Scripture goes to confirm this view; and any other view of Christ's sufferings is exceedingly derogatory, and exceedingly bald. There must be some reason for attempting to explain away the sufferings of Christ; and the reason is sufficiently obvious. If Christ was a substitute, then he was a substitute for persons; he died for them; and, therefore, their salvation is accomplished. They must be saved. But this does not consort with the general view of the atonement. To support that view it is necessary that substitution be taken out of the way. Substitution and a general atonement are inconsistent; they are mutually destructive. But if Christ endured the wrath of God, he was a substitute. Christ, therefore, it is contended, did not endure the wrath of God-and it is contended, he could not endure the wrath of God. It is found out in the issue, that Christ even could not endure the wrath of God-and some kind of sufferings are trumped up—we perhaps ought not to use such an expression-but at all events, an idea is given of Christ's sufferings, which looks very like a deception, and is altogether inconsistent with those ideas which we have ever been led to entertain in regard to those mysterious sufferings. What part did Christ's divinity sustain in those sufferings? Did it sustain a part at all? Then, is not that as mysterious as that he suffered the wrath of God? And was it not only the suffering the wrath of God that rendered the interference of Divinity necessary? Was not this the "nodus" that required the "Deus"? At all events, to speculate here is very unwarrantable. It is obvious that it is highly prejudicial to let our minds free to roam over such sacred groundwithin such awful enclosures. This is not the way to feel the right impressions of Christ's death-to receive the influences from above-by which we are to look to Christ's sufferings, and trust in them for salvation. Scripture is not itself so explicit, so definite, so plain. It has left the sufferings of the Saviour unexplained. It exhibits the sufferer; it does not analyse the sufferings. It tells us of the agony; it does not lay bare that agony to our view. It leaves it in solemn mystery. The garden and the cross are something far beyond our comprehension. But does not the general offer of the gospel require that the atonement should be general? And if the atonement be general, we must take such a view of Christ's sufferings as is consistent with a general atonement. We have here the explanation of all the controversy about the atonement. The general offers of the gospel demand such a view of the atonement; otherwise these offers cannot be consistently made. Even Robert Hall has said, “I believe firmly in general redemption. I often preach it, and I consider the fact that Christ died for all men,' as the only basis that can support the universal offer of the gospel." Such were Robert Hall's words in a conversation with the late Dr. Balmer, of Berwick, as recorded by the latter. But even in spite of such high authority we cannot consent to such a view. The basis of the universal offer of the gospel is the command of Christ to preach the gospel to every creature. If we seek any other basis, it is because we are not satisfied with the command of Christ as a sufficient authority to preach the gospel. The question comes to be, What is the gospel? And then we are just discussing anew the extent of the atonement. If Christ died for all men, then that must be the gospel. But if not, then that is not what we are required to preach; and something else must be the gospel we are to preach. The extent of the atonement, therefore, is to be decided on grounds independent altogether of the universal offer of the gospel, or the obligation to preach the gospel to every creature. To make the universality of the atonement the ground of the universality of the offer, is to bring in a ground for ourselves, which may seem what reason requires, but which, after all, Scripture may not countenance or demand. I must settle the extent of the atonement upon other grounds. There are reasons both in the enunciations of Scripture and in the very nature of the atonement itself, which limit it; and it is not an extraneous fact that is to settle the matterthat fact being to be judged on its own merits, and accounted for on other grounds. The atonement is universal or not, independent of that fact. That fact is, not that Christ died for all, but that Christ is offered to all, or all are invited to believe in Christ. It may pre-suppose the universality of the atonement, but it does not itself make it universal, or affect it one way or another. It might lead us to expect à priori, and looking at the offer alone, that the atonement was universal; but it could not itself in any way determine the question. If we looked at the offer alone, we would inevitably conclude that the atonement was universal; but if we then carried up our inquiries higher, and looked at the atonement itself, and at the statements regarding it, and found that it was not universal, but limited, we might wonder at the inconsistency, as we might at first, perhaps justly, imagine it to be, and we might be altogether unable to reconcile the two things, but still we would be bound to make up our minds independently altogether of the offer we would be bound to judge of the extent of the atonement on the ground of its own nature, or the declarations of Scripture regarding it. The apparent discrepancy or inconsistency now discovered is to be explained as we best can, or we may conclude that God will explain that and every other apparent inconsistency or anomaly that marks any of his proceedings, in his own way, and at his own time. But are there not expressions in Scripture which indicate that Christ died for all men? It is not denied that there are; but a careful examination of their import shows that such is not necessarily, nay, is NOT, their meaning. This is not the place to examine them; and to do so would be to be going over often-trodden ground.* Our argument at present is as to the substitutionary character of Christ's death, as that is ascertained from Scripture texts, and is involved in the very nature of atonement. The representations of Scripture are all in favour of the substitutionary nature of Christ's death. The passion of Christ is explicable on no other ground. There was the imputation of sin, and the endurance of God's wrath on account of it. Are we to be bold enough to deny the possibility of this imputation, and to resolve that, and the suffering in consequence, into a sort of stage-show, or mere make-belief of anger on the part of God-an exhibition of anything or nothing but at least not God's anger in any sense with his own Son? As an external sign of anger, the supernatural obscuration of the sun at noonday was a majestic enough token. What could any amount of suffering, mental or bodily, do more? Is the suffering of Christ reducible to a matter of plain and intelligible significance? Was it only bodily pain and mental anguish for which there are assignable enough causes? Might not the quivering limbs, and throbbing hearts, of the cattle of a thousand hills, have been enough, instead of the bodily pain and mental anguish of the Son of God, or of a human nature in personal union with the divine? Oh! is it not rash to speculate on such a sacred and awful subject? Who can understand the mystery of godliness, the incarnation of Divinity, and the sufferings of the God-man?-sufferings which were described by David as if he had been the sufferer, and were written down by Isaiah as if he saw the Lamb * For satisfaction on this point, see preliminary dissertation of Dr. Candlish's work on the atonement. Nothing further can be added to the discussion there of the phraseology "all," "all men," &c. Scripture goes to confirm this view; and any other view of Christ's sufferings is exceedingly derogatory, and exceedingly bald. There must be some reason for attempting to explain away the sufferings of Christ; and the reason is sufficiently obvious. If Christ was a substitute, then he was a substitute for persons; he died for them; and, therefore, their salvation is accomplished. They must be saved. But this does not consort with the general view of the atonement. To support that view it is necessary that substitution be taken out of the way. Substitution and a general atonement are inconsistent; they are mutually destructive. But if Christ endured the wrath of God, he was a substitute. Christ, therefore, it is contended, did not endure the wrath of God-and it is contended, he could not endure the wrath of God. It is found out in the issue, that Christ even could not endure the wrath of God--and some kind of sufferings are trumped up-we perhaps ought not to use such an expression-but at all events, an idea is given of Christ's sufferings, which looks very like a deception, and is altogether inconsistent with those ideas which we have ever been led to entertain in regard to those mysterious sufferings. What part did Christ's divinity sustain in those sufferings? Did it sustain a part at all? Then, is not that as mysterious as that he suffered the wrath of God? And was it not only the suffering the wrath of God that rendered the interference of Divinity necessary? Was not this the "nodus" that required the "Deus"? At all events, to speculate here is very unwarrantable. It is obvious that it is highly prejudicial to let our minds free to roam over such sacred groundwithin such awful enclosures. This is not the way to feel the right impressions of Christ's death-to receive the influences from above-by which we are to look to Christ's sufferings, and trust in them for salvation. Scripture is not itself so explicit, so definite, so plain. It has left the sufferings of the Saviour unexplained. It exhibits the sufferer; it does not analyse the sufferings. It tells us of the agony; it does not lay bare that agony to our view. It leaves it in solemn mystery. The garden and the cross are something far beyond our comprehension. But does not the general offer of the gospel require that the atonement should be general? And if the atonement be general, we must take such a view of Christ's sufferings as is consistent with a general atonement. We have here the explanation of all the controversy about the atonement. The general offers of the gospel demand such a view of the atonement; otherwise these offers cannot be consistently made. Even Robert Hall has said, “I believe firmly in general redemption. I often preach it, and I consider the fact that Christ died for all men,' as the only basis that can support the universal offer of the gospel." Such were Robert Hall's words in a conversation with the late Dr. Balmer, of Berwick, as recorded by the latter. But even in spite of such high authority we cannot consent to such a view. The basis of the universal offer of the gospel is the command of Christ to preach the gospel to every creature. If we seek any other basis, it is because we are not satisfied with the command of Christ as a sufficient authority to preach the gospel. The question comes to be, What is the gospel? And then we are just discussing anew the extent of the atonement. If Christ died for all men, then that must be the gospel. But if not, then that is not what we are required to preach; and something else must be the gospel we are to preach. The extent of the atonement, therefore, is to be decided on grounds independent altogether of the universal offer of the gospel, or the obligation to preach the gospel to every creature. To make the universality of the atonement the ground of the universality of the offer, is to bring in a ground for ourselves, which may seem what reason requires, but which, after all, Scripture may not countenance or demand. I must settle the extent of the atonement upon other grounds. There are reasons both in the enunciations of Scripture and in the very nature of the atonement itself, which limit it; and it is not an extraneous fact that is to settle the matter— that fact being to be judged on its own merits, and accounted for on other grounds. The atonement is universal or not, independent of that fact. That fact is, not that Christ died for all, but that Christ is offered to all, or all are invited to believe in Christ. It may pre-suppose the universality of the atonement, but it does not itself make it universal, or affect it one way or another. It might lead us to expect à priori, and looking at the offer alone, that the atonement was universal; but it could not itself in any way determine the question. If we looked at the offer alone, we would inevitably conclude that the atonement was universal; but if we then carried up our inquiries higher, and looked at the atonement itself, and at the statements regarding it, and found that it was not universal, but limited, we might wonder at the inconsistency, as we might at first, perhaps justly, imagine it to be, and we might be altogether unable to reconcile the two things, but still we would be bound to make up our minds independently altogether of the offer-we would be bound to judge of the extent of the atonement on the ground of its own nature, or the declarations of Scripture regarding it. The apparent discrepancy or inconsistency now discovered is to be explained as we best can, or we may conclude that God will explain that and every other apparent inconsistency or anomaly that marks any of his proceedings, in his own way, and at his own time. But are there not expressions in Scripture which indicate that Christ died for all men? It is not denied that there are; but a careful examination of their import shows that such is not necessarily, nay, is NOT, their meaning. This is not the place to examine them; and to do so would be to be going over often-trodden ground. Our argument at present is as to the substitutionary character of Christ's death, as that is ascertained from Scripture texts, and is involved in the very nature of atonement. The representations of Scripture are all in favour of the substitutionary nature of Christ's death. The passion of Christ is explicable on no other ground. There was the imputation of sin, and the endurance of God's wrath on account of it. Are we to be bold enough to deny the possibility of this imputation, and to resolve that, and the suffering in consequence, into a sort of stage-show, or mere make-belief of anger on the part of God-an exhibition of anything or nothing but at least not God's anger in any sense with his own Son? As an external sign of anger, the supernatural obscuration of the sun at noonday was a majestic enough token. What could any amount of suffering, mental or bodily, do more? Is the suffering of Christ reducible to a matter of plain and intelligible significance? Was it only bodily pain and mental anguish for which there are assignable enough causes? Might not the quivering limbs, and throbbing hearts, of the cattle of a thousand hills, have been enough, instead of the bodily pain and mental anguish of the Son of God, or of a human nature in personal union with the divine? Oh! is it not rash to speculate on such a sacred and awful subject? Who can understand the mystery of godliness, the incarnation of Divinity, and the sufferings of the God-man ?-sufferings which were described by David as if he had been the sufferer, and were written down by Isaiah as if he saw the Lamb For satisfaction on this point, see preliminary dissertation of Dr. Candlish's work on the atonement. Nothing further can be added to the discussion there of the phraseology "all," "all men," &c. : duty would be necessary, not only with the God has marked out for her, and in which Pagans, both ancient and modern, but with he would keep her. You have abased and many an elevated spirit, with many an sacrificed her of late in placing her upon eminent moralist, nourished in the bosom of the pedestal, and man at her feet, in your Christianity. To cite but one example :- romances, in your saloons, in your plays, Kant, whom no contemporaneous phi- because instead of the mission to aid and losopher has surpassed in the depth and glorify man, you have substituted that of energy of the moral sense, Kant, in his weakening and effeminating him. You little book on "The Sentiment of the Beau-abase and sacrifice her to-day, in seeking for tiful," reserves to man the noble virtues, another emancipation than that which she and leaves to woman only the beautiful has received of the Gospel, in claiming for virtues, by which he understands an agree-her the rights of man; since for the mission able, spontaneous virtue, exerted without which she can and ought to fulfil, you substieffort. "Speak not to woman," says he, tute one in which she cannot succeed, and to "of duty, of obligation. Expect not from which she ought not to pretend. What her sacrifices, nor generous victories over idea then have you of woman, if you believe herself. You propose, for example, to give her willing to exchange the humble glory of up part of your fortune to save a friend. accomplishing the mission which belongs to Do not inform your wife of your purpose. her, for the mortifying vanity of failing in Why check her lively gossip, and burden that of another-satisfied with being an inher bosom with a secret too weighty for it?" complete man, while she might be a complete What sayest thou to this, Christian woman? woman; and of losing her natural and legitiOne is ready to ask himself, if the cautions mate influence in the sterile pursuits of an of Kant with regard to woman are much influence factitious and usurped? Nothing less humiliating than the abjectness in which more remains to her than to regret the Paganism holds her: and to combat language nature which God has given her, and to so stern and so haughty, it is sufficient to indulge this regret by begging without recall to man, in default of what he owes to shame from our sex the name, the dress, woman, what he owes to himself, from whom and the gait of man. Doubt it not, I have she has been taken; and to God, who has the heart of woman on my side; and if any taken her from him. one has smiled at hearing me exhibit her mission according to God, it is not she, I answer for her. Yet, in the full light of Christianity in France, and in the ideas of the day, the danger of excess is on the other side. No more is claimed for woman, against my doctrine, than has been done these sixty years past; but it is claimed, not in the name of a worn-out gallantry, but in the name of systems and the prejudices of the day. One complains that I abase and sacrifice her in assigning her a place so humble, instead of putting her on a level with man; and a path so self-denying, instead of exhorting her to live for herself. No, no; I promote, on the contrary, her true glory and best interest, because I oblige her to conform to the law of her creation--the first condition of all order and all repose for the creature. I no more degrade and sacrifice woman, in inviting her to live for charity, in humility towards man, whose glory she is, than I abase and sacrifice man, who is the glory of God, in inviting him to "glorify God in his body and spirit, which are his;" no more than I abase and sacrifice the planet in inviting it to continue in the modest path of its orbit-sole guarantee of its safety and harmony. There is one who abases and sacrifices woman; it is this same world, sometimes frivolous, sometimes bold, which treacherously takes up her defence against me. You abase and sacrifice her whenever you entice her, to satisfy your egotism and glorify your theories, from the path which What woman worthy of her name has ever smiled when one has appealed to her spirit of renunciation and of sacrifice? It is bread for her hunger, it is water for her thirst. What do I say? the woman worthy of her name! Worthy or unworthy, every woman starts at these words of sympathy; the heart of the worthy leaps for joy, and the unworthy is moved with bitterness. You even, who turn away from the way which I trace for you, confess it; you think me right in the depths of your soul; and in spite of all your words, you respect her while you murmur at her, if she follows my commands rather than yours, and you scorn her while flattering her, if she follows yours rather than mine. Be that as it may, the greater part of those who hear me-I say it boldly-not content with admitting the principles which I have attempted to develop, appreciate and admire them. Let them learn, then, from this example, to what a degree Scripture is true. For indeed, what have I done but interrogate it before you? I confess, when I began to meditate upon the mission of woman, I was far from having upon this subject, so little studied, the precise and strong views which I entertain to-day. I had resolved to open the Bible, to listen to it, and to allow myself to be guided by it ; and I have been confounded at finding there, |