Contemplate the case of a despot who always takes vengeance for every transgression. When he cannot do it on the offender, he wreaks it on another. No misdeed goes unrevenged. But one half the punishments fall on the head of the innocent. Is this an example of good government? Would the citizens. be uncommonly cautious and afraid of transgression? Would the laws command nominal respect? No. Such a government would be more productive of complaints, curses, and crimes, than of praises, benefits, and blessings.

Many passages of Scripture on this subject are greatly misapplied. We cannot notice all of them. The prophecy of Caiphas, John xi. 49... 52, is adduced. Can it be believed that this high priest, so inimical to Jesus, was really inspired? And that he regarded Jesus as the true Messiah, who was to be made an expiatory sacrifice for "the children of God?" The obvious fact is, that Caiphas intended to represent Jesus to the Emperor as a dangerous man, who entertained the purpose of heading a rebellion against the Roman government, and which had been prevented by his arrest and crucifixion. This measure he deemed "expedient," for by it he hoped to do a pleasure to the Romans and thus procure favor for the Jews.

Much is made of the passage, Heb. xi. 15—“ And for this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption (the removal of the cause) of transgressions, under the First Testament, they who are called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.' This is relied on as proof of the retrospective view and efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. But, evidently, here is no indication of a retrospective view. The conclusion is in the present tense; "that they who are called, &c." And as the conclusion is in the present time, so doubtless, must be the premises. The apostle, therefore, speaks of the times which then were, not of the times which had been. The First Testament, the Old Covenant, though waxen old and ready to vanish away, was still in existence. It did not pass away until the administration of the Mosaic law ceased to be maintained in Jerusalem. And while this law continued, it created many inconvenient and grievous liabilities, especially to the Jewish Christians. The apostle, probably, had reference to them in the passage, Romans vii. 6, 7, 8, 9.

Again, the text; Romans iii. 25; "Whom God hath set forth a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare . . . .

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his righteousness, that He might be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." The last part of this passage is generally quoted with the word, yet, interposed; might be just and yet the Justifier; as though there was expressed an opposition of sentiment. But the word does not belong to the passage. And there is no contrast of sentiment expressed. God manifests His righteousness, as moral Governor, when He accepts and justifies a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Such an one possesses the spirit of holiness, and cannot be otherwise than acceptable in the sight of God. He is accepted on the ground of what he is; his real, personal character; not on the ground of being a descendant of Abraham, and having performed many "dead works" in obedience to the Mosaic ritual, on which account the Jews were so strongly prone to boast and be proud.

"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation." A propitiatory; not an expiatory. The place of the latter, if any where, must have been the altar of burnt-offerings; but the place of the former was the mercy-seat, under the Cherubim, and the Shekinah, in the Most Holy place. The text, therefore, does not teach the doctrine of expiation; of vicarious atonement. It represents Christ, exhibited in the Gospel, as being the propitiatory, the mercy-seat, whence God dispenses His smiles and His blessings; not the place where He exacts the rights and penalties of His law.

We have known two texts, one from the ixth, the other from the xth ch. of Hebrews, placed in juxtaposition, and reasoned from as if they constituted a single text. This is an unfair method of quotation; for by it, many false conclusions might by established. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission." "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin." The conclusion is drawn that the blood of Christ alone takes away sin. But let us examine the premises. Does the apostle intend to affirm that the sacrifices of the Mosaic Covenant did not, in any sense, remove the liabilities of the transgressor? No. For such an affirmation would not be true. It is expressly declared, in many passages of the law, that by making the prescribed offerings, the man should be forgiven. He should be exonerated from his social and public liabilities. But they could not make his heart good, nor cleanse it from a sense of conscious sin. In this sense, no offered blood—no costly oblations, could take away sin. But when the apostle says; "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission," it is certainly implied that, by

the shedding of blood there was remission. The connexion testifies that this was the intended purport of his language.

It may not be improper, here, to institute some brief inquiry respecting the character of forgiveness from God toward men. Does it imply that all the threatened and consequent penalties of transgression shall be withholden? No. For manifestly,, such is not the fact. God did not, in this sense, forgive Adam; nor Moses; nor David; nor Solomon. What God specifically threatens the sinner, will come upon him. No repentance ever averts it. The transgressor must eat the fruit of his evil way. The connection between the offence and its punishment is as indissoluble, as the link that binds cause and consequence together. But God forgives the sinner by accepting him when penitent and converted to righteousness. He treats him as being just what he is; contrite, reformed, obedient. The righteous Lord loveth the righteous. Reformed transgressors are a description of righteous persons. "God is with you so long as ye be with Him." God's having pleasure in a person implies condescension, benignity, forgiveness, but not the cancelling of all the penalties of iniquity. The providence of God furnishes irrefragable evidences that He maintains His moral government. It admits no vicarious atonements. They would mar and debilitate, not aid and perfect it. God certainly approves every good thing in frail, wicked man. And the Divine approval, secured by habitual reformation, amounts to forgiveness. It is a blessing. For God's favor is life; His loving kindness, better than life.

One word respecting the Jewish dress, worn by Christianity in the epistolary part of the New Testament. How is it to be accounted for? It is not a problem of dubious solution. The religious views of a Jew were so enveloped in the forms of the Mosaical Institute, that without them he could have no clear conception of any true religion. Hence Christianity is invested with them. It has its altar, its atonement, its priest, its sacrifices, its sanctum sanctorum, &c. But the Christian altar, atonement, propitiatory, sacrifices, and priest, are things very different from the Jewish. All these are to be understood in an accommodation-sense. Nor is this sense, in its several different applications, hard to be understood. Guided by the plain truths, and obvious spirit, of the Christian law, we need not fall into any important mistake.

F.

THE FUTURE LIFE.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me the sordid cares, in which I dwell,

Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath hath left its scar that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovlier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this-
The wisdom which is love-till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

THE PILGRIM FATHERS:

A Poem recited in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, on the Festival of the Pilgrims, Dec. 22d, 1842.

THAT ancient church which understood the way

So well, upon the human heart to play,
And so sagaciously the means could find
Which, from without, might influence the mind,
Adapted all its solemn Liturgy

To sense, imagination, memory;
And to each day a sacred meaning lent,
By patron saint or memorable event;
Thus walking with her sons the year around,
And treading every day on hallowed ground.
When our severer faith shall comprehend
To use Imagination as its friend,

And, while appealing to the inmost soul,
And urging upon Conscience its control,
Shall try all means by which the heart is won,
While doing this, not leaving that undone;
Then solemn epochs shall again appear,
Circling the earth with each revolving year;
And none be named in loftier speech or song,
Than this, which to the Pilgrims must belong.

Ask you what kind of persons or events
Should, in our calendar, find monuments?
In all great movements we'd find something good,
Trace in all sects some cause for gratitude.
One day to Rome herself we'd consecrate;
Her martyrs, heroes, poverty, and state,
Jesuits, who plant the cross in far Cathay,
And rule a continent in Paraguay ;

VOL. XXXIV. 3D s. VOL. XVI. NO. II.

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