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BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. VI.-JANUARY, 1866.-No. 31.

ARTICLE I.

THE ATONEMENT A THREEFOLD SATISFACTION.

Ir is required of a judge that he shall justify or acquit the innocent. It is equally and for the same reason required of a judge that he shall condemn and punish the guilty. In order to be just, and to maintain a reputation for righteousness, the judge must treat the innocent and the guilty according to their respective characters. Anything else is manifestly unlawful and unjust. But God, the judge of all, treats a certain class of people exactly the reverse of this: he treats the guilty as though they were innocent: he sets the transgressors of his law at liberty, acquitting them as if they had been obedient and faithful in all things. And the ground on which he does this, declaring himself just while he thus justifies the sinner, is this; Christ has died a propitiatory sacrifice in our behalf. Here are the things into which the angels desire to look.

The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, this is what distinguishes our globe from every other, and turns upon it the eyes and the interest of the angelic hosts. They pass by all the wonders of our natural scenery-the thunder of our cataracts, and the glory of our snow-crowned mountains-for they are familiar with worlds where all the waters of our oceans, as well as inland seas, might pour through an ordinary valley. They pass by, also, all the beauty of our architecture, works

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of skill and power-the dome of St. Peter's is a mole hill in their eyes; for they know the vast frame-work and mighty grandeur of the heavens. But they visit the house of Mary; they shout their joy through the sky when Jesus is born in Bethlehem of Judea; they minister to him in the mysterious sorrows of Gethsemane; they watch and wait about his tomb; they attend him as he rises from Olivet, and returns to the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. The Son, solving the problem of human redemption, the sufferings of Christ, foretold by the prophets, and the glory that shall follow, this is the peculiarity, the miracle, the strange, stupendous elevation of deity in our world, and the angels bend forward, absorbed in the study of it.

We may not expect now, perhaps, to enjoy their breadth of grasp, nor their depth of insight; but, considering our relations and indebtedness to Christ in this matter involving every interest and affection of the human soul, ought not our desire to look into these things to be, at least, as profound and as unquenchable as theirs?

Our object now is to see, as far as possible, how the atonement meets the demand for this: that is, the necessities of the divine government; of the human conscience; and of the nature of God.

And first, how does the atonement, or the sacrificial death of Christ, meet the necessities of the divine government? What is the divine government? It is, after its author, the most beautiful, beneficent, perfect and glorious thing in the universe. The morning is beautiful as it breaks in light over the eastern hills, the dew drops are perfect as they hang from fragrant leaf and flower, and glow in the rising sun; how exquisitely formed in lines and angles is every little snow-flake, how perfectly graceful is the structure and position of each plant and shrub, and tree; how beautiful in our admiration is the ministry of every one who goes forth to reclaim the wretched children of calamity, vice and crime; to nurse the sick and wounded: and yet every ray of the morning, and every rounding of the dew drop, and every angle of the snow-flake, and the crystal, and the diamond, and the ministry of the benevolent and self-denying, and all that wakes our interest in nature, and all that ex

cites our admiration in character, is beautiful and beneficent and admirable, not because it is erratic and accidental, but because it is conformed to the government and rule of law. And if, from these reflections and shadows, we rise to contemplate the divine moral government in all its perfect relations and benevolent designs, it is above and beyond all that these illustrations suggest as the sun is above the light of a candle, or the character of Jesus above that of John, his disciple. But this is only saying of the government of God over moral beings, "how perfect it is; how good." The question is: "What is it?" It is not a government of force, not a blind omnipotence, it is not the driving of moral beings along an iron groove, it is not the forming of character in a cast iron mould. What is it then? It is the appeal of God to the reason, and conscience, and hopes, and fears of his creatures; it is the influence of the Creator upon moral beings, an influence exerted by means of laws and penalties. This is the moral government of God, the exercise not of force but of authority; the influence and appeal addressed to us in the precepts and penalties, laws and motives of his word. So far as our present purpose is concerned, the government of God over his moral creatures is a government of motives.

What then is necessary in order that it may be sustained? What are the necessities of this government? Simply these, that its motives should be kept unimpaired. To weaken the motives is to weaken the government. To destroy the influence of penalty by refusing to execute it, is to destroy the influence of the law. And to destroy the law is to destroy the very element and essence of beauty and beneficence and glory in the moral world, even as the violation of physical law would be the destruction of the physical world.

For

These necessities are met in the atonement of Christ. The law is not weakened in men's esteem, but honored. Christ submitted to all its requirements, he endured its penalty. Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil, and this he did by answering its demands, and not by doing something else. Thus he testifies, most emphatically, to its sacred character, to its goodness and its necessity. Thus he does not weaken, but enhances immensely, in our esteem, the

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