involving the extraordinary conclusion, that they have drawn aside the curtain which the Divine Being had deemed fit should be let down before his throne and tribunal; that they have dispelled the darkness, unravelled the mystery -nay, scattered the illusion, in which he had designedly enveloped his dealings with his creatures, and concealed the principles of his conduct as the Governor and Judge of the world. For they have discovered that the mediation of the Son of God on the part of the guilty, with its prefigurement in types—its celebration in prophecy-the air of wonder and rejoicing and profound adoration with which it was announced and contemplated by the ministers of the Almighty, human and angelicthey have discovered that all this and how much more!--was devised for no other purpose than to aid the "pomp and circumstance," if we may so speak, of human salvation; and that the announcement of absolution through the sacrifice and intercession of Christ, is but a more imposing form of proclaiming the mercy of God, and declaring the simple act of forgiveness!-But this is not the only instance in which the speculator, whether in theology or metaphysics, while endeavouring to penetrate the designs of the Deity, and to reach the utmost limit of human intelligence, has

precipitated himself into the conclusion, that he had detected something which God had intended should remain a secret. The author of the

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Essay on Truth"* has pointed out a similar specimen of reasoning among certain Necessarians, and taken advantage of its naked, defenceless exposure to confutation and derision. "There are," he observes, " fatalists who acknowledge that the free agency of man is universally felt and believed: that though man, in truth, is a necessary agent, having all his actions determined by fixed and immutable laws, yet, this being concealed from him, he acts with the conviction of being a free agent. -Concealed from him!" exclaims this writer, "Who conceals it? Does the Author of nature conceal it, and do these writers discover it! What deference," he adds-with a satire which would scarcely become the function of a minister of the Gospel-"what deference is not due to the judgment of a metaphysician, whose sagacity is so irresistibly (I had almost said omnipotently) penetrating!"

Who does not perceive, in the fact that God appears in his word to have harmonized the claims of justice and mercy in the appointment of Christ to be our Mediator, and, in so doing, *Dr. Beattie. Part II. eh. ii.

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to have laid the world under an infinite obligation to love and serve him, a proper and sufficient proof that he has harmonized the claims of justice and mercy, and that he has laid the world under infinite obligation? What other or stronger evidence can we have of truth and reality, than is conveyed to us in the impression which the word of God is framed to produce? what other authority for our faith, what other test of belief?

In urging the impression which the language of Scripture is adapted to convey on this subject, we must submit that it bears upon a question mooted even by those who believe that our Saviour atoned for the sins of the world as a substitute or surety for the guilty, the question whether the sacrifice of Christ originated in absolute necessity and the nature of things, or whether mankind might have been saved by any other provision of divine wisdom. Bishop Butler suggests the possibility that there may be a very great impropriety in such a question.* Its impropriety may consist in its casting a doubt on the infinite value of Christ's satisfaction for sin, and thereby disturbing our sense of obligation to Almighty God for the inestimable fruits

Analogy, Part II. ch. v. § 5.

of his mediation-that sense of obligation which it is the main purpose of the sacred writers to impress upon our minds. They represent our condition as sinners, irrespective of the interposition of our Saviour, as one of imminent peril, and the most pressing emergency, or, rather, of irremediable guilt and condemnation; and they speak of that interposition with the joy and gratitude of men who had obtained by it a deliverance from the worst and incalculable evils. Whether they record the declarations of our Lord himself, or deliver truths which God had immediately "revealed to them by his Spirit," they teach us to regard our exemption from the penalty of our sins as the final cause, and properly the result of his mediation in our behalf; and to account an interest in the efficacy of his sacrifice and intercession, to be no less needful to the safety and well-being of the immortal soul, than food to the nutrition of the body, or than air and light to vitality and enjoyment.

[Such a representation of the work of Christ in our redemption, by the inspired teachers of our religion, ought surely to be taken as a conclusive answer to the question, whether his atonement for our sins was strictly necessary

to our spiritual restoration. Inasmuch, however, as this question may be judged debatable on other and speculative grounds, we would suggest the inquiry, whether the fact of our Saviour's atonement be not itself a demonstration of its necessity-so far as necessity can appertain to an act of the Creator, and be regarded otherwise than as a condition of the creature, or the limitation of an imperfect and dependent being? It is commonly and most justly observed, that we may safely assert of the conduct of God, in this as in other instances, that it was the most consistent with his character, and the best adapted to his creatures but may we not reasonably add, that it was therefore a necessary part of his moral government?-we say necessary, because we suspect that to substitute most fit, or most expedient, would be merely to change the term. We are fearful of limiting the resources of the Deity, and of restricting him in a liberty of choice. But may not this be a fallacious imagination, induced upon us by the inferiority of our nature? Is not a liberty of choice, in all human experience, a mark of mental imperfection? Is not the capabilityas we should call it-of adopting any other line of conduct but one, a proof that we are