God pardon offenders, it would be to exempt criminals from all judgment and punishment, for there is no higher tribunal to call them to an account. We think we have now established the following propositions:

1. Such is the nature of the divine law and its penalty, that no creature, having once incurred its penalty, can ever be delivered from it, ex cept by a pardon from the law giver. 2. The law makes no provision for the remission of its own penalty.

3. God cannot, consistently with his own perfections, and the principles of his moral government, extend pardon to offenders by mere prerogative.

The irresistible conclusion which strikes us in view of these propositions is, that sinners must remain forever under the curse of the law, or be saved through mediation or atonement; which atonement, must be in some sense, regarded as a satisfaction to divine justice in their behalf. By whom then has this atonement been made? We answer, by Jesus Christ, by man, or by some other being. One of these propositions must be true; hence, if we can show two propositions out of the three to be false, the remaining one will most certainly be

true.

Can man, then, make an atonement for his own sins? This is impossible, in view of the following facts:

We

1. Man has nothing to present, as an atonement, or to render to divine justice as a redemption price, on which the law had not a previous claim. Were man capable of obeying the law, perfectly, from this time forward and forever, and should he do it, it would not atone for his past sins; for all this the law claims without any reference to his past disobedience, and would have claimed, if he had never disobeyed. have already seen that the law claims man's entire obedience, through the whole period of his existence; but if the sinner should, at any time, commence a course of obedience, and pursue it forward, in view of his past disobedience, he could obey God, only during a part of his existence, and hence, must forever come short of answering the claims of the divine law.

2. We have shown in a preceding chapter, that man is a fallen and corrupt being by nature; he is, therefore, incapa

ble of any such obedience without first being redeemed and renewed by grace.

But it may be asked, is not repentance all the restitution that is required of sinners? We answer, repentance is no restitution, and cannot, in the least, be regarded in the light of an atonement. If repentance be regarded, as it is by those who deny the doctrine of atonement, as a mere reformation from open vice, it would appear a singular atonement indeed. It amounts to this, in principle: I have offended against a good law; now how shall I escape punishment? I will satisfy the claims of the law by an atonement. But what shall I render as a satisfaction? If I can be excused I will leave off committing the offence. Such notions of atonement are too lax to deserve further notice. But should repentance be viewed as a work of the. heart, under the exercise of a godly sorrow for sin, producing confession of sin and reformation in life, it will still come short of being an atonement, for the following reasons:

1. Repentance is a work or an exercise which cannot exist without the previous existence of sin, and can be exercised by none but sinners. Now, that which is dependant upon sin for its very existence, the necessity and existence of which is laid in sin, cannot be an atonement for sin. Again, as repentance is an exercise of the heart and soul, under a sense of guilt and exposure, producing a heartfelt sorrow for sin, it cannot constitute an atonement for sin; for the law had a previous claim on the entire heart, requiring the exercise of all its powers, not in repentance, but in the more noble work of loving the Creator. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy might." We have already noticed that in order to an atonement, something must be engaged on which the law had not a previous claim, which is not the case in the work of repentance.

2. Repentance is not only insufficient in itself, but, in view of the fallen state of man, it cannot be exercised without the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, which supposes a state of grace previous to repentance; hence, the atonement must be made before repentance can take place, and that which can exist only subsequently to an atonement, cannot be the a

tonement itself.

We see then that man cannot make an a

tonement for sin, nor give a ransom for his own soul.

We ask, then, has some other being save Jesus Christ, made an atonement for sinful man. This question, we think, will be answered in the negative by all parties. The thing

is impossible in itself, for the following reasons:

1. It would be absurd to suppose, that an atonement could be made in any other nature save that in which the offence was committed, and for which the atonement is offered.

2. If the difference in nature formed no objection to the mediation of a being from some distant orb, or some heavenly sphere, still, no being could be found capable of making an atonement. We have already seen that every created being is under obligation to devote all his powers to God, for his own personal existence, and as no created being can possess any powers which he has not received from God, he can possess no power, on which God has not an entire claim; hence, no created being can do more than duty requires, and therefore can merit nothing to place to the account of others who may be deficient. Taking this view of the subject, we may search all worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, and we cannot find a ransom for our race, save in the person of Jesus Christ; the Word who was made flesh, who was "God manifested in the flesh." Now, as we have shown that there can be no deliverance from the penalty of the law but by an atonement, and as we have also shown that an atonement can be made by no being save Jesus Christ, it follows that he, who died on the cross, was our atoning sacrifice, and that we are constrained to rely on the merits of his death, as the ground of our hope, or retire to the shades of despair as dark as the gloom of an endless death.

We see, from this, how falsely that system, which denies the doctrine of atonement, has been called a system of universal salvation! Never was there a greater misnomer! It involves principles which, if true, would damn the world, and yet it is called salvation!

II. The types and symbols of the Mosaic Ritual, which typify Jesus Christ, are of such a character as to point him out as a sacrifice for sin, and an expiation for the sinner's guilt. Let us consider some of the offerings for sin directed by the Levitical Law.

Lev. iv. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. "And if any one of the common people sin, he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish for his sin which he hath sinned; and he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar; and he shall take away all the fat thereof as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the Lord; and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him."

If God did not require a sacrifice for sin, as an expiation of the sinner's guilt there can be no meaning in the whole of the above performance. The sinner laid his hand upon the victim that was to be slain, denoting a symbolical transfer of sin from the sinner to the sin offering; the latter dying in the place of the former. Nor can it be pretended that the offering was a mere fine for the sinner's trespass, for in such case it would have been an offset, in itself considered, which was not the case as appears from two circumstances.

1. The victim received all its validity, as a sacrifice for sin, from the place and circumstance of the offering, and not from any intrinsic value it possessed in itself, as being equal to damages sustained by the sinner's trespass. Had the victim been offered in any other place, save in the sanctuary, it would not have been accepted as an atonement for sin. The sanctuary was regarded as the place of the divine presence, for in it God had recorded his name; and this being the place where the sacrifice was made, marked it as an offering to God on the part of the sinner. The offering was made by the priest, who must be acknowledged to be the type of Jesus Christ, in his great sacrificial work. Had the sacrifice been presented by any other person save the priest, it would have been no atonement; whereas neither the place nor the person making the offering could have affected its value, if it was to be regarded as a mere fine for trespass. Again, nothing else, of the same or even greater value, than the victims prescribed by the law could have been accepted in their place,

as a sin offering, which shows that the law did not have reference to their value as a fine for an equal amount of damage done, but that they were by divine appointment, rendered acceptable in their death, as a substitute for the sinner's death, who had forfeited his life by his sin.

2. The offender was not released on the ground of having paid an equivalent for his sin, which must have been the case if his offering was regarded as a mere fine for his trespass; but he received a pardon of the offence on the presentation of his sin offering. It is said "the priest shall make an atonement for him and it shall be forgiven him. This clearly proves that an atonement for sin was directed by the law, to be,made to God to procure his pardon, and not to man, exclusively to procure his reconciliation to God. It also proves that the atonement, directed by the law, was an expiation of the sinner's guilt, effecting his deliverance from the punishment he deserved, not however by an absolute payment of the debt, but by procuring a pardon. God pardoned the sinner on the ground of the sin offering or atonement, directed to be made by the priest of the sanctuary, which was rendered acceptable by two circumstances.

1. It was of God's own appointment.

2. It had reference to, and typically pointed out, the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, "who gave himself a ransom for all, by whom we have now received the atonement." These remarks may serve as a comment on all the offerings for sin, ordained under the Levitical priesthood, which are too numerous to be particularly mentioned; the annual atonement, however, is of sufficient importance to entitle it to some special notice. Lev. xvi. 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 21, 22. "And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats, for a sin offering and he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scape goat; and Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scape goat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scape goat into the wilderness. And Aaron shall lay both