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SATAN, PETER, AND CHRIST.

"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."-Luke xxii. 31, 32.

WE shall look at this remarkable statement of Christ as presenting the good man to us in two aspects.

OF

I. AS THE OBJECT SATANIC DESIRE. "Satan hath desired to have you." "Hath desired." The verb means, "hath required you." There is, perhaps, an allusion to Job's temptation. (Job ii. 6.) Still, as requiring implies implies desire, we may hold to the word in our remarks. Observe-First: Satan is the subject of desire. He is not a being of mere intellect, he has heart, and in his heart there are desires. His desires are malevolent and insatiable. Observe-Secondly: Satan's desire has respect to individual

men.

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"You." The pronoun is plural, and refers not merely to Peter, but to all the disciples. He does not overlook the individual in the millions; he is concerned with each spirit; he has a desire concerning each. ObserveThirdly: Satan's desire has respect to individual men who have become the disciples of Christ. Satan desired to have them-Christ's disciples -as his servants and his

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victims. He is more busy, perhaps, with the good here, than he is with the evil. His object is to thwart the purposes of mercy in relation to them, and to bring them back into his own dark empire. This statement of Christ presents the good man to us—

II. AS THE OBJECT OF CHRIST'S CARE. Simon,

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Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you," &c. Observe- -First Christ knows the heart of Satan. He knew the particular desire of the arch enemy. Christ knows the devil thoroughly-knows his every thought and feeling, sounds the deepest depths of his nature, knows his history from beginning to end. Observe - Secondly : Christ warns his people against Satan. He does this now with Peter. He knew Satan's desire and He makes Peter acquainted with it. He knows the devil's intent, and He sounds the note of warning. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Observe-Thirdly: Christ invokes Heaven to thwart Satan. "I have prayed for thee.' For thee, Peter, especially. Christ's intercession is against the devil. What does He pray for? Not that the devil may be annihilated; not against his sifting Peter as wheat; testing him well; but that the faith of His people fail not.

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The language implies (1) | GOD. "To meet thy God."

That the effort of His people is required for the resistance of the devil. He is their enemy, and they must fight him. Moral battles cannot be fought for us. (2) That faith is essential to successful resistance. "Thy faith fail not." Faith in the true, the right, the Divine, in God Himself. Faith is the power. (3) That the sufficiency of this faith requires the assistance of God. Hence Christ prays that Peter's faith fail not. Observe Fourthly: Christ sets His disciples to work against Satan. “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."

GOD'S VOICE TO HUMANITY. "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."-Amos iv. 12.

SINCE the fall of man in Eden, God's voice has been heard calling after man to turn from his evil ways and live. His voice was addressed to Adam, to the antediluvians, and oftentimes to the chosen people, the Israelites; and the words of the text were addressed to them. But at present we use the words to indicate God's voice to humanity. We infer—

I. THAT THERE IS A PERIOD ΤΟ DAWN UPON MANKIND WHEN THEY SHALL COME TO A PARTICULAR CONTACT WITH

When we survey the works of nature, we come to a close contact with God. He is the Author of nature. When we ponder the mysterious system of providence, we meet God. He is the ruler of that great and complicate system. And when we read the Bible, the ideas of the Infinite, our spirits come in contact with the Living One of Israel—the Fountain of all life and joy. But the text leads us on to a period when humanity shall face Him, and stand before His tribunal. This periodFirst Is certain. Nature teaches the fact. Nature moves on gradually towards her destiny. The universe, with all its wonders and beauty, is marching on towards dissolution. Conscience indicates the same truth; but revelation verifies the fact. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." "God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world." This period-Secondly: Is uncertain as to its time. God has not revealed the time of His coming. No finite being has been privileged with the knowledge of the exact period of His coming. He will come as the thief in the nightsuddenly, unexpectedly, and with glory ineffable. This period-Thirdly: Is the great

est of all periods of importance. | show mercy to the sinner. Then the actions of life will be brought to the test; then the moral character of all men will be seen in the light of eternity; then the destiny of humanity will be determined; then a separation will take place between the

righteous and the unrighteous, and this separation will place the righteous in a state of honor, the unrighteous in a state of utter degradation. The righteous will be happy, his union with Christ will raise him to honor and glory; whilst the unrighteous will be banished from His sight, and go to everlasting punishment.

II. THAT THIS PERIOD WHICH IS то DAWN UPON MANKIND REQUIRES PREPARATION ON MAN'S PART. "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." This fact teaches-First: That man in his natural state is not in a condition fit to meet God. Man is sinful; God is holy. Sin has unfitted man for a personal communion with God. Secondly: That man is in a state of possibility to prepare. God's commands always imply possibility. There is a hope for man's restoration. The death of Christ has removed the obstacles which were in man's way to return to God, and those which were in God's way to

The salvation of humanity is possible. Thirdly: That man's agency is necessary to his preparation. Man must use the means given him by God for his preparation. God has done for man what he could not do for himself; but what he could do, God has left him to do it. Man must cultivate his moral nature, train his faculties, and apply the means of sanctification.

III. THAT GOD FEELS DEEP INTEREST IN THE WORLD'S PRE

PARATION. "Prepare to meet thy God." God desires the salvation of the world. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) He wills that the world may be saved. First: From what He has done for humanity. He has formed a plan to redeem man, through the death of His Son. Secondly: From what He is doing in man. He reveals His Son in us. He is working in us through His Spirit. Thirdly: From what He has promised to do for us in future, namely, to glorify us, and raise us to everlasting enjoyment.

May we give due attention to His voice! Attention to God's voice will secure our everlasting happiness. Llandilo. J. O. GRIFFITHS.

The Pulpit and its Handmaids.

CONFLICTING THEORIES OF THE
ATONEMENT.

When a truth of religion which was evidently designed to be the centre and support of our spiritual life, the daily bread of our souls, is yet found to be, to really earnest and devout persons, rather a source of perplexity, and is tacitly laid aside as something which it is painful to think of-it may well excite the inquiry whether we have indeed got hold of the truth which was meant for us, or not rather of some misconception of it. It is this state of things which has led thoughtful Christian teachers in our own day to examine afresh the doctrine of the Atonement.

That "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures," is everywhere assumed as a fact throughout the New Testament. To quote passages in proof of it would be idle, since the whole fabric of the Gospel rests upon it; but if we look for answers to the questions which men have since raised as to why He thus died?— in what sense? and though we may find materials from which a connected theory may be formed, we shall not find any distinct and orderly development of that theory in the Apostolic writings. Systematic divinity has been a growth, as it was a want, of aftertimes.

The theory of Atonement, which had possession of the Church at the time of the Reformation, and which, with some modifications, has prevailed ever since, was that of substitution. Christ was viewed as the substitute of the sinner, enduring in his stead the punishment due to him, and without the exaction of which it was held God could not be just in pardoning him. This theory, carried out to its

results, involved the doctrine of redemption of the elect only. The theory, as modified in later times and by modern writers, avoids the harshness of saying, as the older Calvinists did, that Christ actually suffered the punishment due to the sinner, including the wrath of God, and is content with saying that He suffered what, considering the infinite dignity of the sufferer, was sufficient to justify God in extending pardon to man. But both theories are alike in this, that they view the essence of the Atonement to consist in the endurance of penal sufferings, and also that they alike regard the work as complete, irrespective of any participation on the part of the sinner.

Against both these theories there have arisen of late years many murmurs of the understanding and heart. There has been an "offence of the cross," which did not spring from pride, from worldliness, or, as has been sometimes imputed to it, from slight views of sin.

The removal of this "offence has been attempted by a third view; that which makes the essence of the atonement to consist not in the endurance of penal sufferings, but in the perfect exhibition of selfsacrificing love in that endurance, this being accepted by God as a compensation for man's sin. This view was adopted by the present writer, at a time when light first began to emerge from the darkness which had till then overhung the subject, and it is this which is enunciated in a tale published some years ago.* But this view, though having much to commend it as an escape from the earlier theories, is

"The Youth and Womanhood of Helen Tyrrel."

by no means commensurate with the language of Scripture, and falls far short of the depth of the subject. There is another view which may be taken.

If we carefully study the Epistles of St. Paul, we shall see that the great idea which pervades his mind when speaking of redemption, is that of Christ as the Head of Humanity-of the Church indeed most prominently-but of the Church as the first-fruits of Humanity. Thus he speaks of Christ as the "last Adam" (1 Cor. xv. 45), as being the "Head of the body, the Church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead," &c. (Col. i. 18). And being the Head of Humanity, He also represents it. By the obedience of one, many are made righteous. What He does is predicated of His members also (Rom. v. 19). They die with Him (Rom. vi. 3-11; 2 Cor. xiv. 15). They are raised with Him (2 Cor. xv. 12-20). They sit with Him in heavenly places (Ephes. ii. 6). They are created in Him unto good works. In short, they are IN Him. Seeing then this close connexion between the redeemed and Christ, a connexion not arbitrary and technical, but grounded on His relation to humanity, as the Son of Man, the true, perfect man, we are surely justified in looking upon Christ as having acted in the work of redemption as man's Representative. Being true and perfect man, our Brother according to the flesh, He came by His Father's will to recover His lost brethren. He came into this world "in the likeness of sinful flesh," lived a human life, gained a human experience, and then with a perfect knowledge of what man is, what his sin was, what his capacity for good is, what are his trials and temptations; with a perfect knowledge also of His Father, of His claims, of His justice, the greatness

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of His love, and His desire for the salvation of the fallen-having thus been made "perfect," fitted for His work, He stood up to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

And now we have to see what the nature of that reconciliation was-what was the essence of the atonement offered. To judge rightly of this, we must recollect to whom it was to be offered. To a Father-not simply to a governor or sovereign, intent chiefly upon the security of his dominion and the vindication of his law-but to a Father who could be fully satisfied by nothing but the reclaiming of His children from their revolt, and their full reinstatement in their inheritance.

Now let us consider what is the first and most important element in moral restoration. Is it not a frank and full confession of sin? It is true that the deepest repentance cannot undo the past: yet it does undo it in the heart and will of the offender. Do we not feel that this is a more true reparation of evil than any punishment-that it is the only thing which even approaches to the healing of the soul? And does not God recognise this? "And David said unto Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord;' and Nathan said unto David, 'The Lord also hath put away thy sin: thou shalt not die." "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee," Bring forth the best robe and put it on him.'

But it may be said that repentance does not always prevent our suffering the consequences of our sin, as may be seen in David's case. No; it does not; and a humble submission to such chastisement as is appointed for us, is at once a test and expression of true repent

ance.

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