only affirms the general principle of atonement, but also exhibits its fulfilment. Had the Scripture announced pardon for sin without providing satisfaction to divine justice, it would, by violating the moral law, have forfeited its title to inspiration; but, by realizing all the conditions of atonement, fully establishes its claim. Several elements of the process, being spiritual and invisible, could be ascertained only by competent testimony, or by external signs and results; and both are therefore liberally supplied. The purity of Christ's human nature was announced by an angel before his conception, and ascribed to its only possible cause, the special interposition of the Holy Spirit; but it was also practically demonstrated by his surmounting every trial and temptation to which he could be exposed, and was either directly or indirectly acknowledged both by his enemies and by the Deity. That he voluntarily submitted to divine abandonment in order to make atonement for the sins of the world, was distinctly predicted by the prophets, and declared by himself; but it was also proved, as has now been shown, by the natural and destructive effects of the malediction on his body and mind, namely, by his agony and bloody sweat at Gethsemane, by his premature and sudden death on the cross, and by the effusion of blood and water which ensued on his side being afterward pierced with a spear. The prominence thus given to the principle of atonement, and the critical agreement with that principle of the physical facts described as its results, furnish therefore a peculiar and incontestable evidence of the veracity and divine origin of the Scriptures.

Thirdly, The numerous types and prophecies of Scripture relating to this momentous event, when separately contemplated, present difficulties and obscurities so great, and seemingly so insurmountable, that nothing but truth can account for their original introduction and

ultimate fulfilment. Of this transaction, all preceding religious ceremonies were merely shadows and representations. A covenant of reconciliation freely granted by God to fallen man, and ratified by an atoning sacrifice, was the common object which they attested and prefigured, but could not realize. The insufficiency of the ancient sacrifices for their professed purpose was proved by their intrinsic worthlessness, and obvious inability to purify the conscience, and hence by their endless repetition. They served, however, to maintain a perpetual record of the demerit of sin, to intimate the need of expiation, and to define the singular and almost inconceivable combination of circumstances required in the one great and perfect sacrifice, by which they were at length to be forever superseded. A true atoning sacrifice implied that the divine malediction due to sin was vicariously endured by a suitable victim. As endured by Christ, it necessarily produced rupture of the heart, and effusion of the life's blood. To indicate this reality, the life's blood of animal victims was from the earliest period made an indispensable condition of ceremonial atonement; and it was distinctly announced that "the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart."-For the same reason it was ordained that Christ should die the death of the cross, decreed by the Jewish Sanhedrim, but executed by a Gentile magistrate; and yet that, contrary to the usual custom in Judea, none of his bones should be broken, an exception which implied his premature dissolution on the same day; because, under all the circumstances of the case, this was the only mode of death which combined the appearance with the reality of that malediction, whereof suspension on a tree was the appointed emblem, and the Jewish hierarchy were the authorized ministers. But the punishment of crucifixion during life was not in use among the people of Israel; and it was therefore pre

dicted that at the time of the Saviour's death the tribe of Judah, of which he was a member, should be subject to the Roman empire. The power of blessing and cursing was placed exclusively in the hands of the Aaronic priesthood; and it was consequently foretold that in accomplishing the death of Christ they would, although such an alliance was repugnant to their national customs and prejudices, be associated with Gentiles. His death was, however, occasioned not by the ordinary sufferings of the cross, but by the divine malediction itself, through the medium of agony of mind, and rupture of the heart. A slow and lingering punishment was therefore selected, as the only one suitable for the purpose, and it was predicted that he would pour forth his life's blood unto death. This announcement determined the precise mode in which his life was to be sacrificed; since in no other mode could the punishment of the cross, which conventionally denoted malediction, have furnished that effusion of life's blood which in this case was its natural result, and without which the Scripture declared there could be no discharge of sin. It was, moreover, requisite that this result should be publicly demonstrated; and it was accordingly predicted,-"They shall look on him whom they pierced; "a prophecy literally acomplished by the spear of the Roman soldier after the death of Christ, but virtually by the sin of the world, which in this very manner had proved its cause. The effusion of blood and water which followed the wound formed an essential part of the demonstration, and was therefore prefigured by the employment of blood and water as the outward seal of the first covenant; wherein the life's blood of a clean and unoffending animal, mixed with pure and running water, faintly portrayed the stupendous reality which constituted the seal of the second. The extreme complication and singularity of these conditions, which it is evi

dent could never occur more than once, and which it seemed almost impossible should ever occur at all, their express prediction so many ages before the event, and their exact accomplishment when the proper time arrived, triumphantly prove the truth and divine origin of the religious dispensation whereof they form a part; a dispensation as much beyond the wisdom of men to contrive, as it was beyond their power either to execute or to pre

vent.

Fourthly,—A similar conclusion results from the fact, that the same explanation of the death of Christ which is thus shown to be in perfect harmony with the laws of the human body and mind, with the fundamental doctrine of atonement, and with the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, is also suggested by the evangelical narratives of the New, although unnoticed, and seemingly unperceived by the evangelists themselves. Until this explanation is applied, their account of the event appears strange and mysterious. That a person in the prime of life and vigor should have died in six hours, under a punishment which rarely proved fatal in less than three days, that he should have previously sweated blood, and that, on his side being afterward pierced by a spear, there should immediately have issued blood and water, are circumstances which savor of the marvellous, and which those inclined to cavil at revelation might reject as incredible. This very narrative is, nevertheless, found on inquiry to contain the elements of an explanation which, although entirely satisfactory, is yet so latent, that it has never hitherto been generally acknowledged, and which it is manifest the sacred writers had neither the disposition nor the capacity to invent. Although doubtless endued with good natural abilities, they were, with one exception, uneducated men, selected from the lower classes of society to be witnesses of occurrences, some of which they were

unable at the time fully to comprehend. Luke, as a physician, had in this respect an advantage over his brethren, and it was perhaps owing to this peculiarity that he alone mentions the bloody sweat of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane; but, in his brief account of the Saviour's death there is no sign of his having discerned its immediate cause, and the subsequent effusion of blood and water, which was not less deserving of notice, he totally omits. At that period, indeed, physiological science was not sufficiently advanced to enable him to form a correct judgment on the subject; yet the same science, in its more improved state at the present day, recognizes in these simple reports the distinct but unobtrusive traces of natural actions, remarkable for the singularity of their character and the rarity of their occurrence, by means of which every difficulty is removed, and the whole transaction is completely elucidated. That amid a multitude of possible alternatives, the narratives of the four evangelists, although differing from each other on several minor points, should exactly agree in supplying the materials of such an explanation, which it is probable the writers themselves did not clearly understand, is a most extraordinary coincidence, which admits of no other solution than the truth of the narratives, and the reality of the events which they describe.

But, besides their characteristic reports of the death of Christ, three of the evangelists give similar accounts of two symbolical actions intimately connected with that event, namely, the institution of the Lord's Supper, and the miraculous rending of the veil in the temple during the crucifixion. These actions seem to have been expressly designed by the Deity to form a congenial supplement to the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and to prove that the whole emblematical system exhibited in the Scripture had the same divine author, and the