the more intelligible of these, with the desire to prove, that whenever they are not purely fanciful, they are included in the Atonement, and inferior to it.

One author, if we read him rightly, holds the opinion that Jesus Christ was proposed by God to be the perfect exemplar of the human race, and that His death and passion were the ultimate test and demonstration of His fitness. Should we be correct in our exposition of this idea, we can only say, that we heartily concur in it, if kept in due subordination. Christ has left "us an example, that we should follow in His steps;" we are ever to look to "Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith." And we have indeed already remarked, that the world itself has long since, and with one consent, recognised in that poor Galilean a goodness spotless, original, and complete. It is a wondrous fact: He remains, and will remain alone, the unapproachable standard of moral excellence. And yet, how can it be said, that either the declarations of Scripture, or the wants of human nature, are satisfied merely by an example, though infinitely perfect?

A second teacher in the same school affirms our Lord's death and passion to be the incidents of an offering, but, if we understand him, not of a vicarious offering. His statement is hard to grasp; it plays before you like prismatic colours over a plate of mother-of-pearl. Yet, supposing it to mean, that when Jesus Christ offered Himself upon the cross to God, it was an offering so entirely gratuitous, as that no law required it, then such an imagination appears to us far more suitable to a Buddhist or Faqueer, than to a Christian. The great sacrifice becomes a work of supererogation, and for God to be pleased with such sufferings in His Son, nay, for Him to be pleased with the needless death even of a lamb, invests Him with characteristics of the most perplexing kind.

Christ, we admit, "came," and came willingly, " to do the will" of God; but the will of God is not like the will of man: the will of God is LAW.

Another, and he, perhaps, the chief in influence, if not in talent,-blends these two ideas with a third. Read the Maurician essays on "the Atonement," "the Incarnation," and the "Evil Spirit ;" and, if not quite bewildered by the mazes of their dreamlike eloquence, you must, we think, come to the conclusion, that those essays, however etherialized and refined, contain sentiments akin to the hallucinations of Emmanuel Swedenborg. * would not exaggerate. The essayist is in accord with all Scripture when he urges "that God in Christ, and Christ in man, did, and does contend against an evil power or being." We rejoice to hear him say so. Indubitably, Christ partook of flesh and blood, "that through death He might destroy him that had the power of

* That is, unless Swedenborg was, as Rossetti states he was, a mere politician writing in allegorical cypher.

death, that is, the devil." But when we discover that in this theology the vicarious Atonement holds no place, we miss the very fountain-head whence every blessing flows. For both reason and Scripture cry aloud, " Between the criminal and the Judge it is absolutely impossible that any communications of grace should pass, until the offender's guilt be abolished in a manner consistent with the honour of the law."

We somewhat marvel that, in addition to these and other suggested purposes of our Lord's death and passion, more has not been said of its being a means of His evincing sympathy and fellowship with every good man, under every form of persecution, and in every state of woe. For this assertion, also, would have contained much truth, and rested upon many texts, both in the Psalms and the Epistles. But it matters not. We maintain that the Atonement was the superior and antecedent purpose, and that all others were the satellites to this sun.

The tabernacle of old gave symbolically a striking picture of the relative order of blessings in the eternal church. Amongst its sacred things the great altar stood foremost. That and the laver alone occupied the outer court, which was screened by curtains from the dust and tumult of the camp and of the world. After this, the shew-bread and the candlestick faced each other in the holy place. Then, the altar of incense came before, and the mercy-seat (Jehovah's throne) behind, the veil which darkened, in the times of the tabernacle, the Holiest of All. All here is instructive to a sage, and, at the same time, intelligible to a child. The position of the great altar, in particular, has the most sublime and simple of expressions. It means, that every sinner who from the world draws aside to God must have an expiation first; this accepted, he is purified, he is enlightened, he is fed; he has the liberty of fearlessly adoring God, and in the fulness of time of entering, in the train of his Priest, into the presence of His glory. "Christian doctrine, without the Atonement," said St. Bernard, "is painting on a vacuum;" but unfold that crimson banner, and how rich are the devices with which it is emblazoned !

True it is, that had the Gospel nakedly and unconnectedly described the Atonement in the light of a relief for culprits, without any references to its just effects, then, no doubt, many evils might have ensued,-evils which would have rendered the attempts to find some other design in the death of Christ more plausible. For then the kingdom of Christ, with regard to its professing members, might have become as vitiated as Dionysius states the kingdom of Rome was by the enfranchisement of unreclaimed offenders. (L. iv. c. 24.) But now its guards against Antinomian abuses are so full and frequent, that they never can occur except under a wilfully corrupting priesthood, and a wilfully corrupted people.

We must here prepare to leave our subject and our antagonists.

Of the latter we think with sorrow, not ill-will. We admit and we admire their gifts. Several of them have, indeed, by their works, convinced us that the two powers, of acquiring knowledge and of judging, may be distant as the poles asunder. But Mr. Maurice himself is always serious, and (except when Bampton lecturers clip his pinions) calm, though dark; his colleagues are accomplished men; and Professor Jowett, above all, has many useful and touching passages which indicate true genius and kindly feeling.

But be their abilities less or more, we would inquire, what is the goal which they desire to reach, and the means by which they would proceed to it?

If their object is to awaken a spirit of cultivation and intelligence in the church of Christ, it is a noble and a necessary one. The times demand it; engagements impede it. Yet we doubt whether this object can be attained by the style of writing which has been adopted. Continually using common words in most uncommon senses; continually ignoring the most plain solutions of the most imaginary difficulties ;* continually putting or leaving out of sight the bright marks of omniscience scattered over the Scriptures; continually assuming, -the very point at issue,- that all which they call supernatural is false, and thereby suggesting, that the Bible is more full of error or deceit, than even the Koran is: this is surely not the mode to edify either the laity or the clergy of the church. Whilst they pursue this course, the laity must suspect that, were it not for their positions, they would cast off Christianity altogether; and the clergy must either be utterly disgusted, or be made more pointless and unquiet than themselves.

If their object is gradually to work out the philosophy towards which all their notions more or less remotely seem to gravitate, and of which the leading idea is one of Nature, physically, mentally, and morally self-evolving, they should remember that they have had, in this career, predecessors whose failure was complete. Condorcet (Esquisse, 363) dreamed of man's innate tendency to perfection in 1791, and in mournful eloquence thus spoke of a future he should never see :-"Cette contemplation est pour lui un asile, où le souvenir de ses persecuteurs ne peut le poursuivre ; où vivant par la pensée avec l'homme rétabli dans les droits comme dans la dignité de sa nature; il oublie celui que l'avidité, la crainte ou l'envie tourmentent et corrompent: c'est-là qu'il existe veritablement avec ses semblables, dans un élisée que sa raison a su se créer, et que son amour pour l'humanité embellit des plus

Some of these difficulties remind us of the observer, who mistook flaws in his telescope for monsters in the moon. Others are most unfairly put. The prophecies, e.g., have not merely or mainly to do with foreign states which dangers already menaced, but, from the

28th chapter of Deuteronomy to the last of Malachi, concerned the church, present or to come, Jewish or Christian. In fact, the divine atonement is the centre of the several concentric spheres, typical, prophetical, miraculous, and historical.

pures jouissances." Perhaps some would echo this declaration. Let them, however, first remember what they do. By their theory of this universally self-evolving nature they decide against the theory of a self-revealing God. They remove God to a distance, render His power inert, and His government nominal; in creation, in providence, in prophecy, in miracles, in inspiration, and in grace, the direct action of God is nullified, and the repudiator is left alone to clap his wings over "a fatherless and forsaken world."

Thus much in general. With respect to the special subject of this paper, we cannot fear that any permanent or widely-extended success will be achieved by the repudiators. For a time they may spread and prosper. But we have many on our side.

We have every unsophisticated Christian who looks naturally at things and words, and consequently believes St. Paul when he explains the types, and our Lord when He speaks of the good shepherd giving his "life for the sheep," we have every communicant who sincerely wishes to show forth the Lord's death until He comes; we have every stricken sinner who longs, like Cranmer, to turn to God "with his whole heart;" we have every faithful martyr, who gratefully gives life for life, and blood for blood; we have every converted heathen, who in the vicarious passion of Jesus Christ finds a satisfaction he never could extract from his own most horrible mortifications.

We have, besides, several of the most impartial and capable scholars of our generation. We may instance two: Dean Alford, throughout his laborious comment on the Hebrews, "determines" clearly "against the Socinian view of Christ's High-Priesthood; and Dean Waddington (an arbitrator no less unquestionable) has written," according to the literal interpretation of the New Testament, Christ is the only sacrificing priest, as He is also the only sacrifice." (Hist. 684.) *

Should we say further, that we have God himself, it might, we know, be objected that we are assuming that concerning which we argue. Yet this we must remark, that it has yet to be proved what fruits the doctrine of a non-atonement will produce. God will honour His own truth by making it to blossom like Aaron's rod.

Still, though we have little fear, we would propose a pause: we would implore a reconsideration. The subject is too awful to be trifled with. "I," said our Redeemer,—" I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Let us stand with open hearts before

*We have been reminded, by Correspondents of the Record, that not only was the doctrine of a vicarious Atonement warmly maintained by Dr. Arnold (see pp. 463, 468, 469, 470, in the Appendix to the volume on "The Interp. of Scripture;" p. 180 in the volume on "Christian Life;" pp. 3 and

17 in his first Volume; and pp. 173, 174, in the second Volume of "Christian Life"), but that even Bunsen himself has in his " Hipp." vol. ii., maintained the same view. Dr. Williams appears to follow Bunsen as erratically as Bunsen imitates his idol, Niebuhr.

1860.] Secretan's Life and Times of the Pious Robert Nelson. 745

the cross, and ask ourselves, where is the life and force and beauty of these words, if not understood to issue from the lips of one who manifested his Father's love by becoming our vicarious sacrifice? Yes, surely, this is the truth, which will fill heaven and eternity with gratitude and admiration; this is the truth, which ought even now to be the source of our chief joy; for is it not written, "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."

GENERAL NOTE.-Criticism has been nearly exhausted by earlier and later scholars. It may, however, be well to remind some of our readers that the force of Kaтa in such words as кaraλλayn is that of completeness; that the force of απο in αποκαταλλαγη, аπоλνтρwσis, &c., is that of change in respect of some party or some condition previously existing; and that all the passages in the New Testament, bearing on the purpose of our Lord's death, may be summed up in the emphatic words (1 Tim. ii. 6): “ ́O dovs ἑαυτον αντιλυτρον ὑπερ παντων.

SECRETAN'S LIFE AND TIMES OF THE PIOUS ROBERT NELSON. Memoir of the Life and Times of the Pious Robert Nelson. By the Rev. C. F. Secretan, M.A. London: John Murray. 1860.

We have to acknowledge the diligence with which Mr. Secretan has collected the materials which have enabled him to give us the best biography that has yet appeared of Robert Nelson. The notices of him hitherto have been short and imperfect. Mr. Secretan has collected the letters of Nelson which appear in scattered publications, or are to be found in the manuscripts of the British Museum. With these he has incorporated a few letters derived from other sources, and extracts from the Journals of the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel and for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, which show the activity of Mr. Nelson in the proceedings of these societies. We do not find fault with Mr. Secretan because the volume has some defects in details, and is wanting in the interest of a minute narrative. Biographies of that period are subject to this fault. Except when the subject of the biography kept a journal, as was done by Evelyn and old Pepys, there are no materials handed down which give us the minuter incidents of daily life, which in fact make the portrait real. There is, therefore, in all such biographies a certain dryness and stiffness, like pictures taken from a cast after death. With this preliminary remark we proceed to give our readers the