ON THE ATONEMENT. It is a favourite and constantly repeated objection of the opponents of atonement, that its supporters, they assert, so represent and unfold it, as to involve the palpable absurdity of Deity appeasing Deity; or of one Being, for a valuable consideration agreed upon, inducing another Being to exercise mercy, to which he was previously averse. This trite objection, though not a little imposing in sound, is in itself but "the spider's web," "the staff of a broken reed," when its strength is duly tested by Scripture. Since, however, it is but another phrase for the direct rejection of the Saviour himself, and as it is calculated, by its startling plausibility, to make converts of ignorant and half-awakened minds, and to throw the honest inquirer on the waves of doubt and perplexity, it is by no means undeserving of a close examination and a scriptural reply. This is the more necessary in the present day of an insidious and wide-spreading dif fusion of infidel principles on the one hand, and a lax, fashionable, theoretic Christianity on the other; because those who urge this objection against the atonement, unhesitatingly affirm that it is clearly deducible from the common-sense meaning of the terms which its advocates constantly use in their explanation and defence of it. Now, in fairness of argument, it cannot be denied that, in earnestly contending for this fundamental article of our faith, injudicious language is sometimes adopted even by its warmest VOL, VII,-NO. CLXXXII. 66 PRICE 14d. friends; which, by having a too literal interpretation given to it, goes far to strip the atonement entirely of its moral character, and to exhibit it as a kind of commutative transaction a transaction of bargain and sale, wherein a stipulated payment is to be made by one party for an equivalent good to be received from another. Since, then, every effect has its adequate cause, the question necessarily suggests itself, whence arises this incautious oversight of not strictly adhering, both in writing and in public preaching, to sound speech, that cannot be condemned" (Tit. ii. 8), and to which "the deniers of the Lord that bought them" can make no appeal for buttressing up their soul-destroying error, or, as the apostle pointedly characterises it, their " damnable heresy." This oversight seems to arise partly from adopting indistinct, or misapprehending, ideas of the fundamental principles and beneficial ends of moral government, and of the public character and the executive office of a moral governor; and partly from giving to figurative language a too literal and positive meaning. The former of these particulars will come fully under consideration in another essay on the latter particular, a few brief explanatory remarks will not be irrelevant, in advancing to the main object of the present essay. It is a fact, well known to every reader of the Bible, that large portions of its hallowed pages are written in highly figurative language; and this language, from its being the representative of the external objects of sense, or of the things "that are made," with which we are more or less familiarly conversant, is exactly adapted to illustrate [London: Robson, Levey, and Franklyn, 46 St. Martin's Lane.] M reasoned himself into the belief that his own understanding is the measure of all truth and all Divine testimony, cannot be said to have a right judgment in any truth, or in any testimony. "A deceived heart hath turned him aside." "He wants no prophet to teach him, no priest to atone for him, no king to conduct him he needs neither a Christ to redeem, nor a Spirit to sanctify him.” 39.66 spiritual subjects, and to impart to our cir- by an act of supreme prerogative and royal cumscribed minds the only clear knowledge clemency? We can discover none." To reof divine truth of which we are at present turn a convincing and satisfactory answer to capable. But it should be constantly re- those who propose this question, would be an membered, that figurative language, and in- attempt just as fruitless as it would be enddeed all human language, from its very in- less; for they deny, at the threshold of the adequate nature, is, and can only be, the argument, the Divine inspiration of those language of analogy and illustration, when very Scriptures which alone can furnish the "the invisible things"-that is, the essence, answer demanded. For such "wise men and attributes, and acts of the incomprehen- after the flesh," such enlightened disciples sible triune Jehovah-are the subject of ex- of what they are pleased to call "rational planation. If, then, in unfolding the mys- Christianity," these pages are not written. terious doctrine of the cross, figurative lan- The man, however learned, who, by becomguage is inadvertently strained beyond its ing the dupe of his own bewildering sceptilimited intention and appropriate bearing-cism, has, like another Hume or a Gibbon, if it be made to convey to the hearer or to the reader a literal and positive, instead of simply an illustrative and approximating meaning, much confusion of ideas, and a wide misapprehension of the true nature and design of atonement, must be the result; and the Socinian will not fail to seize on such incautiousness of expression, and make his confident appeal to it, for substantiating his rejection of propitiatory sacrifice altogether. The specific object of the present and folWhen to mention an instance of such incau- lowing essay is to explain and vindicate the tiousness-it is said, either in preaching or in doctrine impugned, for the benefit and consowriting, that the sufferings of Christ on the lation of the humble believer, and that he may cross were not only vicarious and propitia- be "strengthened and confirmed," rooted tory, which is a glorious truth, but were also and built up in Christ, and established in the the identical sufferings or punishment due to faith." For the attainment, then, of this imthe sins of transgressors, the assertion is ex- portant end, let him remember, in his daily tremely unguarded, and totally indefensible; reading of the Scriptures with prayer, that for it is quite clear, independent of other the sufferings of " the holy and the just One" considerations, that such a scheme of atone- are a revealed fact, based on the clearest and ment would make pardon and salvation not strongest testimony; and that those suffera matter of unmerited mercy, but a matter of ings, endured by Him who was holy, harmclaimed right- an act of strict distributive less, undefiled, and separate from sinners," justice on the part of Him who forgives. are, and must be, strictly vicarious; for on Hence "those," says Bishop Horsley, "who any other scheme of interpretation his death speak of the wrath of God as appeased by is an inexplicable puzzle, and all the preChrist's sufferings, speak, it must be con- figurative sacrifices, by the blood of animal fessed, a figurative language. The Scrip- victims, under the patriarchal and Levitical tures speak figuratively when they ascribe dispensations, are totally devoid of any intelwrath to God. The Divine nature is un-ligible meaning, or of any assignable end. susceptible of the perturbations of passion; and when it is said that God is angry, it is a figure which conveys this useful warning to mankind, that God will be determined by his wisdom, and by his providential care of creation, to deal with the wicked as a prince in anger deals with his rebellious subjects." Apart, however, from these passing remarks on the momentous subject under consideration, the vital question which the rejectors of "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" ask, and ask too in a tone of much irreverent levity and self-complacent confidence, is this: "Whence arose the necessity of atonement for the pardon of sin? or, in other words, what moral impediment hindered the offended party from pardoning the offending 66 On this revealed fact, this revelation of eternal love in the gift of an atoning Saviour, all the believer's hope of pardon and sanctification, of immortality and glory, is built. This fact, then, so replete with the sweetest comfort, is not to be expunged from the inspired volume by a parade of sophistical arguments, fine-spun criticisms, speculative cavils, and neological interpretations, which are not only subversive of the established usage and received meaning of language, but are also equally subversive of the moral empire of God over all intelligent and responsible beings, whom he has formed. Such a tortured, legerdemain handling of texts as the Socinian adopts, clearly annihilates the essential relations which must ever subsist between of research, and his vigour and amplitude of comprehension in other matters, the Bible, the sole depository of this essential article of the Christian faith, is to him an awfully sealed book. Of its quickening, sanctifying doctrines he knows nothing spiritually, feels nothing experimentally and practically. Unconscious of his fallen state, as a polluted, guilty, condemned sinner, he is not penetrated with the conviction of his perishing need of grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.' Hence his religion is devoid of all inward, regenerating power, and personal enjoyment; it is a shadow without the substance, a breathless body destitute of an animating soul. The economy of pardoning grace, through faith in the all-sufficient sacrifice of an atoning Saviour, is to him a subject of aversion and contempt. It only puzzles his deified reason and mortifies his sceptical pride; and not "receiving the kingdom of heaven as a little child," in the simplicity of faith, he can neither understand its nature, nor enter therein. When, therefore, the advocates of "rational Christianity," or rather of irrational scepticism, have been taught, as persecuting Saul of Tarsus was taught, not by the force of human disputation, however acute and vigorous, but by an unction of the Holy One, to cease their impotent and awfully perilous, because awfully impious, attempt to scale, as it were, the battlements of heaven; to dethrone the blessed and only Potentate of eternity; to despoil his Godhead of its essential glory; and to break in pieces the sceptre of his mediatorial government and power;-when they have been taught, in the spirit of humility and self-diffidence, to make their finite and fallible understandings bow to the declared authority of Him who wills" that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father ;"-when they have been taught to distinguish what, as being a profound mystery, transcends human reason, but does not contradict it; what is proposed as purely an object of faith, but not an object of comprehension; -in short, when they have got the doctrine of the cross, not merely entertained in their heads as a cold, barren, speculative theological dogma, but its sanctifying efficacy lodged in their hearts as an implanted principle of light, and life, and personal holiness; the Creator and the creature; between the rightful claims of the moral Governor and the required allegiance of the governed. Voluntarily to withhold this allegiance is guilt; and the Lawgiver has solemnly affirmed, that " he will in no wise clear the guilty." His holy nature and immutable perfections forbid the supposition that he will do so. "He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity." As" the God of truth," he cannot contradict and undeify himself, on purpose to save the rebellious and the guilty, who contemptuously refuse their acquiescence in his revealed method of " justifying the ungodly." Hence the wilful rejection of Christ, "who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world," must terminate in the sinner's sure and irremediable ruin. There is, and can be, no way of escape for him from the wrath to come; for "there is salvation in no other." His unbelief cannot make the faith or veracity of God of none effect; no, says Paul, "let God be true, but every man a liar." The sinner, therefore, must either bow to the sceptre of Christ's grace, or be dashed in pieces with the iron rod of his power. And here, how deeply affecting is the thought, when we look to an exchange of worlds, to an eternal state of being, that the incarnation, sufferings, and death, of Jesus Christ, are a subject which absorbs the contemplation of angelic minds, and which they have studied with feelings of glowing wonder and delight from its first announcement to the present moment; and that fallen, apostate man, for whose especial benefit this rich provision of pardoning mercy was designedly made, should disbelieve its truth, reject its healing efficacy, "count it an unholy thing," and aim at reducing to the standard of his own feeble apprehension its sublime mystery and ineffable grandeur;-this painful fact is indeed "a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation!" Such conduct not only involves a denial of the necessity of a Saviour, but it also involves a charge of folly against God himself in sending a Saviour. It is therefore none other than the creature's waging war with the Creator, "stretching the hand against him, and running upon the thick bosses of his buckler;" and nothing but the omnipotent transforming grace of his Holy Spirit can eradicate such pride from the heart, and cure the mind of such daring when they have thus felt its transforming imbecility and madness, though dignified by influence penetrate, and pervade, and vivify the advocates of scepticism with the name of all the powers of their souls, and renew them superior wisdom and discernment. Without in the spirit of their minds, their wills, their this divine teaching, the doctrine of atone- judgments, their dispositions, and affections; ment, the preaching of Christ crucified, is, and then, and not till then, all their objections ever will be, foolishness to the self-satisfied to the vicarious sufferings and obedience of a rationalist; and, whatever may be his depth Divine Surety will entirely vanish; and they will happily find that this rejected doctrine will, from its exact adaptation to their guilt and moral impotency, delightfully interpret and harmonise itself; will become the power of God to their salvation; and will unfold to their admiring gratitude and joy the glory, and wisdom, and goodness of Him who planned such a scheme of boundless mercy for saving the guilty and polluted, the helpless and the lost. 66 66 Should, however, the inquiring mind of the humble believer, who desires to be wise up to what is written, though not above it, and who daily searches the Scriptures with prayer, that he may grow in the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus," and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him;"should such an one ask, "Whence arose the necessity of a vicarious sufferer in our behalf?" the question admits of a very satisfactory answer, and is to be considered in a twofold point of view. This will form the subject of another essay. THE CHOLERA.* WHEN my reader walked with me in our churchyard, I said that we might meet again there, and that I could point to the grave of those who died in the cholera; and now I fulfil this promise. I often intended, while the cholera was prevailing, that if I should live to see it removed, I would recall who had been the victims, and make a little record of such circumstances as had come under my own observation. It has been remarked that "all things are less dreadful than they seem." Those who have only read and heard of the cholera, can scarcely think they should kneel at the bed-side of the dying sufferer, and almost forget that the cholera is infectious. Oh, who that is a Christian will not bind to his heart that promise, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be?" come near us; we heard of them, but we saw them not; we still breathed a pure air. We heard of our fellow-mortals dying at home: one is gone, but after a long illness; another is gone, and gone suddenly, but it was an accident; - there is no pestilence in England. "The cholera is in England !" and as one repeated the tidings to another, many a cheek turned pale, and many a lip quivered; and then we listened to the account of its progress from place to place; and the lists of cases and the lists of deaths in the paper became interesting. "It is in such a place," one said to another," and a dear friend lives not many miles from thence." It is in London, and there is daily and hourly communication between that city and our own; and the infection may be speedily brought. Are we ready? Can we part one with another, knowing that He remains who is more than father, and mother, and husband, or brother and sister can be to us? Then there was time for thought: every friend, every near and dear relative of whom we might almost have said, Our lives are bound together; of whom we might almost have thought, as the brother of Benjamin said of him, "The lad cannot leave his father; for if he should leave his father, his father would die;"—every friend most dear shall pass in review before us;-we will think of every one individually, "Could we part with that one?" "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be." "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." O, claim the promises; rely upon them, and go on from day to day. "We shall realise it more," we said one to another, "when we hear of any one we had ever seen or known having died in it;" and, after long warning, we were told that, in a distant place, such a one had died. Did we remember him? Yes, it was many years ago a friend brought him here: he was very young, and had just obtained a scholarship at Oxford; he was ordained a minister in the church as for him, he was like a green olive-tree in the house of his God. We knew no more of him: he was taken ill, and his case pronounced a case of most malignant cholera; at five in the morning he died, and at four in the afternoon he was laid in his narrow bed. Now we can realise it. The same afternoon we had heard this account, came a man from one of the cottages on the steep leading down to the river. 'H-s is dead, and must be buried to-morrow, for he has died of cholera." Now, then, it has reached our own parish: but we had warning and respite-a month passed away before another victim followed. 66 I will not detain you with particulars of all the deaths; they amounted to about twenty. How mercifully indeed have we been dealt with! in the adjoin other places; but we have heard enough to make the heart ache, and to fill the eye with tears. "There was not a Sunday," said a dear friend, "that we went to our school, but some were missing;" and to me it seemed, all that lovely weather, as we sat in our shady bower, or walked in our pleasant garden, the bells in Bristol were continually tolling. There was many a thought for the dead, and many a prayer for the dying there. There is a corner in our churchyard that till lately was seldom used: it had one grave, however, the grave of that poor deluded man, of whom I told you, whose poor sister came from a distant place, and having had the grave and the coffin opened, gazed in agony on her brother. That corner of the churchyarding city we have heard of no such ravages as in some was seldom used, because the ground was accounted damp, for it is very low: it is the south-west corner, and overhung by some willows planted in the adjoining field. In this spot are now many new-made graves, and I would walk down there with you, and tell you the histories of those who rest beneath. But we must look back a little. We remember when we knew but the name of the cholera; we heard of thousands in one distant nation, and tens of thousands in another, cut down by some sudden, fearful pestilence. Was it the plague, or a fever? No, it was a complaint varying in its symptoms, new and mysterious. We heard of these thousand and ten thousand deaths, something as we should hear of the falling of thousands on a field of battle; or of the sinking of a stately vessel, with its crew, and its captain, and its passengers, swept into eternity beneath the waves. awful: it should make us think of death, judgment, and eternity; it should make us ask, Is our peace made with God, through Him "who being in the form of God, humbled himself?" But these events did not From "Things New and Old." By a District Visitor. It was "Where shall we go," I heard some one inquire, "if the cholera comes to our city?" and I thought the only answer would be, "To heaven." Could we go there, we should be safe-could we breathe the air of heaven, we should breathe air that never was infected, and that never will be: but, my fellow-pilgrim, all the days of our appointed time will we wait, till our change "The angel of the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." Shall we not be content to tarry too? to wait, and pray, and suffer, and rejoice, as long as God pleases? "Where shall we go?" Stay where the providence of God has fixed the bounds of our habitation; or go where the come. pillar of cloud and fire leads us: go about our daily business; go to the sanctuary of God; go about doing good; go to the bed-side of the sick and dying, if our God has work for us to do there. Twenty seemed indeed but a small number of victims in a parish the population of which is more than six thousand; and yet I could tell you victims of every age, and sex, and rank. One among the first was a strong and hardy woman, who had braved the toils of sixty summers and winters. I can see her now, with her flat country hat, and her cloth jacket, doing the hardest work in her garden, disregarding alike the wintry storm and the burning sun. Her grandchildren brought the infection from Bristol, and many of the family were ill; but they recovered, and the poor grandmother was the victim. Then there was poor M Her name reminds me of a pleasant walk on a Sunday evening with my dear father; he had heard in the course of the day that a person of that name was ill, and wished to see him; and in the evening we set out to find her. But any one who may know the indistinct directions many of our poor neighbours give-how little they judge of distances; how numerous and intricate our lanes; and how frequent the same name among the inhabitants,-will not wonder that, after long wanderings and repeated inquiries, we could not find the person we had set out to see; but we went to one of the same name, and I sat and listened to the kind persuasive tones of my beloved companion. Mrs. M- was ill; but not so ill as to have sent for him to visit her: she had had a liver-complaint for years, and was weak and low. "I did not know you were ill," said her minister; "and you did not send for me; but we will hope that God directed me here this evening." And then, in a few words, he told her lessons of wonder, that "angels desire to look into;" he spoke till one unaccustomed, alas, to hear, or read, or think of the cares of her soul, was humbled to a quiet and serious attention; till another thanked God for him more than he had ever done before; and till his own voice faltered with emotion. Thank God, she heard of the way to heaven; and though I have nothing further pleasing to tell of her, though, not long after, her husband and she engaged in an employment suited to lead them farther than ever from the way of holiness, that of keeping one of those numerous beer-houses which are a pest to our land-and though she neglected the public worship of God,-yet who knows but in the short time of her dying agonies there may have been a remembrance of that calm Sunday-evening visit; and a lifting up of the heart for mercy through the merits of that Saviour who was then evidently set forth crucified before her? She died; and the last offices were performed for her by Mrs. B-, one who was indeed valued and lamented. But I must not introduce her to you yet; there is another victim to be named first. "It is a melancholy account of poor Mrs. M," I remember saying to the sextoness, while the bell was tolling for her. "Yes, and there's another gone since," was the answer; and in every house I entered during my walk that morning, I heard fresh accounts of the dreadful sufferings of poor H-s. In some cases that I have known since, the suffering appeared less than I had expected; and it was difficult to think the patient, while able to lie quietly and listen and reply to all that was said, really so extremely ill, and so very near death, as in some cases it proved. And oh! if there was variety in the measure of bodily suffering, how great variety was there in the character of those who sufferedsome, alas, taken away from means of grace they had despised, and opportunities of mercy they had neglected; and others taken from the evil to come, gathered, at whatever age, as corn fully ripe, and stored where blighting and tempest never come. I Such, we trust, was the case with Mrs. Blove to remember my visits to her; she was a pattern of a poor man's wife,-so industrious, so cleanly; and to her superiors (for I must use the word, though how inferior in many respects!) so humble, so thankful, so respectful: the little she could give to aid in sending to heathen lands the Gospel, which I trust she valued, how willingly was it given! There was a neat border of flowers before her door, and I admired them the last time I saw her, for the sun was shining most brightly on the marigold, and the red, transparent leaves of the love-lies-blecding. I remember she spoke with awe, and yet with calmness, on the judgments of God that were abroad in the earth; and told me she had provided remedies to be at hand, should either of her family be seized with the dreadful pestilence. But when the pestilence came, the earthly medicines failed; human physicians proved physicians of no value; and on a bright sunny morning, a few hours after her death, we watched her funeral procession-a few sad mourners. The next Sunday her family came to church for comfort, and came, I trust, not in vain. is a sad one. She had The story of poor H lived but a week in the place where she died; and I never heard her name, till I was told how ill she was in the cholera. I entered the large but desolatelooking kitchen, and paused at the foot of the stairs, for a female voice was reading. I listened to many verses of the Psalms: I think the beautiful prayers that followed were selected from the Visitation of the Sick; and I listened till I heard the words, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Am I wanted?" I thought, surprised and pleased to find any one whose voice I should not have known well, engaged in this labour of love. But hoping to administer some help for the temporal, if not for the spiritual wants of the poor patient, I now intruded on her and her kind attendant: this I found to be her sister, come from a place of service at a distance, to mourn with her and comfort her. The poor woman lay in extreme agony, but seemed attentive to all that was said to her, and thankful for instruction. But I saw her no more while she was able to hear, or speak, or notice any one: each day I saw her, but each day only to mark the progress of incurable disease. This was one of the cases in which, either through the strength of constitution, or the power of medicines, or, it may be, the healthfulness of the air in this place, the sufferer lingered day after day. I continued to go, not knowing but that she might again be able to hear and understand; but it was in vain : and the last visit surely never can be forgotten-never shall I forget that poor woman's dying agonies, for she was even then dying; half an hour afterwards she was gone. How merciful is our heavenly Father in imparting strength equal to the day; and yet how often are those who really trust in him tempted to look forward, and heard to say, "I could not bear such a trial; I could not witness such a scene!" Oh, when I hear such assertions, I sometimes remember what I have known them witness, and I can scarcely avoid asking them, "Have ye suffered so many things in vain?" The strength suited to some particular emergency is not imparted before the emergency comes; and day after day the mind, without being hardened, seems better accustomed to what it has to suffer. We felt this when we watched the funerals from our windows at first there were some anxious thoughts about him who had to commit the bodies to the grave; and earnest, perhaps trembling prayers for a blessing on the preventive he had been induced to take before he went to this solemn and perilous duty: he came back again well, calm, and even cheerful; and |
