divine providence employed all possible and suitable means. After a long succession of types, prophecies, and other preparatory measures, he appeared in the world as the heir of David and of the throne of Israel. His birth, which occurred in a supernatural manner at Bethlehem, the city of David, had been announced by a star or meteor; his claim to be the Messiah had been recognized by the usurper Hered, who commanded an indiscriminate massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem below a certain age, in the vain hope of destroying among their number the new-born king of the Jews. After passing thirty years in humble and laborious privacy, Christ at length shone forth as a sacred person, introduced by John the Baptist, the greatest of preceding prophets, raised up for the express purpose of proclaiming his title, and preparing his way. During his

* Genesis, chap. 49, v. 8-10 ;-Daniel, chap. 2, v. 40-45;-Acts, chap. 26, v. 24-26.

Matt. chap. 1, 2 ;—Luke, chap. 1, v. 26-38; chap. 2, v. 1–38.

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