goes simply to the law and to the testimony for the grounds of his belief.

Let us then call to mind, that every Jew was habitually conversant with expiatory sacrifices, with substitution; that the system of substitution was inwrought into the very constitution of his religious worship; and that all the Scripture language, which has respect to the sacrifice of Christ, is directly borrowed from that which was every day used by the Jew, in speaking of the sacrifices that he was required to of fer.

With these facts in view, we are ready to present the subject, as it lies before us in the Scriptures.

Our text is fresh in your minds, and I need not here repeat it. It asserts that the 'chastisement or punishment by which our peace is procured, was laid upon the Saviour; that by his wounds we are healed; that all we have gone astray, i. e. sinned; and that Jehovah hath laid on him the punishment due to us.' Other parts of the chapter, from which our text is taken, repeat the same idea. "For the transgression of my people was he smitten," v. 8; "his soul [i. e. he] was made an offering for sin," v. 10; "he shall justify [i. e. procure pardon for] many, for he shall bear their iniquities," v. 11; "he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors," v. 12.

I only ask here, whether any man can rationally and candidly indulge doubts, in what manner the Jews whom the prophet addressed, must necessarily have understood this language?

In regard to the New Testament, it is so full of the doctrine in question, that the only difficulty lies in making a proper selection of testimony.

Peter has quoted some of the passages, which I have just cited. Observe how he comments on this sentiment. "Who his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree.... by whose stripes ye were healed," 1 Pet. 2: 24. Again, "We were not redeemed with corruptible things .... but by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and

without spot," 1 Pet. 1: 18, 19. John the Baptist also exclaims: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world;" i. e. the victim, who by divine appointment is, through his expiatory death, to procure pardon for men, John 1: 29. So the apostle John: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," 1 John 1: 7. "Who is the propitiation [or propitiatory sacrifice] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world," 1 John 2: 2. Paul abounds, everywhere, with the most glowing sentiments in respect to this great point. "For he hath made him to be sin [i. e. a sin offering] for us, who knew no sin," 2 Cor. 5: 21. "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us," 1 Cor. 5: 7. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. 1: 7. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation [or propitiatory sacrifice], through faith in his blood. . . . to declare his righteousness [i. e. for the manifestation of his pardoning mercy], by the remission of sins," Rom. 3: 25. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," Gal. 3: 13.

It were easy to proceed, and fill out my whole discourse with passages of the like import. But the limits which I have prescribed to myself forbid; and I shall close with two texts more, where the resemblance, between the sacrifices under the law and the offering of Christ, is so brought into view, that it is impossible to mistake the writer's meaning. "For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin, are burned without the camp; wherefore Jesus also, that he might make expiation (aridon) for the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate," Heb. 13: 11, 12. In other words, what was done in the type, was fulfilled in the antitype. Again: "For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered up himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God!" Heb. 9. 13, 14.

I ask now of any candid man, who has some proper conception of the manner in which the Jews employed language of this nature, nothing more, than that laying his hand on his heart, and making the appeal to him who searches that heart, he would inquire, whether a Jew, addressing Jews with such language as this, could expect or wish to be understood in any other way, than as inculcating the doctrine of substitution, or the expiatory sufferings of Jesus?

I have done with citing testimony; for if what I have adduced does not establish the fact, that the sacred writers did mean to inculcate the doctrine in question, then plainly, the many scores of additional texts which might be quoted, will not prove it; nor any language, I must add, which it would be in the power of a human being to employ.

As a proof of this I only advert to the manner in which all plain unlettered Christians have always understood these texts, from the time of the apostles down to the present moment. They never had a doubt on the subject of their meaning, unless some speculating theologian excited it; and of themselves, I do believe, they never would have one to the end of time.

But I may make an appeal of another kind, in regard to the manner in which this language is and must be understood, by men deeply versed in the idiom of the Scriptures, but wholly indifferent in regard to the fact, whether one or another doctrine is there taught, because they do not recognize the authority of Scripture to decide upon such matters. The most distinguished oriental and biblical scholar now living, who disclaims all belief in anything supernatural in the Scriptures, and through the influence of his philosophy maintains that a miracle is impossible, and who therefore cannot be said to have any prejudices in favour of the doctrine of atonement, says, at the close of a masterly explanation of the language of the chapter from which my text is taken, that "most Hebrew readers, who had once been acquainted with offerings and substitution, must NECESSARILY understand the words of our chapter as asserting it; and there is NO DOUBT," he adds,

that the apostolic representation, in respect to the propitiatory death of Christ, certainly rests, in a manner altogether preeminent, on this ground." (Gesenius, Comm. über Jesaiam, LIII.)

So much for the testimony of Scripture and for the manner in which the unlearned and the learned have understood it, and do still understand it.

We come, then, if my proof is valid, to the simple alternative, either to admit the doctrine in question, or to reject the authority of the sacred writers. There is no other path which can be taken, unless it can be fairly shown, that the interpretation which has been given to the language cited above, is not agreeable to the usage of speech among the Jews; an undertaking which, I am well persuaded, is desperate; and one which no critic, no philologist, can ever accomplish, until the whole history of Jewish ideas in respect to these subjects, during former ages, is blotted out from the records of the world. I repeat it, then, for I do most solemnly believe it, that we must either receive the doctrine of substitution and expiatory offering by the death of Christ, or virtually lay aside the authority of the Scriptures, and lean upon our own philosophy.

III. I come now, according to the plan of my discourses, to consider some of the objections made against the doctrine of the atonement.

I do not feel it to be important, here, to dwell upon them at length. There is only one method in which any legitimate objections can be made, by those who admit the authority of revelation. This is, to show that the language of Scripture, according to Jewish idiom, does not mean what I have interpreted it as meaning. But this mode of objecting, the speculators and skeptics who have rejected the doctrine of substitution, have been very careful to avoid. Their refuge is philosophy. They raise doubts about equivalency; they must see, as philosophers, the why and the how in respect to this mysterious transaction. Whatever pertains to this part of the subject, however, I have sufficiently dwelt

upon already. I shall therefore only glance here, at some of the most popular methods employed to oppose the doctrine of substitution, or to explain it away.

God can

OBJ. 1. An atonement for sin is unnecessary. forgive it as well without an atonement as with one; and the doctrine, if true, divests the supreme Being of the attribute of mercy. If the full debt is paid, where is there any room for mercy in forgiving it?'

But who is to decide the point, whether God can forgive sin without an atonement? The natural possibility of it, I admit; that is, I admit that as sovereign of the universe, and possessing omnipotence, he might pardon sin, (if he had judged it best to do so), without the intervention of a suffering substitute. But this is no real part of our question. What has he judged best, is the only proper inquiry; and how can this be answered? Only, as we have already seen, by revelation. But that revelation tells us, it is "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world;" that "there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, nor is there salvation in any other," Acts 4: 12; that "there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all," 1 Tim. 2: 5, 6; and that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and consequently, must be "gratuitously justified through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth as a propitiatory sacrifice," Rom. 3: 23-25.

The point then is put at rest by the Bible. And when those who doubt, admonish us that it would be unbecoming in respect to the Supreme Being, and derogatory to his character, to suppose that the sufferings of Christ, an innocent victim, were deemed by him to be necessary or acceptable; I answer simply with Paul: "For it BECAME him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in order to bring many sons to glory, to make perfect the Captain of their salvation through sufferings," Heb. 2: 10.

When they further allege, also, that the attribute of mercy