own abhorrence, may burst up within us. But all our complex nature influences our actions; there is not a thought, a yearning, an appetite, that does not strive at least to have its share in guiding our hand. The course we describe is the sum of all the moral forces in operation in our being. This consideration takes down our pride, and guards us against idolatry of men. This makes that startling estimate of the noble deeds of the heathen, that, after all, they are but splendid sins (99), almost literally true; for all is sinful that proceeds not from a purged and chastened will, which nothing but the love of God, confirmed by habits of obedience to his law, can confer. But the offering up of Christ for us was to be conscious and voluntary in the fullest The full extent of the suffering must be known; the unworthiness of those he ransomed, tried and exposed; the choice, unbiased, calm and settled; and therefore he who offered must be free in will, and consequently holy in life. We range through history, and find a thousand instances of that cheaper self-devotion, by which men, upborne by heat and passion, have confronted danger or welcomed death; until we almost wonder that it should ever have been said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay

sense.

down his life for his friends f." But he is not truly a free man who rushes upon his death drunk with the fume and tumult of the battle, with praise before him and shame behind; nor he whom difficulties have hemmed in unawares, and who bears up against them manfully, because this is on the whole the wisest course, and does not compromise his pride. He is free in truth, who, like the blessed Redeemer of the world, knows no will but that of his Father in heaven; who, when the true course of duty once appears, needs not to call in any baser principle to give the spur to his intention, or to overbear his fears; with whom the pride of an external consistency, and the pleasures of sense, and the world's theatrical applause, are wholly excluded from the list of motives. This then is our next proposition. The sinlessness of Jesus contributed to our redemption, because disobedience must be atoned for by obedience, because that which is offered for the life of others must not be itself forfeit, and because a perfectly free offering cannot be made but by a perfectly sinless will.

V. It will not be necessary to advert again in detail to those passages of Scripture which establish our next proposition, that

f John xv. 13.

we are reconciled to God by the blood and the death of Christ. All the attempts to explain away the meaning of these texts strike at the very life of the Gospel history; we must either admit that the redemption of man was effected chiefly by the death of the Son, or we must disbelieve his own discourses, and hold that the wonderful success of the apostolic preaching was the triumph of a lie. In this truth lies the great mystery of our salvation. No theory can prove antecedently that the just ought to have suffered for the unjust. "The great goodness and clemency of God," says the Roman Catechism, "should be proclaimed with the highest praises and thanksgivings; for he has conceded to human weakness that one may satisfy for another" (100). But that one should have the power to sum up all men in himself, and to take upon him the sins and punishment of all, is a more marvellous proof still of the divine bounty. Though we have proved the universality of vicarious sacrifice in the ancient heathen world, the doctrine of a crucified Saviour giving his life for us is still difficult to the understanding of cultivated men. But, let it be repeated, this truth, like the rest, must be viewed in the light of practice,

not of speculation. Systems of ethics may be made without it; plausible reasonings devised against it. But from the judgment of the world, from minds possessed with prejudice and dazzled by the near and visible, to the exclusion of the distant and unseen, there lies an appeal. Ask the man who is no longer able to find consolation in the smiles or the reasonings of his brothers, who is shut up, as it were, in his own heart, with the insufferable presence of his sins, with his eye just opened to perceive what sin truly is, whether those promises of God's word, which announce forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, redemption, through the healing blood of the Saviour, are to be lightly rejected. To such a one they are life from the dead. If they are proved untrue, he is left to the imbecility of his own corrupt will, to fruitless sorrow, to desperate fear. It may be said indeed that if we must await the hour of the spirit's terror and desolation, in order to prove to it the doctrine of the cross, then the doctrine may be a delusion, at which the prostrate and the abject catch, to which the brave and good are indifferent or hostile. But though it finds easier entrance in time of dejection, it has a restoring, invigorating power, that per

vades all the energies of life. We cannot but confess that in every attribute of manliness the Christian character excels all others. For the practical lesson which the passion of Jesus teaches, is, that the most holy God abhors sin; and all purity, all constancy in right purposes, all noble aims, all desires to help them that are out of the way, must spring out of that conviction. This proposition, then, may likewise be considered as proved that Christ gave his life a ransom for us. And as the Scriptures distinctly assert that he takes away the sin of the world, it may be added that the ransom was given for all mankind, although many refuse to use their interest in it (101).

VI. The resurrection of Christ is connected with our redemption, as it is the miracle which proves that God accepted him and his work, and that he is able to fulfil his promise of raising us from the dead. All that was required for our reconciliation was accomplished by the death upon the cross; and therefore the Apostle's words, that Jesus Christ "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justifications," cannot be intended to set forth the resurrection as the act by which we are justified; but only that

g Romans iv. 25.