our knowledge, examined and fairly discussed on its scriptural merits, as a distinct point of theological inquiry. Holding the hypothesis of the divine impassibility as a self-evident truism, they have subjected to its control all scriptural passages bearing on the passion of our Lord. Such inspired passages as come into seeming collision with the hypothesis they regard as Oriental imagery. They understand them as mere metaphors and figures of speech. They deem the discussion of them superfluous, if not profane. They hold that, as the divine impassibility has become an elemental doctrine of the Christian Church, all debate upon the weight of scriptural proofs that the divinity of Christ bore its share in his expiatory agonies is forever precluded. They debar debate by a deep and mandatory call for the previous question. They will probably consider the invocation of scriptural authorities at this late day as a too bold impeachment of the irreversible decree of hoary-headed Time.

That Christ suffered in both his natures we believe to be a revealed truth of our holy religion. Nor is it the least interesting department of inspired lore. It opens a celestial paradise, rich in more choice and lasting fruits than bloomed in the terrestrial Eden. "Search the Scriptures" is the passport of God to its tree of knowledge. Yet

has an earth-formed apparition, clothed in the assumed vesture of an angel of truth, seemed to stand for centuries at its entrance, and, with its phantom sword, to interdict all ingress.

We design, by the blessing of God, to present the question relative to the nature and divinity of the mediatorial sufferings as a solemn issue to be tried, on scriptural evidence, before the inquisition of the Christian world. We assume the affirmative; we take upon ourselves the burden of showing that the divinity of Christ participated in his sufferings. Among the witnesses to be examined will be Isaiah, and Zechariah, and Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and the disciple who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, and Stephen, and Paul, and Peter. The awful proclamations of the Holy Ghost will be invoked. An appeal will be made to the affecting declarations of the suffering, dying, risen God. We demand an impartial trial.

We shall address ourselves especially to plain, enlightened common sense, well read in holy writ, unbiased by deep-rooted theories, unfettered by the overbearing predominance of human dogmas, content to sit as a little child, and learn the attributes and demonstrations of the Godhead from the oracles of revealed wisdom. The question to be tried is less one of doctrine than of fact. The

evidence will be simple and practical, little needing the aid of learned exposition. It will be brought fresh from the gospel mint; it will carry the stamp of no human hypothesis; it will not bear the image and superscription of an earth-born Cæsar; its pure gold will need no purification in the crucible of science. For the result of the verdict we feel no anxiety peculiar to ourselves. We seek truth rather than polemic victory.

If the question between our opponents and ourselves was to be tested by the mere reasonableness of our respective positions, we should confidently expect a decision adverse to the prevalent theory. Divine justice could not pardon mortal sin without full satisfaction. The exchequer of heaven could receive payment in no coin save that of suffering. The second person of the Trinity became himself the great Paymaster. He paid in suffering the debts of the redeemed. Without adequate suffering divine justice was not to be appeased; without adequate suffering a soul could not be saved. The payment was made in the face of the universe. The glory of the Highest was to be maintained. fied; hell silenced. scrutiny of eternity. not capacity to suffer.

Heaven was to be satisThe coin was to bear the The redeeming God lacked Did he, in Godlike gran

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deur, most condescendingly and graciously suffer in his own ethereal essence? or did he, himself untouched by pain, form a redeeming man, destined from his birth to bear, in his frail human nature, the expiatory anguish required at the exchequer of heaven as the price of a world's salvation? To borrow the terms wrought into the major proposition of the Athanasian syllogism, was it most "fitting to God" to save our fallen race by suffering in his own divine essence, or to devolve the whole burden of the vicarious suffering on his created proxy? Was the coin formed of divine, or that composed of human suffering, most acceptable at the celestial treasury, in satisfaction of the lofty requisitions of outraged and inflexible justice?

But we will not farther pursue this train of thought. It might conduct to irreverent speculation. It would seem that even human reason, unless blinded by the hypothesis of divine impassibility, must herself conclude, from her own unbiased reflections, that, in urging the prevalent theory, she is in danger of advocating a dogma derogatory to the disinterestedness and dignity of the Godhead. The question at issue is not, however, to be decided by the mere umpirage of reason. It depends upon scriptural testimony. Reason can do nothing more than collect, and arrange,

and present, and weigh the inspired proofs to be found in the word of God.

We have expressed our belief that our opponents have left the questions of divine impassibility and the exclusive humanity of the mediatorial sufferings substantially where the Athanasian argument left them. We may have been mistaken. Chapters, and even volumes, on the subject may possibly have appeared in some of the languages of earth, dead or living, and yet escaped our circumscribed knowledge. But if we are mistaken, the error, though it must doubtless impeach our theological scholarship, will derogate nothing from the strength of our scriptural argument. The increase of books is almost infinite, multiplying libraries to an extent which casts into the shade the Saracen devastation at Alexandria. With all the "multitudinous" volumes of theological lore, the countless progeny of the unceasing travail of eighteen centuries, there is but one created being that can claim universal familiarity. That being is the worm. It alone, of finite things, has bibliothecal ubiquity. The hugest tomes appal it not. To fastidiousness of taste it is a stranger. It feeds not on the ambrosia of genius alone. Its neversatiated appetite loathes not even the offals of polemical dulness. To rivalship with the worm, in compass of research, we dare not aspire.